Avengers: Infinity War

What can I say about the MCU that I haven’t already said? By now you know that I’m just not into superhero movies. Sure, you occasionally get a gem like The Dark Knight or Logan or Wonder Woman, but for the most part, they are drab, unimaginative, paint-by-numbers affairs. A valid complaint other people have leveled against the MCU is that the ultimate goal is to get to the Avengers films, and all the films in between are just road bumps in that path. Sometimes, with how mediocre the “in-between films” are, it really does seem to be true. And so, Avengers: Infinity War arrives, as part one of a two-part extravaganza incorporating almost every character seen in the MCU so far. They have been teasing Thanos as the ultimate villain in the universe for some time, and now he finally gets to the front and center of the screen.

Deadpool 2 AKA Skull Poop L 2

Ryan Reynolds read my review of Logan, and agreed with me 100% that killing Wolverine was a mistake. After all, it’s referenced in the opening scene of Deadpool 2. How could Fox kill their most profitable superhero? What a bunch of morons! Anyway, it’s nice to know that Reynolds has good taste in blogs. Oh, and by the way Ryan, you still owe me $500; you can send it to me via Paypal.

Deadpool 2 is a classic superhero sequel movie. Classic, though, isn’t always a good thing. It excels and stumbles in all the usual ways a superhero sequel does. However, with Deadpool being a unique character, breaking the fourth wall and satirizing the idiocies of the genre, the film manages to keep itself afloat, and entertains throughout.

The Other Side of the Door, Doctor Strange

The Other Side of the Door

This 2016 horror movie tries to be the Indian version of The Grudge, but is too inept to be scary, and too stupid to be entertaining. Some white people living in India get in a car accident, and the mom’s son dies. A mystical Indian woman (this movie assumes all Indian people are mystical) tells the mom if she spreads the son’s ashes on a temple’s steps at night, she can speak to him one more time. The catch is that they have to talk from opposite sides of a door, and she can’t open the door no matter what. This being a horror movie, and the characters all being idiots, she obviously opens the door and lets her son’s evil spirit back to the land of the living. The son’s spirit terrorizes the family, but it’s mostly just stuff to startle the audience. The film’s low body count prevents the audience from feeling that there is any real threat to be found. The acting is dreadful, and there is a lot of scenery chewing and screaming over ridiculous things. The mystical Indian woman dies, but other mystical Indian men ultimately save the day. In a “twist” ending that is completely hilarious and eye-rolling at the same time, the mom dies, and her husband brings her back from the dead and opens the temple’s door, starting the whole thing over again. If the movie wasn’t so badly acted and directed it could have been decent, but it languished. Setting it in India could have given us an insight into a culture we rarely see in Western cinema, with a unique twist on the horror genre, but it’s all couched in generic mysticism, and the entire point of being set in India is lost. This movie is only good if you need to laugh.

Verdict: Shitty

Doctor Strange

Benedict Cumberbatch dropped his Sherlock Holmes role and donned a doctor’s white coat and a bad American accent for this 2016 film. As far as Marvel movies go, Doctor Strange wasn’t too bad. It is removed from the super-self serious tripe we got with Captain America, and the herky-jerky “everything and the kitchen sink” stuff from The Avengers. Unfortunately, it plays out like every Marvel origin story. Cumberbatch is an egotistical neurogsurgeon (has there ever been a movie doctor that wasn’t egotistical?) who loses the use of his fine motor skills, but replaces them with the ability to conjure magic. Yeah, sure, okay. The villain has the same powers as him, which is something we always see in Marvel origin stories. It’s completely predictable with nary a story-telling stray alley or twist to be found. On the positive side, the visual style is rather unique. The psychedelic magic made it rather a pleasure to watch. There were enough moments of levity sprinkled throughout to keep the movie bouncing forward without becoming a self-parody. Basically, it’s a generic Marvel movie wrapped up in a fresh visual style, and a lead actor who is fun enough, and doesn’t take himself too seriously. I didn’t find myself getting bored with this one, which is more than I can say for most of this studio’s output.

Verdict: Average

Suicide Squad, The Lego Batman Movie

Suicide Squad

The first supervillain team-up movie features Batman’s rogues gallery, although, it’s comprised mostly of his second stringers like Deadshot, Killer Croc, Harley Quinn, etc. The crux of the film is that the U.S. government wants a special team of bad guys to be able to combat superheroes if the need arises.

The plotting is horrible, even for a comic book movie. The team assembles, and immediately one of the members (Enchantress) goes double-rogue and tries to kill all humanity. Of course, if they hadn’t put the team together in the first place, none of this would have happened. But the Hollywood executives behind this movie figured that the movie-going public are a bunch of mouth-breathers who wouldn’t notice.

The “action” is incredibly dull. The characters virtually stand still as they stiffly stab or shoot generic monsters. They move from Point A to Point B until they ultimately defeat Enchantress. A couple of them die, but since they are all underdeveloped, you feel nothing for them. Deadshot and Harley have the most backstory, but still leave a lot wanting. Perhaps whittling the team down to just two or three characters would have yielded better results.

Will Smith is fine, doing his usual shtick, Margot Robbie is perfect as Harley Quinn, and Jared Leto is an OK Joker, but really hard to take as a menacing figure with his grill and all his tats. The Batman cameos were interesting, but rather pointless.

All in all, this was a weak, directionless, sloppy entry into DC’s cinematic universe. It made boatloads of money, though, so I suppose we can expect more of this dreck in the future.

Verdict: Shitty

The Lego Batman Movie

I wasn’t a huge fan of the first Lego Movie. I realize I’m the only person on Earth who didn’t like it, but I hate everything, so you shouldn’t be surprised. Well, I do like Batman, so I went into this one a bit more hopeful. Fortunately, this time I wasn’t disappointed. Lego Batman was a very funny film, managing to lovingly skewer all things Batman. They make jokes about the franchise, but not at its expense. The writers clearly understand and enjoy Batman, and make references to all the series’ various incarnations from comics to animated series to Adam West’s campy 60’s version. I even enjoyed the references to other franchises such as Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Will Arnett and Michael Cera were perfect as Batman and Robin, respectively. Zach Galifianakis’ version of the Joker was kind of shitty, but other than that I don’t have much to complain about. This one was a lot of fun.

Verdict: Good

 

 

Fantastic Four Sucked (But It Was Still Not As Bad As Green Lantern)

Fantastic Four was much reviled by the Marvel comics masturbatory fanboy community. To be honest, they weren’t wrong. This movie is bad. But it isn’t the incoherent piece of shit I had been led to believe. The story isn’t good, but it does make sense, and there is a general sense of cohesion. Watching it, you can’t tell there was so much behind-the-scenes turmoil.

The main problem is the story. It is woefully generic. From the moment the opening shot fades in, you have already seen all of this before. The main character, played by Miles Teller, is a boy genius who is ridiculed by his luddite teacher, Homer Simpson. Of course, Teller invented a teleportation device in his garage by hooking up a bunch of Nintendo 64s.

Teller keeps working on the device throughout the course of middle school and high school (and his luddite teacher follows him for some reason), and eventually gets disqualified from a science fair, because the luddite thinks it’s magical or something. I don’t know, it’s idiotic.

Logan: The Spoiler Review

Hugh Jackman’s final (until he gets paid all the money to return) outing as Wolverine has finally hit theaters. So far, it is both a critical and commercial success. With a bleak tone, incredible violence, and a definitive ending, we finally have been treated to the first truly great X-Men film.

Taking place 12 years from now, Logan’s future looks like a hellscape. One could be forgiven for thinking they accidentally stepped into a post-apocalyptic movie. With locations set primarily on the U.S.-Mexico border, the film’s vistas are mostly desert wastelands. This mirrors the inner narrative that Logan’s life has been wasted on violence, leaving him with nothing to show for it. That’s not to say the film can’t be beautiful at times. In fact, the forlorn landscapes evoke their own stark beauty thanks to some wonderful cinematography.

Once again, mutants are on the run, hiding from humans who wish to wipe them out. Humans have perfected a gene therapy technique that has caused all mutants to either lose their powers, or find they have become unstable. Professor X can barely control his telepathic powers, and is reduced to taking seizure meds to subdue them. Logan’s healing factor has slowed substantially, causing him to take much longer to recover from injuries, and making him almost mortal.

Captain America: Civil War AKA WTF Did I Just Watch?

Full disclosure, here is a list of Marvel Cinematic Universe properties I haven’t seen: Captain America 2, Thor 2, Iron Man 3, Avengers 2, Ant-Man, Agents of SHIELD, Agent Carter, Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Amazing Spider-Man, and Amazing Spider-Man 2. So, I probably wasn’t prepared for Captain America 3: The Combining of All Properties Civil War. Seeing this movie presented an interesting experiment: watch a bunch of characters I’m not very familiar with cavort on-screen, and try to see if I can figure out what the hell is going on.

Civil War is about Selfless Captain America fighting for truth, justice, and the American way. Err, wait no, scratch that. Civil War is about Sanctimonious Captain America defending his psycho assassin best friend despite the fact he’s a murderous lunatic who deserves to rot in a prison cell.

Deadpool AKA Skull Poop L

Hey, guys, I just wanted to let you know about this movie called Deadpool. You probably haven’t heard of it. It was released a month ago, and it totally slipped under the radar. It probably won’t be playing much longer, and you probably won’t get a chance to see it. I suppose it might do well enough to get a DVD release someday. On the off chance you are interested in this film, check out my review.

Deadpool is a superhero movie. Well, at least they say it’s a superhero movie, but I’m not so sure. You see, Deadpool kills a lot of people. A LOT. He kills them in cold blood, which doesn’t seem like a very heroic thing to do. And while he’s killing them, he’s saying all kinds of one-liners. He actually tells jokes while he kills people. Have you ever heard of such a thing in a movie before? It’s mind-boggling.

Guardians of the Galaxy Took a Shit on the Universe

The latest mega-blockbuster from unstoppable Marvel Studios was Guardians of the Galaxy. People hailed it as the greatest cinematic achievement since the introduction of the talkie. It was heralded as the best movie of the year. It had everything: action, adventure, comedy, and wonder. It also had a giant sentient tree and a talking raccoon. Let’s face facts here, people. Guardians of the Galaxy was passable summer fare. It wasn’t revolutionary, it didn’t do anything that hasn’t already been done before. It was an average, braindead, popcorn movie that doesn’t have a lot of rewatch value.

I say Guardians is braindead because it requires no active thought on the part of the viewer. All the audience is required to do is sit back, relax, and DURR WATCH DEM EXPLOSIONS BLOW STUFF UP REAL GOOD DURR! As you start to curl your hands into angry fists, take a second to think about that last statement. Try hard to think of a single scene in Guardians that challenges your brain, has a plot twist, leaves something ambiguous, or posits a viewpoint that might challenge your deeply set beliefs about morality or cultures or relationships. Guardians doesn’t do anything close to any of that. All it does is blow shit up.

Fuck your cinematic universe

This is a movie I never want to see.

OK, we need to have a talk. A serious talk. Why don’t you sit down over there?

*takes deep breath*

I heard you were doing something you shouldn’t be.

*holds out hand to stop a response*

I know, I know, you were probably just experimenting. And that’s OK. When I was your age, I experimented with stuff, too. You’re young, and you want to explore the world. Maybe you want to experiment with the same sex, or drugs, or a different religion. You know what? That’s OK. That’s how you discover yourself and become the person you are going to be as an adult.

*crosses arms over chest*

But there is one thing you should never experiment with. Something that, if you get involved with, can lead you down a very dark path. You might never come back from it.

*narrows eyes*

I heard from a friend of yours, that you…

*sighs*

…were thinking of starting your own cinematic universe.