Witchblade

I am a big fan of Witchblade. I have every single issue on my shelf. And I always thought, as far as comics go, Witchblade had the potential of being pretty good movie. It doesn't have people running around in spandex and it doesn't have 30 years of story line like Batman, Superman and X-Men have.

But I was skeptical when I heard this movie was being made. If you look at the most of the witchblade comic covers you will Sara Pezzini nearly naked with stratigicly places green vine stuff. So my many concerns were a)are they gonna end up casting some baywatch bimbo and b) how are they gonna do the Witchblade?

My fears were averted. Yancy is an excellent Sara and offered a great performance. Second, they simplified the Witchblade so it still has it's main purpose but not as much special effect. It sets up for a series perfectly, and I hope it becomes a series.

My only grip is Nottingham. If you have read the comic, nottingham is suppose to be tall dark and super sexy. The Nottingham in this film is tall and dark, but doesn't have the sexy. Oh well, Maybe they'll get rid of the hat in the series.

Let's see. The Witchblade is huge undulating tendrils in the comic. Here it's a wimpy little dagger thing that looks like it's made of plastic. Oooh it's so scary, NOT. And frankly, I don't think Yancy Butler is very pretty, nice figure though. She doesn't really look like Sara. She sort of tries to act like Sara. The guy who plays Ian Nottingham talks just like Ian Nottingham would, it's too bad he's this little guy with brown hair who looks nothing like the huge assassin with long black hair. That might be excusable, but where's the katana? His clothes are all wrong too. The plot goes nowhere fast and the action scenes have no tension whatsoever. This movie is like leftovers from a forgotten Steven Seagal flick. They had a small budget and man, does it show. As an action mystery show Witchblade is cliche and predictable (totally unlike the comic), as a comic book adaptation it's a joke. What makes Witchblade, the comic book, cool, is that weird things happen to seemingly normal people and you never know quite what to expect. Due to budgetary constraints, all that was eviscerated from this version and there isn't much left. In place of eerie paranormal investigations and mortal combat, we get a predictable who-dun-it. Well I think you get the point. It was better than Generation X, but lord, it wasn't good.

Young New York detective Sara Pezzini (Yancy Butler) is a chosen one. Clichéd, but true. In a pursuit of finding a murderer of her best childhood friend Sara gains a mystical amulet called the Witchblade, which has a ability of protecting her and arming her with a huge blade. At the same time a mysterious man is deeply interested about all this.

"Witchblade" is a TV movie based on a comic book by same name. As for TV movies go, Withcblade is actually quite enjoyable, though the smaller budget does show albeit the actors do carry the cliché ridden story quite well. This movie apparently was an introductory for a TV series with the same name and cast and that actually does show. It basically introduces all the characters and ends into a notion, that this all will continue and apparently it did.

This movie has some rather silly cuts and segments in it, like from some reason, probably just to add some more length into it, there are couple of short clips of Sara's untextured 3D model running. And some rather annoying music video style cuts and segments and a very, very silly training montage. I could go on and on, but I wont.

When you look under the bottom line, you'll get okay TV action movie. The script, even though not stellar, does work reasonably well, the actors are okay and the action is entertaining enough. And from a TV-series promo it's actually hard to ask anything more.

Movies based on Comic Book adaptations seem to come in two categories: 1) Those that approach the material with a half-hearted, tongue-n-cheek attitude; not really taking the genre very seriously (Batman & Robin, Supergirl, Spawn) and 2) Those that approach the material with a serious, realistic and dark approach (X-Men, Rocketeer, & the Shadow). TNT's adaptation of the Image/Top Cow comic Witchblade falls into the later category. However, in deciding to strip down Witchblade and make it more realistic and non-comic like, TNT has come up with a movie that fails to interest those new to the series and appease those expecting the same type of dark story telling of creator's Marc Silvestri and David Wohl. Although Yancy Butler fills "the glove" well, she doesn't really bring anything new to the character. The story is tired, and disappointingly mundane. The gangster storyline seems a ripoff of so many other Cop vs. Mafia themed stories. The action sequences are particularly boring. Aren't we all tired of the rip-off Matrix effects by now. Witchblade is a surprisingly lackluster pilot and does not really inspire non-fans of the comic, like myself, from wanting to pick up any current issues or tune into any future episodes of the cable series.

Regardless of other comments, Yancey is not the classic beauty queen, but she is plumb sexy. I have enjoyed her in Mann and Machine, and Brooklyn South, in addition to several movies. This is entertainment folks, not literature. Rate it for what it is. I would hope that someone has sense enough to make this a series. It sure would beat some of the garbage out there such as Dharma and Greg, etc, others of that genre.