2.5 Razors

C.H.O.M.P.S.

/ / Home Video
  • Title: C.H.O.M.P.S.
  • IMDb: link

Recently re-released on home video, 1979’s C.H.O.M.P.S. was live-action kiddie fare about a robot dog and ridiculous criminals (Chuck McCann and Red Buttons). A struggling young inventor (Wesley Eure) creates a robotic version of his own dog as the next line in home security. While he’s still working out the bugs, the Canine HOMe Protection System even impresses his hard-to-please boss (Conrad Bain) whose security company is under attack from a rival (Jim Backus), and a member of his own team (Larry Bishop) sabotaging their product.

Valerie Bertinelli also stars as our inventor’s girlfriend, and the daughter of his hot-headed boss. While I remember the film keeping my interest as a kid, it’s target audience is limited to that demographic.

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Devil’s Reign: Spider-Man #1

/ / Comics

It seems Ben Reilly‘s role in Marvel’s Devil’s Reign is to get beat up, captured, and rescued. Then repeat. After being freed by his friends, Spidey-Clone is captured again by the Thunderbolts making use of S.H.I.E.L.D. tech. Getting out of his latest jam, Reilly makes it back to Beyond to do a minimal amount of healing before being sent back into danger.

Devil’s Reign: Spider-Man #1 is your typical tie-in issue. While not bad, if you choose to skip the issue there’s nothing here of major interest and  you also won’t miss anything in terms of the larger Devil’s Reign story. The other half of the comment focuses on the Rose, and the character’s obsession with proving himself by capturing Spider-Man for his father. Unfortunately, while his minions are able to momentarily get the upper-hand, things don’t turn out so well in the end. It seems if you want a job done right…

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The War for Earth-3 #1

/ / Comics

Spinning out of the (surprisingly good) latest volume of Suicide Squad comes the first issue of The War for Earth-3 as Amanda Waller and her team invade the alternate Earth controlled by Ultraman and the Crime Syndicate. Meanwhile, Rick Flag‘s team have their own problems on Earth-0 dealing with the surprise Waller left for them.

While Waller’s team takes down Power Ring and then Owlman, Ultraman is distracted by the sex games of Owlman and Superwoman providing the Squad with just the opening they need and Waller time to make her pitch to the world’s most dangerous man. Aside from the seedy Owlman / Superwoman / Ultraman stuff, ick, there is plenty of action (although nowhere near $6 worth) and Waller does have a plan which her team executes leading to a new status quo. The war has begun. Hmm, okay?

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Dragons: The Nine Realms – Dragon Club

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Dragons: The Nine Realms – Dragon Club
  • wiki: link

“Dragon Club” plays out largely like the second episode as another kid from the ICARIS research station is introduced to the hidden world of dragons, and saves and befriends a dragon of their own. This time it’s the reluctant D’Angelo (Marcus Scribner) who is dragged into Dragon Club (complete with an overt reference to Fight Club… for a kids show?) in order to help an injured Gembreaker dragon he will call his own by the end of the episode. The adults remain clueless as to what is going on, although Alex (Aimee Garcia) does make a discovery suggesting she will be the next introduced to Dragon Club.

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Fireheart

/ / Home Video
  • Title: Fireheart
  • IMDb: link

Set in New York during the 1920s, L’Atelier Animation’s Fireheart stars Olivia Cooke as Georgia Nolan who has grown up dreaming of becoming a firefighter. When her father (Kenneth Branagh), retired firefighter turned tailor, is brought back by the department after the rest of the city’s firefighters go missing, Georgia sees her chance to live her dream in the gender-bending farce / coming of age story. Passing herself off as a male volunteer, Georgia discovers what being a firefighter is all about.

Relying on a host of goofy secondary characters including a narcoleptic cab driver, William Shatner as the city’s sleazy mayor, cute dog, and a villain with bizarre motives but seemingly endless supply of money and technology, along with a generic chasing your dreams kind of story, Fireheart is mostly forgettable fare with a nice message for young girls about breaking through the glass ceiling.

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