The View From The Mountain

Superman is back, again. Writer/director James Gunn, who gave us some fun superhero movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is now working the other side of the street for the DC Comics’ cinematic equivalent, starting with writing and directing the fantastic The Suicide Squad (2021) and then moving onto writing the HBO-Max animated series Creature Commandos , which was a freaky superhero team show that was ultimately about as entertaining as watching paint dry. Thankfully, his new project, a feature film dealing with the Last Son of Krypton, Superman, is much better. Gunn presents David Corenswet as Superman in a film that smartly eschews the creaky exploding planet origin story in favor of ‘a day in the life’ storyline where this Man of Steel has already been established as a beloved hero of the people of the city of Metropolis. It opens with Superman crash landing in the artic, after a bruising battle with another super powered being called the Hero of Boravia. The wee...

Since exploding onto the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2016’s Doctor Strange , the eponymous hero--also known as the Sorcerer Supreme--has been a trusted ally in the fight against evil in several of the MCU films. But the 2016 movie was not the very first time that the mystical adventures of Doctor Strange was caught on film. Forty five years ago this year, a TV movie starring Peter Hooten as the heroic sorcerer was released. In the 1978 TV movie, Hooten’s Stephen Strange was a psychiatrist on staff at a hospital in NYC, when he comes across an interesting case. A young woman (Eddie Benton) shows up in bad shape. Suffering from amnesia, she’s very disoriented and unsure of who or where she is. Yet the viewer has already seen what has happened to this woman, who turns out to be a college student named Clea Lake. Clea had been used as a pawn in a battle between sorcerers Lindmer (John Mills) and Morgan le Fay (Jessica Walter). The evil Morgan le Fay had used...

The first Ant Man movie was a pleasant surprise when it was released back in 2015. Paul Rudd starred in the title role as a man who can shrink himself down to the size of an ant (and more), thanks to a special suit. The film was well-directed by Peyton Reed, who took over at the last minute from director Edgar Wright ( Shaun of the Dead ). While Ant Man is considered a second-tier hero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, he’s been around since his first appearance in 1962, in the comic Tales To Astonish , having been created by such big-league comics talents as Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby. The first Ant Man film worked superbly by having its titular character operate as a street level hero. Rudd plays Scott Lang, an ex-convict who’s struggling to make it in the world, only to fall back into a life of crime, thanks to Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his grown daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly). Hank was the one who created the Ant Man suit, and the mo...

It makes sense that The Batman would have its opening scene take place on Halloween night. Gotham City, Batman’s stomping grounds, is practically a Halloween-fest all year round, with most of its denizens wearing masks. The Riddler (Paul Dano) is clad in a mask when he sneaks into the home of the Gotham City mayor and murders him--later promising more deaths and revelations of dark and dirty secrets online. This Riddler is a far different beast than Frank Gorshin’s Riddler, who I grew up with on the ’66 Batman TV series. But as much as I will always worship Gorshin’s performance (and he remains my all-time favorite Riddler), I thought Paul Dano’s more creepy take of a deeply disturbed Riddler worked very well in The Batman. Tech savvy, including knowing just how to work the rubes into following him online, this new Riddler is far more dangerous--and even scarier--than ever before. And his weird quirk of dropping clues is given a legitimate reason: he wants...

While I’ve always considered myself more of a DC Comics type of guy (with Batman being my all-time favorite), I’ve also been a huge fan of Marvel’s Spider-Man since I first saw him in the cartoon show as a little spud (“Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can….”). And so I’ve also enjoyed the Spider-Man movies produced by Sony: the Tobey MacQuire Spider-Man films, the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man films, and the absolutely fantastic Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which is my favorite Spider-Man film, bar none. But I was never a big fan of the Tom Holland Spider-Man films. I have no problem with Holland himself; he’s a genuinely talented actor who gives it all with what he’s given to work with, but that’s not much. Spider-Man: Homecoming had Peter Parker act like he’s the ward of Tony (Iron Man) Stark, and even after Stark kicks the bucket (and good riddance) in the Avengers films, Peter is still living in his shadow in Far From Home. ...

Coming nineteen years after the first X-Men movie, X-Men: Dark Phoenix wraps up the superhero team saga without any mention of Hugh Jackman’s Logan/Wolverine (Jackman retired from playing the character after 2017’s Logan ) in a more toned down adventure that, at times, seemed derivative of past (and better) X-Men movies. It’s the far-flung future of 1992 and the X-Men are called to rescue the crew of the space shuttle, which has come under attack from a strange cloud of energy from outer space while in orbit above Earth. Jean Grey’s (Sophie Turner) already considerable physic powers receive a major boost when she’s exposed to the otherworldly energy. And not only is she more powerful, but she can also see through a lie that Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) had created within her mind as a child in order to “protect” her. This incites Jean to become very cranky, which is not a good fit for a person who’s now armed with the powers of a god. Vuk (Jessica Chastain), the leader of an ali...

Warning, this review has spoilers for this movie. First off, I enjoyed Avengers: Endgame ( A:E ). It’s hard not to enjoy this epic superhero tale, which unites a group of heroes in a daring plot to undo a horrific, universe-wide mass murder that’s been committed by an interstellar warlord named Thanos (well-played in motion capture by Josh Brolin). Even though time travel is involved, the Russo Brothers do a grand job in keeping a handle on it, making sure that the concept, as well as its execution, is understandable to lay audiences. And even if the science explanation is lost on some people, it doesn’t really matter, because A:E gets very far on its charm and excitement. However, with a three hour running time, A:E can still be very unwieldy, and it even drags badly in many sections. I did not see A:E in the theaters, instead I waited for it to hit home video, and I’m very glad that I did this. I paused the movie after every hour for either a bathroom or a snack replenishment br...

Before Batman first premiered in the summer of 1989, my younger self was convinced that it was going to suck really badly. Here were my reasons: it was directed by Tim Burton--who, at that point, only directed Pee Wee’s Big Adventure , and Beetlejuice --and it starred Michael Keaton, an actor, who, at that time, was best known for starring in comedies like Mr. Mom . Once I heard that ‘Mr. Mom’ was playing Batman, I was convinced that the then-new Batman film was going to be a disaster. Of course, back when I held these firm convictions about Tim Burton’s Batman , I hadn’t actually SEEN the movie yet. When Batman opened, it wasn’t just a hit movie, it was a cultural phenomenon. The character was already a well-known commodity, thanks to the 1960s Batman TV series, which served as my introduction to the Dark Knight back when I was a toddler. However, it felt as if the entire nation happily suffered Batman fever during the summer of ’89. Batman , both the film and the character, was ...