Road to Justice: An Unjust Path

Simply put, I just don't give a shit anymore.

Road to Justice: Catwoman

Catwoman
Directed by: Pitof
Starring: Hallie Berry, Benjamen Bratt, Sharon Stone, Alex Borstein
Released: 2004
Watched: December 21st, 2015

Thoughts Before: A long time ago I made a vow to never watch Catwoman. It looked awful, I've heard terrible things about it from basically everyone who was unfortunate enough to have witnessed it. Tonight, I broke that vow. I set out on this Road to Justice to celebrate DC comics in all of their cinematic outings. My god. They've failed overall so hard, but this. THIS. If I hadn't decided to idiotically sit through every single DC movie in preparation for Dawn of Justice I would have turned this off. This was probably only the second or third movie where a feeling in my heart of hearts told me to turn it off, but I resisted that urge and saw it through. Granted we did watch it at 1.5 times speed so it was shorter but that only worsened the horribly awkward transitions and made the fight scenes sickening.

Road to Justice: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
Directed by: Stephen Norrington
Starring: Sean Connery, Naseeruddin Shah, Peta Wilson, Tony Curran
Released: 2003
Watched: December 21st, 2015

Thoughts Before: I remember this being a fairly standard action movie. I'm not expecting much, but after the last several movies it can't be that bad. I know they used some pretty ugly CGI throughout, and that it doesn't fit the comics very well (though I haven't read those yet, but have been meaning to).  Reasonably speaking though, after Justice League of America, things can only get better from here.

Road to Justice: Justice League of America TV Pilot

Justice League of America TV Pilot
Directed by: Félix Enríquez Alcalá
Starring: A bunch of schmucks
Released: 1997
Watched: December 17th, 2015

Thoughts Before: So, we got off track with this. I can't deny it any longer. It's been such a long stretch of shitty movies, and my friend's life has been rather hectic, so it's kind of been sliding back further and further. We're three weeks behind now, but we will make it up. The movies are going to start (mostly) getting better from here (I mean Catwoman is coming up still...) and things are smoothing out for him, it seems, so hopefully we can get this road back on track. Anyway, this couldn't be THAT bad.

Road to Justice: Steel

Steel
Directed by: Kenneth Johnson
Starring: Shaquille O'Neal, Annabeth Gish, Judd Nelson
Released: 1997
Watched: November 25th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I have no idea how a Steel movie got made in the 90's. Steel isn't a bad character, but he's never really done much aside from assist around Metropolis when Superman is away, and honestly, after four Superman movies that all left me disappointed and a just as bad Supergirl movie I'm a little nervous when it comes to movie's starring characters revolving around the man of steel's city of choice. I never saw this, and aside from having seen pictures of how terrible his armor looks I have no idea what to expect.

Double Justice: Batman Forever and Robin

Batman Forever/Batman and Robin
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Starring: Val Kilmer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey/George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell, Alicia Silverstone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Uma Thurman
Released: 1995/1997
Watched: November 13th, 2015/November 20th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I watched these as a child, as such I've only ever really viewed these movies as more than cartoons. They've become known for being notoriously bad movies, and I have to agree. Forever sees Batman meet up with his ward who becomes Robin while fighting off Two Face and Riddler. Batman and Robin introduces Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy and even Bane for the dynamic duo to fight, and not only that, but Batgirl shows up as well! How could they possibly ruin this? Joel Schumacher.

Double Justice: Batman and Returns

Batman/Batman Returns
Directed by: Tim Burton
Starring: Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson, Kim Basinger/Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny Devito, Christopher Walken
Released: 1989/1992
Watched: October 30th, 2015/November 6th, 2015

Thoughts Before: At some point in my youth my mother made an awesome decision to show me all the great movie series. She wound up kind of dropping the ball (still haven't watched Back to the Future for example) but overall I ended up experiencing a ton of fantastic movie series'. The first series we went through was Batman, and damn, what a disappointment. I'll get to that over the next couple of weeks, but the first movie was fantastic. It was one of the first times I was subjected to the greatness that is Jack Nicholson. His Joker is one of my favorite portrayals of the character (don't worry Mark Hamill, no one can top you), even Heath Ledger's Joker couldn't compare (though I think he did great too). This movie still stands up, Tim Burton's vision shines through and really helped this film stand out. Returns on the other hand feels as though they turned the Tim Burton aspect up to eleven. It isn't the worst of the series, but definitely sets up the soon to come massive disappointments to follow. At the very least Catwoman is always entertaining in this movie.

Road to Justice: The Return of Swamp Thing

The Return of Swamp Thing
Directed by: Jim Wynorski
Starring: Dick Durock, Heather Locklear, Louis Jourdan
Released: 1989
Watched: October 22nd, 2015

Thoughts Before: After the original Swamp Thing movie, I'm not expecting much. On the other hand, there is almost no way this movie could be worse than the Superman flicks I've been subjected to as of late. Oddly, this movie wound up leading to a 72 episode television series. Apparently this movie tried to be a bit more humorous, and the show went with the original's "darker" themes. I'm morbidly curious about the TV show, they even managed to get the same guy to play Swamp Thing from the movies in the show.

Road to Justice: Superman IV The Quest for Peace

Superman IV The Quest for Peace
Directed by: Sidney J. Furie
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Mark Pillow, Margot Kidder
Released: 1987
Watched: October 17th, 2015

(Apologies for the delay, these posts are going up on October 21st, but are being posted under their intended date. Life got in the way.)

Thoughts Before: From what I can gather, this is the least respected most looked down upon of the Superman movies. I can understand a movie series falling apart by the fourth movie, but how does a series that was never good manage to last that long. Yeah I said it. The Superman movies are fucking terrible. Every last one of them has been a boring mess with very little going for it, other than Christopher Reeve being a pretty damn good Superman/Clark Kent. Really anyone managing to pull off that dynamic well deserves praise. I just wish he had been given better movies to work with.

Road to Justice: Supergirl

Supergirl
Directed by: Jeannot Szwarc
Starring: Faye Dunaway, Helen Slater, Hart Bochner, Peter Cook
Released: 1984
Watched: October 8th, 2015

(Apologies for the delay, these posts are going up on October 21st, but are being posted under their intended date. Life got in the way.)

Thoughts Before: Yet another movie I haven't seen yet, all I know is this is supposedly pretty bad. I don't really know what expect, and especially coming off of the other Superman movies my expectations for this are incredibly low. An 80's flick starring a female superhero with very little ground to build off in regards to the superhero genre? Yikes, things aren't looking up for our maid of might! (No really, they called her that once upon a time...)

Road to Justice: Superman III

Superman III
Directed by: Richard Lester
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Richard Pryor, Robert Vaughn
Released: 1983
Watched: September 28th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I know nothing about this movie other than it's apparently bad and that one time Superman hung out with Richard Pryor. Strange. I don't really know what to think, and I don't think an established villain even bothers showing up. Before deciding to start down this road of justice I thought I'd never watch this movie. I'm a little disappointed that I'm breaking that vow. When do we get to the good stuff?

Road to Justice: Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing
Directed by: Wes Craven
Starring: Ray Wise, Dick Durock, Adrienne Barbeau, Louis Jourdan
Released: 1982
Watched: September 24th, 2015

Thoughts Before: Having never watched this I'm not sure what to expect. Actually, writing this led to me finding out Wes fucking Craven wrote and directed this. So I guess this is in memorial to him. I assume this is going to be a corny monster movie, I saw the suit by accident earlier. I'm not expecting much.

Road to Justice: Superman II The Donner Cut

Superman II The Richard Donner Cut
Directed by: Richard Donner
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Terence Stamp
Released: 1980 (2006)
Watched: September 17th, 2015

Thoughts Before: This one I remember a lot better, there were some silly moments to be sure (specifically that weird cape attack..) but I've never seen the Richard Donner Cut. It's kind of interesting. Back in the day Donner got kicked off the project for whatever reason, and Richard Lester finished the original version. Eventually though, some lost footage was found, and someone decided to reedit the film to be as close to Donner's vision as possible. I'm excited to see the changes, but hopefully it doesn't make the movie more similar to the first...

Road to Justice: Superman

Superman
Directed by: Richard Donner
Starring: Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman, Margot Kidder, Marlon Brando
Released: 1978
Watched: September 10th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I watched this one a long time ago along with the sequel. Having watched them back to back I can't really remember what happened in each of the movies. I do remember liking them, and Christopher Reeve makes a damn fine Superman. A Justice League movie starring Adam West, Lynda Carter and Christopher Reeve, that could have been awesome. Anyway, after seeing this I'm sure I'll believe a man can fly.

Road to Justice: The New Original Wonder Woman

The New Original Wonder Woman Plus Episode 2
Directed by: Leonard Horn/Barry Crane
Starring: Lynda Carter, Lyle Waggoner, Christine Belford, Lynda Day George
Released: 1975/1976
Watched: August 31st, 2015

Thoughts Before: Originally I wanted to watch the 1974 Wonder Woman movie starring Cathy Lee Crosby, but it apparently wasn't very Wonder Woman-y and I couldn't easily find a copy. Instead we went with the pilot for the show that actually got made. I looked up a list of the "best" episodes of the show, and the second one was among the list, so we threw those in as well. All I know about this show is Wonder Woman twirling to transform, which didn't show up until later in the show apparently. I don't really have any thoughts about this show, other than I'm kind of excited to finally watch a bit of it.

Road to Justice: Batman '66

Batman
Directed by: Leslie H. Martinson
Starring: Adam West, Burt Ward, Lee Meriwether, Cesar Romero, Burgess Meredith, Frank Gorshin
Released: 1966
Watched: August 24th, 2015

Thoughts Before: I haven't seen this one, though I do have a basic familiarity with the most common tropes of this show. Knowing that there is going to be an overdose of cheese I think it should be easier to take. Still expecting to groan more than anything though.

Road to Justice

I know I'm still in the middle of Summer of Screams, which I hope to still get a few more entries in even if it slips a bit into September, but time is of the essence. On March 28th, 2016 Batman vs Superman Dawn of Justice is coming to theaters, and on that day we will be ready. This is the Road to Justice.

Road to Justice Schedule

For no good reason a friend and I have planned out a thirty one week long movie marathon, to watch every single DC related movie before Dawn of Justice comes out. Our schedule will bring us right up to the week of release. There's a lot of garbage to trudge through, and sadly a lot of garbage I had hoped to keep out of my life forever, but we're committed. I've decided to write my thoughts on these movies, as what would be a better time to do so? Expect one movie a week.

These blogs will probably be pretty short in general, I plan to briefly talk about my thoughts going into the film, whether I've seen it or not and what I'm expecting. Then a bit about my thoughts on the movie having freshly seen it. I've also looked into a lot of bonus material to watch alongside these movies (old serials, old cartoons, fan films, cartoon shorts, etc.) and I'll talk about them as well (didn't watch anything along with the first movie though sadly). To finish each one off I'll write about the best part of the movie or the worst part of the movie, depending on what stands out more.

As always, a sincere thank you to anyone who visits here regularly, or even just stumbles on this and gives it a serious look through. Refer to the schedule for the movies here, or above, if you want to watch along, or just want to see when I'll get around to talking about specific movies. We did have to drop a few, and a few are technically TV pilots, but I wanted to include as much stuff as possible. I hope you enjoy this journey as much as I'm sure too! And yes, I did plan out a Marvel movie marathon, but that won't come around until early 2018.

-Adam