The colorful comics before Christmas
Credit to Author: KAREN KUNAWICZ| Date: Tue, 11 Dec 2018 22:30:28 +0000
If you’re a fan of comic book movies (and these days, who isn’t?) then you’re in for some treats.
The colors, fun and magic you find in your favorite books are landing on the big screen. Opening today is Warner and DC’s “Aquaman.” With Aquaman you see more clearly the course correcting DC’s been trying to do after “Man of Steel,” “Batman vs. Superman” and even “Justice League.”
Aquaman is vibrant, very light and throws in a lot of humor. It is so vibrant and light, I feel it is really geared now for kids—and mom will just be all to happy to see Jason Momoa wet all the time. Though the running time of two hours and 22 minutes might be a bit too long for the young and restless.
Momoa acknowledges his rock and roll Aquaman’s lighter side “even as he goes in and fights for his life in James’ incredibly cool underwater galaxy war.” The James he is referring to is James Wan—director of the better “Saw” and “Conjuring” films. Of Aquaman’s Atlantis, he says, “This is our outer space—a whole different world, limited only by the imagination.”
Other things I noticed about the film:
-Nicole Kidman (Queen Atlanna) shouldn’t have gotten all that botoxor plastic surgery. Between that and the CGI on her face, nothing else is moving except her mouth.
-Amber Heard’s Mera reminded me of a fierce Ariel the Little Mermaid as her color pallet was cartoon red hair and a green outfit.
-James Wan really loves Patrick Wilson (Orm / Ocean Master), they have worked on five films together. He practically wrote Orm for Patrick and just had to convince the bosses to hire him. “I just knew that Patrick would come into this and kill it.” On that note, props to the villain, Orm for pointing out how awful we are: ‘For centuries, the surface world has been polluting the oceans and ruining my world.’
DC will continue on its light and bright tone—practically a 180 shift now from what we’ve seen since they tried to put together their Justice League. The next films are “Shazam” and “Wonder Woman 1984.”
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But wait, there’s more! Also opening is Columbia Pictures’ and Marvel’s “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.” This film has the fingerprints of Phil Lord and Chris Miller (The Lego Movie, 21 Jump Street) on the writing and production side.
The team of Lord and Miller initially declined the offer to work on a new Spider-Man film—saying it’s has been told and re-hashed many times before.
However, when the idea of telling Miles Morales’ story came up, they jumped in. Miles is an African-American/Puerto Rican teen from Brooklyn who tries to fit in at a new private school in Manhattan. He’s the only child of a police officer and a nurse.
Lord says when the project was offered to him, “Miles was easily the most exciting character in the Marvel universe. Oddly enough, around the same time, I went to the Jeff Koons retrospective in New York City–and love it or hate it–all of his art is about other people’s work. It made us think about what a post-modern version of Spider-Man would be like.
So, we leaned into this idea of a different superhero for our era, set in this environment that has multiple Spider-people from all of the comics. This idea of exploring different universes and playing with all the various versions of this beloved character opened up a world of possibilities to us.” GQ Magazine puts it really well, this movie “Makes Spider-Man new again.”
So not only do you have Miles, you have Spider-Gwen, Spider Ham aka Peter Porker, Spider-Man Noir (voiced by Nicholas Cage), Peni Parker and your Peter Parkers too.
The art and animation on this film is amazing. “We have moments when the frame gets broken into panels, just like you see in comic-books,” explains Miller.
“There are flash frames that allow for unusual compositions, and there are new sound effects and stylized visuals that are spread throughout the movie. There are scenes where you feel you’re inside a comic book. It’s very exciting to create and very exciting to watch.”
“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” is not only very well written and freshly executed, it’s got a wonderful and sweet little homage to Stan Lee and a reminder, “We’re all Spider-Man.”
Both films are out on different formats—2D, 3D, 4D and IMAX. Check listings and watch out for the traffic.
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