Richard sits in with CTV NewsChannel anchor Jennifer Burke to have a look at “Justice League,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “Stegman is Dead.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
By Richard Crouse – Metro Canada
What’s it like playing Cyborg, the technologically enhanced human superhero of Justice League? Ray Fisher compares his excitement to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
“It’s like someone handing you the keys to the chocolate factory and saying, ‘Go ahead, it’s yours now,’” says the 30-year-old actor.
Before he was a superhero, Cyborg was Victor Stone, a sports-obsessed young man who was cybernetically reconstructed by his scientist father after a nearly fatal car accident. Cobbled together with technology that allows him to weaponize his arms and mind, he becomes a reluctant superhero.
Fisher first played Cyborg in a cameo appearance in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and audiences took notice.
“Fans have reached out,” he says. “There have been some who are amputees. There have been kids who have implants. For Cyborg to be able to represent the underrepresented in that way is a very special thing. I didn’t know the full scope of what he would represent when I took on the mantle.”
Fisher says he’s inspired by the fact that his character gives voice and power to those who feel marginalized.
“Cyborg represents not just people who are differently abled, he is also a representation of the Black community and people of colour within the Justice League. Being able to don both those mantles with the integrity which that character would need to be portrayed and was adhered to was something that was very important. I never felt that I was in too much danger of becoming a stereotype. I never felt like I was in danger of offending anyone with that particular portrayal because it could go wrong in so many ways.”
Growing up, he thought Cyborg was a “funny character but he didn’t resonate with me.” Live action heroes did, however. “I remember watching Wesley Snipes as Blade,” he says. “I watched Michael Jai White as Spawn. I even watch Shaquille O’Neal as Steel. I felt like seeing a physical representation, a non-cartoon representation affected me in a much different way.”
Although he didn’t read comic books growing up in the 1990s and 2000s, Fisher says he was a huge fan of the animated series and movies.
“It wasn’t until I booked the role of Cyborg that I was sent literally everything Cyborg-related from DC comics. I was able to fall in love with the original iteration of Cyborg from the Teen Titans. For me to be able to bring the character into the same sphere as the shows and the animated series I loved as a kid is coming full circle.”
Fisher, who made a name for himself playing Muhammad Ali in the Off-Broadway production of Fetch Clay, Make Man says he hopes his take on the character will make an impression on DC fans.
“Hopefully it resonates with people in a positive way,” he says. “I think there is definitely a message behind Cyborg that is needed for people to hear and what he represents and the resilience of the human spirit. I hope it means as much to people watching it as it meant to me to do it.”
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
Let’s face it, without the batsuit Bruce Wayne is just another billionaire playboy with some cool toys. With it, he’s the Caped Crusader, keeping Gotham and the world safe. The clothes make the man, or in this case, the superhero.
To play the Dark Knight in the new Justice League movie, Ben Affleck wore a variation on his Batman v Superman costume which was a variation on every batsuit that came before it.
Designed to conceal his identity and frighten criminals, the basic batsuit is usually blue-black or dark grey, emblazoned with the chest-mounted Batsymbol. Add to that a flowing cape, finned gloves and a utility belt with a variety of crime fighting gadgets. All batsuits are topped off with a cowl with ears that mimic a bat’s head.
Costume designer Michael Wilkinson says Affleck’s new look is, “a little more aggressive.” To pump up the suit’s armour, Wilkinson drew on Bruce Wayne’s history of studying martial arts in Japan, creating new gloves based on samurai designs. Inspired by the Wayne Tech esthetic, he also revamped the cowl, adding in new ways for Batman to communicate with his trusty manservant Alfred.
Like Rick Blaine’s fedora or Annie Hall’s wide trousers, long white shirts, vests and men’s ties, the suit is crucial to Batman’s brand but it’s not always a comfortable fit.
“The first time I ever put on the (suit) myself I thought, ‘Oh, Chris (Nolan) has to re-do the cast,’” says Christian Bale, who played the Caped Crusader in three movies, “because the claustrophobia was just unbelievable.”
The Batman Begins actor says he discovered a meditative process that eased the anxiety of feeling trapped inside the hulking suit and estimates that he spent a total of 21 months encased in Batman’s armour.
He claims the discomfort actually helped him play the brooding character because he was always in a foul mood when he had to don the suit.
“Batman, he’s this very, very dark, messed-up character,” said Bale. “I found when I put on the suit I went, ‘I just feel like a bloody idiot if I don’t use this as a means to (show) his true, monstrous self that he allows to come out in that moment.’”
When Affleck took over the role from Bale he says the Welsh actor gave him one important bit of advice. “He told me to make sure I got a zipper in the suit,” Affleck laughs, “which was valuable, practical advice as it turned out.”
Perhaps the most beloved actor to wear the batsuit was the late Adam West. For 120 episodes from 1966 to 1968, West was Batman on the most popular show on television. He called putting on the suit one of his most memorable moments on the show.
“One defining moment was when I first put on the costume for real and was about to leave my trailer on the stage and walk out in front of the crew and the press, and into the light,” he told me in a 2010 interview.
“I thought, ‘Oh Lord! Are they going to laugh? What’s going to happen here?’ Well, I walked across the stage as dignified as I could and there wasn’t a sound. People stood there in awe and I thought, ‘Yes, this will work.’”
The old truism “Less is more” has been thrown into the interdimensional void with the release of the new jam-packed superhero film “Justice League.”
At almost two hours and featuring the talents of not one but two high-powered directors—Joss Whedon took over for Zach Synder who stepped away in post-production due to personal issues—it features the top-line DC heroes like Superman (Henry Cavill), Batman (Ben Affleck) and Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) plus a host of others like Flash (Ezra Miller), Aquaman (Jason Mamoa) and Cyborg (Ray Fisher). Then there’s odds and ends like Connie Nielsen as Hippolyta, villains such as Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg) and the motion captured Ciarán Hinds as Steppenwolf and significant others like Martha Kent (Diane Lane), Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and James Gordon (J. K. Simmons).
Phew. That’s a whole lotta movie. I wonder, is there anyone left to make other superhero films?
“Justice League” takes place months after the events of the grim-faced “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” Superman, apparently, is out of the picture—we see a newspaper with the headline “Disappearing heroes. Did they return to their planets?” accompanied with photos of David Bowie, Prince and Superman—so billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne (Affleck) and Diana Prince (Gadot) a.k.a. Princess Diana of Themyscira assemble a team of super-dupers including the world’s fastest boy, Barry Allen (Miller), merman Arthur Curry (Momoa) and man-machine Victor Stone (Fisher). “There are enemies coming from far away,” says Wayne. “I need warriors right now.”
Their job? To combat alien military officer Steppenwolf—“I am the end of worlds!”—and his army of winged shock troops called Terror Demons. How do we know Steppenwolf is the villain? He has big silver and says things like, “Praise to the mother of horrors!” These are bad dudes and if they lay their hands on the three earthbound Mother Boxes—perpetual energy matrixes that, if joined together, destroy as they create—not even the combined forces of all the DC superheroes will be able to save the planet and stop Steppenwolf from taking his place among the new gods! “One misses the days when the biggest concerns were wind up exploding penguins,” moans Alfred Pennyworth (Jeremy Irons).
The first hour of “Justice League” is essentially a long origin story, detailing the backstories of each of the new characters. It’s still sombre and underscored with a VERY dramatic soundtrack by Danny Elfman. At the same time it doesn’t take itself as seriously as “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.” It’s hard not to find the humour in Bruce Wayne pseudo-seriously asking Aquaman if he can talk to fish. The funny stuff is a welcome addition. The downhearted tone of Synder’s previous film was oppressive, sending the audience on a one-way trip to Bleaktown, USA.
“Justice League,” by comparison, has hills and valleys. Moments of weight play off the lighter scenes, combining to create an overall more enjoyable experience. It even ends on a hopeful note. “Heroes remind us that hope is everywhere,” Lane writes at the end of the film. “You can see it. All you have to do is look up in the sky.”
“Justice League” features a typical-destroy-the-whole-damn-planet-and-bathe-in-your-blood style villain and there’s still way too much CGI but allowing the characters to acknowledge the ridiculousness of their situations—I’m looking at you Aquaman!—doesn’t make it a silly movie. Rather, it makes it a self-aware film that winks at the audience while providing a simple, action-packed story of good vs. evil.
If the word ‘lurid’ didn’t already appear on page 489 of my Oxford English Dictionary it might have been coined to describe “The Bad Batch,” a new slice of misery from director Ana Lily Amirpour. This dystopian cannibal freak out isn’t really very good but if Amirpour’s intention was to make an unpleasant, slackly paced look at life after a calamity, she has succeeded spectacularly.
Arlen (Suki Waterhouse) is part of the Bad Batch, a large group of murderers, drug dealers and other deplorables no longer wanted in the United States. In Amirpour’s post apocalyptic world the unwanted are numbered, tattooed, escorted to a wasteland in Texas and dropped off outside of an electric fence to fend for themselves. Arlen’s new, dusty world is a wasteland, a dangerous place where Keanu Reeves is a Jim Jones figure called The Dream and if you’re not careful you might end up as a main course for the cannibals who now eat humans to survive.
Soon she is kidnapped, carved up, her arm and leg becoming an entrée for vicious flesh eaters who keep her in chains until she escapes with the help of a gnarly old hermit played by Jim Carrey. She lands at Comfort, the ironically named compound run by cult leader The Dream. On the outskirts of Comfort Arlen exacts revenge on one of the cannibals who turned her into a midday snack. Grabbing the woman’s child she returns to the compound. When the little girl disappears her father, the mountainous and muscly Miami Man (Jason Momoa), comes looking for her. Arlene, high on acid, meets him and the two form an unlikely bond as they search for his daughter.
Amirpour is a gifted director—her “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night” is like no other vampire movie—but her ideas here echo a little too loudly with reverberations from “Mad Max” and other dystopian movies. “The Bad Batch” starts strong with startling images but every time it works up a head of steam it veers off track. Its languid pace and stretched-out story makes the two-hour running time feel much longer.
Things get hairy for Cayden (Lucas Till) when he discovers a secret about himself. One night, under the light of the silvery moon he turns from high school football star to werewolf fugitive on the run for the grisly murders of his girlfriend and parents.
With the help of lone wolf Wild Joe (John Pyper-Ferguson) he finds refuge in Lupine Ridge, home to farmer and wolf John Tollerman (Stephen McHattie), bar owner Angel (Merritt Patterson) and warring packs of werewolves. Here he hopes to find answers regarding his strange affliction. His presence is welcomed by some of the locals, but pack leader, the big bad wolf Connor (Jason Momoa) doesn’t take kindly to Cayden and wants him gone, one way or another.
“Wolves” is part of the curious genre of teen werewolf movies. There’s romance, mild gore and buff wolves running shirtless through the forest. The only thing missing for teen wolf enthusiasts is Taylor Lautner.
It’s “Twilight”—or maybe should have been called “Tween Wolf”—with characters who have to comb their faces but within its parameters it works well. There aren’t a lot of surprises, but the all-important transformation scenes are furry fun and any horror film with Stephen McHattie is worth a look. On the downside there’s too much narration and Mamoa is a one-note standard issue villain, complete with a top hat and mustache I was surprised he didn’t twirl at least once.
A glance at Jason Momoa’s IMDB page reveals that he is best known for playing roles described as a “vengeful barbarian warrior” or “powerful warlord.” The burly 6′ 4″ actor is famous for roles in Conan the Barbarian and Game of Thrones and often plays tough guys.
Next up he plays a muscle-bound mercenary in Bullet to the Head, an action flick the Hollywood Reporter called “beefy, brainless fun.”
It’s another case of typecasting, perhaps, but it did give him the chance to go mano-a-mano with one of the masters of the genre, Sylvester Stallone.
“You can’t say enough good things about Stallone,” says the Hawaiian-born hunk. “Truly, he is an icon. A legend, and so good at what he does.”
Mamoa even went through a special initiation rite courtesy of the superstar.
While shooting an epic fight scene on the film’s New Orleans set the older actor suggested he “tune me up” with a couple of real looking hits. Promising to pull his punches, Stallone instead landed a “monstrous” knock to the younger actor’s side. Second take, same thing—“He just crumbled me,” Mamoa says—and that’s the shot that made it into the film.
“He got me a couple of times,” Mamoa says. “He’s the old bull. It’s fun to get in there. I’m thirty years younger than him, so it’s cool. Rocky punching me in the ribs. It’s like a shout from the rock.”
But how does someone raise a family when their day job is pretending to decapitate people on screen? Mamoa, who has a young daughter and son with actress Lisa Bonet, says his family always comes to visit when he’s working.
“My daughter was actually on set when I ripped a guy’s throat out on Game of Thrones,” he says. “It’s hilarious. She was with the wardrobe lady, knitting. I said, ‘Are you OK sweetie?’ She said, ‘Yeah Papa,” and went on knitting.”
“They also saw me put the wolf on for the next one (the Canadian-made lycanthropic thriller Wolves).”
He admits it’s an unusual way to raise the kids and when they get older it might be more difficult.
“School’s pretty expensive,” he says. “I may as well get a teacher and bring them with us. I’d rather have my kids going to the Louvre than learning about it in a book.”
These days the most famous Conan is a flame haired TV host with the last name O’Brien, but that may change this weekend when a new Conan hits screens. Instead of chatting up celebrity talking heads this Conan is beheading rival tribesmen.
The new “Conan the Barbarian” has all the earmarks of the infamous Arnold Schwarzenegger 80’s cheese fests. There’s a bare-chested hero (Jason Momoa), damsels in distress (Rachel Nichols), big swords and a character described as “a mysterious warrior of dark magic” (Rose McGowan).
It’s a revenge story sparked by the murder of Conan’s father (Ron Perlman) and the slaughter of everyone in his Cimmerian village by a power hungry bandit (Stephen Lang) and his henchmen. Young Conan witnessed the whole thing and though helpless to stop the carnage then, vows to use his giant muscles and even bigger sword to hunt down and destroy the men at the root of all his daddy issues.
With a name like “Conan the Barbarian” you know pretty much what you in for. “Eat, Pray, Love” this ain’t. Maybe “Eat, Slay, Love.” There are several epic battle scenes, a cool fight with magical sand warriors and the “Clash of the Titan’s” Kraken even makes an appearance. It’s not for the faint of heart (also, horse lovers might want think twice about this as well) but what did you expect from a movie with the word Barbarian in the title?
It’s a kind of take-it-or-leave-it proposition. If you’re a fan of sword and sorcery movies then this will be for you. If the idea of blood spurting off the screen in glorious 3D appeals, then by all means have a look. If not, well the talking ape movie is still in theatres.
