Aquaman (2018)

I remember watching Heroes and thinking how awesome the superpowers were.  People could fly or read minds.  Everything was extremely useful.  No one had a really crappy superpower.  Some of them came close towards the end.  But, there was no one that had, say, the ability to press clothing as their power.  It’s like, “Great.  Hiro can travel through time and Claire can regenerate.  On the bright side, at least I never have to buy an iron.”

I kind of wonder if Aquaman started out as a conversation along those lines.  Don’t get me wrong.  Being able to talk to fish might be cool and all, but I think the novelty might wear off after a while.  I’d also never be able to enjoy salmon again.  I went into the movie wondering what the most recent take on the character would look like.

It looks a lot like National Treasure.  Think about it:  A man of important lineage has to go on a hunt for a special item/set of items while being chased by a bad guy.  If he gets the item, which we know he will, it will alter the course of events, presumably for the better.

That’s basically it.  If you’ve seen the coming attractions, you know the plotline.  Aquaman, a.k.a. Arthur Curry, was born to a land-dwelling father and a sea-dwelling queen.  He eventually has to reconcile his aquatic heritage by defeating his half-brother.  To do so, he must find a special trident.

Sure, there are some great fight scenes and the CGI was at least halfway decent.  (Although, there were a few shots that looked a little off to me.)  Still, it wasn’t a great movie.  It was almost like it was written by a brooding teenager.  The movie wants to be taken seriously, but anyone trying to take the movie seriously is like, “Nope.”

One thing that kept bothering me was Arthur’s trident.  What’s wrong with the trident?  It has five points.  Aren’t tridents, by definition, supposed to have three points?  Every time I saw it, it stood out.  I think it was supposed to look cool or something.

That was the thing. The movie seemed to be all show and spectacle.  There seemed to be very little substance.  The movie was an excuse to string together scenery, CGI and fight scenes.  It was enjoyable, but it was the least enjoyable of the superhero movies so far.  I’m kind of hoping that if Aquaman comes back to the big screen, it’s part of the Justice League.  It’s going to take a while to write a better standalone movie for him.

IMDb page

Power of Grayskull: The Definitive History of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (2017)

I don’t remember a lot of specific details from my childhood.  I remember having an Atari 2600.  I even remember liking a few of the games, such as Super Breakout.  Similarly, there were things about the Commodore 64 that I recall.  I think I may still have a few of the floppies lying around somewhere.

One thing I remember is playing with the He-Man toys and watching the cartoon as a child.  I don’t really remember that much about the show other than a few details, like Prince Adam being the alter ego and his mother being from Earth.  Since Netflix has the series available streaming, I might go back and have a look at a few of the episodes.

Power of Grayskull is a documentary that covers the basic history of the franchise.  The characters were first envisioned as toys, which came with small booklets containing comics.  There wasn’t much continuity between them, but the toys were popular.  Then, came the Saturday-morning cartoon.  And a movie.  And several other cartoon series.  The franchise has been around for a while..

I felt that the documentary dragged a little in the beginning, which covered the original toys and cartoon.  Part of this is probably because I already watched The Toys That Made Us, another Netflix production.  The episode covering He-Man seemed to have a lot of the same information at a third the running time.  Power of Greyskull went into more detail, but I didn’t really feel like I learned that much more.

For instance, there were interviews with Dolph Lundgren and Frank Langella, both of whom were in the live-action movie.   Other people involved with the movie also talked about why Battlecat and Orko didn’t make appearances.  It’s sort of like a sampling of DVD commentaries about different aspects of the franchise.

Someone who hasn’t seen anything about He-Man before might enjoy this.  The main advantage for me was getting to see artwork, but I don’t know if that’s going to be enough for everyone.  If you only have a passing interest in He-Man, I’d recommend watching The Toys That Made Us, instead.  You get about the same detail at a third the time.

IMDb page

Masters of the Universe (1987)

I didn’t watch a lot of Saturday-morning cartoons as a kid, mostly because I liked to sleep late.  I do remember two:  Thundercats and He-Man.  I was able to rent one of the Thundercats DVDs from Netflix, but returned it after the first episode.  It didn’t really hold up that well.  Perhaps some memories are better left as memories.

A few months ago, I saw a cover for Men’s Fitness with Dolph Lundgren.  The only thing I knew him from was the live-action Masters of the Universe (He-Man) movie.  I knew that I probably wouldn’t want to bother with the series, but the movie might be worth it.  It would only be a matter of time before Netflix had it streaming.  Lo and behold, Netflix started streaming Masters of the Universe recently.  Despite a few complaints, I remembered liking the movie as a kid.  What could go wrong?

The story starts with He-Man, Duncan and Teela talking about how Castle Grayskull has been taken over by Skeletor.  His plan is to take its power and rule the universe as evil overlord.  How is this possible?  Simple:  He’s tricked Gwildor into making a Cosmic Key that can transport the user and/or friends to any point in space and time.  Skeletor can send his troops to any planet and take it over.  In the process of stopping Skeletor, He-Man, Gwildor, Duncan and Teela are transported to Earth, promptly losing the Cosmic Key.  They don’t have much time to stop Skeletor, who has sent several mercenaries to find and capture He-Man.  Yeah, that’s pretty much the plot in a nutshell.

You know how movies meant for kids now have something for adults?  (How nice that the writers thought of the people who are paying for the tickets.)  Masters of the Universe wasn’t made with that consideration in mind.  The movie was designed to sell the toy line.  This is really where my perspective has changed over the years.  The movie was great for a kid that enjoyed the cartoon and would probably sit through anything that stayed moderately true to the cartoon.

That’s really where my complaints were.  They didn’t have He-Man change from his alter ego, Adam.  They also totally left out Battle Cat and Orko.  In fact, I thought Gwindor was supposed to be a version Orko.  That much I understood.  I could see not wanting to have a floating, vaguely ghost-like character due to budget concerns.  It could also be difficult to have a talking cat in the movie or to have Adam transform into He-Man, as per the TV series.  The $17 million budget was huge for them.  The director had to fight to get a decent ending.

This is one of those movies that I would totally understand if modern audiences skipped.  My watching it was pure nostalgia.  I knew Courteney Cox and Robert Duncan McNeill were in it.  There was also Billy Barty (Noodles MacIntosh from UHF) playing Gwildor.  I also recognized James Tolkan and Frank Langella.  Still, the main draw was having watched both this and the cartoon as a child.  I honestly feel bad for any parent that was dragged to see this.

I think the big drawback was the plot.  It was very underdeveloped to the point where I think the studio was using the characters as a draw.  this came across more as a bad in joke.  There were a few lines that were delivered like you were supposed to know the back story or were a reference to the TV show.  (Think “I have the power!”)     Instead of a standalone movie, like many of today’s movies based on TV shows, it seemed like the finale to a TV show that was cancelled.  (Speaking of which, a planned sequel was scrapped due to the studio losing the movie rights.  Legend has it that the proposed script became Cyborg with Jean-Claude Van Damme.)

The story seems to rely too heavily on cliché.  How is it that as soon as Skeletor locks in on the Cosmic Key, it moves?  Why is it that when anyone finds something of great importance, they instantly assume it’s something else and immediately start playing with it?  It’s amazing that Kevin didn’t send the entire planet into an alternate dimension or something.  I’ve also noticed that the main evil guy always gets really crappy henchmen.  Here’s a guy that took over a planet no problem, but he can’t find someone to do a simple search and retrieval.

The acting was somewhat decent.  Langella was best as Skeletor.  For those that have seen the Back to the Future movies and Top Gun, Tolkan was pretty much what you’d expect as Detective Lubic.  (Is it too much to ask that he call someone a slacker?)  Most of the rest of the acting is about what you’d expect of an 80s movie based on a toy line.  I’m not saying it’s bad, but a lot of it wasn’t memorable.

One of the advantages of Netflix streaming is that I didn’t have to wait for a disc.  The downside is that I couldn’t get any features.  I might rent the disc just to be able to see some of the commentary.  (Much of the information I get is through IMDb.)  I guess nostalgia is a funny thing.

There’s supposed to be another live-action movie coming out.  I don’t know if it’s supposed to be a sequel, a remake or a reboot, but I’m not sure how I’d feel about it.  I imagine it would be similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot, which is also currently available streaming.  Perhaps some memories are better left as memories.

IMDb page