Movie Review: Dragon Ball Z - Battle of Gods

Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods (Kami to Kami)

Just like most big anime series released at that time, Dragon Ball Z has had its share of formulaic movies. I haven't seen any of them in full, but the gist of most of the movies are similar -- new threat emerges, our heroes fight it, threat is defeated. It's more formulaic than a James Bond movie, be it Naruto, One Piece, Bleach or Dragon Ball Z... yet in 2013, Dragon Ball Z, by then a series that had ended its run to bring up the cirrs on both manga and anime for a decade, created a canonical sequel for a movie. It would be a formula that would be picked up by Naruto a year later, which would release Naruto: the Last and Boruto the Movie, both movies that took place as sequels to the then-finished manga.

Suddenly, the stakes were high. The original writer was involved, the movie was explicitly rooted in canon, and is it going to be the model for all other big animes that has finished? Will they just continue on in huge big-budget anime movies every couple of years? As it turns out, Dragon Ball Z lasted another big-movie with Resurrection F, before adapting both movies into anime arcs for a proper sequel anime series, Dragon Ball Super.

But it's interesting to bring up the circumstances behind Battle of Gods before I begin into reviewing it, becuase it's not just a movie. It's also meant to be a self-contained arc in and of itself, one that would probably lead to more adventures down the line.

And, well, it's been some time since I finished reading the entire manga of DBZ, and while feeling very drained after the exhaustive Majin Buu arc, I returned to this with relative gusto. After all, a single two-hour movie is a lot easier to take in (and a lot prettier, too) compared to several hundred chapters of manga. And Battle of Gods, if nothing else, is a very solid movie.

It's a movie that, as mentioned above, is your standard anime fare -- we get the new threats in the God of Destruction, Beerus, and we quickly set up the conflict. There are some comedic bits before we finally get to the big showdown between Goku and Beerus. That's what the plot boils down to, and the movie makes great usage of the 'Worf Effect' by having Beerus effortlessly take down the entire supporting cast from Tienshinhan, Piccolo, Android 18 and even Gotenks and Majin Buu without literally breaking a sweat. No, there's no real sense of threat that the Earth will be destroyed again or that any important character will die, but Beerus is such a compelling and wacky weirdo of a character. And it's always telling when a character is going to just be important for this arc, or if he's going to be built up as a recurring character down the road... and despite him going into a hibernation, Beerus and Whis are definitely characters that aren't built to be disposable filler, giving them so much more charm than other movie-exclusive characters.

Beerus is a weird fucker. He's this weird purple dog/cat-man that seems to be styled like an Egyptian god, clothes wise, and he lives in his own dimension. He also has the lofty title of the God of Destruction, literally able to blow up planets and the mere whisper of his name has badasses like Vegeta and King Kai pissing their pants. Goku's latest form, the Super Saiyan 3, barely causes Beerus to raise an effort more than a flick of his wrist. But for all his talk of the God of Destruction and his very awesome voice, Beerus also  has the mentality of a child. He's so, so easily enticed by amusing things and delicious food, and is easily distracted from his threats of destroying the Earth when given food. Whimsical is, I think, the best way to describe him, because he just decides to spare and/or destroy Earth on a whim.

Maybe the slapstick that Beerus and Whis engages, or the food jokes that they make, causes them to be taken less seriously than the likes of Cell or Frieza, but at the same time it's not like Beerus is all talk. In a sense, I think he's actually one of the more interesting enemies in that he embodies everything Goku normally is -- unbeatable, childlike, obsessed with food and insanely freaking strong. It's just that the problem being that Beerus gets pissed off and about to destroy the fucking Earth just because Majin Buu is a stingy little shit who refuses to share pudding.

The middle bits where they're having a party for Bulma, crash-landed by Beerus who's looking for the mythical 'Super Saiyajin God' (again, literally on a whim), has the movie's most hilarious bits but also at the same time the movie's least hilarious bits. Who gives a shit about the whole Pilaf plotline where he and his two cronies try to steal the Dragon Balls and gets involved with little Goten and Trunks? Certainly not me. But Vegeta trying his best to pacify Beerus by, at one point, getting up on stage and fucking dancing and singing about Bingo? That is hilarious as all hell. And how he gets absolutely insanely angry and powers up to throw down with the God of Destruction when Beerus (more accidental than not) pushes Bulma? Amazingly awesome.

The actual fight scenes are fine, though definitely super-duper gorgeous. Goku returns back to life and manages to unlock a new form, Super Saiyan God (with red hair!) and fights Beerus. And there's not much I can say other than the fight scenes were enjoyable. Perhaps the most striking thing is that Goku doesn't actually beat Beerus, only manages to impress him enough that he decides to bugger off from Earth with Whis, with the private note that he barely used, what, 60% of his strength? It's definitely a sequel hook.

The movie's a great, fun watch for me personally, though, insomuch that this is the first time I've heard the Japanese voices of anyone that's not Goku or Vegeta. There's a large amount of in-jokes to be hand among the script, too, which is nice considering the series is relatively fresh in my head. It's nothing super-duper spectacular, but I enjoyed it more than I expected I would, and Beerus is a far more entertaining character than I thought he would be.

Movie Review: Blade (1998)

Blade [1998]

Often, when people talk about superhero movies, they talk about how it went into a really bizarre 'dork age' phase when the likes of Batman Forever, Batman & Robin and Superman IV hit the theaters in the late 80's and early 90's, and then crediting X-Men and Spider-Man for reinvigorating a more serious, but still fun and faithful, take to the comic book movies, further reinforced in subsequent years when the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the Nolan Batman movies proved themselves to be commercial and critical successes. 

But Blade came out in 1998, two full years before X-Men. And it was... okay! It was pretty dang good. I'm not going to pretend that I know a lot about Blade a s a character, how he's supposed to be like, whether this is a faithful adaptation of the character, et cetera. I'm not very good on Marvel  comics lore, with my only real experience regarding the Marvel universe outside of the movies being the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance game. Blade was a playable character there, but beyond being a vampire hunter I knew nothing about that.

But the movie doesn't waste our time. We quickly get a backstory to Blade's origin stories (a mother bitten by a vampire gives birth to a child that's a Daywalker, as the vampire community calls him) and we're then thrown headlong to a time period when a fully grown Blade, played here by the amazing Wesley Snipes, is a hunter of his own kind, blowing people up while looking awesome with a leather jacket, a dapper haircut and sunglasses, swinging around silver swords, shooting people with silver-bullet shotguns and reducing them to burning skeletons. Which, yes, might look a little suspect now that we've got far better CGI in a TV show, but eh.

The plot's simplistic, of course. After establishing the setting (vampires go to raves, and there's an ancient council that's prejudiced against non-purebloods), establishing our leading characters Blade, love interest slash audience-surrogate dr. Karen Jenson, and mentor Abraham Whistler, we establish our main villain, one Deacon Frost, who's like this classy vampire gangster boss, and his main mook (whose hands keep getting sliced off by Blade) Quinn, played here by Donal Logue, better known to viewers of Gotham as the actor who would play Harvey Bullock. Deacon Frost wants Blade's unique blood to help him complete a ritual which would transform him into La Magra, the vampiric blood god. And that's more or less what you need to know. 

The rest of the movie is just a whole lot of vampire shooting, with Blade unleashing a crapton of hurt on the vampires. The movie itself is serviceable, but very, very solid. We get a perfunctory love interest between Blade and Karen, we get somewhat of a character arc with Blade trying to find his purpose and the completely hurt look he has on his face when he finds out his mother has been turned into Frost's thrall, we get a couple of awesome world-building courtesy of things like vampire raves, the council of Erebrus or things like the vampire bible...  there's the very weird dude, Pearl the record-keeper, who is this fat, screechy-voiced thing that makes Snorlax look lean in comparison. There's the sub-plot of Karen trying to find a cure, both for herself and for Blade's worsening condition and resistance to a serum injection to help him control his bloodlust.

And I do love how the show builds up on the mythology while never being too burdened by it. There's a sense of weight between the scenes that Deacon Frost and his rival on the Council of Erebus, Dragonetti, about tradition, about purebloods and half-bloods, even if it doesn't really matter to our hero specifically. 

Of course, it's not the best superhero movie now, not with titans like the Dark Knight or Captain America: the Winter Soldier to compete with. It's an action flick first and a superhero flick second, and there are some gory bits and cuss words that are thrown around that I honestly didn't expect this movie to have. "Motherfucker, are you out of your damn mind?" is just one of the many hilarious one-liners that Blade has to say, and I find that beyond the simplistic plotline and a flat villain in Deacon Frost (Quinn is far more charismatic, and that's before I realized who his actor was), it's actually a freaking enjoyable movie. There's a certain level of B-movie quality to be expected, yes, but the movie is so slick and bereft of padding, yet at the same time it's not a clinical, emotionless picture either with just enough scenes to make you care about Blade as a character instead of just a lean badass vampirekilling machine.

So yeah, I enjoyed myself a lot more than I expected when watching this movie, and I really should start checking out superhero movies before the big titanic explosion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and its contemporaries.. 

Gotham S03E19 Review: The Jell-o Escape

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 19: All Will Be Judged

By rights, this should be a boring episode. Oswald and Edward do a team-up to reverse the developments from last episode. Jim Gordon gets his ass kidnapped by Barnes and is subjected to the same thing that Mad Hatter subjected him to a while back. There were some internal reveals about Alfred and Clone Bruce. Leslie goes insane. But at the same time, the cast is just so much fun to watch that I honestly didn't really mind. Yeah, the episode wasn't as solidly done as the Riddler episodes, but it's still very entertaining to watch.

The main Jim Gordon plotline shows a rematch with Barnes, who has embraced his supervillain persona with an insane axe-hand and some mascara, and I guess we can call him the Executioner now? And yes, Barnes is the worst type of villain with an insanely long monologue that allows for reinforcements to arrive, but at the same time the actor is just so insanely hammy that I don't care, it's just so fun to watch him rant about justice and all that jazz. Yes, the plotline is a rehash of something that Gotham has done so many times before: 'Jim Gordon gets kidnapped by evil villain' and 'the GCPD precinct gets fucked up by a villain', but at the same time Barnes's scenery chewing makes it absolutely work.

Kathryn sics Barnes on Gordon, and things backfire and she finds herself arrested. Meanwhile, thanks to Selina, Alfred finds out about Clone Bruce's real identity, and Clone Bruce gives some cryptic warning before buggering off. It's a bit weird and rushed, but okay, because we get the very awesome scene of Kathryn not flinching at the good cop bad cop treatment, only to have Alfred go for the 'I'm a fucking butler' route and stabbing Kathryn in the hand.

Then Barnes arrives to fuck things up and throws cops around like ragdolls, while Kathryn thinks that Barnes is just a brainwashed pawn like Talon, demanding that he get her out of here RIGHT THIS INSTANT, leading to the absolutely hilarious bit with Barnes slicing off Kathryn's head off with his axe-hand. It's sudden, it's a rather poor exit and a poor final showing for Kathryn and the Court in general (since, shit, that means all the other members of the Court that mattered other than Bruce's mysterious kung fu master is dead). But it's still all in good fun, mostly because the Court plotline has definitely run its course, and it's clear that the main threat for the final three episodes is going to be Bruce's Master, Mr's Ra's Al Ghul In All But Name.

Yeah, I really kind of wished the Court of Owls storyline could've been wrapped up a little neater. Maybe have Gordon, Ed and Oswald expose the whole secret society thing from the inside? But at the same time, I honestly didn't quite mind what we got. They even tried to justify having the silly crystal owl stuff from earlier this season to matter again, which isn't super necessary but it didn't take much screentime so I didn't mind.

The revelation that Barnes escaped again after his capture "we just captured the guy five minutes ago!" was a bit odd, and I'm not sure if I want Barnes running amuck as a wild card for the finale (because Selina, Penguin, Riddler and Barbara aren't enough wild cards?), but hey.

Speaking of Maybe-Ra's, he's a curious bit. Sure, he's helping to break Bruce out of his trauma, seemingly turning him into an emotionless version of the Dark Knight he will become into the future, but what his endgame is, and just how tied he is with the Court (he seems to have alternate plans for the Court than being a loyal member as previously implied) is ambiguous. And, yeah, just how Bruce Wayne plays into the Court's master plans when they literally have a spare loyal to them is a bit dodgy, but hopefully we'll get some answers by the end of the season.

Leslie has been inconsistently written all throughout this half-season, especially after Mario's death, but his talk with Mad Hatter was unexpected and a welcome bit of great acting from both characters, really showing Hatter's insane penchant for fucking with people's heads and his own warped view on the world, and Lee's own now-warped view on her relationship with Jim and Mario. And can you blame Lee for giving in to the madness, stealing the virus and injecting herself with it? Gordon and Bullock basically brought everyone from Lucius, Barbara and Alfred into their small ring of conspirators about the Court, but not Lee, who's actively digging up dirt about Gordon's activities. And in the fucked-up city of Gotham, well, even someone like Lee's got to succumb sometime, yeah? Add insane Leslie to the number of wild cards running around for the finale.

But easily the best part of the episode is the Penguin/Riddler truce and team-up. Robin Lord Taylor and Cory Michael Smith are easily two of the best acting talents that Gotham has, and constantly pairing them up is amazingly done. I still loathe the stupid librarian storyline they did earlier in the season, but if the pay-off is this hilarious bit of attempting to murder each other and teeth-clenched teamwork as they try to one-up each other "I have an army of gangsters!" "Well, I have an army of Indian Hill monsters!" and the sheer hilariousness of Oswald using Jell-O to escape from prison is amazingly done.

(And the fact that the Court, for all its fabled scariness, was unable to keep two unhinged lunatics equipped with nothing but Jell-O and a butter knife from escaping is testament to their utter incompetence)

Where we go from here I'm not sure. Presumably Penguin has to track down Ivy, Freeze and Firefly (the latter two haven't been doing much at all, yeah?) while Riddler has to deal with the fact that Butch and Tabitha are starting to chafe under Barbara's increasingly insane priorities, maybe leading to a falling out between the four of them. It's amazing how much Barbara, Butch and Tabitha have improved since their respective debuts, haven't they?

But, well, despite the rather choppy episode, it's still pretty entertaining to watch and that's been a recurring theme for Gotham this half-season. It's just so fun to watch that I can't help but smile while watching an episode that should, by rights, be a bad one. 

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure S01E14 Review: Epic JoJo Poses

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Season 1, Episode 14: Elite Ancient Warriors

[Revised 10/2018]

So after that whole Santana arc is over, we get transported to Rome with a brief time-skip as Joseph and Speedwagon follow a lead there and meet the descendant of William Zeppeli. It's basically the same segment as that part in Phantom Blood after Jonathan's defeated Dio the first time, but then has to meet with a mentor to train him in Hamon.

Not actually knowing what Zeppeli's grandson looks like, Joseph ends up accidentally picking a fight with Caesar Zeppeli himself, who insults Joseph when he was... well, Joseph was being a gigantic ass regarding that squid-ink spaghetti, let's be frank. And then trying to bully Caesar with hamon, of course, ends up with Joseph embarrassing himself. As Joseph puts into words in English, "OH, NO!" It's not quite the bombastic OH NO that Joseph would come to have as his catchphrase later on, but it's still pretty fun.

Caesar Zeppeli is... he's a pretty fun, if slightly flamboyant, character. As Joseph points out, "did he have to grand-stand just to sit down?" And by grandstand, I mean Caesar straight-up leaps three meters into the air to pirouette just to sit down on a cafe's chair. Caesar and Speedwagon give us a bit of a backstory about the Speedwagon Foundation's creation to find out information about the Stone Masks. We get the little bit of revelation that Santana's stone corpse is placed within a UV light prison, and the carvings on a wall show that Santana is actually of a lower caste compared to three other faces on it.

We get one of the less entertaining fights between Caesar and Joseph, as Caesar uses his Hamon kiss to take control of a girl, and Joseph uses his hamon to shove a pigeon into the girl's mouth... which honestly feels rather weird. We do see Caesar's so-called ultimate attack, which is using hamon bubbles to blast people. The animation in this scene reverts back to Phantom Blood's "change the colour palette randomly", something we haven't seen a whole lot in Battle Tendency. 

Speedwagon is apparently in cooperation with the Nazis (who are not referred to by name) and we meet their contact, Mark the nice soldier. And, well, Mark is obviously going to die a tragic death because 100% of the scene establishes that he's a nice guy, and he's going to get married, and he's such a nice guy, all right?

"AWAKEN MY MASTERS!"

The three of them wakes up in this episode, because some Nazi moron is too stupid to look directly into a hole that appeared on the wall, and, of course, the Pillar Men wakes up. A long, long tentacle-like horn shoots through the front rank of the soldiers, and the blood cakes the UV lights, and the Pillar Man emerge to fantastic music (Pillar Men Awaken), and immediately strikes series a glorious pose. We get an extra-nightmarish bit where he dance-moves through the Nazi soldiers, sticking everyone's hands together with the Pillar Men's "move to flesh" ability, and then drains everyone up like a straw.

I'm not quite sure why he has to hammily shout out his name as he revives his two masters and prostrates himself before the turban-headed Kars and the funky-haired ACDC (Esidisi, technically, but this is funnier). Kudos to the anime for making all three distinctly different from the get-go -- I knew I had trouble telling them apart in this part of the manga, and it's not until later in the story that I appreciate the three as distinct characters.

They have a tendency to strike hilarious JoJo poses, too, and Wamuu quickly makes himself subservient before ACDC and Kars -- I forgot that ACDC outranks Wamuu! They talk a bit about the Great Red Stone of Aja, our new plot device, as well as the Pillar Men's role as rulers of the world... and we cut back to our heroes, who basically go through a bit of a horror show.

Joseph steps on something gross, and the group discovers that it's the husks of the soldiers drained by Wamuu. The three Pillar Men walk past them and ignores them completely. Poor Mark gets bumped into and half of his body gets eaten, and his family picture locket clatters down to the ground. It does drag on a bit too long but it does make Caesar and Joseph's rage of justice so much more poignant.

Amidst Joseph and Caesar's screaming, though, the Pillar Men go through this weird unfunny-funny scene where Kars steps on Wamuu's shadow, causing Wamuu to reflexively kick Kars in the face before prostrating himself and apologizing. Kars is forgiving of this assault, instead apologizing himself for forgetting that Wamuu is very, very sensitive to people stepping in his shadow. This entire exchange adds nothing significant, isn't even funny or really relevant to the story, and it genuinely stands out as being a bit too bizarre without the mixture of hammy-but-scary deal that the Pillar Men had before.

The episode ends with the iconic Joseph/Caesar pose as they promise vengeance, which is shown up above. The entire episode is just introductions and a huge setup, and it's kind of clear that this isn't going to end particularly well for our heroes.

For my part, this was, I think, when I realized how much I would love this series when I came across it in the manga. The whole shadow bit aside, I really ended up liking just how... just how utterly out there the concept of the Pillar Men are. The fact that these Elder Race monsters are built like Mayan-Aztec bodybuilders with less clothes than a Victoria's Secret Model, have unsettling flesh powers, and, best of all, are called Wham, Cars and ACDC (yes, Wamuu, Kars and Esidisi, but it's really hard not to hear the actual bands). This usage of Western bands as character (or superpower) names is going to be a hallmark of JJBA, and, as ridiculous as everything is, this just adds a whole layer of fun into it all.


The JoJo Playlist:

• Wamuu is, of course, a reference to the UK band Wham! though the katakana is apparently slightly corrupted compared to how you would normally say 'wham' in Japanese (without a prolonged u, I think?) Wham! is responsible for some iconic songs you may have heard of like Careless Whisper, The Edge of Heaven and Last Christmas.  
• Kars is a reference to the Cars, a 70's rock band. I'm not as familiar with the Cars' work as Wham or ACDC, but Drive is a pretty good song by them.
• ACDC (well, AC/DC, but I'm to lazy to put in the slash half the time) is a rock band that's also from the 70's, and I'm kind of a huge fan. Selected works from AC/DC include Highway to Hell, Back in Black, Shoot to Thrill.
• While I'm sticking to the official English transliterations seen in JoJo guidebooks for how to write Wamuu and Kars' name, I like the idea of a character just named 'ACDC' so much that I hope you'll forgive me referring to him as that instead of Esidisi.
• The Red Stone of Aja is a reference to Aja, a jazz album by the band Steely Dan (who's going to referenced for a villain in Stardust Crusaders), as well as one of the songs within said album.
• I'm not sure if Caesar Anthonio Zeppeli is a reference to anything in particular (beyond sharing the Led Zeppelin reference with his grandfather).

Movie Review: Suicide Squad, Extended Cut

Around the time it came out, I did a review of Suicide Squad, the third installment in the DC Expanded Universe movie series, a rather unexpected movie after the relatively 'main characters' movies that came before it, Man of Steel and Batman v Superman. My general feeling about the movie was that it was a decent effort with a great cast, but executed relatively poorly with some problems in regards to pacing and finding the right tone.

Quickly reiterating the movie's pros and cons in broad strokes? It's a great cast, with excellent casting for Deadshot, Harley Quinn, el Diablo, Amanda Waller and the Joker in particular. The movie was also pretty unabashedly happy with homaging specific moments in the comics, as well as staying relatively true to the essence of these characters, telling their backstories well. It's also pretty decently ties in to the previously established canon by referencing the events of BvS. But at the same time, it's problematic because it's burdened with a very, very weak villain in Enchantress and Incubus, and not actually making use of the Suicide Squad's whole deal as 'we are a disposable black ops team'. The movie doesn't do enough to justify why the government needed the Suicide Squad to deal with what's basically just your average doomsday machine supervillain (there a lot of stuff from the comics' counterpart of the Suicide Squad that would've made great material for a Suicide Squad plotline). Neither does it do Argus any favours by showing the absolute shit way that they controlled Enchantress (really, Waller? You just put the Incubus genie bottle on a shelf?). Enchantress's speech at the end also felt absolutely silly considering she's never even met any of the characters there before, so trying to offer them the chance to rule the world is strange and the fact that no one, not even Boomerang, takes up her offer, is weird. Also, so many characters are underused -- Katana and Boomerang, in particular, I'm not sure what their purpose in the movie is beyond giving us some extra movies.

Still, it's a DC movie and so I bought the extended cut for the movie, curious to see if it fixed at least some of the movie's problems, like it did for Batman v Superman. I'll to that thing later, but I think I'll talk about Suicide Squad first. There was a lot of talk that Suicide Squad went through too many reshootings because of all the backlash towards Batman v Superman's tone, and honestly, if you want to make a movie that's light-hearted and happy, the whole premise of trying to turn Suicide Squad into Guardians of the Galaxy, basically, just doesn't cut it. Also there were huge talks about entire Joker scenes that got removed which pissed of the actor a lot (though IMO either use the Joker as the central driving force of the plot or just relegate him to flashbacks, this 'major character but not really' deal he got going on is honestly part of why the movie's hurt). And if nothing else, anyone who's paid attention to the trailers will see a fair amount of cut scenes.

So, how does Suicide Squad: the Extended Cut fare?

Well, let's talk briefly about the changes. Here is a more exhaustive list of changes made to the cut, which is nice because I didn't have the theatrical version to compare notes with. Basically, I'll just go through the major changes. First and foremost is the change to Harley Quinn's origin story, expanding slightly on just why Joker electrocuted Harley in the head. There was additional dialogue that hinted that Harley dredged up Joker's faded memories, which is a nice little tidbit, for sure.

A more major flashback that was cut, which happened slightly later in the movie, is another Joker flashback, with Harley Quinn riding a motorcycle and blocking Joker's fancy purple lamborghini which has Harley, still in dr. Quinzel mode, doing some motorcycle riding tricks to stop Joker in his tracks, showing just how much this version of Harley really wants to pursue the Joker and be his lover, and not just a puppet strung by an abusive maniac. It helps to transform the initially-abusive relationship that the two had into something more genuine, if still twisted, which I thought was actually a nice bit. It also puts the next flashback, the iconic chemical plant one, in proper context. Joker wants to prove that Harley's talk of being in love and devoted to him isn't just bullshit, and once Harley does, he embraces it wholeheartedly.

Another change that I caught was a longer 'spread the word!' bit as Harley and Deadshot plan an escape plan, which I thought is pretty important because it addresses a problem the movie has -- the villains aren't exactly villains, they're just dickbags. It's a fair amount of screentime, with Harley and Boomerang being relatively more active in spreading the word. It adds an extra scene with the reluctant bad-guy Diablo who voices how he wants no part in this, and has Killer Croc shove Boomerang onto a garbage pile. Granted Deadshot does his one-man-army thing against the eyeball monsters anyway and the villains bar Harley don't actually decide to break out, but eh.

Also a relatively important bit is a deal that Flag makes with Deadshot, around the scenes when they were walking through the deserted city, with Flag telling Deadshot that whatever happens, he'll make sure that he'll get a reward -- a meeting with his daughter. It explains a scene that happens later in the movie, which is Deadshot telling Flag that their deal is done later when Waller's been rescued and is airborne. It definitely explains Deadshot mellowing out to Flag as the movie goes by be slightly more explained.

What else is important? There's some additional Killer Croc scenes. He gets airsick and vomits on the plane. He has some additional dialogue with Harley about his cannibalism (he thinks it gives him power, apparently?) with Harley trying to play crazy psychotherapist. The cast is easily the strongest part of the movie, one would argue the only good part, so seeing more of them interact is definitely welcome. Then Deadshot tries to stop Harley from egging the other members of the group, at which point Harley talks to Deadshot about how everyone's out for themselves and stuff, hinting again at the Deadshot/Flag deal that was cut out of the theatrical release.

Oh, and that Squad at the bar scene teased so much in teasers and trailers are restored. Not much to say about that. Harley and Boomerang get some fun zingers around, but the main addition is Deadshot telling them about the deal he struck with Flag, and Diablo mocking Deadshot about the fact that the whole thing is a sham and a lie, which segues in more neatly into his backstory.

There were some additional 'flavour' scenes, like a slightly longer version of Killer Croc's introduction scene with the guards making references to his cannibalism, additional shots of Deadshot in the cell, additional soldier-talk dialogue, additional panning shots of security forces and stuff like that... But it's ultimately just fun, harmless fluff that didn't really add much to the story nor did it fix any of the problems it already has. There's the shot of Katana taking off her mask, but that's honestly not adding much and doesn't explain why she feels more kinship with Team Deadshot more than Rick Flag.

So, yeah. The review? Well, the movie still holds up more or less similarly to how the original was. The main problems that the movie has -- Joker's big-but-not-really role? Enchantress as a rather crap villain? Boomerang, Katana and Croc having glorified ascended extra roles? The rather tedious finale? The poor pacing of the movie? The fact that it's not actually a great setting to introduce the whole concept of the Suicide Squad into the public (Justice League Unlimited's Task Force X and the Batman: Assault on Arkham movie are both far, far better at justifying the need of a squad of villains)? Yeah, none of them are fixed by the extended cut.

Compared to Batman v Superman's extended cut (which restored nearly 30 minutes of footage), Suicide Squad gets a paltry 11 minutes. And while the extended cut for Batman v Superman led to a far, far more cohesive movie, explaining Luthor and Bruce's motives well and highly improves the sloggish first and second acts (even if Martha is still a laughable climax)... Suicide Squad's extended cut does no such thing. Yeah, we get a couple of extra scenes for the Joker, we get some extra laughs, but it doesn't fix any of the big problems in the movie. It does help explain Deadshot's motivations better as we learn about the deal between him and Rick Flag, and some scenes are fleshed out slightly. So Deadshot's transformation from mercenary to Rick Flag's antihero buddy kind of worked smoothly. The flashback scenes are also improved with the rather crucial Harley-Joker bike confrontation, which helps to bridge Harley's transformation from a psychiatrist that was hurt really really bad into, well, willing to jump into a vat of chemicals for her puddin'.

So, yeah. Honestly, the movie is still messy. I'm still entertained by the cast and the little Easter Eggs, but the Extended Cut certainly doesn't salvage much. Maybe if we had the original version of the script that was filmed before massive reshoots happened (which I thought would probably be more familiar to Assault on Arkham, essentially a similar movie to this one with the Enchantress replaced with Arkham villains) things may have gone differently and the movie would be more solid? As it is, Suicide Squad is a bit of a missed beat that ends up falling short from being an actually solid movie. I enjoyed it for what it is, a messy attempt at making a fun movie about a bunch of B-listers, but it's another misstep in the DC movies lineup, and, if I had to pick a better movie between Suicide Squad and BvS, looking at their Extended Cuts I'd sat BvS wins hands-down.

Pokemon of the Week #16: Pansear

#513: Pansear, the High Temp Pokemon

God damn it I guess it has to happen some day, huh?

I have to talk about this fucking thing.

I make no secret of my huge, huge loathing of the Elemental Monkeys. They rank #2 on my old Best & Worst of Generation V Pokemon list, and #3 on my Most Hated Pokemon list. I thought the Elemental Monkeys are absolutely fucking ugly, uncreative, adds nothing to the game, and are generally horrid things. 

Like, shit, I'm not alone, because out of all 720 Pokemon from Generations I to VI, Nintendo did a huge poll in Japan and Simisear ended dead last, making Simisear the absolutely and unambiguously most shit Pokemon ever. But honestly, the other Elemental Monkeys don't fall behind that much, because they're all equally shit.

Like, I personally have a couple more others I hate more than them, but that's the difference between disliking a punch to the face and a punch to the balls -- you don't want either of them. 

What makes the monkeys so obnoxious is how prevalent they were in the early parts of Generation V, a generation that's reviled, unfairly so, for weak designs. But when you have the Elemental Monkeys literally forced upon you, and the first gym leaders use the monkeys in the most hideously hand-holdy 'hey, this is how elemental resistances work!' tutorial ever, and it's just so silly.

And it's a stupid fire monkey too. Last week we talked about Torkoal and Turtonator, and how they're both two fire turtles but have different gimmicks and executions, making it justifiable for them to exist at the same time. How does Pansear end up changing the formula to the well-designed Chimchar, Monferno and Infernape from Generation IV, other than looking like a shittier version of them? Like, Pansear's whole gimmick is that he exists in a set of three sub-par losers to teach people about elemental typing. Because the whole existence of the starter trio wasn't enough.

It's just your generic fire type with balanced stats, which means it's even horrible in competitive even when pit against Pokemon with equal stat totals.

Like, I'm sorry, I legitimately cannot find anything appealing about all six Elemental monkeys, other than maybe like a couple of decent scenes for Pansage in the anime. But Pansear? No thanks. I'm looking at his bulbapedia article to find anything redeeming. Anything at all. Shiny sprite? Ugh, makes his Chimchar copy-cat-ness even worse. An attempt at using the see no evil hear no evil speak no evil motif? Not even executed well at all. Pokedex entries? Generic bullshit that insists that this thing is intelligent, but look at Pansear! Look at it! It's dumb.

Like, I'm sorry if you're a fan of the Elemental Monkeys, but I really got to question your taste in Pokemon if you do. Like, literally any other Fire-type, or any other monkey-based Pokemon are better than these uncreative set of morons.

Fuck off, Pansear.

Gotham S03E18 Review: The Undertaking

Gotham, Season 3, Episode 18: Light the Wick

This episode isn't quite as great as the previous ones. Sure, it works fine as a middle installment to the overarching Heroes Rise sub-season, but otherwise it kind of ruined any sort of credibility that the Court of Owls has for being a properly threatening secret society. There were so many things happening in this episode that it felt scatterbrained, and while it doesn't quite reach the badness of Gotham's weak first season, it's still a noticeable dip in the quality.

The Court's big plan, which seems intent on copying (homaging?) Batman Begins' gas-unleashing trick to cleanse Gotham City, is revealed in this episode, and Gordon, of course, ends up choosing to save the citizens that Kathryn was using as a trial run at the cost of his cover. It's rather monumentally stupid for the Court on so many levels, really, to trust Jim Gordon to become one of them, but also to not have any real contingency plans beyond Talon. It's a little cliched 'kill this innocent man to prove you're evil, mwa ha ha!' secret test of character thing that had no tension whatsoever, because you just know Gordon's going to call for backup.

Though, admittedly, Talon was pretty much owning Gordon in that fight until Penguin arrives with his buddy Firefly, summoned to that location when Gordon switches on his cell phone to inform Penguin about his locations in a fake conversation. As awesome as it is to see Firefly one-shot Talon, it's also speaks to the Court's, well, incompetence.

There was some nice tie-in to the Alice Tetch virus from earlier in this season, as Mad Hatter (still as entertainingly insane as ever) witnesses Barnes get kidnapped from Arkham Asylum for use by the Court, who extracts his blood to use as the basis of the rage gas. Another attempt to tie-in was Hugo Strange, who makes a very, very unexpected but welcome return (B.D. Wong is awesome) after apparently having escaped Fish's clutches off-screen. It makes perfect sense for Strange to be involved, of course, considering that his involvement was how the show hinted at the existence of the Court in the first place, but I found it rather odd to have tied Hugo's role to Fish so closely and dropping it here. I guess the whole plan of Fish with her weird cuttlefish mind-control powers and her army of nameless metahumans are just dropped and replaced with Oswald's Legion of Doom? No big losses there.

There were a lot of questionable sub-plots running throughout this episode, too. Selina's recovery via Ivy's incomprehensible plants ex machina is... acceptable, but weird, and the whole 'Selina gets knocked out' thing seems to just be an excuse to homage Batman Returns. Leslie's insane crusade against proving that Gordon is a sociopath trying to hurt everyone around him is getting tiresome and as stupid as the worst Barbara Kean plotlines before the show retooled her into a far more entertaining psychopathic egomaniac. Though Leslie's barb about how Mario was hurt because he was collateral damage in Mad Hatter's one-man crusade to hurt Jim Gordon is amazingly well-written, so she at least has a fair amount more depth compared to season one Barbara. Bruce continues his Shaolin Monk training with flashbacks and fighting random people, which just seems kind of repetitive at this point.

Oh, and Oswald gets abducted by the Court, and put into a literal giant birdcage next to the Riddler, which seemed absolutely convoluted. No real mention why Firefly nor Freeze did anything. No real mention why the Court didn't kill Oswald right away, because they've been pretty kill-happy. And that's what they did with the Riddler, for all of Kathryn's talk of 'we have use for your talents?'

At least Barnes is back, and I really enjoyed his actor. He's in the service of the Court of Owls, who seems to want to use Barnes (does he have a supervillain codename yet? The Judge? The Executioner?) as a Talon replacement. Which, considering Barnes's big thing is that he wants to purge Gotham of all undesirables... really, really is a bad thing for the Court to even consider.

DC Easter Eggs Corner:

• The Court's plan to 'cleanse' Gotham using a gas that amplifies people's rage seems to be a similar trick to what Ra's Al Ghul and Scarecrow were planning to do in Batman Begins, albeit with fear gas, adding to yet another similarity with Batman Begins beyond the Bruce Wayne flashbacks.
• Hugo Strange returns after a season-long absence, being last seen when Fish kidnapped him. Barnes and Mad Hatter, both not being seen after the Mad Hatter arc earlier in this season, also make their return to the fold.
• Poison Ivy treating a fellow female supervillain back to health after she was critically injured happened with Harley Quinn in both the mainstream comics and Batman: TAS, earning Harley's long-lasting friendship and loyalty there.