• Tag Archives Ryan Reynolds
  • Canister X Movie Review #100: X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

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    X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)
    Written by David Benioff and Skip Woods
    Directed by Gavin Hood
    Runtime 107 min.
    3 out of 5

    Little James was born in the 1800s and was always sick. His family background . . . well, he didn’t have much of one, at least, one that cared. Except for his friend, Victor. One night, during a drunken upset with his later-to-be-found-out father, James learned he could produce bone claws from his hands and defended himself, killing his father.

    That night, James and Victor were on the run, and promised to always stick together. The years go by and the two find a great outlet for their rage: war. Victor (Liev Schreiber) also has a special ability and he is more animal than man, with claws coming out of his fingers. The two are very similar and age very slowly. War after war goes by, and the two eventually end up working with a secret team run by William Stryker (Danny Huston). While on one mission, James—now calling himself Logan (Hugh Jackman)—feels Victor has gone too far in his attack on an innocent and walks out on the group.

    Years later, the group’s been disbanded and Stryker comes to warn Logan that Victor is behind the recent string of deaths of its former members. The only way Logan will be strong enough to fight the always-stronger Victor is to undergo a special experiment of Stryker’s own design: graft the indestructible adamantium to his bones. Logan agrees.

    But there’s something Stryker hasn’t told him about what’s been going on and when Logan finds out, he’s furious and wages an all-out one-man war against Stryker, Victor and anyone else who stands in his way.

     

    On the action: cool fight scenes and neat concepts. However, it seemed to me Logan was a little too acrobatic and was able to survive way more and take way more pain than even a mutant with a healing ability could.

    On the story: works for me, in that we knew Logan had a history going in. He was the star of the X-Men movies after all, and X2 especially focused on Logan’s origins as much as they were able to without detracting from the main story. I did like seeing what really went on and, more specifically, how Logan lost his memory. I was under the impression that he lost it because of the adamantium experiment and not after it. Doesn’t matter, but I did feel for the guy when the love of his life wasn’t all she was cracked up to be.

    On Deadpool, because, you know, it has to be covered: the whole story involving the secret ops group Logan was a part of made for fun action. Deadpool’s origin, hey, why not? To be honest, I don’t know if they followed the comics or not because I’m more a DC guy than a Marvel one and don’t know too much about Deadpool other than he’s the “merc with a mouth.” His transformation from normal-looking Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) to disfigured Wade—good stuff.

    Was this a perfect movie? No, unfortunately. It felt too cartoony as opposed to carrying with it the realistic tone the other X-movies had, namely the first two.

    Will I see the sequel? Absolutely. I’m a saga guy so I want to see what happens next.

    Check this film out if you’re the superhero-movie-completist type like me.


  • Canister X Movie Review #34: Green Lantern (2011)

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    Green Lantern (2011)
    Written by Greg Berlanti, Michael Green, Marc Guggenheim and Michael Goldenberg
    Directed by Martin Campbell
    Runtime 114 min.
    3.5 out of 5

    When dying alien and Green Lantern Abin Sur is discovered by brash and cocky fighter pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds), Hal’s life is suddenly changed when the mysterious alien gives him a green power ring and matching lantern with vague instructions to “speak the oath.”

    After finally unlocking the lantern, Hal is taken to the planet Oa where he learns he has become Abin Sur’s successor in the Green Lantern Corps and is also the first human to ever bear the powerful mantle of a Green Lantern.

    As part of his training, Hal is taken under the wing of a powerful Lantern named Sinestro (Mark Strong) whose view of right and wrong is sheer black and white, and who has no trouble enforcing the law with lethal force. Turns out Sinestro wasn’t the first to feel this way as long ago one of the creators of the lantern rings—one of the Guardians of Oa—disagreed with the Oan Council and set off on his own, discovering a new power, this one the yellow power of Fear. Now the superpowered being Parallax, this former Guardian wishes to take revenge on those who banished him.

    As Hal learns what it means to set aside his own pride and ego and live by the sacred Green Lantern oath—In brightest day, in blackest night . . . —he must come to grips with his newfound power and expel Parallax’s presence from the universe once and for all.

     

    After the crazy success of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, Warner Brothers and DC Comics were in big need of another hit after Superman Returns failed to deliver at the box office, and so they went to another DC hero: Green Lantern. Good choice. He’s a kind of Superman/Batman hybrid in that Hal Jordan is human and has the qualities and struggles thereof like Bruce Wayne, and yet by wielding his power ring, his superpowers get up there right alongside the Last Son of Krypton in many ways. Whether this was Warners’ reasoning or not, I don’t know—probably not—but GL was certainly a good character to try and take to the big screen, especially since it had never been done before.

    In a nutshell, the movie wasn’t bad. I liked it. It didn’t change my life, but it’s not the piece of garbage many folks make it out to be. It covered Hal Jordan’s transformation into Green Lantern, delivered awesome effects, created a sense of atmosphere both about the Green Lantern Corps and Oa, and came through on telling a simple story that got Hal Jordan from Point A to B in a reasonable amount of time.

    People complained there wasn’t enough action or not enough stuff on Oa—but those kinds of things aren’t—and weren’t—supposed to be the focus of this movie. It was about getting the ring into Hal’s hands and teaching him the ol’ Uncle Ben motto of “With great power comes great responsibility.”

    I like how it took time to get Hal used to using the ring and it wasn’t a case of him putting it on and suddenly becoming an expert on creating green light constructs. And once he figured it out, I enjoyed how his constructs were simple—the racetrack, machine guns, etc.—as opposed to something crazy or way too technical. Why? Put yourself in his shoes. You’d probably construct something you’re more comfortable with than trying to create some big complicated airship stocked with robot soldiers with a zillion weapons and stuff.

    The love story between Hal and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) seemed forced though it did provide a nice bridge between the realm of Oa and Earth. Clearly this relationship was introduced for sequel purposes because those who know the comics know Carol Ferris becomes the supervillain Star Sapphire down the line.

    I think in the end, Green Lantern did its job. Could it have been better? Sure. Could it have been worse? Yup.

    Regardless, I like popping this movie into the player from time to time, and if you’re a superhero fan, you should, too.


  • Canister X Movie Review #19: Blade: Trinity (2004)

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    Blade: Trinity (2004)
    Written by David S. Goyer
    Directed by David S. Goyer
    Runtime 113 min.
    3.5 out of 5

    Things come to a head in this thrilling final chapter in the Blade Trilogy, pitting Blade against Drake aka Dracula, the king daddy of all vampires. Teaming up with Hannibal King and Abigail Whistler, the trio seeks to take down Dracula before he can create more daywalkers and eliminate Blade forever.

     

    If you’re going to bring things to a head and have a final showdown between the good guy and a major bad guy, you need to ensure that your major bad guy is a big deal and you don’t really get any more big deal than Dracula. Created by Bram Stoker and based on the historical and infamous Vlad the Impaler, Dracula was the first vampire ever and has since become not only the most famous one, but has tons of media under his namesake including movies, books, TV shows, cartoons, songs—everything. And that’s just him never mind the countless media sporting all the vampires he inspired. Taking a vampire hunter like Blade and putting him up against Dracula makes good sense to me.

    Except the Dracula in this movie is pretty so-so, which doesn’t cut it, in my opinion. I was expecting an ultra-powerful vampire, one that would give even the Reapers in Blade II a run for their money in terms of villain awesomeness. Instead, I was given a strong vampire, but not the ultimate vampire. Too bad, too, because having him as a bad guy is an awesome idea.

    As always, Wesley Snipes leads the flick as the titular hero, picking up right where he left off in Blade II and staying consistent in character start to finish.

    Having Ryan Reynolds as Hannibal King—I’m a Reynolds fan. Put him in the right role and you’re guaranteed something good. Not sure how he stacks up against his comic book counterpart, but for this flick, not only was he tough as all get out and kicked all sorts of butt, but the comedic elements he brought had me laughing out loud more than once and yet such jokes worked in this movie and didn’t seem out of place.

    Jessica Biel as Abigail Whistler—who doesn’t like a strong woman who can hold her own and fight vampires? I appreciated the seriousness she brought to the role and was a nice counterbalance to Hannibal King.

    Kris Kristofferson was briefly back as Whistler, Abigail’s father. Won’t say more as I don’t want to spoil anything for those who haven’t seen the flick yet.

    This movie has solid action throughout, but I wish the climactic battle between Dracula and Blade was more epic. Seemed average, but that could just be me. Really liked this movie on the whole, though. It was the Dracula angle that brought it down a notch solely because there was more they could’ve done in terms of raising the stakes with such a villain.

    In the end, it’s a decent send-off for Blade and a pretty good bookend to the trilogy.

    Go check it out.