AKA We're Scared of Admitting We're A Superhero Television Show

             

            I love comic books. I’ve made that very clear in my many, many posts where I’ve stated something along the lines of “I love comic books.” I think the recent glut of comic book movies to be a good thing (although it’s not as much of a glut as people seem to think… more on that in another post. Maybe. In another day.) But you know the one thing that really got me excited about comic book movies and T.V. Shows?

            The Avengers.

            I mean the movie the Avengers. The bringing together of the biggest superhero names that starred in their recent adventures, having them all meeting up and fight in a movie, then go off on their own ways. Man, for all of Phase One, of what has become to be known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I loved this idea. I even talked about it in my review of Ant-Man, how Phase One embraced this, then managed to throw in little references, like Iron Man holding up a prototype Captain America Shield, Thor’s Hammer showing up to distract Agent Coulson, Tony Stark taking the time to recruit Thunderbolt Ross into the Avengers...

            Then Phase 2 got scared. James Gunn talking about how Guardians of the Galaxy wasn’t going to work with the Avengers, going so far as to scrap planned Iron Man and Hulk Cameos. Someone saying “When are we going to talk about the Avengers” and getting waved off.  (One rumor was that they were afraid audiences would get confused as to why Thor wasn’t helping Iron Man out of his latest jam, as if they should all be hanging out in a clubhouse all the time.)

           

            Which brings me to the extension of the MCU, the Defenders.

            For those of you who don’t know, Netflix has decided to get into the Superhero game, taking on four of the lesser known (but still high ish profile) superheroes with the intent of bringing them into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. The idea being that these “street level” superheroes would eventually team up, taking on street crime in an Avenger-Like Fashion in a team called the Defenders. In the comics, the team was never really an official “team” like the X-Men or Justice League, but rather a random assembling of heroes who sprang into action.

            Netflix has already debuted Daredevil to some wonderful reviews, and I just finished up watching Jessica Jones, which also had some wonderful reviews. I have to agree, as a realistic television show that deals with superhumans, it’s probably one of the best television shows I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

            Unfortunately for a show set in the MCU, it’s terrible. It’s scary, even, as it’s one of the first signs that Marvel is starting to slowly abandoned their shared universe, the very thing that made them unique.

            The show is about a private investigator, named Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), with superpowers. The story as to why she received them isn’t really important, but one night while using her powers to save people, she’s discovered by a villain named Kilgrave (Played by former 10^th Doctor David Tennant) who has the ability to control people into doing his will. He uses her powers as part of his criminal empire, and controls her into a relationship with him. What follows (and what the show is about) that is a strong allegory about survival, rape, and PTSD. Like I said, a heavy show, but a fantastic one. I highly recommend it for anyone that would like to watch a standalone television show that loosely follows the comic.

            The problem is the part where I say, “Loosely.”

The powers that be established JJ was going to take part in this larger MCU. That’s a lot how it was sold.  You know what they had the option to do? Not have her take part in this larger world. They could have easily made a stand alone TV show... DC comics is famous for separating out its Television and movie properties.  And had they kept her separate from the MCU, it would have been a lot stronger show. Marvel could have easily said. "Hey, we have our strong rape allegory… let’s go for it and blow some minds!” but instead, they sold this as part of the Street Level Defenders show.

I get Tony Stark, Captain America, or the Hulk not showing up - that was the POINT of Daredevil, the world that this show was supposed to share. There are bad guys that can rip apart mountains with their bare hands, and there are super powered heroes who are going to stop them, but there's always going to be that guy who steals a purse, or tries to rob a bank. Daredevil was a show that said, "hey.. I have superpowers... I'll help the little guy." This could have been an entry to further that idea, rather than Jessica Jones vs. A well known Daredevil villain, it could have shown how a severely damaged woman, one getting over her own demons having been raped, gained her footing to help the people that needed it. (it should be noted that in the comics, The Purple Man aka Kilgrave an't influence Jessica or Daredevil. In fact, it's his hatred for Daredevil that got him so riled up as to send Jessica off into the world to go kill him. Unfortunately he doesn't phrase things properly, and, let's just say Jessica can't defeat all of the Avengers at once.) Instead we got not just a cynical world, but one that openly rejected the idea that it was part of this larger world, or one that was even a superhero show.

              The show's desire to neglect the fact that it is a superhero show, much less one in a shared universe, is the most constantly frustrating thing about it. "Hey, I know a guy who can help wink wink"  says a nurse who appears in Daredevil says in one scene. But it's quickly waved away when they don't want to admit that the show dare stand alongside Daredevil.  Yes, this is supposed to be a show about Jessica Jones, one that needs to establish her. But they didn't allow a chance to draw a connection between the characters, to establish that Daredevil has powers (a major plot point in Luke and Jessica meeting) or that he was the vigilante that everyone was concerned about until the television show, Jessica Jones. It provides an odd disconnect that is jarring, having watched both shows.

            The problem is that this show actively hates the fact that it's a superhero show, and that's a problem.

             The show was a slew of missed opportunities to connect it to a larger world. Hey, how about Jessica getting a call about a vigilante roaming the streets. Hey, how about the words "Wilson Fisk" … you know that huge crime lord who's name was being whispered everywhere and then was suddenly exposed… being brought up. Daredevil didn't have to pop up every episode, but Jessica and Luke were so excited to find someone else like them that maybe - just maybe - the guy wearing the red suit running around the same 10 block radius deserved a mention. He didn't even have to show up in any episode, but the end of Daredevil made it appear as if he was watching over Hell's Kitchen… so why don't the people trying to stop the murdering rapist think to mention him? Even if it's to say, "We can't get him close to Kilgrave because we don't know what will happen?" What about the fact that several of the characters actually work in a law firm? Or that one of them was going to look for a defense attorney to protect her from the super-powered attack she suffered? "Hey look up Nelson and Murdock, they specialize in cases like this" one human being could have said. But they didn't. It was as if they went out of their way to keep from mention the "D" word. Even the Avengers get reduced to nicknames that display sheer disgust at the idea that they may actually exist. The problem is that the show's need to avoid mentioning or establishing that this character is out there hurts it.

To put it in perspective: Did you ever watch Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and it’s spinoff Angel? These were separate shows. They didn't spend a lot of time saying "Wow, Buffy would…" or "Wow, where's Angel." They death with heavy issues… growing up, rape, PTSD. But they acknowledged that they shared a world. There's an episode where Buffy dies in season 5. (Well… "dies" as much as anyone does on that show not named "Tara") during that time Angel was in another dimension. When he got back, he's talking with his buddies, opens a door, and Willow is sitting there. Fade to black before she says anything. Watch Buffy? Great you know why she was there. Don't watch Buffy? You don't know, but it took up literally one minute of the episode. Affects nothing for the casual viewer, adds something cool to remind everyone that it's a shared world. Particularly for a show that was concerned with justice, maybe two lawyers, one of whom with superpowers, could have walked behind someone in a scene. Or a reference to the law firm.

The reason Jessica Jones scares me as a continuation of Marvel's grand vision is it's blatant rejection of superheroes. What happened to her was tragic but the show took someone who was damaged then made her more damaged. The comic took someone who was happy, someone who was a hero. She wore that costume, fought crime, and could fly… and showed what that damage could do. She was raped by Kilgrave for MONTHS in the comic. Her will as a person was broken and her will as a hero was broken. A large section of her recovery was a realization that she didn’t know what was Kilgrave’s will and what was her will, and this scared it. It was a deep look into not just PTSD, but the deconstruction of a superhero. The show skips over that. She's already too cool for tights the second the show gives her superpowers. They openly mock the idea of Jessica becoming a superhero. Not just a superhero, that specific superhero that she was in the comic. The smiling, pink-haired woman who could fly. And this happened before Kilgrave set foot on the screen. The two friends are sitting around, drinking wine, and discussing superheroics. All this as the costume she would wear lays on the couch, being mocked, destroyed, disrespected.  It's not a problem that she doesn't want to fight crime in a suit. It is a problem that her character is rejected for the sake of creating one that is disgusted by the idea of being a hero. Part of the point of Jessica Jones is the shocking change in character after spending 8 months being raped. Not just 8 months of being raped, but by having her will broken down. It's supposed to send a more powerful message. But here's a character that was already pretty much the way she is when we first see her, even in flashback. It takes away from the core of the character. 

The fact is, deep allegories or not, this takes place in a world of superheroes. At the time that she was rejecting all of these things in the show, their was already a very public battle that involved costumed heroes – she could have joined them. But she didn’t have to. They didn’t have to establish a superheroic past, the show works without it. But the inclusion of this into the show is almost hateful to the source material. It’s saying “we’re better than this.” It’s mocking the very reason these shows exist. And as a fan of comic books, it kind of scares me. I’m not saying that superhero shows/comics can’t be dark. Quite the opposite. I’m saying that the removal of what made the character unique in the first place, you’re weakening the case for the character. They didn’t take a happy character and break her, then tell a story of redemption. They told a story where a deep, dark character was hurt, and then… what? Got darker? You remove the superhero aspect of the show. And this gets to a larger problem at the heart of every time a superhero tries to cover anything important: you can either have the colorful costumes, or you can have the serious discussion. If you have the serious discussion, it seems you have to mock the idea of being a superhero.

Maybe we’ll see more. There are still three more series to see before we get to the next show: Luke Cage (we probably won’t hear the phrase “Powerman” unless it’s ironic, I’m guessing). There’s Iron Fist, which is held up as it deals with more fantastical elements. And another season of Daredevil, which had it’s own issues of being afraid to acknowledge it’s legacy as a Superhero Show. and is currently filming with the addition of two other characters deeply entrenched in comic book lore.  But we’ll have to see. I certainly hope they aren't treated with the same disgust as Jessica Jones treats her comic book connections.

            Like I said, I don’t want to rain on how great Jessica Jones is as a standalone television series. It is fantastic. You should watch it. You should stop reading this and watch it now in fact. But it’s embarrassed to be one based on a superhero comic, and that oozes from the screen. And that part… that’s a little scary for the future of the MCU.

Fall Movie Season: The Night Before (Analysis)

           There are many go-to stories that writers seem to like. The Prince and The Pauper is a pretty popular premise for writers to purloin. Zombies seem to be back “in”. But as much as people seem to say “hey… isn’t just the rewrite of X” there’s one story that people like to retell as much as possible.

            A Christmas Carol.

            It’s been remade, revamped, modernized, traditionalized, applied to the Fourth of July for some reason, used in sitcoms, TV Dramas, superhero stories… you name it, three ghosts have shown up at some point and scared some dude into accepting Christmas (or the Fourth of July… seriously, what was up with An American Carol? Did anyone stop and ask what madness that was at any point in the production?)

            While Scrooged, despite being set firmly in the 1980’s, still remains the superior version of A Christmas Carol, there are still attempts at making a new version of it. And in the most recent movie, The Night Before, they seem to succeed in taking the formula and playing with it in a fun way.

            The Night Before is about a young man stuck in the past. Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a man-child who refuses to grow up following the death of his parents at the hands of a drunk driver. His buddies, Chris (Avenger Anthony Mackie) and Isaac (Perpetual Man-Child Seth Rogen) always ensured that he wouldn’t spend Christmas Eve alone with a series of traditions. Traditions that sadly, become endangered, due to his buddies moving on with their lives, Chris becoming a famous athlete and Isaac having a kid. They set out for one last night of sheer epic fun.

            Of course, you could have gotten all of that from the trailer and zero of that has anything to do with A Christmas Carol, so why am I comparing the two? 

            (Spoilers to follow… or as may spoilers that can show up for a movie that’s not really a mystery. You just have one question: Is James Franco in it? Answer to follow as well.)

            What separates out The Night Before from a traditional comedy, and what makes it sort of a remake of A Christmas Carol without the Ghosts or old dude screaming at kids to buy him geese for Christmas Dinner as if that’s something of a resolution, is how it deals with all the same material as Dickens’ classic without copying it word for word.

            This is a movie that’s very rooted in the past, present, and future of these young guys’ lives. Ethan is stuck in the past, dwelling over not really the death of his parents, but the fact that he’s going to lose these guys to what looks like bright, promising futures. For one, Isaac is having a kid, and seems to be calm, cool, and collected… but is freaking out. He’s constantly worried that he’s going to mess up his kid’s life. Chris is making it as an athlete, but not only at the expensive of his friends, but also at the expensive of himself – he’s using steroids and is obsessed with getting in good with the popular members of the team.

            So… Isaac, representing the future, Ethan, representing the past, and Chris, representing the present, all are looking for this giant party where naturally, everything is going to come to a head. The movie covers the ground for everyone: they all have to maintain that past, present and future without losing who they are in the process.

Or maybe they want to lose who they are?

For someone stuck in the past, Ethan is relatively well adjusted. He needs to move on from his fear of settling down. It’s not until he can get past that (with a grand move and guest appearance from Miley Cyrus) that he really can move on from the past, but an epilogue shows us: he manages to still maintain his friendships.

Isaac is afraid of the future, while looking cool. It’s only once that he accepts that future, and that he’s afraid of it, that he’s able to work with his wife. It’s actually one of the better “man child grows up” roles from Seth Rogen, because he never really is a “child” the way he is in some of his more frustrating roles. He starts this very mature, and only devolves when he’s afraid that maturity is eating him up and turning him into someone new.

Then there’s Chris. I found Chris to be an interesting character. Not only because hey, what’s Falcon doing with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen? But because he is the one that we see in the most pain right away – shooting up while talking to Ethan on the phone. This immediately puts the past and the future in a better position than the present. While the past is messed up, and the future is in peril, they are relatively together for the time being.

In fact, the closest this movie has to a ghost figure is in the enigmatic Mr. Green, (Michael Shannon), a pot dealer who seems pretty mystical. And I’m not being cryptic, he’s mystical in that all of his hits seem to give these guys visions of what’s going on in the past, present, and future. The only thing that really bugged me is when he turned out, quite literally, to be an angel as opposed to just a mysterious figure that dispensed advice.

There’s a lot going on in this movie. A lot more than the trailers would indicate from the few trailers of Seth Rogen freaking out on drugs, and Anthony Mackey being “Home Alone’d” at one point. It was one that really did tackle the idea of growing up, and that loving or hating Christmas may be due to the fact that it is a recognizable milestone. We all have Birthdays or some other event that marks time on a planet that, quite frankly, doesn’t mark time the way we think it does. But Christmas is loud. It’s in your face. It’s a celebration that signifies that the end of the year is very close. It’s difficult to escape. These three men have to face the passing of a new year in a very loud manner.

One of the best things about this movie is the closing shots of all of them together, celebrating Christmas. Although they aren’t running around the city, looking for a mythical party or  adhering to all their old traditions – the idea of their traditions ending holds heavy over most of this movie – they are still enjoying each other, and that doesn’t have to end, no matter what the age.  As long as you have good friends and family to spend the time with, that’s where the importance lies. And that’s really the message of A Christmas Carol (And this movie) – it’s the people that we choose to spend our time with that make things better. You can’t really spend time dwelling on what you’ve lost, or what’s going to happen, you have to make the now that important.

Not bad for a movie that includes Miley Cyrus in a duet with Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Summer Movie Season: Ant-Man

Settle in Boys and Girls… this will be long, but worth it.

Once upon a time, Marvel Comics had a plan. They released a movie called Iron Man which featured a pretty popular but not well known outside of comics superhero played by the awesomely awesome Robert Downey, Jr. It should be known at this point that when cast, RDJ was known as that once high profile actor guy who had been fired from Ally McBeal. 

But, they had a plan! What if, instead of just having Robert Downey, Jr. play Tony Stark, billionaire industrialist playboy who built a suit of armor to atone for his sins, what if… WHAT IF… they introduced the OTHER people he shared a team with? And they made fun little references to the properties own by Marvel Studios (who owns who is tricky business, kids. I went over it once, but the bottom line: Marvel Studios doesn’t own everyone in the comic books. Don’t think about it for this post.) So at the end of Iron Man, Tony Stark meets up with Nick Fury, who tells him about the Avengers. 

Then, not knowing if that little trick would work, Marvel took another gamble. They referenced Nick Fury, Avengers, and Tony Stark in the front of The Incredible Hulk… THEN HAD ROBERT DOWNEY JR SHOW UP AS TONY STARK. This happened a little over a month after the Iron Man movie, which meant it was filmed well before they knew that Nick Fury's one minute cameo went over well with everyone. Audiences went pretty nuts for this. Here was Iron Man in a non-Iron Man movie, telling us that the Hulk was going to be in the Avengers! This was incredible.

It kept going like this: Iron Man 2 featured heavy references to Captain America and Thor. Nick Fury and Black Widow were characters. Thor, despite being off-world still managed to throw in sly references to Ant-Man (Henry Pym), Tony Stark, and the post credits sequence tied in directly to the Avengers. Captain America set the rest in motion which brought us to the Avengers, an action packed movie that brought everyone else together and hinted at even more danger. That was Phase 1.

But that’s all history. Why am I bringing this up here?

Because Phase 2 blew it all to hell, and got rid of half the fun.

Iron Man 3 was along slog about how Iron Man doesn’t want to be Iron Man anymore, how he’s got PTSD, and all at a time where we were supposed to be blaming Man of Steel for being too dark. (When one of your characters asks “When are we going to talk about the Avengers?” that’s not cute, it’s what the audience is thinking.) Thor 2 made a quick reference to Captain America and Guardians of the Galaxy.  Of course, that movie had no interest in being associated with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, despite a lot of table setting for the way long off third and fourth Avengers movies, and all attempts to get references to it (The Hulk and Iron Man were both supposed to show up at different times) were removed in favor of funny shots of Groot dancing and Howard the Freakin' Duck. Captain America 2 made the most references to the other movies, leading into Avengers 2 and with a brief mention of Steven Strange (that elicited way too strong a response because we’d just watched three movies not want to talk about anything Avengers or larger universe) . But overall, the series was more interested in re-establishing the heroes as single characters instead of a team, removing all those fun references that sucked us into Phase 1. Even Avengers 2 cut out it’s end credits scene! We live for those end credits scenes. Basically Marvel said, “You know what worked in Phase 1? Let’s remove all of that from Phase 2.”

This is a long way to tell you what I thought about Ant-Man, technically the end of Phase 2 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Ladies and Gentlenerds… the fun is back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I loved this movie. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it. (Spoilers to follow.)

Ant-Man is the story of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd, in his most Paul Ruddiest role to date.), former thief who, after a stint in prison, is given a second chance by the first Ant-Man, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas, spouting dialogue he never thought he’d have to say.) He has to don the suit of Ant-Man, a shrinking hero who was active during World War 2 and had to retire and hide his suit because well... THE WRONG HANDS! (seriously, though, so much time is spent thinking about how these advancements in these movies might fall into the wrong hands, maybe they should stop inventing them at some point.)  He needs Scott to steal a suit being developed by his protege, who wants to build an army of shrinking super-soldiers in a world that needs super soldiers of any variety. This takes place post-Avengers 2, so a lot of references are made to the fact that a freaking city was just dropped by an evil robot.

Let’s get the good out of the way first, because there’s a lot of it: This movie is not afraid to reference the fact that it is taking place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It starts with Hank Pym quitting SHIELD, along with appearances from Peggy Carter and Howard Stark. That’s the first five minutes. Later, when Hank is describing the problems with having a shrinking technology out their, Scott doesn’t hesitate, he says “bring in the Avengers.” The DNA of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is all over this movie. There are references to the events of the Avengers 2, Spider-Man, and even a fight scene with an actualAvenger, which is likely to happen when someone else with superpowers shows up on the scene. An actual, honest to goodness, “hey this is the first time we’re meeting so let’s fight” scene. Remember how much we all enjoyed that in the first Avengers movie? We do. Did Marvel remember? No. But Ant-Man remembers.

This movie avoids a lot of Phase 2 problems by simply having fun with the premise. There’s the initial issue with the fact that this main character’s power is to shrink and control ants… what’s the point? The point is that he can sneak into anywhere, and is pretty powerful, despite the jokes about his name. There’s the heist factor, where he’s got a pretty funny team with him. Michael Pena as his old cellmate Luis stole every scene that he was in. I’m not the first person to claim that, I know, but that’s because it’s true. Michael Pena is the type of actor who’s funny, but is interested in making everyone around him look good. The movie is better for having him in it. I can’t say that about every character in every movie, even ones I love. But he’s simply perfect.

There even is a dramatic sub-plot. Why, you may ask, does Henry Pym simply not ask his daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lily) to don the Ant-Man suit? (Spoilers). After teasing us for a little bit, it was revealed that Hank had a partner (as he did in the comics): The Wasp, who sacrificed herself for the greater good, and Henry needs someone “expendable” in Scott Lang if something goes wrong. He can’t sacrifice his daughter. 

It’s that attention to detail that makes the movie perfect. It’s that moment of drama that pulls us into the movie, but then gives us enough humor to take us back out and remind us that it is a superhero movie about a guy that controls ants. 

I could go on. The special effects weren’t just great but unique, giving us a look into a shrinking hero that uses his power to fight crime. The pacing was spot on, not spending too much time in one location for us to get bored. It doesn’t take itself too seriously… it’s a movie about a shrinking hero. It establishes a history not just within the story itself, but in the larger Marvel Universe. And the post credits scenes are used to establish upcoming stories for Hope, Ant-Man, AND the Marvel Universe as a whole, rather than making a joke or trying to distance itself from the larger world being created. 

What’s bad about this movie? What’s bad is at the time of this writing it’s currently the second lowest grossing Marvel Movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Fans of comedy: go see this movie. Fans of comics: Go out and see this movie. Fans of good movies: Go out and see this movie. Please. We need more like it. We need to remind Marvel of when their movies were fun, and when their movies spent time not only on the hero, but in setting up a bigger world for itself. 

I’m VERY proud to announce that Ant-Man is my first 10 out of 10 for the Summer Movie Season.

Summer Movie Season: Age of Ultron Review

Middles are hard. 

It’s not always easy to start something, and the end may not be the clearest, but the middle, particularly the middle of a series, can be difficult. You have to balance a satisfying story that picks up where the beginning ends, and leave off enough to ensure that there will be enough for the movie to tell a satisfying ending to the story. 

That was the balancing act that Joss Whedon had to walk when working on Avengers: Age of Ultron.

There’s also the balancing act that this isn’t a typical sequel… Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and Black Widow all ran off and had their own adventures in between The Avengers and this movie, which can be difficult to work with at times for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). There were shades of this in the original Avengers when the big, climatic moment of Thor resulted in Loki being sent off into space and Thor being trapped in Asgard, but both had to heavily appear in The Avengers. So, it’s not easy, and would be really easy to make a bad movie. Particularly one, as mentioned, that has to set up a lot of dangling threads that will make up the already announced sequels, Avengers 3 Captain America: Civil War and The Infinity Stones, which has already been announced to be two sequels. That doesn’t even begin to talk about the many, many, many, many, many other movies that will involve these characters between now and then.

So, how does Joss Whedon do in this latest outing of the Avengers will the deck stacked against him?

He excels.

The obligatory recap: Following the events of The Avengers, Iron Man 3, Captain America: Winter Soldier, and Thor: The Dark World, as well as the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D  TV Show, (And presumably Guardians of the Galaxy, but more on that in a minute.) The Avengers are getting together to find Loki’s staff. They do in a thrilling sequence at the beginning of the movie that sets up why we love watching these characters together so much. They of course find it, Tony Stark hooks it up to a machine that he’s using to try to set up automated Iron Men to protect the populace (because The Terminator doesn’t exist in this world?) and it accidentally activates Ultron, an artificial intelligence that is not three laws safe by any stretch of the imagination. From there we have battles, robots, and a giant city threatening to wipe out the Earth because it’s difficult for humanity to muck things up if they’re all dead.

Maybe in the future we start teaching robots love first. Show them a couple romantic comedies. THEN we get to the war.

Oh, and along the way we meet Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver because Marvel realized they had the rights to the characters and the name, but not the backstory or things that make them interesting. 

First, the good, which is that it’s always interesting seeing these characters on the screen together, and not just from a “oh my Stan Lee they actually made an Avengers movie” standpoint. Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlet Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, and Chris Hemmsworth MAKE these characters easy to watch. They make them interesting, and that’s the core of the movie. We already know that billion dollar explosions and cool special effects can be ruined if you don’t enjoy those moments that make up the times when there aren’t explosions and cool special effects. (See: Transformers 1 through 4.) 

There’s also the fact that they did pull out some interesting story lines from the Avengers rich history, such as Ultron, and tied it into Tony Stark’s fears that humanity is going to be wiped out by something bigger than them. Ultron is an iconic villain, played beautifully here by James Spader, scarily enough only being James Spader, and to use him here was great, particularly as all the pieces for the Infinity Gauntlet aren’t on the table yet, but heavily hinted at in Thor’s subplot.

However, that sorta brings me to the good/bad thing that’s been throughout the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase 2 films. The good, used here, was the fact that they acknowledged that these movies were taking place inside a shared Universe, which the First Avengers and the Phase 2 movies have been kind of shying away from a little bit. War Machine and Falcon show up for a few minutes to remind everyone that, hey, they were around during the last Iron Man and Captain America Adventures, and there’s a funny moment where Thor and Tony Stark try to one-up each other about where their particular significant others are.

But this still treads into the Phase 2 problem of NOT wanting to hint at future actions. Oh, we get a little visit to Black Panther’s home country, and we get a moment where we see the Infinity Gauntlet in full view, but that’s about it in terms of setting up Phase 3 films. There’s another movie coming out this summer, Ant-Man with Paul Rudd, that, while it will rake in money like Tony Stark at a craps table, it would be two seconds (or a missing end credits scene) to put him in the movie, but they didn’t feel a need to foreshadow him at all in this movie. Which is a little disturbing, particularly because in the original comics, it was Henry Pym (The original Ant-Man… who, through the trailers, we know is established in the MCU prior to this movie) who invents Ultron, and this would have been a prime example of how to bring him in quickly and quietly, while still keeping the focus on everyone else. 

But Phase 2 has constantly had this problem: trying too hard not to reference the other movies. There’s a quick moment here or there, but nothing like Phase 1 that worked to set up the other films. A quick moment where there’s a reference to the Guardians of the Galaxy or any of the other Phase 3 films… two of which do not feature known actors, and feature obscure heroes, could have taken a boost from this film.

But, that’s all fanboy griping. The movie was awesome. 

Oh, and there are some people who are a little confused and/or upset about the Hulk/Black Widow pairing, the thing is, it kind of works for me. I went in skeptical, having heard about it, but at the same time it makes perfect sense to me. These are two characters that started off very hostile to each other, but in the end they’re damaged people that can’t really exist in normal society. Black Widow trying to escape her past and isn’t sure how to function not as a warrior. Plus, there’s the fact that Mark Ruffalo and Scarlet Johansson sell it well. It just worked for me.

Overall, great movie, and great movie to start the summer movie season. Only one further “gripe”… I saw it in a theater where the projector kept cutting off. And one place it cut off was right before the Hulkbuster scene. I guess that means I’ll have to see it again… 

Go see this movie. Yes, there’s a lot of backlash, but that’s what we do now when things get good. You’ll enjoy it.

Nine out of Ten, only because I don’t give out Tens this early in the season. I will probably revise this.

Are We Too Cynical When it Comes To Comic Book Movies?

Recently, both Marvel and DC Comics released their films for the next couple of years. It includes things like more Avengers, Batman going up against Superman, multiple versions of the Flash, and let’s not even get started on the movie spanning war that involves a bunch of gems and a magic glove. You’re going to have to trust me on this, it’s a pretty awesome series that no one every realistically thought would be made into a movie, much less into a movie featuring the same actors that have been playing the same movie roles for a couple fo movies now. 

This is tied in with a resurgence in Doctor Who, brand new Star Trek movies (and the possibility that a new Star Trek series is about to come out… I know, we get one of these rumors every few years, but this one feels more real), a bunch of new Star Wars movies featuring the original cast, not, “let’s set it in the past so we don’t have to use the same actors”… I mean, it’s really never been a better time to be a nerd. One of the biggest movies expected to open this year is an adaption of the Hobbit the way JRR Tolkien wanted it to be, as a real prequel to the Lord of the Rings as opposed to a cutesy one-off. The most popular books for teenagers are science fiction, Green Arrow has his own TV Show, and you can talk about phaser guns and space travel without the danger of getting a swirly. 

It’s never really been a better time to be a nerd. 

So, then… why are we so miserable?

Seriously, if you told 15 year old me that I could walk around with my Doctor Who tattoo while I waited for Thor and Captain America to duke it out on screen one week then watch the Flash while I wait for Batman and Superman to be in a movie together, I probably would have re-believed in Santa while imagining the Easter Bunny was throwing a surprise party for me on my birthday, and they were all bringing me presents. 

instead, we get petty complaints about useless stuff. Are we getting too cynical when it comes to movies like this? Are we getting too cynical in what we consider “good.”

First up, let’s talk about casting. The closest we came to the sound of heads exploding was casting in Batman. You know which one I’m talking about. The actor that everyone knows is going to mess up the role. He’s going to make it miserable, something terrible. How in the world could he have ever been cast? He’s going to mess it up, did you see the early pictures of Heath Ledger as the Joker? Yeah. That guy. Not Ben Affleck, who everyone is certain is going to one day mess up the character that was once played with dignity and respect by the great tortured actor Michael Keaton Adam West Val Kilmer George Clooney. 

Yes, I know this isn’t new, we’ve been mocking the idea of a certain actor taking over a role since the dawn of time, since that one bald English dude took over some role called “Captain Picard.” Sometimes you get a good surprise, like when Heath Ledger defined the Joker. 

My point is, that most of the debate seems to center around a movie that has had zero footage shown of it up until this point. 

Then is the dreaded… Superhero Fatigue. You see, over the course of 5 years, they’re releasing roughly a billion superhero movies. SURELY WE WILL ALL BE TIRED OF THEM BY THE END OF THE FIRST YEAR!! A quick look at Google and IMDB (I know, more research than I usually do) shows that roughly 8,000 movies were released in 2013. I’m not including 2014, so the year is not set. Yes, those aren’t all your oooooh… go see it now, titles, some may be one offs or special events, but that doesn’t change the fact that 8,000 movies recently came to theaters. 

The year that will have the most superhero movies released is 2016, with a whopping 7. So, using math, 0.0001% of movies released will be a Superhero movie. So… that’s a lot, maybe?

Again, my point is, in a perfect world where no actors get hurt, no movie times get changed, and everything comes out, you could go see 20 movies one year, and not even half of them would involve a dude in tights trying to save the world. Or destroy it, depending on what you’re watching.

Then there’s the whole Hobbit thing that I’ve tackled in the past, about how Peter Jackson was never adapting the Hobbit book, which is one little book and definitely not 3 long movies featuring cool cinematography and as many dwarf escape scenes in barrels as you could possibly want, along with sub-plots about hot female elves. Naturally it has it’s haters, but I’m surprised at the vitriol coming out about a movie that’s mostly just supposed to be… fun.

We live in an amazing time. Those static pictures… they’re moving now. The images in our head… they’re real now. That boy wizard went mainstream. A mind-bending-time-travel drama was so popular everyone tried to copy it. With cool special effects. I don’t think we realize how close we were to seeing Robert Downey Jr in a cardboard box painted red and having some filmmakers call it a day. (I caught Steel while I was working out this morning. Not Shaquille O’Neal’s finest work.)

What I’m saying is somewhere down the line, we lost our enthusiasm. That’s what made me want to be a nerd in the first place. We got cynical about “our” properties going “mainstream.” I say that’s awesome, let more people enjoy it. Let people know why we gathered for so long with our comic books, or our dreams of a brighter future, or even just the cool pew-pew laser battle stuff that made life so much worth living. Let’s be excited… Superman and Batman are about to throw down on film, and then I get to go watch Iron Man and Captain America duke it out, too, played by real actors. I’m going to watch the Hobbit… on the big screen, as part of the Lord of the Rings trilogy! Let’s all get excited again! Let’s bring back what it meant to be a kid, enjoying this stuff for the first time.

Or we can all go back to just being angry on the internet, and laughing at scenes from Big Bang Theory where a woman going into a comic book store is reason for everyone to stop and stare. 

Come on, everyone. Let’s drop the cynicism. Let’s go out and enjoy your comic books again! Let’s enjoy our movies again!