BlackGeekdom Science-Fiction from a Different Perspective

It was a fun movie. I enjoyed it a lot. It’s a perfect summer popcorn flick.  Prince of Persia doesn’t require any heavy lifting.  Its plot is simple and predictable.  The action sequences are excellent and switching between the actors and their stunt men is flawless.  The special effects are good.The movie is really pretty and as most Jerry Bruckheimer films go there is no shortage of action packed scenes.

Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney brought us Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure franchises.  Unfortunately, this movie for all its fun and action is not anywhere near the same level as those movies.  But if you are looking for a good time and a fun movie, check it out.

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Joss Whedon is apparently all but cofirmed as the director of the upcoming Avengers movie and is also going to do a rewrite of the Captain America and The Avengers scripts. I recognize the importance of having a unified cohesive story, but Joss Whedon?  So he’s a great script doctor: Speed, Twister, X-Men, Alien: Resurrection.  Those were some great movies……Did you sense my sarcasm?

I am somewhat underwhelmed and distrurbed by the announcements.  I understand that fanboys have a huge crush on Joss Whedon.  I must not be a fanboy because I don’t get it. Forget the fact that people are excited about him rewriting scripts.  I mean, who gets excited about a screen writer? Yeah, I watched Angel and Buffy, and thought they were pretty good shows.  Buffy: The Vampire Slayer the movie, however,was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. Did I watch Firefly? Yes. I watched it on Netflix way after the fact.  Did I like it? Not really. I got the concept, but I thought the execution was poor.  I watched Serenity, I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t any better than Aeon Flux or Ultraviolet or Equilibrium.  I watched about 10 minutes of Dr. Horrible and even though I think Neil Patrick Harris is brilliant, I tired very quickly of the show and lost interest.  Dollhouse was a good concept.  I was looking forward to the show.  I watched every episode of Dollhouse, and never thought it delivered.  There were a handful of well written episodes but overall the show was lackluster.

One of my biggest issues with him is that whenever things he writes aren’t successful, he always blames others.  It’s the studio’s fault that Dollhouse failed.  It was Fox’s fault that Firefly didn’t succeed.  But he wants to take credit for things that do well.  Dr. Horrible is some of his best work, according to him, and it’s an internet sensation.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that I just don’t get fanboys’ love of Joss Whedon.  He doesn’t seem to be any more special than any other screen writer.  I am excited about the movies, but the fact that Joss Whedon is screen writing doesn’t have anything to do with it.

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You may also want to check out Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1 (of 6) and Siege #4 (of 4)

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Marvel has brought back the Power man moniker and  this time it not Luke Cage.   I’m really  intrigued by the concept of teen version of Luke Cage hopefully the character will stick around after the 4 issue run.   Here’s a few excerpts.

Source: Newsarama

Shadowland: Power Man, a four-issue mini-series by Fred Van Lente, starts in August with a teenaged hero in the lead role. This new Power Man has ties to both Iron Fist and Luke Cage, with a slew of newly revived street villains and a power set and origin that links him to Bullseye.

Well, he’s all awesome because it’s great to have a younger character in the Power Man role. He has a power set that I think people will find really interesting. It’s sort of a logical conclusion out of something we were discussing at the summit, where Matt [Fraction] and Brian [Bendis] and Jeff [Parker] and Greg [Pak] and Jonathan Hickman and Dan Slott and all of the rest of us were sitting around the table with Joe Quesada and Dan Buckley, and we start talking about a subject that frequently comes up, and that’s magic, and how to do magic in an interesting way, within the context of superheroes, as opposed to a character kind of waving his arms in the air and having some effect happen.

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Here’s a brief but informative article  on the history of War Machine.

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The first Iron Man movie was an almost perfect example of how to do a superhero origin movie should be done.  It is easily one of the top 3 comic book movies off all time.  Robert Downey, Jr. returns as Tony Stark.  No the whole world knows that he’s Tony Stark, and as he says in the trailer, “He has privatized world peace.”  He has two villains this time around.  Mickey Rourke plays Ivan Vanko, a Russian scientist who’s plotting his revenge, and Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, a business rival of Stark’s.  Scarlett Johansson plays Natasha Romanoff, and Don Cheadle has replaced Terrence Howard as Jim Rhodes.  Samuel L. Jackson returns as Nick Fury and Gwyneth Paltrow is back as Pepper Potts.

The movie is not as good as the first.  It’s more action packed and has a bit more drama.  But to me it lacked a clear direction in the plot.  The movie does tighten up in towards the end.  I think the problem is that in the first movie, Tony Stark had purpose.  In this movie, there is no real clear purpose in Tony Stark’s actions.  I’m not saying the movie doesn’t have a plot.  It’s just that the movie had scenes that were maybe a little longer than they should have been.

The effects were excellent.  My only problem was that most of the climatic battle was reduced to points of light zig zagging across the screen.

Overall, the acting was good.  Sam Rockwell’s characterization of Justin Hammer was the weakest of the performances.  I know he was going for a little comic relief but he played it over the top in the wrong direction.  He wasn’t smarmy enough and he was way too goofy/silly.  I like Terrance Howard, but he isn’t even in the same acting category as Don Cheadle.  In my opinion Cheadle played Jim Rhodes closer to the comic book than Howard did.  I would have liked to have seen more scenes between Rourke and Downey.  I think not having together a lot more was a waste of talent.  I think one more confrontation between the two of them without suits would have done it for me.

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Souce: Superhero Hype, SciFi Wire

Marvel’s slate of movies to be made included Luke Cage.  We have been hearing about a Luke Cage movie being produced and directed by John Singleton with Tyrese Gibson attached.  I would have liked to see that movie made, but it seems that version of the movie might not happen.  Apparently, there is a top actor currently in talks to star in Marvel’s Luke Cage.

Preferably, I would have liked to have seen a Black Panther movie first, but I’ll take a Cage flick.  The only question is who is Luke Cage?  I still think Tyrese would be a good choice.  I have seen different places on the net and in the comments section in the above sources the actor Terry Crews as a possibility.  I like Crews, but I don’t know about his acting chops.  He definitely has the look.  I don’t want to see Will Smith. There’s Morris Chestnut, LL Cool J, and even Lee Thompson Young (Smallville, Flash Forward).  So, I think casting will be important.

Who do you think should play him?

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Source: Aint It Cool News

In protest of the recent immigration law passed in Arizona, Robert Rodriguez released a NSFW trailer for Machete, starring Danny Trejo.  The movie opens September 3.  To be honest, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this movie until I saw the cast list.  Where else can you find, Lindsey Lohan, Steven Seagal, Robert Dinero, Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, and Cheech Marin all kicking around in the same movie.  Remember, this trailer is NSFW, R-rated, with some strong language and violence.

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