This Week in Rixflix #12: May 26–June 1, 2017

Yet another week, and we find ourselves with a generous slate of actual capsule reviews of several films that caught my eye in various ways in that span. The end of May meant that several television series that the wife and I follow were summing up with season (and sometimes series) finales, but we also found time to crack into new seasons of old favorites like the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. We also spent several hours finally catching up on the last go-around for Grimm, though we still had three episodes left heading into the next week. But who could really concentrate when the looming presence of Wonder Woman premiering on June 2 overrode everything? Really, I just watched everything else to take my mind off that...

The Numbers: 

This week's feature-length film count: 20; 9 first-time viewings and 11 repeats.
Highest rated feature-length film: Rolling Thunder (1977) and Mister Roberts (1955) – 8/9
Lowest rated feature films: Ensign Pulver (1986), Caged Heat (1974) and Blue Crush 2 (2011) – 5/9
Average films per day in May: 2.87
Average films per day in 2017 so far: 3.02
Consecutive days with at least 1 feature-length film seen per day: 170

The Reviews:

Swamp Thing (1982) Dir.: Wes Craven – Having been a big fan of DC's Swamp Thing character for a number of years, especially when drawn by Berni Wrightson, I remember being very excited ( if not highly surprised) when the Craven-directed film version hit theatres way back in 1982, during my final year of high school. I also remember being pretty disappointed, especially by clunkiness of the battle scenes between Swampy and the Arcane monster. Despite my dislike for the film on first going to it, I have seen the film several times since, and think it is merely fine. While the Arcane monster suit is still completely ridiculous-looking, and the scenes with the villain's rampaging forces maintain my annoyance as well, I now believe that good ol' Wes did alright by dear Swampy after all. There is a heart to be discovered beneath all that foliage, and it is that heart that drives any story about the creature to believability. I feel for the most part that Craven gets that mood absolutely correct in the film's more dramatic scenes, but also balances the film with some darkly humorous lines. A younger Ray Wise might be a tad miscast as Dr. Alec Holland, who will become the Swamp Thing, but vet Louis Jourdan delivers an appropriately smarmy and eye-rolling turn as Arcane. (As long as he too doesn't turn into a monster, the movie is safe.) – TC4P Rating: 6/9

Moonlight (2016) Dir.: Barry Jenkins – I mentioned a couple of weeks back in my short dismissal of La La Land that I was never really allowed to enter the film emotionally, and could therefore make no connection at all with either the main characters of the film nor the musical trappings of the film. I appreciated its technical achievement and some of the acting, but felt it was lacking anything remotely near actual human emotion. Taking a look finally at Moonlight, the film that won the Best Picture Oscar from out of La La Whatever's clutches (that's my name for that film from now on), I had the exact opposite reaction. Even though I live worlds apart from the film's characters – a drug-dealer, his wife, the young, put upon gay child the dealer and his wife take under their wing out of compassion, and the child's drug-addicted prostitute mother – there was nothing but connection on an emotional level for me. This is one of the richest cinematic journeys to which I have seen Oscar commit in eons, but if you think that it is one of those films that starts in darkness and slowly builds to a glorious cascading of heavenly light, you have another thing coming. This film is layered in such a way that it really tells three different stories about the same character at different points in his life, and how his life turns from his reactions to his circumstances. Each slice of his life offers up new surprises, new complications, and old questions waiting to be answered. It is not an easy ride, nor does it ever let you believe it is. But it is refreshing to see what might otherwise become an undiscovered cult classic actually get recognized by the Academy. Some see pandering to the current national discussion regarding race; I just see a highly excellent film getting its due. Next time, Oscar, how about passing some of that love over to Barry Jenkins, the man behind the film? – TC4P Rating: 8/9

No Time for Sergeants (1958) Dir.: Mervyn LeRoy – Time has not been kind to my opinion of this film, which I saw at a fairly youthful age (Andy Griffith was always appreciated in our house). TCM played it on The Essentials recently, and it was clearly a fave of host Alec Baldwin. His co-host, a fully bearded David Letterman, was less enthralled with the film, but still respected it. I do as well, but Letterman is right about the bathroom scene, where he invoked his own rule that "if it wouldn't happen in real life," then he couldn't really accept the premise of the joke. Well, I won't fully agree with that rule, because the films of the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Laurel and Hardy, and the Three Stooges are loaded with things that couldn't happen in real life, and I have not stopped laughing at them yet. Back to this film, I really like the opening half, where we meet Griffith's seemingly simple and overtly strong hillbilly character who is drummed into basic training with the Air Force. His character, Pvt. Will Stockdale, has a lot of the hick appeal that Griffith would use on his famous What It Was, Was Football monologue, that I used to hear all the time on Dr. Demento. Griffith had played this role first on a television production and then on the Broadway stage, where he earned a Tony nomination. In the film, I start to lose interest when the story reaches the base and turns into a basic service comedy for an hour of its running time; it never totally lost me, however, and the final portion (involving a flight through a nuclear test region) still came off as wacky fun for me. I just had higher expectations overall after having waited so long to see it again. That makes me more of a Letterman than a Baldwin ultimately in this battle, and I think that I am fine with that. – TC4P Rating: 6/9

Ensign Pulver (1964) Dir.: Joshua Logan – On the same day that I watched Ensign Pulver, I also watched the film that preceded it, the 1955 version of Mister Roberts. In that film, Pulver is played by Jack Lemmon, and what more can I say except that Lemmon won the first of his two Oscars for his supporting role in that part? The part is a showstopper in many ways, and Lemmon used it to really break through the big time in high fashion. Nearly ten years later, there came this sequel, written and directed by Joshua Logan, who not only directed and co-wrote the original stage version of Mister Roberts but also served as the uncredited co-director of a few scenes on the film version after John Ford got ill and Mervyn LeRoy left the production. The task of filling the role of Pulver is left to Robert Walker, Jr., and while he doesn't do too badly in the role, he could never get near Lemmon in comedic timing and charisma. In the role played so gruffly but well by James Cagney originally, we instead get Burl Ives, who has a couple of nice moments, but is really miscast in the part. (Strangely, the film no longer has Lemmon, but his future partner and pal Walter Matthau shows up in the role of the ship's doctor.) The chief failing of the second film is that there is no reliable replacement for the vacated position that Roberts left on the ship at the first film's close. In the original, Pulver's antics shine because he is secondary to the plot for much of the way; here, with his resourceful but still fairly wacky character taking over for Roberts, Pulver seems to retreat in a childish way, and you realize just how much Mister Roberts relied on Henry Fonda as the title character to provide a strong moral center. Enjoyable in parts, but overall, a misfire. – TC4P Rating: 5/9

Action in Arabia (1944) Dir.: Léonide Moguy – About fifteen minutes into Action in Arabia, I became completely convinced that the film was meant to be RKO's answer to Warner Bros.' Casablanca. After all, you have the World War II period, a mysterious foreign setting dripping with possibilities (Damascus, not actually a part of the Arabian Peninsula, but really in Western Asia), a calm, cool lead who might turn out to be something more than he seems (George Sanders), a cool blonde (Virginia Bruce, playing a super spy) who is bound to get romantically involved with the hero, Nazis running amok and trying to control the area, and the film even opens with a map of North Africa which comes accompanied by narration by Lou Marcelle (who performed the same function for Casablanca). Of course, the results are not nearly as dramatically satisfying or well-filmed as the Michael Curtiz classic, but that is not to say that Action in Arabia is not a ball of fun all its own. A marvelous supporting role by Robert (King Kong) Armstrong is my favorite in the film besides the always reliable Sanders, but there are also stellar turns by Batman '66's Alan Napier as the cruel, conniving villain and Gene Lockhart as a sniveling, constantly shifting smuggler. Some of the action takes the film nearly into serial territory, and the tone of the film shifts from murder mystery to spy thriller to action film with the slightest nudge. It's all completely escapist, and has nowhere near the soul of the film it emulates at first, but man is it entertaining. Can't wait for a second go at it in the future. – TC4P Rating: 6/9

Blue Crush 2 (2011) Dir.: Mike Elliott – I will fully admit that while I watched this film under the guise of doing research for my blog, The Shark Film Office, there was also a part of me that said "I don't mind spending a couple of hours this afternoon watching attractive girls going surfing... nope, not one bit." While the original 2002 Blue Crush starring Kate Bosworth had nothing in the way of even a mention about sharks, I still had hopes that there might at least be some dialogue about the creatures in the followup, and it was completely because the second film relocates to South Africa. (It's an easy thing to pull off since the newer film has completely new characters and has no other relation to the first film except the two words in its title.) The plot is so old hat as to be nauseating: pampered, blond L.A. teenager whose surfer girl mommy died of cancer years earlier gets tired of her dad being a non-presence in her life and runs away to South Africa on her own to get his attention. She meets a local girl, has all her swag stolen by thugs, and joins her new friend in her communal living shack with a bunch of dirty surf hippies beside the ocean.  They run afoul of the law and the gangs, but everything rides on the blond girl getting a chance to recreate her mom's S.A. surf trip from before she was born. There is some quick talk of the girls getting thrown to the sharks by the thugs, but that is it for toothy menace. Lots of pretty but fairly tepid surf scenes, a zillion cute girls in bikinis (hottest of all being Sharni Vinson a couple of years before she played the tough girl lead in Adam Wingard's You're Next), and a wholly unbelievable but completely predictable storyline. – TC4P Rating: 5/9

Rolling Thunder (1977) Dir.: John Flynn – There is a very good reason why Quentin Tarantino is not only very high on this film as one of the cornerstones of his movie philosophy, but that he also named a production company after it. There are plenty of examples of revenge action flicks from the 1970s, and I will not fault your opinion if you prefer Death Wish or another film in its place, but Rolling Thunder is arguably one of the better crafted examples of the genre in that period. It certainly has plenty within it that sticks in your mind far beyond a single showing, including the hard-edged, unwavering conviction in the lead role of star William Devane. I grew up with a lingering impression of Devane as John F. Kennedy in The Missiles of October, but my mind would have reeled had I seen this film when it was released and I was only 12/13 years of age. A vet returns home from Vietnam after being a prison camp for seven years, his wife and child are murdered and his hand is cut off, he enlists the aid of his best friend from the service (a young Tommy Lee Jones) and his new girlfriend to track down the gang of killers with a hook on his hand, a loaded shotgun, and one seriously bad attitude. I saw the film on cable ages ago, and then promptly set it aside. Seeing it again recently awakened a flood of memories of what a riveting performance Devane gives and his resulting path of ultra-violence that leaves the viewer both cheering and rattled at the same time. A must for action fans. – TC4P Rating: 8/9

Nothing the Public Enjoys More Than a Little Iron Fisting...

Yes, Marvel's quickly upcoming Iron Fist series is getting an early critical drubbing from pop culture and nerd sites all over the interwebs (the reviews are based on the first six episodes), but that in no way is going to keep me from hitting Netflix as early as possible this Friday to see the show for myself.

On a personal level, if they were going to concentrate on a pure martial arts series (though it is hard to say that Daredevil isn't really already such a creation), I would have preferred that Marvel do an adaptation of Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu (with or without the Sax Rohmer characters from the Fu Manchu books, part of the original Shang Chi series). Who knows? Shang-Chi has been shown to be a friend of Danny Rand's in recent years, so maybe he will pop up in a cameo in the future.

But, I also recognize that as goes Luke Cage, so goes Danny Rand (as well as Misty Knight and Colleen Wing). Since Luke has his own series, it is a natural to have Power Man and Iron Fist together eventually (even if it is in The Defenders, where Iron Fist was only a member for a day in the '70s comic, while both were members of the Secret Defenders in briefly in the mid-'90s.)

If we must go through a new series that is not quite as good as the other Marvel Netflix series that preceded it, then so be it. The bar has already been set so high with the preceding series that it was only going to be a matter of time before something that was still pretty excellent was going to get a thrashing from the public for not being totally excellent. Though I am hoping that it turns out that I end up personally enjoying Iron Fist, and thus will be able to tell the rest of the critical world to screw off...

The Lore (and Lure) of the Legion of Super-Heroes...

One of the more memorable superhero comics in our household when I was a kid was a copy of Superboy #202, dated June 1974 (which means we probably bought it around March or April). This was before I actively started collecting The Avengers and Star Wars comics in 1977, an act which triggered the building of my personal comic book collection.

Before then, comic books were an occasional treat for us, and one largely dominated by Richie Rich, Archie, Casper, Hot Stuff, Bugs Bunny, and Uncle Scrooge. Every now and then, we would end up getting the stray Batman (I was a lifelong fan), Superman, or Justice League of America comic, and even more rarely, a Marvel comic like Spider-Man, Captain America and the Falcon, The Avengers, The Defenders or the Fantastic Four. But without regular reading of any of these titles, it was hard to really get acquainted with the characters like you could in the mostly self-contained “kids” titles. At some point, however, we ended up with Superboy #202, and as it turned out, that comic alone was one that not only influenced me heavily, but my brothers as well.

The Superboy series was by that point actually called Superboy starring the Legion of Super-Heroes, where young Supes teamed up with a futuristic squad of mightily powered teenagers who lived in the 30th century. Superboy didn’t always take part in their adventures, though when he did he had to time travel to do so. And by this issue, the Legion, in their newer modern design, were popular enough to have taken over the comic almost totally from its title character. Superboy #202 was my first true taste of the Legion, and I found them hard to drop once I did. It was probably the first superhero comic where I found myself actively wrapped up in every detail on the pages, which I now realize was in line with my growing up, since I was then reading ever more gradually adult material in books as well. Around this time, I was just about to get my first taste of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan and John Carter novels, though I actually read about both characters in DC comics first. (My mother used to leave her paperback books in the bathroom, and I usually spent any of my own time in there looking for the dirty words. But I also read all of Peter Benchley's Jaws this way when I was in the sixth grade.)  But, as I started reading more and more superhero comics, it was clear I was putting Harvey and Gold Key comics behind me (for the most part; I still love them and have all of my old issues in my collection to this day) and moving into the really good stuff. It was like when I jumped from listening to mere Top 40 pop music and really discovering rock 'n' roll as a teenager. I still loved the stuff I heard when I was a kid, but I would find it was only the beginning (cue the Chicago song...)

So what was it about Superboy #202 that caught my imagination? First, I was entranced at the time by DC’s ongoing line of self-proclaimed "Super-Spectacular" 100-page comics (for only 60 cents!) Every few issues during the year, some of their titles would have issues with a full 100 pages, and in addition to new material, there would be reprints of much older material, where the characters often looked very different from their current incarnations. In Superboy #202, there were five stories crammed into it: two new ones, and a trio of older Legion pieces, and an old Superboy solo adventure at the back of the book. I wasn’t really interested in Superboy (I much preferred his grown-up adventures) half as much as the Legion, who were totally new to my eyes and caught me from the start.

The new stories had some cool, marvelously detailed artwork by Dave Cockrum, who was soon to jump ship from DC to go work for Marvel, and help reinvent the Uncanny X-Men and introduce their most legendary phase (when Wolverine was brought into the mutant fold). Despite Cockrum's excellence, it was the old Legion stories, though, that really thrilled me. I got to see into the Legion’s past, the workings of their rocket-shaped clubhouse, the monitor boards that told what each member was up to wherever they were in the galaxy, and even their courtroom (with “Guilty” and “Non-Guilty” buttons that flashed on a video screen) where they found Star Boy guilting of killing in the line of duty and demoted him to the Legion of Substitute Heroes. (His girlfriend Dream Girl willingly left with him; yeah, it was all pretty silly, but I loved it.)

There was a two-part battle -- Super-Stalag of Space and The Execution of Matter-Eater Lad -- against some three-eyed aliens that locked the entire Legion (along with some other super-powered kids from around the galaxy) in a concentration camp. I remember this piece being especially brutal, because several of the non-Legion heroes (Plant Lad, Blockade Boy, and Weight Wizard) die in the story. My favorite story overall in the comic, though, was a more modern piece, Wrath of the Devil-Fish, which played right into my unstoppable pro-monster agenda, giving us a half-man, half-fish creature who turns out to be far more hero than mere monster. It was here that I was totally captivated by Cockrum’s art, and his design of the creature fascinated me.

But Cockrum won me completely over in one other place as well: The Lore of the Legion. This was a special section in the comic, and it gave the novice reader a chance to really get to know who several of the Legion were, with individual portraits and a box featuring the names, powers, and facts about each hero. I spent an undue amount of time trying to draw each character exactly like Cockrum did, though only with limited success. Most importantly, as a youthful lad of a not quite yet burgeoning interest in the opposite sex, I found his costumes and poses for Phantom Girl and Shrinking Violet especially intriguing. Hmmm... I wonder why?

Our copy of Superboy #202 was well-loved, having passed through not just my hands, but also both of my brothers. Eventually, the cover was eroded away to mere tatters, the back cover went missing, corners on every page started doing that fold-over that overturned pages get, and while the thing held together magically (it helped that as a 100-pager, it had a surprisingly sturdy spine), it turned into a shadow of its former self. I still kept the comic in my collection, but its heyday had long passed. We also didn't own (at the time) Superboy #205 in which the second part of the Lore of the Legion was published. That section had nine more of the modern Legion members in it, including Princess Projectra, her beau Karate Kid (but in his most drab outfit, not the cool high-collared one), Shadow Lass, and the exceedingly yummy Dream Girl). It also had a final page featured deceased Legion members like Ferro Lad and some of the "Super-Team Family" members like Jimmy Olsen as Elastic Lad.

A few years ago, I received a package in the mail one afternoon from my youngest brother Chris, who had moved to Seattle. He, too, recalled with great fondness Superboy #202, which had also profoundly influenced his own love for comics. His attached note spoke of having to look around for a good while before he located a decent copy to send my way. I was overcome with joy at discovering he really had sent me a copy of Superboy #202 -- with a cover and unbroken spine and everything! -- and it remains on proud display in my office to this day. Here's to you, my brother! Long live the Legion!

RTJ

The Clash of One Titan and Some Also-Rans

Iron Man
Director: Jon Favreau
Marvel Studios/Paramount, 2:06, color
Cinema 4 Rating: 8

My pal Proty informed me a couple of weeks ago that Iron Man was “alright.” Actually, Proty said: “It was eye-ight,” with a more than slight upswing in his tone on the last word of the sentence that imparted to me that it was more than merely O.K. with him, and that Proty either likely enjoyed it or was at least pleasantly surprised, though not liked it quite nearly enough so that his statement could end with some form of emphatic punctuation such as an exclamation point. Of course, Proty just had to add the notion that “it was kinda like Transformers.”

Iron Man is more than “eye-ight.” And no, my pal Proty, except for the heroes in both films sporting metallic armor of some variety, it wasn’t at all like Transformers. Transformers, despite some fairly competent action sequences, sucked beyond belief. Transformers sucked in exactly the same way that was meant by the acne-laden, mouth-breathing, hoodie-wearing teen that sat behind me at Cloverfield, as he defiantly stood up midway through that film's credits and shouted "That fuckin' sucked!," even though he nearly shat his pants twice during the film. (Gee... so the payback for a purportedly scary film actually turning out to be scary is that you will tell your friends it isn't scary, all because you have to play tough?) In fact, I am pretty certain that this same teen absolutely loved Transformers, and then when he did go to Iron Man, he probably told all of his friends that it "ripped off" Transformers. But that is the way of Generation Oops: the idiot, uninformed youth.

But outside of that minor comparison of individual armories, otherwise -- in the realm of things on which the true quality of a film should depend: characterizations, storyline, dialogue – Iron Man is lights years past wherever Transformers barely dipped a toe. Even using characters and a plotline rehashed from comic books twenty years before the point that the Transformers flickered crudely animated onto American television screens, Iron Man still soundly quashes that latest example of Michael Bay’s general ineptitude at anything beyond flashy effects sequences.

And then there is the acting. Don't get me started on actor-by-actor comparisons, because that is truly an unnecessary undertaking in cases like these. These films draw big-time talent like flies. Especially with big-budget blockbuster films, where many actors don't really care about the potential quality of the piece, but rather about the CA$H and blockbuster exposure (which leads to even more CA$H). While there are those actors who will take a part in a comic book-style (or children's) flick because a) their kids love it, or b) they loved it as a kid, for the most part, actors take these parts because they can smell the green when the initial call from the producer gets left with their service.

Assuredly, like many of these films no matter the quality, Transformers has some wonderful actors in it, but they are mainly just there to catch a piece of the residuals. For the most part, outside of that LaBeouf twink, they have done far better work in at least more entertaining projects, if not more important or better made ones. John Turturro, Julie White, Jon Voight, Bernie Mac, Anthony Anderson -- they've all done or will do far better things. They simply collect their checks and move on...

Shia LaBeouf won't -- he's already linked to Transformers sequels for however long audiences will put up with soulless dreck -- and he has already convinced several big-name directors, in much the same way that Cruise and Keanu Reeves did before him, that he is the heir apparent to Hollywood star status. This has to be solely through the sheer power of his box office take, because acting-wise, he has done nothing in the way of convincing me that he can play anyone but himself. Such a centrally-based talent is fine for someone like Carrot Top, who really has no other choice but to be his teeth-grinding self, but LaBeouf the Grating will now be inescapable for the near future. At least Chris O'Donnell had the common decency to just be flat-out bland and kindly bored casting directors into all but killing his career. But LaBeouf actually seems to represent his dead-eyed, self-possessed generation in such a way that he shines out like a beacon in an otherwise starless night to people like Spielberg and Bay, who like anyone, are anxious to capture that core demographic, no matter the cost in credibility. And so now I have to put up with the weaselly, little snivelshit tomorrow night in the new Indiana Jones flick. If only there had been a horrible accident on the set of Disturbia, I would have been spared everything he's done since. Wait -- let's move that accident bar back to Constantine.

But back to Iron Man, where if the actors did indeed sign up only for the bucks, they at least were signed to parts practically perfect for each one. Downey has certainly climbed back fully from the abyss in which he mired himself (there's no one else to blame, really), but then, I thought that when I saw him in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. (Really, people. Avail yourself of this film already. It's a riot.) Unlike Kiss though, Iron Man is putting yourself out in front of people on one of the most grandiose levels that one can. It takes balls to possibly destroy your career further by taking on the lead role of a superhero, especially in a film that potentially could have destroyed an upcoming studio should it have failed on any level at all. But it doesn't fail anywhere, and while the entire cast is terrific, this is Downey's film to carry and the true responsibility for its success should lie upon him.

Now, a word to reviewers who love to describe Jeff Bridges' acting in this film as "over-the-top" or "hammy" or "scenery-chewing." Honestly, I felt he underplayed the role. In fact, he is so far in the background until a pair of huge scenes, I thought the scenery was chewing him instead. Yes, in those big scenes he elevates his emotions to almost shocking levels. But what the hell do you want in a movie which is derived from a comic book? (And this is no knock on comic books -- I am a lifelong collector.) Look, I just reread the original Iron Man story once again last week, and do you realize that the only word balloons that don't end in exclamation points are the ones that end in question marks. And those are fairly rare. Comic books -- and comic book heroes and villains -- are supposed to be accompanied by exclamation points! And while I am at it: !!!!!!!!!!!

Sure, you could point out that this would then give an excuse for that thankfully rare Batman & Robin fan out there to claim this is the proof that Ah-nuld or Uma were actually dead-on in their portrayals of Mr. Freeze and Poison Ivy. I say thee "Nay!" There is a monstrous difference between "good" over-the-top acting and the "bad" variety. Of the examples given above, only Mr. Bridges represents the former.

To this point, even after the first two Spideys, the original two Reeve Supermans and the Burton and Nolan Batman flicks, Iron Man could turn out to be the saving grace for modern superhero films. It’s the one where the ratio of regular guy audience connection to super-powered alter-ego action is finally mixed perfectly. Seriously, I am a Batman-aholic, but the Caped Crusader as envisioned currently can be a tough nut to crack for even the hardiest of fans. Iron Man, mainly due to Downey's completely infectious performance, may be the specimen that allows hoity-toity film reviewers from even far-flung lands – who will spend a good portion of their review explaining how normally they find all that super-hero action to be greasy kid's stuff and far below their notice – to finally recognize that these types of films can have their benefits.

The best of superhero stories can possess what the best of any genre should have, and they can have ideas beyond simple good vs. evil. They can weigh in on far more serious matters beyond "I'm lonely and misunderstood... boo-hoo! -- Hey, I have superpowers!" Iron Man touches on the military-industrial complex, war profiteering and terrorism. Tony Stark himself will even likely have a fall from grace in the movie sequels due to his rampant alcoholism, and if it sounds old hat today, when I was first reading those stories in the seventies, I was absolutely shocked with how I suddenly had to deal with such an adult issue. (The mind reels with how Downey will play this aspect of the role.) Soon, we will have the Watchmen onscreen with their ever-present nuclear clock, and while the answer to the question of "Who Watches the Watchmen?" will likely be answered, "Not huge audiences..." (it is a cult concept at best, and the film must be rated a very hard "R" to be pulled off properly), it will show once more that superhero comics are not just greasy kid's stuff after all anymore.

True, the use of these powers can often right the world for the character in a simplistic fashion, and it's also true that often the use of these powers can be seen as being ironically fascistic. But those that condemn the genre automatically -- and those that assume that this attitude is the only prevalent standard within comics -- have clearly never been fully exposed to the genre. They don't understand that the genre, especially in the past thirty years, has grown up enormously, and that it is far beyond the donning of some colorful tights. Or a shiny metallic suit.

All of these concepts are far beyond those to be found in Transformers. Yeah, it too has shiny metal heroes. What it doesn't have, and what it's director will never have, is any concept of a soul. Sorry, Proty. It's a surface-to-airhead missile that the likes of Tony Stark would never have designed on his worst day.