Batman, the 8-bit incarnation of the seminal Tim Burton film, was well received when it debuted in the closing weeks of 1989. The game garnered accolades for its satisfying side-scrolling gameplay, a very competent mixture of platform and enemy challenges bookended by confrontations with a curious array of Batman foes including Killer Moth, Firebug, and the Electrocutioner — all of them, along with a variety of rolling, jumping, and projectile-launching enemies, hired by the Joker in a plot to derail Gotham City's 200th Anniversary Festival. 

Nintendo Power, that hard copy bastion of video game wisdom and wizardy, had this much to say: "The ominous graphics capture Batman's smooth agile movements and unique super hero action. The finely honed physique, billowing cape, and graceful movements which have long been associated with Batman highlight the adventure." Mean Machines, the U.K. equivalent of Gamepro, dubbed it "a visual treat," and warned Nintendo players to "miss this game at your peril." Julian Rignall, chief editor of the magazine, called it "a first class cart deserving of any Nintendo owner's collection."

But it was apparent to all those who'd followed the game's storied development that all was not right in the land of Batarangs and emotional baggage. Sure, the finished product featured some pretty spiffy animated screens, including a pair of memorable Batmobile animations. But where were the Ninja Gaiden-esque cutscenes promised in the pages of Nintendo Power (September issue, 1989)? Where was Firebug's bad-ass intro as the Joker's right hand man? And what had happened to Vicki Vale's abduction and subsequent rescue, the very reason for the whole 8-bit Bat-quest in question?

You could almost hear Thom and Martha Wayne rolling over in their graves.

But Batman was different. Here we had a completed game, and a damn good one at that. These "cinema-graphics," the ones mentioned in Nintendo Power and fawned over by the editors of Mean Machines, were already designed and realized. Pre-release beta copies of Batman showcased them to great effect.

After pressing the Start button at the title screen, Batman would shake down a nameless punk for info and then set out on his journey with purpose. Vicki Vale would fawn over him after her rescue and then, with matching lip sync, proceed to direct us to the AXIS Chemical Factory. Batman would streak across the sky towards his next challenge. And a seated Joker, his features gaunt in the half light, would taunt old "Batbrain" before the final boss fight — a most dastardly act, coming as it did after the ludicrously difficult belltower climb of level 5.


Alas, none of it would make it to the final version. The reason was never publicly revealed. Was Sunsoft antsy about releasing a licensed game whose storyline didn't match that of the film it was based on? Even in its released form, the game had precious little in common with its big-screen counterpart. Was the shameless act of expunging the cutscenes really going to make this fact less noticeable? Or were the designers acting under pressure from the movie studio? If so, what exactly was the complaint, and why was the deletion of these beautiful animations even considered as possible appeasement?

We may never know. The lost Batman beta and its cutscenes never saw official release.

Regarding Thor, Roger Ebert wrote the following: "In the arena of movies about comic book superheroes, it is a desolate vastation." I'm not sure I fully agree with his assessment of Marvel's latest superhero narrative, and I'm not sure I exactly understand the meaning of the word 'vastation,' but his tone is on the mark.

Thor is a two-hour exercise in father-and-son melodrama combined with goofy in-jokes, explosions, government agents and Marvel references, and that might not be everyone's cup of tea. Hell, I'm not even sure if it's mine.

In his review, Ebert goes on to chide the film and its director, Kenneth Branagh, for failing to create something on par with a Dark Knight or Spider-Man 2. My gripe with the film is not of this character. I don't particularly care if Thor doesn't meet the exalted eminence of The Dark Knight. And I care even less about its contrast to Spider-Man 2, that hugely overrated piece of rubbish that won over a ridiculous number of critics upon its release.

It was always my understanding that Thor was a second-tier comic book character and that his big screen offering would most likely not change that. What else could be expected from a hero literally ripped from the archives of ancient Norse mythology? (Accusations of plagiarism would be warranted if the source material weren't 1800 years old.)

No, Thor was never going to reinvent the genre. It wasn't going to rival The Dark Knight for gritty realism, or charm critics with wimpy melancholy like Spider-Man 2. Thor could only ever hope to turn its clichéd main character and his ridiculous origin story into satisfying popcorn entertainment, and fit into the Marvel movie cannon while doing so.

I'm still not sure if it succeeds on the latter point. Thor's origins, his homestead of Asgard — suspended as it is on some celestial cumulus — his undisguised paternity to ancient Norse figureheads, and his battle with the Frost Giants of Jotunheim, seem so irreconcilably detached to most of what we've seen so far from the Marvel movie factory. As incredible as the recent Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, and Captain America adventures may be, they're all rooted within current technological conventions. Exaggerated and mythicized, yes, but still somewhat (dubious as they may be) plausible.

In other words, science fiction. Thor, by contrast, is not science fiction; it's fantasy fiction. The film forcibly injects about as much science and technology into the storyline as it can, with talk of Einstein-Rosen Bridges and other such chatter, but the entire enterprise still comes off as palpably wacky, even by comic book standards.


I suppose it's time to admit it. I have nothing against Thor or his deliciously toned pecks — I just don't want him fucking around in my Marvel playpen. I've so grown to love Tony Stark and his mechanical misadventures that I'm deathly afraid someone, anyone, will come along and sully all that I find intrinsically appealing about his persona and the world he inhabits. How can Thor and Iron Man co-exist? I mean, I know they've been fighting together for ages in print under the Avengers moniker, but really, how can Tony Stark and Thor inhabit the same movie universe?

Tony's a rock-and-roll swashbuckler with a penchant for booze, blonds, and busty female secretaries, a billionaire industrialist with a wicked set of smarts and an even bigger set of guns. His weapons are desperately wanted by the U.S. government, his relationship with 'Pepper' Potts is complex, patchy, and always on the brink, and his role as protector has been challenged not by super villains, not by mutated monsters or alien invaders, but by vengeful rivals and their unscrupulous financial backers.

Thor, meanwhile, wields a spell-protected hammer and travels 'the Nine Realms' by way of a mystical rainbow bridge. 

And wears a funny hat.

What is there to be said about The Expendables? A work of art it is not. Nor, as many have said (and will say), did it ever endeavour to be hailed as such. But even in the B-movie world it inhabits, Stallone's magnum opus is a tragically mediocre exercise in almost every respect. There have been much better action movies, and much better Stallone-helmed action movies, that have effectively raised the bar and cemented the notion that a movie of this kind need not be criminally incompetent in areas outside its chosen genre.

The Expendables, by contrast, does not endeavour to break free from the cliche of the bad action movie. It prides itself in being silly and unrealistic, and that would be perfectly fine, if it didn't do such a bad job of that, too.

The plot is juvenile and predictable, a clear-cut cops and robbers tale set on a fictional South American island where a ruthless dictator (is there any other kind?) has enslaved the populace and brought chaos to a once peaceful land.

Stallone and his buddies — a group of motorcycle-loving mercenaries who ride around town on specialized choppers and plaster their feathery logo on everything from their bikes to their backs — are hired by Bruce Willis to fly to the foreign territory and solve the problem. Arnold Schwarzenegger makes a guest appearance here as a rival gunslinger selected for the same job. He appears onscreen for all of three minutes and then departs, back lit and bearing a thundering musical cue, having refused the mission and recommended his equally grizzled old pal, who "loves playing in the jungle, right?"

So the titular tattoed protagonists embark on a mission to overthrow the system of oppression on the island. Along the way they meet Steve Austin, and Eric Roberts, and other faces you'll recognize from past projects, including their buddy-turned-baddie Gunnar, played by Dolph Lundgren, who turns in one of the most ridiculously bad performances in recent memory. His part in The Expendables neatly confirms what we all suspected; that he was effective in Rocky IV in large part because he had only three lines and no real acting to do. He was a massive, muscular mountain of Soviet oppression, and that was enough.

In The Expendables, he mutters and mumbles his way through more dialogue than he has any right to, and flip-flops from good guy to bad guy and then to good guy again in time for the closing credits. The rest of the gang, including Jet Li, who figured so prominently in the film's marketing, is given precious little to work with, either emotionally or physically. They exist solely to pad out the proceedings with a lot of boisterous babble and brouhaha.

And, again, that would be just fine. If it weren't bad brouhaha.

To be fair, there's a bit of fun to be had. The movie only ever feels competent when everything's blowing up, and that only happens for a brief interval near the climax — but it sure does look pretty. And while the choppy editing may leave some feeling seasick, the shootouts and fist fights are kinetic enough to satisfy moviegoers looking for a little adrenaline to go with their Milk Duds and soda.

But the antagonists are all stock characters that do little to create any real feeling of fear, or animosity, or ambivalence on our part, like good antagonists do. They're pretty much all here: the scheming government official, the evil dictator, the towering bodyguard, the legions of foot soldiers. We've all seen it many, many times before.

And that was the point, presumably. A return to '80s-style action movies like Rambo, and Commando, and Delta Force. A tribute to the mindless, plotless action orgies of yesteryear, to simple stories of good versus evil unhindered by nuance or ambiguity. Rambo promised to be just that and wasn't; it turned out surprisingly gritty and gut-wrenching and, at times, genuinely poignant. So in came The Expendables to fill the gap, the need (for some sizeable demographic, apparently) for simple minded, cheesy, childish man action.

Stallone's called Barney this time around and he's got a group of guy friends willing to head into battle with him. But otherwise this is Rambo: First Blood Part II for the new millennium, with more wrinkles and fewer excuses.

And, seriously, who wants to see that?