Post by Dale on Mar 10, 2009 1:13:34 GMT -5
Supers
With other films, you allow characters to express things in stylistic ways, say things in a way it wouldn’t be said in real life. With a mockumentary you can’t do those things. You have to try hard to make everything more naturalistic. When you combine the naturalistic elements of a documentary/mockumentary setting, and combine it with the abstractness of Superheroes, you get “Supers”; a funny mockumetary movie, detailing the lives and history of former superheroes.
The idea itself, is not something new, it is however something I’ve been toying with writing myself (albeit with a different format and setting than “Supers”) so it’s an idea I like and a concept I was already into before I started reading. The film itself is fairly short, and is a pretty quick read. But whilst it last it’s extremely entertaining has some nice back and forth bickering and presents each character distinctively as they recap their history with the superhero team.
The film lacks early on in the story department and it’s not until around mid way through until we find out there’s going to be some kind of reunion. As the film gets a direction, it steps up a notch as we anticipate the clash of all of these characters who have been bickering back and forth with each other in their separate interviews. Now I will say the over abundance of gay jokes heading into the finale got a little too much, especially the more “in your face” ones. The subtle implications earlier on worked better and were funnier imo. The later ones seemed a little cheap too but maybe that’s just me.
As the film is pretty short, and was never intended to be anything more than that by my understanding I won’t get into the “Has a beginning, an ending but no ‘middle’ to speak of” criticism. But the biggest flaw of Supers for me is that there isn’t enough of it. I was having a lot of fun reading Supers and the ending came just a little too quickly. More please! hehe
Overall Supers is a fun film that is worth your time to take a look at. It’s very reminiscent of The Incredibles, only with a crazier cast of characters and some more adult humour. All in all, “Supers” is another solid entry in the Movie Reels Superhero film catalogue.
*** out of ****
Check
Check caused quite a bit of controversy from the previews, comparisons to “the Long Coats” and “Brunch” were made and rightfully so in the formers case. Because, as Indy has stated, “Check” is very much a rip off of “The Long Coats” and a sub-par one at that. “Check”. Is the equivalent of many of the bad remakes we seem to get nowadays, and that’s not me being overly critical of Indy’s work, it just happens to be the truth in this case.
The basic plot of “Check” Is much the same as “The Long Coats.” Guy gets kidnapped; wife hires Long Coat (or Coats in this case) to find him. We even get the same ending more or less we saw in PsychoBunny Production’s “The Long Coats”. But around this frame we have a several other plot lines, all pretty poorly handled, jumbled and none of them particularly well weaved together. And holding this narrative together is narration by Der who I suppose is supposed to be the main character which in my opinion does the film more harm than good. The not so witty one liners in the narration such as “here’s the confusing part” only enhance what’s the viewer is already thinking instead of clearing things up for them and moving along the story.
And the story, as it stands is ... well it’s a mess. I’m happy Indy decided to focus on a more story orientated film, rather than his action scene after action scene than eventually leads to something structure. However he needs a little more practice. The story as I understand it has Kerry, the wife hire the Long Coats to retrieve her husband Alex who has been kidnapped by Doug. Doug has kidnapped Alex because Alex has apparently stolen and hidden Doug’s supposedly worthless watch. The same watch being held by Alex’s boys, Barry and ... the other one. Der is then propositioned by Barry, into rescuing Alex by killing Doug and all of his men thus erasing Der’s debt with them. 8-bit and Jack’s agenda, I have no idea about. Jack’s I presume is to drink coke and not die doing it. But I wouldn’t quote me on that.
I have several issues with the plot, the main one being; the Long Coats just simply don’t need to be involved. They really serve no purpose to the story, except to shoot people and look cool doing it. As we later find out, Kerry already knows who is holding Alex, and we find out she wants to kill Alex herself. But here’s the problem, why did she need the Long Coats to find him? Why get the Long Coats involved at all? Alex would still wind up dead with Doug anyways. Why bring in another party, especially one that could be traced back to her? The only advantage it has is framing Alex in the shootout at the end. But she had no idea that's where things would end up come the end of the flick, and besides you could still orchestrate the same outcome using Alex’s guys and even Der to find him instead of the Long Coats. The Long Coats, 8 bit and even Jack just have no point in the whole damn story. They're just there to shoot things and ... well do nothing but drink soda, argue over the adverb-ness of "fuck" and find a watch.
If Indy wouldn’t have used The Long Coats, the story would be more focused, there’d be less controversy because people couldn’t accuse him of ripping off “The Long Coats” and we could have gone on with our day/week/month with a pretty decent little action/thriller movie. Instead we wind up with what seems like two movies, forced together, over complicating the plot making it difficult to follow at times with the odd crazy action scene for the sake of a crazy action scene.
Overall Check is not an entirely bad film. It has its moments, but they are few and far between. The characters never really had any clear distinction and come off like pretty much every over character from an Indy film. The dialogue at times lacked flow and felt choppy, the action had no meaning or purpose behind it and some of the humour seemed out of place and as if it was trying too hard. The ending was messy, and kind of brought me down on the whole thing. My advice to Indy would to spend more time laying out the story, working out the twists and turns and then re-reading and re-writing for a week, a month, whatever afterwards to refine it.
There’s always progress it Indy’s work, but the progress seems more like baby steps than strides. I hope he takes his time working on “The Fighting Irish” and “Punisher II” and make the step I’ve been waiting for him to take.
A generous ** out of ****
With other films, you allow characters to express things in stylistic ways, say things in a way it wouldn’t be said in real life. With a mockumentary you can’t do those things. You have to try hard to make everything more naturalistic. When you combine the naturalistic elements of a documentary/mockumentary setting, and combine it with the abstractness of Superheroes, you get “Supers”; a funny mockumetary movie, detailing the lives and history of former superheroes.
The idea itself, is not something new, it is however something I’ve been toying with writing myself (albeit with a different format and setting than “Supers”) so it’s an idea I like and a concept I was already into before I started reading. The film itself is fairly short, and is a pretty quick read. But whilst it last it’s extremely entertaining has some nice back and forth bickering and presents each character distinctively as they recap their history with the superhero team.
The film lacks early on in the story department and it’s not until around mid way through until we find out there’s going to be some kind of reunion. As the film gets a direction, it steps up a notch as we anticipate the clash of all of these characters who have been bickering back and forth with each other in their separate interviews. Now I will say the over abundance of gay jokes heading into the finale got a little too much, especially the more “in your face” ones. The subtle implications earlier on worked better and were funnier imo. The later ones seemed a little cheap too but maybe that’s just me.
As the film is pretty short, and was never intended to be anything more than that by my understanding I won’t get into the “Has a beginning, an ending but no ‘middle’ to speak of” criticism. But the biggest flaw of Supers for me is that there isn’t enough of it. I was having a lot of fun reading Supers and the ending came just a little too quickly. More please! hehe
Overall Supers is a fun film that is worth your time to take a look at. It’s very reminiscent of The Incredibles, only with a crazier cast of characters and some more adult humour. All in all, “Supers” is another solid entry in the Movie Reels Superhero film catalogue.
*** out of ****
Check
Check caused quite a bit of controversy from the previews, comparisons to “the Long Coats” and “Brunch” were made and rightfully so in the formers case. Because, as Indy has stated, “Check” is very much a rip off of “The Long Coats” and a sub-par one at that. “Check”. Is the equivalent of many of the bad remakes we seem to get nowadays, and that’s not me being overly critical of Indy’s work, it just happens to be the truth in this case.
The basic plot of “Check” Is much the same as “The Long Coats.” Guy gets kidnapped; wife hires Long Coat (or Coats in this case) to find him. We even get the same ending more or less we saw in PsychoBunny Production’s “The Long Coats”. But around this frame we have a several other plot lines, all pretty poorly handled, jumbled and none of them particularly well weaved together. And holding this narrative together is narration by Der who I suppose is supposed to be the main character which in my opinion does the film more harm than good. The not so witty one liners in the narration such as “here’s the confusing part” only enhance what’s the viewer is already thinking instead of clearing things up for them and moving along the story.
And the story, as it stands is ... well it’s a mess. I’m happy Indy decided to focus on a more story orientated film, rather than his action scene after action scene than eventually leads to something structure. However he needs a little more practice. The story as I understand it has Kerry, the wife hire the Long Coats to retrieve her husband Alex who has been kidnapped by Doug. Doug has kidnapped Alex because Alex has apparently stolen and hidden Doug’s supposedly worthless watch. The same watch being held by Alex’s boys, Barry and ... the other one. Der is then propositioned by Barry, into rescuing Alex by killing Doug and all of his men thus erasing Der’s debt with them. 8-bit and Jack’s agenda, I have no idea about. Jack’s I presume is to drink coke and not die doing it. But I wouldn’t quote me on that.
I have several issues with the plot, the main one being; the Long Coats just simply don’t need to be involved. They really serve no purpose to the story, except to shoot people and look cool doing it. As we later find out, Kerry already knows who is holding Alex, and we find out she wants to kill Alex herself. But here’s the problem, why did she need the Long Coats to find him? Why get the Long Coats involved at all? Alex would still wind up dead with Doug anyways. Why bring in another party, especially one that could be traced back to her? The only advantage it has is framing Alex in the shootout at the end. But she had no idea that's where things would end up come the end of the flick, and besides you could still orchestrate the same outcome using Alex’s guys and even Der to find him instead of the Long Coats. The Long Coats, 8 bit and even Jack just have no point in the whole damn story. They're just there to shoot things and ... well do nothing but drink soda, argue over the adverb-ness of "fuck" and find a watch.
If Indy wouldn’t have used The Long Coats, the story would be more focused, there’d be less controversy because people couldn’t accuse him of ripping off “The Long Coats” and we could have gone on with our day/week/month with a pretty decent little action/thriller movie. Instead we wind up with what seems like two movies, forced together, over complicating the plot making it difficult to follow at times with the odd crazy action scene for the sake of a crazy action scene.
Overall Check is not an entirely bad film. It has its moments, but they are few and far between. The characters never really had any clear distinction and come off like pretty much every over character from an Indy film. The dialogue at times lacked flow and felt choppy, the action had no meaning or purpose behind it and some of the humour seemed out of place and as if it was trying too hard. The ending was messy, and kind of brought me down on the whole thing. My advice to Indy would to spend more time laying out the story, working out the twists and turns and then re-reading and re-writing for a week, a month, whatever afterwards to refine it.
There’s always progress it Indy’s work, but the progress seems more like baby steps than strides. I hope he takes his time working on “The Fighting Irish” and “Punisher II” and make the step I’ve been waiting for him to take.
A generous ** out of ****
