Guillermo del Toro on the Hulk TV Series

“Right now all I know is the official word I was given is that there’s a writer they want,” says del Toro. “They are very interested in me meeting with him. He’s very, very busy. The official word is we are holding, but I don’t know… After ‘Avengers’ having the success it had, perhaps the fate of the project may change. Right now officially what I know – and I’m not hiding anything off the record or anything – is that we were told we were waiting for this writer, and we were going to do it with him.”

I have heard about this Hulk tv series for a while now but I am not sure why they would develop a tv show instead of a movie.  The Hulk stole the show in the Avengers and is one of the most popular characters in the Marvel Universe.  Not to mention a tv series would be pretty expensive to produce.  Also, would it be separate from the Hulk in the first movie and the Avengers or would it be following the same version?  I hope they drop this idea and proceed with the Hulk 2 instead.

The Avengers

With the release of The Avengers on DVD/Blu-ray this week, I have decided to review the summer blockbuster.  The basic plot revolves around Loki, the brother of Thor, working for a mysterious alien and leading an army to earth so he can rule.  To counter this attack, a secret Government organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. assembles the earth’s mightiest heroes.  Pretty much everyone loves this movie and I like it as well.  It’s a big, fun, summer popcorn flick and there is nothing wrong with that.

Marvel has taken years to build up to this film by making movies about the individual characters first.  This was a very wise plan.  Team movies with big casts tend to have the problem of trying to develop all of their characters in a 2-2.5 hour time span.  By having one or more individual movies come out first, everyone is already familiar with all of the characters in the movie.  This allows them to move straight into the action.

The only real complaint I have about The Avengers is that I didn’t care for the Governments technology very much.  Besides Iron Man, who is supposed to be way ahead of his time, the technology that had been shown in the previous films was basically what we have in real life.  But S.H.I.E.L.D.  has flying air craft carriers and all sorts of crazy gadgets, it just felt like watching a G.I. Joe cartoon from the 1980s.  This isn’t a big deal, I haven’t even heard anyone else mention it, so it’s probably just me.

Each of our heroes gets plenty of screen time and fight scenes.  For the first half of the movie they are fighting each other more than the bad guys.  Once they finally all come together and face off against the alien force at the end, it’s nothing but a huge free for all.  I never really felt like the world was in danger from this threat but New York was.  Apparently you shouldn’t live in New York because it’s always under attack by super villains in the movies!

It’s during the last third of the movie that the Hulk really steals the show.  Everyone loved this character and his use as comic relief.  It surprises me that Marvel hasn’t already put the Hulk 2 into production.  Perhaps they will soon.  After the credits we get a hint at who the bad guy in the next one will be, and he is a big one.  For people who don’t follow the comic books and were wondering who “the purple guy” was, his name is Thanos and he is a major threat to anyone.  Thanos is a guy who can beat even powerful beings like Thor or the Silver Surfer in a one on one fight.

Like I said before, The Avengers is a big, fun, popcorn flick and there is nothing wrong with that.  I give it 3 out of 4 stars.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

What can I say about Scott Pilgrim vs. The World?  It is certainly a unique  movie experience.  I had no idea what to expect when I first started watching it.  It’s like a comic book/video game brought to life.  Probably the most funny aspect of the whole thing is none of it is even explained.  Scott continually lands all of these beautiful women (even though he is extremely dorky) and battles several super powered bad guys with his own super powers.  None of this seems overly shocking to anyone around him.  Apparently in this universe it’s just how things work.

The basic plot revolves around Scott Pilgrim seeing the girl of his dreams and finding out he has to fight all of her evil exes in order to be able to date him.  If you like a traditional movie, this is probably not the film for you.  Scott Pilgrim vs. The World isn’t a masterpiece or anything but it is a funny movie and worth a watch if you want to see something different.

On a more serious note Scott Pilgrim is a little hard to root for as a character because he cheats on his innocent girlfriend in order to win over the girl of his dreams…literally, she is in his dreams.  The thing is, there is no real reason why he should be interested in this girl, he simply thinks she is more attractive than his current girlfriend.  Perhaps it would have been more effective if his original girlfriend was someone who mistreated him and the new girl was nice to him.  The way it is in the film, the original girlfriend seems like the much better person.

None of this takes away from the film really, perhaps it just shows how shallow the current dating game can be.  They do deal with the character flaws in Scott a little bit, but in an unsatisfying way.  I thought they were going to correct things but in the end they almost immediately switched back to the wrong choice.  *After watching the alternate scenes on the Blu-Ray, they did actually film the ending I thought they should have went with.

The oddballness of being a living comic book/video game is really where this movie finds it’s stride.  The only real problem is after seeing several battles, it became slightly repetitive.  A running time of an hour and a half would have been enough to get the desired effect without dragging on.  I’m not really sure what the point or moral of this movie is, maybe there isn’t one, but it is an enjoyable experience and made me laugh.

I give this movie 3 out of 4 stars.