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Recent Posts
- 42 (2013) vs. Remember the Titans (2000)
- Admission (2013) vs. About a Boy (2002)
- Oz the Great and Powerful (2012) vs. The NeverEnding Story (1984)
- Dark Skies (2013) vs. Dark Skies (1996)
- Oscar Wrap-Up 2013
- A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) vs. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
- Oscar Smack-a-thon!
- The Tiersky Top Ten, 2012
- Smackdown Smacks Down the 2013 Oscar Nominees
- Broken City (2013) vs. City Hall (1996)
- Men of Steel (Smackdown’s Superman Smashup)
- Les Miserables (2012) vs. The Fugitive (1993)
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- Elvin Hence on POTC: On Stranger Tides (2011) -vs- POTC: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
- Edward on The Thing (2011) -vs- The Thing (1982)
Category Archives: Fantasy
Oz the Great and Powerful (2012) vs. The NeverEnding Story (1984)
Let’s exit Earth for a while and travel to colorful lands distant from our own. Our contestants in this Smack are a pair of big-budget fantasy epics adapted from popular books. Hailing from storm-wracked Kansas is our challenger, Oz the Great and Powerful, a reimagining of one of the most beloved family films of all time. In this new version, our focus has shifted to the title character, a two-bit carnival magician with a grand stage name. He’s transported to the vibrant land bearing his name and gets thrown into a civil war among several bickering witches.
Flying in from Germany on a giant talking dog is The NeverEnding Story, in which a lonely young boy borrows and reads a book described by its seller as “unsafe.” And we all know what happens when a little boy reads an unsafe book, right? Of course — he gets dragged into the proceedings himself, which in this case means a fight between a fantasy kingdom and a scary black void that threatens to engulf that happy society. Continue reading
Posted in Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Tagged adapted from books, fantasy, James Franco, magic, Michelle Williams, Oz, Rachel Weisz, Sam Raimi, wizard, Wolfgang Petersen
7 Comments
Stalking the Wild Hobbit
I have seen “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” and at the risk of bringing down the wrath of dwarves, elves, orcs and even Gandalf, I have to say that I prefer our own Robert Anglim’s Smashup version, “Wild Hobbits” (below).
“The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” is a brilliantly mounted film that from a production standpoint must have been a terribly complicated thing to accomplish. But it seems to be too much — too many stunts, too much wall-to-wall swelling music, too many hangs from the cliffs, etc. I agree with the Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy who called the film “a bit of a slog.” Continue reading
Posted in Blockbuster, Bryce Zabel, Fantasy, Franchise
Tagged Bilbo Baggins, fantasy, film, Hobbit, Martin Freeman, mashup, movie, New Line, Peter Jackson, shire, Tolkein, trailer
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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 vs. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
If movies are like summer flings, movie franchises are more like long-term romances. We invest a lot of time and emotion in them; we feel really good while we’re involved; and after they’re all over, we wonder if we’ll ever experience anything else quite the same. I was thirteen years old when the first Harry Potter film was released in 2001 (the same age as Harry was). When the final film was premiering in theaters, I was 22. Essentially, Harry and I grew up together.
Similarly, Twilight hit theaters during my first year at college, and now, five years later, the final installment has arrived. Bella, the clumsy human turned empowered vampire, has graduated from high school and is forced to make some pretty adult, albeit bizarre, decisions. This feeling that we grow and mature and change alongside the characters is something we can’t ever get from just one film. We’ve formed meaningful attachments to these characters, and so, for the fans, it’s imperative that the endings be everything we hope for and more. Continue reading
Posted in Adventure, Drama, Fantasy
Tagged Alan Rickman, Battle, Black Magic, Daniel Radcliffe, dark arts, Emma Watson, Immortality, J.K. Rowling, Kristen Stewart, Maggie Grace, Michael Gambon, Peter Facinelli, Ralph Fiennes, Robert Pattinson, Rupert Grint, Stephenie Meyer, Steve Kloves, Taylor Lautner, vampire, werewolf, Witch, wizard
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Cloud Atlas (2012) vs. The Tree of Life (2011)
We at the Smack like a sprawling, epic movie about Big Themes as much as anyone else. So in this edition we’re throwing two big, brainy behemoths against each other in a ring-shaking Sumo contest.
In the challenger’s corner, weighing in at a few thousand pounds and nearly three hours in length, is a film so big it needed three credited directors: Cloud Atlas, essentially six movies in one, covering a range of genres, time periods and motifs. Our reigning champ is The Tree of Life, a thick, mood piece by Terrence Malick about a middle-aged man’s reflections on his upbringing and relationship with a tough, unhappy father. And, oh yeah, the origins of life and nature while we’re at it. Continue reading
Posted in Awards, Drama, Fantasy
Tagged 1930s, 1950s, 20th Century, Andy Wachowski, Brad Pitt, Clone, future, Halle Berry, Hugh Grant, Hugo Weaving, Jessica Chastain, Jim Broadbent, Jim Sturgess, Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Tom Hanks, Tom Tykwer
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The Odd Life of Timothy Green (2012) -vs- Foster (2011)
When I first saw the trailer for The Odd Life of Timothy Green, it seemed so quirky and original that I was surprised to learn it had a perfect Smackdown opponent waiting in semi-obscurity to face off against it. Foster, released in 2011 but only seen by a handful of people — most of them probably in London art houses — is so similar to Timothy Green in concept that I began to question the latter’s provenance. (As it turns out, Timothy is not a recast Yank version of Foster but an original script by director Peter Hedges, from a story by Ahmet Zappa, one of Frank’s kids.) Both films are gentle fairy tales that examine family relationships. Both involve children, who magically appear when they are most needed and manage to teach their troubled adoptive parents a thing or two about love and parenting. Both fathers are in jeopardy of losing their jobs, which the magical children in their lives are also able to help them address. And both are full of hokey life lessons, yet surprisingly are able to touch audiences in a genuinely heartfelt way. Continue reading
Posted in Comedy, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Smackdown News
Tagged Ahmet Zappa, CJ Adams, Common, Dianne Wiest, Hayley Mills, Ioan Gruffudd, Jennifer Garner, Joel Edgerton, Maurice Cole, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Toni Collette
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The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) -vs- Spider-Man (2002)
What a difference a decade makes. Why, in that period of time, it’s possible to forget you’ve ever seen a specific movie, almost like it never existed.
Well, no, it’s not like that all, of course. Those of us over the age of thirteen do clearly remember the blockbuster films we saw just ten years ago. The question Columbia Pictures seems to be asking with the release of The Amazing Spider-Man is whether or not it matters. Continue reading
Posted in Action, Adventure, Book Adaptation, Bryce Zabel, Comic Book, Coming of Age, Fantasy, SummerSmack
Tagged Andrew Garfield, Denis Leary, Emma Stone, high school, Kirsten Dunst, Marti Sheen, Marvel Comics, Peter Parker, Rhys Ifans, Spider, Spider-Man, Stan Lee, Student, superhero, Tobey Maguire, Web, Willem Dafoe
9 Comments
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (2012) -vs- Time After Time (1979)
Did you know that the Civil War was not merely the North fighting the South over the slavery issue, but that the Confederacy was actually an uprising of vampires, of whom Abraham Lincoln was actually a trained hunter? Or that H.G. Wells, author of The Time Machine, actually invented his very own such machine that enabled him to fight crime a century into the future? Or that George W. Bush is actually the reincarnation of a traitor beheaded by King Joffrey of the House of Lannister? Continue reading
Posted in Action, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Suspense
Tagged Abraham Lincoln, Benjamin Walker, David Warner Patti D'Arbanville, Dominic Cooper, H.G. Wells, historical fiction, Jack The Ripper, Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen, police, Rufus Sewell, Time Machine, time travel, Undead, vampire, Vampire Hunter
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Snow White and the Huntsman (2012) -vs- Mirror Mirror (2012)
What evil website would even dream of pitting the sweetly heroic Snow White against herself in a winner-take-all fight? Movie Smackdown, of course!
The beloved fairy tale figure with the dark hair and pale face is the lead character in two big Hollywood releases this year, Snow White and the Huntsman, opening this weekend, and Mirror, Mirror, which premiered back in March. Although both feature the broad outlines of the original story – evil queen, wrongful imprisonment, dark forest, seven dwarves, etc. – the two movies vary greatly in tone and approach. Huntsman goes the dramatic, big-budget route with monster attacks and a castle siege. Mirror, Mirror is a light comedy featuring Julia Roberts as the not-so-scary villainess requiring constant reassurance from the eponymous prop that she’s the fairest of them all. Continue reading
Posted in Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, SummerSmack
Tagged Armie Hammer, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Evil Queen, fairy tale, Ian McShane, John Lee Hancock, Julia Roberts, Kristen Stewart, Lily Collins, prince, princess, Ray Winstone, warrior
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Men in Black 3 (2012) -vs- Mars Attacks! (1996)
The earth is about to be destroyed! And the devastation will be funny and entertaining to watch, at least by Hollywood standards.
In this winner-take-all battle, we’re pitting two satirical world-on-the-brink-of-destruction films against each other. The new release is Men in Black 3 (or Men in Black III, depending on whether you believe the official Sony Pictures site or IMDB), the latest offering in the popular string of sci-fi comedies. This installment features the franchise’s first time-travel plot, with our protagonist vaulting backwards by several decades in order to save his partner from being murdered and, consequently (of course) earth from being destroyed. Mars Attacks! also harkens to the past. It’s a wild, Tim Burton spoof of cheesy 1950s alien invasion movies, featuring a giant cast trying nearly in vain to defend our planet from interstellar bad guys. Continue reading
Posted in Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Tagged alien, Annette Bening, Based On Comic Book, Bill Hader, Buddy Comedy, Danny DeVito, Fictional Government Agency, Glenn Close, High Tech, Jack Nicholson, Josh Brolin, Mars, Martian, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Natalie Portman, Pierce Brosnan, planet, Sarah Jessica Parker, Secret Agent, sequel, Sunglasses, Tim Burton, time travel, Tommy Lee Jones, Weapon, Will Smith
4 Comments
Dark Shadows (2012) -vs- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)
Can Barnabas suck the blood out of Buffy or can this tough vamp of a fighter slay the hell out of this unchained vampire? While that alone might be enough of a question to guide a Smackdown, this one gets complicated by history.
Dark Shadows, as people over fifty know, began as TV then became a film. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, as people under thirty know, began as a film and became a TV series. The former, in theaters now, is a derivation of its former glory, while the latter is an inspired evolution of its big-screen glory. Continue reading
Posted in Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, SummerSmack
Tagged Avengers, Barnabas, Barnabas Collins, blood, Buffy, Buffy Summers, Curse, David Arquette, director, Donald Sutherland, Eva Green Tim Burton, film, Ghost, Gothic, Johnny Depp, Joss Whedon, Kristy Swanson, Luke Perry, Michelle Pfeiffer, Paul Reubens, Psychiatrist Based On TV Series, Rutger Hauer, Script, Smackdown, theaters, TV, vampire, Whedon, Witch
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