MOVIE REVIEW: The Karate Kid

Oh, my poor little neglected blog. How unused you are. Oh well, summer's been too fun. I'm here now to give y'all a review of the movie I just saw, The Karate Kid.

As a person who enjoyed the original movie very much I was a bit worried that I'd be comparing this remake to the older one too much to fully enjoy it. That was not the case luckily enough. The 2010 movie is strong enough to stand on its own two legs and successfull in being an homage to the original while at the same time adding new elements to the story.

Of these new elements the one that stands out the most is the setting. The movie is filmed on location in Beijing, China, which naturally gives the audience some beautiful scenes. It also adds to the story by more or less isolating the main lead Dre (Jaden Smith) in a culture he knows nothing about and he can't even communicate with the majority of the population. Dre is so very American in his attitude, pop culture references and unfamiliarity with his new home. The contrast between cultures is immediate and very believeable. Jaden Smith works well in this role as showcases a large variety of emotions and he does them all very well. I especially appreciated that in this movie it's the american that has to adapt himself to his new home's culture rather than him showing how his American style is the superior one. Believe me, it's a refreshing novelty in movies like this.

Now while Jaden Smith is good in his role the movie's shining star is without a doubt Jackie Chan as Mr. Han. I now see this veteran action star in a whole new light. He pulls of the old, withered and eccentric master role brilliantly and makes it his own. There's a sense of sadness and mystery to Mr. Han. He has a personal secret that is subtley hinted at up until it's revealed. At that point the catharsis scene is one of the most poignant things I've seen on the big screen all summer.

The teacher-student friendship between Dre and Mr. Han is of course the very cornerstone of the movie's story and it is a pleasure to see how it goes Mr. Han barely responding to Dre trying to get his attention to the two of them learning life lessons from one another. It's all pulled off very well and with a sense of sincerity that I personally loved to see.

Unfortunately the romantic sub-plot doesn't hold up as well as the main plot. It's a contrieved and forced and the actress that plays Dre's love interest has basically two expressions. Sad face and big smile. However, it does what it's supposed to do and the conclusion of it was one of my favourite scenes.

Now for a quick list of other notable things in the movie. Taraji P. Henson as Dre's mother is very good. I'm rather impressed that there wasn't any real rousing speech throughout the entire movie. The fighting scenes where well-coreographed and only really implausible towards the end of the last one. I also enjoyed how there was several training montages instead of one which made Dre's eventual improvement feel more natural.

All in all, I really enjoyed this movie. It was one of the most touching films I've seen this summer and I recommend it to everybody that's seen the original.

The point of pointless deaths in superhero comics

Death in comics is a fickle and complicated thing. For the readers few things can stir up as much emotion, for better or worse, as the death of a character. One of those few things is when a character is revived. You see, for comic book fans it is a well-known fact that comic book characters, especially in superhero comics, rarely stay dead. That's what happens when there are multiple writers, all of which have different opinions and ideas in regards to character deaths and revivals.

These constant revivings of characters that have had poignant or heroic death scenes can make said death scenes seem, to be brutally honest, pointless a lot of the time. However, it doesn't have to be that way. Both deaths and revivals can indeed evoke positive feelings in the reader. It all really depends, as basically everything in the industry, on the quality of the overall story. A poorly written death scene can agaitate the reader because a character that they liked just died and they didn't get the respect that they deserve. In these cases a return to life for the character is often desired. Reversely, a great death scene that honours the character and shows them at their best will often leave the readers with a bitter-sweet satisfaction that the character gave it their all and looked awesome while doing it. Those are generally the cases when a revival will feel like it cheapens the death scene in question.

There are any number of different examples in regards to this subject and as a particular death in comics have made me consider these issues a bit more than usual. So I decided to post some of my thoughts and findings here to see if I could discern whether there is a point to killing off characters anymore or if it's just a tedious excercise of writers trying to go for cheap drama.

But first I'd like to point out that there are characters in comics that actually do stay dead once they've left this state of life. For example, if somebody dies as a part of the hero's origin story they will usually be immune to getting revived, traditional examples include Spider-man's uncle Ben and Batman's parents. Then there are the rare characters that died way after the origin story and actually stayed dead. Before going to those that went to death's realm and back allow me to talk about those that that remain dead after their death scenes, whether they were good or bad. First up is quite the possibly the most awesome death scene I've ever read.

Skurge the Executioner was, despite the incredibly badass name, a B or C-list Thor villain. The kind of guy that was usually the dumb muscle more than anything. At a point when he feels unusally down he joins Thor for a rescue mission into Niffelheim. Skurge gets tricked and used and shamed in front of hundreds of his fellow warriors. To make up for it Skurge stands in front of a bridge that the heroes have to cross while pledging that he will protect them from the undead army hunting the heroes. We get the following scene.

The narration reads as follows: They sing no songs in Hel, nor do they celebrate heroes. For silent is that dismal realm and cheerless. But the story of the Gjallerbru and the god that defended it is whispered across the nine worlds and when a new arrival asks about the one to whom even Hela bows her head the answer is always the same. He stood alone at Gjallerbru. And that answer is enough.

After that scene Skurge actually stays dead and it's understandable why that is. He was a fairly unspectacular character so there's probably little appeal in bringing him back when it would be fairly easy to create a similar new character. Not just that, but Skurge's death scene was quite possibly the coolest thing that ever happened to the character. But it wasn't just an awesome death scene that is remembered to this day, It served as a trigger for character evolution in the godess the Skurge loved but was spurned by and in death Skurge acted as a heroic example that Thor could see as an example when he almost lost his way. In short, an awesome death scene that actually meant something in the longer run.

Another heroic death scene that seems to have stuck can be viewed in the case of Rex-splode from the Image comic Invincible written by Rober Kirkman, who more or less writes EVERYTHING that happens in the Invincible universe, meaning that it's unlikely that some other writer will have a chance to much his work up. In the series' 60th issue Rex sacrificed himself to save his injured teammates from an over-powering opponent. Prior to this Rex had been something of an annoying jerk, cheated on his girlfriend among other things. But after some character development he'd begun to be less of douchebag. Then he died. Unlike Skurge who evolved more as a character in death more than he'd probably ever do in life there were still more stories to tell with Rex. This is an example of that bitter-sweet feeling I mentioned before. The fans of the character want to see more of him but at least he went out like a hero. But because Rex died like that it become more poignant. The readers will not only miss the character but the stories with him that won't be told because he's no longer there, making the scene and aftermatch all the more powerful. A revival would take away a lot, if not all of that power.

A more famous example of a character that's still dead would be when Spider-man's girlfriend Gwen Stacy was killed by Green Goblin. Gwen has remained dead for quite a few number of reasons. The impact of her death rocked not only Spider-man's personal universe but actually ended the Silver Age of Comic Books. Before this event it was completely unthinkable that a hero's girlfriend could actually be killed by a villain. But when Gwen died a lot of doors opened up for grimer and grittier stories. In short, she became a symbol for a step forward in the entire industry, whether that was good or bad is up to each individual.

However, the reasons for killing Gwen weren't exactly that noble. The creators just didn't know what to with her and thought that her relationship with Peter Parker was leading down an unfitting route for the character, namely happiness. There was also the idea that by killing Gwen they would more reafirm the root of tragedy that they considered vital to Spider-man's character. In short, Gwen Stacy was killed mainly to evoke an emotional reaction from Spider-man making her an early Woman in a refriegerator. It's pretty certain that Gwen will never come back due to the importance her death had and it is certainly a well-written tragic story. But I can't help but think that the character deserved more than to be tossed aside like that.

So that's one heroic death and one tragic death. Next up is the very satisfying death of one Alexander Luthor, at least it's satisfying to me. Alex is a Luthor from another dimension and acted as one of the main villains in a large DC comics crossover event. During this event Alex became repsonsible for the deaths of entire worlds and generally being an arrogant prick. During the epic final battle Alex manages to sneak away from the heroes and begins planning his next move. In an alleyway he is intercepted by the only two villains he didn't allow to work with him. Lex Luthor and the Joker. The Joker disfigures and brutally kills Alex, though the killing happens off-screen it was later confirmed that Alex was killed.

Like I said, for me it was a satisfying death scene. Not only was it well-executed, pun not intended, and completely in-character for basically all villains involved. It was nice to see a horrible villain like Alexander get what's coming to him. It also made sense storywise. Alexander was extremely dangerous, even by comic book villain standards, and if he wasn't dealt with it wouldn't have been believable. But here's the thing, while some people may have appreciated that Alex was dealt with in this way others probably didn't see it that way. It's risk that writers run whenever they kill a character. Not everybody is going to appreciate that a character is killed, even if the scene is well-written (though that is of course relative). So this is a case where a revival could be appreciated by at least part of the audience. Luckily Alex is the kind of character that could plausibly be revived.

Now while, revival would work for Alexander it isn't entirely necessary since the scene worked (again, it's relative). There are other cases where revival is desired because the death scene was poorly written. This is the case with Ares, whom died in the recent Marvel comics event Siege.

Ares is a character that had seen an increase in popularity in recent years after having been reimagined in a mini-series written by Michael Oeming that turned the character into an anti-hero instead of the run of the mill villain he used to be. During Siege one thing leads to another and Ares ends up in a confrontation with the insanely powerful and insanely insane hero the Sentry. They duke it out or a bit before Sentry rips Ares apart in a two-page spread, and it is one very bloody display.

There are so many things that I dislike about this death scene. Chief among them are the intentions behind the scene. It's clearly intended to shock the readers and to be honest that is never a good excuse to kill a character. Another reason for Ares death was, and this mentioned by the author himself, was to make Sentry seem like a bigger threat when his inevitable confrontation with Thor would occur. Considering that Marvel have spent the ten years since Sentry was introduced to shove it down the readers throat how powerful Sentry is, hinting to links with the Judeo-Christian God and having him overpower the nigh-omnipotent Molecule Man, there really wasn't any need to reinforce Sentry's strength like that. And even if the fight between the two was really necessary then why not just have Sentry give Ares a bloody non-leathal beating. It would achieve basically the same thing without the drawback of needlessly killing a popular character in eye-rolling fashion. There hasn't even been any real follow-up to the event and the events of the story weren't actually affected by Ares dying. It's poorly concieved and pointless death scenes like this one that makes revivals seem necessary.

Revivals themselves can also vary greatly between instances. Saddly enough the differences nowadays often seem to be limited in how predictable the revival will be written. When a character dies readers automatically begin counting down until that character is revived. In some cases it's justified since it's part of a grander story. This was the case when Superman and Captain America died.

Big name characters never truly stay dead and considering that both Superman and Captain America were big enough for their deaths to be feature in various mainstream media outlets one can tell how big both of these guys were. So naturally their return was inevitable. The question wasn't whether or not they would return to life. It was how and when they would return, and whether the stories would be any good. Now, I haven't actually read the stories where either of the returns so I can't really comment on whether they're good or not. I have read that Captain America's story involves space-time travelling and Superman's has something to do with a "regeneration matrix". Standard superhero comic stuff. But the important thing in both these cases is that there were stories planned behind both deaths and new things came out of them.

In Superman's case four new characters were created and at least three of them are still relevant to this day. Besides that there quite a bit of story threads that came out of Superman's return to life, like how it affected Superman's relationship with Lois Lane and the fall of the superhero Green Lantern (Hal Jordan). When Captain America died there was a long storyline concerning who would take his place and how it affected those close to him. Now that he's come back Steve Rogers no longer bears the title but is in a new position of power to aid the superhero community. In short, both these stories had plans behind them instead of just big shocker events. It's interesting to note that Superman's death was the ending to the storyline that built up to the death scene with the following stories dealing with the aftermatch. Captain America's death on the other hand was just the beginning of the storyline that dealt with his death.

In any case, there were plans with the events that would take place after these two deaths and how they would be revived and there was aftermatch material in both instances. So while the revivals may have been predictable to various degrees at the very least the writers realised that and planned ahead. I appreciate that.

Another death that would predictably be undone is the case with Thanos the mad titan. It happened during the excellent Annihilation storyline and the death scene in question is an interesting one. For those who don't know, Thanos is cosmic tyrant turned anti-villain who has romantic feelings for Death herself. Right before his demise Thanos tries to destroy a weapon that could threaten the universe. Unfortunately things happen, trying to avoid spoiling things too much, and Thanos is killed before he has a chance to do so. The interesting part here is that Thanos doesn't have a chance to make any real resistance and goes down without too much of a fight. But the scene is still so well written with Thanos seeing his beloved smiling at him as he is killed. There's a sense of dignity to it and even though it wasn't a display of ultimate badassitude it felt satisfying. This was also sort of an fitting end for Thanos as he happily embraced his fate and was joined with his beloved abstract concept. It was rather clear that the writer, Keith Giffin, intended this to be a sort of send off for Thanos. And if Thanos never returned to life that would be ok.

However, Thanos is a cosmic character and they are rarely bound to the same universal laws as earthbound characters so it would make a bit more sense if he were to return to life. There's also the fact that Thanos is really popular among fans so it was only inevitable that he would return to the living. In short, the fans expect Thanos to come back to life but since he's not as popular as Cap or Supes there's just a little more surprising when it happens. Also, because of who he is fans where pretty much expecting that any reason for Thanos to be seperated from his love would be a pretty big event kind of deal. Lo and behold, Thanos has recently returned and the cricumstances surrounding it are so big that they're an integral part of an event that bears Thanos' name in its title. The writers wanted to use Thanos earlier but they knew that the death scene was so good that whatever the storyline that brought him back was it needed to be organic and big. In short, while it wasn't planned from the beginning Thanos' death scene became an important ingredient in another story arc down the line and proper respect was shown to both the character and the death scene in question. A lot of work was put into the death scene and the revival and that is basically all we can ask for.

Not all revivals will get the same amount of work put into them. An example comes from Annihilation, and remains one of the few big blemishes to the series, and one of the mini-series that lead up to the event. In the mini's last issue the alien villain Kl'rt the Super-skrull gets a heroic death on par with Skurge's as he learns what it means to be a hero. It was one of the highlight moments of the entire Annihilation saga. Then, a few months later in real life, he is revived by accident as two cosmic powered entities slam into each other nearby his corpse. Even Kl'rt and the narrator are baffled by this turn of events. Then it's just accepted and never spoken of again. This is the kind of annoying resurrection that makes one wonder why anybody actually bothers to write a dramatic death scene if just going to be undone like that, especially so soon. What really bugs me is that after the death scene there was a touching tribute to Kl'rt as his people celebrated him as a hero 20 years later with his lover telling the story of his death. Not only Kl'rt alive again but his lover has since been killed and there're no signs of her being reconstructed, she was a cybernetic creature.

I should point out that Kl'rt getting revived wasn't entirely unwanted. He's an interesting character with cool powers and the mini-series had given him some well-deserved character development. But if he was going to return I would've have liked there to be more effort put behind it.

There are several more resurrections that could I could bring up, like the laughably amount of times Jean Grey dies and comes back or the recent DC event that deals with this very subject and ends with loads of formerly dead characters coming back to life. Hell, here's a list of characters that have cheated death just of the top of my head. Baron Helmut Zemo, Magneto, Barry Allen, May Parker, Superboy, Doomsday, Quasar, Atom-Eve, Dupli-Kate, Norman Osborn, Harry Osborn, Lex Luthor, Mysterio and many more.

But this post has gotten a little long so I'll end with the story that got me thinking about all of this. The death of Lian Harper.

Lian was the daughter of the DC characters superhero Roy Harper, also known as Speedy/Arsenal/Red Arrow, and the mercenary Chesire, lots of family tension there. Because Chesire opted for being a mercenary she left Lian with Roy making him one of the few single parents in the superhero buisness, both in Marvel and DC. Now, I won't beat around the bush here. I freaking love this character. Not only is she a rarity among superhero children in that she didn't have any powers and she was never manipulated into growing up at an accelrated rate or anything like that. But she was also freaking awesome and always stole any scene she was in.

For a little kid she was smart, funny, capable (this is a kid that got out of a villain's hold by snapping one of his fingers) and incredibly insightful. She could see when her father was hurting and help him. Before she was able to pronounce the letter R she could make neat little observations regarding the leadership of the Justice League. She knew all about her father's occupation and never blamed him for sometimes putting it before, for example, playtime with her. She got close to several of Roy's colleagues had some great interaction with them all. Lastly, she had this wonderful innocence that made everything about adorable and a joy to read. She also had an artistic streak that was brought in several instances.

For Roy she became a reason to fight, to survive and to never kill. He evolved as a character because of her and as I said, got a unique position among superheroes that affected him no matter what situation he ended up. No matter what he did Lian would be there. But not as a burden. Roy's always had several baby-sitters ready to take care of Lian whenever duty called. The interaction between Roy and Lian was always poignant, amusing or just cute. Roy Harper became a better hero and a more diverse character because of his daughter. And then I haven't even touched upon the complex relationship between Lian, Roy and Chesire, who once committed genocide.

Then DC decided that she would be killed in the mini-series Justice League: Cry for Justice. Lian Harper died at the ripe age of ten when an entire city collapsed around her and she was caught in the rubble all alone. One can't help but feel that the whole thing happened to get a shock reaction out of the readers who didn't expect that they would kill someone as innocent as Lian. Again, shock value is the shittiest reason ever to kill a character. Not only that but the fact that they killed a character that is so important to one of their heroes says how much thought went into this. As a further demonstration of the piss-poor follow-up to Lian's death we have Roy's reaction. The trauma of Lian's death has led Roy into becoming a Punisher style anti-hero out looking for revenge against crime in general, and the hallucination of a partly decayed Lian is urging him on in his violence.

Now, I can understand that losing Lian has sort of shattered Roy mind. But it could really be handled better than this. This is just a desecration against everything good that Lian represented. And the worst part is that I don't think that Lian will ever come back. Because as awesome as she was Lian was only a supporting character. Those don't come back as often as regular heroes. Especially not from a death as simple as having a building fall down on them. Not only that, but DC has apparently made up the rule that all deaths must not stick as a part of the ending for the Blackest Night event. So a great character lost for the shitty reason of shock valune, the follow up has been downright disgusting and there's little chance for her to be returned. Things like this make me happy that I'm mainly a Marvel fan, not that they're much better though.

So what can one say about death in comics? Is it really pointless because of resurrections? It would probably seem that way to most people. But really, since a long time ago resurrection has become a part of superhero comics, whether we like it or not. They can be the cause of great joy and great frustration among the readers by bringing back beloved characters and/or nullifying significant death scenes.

It doesn't have to make the death scenes, the good death scenes, pointless. Those scenes can still have the same power as before and still be significant to the character. We as readers just have to hope that the resurrection will be written with respect for the death scene and match it in quality, if it was good, or completely make us forget the death scene, if it was shit. It's all up to the writers and the quality of their work.

Personally I'd take an annoying resurrection over a pointless death motivated by shock value any day.

The Swedish Nerd and A Staple of his Childhood

Two days ago the first official trailer for the final installments of the Harry Potter film franchise. It's a good trailer. Plenty of big bombastic scenes with the heroes looking desperate, large amounts of fire, a dragon, armies of wizards and witches rushing into battle and plenty of confrontations between Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes). But it wasn't any of the larger than life special effects or dramatic scenes or epic music that got to me. It was these two tag lines.

The Finale of the Worldwide Phenomenon

The Motion Picture Event of a Generation

More specifically it's the words Finale and Generation. It just sort of dawned on me that I'm part of that generation that's refered to there and that this will probably be the last big thing regarding Harry Potter. It was just a bit of a surreal moment for me.

Wedding, a wedding, we're going to have a wedding, a wedding!

Poor little Sweden.

It doesn't quite seem to be this country's year now does it.

Our entry in the Eurovision Song Contest got out-voted and didn't go to the finale, causing an embarrassing hissy-fit with the swedish people.

And our national team in football flat out lost and didn't get to go to the world championship in Africa. I don't really know how people reacted to that but I bet that it involved lots of swearing and disappointment.

In short, this country needs something to cheer up its spirit. Something that doesn't happen on a regular interval. Something that's a bit extraordinary. Something that the media just won't shut up about.

In short, again, it's rather lucky that our crown princess is getting married tomorrow.

The extraordinary bit is that she isn't just going to marry some random foreign royalty but a man of the people. A personal trainer/gym owner/entrepeneur named Daniel Westling, who in a cute little coincidence has the birthday as the current King of Sweden. So the whole thing has a sort of modern fairy tale wibe to it which people love.

Personally I have no love or hate for the royal family of Sweden. They could stay or go and I'd barely raise an eyebrow. But I do have to admit that seeing Daniel and Victoria together is a bit nice. They look genuinely happy together and the clip of them announcing their engagement is actually touching. I just like seeing happy couples. Which is good in this case because, like I hinted at before, the media will not shut up about this wedding.

I know that it's a big deal and all but it gets a bit annoying when basically every channel has at least one program dedicated to the wedding itself, the royal family as a whole, Victoria and Daniel as a couple or royal weddings in general. And it's not just television. In the papers people on the streets and celebrities have asked boring generic questions about how they feel now that this is happening. There was even a paper that had what was basically a fan fic about the couple five years from now, was a bit long-winded and had a predictable twist at the end, written by an acknowledged swedish writer.

And then there's the newspaper that had a rather detail layout of the wedding and what route the couple will take after he wedding so that they can wave to the people. I'm most likely being irrational about it, but isn't that the kind of information that creepy and dangerous people could use to... I don't know, assassainate one or both of them. Or just be an asshat and do something silly like streak in middle of it all? But they're going to have like 2000 policemen guarding the whole thing. Meaning that it's a perfect time to commit a crime in Stockholm as long as you stay a fair distance away from the wedding couple.

But overall the only really interesting thing that's popped up in the news because of the wedding has been the inevitable bit of controversy. In this case it's all about who will walk down the asile together with Victoria.

You see, in Sweden the tradition is that the bride and groom walk down the asile together to signify that they are truly equals that have chosen to make a commitment towards each other. Following this tradition would mean that Daniel and Victoria would be walking down the asile together.

But a short time ago there was the announcement that Victoria's father, the King, will be escorting her down the asile. It's Victoria's own choice but it has sparked a large debate. On the one hand, it is Victoria and Daniel's wedding and they have a right to do it however they want. But at the same time there's a chance that because they do then many other wedding couples will follow in their footsteps with the father handing over the bride thus further breaking the tradition of equallity in swedish weddings.

Personally I'd wish that they would stick to the swedish tradition. But that's not because I'm a traditionalist of any kind. I just think that it's a nicer sentiment behind it.

When a father escorts the bride to the groom it kind of seems like she's just some piece of property that is getting pawned over to a new owner.

When a couple walks down the asile together it's like they're walking on the path towards their future together as one. I just like that one better.

There's some news that a compromise would be that the King will only escort Victoria halfway down the asile where Daniel will be waiting and from there they will walk the rest of the way together.

Yeah, that's doesn't really change anything. It's not the distance that's the point of debate, it's that she will be escorted at all. But in the end it's Daniel and Victoria's decision to make and that alone seems to have gained them the favour of the populus, at least if we are to believe this site. Hopefully this won't mean that there'll be a rise in fathers escorting the brides down the asile.

Escorting controversy aside I can be happy for Victoria and Daniel. In fact, I'll be extra happy for Victoria. Due to her honeymoon it seems like she won't have time to sit through that god awful televised show where her birthday is celebrated by various artists and she has to sit on the front row smiling for cameras when she'd probably want to do something less public. At least this year she won't have to sit through that shit.

Good for her.

Trekking with Sharkazzz

So today I did something different and calm after turning in my final essay for the term. I went to a Star Trek... movie day I guess you could call it.

My friend, whom I'm going to assume still wants to be called Sharkazzz instead of his real name, found a Star Trek fan club/society based in Stockholm and found out that they were going to have a gathering that was sort of open to anyone, who was willing to pay, he asked me to tag along. I figured that it could be fun and I'd always wanted to see a larger group of Star Trek fans so I agreed. Basically they had hired a small movie theater where they would show episodes of the various Star Trek series for a total of twelve hours.

Overall it was fun. The theme of the episodes was supposed to be fathers and sons and it overall held up pretty nicely but was something of a strech in a few episodes that they showed. Also, there was a clear over-abundance of Next Generation episodes, six while the other series only got one each. A bit boring since I've seen like 90% of the TNG episodes but what are you gonna do.

The fans themselves amounted to about 20 with only few dressed up in costumes, all of them human star fleet commanders. I had hoped for a bit more on that front. Generally they were male (shocker!!), with a few women, in the ages 25 and up and most of them were a bit overweight. So besides the gender ratio being flipped, and there being much fewer attentees, it was sort of like the Angel convention I'd been to a few years ago.

As for the episodes. They were are generally good, but there's one moment that I remember distinctly.

Captain Kirk from the original series had a most peculiar fighting scene. It looked sort of normal for the 60s, fake but full of energy, then Kirk pulled of a strange attack on his oppoent. At least it looked strange. Kirk's adversary was down on the ground and the brave captain was going for the finishing blow. Kirk runs up to his foe and leaps at him with a flying kick. That's what I assume it was supposed to look like. What I saw was Kirk's feets and legs going past his oppoent's head but the opponent still fell down as if he had been hit. A common mist-step that one can most likely find in loads of tv-series and movies. What made this one particularly memorable was that due to Kirk's angle it looked like he was hitting the bad guy's head with his butt. I actually LOLed at that. It was just funny.

Nothing much else to say really. The other friend that Sharkazzz had invited, and paid for, left sort of rudely before even the halfway point with no real good explanation. Though, it just wasn't his thing really and I wouldn't want to be something that's not my thing for twelve hours either. They're having a facebook argument about it now.

Then Sharkazzz left because he was dead tired, this had caused him to arrive annoyingly late this morning. But I'm used to that. Also they were going to show episodes from two other non-Star Trek scifi series. Sharkazzz being the Trek purist that he is didn't want to stay around for that. I did and discovered that Battlestar Galactica is really weird unless you've already seen the rest of the series.

Overall, a pretty fun and lazy day.

Oh and the lyrics to klingon songs are strangely, yet somehow understably, similar to the lyrics of Dragonforce songs.

Conflicted emotions due to remake

Close to where I live, like a block or so, there's a movie theater. In the big hallways leading to the various screenings they show soundless trailers of upcoming movies and sometimes I just like to sit down, relax and just watch those trailers.

Today I had one of those moments and did so to procrastinate a little. The usual suspects were shown. Crappy comedy, boring horror movie, stupid action movie, Twilight: Eclipse (HOW do they keep making these so fast?) etc etc.

Then something else showed up. The trailer started out in a ghetto setting with a black kid, that I sort recognised as Jaden Smith the son of Will Smith, as the focus. Then from what I could tell of the trailer he and his mom moved to Asia, Beijing to be more specific. In my concieted and cyncial mind I role my eyes and figured that it would be some sort of comedy about cultural conflicts and stuff like that.

Then Jaden Smith's character started getting his ass kicked by the native kids as he tried to protect a girl. "Huh." my mind went as its interest got peeked. It was surprisingly dark and brutal how these bullies kept beating him up. Then Jaden is saved by this cool looking old asian guy who whoops the bullies asses and scares them away. What follows is a training montage where Jaden is taught martial arts and later competes in a tournament.

I scoffed it off by thinking "Please, are you actually trying to do some hip Karate Kid knock-off?". Then I go two surprises.

The first was that the mentor dude was played by Jackie Chan. I was surprised because he looked totally serious and badass. Now I know that he is serious and badass when he does his stunts and fight scenes. But outside of those I'm pretty used to Jackie Chan looking like this nice, playful uncle kind of guy who's a bit silly. In this trailer the seriousness of the character fooled me and I couldn't see that it was him.

Second surprise was the title of the movie. It was plain and simply The Karate Kid. Cue my mind blinking for a few minutes.

Now, I love the first two Karate Kid movies with Ralph Maccio and Pat Morita. They're fun movies with interesting characters and entertaining martial art scenes. I even like the premise of the fourth one where Hilary Swank takes over as a female apprentice, saddly the execution of that one sucked. And considering the level of "quality" that remakes usually have in this day and age my initial reaction was a nerdy rage which almost caused me to denounce the movie.

Then my inner voice of reason told me to chill and pointed out that the trailer at least looked good and deserved some investigation and a look over with sound. So home I went.

I've now seen about three or four different trailers for the movie and I am intrigued to say the least. The characters are all different from the original movies and the setting has moved but the overall set up is pretty much exactly the same as that first movie, but with a little modern touch to them. I love this movie's take the whole "catching flies with chop sticks" bit.

I found the jokes funny and the style is certainly more cinematic than the original, probably due to the remake having more money to spend. At the same time it seems to have a more gritty tone to it to reflect modern times.

A nice little tidbit I found was that the film is actually... ehm... filmed in Beijin: China. That's pretty awesome and should give us some great visual backgrounds.

But remakes have stilled sort of burned me before so despite the general positive feeling I get I'm going to be catiously positive until I actually see it. But hey, I do want to see it. So the trailers have done their job.

Here's a link to my favorite trailer for the movie. If you liked the old movies, check it out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpHEBZSrFws

Also, interesting note. Since the movie actually focuses on a kid learning kung fu in China it will be called The Kung Fu Kid in Asia. It will still be The Karate Kid in America simpy because that's probably more marketable.

MOVIE REVIEW: Iron man 2

This movie is Awesome.

Really, for comic book fans the only thing that they need to know about the sequel to the hit movie adaptation of the comic book hero Iron man is that it delivers the good by building on what the first movie set up and that it is Awesome.

When it comes to everybody else I shoud probably go a little bit deeper than that.

Like I said, it builds on the previous movie which ended with our portagonist, Tony Stark/Iron man, announcing his secret identity to the entire world on national television. The sequel begins with Tony riding the fame that's come with this revelation, apparently after scaring terrorists all over the world into a temporary peace, and opening the "Stark Expo" where the inventions to be used to improve the world are demonstrated.

However, as with everybody who becomes popular people are starting to, for better or worse, want a piece of Tony. But we'll get to those soon. Besides this problem Tony has another rather fatal problem. The power-core that's keeping him alive and helps to power his suit is slowly killing him. So it's a bit understandable that he's stressed out at the start of the movie.

This is still Robert Downey Jr's movie and with good reason. Downey's Stark is still as entertaining before as being hero hasn't made him any less eccentric, but there's something else that one might miss if one blinks. With death looming over his head Tony is trying to secure his legacy in various ways that he hides well by passing them off as his eccentric ways or unloading his work onto other people. In short, Tony's trying to do something responisble while masking that he is in fact being responsible and it's rather well-acted. At the same time he is looking for some sort of stupid thrill, like people that know that they're going to die soon tend to do (I'd imagine). Which leads to some of the more questionable choices in the movie.

Really, the movie is more of a character portait of Tony Stark than anything else. How he deals with the world knowing and wanting his secret while trying to maintain his own life as best as he can. So yeah, it's great that Downey is able to play the role as perfectly as he does.

Alongside his personal problems Iron man is faced with two widely different opponents, just like in the frist movie, in the form of the revenge craving russian Ivan Vanko (Micky Rourke) and jealous former rival weapons developer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell).

Of the two Ivan is by far the more intimidating as he has the intelligence and skills to match Iron man and an overall frightening appearance with metal teeth and stripey hair. Rourke plays him as a very ruthless and sinister individual that you're not meant to pity, despite his sad introduction. You're supposed to fear this guy.

Hammer on the other hand is a bit disappointing. He is much less sinister than his comic book counter-part and rather dorky. He has the resources to be a big time villain but falters due to his personality. That doesn't mean that he's entertaining or a bad villain. He's just not what I expected, but I'll chop that up to lack of experience as this is his first step into villainhood. But really, he's just an annoyance to the hero and a vehicle for Ivan Vanko to reach greater heights of comic book evil. That they have these roles however is a sign that Iron man 2 isn't just repeating the previous movie.

In the first movie the more passive villain was the foreign terrorists that held Stark captive while the American bad guy turned into that film's ultimate physical threat. In the sequel it's the foreigner that acts as the powerful physical threat while the american takes the more passive role in the duo. In short, they're not just rehashing ideas but mixing it p a little.

On the other side of the equation we have Iron man's allies.

Gwyneth Paltrow reprises her role as Tony's confident Pepper Pops. I really love this version of the character along with Paltrow's acting. She's a strong woman in her own right that can match wits with just about any one in the movie while at the same avoding being a super-mega badass. Nothing against that type of female character, but it's nice to see that a woman can be strong without having to be able to kick your ass. Also, her interactions with Tony Stark are among the most enjoyable moments in the movie.

Now if you do want an ass-kicking lady as well Iron man 2 supplies that as well in the form of Scarlett Johansson's secretive secretary. Really, her action scenes are among the most impressive in the entire movie. She switches between cool professional and skilled but awkward seamlessly and it's all around a good performance. Also, she is REALLY hot. So... yeah.

Samuel L. Jackson once again, he's in the after-credits scene in the first one if you didn't know, plays the role that was pretty much made for him, litterally, Nick Fury. Jackson gets to do the thing that he does best, if you ask me. He talks a lot. He's cool, funny and and smart. Everything you'd expect from Jackson AND Nick Fury. He's just great fun to watch.

Lastly there's Don Cheadle who takes over from Terrance Howard as James Rhodes, who in this movie becomes Iron man's partner War Machine. Personally I don't really see the need for the change as I think that both actors did good jobs with the role. The road that's taken to turn Rhodes into War Machine is an interesting one and well-woven into the main plot of the movie.

Speaking of the plot it does take move along at a surprisingly calm pace compared to the first one. But it doesn't feel at all slow. The situation is carefully built up and supplies the audience with everything before moving into high gear with some truly comic book style action scenes that become even more dynamic due to the previous leisurely pace.

The action scenes has been greatly improved for this one, they were good in the previous movie but could've been better. A greater sense of urgency and speed has been added along with better coreography. But at the same time some of them feel a bit cluttered and blurry. Jon Favreau seems to be on a learning curve when it comes to these things. The point is that he's getting better but he's not quite there yet. There's still loads of good stuff here for action fans.

Where the action was the first movie's weaker points the sequel's seem to be the jokes. They just feel less sharp and witty in this one. Again, they're still funny or so bad that they're funny, but they could be better.

Another criticism is that one of the mistakes in Superman Returns appears in this movie as well. There's way too little interaction between Downey's Tony Stak and Rourke's Ivan Vanko. The one or two scenes where they do talk to each other is great stuff but I wanted more damnit.

All in all, a great movie and a worthy sequel to the first movie. It continued the story in a well-done fashion and expanded on the Iron man movie universe. Oh, and stay behind to watch the after-credits scene. That one expands the Marvel movie universe... and makes nerds shout with joy to the terror of non-nerd movie viewers. ':)

Overall score: 9/10.