Quickies-9/15/05

Franklin Richards, Son of a Genius

This one-shot collect the previos Franklin stroies from Mark Sumerak's recent Power Pack mini-series, and adds one more story as well. I've read all the stuff here (except the new story) before, but still got a kick out of re-reading them. It's essentially Calvin & Hobbes in the Marvel Universe, but it works, really well in fact. Eliopolous and Sumerak even manage to make the much hated H.E.R.B.I.E. interesting, even if he's just joke fodder. The new story sees Franklin making clones of himself out of Jello and sending them trick-or-treating for him. Only they eat all the candy and destroy his room. It's great kids-level humour that works for adults as well, if this got added as a back-up to the regular FF books I might just have a reason to pick one of them up. Grade: A

Desperadoes: Epidemic

This is my first exposure to the long running Desperadoes series, hopefully the other books are better than this. It tries to combine westerns with sort of a Hellboy-like supernatural thing, and it just doesn't work that well. The gang rolls into a small town and finds themselves quarantined. Turns out to be some paganistic ritual meant to bring hell on earth, or some such. Really, it just doesn't work that well. The art is okay, with layouts by the always wonderful John Cassady, but it's occasionally muddy and too busy. The cover is nice though. Grade: C

Matchstick Men

I hate figuring movies out, really I do. There's a ton of recent horror films I've figured out from the previews alone (to name two: Hide & Seek and the Village), and too often I start watching a movie with a "twist" and the twist becomes all too apparent twenty minutes in. I don't say that to make myself seem smart, I mean I never saw the Sixth Sense or even the twist in Batman Begins coming, or Unbreakable for that matter, just that movie makers rely on the twost too much now, why the hell does there need to be a twist? So, anyway, other than an all-too-obvious plot twist, one that's been done to death, this is a good flik. Cage out-acts HotD fave Sam Rockwell, which amazed me, his nervous little ticks were irritating and funny, which is exactly what they were supposed to be, and he really seems to connect with the rest of the cast. Rockwell, though, has almost nothing to do in the flik, playing second fiddle, and seeming to be okay with that. It's a quirky little dramedy that's worth a catch on cable if you see it, or even a rent, but I don't recommend going out and buying it before you see it. Grade: B-

-L