It’s been a while since I saw the original movies (not counting the horribleness that is the Clooney-movies (and by extent the Kilmer movie(s?)), but I remember I enjoyed them quite alot, but mostly because of their style. Tim Burton’s pretty awesome, and Jack Nicholson kind of rocks as the Joker. I thought the Penguin was ****** lame and just made me really pissy and annoyed. On the other hand Catwoman is/was the only truly awesome version to date, Michelle Pfeiffer made me almost cheer for her feline exaggerated grace.

Yes, I’m a fan of awesome villains. The first movie had Ra’s al Ghul played by the much-revered Liam Neeson, and frankly I thought his mad schemes were downright awesome. I didn’t care much for the Scarecrow, but I have to admit that he played too small a role to be truly fleshed out like Ra’s was. That’s probably something they’re continuing in The Dark Knight, downplaying the second villain so that the major emphasis is on the primary villain. Batman Begins had Scarecrow, while The Dark Knight has Two-Face. I’ll be the first to admit that the insane logic of Dent isn’t my cup of coffee, but this time around he was strangely convincing.

Anyways! Heath Ledger’s Joker is the most awesome villain I’ve seen to date. The mimics and the body language was epic, the exaggerations were just plain awesome and there were no failed attempts of tragic proportions to make him seem funnier than absolutely necessary either. The Joker was in a sense frightening as hell not just because of his mannerisms and his mad talking, but also because of his chaotic and hipocritical way to go about things. “I don’t have a plan, do I look like a man that makes plans?” or something like that. Hell, the guy had thicker and deeper plans than most villains I’ve seen to date! If any.

I can freely admit I’m not particularly affected by the fact that Ledger’s dead, or rather, I wasn’t until I realized he would never ever be able to play The Joker again. That sort of hit me sometime while heading back home, because suddenly when I thought Heath Ledger was really ****** awesome he went away. Then again, that will probably just keep the performance highly elevated and legendary in my mind oh so much longer.

Oh, and like Ingar T. Hauge, I have to point out the awesomeness of the music. Hans Zimmer is a bloody genious! I’m sitting here listening to the OST, and the mood is good!

So with all these remarkable superhero actionmovies out there so far this year I’m pretty hyped about what will come now that they seem to have gotten a feel for what’s right and what’s wrong when making these movies. Maybe they’ll continue their streak, but most likely they’ll start botching it soon.

And by the way: The Hulk wasn’t joygasmic, but then again the Hulk is a difficult character that I doubt they’ll master on the screen anytime soon. I suppose it’s hard to portray the Hulk properly when he’s considered one of the de facto most powerful beings in the marvel universe that beats the snot out of all the other heroes while still retaining the genious mind of Bruce Banner (atleast lately), while at the same time 99% of the world wants to see a “Durr… …urrr….”-dumbass character, and the directors insists on the conflict between the Hulk and Banner to be of paramount importance. The Hulk is a tricky one, like most of the heroes and villains of the Marvel universe, with things going back and forth. Oh, and all the retcons! Gah. Nightmare…

(Sorry for any incoherency in the text… :P)

Mutant Chronicles is some heavy steampunk dystopian emo sci-fi stuff. The acting was so-so, the effects were great and bad alike, giving the feeling they were going for a specific style I don’t know what is, but still works out cool. The beginning was so cheesy I was a split second from turning it off, with the weird WWI stuff going and the “omg tehre b nasty stuffs coming111oneoneone!” that made me almost yawn (glad I had an apple to bite down on there).

Then for some reason the movie becomes fun. Cheesy, gritty, dystopian steampunk fun. I’m not entirely sure what to call it. Maybe I grew on the directing and the general style they had going in the movie. In any case, despite the succulent cheese and the steaming elsestuff, the movie turned out to be a movie I recommend. I’m still not entirely sure what’s up with this movie that was so cool and downright entertaining, but I saw it all the way through, and I totally loved it!

… next movie up might be Batman: Gotham Knight. I suspect I might be putting this one off for a while, if I’m going to be honest with myself, because frankly it doesn’t seem all that entertaining. I’m hoping I’ll have to swallow those words after I’ve seen it.

Also, Jake Gyllenhaal to be the Prince in the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time movie. How can I not be excited? Gah! I’m a sucker for cheese.

And I’m hoping to see Indy today, or tomorrow. Will hopefully heading to town regardless.

Omgomgomgomgomgomgomgomg!

Another movie! WOHOOOO! /fanboi

I remember Epic Movie looked hilarious as hell. In the trailer. I remember Scary Movie looked funny as hell. In the trailer. I remember alot of movies that looked funny as hell. In the, wait for it, fracking trailer! When I actually got around to seeing them I found myself chuckle on the odd occasion at the play on words, like “He told me to polish his knob” in Epic Movie because it was so completely unexpected, and perhaps to an extent because I love puns. It’s like the movie’s IQ went up one point, or something, to a total of 4,1.

I’ll be using Epic Movie as an example since that’s the one I can remember the best right now, and even that’s not much. Now I know that these movies are made in large for the American audience, and I can understand that they’re sent abroad to us here in pee-wee Europe to make an extra buck or two. You know, I even understand why people go to watch it - the trailer, and the lure of a good laugh. People want to be able to laugh at a movie. A comedy that you can laugh at is amazing, a wonderful rarity.

What really amazes me is that a brilliant movie like Hot Fuzz, and the even better Death at a Funeral, doesn’t even reach our cinemas. Epic Movie does. A huge majority loved those two movies. 8.1 and (strangely low) 7.4 at IMDB for cheesecakes! Epic Movie got a 2.3, and still we saw trailers and whatchacallit’s all over the place. Why they don’t promote movies like Hot Fuzz and Death at a Funeral better is beyond me. Do they expect, for some daft reason, that they won’t be doing well just because they’re a work of genius british movie-making, or do they smoke lots of funny pink stuff at work when they make decisions?

The reason for this post is that I watched the really horrible trailer of Meet the Spartans, which was horrible because it wasn’t even remotely funny in any way, and epic flashes to an epically (sp/gr?) poor movie went through my head. They have to be for kids, 13 and below. That market’s got a big enough cash-flow, sure, but why don’t they massively market movies that actually makes you laugh, like the aforementioned ones as well? It’s a bigtime loser if not even the trailer can make my smile twitch. Very bigtime loser.

Maybe, some day, I will understand how the producers and promoters think. Maybe. Some day. For now I’ll just shake my head in disbelief at the amount of time, effort and money thrown into the toilet for no apparent reason other than making a pitiful buck or two. Perhaps there’s a massive market there, among the kids and “speshul peepul”, I’m just certain there’s a bigger one for the good movies.

[Edit:
HOLY HELLS! Meet the Spartans is at the US top box office. I'm taken by complete surprise. I should definately have checked out things a bit better before I wrote this. How the hell does something like this happen when there's a million better movies out there, that's even got humour, a good message, and quality? It's FRACKING BEYOND ME! Just like this blogger mentions intellect, I sincerely question the broad range of intellectual midgets in the nation across the pond. I did before too, but only as a half-joke, now it's not even funny anymore. Or maybe it's not intellect, it's just stumped taste in movies entirely, a stumped nation in general. Maybe it's a failed promotional engine. Whichever it is, something's failed.

I bet it'll top in Europe too, just to prove we've got our fair share of retards as well.]