Ben Affleck is the New Batman, and Why You Shouldn't Worry About It

Earlier this evening,  news came out that Ben Affleck will play Batman in the upcoming Batman vs. Superman film, to be directed by Zack Snyder and co-star Henry Cavill.

And the Interwebs went bat-shit insane. Pardon the pun. There were some people in the Twitter-verse that had good things to say, but there were also people that seemed to regard this as a sign of the end times. Including my wife, whose irrational hatred of Affleck actually scares me sometimes.

I'm a pretty huge comic book fan. And I'm a pretty huge movie fan. And so I have no qualms suggesting that everyone CALM THE FUCK DOWN. Seriously, take a breath. Now allow me to go into why I not only don't mind the news of Affleck as Batman, but actually think it could wind up being awesome.

"Iron Man 3" Review, or God Help Marvel if RDJ Ever Decides to Quit Being Tony Stark

Tony Stark and friend

Iron Man 3 marks the end of Robert Downey Jr's current contract with Marvel Studios, and when one leaves the theatre at its conclusion, you can't help thinking that they need to back a Brinks truck full of money, or yoga mats, or camels, or whatever weird stuff RDJ is into in order to keep him in the iron suit. Because, at this point, Downey IS this franchise, able to make scenes come alive with snarky one-liner or witty aside.

Which isn't to say that Iron Man 3 isn't enjoyable, or that it isn't a vast improvement over the second installment. As directed and co-written by action icon Shane Black, Iron Man 3 is a great time at the movies, delivering all the thrills, laughs and fun you expect from these types of films. But Black and Downey also deliver something a little more, which is an examination of Tony Stark in the aftermath of the world-shaking events of The Avengers. Granted, it doesn't go much beyond a rather shallow depiction of PTSD, but that's still more depth than the customary summer blockbuster provides, and Downey owns Stark so much by this point, that he gives the character enough subtlety to communicate a lot without saying much.

More Marvel Movie News....

A couple odd rumours have popped up recently surrounding two Marvel movie properties, both of which could stir up some controversy.

Michael B. Jordan
 

First, the rumour going around is that Michael B. Jordan is up for the role of Johnny Storm in the Fantastic Four reboot being directed by Josh Trank for Fox. The FF is still, like Spider-Man and the X-Men, a licensed property, meaning Marvel Studios is not making the film.

Jordan is an up and coming actor in Hollywood. He made his mark in the final few seasons of Friday Night Lights and the first couple seasons of Parenthood, before appearing in Trank's film Chronicle, which was a big hit. As a huge Friday Night Lights and Parenthood fan, I can tell you he is the real deal. I could easily see him becoming a movie star.

But, he's African-American, and here's where the controversy might spring from. Personally, I think you get the right guy for the part, who cares what ethnicity he is.

10 Sequels Better Than The Originals (Part 2)

And now, here's the top five of my list of the ten sequels that are better than the originals:

5 – The Road Warrior – Mad Max was a very good movie; a brutal, rough and ready action film that broke rules and introduced the world to an Aussie star named Mel Gibson. The first film mainly dealt with the breakdown of a society choking on crime and environmental decay, embodied by the plight and brutal revenge of a cop and family man forced to become more a force of nature in the face of anarchy. The Road Warrior is about the end of the world, where things become completely simplified to focus on pure survival and how, in such circumstances, community becomes precious. With its darker viewpoint and plot and characters stripped down to their absolute, archetypal essences, what you get is perhaps one of the purest action films ever made.

4- Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a ponderous and glacial mess, rushed into release before fully completed. It tried to be 2001 in a post Star Wars era. Still, it made a lot of money, somehow. But with the second instalment, they realized that a long episode of the TV show wasn’t going to do. Underrated writer/director Nicolas Meyer worked with producer Harve Bennett to craft an amazingly tight, laser beam focused tale of revenge, obsession, aging and death. The plot, although it’s really only about one man trying to kill another, is expanded upon to reach almost epic dimensions. It’s propelled by the best acting Star Trek ever saw, notably by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Ricardo Montalban. Without this film, which is still the pinnacle of the franchise, the mighty Star Trek empire wouldn’t exist.

3 – The Empire Strikes Back – A lot of people will disagree with me on my choice, but I stand by it; Empire is a better movie than Star Wars. You see, Star Wars gets the accolades because it’s the one that changed movies forever. As a phenomenon, it’s second to no other film save perhaps Gone With the Wind. But looking at it as a film, Empire has the superior story, direction and in many cases, effects. It’s just better. The darker atmosphere and more sophisticated script help to generate a very adult feel to the series, one that it would never have ever again. The story opens with the Hoth sequence, which is unbelievably well done, and then splits into two plots, basically. The Luke Skywalker plot, telling the tale of his maturation from naïve farm boy into heroic but neurotic Jedi is wholly engrossing, but the other plot, following the crew aboard the Millennium Falcon and their eventual downfall, is filled with as many great moments, anchored by the romance of Han Solo and Leia. The performances were never better, the scripts were never better, the thrills were never more visceral and complete. It’s the best.

2 – The Dark Knight – Batman Begins was a much needed and exceptionally executed reboot of the Batman franchise, but at the end of the day, it was a great super-hero movie. It did have a thematic anchor exploring the nature of fear and how we deal with it, which elevated it slightly, but still, it was basically a great comic book film. The Dark Knight is great film, period. It’s a social commentary on how we, in the modern world, deal with forces of anarchy and points of view that are completely and utterly alien and in opposition to a civilized society. It looks at how we are tempted to abandon all of our better ideals for the illusion of safety and the restoration of normalcy. It looks at what we ask of the people who are called on to deal with the wolves at the gate, and how, too often, we don’t care how they get rid of them. And it does so all within the framework of an adventure story about a vigilante in a bat costume beating up a homicidal clown. Heath Ledger deserved his Oscar, posthumous or not, for a performance that is scary in its brilliance, and the rest of the cast also turn in memorable work. But it’s director Christopher Nolan and his team of writers who pull off the real magic.

1 – The Godfather Part 2 – This is another one that people may argue with me about, but give me the story of Michael Corleone’s moral dissolution over the story his absorption into the family business any day. Listen, The Godfather is the more legendary film because it was the first, but Part 2 is the more ambitious and ultimately the richer film in the saga. Pacino is simply stunning as he portrays a man who loses his soul completely in exchange for his twisted desire to keep his family “safe”. This is the film that truly raises The Godfather saga from drama to a Shakespearean commentary on the pursuit of the American dream and the corrosive qualities of ambition and immorality. It’s filled with so many great directorial moments, genius writing and superb performances that suffice to say, it’s one of the best American films ever made.

Hope you all enjoyed it. See here for Part 1.

10 Sequels Better Than The Originals (Part 1)

Sequels are a tricky thing. For every triumph there's an Exorcist II: The Heretic. In fact, there are a lot of sequels that come dangerously close to ruining the goodwill you had for the first film (I'm looking at you, Escape From L.A.). Far, far rarer are those films that somehow manage to surpass the original. I think we should celebrate those rare beasts a little more often, so I'm presenting my list of ten sequels that, in my opinion, top the first films in the series.

Here's a few rules, right off the bat; these are second films only, no third or fourth installments (so don't look for Goldfinger, or Casino Royale), and finally, there are no "pre-planned" sequels here (so don't look for Harry Potter movies, the Lord of the Rings films, or Superman II). I'm talking real, unadulterated sequels in the classic sense.

Ready? Let's start with numbers 10-6:

10 – Spider-Man 2 – A recurring point in this list is going to be the fact that all of these sequels take the original films and add a greater degree of complexity along with dialling up the more enjoyable aspects that made the first film a success. Spider-Man 2 is no exception, boasting a stronger and more emotionally charged story, a more tragic and captivating bad guy in Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock, and in Sam Raimi, a director at the absolute peak of his confidence and prowess. The operating room scene is vintage Evil Dead-type Raimi, while the elevated train action set piece is superbly constructed and executed.

9 – Terminator 2: Judgement Day – The first film was basically an ingenious riff on the stalker/slasher films that dominated the 1980s, spruced up with some really cool visual effects and an iconic performance by Arnold Schwarzenegger. While the first film contained some great action sequences and some nifty sci-fi concepts at its core, the sequel took all of that and ran with it. Linda Hamilton morphed from helpless victim into ripped paranoid hard ass, Arnie morphed from bad guy into good guy and Robert Patrick just plain morphed as the T-1000. Not only did its visual effects literally change film forever, but it also was way riskier with the implications of its time travel pretzel plot, and its examinations of fatalism and consequence.

8 – Bride of Frankenstein – After the first film was a hit for a depression-era Universal studios, director James Whale was given pretty much free reign to create a follow up, and he took that reign and went as far as he possibly could. The result is a film that is simultaneously weirder, scarier, more tragic and way funnier than its predecessor. Karloff continues to build on his legendary role but the creation of Dr. Pretorius, as played by Ernest Thesiger, is the film’s most genius move, providing the film with a villain that is both repellent and utterly fascinating.

7- Evil Dead 2 – Raimi and star Bruce Campbell went back into the woods to create a sequel that is so utterly unconcerned with the first film that it’s really more of a remake. Their desire was simply to make the first film scarier, gorier and strangely enough, funnier. And they succeed on all fronts, crafting a film that is basically a macabre, gory cartoon with an idiot for a hero tormented by demons that have watched a lot of Three Stooges shorts. It’s made all the more remarkable by the sheer brilliance of Campbell’s performance and by Raimi’s incredible skill at using the camera in a hyper kinetic way.

6 – The Bourne Supremacy – You know a spy film has really hit the mark when it becomes a major influence on the granddaddy of spy films, the James Bond franchise. Paul Greengrass took the Bourne series in a new direction, visually, as he put you inside fight scenes and car chases, forcing the viewer to experience them as a mad and vertiginous flurry of movement, much as the participants do. And, like many sequels, the subject matter was darker and more intense than the previous film, anchored by Matt Damon’s underrated portrayal of the tormented and irrevocably traumatized central character.

What’ll be in the top five? See you soon to find out.