Praise4Media #63 - Venom

How do you make a Venom story without Spider-man? Easy, there are hundreds of venom comics you can adapt for that? How do you make a Venom origin story without spider-man? Now that’s a trickier question.

When the Amazing Spider-man 2 was filmed, it was intended as a springboard for spin-off properties, in theory not a bad idea but it was handled so clumsily it brought down the reception of the whole film. The Amazing Spider-man 2 made decent money, but not enough for Sony executives to be satisfied, so they reached a deal with Marvel to bring a new version of the web-head into the MCU.

But the idea of spin-offs wasn’t dropped entirely, they were just distanced from any spider-man legacy. So, we are back to our original question: How do you do a venom origin without spider-man?

Grappling with the answer to this question is Jeff Pinker, who co-wrote the Amazing Spider-man 2, Dark Tower and the modern Jumanji movies, Scott Rosenberg, who did an uncredited revision of the first Raimi Spider-man movie, and also the modern Jumanji films (also Kangaroo Jack), and Kelly Marcel, who co-wrote saving Mr Banks and unfortunately did the screenplay for the original 50 Shades of Grey movie. I will never dignify those movies with reviews, so never ask. So mixed bag there then. Directing the film is Ruben Fleischer of the Zombieland films. Wikipedia says he’s directing Uncharted but with the way that project’s going through directors I’m sure if it hasn’t already, it will have changed in the 2 months between me writing this review and it being published.

The film had a budget of $116m and surpassed expectations, making $856m, more than half of the live action Spider-man films made, though less than the more recent MCU outings. It certainly created a divide between audiences and critics, with critics giving it a 29% Rotten Tomatoes rating with an average 4.42/10 score and audiences giving it an 80% rating with an average 4.02/5 score. So, where do I stand? let’s take a look…

Praise4Media #61 - Doctor Who - Resolution

It’s January 2020 and you know what that means, I’m talking about Doctor Who again! And it’s my first Jodie Whitaker review. Series 11 of Doctor Who was solid. There were a number of mediocre episodes, a couple of real standouts (You know the two I’m talking about) and none that I consider outright bad.

That being said, mediocrity can often be less interesting to talk about than outright bad episodes, so let’s look at one that toes the line a bit, their New Year’s special, Resolution. Making the special a New Year’s special rather than a Christmas special was a smart move, New Year’s Day doesn’t have as much associated imagery so it allows for more creative freedom, and I think choice of having a Dalek as the villain isn’t a bad one because it the Daleks present a unique challenge to this particular Doctor. Jodie Whitaker’s Doctor has a very stern attitude towards violence and particularly guns, and here we have an enemy here who cannot be reasoned with and can only be defeated by violence, a challenge to her ideology in theory.  How did it work out? Let’s take a look.

Praise4Media #60 - Rampage

Video Game Adaptations are rarely good. You can get films which are super unfaithful and stupid as hell, like the Super Mario Bros. Movie or you could get ones that are faithful, but are equally as underwhelming, like the Ratchet and Clank movie turned out to be. And most of them are financial failures. One that broke that mould, before Detective Pikachu came along was Rampage

Yes, we’re back with The Rock on a video game movie… I’ve never played Rampage… Sorry? But a quick Wikipedia summary tells me you play as a monster and your objective is to destroy the city. OK, a movie would never play out like that, but that’s a fun enough premise to run with, basically a monster movie.

The film made $430m on its $120m budget, although with an additional $140m spent on marketing, it’s unclear whether this actually broke a profit or not. Directing this is Brad Peyton, who’s worked with The Rock before on San Andreas and Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. On the writing team we have Ryan Engle, who’s helped write Non-Stop, Carlton Cuse who co-wrote San Andreas, Adam Sztykial, who co-wrote Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip, poor guy and Ryan J Condal, who co-wrote Hercules, another film featuring the Rock.

The film had a mixed critical reception, it has a 51% Rotten Tomatoes rating, with an average 5.27/10, but audiences seemed kinder, giving it a 73% rating with an average 4.05/5. So, who’s right in this non-debate? Let’s take a look.

Praise4Media #58 - The House with a Clock in its Walls (A Strange Halloween 2)

A clock on the wall is always heard

But a clock in the wall seems rather absurd

The noise it makes will drive you mad

And could be a countdown to something bad

An orphaned child, innocent and bright

Comes into a house on a dark, long night

If the mystery is solved is still to be seen,

But we visit this house on A Strange Halloween

The House with a Clock in its Walls is based on the 1973 novel written by John Bellairs of the same name. I haven’t read the book, but give me a break, I’m going to be doing a bucketload of adaptations very shortly and I’ve got a lot of reading to do as it is. Adapting the film to screenplay is Erik Kripke who’s only film writing credit was Boogeyman, which was lambasted by critics. He’s gone on to help run acclaimed shows like Supernatural, Revolution and Timeless and also the comic series Jacked… I have never read Jacked and the general premise does not appeal to me.

Directing the project is Eli Roth, who has experience as a screenwriter, producer and director of various things, sometimes all at once. The film was financially successful, making $131m on its $42m budget, but was less of a hit with audiences and critics with 66 and 45% ratings and average scores of 5.98/10 and 3.12/5 respectively. So, where do I stand on this? Let’s take a look.

Praise4Media #57 - Avengers: Infinity War

It’s time, after a decade’s worth of buildup we begin the most ambitious crossover Marvel has ever put into film with Avengers: Infinity War

Infinity War is a movie adaptation of an event comic, not exactly the one it's named after but the concept in general. And not a personal, small story like Heroes in Crisis (come back next week for that) but a grand scale epic saga that brings together characters from across the universe. And it’s been building for a while, with the idea of infinity stones introduced properly in Thor: The Dark World (I know the tesseract predates, but this was the film where they were officially referred to as infinity stones) referenced in Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange and expanded on in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Thanos was introduced as early as the Avengers, making his official debut in Guardians of the Galaxy, where his two ‘daughters’ had become prominent characters. There’s usually build-up to event comics too. Infinite Crisis built off Identity Crisis, Day of Vengeance, The Omac Project, Villains United, pages of Justice League, Superman and Teen Titans and the Rann/Thanagar War. Secret Empire built off a crossover called Pleasant Hill, and the events of Captain America

The Infinity duo of films will draw off just about every film in the MCU but here are some important things you could do with knowing before jumping in.

The Time Stone is part of Doctor Strange’s Eye of Agamotto

The Space Stone/Tesseract was supposedly on Asgard when it was destroyed, we see Loki gaze upon it briefly when he was enacting the plan, and it's safe to assume he took it.

The Power Stone is on the Nova Corps home world of Xandar

The reality stone/Aether is with the Collector on N.O.W.H.E.R.E.

The Mind stone is currently in the head of the vision, he laments that he still doesn’t know what that is

During the events of Civil War, Thor and the Hulk were absent as Tony Stark, Rhodey, Vision and Spider-man fought against Captain America, the Scarlett Witch, Black Widow, Ant-man and Hawkeye, the latter half are now wanted fugitives, with Cap giving up his shield after his fight with Iron Man.

Black Panther had a role in Civil War but uncovered the manipulations and ultimately agreed to help Cap with Bucky Barnes. With help from his sister, Shuri, Bucky has recovered from his mental conditioning and is now living in Wakanda

With the people of Asgard having escaped the destruction of their home and heading to Earth, Thanos’ ship shows up right behind them.

With the departure of Joss Whedon after the hell that was working on Age of Ultron (I imagine working on Justice League was just as pleasant) the Russo Brothers have stepped up as director. They directed both Winter Soldier and Civil War, showing they have a good grasp of believable action and can handle a large cast with multiple plotlines.

Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFreely are writing the screenplay. They also have done a number of Marvel projects including all the Captain America films and Thor: The Dark World. Some of the best and worst of Marvel then.  But here it’s do or die time, so let’s take a look at Avengers: Infinity War.

Praise4Media #56 - Malibu Rescue

OK, so I was going to do a mini review of Inferno but it’s come off Netflix and I don’t have a copy so I’m gonna need an emergency backup. Something dumb but not insulting, relatively harmless but with enough characters that I have things to say about them and most important of all, it’s got to be short.

Sounds perfect.

Malibu Rescue is a Netflix attempt at a live action sitcom aimed at younger audience. Think Even Stevens or basically any Disney sitcom. They’ve released a season of 8 episodes, and man is it stupid, but today we’re gonna talk about the 1-hour Netflix film that kicks it off.

Praise4Media #55 - Speed Racer

What can I say, we’re back to the Wachowskis and this one is weird…

Speed Racer began as an animated Japanese series called Mach GoGoGo, it’s from the late 60s, when animation budgets were basically non-existent and you can tell, the animation is cheaply done, shots are reused verbatim and dialogue often takes place on a rolling background to give a sense of movement without actually needing to animate the background beyond a few frames.

The show followed the racing adventures of Gô Mifune, they needed a simpler name for the character in the US, so for reasons I’m still scratching my head on, they decided to call him, and the show Speed Racer. I’ve got all the jokes for that, but I’ll save it for the actual review.

Speed Racer (the show) was weird, it had cheap animation as previously mentioned but the season finale had him driving vehicles like planes, submarines and, most unbelievably of all, row-boats. I swear the villains only lost because they were stopping every 5 minutes to set up traps. The show lasted 52 episodes, a respectable run.

What’s weirder is that to tie in with this movie, I think, they created an animated show called Speed Racer: The Next Generation, starring the son of Speed Racer who, for reasons I cannot fathom for the life of me, is also called Speed Racer. This was released in 2008! I’ll say the animation’s better, but that’s practically a given but the show is still weird, I think this one had races that ventured into space.

But to the movie, several major actors including Johnny Depp and Vince Vaughn were attached to the project, but it wasn’t until the hiring of the Wachowskis that this film really made it off the ground. 

Now, this is based on animation from the 1960s, they must’ve known this was a niche project, so why a $120m budget? It was never going to make that money back and it didn’t, it made only $96m at the box office, making it a box office bomb, and floundered with critics, with a 40% Rotten Tomatoes Rating.

So, why am I inspecting it with my new Praise4Media monacle? Well, strap yourselves in, because this is going to be a very bumpy ride.