Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 (2000)

Back in the summer of 1999, a small independent horror movie captured America's attention. Filmed with a camcorder on an unbelievably meager budget, The Blair Witch Project became a huge cultural phenomenon when it was released. Love it or hate it, the movie was insanely successful and was a pioneer in how movies are promoted on the Internet.

It ended up being so popular that throngs of fans, some of whom were convinced the movie was true via the marketing campaign and the relative newness of the "found footage" concept, flocked to the small Maryland town where the movie purportedly took place. The town found itself flooded with Blair Witch fans roaming the town and its surrounding woods, all of whom were looking to satisfy their own curiosity.

This eventually served as the basis for Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, a sequel rushed out to theaters by the now-defunct Artisan Entertainment just fifteen months after the release of the original movie. But unfortunately, the sequel was nowhere near as well-received as its predecessor. While it managed to triple its budget when you consider the international box office numbers, it was dismissed and ultimately forgotten. Could that have been due to the unanimously negative reviews and audiences feeling a touch of Blair Witch burnout? Or could it have the Blair Witch herself have been involved? (I'm gonna say it was because the movie's unbelievably lame. That's my guess.)

As the movie begins, Blair Witch hysteria is in full swing. Legions of fans have descended upon the small Maryland town of Burkittsville, much to the chagrin of the town's grizzled sheriff, Ronald Cravens (Lanny Flaherty). But while Sheriff Cravens and a number of Burkittsville's citizens don't really like all the annoying tourists roaming the woods and the cemetery with their camcorders, others have no problem enjoying the town's fifteen minutes of fame. Some of them even strike out to make a buck or two off the whole thing while they're at it.

One would-be entrepreneur is Jeff Patterson (Jeff Donovan), a Burkittsville resident recently released from a mental hospital. Inspired by the movie's popularity, he opened up his own online store, selling hats and T-shirts, rocks and dirt from the woods, and even homemade versions of the movie's iconic stick figures. When we meet him, he's branched out into giving tours of the forest, a business he's named "The Blair Witch Hunt."

Joining him on the maiden voyage of the Blair Witch Hunt are four clients: Stephen Parker (Stephen Barker Turner) and Tristen Ryler (Tristen Skyler), a couple researching the Blair Witch for the book they're writing; Erica Geerson (Erica Leerhsen), a practicing Wiccan worried that the movie may give people the wrong idea about her religion; and Kim Diamond (Kim Director), a psychic Goth chick who's along for the ride simply because she "thought the movie was cool."

Our unlikely heroes head out into the woods and set up camp for the night, only to awaken the next morning with no memory of what happened during the previous evening. All of their gear has been trashed, but considering that they were drinking way too much alcohol and smoking way too much marijuana, blacking out and leaving a mess to clean up are probably to be expected. But then they're hit with the news that the murdered bodies of a competing tour group have been found out in the woods. They're able to salvage the videotapes that had been left recording all night, and they retreat to Jeff's house in order to piece things together. But as they get closer to discovering what happened during their mass blackout, their collective sanity is quickly pushed to the breaking point. So just what exactly happened to them after all?

I don't think anyone will argue that Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 was anything more than just a lame attempt to capitalize on the popularity of the first movie. I mean, is there any other reason for its existence? I can't fault Artisan Entertainment for wanting to strike while The Blair Witch Project was still fresh in everyone's minds. But was it a movie that absolutely needed to be made?

It doesn't really help anything that the movie feels rushed, sloppily put together, and generally unnecessary. And by now, I think most people have forgotten that The Blair Witch Project even had a sequel at all. So not only is Blair Witch 2 a subpar effort of the most disappointing kind, but it's forgettable too. That's already two strikes against it.

Let's start this critique with the direction from Joe Berlinger. This is the first (and thus far, only) "traditional" movie directed by Berlinger, a documentary filmmaker known mainly for covering the West Memphis Three in his two Paradise Lost movies and following the lives of Metallica in Some Kind of Monster. For Berlinger's first venture into making a regular movie, his work isn't too bad, but I can't blame him for sticking with documentaries after this. It's not that Berlinger is a bad director or anything, but he doesn't do anything particularly memorable either. Outside of the occasional neat camerawork from cinematographer Nancy Schreiber, everything looks so... uninteresting. The lighting is dull, the set design is drab, the editing is choppy, and everything else just feels flat.

In his commentary track on the movie's DVD, Berlinger notes that he was a victim of unwanted studio interference during production. He says that he wanted the movie to be more ambiguous; the scenes of the characters being interrogated by the cops were supposed to be part of a longer montage at the finale instead of being sprinkled throughout the movie, and the brief inserts of graphic violence were added by the studio at the last minute. Berlinger himself states that he felt these had a negative effect on the movie, and I have to agree. They work against the movie, and you're pretty much left believing that these kids are guilty by the end. There's no "did they or didn't they?" vibe, which could have made things creepier. Instead, we just end up with something that's more weird and less scary. It's a shame, really.

Berlinger does, however, manage to get a very good musical score from composer Carter Burwell. His music is really creepy and atmospheric, but it's unfortunately overshadowed by all the invasive heavy metal that's been cranked up to eleven. Watch the movie with your sound system turned too high, and you'll feel like you're sitting next to the speakers at Ozzfest. It's one thing to do the hard sell for the soundtrack album, but sometimes you just need to cut the viewer's ears some slack.

Next on my list is the screenplay, written by Berlinger and Dick Beebe. While I won't fault Berlinger and Beebe for wanting to try something different, they could have handled this a lot better. The script seems muddled and confused, like it wants to be something bigger yet doesn't know how to get there. It doesn't help anything that the characters are poorly done stereotypes that are really hard to like. The characters are so badly written that you almost feel insulted by their presence by the end of the movie.

Take, for example, the character played by Erica Leerhsen. She's essentially some aloof, Earth-loving hippie flower child who spends the whole movie spouting off about how witches aren't evil. And by the end of the movie, she turns out to be evil after all, thus defeating her own purpose. Then there's Kim Director's Goth character, who seems to exist only to be especially surly, drop a few choice F-bombs, and wear so much black that she looks like the album cover for Spinal Tap's Smell the Glove. And let's not forget the citizens of Burkittsville, who are depicted as being ignorant hillbillies. If I were a Wiccan, a Goth, or from Burkittsville, I'd have been righteously pissed off at Berlinger and Beebe.

The first three minutes of the movie are presented as a fictional documentary about the Blair Witch phenomenon, before transitioning into a more traditional style of film. Personally, I would have liked seeing what kind of movie Berlinger and Beebe could have crafted had they stuck with the mockumentary style. Berlinger was already an established documentarian, so the directorial aspect would have been taken care of. All he and Beebe would have needed to do was put together a script that would have worked. But since we're pretty much a decade too late to do anything about it, I don't think there's any real sense in complaining about what could have been.

And I do applaud Berlinger and Beebe for coming up with a rather novel concept. But unfortunately, it all ends up being bogged down with the mind-numbing silliness that ended up making it into the movie. Berlinger and Beebe could have written a horror movie that was analogous to the West Memphis Three, the trio of convicted murderers that were the focus of Berlinger's Paradise Lost documentaries. After all, Blair Witch 2 features a group, three of whom are a Goth, a witch, and a former mental patient, that have run afoul of a close-minded sheriff who doesn't hide his dissatisfaction with the group being in town. There's a lot of potential here. But all that potential goes to waste thanks to the poor writing.

Last up to bat is the cast. Let's start with Jeff Donovan, who you may recognize from the USA Network's Burn Notice or the Angelina Jolie movie Changeling. The character he plays is a kooky smartass who's a few letters short of a game of Scrabble, and Donovan manages to hit the right notes. He makes the character charming while sleazy and slightly irritating, which I found worked really well.

Unfortunately, I didn't feel that Donovan got a whole lot of his help from the rest of the cast, which ultimately makes him look bad and drags the movie as a whole further into the mire. And really, practically all of the characters are terrible thanks to the piss-poor script, so I can't say I'm all that surprised if it caused all of the actors to have trouble. Take Erica Leerhsen, for example. Leerhsen is obviously trying very hard, but her performance is hindered by a role that is dreadfully written, along with her own apparent inability to elevate the material and work with it.

The same can be said for Kim Director, who's stuck playing a badly-written caricature of how most people probably view Goths. The character is skeptical, abrasive, and generally annoying, and Director does nothing to make this flat character feel like a real person. Her performance ends up being just as hollow as the character.

Continuing the streak of bad acting, Tristen Skyler's work feels hollow as well. Her character seems to be the bipolar version of Judith O'Dea's character from Night of the Living Dead; the experience has caused her to go nuts, only with bouts of mania instead of O'Dea's shell shock. The only problem is that Skyler's performance tends to be silly at times and laughable at others. It's just way too hard to take her seriously.

Stephen Barker Turner brings up the rear in this review, and his acting is so over the top that by the end of the movie, it was way too hard to keep from laughing at the absurdity of his performance. I don't know whether it was Turner's intent or not, but he ends up making the character so utterly unlikable that I'm flabbergasted even thinking about it. It's just... wow.

Word is that Dan Myrick and Ed Sanchez, the creators of the original Blair Witch Project, wanted to wait before doing a sequel, feeling that doing it right away wouldn't give them the time to really flesh it out. Unfortunately, the distributors just couldn't hold their horses and went ahead without them, cranking out this big ol' sack of lame in no time flat. Blair Witch 2 is a movie that could have built upon the franchise's mythology and made the original movie better because of it. Instead, it does the opposite, making me almost totally resent the first movie for having spawned this.

Anyone who has seen Blair Witch 2 can attest to the fact that, by all appearances, it was only made as a way to swindle money away from fans who were willing to consume anything with the Blair Witch brand name on it. It took what could have been an interesting concept and cranked out this sub-mediocre crap. And thus, I'm going to give Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 two stars. Let this movie stand as proof of what happens when what seems like a good idea is sent flying at ninety miles an hour straight into a brick wall of stupidity. 

Final Rating: **

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

The 1960s were a tumultuous time in American history. It was a time of both peace and war, of social and sexual revolution. It was also the decade that saw Marvel Comics rise to prominence. It was perhaps their most creative period to date, seeing the births of classic characters like Spider-Man, Thor, Iron Man, the Hulk, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. But as the '60s transitioned into the '70s, America continued changing, and Marvel and DC began to reflect these changes.

Both companies published stories about the consequences of drug and alcohol abuse, while minorities found themselves with greater representation in the superhero community. Horror and fantasy comics also grew in popularity, as did vigilantes like the Punisher. The decade also saw the creation of one of the industry's most popular characters: Wolverine.

The brainchild of Len Wein and John Romita Sr., the clawed mutant made his first appearance in 1974 as an opponent for the Incredible Hulk before eventually joining the X-Men and arguably becoming the group's most famous member. And beyond that, he would go on to become one of Marvel's most popular and recognized characters. He's appeared in video games and cartoons, on T-shirts and toy store shelves, and Wizard Magazine even ranked him as the greatest comic book character of all time.

Wolverine finally hit the big screen in 2000 with the release of the X-Men movie, which spawned two sequels and earned a combined one billion dollars at the box office. With the superhero movie genre on a roll, Twentieth Century Fox chose to develop spin-offs detailing the history of certain X-Men characters, under the banner of "X-Men Origins." And naturally, the first movie to be made would be Wolverine. But just how does it hold up?

Welcome to the Northwest Territories of Canada, circa 1845. It is here that we are introduced to James Logan (Troye Sivan), a sickly young boy whose only friend is another local kid, Victor Creed (Michael James Olsen). On one fateful night, James sees his father die at the hands of Victor's father. The trauma prompts bone claws to grow from his knuckles, and in a fit of rage, he uses these claws to kill his father's murderer.

With his final breath, the elder Creed tells James that he is his real father. James flees, with Victor tagging along to keep him company. As the years pass, the adult James (Hugh Jackman) and Victor (Liev Schreiber) stick together, fighting side by side in the American Civil War, both World Wars, and the Vietnam War. But after Victor kills a superior officer in Vietnam and James gets involved in the ensuing fracas, they're both sentenced to death via firing squad. Their mutant healing abilities allow them to survive their executions, so they're imprisoned until it can be decided what to do with them.

During their stay in prison, the brothers are visited by Colonel William Stryker (Danny Huston), who offers them membership in his elite mutant task force. They agree to join, and are promptly introduced to the other members of the team: the invulnerable Fred Dukes (Kevin Durand), teleporter John Wraith (will.i.am), electricity manipulator Chris Bradley (Dominic Monaghan), martial artist Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds), and expert marksman Agent Zero (Daniel Henney).

Their first mission takes them to Nigeria, where they're to retrieve the pieces of a meteorite containing a virtually indestructible metal called "adamantium." They retrieve one hunk of meteorite from the headquarters of a diamond trafficking operation, and then raid a nearby village to find more. James, disgusted by the willingness of his teammates to kill the innocent villagers, abandons the group.

Six years pass, and James — now going by just his last name — is a lumberjack living a simple life with his girlfriend, Kayla Silverfox (Lynn Collins). Things get complicated, however, when Colonel Stryker finds Logan and tells him that someone is killing members of their now-disbanded task force. He asks Logan to rejoin him, but gets shot down. It is soon thereafter, though, that Kayla ends up falling victim to the team's murderer: Victor. An enraged Logan hunts down Victor, but ultimately loses a fight to him. When Stryker contacts him again the next day, he agrees to work with him. Stryker takes Logan to a laboratory, where he has Logan's skeleton reinforced with the adamantium they found in Nigeria. But when he overhears Stryker mention he wants to experiment with Logan's abilities, Logan flees.

Logan briefly makes contact with Dukes and Wraith, who inform him that Victor's murders were made at the behest of Stryker, who is having mutants either kidnapped or killed so that he can perform experiments on them at a mysterious facility known as "The Island." The rumor goes that only one mutant, a New Orleans card shark named Remy "Gambit" LeBeau (Taylor Kitsch), has ever managed to escape the Island, and would thus know its location. Logan tracks Gambit down, and after a fight caused by something of a misunderstanding, he agrees to take Logan to Stryker's laboratory. This sets the stage for an epic showdown, where Logan will seek revenge against the enemies that want him dead.

I'm going to come right out and say it: I do not know why X-Men Origins: Wolverine had to be made. Outside of Twentieth Century Fox needing to make an X-Men movie every so often so they can hang onto the rights, I fail to see any point for this movie's existence. Wolverine was already the star of the three movies that came before, at the expense of every other character. So outside of the fact that this is a prequel, there is really no difference at all between the previous team efforts and this so-called "solo movie."

And although I can understand doing a movie focused solely on Wolverine, since he's the franchise's most popular character, but why make it an origin story? If you paid attention during X2, you pretty much learned everything important. Somebody did experiments on him to make him a weapon, so now he's an amnesic with metal bones. It isn't much more complicated than that. It's not like he's Batman or anything. And any other important details could have been done via flashbacks in another sequel, instead of this. The version of Wolverine's origin depicted in direct-to-video animated movie Hulk vs. Wolverine took all of three minutes and thirty seconds, and it accomplished pretty much everything it needed to. It was simple yet sufficient. All this movie does is demystify a character whose franchise was already on a downward slope thanks to the relative disappointment of X-Men: The Last Stand.

But what could have caused the Wolverine movie to turn out this way? Could it have been the work of director Gavin Hood? This is only the second Hollywood movie made by the South African filmmaker, who won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2005 for Tsotsi. It's also his first big-budget action movie, as well. And while I will confess that I've never seen any of Hood's earlier work and thus cannot make comparisons, I found his direction here to be competent yet underwhelming. It comes across as being simply adequate. But even though he's inexperienced when making this kind of movie, Hood does put together some well-made action sequences. Hood's direction, however, is boosted by the fantastic score composed by Harry Gregson-Williams. Gregson-Williams's music is almost too good to be in this movie. It's exciting, engaging, and actually makes the movie feel better than it is.

The only drawback to this aspect of the production is the special effects. You'd think that a huge movie studio would try and make sure that a big summer blockbuster whose special effects are an integral part of the movie would be released with special effects that don't totally suck. So how does Fox let Wolverine hit theaters with effects that look so poor? When that bootlegged workprint landed on the Internet at the end of March, Fox's damage control team went into overdrive, saying that people shouldn't judge the finished movie based on the workprint due to its unfinished special effects and sound editing. And judging by the final product that was released, they must not have done a whole lot of work between the workprint and the finished movie. There are quite a few scenes where the CGI and green screen effects look cheap and unconvincing.

Take, for example, a scene at the end where a certain familiar character makes a cameo in order to help save a group of kidnapped mutants. The green screen effects in that scene look so bad that they're laughable. And then there's the climactic fight scene, and the bit where Wolverine first examines his new adamantium-coated claws... sigh. Were they in such a rush to be done in time before the movie's release date that they started half-assing the special effects? The effects are, as I said, an integral part of movies like this, and when they're bad, it can drag down the whole production.

But in some cases, the acting can help viewers overlook some of a movie's other flaws. Is that the case with Wolverine? Not really, as sad as that is to say. The acting is really a mixed bag. Some of it is good, the rest of it isn't. First of all, Hugh Jackman returns to the role for a fourth time, and though this Wolverine isn't the mysterious amnesic he was in the previous movies, Jackman feels like he's gotten the hang of it. But while this isn't the best of his four appearances as Wolverine, he still puts forth a fine performance. Jackman plays the character as someone who's tough and has the potential to be a violent animal, but simply wants to be a good guy. He's definitely trying hard, and that goes a long way.

Unfortunately, Jackman ends up being almost completely overshadowed by Liev Schreiber. While Schreiber being cast creates something of a plot hole for the franchise (how does Sabretooth go from looking like Liev Schreiber to looking like Tyler Mane in the first X-Men movie?), his work here is fantastic. He gives off a certain sense of cocky menace, as if he were playing the exact opposite of Wolverine. It's like he knows he's evil and doesn't care because he's having so much fun. The "I'm bad, and that makes me cool" kind of villain can be really stupid in the wrong hands, but Schreiber manages to pull it off well.

Meanwhile, Danny Huston was okay as Colonel Stryker, I guess. But his work here really makes me wish they'd brought back Brian Cox from X2 and used makeup and special effects to de-age him. I also thought will.i.am of Black Eyed Peas fame did an acceptable job, considering he's primarily a singer instead of an actor. And Ryan Reynolds was beyond awesome as Wade Wilson. Though Reynolds has only about three minutes of screen time, he makes an impression that really makes me want to see his character's eventual spinoff movie. Unfortunately, I can't say I have high hopes for that spinoff after seeing the character's ultimate fate in the movie's climax.

The rest of the cast, however, doesn't make that much of an impression, if they make an impression at all. Lynn Collins is unremarkable as Kayla Silverfox, doing nothing to really stand out among the flotsam of this movie. Her only real purpose at all is to provide a setup for how Logan comes up with the "Wolverine" name. I guess the script might be partly to blame for that, but her acting was a bit on the flat side as well.

Taylor Kitsch shows up as Gambit, a character just as mistreated as Deadpool. A very vocal segment of the X-Men faithful have been begging for Gambit to appear in a movie since the franchise began, and Fox finally decided to add him to one. Unfortunately, the character has only a bit part and appears in only a tiny handful of scenes. Kitsch's performance isn't really all that memorable either, and it doesn't help that he keeps slipping in and out of his Cajun accent. You'd think that somebody would have made him spend all the time he wasn't in the movie working on his accent with a dialect coach. Other than that, I thought the rest of the cast was just kinda there. They aren't really anything to write home about.

The movie's most enormous flaw, however, is that awful script written by David Benioff and Skip Woods. How could the producers read this script and think it would actually work? There are plot holes you could drive a truck through, a severe absence of logic or common sense, a dreadful lack of real character development, and a sense that Benioff and Woods were just flinging things at the wall and used what stuck.

As I said, there's not a lot that separates this from the three prior movies. It's basically just Wolverine along with as many comics from the characters they could cram in there. I mean, was there any point for Cyclops or Emma Frost to show up? Did Gambit ultimately serve any sufficient purpose, other than to finally give in to the fanbase that had been requesting him since they started making X-Men movies? And just what the hell were they thinking when they started screwing around with Deadpool? Ryan Reynolds has a few great scenes as the character, but the writers had to go and him into Baraka from Mortal Kombat by the end of the movie! It's one thing to alter certain things about a character for the benefit of the story, but to completely change everything about the character is stupid.

And let's talk about one of those huge plot holes while we're at it. Remember how I said I wasn't sure how anyone could believe Liev Schreiber and Tyler Mane were supposed to be playing the same character? Benioff and Wood's writing doesn't help that either. So we're supposed to believe that the violent, sarcastic, animalistic Sabretooth seen in this movie is supposed to evolve into the Sabretooth that was in the first X-Men movie back in 2000? He goes from being Wolverine's sadistic, murderous adversary to being a mute, utterly useless background character that, outside of the fight scene on the Statue of Liberty's head, never acknowledges Wolverine at all? I realize that Sabretooth has an important part in the Wolverine mythos, but couldn't they change the character just for the sake of continuity? Yeah, they could always explain that in the inevitable sequel, but that's just lazy, lazy, lazy.

So who is to blame for X-Men Origins: Wolverine? Was it a director that may have been out of his element? Was it a mediocre cast? Was it a lousy script? Was it the studio? It could be one or all of these things, I'm not sure. But I do know that the person to blame is someone who just plain didn't give a damn. I mean, how do you justify awesome movies like Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk in 2008, then a mediocre one like this in 2009? It's like somebody decided, "Why are they making good Marvel movies when we can do them on the level of Elektra instead?" Seriously, at this point, the X-Men movie franchise has degenerated into a series of movies meant to turn Wolverine into the superhero equivalent of Poochie from The Simpsons.

I'm officially sick of the X-Men movies, sick of Wolverine, and sick of comic book movies where nobody bothers to try or even care. If I were Marvel Comics, I'd be trying to get my characters away from Fox as soon as possible. It's just too much sometimes, you know? I'm not sure what else there is to say about this movie. Hopefully 20th Century Fox knows to make some improvements the next time they return to the X-Men.

Final Rating: **½

Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD (1998)

Not every comic book hero has to wear a fancy costume or have superpowers. Others can get by just by being themselves. One of these characters is Nick Fury. Created by industry legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Fury first appeared in 1963 as the leader of the Howling Commandos, an elite unit of Army Rangers fighting in World War II.

The book was a solid seller, but Marvel Comics saw the popularity of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and the James Bond villains known as SPECTRE and couldn't help but capitalize upon it. Fury was reimagined in 1965 as a super-spy in charge of the government-endorsed espionage agency SHIELD. Fury and SHIELD have been mainstays within the company ever since, often having an influence on many of the characters within Marvel's fictional universe.

Though Fury's headlining books have rarely lasted long, he's been such a stalwart supporting character that he even got to star in his own motion picture. Okay, so it wasn't a huge movie. It didn't even go direct-to-video. Instead, the movie aired on the Fox Network on May 26, 1998, as the pilot episode of a potential television series that never materialized. One of the most obscure movies to be based on Marvel's characters, Nick Fury, Agent of SHIELD is really one of those flicks that earned its obscurity.

Colonel Nick Fury (David Hasselhoff) is retired, having left SHIELD five years earlier for a solitary existence in a remote location in the Yukon. He'd really rather be left alone, but he just might have to come out of retirement. His old enemies, the terrorist agency known as HYDRA, have surfaced once again. Leading this new incarnation of HYDRA are Andrea von Strucker (Sandra Hess) and her brother Werner (Scott Heindl), who have acquired the cryogenically frozen body of their villainous father, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (Campbell Lane). Their intent: to use their father's DNA to create a sample of the lethal Death's Head Virus.

Despite his initial hesitation to return to active duty, Colonel Fury is prompted to rejoin SHIELD after the Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Lisa Rinna) passes along the information that the von Strucker siblings killed one of his closest friends when he attempted to thwart the theft of their father's body. Kill one of Nick Fury's friends, and he's gonna get pissed.

SHIELD has deduced that Andrea, now answering to the codename "Viper," has packed the Death's Head Virus into four missiles pointed at Manhattan. And unless HYDRA recieves one billion dollars, those missiles will be launched. The only person alive who could possibly give SHIELD the cure is Arnim Zola (Peter Haworth), a Nazi scientist who helped Baron von Strucker develop the virus in the first place.

But just their luck, Viper has planted herself within SHIELD as a spy, using their information to find Zola and take him into HYDRA's custody. It also presents her with the opportunity to infect Colonel Fury with a poison that will kill him within 48 hours. SHIELD is now stuck in a race against time to not only locate HYDRA's missiles, but find a way to save Colonel Fury's life. 

Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD is a movie made during a really weird time. Its first airing back in 1998 came just three months before Blade completely revolutionized the way Marvel Comics properties were approached. It still bears resemblances to the cheesy, forgettable Marvel movies that came before it. However, perhaps it is unfair to judge it as a legitimate motion picture. After all, as I noted in the opening paragraph, it is actually the pilot episode of a television series that was never picked up. And when looking at it from that angle... yeah, it's still not all that great. If it actually had become a full-blown series, I doubt it would have lasted more than a handful of episodes, let alone a full season. It probably would have ended up going the way of other action shows like Thunder in Paradise, running for so many episodes before fading into complete obscurity following its cancellation.

The man in charge is veteran television director Rod Hardy, whose work here is competent yet somewhat underwhelming. He does the best he possibly can, but Hardy seems hampered by his apparently meager budget. This leads to sets and studio backlots that look second rate, the occasional lackluster costume, and special effects that could have used a little improvement. With a larger budget, the effects would surely have looked more impressive. But instead, you can tell what's green-screen work and what isn't. None of it is 100% convincing, but for the most part, it's at least forgivable. Hardy does, though, manage to keep things rolling at a steady pace, and he also gets some ambitious cinematography from James Bartle and a good musical score from Kevin Kiner. All in all, Hardy's direction turned out better than it should have been.

Handling the script is David Goyer, the same guy who wrote the Blade trilogy and Chris Nolan's Batman movies. No, I'm not joking. Goyer's script is where the movie really starts to become flawed. Outside of Fury, Vallegra, and Viper, the characters all seem to blend together and become forgettable. Granted, this is most likely due to the movie being a pilot for a TV show, thus necessitating the need to really emphasize the primary characters. But still, you'd think Goyer would have tried to do something to make the supporting characters indistinguishable from one another.

However, he does at least try to overcome this with some particularly good moments, like one funny scene where Fury uses his pistol to handle a troublesome elevator control panel. But these scenes end up becoming fewer and far between as the movie progresses, and unfortunately starts rendering the script kinda dull. The whole thing is really inconsistent, which ultimately brings the movie down.

Last on my list is the cast. David Hasselhoff stars in the lead role, and I think he was only hired due to his name. He'd had something of a career resurgence a few years earlier thanks to the initial popularity of Baywatch, and I guess the producers felt that if they could get him, they'd be set. The problem is that he seems to have decided to do his best impersonation of Kurt Russell's "Snake Plisskin" character for the entire movie. That is, if Snake Plisskin was more prone to make the occasional corny pun or witty quip. Don't get me wrong, he doesn't do a completely horrible job, but "The Hoff" doesn't really seem like he's on his A-game. His whole gruff, macho thing ends up becoming silly after a whole.

And then there's our villain, as played by Sandra Hess. She apparently couldn't get a handle on the German accent she took on for the character. Sometimes it's barely there, and at other times, it's so thick you can practically see it. Even when overlooking the flaws in her accent, Hess's acting is really hammy. The character is written as if it were hearkening back to the goofy spy movie villains of the '60s, and Hess goes out of her way to give a performance to match. She's over the top, but it's unfortunately not in the fun "Frank Gorshin as Riddler" kind of way. Her performance is just "bleh" if you ask me.

Rounding out the hat trick of important characters, Lisa Rinna was okay. I must admit that I almost didn't recognize her, as Botox, collagen injections, and plastic surgery have made her look more than a little bit different between 1998 and now. But looks aside, Rinna's performance isn't bad. She's likable in the role, but the bad part is she's kinda forgettable.

That's really the problem with the entire movie: it's forgettable. I just watched the thing and I don't remember half of what happened. As I said earlier, I doubt a Nick Fury TV show would have lasted very long had it become more than just this movie. It's not as bad as the earlier Marvel movies, but it's not that great either. I think if I was absolutely forced to give it a standard star rating like I usually do, I'd give Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD two stars out of the usual five. It's a rare movie to find, but unless you're an absolutely devoted fan of Nick Fury or Marvel Comics, it's really not worth the effort to find it. 

Final Rating: **

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Everybody knows somebody with a bad temper. And if you're a fan of comic books, or superheroes in general, the first thing the phrase "bad temper" will bring to mind is most likely the Hulk. The destructive alter ego of scientist Bruce Banner, the Hulk was unleashed upon the world by creators Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1962. His comic wasn't exactly a hot seller at first, and was actually cancelled after only six issues.

He made occasional guest appearances in other comics for a while, but by 1964, Marvel Comics had caught wind of the Hulk's popularity with college students and gave him a co-starring role in their Tales to Astonish comic. He gained even more recognition through Tales to Astonish, so much so that Marvel actually changed the name of the book to The Incredible Hulk in 1968.

But it took another ten years after that for the Hulk to become a true household name, which happened when a live-action television series focusing on the character debuted on CBS in 1978. Starring Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno, the series — bearing the appropriate title of The Incredible Hulk — has remained a cult classic and still defines the character in the eyes of many who don't read comics.

So influential was the television series that when Ang Lee's cinematic adaptation of the character hit theaters in 2003, people were less than enthused. People were expecting either an adventure in the vein of the show, or a straightforward action movie where the Hulk spends the entire movie smashing things. Instead, we got a drama featuring existentialism, poodles on steroids, and incredibly unconvincing CGI. It wasn't necessarily a bad movie, but it was no great shakes, either. It just wasn't the type of Hulk movie that anybody wanted to see.

So when Universal Pictures gave the go-ahead to another Hulk movie, the decision was made to completely reboot the franchise and let Marvel themselves handle the movie's production. The resulting movie drew its inspiration from the TV series, right down to sharing a name. And the truth is that it's a better movie for it.

Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) was once nothing more than a mild-mannered scientist. That all changed when, while working on a top-secret project for the United States military, he suffered an accidental overdose of gamma radiation. Instead of killing him, the exposure to the radiation instead causes him to involuntarily transform a violent green-skinned leviathan called "the Hulk" whenever he loses control of his emotions. Thanks to the wanton destruction created by his Hulk persona, Bruce has spent the last five years as a fugitive.

After spending half a decade hiding from General Thunderbolt Ross (William Hurt) and the Army, Bruce has finally found a little bit of peace. He's gotten a job at a soda bottling plant in Brazil, and with meditation and training in martial arts, he's gone 158 days without becoming the Hulk. He's also spent his time searching for a way to stop himself from ever transforming again, hunting for an antidote with the help of Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), a scientist with whom Bruce has been anonymously corresponding online.

But when an accident at the bottling plant results in someone being stricken with gamma radiation poisoning, General Ross follows a trail of clues right to Bruce. He sends in a team of soldiers to capture his quarry, but the ensuing chase provokes an appearance from the Hulk. The Hulk tears through the soldiers and escapes, leaving only team leader Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) behind to tell the tale.

A rattled Bruce flees back to the United States soon thereafter, hoping to find more data regarding his condition and help Sterns's search for a way to suppress his monstrous alter ego. His search leads him back into the life of former flame — and General Ross's estranged daughter — Betty (Liv Tyler). Their happy reunion doesn't last too long, however; Betty's boyfriend Leonard (Ty Burrell), concerned for the safety of both Bruce and Betty, has led her resilient father straight to them.

Though the Army has yet to figure out a way to defeat the Hulk, they've come up with a new plan. Blonsky has volunteered to take controlled doses of a military-developed "super soldier" serum, an experiment that General Ross hopes will enhance him into someone who can stand toe to toe the Hulk. As a reconnected Bruce and Betty try traveling to Sterns's laboratory in New York City, they must evade General Ross's soldiers and an increasingly aggressive Blonsky, who the serum treatments are quickly rendering more monster than man.

The Incredible Hulk might not bear the sophistication of similar movies, but it's nothing short of fun. And I can't speak for anybody else, but in my eyes, being fun can go an awfully long way. It's the complete mirror opposite of Ang Lee's depiction of the Hulk, forsaking much of the angst-filled soul-searching that comprised the previous movie for a greater emphasis on action, adventure, and wanton destruction. And with Bruce Banner's struggles to find a cure, the movie is a spiritual successor to that classic television show, embracing it to the point of nearly being a stylized remake of the show. Borrowing trace elements of both the television show and the previous movie, this new telling of the Hulk's story has a particular aura of familiarity that makes it easy to jump into once things get rolling.

The movie definitely has a more action-oriented tone, which is thanks to director Louis Leterrier. Leterrier is no stranger to action, having directed Unleashed and the first two Transporter movies. And while The Incredible Hulk is a thoroughly different kind of action movie, Leterrier shows he knows how to craft a great action sequence no matter who the participants are. Teaming with cinematographer Peter Menzies, Leterrier has crafted a sleek, stylish movie that never fails to lose the audience's attention. Admittedly, the action scenes are primarily accomplished with CGI (which is drastically improved over the unrealistic, cartoony-looking effects from the previous Hulk movie), but Leterrier still manages to keep a handle on things.

But it's during the non-action scenes where Leterrier and Menzies really get the chance to shine. The movie boasts some very awesome camera setups thanks to Menzies, and Leterrier crafts these scenes in such a way that's quite engrossing. Assisting in that is the fantastic score composed by Craig Armstrong. Armstrong's music does a fine balancing act between Bruce Banner and the Hulk. The music has a sense of urgency and melancholy with Banner, whilst becoming more ferocious with the Hulk. Armstrong even manages to work in the old television show's theme song in a way that totally fits, something that I can say about the music as a whole.

Next on the list is the screenplay. It's credited solely to Zak Penn, but from what I understand, Edward Norton made some significant contributions as well. He doesn't receive an on-screen credit if he did, so maybe there's some kind of union restrictions in place or something like that, I don't know. Regardless, I didn't have any problems with the script whatsoever. Yeah, it's got the obligatory "Hulk Smash!" moments, but ultimately, it's a chase movie. The military is chasing Bruce Banner, and Banner is chasing a way to return to the normal, peaceful life he had before the Hulk.

There's also the fact that, like any good hero/villain combination, Banner and Emil Blonsky are mirror opposites of one another. Banner was stuck in an accident that created the Hulk; Blonsky becomes the Abomination on purpose. Banner wants to completely destroy the monster within him; Blonsky wants as much of that power as he can get. I will admit that they did try to do something similar with the previous Hulk movie, but its utter failure ultimately makes the attempt here look that much better. Granted, the effort here is already pretty darn good. But you know what I mean, right?

Last up to bat is the acting. In the lead role, Edward Norton is quite an improvement over Eric Bana. The characters are interpreted similarly, but with Norton's version taking a more proactive role in trying to quell his alter ego, it means he can put forth a completely different performance than the one we saw in 2003. Norton is very good in the role, playing Bruce as if he is not afraid of the Hulk, yet worries he will never be able to control it.

As with a lot of the movie's other aspects, his performance feels evocative of Bill Bixby's work on the old television show. You really get the sense that Norton's Bruce has lived with his situation long enough that he's resigned himself to the fact that he may never be able to get rid of the Hulk, but still tries to do it anyway. Norton is really convincing, and I really appreciated his efforts.

I also thought that Tim Roth's work was well done. The character is depicted as an aging soldier who wants Hulk's power for himself to circumvent the fact that he's past his prime, and Roth really does a great job in showing Blonsky's growing obsession with the not-so-jolly green giant. He makes you believe he's the character, which is probably the best compliment I can give him.

The rest of the supporting cast also put forth performances that better the movie. Liv Tyler is likable, and she and Norton have a believable chemistry that makes things work. William Hurt was also good in his role, effectively playing General Ross as the stubborn military man he needs to be. Ty Burrell appears in the movie as Leonard Samson, who's stepped in as Betty's boyfriend in Bruce's absence. Though the majority of Burrell's scenes were cut from the movie, he's good when he does show up. But my favorite performance comes from Tim Blake Nelson. He's really funny and energetic, and you can't help but enjoy his enthusiasm.

All in all, The Incredible Hulk is a thoroughly entertaining movie. I've been making comparisons between this movie and other adaptations of the Hulk throughout this entire review. Maybe those comparisons have been fair, maybe they haven't. But even as a stand-alone flick, The Incredible Hulk still holds up as 112 minutes of nonstop fun. My only true complaint is that I'd have saved Robert Downey Jr.'s cameo for a surprise after the end credits, just so the movie proper could have ended with a bigger punch. But that's an incredibly minor nitpick that really isn't enough to change my view of the movie. I enjoyed the movie quite a bit, so I'll definitely give The Incredible Hulk four stars and a big green thumbs up.

Final Rating: ****

Punisher: War Zone (2008)

It's no secret that the principal focus in many mainstream comic books is that eternal struggle between good and evil. But while this war is waged primarily between clearly-defined superheroes and supervillains, there are also those characters that fall in between. They are the antiheroes, those who will go to whatever further lengths they deem necessary in order to accomplish their goals. Some will use fear and intimidation against their foes. Others will lie, cheat, and steal as much as they see fit all in the name of what they believe is the "greater good."

And then there are those who will cross that line that the more traditional heroes won't by killing people if they have to. Characters like Spawn and Wolverine have no problem taking a life, but one character has become synonymous with fatal violence. Whether they be mobsters, drug dealers, gangs, corrupt cops and politicians, rapists, or any other kind of criminal, they'll all eventually meet their maker thanks to the Punisher.

Created by Jerry Conway, Ross Andru, and John Romita Sr. in 1974, the Punisher was born in a time when movies like Magnum Force and Death Wish were depicting justice from the barrel of a vigilante's gun. The Punisher was a hit with fans following his initial appearance as an assassin who had been fooled into targeting Spider-Man, and he has become one of Marvel's most prolific B-list characters. And in 1989, the Punisher became the star of the second feature film to be based on a Marvel Comics property. Starring Dolph Lundgren in the title role, the movie ended up going straight to video in North America and was forgotten relatively quickly.

He got his second chance at Hollywood stardom fifteen years later in the wake of Marvel's surging dominance in the world of comic-based movies, and the movie — starring Thomas Jane in the title role and John Travolta as the villain — was only a modest box office success. It proved to be quite popular when it arrived on DVD, however, prompting Lions Gate Films to approve a sequel. But thanks to troubles during the development phases, Jane chose not to return, and the project passed through multiple writers and directors before it was decided to simply wipe the franchise's slate clean with a reboot. The movie, titled Punisher: War Zone, finally got settled enough to enter production and see its release on December 5, 2008. Unfortunately, the movie ended up being a pretty tremendous flop that was hated by critics and quickly forgotten by moviegoers. That's a shame, because they missed out on one of the most absurdly fun movies to come along in a while.

Six years have passed since Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) watched his wife and children die at the hands of the mob. During that time, Castle has become "the Punisher," a one-man army waging a violent war against organized crime. When a notorious mobster avoids jail after the shooting of a key witness, Castle decides to crash the party thrown in the mobster's honor. After he brutally kills all of the partygoers, he discovers that a lone survivor, Billy Russoti (Dominic West), managed to escape.

Castle tracks him to a recycling plant, wiping out nearly all of his henchmen before throwing Russoti into a glass-crushing machine. Unfortunately, Castle later learns that one of the henchmen he killed was actually Nicky Donatelli (Romano Orzari), an innocent FBI agent who was working undercover. A devastated Castle considers abandoning his life as the Punisher, swearing to make amends to Nicky's widow Angela (Julie Benz), and daughter Grace (Stephanie Janusauskas).

As it turns out, he may have a way to make up for his mistake. Russoti lived through Castle's attack, left with a hideously mutilated face that leads him to adopt the new alias "Jigsaw." Upon learning that Nicky was a mole, he targets Angela and Grace as he tries to find the money that Nicky had been left in charge of. And knowing that Castle will soon come after him, Jigsaw breaks his psychotic brother Loony Bin Jim (Doug Hutchinson) out of a mental institution to back him up and kidnaps the Donatellis and Castle's weapons supplier, Microchip (Wayne Knight). He then recruits as many punks, thugs, and goons as he can to stand between his hostages and Castle. With the FBI and the local police trying to hunt down both he and Jigsaw, Castle must fight his way through Jigsaw's personal army if he wishes to rescue those innocents who have been put in harm's way. 

Punisher: War Zone is of what has become a rare breed. They simply don't make movies like this anymore. Jason Statham's movies get close, but the days of movies like Cobra and Commando are long gone. Those action movies with unstoppable protagonists and over-the-top villains stopped being trendy when the '80s ended. But Punisher: War Zone has no trouble going back to that style. It embraces it, never once trying to shy away from its nature as a B-movie. It revels in its threadbare plot, its unbelievable characters, its hammy acting, and its over-the-top violence. It's an '80s movie with a 21st-century flair, and in spite of its flaws, it's a fun movie.

At the helm is Lexi Alexander, an Oscar-nominated short film director handling only her second feature-length production here. I'll confess that I've never seen any of her prior work, but her direction here isn't bad at all. The movie has a particular energy to it, only really slowing down when it absolutely has to. She also, thankfully, never goes the trendy route by having the camera bounce around while the editor makes a cut every half a second. That sort of thing gets old quickly, and I'm glad that Alexander never resorts to it.

And thanks to the intimate cinematography from Steve Gainer, the unique use of color and lighting, and the bountiful violence and bloodshed, Alexander is able to make the movie look like Steve Dillon's Punisher artwork leapt right off the pages of the comic books. Not only does the movie look very authentic, but the efforts of Alexander and her crew help to make it feel authentic as well. Even the music composed by Christopher Franke helped to set the tone. Its militaristic sound really supports the idea that the Punisher's crusade against his foes is not just a vendetta, but a full-fledged war.

Next on my list is the screenplay, credited to Nick Santora, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway. You might think that because two of Iron Man's writers also handled Punisher: War Zone, the two movies might be similar in style. But if you do think that, you would be wrong. The similarities between this movie and that one begin and end with their Marvel Comics roots. All truth be told, there's no real reason to critique the writing in a movie like this, because its all superfluous. Nobody has ever accused the Punisher of being a very deep character, and the script ultimately reflects that. There's no real soul-searching or any reflecting on the nature of vigilantism. This isn't Death Wish or The Brave One. It's all just set pieces for the big action sequences. But is there anything really wrong with that? Not every movie has to have really thoughtful, profound writing or anything like that. What's wrong with having one-dimensional characters shooting each other for an hour and 45 minutes?

Last but not least is the acting. A lot of fans were concerned when it was announced that Thomas Jane was going to be replaced, but Ray Stevenson is great in the role. He totally embodies the character, playing him as a shark that cannot, will not be stopped. Stevenson is good in the parts where he has a dramatic moment of pain or self-doubt, but really, nobody goes to see a Punisher movie for an emo Frank Castle. They go to see him completely obliterate his enemies, and Stevenson is up to task when it comes to that.

The other members of the cast do fine jobs as well, though their roles are pretty much background dressing. Julie Benz and Wayne Knight are likable, while Dash Mihok and Colin Salmon are okay in their roles as a cop and an FBI agent relentlessly hunting the Punisher. Doug Hutchinson is also really good as Jigsaw's insane brother. But it is Dominic West that steals the show. His performance as Jigsaw seems to be inspired by Tommy Lee Jones's work in Batman Forever, playing the role as over the top as he can get. The incredibly silly accent he adopts only adds to the whole thing. You can tell West is having an incredible amount of fun as Jigsaw, and that fun is infectious. He doesn't make for a very intimidating villain, but he's most certainly an entertaining one.

It seems almost serendipitous that Lions Gate Films opened and closed 2008 with ultraviolent action movies featuring Julie Benz in a supporting role. Starting with Rambo and ending with Punisher: War Zone is a heck of a way for a movie studio to bookend a year. Granted, Punisher: War Zone is not perfect But it makes up for that by reveling in its own silliness. Yeah, it's incredibly violent. Yeah, the dialogue is bad at times, nor does it have much of a plot or character development. But the movie doesn't care, and it doesn't expect you to care either. And you know what? I enjoyed it a lot. It's not for everybody, but those who like this sort of thing will eat it up.

Final Rating: ***½