Monster Family

I've got a bit of an admission to make.

Recently, I've been watching some foreign kids CGI movies. 

And I've been liking them.

Sure, the effects aren't always decent and the plots can be rather cliche, but overall they can be kinda entertaining. It may help that my expectations are lower, but like with The Snow Queen, for example, they can be surprisingly decent.

So, when I saw advertising for a movie called Monster Family, I figured that I'd give it a go.

And, despite my low expectations, I was still disappointed.

I just can't imagine that a movie like this would have cliches.

Yeah, this movie has bad sitcom cliches out the wazoo. So let's drag our knuckles down and sink our fangs into it then.

Batman And Harley Quinn

I am a massive fan of Harley Quinn.

No, not that one.

Very definitely not that one.

I'm talking about the Harley Quinn from the original cartoon.

I should elaborate.

Harleen Quinnzel was an exceptionally talented psychiatrist (Who apparently practised gymnastics). She pushed for a transfer to Arkham Asylum in order to study the Joker. She believed that she could cure him, but instead she was hooked by his charm and wit, falling madly in love.

And since this is the Mark Hamill Joker we're talking about, it's actually believable.

When he next broke out, he kidnapped her and enlisted her as his sidekick/girlfriend.

Eventually he got bored of her and tried to ditch her.

I forget the details, but after she was left for dead Poison Ivy found her and took pity on her. Ivy's knowledge of plants allowed her to grow medicine for her. Some of the side-effects of this included granting Harley immunity to poisons (Including Joker-venom) and bleaching her skin.

The character was popular enough that she was ported to the comic books, then to other media and eventually she was the main character in that trash-heap of a movie.

Since then, seemingly as an apology to the fans, DC made a movie focused primarily on her teaming up with Batman in order to track down Poison Ivy.

...

So, with that out of the way, let's watch Batman And Poison Ivy and see if we can finally get a good Harley Quinn movie.

So far so good.

The Princess Bride

This is my very favourite movie. So much so that I actually cosplayed as the main character last time I went to a convention.

And it also celebrated it's 30th anniversary this week.

So it's only fitting that I finally get around to talking about The Greatest Tale of True Love and High Adventure.

A fairy tale like no other, of fencing, fighting, torture, poison, true love, hate, revenge, giants, hunters, bad men, good men, beautifulest ladies, snakes, spiders, beasts, chases, escapes, lies, truths, passion and miracles.

And yes, that quote was from the back of the book.

So, let's have a watch and see if I can work out just why this movie became such a cult classic.

Mythica: A Quest For Heroes.

I don't think it's really a secret that I'm a massive Dungeons and Dragons nerd.

I love being a player, I love being a GM, I love reading fantasy novels, looking at monster stat-lines, creating new races, building entire worlds.

It is quite a wondrous thing to be a fan of.

But there's one D&D related thing I don't enjoy.

Watching the movies.

For some reason they just cannot get a good movie done.

Even movies based off of D&D don't do very well. The whole Fantasy genre appears to be mired in a pool of mediocrity.

It doesn't help that they're very cheap to make, so a lot of mediocre film companies will just churn them out to make a quick buck. Just buy some costumes and go film in the woods for a few hours, add some monster in post and BAM, one terrible fantasy movie.

Arrowstorm Entertainment, on the other hand, actually care about making movies that at least have decent plots.

You may remember them from my reviews of Dawn of the Dragonslayer and its' sequel.

So, I present to you Mythica: A Quest For Heroes.

These guys really need to sack whoever keeps doing these.

Okay Arrowstorm, we need to have a serious talk. Can you please, please start making DVD covers that actually relate to the movie?

Two of those three people don't appear in the movie. That dragon doesn't appear in the movie. That castle might appear in the movie, but if it does it's only briefly. She doesn't use swords in the movie. Not even one, let alone two. That skirt isn't even a part of her outfit for crying out loud.

Want to know the most insulting part of this cover though?

Can you spot it?

The actual screenshot they edited for the front cover actually appears on the back cover.

Great job editor, great job.

Luckily, the movie's better than the cover, so let's get straight into it.

Doctor Strange

Can you believe just how far the Marvel Cinematic Universe has come?

It appeared seemingly out of nowhere back in 2008 with Iron Man and blew everybody's minds.

Then Iron Man 2 came out and proved that Marvel Studios weren't just a one hit wonder.

Everything just got bigger and better from there, building up to The Avengers, which smashed cinematic opening records the world over.

Ever since then, Marvel have expanded which properties they're willing to adapt to the big screen. It's not just their biggest names who're getting the limelight anymore, but relative unknowns such as Ant-Man and The Guardians of the Galaxy.

Thus, Marvel have proven that they can turn almost any of their characters into cinematic gold.

So it was only a matter of time before they got around to the Sorcerer Supreme himself, Doctor Strange.

You will see the Doctor now.

I'm super excited about this movie, and not just because of how much I enjoyed it. But also because the Doctor will be dropping by near the end to finally get my soul out of Deadpool's head and into the LMD.

You're excited? Imagine how excited I am to finally be free of you. I've had enough people catching free rides in my brainpan for one lifetime.

Maybe you should have thought of that before you killed me back in the Deadpool review.

How was I supposed to know that you'd come back to haunt me in the Green Lantern review?

...

Do you think that's enough backstory for the readers to remember what's going on?

Yeah, so let's get into reviewing this movie already.

Suicide Squad

Does any type of movie attract more hate than the bad superhero movie?

There are certainly enough bad movies out there. There have been bad action movies, bad romance movies and a whole glut of bad fantasy movies.

But bad superhero movies tend to stand out and be remembered.

Ask anybody to name a bad fantasy movie and they'll probably list a few so-bad-it's-good movies. But when asked to name bad superhero movies? There's a whole frigging list of unsalvageable atrocities.

I think the problem comes from the fact that they're attempting to take something that's already beloved by millions and transform it into money via moviedom, but without taking any time to understand why it's beloved.Take today's movie, as an example.

Finally one of my favourite DC characters is on film and boy, was it disappointing.

I honestly don't know what this movie was supposed to accomplish. Most of these guys are recurring villains from DC superheroes who haven't even gotten their own movies yet.

But it does have Will Smith, so I was willing to give it a chance.

I should not have done so.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

In all of the aeons of human history, few superhero movies are looked down upon as much as today's. Especially by my co-star.

For good reason.

Indeed. People disliked Batman Forever. People scoffed at Green Lantern. People despised Batman Vs Superman. Spider-Man 3, X-3: The Last Stand, Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, all of these caused their series to be rebooted.

But of all the bad superhero movies, this one stands out as being the very worst.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Either that, or this is a Hugh Jackman workout video.

This movie went wrong at just about every step it could go wrong at.