Avengers: Age of Ultron

WELCOME TO THE NEW AGE OR
WHATEVER.

"A new age begins"

Hello everyone, welcome to the Tagline once again! Today, I will finally make good, and review that massive action blockbuster, that you already no doubt have seen, but I'm going to review it anyway, just try and stop me. Picking up chronologically after Thor 2 and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Age of Ultron opens with the Avengers assaulting a Hydra base, one of many they've attacked while searching for the scepter that Loki used in the first Avengers movie. If you remember from the end of Winter Soldier (or if you had missed out here's a little recap) the scepter had fallen into the hands of a Hydra-ish bad guy with a menacing accent and I think a monocle? I feel like there was definitely a monocle involved. Anyway, that guy is studying the scepter and playing babysitter to the Maximoff twins (that's Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) when the Avengers come knocking, with like Thor's hammer and stuff. After recovering the staff (because of course they would) Tony Stark and Bruce Banner discover an AI that they try to use to resurrect the Ultron program, a peacekeeping robot program that was supposed to act as a security system for the whole planet. This goes immediately south of the border, as Ultron needs all of 10 minutes alone with the internet to determine that the entire human race needs to be eradicated.

Batman Forever

Batman for... a while at least.

"Courage now, truth always...."

I know, I've been working up to this for a while, and now here it is! A special Saturday Tagline for you all today, and I'll be talking about a very difficult topic that we all have to try and cope with. Sometimes it can be difficult to admit to yourself that an old, trusted friend has become somebody else, and it can be even more difficult to confront THEM about it. That's how I think we all felt when we saw Batman Forever. We were two good Batman movies in, maybe felt like we could rely on those good times, and then... this happened. Thank Warner Brothers for that. They decided after the release of the fantastic Batman Returns that it hadn't grossed enough money, and that if it were more "mainstream" it would do better. To this evil end, they gave Burton and his Gotham City the boot out of the director's chair (though Burton had been lukewarm about even doing a second Batman) and tapped Joel Schumacher to direct, with Burton restricted to producing. This film struck a completely different tone from the previous two, with villains so flamboyant that they make Jack Nicholson's turn as the Joker look positively subdued. This movie also introduces the character of Robin, portrayed here by Chris O'Donnell, although originally Marlon Wayans was cast. Presumably he was replaced because Hollywood is intensely racist. Anyway, the most important swap out here was Michael Keaton, who opted not to appear in another Batman because he didn't like the new direction (though apparently he still considers himself to be the ONLY Batman), was replaced by Val Kilmer. Now I enjoyed Top Gun at least as much as the next guy, but that is not an equation with equal values on both ends of it. That being said, Val Kilmer is still a much better Batman than George Clooney. Squaring off against the new caped crusader are Two-Face (portrayed in explosively red tiger-striped fashion by Tommy Lee Jones) and The Riddler/Edward Nigma (here played by Jim Carey). It seems like the common wisdom is that unless the primary villain is the Joker, there must be at least two villains on the stage at any given time (and in The Dark Knight even there was still Two Face) Okay, the stage is set, now let's talk about this FANTASTIC MOVIE

Batman Returns

Those poor penguins.

"The Bat, the Cat, the Penguin"

Hello everyone, welcome back to The Tagline! Tonight I thought I would warm up for the big day by doing a Christmasy movie, and what says 'tis the season more than an army of subterranean penguins rising to the surface to murder all the firstborn children? Nothing, that's what, so I'm going to be following up on my earlier post covering Batman and talking tonight about Batman Returns (which for all you folks wondering, IS also on Netflix, for your viewing pleasure). This movie was the tumultuously produced sequel to the 1989 film, and was very nearly nothing at all like it ended up being, for a variety of reasons. For starters, Tim Burton, cinematic genious and master of the new and inventive (I'm being sarcastic!) was very hesitant to make another Batman, having been dissatisfied with the results of his first outing. He said he would only return if the movie offered something "new and exciting", though that didn't seem to be an issue when he made the Corpse Bride. OTHERWISE he said it was "a most dumbfounded idea." which is funny because that's not what that word means. There's a Princess Bride joke in there but I can't be bothered to make it, I'm sure you can all do it for yourselves. Anyway, despite his lukewarm feelings on the matter, after directing Edward Scissorhands, Burton came around, once he was given more creative control, which allowed him to make this movie feel a lot like Edward Scissorhands. As much as I think Tim Burton is a tool who basically hasn't made a movie OTHER than Edward Scissorhands since like 1993 (when he made The Nightmare Before Christmas) Batman Returns is probably one of the most original and excellent things he has ever done. Maybe not as profound as he might like to think (wow really the real villains are corporations?) but still great. It almost wasn't great though. It was almost about Penguin and Catwoman searching for a buried treasure or some bullshit like that. That sounds like some Adam West-era garbage. Also they considered the Penguin trying to make Gotham colder (a thing they actually DID in Batman & Robin god help us) but Tim Burton correctly demanded a rewrite with a plot that was less stupid, so I am at least grateful for that.

The Rocketeer

Come on look at how sweet this poster is.

"Three years before the United States declares war, Cliff Secord leads America's first battle against the Nazis."

Hello all and welcome back to a new week at the Tagline, with Thanksgiving right around the corner! Starting this week I am implementing the first wave of changes to the way I conduct this blog, though this part at least probably won't result in a noticeable front-end change. Just thought I would share! Anyway, let's start off the week right, with a story about Nazis and airships and rocket packs. Also as promised, this will be an excursion into another Disney movie! Today I will be talking about the 1991 movie The Rocketeer, This movie was based on the comic of the same name, featuring a airplane stunt pilot named Cliff Secord who after a series of chance occurrences comes into possession of a experimental rocket pack that was being developed by Howard Hughes. During the misadventure that led to him acquiring the rocket pack Cliff's airplane was shot to pieces and then blown up, leaving him with a sore need for a new source of income. This causes him and his partner Peevy to keep the thing, but this has consequences they maybe didn't anticipate, such as the rocket pack being missed by certain individuals. For starters a bunch of mob types with machine guns trying to get it back, and intending to give it to the guy who paid to have it stolen in the first place. Howard Hughes meanwhile believes the pack was destroyed, and is glad because the government wanted to use it as a weapon. The movie is set in 1938, so we're talking about a country just coming out of the depression and nearing war against the Nazis. Don't worry though, just because the U.S. hadn't entered the war yet doesn't mean there won't be plenty of fascists.

Batman (1989)

Classic.

"..."

It's that time again! Welcome back to The Tagline, where movies are queen and I'm also a queen and we're all queens I guess. I don't know look... it's been a long week okay guys? Don't worry about that stuff though with queens, because really what it's all about today? Is fucking bats. Listen, I know it's an upsetting subject no one wants to talk about, but bats are all around us. Flying around at night? Those aren't just weird night birds, those are fucking bats okay? That guy driving the weird car he parked in the middle of traffic? Bat. The weird airplane shooting missiles at parade floats? Also a bat. That's right, those the Batmans are all around us, and we don't even notice it all the time! Recent years have been good to the Dark Knight, but it wasn't always that way. I can direct you to my grisly review of Joel Schumacher's war crime Batman & Robin. Then again, Batman Begins wasn't the first good Batman that ever happened either. There were some very different, but still good times with the Batman under the direction of Tim Burton believe it or not. I know I find it tough to believe too. Even more surprising is that neither of the Batman movies directed by Burton feature like... a Riddler played by Johnny Depp or Helena Bonham-Carter as... Poison Ivy? Catwoman? I don't know I'm gonna try to put it out of my mind. At any rate, today I want to talk about the very first Batman, starring Michael Keaton as the Bat, and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. This movie just recently found its way to Netflix, and so naturally I wanted to check it out and see how it stood up after all these years.

Guardians of the Galaxy

This IS a badass poster though.

"All heroes start somewhere."

Hello former friends and colleagues, welcome back to The Tagline! Originally I had planned to put off seeing Guardians until a little later (mostly just because I knew it would be in theaters forever and I wanted to see some other things that were less likely to stick around) but circumstances shifted and I ended up seeing it over the weekend. If you've lived in deep space for the past week or so... I imagine you still were picking up a lot of chatter about this movie, as roughly the entire internet has been orgasming about it basically since it was released, or some time that was significantly BEFORE that. Still, some background. Guardians of the Galaxy represents a relatively gutsy gamble on the part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, focusing on a group of interplanetary misfits who end up... guarding the galaxy I guess. First among them, as the unifying force that makes them a team, is Peter Quill, aka Starlord (Chris Pratt, having a busy year between this and The Lego Movie), who in the movie is abducted by aliens approximately 3 minutes after the movie starts, and 10 seconds after his mom dies from what looked like cancer. The movie jumps forward to his adulthood, where he has become a Ravager (who are like space pirates I guess? They are the guys who abducted him) and steals stuff from places while banging ladies who are interesting colors like pink why not. A particular salvage brings him into conflict with Ronan the Accuser, who if that sounds like a guy you don't want to be in conflict with to you, you've got a good sense for guys who hang out in giant space ships waiting to kill you with a fucking hammer. The guy's space fortress is called the Dark Aster for crap's sake. This is clearly a dude lacking a sense of humor, which is too bad for Starlord because that's one of his strongest attributes? I guess. Starlord's lot is tossed together with a motley group of cock-ups, including Gamora (Zoe Saldana gets green, maybe she liked the looks of her roomate at Starfleet Academy), who has betrayed Ronan and Thanos in order to prevent disaster, Draxx the Destroyer (Dave Batista, as in the pro wrestler) who seeks revenge against Ronan for the death of his family, and the duo Rocket (who is a talking raccoon voiced by Bradley Cooper) and Groot (a humanoid tree voiced and motion captured by Vin Diesel). 

X-Men: Days of Future Past

X-Men Blues of Orange Past.

"His past. Our future."

Hello friends, neighbors and mutants from various eras that have time traveled to this moment so that they could read this post when it was first written! Today after an unexpected interruption in your movie commentary service, I will be offering my thoughts on the latest movie based on Marvel characters, though I am hesitant to say Marvel movie because really in this day and age that has a different meaning (and the production and distribution rights for X-Men movies are still both retained by 20th Century Fox). Anyway I am talking of course about X-Men: Days of Future Past, a film with a seriously huge cast, given that it takes place partially in two completely different time periods (or I guess three if you want to count the one at the end as a separate divergent timeline). This movie functions more or less as both a sequel to X-Men: First Class, and also to 2013's The Wolverine (in so much as this film also features Wolverine heavily). At the same time, this movie also functions as a sequel to X3, that blood soaked nightmare of movies past, because this franchise has steadfastly refused to actually just scrap everything and reboot. Somehow, despite the fumbling of X3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine, this franchise has managed to cobble back together something representing a coherent plotline, and now, with Days of Future Past it has perhaps done something even greater (I will get to that before the end of this post). First, perhaps appropriately, a little history lesson. In the comics, the Days of Future Past story arc involved Kitty Pryde going back in time from the dystopic future of 2013 (and let's be honest, it really is dystopic isn't it) and back to what was then the present day, of 1980, to prevent the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by Mystique and her recently reformed Brotherhood of Mutants. This action (the assassination) sparks off a chain of events that leads to the future Kitty came back from, where mutants are hunted and the human race is threatened with complete destruction at the hands of the man-made robotic Sentinels. The plot of the movie is very similar to this original storyline, with some substantial changes for badassitude. Instead of Kitty herself going back (Ellen Paige reprises her role from X3, thankfully we don't have to see too much of her, which might remind me of the terrible things that happened), in the movie Wolverine is sent, because he is the only one with a mind capable of withstanding the trip or something (because of his regeneration, see a montage of him being shot in the head over and over). His job is to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence Mystique that is) from assassinating Bolivar Trask (Who created the Sentinels so it's still pretty legit). Her assassinating him leads to his becoming a martyr, and catalyzes the creation of the Sentinels and ultimately the destruction of basically everyone, because after a while the Sentinels start getting less picky about who they're exploding. The other downside of the assassination involves the gummint capturing Mystique, and using her DNA to make the Sentinels better, and allow them to adapt to various mutant powers (we see them doing this to murder the X-Men at the beginning of the movie).

The Amazing Spider-Man 2

Is it his greatest battle? I'm not sure.

"His greatest battle begins."

Hi everyone, welcome back to The Tagline! It was a sunny warm weekend, which was just terrible for me, you know how much I just HATE that, but on the upside I finally saw The AMAZING SPIDER-MAN TWOOO with returning star Andrew Garfield once again donning the Spideysuit to protect New York from crime in whatever form it chooses to take. Also returning as his smarter than him girlfriend is Emma Stone, as the always awesome Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield are an item in real life, and I think their natural chemistry really carries through to the screen). In this particular outing Spiderman faces off against Electro, who if you couldn't deduce from his name is made out of electricity (well he's actually just like a living capacitor, but he is FULL OF electricity). Originally an overlooked and forgettable nerd who was downtrodden and abused at Oscorp, Max Dillon becomes a force of nature after a horrific incident involving some power lines and electric eels or something. Dillon is portrayed by Jamie Foxx, who does a credible job as an awkward weirdo power nerd, instead of a gunslinging badass. Added into this already complex situation (especially because of Peter Parker's conflicting emotions relating to how he promised Gwen's dead dad he'd leave her out of his shit, and then PROMPTLY DIDN'T) is Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan, remember when he kissed Harry Potter, or when he was an insane proto-super villain?) who was Peter Parker's best bud, but now is rapidly spiraling down into crazy land because of a terminal condition he inherited from his asshole dad, who everyone hates anyway so let's all celebrate now that he's dead. As you may have already guessed if you're familiar with the comics, Harry is about to go goblin.

Jonah Hex

Look at all that action stuff.

"Revenge gets ugly."

If this movie's protagonist is any indicator then that is definitely true, it doesn't get much uglier than this. Hello all, welcome back to The Tagline! Today I'm reaching back into the deep dark bag of unlikely comic book adaptations, and fetching out one of the stranger ones: Jonah Hex. Even at a conceptual stage, the existence of this film is sort of surprising, given that Jonah Hex is more or less an unrepentant killer driven by blood lusty vengeance. Then again, I suppose the same could be said of the Punisher, and they made TWO movies about him. Jonah Hex is himself a character from DC Comics, originating in the 70s as a Western-style anti-hero, who despite being really ugly and a complete asshole, has a somewhat strict idea about who deserves and receives his gun violence. So despite his shitty reputation, in the comics Hex is a somewhat okay guy with questionable methods. The film adaptation makes this even more questionable, as he seems almost incapable of entering a building in the movie without blowing it up upon his exit. Granted most of the time when he enters a building, people are trying to kill him, but given his behavior and reputation sometimes it's hard to blame them. The movie also decided for some reason that there had to be freaky supernatural elements to the movie, because just being about former confederate soldiers killing each other is too pedestrian or something. To this end, unlike any other appearance of the character ever in like 40 years of publication history, in the film adaptation Jonah Hex has the ability to momentarily raise the dead and force them into speaking truly, and he uses this ability to aid him as he tracks his targets. While totally unnecessary and also completely made up for the movie, I'll grant it's kind of neat, so I guess I'll let you off this time movie.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Why is he the winter soldier it isn't winter.

"In heroes we trust."

Hello everyone, welcome back to The Tagline! Today at last I have a movie for you that I actually got to see in a real life movie theater. That's right, today we're talking about the latest addition to the Marvel movie canon: Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Featuring prominently in this film we of course have the incomparable Chris Evans as the Cap himself, and also Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill. Joining the main cast is Anthony Mackie as Falcon, who in this incarnation is a soldier trained to be an expert with a winged jet propulsion system  and two machine pistols, which is undeniably badass. Winter Soldier starts with Captain America struggling to find his place in the present day, as an operative working for the S.T.R.I.K.E. team which is nominally a rapid response arm of S.H.I.E.L.D. It's really rapid with Cap sprinting around beating the ever loving crap out of every bad guy he comes across. One thing that was immediately apparent while I was watching the movie was that the director choreographed some seriously intense, no bullshit hand to hand. A lot of the people being beaten down are just regular folks, maybe they have military backgrounds, but they look pretty pathetic when the Cap is punting them across a ship deck three at a time as he dashes past them to more important things. That being said, there is still a noticeable drop off in power level from The Avengers, and even as compared to Thor 2 or Iron Man 3. You have to understand that while Captain America is superhuman, he has a really good shield, not a garage full of robot suits, or a hammer that shoots lightning. He also can't turn into a giant green rage monster.

R.I.P.D.

This makes it almost look not dumb.

"Defending Our World One Soul at a Time"

That is open to debate and remains to be seen. Welcome back to The Tagline, and pardon my Tuesday/Thursday late post earlier this week, it was the result of forgetfulness and being away in Boston all weekend. Incidentally, today's movie takes place IN Boston, and was actually shot, at least in part, on location there. I know this for a fact because there is a modestly lengthy sequence in the middle of the film that was clearly shot in the Hynes Convention Center, which is where I was in Boston for the entire weekend. The scene is supposed to be a finance convention or something, I have no idea. I was definitely not attending a finance convention. ENOUGH OF THAT THOUGH today I will be talking about R.I.P.D. a movie billed as a supernatural comedy film released last summer, based on a Darkhorse comic book of the same name. The film stars Ryan Reynolds (here taking his fourth bad turn as a comic book character by most people's reckoning, though I honestly didn't think Green Lantern was that terrible, and I think Ryan Reynolds was a perfect Hal Jordan) as imminently deceased police officer Nick Walker, and Jeff Bridges (AKA The Dude/Obadiah Stane I guess) as very deceased former U.S. Marshall Roy Pulsipher, as they work out their sentence in the Rest In Peace Department so as to improve their chances of not ending up at the big barbecue down below (that's Hell kids. I'm talking about Hell). Nick of course still has unfinished issues to work out with his violent death, where he was killed by his partner Bobby (Kevin Bacon, here as a ghost monster and not a pretend Nazi) after deciding he was going to turn in his portion of the gold they found during a drug bust. Nick is also worried about his wife, and just generally is dealing well with having been shot off of a balcony in a burning warehouse.

Thor: The Dark World

That is a worthy poster right there.

"There was darkness."

Hello everyone, welcome back! It's a new week, full of NEW MOVIES. Today I'm going to talk about Thor: The Dark world, a movie that I had to see alone because APPARENTLY EVERYONE IS TOO COOL FOR ME. That's not important though, what IS important is that Thor: The Dark World is the sequel to the original Thor, which was released in 2011, and to a lesser extent also The Avengers (Thor and Loki having both been directly involved in the plot of that film), and following Thor (Chris Hemsworth, for hilariously bad films starring him see Red Dawn) as he attempts to win peace throughout the nine realms, while his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston, you know Loki) sits in a cell for trying to help Thanos conquer the Earth, and generally just being an unlikable dickbag. Despite his incarceration, Loki is waiting for the chance to take the throne of Asgard from Odin (Anthony Hopkins, of Hannibal Lecter fame) who seems to be over the hill, though still more than capable of vaporizing you with his super duper Odin Spear (Gungnir I guess). It seems like this moment is upon him when the Svartalfar, led by Malekith (a basically unrecognizable Christopher Eccleston, also in G.I. Joe, he was Destro). The scoop here is Malekith wanted to use this thing called the Aether to destroy the universe and return it to darkness, because that's how the Svartalfar like things. Malekith got his ass kicked by ODIN's dad though, so he ran away to hide until someone uncovered the Aether again, allowing him to return and do that whole universe destroying thing, during something called the convergence, when the nine realms align. Naturally, right around the time the convergence is approaching, Jane (Natalie Portman) stumbles right into the damned Aether (like literally she runs into it). In order to save her, because Thor wants to do that, he has to get the Aether out of her, then destroy it... somehow.

Kick-Ass 2

I heard a mom calling this comic
Kick-Butt to her small child in a comic
shop last month.

"You Can't Fight Your Destiny."

Hello everyone, welcome back to The Tagline! Today as promised I will be talking about Kick-Ass 2, the sequel to 2010's film Kick-Ass, itself based on a comic book series of the same name, originally released in 2008. Kick-Ass 2's plot line vaguely coincides with the events of the Hit-Girl and Kick-Ass 2 comics, though the differences in detail are substantial enough that I won't be using the events in the comic as a metric for what goes on in the movies (and that's okay to do get over it seriously it's an ADAPTATION not a SCREEN CLONE). The film chronicle's Kick-Ass' attempts to step up his game and become a "real" superhero, joining the ranks of costumed do-gooders who were inspired by his actions in the original film. Meanwhile Mindy/Hit-Girl is forced into retirement by her adoptive father Marcus, and is subsequently drawn into a Mean Girls style high school nightmare. While all this is going on, Chris D'Amico, formerly Red Mist, has vowed revenge against Kick-Ass, and so assumes the persona of The Motherfucker, forming his own group of supervillains using the considerable wealth left to him by his dead father. What follows is every bit as violent as you would be led to expect from the first film.

The Wolverine

Huge JackedMan in: The Wolverine

"The hero. The fugitive. The warrior. The survivor. The legend."

Hey everyone, welcome to another review from The Tagline! I know I promised another round of bitter fury today, but I decided that I would save some of my vitriol for next week, just to give my hate batteries time to recharge (I run on hate batteries, they are eco-friendly). With that in mind, and heeding the generous 66% RT was offering for it, I went to see The Wolverine, the second film based solely on the eponymous Wolverine, and the 5th film in a single X-Men continuity (this becomes clear as the movie continues, and is one of the more startling aspects of the movie, more on that later). It follows Logan (Hugh Jackman, with his trendy Wolverine hair) as he attempts to cope with the aftermath of the events that took place in X3 (and I mean who can blame him, I wanted to become an alcoholic hermit in the woods too after that movie). In particular he experiences what seem to be vivid hallucinations of Jean Grey (Famke Janssen) due to his guilt over killing her (SPOILERS OH NO WHAT HAVE I DONE, seriously though X3 was a waking nightmare). While visiting town so he can stab some guys in the hand for illegal bear hunting practices, Logan encounters a Japanese Ninja Punk Girl who informs him that a guy he saved from being nuclear exploded in WWII wants to see him. In Japan. Obviously. Of course, the man's intentions are... less than honorable.

Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 is something of an undersell.

"Unleash the power behind the armor."

Hey everyone, welcome back to the Tagline! Over the weekend I got out to the theater to see Iron Man 3, and it was quite a time! The movie takes place chronologically after The Avengers (about 6 months I think), and stars Robert Downey Jr.once again as Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man. Tony is a little worse for the wear since his experience in New York, what with almost dying through a worm hole into outer space and all, and is channeling his anxiety into making lots of crazy Iron Man suits. America is threatened by The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley, an expert at playing evil viziers and such) an evil mastermind who is launching untraceable and inexplicable attacks on various targets that seem to hold symbolic meaning, and seems to be winding up to a grand and destructive finale. When Tony's goon of a bodyguard (you know Jon Favreau) is injured in the mix, Tony decides that threatening The Mandarin and giving out his address is a good idea. As it turns out, it isn't the greatest idea actually. Stuff gets blown up, and the game is naturally more complicated than it initially appears. More danger happens, lots of explosions, you know the drill.

Kick-Ass

Beat-up Dumpster Bondage Man

"Shut Up. Kick-Ass."

Hello my friends, welcome back to The Tagline! I had realized a while back that I never really talked about Kick-Ass, and it seemed like now would be a decent time to do so, considering the recent trailer that was released for Kick-Ass 2 (and I'll probably talk about that a bit at the end). So for the uninitiated, Kick-Ass is a movie based on a comic series of the same name, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson as David Lizewski, a dorky loser who is totally normal, gets mugged all the time, and reads comic books. One day, Dave decides that he wants to be a real life superhero, so he gets a special costume, goes out and challenges some common petty criminals, and then is immediately stabbed and hit by a car. Dave comes out of the hospital with an increased ability to get the shit beat out of him, which is good, because there's a lot of that in his near future. His costumed antics get him caught up in some heavy shit, involving costumed crime-fighting, thug-killing duo Hit-Girl (portrayed by Chloe Grace-Moretz) and Big Daddy (Nicholas Cage, doing his best Adam West Batman) as they attempt to take down crime and druglord Frank D'Amico.

Dredd

Not a lot of deep thought happening here.

"Judgment is coming."

Hey folks! Welcome to another blood soaked installment of the Tagline! Today I'm going to talk about the 3D bloodbath sensation  Dredd, a 2012 adaptation of the prolific British Judge Dredd comics, first printed in the late 70s, and continuing through the present. Dredd stars Karl Urban as the eponymous Judge Dredd, (the last movie I saw him in was the new Star Trek, he was McCoy, wait scratch that I forgot about Red). He accompanies a prospective Judge named Anderson (played by Olivia Thirlby, the last movie I saw her in was Juno believe it or not. Pretty serious genre shift) who is undergoing a kind of trial by fire to decide if she's fit to be a judge. Apparently her test scores are pretty underwhelming, but she is a powerful psychic, and so the Hall of Justice decides that she's worth the trouble. During what is a routine investigation of a triple homicide, Dredd and Anderson run afoul of Ma Ma (Lena Headey, you know, Cersei Lannister from Game of Thrones!) who controls the entire mega-block the murders take place in. She's in the process of distributing a new drug that will give her serious leverage and grow her little crime empire, but first she has to make sure one of her captured goons never gets to be interrogated by the judges. To achieve this end, she locks down the block and sends her thugs to wage war on the two trapped judges. Dredd takes it pretty personally, and what ensues could be delicately termed an orgy of gun violence.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Prepare for, probably a white-knuckle thrill ride?

"I couldn't find a tagline for this cruddy movie"

Welcome to Tuesday at the Tagline! Every now and then, a movie comes along that changes the way we think of movies. It tells us something deep about ourselves, and the human condition, while at the same time thrilling and entertaining us. This is not one of those movies. I was thinking about my First Class review, and then I got to thinking about not so great X-Men movies, and that led me down the dark back alley path to... well X-Men Origins: Wolverine. A story of truly shitty proportions, X-Men Origins follows the entirely remade up and intensely stupid origin story of Wolverine (played as always by Hugh Jackman) who apparently was a little kid 200 years ago, along with his brother Sabertooth. After baby Logan murders his real drunk father, and not his pretend drunk father, who was already dead at that point, he realizes he has bone claws (in what is a truly silly scene for the history books) and runs through the woods. Then Logan and his big bro best bud Victor (Liev Schreiber) fight in a whole bunch of wars, because neither of them can die thank to their super regenerating. Over the years Victor gets to lovin' that thar a'killin' too much. Logan and Victor eventually become members of a special mutant ops squad for the government, lead by no one else than a young William Stryker (played here by Danny Huston). Among their teammates are Fred Dukes a.k.a. THE BLOB, a guy who's special power appears to be shooting people, Deadpool (played by Ryan Reynolds, more on him in a bit) and Will I Am from the Black Eyed Peas.

X-Men First Class

No villain is more evil... than Kevin Bacon.

"The story begins"

Skimming my archives I realized that somehow, I managed to never cover my thoughts about X-Men: First Class, the pseudo reboot of the X-Men franchise. I say pseudo reboot because, unlike The Amazing Spider-Man which was more or less a direct reboot of the franchise, First Class was a dramatic re-imagining of the franchise. Set in the 1960s, the movie is an origin story for the generation of superheroes before what could be considered the contemporary X-Men. Primarily, it is the origin story of Charles Xavier (aka Professor X) who is portrayed by one James McAvoy (you might remember from the not quite so terrific movie adaptation of Wanted) and also Erik Lehnsherr (you know Magneto) portrayed by Michael Fassbender (the creepy cyborg from Prometheus among other roles). The two are brought together thanks to a mutual enemy, the extremely bad news mutant Sebastian Shaw (the sinister KEVIN BACON). Charles wants at him because he is threatening the free world, but for Erik it's personal: the bastard killed his mother in front of him in a Nazi concentration camp (it is worth mentioning: Shaw does not age). Sebastian Shaw leads the mysterious Hellfire Club members including Emma Frost (in the comics also known as the White Queen) and Azazel, who like he sounds looks like a devil and has the same teleporting powers as Nightcrawler (in traditional canon Azazel is his father).

The Green Hornet

Machine Gun Car is not a superpower.

"Protect the law by breaking it."

Hello everyone, its a brand new week with The Tagline! Today I thought it would be pretty fun to talk about a movie I watched despite the warnings and protestations of the internet, and any speaking person who I was acquainted with. This film is an adaptation of a very old character, originating in radio dramas in 1936, later moving to comics and television. This particular effort stars Seth Rogen as Britt Reid, a really rich asshole, whose father is  the editor of a newspaper with things like principles and morals. Unlike Britt, who is a slacker nobody. After Britt's father is poisoned (well killed from an allergic reaction to a 'bee sting') Britt does what any self-respecting loser would do and fires his whole staff and goes on a bender. He later rehires his father ninja mechanic Kato (Jay Chou) and they together continue his bender. After getting really wasted, they decide to cut off the head of a statue of Britt's dad, because they both hate him. In the process they save a couple from being mugged, but are mistaken for the muggers. Britt then proposes that they pose as criminals to infiltrate actual criminal organizations, and take them down from the inside, using their cool gadgets and Kato's super ninja assassin powers, and Britt's ability to be a useless tool. Thus, the GREEN HORNET IS BORN.