MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Indiana Jones: The Game" (Bethesda)

Someone get me a table to flip!

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - The Mandalorian (Season 2)

This is the way.

I didn't actually do a review of The Mandalorian's first season, I did make a few qualifying statements as to the quality of the final product - which I found to be pretty damn good. It is proof that Star Wars can still be good even after Rian Johnson had diarrhea all over it and JJ Abrams came by to wipe up the mess with a terrible retcon that made no sense. Also a terrible film that made no sense, but that's neither here nor there.

We're here to talk about something good. Namely a series that was good both because of and in spite of it's setting and is now rightfully getting a second season.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Gotham Knights"

Well, DC Fandome is off to a cracking start, isn't it? It's still going on at the time of this writing, so let's go with that. Even for a guy who is and has always been a Marvel fan like myself, there's a lot to like in here, particularly since I started picking up on watching the Arrowverse family of shows. While I think that the clickbait-y pronouncements that DC has put Marvel on the back foot with this are hilariously divorced from reality, I will have to tip my hat to the Distinguished Competition on their showmanship when Marvel's current counter to this all...are bad character designs and a deconstruction of Jack Kirby's Eternals that nobody asked for.

Just stop, I know you're going to click into a new tab to look up who those are.

In the still-going 48 hours of hype we've seen the Robert Pattison Batman trailer (I'll probably get to that later), new The Suicide Squad trailer, trailers for the upcoming seasons of the Arrowverse, that one Suicide Squad game from Rocksteady that no one seems to really want, and...this curious little gem among all the titans.

...no, not those Titans, although one of them is in the game.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines 2"

Good night to you, childer of Caine!

Those of you that follow my blog around the month of October know that I'm a horror fan. To tie that into my absolutely nerdiness, I'm also a big fan of tabletop RPGs, and thus we come to Vampire: The Masquerade. A tabletop RPG system made for, instead of gearing up, hunting down monsters, and taking their treasure, has you going around dealing with your tortured existence as a creature of the damned while either giving into or trying to rise above your beastly nature.

So, basically, a very effective political simulator.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Pokémon: Detective Pikachu"

From the school of "What the hell were they thinking? Actually, wait, that's totally awesome really..." comes...Deadpool as Pikachu.

...no, seriously. What else do I even have to say? You're either like me and you uttered this sentence either right before or right after viewing this trailer or you were wrong.

...I mean, you legitimately think that this isn't a good idea.

...and you're wrong.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Venom" (An Actual One, This Time)

Okay, so...after the utter pointlessness that is a teaser trailer, we have the final Venom trailer and it has some meat to it.

...and well...

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Halloween" (2018)

Okay, so long-time readers of mine will no doubt be shocked to learn that I'm a big fan of the Halloween franchise.

So I'll give you all a moment to recover from that shock before I go on.

You're good? Good.

But yes, I'm a big fan of the Halloween franchise. While a lot of people have a greater fondness of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchise, and while I do like those franchises (I've highlighted them on this blog, too, after all), Halloween has always held a special place in my heart. It was my first real horror franchise, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't try to defend even some of the bad ones to some extent.

Not the Rob Zombie ones, though.

I will never defend those. Ever.

Spoilers follow on from this point. If you haven't watched the trailer yet, I have provided it up above.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Deadpool 2"

Well. Damn.

Also, the trailer is obviously explicit to start - but it's Deadpool so you really have no excuse for expecting it to be otherwise. Actual spoilers start below the cut, if you haven't already seen the trailer yourself.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Venom"

...well, I suppose that are more pointless ways to fill one minute and forty-nine seconds.

Oh, sorry! I didn't see you there!

...y'know, sitting at your computer or reading this from your phone somewhere. I'm totally not right behind you right now. I just watched the Venom teaser trailer! You can watch it right here:

Well, congratulations. You wasted almost two minutes of your life that you will now never get back. Do you feel the pointlessness now? Feel it enter you being and then unleash it with a nice, long "meh".

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Solo: A Star Wars Story" and "Avengers: Infinity War"

Yep. This looks like the hill on which I've chosen to die. You can imagine I'm walking into this at the very height of caution following Rian Johnson taking a long and runny deuce all over one of my favorite franchises of all time, bar none. The future does not look bright for the Star Wars franchise, at least not for me. I know some people enjoy it. I've actually started a charity fund to help those poor souls out who believed that the The Last Jedi wasn't a horribly made piece of hot garbage, you can find it here.

But, until I can properly set up the Rian Johnson Is A Talentless Hack Foundation, I do look a bit toward something about the Star Wars franchise that doesn't depress me to my deepest core: the past!

...no, I'm talking about the Original Trilogy, not the Prequels.

It seems that Disney is still going forward with its "A Star Wars Story" plans despite common sense or loud protests from the fanbase who do not, in fact, want this thing. To be honest, I defended Rogue One when it came out, but now I honestly just think it was unnecessary. It lacked the necessary emotional punch needed to bring a "Kill 'Em All" story into the realm of a classic. I will say that I still find it better than the Prequels, but only because it's worse crime to be was being completely unnecessary.

It seems that Disney took that criticism to heart and have lined up something new Solo: A Star Wars story.  For some strange reason, the Star Wars fanbase were split right down the middle almost as soon as it was announced. It's almost like the fanbase is full of people who are highly contentious and easily-angered or something! Jokes aside, I was among the people who gave cautious optimism to it. Even after The Last Jedi, I'm still not 100% on it. If anything, I'm less so.

That being said, Han Solo is one of the most universally beloved characters within the franchise to anyone who isn't Harrison Ford, so it's entirely possible that they might do very well and show respect to both the character and his fanbase. Then I remember these were the same people who said that Mark Hamill drinking milk directly from the source wasn't something that Rian Johnson should be in a psychiatric ward for, so what do I know?

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Power Rangers"

...well, that happened.

I said in on Twitter and I'll say it here: to be perfectly frank, it's bad.

First off, and I know this may be a bizarre complaint - but why Walk the Line? Excluding the fact that it's a cover (and not a bad one, in all honesty), why this for Power Rangers? Is its slow, somber tone supposed to illustrate to us that the five teenagers with attitude who get recruited by Zordon...oh, wait, they don't get recruited by Zordon in this version?

...what do you mean "they find their morphers in a quarry"?!

Yes, in a bizarre twist it seems that the rangers (at least Jason, Kimberly, and Billy if the trailer is to be believed) discover their morphers in a quarry...and they aren't even morphers. Gone is the uniqueness of the original belt buckler morphers carried by the team in the original series. Now, they have...I guess a flattened rock that glows their respective Ranger color? They look like something that someone who has no idea what they're doing would put on Etsy. Lame!

From the look of it, as well, the team's uniting actually comes not in the Angel Grove Juice Bar, but in Saturday detention. I wouldn't mind it so much, except it completely and utterly rips off The Breakfast Club in a way that shows no originality whatsoever. While that movie was a deconstruction of the various tropes of the teenager and how breaking free of what your peers or what society thought of you was the most important step in self-realization...Power Rangers took those stereotypes and played them straight in the original show.  If the definition of "dark, realistic reboot" is "make everyone kind of an asshole regardless of their stereotype" then I guess you could swing all of them being in detention, but I personally don't find it believable in the least.

The character bits they try to set up are also a bit odd, what with Jason apparently talking about "a big screw up", Kimberly dealing with some of her fellow cheerleading peers, and Billy dealing with a bully of his. Trini also gets a bit where someone scrawls on her locker...but Zack gets...nothing. I don't even think he has a speaking line in the trailer. Not that he was a big part of the team or got a large amount of character development (then again neither did Trini or Jason before they got Peace Conference'd...) but he's still one fifth of the team and honestly I would have hoped he'd get a bit more an appearance.

In what is sure to be a massive bit of controversy within the fanbase, the Rangers also have powers outside of their morphed form - Jason exhibited an enhanced physique in a scene taken right out of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man as well as enhanced strength, and Billy showing off enhanced durability when a bully headbutts him...and is promptly knocked out cold for his trouble. The Rangers never had powers outside of their morphed state in the original series (that came with later seasons), and, to paraphrase Linkara of Atop the Fourth Wall and his History of Power Rangers videos, it really does take away from the special status their powers are given if the Rangers can just crush a sink with a casual swipe or lift a car without so much as an inch of spandex on them.

...though some would argue that THAT IS NOT SPANDEX!!!...but I'm getting off topic.

In the one bit of praise I can give for this, Elizabeth Banks as Rita has a fairly menacing scene where she's telling Kimberly about how she's killed Rangers before. Short, sweet, and setting her up as an actual threat for directly facing the Rangers instead of hiding behind stock footage. The outfit still looks stupid, but at least she doesn't look like Queen Amidala and Madonna's forbidden love child anymore.

And, in what is a consistent problem with movies nowadays, everything looks so dark. Even scenes that are in the daytime look dark. It doesn't make the film look cool or edgy, it makes it harder to see and it makes me pissed off because I can't see anything. If I didn't know what Power Rangers were and knew nothing about the 20+ years that have come before, I'd assume this was some dumb shlock teen action movie. Which, it's sad to say, is probably what this is going to end up being.

And this is by Saban, the same people who had made the original show such a hit. What has happened?! Admittedly, I haven't kept up with the show (my interest in it waned in my youth after In Space, though I did watch Dino Thunder because of nostalgia), but when Saban bought it back I had honestly thought that it meant that they were going back old school with it.  By the look of this, if they knew what they were doing back then, they don't know. It looks like absolute garbage, and is about as far away from the uniqueness of the original as you can get.

That being said, I'm sure it'll make tons of money and get plenty of sequels. After all, it's not like good taste has ever stopped Michael Bay, either.

Saban's Power Rangers is set to be released in theaters on March 24, 2017 by Saban Films, Lionsgate, and the Toei Company.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story"

You know what? Considering the last time I went to the movies (no, I'm not letting it go), I ain't even mad. In fact, I'm actually genuinely excited for this movie. Disney and Lucasfilm actually had the balls to set a film before A New Hope.  Really, I don't think that people appreciate the sheer testicular fortitude that was necessary to set a film before the original trilogy.  It was really a move that only a titan like Disney could do. After all, no one's dared to ever try it before...

NO! NONE OF THAT! SHAME ON YOU!

But yes, it seems that the Star Wars saga is getting a prequel movie that fans don't have to be monumentally embarrassed of,   This comes to us in the form of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.  I have to admit, I was skeptical when I heard talk of a non-episodic Star Wars film coming out. Even more so when I heard of the upcoming Han Solo and Boba Fett (yes, he's still the most overrated character to exist outside of Batman) films. But this one, it seems, has some real promise and it's just oozing out of every detail of the trailer. Go watch it, enjoy it, imbibe what it does tease.

And yes, I know, I should be the first one to complain about what little the teaser gives. I did that when The Force Awakens released its first teaser. This, however, is a teaser done right - mostly because the plot would have been obvious to a brain-dead invalid if they saw this one, unlike Episode 7's.  Yes, it seems we're going back to the early early days of the Rebellion against the Empire, namely before Luke Skywalker left Tatooine to become a Jedi.  The plans to the Empire's newest battle station, the Death Star, are up for grabs and the Rebels send in a crack commando by the name of Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) to steal the plans.

It seems that she won't be alone in this, but for now we see only Jyn as she fights off Stormtroopers and shows herself to be a competent agent who is not one to play by the rules. The internet being what it is, they've already taken her out of context and pulled her apart as some kind of uber-feminist icon who is going to be Mary Sue to the max.

Okay, internet. You've proven that 1) you don't actually know what "Mary Sue" means and thus have lost the right to use that word. And, 2) it's a teaser. It's not even a proper trailer! Let's wait and see before we start throwing around judgments, eh?

As for the rest - Mon Mothma only looks like the old Mon Mothma in the fact that they're both pale and woman shaped, the Empire looks as awesome as ever, and John Williams doing the score is never not a good thing.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is set to be released by Disney and Lucasfilm on December 16, 2016.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Suicide Squad"

So...Suicide Squad, the DC universe's answer to Marvel's Thunderbolts and likely one of the more well-known teams in the DC Universe. Why? Because they're bad guys.  And DC is known for, if nothing else, putting their bad guys front and center.  That's the reason why their poster child is a borderline psychopathic nutjob who runs around in leather and beats the snot out of the criminal element of the city of not-Boston.

You may recall that this is not my first go around with DC'S Cream of the Crop for Baddies, that came a bit ago  when I reviewed Batman: Assault on Arkham.  And it was good.  It suffered from having too much focus on Batman, that is to say any focus on Batman, but it was overall very good and stood very well on its own as an animated feature.  Though I'd expect nothing less from the DC Animated products, they've dominated that market for many years in a way that Marvel just can't manage to scratch with their own, regardless of how good Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes and Spectacular Spider-Man were (yes, yes, and the 90s X-Men cartoon, don't stone me to death).

To get back on topic, however, the first official trailer got released and...it's trying way, way too hard to be Guardians of the Galaxy.  With a full blast of "Bohemian Rhapsody" as we get introduced to an all-star cast of B-List DC villains...and Harley Quinn (played by Margot Robbie, sans accent).  It highlights the main problem I have with what DC is doing in the post-Christopher Nolan's Batman world: introducing a bunch of characters as though we've already known them.  They're doing it in Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Whatever with the Dark Knight himself and now they're doing it here with a bunch of baddies.

The Marvel movies have worked because they take the time and effort to establish their heroes before throwing them into a big crossover event so that we know who in the sphincter of Hell they are when they do.  And before anyone gets in touch to tell me that Guardians did the same thing, I'll remind you that Guardians actually bothered to set up and define the characters of a team relatively unknown to the general public and they managed to make it a monster hit.  And it was in a team film.  At least with Batman he has several previous films of establishment.  Quick, let's do a little exercise. Without having to Wikipedia it, I want you to post in the comments who Rick Flag is for me.

Go on.  Do it.

Mind you, while I find that it's rather pretentious of them to be using Queen in their trailer and while I really still question the fact that Ben Affleck is in this movie (or any movie as Batman, which brings up my fears of a repeat of the animated film what with Joker being involved as well), I have to admit that I am interested to see what they do with it.  I admit, I do like what I'm seeing visually, it looks like a good movie - kind of like my idea of a superhero version of Goodfellas that Sony was going to try and push with that Sinister Six film before Spidey ended up back in Marvel's pen. In truth, it's the first DC product I have had any sort of interest in or excitement from since Justice League Unlimited went off the air.

...how long ago was that? Nevermind.

But yes, maybe I'm being cynical.  Maybe Suicide Squad will prove to be the monster hit that nobody expected and DC will finally have a dog in the fight that is the comic book movie.  Perhaps it will replace Guardians as my favorite science-fiction underdog movi-yeah, reality isn't going to bend that far, DC...

Suicide Squad is due to be released in theaters on August 5, 2016 from DC Entertainment and Warner Bros. Pictures.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Captain America: Civil War"

Ohhhh, boy...this movie.

Anyway, you know the drill by now.  Watch the trailer, then read on...

Now, anyone who's been following my blog for a while, or who knows my general disposition towards Marvel Comics, or has a shred of common sense will know that I'm not a fan of the comic book storyline Civil War.

Short recap: The government wants register superhumans after an incident that killed a few hundred civilians. Iron Man says yes, Captain America says no, they fight and so do a bunch of other superheroes in the Marvel universe. In the end, Iron Man does a lot of illegal things, but in the end Cap and the Anti-Registration side are the bad guys so Tony Stark doesn't spend the rest of his life in solitary confinement at a maximum security prison.

Oh, and Spider-Man makes a deal with Satan.  Charming.

Needless to say, I don't have a very high opinion of the event and I don't know a lot of people who do. However, I've decided to not treat this film on the merits of the adaptation. After all, stupid ideas have been made to work in the hands of good writers. And even ideas that were good have been brought to new heights in adaptation - such as in Captain America: Winter Soldier. So, could that potentially happen for Civil War? Let's have a look at what we have so far.

First off: the bad. There's no Spidey in this trailer.  Yeah, I was disappointed, too. Especially since this is going to be his first appearance on the MCU scene, I figured there'd be at least something to show of him. Not showing their hand on him isn't a bad choice, however, especially after the previous two film adaptations of our friendly neighborhood snarky joke machine that have gone over as polarizing at best.

The final scene where Cap and Tony have the exchange about Bucky. "He's my friend" "So was I", doesn't...really work.

One of the very, very few things I will give the comic event Civil War credit for is in the fact that it used the long established friendship of Steve Rogers and Tony Stark as a point of conflict. Sure, they were now dire enemies, but they had been friends and respected one another a great deal.  In any other situation, as they had demonstrated many times in 616 canon, they would have stood back to back against any foe. Mind you, that friendship was used as a way to try to pull at our heartstrings for what was one of the stupidest Marvel crossovers in recent memory, but still, it was there.

In the MCU...they've know each other for all of two major events. While that's a big deal to some, it's not really when you compare it to the (at the time in the comics) 40 years worth of storylines that they had fought alongside one another in. The line "So was I" comes across as Tony trying to put himself up on the same level of Bucky...which is really just offensive when you break it down. Bucky, in the MCU, had been Cap's best friend since before he was ever Cap. Tony is a guy who, while he's fought in two major conflicts alongside Cap, does not have the same bearing with him as a man who he had known since boyhood and fought alongside for years in war against the Nazis/HYDRA.

Needless to say, I was immensely satisfied with the scene where Tony is getting wailed on by Cap and Bucky.

However, since we've gotten through the bad, let's get into some good: Black Panther. Sure, he has no speaking lines, but we do get our first good look at him and I have to admit, I do like how he looks. It's a problem in superhero comic movies to see translations of superhero outfits not come over so well. This has been seen in some films and television shows, as well as been made a joke in others (such as the recently released and quite excellent Jessica Jones). However, Black Panther doesn't seem to have suffered that fate, having a very sleek look to his black armor that is very fitting of the comics version of the Wakandan king.

And so far, that's really all there is to talk about. No Spidey, a little of a very good-looking Black Panther, and a conflict that literally no party involved is going to look good coming out of. Given the "realistic" version of the Marvel world that the MCU wants to present, perhaps we will actually see some consequences to people's actions.

Then again, somebody might want to bring up that whole "Stark's AI tried to drop a city on the world" thing...might help to paint things in a different light.

Captain America: Civil War will be released to theaters from Disney and Marvel on May 5, 2016.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens" (Take Two)

Okay, so this one is a lot less meh.

A lot, lot less meh.

Go watch it, folks. You might need a cigarette. I know I did.

...

Okay, watched? Good. Let's talk about it.

Believe me when I say, there's not a frame of this trailer that I don't like. We see a bit more on newcomers Finn and Rey, as well as spoken dialogue from new baddie Kylo Ren, but that's not really the big draw - at least for me - but I'll get to that.

We get an introduction to Rey, her salvaging from what looks to be the Imperial Star Destroyer wreckage we saw in all the teasers before.  She insists that she's "no one".

Finn, on the other hand, was apparently raised in the new "First Order" and now has nothing to fight for, being stranded on the Not-Tatooine planet shown in the teasers.

We also see a short scene of Kylo Ren monologing to the melted remains of Darth Vader's helmet, promising to "finish what [he] started".

Then we get some nice shots of the Falcon swooping through the deserts of Not-Tatooine (yes, I know it has a name, but I'll just call it Not-Tatooine, thank you) while Rey talks of stories about what happened, presumably of the previous three movies.  And now we come to my favorite part of the trailer: Han Solo himself tells a stunned Rey and Finn: "It's true.  All of it.  The dark side. The Jedi. They're real."

If you've ever seen the original film - A New Hope - you'll remember Han's words about the Force when it's first presented to him, not believing in the "hokey religions".  But it shows that he's grown, he's developed.  He's not only gotten to know the Force, but he's seen it in action.  He's a believer now, far beyond where he was before back in 1977. It's an awesome moment and it makes me really, really hopeful that we'll see more such development for the others.

And, of course, we get other shots of both the First Order and the Resistance (apparently the New Rebellion) on various worlds and our heroes in various situations - including some snowy forest world where Finn ends up in a lightsaber duel with Kylo Ren.  Over the last few seconds, a woman's voiceover narrates: "The Force. It's calling to you. Just let it in..."

Oh, yeah, I'm really, really hoping this doesn't suck.

Indeed, the only thing I don't really care for is the fact that there is very, very little of Luke (just reusing that one shot of him touching his new mechanical hand to R2's dome) and implications that there is no Jedi Order around...which is confusing, considering that Luke has had three decades to get going on that again. In the EU he'd already done that and had enough time to nearly get them all destroyed in the war with the Yuuzhan Vong.

But still, a very, very minor issue in what I really, really, really hope will be an awesome movie. Which we need, since there hasn't been a good Star Wars movie since 1983.

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens will premiere in theaters December 18, 2015.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Fallout 4"

No, seriously this time.

...yeah, I have nothing on this but just shaking from the sheer joy at the prospect of playing another Fallout game. Those that had followed me will know my love for Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas and (most of) their respective DLCs. I literally cannot even give a proper analysis of it because I am sitting here typing this and doing my best to not fall over trembling from the sheer awesome.

...don't look at your screen like that. If you aren't feeling it, you clearly haven't watched the trailer!

So come back once you've done that.

...

...

...

...

...back? Good. WASN'T THAT FREAKING AWESOME?!

Okay, so we've had no gameplay features shown, but we see some frightfully damn pretty scenic shots, the revelation of Vault 111, and...a voiced protagonist? Entirely possible, though it would be interesting to see that in a Bethesda game seeing as that really isn't their MO. Still, it worked well enough for Isaac Clarke for one game, so maybe that will also do well here?

I'm taking the cautious optimism route, and I know that I've been fooled by shiny things before, but this is Bethesda. They have never let me down...well, they at least keep most of their promises...

...well, they're not Randy Pitchford, are they?!

Fallout 4 has just been announced by Bethesda Softworks. It will be available on Xbox One, Playstation 4, and PC.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Reel Thoughts - "Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins" (1985)

There are certain films that you see that just defy all explanation. You sit mesmerized, wondering how this script got greenlit and how what you're seeing on the screen is even possible. Then there are films where you do all that, and then come to a conclusion: this film is awesome!

And that is the only way I can describe Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. The film had director Guy Hamilton behind it, who you might remember as being the director of four separate James Bond films, which is a hell of a pedigree and fits perfectly for an espionage action film.

Couple that with the 1980s and the likes of Schwarzenegger and Stallone wielding implausibly big guns and spouting off witty Pre-Mortem One-Liners and you're sure to have an epic film, no?

What? Did my opening paragraph not make that clear?

We start with NYPD cop and Vietnam War veteran Sam Makin (Fred Ward) on patrol through a neighborhood, business as usual. However, he has no knowledge of the fact he's walking right into a trap set by CURE, a secret organization that wants to recruit him to be their next assassin. His death is faked and as the funeral of Sam Makin takes place, "Remo Williams" is born. His face is surgically altered, as are his fingerprints, to give him a whole new identity.  And before you start crying about how this is a Robocop rip-off, let me remind you that that came out in 1987 - two years after this film.

Also, this film very quickly moves into definitely-not-Robocop territory.

It's also important to note the origin of Remo Williams. The character's first appearance was not actually in this film, but in The Destroyer series of novels by authors Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, and this film pretty faithfully follows the concept.

Getting back to the plot, "Remo" gets the lowdown from his handler Conn MacCleary (JA Preston) and the head of CURE Harold Smith (Wilford Brimley) about their organization. "Remo" was chosen because he has no connections and thus wouldn't be missed as he was taken in to train as an assassin for CURE - an organization that operates outside of the law in order to see that those who corrupt or pervert the American justice system receive their punishment anyway.

To this end, he is taken to meet Chiun (Joel Grey), a Korean martial arts master. Thus begins Remo's training in the art of "Sinanju", a martial art that is as deadly as it is fictional. All three of the supporting roles play them very well. Grey as Chiun is a purebred and proud Korean who has rather outrageously hilarious moments of sexism and racism (against non-Koreans) and a fondness of soap operas. He's also completely able to defy the laws of physics thanks to being the world's only master of Sinanju.

It's also important to note both Wilford Brimley and JA Preston's roles in the film.  As MacCleary, Preston reminds me of a kinder version of "X" from the X-Files, very enigmatic and covert but without being a complete asshole to the person he's helping out. Though I suppose killing a man off and then forcing him to assume and identity is a bit of an asshole move, even if it's for the greater good.

And Wilford Brimley...well, he's Wilford Brimley, no explanation needed. The man is quite believable as the head of a covert chapter of the U.S. Government and you know very well that if Remo steps out of line, Brimley will waste his wise-cracking ass with diabeetus.

Also, rounding out the main cast, we have U.S. Army Major Rayner Fleming (Kate Mulgrew) and Weapons Mogul and Department of Defense contractor George Grove (Charlies Cioffi) as the romantic lead and the villain, respectively. Mulgrew's Fleming is an individual who's in it to do her job as she demonstrates in her opening scene and pretty much follows that through the entire film even to the point of following Remo's rather bizarre and improvised strategies for getting to and taking care of Grove.

Grove, as the villain, is a bloodthirsty businessman who tries to strongarm the military into taking the contract on the new rifles his company has made for them, regardless of the fact that they're defective to the point of killing a soldier during a test exercise. That along with many other crimes that are described in the film by Wilford Brimley's Magical Computer of Exposition, have put him in the sights of CURE and thus Remo.

And so as to not leave the main character out of my short analysis, Remo is exactly what you'd expect from the typical 80s action hero minus the one-liners. He's cocky, snarky, and just plain arrogant to a point, all of which get tempered by his training with Chiun. Though he gets to near superhuman levels, Remo at first is a pretty adequate combatant and is not afraid to use his environments to his advantage, such as a rather tense sequence on the Statue of Liberty (no, really, the poster doesn't lie) where he takes out some thugs sent after him rather creatively.

Of special note is the relationship between Remo and Chiun who are the two characters who share the most screen time. Though Remo is at first reluctant to be taken under the Sinanju Master's wing, they quickly develop a master-student relationship to a point where Chiun is very proud of what Remo has accomplished in such a short time in spite of his handicaps - namely being White and not Korean - and if he were ordered to kill him by CURE, he would do so but would be very disappointed because of that fact. And the fact that it's Remo and Chiun who ride off (on a boat, no less) into the sunset speaks to...needing a rather hilarious line from Chiun to close out the film. But it does show the pair of them, heading off for another adventure...which sadly never got made.

The last twenty minutes or so of the film very much feels like a Bond movie - with the villain putting to use an elaborate death trap for Remo (a gas chamber) and Remo escaping it by ridiculously awesome means (using a henchman's diamond tooth to cut through glass), as well as how the villain is finally dispatched...or how he would be before he survives it and then Remo puts to use his skills in Sinanju to blow up a vehicle using only a twig that he rubs fast enough between his hands to set on fire and a trail of gasoline. Kind of goes from a Bond film to Looney Tunes right there, but it's so ridiculously awesome that I didn't even care.

While this may seem ridiculous in a film, it's important to note that the source material wasn't meant to be taken one hundred percent seriously either. The Destroyer series of novels were actually meant to heavily satire old pulp action adventure novels from the 1930s as well as many other aspects of martial arts, espionage, and politics. Something like that, of course, makes for a perfect 80s action film - a shining jewel in an era of super serious and yet utterly cheese action films.

Sadly, the public in the 80s didn't think so. The film got mixed reviews from critics and didn't do all that well at the box office, though it's since gotten a cult following with video and DVD re-releases that are likely more popular now in an era where we can point back and laugh at the absurdity of the previous years.

However, this doesn't mean that the film had no impact and that the novels wouldn't once more be brought back into the public consciousness through a new adaptation. Apparently, even as we speak, Sony is working on a new version "The Destroyer" with Shane Black helmed to direct it. Though if we get him, I'm cautious because of the fact that he directed Iron Man 3, which was a gigantic pile of shi-oh, wait, I haven't reviewed that yet, have I?

Guess I'll have to get my Marvel retrospective up and running again.

But summing up Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, it's an awesome film. Good action, decent pacing, quotable as all get out, and an all around fun time. What's not to love?

Remo Williams: The Adventure begins is now available from Dick Clark Productions, MGM, and Orion Pictures on DVD and on Netflix Instant Streaming.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "The Fantastic Four"

Well...here we go again.

The Fantastic Four are a commonly known superhero team.  Created in 1961, they were made as the answer to DC's "Justice League of America". Yes, the FF predate even the Avengers in the Marvel universe.  Caught in a cosmic energy storm, four individuals were granted powers.  Reed Richards, utterly brilliant scientist seeking to study the universe itself, was given extreme elasticity and became Mr. Fantastic.  Sue Storm (later Sue Richards) was granted the power of invisibility and the ability to generate force fields over herself and others as the Invisible Girl (and later Invisible Woman).  Her cocky, hot-headed brother Johnny was given the power to generate and control flame, as well as wrap himself in a cocoon of pure flame simply by saying "flame on!", taking the moniker of the Human Torch.  And their pilot, Ben Grimm, arguably got the worst of the storm - his body mutating into an orange, rock-like flesh but becoming virtually indestructible as the Thing.

Unlike the traditional superhero conundrum of having to hide their secret identities, the Fantastic Four have been public about who they are and what they can do almost from the jump, and they're some of the most beloved superheroes in the Marvel universe. Sure, it means that their foes not only know who they are and how to find them, but the Four have always been a dysfunctional family that, when the chips are down and the need is dire, they can take on any foe or face any challenge if they're working together.  Whether it's against the dreaded Galactus, the fearsome Annihilus, or even the sinister machinations of the dreaded Doctor Doom, the FF are always up to the challenge.  So naturally - with a team that has such prestige and awesomeness - someone would want to make a movie out of it.

They did.  It sucked. But it was supposed to suck, since it was only made so the rights could be kept.

Not to be dissuaded (after all, they were the people who would later greenlight "X-Men Origins: Wolverine"), Fox got the rights from Marvel to produce a live-action adaptation of Marvel's First Family. This seemed like a sure-fire thing, given the team's long-standing history and popularity to comic fans. In fact, it could even be a chance to bring in a whole new audience into comic book films. Sony was doing amazing things with Spider-Man at the time, and Fox itself had had great success with the X-Men franchise - coming in with two films that were box office hits at the time. So, this seemed like it would go well.

It sucked, but it also made a lot of money.  So, naturally, because Fox wants to run all its assets into the ground that aren't Firefly (seriously? Joss Whedon gives you a jewel-encrusted egg and you've got no idea what to do with it? REALLY?!), they commissioned a sequel, this time based around the storyline from the comics known as the "Galactus Trilogy".  Galactus, for those who don't know, is (to put it as simply as possible) a gigantic alien being who eats planets.  In that storyline, he came for Earth - his herald being the mysterious Silver Surfer. So, high stakes, good villain, could very easily be made into a blockbuster, right?

It sucked. And I mean, sucked. Audiences who had loved the first film didn't much care for this one, and it only fared slightly better with critics than the first film did. Even so, this was enough that Fox decided to reevaluate its options...and make more X-Men sequels...which is an issue for another time and I'm getting severely off-topic.

Flash-forward to now, the present. Fox, continuing their longstanding trend of wringing money out of things that don't belong to them in the first place, have released a teaser for the rebooted series of films that they intend to do with the FF. Unlike certain other films that have released teasers of late, this actually has some things of substance to it and...well...it looks good.

No, I'm serious.

I've got some healthy skepticism, as we all should in particular with teaser trailers. Still, they seem to be going for a much more serious, The Dark Knight-esque style. I would normally be against this, seeing as Batman is not - despite his hype - the end all and be all of superheroes and should not be remotely treated as such, but for a series that's at this point gone through three terrible films that did not really seem to take the premise as seriously as it should have, this is really a welcome change.

The trailer has a voice over of an unseen individual, speaking of the human desire to discover, and we see what I assume to be Reed Richards (Miles Teller) both as a man and as a child performing experiments, who we know to be Sue Storm (Kate Mara) working computers, Johnny Storm (Michael B. Jordan) repairing a car, and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) playing baseball. The rest of the teaser details an experiment that is being run by Dr. Storm (Reg E. Cathey) that seems to be taking the place of the cosmic space trip, which is fine. After all, it's an adaptation.

Oh, and you're probably wondering why no comment on Michael B. Jordan? Don't care. If Samuel L. Jackson can play Nick Fury, I think we can give him a shot at Human Torch.  I mean, he can't be any worse than the last guy who played him...

...oops, sorry, Cap.

The voiceover, who I believe is Doom (Toby Kebbell), speaks of the consequences of human discovery and tells Richards to prepare for "what's coming". When Richards questions the individual (who is not seen clearly), he gets the cryptic reply of "the answers", leading into a short of the team from behind while facing what looks like the Ark from Halo.

I have to admit, I'm a bit intrigued now, which I thought I wouldn't be. I've pretty much become entirely disillusioned with the X-Men franchise (I didn't even go to see Days of Future Past) and I was more than hesitant about one particular change about Doom - namely that he's become an internet troll in this version instead of a megalomaniac ruler of a small Eastern European country - but again I remind myself of the Mantra of Adaptation - "it's only a movie/game/book/TV show, the original thing isn't ruined". Of course, that doesn't mean I won't critique it when it comes out. So, Fox, you've got me for this one, let's see the FF get a good movie for once.

Or, hey, you could just give the rights back to Marvel and we'd know they'd do it right.

...if Shane Black isn't involved, anyway.

The Fantastic Four is slated for release on August 7, 2015 from 20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, and Marv Films.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Star Wars Episode 7: The Force Awakens"

I've got a meh feeling about this one.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I'm definitely excited for this movie.  I've been a fan of the Star Wars films every since I was able to sit up and look at a flickering screen on the television.  My generation actually stands as one of the last few to have seen the original films before the 1997 re-releases...and, of course, the dreaded Prequel Trilogy.  Before Doctor Who, before Star Trek, and before virtually everything else, there was always Star Wars.

Then the prequels happened.  Oh, lord did the Prequels happen.  But it's been nine years since the last of those, and will be ten by the time that this film actually comes out - a film that could, perhaps, save the franchise from the Lucas-ification (yes, that is a word, leave me alone, spellcheck) that it suffered? Will we be able to forget about the nine year old boy who thought things were totally "wizard"? Will we be able to leave behind the sand, coarse and rough and irritating and getting everywhere? Will yousa be able to forgive George for creating Jar Jar Binks?

Yeah, I could spend this entire write up bashing the prequels, but let's go for some taste, shall we?

It's a teaser trailer that Abrams and company have brought to us, and I'm normally rather against them.  Why? Because they have nothing of substance.  I know that the movie is coming out, there's no need to torment me with vague imagery.  Give me something of substance to speculate on, please.  As it looks, we have something like that, though not a great deal.

The camera opens over the sands of a desert planet (presumably Tatooine) with a voice-over speaking of an awakening in Force, with some shots of our three main leads - from the look of it an Imperial Stormtrooper, a desert-dwelling speeder block riding woman, and a Rebel/New Republic X-Wing pilot.  The voice also speaks of the dark side, showing a sinister figure all in black with his/her back to the camera, activating a red-bladed lightsaber.  Suddenly, the screen goes black and the voice speaks, "...and the light..."

And then, to the glorious John Williams's score of the main theme, the Millennium Falcon makes a long-awaited return to the franchise as it soars over the dunes of the desert world, and the title card is shown.

So...why am I not foaming at the mouth excited? Because that doesn't really tell me anything I didn't already know.  Beyond a shot of some Stormtroopers moving off a drop ship and the Falcon flying into battle, I haven't seen any familiar characters I care about.  No Luke, no Leia, no Han or Chewbacca (who is alive again, which I will get excited about).  The new characters are interesting, but we're not given any details on them besides the bits we can piece together from their short snippets.

And then, of course, there's the clear antagonist for the film.  Who we also know nothing about, and who has the utterly stupidest lightsaber I have ever seen in my life.  The saber looks very much like the standard one-bladed, the crimson blade shooting out from the hilt as you would expect.  The blade also, however, has two miniature blades that shoot out to the sides to form a crossguard as you would see on a longsword.

Why?

If it were that weapon, I could understand the need to do such a thing, but putting it on a lightsaber only makes it all the more dangerous for the wielder.  Consider how lightsaber combat has been done even in the Original Trilogy.  The crossguard would only serve to slice off the wielder's hand in combat, leaving them completely defenseless.  And don't we have enough hands cut off in this franchise already? Or is Abrams purposefully tempting the Rule of Three? Seriously, if this was an attempt to do something different, I can understand that, but it doesn't even fall into the "Cool, but Impractical" category, it just looks really stupid.

That being said, the teaser - for what it does show - does actually look pretty good.  Despite the cleaner look of the Prequels to it, I will say that it at least makes more sense for things to look more advanced after the Original Trilogy than before it (one hang up of the Prequels that I admittedly have never been able to get over, irrational as it may be).

So, will the Star Wars franchise be able to rise again under the watchful care of the House of Mouse? No idea.  If the Marvel films that have been produced are any indication, though, we have next to nothing to worry about (so long as Drew Pearce and Shane Black have nothing to do with any of them).  As for the teaser, though, it doesn't really perform its function for me at least.  I'm excited for the movie, but this did nothing to deepen my appetite for the film...which is also still an entire year away from coming out, and thus might contribute to my apathy.

I'll still see it, but the teaser did little for me.  Perhaps the full trailer will do more.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is set to be released on December 18, 2015, by Walt Disney Pictures, Lucasfilm, and Bad Robot Productions.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, be sure to follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.

MadCap's Trailer Reactions - "Jurassic World"

...well, I need a cigarette.

All joking aside, I have to admit that I am liking the look of the first Jurassic Park film in thirteen years.  After the absolute atrocities of Lost World and Jurassic Park III, it's high time for us to have a decent monster/disaster film more in the vein of Steven Spielberg's 1993 classic that still holds up to this day.  And now, just past the twentieth anniversary of that groundbreaking marvel of practical effects, CGI, and just damn good film making, we may just be getting one.

According to the Wikipedia page, it's twenty two years after the events of the first film (making me wonder if the films are supposed to run in real time), and a new corporation has rolled onto Isla Nublar from the first film and taken over working on John Hammond's dream of creating a park of genetically engineered dinosaurs, which apparently went off without a hitch and has been running for years.  So long, in fact, that people have started to lose interest (an apt metaphor for the franchise in general).

To counteract this, the "Masrani Corporation" has decided to use what they've learned more in the past decade from genetics to create the first genetically modified hybrid.  Chris Pratt plays researcher "Owen", who brings up that creating a new dinosaur was probably not a good idea.  The trailer details some rather good shots of the park itself, with the use of CGI in some cases that actually helps with the grandiose scale of things.  It's supposed to look big and shiny and such, and that comes across well.

Oh, and a scene where a Megalodon leaps out of the water to eat a shark dangling above.  Nice nod there, guys.

But, of course, the turn comes when a disaster strikes.  In the first film, it was disgruntled worker Dennis Nedry shutting off the power and taking out the computer systems.  In the second film, it was Jeff Goldblum and his team coming in and mucking up what would have otherwise been a very open and shut operation by the InGen Corporation to capture dinosaurs.  In the third film, it was the screenplay being green lit.  In the fourth film, however, it appears that the new hybrid has escaped (scaling over a 40 foot wall in the process) and is causing an understandable amount of ruckus in the park.

We only get quick images of the chaos, including Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard moving through a forest-y area where a claw is found in a windshield, some shots of the lab looking much like the others from the original but in a more JJ Abrams Star Trek-style (no lens flares), some of the park's attendees running for their lives through the main strip of the park from some unseen terror, and a young boy's face being eclipsed by the shadow of what sounds like a raptor, but the pitch is far, far deeper, perhaps the growl of the new hybrid?

Very chilling, atmospheric.  It puts me in mind of the old horror trope of "the less you see of something, the scarier it is".  I think the filmmakers have at least taken that one mistake of Jurassic Park III.  The Spinosaurus, for all its impracticality, was prominently featured and almost never hidden.  This hybrid, however, is never clearly seen beyond some claw marks and potentially the shadow.  No clear view of it, no real view at all.  They're building it up hard and I really hope the pay-off is worth it.  At the very least, they will get many butts in seats that are curious to find out just what it is. I know I'll definitely be there.

I may just be caught up in the nostalgia (not helped at all by a slow piano arrangement of the original Jurassic Park theme in the later half of the trailer), but I am absolutely stoked for this movie.  It looks good, it has a premise that takes that of the original and goes a step beyond, and that's about all I could ask for in a Jurassic Park sequel.  I'm going in with healthy skepticism, but an optimistic skepticism if that makes any sense.

Also, yes, Burt Macklin has a team of velociraptors.

Oh, you thought they were extinct?  So did the President's enemies...

Jurassic World is set to be released in theaters from Legendary Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, and Universal Pictures on June 12, 2015.

For the latest from the MadCapMunchkin, follow him on Twitter @MadCapMunchkin.