Film Review : " Wonder Woman 1984"

 

I will preface this by saying I think as far as DC movies goes the first Wonder Woman is one of the better DC Films . I did not care for the end of that movie as it felt like the Producer call up and told them to dump the rest of their budget into CGI rather than writing a better fight scene , but that is the kind of problem we can only wish this movie had. This time around it seems like when they heard the movie might not get a theatrical release during post production , they told them to not spend any more money on it. But production is not the only problem. The movie is flawed on almost every level some of them are just a lacking of any caring or editing. 

One example is during the man out of time / fish out of water take on Steve Trevor being introduced to 1984, we see him perplexed by an escalator. How dumb are these people? Escalators came about into 1859. He would not be confused by them. Did know one think to at least Google this shit, does writing get any lazier than that?  The Super Friends cartoons from the 70s has plot that made more sense than the bad guys getting powers from wishing on rocks. Wishy washy would be a compliment at this point in regard to how things are resolved by the end.  Are we saying the big heroic message is be careful what you wish for ? Or do not dream big ? 

Gal Gadot is the only part of this movie works , but even in the depiction of Wonder Woman here, her looks along can not carry it. We have Wonder Woman using a invisibility power to make her invisible plane. She is just like "Oh yeah my dad did this once". The villains' are terrible. I think I might have preferred just a leopard print leotard to what Cheetah ends up looking like as the make is beyond awful. Even in capturing the 80s they could have at least used 80s music , but they did not even want to pay for that. The action is sparse . There is really Only 4 fights in the movie. I think the 66 perfect score on Rotten Tomatoes was paid for by the studio as I read several review that are not what I would consider positive that were scored that way. Before you say that is just a conspiracy theory , if Record Label with a lot less money than Warner Brothers have paid me to write positive album reviews you best believe that is happening.

Gal Gadot in one scene where's a white dress her legs look great in and Kristen Wiig, knocked it out of the park in a leotard at the gym, but aside from the costumes , there are not a great deal of other effective elements in this movie. I have heard a lot of people who want to like this movies, and are so invested in wanting to support girl power. I am all for female super heroes, but that does not mean I accept inferior quality in order to watch them and neither should you.

Marvel Comics in 2020

 This was supposed to be a mid year look at Marvel that I stalled out on. Perhaps a metaphor regarding how exciting they may or may not have been thus far. Before I started this piece it's been some time since I wrote about acutal comic books. It used to be a weekly thing, It is not that I stopped reading them. I have not. Buying them yes, in protest of certain choices they made over the year. Rather than whine in the comments section I made different choice. Even with that My enthusiasm for them grew weary after having their agendas shoved down my throats with sub-par story lines. There have been a few exceptions . The Immortal Hulk and Dr. Strange have both been on point. Savage Avengers which brought Conan into earth 616 has a pretty decent run. The Amazing Spider man also had some high points. Other books have been less focused. I am going to catch us up on where Marvel is at this year.,

After stopping the presses for Covid, they cranked in the Empyre event, which so far is underwhelming. The Savage Avengers cross over was an unneeded team up with Conan and Venom. If you are not aware what the premise is of this event a twist to the Kree /Skrull war is the quick nickel version. X-men issue 10 crosses over into this and it is another wasted excursion with the focus not on the X-men, but Vulcan from the Imperial Guard. The Empyre book itself is a space opera, more focused on convoluted drama, The X-Factor book is solid. It has great art and 3 characters I give a shit about North Star, Aurora and Daken. Did I mention I am a fan of Alpha Flight? Why not bring them back? They have been poorly used as a back up crew for Captain Marvel in space. We have seen Sasquatch and Puck in the pages of Hulk lately. All we need is Shaman, who has turned up in Strange Accademy and a new Vindicator.

I like that it pulls deeply from the well of Marvel mythology and gives cosmic c-listers more of a shot. I am a fan of Super Skrull and he factors in. They took a dramatic turn with She-hulk trying to put her on Bruce's level, which considering the beat down the Avengers got in the pages of Immortal Hulk it's clear they are not on his level. But then they killed her off in Empyre. The second event she has been killed in. The writer of Empyre also thinks that plant vines would not be able to hold Thor.

This even is meant to have Captain Marvel in mind as she has now joined Ronan in the ranks of the accusers. She has to go condemn some one who turns out to be her half sister, this goes against the code so now she is on the run. This was a crossover with the Empyre books so we will see if it indeed has an impact. The book gains it's legs , but the problem being it focuses on all the side characters . I was talking to someone about why Captain Marvel was a terrivle movie and as evident here with out War Machine, Hazmat and Spider Woman, she can not hold a story on her own. Spider Woman can , why does she not have a movie? Thor on the other had has improved without Matt Fraction on the book, though it did get a little hung up on the Galactus angle and the new Black Winter story line might be iffy. The Captain America Empyre book is ok. I like how Cap is drawn.

Speaking of messes. Tony Stark is still dead and Iron Man is now an AI in an artifical body. Yet he still gets angry and feels emotions. I did like that the book gave greater focus to characters like Jocosta and Machine Man. Arno Stark is running around in the 2020 armor. He is contending only with a robot rebellion lead by Mark One a Stark clone. The thing is continuity breaks down when you consider Stark is not having this much of a indentity crisis when he appears in the pages of the Avengers. It is hard to tell and the end of the arc if they brought Stark truly back to life as when he talks to Rhodes it made it seem like it was their last come back to life free card being used in that issue.

The Amazing Spider Man has gotten almost as dark as a Bat-man comic book with this new Sin-Eater arc. There isa creepy crawly bad guy lurking in the shadows of Peter Parkers nightmares. It is odd for a Spider Man book to not be light hearted , but it makes sense this is the direction it would go. Daredevil has really been solid , you can see how the Netflix show has influenced it . I am looking forward to seeing Spider Man beat the crap out of all the other spider people who are teaming up to stop him from saving Norman Osborn.I do not think I have seen him fight Spider- Gwen or Silk yet. I think on his a-game he is the more experienced fighter and can beat them all at once. Jessica Drew being the only one who should give him much trouble.

As far as X books go the new X-factor book is pretty soilid. Northstar, Daken and Polaris make for a decent team. Rachel summers is also in the mix. It's a murder mystery to find out what happened to Aurora. The X-men did not really fit well into Empyre. The whole X nation verse Shadow organizations of the week, is hit or miss. It has not sucked , but I have not been blown away by it either.

Film Review : " New Mutants"

Yes , I am going to get back to reviewing comics, in fact I am going to catch up with 2020 soon. For now lets look at the long Delayed New Mutants movie. It has been called by some critics the worst of the X-men movies. This is not true. It is better than the past two for sure. Perhaps not to the level of "Days of Future Past".  Effects wise it holds up against the original singer trilogy, but not on par with First Class. The character deviate from the comics at times and this is the sticking point for me in place. I think Magick is the best of the bunch in terms of acting and portrayal.  Wolfsband is decent as well. I was never into Dani Moostar so the bar is low for her. Cannonball and Sunspot are more problematic. Sam is depicted as being always banged up from using his powers. Um, he has a forcefeild around himself when he flies.  Sunspot was strong, but looked to much like the Human Torch. Is dark energy too much to ask for ? It would have looked more unique visually. Just stick to how he is drawn .

One thing about this movie that was a nice break, is all too often Marvel movies make the villian a mirror version of the heroes powers. There was not even a clear cut villian in this. Demon Bear? He looked cool. They nailed that. But he was more like Dani's past haunting her. I think the theme was really they were their own worst enemies. In the horror theme , well it was not a horror movie, but had those vibes, think "Flowers in the Attic" meets "Insidious". But was not a scary movie. It was darker than the other Xmen movies so I liked that. Was it worth the wait? mmm Kinda. I hope they keep her as Magick in future Marvel movies. The actor who plays Sam also has potential and if you are going to use Dani, then keep that chick as well she looks like she might be hot as she gets older, she is half way there already.

I enjoyed the movie. Yes it fell into the same trap most do where they throw every thing into a big cgi battle at the end  I mean a climax is one thing, but it could be done better . Not just the lets throw all the action figures on the bed feel. If you like the 80s run of the comics then you will like this. It is a shame there was no Warlock. But one thing I have learned from this movies is you can not have it all, and you can not have it all done right.

Film Review : "Birds of Prey"

"Birds of Prey" opened and it was crickets on Facebook. There were no updates about how great it was . Just awkward silence even with the 80 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating paid for by Warner Brothers, a great many people are not surprised this movie bombed. The studios obviously not being counted among them as they think high lighting Harley in the title will help. Maybe a focus group told them this. This is a shock to Warner Bros as I am sure they thought anything connected to Bat-man is bullet proof after Joker.  When I walked out of  the theater after seeing "Suicide Squad" I remember saying "Well that was for kids who go to Hot Topic" . This movie is not that cool. This movie is for little girl's feeling edgy at Claires. My ten year old daughter will like this movie. She has been Harley for two halloween breaking the streak last year with Wednesday Addams . My daughter also watches Youtube channels of kids making slime and doing silly dares. "Birds of Prey" has about that much depth. There are no surprises, they do not even attempt any. Margot Robbie has settled into the role. Too bad it will likely be her last as I do not see them lining up a sequel in this lifetime after the bomb it dropped/

Roise Perez has aged well. Her character felt forced in the story line there was little justification for her teaming up with them.  Black Canary even more forced and Huntress was not that great either. This is not the best argument for female super heroes. Black Canary could have pushed the sex appeal more. Lets face it the way they went with the character that is really all she would have had to offer,. It feels weird not having her around Green Arrow. For the minute she was in costume it worked for me. Huntress however was horrible and too much of a tom boy. That is not how the character should roll. This is a shame as I am a fan of female super heroes,these characters have been pretty hot in the comics. Why could Huntress no be hot and tough.? Speaking of tough the fight scenes were terrible. Why must every female character do a flying head scissors . In a real fight that is the last thing they would want to attempt. , 

Mcgregor was entertaining in his role though lost more menace as the movie progress,. The end was anti climatic and all of which you could seen coming from a mile away. This would have been better if they had nto tried to sell this to kids and gone with a rate R version, but you get what you get. Unless it is hyper realistic it looks like D/C movies will continue to be duds, it held itself together better in the end than say "Shazam" and looked better than Aquaman, but those a very low bars.  It made as much as "Jonah Hex' and I would have to say I liked "Jonah Hex" er.