Quick Review: The Change-Up

So, it's not such a great summer for Ryan Reynolds, is it? "Green Lantern" was a disappointment and so was "The Change-Up," in which he and Jason Bateman undergo a body switch. Reynolds, as the single slacker actor, and Bateman, as the married-with-kids workaholic lawyer, aren't bad actors but they need better material than this. There are some gross-out moments and a few fun bits, but mostly it's a predictable tale in which they're forced to live each other's lives and learn the obvious lesson that the grass isn't actually greener on the other side of the fence. My grade: C-plus.

Don't worry, Ryan, we still love you for this...

Quick Reviews: Captain America, Friends With Benefits

And without further ado, here are the two films I saw most recently...

Captain America: The First Avenger: A little better than "Thor" and "X-Men: First Class," definitely better than "Green Lantern" on the Summer Superhero Scoreboard. Chris Evans is not a great actor, which actually makes him well-suited to play this particular hero. Hate that his chest was shaved/waxed to within an inch of its life. My grade: B-plus.

Friends with Benefits: Not a remake of, and better than, "No Strings Attached." Funny, though a little predictable (aren't all romantic comedies?). Good chemistry between Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. And quite a bit of Justin's butt. Woody Harrelson plays a gay sports editor (co-worker of Timberlake's character), which normally might be refreshing. But my friend Kurt felt the character was too much of a stereotype, while I was more put off by Harrelson's overacting. My grade: B-plus.

Quick Review: Green Lantern

I was worried about "Green Lantern," based on the DC Comics character. Face it, once you get past Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman you're dealing with DC's second string. And look at the trouble DC's parent company, Warner Bros., has had turning their properties into films. They had to go back to basics with the Batman films after what Joel Schumacher did to them (and struck gold, to be sure). Their first Superman franchise reboot took forever and was not as successful as they wanted, so now they're trying again with a different director, star, etc. And Wonder Woman's been stuck in movie and TV limbo. So a Green Lantern movie would have to be done right to cross over to the public at large. The box office may ultimately tell a different story, but for me, it wasn't a huge success.

Ryan Reynolds isn't terrible as Hal Jordan, the test pilot who is chosen to become the newest Green Lantern of Sector 2814 (that would be the one that includes Earth, of course) and receives the green ring that grants him superpowers. (And, as you can see, he's pretty, although he doesn't show much skin in this movie.) But the plot is splintered, veering between Hal's getting the ring and learning how to use it and meeting other members of the Green Lantern corps, and the threat of an entity known as Parallax (the essence of fear, which is represented by yellow, although the entity itself seems to be a smoke monster), and the relationship between Hal and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively), and then to Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a scientist who gets a piece of Parallax inside him and mutates into a villain himself, although he doesn't do all that much, really -- the character and actor are both pretty much wasted here. And to explain the history and mythos of the Green Lanterns and the Guardians who created them, and how green is the color of willpower, able to confront fear, and so on, took a lot of narration. I didn't dislike this movie as much as others, but it's still a disappointment. My grade: C-plus.

My Week In Comics 5-4-11 Plus FCBD

I only had one book on my list this week. I was going to head into town on Wednesday, but a few days before that I noticed something on a bus ride to Franklin Mills: a new comic book store. Within walking distance from my house! What this does is give me an option if I can't (or don't want to) go downtown for some reason. So I decided to check out the new store on Saturday, which was 2011 Free Comic Book Day. That's the day when many publishers put out special free issues (sometimes reprints, sometimes not). There was nothing quite as exciting as last year's "zero issue" that kicked off the War of the Supermen. But I did take two free books, the maximum allowed by the store. I hope the store, which has been open for ten months, does well enough to stay open. When I went on Saturday it was really quiet. While I was there a woman came in with a couple of kids, picked up two free books and then left. That was pretty much it.

Superboy 7: This was my one issue actually purchased, and skips ahead to when the Reign of Doomsday (which intervened last issue) is resolved (which will occur in the next few issues of Action Comics) and Superboy is back in Smallville. Alas, he wakes up to a nighmarish situation which, he is told, is his doing. The twist on this story (another of those time-skipping tales with "then" and "now" labels making it a little too confusing) was that it involves a variation of a plant that was a key plot in a classic Superman tale from the 1980s called "For the Man Who Has Everything."

As for the Free Comic Book Day issues, one was a reprint of a Green Lantern issue that tells (or re-tells, since this particular story was originally published in 2008) how Hal Jordan got his ring to begin with. Obviously it's promoting the movie. It also includes a preview of "Flashpoint," DC's latest huge mega-event (starting this week), in which time has been altered somehow (this happens so much!), leading to all kinds of changes in characters in the DC universe. Only Barry Allen, a.k.a. the Flash, remembers how the world used to be and has to find a way to fix things. I'm curious but not extremely excited about this. I plan to buy the main miniseries itself but probably not most of the tie-in books planned -- the ad on the last page lists one in May and a whopping 21 in June.

The other free book I nabbed was a special issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, which seems to be a new tale that's a prelude to a big storyline that's about to start. It was entertaining enough, and there was a little recap of what's been going on in Peter Parker's life recently. For example, it seems he no longer has his spider-sense. Whether it's permanent or not I have no idea, but I hate the thought of a world in which the sentence "My spider-sense is tingling!" no longer has any meaning.

My Week In Comics 12-22-10

After last week's stunning win, many Eagles fans had visions of finishing at least second in the NFC, if not first overall, dancing in their heads. All they needed was for Chicago to lose a game and New Orleans to lose a game and Atlanta to lose two games and...and...and then they went and lost tonight at home to a very poor Minnesota team, meaning the Eagles get no bye week to start the postseason and are likely to hit the road if they win their first playoff game. What does all of this have to do with my comic books? Mainly it's a way for me to vent a little about a pathetic performance without writing a separate screed. But it gives me a segue in that I think the fans' greed in wanting to believe this team is a serious Super Bowl contender is matched only by the star of the first book I'm discussing this week...

Green Lantern: Larfleeze Christmas Special 1 (of 1): I knew this would be ridiculous from the moment I first read it was coming. If you remember back to the Blackest Night stories, Larfleeze is the Orange Lantern, with orange being the color of avarice. So it's in his nature to want, well, everything. And he's learned of the existence of a magical man who gives the people of Earth whatever they ask for once a year. Naturally, Larfleeze has a looooooooooong list for Santa Claus. Hmmmm...I just had an idea: in the ultimate battle of greed, we need a Larfleeze-Daffy Duck crossover...

Batman, Incorporated 2: This series is off to a fun start. Bruce Wayne's development of "Batman, Inc." finds him (along with Catwoman) in Tokyo, where he wants to recruit the Japanese hero known as Mr. Unknown. But Mr. Unknown has been killed by a criminal called Lord Death Man, who somehow is unable to be killed. There's a mixture of action-adventure and humor that makes for a fast-paced story.

Superman/Batman 79: Meanwhile, here's a book I skipped a month ago, and now it begins a story arc featuring the Superman and Batman of the 853rd century (as featured some time back in the DC One Million event -- one million as in one million issues of DC books, not one million years). But a villain from that distant future escapes their grasp and travels back to a time in the past when Dick Grayson was still Robin and calling himself "The Teen Wonder." So this series continues to be just a place to tell stories from any era, rarely connected to current events in DC continuity. I'm feeling it's not an essential book for me to buy on a regular basis any more.

My Weeks In Comics 12-1-10, 12-8-10

It's been a light couple of weeks, but I got a bonus at the end of the week thanks to a Borders 40 percent off coupon and an additional discount I was able to get by upgrading my Borders Rewards card...not that I want this to become a commercial for Borders...

So on the first (actually the second because there was a one-day delay because of Thanksgiving) I only bought...

Action Comics Annual 13: Because this series has been starring Lex Luthor, the annual does the same, with two tales from Lex's younger years. You know this because he had hair back then. It fits the story they're telling now  in that it gives insight into Luthor's mentality, his motivations and his flaws, but it's also a bit weird. The stories deal with Luthor's first meeting with both Darkseid and Ra's al Ghul. The latter tale is told in a third-person narration that's sort of a parable, while the other features many exclamation points. Essentially, whenever Darkseid speaks there are exclamations: "You look at me and think 'I'm not like him!' You would be correct! We have nothing in common!! You're a man -- and I -- am a God!!" Exact quote.

Then, this past Wednesday...

Superboy 2: Love this book so far. Featuring Poison Ivy, some freaky aliens (I'm assuming, anyway; they look like farmers currently) who have plans for Superboy, and the newest invention of Conner's friend Simon Valentine: Parasite Frogs! (Patent pending.)

DC Universe Holiday Special 2010 1 (of 1): Six holiday tales featurning various DC characters. I'm convinced that the entire purpose of one story -- centering on an award given by the city of Metropolis to a hero each Thanksgiving -- was to make the following blatant plug, in the guise of a Daily Planet staffer conversation about who would get the award...
Lois Lane: Green Lantern has done well this year. They're even making a movie about him.
Cat Grant: With Ryan Reynolds, right? Talk about hot -- can't wait to see him in that!

Yeah...