1 Razor

Beauty and the Beast – Pilot

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Beauty and the Beast – Pilot
  • tv.com: link

beauty-and-the-beast-2012-pilot

The CW’s Beauty and the Beast is based loosely, very loosely, on the late 1980’s CBS show of the same name that starred Linda Hamilton as New York Assistant District Attorney Catherine Chandler and Ron Perlman as Vincent, the noble beast whom she fell in love with. Created by Ron Koslow, the 80’s show was a fairy tale love story between a spoiled rich girl turned crusader after a vicious attack and the man who became her protector. The show was filled with some terrific costume and set design including the world of “Down Below” where Vincent lived with outcasts from above. Did I mention how little the new version mirrors the original?

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Justice League #0

/ / Comics

justice-league-new-52-0-coverWhen people ask me what issues I have with the New 52 I can point to this latest issue of Justice League which is a microcosm for all that’s wrong with DC Comics’ current direction.

The Shazam back-up story takes center stage as Billy Batson meets the wizard Shazam for the first time and turns into… Booster Gold (with Freddy Freeman standing in for Ted Kord)? Captain Marvel, a character who has delighted comic readers almost as long as Superman as a noble, if naive, paragon of virtue finds the last shreds of his origins shredded.

We’d already seen in the previous issues of Justice League that DC Editorial threw out the original character in favor of a street-tough grifter, and now they do the same with his super-powered alter-ego.

Bestowed the magical powers by the wizard Shazam, who couldn’t be bothered to find anyone worthy of them (sigh, it’s Kyle Rayner‘s origin all over again), Billy is transformed into a immensely powerful figure who, let’s just say, is seriously lacking the wisdom of Solomon.

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Ghost Rider: The Sequel No One Was Demanding

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
  • IMDB: link

ghost-rider-spirit-of-vengeance-dvdAnd I thought the first movie was dumb. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and somehow still found myself disappointed. Somehow co-directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (the brains behind the Crank films… and Jonah Hex) manage to deliver a film that’s less engaging, and arguably makes less sense, than the first trainwreck.

One of the few things Ghost Rider had going for it was the look of the Rider which the sequel completely redesigns with a pitch-black skull and constantly burning and flaking clothes (that never come close to actually burning away) that’s more distracting that anything else. But hey, here’s a film that needs all the distractions it can get.

The Rider also appears to be mildly retarded this time around as he moves around as if he’s a marionette with half of his strings cut, jerking in this direction or the next before the film is sped-up (in Crank fashion) for Ghost Rider to, most unimpressively, take vengeance on the wicked.

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Batman Incorporated #1

/ / Comics

batman-incorporated-new-52-1-coverPlease, for the love of God, would somebody at DC stop letting Grant Morrison write Batman stories. Morrison resurects several of his Batman Incorporated supporting players and throws them haphazardly in the New 52 for the new (but not really improved) Batman Incorporated.

The issue starts with a group in animal masks mutilating livestock to lure Batman and Robin into the crosshairs of the assassin known as Goatboy. Sigh. Goatboy, it seems, has decided to cash in on the hit Leviathan has laid on young Damian.

Morrison gives us the Dead Heroes Club (Batwing, El Gaucho, The Hood, Wingman, and Halo) almost all of whom I didn’t even know existed in the New 52 before now. He also gives us Dark Knight Returns mutants (for no more reason than he gave us Goatboy), and one hell of a bullshit ending even an newbie first-time comic book reader could call. Seriously, I can’t believe Morrison went for such an obvious sleight of hand in the first issue of a new Bat-title where we know damn well nothing bad is going to happen to the Dynamic Duo.

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Justice League #7

/ / Comics

justice-league-new-52-7-coverThere’s so much wrong with the latest issue of Justice League it’s hard to know where to begin. First, following the success of the team’s first mission we skip 5 years ahead to present day, but the team still acts like they’ve only been working together for all of five minutes.

The conversion of Hal Jordan into early Booster Gold seems now complete as not only is Green Lantern used mainly for comic relief but he goes so far as to hit on the ex-wife of the biological warfare specialist during the fight with the spores he’s been exposed to.

The art by Gene Ha at least saves us the characters posing and looking in different directions (mainly) but it’s also dirtier and somewhat sloppier than the title’s first six issues. And Geoff Johns dialogue continues to be so mindnumbingly bad it’s getting harder and harder for me to defend him and blame it on DC Editorial. The fact that the story is also told from the perspective of Steve Trevor, a character who no relation to the team so far, seems oddly out of place as well.

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