Punisher: War Zone

So I have an app called Crackle, that has tons of movies and TV shows for free. Of course, since these shows are free, they are all pretty awful. To my surprise, I found an actual Marvel movie on this app, so I decided to review it. Actually, Punisher: War Zone fell under the Marvel Knights brand, as Marvel wanted to put some distance between this and Iron Man and all the other "good and wholesome" superheroes.

There was a big Punisher movie in 2004, but plans for that sequel fell apart, and they eventually settled on a reboot in 2008. Lexi Alexander was the director, and Ray Stevenson starred as the Punisher, with Dominic West as the villain Jigsaw, and Doug Hutchison as Jigsaw's brother, Loony Bin Jim. Punisher: War Zone was made with a relatively modest budget of $35 million, but it only made $10 million in the box office, hence its appearance on an app for crappy movies.

Now, before I get into the summary/review, I need to state that I know almost nothing about Punisher. I know he was originally a Vietnam veteran, who went around killing bad guys. But his overly violent nature and anti-hero status really kept him away from my mainstream Marvel consumption. I think I might have seen him in a Spider-Man episode or two, and I know he was pretty popular in the '90s, when everybody had tons of muscles and tons of guns. But I never had any connection to the character, so I'm basically coming into this movie with a blank slate.

Right from the start, I can tell why this movie failed. The violence is just incredibly ridiculous and unrealistic. We start with Punisher crashing a big banquet of mob bosses. Similar to Batman: Year One, he cuts off the power to the mansion, then crashes in on the table, illuminated by a red flare. He then slices off the old boss' head, snaps his wife's neck, then shoots a bunch of guys and engages in hand-to-hand combat. At one point, he kills a man by shoving a chair leg through his eye. Punisher then decides its a good idea to hang upside down from the chandelier by his knees and spin around with a gun in each hand, firing away like crazy. This was supposed to be an awesome, hard core action scene, but it made me laugh out loud for the wrong reasons.

A couple of cops then arrive, and they help Punisher by telling him one of the main crime lords, Billy the Beaut, has gotten away. Billy is obsessed with his looks, and he got into an argument with the old mob boss about entering a deal with the Russian mafia to help smuggle some biological weapons into New York. Since this impending deal is a matter of national security, the FBI placed an undercover agent to work as Billy's henchman. Anyway, Punisher tracks down Billy and his gang to Billy's recycling plant, and during the fight, Billy falls into a huge vat of glass bottles. Up to this point, Punisher has been very efficient at killing the bad guys and making sure they're dead, but for some reason, he decided to leave Billy in the glass. Also, in the confusion, Billy kills Donatelli, not knowing he was secretly the FBI agent.

We then go to Donatelli's funeral, where we're introduced to his widow, Angela, and their emotionless little girl, Grace. The Punisher, Frank Castle, watches from afar, and seems distraught that he accidentally killed a good guy. He then goes to his family's grave, and has a flashback/breakdown of his family being killed at a picnic six years ago by the mob. Since then, Castle has been working as the Punisher, killing most of the mob bosses in New York, and secretly receiving help from the police.

We're then introduced to another FBI agent (there are so many characters in this movie) and he's furious with the NYPD for not bringing in Punisher after the death of Donatelli. So the police set this guy up with Detective Soap, a seemingly inept cop, who is also secretly aiding the Punisher in his war against crime.

After the funeral, Punisher goes to his partner and weapons supplier, Microchip, who is played by Wayne Knight. Knight is best-known for his Oscar-worthy role in the cinematic masterpiece Space Jam, and he also made small appearances in something called Jurassic Park and Seinfeld. Anyway, Wayne Knight is always fun to see, and he was a rare bright spot in this overly serious, overly bloody R-rated movie where everybody had to say the F-word 35 times each sentence.

Anyway, we check back in with Billy the Beaut, who naturally survived his ordeal in the glass bottles, but got his face cut up real bad — nothing else on his body, just his face. Apparently, Billy missed one payment on his insurance, so he couldn't go to a real doctor, and instead had some underground hack try to repair his face with horse hide. And in a scene completely ripped off from Tim Burton's Batman, Billy gets his bandages removed and demands for the mirror. One of his henchmen barfs upon seeing his stitched-up face, and Billy kills the doctor and calls himself Jigsaw.

Jigsaw's first task is to free his little brother, Loony Bin Jim, from the insane asylum. We first see LBJ strapped to a bed, while a fat orderly tries to feed him some applesauce. But Jim isn't eating any, so the fat guy eats it himself. Billy then breaks in and frees LBJ, who immediately starts to eat the fat guy while he's still alive. LBJ says he wants his applesauce back, and in Sweden, applesauce and kidneys is a real delicacy. The scene is just as ridiculous as it sounds, and we LBJ rip out a couple of organs from the screaming fat guy.

Punisher, meanwhile, wants to retire from life of vigilantism after he committed his grave error, and the first thing he does is to pay a visit to the Donatelli's widow, Angela. He wants to give her a big bag of money as restitution, but she immediately pulls a gun on him, screaming, "Who punishes you?!" Right in front of her little girl, no less, who acts like this sort of thing happens all the time. Punisher, however, doesn't flinch, and even aims the gun at his heart and practically begs the hysterical woman to kill him. But she doesn't, of course, otherwise we wouldn't have much of a movie.

Jigsaw and his gang then head back to his skyscraper headquarters, and Jigsaw has a stupid little breakdown when he sees his ugly reflection in his many mirrors. So Loony Bin Jim decides to cheer up his brother by throwing his body into all the mirrors and smashing them with his head and face. It is such a strange scene and it lasts forever, really making me wonder what the heck I am watching. But yeah, Jigsaw then meets with the Russians, and after some fighting and ridiculous violence, they eventually agree on the deal to bring in the biological weapons.

Punisher then goes to tell his partners Micro and Carlos that he's retiring. But when Micro tells him that Billy survived and is going after the Donatelli family, Punisher decides to stay on until Billy is killed. So he goes out and finds some of Jigsaw's men, the urban free-flow gang, a couple of guys who like jumping off rooftops. There's this really boring scene with awful music of these guys doing there "extreme" parkour moves, that is fortunately interrupted when Punisher blows up one of the guys with a rocket launcher. It was so random and wild, I couldn't stop myself from laughing out loud. Anyway, Punisher interrogates one of the guys, who tells him Jigsaw is heading toward the Donatelli house like, right now.

Sure enough, we cut to Jigsaw, LBJ, and two other guys breaking into the house and holding Angela and Grace hostage. A couple of cops show up, and immediately get killed by Loony Bin Jim. On his way over there, Punisher runs into the FBI agent and Soap. They handcuff him, but he convinces them to let him go to save the Donatellis. Once he shows up at the house, he immediately kills one henchman by punching his hand through his skull. He then blows off the other guy's head with a shotgun, right in front of the little girl, who is perfectly accustomed to seeing people's heads explode. The FIB agent and soap arrest Jigsaw and LBJ, while Punisher takes Angela and Grace to his hideout. I'm not sure why Punisher didn't just kill Jigsaw here, but if he did, we wouldn't have a big fight at the end, now would we?

At his hideout, Punisher gives little Grace some toys his daughter used to have. But as always, Grace is completely and utterly bored by the whole ordeal. What should have been a touching scene was ruined by one of the worst child actors I've seen — and that's saying something.

Meanwhile, Jigsaw and LBJ make a deal with the FBI. He tells them all about the deal with the Russians, in exchange for complete immunity and information on the Punisher. So they turn over the Russians and immediately go to Micro's apartment, where they kill his mom and kidnap him. Meanwhile, Punisher decides he needs to go see Micro for whatever reason, so he leaves Carlos in charge of Angela and Grace. When he gets to Micro's apartment, he only finds Micro's mom missing half her head. So Punisher rushes back to his hideout, but he's too late. Jigsaw had already kidnapped Angela and Grace, and left a note on Carlos, who is severely injured from an axe attack by LBJ. Punisher mercy-kills Carlos, then heads to a church to meet the FBI agent, who is now his friend.

Before the agent arrives, though, Punisher has a brief conversation with the priest, and we learn that Frank Castle used to be in the seminary. Before he became a one-man killing machine, bent on punishing the corrupt. Finally the agent arrives, and Punisher asks for his help, primarily in keeping the cops away. Because, you know, Jigsaw said he'd kill the little girl if he saw a cop or something like that. Anyway, the church scene is very odd — with a lot of neon lights, too — and it just drags on forever, all while I'm wondering why Punisher didn't immediately head out to save Micro, Angela and Grace. Right now, Jigsaw's gang has been reduced to just him and Loony Bin Jim. And Punisher knows exactly where they are. So why wait?

Well, Jigsaw took advantage of Punisher's hesitation, and he went around recruiting a bunch of men to set up a kind of fortress in an abandoned hotel. Jigsaw gets a gang of black guys and a gang of Chinese guys to join, by delivering a rambling, patriotic speech (in front of an American flag while "America the Beautiful" played in the background, no less) about how society has shunned them and Punisher is their common enemy, etc., etc. It is such a strange scene, I honestly don't know if they wanted it to be funny, or a serious commentary on society. Just like most of this film, it was ridiculous and out of place, which, ironically, makes it fit right in with the rest of the nonsense.

So anyway, the FBI agent recruits the dad of the Russian mob Jigsaw betrayed. So a bunch of Russians head into the hotel and start shooting everybody up. Punisher takes advantage of this chaos, sneaks in, and begins killing everybody. Literally. Everybody. There is so much violence and shooting and fighting, that I've become completely desensitized to it by now. There is one really funny moment, though, when he kills a big fat guy on the toilet, who says, "Aw, for F's sake!" Then his head explodes. I know I shouldn't laugh when people use the F-word, but I couldn't help myself.

Punisher finally gets into a bit of a fist-fight with Loony Bin Jim in a bathroom, but then LBJ runs away, leading him right to the final confrontation room with Jigsaw. On one side, Micro is tied up with Jigsaw holding a gun at him. On the other side, Angela and Grace are tied up with LBJ holding a gun at them. Punisher has to choose who will live and who will die. Even though we've seen him use tons and tons of guns this movie — often with one in each hand — he suddenly only has one gun left. Micro tells Punisher to save the little girl, who is acting like she's kidnapped all the time. But instead, Punisher kills Loony Bin Jim, so Jigsaw kills Micro. Come on, Punisher! You couldn't save all of them?

So, anyway, Punisher frees Angela and Grace, and begins fighting Jigsaw. Eventually he stabs him with some spear-thing that just happened to be there, and he says, "Let me put you out of my misery." And he pushes the dying bad guy onto a fire pit that also just happens to be there. I guess the director just wanted to film a grotesque scene of Jigsaw burning alive. As he dies, Punisher says, "This is just the beginning." Which makes no sense, since Punisher has now spent the last six years killing all the mob bosses in New York, and now literally every single criminal connected to the mafia is dead. All thanks to the Punisher. And yet this is just the beginning. OK. Whatever you say, Frank.

The movie then ends on a curiously funny note. Punisher is walking away with the goofy Detective Soap, who points out that all the bad guys are dead, and he suggests that Punisher retire now. Or at least stop killing. Suddenly, a mugger sticks a gun in Soap's face. So Punisher emerges dramatically from the shadows, and stands in front of the neon church sign that says, "Jesus Saves." The Jesus part goes out, implying "Punisher Saves," as the screen goes black, we hear a gunshot, and Soap whines, "Now I've got brain splatter all over me." The End!

What a strange, strange movie. It tried to be super gritty and serious and ultra-violent, yet it still wanted to sneak in some humor that really didn't belong at all. The blood and guts and gore was definitely over the top, almost in a juvenile attempt to be mature. I can see the assumption that Punisher needs to be rated R, but I really think this could have easily been a perfectly fine PG-13. Just eliminate the 10,000 F-words, cut out all the unnecessary blood and guts, make most of the violence off screen, and you could have a pretty good movie that would be appropriate for a much wider audience. I also think there is a good story at the root of this movie. If you could just pull out the skeleton of the script, as it were, you would have some very intriguing material. Punisher accidentally killing an innocent man, is a very interesting idea that was never fully developed. And Jigsaw and Loony Bin Jim could have been great villains, if they weren't handled so ... stupidly. This movie had noble intentions at the start, but the execution was just so awful, that tons of problems just started snowballing on top of each other, until every single scene felt really stupid and unwatchable.

Like many other characters, the movie rights of Punisher have now reverted back to Marvel studios. As bad as this movie was, it did give me hope that it is possible to make a good Punisher movie. And it wouldn't even have to be rated R. At least, that's what I think. If anyone can do it, Marvel can.

Final score: 0

Paging the Crime Doctor

"Paging the Crime Doctor" was the 53rd-produced and 64th-aired episode of Batman: The Animated Series, making its debut on Sept. 17, 1993. This episode has a pretty poor reputation, and I'll save my final thoughts for the end, but I will say now that the title card is a lot more sinister-looking than the actual episode is.

This episode suffered from some very weak action scenes. The opening featured a very long and rather boring chase scene. But it did have one interesting moment — when Batman used his cap to cover the car's windshield — so I won't hold this scene against the episode.

Things don't get interesting until Rupert Thorne shows up. He's one of my favorite below-the-radar characters, right up there with Harvey Bullock. Thorne just has this certain gravitas to him that makes every scene he's in intriguing. And for that, I'll give this episode a point.

I'll then raise the score to a 7 for the inclusion of Leslie Thompkins. I was a little worried they'd say she was an expert heart surgeon, but they never did — only that Matt Thorne needed her help to perform the surgery, which made sense to me. I've always loved Leslie for her tough-as-nails kindness and her role as one of Batman's most-trusted allies. I don't think there's such a thing as too much Leslie Thompkins.

Unfortunately, the inclusion of Thorne and Thompkins is not enough to make an average episode great. As I said earlier, the action here was very weak. Batman only fights a couple of low-level goons, who he normally beats in a couple of seconds. To level the playing field, they gave Batman a concussion early on to make him woozy and slow throughout the episode. That said, he still seemed to struggle a bit too much for me, and he got way too scared when a guy started throwing scalpels at him (it didn't help that this was the commercial break cliffhanger). Seriously, Batman? You're getting scared over a guy throwing small medicals instruments that aren't designed for throwing and are designed to cause a minimal amount of damage. Minus one point!

And now for the worst part of the episode, and one of the worst moments in the whole show. Matt Thorne and Leslie Thompkins, who are at least in their late 50s, jumped from one rooftop to another. Are you kidding me?! True, Leslie did fall, kind of, but only after she mostly made the jump. And Matt made the leap just fine, as if he were Batman himself. I know this episode sorely needed some action scenes, but not like this. This was just ridiculous. We're back down to an average 5.

And that's where we'll stay. The good equally balanced out the bad, and we were left with a completely average and ordinary episode. At least it had a rather heart-warming, if not schmaltzy ending.

Final score: 5

Blade

My quest to review all superhero movies has brought me to a rather random entry that barely feels like a superhero movie at all. Technically speaking, Blade is a Marvel character, and I think he showed up once in a Spider-Man cartoon. But really, he is a vampire hunter who has even less to do with traditional superheroes than Ghost Rider, Punisher, or even Howard the Duck. Despite this, and it R-rating, 1998's Blade is historically significant, as its incredible success helped get X-Men and Spider-Man off the ground, not to mention spawning two sequels of its own. And we probably would have more Blade movies had the main actor, Wesley Snipes, not been thrown in prison for tax evasion. However, he is free now and the movie rights to Blade have reverted back to Marvel, so you never know what could happen.

Blade was directed by Stephen Norrington, and stars Wesley Snipes as the half-vampire hero, Kris Kristofferson as his ally, Whistler, Stephen Dorff as the evil vampire Deacon Frost, and N'Bushe Wright as Blade's girlfriend, Karen.

The movie opens with the birth of Blade in 1967. His mom is suffering from a very bloody and suspicious neck wound, and it is implied that she dies shortly after delivering the baby Eric Brooks.

We then cut to a scene that's actually pretty fun. A sexy girl vampire leads an unwitting human guy into a secret vampire club hidden in a slaughterhouse. At first, the guy thinks it's just a normal club, but then blood starts raining down on the dancing vampires. Everybody and everything is red, and the poor guy starts running for his life, when suddenly he sees Blade, the only one not covered in blood. He is dressed head-to-toe in black leather and is armed with a shotgun, a big sword, and tons of knives. The red sea of the blood-covered vampires parts for Blade, and then he gets to work killing them. And it is fun to watch. Wesley Snipes is apparently a real-life black belt, and it shows here. He knows how to fight, he can do his own stunts, and it makes a difference.

But as much as I like watching Wesley Snipes fight, I really don't like him doing anything else. I don't like it when he talks, when he tries to be serious, when he tries to be funny, and I especially don't like it when he tries to be "cool." Case in point: After Blade kills most of the vampires at this club, he find's Deacon Frost's right-hand man, Quinn. Blade pins Quinn to the wall with a couple of stakes and then does a really cheesy fist pump that completely took me out of the movie. Blade shouldn't be having fun. He's a dark, disturbed, serious vampire hunter. There's no room for smiles, puns and fist pumps.

Anyway, Blade decided he wanted to kill Quinn slowly by burning him, but before he died, the police arrived and took the badly-burned vampire to the hospital. Two doctors who used to be in a relationship, Curtis and Karen, begin examining Quinn, when the vampire suddenly wakes up and bites the two doctors. Blade arrives at the hospital to finish off Quinn, but he's too late, as the vampire has already escaped. For some reason, Blade leaves the injured Curtis behind, but kidnapped Karen. (I guess she reminded him of his mother?) Anyway, the cops show up and open fire on Blade even though he has a hostage. Blade does call them out on this with a pretty cheesy "Are you out of your minds?" He also swore there, just as everybody swears constantly in this R-rated movie. Truthfully, I think they could've cut out the swearing and maybe tone down just a bit on the violence, and you'd have a perfectly acceptable PG-13.

Anyway, I now have to address Karen, the worst character in the movie. Or rather, N'Bushe Wright is the worst actress in the movie. She is completely flat and emotionless the entire movie, and I can't stand it whenever she has to deliver her lines, almost as if she was just calmly reading them off a cue card. When the vampire comes to life in the hospital and attacks Curtis, she barely even flinches, and then just sits there to let the vampire bite her, too. She acts too stupid at times and suddenly too smart at other times. She drags this movie down so much.

So back to the plot, Blade takes Karen to his friend Whistler, who injects her with garlic to prevent her from turning into a vampire. Whistler's family was killed by vampires, so he's dedicated his life to hunting them and developing weapons to kill them. In this world, vampires can be killed by garlic, sunlight, and silver, so all their guns have silver bullets with hollow tips filled with garlic, and they have a big UV flashlight they'll use once. Whistler found Blade when he was 13 and preying on the homeless. Since his mom was a vampire, Blade has the strength and healing powers of vampires, but ages like a normal human and is immune to sunlight, garlic and silver. He does, however, share their lust for blood, so he has to regularly take a serum to fight off that urge. We learn all this later in the movie, but I felt like getting it out of the way now.

Early on, we get a scene of the vampire council, and see that the young Deacon Frost is at odds with the old regime, especially the leader of this group, Dragonetti. Dragonetti yells at Frost for holding large public gatherings of vampires (like the club at the beginning) and for using computers to attempt to translate the vampire bible, which is apparently written in a dead language that no one knows. Dragonetti seems very mad at Frost, and he even slaps him, but does nothing else. I'm really disappointed by how weak and ineffectual the vampire elders were in this movie.

Back to our heroes, Karen wakes up the next day in new clothes with her hair perfectly done and makeup on, despite being kidnapped from the hospital at 3 a.m. in her doctor clothes. She is a blood doctor (hematologist) and could potentially help Blade and Whistler, but they just give her a can of vampire mace (silver and garlic in liquid form) and take her home. Blade warns her that the vampires will be looking for her, and there's a pretty fun fake out, where she thinks she's being followed, but isn't. She arrives home safely, and is greeted by a police officer checking up on her. But then he tries to kill her, so she squirts him with the vampire mace, but it does nothing. Blade suddenly arrives and beats the crap out of the fake cop, explaining that he's a familiar — a human working for vampires, hoping for the honor of one day being bitten by them. Blade then lets the fake cop go, so he can follow him, and Karen decides to tag along, feeling this is the best way for her to survive.

Deacon Frost's super computer then finishes translating the vampire bible, and he immediately sends out Quinn and his underlings to bring back Blade alive. But first, Blade and Karen find Frost's tech support, a morbidly obese vampire named Pearl. And I mean morbidly obese. Pearl probably weighs more than 1,000 pounds and is too fat to move. He also has a really high voice, which is odd. He is as intriguing as he is disturbing. Anyway, Blade and Karen interrogate/torture the fat vampire with their UV flashlight, and Karen very quickly begins to enjoy killing vampires. Blade finds a disc with the translation on it, but he's soon attacked by Quinn and his gang.

The fight spills out into the subway, and it really becomes a bit too much for me. It's also where the bad CGI really stood out. Overall, I'd say the special effects are on par with Men in Black, which came out around the same time, but the subway fight scene started doing things they shouldn't have attempted. And just when I felt the subway driver would stop after running over so many vampires, they show a sign that says, "Warning: Driverless Trains." OK ... Do signs like that even exist? Never mind. Blade and Karen are eventually by Whistler, and then we go back to Deacon Frost and his evil plan.

I do have to say that I really enjoyed Stephen Dorff as Frost. He was compelling and entertaining, and easily the best actor of the whole movie. His character, however, did a few too many things off screen that I felt were essential to show, like having him kidnap the head vampire, Dragonetti. How'd he do that? Doesn't the head vampire have underlings to protect him? I don't know. All we see is Frost and his boys taking Dragonetti out to the beach to rip out his fangs and watch him explode in the sunlight, while they watch safely behind darkened motorcycle helmets. I'm also not exactly sure why Frost had to kill this guy. I guess he did slap him once, so I suppose that justifies this. So then Frost takes the fangs back to the vampire council and he suddenly becomes their leader. These vampire elders are so weak and ineffectual. It drives me nuts.

So then our lovely and charming female lead Karen somehow sneaks back into the hospital and steals tons of equipment to help her find a cure for herself. It doesn't work, but she does create a serum that causes vampire blood to explode, so they start filling a bunch of vials with it for Blade to use as weapons. Blade then leaves to get more serum from his friend downtown with whom he exchanges cheesy complicated handshakes. On his way, Blade runs into Frost, who tries to convince him to give up trying to be a human and join the vampires. This happens in the middle of the day, so they said Frost was wearing lots of sun block. Naturally, Blade refuses his offer, and he even tries to shoot the vampire in front of a park full of people, including a little girl Frost was using as a hostage. But Frost somehow is able to move fast enough to dodge Blade's bullets.

Frost gets away from Blade and he and his men somehow make it back to Blade's hideout before he does. They don't say how they found the place, only that it took them a long time to. The vampires kidnap Karen, bite Whistler and leave a VHS with instructions to Blade. When he arrives, Whistler tells him not to go after Karen, because Blade, being a Daywalker, is the key to resurrecting the Blood God. Whistler then kills himself before he becomes a vampire, and Blade goes through a very strange meditation scene, preparing himself for the final battle.

Blade then assaults Frost's stronghold, and there is a pretty funny moment where Quinn starts telling Frost how powerful Blade is, and Frost starts to agree with him, then angrily yells, "Shut the F up!" Except he did really swear, and it was funnier then how I can write about it. But anyway, we get more fun action scenes with Blade killing many more vampires (some are even ninjas), but it all comes to an end when he is reunited with his mother. That was a pretty great shock. We saw her briefly earlier, but not her face, so showing us that she was not only alive, but also Deacon Frost's girlfriend, was a neat moment. Blade is so shocked by this that he is beaten down and captured.

Blade and Karen are thrown into the back of a truck and driven to a secret vampire temple. On the way,  Karen tells him that right before she was captured, she found a cure for him, but it would take away his vampire strength and healing powers. Once they get to the temple, the vampires take Karen down to a pit to be eaten by her old boyfriend, Curtis. Apparently he didn't turn into a full vampire, just a weird zombie thing, which apparently happens sometimes. It also apparently made him really weak, as Karen very easily defeated him and escaped.

Blade, meanwhile, is led to the top of the temple, so his blood could drip down on the twelve vampire elders and Deacon Frost, who is standing in the middle to become the new Blood God, I guess. Blade's mom straps him into the torture chamber to bleed him, but then leaves for no apparent reason. This small moment gives Karen enough time to save him, but she sees he's lost a lot of blood, so she asks him to suck her blood. This is a very strange and disturbing scene. It might just be me, but it felt oddly sexual with Blade sucking Karen's blood and her moaning and groaning the whole time. But luckily, Karen is completely fine after this, not even able to pretend to be woozy for a minute or two.

As soon as Blade is healed, his mom comes back, and they fight for a bit before he ultimately kills her with the line, "I release you." The ritual underneath them reaches its climax and all the vampire lords die in a very odd way. Their skin melts off and winged skeletons crawl out of their mouths. The winged skeletons then fly around the room and fly through Frost a bunch of times before they finally fly into him and disappear. Frost then turns into the Blood God, which basically means that his eyes turn red.

Blade finally gets downstairs and slices off Quinn's head and catches his signature sunglasses midair. It would've been a cool moment if they didn't start playing heavy techno music with it. A potentially awesome scene became quite lame and almost laughable. But anyway, Blade kills all the vampires, except for this one girl vampire that Karen gets to kill with her vampire mace. Finally it's down to Blade and Frost for a big, epic sword fight. Unfortunately, Stephen Dorff couldn't keep up with Wesley Snipes here, so they had to use a stunt double, and whenever the camera zoomed in on Dorff, it became painfully obvious that he wasn't holding the sword the same way the double was or moving it half as quickly. Fortunately, the sword fight doesn't last too long, as Blade cuts the vampire in half, but he uses his Blood God skills to instantly pull himself back together. The CGI was awful here, but it was kind of fun when Blade turned around and just mouthed the words "What the F?"

Ultimately, Blade defeats Frost by pumping him full of the exploding serum, and he blows up in a spectacularly crappy display of special effects. I'm sure it looked fine 15 years ago, but not today. Blade and Karen then leave, and he refuses to take her antidote, choosing instead to continue his life as a vampire hunter. And the final scene (which would occur after the credits nowadays) shows Blade killing a vampire in Moscow, Russia.

In conclusion, this is not a very good movie. At all. The plot had a lot of holes in it, the special effects were up and down, the acting for the most part wasn't good at all, but the action was usually top-notch. And at the end of the day, all this movie was about was Blade killing vampires, which was pretty fun to watch. So for that, I will reward this bad movie with a single point.

Final score: 1

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox

I was lukewarm about Flashpoint when it first came out in the comics. I wasn't regularly reading any comics at the time, but I was looking for a good jumping-on point. Luckily the New 52 allowed me to enter the world of comics and long story short, I became addicted to the Flash. I was surprised when I heard they were adapting such a recent comic into a movie, but I was excited to see the Flash get featured, so I picked up the trade paperbacks of the main Flashpoint storyline and the Flash tie-in (which ironically did not include the Flash or anything that made it into this movie). I haven't read any other Flashpoint stories, so my entire knowledge of this tale comes from the main series.

Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (a rather unnecessarily clunky title in my opinion) was directed by Jay Olivia and stars Justin Chambers as the Flash, C. Thomas Howell as the Reverse-Flash, Michael B. Jordan as Cyborg, and Kevin McKidd as the Thomas Wayne Batman. This is the first DC direct-to-DVD movie that didn't have legendary producer Bruce Timm involved, and you can definitely tell by the new style of animation. I'll talk more about that later, but I will say here that the cover art is no way indicative of what the actual movie looks like.

I've watched this movie probably five times now, including once with my little brother, who had not read the comics and had no idea what the story was about. So I'm coming into this from the perspective of one who has read the original story, with some insight into the "general" audience. I didn't show this movie to my mom, fearing it would be too violent for her, but I did tell her the basic story, and she was quite intrigued by it. So this movie had lots of potential coming in. Did it live up to that potential? Let's find out.

I loved the starting to this movie with Barry complaining about nobody stopping to help their broken-down car. It would have been nice had they added the line "If it were me, I would stop," but I was happy they put this scene in the daylight instead of the rain. We don't need every tragic scene to be in the rain. And if anything, it shows that this is Barry at his happiest. Even though their car broke down, he is having fun with his mom. And it helped to continue that happy sunshine right up to the death of Nora Allen. Killing her on her birthday was a wonderful, tragic blow, and this movie handled it perfectly.

We then move into the only original scene of this movie, which was included to introduce us to the Flash and his enemies and allies. It was a great chance to see a few of the Rogues here (my brother thought the Top was ridiculous, but I didn't mind). I understand that they needed to set up the Reverse-Flash as the biggest and best Flash villain, but I wish they could have done that without making the Rogues look stupid. I hated it when Flash said, "None of you are smart enough to pull this off." What? Captain Cold isn't smart enough to rob the Flash Museum? I guess I'm just a really big Captain Cold fan, and I get easily offended when he comes off like an idiot.

Allow me to take a quick moment to discuss the voice work so far. I loved Justin Chambers as the Flash, and I really loved C. Thomas Howell as Thawne, especially at the end of the movie. In the Justice League, we were treated to the immortal Kevin Conroy as Batman again, and I enjoyed the metallic effect they added to Michael B. Jordan's Cyborg voice. And let's not forget the always entertaining Nathan Fillion as the Hal Jordan Green Lantern. Vanessa Marshall was great as Wonder Woman, but I felt Cary Elwes made a much better evil Aquaman than the heroic one. Same with Sam Daly (the son of Tim Daly from Superman: The Animated Series). Sam played an excellent weak and withered Superman, but I didn't completely buy his large and in charge version. This movie had an enormous cast of characters (even after trimming down extensively from the comics) and this meant that many characters only got a couple of lines or none at all. It's understandable, but I was sad that Heatwave, Captain Boomerang and Mirror Master didn't get to say anything.

Anyway, I really enjoyed the creative way the League got rid of those bombs. My brother scoffed when Aquaman threw Top in the water ("What's he going to do?"), but two seconds later, Aquaman explained exactly what he was doing and it was pretty neat. I especially enjoyed the look on Superman's face after contained the blast in his hands. He basically said "You're welcome" without having to say anything. And the Flash's move was pretty great, too, reminding me of Naruto's rasengan (for those of you who enjoy Japanese comics). However, the Flash's line about Thawne lacking creativity is inconsistent with the comics. Thawne was a time traveler that could adjust his age. That's not creative?

We then move into my biggest problem with the movie. Before Superman whisks Thawne away to STAR Labs, he drops a little line about how the Flash isn't always able to save everyone who matters to him. This little line is apparently what inspired Flash to go back in time to save his mom. In the comics, it is explicitly stated that Thawne killed Barry's mom, and the only reason Flash would attempt something as dangerous as time travel is because he couldn't stand the thought of his mom being killed simply because he was a superhero. When you remove that aspect from the story, it makes the Flash seem a lot weaker to me. Now, those who've read the comics know Thawne killed Nora, but the general audience doesn't. At least my brother didn't pick up any hints from the movie that Reverse-Flash could have done that. I think this is a major mistake in the movie not to come out and say this. It weakens the Flash and it weakens the Reverse-Flash.

Back to the story, Barry waking up at his desk was almost done exactly the same way as in the comics. We didn't get to see Director Singh, but we did get Forrest, who apparently has gone on a diet. Why can't anyone be fat anymore? I'm looking at you, Amanda Waller. The defining characteristic of Forrest is his weight. But he's still a great guy and a brilliant analyst despite the fact that he's constantly munching on a donut. Why did they feel they had to slim him down here?

I liked how Barry met his mom, but I really was bugged by the gay joke. This was probably supposed to be nothing more than a quick laugh and a throwaway line, but I can't get past it. Nora very quickly said Barry was gay, as if she had known/suspected this for years in this alternate timeline. I suppose it is conceivable that Barry could be gay in this Flashpoint world, but one of the first things he did was go find Iris, implying that he still loved her. I went combing through the comics to find any hint that Barry was gay, and we do see a couple of his new memories showing his parents bugging him about not dating and trying to get him to ask out Patty Spivot, but also in the comics, Barry goes to find Iris, and his mom asks if they're dating, almost as if it's perfectly natural for Barry to date a girl. I know I shouldn't be making a fuss over this — I think I'd be OK with a gay Barry Allen. I guess my biggest problem was the delivery of this joke. Instead of Nora telling Barry she knew he was gay, she could have asked if he was gay, while still assuring him that that's OK. If she asked, then the joke still would've been funny and it wouldn't make me paranoid trying to figure out if it was true or not.

Let's now move past that awkward topic and talk about the fun fight scene with Batman and Yo-Yo. I liked that they made it much longer than in the comics and that Batman used guns heavily. Nothing tells you better that this is a different Batman than by showing him with guns. Cyborg then shows up and he's about 7 feet tall (or taller). This is when the animation really became apparent for me. Generally, I felt many of the characters were too big. Flash was just a bit too muscly for me, and Aquaman and Superman were pretty much just meatheads. The evil Aquaman did look better when he was larger than life, and I understand that they wanted to show a sharp contrast between the normal Superman and the weakened one, so I can give them a pass. I actually was a fan of the taller Cyborg, even though it did unintentionally remind me of Shaquille O'Neal as Steel. One really odd thing with the animation was Bruce Wayne's lips. They just looked really weird and not at all like anybody else's. Overall, I thought the animation was serviceable. The action scenes were great and there were a few nice, subtle moments, like Superman's facial expressions while stopping the bomb earlier. I did notice that many of the background characters were unnaturally stiff at times, which became distracting on subsequent viewings. As for the style itself, it definitely isn't what we're used to with Bruce Timm, and some have compared it to the Japanese anime style. I can see a slight resemblance there, but I really don't think this movie looks that much different than the Young Justice cartoon. But then again, I'm a fan of the Japanese style, so I wouldn't be bothered by it anyway.

Back to the movie, I have to say I absolutely loved the evil Wonder Woman's entrance. She was so majestic and intimidating. I liked her cape, and I was very happy to see her helmet didn't cover her face like it did in the comics. I also loved the lasso of truth. We saw how powerful it could be for good (with Thawne) or evil (with Steve Trevor and several others). It's now rather comical to me that the old Justice League cartoon avoided the lasso of truth so much. Making people tell the truth is a very useful and powerful ability!

I haven't read the Flashpoint: Deathstroke comics, so I only know this version of the character from the main series, which was very brief. In the comics, he had Vibe(?) chained up to act as the ship's sonar to apparently look for buried treasure. But in the movie, he had Lex Luthor take over those duties to explicitly look for Aquaman's secret weapon (Captain Atom). I loved seeing Luthor included here, but I wish we could have had Clancy Brown provide his voice once more. However, the joy of Ron Perlman reprising his role as Deathstroke was more than enough to make me happy. I also liked this fight scene a lot more than the too quick one in the comics. Vibe got to be up on deck and Clayface got to take out a couple of Antlanteans before being vaporized. It was also a joy to see the two Aqualads — one sometimes known as Tempest and the other from Young Justice.

One of my biggest worries with this movie was that they'd give Barry his powers back after just one strike of lightning for the sake of time. But they didn't. Just like in the comics, they made Barry go through the ordeal twice, which really made him heroic in my eyes. After nearly dying and being covered in third-degree burns, he was still willing to try again, regardless of the pain or risk.

This movie also did a good job of anticipating when the audience would have questions. We already saw this happen with my little brother and Aquaman, and it happened again here with Superman. Right when he asked me where Superman was, they showed us the rocket crashing into Metropolis. This quick flashbacks were great, especially with Martha Wayne becoming the Joker. It would have been nice to have a bit more on Aquaman and Wonder Woman, though. Aquaman seemed to move very quickly from forming an alliance with the Amazons to having an affair with Wonder Woman, then declaring war on his former allies. I know this is a very complex story and the movie already has a fairly long running time, but I think it would have benefited to have a few more minutes devoted to this.

Hearing Dana Delany play Lois Lane again was awesome. And the tension in her introductory scene was palpable. I would have, however, preferred that she was saved by the Resistance instead of the Reverse-Flash. Mainly because I don't think the Resistance does enough in this movie, but also because I don't buy the whole idea of Thawne allowing Lois to see him so he could lure Flash out there. I'll get to that more in a bit. Another quibble I had with Lois was how she knew everyone in the Resistance except for Etrigan. What? In all your reporting you never came across the Demon, probably the best-known character of the bunch?

Now when the Flash finally regains his powers, we come across another major problem I have. But first, another quibble. In the comics, Flash quickly explained how he made a new suit for himself. But in the movie, he just stood there and vibrated until Thawne's suit turned red. My brother asked me how he did this, showing me that they should have thrown in one line about what he did. Anyway, on to my big problem. Logically speaking, the very first thing the Flash should have done was to run back in time to try to fix the present. In the comics, they explained that he didn't get all his powers back right away, and had to wait until he was up to full speed. That makes sense to me. But in the movie, they explained that Flash couldn't time travel as long as Thawne was "co-opting" the Speed Force. That might make more sense to those who hadn't read the comics, but it's very confusing for those of us who have, as it completely contradicts everything we know about Flash, Reverse-Flash and the pre-52 Speed Force. I guess they wanted to increase the Flash's connection to Thawne here, but they wouldn't have needed to do that had they said that Thawne killed Barry's mom!

There's also a slight problem in both the comics and the movie. Flash never really gives the best reason for wanting to find Superman and the Justice League. In the movie, Flash says he wants Superman to go back in time for him. In the comics, it kind of felt like he just wanted to gather everybody together to fight in the war while he waited for his powers to return. Both motivations just feel a little weak for me. Of course, we, the audience, want to see this new Superman and we want everybody to gather together for the main battle at the end, but I think it could have been set up and justified just a bit better. If you want to go the route of Flash needing to find the Reverse-Flash, you could say that he needed to find Thawne to figure out which events he changed in the past. Maybe. I don't know. I'm definitely over-thinking this.

On to something more tangible. I wish they would have explained why Abin Sur sent his ring off into space after he crash landed. Again, I haven't read any of those comics, but the movie didn't give me any clues as to why Hal Jordan never became the Green Lantern. I did, however, thoroughly enjoy seeing him get eaten by a giant sea monster. It makes sense for Aquaman and Wonder Woman to recruit mythical beasts into their war. It was pretty fun, too.

Back to the Flash. A really nice, subtle scene was when Flash was beating up the guards off screen. Batman was smiling, but Cyborg was a little bothered. Then they turn the corner and Flash is just casually leaning against the wall. Fun stuff. I was, however, confused by the bottles and tubes of deformed and misshapen creatures. Unlike Krypto's skeleton, these weren't shown in the main series, and they seemed to serve no point in this movie. It was just a creepy, unexplained, and unnecessary added detail. But I did like how Cyborg befriended Superman and taught him what heroes are. That was a nice addition.

In the comics, there's a rather convoluted subplot about a traitor on Cyborg's team feeding information to the Amazons. Element Woman is set up as the red herring, as we see her secretly following Cyborg for much of the story. But it turns out that Enchantress was the traitor, and she was only doing it cause chaos, I guess. Anyway, Element Woman joins the team by helping them fight off the guards after Superman's rescue. She is just a really odd and annoying character, and she repeatedly offered to give juice boxes to people, even though we never saw a single juice box in the comics. I am so glad they cut her out of this movie. I hated Element Woman in Flashpoint and I hate her in the New 52. But as long as Geoff Johns likes her, we'll be seeing more and more of her.

So far, there are two things I wish the movie would've expanded on: Aquaman and Wonder Woman leading up to war, and Abin Sur sending the ring off into space. The third addition I really wanted was a rather interesting and passionate debate among the Shazam kids before the heroes visit them. They explain that as Captain Thunder, they had already visited Wonder Woman, but she slashed us his face and he barely got away. As the kids watch the destruction on TV, some of them want to go out and help, but others want to stay home. Billy gives a nice little speech about saving the world so they could still order pizza and watch movies like a family. It was great. But the movie cut it all out, and only two Shazam kids ever got to talk, while the others barely even moved. Quite disappointing.

However, the movie did give Captain Thunder an excellent fight with Wonder Woman. I really liked how sometimes the camera would sometimes focus on a different fight, but still show some great stuff happening in the background. And then Captain Thunder's death was much, much, much better than the comics. Instead of the stupid and random Enchantress breaking the spell, Wonder Woman used her lasso of truth to force him to change back. And then she killed Billy. The movie showed a little more than I would have expected, but it easily could have shown more.

Let's talk about the violence real quick. I heard quite a few people complain about the violence and say that this movie isn't appropriate for children. They're absolutely right. This movie is rate PG-13, which means that the intended audience is for people over the age of 13. This movie found out just how much violence they could put in a PG-13 movie, and they went right up to that line. But they never crossed that line, in my opinion. I felt the violence was necessary to give the story the respect it deserved. And actually, the comics were much more violent than the movie, especially the Legion of Doom series, which really made me feel uncomfortable at times. But anyway, for those parents of young children complaining about this movie, I suggest finding some more age-appropriate material for your kids. There's plenty of it out there. PG-13 means PG-13. This movie is not appropriate for children, and neither is The Dark Knight or Man of Steel.

Time for another quibble. Amidst all the fighting, an unusual amount of love was given to Grifter, leading my brother to question whether he was more prominent and important than Deathstroke and Lex Luthor. My only answer for him was that Grifter was created by Jim Lee, who is DC's co-publisher, so either he, or some of his followers felt Grifter deserved a death scene befitting of Boromir. Seriously, he got an arrow shot through his head, and he still turned and shot one last Amazon! Just a bit too much for me.

But now on to some good stuff. I loved the fight with the Reverse-Flash. It really showed off how fun a couple of speedsters can be. Plus, this fight was a million times better than what was in the comics. And then the cherry on the sundae was Thawne's wonderful taunting. I love how he says, "Oh, Barry ..." He is deliciously evil.

I also loved Cyborg's death with Aquaman tearing him apart piece by piece. Superman blasting off Aquaman's arm was great, too, especially since it came right when my brother complained that Aquaman wasn't taking any damage. I do wish, however, that Superman would've hit both Aquaman and Wonder Woman as he did in the comics. But the two villains did have a great final moment with Wonder Woman killing her former lover and holding him in her arms as the Captain Atom bomb engulfed everything in sight.

Batman killing Reverse-Flash was a great and amazing moment in the comics. But he used a sword. In this movie, he killed him with the gun that killed Bruce. Infinitely better. Yeah, I suppose we didn't need to see Thawne's brains, but the added weight and significance made up for it. I then liked how Flash was injured so it made it difficult for him to do what he does best — run. The movie climaxed with us cheering Flash on, almost wanting to physically push him to run faster. It was very well done. And I think certain omissions here helped clean up the story and keep the movie's momentum building.

In the comics, Flash doesn't immediately go back in time. He first visits his mom one last time and expresses doubts about wanting to change the past. He's still holding on to some belief that he can fix everything and still keep her alive. But she takes a courageous stand and tells him to let her die to save millions upon millions of lives. It was a nice, touching scene in the comics, but I feel it really would have bogged down this film's ending. It also would have made Flash seem kind of weak. He'd already seen tons and tons of people die, but he's still not convinced that time travel is the best solution? Especially right after Thawne mocked him for wanting to save him mom more than anyone else? No, the Flash shouldn't need to receive any confirmation from his mom on this decision. This was the best solution and the only solution. So, as sad as it is to lose this scene, I do think it was best for this movie to cut it out.

Now, the whole point of Flashpoint was to set up the New 52, and they made it pretty obvious that Flash returned to a new world. The movie didn't need Pandora, but I would have liked a couple of more hints in addition to the new costumes. By the way, I hated the Flash's New 52 costume. The yellow stripes were way too thick and prominent. They're supposed to be thin seams that only light up when he moves at super speed. Oh well. The final montage of the Flash running was great, even if it was in distracting computer animation. Having him run on the helicopter's propeller did make me very excited, though. My brother thought that was stupid, but I just told him to shut up. :)

The final post-credits scene was also very nice. The first thing I thought while reading Justice League #1-6 was that this would make a great movie. And DC apparently thought the same thing. This gives me hope that we'll enter into a new phase with these animated movies, where they're all connected in the same New 52 continuity. Up till now, all the direct-to-DVD movies have pretty much just been stand-alone adaptations of prominent comic story lines. It would be nice to see this new Justice League movie to usher in a new era of adapting recent stories into movies. Naturally, I would love to see a movie of Gorilla Warfare, but Court of Owls, Rotworld, H'el on Earth and Throne of Atlantis could also make great movies. This may just be wishful thinking on my part, but it's fun to dream.

So altogether, Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox was a very nice, very entertaining movie. I did have a few problems with it, mostly with the Reverse-Flash not killing Barry's mom, but all the good that this movie did outweighed that. This was the Flash's first movie, and he was awesome. We got to see a lot of his villains, plus tons and tons of other DC characters that had never been on screen before this. It was also a delight to be reunited with so many classic voices. The fighting was amazing, even if some may have understandably felt it was too violent. The story was very faithful to the source material, and even improved upon it in some cases. There were a few areas I would have liked to change, but ultimately, this movie made me too happy and excited to give it anything less than a perfect score.

Final score: 10