Going in to the official DVD release for “Jonny Quest” I couldn’t believe what they’d done with the treatment. There’s a beveled slip cover and a two disc edition with DVD faces that look immaculate. It’s a well deserved treatment because to this day I am baffled as to why this series never broke out on its own and became a hit. Perhaps audiences just didn’t care? Maybe the series wasn’t handled well enough. Or maybe the viewers were too young to understand the complex narrative and intricate characterization that made this series an instant favorite of mine. There may also be some contention at the very suggestively violent moments that included a man being impaled on elephant tusks and blood shed during fights with villains.
Tag Archives: Action
The Zeta Project: Season One (DVD)
There’s only one other science fiction series I can think of that manages to be half as good and exciting as “The Zeta Project” and that’s “Reboot.” The series, now on a special edition DVD, “The Zeta Project” is a spin off of the critically acclaimed “Batman Beyond.” His story in the aforementioned series is pretty much the same as the one told here. Zeta is an android who has the ability to change appearances which allows him to remain in the general population without being detected.
His introduction in “Batman Beyond” happens to be one of the best episodes of the series; so good was it that it eventually branched out on its own. Sadly, the series didn’t last very long on the WB Network here in America and the characters were shun in to obscurity. Looking back at the format thanks to this great long overdue DVD series, it’s still a fun and exciting sci-fi series very much in the vein of “The Fugitive” following a robotic unit intended for war who suddenly gains a conscious.
Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (2009)
Hi Hollywood, what’s new Capcom? I thought I should start this review here with a bit of Tony Robbins tough love and ask why you still feel the need to option movies whose origins live in the video game world. When will you ever learn that there’s no such thing as a good video game movie and there never will be? Hollywood, you’ve put us through misery for years trying to take plotless video games and turn it on its ear, and have also managed to simultaneously take games with narrative and structure and destroy it without fail. What’s the deal? Don’t the video game movie flops ever help you to realize that there’s just no point in adapting even the most popular games? I’ve lived through Doom, Tomb Raider and Resident Evil and we’ve yet to see something good derived from either of them.
Watchmen: The Complete Motion Comic (DVD)
Was fame the key to their downfall?
Or perhaps the burden of upholding the laws and values of mankind were just too horrific to withstand to their psyche?
Or maybe, just maybe, they forgot that they were human and they just couldn’t manage to take care of folks too similar to themselves. Perhaps humanity continued to remind them that they were human themselves, and not very good ones. And those awful people were appointed with the task of watching over civilization, and inevitably corrupted.
Wonder Woman (2009)
Even as a man who hasn’t held much empathy for the character, “Wonder Woman” has been in the top ten movies I’ve been looking forward for a good year now. Though she was never my biggest influence in regards to comic books, DC and Warner have had a great turn out of Straight to DVD movies and this one is no exception. With excellent voice work and top notch production quality, “Wonder Woman” is a movie that will definitely sell itself to people still adamant in their belief that Diana is more a character for little girls to worship. “Wonder Woman” aims for appeal to everyone from the discerning fan boy, the hardcore general comic book population, and of course young girls who want a break from the boys club for a while. Though I wouldn’t suggest this to girls too young; you can thank the sexual overtones for that (Steve: Your daughter has a nice rack), consumers.
Taken (2008)
Whoa, who knew Liam Neeson was such a hard ass, but then his parental tendency to kick ass and take names when his daughter is kidnapped is never an element that distracts viewers with the believability, mainly because it’s Liam Neeson, a man in his fifties who struts around the film as the hero who is a change of pace from young male models and wrestlers who normally dominating the big screen. Neeson is an antidote to all the barely past puberty action pukes and convinces us that he’ll kill anyone and everyone if you take from him. It’s a true testament that Neeson simply knocks this role out of the park.
Hulk Vs. (2009) (Two-Disc Special Edition DVD)
It only stands to reason that Marvel would create such an unusual pairing of short films based around two of Marvel’s flagship characters. What with the Hulk smashing the box office, the development of a “Thor” film, and Wolverine being granted the lead in a new series and a series of action movies, it suddenly comes to mind that these pairings aren’t so odd after all. Once you break it down to its core, it’s really Marvel testing the waters for the fan boys and girls yet again. And if you’re not over thinking things like moi, there’s always the possibility that Marvel just wanted to get three of the greatest Marvel heroes and make them go one, two smashing the Earth and spitting blood in a stand off that only exemplifies the appeal and why my local DVD store had to restock every week since these movies premiered on shelves across the nation.