How difficult is it to make a superhero movie with a female superhero as the lead. Based on the results of such epic failures as Catwoman, Aeon Flux and now Elektra, I would have to infer that it’s more complicated than it seems.

You have all the elements for a great film. Simple plot, check, hot female lead, check, excuse to make hot female lead parade around in revealing skintight outfits, check (you really have to give it to the comic book writers, they knew their target audience), hot female lead in kickass fight scenes and winning, check, character development, check. Oops, hang on a second, that seems to be the common problem. Character development has no place in a superhero film. If we wanted character development we’d watch Definitely, Maybe or Meet Joe Black or some other equally disastrous excuse for a film.

I think I may have figured it out. The movie executives take the original script home to peruse, and it’s awesome, fight scenes, explosions, skin tight leather. Then their wives get hold of it and start going on about how it’s exploitation and sexist and the only way for the executives to hit the nag-mute button is to agree to put in character development, instead of saying “We’ll make this script and I can use all the money we get from it to pay for your next round of cosmetic surgery and buy that house on the ski slopes!”

What little I remember of this film does not bear examining in great detail, mainly because it sucked so much. I feel it would be an insult to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man to actually rate Elektra, so it gets the AntiNike. As far as the dodgiest moment in the film, it would have to be the promise of the opening sequence. This scene showed Elektra in the skintight outfit killing people for money. This got us all excited. From there we got into plot and character development which can be summarised as follows. Character development = Jennifer Garner crying. Plot = Reasons for Jennifer Garner to start crying.

Instead of a comment on the rewatchability, I thought I’d include a visual warning.

The only memorable thing about Elektra is Jennifer Garner crying.   Maybe the reason for this is that the brain is forced to shut down out of self defence and forget everything about the movie, except for Jennifer Garner crying, which you remember only because you get exposed to it so often. Hopefully you remember that so that you can avoid films with her in them because you know they’ll only end in tears, generally hers, but occasionally yours.

One of these days, I’ll learn that it is not possible to make a good superhero film with a female lead. Until then, however, I will maintain an air of optimism and watch more in the hope that someday someone realises just how to do it. And when that day comes, I’ll be ready, and you’ll all find out about it quickly enough.

I managed to pass double figures on my RSS subscription today,  (not a big deal, but still worthy of celebration) and to celebrate, I’ve decided to add a feature.

Twice a week, I’m going to review reader suggested movies.  I’ll keep a running tab of the top 10 requested movies on the site and get hold of the highest ranked movie (well technically lowest ranked, but you get the idea) and review it.  Send your suggestions to reviewthis@dodgymoviesreviewed.com or on twitter @gazandkim with #DMReview

In addition, if you request a review of a movie that I have seen, I will try and do a 140 character review to give you some guidance on whether you should watch it or not.

Please let me know whether this is a good, bad or indifferent idea in the comments.  Also, let me know if you want to see anything else here.

300 is a bit of a strange movie. I only realised during the final scene that it was a saga in the style of the Odyssey or any of those other historical Greek poems with visuals being used to avoid the long descriptions, which they felt were necessary to put in using a Narrator anyway. Maybe, if I had realised this earlier, I would have enjoyed it more, but I doubt it.

I don’t think I’ve ever watched a film quite like 300. It had some gratuitous sex, lots of gratuitous violence and still almost managed to put me to sleep. How could a film based solely on a band of 300 men defying an army of thousands put you to sleep I hear you ask, and to tell the truth, I’m still puzzled at that one myself.

Maybe it was the number of slow motion impaling-death sequences they showed, like they were worried about running out of film during shooting so they used slow motion sequences to stretch 30 minutes of footage into a 90 minute film. Maybe, it was the half-hearted (and I’m probably being a little generous here) attempt at using any semblance of a plot so that the film didn’t consist solely of gratuitous violence, although that might have improved it. Or maybe it was the fact that the CGI was so appalling that the blood looked like solid chunks of rock and the wolf at the beginning, well, words cannot describe it. Suffice to say that if the narrator hadn’t told us it was a wolf, we’d still be wondering how the Spartans had managed to master genetic manipulation. All of these things combined to form a completely forgettable film and I find myself wondering how it got any reviews at all, nevermind any reviews that were positive.

A film consisting solely of gratuitous violence strung together with minor narrative really should score full marks on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man Scale, but, seeing as how most of the combat sequences felt like repeats of the first one and the fact that if it wasn’t still light outside while I was watching it I would have fallen asleep, it only manages to score a 2. I should have realised when the film makers decided to unleash this monstrosity on the world at Comic Con and not at one of the film festivals that they realised how bad it was and tried to cover it up by doing something unusual. And it worked, they got their publicity, and won the dodgiest moment award. The second one without even trying.

Where some films suffer from ADD directors, and I’m thinking of Aeon Flux in particular, this one seems to have a director hopped up on serious dinosaur tranquilisers. Maybe the slow motion sequences would seem to be real time if I was stoned out of my bracket, and that might have been the secret ingredient I was missing while watching. However, watching in real time was so bad that you had time to leave the room, make a cup of tea, and return before the spear had finished going through the body of a Persian soldier. But, to it’s credit, 300 just managed to avoid getting the not-so-coveted Anti-Nike and scored a 1 on the rewatchability index.

When you spend half the movie trying to place the voice of the Narrator, (who is the monk in Van Helsing that invents all the cool equipment), it’s not likely that you remember too many quotes. Fortunately, IMDB comes to the rescue, and a quick browse of what people think are the memorable quotes reveals that I didn’t miss too much. The only one that is vaguely memorable is because of the foreshadowing inherent in the quote. “Our arrows shall blot out the sun” “Then we will fight in the shade” and lets face it, it’s not a very good one.

Unless you have a morbid curiosity and insist on watching things to see if they are as bad as people tell you, or have an insatiable lust for gore, 300 can stay in the DVD case in the shop. You may want to watch it if it comes out on television and it’s free, but I am sure you will have better things to do with your time, like learning why cat bathing is considered a martial art, or if all else fails, watching paint dry. You won’t be missing anything by skipping this one.

Mortal Kurling is not a well known sport. Sure, you’ve probably all heard of curling, even if you’re not sure it’s a real sport, but the underground version is only known to a select few. Time to bring it to the light.

Founding of Mortal Kurling

Mortal Kurling has a long and illustrious history.  Founded by peasants in the middle ages as a result of the local war interrupting their winter holiday, and curling game, one too many times.  The nobles rapidly learnt that a broom could do serious damage when applied with an angry peasant.  After this incident, the nobles decided that war would be restricted to a summer sport and relatively peaceful coexistence continued.

Not much has changed since the early instigation of violence into curling.  The rules follow those of curling with one subtle difference.  A win can also be achieved by removing your opponents from the ice, and this method of victory is the most popular with the fans.

Modern Rule Changes

Since the advent of televised matches, many more rules have been implemented.  Most notably is the banning of bladed weapons.  The television executives quickly realised that advertisers wouldn’t sponsor a game that was over within a couple of minutes, and implemented the “Blunt Weapons Only” policy to extend the matches.

Reserve players for injury substitutions have also been introduced recently, again as a means for extending the violence.  This has allowed teams to field Glass Cannons or Baresarks as they were known, players with massive offensive potential (normally through potent body odour) but low survival chances.

The Chernobyl Incident

Mortal Kurling has been all but banned in the former USSR with the only mortal kurling arenas still in existence being controlled by the mob.  This is a result of a young physicist, Yuri Bashmakov’s fascination with nuclear explosions and mortal kurling.  He managed to create a small nuclear device and implanted it into one of the stones.  However, he had failed to take into account the resulting explosive power, and managed to vaporise his team, the opposition team, the referee, the spectators and a large area of the local countryside.  The Soviet government managed to cover up the event with stories of a nuclear meltdown which have persisted in the mainstream media to this day.

As a result of The Chernobyl Incident explosives have been banned from all Mortal Kurling tournamnets. Any player or spectator caught found in possession of explosives, even if not at the arena, will be killed, and then banned for all eternity from all mortal kurling events.  The eternal ban was imposed once the governing body, WAMKA, realised that for most mortal kurling players and spectators, death was not really a viable deterrant.

Traditions

There is only one tradition that has survived from the first season of Mortal Kurling.  The Nobles would signify the start of the winter Kurling season by hanging up the suit of armour and striking it with a stick, causing a bell like sound to ring out across the countryside.  This signified to the peasantry that the war season had ended and the Nobles would once again resort to the traditional winter pursuits of incest and assassination, sometimes at the same time.

With the migration of the game to the far east, an alternative to striking armour needed to be found.  Bamboo  breast plates struck with wooden poles resulted in a dull thunk as the strikers head was removed by the Samurai he’d just offended.  To maintain the tradition, gongs were introduced and these have persisted through to the modern game.

The prestigious position of gong striker is now handed to any male who looks good dressed in a loincloth with oiled muscles.  If no good-looking male can be found, a fat tubby one will do.  Oiled woman have been tried, but lubricated woman using a double handed technique on a large stick proved too distracting for the players and often resulted in early player removal.

The Governing Body

While the game was relatively self regulating, the recent arms race between the American and Iraqi teams required a governing body to be put in place to standardise the equipment.  (And you all thought the WMD stood for Weapons of Mass Destruction when it was really Weapons for Mortal Kurling Devastation).

The current Mortal Kurling governing body, The World Amateur Mortal Kurling Association, is headquartered in Canada, a neutral country as far as Mortal Kurling is ocncerned.  The Canadians get enough bloodshed from hockey and never saw the point of Mortal Kurling.  WAMKA is responsible for ensuring that standard length and weights for brooms are adhered to and broom envy has become a thing of the past in sanctioned events.  Non-sanctioned events are a different story.

Current World Champions

The reigning world champions are the Finnish Flyers.  Having entered the last tournament as a wildcard underdog team, they rapidly became the fan favourites, largely due to the martial skill of their star player, Niklas Rajamäki , and his uncanny knack for drawing blood with blunt weapons.  This has resulted in the fans battle cry of “Finnish Him” when they sense the end of the game approaching.

The final was a hotly contested affair between Japan and Finland, with much of the action happening behind the scenes prior to the match.  The Ninja Kurlers had managed to reach the final through a series of forfeits, as opposition players continued to vanish mysteriously.  The Finnish team management realised the threat posed by the black pyjama brigade and brought in experienced body guards in the form of The Privateers, a group of Somali’s who had made a living through piracy.  Once the match was started, the Finnish Flyers quickly finished off the Ninja Kurlers, whose lack of ice fighting experience proved detrimental, and raised the coveted Golden Broom.

Future Matches

Competitive Mortal Kurling is on the decrease with the removal from competition of players after each match. While there is no shortage of volunteers, players with the right combination of Strength, Agility, Martial Skill and Mental Illness to make it in the topflight competition are becoming increasingly difficult to find, and once found tend to get protected by their respective governments to be available for selection for the next World Championship to be held in Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch in 2015.

However, you can look forward to the upcoming match between Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li and Dragonball Evolution!

Hoodwinked is a musical, film-noiresque detective story version of Little Red Riding Hood.  If that doesn’t immediately make you run out and buy it, and it should, you may be on the wrong site.  But, if you need more convincing, read on.

Hoodwinked starts off by showing the end of the story, which turns out to be the middle of the story, but you only find that out later. The main players in this musical drama, Red, Granny, The Wolf and Kirk all get detained by Flippers, the police investigator,  and each is interviewed. During this process, you can piece the entire story together if you pay attention, but to get all the subtleties you will need to watch it more than once.

The interviews start, and you’re still convinced that this is a Disney cartoon made by a small budget studio. Then the singing starts. The first song is a crayon version of Julie Andrews in sound of music.  You’re still fairly sure what you’ve gotten yourself into, and that’ll be the last time you question whether this movie is dodgy.  After this, the musical numbers include a yodelling goat, a singing bunny and The “Schnitzel on a Stick Song” You have to see, well, hear  them to truly appreciate the full extent of the dodginess.

Vignettes abound, including homages to the great dodgy movies XXX and The Matrix.  There is also a group of singing porcupines dressed as The Village People, which is really just icing on top of the goodies. Ultimately, the mystery is resolved and the story ends happily for everyone that you care about, despite the fact that Kirk ends up in “Der Happy Yodelers”, but it makes him happy, even though yodelling has been outlawed by the Geneva Convention as a cruel and unusual punishment.

Cartoons don’t normally qualify for more than a 4 on the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man scale as a certain level of dodginess is expected. Hoodwinked, however, manages a well deserved 5. It’s hard to pinpoint the moment that pushes this movie up to the maximum rating. The schnitzel song and yodelling goat, the “battle of the iron cage gladiators” champion granny as well as the squirrel after being fed caffeine could compete for that privilege. However, the Broadway-esque musical number in which the Bunny’s plan is revealed, complete with choreography by the evil henchman, including Jazz Hands, pushes it over the edge.

I bought this one having only watched the trailer, and my faith was well rewarded. Every time I watch it I find something to appreciate, and it isn’t always something new. Even the musical numbers grow on you after a while, and for that, this one gets a 5 Mutant Smileys for rewatchability.

The most memorable quote was almost a tough choice, with gems like “Oh good, More singing” and “Use the hood Red, Use the hood.” But it wasn’t even close once the bunny started dishing out commands. “Keith, darnit change your name.. Please.. That’s not scary and I’m embarrassed to say it. Boris, try that. Keith, you know, oh watch out for Keith.” We all know the importance of scary henchman names, and this spells it out in flashing neon letters.

You won’t get the  slick, polished visual smorgasboard that you experience in the newer Pixar films, given that Hoodwinked had a far smaller budget. However, the script carries this one, and the animation is more than watchable, making this one a must buy for everyone.