Batman v. Superman review

I enjoyed the Man of Steel, even though there were parts that I thought were stupid. But when I heard of this one, well, right off the bat (ha ha) it did not sound promising. And as time went by details gradually emerged that more often than not only served to lower my expectations. It just didn't sound like DC knew what they wanted to do with this film; other than that they somehow wanted their own billion-dollar-grossing Avengers movie but didn't know how to get there. The early teasers only reinforced my negative predictions, I avoided the trailers, but I got the impression that at least some people were optimistic about it. I was not.

Well, I saw the Batman-Superman movie (or "the B.S. movie", as I thing we should start calling it...), and it was somehow worse than I had expected. Strangely enough it was better than I expected in some areas while being terrible in ways I hadn't anticipated. The overall effect was to leave me not angry or upset or disappointed, but actually depressed. Somehow the very fact that this movie exists depresses me, and I don't quite know why.

I suspect the reason why I found it so depressing comes down to the fact that Superman and Batman are, in some ways, two of the most fundamental superheroes there are, so it's kind of important (well, to me at least) that they be written well. Many heroes have interesting stories, but these two embody two of the most central ideas of the superhero mythos. Superman is possibly the oldest, most well known, and most obvious character embodying the power-fantasy aspect of superhero comics. Meanwhile Batman is probably the most popular character representing the idea of every man's capacity to rise above his surroundings and do great things through hard work and determination. In my mind they represent the two opposite ends of a spectrum that encapsulates the entire superhero genre.

I believe that people are often drawn more to one character or the other depending on what they enjoy or what they are looking for in their fiction; if you like the idea of waking up one day with the power to do anything you want, you probably like reading stories about characters like Superman, especially origin stories. If you're not a fan of people being born with "unfair advantages" and you wish life was fair, that people were rewarded for what they've earned through hard work rather than just luck of birth, then you probably want to see Batman beat Superman's fat smug face into the ground.

To be clear I don't mean that people can only like one or the other, but I think the fact that these two are in some ways polar opposites (well, in at least one way; if you really look at them they are far more alike than you might realise) representing two different realities makes the question of "who would win" (as if virtue was measured by combat ability, but that's another topic I think) a more compelling one than it is for, say, Thor and the Hulk. Personally I suspect that at the end of the day most people want Batman to win, but some people are more willing to believe it's "possible" (within the context of a fictional universe) than others.

So I see the appeal of matching the two against each other, but I never believed that it was a good idea to base a movie on that one conflict between two "good guys". Or rather, I didn't think that DC could make a good movie about such an idea within the framework that they created in the Man of Steel movie. Perhaps if they'd started from scratch, but the Man of Steel established a world where Kryptonians were insanely powerful and Earth just didn't have the magic or technology to act as a sufficient equalizer for Batman, especially with the strange way that they treated Kryptonite (it was just something in the air of their spaceship or something?) seemingly taking it out of the equation.

Plus, you know, the writing in Man of Steel and Dark Knight Rises did not lead me to believe that DC would be able to handle the real issues at stake in such a conflict, namely the fundamental fairness of the universe itself. Especially not when their primary concern seemed to be introducing a bunch of different heroes in order to set up the Justice League movie. Some surprising casting decisions did not inspire confidence either.

In case it isn't obvious at this point, I was not looking forwards to this one. However my friends wanted to watch it and when I checked IMDB the day before it had something like a 9.2 rating (it's down to 7.5 now, I wonder how far it will go...), so I tried to abandon my preconceived notions and went in to the cinema with as open a mind as I could muster.


Five minutes in I was turned off, by then ten minute mark I felt exhausted. I found the whole movie so oppressive that several times during the show I considered leaving the theater under the pretense of using the washroom, even if it was just for a few minutes so I could get catch my breath. The only thing that stopped me was that I felt so drained that I couldn't even muster up the energy to escape. By the time the credits rolled I just felt empty; I was just glad it was finally over.

Be warned, the next two paragraphs contain descriptions of events occurring during the first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie. Personally I reckon it's far less spoileriffic than the average trailer for the film, and I feel it's worth reading to help understand my complaints. Your choice (obviously).

Right from the very start, every single scene was trying so hard to impress on us that EVERYTHING IS SO IMPORTANT!!!! The dialogue, the music, the cinematography, it's all so heavy. We start off by seeing the death of Bruce's parents yet again, the entire scene not only shot in SUPER DRAMATIC SLOW MOTION ULTRA CLOSEUP!!!!, but also interspersed with scenes of little Bruce at his parents' funeral, falling down a deep hole... AT THE SAME TIME AS HIS MOTHER'S PEARLS FALLING ACROSS THE STREET!!!!, only to be surrounded by bats and... levitated bodily out of the hole and into a bright light? Yeah, it was a dream. They actually cut back and forth between his parent's death and a stupid dream. A dream that served no purpose that I could discern except to create DRAMA!!!!11!!1!!!!!. And possibly to start hitting us with the Jesus imagery I guess.

Neither the melodrama nor the Jesus imagery ended there. The next thing we see is Bruce racing into Metropolis while dramatically yelling over the phone at some guy we don't know. Then they guy dies in the wake of Superman's fight with Zod. We don't know who this guy is or what his relationship is to Bruce other than the fact that he's an employee, and we're supposed to care about his death? We're supposed to feel for Bruce and understand why he's so angry because some guy who's name he knew died? The movie is two and a half hours long and yet they didn't have time to spend setting up Batman's motivation properly?

That might actually be the biggest problem with this movie; it's all style over substance. There's a whole lot of very impressive visual imagery which has so little impact because it feels so empty. I genuinely believe that the whole production was driven, not from a desire to tell a strong story, but from a desire to show dramatic imagery, and I think that's why it all falls flat: the things we see lack a strong foundation. At least that's how it feels to me.


Let's start by talking about Superman. I suspect it's the writing more than anything else, but I can't quite seem to see Henry Cavill as Superman. It's probably just because he spends the whole movie pouting and brooding. He never really seems to want to be Superman; or perhaps I should say that Superman never seems to really want to be a superhero in this movie (I'm not sure he did in the last one either). He never seems to take joy or satisfaction from what he's doing, never seems to have any real conviction that he's doing the right thing, he never even seems to have any personal desire to be a hero. The only time he mentions why he's doing it, he indicates that it's just what his father wanted. I just... I feel like Superman should at least want to help people, even if he has doubts. This version is just too sullen.

Also, he does a whole lot of hovering around above people, staring down at them, instead of just flying over and saving them. I think it's that whole "Jesus" thing again. It just felt really weird to see him posturing like that, it really didn't jive with how I think of the big blue boy-scout (and I'm one of the people who was OK with the whole neck-snap in the Man of Steel, so I'm not exactly the most ardent Superman purist).


When I heard that Ben Affleck was being cast as Batman I just couldn't see it. I just feel that Affleck has a bit of a goofy smile, which works great for a lot of characters but doesn't quite fit the Dark Knight in my mind. Well, I guess that wasn't going to be a problem since it's not like Batman was ever going to be doing much smiling in this movie. But I jest. To be honest, I think Ben Affleck did a great job as an older, angry and bitter Batman. No, Ben isn't the problem.

So I've talked before about how Batman is called "The World's Greatest Detective", right? The point is he's supposed to be kind of smart. Well, I didn't see it here. Without going in to too much detail, I didn't see much intelligence in the way he fought any of his fights, but what's worse is that I felt his motivation for the whole feud was just very stupid. OK, he came up with a passable justification (by a very very "us or them" type of logic) for fighting Superman later, but his real reasons for fighting were, well, not something that I would expect from and intelligent and logic human being. OK, Batman dresses up in a bat costume and picks fistfights with large groups of armed men, so maybe objectively he's not the most well-adjusted fella around, but it still just doesn't fit with the Batman that I know.

Neither does the fact that he straight up kills people in this film. Oh, it more or less happens off-camera, but I'm fairly certain no-one in that car that he blew up survived. Do I really need to talk about how out-of-character it is for Batman to run around killing people? Yes, I know, he's based on the "Frank Miller Batman". Look, I've seen Batman in many shades, from Adam West to the Dark Knight. Frank Miller's Batman was grittier and rougher around the edges than most, but he was neither a psychopath nor an idiot. Zach Snyder's Batman, in my eyes at least, is both.


Another casting decision that I didn't agree with was Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor. And yes, "Lex" has always been short for "Alexander", this isn't supposed to be someone else, this is just a different take on good old Lex. And once I warmed up to the idea of this different, arguably more modern version of the evil businessman, I realised that Jesse was a great casting decision. I reckon he perfectly captures the character as written.

The problem is that I think the "character as written" just isn't as intimidating as the classic "cool and in control" Luthor. Even though he's much better as a criminal mastermind than the version from Superman Returns, he's just not scary. So while I don't inherently object to the attempt at a different take on Luthor, I think it doesn't quite work overall. Especially since I felt his motivations were not really clear; he isn't trying to take over the world, he doesn't have any personal history with Superman, and he doesn't seem to be inherently opposed to super-powered beings he has no control over running around the planet (well, the film is a little contradictory on this point at any rate)... I dunno, maybe I missed something. Having said that, his verbal sparring with Senator Finch was one of the few entertaining parts of the movie.


It seems a lot of people weren't sold on Gal Gadot being cast as Wonder Woman. I have to admit I was one of them; the thing is that Wonder Woman is an Amazonian warrior: tall, strong, and a skilled fighter. Personally I had thought that they should have cast Gina Carano; she's a large, strong-looking woman who has proven she can shoot a fight scene. Honestly though, I don't think it would have made a big difference; the only fight scene she was in was just a load of fast-paced quick-cut CGI anyway. I will say that she didn't sound like I normally expect Wonder Woman to (based on the cartoons and stuff), but that's my fault for expecting a Themysciran to sound like an American. I'm not saying that Gal's accent was Greek, and I'm not saying that it wasn't; I'm just going to say that I can't complain about Wonder Woman having an accent, and I can't complain about how Gal handled the role, even if I still don't think she was the best choice.

I can't really say much else about Wonder Woman since she really didn't matter at all. She showed up a few times during the movie, but none of these scenes served the overall plot or told us anything much about the character or anything; she was just there to be there, and you could have completely cut her from the entire movie without making any difference. She did handle herself very well in the one action scene she got, which I thought was a big deal since Wonder Woman often gets the short end of the straw in this sort of thing in the comics.


I did not realise that Jeremy Irons had been cast as Alfred. It was a pleasant surprise; while he played the character a little differently than usual, I enjoyed his performance to the extent that think this is my favourite Alfred ever. I just wish he'd been given a bigger role; Alfred really doesn't do much more than provide a few jokes and a bit of exposition here, while in the Nolan movies for example he's a much more central character.


I've talked about how most of the characters were quite different from what I recognize as the "traditional" (dare I say "correct"?) versions, but one character who much more closely matched previous appearances was Lois Lane. Which is unfortunate, because she is so often poorly written. Mild spoiler warning: she needs to be saved by Superman not less than three times this movie, and basically doesn't actually contribute in any real way - in fact I maintain that she actively makes things worse at times. Although I guess the only times Superman manages even a small smile is when he's looking at her, so there is that. The sad thing is I thought she was much better written in Man of Steel.


In case it isn't obvious by now, I didn't think that the plot worked very well; most of the characters' motivations were either vague or didn't really make much sense to me, and there wasn't really any depth to the story despite how hard the cinematography tried to convince you otherwise. Oh, the cinematography was really nice though; Zack Snyder does shoot a pretty picture, that's for sure (well, as pretty as something can be with so little colour).

I feel as if there was less action than I might have expected, but none of the action scenes were bad. Batman's fights were much better than anything he did in the third Nolan movie, though obviously not nearly as impressive as something out of the Raid or Man of Tai-Chi - but then I don't think that was really ever on the cards to begin with. Superman really only had one big fight, and while it was pretty good if you like entirely CG battles, it was nowhere near as impressive as the fights in Man of Steel. Overall I can't complain about the action, but I wasn't impressed by it; there was nothing new or smart or particularly impressive or skillful going on.


The thing that I remember most from watching the movie is just a sense of tiredness and depression. The fact is, this movie is dark. Not just at the start or at the end, but the whole way through. There's just no sense of optimism or positivity at all. I don't know, it was all just too gloomy for me.


The plot is bleak, the characters felt wrong (it's not just that they weren't the heroes I know, it's that they didn't really feel like heroes at all), and the movie has an over-inflated sense of it's own importance. Having said that, it has good acting, decent action, and great cinematography. I'm going to give it 5/10: if the idea of Batman killing people doesn't feel wrong to you and you like watching desaturated CGI characters hitting other desaturated CGI characters in dark gritty desaturated urban environments for no good reason, then yeah, enjoy.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

Most superhero movies end on some sort of a note of triumph. The B.S. Movie starts on a scene of tragedy, is mostly full of insane people trying to kill each other, and ends with a funeral. It's just dark and gloomy, start to end. Which makes me wonder: is Zach Snyder feeling suicidal? Obviously I hope not, I just have to wonder. Maybe they're just playing the long game; like this is supposed to be the "Empire Strikes Back" of the Superman movies, and the next one is going to be the Return of the Jedi and end with everyone throwing a big party? I guess I could buy that, however Empire didn't leave me feeling drained and depressed.


Did anyone notice that the characters had access to info in dreams that they shouldn't have had? Like Pa Kent's story, or Lois Lane's name (Batman didn't know that Lois was important to Superman; if he did he probably would have known about Martha, right)? Although I think that dream with Lois' name was not a dream and is actually foreshadowing something they have planned for the sequels, but if so it doesn't seem to fit in since Batman never saved Lois or anything. Perhaps she's going to die in the sequels and Superman will turn bad unless they go back in time and stop it, but that doesn't quite make sense since we've already seen the dream, meaning that they've already gone back in time and tried to stop it, so if they failed this time then that's it, right? Or it is just another meaningless dream that's just there to look good and make the movie feel important? Maybe they're trying to emulate the Marvel trick of filling their movies with little easter-eggs that only the real comic book fans will pick up on? I kinda feel like they should probably concentrate on making their main characters recognizable to the real comic book fans first, you know?

Speaking of old man Kent's story, did Clark already know the story - in which case the way it was told was weird (was it supposed to be a memory or something? Because it didn't start off like one!) - or did he just... make it up in his own head? Also, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? What the hell was the point of that story? OK, so he felt guilty over the negative consequences of a well-meaning action, that's fine, it happens, it's good to talk about it. So what was the solution, what ultimately eased his suffering conscience? Learning to accept that we as humans have limitations? Learning to forgive himself? Why no silly, women! Ugh, look, I get that love is a great thing, but it really isn't an instant solution to every problem in life. A better message here would be to tell him that nobody is perfect, we all make mistakes and we just have to learn to accept ourselves, learn from our mistakes and keep moving forwards, rather than getting stuck and dwelling on the past. Or something like that.

Instead we get this stupid and meaningless "lesson", and the worst part is that the movie doesn't seem to realize how meaningless it was. It makes me sad to think that something so shallow and devoid of understanding could take itself so seriously. On the other hand, since it's all just a dream (it was a dream, right? We aren't supposed to believe that daddy Kent's ghost visited Superman just to impart that nugget of stupidity, right?), perhaps the point was to show how shallow and stupid Superman is? Not that that would have been much better.

And while we're on the topic of dreams, was the point of those bizarre bat-filled nightmares to show us that Batman was psychologically tortured, or to establish that he was actually insane? Because I'm leaning towards actually insane. I wouldn't have hated them so much if they didn't seem so meaningless. I realise that I might have just misunderstood them, if so then I apologize, but... I dunno, I'm just not seeing it.

The first one has Bruce levitating up to a white light (coughIAMJESUScough) that he describes as a lie while surrounded by a swarm of bats; meaning what? Was the light the catharsis of dressing up in a batsuit and hitting people, and it was a lie because it didn't actually make him feel any better? The second one has a giant bat creature jumping out of his parents' graves to attack him. I guess that means his parents' deaths created a monster that is consuming him; a madness that compels him to dress up as a bat? See, all I'm getting is "Batman is insane and needs to stop dressing up as a bat". Which I can't really argue with, at least not the way he behaves in this movie, but then he doesn't actually stop does he? OK, the last dream was pretty much a straight-up nightmare about a future that he fears might occur if Superman is not stopped (and there's some flying dudes who might be bat-themed attacking him, so again a generally negativity associated with bats), which is fair enough, although it does lead to a bizarre time-travel thingy that comes out of nowhere and really doesn't fit in.

Actually, the more I think about that last dream, the more I think the whole double-dream sequence might be my favourite part of the movie. It's a hint at a different, strangely alien world, followed by this jarringly surreal and out-of-place moment. Plus it has probably the best action sequence in the movie. I think it would almost work better as a short film divorced from the rest of the movie, then it wouldn't be dragged down by the film's baggage.


Let's talk motivations in more depth now that we can discuss specifics. What was Luthor's motivation? He's not trying to take over the world. He mentions something like he learned from his father that power makes people evil or something, so... Superman must be evil? Does that mean we're supposed to believe that he's trying to save the world from what he believes is an evil alien? Well, he's clearly not; otherwise he wouldn't have gone ahead and created an even more powerful, more evil, and more uncontrollable alien without any contingency plan for how to stop it.

By that same token the other potential motivation - that he has an unexplained problem of some sort with any super-powered being, as evidenced by the way he's collecting info on them - is clearly not the case, else he wouldn't have created the powerful, evil, uncontrollable monster. Also, he seemed unnaturally attached to Zod's dead body, so clearly he isn't exactly repulsed by Kryptonians. So... yeah, I dunno.

What we do see is Luthor acting progressively more insane. Which is a terrible motivation and still doesn't actually explain very much; even the Joker usually gives us a reason for what he's doing, even if that reason is just "for fun". And Luthor is not the Joker, or at least he's not supposed to be. And he shouldn't be, if only because we already have a Joker: he's called the Joker. We don't need Superman's nemesis to just be Batman's nemesis again. Although we shouldn't really be surprised since the Superman movies have been borrowing so heavily from the Batman movies that they've basically just turned Superman into Batman with powers (seriously, watch the Nostalgia Critic review of Man of Steel).

Don't get me wrong, I can certainly come up with a bunch of reasons why Lex would want Superman dead if I wanted to, but the point is we're not given any of those reasons in this movie! We're not clearly given any reason, at least none that I was able to understand. Am I just stupid? Is Zack Snyder just operating on a whole other level than me? Honestly, I really don't think so.

I mean, I understand Batman's motivation: some guys he kinda knew died while Superman was saving the whole planet. Clearly this means Superman deserves to die, right? Hmm, perhaps I should clarify: I understand what Zack Snyder is trying to say that Batman's motivation is, unfortunately it only makes sense if you believe that Batman is a moron and/or insane. An no, I refuse to believe that Batman is somehow unaware of the fact that Superman saved the planet; Lois Lane was RIGHT THERE the whole time, she knows the whole story, and she's a damned reporter: it is an established fact that that Superman saved the planet, as evidenced by the way they built a monument for him in the middle of Metropolis and they worship him and stuff.

Oh, he talks later about how "if we believe there's even one percent chance of Superman going bad, then we have to kill him now", or something like that, but that's clearly a justification for his actions and not what's driving them; if it really was his motivation then it would have been fleshed out more. What we did see fleshed out was his horror at the damage caused by the fight with Zod. I might argue that we also get a glimpse of his own feeling of helplessness during that fight, which could have been another motivating factor, but again this wasn't developed (except I suppose briefly in that one abstract dream sequence) so I'm not going to count it. I admit that it's a more sensible reason for his hatred, but I still wouldn't accept it as being enough to drive Batman to want to murder an innocent man; at least not the Batman I know and not any Batman that I want to watch movies about.

In theory we're already supposed to know Superman's motivations since we already had a whole movie about it. But then this movie has him question why he's trying to be a superhero, and then no-one ever really answers the question. I mean, one minute he seems to have decided not to be a superhero anymore and traveled up north, then he has a dream where his father tells him that Lois will cure what ails him, and suddenly he's back in Metropolis. Even then, he's fighting because he's being forced to, in order to save those he loves. In fact if he hadn't played superhero to begin with they would never have been in danger, so... I dunno, as far as I can tell the question of why wear the cape is never answered.

I think for that narrative arc to be concluded satisfactorily, they really needed for Superman to make the decision at some point to do what was right because it was right - that's kind of the essence of Superman's character, isn't it? But I don't really feel like that's what actually happened in the end; instead he fought Luthor because his women had been kidnapped: he did it for his own personal benefit, not because it was the right thing to do.

OK, you can argue that fighting Doomsday wasn't personal, but... well, what was the alternative? Sit back and let him trash the planet? It doesn't really sound like the kind of thing you can realistically choose to ignore. Besides, some people are stubborn; once they start a fight they see it through, doesn't necessarily mean that they are doing it for good reasons. Yes, you could say that he chose to sacrifice himself at the end, but, well, he'd already been stabbed through the heart, I think he knew he was dead either way and just chose to redouble his efforts to make sure he took Doomsday with him. I mean, when he flew in with the spear he was attacking a tied-up and weakened-by-kryptonite Doomsday who'd already lost a hand. Yes, attacking while weakened was a risky and difficult thing to do, but there was really no reason for him to believe that he was actually committing kamikaze.

About the only real thing he did that I would categorize as making a difficult decision to do what was right, was saving Luthor from Doomsday. Which was the correct "Supermanian" thing to do, but the moment lacked the gravitas to signify that it was a big decision for him, that it was representative of the direction he had chosen to take his life in or anything like that.

But to be honest, one of the things that bothered me the most about the writing for Superman was why he got so obsessed with Batman. He's in the middle of an existential crises, questioning his own actions and motivations, then suddenly he's like "look, there's some guy risking his life to stop crime, but he doesn't always obey the letter of the law while doing it? HE MUST BE STOPPED!". Nevermind all the wars and genocides and crap happening every damned day, nevermind the mass starvation, rampant terrorism, drug, gun, and slave trade that is alive and well in many parts of the world; STOP THE DO-GOODER IN THE BAT SUIT!

Fair enough, right? No-one should break even the tiniest law, right? Like, say... flying without a pilot's license and approved flight plan? Or how about flying across country borders without going through passport control? Or, I don't know, invading people's privacy with x-ray vision and super-hearing, or all the other little laws I'm pretty sure Superman just conveniently ignores when he's running about playing hero. I mean, is it even legal to run into a burning building that the authorities have cordoned off while the fire department is trying to extinguish the flames and evacuate the occupants? I'm just saying, while Superman is currently being accused of acting without oversight and potentially killing a whole bunch of terrorists (which apparently Americans are unhappy about? Really?), he's angry at some other guy who's accused of sometimes breaking the law to do good? Glass houses much? Yes, hypocrisy is a real thing, but still, the hostility he felt towards Batman just felt like it came out of nowhere and didn't really make sense to me.

Wonder Woman's motivation never really comes up, but we see that she fought in World War II (I think), and when Doomsday shows up she appears to fight, so I guess it's safe to infer that she's a warrior who sees it as her duty to fight evil / protect the innocent. Which is kinda why superheros are supposed to fight, and is therefore arguably the least stupid motivation of any of the main characters in this film. Kinda sad that the characters with the least development have the clearest and most sensible motivations.


Luthor seems to be claiming that it was his plan to get B&S to fight each other so B would kill S? So how exactly did he get the two to hate each other? Or is he just trying to claim credit for something that he didn't do? If he deliberately allowed Batman to learn of the Kryptonite and get his hands on it, then why? Isn't Lex the kind of guy who would have wanted to kill Superman himself? Perhaps it was for plausible deniability, to keep his hands clean, but he was doing a pretty crappy job of that if Lois Lane was so easily able to figure out what he was up to. Also, when Superman saved her and dropped her off right outside Lex's building, Lex didn't seem to make any effort to try to recover her despite the fact that she knew everything and he had even admitted stuff to her face. So I just don't feel as if he was trying that hard to keep his involvement low key.

Plus of course he kinda went and created a bloody Doomsday monster; I don't think anyone would have had any difficulty figuring out that was him. Besides, he did it before knowing whether Batman would succeed in killing Superman or not. So what if Batman had pulled it off, what then? "Oh, hey, guess I don't need this monster after all"? I mean, he'd given away the Kryptonite, the only thing he had that might have been able to stop the monster. Let's face it, his plan was a complete mess.


By the way, how did Luthor know Superman's secret identity? I'm not saying that he shouldn't have know, I just don't understand how come he knew and Batman didn't, despite Batman studying Superman for two years. Also, how did Luthor know Batman's secret identity? I feel like Batman is supposed to be smart enough to keep that kind of a thing a secret. Either way, these kind of details might have been worth showing? Ah, hell, Luthor just knew a whole lot of stuff Batman didn't, guess Batman wasn't supposed to be very smart this movie; actually, that was pretty obvious.


Wonder Woman was so pointless in this movie, she basically just gets forced into the scenes without contributing anything or doing anything that helps the plot or establishes her character or motivation or anything; she's just there to be there, then she joins in the big fight at the end. We don't know who she is,  why she's there, what she wants or why she does... whatever she does. At least she handled herself very well in the fight, so that's something.

By the way, why the hell was Wonder Woman even getting on a plane? SHE CAN FLY! Besides, I don't think there's planes to Themyscira, so where was she even going? I mean, she was leaving to escape Luthor and/or the world finding out about her, right? So where would you go to escape that? Back home to Themyscira, right? Maybe she was just going to Mexico or Hawaii or something. Also, was she in economy class? The way she was prouncing around Luthor's party, I figured she was rich or something - she still is a princess, right? What kind of princess travels economy?


The fight between Batman and Superman was terrible. They were both SO VERY STUPID, and it was slow and plodding and I hated it. I guess Batman's plan was to control the fight to lead Superman to where he had left the spear? So he stands there in the open and waits for Superman to get the drop on him rather than setting up a situation that he knows Superman will respond to where he can ambush him. Then he screws around a bunch with weapons he knows won't work, finally gassing Superman with a Kryptonite grenade. And after he spent so long being stupid that Superman started to recover, and he just manages to gas him a second time (which I reckon Superman should have been able to avoid since he knew about the gas now), he STILL took his time tying a rope to his leg and dragging him around, in a really slow setup for a stupid "spinning him on a rope" attack that was not worth the time they spent setting it up. I just hated the whole thing.

And I have to ask: why not just keep the spear on him and use it the first time he managed to gas Superman and weaken him? I guess you could argue that he though Superman might know that it could hurt him and not get close, but then why not shoot him with Kryptonite bullets since Superman wasn't dodging anything anyway - his plan was to hit him with a Kryptonite gas grenade, so why not bullets, which are smaller and faster and easier to carry? Or how about some kind of remote controlled bat-gadget that would bring the spear to him, like having his remotely controlled bat-plane bring it to him when he was ready for it? Planning to move the fight to where he left the spear is just so stupid; how could he possibly guarantee that he could control the fight against someone who outclasses him so severely? It's worth mentioning that the only way his plan had any chance of success was for Superman to be actively avoiding trying to kill him, which makes his argument that "Superman must be stopped" even stupider.

So Batman won? Yeah, it's what the fans wanted, but let's take a look at this "victory" shall we? He spent two years preparing for the fight, while Superman was told five minutes ago "go fight that guy" - a guy who he could have taken down earlier with the utmost of ease if he had wanted to. Batman had intended to kill Superman right from the start; he continued to attack Superman despite the fact that Superman was trying to talk rather than fight. And of course, Batman basically sucker-punched Superman with a weapon that he didn't know existed. If Superman had been there to fight he simply could have incinerated Batman before he even got close enough for the Bat to know he was there (telescopic vision, x-ray vision, heat vision) or killed him with the first blow he landed (which was intended as a warning blow). So sure, Batman won the fight, but Superman was the moral victor by far. Still, I admit it was cathartic watching Batman punch Superman's smug face into the ground.


Ugh, Superman and Batman's mothers have the same name? That's actually kind of stupid. You know, rather than make a big deal of that, I would have done the opposite, since it's, well, kinda stupid. Oh, and the fact that Superman's mother has the same name as Batman's mother just takes all the wind out of his sails, and he does an instant 180 on his previous hardline "kill Superman" stance? Or did thinking about his mother temporarily cure his insanity or something? Bleh, whatever.


So Kryptonite is back as the green glowing crystal? Cos in the last movie it was, like, a property of the gas on the spaceship or something. Also, why did the brightness with which it would glow keep changing? Was the spear energizing the Kryptonite tip or something? I get so sick of Kryptonite in the comics that I actually liked the Man of Steel version, but I can't complain about the 180 seeing as it is such a major part of the Superman mythos.


I cannot accept the idea that the government just gave Luthor the body of an alien and full, unrestricted, unsupervised access to an alien ship, which they just left in the middle of the city. That makes not one whit of sense. The only thing I can think of is that the scene where he forces the senator to eat the sweet is supposed to indicate that he has some sort of leverage over the him and, by extension, others as well? But having influence over some senators doesn't mean the entire government bends to his will! Seriously, no-one in the military said "Hey, I'm not happy about this?".


Let me get this straight: people genuinely thought that Superman flew in and killed a bunch of people USING BULLETS? These guys were terrorists or rebels or something anyway, is it so hard to believe that some else killed them with guns? Why the hell did the mercenaries use such unique bullets anyway? That's just pure stupidity; when real people want to go somewhere and kill people without being traced, they don't use highly unique bullets that can only come from a single source.


"It sounded like the sky had split open!" What, you've never heard thunder before? Cos that's what it sounded like. Thunder. It didn't even go on for that long. Stupid melodrama. Luthor probably paid her off I guess.


So that guy who took Lois hostage for a couple of seconds, Superman killed him, right? You don't expect me to believe that he tackled him with his whole body so quickly that he didn't have time to pull the trigger and shoved him through two brick walls without killing him, do you?



By the way, it was a bit too convenient how Superman always showed up just in time to save Lois. OK, maybe the first time he knew she was going to Africa so flew around nearby, I can accept that (although personally I think this is something that should have been explained, but whatever), the second time he was supposed to be on the north pole or something, then suddenly he's just there when she screams? I'm not saying that he couldn't have been somewhere nearby, I'm just saying it's annoying that he's always there without any explanation, whether she's in Metropolis or Africa. OK, yes, the third time he was right there, fine, I'll give them that one.


So the super-advanced alien ship was fooled by Luthor's stupid dissected fingertip nonsense? Really? Fine, but what the hell was up with it just offering him command like that? Lois Lane finds her way into a Kryptonian ship early in Man of Steel and it tries to kill her, Luthor does it and it's all like "Hi stranger, would you like to be the captain?". What the hell?

The ship says it has knowledge from "a hundred thousand worlds"? Really, the Kryptonians had knowledge from that many worlds yet they completely died out when just one planet exploded? Let me guess; those "hundred thousand worlds" were all planets like Mars and Mercury. The "knowledge" was basically "that one is hot, that one is cold", etc. Besides, I would expect a computer to be more specific than "a hundred thousand", since I sincerely doubt it was exactly 100,000 planets. Wouldn't it make more sense to say something like "knowledge from ninety-eight thousand, four hundred and seventy one worlds"? Oh, but that lacks the gravitas that this whole movie is so intent on beating us to death with.

Wait, so mixing a Kryptonian corpse with human DNA in... whatever that chamber was supposed to be or do, creates a monstrosity, and the Kryptonians knew about it? Quite apart from the question of why the hell would that be a thing to begin with, my question is how the hell would they know about it? Did they mix human DNA with Kryptonian in the past? How? Why? Or does Kryptonian DNA just do that when mixed with any DNA? Does this mean that Clark and Lois' child will be a monstrous abomination? Cos we know now that's what happens when you mix these two types of genetic material, right?

And when the ship tells him that this is forbidden, he just says that the dudes who forbid it are dead, and the ship is like "OK"? Is that how computers work on Krypton? Cos it isn't on Earth. Why the hell was that even Luthor's plan? Ugh, "put blood in Kryptonian ship and let it do the work" is a little too close to the last Luthor's plan of "throw Kryptonian crystal into the water and let it do all the work". Look, Luthor is supposed to be smart, having alien tech do all the work for him with minimal effort on his part is just not impressive and does not making him a menacing or interesting villain.


Oh God, that stupid "He's coming!" rant from Luthor at the end. That was terrible and completely out of place. Why the hell would he start ranting about... whoever, Darkseid probably. When did he ever make contact with him? Let me guess; it's something he found out about from the ship somehow. How would the ship even know that? Why the hell did he care about Superman if he knew about whatever it is that was on it's way? Bleh, again, B.S Movie is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.


If Batman was so concerned about the Kryptonian punch-up happening in Metropolis at the start, why did he drive over in a car as Bruce Wayne instead of fly over as Batman? Oh, I know: it was daytime. Batman only ever comes out at night, right? Sigh.


As much as I enjoyed Alfred, I did think he was a little too passive concerning Bruce going insane and planning to murder someone who didn't deserve to die. Like, you'd think he'd protest a bit more strongly, wouldn't you? Alfred is supposed to be a bit of a trusted advisor to Bruce, isn't he?


At one point Superman calls Batman "Bruce". I assume he used his x-ray vision to peek under the mask. I do find it rather interesting that they imply Superman is using his x-ray vision at times, but never show it.


So what was that weapon Batman used against Superman that actually hurt him? Was it just a pair of giant speakers? Can we build a bigger set and use them against Kryptonians and/or Doomsdayians?


Of course the movie had to have Doomsday. Of course. Sigh. Doomsday is just not a very interesting villain, but I guess there aren't many others people remember who can really fight Superman on an equal level.

Did Doomsday really need orange lightning energy pulses? I guess they though it would look cool on-screen or something. They were wrong. It just felt to me like they were ripping off the last Godzilla movie.

"The spear is the only thing that can kill it"? Hmm, bit of an assumption, also one that I would argue was proven untrue; we saw Wonder Woman cut it's arm off, sure that means that she could with luck and skill and a good opening cut it's head off. Don't tell me it would survive that. Well, I guess the other two didn't know that at the time.

Of course Lois threw the spear away, making it harder to find. She's a woman after all, and we all know (by "we" I mean people who read my blog, all 2 of you) what DC thinks of women.

So when Superman shoved the spear all the way through Doomsday's body, wouldn't that just mean that it's going to kill him more slowly since the Kryptonite is no longer in his body?

Why did Superman not dodge the nuke? He clearly saw it coming. I thought nukes were designed to hit continents, not small fast-moving targets in the upper atmosphere. Nevermind the fact that nukes these days don't have just one big warhead. Maybe it was built specifically for that purpose, to be used against Kryptonians? Makes sense, but clashes with the idea of the government simply ignoring the existence of the Kryptonite. If they've been looking into anti-Kryptonian weaponry (which is pretty much a given really), then I have to believe they would have swept in and grabbed the Kryptonite as soon as they learned of it's existence. Yes, it was kind of stupid of them to shoot at Superman when he was clearly well on his way to tossing Doomsday into the cold dark void of space, but it's the kind of thing I can believe panicked commanders doing at the spur of the moment. It still annoyed me though, because I was pretty sick of everyone in the movie acting stupid by that point.

Doomsday was standing on an abandoned island. He had just been hit by a nuke in the upper atmosphere then fallen back to crash in to the ground; someone in Batman's position would probably conclude that there was at least a chance that he would take a minute to recover before doing anything dustructive. The spear that could kill him was in Gotham. So what does Batman do? Rather than fly off to get the spear then come right back, Batman LURED DOOMSDAY TO THE CITY? WHAT THE HELL? Yes, the docks may be deserted, but that doesn't mean the whole city is! You've seen the destructive power of a Kryptonian rumble, why lead him back to the city? To YOUR city, Gotham? Assuming you even make it back, which seems unlikely when being chased by a creature that can hold it's own against Superman. Seriously, just how stupid is this Batman?

Hell, Batman wasn't even actively looking for the spear once he got there! He very clearly wasn't looking around whenever we saw him. Shouldn't he have had some kind of tracking device embedded in it, or some way of tracking the radiation, or something? Just saying, that's the sort of thing Batman usually has.

So when Batman hit Doomsday with the weakening Kryptonite gas, why didn't Wonder Woman just fly up and cut it's head off while it was weak? Pfft.


God, I SO wish Lois had just pushed Luthor off the roof. She knew that he had murdered a whole heap of people to frame Superman, he had just kidnapped her, and he was standing right in front of her at the edge of the building. Just push him off! Plus the longer he spoke the more obvious it was the he was about to push her off in order to lure Superman there; couldn't she see that? She didn't even make any real effort to defend herself when he walked behind, her, moved in, then pushed her off. I feel like the "Man of Steel" Lois would have been less pathetic in that scene.

How did Luthor even know that Superman would show up only after Lois had been brought to the building? What if she had screamed when they first kidnapped her and Superman had popped in to save her right there? How would he have his little conversation with him then?

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. review

I've never actually seen the original show; before my time I guess. The trailer for this movie did not look interesting to me, but a friend recommended it so I gave it a try.

I was given the impression that this was an action movie, so I was quite surprised when the movie took every opportunity to not show any action. Apart from the first scene, pretty much all the action in the movie takes place off-camera or in the background. For example (mild spoiler warning for the rest of this paragraph), there's a scene where the Illya - or "the Russian" as I thought of him for the whole movie - is in a boat chase, being fired upon by pursuers with heavy machine guns. We don't actually get to watch this chase however; no, we get to watch Solo - "the American" - sit down and eat a sandwich. Gripping stuff.

I'm really not exaggerating, every single action scene after the first is either completely or mostly off-camera. Even the death scenes of the main villains are mostly off-camera. Not that it matters very much since the villains are not interesting or characterful or amusing or intimidating. In fact I wasn't even sure that they were the villains; I was still waiting for the real bad guy to show up when I realised the movie was over.

Not that the main characters have much more depth. The American is, well, James Bond Light (although I reckon he's more James Bond than Daniel Craig ever was); I actually thought that them nicknaming him "the cowboy" was completely nonsensical. The Russian is a Big Angry Russian, that's pretty much it, he's basically a cartoon. And the Girl is, well, a token and a plot device but never anything more than that. I wouldn't mind the characters being shallow if they were entertaining or there was some meat to their relationships with each other, but there really wasn't. They work together unwillingly, then the movie ends. There is virtually no character development, poor relationship development, and a noticeable absence of snappy dialogue.

Despite all that, I actually found the Russian fairly likeable. I wanted to like the American; the whole "always keeps his cool no matter what" thing he had going on should have been fun, but to me he crossed the thin line between amusing and obnoxious. The Girl was just completely unlikeable. I don't think she smiled once the whole film, she never did anything interesting or entertaining except for the one time when she strangely went completely loco for no real reason then passed out - to be clear I didn't think that was entertaining or contributed in any way to the movie, except to try to push a completely bafflingly unbelievable and undeveloped romantic sub-plot. Really, she was the worst part of the film. To be clear I'm not blaming the actress, just the writing.

The plot is only barely serviceable; it does the bare minimum necessary to give the characters a reason to work together while trying to throw in a plot twist or two, but never really fleshes anything out or manages to raise the tension much or, well, got me to actually give a damn.

So the movie doesn't focus on the action, plot, characters, or relationships. Then just what does it focus on? Well, to be honest, I don't know. Thinking back, I just can't remember where the run-time went. I guess I'd say it was just busy-work and weak gags. Actually, I think that's the perfect word to describe it: the whole movie is just weak.


Well, I guess it's stylish at least. It's mildly amusing, you probably won't get bored enough to actually walk away or regret watching it, but you won't remember it once it's over.

Overall I give it a 6/10. I suppose it's not the worst way to spend a couple of hours if you have nothing good to do or watch.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

Let's count down the action scenes, shall we?

1. The car chase. Mostly on-screen if I recall.
2. The first toilet fight. Largely on screen with cuts to two old guys talking, but very short, uneventful, and poorly shot such that it has no impact.
3. The mugging scene. Nothing happens except for one quick punch.
4. The second toilet fight. Happens completely off-screen.
5. The boat chase. Happens largely off-screen, as we're treated to the sight of the American exploring the contents of a picnic basket.
6. The scene where the Russian escapes. Nothing happens.
7. Rudi's death scene. Happens in the background.
8. Storming the enemy base. This could have been an awesome scene, with a small army of commandos invading a stronghold. Instead it was cut down to a brief montage of unconnected one-second snippets, with several shown on-screen at the same time so you couldn't even focus on a single event.
9. The car chase. This could have been amazing, with vastly different vehicles speeding over rough terrain, with the tables continually turning as the terrain favoured one side or the other. Instead it's poorly edited such that it's hard to see the relationship between the vehicles and hard to tell if the pursuers are gaining or falling back, then it ends.
10. Alexander's death scene. Technically this is a fight scene, but the camera spends more time showing the Russian trying to stand up than actually showing what's happening in the fight, all we see are a bunch of unconnected blows with little sense of continuity. Then he gets stabbed, but we don't actually see it; we just see him fall back with the knife in his guts.
11. Victoria's death scene. She just talks on the radio then the camera cuts back to show an explosion from the distance. I actually found it very anti-climatic.
12. The final fight between the Russian and the American. Does not happen.

Talk about funny casting decisions; an American plays the Russian, a Brit plays the American, and a Swede plays the German. No idea how this came about, but sure, why not.


Let's come back to Gaby. She was almost amazingly boring, and did nothing but sit there and pout for most of her scenes; I don't think she ever displayed an actual emotion. Even when she finds out her dad was killed, she's just like "oh well, he died a long time ago to me", shrugs and moves on. Um, OK? I can see now why she was willing to put her life in so much risk to save him?

By the way, what the hell was that scene in the hotel? She's about to try to infiltrate an incredibly dangerous criminal organisation tomorrow. Her life, her father's life, and the security of the whole world will be at stake. So what does she do? Get stinking drunk on a bottle of hard liqueur. Obviously. Because being hung over is a fantastic plan for such a high-stakes occasion.

So now that she's completely drunk, what next? Well, she body-tackles the most dangerous agent in the KGB. Bear in mind that the only things she knows about this man so far is that he's twice her size, has anger management issues, and a couple of days ago he was trying to capture or kill her. What could possibly go wrong? OK, I can accept that for some reason when she gets drunk she turns violent (I don't think it's realistic or funny or endearing, but I can accept it if I have to). What I can't accept is that, while so drunk that she's literally seconds away from passing out, we're supposed to believe that she's capable of pinning down the Russian. Look, I know she's a mechanic (no, she's not a trained agent, she was only recruited recently to sit and wait for people to come to her) and that means she probably has a degree of wiry strength, but SHE'S HALF HIS WEIGHT. At best. If he could do push-ups, then he could push her off, at least the way she was supposedly pinning him, and we know this guy's strong; they made sure of that already with scenes like the one where he's physically impeding a car. That's not even taking into account that he's THE BEST AGENT IN THE KGB!

Oh, let me guess, "he was taking it easy on her". This is the guy who couldn't stop himself from hitting someone even though it risked his mission and the security of the free world, and he's currently very angry because he had to stand there and let a couple of minor punks steal his father's watch. And she just slapped him in the face twice then attacked him. No, he is NOT going to simply allow himself to be pinned for fear of hurting her.

Then I'm supposed to believe he starts to feel attracted to her while she's attacking him? What is it about an angry Russian KGB agent that makes you think he would be attracted to crazy German woman who violently attacks him? In the middle of a time when all the countries in Europe have a lot of bad blood between them? Personally I think that if she actually managed to out-wrestle him, it would be a blow to his pride and it would not endear her to him, at least not immediately. Maybe they would laugh about it later, but that would be later.

Bleh, every single thing about that whole scene was completely screwed up, I have no idea why the hell anyone thought it would be a good idea. I guess it's just supposed to make us think "she's tough", even though she spends the beginning and end of the film being rescued. Honestly, I see this all the time; a woman gets one strong scene (in terms of her being strong, not the scene; most these scenes are quite poorly done) so a movie or series can pretend to be progressive, then spends the rest of it's run time having her get captured and need rescuing. You know what? If you want to make a woman look tough, make her useful and reliable and capable of keeping up with the men for the entire run-time, don't just try to throw in a token scene that runs contrary to the entire rest of the movie.


Why does the best agent in the KGB have anger management issues? Surely you need a lot of discipline to be the best agent in the KGB? Why is this guy picked as a spy if he's so bad at it that he can't even stop himself from punching someone for the sake of not blowing his cover?


How was the American so familiar with the Russian's watch that he was able to spot it in the middle of a firefight? It's a very plain-looking watch that even the Russian confused another watch for at one point, so it's not like it stands out.


How was it the American's plan to get the car jammed right up against a window? Ho could he plan that, especially when he wasn't driving? Plus the car was driving on it's rims so the actual speed and manoeuvrability would be very difficult to judge, never mind that actually figuring out exactly where it would get stuck was impossible to begin with. Or was it not his plan, he just acted like it was because he just takes everything in stride all the time anyway?


They wanted the dad to finish the bomb in 20 minutes? Yet they waited 2 days to just grab the girl and use her for leverage, even though they knew where she was from the moment she entered the country? Makes no sense.

Why did they even need the dad to build the bomb if they all understood so much about the process that he couldn't even do anything wrong without them spotting it? If the already knew how every part is supposed to work, surely they could have done it without him?


You know what? If you want us to be surprised that some guy earlier in the movie is actually a British agent, then don't cast one of the most famous British actors in the world! Chances are when they see him people will be thinking "hmm, that can't be it, I'll bet he's important later".


The bit where the two don't kill each other at the end was anticlimatic. Plus the way that the Russian just slowly took his time drawing the gun even though the American could see him in the mirror was incredibly stupid. Also, the American was clearly not reaching for the watch; that was poorly shot in an overly aggressive yet obvious attempt to mislead us. But the Russian, who's all hopped up on adrenaline and ready to shoot the American, just stops and catches something that his enemy throws at him, rather than assuming it's an attack or a distracting and pulling his gun? Also, why was recovering his dad's watch enough to make him turn traitor? He didn't betray his mission to stop it from being taken in the first place, so why now? Don't tell me it's because he was "closer" to the American now; he clearly wasn't, as we can tell at the very end. And why was the American ready to burn the disc, even though his superiors already knew he had it (no way the Russians knew but the Americans didn't)?


So, despite them technically failing the mission (to retrieve the plans, so part of the mission at least), they were picked for this new task force? Why is the girl there, she didn't do anything that required skill (she couldn't even out-drive the Russian when her car was much, much better - she couldn't even out-drive the Russian while he was on foot!), the only reason she was useful at all was because of her father.


By the way, when the new task force is announced they all just sit there with glum unhappy faces. That's literally where the movie ends! I mean, really? Are you seriously telling me that's the ending you wanted for your film? The main characters unhappily resigned to the fact that they have to spend more time together against their will? What is the matter with you?


So where's Megatron? I heard that the custom P38 was in the movie, but good luck actually identifying it. They could have at least had it in the poster, but no; seems to be a Makarov and a Browning Hi-Power.

The Last Witch Hunter Review

I hadn't heard anything at all about this movie, so certain things that I'm sure anyone who's seen the trailer would know caught me by surprise, which is a good thing in my opinion and probably made it easier for me to enjoy the movie. And overall I did enjoy it; it's probably one of the better movies of it's kind that I've seen in a while.

Let's start with one of the best parts: the protagonist, Kaulder, is NOT a Reluctant Hero^TM. I was actually pretty confidently expecting them to have him spend the entire movie whining about how he "didn't ask for this" and so on, but no; Kaulder seems to be at peace with what he does. In fact he even seems to enjoy it sometimes - not when he's actually killing thankfully, but generally he seems to be reasonably happy with his life. It was a refreshing change.

Partly for that reason, I found Kaulder to be a likeable character overall. I also appreciated that he wasn't just some musclebound brute, he actually spent more time investigating than bashing heads; you could say that they didn't forget the "hunt" part of Witch Hunter. Oh, and Vin Diesel looked really cool with hair and a viking beard. Shame he didn't keep that look for the whole movie.

Unfortunately I didn't like Chloe (played by Rose Leslie) as much. I don't really know why, but I just never warmed to her. Maybe it's because the "romance" between her and Kaulder was so underdeveloped, or perhaps it's because her presence in the plot felt a little forced at times, I'm not sure.

I enjoyed Micheal Caine and Elijah Wood as the two Dolan's, and wish they could have gotten more screen time. Especially Elijah, I liked his character's part in the story and would have liked for it to be a bit more fleshed out.


I don't think anyone else got enough screen time for me to really comment on them, not even the villains. Which actually ties into one of my biggest complaints about this film: it's too focused on Kaulder. He is basically the center of the entire universe, everything begins and ends with him; eveything ties to him personally, and all that we see from anyone else is how they interact with him. Even the antagonists seem to spend most of their time working to stop him rather than actually working to further their own goals. Hell, Kaulder himself ends up searching for the villains by trying to investigate his own past!

To me, it made the movie feel small and a little shallow. Nothing much was fleshed out or given depth. There's only a small handful of characters and we don't get to know much about most of them; even the motivations of the main protagonists are only really hinted at; witches don't like humans because we build buildings or something. We hear about an Order of the Axe and Cross (I think) that Kaulder works for, but we never find out anything at all about them or how they support Kaulder. There's great little moments when we catch glimpses into a hidden world inhabited by magic-using witches, but they are too brief and far between. We get snippets of the mechanics of magic, but not quite enough to understand how it works, or even what exactly witches are. I just wish the movie had immersed itself more in the idea of this fantasy world.


The plot was not very deep and had it's share of holes, but I will say that it held up better than I expected overall, and it had some decents twists, some of which I kinda saw coming and some of which I didn't. The action scenes weren't amazing, but they were stylish and provided entertaining visual spectacles, as did other scenes in the movie, thanks in part to good use of quality visual effects.


Overall I'm giving it a 7/10. I found it entertaining and stylish, if not very deep or impressive.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

I tried to avoid mentioning in the main review that the bulk of the film is set in the modern day world, because I actually didn't know that going in and was surprised when it happened. I'm not sure if I prefer it this way; I really liked Vin Diesel as a viking-esque warrior, but to be honest I'm not entirely sure he could have pulled it off for a whole movie - at least I've never seen him in that kind of role before so I just don't know. And I do like the whole "magic hidden in the shadowy corners of our world" thing when it's done well, so I didn't have a problem with it here.

I liked the fact that Kaulder was so well adapted to the modern world; it was a bit of a reversal of expectations. I was probably a very good move too, as with characters like Captain America running around on screen these days the "man out of his time" cliche is becoming a bit familiar.

I found it a bit funny that everyone kept trying to tell Kaulder that he's lonely, but I never actually saw it in his actions. Yeah, OK, he fixes clocks in his free time, I get that you think that makes him look lonely, but to me it doesn't really, it just tells me that you want me to think that he's lonely since you don't understand why people would enjoy something like watch repair. I mean, I'm fairly certain that there's married men with children who like to do a bit of watch repair, or similar handcrafts, when they can find a bit of free time.

Do the Axe and Cross do anything at all? Perhaps they just gather information on witches then tell Kaulder where to go and who to kill? I assumed that they bankrolled him, but seeing as he's been around for so long I don't think it would be too hard for him to sort out his own finances.

Why is he the last witch hunter anyway? Is it because of the peace treaty? He was part of a group of witch hunters before, so people have hunted witches, and now that there's all sorts of advanced weapons and technology - you know, equalizers - surely it should be easier than it was before? I mean, I know not many people believe in witches, but you'd think an organization like the Axe and Cross would make it a point to keep a few dozen trained warriors armed and ready at all times, right?

He put the heart in his safe? In his apartment? Is that really the most secure place he could think of? Where was it even hidden before it was stolen? The Axe and Cross never noticed it was missing - or did they and they just never bothered to tell Kaulder about it? Maybe the told Elijah's character and he just kept the information to himself?

Why did they need to get the location of the heart from Micheal Caine when Elijah Wood would have known the location himself as the next Dolan? Was it something to do with what he was saying about Micheal Caine taking pity on Kaulder; did that mean that he had stolen the heart or was planning to destroy it so Elijah had to act quickly or something?

How come nothing could kill Kaulder but the Witch Queen was pretty easy to kill? I mean, he didn't even stab her in the heart, he actually missed, yet she basically disintegrated. Did she have a weakness to fire that he didn't or something? I mean, at the end he killed her after he had lost his immortality then been stabbed and shot multiple times; she clearly wasn't all that tough.

When he "unleashed the storm" at the end, what was his plan? Did he know that the sword would act as a lightning rod, but only after he threw it and not before? Or was the storm just a distraction, or possibly a light source? Maybe he just wanted to kill the Witch Queen in a dramatic way; he had her at his mercy before but stood around delivering one-liners instead of finishing her off after all.

Was it really so important to stop him from getting his memory back, even though it seems they needed him to be there for the return of the Witch Queen? How did the memory even reveal to him that the heart was still intact when he hadn't been concious to see it (and even if he had picked up some sounds or something he wouldn't have seen the dude hide the heart)? That's not exactly a memory anymore.

What was that powder that he used, and what exactly did it do? Neutralize magic? How does that work? Like, can you just scatter some around your bedroom and be immune to bad juju? Can you just wear some in a necklace? Can you put it in a bullet or shot shell and shoot down magical spells? Is it magical itself? In which case where did he get it? What about that symbol that appeared in glass when he breathed on it? Can anyone do that or is it something you need to know how to do?

So Chloe didn't actually do ANYTHING at all at the end? She stopped the chant for a while, but then it continued to completion later anyway, and then she just got used as a hostage; she really didn't do anything in the finale. Well, other than tell that obvious lie about how there's "other, worse things" out there just waiting for Kaulder to die. I mean, that's got to be a lie, otherwise the entire universe really does revolve around him. Besides, I don't think his healing factor is so scary that creatures more powerful than the Witch Queen would spend 800 years in hiding because of it.

I just keep thinking "this is so much better than I Frankenstein"!

Riddick Review

Let me start by saying that I'm quite fond of Pitch Black and I like the character Riddick (ugh, this review is going to be hard to write so it's not confusing when talking about the previous entries in the series...), so even if this movie had completely ignored The Chronicles of Riddick and just been Pitch Black again I wouldn't have minded too much.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy Chronicles of Riddick because I actually did; the action was entertaining, I liked the worlds they created, and Riddick himself is just fun. However the movie as a whole just didn't quite work. The reason I think is that the scope of the movie was too big for the character. They had a huge galaxy-conquering empire and they tried to make us believe that it was defeated by a guy with a couple of funny-looking knives and better-than-average eyesight.

They lionized Riddick to an excessive degree; while fun at times, overall it just... didn't work. In Pitch Black, Riddick was a tough guy but he wasn't "the galaxy's biggest bad-@$$". He spent much of the film in chains, and even when he escaped the first time he was taken down pretty quickly by just the one guy. No, what Riddick was in the first movie was an unknown quantity; he was unpredictable, dangerous but mysterious.

Thinking about it now, I would say that Riddick was the star of Pitch Black a bit like the Predator was the star of Predator; he's not the character that we follow and empathize with even if he's the one we remember the most; he's the scary and mysterious monster that the audience love even though he's not a good guy. Like the Predator, Riddick is often at his best when you can't see him, but you know he's out there, somewhere. Chronicles of Riddick changed that by making him, well, the Hero.

It's somewhat unfortunate then that this entry in the series inherits some of the problems of the second film even when trying to emulate the first. Chronologically it takes place after Chronicles of Riddick, and yet thematically it tries to go back to the first movie; borrowing so heavily from Pitch Black that some of the scenes are almost exactly the same. Sometimes that works well, other times not so much. Speaking personally at least, I couldn't quite consolidate what I view as two different images of Riddick, which they were trying to present in the same movie. One minute he's standing there challenging the world with a smile on his face, confidant in his invulnerability, the next he's running for his life; five minutes later he's lounging around like he's untouchable again. Perhaps the problem isn't the character himself, but the ease with which I buy into the tough-guy act that Riddick puts on for others?

Having said all that, I enjoyed this movie. I thought the early parts with Riddick alone on the planet worked well, I liked the environment and creature designs, the mercenaries were characterful, the acting appropriate, there were some good action scenes and some nice visual spectacles and Riddick himself is still entertaining.

Overall I give it a 7/10. If you enjoyed Pitch Black you'll probably enjoy this one too... which shouldn't come as a big surprise really.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

Ah, now for the obligatory nitpicking! Let's start with the dog. I liked the dog. Riddick liked the dog. There's this fairly powerful scene where Riddick is trying to save the dog - which risked it's life to save him - but fails. The scene would have been better if it hadn't felt as if it should have been possible for Riddick to avoid the situation, but nevermind. My problem is that Riddick passes out to the sight of his dog dying. Then, when he wakes up, he doesn't mourn or grieve or anything, he just slips straight into his "you may think you've captured me, but I'm still in control of the situation" routine, antagonizing his enemies while flashing his pearly whites. Yes, I know that the first thing he did was announce that he was going to kill Santana, but it was still too... quick and easy I suppose. I know he's supposed to be a tough guy who doesn't show his weaknesses, but still, the audience needs to see him react to know that he cares. We don't so we're left with the impression that he didn't really care, that the death of his companion didn't really matter to him.

I enjoyed seeing Batista and Katee Sackhoff, but I felt they were underused. Batista was entertaining when he spoke, unfortunately that didn't happen all that often. Katee's character was so completely unnecessary to the plot that I ended up rather disappointed; it seems she was just there to be the girl, nothing more. Perhaps that's not fair since most of the mercs were pretty much just there to stand around and die, but she's one of only three faces that I recognised so I kinda assumed she would have a bigger role.

I didn't quite get why Diaz betrayed them at the end. Perhaps it was revenge for Riddick killing Santana, or maybe it was to make sure that Johns didn't force them to give Riddick their ship? Also I'm not sure why he sabotaged one of the hover-bikes since he was planning on just killing them there, but that's not really important so never mind.

I didn't quite buy into Johns' change of heart at the end. Riddick says he didn't kill your son but won't actually give you the details of what happened, so you decide to save his life and give him a ship? Eh, I just wish there had been more time for the relationship between Riddick and the  surviving mercs to develop, I think it would have been more enjoyable if they'd been forced to work together more.

I really like the design of the scorpion things, but I didn't understand how they hunted without eyes. If it's all by sound then I kinda feel that they would have a hard time picking up on things outside the water when they are completely submerged, plus I don't think they could have homed in on Riddick even when he wasn't moving if they were just hunting by sound. Maybe it was smell as well? There was a lot of noise going on with those tails, were they sniffing the air? Perhaps that coupled with sound would be enough, I don't know, I don't feel it was clear enough (or maybe I'm just thick). It's just that Riddick was being super-sneaky around the humans but the weird water creatures had no trouble spotting him at all times.

I liked the hints of former civilization that we saw on the planet, it would have been nice if that angle was fleshed out a little more. You know, what happened to them, etc. It seems a shame to have a couple of interesting ruins then just change location without anyone even acknowledging them.

I found it a bit strange that everyone was ready to kill Riddick even though he was the only one who knew where their power nodes were hidden. I guess they figured they could find them eventually or that they could send out a call for help - this was before they learned of the scorpion creatures - but he had seemed quite confident strolling up to them earlier so I assumed from his behavior that he should have been safe. I guess he overestimated them?

Santana was... inconsistent.  Fun, but inconsistent. He lets Dahl beat the crap out of him without resistance or retaliation, then starts picking fights with her later for no apparent reason. One minute he gets in people's face, the next he shrinks away. Perhaps I'm just assuming that, because he's the villain in a Riddick movie, he's supposed to be a two-dimensional cartoon character, and as a result I'm just not able to accept that he's actually a reasonably deep human being who gets scared or swallows his pride some times but stands up for himself others? Perhaps they just wanted to keep him a little unpredictable?

White Male Comic Heroes Coming To A Screen Near You!

So a while back I started watching Arrow. I enjoyed it at first, but by about the eighth episode I stopped. Recently my friend suggested I watch Flash. I wasn't expecting much, but I gave it a shot.

Now I love the Flash in the comics and even the Justice League cartoons; he's easily one of my favourite superheros, but I've always believed that he's a hard character to persistently write good stories for since super speed (at least at his level) pretty much trumps most things that aren't super speed. Now that's a problem that Superman has since he's so powerful, but in some ways it's worse with the Flash since he can solve most problems in the blink of an eye, so you have to come up with some contrived crap to regular create drama or even just to keep things moving for a whole comic book / TV episode.

Another problem that I expected a TV show to face was that super speed is not cheap. Drawing super speed is easier than filming it, meaning that typically a movie or TV show would either need a huge budget or have the Flash spend most of his time moving at regular speed.

Overall what I expected was a show with overly-contrived story lines, manufactured drama (as I like to call it, that is most of the problems are caused by the main characters being stupid), and the Flash spending most of his time moving at normal speeds. Well, I've finished the fourth episode and so far it's had all those problems, though none were as bad as I had feared. However, it had another problem that I hadn't considered; in retrospect I probably should have.

Lets talk about the Arrow for a moment. In early episodes that I have seen, Arrow - a white male - dispensed justice aided by his black male sidekick. As Oliver Queen he had feelings for a woman that he couldn't be with, but he tried to maintain his long-standing friendship with her without revealing that he was the Arrow, which resulted in him continually making promises to her then letting her down, meaning he had to keep awkwardly apologizing to her all the time. Her father, by the way, is a police detective who has a special interest in Oliver. Also, as practically every episode takes pains to point out, someone very close to him is harboring a dark secret, a secret that ties into how he became a superhero in the first place.

Now let's get back to the Flash. In the early episodes that I have seen, Flash - a white male - dispensed justice aided by his black male sidekick. As Barry Allen he had feelings for a woman that he couldn't be with, but he tried to maintain his long-standing friendship with her without revealing that he was the Flash, which resulted in him continually making promises to her then letting her down, meaning he had to keep awkwardly apologizing to her all the time. Her father, by the way, is a police detective who has a special interest in Barry. Also, as practically every episode takes pains to point out, someone very close to him is harboring a dark secret, a secret that ties into how he became a superhero in the first place.

Hmm, where have I heard that before? I guess if it ain't broke don't fix it? Now I'm not saying that it's "exactly the same show", but it does feel very familiar - more so than can be attributed to it just being another superhero TV show. And that's just disappointing, even more so since they are both being made by the same company. Give us some variety DC!

Speaking about variety, how about some superheroes that aren't white males? So far you've given us movies or shows about Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Green Arrow, and the Flash. I mean, unless you count Superman (and I don't), all of those characters are American! You couldn't even give us a non-American white male superhero? Hell, the actors playing those characters are more ethnically diverse than the characters themselves!

Yes, I know that these are some of DC's oldest - and therefore most established and loved - characters, dating back many decades to less enlightened times. I just think that we need to grow beyond that. Hell, these days the market is so multicultural and the superhero genre (on-screen at least) so full of white males that it's just good business to have a more varied product line.


But you know, what bothered me even more about the Flash than the fact that it was so unoriginal, was the way the female characters were written. There are two recurring female characters so far: Iris West and Caitlin Snow.

Caitlin is one of the three former STAR labs staff members who are the first to know what Barry is capable of. Harrison Wells was the head of STAR labs; he's responsible for everything that has happened, and is also possibly a time-traveller who has a mysterious connection with Flash. Cisco is an inventor/engineer, who made Flash his suit and designs all the gadgets that they use for, well, everything. Caitlin is a bio-engineer; I'm not sure why you need a "bio-engineer" to build a particle accelerator, but hey, what do I know? Anyway, she's basically the medic. She's also the blandest and least likable character in the series so far. Plus by episode three she already needs Barry's help with her emotional problems.

Iris is Barry's oldest friend. He has a really obvious crush on her which she (so far) has not returned or acknowledged. Her father is a police detective, Barry's foster father and boss. She's currently dating her father's younger parter. What the hell is this, a soap opera? Geez. Anyway, so far she's been robbed in the middle of a huge crowd in a secure location; a pre-Flash Barry got beat up chasing after the thief and then missed the historic event that he had been looking forwards to for ages as a result. Whenever he tries to talk to her about his interests, she just stares at him until he apologizes, at which point she tells him in a condescending voice that he's an adorable nerd (seriously DC?). Barry's had to keep the secret of her boyfriend from his boss/foster father/confidant, as well as his own secret from her. She's constantly making out with her boyfriend right in front of him, which needless to say is painful for him (she has even gone to visit Barry in his lab just so that she can meet her boyfriend there out of her father's sight). Because of his feelings for her he couldn't form a relationship with Felicity - an attractive woman who really likes him, knows his secret identity, is equally intelligent, shares all his interests and even enjoys his nerdy jokes that no-one else gets.

In other words, her only purpose is to make his life harder and more complicated. Hell, it gets worse. Because she's dating her father's partner, apart from how awkward that makes it for him, her father now feels uncomfortable exposing his partner to risk knowing how badly it would hurt her if anything happened to him. As a result he very nearly gets himself killed when he tries to tackle a dangerous villain on his own. So yeah, basically every single thing this woman does makes life harder, more complicated, and even more dangerous for the menfolk. I'm actually surprised that she's only needed to be rescued once so far (twice if you count the laptop robbery).

This, it seems, is what DC thinks of women. I'm not a woman, and I know that DC is a large company and certainly not all people who work there think like that, but still I kinda have to say: screw you DC.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

And now, just for my personal satisfaction, I'm going to randomly complain about a bunch of other crap from the show.

So some guy grabs Iris' laptop when they are right in the middle of a crowd, halfway through STAR labs presentation for the start of the completed particle accelerator. Who the hell picks someone IN THE MIDDLE OF A PACKED CROWD IN A SECURE LOCATION SURROUNDED BY VIDEO CAMERAS RECORDING THE HISTORIC EVENT TAKING PLACE to try to snatch a bag from? Like, if you had to try to stage a robbery in the worst possible location, wouldn't you at least pick someone on the fringes of the crowd, not right in the middle? And then after pulling this huge risk to try to steal a laptop, rather than just run away, he rounds a corner then waits for the guy chasing him so he can assault him... WITH THE LAPTOP HE'S TRYING TO STEAL? Seriously? Aren't you planning on selling the damn thing? How are you going to do that after you've broken the damned thing? Oh, then he climbs over a chain fence and walks right into a police offer; the dad's partner in fact. Look, I don't know where they were in relation to the building and everything, but it didn't look like a place where people are that likely to be walking around - it was completely empty apart from them after all - so I find it quite unlikely that the partner just happened to be there at that exact moment. Ugh, something tells me that somewhere down the line it's going to be revealed that Harrison Wells set the whole thing up to make sure that Barry would be in his lab instead of at STAR when the accident happened.

He needed to run over 700mph to stop the twister? Don't most twisters have winds moving at like 200mph tops? And those are massive ones that destroy whole cities, not something 5 meters across. Plus we only ever see him running under 300 on the treadmill, and that's in a straight line - he was running in a tight circle around the twister, so... dunno, seemed to me like they just threw a big number in to sound dramatic.

Every single one of the first three episodes ends with Harrison Wells doing something suspicious. OK guys, it was surprising the first time, but every episode? It had seriously lost it's impact by the third time.

Felicity hacked the whole city's communication network in like 5 seconds with probably less than 20 keystrokes. Apart from the fact that she wasn't actually typing very fast, I'm fairly certain you need to type more than two words in order to hack into an entire communication system.

So their plan is to lock super-villains in tiny boxes and just forget about them? Really? That's inhumane, illegal even in prisons (fairly certain there are laws determining how long you can put someone in solitary), and just stupid; are you going to let them out some day? If not, I would argue that it's actually more humane to kill them. I suppose that they aren't thinking that far ahead, but right now I find the idea disturbing. Eh, considering that these people are supposed to be geniuses I would have liked a bit more discussion about the details and long term solutions, but maybe they'll build on that later, so I guess it's too soon to get too annoyed.

So his Mom was killed by someone with superpowers? Someone who no-doubt has some stronger connection with him (it probably involves time travel). I dunno, I'm just really sick of "chosen ones". I mean, lately everyone is a chosen one and it's never just a coincidence anymore. Maybe all the script writers are parents who thing their children owe them everything and should be more grateful for it? I just don't know.

I was not impressed with Flash for being angry with Cisco for building a freeze gun to use against him just in case (quite why a freeze gun sounded like the perfect weapon is beyond me, surely a laser or something would at least be too fast for him to dodge. Hell, if you made it emit light outside of the visual spectrum he wouldn't even be able to see it to dodge it!); after all they made such a big deal about working together to stop other people who were given superpowers without even discussing the idea that said other super-powered-individuals might not be villains, so clearly being prepared to deal with super-powered opponents is the name of the game here. Besides, what if you ran into someone with mind-control and he told you to kill everyone? Or just someone else with super-speed? What makes you think you're the only one with that particular power set? Hell, it looked like the guy who killed your mom was pretty fast, so... besides, you don't get to be angry at someone you just met recently because they don't completely trust you yet. Trust isn't something you're owed.

Speaking of the freeze gun, they said it receives regular firmware updates? From Cisco? Then why the hell doesn't he just pass it a firmware update that renders it inoperable, rather than some mumbo jumbo about boosting signals in order to track it? And how the hell did "Captain Cold" block the signal later? There was no indication that he was tech-savvy enough to modify this extremely advanced and non-standardized piece of equipment, EVEN IF he was able to figure out that they were tracking him through it (I mean, they caught up to him after he was in a shootout with the police in a museum that they already knew he was going to try to rob, so I'm not sure what the tracking thing was about anyway).

Also, they said the freeze gun runs on fuel; what kind of fuel? Is it something that will run out anytime soon? Is it something Captain Cold can figure out how to replace? Less of a complaint I suppose, I just think that this is a rather important detail that they should have thrown in a few lines of dialogue to explain, it would have fleshed it out a bit more.

Ugh, that nonsense with Cold and the train was so bad. So Barry runs of from Star labs to where they have determined Cold is. Cisco, Caitlin and Felicity decide to follow. Captain Cold gets on a train just before the Flash arrives, so he jumps on as it's leaving the station. So now he's on a train, which is super narrow; he's going to have an extremely hard time dodging Cold's fairly wide freeze beam. So what does he do? Stand there and talk to Cold instead of knocking him out before he can do anything. Cold then basically foreshadows his plan; we see Flash stop smiling as he starts to realise that something is wrong. Then Cold points the gun at the floor. So what does Flash do? Knock the gun out of his hand before he can pull the trigger right? Nope, he just stands there and waits for Cold to shoot the floor with his freeze beam. Then Cold opens a door and drops a one-liner before jumping out (of a moving train, did he really think this was a good plan? Did he even really know he would have time to jump out before the train wrecked? Or that he would be able to keep his footing as it started shaking? This is a terrible plan!). So naturally Flash hops over and knocks him out before he can jump, right? Nope, he just stands there and stares at him. He may be the fastest man alive, but it seems he has the slowest reflexes in history.

Anyway, so Cold jumps out of the train - we see him land to the right of the tracks btw. The wheels lock due to the ice, which apparently causes the whole train to derail spectacularly, with cars flipping over and bursting into flame (not sure what's burning, it's not like they store fuel on those things). It travels a good, I don't know, fifty meters? More? I can't tell, but it's a fair distance. During this time Flash jumps on and off several times carrying passengers. The final time that he jumps off, we see a car fall perpendicular to the track, effectively blocking sight from where Cold should be, farther back. Flash lands on the ground to the right of the tracks and collapses, then is instantly hit by a freeze beam that comes from where Cold is standing further along the tracks rather than further back! Even if I'm wrong about the directions and positions - and if I am it's the cinematographer's fault for not communicating everything properly - then Cold is still FAR too close to Flash's final position.

They talk for about twenty seconds, then suddenly the Cisco, Caitlin and Felicity are right behind Captain Cold. In the middle of a train wreck. That doesn't seem to be close to any roads. How the hell did they get there? And they're holding a vacuum cleaner that Cisco says he stuck "a lot of LEDs" on it. So let me get this straight: Flash leaves STAR labs traveling at over 200 mph, jumps straight onto a train, then withing one minute he's frozen to the ground with Cold standing over him. In this time those three normal-speed human beings found the (fairly huge and heavy looking) vacuum cleaner, stuck working LEDs on to it, carried it out of the fairly massive STAR labs complex into the parking lot, hopped into a car (I'm assuming they used a car?), drove to town at, what, 70 mph? Let's say 100 mph max (but we're talking about inner city driving here so realistically it would be far slower than that), stopping for traffic lights and so on, drove along or parallel to the train tracks (?) until they reached the site of the crash, bundled the vacuum cleaner out of the car, and wondered around until they found those two in the middle of the burning wreckage? OK, I'm starting to understand: turns out the Flash is actually a hell of a lot slower than advertised! Either that or the writing on this show is garbage.

How To Train Your Dragon 2 review

According to IMDB, this movie has the same director (well, one of the directors anyway) as the first one. Which is very puzzling to me since it seems to have no idea what made the first one so good. In fact it almost seemed to be going out of it's way to destroy the legacy of the original.


Let's start with the positives. The animation is much improved over the first. There were some beautiful landscapes and gorgeous scenes that did a great job of capturing the feeling of the joy of flight. It was fun to see all the characters again and there was some really great chemistry between them at times.

So what didn't I like about it? Well, I'll go into details in the spoilers section, but I think my biggest issue was the message. The message of the first movie was to try to see past surface differences and old grudges; to bridge boundaries; to break cycles of violence and find peace. It's about forging friendships and learning to accept each other even if we initially appear to be different.

In contrast, the message that I get from the sequel is "you have to protect your group against others, even if it requires violence". The phrase that they keep quoting is in fact "a chief protects his own". In other word, "it's us versus them". OK, look, I don't object to the basic idea that we have to be ready to fight to protect ourselves and those we care about, but the message of this movie is basically THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF THE FIRST ONE!

And you know what? I like the first movie's message more. I mean, "a chief protecting his own" is exactly what Stoick was doing in the first film, and it pretty much claimed he was in the wrong. If Hiccup had been all "a chief protects his own" in the original, he would have just killed Toothless at the start and there wouldn't have been any movie.

Furthermore, to a lesser extent there was also a message in the original about about solving problems by carefully studying them and trying to find intelligent solutions rather than attacking them with brute force, as exemplified by how Hiccup studies the dragons and is able to pass various challenges using his knowledge of them rather than by attacking them with weapons. In this one, they solve all the problems in the end by just being physically more powerful.

For example (spoiler warning for this paragraph), in the first movie they defeat a giant dragon by using teamwork and figuring out and exploiting it's weaknesses thanks to their understanding of dragons. In this one they defeat a giant dragon by Toothless just standing on a rock and spitting fireballs at it until it gives up. Because he's just inherently superior apparently. The hell was the point of that?

Another thing that I took issue to was that in the first movie Hiccup was shown as being different from everyone around him, and suffering because of that, but eventually he and his village learned that being different wasn't a bad thing, that he didn't need to be ashamed of being different. Again, that's a good message. But in this movie, they basically take that away from him. I'll leave the details to the spoiler section, but suffice to say it felt like downright character assassination to me.

What's more, the story felt like a mess to me. It's rather hard to pinpoint why other to say that there were a lot of characters running back and forth without achieving anything or really contributing significantly to the story. Many characters felt marginalized; all of the kids, including even Astrid, have a lot of screen time but don't actually contribute at all to the story: with the single exception of mentioning Hiccup and Berk to Drago, you could take out all the scenes featuring the kids and it wouldn't affect the plot at all. In fact, to me, even Hiccup seemed to be little more than an observer for most of the film, and Toothless was actually very passive until right at the end.

To be honest, I feel like the first movie was made because there was a story that the creators wanted to tell, while this one felt like is was made because... somebody needed their next paycheck. It just doesn't seem to have a prevailing theme or direction or message; it's just about some stuff that happened to some guys we know.


Overall, I give it a 6/10. It's... not a terrible movie on it's own, in fact if the first had never existed I probably would have enjoyed this a fair deal, it's just that it's so much stupider and less meaningful that the original that I was severely disappointed.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

Let's talk a bit more about the the whole "us versus them" message. Hiccup spends the whole movie trying to find a peaceful solution (although he doesn't do a very good job of it, he can't even convince his father to give peace a chance), and as a result of this people get hurt and his father dies. So the message isn't just "it's us versus them", it's also "don't be naive and try to find a peaceful solution"? I guess it's supposed to be "if peace fails then be ready to fight", but the fact that his attempt to find peace just made the situation worse creates the impression that the movie is preaching against even trying. What makes it worse is that from the start his parents are saying "a chief protects his own", then at the end Hiccup starts saying it too; the implication being that they knew better all along and he was just being naive, that he learned the lesson and that we should learn it too. It's us versus them. At least that's the impression I got. It didn't help that the antagonist was basically unreasonable and insane, as if to say "don't bother trying to reason with your enemies, they are inhuman and won't listen".

I'm like a stuck record but... the first movie was about breaking barriers, unlikely friendships, and doing what you know to be right despite how much everyone around you ridicule's you for it. This one was about how important it is to fight and be strong. I mean, yes, they beat the big dragon in the end of the first, but they did it by outsmarting it, using knowledge gained by careful observation, and thanks to courage and teamwork. They beat the big dragon at the end of this one by... Toothless being more powerful. In the first one the Hiccup's redeeming features were his intelligence, compassion, curiosity and observation skills, as well as his creativity and crafting skills. In this one his redeeming features were... having the more powerful dragon as a pet.

They won by being stronger, not smarter or more caring or braver or by putting aside personal gain and ego in order to work together. While I enjoy plenty of movies where the good guys at the end beat the bad guys by being stronger (which is not always the case; often they "win" through intelligence or perseverance or plain old luck), it's usually because they worked harder or had, lets say, "purer" motivations that allowed them to push themselves harder, or thanks to their courage and willingness to put themselves at risk for others, that they found the strength or skill to win. In this movie, it's mainly because Toothless was just inherently more powerful. He was basically born superior. Yes, his motivations are arguably stronger, but we don't see that as being a factor, we just see him get angry and start shooting fireballs at the big dragon until he wins. I don't think that's a very useful or strong take-home message.

Dragon-riding feels a whole lot less special now that everyone and their mothers (literally) have been doing it for decades. Personally I didn't like the whole "Oh yeah, you're not actually all that special, you're just doing what you were genetically programmed to do" inheritance thing. What, was he "destined" to make peace with dragons? Makes his achievement a lot less special or meaningful in my eyes if it's just something that's in his blood, rather than something that he did himself out of courage and compassion. He's not a person, he's just a set of lucky genes it seems. This is what I meant before when I said that they took his uniqueness from him. I mean, why does everything have to be some sort of destiny that our parents have already created for us? It really seems to be all the rage in Hollywood these days, and it's stupid. It's just a way to try to make things seem more important, when in fact it makes them less so. I mean, if Valka was the first person to ever ride a dragon, then why wasn't the first movie about her instead of Hiccup? Her story is the more historically significant and impressive, Hiccup is just some guy who came later and followed in someone else's footsteps.

Besides, it really didn't make any sense that his mother was like that. In the first movie Stoick gives Hiccup a helmet made from Valka's breastplate, and says his helmet is the matching pair. This makes us believe she was a large strong warrior woman, probably with a similar frame and personality to Stoick. But when we see her in this movie, not just in the present but also in a flashback, she clearly could never have worn such a breastplate. Plus, she never comes across as a tough Viking warrior who's used to having to fend off dragons; it's almost like she's never seen them before and is completely panicking.

While it's not unbelievable that Stoick would have married a woman like that, it seems a bit out of character; remember that the whole village is very much more like Stoick than like Hiccup, so if she was so much like Hiccup that he inherited his... whatever it is that made him different enough that he could make friends with dragons, then she would have been essentially a social outcast as well. Plus she clearly had more of it since the dragons took one look at her and carried her away to... be their pet/queen/dancing monkey or whatever. Why the hell did the Dragons even choose her anyway? Cos that's basically what they did. Did their dragon-sense tingle and tell them she was special? Basically she was a chosen one, and Hiccup's achievements were all hereditary and not in any way his own doing, and Toothless was just born better. Everyone in this movie was just born special it seems.

One thing that annoys me though about how they made out that he just inherited all his "uniqueness" (I can't think of a better word for it I'm afraid) from his mother, is that if that was the case you would have expected Stoick to make some comment at some point in the first movie about how Hiccup is "his mother's son" or something, perhaps be slightly less surprised about how Hiccup is so different, or even be more accepting of it because it reminds him of his wife, but there was just never any indication originally that she was any different in any way to the rest of the dragon-killing vikings of old Berk. Them portraying her as the first dragon rider in this movie just doesn't fit with what we already know.

Also, she's a terrible mother and a horrible person. She clearly never even tried to come back and see her son, never mind try to stop Berkians from killing dragons. She had the dragons eating out of the palm of her hand, she easily could have had them drop her off somewhere and wait, then just walk into town. But she says she's too scared. Well, I'm sorry, but if the choice is take a risk (I'm not even really sure what the "risk" actually is; was she expecting Stoick to kill her or something if she ever came back?) or never see your son again, most mothers I think would take the risk.

Having said all that I really liked the scene where Stoick was reunited with Valka. It was sweet and emotional and I liked the singing bit.

Oh, and by the way: "Drago"? Really? Running out of ideas for names are we?

What's up with that flaming sword? It doesn't make sense and also doesn't look like the kind of thing the Hiccup that I know would spend time and effort to create, seeing as -unlike the other children- he was never portrayed as being interested in playing with swords or anything like that. Ditto with the weird full-leather body suit and face mask. Maybe it makes sense if you watch the series?

That whole "love quadrangle" thing was kinda funny, but also kinda weird and pointless, and I felt it lacked a payoff at the end, being kinda just dropped with no real conclusion.

What was with all the dragon mind control crap? How did Drago control the alpha? How did Hiccup's mother get Toothless, who was in a decidedly hostile mood, to roll over and go to sleep with a single wave of her hand? I don't even want to try to think about the logic behind experienced veteran dragons - Toothless killed a damned Dragon Queen last movie! - being completely powerless to resist an "Alpha", but baby dragons - who are developed enough to fly after all - not even noticing his mind control. I mean, Toothless risks his own life to save Hiccup every other day, yet here he was actually forced to attempted to kill Hiccup and he didn't seem to hesitate at all. Hell, Hiccup didn't do a damn thing to stop it either, other than hold his hand out. "Oh, but it's OK, because he overcame it in the end". Yeah, when the bad guy just stood there and let him get close instead of killing the little twerp himself. I guess it was supposed to be the triumph of friendship over adversity, but it just didn't work for me at all.

How did the alpha understand what Drago wanted anyway? Does he speak English? Hell, how can he even tell the difference between one human and the other? They're like the size of ants to him.

So Drago has been building a dragon army for something like twenty years? That's... quite a long time, I just feel as if I need more information about what's been happening all that time. I mean, he killed a bunch of chieftans with dragons, then just sat around collecting more dragons for two decades? Or has he been involved in constant war, but no-one in Berk (including Stoick, who was already kinda involved before) ever heard anything about an army of vikings and dragons working together?

Personally I felt that there were too many times when they could have killed Drago but chose not to. I know that it's a kids cartoon, but after Stoick got killed, I kinda expected Hiccup to be a little more willing to use lethal force if that's what it took, but instead he just kinda stands there talking to him at the end and forgets that there's a dragon the size of an entire mountain standing just five feet away. Hell, they didn't even kill him at the end despite how much harm he'd caused and even though it's been shown that he's a very dangerous guy to forget about, one who is perfectly willing to spend twenty years preparing his revenge if that's what it takes. So the writers were willing to kill Stoick but not Drago?

By the way, I'm not happy that Stoick did not kill a one-armed man in personal combat when he was fighting to protect the woman he loved - this was after he had already disarmed Drago by the way. He was clearly willing to and I have a hard time believing he didn't have the skill or strength.

Nobody ever really did anything that could actually be described as intelligent, which I find disappointing. I mean, what was Astrid thinking, telling Drago about Berk? After both Hiccup's father and mother, who both hold opposing views, tell him you can't reason with Drago, he still doesn't listen, and gets his dad killed as a result. I can't help but blame Hiccup for Stoick's death; which again makes me feel that the movie is preaching against even trying to find a peaceful solution, if it managed to make me angry at Hiccup for not going straight for the jugular.

Why did Drago let them live after taking their dragons?

How did Drago learn to fly Toothless so quickly? Learning to coordinate tail movements is not easy, assuming he could even figure out what the apparatus was, but he just hopped on and flew away.

Since Hiccup added a lock for the tail to allow Toothless to fly independently, and we know from the short that he's figured out how to allow Toothless to control the tail fin and fly, why didn't he leave it locked or put the full controllable system back on? Seeing as he kept falling off and leaving Toothless stranded, I think it's something he should have thought of.

The final battle scene was much, much, much less impressive and intelligent and entertaining and understandable and believable and sensible than the final showdown of the first movie. Seriously, they just stood there and breathed fireballs at each other? Or rather one breathed fireballs while the other just stood and shook his head. Who came up with that idea? Whoever it was, fire him.

So they won the day in the end by Toothless realizing he had new powers and turning out to be the most powerful dragon in the world? What is this, a video game? I mean, seriously, they won because their pet dragon was more powerful than the other guy's pet dragon: it's Pokemon.

Hiccup's mom jabbed Toothless in the neck and suddenly a bunch of flappy double fins popped out of his spinal column? Apart from the questions "What the hell was that?" and "What the hell was the point of that?", I think they looked terrible and ruined a very cool dragon design. Again, it felt like video-game logic more than anything else. Perhaps it was so that they could sell Toothless toys to people who already bought the old one?

Those glider wings are way too small for Hiccup to be flying so vertically. And can't he steer at all? Remember Hiccup has basically understood how dragons fly so as to work with Toothless to fly again, yet every time he uses the glider an obstacle magically appears right in front of him - not a large wide obstacle, but a single spar of rock or ice that he should be able to steer around if he has any control at all, but he doesn't - and Toothless has to save him. Seriously, EVERY SINGLE TIME! I counted three occasions where he used the glider wings and had to be rescued, and none where he used them and didn't. And he doesn't even bother to say thank you, he's really taking Toothless for granted these days. I mean, why did he even try it without considering a way to steer or picking a nice safe stretch of air where he knew there was nothing in the way first; he's supposed to be a smart guy after all, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to put together the glider wings in the first place.

I know I shouldn't complain about this since it's not really that much less believable than anything else, but... breathing ice? The films don't address the idea of magic, but from the way that Toothless analyses dragons and we see the mechanics of how they work to some extent, it gives the feeling that their fire is some kind of organic process rather than magic. But as breathing ice could only be magic, I kinda felt that it didn't fit the tone of the rest of the movie. Meh, it's a really minor complaint I suppose.