(no subject)
I told kimberlyfdr I'd post my thoughts on Under The Red Hood, which came out today.
The spoiler free tl;dr version: I liked it. In fact, I liked it better than I thought I would. (I love Jason Todd. He's easily one of my favorite characters, and I really love the story arc that the movie's based on, so I was a little worried.)
-I liked a lot of the voice acting more than I thought I would. (Bruce Greenwood and John DiMaggio were especially good.) I was a little concerned, especially with Jason Todd, simply because Jensen Ackles' voice is not what I envision Jason to sound like. (If anything, he'd sound more like Dean Winchester.) It still wasn't perfect, but it was good enough. The same thing applies to Dick Grayson/ NPH, but I actually liked NPH's take on Dick. It was lower than what I saw in the preview, which helped. Still didn't like Black Mask's voice though. (Or his overall design.) But even he was tolerable.
-They changed a lot of things, mostly little stuff, in order to tell the majority of the story in such a small amount of time. I thought that it was pulled off well.
-Was hoping for at least some of the banter between Black Mask and Red Hood that showed up in the comics. Them baiting each other was a lot of fun to read.
-On the other hand, a good share of the dialogue was pretty much word for word from the books. And my favorite line was included, which was really one of the things I was concerned about.
-A little disappointed that Talia, while she did show up, didn't have any lines. She just stood next to Ra's for a minute and that was it. I love Talia, and wish she had a bigger part.
-They turned Black Mask's assistant into a chick. Wtf.
-Taking out Captain Boomerang and replacing him with The Riddler. I get why they did it (because The Riddler is more recognizable than one of The Flash's Rogues) but how are people going to learn about characters otherwise? (The same goes for that quartet of assassins with the lightsabers. I'm pretty sure they're either obscure villains nobody's used in a long time, or people that were just made up for the movie.)
-The "crippling friends" line. Was that a Barbara Gordon reference I heard? Excuse me while I squee quietly in a corner. Also, DC needs to make a Batgirl: Year One movie. This "doesn't sell as well as Batman and Superman" crap is stupid. It's also wrong.
-And Jason, I know he "took your name" and everything, but stop wearing Tim's costume. (Though I was just a little thrilled to see the short pants and pixie boots make an appearance.)
I really just want more movies about the Batkids. I honestly like the Robins and the Batgirls and everybody else more than Batman. They could do a movie about Cassandra (minus the whole No Man's Land thing), or an adaptation of Batman And Son, or something with Spoiler, or y'know, FREAKING BATGIRL: YEAR ONE LIKE THEY WERE PLANNING TO.
I'm taking this with me to California and watching it again this weekend. Maybe tomorrow on the drive down. It was a solid, very enjoyable little movie. And I didn't cry like I was afraid I was going to.
Speaking of California, I'm supposed to be up in four hours and I'm not even done packing yet. (I'm almost done, I swear.) There is wifi at the hotel, or I might make a voice post since I haven't done one of those in ages.
I'm seriously not looking forward to the drive. At all.
The spoiler free tl;dr version: I liked it. In fact, I liked it better than I thought I would. (I love Jason Todd. He's easily one of my favorite characters, and I really love the story arc that the movie's based on, so I was a little worried.)
-I liked a lot of the voice acting more than I thought I would. (Bruce Greenwood and John DiMaggio were especially good.) I was a little concerned, especially with Jason Todd, simply because Jensen Ackles' voice is not what I envision Jason to sound like. (If anything, he'd sound more like Dean Winchester.) It still wasn't perfect, but it was good enough. The same thing applies to Dick Grayson/ NPH, but I actually liked NPH's take on Dick. It was lower than what I saw in the preview, which helped. Still didn't like Black Mask's voice though. (Or his overall design.) But even he was tolerable.
-They changed a lot of things, mostly little stuff, in order to tell the majority of the story in such a small amount of time. I thought that it was pulled off well.
-Was hoping for at least some of the banter between Black Mask and Red Hood that showed up in the comics. Them baiting each other was a lot of fun to read.
-On the other hand, a good share of the dialogue was pretty much word for word from the books. And my favorite line was included, which was really one of the things I was concerned about.
-A little disappointed that Talia, while she did show up, didn't have any lines. She just stood next to Ra's for a minute and that was it. I love Talia, and wish she had a bigger part.
-They turned Black Mask's assistant into a chick. Wtf.
-Taking out Captain Boomerang and replacing him with The Riddler. I get why they did it (because The Riddler is more recognizable than one of The Flash's Rogues) but how are people going to learn about characters otherwise? (The same goes for that quartet of assassins with the lightsabers. I'm pretty sure they're either obscure villains nobody's used in a long time, or people that were just made up for the movie.)
-The "crippling friends" line. Was that a Barbara Gordon reference I heard? Excuse me while I squee quietly in a corner. Also, DC needs to make a Batgirl: Year One movie. This "doesn't sell as well as Batman and Superman" crap is stupid. It's also wrong.
-And Jason, I know he "took your name" and everything, but stop wearing Tim's costume. (Though I was just a little thrilled to see the short pants and pixie boots make an appearance.)
I really just want more movies about the Batkids. I honestly like the Robins and the Batgirls and everybody else more than Batman. They could do a movie about Cassandra (minus the whole No Man's Land thing), or an adaptation of Batman And Son, or something with Spoiler, or y'know, FREAKING BATGIRL: YEAR ONE LIKE THEY WERE PLANNING TO.
I'm taking this with me to California and watching it again this weekend. Maybe tomorrow on the drive down. It was a solid, very enjoyable little movie. And I didn't cry like I was afraid I was going to.
Speaking of California, I'm supposed to be up in four hours and I'm not even done packing yet. (I'm almost done, I swear.) There is wifi at the hotel, or I might make a voice post since I haven't done one of those in ages.
I'm seriously not looking forward to the drive. At all.