IGN March Comics Madness: It's All Over!

Thanks to fellow IGN Comics Review Crew member Poet Mase for creating and running the extremely fun IGN March Comics Madness tournament-bracket-filling-out-thingy. I was 100% sure Jesse was going to win since he's a certifiable comics genius, so imagine my surprise when I took first place and earned ego-inflating title of 2013 IGN Comics Cagematch People's Champion!

And here's my bracket, which I filled out with a mix of my favorite titles, what sells best, and what the IGN community seems to dig. It was the IGN community who did the voting, so this just proves they have good taste!

Movie Review: Oz the Great and Powerful

Oz the Great and Powerful aims high yet hits well short of its goal. In a world of glossy and often times garish 3D CGI-fest remakes, Oz makes a good companion to Alice in Wonderland in 3D and Jack the Giant Slayer in 3D, but unfortunately their club isn't an illustrious one.

The movie centers around James Franco's Oz, who plays the Wizard with enough ham for a Christmas feast. He goes from painfully over the top to somewhat over the top and back again at regular intervals. He is so obviously pulling a fast one on the women characters that his performance is devoid of any real charm, making you wonder what not one, not two, but three ladies see in the guy.

Oz the Mean and Pitiful.

Michelle Williams is capable of delivering some knockout performances with her ability to show off her sultry flair while masking an unspoken troubledness in movies such as My Week with Marilyn and Brokeback Mountain. Yet her Glinda is unengaging, mistaking calmness for strength. She plays the part with such frigidity that you might think she's Narnia's icy White Witch instead of the Good Witch of the South.

Mila Kunis plays Theodora, who starts out as a vulnerable doe-eyed young woman wearing her heart on her sleeve, only to have that heart broken as easily as a piece of straw after being wooed by the unsexy Oz. It's a discredit to Kunis that her Theodora is so easily heart-broken by what amounts to a middle school crush. After seeing her play the sexually unafraid Lily in Black Swan, it's clear she can deliver a more engrossing performance than what we see here. This movie is for kids, yes, but that doesn't mean it can't make us feel something.

It's not a stretch to believe that Kunis's upbeat energy and instant charm would have made her the better Glinda, while the ability for Williams to channel a deeply troubled young woman would have made her the better Theodora. 

"You shall not cast... me in the right role."

[Beware of spoilers below!]

In a blink-and-you-missed-it downfall into "darkness," Theodora is tricked into becoming the iconic green skinned, pointy-hat-wearing villain. This is the downfall of the movie. Kunis as the Wicked Witch of the West is the worst casting choice since Topher Grace as crybaby Venom in Spider-Man 3. Heath Ledger surprised us with his take on the Joker and that unsettling laugh. Kunis' signature cackle is dubbed over with some computer generated sound effect. They give her piercing yellow eyes, frighteningly arced eyebrows, and a long hooked nose, making her look more like a super model gone wrong than an ugly witch.

If you wanted to make Kunis come off any worse on screen, then you would put her next to the ever-impressive Rachel Weisz, who plays her role as sister Evanora with devilishly smooth conviction. Each of her lines drip with sweet venom, diffusing them of their cheesiness and empowering them with a serious-yet-fun tone that the rest of the movie lacks. She's the best witch, and without an ounce of makeup.

Weisz looking more Witchy-Bitchy than the girl in all the makeup.

The supporting cast consists of an annoying monkey played by Zach Braff, a one note Munchkin, and a surprisingly funny porcelain doll named China Girl. China Girl's best moments are ones where she drops her cutesy demeanor to kick Oz in the shins or pull out a tiny doll-sized knife. She is the most engaging character of the movie along with Evanora, which is saying something.

The plot is full of faux-twists and big moments that don't feel earned. It follows a path we've seen time and time again, to the point where you'll be able to predict the outcome beat for beat by the half-way point. Director Sam Raimi is known for camp, horror, and camp, and unfortunately he doesn't deliver near enough of either here. His mishandling of the female cast members reminds you that he's never given cinema any notable woman characters, while his safe approach that emphasized 3D landscapes over an engaging story reminds you that the big studio that funded this picture probably called most of the shots.

IGN Reviews 3/6/13

Check out my reviews on IGN!

IGN Comic Book Reviews 2/27/13

Check out my reviews on IGN!

Pitch for Samurai Jack/Powerpuff Girls Crossover!

Samurai Jack and Powerpuff girls have been acquired by IDW Publishing for some new comics!

The properties are ripe for a crossover. You already have sugar, spice, and everything nice, but what happens when you add a samurai sword? 

When Jack tries to hop in a time portal back home, Haku’s meddling causes him to be spit out in Townsville right in the middle of Professor Utonium’s lab.

His sword gets doused in Chemical X and the resulting explosion transforms Jack to look just like the PPGs w/big eyes and stubby arms but he still has the signature Samurai hair.

Jack has been imbued with his sword! But he’s not used to fighting with super powers instead of a sword, so the girls must teach him control while Prof works to reverse the process.

MEANWHILE, Haku has followed Jack and teams up with Mojo Jojo! Haku merges with the monkey man as a dark magical armor and we can see Haku’s eyes and mouth in Mojo’s brain -- EEWW!

Start training montage where the girls try to show Jack how to use his new super powers while Jack tries to teach them samurai discipline.

The girls take to calling him Jacky. Bubbles tries to do his hair to no avail. Blossom and Buttercup vie for his attention b/c they want to be as good as a samurai. OH, GIRLS!

The montage is cut short when the Mayor calls in to report a bank robbery! While flying to the bank, Jack notices a few buildings look strangely familiar.

The quadrio attempt to foil the robbers but in an effort to impress Jack, the girls overdo it and destroy the bank, leaving only robbers/people and the vault remaining amongst smoldering ruins.

In the midst of their fighting in which Jack just watches in wide-eyed silence, Haku Jojo appears and attacks with his new dark magic monkey smarts. He wipes the floor w/them b/c Jack isn't used to his powers yet and the girls keep getting in each others way to try and prove they are the best.

Jack’s powers are ineffective against the combined might of the villain. When Haku Jojo goes for a killing blow on Buttercup, Jack intercepts it.

The essence of the sword is activated when Jack is hit and his eyes go all glowy and a white blade of energy sprouts out of his head, but he doesn’t move.

The girls see that he has turned into a giant lightsaber and together as a team they wield him to fight off Haku Jojo and split him back into two. 

Funny bit where the two villains chastise each other for their obvious pitfalls that we the audience see time and time again. The pair disappears.

Back at the lab, Jack is separated from his sword and reverts back to his normal self thanks to the Prof’s new device. 

The Prof and full-sized Jack take each other in for the first time and there's a ambiguous conversation about maybe them being related b/c they look so similar.

Jack presents them with their own cute little samurai robes in pink, blue, and green.

Jack gives them all his samurai hairdo and in exchange Bubbles gets to give Jack a stylish new hair style (think Tom Hiddleston’s Loki but less creepy).

He’s pleased that they learned to work together as a team instead of working against each other.

Jack recounts the friends he made on his journey, like the Scotsman, and reminds the girls that a samurai may be a fierce warrior, but without strong bonds of friendship, they will fall.

Prof sends Jack back through a time portal, but Haku sabotages it and jumps in after him, directing him back to the world where he rules.

AND SO THE DAY IS SAVED -- THANKS TO THE SAMU-PUFF GIRLS!

IGN: The Best Tweeters in Comics

Twitter may be an addictive social media tool, but it’s an addictive social media tool that allows fans to keep an eye on and interact with their favorite comic book creators. Some creators rarely tweet while others only use Twitter to promote their latest comic, but there are more than a few whose feeds are more entertaining than the last movie you watched.

Take a look at our favorite comics tweeters so you know who should be your next follow.

Check out my list on IGN! 

A Django Unchained Conspiracy Theory

Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained was a bloody revenge flick, but was it really Django's story of revenge? This conspiracy theorist says no!

I want you to think back to near the end of the movie after Django's (Jamie Foxx) bloody shootout when he tricked his new handlers into releasing him. He did this by showing them a wanted posted in his pocket -- earlier given to him by Dr. King Schultz (Christopher Waltz) -- and telling them that the wanted men were back at Candie Land. This ended up being a lie so he could get free to kill them and head off to the film's explosive climax. When I saw Django trick those guys with the wanted poster, I got the same feeling I did at the end of Memento.

At the end of Memento, we learn that Leonard's (Guy Pearce) motivations were fake, propagated by the vague details on some paper, a tattoo, and a picture that incited a revenge scheme. My conspiracy theory is this: Dr. Schultz tricked Django into helping him completing his revenge scheme. He is not a bounty hunter, but instead a smooth talker with a personal hit list. Here are three reasons that back this theory up.

1.  He Made it Personal

Dr. Schultz showed Django the wanted poster to validate killing the man on the farm while his son was present. Wouldn't a gentlemanly bounty hunter wait for the kid to leave? I know they had a whole conversation about it, but in the end, to inflict that kind of emotional trauma on someone's child is clearly an unprofessional and personal action that doesn't line up with Dr. Schultz's demeanor up until that point in the movie.

A wanted poster or a web of lies?

2. He Used the Memento Trick

Django used the same wanted poster and the same story that Dr. Schultz had told him earlier in the movie. If it was a lie when Django said it, then why couldn't it be a lie before? The wanted poster had a list of names and one poorly drawn fellow that could look like any number of white men with facial hair during that time period. Also, the identity of the Brittle Brothers was never made explicitly clear after Django killed them, leaving us to only go on what Dr. Schultz used as a cover story. The same notion applies to the end of Memento: a vague description can fit a wide variety of people, all you need is a little convincing.

3. He Had a Death Wish

Dr. Schultz went to Candie Land to die. It's never said, but Dr. Schultz could have had a long personal vendetta against Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). So he uses his skills of deception to take out Candie's men across the US under the guise of a bounty hunter before going after the man himself, not unlike The Bride did in Tarantino's bloody epic Kill Bill. This makes sense when you think about how Dr. Schultz killed Candie with a shot to the heart instead of shaking his hand. It's not like Dr. Schultz had a "Marty McFly Chicken Complex" the entire movie, so why would such a previously calm, cool, and calculating man suddenly make a suicidal move instead of taking the easy way out?

Revenge! That's why!

Dr. Schultz uses his I HATE YOU eyes on Candie.

Dr. Schultz may have truly befriended Django, but ultimately he was tricking him into helping him get to Candie. What better partner than someone who is blindly devoted to rescuing his wife from the same man you want dead?