Smallville 6: Wonderful Rewriting of the Superman Mythology

First off, I want to implore the people who write and produce Smallville to consider doing something similar with Batman. Superman has never been as interesting or as popular a character as his Dark Knight counterpart and the success of this series and Heroes has clearly shown that comics and comic book ideas can garner mainstream attention.

This season of Smallville might be the best since the now modern classic first. The first season’s strength lay in the blooming relationship between Clark and Lana and I often marveled at the way the writer and director managed to create such shots of longing whenever the focus was on Clark and his never-quite-getting-the-girl drama. Here, in Season 6, we get great previews of things to come – We get an introduction to The Justice League, the Bizarro Superman, Lex Luthor embracing his evil side, and so much more. There are so many shocks that happen during the season that if I tell you anymore, it will ruin the experience for you, but I guarantee you that the last episode will have you yearning for more. After two weak seasons, Smallville finally hits its stride one more with Season 6.

Superhero Movie: Super Fun

I have to admit, I was skeptical about this movie when I saw the previews – good parodies of the superhero genre tend to be bad (Mystery Men being an exception). But this movie, in sharp contrast to the Scary Movie series and other things along those lines, was entertaining. I think what made this movie so funny was that it was relentless in its in appropriateness – from parodies of Stephen Hawking and Tom Cruise to some really over-the-top sexual jokes, this movie had everyone in the theatre laughing and groaning at the same time. My only complaint was the hurried-ness of the ending. It felt like the director was trying to wrap things up as quickly as possible. Other than that, an enjoyable movie that will make you laugh over and over again.

Doomsday: One Weird Apocalyptic Ride

This is one crazy movie. Director Neil Marshall has created a picture that is a blood-filled amalgamation of a number of end-of-the-world/apocalyptic-type movies – it has sprinkles of Mad Max, Children of Men, Escape from New York, and The Stand to name a few. The opening is simple – Reaper, a plague devastates Glasgow and the rest of Scotland, and in response, the English government builds a series of walls armed to the teeth in the hopes of containing the plague. Unfortunately, decades later, London experiences a second outbreak of the deadly virus and the government sends in a team to look for the survivors and a cure. What they find on the other side of the wall is a war being fought between the survivors, with one side living like 1970’s punks and the other side living like a group of Medieval peasants straight out of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.

Doomsday is certainly a fun movie, if not one that is full of more decapitations and stomach-churning scenes than I can remember in a movie. I doubt it will do that well in theaters, but it’s over-the-top-ness is something I think many with a strong stomach will enjoy. If anything, the first 20 minutes, although not introducing anything necessarily new to this genre of movie, is still eerie and complete enough in its execution that you are willing to cut the rest of the movie some slack for some of its ill-advised choices. While watching the movie, I couldn’t help but think that the writers had simply wanted to compile all of their favorite pieces from different movies and throw them together.

It’s worth the $10.50 or whatever price of admission is wherever you are.

10,000 B.C.: Fun at the Movies ?

I was pretty excited to see this movie when I saw the previews – everything looked so visually stunning and given that the director Roman Emmerich had worked on Independence Day, I knew that even if the movie was awful, all would not be lost because at least the sets would look cool. Once you push through the simply wooden, even awful acting, and the oft-cliched filled script, it’s kind of a fun movie. A.O.Scott of the New York Times gave the movie a lukewarm review, but at least saw that many of the elements necessary for a good movie outing were all present: love, a great chase scene, cheesy speeches, and one massive battle scene.

The movie follows the story of D’Leh and the woman he loves Evolet. Both live in a remote area and are a part of a tribe of mammoth hunters who are waiting for the last great hunt. When a group of barbarians sweep through the village and take Evolet, D’Leh embarks on a long journey to rescue her. Along the way, Emmerich provides us with a smorgasborg of prehistoric “stuff” including sabertooth tigers, pyramids, ancient tribes, and everything in-between. I’m not sure of the historical accuracy of what takes place, but that’s not something that necessarily works against the film. You almost don’t even care. My only major complaint is that some of the acting is so terrible that you find yourself groaning through some of the scenes. One of the death scenes is so awfully acted that it reminded me of Trinity’s death in the Matrix Revolutions where I found myself trying to restrain my laughter. At the same time, the acting was good enough that I was cheering during the final battle scene.

I’m relatively sure the film is going to do well in the box office, but not so well with critics. No matter – the movie has enough positives going for it that it’s worth the price of admission.