Nano Film Review #28 -- Superman/Batman: Apocalypse

Superman/Batman: Apocalypse. Terrible film. Terrible, terrible film.

I hate it when films have such great potential for being emotional, character driven action films . . . only to decide to forgo any actual emotion beats to make sure they hit all the action beats.

Here's a film about Superman discovering that he's not the last, living person from his planet . . . only to have his worst enemy convince her to turn against him.

But the emotion in this movie is as flat as the animation. Superman leanrs he has a cousin, and he says with no emotion at all: "Uh, I think she's my cousin."

His cousin gets kidnapped by his greatest enemy, after slaughtering a number of people from Wonder Woman's island? No emotion, just, "Uh, let's go get her."

His cousin is turned evil? No emotion, just a flat line reading of, "Uh, you don't have to do this."

Meanwhile, at the beginning, Supergirl wants to learn what it means to be an earthgirl . . . so Superman takes her to the mall and we get a pretty woman montage. Yup, that's what it means to be an earthgirl!

Batman is Batman, and does Batman stuff. Wonder Woman is Wonder Woman, and does Wonder Woman stuff. Superman is Superman, and does Superman stuff. But it all feels so flat. So dry. So lifeless. I want to see character development. I want to see emotional moments with action based emotional payoffs . . . not action moments with action payoffs. I want emotion, not going through the motions.

The fight scenes are impressive. Even more impressive? If they had taken the time to actually let the characters be true to the emotional elements of the plot instead of just crafting brilliant, brutal fight scenes.

~ Ben

HOLY COW!!! Disney concept art for Rapunzel

I was just shown this short slide show from MakingOf.com.

I have to say, I'm a HUGE fan of looking at concept art. Since I'm a writer and not an artist, this may not seem to make sense, but I do get a lot of inspiration from looking at books of concept art for movies. My favorites are The Art of Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, The Art of the Lord of the Rings, and The Lord of the Rings Sketchbook. It's inspiring, and sometimes kickstarts the old imagination when I'm "blocked".

Anyway, here's some AMAZING concept art from the new animated Disney princess movie, Rapunzel:

Isn't that just gorgeous? I cannot wait to see that on film!

In looking at that, I'm reminded of the original "Disney princess" movies, which were simply sumptuous in their design.

I'd love to see concept art from Sleeping Beauty. I love that movie, although to be honest it's not the most compelling of the Disney movies, it's the most beautifully designed.

Anyway, back to Rapunzel. It looks like a return to form for Disney, in style and tone anyway. Let's see if they are able to make it as compelling a story as well.

~ Ben

Nano Film Review #7 -- New Frontier

New Frontier is the movie that superhero fans are going to be talking about for years to come.

I predict that it will be on the top of many fan's lists of favorite superhero movies of all time.

It may even unseat the original Superman on some people's lists. (Not mine, but some people's.)

New Frontier is the adaptation of Darwin Cooke's comic book New Frontier vol. 1 and New Frontier vol. 2. (There's also the amazing New Frontier Absolute Edition which I can only dream about.) The comic book itself is already illustrated to look like animation storyboards.

I got a look at an advance copy of the movie. And I just have to say, this movie was amazing. There is some graphic violence that caught me off guard at first, although it fit the world it was portraying.

If it weren't for Christopher Reeve, this New Frontier Superman would probably become THE Superman in my mind. This New Frontier Wonder Woman may become THE Wonder Woman in my mind.

New Frontier makes every comic book direct to DVD animated product to this date look bad. Ultimate Avengers I and II and Iron Man have nothing on this. Turok, while a well made movie on its own, is nowhere near as strong as this.

Amazing.

On shelves February 26 in a Single Disk DVD, Two Disk Special Edition, and, winner of the new format war, Blu-Ray.

~ Ben

Nano Film Review #6 -- Turok: Son of Stone

Have you read my review of Dragonlance and don't want to waste your time reading my review of Turok? Just think of all the things I said about Dragonlance and make them the opposite and you get my review of Turok.

To start with, this movie is brutal. It would have received an R rating for sure had it been released in theaters.

This direct to video fantasy animated movie is everything Dragonlance is not. It is exciting, has characters you care about, smooth animation, and a strong story line.

This movie is 2D, but the animation style suits the story.

I do not recommend this movie for younger viewers. I don't recommend this movie for many older viewers, to be honest. It is a violent film about a violent world. It is, however, well made and an interesting counterpoint to Dragonlance.

Now if we could just have something that is in between the two. Something this well made, but with a redeeming storyline . . .

~ Ben

Nano Film Review #5 -- Dragonlance: Dragons of the Autumn Twilight

Wow.

Just. Wow.

I bought this because it is a direct to video fantasy animated product. From a professional standpoint, it makes sense for me to watch.

I couldn't.

It took three false starts for me to watch this.

The movie starts with a five minute history lesson about the world of the story. And it's not exciting history, it's boring history with slow paced, uninteresting visuals.

We then get into the story, which is animated to look like '80's Saturday morning cartoons. Benefit of the doubt time: they may have done this on purpose. Practically speaking time: is there one good reason to do this on purpose?

Then there are the dragons, which are rendered to look like '90's Saturday morning 3D animation cartoons.

Seriously. It looks like they did a mash up with some old 80's fantasy cartoon and some old 90's fantasy cartoon.

When the 80's-style 2D and the 90's-style 3D interact, it is truly difficult to watch.

I cannot imagine what was going on behind the scenes for this to be the product they came out with.

Voice acting was good. Nothing outstanding, but decent. They had a strong pool of voice actors here. The story was a little hard to follow, but that may have been because it was so difficult to watch.

Do not waste your money on this.

~ Ben

PS -- I went a bit long on this because, well, I wanted everyone to know the serious nature of my warning. Do not watch this movie. Not because it's related to Dungeons and Dragons and your Sunday school teacher told you not to. Because it's TERRIBLE. Do not judge a direct to DVD movie by its cover. The animation looks NOTHING like the box art.

PPS -- They misspelled Michael Rosenbaum's name in the end credits!!! Yes, folks, they spellend it with an "N".

Nano Review #3 -- Meet the Robinsons

Two words:

Awe. Some.

Seventeen more words:

What a great time travel story! This is what good time travel is about: choices and consequences!

And thirty-nine (two of which are contractions) more words:

Doesn't hurt that it has believable and likable characters and a tight plot. I've heard this compared to Pixar's movies and I would jump on that bandwagon. This story had heart, and followed through in all the right ways.

Finally, twenty-one more words:

I was relieved, however, to find that they did not steal TimeFlyz's thunder with the "time travel twist ending" they used.

~ Ben

Nano Film Review #2 -- Renaissance

Finally, an animate feature in which the animation serves the story. A noir mystery set in the Paris of the future, the animation is a stark black and white with very little grey. The color scheme is used to great effect and heavily influences the mood and when the film was done, I couldn't help feeling that this story was a story that could have been live action . . . but shouldn't be. Rife with film-noir elements -- double crosses, revelations, counter-revelations, woman in peril, good cop with a past in a bad system -- the animation and future setting elevates above being a good genre film and makes it a good film in general.

~ Ben