Written Reviews – Page 19

GameFAQs Review – Capcom Fighting Evolution (Xbox)

Capcom Fighting Evolution is a mixed bag. You either love it or hate it because of what it is: another recycling job disguised as a brand new game. All things considered, I had hesitated to pick this one when I saw it going for full price as opposed to being a budget title, but since the local EBGames had dropped the price on this title, I picked it up anyway despite all the negative press behind it and tried it out for myself. Is it really as bad as they say?

Continue reading “GameFAQs Review – Capcom Fighting Evolution (Xbox)”

COMIC REVIEW – Spider-Man: Torment (1990)

Todd McFarlane made a name for himself drawing Spider-Man in a fresh take that remains somewhat to this day. After a long stint on Amazing Spider-Man, Todd wanted to stretch his limbs and give this writing thing a shot. So Marvel gave the dude his own (adjectiveless) Spider-Man book and I’ll never forget the cover of that first issue; Spidey in that one pose amid a background of webbing, which came in either metallic silver, metallic bronze, or full-color varieties. The full-color one (pictured) was kinda lame, but the silver and bronze variants were pretty cool and perfectly matched the tone of the book’s first major arc; a five-issue story called Torment.

Anyone familiar with McFarlane’s art should know what to expect; lots of nice little setpieces that sometimes gets a bit chaotic for its own good compounded with a lot of faces that look to have been molded from Playdoh. It’s an acquired taste and a style that fit the time it was produced in. Sadly, the same can be said for the story; serviceable for the time, but not something that holds up over time. A shame too, because the premise is actually interesting, with Spider-Man having to deal with an infection of sorts, as well as a more primal Lizard compared to what had been presented before and another sinister force with ties to an old foe who has left this proverbial plane of existence. Although to be fair, I do like the little moments between Peter and MJ; those are nice.

One thing is for certain; Torment would be a learning curve for McFarlane, who would go on to produce the comic series Spawn and essentially create a merchandising empire for himself. Not one of the guy’s best efforts and in terms of quality Spider-Man stories, there are certainly better ones, but for a pilot effort, it got the table set and is certainly worth a read as a period piece.

COMIC REVIEW – Justice League: The Nail (1998)

(2025 Update: The original version of this review erroneously stated this miniseries was published in 2004, when, in fact, it was Justice League: Another Nail – the sequel to this series from ’98 – that was published in 2004.)

Justice League: The Nail is an Elseworlds miniseries from 1998 that features an intriguing premise; the Kents runs over a nail that causes one of their tires to go flat, thus preventing them from discovering the Kryptonian rocket carrying its last son and negating Superman. The idea of a Justice League without a Superman of any kind is somewhat interesting and there’s a way to go about it that makes it compelling stuff.

And at first, it seems somewhat promising. A world where metahumans and vigilantism are viewed upon far less favorably than usual, the paths of various heroes, villains, and supporting players taking different turns ranging from drastic to not so far from the beaten path, and just an otherwise darker slant on the narrative of the DC Universe. I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that wanted to see this initial set-up go beyond the mere three-issue prestige miniseries format.

Unfortunately, by the time you get to the climatic finale in the last issue, the central premise of the book is basically undone and things somewhat take a turn towards the standard fare. I’m sorry if that comes off as a bit spoiler-y – not that it would matter since we already have a sequel mini whose covers spoiled the whole thing anyway – but sadly, once The Nail introduces another central character late in the game, it all becomes clear how this ends up going.

It’s a bit of a shame because The Nail is a really good story up to that point and Alan Davis’s art only compliments the narrative; a vibrant, colorful visual presentation with classical depictions of these heroes contrasting the less-than-cheery world they live in. If not for the final moments of the story, this could’ve been an interesting take on the lore.

As it is, it’s still a really good story and probably one of the better Elseworlds stories I’ve read, but it could’ve been so much more if it had stuck the course.

MOVIE REVIEW – See No Evil (2006)

The first official release of World Wrestling Entertainment’s film division is a pretty basic horror/slasher movie called “See No Evil” starring Kane, one of their big men wrestlers known for having an intimidating presence, hard-hitting moves, and one of the most convoluted backstories in wrestling. And let’s not pull any punches here; while this movie is promoted as the greatest horror movie of all time (mostly by WWE), it goes without saying that after having seen this movie, I can confirm it as one of the greatest comedies of all time.

Oh wait…

“See No Evil” sees a bunch of juvenile delinquents sent to a hotel so they can clean up. Of course, a monstrous murderer (played by Kane) also happens to be living in this hotel and we all know where that goes. Without giving away too much of the movie plot, this film has all the semblance and structure of an early-1980s slasher flick with most of the clichés intact, but without any of the scares that those films accompany. And that’s sort of the main problem with “See No Evil”. It tries so many of the tricks implied by its predecessors in the genre that it comes off as predictable; veteran horror fans will easily recognize some of the gimmicks ahead of time and even those who have only seen a few flicks should tell what happens next. It’s too generic to be scary.

The movie’s gory, no doubt, but it’s only there for the effect. The dark atmosphere instilled in the movie gives off that feel of terror initially, but as you get towards the end, it somehow feels out of place and gets tiresome quickly. The death scenes don’t come off as gory and horrific as much as they do laughable, although some of them are pretty inventive.

And the acting in this movie is pretty bad too, as the main characters aren’t developed enough for us to care when they eventually do get axed. Some can’t even portray fear properly; they just scream and cry in a vain effort to emote. So when they die, it only adds to the comedy because you don’t care enough about them that you simply consider them the equivalent of Starfleet Redshirts to the monster Kane.

As for Kane, he simply portrayed his movie character the same way he portrays his wrestling character, only he uses axes and hooks instead of hellfire and brimstone. There’s no doubt in my mind that Kane can be a great fixture in the horror genre. He has the look and presence for it; he just needs better material (specifically a script that isn’t written by someone who writes wrestling shows) to work with.

Now, despite what may seem like a harsh review, I actually enjoyed the film. It’s one of those laughably bad movies that you can’t help but sit down and enjoy. My main gripe with the film, again, is that it’s simply an exercise in filming gory kills and doesn’t have any frightening or shock moments. I enjoyed it, but I enjoyed because it was easy for me to laugh off some of what was supposed to be scary moments in the movie. If that happens because it was supposed to be that way, the movie would have been rated higher. But it didn’t. It got laughs because it’s a B-movie and it doesn’t help that the director’s previous experiences was porn flicks and music videos; not exactly overcomplicated things to direct anyway. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it tremendously.

If you don’t mind a fun B-movie or funny horror film, I’d highly recommend “See No Evil.” If you are a true enthusiast of the genre, I’d wait until the DVD comes out before checking it out. Everyone else should probably go watch something else.

MOVIE REVIEW – Be Cool (2005)

The other film that we rented was Be Cool, which was the sequel to a prior movie called Get Shorty, which I’ve never seen. This means that I had no clue what was going on and sadly, this movie doesn’t help much in terms of filling the blanks. Most sequels will at least have some kind of hook for those who somehow missed out on the first movie… especially if that movie came out A WHOLE DECADE AGO!

Be Cool doesn’t do that for newcomers… nor does it do the other thing you’d want out of a movie and that’s be entertaining. That last bit boggles the mind because you have a fantastic array of talented stars on this cast lineup (and even the Rock is there) who could have elevated even the crummiest of scripts, but I guess everyone was just phoning things in because there was nothing here. There are supposed jokes and references to things, but these fall flat and I don’t think even knowing anything about Get Shorty would make these even funnier.

By the halfway point, the audience (myself and a few others in the room) were pretty much done with the film and talking about other shit. There’s no comedy to be found here nor was there anything that we could at least poke fun of. When you can’t even mock a movie for its badness, that film is pretty much doomed to failure and unfortunately, we learned that lesson the hard way.

Be Cool is not a good movie. Avoid at all costs. Stick with the Ice Princess. It’s safe, but it’s at least fun to watch.

MOVIE REVIEW – The Ice Princess (2005)

We watched a couple movies some time ago and I’d figured that I would share some quick thoughts on each. Nothing major or anything. A typical IMDB quick review that tells you nothing, but considering this is outside my usual tastes, it might be worth something?

The first movie we picked out was The Ice Princess, which I can best describe as the typical Disney story where they make an ordinary girl and turn her into a pretty one that eventually learns a wholesome lesson of sorts, along with the usual trademark story twists that are typical in these types of movies. In this case, an ace physics student revives her old love of figure skating for the sake of a term paper, only to be torn between pursuing her academic dreams and her newly rediscovered passion for the sport she once held near and dear to her heart.

Look, I’m typically not fond of these sorts of films from the house of mouse; they typically follow a formula that they rarely (if ever) break away from and the Ice Princess is more of the same in that regard. Still, I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t enjoy this one. The cast is fairly likeable, the acting and writing is fairly safe and solid, and there’s some pretty slick figure skating routines. Sure, it’s hard to buy into the dramatic bits because this is fairly predictable fare, but still, this was a perfectly enjoyable little flick whose 90+ minute runtime flew by quickly and I stayed awake for the most part.

All in all, good, clean, harmless fun.

COMIC REVIEW – Green Lantern: Rebirth #4 (of 6)

When I first heard about this miniseries and its premise, my first question was simply “Why?” I mean, is there a critical necessity to restore the pre-Rayner status quo, bringing everyone back to life and continue on as if nothing has ever happened? I never really cared for the Hal Jordan character, simply because he never seemed all that interesting a character until he went “whacko”. Of course, there are those who disagree with me… so here’s the mini that brings him back to the role he’s familiar with and returns everything back to the way things were.

Questionable intentions aside, the one thing that isn’t questionable is the fact that the Rebirth miniseries has been a fairly entertaining and pretty good read thus far and really, isn’t that the only thing that matters in the long run? Although this fourth issue does advance the story a little further somewhat, it wasn’t as fulfilling as the previous issue, which had some nifty plotpoints such as the reasoning behind the old GL rings’ yellow impurity and why Rayner’s ring doesn’t have it. But who’s complaining?

The bit where Green Arrow strains himself to shoot an arrow with the power ring was a nice touch, going to show how much of a toll it takes to use the ring to create things as simplistic as a mere arrow and that it’s not easy to bear it. Of course, no one’s ever had a problem with this sort of thing before, but those were “special” cases for lack of a better excuse. Visually, the art’s consistently good as the three issues before this one. The choice of coloring and darker shades goes well with the book and really emphasizes the overall tone of the series.

Other than that, there’s not much else to say that you’ve probably haven’t heard elsewhere. Simply put, Rebirth, so far, is good stuff, regardless of your preferred ringbearer. Of course, if you’re patient, you’ll probably wait for the inevitable TPB that’ll come out in a few scant months, but why bother? Just read it now.

DVD Review – Destroy All Monsters (50th Anniversary Release)

I’ll sum up this release in a single sentence; Destroy All Monsters is a fun movie, but the DVD release is pure trash.

Touted as a 50th Anniversary special edition, this is a two-disc set; one disc contains the movie, while the other disc is a CD containing the entire score of the movie by Akira Ifujkube. And for what it’s worth, I like the soundtrack. Even if the tracks are mostly variations of the same themes over and over.

The DVD, on the other hand, is lazily put together. Basically, someone took the movie, digitized it, slapped it onto a disc, and punched out. Never mind the lack of subtitles, alternate audio tracks, or even a menu for navigation; there are NO CHAPTERS on this disc. This means that if you want to skip to a later portion of the film, you’re going to have to fast-forward that sucker like you would an old VHS tape.

The movie itself is great fun; the ninth film in the Godzilla film franchise brings about ELEVEN monsters wrecking havoc all over the world and while the action is limited, it’s never boring. There’s also a basic tale with the storytelling and such. Maybe someday I’ll touch on the movie in greater detail, but considering how rarely I get to watch a Godzilla film from this era, I had a blast with this old film, even if the video quality isn’t the greatest.

It’s just unfortunate that there wasn’t enough care put into the surrounding package to make it special or even manageable. A milestone of this ilk for a fondly remembered movie deserves better treatment than what it ultimately got.

But I dig the CD.

Ready To Rumble – The Absolute Worst Movie In Human History

Ready To Rumble is, without question, the worst movie in human history.

Released in 2000, it stars David Arquette and Scott Caan as two wrestling fans who set out on an adventure of sorts after their favorite wrestler was screwed out of the title and they’re gonna get him back on top. The favorite wrestler in question is a character named Jimmy King, played by Oliver Platt. The title that Jimmy was screwed out of was the WCW World title.

Once upon a time, there was a wrestling company called World Championship Wrestling. And for a couple years, they were the hottest thing in the wrestling world until the WWF got its shit together and kicked their asses. Somewhere along the way, WCW decided that they needed a movie to boost their popularity even further and THIS was the end result. To make matters worse, this was released during a time when WCW was producing some of the worst wrestling programming ever conceived and, in case some of you are wondering if this movie did anything to help WCW’s image, the movie failed to make bank at the box office, it was critically panned, and a year later, WCW would be shut down and its assets purchased by WWF.

The sad thing is that at its core, Ready To Rumble’s plot isn’t all that bad. Top wrestler in a company is screwed and exiled from the top and with the help of his two biggest fans, he eventually regains the confidence and his prestige, while being a bit more humble along the way. In the hands of competent filmmakers, this could have been the basis for a nice, feelgood comedy of sorts. Alas, in the case of Ready To Rumble, we don’t have competent filmmakers at the helm… but that’s okay. The one thing that this had in common with WCW was the lack of competent acumen present in producing a quality product.

Ready To Rumble fails on multiple levels. It fails as a comedy movie; it’s all low-brow, scat-based humor. Some of the slapstick bits are somewhat embarrassing. They somehow got a big time actor like Martin Landau to play an old-time wrestler and made him look like a loon. None of the actors in this movie come across as particularly good and a lot of that is less due to their performances (which aren’t great, but they tried to make the most of this garbage) and more due to the pisspoor writing. None of the jokes are funny. None of the action bits are particularly good. And then we get to the main bits of the movie, which is the wrestling bits.

And that brings up another point; Ready To Rumble fails as a wrestling movie. I understand that wrestling is largely seen as low brow entertainment, but considering that this featured WCW wrestlers and talent and Time Warner still owned WCW, you’d think that they would try to make a movie that depicted wrestling in a semi-respectable manner… or at the very least, didn’t make WCW look like the biggest shithole in the world. Wasn’t the point of this thing to try and get people interested in WCW? How did that work out?

Oh wait, it didn’t.

The fact of the matter is that Ready To Rumble treats wrestling like a joke. It depicts wrestling fans as being a bunch of retards who have no life whatsoever. It is a movie about wrestling that is so embarrassed to be a movie about wrestling that it doesn’t try to disguise that fact and does whatever it does to make wrestling seem like a joke. And hey, I understand that there are those who share that mindset. Wrestling is seen as low-brow entertainment and given the kind of shit that WWE puts on television these days, it’s hard to argue that point.

Here’s the thing, though; once upon a time, WWE did put out a movie; a little thing you may have heard of called No Holds Barred. And yes, it’s largely a live-action cartoon – it’s a Hulk Hogan movie, for fuck’s sake. Of course, it’s a cartoon… BUT when it comes to the wrestling aspect of it, at no point is it treated as a joke. Hogan plays the World Champion and a rival network wants Hogan to jump ship, so they start their own show, find their own tough guy, and sends challenges to Hogan to fight their guy Zeus. And the climax is a wrestling match where lots of stuff happen that probably shouldn’t, but within the context of the movie and the story that they’re telling, it works.

Now I’m not going to tell you that No Holds Barred is a GOOD movie – again, it’s a Hulk Hogan starring vehicle – but it does a far better job of treating the wrestling bits as straight as possible within the context of the story they’re telling. Ready To Rumble, on the other hand? Wrestling is a joke, everyone involved in the business is a joke, everyone who enjoys this stuff is a joke, and this whole thing becomes a self-fulfilling waste of time. Now does this film offend me as a wrestling fan? No, but it does offend me as a moviegoer. If you’re making a movie about this thing and you’re not going to take it seriously, why should I? The wrestling aspect is buried in shit and everything around that central piece of business – the “funny” bits – fails even harder.

The fact that WCW had a hand in this movie’s production and would allow their brand and wrestlers to be treated like total goofs while hoping that this would raise awareness in their own product… dude, who’s gonna watch this and think “This WCW looks stupid, but I WANT MORE?!” Ironically, the depiction of WCW in the movie isn’t that far removed from the product that was being presented on WCW television at the time of release.

But even beyond that, Ready To Rumble is just trash all around. You have talented actors who have done good stuff elsewhere reduced to scat jokes and juvenile humor that even the juveniles would consider too juvenile. I’ve seen David Arquette do good stuff elsewhere (Scream, that movie with the dog, whatever those Collect commercials were), Oliver Platt’s been in some good stuff, and again… they somehow dragged MARTIN LANDAU into this piece of shit. These are talented actors who have done good work and they are WASTED in this piece of shit.

I’m no fan of Hulk Hogan. At no point will I ever watch a Hulk Hogan movie and call it a good film. A good Hulk Hogan movie simply does not exist in this world. Even so, I would rather watch every single Hulk Hogan movie under the sun ten times over than suffering through another sitting of Ready To Rumble, which I have no problems in declaring the absolute worst movie ever made in human history. And I don’t need to have seen every movie ever made in human history to make that determination because I REFUSE TO BELIEVE that there is a movie out there that is worse than this.

This movie is trash and deserves to die.

COMIC REVIEW – Marvel Zombies #2 (2005)

(2025 Update: I’m using the banner from the Marvel Zombies series review that was written later down the road for the sake of convenience.)

“It started with a flash in the sky and a ripple in the clouds. The hunger is what brought it here – and feed it did, until the Marvel Heroes were no more. They were replaced with soulless monsters, driven only with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. This is no world of Marvel Heroes. This is the world of Marvel Zombies!”

And with that begins a miniseries that spun off from a Ultimate Fantastic Four storyline called Crossover, which teased the crossover between the Ultimate universe and the Marvel universe but gave us a world of zombies instead. One has to wonder why no such Earth existed in DC’s own Multiverse (before the whole Crisis thing came about… uh, forget it), but after one whiff of this, it’s pretty easy to see why.

In this world of Marvel Zombies, the zombified heroes have pretty much ate up most (if not all) of the human population, leaving behind only the super-powered zombies who either search for food or contemplate their means. Unlike the traditional idiot zombies of the past who scream “braaaaaaaaains”, these zombies maintain their intelligence, though their virtues have been replaced with a hunger for flesh.

Unfortunately, this potentially exciting set of consequences and series of events is marred by a fairly slow pace. The first issue opened up with a living Magneto holding his own against the zombies in a fairly good fight before becoming food, but from there, the series slows to a crawl as heroes contemplate how to cure or kill themselves, or where to find more food. Nothing particularly exciting, but the Silver Surfer showing up and the zombies about to go after would have led to a decent fight to open up the next issue. Instead, we get more of the same inactivity that plagued the second half of the first issue. Somewhere, this seems more than fine to some people, but this isn’t doing much for me. Yeah, the subtle lightness added (if you want to call it that) helps a bit, but not by much.

The book is visually adequate; the choice of dark tones and colors, as well as the grotesque appearances of the undead heroes really suit the subject matter at; much more so than those depicted in UFF. The amount of gore presented in this issue is plentiful despite the T+ rating the book’s been slapped with. You’d often wonder how much of this stuff got published, but really, stuff like this has happened before. Some people might be turned off by it, but considering I sat through the first two issues without so much a squeal, I’m sure there are those who find the gore tolerable or even hilarious.

Marvel Zombies, as a whole, is a mixed bag. On the one hand, it’s differs from all the other zombie-centric stuff in that the undead aren’t mindless, stupid creatures craving brains and so it offers something different. On the other hand, the undead are just intelligent, super-powered creatures craving brains and yet doesn’t make the storyline any different enough from your typical zombie storyline. If you’re a fan of horror stories or zombie stories in particular, then this is a good addition to your collection. If the Ultimate Fantastic Four: Crossover storyarc had somehow piqued your interest enough to see where the zombie angle goes from there, you can’t really go wrong. But for anyone else looking for something different or for an engaging storyline, you won’t find it here.