Batson's Blog

I was really excited about a new adaptation of Peter Pan when I first heard about it, especially after hearing that it’s a friendship story between Captain Hook and Peter Pan. Peter Pan is one of the most repeated stories there is, so having this fresh take on it was a fun idea. Then I saw the trailer. That’s where the excitement ended. Tiger Lily (Rooney Mara) looked like she went shopping in Cher’s closet rather than being tribal member. Then again, she’s not Native American, so I’m not sure why she was cast in the role in the first place. Then there was Blackbeard. Hugh Jackman seems like a great choice to portray Blackbeard, but good Lord! The costumes and the awful hair piece ruined any excitement I had in seeing Jackman in the role. He looks like a freaky pirate version of Michael Jackson --- and that’s not a compliment. So, yeah. Questionable casting so far and bad wardrobes in the trailer. Not a great way to get people excited for a movie, huh? Oh yeah...

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...