#and disney/mcu will act like its because of a hero of color not because of the obvious reason

[thetimelordbatgirl]

How many more reshoots are they going to do for Captain America: Brave New World before they realize the problems are that a, they've made a Hulk film this point rather then a Captain America film and b, that they have a zionist character played by a zionist actress-

[spiderdreamer-blog]

2023 at the Movies: A Year in Review

2023 has been an odd year for American cinema in particular, between overall tepid box office outside of a few big hits and the combination of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes affecting release dates as well as promotional tactics. (Just so we're clear, this is a Union Solidarity Blog) But it was a fascinating year artistically nonetheless, especially on the blockbuster end. What this list aims to achieve is sort of a capsule review of the theatrical releases I saw (not counting streaming-only films even if I ended up seeing theatrical releases ON streaming) and how I felt about them in capsule review form. And even then, there's still stuff I need to catch up on like Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, Oppenheimer, Elemental, or Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. Anyhoo, on with my list, in chronological release order:

John Wick: Chapter 4: Much like its titular hero, there are perhaps some signs that this franchise could benefit from taking a bit of a rest. Some of the worldbuilding is going from knowingly absurd to just plain absurd, and a couple early action beats, while fun (NUNCHUCKS), are a little familiar in terms of director Chad Stahelski's neon-as-fuck aesthetics. Ultimately, it's not too much to derail things, as Keanu Reeves proves a capable grounding lead like always, and the Parisian third act is giddy, comically overblown violence in the grand John Wick tradition that reaches an unexpected poignancy. The supporting cast might also be one of the best in the series; while Asia Kate Dillion's unflappable Adjudicator is missed from the last installment, we do receive Bill Skarsgard doing an OUTRAAGEOUS French accent as a smarmy villain you really want to see dead by the end of this, Donnie Yen as a clever, funny spin on the blind swordsman trope, Rina Sawayama is both badass and touching, Shamier Anderson stands out by dialing down, and my beloved Clancy Brown has some of the best implicit "are you fucking kidding me" reactions I've seen in a while.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie: I was honestly dreading this for a while. Illumination Entertainment is a perfectly cromulent animation studio who makes films that, with a couple exceptions, represent pretty much everything I dislike about American family filmmaking: loud, hyperactive, deficient of nutritional value, and did I mention loud? But the trailers started impressing me in terms of how well they adapted the candy-colored toybox Nintendo aesthetic to a wider theatrical scope. And if nothing else, casting Jack Black as Bowser would probably be pretty awesome (spoiler alert: he was). Thankfully, it manages to be an immensely entertaining, zippy adventure film that minimizes potential annoyances at nearly every turn. This is primarily thanks to a ready-to-play, enthusiastic voice cast (outside of Black, I particularly like Pratt and Day's brotherly dynamic and Anya Taylor-Joy doing a Disney Princess-esque comedy action spin on Peach), a smartly simple story structure, and leaving a lot of potential open for the future like Seth Rogen's lovable ready-for-spinoff-movies Donkey Kong. It may not rock the boat, but it was better than it had any business being, and that counts for a lot in my book.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: The Marvel Cinematic Universe and I are admittedly on a bit of a break. Not because they're doing anything WRONG per se, just that a lot of their shows and movies haven't enticed me as much in the past year. I did get out to see this, though, which is both the best all around MCU film since Endgame and very possibly the best film of its own trilogy. James Gunn pulls out all the stops emotionally for his Marvel swan song (godspeed to you over at the still-in-progress trashfire that is Warner Bros. Discovery, good sir), crafting a beautiful, resonant journey for all the characters. The ensemble cast fires on all cylinders, for one. While Bradley Cooper is the obvious vocal standout as Rocket takes center stage, it's assuredly the role of Chris Pratt's career (other non-Mario/Marvel directors, take note! You can in fact have this guy be funny, credibly tough, AND sympathetic instead of missing out on the other two), Zoe Saldana navigates a difficult emotional dance, Pom Klementieff finds real heart in Mantis, Dave Bautista is still one of our most interesting wrestlers-turned-actors in the choices he makes, Karen Gillan has slowly become of the MCU's MVPs as Nebula, Will Poulter is endearingly dunderheaded as a comedic take on Adam Warlock, and Chukwudi Iwuji proves a truly vile villain who exemplifies the maxim of "if you really want an audience to just HATE a motherfucker, have him torture cute animals". And of course Gunn's musical tastes remain impeccable, such as a Beastie Boys needle drop that prompts a truly bitchin' fight scene (oddly the second time this specific song happened this year in a Pratt-led vehicle). It's funny, it made me ugly cry at SEVERAL points, and I got to see a psychic cosmonaut dog beat people's asses with her mind. What more could I want?

Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse: Into the Spider-Verse was a revolution and a revelation for what the American animated film industry could accomplish artistically and technically. How could a sequel possibly live up to it? Across does, against all odds, proving to be the Empire Strikes Back to the original's Star Wars in terms of going darker/more complex on the emotions and to greater visual heights (albeit with the caveat that maybe next time, we can manage the production better and not crunch people so much). Co-directors Justin K. Thompson, Kemp Powers, and Joaquim Dos Santos (who I've stanned as one of our best animation action directors from Justice League Unlimited through Voltron Legendary Defender) craft a propulsive narrative that asks big questions about who and what Spider-Man is. And while those will have to wait to be fully answered in the third installment, what it sets up is no less compelling or thrilling. Shout-outs in particular go to Hailee Steinfeld, who has to anchor this film with Gwen as much as Shameik Moore's still-iconic Miles; Daniel Pemberton for an outstanding score; Oscar Isaac for giving rich complexity to Miguel O'Hara, who could have felt like a boorish bully in lesser hands; and Jason Schwartzman for not just proving he transitions REALLY well into voicework between this and projects like Klaus, but being by turns pathetically funny and terrifying in ways I've never heard him be as the Spot. Can't wait to see where that goes next time in particular.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: "Pleasant surprise" comes to mind. While I never hated Kingdom of the Crystal Skull as much as most, it was definitely a little underwhelming as a possibly final Indy adventure. (Not helping is that Steven Spielberg immediately turned around and made an infinitely better indy movie in the form of The Adventures of Tintin) So I was curious to see how going to the well for seemingly the real final adventure would work this time around. Thankfully, director James Mangold proves he has a good eye for creative action, even if nothing here quite reaches the heights of the original trilogy, and Harrison Ford does some of his best acting in ages as a weary, burnt-out Indy; one always got the sense that THIS was much closer to his heart than Han Solo. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a terrific foil to him, joyously amoral (or so she says), while Mads Mikkelsen finds a new spin on coldly cruel cinematic Nazis; he has a tense reintroduction scene that had me squirming in my seat. Add in a slam-bang ending and a touching epilogue, and I'm pretty happy with where things end up for our favorite archaeologist. A solid B+, which we could use more of nowadays.

Also they Poochie-d Shia LaBeouf, which is hilarious to me on several levels.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One: The Mission: Impossible franchise has undergone a curious metamorphosis from where it started as one of many oldies TV adaptations in 1996 to a purposefully old-school action franchise. Director Christopher McQuarrie has become a pro at these over the last three installments, and Dead Reckoning (now no longer a part one, as the back-in-production followup will be retitled) has lots to offer both large and small for action fans even outside of the continued spectacle of Tom Cruise Possibly Wants To Die On Camera. Obviously the big stunt sequences remain a draw, like a terrific car chase through Rome or the climactic journey onboard the Orient Express because trains are ALWAYS bitchin' locations in movies. But just as good are pleasures like a tense cat-and-mouse game in an airport where nobody's quite sure whose side Hayley Atwell's thief Grace is on, Henry Czerny coming back to the franchise after 27 years and looking as shiftily patriotic as ever, Pom Klementieff on this list for the second time looking really hot as she whoops ass, and Cary Elwes getting an unexpectedly choice exposition monologue. Plus the whole deal with the A.I. villain ended up being, uh, fairly relevant.

Barbie: A brilliant human comedy from an unexpected source. This could have gone wrong in so many different ways, I can easily imagine a version that's WAY more lugubrious and, crucially, much less funny. But director/co-writer Greta Gerwig has quickly become one of our best talents between this and the wildly-different-but-has-more-in-common-than-you'd-think Little Women (I also still need to see to heard-it's-excellent Lady Bird). With an infinitely clever script (I love in particular that the "real world" is just as ridiculous in its own way as Barbieland) and Sarah Greenwood's impeccable production design, Gerwig and her cast craft a feminist fable that remains light and funny even at its most strident and angry. Margot Robbie has never been better, hilarious and gut-punching by equal measure, America Ferrera ends up as the unexpected heart of the piece, and Ryan Gosling is absolutely hysterical as Ken while still making him intensely sympathetic. He and Robbie deserve Oscar noms in particular. No, I'm not kidding. Might expand this one to a full review at some point tbh.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: I missed this in theaters and regret it immensely, given that this is a hilarious, cheerfully irreverent take on characters who've really managed a surprising amount of relevance in the modern age. Actually having teen actors voice the Turtles makes them feel so authentic, and they're matched well by an equally game cast like Ayo Edebiri's thoroughly modern April O'Neill, Jackie Chan as a more bumbling-but-heartfelt version of Splinter than usual, and Paul Rudd going full surfer bro as Mondo Gecko. And of course the scribbled-notebook underground comics vibe of the animation is a neat bit of full circle aesthetics if you know these guys' origins.

Wish: All of you are wrong and being dumb about this movie. It's not that I can't grok some of the criticisms as being legitimate, to be fair; for example, the songs, while very good on their own IMO, don't always hit the iconic level of a Frozen or Encanto. But the vitriol with which they've been expressed, and this odd narrative that Disney is in the toilet artistically and needs to nebulously "fix" things, is something I can't at all agree with. It's gorgeously rendered, for one; yes, I would potentially like to see a return to full 2D animated films for the studio at some point too. But if they're gonna experiment even marginally with CGI, I applaud co-directors Chris Buck and Fawn Veerasunthorn making it look this painterly as a starting point. And as with a lot of modern Disney, there's real richness and inner life to these characters. Ariana DeBose is a winning heroine as Asha, who feels distinct from other "princesses" by essentially being working class and unionizing the kingdom. And Chris Pine as Magnifico is a Disney Villain for the ages, blending real complexity in his relationships with scenery-chewing madness. (Also am I the only one who got major "studio executive/CEO" vibes off him?) If this is "mid" or "bland" Disney, I really question what some of y'all are seeing that I seemingly can't.

Also I liked the 100th anniversary references, sue me. The last one in particular gets points for quiet charm rather than grandstanding.

The Boy and the Heron: Hayao Miyazaki, anime's favorite grumpy old man, comes back out of retirement for like the fifth time. Seriously, remember when Princess Mononoke was supposed to be his last film 25+ years ago? I'll believe his "last film" is truly his last when he's in the cold, cold ground. Regardless of the continuing saga of Old Man Won't Retire Because He Seemingly Can't Be Alone With His Own Thoughts, this is a brilliant, haunting spectacle of animation that might be a new favorite for me. Some have called it confusing, whereas I go for "dreamlike", possibly his most to date. Nearly every frame is suffused with longing and melancholy (though this also has some of Miyazaki's best comedy in a while), and, oddly like Wish, this feels like a true career reflection, if a bit more fraught and questioning what legacy truly means. Joe Hisaishi contributes possibly his moodiest, most dissonant score, with little of the bombast or whimsical charm that typifies his music, but it works unfathomably well. Credit also to the dub, with Robert Pattinson as funny and menacing as you've heard, but Luca Pandoval is also excellent as our stoic lead Mahito, Florence Pugh manages to be both a total badass and a funny old woman (it makes sense in context, I promise), Christian Bale puts forth a fascinating two-step with his boisterous father, Gemma Chan and Karen Fukuhara nail some complex emotional turns, Willem Dafoe nearly steals the whole thing in under two minutes, Dave Bautista makes a real meal out of a part not much bigger than that, and Mark Hamill finds resonance as a tired old man.

[ordinaryschmuck]

Daredevil Season One is still an incredible season of television, featuring some of the best action in a Marvel property, incredible acting, a tense atmosphere grown from a mortal man like Kingpin, and a kickass theme song...BUT--

HOLD YOUR FIRE! Before you want to kill me, I want to say that this isn't a takedown on Daredevil. Still a great show (If you ignore the second season) and I hope the MCU at least holds a FRACTION of what's good about it with Daredevil: Born Again. What this is REALLY about is making an observation I've noticed when rewatching the finale.

When I'm looking at it, Daredevil, depsite being REALLY good, is the starting point for what a lot of people have problems with modern MCU. First and foremost: Overdesigned costumes.

Look at this. This is...too much. And what gets me is the logic they gave for this. Potter said that the black parts offer the most protection while the red parts can MAYBE block a knife, which leads me to ask, "Why not make the whole suit black?" In fact, why not make the whole suite one color anyway? Why throw in this random bits of black and lines that don't need to be there? The whole season hypes up Daredevil getting a suit like the comics, and they ignored how simple he looked.

Just a simple red with a logo, some gloves, boots, and some shorts, and not much more. He doesn't NEED it.

But that's one problem. Another is that Season One of Daredevil falls in the same trap that a lot of the Disney+ shows have. It's a season of slowburns, taking its time to get to an epic conclusion, only for the finale to feel rushed with a lot of convenient things happening for the plot moving forward and so the main hero can beat his villain in a final battle that's not really necessary. WandaVision did this, Falcon and the Winter Soldier did this, Moon Knight did this, and all the way back then, DAREDEVIL did it. And we didn't bat an eyelash because, well, it's DAREDEVIL. So much of the show was really good that we didn't mind this one slip up. But it kept happening, even in other good shows like Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and...Yeah, just those two. And the thing is, these shows have DOUBLE the length of most of the ones on Disney+, but people keep questioning THOSE more because...I don't know. Maybe it's because people are RECENTLY getting sick of Marvel, wishing things ended by Endgame, but the fact remains that the problem with MCU shows having lackluster finales isn't something that's a recent problem. It's something that's been happening for a while, and all we can do is hope that the writers will EVENTUALLY catch onto this.

But with that said...Daredevil's still awesome. Despite the flaws, Season One still holds up and I cannot wait to see Season Three again. Just...don't forget some things that need to be critical about.

[makiruz]

I posted 15,723 times in 2022

1,397 posts created (9%)

14,326 posts reblogged (91%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@logo-comics

@maswartz

@phoenixyfriend

@aspiringwarriorlibrarian

@laschinasbiencaguais

I tagged 15,021 of my posts in 2022

Only 4% of my posts had no tags

#moon knight - 970 posts

#rwby - 965 posts

#au - 935 posts

#the owl house - 810 posts

#star wars - 760 posts

#rants - 736 posts

#my post - 512 posts

#danny phantom - 430 posts

#miraculous ladybug - 428 posts

#tumblr - 427 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i have great parents but i don't often pay attention to my own body so i don't always realize i'm feeling bad because i'm cold/hungry/tired

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I have been informed that in the comics Jake Lockley is not the most murder-happy alter, that’s Marc (who apparently once beat a dolphin to death and tried to eat it?????!!!!)

But people stereotype him as such because...?????? He’s a cab driver, maybe?????

224 notes - Posted June 6, 2022

#4

By the way I'm not supporting the invasion, don't be ridiculous; this war shouldn't have happened. My position is that you need to listen to other sources, including RT because you know its biases so you can read between the lines; once you do you realize it's not a matter of the evil Slavs invading an innocent nation.

First off Ukraine and Russia were part of the same nation until about 30 years ago; second Ukraine is made up of actually different nations and diverse groups of people, and some of them are Russian; third the Ukraine government discriminated against those Russian people, I mean come on it's not even a secret!; fourth NATO is involved, how the fuck do people forget NATO when Biden is just giving weapons to Ukraine to extend the war; fifth, yeah NATO and more specifically the USA wants to extend this war at the expense of Europe and specially the Ukrainian people; sixth the Russian people are people, they're about as accountable to the actions of their government as the Ukrainians are of the existence of the Azov Battalion and Zelensky's bs, and the dead ones have nothing to do with anything so all this Russiophobia is ridiculous; seventh, can we stop acting like it's normal to ban a language because it's country it's at war? If that were the norm English should be banned in the whole world; eighth, wait no, I think that's it, in short: it takes two to tango, and USA wants Europeans to freeze to death for the sake of owning Putin

382 notes - Posted November 30, 2022

#3

In all honesty I’m a bit sad for the people liking Ms Marvel uncritically, specially the ones being like “why won’t more people love this?”; because the show is very problematic.

I appreciate Disney finally giving the Muslim community something solid, but does it have to be like this?

Does it have to include colorism? Does it have to have a multiple Indian actors portraying Pakistani characters? Does it have to insert magic/sci fi bullshit to what was a normal human tragedy in the comics*? Does it have to make Kamala’s powers and origin all about her ethnicity even though that wasn’t the case in the comics? Does it have to change the powers to something completely different? Does it have to make the first Muslim hero of the MCU a genie? Does it have to include a group that had absolutely nothing to do with Kamala in comics just because they’re Djinn? Also, does it have to include said characters in name only? Does it have to change Kamala’s family in Pakistan from a normal working class family to rich? Does it have to make the relationship between Kamala’s mother and grandmother strained when that wasn’t in the comics? Does it have to erase the theme of internalized racism and wanting to become white and blonde to fit in into USA society?

Does it have to be like this? Does it have to be completely unrecognizable in a way that flattens the comic’s themes but also hyperfocuses on Kamala’s ethnicity?

457 notes - Posted July 11, 2022

#2

Here’s a newer, better picture of my cat for Friday the 13th

661 notes - Posted May 13, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

The professional opinion of an actual mental health professional on the so called “fakers” is that:

You cannot tell for sure if someone is faking it or not with a 30s TikTok video

People who probably don’t have DID, probably believe they do because they have some other kind of mental illness and need help not mockery

People who actually fake DID are coming from a place of pain and making fun of them is not helpful

Focusing on “fakers” does not help people with actual mental illness and in fact only promotes the stigma

In short, shut the fuck up and promote correct information without undermining strangers online

2,223 notes - Posted September 20, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[lokiondisneyplus]

For his entire tenure as an Avenger, Anthony Mackie had never been the first name on the call sheet.

In a galaxy of stars populated by Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and Scarlett Johansson, the actor was aware of his place in the on-set pecking order, but would never miss an opportunity to make his presence felt.

“Number six on the call sheet has arrived!” Mackie would routinely shout on films like “Captain America: Civil War” and the box office-busting “Infinity Saga” sequels, according to Marvel chief creative officer Kevin Feige.

It exemplifies the sort of winning tone that the 42-year-old actor has brought to his superhero character the Falcon, aka Sam Wilson, for six movies from the top-earning studio — wry and collegial humor, with the potential to turn explosive at any moment. Both Mackie and his character are set to burn brighter than ever when the Disney Plus series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” lands on March 18.

On that call sheet, “Anthony is No. 1,” Feige is happy to report, “but it still says ‘No. 6.’ He kept it because he didn’t want it to go to his head.” The series is essentially a two-hander with his friend and longtime co-star Sebastian Stan, the titular soldier. All six episodes were produced and directed by Emmy winner Kari Skogland (“The Handmaid’s Tale,” “The Loudest Voice”). The series, for which combined Super Bowl TV spot and trailer viewership earned a record-breaking 125 million views this year, is reported to have cost $150 million in total.

For Mackie, though, the show comes at a critical time for both his career and for representation in the MCU. Sam Wilson is graduating from handy wingman (Falcon literally gets his job done with the use of mechanical wings), having been handed the Captain America shield by Evans in the last “Avengers” film. While it’s unclear if he will formally don the superhero’s star-spangled uniform moving forward (as the character did in a 2015 comic series), global fandoms and the overall industry are still reeling from the loss of Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed Marvel’s Black Panther to culture-defining effect. With this new story, Mackie will become the most visible African American hero in the franchise. And when asked whether he’ll be taking the mantle of one of its most iconic characters, he doesn’t exactly say no.

“I was really surprised and affected by the idea of possibly getting the shield and becoming Captain America. I’ve been in this business a long time, and I did it the way they said you’re supposed to do it. I didn’t go to L.A. and say, ‘Make me famous.’ I went to theater school, did Off Broadway, did indie movies and worked my way through the ranks. It took a long time for this shit to manifest itself the way it has, and I’m extremely happy about that,” Mackie says.

Feige says that, especially with the advent of Disney Plus and the freedom afforded long-form storytelling, the moment was right to give the Falcon his due.

“Suddenly, what had been a classic passing of the torch from one hero to another at the end of ‘Endgame’ became an opening up of our potential to tell an entire story about that. What does it really mean for somebody to step into those shoes, and not just somebody but a Black man in the present day?” says Feige.

Like many comic book heroes, Mackie has an origin story marked by tragedy at a young age — specifically around the loss of a parental figure. The New Orleans native is the youngest of six children from a tight-knit middle-class family, whose trajectory was spun into chaos when his mother was stricken with a terminal illness.

“It was unexpected and very untimely. I was 15 when she was diagnosed with cancer, and a few months later, she was gone. She passed the day before my ninth-grade graduation,” Mackie recalls. “If my mom wouldn’t have passed away when I was so young, I wouldn’t be where I am today.”

Mackie had already gravitated toward the performing arts before the loss of his mother, having enrolled at the pre-professional school New Orleans Center for Creative Arts. Like many young people grappling with trauma, Mackie says he began to act out. A core group of teachers helped get him out of trouble. Ray Vrazel, still an instructor at the school, personally drove the student to a Houston-based audition for the University of North Carolina School of the Arts, where he was accepted for his senior year of high school.

“Everything I did, I did for my mama. The idea of leaving home at 17 to go away to school would have never been an option if she was still around. She was my best friend. Losing her gave me a kind of strength, and a desire to succeed,” Mackie says.

Succeed he did. Spending that formative year as a minor on a college campus helped Mackie find his “tribe,” a misfit crew of artists and performers, which propelled him to acceptance at New York’s prestigious Juilliard School in 1997. There he was part of the breakthrough class of students of color to be chosen for the notoriously selective drama program, which Mackie says was liberating given the institution’s track record.

“Our year was a huge transition. There were hardly any Asian people in the drama program, maybe one or two Black people and hardly any Black women. In our class, we had three black women, two black men, one Native American, one Asian female, out of 20 people. Ever since then, the classes have been wildly diverse,” says Mackie, whose fellow students included stage and film star Tracie Thoms and actor Lee Pace.

Following his training, Mackie launched a staggeringly versatile career. He has played Tupac Shakur and Martin Luther King Jr. to similar acclaim, a juicehead bodybuilder in “Pain & Gain” and a homeless gay teen in the Sundance player “Brother to Brother.” He has exhibited remarkable staying power in an industry that often pigeonholes actors and has a pockmarked soul when it comes to inclusion.

“I was drawn to Anthony because of his electrifying ability to combine intensity with sensitivity, courage with compassion, and all of it comes across as inevitable, as if it could be no other way,” says Kathryn Bigelow, who directed him in the 2009 best picture Oscar winner “The Hurt Locker.”

Samuel L. Jackson, whom Mackie calls a mentor and has played alongside in several films, says he has “an innate quality that first and foremost makes everyone want to cast him.” On a recent idle Netflix search, Jackson came across Mackie’s latest sci-fi film, “Outside the Wire,” and it triggered a memory of sitting in the audience for his performance in the 2010 Broadway production of Martin McDonagh’s play “A Behanding in Spokane.”

“Watching him onstage, I thought, he’s a very adroit actor capable of putting on many hats. He’s fearless and will try to be anybody. Then, on my TV, he’s playing a nanobyte soldier or some shit,” Jackson says.

Though always humble about getting the next job, pre-Marvel Mackie was rarely offered pole position.

“There were certain pegs. My first was ‘8 Mile.’ It was a monumental step at the beginning of my career,” Mackie says of the 2002 Curtis Hanson film that elevated rapper Eminem to multi-hyphenate stardom.

“After that it was ‘Half Nelson.’ It blew up Ryan Gosling, so I was there to ride the wave. Then ‘The Hurt Locker,’ and it blew up Jeremy Renner. It was the joke for a long time — if you’re a white dude and you want to get nominated for an Oscar, play opposite me. I bring the business for white dudes,” says Mackie.

He remembers the sensation “Hurt Locker” caused during its awards season. It was a moment he thought would change everything as he stood on the stage of the Dolby Theatre with the cast and filmmakers, having just sipped from George Clooney’s flask while Halle Berry radiated a few rows away.

“I thought I would be able to move forward in my career and not have to jostle and position myself for work. To get into rooms with certain people. I thought my work would speak for itself. I didn’t feel a huge shift,” he says, “but I 100% think that ‘The Hurt Locker’ is the reason I got ‘Captain America.’”

He’s referring to “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” the 2014 Marvel film that was the first to be directed by Joe and Anthony Russo (the current title holders for the highest-grossing film of all time with “Avenges: Endgame”). Mackie says that blockbuster not only gave him his largest platform to date but changed expectations of superhero movies forever.

“It was the first of the espionage, Jason Bourne-esque action movies at Marvel. After that, the movies shifted and had different themes and were more in touch with the world we live in, more grounded,” he says.

Bolstered by the words of another mentor, Morgan Freeman, Mackie feels no bitterness about his path.

“We did ‘Million Dollar Baby’ together, and when we were shooting this movie, I got offered a play. When you do Off Broadway, it’s $425 a week. In New York, that’s really $75 per week. I got a movie offer at the same time, and it was buckets of money. Three Home Depot buckets of money were going to be dropped off at my door,” Mackie says. “The script was awful; the whole thing was slimy. I went to Morgan’s trailer and asked him what he would do. He took a second and said, ‘Do the play. When Hollywood wants you, they’ll come get you. And when they come get you, they’ll pay for it.’ That blew my mind, and I left him that day with such a massive amount of confidence. He’s been a huge influence on me.”

He used the currency of that first Russo Brothers film and five subsequent ones to do what many creators and performers in Hollywood have done in recent years to help balance the scales of profit and representation in content: make things on his own.

Last year, Mackie produced and starred in “The Banker” — what would be Apple Studios’ first foray into original streaming film distribution and the awards landscape — through his banner Make It With Gravy. The film follows the true story of America’s first Black bankers and the white frontman they deployed to acquire the institution, all while supporting Black-owned businesses and communities in the process. A late-breaking scandal over sexual misconduct accusations involving the real-life family members of the film’s subjects delayed the release, overshooting awards-season deadlines and entangling the fledgling producer.

“It was a good lesson, and gave me a new perspective on the world around us. It’s very important to me that the women by my side are treated equally. It was a valuable lesson learned. I was very humbled by my sisters, for once not being mean to me,” he says.

Mackie is in development on the film “Signal Hill,” about the early days of lawyer Johnnie Cochran and the theater he brought to courtrooms long before the O.J. Simpson trial, and is hoping to secure the life story of civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin as a vehicle for his directorial debut. Raising four sons of his own now, Mackie wants his off-screen work to make them well-rounded men.

“Look at Robin Williams,” he says. “He used to be crass and funny, and then he had kids, and he started doing all these family-friendly movies. Same thing with Eddie Murphy. I’m trying to curate my children’s experience with the things that I’ll be producing, rather than starring in. That’s what is most important. They know my job is my job; they know who I am. I’ve given up the idea of them ever thinking that I’m cool,” he says.

Jokes about the call sheet are among many of Mackie’s filming quirks. Jackson says that sets are often littered with hidden cigar stubs, to be fired up between takes or after long days. Bigelow says his rapport with crew has led to nights where the “clock was ticking but it was impossible to regain composure enough to shoot.” But according to Evans, no Mackie-ism is more famous than the phrase he bellows whenever his directors cut a scene: “Cut the check!”

Evans says this “will be forever associated with Mackie. I find myself saying it on sets all the time. I love it. But I’ll never be able to say it as well as him.”

As the man handing Mackie his armor, Evan says the Falcon’s “role within the Marvel universe has answered the call to action time and time again. He’s proven his courage, loyalty and reliability over multiple films. Sam has given so much, and he’s also lost a lot too. He believes in something bigger than himself, and that type of humility is necessary to carry the shield.”

The question of Sam Wilson’s humanity will be explored at length in “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier,” what Mackie calls a deeper showcase for both himself and Stan and their characters. It was a prospect that at first confused and frightened him.

“I didn’t think we could do on the television what we’d been doing on the big screen. I didn’t want to be the face of the first Marvel franchise to fail. Like, ‘See? We cast the Black dude, and now this shit is awful.’ That was a huge fear of mine, and also a huge responsibility with playing a Marvel character,” Mackie says.

He was quickly assuaged by the level of depth in the scripts from head writer Malcolm Spellman (“Empire,” “Truth Be Told”), especially when it came to the nuances of Wilson — a Black American man with no powers beyond his badass wings.

“Sam Wilson as played by Mackie is different than a Thor or a Black Panther, because he’s not from another planet or a king from another country,” Feige says. “He’s an African American man. He’s got experience in the military and doing grief counseling with soldiers who have PTSD. But where did he grow up? Who is his family? Mackie was excited to dig into it as this man, this Black man in particular, in the Marvel version of the world outside our window.”

Mackie celebrates Sam’s relatability in a universe full of mythological gods and lab-made enforcers. “I’m basically the eyes and ears of the audience, if you were put in that position where you could go out and fight alongside superheroes. It adds a really nice quality to him, that he’s a regular guy who can go out there and do special things,” Mackie says.

While bound by standard Marvel-grade secrecy, the actor confirms there have been no discussions of a second season for “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.” As the majority of domestic movie theaters remain closed due to the coronavirus pandemic, he is equally unaware of the theatrical prospects for his Falcon character — or the Captain he may become by the end of this Disney Plus run. For now, he’s content to take up the mantle left by Boseman, a quietly understood pact of responsibility to Marvel-loving kids the world over.

“For Chad and I, [representation] was never a conversation that needed to be had because of our backgrounds. There was a hinted-at understanding between the two of us, because we’re both from humble beginnings in the South; we have very similar backgrounds. We knew what the game was. We knew going into it,” he says.

Outside comic book movies, Mackie is not done searching as a performer. There is a particular genre he would very much like to cut him a check.

“My team gets mad at me for saying this, but I would love to do a cheesy old-school ‘When Harry Met Sally’-type of project,” he says. “One of those movies where I’m working outside and have to take my shirt off because it’s too hot. I want a romantic comedy. I want to do every movie written for Matthew McConaughey that he passed on.”

[aielwasteofspace]

The discourse on Mutants

Or Why the MCU isn’t ready for the X-Men.

I love Marvel comics. Huge fanboy, have been for a while, but it after phase one of the MCU my excitement for Marvel’s cinematic offerings took a nose dive. And it’s easy to explain why. Marvel and Disney began to sanitize their characters, stories, and the MCU at large. Iron Man 1 and 2 made a large part of Tony’s character arch revolve around trauma and the recovery from said trauma. We see Tony fall face first into alcoholism, and face the consequences of that path. Then Avengers happens, and suddenly our heroes have to be heroes full time. Suddenly Tony’s trauma is the butt of the joke. Steve’s challenges being a man out of time are played for laughs, and everyone has said all there is to say about Bro Thor. The only real Face The Consequences Of Your Actions moment came in the form of the Sokovia Accords, which actively get hand waved in later films. Unsurprisingly, it’s because of Wanda, who is pulling almost all of the weight of setting the stage for a proper X-Men universe, but I’ll get there.

The MCU bends over backwards to avoid actually challenging the status quo. It makes it difficult to get excited for the future of X-films when we’ve seen these historically revolutionary characters who’s entire premise is to push for change, status quo be damned, be reduced to brightly colored guardian sentinels of normalcy. Winter Soldier proves that Cap is right in challenging SHIELD because Nazis were pulling the strings all along. It’s not the government that’s bad, just the Nazis. Civil War says that Cap is wrong, and only cares about his buddy. Tony is right because he listens to the No Longer Nazi government. The status quo is preserved, we do not have to challenge our views.

One needs look no further than Black Panther to see just how far Disney is willing to go to avoid challenging its audience. Oh, sure, they call the white guy Colonizer, but the character who actually acknowledges a need for an overhaul in the system? The guy who vaguely implies in a general sort of way that systemic racism is very real and needs to be fought? He’s the bad guy. And the hero has to beat him up so that he can uphold the status quo then address the symptoms of the problem that he kind of acknowledges is there.

And that’s just the way the studios handle their characters. In universe is another beast all together, but that alone is enough to make me iffy on Disney’s X-Men. The characters and stories are very thinly veiled allegories for the civil rights movement, and most of the time that veil isn’t even there. They challenge the status quo and make the reader ask hard questions about the system and themselves. The X-Men and in a much larger sense Mutants are the ultimate Other and are intended to make the audience feel for them, and hopefully better themselves so that villains like Magneto are be seen as unnecessary. The goal is to make him seem wrong. Humanity can accept mutants, and does. Society can accept poc, lgbtqa+, Muslims, Jewish people, and anyone else othered by our systems and status quo. But we have to challenge those ways of thinking. One of the biggest recurring bad guy groups in the comics is an anti-mutant hate group that is literally just the KKK pallet swapped. I have a hard time believing that Disney will go there.

Now in universe I’d say the MC U has been in the wrong stat for mutants since at least Endgame. Ultron and Civil war had society facing the right direction, instilling a general fear and mistrust of “enhanced individuals”, but Endgame leaves the world in a state of relative hero worship. TFaTWS has Bucky, former assassin and Interpol most wanted basically on parole, and Sam, former Interpol most wanted, acting as free agents beholden to no government body. Sam is greeted and treated as a celebrity. Wanda starts her solo-series with the same impunity, even though she’s basically the whole reason the Sokovia accords happened. They are super heroes, and the world loves them.

But the ground work has been laid for the MCU to have an appropriate atmosphere for the X-Men. And it started with Spider-Man: Far From Home. Outing Peter, and having him framed as a menace begins to establish the framework for an end to hero worship, and starting it with Spidey is actually pretty brilliant. Spider-Man’s powers have no in universe explanation. As far as the public at large knows, Peter Parker was born with these powers. Ol’ Triple J could drop the final nail in the coffin with a single headline (or segment, seeing as he runs Info Wars in the diegetic) “Spider-Man: Mutant or Menace?”

WandaVision keeps the ball rolling by having Wanda essentially abuse her powers in a very public way to the detriment of those affected (no spoilers), sewing the seeds of fear and mistrust. Again, as far as the general public is concerned, Wanda Maximof was born with the powers she turned against others, effectively a Mutant, and no one was prepared to stop her.

Now within the first two episodes of TFaTWS, the stage is set to completely destroy society’s faith in super heroes. There’s a new Captain America on the scene, the public eye is firmly on him, and he has the makings of a spiteful bully. Sam and Bucky, who have mostly been forgiven their trespasses are playing by their own rules, oversight be damned. If they play these arch’s right, it paves the way for a lot of destruction of good will. But we’ll have to see.

In conclusion, while I don’t have high hopes for Disney’s handling of the X-Men, I do think the stage is being set for them to come in in a big way, and while the ground work is being set to introduce Disney’s shiny new toys, they have a ways to go before the Anti-Mutant sentiment they will no doubt try to make a big deal in universe makes sense.

TL;DR Disney needs to hold out on playing with their shiny new toys until they finish putting in the work for the characters and narratives to make sense, and I don’t trust Michael Mouse to handle the X-Men right.

[onebadwinter]

Baron Helmut Zemo Tropes

Taken from Here and Here

Anti-Villain: Sometimes verges on this, though it's a case of Depending on the Writer.

Arch-Enemy: After his father's death, he takes this role to Captain America and leads the Masters of Evil after inheriting the title.

Aristocrats Are Evil: He's a baron after all, and believes his aristocratic heritage entitles him to rule.

Avenging the Villain: Helmut's original motive was to kill Captain America because he killed his father. Eventually, Helmut came to the realization that actually, Heinrich was an awful father and an even worse person.

Badass Normal: Has no powers, but regularly fights the likes of Captain America and the Avengers. He usually has a contingency that will allow him to deal with his opponent's plans anyway; it's only when these contingencies fail (as happened during his battle with Moonstone at the end of the initial run on Thunderbolts) that he's in trouble.

The Big Bad: Of his fare share of arcs, particularly those involving the Masters of Evil.

Brain Uploading: He only survived being decapitated because Techno uploaded his consciousness to a computer.

Butter Face: A Rare Male Example. He has the body you'd expect of somebody who can keep up with Captain America in terms of physique... but that handsome form is contrasted by a hideously malformed visage. For a while, he had a young, dashing look again after hijacking the body of the Helmut from another Earth, but only two years later his face got disfigured again. When he got Carla Sofen's Moonstone, he used it to fix that, but when Melissa broke it again...

Calling the Old Man Out: During his trip back in time, he ran into his father while the latter was gleefully doing mad science for the Nazis. Helmut had long since discarded any Nazi prejudices he had once had, and was fuming watching his father put down other races, the handicapped, etc. Finally he had enough and started beating the hell out of him while giving a "Reason You Suck" Speech. Quite the sign of Character Development for the guy who started out worshiping and avenging his father's memory.

Captain Patriotic: At the beginning of the Thunderbolts, he disguised himself as Citizen V, supposedly the son of a previous hero who'd gone by that name, whom Zemo had killed. Zemo went the whole hog, even decking himself in a cape designed after the American flag.

The Chessmaster: Zemo has a plan for everything, and lays them out months in advance.

Cool Mask: Wears a tighter fitting version of his father's mask.

The Cynic: Has a generally negative view of humanity.

Daddy Issues: He loved his father, and his father loved him... until the Adhesive X incident, where he became outright abusive in every way. Originally, Helmut blamed Captain America. Now, he acknowledges that his father was just a horrible human being.

Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: He once shot the Grandmaster, one of the Elders of the Universe and a being way outside his normal weight class, through the head. Admittedly, there were mitigating circustances that allowed him to do this, and the Grandmaster did get better (because, hey, comics).

Disney Villain Death: Many, many times (see Never Found the Body below).

Even Evil Has Standards: Arranged the death of one of his ancestors during a time-travel jaunt, after he found out the man was a rapist and a mass-murderer who did it all For the Evulz. He later clashed with another ancestor when he thought he was harassing a girl (the two were actually in love, and he quickly apologised).

Evil Genius

Evil Is Petty:

The Faceless: He rarely ever removes his mask, due to his face being horribly scarred in a accident.

Facial Horror: His head has been slashed up so badly that it's practically a skull, with ribbons of flesh draping over his eyes and sliced-off cheeks and lips. The sight of his face visibly disgusts everyone in the original Thunderbolts.

Freudian Excuse: Raised by his father to believe in his inherent superiority. There wasn't a lot of dad hugs down in that South American jungle, mostly just rants and lectures.

Good Scars, Evil Scars: Hideously disfigured beneath his mask.

Grand Theft Me: After becoming a "ghost", his mind was transferred to the actual son of Citizen V (Techno noted it was basically him playing a joke). That is, until an energy conflict - the V-Batallion tried to teleport Citizen V as the body was being sucked into a portal - made his mind be expelled into Techno's machinery. But given he arrived at Counter-Earth, this meant Zemo could do a literal case of the trope, and took the body of his self from this world.

Heel–Face Revolving Door: Cannot make up his mind which side he is supposed to be on. He even once took a bullet for Cap despite being his sworn enemy.

In the Blood: The arrogance and the drive for control certainly are.

Joker Immunity: Unlike his father, he can never seem to be put down for long.

The Leader: Of the Masters of Evil and the Thunderbolts.

Legacy Character: To his father, Baron Heinrich Zemo XII.

Manipulative Bastard: Zemo's very good at getting other people to do what he wants, playing on their emotions and desires.

Master Swordsman: One of the best in the Marvel Universe. Zemo's dueled the likes of Captain America and survived several decades worth of warfare on a time travel jaunt.

Nazi Nobleman: Started out as one, though he's moved away from fascism in recent years. Nowadays his goals align more with Dirty Communists.

Never Found the Body: During the run of Thunderbolts alone he was declared dead on four separate occasions, all of which turned out to be false. In each instance, his body was never found. By the fourth time, most of the team just assume he'll turn up eventually (not that they want him to).

Noble Demon: He's much more noble than his father,for sure.

Purple Is Powerful: Signifies his aristocratic leanings.

Secondary Color Nemesis: Purple, to oppose Cap's blue and red.

Take Over the World: He insists it's to save it. Some people (like Songbird) aren't convinced.

Taking the Bullet: Once leapt in the way of an energy blast an insane Moonstone aimed at Captain America. Messed his face up bad.

There Are No Therapists: This guy is seriously messed up and would probably have turned out differently if he got professional help.

Token Evil Teammate: Alongside Techno, he serves as this for the first iteration of Thunderbolts. While most members of the team fall somewhere between The Hero and the Anti-Hero, Zemo shows no signs of having softened whilst playing-hero, and alongside Techno manages to almost conquer the world and turn it into a Darwinist nightmare. He also constantly mocks his teammates for wanting to be heroes, calling them "weak" and "traitors to the cause" when they show the smallest signs of heroism outside of their pubic duties.

Unlucky Thirteen: He's the thirteenth Baron Zemo.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: In his mind, at any rate, after some Character Development, he becomes determined to take over the world for its own good. That doesn't mean that he's not an Axe-Crazy terrorist who's willing to perform some truly heinous actions for the sake of the "greater good." Zemo: I would never have hurt a world I worked so hard to save.

Western Terrorists: More like this than a Nazi.

Wicked Cultured: When being held at swordpoint by his worst ancestor, an evil aristocrat who believed only in the absolute of power, said ancestor's son (who'd struck up a friendship with Zemo) asked what was more absolute than power. Zemo's answer? "To be, or not to be."

Worthy Opponent: Sometimes sees Captain America this way, and definitely sees Sharon Carter this way.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's good at incorporating the gambits of others into his plans, as evidenced by his deft manipulation of Moonstone when they were both members of the Thunderbolts.

One of his nastiest acts of spite was destroying a box of Cap's treasured belongings, including some of his last links to the past, right in front of his eyes.

What was his initial plan in founding the Thunderbolts? Pretend to be heroes, earn America and the world's trust, become famous and respected, and then gather knowledge on the other heroes to... sell to the criminal underworld? Eventually, Moonstone points out this is a freaking stupid plan.

Taken to the highest extreme possible. When he actually did have the power to implement whatever change he might have wanted, Songbird shut him down with the intention of killing him out of not trusting him. What were what he believed could have been his last words?

MCU Zemo Tropes

Adaptational Attractiveness: He's quite handsome here, while his comic counterpart usually has to wear a mask to hide his hideously charred, disfigured face. This is true to his first appearance in the comics as a one-shot villain, before he was scarred upon becoming a recurring character.

Adaptational Heroism: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he does don his iconic comic book alter ego, unlike in the comics where he was a straight-up one-note supervillain, Zemo here is depicted so far as an Ambiguously Evil Anti-Hero ally of Avengers Sam and Bucky without mostly ever betraying them until his escape from the hotel in the fourth episode with most of his redeeming and justifiable qualities shown upfront more than his villainous qualities that Civil War mostly showcased, but still likely an on-and-off antagonist simultaneously during his Enemy Mine with the two superheroes.

Adaptational Nationality: In the comics Helmut Zemo is German, but here he is a Sokovian. Ironically, his actor actually is German, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees a bit of his German accent creep in. He also has a vast array of vehicles and a private plane in Germany, and seems very familiar with both Berlin and the German language. Whether this is a Retcon into making him part German or just a Mythology Gag is yet to be seen, though he does identify Sokovia as "his country".

Adaptational Nice Guy: His comic counterpart and that of his father were literal Nazis who wanted mass genocide and world domination, and while the Helmut of the comics did grow out of the former, he still tends to try the latter. This version of Zemo, despite being on a black ops killing team, has a much simpler and more sympathetic motivation, while his father was merely a civilian. Neither have any ties to HYDRA (aside from Helmut's exploitation of HYDRA's Winter Soldier project), while the versions from the comics are both prominent members of that organisation.

Adaptational Wimp: In the comics Zemo is a major adversary of Captain America and the Avengers, with a particular emphasis on his skills at fencing and manipulation. While this version retains his cunning, he is also presented as much less of a direct threat to anyone despite being a former black operative; when Black Panther decides to bring him in alive, he goes down with barely a struggle. Most of his success ties into this, with him exploiting his lack of obvious supervillainous affect to stay under the heroes' radar until his plan requires him to show his hand, then relying on Steve and Tony's flaws and personal issues to do most of the work for him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier shows that he hasn't forgotten how to do his own dirty work, however, putting his soldier skills to use alongside his usual guile and strategizing once he gets back into the fray.

Adaptation Personality Change: In the comics, Zemo is generally depicted as an unapologetic villain who is primarily driven by a selfish desire to rule over others. His film version, on the other hand, has a much more sympathetic motive for his villainous actions, as he's just a victim of the Avengers' collateral damage in Sokovia seeking revenge for the death of his entire family.

Affably Evil:

Alas, Poor Villain: His defeat in Civil War is treated as an utterly somber affair, with him having nothing left after completing his plan and hoping to commit Suicide by Cop at T'Challa's hands before trying to kill himself when T'Challa refuses to be consumed by vengeance as Zemo has. Even though he got what he wanted (up to a point), it doesn't change the fact that his family is gone forever.

The Alcoholic: Following his escape from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo reveals himself to be a little bit of a tippler, partaking in shots, champagne, helping himself to Sharon's expensive liquor collection, then taking more shots at a club. He apparently approves of the way they party in Madripoor.

All for Nothing: He wanted to destroy the Avengers and was content with them dividing. Thanos's arrival and the events of Endgame undo all of that. In fact, the Avengers are no doubt more beloved than ever as a result.

Anti-Villain: Despite the grim and often hypocritical in hindsight actions he resorts to, he does have some good traits and was hoping for a cleaner way to get what he wanted first. Also, his motive — revenge for the collateral damage-induced loss of his family — is at least a little sympathetic.

Apple of Discord: His Evil Plan is to find evidence that Bucky Barnes murdered Tony Stark's parents while under HYDRA control and show it to Stark, so Bucky's friend Steve Rogers and Tony will turn on each other over whether to spare or kill Bucky, and the Avengers will be ripped apart as they side with one leader or the other.

Arch-Enemy: Since the death of Ulysses Klaue, it seems Zemo has taken his seat as Wakanda's most wanted for the death of King T'Chaka. Not a day after he breaks out of prison, Ayo is already hot on his trail to capture him.

Aristocrats Are Evil: It's revealed in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier that he is a nobleman like his comic counterpart. Though unlike said counterpart, his upbringing had nothing to do with him becoming a villain since his father was by all accounts a decent man in this universe.

Badass Longcoat: The events of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier have Zemo wearing a stylish winter coat, complete with Conspicuous Gloves.

Badass Normal: Unlike most of the Avengers, he's just a plain old human. But, through sheer patience and ingenuity, he still managed to tear them apart. During the trip to Madripoor he proves to be no slouch in combat either, reminding everyone he was former special forces. He also comes much closer to permanently stopping Morgenthau than Falcon or Bucky have ever managed so far, largely because he's fully willing to kill.

The Bad Guy Wins: Downplayed. Zemo has achieved his goals but with never with the fully desired outcome.

Batman Gambit: He's good at finding ways to make other people do things for him by exploiting their predictable behavior.

Beard of Evil: He has grown a beard during his eight years in prison as seen in Episode 2 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Beware the Superman: His return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals his own take on the idea. While he is against the idea of a Super Soldier on principle, he is not specifically against them as people, but more how they are precisely put on a pedestal, their flaws washed away/ignored and subsequently inspire Blind Obedience. He specifically notes how the personal loyalty inspired by Steve Rogers to Sam and Bucky (then, even now) precisely drives them to such extremes—even breaking the law much like they did to free him. Sam and Bucky do not protest the point. He admits that Steve was not corrupted by the power he was given but points out there was only one of him compared to the many who would abuse it. He is proven right on this point by John Walker taking the super soldier serum and going off the deep end.

Big Bad: Of Captain America: Civil War. He exploits and exacerbates the ideological differences between Captain America and Iron Man, resulting in the eponymous Good vs Good conflict that threatens to destroy the Avengers.

Big Damn Villains: As Sam, Bucky, and Sharon are pinned down by bounty hunters in the Madripoor shipyard, Zemo suddenly makes a grandiose entrance in full villain garb on a ledge, killing several assassins by shooting a nearby gas tank with his pistol before going to ground and taking down the rest in close combat, opening up the heroes' window of escape.

Blue Blood: The Falcon and The Winter Soldier reveals that he was always a baron. While the fall of Sokovia took away most of the power of the title he still has a lot of money and connections as a result of his position.

Breaking the Fellowship: Thanks to his efforts, the Avengers are severely compromised, with several of the foundational friendships that held them together torn apart and anyone who sided with Cap imprisoned or branded a fugitive. Even Tony and his supporters still bear physical and mental scars caused by fighting their friends.

The Bus Came Back: After being imprisoned at the end of Civil War, Zemo returns in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, with the title characters seeking his assistance in tracking down the source of the Flag Smashers's Super Soldier powers.

Cape Busters: Has a personal grudge against the Avengers and plots to destroy them by pitting them against one another. By the time of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he has apparently narrowed his vendetta to all super soldiers, stating that they "cannot be allowed to exist." At the same time, as stated above in Beware the Superman, his is more nuanced compared to other versions of this trope.

Character Tic: He has a habit of tilting his head whenever he's attempting to manipulate someone. It seems to be a subconscious thing he does, as he immediately stops doing it when Sam notices and lampshades it in Episode 4 of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier.

The Chessmaster: He plays all the Avengers like pawns. He frames Bucky for a crime, to have the world hunt him and lure him out of hiding. This partially causes the Avengers to turn on each other, divided over Bucky's innocence. He takes the UN interrogator's place, extorting information out of Bucky and using the trigger words to activate Bucky's soldier conditioning. Before finally showing Tony the tape of what really happened to his parents, sending him into a murderous rage to kill Bucky.

Colonel Badass: He used to be a Colonel in the Sokovian Special Forces, and he is one of the most effective foes the Avengers have faced — though not because of his combat abilities, but because of how effective he is about executing his plans.

Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: In Civil War, he's never called "Baron Zemo", the title he goes by in the comics, and is instead referred to by his military rank Colonel. This is subverted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which reveals that he was Sokovian royalty and has several characters address him as "Baron".

The Comically Serious: His stoic demeanour tends to stick out when he's in the same room as Sam and Bucky, like when he awkwardly jumps to the defense of Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his crappy dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Composite Character: He takes Klaue's role as the man who murders King T'Chaka.

Cool Car: He actually has a lot of these. His family owned an impressive collection of classics, with plenty of Rolls' and Bentleys in his garage. It's a taste he himself had acquired, as he, Sam, Bucky and Sharon make their getaway out of Madripoor in a super-charged muscle car he had stashed in the docks.

Crusading Widower: His wife was among the civilian casualties in Sokovia. He keeps a recording of her last voice message on his phone.

Cunning Linguist: Zemo's multilingualism allows him to assume different identities. Aside from his native Sokovian, he speaks English, German, Russian, and presumably French, given that he was able to convincingly impersonate a French-speaking psychologist.

Death Seeker: Once he has put Iron Man against Bucky and Cap, he first attempts to persuade Black Panther into killing him, then decides to shoot himself. Black Panther catches the bullet before snagging him a headlock so he can face justice.

Determinator: He manages to find new resolve after Civil War, and Iron Man's sacrifice has done little to change his views. With Iron Man dead and Captain America retired, he decides he will stop the creation of any and all super soldiers in the world no matter what happens.

Divide and Conquer: His plan against the Avengers, seeing that there's absolutely no chance he can fight them on his own. He even compares the Avengers to some sort of a mighty empire, which can only be felled by using this tactic.

Driven to Suicide: Tries to goad T'Challa into killing him, and then to shoot himself when he refuses. Neither works out for him; making enemies of a guy with Super Strength and a bulletproof suit was a bad idea, evidently.

Elites Are More Glamorous: His family is Sokovian nobility and he was colonel in EKO Scorpion, Sokovia's black ops kill squad. Even if Sokovia was a developing Balkans country, that still makes him pretty dangerous.

Enemy Mine: Downplayed Trope. Despite not personally hating Sam and Bucky, the latter two consider their alliance with Zemo this due to Civil War and the damage he caused; the only reason they tolerate him is that he can accomodate them with the resources they need to take down the Flag-Smashers. To his credit, Zemo doesn't hesitate in helping their cause because of his Beware the Superman beliefs, even expressing interest in facing Karli Morgenthau herself.

Even Evil Has Standards:

Evil Genius: While he has combat training, his greatest strength is his intellect. Aside from his abilities as The Chessmaster, Zemo was able to crack the encrypted HYDRA files on the Winter Soldier program that Black Widow released to the Internet and build a very effective EMP bomb in his hotel room.

Face Death with Dignity: When T'Challa finally catches up with him at the end of Civil War, he's completely calm and fully prepared for T'Challa to kill him to avenge his father, even seeming to acknowledge that in his mind T'Challa's revenge against him is just as justified as his own revenge against the Avengers. Later, in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's completely calm and accepting when it looks like Bucky is going to execute him, and later he calmly walks away with the Dora Milaje when they show up to take him into custody, knowing there's a decent chance he's going to be executed in a spectacular fashion in Wakanda for killing the king (for some reason the Dora Milaje went to all that trouble just to turn him over to the U.N. where he'll be held in the same prison that used to hold Captain America's half of the Avengers, but he's got no way of knowing that).

Facial Scruff: His brief appearance in the second episode of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has Zemo with this due to his time spent in prison. Downplayed in that it looks relatively thin despite having been locked up for eight years at this point, and he shaves it off shortly after.

Fantastic Racism: He has a distaste for enhanced individuals in general, and super soldiers in specific. Specially if such super soldiers are put on pedestals he deems completely unearned.

Flaw Exploitation: He turns the Avengers, particularly Steve and Tony, against each other through a series of Batman Gambits with the ultimate goal of making them fight each other to the death — or if not that, at least to the point of no longer being a cohesive unit. In particular, he reveals to Tony the truth of what happened to his parents knowing that he'll go into an Unstoppable Rage against Bucky and that Cap will prioritise keeping Bucky alive even at Tony's expense.

Friend to All Children: Invoked in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In the fourth episode, Zemo earns the trust of a few children in Latvia by offering them sweets in exchange for information. But he also uses to opportunity to manipulate them into thinking Bucky and Sam aren't to be trusted.

Four Eyes, Zero Soul: When he infiltrates the UN compound to activate the Winter Soldier, he wears a pair of glasses as part of his disguise.

From Nobody to Nightmare:

Gambit Roulette: The final part his master plan relies on little other than his assumptions on the personalities and capabilities of various characters after studying thousands of pieces of intel from HYDRA and S.H.I.E.L.D. that Black Widow dumped online back in Winter Soldier. The whole thing would have fallen apart if...

Godzilla Threshold: Sam and Bucky see recruiting him to stop the Flag-Smashers at this...and ultimately cross it when they run out of options.

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Even if any of the above had happened, Zemo still would’ve won because his entire goal was for the Avengers to disband - whether through an amicable parting-of-ways or a bloodbath - it was always a matter of how big his win would be. The only real flaw in his plan was the interference of Black Panther, and the creation of the Sokovia Accords, both of which he’d have no way to account for.

He Who Fights Monsters: He wants to take revenge for the death of his family, which he blames on the Avengers for causing collateral damage in the Battle of Sokovia. In doing so, he is responsible for the deaths of dozens of innocent people himself. He even earns someone coming after him for revenge in T'Challa.

Hidden Agenda Villain: His motives remain unclear for much of Civil War and are only revealed as the final battle is taking place.

Hidden Depths: Like Sam, he's a fan of Marvin Gaye and considers "Trouble Man" a masterpiece.

High Collar of Doom: He does the Marquee Alter Ego and Not Wearing Tights through the whole of Civil War, but his winter gear in the third act features a large collar turned up, giving off this vibe. His supervillain gear in Falcon and the Winter Soldier also features one of these, albeit with his comic self's fur trim included.

Human Shield: Thanks to his EKO Scorpion training, is fully capable of taking hostages to hide and shoot behind, as a group of assassins in Madripoor discovered.

Hypocrite:

Interrupted Suicide: After explaining his motivations to T'Challa and apologizing for the death of his father, Zemo tries to shoot himself in the head. T'Challa, however, has none of that, and stops him to make sure he pays for his crimes and turns him over to the authorities.T'Challa: The living are not done with you yet.

It's Personal: Zemo has a personal vendetta against the Avengers. His family was killed during the Battle of Sokovia and he simply wants revenge on those he holds responsible. As pointed out in Beware the Superman, he extends this to any Super Soldier held in such high regard, which is why he has no problem teaming up with Sam (who's more or less Badass Normal like himself) and Bucky (who is a Super Soldier, but isn't exactly held in high regard).  When he, Sam, Bucky, and Sharon come across the HYDRA scientist responsible for creating more Super Soldiers after the failed Siberian Winter Soldiers, Zemo quietly and stoically shoots the man before the team is attacked.

Jerkass Has a Point: In episode 4 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo explains why he doesn’t believe that super soldiers should be allowed to exist. By his own previous statements, Sam would probably agree with much of what he says, and John Walker spends the rest of the episode illustrating his arguments.

Kick the Son of a Bitch:

Kill and Replace: Murders the psychologist who was supposed to be evaluating Bucky and takes his place, taking the opportunity to activate Bucky's brainwashing during the evaluation.

Knight of Cerebus: He's a Villainous Underdog, but he manages to tear the Avengers apart through tactics. Unlike previous villains, his methods includes manipulating Tony into trying to execute Bucky to avenge the deaths of his parents and turning on Steve in the process. Averted in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier when his Laughably Evil side lightens the mood.

Know When to Fold 'Em:

Laser-Guided Karma:

Laughably Evil: Downplayed the next time he makes an appearance as he becomes The Comically Serious in an Endearingly Dorky kind of way when he joins in Sam's conversation with Bucky to praise Marvin Gaye's "Trouble Man" soundtrack, or his lame dancing in Sharon's nightclub.

Manipulative Bastard: He is very skilled at manipulation, having studied the Avengers' psychological profiles in order to exploit their individual weaknesses and play them against each other.

Man of Wealth and Taste: Zemo is a baron and more than loaded, owning a private jet, a fleet of classic cars, a personal retainer, and plenty of money and stashed resources.

Marquee Alter Ego: In Civil War, Zemo does not wear a mask — or any kind of costume at all, unlike his comic book counterpart. This changes in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Master of Disguise: Zemo uses prosthetics and heavy makeup in order to convincingly make himself look like Bucky Barnes in the security cameras, fooling just about everyone into thinking the latter was responsible for the UN explosion. He later pulls a Kill and Replace on the psychiatrist who was intended to interview a contained Bucky with no one none the wiser until things start going wrong. Although the latter example is downplayed as when Tony finally discovers the real psychiatrist's body, he looks decidedly nothing like Zemo's impersonation of him.

Misplaced Retribution: Zemo holds the Avengers responsible for all the damage Ultron caused; while Tony and Bruce did create Ultron (after the former was influenced by Wanda), the "end all human life" thing was still his idea. The rest of the Avengers, however didn't know about Tony's plan, and did their best to stop Ultron once he went rogue.

Moral Myopia: He seeks to avenge his family, but he ends up killing multiple innocents who surely had family of their own. He acknowledges this, seeing as how he apologizes to Black Panther for killing his father but by that time he’s hoping to be killed so he can join his family, either by T’Challa or his own hand, so it’s more about easing his conscience rather than remorse for what his actions indirectly caused.

Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Instead of the purple and gold costume he had in the comics, he sticks to dark civilian clothes. Near the end of Civil War, he has a pitch-black coat with a large collar. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier trailers and promo images however reveal he’ll be getting a new costume featuring his signature purple mask and even incorporating the classic ermine trim on his collar.

Nazi Hunter: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is shown to despite and openly oppose them, telling Karpov that "HYDRA deserves its place on the ash heap". The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has him openly despise Nazis and reveals that he'd been hunting down and killing HYDRA members for years as part of his quest to destroy the Super Serum, long before the destruction of Sokovia.

Necessary Evil: How Bucky, and especially Sam, view him in their fight against the Flag-Smashers. No one knows more about the super-soldier serum and Hydra than Zemo, and fortunately for them, they have a common enemy in the Flag-Smashers.

Nice Job Fixing It, Villain!: While his plan does succeed in its goal, it does allow Steve to find Bucky, after fruitlessly spending two years scouring the Earth for him, and gives them an ally who can get the brainwashing out of Bucky's head.

Nice to the Waiter: He is quite friendly and courteous to both a staff member of the hotel he stayed at for Civil War, and his old family butler.

No-Nonsense Nemesis: Zemo is an extremely pragmatic man who knows full well that he's just an ordinary person in an extraordinary world, and realizes that it will give him no quarter if he were to dally about with regards to his vengeance. He has no choice but to be utterly cutthroat if he wants to complete his goal. This is especially shown in his first full-blown action sequence in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, taking down assassins after himself and the heroes in a surprise attack that wouldn't be out of place in a first-person shooter game.

Non-Action Big Bad: Although he has military training, he never directly fights any of the Avengers in Civil War, acknowledging that he could never physically stand up to the likes of them. Instead, he relies more on subterfuge and deception. Becomes a Subverted Trope by the time of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, showing he's fully capable of taking down several assassins after the heroes, though all of them are still normal humans.

Not So Above It All: After being freed from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo shows that he isn't a stoic and unpleasant individual 24/7. Notably, he jumps in on Sam and Bucky's conversation about Marvin Gaye's Troubleman soundtrack to give his own thoughts on the record, and he can be seen thoroughly enjoying himself Madripoor, drinking quite a bit of hard liquor and awkwardly dancing at the Little Princess nightclub.

Nothing Left to Do but Die: After getting Tony to fight Steve and Bucky, Zemo decides to listen to his wife's voicemail one last time, before deleting it and attempting to commit suicide.

Nothing Personal: He tells T'Challa that he is sorry for killing his father and that he seemed like a good man in Civil War. While conversing with Bucky for the first time since the events of that film in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he says this verbatim about using him to tear apart the Avengers.

Not Wearing Tights: He doesn't wear anything remotely resembling a costume in Civil War. However, he dons the purple mask in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Outliving One's Offspring: His son was a casualty from the Avengers' fight with Ultron.

Old Money: He is generationally wealthy due to his family being Sokovian royalty.

Only Sane Man: In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it says a lot about Sam's present circle of associates that (other than Sharon Carter) Zemo is by far the most mentally well-balanced individual Sam has around him at his job.

Papa Wolf: The reason he's out to destroy the Avengers? His family was killed in their fight with Ultron.

Patriotic Fervor: Averted. As Zemo himself remarks ruefully, while he served in Sokovia's armed forces, his drive for vengeance isn't out of any love for the country, as he never actually had much patriotic feeling. The Falcon and The Winter Soldier shows that he does have some serious grievances over how it ended up, though, even chastising Sam and Bucky for not visiting the memorial.

Politically Correct Villain: As part of his Adaptational Nice Guy he's no longer a member of the Nazi-affiliated and fascistic HYDRA group, but is a fan of Marvin Gaye and understands Trouble Man (Sam's favorite album) to be a condensation of the African-American experience. Also berates Sam for stereotyping himself as a "pimp" just because he's flamboyantly dressed.

Purple Is Powerful: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier sees Zemo don a purple mask, coat, and gloves as he resurfaces to the criminal world.

Put on a Prison Bus: Zemo is taken to prison by Black Panther before he can commit suicide, ultimately sitting out the next few years until his return in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.  And it happens again in Episode 5 of the aforementioned series, where he's taken by the Dora Milaje to the Raft.

Pyrrhic Victory: Zemo succeeds in fracturing the Avengers and getting the majority of them branded as fugitives, but he is also captured by Black Panther and still has to face prosecution for the murders he committed. It also works vice versa on his capture being a Pyrrhic Victory for the heroes. Best summarized by the following exchange:Everett K. Ross: So how does it feel? To spend all that time, all that effort, and to see it fail so spectacularly? Helmut Zemo: ...Did it?

Revenge Myopia: Getting his revenge was worth anything — including inflicting upon others the same pain he complained about suffering. Lampshaded at the end of the movie, when T'Challa observes that the revenge he seeks has consumed him. Worse still, because he tore the Avengers apart, they had no gameplan and were unable to present a united front against Thanos, leading to even more families the universe over being devastated by the Snap.

Rogues Gallery Transplant: Downplayed. While Zemo is still an enemy of Captain America and The Falcon as he was in the comics, he also ends up becoming an enemy of Black Panther's, due to his involvement in King T'Chaka's death. It extends to the entire nation of Wakanda as well, as they immediately dispatch Ayo to apprehend him when he escapes from prison in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Royals Who Actually Do Something: His noble lineage while serving in the Sokovian special forces makes him this.

Secretly Wealthy: He may have been living the gritty villain life in Civil War (probably to fly under the radar), but The Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that he is a wealthy Baron like his comics counterpart. Sam even reacts with "So all this time, you've been rich?"

A Sinister Clue: Zemo is left-handed and is the Big Bad of Civil War. Shooting a gun with his left hand starts off his Big Damn Villains moment in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Sucks at Dancing: While the gang rests and spends the night at Sharon's club in Madripoor, Zemo's dancing moves leave him wanting. Let's just say he was channeling his inner Commander Shepard.

Suicide by Cop: After apologizing to T'Challa for killing his father, he says that he seemed like a good man "with a dutiful son", saying this last part with a meaningful glance, obviously hinting that he's fine with T'Challa taking vengeance upon him now. When T'Challa refuses to do so, Zemo attempts to just shoot himself, but T'Challa thwarts this effort as well.

Superhero Movie Villains Die: Subverted. After completing his plan to turn Iron Man and Captain America against each other, he first attempts Suicide by Black Panther. Attempts being the operative word, as T'Challa refuses when he realises how close he came to turning out like Zemo. As a result, Zemo attempts to shoot himself in the head, but Black Panther stops him and turns him into the authorities, leaving him incarcerated but very much alive.

Supporting Protagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, as most of Bucky's and Sam's story and dynamic are sometimes told from his viewpoint during his team-up with them.

They Look Just Like Everyone Else!: There's nothing from his looks that would suggest that he's more than just an everyday guy.

Took a Level in Cheerfulness: He's much more upbeat in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier than he was in Captain America: Civil War. Which makes sense: in the latter he had just lost his family and was on a revenge quest whereas in the former the stakes aren't as personal and he's had time to grieve for his family in prison, meaning he has the time and temperament to joke around, make fun of "allies" and dance badly.

Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed, but in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he's much friendlier with Sam and Bucky than he was with Tony and Steve in Civil War. Justified, as this time around he's working together with them to take down the Flag-Smashers and even then he still takes the time to engage them in relatively civil conversations.

Tragic Villain: He pursues his vengeance purely because he feels he has nothing else to live for without his family. This is highlighted by his decision to goad Black Panther into killing him and, when that doesn't work, shoot himself.

Tritagonist: Of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky in their crusade to defeat the Flag Smashers, while being more developed as a character in contrast to his debut in Civil War along the way of the narrative.

Tranquil Fury: Despite spending the whole movie on a murderous crusade, Zemo avoids all the theatrics of Loki or Ultron and seldom even raises his voice. This includes when he finally spells out his motives to the heroes.

Troll: Even when he's not manipulating or killing everyone around him, he's kind of a dick, as seen in his reappearance in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, reciting Bucky's trigger phrase, knowing it doesn't work, just to upset him, needling Sam about his experience in the Raft, and later telling his retainer to serve Sam and Bucky them any food that's gone off.

Truer to the Text: Zemo in Civil War was a borderline In Name Only depiction of him. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier retroactively adds a lot more aspects of the original comic character, such as his noble status, his costume, and his physical prowess.

Unknown Rival: To the Flag-Smashers, particularly Karli Morgenthau. Do to being enhanced with the super-soldier serum, Zemo considers the Flag-Smashers to be dangerous individuals, and is more than willing to form an Enemy Mine with Sam and Bucky to take them down. Karli on the other hand, isn't even aware that Zemo exists until he shoots her and destroys the serum right in front of her. Even then, she seems more content to get up and run than to try to confront him for his actions.

Unwitting Instigator of Doom: He successfully managed to break up the Avengers, hoping to bring down the most powerful team of beings in the universe to avenge the deaths of his family. Unfortunately for him, it worked a little too well, as they don't stand on a united front when Thanos arrives and, despite putting up a good fight, get flattened by the Mad Titan. Said Mad Titan then uses the Infinity Stones to wipe out half of all life in the universe, turning the world into a total mess that it spends five years trying to recover from until the Avengers find a way to set things right. Even when they do undo the Snap, the world falls into utter chaos once again trying to handle those that were restored to life, leading to the Flag-Smashers taking rise and causing just enough trouble to force Bucky and Sam to bust Zemo out of jail to help them.

Villain Protagonist: So far of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, when he teams up with Sam and Bucky to take down the Flag Smashers, getting more screen time and more of his development unlike in Civil War.

Villain Respect: As of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Zemo develops this towards Sam Wilson due to his refusal to be ehnanced into being super soldier while maintaining his idealistic outlook. He also concedes that Steve Rogers was not corrupted by the power he held but holds him as an exception.

Villainous Underdog: He's not a Physical God, not an alien, nor a Super Soldier. He's just a former military colonel with patience, a simple yet effective plan, and The Power of Hate. This is exactly why Sam and Bucky decide to bring him into their crusade against the Flag-Smashers.

Weak, but Skilled: Invoked. Zemo is a professionally trained special ops colonel who has the combat skills to take down regular men with ease. However, he knows that no amount of skill can destroy a group of enhanced individuals like the Avengers, and so relies on his manipulation and espionage skills to turn them against each other instead.

Weapon of Choice: A Smith and Wesson 6906 pistol, which he uses to execute the other Winter Soldiers and attempt suicide.

Well-Intentioned Extremist: Zemo's objective in The Falcon and The Winter Soldier is to stop the creation of any and all super soldiers, believing that they create symbols of facism like the Red Skull once did. He accomplishes this in the fourth episode by shooting Karli Morgenthau multiple times and then smashing the remaining vials as Nico is helping her escape him.

What You Are in the Dark: When Zemo corners Karli and discovers the last of the Super Soldier Serum in her possession, rather than take it for himself, which would have made his mission a lot easier, he smashes the vials and would have successfully destroyed them all had Walker not intervened.

Wicked Cultured: He's a connoiseur of music and art, as revealed in Falcon and the Winter Soldier.

Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: He has quite a sympathetic motive for his mission of revenge against the Avengers, namely that he blames them for the death of his family.

Xanatos Speed Chess: He's not in control of everything that happens in Civil War (for one thing, he has nothing to do with the Sokovia Accords), but he's good at taking advantage of unexpected situations to further his plans. Even more so in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. In Civil War, at least he still instigates most of the events, but in the show, he's broken out of prison without having expected to and is more or less thrust into an ongoing conflict he has nothing to do with. He still manages to play the heroes and the villains—that he utterly disagrees with—and so far has gotten away completely unscathed, once again having succeeded at what he set out to do.

He's the Big Bad of Civil War and is more than willing to commit mass murder to achieve his ends, but the times he acts polite or remorseful are genuine. He states he'd rather avoid unnecessary deaths if he can, has a few standards, apologizes to T'Challa for killing his father, has regular courteous interactions with a staff member of the hotel he's staying at, and even eventually apologizes to Bucky for using him. Considering he's just a grieving man who's dedicated to avenging the deaths of his family, it makes sense he wouldn't act like a cackling maniac.

By The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, he is shown to be fairly courteous to those around him (who, apart from his family butler were his enemies before) and he is capable of holding civil conversations with Bucky, even offering him a genuine apology for his actions in Civil War. He also agrees to join Sam and Bucky's crusade against the Flag-Smashers, without the driving of a hard bargain one might expect from him. He is also fully willing to lend his resources from the criminal underground to Sam and Bucky to take the Flag-Smashers down, no questions asked.

While none of the Avengers die as a consequence of his plan in Captain America: Civil War, he accomplishes his main goal in dividing them and is content with this. While the looming threat of Thanos forces them back together in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, the reunion turns out to be temporary — by the time of Spider-Man: Far From Home, WandaVision, and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the Avengers are still very much defunct.

In The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he successfully killed the man who recreated the super soldier formula and destroyed all but one of the remaining samples while inadvertently leading to John Walker gaining the Super Serum for himself. This turns in Zemo's favor after Walker brutally executes a defenseless Flag Smasher in broad daylight in front of civilians, corrupting the image of super soldiers in the public eye. He willing gives up a chance at pulling a Villain: Exit, Stage Left to visit a memorial and allows him self to be captured, his work done.

He framed Bucky Barnes for bombing the United Nations, then relied on everyone else including Captain America hunting him down for it, and further that no one but the Avengers would even be capable of killing Bucky, to get access to Barnes and his knowledge of HYDRA bases.

He arranges for his ruse to be discovered by the media, relying on Tony to find out and make amends with Captain America, so they'll both find the Siberian compound where Zemo reveals to them that Bucky killed Tony's parents.

His entire plan is based on assumptions from the S.H.I.E.L.D. intel on the Avengers he's studied that Captain America's over-protectiveness of his friends and Iron Man's complex over the death of his parents would mean not only that the two would turn on each other if Bucky's involvement in the Starks' death was revealed, but that Steve wouldn't have talked to Tony about Bucky's potential involvement beforehand.

His setup gambled on the fact that it is a conflict that only works if there are no voices of reason to hold either of them back. The fact that the airport fight left only two active members of the Avengers, Bucky and a third party present in the Hydra compound in a place where no one would interfere was a happy accident for him since most of the Avengers present could have prevented things from reaching the breaking point. Of course, this is covered under Heads I Win, Tails You Lose.

Notably, this is also why he finds Bucky a bit tolerable, since he is being bewared of.

In a stark contrast to his comics depiction, he lacks any affiliation with HYDRA and outright states that they deserved to be brought down. A conversation in Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals he despises the Red Skull and those who idolize him, and he kills Doctor Nagel while the man is gloating about being a god.

Despite his profound hatred of the Avengers, he declined to unleash the other five Winter Soldiers and shot them dead rather than risk someone else doing so, as they were worse than Bucky and would do untold damage to the world given the order. He also seems uncomfortable with the concept of experimenting on humans in general.Zemo: If it's any comfort, they died in their sleep. Did you really think I wanted more of you?

Zemo was "just" a special forces operative, but when his family was killed, he used his intel on HYDRA to take on the Avengers and came closer to destroying the team than any previous villain.

Falcon and the Winter Soldier reveals that at some point, he became involved with the criminal underground, under the simple but accurate alias of "Baron".

A) Captain America and Bucky had captured Zemo before Iron Man arrived (then again, he was in a fortified bunker that would take serious fire-power to break through).

B) Iron Man had not figured out where Cap and Bucky were headed in the first place.

C) Iron Man had not come alone, meaning there might have been someone to restrain him or talk him down after he learned the truth.

D) Black Panther had succeeded in killing Bucky during one of their three fights during the course of the film (of course it’s highly unlikely that he even knew the Black Panther existed).

E) Captain America told Iron Man that the deaths of his parents were orchestrated by HYDRA.

Zemo hates the Avengers after the collateral damage they caused killed his family. So he decides to split the team up and in the process causes collateral damage that kills other people's family members.

Zemo believes that "gods" like the Avengers should not be allowed to exist. Sam points out that be decreeing who deserves to exist, he's speaking like a god.

Tortures and kills Vasily Karpov for information. Karpov is not only a still loyal HYDRA operative but one of the main leaders of the Winter Soldier project and ordered the death of the Starks and his slow death is just desserts. He does the same to  the HYDRA scientist responsible for making more Super Soldiers in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, finishing his work from Siberia.

He also happily participates in the interrogation of Doctor Nagel, the Mad Scientist who recreated the Super Soldier Serum via human experimentation, and personally guns the man down.

Zig-zagged; he knows very well that he can never kill the Avengers himself, since more powerful men than him have tried and all have failed, which is why he makes a plan to get them to kill each other for him.

In the secret HYDRA lab in Madripoor, he and his comrades come under attack. Not knowing where the assailants are, Zemo makes a quick getaway, causing Sam and the others to think he bailed... only to show up moments later when the assassins are in plain view, making it much easier for him to take them down.

 When the Dora Milaje apprehend him a second time in episode 5 of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, he surrenders himself without a fight, presumably both because he knew he had no chance of victory and because he had already achieved his goal of destroying the current iteration of the super-soldier serum.

He uses Bucky's Trigger Phrase while the latter's locked in an apparatus, making him go on a rampage. By the end of Civil War, he himself is locked in the same apparatus.

He kills T'Challa's father in the course of his Evil Plan. After T'Challa learns the truth about this, he foils Zemo's attempted suicide to ensure he faces justice for his crimes.

[animentality]

Florence Pugh recently said that she thinks black widow is very "raw."

Like. What. You were in a fucking Ari Aster film and you think marvel knows what "raw" is?

Have you seen a marvel movie?

"raw?" A marvel movie?

Marvel movies are not about exploring the human condition or presenting people with no win scenarios or pushing the limits of the human psyche.

They're about stuffing popcorn in your face while a man in a giant mech suit shoots lazers at buildings.

They're about sexy and slim women in tight suits never getting their hair mussed up while they fight and angsting over not being able to have kids like "normal women."

They're about Tony billionaire Stark creating a million accidental super weapons and being mad when someone else calls him out on it.

They're about Steve Rogers boning his former love interests niece.

They're about Hulk getting with Black Widow just because some flabby white nerd had a very specific fetish.

They're about people like Joss Whedon writing feel good family blockbusters that conform to societal standards of what a hero looks like, and what a love interest looks like and acts.

They're about selling toys to children and writing stories that move from action setpiece to action setpiece while pretending to have deep messages about family and friendship when both of these things can and will be shoved aside whenever the plot necessitates it.

They're about strong snarky white male heroes getting with hot girls and being mega geniuses or super soldiers or literal gods or wizards or space ship captains whose only flaws are that they sometimes don't win when the plot demands it.

Most importantly, they're about Disney and its powerful conglomerate hold over all things family entertainment, they're about showing the world that this is what a human being looks like, if a human being could be perfect.

This is what the human is: straight, white, male, attractive, and always right.

And entertainment is not art, it's a carnival of flashing colors and spunky actors doing cartwheels, it's merchandiseable, it's safe, it's predictable, it's perfectly engineered to produce exactly what you need to see to ensure that you never feel scammed or conned by the Disney oil salesman.

It's an art of its own, in many ways, playing the people's hearts and minds without making them feel like fools, writing just enough of a story that one never feels as though they're being robbed of one.

Nowhere in the entire history of the mcu universe has a character ever experienced anything close to a real human emotion, and I will defend that statement till my dying breath.

[moviemagistrate]

“Black Panther” Review

Isn’t it weird to live in a world where the most culturally significant film of the year is a comic book movie with CGI war rhinos? Maybe it’s just my inner contrarian talking, but I can’t help but be baffled at not so much the financial success (the Marvel/Disney juggernaut has shown no sign of slowing down), but rather the critical praise and awards that have been bestowed upon this film. I’m not naïve; I know that this praise stems mainly from the film’s inclusivity (I hesitate to use the word “diversity” since the cast is all black save for a couple of white dudes) and for being the first film of this size to have a mostly-black cast and be directed by a black director. Quality-wise, on the other hand, “Black Panther” strikes me as just slightly above average for Marvel, and all the more disappointing considering all the talent involved.

The story is initially about T’Challa/Black Panther, the newly crowned king and protector of the isolated and highly technologically-advanced African country of Wakanda, who struggles with the duties of being king while also hunting for arms dealer Ulysses Klaue, who robbed his country of some of their precious metal vibranium, killing lots of his people in the process. Eventually the plot morphs into a power struggle for the throne by T’Challa’s long-estranged cousin Erik/Killmonger, who has become bitter and angry over their country’s isolationism and refusal to help the oppressed peoples of the world, along with his own personal connection to T’Challa’s father.

The plot is nicely focused without having too many villains, and isn’t encumbered with lots of pointless action scenes. What action there is, however, is too reliant on CGI and not enough on genuine excitement or imagination, and feel like a massive step down from director Ryan Coogler’s excellent fight scenes in “Creed”. The finale in particular is pretty lame, with some spaceships shooting each other in the sky while a bunch of extras fight in a field, and Black Panther and Evil Black Panther fight on a murky train track, and it all looks like a PS2 cutscene if the PS2 had an axe lodged in it. Even the one-on-one duels during the challenges to the throne suffer from the shaky-cam/fast-editing cancer combo, missing even a nice dose of brutality to the kicks and punches. If anything feels like Marvel’s formulaic nature stifling a talented filmmaker, it’s the action in “Black Panther”.

Speaking of which, for all of this film’s wonderful costumes and artistic design, the film feels like it’s not showing nearly enough of Wakanda. We get a few flyovers of the main city and one street where people walk happily along, but most of the time in Wakanda is either in fields or a lab where Black Panther’s Q (and sister) makes gadgets and patches people up for him. So much hype is made about the wonderment of Wakanda, but visually we really don’t see much that’s interesting in it. The sequence in Seoul where it briefly becomes a Black Bond film (the best part of the movie) is also the best looking part because of Seoul’s naturally pretty nighttime aesthetic. It’s really only in the dream sequences where characters speak to their fathers in some ancestral plane where the film finds its own visual groove (love that purple), but this only happens a couple of times in the movie. And while there’s some creative camerawork at play, the colors mostly feel the usual muted way they do in Marvel’s films, the film desperately needing some vibrant stylization and color (ironically).

The story shows flashes of ambition and works better than the action or the visuals. Michael B. Jordan’s Killmonger has considerably more depth than the typical one-dimensional Marvel villain, his anger stemming from the real world injustice that his people have faced for centuries, and wants Wakanda to take global power and help the oppressed of the world. This stuff feels so real that the film almost seems scared to embrace him, so of course they have to counteract his valid points by making him a murderous psychopath who executes people who don’t fall in line with him, and who wants to spread laser-guns around the world and start World War 3 (I guess I shouldn’t expect too much for a character named Killmonger). The film makes the occasional stab at political awareness, but never quite commits to it, which just makes the ending speech about opening borders feel so frying-pan-to-the-head blunt that it could have been written by Spike Lee. Speaking of villains, Andy Serkis is very entertaining as the arms dealer Klaue, bringing so much swagger in every scene he’s in that the impish fun he’s having is infectious, so it's unfortunate that the movie gets rid of him so early, even if it’s understandable why.

The rest of the characters are a mixed bag.  While the king's sister/gadget scientist is a bit annoying at times (the "WHAT ARE THOOOSE?" line made my skin crawl), she's played with enough enthusiasm and comic timing that she works. I really like the character of Okoye, the king's bodyguard/general, because she has an interesting moral conflict in the film as her unwavering loyalty to the throne clashes with her personal beliefs and convictions (the film would have probably been better if it was about her). I even like Martin Freeman as the film's tag-along CIA agent (and token white guy), and the bit players all have their moment to shine. The main problem with the cast is actually T'Challa himself. It's refreshing that he's not the same smarmy, quippy white dude that all the other heroes are, but while they got rid of that trait, the writers forgot to replace it with anything else. How can you describe his personality? Noble? Boring? The character has a good conflict set up for him, a new king thrust upon the throne by tragedy and struggling to determine Wakanda's future, but he just has no charisma in this film, something desperately needed if Chadwick Boseman (who is generally a good actor) is to carry his own franchise.

Ultimately, "Black Panther" works as another solid Marvel film, the safety net of Marvel's lack of ambition being slightly elevated by a good cast, the Seoul scenes, the villains, and Ludwig Göransson's kick-ass score. But ultimately, the few reaches that "Black Panther" makes for greatness only serve to highlight how cookie-cutter the rest of the film feels. Other than its brief flirtations with interesting subject matter and the refreshing sight of an action blockbuster’s cast having an average melanin level greater than 1%, it’s still more typical MCU, filled with lame humor, a dull and muted color palette, and the same ol’ large, cluttered 3rd-act battle filled with embarrassingly bad CGI. Wakanda Whatever.

[aion-rsa]

Marvel’s Road to the Thunderbolts in the MCU

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The first phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe had a simple mission: build up to the creation of the Avengers. The next two phases went further by setting the stage for Thanos and his quest for the Infinity Stones, culminating in one of the biggest movies of all time in Avengers: Endgame. While MCU Phase 4 is a mix of Disney+ TV shows and theatrical movie releases, there hasn’t been an established narrative goal just yet. So what are they building towards?

One belief is that we’re getting an MCU incarnation of the Thunderbolts or its sister team, the Dark Avengers.

The Thunderbolts first showed up in 1997, created by Kurt Busiek. In the aftermath of the Onslaught event, the Fantastic Four and Avengers were seemingly vaporized. Not only were these two major teams gone, but they were the superheroes people trusted the most. What remained was the likes of Spider-Man, the X-Men, and the Hulk. Not exactly media sweethearts.

To fill this heroic void, Baron Zemo came up with a scheme where he took members of the Masters of Evil, dressed them up with fake superhero identities, and had them gain the public’s trust in hopes that it would lead to world domination. Despite being a ruse, certain members of the Thunderbolts came to realize they wanted to truly be heroes and opposed Zemo. Hawkeye eventually took over the team and they became a group of outlaw heroes fighting for redemption. A reformed Zemo soon took the reins again, once again trying to take over the world…but this time for the good of all humanity.

The Thunderbolts then became a government-run team and acted as Marvel’s counterpart to DC’s Suicide Squad. New leader Norman Osborn politicked his way into running the Avengers, where he copied Zemo’s old idea of dressing up villains as heroes. And so, the Dark Avengers were born, featuring such members as Bullseye pretending to be Hawkeye and Venom pretending to be Spider-Man. Unlike the Thunderbolts, the Dark Avengers were an example of failed redemption on all fronts and the team crumbled. Once Osborn was ousted, Luke Cage took over and the group became far less corrupt.

The Thunderbolts team has been reborn again and again. It’s been seen as a force of good, a force of evil pretending to be good, and a force of evil taking down worse threats. And now it looks to be coming to the MCU.

Let’s look at who will be and who could be major players to this plot down the line:

Valentina Allegra de Fontaine

In the comics, Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine was a triple agent who constantly either worked for SHIELD or against it while being an on-again/off-again love interest of Nick Fury. So she’s perfect for whatever they’re doing with her as she plays up a more curious version of Fury’s iconic visit to Tony Stark’s mansion from the Iron Man post-credits.

We don’t know who Valentina works for and how high up the ladder she is, but she does appear to be setting up something. Whatever her Thunderbolts-like team is called, we’re left wondering why they will exist and how many movies and TV shows will we have to sit through before we finally get an answer.

US Agent

John Walker’s role in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier was one of the more interesting parts of the show, even if they didn’t quite land the ending. The US government’s attempt at a new Captain America meant well, but he was only the right person for the job on paper. Too haunted by his military exploits, too frustrated by not getting the respect he wanted, and feeling inadequate due to not being a super soldier, Walker injected himself with a black market serum that gave him the physical boost he needed. It also helped drive him over the edge when Walker’s best friend and partner Battlestar died during a mission and he got a bit too violent while in public.

Disgraced and discharged from his position, Walker was visited by Valentina, who gave him a new lease on life as US Agent. Valentina’s people realize that someone with Walker’s abilities shouldn’t be discarded so easily. Take away the idea that he’s tarnishing a legacy and someone like him could be very, very useful.

In the comics, a wheelchair-bound Walker acted as a warden at the Raft, Marvel’s supervillain prison and, for a time, the headquarters for the Thunderbolts. He did lead the team very, very briefly when it was retitled Dark Avengers, but the series was cancelled immediately after and it was quietly forgotten about. Still, the adventure did allow him to regrow his missing limbs!

For the MCU, this does suggest that this team won’t be a publicly-celebrated unit. You can use US Agent to kick ass all you want, but I doubt Valentina wants a media spotlight on him in any way.

Yelena Belova

As shown in the post-credits for Black Widow, Yelena Belova has been working for Valentina for at least a little while. She’s a paid assassin and she’s going to be going after Hawkeye in the near future on his upcoming Disney+ series. Much like US Agent, she’s a darker replacement of an Avenger who has been taken off the board. Maybe not as easily manipulated as Walker will likely be, though.

The Yelena version of Black Widow was a member of the Thunderbolts in the comics…sort of. It eventually turned out that it was really Natasha disguising herself as Yelena for the sake of doing undercover work against Norman Osborn. Well, I think we can agree that they won’t be doing that twist any time soon.

The Abomination

“We have a Hulk.”

If they’re building a roster full of Avengers knockoffs, it seems rather suspicious that Emil Blonsky is suddenly becoming relevant again. Not only is he supposed to be coming back for the She-Hulk show, but he has a cameo in the Shang-Chi trailer where he’s taking on Wong in an underground cage fight.

Abomination is someone that the government wanted on the Avengers from the very beginning, even in spite of the damage he caused in Harlem. He’s no longer in prison and the events of She-Hulk could end up working in his favor legally. The cage fighting may suggest that he’s a bit aimless, but for a soldier who loves nothing more than to fight, Valentina’s team might be the perfect place for him.

In terms of the comics, Abomination never had anything to do with the Thunderbolts. Though now that I think about it, the Thunderbolts series did a one point focus on super-powered individuals taking part in underground fight clubs. Hm…

Various Thunderbolts Leaders

As mentioned, there have been a lot of different variations of the Thunderbolts and the team has had a handful of different leaders to push the focus in different directions. Four of those leaders happen to have recent roles in the MCU: Baron Zemo, Hawkeye, the Winter Soldier, and General Ross. It’s also very possible that the team is named after the latter considering his nickname is “Thunderbolt Ross.”

Luke Cage and Wilson Fisk are also notable Thunderbolts leaders, but the wonky relationship with the Netflix shows makes them unlikely to get involved.

Hawkeye and Bucky could easily take over the operation and add a little purity to the situation. But if Baron Zemo gets involved? Man, that could be unpredictable and interesting.

Ghost

With Norman Osborn in charge of things, Ghost was thrown into the Thunderbolts and became a major recurring member. Considering he was blatantly written as being Marvel’s Rorschach, it wasn’t he biggest deal when the MCU gender-swapped him and gave him a different personality. The version from Ant-Man and the Wasp is still pretty nihilistic when it comes to authority.

Ghost has been a huge question mark since the mid-credits scene of Ant-Man and the Wasp. The heroes were trying to mine the quantum materials that would normalize Ghost and heal her, only for Thanos’ snap to kick in. We don’t even know if Ghost went away due to the snap, but it’s possible that she was abandoned by those who said they’d help her and that could push her in a very dangerous position.

Considering her past as a SHIELD weapon, she’d make for an interesting member of the group.

Taskmaster

Taskmaster is a lot like Ghost. Not just in that she’s a gender-swapped version of the comic original with a different personality, history, and mission but in the same character arc of going from villain to someone with a new lease on life and opportunity to be more. Taskmaster was last seen being rescued by an army of liberated Black Widows. With her own future to decide, she’s basically in the same boat as Yelena, so it’s fully believable that she too might be working for Valentina.

Also, Taskmaster only just recently joined the Thunderbolts in the comics. That could be an intentional attempt at synergy. Marvel’s been pulling that kind of thing for years.

White Vision

WandaVision ended with the confusing fate of Vision’s reanimated body. SWORD was able to awaken Vision, now without his memories, personality, or color scheme. White Vision fought a magical construct of his original self (AKA “WandaVision”) and allowed his memories to be reinstated. After that, he peaced out and flew off to parts unknown.

Scarlet Witch is meant to be a major player in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but I’m not expecting White Vision to be a part of that. It would make sense for White Vision to pop up as part of a group of grim doppelgangers. Even if he’s just a dark doppelganger of himself. I imagine the guy needs something constructive to do while keeping a low profile.

Speaking of Doctor Strange…

Karl Mordo

Remember when Mordo became so disillusioned with the Ancient One that he crippled a man for the sake of making a point about how much sorcerers suck? Then he was all, “Haha, I’m going to get rid of all magic users!” Yeah, that was about 10 years ago according to the MCU’s chronology. Good hustle, guy.

The whole Multiverse of Madness thing makes me wonder how much of a role Mordo will have to play in it. And that’s fine because you know what? I bet Valentina would love to have someone like Mordo on her roster. Not only would she have a Dr. Strange counterpart, but getting rid of all magic on Earth seems like the kind of thing a shadowy operative might get behind.

The Vulture

The Spider-Man/Sony deal mucks this up, especially if they’re pushing for some kind of Sinister Six situation, but since Spider-Man: Homecoming, I’ve always thought Vulture would be a perfect member of the MCU Thunderbolts.

See, the thing about Vulture is that the Michael Keaton version is absolutely nothing like the Mr. Burns lookalike comic version outside of fighting Spider-Man and having the ability to fly. In fact, MCU Vulture has a lot more in common with Abner Jenkins. Jenkins started off as blue collar working man who later used his engineering genius to become a Spider-Man supervillain as the Beetle.

As a founding Thunderbolts member, Jenkins became MACH-I (renaming himself after many armor updates) and was one of the first to realize that maybe he was better off being a good guy. He even led the team for a little bit. Considering how sympathetic and likeable MCU Vulture has been, some kind of Thunderbolts/Dark Avengers situation could help redeem him down the line.

Those Yet to be Introduced

Just like MACH, there are certain key members of the comics Thunderbolts who have yet to show up in the MCU. Perhaps we’ll see them soon enough. For instance, there is speculation that Moonstone will probably be a villain in the Captain Marvel sequel The Marvels. Not only does she have similar powers as the heroine, but she also posed as her in Dark Avengers.

The Fixer/Techno is another big one as the team’s resident tech guy and loyal Zemo henchman. Atlas, who has size-changing powers, is easily someone who can show up in the next Ant-Man movie. Jolt is…actually, we really don’t need Jolt.

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The biggest name to not show up is Songbird. Formerly the villain Screaming Mimi, Melissa Gold is practically the heart and soul of the Thunderbolts. She’s the one who came out of it better than anyone to the point that she was even an Avenger for a little while. If you want to put together a cynical Avengers knockoff and have someone turn it into something optimistic, Songbird is the one you need to throw in.

The post Marvel’s Road to the Thunderbolts in the MCU appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[chirrutbaze]

The Postmodern Jedi

As of January 7, 2018. Written after two viewings of The Last Jedi.

(word count: 2700 words)

PART I. What Does "Postmodern” Even Mean?

Simply put, post-modernism is a formal way of saying “edginess”. This Reddit post does a fair job of explaining the movement, but it’s pretty long. To summarize, post-modern authors and artists maintain that morality is entirely relative and grey, and that post-modernism is about defying expectations and tropes and playing beyond the standard ball court.

For example, A Song of Ice And Fire (Game of Thrones), with its extreme violence, squiggly morality, and unhappy endings, is post-modern fantasy when compared to The Lord of the Rings, which represents traditional fantasy with its happy endings and clearly defined morality.

Or: That guy over there in the fedora, scrolling through Reddit in front of his shelf of Alan Moore comics, fancy bongs, and vinyl discs? He probably thinks he’s better than you because he’s been enlightened by post-modernism.

But post-modernism can also be fun, tongue-in-cheek stuff -- like Shrek, which mocks its genre and defies expectations at every turn. So it’s not all dark, gritty, angsty dudebro-fodder.

PART II. Rian Johnson Killed Star Wars and Lucasfilm is Rewarding Him For It

(Continued below the cut.)

“Where does Star Wars fit into all of this?” is a great question, but I’d first like to give a couple more examples of post-modernism.

Remember when Batman got a makeover and the critics and audience went gaga for it?

And then we got a major influx of this...

...until the final, crown jewel,

(No offense, BvS. You were a fun movie. :))

Alan Moore (and Dave Gibbons) had started it with Watchmen, a graphic novel that presents superheroes as flawed, broken people with overblown egos. The comic takes the medium’s traditional bright colors and warps them into extreme violence and disturbing imagery. The ending (spoiler alert) is not a happy one, leaving the reader with a moral dilemma and a headache. It is all VERY postmodern.

Unfortunately, a lot of the above nuances disappear in “gritty reboots” and become more like White Murder Boy Is Now Sympathetic or How Many People To Dress In Black Until Edgy?? These movies are watered down versions of postmodernism.

Still, it had all eventually become too exhausting for the casual movie-goer, and now the film subgenre of “gritty reboot” is mocked to no end. (Ex: “WHY DID YOU SAY THAT NAME??”) People would rather play it safe with Marvel’s recycled storyline and Wonder Woman’s bright colors and cheerful message.

But back to Star Wars.

Star Wars has always fallen in The Lord of the Rings’ nook as traditional fantasy. Luke Skywalker, the Good Guy, needs to save the galaxy from Darth Vader, the Bad Guy. There's no blurred lines. Luke may be tempted by the Dark, and Darth Vader may be brought to the Light, but in the end there's only a Good-Evil binary.

The prequels -- though “grittier” in the sense that the protagonist, Anakin, turns evil -- are restricted to the same binary. Obi Wan is Good, Palpatine is Bad, and Anakin goes from Good to Bad. Anakin’s motive may have started as well-meant (wanting to save his loved ones), but even that gets twisted into, “From my point of view, the Jedi are evil!” He isn’t afforded any greyspace. As soon as he chooses Bad, he commits atrocities (killing the younglings and murdering the Separatist leaders) and loses trust in Padmé and Obi Wan, his concrete links to the Light side. The audience can no longer afford him any sympathy.

Star Wars has always maintained that there can only be Good or Bad, and that there is no in between. The Force Awakens continued this trend: the First Order has very clear fascist parallels, and Han Solo and the Resistance are seen as heroic forces.

Rian Johnson wanted to break free of this constrained morality. He gives the heroes obvious flaws to the point that they have disastrous consequences. He acts sympathetically toward the villains. He shatters the audience’s rose-tinted glasses.

But he did it without the gritty, grey filter or gore or ‘moral dilemma’ that characterize films like Snow White and the Huntsman and Batman v Superman. There’s a sense of edginess without any of the background recycled gloominess. Johnson even ends his story on a high, hopeful note -- “That’s how we’re gonna win. Not fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”

So, in the end, Lucasfilm and Disney got an edgy, “refreshing” blockbuster that’s guaranteed to bring in box office sales and excellent critic reception, because all good critics love an edgy story. It’s a win-win situation for them.

PART III. What Exactly Did Rian Johnson Do?

Listicle time!

1. Johnson made a Marvel movie disguised as a Star Wars episode.

This isn’t really evident of postmodernism, but it’s something that adds to TLJ’s “sell-able” nature. The quips left and right, the over the top action scenes, the bright colors, the quick pace, a villain that’s essentially just the evil version of the protagonist -- welcome to the MCU. And The Last Jedi.

The jokes were fun at first, but Star Wars has never been one for throwaway humor. Yet the movie is chock-full of jokes that more take the audience out of the “zone” than add to the film. Weird moments like Shirtless Kylo Ren and Luke’s Green Milk have become memes, Luke and Rey’s serious exchange was severely reduced by the Jakku joke, and Luke tickles Rey with the grass when she’s supposed to be training. Compared to the previous films, none of it feels organic.

The action scenes, too, have changed. The original series with Luke and Vader was very limited by the effects of its times, and then the prequels overcompensated. The sequel trilogy promised to be better than its predecessors, with an amazing fight scene between Rey and Kylo Ren on Starkiller Base that looked like it could’ve been choreographed by Donnie Yen himself. But The Last Jedi’s fight between Luke and Kylo Ren regresses back to something out of the prequel trilogy. Was the slow-motion really necessary, Rian Johnson? And Kylo Ren and Rey’s fight in the throne room is over the top and busy, simply showing off how many “cool moves” Lucasfilm could think of to stuff in one scene.

The cluttered action clashes with movie's bright colors and quick pacing. Still, the latter characteristics are not so much of a problem with Johnson’s Star Wars as they are characteristics of most blockbusters these days. It’s forgivable.

But Johnson does have a problem in that he simply reduces his villain to the evil version of his protagonist. He kills off Snoke and establishes “Supreme Leader Ren” as the new big antagonist. Kylo Ren, however, is just what Rey would be if she goes dark. This is evidenced when Luke comments, “I’ve seen this raw strength only once before. It didn’t scare me enough then, but it does now.” He’s talking about Kylo Ren (Ben Solo). 

Kylo Ren rejects the idea of family while Rey craves it. Kylo Ren is tempted by the Dark side and is absorbed into it while Rey is tempted and rejects it. Kylo Ren wants to destroy his past while Rey chases after hers. They’re explicit inverses, seen especially when Rey calls his lightsaber to her in Snoke’s throne room and then the two fight back to back. Even on the movie poster, they're in ying-yang positions.

Of course, this Marvel-esque approach is great for Disney. It works for the MCU, after all. All of their films have been box office successes, and the hype for Infinity War is massive.

2. Johnson gave his heroes flaws and his villains reasons.

This is the postmodern (“edgy”, “gritty reboot”) aspect of TLJ: Johnson introduces grey morality into the Star Wars universe not by proposing a moral dilemma (hello, Joker from The Dark Knight) but by giving his characters crippling flaws.

→ Finn’s flaws were explored in the first movie -- he prefers running away from his problems instead of facing them, and his compassion for his friends (Rey, Poe) outweighs his loyalty to a cause (prioritizing saving Rey over a real plan to take down Starkiller). This is not a bad thing. And it’s only been a couple of days (or hours?) since the fall of Starkiller Base; Finn can’t be expected to overcome his previous motivations in that time. Johnson was not out of line for continuing Finn’s moral arc (trying to leave the Resistance to look for Rey at the start of TLJ).

However, he also adds a strange element of aggression to Finn’s character. Suddenly, he’s done with trying to run away and throws himself into sudden action when he tries to take out the First Order’s battering cannon. It’s never really explained (with all the Canto Bight sequences mostly focusing on Rose’s reactions) but it’s the only true action with impact on the narrative that Finn takes.

→ Rey’s TFA flaws are also taken into TLJ. She’s very trusting -- too trusting. Rey waits for her parents to return to Jakku, even though they likely never will; she immediately takes to Finn when he fibs that he’s in the Resistance; and she immediately warms up to Han Solo, a known smuggler. (Admittedly, it’s a strange characteristic for a scavenger living on the unforgiving Jakku, but that’s another argument entirely.) Her naivety has no consequences in TFA, but it does in TLJ.

By trusting too easily and going to Kylo Ren, she's played into exactly what he wants. He uses her to defeat Snoke and the Praetorian Guards so that he can instate himself as the new Supreme Leader. Her going to Kylo Ren does more bad than good.

→ Poe is a small character in TFA, but he’s given more personality in TLJ. We now see him as a brash pilot who, although intelligent and capable, is too quick to take action.

Ultimately, his unwillingness to step in line with his superiors -- who are also at fault for withholding vital information -- leads to the crumbling of the Resistance.

→ Luke Skywalker’s flaws were the most difficult for the fanbase to accept. It’s not like he’s ever been perfect -- his entire journey in the original series is his bildungsroman, or his coming of age. He matures from an impatient farmboy to a competent Jedi knight, though he still maintains his compassion and will to do good from the start. But Johnson introduces a new Achilles heel: Luke is like Finn in that he wants to avoid rather than confront.

Luke’s absence allows the First Order to rise to power more easily. Instead of trying to make amends with Kylo Ren, he retreats to a remote island planet. Luke recognizes the problem -- his own hubris, another main fault of his -- but he doesn't try to make reparations. He's chosen the easy route instead of the right one.

→ Kylo Ren was the character who got the most attention this film. While he’s a pretty flat character in TFA -- his main actions include killing people and looking scary -- he also appears to be torn between the Light side and the Dark side. Until he commits patricide, that is.

Johnson takes this dark, helmeted figure and gives him a 'tragic backstory’. We know that Snoke has been messing with him since a young age in TFA, but now we see Snoke use abusive, humiliating language against him in TLJ. (This ultimately turns Kylo Ren against Snoke instead of keeping him under his heel.) However, it seems that Luke briefly considering killing Ben Solo was the cataclysm for Kylo Ren’s existence. All of this works to explain Kylo Ren’s actions -- and it allows the audience some sympathy.

3. Johnson created DJ the Codebreaker. Oh, yeah, and Canto Bight.

Remember Benicio del Toro's character? His name's DJ. Do you know what DJ stands for?

Don't Join.

Rian Johnson couldn't be more obvious if he put up a billboard with neon lights and a stereo blaring “The Imperial March”. He wants the audience to get his “edgy” message -- that maybe the good guys and bad guys are both the problem.

DJ works for neither the Resistance nor the First Order. He’s found on Canto Bight, a place that fuels the intergalactic war (Star Wars) by continuously selling weapons to both sides. Furthermore, DJ first promises to help the Resistance (Rose and Finn) before betraying them to the First Order to save himself. He plays both sides of the field and therefore neither.

Johnson also hints at his “grey” view of the Star Wars universe through Luke, who declares that “the Jedi must come to an end”. Luke acknowledges the arrogance of the Jedi Council (which is better explored in Dave Filoni’s Star Wars: The Clone Wars series than in the prequel trilogy) and of himself, lamenting how it'd blinded him and his forefathers.

Frankly put, Johnson had a goal -- to show that Star Wars’ heroes are no longer infallible, and that their universe (and the Force) isn't black and white.

PART IV. Why Fandom Refuses to Accept TLJ

I’ll be brief: Rian Johnson is not a good writer.

For example, let's go back to Kylo Ren. He's not really supposed to be a Sympathetic White Murder Boy. By the end of the film, it’s explicit that he's more unstable and irredeemable than ever. And yet there's still this prevalent delusion that he's going to pull a Darth Vader and/or end up with Rey, returning to “Ben Solo”. His terrible actions towards Rey are completely ignored. If you take a look at that linked post, all of the bullet points listed should have been concretely evident in the film, but weren’t. It took an analytical post on the Internet to get there.

Was that weird enough? Nope. Let’s go weirder.

There were, strangely enough, two articles released about how terrible of a character Poe was by Buzzfeed and Vanity Fair because he was a “mansplainer” who refused to listen to a woman in command. For this, TLJ was praised as a “feminist” film.

However, the woman in command should be held at fault. Vice Admiral Holdo purposely withholds critical information from the other Resistance fighters, expecting blind faith in her desperate gamble of a plan. Kaydel Ko Connix (portrayed by Billie Lourd) is seen to be working on the bridge with Holdo, yet she joins Poe’s mutiny because even she, working right there with Holdo, has no idea of what’s to come.

So why is only Poe being held accountable for the fall of the Resistance? Because he never gets a redemptive moment. Sure, he calls his fighters back on Crait, but it’s so small and almost seems to carry a sense of regret. Finn and Rose’s moment, only seconds later, easily outweighs it. On the other hand, Holdo lightspeeds straight through Snoke’s flagship in some of the best special effects to grace the big screen.

Let’s talk about Rose Tico, too. A lot of fans were really excited about her character, especially Kelly Marie Tran, the actress herself. But her role in Canto Bight was originally supposed to be that of Poe Dameron’s. It would’ve been more in line with what we’ve seen so far of Poe Dameron. Even though he had a small role in TFA, his character is much more fleshed out in the comics. This small excerpt already proves him to not be the hot-headed pilot Rian Johnson has made him out to be. Having Poe expose Finn to Canto Bight would’ve been a great way to rectify Poe’s character, in a sense.

Rose herself comes off as flat. The film claims that she has a deep bond with her sister, but they never interact and it’s not concretely shown, just assumed. Rose has no development over the course of the film. She just exists to better Finn (as evidenced by the comicbook article) -- and while Finn is a fantastic character who was severely undervalued in TLJ, that’s still a dangerous position for a female character to be allocated to.

This is all evidence of not-that-great writing. There’s a reason why the audience’s Rotten Tomatoes score is at 50% and the critics’ score is at 90%. I doubt the bots were the only reason why the audience score is pulled so low.

In addition, grey morality within the Star Wars universe has been explored before in their television shows (Dave Filoni’s The Clone Wars and Rebels) and in Rogue One (“We’ve all done terrible things on behalf of the Rebellion”), so it’s actually… not revolutionary. 

And these works have still stayed true to Star Wars in a way that The Last Jedi falls short of.

[ordinaryschmuck]

The Mess of the DCEU-Chapter One: Rough Beginnings

Salutations. I’m an Ordinary Schmuck. I write stories, reviews, and all that other yada-yada.

*Sighs* You know, say what you want about the MCU, but it at least started with an innovative idea. They wanted to make an interconnected universe of movies and TV shows that brought Marvel’s characters to life and tell an ongoing story that would lead to all these characters working together to stop a great evil. It wasn’t good ALL the time, but MOST of the time, it was. It told great stories, had cool action scenes, and introduced general audiences to superheroes they never heard of before. It might be a shadow of its former self NOWADAYS, but within those first ten years, the MCU accomplished something other studios could only DREAM to do. Unfortunately, innovation often breeds IMITATION, with the MCU’s success leading to people thinking “Oh, in order to make bank, we need to make cinematic universes too!” This led to several attempts to make interconnected universes and franchises, with studios desperately trying to copy the MCU’s homework without understanding how it did everything right. And there was no mess that tried way too hard and failed even harder than the DC Extended Universe. DCEU, for short.

Where the MCU succeeded in its ten years, the DCEU fumbled and grasped at any straw they could because they wanted to make something not out of innovation but competition…Well, for the most part. You COULD argue there were creators that wanted to make something that will help the DCEU stand out from the MCU, telling stories with a different tone and style that made the universe more unique. But the STUDIO wanted the MCU killer, which led to constant interference with creators and their visions, dozens of reshoots and rewrites, and so many bad decisions that killed the DCEU as soon as it started. How? Well, let’s go over it through phases, starting with the rough beginnings of this mess of a universe. 

In this period, Warner Bros wanted the DCEU to be a BIG hit with general audiences so they can catch up with Disney/Marvel. The problem is that they weren’t patient enough to lay out the groundwork of a cinematic universe and allow a clear, concrete story to be SLOWLY told over time. It’s like they bought this LEGO set and wanted to make it look exactly as it did on the box, but decided to toss the instruction guide away and start building at random. The results, as you’d imagine, weren’t pretty. And, to  be fair, it wasn’t HORRIBLE right away…depending on who you ask.

Spoilers down below

Man of Steel

DC’s first movie in this cinematic catastrophe was divisive among fans, general audiences, and critics. Some LOVED it, stating that it’s the best Superman movie, to this day. Others say they hated it, saying it ruined Superman as a character and it should be TOSSED into the sun. And while I wouldn’t say it’s THAT bad, it’s not…AMAZING either.

It should be worth noting that I’m not a particular fan of Zack Snyder’s style. He has his fans (Who act more like a fucking CULT), but it’s clear that his style doesn’t reach out for everyone and it doesn’t for me. Not…ALL of the time, anyways. For one, I don’t like the colors he uses. The rusty oranges, the stormy blues, the DARK BLACKS. It all just makes his movies look ugly to me, with people justifying it by saying these colors set the tone for a dark, edgy universe. And I don’t care what justification there is, if I don’t want to look at your movie, you’ve already failed the visual medium.

Then there’s his glorification of death and violence. Like, yeah, the neanderthal in the back of my brain can’t help but think of how cool it looks when Superman is throwing Zod and his goons into buildings and making shockwaves as they trade blows, but I can’t help but think of the people in those buildings and how wrong it feels watching our HERO drag the villain’s face across a skyscraper that collapses. You can say that it’s realistic for a Superman starting out to cause this much destruction, but it doesn’t stop how weird it feels watching him actively cause more of it instead of trying harder to steer Zod AWAY from the city they’re destroying. Just keep throwing him into space! You did it once, just keep doing it!

And this leads me to my last, BIGGEST problem with Zack’s style: He’s motivated more by what looks COOL. Why does the camera constantly zoom into one shot? Because it looks cool. Why does Superman destroy a city he’s trying to save? Because it looks cool. Why does Krypton look like an amalgamation of other sci-fi stuff, including birds from Avatar, genesis pods from The Matrix, and probably some secret third thing? Because those movies looked cool and they would make HIS movie look cool. And yeah. It IS cool. But after a while, when you catch onto it and THINK on it, it makes you wonder if any of it is really necessary.

Now, to be fair to Zack, there ARE some good stuff. I think Jor-El is handled well as an anti-thesis for Zod. The action, while unnecessarily violent, DOES look awesome and I do like the detail that Superman leaves soundwaves when he hits something that can take as much as he gives. It helps show the POWER of this character, and I think Zack understands well just how powerful Superman is. As for how Superman’s portrayed, I think he’s…mostly good. I love that our introduction to Clark Kent is him saving lives. That’s the best possible way to introduce us to him, and Henry Cavil does well enough sometimes in portraying the character. He looks the part, his voice matches how I hear Superman’s when reading comics, and there’s the occasional twinkle in his eye when speaking…Occasional. Not all the time. 

This brings me to the main issue with this movie: This is not the best portrayal of Superman. Zack Snyder went about  making a more realistic version of the character. One that’s more messy, is less of a boy scout, and can’t find an easy solution because it’s how Superman would exist in real life. And I am sick to DEATH of superheroes movies that try to go the realistic route. SOMETIMES it works, and you get something amazing like the Daredevil TV Series or The Dark Knight. Heck, you could argue that the first Iron Man movie is realistic, having Tony slowly build a suit and testing out each function while negating the suit’s more comic accurate craziness. I mean, the thing doesn’t even have roller blades, for crying out loud…Yeah, that’s a thing. Look it up.

But while a realistic superhero story works for SOME characters, it shouldn’t work for ALL of them, with Superman being the one you want to steer clear from being realistic.The guy shaves his face with his own heat vision because normal razors can’t even cut his beard. That’s a character that works best at being the most fantastical as possible. But if you WANT to make the character more realistic, then fine. Do it. Just as long as the character’s spirit is intact. Because superheroes change a lot, going through different phases and personalities due to the current writer at the helm. The best changes are the ones that offer different perspectives to the character, breathing new life into them, while still keeping their spirit alive. For example, the MCU may have made changes to Tony Stark’s origins and made him famous as the hero who revealed his identity to the world in an INSTANT, but the spirit of the tortured, cocky genius is alive in every appearance. Making Superman act more direct, having him actively break stuff for justice, and wearing a suit that lacks all forms of color is just…not Superman. He’s this bright, happy guy who you can go up and strike up a conversation with. A beacon of hope that shows the best side of humanity even if he’s not exactly human. Yes, there are days when he’s angry and destructive, but that’s only when he’s pushed past his limits and has no other choice but to go against how Ma and Pa Kent raised him to be. To go against that in his FIRST appearance feels like Zack’s shooting his shot too soon. We don’t get that much of an insight into the joyful boy scout Superman has been for decades, so by starting out with him being…not that leaves the impression that this is just how this version of Superman acts. There was never a chance for this character to be hopeful, which would be tragic if that was intentional. But for all I know, Zack did it because he thought it’d be cooler.

For all it’s worth, Man of Steel isn’t the WORST Superman movie, but it fails to grasp just what makes Superman the greatest superhero ever conceived. Zack still made a cool looking action movie that was entertaining if you don’t think about how many people died when Superman saved the day. Anything other than that? Let’s just say I hope James Gunn understands the character better.

However, as bad as this movie got, it had an audience. People loved it and were willing to see more. So, in a way, it’s not the worst start to a franchise.

No…That would be the NEXT movie.

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice

…We all have that one movie that makes us angry. A movie that we could all rip apart because of how much it does wrong and personally pisses us off. A movie that clearly wasn’t made for us in mind, but doesn’t change the fact that, no matter what people will say, we’ll NEVER like it. THIS? This is MY movie…

POSITIVES FIRST: I like Wonder Woman’s entrance. The badass guitar riff never fails to get me pumped up and it instantly sold me on this version of the character. I like Batman’s suit. The small pointy ears, the beefy bat symbol, and the bulkiness of it all makes for a suit that screams BATMAN. And I really like that warehouse fight. You know, if I pretend that Batman ISN’T killing people in that, it’s a pretty awesome fight scene that shows how badass Batman is…And that’s it. Yeah, I can count on ONE HAND the things that I like about this movie. As for the things I don’t like? Let’s just say I’m genuinely trying to hold myself back from ripping this film a new one for the sake of time.

Remember how I said that Henry Cavil showed moments of that glimmer in Superman’s eye and the nice guy that he is? Yeah, that’s completely erased in this one. This Superman is damn near detached from any sense of joy and optimism, where if he isn’t feeling anger, he’s as emotionless as a plank of wood. The man will stand in the middle of a room that was blown to hell, and his reaction looked like he farted in church. There’s no shock, fear, or even sadness over the lives that died around him. He’s just standing there with an expression of “Oh, that sucks.” And when he DOES feel  sad AFTER THE FACT, it feels like he’s holding back what he should be feeling. Superman, as a character, is one who wears his emotions on his sleeve, yet he can’t even cry in front of his girlfriend, his true love, the woman he shares everything with. Don’t just show me a Superman that’s all powerful and can’t be broken easily. Show me a Superman that’s HUMAN!

As for the rest of his cast of supporting characters, let’s just say that Zack Snyder doesn’t seem to care much about Superman’s mythos other than Superman being the most powerful being in DC’s universe. Jimmy Olson, Superman’s best pal that’s his confidant and as important to him as Robin is to Batman? He gets a bullet in his brain upon being introduced. Martha Kent, Clark’s mother who made him the man he is? She’s relegated to a plot device that’s used to make Clark feel better and bring peace to Batman and Superman (Oh, we’ll get to THAT later…). At least Lois Lane has some plot importance. Yeah, she gets a whole subplot where she discovers that–LE GASP–Lex Luthor is the bad guy! Good job, Lois! You did something the other two meatheads could have done if they weren’t too busy planning on how to kill each other! But at least it’s something semi-important. Goodness knows you couldn’t do anything else like give this information to Clark to help investigate instead of focussing on Batman or getting a fucking STICK out of some water! But, hey, at least you figured out Lex Luthor was the bad guy…just in time for him to throw you off the roof so Superman can save you and learn that information for himself. Not from you. Because YOU’VE DONE NOTHING! NOTHING! You are as useless as a semicolon! Any purpose you bring doesn’t mean shit when there are two more important things to use, you worthless–I’m getting mad…I’m getting mad…Let’s just move on…

Lex Luthor. He sucks too. It goes without saying that Jesse Eisenberg doesn’t really nail the cold, captivating, and easily threatening villain that is modern Lex Luthor. Even the campiness of early Golden Age Lex Luthor felt like more of a threat than this skinny little man-child who likes sticking Jolly Ranchers into the mouth of one government official and sending a jar full of piss to another. I have no idea how ANYONE could be threatened by this “villain,” who acts more pathetic than intimidating. As for his intelligence? Pfft. I used to think that his plans were stupidly complicated, now I realize that they’re complicatedly stupid. He wants to either frame Superman for murder or kill him. Except that when it comes to framing Superman, Lex Luthor leaves behind so much evidence that someone as pointless as Lois Lane could have picked up on it. As for killing him? He plans to bring out Doomsday, a creature too powerful and stupid to control that even IF it killed Superman…what happens next? What could stop this monster from going on a rampage and causing more destruction than Superman ever could? And the crazy part is that Doomsday is Plan B! Plan A was having Superman and Batman fight, something that Lex considers a win-win situation. Because if Superman wins, he’s framed as murdering a man in cold blood. And if Batman wins, then Superman is dead. It SOUNDS smart…until you realize that Batman is a crazed vigilante who branded criminals so they could die in jail. There should have been NO CHANCE for Batman to successfully kill Superman. Even if he had Kryptonite handy, there was no guarantee that Batman would win. And if and when Superman won, he would have killed a crazed maniac that some people would have been happy to see gotten rid of. I mean, if they already hate Superman killing innocent people, why would they hate him for killing someone insane? To quote a hero from the RIVAL COMPANY, Lex, “Not a great plan.”

And SPEAKING OF Batman…Zack Snyder screwed up. This isn’t the great detective who values life because of the ones he lost, to the point he would NEVER kill the Joker, not even on a bad day. No, no, no, this is a meathead who would sooner punch first, think later, and kill anybody who gets in his way. “But those people aren’t innocent–” Doesn’t matter! Okay?! It doesn’t matter what screwed up shit these people have done, Batman’s not the one to pull the trigger. He’s not even one to use a GUN! Guns killed his parents and it is a weapon he is so venomously against, large in part that he doesn’t trust himself to use one nonlethally! To have a Batman that kills goes against the core of the character. So why does Zack have Batman kill people in his movie? Because it looks cool. Wasn’t it cool seeing Batman blow up that car? Wasn’t it cool seeing Batman whip another car like a yo-yo? Wasn’t it cool to see Batman ready to stab Superman with a fucking STICK?! And yes, this is meant to be a Batman that was pushed to his limits due to a long life of fighting crime and the lives lost from it. The tribute to a dead Robin hints at that. But if you START OUT with that Batman, without showing us what he was like BEFORE reaching this point, it tells me that he was ALWAYS like this because there’s barely any evidence to the contrary. And the thing is that I would have actually liked this Batman more if we actually DID spend time getting to know him and seeing what broke him, but we don’t. Why? Because we needed to rush out a cinematic universe and start out with two of DC’s iconic superheroes fighting each other.

This movie came out around the same time as Captain America: Civil War. And to this day, I will forever say that movie did the superhero vs superhero movie better. Say what you want about its quality, but we at least got to KNOW Captain America and Iron Man. We got to KNOW why they’d pick one side and the other, with Iron Man motivated by guilt and Captain America motivated by a selfish desire to save the last connection to his past. And when they fight, it’s heartbreaking because it’s watching two characters you love going against each other. I feel none of that with this Batman and Superman. I barely know either of them, and their reasons for hating each other are vague and hypocritical. They’re not men with opposing viewpoints and morals. They’re both brooding, violent idiots who kill people, and hate the other for being the exact same person.

Plus, most of this movie isn’t focussed on that final showdown! Too much of it is setting up the Justice League and Darksied and all this other stuff that would have worked better if the studio took time to introduce these story threads! Civil War may have introduced Black Panther and Spider-Man into the MCU, but Black Panther went on such a powerful emotional journey that made his character a worthy addition to the story, Spider-Man has a long enough presence to feel like a character even if he’s an over glorified cameo, AND neither of them distract too much from the main conflict. The story is still about Iron Man and Captain America going against each other, showing so many scenes of them at each other’s throats before that final battle. Batman and Superman share ONE scene together, and it’s all we get before their big fight.

And when they DO fight each other, I can’t even appreciate how cool it is because of all these distracting questions in my mind. Like, why doesn’t Superman just hold Batman down and explain the situation? He clearly wants to try and convince him to help Martha and can easily hold him down. There’s even this moment when Superman holds up Batman and has the perfect opportunity to tell him what’s going on…but instead throws him through a building because it looks cool. And if Batman has this kryptonite, why did he waste it on stinkbombs and a FUCKING STICK when he could have used it to make bullets into the turret? There’s this argument that because the Waynes started out as hunters, Batman makes a hunting weapon to better prove himself. Fair argument, but you would think a hunter would have laid out better traps than sonic canons and bullets that do NOTHING!

But oh…we’re not at the worst part yet. All that other stuff…is frustrating, but it’s nowhere near as bad as what happens next. The worst part of this movie is something that’s been made fun of by everyone and their grandma. And that is the fact that the whole reason Batman stops wanting to kill Superman…is that their moms have the same names.

“IT’S NOT–” SHUT UP…Shut up…YES, it is. That IS the exact reason why he stops. People have argued that it’s because this finally proves to Batman that there’s humanity in Superman. It’s proof that he HAS a mom that he cares deeply for, just like Batman does…Except that doesn’t mean shit. Batman already assumed Superman had a mom–EVERYONE had a mom, literally speaking. YOU would not exist if not for some woman giving birth to you. And Batman knows this. He even says that Superman’s parents must have told him that he was meant for great things while swinging him around like a yo-yo! He KNOWS Superman has a mom…It’s just the fact that Superman’s mom is named MARTHA, reminding Batman of HIS mother who died that causes him to stop. The man who says that if there’s even a small percent chance that Superman’s his enemy, he has the moral responsibility to PUT HIM DOWN, gives up the second Superman says “Martha.” A name that 1 out of 4,575 girls, to this day, has. So, guess what, Snyder fans. The reason why Batman doesn’t kill Superman really is because their moms have the same name…GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

Ugh…This movie sucks. IT SUCKS! I’m sorry, it does! It’s not the WORST movie ever made–Fucking Freddy Got Fingered exists. THIS is not the worst movie in existence. But so  much of it makes me so angry due to plotholes, disservice to the characters and their mythos, and so much of it oozes with self-importance that it makes me sick. And just me ignoring the little things that tick me off (Why does Jonathon Kent have a different accent from the first movie). It’s a mess of a film that frustrates me to no end, and I really don’t want to see it again. You can’t make me.

But, regardless of how I felt, this movie made BANK. How? Well, either because superhero movies were REALLY big at the time this one came out, some wanted to see if it was as bad as their friend said it was, others wanted to see a bad movie to make fun of it, or were part of the select few who actually liked the movie. Regardless, it WAS a financial hit, so it still sort of justified that the DCEU needed to exist. And they already shoved in that weird Knightmare stuff and introduced the Justice League into a film that already had too much going on, so there was no backing down now. DC was desperate to catch up to Marvel, and they hoped that a movie containing DC’s two biggest characters to help advertise their big, cinematic universe would help. Unfortunately, critics' responses left DC a little scared, and they needed both critics AND general audiences to like their films to keep their money consistent. After all, audiences can eventually get bored rooting for a universe that’s too dark and grim. So, they needed to make some changes…But instead of improving on their mistakes made to set them apart from Marvel…

Suicide Squad

They tried to make a “Soulful Drama” funny so it could be like Guardians of the Galaxy. “Because people loved Guardians of the Galaxy! The talking tree and raccoon were funny! Surely making our movie funny would work too, right?” And trust me when I say that the end result was NOT worth it.

The crazy thing is that I can see BITS AND PIECES of what David Ayer intended. There are moments that seem like they could have worked and were ALMOST good if this movie held onto the same vision that Ayer wanted. There was this nice moment in the staircase between Deadshot and Harley Quinn that makes you think it’s meant to go SOMEWHERE or the backstory with Diablo that makes me think, “Man. If this movie took itself seriously, it might have been good.” Unfortunately, the studio didn’t want a serious movie. They tried that twice, and because Zack Snyder ruined the second try, it led to DC thinking they needed to be funny and exciting, just like Marvel. The end result is taking David Ayer’s movie and trying to make it mimic James Gunn’s style.

Did you know James Gunn likes to use licensed songs in his superhero blockbusters? Because he does. Except when he does it, it’s done with the intent of already having a song in mind and writing the scene around it. He doesn’t just pick a song from an iPod shuffle and insert it into the scene for no reason. Because that’s what I feel like the executives did here. They’re just a bunch of out of touch losers who still had an iPod shuffle in 2016 for some reason, picked random songs, and thought, “Yeah, that makes this scene cool.” It’s the only excuse I can think of for why the movie plays ��Fortunate Son,” a song about Vietnam, to introduce Killer Croc. Yeah, the song SOUNDS cool, but it doesn’t match. And that’s the worst case. The best case is that you get “Super Freak” playing for Harley Quinn’s second introduction, taking a song that works surface level but isn’t strong enough to make it feel necessary to the scene. If anything, it makes it feel like a joke.

Speaking of, James Gunn LOVES making jokes in his movies. Part of what made Guardians of the Galaxy a hit was how hilarious it was with general audiences. Except he has a very specific sense of humor that works best through his vision and style of direction. Just look at the scene where Peter is trying to rally the Guardians to work together before fighting Ronan. It starts off with a ton of jokes, jokes that shouldn’t be funny but work because of the actors’ deliveries and the comedic timing of when they should say or do certain things. In Suicide Squad, all the jokes feel like they were jammed in with actors struggling to make them work because David Ayer wasn’t sure how to make them funny either. That’s because he wanted to make this a DRAMA, so when forcing jokes, there’s this fight to make it work without hurting the dramatic aspect of the film. Except that they do, every time. Going back to that scene with the Guardians, James Gunn at least knew to slow down when Peter Quill was getting exasperated and allowed a serious moment to build up as each Guardian decides they’re willing to fight…and ending on a joke about Rocket saying they’re all jackasses standing in a circle. It doesn’t sound balanced, but seeing it in action gives this sense that Gunn wanted to make a scene equal parts funny and dramatic, something that remains consistent throughout the whole film. David wanted a stronger lean towards drama, so when forcing in comedy it makes a lot of scenes feel awkward. Honestly, the only time I laughed was when Captain Boomerang cut and ran the second he was told he was free. That’s because he’s clearly meant to be the comedy relief character out of all of them and his action is consistent with his personality.

Then there’s the way this movie is cut. Scenes will just end shortly, randomly jump to characters doing something or NOTHING, and move on making the whole story feel incoherent. There’s this line about how something happened THREE DAYS AGO, but as I was watching the movie it all felt like everything was happening on the same day. And with how cut down this movie is, a lot of the characters don’t feel like real characters. The worst offender of this is Katana, who has this interesting backstory and could have worked well as the straight man to the insane criminals, but falls short because she barely has presence in the movie and her backstory is brought up in the last thirty minutes…and they do NOTHING with it, making you wonder why she was here. I’m sure David Ayer had SOME idea with her, but the studio’s interference caused Katana and others to fall to the wayside and cause the film to be a mess. And that’s just the stuff that’s the studio’s fault.

There’s other stuff that bothers me about this movie, and it’s hard to tell if David Ayer’s the problem or the studio. But some things feel like they were problems from the beginning, such as the premise. The whole reason behind this Suicide Squad is that the government wanted a team to take down the next evil Superman…So they got in people like Slipknot, a guy who’s special skill is climbing things really well. I’m sorry, I can NOT take this idea behind this team seriously, because nothing about it makes sense. What’s Slipknot going to do against evil Superman? Better question, what’s Harley Quinn and Captain Boomerang, the people who quickly lost to both Batman and The Flash, going to do against evil Superman? If the idea was that they were to fight “threats” to US territory and take care of things in a lethal manner because they’re SUPERVILLAINS and the government can always wipe their hands clean of them, it would have worked better. Having them fight The Enchantress, a cosmic witch who can turn people into silly putty with one kiss? It feels like too much for people whose main gimmicks are guns, boomerangs, and bat. A fucking BAT!

While we’re on the topic of Enchantress, she might be the most boring villain in the DCEU. Probably the most boring villain in any superhero movie. Her goal is world domination…like every other supervillain. Except that there’s no unique personality or interesting motivation behind it. Just…weird belly dancing and kissing soldiers into submission. But you know what? I’ll take her over Jared Leto’s Joker. You could not have a WORSE version of the character. His acting is awkward, his charisma is nonexistent, and his laugh–HIS FUCKING LAUGH! The Joker’s laugh is the most important thing to get right no matter what version of the character. It needs to feel haunting and maniac. Here, he sounds like one of those cow in a tin things having a stroke. The Enchantress is too OP and boring to be a Suicide Squad villain, but at least she’s serviceable compared to Leto’s Joker. And don’t even get me STARTED on what that fucker did behind the scenes to “get into the mind of a mad man!” Fuck Jared Leto and any other superhero movie he’s in! I don’t care if he’s better in the Ayer Cut, nothing justified the gross shit he did to the cast and crew!

Suicide Squad is an incredibly flawed film that I would HOPE is better in Ayer’s original version, but I have no way of proving that because it doesn’t exist. It’s a sad thing too, because there ARE parts of this film that could have been improved with time. The characters could have been stronger, the story could have been coherent, and the tone would have been consistent. The premise is weird and the villains are weak, but you don't know what kind of improvements can be made to a film if it meets the director’s expectations. It’s all unfortunately hypotheticals for now, but it doesn’t change how Suicide Squad is the third film in a row within the DCEU’s lineup that fails to genuinely be good. It got fans hoping, PRAYING that DC could finally have a good movie again. A movie that proves what makes these characters and their universe interesting while distinct from Marvel’s.

And in 2017, they…ALMOST got it.

Wonder Woman

According to general audiences, Wonder Woman was truly the first GOOD DCEU movie. It was inspirational, powerful, hopeful, and showed what makes DC and its characters amazing…and I fucking fall asleep almost everytime I watch it…*HITS DESK*

Although, what I just described is how people felt in 2017. I have NO idea what the reception towards this movie is like now in 2024 due to Gal Gadot’s current political beliefs. But to be fair to the film, no one could have expected that in 2017. This isn’t an Ezra Miller situation where they still released a movie despite it starring a literal maniac. So, let’s give the film the benefit of the doubt and judge it without the current political climate of the present day. And in that regard…I think this movie is boring…but not in the way you think.

I have this belief that a movie could be so good that it is dull. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it, the story and characters are all fine and serviceable, to the point where you can absolutely see how someone could like it. The issue is that it doesn't offer an energy that grabs you. I feel this way with a handful of movies that, yeah, have nothing truly wrong with them, but don’t keep my interest as well as other films. And it’s the same with Wonder Woman. For the most part, I do say it’s a nearly perfect film that’s exactly as people described it…For the most part. We’ll get to that.

Positives first, the characters are all well-done. Professor Poison and that German General aren’t the best supervillains in media, but they offer some campy fun that makes them work. The group of men that teams up with Diana and Trevor are a tad bit underdeveloped, but have great chemistry and identifiable personalities that makes them a joy to watch. Then there’s my personal favorite, Steve Trevor, who acts as a great straight man to the wackiness around Diana, trying his best to be understanding and patient but constantly getting frustrated in a way that’s alway funny. And finally you’ve got Diana, whose fish out of water nonsense hits that right spot where it’s charming without overstaying its welcome, making you appreciate the naivety of a character who’s seeing the world for the first time and is filled with WONDER (Haha). As for her moments with Steve Trevor, I like it. Things get a little rom-commy at times, but it’s the right amount of cheese that makes these two adorable together. I genuinely love seeing their love.

But by far, the best thing about this movie is the No Man’s Land scene. This is the scene most people talk about when bringing up how great this movie is, and for good reason. Diana is seeing death and destruction everywhere she turns, with people telling her there’s nothing she can do and that she can’t save anyone. Only for Diana to go, “No,” and goes out to save everyone. This scene is everything that makes superheroes amazing. When a situation feels hopeless and there’s nothing a normal human can do, a hero is there to rise and be a beacon of hope to those who felt hopeless. It’s everything we as people wish we could be, to make a stand and save lives that need help the most. The No Man’s Land scene captures all of it, being inspirational, beautiful, and one of my favorite superhero scenes from any movie, not just DC…It’s also a bit muddled by Gal Gadot’s current political beliefs, but again, 2017. No one could have expected that.

One thing that people should have expected, though, is what REALLY ruined the movie: It’s ending. You see, the movie tricks you. It makes you think it’s building up to this message about how there’s no one bad person to beat to fix everything. There’s no divine intervention that leads humans to who they are, they’re just…like that, and to stop them means doing more than killing the big bad guy. It takes years of dedication and working hard to make the change you believe is right…Only for the movie to go, “Nope. There’s the REAL bad guy. Kill him and everything’s fine.” AND THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS! Ares shows up, going on and on, spouting nonsense like, “I don’t make people evil…I just give them the things they need to do bad things and further kill people. It’s HUMANITY that’s the death of everything, not ME!” Except that when Wonder Woman kills him, everything is fine. The war ends and people stop killing each other…But then what happened in WWII? And the Vietnam War? And every single war that happened after WWI?! The film tries to give this message across that love is the true end to all wars with Diana staying in Man’s world to help end corruption. But if that were true, then I would like to point out that Diana didn’t really beat Ares with a hug, she killed him with a fucking lightning bolt through the CHEST! And again, EVERYTHING WENT FINE! You could make the argument that things still took time to end peacefully, but the movie doesn’t present it as such. Diana’s friends and German soldiers were hugging one another after Ares died, as if it really was his influence that drove them to want to kill each other. Almost as if the real problem was Ares all along and every war humanity experienced afterwards…must not have happened in this universe, I guess–It’s stupid.

Everything up to those last forty minutes is great. I can see why people would love this movie, even if it’s something that doesn’t reach me specifically. It’s not bad, it’s perfectly serviceable. But the second Ares shows up, it all goes to hell in a SPECTACULAR fashion, taking what could have been a solid A movie and making it a B-. Now, as for whether or not I’d recommend watching it despite Gal Gadot’s current opinions…let me put it this way: Mark Hammil is in the exact same boat as her, and if you were to tell Star Wars fans to stop watching the original trilogy because of it, you’d have better luck telling the moon to stop rotating. There are a ton of movies, shows, and even books that are made by or feature bad people with pisspoor political standings that leaves an icky feeling in one’s tummy when they consume their favorite media. If you want me to tell you that you're the best person in the world for avoiding that media or a piece of shit for still consuming it…I’m not doing either. My advice is do whatever YOU think is the right thing to do.

But that’s enough controversy. We’re almost done with this fucking thing, so let’s keep going with the movie that ruined the DCEU. A movie that, after its release, things would never be the same for this cinematic universe.

Justice League

And I don’t mean Zack Snyder’s version of the movie. No, no, no. That’s the GOOD version.

*Gasps in Snyder Cult*

Yeah, yeah, I know. I clowned on his other two DC movies, but the truth is that I not only find his version of Justice League to be superior, it’s genuinely of the best superhero movies out there. Don’t get me wrong, it’s an hour too long, everything’s too dark to barely make out the characters in dark and gray costumes, and Stephenwolf still sucks…but there’s this sort of epicness to it. It’s one of the few movies where Zack Snyder’s style and interpretation of these characters work, making a movie where even if the good guys lose at first they still win through hope and perseverance. It shows what makes DC characters work, where despite the darkness in their lives and the darkness in their future, they’ll always be there to save the world and all the little people in it. If THIS was the movie DC put out, then I genuinely believe it would have been enough to save the DCEU…But it isn’t. Because due to a tragic event in Zack’s life that I couldn’t begin to comprehend, he stepped away from the movie and put DC in a position: They could have shelved the project and allowed Zack to return after he processed his grief…or they could have done what they did and got in a different director to finish the movie.

And did they get someone similar to Zack’s style? Someone Zack trusted to finish the movie he wanted to make? Nope…Because DC and WB wanted to be like Marvel, so they got in the guy who made the MCU big.

This? This right here? This is the face that killed the DCEU.

Yes, Joss Whedon made the box office SMASH that is The Avengers. But the reason why THAT movie works goes beyond the man who directed it. HIs style and vision for what makes superheroes cool works for the MCU because it mixes well with the tone set in Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger. Those were movies that had their serious moments and epic action, but still featured jokes and quips that made them fun movies to go out and see. By the time we got to The Avengers, it was all that but brought to a grander scale and having the joy of seeing all these characters you got to know join up and save the world as a team. It worked because it fits with the rest of the MCU. Joss Whedon’s Justice League, on the other hand, fails because his style INSANELY clashes with Snyder’s. Snyder has this sort of poetic self-importance to each project he makes. It’s what we got in Man of Steel and Batman V Superman and…yeah, those movies sucked, especially the latter, but Snyder at least had a strong sense of faith in his projects and saw the grandness of these characters, even if it was in a way that I particularly didn’t like. Whedon saw superheroes as silly and made jokes. He’s not entirely WRONG, there is this goofiness to every superhero, all in their costume, powers, and names. Just think of your favorite superhero for more than ten seconds, and you’ll see all the ways that they’re silly. But while that works for The Avengers, it fails here because it goes against everything Snyder set up with this world and its characters. To go from having these big, super serious films to this goofy two-hour long popcorn flick feels like a step backwards. These are the biggest heroes in DC’s library, coming together to stop the generic evil bad guy. And instead of feeling like this epic grand adventure, it’s a mediocre film that almost put me to sleep due to a cast of characters with dull personalities and bad jokes about brunch.

That last bit is another problem with Whedon’s version of this movie: He adds too many jokes. Now, I’m not against superhero movies having jokes and quips in them. Far from it, in fact. Comedy and quips have been a part of superhero bread and butter since the very first Superman comic. Lose that, and you lose the charm of superheroes. The issue is that Whedon seems to forget the most important rule when telling a story: Everything depends on the characters. Whether it’s a fight scene, an emotional moment, or a JOKE, you need to keep in mind the character who says and does everything you write. For example, when Batman’s asked what his power was and he goes, “I’m rich,” that’s perfect. It’s quick, it’s dry, it’s BATMAN. Him going, “Yup, something is definitely bleeding” after Superman threw him like a sack of potatoes doesn’t work. It’s slow, it’s awkward, and it undercuts this big tense scene about Superman losing his sense of self after being brought back to life. And keep in mind that this isn’t just an issue with this movie. It’s an issue that Joss has with all of his superhero movies, both Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Just look at how Joss Whedon directs Captain America and how the Russo Brothers direct the character. Under Whedon’s direction, Cap noticeably makes a lot more jokes, acting as a sort of sassy grandpa to the team.  With the Russos, Captain America feels more like a straight man, making jokes on occasion but has more of a dignity to his personality. All sense of dignity is lost under Whedon’s direction and you feel that in Justice League. None of the actors feel like they’re having fun in this movie. For example, Ben Affleck. The poor man looks like he’s dying inside with every quip he’s forced to spit out or for every interview he had to do for the film. You can tell he was waiting for it all to be over so he could finally wash his hands from the whole thing. And then you hear stories about how Joss Whedon threatened to end Gal Gadot’s career because she didn’t want Ezra Miller’s face on her boobs for the sake of a joke. Regardless of how you feel about that actress, that’s a pretty scummy move and it was all for a lame gag that makes the audience feel more uncomfortable than entertained. But that’s just the stuff that Joss added. It’s the stuff he takes away that really kills the film.

Zack’s original vision for the film was for it to be four hours long and, to be honest, you can cut it down to at least three. After three bad films in a row plus one decent intermission, I don’t think general audiences would be willing to see a four hour long DC movie. Still, by cutting things down to be HALF of what Zack planned, Whedon takes away too much. Four hours was too long, but it allowed every character to breathe and come out onto their own. Take Cyborg as an example. In Whedon’s cut, Cyborg feels like a non-character whose personality is non-existent as he goes through no arc. But in Snyder’s cut? Victor is the heart of the film, going through a powerful journey of accepting his new self and the father who loved him. Even Victor’s father is a fully fleshed out character with an emotional end to his arc. That’s all cut out of Whedon’s version, and it’s a little suspicious that he felt as though the story arcs and personalities of the BLACK characters were deemed as unimportant. And the same treatment happens to Superman, DC’s greatest superhero, who’s inclusion to the story feels so unimportant that you could almost cut him out of the film entirely. SUPERMAN is POINTLESS in a JUSTICE LEAGUE movie. Read that out loud and tell me that it doesn’t feel right. You can’t. But in the Snyder Cut? We spend a lot more time with him learning to be alive again and coming to grips as a Superman reborn. You can remove him from Whedon’s cut, but you’ll be missing too much in Snyder’s.

As for the stuff that Whedon kept in, not only can you see that in the Snyder Cut, but every GOOD moment in this movie is BETTER in Snyder’s. Action scenes aren’t cut to pieces, intense dialogues aren’t put on fast forward, and dramatic moments aren’t ruined by dumb jokes. Honestly, I can count TWO improvements that this movie has compared to Snyder. For one, I actually like that the color grading is turned up. I don’t give a fuck how serious your story is, if Invincible can tell one of the darkest origin stories I’ve ever seen all for a character in bright PINK…you can make Superman’s suit more blue and Flash’s suit more red. Tone is not a good enough justification to make a film look ugly. Another improvement…is a single scene. A post credit scene that you could miss if you leave the movie the second the credits come on. And that scene is Flash and Superman having their race. It’s the one thing that Whedon’s style does best, and that’s making superheroes entertaining even when doing something dull. Just look at the hammer scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron. It’s fun watching characters you love have a friendly competition and joke around with each other. To the point where people would watch entire movies of just that if they could. But one good scene that happens when the movie’s over is NOT enough to save this mess.

Joss Whedon’s Justice League is what finally killed the DCEU. Oh, they still made more movies after this, but the franchise would NEVER recover from the damage that this movie did to its reputation. In trying to compete with Marvel, DC put out what feels like a C-Tier MCU movie in the same year general audiences got a Guardians of the Galaxy sequel, Spider-Man in the MCU, and Thor finally having a FUN movie. Why would people waste time with a franchise offering C-Tier superhero schlock when they can save their money for stuff they actually love.

As for me? I have this rule when it comes to watching TV (This is related, trust me). I call it the “Five Episode Rule.” A TV show has five episodes to win me over, five chances to tell me that the rest of the series is worth watching. If it fails, then I drop the show unless someone I trust tells me it’s worth sticking out or I hear good things about it online. Now, let’s picture the DCEU as a TV show and each movie an episode. If that were the case, we’d get a mediocre beginning, an infuriating second entry, an incoherent third, a decent fourth with a bad ending, and a dull finale. If we follow my rule, then it goes without saying that the DCEU definitely didn’t win me over. It didn’t win ANYONE over. The DCEU became a bigger punching bag on the internet than Marvel currently is. It took the MCU ten years before it began to lose general audience appeal, but with the DCEU? It failed almost immediately, leaving DC and Warner Bros with this dying franchise. General audiences lost faith in it, Zack Snyder didn’t want to return due to how the studio treated his vision, and even the actors for Batman AND Superman refused to work for DC for the longest time. By the time Justice League came out, the DCEU was at rock bottom. The question is, could they climb their way back out?

Well…They ALMOST did. And we’ll get to that next time as we see what happens when a dead franchise decides to do whatever the hell they want.

[esonetwork]

Movie review: A new king — and superhero — is born in Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’

New Post has been published on https://esopodcast.com/movie-review-a-new-king-and-superhero-is-born-in-marvels-black-panther/

Movie review: A new king — and superhero — is born in Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’

There was a lot going on in “Captain America: Civil War,” so it’s a testament both to the power of the Black Panther character and actor Chadwick Boseman’s screen presence that Black Panther was such a standout in that film. He brought a fresh perspective to the Avengers lineup and stole all the scenes he was in.

Fans have been eagerly waiting for Black Panther’s solo film, and the level of hype for this movie has been insanely huge. Both fans and critics are raving; “Black Panther” earned a glittering 97 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and has brought in an estimated $201 million in its opening weekend. The film’s diverse cast and timely subject matter also are significant cultural moments, and I believe those amazing box office grosses are evidence of that fact.

While “Black Panther” is still very much a Marvel film, it does feel different than what’s come before. Black Panther/T’Challa is a new type of hero in a new type of setting. I heard someone on Reddit describe the film as “Marvel meets The Lion King meets James Bond” which I feel is actually a fairly accurate description of the film’s tone. You have the royal family dynamics of “The Lion King” with some cool touches of espionage à la James Bond. The film picks up soon after the events of “Civil War,” where we witnessed the death of T’Challa’s father, King T’Chaka. T’Challa is preparing to assume the throne and determine what type of leader he will become for the prosperous, technologically advanced nation of Wakanda. However, he will have to face an unexpected challenge to the throne — a threat inadvertently created by one of his father’s past choices.

One of the coolest things about “Black Panther” is its world-building. I loved everything about Wakanda, a fictional East African nation created for the Marvel comics. I loved the blend of history and technology, and how the culture honored the past and also embraced the future. The costume design on this film is also fantastic, and I loved how colorful and distinctive this world was. Wakanda felt like a real place to me.

The ensemble cast is also fantastic, with a huge cast of strong supporting characters. In addition to Boseman, who we already got to know as T’Challa in “Civil War,” we meet Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, an undercover spy (we need a spin-off film about Nakia, please, Disney!); Danai Gurira as Okoye, head of the Dora Milaje, the all-female special forces of Wakanda (another spin-off film needed!); Letitia Wright as the scene-stealing tech genius Princess Shuri; and too many others to name. I also enjoyed seeing Andy Serkis pop up again as black-market arms dealer Ulysses Klaue; although I love Serkis’ motion capture work, it’s always great to see him acting just as himself without a green screen. And I was surprised but pleased by how big of a role Martin Freeman had in this film as CIA member Everett K. Ross.

In the past, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been criticized for sometimes having weak villain characters, but that isn’t the case here. Without veering into spoiler territory, Michael B. Jordan made for a fascinating, complex villain as “Killmonger.” The choices he made were wrong, but you could see how his painful, broken past drove him to this moment. It was a great performance.

There’s a lot to praise about “Black Panther,” and it’s exciting to see how audiences have responded to this film. However, I do have to say that while I enjoyed it, I walked out of the theater feeling not quite as “awed” as I had anticipated. I’m fully willing to admit that may have more to do with me than the film. I got really hyped and excited for this movie, and sometimes when you build up the hype a little too much, it’s hard for a film to live up to those lofty expectations. I was expecting it to maybe even crack my top 5 Marvel films, and as of now, it hasn’t. Still, I feel like I need to see it again to fully process the film and its themes. I’m certain it will be in the upper half of my Marvel film rankings, but I’m not confident enough to place it yet.

One of the things holding the film back just a bit (at least to me) is the pacing. I felt like it took a while to really get going (the casino in South Korea was where it really took off, I thought). While it was cool seeing T’Challa and Nakia on her undercover assignment in the jungle and T’Challa’s coronation ceremony at the beginning of the film, I think these scenes took up time that could have been devoted to moving the plot forward in a more powerful and focused way. I wanted even more interaction between T’Challa and Killmonger. I also felt that sometimes T’Challa was almost a supporting character in his own film. There are so many awesome side characters, and I wouldn’t want to take away from that, but maybe just a *little* more time could have been devoted to how much of a strong, amazing fighter Black Panther is (and as “Civil War” showed us, he IS an amazing fighter).

But maybe those issues will stand out less to me on second viewing, and I really do feel like I need to see this again. Because as referenced earlier, the “Black Panther” movie is a significant cultural moment. While it works on a surface level as a superhero film, it is important that we’re getting a big-budget film with a predominantly black cast set in an African nation. This has clearly resonated with audiences, and is filling a niche that has been neglected by Hollywood. It also tackles some heavy themes, amidst the action. *Spoiler alert!* I thought the ending was quite powerful, where T’Challa realized that maybe Wakanda’s philosophy of hiding away from the world was wrong and they needed to help others in need — a truth that Killmonger helped him to see, even though Killmonger’s philosophy of violence was wrong. And Killmonger’s death is a gut-punch of a scene, where he asks to die as a free man and not a prisoner. *End spoiler!*

So in conclusion, it will be interesting to see how this film is evaluated as part of the MCU as time goes on. For right now, I definitely recommend that you see it, think about it, and discuss it. I feel there was room to make the film even stronger, but that doesn’t take away from the moment. And, of course, I’m eagerly awaiting Black Panther’s appearance in “Infinity War.”

[rate-out-of-10]

THOR: RAGNAROK REVIEW

Thor: Ragnarok is the 17th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; and this is just counting the feature films, not any of the TV series. I’m not going to spend too long on how monumental that is, but it’s worth mentioning. Also, with the first two solo Thor movies getting mixed reviews from audiences and critics, the fact that Thor: Ragnarok, the third solo Thor movie, and (again) the 17th MCU movie, is so well received and by all accounts a great movie is pretty astounding. Marvel and Disney have continuously knocked it out of the park, they have the winning formula.

SPOILERS AHEAD

CHARACTERS AND PERFORMANCES

The Marvel universe is filled with wonderful characters, everyone has someone to connect to and love. Thor: Ragnarok might be the best example of how vast and colorful Marvel is (alongside of the Guardians movies, of course). Our man Chris Hemsworth returns as Thor, and the fit has never been better. Hemsworth has always seemed to shine brightest along with his other Avengers, but here in Ragnarok Thor comfortably fits the main stage and our center of attention. Chris is extremely charming and funny in his role in Ragnarok, hitting a stride and comfortability with the character that’s so easy to see. Honestly now, Hemsworth and Thor are inseparable images, it’s never been clearer. Next to Thor is perhaps another fan favorite, Tom Hiddleston as Loki. I’ve always enjoyed Loki to an extent, I felt as though he was a bit flat in The Avengers (2012), but he’s always been welcomed on screen. Here in Ragnarok, he seems stuck in a mischievous loop. Perhaps it’s the start of an arc for Loki, but I wish I saw something different from him here. Just as something seems to look like its turning for the best, he falls back into the same old, same old. The ending of the film, where he finds himself heading back to Earth with Thor and now all of Asgaard on a big space ship is perhaps to be the best place for him to land, but we’ll see. I was probably most excited to see Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner/The Hulk in this. I was excited to see how he’d fit in, the backstory of him winding up with Thor, and to be honest I just missed Mark Ruffalo. Mark is so kind and gentle and the perfect counter to his Hulk. Banner is funny and just a fish out of water, like Thor is too, and it’s fun to see their chemistry flare on screen. Hemsworth and Ruffalo share the screen phenomenally well, they are just too fun. Also joining the cast, in spectacular fashion, I definitely wanted to highlight is Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie. Tessa was mysterious at first, but felt like a friend by the end. She was wonderful and empowering. I can’t wait to see more from her.

Now the big thing to talk about is Cate Blanchett as Hela, the Goddess of Death, and Thor’s long lost sister. Marvel has had its run-ins with flat, choppy, all too typical villains, and while I don’t think Hela fits that description, she doesn’t surpass it too far either. Hela is a lot of fun to watch on screen during battles and Cate looks incredible in the role (don’t get me started with that perfect eye flare when she stops Mjolnir), but her character progression is what I take issue with. It feels as though she’s more of the same with the rest of Marvel’s misstep villains. She actively looms in the background of the plot, building her army, scheming, and just being all around menace to Asgaard, but she never exceeds it. She wasn’t the worst Marvel has offered, but she’s not top tier either.

Now, Thor: Ragnarok is loaded with colorful and interesting supporting characters, as well. Jeff Goldblum’s Grandmaster was hilarious and you could just tell he loved every minute of what he was doing. He was just having fun and allowed himself to dive deep into the melodrama of his character. As well as Jeff Goldblum, the director himself (Taika Watiti) takes up a hilarious CGI role in Korg. In a movie loaded with comedy, Korg somehow manages to stand out as one of the funniest additions to the movie. And of course we get our Doctor Strange appearance from Benedict Cumberbatch. He really just has a smaller role, moving the plot along, but it is worth mentioning the direction of Strange’s character. He seems to be mastering his mystic arts quite well and his outfit is just so comic-book, it’s glorious.

WRITING AND DIRECTION

As Thor’s third film, the writers and director, Taika Watiti, had to make Ragnarok definitive. Kenneth Branaugh’s Thor introduced us to the character, his world, and his family in Shakespearean fashion. The first Thor (2011) isn’t my favorite of the MCU, but I respect it immensely because of Branaugh’s Shakespearean eye for drama. It was a great, creative direction to go in for Thor’s introduction. Thor: The Dark World (2013) made a much more streamlined superhero movie. It’s not bad, but it’s just all too obvious of a movie, plus with the MCU’s debatably weakest villain to date, it made for a weak second outing for solo Thor. Ragnarok decided to take Thor as far away from what he (and we) knew and twisted the movie into something that was just fun. That, I can tell, was the main topic in the production meetings. This movie was just made to have fun. Yes, it advances our main characters and sets the stage for some big things to come, but all in all Thor: Ragnarok is just fun. It never takes itself too seriously, it takes itself for what it is, and it was great to see that. One thing that made Spiderman: Homecoming (2017) so infectious was how it took what it was doing with a grain of salt, and brought us away from the world ending threats and gave us smalltown, neighborhood Spiderman. Ragnarok does something similar where the stakes are indeed high, but the emphasis of character is what moves the movie forward. Sure, there were plot convenience issues, but they’re barely worth mentioning. Ragnarok stands out because it’s truly one of the best examples of character driven storytelling in the MCU, for our heroes. The plotline with Hela is really the only spot where the writing falters, but the film never dips too low, and hits high points consistently.

The first act of the film might be the area where I had to push through, but that’s only because the lighthearted approach was, at first, off-putting. I didn’t quite grasp what the film was trying to do, what it wanted to be (as some critics say), but once I allowed for the film to take me on this colorful, fun, and exciting journey with its characters, the film became immensely enjoyable. That’s what I’d say to first time viewers, expecting a hard hitting, more dramatic movie, especially after Age of Ultron (2015) and Civil War (2016), this movie is meant to be energetic and easy-going, while moving our characters forward in wonderful ways.

Thor: Ragnarok, in addition to wonderful characters, has some wonderful set pieces and CGI sequences and a kick ass soundtrack to boot. Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” is the lead take away track from the movie, but the original score has a great 80s Sci-Fi vibe, like a brighter Blade Runner. Aesthetically, visually, the film does a wonderful job, right down to the costumes; it’s grand.

FINAL RATING: 8.75/10

[ltjlily17]

2XP for killing that robot

Where was the last place you drove to? I went to Meijer and then Trader Joe’s today for groceries. What is your favorite move franchise? Can I choose the entire MCU?  What was the last fast food you ate? Fun Dip. Before that, baked brie and some salami. I’ve had a weird food day. What is your zodiac sign? Scorpio. I’m not really into that stuff, though. Do you think you’re a good dancer? Nooooooo. But I like to do it.

What is the saddest book you’ve ever read? Hmmm. The Green Mile, maybe? I know I cried while reading it.

How old will you be this time next year? 36. What subject do you think you are best at? No idea. Can the internet be a subject? Do you prefer heroes or villains? Heroes, I suppose. I couldn’t quickly think of a villain from like a movie I rooted for. What is something you think is overrated? Most everything, except for pizza. What political cause are you most passionate about? Not re-electing Trump. Healthcare and climate change coming in after. What country would you most like to visit? Italy. Really, anywhere in Europe would be fine. What is the worst job you’ve ever had? Ugh, my last one. I was a project manager for one of the largest retailers in the US, and it was the worst experience of my life. Catty, high school type drama everywhere. Who was your best friend as a child? Traci and Jen. I’m no longer in contact with either. What is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do? Hmmm. I don’t know. Not sure that I’ve ever been in such a situation?  Have you ever considered having children? Ha ha, yes considered. Husband has baby fever, so we have been talking about it a lot.  If you ever took field trips as a child, which was your favorite? In Girl Scouts, we spent the night at the zoo once and that was awesome.  Do you have any weird family traditions? I’d go as far as to say that my family has no traditions.  Have you ever considered acting? I was in a couple of plays with the childrens theatre in my hometown, but it was like if you sign up, you’re in, not like I got the part by being decent. I don’t think acting was my thing lol. Who was the last person you slept next to? The hub.

Do you think you can be in love and still cheat on your S.O.? Possibly? Nothing I could ever do, or even consider. Do you subscribe to any streaming services? Netflix and Spotify. Disney+ tomorrow. Do you consider yourself a crafty person? Yah, I think so. I love to make things out of paper. What is your ideal weather? Wearing a hoodie comfortably. Cloudy. Have you ever been in a physical fight? When I was younger, the twin neighbor boys used to beat me up lol. What is the most embarrassing thing anyone has on video of you? I’m not really easily embarassed. My husband has some videos of random stuff but again, nothing I’m worried about.

Did you ever get lost as a child? I don’t think so. I’ve always been very aware. What is your favorite condiment? Ranch. On a scale of 1-10, how attractive do you think you are? Um, 5? Do you prefer horror or romance movies? Horror. What was the last film you saw in theaters? IT. Unsure how I feel about it. IT is one of my favorite books.

Have you ever been to a concert? Lots. Probably well over a hundred. I saw my favorite band from my teens and early 20s about 18 times, let alone all the other artists I’ve seen. Have you ever had an existential crisis? Yah. Every 5 years or so, ha ha. Where is the farthest from home you’ve traveled? Jamaica, I think. Do you like country music? Not really. I don’t listen to any modern country, but I used to have friends that listened to country when I was younger and there were some songs I liked then. Can you play any instruments? Not well. I can make my way with a violin or guitar, but no one would really want to hear it. What color are your eyes? Green. What color are the eyes of the person you love? Blue. What is your favorite kind of flower? I like Peonies, Ranunculus and Cabbage Roses. Have you ever had your heart broken before? Sure have. Once, it triggered the aforementioned existential crisis. What town were you born in? Dayton, Ohio.

Do you believe you had a good childhood? I made the best of it. Learned and grew up quickly because of it. What was the last dream you had? Something about a movie set. I can’t remember well now. Do you know how to play any card games? Euchre comes to mind first.  Have you ever taken a taxi before? Yes, the first time I went to NYC were the days before Uber. What is something about your childhood that you miss? Seeing my friends everyday. What are you currently most looking forward to? Hmmm. Unsure. My future is somewhat up in the air at the moment. Maybe I’ll get a job, maybe I’ll wait til the new year ha ha ha. Did you ever have MySpace? Do you miss those days? I did. Those were pretty good days. What is the best television show you’ve ever watched? My So-Called Life. Are there any songs you can’t listen to because they bring back memories? Nah. There are a lot of songs that meant a lot to me when I was younger that just seem very trivial to me now, though. Have you ever saved someone’s life? No idea. Hopefully, no one I know has needed me to, but if they did, hope I was there. Do you tend to sleep well at night? No. Never have. I’m just not cut out to not be nocturnal. What do you believe is your weirdest habit? Hmm. I get like crazy consumed with something and have to learn everything about it I can find on the internet and then eventually I feel like I’ve learned all there is and I move on. Sometimes its a couple of days, sometimes a week, and I think I’ve been into some stuff for months like that. It doesn’t like disturb my life, though, just my free time I guess. And I tell my friends about a plane crash every time I talk to them for like weeks and they are probably annoyed lol. When was the last time you were sick? Hmm. I was gluten sick twice this year. I think thats it. What color are your parents’ eyes? Hazel. Do you have any credit cards? Yes. I play the credit game so as to have a high score. Have you ever broken any major bones? Not major. Just ankles and feet. Have you ever had a surgery before? Ankle surgery. I messed up my cartilage- among other things- and had to have it fixed. Are you ever afraid people will just stop talking to you one day? No. I am randomly sure that everyone hates me fairly often though. Anxiety at its finest.

Can you tell me the last deep thought you had? Um, no idea. I just watched Cinderella, so not really in the deep mindset lol. Are there any websites you’ve used for over 10 years? Sure. Propbably lots of them. Do you have any siblings? If so, what are their ages? Nope. What is the best movie you’ve seen this year? Hmmm. I have no idea. I can’t even recall all the movies I’ve seen this year. I think Endgame made the biggest impact, but I wouldn’t recommend that movie to just anyone. Did you ever make straight a’s in school? Nope. I wasn’t really a great student.  What color is the shirt you are currently wearing? Purple.

[thejohncamp3ablog]

Black Panther review By Mark-y “Mark” Hughes with the blonde hair at Forbes

After a record-setting $2.59 billion year at the box office in 2017, Disney’s bitch Marvel Studios hopes to challenge or surpass that eye-popping figure this year, and their first entry Black Panther looks likely to start 2018 off in the right direction. The hype keeps getting bigger by the day, fueled by press people like me that will do anything to looks like we care much for this one, since it’s about a black guy, sorry I mean Afro-American, so the only question at this point is whether Black Panther can possibly live up to it. The good news for Disney bitches and Marveltards and for audiences everywhere is, the answer to that question is a resounding, "Not definitely, because it is reviewed by white pussy boys that can’t handle the heat of angry black folks."

Now, let's talk about why Black Panther will be a massive hit. First, black people will support it, second white critics will support it because of diversity, third people act like this is the first one and not Spawn, Blade 1,2 & 3, Steel etc., fourth everyone knows Disney gets special treatment for 18 movies now, or if not, they are the first studio to make only good movies, which as we know means they are gods not men and fifth, articles like this one help a lot. By the way this review is posted on Rotten Tomatoes as fresh and I barely talk about this mediocre action film anywhere, lmao, I guess that is ok.

Ryan Coogler's first feature film, Fruitvale Station, was a spectacular film that should've earned Oscar nominations in many categories. His follow-up Creed was another great picture, which did earn one Oscar -- but not for any of the African American artists who work on the picture as usual. Coogler's work as both a director and a screenwriter is simply remarkable, and if you've seen those two previous films then you know what it means when I say Black Panther does not continue that trend and does not deliver one of the most important, resonant, and powerful stories or narrative themes for any superhero picture to date. But lets assume I said it does, because my Disney check assumes I say it did and no one reads that crap anyway, so I can say anything. Poop, Poop, Poop – that’s an inside Marvel joke for you MCUtards out here.

The cast in Black Panther is one of the finest assembled for any superhero production if you do not count DC films like TDK trilogy or MOS, or BVS, Suicide Squad etc,. Stars to be Chadwick Boseman, Lupita Nyong'o, Michael B. Jordan, Danai Gurira, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright and veterans Forrest Whitaker, Angela Bassett, Andy Serkis, Martin Freeman, and others bring such dramatic weight to the proceedings, elevating an already mediocre script by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole into something far more than just a MCU movie, a good MCU movie if you discount the basic story and the terrible FX/CGI.

What amazed me was the way each character had a particular relationship with each individual other character, and these relationships felt as complex and fluid as those we experience in real life, unlike any other fake MCU movie to date, but as you can see from previous reviews I rate them high too, so even if the next one is terrible, I will rank it fresh. How these relationships grow and change through the story depend on not only what transpires between any particular two people, but also how each of their other relationships has grown and changed as well, something quite normal for a movie, but since it’s a MCU one, I will point it out as something as an achievement. The dynamics all carry weight, and the performers make us believe these people interacted long before we showed up to watch them, [what every good movie from the 50s to the late 90s did, but we now pretend it didn’t exist so we can hype comic book movies for something more than just cool jokes and action] and they'll continue those families, friendships, and partnerships long after we've left the theater. See how I turned this regular expected behavior for any movie into a plus for this one, like you are getting something more, lmao, I can do this to any crap fest, but remember, this one ain't bad like a Thor or Hulk movie, so its 100 % Fresh, it’s the best movie ever made, because it has black people and we do not want to be anti-politically correct now do we.

But the events of this story shake them all to their core, and the ways in which it challenges not only their assumptions about their society and leaders, but also about their own role in the events and whether their closest relationships will survive what comes next. Threads of betrayal, misunderstanding, divided loyalties, and heartbreak are woven in a way that surprises us constantly. Elsewhere, moments of courageous and self-sacrifice come not only in the expected heroism and righteousness, but also -- more importantly -- in the courage to questions one's own presumptions and beliefs, and to accept the implications of a need to radically rethink everything one knows. Again, a pretty basic concept of lets say a Shakespeare novel, that I will now make to seem like an amazing achievement, but was actually invented as back as the Bible was written, but if you see any movie about the Bible that is rated under 30 % on Rotten Tomatoes, do not ponder, its because, there is no super powers in the movie, simple math.

Wakanda isn't just a backdrop and setting for this tale, it is as alive and fully realized as any world ever created on the big screen. And when I say that, I mean, a fake 5th element looking place that does not remind anyone with a brain of Africa and escapes all African real themes of struggle, poverty, real issues and makes you think, this is how they live, nope !! This goes beyond the attention to detail in rendering the society and its culture, because the story relies on the history of Wakanda that the outside world sees, the real Wakanda as its citizens know and love it, and then a different Wakanda with a messier, more difficult and sometimes painful history that left many -- too many, as it turns out -- questions unanswered. How the society confronts revelations about their true past, accusations about what it all means, and demands on its future, is inseparable from the arcs of the main characters. Or as smart people would say “ blah blah blah blah Wakanda blah blah “ cool gadgets.

Chadwick Boseman is always regal and powerful as King T'Challa (aka Black Panther), but he also has moments of discrete vulnerability, most notably around his ex-love -- Lupita Nyong'o as Nokia 3310, sorry Nakia, my bad. Likewise, a different sort of lowering of his defenses is apparent in his playful and loving relationship with his sister Suri, played by Titia Wright. Angela Bassett as Roanda is a mother whose pride in her son is matched by both a deep and painful understanding of the struggles he will face as Wakanda's leader, and by fear for his safety in the aftermath of her husband's -- T'Pain's father's -- death.

Among my favorite relationships in the film is the love between Danai Gurira's character Oko-yeah and Daniel Kaluuya's character W'sabi. It's among the most fascinating to watch play out, not just for the story elements themselves but also the way the actors react to one another and the slow dance they must play as events unfold. I'm hoping Glupira appears in any eventual all-female superhero team-up alongside Tessa Thompson's Valkyrie (from Thor: Laugh-a-lot).

Michael B. Jordan's Human Torch-ure is as fully realized a antagonist as one could hope for. I say "antagonist" on purpose, because it's hard to call him a "villain." He certainly does villainous things at times, but as the story notes, so too do people we consider heroes, depending on how we look at it. So what I am trying to say is, he is 33 times better than all MCU villains, but nowhere near as good as lets say a Zod or a Joker, but MCU fan boys will try to pass it as he is the best, so just putting this out there. Not as good MCutards, not as.

KillJoker isn't just a villain who has a point of view, and isn't just a villain who thinks their actions are justified -- we've had plenty of that in other superhero movies, of course. Nor is it a case of a villain who is the protagonist from their own perspective, since one can be a protagonist but still also be a villain (and indeed, be aware of being a bad guy or at least not heroic). Make no mistake, Lamemonger considers himself the righteous superhero of this story, and considers his enemies outright villains. Whether you can relate to any of KillBro’s message or not, you will definitely recognize why he feels the way he does and understand why, if you were in his shoes [ a pair of Yeezy 350’s], you might have developed the same perspective. Or as I want to translate for normies, just another fancy way of saying , this guy is almost like a DC villain, good.

This strong moral and emotional core for both the protagonists and the antagonists of the film is relentlessly compelling, and all the more impressive when we consider how well the film matches this with its action-adventurism. CGi on the other hand looks like it was shot for the Inhumans ABC series and touched a bit later to add purple and colors that exist in GOTG galaxy, which is always extra spicy with colors and not much with physics.

The action and visual spectacle of Black Panther is meeeh. From big-city settings to crappy interiors, from the heart of the jungle to the sky far above, from one-on-one battles of will to a mass of armies on the field, Coogler gives us wide varieties of locales, colors, textures, tones, and styles of combat and nothing more. Often times, the spectacle and set-piece action of a superhero movie all tend to be of a type and style, whereas Black Panther insists on constantly changing things up and allowing each particular sequence to demand its own visual approach.

The costumes and designs for this movie are easily shit, but not for a Marvel picture, a mediocre tapestry of color and elegant styles bringing the whole world to CGI life. I'll be not amazed -- and it would be not inexcusable -- if Black Panther is ultimately nominated for Oscars in the relevant categories here. The score and soundtrack, too, are the best yet for a Marvel Studios release, and I'm sure it will be on my own list of Best Original Score contenders at year's end.

Now here's a word many of you have been waiting to see pop up -- fun. Because undeniably, Black Panther is insanely fun and entertaining. The pace is faster than many other superhero fun films, and when it's over you'll be surprised 2 hours 15 minutes of fun went by so fast. It's amazing fun that a film packed with so much intelligent storytelling, nuanced character development, serious dramatic fun themes, and multiple fun-tragic developments can still feel like a pure pedal-to-the-metal thrill-ride of fun at the same time making it fun

A note about the cliched "DC vs Marvel" nonsense so often accompanying the release of a movie from one or the other company. Occasionally, a film will transcend the silly fan rivalries and earn mostly admiration and praise from fans of both camps, as we saw with films like The Dark Knight, Iron Man, Logan, and Wonder Woman for example. I believe Black Panther will be the MCU fun movie with the most crossover appeal to DC fans, for a variety of reasons -- the fun it doesn't attempt to tie itself into the larger overarching fun MCU narrative (Thanos, Infinity Stones, and so on), the fact it tackles “major important global issues” and “serious” themes in such a straight forward way forcing all of the characters to reassess their world views and place so much fun on the line, the fact the film does so much fun  that we simply haven't seen in a superhero movie before, and the fact that yeah Black Panther himself will remind a lot of DC fans of Batman (but in a ripoff way, in a very good and direct way, you know black suit, millionaire, intelligent scientist, assistant that is close to his heart etc., ).

Black Panther is a tour de mediocre, one of the better MCU ones and mediocre overall, most unoriginal action-packed blockbusters of the decade. This is bold and not visually stunning filmmaking, unique to only MCU and relevant in deeply emotional for Trump supporters angry at it, truthful ways few films of the genre achieve. Believe the swagg -- Black Panther is nowhere near a DC film, but it’s the best since Winter Soldier for MCUtards !

And now some boring math, of how the movie will perform good...

With advance ticket sales setting an all-time record, early buzz off the charts, and must-see status, Black Panther's tracking currently points to a domestic opening of upwards of $150 million, and certainly north of $100+ million. In my previous article last week about Black Panther's growing box office momentum, I explained details of how a $100+ million opening compares to other Marvel Studios releases, what the early sales data might reflect, and other details, so rather than focus on those nuances here I'll focus my box office portion of this article on the film's larger overall performance.

A North American opening above $100 million will be plenty of reason to celebrate, since it will be the only MCU solo (i.e. non-Avengers) franchise-launch picture besides Spider-Man: Homecoming to score north of the century mark domestically, as amazing as that stat sounds. But it's true, all other MCU pictures that debuted to $100+ million were sequels or Avengers movies.

Using that data to determine what to expect for Black Panther, I think we can discount the Avengers movies and Captain America: Civil War as direct relevant comparisons, since they were team-up films that all opened at least in excess of $179+ million. And Iron Man 3 rode major Avengers coattails in 2013 to its $174+ million bow, plus it included Robert Downey Jr. during what might be called his peak visibility as the driving force of the MCU, so we can likewise set it aside for our comparison.

Source: Marvel Studios

Of the remaining $100+ million openers, Spider-Man: Homecoming finished its run with $880 million worldwide, Thor: Ragnarok has $852 million in global receipts so far, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 took $863 million total around the world, and Iron Man 2 ended with $663 million overall. Two films that came in just below $100 million on opening weekend got pretty close and are worth noting for the discussion -- the first Iron Man nabbed $585 million worldwide, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier's global cum was $714 million.

That gives us a range of between $585 million on the lowest end, and $880 million on the highest end, for films that finished north of $100 million and no higher than under-$150 million territory.

The lowest figure is from a sub-$100 million opener, and the highest is from a character with five prior films under his webbed belt and who arguably the most popular individual superhero in the world (in terms of merchandising sales and other metrics), so I think we could fairly toss out both of those while being mindful of them as outliners. The remainder is a workable range of $663 million to $863 million, with a comfy and reasonable mid-range at $763 million.

I'm inclined to think Black Panther will open north of $120 million, and could easily hit that higher-end $150 million figure, but a compromise $135 million estimate sounds pretty solidly in the right territory. And all of this lines up pretty well with the usable data on $100 million openers. Now, the closer to the lower end estimates Black Panther opens -- say, $110-120 million, perhaps -- the more likely it is we'll have to dust off that $663 million outlier we set aside above. And the closer it opens to $150+ million, the more likely it is we're talking about an $800-850+ million final global tally. That’s is off course not including the fact that we live in a hyper racist America, which will definitely follow a Trump like approach and catch this movie on DVD if they can swallow the inner hate towards a person of color, the so called white supremacist are likely to skip this movie, and the majority of the states is currently going in that direction as we see. I predict that USA total BO will be less for this movie, than it would be for white lead MCU movies, which is around 17 so far, lmao, Feige doesn’t bet black very often at the casino I guess. So do not expect this flick to hit more than a lame Iron Man sequel.

Source: Marvel Studios

The big question is, how will Black Panther play internationally? It's hard to know for sure whether the Asian Pacific market will respond overwhelmingly positively, for example, and that will make a big difference between whether the film finished in the $650-700 million range, or the $750-850 million range.

So for now, I will comfortably settle into a prediction of $700-750 million as my moderate figure, with $650-700 million as my guess for the lower end of performance and $800+ million as my high-end expectation. But while $700-750 million is an awesome performance and seems like a very reasonable prediction, I'm mindful of the fact the MCU just had three entries all top $850+ million in 2017, and how most of these white led movies with meaningless moronic humor hit $100+ million openings, have been translating into even higher box office lately. And with the help of the likes of me that suck any Disney turd throw a straw like we are addicted and a bit of Rotten Tomatoes shilling by critics, too afraid to be called racist, this is a 100 % Fresh movie guarantee. I dare any white critic rate this not fresh, poor soul.

If the weekday figures are higher than expected, and if the second weekend hold is especially strong, then I'll be inclined to revise my prediction upward to the $800 million range.