review: Wonder Woman #1 (2006)

Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Allan Heinberg
Artists: Terry Dodson, Rachel Dodson

Rating: 4/10

I indicated recently that I would mostly review blocks of books, but I'm making an exception for Wonder Woman because I don't expect to pick up any more of this current storyline. I like this character, and I wanted to like this book, but it was very clearly not aimed at me, and I just don't have the time or inclination to do the fanboy homework required to (maybe) begin to appreciate it.

The problem is, I'm a casual fan (I'm certainly familiar with the character, and I read a bunch of the George Perez relaunch years ago, but I haven't read much of this title in recent years), but this book is not the least bit written for new or casual readers. Other than a very brief history of Donna Troy (which I thought was sufficient), there is almost no background given for any of the characters or events in this book. Unfortunately, it was clear that a lot of these things were significant somehow, so it felt as if somebody had ripped out half the pages of the book on me.

Now, I'm not saying that everything has to be explained as it happens. It gets tedious and boring when a book is all introduction, as many first issues are, so I'm all for slowly revealing information and building suspense or whatever, but you can't explain nothing. Plus, I didn't get the impression that many of these things were meant to be mysterious, with more details forthcoming; I was just supposed to "get it". Well, I didn't, and the story sucked for it.

Also, there are essentially two "dream sequences" in this issue. They weren't quite as blatant as real "it was all just a dream" stories, but they're a similar device wherein you see one thing, which is perhaps shocking or unusual, only to find out later that it didn't really happen, or wasn't really what it appeared. Dream sequences almost always suck. They're a classic cop-out from telling, and dealing with the ramifications of, a story that is actually shocking or unusual. And this issue has two of them. Need I say more?

I was also disappointed by the art. I like the covers I've seen for this title, as well as Terry's covers for the recent Superman storyline, so I was expecting to like this art quite a bit, but I found the interiors predictable and boring. It's not bad by any means, but it's almost the definition of a corporate or "house style" comic. There's just nothing special or distinctive about it. I tend to prefer styles with more personality.

Overall, you might like this (although I'm clearly not able to judge) if you are a big Wonder Woman fan, and you're up on all her recent events and rogues gallery, but otherwise, you'll probably be bored and confused.

review: Daredevil #82-85 (2006)

Publisher: Marvel Entertainment
Writer: Ed Brubaker
Artists: Michael Lark, Stefano Gaudiano, Frank D'Armata

Rating: 7/10

I was hesitantly looking forward to this new story arc. Hesitant because the most recent stories by Bendis had just about ruined my interest in this series, and this new arc would be starting from a cliffhanger he left behind. But looking forward because, well, it wasn't Bendis any more.

I didn't so much mind the cliffhanger that ended the Bendis run. The whole situation was rather contrived, but the cliffhanger itself was ultimately no worse than any other "shocking" turn of events. My main problem with that story, and several before it, was that it was a one- or two-issue idea that was tediously dragged out for half a year. I don't know if Bendis is so delusional from success that he thinks his every idea is golden, and worth at least six issues, or if he's just so stretched by the dozens of books he writes that he simply can't afford to let a single blip of inspiration go to waste. Either way, after suffering through month after month of that swill, I had had enough. I was more than ready for a new creative team.

Happily, the new team has more than revived my interest in this series. They managed to pick up that disjointed, plodding mess of a storyline, and turn it into something compelling and exciting. The writing and art both contribute to a well-developed, authentic feel for the story. I'm deliberately avoiding the word "realistic" here because I think that is used far too freely, and inaccurately, to describe these types of books. "Intense" might be closer, but still a bit one-dimensional. "Immersive" is probably better. You really understand the characters and situations.

I should point out that one of those situations is a death, which might be controversial. I'm generally in the camp that says, death as a plot device is fine, as long as it's not the entire plot. When the whole point of a story is the shock value of killing a character, that's a cop out. My three-year-old could write that. I want to see the effects of the death, the consequences, the reactions of other characters. That's where storytelling comes in. Fortunately, this story appears to be built around similar values.

As a whole, the story is moving along nicely. Each issue brings a new dimension to the overall story, which is explored and woven into threads from previous issues, while dropping teasers for the next. Even though the issues don't stand on their own, they're still satisfying individual reads, which leave you wanting more. It's classic serial storytelling.

At first, I was a bit disappointed in the art. Not because it looked bad, but because it seemed a little too much like the old Maleev style. I like Maleev, but I was hoping for more of a departure with the new creative team. But I'm over that now, and I think I'm liking this even more than Maleev. Lark has a similar rough quality, but I think his art is more detailed and nuanced. In particular, Lark does a fantastic job creating atmosphere and a feeling of place. Maleev had a similar knack for creating a lot of atmosphere, but I think his tended to be more monotonous -- dark and gritty all the time. D'Armata's more rendered colors are also a departure from the flatter, muted style of previous issues. I could go either way on the coloring style for this sort of drawing, but I think this was a good choice, and a good, subtle way to give this run even more of its own look.

On a related note, I wouldn't mind seeing cover artist Tommy Lee Edwards step in on an issue or two. I've been waiting to see more of his work ever since his The Question limited series last year, and these wonderful Daredevil covers are just a cruel tease.

Overall, a very good start for the new team, and a very good start to a very promising story arc. I'm being a bit conservative again with the 7/10 rating, but if things end up as well as they've been building up, this could easily get another point by the time it's finished.

review: Annihilation: Nova #1-3 (2006)

Publisher: Marvel Entertainment
Writer: Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning
Artists: Kev Walker, Rick Magyar

Rating: 5/10

I'm strangely attracted to this series, and I don't know why. I guess it's a subconscious fondness for a character I haven't seen in a long time, but who I remember liking from my childhood. Kind of like hanging out with a dull grade-school friend, and having a good time purely based on the nostalgia value. Given that, I can't really recommend this book for anybody without a similar sentimental attachment.

It's not that it's a terrible read -- I actually like the Annihilation premise, and the execution is perfectly innocuous, cosmic superhero fun. But three-quarters of the way through this series, I still don't have a good idea what the point is, other than to showcase Nova for a while. On the one hand, it's almost refreshing to see an "event" that isn't just a bunch of shock-value gimmicks and contrivances, or isn't just an excuse to have crossovers in a gazillion titles, but on the other hand, something should happen. The story has to be more than just running around space for three issues. I fear that it's being setup to cram a whole bunch of stuff into the final issue, and ultimately, once it gets to the interesting stuff, it still won't be that interesting because it will be short-changed due to space constraints.

The art is decent. I've seen some complaints that it's crude or simplistic, but I disagree. The drawings may be a bit sparse at times, and the inking angular and blocky, but these are all stylistic issues, and I rather like the result. I don't want to place this into unwarranted company, but it reminds me a little of Mike Mignola. It's not on that level, and not that consistent, but it has character, and it's plenty capable of telling the story.

Overall, dumb fun for Nova fans, but not much to recommend it to anybody else. Even if this means Nova will start appearing in more regular titles, it's still probably not required reading, since everything here (at least so far), can be recapped in about three or four panels wherever he shows up.

soapbox: Comic Book "Artist"

Maybe I'm the only person bothered by this, but the designation of "artist" is applied far too liberally in comic book credits. This isn't to say that the people who create comics are not real artists, which I firmly believe they are, but that the "artist" credit is unduly applied to anybody who just pencils and inks an issue, thus completely downplaying the contribution of the comic book colorist.

Twenty of thirty years ago, that would have been a reasonable slight. Back then, with the low-quality newsprint, coarse printing methods, and limited color palette, coloring was a mostly mechanical, rather than artistic, aspect of comic book production. But with today's printing technology, the colorist's toolbox has become practically limitless, leading to most comic books being, in essence, fully painted.

Not only is this painterly quality artistic in its own right, but in many cases, coloring has become the method of portraying volume and light in the finished art. I'm thinking of very outline-based drawings, like those of Michael Turner, Steve McNiven, and Scott Kolins. Here the colorist has replaced much of the shading (fills, hatching, stippling, etc.) formerly done in ink, as well as adding the usual color. In some cases, I think it could be argued that more of the finished art is attributable to the colorist than to the penciller or inker.

I don't know what we should call the combined penciller/inker -- drawer? drafter? lineman? -- but I think "artist" should be reserved for the much more rare individual who does all of the pencils, inks, and colors on a book. Colorists play far too vital a role in today's comic books to no longer receive equal billing.

About... Revisited

My initial attempt at defining this blog left something to be desired, but to be fair, I hardly knew what I was getting into. Now, with a couple of weeks and a smattering of posts behind me, I've figured out some ground rules.

1. No spoilers. I hate spoilers. The problem with reviews that contain spoilers is that, if you don't want to ruin the surprise, the review becomes essentially useless. Even if you can skip a well-marked ****SPOILER**** paragraph, the rest of the review will often allude to the spoiler as if you hadn't. It takes a lot of effort to craft a review that can be read on two different levels, and I'd rather just avoid the problem. Besides, these are meant to be quick reviews, not in-depth analyses; there should be no need for spoiler-level detail.
   
   That said, there is one time I might include such detail, and that's when I think the story is so bad, or the surprises so lame, that nothing is really spoiled. That should only ever happen in, for instance, reviews with a 1-point rating.
   
   In general, I'll try to avoid giving away much story at all (spoiler or not), and stick to more high-level concept or plot points.


2. No cruft. This site is about reviews (and soapbox rants, which are really just reviews of more general, industry-wide issues), so there won't be "filler" posts with things like announcements of new or upcoming releases, discussions of industry gossip, or collections of links to other blogs. That kind of information is already available in a million other places -- some of the sites I provide in my "Blogs I Read" sidebar may even have that material -- so there's no need for me to duplicate it. I'm going to concentrate on original content, so if it's not in the context of a review, it won't appear on this blog.


3. Mostly comics. I can read probably ten comics in the time it takes to watch an average movie, and many, many more in the time it takes to read a regular book, so it just follows that I'll have more comics to review than other stuff. So while my initial intent was to create a general entertainment/media review blog, I think it's reasonable to say it's really a comic book blog. But I still hope to throw in an occasional movie, book, or who-knows-what-kind-of review to spice things up.


4. Mostly block reviews. Unless an issue is a self-contained story, I prefer to review blocks of books that go together. This is mainly to avoid jumping the gun and recommending something that looks promising, but fizzles quickly. Also, it often takes a couple issues to really see what a story is about or where it's going, especially on new series with a lot of introductory material. And as I mentioned in a previous post, I'm never as up-to-date on my entertainment as I would like to be, so I might not have even read the whole block until just before I post about it.
   
   Then again, I don't want to wait so long to review something that the older issues can no longer be found, so I won't have a blanket policy of, for instance, only reviewing story arcs or mini-series when they are complete. Two to four issues seems about right (although initially I'll probably have more large blocks, since I'm including a lot of material from before I even started this blog).

review: The American Way #1-4 (of 8) (2006)

Publisher: DC Comics (Wildstorm Signature)
Writer: John Ridley
Artists: Georges Jeanty, Karl Story

Rating: 7/10

I was hooked on this series from the first issue, and half-way through its run, it still hasn't let me down. I like the concept, and so far it's been handled very well. It's not just a one note gimmick which loses steam after the initial revelation. Each issue builds on the premise, revealing more details, while also raising more questions and conflicts. More importantly, the gimmick isn't the story, but just the setting for telling a more complex story about more complex social issues.

If I had anything to complain about, it would be that there are a few too many players and they're being introduced too slowly, but I think that might be deliberate. This seems like the type of book where some things just aren't going to make sense until you have the complete picture -- on a second read you'll notice things that you didn't the first time, and things that seemed undeveloped or out-of-place will begin to fit. As long as it's in service to the larger story, I don't mind being left in the dark a bit.

The artwork is also very good. It's a less fussy, less dynamic style that fits well with the "retro-ness" of the book, and with the fact that these characters are not as dynamic as we might normally expect of superheroes.

Overall, very good. If it keeps on track, and keeps adding to the big picture, the series as a whole might even warrant another rating point, but I'll be conservative for now.

review: "Up, Up and Away" part 1-4 (2006)

Superman #650, 651
Action Comics #837, 838

Publisher: DC Comics
Writers: Geoff Johns, Kurt Busiek
Artists: Pete Woods, Brad Anderson

Rating: 8/10

This is the first half of Superman's "One Year Later" story arc, and I'm really enjoying it. Despite my misgivings about the "heroes on hiatus" premise (or more accurately, the utterly unbelievable way in which it was introduced in Infinite Crisis), and the whole "OYL" gimmick, I have to admit, this story really works. They've managed to make Clark Kent into a fine comic book protagonist, without devolving into some sort of pseudo-superhero cliché. He's not super anymore, and they don't just work around it, they work with it.

In addition to following Clark's continuing "heroic" activities, we get a thoughtful, even touching, glimpse at his personal life and relationships, particularly with Lois. They're really playing up Clark's humanity here. Not only is this a nice change of pace, but it has the potential to make Superman's return (which is presumably where this story is headed) more poignant. It will mean giving up something he's grown to love, something he's rightly proud of. I hope they continue to develop Clark's character, and thoroughly explore his motivations for reassuming the superhero mantle, rather than just copping out with an "oh, his powers are back, he's Superman again, let's go beat up bad guys".

Speaking of which, Lex is here too. And he's up to no good. While this story hasn't been very action-packed so far, I'm pretty sure it's headed to a good old-fashioned smack-down. So if you were turned off by all that touchy-feely humanity stuff I was just blathering on about, you might still want to check it out. Who knows, maybe the touchy-feely will grow on you. With so many ill-crafted (or non-crafted) excuse-for-a-fight-scene books out there, it's nice to also have ones with a more balanced and measured pace.

The art is beautiful, and a good fit to the feel of the story. It's bright and upbeat, and with its somewhat softer lines and graceful, flowing style, it seems more human. But still powerful. Then again, I could be reading too much into it. Maybe that's just the way he draws. Either way, it works for me.

Overall, a very readable, engaging, good-looking story. It's been fairly light on the action, but I don't think fight fans are going to be neglected entirely. In classic storytelling style, it seems to be building up to a climax that is actually climactic. So far, so good.

review: 52 #1-4 (May 2006)

Publisher: DC Comics
Writers: Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid
Artists: Keith Giffen, Joe Bennett, Ruy Jose, Jack Jadson, Dan Jurgens, Art Thibert

Rating: 6/10

After the first month, I'd say this series is off to a decent start. Nothing terribly interesting has happened yet, mostly regrouping and picking up pieces, but unlike its predecessor, there's definitely a story here (several in fact). They're laying some good groundwork, with actual plot and character development, while keeping it lively, with a bit of action and intrigue here and there.

So far it's been quite readable, if not a "must read". It's probably what Infinite Crisis should have been, and in light of its ability to weave decent stories around that aftermath, while barely mentioning what actually happened there, it just makes Infinite Crisis seem that much more pointless. I think all the meaningful material from there (all three pages of it), could have easily been incorporated into the first issue here, with the bonus of making this series more exciting out of the gate. Oh, well. Just one more thing screwed up by IC.

Some people might consider it a downside that 52 is mostly centered around second-string characters. Actually, that might be overly generous. Martian Manhunter is probably second-string. What's that make Booster Gold and The Question? Third? Fourth? At any rate, I don't think that's a good reason to dismiss the story. Heck, sometimes a story is more interesting with these lesser characters. Seriously, after thousands of issues, is there really a Batman or Superman story we haven't seen before? With an unfamiliar face, and the different attitudes and motivations behind it, even a total retread can seem fresh. I'm not giving this story that much credit yet, but I'm hoping they make the most of it.

My main complaint about this series is the "History of the DC Universe" backup stories. Being a casual comic reader, I'm all for something to fill in the gaps for me. But the way this is done is thoroughly clunky and lame. Basically, they're trying to wrap a comic book story around a "scholarly" dissertation. I'm not against this in theory. I could see it working if, for instance, it were applied to actual academic information. Hey, kids, learn marine biology from Aquaman! But the information here is already "fun", and it's being presented to a willing audience; the spoonful of sugar is unnecessary and intrusive.

Rather than four or five page "stories" in each issue, I think this would have been much better as one or two page "encyclopedia entries", something more like the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe format. As it is, this backup feature is essentially useless. The people who already know this history aren't getting anything entertaining out of it, and the people who don't know it aren't getting enough detail to really get up-to-speed. I don't know if this is intended to be a part of every issue, but I'm hoping it will wrap up soon.

On the art side, I found it rather mechanical. Not bad, but just not very inspired. I have to wonder if the weekly schedule is too aggressive for the artists to really do their best. Although, not knowing these artists all that well, I don't know how it compares their previous work. Maybe that's just their style.

Overall, OK introductory story, with OK art. If you just want action, or name-brand heroes, you might find this dull. I think it has potential, so I'll be sticking with it for a while.

soapbox: Comic Events

While ruminating obsessively about how much Infinite Crisis annoyed me (so much for this blog thing being cathartic), I misspoke on the nature of these company-wide, mega-event books. They aren't by necessity confounding to the casual reader. That is very clearly by design. Very bad design. By very clueless, short-sighted publishers.

It should be exactly the opposite. These books should be the perfect jumping-on point for new and casual readers. Unlike the vast majority of continuing titles, these events often get mainstream press, which could actually bring in new readers, something sorely lacking in the comic book marketplace right now. And if the nature of an event is to "cram everything in", it's an obvious opportunity to introduce these readers to everything your company has to offer. Show them a variety of characters. Introduce some of your on-going storylines. Maybe something will pique their interest and they'll actually go out and buy another title when the event ends. This goes even more so for one of these "reboot" events, when new readers could get in on the ground floor of some titles, and so not be totally lost.

Am I crazy? Does the event concept just not scream "ideal for new readers"?

But it doesn't work if the event story is so skeletal that you don't even know who all the characters are, or if you need a PhD in the history of the DC universe to understand the relevance of anything that's happening. The last thing you want to do is make the event impenetrable to all but the geekiest of comic book geeks. Then not only are you ruining this story for the newcomer, but you could very well be driving them away from the entire industry.

Yet that's exactly how Infinite Crisis plays. They opted to milk suckers for a quick buck rather than putting in the effort to tell an accessible, interesting, well-developed story. It's a missed opportunity for DC and a kick to the balls for the industry (thanks for the imagery CSBG). I guess that's why I'm obsessing. It just sucks on so many levels that I have yet to grasp them all. Infinite indeed.

review: Infinite Crisis #1-7 (2005-6)

Publisher: DC Comics
Writers: Geoff Johns
Artists: Phil Jimenez, Andy Lanning, and a ridiculous assortment of helpers.

Rating: 1/10

Comics Should be Good pretty well nailed it for me, so I'll just throw in a few more thoughts from the perspective of someone who is more of a comic book dabbler.

These big "cram everything into it" books are almost by necessity going to be confusing to the casual comic book reader. There's just too much going on and too little space to explain it. Either the book needs to be expanded or the story needs to be edited down. I don't need a full background on every character, but a bit of explanation about how and why they're doing something would be nice. Better yet, why does everything have to be crammed in here? What do we get out of seeing every character in the DC universe? It's a gimmick, and a confusing, tired one at that. Enough already. Build a series around a story, an actual event, not an editorial device.

But as mentioned in the CSBG review, this series was not at all interested in telling a story, so fleshing it out or narrowing the scope to make it readable probably never even crossed their radar. They just wanted to hit bullet points. It might as well have been a PowerPoint presentation.

But even then there's a problem. Namely, the bullet points should matter! Of course, part of what makes them matter is the accompanying story, which was absent here, but even when there is no story to tell (i.e. just a retcon), it should be worthwhile. After ripping reality apart, causing endless mayhem, and then smashing everything back together again, what do we get? Batman's parents' killer was caught! What the ?!?!? Why? What Earth-shattering stories can now be told that hinge on this revelation? There must be something. I mean, the guy who can crush worlds in his hands thought it important enough to mention this change, in the whole continuum of time, across infinite universes, amongst innumerable world-changing events, explicitly! It must be HUGE! I don't get it.

And don't get me started on the retirements of Batman, Wonder Woman, and Superman. Talk about missing context and motivation. They might as well have not even mentioned it. Actually, I think that would have been better. Just let it play out in the individual titles. If anything, this hackneyed gimmick has just served to taint, for me, what otherwise might be good storylines in those books.

Utter crap. If you haven't already read it, and you were considering picking up a collected edition, do yourself a favor and just stay away. You won't have missed a thing.

review: Corpse Bride (2005)

Corpse Bride
Director: Tim Burton, Mike Johnson
Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson

Rating: 7/10

Another gorgeous movie here. Unfortunately, there's really not much to the story. It's a perfectly serviceable story, and there's nothing really wrong with it, it's just nothing special. It's not nearly as inventive or engaging as A Nightmare Before Christmas. Fortunately, you could strip out all the dialog and still have a wonderful movie to watch. I find it astounding that this was all done with stop-motion puppets. The articulation is so detailed, and the motions so fluid (although still with that lovable stop-motion quirkiness), that I thought it was computer-animation meant to look like stop-motion. You really have to watch the bonus features that show the mechanics of it all. The puppets are quite literally like Swiss watches in their precision. And the set designs are beautiful too.

Overall, this is a rare time when I'm going to say the story just doesn't matter. Watch it to be amazed, and hope that this dying art doesn't disappear completely.

review: Match Point (2005)

Match Point
Director: Woody Allen
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers

Rating: 6/10

This movie is a bit unusual. For starters, it's a crime drama that is about 95% drama and 5% crime. Well, unless you count adultery, in which case most of the drama is also a crime. But I'm just talking felonies here. It's also unusual because the crime is the climax of the drama, rather than the impetus. And finally, it's unusual because it's a Woody Allen movie that is not a plodding, intellectual, comedic bore-fest. I suppose at some points it does try to be intellectual, and he's probably throwing in some social commentary as well, but it plays as a pretty straight-forward drama, and avoids any attempt at comedy. For somebody generally known for his comedies, I actually found this much more successful than many of his other movies. Maybe it's just me, but I don't find his work all that funny, so this was a refreshing change.

Overall, not great, but good, and likely to appeal to a lot more people than most Woody Allen films. An OK couple of hours watching self-centered, self-serving people behaving badly.

soapbox: Movie Magic

As I previously stated, King Kong was a beautiful looking movie. But that doesn't mean it was without fault, which leads me to my rant.

The problem that many big-budget, special-effects-laden movies suffer is that they go too far with the effects. By this, I don't mean that the effects are too wild or over-the-top. Hey, the wilder the better; that's what they're for. What I mean is, movies often rely on effects even when they aren't up to the task. Despite what Hollywood seems to think, not everything can be done, or done believably, with CGI. And in a movie like King Kong, where so much of it is done so well, it's doubly problematic because not only am I staring at bad special effects, but I'm staring at bad special effects which are so jarringly out-of-place amongst all the beautiful effects, that I'm completely taken out of the experience. You've ruined the illusion. To me, this is pretty much a cardinal sin of movie making.

The place where many effects fall down is in heavy action, and specifically, heavy action that composites live action with computer-animated action. In King Kong this is readily apparent in the dinosaur stampede scene. The problem usually comes down to space and light. The lighting has to match on each part independently (e.g. all lit from above-left or whatever), but also on the interactions between the parts (e.g. the dinos casting shadows on the people as they run past). In this scene, and many such scenes in many other movies, the live action components seemed much too brightly lit (almost washed out or overexposed) relative to the CGI components, and I doubt that any of the shadow casting was even remotely accurate. Also, things have to match up in 3D space, but what often happens is one of the components ends up looking flat against the other because the 3D placement is off.

I suppose the thinking is something like "there's so much going on here, and it's happening so fast, nobody will really notice that it doesn't look quite right as it whizzes by". I don't think I'm alone is saying, I notice.

I know these shots are hard. Really hard. To make it truly realistic, you essentially have to take 3D measurements of all the live action, then place that into the 3D CGI world to calculate all the spatial relationships, then add the calculated shadows back to the live action shots, and then composite it all together, and a billion other tiny details that I'm totally glossing over. Like I said, it's hard. It's time-consuming and really expensive, which is why they don't do it, at least not in every scene, even with $200 million budgets.

I know I'm not telling the animators who do this for a living anything they don't already know, and I'm certainly not suggesting how they can do it "right". Rather, the people who keep asking these folks to do the impossible, and who think that the audience won't notice when it's "just a little bit off", should either learn the strengths and weaknesses of their tools, and accept and work within their limitations, or find somebody else to make these decisions. These scenes are not integral to any movie I've ever seen, and they can be done better (and probably cheaper) in other ways. Stop abusing these technologies, stop using them as a crutch, and stop ruining the magic.

review: King Kong (2005)

King Kong
Director: Peter Jackson
Starring: Naomi Watts, Jack Black, Adrien Brody

Rating: 7/10

Plenty of ink and bits have been dedicated to this monster already, so there's not much point in doing a 6-month-late detailed analysis (and if I had that kind of time, I wouldn't be six months late in the first place). Instead, I'll give a quick run-through and then get on my Hollywood soapbox for a bit.

The story and acting were somewhat hokey (particularly Jack Black's cringe-worthily corny final line), but I think that was a deliberate attempt to hearken back to qualities of the original film (or films of that era in general). It's debatable whether or not that was a good idea in the first place, and I can certainly understand some people objecting to the film on that basis, but I didn't feel it was so over-the-top as to be obnoxious or distracting.

Despite the 3-hour length, the movie moved along at a good pace. Sure, they could have trimmed some of the extensive action, or I suppose even trimmed some of the "slow" parts for you action junkies, but I thought what was there was well-balanced and appropriate. I mean, you can't really go into an adventure movie without expecting a good deal of action, or an "epic" without expecting some extravagance, and you definitely get both here.

Of course, this is a $200 million special-effects juggernaut, and it looked it. I have one major gripe, which I will detail in my soapbox rant, but overall, the movie was beautiful. From 1930's New York City, to pre-historic tropical jungle, to Kong and all the supporting creatures, the effects were amazing. And amazingly believable. Most of the time it was impossible to tell the difference between computer-animation, soundstages, shots on location, or any green-screen composition thereof. If you like special-effects and fantastical visuals, this is definitely a movie for you.

Overall, a good-looking three hours of escapist entertainment.

It's gotten late, so I think I'll save the soapbox for a separate post. That might make more sense anyhow, since it's really a general movie rant (albeit inspired by this one). Stay tuned.