JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time, Coming Soon to Tubi

Val Armorr was the original “Karate Kid,” predating the 1984 movie by almost twenty years, from the 31^st Century. The member of the futuristic Legion of Superheroes was never a marque DC character. Presumably, that is why they never litigated the title (for which they were thanked in the credits). Unfortunately, Armorr makes a real dog’s breakfast of things in the future, causing trouble for the Justice League in the past at the outset of Giancarlo Volpe’s JLA Adventures: Trapped in Time, another animated DC film coming to Tubi this Saturday.

In the present, for now, the Justice League foils an attempt by the Legion of Doom to counter-intuitively build up the polar ice cap, to profit from the resulting environmental disruption. Unfortunately, Lex Luthor is buried within the ice, where he remains lost until the 31^st Century.

In the future, Karate Kid and Dawnstar, a more responsible prospective member of the Legion of Superheroes gawk at his display in the superhero museum. Unable to control his rash impulses, Armorr accidentally releases Luthor from the ice. The dangers compound when the mastermind steals a cosmic hourglass bound to the mysterious Time Trapper.

Using the Time Trapper’s powers, Luthor first returns to the present, with Karate Kid and Dawnstar secretly following him. He then sends Bizarro, Solomon Grundy, Cheetah, and Toy Master back to the past, so they can send Kal-El back into space. The Flash, Cyborg, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman manage to follow them—but maybe Aquaman isn’t perfectly suited for the Kansas terrain.

Unlike the R-rated Justice League Dark, Trapped in Time tries to deliberately evoke the tone of the 1970’s Justice League/Super Friends Saturday morning cartoons. However, screenwriter Michael Ryan offers some clever time travel twists. In fact, it is much smarter in the way it handles potential time paradoxes than the 2001 Justice League series.

Almost Paradise, Season Two, on Freevee

Don't go to Barbie. Watch the second season of this Philippines-set cop show instead. Yes, they are vastly different, particularly in terms of their ethical bearings. Barbie features a child-like rendering of China’s imperialistic “Nine-Dash Line,” which asserts their illegal claims to the waters and fishing rights of the South China Sea, way beyond its borders. The studio claims their prop map just coincidentally resembles the CCP’s notorious Nine-Dash Line, but has there ever been a film that lavished greater attention on its art direction and design details than Barbie?

In contrast, the third episode of Almost Paradise’s second season directly addresses the dire economic hardships experienced by Filipino fisherman as the result of China’s naval imperialism. There are also ten new crimes for the somewhat unlikely trio of detectives to solve in season two of creators Dean Devlin & Gary Rosen’s Almost Paradise, which premieres today on Freevee.

If Almost Paradise sounds vaguely familiar, season one premiered on WGN, back in 2020. Now, it is a Freevee, show, but little else has changed, except Alex Walker’s formerly high blood pressure. For health reasons, he retired from the DEA and moved to Cebu, where he had fond memories from his first case. He actually got healthier, despite working several cases with Mactan detectives Kai Mendoza and Ernesto Alamares, sometimes reluctantly and sometimes through his unwelcome initiative. Their boss, politically savvy (but not corrupt) Chief Ike Ocampo is always eager for the benefits of Walker’s DEA experience—and contacts. The ambitious Mendoza and the Zen-like Alamares are impressive, whereas Walker is grizzled and burned-out, but his new Filipino friends steadily rejuvenate his soul.

Almost Paradise is a very traditional throwback-style of detective show, in that all ten episodes of season two can easily stand alone. There is a recurring villain, Vargas “The Water-Boarder,” a drug lord Walker busted in the first season, but each episode has its own self-contained arc. In terms of theme and tone, the series should appeal to fans of Lenkov-verse shows like Magnum P.I. and Hawaii Five-O, but it also incorporates Filipino and Cebuano culture in smart, interesting ways.

The first episode, “The Magellan Cross,” refers to a relic of early colonial times, but it might be the weakest of the season, so keep going. “Breaking Badminton” is indeed set in a dodgy badminton club, which is about as Philippines as it gets. “A Fishfolk Tale” calls out the Chinese maritime grab by name, while showing how the resulting hardships exacerbated tensions between two clans of fishing families.

“Ghost Month” (S2E6) might be the best episode, exploring local belief in “hungry ghosts,” without completely undermining the supernatural themes with a pat “Scooby Doo” ending. “All In” is a clever caperish installment, wherein Walker agrees to test the security of a luxury casino owned by Ann Villegas, the heiress he is trying to romance, while “Uncoupled” handles some creepy cult stuff pretty well within its forty-some-minute time constraints, when Walker and Mendoza go undercover in a New Age couples retreat.

Other Venice ’16: The Head Thieves

Prison was good for Graham Castillo. When he lazed about all day, they called it “good behavior.” Now that he’s out, he is not so crazy about getting one of those “job” dealios. He has a capery plan instead, but we know what that means. Misadventures ensue in Mike Hermosa’s The Head Thieves (trailer here), which screens as the opening night film of the 2016 Other Venice Film Festival.

Castillo’s grouchy mother prefers his Filipino brothers Frankie and Duncan, even though the duo had been adopted, partly because the latter two were never in trouble with the law and partly because Graham is such a miserable jerk. However, Frankie and Duncan bizarrely idolize their older bro, so they readily agree to help cock-eyed scheme. One fateful night behind bars, Castillo overheard two fellow inmates discussing where they stashed the loot from a bank robbery. Of course digging it up from the almond orchard in question will require more work than any of the three idiots is used to.

Head is a generally amusing collection of gags strung together to approximate a caper narrative, but it features one of the funniest celebrity cameos since Bob Barker laid a beating on Adam Sandler in Happy Gilmore. This time it is Daniel Baldwin (the cool Baldwin Brother), who brings the pain under his own name, when the elder Castillo man-child disrupts his book-signing. Hermosa pushes his luck with an uncredited Andy Dick appearance, because just being the rehab veteran is not funny in and of itself.

However, Dante Basco (who was so ferocious in Paradise Broken) makes a surprisingly endearing sad sack as Frankie Castillo (the one with the Mexican internet girlfriend). He has also some nice bantering chemistry with his real life brother Dion Basco (as Duncan, the even more naïve one), helping balance out the abrasiveness of Mickey Gooch Jr.’s Graham Castillo. Gooch clearly has a Will Ferrell thing going, except he can actually be funny at times.

Basically, The Head Thieves is a low stress, low impact film that should appeal to a demographic much like the Castillo Brothers that frequently patronizes comic book shops and debates pop culture minutiae. Amusing but certainly not essential, The Head Thieves screens tomorrow (10/7) on the opening night of this year’s Other Venice Film Festival.

Paradise Broken: the Mean Streets of Waikiki

This is not Steve McGarrett’s Hawaii. Behind the luxury hotels, sex and drugs are openly sold, with nary a cop in sight. Even though they are locals, a junkie-pimp and his prostitute-girlfriend have a hard time making it on Waikiki’s mean streets in James Sereno’s Paradise Broken (trailer here), which MarVista Entertainment releases today on VOD platforms, including Vudu.

Ray Geronimo and Misha Domingo vaguely dream of owning their own beachfront bungalow, but their day-to-day concerns solely focus on their next hit of smack. Towards that end, Geronimo reluctantly started pimping Domingo out. It was really her idea. She thinks they can do better if they join forces with the Mainlander known only as “Pimp” (seriously, that is all it says on his business cards), but Geronimo sees him as just another outside exploiter. He would rather poach the gangster’s greenest new street-walker. However, Geronimo’s expansionist plans incite Domingo’s jealousy, leading to a messy split at an inopportune time.

Whether together or apart, Geronimo and Domingo will do junkie things as junkies do, which isn’t very pretty to watch, but it is relentlessly honest. Similarly, Sereno is determined to reinforce the notion of two radically different Hawaii’s, immediately following up every glamour shot of the coast line or the night club with an up-close-and-personal look at the underclass squalor of Dante’s life.

As Geronimo, Dante Basco (a veteran of the Awesome Asian Bad Guys) is a tightly coiled spring, always ready to explode with rage. Nadine Nicole Heimann is also plenty erratic as Domingo, while Katherine Emily Mills is a disturbing picture of innocence as the girl he tries to recruit. However, the demonically charismatic Khalil Kain steals scene after scene as Geronimo’s more ruthless rival. Some might consider it a dubious honor, but Kain’s nameless antagonist might be the most distinctive movie pimp performance since Morgan Freeman’s Oscar nominated turn in Street Smart.

Although there is a bit of an over-reliance on flashback devices, Sereno’s execution is still pretty smooth and the ensemble performances are faultless. Still, there is no getting around the fact this is one downer narrative. Nevertheless, it is genuinely a film of and by Hawaii, featuring some breakout-worthy work from its principals. Recommended for those who appreciate gritty, street smart dramas, Paradise Broken launches today (8/11) on VOD, from MarVista Entertainment.