BATMAN...AND BEYOND!

Yeah, I know I’m a little late gettin’ around to it, but I figure I’ll throw in my two and a half cents about “The Dark Knight Rises”.  First, I have to say that I went into the theater with the sense that I would not be disappointed with this final installment of the Nolan trilogy.  I just had a feeling that things from TDK that left me so depressed (for lack of a better word) would somehow be righted.  I was not wrong…for the most part.  I think that there were a lot of things that were right on the money here.  Though I might have gone another way in some aspects, I believe that there were a lot of visions in TDKR that we saw in “Batman Begins”.  I’m not sure if those bits were because of more writing contributions by David Goyer or if it was just a conscious decision from the whole creative team to give the movie that feeling.  Aside from the obvious connection to BB (I won’t spoil it for the two people who haven’t seen the flick) there was the same kind of energy that was not (in my opinion) present in TDK.  It’s kinda hard to talk about my favorite points of the movie without giving away plot.  The same goes for the parts that I wasn’t so jazzed about, but I can say that I think the movie was worth the admission price and I’ll be glad to add “The Dark Knight Rises” to my Bat-collection. 

That being said…I’m ready for the next vision of The Batman to fill us with delight.  I am almost positive that Nolan will still have his hands in the production or executive production of the next concept, but I hope that the next creative team gives us the Batman that gives as good as he gets.  I’m talking about the guy that can go head to head with a “Super” human and come away with his head up.  That’s the guy I wanna see next.  After all, next summer we get to “believe a man can fly” again.  We should be getting ready for a Batman that can help save a planet from other worldly foes.  That only seems fair.  If I wanna see a realistic super hero, I’ll watch a Norris movie ;-))

As far as “Man of Steel” goes, I like what I’ve seen so far.  I think that the Jor El and Jonathan Kent teasers were brilliant.  Was it me, or did anyone else get the same visual vibe from those trailers as from the first “Batman Begins” teaser?  Weird…yet hopeful!  Let’s all hope that we will see stuff that we have never seen but have always been waiting for.  Horns Up!

BARLOW OUT!!!

AVENGERS ASSEMBLED...AND KICKED ASS!

Well, by now most of you have either seen The Avengers or have heard that the film had the biggest opening weekend in the U.S…ever!  All of my friends in other parts of the world told me how great the movie was before I was able to see it, so I was ready for something fairly epic…or so I thought.  My wife and I went to a matinee show in Rehoboth Beach to find a modest but enthusiastic crowd waiting to be awed by “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes”.  There was an older gentleman there with his twenty-something son, who looked as though they had been waiting to see the film together for a long time.  I thought that Heather was going to start crying because it was “so cute”.  I have to admit, it was pretty cool seeing two generations of comic fans enjoying the anticipation together, as my guys and I will be doing in years to come.  Back to the show…

After a fairly impressive trailer for “The Amazing Spider-Man”, the show began.  We were re-introduced to the “Cosmic Cube” or “Tesseract” as it’s known in the film world.  We had a foreshadowing of the Tesseract and Loki uniting at the end of “Captain America: The First Avenger” and it didn’t take a lot to imagine what might come of that union.  I’m not going to go into the entire explanation of the movie because I really want you guys to see it for yourself.  There are so many cool aspects of the Avengers it’s really hard to believe that writers Zak Penn and Joss Whedon were able to put it all in at just over two hours.  There are the inevitable duels between the would-be teammates that are brought to us in epic form.  The hero and villain match-ups are great as well.  My favorite of these, and strangely the shortest, is that of The Hulk v. Loki.  All of the characters are given their due in the movie and it is what every fan-boy has been waiting for decades to see.

I hope to see the numbers of moviegoers increase in the following weeks to prove that a comic book property can be the highest grossing of all time.  Though I have high hopes for “The Bat” and “The Spider”, I think it will be hard to beat the scale of bad-assness that The Avengers has accomplished in their first outing.  Judging by the sneak peek of their future foe, Avengers II will assuredly destroy whatever records they make this year.  Congratulations to all involved and especially Mr. Whedon…the best superhero movie of all time may be your opus my friend.

This one I will definitely be seeing again on the big screen!

BARLOW-OUT!