The Daily Procrastinator

May 1st is going to disappoint a lot of Wolverine fans. It’s going to enrage a lot of every single Deadpool fan. Gambit and Emma Frost fans are going to feel slighted. Hell, the three Blob super-fans out there are going to have to commiserate over a bucket of fried chicken skins after seeing Wolverine: Origins. To a Marvel comic book reader, the movie is that bad.

To non-comic book readers, the movie might be a mindless, action-filled romp, which is apparently all Fox wanted this movie to be. To fans of the comic book characters, the movie will be yet another example of why Fox should keep their hands off of Marvel properties.

Think about it. The most successful comic book movies have been films that, above all, stay true to the characters they are representing from the comic books. The Dark Knight takes enormous liberties with the details of how Bruce Wayne manages to be the caped crusader, but the movie never falters on the reasons why he does what he does. The first two Spider-Man films might diverge from the stories as presented in the comics, but they don’t infringe on who Peter Parker is, who Spider-Man has historically been (and even the third can only be faulted for how poorly the symbiote’s influence on Parker was portrayed). And the first two X-Men films, while not presenting the exact stories from the books, get the characters right.

Even with Storm's bad hair, you can still recognize each character

Look at the failed superhero movies: Daredevil, while not a complete bomb, tried to make the Man Without Fear into a Spider-Man/Batman hybrid. He’s not. It should be the simplest thing in the world to make a solid Punisher movie, but it hasn’t happened yet. Elektra might as well not have been about the Marvel character. The Fantastic Four films chose to go cheap on characterization, heavy on the campiness, and any sense of these characters beyond cartoons is never allowed. The casting wasn’t all that great, either (note: when re-booting, keep that guy who played Johnny Storm, can the rest – yes, including Jessica Alba – and make the Thing CGI).

Shouldn't The Thing look more physically imposing?

Wolverine: Origins commits the same damn mistake that those latter films do: it’s not true to the source material. Listen, I could care less how Ryan Reynolds character becomes Deadpool, so long as the figure called Deadpool is a mouthy killer who’s good with all kinds of weapons. He shouldn’t shoot Cyclops’ beams out of his eyes nor should swords the length of his arms come out of his forearms, AND HIS MOUTH SHOULDN’T BE SEWN SHUT! And it follows that if a prior film suggests that Wolverine has a dark past (you know, like X2 – and all of Marvel continuity – suggests), I’d expect to see some dark times rather than a character that is utterly heroic and noble throughout his entire life. As the tagline suggests, what Wolverine does isn’t very nice.

FOX studio's version of Deadpool - I'm not kidding.

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that the most successful comic books films remain true to the source material. There’s a reason these characters have remained popular with readers for decades, and when a studio disregards these qualities in favor of a chance to dazzle with some meaningless special effect, they are not creating a Wolverine movie, a Marvel movie, or a DC movie, but a _______ studio movie.

And that’s not what comic fans are paying to see.

On Saturday night at midnight, my pre-ordered copy of Guitar Hero: Metallica became available at my local video game dealer. They opened the door at midnight especially for those of us who just couldn’t wait until Sunday morning. Of course, I was involved in a heated bout of darts and tap beers, so I ended up waiting until Sunday after all.

On Sunday, though, the glory of this latest installment in the Guitar Hero family of games shone down upon me. I spent hours playing the game, first tinkering with some of the quickplay options, later completing 48% of the story mode. I rate this game a rock-solid 9/10.

Like Guitar Hero: World Tour and Rock Band, this game allows four-player gameplay including guitar, bass, drums, and vocals.

For starters, the game is amazing to look at. Every menu has been customized to reflect Metallica’s logos, old t-shirt designs, and other metalhead content. While actually playing the game, the animated James, Lars, Kirk, and Rob are more lifelike than any Guitar Hero characters ever. Having seen Metallica in concert many times, I can attest that the animated characters don’t just look like the real thing; they behave like the real thing, too. Trujillo stalks and storms, Hetfield gestures to the crowd, Lars stands up at the drum set, and Kirk wanders around like some confused, Satanic waif. It’s pretty much perfect.

Is it real or is it Guitar Hero?

The song selection available in Guitar Hero: Metallica is impressive. The vast majority of the tracks are drawn from Metallica’s career, with a smaller selection of songs chosen by the band from artists who influenced them. My only complaint about the game–the reason I rate it 9 instead of 10–involves the song selection. In the repertoire of Metallica songs, I just don’t understand the selection of “Frantic.” I hate this song. It feels like the game creators were cruising along and selecting great old Metallica songs…and suddenly thought, “Oh, crap. We should include something from St. Anger.” No. No, you shouldn’t. That album is trash. I’m also not crazy about “All Nightmare Long,” but I’ll get over it. In the non-Metallica track list, I can do without Corrosion of Conformiy’s “Albatross.” This song is repetitive and uninspired. It does not ROCK. Conversely, Mastodon’s “Blood and Thunder” does, indeed, rock…but the vocals are of the Cookie-Monster variety. That’s just not fun to try to sing. Even considering these weak points, the song selection is, as I mentioned earlier, impressive. Metallica songs from their best albums (Kill ‘Em All, Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, and …And Justice For All) abound.

Guitar Hero: Metallica also raises the bar of difficulty in the world of “rock star” type games. There’s a new Expert Plus mode for drums that includes double kick pedals for the bass drum. Also, the complex guitar solos make many of the songs difficult to play on guitar, even on the Medium difficulty setting. I can see that I’ll be spending many, many hours trying to work my way up to Hard or Expert.

On the whole, the game creators responsible for Guitar Hero: Metallica have programmed a masterpiece. As soon as I can speak again (my vocal cords are shot from fronting my band), I’m going to tell everyone I know to go out and buy it.

With The Watchmen hitting theaters this past weekend, and the reports of its levels of violence, sexual scenes, and grim themes, it’s time that Hollywood re-tool its ratings system to bring it more in line with sanity and reason.

Honestly, I have no idea what “R” means to Hollywood, other than that it means the film is for restricted audiences, i.e., the 17 and over crowd (side note: parents, if you take your pre-teen kid to The Watchmen, you are an imbecile and proof that we should require licenses to become parents). Beyond that, it seems to have no real definition. Let me illustrate: There Will Be Blood and The Watchmen received the same rating. Gladiator and the new Friday the 13th received the same rating. Wedding Crashers and Hostel received the same rating.

Do you see something wrong here?

The MPAA website defines each rating here, explaining that an ‘R’ movie “contains some adult material. An R-rated motion picture may include adult themes, adult activity, hard language, intense or persistent violence, sexually-oriented nudity, drug abuse or other elements, so that parents are counseled to take this rating very seriously.” I could probably make a case that The Dark Knight deserved an R rating based on the above criteria, but it was given a PG-13. This is a movie where, among other scenes, the Joker slams a man’s head onto an upright pencil, another man has a cell phone rigged with explosives sewn into his stomach, half of Harvey Dent’s face is burned away, and, because of its serious (“adult”?) themes, it was considered a possible candidate for Best Picture. Why was DK not given an R? Because most of the violence was either off-screen or not bloody, there was no nudity, and the “hard” language did not include the word fu*k. And it works – DK is a PG-13 movie because of the steps the director/producers took while filming and editing, knowing that Batman is a comic book first, and thus will pull in a younger audience.

The R rating, though, is often a failure because there seem to be no set limits to an R movie’s content; the MPAA Rating Board’s decision-making appears arbitrary, at best. The Watchmen‘s Dr. Manhattan, for example, is naked throughout the film. Now, I’m a fan of the comic, and the film doesn’t blink on his nudity (except in its advertisements where he always has the briefs on), and I understand that he’s a demi-god: he’s beyond clothes. Still, male frontal nudity has ALWAYS received an R rating (and, yes, I recognize the MPAA’s double standard with regard to full frontal female nudity), and Manhattan’s nudity is at times sexual in nature. Then there’s the non-blue penis sexual scenes, which are explicit. Beyond this is the language, which is most definitely “hard.” Then there’s the violence, both stylized and graphic. Blood flows, limbs and bodies are destroyed, and the camera does not flinch. All of this, in the MPAA’s mind, adds up to an R rating.

Compare this to Gladiator. In Gladiator, there is no nudity. None, not even a male backside. There is, to my knowledge, no cursing, and if there is it is tame. The word “fu*k” is not uttered. There are no sex scenes; Commodus’ (Joaquin Phoenix) feelings for his sister are implied, though nothing happens between them, on screen or off. The only “objectionable” material is its violence, which is, of course, graphic, as Roman gladiators tend to be violent. Ridley Scott’s Oscar winning film received the same “R” rating as The Watchmen: to the MPAA board, there is no significant difference between the two movies’ content to warrant a different rating.

But you and I know better.

The interesting thing is that the MPAA has another recourse: the NC-17 label. The MPAA site describes that an NC-17 rating “can be based on violence, sex, aberrational behavior, drug abuse or any other element that most parents would consider too strong and therefore off-limits for viewing by their children.” Who here believes that The Watchmen does not fit this description? The Comedian attempts rape on screen. He also kills a pregnant Vietnamese woman. And if Rorschach’s behavior is not “aberrational” (even while being held up as a hero of the film), then whose behavior is?

But we all know why The Watchmen received an R rating rather than an NC-17: profit. NC-17 is seen as a kiss of death for any film because of the stigma associated with it, and it severely limits the film’s ability to be marketed. Many theaters would not carry a film tagged as NC-17. Directors often go back to make cuts to their films to avoid the rating, knowing that an R can mean millions more at the box-office. So much for artistic integrity, huh? And the MPAA turns a blind eye to it all, as if cutting 30 seconds from a sex scene here, two impaled bodies there, makes the difference.

This discrepancy is particularly egregious when considering The Watchmen. Despite its actual content, it has been marketed as a superhero movie, and I suspect many venturing into the theaters this weekend had no idea what they were getting themselves into. Yes, this is partly the fault of the film-goers; there are plenty of reviews out there that warn of the content. But I know plenty of parents who take their kids to “R” rated films (my dad took my brothers and me to see Rambo: First Blood Part II when we were 13, my younger brother 10 ), and that’s the problem: the R rating does not sufficiently describe the film. There is a definite difference between the R of Rambo, of Gladiator, of Wedding Crashers, and the R of The Watchmen, and the MPAA has done a real disservice to its audiences in pretending otherwise.

If the MPAA is truly interested in rating its films, then it needs be honest in its classifications and its ratings decisions. A good first step it could take is using the NC-17 label more regularly, allowing the label to give people a better idea of what a film contains, and take away the “verboten” stigma the label now holds because of disuse.

At the very least, such a step will allow me to concentrate on the film, rather than the 8 year old sobbing in his mother’s arms.

I’m married to a woman who 1) enjoys musicals and 2) has a thing for Pierce Brosnan.  So when I saw the ads for Mamma Mia my immediate thought was, “Damn you, Hollywood!  Damn you straight to hell!”  Somehow I avoided having to see this in the theater, but then the DVD came out around Christmas and, long story short, I’ve now sat through the musical comedy featuring the music of ABBA.  As a sort of  (what I hope is) therapeutic cleansing, I’m offering up this review, of sorts, which perhaps will give me back the hour and 40 minutes spent listening to bubblegum pop sung and danced to by James Bond and the White Witch from Chronicles of Narnia [ed.: that wasn't Meryl Streep].  OK, then Cruella De Vil [ed.: that was Glenn Close]. Really? [ed.: yep].

01:13 The singing begins. Sophie’s (Amanda Seyfried) cute, at least.  Letters are sent off to three possible dads as she wants to know who her father is, and there are three suspects.  What,  is her mom some sort of cat?

02:32: All three men (Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and Stellan Skarsgard) are apparently incredibly wealthy.  How convenient.

4:12: Sophie spills the beans to her friends about her mom’s diary (kept while pregnant with Sophie).  Mom’s…how to put this?…a slut.  Hey, if this movie were centered around a guy who slept with three women during a summer, I’d make the same comment.  Only I’d use the words “lucky bastard.”

5:01:  The first actual song, “Honey Honey” is sung by Seyfried and her friends.   They’re much too excited about the fact that they’re singing about Sophie’s mom’s sexual exploits.

6:50: Meryl Streep shows up, looking like that actress from Bridges of Madison County [ed.: that WAS her, idiot].

7:50: The dilemma is posed: who’s Sophie’s dad?  The invites are part of  a grand plan of Sophie’s to, apparently, get a look at the men and pick Pierce Brosnan for her dad (yeah, like Skarsgard stands a chance).

9:25:  Meryl Streep’s best friends show up for the wedding:

Looks like a good time to go get some snacks. I thought Walter’s character was Streep’s mom, but I was wrong.

10:25: The fiance (Dominic Cooper) shows up.  No singing as he’s about to get married.

12:13: Apparently, it’s a rule that girlfriends who have not seen each other in a while must scream excitedly in octaves normally reserved for dog whistles.  And, yes, Streep and her friends were apparently in a 70s singing group.  Oh, joy.

14:30: Back to the suspected dads – they discuss how they know Donna (Streep), but the fact that each biblically knew her isn’t raised.

16:45: A legend about a fountain beneath the hotel/spa that Streep’s character (Donna) owns  is mentioned (Aphrodite’s fountain).  I bet that’s important.

17:30: “Money, Money” – Meryl Streep’s first song. First bathroom break.

20:46: Sex talk from Streep, Walters, and Baranski, God help me. Meanwhile, Sophie takes the dads to a room and tells them their presence is a surprise for her mom, and to keep it  a secret.  This secret lasts, oh, about 1 minute.

26:21:  Streep sees her three former beaus and the title song is sung.  She’s apparently still carrying a torch, but for which one?  The suspense is killing me.  Oh, wait, that’s not suspense, that’s ABBA.

31:00: The virile young black bartender has the hots for Baranski’s character.  Sure he does. Give that man an Oscar!

32:30: Third song. Streep, Baranski and Walters.  Shortly thereafter, Streep admits she’s a slut, and that she’s going to hell for it.  Okay, maybe not that last part.

36:52:  In an attempt to wrest control of the song from cross-dressing contests, “Dancing Queen” is interpreted here as a celebration of womanhood.  I don’t know, I think it works better as an ode to drag. And, hell, they even trotted out Milton Berle as a back-up singer!  Waitaminute, oops, no, that’s Julie Walters.

41:10:  In what could have been a pretty creepy scene, Sophie hangs out with her three dads on Skarsgard’s boat as they sing about banging her mom (the song’s “Our Last Summer” for those of you keeping score).  Skarsgard’s singing is about like you’d expect.

45:00: Sophie’s fiance sees her dive from the boat and confronts her about spending time with three strange men (one who looks like James Bond) for the past two hours, culminating in his calling off the wedding.  At least that’s what should have happened.

45:38: Ah, I thought the cigar Sky (yep, that’s the fiance’s name) was holding was a phallic symbol, but instead it’s just there to make the song’s lyrics make sense (“Lay All Your Love on Me”).

47:18: In a twist worthy of Top Gun, dancing men in speedos come out of the water and “rescue” Sky from his woman.

48:10: Streep and her friends relive their glory years singing for her daughter’s bachelorette party (“Super Trouper” – no, it has nothing to do with stoned highway patrolmen).

50:00: If I read the back of the DVD right, I’ve got another hour to go.  Time for a beer.

50: 50:  The dads arrive at the bachelorette party.

51: 40: “Give me a Man After Midnight” starts up – hey, this scene has possibilities.  The somewhat scantily-clad girls take Firth and Skarsgard and start dancing with them, pulling at their clothes.

51:55: Nevermind, cut to Streep and her friends ranting. Brosnan shows up.

54:15: Colin Firth, for some reason, wants to escape being pawed at by the young women.  Skarsgard is living it up, though.

55:20: Skarsgard manages to figure the secret out first.  He runs like hell.

56:00: Sophie catches him and coerces him to walk her down the aisle.

Those past two comments might not be entirely accurate.

56:50:  Sky and his band of gay friends have apparently left their party and come to crash the girls’ party.  Dancing ensues (“Voulez Vous”).

58:18: Brosnan tells Sophie he’s her dad and tells her he’ll give her away.

58:50: Now Firth believes he’s her dad, too, and wants to give her away.  There hasn’t been so many men trying to give away something that doesn’t quite belong to them since 1947.

1:02:29: In a questionable career move, Skarsgard shows his bare ass.

1:06:12: Brosnan confronts Streep about their past and what they lost.  For some reason, Brosnan is trying to sing with an Italian accent  (“S.O.S”).

1:08:50: Young black bartender continues to chase Baranski, and she mocks him in song (“Does Your Mother”). The “mistake last night” referred to was apparently the singing and dancing number at the bachelorette party.

1:15:30: “Slipping Through My Fingers” could actually be a bit of a tear-jerker if you have a daughter.  If you don’t, then fuck you, it’s just allergies.

1:21:25:  Meryl Streep singing yet another song about how she and Brosnan can’t get the time back…maybe. I’m not quite sure how “Winner Takes it All” fits in, but it seems like the big emotionally climactic moment.  I know this because waves are crashing and Streep’s running around waving her arms dramatically.

1:25: 43: The wedding is finally here.  End in sight.

1:29:20: The wedding is interrupted as everyone tries to figure out who Sophie’s dad is; Colin Firth attempts to take himself out of the running by announcing he is gay.  Firth, you’re one brilliant bastard.

1:29:58:  Because Mamma Mia‘s a comedy, they can’t end with a young couple marrying.  So Brosnan takes one for the team and proposes to Streep (“I Do, I Do, I Do”).

1:32:05:  In a shameless plug for Viagra, Brosnan sings a song exclaiming that he and Streep are not too old for sex (“When All is Said and Done”).

1:34:45: Skarsgard is serenaded by Walters (“Take a Chance on Me”) because otherwise both have been forgotten by this point. Firth, desperate not to have to pay for Sophie’s wedding, keeps up the gay act.

1:37:08:  The fountain of Aphrodite erupts, showering all the wedding guests – a sexual metaphor if I ever saw one (and I knew that early, seemingly pointless reference had some significance); dancing ensues.

The credits roll as the cast dress up in funky outfits and sing “Dancing Queen”, seemingly recognizing the futility in not associating that song with drag.  And as the movie’s over, this review is done, and I believe I have successfully exorcised my ABBA-induced demons.

Now if I could only take back seeing Stellan Skarsgard’s ass.

So how YOU doin', red?

I have a confession: I have a girl crush on Felicia Day.

I revealed this crush to the guys of this very blog, thinking that this would be some sort of startling revelation. Instead, my confession was met with shrugs. “Who doesn’t have a crush on her?” one asked.

So it appears that if you don’t have a crush on her, too, the only conceivable answer is that you must not know who she is. I’m sure that you would recognize her, even if you don’t know her by name. Please refer to this or this. No, really. It’s ok. I can wait.

I’m not sure when the crushing started. Maybe it was when I realized how much my heart broke for Penny at the end of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (many thanks to Joss Whedon for reducing me to tears yet again), or maybe it was when I realized that I had a ridiculous level of interest in The Guild in spite of the fact that I know nothing of the world of gamers. Or maybe it even goes back to the Buffy days. I can’t pinpoint it, but it’s there.

There’s just something about her that’s funny and quirky and sweet and easy to like. Since her Twitter posts seem to be a reflection of her on-screen persona, I have to assume that it’s the real person that I like, and not just some well-written characters.

Short hair works, too.

So I just wanted to take a moment to suggest that perhaps there should be more Felicia Day in the world. There should also be more Nathan Fillion (Joss, are you listening?), but that’s another story for another post.

Anyone else feel the same way?

“So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by/and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness./We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.” — opening lines of Seamus Heaney’s powerful 2000 verse translation of
Beowulf.

Outlander makes no secret about its desire to be a fantastical re-imagining of the Beowulf story and its “heroic campaigns” we are taught in high school, where the hero defeats the monstrous Grendel and a host of other horrors before dying nobly in battle against a dragon (sorry for any spoilers – you should have read the poem). Set in late eighth century Norway, the titular Outlander is not the Geat Beowulf come to save the Danes from Grendel, but instead Kainan, a very human-looking alien (played by John Caviezel), who crash lands on Earth, and in doing so sets free a monster (the “Moorwen”) which seemingly takes the place of all the beasts referenced in the original poem. Kainan first must convince the Norsemen he is not a threat, and then leads them against the monster, with predictable results.

And that’s the real issue with this film: there’s nothing here that we haven’t already seen, and not just in that long poem. Outlander cribs a bit from Alien here, a bit from Predator there, and then throws in a smidge of Braveheart for good measure. Moving beneath all of this is a not-so-effective sub-plot that seems to want us to feel some, if not sympathy for the Moorwen, than some recognition that it, too, has been wronged, but John Gardner’s Grendel did that, too. The battles between the Norsemen and the Moorwen are appropriately violent, though I rarely felt a sense of horror, which is a fatal flaw for such a film. Together the movie moves stiltedly toward its conclusion, as if it were walking on legs not its own (which, of course, it is).

Beowulf has been re-imagined a number of times, most notably in Antonio Banderas’ underrated The 13th Warrior, which retells the legend through an Arab’s eyes. Outlander is not quite so rousing as Warrior, which was both adventurous and fun, nor are its characters as memorable. Caviezel’s Kainan is distant in his relations with the Norsemen (perhaps justifiably so – he IS an alien), but this also precludes the audience from forming some attachment to him. The Norwegians are a conglomeration of long-haired noble (and not-so-noble) ruffians, with little to humanize them and make us care about them before they’re in turn eaten up by the monster.

What we’re left with, then, is another in a long string of effects-driven monster films, whose chief problem is that it depends too much on what has come before. And, as Beowulf suggests, living off past deeds is no way to make a name for oneself.

Currently trying to save enough money to color it in.

Ah, the joys of being able to knock out two posts via one DVD release.

Marvel has released a two-fer for fans of the Hulk: Hulk Vs. This time around it is Hulk vs. Wolverine, a throwback to the first appearance of the short berserker mutant. But the conflict between the Hulk and Wolvie is more or less a tease here: this is all about the origin of Wolverine and the Weapon X project.

Like the Thor portion of the DVD, HvW is chock full of cameos: Sabretooth, Omega Red, and Lady Deathstrike, among others. But the best lines are (deservedly) saved for Deadpool:

The Merc with a Mouth

“Hey, good buddy. It’s Deadpool. I shot you!”

“What? Babies creep me out. Rock-a-bye BANG!”

“Omega Red’s a bed-wetter . . . he’s very ashamed.”

Brilliant (and many, many others). Now we just need the full-length Deadpool movie.*

Once again, the animation and vocal talent are top notch. One thing I did not expect was the level of violence. Good for Marvel: if you’re going to put a bunch of ruthless dudes who use blades, claws, and fully automatic weapons in the same room who really don’t like each other, blood is going to be spilled. Props to them for not pulling any punches.

*Stick around past the credits.

Liam Neeson in Taken

Do you remember the old Harrison Ford movie Frantic? The one where his wife gets kidnapped in France and he spends the entire movie trying to find her while whining incessantly about getting her back?

Taken kicks Frantic‘s ass up and down.

Liam Neeson is Bryan Mills, a retired black-ops spy who spends his days hanging around his old crew while picking up the occasional high-profile security job to keep himself occupied. His past has left him seeing the world as a very dangerous place, an attitude that has driven his ex-wife (Famke Janssen) into the arms of another (rich) man, taking with her the daughter (Kim, portrayed by Maggie Grace) he dotes on. But when his daughter begs to be allowed to take a trip to France with a friend, without parental supervision, against his better judgment he relents.

Kim is about to get . . . grabbed.

As you have no doubt seen in the trailer, things take a dark turn for Kim when she is kidnapped from her villa. This leads to Neeson’s over-the-phone plea and threat to her kidnappers: let her go, all is forgiven; refuse, and he’ll kill them all.

Obviously, the captors choose poorly.

What follows is a one-man wrecking machine taking out everyone who had any involvement in his daughter’s abduction, desperately trying to find her before she is lost. As he tears his way through the hierarchy of the underground sex-slave trade, the film plays as an hour-long chase scene. His methods are not for the faint of heart: suffice to say that Mills would disagree with the now-popular belief that torture is not an effective means of interrogation.

This movie makes no pretense of being anything but pure escapism, although the presence of Liam Neeson lends it a significant measure of respectability. But it’s a hell of a fun ride.

An actual scene from the movie.

Thor vs. Hulk is the latest animated offering from Marvel Comics (coupled with the simultaneous release Hulk vs. Wolverine). Unlike the previous “Ultimate Avengers” DVDs, Thor vs. Hulk focuses on the old-school Thor: red cape, winged helmet, and Mjolnir, his mystical uru hammer.

Full disclosure: I’m a Thor fan-boy. I wear a Mjolnir pendant on a necklace and my office is decorated with Marvel Legends Thor action figures. So while I’ve been looking forward to this movie since it was announced in mid-2008, my expectations were tempered by my typical pessimism that it could turn out to be a disappointment.

My pessimism was unfounded. Marvel has really come through in creating an epic Asgardian tale, wearing the influence of Walt Simonson proudly. Simonson is the writer of Thor’s most significant storyline in the 80′s, and many of the characters he defined make welcome cameos: Skurge, Malekith the Accursed, Surtur, and Balder, among others. The story opens in Asgard, in the midst of the Odin-sleep, when Asgard’s enemies launch their attacks while the kingdom is at its most vulnerable. Enter Loki, who is not content to merely repeat the same old cycle of events: he has kidnapped Bruce Banner and with the aid of Amora the Enchantress, plans to usurp the power of the Hulk to finally rule Asgard.

The production of the video is top-notch, from the artwork to the voice talent to the direction of the battles. One would expect the battles between the Hulk and the God of Thunder to be epic, but even I was impressed by the sheer power and brutality of the blows given and received as the two rage through the streets of Asgard. Thor Vs. Hulk is a return to form for Marvel’s animated series, particularly after the disappointment of Next Avengers, and should be an essential addition to any Marvel fan’s collection.

I would prefer not to piss off a nation of over a billion people, but it seems to me that India is a pretty messed-up country.

I hope that no citizens of Indian descent or even denizens of India who may happen across this blog take it personally. I will be the first to admit that my experience with other cultures is severely lacking: my international travel is limited to a couple across-the-border runs to Mexico during my undergrad days and two cruises to the Caribbean. I will also admit that basing one’s opinions about a country on a motion picture is a pretty stupid way of passing judgment.

My wife, however, travels extensively with her job and makes regular trips to India. So when she says, “Yeah, that’s pretty much how it is,” as I express my utter bewilderment after watching Slumdog Millionaire, I’m running with my initial impression.

Slumdog tells the tale of Jamal and Salim, two brothers, and Latika, the cute girl who falls in with them after they are orphaned in the Indian slums. Actually, “slums” is too nice of word. Jesus, even calling it “medieval” does the Middle Ages a disservice.

Regardless, the movie centers around Jamal’s appearance on the Indian version of “Who Wants to be a Millionaire?” in an effort to win Lakita. Sounds real cute, doesn’t it? Forget it. If the conditions these three faced growing up as portrayed in the film are even remotely realistic, that part of the world is severely lacking in common decency. And not to get too political in a movie review or anything, but for anyone in the “Bollywood” community to give the U.S. grief about our leaders without commenting on what the hell is going on in his own country is to ignore the gigantic timber wedged tightly between his eye and brain.

But I digress.

The questions Jamal faces during the game show track key events in the three leads’ lives (it’s like the questions were chosen specially for him or something), providing the framework for the flashbacks the story is told through. The manufacturer of a revolver, a certain song sung, and the identity of a famous actor (which produced a flashback that appalled me yet somehow drew laughs from the audience) are all intimately entwined in Jamal’s life, and presented in a compelling fashion. For example, he can tell you who’s pictured on the $100 dollar bill, but as for the quote on the Indian national flag, he’s lost. But why would he know it? What has India ever done for him and his friends?

Slumdog deserves the accolades it’s been getting in the press and is ultimately a hopeful movie. But anyone who describes it as “feel good” is taking a very simplistic view.