Category: Opinion

For everything Burton’s first film did right, the sequel did wrong. But hey, its a Christmas movie, all being a unpleasant one.

So the movie opens on a jolly Christmas note, a couple of stuck up parents throw there deformed baby in the sewer…where he gets adopted by penguins and circus freaks. Ok. Well years later this baby grows up to be Penguin, leader of this gang of circus freaks. After Penguin takes slimy corporate mogul Max Shrek hostage, he uses his influence to gain backing to get a leg up in Gotham. On top of this, Shrek killed his mousy secretary Selena Kyle, who comes back from the dead as batshit insane but sexy Catwoman. So it’s up to Batman to deal with both sides of this weird ass equation…

Ok, as you can imagine, this movie is kinda a clusterf@ck of ideas and plot threads. In fact, for a movie called Batman Returns, I feel Batman is a background character. I don’t feel he is the primary focus and I can’t tell if the script sucked that bad or Keaton just said screw it and sleep walked through a lot of it.  Danny Devito and Michelle Pheiffer are pretty good as Penguin and Catwoman but the script gives them some awkward ass moments. As for the film itself, you can tell this is a Tim Burton film through and through, which kills a lot of the dark tone set by the first but tries making it goofier but tries being darker at the same time and its conflicting. As a final note, Penguin’s evil scheme at the very end is one of the lamest things I’ve ever heard. In the end, it’s ok to watch once but it’s something you will just forget. May the gaming gods bring you glory.

As requested, we begin our journey into the four classic Batman films with by far the best. In fact, I’d put Tim Burton’s first Batman film up there with one of the best adaptations of a superhero I can think of.

Gotham, a beautiful city by day but a crime infested hellhole at night. The police are corrupt or pretty ineffective against the crime bosses. But a bat stalks the night, taking down criminals. Eccentric Bruce Wayne by day and the menacing Batman at night he protects Gotham while evading the police. But a run in with mob enforcer Jack Napier with change his life as Jack falls into a vat of chemicals, emerging as his nemesis, Joker. Meanwhile reporter Vicky Vale is trying to uncover the bat’s secret identity but gets dragged into something bigger as we realized Batman and Joker have more history than we first thought….

This movie is a certifiable classic, being a damn good modern noir and a trend setter, influencing superhero films today. While the story is simple, the characters are flushed out and I love the dark tone of the movie. Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson are amazing as Batman and Joker; I’d say Nicholson is the most accurate portrayal of Joker we’ve had on screen to date. The setting is beautiful as well and the score is terrific.  Absolutely check this movie out. May the gaming gods bring you glory, while you dance with the devil in the pale moonlight.

Look at this poster. Study it’s dark tone and how Apocalypse looks sinister and gives you a strong sense of foreboding. Good. That ain’t the movie you are getting.

Long ago there existed an extremely powerful mutant in Egypt, god-like even. He was followed by four disciples, mutants that he imbued with more power than they already had. While most of Egypt viewed this mutant as god, others didn’t and caused a pyramid to crash on him and he went into hibernation for like 2000 years until he woke up after a excavation. Apocalypse pretty much wants his god-like reign back so he finds Psylocke, Storm, Angel, and a devastated Magneto to empower as his Four Horsemen and it’s up to the mismatched X Men to stop him…

This is the weakest link of the whole trilogy and personally it’s my least favorite X Men movie. Apocalypse, for those of you who don’t know, is one of the most devastatingly powerful mutants in Marvel history. He is damn near unkillable and the amount of badassness he possesses is insane. Despite this, in the movie he really doesn’t do jack shit but look awkward. The horsemen he chooses make no sense either; in fact he just kinda chooses whoever he comes across. But let’s talk about the X-Men. We get younger versions of classics like Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Nightcrawler as well as more Mystique- who pretty much is whole on Mockingjay by now and Beast. None of the new kids really sold me. What became a trend with these prequels is every movie being a new decade and this damn movie plays the 80’s card hard. Like annoyingly hard. Nightcrawler is pulling a Thriller era MJ for most of it. Honestly, again, I stuck around for McAvoy and Fassbender again, who rock it again as X and Magneto. And the destruction is solid if you like disaster movies but it is heavy on the CGI. My final verdict is it’s a decent popcorn action film but it’s a shitty X-Men movie. May the gaming gods bring you glory.