Disney has announced a new line of graphic novels, "Kingdom Comics", which will be based on stories currently in the so-called "Disney Vault", formerly known as the place where your ideas went to die. The general point is to test what's popular and what upcoming films they might want to make. Don't be surprised that Disney's main focus isn't actually entertaining people. Stories will range from existing character's expanded lives (like the Aladdin tv cartoon, for example) and the aforementioned brand new stuff, with lots of guys in lab coats watching children reading the books and making notes and nodding.
The problem? "Kingdom Comics" is mine, bitch! I used a own a comic book store under that name, based on my favourite graphic novel "Kingdom Come". I just hate to see the name being used by this money hungry corporation. However, it's fantastic that such a large company with money to spend on distribution is going to help gain new, young comic book fans for the future.
With the Lucas, Spielberg and Ford gang finally together again, we now have our fourth and final(?) installment of Harrison Ford as "Indiana Jones". The film starts off with a bang, showing Indy (Henry Jones, Jr, as revealed in "The Last Crusade") in trouble yet again. Harrison displays Indy as aged right off the bat but he's playing possum for the audience as, soon enough, the whip is cracking, punches are being thrown and your childhood starts rushing back as you hum along to the action, "Da d-da-daaaa! Da da daaaaa"!
It's 1957 and the U.S. is in the heat of the Cold War (yes, I know what I said) and the adventure opens up in the infamous "Area 51", so you know things are going to get spooky and there's got to be yet another mystical artifact involved just like "Ark", "Doom" and "The Last Crusade". Clearly, from the title, it's a crystal skull (with a rich history that is slowly revealed throughout the entire film) and it's up to Indiana Jones to return it to it's proper Mayan home and keep it out of the hands of the Nazi's, oops, I mean Commies. The action is plentiful, just like the 1st and 3rd installments with fast moving vehicles, plenty of fist fights, bullets flying and nick of time escapes. There's also a sword fight thrown in for good measure. A sword fight where each contestant is on the back of a truck going fifty miles an hour through the jungle and one of them is a psychic powered communist and the other is a 50's greaser. I wouldn't type it if I didn't see it for myself, but there it was, and it was awesome. The sequences are spaced between the first and third act, leaving the center chunk of the movie for us to get to know the characters a little more.
Shia La Beouf is a one trick pony as the fast-talking smart mouth kid (as we saw in "Transformers" and "Constantine") but I actually enjoyed his role in this film. He proved his action chops in the robot movie and he continues that here, taking some good punches and showing us his best Tarzan impression. His name in the film, "Mutt", is a cute little take on the fact that "Indiana" was Henry Jones, Jr's dog when he was a kid and where our hero took his name. The script teases us about "Mutt's" ability of being the next "Indiana" but overall, it also shows us that Harrison Ford's still got it in spades. We also see Marion Ravenwood return, long considered Indiana's one true love by the series' fanbase. She shows up out of nowhere and Indiana's reaction to seeing her again is absolutely priceless, only Harrison Ford could put sixteen seperate emotions into one and a half seconds.
Unfortunately, I can't go too deeply into the plot if you haven't seen the film and don't want spoilers. All I can say that Harrison Ford may be a good "Han Solo" but he's a great "Indiana Jones", his presence commands your attention and watching this adventure is like comfort food for our nostalgic little brains. A whole new trilogy would be more than welcome.
Blurn!! Futurama's next DVD feature "The Beast with a Billion Backs" comes as early as June 24th! Details are sketchy but something about a monster the size of a planet from an alternate universe. Odds are good it's somehow Fry's fault. Hopefully this one's a little heavier on the Zap Brannigan, he was sorely missed from "Bender's Big Score".
- review pending
The very long anticipated "Gotham Knight" animated DVD by the producers of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight comes out a couple weeks after on July 8th. The film is done by about half a dozen storytellers, each individual story is animated in a different style, focusing on a different aspect of Batman in each one. Kevin Conroy from the animated series and JLU returns to voice Batman, hooray!
Update! Here's the new online trailer to get some views of the action!
- review pending
Mystery Science Theater 3000 - The Movie", sure this came out in 1996 but the new DVD release is worth picking up. This is one of the best MST3K's ever done to the film "This Island Earth" (featuring The Professor from Gilligan's Island, no less!). I really don't like the silly 'scenes' they do when they aren't watching the movie, though. They were very obvious time-fillers in the tv series and are carried over into the movie as well. I just skip through them, personally. But the movie viewing, as always, is a blast with zingy observations like "We'll escape under cover of daylight..." and this is apparently in stock in Coquitlam's Best Buy according to their website. You're welcome for doing the research for you.
