Speed Reviewing the Shows I Didn't Review

Yeah, so you may have noticed that I diligently reviewed the first two Disney+ Marvel shows, as soon as their last episodes dropped. But anything post last summer didn't get a review. This is where I tie up those loose ends.

I thought this series was going to be a miss. I watched the first episode and HATED it. The animation was wonky, and the voice acting from a few of the celebrities was so bad that it took me out of the show. So I wound up turning it off and skipping the second episode.

Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong.

I came back in on the third episode and I've got to say, in the opinion, of a lifelong comic-book fan, who's been following the MCU since it kicked off. This series felt like a love-letter / tribute to the fans.

Hearing and seeing Michael Douglas in the Yellowjacket costume was amazing. Even in the MCU, Hank Pym going batshit crazy makes sense. Pym has made reference to the fact that continued use of his particles warps your personality, so him losing his mind has already been set up. And it brings things full-circle, because Hank Pym / Yellowjacket in the comics is a notoriously mentally unstable man, living in the shadow of his days as Ant-Man.

I thought this show was going to be some MCU-themed cartoon with a star-studded cast until the third episode. That third episode made me realize that they were indeed interested in going to those strange, and dark places the comic used to go to.  

And you know, I've got to rant about the comic. My favorite issue of the comic will always be when the Nova Force (think Marvel's version of a Green Lantern Ring) starts picking unworthy  people to bestow itself on. And it eventually winds up picking a cigar-smoking bank robber, who uses his new cosmic powers to (obviously) rob a bank and to (not so obviously) kill every single superhero on earth. And of course Doom, Red Skull and a bunch of other villains get pissy about this so he kills them, too. The Nova Force (again, think of it as a Green Lantern ring) absolutely, always, inexplicably picks a worthy guy. So this story where it doesn't and everything goes to hell, is a treat. All of the superheroes on earth get killed because of one tiny, little change. This story essentially asks ,"What if an actual bad person got super powers?" And it really highlights how narrowly focused most Marvel stories are, and how the characters aren't too bad even when they're supposed to be. It really flips all the narrative tropes on their head. Those are my favorite kinds of What If? stories.

The Doctor Strange episode made the show seem like an MCU centered Twilight Zone. The Zombies episode was absolute perfection. That perfect blend of worldbuilding and homage. Never in a million years did I think I'd see this image -

get recreated onscreen. We'd always thought of the Zombies as something that would be lost in the aether of things that comics fans know about, but that Disney wouldn't dare touch. Things like the Hulk eating and murdering people, or Wolverine's gay son. But no, this show completely defied our expectations -

Also given that Thanos' pervert brother was apparently in the Eternals, maybe this is the edgy age of the MCU. 

For context, that blue chick is Nebula ... his niece...

But seriously, every single episode of this show (except maybe the first two episodes) is worth watching. Most of the onscreen cast voice their characters (even Jeff Goldblum) and it helps the show to do a decent job of making you believe that these are the same characters we see on the big screen. 

Also we got to see a proper Age of Ultron. All of the nerd rage over how small-scaled the movie was compared to that badass comic arc was extinguished. They really did it justice. 

 

This show has Erik Kilmonger outsmarting and killing Tony Stark, which I don't think would happen in a million years. Even if Tony never got humbled by being kidnapped. This Kilmonger character is a fan favorite, because little kids and women think he's hot/cool. But Black Panther was a mediocore movie and he was a 2-D cliched villain. He sucks but he makes a lot of money on merchandising. 

Sometimes the character models for the character look absolutely nothing like who they're supposed to. And in some cases they look so generic it's hard to tell who they are even supposed to be upon first glance. 

Nonetheless, this show was amazing and I looked forward to watching it every week. 

Wow, this was a fundamental exercise in how not to make a show. I watched every single episode of this show and I only vaguely remember what happens in it. There's just so much going on that you can't focus on any one plot thread.  

Will Hawkeye make it home for Christmas? Who does Kate's mom work for? Is Armand actually hiding something? What is it? Who is Echo's uncle/boss at the head of everything? Why is Hawkeye's wife so obsessed with the watch?

That's how many threads are going on by the fourth episode.  And they add more with each episode. Which makes this show a damn chore to watch. The fast-paced action and banter between Clint and Kate are addictively fun to watch. But all of that is intercut with slow-paced "secretive" and "mysterious" scenes of characters talking to unseen people, or acting unrealistically suspicious. There doesn't always have to be a big reveal, dammit. Just show us shit like a normal show. The pacing of this show isn't bad, but it just feels off.  

Also, Kingpin did absolutely nothing here. He was clearly only put in this show to sync up with No Way Home's Charlie Cox Daredevil reveal. I don't at all think it's a coincidence that they perfectly timed the reveal of Vincent D'onofrio's Kingpin in this show, with the release of Spider-Man: No Way Home. The big question that had been on everyone's minds since the Netflix shows were canceled, was whether any of it would be considered canon. And the answer was "Yes, we paid those actors/showrunners millions of dollars, we'll be damned if they try to jump ship." 

This show tries to adapt Matt Fraction's Hawkeye series (and steals its art style), and it cannot be understated how misguided that is. Hawkeye in the comics is completely different from the government agent with a bow and arrow that Jeremy Renner plays in the movies. Hawkeye in the comics is so badass that he went directly from a carnival to a life of crime to the Avengers. And then he eventually even led his own team of Avengers, WITH JUST A BOW AND ARROW. 

Comics Hawkeye would be like if this dude became an uncatchable international thief, then turned his life around and became a world-famous Navy SEAL. But just using his darts, the whole time. 

Comics Hawkeye is barely even the same character...

Speaking as a guy whose favorite DVD as a toddler was the first Raimi Spider-Man, as a guy who remembers going to the movies back in 2004 to see Spider-Man 2, as a guy who had at least two Spider-Man 3 playsets, as a kid who saved up all his money to buy the Amazing Spider-Man 2, and was disappointed and angry. This was the best Spider-Man movie ever. Every single character is done justice and each scene is perfect. This is an onscreen love letter to Spider-Man in cinema. I won't spoil anything here. Watch this one.

Anyways, I'm definitely looking forward to seeing why the hell Captain Picard is in the Doctor Strange trailer...

© 2020's Marvel Studios

The Batman (2022) Review

 So last night I went to go see Matt Reeves' The Batman. 

And it was worth every penny I paid for the ticket. This is a different kind of Batman movie. You want to come into this movie pretending like you have no prior knowledge of Batman or any of his rogues gallery. Because this is a very unique interpretation.

The Characters

Firstly, Robert Pattinson does an amazing job as Bruce Wayne/Batman. This movie is set in the second year of Batman's career, so he isn't really the grizzled Caped Crusader, yet. No one trusts him, and criminals mock him instead of running away. Bruce Wayne is just a character he plays to gain leverage against criminals. Most of the time we see Bruce Wayne, he still has his eye makeup on and is covered in sweat and dirt. And despite the fact that no one is really scared of him yet, this movie does a great job of painting Batman as a slasher villain to criminals. He has his own musical queue, he walks slowly, and you can hear every press of his boot against the ground. And no one can beat him hand-to-hand. At this point in his career, Batman is more of an obsessive rich guy running around in a suit beating up criminals. 

Alfred is far more of a father figure to Bruce than we've ever seen him onscreen. Even moreso than Michael Caine in The Dark Knight trilogy. He doesn't really believe in all of this Batman stuff, yet, and he's reluctant to help Bruce out.

Selina Kyle (who's never referred to as Catwoman) is also there for most of the movie. She's a perfect character - except when both her and Batman are onscreen. The romance between them feels really forced, however the movie leaves it ambiguous whether she actually likes him, or if she's just playing him to get what she wants.

But the best character in this movie by far, is the Riddler. 

Matt Reeves was the perfect director for this movie. This interpretation of the Riddler is more of a hodgepodge of a couple real-life American serial killers and criminals. He stalks people and breaks into their houses like the Golden-State Killer. But he's also an insanely intelligent, yet disturbed outcast who's deeply obsessed with ciphers, bombs, and riddles. Like the Unabomber. And then he hosts insane livestreams, and has his own radicalized online fanbase like more modern killers. Make no mistake, he's still terrifying and unpredictable. Whenever he's physically onscreen, he hides in the shadows, and is brutally violent. And Batman doesn't even catch him. He gets caught on purpose and stays in Arkham for the rest of the movie. This is probably the most grounded and realistic interpretation of the character. He's a mixture of some of the most insane and unbelievable real-life criminals, and those twisted fucks you meet on an online chatroom at 3AM.  Once he's unmasked, he starts making these insane facial expressions and repeatedly screams like he's autistic. And at first, its hard not to laugh at the absurdity, until you realize that its not supposed to be funny. The movie is just conveying that this guy has more than a few screws missing.

Picture this face, but more goofy looking...

The story is also pretty solid. It's early in Batman's career and there's a crazy guy in a mask terrorizing the city. This movie really knows how to keep you on the edge of your seat. It leaves a lot of things ambiguous, and is really good at pulling the rug out from under you. The opening scene of this movie is a first-person view of some binoculars spying on someone in a big house. Clearly this movie is getting right into the action, with Batman hot on the heels of an obvious criminal. Then the guy gazes up at the skylight, and you slowly start to realize that this isn't Batman. 

At one point, you think that the Riddler has just brutally killed some random rich guy, but the next scene reveals that it was THE MAYOR of the city. There's a scene where Selina comes across a heavy-hitting criminal and he treats her like an old flame. And you obviously would conclude that she's probably seducing him. But then it turns out to be something completely different. Sometimes the movie fakes you out for what seems like no narrative reason. This movie is a thrill ride, and feels far closer to Seven or Zodiac, than any other Batman movie. Which is strange, because David Fincher has nothing to do with this movie.

My favorite thing this movie does is not treat the audience like they're stupid. This is probably the first on-screen movie that even features Batman, that doesn't show us the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne. The movie assumes that you've seen a Batman movie before, and don't need to know where he came from. Also, the aspects of the story that are grounded in realism (no one saying "Catwoman", and people thinking Batman is just a crazy LARPer) make the fantastical parts (Riddler screaming like a madman, the Batmobile) stick out far more than they would in a regular comic-book movie.

Also this movie ends with the first (unless you count The Dark Knight Rises) on-screen adaptation of No Man's Land. 

Everyone's least favorite Batman story...

Flooding the city and causing rampant death and chaos is the Riddler's ultimate goal. And he succeeds. From behind bars. This Riddler is a perfect representation of a Batman villain in a realistic setting. He's obsessive and insanely intelligent to a point where he's interesting. But he's also strange and violent enough to be revolting. You wouldn't want to come across this guy. 

Final Verdict

GO SEE THIS MOVIE. 7 out of 10.

Why Didn't I Review Loki?

 

So next week we'll be watching the last episode of What If...?, and you know I've got a helluva lot to say about that show. But that raises the question of why I never reviewed Loki. Well, I tried to. I just found that I didn't have much to say about it. Although, I enjoyed all of the fan service in the latter episodes (who the hell would've thought we'd EVER see a live action version of Throg?), I found myself bored to tears during the middle episodes. The first two episodes were some much needed contextual world building. But after that, everything kind of flat-lined and got boring. And the pace didn't pick back up until the second to last episode. But honestly that was less because of the story and more because every frame was chock-full of easter eggs. And seeing other versions of Loki (and witnessing them betray each other) was a fun experience. It felt like things had flown off the rails and we were watching a completely different show.

And of course we were introduced to Kang (he was more of a benevolent Immortus, to be technical). 

 

 

And my greatest fear in them adapting Kang to the big screen was that his convoluted, almost nonsensical history would be impossible to translate properly. 

 

 

He has the only wiki page I've ever seen that starts with a disclaimer

 on how confusing it is.

But they did it perfectly. And I'm not going to sit here and explain the history of Kang; men with more time than me have tried and failed (see above). I've been reading comics since I could read, I consider myself a Marvel historian, and my best summary of Kang is "Imagine what would happen if Elon Musk was ten times smarter, but was also a violent ego-maniac with a god-complex. And then he discovered how to time travel."  And there's like five different versions of him running around at any time, and the most evil one is basically unkillable. The rich guy at the head of the government? He's actually Kang. Who built the pyramids? Kang. That superhero who just appeared out of nowhere and is insanely powerful? Kang. If you travel to the end of time and space who will you see? Kang. When he's written well, he's one of the scariest villains, because he's almost omnipresent. You may kill this version of Kang, but surprise! Another Kang just came back from killing the dinosaurs. And another version of him is ten centuries into the future conquering all of space. And both of them may be ten times smarter, meaner, and more powerful than the one you just killed. 

 

 

 

Yet just in forty minutes (and arguably one scene) they completely communicated how menacing, and dangerous of a character Kang the Conqueror is.

This ending felt like it was ripped straight out of a Black Mirror episode...

I think this is perfect casting. Jonathan Majors perfectly captures the subdued menace and morbid curiosity of a random Joe Sixpack who gets the power of god and goes mad. 

 

So my Loki review would've just been me complaining about being bored and then ranting about how awesome Kang is.

What Is This And Who Am I?

So this place has evolved over the past couple of years. I don't collect my journal entries here, anymore. In fact, anything posted here pre-2022 is probably embarrassing and silly, but I keep things online for archival purposes. I mainly write reviews for movies and television. I've got one long ongoing review series of my massive music collection that's been on hiatus for a year, because of All That Remains. I also promote any kind of creative projects that I'm doing at the moment here.

 

 

Like my other blogs - 

This Strange World

The Greatest Victory

My writing projects -

writing.com  

My dead, incoherent, and embarrassing podcast that Apple approved for some reason -

The Heartless Podcast

My politically and socially incorrect twitter -

@JoeNagarams

And my fledgling music projects -

Link to be added

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

- Joe

 

 

 

 

Check Out My New Story

Edit - The original publishing site I was using tried to copyright the story without my consent, so I had to do remove it and find somewhere else to host it. My work, no matter how silly or erroneous it may be, will not be claimed by another man. I respect myself as a writer and I respect my work as my own. Even if that work is an extended shit-post about a pillow eating ass. And as a result of the change of platform and the pressure of fulfilling all of the promotion I've already done, I did some unholy things to it. I've had to release it all at once (which is not how it was supposed to be read) and I couldn't attach the cover. But until I find a better way of hosting it, this is how the story will exist. I've been back-stabbed, but nonetheless the release will go on.

 

Y'all may have been wondering where I've been for the past week or so. And I've been working on penning my first fiction story. I've been calling myself a writer for years so it's about fucking time. The book is called The Pillow That Ate Ass. 

 

And it's a serialized horror story about, you guessed it. A pillow that eats ass. Amongst other things. This is my first go at fiction, so it's admittedly a little rough around the edges. But y'all know that I'm very strict about making sure to promote the things that I create. The second chapter is coming out today and it's already got almost 400 readers, so I'm excited. Anyways here's the link.

Black Widow Was Meh

Disclaimer: I watched this movie the day it was released and was so underwhelmed that I refused to review it. Obviously I changed my mind.

 

Black Widow was basically mandatory viewing since I've watched everything MCU except the Netflix shows and Agents of Shield. And that's exactly what it felt like. It wasn't bad. But it wasn't good. It was just another average MCU movie. And I'm not a 12-year old boy anymore, so they can't just put Scarlett Johansson in spandex on-screen and make me immediately fall in love. 

 

I'll start by admitting that David Harbour as Red Guardian was hilarious and surprisingly relatable. He easily carried this entire film. But that's the extent of good things I have to say about this movie. My biggest complaint is to be a Black Widow movie, this film seriously lacks balls. There were moments in this movie where it feels like its going to take a mean-spirited turn, but everything just goes back to hunky-dory, cheesy superhero times. I legit thought Rachel Weisz was about to blow herself up at the end, but at the last moment she grapples out of danger like she's Batman. In fact every side character in this movie has a scene where it seems they logically and realistically should die. And this is the one Marvel movie that has some impressively fleshed out side characters that it would actually hurt to see die. And all three of them make it out of the movie unscathed. And it makes the film lack any kind of emotional impact. And it's sad because all the movie had to do to raise the stakes was kill off Yelena, Rachel Weisz, and David Harbour. It would actually add some emotional context as to why Natasha was so desperate to find Clint in Endgame.

 

This movie takes place during the second half of Civil War, which means that no one's favorite secondary antagonist Thunderbolt Ross shows up throughout the film. And I'm no continuity stickler but William Hurt looks drastically different for this movie to supposed to be lining up that one.

 

Apparently he needed to dye his hair and shave before arresting Natasha.

 

 But I will give the movie this. He actually feels like a genuine threat for the first time since The Incredible Hulk. 

 

Just gonna leave that there.

 

But all in all, this movie is underwhelming. It should've been released years ago. Or maybe not all, since in the larger scale of the MCU, absolutely nothing significant happens. (I guess they do kind of set up Hawkeye. Which I completely forgot was even coming out.) They show us Budapest. And I speak for everyone when I say we'd much rather had watched a movie about that than this one. The way Natasha talks about her past in the early MCU movies makes it seem like her origin would be some bloody, heartless shit. She talks like she was some cold-hearted evil person that begrudgingly became a hero. And in this movie, the worse she does is accidentally explode a kid. Reluctantly. Captain America and his Howling Commandos probably did worse shit than that on the regular.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, because I'd been trying to erase it out of my mind. They fucked up Taskmaster. Now, I'm pretty sure the character will probably make a proper appearance whenever Deadpool actually shows up.  But this movie makes Taskmaster an android instead of a guy with "photographic reflexes." Which is stupid and not threatening at all when you think about it.  Because literally any robot should be able to do that. And for some dumbass reason, they kept Taskmaster's signature hood. It couldn't look more ridiculous for this robot in a motorcycle helmet to be walking around in a goddamn hoodie. What is the purpose of it? You're in a motorcycle helmet already, what the fuck? It's like the filmmakers said "Were gonna make this character 100% different, but make sure to keep the hood so the nerds don't get mad!"

 

 Pictured: Faithful Adaptation.

If anything this movie is a reminder that in the post-Endgame MCU, if you want to enjoy yourself, you have to lower your expectations. Which unfortunately means that yes, we should probably not be banking on Multiverse of Madness, or No Way Home being anything spectacular.

Daddy's Home

Yes, I'm back. At least for the foreseeable future. 

 

And now for the annual "Why I Haven't Written Anything In Forever" spiel.

 

This is something I enjoy doing. I've been doing this since I was a senior in High-school, and I have no intentions of slowing down going into my senior year of college. That's because I enjoy it. And I'd like to keep it that way. That's why I take breaks sometimes. Honestly, I'd like to think I never left. I haven't even taken a break this time, I've just been writing shit and not posting it. On my other blog, I wrote an inappropriately funny piece about Drake Bell's charges, but I wound up axing it. It definitely would not have aged well if I had actually published it. This was before the whole situation was cut and dry, so the whole joke was that I didn't get what the charge meant.

 

 I think we ALL know EXACTLY what it means now...

 

 

Hell, the whole reason I started another blog was because I'd written a bunch of posts only to scrap them because the subject matter wasn't appropriate. I used to just publish anything but y'know reasons...

 

"Yeah, if you could just keep talking about music and stuff, that would be great."

 

 

But fuck all that. 

 

The point here is that I'm back, right now, writing stuff. And I can say that with confidence, because like a good content creator, I've actually finished a good bit of stuff that just needs to be published. I'm finally finishing that All That Remains Review Series that burnt me out last year. I've just had to take a drastically different approach, so I don't die of boredom while writing.So stay tuned. 

 

Or don't. I think at this point we've firmly established that I don't really care...