Blade of the Immortal (2017)

Director: Takashi Miike

A decent, if a bit overstuffed, cartoonish adaptation of a popular, violent samurai-era manga.

The story is based on the hit Japanese manga (comic book) series of the same name by writer and artist Hiroaki Samura. I was a fan of this comic back in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and had kept up with the series for about half of its considerable length. So I was curious when I heard that hyper-prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike (13 Assassins) adapted it into film.

The story is set in feudal Japan, in the thick of the samurai era. A lethally-skilled mercenary known as "Manji" has blood infused with "blood worms," which heal any wounds with amazing speed. This makes Manji virtually immortal, though he seems to be dejected and devoid of purpose in life. That is until a young woman, Rin, seeks his aid in satisfying her desire for revenge. She wants to find and kill Anotsu Kagehisa, the young leader of a group of revolutionaries who want to destroy the long-standing system of formal fighting schools in Japan. Kagehisa and his band, contrary to traditional fighting school structures, uses unorthodox fighting weapons and techniques, making them all heretics in the eyes of the established martial arts schools. Rin wants Kagehisa dead because he killed her father and mother, due to her father's rejection of Kagehisa's revolutionary ideas. Finding and getting to him are no easy feat, however, as the young upstart is surrounded by a large band of ruthless and highly-skilled minions.

Blade of the Immortal is a pretty wild ride, though one that I was prepared for from having read the manga. Director Takashi Miike is known for very flashy, violent movies, and this one is right in his wheelhouse.  The story is populated by colorful - both visually and personality-wise - oddball characters, nearly all of whom range from "violent" to "murderously deranged." As Manji and Rin work their way towards Kagehisa, nearly every edged weapon you can imagine flies, along with buckets of blood. It's stylish, vibrant, and brutal.

Manji squares off against a whole bunch 'o dudes. This is a
pretty typical situation for the deathless, irritable samurai
without a master. His immortality, along with his immense
fighting skills, help even the odds, though.

But is it good? Yeah, I thought so. Not great, but compelling and entertaining enough. It probably would have been better served as a mini-series, though (I just learned that this is exactly what has happened - a full anime series started in late 2018). Despite clocking in at a good two hours and twenty minutes, the movie often felt rushed, introducing and cramming too many new characters down our throats in rapid succession. Most of the key adversaries are strange characters in and of themselves, each of whom could have been given more time in order to reveal the odd and sometimes highly-twisted aspects of their motivations and psyches. As it was, though, a new fighting weirdo would show up, trade blows with Manji, then get killed within a few minutes. After roughly three minutes of slower story, that cycle would repeat. And so it went for the entire second act of the film.

The original manga was a fun, modern, and fantastical take on violent samurai tales, and the movie maintains that spirit. It looks and feels rather campy much of the time, and the final battle scene, as epic as it is, drags out for too long in my opinion. Still, I enjoyed with one, as I imagine others will who want to see a well-done, live-action movie version of a story usually told in comic book or cartoon form. 

Joker (2019)

Director: Todd Phillips

Extremely well-done film that was compelling but grim enough to not demand a re-watch by me anytime soon.

Ostensibly offering a possible origin story for arch Batman villain "The Joker," Joker tells the story of Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a mentally troubled, severely down-on-his-luck man who is trying to find some place for himself in a grim and deteriorating city. Fleck is an aspiring stand-up comedian who lives at home with and cares for his invalid mother, while trying to make ends meet through menial clowning jobs around the depressed metropolis. In addition to generally being very awkward socially, he suffers from emotional swings and a condition which causes him to laugh hysterically and uncontrollably at random moments. When Fleck is bullied one night on a train, he lashes back and kills his tormentors, setting in motion a spiral into violence and true madness for not only Fleck but also the entire city.

More than any "comic book" movie I've seen, Joker has a very clear vision, and it is exceptionally dark. Writer and director Todd Phillips has himself admitted that he sort of hoodwinked Warner Bros studios by dressing up his movie as an origin story for one of the most famous villains in modern pop culture (in an interview on NPR, Phillips pointed out how the title of the movie is "Joker" and not "The Joker"). What he really offered was a brooding commentary on the state of modern U.S. society and its social ills. Fleck can easily be seen as one of the countless people afflicted with mental illness and carrying the burden of caring for unwell family members, but who have been abandoned by the world around them. Fleck and his mother have no other family, no friends, and early in the movie, Arthur's public assistance and medical care are stripped away from him, leaving him to deal with his myriad difficulties on his own. One doesn't have to look very far in the real world to see much of what is portrayed in Joker. The clarity and commitment to this theme distinguish this film from any other "comic book" movie that I can think of (and I've seen tons of them).

For a better comparison, one need only look at several of the grittier films by Martin Scorsese and Paul Schrader. Todd Phillips doesn't bother disguising the fact that he's drawing heavily from movies like The King of Comedy, Taxi Driver, or even the more recent First Reformed. All of these movies deal with angry men who are already teetering on the edge of sanity, and whom we see pushed off. Arthur Fleck is the latest version of a Rupert Pupkin, Travis Bickle, or Toller - people who are struggling to keep a toehold in society but fail in spectacular or violent fashion. What is impressive is not only that Phillips decided to draw from such dark inspirations for this kind of movie, but that he so clearly succeeded.

Arthur, in the middle of one of his uncontrollable and often
out-of-place bouts of laughter. As of now, Joaquin Phoenix is
the second actor to win Oscar Best Actor playing the
notorious villain of comic book origins.

By this time, I probably don't need to point out that Joaquin Phoenix's performance is brilliant (I write this only about a week after he won Best Actor for the role). It is truly a marvel, as painful as it is to take in. All of the supporting cast does a fine job as well, including Robert De Niro himself as an echo of the talk show host character played by Jerry Lewis in The King of Comedy. These performances, along with outstanding costume and set design, lighting, cinematography, and an Oscar-winning musical score, shape the story into something that really is a piece of art.

It must be said, though, that the movie is just as depressing as it sounds. Also in keeping with its inspirations and themes, this is not the easiest film to take. Yes, there are a few moments of dark and gallows humor in a few places, but for the most part this movie is one gut punch after another. And just like those aforementioned Scorsese and Schrader films, Joker is a great movie that I find too tough to take more than once in a very rare while. 

New Release! Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

No Spoilers, sort of (there are some big ones from Avengers: Endgame, for the seven Earthlings who haven't seen that movie yet)

Director: Jon Watts

The Marvel Cinematic Universe just keeps the hits coming, much to the delight of fans like me and the deep chagrin of those who see superhero movies as a blight on the cinematic landscape. Far from Home only solidifies Disney and Marvel's death grip on the blockbuster scene, as it offers yet another blast of a fantasy/action film that points the massive MCU towards its future after the landscape-altering mammoth movie Avengers: Endgame from two months prior. And while it certainly relies on several previous MCU films to convey its fullest effects, it is also a genuinely fun film on its many smaller, more intimate levels.

Picking up roughly eight months after half of the galaxy's living beings have been returned from the "Death Snap" of Thanos, as chronicled in Endgame, Peter Parker and several of his classmates are finishing up their five-year-delayed junior year of high school with a trip to Europe. Unbeknownst to nearly any of his friends, Peter is also dealing with the weight of the loss of his mentor, Tony "Iron Man" Stark. As he is dealing with the pull between the looming responsibilities that Stark bestowed upon him and his desire to live a normal teenager's life, a strange new threat arises in the form of massive elemental creatures attacking various cities around the globe. Attempting to deal with this threat is a newcomer to the superhero game - Quentin Beck, a man who explains that he is from an alternate, parallel universe which was destroyed by the same elemental monsters which threaten to do the same to Peter's earth.

Far from Home was wonderfully entertaining. Maintaining the vibe and buoyancy of the first film, Homecoming, this is definitely one of the most touching, down-to-earth films in the MCU. It's much more in tune with the small-scale charm of Ant-Man than the rollicking, ensemble-cast smash-ups of Avengers: Age of Ultron or even the Guardians of the Galaxy films. I find Tom Holland to be the best Peter Parker yet, no disrespect to Toby McGuire or Andrew Garfield, who did well in their turns as the web-slinger. But Holland brings all of the sweetness, awkwardness, and acrobatics to the role that one could ask. It also helps that the film once again offers a fantastic supporting cast. From Samuel L. Jackson to Jake Gyllenhaal, to the many lesser-known but highly capable talents like Jacob Batalon as best friend Nick or Zandaya as clever love interest MJ, there's not one character who feels out of place or doesn't bring some good laughs.

The story itself is another strong one - maybe one of the better ones in the MCU, in terms of taking some fun turns and offering a few new directions for the Parker character. If one is familiar with the comic books (I was a massive Spider-Man fan when I was younger) or recent cartoons, then certain revelations in the plot will be far less surprising. But even for someone like me, who could mostly see them coming, it is impressive to see how the writers pulled it off. The visual effects, like all MCU movies, are top-notch. More importantly, they are actually used to great effect in two particular sequences, the details of which I will refrain from offering, just to keep from spoiling anything.

Nick Fury's presence highlights the double-edged sword of
a shared film universe: you can bring back great characters
and tell longer and more complex stories, but it stunts
each individual movie's ability to be its own story.

The one criticism I can level at Far from Home is essentially the same one that we can level at every MCU movie, to varying degrees, since the films started building their "shared universe" in earnest, way back in Iron Man 2 in 2010. One cannot fully enjoy this movie without having seen several of the earlier movies in the MCU. If you haven't, then several characters, important and minor, will feel bafflingly enigmatic. If you don't know the full story of Happy Hogan from the Iron Man films or Nick Fury and Maria Hill from a good half-dozen MCU movies, then you'll certainly have a "late to the party" feeling. And no really good movie should do that to its viewers. Devoted fans like me love the inter-connectedness of the MCU, but it ultimately kills the chances that they will ever be able to do a truly stand-alone movie again.

This movie will definitely please fans of the MCU, just as it will please fans of Spider-Man who aren't as dedicated to the 23-films-and-counting sprawl of the MCU. Much more casual fans will likely be entertained by the spectacle and the humor of the movie, but they should expect to be confused by characters and plot threads that have been developed in earlier movies. 

New-ish Releases, Spoiler-Free Reviews: Justice League (2017); It (2017)

Justice League (2017)

No Spoilers!

Director: Zack Snyder

This one was OK, which actually qualifies as a pleasant surprise to me.

Justice League was the fifth film in the "DC Extended Universe" (DCEU). After paying to see the underwhelming Man of Steel in 2013 and then the utter mess that was Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice a couple of years ago, I swore off paying theater prices to see any of the DCEU flicks. While I broke that vow to see Wonder Woman, after all of that movie's mostly-deserved high praise, that initial boycotting paid off by my avoiding the sloppy Suicide Squad. While I am glad that I didn't shell out theater price for Justice League, I have to say that it was a reasonably satisfying at-home rental.

The story picks up several of the ostentatiously dangling and flapping threads left over from Batman v. Superman. With Clark Kent/Superman's apparent death at the hands of the Doomsday monster, the alien conqueror Steppenwolf sees his chance to lead an assault on Earth and take over the planet. It's an attempt which he had made in the past, only to be rebuffed by the collective forces of several of earth's mythically powerful races. Now that Steppenwolf is back with a massive army of fear-feasting insectoids, Batman recruits one known ally, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, to enlist the aid of other people with apparent superpowers. These lead them to band together a group that includes Barry "The Flash" Allen, Arthur "Aquaman" Curry, and Victor "Cyborg" Stone.

In most ways, the movie is fairly paint-by-numbers. I will admit that I suspect Joss Whedon, who was brought in to take over as writer/director after Snyder had a family tragedy to deal with, probably was responsible for some of the more intriguing and clever narrative ties in the film. I also wouldn't be surprised if he had a hand in writing some of the more engaging fight sequences. The one which I found most entertaining seemed very much like something we would have seen in The Avengers. Whether it was Whedon or co-writer Chris Terrio, this movie definitely had the lighter tone and funnier gags that Batman v. Superman was painfully lacking. It still wasn't nearly on par with the best MCU or even X-Men flicks, but it was a clear improvement.

Jason Momoa certainly cuts a striking figure as Aquaman, but
the outline and dialogue never came together for me. Most of
the other characters were handled more deftly.

The core characters are a mixed bag. The villain Steppenwolf is dull - a typically one-dimensional warmonger who wants to crush everything in his path. The voice acting by Northern Irish acting veteran Ciaran Hinds is powerful, though. In terms of "The League," I found it hit-and-miss. I've personally never had a problem with Ben Affleck as Batman, and he continues to be fine here. Gal Gadot continues to be great as Wonder Woman, as well. Ezra Miller was rightfully hailed as maybe the biggest revelation in this one, as he plays the iconic Flash exceptionally well, lightening things up nicely. Cyborg, however, I found extremely dull, and this particular vision of Aquaman felt completely off to me. As a group, though, the good outweighed the bad, and the dynamics work well enough.

I can't say that Justice League won me back over to the DCEU, but it did give me an enjoyable two hours. Looking ahead, the film franchise's next movie is Aquaman, headed up by James Wan, known for recent "Fast...Furious" films and the recent Star Trek Beyond. Given my feelings for how Aquaman was handled in Justice League, and my apathy towards the Fast and Furious movies, I don't anticipate that I'll be seeing that one. I do hope that the powers behind the DCEU take some note of what worked in Justice League, though, as they really are sitting on a wealth of great fantasy characters whom they could use to make some wildly entertaining movies.

Spoilers!! You've Been Warned!

Great intro sequences with Wonder Woman. While her solo movie last year had some solid action scenes, her rescue at the bank was top-notch. And the sequence with the Amazons trying to defend the Mother Box from Steppenwolf's attack has some really fun visuals, too.

It was a brief moment, but I absolutely loved the moment when the Flash is running up on a still-deranged Superman, thinking his he has the jump on him, only to have the Man of Steel's eyes turn directly towards him, well aware of the Scarlet Speedster's approach. I have to think that that was a Joss Whedon addition, as it seems like just the type of subtle-but-awesome moment that Whedon has a knack for.

Speaking of Superman, it was probably the least surprising "twist" to bring him back in this one. It was handled fine, if not exactly in a compelling or creative way. The iconic superhero does serve as a half-decent deus ex machina, but he does raise the eternal concern with such a powerful character - how do you find a villain strong enough and interesting enough to contend with him, let alone him and his super-powered buddies?

It (2017)

Director: Andy Muschietti

A solid horror movie, if one that is drawing from several wells that have been heavily tapped by earlier scare flicks.

Based on the hit 1986 novel by popular horror master Stephen King, It follows a group of young kids in their pre- and early teens in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, a seemingly quaint little area that has a history of disturbingly high rate of missing children and horrific disasters. This tale begins in the summer of 1988, when a little boy, Georgie, is apparently sucked into a drainage opening by a monster masquerading as a circus clown. We fast forward a year, with Georgie's older brother, Bill, and his friends wrapping up the school year and looking forward to a summer of freedom. Soon, however, other children start to disappear, and Bill and his friends start to have terrifying hallucinations embodying their worst fears. Wrapped up with these fears isthe same clown, which calls itself Pennywise, that took Bill's kid brother Georgie. Sure that Pennywise means to take and devour them all, Bill and his friends must decide what to do in order to survive and possibly find any of the other children whom Pennywise has already taken.

The movie is a very solid horror movie that I put in the same box as recent horror hits like The Conjuring - it's not really doing anything new, but it uses tried-and-true horror movie techniques extremely well. You get the creepy piano music, a scary clown, creaky doors, dark basements, a spooky and dilapidated house, and almost every other trope you can imagine from such films from the past. Fortunately, director Andy Muschietti executes everything effectively, and he does implement some creative visual scares with sharp editing and a few truly startling moments. On the whole, though, I wasn't dazzled by any wealth of novelty here.

Although this movie is based on a much earlier novel, which had previously been adapted for TV in 1990, it's almost impossible to ignore its similarities with recent nostalgia-laden smash hit TV show Stranger Things, which itself is a bit of a love letter to fiction creators like Stephen King. If the 1980s setting, small town, and gang of 12- and 13-year old misfits isn't enough to make the comparison clear, It even features Finn Wolfhard, one of the young stars of Stranger Things. It doesn't do quite as good a job as the Netflix TV show of invoking the sense of fun and camaraderie, but the bond between the young kids - who dub themselves "The Losers' Club" - is effective enough.

Dank, shadowy sewers are only one of many well-known horror
tropes here. We also get eerie old houses, creaky doors, and
more, to go right along with the scary clown at the center.

The movie isn't one for subtlety, beyond even the standard horror elements already covered. The secondary characters leave no scrap of doubt as to their roles. The bullies are sneering, cackling, jackal-like predators whose every actions are despicable. The single, sleazy father of female Loser's Club member Emily simply oozes lecherousness. The shut-in mom of hypochondriac Eddie seems to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And on it goes, with anyone who is not a Loser's Club member being no more than two-dimensional, and basically of no help to the kids. This is an overly convenient narrative device, as it is about the only way that the kids are left to fend for themselves. It's not a fatal flaw, as the movie does need to keep its focus on the kids themselves, but I would have appreciated seeing one or two adults who actually seemed to care about their kids suffering through hellacious trauma.

Though It didn't stun me with anything exceptionally novel, it was a decent enough horror flick. It was always meant as the first of a two-part film series, with the sequel It: Chapter 2 set for a September 2019 release. I doubt that I'll bother seeing it in theaters, but I'll check it out eventually. The concept of a horror movie flashing forward 27 years to see the adult versions of the first movie's children protagonists deal with the returning horror is an interesting concept. 

Personal Essay: The Whys of My Joy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Why is a 42-year-old man spending so much time in a fantasy land drawn from worlds originally created for young readers?

With the imminent release of Black Panther - the eighteenth installment of films in the massive Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) - I've once again been going back and rewatching much of the MCU. And not just the 17 prior films, each of which I've already seen anywhere from two to seven or eight times. I'm also throwing in a few dozen of the TV shows, as well as the tied-in comic books which offer a little more narrative glue to the massively interconnected universe.

But why? I've got better things to do, no doubt. Or at least, more "cultured" things to do. I'm an avid reader who can appreciate the works of Japanese masters like Yukio Mishima and Shuusaku Endo, English classicists like Robert Graves, French luminaries like Michel Houellebecq, and plenty of others. I also adore more "artsy" films by modern masters like Darren Aronofsky and Denis Villeneuve and dive into forgotten or obscure old movies regularly. So I find myself asking why I continue to go back to the popcorn entertainment of the MCU.

The Flash and Green Arrow - two very popular shows that I
just don't have the time to add to my fantasy plate.

It is quite clear what it is not - it is not a mere fascination with the genre of comic book superheroes. The market is obviously awash with a ton of superhero films and TV shows, many of which I don't bother watching. I tried the DC Extended Universe films and, aside from Wonder Woman, found them poor to the point that I didn't even bother with last November's bid budget Justice League. I also haven't bothered at all with the DC TV shows like The Flash or Arrow, although they do receive highly positive reviews from critics and fans alike, and despite the fact that The Flash was one of my favorite superheroes as a kid.

No, it's only the MCU that I go to over and over again. The seventeen movies. The two-hundred-twenty and counting TV episodes from more than a dozen different shows, across four different media outlets, with more jumping on board all the time. About every year, I go back and work through all of the films and different chunks of the TV shows. I'm in the middle of the latest relapse, and I'm loving it as much as I ever have.

The thing is, it's not that I think for one second that these are the greatest movies or shows ever made. Far from it. Jessica Jones on Netflix, which is pretty awesome, can't hold a candle to The Wire or TV fare of the highest quality. And Captain America: The Winter Soldier, probably my favorite MCU film to date, is nowhere near the same objective class as a universally acknowledged classic like The Seven Samurai or even a modern masterpiece like Ex Machina. I could even argue that Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy is a better set of superhero movies than any trio of MCU films. Still, despite my complete awareness of their limitations, I am completely immersed in the world. These days, I am asking myself "Why?" I've come up with an amalgam answer comprised of three parts:

Nostalgia

You can never underestimate it.

I had always had a few comic books floating around when I was around ten to twelve years old, but they were mostly random "grab bag" kinds of comics. A few odd issues of Batman. A random issue of Rom: Space Knight or other similarly forgettable characters. Aside from a steady collection of G.I. Joe, which I was into because I was a huge fan of the toys and TV show, I didn't keep up with anything regularly. This changed when I was 15 years old, and I was dazzled by the cover of a comic book I saw in the rack at the local 7-11. The year was 1991, and the comic was issue #275 of The Uncanny X-Men. I had always known the X-Men characters, and even had the odd issue or two of them floating around, but their story was rather serialized, and it was difficult to follow if you only had one issue from every two or three years. Issue #275 was stunning, though. Featuring the super crisp linework of popular comic artist legend-in-the-making Jim Lee, I was drawn into the double-length book and purchased it despite its relatively high price of $1.50 (remember, younger readers, this was 1991). Upon getting it home, I devoured it. Over and over, I gazed at the pages and the characters within them. I couldn't really follow everything in the highly serialized tale, but I was hooked.

The massive gatefold cover of The Uncanny X-Men, issue #275. This was my
gateway drug into the massive universe of Marvel comics.

Within two years, I would be working at the local comic book store, immersed in all things comic book. Although I was aware of nearly everything in the popular comic books realms, my favorite characters tended to be those drawn by the flashiest artists. The aforementioned Jim Lee, and later Whilce Portacio, turned me into a massive fan of all of the X-Men comics and several other mutant-focused comics like X-Factor, X-Force, and others. Eventual toy magnate Todd McFarlane's brilliantly detailed loops and whorls pulled me into the world of Spider-Man, and the fun writing of Peter David and uniquely smooth pencil work of Dale Keown had me following the adventures of The Hulk. Though I read all sorts of other comics, it was these Marvel offerings that I knew best, eventually building up runs of those books that spanned over fifteen years, going back into the early 1980s and up through most of the 1990s. While I certainly knew the basic ins and outs of other major characters, including legendary DC properties like Superman, Batman, and the other Justice League members, Marvel was where my heart always lie.

By the time I was in my early twenties, I had discovered darker, more mature and sophisticated comics by the great British writers such as Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Garth Ennis, and the like. I still kept up with the classic Marvel heroes, but they eventually took a distant backseat to the stories and characters more deeply influenced by and infused with centuries-old storytelling techniques drawn from more mature, classic novels of the past. All the same, just like nearly any type of cultural forms with which we fall in love between the ages of 12 and 18, Marvel comics will always have a place in my heart. Seeing those characters lovingly brought to life in live-action reignites some of that pleasure I had as a kid, losing myself in the fantasy of being able to walk on walls, soar through the air, or shrug off bullets and injuries with only a mild sneer and a pithy one-liner.

Comic Book Superhero Movies Done Right (Finally)

Let's face it - for most of the history of moving pictures, comic book superheroes simply had no chance of being brought to quality life on the big screen. Since the creation of the modern superhero with Superman's introduction in 1938, classic comic books contain so many fantastic elements that movie studios simply didn't have the resources to truly do them justice. This is what made Superman in 1978 so huge - effects had finally gotten just good enough to bring the majesty of a superhero to life. 1980's Superman II even improved on the original, with slightly better effects and a much better story. Then, an odd thing happened. Good superhero movies pretty much disappeared for a while. Superman III was a comic farce, and Superman IV was so bad that it killed the franchise for nearly two decades. It wasn't until Tim Burton's Batman in 1988 that we got another quality superhero movie. Alas, that franchise followed nearly the same trajectory as Superman - ever weakening sequels ending in a fourth film so awful that the franchise was deep-sixed for years.

And that was about it for much of my younger life. I loved movies as a kid, especially fantasy and adventure - two genres with massive overlap in the comic book world. And yet right up until I was about 25 years old, we basically only had four quality movies featuring A-list comic book superheroes, and those were getting more and more outdated with every passing year.

Bryan Singer's X-Men was the first time any
studio actually got a major Marvel property
right in a movie. It was just the start.

Then came Bryan Singer's X-Men. I was extremely wary about this. This movie came out back in 2000, when I was 24 years old. It was just around the time that I was completely finished with faithfully following my old Marvel superhero comics, but the characters were still certainly something I held dear. It seemed like a tall order to ask someone, anyone, to depict my favorite band of outcast mutants in a solid movie. Imagine my surprise, then, when the movie was actually pretty good. Not great, mind you, but pretty good. Two years later, arguably my favorite all-time costumed hero Spider-Man got excellent treatment in Sam Raimi's highly entertaining 2002 Spider-Man. And then 2003 brought us X-Men 2, while 2004 saw Spider-Man 2, two sequels that actually surpassed the solid originals. Unfortunately, both franchises saw downturns in their third installments 2006 and 2007. However, we now all had Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins to fawn over, to say nothing of the lightning bolt that would be 2008's The Dark Knight.

And on it went, with more and more heavy hitter comic book characters getting more consistently quality movies. Yes, there have been and continue to be some duds, even by major studios with obscene amounts of money (I cite X-Men Origins: Wolverine as a major offender). But many of the filmmakers are genuine lovers of comics, most of them roughly my age. These people have blended their own passion for the old comic book heroes with the filmmaking skills that they've honed as professionals. And now that movie studios have opened up their bank accounts to them, and now that special and digital effects have evolved so much, there is almost nothing which they cannot bring to life on screen.

With all of this talent and love going into these movies, we have simply been getting higher quality superhero films, far more consistently than ever before. Although some people will never embrace the fantasy nature of them, the same way they will never have interest in The Lord of the Rings movies or even science-fiction movies, very few people can deny that many of these movies are rather well made. And the MCU has created some of the very best of the last decade.

The Shared Universe

This aspect might be the one that truly has me hooked.

I may have a mild obsessive-compulsive streak. I like order. Especially linear order. For as long as I can remember, I've been pretty good at remembering the general chronology of things and narrative sequencing. There is simply a clear logic and order to such things which can be comforting. This is a trait that I believe I share with many lovers of science-fiction - the general love of continuity.

Back in the early 1990s, an amazing thing happened in the comic book industry. At that time, Marvel and DC had been the undisputed titans of the comic book superhero world for decades. No other company came remotely close to them in this regard. But then, within the span of about 18 months between early 1991 and late 1992, a little-known publishing company called Valiant had

One of the very first Valiant comics,
which would send shockwaves through the
industry in the early 1990s.

become the hottest thing in the comic world. By the middle of 1992, the company only had about five different titles, but the earliest issues of them were selling for upwards of $75 or $100, massive markups from the $1.75 cover price. Such incredible inflation of value was unprecedented in the comic book world. Curiously, the art in the books wasn't anything to write home about. And though the stories and characters were solid and interesting, they weren't markedly better than what Marvel and DC were publishing. What truly sparked people's collecting frenzy and fandom, along with very low print runs, was a carefully curated continuity which Valiant's chief editor was steadily maintaining. Comic book fans who loved their universes were getting the chance to get in on the ground floor of an entire new world - one where key characters would actually die and stay dead, raising the stakes even higher, and often impacting stories and characters in the other comics in the Valiant line. This was rather different from the relatively bloated Marvel and DC worlds, where the characters would come across each other and team up, but there didn't seem to be any great emphasis placed on the lasting effects of actions from one issue or story arc to the next, and certainly not across different titles. Add in the fact that those two companies would do soft-reboot crossovers every year or so, and Valiant's much smaller, ordered world became much more appealing. It would all fall apart by about 1993 and 1994, with Valiant succumbing to the pressures of greed and other problems, but that exciting period prior to its collapse is impossible to forget.

When original Valiant's kind of consistency is created and maintained, it helps create a comforting integrity to the fantasy world. This is why fantasy and science-fiction fans (who often overlap heavily with comic book fans) are happy to delve into the little details with glee. Lord of the Rings fans will gladly pore over the relatively dry Silmarillion, with its minutiae about the millenia-long history Tolkien's Middle Earth. Song of Ice and Fire readers (like myself) will buy and closely read of the histories that predate the main stories by centuries or even millenia, and take place far away from the events of the primary novels. Devoted Trekkies teach themselves the invented Klingon language and study blueprints for the various spacecraft in Gene Rodenberry's created galaxy of the future. Hardcore nerds love details.

The mind behind the MCU, primarily Kevin Feige, realized this early on. Although the grand vision of the Cinematic Universe was only potential, the seeds were being sown in the first two movies, Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk, with those first little teasers tacked on at the ends of the films. Those minor appearances of Agent Coulson and Nick Fury in Iron Man and Tony Stark in The Incredible Hulk were not shy about hinting at an Avengers movie. And with every successive film, the connections grew tighter and more numerous, arguably to a fault.

At this point, the connectivity in the narrative can almost be a bit of a hindrance, especially when movies are trying to bring in new viewers. While I absolutely loved Captain America: Civil War and Thor: Ragnarok, a viewer who hadn't seen at least two previous MCU films was likely to have major questions that those individual films presumed audiences already knew the answers to. All the same, for the most part, nerdy viewers like myself love the continuous narrative, as it serves to reinforce the illusion that those worlds on screen have the same integrity as the real world which we live in. When that breaks down, it feels as if something is lost, and that the characters are all back on their own separate, more lonely islands.

An Addict, Circumspected

And so I go on. I long ago secured my tickets to Black Panther, and am all sorts of excited about The Avengers: Infinity War. My wife has been a sport about all of this, often going out with me to watch the MCU films. She's even enjoyed more than a few of them, to a certain extent. There was actually a moment after Age of Ultron came out that I wondered if my enjoyment in the series was waning, but this has been alleviated with the number of strong films and TV shows far outnumbering the few duds in the MCU (I'm looking your way, Iron Fist and Inhumans). I still get that little thrill that comes when loading up a beloved movie. They may not be high art, but they still provide me with plenty of fun.

I have no idea just how long the MCU will carry on, though it is not going to be any time soon. The movies continue to rake in staggering amounts of money, and Marvel Studio head Kevin Feige has confirmed that they have films roughly planned out up through the next eight or ten years. I do find it comforting to know that, even if I somehow grow out of enjoying these rather light-hearted, pure escapist, fantasy worlds, that they will still be there for those who love them.

New, Spoiler-Free Release! Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

No Plot Spoilers! Have no Fear!!

In one of many entertaining twists, the god of thunder must
learn to cope without his legendary hammer, Mjolnir, as he
fights as a gladiator against a very formidable opponent.

Director: Taika Waititi

Far and away the best Thor movie, which may not be saying much. But I'll also say that this is now among my favorite Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movies.

Those of us who follow the MCU last saw Thor (Chris Hemsworth) as he helped save earth from the destructive machinations of Ultron in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron. While the other Avengers regrouped and formed a new team, Thor and the Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) disappeared without a trace. Thor: Ragnarok brings us up to speed fairly quickly, with Thor having been searching various realms around the universe for information about the cosmically powerful Infinity Stones. This search eventually puts him on the trail of his missing father, Odin (Anthony Hopkins). When he and his ever-treacherous brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the god of mischief, eventually find Odin, the events that follow unleash Hela (Cate Blanchett), an immensely powerful force of destruction. Thor and Loki are inadvertently hurtled across the universe and land on a remote planet ruled by a barely sane overlord, Grandmaster, who runs a massive gladiator competition. Thor and Loki must figure out a way off the planet and get back to Asgard, which Hela means to take over as a first step towards dominating the universe.

Even more than the nearly uncut entertainment that is the Guardians of the Galaxy films, Thor: Ragnarok is unadulterated fun. Purists and fans of more intense superhero movies like the Dark Knight trilogy or even Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War (all of which I love, by the way) may take some umbrage to the generally silly, even campy, tone of this latest MCU offering, but I loved it. Admittedly, I am a fan of New Zealand director Taika Waititi's goofy sensibilities. Even when I could see the gags coming, they were executed so well that I always got a chuckle out of them. And anyone who's enjoyed the odd, deadpan humor of Flight of the Conchords (several episodes of which Waititi either wrote and/or directed) or the vampire mockumentary What We Do in the Shadows will catch on and laugh heartily at the banter and comedy in Ragnarok.

My main concern going in was whether or not Waititi would be able to offer some worthy action sequences, given that he'd yet to tackle any sort of big-budget project of this sort. I was glad that he eased these worried by giving us several highly entertaining, well-executed fight and battle scenes. I won't put them on par with the best of what we saw in The Avengers or the Russo brothers' two Captain America movies, but there are more than a few spectacular displays of mythical might in the film. Many of us viewers in the theater were ooh-ing, ah-ing, and basically having fun with many of these sequences.

Cate Blanchett cuts a menacing enough figure as the blood-
thirsty Hela, even if the villain is yet another mostly one-
dimensional adversary in an MCU replete with them.

I can't say that the movie fully delivers in terms of any touching or emotional beats. Yes, there is a bit more exploration of the love/hate relationship between Thor and Loki, and the theme of vengeance and maintaining bonds with one's people. But these always take a rather distant backseat to the action and humor. Another aspect where I would say the movie falls a bit short is one that has been a blind spot for most MCU movies - not being able to conjure up a completely well-rounded, thoroughly compelling villain. Cate Blanchett plays the role of Hela just fine, and the character is certainly powerful. And her backstory does offer more than many other MCU villains, making her out to be a bit more than simply a massive force of inexplicable rage. The rage is there, but there is some explanation for it this time around. Still, she is ultimately just a baddie who wants to kill everything and everyone in her path who won't bow to her will. Far physically weaker villains like Adrian Toomes in Spider-Man: Homecoming or Helmut Zemo in Captain America: Civil War were better developed and more compelling.

A final note to those who may be wondering just how inundated with the MCU one has to be in order to enjoy this movie: you don't need to know a ton. Even if you haven't seen earlier MCU films, the key points are summarized within the movie fairly well, if briskly. While I can't call Ragnarok a complete stand-alone movie, it does quite well on its own merits. Of course, if one wants to do all of their homework, I would recommend watching the first two Thor movies, The first two Avengers movies, and maybe even Doctor Strange, which does have a minor connection here. If you've the time and inclination to take in those five films, you'll completely understand all of the main references and connections in the film.

So this one is plenty of fun. It might not be the tightest movie we'll ever get in the MCU, but it has a cheeky, high-spirited, and playful attitude that makes it a joy to watch. I already have my tickets to see it again in a few days. What other endorsement need I make?

Wonder Woman (2017) [Spoiler-Free]

Director: Patty Jenkins

It's not exactly the greatest movie you'll ever see, but Wonder Woman proves that the people behind DC's extended film universe might actually know how to allow a decent movie to be made.

Wonder Woman is the fourth in DC and Warner Brothers's "Extended Universe" (DCEU) of movies featuring characters from popular comic books. Anyone who has happened to read my reviews of the first three films - Man of Steel, Batman v. Superman, and Suicide Squad - knows that I found all three of those films either mediocre or just plain bad. Arguably the worst of the three, Batman v. Superman, had very few saving graces, one of them being the introduction of Gal Gadot (pronounced "gah-dote," by the way) as Diana Prince, or Wonder Woman. Her screen time in that film was relatively limited, but memorable, and it seemed to present Gadot as a good casting choice for the Amazonian heroine.

The feature film gives us Diana's full back story, starting with her life as a young girl on the paradisical island Themyscira, a place populated by the warrior women Amazons. The Amazons all seem to have supernaturally long life and physical strength, owing to their heritage as descendents of the ancient Greek gods. They remain isolated and cloaked from the rest of the world, however, as they are meant to serve as a line of last defense against an ancient foe of humankind. By unfortunate coincidence, the outside world eventually encroaches on Themyscira, during the final days of World War I. Upon learning of the horrible war happening outside of her safe cocoon, Diana leaves her home in order to track down the ancient Greek god whom she believes is responsible for the massive carnage of "The War to End All Wars."

The movie does a nice job of weaving a classic origin story within a larger framework of commentary about mankind's predilections for violence. The presentation of "Paradise Island" is just as visually stunning as you would hope of a big-budget, summer blockbuster, and the unfolding of Diana's backstory is handled well enough, even if there is nothing especially novel about it. The warrior women of the Amazon are presented as a considerable force, without being too heavy handed, or particularly creative, about showing it. As it should be, the fact that they are women is mostly coincidental, and more emphasis is placed on their abilities and unique place in the larger world. Diana's transition into a grimy, real world in the grips of a brutal war is conveyed well, with the contrast in color tones and costumes accentuating her shift from her idyllic, vibrant, and isolated home island into the chaotic and stark real world. However, the movie avoids a glaring flaw of its predecessors...

A major problem with the previous DCEU movies has been an overly dark tone that overwhelms nearly everything else about the pictures. Especially in Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman, the grim seriousness sucked nearly every last ounce of fun out of the movies. Wonder Woman deftly avoids this issue. While it does include the deeper themes of war, violence, and human compassion, the movie never loses sight of the fact that it is a superhero fantasy, and that fantasies are meant to be more than a little fun. Striking the balance between having a serious message and providing some entertainment isn't easy, but director Patty Jenkins pulls it off admirably.

Diana looks on in horror and rising fury at the carnage of
the first World War. Gadot brings highly credible emotion to
the picture, making her arguably the one element of the
movie that is truly standout.

Then there's Gal Gadot. It is difficult to imagine a better person to have played the single most famous female superhero in comic book history than Gadot. Obviously, she's gorgeous. Let's just agree that stunning looks don't hurt. But even more than that, she strikes just the correct tones that the story requires. Diana Prince is meant to be innately tough, capable, and trained as a warrior. Gadot conveys all of these characteristics and skills very convincingly (it came as little surprise for my wife and I to learn that she was a combat instructor in the Israeli army for two years). Just as important is how she portrays Diana as an idealistic, compassionate defender of the weak. This could easily have devolved into sentimentality or sappiness in the movie, but it never does. Instead, it all feels about as organic as a superhero fantasy can feel. This leads to more than a few moving sequences wherein the action on screen bears some legitimate emotional heft, even if the action itself hardly every rises above being passably entertaining.

I've alluded to a few less-than-oustanding elements of the film, but I can't say that I found anything to be a serious flaw. No, the dialogue isn't as crisp or clever as it probably could have been, but it's fine, even offering some solid chuckles along the way. The action isn't as engaging or kinetic as what we've seen in Marvel's last two Captain America movies, but it's mildly captivating at points. The overall story does, while offering some thoughtful themes, essentially become a fairly standard mano-a-mano punchout between Wonder Woman and the main adversary. All of these aspects fell short of being excellent, but they also never sunk to the sometimes-laughable shortcomings of the first three DCEU movies.

For popcorn movies like this, I gauge my enjoyment of them by asking myself whether I will ever watch it again. For Wonder Woman, my answer is that I probably will, but most likely not in the theater. While I did really enjoy seeing it for the first time, I don't see it as being a movie that offers the same entertainment returns upon repeat viewings. Whatever the case, it's great to see an action/adventure movie about a female character done right and strike a real chord with audiences. 

Idiot Boxing: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 4 (2016-2017); Crashing, season 1 (2017)

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 4 (2016-2017)

Spoiler-Free Section

Another solid season which I suspect will be even more fun to rewatch in binge mode.

This is the first season in which the show clearly divided its 22-episode season into three "pods" of seven or eight episodes each, with each pod focusing on a particular story arc. All of the arcs are, however, connected with an overall narrative. The first pod, "Ghost Rider," introduces a supernatural element into the series. This element, in turn, becomes connected to the "LMD" second pod, which focuses on the creation of Life Model Decoys (basically, artificially intelligent android body doubles). Everything comes together during the third pod, "Agents of Hydra," in which the agents are all trapped within a Matrix-like artificial reality generated and maintained by a massive, virtual reality program known as The Framework.

I found this season a lot of fun. The Ghost Rider arc handles the iconic character well, introducing him as one of the more recent incarnations of the spectral spirit of vengeance. He makes for a presence unique to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, presenting a real test to a SHIELD group that is still adjusting to new leadership. Coulson is back to being a field agent, while the new head of SHIELD is a relatively unknown quantity to long-standing agents almost as much as he's unknown to us viewers. The mystery around him is used well as a story device, and there are a few fun little plot twists regarding this new leader. The story manages to segue the supernatural elements of the Ghost Rider arc into the LMD arc in compelling ways, when an LMD - AIDA - designed by Fitz and fellow scientist Radcliffe reads an other-worldly, evil tome, turning her into something neither completely machine, spirit, nor human. AIDA becomes what I would argue is one of the the single most curious and fascinating characters in the MCU.

AIDA and Fitz in the Framework, where several beloved
characters have undergone radical changes. None more so
than the normally-genteel Leopold Fitz. The shifts allow the
actors to show off their range rather well.

The story is the clear strength of the season. The characters are an ever-more mixed bag, in my view. Fitz and Simmons are now, to me, firmly the best characters on the show. Of everyone, they have always seemed the most empathetic, while also being capable, and showing actual, real growth as people. It doesn't hurt that Iain De Caestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge continue to turn out great performances in the roles. The other regular characters, though, were lackluster to me. Mae does become a bit more humanized, which is nice, but I've never completely enjoyed Mack or even Yo-Yo. This season does nothing to really remedy that. They're not annoying characters, such as I often found Bobbi Morse and Hunter, but they also never leave me with a desire to see any more of them.

The dialogue was also a bit spotty in places in this season, as well. There is one particular episode during the LMD arc in which Mack gets to deliver a slew of hilarious lines about robots taking over the world. There are also a few gems here an there, but for much of the season, I found a lot of the dialogue a bit obvious and unimaginative. Fortunately, it wasn't so bad that it overwhelmed what was otherwise a fun season. I'm definitely looking forward to binge watching the entire run again, once its made available on streaming services, most likely in September or so.

A Few Spoilers Ahead - You've Been Warned

I love the buildup into the third arc, as well as its culmination into the penultimate episode. When AIDA/Ophelia is overwhelmed by rejection, rage, and a desire for vengeance, I was transfixed. While I did find the pacing of the final episode a bit rushed and herky-jerky at times, I thought it wrapped up quite well. My one beef is that I actually would have preferred to see Mack (though not necessarily Yo-Yo) die in the Framework. Mack has probably become my least favorite (but not disliked) character. I've generally found him less interesting than his potential for two full seasons now, and I actually think his self-absorbed rejection of reality would have made for a rather compelling, if tragic, ending to the season. I actually appreciate when this happens, as it raises the stakes for everyone when a major "hero" character doesn't make it, a la Tripp back in season 2.

My one other particular issue with this season is how the entire SHIELD team has turned into hookup central. Why do they feel the need to pair everyone off? Fitz and Simmons made complete sense, right from the show's start back in 2013. Then Mack and Yo-Yo? OK, but neither of them is terribly interesting. The little flirtation between Daisy and Robbie Reyes? Maybe a bit forced, but fortunately I don't see that one going anywhere soon. But now Coulson and Mae? I get it - on paper, it makes some sense, but can't we have just one or two agents who remain complete loners, dedicated solely to the job of protecting people? Those types of characters can bring something different to the show, since we already have a decent amount of romance in what is obviously a fantasy/action/adventure tale.

Again, these are minor gripes that I'm fairly sure won't bother me quite as much when I binge watch this season later. I was really glad to hear that the show was recently renewed for a fifth season. It's hit its stride, to be sure.

Pete, getting some assistance from the eminently crass and
equally generous and kind Sarah Silverman.

Crashing, season 1 (2017)

Solid new comedy on HBO that stays within its unique self quite well.

Created by and starring Pete Holmes, the series draws from Holmes's own life experience as a devout Christian, aspiring stand-up comedian, and recent divorcee in the New York City area. The series begins with Pete discovering that this wife, played by Lauren Lapkus, has been cheating on him with a fellow elementary school teacher. This throws the rather naive Pete into a relative tailspin, sending him running away from their house and into the city. Pete follows some highly misguided advice by a fellow comedian to "work through" his marital sadness on stage. When he inevitably bombs in spectacular fashion, he meets troubled comic legend Artie Lange, who offers Pete a place to crash in exchange for joining him on the road for night, in order to keep the addictive Lange sober. Thus begins a cycle whereby Pete tries to get his personal and professional life back together and benefits from the help of far more successful stand-up comedians, including Lange, T.J. Miller, Sarah Silverman, and others.

While the basic premise of the show isn't wildly novel, it works extremely well on a couple of levels. One is that it throws the rather sheltered Holmes into some odd and uncomfortable situations. Seeing a 6' 6", dorky, white, devout Christian struggling to keep Artie Lange sober or dealing with degenerate, foul-mouthed comedians is fodder for plenty of laughs. And while Holmes doesn't have the sharp, biting wit or surreal creativity of modern stand-up masters like Louis C.K. or even Maria Bamford and their like, he is a skilled stand-up who knows how to write a deliver some good jokes, in both the stand-up and dramedy portions of the show. I don't know that Holmes could carry the entire season, a modest eight episodes, by himself, so the structure of having other, stronger and stylistically contrasting comedians cycling into and out of the proceedings is a major strength.

Getting scenes and moments pairing the vice-addled Lange
and the straight-arrow Holmes provides more than a few
hilarious "odd couple" moments.

The show is also helped by the fact that there is a fairly compelling tale of personal growth happening throughout. Based on events in his real life, in which he was cheated on by his wife, Holmes's on-screen persona is sent into a crisis of faith and doubts about his chosen profession. A decent amount of depth is offered during Holmes's discussions about his Christian faith and worldview with oddball atheists like Lange and Silverman. One of the novel aspects is that Holmes's doesn't abandon his faith wholesale, but instead begins to alter and expand his understanding of it. The show never becomes overly absorbed with this theme, fortunately, but rather is enhanced by it.

So it's a fun first season, and hardly much of a time commitment. Clocking it at a very modest eight episodes, each being 30 minutes, the first episode is a good indicator of the following seven. I'd recommend that anyone check out the pilot, at the very least. For my part (and my wife's), we're looking forward to the second season. 

New Release! The LEGO Batman Movie (2017)

Director: Chris McKay

Another fun LEGO movie, in keeping with 2014's original, if not as visionary or rich in social commentary.

Back in 2014, we were all treated to The LEGO Movie - which was a hyper-active but hilariously transgressive piece of family cinema. In that movie, one of the most memorable supporting characters was none other than Batman himself, voiced by Will Arnett. So popular was the character, the writers' take on him, and Arnett's voice acting skills, that they went to work on a "solo" movie. In its simplest form, it has Batman squaring off against his nemesis The Joker, as the evil clown enlists other-dimensional villains to destroy Gotham City.

In The LEGO Batman Movie, we get a much closer look, through the frantic lens of LEGO worlds, at the entire Batman mythos. It's a character and world which has been constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed countless times since the character's creation back in 1939. In all that time, Batman has been portrayed, alternately, as a grim and tortured vigilante, a goofy slapstick do-gooder, and virtually everything in between. The LEGO movie essentially starts with the brooding, self-involved version of Bruce Wayne/Batman and throws every silly, weird, and oddball element that the numerous and varied comic books, TV shows, and film adaptations have offered fans over the decades. The sheer amount of references and Easter eggs scattered through the movie will be worth the price of admission for people who have ever been a fan of "The Caped Crusader" in any of his many iterations.

Like the original LEGO film, this one goes full gonzo with its approach to world building and maintenance. Fans of comic books, especially the superhero variety, are fanatics for continuity (I'm speaking from experience here). It can be a dicey proposition to take one of the single most popular comic book characters and throw him into the middle of a zany, silly take on everything that has made the character what he is. But this movie does pull it off. Being an animated LEGO film certainly helps, as it drives home the point that this is the stuff of purely goofy fantasy. Sure, there's an attempt at a "life lesson" about letting other people into your life in order to make it more fulfilling, but it's a flimsy dramatic point, at best. It's even weakened a bit by dwelling on the co-dependent relationship between Batman and The Joker, making any meaningful lesson sillier through this lampooning.

Insisting on wearing his cowl, even when lounging at his
mansion, Batman is presented in a hilariously self-absorbed
and out-of-touch way.

Like the visuals, the gags come extremely quickly and with maximum fury. It really is a "joke every ten seconds" approach for nearly the entire film, with a handful of slower-burn visual gags thrown into the mix here and there. And like every rapid-fire gag movie, not all of them hit with the same force. In truth, it can be a tad wearying by the final 10 or 15 minutes, but it's still funny enough, consistently enough.

So it is now clear that the ultra-successful LEGO company has blown open another door for their products. They had long been a dominant force in the toy market, and in recent years had become major players in the video game and cartoon fields. These two recent movies have been hits, and a third one is on the way - LEGO Ninjago. Truthfully, as much as I enjoyed the first movie and was even entertained by this Batman chapter, I think my interest in this series has run its course. They are certainly fun, quick, and more clever than you might expect, but I can already see a watering down happening. The "anything goes" zaniness is fun for a movie or two, but it is already starting to overwhelm any chance the films have of creating an "all-audience" story of the depth of the very best animated movies such as the recent Kubo and the Two Strings or Inside Out. 

New(ish) Release: Suicide Squad (2016) and DCEU v MCU scorecard

Suicide Squad (2016)

Director: David Ayer

Three films into their mad dash to catch up to Marvel's Cinematic Universe, and DC and Warner Brothers are still stumbling along. Suicide Squad is another occasionally entertaining but ultimately uneven effort that doesn't stack up to far better superpeople flicks.

The tale is The Dirty Dozen with super villains. In the wake of events covered in Man of Steel and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, a shadowy government agency puts together a crew of super-powered but viciously dangerous and unstable criminals to act as a response team to potential large-scale, supernatural threats. The team includes expert marksman and assassin Deadshot (Will Smith), incredibly strong but ultra-violent reptilian Killer Croc, expert fighter and acrobat but unhinged madwoman Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), and several other oddball lunatics and killers. Their services are extorted from them through various promises and leverage enacted by government hardass Amanda Waller (Viola Davis), and they are sent into a city under siege from an unknown, catastrophe-level force of destruction. Hopping around in the chaos is The Joker, Quinn's lover and object of mutual obsession, who is hell-bent on freeing his lady love from bondage.

The movie is mostly a mess that relies on talented, big-name actors, flashy visuals, and a soundtrack featuring well-established hard rock classics. Even I'll admit that there are a few moments when these elements blend in just the rights ways to result in entertaining scenes and sequences. Top-flight actors like Smith, Davis, and Robbie are sometimes able to take a very tepid script and make it work in spots, but most of the dialogue fails to stand out in any way.

The greater issue is the story itself. Firstly, there are simply far too many previously-unknown characters introduced to allow the film to build any real interest in any one of them in particular. The movie tries, especially in the cases of Deadshot and Quinn, but the attempts to make them compelling feel rather clumsy and cliche. When you add in attempts to offer half-baked emotional backstories for third-tier villains like Diablo, Katana, Rick Flag, and others, then they all just water each other down so that none become particularly interesting. This greatens the shame of having so many good actors play the roles, as they do their best with what they're given. They just weren't given enough, including screen time. It's as if the filmmakers assumed that everyone coming to see the movie was already familiar with the characters. This means that a Batman comic fan is likely to appreciate this movie far more than an average movie fan looking to get some new, engaging super-characters to entertain them.

Seven of the eight members of the "Squad." Only about three
of them are allowed any real time to become interesting. The
others just take up space and muddle up the proceedings.

Then there's the larger story. Nevermind that it just rehashes one of the all-time great war movies. I'm willing to look past that, since the added element of super-powered whack-jobs does introduce enough spice to liven up an unoriginal concept. No, the major crime is that the tale itself is incredibly sloppy. Through multiple flashbacks and a convoluted narrative, we learn that the team has been assembled to stop the menace of...a member of their team. And the only reason that this member becomes a threat is because she was sent out by Amanda Waller, who created the team. Now that is just stupid. And the arch villain here - the ultra-powerful mystic figure The Enchantress - has a motivation that is as generic as it gets: she wants to take over the world with her dark, mystic power. Just what she wants to do with the world when she controls it is never made clear in any way. Even now, after several days to digest and consider the movie, I don't know that I could give an accurate synopsis of all of the relevant plot points. It's one thing if a movie has a complexity of layers that can be analyzed and uncovered over time. It's another when someone can't even tell you exactly how certain actions led to others.

Then there's the Joker - as iconic a villain as has ever come from the world of comic books, or even American popular culture, for that matter. More than a few writers have shown that the Joker can be made an immensely strong, magnetic, and even disturbing character. Yet somehow, the rendition of him in Suicide Squad is just as messy as the rest of the movie. Extremely talented actor Jared Leto seemed to be drawing a bit from Heath Ledger's legendary performance in The Dark Knight, while attempting to add his own touches to it through an annoying, hushed voice. Combine this with an overall shallow character design (the Joker seems to live only to look flashy, act crazy, and love Harley Quinn), and he was surprisingly boring.

So the movie unfortunately fails in a great number of ways. I do think that it is better than Batman v Superman, which had far greater and far more unforgivable weaknesses. At least Suicide Squad tried something a bit different, and it does contain a few amusing sequences and decent one-liners. It gets a major nod over the previous, humorless DCEU entry just for bringing some fun back into the proceedings. Still, I can't imagine that I'll be watching this one again.


DC Extended Universe vs Marvel Cinematic Universe - the first 3 films

Now that the DC Extended Universe (DCEU) is officially three films into its franchise, I find myself considering just how it stacks up to where the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) was back when it was still in its earliest stages.

Movie #1: Man of Steel (2013) vs. Iron Man (2008)

In terms of pure dollars, Man of Steel actually outperformed Iron Man by about $100 million. But both were massive commercial successes. Money aside, though, Iron Man is a clearly superior movie. It's easy to forget now, with the MCU a full-fledged herd of cash cows, that Iron Man was far from a sure thing back when it came out. But Jon Favreau and the creative team brought us a wonderfully entertaining movie that still holds up. The only gripe I have about it is that the final battle is a bit dull, but everything else about it is great.

Man of Steel had the benefit of coming out after the MCU had well and truly turned the superhero movie genre into the insanely profitable entertainment form it is now. Even ignoring that significant advantage, it is a far weaker film than Iron Man. Marvel's flagship film knew how to have fun with its comic book character, while imbuing him with enough character and drama to make it engaging. Man of Steel made an attempt to imbue DC's flagship character with a somber seriousness that robbed him of any fun. For me, this was a critical flaw that is still rearing its head.

Winner: Iron Man, in very convincing fashion.

Movie #2: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) vs. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

The Incredible Hulk has been, for much of the MCU's life, the red-headed step child of the Universe. Until the recent Civil War, there was virtually no acknowledgement of the events or supporting characters depicted in the film. It's not terribly hard to see why. In my opinion, this is still the weakest MCU film to date. While it's not bad, it suffers from a few too many tepid scenes. There's a lack of particularly funny dialogue, and the final battle is a merely average slugfest between large monsters. Even in terms of cinematic world-building, it's clear that the MCU was still an iffy prospect, at best, when The Incredible Hulk was made. It was a possibility, but only a slight one, as evidenced by a near-complete lack of anything connected to other MCU films, whether Iron Man or later movies. The only hint is a brief mid-credit scene with Tony Stark, but this was far from a firm promise at the time. All of this might lead to you think that the DCEU could easily outdo the MCU's second film. And yet...

Batman v Superman was a shiny, flashy mess. I've done two different posts on it, once when it first came out and another when I recently looked at a few recent DC movies. Perhaps the only way it compares favorably to the mediocre Incredible Hulk is that it serves as a clearer connector between other DCEU films. Even there, though, the movie was extremely ham-fisted with how it crammed those connections down our throats. This is actually something that one could accuse the MCU's next movie of doing, though Batman v Superman was brutally less deft at it.

Winner: Incredible Hulk, in a close one. It might be a bit dull, but to me that's better than being annoyingly and inexcusably sloppy and pretentious, which is what Batman v Superman is.

Movie #3: Suicide Squad (2016) vs. Iron Man 2 (2010)

A curious matchup, as they are such different movies, especially in the grander scheme of their film universes.

Iron Man 2 was the movie that first really and truly put the "Universe" in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was the first film that was made with its creators having a vision for a much larger, shared movie universe which would soon include Thor, Captain America, and culminate in The Avengers. With this grand plan in mind, Iron Man 2 was forced to include certain elements which weren't necessarily key to the overall plot with Tony Stark at its center. The introduction of eventual key players like Black Widow and Phil Coulson can feel a bit forced, but not terribly so. Aside from this, the movie is merely so-so, with two of the weaker/incoherent villians in MCU history, but also including some solid action sequences and humor.

When compared to Suicide Squad, Iron Man 2 edges it out. The weaknesses of Suicide Squad are more numerous and egregious, while those in Iron Man 2 don't offend nearly as much.

Winner: Iron Man 2

So DC still has a lot of ground to make up, in my view. However, the movie studios are unlikely to see it that way. When one looks at the box office returns for the first three films in each franchise, the DCEU actually blows away the MCU. However, this is not exactly a fair comparison, given the fact that it was the MCU that truly stoked the public's appetite for blockbuster superhero flicks into a raging inferno that the DCEU is using to keep itself very warm.

The only hope I have that the DCEU will actually make a few decent movies is that they have different writers and directors for their various films (expcept for the Justice League movies, which Zack Snyder will head up). My hope is that one or more of the new directors is able to create better movies for the mythic characters from DC lore that so many of us know and love. At this point, though, I'll take even the worst MCU movie over the best DCEU one. 

Idiot Boxing: Supernatural, season 11 (2015-2016); Agents of SHIELD, season 4 Winter (2016)

Amara, a.k.a The Darkness, is the primary nemesis in season
11. She is not only an interesting revelation of the show's
mythology, but also as powerful an adversary as we've seen 
since Lucifer way back in the 4th and 5th seasons.

Supernatural, season 11 (2015-2016)

A bit behind on this particular show, but better late than never.

An amazingly satisfying return to form for a show that, for me, had lost some of its appeal in recent years.

Not long ago, I did a rather thorough rundown of the first 10 seasons of Supernatural. My general takeaway has been that the first five seasons of the show were clearly its "Golden Age," with none of the succeeding seasons ever quite approaching the quality of that first run. A few seasons since then have been solid, even good, but never quite putting it all together the way the show did several times between 2005 and 2010. So imagine my surprise when, after five seasons, the show comes back and rediscovers its glory. This is what season 11 did, amazingly.

Season 10 ended with Sam and Dean killing Death, releasing Dean from the mark of Cain, and consequently unleashing "The Darkness," a massively powerful entity so ancient that not even eons-old angels or demons know exactly what it is or wants. Uncovering its nature and motivation is a fairly novel and compelling arc for the season. While a very picky, high-brow viewer is likely to find the answers to these questions a bit underwhelming, I found them adequately satisfying for a TV show predicated a bit more on fun than on pretentious philosophizing or cosmology.

Even more than the overall "Darkness" story line was the strong, consistent return to what made the show great during its best years. Of the 23 episodes, there was not one that I thought was weak; this is something I could not say about most of the seasons after the fifth. Even episodes which weren't advancing the Darkness plot were solid "monster-of-the-week" episodes which are all but necessary for 23-episode network shows like Supernatural. And instead of offering us lame characters who are purely comic relief (i.e. Garth or the early episodes with Charlie in seasons 7 and 8), we get back to reliable, strong supporting characters who have grit. We get Sherriff Jody Mills again, always a solid character, and we even get a great flashback episode featuring Bobby and Rufus. We also see the addition of a few new, diverse, and capable hunters with the deaf Eileen and the gay couple Cesar and Jessy. In two separate but equally strong episodes, Sam and Dean join Eileen to hunt a banshee and Jessy hunt a type of monster we haven't seen before, both on revenge quests. It was nice to get some new hunter blood in the mix, as it put me in mind of the great early episodes with Gordon.

The main players in season 11. I was pleased with how Castiel
and Crowley were granted some of their old grit and gravity
to go with more carefully portioned humor. Heck, I even found
Rowena far more tolerable this season.

I was also happy to see the character balance take on portions more to my liking. I felt that in recent seasons, Castiel and Crowley were being leaned on too much. I certainly appreciate what they've brought to the show, especially Mark Shepperd's performance as Crowley. But I enjoyed them much more when their appearances were a bit more limited, and when Castiel was more tortured and Crowley more intensely evil. Between seasons 7 and 10, though, they started to get more and more screen time, and they were used more for humor than for the gravity which they could bring to situations. Season 11 still has them in some comical spots, to be sure, but they also see a return to some welcome drama.

I must confess that the show's budget constraints can tend to show through in this season. Certain sets, while effective enough, have started to grow a tad stale. I still love the Men of Letters headquarters. That can stay. But how many more times can we see Crowley or Rowena in a shoddy warehouse converted into a throne room? It was old a few seasons ago, and it's still old. I try to remind myself that this is not Game of Thrones, which has massively deep financial resources to dazzle us with a variety of lush sets and props. Still, I'd like to see if they can show some creativity and change it up a bit in the future. I will also say that there is still the unanswered question of whether Death is, truly, obliterated. I'm surprised that the season ended without at least a slight suggestion as to what has happened to the ultimate reaper. Perhaps I am biased, though, as the show's version of Death is always one which I liked, and the actor who plays him - Julian Richings - has great presence. I do hope he makes some sort of return.

So I'm back on board. For the first time in a few years, I'm actually watching the current season week-by-week, keeping up with the episodes shortly after they air. So far, I like what the current season is doing. The balance of dark terror and fun is still holding nicely. Very nice to see this fun and sometimes creepy show back on track.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., season 4, Winter (2016)

The Winter segment of the season comprises the first 8 episodes which complete a sort of mini-arc before the Winter break.

Not a bad start at all, although I'm beginning to wonder if the scale of the show is outstripping the things that have made it great in the past.

This season opens with Coulson back in the field, working with familiar comrades May, Mack, Simmons, and Fitz. All of them are working for the new director Jeffrey Mace, who is eventually revealed as an inhuman possessed of immense physical strength. He's also a peculiarly positive administrator who does actually seem to have SHIELD's interest at heart. Mace and the familiar field agents have several issues to deal with: Daisy has become a vigilante hunting down Watchdog members, and a mysterious and powerful creature known as "The Ghost Rider" is slaying gang members in the Los Angeles area.

There's a lot to like about the Winter segment. The iconic Ghost Rider character is handled well, combing the innate cool of the character's look with a compelling backstory that ties into not only other supernatural elements (conveniently just after Doctor Strange was released) but also the Dark/Zero Matter that was a key element in Agent Carter's second season. There are a few nice little narrative feints, which lead you to a few false assumptions before certain aspects of the show are revealed. I'm also glad that the Director Mace storyline is taking the show in an interesting direction. My only hope is that he's not revealed as some sort of inhuman saboteur, since we've already seen the "traitor" narrative play out in each of the show's first three seasons. It would nice if we got to see SHIELD deal with a threat that comes completely from outside of themselves for once.

The primary characters of the show are still strong enough. At this point, Simmons and Fitz are the best in terms of character, as they've shown the most evolution through the course of the show. And this evolution has felt quite organic. It helps that Iain DeCaestecker and Elizabeth Henstridge have done marvelous acting jobs. The others are all fine, although I don't see any real chemistry between Mack and Elena. The romantic relationship between the two seems forced, as the show has never really shown much natural magnetism between them. To me, Mack is a character which sometimes feels fragmented, with shifts in attitude that don't always show enough internal logic. He is sometimes written as a tortured soul, at other times as a hard-as-nails badass, and yet others as a bit of a teddy bear. Those don't completely synch to me. Still, he is often given the best lines, like "My ax is plenty sharp. And a shotgun." I'll ignore that his shotgun-ax is a laughably impractical weapon and just enjoy the funny.

The Ghost Rider plot wrapped up in satisfying fashion, and the setup for Aida becoming a new threat is now in place. With the only MCU film releasing during the remainder of season 4 being Guardians of the Galaxy 2 next May, I think we can assume that there will be no obvious tie-in between the show and the movie. So the show is all on its own. Aida seems like a new kind of threat, which is intriguing. As long as it doesn't follow the same lines as Age of Ultron, then I think we may be in for the most unique second half since season 1.

Note: Word is out that Agents of SHIELD is in danger of cancellation, due to gradually decreasing viewership. I hope it's not the case, but if ABC does give it the axe, I hope it lives on through some other network. Though it's not the greatest show, I've always enjoyed its place in the MCU and think that its merits far outweigh its weaknesses.