Category: Reviews

Given how incredibly popular Wolverine has been since his introduction in comics forty years ago, it’s always been a little odd that he has not fared well on the silver screen. While he’s been one of the strongest elements in all the X-Men films to date, his solo offerings — X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Wolverine – have not exactly worked. Hugh Jackman has said he had one solo film left in him so the challenge for Director James Mangold was making this one good.

Thankfully, Logan, was more than good. It was a thrilling experience on screen and now on home video. The movie, out now from 20^th Century Home Entertainment, works on multiple levels but is a fitting finale for Jackman’s portrayal of the canucklehead. Where the others were solo stories with lots of extra characters around, this is more of a buddy film with the first half focusing on the relationship between Logan and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) and the second half with his sort of daughter Laura (Dafne Keen).

We leap ahead to 2029, a world where mutants haven’t been born in twenty-five years, and where most of the existing ones are already dead. Xavier is dying, both from old age, and metal disease that has turned his psionic abilities into deadly force that has to be treated medicinally. He’s squirreled away in an abandoned Mexican refinery, watched over by Caliban (Stephen Merchant). Logan, the adamantium covering his bones, is slowly poisoning him so he’s finally aging and his healing factor is not what it used to be. To support his drinking and Xavier’s drugs, he drives a limo in a world that has seen better days but has not yet slipped into total dystopia.

There meager existence is upended when Logan is approached by Gabriela Lopez (Elizabeth Rodriguez), toting a young girl with her. She is on the run from Transigen where she worked as a nurse and the girl was raised in captivity. She appeals for Logan’s help but he wants nothing to do with her, no longer a noble figure but a broken hero. However, things change when Transigen’s enforcer Donald Pierce (Boyd Holbrook) warns Logan off and Lopez is soon dead.

Pierce is out for the girl, Logan, and Xavier so the chase is on. The buddy film is merged with a road race as Logan tries to keep them safe while slowly learning that Laura and the others were raised from mutant DNA experiments, making her his genetic daughter, altering his view of things.

Several of the children have escaped and gone to Eden, a mountain retreat, reportedly revealed through an X-Men comic so Laura convinces Logan to bring her there but along the way, they are stopped by a clone of Logan, dubbed X-24, and there is death and destruction in their wake.

Mangold paints a bleak portrait of a world without heroes and a man without a future. There’s a sense of hopelessness that pervades the story and it takes a youth to awaken the hero within. The writing gives everyone plenty to do and other than a stop at a farmhouse for dinner, the pacing is excellent.

Jackman and Stewart play off one another exceedingly well, a familiarity born from their previous work together. They bicker like the tired old men they are. As a result, the real revelation in this film is Keen, who is expressively silent during the first two-thirds of the film. When she speaks, though, it changes their dynamic and adds a new layer.

Interestingly, the combo pack comes with two Blu-ray discs – the film itself and Logan Noir, a black and white version that is chilling in its own way. The film can also be found on the DVD and the Digital HD code.

The AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.38:1 is superb, sharp, and near perfect. Coupled with Logan’s DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 mix, you have an excellent home viewing experience.

The special features include a handful of Deleted Scenes (7:45) with optional commentary by Mangold. Of these, only one could have made the film better. There is a multipart Making Logan (1:16:05) that breaks down the film from its origins in Old Man Logan and the X-23 storylines in comics to the casting process (Deen’s screen test is well worth a look) to production. Finally, there is a strong Audio Commentary by Mangold (which is repeated for Logan Noir).

If this is truly Jackman’s farewell to the character, he couldn’t have asked for a better story to share with his audience.

The trailer for Get Out intrigued me but ultimately I chose not to see it in the theater because it seemed a bit more of a thriller than I desired. But then lots of people I knew were recommending it, as were the critics. I was impressed by the 99% fresh Rotten Tomatoes score so when the opportunity came to review the film on disc, I decided to give it a shot.

I have never seen anything Jordan Peele has done but appreciate his work here as both writer and director. The film’s first two-thirds are very strong as everything appears idyllically normal with a loving, upper crust family welcoming the daughter’s boyfriend for a weekend visit. But, in many, many subtle ways, there’s also something very unnerving just below the surface. The house too perfect (despite the “black mold” in the basement), the dad just a tad too accommodating, and the maid a might too subservient.

Increasingly, things feel “off” and you get an unsettling feeling without fully knowing what is happening. Is it supernatural in nature? Is it white supremacy gone off the deep end? You get the clues slowly and by the time you figure it out, the film goes off the rails and devolves into standard horror fare, undercutting and spoiling the marvelous tone Peele established.

The movie stars Daniel Kaluuya as Chris Washington, a well-balanced, loving black boyfriend to Rose Armitage (Allison Williams). She has not told her parents, Dean (Bradley Whtiford) and Missy (Catherine Keener), that she has been dating a black man, which at first feels remarkably modern but is actually the first warning sign. The first real sign that not everything is right comes with the arrival of Rose’s brother Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones).

At the party the following day, the various friends seem particularly taken with Chris, who grins and bares it, while people recreate that uneasy feeling I first got when I watched Mandingo, checking him out. And that’s when the racist themes really get an airing in a nice variety of exchanges. But what about the maid Georgina (Betty Gabriel) and the handyman Walter (Marcus Henderson)? They’re the only other black people on hand and neither one seems welcoming; in fact, it’s the opposite. That raises new questions.

Chris shares his concerns with his pal, TSA Agent Rod Williams (Lil Rel Howery), so when he disappears for two days and can’t be reached, Rod goes into detective mode. Unfortunately, his concerns are laughed at by Detective Latoya (Erika Alexander). This in itself is a reflection of how black issues can be overlooked by authorities, even black ones,

The performances are well-mannered and downright creepy at times with high marks to Kaluuya and Williams, who get the most to do with their characters. Peele makes us uncomfortable with the very normalcy of the race relations along with the class structure on display. He doesn’t get showy…until that final third.

We then have the usual assortment of over-the-top blood and mess, predictable thrills, and an anticipated climax. What’s interesting about the film’s end comes with the Special Features which offers up a vastly differently final scene that changes the tone and the optional commentary from Peele explains his choices. While I’m reviewing this as a straight thriller, others have viewed it as a satire but it doesn’t entirely work on that level given the horror undercurrents driving the characters and issues of race.

The film is out now from Universal Home Entertainment in a variety of packages including the Blu-ray, DVD< Digital HD Combo Pack. The high definition transfer is crisp, clear, and colorful with an excellent audio track,

Along with the alternate ending, there are a score of deleted scenes including seven different versions of the actual end scene, showcasing Howery’s adlib skills. A few of the other scenes would have helped the film and again, these come with optional Peele thoughts. There is the far more perfunctory Unveiling the Horror of Get Out: Behind the Scenes and an engaging Q&A Discussion with Peele & Cast, hosted by Chance the Rapper. Finally, there’s an okay Feature Commentary from Peele.

It’s hard to imagine Vixen as a member of the DC Universe for over 35 years now, an early victim of the DC Implosion before arriving as a guest-star in Action Comics. She’s been a constant presence if not a major one, but was exactly in the range of secondary characters ripe for development for television since her powers were not entirely special effects-laden.

Interestingly, she was brought to The CW through their CW Seed website, a way to expand the Arrowverse with original content. In 2015, there were six short animated episodes that performed well enough that a second season arrived last October. The dozen episodes have now been edited into a 78-minute feature, Vixen the Movie, out now from Warner Home Entertainment.

The series is only kinda sort of close to the source material as we learn of Mari Jiwe McCabe’s (Megalyn Echikunwoke) upbringing in the African land of Zambesi, but raised in Detroit by her foster father Chuck Neil Flynn). The series opens with Mari wanting to learn the truth about her birth parents and the origins of the Tantu Totem necklace she was given by her birth mother. People are now after it and she discovers it imbues her with animal powers, bringing her to the attention of Flash (Grant Gustin) and Green Arrow (Stephen Amell). She rejects their offers of help and instead turns to college professor Macalester (Sean Patrick Thomas) for answers, leading her back to Africa and a confrontation with Kuasa (Anika Noni Rose), the sister she didn’t know she had, and one who wants Mari dead so she can possess the totem.

The second season went way beyond the comics and introduced the notion that there were five powerful totems – air, earth, water, fire, and spirit. The fire jewel has been found and comes into the possession of Benatu Eshu (Hakeem Kae-Kazim), a general who has been seeking any one of the jewels for years. He appears too powerful for Vixen until she digs deep and finds a way to persevere. Along the way, she demonstrates how comfortable she has gotten with her powers by aiding Flash, Firestorm (Franz Drameh/Victor Garber), Atom (Brandon Routh), and Black Canary (Katie Cassidy) during an attack from Weather Wizard.

The animated story suffers from the same weakness of its live-action colleagues, an inability to effectively write team action or proper use of powers. In this case, Eshu uses fire much as Heat Wave does, as some sort of force rather than something that burns. The dialogue has the same snap to it, though, which is welcome.

The animation is adequate if a little stiff and angular in character design while the live-action actors needed far better direction for their animated counterparts. Thankfully, Echikunwoke does a far superior job, which earned her a guest spot on Arrow last year and would be most welcome back for a third season or another live-action appearance.

The movie comes on a Blu-ray with Digital HD code. The lone special feature is “Vixen: Spirit Animal” which has comics historian and ComicMix contributor Alan Kistler, series executive producer Marc Guggenheim, Victor Garber, and Carlos Valdes weigh in on how her magical background fills a gap between the super-hero and the vigilante in the Arrowverse. Not much about her comic book origins are ever discussed, though. Additionally, there are two episodes from Justice League Unlimited included – “Hunter’s Moon” and “Grudge Match”.

Warner Home Entertainment is commemorating Wonder Woman’s 75th Anniversary leading up to the June 2 release of Patty Jenkins’ feature film. Joining in on the fun is this week’s rerelease of 2009’s animated film, directed by Lauren Montgomery.

This new edition, out as a Combo Pack with Bu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD, comes with just one new extra (the old ones remain): What Makes a Wonder Woman with a nice assortment of people chatting about her cultural significance, including Jenkins, Montgomery, Phil Jimenez, William Moulton Marston biographer Jill Lepore, and a few others for good measure.

Here’s our original review, which remains unchanged:

The DC Universe series of animated features got off to a rocky start with the Superman vs. Doomsday offering but has gotten steadily better.  New Frontier was pretty amazing and now they offer up Wonder Woman, which may be the closest we get to a feature about the Amazon Princess for quite some time.

And I’m pretty okay with that, given how good this direct-to-DVD offering is.  It’s not perfect, but it’s entertaining and a great introduction to the character. If you’ve been following the interviews we’ve been posting here at ComicMix, you know that it comes from the usual suspects behind the animated DCU along with a very strong voice cast.

The movie posits that Wonder Woman exists in a world of her own and there are no references to the greater DCU, allowing you to dwell on the mythological background that spawned the character.  Created by William Moulton Marston, his grasp of the Greek mythology he predicated the character on was shaky at best and frankly, it wasn’t until the George Perez-driven version of 1987 before anyone explored the Greek gods and their role in the Amazons’ world.

This is an extended origin story hewing fairly closely to the familiar canonical tale although there are several different interpretations of characters and events to make this another flavor of the origin.

We get to learn of the Amazons and how they arrived on Themyscira and how their queen, Hippolyta, longed for a child, fashioning one from clay and given life by the gods she worshipped.  Life in paradise was fine for some, not for others but the island also served as a prison for Zeus’ son Ares, god of war.  His scheme for freedom coincides with the accidental arrival of Steve Trevor, an Air Force pilot and the decision to hold a contest to allow the winner the right to bring the man back to his world.

The look of the island and its inhabitants is nicely designed and many of the familiar characters are given more personality and wit than their comic book templates.  Steve Trevor, voiced by Nathan Fillion, has more charm and unique characteristics than in any previous interpretation and makes you understand what Wonder Woman eventually sees in him.

Once Diana wins the contest and takes Steve back to “man’s world”, the story begins developing logic problems which are never resolved (or even explored in the accompanying commentary).  She’s given the invisible robot plane with no explanation or training in its use and then they go to America.  The Air Force doesn’t seem remotely interested in his whereabouts so he’s never debriefed but remains free to use their equipment.  He then says that Ares, now freed, is leaving a trail of destruction and a pattern will form and he can be followed, a logical point but never followed through.

Instead, Ares finds an ancient cult that remains active, and uses them to gain access to Tartarus where Hades aids his cause.  Let me say that the look and handling of Hades wildly varies form the comics but works perfectly here and I applaud the design.

Ares, now more powerful, summons an army from…somewhere…and launches his campaign of war against mankind from Washington D.C. which, from his point of view, makes no sense. He makes a pretty speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial which also makes little sense.  But it does kick off the climactic fight which is well handled throughout.  The arrival of the Amazons, though, makes it appear the Potomac River is as large as an ocean and is a little too reminiscent of moments from Troy and Lord of the Rings.

While the story doesn’t hang together as well as one would like, it also is filled with deft little moments and great bits of dialogue so kudos to WW scribe Gail Simone and Michael Jelenic for the overall story and Jelenic’s script.  The voice cast, led by Keri Russell, Alfred Molina, Rosario Dawson, and Fillion, is also strong, letting the animated people feel more than two-dimensional.

The score is a generic animation score and in that regard is like wallpaper but could have done more.

The disc comes with a 10-minute background to their next offering, the just announced Green Lantern feature due in July.  There are other background features to several other DCU animated projects and trailers for related product from Warner Home Video. The commentary from the production team could have been more focused but does provide some interesting insight into what made it to a storyboard and what made it to the final cut.   The two-disc set comes with several Justice League episodes as does the Blu-ray.

The Adventures of John Blake: Mystery of the Ghost Ship
By Phillip Pullman and Fred Fordham
Scholastic Graphix, 160 pages, $17.99

There’s little original in Phillip Pullman’s first graphic novel. We have a mystery ship shrouded in fog. Time travel. A rich madman. A plucky heroine. Still, he manages to spice things up then stir them into a tasty concoction that makes this book a cut above many of the more recent releases from Scholastic’s Graphix imprint.

First, it is taller and wider than the other books and artist Fordham takes advantage of this with solid sequential storytelling, barely wasting a panel. Pullman’s characters can be talky but at least here he’s giving them meaningful things to say.

We open with multiple threads all involving the Mary Alice, a sailing vessel that is legendary in its random appearances, always foreshadowed by thick fog, making it hard to discern. There are two different sets of people seeking it, one to understand it, one to destroy it. They work at cross-purposes throughout, which heightens the tension.

Then we have Serena, an Australian teen, who tumbles overboard her family’s sailboat only to be rescued by the boy in the red shirt, John Blake himself, the master of mayhem. As we learn throughout the book, the Mary Alice’s predicament is one of his unfortunate making and he’s trying to set things to rights. To accomplish that, he has to expose Carlos Dahlberg’s perfidy and it turns out, he needs Serena’s help to pull that off.

Dahlberg comes off two-dimensional while everyone else is nicely delineated by Pullman. Some of the best scenes are watching Serena acclimate herself to life aboard the Mary Alice and getting to know her time-lost crewmates. I actually wish there was a little more of that and little less mustache-twirling action.

It’s an ambitious tale with a lot packed into the pages. Fordham designs good characters and layouts but some of his figures are too stiff. The color work is also strong, which helps the overall story.
The best part may be that this is a done-in-one story. If we never see John Blake again, the readers will be satisfied. On the other hand, the title says “Adventures” so expect to see more of him in the future. This recommended for ages eight and up although younger readers may find the time travel paradoxes a little difficult.

I’ve grown to appreciate Vin Diesel over time so I thought it as high time I checked out his xXx franchise. I know it was intended as high octane action, his Rambo or Commando and it’s been fifteen years since the first such file. He supposedly died after the first while a second film focused instead on a different member of the XXX program, Darius Stone (Ice Cube). Diesel has been talking about xXx: The Return of Xander Cage since 2006 but it took a decade to finally get it done and in all that time, you would have thought they’d come up with a story.

The basic gimmick is that there is now a device that can override satellite programming and turn them into weapons, bringing them crashing down on targets. Nicknamed Pandora’s Box, it is in the possession of the CIA until they are betrayed, allowing a tactical to invade and steal it. When a satellite is brought down on NSA Agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel Jackson), it triggers a mad scramble to obtain the device.  The CIA’s Jane Marke (Toni Collette) tracks down Cage and convinces him to find the box in Gibbons’ memory.

From there, it’s a dizzying collection of set pieces as various factions clash in pursuit of the box which takes them around to tropical locales allowing Diesel’s muscles to glisten and women to wear very little, including rival Serena Unger (Deepika Padukone). The story’s conceit is that nothing is as it seems and betrayals and reversals come quickly until the various factions band together to destroy the device before it can be used again.

The set pieces are fast and usually imaginative, although the editing shreds many excellent moments, a disservice notably to Donnie Yen and Tony Jaa. DJ Caruso’s direction is frenetic but does little to enhance the storytelling.

There are the Schwarzenegger-like quips, notably “I love this shit” as Cage reaches the film’s climax. But beyond that, the dialogue is flat and unrevealing about the characters which wastes some good actors, especially Collette. Joining the team as their geeky tech expert is Felicity Smoak, I mean, Rebecca “Becky” Clearidge (Nina Dobrev), who at least gets some good moments. Jackson appears early on and is on the joke that Gibbons and Nick Fury are almost identical (which gives the film its best inside joke in the opening scenes).

Overall, it’s a lot of noise and action and very little to hang it on which is disappointing and could explain why the $85 million production earned about half that domestically, a major disappointment. Even its worldwide gross of about $350 million makes a fourth installment questionable.

The film, out now from Paramount Home Entertainment, has a superb 2.39:1 high definition transfer coupled with a Dolby TrueHD 7.1 audio track that lets you hear every shell casing hit the ground. It has been released in multiple packages including the Blu-ray, DVD, Digital HD combo and 4k UHD.

The Blu-ray comes with a handful of special features that focus on the cast and crew including Third Time’s the Charm: Xander Returns, Rebels, Tyrants & Ghosts: The Cast, Opening Pandora’s Box: On Location, I Live for This Sh#t!: Stunts, and a great Gag Reel.