DVD Review: Thor: The Dark World

Since this film as been out for awhile, even on DVD, I'll liberally sprinkle in spoilers. You have been warned.

First off, Thor: The Dark World (2013) was infinitely better than the original movie Thor (2011), which was just about a total waste of film and time. I know some sort of Thor movie had to be made so this character could be included in The Avengers (2012), but translating the comic book "God of Thunder" into a live action film was always going to be a challenge. Of all the founding members of the Avengers, Thor was most likely to be voted "Should have stayed inside his own comic book."

Somehow, within the context of the Avengers, he isn't so bad, but all by himself in the otherworldly Asgardian realm, he seems ridiculous, and he even appears more silly on Earth among mortals, at least in the original movie.

I think "Dark World" took the right tack this time. It seemed a bit more "Lord of the Rings-ish," which has always played well on both the small and big screen. When you pull a total disconnect from "the real world" and keep Thor (Chris Hemsworth) a larger than life "god" in a sweeping saga of ancient legends and fables, he's more or less "OK" to take in. The tricky part is to toggle back and forth between the fantasy and reality worlds. In this case (as opposed to the previous films), that wasn't so bad either, and it had to be made to work this time, because Thor, in order to be an Avenger, must be perceived as a child of both worlds.

I'm still having trouble seeing Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) as an astrophysicist and somehow, even with her Star Wars background, she is out of place in the Thor films. I did kind of like how Thor took her to Asgard, hearkening back to the Silver Age comic book Thor when he took Jane to Asgard and asked Odin to make her an immortal (Journey into Mystery vol. 1, #125, February 1966). Also, it was inevitable that Jane and Sif should meet and Sif must be asking herself, "What does this little mortal twit have that I don't have?"

Unpaid interns having unpaid interns of their own. Comedy relief. Cute. One wonders how they live.

Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) gone mad and prancing around Stonehenge naked. I guess having a "god" in your brain would do that to a fellow.

Loki (the always impressive Tom Hiddleston) in prison, pondering his fate or just plain being bored. Maybe waiting for his chance to escape (for after all, being long lived if not immortal must make one patient). Who loves Loki and is he capable of love in return? A mother's love, especially an adoptive mother, is iron clad, and Frigga (Rene Russo) is the only one to harbor affection for the villainous Loki in her heart. Fathers, once disappointed by sons, tend to hold them at arm's length and to mask love with anger as did Odin (Anthony Hopkins), yet though Odin would be within his rights, he did not totally banish Loki nor did he have him killed.

I liked the "lunch scene" between Thor and Heimdall (Idris Elba) but my understanding is that Heimdall must always stand guard at the Rainbow Bridge. He doesn't get vacations or even coffee breaks. Who's watching out for Asgard's safety?

Not that Heimdall was much help. I didn't think anything escaped his vision, but the Dark Elves had magic (technology) that defeated even him.

During "the great escape" Thor once again proved Loki is the brainier of the two brothers by far, but then Hemsworth portrays Thor as courageous, noble, heroic, but not particularly bright. I guess when you have guys like Tony Stark and Bruce Banner as part of the Avengers, you have to counterbalance all of those "smarts" with "big and dumb" (and the Hulk can't have all the fun in that department).

The battle scenes reminded me of any action film. Lots of shooting and explosions but it's shooting and explosions that would have been just at home in any movie, even one that was more real-to-life action and non-fantasy. It was actually kind of jarring. Hand-to-hand, swords, hammers, yes. Machine guns and cannons, no.

Loki's seeming betrayal (and it was believable because of who Loki is) and then reversal and then double-cross at the very end was well handled, and the Thor movies would be barely enjoyable without Hiddleston's "Prince of Mischief" gracing their frames. The ploy to get Thor to renounce his claim to the Throne of Asgard for the love of Jane Foster was smooth if not brilliant, and I didn't see Loki replacing Odin in illusion coming at all. This begs the question of what happened to Odin, and now that Frigga is dead (giving her life to heroically defend Jane Foster...hot damn!), who's to see through the mask of "Odin" to find the face of Loki beneath?

Not Thor who's too busy making out with Jane in London and waiting for Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) to be filmed.

I watch the Thor movies for two reasons: because they're part of the overall continuity of the Marvel Avengers universe, and the various (two in this film) after end of credits scenes speak of other films to come, as did Sif and company meeting with The Collector as a set up for the movie Guardians of the Galaxy (August 2014).

I suppose I'm not a fan of Thor in film for the same reason I never got into reading Thor in the comic books. He just seems too odd. He doesn't really "do it" for me as a standalone character. Like I said, he's OK in the Avengers where he doesn't have to be the center of attention, at least for very long, but all by himself, carrying a full length motion picture (or long lasting comic book series), he's not for me.

I'm glad I watched Thor: The Dark World but I wouldn't pay to watch it again, nor would I add it to my film collection. It was good, basic entertainment and it completed my view of the Marvel Universe related to the Avengers, but now that I've seen it and filled in the knowledge gaps, it's time to move on.

DVD Review: The Expendables 2

I wrote my original DVD Review of the first The Expendables (2010) film on the eve of the theatrical release of The Expendables 2 (2012). Obviously, the second film has been available on DVD for quite some time and The Expendables 3 won't be released in the theaters until next August. The opportunity to rent The Expendables 2 at my local public library presented itself and so I took advantage of it, hoping I wouldn't regret my decision.

Actually, I almost passed up this DVD. I've avoided similar opportunities in the past simply because I wasn't all that enthralled with the first film. I figured, like most sequels, that the second film would be a downgraded version of the first with lots of violence and gore, but little else, capitalizing on what its targeted fan-base loves most.

I wasn't wrong, but that's why I think this movie is better than its predecessor. It doesn't pretend to be something it's not.

The first film was trying to find a soul for itself, something beyond the sheer gratuitous violence that is characterized in most of its frames. It almost succeeded but that "almost" painfully accentuated that what was attempted had ultimately failed. In this sequel, Stallone stuck to what works for this franchise. Don't deal too much with the characters as human beings or try to examine their histories or motives. Just stick to the mission and watch the body count climb.

There's one exception of course, "Billy the Kid" (Liam Hemsworth) a young ex-Army sniper who joined the team because of the promise of quick and abundant cash which he needed to marry his French girlfriend. He was given a sympathetic back story and a likable personality because his brutal death at the hands of the main bad guy Jean Vilain (Jean-Claude Van Damme), is what motivates most of the action in the film.

If you've already seen this movie (and I'll tell you even if you haven't), you know after the opening sequence where the team rescues a Chinese millionaire as well as Barney Ross's (Sylvester Stallone) mercenary rival Trench Mauser (Arnold Schwarzennegger) in Nepal, CIA Agent Church (Bruce Willis) "convinces" Ross to undertake what was supposed to be a "milk run" mission in Albania to retrieve a piece of undescribed tech from an downed aircraft. Church sends along agent Maggie Chan (Yu Nan) as the expert who will retrieve the tech for return to the CIA.

Ross, as always, is unhappy with having a female involved, probably because of his history of getting all the women around him killed due to his violent occupation, but he acts more hurt than angry. It's always interesting watching Stallone attempt to act as if his characters have a "sensitive side." It's usually the part in his films where I want to scream, "Just kill somebody, already!"

One flight to Albania later, the tech is retrieved but Billy's captured by Vilain and his gang of mercs. The Expendables have no choice but to hand over the computer (more on that in a minute) to save Billy's life. Here, Vilain establishes himself as a villain by killing Billy anyway and then he and his gang of thugs quickly escape in a helicopter (too bad Trench wasn't there to yell, "To the choppah!"

Maggie belatedly reveals to Ross that the device Vilain has reveals the location of five tons of refined plutonium hidden by the former Soviet Union. The Expendables manage to follow the signal of the device but only get so far on their own.

Ambushed after spending the night in an abandoned Soviet military base across the border in Bulgaria, the third "special guest" after Schwarzenegger and Willis appears. Ross's mysterious friend Booker (Chuck Norris) appears out of nowhere to annihilate the gang attacking the Expendables, including their tank, in just a matter of seconds. Then, after a few cute quips, this "Lone Wolf" disappears again, but not before giving Ross and company the location of a village of allies to help them find and stop Vilain's gang known as "the Sangs."

The Sangs have been raiding the village to use all of the men and boys as slave labor to dig up the plutonium. The Expendables make quick and violent work of the Sangs who again raid the village for more slaves, and then find Vilain and the rest of his crew at the cave, just in time for the bad guys to all escape with the plutonium and to trap the Expendables and the former slaves in a cave-in triggered by explosions.

You find out a few things about Gunner Jensen and the actor who plays him, Dolph Lundgren. To quote Wikipedia:

Volatile member of the team, undone by years of combat stress and alcohol abuse. Lundgren's personal history (including his chemical engineering degree) were incorporated into the character's story by Stallone.

Jensen tries to make a bomb to free the Expendables but predictably, it's a dud. Fortunately, Trench and Church arrive with a digging machine at this point in the story, and the gang chase the Sangs to a local airport. Joined again by Booker, there's an all out battle where the Sangs are wiped out, Lee Christmas (Jason Statham) is given the honor of dispatching Hector (Scott Adkins), Vilain's right-hand man who you learn to hate almost as much as Vilain, and Ross goes up against Vilain himself mano-a-mano to get revenge for Billy's death (and who cares about stopping an international terrorist from getting out of the country with five tons of weapons-grade plutonium?).

The film is watchable, surprisingly so since it's also really predictable. It's fun because of the appearances by Schwarzenegger, Willis, and Norris, each mugging for the camera and saying each other's "tag lines" from their other movies. Besides the kick ass violence, it's why anyone would watch this film. It's like one long gag or series of punch lines. If you like a lot of blood, gunfire, and explosions, this is your kind of entertainment.

The Expendables franchise is also sort of a "good guy Stallone" project which I have to admire:

Sylvester Stallone explained that his casting was looking particularly for actors who had not experienced recent hits: "I like using people that had a moment and then maybe have fallen on some hard times and give them another shot. I like those kinds of guys. Someone did it for me and I like to see if I can do it for them." -from imdb.com

Ross tries to be the best "good guy" as leader of the Expendables, given the fact that the team is made up primarily of dysfunctional mercs who would never be able to live "normal lives" like most of their movie audience. Stallone is the mirror image in terms of being a "good guy" by opening opportunities to actors who otherwise might not have the ability to advance or even sustain their careers.

Don't look for too much reality in this movie or any others like it. Watching the huge battle at the airport, I caught myself wondering where airport security, the police, or even the Army were hiding. In real life, a major gun battle between a team of mercs and terrorists with a cargo of plutonium hanging in the balance would have gotten someone's attention. At least the passengers and other civilians in the terminal had the good sense to run rather than just stand there and get shot down.

Norris's character appears, disappears, and reappears like a ghost. He has no back story, there is no explanation for his presence, and his ability to take on and defeat impossible odds is very much in line with what has become known as Chuck Norris facts.

At the beginning of the film when the Expendables rescue Trench, it is presumed that Trench was there in a failed attempt to rescue the Chinese hostage. Trench even mentions that his own team were hanging back, but when the Expendables, Trench, and the hostage all escape in a rain of bombs and bullets, we see no evidence that any of Trench's force is around or ever had been.

At one point in the film, Maggie tries to get close to Ross, and this is Ross's cue to explain why he keeps women at a distance. It's an attempt to introduce some of Ross's humanity into the narrative (and I guess you can only blow up so much stuff in an 103 minute film) but the scene just fills space until the next battle begins. As I said, the movie works precisely because it has no soul or depth. It's just what you want and expect: action and gags.

Near the beginning of the film, Yin Yang (Jet Li) has to bail out of Ross's plane with the former hostage to return him to his home (Li had a scheduling conflict and could only be present for the filming of the opening sequence). At one point, he and Jensen trade barbs and Yang says that if Jensen misses him, he can find some other minority to torment. Apparently, this doesn't translate into Chinese women, because later in the movie, Jensen clumsily attempts to flirt with Maggie (unless you count that as torment, too).

At the climax of the film, Ross confronts Vilain to get his revenge for Billy's death. Vilain is unarmed except for the huge and ugly knife he previously took from Ross. Ross has firearms, but he lets Vilain's "fight like men or sheep" speech get to him. In real life, tossing your guns aside to fight a homicidal maniac hand to hand as a matter of pride is dumb. Even though this is good guy (anti-hero) vs. bad guy, there's no guarantee that you are going to win. If Ross wanted to humiliate Vilain as well as kill him, he could have just said "Bullshit" to the "men or sheep" business, and started out by blowing off both of Vilain's kneecaps. Then, until you run low on ammo, keep shooting this jerk in various non-lethal areas of the body to maximize pain and then, when done, put one between his eyes to make sure he'll never come back for the third film.

Sadly, in attacking the cave, Ross chooses to sacrifice his Grumman HU-16 Albatross. Such a beautiful and classic aircraft. It was probably the thing I liked the most in the first two films. To make up for being such a shmuck during most of the film, Church gives Ross a replacement: an Antonov An-2 biplane. Not as classic to be sure, but I'm interested to see how it'll figure into the third movie. Yeah, I'll probably watch it...but not until it comes out on DVD...cheap.

Iconic Supermen

The cover of People Magazine for January 1979 gave the world the now iconic photograph of Superman as played by Christopher Reeve. For the general public, this was perhaps the first time they believed that a man could fly and this image will live on in their memories and in all our memories as the one and only Superman for generations.

This month's cover of Entertainment Weekly attempts to paint, for the current generation, the portrait of Reeve's heir apparent, Henry Cavill as the Man of Steel. I am posting both covers side-by-side in an effort to illustrate the passing of the torch. Reeve first appeared on the big screen as Superman in 1978 when he was 26 years old. Sadly, he passed away on October 10, 2004 at the age of 52. For many people, Christopher Reeve was their Last Son of Krypton, and for them, that was the day their Superman died.

Cavill, who turns 30 next month, picks up the mantle and the cape that Reeve in death had allowed to fall to the ground. Can Henry Cavill fill the red boots and wear the red and yellow shield in honor of the Superman who came before him? Can he inspire this generation and those who come after as the Superman of the 21st century? Will his image on the cover of Entertainment Weekly replace that of Reeve's, and will be he the hero we need to inspire us as we rush headlong into the future?

Superman: Man of Steel premieres in the United States on June 14, 2013. That's when we'll get our answers.

The Rising of the Knight in Everyone

I really wanted to find an image of Batman being the living crap out of someone. I really wanted to give my rage and heartache a representative graphic illustrating the 12 people killed and over 50 people hurt by a gunman at a midnight showing of The Dark Knight Rises in Colorado last night.

But I couldn't find something that captured my "imagination."

Instead, I found what you see posted at the top of this blog post. Maybe it's more fitting. Yeah, in "real life," Batman (if he existed in real life), would pound the bastard that shot up the movie audience into something that looks like chunky salsa, but afterward, rage would turn to grief. After all, it was the death of two innocent people, his parents, who were shot by a criminal, that created the Dark Knight in the first place. Every time some hood or madman guns down people just because they're there, it diminishes all of us. It creates, temporarily for most people, a collective drive toward justice, the need to protect the victims, the desire to punish the guilty.

But, news items being what they are and people being who we are, most of us tend to forget. We remember for weeks, months, years, what our favorite scenes are and lines of dialog from films such as TDKR, but we'll forget about the shootings in Aurora, Colorado in a few days. Something else will come along and drive it out of our memories and fractured attention spans.

For most of us, that is.

Bruce Wayne didn't forget. He never forgot. Of course, he was a kid and the people murdered right before his eyes were his parents, so you'd figure he'd never forget. But he did something more than remember. He took his anger, his guilt, and his fear, and turned it into a weapon; and incredibly powerful weapon. He turned it into Batman.

That doesn't do the rest of us much good. Batman is a fictional character. He only exists in the world of imagination. He is a symbol of our desire for dark justice and the need to not only punish the predators, but to brutalize them. He is the shadow to our light, the power to our powerlessness, the avenger to our victimhood.

He is the Dark Knight to our oppression.

We can't put on a costume and roam the night. We can't summon the heroes of fantasy into the real world of blood, and tear gas, and torn flesh, and dead bodies. But we can do something; we should do something.

All I can do is write, so that's what I'm doing. Probably a lot of people will have something to say about all this in the hours and days to come. This is me saying what I need to say right now.

As much as I'd like to take a baseball bat and beat the shooter's head like an overripe melon, that's not what needs to be done the most (I still think I'd like to do it, though, because I'm really angry right now).

No, what needs to be done more than pulling revenge and this guy's bloody colon out of his ass, is to remember the victims, to have compassion. To not give in to anger and rage, but to instead, nurture kindness and if you believe in that sort of thing, to pray for the wounded and the dying.

Anger, violence, and revenge may make us feel better in the short run, but it's justice, mercy, and compassion that heals the world in the long run. Don your metaphorical "Dark Knight" armor if you must and scream how much you'd like to hurt the guy that did all the hurting, but remember. Remember that afterward, you have to take the mask off and be who you are, to help, to rebuild broken lives.

That's the part about being a hero you don't see at the end of the movie. That's the hero in real life and I hope...I hope it's the hero you can find in yourself. I hope I can find him in me, too.

Star Trek 2: The Klingons

No, no, no, no, no! I have no idea about what the next Star Trek film will be like. I have no idea who or what will be in the next Star Trek film. This is just my imagination. Never, ever say that I told you that Klingons will be in the next J.J. Abrams Star Trek film. It would be a lie. I haven't the faintest idea what's up his sleeve.

I did just read the latest blastr.com blog on the next Star Trek film including a quote by Zoe (Uhura) Saldana:

"I know it's gonna be amazing. We still haven't gotten a script yet," she said of progress on the film, which Access has confirmed with a source will begin shooting in mid-January, and won't be called Star Trek 2. "We're very excited to read it and get back into space."

"I know it's gonna be amazing. We still haven't gotten a script yet." Cute.

So, who or what should be featured in the sequel to Abrams' 2009 runaway hit? I once read an article about Star Trek that said its success rose and fell by the use of its villains. That's probably true. When a Trek film or TV episode doesn't have a definitive "bad guy", it isn't nearly as interesting. I think that's what made Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) so much fun. It's not the best film in the world, but Ricardo Montalban must have had an absolute blast playing Kahn.

So who are the 23rd century's best Star Trek baddies? The Romulans and Klingons, of course. Don't even suggest the Borg or any of Picard's other playmates. For lack of anything better to do, the rather disappointing Star Trek: Enterprise series threw in a bunch of races that weren't supposed to even be a whisper in the 22nd century, and it screwed up the Trek continuity even more than it already was. The idea of a Star Trek reboot is to wipe away all of that stuff and start from scratch.

But not completely. One of the things that "Enterprise" did right was to bring back cool races like the Andorians and the Tellurites (see the STTOS episode Journey to Babel for details). I think that's at least a portion of what the Abrams films should do, preserve the best of the original and clean up the leftovers.

OK, I'm tossing the Romulans out of the second film just because a bunch of futuristic Romulans were prominently featured in the first film. That leaves the Klingons (and remember, I know nothing...nothing). This would be a good time to try and get Klingons straight. For instance, when first seen in the original Star Trek series, they were a bunch of swarthy thugs with no redeemable social qualities. No honor. No glory, No Bat'leths. They were just interstellar jerks (although Michael Ansara as Kang was pretty good). Romulans were a lot more compelling (especially since Mark Lenard played a Romulan before he ever became Spock's daddy).

By the time the first (awful) Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) came along, somebody decided to change their appearance to make them seem more alien, probably because the film had a $40 million budget and they had money to burn on a little extra latex (and Mark Lenard cameoed as a Klingon in the beginning of the film...cool trivia bit). But no one ever explained the change in appearance.

It came to a head in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Episode Trials and Tribble-ations where Worf and the DS9 gang travel back in time and invade the original series episode The Trouble with Tribbles. Worf is a 24th century Klingon. The original "Tribbles" episode is full of old, 23rd century TV Klingons. The two look nothing alike. The only comment Worf makes is: "We don't like to talk about it."

Thanks to reboot city, all of the inconsistencies that have built up in the Star Trek timeline just go bye-bye. Any mistakes that happen now belong to Abrams and company (and they already screwed up by "disappearing" Jim Kirk's older brother George Samuel Kirk).

The Klingons and Romulans were introduced in the original series as a parallel to the cold war era and the U.S. "relationship" with the Soviet Union and Communist China. If Abrams keeps the same basic history (and Klingons were briefly mentioned in the first film), then there was a Federation/Klingon war at some point. It didn't go well for either side and a rough truce was formed. There's a neutral zone between the two "empires". It's the cold war all over again with border skirmishes, spies, political intrigue, and all that cool space 007 stuff.

Or the war hasn't happened yet. Abrams could decide to go big and have the Earth/Klingon relationship start off hesitant and untrusting but not outright hostile...until the second film. Then all Sto'Vo'Kor...uh, hell breaks loose. Either way, rewriting history and reinventing the Klingon race into a more complicated, not entirely evil but always dangerous enemy would be fabulous.

Of course, that's only one possible option. If Kirk meets and has a relationship with Carol Marcus this time around, maybe there'll be a future David to be killed by the Klingons all over again in 30 years or so. In the meantime, Kirk could still get to kick some alien ass, make plenty of enemies, and seduce his way across half the quadrant like in the good old days.

We'll just have to wait and see. None of the principal actors have even seen the script yet.

Wearing the Reboots: Reinventing Superhero Movies

Ever since (at least in my case) the J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot, all I seem to be hearing is how a bunch of "reboot" films are coming down the pike. I don't mean new films that haven't been done before such as Iron Man or the upcoming Thor and Captain America films. I'm talking about superhero/fantasy films that have already been done and either flopped or have gotten too old and need to be updated (speaking of Star Trek).

Superman seems to fall into both categories. The original film starring Christopher Reeve was made in 1978, which in terms of the superhero/fantasy genre is eons ago. While the first film was revolutionary for its time and reasonably watchable (minus the "Can you read my mind" sequence), each successive film became more campy and, dare I say it, dull (and I know I'm going to get hate comments for that). Warner Bros didn't exactly try for a reboot with Superman Returns (2008), but rather described events that should fit between Superman II and Superman III. The general consensus is that the Brandon Routh rendition of Superman was ghastly. I haven't been able to force myself to watch it after my first viewing.

The Smallville TV series by comparision, has been wildly successful. It departs significantly from the established Superman canon, but has managed to incorporate significant elements from the Reeve film series lore and the extremely large body of comic book content (JLA, JSA, the Martian Manhunter, the Phantom Zone, and on and on and...). All and all, Smallville is extremely entertaining and Tom Welling is a delight to watch as Clark Kent pre-Superman. The problem is, I can never figure out how Welling's Clark will ever pull off the transition to the costumed Superman. Lex Luthor knows his face so well (being such good buds for years before having their falling out), that a little thing like wearing glasses won't prevent him from figuring out that Clark is the guy wearing the big red cape. For that reason, Smallville has to die so Superman can be born, or reborn.

Enter the numerous rumors and half stories about a Superman reboot film with Christopher Nolan at least offering some creative assistance. Unless you've been hiding under a rock for the past five years, you've most likely seen Nolan's landmark Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) films. While Batman Begins was incredibly good, The Dark Knight virtually blew my socks off, it was that much better (and a sequel as well). If Nolan can do for the Superman film franchise what he did for Batman (and the prior Batman series launched by Michael Keaton as the Caped Crusader just didn't "do it" for me), then the Superman reboot is in very good hands. I feel secure.

Daredevil (2003). What can I say. It's watchable and I've seen it more than once (better than Superman Returns, apparently). Ben Afflick is hardly my favorite actor, but the film was more or less true to canon and the "radar sense" effects were awesome. However, there's a reason why no one has made "Daredevil II, III, and so on". It wasn't particularly good. Better casting would have helped. In addition to Afflick not being a good model for Matt Murdock/Daredevil, who in their right mind would consider Jennifer Garner as a woman born and raised in Greece and a master assassin? Not me. Why anyone bothered to do an Elektra (2005) spin off is beyond me. Total waste of money. Rumor has it that a Daredevil Reboot is on the way, but nothing is confirmed.

Actually, I should probably mention that Ang Lee's rather lackluster Hulk (2003) film (and 2003 doesn't seem to be a good year for superhero films) was already rebooted as The Incredible Hulk, a much better film thanks to the stellar acting and multiple uncredited re-writes of the exceedingly talented Edward Norton. It was still not well received, but I think it did well enough to warrant a sequel and even if that doesn't happen, the Hulk should make an appearence in the upcoming Avengers (2012) film. After all, the reason the Avengers became a team in the first place was to stop the Hulk (though it was really a ruse by Thor's half brother Loki to "get" Thor).

X-Men First Class isn't exactly a reboot but more of a prequel. The original X-Men film trilogy was made between 2000 and 2006 and showed the original team as rather long in the tooth to be students. Hank McCoy (the Beast) had already left the "nest" and both Scott (Cyclops) and Jean (Marvel Girl/Phoenix) were teachers. The prequel gives us an opportunity to see what the team was like when Professor X first formed them. Of course, the timeline departs significantly from the comic book canon since Warren (Angel) first meets the X-Men in The Last Stand film in 2006 and Bobby (Iceman) only finally figures how to "ice up" in that same film. Nevertheless, exploring the early days of Xavier's school promises to be a treat.

The Fantastic Four (2005) is in desperate need of a reboot. Although someone thought the storyline and cast deserved a sequel, both films quite frankly sucked. Someone should tell the film makers that, just because modern special effects including CGI make it possible to create realistic stretching, flaming, and rock-skinned Thing images, it doesn't mean the film will automatically be good. Also, as much as I admire Jessica Alba's body, the comic book version of Sue Richards never depicted her as an air-headed blonde (Alba's chronic role, whether she means it to be or not) with almost no clothes on.

A Fantastic Four reboot is also confirmed but no timeline has been set. I hope Marvel/Disney doesn't screw this one up. The FF was one of my favorite comics as a kid and there's a vast wealth of sagas that could be adapted to make excellent films. Now all someone has to do is create the right team to build on what's already there and make a movie to be proud of.

While the Spider-Man (2002) films starring Toby Maguire were generally good, it was decided to "take it back to formula" by doing a complete reboot of the film franchise. What was handled well before can only (hopefully) be handled well again...and perhaps improved upon. Word on the street has it that the reboot will be based more on the Ultimate Spider-Man incarnation rather than the original canon, but I'd like to see a more Steve Ditko look, which tended to be darker and more mysterious than later versions of ol' webhead.

What else? Should I mention the horrible Supergirl (1984) film? What about Swamp Thing (1982) or (yuk) Catwoman (2004)? Not that Halle Berry isn't both beautiful and talented, but this was not the film for her.

DC Comics has largely had its successes on the silver screen thanks to Superman and Batman. Other DC character films were of lesser value or no value at all. I doubt anyone is dying to see either of the aforementioned movies rebooted in any sense. If we see Catwoman again, let her be within the context of a Batman film.

Marvel has only come to the silver screen in the last decade or so. That's not absolutely true, but you have to go back a ways (like 1944) to see the original Captain America movie serial. Hardly modern film quality in any sense, but fun if you like the history of film. Wikipedia has a list (not complete) of superhero films if you're interested.

Departing from reboots, and besides the new Marvel Avengers-related films, DC is going to be coming out with a series of new movies including Green Lantern and The Flash, so can Aquaman, Hawkman, the Atom, and Wonder Woman be far behind (and I still think, at least physically, Megan Fox would make a great Wonder Woman)? Actually, we've seen at least some of these characters in the Smallville TV series, and it was really fun to have them included in the mix. I should also mention The Flash TV series (1990) which starred John Wesley Shipp as Barry Allen. I thought it was done well, with just a bit of an art deco feel. Mark Hamill even got in on the fun playing one of the classic Flash arch-foes, The Trickster.

What superhero films would I like to see made? Ones based on the characters I just mentioned in the previous paragraph would be great, but of course, they have to be handled well. A lousy film is worse than no film at all (and I could have lived without seeing the Fantastic Four dragged through the mud by the last two filmed versions).

I often wonder how Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner would look like on the big screen (now in 3D). He was originally created in the late 1930s and reintroduced as one of the early anti-heroes/villains battling the Fantastic Four. He also fought the Nazis and Japanese during World War II (he's rather long lived), so there's a Captain America tie in.

If you're into the mystical, Doctor Strange would be an interesting choice. Film makers could explore darker and more occult themes than would be possible for most other comic book characters but would need to avoid the temptation to turn the movie into a horror film.

If I missed any candidates for superhero reboots or "wish list" films, let me know. I can always include your ideas into a "part 2" blog.

Addendum: The latest quote from Chris Nolan about the Superman reboot.