Batson's Blog

The Raven is a poor man’s Sherlock Holmes . Instead of being highly entertained, wishing there was a sequel, and considering buying a DVD copy of my own, I found myself grateful that I Redboxed this one. It wasn’t a ‘bad movie,’ but it was almost more disappointing than one because I was hoping for something good. If you break it down, all the elements were in place for what should have been an awesome movie. Set in Edgar Allen Poe's last days, The Raven is a murder mystery with interesting costuming and a few cool action sequences. In addition to that, Edgar Allen Poe is a historical character with a bit of a fan base already built in. John Cusack (who plays Edgar Allen Poe) was cast very well. In fact, I was really impressed with Cusack. I can't think of a better Poe. After seeing this film, I think he would have made a good Sherlock Holmes . He probably wouldn't have been as comedic as Robert Downey Jr. is as Sherlock, but I think Cusack would h...

Don’t you just hate those dry periods for movie releases? It seems like it happens a few times a year when there’s no movies you anxiously want to see. That’s how it was the other day when I made a stop by the Redbox . The Avengers DVD came out last week , but I already saw that in the theatres. I spent a few minutes browsing through the selection of movies, but was having trouble finding something. Some of them didn’t even sound that bad, but they were all on the same level, so it was tough making a choice. When you’re in the mood to see a good movie, you don’t want to spend two hours watching something, only to find out that it’s a dud. For lack of better options, I went with Battleship . I heard that it bombed in a big way at the theatres , but I remembered seeing previews and thinking it could be decent. I was surprised to see that Gambit was in the movie. I didn’t know the actor’s name, so I Googled him. Turns out his name is Taylor Kitsch – a Canadian model-t...

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...

DC vs. Marvel. The Green Lantern and C aptain America: The First Avenger . I haven’t seen a superhero movie that I haven’t liked so I figured The Green Lantern and Captain America were two good choices. ( Warning! Superhero geek mark-out mode here) Batman will always be the best, but I remember wanting a shield like Captain America when I was five-years-old. I started off with The Green Lantern . As big a fan of the comic book heroes as I am, the Green Lantern is one back-story I wasn’t familiar with. I knew he had the ring and it had some sort of power, but, beyond that, I didn’t have a clue what to expect. Unfortunately it fell a little short of what I would’ve liked. It was a little more corny than epic, a little more predictable than exciting and, with the heavy use of computer animation, a little more video game than movie. It felt a little bit like they were going through the motions with this one. Ryan Reynolds was a good choice for the part, but it seems he wa...