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Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. (2013)
The Hulk Meets Jersey Shore
Disney/Marvel may be knocking it out of the park when it comes to live-action theatrical releases, but they continue to struggle to create an animation show that is worth a damn. Here we have the story of Hulk (everyone's favorite rage beast) who is apparently concerned about his public image so much so that he agrees to do a webcam show with Red Hulk, Skaar, She-Hulk, and A-Bomb in order to help change the opinion of the masses.
Read that last sentence again, please. Of all of the possible plot lines Marvel/Disney could have run with for a Hulk show, they chose to go the Jersey Shore route. Each episode is filled with plenty of explosions, silly one-liner jokes, and lots of confessional booth clips of our heroes sharing their thoughts. Every once in a while, something entertaining happens but for the most part, I find myself in disbelief and scratching my head.
Now, I do have a four year old son who loves him some Hulk and he seems to like (not love) this show. I realize that Disney is trying to sell toys to the younger generation and not to please 30 year old dads like me but I don't believe they'll be successful with this series. I believe both Disney and WB would be better served in making a quality animated show first and then marketing a toy campaign around that rather than shoveling out garbage shows that are wrapped in pretty colors.
It's been two decades since Batman: TAS originally aired and it is still spoken of very highly today by anyone who ever laid eyes on it... none of us will be talking about this debacle three years from now.
Thirteen at Dinner (1985)
This Is All Wrong!
Let me preface this by saying that I love all things Poirot. I love the books, I love the movies, I love the TV series, and I even love the video games. Peter Ustinov is my second favorite Poirot (Suchet is numero uno) but Ustinov was my first love. "Death on the Nile" is easily one of my top 10 favorite movies and so I thought I would at least like, if not love, this film....
... OK now onto this movie. Right of the bat I have a problem with this film and that is that it's set in 1985. Let me repeat this because it's a HUGE issue. The producers decided to film this movie as though it were current day (1985 is when it was shot). While to new fans of Poirot this won't be an issue, to the rest of us it doesn't make any sense. Peter Ustinov played Poirot in "Death on the Evil" when it was set in 1937 now we're supposed to just go along with the same character not only being alive in 1985 but essentially being only 10 years or so older?? OK... even if you can get over the time period issue, you can not get over the acting and overall feel on this film. Ustinov's Poirot in this film is a far cry from the earlier films and seems as though he just sort of coasted through the performance. The rest of the cast (Dunaway and others) seem as though they are just there collecting a check so I never became involved with the whole "whodunit" part of the story.
If you really love Poirot and are interested in this story, be sure to track down David Suchet's TV version of this with "Lord Edgeware Dies"... you can me later for the recommendation.
PS: David Suchet as Japp was awkward and yet fun.