Blade (1998) or, The Vampire Ass-Kicker

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+ Best Action Movie of the Year + Best Gore Movie of the Year + Best Superhero Movie of the Year + Best Vampire Movie of the Year

Star Wesley Snipes' back and eye-catching head tattoo is centered on this black-and-scarlet-hued poster for Stephen Norrington's Blade

Blade is the Daywalker, a vampire who quenches his blood-thirst medically in order to remain protector of the humans. He has to kill a lot of evil vampires from their secret, underground society, which is alive everywhere around us, as a young, fanatic leader now thinks that they should assume world domination.

 
Blade is written by David S. Goyer (The Unborn (2009)), based on the 1973 Marvel comics character created by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan, and directed by great British filmmaker Stephen Norrington (Death Machine (1994)).

Blade is a cool, cool film! Wesley Snipes (The Fan (1996)) is awesome as the suave, ass-kicking title character, and Stephen Dorff (Somewhere (2010)) is demonical as the villainous vamp with illusions of grandeur. The film is full of raw action, cool weapons and special effects, and a production design and visual concept of darkness and blood-red tones that really works.
The story is simple, but it holds water. The storyline and new action-packed take on vampires was very fresh in 1998, when vampires had not ravaged movies as unceasingly and long as is the case today.
Blade has many cool elements, like its euro-trance bloodbath in the beginning, or the immensely obese Pearl character, and its first and last 15 minutes are insanely innovative. The film is also refreshing as a superhero movie that doesn't have any sentimental romance attached to it, - and one that is bloody and disgusting as hell!

Related posts:

Stephen Norrington: Top 10: Best first-of-franchise movies
1998 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 45 mil. $
Box office: 131.2 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 2.91 times its cost)

[Blade premiered 19 August (New York) and runs 120 minutes. Snipes was paid 8 mil. $ for his performance. Shooting took place from February - June 1997 in Moscow, Russia, London, England, Vancouver, British Columbia and in California, including in Los Angeles. The film opened #1 to a 17 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend at #1 and then another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#3), grossing 70 mil. $ (53.4 % of the total gross). Wolfman and Colan unsuccessfully sued New Line Cinema for 35 mil. $ in the film's wake. The film's success paved the way for more Marvel films: The company's only attempt previously had been the disastrous Howard the Duck (1986). Roger Ebert gave Blade a 3/4 star review, translating to a notch under this one. The film spun a franchise, which also encompasses Blade II (2002) and Blade Trinity (2004), all with Snipes and Goyer's involvement. Marvel is rebooting the franchise in a 2023 movie with Mahershala Ali taking over the character. Norrington returned with The Last Minute (2001). Snipes returned in Futuresport (1998, TV movie ) and theatrically in Play It to the Bone (1999); Dorff in Earthly Possessions (1999, TV movie) and theatrically in Entropy (1999). Blade is rotten at 57 % with a 5.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 
What do you think of Blade?

Batman Begins (2005) or, Modern, Dark, Smooth Batman

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+ Best Superhero Movie of the Year

A beautiful, hand-painted poster for Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins

How did Gotham City's mysterious billionaire Bruce Wayne also become its dark-robed protector and disguised vigilante, the Batman?

 

My favorite superhero returned in 2005 in the hands of English master filmmaker, co-writer/director Christopher Nolan (Inception (2010)) and in the shape of the impressive, Welsh Christian Bale (Rescue Dawn (2006)). Batman Begins is the first in Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy of modern, darker, less mythical and more realism-adhering Batman films than what is known from earlier entries in the DC Comics franchise started by Bob Kane and Bill Fingers in 1939.
The action, gadgets and new Batmobile (known as the tumbler) are especially awesome. Nolan uses a minimum of CGI, and refused a second unit to keep his vision consistent throughout the film.
The cast is impressive. To pick out a few of the most noteworthy performances, Cillian Murphy (28 Days Later (2002)) looks good and feels completely right as the villain, Dr. Jonathan Crane who becomes the Scarecrow. Tom Wilkinson (Valkyrie (2008)) is pungent as Gotham's gangster overlord, Carmine Falcone. And Morgan Freeman (The Shawshank Redemption (1994)) is handy as Lucius Fox, the series' sympathetic Mr. Gadget.
The script by Nolan and David S. Goyer (Blade (1998)) tells much of Batman's origins, and it works well, except for the one, original character created for the series, Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes (The Extra Man (2010))), or Miss Moralizing, who is too close to Mary Jane Watson of Spiderman sugar-sweet to fit the quite dark tone of the film.
Generally, however, Batman Begins is too bereft of sex, filth and really colorful villains to compete with the best of the Batman films, which in my opinion remains Tim Burton's Batman Returns (1992), a masterpiece in lavish entertainment, Gothicism, villains and wild eye-candy.
Nolan here launches himself big-time with a solid, dramaturgic construction of the Batman character in one of the most popular films of the 00s, Batman Begins.

 

Related posts:

Batman: The Dark Knight Rises (2012) or, Batman and the Storm, Darkness, Anarchy, Evil, Depression

The Dark Knight (2008) - Nolan's best Batman 

Batman Returns (1992) - Burton gives us the ultimate, Gothic spin on Gotham City and its sinister characters
Batman (1989) - A huge, glitzy, empty joker
Batman the Movie (1966) or, Batman and Robin: Kapow!!!  

Christopher Nolan: 2020 in films - according to Film Excess

Tenet (2020) - Nolan blows smoke up your ass 

Top 10: Best UK movies reviewed by Film Excess to date 

2017 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
2017 in films - according to Film Excess 
Dunkirk (2017) - Nolan champions cinema with masterful war movie  
Interstellar (2014) - Nolan heads to space in opulent, exciting epic
2014 in films - according to Film Excess
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) or, Batman and the Storm, Darkness, Anarchy, Evil, Depression
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2010 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess  
Inception (2010) - Nolan's best is a grand piece of action sci-fi, perfectly awesome nonsense 

2008 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II] 
2008 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2008 in films - according to Film Excess
The Dark Knight (2008) - Nolan's best Batman 

2005 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 
Memento (2000) - Nolan's overrated amnesia mindfuck   
Following (1998) - Nolan's ineffectual debut 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 150 mil. $
Box office: 373.6 mil. $
= Even

[Batman Begins premiered 31 May (Tokyo) and runs 140 minutes. Nolan and Goyer were hired for the reboot in 2003. Bale was paid 9 mil. $ for his performance; Liam Neeson (Love Actually (2003)) 2 mil. $; Holmes 1 mil. $. Shooting took place from March - September 2004 in Iceland, England, including in London, Chicago, Illinois and in New York. The film opened #1 to a 48.7 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend at #1 and then another 3 weekends in the top 5 (#2-#3-#5), grossing 205.3 mil. $, which with later re-releases has grown to 206.8 mil. $ (55.4 % of the total gross). It was the 7th highest-grossing film of the year in North America. The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 30 mil. $ (8 %) and Mexico with 12.8 mil. $ (3.4 %). The film was nominated for 1 Oscar: For Best Cinematography (Wally Pfister (Moneyball (2011))), lost to Dion Beebe for Memoirs of a Geisha. It was also nominated for 3 BAFTAs, among many other honors. Roger Ebert gave it a 4/4 star review, translating to 2 notches over this one. IMDb's users have rated the film in at #126 on the site's Top 250, sitting between For a Few Dollars More (1965) and Dangal (2016). The film had additionally made 167 mil. $ on domestic home video sales by Summer 2006. Bale's Batman returned in Nolan's second in the trilogy, The Dark Knight (2008). Nolan first returned with The Prestige (2006). Bale first returned in The New World (2005). Batman Begins is certified fresh at 84 % with a 7.70/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Batman Begins?

Black Dragons (1942) or, The Sinister Foreigner Attacks!

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Sinister intrigues are lurking on this handsomely painted poster for William Nigh's Black Dragons

Black Dragons was one of Hollywood's first responses on screen to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, which took place just a month before shooting began in January 1942. The film is a weird and fairly awful, exploitative, anti-Japanese and anti-German WWII spy thriller with the telling work title Yellow Menace. It runs only 62 minutes, a testament to its measly, rocking structure and meager substance.
Besides a then arthritic, morphine-addicted Bela Lugosi (Die Todeskarawane (1920)) in the villainous lead, there really isn't much to come for in Black Dragons:

 
Evil Japanese plot to infiltrate powerful positions in the West by assassinating the leaders and switching them out with their own cosmetically altered doubles.  

 

Lugosi does both the incredible operating, - as Doctor Melcher, - and the assassination of the American leaders, under the moniker Monsieur Colomb.
The man who would later become the Lone Ranger, Clayton Moore (The Far Frontier (1948)) plays a handsome detective in the poor Black Dragons, which is directed by William Nigh (Mr. Wong in Chinatown (1939)), a prolific b-movie director, who directed Mack Sennett comedy shorts earlier in his career. It is written by Harvey Gates (Navy Secrets (1939)), based on the story Black Dragon by Robert Kehoe.

Related posts:

William Nigh: The Ape (1940) or, The Costume-Crazed Doctor  
Doomed to Die (1940) - Karloff's last Mr. Wong movie is a good one 

The Fatal Hour (1940) - Nigh and Karloff return with a humdrum crime flick 

Here's a 7-minute clip from the trailer

Cost: Unknown
Box office: Unknown
= Uncertain

[Black Dragons was released 6 March (USA) and runs 64 minutes. A virtual lightning-speed production, tapping into especially the anti-Japanese sentiment of the time, shooting started in late January 1942, taking place in California, and less than two months later the film was released! Details around its release are regrettably scarce to come by. The film was colorized in the 1990s. It is now available (in B/W) in public domain to watch and download free and legally right here. Nigh returned with The Strange Case of Doctor Rx (1942), (he directed 7 feature films in 1942 in total!) Lugosi returned in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). 1,2k+ IMDb users have given Black Dragons a 4.3/10 average rating.]

What do you think of Black Dragons?

Odd Thomas (2013) - A troubled - and troubling - troubled teen pic

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A fairly disturbing poster for Stephen Sommers' Odd Thomas

Odd Thomas is an adaptation of the first book in a bestselling young adult fantasy series by Dean Koontz (Fear Nothing (1998)). It is a romantic teen-detective fantasy story.

 

Odd Thomas works in a diner but has a more important job in preventing murders and catching killers based on his clairvoyant abilities.

 
The film sat in a legal mess for months, and was therefore been in peril of never getting a theatrical release in the US, but that now seems to have blown over, and the film is now heading for a release in early 2014.

The legal dispute is about the production companies behind the film and a lot of money apparently gone 'missing'. It seems to have been resolved now, but two of the posters available for the film right now suggest that the marketing department for Odd Thomas is at a loss on how to sell it:
1. As a film featuring a darkly dressed Anton Yelchin (Hearts in Atlantis (2001))?

Or 2. As a scary monster film? (Which it definitely is not.)

 
The title character is played by Russian-American Yelchin, whom I thought I liked, - at least I admired his earlier work in movies like Fierce People (2005) and Charlie Bartlett (2007), - but whom I suspect of late of having bad taste when it comes to selecting roles, a bad agent, or both. Whether Odd Thomas - already lose in other territories and probably as an illegal download as well, - will bomb is now solely up to Yelchin's appeal with teen girls, I predict.
Yelchin as Odd is extremely annoying throughout the film. Writer-director Stephen Sommers' (Catch Me If You Can (1989)) script, - adapted from Koontz's Odd Thomas (2003), - is so heavy with narration that you'll realize fast that Odd Thomas is a dud. When Yelchin isn't explaining his actions and life in a rambling voice-over, he is speed-mouthing zingers every which way, always aggravatingly on top of things. Seeing the film, it is very hard to determine Yelchin's age, which kept my mind wandering off: He shifts between making his soft baby face, which makes me think of him as a young teenager still, and a face where he draws his lips and face in to look adult and tough. (He is 24, I later learned, and keeps getting lots of roles.)
Odd has a romance with the girl, Stormy, who also has some abilities, though they cannot measure up to his. They are "destined to be together forever", and generally talk a lot about their love. (Although the ending of the film makes this call dubious at best.)
Odd Thomas is a strange mix of violence, teen romance and ghouls. (Odd from time to time sees harmless ghouls that crawl on walls, and they are not indications of schizophrenia but solid indicators that murder and mayhem is close!) At one point he transports a decomposing body to a desolate location and leaves it there, paying as little respect to the deceased as possible, and the next day he comes back and performs a mystical surgery on the corpse, again quite disturbing stuff. - Perhaps there's something I just didn't get. Later on the film is about stopping a mall massacre, (not the work of the disturbing Odd though), while the ghouls are everywhere. At this point, the film has gotten more interesting, but it's too late to save it.
Willem Dafoe (The Boondock Saints (1999)) is a friendly police detective, who mainly porks his wife and eats in the film, but he is a small Band-Aid on Odd Thomas for all of us grown-ups, who don't want to be told how the world works from (what looks like) a teenager for 90 minutes.
The film is technically well-done, - the ghouls look strange and good, and the camera work is professional, - and it is something different for sure, as a hard-to-categorize, off-beat crime superhero teen flick. But it's not a compelling film.

Related posts:

2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED V]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED IV]
2013 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Anton Yelchin is the annoying pancake-mastering clairvoyant in Stephen Sommers' Odd Thomas

Watch a 2-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 27 mil. $

Box office: In excess of 1.3 mil. $

= Box office disaster (returned 0.04 times its cost)

[Odd Thomas premiered 6 April (River Bend Film Festival, USA) and runs 93 minutes. Shooting took place around April 2011 in New Mexico. The film had a limited release in North America in February 2014 but without (presumably tiny) gross numbers released. Its 3 biggest markets were Italy (in 2015) with 579k $ (44.5 % of the known gross), Thailand with 213k $ (16.4 %) and UAE with 151k $ (11.6 %). The film reportedly made at least 3.1 mil. $ on home video sales in North America. Sommers has been unable to gather support for his next project (When Worlds Collide) following the dire flop and hasn't directed since. Yelchin returned in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). Odd Thomas is rotten at 38 % with a 5.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Odd Thomas?

Monsters University (2013) - A funny and inspiring prequel

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A great congregation of monstrous but hilarious characters are gathered on this poster for Dan Scanlon's Monsters University

We first travel back to a glimpse of the trying first school years for one-eyed, green monster Mike Wazowski, until he finally gets to go to Monsters University, his life-long dream, - where he will train himself to become a scarer. But again things line against him: No fraternity except the pariah Oozma Kappas (OK) fraternity will take him in, and what's worse; no one thinks he's scary. The arrogant, impressive blue monster Sullivan is thrown out of school at the same time as Mike, and they both decide to sign up with the OK fraternity to the school's Greek Games in order to win back their chance to become scarers.

 
Monsters University is the excellent prequel to Pixar's hit animation adventure family movie Monsters, Inc. (2001). It is Pixar's 14th film, and its first prequel. It is written by great Michigander filmmaker, co-writer/director Dan Scanlon (Tracy (2009)), Daniel Gerson (Monsters, Inc. (2001)) and Robert L. Baird (Ferdinand (2017)).

In the course of the story, Mike and Sully learn about work moral, working as a team, conducting yourself with integrity, - and how true friendship can be greatly rewarding. Monsters University is a surprisingly solid, funny and heart-warming follow-up to the wonderfully original first movie, in which a human child got out in Monstropolis and came into Mike and Sully's unfamiliar care.
Billy Crystal (Analyze That (2002)) and John Goodman (Downwardly Mobile (2012, TV movie)) are back to voice the main characters, and Steve Buscemi (Double Whammy (2001)) voices a younger, less evil version of Randy. Helen Mirren (Cause Célèbre (1987, TV movie)) is the imperial Dean Hardscrabble, and other enjoyable voices include those of Bill Hader (Her (2013)), Sean Hayes (The Bucket List (2007)) and Alfred Molina (Angie Tribeca (2016-17)).
A reason to see many good animation films are for their characters, and Monsters University doesn't disappoint. Besides the beloved protagonist pair there are plenty of new, funny, eye-popping characters.Careful brainstorming and research has obviously gone into Monsters University in its depiction of American college life, and it really pays off: From first being a praise of the world of a major, (U.S.) college, we go through classes, student types, clubs, parties, fraternities, and the imaginative Greek Games. Especially funny scenes include a basement initiation for the OK fraternity's two new residents, and a Game discipline about stealth abilities game by way of capture-the-flag under the blurry gaze of an ancient, tentacled monster librarian. The film is really funny, - it oozes with joy in its material, and Randy Newman (The Paper (1994)) has made a terrific, percussion-filled score that lends a full dimension to the grand, high-spirited material.
SPOILER The ending yields yet another valuable lesson about life, which is that college isn't the only way to get to where you're going, and to not give up on your dreams when the straight path you'd imagined proves blocked.
Monsters University is an amazing, wonderful time, - and it can be watched just as well with or without kids.

 
Related posts:

 

Dan Scanlon: 2013 in films - according to Film Excess

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: Estimagted 200 mil. $
Box office: 743.5 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 3.71 times its cost)

[Monsters University premiered 5 June (London) and runs 104 minutes. Sequel rights-holder Disney had been developing a sequel prior to their acquisition of Pixar in 2006, at which point their project was scrapped, and the reins instead handed back to Pixar's people. Production took place from May 2008 - May 2013 in California. The film opened #1 to an 82.4 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another weekend at #1 and then another in the top 5 (#4), grossing 268.4 mil. $ (36.1 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 90.1 mil. $ (12.1 %) and the UK with 47.1 mil. $ (6.3 %). The film was nominated for 2 BAFTAs, among other honors. The-numbers.com estimate that it made in excess of 134 mil. $ at the North-American home video market. Scanlon returned with Onward (2020). Crystal returned in 6 TV and short credits prior to his theatrical return in The Comedian (2016); Goodman in CollegeHumor Originals (2013, TV-series) and theatrically in The Monuments Men (2014). Monsters University is certified fresh at 80 % with a 6.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of Monsters University?

The Heat (2013) or, Prissy and Offensive in Boston

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1980s retro-styled, super-packed poster for Paul Feig's The Heat

 

Sandra Bullock (Miss Congeniality (2000)) and Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids (2011)) star as an unlikely cop team, one an up-tight, unpopular but professional FBI-agent from New York and the other a street-wise, dangerous and profane Boston cop. Together they are put together to put an end to a drug lord in Boston.

 
The Heat has earned many differing reactions, from wild praise to death threats. Its writer, Katie Dippold (Parks and Recreation (2009-2012)) wanted to make a cop buddy action-comedy in the style of Running Scared (1986) and Lethal Weapon (1987), but with women in the main parts. The result is a sometimes funny, and never action-fueled with excitement movie that is unlike said films because of the grotesqueness of the events and dialog in it. It is closer to the Bad Boys films, but still something very different, more outrageous and less of an action film.
A lot of the humor of The Heat comes from its American inside running gag of a Europe-aligned, modern New-Yorker pitched against an old-USA, Republican, gun-crazed Bostonian cop. This aspect is lost on many people outside of the US, and naturally the film was way bigger in the States than anywhere else.
Great Michigander filmmaker, director Paul Feig's (Bridesmaids (2010)) choice of music for The Heat underlines its outrageousness, being a loud mix of mostly clubbing and dirty hiphop tunes that smash into your ears like beef pompoms.
Marlon Wayans (Respect (2021)) acts as an awkward office commodity in the film, simultaneously looking insulted at and trying to flirt with Bullock's agent Ashburn. The rest of the supporting characters are mostly as thin and unsound as his. That is a problem.
The story never surprises in any way. That opposite type cop characters must partner up and eventually bond is more or less the main convention in the buddy movie sub-genre, and The Heat stays true to it. But around this, nothing new happens, crime or detective-wise. Only the bar scene (and all the other scenes, really) have gotten more outrageous, as this buddy cop comedy aims to ironize the genre while performing in its arena. McCarthy as Mullins gets her laughs from a (sometimes creative) 'insult-everyone'-strategy, while Bullock gets laughs mostly as a pawn for her bossy partner, as when she gets an involuntary make-over in a club bathroom, or when she steps up and becomes outrageous herself, like when she performs throat surgery on a man in a restaurant, who just has some pancake stuck in his mouth, or when she yells at a colleague for using his smartphone, while she's talking, - both funny moments in the film.
I don't have any problems with the buddy cop film being invaded by women here or the fact that The Heat doesn't want to have any romantic element, but then its action and cop plot elements have to work a lot better than they do. The problem is that the film wants to participate in a genre and poke fun at it at the same time.

Mullins' family, headed by her troubled brother (Michael Rapaport (Chuck (2016))) are the civilians we have to hope make it through the crime surge in the film. While some of the very dysfunctional family scenes are quite funny, they don't work in this part. Who cares if these idiots to make it?

 

Related posts:

Paul Feig: Ghostbusters (2016) - Feig's reboot is the summer's light-heartedly funny, slimy major release
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Spy (2015) - Feig and McCarthy score spy spoof gold!
The Heat (2013) or, Prissy and Offensive in Boston  
Top 10: Best comedies reviewed by Film Excess to date
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
2011 in films - according to Film Excess
Bridesmaids (2011) - Subversive comedy with laughs a-plenty  

1999 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

Freaks and Geeks - season 1 (1999) - Feig and Apatow end the 90s with a great youth show 

 

 

Watch a 1-minute clip from the film here

Cost: 43 mil. $
Box office: 229.9 mil. $
= Big hit (returned 5.34 times its cost)

[The Heat premiered 23 June (New York) and runs 117 minutes. Co-producer Peter Chernin bought Dippold's script for 600k $. Bullock was paid 10 mil. $ for her performance; McCarthy 2.5 mil. $. Shooting took place from July - September 2012 in Massachusetts, including in Boston. The film opened #2, behind holdover hit Monsters University, to a 39.1 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends in the top 5 (#3-#4), grossing 159.5 mil. $ (69.4 %). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Australia with 13.4 mil. $ (5.8 %) and the UK with 11.2 mil. $ (4.9 %). Talks of a sequel have not materialized. Feig returned with People in New Jersey (2013, TV movie) and theatrically with Spy (2015). Bullock returned in Gravity (2013); McCarthy in Tammy (2014). The Heat is fresh at 66 % with a 6.20/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of The Heat?