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Non-Review Review: The Lucky One

It’s hard not to feel a tad manipulated by The Lucky One, a story that seems to want to be about the relationship between fate (or chance) and choice. Following a veteran of a foreign conflict as he tries to adjust to life back home, trying to make sense of his survival in a war that claimed the lives of countless friends and colleagues, I don’t doubt that The Lucky One was intended as a profound meditation on those themes. However, what we end up with is a rather muddled romance that never truly gets off the ground thanks to a lackluster central performance from Zac Efron and some rather uncomfortable subtext.

Not quite picture perfect...

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Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, Volume 2 (Review)

April (and a little bit of May) are “Avengers month” at the m0vie blog. In anticipation of Joss Whedon’s superhero epic, we’ll have a variety of articles and reviews published looking at various aspects of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

Written by Joe Casey, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, both volumes of it, can’t help but feel like an attempt to appease nostalgic fans, with a conscious throwback to simpler and more idealistic times, published while Mark Millar was deconstructing The Ultimates and Brian Michael Bendis was putting together the New Avengers. Both of those books represented something bold and new for a franchise that had been at the heart (but rarely the fore) of the Marvel Universe for decades, and both of which were undoubtedly controversial to older fans, offering a strange new direction for the series and its characters. Essentially an “untold” history of the team, drawing from classic published stories, Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes feels like a bone given to those fans uncomfortable at the very notion of change.

Looking for the blessing of the Trinity...

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A Stinger in the Tale: What’s the Point in a Teaser the Audience Don’t Get?

The Avengers was released on Friday in the UK and Ireland. It’s well worth a look, and it’s quite impressive how well director Joss Whedon managed to fuse these separate mythologies into one almost-cohesive film, even if it is a bit of a muddled mess at times. However, make sure that you remain in your seats as the credits role, as there’s a special surprise waiting for fans – just like at the end of Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger before it. It is a pretty big deal for comic book fans such as myself, those of us with a passing knowledge of the Marvel Comics canon. Still, I can’t help but wonder what more regular and casual movie-goers might make of it.

Running the (infinity) gauntlet...

Note: The teaser is obviously spoiled below. Also, I saw an early cut of the film, and there was no second stinger attached, as rumours have suggested might have been added late in the day. Based on those rumours, and the actors involved in the shoot, it’s more likely that scene was more accessible, but I still wonder what regular fans will make of the sequence that appears at the end of the first set of credits.

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Competition! Win American Pie: The Reunion Goodies!

Next week, the team from the original American Pie will be reuniting for American Pie: The Reunion, which sees the original gang reuniting to reflect on how their lives have changed since that iconic nineties sex comedy. My brother, who is over in Philadelphia for the summer (our American correspondent), has seen it and seemed quite impressed, so I am looking forward to it. The lovely folks at Universal Pictures Ireland have given us a prize pack to give away to one lucky reader. To enter, see below. Their facebook page can be seen here.

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Ultimate Comics Avengers by Mark Millar Omnibus (Review/Retrospective)

April (and a little bit of May) are “Avengers month” at the m0vie blog. In anticipation of Joss Whedon’s superhero epic, we’ll have a variety of articles and reviews published looking at various aspects of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

Read our review of The Avengers here. And because it’s release day in the rest of the world, here’s a second Avengers-related review. And it’s a long one.

They say you can’t go home again. The Ultimates was easily one of the best comics of the past decade, and perhaps the comic that really got me into the medium. A clever, timely, astute and well-considered exploration of the superhero in the twenty-first century, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch undoubtedly had a massive influence on everything that followed. Of course, all this would seem to be for nothing when Jeph Loeb took over the franchise for Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum, two stories that were very poorly received and damaged the franchise quite considerably. So Millar’s return to write four six-issue miniseries of Ultimate Comics: Avengers seemed like a breath of fresh air. Critical and fan reaction to his twenty-four issue run has been somewhat muted, and there’s no denying that a lot of the magic from that origin story was lost. That said, I’ll concede to finding it an interesting, complex and occasionally compelling examination of Millar’s views on superheroes.

Not quite the ultimate Avengers comic…

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Greg Pak’s Run on The Incredible Hulk (With Jeff Parker) – Fall of the Hulks (Review)

April (and a little bit of May) are “Avengers month” at the m0vie blog. In anticipation of Joss Whedon’s superhero epic, we’ll have a variety of articles and reviews published looking at various aspects of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.” Today, I’m focusing on one in particular, the Incredible Hulk.

I have to confess, it’s quite difficult to find nice hardcover collections featuring The Incredible Hulk that you can recommend to non-comic-book fans. Given the character’s fairly massive impact on popular culture, you’d imagine that Marvel would produce any number of easily accessible collected editions featuring the not-so-jolly green giant. He has, after all, featured in two movies in the space of ten years, an iconic television show and a whole host of other media. Unfortunately, Fall of the Hulks is unlikely to be that collection, and is unlikely to prove accessible to new readers looking to pick up a book featuring The Incredible Hulk. While it undoubtedly has quite a few qualities to recommend it, it is certainly not for those unfamiliar with the character.

Men of action...

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Meme of the Moment: Super Groups

The guys behind Clockbusters and Clockbusters II, two of of my favourite ways of whiling away time, are back with another addictive little mini-game. They sent on the link to Super Groups, which basically asks the player to group together bunches of iconic characters by picking them out of a line-up. Just like Clockbusters, it is really addictive, and well worth a look. Check out Super Groups here or click the picture.

Non-Review Review: Cedar Rapids

Cedar Rapids is a charming little film, even if it seems to struggle a bit blending its drama and its comedy. Despite unfolding at an insurance corporate conference, there’s a lot of very sincere and very earnest observations contained in the film, as we watch small-town insurance salesman Tim Lippe expand his world view. (Not just figuratively, but literally – the film features the character’s first trip on an airplane, for example.) While the movie’s sincerity and respect for the naive small-town operator lends the movie a bit of weight, the film struggles to balance that earnestness with a very immature sense of humour. The resulting cocktail isn’t always smooth, but it’s always fascinating, and director Miguel Arteta populates the film with a talented cast who help keep it all together.

It never really embraces its drama or its comedy...

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Brian Michael Bendis’ Avengers – Siege (Review/Retrospective)

April (and a little bit of May) are “Avengers month” at the m0vie blog. In anticipation of Joss Whedon’s superhero epic, we’ll have a variety of articles and reviews published looking at various aspects of “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.”

Read our review of The Avengers here.

Please, father… Let these heroes rise. Both Asgardian and mortal. Together. Empowered. Let them fight. Let them save us.

– Loki, Siege #4

And so, here we are. The culmination of more than five years of plotting in the Marvel Universe. Brian Michael Bendis has directed the Avengers franchise from Avengers Disassembled to Siege, crafting a post-modern exploration of what it is to be a superhero in a politically complex and morally ambiguous world. In doing so, for better or worse, Bendis has redefined the Avengers, with New Avengers just as “new” as the title promises. It’s somewhat fitting, then, that after years of introspection and exploration about when and how the characters in the Marvel Universe might be considered heroes, that it ends with an almost proto-typical superhero knock-down smash-up brawl fest.

Capping it all off...

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Mondo’s Alternate Avengers Posters

The wonderful folks at Mondo have produced a series of character posters for The Avengers. I’m a big fan of graphic design, and I love the stylised approach that they’ve taken to these characters. There’s apparently only a tiny number of them going on sale some time soon (with Hawkeye and Black Widow already sold out), so it might be worth keeping an eye out for the others on sale. They really are quite awesome.