Man Of Steel

I LOVED This Movie!

This review may take some time because it has been awhile since I've seen the movie. Once the DVD comes out, I'll make a more full review.
So the Man of Steel is the big Superman Reboot that we have all been waiting for. Gone are the days of Lex being annoying and coming up with lame real estate schemes, no more stalker Superman, no more Nuclear Man, no more Reeves, no more cheesiness. This is a brand new Superman.
We start off, of course, on Krypton. Where Jor-El is trying to convince the Council to abandon the dying Krypton. However, the council, and thus Krypton, have become too complacent. See, in MoS, the Krypton culture are mostly lab grown and everybody has their own role. Scientist, Soldier, Leader, etc. The problem with this is that Krypton grew complacent and just fell apart over the years. Their space program was abandoned and everybody just stayed on Krypton. So they shoot Jor down. it is around this time that Zod barges in with his forces, shoots and arrests the council and announces that he's taking over. And no, there is no "KNEEEEEEEEEEL!" Here. This is a much different, more complex Zod. He chats with Jor and wants his old friend to work with him to Fix Krypton. But Jor can tell that Zod's way is wrong  and turns him down. Zod tells his forces to escort him out. Jor goes with them for a little while but then surprises them and takes down the guards and keeps on going, having another plan of his own.
This next part will forever certify Jor as a complete badass.
He rides around on a dragon while Zod's forces are waging war, dives into a massive pool, swims down to the bottom retrieves a thing called the Codex and comes back up. He meets up with Lara and they prepare to send baby Kal to Earth. "He'll be an outcast. They'll kill him." Lara says sadly.
"How?" Jor asks. "He'll be a god to them."
Of course then Zod bursts in and demands to know what the deal is with the child. Jor explains that baby Kal is the last hope for Krypton and is a natural birth, the first one on Krypton in centuries. See the lab grown children info above. Because of that, having children the natural way was against the law. Since Zod more or less follows the law, this is hearsay to him and he attacks Jor. They fight for a bit and Jor gets the advantage. Which does make sense to me. After all, Jor is fighting for the life of his son, is wearing a type of powered armor, and as a scientist it makes sense that Jor would branch out to rise above his station. Combine this with the fact that Zod is most likely underestimating him and it does make sense. While they are fighting it out, Lara preps the shuttle for launch and merges the codex, which contains all genes of Kryptonians within it, with baby Kal. As Jor is watching it start to take off though, Zod pops a knife out of his wrist and stabs Jor, killing him.
Zod goes outside and tells his men to open fire on it but is stopped by the Kryptonian Army and he and his soldiers are arrested.
They are sentenced to the Phantom Zone....but first, Zod has something to say to Lara.

Not long after this though, Krypton starts blowing up. Lara closes her eyes and faces the end alone.

The ship arrives at the Kent Farm and we jump forward into Clark's adult life when he is going through his manbeard phase.
He's helping out on a crab fishing boat as his current job. Which is a pretty good call considering how dangerous those are to people. See Deadliest Catch for more details.
After spending some time on the boat they get a distress call and come upon a burning oil rig. Knowing people are in danger, Clark does what he does best.

That's right, our first introduction to Clark Kent? SAVING LIVES! LIKE A BOSS!
So, if anybody starts crying out that 'Superman doesn't save anybody' in this movie, just point to this. It'll shut them right up.

While Clark is in the water, he flashes back to when he was a kid in school and his powers went on the fritz. In particular, his x-ray vision and super hearing. Giving the poor kid some very nightmarish moments; seeing walking skeletons and floating, working internal organs, while hearing loud, unbearable noises coming from all directions. Depending on how strong it was at this point in time, Clark could possibly be hearing every sound for miles and all of it super loud. Understandably, Clark freaks and run out of the class and hides in a closet and locks the door. He also uses a bit of heat vision here and accidentally heats up the doorknob when the teacher tries to open it. During all of this, the other kids are talking shit about Clark to each other and of course the teacher never comments on this.
Martha is called in and sits down next to the door and talks to her son.

All this, when the poor kid is nine years old.

There are a few more flashback scenes I want to discuss before moving on. Now, you might say I'm doing this out of order, but I can't recall exactly when the scenes happen so I'm getting them out of the way now. Besides, my Blog my rules.

#1: Bus Flashback.
Kid!Clark is riding on the school bus when playground bully Pete Ross is giving him problems. Lana Lang tells him to knock it off but Pete tells her to butt out and continues giving Clark problems. Clark just ignores him and continues trying to mind his own business. This keeps up until the tire pops and the bus goes over the bridge. The children panic as the bus fills up with water. Clark leaps into action and runs out of the bus out the back and lifts it up out of the water onto the shore and then goes back to save Pete Ross. Pete of course tells his mom about this and she takes it up with Clark's parents. Jonathan convinces her that it didn't happen though to protect Clark's secret.
Clark and Jonathan talk and Jonathan tells him that he has to keep this part of himself a secret. "What was I supposed to do? Just let them die?" Clark asks.
Jonathan looks away, clearly not able to find the right answer to this question. "...Maybe." He says. AT FIRST! Now tons of people take this out of context but really listen to this. I shalt quote the novel here.

*Clears throat dramatically.*

"I just wanted to help." He(Clark)said defensively.
"I know you did." His dad said. "But we talked about this. You have to keep this side of yourself a secret."
"Was I supposed to let them die?"
His father hesitated. His face wrestling with conflicting emotions. (Emphasis mine, Jonathan is clearly hesitating here.)
"Maybe."
Clark stared at him in surprise. He couldn't mean that, could he?
"There's more at stake here than our lives." Jonathan said, trying to explain. "Or the lives of those around us. When the world finds out what you can do, it's going to change everything. Our beliefs, our notions of what it means to be human. Everything." He shook his head solemnly. "You saw how Pete's mom reacted. She was scared, Clark."
"Why?"
"People are scared of what they don't understand Clark."

Now note my bolded points. Jonathan is hesitating here before he answers. He does NOT know the correct thing to say here. Clark is a kid right now and nobody in the world has any experience with supers yet. This is scary to the world. If he showed his powers openly, the government could swoop in and abduct him and lock Clark up as a test subject or even try to kill him. Keep in mind, we don't know when he got bulletproof skin in this version so he could be very vulnerable right now. Clark is a vulnerable kid and Jonathan and Martha know that right now is not the right time to reveal himself.

Following this, Jonathan takes Clark with him into the barn and shows him the ship he came in and explains the truth to him. In a nice nod to Secret Origin, Clark breaks down and just wants to be his son. Jonathan tears up and hugs him. "You are my son."

#2: Bully Flashback.

The next flashback has Kid!Clark in his dad's car just minding his own business when a couple of sicko football jocks who look like they are all in high school, whereas Clark is still a kid right now, start yelling and banging on the side of the car and force it open and drag Clark out and push him around and start threatening him and try to pick a fight all while surrounded by a cheering crowd of sicko friends.
Okay, seriously? You are in a freaking public area, you are not being subtle at all, and you are assaulting a little kid. By all fucking rights, these shits should have had the police called on them or one of the adults in the area should have walked over and knocked the ringleader's teeth out. Or both. But nope! Remember, it's a rule in fiction that bullies get off scott free.
After they wander off to go beat up on more little children, Pete Ross helps up Clark and then leaves as Jonathan comforts Clark. The usual "Don't bust them up, won't prove anything." Yadda, yadda, yadda.
Next.

#3: Tornado Flashback. I'm sure you've heard of this one.

Okay, first of all, they should have hid in a ditch. Hiding under an overpass during a tornado is a death sentence.
Next, Clark should have gone back for the dog. Jonathan is a good guy, but he's also an older man. Clark, even without using his powers, could have made it over there much faster than Jonathan and pulled that door open without blinking an eye, pulled the dog out and ran back over to them, dog in tow. If anybody asked, he could chalk it up to panic/adrenaline or something like that. Hey, that made a woman strong enough to lift a tractor. It's a valid excuse.
Buuut, it is what it is and Mr.Kent dies protecting his son's secret.
I don't like this scene. I think it should have been fixed up a bit.

Anyway, let's check in again with Adult!Clark.
He's working at a bar now on his trip north and is helping clean tables and such when a trucker walks in and starts giving everybody trouble. After getting rather drunk, the trucker starts visibly sexually harassing and grabbing at the waitress and of course, nobody lifts a finger. Clark steps in and tells him to back off. The trucker picks a fight and tries to shove Clark down but shoves himself backwards. Clark's boss fires him. Because a repeat customer/potential rapist is more important to the bar than a badass security guard and the safety of his waitress. She tells Clark the douche isn't worth it anyway and Clark walks out and the trucker continues taunting and throwing things at Clark.
Clark gets back at him though.

And hey, it's better then letting an asshole drunk like him back behind the wheel of a vehicle of any kind, especially with how icy the roads were.

Clark hitchhikes around until he ends up with Lois Lane as her bag carrier. Lois is heading up north as well to investigate what the military believes to be a spaceship.
While Lois banters with the military, Clark walks of to find the ship, using his heat vision to clear away the ice. Lois spots him and follows after Clark, entering into the alien ship. However she is spotted by a robot guard and it zaps her with a freaking laser beam. Krypton tech is built to last man, I mean, this thing was down there for how long? That's pretty impressive. Anyhoo, Clark saves her and fights with the robot and breaks it apart. But with Lois badly hurt, Clark is forced to use his heat vision to cauterize her wound.
Yeah, Lois is having a bad day.

After saving her, Clark drops her off somewhere to be picked up by the military and flies off in the ship.

Around this point, Clark meets AI Jor-El, who shows up to talk to him as a hologram. The best part? He's not a complete dick, unlike another Jor-El AI.
Jor fills Kal in on Krypton, it's past, how it fell apart, and Zod and tells Clark that since he is the first natural birth and contains the Codex within him, he can be the one to bridge the path between the two races and reveals Clark's Superman Uniform and of course, it's time.

OH HELL YES!

Meanwhile, we catch up with Lois and she has made her report and presented it to Perry, but he refuses to run it due to thinking the story is insane, so Lois goes to an internet blogger guy and tells him to run it.
 Afterwords, she goes to do some investigating and asks around, follows stories and rumors and follows Clark's trail all the way back to Smallville and to the Kent House. Clark meets Lois and they talk about him and his powers and why he hides himself. Clark points this out to Lois: “My father believed that if the world found out who I really was, they’d reject me out of fear. He was convinced that the world wasn’t ready. What do you think?”
Lois asks him what would happen if she told people about him and Clark just says that he'll disappear again. However Lois makes the observation that the only way for him to truly disappear is to stop helping people and Clark can't do that. After the two get to know each other a bit, she heads back home and tells Perry that she's dropping the story and that her leads didn't pan out.
 I like this new Lois. I mean, she's supposed to be smart right? So it makes sense that she would be able to figure out who Clark really is, unlike Classic Lois who is always fooled by glasses.

Afterwords, Clark meets up with his mother and exclaims how happy he is about finally meeting his birth father.

Things take a darker turn though as Zod and his crew have found their way to Earth due to the ship sending out a signal when Clark turned it on and Zod has a message for Earth.

Clark talks to Martha about this and then goes to church to think about it. While talking with the priest, we get symbolism of a stained glass window of Jesus behind him.

You might think this is egregious, but then, I've seen Smallville, sooo...what else you got for me?
Meanwhile, the blogger guy blabs that Lois Lane was his source so the army arrests Lois.

Not long after, Clark turns himself into the military. How you may ask? Alright, check this. When Superman turns himself in to the military, he does so by floating in mid-air at the edge of a military-base, patiently waiting for the soldiers to arrive. As the General notes, he's making the statement that he's more powerful than they are and he's surrendering on his terms, not theirs. Superman acknowledges this and gives his single condition, that he wants Lois to be set free.
That is Superman.
And this is a hilarious interrogation.

Nope, no smiles or jokes in THIS Movie. No siree bob!

Clark stands with Lois with the military behind the two of them as Zod's ship touches down and we are introduced to the hotness that is Faora Hu-Ul, the Tigress of Zod.

The army guy that tells her off? That's Colonel Hardy, our reigning badass normal for this movie. Legend has it that if you put him in the same room as Batman, the universe would implode from the badassery. The reason that Lois is brought on board is twofold.
1: To use her as a backup bargaining chip
2: To psionically probe her mind for information about Earth and Clark and what she knows about him. Lois mentions this.

Once getting on the ship though, things go bad for Clark due to his body being used to Earth's atmosphere and not Krypton's. This causes his body to go into rejections and vomit up blood and collapse. Lois is alright due to the helmet Faora puts on her. In a moment of cleverness though, Superman slips Lois the activation key from his ship that has the Jor-El AI in it just as they are getting on the ship. Since Lois doesn't know the significance of it, the Kryptonians don't know about it when they scan her mind. 

Zod also chats with Clark and fills him on what Zod and his crew got up to after getting out of the zone: Finding the debris of Krypton, finding the deserted and dead Kryptonian outposts, and having to re-work the inside of the ship with their own hands to make it workable. Zod informs Clark that they are going to use their machines to terraform Earth into a new Krypton, wiping out the human race and using the codex to re-populate Krypton on it's remains.

Back in reality, Superman wakes up on a table and discovers that his powers are gone due to the Kryptonian Atmosphere. A Kryptonian scientist, Jax-Ur, takes a sample of Clark's blood.

Inside her cell, Lois finds a spot where she can place the key and the Holo-El pops up and starts taking over the ship. He gets Lois out and she finds herself a blaster and, tag-teaming with Holo-El, is able to not only throw down with but also shoot down a few of the soldiers. Military Brat FTW.
Holo-El also changes the atmosphere so Clark's powers can work and he breaks free.
Lois finds her way to an escape pod and ejects herself but it starts messing up and clearly isn't going to make it. Fortunately, Superman is on his way.

On Earth, Zod, Fora and Nam-Ek go to interrogate Martha about the ship and the codex and Foara throws her around a bit. When she tells them to go screw, decides to just kill her.
And Superman makes the save again.

Superman is then confronted by Faora and Nam-Ek.

And so the battle for Smallville begins.

With her helmet busted, Faora starts going into sensory overload, but not before giving Clark a death glare for the ages and delivering a chilling line:  "You will not win. For every human you save, we will kill a million more."
with her senses going haywire, a missile hit is able to knock her out but Nam-Ek smacks Supes with a train car and carries Faora off before he can stop them.
 With round 1 over, Zod and his team recoup on the ship
Jax-Ur gives Zod the news: The Codex was in Clark's bloodstream. Thus, once he's dead, they can harvest the codex. With this news, Zod gives the signal to begin terraforming while he goes to the Fortress Ship where he intends to use its Growth Codex and embryos to create a new Kryptonian race.
Superman makes a plan with the military: He gives them the Phantom Drive from his ship and the key to activate it. Superman will fly to the Indian Ocean and destroy the World Engine to disable the Gravity shield around Zod's ship so that the military can use the Phantom Drive to send the whole ship back to the Phantom Zone. Lois points out that the atmosphere will weaken him but Clark acknowledges the risk he has to take to save the world and flies off.
 Sitting down outside the fortress, Zod whips off his helmet and forces himself to master his senses, removing that weakness.
Going inside, Zod speaks with Jor-El and the Terraforming process begins.

With Zod's ship on one side of the planet and the World Engine on the other, the process starts messing up the planet. Sending out gravity waves, causing a storm, changing the atmosphere and messing up the planet.
The world engine and Zod's ship send out simulatenous gravity beams on both sides of the world and with Superman on his mission and the military struggling to do any damage at all to Zod's ship, the gravity beam starts demolishing Metropolis, killing everyone within the blast radius.
But again, this on ZOD's head, no Superman's.

Speaking of Big Blue, he is going mano-a-machineo with the World Engine.

While the Daily Planet staff do manage to escape the collapse of the building, a woman gets stuck in the rubble but Perry and another employee stand by her to save her, refusing to leave her even with the gravity beam coming ever closer.
Superman destroys the World Engine just in time though and the military can now take it out. There is some trouble though: Zod, Faora and the machine not working right at first.

Zod is flying the ship containing the genetic material from the codex sample and is shooting down jets but Superman manages to recover and returns just in time to confront Zod.

They are not out of the woods yet though, as Faora jumps onto the ship and in typical Faora fashion, starts killing soldiers. Also Lois falls off the ship.
Doctor Hamilton manages to figure out how to activate the machine just in time though and Hardy slams the jet into Zod's ship, sucking Faora and the ship full of Kryptonians into the Phantom Zone.

Superman catches Lois and the two embrace and kiss now that the threat is over with.

Until the rubble shifts and Zod shows up again and we get the final battle.

I want to post something out here for a moment. There have been rumors about Superman killing a lot of people and destroying the city in the final battle. I wish to dash these rumors.

Building #1: Zod punches him through it and it was already damaged anyway.
Building #2: Superman flies into it and then Zod brings it down with heat vision. Building is clearly empty.
Building #3: Parking Garage. They fly into the lower levels and then Zod throws a truck at it. Explosion, but no proof anybody was killed.
Fighting in the street.
Building #4: They wreck some windows and make a hole in it, but no evidence of death.
Building #5: Construction Site. Damage to it, yes, but no death.
Sky Fighting.
Building #6: Zod flies through it and grabs onto Superman.
Building #7: They fight alongside of it and wreck some walls and windows. That's it.
Buildings #8-12: Zod grabs and throws Superman through them. Superman makes holes but again, no deaths.
They take the fight into space and Zod throws a satellite at Supes and then rams into it and tackles Superman. Re-entry and raining down satellite.
Building #13: Train station. Bit of property damage and then Zod fires heat vision. We all know what happens next.
Add to the fact that there were quite clearly a large number of civilians on the streets safely and civilians in the train station and that the majority of deaths and destruction were from the World Engine Terraforming thingy, which again was on Zod and Co and it becomes quite clear that Superman killed nobody except the villain in that final battle.
 Also, on Zod's death, I want to point something out: Superman had no way out. No where to put Zod: The Phantom Zone was gone. You can't put him in a normal prison, he'll just wake up, slaughter everybody and then keep on doing it until he runs into Superman again and Superman barely beats him this time. The family was trapped and if Superman didn't do something right then and there, Zod would vaporize that entire family with heat vision. He couldn't fly up, Zod was keeping himself down. Superman had no other options: Either kill Zod or Zod would kill that family, the fight would continue and one of them would die. And if Superman lost, humanity would be screwed.
So yes, Superman kills a villain to save the world.

After this, we jump forward to Superman talking with a General in a field. This takes place months after the battle and the Government has been tracking him with the satellites and Superman took it out. He assures the General that he is American as it gets and that they can trust him but not to track him.

Later, after talking with Martha, Clark Kent goes to the rebuilt Metropolis to get a job at the Daily Planet.

And that was Man of Steel.

It is not a perfect film, but it is an awesome one and it is nowhere near as bad as the haters say it is.

Also, Superman saves the world, so yes, he is a hero.

The actors did a great job, Cavill is amazing as Superman, the fight scenes are fantastic, I could go on but I am going to end this reviw by giving Man of Steel a 10 out of 10 score.

And I for one cannot wait for Superman/Batman: World's Finest in 2015.

Begotten Movie Review

 So.....Begotten.


.......WTF DID I JUST WATCH?

Begotten is an old, old horror flick from 1990 and it is still freaky and disturbing. Apparently it was a bizarre retelling of the story of Genesis, opening the film up in a white room with blood on the walls and only one man in the room, a man dressed all in white and strapped down to a chair. He has one hand free which he uses to disembowel himself...with a straight razor. The man is listed in the credits as....get this...God Killing Himself. How that works, I don't know but for several minutes we, the audience, are subjected to this suicide. There is no dialog and no actions aside from 'God' thrashing about in his chair, cutting himself open and pulling out the guts and throwing them around as blood and guts continue to spill out of him to disgusting sound effects. It is far more disturbing than anything I've seen from recent big budget hollywood torture flicks.
Anyhoo, out of this bloody death is born Mother Earth, who emerges from 'Gods' body. The woman looks around at her new surroundings and then takes the blood off of 'Gods' body and rubs it all over herself before venturing out into a bleak and barren landscape, eventually giving birth to a full grown man, named as Son of Earth, who just convulses around on the ground, helpless and little more than an infant despite his full grown size. It's actually kind of disturbing to watch. Aaaaand Mother just leaves him there to wonder off. A roving band of faceless men find Son and take him with them. The masked men tie up Son and he eventually starts puking up his organs.....yeah. Not too long after, the faceless men burn him alive...
Later, he is ressurected and Mother returns and takes him with her.
Soon after, they are attacked by more faceless men who rape Mother. New guys show up and carry off her body and dismember her and then come back for Son and do so the same. After they leave, flowers begin to bloom out of where they were killed.

It's...really hard to know what to say about this film. It's not...bad....it's...surreal. I would almost recommend watching it just to see how well, insane this movie can be. It's an experience all of it's own.

Honestly, my summation of the events really doesn't do this film justice.

Soooooo.....after making it through this with my sanity mostly intact, I will give Begotten the gift that keeps on giving: A big old 9 out of 10.

WARNING: NOT for the faint of heart.

All Superheroes Must Die Review

 All Superheroes Must Die Movie Review

Think, Saw+Kick-Ass with a touch of Watchmen.
All Superheroes Must Die is the story of four superheroes(Charge, Cutthroat, Shadow and The Wall) who all awake in various locations in a mostly deserted town and must overcome a series of deadly challenges to save civilians and themselves...
To start off our little review, lets introduce our characters.

Team Heroes

Charge: The leader of the team and the man with the plan.

Cutthroat: Team Speedster and a bit of a dick.

Shadow: The invisible woman and the heart of the team.

The Wall: The brick of the team.

Team Villains

Sledgesaw: The Brute.

Manpower: The Dragon.

Rickshaw: The Big Bad.


We start off our film with Charge waking up on the side of a road. He's coughing and looks like he's been in a bit of a fight. My guess is knockout gas, but it never says. Feeling pain on his wrist, he pulls down his sleeve to reveal a strange scar on it. Picking himself up, he walks until he stumbles upon the bodies of two dead men, in costumes.
The man in white has apparently been beaten to death and the man in black has his intestines hanging out. It is a very chilling opening.
We change scenes to introduce Cutthroat. He has the same scar on his wrist as Charge and also has some damage to his costume. Cutthroat looks around the store he's in and hears a man calling for help. He finds an injured and tied up man in the back with a bomb tied to him. The man yells for Cutthroat to untie him and tells the hero that it's his fault and that 'he' is going to kill them because of the heroes. It is then that the TV in the room turns on. Cutthroat tells the guy to chill and walks over to check it out.
We are introduced to The Wall and Shadow next as they wake up in different locations. Wall finds two more dead bodies and blood splatters. We've only just started and already four dead bodies. During all of this, they are being watched on black and white cameras.
They find the TV's as they turn on and we are introduced to Rickshaw, your very, very best friend.
Rickshaw explains that he's fed up with always losing to the superheroes so he put all this together, a new game that he's come up with called: Role Reversal, where the heroes can feel what it's like to lose every single time. He also curses like a sailor.
The rules are thus: There civilians spread all across town, rigged to bombs and such. They play the game and win his challenges, they could save them. Heroes don't play? He kills them. Obvious. The heroes try to cheat? He blows them up. The heroes try to escape, or forfeit? He blows the town sky high. Also, he has some other friends he wants the heroes to meet. As for the injection scars, he explains that's a little something he created to rob them of their powers. And just to show how serious he is, Rickshaw blows up a civilian right then and there:
The tied up man that Cutthroat met up with earlier. Rickshaw is not messing around here.
For now, he tells them to go to the laundry mat to meet up together. On the way, Charge finds a map. The heroes have a history together as Charge and Cutthroat aren't too happy to see each other, also they all refer to each other by their real names. I found that interesting.
Charge and Wall shake hands and Wall gets hurt. He remarks that Charge is still strong. Shadow seems happy to see everyone at least.
She also questions how they got there in the first place and none of them remember. Rickshaw calls them up and tells them that the games are starting and they will split into two teams.
They go to the hardware store to begin the games. Once there, they find two tied up civilians. Shadow tries to help them but Charge stops her, pointing out that they can't know if they are really innocents or his own goons in disguise. Rickshaw calls them up again and the heroes select their weapons: A sledgehammer for Wall, chain for Cutthroat, pipe for Charge and a crowbar for Shadow.
Charge and Cutthroat are put into team irony and Shadow and Wall are in team romance.
Round One Rules: Fight an opponent to the Death and win or civilians die.
Team Irony to the Lumberyard and Team Romance to the Junkyard.

Lumberyard Brawl:
They arrive at the Lumberyard to find a whole bunch of civilians gagged and tied up with bombs all around them, a cage and a tall wrestler man in it. The rules: Fight Sledgesaw and win and take out the fuse within the time limit or they die. On the way there, Charge and Cutthroat bicker some more and we find out that they used to be friends but apparently got in a fight and split up. Charge tells him to knock it off since if they don't work together, they are screwed.
Naturally, Charge goes to fight Sledgesaw while Cutthroat....tries to take out the fuse by whipping it with a chain.
...
Anyway. Charge vs Sledgesaw. Charge is getting seriously tossed around by this guy and spitting up blood. He gets some good hits in but Sledge shrugs them off. After some more fighting, Charge manages to win, getting in a badass dropkick to the chest and then smacking him down with the weapon. Charge rushes over to help Cutthroat with the fuse, grabbing an axe on the way. Not sure how Cutthroat didn't see it, but, hey, they cut the fuse and the civilians are safe!
NOT! The fuse starts up again. With no time, Charge grabs Cutthroat and leaps clear as the civilians are blown up anyway. Role Reversal. Rickshaw is not fighting fair here. As they mourn the civilians, and Cutthroat laments that he could have saved them if he was still fast.
They are interrupted by a call from Shadow on the Walkie Talkies they picked up.

Junkyard Inferno.
Shadow and Wall are pinned down behind cover as Manpower laughs like a madman and sprays a flame thrower. When it runs out of fuel, Wall charges him, tackling him down but Manpower decks him and breaks his nose. It is here where we learn that Manpower is a cannibal as he describes how he's going to carve him open and eat his heart. To get big and strong again he says. Huh. Wonder what his back-story is. Shadow joins the fight but just gets falcon kicked to the ground.
Manpower chooses Wall to die first and stabs the knife into him and just twists it around while laughing at him. He is about to gut Shadow when Charge makes it and tackles him through...a wall. Ha!
Charge comforts Wall and then sadly informs the others that he's good as dead. If you look closely, you can even see one of his intestines hanging out. He comments that Wall doesn't understand pain so he'll die peacefully.
Shadow comforts him as Charge and Cutthroat check on the civilians. They are promptly blown up by Rickshaw. Charge figures out he's doing it remotely and that he'll do it whether they win or lose.
Wall dies.
We get a black and white flashback to the good old days where they were still friends and Charge, Shadow and Wall were in a love triangle.

Rickshaw contacts them again and laughs over it all and tells them to proceed to Round 2: The Bonus Round.
A little early for that IMO, but, what do I know.

Bonus Round:
They head to an old shack down the dirt road. Once inside, we are greeted to a frightening scene: Three tied up civilians and coffins with the names of the three remaining superheroes on them. They are understandably freaked about this. Rickshaw tells them the rules of the Bonus Round: For each hero that steps into a coffin and kills themselves with the gun, he will let one civilian go. Charge promptly grabs the gun and steps into his coffin. The others plead with him not to go through with it. Charge says he won't.....and shoots each civilian in the head, knowing that he was going to kill them no matter what and that he would definitely blow them up if they tried to untie them.
Rickshaw applauds this and is clearly having a blast with tearing down the heroes.

Round 3: Elimination Round.
Charge is clearly not happy with what he did but tells the others he didn't want to risk them falling for his game. Cutthroat assures Shadow that he has a plan, like he always did, but their faith in their leader is clearly shaken.
This brings us to the next round.
At the bar, they discover Rickshaw's most sadistic game yet: He has Cutthroat's little sister Emily tied up and strapped to explosives like the others.
The sadistic choice is thus: Cutthroat must kill either Charge or Shadow using the weapons in the bar or he'll kill Emily. Cutthroat, given everything they've been through and especially the last round, flips out and grabs for the weapons and gets in a fight with Charge. During all of this, his sister is pleading with him to save her and Charge is struggling to get through to him as they knock each around, just beating the hell out of each other.
When Cutthroat finally has him down and is getting ready to in for the kill with knives, Shadow grabs a shotgun and points it at him. Cutthroat is too fast though and throws a knife into her shoulder. Charge freaks out and attacks him, getting a slash across his chest and then wrestling the knife from him and stabbing Cutthroat in the chest. As Cutthroat dies, he and Charge forgive each other and Cuuttroat reveals he just always wanted to be like him and pleads with Charge to finish off Rickshaw. Charge can only watch as Emily explodes in front of him.
We get another flashback, this time with Charge and Cutthroat civilians lives discussing a recent case and Charge telling him to think before he acts, telling him that they can't save everybody. "Yeah, especially if you'r not trying." It's a very sad scene that this whole team used to be such tight friends and now...this.
Charge talks with Shadow, telling her he just about has it figured out: Rickshaw can see them, but not hear them, so they can talk freely. This was foreshadowed earlier: When they were shown on the cameras, it was silent. When Charge yelled at him, Rickshaw commented he couldn't quite catch that and couldn't hear Cutthroat either. The detonations mean he's close by. Short range broadcast system and that Charge has been marking down his locations on the map every time he sees a new TV and he needs just one more to find him.
Furthermore, we get a very interesting revelation: Apparently, the other three were super powered when a meteor fell out of the sky, granting them powers and slowing their aging but not doing anything to Charge. Instead, he trained himself constantly to physical perfection so he could appear to have superhuman strength to fit in with them.
To be around Shadow.
He's growing older and she isn't and he's scared he won't be able to protect her.
Rickshaw interrupts their talk and tells them to proceed to Round 4.

Thrift Store Semi-Finals:
Arriving at the Thrift Store, they find it covered with explosions. Another sadistic choice, this one to tear apart the lovers. One of them must shoot the other or he'll blow up the entire store. They try to leave and he'll blow it up anyway.
Charge convinces Shadow to shoot him somewhere nonelethal so she can leave. Once his attention is on her, he can hunt him down and kill Rickshaw.
Shadow: "Is this it? Is this your plan? I mean...what's your backup plan?"
Charge: "Backup plans are for people who expect to fail." Yeah, Charge is awesome.
She shoots him and Charge, badly wounded, tells her to leave.

Final Showdown:
Rickshaw marks him as dead and, now free to work, takes the map back out and figures out where Rickshaw is. He manages to pick himself up and grabs the shotgun and hunts him down, trecking across the town despite bleeding out, finds Rickshaw's base and goes in.
Now...this part is weird. Badass, but weird. Rickshaw has a whole bunch of henchmen in animal costumes. Tigers and bears and such, wielding shotguns.

What.

 Charge, despite his wounds, manages to take them out.
He collapses on the ground but, remembering all of his friends, forces himself up one last time and runs up the stairs and surprises Rickshaw, shooting him and taking him down. With his dying breath though, Rickshaw activates his contingency plan: Blow up the whole town, laughing in Charge's face even as he dies.

Charge gets in contact with Shadow and pleads with her to leave but she runs to go find him. He tells her that there is no way for her to escape with him and that he's dead anyway. Shadow won't leave him though and grabs onto him and they try to get away as the timer ticks down.
Credits Roll.
However, during the end credits, there is a quick scene of Cutthroat starting to open his eyes...


All Superheroes Must Die is a dark movie. There is a lot of death, the heroes are not in control, blood and violence and cursing aplenty, this is a Superhero-Horror Film and I love it.
It's not mindless Gorn like Saw or over the top comic booky goodness like Kick-Ass, instead, it meets in the middle and does a great job of blending them.

Rickshaw is utterly over the top as the villain and is almost like a cross between Joker and The Riddler.
Charge is badass, Cutthroat is a jerk but you get the feeling that he was a good person before all of this, Shadow is great as the Heart of the team and the Wall does pretty well too, showing just how nervous and unsure he is without his powers but still being brave enough to fight.

That said, I do think this movie could have benefited from some expanded backstory, maybe seeing the heroes back when they were having fun and being a team to make this hit that much harder. That said, what we got is still great and I'm really interested in the upcoming sequel.

Still, can you imagine how over the top awesome this movie would have been with even Kick-Ass's budget? THAT would have been scary to see.

All in all, I'll give All Superheroes Must Die a 10 out of 10.

Chroncile Movie Review.

Chronicle is awesome.

It is, in essence, the polar opposite of #4. The main cast are sympathetic and likeable, the superpowers are front and center, the trailer is actually honest about what's going down in the movie, and Andrew doesn't take shit from anybody.

Let's begin the review!

First, our cast.

Andrew Detmer.

Our main character, he is the most developed out of the three.

Richard Detmer

The primary 'villain' of the film, he is Andrew's cowardly abusive father.

Matt

Andrew's cousin and the primary hero of the film.

Steve Montgomery

The best friend and a great guy.


Alright, with the intro's out of the way, lets get this party started!
So the movie starts off with Andrew setting up his camera. Yes, this is a found footage movie, of sorts, but is very original and how they work it in is nothing short of genius. Andrew is interrupted by his drunken a-hole of a dad banging on the door and yelling at Andrew to get ready for school. Andrew yells back that his dad is drunk already and it's not even noon yet. Heading downstairs, Andrew checks in on his mother. She is sick with cancer. Yeah, along with living with an abusive dad, he has to deal with this. Andrew's life sucks. We meet Andrew when Andrew heads outside. It is here that we first meet Matt, Andrew's cousin, who gives him rides to school. We also learn that Matt is a great singer.

I Am Number 4 Movie Review

My Review for I Am Number 4

I hate this movie.Just getting that out of the way.

Alright, now, a list of our characters.

Mark. Asshole bully. That's his entire character.

John. John is our main character, he's also an alien.

Sam. The best friend.

 6. 6 is another of John's race and a complete badass. Sadly, she doesn't do anything for 90% of the movie.

 Sarah. The love interest.

Henri: The Dad. Though not technically, as he's actually John's guardian from their home planet.

The villains

The evil aliens who are hunting John's race.
They don't do anything for 90% of the movie.
They do scare small children though.

John starts out the movie surfing with some friends when his leg starts to glow, signifying that one of the 9 have been killed. See, John comes from an alien planet and is part of a set. They all have superpowers and have to be killed in order or they won't die. The evil aliens are hunting them down one by one. But don't worry, they don't show up until the end. Anyways, John and his dad move to the setting of the movie where John attends school and falls in love with Sarah, meets Sam, yadda yadda yadda. 

So, on his first day, he has to deal with the REAL villains of this movie: Mark the psychopath and his gang of idiots.

What's that you say? You thought the evil aliens were the villains? Nope! The movie forgets all about them for 90% of the movie, instead pushing Mark as the Big Bad. The problem? John has superpowers and could clearly wipe the floor with them but doesn't. Because the plot says so.
So, John arrives at the school and Mark and his gang throw a football at Sam's head, because.....they're dicks like that and start jumping around and laughing and insulting him. In his one act of badassery for the next hour of the movie, John throws the football at one of Mark's friends and knocks the wind out of him and makes friends with Sam. Okay, you're thinking, John is a pretty cool guy, right? Keeeep watching.
Mark confronts John in the hallway and starts harassing him and John forgets all of his powers and acts terrified of Mark. John also meets Sarah, a photographer and his love interest for the movie. Also, she's Mark's ex. John and Sarah start dating. In between all of this, John's powers start kicking in further and he starts shining blue lights from his hands.
After a date with Sarah, we see that Mark is stalking her. Remember when I said Mark was a psycho? yeah, it's proven here. Mark rigs John and Sam's lockers up so that when they open them the next day they get splattered with red paint along with all of their belongings. So let's see here....assault, stalking, breaking and entering, I could go on..why has nobody reported him? Because the plot says so.
Sam gets pissed at the psycho and tackles him but Mark easily knocks him down and goes to beat Sam up and John, our cool, badass superpowered alien hero.......gives Mark a light shove. Mark calls him out and John....wimps out and backs away in fear.
Yeah.
Later, John goes on another date with Sarah on a hayride. Mark sends his gang of thugs to attack them. They drag John down off of the ride and start beating him and kicking him while he's down while another one grabs Sarah and carries her off. Let's add kidnapping to the list of charges shall we?
John FINALLY decides to be a badass again and tosses the punks off of him like rag dolls and goes after Sarah.
Meanwhile, Mark has captured Sarah and is yelling at her, telling her SHE'S the big problem. No, it's not that he's a psychotic bastard, no, no, she's the problem. Hypocrite. When Sarah tries to leave, Mark grabs and shoves her to the ground.
John arrives and we're finally, finally, FINALLY going to see him wipe the floor with the douche. They start circling each other, staring into each other's eyes, Mark makes the first move but John is faster. He grabs Mark annnndd.....shoves him to the ground. Oh, and grabs his arm, ready to give him what he deserves when suddenly!

NNNNNOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!

Yep, despite him clearly being a complete psycho, Sarah insists that John not hurt precious Mark. So, Mark gets off scott free and runs to his cop dad and they start hunting John. Smooooth Sarah.
Later, they try to go to a party but Mark's thugs attack them AGAIN!
John shows off his powers to Sarah.

After more pointlessness, the movie remembers it has a PLOT!!!!!!!!
DUN DUN DUNNNN!

I know, I was surprised too.

The evil alien guys finally arrive and start wrecking things. And they were worth the wait.....kinda. They attack and kill Henri. I like this, it's a major step up from scaring little kids by making faces. I am not kidding, they literally do that.
Our villains ladies and gentlemen. 

The aliens attack Mark and his dad and scare them a little and drag Mark around for a little bit. Yep. That's the worst that happens to him. The aliens arrive at the school and start shooting everything. Due to being...well...John, they are kinda screwed until.....SIX RETURNS!

Yep, remember her? The biker chick who blew up a house as her intro? Yep, she shows up to save the day and her entrance turns John back into a badass and even Sam gets in on it, picking up an alien's gun and joining in on the fight.
Oh yeah, and, John's dog shows up and it can turn into a monster and fights another monster.

Believe me when I say, this is as good as it gets.

And at the end, John, Sam and 6 decide to leave and find the rest of their alien friends. Mark apologizes and they instantly forgive him for being a psychotic ass. SO much so that John even breaks up with Sarah and leaves her in the capable hands of Mark. You know, the psychopath?

BRILLIANT!

#4 is just a real bait and switch. It COULD have been awesome, and the potential is there but it's all buried under cliche highschool antics and forgets the interesting plot elements until the very end.

I will say that it had some cool effects at the final showdown, and some good characters and if it focused on the aliens, the powers and been about a run and hide guerrila style warfare between the good aliens and the bad, it could have been freaking epic. Sadly....we did not get that.

Final Score: 2 out of 10. And that's just for 6 and the final showdown.
My advice? Skip the movie entirely, watch the final battle, return it the next day.