November 27, 2023 • 38 mins
A great opening scene should tell you all you need to know about the journey in a superhero film. Mike shares what he thinks are the Top 7 based on their action, tone and impact on the genre. In the Movie Review, Mike gives his thoughts on Napoleon starring Jaoquin Phoenix. The movie is about the general and emperor’s rise to power in the late 1700s and early 1800s and his relationship with Empress Joséphine Bonaparte played by Vanessa Kirby. Mike gives his thoughts on the actor’s performance, the story and director Ridley Scott’s fantastic quote on people who called him about the historical accuracy. In the Trailer Park, Mike talks about Blumhouse’s upcoming horror movie Imaginary about a young girl who develops an eerie attachment to a stuffed bear named Chauncey. She starts playing games with Chauncey that begin playful and become increasingly sinister.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie Podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today, I want to share
with you what I think are the top seven opening
scenes in superhero movies of all time. I went through
all my favorites and picked out the ones I think
are the most iconic. In the movie review, I'll let
you know how I felt about Joaquin Phoenix's performance in Napoleon.
And then the trailer park. We have a new horror
(00:20):
movie that looks so creepy from Blumhouse because it has
to do with a kid, a teddy bear, and an
imaginary friend all in one. I saw this trailer and
I thought, can't wait to talk about this one. Thank
you for being here, thank you for being subscribed. Shout
out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's
talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like
never before in a movie podcast. A man with so
much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTB with glasses.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
From the Nashville Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
This is Movie Mike's Movie Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
This great opening scene sets the tone for a superhero movie.
Those first five, seven, sometimes ten minutes, in my opinion,
are the most important minutes. If you don't have me
hooked in in that opening sequence, I'm not ready to
take the ride. I think if you look at all
of the superhero flops in the last ten years, it's
(01:20):
probably because they have a weak opening scene. So I
went through all my favorite superhero movies, both DC and Marvel.
Out of every single one, which seven have the best
opening superheroes scenes. I rated them based upon how iconic
they think they are, the cinematography, the music, how they
set the tone for the entire movie, the level of action,
(01:42):
and just overall entertainment level, and how these scenes changed
the landscape of superhero movies. So let's get right into
the list. At number seven, I have the opening scene
from The Dark Knight Rises back in twenty twelve. What
happens in this opening scene is Bane and his henchmen
and get captured by the CIA, and the CIA captors
(02:03):
are trying to get this information out of them. They
have these bags over their heads, so in that very
opening moment, you don't realize or know that it's Bane
until he starts speaking. Bain had this entire thing orchestrated
and he was going to turn the tables on them.
So what this opening scene does is set the tone
for Bain and how smart he actually is and clues
(02:24):
us into the type of threat he is going to
be throughout this entire movie, where he is always just
one step ahead of Batman and looks like a force
that cannot be taken down. Aside from what this opening
scene establishes with the plot, just visually really gave it
a different feel than The Dark and Knight. Now. Christopher
Nolan also shot The Dark Knight Rises for Imax, but
(02:47):
I feel like he really flexed it in this opening
sequence more so than The Dark Knight because you have
these really beautiful shots up in the sky with the
one plane going and the other plane coming on top
of this plane to take over and then crash the plane,
and Christopher Nolan just always knows how to add value
on the screen and make use of these cameras to
(03:07):
really put you in that situation. It also has two
of my favorite quotes from Bain out of the entire movie.
First up is this one, no one cared who I
was till I put on the Mars, which is a
really great commentary on the psychology and just the nature
of humans that you could take somebody who otherwise doesn't
really alert your interests, doesn't really set off any red flags.
(03:29):
But the minute they do something a little bit different,
like put on a mask or color their hair weird,
I feel like us as a society just gravitate to
that and say, this is weird, this is different, why
are you doing this? So it even reminds me of
musicians who kind of have like a gimmicky thing that
becomes the thing they get known for, and it's just
a way to get attention on your music. Maybe you
have a weird hairstyle, you do something weird on stage
(03:52):
that it just is so polarizing that people gravitate towards
that you hook them in, but then you keep them
around with your music. I think that's just what we
do as a society. In this case, Bain having the
mask makes him feel like more of a threat, makes
him feel like more of a mystery, and the entire
time the CIA is trying to get answers out of
him of why he is wearing the mask. My other
favorite quote in this sequence is this one the fire Arisals,
(04:16):
which also sets the tone of the action that will
follow this sequence. So those are two of my top
four quotes from Bain in this entire movie. The other
two would be this one, punishment must be most be
and of course this one. Oh do you think Doc
loses your ally? You merely adopted the doc. I was
(04:37):
born in it, molded by it. Bain is just such
a great villain and it was really just showcased and
highlighted in this opening sequence. That's why I put The
Dark Knight Rises at number seven and number six from
nineteen ninety eight. I have a movie that is so
overlooked in Marble really when it comes to the superhero
(04:59):
genre for what it did back in the nineties. The
movie is Blade. Wesley Snipes did an incredible job capturing
the energy of this vampire slayer superhero, and this opening
sequence feels so nineteen ninety eight, but that is what
I love it. It starts out with this guy who
goes to a nightclub and then realizes that everybody in
(05:19):
this club our vampires. Once blood starts coming out of
the sprinkler system, everybody's covered in blood, and I just
can imagine that this scene was a nightmare to film
because your entire body is covered in red. They probably
took forever to get this off of their skin, but
it was so worth it because of that visual of
it just spraying down and covering everybody. And then you
(05:39):
look over at all the faces of people and they
have their vampire teeth, And just as it looks like
our guys about to go down and become a victim
of these vampires, outcomes Blade in the nick of time
and he disposes every single vampire in sight. But the
great thing about this opening sequence, and the great thing
about Blade, is how cool he is. He's taking out
(06:03):
these people in the coolest way. He's killing these vampires
in the coolest way possible with his blades, with his
silver bullets, and he does it so cool, calm and collected,
making it feel unlike any superhero adaptation we have seen.
And this was just in nineteen ninety eight, but even
until now, no one has really recaptured the energy of Blade.
(06:24):
So what this opening sequence did was create an exciting
change in the genre and showing that they could be ultraviolent,
dark and cool, which I feel is now more of
the space that DC is operating in. And I'm hoping
with the Blade remake they do with Maherschela Ali that
they go back to the basics here, because if you
go back and watch this movie, some of the special
(06:47):
effects may not hold up, like when he kills a
vampire and they burst into flames and evaporate. It looks
very nineteen ninety eight. But the overall action and the
overall just tone of the character is so perfect. If
they could just replicate that and update those small little
special effects without putting him into this whole entirely different
(07:08):
sci fi world which he doesn't really need to go in,
he could be a very much grounded character. If they
are able to do that with a new version of Blade,
it could honestly be one of the best Marvel movies
in years, because it's R rated. At the time, it
was the first R rated Marvel movie. Now we've had
Deadpool and Logan, and it's just so hard to do
(07:28):
vampire movies because they come across so cheesy naturally in film.
I feel like if you could just strip everything down
and keep it so cool again. So I just wanted
to show some recognition to one of the best superhero
movies that often gets overlooked, and a great opening sequence
at number six is Blade at number five from twenty fourteen.
(07:50):
I'm going with Guardians of the Galaxy. Not only is
it a great opening sequence of Peter Quill showing us
exactly who he is dancing to this song on an
abandoned planet as these kicking aliens using them as microphones,
you really learn everything you need to know about the
(08:11):
character's personality. And that is what I love about a
great opening sequence. Time and time again, the Guardians of
the Galaxy franchise has done this. It really became their thing,
even with two and with three having that big, fun
opening sequence. But this scene came at a time where
Marvel really needed it in twenty fourteen. And why I
(08:31):
included this scene on my list is because this represents
the tonal shift that Marvel had at this time, where
it was becoming not dark in the sense of like
a grittier tone, but it was very much focused on war,
very much focused on all the friction between the characters,
and there needed to be some levity now. They always
had like the cheesy one off remarks from superheroes that
(08:53):
became known as you know, superhero comedy lines. Always just
that one little quick moment that It made us all laugh,
but over the movies were still fairly serious. And what
Guardians of the Galaxy was. It became the franchise that
was known for just having fun and doing things differently
and being so rooted in sci fi, and that is
(09:14):
exactly what this opening scene represents. It became the blueprint
for the rest of the MCU. Even until now, it
is still writing off of the momentum that this scene
in this movie created back in twenty fourteen. Without this
scene and Guardians of the Galaxy, the MCU would have
failed in the twenty tens. It needed the Guardian of
(09:35):
the Galaxy to make everything work, to connect everything, to
bring that fun energy and bring characters in that we
really cared about. But it was this scene that kicked
it all off. You have our hero singing along. We
all knew we were into something fun and something special.
So at number five, I have Guardians of the Galaxy.
At number four, we'll move it ahead just one year,
(09:57):
staying in the MCU, I have the opening scene from
Avengers Age of Oltron, which I also included this on
my list because I feel overall, when you look at
all the Avengers movies, this one is often viewed as
being the worst, but I've gone back time and time
again to rewatch Age of Oldtron, and I think that
isn't a true statement. There's a lot that happens in
(10:18):
this movie that is so important throughout the entire Infinity saga,
and I really feel like at its core, Age of
Oltron is a great movie. It just wasn't what we
wanted at the time that it came out. But if
you go back and rewatch all the Avengers movies in order,
it is so strong and the opening sequence is one
of my favorites. Because of the action in this one,
(10:39):
the Avengers are already a thing, and I always say
part two in a superhero movie is sometimes better than
part one because no origin story needed. It's already established
that they are your team and you get right into action.
It is top tier. You have every single character showing
what makes them amazing in just the first ten minutes
(10:59):
of this movie. The incredible Hold has the best fight
sequence he has ever had in any movie in Avengers
Age of Ultron, and he has always been a special
character for me, even though his solo movies often get
over criticized. Seeing him at his best is just there's
nothing better than that. But hands down, the best moment
(11:21):
in this opening scene is when they are all lunging
forward and it's the full Avengers team in like a
small little slow mo maybe one, two, maybe three seconds,
but you see every single hero in action lunging forward,
and it is the best action frame in any Avengers movie. Yeah,
you could say the Avengers first assembling in the first movie,
(11:45):
or then an endgame when you have everybody on screen.
But if you just took one single image, if I
just wanted one frame photo on my wall, it would
be this one with all of our characters here lunging forward.
It gives all six members a time to shine and
gave us this gem of a moment from Captain America
and Ironman calling him out language Jarvis, what's the few
(12:05):
from upstairs? Twit a second? No one else is going
to do with the fact that KP just said language
I know. And then shortly after that it gave us
one of the darkest scenes in the entire Avengers movies.
Whenever Tony Stark has the vision that all of the
Avengers are dead, I love it. That's why I put
Age of Ultron at number four, at number three is
(12:29):
the movie that blew my mind at twelve years old,
sitting in the movie theater thinking this scene was so
well executed, and it's from a franchise again that I
feel doesn't get the recognition it deserves. But you know
who's going to give it to him. I'm going to
give it to him. The movie is X two X
Men United. It came out in two thousand and three,
(12:49):
and it's the scene where night Crawler attacks the Oval
Office and attempts to take out the President and as
a result, creating a full fledged war between humans and mutants,
and also just shows you how powerful one single mutant
can be in attack mode. This scene captures how exciting
and thrilling these movies were, at least in the first three.
(13:12):
But it starts out at the White House, which just
anything that takes place at the White House has a
little bit more weight to me because it seems like
a place that nobody should be allowed to go. So
seeing something like this take place in a movie, it
really puts you thinking of this crazy situation that what
if mutants were actually real? What if superheroes were a
(13:33):
thing in the real world, how would we protect ourselves
from them? But it starts at the White House. You
have this mysterious man who is approached by security and
it turns out to be Nightcrawler. First you see his tail,
then you see his powers where he can teleport. You
see like this cloud, a wiggly smoke where he once was,
and then he ends up in a new location and
as he's working through all of the Secret Service, he's
(13:55):
trying to make his way to the Oval Office. He
makes it to the Oval Office, takes out everybody in there,
is about to stab the President, but then get shot,
teleports away, but leaves behind the message Mutant freedom now.
So this opening scene was to post to show us
the tension between the mutants and the humans, which is
the most important plot point in all of these original
(14:19):
X Men movies. But what I love about this opening
scene is how much it still holds up to today.
There was so much attention to detail in creating comic
book accurate representations on the big screen with these X
Men movies, so they spent so much time and effort
and money in makeup. And I love the detail you
(14:40):
see on Nightcrawler's face as he's opening up his mouth.
You see his sharp teeth and it would be one
thing just to paint him entirely blue, but they also
add these little details on his skin that are almost
like raised tattoos all over his face to give him
that next level of details. They did the same thing
with Rebecca Romain as Mystique, and the decis to do
that and not try and v effects Nightcrawler is what
(15:04):
makes this opening sequence great. And then you also have
the music happening behind all of this action that takes
it to another level. My god, and something you may
not notice after watching it for the first time, but
(15:27):
Nightcrawler doesn't actually kill anybody in that opening sequence, which
is later revealed his moral dilemma of killing humans and
really shows that he was just there to send a
message to end all of the mutant hate. So this
scene was so exciting, so thrilling. I love it when
movies get right to the action in that very opening sequence.
(15:48):
That's why I put it at number three. At number two,
I'm keeping it in the X Men world, but we're
moving all the way to twenty seventeen with Logan this movie.
Oh I put this entire movie in my top five
superhero movies of all time because of Hugh Jackman's performance
because of the entire story of an age Wolverine and
(16:10):
his powers are fading, but he has all this rage
and him still just trying to live a normal life
and after living a long, long life, not being able
to fight like he once used to regenerate as quickly
as he could, He's trying to take care of Professor Xavier.
There's just something about an age superhero that just really
(16:32):
hits me in the gut. But the art of this
opening sequence was so attention getting, and I think it's
because this movie was rated R that we finally had
Wolverine unleashed unlike ever before. So I feel like this
is where we truly got to see the grit of
the character and how brutal he could be. So what
happens in this opening scene is we find out that
(16:54):
Wolverine is now working as a chauffeur, driving around people
who are getting drunk in the back of his limb.
He decides to take a nap in his limo and
then finds these people trying to steal the rims and
tires off of his car. He confronts them, and as
he confronts them, they cut them off mid sentence. And
just shoot them, and they think, oh, that's over. We
kill the guy. Now, let's get his rims. But what
(17:16):
they don't expect is to him to get up and
start fighting him. And my favorite part in this opening
scene is where they start to overtake him. They're just
jumping in kicking him, and he gets so filled with
rage that he just unleashes. And in that moment of
him unleashing, we see what a rated R Wolverine movie
is going to be. So you see him take the
(17:47):
blades that are coming out of his hands and just
rip people to shreds, tear off ligaments, and it is
so brutal and so bloody, and I love it. It
lets you know that you're in for a much more
harm sure look at the character, and a much more
violent approach to a superhero movie that we have ever seen.
And as shocking as that violence was, it made this
(18:11):
movie special and remains a perfect opening to a superhero movie.
And I would say the best X Men movie of
all time. And if it wasn't for number one, this
easily could have been up there as well. But that
is number two. Before I get to that number one,
I do have some honorable mentions Deadpool from twenty sixteen,
the entire slow mo joke sequence and then seeing all
(18:34):
of the cliches listed of superhero movies, which is really
what that movie did, and the statement it made of
poking fun of the entire genre that even at that time,
back in twenty sixteen, felt oversaturated and kind of played out.
So that was a fun moment. You also have the
opening sequence from Batman nineteen eighty nine that was important
because the Batman character was viewed as very jokey before that,
(18:57):
and Tim Burton was even seen as kind of a
living start to make a serious superhero movie until you
saw that opening sequence and you realize, oh, this is
the tone we're going for here. This is not going
to be Adam West doing a dance number. So that
movie's opening sequence was really important. From twenty twenty one,
I also love the Suicide Squads opening sequence from James Gunn.
(19:18):
I love that it took all the time to establish
these characters at the very beginning, only to have them
all wiped out in really hilarious and violent ways in
that opening. So those are a couple honorable mentions, but
at number one is one I would say is not only,
hands down the best opening scene in a superhero movie
(19:39):
quite honestly might be my favorite opening scene to any
movie of all time. It is from two thousand and
eight The Dark Night, easily the opening scene I have
watched the most out of this entire list. Sometimes I
just go and watch this scene because of how good
it is. And after this scene ended, I remember seeing
(19:59):
it in the and looking around and feeling like everybody
knew the ride we were about to get into. And
this was before we all knew how impactful Heath Ledger's
Joker was going to be. We didn't really know it
and didn't really feel it until his opening scene. But
what happens in this opening scene is you have this
group of criminals, all wearing these clown masks, and they
(20:20):
are trying to carry out a heist of this bank,
and they all have very specific jobs throughout this entire heist,
and they keep talking about their boss, the Joker, and
as they all performed their individual jobs, they all get
taken out by another guy. So what this opening scene
shows is the sophistication of Joker, but also the fact
(20:42):
that he doesn't care about anything and all he wants
to do is watch the world burn because throughout that
entire process of one getting taken out by the other,
who was left standing at the end it is Joker
and his ability to kill members of his crew without
even flinching. Is probably my favorite part of the opening
(21:02):
scene is a true representation of the character. But my
favorite moment of the scene is whenever it's finally revealed
that it's Heath Ledger behind one of these masks. You
have his interaction with the owner of the bank, and
then his escape as he hops onto the bus and
drives it right into traffic. This scene is a ten
out of ten. I'm betting the Joker told you to
(21:23):
kill me soon as we loaded the cash. No, no, no, no,
I killed the bus driver. Bus driver, look at you.
What do you believe it?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
What I believe? Whatever doesn't kill you simply makes your stranger.
What this opening scene taught me is that it really
goes all back to basics on creating tension and making
a meaningful open to a movie that starts out cold.
(21:55):
And I credit this all to Christopher Nolan, who I
mentioned earlier when talking about The Dark Knight. Right is
also here in The Dark Knight. There are no special
effects going on as far as fancy techniques, no lens, flare,
no closeups on any of the characters, but yet does
a great job of pacing and making you feel it
and making each moment seem so significant, And even if
(22:17):
you took away all the action from this opening scene,
it has my favorite single frame from any opening of
Jokers standing on that corner with a mask in his
hand and a Duffel bag in the other hand, just
slightly looking over his shoulder. That one frame is all
I need to know about the Joker and all I
need to know about the Dark Knight. You can capture
(22:38):
that in one frame, you deserve every single oscar. So
that is the list my top seven opening scenes in
superhero movies. If you want to let me know one
you think I missed or one you think should be rated,
hire hit me up on email moviemke d at gmail
dot com, or find all my socials in the episode
notes we'll come back, we'll talk about Napoleon, and then
the trailer park, we'll talk about a new scary movie
(22:59):
called Imaginary. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free
movie review of Napoleon. I will let you know that
I had really high expectations going into this movie because
look at the cast and the leading role as Napoleon Bonaparte.
You have Joaquin Phoenix, who is arguably one of my
favorite actors still working today. He's been in Her Walk
(23:23):
the Line, he was the Joker, he was in Gladiator,
so many movies that I'm always just automatically attaching myself
to any new project that he has coming up, and
I feel highly invested into seeing how it plays out
into his career and where it fits in between all
of his movies. You also have Vanessa Kirby playing his
wife Josephine in this movie. You may know her from
(23:44):
The Crown. Most recently just saw her in Dead Reckoning
Part one and I thought she was fantastic in that.
But then you have the director Ridley Scott, who has
done movies like Alien, Thelma and Louise, Gladiator, so it's
working with Joaquin Phoenix again, also movies like Blade Runner,
the list of on and on, and he's a director
who has a very high variety of different types of movies,
(24:05):
and I love those type of directors who is really
not just typecast as doing one thing really well. He
can do action, he can do romantic movies, he can
do war movies. He can really do it all. As
of late, his last two films haven't been the biggest
fan of But I thought him taking on the story
of Napoleon in a big epic war movie was gonna
be his bread and butter. And with a movie like this,
(24:27):
I thought it was going to rattle me. And in
the end, it didn't really do it. So what this
movie was about was the rise and fall of Napoleon,
how he went from nothing to having it all and
then to losing it all. It takes place in the
late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, and you start
out getting to see how brutal this movie is, and
(24:47):
Kelsey went with me. I told her she would probably
enjoy this movie because she loves history, but she didn't
want something to be so overly gruesome, and I was like,
that's gonna be fine, you're gonna love it. With in
the first five minutes, they used the guillotine to slice
somebody's head off, and that really set the tone of
the entire movie of how brutal it was going to be.
(25:08):
The war scenes are very bloody, very detailed, very gruesome.
Very shocking, which isn't a surprise coming from Ridley Scott,
But I honestly thought that was where this movie shined
because I feel like this is where they spent the
majority of the budget to make these war scenes look
really good. The war scenes really reminded me of Game
of Thrones, those being the best episodes whenever they spent
(25:30):
a lot of money to make those wars and battles
look really good. But a lot of the movie dealt
with that, when Napoleon and the French army and these
really crazy battles where there were a lot of casualties
and really shows you the recklessness that was Napoleon. And
aside from that, the movie served as a character study
and a look into the life off the battlefield with
(25:51):
his relationship with Josephine, who they had a really troublesome,
all you would say toxic relationship, but even looking back
in the late seventeen hundreds early eighteen hundreds, I wonder
if this was just the norm. To say the least,
their relationship was toxic. There was a lot of cheating,
there was a lot of arguments, a lot of abuse,
a lot of him being angry at her for not
(26:13):
loving him more so on the forefront, the way all
the French people see him as this very powerful, reckless,
fearless leader, and then behind closed doors he was a
lot more sensitive than you would expect. Very melancholy is
how he describes himself in the movie. The other interesting
thing about their relationship, and really this entire movie is
(26:35):
the weird levels of comedy that I was not expecting.
There were just things that were oddly funny in between them,
arguing that I found the entire theater laughing. At one
scene in particular, I had to write down a line
where Napoleon said Destiny has brought me to the slam
chop and I just loved that line. That was very
memorable and just something that I wasn't really expecting for
(26:56):
it to have any kind of levity. It did feel
a little bit out of place, but I was like, Okay,
if they're trying to bring some humor into this movie
that's relatively dark, dismal, gruesome and bloody, I'll take it.
So when it came to the acting, I don't know
if it was just because I expected more from Jaquin
(27:16):
Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby for the matter, which I think
she was actually the one with the better performance throughout
this entire movie. I don't know if it was them
and their chemistry or really what I think it was
was just the nature of this story and trying to
depict these characters from the late seventeen hundreds and early
eighteen hundreds, and I just think this is how people
(27:36):
acted back in the day. Because the acting was so subtle,
it felt a little bit boring to me. So I
really think they were playing the characters right just them themselves.
Weren't that interesting to learn about. And I think for me,
I already come out a place where I really don't
like period pieces, but I'm open to them. I got
a little bored here in there. About ninety minutes into
(27:59):
the movie, I felt myself becoming more invested and thinking, Okay,
I think they're getting somewhere. I think there's actually going
to be a big payoff here. And then I kind
of realized that it was kind of going to be
a lot of the same thing. So I didn't really
necessarily hate it, but definitely was expecting a lot more.
Even when it came to the visuals, there was a
lot left to be desired because Apple Films right now
(28:22):
are crushing it. Visually, anything I sit down to watch
that comes from Apple, I just know that it's going
to have a higher quality to it. I don't know
what standards they have when it comes to filming and
editing and the cameras they use, but they always just
look like a step above what anybody else is doing
right now. But when it came to this movie, it
(28:42):
felt and looked a little bit generic, like a normal
war movie, and I was expecting it to look more
like a spectacle, something that demanded the big screen. If not,
I could have just waited to watch this on Apple TV. Plus,
when it comes out down the line probably goes back
to what I said earlier that they spent so much
on the battles that maybe there just wasn't enough money
to go around at the end of the day. So
(29:04):
I really felt that this movie could have looked better,
especially since Ridley Scott worked with a cinematographer that has
been his go to in a lot of his movies
that have looked the part, but where the cinematography lack.
I found myself loving the wardrobe Napoleon had drip. I
was a dude in the late seventeen hundreds early eighteen hundreds.
I would want that same look you mean, the big,
weird looking hat, the emperor uniform. I would want to
(29:26):
look like Napoleon. I feel like if this movie would
have been forty five minutes less, I would have loved it.
I want the opposite of the director's cut. I want
all the fat taken out and give me just the
meat of this movie and what I need to know
about Napoleon and take out some of the stuff that
just felt a little bit boring period piece, especially for
a movie that costs almost two hundred million dollars to make.
(29:48):
They could have saved themselves some cash there. I did
love what Ridley Scott said in response to some critics
who said the movie wasn't completely historically accurate, and he said,
when I have issues with historians, I ask, excuse me, mate,
were you there?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No?
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Well, then shut the blink up. Which is just funny
because you have to take some liberties in making a
movie about history, and there was so much research he
did while making this movie, and of course you're gonna
embellish some things to make a more cinematically appealing. So
I don't really have any issue with that. And I
just know when going to watch a movie about something
(30:24):
that happened in history, it's probably not all gonna be
down to the facts. If they did, it would probably
be a much more boring movie, not just in this
movie's case, but any movie in history. So I really
don't think this movie is for everybody, unless like me,
you're a big Joaquin Phoenix fan, or you're just really
into war dramas. Kelsey did not enjoy this movie whatsoever,
(30:47):
so I think that's also a pretty good indicator of
somebody who is not a fan of this type of movie,
because it was over the top gory and graphic. There
was one scene in particular, there's not any graphic nudity,
but there is you know what happens. There was a
scene that went down and then forty five seconds later
this family walked in, and I was like, if they
would have walked in just a minute earlier, probably looking
(31:09):
for the Trolls movie, they would have been traumatized. So
that's also letting you know what else to expect from
this movie. But in the end, I did find myself
enjoying the movie. I just thought it was gonna be
a movie that would stick with me, especially going into
Oscar season, I thought that Joaquin Phoenix would maybe have
another Oscar worthy performance, we would have a Best Director
nomination here. I don't even think that's the case. So
(31:32):
for Napoleon, in honor of one of the most gruesome
scenes in the movie where his horse gets taken out,
I give it three out of five horses. It's time
to head down to movie.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Mike Trey Lar Paul.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
If there's a kid in a horror movie talking to
a demonic presence, I'm all in. I don't care how
good or bad the movie is. I just know I'm
going to like it because that is all playing to
my taste in horror movies. And that is exactly what
we have here. And the new Blumhouse movie called Imaginary,
it's about a kid who gets really attached to this
teddy bear, but the teddy bear is talking to her.
(32:10):
So before I get into some more creepy moments from Imaginary,
here's just a little bit of the trailer. And every
culture has entities that tether to the young. We call
them imaginary friends. You are always saying with your imaginary friend.
When the connection with severb, the entity becomes in rage,
(32:34):
he says he's right behind you. Can I hang out
with your imaginary friend? He's not imaginary, He's not your friend.
So what this movie is about. You have a character
named Jessica who moves back into her childhood home with
her family and her youngest stepdaughter is named Alice. She
develops this eerie attachment with a stuffed bear named Chauncey,
(32:56):
which Chauncey is just a weird, creepy name, and you
know there's gonna be some crazy backstory to Chauncey. But
she finds them in the basement and then they start
playing all these games together, and she has this list
that she's talking about of all these things that Chauncey
wants her to do, and they get creepier and creepier
as you go down the line of things. One of
them involves her having to hurt herself. In the trailer,
(33:19):
you see her pull this board out of a fence
that has a nail on it, and then she puts
the board down and it looks like she stabs her
hand right through the nail. So there are a lot
of things I love about this movie. Just going back
to Blumhouse, who I feel is taking a lot of
risk and horror right now. If you're not familiar with Blumhouse.
Earlier this year, they brought us Megan and they also
put out five nights at Freddy's pretty recently. And even
(33:41):
though I didn't entirely love that movie, I can respect
how much money that movie made on a really modest budget.
And that is the beauty of horror movies is as
long as you have a great concept a unique style,
you can turn a little bit of money into a
whole lot of money at the box office. So it
(34:02):
is a great genre for your return on investment. And
then if you make one that you didn't spend a
whole lot of money on and then it didn't do
so well and people hate it, well at least they're
not out a whole lot of money. I also learned
that from Jason Blum, who was a guest shark on
Shark Tank. He did the Halloween episode and told his
entire life story and how he created Blumhouse. So that
as another pleasure of mine sitting down on a Friday
(34:23):
night and watching Shark Tank. But going back to Imaginary,
it feels like a film that needs to be seen
in a full theater on a Friday night. In this trailer,
it has what I call a oh heck no moment.
Clean that up a little bit for the young ears listening,
but it has that moment where the teddy Bear is
sitting in a hallway. You have this teenager on the
(34:44):
other end thinking how did this teddy bear get here?
And then the teddy Bear starts to move. That is
a situation where, if it were in the real world,
you would just high tail it out of there and
not look back. But instead the kid stays there. The
teddy Bear gets closer and closer and closer, and then
a quick second you see it kind of erupt into
this monstrous villain that we're probably gonna learn about. I'm
(35:07):
sure there's gonna be one big final battle scene where
it goes from being just this creepy little teddy bear
to being the full fledged monster that is hidden inside
of it. So the reason I say it feels like
a film that needs to be seen on a Friday
night in a full theater is because movies like this
in the horror genre need to be experienced with people
to reach their full potential, and I really think that
(35:29):
is what Blumhouse is trying to do. Get Away from
the streaming only releases and focus so much on that
in theater experience, which is so important to horror movies
because it's so much more scary watching it in a big,
dark theater surrounded by other people. Because what you get
in a theater like that that you don't get at
home is other people's reactions, and that is a big
(35:50):
part of it. If you hear someone else getting scared
at a moment, it may make you get a little
bit scared. It just adds this level of intensity. But
also what Blumhouse does in their movies is provide a
little bit of comedy, like we saw with Megan, which
I've told you before that I feel like horror movies
like this are the new comedy genre because of that
juxtaposition of it being scary but also the fun part
(36:12):
about it being scary, it turns into it being funny.
That is what Megan did so well. This kind of
feels like taking that same energy of Megan, repackaging it
up and making a movie like this so essentially ripping
themselves off before we get Megan too. Even going back
to that oh heck no moment I was talking about
that just very much reminds me of a slasher movie
(36:33):
from the nineties or a supernatural movie from the early
two thousands that was just so much more impactful when
you go see it in theaters. So does this movie
look like it's gonna be the greatest thing ever in
the horror genre? No, but it looks like a lot
of fun. And even though they showed a lot of
the plot in this trailer, I pretty much know, give
or take what's gonna happen beginning to end, it is
(36:55):
still a ride I want to go on. I also
love the use of the Temptations in the trailer. You know,
when you get a slowed down pop song from back
in the day in a trailer, you're in for a
scary time. So again, the movie is called Imaginary and
it's coming out in theaters next year on March eighth.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Head that for us next week's edition of Movie by
Framer Park.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Oh yeah, that's gonna do it for another episode here
of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give
my listeners shout out of the week. And usually these
shout outs of the week come to us from email
movie Mike d at gmail dot com or a DM
or comment on TikTok or YouTube, which if you don't
follow me there, you can check out individual movie reviews
at YouTube dot com. Slash Mike Dstro This was an
(37:40):
in person listener shout out because I was on a
run one day on a Monday after I left the
radio show, met someone out on the trail. Somebody coming
down the other way just shout at Mike d Hey,
I'm listening to your podcast right now, and unfortunately, listener
of the week, I did not get your name. It
was a very quick interaction, but one that was really
(38:01):
meaningful because not only did I run into you on
a Monday, which is when I put out in new episodes,
but you just happened to be listening to the podcast
in that very moment. A lot of things had to
go right that day for that exchange to happen. So
I did not get your name, but you looked very
much like an elite athlete. You were running with your
shirt off, and you were listening to a great podcast.
So you are this week's listener shout out of the week,
(38:22):
Shirtless runner. That is what I'm calling you, and thank
you to listening right now, for telling a friend, for
being subscribed, being here every single Monday until next time.
Go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later.
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie Podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today, I want to share
with you what I think are the top seven opening
scenes in superhero movies of all time. I went through
all my favorites and picked out the ones I think
are the most iconic. In the movie review, I'll let
you know how I felt about Joaquin Phoenix's performance in Napoleon.
And then the trailer park. We have a new horror
(00:20):
movie that looks so creepy from Blumhouse because it has
to do with a kid, a teddy bear, and an
imaginary friend all in one. I saw this trailer and
I thought, can't wait to talk about this one. Thank
you for being here, thank you for being subscribed. Shout
out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's
talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like
never before in a movie podcast. A man with so
much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTB with glasses.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
From the Nashville Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
This is Movie Mike's Movie Podcast.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
This great opening scene sets the tone for a superhero movie.
Those first five, seven, sometimes ten minutes, in my opinion,
are the most important minutes. If you don't have me
hooked in in that opening sequence, I'm not ready to
take the ride. I think if you look at all
of the superhero flops in the last ten years, it's
(01:20):
probably because they have a weak opening scene. So I
went through all my favorite superhero movies, both DC and Marvel.
Out of every single one, which seven have the best
opening superheroes scenes. I rated them based upon how iconic
they think they are, the cinematography, the music, how they
set the tone for the entire movie, the level of action,
(01:42):
and just overall entertainment level, and how these scenes changed
the landscape of superhero movies. So let's get right into
the list. At number seven, I have the opening scene
from The Dark Knight Rises back in twenty twelve. What
happens in this opening scene is Bane and his henchmen
and get captured by the CIA, and the CIA captors
(02:03):
are trying to get this information out of them. They
have these bags over their heads, so in that very
opening moment, you don't realize or know that it's Bane
until he starts speaking. Bain had this entire thing orchestrated
and he was going to turn the tables on them.
So what this opening scene does is set the tone
for Bain and how smart he actually is and clues
(02:24):
us into the type of threat he is going to
be throughout this entire movie, where he is always just
one step ahead of Batman and looks like a force
that cannot be taken down. Aside from what this opening
scene establishes with the plot, just visually really gave it
a different feel than The Dark and Knight. Now. Christopher
Nolan also shot The Dark Knight Rises for Imax, but
(02:47):
I feel like he really flexed it in this opening
sequence more so than The Dark Knight because you have
these really beautiful shots up in the sky with the
one plane going and the other plane coming on top
of this plane to take over and then crash the plane,
and Christopher Nolan just always knows how to add value
on the screen and make use of these cameras to
(03:07):
really put you in that situation. It also has two
of my favorite quotes from Bain out of the entire movie.
First up is this one, no one cared who I
was till I put on the Mars, which is a
really great commentary on the psychology and just the nature
of humans that you could take somebody who otherwise doesn't
really alert your interests, doesn't really set off any red flags.
(03:29):
But the minute they do something a little bit different,
like put on a mask or color their hair weird,
I feel like us as a society just gravitate to
that and say, this is weird, this is different, why
are you doing this? So it even reminds me of
musicians who kind of have like a gimmicky thing that
becomes the thing they get known for, and it's just
a way to get attention on your music. Maybe you
have a weird hairstyle, you do something weird on stage
(03:52):
that it just is so polarizing that people gravitate towards
that you hook them in, but then you keep them
around with your music. I think that's just what we
do as a society. In this case, Bain having the
mask makes him feel like more of a threat, makes
him feel like more of a mystery, and the entire
time the CIA is trying to get answers out of
him of why he is wearing the mask. My other
favorite quote in this sequence is this one the fire Arisals,
(04:16):
which also sets the tone of the action that will
follow this sequence. So those are two of my top
four quotes from Bain in this entire movie. The other
two would be this one, punishment must be most be
and of course this one. Oh do you think Doc
loses your ally? You merely adopted the doc. I was
(04:37):
born in it, molded by it. Bain is just such
a great villain and it was really just showcased and
highlighted in this opening sequence. That's why I put The
Dark Knight Rises at number seven and number six from
nineteen ninety eight. I have a movie that is so
overlooked in Marble really when it comes to the superhero
(04:59):
genre for what it did back in the nineties. The
movie is Blade. Wesley Snipes did an incredible job capturing
the energy of this vampire slayer superhero, and this opening
sequence feels so nineteen ninety eight, but that is what
I love it. It starts out with this guy who
goes to a nightclub and then realizes that everybody in
(05:19):
this club our vampires. Once blood starts coming out of
the sprinkler system, everybody's covered in blood, and I just
can imagine that this scene was a nightmare to film
because your entire body is covered in red. They probably
took forever to get this off of their skin, but
it was so worth it because of that visual of
it just spraying down and covering everybody. And then you
(05:39):
look over at all the faces of people and they
have their vampire teeth, And just as it looks like
our guys about to go down and become a victim
of these vampires, outcomes Blade in the nick of time
and he disposes every single vampire in sight. But the
great thing about this opening sequence, and the great thing
about Blade, is how cool he is. He's taking out
(06:03):
these people in the coolest way. He's killing these vampires
in the coolest way possible with his blades, with his
silver bullets, and he does it so cool, calm and collected,
making it feel unlike any superhero adaptation we have seen.
And this was just in nineteen ninety eight, but even
until now, no one has really recaptured the energy of Blade.
(06:24):
So what this opening sequence did was create an exciting
change in the genre and showing that they could be ultraviolent,
dark and cool, which I feel is now more of
the space that DC is operating in. And I'm hoping
with the Blade remake they do with Maherschela Ali that
they go back to the basics here, because if you
go back and watch this movie, some of the special
(06:47):
effects may not hold up, like when he kills a
vampire and they burst into flames and evaporate. It looks
very nineteen ninety eight. But the overall action and the
overall just tone of the character is so perfect. If
they could just replicate that and update those small little
special effects without putting him into this whole entirely different
(07:08):
sci fi world which he doesn't really need to go in,
he could be a very much grounded character. If they
are able to do that with a new version of Blade,
it could honestly be one of the best Marvel movies
in years, because it's R rated. At the time, it
was the first R rated Marvel movie. Now we've had
Deadpool and Logan, and it's just so hard to do
(07:28):
vampire movies because they come across so cheesy naturally in film.
I feel like if you could just strip everything down
and keep it so cool again. So I just wanted
to show some recognition to one of the best superhero
movies that often gets overlooked, and a great opening sequence
at number six is Blade at number five from twenty fourteen.
(07:50):
I'm going with Guardians of the Galaxy. Not only is
it a great opening sequence of Peter Quill showing us
exactly who he is dancing to this song on an
abandoned planet as these kicking aliens using them as microphones,
you really learn everything you need to know about the
(08:11):
character's personality. And that is what I love about a
great opening sequence. Time and time again, the Guardians of
the Galaxy franchise has done this. It really became their thing,
even with two and with three having that big, fun
opening sequence. But this scene came at a time where
Marvel really needed it in twenty fourteen. And why I
(08:31):
included this scene on my list is because this represents
the tonal shift that Marvel had at this time, where
it was becoming not dark in the sense of like
a grittier tone, but it was very much focused on war,
very much focused on all the friction between the characters,
and there needed to be some levity now. They always
had like the cheesy one off remarks from superheroes that
(08:53):
became known as you know, superhero comedy lines. Always just
that one little quick moment that It made us all laugh,
but over the movies were still fairly serious. And what
Guardians of the Galaxy was. It became the franchise that
was known for just having fun and doing things differently
and being so rooted in sci fi, and that is
(09:14):
exactly what this opening scene represents. It became the blueprint
for the rest of the MCU. Even until now, it
is still writing off of the momentum that this scene
in this movie created back in twenty fourteen. Without this
scene and Guardians of the Galaxy, the MCU would have
failed in the twenty tens. It needed the Guardian of
(09:35):
the Galaxy to make everything work, to connect everything, to
bring that fun energy and bring characters in that we
really cared about. But it was this scene that kicked
it all off. You have our hero singing along. We
all knew we were into something fun and something special.
So at number five, I have Guardians of the Galaxy.
At number four, we'll move it ahead just one year,
(09:57):
staying in the MCU, I have the opening scene from
Avengers Age of Oltron, which I also included this on
my list because I feel overall, when you look at
all the Avengers movies, this one is often viewed as
being the worst, but I've gone back time and time
again to rewatch Age of Oldtron, and I think that
isn't a true statement. There's a lot that happens in
(10:18):
this movie that is so important throughout the entire Infinity saga,
and I really feel like at its core, Age of
Oltron is a great movie. It just wasn't what we
wanted at the time that it came out. But if
you go back and rewatch all the Avengers movies in order,
it is so strong and the opening sequence is one
of my favorites. Because of the action in this one,
(10:39):
the Avengers are already a thing, and I always say
part two in a superhero movie is sometimes better than
part one because no origin story needed. It's already established
that they are your team and you get right into action.
It is top tier. You have every single character showing
what makes them amazing in just the first ten minutes
(10:59):
of this movie. The incredible Hold has the best fight
sequence he has ever had in any movie in Avengers
Age of Ultron, and he has always been a special
character for me, even though his solo movies often get
over criticized. Seeing him at his best is just there's
nothing better than that. But hands down, the best moment
(11:21):
in this opening scene is when they are all lunging
forward and it's the full Avengers team in like a
small little slow mo maybe one, two, maybe three seconds,
but you see every single hero in action lunging forward,
and it is the best action frame in any Avengers movie. Yeah,
you could say the Avengers first assembling in the first movie,
(11:45):
or then an endgame when you have everybody on screen.
But if you just took one single image, if I
just wanted one frame photo on my wall, it would
be this one with all of our characters here lunging forward.
It gives all six members a time to shine and
gave us this gem of a moment from Captain America
and Ironman calling him out language Jarvis, what's the few
(12:05):
from upstairs? Twit a second? No one else is going
to do with the fact that KP just said language
I know. And then shortly after that it gave us
one of the darkest scenes in the entire Avengers movies.
Whenever Tony Stark has the vision that all of the
Avengers are dead, I love it. That's why I put
Age of Ultron at number four, at number three is
(12:29):
the movie that blew my mind at twelve years old,
sitting in the movie theater thinking this scene was so
well executed, and it's from a franchise again that I
feel doesn't get the recognition it deserves. But you know
who's going to give it to him. I'm going to
give it to him. The movie is X two X
Men United. It came out in two thousand and three,
(12:49):
and it's the scene where night Crawler attacks the Oval
Office and attempts to take out the President and as
a result, creating a full fledged war between humans and mutants,
and also just shows you how powerful one single mutant
can be in attack mode. This scene captures how exciting
and thrilling these movies were, at least in the first three.
(13:12):
But it starts out at the White House, which just
anything that takes place at the White House has a
little bit more weight to me because it seems like
a place that nobody should be allowed to go. So
seeing something like this take place in a movie, it
really puts you thinking of this crazy situation that what
if mutants were actually real? What if superheroes were a
(13:33):
thing in the real world, how would we protect ourselves
from them? But it starts at the White House. You
have this mysterious man who is approached by security and
it turns out to be Nightcrawler. First you see his tail,
then you see his powers where he can teleport. You
see like this cloud, a wiggly smoke where he once was,
and then he ends up in a new location and
as he's working through all of the Secret Service, he's
(13:55):
trying to make his way to the Oval Office. He
makes it to the Oval Office, takes out everybody in there,
is about to stab the President, but then get shot,
teleports away, but leaves behind the message Mutant freedom now.
So this opening scene was to post to show us
the tension between the mutants and the humans, which is
the most important plot point in all of these original
(14:19):
X Men movies. But what I love about this opening
scene is how much it still holds up to today.
There was so much attention to detail in creating comic
book accurate representations on the big screen with these X
Men movies, so they spent so much time and effort
and money in makeup. And I love the detail you
(14:40):
see on Nightcrawler's face as he's opening up his mouth.
You see his sharp teeth and it would be one
thing just to paint him entirely blue, but they also
add these little details on his skin that are almost
like raised tattoos all over his face to give him
that next level of details. They did the same thing
with Rebecca Romain as Mystique, and the decis to do
that and not try and v effects Nightcrawler is what
(15:04):
makes this opening sequence great. And then you also have
the music happening behind all of this action that takes
it to another level. My god, and something you may
not notice after watching it for the first time, but
(15:27):
Nightcrawler doesn't actually kill anybody in that opening sequence, which
is later revealed his moral dilemma of killing humans and
really shows that he was just there to send a
message to end all of the mutant hate. So this
scene was so exciting, so thrilling. I love it when
movies get right to the action in that very opening sequence.
(15:48):
That's why I put it at number three. At number two,
I'm keeping it in the X Men world, but we're
moving all the way to twenty seventeen with Logan this movie.
Oh I put this entire movie in my top five
superhero movies of all time because of Hugh Jackman's performance
because of the entire story of an age Wolverine and
(16:10):
his powers are fading, but he has all this rage
and him still just trying to live a normal life
and after living a long, long life, not being able
to fight like he once used to regenerate as quickly
as he could, He's trying to take care of Professor Xavier.
There's just something about an age superhero that just really
(16:32):
hits me in the gut. But the art of this
opening sequence was so attention getting, and I think it's
because this movie was rated R that we finally had
Wolverine unleashed unlike ever before. So I feel like this
is where we truly got to see the grit of
the character and how brutal he could be. So what
happens in this opening scene is we find out that
(16:54):
Wolverine is now working as a chauffeur, driving around people
who are getting drunk in the back of his limb.
He decides to take a nap in his limo and
then finds these people trying to steal the rims and
tires off of his car. He confronts them, and as
he confronts them, they cut them off mid sentence. And
just shoot them, and they think, oh, that's over. We
kill the guy. Now, let's get his rims. But what
(17:16):
they don't expect is to him to get up and
start fighting him. And my favorite part in this opening
scene is where they start to overtake him. They're just
jumping in kicking him, and he gets so filled with
rage that he just unleashes. And in that moment of
him unleashing, we see what a rated R Wolverine movie
is going to be. So you see him take the
(17:47):
blades that are coming out of his hands and just
rip people to shreds, tear off ligaments, and it is
so brutal and so bloody, and I love it. It
lets you know that you're in for a much more
harm sure look at the character, and a much more
violent approach to a superhero movie that we have ever seen.
And as shocking as that violence was, it made this
(18:11):
movie special and remains a perfect opening to a superhero movie.
And I would say the best X Men movie of
all time. And if it wasn't for number one, this
easily could have been up there as well. But that
is number two. Before I get to that number one,
I do have some honorable mentions Deadpool from twenty sixteen,
the entire slow mo joke sequence and then seeing all
(18:34):
of the cliches listed of superhero movies, which is really
what that movie did, and the statement it made of
poking fun of the entire genre that even at that time,
back in twenty sixteen, felt oversaturated and kind of played out.
So that was a fun moment. You also have the
opening sequence from Batman nineteen eighty nine that was important
because the Batman character was viewed as very jokey before that,
(18:57):
and Tim Burton was even seen as kind of a
living start to make a serious superhero movie until you
saw that opening sequence and you realize, oh, this is
the tone we're going for here. This is not going
to be Adam West doing a dance number. So that
movie's opening sequence was really important. From twenty twenty one,
I also love the Suicide Squads opening sequence from James Gunn.
(19:18):
I love that it took all the time to establish
these characters at the very beginning, only to have them
all wiped out in really hilarious and violent ways in
that opening. So those are a couple honorable mentions, but
at number one is one I would say is not only,
hands down the best opening scene in a superhero movie
(19:39):
quite honestly might be my favorite opening scene to any
movie of all time. It is from two thousand and
eight The Dark Night, easily the opening scene I have
watched the most out of this entire list. Sometimes I
just go and watch this scene because of how good
it is. And after this scene ended, I remember seeing
(19:59):
it in the and looking around and feeling like everybody
knew the ride we were about to get into. And
this was before we all knew how impactful Heath Ledger's
Joker was going to be. We didn't really know it
and didn't really feel it until his opening scene. But
what happens in this opening scene is you have this
group of criminals, all wearing these clown masks, and they
(20:20):
are trying to carry out a heist of this bank,
and they all have very specific jobs throughout this entire heist,
and they keep talking about their boss, the Joker, and
as they all performed their individual jobs, they all get
taken out by another guy. So what this opening scene
shows is the sophistication of Joker, but also the fact
(20:42):
that he doesn't care about anything and all he wants
to do is watch the world burn because throughout that
entire process of one getting taken out by the other,
who was left standing at the end it is Joker
and his ability to kill members of his crew without
even flinching. Is probably my favorite part of the opening
(21:02):
scene is a true representation of the character. But my
favorite moment of the scene is whenever it's finally revealed
that it's Heath Ledger behind one of these masks. You
have his interaction with the owner of the bank, and
then his escape as he hops onto the bus and
drives it right into traffic. This scene is a ten
out of ten. I'm betting the Joker told you to
(21:23):
kill me soon as we loaded the cash. No, no, no, no,
I killed the bus driver. Bus driver, look at you.
What do you believe it?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (21:34):
What I believe? Whatever doesn't kill you simply makes your stranger.
What this opening scene taught me is that it really
goes all back to basics on creating tension and making
a meaningful open to a movie that starts out cold.
(21:55):
And I credit this all to Christopher Nolan, who I
mentioned earlier when talking about The Dark Knight. Right is
also here in The Dark Knight. There are no special
effects going on as far as fancy techniques, no lens, flare,
no closeups on any of the characters, but yet does
a great job of pacing and making you feel it
and making each moment seem so significant, And even if
(22:17):
you took away all the action from this opening scene,
it has my favorite single frame from any opening of
Jokers standing on that corner with a mask in his
hand and a Duffel bag in the other hand, just
slightly looking over his shoulder. That one frame is all
I need to know about the Joker and all I
need to know about the Dark Knight. You can capture
(22:38):
that in one frame, you deserve every single oscar. So
that is the list my top seven opening scenes in
superhero movies. If you want to let me know one
you think I missed or one you think should be rated,
hire hit me up on email moviemke d at gmail
dot com, or find all my socials in the episode
notes we'll come back, we'll talk about Napoleon, and then
the trailer park, we'll talk about a new scary movie
(22:59):
called Imaginary. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free
movie review of Napoleon. I will let you know that
I had really high expectations going into this movie because
look at the cast and the leading role as Napoleon Bonaparte.
You have Joaquin Phoenix, who is arguably one of my
favorite actors still working today. He's been in Her Walk
(23:23):
the Line, he was the Joker, he was in Gladiator,
so many movies that I'm always just automatically attaching myself
to any new project that he has coming up, and
I feel highly invested into seeing how it plays out
into his career and where it fits in between all
of his movies. You also have Vanessa Kirby playing his
wife Josephine in this movie. You may know her from
(23:44):
The Crown. Most recently just saw her in Dead Reckoning
Part one and I thought she was fantastic in that.
But then you have the director Ridley Scott, who has
done movies like Alien, Thelma and Louise, Gladiator, so it's
working with Joaquin Phoenix again, also movies like Blade Runner,
the list of on and on, and he's a director
who has a very high variety of different types of movies,
(24:05):
and I love those type of directors who is really
not just typecast as doing one thing really well. He
can do action, he can do romantic movies, he can
do war movies. He can really do it all. As
of late, his last two films haven't been the biggest
fan of But I thought him taking on the story
of Napoleon in a big epic war movie was gonna
be his bread and butter. And with a movie like this,
(24:27):
I thought it was going to rattle me. And in
the end, it didn't really do it. So what this
movie was about was the rise and fall of Napoleon,
how he went from nothing to having it all and
then to losing it all. It takes place in the
late seventeen hundreds and early eighteen hundreds, and you start
out getting to see how brutal this movie is, and
(24:47):
Kelsey went with me. I told her she would probably
enjoy this movie because she loves history, but she didn't
want something to be so overly gruesome, and I was like,
that's gonna be fine, you're gonna love it. With in
the first five minutes, they used the guillotine to slice
somebody's head off, and that really set the tone of
the entire movie of how brutal it was going to be.
(25:08):
The war scenes are very bloody, very detailed, very gruesome.
Very shocking, which isn't a surprise coming from Ridley Scott,
But I honestly thought that was where this movie shined
because I feel like this is where they spent the
majority of the budget to make these war scenes look
really good. The war scenes really reminded me of Game
of Thrones, those being the best episodes whenever they spent
(25:30):
a lot of money to make those wars and battles
look really good. But a lot of the movie dealt
with that, when Napoleon and the French army and these
really crazy battles where there were a lot of casualties
and really shows you the recklessness that was Napoleon. And
aside from that, the movie served as a character study
and a look into the life off the battlefield with
(25:51):
his relationship with Josephine, who they had a really troublesome,
all you would say toxic relationship, but even looking back
in the late seventeen hundreds early eighteen hundreds, I wonder
if this was just the norm. To say the least,
their relationship was toxic. There was a lot of cheating,
there was a lot of arguments, a lot of abuse,
a lot of him being angry at her for not
(26:13):
loving him more so on the forefront, the way all
the French people see him as this very powerful, reckless,
fearless leader, and then behind closed doors he was a
lot more sensitive than you would expect. Very melancholy is
how he describes himself in the movie. The other interesting
thing about their relationship, and really this entire movie is
(26:35):
the weird levels of comedy that I was not expecting.
There were just things that were oddly funny in between them,
arguing that I found the entire theater laughing. At one
scene in particular, I had to write down a line
where Napoleon said Destiny has brought me to the slam
chop and I just loved that line. That was very
memorable and just something that I wasn't really expecting for
(26:56):
it to have any kind of levity. It did feel
a little bit out of place, but I was like, Okay,
if they're trying to bring some humor into this movie
that's relatively dark, dismal, gruesome and bloody, I'll take it.
So when it came to the acting, I don't know
if it was just because I expected more from Jaquin
(27:16):
Phoenix and Vanessa Kirby for the matter, which I think
she was actually the one with the better performance throughout
this entire movie. I don't know if it was them
and their chemistry or really what I think it was
was just the nature of this story and trying to
depict these characters from the late seventeen hundreds and early
eighteen hundreds, and I just think this is how people
(27:36):
acted back in the day. Because the acting was so subtle,
it felt a little bit boring to me. So I
really think they were playing the characters right just them themselves.
Weren't that interesting to learn about. And I think for me,
I already come out a place where I really don't
like period pieces, but I'm open to them. I got
a little bored here in there. About ninety minutes into
(27:59):
the movie, I felt myself becoming more invested and thinking, Okay,
I think they're getting somewhere. I think there's actually going
to be a big payoff here. And then I kind
of realized that it was kind of going to be
a lot of the same thing. So I didn't really
necessarily hate it, but definitely was expecting a lot more.
Even when it came to the visuals, there was a
lot left to be desired because Apple Films right now
(28:22):
are crushing it. Visually, anything I sit down to watch
that comes from Apple, I just know that it's going
to have a higher quality to it. I don't know
what standards they have when it comes to filming and
editing and the cameras they use, but they always just
look like a step above what anybody else is doing
right now. But when it came to this movie, it
(28:42):
felt and looked a little bit generic, like a normal
war movie, and I was expecting it to look more
like a spectacle, something that demanded the big screen. If not,
I could have just waited to watch this on Apple TV. Plus,
when it comes out down the line probably goes back
to what I said earlier that they spent so much
on the battles that maybe there just wasn't enough money
to go around at the end of the day. So
(29:04):
I really felt that this movie could have looked better,
especially since Ridley Scott worked with a cinematographer that has
been his go to in a lot of his movies
that have looked the part, but where the cinematography lack.
I found myself loving the wardrobe Napoleon had drip. I
was a dude in the late seventeen hundreds early eighteen hundreds.
I would want that same look you mean, the big,
weird looking hat, the emperor uniform. I would want to
(29:26):
look like Napoleon. I feel like if this movie would
have been forty five minutes less, I would have loved it.
I want the opposite of the director's cut. I want
all the fat taken out and give me just the
meat of this movie and what I need to know
about Napoleon and take out some of the stuff that
just felt a little bit boring period piece, especially for
a movie that costs almost two hundred million dollars to make.
(29:48):
They could have saved themselves some cash there. I did
love what Ridley Scott said in response to some critics
who said the movie wasn't completely historically accurate, and he said,
when I have issues with historians, I ask, excuse me, mate,
were you there?
Speaker 2 (30:01):
No?
Speaker 1 (30:02):
Well, then shut the blink up. Which is just funny
because you have to take some liberties in making a
movie about history, and there was so much research he
did while making this movie, and of course you're gonna
embellish some things to make a more cinematically appealing. So
I don't really have any issue with that. And I
just know when going to watch a movie about something
(30:24):
that happened in history, it's probably not all gonna be
down to the facts. If they did, it would probably
be a much more boring movie, not just in this
movie's case, but any movie in history. So I really
don't think this movie is for everybody, unless like me,
you're a big Joaquin Phoenix fan, or you're just really
into war dramas. Kelsey did not enjoy this movie whatsoever,
(30:47):
so I think that's also a pretty good indicator of
somebody who is not a fan of this type of movie,
because it was over the top gory and graphic. There
was one scene in particular, there's not any graphic nudity,
but there is you know what happens. There was a
scene that went down and then forty five seconds later
this family walked in, and I was like, if they
would have walked in just a minute earlier, probably looking
(31:09):
for the Trolls movie, they would have been traumatized. So
that's also letting you know what else to expect from
this movie. But in the end, I did find myself
enjoying the movie. I just thought it was gonna be
a movie that would stick with me, especially going into
Oscar season, I thought that Joaquin Phoenix would maybe have
another Oscar worthy performance, we would have a Best Director
nomination here. I don't even think that's the case. So
(31:32):
for Napoleon, in honor of one of the most gruesome
scenes in the movie where his horse gets taken out,
I give it three out of five horses. It's time
to head down to movie.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
Mike Trey Lar Paul.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
If there's a kid in a horror movie talking to
a demonic presence, I'm all in. I don't care how
good or bad the movie is. I just know I'm
going to like it because that is all playing to
my taste in horror movies. And that is exactly what
we have here. And the new Blumhouse movie called Imaginary,
it's about a kid who gets really attached to this
teddy bear, but the teddy bear is talking to her.
(32:10):
So before I get into some more creepy moments from Imaginary,
here's just a little bit of the trailer. And every
culture has entities that tether to the young. We call
them imaginary friends. You are always saying with your imaginary friend.
When the connection with severb, the entity becomes in rage,
(32:34):
he says he's right behind you. Can I hang out
with your imaginary friend? He's not imaginary, He's not your friend.
So what this movie is about. You have a character
named Jessica who moves back into her childhood home with
her family and her youngest stepdaughter is named Alice. She
develops this eerie attachment with a stuffed bear named Chauncey,
(32:56):
which Chauncey is just a weird, creepy name, and you
know there's gonna be some crazy backstory to Chauncey. But
she finds them in the basement and then they start
playing all these games together, and she has this list
that she's talking about of all these things that Chauncey
wants her to do, and they get creepier and creepier
as you go down the line of things. One of
them involves her having to hurt herself. In the trailer,
(33:19):
you see her pull this board out of a fence
that has a nail on it, and then she puts
the board down and it looks like she stabs her
hand right through the nail. So there are a lot
of things I love about this movie. Just going back
to Blumhouse, who I feel is taking a lot of
risk and horror right now. If you're not familiar with Blumhouse.
Earlier this year, they brought us Megan and they also
put out five nights at Freddy's pretty recently. And even
(33:41):
though I didn't entirely love that movie, I can respect
how much money that movie made on a really modest budget.
And that is the beauty of horror movies is as
long as you have a great concept a unique style,
you can turn a little bit of money into a
whole lot of money at the box office. So it
(34:02):
is a great genre for your return on investment. And
then if you make one that you didn't spend a
whole lot of money on and then it didn't do
so well and people hate it, well at least they're
not out a whole lot of money. I also learned
that from Jason Blum, who was a guest shark on
Shark Tank. He did the Halloween episode and told his
entire life story and how he created Blumhouse. So that
as another pleasure of mine sitting down on a Friday
(34:23):
night and watching Shark Tank. But going back to Imaginary,
it feels like a film that needs to be seen
in a full theater on a Friday night. In this trailer,
it has what I call a oh heck no moment.
Clean that up a little bit for the young ears listening,
but it has that moment where the teddy Bear is
sitting in a hallway. You have this teenager on the
(34:44):
other end thinking how did this teddy bear get here?
And then the teddy Bear starts to move. That is
a situation where, if it were in the real world,
you would just high tail it out of there and
not look back. But instead the kid stays there. The
teddy Bear gets closer and closer and closer, and then
a quick second you see it kind of erupt into
this monstrous villain that we're probably gonna learn about. I'm
(35:07):
sure there's gonna be one big final battle scene where
it goes from being just this creepy little teddy bear
to being the full fledged monster that is hidden inside
of it. So the reason I say it feels like
a film that needs to be seen on a Friday
night in a full theater is because movies like this
in the horror genre need to be experienced with people
to reach their full potential, and I really think that
(35:29):
is what Blumhouse is trying to do. Get Away from
the streaming only releases and focus so much on that
in theater experience, which is so important to horror movies
because it's so much more scary watching it in a big,
dark theater surrounded by other people. Because what you get
in a theater like that that you don't get at
home is other people's reactions, and that is a big
(35:50):
part of it. If you hear someone else getting scared
at a moment, it may make you get a little
bit scared. It just adds this level of intensity. But
also what Blumhouse does in their movies is provide a
little bit of comedy, like we saw with Megan, which
I've told you before that I feel like horror movies
like this are the new comedy genre because of that
juxtaposition of it being scary but also the fun part
(36:12):
about it being scary, it turns into it being funny.
That is what Megan did so well. This kind of
feels like taking that same energy of Megan, repackaging it
up and making a movie like this so essentially ripping
themselves off before we get Megan too. Even going back
to that oh heck no moment I was talking about
that just very much reminds me of a slasher movie
(36:33):
from the nineties or a supernatural movie from the early
two thousands that was just so much more impactful when
you go see it in theaters. So does this movie
look like it's gonna be the greatest thing ever in
the horror genre? No, but it looks like a lot
of fun. And even though they showed a lot of
the plot in this trailer, I pretty much know, give
or take what's gonna happen beginning to end, it is
(36:55):
still a ride I want to go on. I also
love the use of the Temptations in the trailer. You know,
when you get a slowed down pop song from back
in the day in a trailer, you're in for a
scary time. So again, the movie is called Imaginary and
it's coming out in theaters next year on March eighth.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Head that for us next week's edition of Movie by
Framer Park.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
Oh yeah, that's gonna do it for another episode here
of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give
my listeners shout out of the week. And usually these
shout outs of the week come to us from email
movie Mike d at gmail dot com or a DM
or comment on TikTok or YouTube, which if you don't
follow me there, you can check out individual movie reviews
at YouTube dot com. Slash Mike Dstro This was an
(37:40):
in person listener shout out because I was on a
run one day on a Monday after I left the
radio show, met someone out on the trail. Somebody coming
down the other way just shout at Mike d Hey,
I'm listening to your podcast right now, and unfortunately, listener
of the week, I did not get your name. It
was a very quick interaction, but one that was really
(38:01):
meaningful because not only did I run into you on
a Monday, which is when I put out in new episodes,
but you just happened to be listening to the podcast
in that very moment. A lot of things had to
go right that day for that exchange to happen. So
I did not get your name, but you looked very
much like an elite athlete. You were running with your
shirt off, and you were listening to a great podcast.
So you are this week's listener shout out of the week,
(38:22):
Shirtless runner. That is what I'm calling you, and thank
you to listening right now, for telling a friend, for
being subscribed, being here every single Monday until next time.
Go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later.
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