Weekend Highlights

Hi everybody! Hi Dr. Nick! I have a lot to talk about this day. I saw two genre related films this past weekend. One of them is the obvious choice, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The other one......
That's right, I went to see Dragonball: Evolution. To be fair, I went to this movie with the intention of making fun of it, sort of the way my friends and I will watch Batman and Robin on occassion. Here's the thing, people (and when I say people I mean fanboys) complain that the genre properties that they love get ruined by Hollywood, that they drift away from the source material. I agree to a certain extent, but I am also open minded enough to realize Hollywood is going to do what Hollywood is going to do. Some examples: Gwen Stacey should not have been in the thrid Spider-Man movie. She should've been in the first and killed off. Since we got Mary Jane in the first one, they should have never used Gwen at all. One the other side of the coin, you have the Batman movies and realistically Batman would wear body armor not spandex. So it's a little give and take. However, when they do keep the movie faithful to the material it does not translate well to film and you get movies like Dragonball.

They were obviously trying to make a live action anime and I give them kudos for that, but what is acceptable or even second nature in an anime does not work here. The silly talk and expressions that we see on the show just look ridiculous here. I will say that the acting and story were better than in the Street Fighter movie.



Next up is X-Men Origins: Wolverine starring Hugh Jackman as everyone's favorite mutant. This being Jackman's fourth adventure as Wolverine, I have to say that he definitly knows how to play him. I've thought that from the very beginning; the man LOOKS like Wolverine. Okay I just have to get this out of the way. X-Men order: X2, Wolverine, X3, X1. There, I said it. You're more than welcome to debate me on it, but that is how I see it and it is final.

The movie itself was very entertaining. From what I know about Deadpool, which is limited to wikipedia and guest apperances, Ryan Reynolds played him perfectly. The scene where he was deflecting all the bullets was awesome. The problem with Wolverine is that it felt like we had already been here with the other X-Movies. Anyone who says they weren't about Wolverine is a liar. Look at the DVD covers. Who's in the lead? Huh? HUH? That's what I thought. Also, the ending left a lot to be desired. I understand that this a prequel of sorts, but they could have at least finished the story. FYI: make sure to stay through the end of the credits. Very cool. It had its flaws but the movie overall was enjoyable and therefore it did its job. On Netflix you'd see this rated as a 4. That's because they don't let you rate in half stars on Netflix.



I'm going to talk about a couple of comics now. Usually, I do a vlog for my reviews but these are special issues. The first up is Final Crisis: Legion of Three Worlds #4. Final Crisis? Didn't that end a few months ago? Why, yes it did young padawan. However, I can tell you that THIS should've been the Final Crisis and NOT that "world shattering" mini-series we were subjected to. I can't really talk about this issue without really spoiling it. The guy posting comments on my youtube page didn't share the same concerns. I will tell you this; this issue is the single greatest comic that I have read this year. It is brilliant. Geoff Johns' writing is superb, George Perez on the art is always fantastic, and one of the coolest ******s I have ever seen. The ending was a twist that I didn't see coming either and I have no idea how the heroes are going to get out of this one. Great stuff!

In case you missed it, last Saturday was Free Comic Book Day (FCBD). The issue that I picked up was Blackest Night #0. This was the prelude or sneak peak in to Blackest Night, the big summer event happening at DC. It sets the forthcoming min-series up perfectly, especially for new readers. We are also given back ground infomation on all of the different colored corps. Ususally, you'd have to pick up a Secret Files to get all this info and those run about 4 bucks. This was free. Thank you FCBD! The highlight of the day was that Geoff Johns (Green Lantern) and Sterling Gates (Supergirl) were at the store that I visited. I got them to sign a few books and I shook Gates hand for resurrecting the Supergirl book.

Finally, I've only picked up one figure since last time and it's Wonder Woman from the DC Universe Classics line. She has an axe. If only she didn't have that axe, I could take her.