Planet Hulk

Planet Hulk came out in 2010, directed by Sam Liu and starring Rick D. Wasserman as the Hulk, Lisa Ann Beley as his girlfriend Caiera, and Mark Hildreth as the Red King. This movie is based off one of the few Hulk stories I've read, which shares the same name. Sadly, the balance of the story, World War Hulk, was not adapted into a sequel for this movie.

At first, I was skeptical with how good a Hulk story could be without Bruce Banner. But the comic managed to pull it off, giving me hope for the movie. I was also happy to see the animation was a step up from some of the earlier Marvel animated films. So let's see what my final verdict here. As a reminder, I start with a score of 5 out of 10 then add and subtract points throughout the movie.

I have to take a point off for the disappointing beginning. In the comic, the all-powerful team called the Illuminati decide to send Hulk to a different world after a particularly bad rampage. That pretty much happens here, except we don't get to see the whole Illuminati. Iron Man and Dr. Strange are clearly visible, but the other two — Mr. Fantastic and Professor Xavier — are reduced to ambiguous shadows that may or may not be those heroes. This isn't the movie's fault — it's Marvel's fault for splintering its properties and killing its strong sense of shared continuity for all movies. However, it is this movie's fault for not giving us a compelling reason to send Hulk into space in the first place. Iron Man (played again by the lackluster Marc Worden) gives a very dry monologue, briefly describing Hulk's powers in the broadest of terms but not fully explaining why the Hulk could not live on Earth anymore. I know this movie had a lot of story to get through in a short amount of time, but I think they could have used the opening credit sequence to show the Hulk destroying New York or something like that.

But I will bring the score back to a 5 for the strong sci-fi world this film portrays. I love the religion, the corrupt government, the gladiator arena, the variety of alien races and even simple things, like the talkbots. What a quick and simple way to explain why everyone is speaking English. This movie almost can stand alone as a great science fiction story without any connection to the Marvel universe. However, I wouldn't be reviewing it if it wasn't connected to Marvel.

I'll add another point for the great action scenes here. The fighting was captivating, the animation was stellar, and the violence took full advantage of the PG-13 rating. I particularly like the bug people being squished like bugs, and one of them had his eyeballs squeezed out of his head. It was a bit gruesome, but not as disturbing as it could have been. The violence and action enhanced the movie, giving it the gritty edge the story demanded.

Now it's time to bring the score back down to a 5 for the mistreatment of my favorite character from the comic, Miek. As his name implies, he is a meek, small bug man. But he undergoes the largest transformation in the story, literally growing into a larger insect toward the end. He also became the Hulk's most devoted follower, carrying that devotion to the point of fanaticism. And it was Miek who set up the events in World War Hulk because he felt the demands of justice had not been met. All this was taken out for time constraints (and most of it would have come in the nonexistent sequel, anyway). But the little we did get of Miek in this movie was quite frustrating to me. During the scene when each of the gladiators tells their story, Miek tries to tell his story three times, but constantly gets cut off. Why won't anyone let him tell his story?

I will give a point for the spikes. They are great. A little like deadly, parasitic aliens, and a little like zombies, they were a truly frightening threat. And it was quite traumatic watching a young Caiera have to kill her infected family, including her younger sister in her arms.

But now I have to take a point off for the biggest complaint of the film — replacing Silver Surfer with Beta Ray Bill. Again, this is a result of Marvel giving the rights of Silver Surfer to a different company, but in this case, they really needed to work out some kind of deal. Because Beta Ray Bill, the odd horse-Thor, is a poor substitute for one of Marvel's most powerful beings, the Silver Surfer. The scene didn't have near the impact it did in the comics.

Well, that's enough negativity. The score rises to a 6 for the Red King. He is a wonderful villain, maliciously ordering the gladiators to kill their friend and, even worse, engineering the threat of the spikes to set himself up as a hero. I loved his giant gold armor, his attitude, his voice, everything. And his death was satisfying. All in all, everything I want from a villain.

And I'll add one final point for the most tragic scene in the movie — a young girl disintegrating in Caiera's arms. That poor woman is just destined to have children die in her arms. But it was a captivating visual and an emotionally touching scene, lending this story more depth than one might normally expect from an Incredible Hulk story. Yeah, we sacrificed the classic conflict with Bruce Banner and his inner monster, but we got something entirely different and wonderful with this story.

All in all, Planet Hulk is a very good movie. With a few adjustments it could have been a truly great movie. And if Marvel would have made World War Hulk as a direct sequel, with the same animation and voices, that would have been a great movie as well.

Final score: 7

The Wolverine

Almost a year ago, Marvel released The Wolverine, something of a makeup for the disastrous X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Hugh Jackman once again reprised the role that made him famous, and director James Mangold surrounded him with an almost entirely Japanese cast. Surprisingly, this movie attempted to continue the already convoluted X-Men movie continuity by taking place after X-Men: The Last Stand.

I'll start by adding a point for the captivating opening of this film. I loved seeing Wolverine during World War II — at Nagasaki, no less. It's about time we saw some of Wolverine's past adventures not in a montage.

And I'll raise the score to a 7 for this lovable, charming hermit Wolverine. It makes sense that he would want to retire from all civilization after a lifetime of wars culminating in him having to murder his girlfriend, Jean Grey. And the bits with Wolverine, the bear and the hunters were great. And it was really funny, too. That's one advantage of having Jackman play this character for so long — he knows how to inject just the right amount of humor without overdoing it.

I've heard there are some epic Wolverine stories that take place in Japan, but I've never read them. However, I will add another point for putting this movie in Japan. We got to see a lot of both traditional Japan and modern Japan. And I think both are fascinating, visually appealing places. I also enjoyed how this movie followed the same subtitle practice used on the TV show Lost. Whenever Wolverine was around and not understanding what anybody was saying, we weren't given any subtitles. It sometimes made following the story difficult, especially with all the foreign names, but I don't mind having to work a little to understand the story.

My first deduction will be for the ridiculous fight on the train. Wolverine is fighting normal humans — ninjas, but not mutants — and they are somehow able to stay on top of a bullet train moving 300 mph by jamming their knives into the roof. No. Wolverine can do that, sure. But not these guys. Or maybe you could show them try, but then fail. But no, this scene just went on and on and on with these ninjas jumping and stabbing the train and crawling on its roof. Just too much for me.

I'll take the score down to a 6 for Wolverine sleeping with Mariko. I don't care if she was his girlfriend in the comics. In this movie, it feels completely out of place. Wolverine looks old enough to be her dad, and he's spent all movie talking about saving her grandfather. Plus, he's been having nightly dreams with Jean. Everything about him sleeping with Mariko felt creepy and wrong.

But I will bring the score back up to a 7 for the intricate plot. We've got ninjas, double betrayals, corrupt politicians and family members. It's all really great. Now let's add on to that an injured and very angry Wolverine. We've rarely seen him actually kill anybody, and it was actually kind of refreshing.

Yashida is an interesting character, but his ultimate plan really fell apart at the end. Ultimately, he wanted Wolverine's healing factor so he could live forever. It took him a year to track Wolverine down and get him to Japan. He made his proposal, which was a fairly convincing argument. Wolverine naturally refused at first, but then he slept on it and had a dream with Jean, and I think he was leaning toward taking Yashida's offer. But instead of waiting for Wolverine to change his mind, Yashida immediately enacted Plan B, which involved faking his death and retreating to a giant samurai suit made of adamantium. That was just too much for me. Minus one point.

And now we fall down to a perfectly average 5 for the disappointing character of Viper. I really liked her showing up to the funeral in a glittery gold dress and happily recording all the fighting with her iPhone. I was really disappointed to find out she was a mutant, but this is an X-Men movie, so I guess  we need at least one mutant for Wolverine to fight. But what really made me mad was how disappointing her mutant powers turned out to be. I was fine with her simply manipulating poisons, but then she got shot and dramatically shed her skin. That was kind of exciting, and I was hoping to see some hideous snake creature underneath. But no. She ripped off her skin to reveal ... the exact same person underneath. Oh, and she lost her hair. Big whoop.

Now, if the movie ended there, this would simply be an average superhero movie, which is more than several X-Men films can say. But this movie doesn't end here. As is the case with all good Marvel films, we have a mid-credit scene, which is by far the best mid- or post-credit scene I've ever seen. Sure, seeing Samuel L. Jackson introduce himself as Nick Fury was pretty neat. But seeing Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart return as Magneto and Professor X was infinitely more exciting. I had forgotten how fun it was to have those two together on the big screen. This was the perfect tease to X-Men: Days of Future Past.

Final score: 6

Man of Steel

I've attempted to write this review several times, but it always felt too soon for me. I needed more time, more distance away from my emotional highs and lows and the overwhelmingly positive and negative reviews. And now, a little more than a year later, I finally feel like I'm removed enough to give this movie a mostly objective review.

Man of Steel is a reboot to the Superman franchise, which had been absent for seven years due to the lackluster response from Superman Returns, a film that I thoroughly enjoyed, despite its many faults. However, I did admit that it was time to do something new with the character. And I was very excited for this movie. But, for better and worse, almost everything we see in Man of Steel is in response to Superman Returns.

Zack Snyder, who had previously directed the film adaptation of DC's beloved Watchmen, was chosen as the director. Christopher Nolan was probably DC's first choice, since he had made three practically perfect and enormously profitable Batman films. Nolan opted out of the director's chair, but he was one of the producers and did help with the story. Henry Cavill, who, despite not being American, was cast again as Superman, having previously been chosen to play the character in one of the many failed Superman projects along the way. Amy Adams, who I knew best from The Muppets, was chosen as the new Lois Lane. And Michael Shannon had the unenviable role of following Terrence Stamp as General Zod.

As you might remember, I start off every review with a score of 5 out of 10. Then I add and take away points throughout the movie. And I'll immediately grant a point for this version of Krypton. Previously, the Krypton seen in the movies was intentionally cold and dead so that the viewers wouldn't feel too sad when it exploded. This movie took the opposite approach, giving us a colorful, lively planet with animals and monsters and incredible technology. But at the same time, there was this gray, hazy mist hovering over everything, helping add to the inevitability of the planet's demise. And I also liked how this movie took a page from Superman: The Animated Series by making Jor-El (Russell Crowe) an action hero. It makes sense that the father of the world's greatest hero was something of a hero himself. I thoroughly enjoyed everything Jor-El did here, including his dragon, war suit, his attitudes and intentions.

I have to admit that I was disappointed when I heard General Zod would be the villain. I was craving Brainiac or Darkseid. But it didn't take long for Michael Shannon to win me over. He actually feels like a real general with his short haircut, militaristic mannerisms and speech, and the fact that he had more than two followers. But what really got to me was how sympathetic of a character he was. True, he was a radical, but he ultimately only wanted to save his planet. I liked how he and Jor-El were once friends, and both agreed that Krypton would die soon. They just stood on opposite views of how to save it. This movie did a good job of making me feel bad for Zod, but not to the extent that I ever stopped wanting someone to defeat him. And for Zod, I will raise the score to 7.

It was an interesting choice of the movie to skip the scene of the rocket landing. It's an essential and interesting moment of Superman's origin, but it can be tedious. Especially when most of the audience already knows the basics. Instead, this movie opted to give us Clark's childhood in a series of flashbacks, which probably allowed them to show us more than they could have otherwise. It also helped that each of the flashbacks were powerful moments, played by great child actors who looked astonishingly exactly like Henry Cavill. And I'll add a point for the first flashback, which showed a young Clark struggling with advanced hearing and vision. In the previous movies, what little we saw of a young Clark showed him depressed with his inability to openly show his strength — and we get plenty of that here, too — but we didn't have any mention of what a physical and mental toll having those powers can be for a little kid.

I'll now raise the score to a 9 for the next big flashback, in which Clark saves his school bus and is spotted doing it. Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) kind of scolds Clark for this, to which Clark asks if he should have let all those people die. Jonathan says, "Maybe." Now, a lot of people took issue with comment, but I think they jumped the gun a little bit, interpreting that "maybe" to be a "yes," and not waiting for Jonathan to finish his thought. I think he thoroughly explained and justified himself, by saying that the world is not ready to accept an alien in its midst. And neither is he nor Clark. He then shows Clark the spaceship, and the poor boy immediately asks, "Can't I just keep pretending I'm your son?" What a heart-breaking moment! How could anyone call Jonathan Kent callus after that? He only wants what's best for his son and the rest of the world. He might be wrong by having Clark suppress his powers, but his intentions are pure.

Now for the first time in this movie, I have to take a point off. This is for Clark destroying a man's semi truck after he poured a pitcher of beer on him. Yeah, that guy was a big jerk, and it was a pretty funny visual (in a movie with very little humor). But the whole thing felt very against Clark's character. I thought he was living this nomadic lifestyle to help people — while also searching for his identity. I don't care how much beer that guy pours on you, that is no justification to destroy a truck that likely belongs to a company — an innocent victim in all this. I wish Clark could have gotten his revenge in a less dramatic way. Or, better yet, not get revenge at all. Just turn the other cheek and walk away. This movie doesn't shy away from the Superman-Christ parallels, so why not have Clark act just a little more Christ-like?

But I will add a point for Clark's introduction to Lois Lane. Not only is this a great version of the character, but I really enjoyed the mystery that brought them together — an ancient Kryptonian ship that sort of became Superman's new Fortress of Solitude. And the best part of this scene was Clark's simple line: "I can do things that other people can't." That has to rank as one of the all-time most perfect Superman lines of all time. It actually reminds me a bit of 1938's Action Comics #1, when Superman told Lois that needn't be afraid of him. This is essential Superman here.

The score falls back down to an 8, though, with the absence of Kal-El's mom, Lara. It was great and wonderful to see Jor-El return, but if he was able to put his consciousness in that crystal, then why couldn't Lara? I think this scene could have played just as well with both of Kal's parents telling him the history of Krypton. This movie had the opportunity to give the largely ignored Lara some love, but it sadly chose not to.

After Clark meets his dad, he gets his suit and begins to learn to fly. And it is magical. Hans Zimmer's score is intentionally different from John Williams' classic march, and it fits this movie perfectly. While not necessarily as triumphant as Williams', it is still very inspiring, as is this whole movie. It's not as happy and gleeful as the previous Superman films, but it is still an inspiring, and most of all, realistic movie. This was the first time we saw Superman creating a sonic boom with his flight, and it was incredible. I loved everything about this scene from the costume to the broad smile on Clark's face. This is one of the few moments in the movie where you can just sit back and have fun, and it is precious. We're back to a 9 now.

The film becomes a perfect 10 with the jaw-dropping scene of Jonathan Kent choosing to die rather than risk exposing Clark's powers. Now, it is highly illogical for someone to risk their life like that for a dog, and you could argue against Jonathan's logic of telling Clark to stay put. But this goes back to the school bus scene. Jonathan was so worried about creating mass hysteria with the revelation of a super-powered alien, and the possibility of Clark being taken away by the government or worse. He placed the secrecy of Clark's powers at a higher priority than even his own life, and you may disagree with his reasoning, but you can't say that was not a powerful moment in the movie. And tying it all together is Clark telling this story to Lois Lane to show how important his secrecy is. And to Lois' credit, she honors his wishes and tries to kill the story. But it's too late by then.

What drops the score back down to a 9 may seem like an odd, contradictory point by me, but hear me out. I don't like that the "S" stands for hope. Originally, it was intended to just be the letter "S" for Superman and nothing more. But later, as the "S" grew more stylized, creators began playing with the idea of it being a completely different symbol that just happened to look like an "S." This was popularized in Superman: The Movie, which made the "S" the symbol of the House of El. I don't mind that so much, but over time, it has felt like many creators are uncomfortable with the idea of Superman naming himself such. And that idea is especially apparent in this movie, which only dares to whisper the name of Superman once or twice. I would much prefer to have Superman come out and boldly proclaim himself as the savior of the world. Superman is a type of Christ and Moses, and both of them did not shy away from announcing their divine callings to the world. It's not a lack of humility to say the truth. This might seem like an odd complaint, but it really contributes to the rather dour mood this movie spends so much time in. And it really could have used some more brightness.

And I'm going to take another point off for a rather confusing bit of darkness. When Clark visits Zod's ship, Zod communicates to him through — for lack of a better word — a dream. It's unclear whether the images were projected by Zod's thoughts or Clark's, but Zod's intent was to convince Clark to help rebuild Krypton. But instead of showing him the greatness of the lost race, Zod shows him the pile of human skulls the new Krypton will be built upon. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe Clark just imagined it. Either way, it was quite confusing and melodramatic when he sank into the skulls screaming. I think we could have conveyed this information without being so over the top.

Now on to something positive. The action scenes were amazing. Superman has never moved so fast and so powerful. And very realistic, too. I also loved the militaristic precision of Zod's army. And it was so refreshing for Superman to finally have somebody to punch. That was one of the biggest complaints against Superman Returns, and Man of Steel made sure we were never wanting for action. I have heard some people complain that Superman didn't take the fights to more remote areas to protect civilians. But I think these people are forgetting that this is a Superman just beginning his career as a superhero — he just barely learned how to fly. And I never saw an opportunity for him to take the fight out of the city. And I actually liked putting civilians at risk. More so than in any other Superman movie, I truly feared for the fate of the world. Buildings were collapsing, trains were exploding, and people were dying. The score's back up to a 9 now.

And I'll bring the movie back to a 10 for being the first Superman story I've seen that gave me a good reason for Superman falling in love with Lois. She tracked him down, learned all his secrets, and respected him. She then joined on the wild adventure, and proved she can keep up with him. She's one of the only people who understands Clark, and when they kiss at the end, it is deserved. I enjoy this romance so much more than in previous stories. And I'm so happy we don't have to suffer through watching Lois try to figure out Superman's secret identity.

Sadly, I can't leave this movie at a perfect score, and that's because of the most controversial moment of the whole film — the death of General Zod. When I saw this in the theater, a couple of people sitting in front of me stood up and left immediately after Superman killed Zod. This really altered my perception of the movie, but ultimately, and now a year later, I think it was the right thing for Superman to kill Zod. Playing off the Moses analogy, let's not forget that before Moses became a prophet, he did kill a man to save another. That action forced him to retreat to the wilderness, where he met God and became the great hero of the Israelite nation. Perhaps this is the big event that Clark needed to truly become Superman. So if I like the death scene, then why am I taking a point off? Well, that's for what immediately follows. Superman screams, and is comforted by Lois, and I wish we would have dwelled on them just a bit longer. Because suddenly, we were thrown into a rather goofy scene of the Army general calling Superman "effing stupid" for destroying a $12 million drone and the female captain blushing because Superman is "kinda hot." We needed time to process the death of Zod. We also did need to end with some lightness, but not so soon. And this scene ultimately did more harm than good, leaving a rather bad taste in many people's mouths.

But all in all, this was an amazing film. And to my own surprise, I actually like it more now than I did a year ago. I think I was initially a bit disappointed because I didn't get the movie I'd expected to see. But with some time and distance, I've grown to appreciate this movie for what it is, and not criticize it for what it is not. Yes, this is a darker, drearier Superman than we're accustomed to. But it's also a more realistic and exciting Superman than we've ever seen before. And hopefully, if Warner Bros. play their cards right, this will be the beginning of new movie franchise more spectacular than anything the Avengers could have ever hoped for.

Final score: 9 out of 10

The end of Tyrone Corbin

After three and a half miserable seasons, the Utah Jazz have finally let Tyrone Corbin go as head coach. I feel relieved for the Jazz — it's felt like we've just been spinning our wheels the whole time he was here. But I do feel a little bad for Corbin, since he is genuinely a nice guy. I only met him once, but he made an impression on me. Really good guys like that are a rarity in this field. But in the cutthroat business of the NBA, you can't keep a guy around just because he's really nice. You've got to perform, and Corbin certainly underachieved. To Utah's credit, they let him go in the nicest way possible. They simply waited for his contract to expire, then chose not to renew it.

Corbin's surprise hiring as head coach in Feb. 2011 came during one of the most tumultuous time in recent Jazz history. Kevin O'Connor's carefully constructed team had collapsed under its own weight, and the drama and egos of certain players (including but not limited to Deron Williams) had become too much for Jerry Sloan to bear. Had Larry H. Miller not died in 2009, I believe he could have sorted this out. But instead, this problem fell into the lap of Miller's son, Greg, who was unable to persuade Sloan to stay.

Since Sloan's top assistant, Phil Johnson, decided to retire with him, the Jazz decided to go with the No. 3 guy, Tyrone Corbin. He had been an assistant coach in Utah since 2004, and by 2011 had built up a bit of a reputation for himself, and I occasionally heard his name come up as a candidate for other coaching positions around the league. But it still was a bit of a surprise for him to replace Sloan so suddenly. Or rather, it was surprising that he wasn't first named interim coach, but immediately promoted to head coach and given an extension as soon as possible. I suppose Miller wanted to promote stability, but I think it would have been better to take some time to find the best possible candidate.

I know a player's career is not indicative of his coaching career, but just for fun, here's Corbin's playing resume: He spent four years with DePaul, and averaged 15.9 points and 8.1 rebounds per game his senior year. He was then drafted in the second round by the San Antonio Spurs with the 35th pick in 1985. He only played 15 games his rookie season, and was cut 31 games into his second. Corbin then signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers, but the next year, he was included in the trade that sent Kevin Johnson to Phoenix for Larry Nance.

The 1988-89 season was the first full season Corbin spent with one team, and he even started 30 games for the Suns, averaging 8.2 ppg and 5.2 rpg. But then Phoenix left him exposed to the expansion draft, and he was picked up by the Minnesota Timberwolves. Corbin spent two and half seasons in Minnesota, putting up the best numbers of his career for those terrible teams. In 1990-91, he started all 82 games and averaged 18.0 ppg, 7.2 rpg and 4.2 apg. He also became the first Timberwolf to record a triple-double. But the next season, he was traded to the Utah Jazz for Thurl Bailey.

That trade wasn't very popular at the time, since Big T was popular among fans and teammates. John Stockton even expressed his disappointed of this trade in his autobiography. But the Jazz had more need of a small forward than another power forward, so the trade made sense. Corbin only spent two and a half years in Utah, peaking in 1992-93 with 11.6 ppg and 6.3 rpg. In 1993-94, the emergence of Bryon Russell relegated Corbin to the bench, and the next year, he was traded to the Atlanta Hawks for Adam Keefe. Keefe never put up big numbers, but he was an important role player on the Jazz teams that made the Finals, and at least Stockton and Jeff Hornacek have publicly named him as one of their favorite teammates because he set great screens and always boxed out. Most people remember Corbin's playing days in Utah for his milk commercials.

Corbin only spent one year with Atlanta before being traded to the Sacramento Kings for Spud Webb. Half a season later, he and Walt Williams were traded to to the Miami Heat for Kevin Gamble and Billy Owens. Miami cut him after 22 games, and he signed with Atlanta, where he enjoyed the longest uninterrupted stretch of his career with one team — three full seasons. Combining his previous stint with the Hawks, Corbin played 277 games in Atlanta — more than he played anywhere else. His second longest tenure was with the Jazz at 233 games, although he played more playoff games with Utah, 37 to 26.

In 1999, Corbin was waived by the Hawks, and he signed a one-year deal with Sacramento. For the first time in his career, his tenure with a team didn't end by being cut or traded. After his second stint with the Kings ended, he signed with the Toronto Raptors in 2000. But he only played 15 games with them before he was included in the trade that sent Corliss Williamson to the Detroit Pistons for Jerome Williams. He was promptly cut by the Pistons and never played another NBA game.

So all in all, that was 16 years, 1,065 games and a career average of 9.2 ppg. That's nothing to sneeze at. I'd absolutely love to have a career like that. But then again, he was traded six times and waived three times. That's a lot of bouncing around and can't be too enjoyable. After retiring in 2001, he took a couple of years off before joining the Jazz bench in 2004, where he remained for 10 years. But now that's over, and to determine why, here's a quick look at his head coaching career:

When Corbin took over in Feb. 2011, the Jazz had a 31-23 record. Corbin finished the year 8-20 and the Jazz missed the playoffs, ending a four-year streak. Of course, that's not entirely Corbin's fault. The team was in complete disarray after Sloan's abrupt departure, and Deron Williams was immediately traded after Corbin took over. It would have been quite unrealistic for anybody to succeed in a situation full of so much internal and external turmoil.

Unfortunately, the fates conspired again against Corbin to mess up his first full season as head coach with the NBA lockout. Missing training camp and playing a condensed 66-game schedule was not good for him, but he managed to guide the Jazz to a 36-30 record and sneak into the playoffs. The Jazz were promptly swept by the Spurs, losing each game by an average of 16 points. On one hand, Corbin deserves some credit for achieving that much success through all the adversity; on the other hand, I feel like he underachieved a bit with that roster. Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson could have been the best front court in the league, and Devin Harris seemed like he could have been a competent point guard to guide that team. But none of that potential was realized. That season was also highlighted by the failed Josh Howard experiment and Raja Bell getting into a fight with Corbin. A rather shaky start for our new coach, but most people were willing to give him one more year. Perhaps a full regular season would give us a good idea of what kind of a coach he was.

The 2012-13 season was just that. That playoff roster remained largely unchanged expect Harris was swapped out for Mo Williams and Howard for Marvin Williams. Yeah, Marvin is a pretty terrible player, and Mo only played in 46 games because of injuries, but I still expected more from this team. Jefferson, Millsap, Gordon Hayward, Randy Foye, Derrick Favors, Enes Kanter and Alec Burks should have been able to win more than 43 games, which in the West, kept the Jazz out of the playoffs. Jefferson had his least productive year in Utah with 17.8 ppg and 9.2 rpg, and Millsap had his worst year as a starter with 14.6 ppg and 7.1 rpg. It was a very difficult season to suffer through, but it only got worse the next year.

New general manager Dennis Lindsey made the right choice to let all the veterans from that disappointing team leave. I would have liked to have seen him get something in return for Jefferson and Millsap, but the important thing was to clear space for the talented young lottery picks to develop. And to help with the rebuilding process, Lindsey traded for all of Golden State's garbage players to fill up the salary cap. Unfortunately, Corbin took a liking to one of those garbage players, Richard Jefferson, and decided to make him a regular starter. Jefferson even openly talked about leaving the Jazz as soon as he could to join a contender, yet Corbin kept right on starting him and letting him steal minutes away from developing youngsters on the bench.

The most frustrating thing about this season was Corbin's reluctance to use a lineup of Trey Burke, Alec Burks, Gordon Hayward, Derrick Favors and Enes Kanter. He finally went to it for the last three or four games, but for the life of me, I can't figure out why it took so long. He wasn't winning in the present, so why didn't he focus completely on the future? Was it that important to help Richard Jefferson get a new contract next year? Would the Jazz really have lost more than 57 games had Enes Kanter started more? And you know what? Losing a few more games actually would have been pretty nice! When your season is a lost cause anyway, you might as well lose as much as you can to get a better draft pick. There really is nothing wrong with tanking.

And even though this was a rebuilding year for the Jazz, Corbin still could have found a way to succeed. On paper, I believe the Jazz have a better roster than the Suns. But Jeff Hornacek found a way to maximize their potential, and he almost took Phoenix to the playoffs (they would have been the third seed in the East). Another interesting thing is to look at the fates of the big three veterans that left the Jazz last year — Mo Williams, Paul Millsap and Al Jefferson. They all made the playoffs, Millsap was an All-Star, Jefferson might make the All-NBA Third Team, and Williams reinvented himself as a valuable sixth man. During Jerry Sloan's run, players that left the Jazz usually performed worse on their new teams. I'm talking about Shandon Anderson, Howard Eisley, and even Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer. Sloan was able to make players better. Under Corbin, players started to get worse, and then got better after they left.

So now I can finally breathe with Tyrone Corbin gone. This was the best move for the Jazz, and maybe the best move for Corbin. Perhaps he was only ever destined to be a good assistant coach, and there's nothing wrong with that. In the meantime, I can now hope the Jazz will get somebody good with their high draft pick, find a coach who can do for Utah what Hornacek did for Phoenix, and I can finally start rooting for my team to win again.

Iron Man 3

So I've been putting off this review for a long time, but I think it's nice to have some distance between the initial hype of the movie. Iron Man 3 came out almost a full year ago, in May 2013. It returns Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts and Don Cheadle as Rhodey. New are Guy Pearce and Ben Kingsley as the bad guys, and director Shane Black, who had previously directed only one other movie, something called Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.

This Iron Man movie follows two incredible Iron Man movies and the enormously successful Avengers movie. Marvel had been carefully building up their movie universe for this shared continuity world, and now that we're in the post-Avengers world, what would these movies look like? And how would these movies feel under the increased supervision of Disney? It came as no surprise that this movie grossed more than $1 billion worldwide, but does that mean this movie is any good?

I'll start by giving a point for the opening scene. It was great to start in 1999 with "I'm Blue" blasting away. Pre-Iron Man Tony Stark is a wonderful character, and the more we get of him the better. Plus, we got a fun quick cameo by the kindly heart surgeon who saved Tony's life after the accident. It would have been great to have also seen Pepper in 1999, but that probably would have been asking too much.

I'll raise the score to a 7 for the Mandarin's terrorist videos. The Mandarin used to be Iron Man's biggest villain, but has kind of grown out of favor lately because of his magical powers and potential racial undertones. But they had to use him in an Iron Man movie. He just needed a bit of cleaning up. And making him an Osama bin Laden figure was perfect. And getting Academy Award-winning Ben Kingsley to play him was even more perfect. These Mandarin videos were creepy and gripping.

Now I have to take a point off for the renaming of War Machine to Iron Patriot. There was absolutely no reason for this to happen other than giving the fan boys something to squeal about. "Ooo, Iron Patriot! He's from the comics!" But 90% of those fan boys know that Iron Patriot is actually a completely different character in completely different circumstances in a different and interesting story. Now that story is completely blocked off just because Marvel decided to randomly throw that name out.

I did, however, enjoy Tony's panic attacks. When you think about it, he really did have quite a traumatic experience in The Avengers. He battled an alien invasion, grabbed a nuclear warhead, and flew it into a different dimension, where he thought he was going to die. That's more than enough to mess with somebody's head — especially somebody who had previously only battled other people in suits just like the one he built. So I'll bring the score back up to a 7.

Now we begin the downward slope. I was very sad with what happened to Happy. He was played by Jon Favreau, who directed the first Iron Man movie, launching this whole movie empire. Sadly, he did not direct this one, and was relegated to a strange, annoying role that I guess was supposed to be funny, but really wasn't. He was then attacked, and it seemed like he was going to die. But for some reason, he didn't. Even though Tony kind of freaked out like he had died. Was he originally written to die in the script but Disney came in and said that's too dark? I don't really want to be making accusations like that and blame all the faults of this movie on the family-friendly Disney, but it really makes me wonder. Ultimately, to me, this movie felt like Happy needed to die. But he didn't. So I'll drop the score to a 6.

Never once did I say, "You know what these Iron Man movies need? Pepper Potts become an action hero." I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, but it really began when Tony put the suit on Pepper. I groaned in the theater. It felt unnecessary and unnatural. And then it only got worse at the end when Pepper actually became an action hero — gaining the Extremis  powers and suddenly the ability to fight like a trained martial artist. No thank you. Minus one point.

Now, the annoying little boy actually wasn't that annoying. But he was completely extraneous. Imagine this movie without him. Everything turns out exactly the same. The boy does absolutely nothing other than provide Tony an opportunity to crack some jokes. But he can crack jokes anytime with anyone. I'm not mad that a little boy was thrown into this movie — I'm mad that he was randomly and pointlessly thrown into this movie. It felt like a last-minute mandate from Disney, saying we need to throw in a kid here. Now we're down to a 4.

Rhodey is still a difficult character for me. Even though this is Don Cheadle's second time playing him, I still find myself longing for Terrence Howard. But that's neither here nor there. What really bugs me is this is the second movie in a row where the bad guy has taken over Rhodey's suit. You'd think he and Tony would put measures in place to prevent this after it happened the first time. But if anything, it seemed like it was even easier to get into the "Iron Patriot" suit this time. Yes, I know AIM oversaw the suit's redesign, but to be able to shut the whole thing down just by slightly burning its arm is way too easy. And then we had a weird thing going on, where a bad guy was able to hop into the suit and control, then they put the president in it, but he couldn't use it. Rhodey then saved the president, got him out of the suit, put it on and used it just fine. You'd think the president would at least try to free himself. He was, after all, trapped in one of the most powerful pieces of equipment in the world. I have to take off another point for this.

And now we fall to a low score of 2 because the MANDARIN IS A FAKE! How dare they waste Ben Kingsley like this! I kept waiting for them to show that the Mandarin was only pretending to be the goofy, druggy actor, or to be a body double or something. But no. The real bad guy was dorky Aldrich Killian, who got so mad about being stood up by Tony Stark on New Year's 13 years ago. By the way, why is this a Christmas movie when it was released in May? Anyway, when I found out the Mandarin was a fake, I became eternally embittered toward this film and lost all interest in it. They completely ruined the best thing going for it! Why should I keep caring?

Oh yeah, the barrel of monkeys scene. This was in all the trailers, with the truly spine tingling moment of Iron Man realizing 13 people have fallen out of an airplane, and he can only carry four. This was by far the best part of the whole movie, and the filmmakers knew it. One of the only bonuses on my DVD was a huge featurette explaining this scene in meticulous detail. They really did get a team of trained sky divers and jumped out of a real plane dozens of times to get all the shots. They only used CGI when absolutely necessary, and it really showed. It was an exciting, breath-taking scene that was very realistic and memorable. Unfortunately, it was almost too good. Everything else that followed afterward paled by comparison. I'll raise the score to a 3 for this scene, but the climatic battle won't get any points.

The final fight really wasn't so bad, although it was full of some annoying conveniences. Oh, so Tony's suits couldn't reach him earlier because of the rubble, and now, suddenly, when he needs them most, they just happen to show up. And during the fight, there were lots of weird little moments when he just happened to be able to get into a suit at just the right time, or when he suddenly found himself unable to locate one of his 40 suits flying around. Or the really weird part when his earpiece randomly fell out so he couldn't tell his suits not to attack Pepper. Don't worry, Tony, Pepper suddenly knows how to fight better than you ever could. And lets not even get started on how easily destructible these suits were. I thought he was supposed to be the invincible Iron Man. Now, I know I'm complaining a lot, but I won't take away a point, because the action was rather enjoyable and the special effects were very good.

But altogether, this was an incredibly disappointing installment in the Iron Man franchise and a poor way to kick off the second wave of the Marvel movie franchise. I think, sadly, it's time for Iron Man to stop having his own movies. Let's keep him in all the Avenger movies, and give him some cameos in other people's movies, but I don't want to see Iron Man struggle through another solo adventure like this one again.

Final score: 3

The Return of Swamp Thing

In 1989, seven years after the failure of Swamp Thing, eccentric producer Benjamin Melniker got his wish to make a second Swamp Thing movie. As you can tell from the poster, The Return of Swamp Thing decided to take a much more silly tone than the first one. The poster also had the audacity to claim Swamp Thing as "America's favorite super hero" in the same year Tim Burton's Batman was released.

But despite the radical change in tone, this movie does officially count as a sequel. Jim Wynorski is the new director, but the top billed actor is once again Louis Jourdan, who played the villain Antone Arcane in the last movie. And although Arcane was clearly killed in the last movie, the filmmakers decided he was good enough to bring back. Or possibly its because Swamp Thing doesn't have any good villains — I don't know, I haven't read any Swamp Thing. Also returning in this film is  Dick Durock as Swamp Thing. But this time, his costume looks a lot better. Even better than it looks in that crappy poster. Other than those two actors, the entire cast has changed, which makes sense because almost everyone died in the last movie except for Swamp Thing's girlfriend, Alice Cable. She isn't mentioned at all here, and Swamp Thing's new romantic interest is Abigail Arcane, Dr. Arcane's stepdaughter, played by Heather Locklear.

The movie starts with a group of federal investigators wading through the swamp. It's initially unclear what they're doing, but I think they were looking for moonshiners. Anyway, this scene was a huge improvement over the first movie already because it takes place at night, and the water is waist-deep instead of knee-deep. Some of these investigators are kinda goofy, but I wouldn't say anything is particularly funny at this point. They start to get lost and separated and one by one come across what appears to be an alligator, but is actually a leach-man monster. It's still obviously a guy in a suit, very reminiscent of Power Rangers, but it looks a lot better than the first movie. And again I think a lot of that has to do with the smart decision to have this take place at night, in deeper water, and with plenty of fog around. I can't imagine that this movie had a bigger budget than the first, but they seemed to use their money better. Well, anyway, Swamp Thing eventually comes forward and saves one of the guys. And Swamp Thing looks great. His first costume was so cheap and terrible. Now, for once, he actually looks like a plant man. He has tons of vines and bushes and things growing on him and a more expressive face. He's also a bit bigger, and actually looks like he could be a hero this time. Last movie tried to be too much like the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but this time he's clearly a superhero. And I think that could work. Unfortunately, this movie had to ruin everything by making it a comedy.

After a strong opening scene, we cut to a montage of images from Swamp Thing comic books set to Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Born on a Bayou." I like CCR as much as the next guy, but they really have no business being in a scary, dark superhero mystery. The inclusion of the comic book art is also rather perplexing. It's almost like the filmmakers felt obligated to demonstrate that this character existed in another medium. I think it's OK for superhero movies to remind the audience of the original source material, but not so blatantly. In this case, if some kid watching this for the first time was interested in one of those Alan Moore covers and went out and bought the comic, he'd be extremely disappointed with this movie. By directly showing some very serious, interesting, critically-acclaimed work and then making a spoof of it, these filmmakers only set themselves up for failure. Which is exactly what happened. According to Wikipedia, The Return of Swamp Thing made just a little more than $192,000.

Once John Fogerty is done singing, we leave the dark swamps of the South to head to the bright sunshine of Southern California. There we meet Abigail Arcane, a botanist who loves plants more than people. She carries on deep conversations with her plants, revealing that she's lost another boyfriend, and her current psychiatrist says the same thing her previous four said, which is that she won't have any healthy relationships until she resolves her issues with her stepfather. Apparently she blames him for not giving her mother a proper funeral, or if he did, then not inviting Abigail to it. I have no idea how that could possibly happen, but whatever. Anyway, Abigail decides she needs to visit her father in person — this is too important for a phone call. So she hastily leaves, telling her assistant to talk to the plants every day, read the sports section to them — they especially like the Lakers — and always keep the TV on.

We then cut to Dr. Arcane, who is surprisingly still alive and human again. It's also surprising to learn that he once had a wife, since in both these movies, he's constantly surrounded by beautiful women. He's also surrounded by the usual idiotic Rambo-type goons, who he's tasked with finding Swamp Thing. But this time, Arcane also has a couple of actual scientists with him, Dr. Rochelle and Dr. Lana Zurrell, played by Sarah Douglas, who was Ursa in Superman II. Apparently these two doctors found Arcane shortly after his fight with Swamp Thing, and he just happened to still be alive. The doctors saved him and restored his humanity, but his health is rapidly deteriorating, so they are experimenting on other people, trying to find a long-term cure for their boss. We actually get to see a couple of their monstrous experiments, including a grotesque half-man, half-elephant thing. The first movie definitely suffered from a lack of monsters, and this movie has a lot more, which is great. Unfortunately, only the leech monster got to go out and fight people, while the rest of the monsters just sat around in cages.

This is where things start to get messy from a story-telling point. We just cut around from scene to scene in mid-conversation. I was surprised to see some people start talking, then be shown someone else halfway across the country, then suddenly return to those same people still talking about the same thing. I guess this is what you call poor film editing. All I know is this is a poorly made film — worse than the first one in certain technical aspects. I wish we could combine the best parts of both the movies and end up with a half-decent Swamp Thing flick.

Well anyway, Abby arrives at Arcane's house, and he is excited to see her because there's a chance her blood could contain the same genetic properties that her mom's did that restored Arcane. But first he needs to test her blood, which requires him coming up with an overly complex plan to acquire some of her blood. He graciously welcomes his stepdaughter into his home, then immediately sends her upstairs to change for dinner.

We then cut to the most annoying, worthless characters of the whole movie. A fat white kid and a skinny black kid. The black kid constantly bosses the white kid around, and they're always up to no good. We first see them looking at porn while their parents are out playing bingo. There's then a knock at the door, which they assume is their parents. If it was their parents, I don't know why they'd bother knocking, but I guess we needed this bit to set up the "funny" scene of showing the kids slowly scrambling to try to hide their porn. They could have easily pushed all the magazines under the couch, but they instead decide to put a couple under the couch, some under the rug, some under the chair cushion, all while calling out to the knocking, "In a minute! Almost there!" Finally, after what feels like forever, they answer the door to the leech monster. They then close the door and let out what was supposed to be a comedic scream. Again, I'm not sure why the mindless monster bothered to patiently knock at the door while it took the kids 10 minutes to hide their dirty magazines, but what do I know?

Luckily for the kids, Swamp Thing shows up in time to save them, although he does destroy their trailer park in the process. The fight ends with the leech monster catching fire and running into the swamp. It's an exact ripoff of the best part of the first movie — when Alec Holland caught fire — but it's not nearly as impressive. Well, the cops soon show up, Swamp Thing disappears, and the kids decide not to tell the newspaper reporters about him because they want to take a picture of him first and sell it for $10,000.

We then see Dr. Arcane reading the paper about the event, and although Swamp Thing was explicitly not mentioned, he knows it was him. Arcane then finally has that dinner with his stepdaughter, so either the newspapers down there are incredibly fast and got out an evening edition, or he waited to do anything with his guest until the next day. Well anyway, at the dinner, he proves his love for his dead wife by giving Abby a ring he says belonged to her mother. If Abby was as close to her mom as was implied, she should have recognized the ring. But logic doesn't apply to this movie, as evident by Abby's desire to immediately put on the ring of her dead mother. Of course, Arcane rigged the ring to cut her, which gives him the necessary blood sample. Apparently this cut was quite traumatic, and Abigail decides to run away right there and then, in nothing but her fancy little dress that she will continue to wear for the rest of the movie.

Abby immediately runs across some moonshiners who naturally try to rape her. But luckily Swamp Thing saves the day. She immediately falls in love with him and he gives her the abbreviated version of his origin. And we actually see the cool scene where Alec Holland caught on fire in the first movie. So not only did this movie poorly re-create the flaming man scene, but then they also replayed the original. Whatever. I'm quite annoyed with everything right now, so let's get through this end quickly.

Swamp Thing and Abby are madly in love, but quite sad that they can't have sex, so he pulls a celery stalk off his waist, bites it, and gives it to her. When she bites it, we get a very strange hallucination of her making out with a human Swamp Thing. They're then found by the boys who want to take a picture with Swamp Thing. While they're posing,  Abby gets kidnapped by Arcane's men, who then blow Swamp Thing up with a grenade.

There's then a poorly developed subplot of Lana, one of Arcane's doctors/current lover, turning against him for absolutely no reason whatsoever. But illogical actions are the norm here, just as is Lana's decision to take a bath, but never get in the tub. But that had to happen so they could show Swamp Thing ooze in through the tub faucet and reform himself in the tub. It would have been a cool scene if it had a better setup.

Well, some stuff happens, I guess, and we finally get to the climax. Arcane kills Abby by draining her life energy to save himself, but it didn't fully work because Lana sabotaged the experiment. So he kills her, then Swamp Thing finally makes his way down to the secret lab to battle ... not Arcane, but the other doctor who has turned into a very cheap and crappy looking monster. He's completely the same, but now has a big head, which flops around a lot whenever he gets punched. They really should have used the better-looking leech monster at the end of the movie.

Swamp Thing naturally defeats the big-headed monster, but unnaturally initiates the self destruct sequence in the lab. Why does it ... oh, never mind! Arcane somehow had a door fall on him, so he just sits there and shrugs while Swamp Thing leaves with Abby's body. The house then blows up and Swamp Thing revives his girlfriend. For some reason, a little flower grows on her foot, and she resolves to spend the rest of her life in the swamp with the giant plant monster. The idiot kids then take a bunch of pictures of this final scene, but halfway through the credits, we learn that they didn't have any film. Oh those kids whose names I never bothered to learn!

Ugh. That became painful at the end. Usually I love writing about bad movies, but this one was tough because it had plenty of potential to be a decent movie. The suit looked great, and this director showed a great willingness to keep all the action at night and use more monsters. But then they had to kill all that potential by trying to make it a spoofy comedy. By itself, I should probably give this movie a zero, but since it was actually better than the original, I will give it a mercy point.

Final score: 1

Swamp Thing

When you look at the list of early superhero movies, there are a couple of obvious choices like Superman and Batman, but then there are a few completely random ones like Howard the Duck and Swamp Thing. And those two oddballs really only got made because a couple of rich, eccentric people wanted to make those movies, not caring about how popular or profitable those characters could be. Howard the Duck took flight because of George Lucas, and Swamp Thing rose from the bog of obscurity thanks to Benjiman Melniker, a rich, eccentric lawyer who bought the movie rights to his two favorite comic book characters — Batman and Swamp Thing. Batman was the much better choice, but it took forever to get it going. Swamp Thing, however, was able to be made in the early year of 1982 because it had a budget of only $3 million.

Wes Craven was brought in to write the script and direct Swamp Thing. Craven was known for his horror films, but he didn't become really famous until Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream a few years later. Since he had writing and directing duties, it is safe to assign most of the blame of this movie to Craven. I did hear that he was frustrated with the increasingly dwindling budget, but that doesn't excuse this movie for not making a lick of sense. I do have to admit, however, that this movie was at its best when it acted like a horror film. But this movie suffered from not knowing if it wanted to be a horror, superhero, action, romantic or tragic film. It was all over the map in terms of tone and genre. It also borrows heavily from Creature of the Black Lagoon, Star Wars and Rambo. It kind of tried to be everything and ended up nothing. And that's basically what this movie made in the box office. According to Wikipedia, the worldwide gross was less than $300,000.

The movie started off oddly with a few paragraphs of text basically telling us the origin of Swamp Thing. This confused and intrigued me. It would be a pretty bold move to contain the entire origin just in the text and start the movie running with Swamp Thing fully realized. But that didn't happen. The first half hour of this movie showed us everything that those introductory paragraphs told us. Unfortunately, those paragraphs kept things rather vague, leaving out some nice details that were quite confusing and muddled when the actual movie began.

We follow the story of Alice Cable, played by Adrienne Barbeau, who reminds me a lot of Sigourney Weaver (it would have been awesome had she been here instead). Cable has been flown in to a mysterious research facility in the middle of the swamp. She's from Washington, and her job is to shut down(?) this project run by Alec Holland because its facing a lot of security issues and staff members keep leaving. I don't know, I'm mostly guessing here. Nobody really knew what Alice was supposed to do, and she sure didn't know what anyone was doing out there nor who anyone was. Eventually she meets Alec Holland, who explains that he has put an animal nucleus in the cell of a plant, and he hopes to create stronger, more aggressive plants that can survive in the desert and such. He also briefly mentions a rival scientist named Anton Arcane, who hopes this research can lead to immortality.

Well, Alec and Alice instantly fall in love with each other because they're the stars of the film. Luckily it doesn't take long for Alec to make a breakthrough in his research. He creates a glowing green formula that makes plants instantly grow. Just then, a bunch of men, who look like they're straight from Vietnam, break into the lab and start killing everybody. Then the chief of security randomly rips off a mask to reveal himself to be Arcane. This was such a cheesy effect — they had the first actor start to peel some plastic off his face, then they did a quick cut to the second actor holding a mask in his hand. It was such a horrible effect and it made absolutely no sense. Why did Arcane have to disguise himself with what would have been an extremely realistic mask? And how long did he pretend to be that other guy?

Anyway, a fight breaks out, and Alice somehow manages to secure Alec's all-important final journal. Alec, meanwhile, gets pushed into a big vat of his new formula and somehow catches on fire. Completely covered in flames, he runs through the lab and jumps into the swamp, and everybody assumes he's dead. This was actually the best part of the movie. A stunning, haunting visual with a fiery figure running out into the dark, foggy night. Unfortunately, everything went downhill from there.

Alice is somehow able to hide all through the night, but then is found in the morning. Arcane instructed his men to burn the lab and kill all survivors. But when they find Alice, they decide to not use their guns or knives and instead drown Alice in the swamp. Well, this is the perfect opportunity for Swamp Thing to show up and save the day. And he looks awful. Just completely terrible. Never once did he not look like a guy in a suit. And to make things worse, the guy in the suit (Dick Durock) was a completely different actor than the guy who played Alec Holland (Ray Wise). Wes Craven may have complained about his shrinking budget, but he also reportedly wasted a lot of it by filming every scene with Wise in the suit first, then reshooting everything with Durock. Apparently Wise wasn't tall enough. But that still doesn't excuse how awful the suit looks. Since it needed to spend a lot of time in water, it had to be waterproof. But this made it look like a scuba suit or raincoat. They haphazardly threw a few vines on him when they really needed to cover him completely in seaweed. They also made the mistake of filming every single scene in the day. The swamp looked great at night with the fog and everything, plus it would have helped disguise how awful this suit looked.

The next half hour or so of this movie is an extremely long and excruciatingly boring series of chase scenes. Many of these early superhero movies (like Howard the Duck) struggled to convincingly shoot any real action scenes, so they often resulted to simple chase scenes. And that's all we got here. Over and over again. Alice is caught by the bad guys, then saved by Swamp Thing (who actually kills a lot of people in this movie, but luckily Arcane has an infinite supply of men), and then the whole process repeats itself. At one point, Alice manages to get to a phone to call her supervisor, but it turns out he was Arcane all along! Wait ... so Arcane sent Alice to shut down Holland's lab and then he broke in anyway ... but then he disguised himself as the chief of security ... but then ... Oh, never mind! I can't start to apply logic to this movie? I mean, this is the movie where Swamp Thing constantly calls Alice by her last name, Cable, even though he's apparently madly in love with her.

Anyway, Alice comes across the most worthless and worst-acted character here — a black boy named Jude. He does absolutely nothing in this movie, and then is killed by Arcane's men. But then Swamp Thing brings him back to life. Sure, why not? I've never read any Swamp Thing stories, so I have no idea what his powers are supposed to be like. Anyway, the endless chase scenes continue with Arcane's men reporting to their boss how strong and smart Swamp Thing is. They had to say that because never once during this movie did he do anything that made him look particularly smart or strong. Well, I guess he did absorb a few gunshots, but that made sense since he's supposed to be made of plants and shooting a plant doesn't really do anything to it.

Well, the chase scenes finally end when Swamp Thing gets his arm cut off, and a whole bunch of guys throw a net over him and Alice. They are taken to Arcane's mansion, where he uses Holland's missing journal to make his own version of the formula. He first tests it on one of his goons, Bruno, but it oddly turns him into a strange little midget. This was actually the freakiest scene of the movie, when the henchmen starting gasping, gurgling and screaming during the transformation. Director Wes Craven definitely showed some brilliance in brief little moments, but sadly this movie fell apart as a whole. So yeah, Arcane, for some reason, decides to put Bruno in the prison cell with Swamp Thing and Alice. Arcane demands to know why the formula didn't work, but Swamp Thing said it did work. The formula amplifies what your essence already is. Sure it does! Because nobody said anything remotely like that until this moment! So since Alec Holland loved the swamp so much, he became a swamp monster. And as Arcane says, since Bruno's essence was stupidity, he turned into a stupid little worthless monster. But Bruno actually doesn't become stupid. If anything, he acts smarter after his transformation and helps our heroes escape.

So Arcane leaves our heroes to give himself the formula, believing it will amplify his own genius. Alice then tells Swamp Thing that he thrives off the sun (more of an assumption than observation) and she tells him to reach for the sunlight. He does, and is able to regrow his arm, and with the help of Bruno, they all escape. Arcane, however, turned into a really stupid-looking wolf-warthog-monster-thing that actually makes the Power Ranger villains look good. Arcane then grabs a sword because ... well, I guess he really wanted to use that sword that's been hanging on his wall. He then chases after Swamp Thing and Alice and engages in the final showdown in the swamp. It is a very slow and terrible fight. It was two guys wearing cheap costumes that they could barely move in standing in knee-deep water, which only made it even harder for them to move. At one especially odd  part, Alice jumps in front of Swamp Thing, apparently to protect him. Umm, he's an indestructible plant monster. You should hide behind him. Naturally, Arcane kills her, but then Swamp Thing kills Arcane and then revives Alice.

The movie ends with Alice telling Swamp Thing that he can continue his research, but he says, "With these hands?" She says, "I'll be your hands!" But he says, "No. You need to heal and go tell our story. And I need to protect the swamp." Every thing he said makes no sense. Alice needs to heal? You just healed her! She's fine! Alice needs to tell their story? Tell who? And why? Who would believe her? And you need to protect the swamp? From who? What danger is it currently under? Sure, Arcane and his Rambo impersonators were running around making a mess, but they're gone now. What is Swamp Thing going to do? Well, we'll find out in the low-budget Return of Swamp Thing, which came out seven years later.

Final score: 0

Jimmer is free!

It finally happened. After nearly three years of languishing away in possibly the worst team for him, The Jimmer has been freed at last. Although I do find it odd that the same franchise that was able to trade for Rudy Gay this season was unable to trade Jimmer. But a buyout works out fine here, and I actually am very excited to see if he'll get to play alongside Derrick Rose next year. Yeah, it's the Bulls, who should never be forgiven for their sins committed against the Jazz, but I actually kind of like this version with Tom Thibodeau and Rose when he's healthy. They play defense hard and always compete, and are generally a fun team to watch — even with Carlos Boozer.

I covered the BYU men's basketball team during the first half of Jimmer's junior year. He was a star on the team, but not the star. He was a very solid point guard, and we were happy to have him. But senior Jonathan Tavernari felt like he should be the star, and he certainly acted like it. I was astounded by his complete arrogance during interviews and games. He was such a tremendous ball hog, and not even that good of a shooter. In BYU's first loss that year, Tavernari went 1-for-11 from the field at Utah State. Finally Dave Rose benched Tavernari, which ignited a 15-game winning streak and really helped Jimmer take control of the team.

At that time, he was still known as Jimmer Fredette, and he was able to walk around in public in obscurity. I also worked at the BYU Creamery on Ninth East, and often served ice cream to the basketball players when they came in for practice. I was amazed, though, that none of my coworkers knew who Jimmer was. Of course, most of them were girls who had no interest in sports, but still. This was our starting point guard, and he was actually pretty good. As an ice cream scooper, I always tried to treat the customers professionally, i.e., like normal people — even the handful of apostles who visited while I was there. But with Jimmer, I had to let him know that I knew who he was and respected what he did. I didn't ask for an autograph or anything (I was covering the team for The Daily Universe then); I just empathized with him about losing to Utah State (which was the team's only loss that semester). Jimmer took my playful comments in good humor and was very nice and respectful. In fact, in my limited exposure with Jimmer, I never saw him act anyway but respectful.

Anyway, with Tavernari on the bench, Jimmer continued to improve and progress. He put together a couple of 20-point games and a 33-point game against Nevada. And then it happened. The semester ended and I was unable to continue covering the basketball team. So I kind of missed Jimmer's big game at Arizona over Christmas break. Jimmer hit nine 3-pointers, scored 49 points and added nine assists and seven rebounds for good measure. Suddenly he was a somebody among BYU fans. And I noticed that people at the Creamery began asking him for autographs. But I don't think anybody considered him a superstar at that point — just a good player who could occasionally get hot.

Well that season wrapped up with a loss to Kansas State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. But us BYU fans were thrilled with that. BYU rarely makes it to the Tournament and hadn't even won a game there for a long, long time. On an interesting note, Kansas State guard Jacob Pullen single-handedly destroyed BYU with 34 points in that game, and I thought for sure he'd be in the NBA. But he never got drafted and has spent all his time overseas. Speaking of the Draft, there was some talk that Jimmer would try to go to the NBA after his junior season. I thought he'd be a second-rounder at best, and apparently so did he, as he pulled out from the Draft and rejoined BYU for his senior year. Now that we knew what he could do, expectations were very high.

It soon became commonplace for Jimmer to score 30 his senior year, and he became, without question, the most popular athlete on campus (it really helped that the football team was rather lackluster then). Jimmer stopped coming to the Creamery, and I began to hear stories about how it became difficult for him to go anywhere in Provo. Things really didn't start to get crazy until the Utah game. True, the Utes were in a down year, but beating the rivals on their home floor is still pretty fun. And scoring 47 points while you're doing it is even better. One of Jimmer's most memorable moments came right before halftime of that game, when he beat the buzzer to make a half court shot like it was nothing.

Jimmermania had officially begun. And it only grew exponentially with each game. Scoring anything less than 40 was an off night for The Jimmer. Here are some highlights: 42 at Colorado State, 43 the next game against No. 4 San Diego State, and a career-high 52 against New Mexico in the Mountain West Conference Tournament. That last one was particularly impressive for me because New Mexico had beaten BYU twice that season, and in that game Jimmer only shot one free throw. Everybody remembers his deep 3-pointers, but he made quite a living at the line, making 16 free throws in several games.

Unfortunately, I was unable to attend any of these games in person because I was working as a copy editor for The Daily Universe. But the benefit of that meant I was able to write a lot of fun Jimmer headlines and design amazing Jimmer packages. It was a cruel tradeoff, but I was always filled with a bit of pride to see the newspaper racks empty when Jimmer was on the cover. One of our great covers simply had Jimmer's head fill up the whole page with the words "We Love Jimmer!" below. We put a dotted line with a pair of scissors around his head, and to my surprise, a lot of fans actually did cut out Jimmer's head and use that to make their own signs. During this time, I was also serving an internship with the Deseret News, and got to work on the sports desk every Friday and Saturday night. That meant that I was working seven nights a week for a whole semester, and it nearly killed me, but the excitement of Jimmermania kept me going. I almost felt a little guilty sometimes for giving a good Jimmer headline to the Deseret News and not The Daily Universe, or vice versa, but it all worked out in the end. But it all worked out in the end. It was at the DesNews where I helped decided that Jimmermania should be one word. My biggest headline regret was shooting down "Fredette about it" at the Universe. But then ESPN used that same headline, so I was glad nobody could accuse us of copying.

Sadly, all the excitement and fun and high hopes of the greatest team in BYU history was crushed when leading rebounder Brandon Davies was suspended for an Honor Code violation. I can't blame Davies or BYU for the situation — everybody did what needed to be done — but the timing couldn't have been any worse. The Cougars did manage to reach the Sweet 16 for the first time since Danny Ainge, but they sadly fell to Florida in overtime. The loss of Davies really hurt me in this game, because it seemed like BYU could have won in regulation if they would have made one last defensive rebound. But Davies was able to rejoin BYU the next year, had a pretty decent career, and is currently on the bench of the tanking 76ers.

Well, Jimmermania ended sadly, but he did gain national recognition and won every major college basketball award there is. Unfortunately, there is no reward in college basketball that commands as much respect as the Heisman. The Wooden or the AP Player of the Year just don't sound as impressive. Anyway, building up to the NBA Draft was especially exciting since the Jazz had the 3rd and 12th picks, which were perfectly in Jimmer range. I got to cover Jimmer working out for the Jazz, which was pretty much a disastrous media circus nightmare for me. I guess the TV people got their way and insisted we interview Jimmer on the court. There were a million people there and we all had to shove and fight our way toward him, hoping that our recorders could catch his words. It was an unpleasant experience, and not one I'd like to repeat too soon. But Jimmer was very impressive during that chaotic interview. He stood tall, spoke loudly and clearly, and even joked a little bit. By contrast, Kemba Walker was also there for the workout, and he sat slunched over, seemed disinterested, and sounded (as one reporter put it) like a dog with peanut butter stuck on the roof of its mouth.

Well, the Draft soon approached, and I got the sense that Kevin O'Connor wanted nothing to do with Jimmer. But in a fun little piece for the Universe, I still optimistically predicted the Jazz would take him at No. 12. The first three picks went just like everybody thought they would, with Kyrie Irving going to the Cavs, Derrick Williams to the T-Wolves, and Enes Kanter to the Jazz. Things got shaken up a little bit after that, and then Jimmer was taken at No. 10 by the Milwaukee Bucks. But it was immediately announced that he was drafted for the Sacramento Kings. It took all night for the Kings, Bucks and Bobcats to finalize their complicated trade, but it ended up with the Kings surprisingly trading up in the Draft to grab Jimmer by paying the price of Bismack Biyombo and Beno Udrih. Meanwhile, Kevin O'Connor likely breathed a sigh of relief and happily drafted Alec Burks. It's not that Jimmer would have been a bad fit in Utah, but most likely the fans' adoration of him would have put a lot of pressure on the coach who didn't play him or the general manager who didn't draft him. But nobody expected O'Connor to waste the third pick on Jimmer, so he was able to avoid some criticism on that front.

The Kings, meanwhile, seemed to make a pretty stupid trade at the time. Udrih was coming off a career year and Biyombo had a ton of potential. Plus, Sacramento had to take on John Salmons' unfavorable contract. But at the end of the day, it all became a wash. Udrih only played with the Bucks for a season and a half before being traded to Orlando. He then signed with New York before getting cut and recently signed with the Grizzlies (Memphis was rumored to be interested in Jimmer, but they chose Udrih instead). Biyombo has not had a particularly stellar career in Charlotte, and Salmons actually didn't hurt Sacramento that much because he was included in the Rudy Gay trade. So, almost three years later, I can't call that trade for Jimmer bad or good. I will call it unnecessary, though. Sacramento already had a ton of shoot-first, pass-never guards on their roster, leaving little to no room for Jimmer.

I was devastated for Jimmer. Not only did Sacramento have a terrible roster, but the whole organization was/is a complete mess. Their owners were bankrupt and almost moved the team to Seattle. Luckily they found some new owners and a little bit of stability, but how stable are you really when Shaquille O'Neal is one of your owners? Jimmer's first coach, Paul Westphal, seemed to like him and played him big minutes in the preseason. But Westphal got into a fight with notorious head case DeMarcus Cousins, and was fired only seven games into the season. After all, decent to mediocre coaches are easy to find, but players as big and strong as Cousins are not. So even though he acts like a complete jerk and idiot at times, the Kings are hanging on to him tooth and nail. Unfortunately, all this meant bad news for Jimmer. The new coach, Keith Smart, just never played him for whatever reason. Yeah, he's not as athletic as the other guys, and his defense is pretty terrible, but is he that much worse than the other players on the Kings roster? Here are Jimmer's stats through his first three years:

Season   Games   MPG   FG%   3FG%   FT%  PPG
2011-12     61        18.6     .386      .361       .833     7.6
2012-13     69        14.0     .421      .417       .859     7.2
2013-14     41        11.3     .475      .493       .895     5.9

So his minutes per game have steadily declined while his shooting percentages have steadily risen. Jimmer actually leads the NBA in 3-point percentage right now. I do want to put a disclaimer on those stats, though. The improved shooting is most likely due to the decreased competition Jimmer regularly faces. He usually only plays in the garbage minutes, when the game is already decided and both teams have the scrubs in. Nobody in those minutes are particularly good, and they're usually not trying very hard, not wanting to get hurt or too sweaty in a 20-point contest. So the defenders Jimmer has been facing more recently have likely been rather lackluster. I don't mean to discount anything Jimmer's done, I think it is still very impressive, but I want to help encourage some critical analysis of statistics. Most people work under the assumption that every minute of every NBA game is identical and an accurate indicator of a player's abilities. But anybody who watches the NBA has to admit that certain games and parts of games don't matter as much and are not played at the same intensity as the highest level of NBA games are. This is why I hate the per-36-minute stat. It is a little better than the completely nonsensical per-48-minute stat, but it still artificially increases most bench players' production. Sometimes they're just not able to play with as much energy for a longer period of time, and sometimes they do worse when they play against starters instead of bench players.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say (if I'm saying anything at all) is that I love Jimmer and I think he's a great player who has never really had a chance to prove himself. He doesn't have a lot of games with Chicago this year, but they will make the playoffs, giving Jimmer some good experience at that level. Hopefully Derrick Rose will be back next year and Jimmer will be there with him and turn into a major contributor on a contender. I would have loved to see him on San Antonio or Oklahoma City, but Chicago has a lot of potential, as well. Hopefully Jimmer will be able to resurrect Jimmermania and not become the next Adam Morrison.

Justice League: War

Justice League: War is DC first movie of the New 52 era. It was officially released Feb. 4, 2014, and sort of serves as a sequel to Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox. Jay Oliva is back as the director, and the basic animation style is the same, although all the voices are different. This highly-anticipated movie was based off the first six issues of Justice League by Geoff Johns and Jim Lee, which is collected in a trade paperback called Justice League: Origin. Before I review the movie, I'll provide a brief recap of the source material.

Justice League: Origin is an extremely simple, by-the-books origin story specifically designed for new readers. All the Justice League members met each other one at a time, briefly fought each other, then were quickly forced to unite to defeat the biggest threat imaginable in the DC universe — Darkseid. The comics failed to give Darkseid a strong motivation to attack Earth — he mentioned something about looking for his daughter, but then DC seemed to forget about that later on. Darkseid was also defeated way too quickly and conveniently, basically because of a loophole. But the comics succeeded in showing that these seven heroes are the biggest and the best heroes around. But they first had to learn how to work together and gain the public's trust. As with most Geoff Johns stories, these six issues read like a perfect screenplay that could easily be collected in trade and adapted to a movie. DC probably could have made a perfectly serviceable movie without changing a single line of dialogue from the comics, but they felt they needed to make some interesting changes.

I guess I'll start by listing all the positives of this movie. (Spoiler, there aren't too many.)

The animation and action was top-notch. As to be expected with these movies, the action scenes were incredible and everything anyone could hope for in a movie like this. I laugh whenever people say this is an "anime" style of animation. I guess it's as much anime as the Young Justice cartoon, but it's nothing like Naruto or Bleach. In any case, you'd be hard-pressed to say that this style of animation is not good. I also noticed some slight improvements from Flashpoint — the problem of super stiff characters in the background was fixed, or at least made less noticeable. Of course, there were still a few flaws and shortcuts I noticed. Like all the Wonder Woman protesters carrying the exact same sign, for example. And the weakest bit of action (perhaps intentionally) was the football game. It seemed like it was animated by people who knew very little of football. All the players were exactly the same size and seemed to move in slow motion. Obviously the football game shouldn't overshadow any of the superhero action, but it would have been nice had it looked better.

Hand-in-hand with the animation is the character and costume designs. I thought all of them looked great, especially the Flash's. His New 52 costume at the end of Flashpoint was atrocious, so seeing it improved here made me especially happy. Another big complaint from Flashpoint was the sheer enormity of many of the characters, but most of them were slimmed down here; although Superman still had a 30-inch neck. But altogether, everything worked very well. I thought Wonder Woman's ponytail would bug me, but it didn't. If I did have one complaint, it would be Shazam. They intentionally kept him smaller than Superman, which I think is a mistake, and I would have liked his lightning bolt symbol to extend farther down his shirt. But that's just a minor quibble.

The one character who got a true origin story in the comics was Cyborg, and pleasingly, this movie actually improved upon it. Making him the quarterback was a nice change, since it gave him some leadership qualities, which was much needed in this movie. They also played up the tension with his dad to good effect, and they did a better job of showing how he was nearly killed than Jim Lee's artwork portrayed. The scenes where he became Cyborg were also quite horrific, making us feel bad for the kid and understand his desire and need to run away from his dad. I was also happy that the movie didn't repeat Jim Lee's odd habit of constantly posing Cyborg in front of an American flag. Overall, Cyborg was very good in this movie, but I don't think it was necessary to make him connected to the Flash and Shazam.

My final compliment for this movie is the omission of Green Lantern's stupid fireworks. In the comic, he made a few green fireworks to distract Darkseid long enough for the other heroes to stab his eyes out. It was a very unimpressive scene, especially considering how detailed and amazing Jim Lee had drawn Lantern's other constructs in the previous issues. Now this movie easily could have ramped up the fireworks big time, and actually made them look like something that would distract Darkseid, but they chose to forgo that idea altogether, and probably for the better. Of course, in place of this, we got tons and tons and tons of fighting with Darkseid. Perhaps too much, but it was rather entertaining all the same.

Now it's time for the bad …

First of all, I have to complain about the voices. It seems like Jay Oliva and legendary voice director Andrea Romano took the idea of younger superheroes a bit too literally. Everybody sounds like an annoying college frat boy. They all came off like immature idiots, and I just wanted to smack every single one of them. Green Lantern (Justin Kirk) was the worst, partly because, as Batman said, he could not shut up. Batman (Jason O'Mara) was not much better, and Wonder Woman (Michelle Monaghan) was up and down. Even the great Sean Astin (who received top billing) couldn't prevent Shazam from sounding like a super annoying college freshman. And the Flash (Christopher Gorham) just made me sad. He had this really stupid tendency of talking really fast. And he came off as the biggest idiot in a movie full of idiots, especially with his, "Uhh, it looks like somebody took my chimichanga by mistake … I don't know how that could have happened … I mean, these ten burritos I bought are all identical …" I might just be prejudiced because the Flash is my favorite character, and I'll go into more detail on him later.

One thing that really added to the frat boy image was the script and dialogue. There's a difference between being inexperienced and being immature, but these filmmakers didn't seem to grasp that. It really just kind of felt like everybody was goofing off the whole time, not ever worried about the planet being destroyed. They constantly pulled themselves out of what should have been tense situations to crack cheesy one-liners and flirt with Wonder Woman. Seriously, four guys were fighting for a chance to be with Wonder Woman — Steve Trevor, Green Lantern, Superman (who didn't start dating her until later in the comics) and Shazam. I get that she's Wonder Woman, the most amazing woman on the planet, but couldn't we have limited the constant flirting a bit? And couldn't we have done without so many stupid lines of immature dialogue that wasn't in the source material? Like at the end when everybody asked Cyborg where Shazam was, and he says, "Uhh … he said he had to go on a hot date." And Green Lantern immediately responds with, "Who'd want to go on a date with that immature loser?" Seriously? You guys just fought side-by-side in the most horrific alien invasion the planet has ever seen. Half the city is destroyed with fires and buildings crumbling all around. And you have to throw out one more lame frat boy joke.

One of the great things about these direct-to-DVD movies for DC was the decision to make them PG-13. This gave them the freedom to be more faithful to the source material that was usually harsher than what would normally appear in DC's cartoons. But what happens when the source material isn't harsh enough to earn a PG-13 rating itself, but the producers still want that higher rating to presumably increase sales? You get an awkward movie like this. Geoff Johns' story was perfectly acceptable for comic book readers of most ages, which is exactly what you want for a big entry-point story like this. But since a direct adaptation of this comic wasn't harsh enough, the filmmakers did what they could to boost up the rating by adding a few extra parademon decapitations, lots of blood dripping from Darkseid's eye, and a few extra (and unnecessary) swear words. All they needed to do was follow the comic a little closer and show a couple of kids about to be killed by Darkseid. In this regard, I missed producer Bruce Timm the most. I feel like he could have done a better job getting this movie up to a PG-13.

But speaking of kids in danger, this movie practically eliminated the common man from this story entirely. We saw about 15 people at the football game, maybe 10 people protesting Wonder Woman, and a handful of people all-too-conveniently rescued by Cyborg at the end. We caught a brief glimpse of Barry Allen's office, but there was no attempt to include Director Singh, Captain Frye, James Forrest or Patty Spivot in the background. I guess we did see Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen at the end, so that's something. But one of my favorite moments of the comic — David Graves huddling together with his family before Darkseid killed them — was completely eliminated, as was any sense of threat or tragedy to normal people. Darkseid and his parademons just showed to give these super powered frat boys a fun adventure, right?

Steve Trevor had a pretty minor role in the comics, and the movie somehow managed to reduce that role even more. He basically only had one line of dialogue, in which he chastised Wonder Woman for not fulfilling her responsibilities to meet the president, and then, in the same breath, he tries to take her out on a date. Wait, didn't you just say the president of the United States was waiting for her right now? Why are trying to take her to the best ice cream place in D.C.? The diminishment of Steve Trevor also killed the notion that the Justice League had to work to gain the government's and public's trust. The scene of a conflicted Trevor being ordered to open fire on his girlfriend and the other heroes was completely eliminated, as was any notion that the Flash was working hard to get the police off his back, since he was already working well with Dr. Stone and S.T.A.R. Labs. The only sense of any mistrust we saw was a couple of kids watching an iPad video of what appeared to be Batman, but was actually a parademon, so that didn't count; then there was the lady Green Lantern rescued, who acted like it was completely normal to be abducted by an alien and rescued by a glowing green guy. She was annoyed by his flirting, and angry that he dropped her off on the top of a random roof. That whole bit was too nonsensical to count. And then there was the Wonder Woman protest. At first, it seemed like the lead protester had a legitimate complaint — Wonder Woman and other superheroes were taking the law into their own hands, causing millions of dollars of damages and setting a bad example for the youth. But like everything else in this movie, this scene had to be turned into a joke. Wonder Woman used her lasso of truth on this guy to get him to confess about cross dressing as Wonder Woman to feel powerful. So really, the only complaint this guy had was that he secretly had a strange fetish with the Amazonian princess, was embarrassed by it, and decided to take out his rage against her with claims that he didn't believe in and probably weren't true. So ultimately, nobody was afraid of or angry with the superheroes. But we still had that line at the end where the Flash suggested they leave before they get blamed again. Blamed again? You haven't been legitimately blamed once this whole movie!

Now, I understand that things need to be changed when you adapt a story into a movie. That's why it's called an adaptation. But I can't stand unnecessary changes that don't enhance or improve the movie in any conceivable way. My first minor complaint with this was changing Green Lantern's firetruck at the beginning to a train. That opening splash page in the comic was incredible because of the detail Jim Lee put into that truck. It had windshield wipers, bumpers, tires, ladders, hoses, everything. Now, I know a train is more powerful than a firetruck, but it's also easier to draw, which seemed to be the primary motivation here. It also sucked that Green Lantern made a second train to bash into Darkseid later on. Shouldn't he have started with a firetruck then work his way up to a train?

But my biggest complaint about an unnecessary change was the little girl who taught Wonder Woman the joy of ice cream. In the comic, the girl was black. In the movie, she was white. Why? Did these filmmakers feel it wasn't realistic to have a black girl in Washington, D.C.? Did they feel it wasn't realistic to have Wonder Woman talk to a black girl or for a black girl to idolize this super heroine? Or did the filmmakers not actually read the comic but only the script adaptation that just happened to omit the girl's ethnicity? Whatever the reason, there is no justification for this. These filmmakers either come out looking racist or sloppy.

Now, of course, the biggest change to this movie was replacing Aquaman with Shazam. This one really shocked me, because Geoff Johns made it his personal crusade to make Aquaman cool in the New 52. And he succeeded. But his omission in this movie sends out the message that DC was worried audiences wouldn't think Aquaman is cool. Don't give in to those fears! Include Aquaman to show us why he is awesome, just as Geoff Johns did in the Justice League and Aquaman comics. Now, these filmmakers did include a post-credits scene leading into the Throne of Atlantis storyline to potentially justify excluding Aquaman. But that's a really stupid justification because one of the great things about Throne of Atlantis was that Aquaman was a founding member of the Justice League and had built a five-year history with the other heroes. Eliminating that aspect will surely hurt that movie when it does come out. Also, that post-credits scene was pretty weak. Ocean Master came out of nowhere, holding a dead man in his arms, and said, to no one in particular, "The surface world killed our king! This is an act of war!" It would have been better had he actually been talking to somebody.

I have recently taken quite a liking to Shazam. I don't even mind not calling him Captain Marvel anymore. I bought the Shazam trade by Geoff Johns and Gary Frank and loved it. In fact, Shazam is now my second-favorite character after the Flash. So while I was angry that Aquaman was left out, I was hopeful that Shazam could be an interesting replacement. In Johns' story, Billy Batson was a brat, who really had no business gaining the powers of the gods. But Black Adam had recently been freed, so the old wizard really had no choice and had to turn Billy into Shazam. But that experience taught Billy a lot, and he started to grow up and be less of a brat. So how did this movie treat him? Billy certainly started off as a brat — he snuck into the football game, stole Vic's jersey, and openly resented his foster family. But then he saw a parademon in his backyard and suddenly, randomly turned into Shazam, and continued to act like an immature jerk the whole time.

It feels like the filmmakers rushed to make this movie so quickly that they wrote the script before Geoff Johns had finished writing his Shazam story. They saw the part where Billy was a jerk and ran with it, not bothering to ask Johns what he had intended with the character. They really missed a great opportunity here. They could have seamlessly incorporated Shazam's origin into this story by making the old wizard give Billy the powers in anticipation of Darkseid's invasion. Instead, we're left to wonder why this rotten little kid who frequently runs away, steals, lies and cheats can turn into a superhero whenever he wants to. And another thing that really irked me was the de-powering Shazam got so as to not threaten Superman too much. Historically, Captain Marvel has always been on equal terms with Superman in regards to size and strength. But this movie made him noticeably smaller and reduced all his powers to the ability to create lightning. If you watch closely, you'll notice that Shazam never throws an actual punch in the movie. He throws a lot of lightning and electrocutes Darkseid a bunch, but that's it. Having him help Cyborg power the boom tubes did not increase his significance. I actually kind of suspect Shazam really only replaced Aquaman because he has the ability to fly.

Everybody can fly in this movie — even Darkseid, who I've never seen fly before. And I guess it makes sense to give Cyborg a jetpack, especially when a big priority of this movie seems to be to re-create the aerial battles from Man of Steel. The only problem with this is my favorite character, Flash, can't fly. Batman can't either, but he was busy saving Superman, so he's fine. But Flash spent a large part of this movie literally doing nothing. At one point, Wonder Woman seemed to feel bad for him and shouted, "Now, Flash! Put out his other eye!" Even though anyone else could have easily done it. So Flash runs up to a firefighter, pulls a crowbar out his hand, and says in his annoyingly fast voice, "Hi, I need this to save the world. Thanks! Bye!" And then he jams the crowbar into Darkseid's eye, but that's not enough, so Shazam hits it with a bolt of lightning. No, a crowbar is not a worthy replacement of Aquaman's trident, and no, this moment does not count as Flash's "big moment."

So as I've said before, I'm a big Flash fan, so I'm probably more sensitive to these things, but I genuinely felt like these filmmakers had it against the Flash. They got rid of all his big moments and made him look like a worthless idiot. In the comics, Flash joins the action when Green Lantern calls him to save him and Batman from Superman. Flash arrives before Green Lantern even finishes his sentence, and has a fun little fight with Superman. But that scene was replaced with Batman calling Superman "Clark," who then uses his X-ray vision to discover he's Bruce Wayne, and Green Lantern yells, "Who the hell's Bruce Wayne?" This really hurt the moment that happened later, when Batman revealed his identity to Green Lantern to connect to him and get him to calm down. But hurting that crucial scene was worth the price to pay to prevent the Flash from potentially upstaging Superman!

In the movie, the Flash is brought into the action when he randomly calls Dr. Stone right when the parademons arrive. Dr. Stone yells, "We're in trouble!" But the Flash can't arrive immediately, because this is Cyborg's moment. Cyborg fights off the parademons, then Flash finally arrives and does absolutely nothing. He stands around for a bit, then awkwardly decides to leave after he kind of questioned Dr. Stone's parenting. Way to make an entrance, Flash!

And then the movie killed what I consider to be Flash's big moment of this story. In the comics, when Darkseid first arrived, he immediately knocked out all the heroes with one strike (the movie did help show that he pounded the ground with glowing red fists). Flash was first to recover, which makes sense because of his super speed. Superman was next, but he was slow to get up, and Flash had to pick him up and push him out of the way of Darkseid's omega beams. Flash then got rid of his omega beam by vibrating through a parademon, while Superman wasn't so lucky. But in the movie, Superman was completely resistant to Darkseid's initial attack, and he stood his ground while the other heroes were knocked out. Flash just happened to be standing directly behind Superman, so he was free to be chased by the omega beams. Flash didn't need to help Superman at all in this movie, and for some reason, the act of him vibrating through a parademon was too unbelievable for the filmmakers to include. Instead, he just kind of ran around a few parademons, and the omega beam just kind of died out. Of course, they had to weaken the omega beams because Darkseid, like Superman with his heat vision, was blasting his beams pretty much nonstop in the movie. But the real sin here is consciously making the Flash weaker, ultimately making it look like he didn't deserve to be a member of the Justice League. All his little "moments" in this movie were quite generic and boring.

The movie also failed to improve the very convenient ending Geoff Johns wrote. First, there was little to no motivation for Darkseid to invade Earth. In the comics, he mentioned something about his daughter, but then that was quickly forgotten. In the movie, they seemed to imply that his main goal was to kidnap Superman and turn him into a super parademon. It would have been nice to have Darkseid actually say a few more lines than all the grunting and yelling he did. And speaking of Superman, his rescue was pretty lame. Batman used his incredible detective skills to deduce that Desaad's microphone was on this left, which means he's right-handed, which means the power button is right here. Huh? Whatever, he's Batman. Anyway, that bit is immediately overshadowed by the oh-no! Superman has turned evil! Superman kills Desaad (and nobody says anything about it) and then attacks Batman. But then suddenly, Superman's alright and back on Earth helping them fight Darkseid. I actually think there's a missing scene here, because Superman and Batman come back wearing parademon armor … kinda.

Anyway, Cyborg spends forever trying to get the boom tube thing to work, which provided plenty of opportunities for everybody to get their last hits in. Turns out the mother box is actually just like a cellphone, and Cyborg needed to fly up into the sky to get a better reception. And then Shazam needed to supercharge it because he needed something to do and you can't include Captain Marvel in a movie without having him weaponize his Shazam cry somehow. And then Cyborg conveniently saves all the hostages and about 12 people walk up to the heroes to congratulate them. We then head to the big White House speech, where, just as in the comics, the heroes rudely talk during the president's speech while on stage. Seriously, you're in front of millions of people! Save these conversations for a later time! And then the movie ends with Shazam stealing the Flash's last joke because Shazam needs something to do and we don't like the Flash in this movie.

Ugh. I'm tired of complaining. Suffice it to say, I was surprised by how much I hated this movie. I was really looking forward to it, especially after the great Flashpoint movie. But this one … it just sucked. There's no way around it. And now I have absolutely no desire to watch any new DC animated movies. Not under these creators.

Final score: 1