The Sentinels of the Night

It’s been over three weeks since the last blog and I can’t for the life of me tell you why it has passed without a blog. I know there are reasons and good ones but that’s life – a speeding blur. Well, the artwork of this blog is from a story we’re giving the working title of ‘Sentinel’. It’s a Wolfman house character designed by George and myself. I won’t tell you too much for now but it’s our first (non-comedy) super-hero-styled vigilante piece in production. I’m not overly keen on creating super-hero stories unless they’re punisher-esque in nature. Before George (Amaru) started working with us he expressed his wish to work on a superhero but I gave him ‘Family Affair’ to stretch him, make him rely on drama, layout and facial expressions rather than superhero gimmicks and tools. But now he’s in his element and is working hard to bring the ‘WOW’ factor to this tale.

In reviews, well, weeks have passed and I have read a lot but I won’t over do it today. I asked George to write up his opinions of Wolverine, which made me laugh because I asked for a ‘few’ paragraphs but he wrote an essay. But he kindly cut it down

X-Men Origins: Wolverine tells the story of how Marvel’s lovable Canucklehead went from sickly country boy to the ferocious and headstrong X-Men member. It is an enjoyable film that fills in the missing back story of Wolverine’s past that we are teased with in the first two X-Men films. The film focuses on Logan’s path to becoming the bad-boy hero we all know and love and treats us to cameos by some fan favorite, as well as some lesser known Mutants from the Marvel Universe. It is an enjoyable ride filled with lots of action, and plenty of fan-boy eye candy and easter eggs, but falls short of being an viable stand-alone film, and assumes that you are either a comic fan, or have seen at least the first two X films before venturing into the theater. The movie fails to truly give any back story as to who or what Mutants are, why we should particularly care what is happening to them as a race, or why Stryker views them as a threat, other than the very brief mention of Stryker’s son, whom we are to assume in this film is a Mutant, based solely on one conversation.

Despite this, the movie does do a decent job of explaining Logan as the central character and makes us care, or at least causes us to be curious of what happens to him, even if we don’t fully understand the circumstances that he is in. Hugh Jackman once again proves that he is perfect for this role, and Liev Schreiber delivers a great performance as Victor Creed/Sabertooth.

The movie doesn’t deliver any huge emotion, even in the scenes between Logan and his wife Silver Fox, and isn’t nearly as Shakespearian or allegorical as the mainline X-Men films, but is an enjoyable popcorn flick. The fans will love appearances by Blob, Cyclops, Emma Frost, Silver Fox and of course, the long awaited film debut of Gambit. Wade Wilson is an enjoyable character and nicely played by Ryan Reynolds, though I for one was a bit disappointed with the use of the character in his Deadpool persona.

In the end, the film keeps Fox’s X-Men franchise alive, and will hopefully lead to the rumored Magneto origin film. The involvement of characters such as Cyclops and Emma Frost, among others serves the purpose of providing plot details, but is also surely meant to set up X-Men: The First Class, which X-Producer Lauren Shuler Donner seems to very much want to move forward with. It will cause the usual nerd debates about straying from the source material, and how this character or that character was ruined, but overall it provides a nice escape and is good enough to make us forget X3, even if it’s just for a little while.

Review by George Amaru

I decided to review Wonder Woman the animated movie. With Bruce Timm involved I knew this would be cool. And the story is nice in length and detail. The perfect voice actors. The only down side is that when the action of the story hits the States (and it’s big) we don’t get cameo. I know this isn’t usually done but with the action on the scale it is, situated at the countries capital I would have expected the US government to call in some of the ‘heavy-hitter’ it would have on call; such as Superman etc. But if you over-look this detail it is still a cool film. And as I mentioned before it’s good length compared to what we normally get for animated piece. I have the special edition but I feel a little cheated as the extras on the first disc are just trailers for other DC animated releases. The second disc comes with one large and one small documentary. The first is an exploration of the creation of Wonder Woman, the times she was from and the impact she had on those times. The second was something similar but it felt like a real waste. And that was it for the docos, no storyboards or making of. There was two of Bruce Timm’s personal choice of Justice League episodes (which are pretty cool) to finish it. I felt it was a waste of money to buy it. I should have rented the two discs (to see the docos) and just bought the movie below $10 when it hits the bargain bins in about 6 to 8 months from now.

Well, that’s my review for this blog.

I really hope you like the artwork above.

Eug

PS As usual if you have any comments email them to lonewolf@wolfman-productions.com

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