Man-Thing (2005)

While I've said in other reviews that not every superhero fits the "masked crimefighter" mold, it can most assuredly be said that not every comic book protagonist is a superhero. Some fight demons, vampires, or other forces of darkness. Others seek redemption, to survive in a world gone to Hell, or to merely kick the crap out of those who have wronged them. And then there's the few who are just plain monsters. No kidding, actual monsters.

In the pantheon of comic monsters, one of the most notable is Man-Thing. Making his first appearance in 1971 within the pages of Marvel's Strange Tales #1, the creature known as Man-Thing was the creation of writers Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, and artist Gray Morrow. The character has popped up primarily in the horror and science-fiction comics published by Marvel over the last few decades, and also provided a forum for writer Steve Gerber to create the one and only Howard the Duck.

But Man-Thing has really never achieved the same level of fame that other secondary characters on the Marvel or DC rosters have garnered. It's as if Man-Thing is to Marvel Comics what someone like Ambush Bug is to DC Comics: a D-list character that has developed his own fanbase while remaining virtually unknown to the general public. Although he has remained relatively obscure over the years, Man-Thing was eventually chosen to follow in the footsteps of other, more notable Marvel characters and star in his own movie.

But, alas, there's a catch. There's always a catch. It turns out that instead of getting a theatrical run, the Man-Thing movie would premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel on April 30, 2005, before heading to DVD the following summer. Maybe you could call it a throwback to that bygone era of the '80s and '90s when Marvel's movies suffered similar fates? So let's jump into this thing and see if it turned out as bad as its "Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie" pedigree would have you believe.

Welcome to scenic Bywater, a small Florida town that's actually more swampland that civilization. Big city lawman Kyle Williams (Matthew Le Nevez) is — quite literally — the new sheriff in town, and on his first day on the job, he's already up to his neck in things to worry about. He has a mountain of missing person reports on his desk, and he's called out to break up a protest organized by a group of environmentalists led by local third grade teacher Teri Edwards (Rachael Taylor). She and her fellow tree-huggers have gathered together in opposition of Frederick Schist (Jack Thompson), an unscrupulous oil tycoon who plans to extend his business into the swamplands he has bartered away from the area's Native American community.

And that's when the mutilated corpses start turning up. The murders and disappearances are initially attributed to alligator attacks, while Schist puts the blame on Rene LaRoque (Steve Bastoni), a mysterious swamp-dwelling rogue who harbors a grudge against Schist and his company. But as Sheriff Williams's investigation continues, he is led lead to Pete Horn (Rawiri Paratene), a wise old Native American who tells the sheriff of the mystical forces that dwell within areas of the swamp his people consider holy. An ancient spirit has arisen from the swamp's murky depths, angered by the encroachment into his sacred territory. This spirit takes the form of a walking heap of muck and mire, and seeks to extract bloody vengeance from all those who dare intrude upon the swamp he protects.

As a cinematic adaptation as a character from the pantheon of Marvel Comics, Man-Thing is pretty awful. It is, as I noted in the introduction, a throwback to the "good old days" of lame yet strangely lovable Marvel movies like Howard the Duck. I'd go as far as to say that it's a good thing that Man-Thing was shuttled off to the Sci-Fi Channel and video store shelves without a theatrical release. Otherwise, it might have set Marvel's stake in the genre of comic book movies back fifteen years. But when viewed from the context of it being a low-budget B-movie, Man-Thing isn't too bad. It's actually — gasp! — kinda fun. I know, right? Who would've thought? I actually thought it was an entertaining movie. I'm not saying it was a good movie by any means. I'm just saying that I didn't hate it. Yeah, I'm as shocked as you are.

Let's talk about the direction first. At the helm is Brett Leonard, the man behind such classics as Virtuosity, Highlander: The Source, and The Lawnmower Man, the one Stephen King adaptation that was so screwed up that King himself fought to get his name taken off of it. While he isn't known for directing pinnacles of cinematic achievement, Leonard at least shows some sense of competence with Man-Thing. He manages to keep the pace moving fast, never letting us slow down to consider any inconsistencies or general goofiness that may crop up over the course of the movie.

He also manages to give the movie a certain creepy atmosphere that works in its favor. Steve Arnold's cinematography during the dark swamp scenes is a little murky at times, but other than that, Leonard manages to hold it together as well as he can. The aforementioned creepy atmosphere is assisted by the spooky musical score contributed by Roger Mason. It works well in establishing the necessary auditory environment for the movie, and I give it a thumbs-up.

Next up is the screenplay written by Hans Rodionoff, whose only other claims to fame are the direct-to-video sequels The Skulls II and Lost Boys: The Tribe. And before you start getting your hopes up, I must say that Man-Thing's script is typical of the movie's status as a B-grade monster movie that made its world premiere on the Sci-Fi Channel. Know what I mean?

Rodionoff's script isn't exactly what you would call solid, thanks to its cheesy dialogue, an overabundance of clichés, and character development that's so lacking that it's practically nonexistent. These aren't really characters so much as they are caricatures of characters. There's the protagonist, his love interest, the villain, the man who knows a little too much, the red herring, and everyone else is lame cannon fodder for Man-Thing.

And the really crummy part is that Man-Thing — the character the movie is named after and the character the movie is supposed to be about — is treated almost as if he were any other movie monster, only he doesn't have as much screen time as you'd expect. We get our first fleeting glimpse of Man-Thing at the 47-minute mark, but his appearances are just shots of an arm or a leg, with his full visage remaining obscured or out of focus. He doesn't make his grand reveal until the final 23 minutes of the movie. This was probably done for both budgetary concerns and to try adding a modicum of suspense, but I guess I've been spoiled by seeing too many Godzilla movies. I will say, though, that Rodionoff's script isn't as bad as it could have been. I've seen a lot of movies with worse scripts, so Rodionoff did a better job that I'd have expected. (I know that's a lame backhanded compliment, but nobody asked you for your opinion.)

And I think I should explain what I said earlier, about why I felt that the movie is a bad adaptation of a comic book. I said that because it feels like so little of the comic book actually made it into in the movie. There's a fleeting reference to the Nexus of All Realities, and some characters are named after important writers and artists in Man-Thing's history. But other than that, there's not a whole lot to connect the comics to the movie. It's as if the filmmakers had a completely different movie lined up, and then they stumbled upon the movie rights for Man-Thing and just did a little tinkering to the script to create what we have now.

This, to me, is evidenced in the differences in how Man-Thing is depicted. In the comics, he was originally Ted Sallis, a biochemist who was transformed into a shambling, nearly mindless heap of vegetation via a combination of an experimental serum and the supernatural forces dwelling within the Florida Everglades. In the movie, Ted Sallis became a Seminole Indian who was killed and buried beneath an oil rig out in the swamp. Thanks to the supernatural nature of the swamp, his remains are shaped into a violent force of nature that is charged with protecting the endangered swamp from unwanted outsiders. I can understand if they changed the origin story to avoid comparisons to the similar origins of Man-Thing's DC Comics counterpart Swamp Thing. But were the changes that necessary?

And while the comic book version of Man-Thing would only fight if provoked, it really feels like the movie version is basically the bastard child of Swamp Thing and Jason Voorhees from the Friday the 13th movies. This is particularly evidenced by the fact that he kills with what appears to be as little discrimination as possible. At the beginning of the movie, he kills a guy who's in the midst of, shall we say, showing a lady friend a good time. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The comic's very awesome tagline was, "Whoever knows fear will burn at Man-Thing's touch!" But I'd guess that if you retrofitted that for the movie, it would be, "Whoever enters the swamp will have their arms and legs torn off and a tree shoved up their butt by Man-Thing!" That's a little too wordy, but it's an accurate description.

Lastly is the acting, and I have to say that if you're going to cast a number of foreign actors to play Americans, make sure you have a dialogue coach to teach them the proper accents for their characters. Both the production and the casting were outsourced to Australia, and the movie's country of origin shows. I'm from the South, and I've never heard anyone speak like the people in this movie. Either the accents the actors were aiming for are way too over-the-top (as is the case with the actors playing the stereotypical racist drunks and slack-jawed yokels), inconsistent (as is the case with pretty much everybody else), or just not there (as is the case with Rachael Taylor). Seriously, Taylor is a charming actress and she does a fine job here, but the fact that I honestly can't tell the difference between her natural Aussie accent and her attempts at a Southern accent really says something.

Taylor does well enough, though, as does our hero, Matthew Le Nevez. Le Nevez's accent may not be 100% believable, but other than that, he does a respectable job as the inexperienced yet dedicated sheriff. My only problem is that Le Nevez and Taylor don't seem to have much a romantic spark together. Maybe it's just the poor way the relationship between their characters is developed within the script, but it just seems like they have four or five unromantic scenes together, then they're making out by the end of the movie. They could have at least had a fistfight or two like Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner in Daredevil. All we get out of Le Nevez and Taylor is a few arguments, her kicking him in the crotch once, and then they're all friendly with one another. It's crazy.

The rest of the cast is acceptable by B-movie standards. Jack Thompson is wonderfully sleazy as the villainous Frederick Schist. I just wish they'd gone one step further and given him the middle initial "A.," just so they could have utilized the cheesy "F.A. Schist" wordplay that appeared in a storyline involving Man-Thing back in the '70s. The movie version's corporate emblem already bears a suspicious similarity to a Nazi swastika, so what would have been hurt by naming him F.A. Schist?

I also thought Rawiri Paratene did well as the stereotypical wise old Native American, and I really liked Robert Mammone and the aforementioned director Brett Leonard as a curious cryptzoologist and the county coroner, respectively. Steve Bastoni handed in a fine performance himself, giving the character a certain mysterious charisma that made him interesting to watch despite the lack of screen time or character development. And lastly, I'll just say that John Batchelor and Ian Bless, who play a pair of greasy-looking rednecks who do the occasional bit of grunt work for the villain, probably shouldn't quit their day jobs.

So yeah, that's Man-Thing. There's not a whole lot else to say about it. If you're looking for a Marvel Comics movie on the level of Iron Man or X-Men, then Man-Thing probably isn't it. Even if you lower your standards to Elektra levels, you still might be left feeling a teensy bit disappointed. But if you enjoy cheap B-grade monster movies like Mansquito or Boa vs. Python, it could possibly be right up your alley.

I'll actually go out on a limb and say that it has just about everything a fan of B-movies could want. There's a guy who has been transformed into a gross monster, corporate malfeasance, clueless cops, lots of violence, actors you've probably never heard of, some explosions, and a girl gets topless within the first five minutes of the movie. It's basically the Snakes on a Plane of comic book movies, only without Samuel L. Jackson or any Internet buzz. If that sounds good to you, go rent Man-Thing. Though I'm presenting it with a score of two and a half stars on my Five-Star Sutton Scale, I'm still giving it a recommendation as a guilty pleasure. You monster movie fans will love it.

Final Rating: **½

Blade: Trinity (2004)

Superheroes come in all shapes, all sizes, and with all kinds of special abilities. But none are quite like Blade. Instead of fighting megalomaniacs, aliens, insane clowns, or green goblins, Blade's enemies are those classic villains, vampires. Himself a half-vampire, it's Blade's job to eliminate every supernatural bloodsucker he comes across. Though Blade is a relatively obscure character in the Marvel Comics pantheon, New Line Cinema bought the movie rights to the character and released a live-action adaptation in 1998.

Though the movie was only a moderate financial success, its impact is still being felt ten years later. I spoke of this in my review of it, but Blade revolutionized the entire superhero movie genre. Bryan Singer's X-Men might get the lion's share of the glory due to both the Blade character's lack of notoriety and X-Men's genre-revolutionizing special effects, but Blade truly got the ball rolling. A sequel was released in 2002, which turned out to be even more popular than its predecessor. So reasoning that they should probably ride this money train as long as they could, New Line released a third movie, Blade: Trinity, in 2004. It might not be as good as Blade II, but it's not so bad.

Our story naturally picks up sometime after the events of Blade II, and the tireless vampire slayer Blade (Wesley Snipes) is continuing his seemingly unending war against the vampire race. Realizing that they're on the losing side of this war, a group of vampires have concocted a plan to turn the tables on their foe. As he tears through a vampire hideout, Blade is tricked into killing a normal human being used as bait. News footage of this is used to spin Blade as a psychotic serial killer, shooting him to the top of the FBI's most wanted list. The FBI manages to track Blade to his hidden compound, and although his sidekick Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson) sacrifices himself in the ensuing fracas, Blade is defeated and taken into police custody.

But as certain vampire-sympathetic police officers prepare to hand Blade over to the vampire sect who set him up, they're interrupted by Hannibal King (Ryan Reynolds) and Whistler's long-lost daughter Abigail (Jessica Biel). The duo breaks Blade out, rushing him back to their own hideout. There, they introduce him to their own ragtag group of vampire slayers, dubbed "the Nightstalkers." Though initially reluctant to join the Nightstalkers due to their relative inexperience, Blade agrees to partner with them after Hannibal reveals himself to be a former vampire who had been cured. During the following grand tour of the Nightstalker facility, they tell Blade of their discovery that Danica Talos (Parker Posey) and her posse of bloodsuckers have found and awakened the ancient — and the very first — vampire known as Dracula (Dominic Purcell), who now answers to the name "Drake." With Drake on their side, Danica hopes that they can finally eliminate Blade and instigate the vampire version of the "final solution."

To combat this newfound threat, the Nightstalkers have developed a biological weapon they've named the Daystar. The Daystar is designed to kill any and every vampire in the nearby area, but there's two catches. The first is that they need to add some of Drake's blood to the Daystar recipe. Because he is the progenitor of the entire vampire race, his pure blood could maximize the Daystar's potency. The second catch: Because of Blade's unique situation as a half-vampire, the Daystar could possibly kill him too. But that is a risk Blade is willing to take if it means another step towards winning his fight against vampires.

Since its release in 2004, Blade: Trinity has often been referred to as the weakest chapter in the Blade trilogy. And I can't really argue with that, because it's the truth. From both a critical and a financial standpoint, Blade: Trinity was the least successful of the entire trilogy. But I don't think it's the truly bad movie that critics like Roger Ebert and the like might have you believe. Sure, it isn't as great as it could have been. But I still thought it was a fun, enjoyable movie in spite of the flaws it may have. I liked it, and I'll make an attempt tell you why.

Let's start with the direction from David Goyer. Goyer steps into the director's chair after Blade II director Guillermo Del Toro passed on the job so he could make Hellboy, and I have to applaud him for taking a shot. He'd only helmed one other movie prior to this, and his inexperience shows. However, Goyer also shows signs of competence as a director too. He gets some fine camerawork from cinematographer Gabriel Beristain, and he succeeds in maintaining a relatively quick pace so that the movie never lulls for too long at any given time.

There are a few scenes that could have stood being trimmed or cut entirely, like the revelation of the "vampire final solution" and the scene where Drake kills two unassuming Goth kids just because they were selling crappy Dracula merchandise. But outside of that, I didn't think Goyer did that bad of a job as director. I also liked the music composed by Ramin Djwadi and The RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan. Their hip hop and techno-oriented score suits the movie well. Their music fits the tone that Goyer was aiming for, and really backs up the visuals.

Meanwhile, Goyer's script isn't too bad, but it isn't really as strong as it could have been. Could it be that after writing the first two movies in the trilogy, Goyer simply ran out of steam? It just seems that the jokes are way too plentiful (and in some cases, way too lame), some scenes don't contribute as much to the overall narrative as they could, and Drake doesn't really come across as the end-all, be-all of enemies. He just doesn't feel all that threatening. And why do they say he changed his name from "Dracula" to "Drake"? What's so wrong with just calling him Dracula? Was there some kind of copyright problem where they were only allowed to call him Dracula once or twice? If Buffy the Vampire Slayer can fight a vampire that's actually named Dracula, then why can't Blade? Sigh.

Lastly is the cast, most of whom do as fine a job as they can. Wesley Snipes is once again engaging as the titular vampire hunter. The character's evolution from stoic, emotionless badass to snarky tough guy — an evolution that began in Blade II — seems complete here, and Snipes handles the role with a certain enthusiasm. I know in retrospect that Snipes was less than thrilled with Blade: Trinity for reasons that include his screen time being cut in order to place more emphasis on the Nightstalkers, but that doesn't change the fact that they couldn't have asked for a better person to play Blade.

I also enjoyed Jessica Biel and Ryan Reynolds as Blade's new backup. Biel is credible as Abigail Whistler, giving the character a tough courageousness that makes her thoroughly likeable. And Reynolds... well, if you've seen practically any of Ryan Reynolds's movies, you know what to expect from him. The role was supposedly specifically written with his comedic talents in mind, so he's able to comfortably assume the role of Hannibal King and make it his own. The only really bad part is that virtually every word he says and every move he makes is some kind of wisecrack. After a while, you begin to think that the character is just a cheap one-trick pony, and you just want him to shut up for two seconds and be serious.

The rest of the cast is something of a mixed bag. Parker Posey and pro wrestler Triple H are both effective in their roles as members of the vampire clan trying to vanquish Blade, and Patton Oswalt is funny is what is essentially an extended cameo as the armorer for the Nightstalkers. And once again, I enjoyed Kris Kristofferson's performance, despite his glaring lack of screen time. I'm disappointed that Goyer felt the need to kill his character off, especially so early in the movie, but Kristofferson still plays the role like a champ.

But the only member of the extended cast who I wasn't really impressed by was Dominic Purcell as Drake. If his performance was a dog, they'd have taken him out behind the shed and shot him. Drake is perhaps the least frightening depiction of Dracula that I've personally ever seen, thanks to a combination of poor writing and Purcell's poor acting. Seriously, Leslie Nielson made a better Dracula in Dracula: Dead and Loving It than Purcell did in Blade: Trinity. And that's terrible.

David Goyer handles Blade: Trinity differently than the directors of the prior Blade movies. It isn't the gritty, no-nonsense action movie that Stephen Norrington made, or the would-be Brothers Grimm tale that Guillermo Del Toro crafted. Instead, Goyer gives us something that is style over substance, an odd amalgamation of elements of the first two movies with a glossier, mainstream sheen and a silly sense of humor. That's why Blade: Trinity is often looked at as the trilogy's redheaded stepchild. (But that's still better than the television series, which could be viewed as the franchise's answer to Cousin Oliver.) I still thought it was an amusing movie in spite of its flaws, so I'll give it three stars on my Five Star Sutton Scale. Now if only Wesley Snipes would stay out of legal trouble for them to make Blade 4...

Final Rating: ***

Blade II (2002)

There once was a time when superhero movies weren't the money-making juggernauts they are today. In that day and age, you could count the number of truly good superhero movies on one hand and have fingers left over. But times change. The superhero movie genre underwent a dramatic change at the turn of the twenty-first century, and it's all thanks to the movie Blade. The titular vampire slayer from the pages of Marvel Comics is neither a mainstream nor a traditional superhero by any means, but when the live-action movie he inspired was released to theaters in 1998, its success prompted movie studios to take a fresh look at how they adapted comic book properties into feature films.

And of course, the success of Blade meant that New Line Cinema wouldn't hesitate in approving a sequel. That sequel — the appropriately-titled Blade II — greatly improves upon its predecessor by not only trying to avoid Blade's flaws, but delivering more of what we'd expect: lots of vampires, exciting action, and good old-fashioned violence.

Two years have passed since the events of the first movie, time that Blade (Wesley Snipes) has spent searching for the missing body of his lost mentor, Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson). He eventually finds his old friend in the Czech Republic, turned into a vampire and kept alive in suspended animation. Bringing Whistler back to his base of operations, Blade administers an accelerated version of the anti-vampirism cure developed in the first movie. The cure works, and while Whistler is grateful to be a human again, he isn't exactly enthused with some of the changes made to he and Blade's operation in his absence.

And by that, I mean Whistler is less than impressed by Blade's choice in a new sidekick, a disrespectful goon named Scud (Norman Reedus). But while Whistler and Scud squabble, a bigger problem presents itself when two vampires infiltrate their hideout and propose a temporary truce with Blade. He agrees to this truce, and the vampire pair escort him to the fortress of Eli Damaskinos (Thomas Kretschmann), an ancient vampire elder.

He brings to Blade's attention Jared Nomak (Luke Goss), an incredibly violent vampire who is spreading a new, evolved form of vampirism named "the Reaper virus." Nomak's bloodlust drives him to not only attack humans, but vampires as well. Nomak is slowly but surely infecting others with the Reaper virus, and its spread threatens both the human and vampire races. Damaskinos and his clan offer to temporarily suspend their hostilities with Blade and partner with him in order to combat Nomak and the growing number of Reapers he has created. Blade accepts, entering into an uneasy alliance with Damaskinos's daughter Nyssa (Leoner Varela) and a squad of vampire assassins known as the Bloodpack. But as Blade and the Bloodpack prepare to wage war with Nomak, secrets soon come bubbling to the surface that ally against ally.

I enjoyed the first Blade movie, but that didn't change the fact that it had its share of flaws. Blade II improves upon its predecessor's methods, operating with more focus, greatly improved special effects, and more imagination. Now that's not to say that this movie doesn't have its own flaws, but that doesn't stop it from being an entertaining piece of action cinema. Blade II might still just be your typical modern action movie, but it is handled in such a way that puts it at a higher quality than other movies such as this. It's also a stronger movie than Blade, so let's get into what makes it that way, shall we?

A lot of the movie's fantastic quality comes from the work of director Guillermo Del Toro. He's no stranger to vampires, as his debut movie — the 1993 Mexican flick Chronos — also delves into the realm of undead bloodsuckers. But Blade II is a much different beast than the other, more fantasy-oriented work that Del Toro is known for. It is, as I said, pretty much a straightforward action movie with vampires as the villains. However, Del Toro is a very artistic filmmaker, which means good things for Blade II. The movie is visually astounding, with stunning camerawork (thanks to cinematographer Gabriel Beristain), CGI and special effects that have vastly improved upon the original movie's, and a Brothers Grimm-like tone.

Blade II might not be the same kind of glorified fairy tale like Pan's Labyrinth or the Hellboy movies, but Del Toro's work here gives the movie that sort of vibe. There's a reason why Blade II is considered by quite a few people to be the best chapter in the trilogy, and I'd reason to bet that Del Toro's direction is the reason why. There's also some great music composed by Marco Beltrami that, when combined with the hip hop songs comprising the soundtrack, the movie boasts an auditory experience that greatly backs up the visual one.

Next up is the screenplay, penned once again by David S. Goyer. Goyer seems to have learned from the mistakes made in the first Blade movie by eschewing some of the cheesy, over-the-top dialogue and characters that were so prevalent. Goyer's script does include a joke or two that don't really work, a character who is quite annoying, and a twist regarding one character's allegiances that is both lame and obvious in retrospect. But other than that, Goyer's script is tighter and more streamlined, more focused. He actually works harder in order to create intimidating villains and characters you can root for.

But as I said, there are weak spots in the script, particularly the occasional gaping hole in the movie's logic. The biggest one is at the very beginning of the movie, when the two vampires deliver their message of a truce to Blade. They sneak into the building dressed like ninjas, then engage in a fight with Blade. I know it was done to add a little excitement to the movie, but for their own sake, wouldn't it have been easier for the two characters to simply knock on the door and deliver the message without having to be so sneaky about it? What if Blade had killed them before they could say anything? Then their whole mission would have been shot, and it would have blown the entire movie within the first twenty minutes. Maybe I'm looking too deeply into things, but seriously, it's the little things that get noticed the most.

Last but not least is the cast. As with the prior movie, the acting portion of Blade II is primarily dominated by Wesley Snipes. He's not as stoic nor as conflicted as he was previously. Instead, Snipes seems more focused on making Blade the ultimate ass-kicker. Through Snipes's performance, we get the impression that Blade is having fun hunting vampires, offering the occasional bit of sarcastic trash talk while reducing his bloodsucking foes to piles of ash. And because of his engaging, charismatic performance, Snipes draws us in and makes the movie as a whole more entertaining.

The rest of the cast, for the most part, do well too. Kris Kristofferson is once again amusing as Blade's perpetually grumpy sidekick and father figure, while Ron Perlman is fun as a member of the Bloodpack that finds great amusement in antagonizing Blade. I also thought Leoner Varela was engaging in her role as a potential love interest for our hero, while Thomas Kretschmann did a fine job playing the creepy vampire elder. And I would be remiss if I failed to mention Luke Goss as our lead villain. Goss's performance as the vampire's vampire is everything that Stephen Dorff wasn't in the first movie: intimidating, no-nonsense, and just plain scary. Goss is great, one of the movie's real bright spots.

However, I'd be lying if I said that I thought all of the cast put forth their best efforts. I don't know whether it's the actor's fault or Goyer's fault for the creation of such an irritating character, but every second Norman Reedus was in a scene, I wanted him to go away. That's one misfire that's managed to carry over from Blade into Blade II: the annoying sidekick. I don't see the necessity for that same character archetype to be used again, something that isn't helped by the fact that if I could have, I'd have reached into the screen and smacked the Scud character every time I saw him. Though I will admit that the character being such a pain in the neck makes his final fate that much more gratifying.

That aside, Blade II is quite simply a fun and entertaining movie from start to finish. The cast and crew should be proud of themselves for putting together such a solid movie. Sure, Blade isn't among the most recognizable characters in Marvel's stable of superheroes, but that doesn't stop Blade II from being a fun way to spend two hours of your time. It's everything that you could want to see in a movie cut from this kind of cloth. So on the patent-pending Five-Star Sutton Scale, Blade II earns a solid four stars. Go check it out, and you'll see what I mean.

Final Rating: ****

Blade (1998)

Comic books are a medium primarily dominated by superheroes. Anyone why tries telling you otherwise is either a fool or a liar. But while the majority of them wear spandex costumes and have fantastic powers like flight or super-strength, others deviate greatly from that mold. They might be called "superheroes," but the supernatural nature of both their origins and the enemies they face are what sets them apart from their caped brethren. Perhaps the most notable of these heroes is Blade, the resident vampire hunter at Marvel Comics.

Created in 1973 by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, Blade was a frequent supporting character in Tomb of Dracula, while making semi-occasional appearances in Marvel's other horror comics at the time. His visibility dropped during the '80s after Tomb of Dracula was cancelled, but he regained into his share of the spotlight through a number of miniseries and one-shot comics published in the early '90s.

Blade has never been one of Marvel's A-list characters (or even one of their B-list characters, if you want my opinion on it), but that didn't stop New Line Cinema from purchasing the movie rights. And let me tell you, folks, if you want to know what got the ball started on the current superhero genre, you can point the finger directly at this movie.

We begin with a brief prologue in 1967. A pregnant woman (Sanaa Lathan) is rushed into a hospital's emergency room, hemorrhaging blood after being bitten by a vampire. The trauma ends up inducing labor, and she dies giving birth. Thirty years pass, and that baby has become a prolific vampire hunter known as Blade (Wesley Snipes). Thanks to a genetic alteration passed to him by the bite that killed his mother, Blade is known amongst the vampire underworld as "the Daywalker," a vampire/human hybrid with all of a vampire's strengths and only one of their weaknesses: the thirst for blood. Keeping the thirst at bay with a serum developed by his cantankerous weaponsmith and mentor, Abraham Whistler (Kris Kristofferson), Blade has made it his life's work to destroy every bloodsucker he comes across.

While tracking a vampire one night, Blade crosses paths with Dr. Karen Jenson (N'Bushe Wright), a hematologist whom the vampire had bitten. He brings the injured doctor back to his lair and patches her up, but can ultimately do nothing to prevent Dr. Jenson from eventually becoming a vampire herself. Not willing to resign herself to that fate, she begins working on a cure. Her work leads her to discover an anticoagulant that causes a violently fatal allergic reaction in vampires. So violently fatal, in fact, that it makes them explode.

Blade arms himself with darts filled with this anticoagulant to use as weapons, and he's going to need them. A brash, impudent vampire named Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff) has grown tired of living in the shadows, believing that vampires should rise up and enslave humanity. And to achieve this lofty goal, Frost seeks to instigate his answer to the apocalypse. To do so, he plans on harnessing the power of an ancient god known "La Magra" so that he might wipe humanity off the face of the planet.

Prior to Blade, movies based on Marvel Comics properties weren't really all that great. Those that had seen production were awful beyond words. We'd seen Captain America with rubber ears, Johnny Storm depicted as cheesy animation, Lea Thompson making out with Howard the Duck, and David Hasselhoff in an eye patch. Dolph Lundgren's Punisher movie was the only one out of the bunch that was halfway watchable, and even that was no great shakes. Even DC's movies were struggling at the time, thanks to the one-two punch of Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. But when Blade came along, that all changed. Sure, the first X-Men movie may get all the glory, but Blade was definitely the catalyst for the superhero movie genre as we know it today. The movie isn't a perfect one, but it's definitely a solid venture that's exciting and entertaining, which is exactly what it needs to be.

Let's hit up the direction first. Stephen Norrington hasn't had what you'd call a prolific career as a director, but he sure gives the impression of someone who knows exactly what kind of movie he wants to make. His work is slick and stylish, coming just a year before the Matrix trilogy turned the idea of fast-paced fight scenes pitting guys in sunglasses and trenchcoats against a big group of people into a cliché. Norrington (and his cinematographer, Theo Van De Sande) use long tracking shots, odd angles, and quick editing to help establish the tone of the movie, while utilizing shadows and a pale blue-gray color palate to enhance the atmosphere in many scenes. The enhancement of the atmosphere is also helped by the fine score composed by Mark Isham. I've made note in numerous reviews of my firm belief that, if used properly, music can go a long way in helping a movie in telling its story. Isham's music accomplishes that, helping to create an auditory experience that is equal to the visual one. Even the techno music used on the soundtrack works well too, but after a while, it kinda started to give me a headache.

But not everything about the production is aces. My main gripe is with the downright ugly CGI. Now I'll admit that for the majority of the movie, the CGI is relatively solid. But during the climactic final battle between Blade and Deacon Frost, there's two instances where it's so awful that it brings down the quality of the rest of the movie. It doesn't even look fake. It looks worse than fake. It looks... cheap. You know how a lot of supermarkets will sell crappy imitation versions of name-brand cereals? The CGI in that fight scene is the cinematic equivalent of those imitation cereals. Yeah, it might get the job done in a pinch, but it just doesn't have the same quality as the better stuff. The CGI looks half-finished, like they stopped working on it at some arbitrary point during the process. To sum it all up with another metaphor, the digital effects team could have used Photoshop and went with Microsoft Paint instead.

Next up is the screenplay, written by David Goyer. One of several superhero movies written by Goyer over the years, Blade doesn't really need much of a story. And truth be told, it doesn't really have much of one, either. The movie and its sequels are defined by their action sequences, not their writing. But that doesn't stop Goyer from doing as fine a job as he can here. Yeah, we do end up with some corny dialogue and a couple of characters who could have been removed with no major effect on the movie as a whole, but his writing didn't completely suck.

And I have to credit him with giving us a style of vampire that I personally hadn't seen before. The vampires of Blade are almost like the Mafia, an underground society making back-alley deals and getting involved with things like politics and law enforcement, all to further their grip on society. And there's also the familiars, humans loyal to vampires and marked with tattoos as if they were branded cattle. It's definitely a take on vampires that you don't see everyday.

Finally, there's Blade's cast. You really can't talk about the cast in any of the Blade movies without first talking about the franchise's leading man, Wesley Snipes. Snipes plays Blade with a certain macho ambiguity that makes Blade an intriguing character to follow. His performance gives off the impression that the character's outward appearance of a hardcore vampire killer is a cover for a deeper conflict within him. It makes it a little hard to connect with him since he isn't laying all his cards on the table, but Snipes's performance makes it easy to cheer for him when he's kicking all that vampire butt.

It's also easy to like Kris Kristofferson as Whistler, Blade's gruff, grizzled sidekick. Kristofferson is a lot of fun in the role, and he practically steals every scene he's in. Stephen Dorff, meanwhile, is watchable and suitably over the top in his role. Unfortunately, thanks to how the character of Deacon Frost is written, Dorff comes off not as an intimidating, ferocious villain, but as impetuous young punk trying to steal a little glory for himself. It isn't all Dorff's fault, though, and his work is acceptable in my eyes.

The fourth member of the leading cast, N'Bushe Wright, is... well... she's not all that great. Matter of fact, she's pretty darn bad. The character of Karen Jenson serves its purpose within two or three scenes, yet continues to stick around for the rest of the movie without any reason to do so. Yeah, sure, she's there so the necessary exposition could be explained to the audience, but I'm sure that it could have been handled in such a way that would have made it feel more organic. And it doesn't help that Wright has all the charisma of a wet mop, not to mention that her performance is so wooden, you'd think that they'd hired a tree to play the role. The more she was onscreen, the more I wanted a vampire to show up and tear her head off.

There is no deeper meaning to Blade. It doesn't have any sort of hidden social commentary or message. It doesn't elevate the cinematic discourse. But Blade is appealing because sometimes, you just want to see a movie where a character beats the snot out of as many people as he possibly can between the opening and closing credits. It works on a visceral level, and in spite of its flaws, the whole thing gels together to make a thoroughly energetic, entertaining experience. It is a movie that not everyone will find themselves liking, but those there do will have enjoyed themselves by the end of it. So I'm going to give Blade three and a half stars and a thumbs up.

Final Rating: ***½

Iron Man (2008)

Not every superhero is blessed with otherworldly powers. They all don't have the X-Men's various mutations, the arachnid ability of Spider-Man, or the multitude of powers at Superman's disposal. Some have to get by on natural talent alone, or in some instances, they create their own powers via fancy gadgets. Such is the case of Tony Stark, known more commonly as Iron Man.

Created by writers Stan Lee and Larry Lieber, and artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby, Iron Man made his first appearance in 1963, in Tales of Suspense #39. The armor-wearing hero began targeting Communism, but as the world evolved, so did Iron Man. He's struggled with alcoholism and a bad heart, was a charter member of the superhero all-star squad known as the Avengers, and was even regarded by many readers as Marvel's top villain during the company's epic "Civil War" story in 2007. And though it may have taken a while to get around to him, Iron Man finally followed in the footsteps of numerous Marvel heroes when his very own movie kicked off 2008's summer blockbuster season. And guess what? It's a fantastic movie.

Billionaire playboy Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) has it all. Money, fame, fast cars, beautiful women, all that awesome stuff. He's also developed a reputation as the world's leading purveyor of military weaponry thanks to the success of his company, Stark Industries. While in Afghanistan to demonstrate his company's new missile, his convoy is attacked and Stark is kidnapped.

His abductors — a terrorist group identifying themselves as the Ten Rings — order him to build them a missile of their own, using a stockpile of Stark Industries technology acquired through nefarious means. Under the guise of crafting their weapon, he and fellow captive Dr. Yinsen (Shaun Toub) spend the next three months building a powerful suit of armor to facilitate their escape. Though Yinsen is killed during their breakout, Stark fights his way through the terrorists, destroys their stockpile of weapons, and gets away.

Stark is greeted by devoted assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Jim Rhodes (Terrence Howard), an old friend who holds a high-ranking position in the Air Force, upon his return to the United States. But the effects his abduction have had upon him begin to reveal themselves via a noticeable change in his demeanor. Rattled by the fact that both sides of the Middle Eastern conflict have access to the weapons his company has engineered, his plane home is barely on the ground before he announces the dissolution of the Stark Industries weapons division. The announcement causes the company's stock to plummet, and Stark's hard-nosed business partner Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges) makes it no secret that he's displeased by this turn of events.

But Stark remains undaunted in his decision. Having seen his company's weapons fall into the hands of the Ten Rings, Stark sets forth to refine and improve his armor so that he might use it to eliminate the caches of Stark Industries weapons being hoarded by terrorists. And he's picked the right time to do it, because Stane's backdoor dealings in regards to the company's weapons division have evolved from shady to downright sinister.

Iron Man is, at its core, your typical superhero origin story. But the differences between this and other, similar movies is the way that it's told. Sure, there's the moments that will make devoted comic book fans giddy, but it's the kind of movie that even those who are completely unfamiliar with Iron Man or comics in general can walk into and enjoy. Making a movie such as this has allowed director Jon Favreau and his cast and crew to create one of the most entertaining and engaging comic book adaptations ever made. It's a downright fun movie from start to finish. Nearly everything about it is effective and makes Iron Man worth watching.

The movie marks Favreau's first action movie as a director, and teaming with cinematographer Matthew Libatique, he shows that there's more in his repertoire than comedies and family movies. You'd never know Favreau was an action movie rookie by watching Iron Man, because he keeps the pace brisk and the action exciting while inserting the humor at just the right places.

It helps that the movie boasts some incredible visual effects from Industrial Light and Magic, with assistance from effects studios The Orphanage and The Embassy. Their work is slick, at times looking so convincing that it's hard to tell the difference between the CGI and the practical effects. And those practical effects are quite good, specifically the Iron Man and Iron Monger suits designed by the late Stan Winston. Inspired by the work of comic book artist Avi Granov, the armor looks superb, some of the best superhero and supervillain costumes I've seen in quite a while.

I also really liked the original music composed by Ramin Djawady. The rock-oriented music perfectly carried the onscreen happenings while being exciting in its own right, especially when combined with the heavy metal stylings of AC/DC, Suicidal Tendencies, and Black Sabbath. My only real complaint with Djawady's music is the lack of a memorable theme song. Yes, there are some recurring musical elements, but nothing that really stands out.

That's the big problem with most modern comic book movies, especially those inspired by Marvel properties. Sure, Spider-Man's movies had a theme song, but did you leave the theater humming the tune, like you would with John Williams's Superman music or Danny Elfman's Batman music? Outside of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" and Djawady's various interpolations of the jazzy theme song from the Iron Man cartoon that ran in syndication at the end of 1966, I couldn't really pick up anything that would get stuck in my head. It might be the most obvious answer, but maybe they should stick with Black Sabbath as the franchise's theme song? Of course, I'm fully expecting the use of Kiss's "War Machine" to turn up in future Iron Man movies. You comic nerds know what I'm getting at.

Next up is the screenplay, credited to Mark Fergus, Hawk Ostby, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway. I'm not quite sure just how much of the final script actually ended up in the movie, thanks to not only Favreau and Robert Downey Jr.'s contributions to the writing process, but Favreau's encouragement of improvisation during filming. This ends up being a good thing, though, because it makes the interaction between the actors feel more natural, more real. However, what the script definitely does contribute to the movie is well done. The inside jokes referring to notable parts of Iron Man's history on the printed page are a nice touch, and I felt the initial red herring in regards to the identity of the movie's villain was well done.

The real draw of the script, however, is how it treats the title character. It seems like in most superhero origin movies, the lead character immediately becomes a straight-laced crimefighter as soon as he adopts his new identity. But that isn't quite the case with Iron Man. Tony Stark might have become a hero, but gaining a conscience and a little maturity doesn't mean he's immediately going to stop his boozing, womanizing, high-rolling behavior. Personally, I think it makes for a more believable way to begin the story of a superhero.

Last, but most certainly not least, is the movie's greatest component: its cast. Boy, what an impressive group of actors and actresses Iron Man has. Every person that steps in front of the camera is up to the task given to them, no matter how important or insignificant their role is. The movie is strengthened by their positive contributions to it, so yeah, they'll all get a thumbs up from me. Let's begin with our star, Robert Downey Jr. I know many movie reviewers, both in print and online, have commented on the irony of hiring an actor who's had a prolonged battle with drug addiction to play an alcoholic superhero. And it is funny in an odd sense.

But while Tony Stark's alcoholism isn't a major factor in the movie, it does give Downey a way to connect to the character. And not only does he make a connection, he jumps into the role headfirst. I can't imagine anybody else playing the role, because Downey is perfect in it. I know it will sound like hyperbole, but hiring Downey to play Iron Man has to be one of the most inspired bits of casting in the history of the genre. Downey is fun to watch, playing the role as (in Downey's own words) a "likeable asshole." You honestly can't not like him. He's so good in the role that the supporting cast almost becomes completely ancillary. It's most assuredly one of the most entertaining performances to come along in quite a while, and the entire movie is better for it.

But let's not forget the rest of the cast, whom all put forth fine performances. Gwyneth Paltrow is very charming as Pepper Potts, Tony Stark's "Girl Friday." Paltrow wouldn't have been very high on the list of people I would have expected to star in a superhero movie (even if she does have unsophisticated flicks like Shallow Hal and View From The Top on her résumé), but hiring her proved to be quite beneficial to the movie. She brings a certain warmth to the role that makes her that much more endearing and amiable. It helps that she and Downey also have an engaging chemistry together, their scenes coming across as flirtatious even at their most innocent. Considering that pretty much sums up the entire relationship between Tony Stark and Pepper Potts, Downey and Paltrow did a fantastic job together.

I also have to say that I thought Terrence Howard did some fine work as Jim Rhodes. Unfortunately, thanks to the amount of time spent developing Downey's character, Howard's screen time is limited. It's not like they edited him out of the movie or anything, but Howard's presence doesn't seem very... prevalent, I guess is the word I'm looking for. However, Howard does put forth a solid performance, and it's a shame that he only gets maybe forty-five minutes of screen time, if that.

Jeff Bridges is also solid as the sleazy, and thoroughly unethical, businessman Obadiah Stane. The character isn't really all that developed, and it seems like he was only stuck into the movie in order to give Iron Man a villain to fight at the end of the movie. That doesn't deter Bridges, though. He plays the role exactly needs to be played, as a greedy, power-hungry yuppie. It's like Bridges decided play the role as if he were Gordon Gecko from Wall Street, only as a 21st-century weapons dealer instead of a mid-'80s stock broker.

Other ancillary members of the supporting cast — particularly Faran Tahir as the leader of Stark's abductors, Shaun Taub as Stark's cellmate in Afghanistan, and Leslie Bibb as a Vanity Fair reporter — all do fine work as well, surrounding the strong main characters with credible support.

Iron Man is not only a fantastic comic book adaptation, but a great movie in general. It can not only appeal to comic readers with its inside jokes and references to Iron Man's history, but it's also open enough so that non-fans can have fun watching it without feeling like they have to catch up on forty-five years of comic book adventures. Iron Man is, without a doubt, a thoroughly entertaining motion picture from beginning to end.

With outstanding direction, flashy special effects, and stellar acting, Iron Man is a good step forward on the road to proving that superhero movies can be created for and enjoyed by people other than your typical dorky fanboys like yours truly. And even if it wasn't, it'd still be one heck of a movie. So on my patent pending Five-Star Sutton Scale, I'm going to give Iron Man four stars and my stamp of approval. Go check it out.

Final Rating: ****