A "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" Review That Doesn't Spoil Shit

Straight off the top:  Star Wars does not feel right without the 20th Century Fox fanfare at the top.  I wish Disney could buy them just for the purpose of making Star Wars feel whole again.

Back in 2007, I tore apart Superman Returns, partially for holding the balls of Richard Donner's Superman movies as if it's trying to keep them warm and shielded, like Superman does for Metropolis.  Because of that, and because Bryan Singer didn't think Superman should fight anything, it never really comes together as an original work.  Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a lot like that.  It doesn't hold the original Star Wars' balls quite as tightly, but there's definitely some light ball-tickling going on.

In other words, I hope you like Star Wars, because JJ Abrams is about to show you how much he likes Star Wars.  Yes, I call it "Star Wars."  "A New Hope" is stupid.

Anyway, JJ Abrams is way into that movie.  So much, in fact, that he takes great care to recreate some of the scenes from Star Wars in his movie, but he JJ's them up so you don't notice what he's doing.  It isn't a knock on The Force Awakens, because his story is its own thing.  He just has a clear love for Star Wars that he can't help but let us see.  JJ loves Star Wars so much that I bet he still calls it "Star Wars."

As a result, two-thirds of the movie is really good.  He's really good about allowing us to find out what happened to the characters we really love while letting us get to know these new characters.  In true Star Wars tradition, you don't find out anything about the new characters so much as you get to hang out with them for a while, before realizing later that you don't know much about them at all.  They're just so funny and likable that you never notice.

Like, Finn, for instance.  Finn is what would happen if you took a regular person from here and dropped them into Star Wars.  Unlike every other character in Star Wars lore who grew up in a place where slugs become crime lords and people can be choked from across the street, Finn ain't about this life.  And it shows.  Everybody in the world who dreams about living in the Star Wars universe, thinks that if they went there, they'd suddenly learn the force or enjoy living in space, but Finn is your reality.  Finn is what you'd actually be like.  He's not a coward, but he's terribly confused about what life is like out here, and really doesn't get why we all need to be out here fighting when we can all get ships that go to the Outer Rim.  In a way, he's a twist on Han Solo, who didn't think it was worth sacrificing his life in the service of the Rebellion.

Then, there's Rey, a scavenger girl surviving on a desert planet.  She lives a difficult life, getting ripped off by the local scrap yard guy who pays her in food, and sleeping in the wreckage of an old AT-AT Walker.  When she isn't scavenging or fixing stuff, she sits and watches the ships fly off this barren desert planet.  And even though she lives this hard knock life, she still manages to have a heart for sad sacks that come stumbling across her front door.  She's almost the inverse of Luke Skywalker, because she doesn't dream of leaving this world at all, even though she should probably want to.

Kylo Ren isn't likable, though.  Not at all.  The previous villains were cool or charismatic in different ways, or carried themselves with a presence.  Darth Vader was awe-inspiring and ruthless.  Darth Maul was designed to be cool.  Christopher Lee's voice alone made Count Dooku memorable.  Even General Grievous was completely original, with some old school built in.  But Kylo Ren isn't like that.  He comes off like he's trying to be someone else, and acts very much like a spoiled child at times.  For all I know, that was the point.

As for what happens in the movie, there's a lot of action, it looks really good, and it is imaginative, because after all, this is a JJ Abrams movie.  If nothing else, he's going to take your breath way with his action scenes.  There was never a worry about that, because if he could make the Starship Enterprise exciting, imagine what he could do with the Millennium Falcon.

But then, there's that last third of the movie.  I remember reading a review about Revenge of the Sith when it came out that said that George Lucas was basically forcing the plot to go where he needed it to go, logic be damned (and that review was right).  There was an end point that had already been predetermined, and he needed to get these loose ends tied up before the credits roll, which is why Yoda just up and decided that he needed to go into exile.  There are moments like that, where it felt like they had decided where these characters needed to end up and they were gonna get there, logic be damned.  The last third of this movie kinda felt like JJ remembered that he needed to hit a couple more beats before he wrapped this thing up.

In my mind, it's like he delivers the script, and its brilliant, but someone at the studio was like, "There are no clips from the third act that we can put into the trailer.  Give us some trailer moments."  And he gets mad and hate-writes a new third act for them.  I mean, it's just kinda there, aside from discovering that Princess Leia had an army of Jedi babies without Han or Chewbacca deciding that he's had enough of Han's shit and they finally scrap it out.  The last third of the movie left me with questions, and not the kind where you're like, "I wonder where this is gonna go next?"  No, it's the kind of questions like, "Lemme rewind this and watch it again, because I must have missed something."

But it's a good movie.  Just one that's going to take some time for me to really appreciate.  JJ did a good job of working in the original trilogy's universe organically, and there are so many moments where I was pointing at the screen in excitement, because I suddenly saw something I recognized.  He also wrote this thing as if the prequels never happened, which is good, because I doubt anyone's gonna go into this like, "This thing better address the final fate of Watto, or I want my money back."  No, The Force Awakens dovetails out of Return of the Jedi, but in a way that is both familiar and new at the same time.  It's kind of comforting to spend another couple of hours in a that galaxy again.

Will Smith, Independence Day, and boring-ass off-screen deaths

I don't think there's a person out there that likes off-screen deaths in movies.

Not the kind where they're killed off-screen, but then, you learn later on in the movie what happened.  I mean the kind where you spend two or three hours (or more) investing emotionally in these characters, then when the new one comes out, you find out that they died, and no one cares.  That shit sucks.

Some movies handle it better than others, because the Rocky movies killed off Adrian and Paulie that way.  But the Rocky movies dealt with it by making it part of the story.  Adrian's death was part of the reason why Rocky and his son had a wedge between them in Rocky Balboa, and (SPOILERS), it was the reason why Rocky gave up on his own failing health in Creed.

Then, you got those assholes over at Fox who gave you two and a half hours of Ripley trying to save this little girl from acid-bleeding aliens, in the middle of space, only to find out that Newt died anyway in between Aliens and Alien 3.  Alien 3 is almost twenty years old and people still list that as one of the reasons why they never liked that movie.  They just brushed all that joy and goodwill aside so they could tell their story, instead of giving the payoff that the fans wanted.  It's just one in a long list of reasons why Sylvester Stallone is a better filmmaker than you.

No one likes that second method, why is why Roland Emmerich did exactly that with Independence Day: Resurgence.  

Now, let's be clear:  I seriously doubt that anyone was emotionally invested in any of the characters in Independence Day.  I know I'm going out on a limb here, and please correct me if I'm wrong.  Tell me that you felt the emotional depth of the angry teenage boy who just wants to love his family, or the war hero President of the United States.  However, the way they got rid of Will Smith's character in Resurgence is kinda lame.

You didn't know Will Smith wasn't coming back for Resurgence?  My bad. Spoilers.

Because they didn't offer Will Smith enough money he's too big a star for this foolishness now Suicide Squad has a better shot at keeping his name hot they didn't offer Jaden a role as his stepson that looks just like him Will Smith declined to come back to the movie that started July 4th as "Will Smith Weekend," they had to kill off his character.  It only makes sense, because he can't be alive anywhere in the world while this is going on and not come back.  It had to be this, because only the Avengers can get away with not having to explain why Iron Man couldn't come help Captain America take down three flying aircraft carriers, or Thor had to fend off another alien invasion by himself.

And you know what, I'm fine with Will Smith's character being dead.  I get it.  It wasn't that kind of movie, where people get attached to the characters.  Really, we just like Will Smith.  But if you gotta kill him off, you gotta do better than this:

"While test piloting the ESD’s first alien hybrid fighter, an unknown malfunction causes the untimely death of Col. Hiller. Hiller’s valor in the War of ‘96 made him a beloved global icon whose selfless assault against the alien mothership lead directly to the enemy’s defeat. He is survived by his wife Jasmine and son Dylan."

You don't have to show any of this shit on screen, so there isn't a single reason why it has to be that boring.  Maybe the producers feel like they needed to show respect to Will Smith's character, but that's really dumb, because he doesn't work there anymore.  Besides, they already disrespected him by killing him off-screen.  We're already past the point of disrespect, so you might as well go all the way.  Because if I was writing the movie, Will Smith's Capt. Steven Hiller would have gone through some shit before he died.

Why the hell not?  It's not like you're limited by your special effects budget.  So why couldn't we find out that Capt. Hiller, despite all his confidence and bravado, had a really hard time dealing with the knowledge that the fate of humanity rested on his shoulders?  Maybe that led to some drinking, some depression, some PTSD.  Maybe he broke down completely, and believed that the aliens were still out there and were trying to control minfd.  No one really knew how to help him, and he believed he was alone in this.  So he tries to fight back against his perceived enemies in the government that he believes have already been compromised.  And his story ends with him driving his car off of a bridge, because he believes that the aliens have finally broken his mind as well.

Now, Vivica A. Fox is back in this movie, and evidently, her son (Hiller's stepson) is supposed to be one of heroes of this movie, because of course he is.  And I'm sure their characters will be sufficiently boring.  But it would be so much better if they came into the movie with something like this over their heads.  Of course they're gonna fight the aliens, but now, it's personal.

And maybe Will Smith sees that synopsis, and it looks interesting to him.  He could work with that material.  And he calls up Roland Emmerich, and asks to make that movie, because that's what Will Smith does now.  He just goes around making movies that seem interesting to him, and it's good to know that someone thought After Earth was interesting.  A movie about the complete mental breakdown of the hero from Independence Day is way more interesting than that same guy fighting the aliens again.  And Fox is dying to make a franchise out of this.  $50-70 million would be in their hands before Will Smith could come to his senses.

That sort of thing should be the template for off-screen deaths.  I'm not naive.  I know that those times can't be avoided sometimes.  But if you're already going to have to do it, you might as well make it count for something, and change the story going forward.

Batman v. Superman: The stupidest argument of all time

Apparently, you have to have qualifications before you can criticize movie trailers now.  You can't just chalk it up to taste anymore.  You have to prove your impartiality before you can speak on movies now.  I don't know where this shit started, but it really needs to stop.  The Batman v. Superman trailer was leaked over the weekend, and naturally, some folks didn't like it, but folks got mad when they dared express that online.  Like, more than usual.

We're talking about a movie trailer about a fictitious alien that wants to be friends fighting a fictitious rich guy with an inability to let go of the past.  It sounds like the plot to a Pixar movie, but people were acting like they were investigating a murder, trying to figure out the motives of people who didn't like it.  This isn't exactly serious scholarship here.  Taking on critics of this movie trailer isn't going to get you a job at The Atlantic.

It just blows my hair back when people get this serious over fictional characters, as if it's going to make a bit of difference either way.  Instead of people just enjoying the fact that we're all nerds, people are out here acting like people who didn't like it are going to block off the theaters in an act of censorship.  People are actually drawing conclusions about the characters of real, living people based on what they thought about a movie trailer.  Because, as we know, movie trailers are the modern iteration of Rorschach tests.

And the thing is, I don't think people defending the trailer really understand where the problem is coming from.  People aren't loving the way this movie is turning out (and the one before it) because it continues the Batman-ization of the DC Universe, and it was something that a lot of people could see coming after The Dark Knight came out.

See, Batman is grim and gritty.  He's tormented.  He wreaks vengeance on those who wronged him so that others don't have to suffer like he did.  Basically, this dude is broken inside and uses that to punch criminals until they're broken like him.  That formula for a superhero made Warner Bros. a billion dollars.  And because movie executives are generally unimaginative, they said, "Hey, Superman is having trouble.  Why not make him like Batman?"  You know, completely ignoring the context surrounding Superman's movies.

I mean, the problem with Superman Returns wasn't that Superman isn't tormented, it's that it was two and a half hours of washing Richard Donner's balls.  But who has time for a true examination of the issues?

And that's why Man of Steel is the way it is.  That's why Superman is morose, everything is dimly lit, and there's no sense of joy or fun in a single frame of the movie.  That's why Superman doesn't save anyone.  Superman lives in Batman's world now, and in Batman's world, you need to learn that life is shit.  

Except that's not the world Superman lives in.  Superman is supposed to represent all of those good things.  He tries to save people before he punches people.  He's supposed to inspire people to be good and do better.  He always tries to de-escalate the situation, even though he's powerful enough to turn the person in front of him into a fine, red mist.  That's what makes him Superman.  Of course he can kill everyone on Earth, but he doesn't want to.  He wants to show us a better way.  Even if he's existing in Batman's dark, depressing, basement of a world, at the very least, he needs to be that.  He wasn't, and right there is the difference in opinion on Man of Steel.

Superman fans didn't need for Superman to change.  Batman fans needed for Superman to change.  And Batman fans loved that movie.

That's why some people weren't excited to see the Batman v. Superman trailer, because they're worried that it's gonna be more of the same: A Superman that Superman fans don't recognize. And there's a huge possibility of that if the movie is based on "The Dark Knight Returns," a story that paints Superman as a government-owned bitch.  The only people who want to see that are Batman fans.  It has nothing to do with a secret love for Marvel or an inability to let go of the Donner Superman movies or any other of the silly shit I've seen thrown out there this weekend.  Maybe it just doesn't look that good to some people.  We're talking about art, not an arms treaty.

We won't know for sure until the movie gets released, but in the meantime, dial back the hostility.  We're all allowed to have opinions, and none of us need to justify them to you.

The Real Issue With the X-Men: Apocalypse Casting

Last week, Bryan Singer announced the recasting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Storm for X-Men: Apocalypse, and nobody really seemed to care, because who the fuck are these people?  They're like the cast of the new Fantastic Four flick, except for Michael B. Jordan. In fact, they're so anonymous that they might be the same people.  

The Storm casting did get some buzz from Storm fans, because she is once again being played by some girl who doesn't fit the Storm mold.  I get it, because everyone wants to see their favorites represented properly on screen.  It's the reason why I have decided that the Transformers movies are nothing more than a series of night terrors filled with slow-motion action shots and blurry metal shards that I can't wake up from.  Storm fans (myself included) want to see their girl shown as the powerful African leader that she is, instead of the sidekick to Jean with a white wig that she's become.  

But the really important issue with this recasting hasn't even been addressed:  We no longer have to watch Wolverine's love affair with Jean Grey that never made a lick of sense.  I assume it won't be there, because it would be really, really creepy.

See, I'm a masochist, evidently, because I've watched all of the X-Men movies.  And I watched them closely enough to realize that Wolverine knew Jean Grey for maybe a week, in total movie time.  So watching him tearfully kill Jean in the third one, and dream about her years after the fact, always made me sick.  I should have been crying, because I was the one who sat through X-Men: The Last Stand. 

That plot thread is something that is well known to folks who read the comics.  For a couple of decades, the comics teased the idea that Jean and Wolverine had a long smoldering attraction for each other, and in another world, they might have been together.  But Scott had that on lock (for reasons that continue to mystify us), so Jean would never act on it, even though Wolverine would sometimes press the issue.  

In the flicks, Wolverine met Jean, spent almost no time with her in the couple of days he tooled around the mansion, then left the X-Men for an undetermined amount of time.  He showed up back out there just in time for them to get invaded, and never saw Jean again until a few minutes before she died.  She was an evil zombie throughout the next movie, so it's not like she was in a position to further explore their relationship.  Wolverine worked hard on his chest to impress her, so her rejection forced him to kill her.  Some of this might have been made up, because that third movie was so awful, and I really don't want to watch it again.

But saying that Wolverine knew Jean for a week is being generous.  

It's kinda like in Man of Steel, where Superman and Lois have no reason throughout the movie to get together, but they still have to kiss at the end, because that's the expectation.  Wolverine is a dude who trusts no one and hasn't for decades, but he meets this girl who's already booed up, spends no time with her, but when she dies, he's suddenly so close to her that he's on the brink of tears?  And in the next movie, he struggles to kill her, even though he hasn't had a problem killing complete strangers since this trilogy started?  Even though these movies were supposed to walk their own path, Wolverine and Jean had to eye-bathe each other, because those were the times.  Even if it doesn't make sense.  

That's the kind of foolishness that this recasting gets us from up under.  Sure, Storm is still underwhelming (and probably wasn't going to be a big part of the movie, so they're just filling a roster spot), but we're just that much closer to a movie that makes sense.

A Calm, Sensible Reaction to Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor

Jesse Eisenberg is Lex Luthor, because Michael Cera is already booked.

I'm sure that's the kind of reaction that DC was expecting and I'm all too happy to give it to them.  And it's not even because I'm angry about the casting. I actually kinda like it.  I, unlike so many others, have perspective.  The perspective that comes from an reading too many comic books.  I understand that there are many different versions of Lex Luthor, and that Jesse Eisenberg fits into a few of them.  Dare I say, this casting is brave...and bold.  Please, hold your applause, because that joke was awful.

Still, you're gonna have to go through the initial shock of people saying, "The fucking dude that played Mark Zuckerberg is gonna be Lex Luthor?"

I saw a guy on Facebook that said, "Is he going to invent Facebook to defeat Superman?"  Really, that's the level of discourse DC has to face, and it's not like Jesse Eisenberg has given the fans a ton of ammo to throw back at him.  This won't go much past unfunny Facebook jokes and DC will be fine with that, because they already weathered the worst of this storm with Ben Affleck.  That was an epic tantrum, and once we got past that, it's like people couldn't really get that mad anymore.  It was like the world said, "Okay, we all know this flick is gonna suck. They really can't do any worse than this." 

And after that, Gal Gadot just got questions about her physique, mostly because no one knows who she is.  Jesse Eisenberg is just getting bad jokes, like the ones I've written just now.  It's all just been diminishing nerdrage, so we'll probably be done with this story by Monday.  No one even noticed that Jeremy Irons is playing Alfred.

I saw more outrage yesterday that Fox wants Channing Tatum to play Gambit in a future X-Men movie.  It wouldn't be a surprise that Fox was thinking about doing some more bad X-Men casting, but people were legit mad at that, I guess because Channing Tatum is too sexy or can't act or something.  As if Gambit is a character filled with such pathos that only a Shakespearean actor could capture it all.  Anyway, the X-Men flicks are filled with terrible decisions. I still believe that Halle Berry was cast because she was the only black person the producers could name.

Warner Bros. is supposed to be better than that.  Or at least Christopher Nolan is and Zach Snyder are.  And I'm willing to give it a chance, because as I've said trying to talk people off the ledge today, it all depends on what kind of Lex Luthor will be in the movie.  You got your "evil businessman" Lex Luthor (who could stomp ass), and you got your "sociopath scientist" Lex Luthor (who could not).  I think the second one is something Eisenberg can work with.  As long as he's not on there talking about being the "greatest criminal mind of our time," I think we'll be fine.

You should be ridiculed for caring about Dwyane Wade's outside kid

You people express shock at the dumbest shit. 

Dwyane Wade and Ludacris were revealed to have knocked up their side pieces in the same week.  Both are in relationships (but were on breaks at the time).  Dwyane Wade is an NBA player.  Ludacris is a rapper.  The only thing shocking here is that they didn't knock up the same woman.  I mean, we don't know that rapper and ballplayer sperm can't do that.  

If anything, it's your own fault for believing that a pro basketball player or a rapper would stay faithful to his wife.  And I don't say that because I think they're bad people.  I say it because they're constantly having random model/stripper ass thrown at them as they travel in luxury around the world.  The man who can resist that forever either has supreme will or is already gay.  The rest of us would have to have his wife standing next to him at all time, like Doug Christie did.  As freakish in the face as Doug Christie looked, the only reason why he got through his day without tripping into a pair of strange, spreadeagled thighs is because Jackie Christie was never more than 10 feet away at all times. 

True story.  Sat in on his interviews and everything. 

So, I don't see why what Wade and Cris did was anything outside of what you should expect from them.  If you want to call them out for anything, call them out for raw dogging their jump offs.  I mean, I assume they've both had enough jump offs to know better.  I also don't see why you're coming to Gabrielle Union's defense all of a sudden, because y'all know y'all hate Gabrielle Union. Gabrielle Union was this generation's Robin Givens until people stopped casting her in movies.  And the hate came solely from the fact that she was too good at her job of playing smart-mouthed shrews in every flick she'd been in.  It wasn't even based on real life.  So let's not act like you're doing this for her benefit.

And I'm sure, somewhere out there, someone's thinking about the kids, because Dwyane Wade and Ludacris (I guess) are supposed to be role models.  And if you're letting Ludacris's example raise your kids, then you're a worse parent than Siovaughn Wade.  Allegedly.  There might be an explanation for that day she sat on the corner wearing a sandwich board. 

But anyone who would look at Ludacris as a role model shouldn't be allowed to raise the kids that they're claiming to protect.  I mean, this is the same person who led off with "What's Your Fantasy," "Phat Rabbit," and "Ho," and followed up with "Area Codes," "Move Bitch," "Splash Waterfalls," and "P-Poppin."  These are probably the parents who post videos of their twerking children on YouTube.  The video would probably be set to a Ludacris song if he had any hits out right now.  As for Wade, true, he has a fatherly image that would be a good example for young boys. But so did Bill Cosby, when we were kids.  And look at how our generation turned out.  Our generation didn't follow his example.  Our generation didn't even eat the damn pudding pops. 

Also, I'm not throwing shade on Luda for those songs, because I own every last one of them.  Believe me, I ain't judging.  I'll be able to recite the words from "Ho" when I'm on my deathbed.  I'm just saying, if your kids ever knew the words to those songs, you're a horrible parent, that's all.

So what are we really talking about here?  Two men who ruined the concept of a "break" for black men everywhere, for starters (a ridiculous concept, anyway).  And a bunch of women who care more about two strangers' relationships than their own, evidently.  Also, I'm seeing that I have a far different concept of what is "shocking" than everyone else.  Magic Johnson was shocking (and scary).  Tiger Woods was shocking (and hilarious).  No one's been burnt or driven into a tree in either of these stories, which makes them quite boring.  I need to be scared or entertained, so I refuse to pay attention until we hear that one of the women is actually a man or something like that. 

Ben Affleck as Batman isn't worth an anger stroke

Watching the internet unravel after Ben Affleck was announced to play Batman was something to behold. Seeing millions of allegedly grown ass people lose their shit over a guy dressing up in a rubber suit was a memorable moment in the history of nerddom, right behind "The Dark Knight Returns," "everyone in America pretending to be nerds," and "guys being able to pull girls with superhero shirts on."  Except this was truly entertaining, and I thank you.

I guess I just never really understood that level of anger over something that I don't own or can't control. Sure, I've had differences with movie creators over things, because who the fuck reads that Catwoman script and thinks that their work is done?  Also, my hate for Joel Schumacher's Batman movies was so great, I actually made an ex-girlfriend cry because she wanted me go see "Batman and Robin."  But even that was after we left the theater.  I at least had the decency to watch the movie before I shit on it so hard that I hurt a person's feelings. 

And really, at the time, announcing George Clooney at Batman actually provided some hope, until they said that Joel Schumacher was coming back, and thus began a two-year long campaign to never see that movie.  All of which was ruined opening weekend, when she begged me to go with her and her brother and sister.  We went to see that fucking movie, and now, we're no longer together.  I'm not saying the two events are related, but that was a really shitty movie. 

Anyway, freaking out on that level based on announcements has never made sense to me. Especially considering how wrong fandom tends to be.

By now, everyone's been reminded of how wrong they were about Michael Keaton as Batman in 1989, and Heath Ledger as the Joker in 2008.  Even those didn't bother me at all, because in 1988, when they revealed Michael Keaton, I thought it was pretty cool that Mr. Mom would be Batman.  Keep in mind, I was 10, and still considered Garfield comics to be a prime reason to read the newspaper.  And when Heath Ledger was announced as the Joker, I really didn't mind, because every announcement came with the disclaimer that they were going for something different.  Which they did.  And everybody was happy.

No, I'm not comparing Batfleck to Heath Ledger's Joker, but it's not like it's a fuck up that you can see coming a mile away.  It's not like it's Jessica Alba as the Invisible Woman or Keanu Reeves as John Constantine or every painful second of "X3: The Last Stand."  Some people are horribly miscast at times or are generally bad actors, and this isn't one of those times.  Now, that's the kinda stuff that fans should get upset about, but there you are, helping "Fantastic Four" make enough money for a sequel.  And instead, y'all wanna get mad about Idris Elba playing Heimdall in the Thor movie.  Look, Heimdall could have been played by Macho Man Randy Savage, and he still would have just stood there and been irrelevant.  That's why they were fine with turning him black.

Everyone has been bringing up all that old shit, like "Gigli" and "Daredevil, but Ben Affleck wasn't what was wrong with those movies.  You can see it if you watch them without actively hating Ben Affleck.  They were bad because of the people in charge of making them, and in the case of Mark Steven Johnson, writer/director of "Daredevil," he's proven that he was the problem when he made "Ghost Rider."  That guy is desperately trying to tell you to keep him away from the set of your movie.  That guy's directed five movies with an average Metacritic score of 5.6.  On Rotten Tomatoes, he has a 32.75% fresh rating.

I don't know what went wrong with "Gigli," though, because the guy who wrote and directed that also directed "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Midnight Run."  No one could have seen that coming.  But sure, it's Ben Affleck's fault that the fourth friend in the Hangover flicks was allowed to copy Dustin Hoffman in "Rain Man" and call it acting.

That's right, the guy who spent the first Hangover stuck on the roof.  That guy.  Oh, and it was also Ben Affleck's fault that Jennifer Lopez's pussy monologue got through multiple edits.  Fuck, that was a painful movie to watch.  #butitwasntBenAfflecksfault

Right now, it's the cool thing to say that stuff, or talk about how you aren't going to see Superman/Batman or Batman/Superman or Batman vs. Superman, or Superman: The Quest for Peace, whatever they're going to call it.  But the more I think about it, the more I get excited about the idea of Ben Affleck as Batman.  And I'm the guy that everyone expects to be hyper-critical of everything (Man of Steel sucked, fuck you).  Because, like Matt Damon said, "He's not playing King Lear."  Except I've never seen that, so I'll go with the guy who played Gollum in "Lord of the Rings."  But he's been playing Bruce Wayne for the better part of his career, and since he already has the chin, all he has to bring for Batman is a better Batman voice than Christian Bale.  Preferably one that he can use when speaking meaningful dialogue.

But think about that:  All he has to work on for the next year is choosing a good Batman voice.  As long as he doesn't try to get creative or make him British, he's already won.  Honestly, I'm more worried about the writer and director.  Those people made made Superman an emo hobo and a killer. At the same damn time.  For all we know, these jokers might have Batman dancing or enjoying life.  I really don't know what to expect.

Even if you don't agree with this casting decision, why get mad?  If it fails, they will know, probably before opening weekend is over, that they made a mistake.  Not only that, you just spent two years hoping it failed so you could be right.  But if it succeeds, then you've just spent the previous two years being upset and wrong about something.  It's a no-win for you.  And most importantly, you had no effect on it either way.  You were angry, wrong, and irrelevant.  But if you sit back and just wait for it, you'll only be one of those things.

I Can't Believe I Rented It - Man of Steel

It's damn near impossible for me to talk about "Man of Steel" on the level that I want to without giving away spoilers.  I won't say if it's good or bad, because my friends say that I don't like anything, and I'm a harsh critic.  I'll just say, it's not unterrible, and I'm not even 100% sure what that means.  I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it, either.  I can say this, it's better than "Superman Returns," but that's not hard to do unless you're making "X-Men 3." But here's a quick, spoiler-free rundown of the movie.

1. Superman doesn't have taco meat.  Seriously, someone could have run the clippers over his chest before he put on the suit.

2. Lois Lane is no longer the dumbest investigative reporter on the planet.  I'll let you figure out what that means.

3. Also, she must have powers, too, because she somehow shows up everywhere Superman goes.  It's like she's Bruce Wayne after he gets out of that pit.

4.Y'know General Zod, if you had just gone next door and terraformed Mars, none of this would have ever happened.

5. People really shouldn't spend that much time saving themselves with a Superman flying around. 

6. It's like Superman is in a competition with Spider-Man to see who can ruin his own secret identity the fastest.

7. He throws punches this time. Unfortunately, for him, he isn't very good at it or most things.  As a result...

8. They beat the brakes off of Superman.  Seriously, they curbstomped his ass.  Rocky style.

"Man of Steel" does have some decent moments.  But they're surrounded by a bunch of changes to the Superman mythos that are either unnecessary or illogical.  And the movie never seems to be building towards anything.  But I guess that's just the hater talking.  The filmmakers seemed to be more concerned about making Superman relatable than making him super.  He's got all kinds of angst about being an outsider, so he's Emo Superman this time around, which I guess is a step up from Deadbeat Stalker Superman.

The movie was darker than the usual Superman movie, and felt like it should have been a sequel.  There are some emotional moments for the characters that would have had more weight if there had been a first part.  I guess they felt like they could get away with not building relationships between the characters, because we all know most of them and have a pretty good idea of how they would act.  But at the same time, they acted like they wanted to throw out the rule book and have a brand new Superman. 

To put it in nerd terms, they wanted to reboot "Star Wars," but throw on the ending of "The Empire Strikes Back."  That's the simplest way I can put it.

One thing they did do was make Jor-El interesting, for the first time ever.  I don't know why filmmakers keep holding onto Jor-El, because once he presses the button on the rocket, there really isn't any reason to ever bring him up again.  But he found his way into three Superman movies now, and multiple seasons of Smallville.  He still wasn't necessary, but there's stuff for him to do to justify paying Russell Crowe.  Jor-El was actually a human being in this, and has one of the best scenes in the movie.

The highest compliment I can pay to a movie is, "I can't wait to buy this on DVD."  For this one, I can wait.  It'll be on HBO sooner or later.  But it wasn't a bad flick.  It's just not a Superman flick, kinda like how "The Dark Knight Rises" wasn't really a Batman movie.  I guess that's why they called it "Man of Steel," so they can't get sued for false advertising.

I Can't Believe I Rented It: Action Jackson

The only way this movie could be any more awesome is if they retroactively added “Eye of the Tiger” to the soundtrack and a training montage. That would take it off the scale of recordable words of human speak and into the realm of telepathy between dogs or the binary language of moisture vaporators. It’s got action, it’s got explosions, and it’s got both Vanity’s and Sharon Stone’s exposed breasts. I could end this review right now and you’d completely understand.

I never saw “Action Jackson” when it first came out. Even at the age of 10, I just didn’t like the look of the whole thing. I mean, he was a black guy, so naturally, his name had to rhyme? I seriously thought about these things as a child. I’ll tell anyone who will listen about how I never liked the Junkyard Dog or Roadblock from G.I. Joe because I couldn’t identify with their stereotypical antics, like dancing all time or talking in rhyme. So, I took a pass on “Action Jackson” assuming it would be more of the same.

Then, when I was visiting some friends back in Jackson, “Action Jackson” was put on and they all crowded around the TV to watch, because they loved this movie. I didn’t watch it all, but I did see one part that piqued my curiosity…Action Jackson ran down a speeding taxi on foot. I thought to myself, “This movie must be terrible. I have to see the rest.” So one day when I was in Wal-Mart, the Devil’s Store, I saw it in the five dollar bin. I bought it, and probably three or four other movies that I didn’t need to get.

That movie sat on my movie rack, in the plastic, for about two years. Then, yesterday came, and feeling the need to make fun of something, I decided to finally watch it. And you know what? This is probably the most awesome thing I’ve seen all day. And I don’t feel bad ruining it for you if you haven’t seen it, because the movie’s almost 20 years old. Personally, I’m hoping for a 20th anniversary DVD to be released, with updated pictures of Apollo Creed, who plays Action Jackson, so I can see if he’s still wearing eyeliner.

This movie has every 80’s action movie cliché. A disgraced, over the top, renegade cop that’s living on the edge, a police chief that’s breathing down his neck, a respectable businessman who’s actually a murderous scumbag, complete with henchmen, hot women who get naked, the monologue where the bad guy details his plot to the hero, the romance between the hero and his love interest, no matter how trifling or shady the girl actually is, and let us not forget, the clever quips during and after the fighting. Not to mention, in true 80’s fashion, explosions where there probably shouldn’t be explosions (because in the 80’s, gas tanks were protected by a layer of aluminum foil wrapped in dynamite) and the rotating cast of men that you will only recognize from other 80’s action movies. It’s possible that I have a genetic defect that won’t allow me to dislike this movie.

What else does it have? It also has a scene that is so ridiculous that it came through the mists of time to embed itself in my brain, slap it in the face, and force it to make me spend $5.88 on this DVD.

Sharon Stone (because I couldn’t be bothered to remember her movie name) and Action Jackson are crossing the street, when Sharon makes the mistake of asking out loud why he’s called “Action.” In movies, you just don’t do things like that, because the Spirit of Dramatic Irony will be forced to drop an anvil on you or make zombies come out of the sewers. In this case, he sent a guy in a taxi to run them over, right on cue.

They jump out of the way, and at this point, the computer in his head starts giving him options. He can A:) Make sure the girl is safe. B:) Call for back-up. C:) Chase down a speeding cab on foot. And in true 80’s action movie fashion, he decides to pick the most ridiculous option possible, but because he’s black, he has to give it some flavor. So for a good two minutes, he’s running alongside a car that’s moving at least 50 miles an hour, yelling at the guy to pull over. The guy just sneers that 80’s henchman sneer at him and keeps driving, so Action Jackson leaps off of the ground, onto the roof of a parked car, and soars through the air and lands on the roof of the cab.

The henchman starts to swerve to get him off, but Action Jackson has the Grip of Righteousness on his side, so he stays on. Then, the guy starts shooting at the roof of the car, but that never works and all it does is piss off Action Jackson, a mistake that he warns you throughout the movie that you should never make, because it gives him superpowers or something. So he punches through the wind shield, which he could do without slicing his hand to ribbons because he braced himself, and starts grabbing on the guy, who slams on the brakes.

Action Jackson flies off the hood and rolls about half a mile down the road, and without a scuffed knee or anything, jumps to his feet and starts screaming nonsense at the guy, who sneers again and slams on the gas. And just when you thought the ridiculous couldn’t get no more ridiculouser, Action Jackson leaps into the air, clears the car by at least three feet, does a flip in the air and sticks the landing, just as the cab somehow leaves the ground and crashes into the building at the end of the street. The only reason this doesn’t cause an explosion was because Action Jackson had to get down there and see that the guy somehow got away without a trace.

And right after that, Sharon Stone winds up getting killed by Coach (Craig T. Nelson), who is her husband and the main bad guy. Coach frames Action Jackson for her murder and that sets up another 80’s mainstay: Action Jackson is on the run for a murder he did not commit and must clear his name and expose the insidious plot. While he was on the run, he hooked up with Vanity, who is Coach’s mistress, and forced her to help him because Coach was trying to kill her, too. Vanity spent a good half hour trying to get Apollo to give her the business, but he didn’t, because he was trying to get ready for the fight with Rocky. Or keep them alive. I can’t remember which.

I fail to see how you could walk away from a movie like this without a smile on your face. The only person who probably wasn’t happy with the results was Vanity, who played the junkie with a heart of gold (and panties of imagination). She was finally exposed as someone should only be holding a mic if she’s handing it to someone else AND as an actress who should only be called in if the waitress at the café down the street gets hit by a bus. If she’s ever worked again, it’s proof to me that she gives really good head.

I still liked “7th Heaven” though. That’s probably the best nonsensical song I’ve ever heard. And I liked “Action Jackson,” too, even if they expect me to buy that this cop was so dangerous that they took his gun license away, yet kept him employed as a cop. Or if they expect me to believe that one can drive a Ferrari at top speed through a crowd of people without hitting anyone before going up two or three flights of stairs. Or if they expect me to believe that Coach is a threat to anyone except Stuart or Luther.

For all its faults, I still loved it. I think I loved it because of its faults, mostly because they just don’t make movies like this anymore, and if they do, they call those “direct-to-DVD,” and usually those are so bad that they make my skin burn. It was a nice little throwback to the days when you could invent drinking games based on the cast or the amount of explosions in the movie. Next time you and your friends get together, put this movie on and every time you see a guy that you saw in another 80s action movie, you have to name the movie he was in and take a shot. You also have to take a shot for every explosion. I expect to see more than a few of you in the ICU or a liver transplant list.

Watch this movie because I saw Carl Weathers in some commercial last week for a product I couldn't even name. He's about one stint in rehab away from winding up on "the Surreal Life." He could use our support right now.

I Can’t Believe I Rented It: Elektra

Well, truth to tell, I didn’t rent it. It was on FX one weekend, and if you’re the least bit familiar with FX, you know that they can’t show re-runs all the time. There’s no way in Satan’s Hell that I would have spent money to see this movie. It’s not that it was bad. It just wasn’t worth the imaginary money that I wasn’t going to spend.

“Elektra” is a spin-off of a movie that’s only claim to fame is that Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner (Bennifer 2), met on the set. That movie would be “Daredevil,” a movie that was only allowed to be made because “Spider-Man” brought in $403 million dollars. It’s not like anyone was clamoring for “Daredevil”, so judging by that, there might have been about 17 or 18 people looking forward to this.

In the lead role, Jennifer Garner plays a Greek assassin who died, but didn’t die, in “Daredevil.” Instead of trying to get into a blind man’s pants or going after the Kingpin, the man who was trying to have her father and boyfriend killed, she goes after some guy and whispers in his ear from across the room. That leads her to find some kid breaking into her place, who develops a girl-crush on Elektra and tries to hook Elektra up with her dad. Because, you know, there always has to be a love interest in these movies. And because a PG-13 rating and child protection laws won’t let Elektra get down with the girl.

So she goes and has dinner with these people, and in one night, she becomes so attached to these perfect strangers who practice breaking and entering at her house, that when her next assignment is to kill those lovable prowlers, she backs out and risks her life to save them from ninjas.

That led to them going on the run and hearing some claptrap about a ninja clan called the Hand whose members are mostly known for getting killed by Wolverine. And since the ninjas weren’t enough to take down Elektra while she’s rescuing these people, the Hand decide to step outside of their own reality, pull The 8 Devils on Kimon from my “Ninja Scroll” DVD and bring them into this movie.

I swear, anyone who’s seen “Ninja Scroll” knows that all they did was change the names of those guys. Unfortunately, they left all of their excitement and coolness back in the other DVD.

Then, it comes out that the 8 Devils are after the girl, because she’s the treasure or something, which I think might just be a nice way of saying that she’s going to be introduced to the child sex ring in Asia. Apparently, one of the 8 Devils, Typhoid Mary, used to be the treasure, and caught so many diseases that now she can spread them at will. It must be cool to be able to mentally control your gonorrhea.

And after that piece of information is revealed, the girl reveals that suddenly, she is an instrument of destruction who has the fighting skills to shove “the glow” up Leroy Green’s ass. The girl is flat-out awesome. So awesome that she could have, you know, been of use when Elektra was killing herself trying to fight off a horde of ninjas or men who turn into stone all by herself. Apparently, it’s more dramatic to reveal that you can stomp ass when you’re not in any danger.

That led to the girl getting her ass in trouble anyway, the 8 Devils getting killed, and Elektra having a showdown with the son of the boss of the 8 Devils and beating on her just long enough to make the people who have never watched movies before think that she could lose. I hope that was the end, because I really don’t remember much else past that.

I won’t get into the mistake that is casting Jennifer Garner as Elektra, because I really try to temper my “Dork Side” when I write these things. I would question the wisdom of making a movie about a superhero that no one outside of the comic book store has ever heard of. At least Meteor Man was an original creation. I would also question making a stand-alone, spin-off movie for a character who’s only notable story involved all of the main characters from the movie she was spun-off from.

But, having said all that, the movie wasn’t good or bad. It just was. It came on, it had a couple of cool scenes, it didn’t make my blood pressure rise or throw anything at the TV, and it ended, roll credits. It was pretty much a B-movie from the 80s. It was generic as generic can get. If you had added some cats, you could have called it “Catwoman” and no one would have known the difference. And for those who are curious, no, I still haven’t seen “Catwoman.” Unless you count the first time it was released under the title, “Batman Returns.”