Doom Patrol Expands DC's Live-Action Universe

The pay-for-it DC Universe introduced its new, live-action series, "Doom Patrol" via a pilot planted within "Titans": the latter a series I praised until its finale, which left me mighty miffed. (My fingers are crossed that what transpired was, in truth, a sadistic trick, to be revealed and remedied at Season 2's start.) 

With that said, I did enjoy the "Doom Patrol" pilot and believe that its eleven-episode expansion could become DC's small-screen answer to Marvel's "X-Men", another excellent example of '60s, misfit fusion. 

"Doom Patrol'"s current cast features Timothy Dalton as the Chief (replacing Bruno Bichir); Brendan Fraser emoting Robotman (replacing Jake Michaels), with Riley Shanahan occupying the armor; Matt Bomer voicing Negative Man, with Dwain Murphy (allegedly) still under wraps; Joivan Wade as Cyborg; Diane Guerrero as Crazy Jane; and the amazing April Bowlby as Elasti-Woman. For the record, Alan "Powerless" Tyduk animates Mr. Nobody, a living shadow cut from the more-or-less Lamont Cranston cloth, only inclined to screw with minds for the sheer fun of it. (Devan Chandler Long will eventually join the cast as magical muscleman, Flex Mentallo: quite an underrated/underused character in the DC universe.)

I like eccentrics with hearts of gold (I fancy myself one). I also like folks who work against the odds, whether they harbor special abilities or not. I'm presuming the live-action Doom Patrol could become an inspiration to dynamic underdogs everywhere. 

Like "Titans", the team's success rides on whether its characters stick to their roots. If they perform contrary to expectations (as shown in "Titan'"s initial season adieu), a righteous backlash could strike. 

No matter what the future may hold, I intend to see this one through, trusting that by time "Titans" and "Doom Patrol's" characters re-rub elbows, all the disconcerting infirmities will have bid bye-bye. 

"Doom Patrol" begins Feb 15, with an episode premiering per week. 

I saw Teen Titans Go! To the Movies...

When Cartoon Network's "Teen Titans" and its sequel series, "Teen Titans Go!" premiered some years back, I enjoyed their colorful concepts, but their screeching-mouth, Playschool anime often made me cringe. For the sake of DC teen superheroes, I prefer “Young Justice” and "Justice League vs Teen Titans", where the designs and stagings are much more orthodox. 

Still, I'm loyal to DC and therefore, Teen Titans on the whole, so despite my suffocating schedule, I felt obliged to squeeze in a theatrical view of "Teen Titans Go! To the Movies".

The film, directed by Aaron Horvath and Peter Rida Michail, and written by Horvath and Michael Jelenic, resembles the cartoon programs upon which it's based, but it’s leagues sillier, often to the point of crass self-parody. Now, don’t misunderstand: This film isn’t some sanctimonious, hate-the-hero "Lego Batman" claptrap. It (like its television foundations) at least respects its characters' backgrounds, even if the ball of wax is splashed with a ton of garish gall, which includes a tad of time travel and lots of song and dance.

The story deals with Robin, the Boy Wonder (I've always presumed Dick Grayson in these cutesy cliques, but take your pick), Raven, Starfire, Cyborg, and Beast Boy hoping to mimic their mentors by starring in a big-budget, Hollywood production. They find the chance for cinematic prominence through the mind-manipulating Slade Wilson/Deathstroke and his shifty "sister" (shades of "Incredibles 2"), though it's hard to swallow why the teens fail to see the obvious charade? (Perhaps in this lies the tale's message and warning: If something looks to good to be true...)

To spice up the teens' ambitions, seasoned superheroes arbitrate. Among them, the stand-out cameo comes from Superman, voiced by Nicolas Cage: a versatile actor and comic-book connoisseur once chosen to portray the Man of Steel in a Tim Burton, live-action endeavor. (Thanks to this Teen Titans movie, how can one now say that Cage never officially played Kal-El in a full-fledged film?)  Unfortunately, Cage's vocal casting isn't enough to place the movie on a super-special, satirical plane.

The incredulous premise still gushes enough conflict to make it roll, albeit it slowly (unless one considers continuous gags a fast-paced catalyst), but this yet prompts the question: Why an all-out, feature-length lampoon? Wasn't the sequel series goofy enough? Was either Teen Titan show ever this zany in its tongue-in-cheek brio?

I can only assume that the filmmakers intended the package a means to enroll young viewers into the DC scene, but there are so many DC (and Marvel) in-jokes that it's doubtful most under-twenties will appreciate the effort. (Mind you, kids don’t attend superhero movies like they once did; I didn’t see one adolescent in the packed theaters of "Batman v Superman", "Captain America: Civil War" or the "Deadpool" set. (Granted, Deadpool's cinematic designation is R-rated, but dear mercy, in my teen years, my friends and I would have made it a priority to sneak into something so forbidden.) Also, for the record, I saw "Teen Titans Go! To the Movies" at a four o’clock, Thursday pre-premiere, and even then there wasn't one youngster present. The half dozen people in attendance were either middle age or senior.

I can’t speak for those other adults (sorry, I was too darn drained from my work day to interview 'em once the credits rolled), but for me, the movie's climate was way too juvenile (even when compared to its television counterparts), with even more screeching and bug-eyed silliness than I could bear. At a padded ninety minutes, I found myself choking back the yawns during more than a few portions. Really, this “Teen Titans Go!” would have worked better in an hour format, and even then it may have been too long. There's only so far that sustained gaudiness can go, even when the intentions are good.

I think it’s great that DC/Warner Brothers would give one of its animated features a full-blown (more than a one-night stand), theatrical release. However, that kind of experimental dedication should have fallen upon "Killing Joke", "Gotham by Gaslight" and "Batman Ninja", not a superfluous, Teen Titans farce.

I got through this one well enough, but it’s not something I'm likely to watch again, and I don’t think there's much chance it'll win over the masses or add more fans (young or old) to DC/WB's Justice League plans. That makes "Teen Titans Go! To the Movies" a miscalculation. Too bad. If it had only been stacked in a more serious way, it may have done some good, as opposed to being just another destined footnote in the companies' hit-and-miss mergers.

I saw Ghost in the Shell...

One might presume Major Motoko Kusanagi to be Asian, and for the sake of her manga origin, it's safe to say that most of her fans do presume the same. Of course, when it comes to Japanese-to-American translations, the designations sometimes get blurred. The "Speed Racer" live-action movie could have been cast with Asians, and yet...

Nevertheless, Scarlett Johansson is cast as the sexy, cyborg heroine (reassembled like Officer Murphy into RoboCop) in director Rupert "Snow White and the Huntsman" Sanders' "Ghost in the Shell", based on Masamune Shirow's popular, Japanese saga. Per the script by Jaime Moss and William Wheeler, the Caucasian-looking Kusanagi (referred predominately as Major in the film) is part of an intelligence league called Section 9, which tackles terrorists (i.e., Hanver Robotics hackers), but as the story develops, the mechanical beauty realizes she may have been misled in her pursuits: a kind of "Logan's Run" (turf that Johansson previously traveled in "The Island"), with our lead gaining enough understanding to buck the system and maybe even actual autonomy by the adventure's conclusion. 

I must confess, I've never viewed any extensive examples of "Ghost in the Shell'"s anime/manga incarnations. I've known the franchise mainly by name and through its fleeting, lurid imagery. Therefore, it's only the live-action version I can currently assess. With that said, "Ghost in the Shell" feels a lot like other artificial-intelligence/cyborg stories I've seen and/or reviewed, with this one taking place in the not-too-distant year of 2029. 

Major is, in essence, a lost soul (or at least one entrapped within a synthetic body) in search of the meaning of life (yeah, a familiar theme with these sorts of entities), which of course, means she needs to define her purpose and plan, while her particular world adheres to a suffocating, near Borg/Matrix-like dystopia. She wonders who's pulling the hacker's strings and for that matter, her own, trying the whole while to remember who she once was.

Along the way, Major encounters a number of individuals who directly or indirectly substantiate her concerns and paranoia or try to sever her from such, each with a slick name and an eccentric and/or dangerous attribution, including the stoic Security Chief Daisuke Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano); the protective Batou (Pilou Asbaek); the Frankenstein-inspired Kuze (Michael Carmen Pitt); the skillful Togusa (Ng Chin Han); the compassionate Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche); and the tale's heartless antagonist, Cutter (Peter Ferdinando). 

The film's profuse, gaudy intrigue is fine and dandy, as are several of its shock sequences (the robotic geisha being particularly unsettling), but for me it's the sexual implications that do the trick, for in several scenes the Major wears a suit so skintight it would make Jeri Ryan's Seven of Nine blush. Heck, in the same regard, the Major would give Kate Beckinsale's Selene a good run for her money. It's because of this shapely enticement that I wished to see the film. I wasn't one iota disappointed, either. There's loads of Johannson in this thing, whether in simulated undress or not, and she looks damn good at all moments, including even those where her lovely parts are either gruesomely detached or reattached. Now, if the actress can look fetching under those unorthodox circumstances, it's safe to say she's reached unshakable, sex-symbol status. (And when one really comes down to it, that's the reason she's the film's headliner. Oh, and please do keep in mind, a shell is just a shell and needn't define one's background, heritage or character.)

Plot-wise, "Ghost in the Shell" also contains distinct similarities to "Ex Machina" and "Metropolis", but then this tale seems to head even more so in "Blade Runner'"s direction, with its extensive, architectural design being precisely that. 

Do the anime and comic versions of "Ghost in the Shell" capture any of Philip K. Dick's thoughtful fable? I'd imagine so (in that from what I've read, the long-lasting saga touches upon the significance of memories, identity and general civil rights), but my hunch is, most fans of Shirow's material appreciate it for its own merit. Whether they'll enjoy this adaptation is speculative, though it seems likely they'll not accept all aspects of it. Most die-hards aren't inclined to enjoy their favorite mythologies playing second fiddle to what may be perceived as glitz-for-the-sake-of-glitz, even if the comely curves at the center are abnormally alluring. 

No matter how one tries to spin it, Sander's film exists as a tour de force for its celebrated, Marvel-movie, action star. If anyone from the outside-looking-in goes to see "Ghost in the Shell" for any other reason, they're being insincere. Taken for no more than what it is (and even at its smallest degree, it still offers much), it'll entertain for a couple, solid hours. For those who might find the publicized content too threatening in its politically incorrect, visual vigor, there are plenty of play-it-safe movies from which to choose. This one, however, belongs to that wide range of erotica-craving adults of the science-fiction kind, and no apology should they dare make for desiring it.