Mini Review - Lockout

So, after some goodish movies, some terrible movies and some head scratching movies, how about we round off with a dreadfully boring movie.

Too bad, this is Lockout

Mini Review: What we did on our holiday

I had to get to this one eventually. Comedy is not something I tend to cover very often. You can’t really make jokes about a good comedy without just repeating the jokes the movie makes, conversely there are only so many times you can say…

Regarding a bad comedy. But there are times where a line is crossed. Sometimes you can make great jokes out of it. Shows like the Simpsons and Family Guy use this tactic with mixed success (I never want to see clips of herpes ever again, Family guy) here, there are some serious issues being tackled as well. Cancer, family rows, divorce proceedings, the death of a loved one and others, but I’m sad to say it doesn’t work very well here.

What we did on our holiday was released in 2014 in the UK and 2015 in the US and made a modest return on its £3.5m budget. It was produced by the BBC and features some great British talent including former Doctor and crazed mind-controlling psychopath David Tennant; Rosamund Pike, who was nominated for an Academy Award in her next movie, Gone Girl; Ben Miller, who in the same year starred in my least favourite Doctor Who episode of that year (Robot of Sherwood), and one of Scotland’s comedic icons Billy Connolly.

Can this drama/comedy work, let’s take a closer look.

Guilty Pleasures #29 - The Hunters

Next up we have a subject I’ve not covered before, failed TV pilots turned into TV movies.

OK, I’m maybe being presumptuous. It’s never outright stated that this was a TV pilot, however it’s presented like a TV show, paced like a TV show, leaves out a lot of detail that would presumably fill future episodes, ends with teasers for the potential rest of the season and it aired on TV Network rather than going to cinema. I think that’s a fair case.

The Hunters received mixed reception by the audience, 5/10 on IMDb, but let’s take a closer look.

Mini Review: Spy Game

I’ve got to admit, I disagree with the majority on this one, but we’ll get to that, Spy Game was released in 2001 and starred Robert Redford and Brad Pitt. It made some money, not much, only $143m on a colossal (for this kind of movie) $115m budget. Bearing in mind that theatres take a cut of that and any promotional expenditure, I’d be surprised if this wasn’t a loss for the production companies.

The movie met with reasonably positive reception, a 66% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a 7/10 on IMDb and 63% on MetaCritic but as my first statement told you, I’m not going to be one of those people. Why not, well, let’s take a look?

#37 - Batman: Bad Blood

Oh boy, we’re back to the New-52verse

You may recall my 4^th rage of this blog was Son of Batman. In it Damian Wayne was forced into Batman’s hands and got the role as Robin. You might want to check out that review, because the plot is ongoing. I also did a review last year of Batman vs Robin, the slightly better sequel. Today we look at the third in the series, and it’s bad, really really bad. This is Batman: Bad Blood. Insert obvious Taylor Swift Joke here.

What we’re looking at is a mish-mash of various bits of Batman history (so what else is knew?). But the biggest influence I can see is Batman Incorporated where Batman assembled a team of not Justice Leaguers to combat a sinister threat. It’s classic Grant Morrison being equal parts awesome, stupid and confusing, especially when Fraser Irving did the art for one issue (rule of thumb, if Frazer Irving did the artwork, it’ll be cr*p) but I suppose I should mention our 2 breakout characters in this.

First we have Kathy Kane aka Batwoman – she was a breakout character from the awesome miniseries 52. In the New 52 continuity, there were plans that she and her long-time girlfriend would get married but the rug was pulled out from under the creative team at the last minute (because, apparently Bat-family characters can’t have happy lives) which lead to the resignation of the creative and the book’s eventual cancellation. She’s currently getting a starring role in Detective comics, I’ll let you know how that turns out in September.

Secondly we have Luke Fox aka Batwing II, the original guy was from Africa, I really have nothing more to say about him because I was not reading Batwing.

With that said, let’s take a look at this piece of trite and see what went wrong.

Guilty Pleasures #28 - Pacific Rim

So… I’ve just finished watched a show where giant robots were fighting off an alien invasion. Voltron: Legendary Defender the new Netflix Dreamworks series that tries to be Avatar: The Last Airbender in Space. I’ll save my thoughts on the show for another review but what am I watching today.

A movie where giant robots are fighting off an alien invasion. I was going to reference how both of these shows seem to have a very Power Rangers feel to them but then I found that Voltron actually pre-dates Power Rangers. But then Super Sentai, the Japanese show that Power Rangers uses stock footage from predates GoLion which Voltron used stock footage from so… I’m going off topic here.

Pacific Rim was released in 2013 making $411m off it’s $190m budget being successful enough for a sequel to be on its way, it’s been in development hell for some time. It’s received reasonable reviews with a 64 on MetaCritic and 71% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Well, this seems good, let’s take a look.

#36 - Batman and Robin

OK, before we start time for some house-cleaning. It’s become apparent that this meme

Is massively overused so I’m starting a coin jar. Every time I’m tempted to use the clip, I put a coin in the jar, this will last until the end of the year and any money in it will be donated to charity. (I’m all heart, I know)

That’s for the time I used it just now. So with that out of the way, Batman and Robin

I think I might need more change

Oh good grief, this is when Schumacher went too far. I have my issues with Batman Forever but ultimately, I enjoyed it more than I did the Burton movies. Sure, it was over the top but it did have quieter moments and focus was where it should be, on Batman!

In terms of success, being more kid-friendly than the Burton movies helped as it made it more marketable. I doubt they lost any fast food tie ins with this movie. But, this movie’s success was questioned from the start. The movie was fast-tracked into production by the studio after the success of Batman Forever, meaning there was a rushed feel to it, even from the beginning. Making it worse is toy companies coming in during pre-production, adding a commercial feel to proceedings. Chris O’Donnell has said that filming Batman and Robin felt like a toy commercial

Because of scheduling conflicts, largely relating to the fast tracking of the movie, Val Kilmer couldn’t return for a second shot as Batman and so George Clooney was hired instead. Also, with some insistence from Schumacher himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger was cast as Mr Freeze, one of the main villains of the movie, and they were planning to base his origin on the vastly popular episode of Batman: The Animated Series, Heart of Ice. So, yes, I’m doing yet another terrible attempt to replicate it (you might remember the awful attempt to retell Mr Freeze’s origins in Batman Annual #1)

A lot of people in production don’t have nice things to save about this movie, I’ve mentioned Chris O’Donnell’s thoughts. George Clooney said he’d offer refunds to anyone who saw it in theatres (I did not, being the ripe old age of 5 when this came out) and Joel Schumacher himself apologised for it. 

  

Produced on a $140m budget, the movie made back its money with a strong overseas performance but it was lambasted critically, holding a mere 11% on rotten tomatoes, 28% on metacritic and a 3.7 on IMDb.

So, now we’re past the longest intro ever, let’s dive into the sea of sh*t that is, Batman and Robin.