2 Razors

Batman #51

/ / Comics

Batman #51The final issue, an epilogue if you will, to Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo’s 4-plus year run on Batman comes to a close with what is very much a microcosm of Batman‘s self-titled comic during the New 52. Filled with some striking art, some questionable choices (why is Batman driving a penismobile?), humor, and a somewhat tantalizing mystery that ultimately leads nowhere all that interesting, Batman #51 is a fitting end to a period of the Dark Knight’s history I’d rather forget.

After the lights go out in Gotham, Batman is on the scene to keep the peace. However, in a switch that’s more than a little hard to swallow, nothing really happens on a night the lights went out in the crime capital of the DCU. While it works as a coda for the pair’s run, this is one of the most forgettable Batman stories I’ve read recently (which is still better than most the New 52 mediocrity).

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Mother’s Day

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Mother’s Day
  • wiki: link

Mother's DayFollowing the pattern of his last two films (Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve) director Garry Marshall‘s Mother’s Day is a cookie-cutter ensemble dramaedy set around a particular holiday. Filled with paper-thin characters who all can be described by a single characteristic who are marginally connected through themes of mothers and their daughters, Mother’s Day is a lazy film filled with sitcom humor and blase drama that asks the bare minimum of its cast. If it were a meal, Mother’s Day would be a lukewarm McDonald’s extra-value meal that no one bothered to put under the heat lamp. If it were a color it would be beige.

The stories include divorced mother (Jennifer Aniston) of two sons (Caleb Brown and Brandon Spink) struggling with the news that her ex-husband (Timothy Olyphant) has married a much younger woman (Shay Mitchell), grown sisters (Kate Hudson and Sarah Chalke) hiding their romantic relationships from their conventional parents (Margo Martindale and Robert Pine), a widower (Jason Sudeikis) and his two daughters (Ella Anderson and Jessi Case) struggling to move on a year after his wife’s death, a career-minded Home Shopping Network star (Julia Roberts) with what passes for a dark secret in this movie, and a waitress (Britt Robertson) unable to commit to her boyfriend (Jack Whitehall).

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Kong: King of the Apes – The Adventure Begins

/ / Television Reviews
  • Title: Kong: King of the Apes – The Adventure Begins
  • wiki: link

Kong: King of the Apes - The Adventure Begins

A longtime fan of King Kong, I was curious to see what Netflix had in store for the giant ape in their new animated series Kong: King of the Apes. Opening with a plodding movie to set the stage for the shorter individual episodes, “The Adventure Begins” gives us the backstory of baby Kong being found and rescued from poachers in the near future where most wildlife is extinct. Rescued by a scientist and his twin sons Lucas and Richard, Kong eventually outgrows the family’s ability to keep him secret eventually leading him to be the main attraction at a wildlife preserve or Alcatraz island stocked with other endangered animals and bio-mechanical robots in the form of dinosaurs and other creatures.

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Batman #50

/ / Comics

Batman #50I don’t remember the last time I picked up a Batman comic. That’s insane to me given how much of the Dark Knight Detective’s adventures I’ve read over the years but, like much of the New 52, I soured on this version of the character. Not surprisingly, I found myself a bit lost in a series where Batman has been largely absent for a year and Jim Gordon has stepped into a Batsuit to help keep the city safe.

Next month’s Batman #51 is the final one from the creative team which has helmed the book since the launch of the New 52 back in 2011 heading into this summer’s new reboot of the DCU. It’s not surprising to meet that Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo who decide to put Jim Gordon under the cowl (even though such a choice makes my brain explode with continuity issues) given the fact that the New 52 version of Batman is but a shadow of his former self.

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Batman v Superman: Trainwreck of Justice

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
  • IMDb: link

Batman v Superman: Dawn of JusticeWhat did I just watch? Returning to the scene of the crime while building on the shaky foundation of 2013’s Man of Steel, a film which turned DC Comic’s moral center into a cold-blooded killer, director Zack Snyder and writer David S. Goyer expand DC’s bleak, joyless universe with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

Shot in Snyder’s “cinematic” style of making every shot look like a music video, the incoherent plot makes poor use of its stars who attempt in vain to keep this Titanic from heading straight towards the iceberg at full speed. Cobbled together from a number of sources, most notably Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns and The Death of Superman, DC’s attempt to jump-start a Justice League franchise is an uneven mess of goo thrown against a wall in the vain hope that something might stick.

What’s surprising, given my dislike for Man of Steel, is the fact that Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice isn’t an awful movie – just an incompetent one. While it’s certainly not good, the movie introduces several interesting ideas (even if it doesn’t quite know what to do with any of them).

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