It’s been a good long while since we last had a go-round with The Avengers series, and the folks out at Disney sent over a copy of The Avengers Volume 3 for us to tackle. And if you liked the first two, chances are you’re going to be very happy with the third installment.

The Avengers Volume 3 is a little heavy on the Iron Man this time around, tackling not only Baron Zemo but even Kang the Conqueror, along with a host of other villains from across a wide variety of canons. They’ll be picking up right where they left off from the last volume, with the Avengers team only just starting out, and already full of lots of cracks and individual personalities butting heads. But can they pull it together to make a complete team? Or will the Avengers fall apart before they can even really get started?

And, as is generally the case, we’ll also get a good load of characters from the rest of the lineup, in sufficient numbers that you’ll either be hitting Wikipedia or a whole load of back issues to keep yourself well acquainted with just who’s who and who’s whose enemy and all like that. Plus, there are plenty of good fight sequences involved and sufficient close shaves to keep things from being too easy for the Avengers, and that certainly improves the watchability here by a pretty nice count.

This has proven to be a pretty good series in its previous two iterations, and volume three won’t be seen to disappoint. There’s a great continuity running through this, as little details from the previous installments actually manage to come back with great effect. This isn’t just some Disney kid’s show, this is  a particularly well-written kid’s show, sufficiently good that adults–especially those who are into comic books–will get a big kick out of this one, with plenty of action and some good laughs, as well as a couple of good romantic subplots tossed into the mix.

Whether you’ve got kids who’d appreciate a good old fashioned comic book style action frenzy, or you would appreciate a good comic book style action frenzy, you’ve got everything you need and more right here.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives The Avengers Volume 3 the same nine out of ten as the others landed, as it’s a lot like the rest. But while it shares a lot in common, there are also plenty of differences that make this well worth watching.

Hollywood had a problem. Stephen King’s epic novel The Stand has been hot property for a long time. It’s a massive, sprawling story involving dozens of characters, so how can it be squeezed into a feature film, and who is the man for the job? Apparently, Warner Bros thinks it’s Ben Affleck.

According to Deadline, Affleck has pretty much agreed to make the book adaptation, and just has to sign on the dotted line. But is he the right choice? Gone Baby Gone and The Town both received positive critical reception, and the latter was an immense box-office success. But, the former couldn’t handle its small set of characters and its gritty portrayal of Boston came across as cluttered and pretentious. And The Town couldn’t even develop its two main characters well. Perhaps his next film, Argo (about the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis), will instill enough faith, but surely there must be better directors. Frank Darabont has already adapted King’s novels quite well (AND was involved in post-apocalypse series The Walking Dead). Or what about John Hillcoat or Duncan Jones?

For those interested, The Stand deals with the world after a devastating virus kills most human and animal life on the planet. Survivors wander in groups in an attempt to find a new home, but mysterious forces appear. Groups must decide whether to join the seemingly benign Mother Abagail or the tyrant Randall Flagg. The novel has already been adapted into a 1994 mini-series. Making it a single feature film is an almost impossible task, though many suspect it could become a trilogy of films.

The folks out at Entertainment One sent out a copy of Sanctuary: The Complete Third Season for us to review, and for those of you who like your television heavy on the science fiction, you should be abundantly happy here.

Sanctuary: The Complete Third Season follows a group of folks who form the Sanctuary Network, a group of people out to find the beasts of legend and give them a safe place to live. Because as it turns out, most of them exist. The third season kicks off with a battle against one such creature, Big Bertha, a giant spider with seismic manipulation capabilities who’s attached symbiotically to the chaotic goddess Kali. And from there, it’s going to go on as the Sanctuary Network goes hunting a wide array of these “abnormals”, as well as discovering themselves in the midst of a whole lot of troubles as they find the Sanctuary Network is part of something much, much larger than they think.

As science fiction goes, this isn’t half bad stuff. It’s partially episodic, and at the same time, builds these episodes into a much wider base that provides the long-term viewer with some very satisfying inside references and twists. The visuals are really rather impressive, even if the plot lines aren’t always there a hundred percent. Some of the stuff that goes on here is just downright preposterous, and sometimes, the show will even admit how outright lunatic things they portray are. But still, for a flight of fancy that goes particularly high, it does a pretty fair job of appealing to both casual and devoted viewers.

It’s sharp, but not really original–those thinking Torchwood when they get in on this puppy won’t be too far gone from the truth–and it’s clever, but not particularly witty. You probably caught this on the SyFy Channel once or twice, and it’s not going to be the high point of their lineup. But by like token, it won’t be the worst thing you’ve ever seen, either. I didn’t find it hard to keep up with, and frankly, I’d maybe seen a couple episodes before running through the third season. I was pleased.

Chances are, you will be too.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, gives Sanctuary: The Complete Third Season an eight out of ten. It’s not perfect, not by any stretch, but it will still provide a lot of good old fashioned science fiction fun for those who like it short, episodic and full of monsters, only with a little extra complexity this time.

The folks out at E One sent out a little something interesting, and it’s called Bio-Dead. Now I’ve always been fond of post-Apocalypse movies, and zombie movies, and coupling the two together is often fun, but would this one go like my great classic Romero favorites?

Bio-Dead assumes a really rather limited apocalypse in a place now called the Zone, but was formerly known as Southern California, a popular target for things like this. Anyway, a bunch of terrorists managed to lay hands on something called an “experimental Category A” toxin, which they promptly dumped into the air over SoCal. Four thousand square miles and twelve million dead later, the government sends a team in–apparently both FEMA and the CDC are “under-equipped” to cordon off what is likely the Los Angeles area (and they are; but no one considered the National Guard’s existence in all this. But I digress.) so the government turns to the Eustace-Millard Corporation, who in turn takes over cleanup and documentation.

Bio-Dead looks like the kind of horror movies I used to watch on VHS back when I was fifteen. It’s got the same oddly grainy quality to the video that a lot of them did, and puts me oddly in mind of George Romero’s original iteration of The Crazies. But in this case, Bio-Dead doesn’t so much refer to zombies, as you’d think (as I certainly thought when I went in, as indicated in the above) and is more about ghosts.

It’s a little slow in the early going, which is especially egregious given that the movie itself only lasts a whopping 83 minutes, but it does pick up pretty nicely. Eventually you come to realize just what it is you’re looking at, and you can’t help but smile to know you’re watching a post-Apocalyptic haunted house movie, and the combination proves to be a delightful idea that’s less than properly executed. It’s a clearly low-budget sort of affair, but at the same time, it’s so thoroughly unique that it can’t help but at least be somewhat satisfying.

So if you’re tired of the same old sludge Hollywood is continually churning out, then you might want to give Bio-Dead a try, a taste of something different and truly unusual.

The Screenhead Ten Scale gives the relatively original but improperly executed Bio-Dead a seven out of ten for give it the old college try, yet not quite being able to pull it off. A good try, nonetheless, and well worth a look, but probably not the best thing you’ve seen lately.

Anchor Bay has long since earned my respect for putting out a fantastic lineup of mostly high quality stuff. Sure, they’ve had a clunker or two along the way–who hasn’t?–but for the most part, when I find Anchor Bay horror in my inbox, well, I go after it. And that’s just what I got with a copy of Super Hybrid, which they sent out for me to review.

Super Hybrid takes us out to Chicago, where a mysterious driverless car is on the loose. Possessing the ability to transform itself into other vehicles and lure the unwary into climbing in. Once they do, it devours its own occupants. And now, it’s been towed into a police impound lot, where it proceeds to carry on with its murder spree. Can the night shift of secretaries, mechanics and assorted personnel manage to junk the homicidal ride? Or will this car get away clean?

I have to hand it to these guys–the last time I heard a plot even vaguely similar to this was Christine, and in all honesty, Christine never actually ate anybody. And there is just a bit of similarity between this and a title from the Fangoria Frightfest lineup called Road Kill, but even that’s a bit tenuous at best. This is something of a unique title, and frankly, nothing impresses me quite so much as a unique movie. Now, of course, uniqueness alone isn’t enough to carry the day, but it does go a long way. The only question left: can this perform sufficiently in the execution of its unique idea to be worth watching?

The answer, at least for the most part, is yes. A quite thoroughly resounding yes, as a matter of fact. It does a delightful job of building, and regularly releasing, tension, which is always a plus for any good horror movie.

About the only thing I object to is that they kind of tipped their hand a little early on, showing us the exact nature of the car within the first half hour. However, it did pave the way some pretty nice horror-action hybrid stuff going on, and that’s well worth our time to watch.  Anchor Bay has once again put out a nice quality piece of hardware.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, meanwhile, gives Anchor  Bay’s terrific Super Hybrid an eight out of ten–it’s not perfect, but it’s very watchable. A great blend of horror, action, and just a little bit of sci-fi monster movie thrown in for variety, Super Hybrid does a terrific job.

Ten years ago, a strange little movie emerged that got film buffs talking. While many folks who saw it were left puzzling, plenty of people also enjoyed it. And the folks out at 20th Century Fox sent over a copy of the tenth anniversary edition of Donnie Darko for us to review, and this massive four-disc wonder will leave you…well…probably puzzled once again.

Donnie Darko follows the young man of the same unusual name, a high school student with a strange problem. Donnie’s problem isn’t like the ordinary high school troubles of who likes who or who wants to beat up who, but rather, Donnie is pursued by a bizarre, man-sized rabbit. Said rabbit brings with him bizarre and disturbing visions of both the past Donnie didn’t know about, and the future that no one would know except him. In fact, the rabbit has recently told Donnie when the world will end. But will it come to pass, or can Donnie manage to stop the horror awaiting the planet?

This is not the first time I’ve seen Donnie Darko, and I admit that the second time around was a lot less baffling and a lot more otherworldly. Many people out there, though, aren’t going to be that interested in watching a movie that requires a second viewing in order to seem rational. But if you do, if you’re willing to invest the kind of time that it takes to really grasp the whole thing, you’re going to get a strange, but compelling, and downright disturbing presentation that’s going to take you through, as the headline implies, through weird science (Einstein-Rosen bridges are just for starters) and through freaky wonders and much, much darker things.

The question of the day remains, do you actually want to put that kind of time into this? While there is plenty of freaky, disturbing whatnot going on, you’re going to have to wade through a whole lot of weird, inexplicable whatnot to get there. Semantics to some, and for them, this will be a nonstop delight. Alternate history and time travel buffs need to pay especially close attention; you might want to compare this to The Butterfly Effect, but it’s on the other side. Where The Butterfly Effect was simplistic and focused on the “want of a nail” side of time travel, Donnie Darko just takes one thing and uses it as the lynchpin of the entire time travel concept. Weird, but exciting in its way.

The Screenhead Ten Scale hands Donnie Darko a seven out of ten; it’s weird, it’s tough to follow, it may take a couple tries to get through it, but the end result is fully of bizarre and outlandish wonders that will be plenty exciting in their own right.

I can’t tell you how excited I was to see that Mars Needs Moms was coming out. Created by one of the greatest newspaper cartoonists of all time, Berkeley Breathed (of Bloom County, Outland and Opus), it was great to see something like this come along. But would the movie live up to the greatness Bloom County wrought? The folks out at Disney sent a copy over, and the end result was a serious surprise.

Mars Needs Moms follows Milo, a little boy who’s not exactly happy with his mother these days. A little too much of that eat your broccoli / take out the trash sort of thing has left him a bit soured on it all. But when a horde of Martians abducts his mother to serve in their employ (ironically enough, the Martians actually select his mother because she told him to take out the trash, and he did it), he realizes that he needs her back, and badly. How badly? Badly enough to stage a one-boy invasion of the Red Planet. But he’ll get some help from surprising sources, and he just may have enough skill, courage, and help to make it through Mars and liberate his mom.

Admittedly, the first ten minutes or so are a little too Home Alone for comfort, but after that somewhat shaky start, the full Breathed charm is going to kick in, especially when we meet Reagan-era space traveller Gribble. For those not familiar with Bloom County, that was when Breathed was best. The man knows his eighties, and having Gribble involved is almost like having Portnoy as an astronaut. It’s terrific.

It’s a little on the cliche side, and I’m figuring that’s a bit of that Disney impact shining through, but at the same time, there’s plenty of quality action footage and a lot of sci-fi joy that’s very much Breathed. In fact, by the tail end of this, there’s going to be a good dose of doubt as to whether or not the main character will even survive. It will actually manage to be shades of Total Recall, just nowhere near so graphic.

Mars Needs Moms is actually something of a surprise, with bits of the cliche mixed in with some pretty exciting stuff. If you can forgive the one, then you’ll really get a bang out of the other. And thankfully, the cliche is in relatively small doses against the much more exciting science fiction action sequences, and that makes the whole much more palatable.

The Screenhead Ten Scale lands Mars Needs Moms a seven out of ten; there’s a little more here cliche and overdone than I’d like, but there’s also plenty of good stuff here that will make it well worth watching.

What would you do if you were suddenly a whole lot smarter than you are right now? That’s the basic premise behind Limitless, a copy of which the folks out at Fox sent out for us to review, and it’s a question that has a lot of answers, including more than a few you wouldn’t expect.

Limitless follows Eddie Morra, a writer whose career–indeed, his entire life–has seen better days. Much better days, in fact. He’s burnt out and sinking fast…until he discovers a pill whose existence is kept quite mum. This pill has the power to unlock a human mind’s full potential, and Eddie uses it to the fullest. But when the bill comes due, in the form of horrendous side effects and the drug’s original makers, it just might be enough to kill the formerly limitless Eddie Morra.

Say what you will, this is unique. And uniqueness is one of those great rarities in Hollywood, a town where the best move is most often the one that was mostly already made. And Limitless is an idea that hasn’t been done. Frankly, I can’t recognize any other parallels to this one out there, and that makes it something special.

The idea itself, meanwhile, is a doozy–a smart pill? It’s the kind of thing people have been wondering about since there were pills, and now we’re getting a look at just what that might be like. And a world in which people can become brilliant with the aid of pharmaceuticals is a bizarre world indeed.

This is like the anti-Idiocracy staring us in the face. Instead of a world where the average is brilliant in a world full of dullards, now we’re looking at a world in which people can suddenly become the brilliant average in the world full of dullards.

It’s a wildly complex plot, too, with loads of twists and turns. It’s both science fiction and impressive thriller at the same time, which is in itself a unique prospect.

Frankly, this is one of the better movies I’ve seen in quite some time. It’s impressively written, acted, and done. Robert De Niro’s back in one the best roles I’ve seen in some time, and the whole thing is nothing but a huge shot of awesome. If you like science fiction, crime drama, or thrillers in general, Limitless will be just that, delight without limits.

The end result is that the Screenhead Ten Scale is going to fork over a whopping ten out of ten for Limitless, a unique and very well crafted piece of science fiction thriller that’s all too plausible and beautifully well done. This is definitely one to watch.

Battleship Trailer is promoting the Summer 2012 release, the battle for Earth begins at sea. Whatever happened to Hasbro’s board game of the same name? I thought Battleship was based on the board game. It is obvious the movie is about a battle at sea with awfully big aliens compared to Earth’s tiny battleships. Oh, if you haven’t noticed, there is a love story, too. I am curious, though. Does anyone in the movie say “You sunk my battleship!”?

You remember the last season of Doctor Who? Man, that was great stuff, wasn’t it? Well, things are only going to get better–and weirder–thanks to the return of everyone’s favorite Gallifrey survivor. The folks out at the BBC sent over a copy of Doctor Who, Series Six Part One, for us to review, and once again, you’re going to have a bang up time here if you’re anywhere near interested in science fiction.

Doctor Who, Series Six Part One, once again joins up with the last of the Time Lords and his assorted cohorts. And he’s got plenty to do, too–he’ll be interfering in Earth’s history all over the place, and then, once he’s done that (seriously, by the end of the first episode, he’ll die, or almost die, a couple times, then take on an alien invasion of the strangest sort of aliens I’ve seen in some time–even by the end of the first episode. And then, it carries on from there.

And that’s the amazing thing about Doctor Who in general, and this season in particular–there is a lot going on here. I mean a lot. A lot of a lot, even. Some of it is disturbing, some of it is hilarious, but what it almost never is is boring. This is incredibly taut and well put together science fiction, and it’s intermingling suspense and horror and drama and even comedy with terrific aplomb. You can say what you will, but the last man of Gallifrey will keep your interest at every stretch.

Of course, you’ve got to be something of a science fiction buff to get much out of this, but rest assured that if you do have a fondness for science fiction, you’re going to absolutely love this. It’s some of the most complex science fiction out there, and probably some of the best.

It’s full of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, which doesn’t often lend itself well to being coherent and making sense, but this will often make much more sense by the end than it did at the beginning. And that’s an absolute delight.

The Screenhead Ten Scale can’t do anything but the obvious and hands Doctor Who, Series Six Part One, a full ten out of ten. Here’s hoping that Part Two will be anywhere near as good as Part One was. This is a magnificent piece of science fiction that will absolutely entrance its viewers, and you should be one of them.