The Round-Eye and the Princess, Pt. 1

The Wolverine (2013) 126 mins.



"I'm the Wolverine."

Let's face it. At this point, Hugh Jackman is the Wolverine. As a kid who bought not only Hulk #180 and #181, but also Uncanny X-Men #94 and Giant-Size X-Men #1 off the spinner rack as a kid, I'm a big fan of the character. I was there for his origin, the month it happened. I was there when he joined the X-Men, as the issues came out. So it was with some trepidation that I watched this movie, hoping one of my favorite characters wouldn't be ruined by a movie which featured him as the lead.

I need not have worried. Like I said, Hugh Jackman is Wolverine. I'm sure it's because we've seen him so many times as Wolverine that we totally buy him as the character, but it's also because he really gets who Logan is, as a man, as a soldier, as a reluctant "hero". He doesn't ruin Wolverine for me. He inhabits the persona in a way we could only have wished for.

As a Wolverine movie, this is a fantastic movie: it relies on some of the best material (chiefly the Frank Miller era), it doesn't recap the origin story yet again, it plays the character the way he was meant to be played, and it's a crisp, stylish, action-filled romp, with lots of superhero fun, yet it's dark, grim and gritty enough to still remain a Wolverine movie.

Of course, every bit, from the crazed loner in the Canadian Rockies to the sinister scientist-villain to the not-so-defenseless princess to the giant robot to the storming-the-castle scene to the endless ninjas to the strange mixture of cutting-edge technology and weird metaphysical mumbo-jumbo has all been done before, but this is about serving up those familiar flavors in a way that still seems fresh, and tasty, and delicious. This film delivers.

Luckily for us, Hugh Jackman is the Wolverine. The kid that bought those comics way back in the Seventies is incredibly happy about that.

Five ninja throwing stars of mutant greatness.

Five Stars. Really Good.

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Do It! Try!

Jodorowsky's Dune (2013) 90 mins.

"I didn't read Dune."

Imagine a comic book by Jodorowsky, drawn by Moebius, with designs by Giger and Foss. Imagine a comic strip. A storyboard. A movie. A miniseries. By the guy who wrote, directed and starred in El Topo. Starring his son, the kid from El Topo. With Salvador Dali, Orson Welles and Mick Jagger.

Like Stanislaw Lem's fictional book reviews of books that don't (yet) exist, the legend may be better than the artifact. But it's one hell of a legend. And that's one hell of a comic book. Definitely the kind of thing I'd like to see IDW publish in their Artist's Edition series.

I've written before about the huge legacy of concepts from Dune that can be found in Star Wars; many visual examples are shown here as well. Jodorowsky's take on Dune is interesting. He considers it a work of the kind of stature of the Bible or Shakespeare, an epic or mythological saga or oeuvre to be reinterpreted many times by various auteurs. Certainly it has been, influencing not only Star Wars but Warhammer 40K, as well.

I've included Jodorowsky's Dune in Category One: Seventies Monster Flashback. The film and the project, as well as most (if not all) attempts to adapt the novel, can all be considered as monsters. All have proved to be. The "graphic novel" shown in Jodorowsky's lap in the film and the above photo, would be the monstrous mother of all comic books for me, Heavy Metal-meets-Savage Sword-meets-Prince Valiant-meets-Holy Mountain. The ultimate midnight movie that never got made.

Also, I had a monster of a flashback. I read Frank Herbert's 1973 introduction to the new anthology of his short fiction that just came out, put a Tangerine Dream station on my Pandora, ordered Jodorowsky's The Borgias from the public library (collab with Manara!), and moved Metabarons closer to the top of the "To Read" pile. I'll have to get The Incal and look for a Chris Foss retrospective.

Jodorowsky himself was like a drug. I don't know if I've encountered anybody quite like that since the Seventies. I'd like to have partied with that guy, Leary and Robert Anton Wilson. I may not run out and read Dune right this minute (for the seventh time), but he did inspire me to go work on my own stuff. What Harlan Ellison would call batshit crazy, but in a good way.

To my friends who recommended this: You were so right. See it.

Five Stars: Great, if only for the semi-legendary surrealistic aura.

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Commitment To A Bit



Europa Report (2013) 89 mins.

 

"I don't know what greater measure of success they could've achieved."

Europa Report is a sterile, tight, cramped, claustrophobic, voyeuristic little movie. For what it is, it's an excellent movie. For its commitment to its main message, for understanding the kind of people who make science, and for not flinching from its inevitable ending, I give this movie a Five Star rating: Really Good.

You won't be blown away by its action scenes, or swept up headlong by its pace. It's a quiet, desperate, sweaty little film, but in in its own way it's very effective.

Taking from the style of movies like Moon, it expands and extrapolates on the documentary style and dry delivery of the New Hard Science Fiction. If you enjoy that sort of thing as much as I do, you may enjoy it as much as I did.

Much in the vein of some of my favorite movies, from Silent Running to 2001, a very well-done science fiction movie which keeps the emphasis on the science.

Five Stars: Really Good.

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It's Real

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) 122 mins.

"Because I'm one of the idiots who lives in it!"

Guardians of the Galaxy is a Five Star movie. It does what a movie is supposed to do. It entertains. This movie also manages to enthrall, amuse, amaze, delight and enlighten, and it seems to do all of these things with a light, deft hand.

As the kind of kid who read Warlock and Silver Surfer back in the Seventies, just the fact that I'm watching the world of Kirby and Starlin being enacted in blockbuster style on the big screen is a dream come true. That Marvel was wise enough to use the Abnett/Lanning material as a springboard is icing on the cake. The quality of those characters and their designs was so solid that the movie just needed to not suck.

Guardians of the Galaxy is a great comic book space opera action movie. One might even say an object lesson in how to make an excellent one. A fun, funny, exciting, action-filled, character-driven movie with some great takes on some of my favorite Marvel characters, from Drax to Gamora to Thanos to Yondu to Ronan the Accuser. Old school King Kirby style Cosmic Marvel goodness served up as a Losers/Suicide Squad "works well with other sociopaths" barn-burner.

It even gives Marvel Movie fans a chance to bone up on the Cosmic Corner of the Marvel Universe, since it will certainly need to play a larger role in the Marvel Movies, to give the heroes ever more dangerous foes, and continually up the stakes from Metropolitan to Planetary to Cosmic and Multi-Universal.

This is how it's done. My friends who like good movies loved this, comic book fans or not. Science fiction fans or not. Space opera fans or not. If you like good movies, you may like this Really Good movie. One might even say great.

Five Stars: Really Good

Category 2: People Power

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A Word About Ratings

Damned by faint praise.

I have a simple system for rating media, from one to five stars, with five being the best.

They go like this:

* (1 star) Bad [Feh!]
** (2 stars) Not Good [Beh]
*** (3 stars) Not Bad [Meh...]
**** (4 stars) Good [Heh]
***** (5 stars) Really Good [Yeh!]

OK, I know, the stars are asterisks. It works for me.