Batman - The Telltale Series - Episode 1

So, I'm a little late in posting this. I finished episode one a few weeks ago. I really like the games from Telltale and I loved "The Wolf Among Us". So you put Telltale and Batman together and I'm already sold.

I remembered that I have a PC and I can sometimes play games on there. So I picked this game up on Steam.

There was some good and bad with this game. I'll start with the good.

The graphics were really good. This was in the same style as all the other Telltale games of late, but closest to "The Wolf Among Us". The voice acting was pretty good. The story is pretty good too. I liked the focus on the Bruce Wayne side of things. That makes this a little more intriguing. I like that this takes place during the early days of his career. You get to have a first encounter with Catwoman and Harvey Dent is still just Harvey Dent. Not Two-Face. You are dealing with street level criminals and I hope they stick with this instead of trying to go straight to the bigger names in the rogues gallery.

On the Batman side, I like what they do with the detective aspect of Batman as you investigate the various environments you are in. If I have a problem with the Batman bits, it's the combat. You're using the quicktime button presses, but they felt a lot more natural in "The Wolf Among Us". You have to do weird combinations here. From what I can tell, missing them also do not make as big an impact. I think having the use the mouse to throw the batarang at certain points doesn't work very well. It's all too clunky.

The worst part about this first episode is the performance. I realize my PC is now four years old and will not be the best at playing newer games. When I ran into the first couple of hiccups, I dropped down the resolution to low, just to see if that helps. It did for a little bit, but then the performance would hitch up again. So during cutscenes, the audio would keep going but the screen would move at about two frames per a second. Sometimes I would even exit and come back in. It was extremely bad and killed some of the fun I was having. Never before have I seen performance issues such as this. I hope they fix this problem before the next episode. I guess that is what I get for playing it day and date.

All in all, it was a good first episode, performance aside. I look forward to the rest of the story and would recommend this to anyone that's a Batman fan.

Batman: The Killing Joke - DC Animated Movie

A few weeks ago I got to see the Killing Joke in theater during it's limited release. I am going to treat this movie like two separate movies. It's the only way I can reconcile what I saw.

For those that don't know, the graphic novel that this movie is based on was really short. So in adapting it, they had to add some filler. They felt that Batgirl needed to be fleshed out, so about thirty minutes was added to the film. While I can understand what they were trying to do, they failed so miserably that it detracts from the movie.

That first section dedicated to Barbara Gordon was so disjointed from the rest of the movie, it is completely jarring. It's why I made the two separate movies comment earlier. You have Batman and Batgirl chasing after some mid-level thug. Batgirl makes some very un-Batgirl like mistakes. Batman chastises her. That's the crux of this backstory. Where the outrage comes in over this section is what happens that has nothing to do with the crime stuff.

Batman and Batgirl get into an argument that has the anime trope of them happening to fall on top of another. Just when you think, "Hmm, that's weird, let's move on from this", they kiss. Normally you would think that Batman would push her away, seeing as this is pretty weird. He is a mentor to her and that would be taking the teacher/student relationship into a place you don't want to go. Then they go there. Batgirl takes off her shirt, Batman pulls her close and then it's on.

We could spend a paragraph talking about all the ways this feels wrong. I will keep it brief. I know they hint about a possible relationship between these two, but that's all it should ever be. A will they/won't they kind of vibe. What happens afterwards is worse. Now it's the day after and Batman won't call her. Barbara devolves into a love sick school girl, which doesn't ring true to the character we know. You spend the first twenty minutes of this movie trying to show how capable she is, albeit hard headed and then you do this. The sex scene between the two is bad enough, but the after effects are even worse. None of this felt right in any shape or form.

All this leads to Barbara giving up the mantle of Batgirl and then that dovetails into the real story.

The Killing Joke was one of many dark chapters in the Batman mythos. This story is near the top for me. There is brutal stuff that happens here. Not so much with the violence as the psychological terror the Joker inflicts on Barbara, Commissioner Gordon and Batman. Everything here was fantastic. We get the wonderful Mark Hamill back as the voice of the Joker. As always, he does an amazing job. We get more Kevin Conroy goodness as Batman. The voice acting was top notch. This is what the movie should have been without the first thirty minutes that were tacked on with little care.

The only thing I haven't liked about a lot of these DC animated movies lately is the art style that is used for the animation. It's always this third rate looking anime style that they seem to be in love with. At parts it detracted from the movie.

Would I recommend this movie? Yes, if you cut out those first thirty minutes. Otherwise, watch at your own peril. I guess you can see it as getting two movies for the price of one.

Betty and Veronica

It's all downhill once you open the book

Normally, I'm not moved to the point where I would write a post about how bad a comic book is. Then the first issue of the long awaited Adam Hughes written/penned Betty and Veronica series came out a few weeks ago and I just had to say something. This is what drew me out of my hidey-hole.

In this blog, I've stated on the record how I truly love Archie comics. So the fact that I'm writing something negative about this issue shows you how egregious it really is.

First of all, the new modern takes on the characters have been nothing short of fantastic. Gone is the fifties feeling of the Archie comic books. They now truly reflect current times. They have been smartly written and genuinely funny.

This book is neither of those. This book is not written well at all. I am always weary of artists who also fancy themselves as writers. That usually comes with disastrous results. There are many examples, but I'll start with Brian Hitch, Tony Daniel, Carlos Pacheco and even Jim Lee. You can now add Adam Hughes to that list.

Right off the bat, this first issue is ridiculously exposition heavy. There is such a thing as over writing on a comic book. Then there is the dialogue. Never has there been such a glaring example of old man writing teenage dialogue than the first few pages of this book and the rest of the issue. Archie and Jughead argue about . Then there are moments when the characters say "WTF". You may be thinking, "Well that's not so bad. What's your problem?". I should mention that it is spelled out as "Double-yoo tee eff". Who DOES that!?

Speaking of exposition heavy, the story is narrated by Jughead's dog, Hot Dog. This is such a weird stylistic choice as well. Specifically because he speaks as if he ate a thesaurus. Even MORE annoying is that they make that very joke before the issue's end.

Finally, none of the characterizations ring true. There is a discussion between Archie and Jughead that feels weird. Betty is doing yardwork for her "Mee-maw". Something I've NEVER heard Betty said in all the years of reading Archie comics. I'm no expert, but even I know that is not normal. Veronica is even more icy than she usually is. What really strikes me as odd is how different this comic is from all the other relaunches. It's like the editors just turned a blind eye and let this thing fall off the rails.

For their sake, I hope they either cancel this book or get a new creative team. I understand you want to bring in Adam Hughes to spike sales, but if this issue is indicative of what to expect, I'm ejecting  right now.

Suicide Squad!

I know this is late, but let's get started. This is starting to feel like a rote exercise for me. DC movie comes out. I go in hoping for the best and end up getting disappointed. With each succession, I lower my expectations to try and make these movies palatable. Then they still go under the bar.

Let's just get through this. Suicide Squad is a bad movie. I see what DC is going for here, but now was not the time. 

With Marvel, they were eight years and nine movies into their catalog before they introduce the off-beat and unexpected Guardians of the Galaxy. They had to build a universe before they could start digging into those C-level characters.

DC was trying to do that with Suicide Squad, but they had not put in the legwork yet to get here. It's too soon to trot out your C-level characters. I say this, not including Harley in that description.

So where do I even start with this movie? Let's just start with what I actually liked about this movie and then we'll go from there.

I thought Margot Robbie was a great Harley Quinn. I figured she would do a good job, but she did not disappoint. Will Smith was good as Deadshot. I liked Viola Davis as Amanda Waller. That is perfect casting in my opinion. There were some good jokes and some cool action scenes. I want you to take note of how short my list is for the things I liked.

This movie is all over the place. It doesn't know what it wants to be. It wants to be an action movie with a bunch of lovable rouges. Did we forget that this is a story about murderers? To try and flip the switch to make them heroes is more than forced. This movie should have gone darker because it doesn't  really deliver on the premise. These guys do what they're told for self preservation. Not because they want to right their wrongs. El Diablo's arc I can appreciate. I think he's the only one you could say is redeemable. Deadshot's hallmark like story is forced down our throats. While sweet in it's own way, I don't think that should be the focus of the movie.

Over half of this team is filler and not memorable. Killer Croc? Has maybe ten lines the whole movie. He's here to check a box. Katana, she shows up halfway and she doesn't really add much. Captain Boomerang? He yo-yos between lovable goofball and just too stupid for his own good. Rick Flag? He's as cookie cutter a soldier as you can get, without any of the charisma.

Let me spend a moment talking about Enchantress. They do some cool creepy stuff with her at first, but she devolves into generic super villain with a thin premise for taking over the world. Towards the end, as Carla Delevinge is hamming it up, it was too much for me to take. She had an exaggerated walk and head movements as the Enchantress that really irked me. The last fight scene with her I didn't like because at the end of the day, why is an all powerful sorceress going hand to hand with a group of people that have guns and bats? There's NO reason she would lose that fight!

I also don't like that the Suicide Squad's first mission is one to stop the end of the world. I am a big proponent of using at least a montage to show the time these guys spent together as a team. This way I can buy the friendship that they all share by the end of the movie. Here, it happens in the span of a day and it feels completely forced. Why should we buy the fact that they won't stab each other in the back at their first chance?

Then there is Jared Leto's Joker. With the first couple of screenshots, I was super worried. Then I thought, "I was worried about Heath Ledger's Joker and he was arguably the best one ever". Nope, Leto did not move the needle at all. The Juggalo appearance with his weird Joker voice was too much for me to overcome. Also, his neediness for the love of Harley doesn't exactly ring true.

If this movie had been rated R and they really cut loose, like villains should, this could have been a different movie. Instead it's a paint by numbers super hero story and we have enough of those already. I hate that this will make me look like DC hater, but they need to get it together with their motion pictures.

At least I have the TV shows to fall back on.