- Joined
- Nov 26, 2019
- Favourite title
- Shenmue
I actually like The Punisher character too as he's very anti-superhero and more like a normal guy that tragedy befalls but they haven't done a good movie with that character. The Dolph Lundgren 1990s Punisher is unwatchable and the 2004 Thomas Jane Punisher movie had potential and John Travolta was easily hateable as the villain, but the rest of the movie went for the comical aspects and never really evolved. Thomas Jane was not convincing as Punisher.As someone more of a Detective Comics fan and not a Marvel Comics fan, I have never gotten into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (to be fair, the Detective Comics live-action movies are a hit or miss with me, with The Punisher and Shang-Chi probably being the only characters I like. However, Black Widow did moderately catch my attention primarily due to the Femme Fatal genre. So I will probably see it at some point.
That being said, I enjoy Michael Keaton and Benjamin Affleck as the live-action Batman while Kevin Conroy is the definitive voice of The Dark Knight for me. Also, this is probably an unpopular opinion, but I never really connected with Christopher Nolan's take on the Batman mythos nor Heath Ledger's Joker. It was not bad, but I did not see what was so special about his performance much like Sonic Mania. That being said, I did enjoy the utterly nihilistic Joaquin Phoenix's portrayal of the Joker though.
My favorite live-action film is still Batman Returns directed by Tim Burton. My favorite animated film is still the underrated (in my opinion), animated Batman feature Mask of the Phantasm released in 1993. Hell, I remember even Siskel and Ebert expressing remorse for overlooking it lol.
Finally, I am also a big fan of the Arkham video game series and The Dark Knight Returns comics by Frank Miller. As far as movies premiering soon, I am only really interested in Shang-Chi and Snake Eyes (even though I was never a GI JOE fan).
Shang Chi I have never heard of until I saw the preview for it at the cinema during Black Widow. I love Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh so they are reason enough for me to see it, and I must admit, it does look good in and of itself and much better than I would have expected from a comic book movie on a virtually unknown character to non-comic book fans. I may just be a sucker for the Asian lore aspect, or maybe it's really going to be a solid film? Perhaps Marvel is getting a bit more gritty with their direction, which is a big surprise under Disney, but it's a welcomed surprise.
Since you enjoy both well written intellectual content and pure entertainment content I cannot recommend Black Widow enough, preferably in the cinema for the ultimate experience. After sleeping on it I may have to bump my review up to an 8/10 on the general film scale, and maybe a 9.5/10 on the comic book film scale, its really a damn good film, I just have a hard time not thinking that it could have been so much more without the chains of Marvel being involved, but if you take it for what it is, even with its restrictions its really good. I really appreciate that they let Johansson portray the character the way she wanted to in this film rather than leaning on the directors interpretation like in Iron Man 2 and the Avengers films. It's the first time they really give any type of justice to the character by not patronizing her and overly focusing on the cheeseball aspects of oversexualizing and cheapening the depth of the character and what she is facing with the child trafficking. They also don't throw a potato sack on the character to please the feminist culture and gut the film of keeping it as real as possible. Her sister is equally as impressive as a character and the actress Florence Pugh performs at a high level where at times I was more engaged and moved by her performance than Johansson or Winstone. The other two main hero members of the cast are great for supporting roles as well.
I grew up with the 90's Batman films and they were enjoyable during that time when I was a kid. I've seen parts of them in passing over the years as an adult and I don't really feel I could get into them much now, but they were entertaining for their time, and I feel they have aged much better than of the Spiderman, Avengers, Superman and other comic films in the last 20 years. When they were limited on having any good CGI it made the movies feel more hokey but also more interesting in that they had to lean on character development a bit more during that Batman era than during the current gen comic films where everything is action and CGI explosions. This is the reason I enjoyed Bale's Batmans as well that it grounded itself in more reality. I have yet to see Phoenix's Joker but he's a top notch actor in everything I've seen him in, so no doubt that is a good film.
I saw the trailer for Snake Eyes on a YouTube commercial a week or so ago and thought it looked like a really entertaining popcorn flick, until I saw the GI Joe part at the end, that turned me off entirely. It's possible though that if I can confirm from spoiler free reviews that it doesn't feel like a GI Joe film, or possibly if I don't have to be completely in tune with the GI Joe lore in order to enjoy it, I'll probably see Snake Eyes as well.