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.
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.
It’s been a long time coming but we finally singled out the best and worst of 2008 as chosen by Cinema Crazed. Please to enjoy.
Before you start in on what the best movie of our year has been so far, I’ll just declare straight that “Wall E” may not only be the best movie of the year, but also one of the finest PIXAR has ever created. Intelligent and bold without alienating its target audience, “Wall E” is that movie that dwarves talking animals flicks blowing away the likes of chimps in space and a kung fu panda. “Wall E” is a magnificent global conscious adventure about the utterly adorable helper robot who doesn’t know that he doesn’t have to clean up what was once considered our home planet.
Sure it watches like a compilation of cut scenes from past games, and sure in some cases it’s an attempt at a reboot for the series, but all I could think about while watching “Regeneration” is: Was this so fucking hard to do for fans and general horror fans? We had to suffer through three really bad derivative quasi-horror films and now we’re given a virtually completely animated movie that just gets it right. Why is it so hard to release this and let us endure Paul WS Anderson’s butchery in the first place? “Degeneration” pretty much sums up its goal from the opening shot where WilPharmacy’s have taken over the city leaving where Raccoon City left off.
Jacob Drake is probably one of my favorite independent animators, because while the character models tend to be crude at times, there’s a certain dynamic charm they obtain to where the art slowly evolves in to outstanding models of figures and men that only add to the silliness and inherent great sense of humor engrained in the movie that is “The Greatest Fan Film of All Time.” For a sequel and a fan film the folks now working outside the defunct Bullcrank studios, “The Greatest Fan Film” makes good in its word of being a funny but epic finisher for a small group of independent filmmakers now seeking their own niche in entertainment.
I know that Brendan Fraser hasn’t had a great go of it this year thanks to the Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, but for my money “Journey to the Center of the Earth” was a fun little adventure film in 2D and most especially in 3D. Finally being able to see what director Eric Brevig has in store with his 3D aspect, “Journey” is a fun event film that takes the 3D device and manages it in to a storytelling aspect that keeps the movie consistently fun. And if you think the movie is based only around 3D—well–you’re partly right, but “Journey 3D” is also a fun movie with some great sights and sounds to be had.