Fist of the North Star
Post-apocalyptic 80’s kung fu, with a really dated English dub; Full movie here, with a protagonist so badass, he walks through a building as it falls on top of him, and tables randomly explode when he’s ready to fight. There probably wouldn’t have been JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure if this wasn’t made. I remember hearing the “troubled” kids in my grade school talking about watching a bootleg version of this that one of their older brothers bought from a want ad while on vacation in NY. This bootleg had cursing and the real graphic parts uncensored: head explosions, guts everywhere, etc. The linked video, which is pretty good quality, has those uncensored parts spliced in, but the quality of those parts is notably different.
Akame ga Kill!
Standard shonen fare. The protagonist is even called “shonen” by one of the other characters in the first episode. There was some interesting abilities of all the weapons they used, like a sniper rifle that becomes more deadly as its wielder falls into more dangerous situations. The show also gets bonus points for having characters die and stay dead; no magic resurrections, no clones or twins, no “oops, the bullet hit the armor he had hidden under his shirt.” Would that all writers treat their audience a little more respectfully like that.
X-Men (2000)
The original Marvel cinematic universe beginning. It went a little too hard on the “these superpowered humans are a lot like whatever oppressed demographic you’d like to insert in,” but first movies have to establish a strong connection with our real world, so I guess that’s expected.
X-Men: Age of Apocalypse
Apocalypse was one of my favorite characters from the comics, since he always had the most cryptic and interesting lines, and the 1990’s cartoon version was something to behold because nothing so menacing was seen before on Saturday mornings. He wasn’t as nuanced as Magneto, but at least he wasn’t an insufferable altruist like Professor X. It was good to see Metallica’s “Four Horsemen” used so appropriately.
Fantastic Four (2015)
The previous cinematic Fantastic Four films from the mid- to late-aughts, while not that great, were at least fun. The 2015 version had too much of a serious bent. Netflix is already doing that way too much, and I guess audiences didn’t want it in a traditionally upbeat franchise.
X-Men: Days of Future Past
Wolverine, from a future where the sentinels basically destroyed everything, gets sent back to the 1960s to stop Mystique’s DNA from being harvested to make the sentinels. Probably the apex of the X-Men movie franchise, followed closely by First Class, so it’s good that the two films’ plots are closely related.
BNA (Brand New Animal)
Knowing this was a Studio Trigger offering, I was hoping their unique visual aesthetic would play hard into it. It kinda sorta did, but not as much as I had liked. I place this series a distant third, just behind Kill la Kill, and way far behind Gurren Lagaan. I mean, really.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Interesting cinematic take on a non-superhero comic book, about a simp who has to beat up his love interest’s ex-boyfriends. Other than that, this didn’t do much for me. The video game seems a lot of fun.
Children of the Sea
A girl helps two brothers return to the sea. It had very little plot, but it didn’t need it, because the visuals and non-traditional animation draw the viewer in, and philosophical “field” in which it places the viewer allows him to poke around for meaning. If you read some amateur reviews of this, you’ll get the idea that most people don’t “get it,” yet there’s nothing to “get,” here; they likely “get” all there is to the movie at a surface level, and are confused because they expected something more. It’s likely a lament from American audiences, who always want a bedrock of logic in their films. There’s not a lot of that here, but plenty to think about.
Captain America: The First Avenger
I’m lifting my “stop with the damn Nazis and put some work into your villains” ban on all stories to allow this one, because the source material used Nazis legitimately. Additionally, the film and original comic stories used a splinter group from the Nazis that were even more Nazi-like than Nazis were. Uber-Nazi? I’ve read people complaining that Thor was the first Avenger because he was around far before Steve Rogers, but Thor wasn’t an Avenger; the group didn’t form until Fury got them together under the SHIELD banner, and Captain America was the first of them. Why do people have to be cute all the time with stuff like that?
Captain Marvel
Very discount Captain America. Mauler has a great review of the movie here, and it’s actually more entertaining than the movie itself. He focuses more on the plot contrivances and ridiculousness more than anything, but he does mention Carol’s character non-development. Carol Danvers’ only struggle was merely realizing the powers she was given by accident (I like the visuals in that scene, by the way), and though minor, remembering her forgotten past. It’s almost as bad as Steve Rogers’ minimal development in Captain America: The First Avenger, but he started out a weakling runt with a heart of gold and had to learn how to be a leader with his newfound powers. Rogers at least had charisma we could grab onto, and development of his character happened in subsequent films. Brie Larson’s Danvers became an overpowered hero with a boring personality.