Idiot Boxing: Inhumans, season 1 (2017); The Punisher (2017)

This show is really the only example of a time when Marvel's
costume designers completely failed or didn't even try to
update costume styles conceived in the 1970s. The rest of the
show's aesthetic is equally hard on the eyes.

Marvel's Inhumans (2017)

Spoiler-Free Review

I really try my best not to be negative in my reviews. While it can be fun to write a pan of a film or TV show that I didn't enjoy, it can too easily become mean-spirited. In an attempt to avoid such, I will simply say that Marvel's Inhumans had me scratching my head as to how the vastly wealthy entertainment powers behind it let such a weak program make it to air.

The show builds from concepts introduced back in the first few seasons of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD show on ABC - that Earth was once visited by the alien race known as The Kree. The Kree introduced humanoid beings with genetic modifications that grant each of them unique and fantastic powers, once they are exposed to a gaseous substance known as terrigen. Although this original group of enhanced beings seems to have long since been wiped out from Earth, many humans still retain a genetic "activator" code which will still trigger the transformations when exposed to terragin. This is how SHIELD agent Daisy Johnson acquired her earthquake powers, just as dozens of other heroes and villains on earth have acquired theirs.

What had not been revealed thus far is that an entire population of Inhumans has long been living in a cloaked colony on the dark side of Earth's moon. This small city is led by a royal family, headed by Black Bolt, his queen Medusa, and a handful of family members and trusted confidants. The story of Inhumans introduces these characters and tells the tale of how Black Bolt's younger brother, Maximus, enacts a coup which sends Black Bolt and his loyal crew hurtling down to Earth. While Maximus rallies the group on the moon into desiring a takeover of Earth for their own use, Black Bolt must find his scattered confidantes and try to stop Maximus.

For its next 8-episode TV mini-series for the ABC network, Inhumans, Marvel Studios decided to offer something unique. One month prior to airing the first episode on television, they released the first two episodes of the show on IMAX screens. I went to see this curious premier, despite my misgivings based on two things: one is that the show runner is Scott Buck, the man who oversaw the Netflix Iron Fist series, which I thought was bland, at best. The second reason is that the few trailers and previews I saw simply did not look good. All the same, I am enough of a devotee of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) that I gave it a shot. In short, it wasn't very good. Fortunately for the show, I had set my expectations extremely low, so I came out mildly intrigued by the few things that the initial two episodes didn't completely fumble.

To put it simply, the show only grew weaker with every one of its eight episodes. I could give a complete blow-by-blow of the problems, but that would take far more energy than I'm willing to give to a show that was bafflingly half-baked; arguably only quarter-baked.

The Inhuman Crystal's vapid stare and dialogue, along with
actor Isabelle Cornish's stilted performance and forced
romance with pretty-boy lunkhead Dave, is emblematic of an
entire host of issues with this show.

There was actually a potentially interesting mythology lying at the heart of the story: a royal family with perhaps a long history (we don't know because this significant detail is never addressed), who has lorded over its subjects with a now-aristocratic detachment. And the notion of the lone powerless family member enacting a coup is not a terrible start. There was even a workable idea about the royal family having to make due without their powers, a bit contrived though it may have been. But the show goes through so many nonsensical or simply dumb plot shifts that it becomes dizzying. The story constantly implies questions that are never answered, forces sentimental romance where is often seems completely out of place, and has some of the most unimaginative dialogue I've seen in an MCU product yet. It also didn't help that the aesthetic of the show - mainly the costumes and sets - were glaringly cheap, and that the acting was spotty at best.

How did this happen? I'm not completely sure, but I'm willing to bet that it had to do with the MCU executives just not knowing what to do with this show. It had first been announced a few years back as a feature-length movie. But that was ditched, leaving the show in limbo for over a year. Then, for whatever reason, it shows up on ABC as a product that bears almost none of the positive qualities of virtually every other MCU TV show.  Despite its years in some form of incubation, the show seems completely rushed and totally underfunded. If this is indeed the case, than I can hardly blame the creative forces involved.

Thus far, I have enjoyed nearly everything in the MCU universe, to the point that I've even watched its lesser offerings like The Incredible Hulk and a few TV shows multiple times. To this point, the only TV show that I felt no desire to rewatch was the tepid Iron Fist. Now, though, Inhumans has set a new low. I simply cannot envision myself sitting through this show again, and I will be amazed if ABC renews it for another season. If it miraculously does, it will take a massive change in approach to convince me to spend any time with it.

Fortunately, Marvel had a vastly better TV offering in the same month...

The Punisher (2017)

Spoiler-Free Review

I was impressed. This series wasn't flawless, but I was completely drawn into the story, themes, and characters of this, the darkest and grittiest story that the MCU has given us yet.

Frank "The Punisher" Castle was never the easiest character in the Marvel Universe to embrace, and I never really did. Even when I was eyeball-deep in Marvel comic books back in the late-1980s and most of the 90s, when the Punisher, along with Wolverine, was about the hottest and most popular comic book commodity around, I couldn't completely get into such a grim, depressing, and usually one-dimensional character. I understood the classic "Dirty Harry" appeal of him, but it was never totally my cup of tea.

Then last year, the Frank Castle character was introduced in the second season of Netflix's Daredevil series. I found this version of the character highly compelling. For me, he and his story arc were the highlight of that season. In it, Castle turns up as a vengeance-seeking killing machine - a former Marine sniper of nearly unmatched fighting ability whose wife and young children had been killed in a public shootout between rival gangs. By the end of the narrative in Daredevil, Castle has exacted revenge upon one of the men secretly responsible for the tragedy, but Castle also learns that there was a larger conspiracy at work. It is on those responsible for these machinations that Castle now aims his figurative and literal crosshairs.

This solo series picks up Castle's quest for bloody revenge. The story takes an unflinching look at warrior culture, military honor, and how those sometimes-noble sentiments can get manipulated and exploited by selfish interests in places of higher power. The story also looks closely at post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), how veterans attempt to deal with it, and how it can warp decent people into unhinged monsters. Not every secondary story is handled with perfect deftness, but I respect its willingness to take a pretty hard look at some disturbing aspects of the very real culture of violence here in the U.S.

The dynamic between former NSA analyst and tech expert
David "Micro" Lieberman is fantastic - arguably the single
deepest and most complex protagonist/sidekick pairing in the
entire MCU.

The Punisher is easily the grisliest tale that the MCU has given us, which is fitting for the Frank Castle character. I found the tone completely appropriate to such a troubled and troubling figure. While one can admire Castle's sense of duty and honor, as well as marvel at his immense toughness and prowess as a fighter, he is ultimately a tragic figure of the highest order. What was explored a bit in the Daredevil series is given a closer treatment here, as the tale gets to the heart of Castle, which is that he has actually had most of his heart and soul ripped out of him. This is made more apparent and sadder when we get several moments to see that Castle was, before he lost his family, a loving husband and father. Fortunately, the show never gets overly sentimental about this, and it doesn't whitewash Castle's darker nature as a natural-born killer and survivor - a nature which was clearly always there, never too far beneath the surface.

Many critics, both professional and amateur, have stated how they found the show to be overly slow. I didn't feel the same. Yes, there are moments where there is no "action," so to speak. Plenty of time is given to Castle's interactions with fellow war veterans, his de facto partner via circumstance, Micro, and even Micro's wife and two children. I actually found most of these moments compelling, as they featured emotional moments that felt genuine and organic, adding depth to what has often been a boring, one-dimensional character in his comic book iterations. Thanks to solid writing and a great performance by Jon Bernthal, The Punisher gives us plenty more than just a one-man army mowing down bad guys for 13 episodes.

Of course, mow down some bad guys, he certainly does. And the action sequences and shootouts are done quite well, taking place in a variety of environments. We have a survival sequence in a Kentucky forest; a ninja-like assault in a tiny office; an Alamo-like stand in Micro and Frank's converted headquarters, and several other memorable battles. I will admit that the blood and gore factor does go a bit over the top for my taste, on occasion, though it does work well as graphic revenge fantasy on that level.

I suspect that this show met with some more tepid reviews because viewers, professional critics and casual ones alike, came in with certain expectations for the character and show. If one was expectinig either a shallow, Punisher: War Zone style start-to-finish bloodbath, this show wasn't going to give it to you. If one was hoping for a tight, Jason Bourne-esque espionage/action thriller, this show wasn't offering that, either. What this show did offer, though, was something that I found highly engaging, and a uniquely dark entry into the MCU canon. Though Frank Castle is ultimately a fatal character whose arc should probably end in his own gruesome death, I doubt that it will play out that way. All the same, I'll be completely on board with a second season of the show, which has already been confirmed.