Michael Shannon Movies Blog

  Watching this film was probably going beyond the call of duty as Shannon’s Wikipedia page states that he did not shoot any scenes for it, with a body replica used for his appearance as the corpse of General Zod. To compound the unnecessaryness I watched the full 3 hour Extended edition. In truth it was OK entertainment but they could have lost an hour with no complaints from me. The film opens with the 374 th depiction of Batman’s origin. Mrs Wayne’s pearls drop more often than Katie Price’s knickers. We get he’s tormented and driven but they could really just take that as read. Ben Affleck is Bruce Wayne / Batman with Jeremy Irons as his butler Alfred. They are both decent but are definitely a downgrade from Bale / Caine. Henry Cavill’s Superman is under some scrutiny as his fight with General Zod in ‘Man of Steel’ caused the death of thousands of citizens and we get a fun scene of Bruce Wayne driving through the carnage as it happens. Bruce loses lots of friends and e...

  I wasn’t expecting to enjoy ‘The Flash’ due to its troubled production and so-so reviews but I really did. It was a bit long and possibly confusing (I’m not totally sure) but it was good fun with plenty of surprises and some decent action, albeit mostly CGI. I bailed out on the Justice League film and haven’t watched The Flash TV series, apart from that 90’s one, so I went into this somewhat cold. I do have a good idea of the comics but the Flash was never really a character I liked. Initially he could run fast but once he could travel through stuff and time it seemed a bit far fetched. I know! We meet Barry – the Flash’s alter ego - as he’s helping the Ben Affleck Batman sort out some Gotham based hassles. Gotham, which looks a lot like Glasgow, is under attack and whilst Batman does the heavy lifting the Flash saves some babies in a hospital in a funny sequence. Wonder Woman shows up too in a largely pointless cameo but she does generate a few laughs with her golde...

  Despite being a fan of the superhero genre I hadn’t seen this film before. I think Superman had been done so often that I had little interest in this reboot. Having watched the film I have to say that I enjoyed it, but it didn’t offer anything that was a lot different from that which had gone before. I think that’s because the Superman mythos is so well established and creators are loathed to get too far away from the core values. This effort came a few years after the Brandon Routh remake that featured Kevin Spacey and I remember that being rank rotten with an endless finale on an iceberg or something. I think that this one had a better reputation and I like director Zach Snyder’s take on ‘Watchmen’. Of course it also has our man Michael Shannon as the villain, so that’s me sold! That said, the two and a half hour run time was a but daunting and I ended up watching the film in two sittings. Anyway, we open on Krypton with the planet blowing up and being in the midst of ...