A weekly feature from from ctvnews.ca! The Crouse Review is a quick, hot take on the weekend’s biggest movies! This week Richard looks at “Justice League,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “Stegman is Dead.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
Richard’s interview with “Justice League” star Ray Fisher.
What’s it like playing Cyborg in 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… Read the whole thing HERE!
Richard and CP24 anchor Nick Dixon have a look at the weekend’s new movies including “Justice League,” “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” and “Stegman is Dead.”
Watch the whole thing HERE!
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.
Superman is one of the most famous characters in all of pop culture, and yet very few actors have played the Metropolis Marvel.
This weekend in Man of Steel the square-jawed Henry Cavill becomes the latest to bring the Last Son of Krypton to life on the big screen, joining a list that dates back to 1941 when Mel Blanc voiced the superhero in a cartoon called Goofy Groceries.
Bud Collyer next voiced Superman in a series of animated Oscar-nominated short films. The actor played the character three separate times: on the radio, in this series and the late 1960s cartoon show The New Adventures of Superman.
The Collyer years brought with them some innovations to the character.
In June 1943, when the actor took some time off, the radio show’s writers came up with the idea of kryptonite to explain his absence. While Bud sunned himself, the Big S was held prisoner under a sheet of the radioactive element.
Six years later the comic books adopted the toxic ore and it has been part of Superman’s story ever since.
Animators on the original series felt that Superman’s ability to leap buildings in a single bound looked strange on screen, so with Detective Comics Inc.’s permission, they had him fly instead.
The first live-action Supermen were Kirk Alyn and George Reeves. Alyn was a Broadway actor who played the Man of Tomorrow in Atom Man vs. Superman, reportedly the highest grossing American movie serial ever, but couldn’t sustain a career in film after he retired the cape. In 1981 he starred in a spoof called Superbman: The Other Movie, partially set on Planet Krapton.
George Reeves became a mega star playing Superman in 102 episodes of Adventures of Superman, but later felt his popularity as the character inhibited his ability to earn more serious roles. The Reeves biopic Hollywoodland, starring Ben Affleck, examines the actor’s life and mysterious death.
Others played Superman — John Newton, Gerard Christopher, Dean Cain, Tom Welling, and Brandon Routh — with varying degrees of success, but the best-known has to be Christopher Reeve, who starred in four Big Blue movies between 1978 to 1987.
Christopher Reeve, who was paralyzed after a horse riding accident, and passed away in 2004, once asked Sean Connery how to avoid being typecast.
Connery said. “First you have to be good enough that they ask you to play it again and again.”
SYNOPSIS: The story begins on Krypton, as all good Superman origin stories must. To save his son Kal-El from perishing on the doomed planet Jor-El (Russell Crowe) rockets him off to a safe haven—Earth. There he is raised by Ma and Pa Kent, (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner), humble farmers who raise him as their own and keep his alien heritage a secret, but his (Henry Cavill) extraordinary powers are exposed when a snoopy reporter digs (Amy Adams) into his life and the last surviving Kryptonians, led by General Zod (Michael Shannon) try and invade the planet.
STAR RATINGS:
Richard: 3 Stars
Mark: 2 Stars
Richard: Mark, Man of Steel plays kind of like a Nirvana song. It starts off quiet, then gets loud, then quiet again and then REALLY loud. Thing is Nirvana songs were usually under four minutes and this movie clocks in at well over two hours. Much of it is entertaining, but I have to say my eyeballs felt scorched after the protracted blow-‘em-up scene that eats up much of the last forty-five minutes of the movie. It’s all crash-boom-bang and not nearly as interesting as the stuff that preceded it.
Mark: Richard, I always liked the Superman movies-even the bad ones-for their charm. Although there’s some good scenes toward the beginning of the movie, it becomes bombastic and self-righteous; way too serious for its own good. That forty-five minute scene you’re referring to made me long for headphones with Enya songs playing on a long loop. And I know it’s an origin movie, but I longed for the comic contrast between Superman and his journalist alter ego Clark Kent, which is mostly missing from the movie. Then again, we no longer have phone booths. Any of the actors appeal to you, Richard?
RC: I thought Cavill was suitably square-jawed and blue-eyed enough to play the icon lead character and Michael Shannon brought the crazy (as usual for him) to Zod, but I was let down by two other leads. Russell Crowe was fine, although I couldn’t help but imagine Ralph Fiennes really eating up the role of Jor-El. Finally, I’m not sure Amy Adams is plucky enough to play Lois Lane.
MB: Cavill was square-I mean, square-jawed, wasn’t he? Crowe was fine, but somehow Kevin Costner got to me in a very sentimental turn as Clark’s dad. As for Michael Shannon, I can only assume he was forced to overact at gunpoint, with lines like “Unleash the world machine!!!!” For a movie that cost a few hundred million dollars, it was often close to a Flash Gordon serial at times.
RC: I think I wanted more Flash Gordon and less of what was on the screen in front of me. It’s an entertaining movie for much of its running time, but the word overkill comes to mind. I feel like less—shorter running time, fewer explosions, not as many fights—would have been more.
MB: And did you notice that so many of the action scenes had the same basic gimmick- concrete being torn up over and over again? And I had to laugh when the entire city of Metropolis is collapsing under alien attack and there are scenes of people just staring at the buildings falling around them. If I see one brick on the ground, I’m outta there!
