Tag: alter-ego

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The Dark Knight
The IMAX Experience

Director – Christopher Nolan – 2008 – US – Cert. 12a – 152m

*****

If you see The Dark Knight in an ordinary cinema rather than IMAX 70mm, you haven’t seen it at all – review originally published in Third Way in 2008.

The Caped Crusader is as significant a figure in the media landscape as he is on the Gotham City skyline. Ever since revisionist graphic novel The Dark Knight Returns (1986) suggested that the methods of a so-called hero who went around beating up villains might in fact be less than heroic, the complexity of the character has become increasingly apparent. In print, the high point has been the Red Rain trilogy (1991-98), which reinvented the character as a vampire! Hollywood has jumped on the bandwagon in the last two decades with two quirky Tim Burton movies, two vacuous, family-friendly Joel Schumacher sequels and two darker Christopher Nolan outings (Batman Begins and this one).

Nolan’s entries have focused on Batman / Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) rather than simply on Batman, whose masked vigilante is less a fabrication than his everyday millionaire playboy alter-ego. Bruce is trapped between wanting to protect the city from criminals and the dubious methods he employs to do so as Batman.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies

Shazam!
Fury Of The Gods

Director – David F. Sandberg – 2023 – US – Cert. – 130m

***1/2

Three Daughters of Atlas enter present day Philadelphia to repossess a staff which contains power that has been stolen from them; immature teenager recast as adult superhero Shazam! and his six superhero companions must stop them – out in UK cinemas on Friday, March 17th

Something of an oddity in the DC Comics canon, Shazam! concerns Philadelphia teenager Billy Batson (Asher Angel) who inadvertently absorbs superpower energy which enables him to transform into the adult superhero Shazam! (Zachary Levi) by merely uttering the word “Shazam!” However, despite the adult physique, he still thinks like a teenager. Outside of superhero life, he is one of seven orphans who, since the end of the original Shazam! (David F. Sandberg, 2019), have had the same thing happen to them. So, seven children, seven superheroes. And their two put-upon foster parents, Rosa and Victor Vásquez (Marta Milans and Cooper Andrews).

To be honest, I could take or leave the title character (as played by teenager Angel and adult Levi) but the other kids are likeable enough – at least to the extent that their characters are fleshed out here… and some are fleshed out far more than others in the narrative.… Read the rest

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Features Live Action Movies Music

Stardust

Director – Gabriel Range – 2020 – UK – Cert. 15 – 109m

****

In 1971, an unknown David Bowie tours America to promote his new album The Man Who Sold The World – on VoD from Friday, January 15th

The late David Bowie remains one of the most significant and iconic musicians, artists or stars of the last century. Aside from numerous clips of him performing music or being interviewed of radio or TV, he has a presence in a number of films, among them science fiction adventure The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicholas Roeg, 1976) and Japanese POW outing Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence (Nagisa Oshima, 1983). So if you’re going to try and recreate Bowie on film, you’d better be sure of what you’re doing.

On paper, Stardust seems to be doing everything right. Director Range is first and foremost a Bowie admirer familiar with the music, the albums, the wider body of work, the man. You’d have to be in order to make a film like this. And he’s honed in on a particular episode of Bowie’s life – a very interesting one too, the period in the early seventies when he was known for little more than two seeming novelty records, The Laughing Gnome and Space Oddity, the latter now widely regarded as one of his finest songs.… Read the rest