In his most understated performance since role of Rob Roy in movie me can’t remember name of, Liam Neeson play part of brilliant doctor who invent sintetic skin (lucky :)) but not having much success perfekting formula (unlucky :() but have beautiful girlfriend (lucky :)) who about to blow whistle on her crooked boss (unlucky :() but it seem as tho her boss not mind (lucky :)) except he tip off gangsterz who wreck Dr. Shindlerz lab and blow it up (unlucky :() but he survive (lucky :)) but badly burnt (unlucky :() but superstrong (lucky :)) but also crazy (unlucky :() but become superhero (lucky :)) which make dis teknickally a movie monster have to review (unlucky :().
Movie start wit gangster, Mr. Durant, and his men who show up at warehouse to meet wit other ganster. Dey have gunz taken away and surrounded. But den – surprize! – one of Durantz men has machinegun hidden in wooden leg (lucky :)). But dey surrounded by armed gansterz (unlucky :() who all terruble shots (lucky :)).
Durant very scary guy. He collect fingerz just like Grover great grandfather use to collect ears of fraggles dat try to escape Fraggle Rock.
Meanwhile, Dr. Shindler working in lab. Make sweet love to girlfriend. He tell her he want to get married. Monster tink: Uh oh! In moviez, next to being two days away from retirement, nothing doom someone faster den getting married. In real life of course, it all alone in first place.
Girlfriend find incriminating paper linking her boss to organized crime (of course organized becuz dey keep everyting on file). What she going to do? Give a reporter anonimous tip? Deliver dokument to police? Nah. Go to her boss and tell him. Mebbe he has good explanashun.
She confront boss. He say don’t worry about it. And he right. She not have to worry. Only Dr. Shindler have to worry when gangsterz show up at his lab looking for dokument. He beaten up. Elektrokuted. Burnt in chemikal bath. Blown up in lab. And end up in bay where he drown – for good meazure.
But he survive (lucky 🙂 but horrubly disfigured (unlucky :)) and end up in burn unit (lucky 🙂 where staff not really caring (unlucky :() but do experimental treatment dat sever nerve endingz so he feel no pain (lucky :)) but proseedure drive him crazy (unlucky :() but give him super strength (lucky :)). He eskape! Now look like homeless love child of Elefant Man and Phantom of de Opera.
He set up lab in abandoned faktory. Spy on his girlfriend who now dating boss. Den, start to take revenge on gangsterz. He capture Sam Raimi brother and stick him up out of manhole so 18 wheeler can play whack a mole wit him. He use his perfekted sintetic skin to disguize hisself as gangsterz. He talk to himself A LOT!
Finally, he use sintetic skin to disguise himself as…himself. Old himself and show up at cemetary. Surprize girlfriend. Den go for coffee. He want to tell her de truth but too scared.
Dey go to amuzement park. He win fluffy prize but carny tell him to get lost. Dr. Shindler go crazy and beat up carny in feel-good moment. Den run away. Girlfriend follow him back to hideout – dat conveniently located very close (unless dey edit out part where he take crosstown bus). He tell her to go away. She does. Den come back – with gangsterz who follow her!
Hideout blow up! Shooting! Helicopterz explode! Durant die! Or does he….?
Yep. He dead.
Disguized as Durant, he show up at construction site where…girlfriend boss has girlfriend (lucky :). But boss see thru disguize (unlucky :().
Fight! Boss is terruble shot with nail gun. Misses and ends up hanging from girder. What our hero going to do? “You wouldn’t,”say boss.
“Why de hell not?”me tink. He kill everyone else. What make you so speshul?
Turn out boss not so speshul after all.
Our hero leave girlfriend behind to return to de night as… Darkman!
Verdikt: Dis movie cheezier den Oscar de Grouch crosstrainerz.
Rating: 6 out of 10 chocolate chippee cookies.
Darkman movie over (lucky :)). Now monster have to watch Captain America (1990) for next week (unlucky :()
Cookie, who taught you how to make happy faces?
(Joe?!! Look what you’ve done!)
Interesting fact: Captain America is really the son of J.D. Salinger (well at least the actor who plays Cap in the movie is his son in real life)
Interesting fact (2): in the film the reason why Steve Rogers takes the super soldier serum is because he suffers from polio
More facts: besides Ned Beatty, the film also stars the Stargate Program’s favorite Sen./VP Ronny Cox (he finally becomes President) & also a quick cameo by Lost In Space’s Bill Mumy
And the Most Interesting Fact of all: these facts are the high points of the movie… but at least the movie is a little bit better than the 2 made-for-tv Capt. America movies from 1979
I thought this was going to be a cheap knock-off of The Shadow, the radio series. It wasn’t. It was an expensive execution of a bad script. At least a lot of stuff exploded.
So…my notes…
14 minutes in…I don’t know what this is about. I think the guy who doesn’t cut fingers off is the good guy.
We can divide superhero movies into two categories. Ones with an open vat of acid and ones with potential. Somebody add that to the list of what we’ve learned in this club.
27 minutes in…couldn’t we have started the story 27 minutes ago, then have the explanation for how he got that way be much, much quicker? Has the story started yet? Oh, yeah, there’s a bad guy and a paper with a coffee stain. And the stakes are sort of the girlfriend or comeuppance for generic gangsters or…IDK. I do appreciate the coffee stain – it really reminds me that that paper is what this movie is all about because I would have totally missed that otherwise.
I’ll admit it. I’m watching with the baby in the room. I’m hitting that “skip to next scene” button for her sake and then hitting it a little more just because.
Anytime I see synthetic skin. Something gory’s going down. Skip to next scene.
The scene feels slow. The actors don’t know the scene is over. Skip to next scene.
I need to make dinner soon. I don’t care what happens. Skip to next scene.
It’s not a bad strategy. There are times you can cut the last half off of every scene without butchering a story. Those times just aren’t supposed to include the final draft. I have to wait for Cookie’s review to know if “skip to next scene” butchered this one. Update: Nope. Nothing I did butchered this story.
82 minutes in…This movie has the worst final villain speech ever. ”I built it all!”
Cookie’s funniest lines:
“In his most understated performance since role of Rob Roy in movie me can’t remember name of, Liam Neeson play part of brilliant doctor…”
“Meanwhile, Dr. Shindler working in lab. Make sweet love to girlfriend. He tell her he want to get married. Monster tink: Uh oh! In moviez, next to being two days away from retirement, nothing doom someone faster den getting married. In real life of course, it all alone in first place.”
“Soooo happy. Nothing could ruin dis moment. Not counting being elektrokuted, burned, drowned, blowed up and horrubly disfigured.”
“Now look like homeless love child of Elefant Man and Phantom of de Opera.”
OMG!! Hilarious! Thanks for the laughs Cookie!
😯 Whoa, whoa, WHOA!! 😮 When did Cookie Monster turn into ME??!
😕
😛
😉
das
CAN’T. HANDLE. THAT. TRAILER.
The best part is how clearly plastic Cap’s shield is. I wish I could get a hold of this movie, just for the lulz.
@ Akemi – This is Todd…he’s very sexy. 🙂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXpVdcwCWNM
das
@Cookie: Thanks! great review. And yet another movie I don’t need to waste time watching.
@das: Aw, now you’ve got me missing Todd.
I’m sorry to hear about your friend. It sounds like he was quite a guy!
das has 2 loves in life…. Wraiths & Wolverine (must be a ‘W’ thing!)
Hey, Cookie, here’s some bad news…
a new DARKMAN movie is supposed to come out later this year, written by Sam Raimi.
Here’s where u can find the trailer:
http://www.imdb.com/video/wab/vi1030070553/
I enjoyed Darkman when it first came out. So much so that I bought the DVD and every year or two I’ll take it off the shelf and give it another viewing.
I agree that it’s a little cheesy but this is Sam Raimi we’re talking about, the King of Cheese. Taking into account Sam’s earlier movies he’s actually quite restrained with Darkman.
I’m afraid that working in the visual effects industry has ruined pre-digital VFX movies for me. It might have been possible to do decent blue/green screen replacements before the digital age but Darkman is not an example of that. It has some of the worst mattes I’ve even seen. Probably a budget thing.
The shoddy VFX is more than compensated for, however, by the fantastic makeup effects. Darkman’s makeup looks amazing. It’s just a shame that they keep it covered with bandages for most of the movie. Probably a budget thing.
My favourite shot of the movie? The flaming body shooting up out of the exploding lab and falling into the water. That is awesome!
While Darkman is nowhere near the perfect superhero movie I’m still sensing an upward trend in the quality of the movies as we get closer to the modern era.
Unfortunately I just looked at the list of movies to come and I see several TMNT sequels, the Batman sequels, some Darkman sequels that I didn’t even know existed and several Power Rangers movies. I never realised the ’90s were filled with such crap!
Oh, and check out the latest screentest for the new Superman movie:
*sigh* Captain America is only available on Youtube. Do I want to watch it enough to sit at my computer for an hour and 18 minutes? Since the trailer makes it look like a bad made-for-TV movie, I’m thinking the answer is: “Nah, I’d rather be out riding my bike.” Sorry Cookie.
p.s. Everytime I see Darkman in this blog, I keep thinking of the old “Darkwing Duck” cartoon.
Now that the gala is over, I am hoping to start reading this blog on a regular DAILY basis again. I scanned quickly through what I missed as far as JM’s news. Dark Matter mini-series? FANTASTIC. Congratulations.
Don’t know how successful the gala was, but considering the coordinator quit 10 days before, it came together quite nicely. I’ll know final $$$ totals soon. The Mario Lopez Extra set package went for $6500 which was very cool. Chester Pitts from the Texans was there. I’ve changed my avatar to my gala picture. I’m still exhausted, but hoping that catching up on some sleep today will get me back on the right track.
Hope Bubba’s dental appointment went well.
Oh, and I did my first one-on-one celebrity interview (been in group Q&A’s before, but never one-on-one) so if you want, head over to my blog. Hope I did a good job, but the actress was so wonderful in answering so many of my questions.
Dark Matter #3 and #4 finally ordered. Caught up on that. Now nap time.
Not reviewing any of the Darkman sequels next week? The third film was actually quite entertaining, even if for all the wrong reasons, mostly.
@Line Noise,
Not quite sure what that Super Weirdo was up to, but I so wanted that blown-up suit to really blow up. POP!
@ Sparrowhawk – I was rather disappointed with the Todd video options; too many had mushy lovey-dovey and/or ballad style songs, and that’s just not my ‘I’m Too Sexy’ Todd. 🙂
And I miss Todd something terrible, too. Ya know, last we saw him he was here on earth, so who knows! Maybe he’ll show up at a Rammstein concert, or something. 🙂
@ Lewis – I have three loves! Well…more like 15…mebbe 20. 😛 My love for dear Wolvie has faded, and Marvel better hurry up and do something to make him exciting again or else! Currently in Marvelverse I fancy Fantomex. I also fancy Special Agent Aloysius Xingú L. Pendergast, Two Katana-san from Dark Matter, men with albinism (preferrably long-locked, and – according to Joe – shirtless), Elric, and the hot ginger eye candy at the local coffee shop. Oh, and Mr. Das. 🙂
@ Joe – Speaking of Special Agent Aloysius Xingú L. Pendergast, in a recent e-mail from his creators, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, we fans were informed that Pendie’s favorite dish is fish intestine soup. Somehow, I think you two would enjoy dining together. 🙂
das
Uh oh…forgot about the movie review (unlucky 🙁 )
But now I don’t have to sit through Darkman (lucky 🙂 )
Thanks Cookie for taking a bullet for me by reviewing this movie…
I don’t even remember Captain America coming out in 1990…must’ve been pretty memorable 😉
How’s the handyman search coming? Seems to me this could be a new nemesis opportunity for you as well…:-D
We’re running out of movies. Does that mean Cookie’s contract is up soon?
M. Night Shyamalan has a little something that’ll wind Cookie up.
i don’t think i’ve ever seen that many emotioncon things in one post before.
sparrow_hawk said:
p.s. Every time I see Darkman in this blog, I keep thinking of the old “Darkwing Duck” cartoon.
And every time *I* see Darkman in this blog, I keep thinking of the late-90s syndicated TV show “Night Man”. (I had a lot of late nights in law school. Watched Night Man, Xena, and yes, even Cleopatra 2525. Ah, the memories…)
Night Man had an awesome car. A dark purple Prowler, as I recall. Don’t remember a whole lot about Night Man himself, but I sure remember that car and thinking it was suh-WEET! (Can you tell I’m a native Detroiter?)