Batson's Blog

I already talked about the best portrayals of super heroes and villains on the big screen. Today, let’s take a look at some of the portrayals that didn’t make either of those lists. These heroes and villains weren’t bad, but they could have been better. 10. Sienna Miller as The Baroness ( G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra , 2009) This one almost worked really well. Visually, Miller's transformation into The Baroness was pretty much impeccable. The look was updated enough to not avoid being too cartoonish in the movie, but The Baroness' trademark features were still present -- the glasses, the catsuit, and the dark hair. There didn't seem to be any attempt at The Baroness' accent though. I was disappointed in that. It didn't have to be perfect, but at least some kind of accent would have been appreciated. The producers, looking for a love story, I suppose, also provided us with a romantic history between The Baroness and Duke. 9. Hugo Weaving as The Red S...

It was a Redbox double feature once again last night. I wasn’t going to rent anything, but Redbox e-mailed me a special weekend-only offer: get $.50 off your purchase of two or more movies. I took the bait. This time I went with two remakes: Neverland and The Three Musketeers . Neverland I’d never heard of Neverland , but the cover looked pretty cool on Redbox.com. Despite what they say, I do judge a book (or in this case a DVD) by its cover. It usually works too. I guess it was successful with Neverland as well. It wasn’t bad. It just wasn’t what I was expecting. I could tell that something was up as soon as I saw the previews, which were straight-to-DVD SyFy channel releases. Then the menu screen pops up and says “Play Part 1” and “Play Part 2.” Great. I was done with a day of work, it was 7 in the evening, and I just rented a two-part TV series. All I wanted was regular movie – with some special effects, a decent story and cool action scenes. I hit “Play” any...