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bluriginals · 7 years ago

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Quest for the Northwest Review

@gfdeepwoods @mysteryseeker

Sorry to keep you waiting!

It's been a long time coming, but it finally came! Not only since the last Blu Blogs (all the way back in March; yikes!) but since I made the promise to provide a review of Quest for the Northwest for a member of its crew (all the way back in June). Now I know what you're thinking and I will tackle these thoughts in order of importance:

1.) What's Quest of the Northwest?

It's the first installment of Gravity Falls: Deep Woods, a fanimatic based series chronicling some adventures in between the normal episodes of Gravity Falls

2.) jesus /march/

yes i know i'm awful

3.) Someone requested you to review their stuff?

i know it's so exciting!

ok maybe none of you were thinking that but i was and it was so flattering and cool and stuffs

4.) Does this have anything to do with the Mystery Hut review?

Only vaguely; MysterySeeker (who I'm assuming is running the project) saw it and thought I was apparently good at this so they asked me to throw some of my...'me' their way.

5.) You promised this review in mid July and it's almost October. What do you have to say about that, HydroPants?

Uuuuuuuuh...there's my ride?

Now in my defense, the first part was released January 16th and the second Hirsch Day and that's a 5 month wait so if anything I'm like, 3 months fashionably early!

Read and weep, boys.

Alright alright, in all seriousness deepest apologies for me taking SO long to get to this. Getting that feedback on time is likely important for whatever you guys are doing with Deep Woods moving forward and it's just plain unprofessional. Really sorry to you all! But enough apologizing, let's get to the review of...

If you haven't already watched it, you should check out part 1 here .

As I stated before, I might not have known about this or looked into without my Mystery Hut review and as I stated there, I was really hyping that project up. Since then I've learned to abolish hopes/dreams and reject happiness, but the thumbnail did give a good first impression. It had a well-crafted quality to it and had been made specifically TO be the thumbnail. This really contributed to my gut feeling that Quest for the Northwest would really be something special. And let me tell you it is DEFINITELY really good. However, rather than talking about it on its own, allow me to spend the entire review judging it not only by its own merits, but by comparing it to Mystery Hut. Naaah, just kidding I'll leave that ol' coot alone. Before I we go in on the story, let's talk about the presentation. Oh my.

Presentation

This presentation is just /amazing/. It's really like taking a step back into Gravity Falls as if nothing's changed (as much as you can in an animatic sense). Starting off with the sound direction, Quest for the Northwest has a distinct element that truly gives it the GF edge any project attempting to emulate the original series needs: the music and audio cues. Brad Breeck's music fills the scenes it needs to and adds to the atmosphere so much. However we aren't dealing with Johnny Test or a 4Kids dub here; the fanimatic knows when to stop talking and deliver some golden silence.

This example from early in the episode where Mrs. Northwest discourages Pacifica from playing with the commoners utilizes sound cues in a way that emphasizes what happens in it

I can't think of a true example of silence off of the top of my head, and it's likely that many scenes use a more lowkey part of the OST, but that works towards the same objective: quieter, more somber moments that appropriately juxtapose the louder ones. It never feels like these silences are too long, awkward, or the result of someone flubbing a line or not being able to think up some dialogue to put in the place of said silence. Speaking of flubbing lines, there's basically none of that: the casting and voice direction are extremely solid. I feel as though some of the people from Mystery Hut (THIS AND TWO THINGS LATER WILL BE ONLY COMPARISONS I SWEAR) may be 'reprising' their roles in Quest for the Northwest (which will hence forth be abbreviated as QftNW) and if they are I gotta give some shout outs to them and the voice director because the delivery and inflections of every line are just right and more. You really get a sense of the emotions and mindset of the characters with every word they say and on the whole the inflections feel very reminiscent of GF. Dipper, Pacifica, Jeff and Preston while not perfect matches are honestly good substitutes and deliver every one of their lines the way you'd imagine the real VAs to. Soos is honestly spot on aside from not being as deep but the real star of the show is Mabel. Though she isn't a near perfect match like Soos, whenever I hear her voice actress speak I can actually feel those Kristen Schaal-isms in her; not just through her dialogue but how she says certain words and just her voice in general. There's even special attention to detail in some places like when Jeff's voice breaks when he's pepper sprayed and in some instances, you can even tell what a character is saying based on their mouth in a single frame.

You can EASILY tell that Jeff's saying something with an 'L' sound, and while you don't have to mark little things like this in boards unless they're really important, I appreciate it a lot.

The only gripes I have with the sound (and they're admittedly minor) is that I feel like Part 1 is a bit quiet, even at max volume and Snadger's hiss audio in part 2 is loud. Like, if you have it at 100% prepare to get that faux jumpscare chord feel. But these really are nothing in comparison to the great sound in this fanimatic.

Upon my first viewing of the episode I was blown away at how well-crafted and consistent the art was. I could NOT believe that there were that many boarders; 4 at most. But I found myself shocked to see a plethora of different artists names flash on screen during the credits (16 to be exact; 4 times as many as appeared). On the second viewing, I was definitely able to distinguish more than 4 styles, but 16 is still WAY more than I'd ever guess. It's just so consistently good, on-model, and expressive, its many artists are able to carry it together with pride.

This shot in particular is really pretty, so I wanted to highlight it :)

Sure there'd be occasional hiccups like Dipper and Mabel's heads being squarshed in some frames or the first portion of Jeff's beast slaying plot but you still get a genuine sense of effort from each and every frame/artist and (Mystery Hut comparison incoming) not ONCE does it ever stoop the low, haphazard inconsistencies and disregard of the Gravity Falls artstyle as Mystery Hut did. In fact, it goes so much further beyond that. Just...take a look.

(Nearly) Every. Single. Face in this project oozes with the Falls. I absolutely loved it and it was a pure joy to look at. Not a second goes where something isn't moving and it's in the best way: each frame is logical and compliments the one preceding and succeeding it. I can honestly imagine so many of these frames transitioning smoothly from one to the other in animation and this level of attention to detail and desire to express a genuine Gravity Falls experience is commendable to say the least.

They remembered dramatic, shading using close-ups and in some shots they even bothered to put in unique towns people that fit the style! Cute!

But the biggest thing of all that propels this to new heights artistically has got to be the understanding of the characters.

QftNW has such a great understanding of Gravity Falls' characters not only in how they talk but equally as important: how their physical body works in relation to other objects as well as themselves.

Dipper's (audience) right hand has such a nice depth to it and the way Pacifica's hair bends on the bench looks like it jumped straight outta the show.

But there's on example that stood out to me above the rest. Just...look at this beautiful 8 frame scene where Dipper and Mabel take off their Pacifica costumes.

Forgot how tumblr shrinks wide images like this, so here: bask in the full glory of these frames!

Whoever drew this is my Super Star, the 1-Up Boy (or Girl). It's on model, it understands how the individual 'pieces' of Dipper and Mabel work (hair, arms, face etc.), it has touches like their changing facial expressions and Dipper turning his hat forward. I just can't do it justice this scene is so /good/. MysterySeeker when you get to this, please give that boarder special shout outs. I love this scene so much aaaaaaaaaah

Alright that's enough gushing about the glorious art and sound. There's one last remark I'd like to make about the presentation. The episode managed to get in a special monochromatic full version of theme which is great, but in the end the episode totaled out to /27/ minutes. Now, if that's what they want to go with that's absolutely fine. Nothing wrong with having your Gravity Falls fan series run a couple over the normal limit. But if they really want to go for that Gravity Falls feeling they should cut 5 of those minutes.

Story and Characters

Quest for the Northwest's basic premise is that Dipper and Mabel decide to go out to a parade being held to honor the election of the holder of the best running gag, Tyler Cutebiker. However upon seeing a miserable Pacifica in the parade Dipper and Mabel (mostly Mabel) callout to her and try to get her away from the parade and by extent her parents. All isn't right however as with Jeff's role as leader being questioned due to his inability to find a new queen, the town's precious princess may find herself in more trouble than she's bargained for. The basic story definitely shows lots of promise, particularly in the idea of having an episode where the Pines twins both interact with Pacifica. But before we really go in on that let me talk about the structural elements that hold up this story.

As stated in the presentation section, the visuals here are on point and they really propel the episode forward with great action based gags, both subtle and dynamic. Jeff rubbing his eyes after being pepper sprayed and Preston's reactions to all of the filthy commoners being near him (Soos especially) added to the scene SO much.

Don't touch me, PEON. And on a similar note...

Don't touch me phone, PEON.

The characters aren't just moving through each scene as lifeless dolls, occasionally making flanderized quips that are supposed to remind you "YUP THAT'S THEM". That wasn't uh, that wasn't supposed to be a Mystery Hut sneak diss either I just wanted to say that the characterization is great. Speaking of that third Mystery Hut diss, it's finally time to get to it as we talk about the characterization. Mabel's characterization is MILES better than it is in Mystery Hut. There she was a spouting faux-Mabel non-sequiturs and generally being a flanderized nuisance. But here? Her dialogue isn't substanceless; it's endearing, and smart, and feels SO Mabel. And being that this is QftNW, it's not just her dialogue. It's her actions. How she moves and the things she does: licking the beard hair twice (and ultimately eating some at the very end), her "balloon sense" in scene 2, picking the cotton candy off the bench when they hear people calling for Pacifica and then sliding next to them when they look behind the wall.

It culminates into making Mabel feel well represented and because she's one of our two protagonists, it's pretty important to have her on point. And that my friends is that LAST you'll hear of Mystery Hut for the rest of this review. Probably ;)

I think that Pacifica was handled really well too! Some fans would've had her be a complete 180 from her appearance in Northwest Mansion Mystery, having her be all nice, and kind, and forcing Padippica down our throats in a way that feels unnatural, Pacifica still retains a lot of her personality. She's clearly only JUST learning to be better person and it's the gradual type of character development that I love to see.

Pacifica says "It's ok, most people are terrible at what they do." and not only is this a funny line but it feels perfect for a kid who's only steadily learning to drop her rich girl tendencies.

Sort of reminds me of the Steven Universe episode "Beta" where Peridot is showing Amethyst and Steven the Beta Kindergarten and making remarks about the gems that emerged there that really bring out her more Homeworld-like habits.

Jeff's pretty well-handled as well. Due to him being more of a recurring character in the series he's got nothing that really stands out but he's still well represented, especially in relation to the show. Basically all of his dialogue feels right at home with him. Though there is one action he takes in the story that particularly stands out, and that's retrying the Norman scheme from Tourist Trapped. I know this seems like the type of thing that'd I normally whine about and call forced reference/fan-pandering, but the way it goes about is such a unique parallel to Dipper and Mabel's encounter. The Gnomes are NOT the smartest creatures in Gravity Falls, so it makes perfect sense for them to double down on such a make-shift plot. It further expands on the parallel by having the plot fall apart very plainly. Him stumbling over his words, dropping the hand, and just coming on too strong coupled with Pacifica not buying it at any point and eventually fighting her way out is a serves as a smart subversion of Mabel's encounter with them, helps advance the plot in a unique direction. On the topic of throwbacks that brings us to Dipper and well...

For the most part I believe Dipper's also himself. At first I was thinking he was being a bit of a downer but honestly, it fits Dipper to be resistant against things like going to the parade. Him not thinking about Pacifica's huge milestone in Northwest Mansion Mystery (NMM) where she disobeys her parents is a little bit harsh but things really go over the edge when after the twins manage to get Pacifica off the float, Pacifica mentions that while appreciative, she doesn't want to be caught with them for fear of more punishment from her parents. Dipper replies to this by saying "See Mabel, she hasn't changed at all. And here I thought you were gonna start trying to break the world's worst chain".

Barring the fact that reprising the "world's worst chain" in the context of demeaning Pacifica comes off as absolutely brutal seeing as the line was such a landmark part of NMM (it was the thing that made Pacifica finally consider a change of heart), it feels very forced. Dipper didn't need to say something that cut so deep AGAIN especially after Pacifica saved ALL of their lives not out of obligation but out of wanting to do the right thing. And that's just the world's worst chain part; the fact that he says she hasn't changed at all? Way too much. And considering that she's just doing something as little as running away from a boring parade and not tricking Dipper into exorcising a ghost it was really unwarranted for him to go nuclear on her like that. Honestly this is the only instance of bad writing in this entire fanimatic. Like, Pacifica not wanting to consistently disobey her hella strict parents again makes sense. Has the Fear of God never been put into this boy by Mr. and Ms. Pines?

But don't let this minor blemish make you think it's NO good. The episode's writing is honestly SO good. And it's referential/injoke humor definitely isn't a hit or miss in most cases. You know, based on the fact that I gave 1 hit example and 1 miss example; I didn't want it to come off as QftNW being a crapshoot when it comes to reference jokes. It's very subtle but you can catch things like 'Dope Dog', an obvious reference to Cool Cat who we all probably know from YMS, Pizza Guy being jibbed YET again,

Shout outs to whoever boarded the first montage too btw

Alex Hirsch's face being on the TV and name somewhere else in the episode, the former Mayor's honorary statue and the fact that it has 2012 on it,

You guys KNOW they would've had to vague the date if this was a real episode.

And best of all Pacifica's response at the end when asked if she wants to visit the shack. If you don't get it, listen to how she responds to Dipper. You'll get it. QftNW is just plain good at balancing the worlds of emulation and fandom. I salute you fair fanimatic.

As you could guess from how much I've gushed about the characterization, the writing is a joy. The jokes are very much Gravity Falls and from start to finish this episode is doing its best to give you that feel when you have GF.

On first viewing this had me /ROLLING/, oh my god. What a great way to start off an episode.

And it keeps this kind of stuff up throughout its entire run. BTW shout outs to one of the guys who said "MS. NORTHWEST" while they were looking for her. This is so random but the way one of them said it honestly sounded like professional VA work. He knows who he is. Alright that's enough goofing around. How do I feel about the actual plot, the meat of the story separated from the writing/art framework? As stated before I truly believe this to be a great fanimatic. Its production efforts are high for a fanmade project and you can just tell lots of love and heart were put into every aspect of it. But if I'm being quite honest, I found the actual plot sort of weak. The writing itself was top notch so that did it a lot of favors but if you take a step back, you realize that not a lot really happens. Like, a lot HAPPENS but not a lot of substance happens. The episode deals with two primary conflicts: Pacifica trying to take a break from her daily routine and avoid her parents and Jeff trying to prove he's a worthy leader. Both are handled in a pretty straight forward manner: Pacifica avoids her parents all day and worries how they'll react, Dipper and Mabel come up with a valid excuse less than half way through the episode; Jeff tries to kidnap Pacifica, fails, the kids pity him and help him out by doing the classical costume farce and all is well. It's lacking the strong character plot (ex. Mabel questioning if she is a good person in Last Mabelcorn, Dipper confessing his crush in Into the Bunker, Dipper and Mabel wondering if Stan is really what he seems in well, Not What He Seems, Soos learning how to deal with girls/the fear of being alone in Soos and the Real Girl etc.) present in nearly every Gravity Falls episode. Even the segments within Bottomless Pit! and Little Gift Shop of Horrors managed to place some significant character plots that easily feel just as strong as the real episode's despite them not actually happening. Here minor conflicts arise, but they're never anything that hard to surmount or quite frankly, that interesting. After letting it sit with me for a while, I realized that

1.) The episode has two montages. Not that having two is some abominable sin they should've avoided at all costs, in fact montage 1 is great for giving an abridged showcase of the kids day together. Montage 2 on the other hand doesn't exist to parallel montage 1 (showing an advancement/decline), or show anything of interest in general. It's just your normal training montage. It has funny jokes but it seems sort of excessive. Montage 2's results are a total flop and result in them having to think up a b plan. The fact that montage 2 is ultimately not important isn't even lampshaded, in fact it's more played as unfortunate with how Jeff nearly cries. I'm not saying that montage 2's failure should've been played for laughs, especially since in episode the failure is punctuated by a gag, just that in the end montage 2 was a bit cliche and unnecessary.

2.) Pacifica's presence in the second half feels sort of extra and as if it's there primarily so we can get more Dipper, Mabel, Pacifica relationship-growing-time fanservice. Which is not to say that is at ALL a bad thing (the bit in the last scene before the credits scene is SO cute and not forced at all I love it), but when you're trying to write a good story, particularly a Gravity Falls one, having a strong central conflict to carry the episode is pretty imperative. One easy example I can think of off of the top of my head? There could've easily been parallels drawn between Jeff and Pacifica and the pressure from the obligations they have to their families. Jeff on his only simply isn't that compelling a character and making him into a compelling character that late into Gravity Falls isn't that beneficial. He isn't locked out of development due to being a recurring character, but having him have his own little arc that ultimately contributes to Pacifica's (a major character) would've been a better choice. There's obviously more than one way to do things, but that's something I thought would've worked out well.

3.) The title "Quest for the Northwest" doesn't reflect the episode's contents. Jeff's easily apprehended by Pacifica so there's no such quest to speak of and it isn't a clever bait-and-switch title like "The Ricklantis Mixup" because Pacifica defeating the gnomes on her own isn't the big bait of the episode, it's just a nice little parallel to Dipper and Mabel's encounter. Had it actually been about Pacifica being kidnapped and Dipper and Mabel going on a quest to save her whilst say, Pacifica decides to help Jeff out of pity after she breaks free on her own, eventually coming into her own as someone who's taking the first steps to being a better person, THEN it could've been called Quest for the Northwest. It would have the double meaning of not only Dipper and Mabel being on a quest to save Pacifica (the Northwest), but Pacifica being dealt her own 'quest' in helping Jeff out. But that's just me spitting out a specific theoretical I liked, there's tons of ways the title "Quest for the Northwest" could've been justified. The episode's plot just isn't one of them.

4.) Last and certainly least, the black eyebrowed Gnome who's clearly trying to usurp Jeff really isn't relevant. He's shown as the leader of this growing insurgence, but all he really does is talk mad game in two scenes and get absolutely destroyed in an admittedly funny scene. He didn't need to be his own character and the gnomes dissatisfaction could've been more properly represented with a mob rather than a man...urr, gnome. But really, this is a drop in the bucket compared to the bigger issues presented in #1 and #2. Had those been more refined this would just be an outlier rather than a cherry on top of a problem cake. A single layer problem cake mind you, but still a problem cake.

But enough of the negative: in the end Quest for the Northwest is a satisfying episode that captures the soul of Gravity Falls magnificently well despite its faults. An absolute must see for Gravity Falls fans, and if you for some reason read this review without watching it, check it out part 1 and part 2 here. There's plenty to see both writing, visual and gagwise that I didn't spoil, and honestly? Not seeing it is a disservice if you like Gravity Falls a lot. Definitely worth a watch. 8/10; MUCH better than Sonic Lost World.

th-that's my thing now guys. any time i give a number rating it's also quantitatively compared to sonic lost world u

Anyway enough of me babbling, if you enjoyed this fanimatic like I, you should check out their tumblr page for updates on whatever they have in the works . Pretty sure the next episode coming is being titled "Deep-Rooted Misunderstanding" so look out for that, cause I know I will! And while you're here, you might as well check out some of the rest of the this blog and see if you find anything you like. Stay tuned because next week, we're going to be talking about Sonic Forces and/or Mario Odysse-- on second thought let me not get back on my bullshit and promise next week, see you guys in june lmfao

#The Bluriginals Blogs #Gravity Falls #Gravity Falls Deep Woods

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briangroth27 · 7 years ago

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Marvel’s Defenders Season 1 Review

Full Spoilers…

Marvel’s Defenders was enjoyable and is definitely worth watching, but I’m not sure it did all it could have. The chemistry between Daredevil (Charlie Cox), Jessica Jones (Kristen Ritter), and Luke Cage (Mike Colter) worked very well, but Iron Fist (Finn Jones) was the weak link. He had a few good moments, but Defenders still couldn’t redeem him for me. I was impressed by the inclusion of nearly every major supporting character from the four previous Netflix series, even if they weren’t used to their fullest potential. The Hand didn’t reach the heights I was hoping as the ultimate bad guys in the Netflix corner of the MCU (so far), but I was genuinely entertained and feel that their arc has come to a mostly satisfying conclusion.

Matt Murdock/Daredevil Matt’s one of my favorite comic characters and I’ve loved Charlie Cox’s interpretation of the character over three seasons now. I was surprised to find him retired from superheroics, but it was great to see him relating to and comforting a recently paralyzed teen (Gabe White) in his opening scenes; I’d definitely like more glimpses at how Matt’s powers and his blindness shape his worldview, so things like this—a way to save a kid without being Daredevil—are very cool. So much of Matt’s arc over the course of his series has been about how best to be a hero and what the line between hero and villain even is, so it was nice to see him mulling over whether he’d done the right thing in stepping down as Daredevil. When he did finally return to the suit, it was awesome! Murdock was hands-down the best fighter in the show, which hurt the credibility of these other martial arts masters a bit. His flippy and highly acrobatic style is always fun to watch, and Defenders was no exception. Matt’s casual parkour to travel the city (and evade Jessica) got a good workout here and I hope it pops up even more in Season 3, as that’s a comic book element I wish they’d show more of in Daredevil. Elektra (Elodie Yung) was the only character who matched his fighting prowess—Colleen (Jessica Henwick) was close, but didn’t get to do as much hand-to-hand as the others—and Iron Fist and the Hand looked lackluster in comparison.

Speaking of Elektra, I loved how dedicated (and possibly deluded) Matt was into thinking he could save her. Executive Producer Marco Ramirez said he felt Matt believed Elektra was a problem he had to deal with himself and I get that, but I think that drive could’ve had bigger implications for the team. It threatens to destabilize them at one point, but when Matt figures out Elektra’s been in his apartment, he lies about what he’s found to Jessica (almost directly after promising her he won’t keep anything back) and he’s never caught. I understand why he wouldn’t come clean—he was the only one who thought she could be redeemed and Stick was liable to have her killed like the last Black Sky (Bonale Fambrini)—and I wish he hadn’t lied, but if they were going to include that action it should’ve had a consequence.

While Luke informed Danny of his white privilege, I thought Matt’s was more striking. Matt was found at the scene of a homicide covered in blood—the cops even took his shirt to test it—yet the idea that he could be involved in Stick’s (Scott Glenn) death didn’t even occur to anyone at the precinct. At first I brushed this off as “who would suspect the blind guy?” but Misty (Simone Missick) didn’t have a reason to think Luke was a killer either and he was still under suspicion. Just because Matt was Luke and Jessica’s lawyer, he must be innocent? The cops barely questioned him about what happened. When he breaks out of the police station with them later, the cops assume he’s been kidnapped?

I loved that so many story threads from Daredevil wrapped up here; it felt like an unofficial Season 3. Not only did we finally find out what the Hand wanted with that specific plot of land, but we learned what wall Stick was referencing in Daredevil Season 1 and what the pit from Season 2 was for. I also liked that Matt’s past with Stick and his old mentor’s way of doing things got in the way of rejoining the war. That was a smart, organic way of giving Matt pause about joining up instead of just being bull-headed (even though he was that too; as Cox pointed out about Season 2—and was just as true here, part of Matt’s arc was learning to ask for help). Murdock feeling nervous about unmasking in front of the others was a great moment of vulnerability for him; even if it was partially about protecting his loved ones, I think it also connected back to his lack of certainty about suiting up again. Taking the scarf off meant declaring that he was Daredevil. I do wish they’d taken a moment for Matt to confront Stick about Nobu’s (Peter Shinkoda) death: one of the very few issues I had with Season 2 was that he threw Nobu off a building and never said whether he knew he could survive the fall or not. If he didn’t, then he definitely tried to kill Nobu, which could’ve been a reason for his retirement (he’d failed at being an upstanding hero, even if Stick was the one who actually finished Nobu off). That’s something that could’ve brought more context to where we found him at the start of Defenders. That said, the rest of his arc was great and I loved that it concluded with Matt saying he was glad Luke and Jessica were with him before they went into the pit at Midland Circle.

I’m glad they didn’t leave any question about whether Matt survived or not and that they’ve already confirmed Daredevil Season 3! I’m excited to meet Maggie Murdock and to see how they handle Born Again, which seems to be where they’re headed; I don’t want to see Karen (Deborah Ann Woll) dragged through the mud like in the comic, though. Whatever the next story is, I hope that after upping the challenges from gangsters to undead ninjas, Matt gets to face off with supervillains next!

Jessica Jones While Matt and Danny’s arcs segued into the miniseries’ plot most cleanly, I was impressed Jessica and Luke’s investigations brought them into the Hand hijinks just as naturally. In fact, the confluence of these four heroes at Midland Circle felt more natural than an outside force recruiting random superpeople to join the Avengers. I liked how thorough Jessica was with her investigation into the Hand’s building and that they took the time to show it. It would’ve been easy, particularly in a condensed miniseries, to just have her show up and explain the work she’d done, so showing it was a great bit of characterization instead.

While Jessica’s general disdain for heroics can be fun—particularly when interacting with Matt and Danny—it is beginning to become one-note. She isn’t new to these powers and even if she doesn’t want to dress up in a costume (or even want her abilities), I’d like to see her at least more willing to help people, even if it’s just to pay her bills. If nothing else, her powers make her job easier than it would be for most people, so why hate them so much? Speaking of her powers, they absolutely need to determine some limits to what she can and can’t do; vaguely strong and maybe able to fly isn’t good enough. Still, Ritter found a good balance between her disdain for her powers and being overwhelmed at all the magic going on without coming off as coldly unwilling to help. I do think they could’ve dug into her discomfort with magic and resurrections by bringing up Purple Man at least for a moment. It would’ve been great to force her to confront the idea of resurrections with the possibility—however remote—of Killgrave also coming back and what that would mean for her. If snapping his neck herself wasn’t enough, could she ever find peace? Particularly since David Tennant is back in some form in Season 2, this would’ve been a great moment to tease that she’s still dealing with lingering doubts about her success in getting rid of her abuser.

I loved that there wasn’t much (if any) angst between Jessica and Luke once they met for the first time since Jones’ first season. They’d both moved on and that growth was fine by me. I didn’t like the implication of Jessica asking Luke out for coffee (even if I can’t quite remember if it had the connotation in her show that it did in Luke Cage), so I was glad he shot her down. I know they’re married in the comics, but just being friends works for the MCU in my opinion. If she’s going to have a relationship with a superhero, I really liked her interactions with Matt here. They had some really fun banter, so I’d be open to seeing where they might go. Perhaps Jessica and Matt could strike up a romantic/heroic partnership like he did with Black Widow in the comics. They worked well together when they visited the Raymond home and it was nice to see Jessica connect with Lexi Raymond (Chloe Levine) through what she’d learned about Matt’s dad, showing she understood him as well.

Regardless of who she ends up with (not that she needs to end up with anyone), I’m glad Jessica’s arc took her to a place where she could open up again. Starting to experience and engage with the wider world of powers was a cool metaphor for getting back into the business of living her life as well. It would’ve been good to see how Malcolm (Eka Darville) fits into her detective agency a bit more, though. That’s not where she was yet, but we could’ve gotten some tease about how they’d work together at the end. On the other hand, Trish’s (Rachael Taylor) radio talk show reporting on the earthquakes in New York felt like a classic superhero/journalist connection for Jessica and I hope they play that up in Season 2. If she could act as an early warning source of information for Jessica, it’d be great! I’m also very ready for Jessica to face an enemy who isn’t Killgrave; she was perfectly out of her element with the Hand and I’m eager to see her face completely new challenges in her second season!

Luke Cage Luke was a big surprise for me when I watched his series; I knew almost nothing about his character and came out of his first season a huge fan. Colter portrayed him as something of a soulful Captain America just trying to do right by his neighborhood and it was perfect (I’d love for him and Steve to meet and just hang out some day!). I was surprised Defenders got him out of prison right away and I liked that fresh start. I thought his past crimes would continue looming over him, so it was a pleasant surprise to see him out so soon and an even better one to see that he’d truly moved on from his past. Of all of the heroes, Luke seems to have put his demons behind him completely at the start of this miniseries; with his time served, his personal history is settled.

I love Luke and Claire (Rosario Dawson) together and their post-prison sex session was a long time coming! I’m glad they wasted no time and I hope this relationship grows a lot in Luke’s second season. Also wasting no time was Misty Knight, who immediately got Luke back into the business of crime fighting (by the way, I like that Luke is effortlessly able to remain friends with not one but two of his exes). I love that he’s still so dedicated to his community and his personal bonds with the people within it are perfect, not only for his character but as a contrast to how the other heroes interact with the civilians around them. Matt may connect with people as Murdock, but Daredevil is meant to be scary and stealthy. Luke seems like he’d stop and talk about life with someone he’d just saved (assuming the villain was down), and continue checking in for weeks after the rescue. That’s not something we normally see from heroes and it’s something I’d love to see more of. His concern over both Cole (J. Mallory McCree) because of his job working for the Hand and Cole’s mom Dolores (Debbi Morgan) because of her family’s tragedies were excellent, even if he couldn’t save the day.

I would’ve loved to see Luke take down Sowande (Babs Olusanmokun), but his reappearance with the Hand leader in tow was still a great moment. I do think his hopefulness could’ve been tested by Sowande and the Hand’s apparent ability to completely demoralize their enemy; that’s a failing of the Hand’s characterization here and a missed opportunity to test for chinks in Luke’s armor. I enjoyed that Luke remained the most moral of the heroes, not wanting to blow up a building, and I wonder if that moment in particular was partially because he knew how easily the system can turn against you even if you’re doing the right thing. That said, I think he (if not Matt too) should’ve had a problem with leaving the Hand ninjas to die in the explosion; they agreed no one would get hurt and that seemed to go out the window once the bombs were activated. Regardless, his morality and sense of calm played well off of Matt’s obsessive crusade, Jessica’s apathy, and Danny’s unrefined enthusiasm. In fact, the scenes of Luke bonding with Danny, informing him of his white male privilege, and commiserating about how much gaining their superpowers hurt were the one area I saw a glimmer of hope for Rand. I don’t need them to team up here like in the comics by any means—Luke has a vibrant and fertile corner of the MCU without needing Danny to make it more interesting—but it’s good to know that if they do become best friends like in the comics, Luke can pull some likability out of Danny.

I think they definitely need to work on creating distinctive fighting styles for both Luke and Jessica. Both of them seemed to just barrel through ninjas and throw them around, but they could be doing more (though “barreling through” could work as Luke’s preferred style, since he doesn’t have to worry about gunshots or getting hit). On a story level, I’d really like to see Luke move faster into helping people in addition to getting involved with one person at a time. I wish they would’ve ended the season with him opening up his hero for hire business, possibly in the old barbershop. Misty started the season prodding him to become more of a helper and I would’ve liked to see how he decided to do that in a bookend scene at the end of the miniseries.

Danny Rand/Iron Fist I don’t want to keep harping on Rand—who looks for things to hate?—but even with his slight improvement here, he’s still the weak link of the Netflix MCU. While they smartly ignored the contradictory bits of his mythos (how can he defeat the Hand if he’s not allowed to leave K’un-Lun and why didn’t he know his greatest enemies still existed?), he still came off as brash and green (not in terms of his super-suit, though; he apparently still can’t have that). Danny trained to be one of the world’s greatest warriors for 15 years and there’s no excuse for him to still appear so fresh-faced. Even if they wanted to play a “training isn’t the same thing as war” arc with him, he’s been written as being so inept that it seems like he wasn’t trained at all. I’ve read that the idea behind Danny in this miniseries was to look up to the others as experienced heroes he could trust and seek out a partnership with them, but that didn’t really come through. Sure he’s enthusiastic about a team-up, but as soon as Danny doesn’t get his way, he’s off to do some stupid thing. I will say that while the other Defenders get to take verbal shots at him, Finn Jones played Danny in a way that didn’t feel like he couldn’t take their barbs; a definite improvement over his temper tantrums in his first season. And again, his bonding scenes with Luke were the most relaxed and natural Jones has felt in the role, so I’m glad they found the touchstone of that bond.

Defenders does undo a few of the questionable aspects of Iron Fist, though. Claire not calling Matt in for help against the Hand made a bit more sense now that we know he was retired, even if I’m convinced Matt would’ve suited up to help her anyway. The Hand not using the creepy-cool ninjas from Daredevil’s second season in Iron Fist’s first also makes sense if Elektra got the last of the resurrection substance (though where the undead ninjas went during Iron Fist remains a question. Even if Danny didn’t know much about the Hand, at least Defenders opened with him and Colleen running around hitting the Hand’s bases. This miniseries also finally made use of Danny’s white privilege after his own series ignored it; nothing against Jones, but casting a white actor added nothing to his character there, despite the internet’s insistence that he stay a white guy like in the comics. I liked that while Jessica had to do actual detective work to find Midland Circle, Danny was able to stroll into his company and ask someone else to look it up for him. This could’ve been played up more—and like I said earlier, Matt’s privilege was a much bigger example that seems to have flown under the radar—but I’m glad they finally touched on it and hope for more in Danny’s next season.

As many problems as they solved (at least partially), however, there were still some questions. How does Danny still know so little about his arch-enemies that they need Stick to provide all the exposition on the Hand? I wish Stick and the Chaste had appeared in Iron Fist to connect the dots a little better, but Danny being so clueless makes no sense. His fight choreography was still at the level of his first season, which made him immediately pale in comparison to Matt’s even though he’s supposed to be the much more experienced fighter. Danny bouncing off Luke looked silly more than anything; I was as annoyed with him as Luke looked. I wish the miniseries had ended with Danny getting his costume instead of the track suit-looking outfit he was wearing; it even looks like Matt’s from Daredevil Season 1, only in green and yellow, which would’ve been a perfect way for him to honor Matt’s request that they continue protecting the city. Now that the Hand is gone, I’m somewhat interested in seeing if defending Hell’s Kitchen is enough of a purpose to fulfill Danny, but he’s seemed so lost as it is that I’m not convinced it’ll feel very different.

Claire Temple I’ve really enjoyed Rosario Dawson’s Claire evolving over the course of five previous seasons! Her meetings with each hero felt completely organic and her appearances in each show are always a highlight. Since she’d gotten involved with each of the heroes so naturally, it didn’t feel contrived that Luke would get in a fight with someone else she knew; it just felt like another thread coming together like it was supposed to. I really liked that Colleen pointed out Claire is the foundation of this team of heroes and her reaction to that affirmation was great. While Luke is a steady source of hope, Claire is a great breath of fresh air and a perfect, practical wake-up call to these heroes.

That said, while Claire got the most screentime out of the supporting cast members (perhaps besides Colleen), I’m surprised she didn’t have more to do. As natural as facilitating the introductions was, it felt like she stepped away after that. When she’d appear in the individual series (minus Jessica Jones), she became an integral part as soon as she was involved in the action and I was hoping for more of that here. True she was involved in the final assault on Midland Circle, but nothing she did there had to be done by her specifically. I’m definitely interested to see what role she plays in the future of the Netflix MCU. Will she just remain their “Night Nurse,” patching them up and giving them advice? Or does she have a greater destiny? I don’t need or really want her to become a superhero herself (though she did take to combat pretty naturally in Iron Fist), but I would’ve liked an indication of where she’s going now. It’d be cool if they came up with a completely new role for her that wasn’t a now-common trope like the central information hub or something.

Allies Along with Claire, Colleen Wing was my favorite aspect of Iron Fist. Willingly being part of the Hand and then finding out just how evil they were was a fantastic arc and her reveal as a member was the biggest shock in the series for me. It was great to see her back for this and I’m glad she was right in the thick of the action almost the whole way through. However, I wish her history with the Hand had been more relevant to the events of Defenders. True, she finally got even with Bakuto (Ramon Rodriguez) and I was glad to see that, but what about all the Hand operatives she trained? Her righteous fury at being used and lied to was great, but a moment to consider the criminals she’d primed for service would’ve been better. How many secret ninjas are out there doing harm because she trained them? Even better, instead of facing Bakuto again and reaching the same resolution they did in their battle in Iron Fist, what if Colleen had been faced with her former pupils?

I really dug Misty Knight in Luke Cage and I was happy to see her here. Reaching out to Luke to get him to contribute more was a nice beat, but I would’ve liked less skepticism about the vigilantes from her. She walked a tightrope over the need for vigilantes vs. the rule of law before, and it seemed like the end of Luke’s first season felt like she was opening up to the idea of vigilantism, even wearing her comic book outfit. If I’m remembering that correctly, she’s the only character who felt like she took a major step back at the start of Defenders. Others have pointed out the significant mention that she’s in a Rand-owned hospital after getting her arm cut off, so it’ll probably be a Rand-developed cyborg arm that she gets. I’m interested to see how that goes with this version of Misty. I’d also like to know if she’ll face any consequences in the fallout from Midland Circle. While the Defenders seem to have gotten off without any trouble, she’s a cop and helped them. Will there be repercussions that lead her to life as a vigilante?

I like Scott Glenn’s Stick and have truly enjoyed his antagonistic mentor/fatherly relationship with Matt, but by Defenders I was ready to see him go. It just felt right for him to pass the torch on to the next generation in this war or, more fittingly, for the war’s last soldier to go out helping to end it. Cutting his own arm off to escape Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) and Elektra was badass (even if his severed arm was less than convincing) and I was impressed by how capable he still was even after losing the hand and who knows how much blood! His no-nonsense attitude played well against the Defenders, even if it drove them away at times (true to their characters). I chuckled at him low-key wanting to kill Danny when the others were trying to convince Rand to lay low and I was pleased the writers actually let him try to do it. My distaste for Iron Fist aside, it wouldn’t have felt right if the Defenders were able to talk him down from trying to solve the problem the only way he knows how; just like the first Black Sky we met, Stick felt he had to kill Danny. It was also cool that Stick figured out a new weakness of Luke’s with his knockout gas; going forward, I hope the Luke Cage writers continue to explore other ways of attacking him besides bullets. It was tragic Matt didn’t make it back in time to say anything to Stick when he died; I would’ve liked one last bit of resolution to their disagreements, but sometimes you don’t get that in life.

It was good (and a little surprising) to see so many of the supporting characters show up here. That said, I wish there was more for them to do, even if it was just cool that they got time to interact with each other (something I wasn’t expecting at all). Foggy (Elden Henson) and Karen fared the best, with their concern over Matt becoming Daredevil again giving them some good material to dig into. It would’ve been nice to see more about how Karen felt about Matt being Daredevil since she only found out in the last moments of the Season 2 finale, but their talks here felt right. I liked that she was annoyed that his Daredevil life interrupted hers by making her a target again. Thinking about it now, I hope Matt’s presumed death isn’t what pushes Karen back into whatever darkness has been hinted at in her past, which could tie into her arc in Born Again. Foggy giving Matt his suit felt like a big step for him and I’m definitely interested to see how he handles Matt’s “death.” Trish and Malcolm’s attempts to get Jessica back into the world were good, but they didn’t really work (her camaraderie with the Defenders did), so I would’ve enjoyed them having some effect on the outcome of the series or our main characters. Maybe Trish knowing what went down at Midland Circle could’ve twisted the police’s arm into covering it up and letting the Defenders go, under threat of her show revealing there was a massive infrastructure takeover by the Hand (that she’d have proof of in this scenario) and the PD were completely powerless—and maybe even infiltrated by—to stop. That would’ve connected nicely to her bosses cutting off the call to her show about the earthquakes not being normal early on in the miniseries.

Alexandra Reid I thought Alexandra was a great leader of the Hand and I wish she hadn’t died. Even if she had to go, I think we should’ve known her (and the Hand’s) further plans beyond eternal life and returning to K’un-Lun. I’m bored of businesspeople as villains, but the Hand’s corporate front felt thin enough that she didn’t really resemble one to me too much. Alexandra seemed more like an independently wealthy individual who expected her power to allow her to continue with her routine, no matter how many people she had to crush along the way. She was likable and an imposing villain with unexpected depth from her motherly relationship with Elektra, but ultimately I thought she’d be a bigger threat or have a larger plan than her own survival. While personal and relatable, I originally didn’t feel that type of plan needed four heroes to stop, but as I’ll discuss later, it may be the perfect evil scheme for the Defenders. I didn’t think she’d physically fight the heroes, but I would’ve liked to see a bigger confrontation between them. I liked that she was somewhat amused by the Defenders standing up to her and I would’ve enjoyed seeing her fully unleashed against them (why was Gao the only one with a special power?), even if just once. Her wardrobe was definitely distinctive and felt appropriately of another era, as was Weaver’s air of superiority that effused from her in nearly every scene. I also really liked that none of the Hand leaders were tired of immortality; that’s a tired trope and, even if all they wanted was to maintain the status quo, it was cool to see immortals who didn’t want to stop living.

Elektra Natchios I loved Elektra’s arc in this series, from confused “blank slate” Black Sky to Hand assassin to master of her own destiny. Though her resurrection and training scenes were solid, I wish we’d learned more about what the Black Sky was exactly and why she was different from the other undead Hand ninjas. I’m assuming it means that she was supposed to be resurrected as a complete blank slate rather than one who can regain her memory completely (in addition to being able to take down the Iron Fist), but we should’ve gotten some clarification on that point. Still, Yung did a great job of slowly investigating and recapturing flashes of her former life! I also loved her mother/daughter relationship with Alexandra; it was just “off” enough to work really well. I didn’t see her killing Alexandra coming at all! I read that Marco Ramirez said the intention of that moment was for Elektra to take hold of her life and determine who she was for herself. I’d say that worked—and I realized later that she also killed her other mentor, Stick, which is a nice signifier that she won’t be returning to either of her lives—I just wish we’d seen what she wanted with leadership of the Hand. Apparently she wanted to stay immortal too, but did she have any other plans? Was she going to lead the Hand in a new direction? If so, what was it and were the other leaders only helping her to get their hands on the substance? If she was just going to keep things the same, then killing Alexandra loses a bit of impact (at least plotwise, because the emotional statement of the action is definitely there), I think.

If Elektra was the one to drag Matt out of the pit, then I’m definitely excited to see them meet again sometime in the future. Despite saying the fight with Matt and leadership of the Hand was what she wanted, if she saved him then he wasn’t completely wrong about her. I’d definitely be interested in seeing who she chooses to become now and how she gets there. Perhaps there’s still hope for her after all…

The Hand I liked Alexandra, Elektra, Gao (Wai Ching Ho), and Sowande quite a bit. The supernatural element the Hand brought to the MCU worked well for me, even in the grounded Defenders corner, and I liked them as a step up from gangsters. However, I do feel they’ve run their course and don’t need to see them in this form again; the next level of bad guys should be supervillains. It would’ve been nice if each of the Hand’s Fingers had their own individual goals and plans for their renewed immortality, but I understand why such limited screentime would keep them (mostly) united in their purpose. Though Gao rapidly became one of my favorite MCU villains, if she survived the destruction of the tower I’m not sure where she goes after this. Perhaps a Gao who’s lost everything would be an interesting adversary. I totally missed that her drugs in Daredevil’s first season were made from powdered dragon bones; it was cool she was able to diversify herself and that was a clever way to tie things together. I don’t need to see her again immediately, but I wouldn’t be opposed to her popping up sometime later. Sowande employing neighborhood kids to clean up Hand business was a cool operation and a neat way to tie in Luke Cage. I hadn’t considered that they’d need a clean-up crew and thought that was a smart way to flesh out their support structure. However, I was sorry to see Sowande die so easily: he had excellent presence and it felt like he deserved more. I don’t find Bakuto imposing, so he didn’t leave much impact on me here; his battle with Colleen felt like a retread of Iron Fist. The Hand seemed like enough of a threat before he was revealed to be alive and it didn’t seem like they got more dangerous with him around. Murakami (Yutaka Takeuchi) was similarly underwhelming and didn’t seem like a fitting step up from Nobu. He was billed as some great warrior—Nobu’s boss, even—but it felt like he was consistently taken down first whenever he fought. Any character can be redeemed, but it doesn’t seem like there was enough to his character to justify a return (and that’s if the debris didn’t decapitate him).

I wish every Finger of the Hand had a supernatural specialty; that would’ve provided the heroes with a wider range of threats than a constant onslaught of ninjas. Gao’s telekinesis was cool, but why didn’t the others develop some sort of power? Perhaps Sowande’s could’ve been the ability to increase paranoia and fear in those around him, just like the people who’d captured him in his story were afraid of the Hand barricade around their base. He could’ve been the MCU version of Mr. Fear, perhaps. If that had been the case, while it would’ve been a little too similar to Avengers and Loki’s scepter, at least a Danny whose fears and paranoia had been spiked wouldn’t have looked like an idiot for trying to fight the others when they just wanted him to lay low. An enemy with a power like that would’ve also been a great, distinct challenge from the physical threats the team faced as well as a way to look at the heroes’ deepest fears. Regardless of having power or not, Sowande’s story was truly imposing, so I wish we’d seen it come to fruition in some manner. Alexandra pointed out that they didn’t even try to rescue him and while I thought that was a funny acceptance of how that plot petered out, I was left to wonder why they didn’t try.

I’m not the first to say it, but I wish the Hand had attacked the police station everyone’s loved ones were staying in, forcing the Defenders to rush to save them. I really wish Sowande’s threat against the heroes’ friends had come to fruition even while they were in police custody; the Hand’s attempt to rescue him could have easily been kidnapping everyone the heroes cared about and offering a trade (as well as a way for his story to come true for our heroes). Misty, Colleen, Claire, Trish, and Karen protecting Foggy and Malcolm while holding off the Hand as best they could until help arrived could’ve been a great, tense sequence! In terms of character, it could’ve acted as a callback to Karen killing Wesley (Toby Leonard Moore) and potentially needing to take Hand lives to protect the people she cared about could’ve given us an idea of where her opinion on Punisher’s methods had landed. Trish dipping back into Nuke’s (Wil Traval) super-drugs—maybe she’d kept a few because she didn’t feel safe—would’ve been another cool callback and potentially a hint towards her heroic Hellcat persona. An attack also would’ve been a smarter use of Colleen’s past with the Hand—since she’d know their methods and plans of attack (and even individual ninjas!)—than Bakuto trying to recruit her again was. It would’ve paid off Claire’s self-defense training as well. A decimated police force would’ve taken the cops out of the Midland Circle bombing scene too, answering a few questions about why they were so willing to cover it up. They could’ve also played with the Hand agents who’d infiltrated New York’s infrastructure here, with some of the cops turning on the heroes’ friends and threatening them from inside the station as well. Aside from upping the stakes dramatically, that would’ve helped push Misty towards vigilantism even more.

I wish Alexandra would’ve utilized the secret Hand agents positioned throughout New York to manipulate the city against the Defenders. Unless they were the masked cannon fodder ninjas (and if they were, what happened to the undead ones Matt couldn’t sense?), where were they? Part of this wish is me thinking a more immediate doomsday plot than the city falling due to excavating the dragon bones would’ve upped the stakes in the final battle. Elaboration on what the Hand wanted after securing their immortality and returning to K’un-Lun once more (and what Elektra was going to do differently as leader) would’ve helped in that area too. However, writing this review led me to realize that the real doomsday threat was nothing changing. I think, in addition to wanting to go back to K’un-Lun, the Hand were looking to maintain the status quo, because it gives them their power. If that’s the case, I think it’s kind of impressive that they are so unconcerned with time that they’ll spend all this effort to infiltrate New York’s infrastructure just to secure their plan to destroy it in the excavation of the dragon bones; the city itself doesn’t matter at all, it’s their lives. And once New York is gone, they’ll just move on to the next city and infiltrate it to feed their power.

And really, what better enemy for heroes who represent the downtrodden is there than the system itself? The hidden Hand agents would’ve been the perfect way to dramatize the status quo being held in stasis by Alexandra and Co., so I think not utilizing them was the biggest misstep of the show. True, Winter Soldier and Agents of SHIELD already played this card with Hydra, but Iron Fist introduced a similar situation and it should’ve been utilized instead of ignored. Given the Defenders are civilians, the impact of the upper class keeping the lower classes down would’ve been much more relevant than the similar reveal in the lives of super-spies. For one thing, they could’ve personally threatened the heroes’ lives: Luke could’ve faced getting sent back to jail, the suspicion around Jessica over John Raymond’s murder could’ve become a full-blown frame, Matt could’ve been threatened with being disbarred, and Danny could’ve faced losing his seat on the Rand board of directors (which would’ve erased a fair chunk of his privilege). All of these factors could’ve pushed the heroes to their limits as they struggled with how far they’d go to preserve the lives they’d built, and what they’d do if those lives fell apart. This miniseries should’ve been an all-out war between the Defenders and the Hand’s operatives so that they could ultimately clear the deck—and the city—of Hand agents. At first, I didn’t think Defenders felt as relevant as the individual series have—Daredevil dealt with gentrification, Jessica Jones with sexism and abuse, and Luke Cage with racial inequality and injustice—and making the Hand’s larger goal of maintaining the status quo clearer would’ve been a solid way to make the show feel more timely. Those in power trying to retain their control over the system and the Defenders—just so they could extend their own lives at the cost of millions of innocent civilians, no less—would’ve perfectly contrasted with Elektra’s attempt to define herself and the heroes’ attempt to cast off that power and forge new lives for themselves.

General Notes Ultimately, I liked Defenders and I can’t wait for more, but it felt too short. It mostly worked as one 8-hour story, but I wish they’d had another five episodes to flesh things out more. The miniseries did a great job of introducing each main character and providing enough information that viewers could’ve missed any of the previous series and not felt lost, while at the same time not feeling repetitive for those of us who’ve seen everything. The establishing bits we got of the heroes felt fresh because they were at least half-steps into their new lives rather than retreads of their entire history. I liked that Marvel TV head Jeph Loeb had each of the individual series’ creators go over the Defenders scripts to make sure their characters were consistent with what they were doing outside the miniseries. It’s nice to know the heroes’ main series are the driving force behind this corner of the MCU, not the crossovers or universe-wide plots.

I liked S.J. Clarkson’s direction in the first two episodes; everyone was filmed through gates and other obscuring scenery, giving the impression that they were physically walled off from each other. The color palettes for each character also helped sell the idea that they all came from different corners of the world (and Twitter commenters pointed out that their colors converge in the sign for the Chinese restaurant where they have their first real conversation!). I wish Avengers had leaned more into the disparate tones and textures of each hero’s background like Defenders did, rather than going for a glossy one-size-fits-all feel. The more contrast in each character’s background, the better the clash will be when they finally meet. At the same time, Clarkson included transitions like one character flipping up a hoodie while the next flips theirs down; that was a neat way to transition between storylines that subconsciously builds to the team-up. Likewise, John Paseno’s score blended each hero’s music quite well. The one musical moment I wasn’t a big fan of was the Wu Tang Clan used over the climactic fight; used anywhere else in the series, it would’ve been fine, but it didn’t give the epic impression that fight should’ve had. I wish they’d gone with an orchestral Defenders theme for that moment. I also loved the opening titles: they brought back the cityscape idea from Daredevil, Jessica Jones, and Luke Cage that made Hell’s Kitchen and Harlem feel like characters unto themselves. Depicting New York in each hero’s color was another great way to display their differences while emphasizing that they all had a common stake in this city.

Moments like Foggy getting Luke out of prison and Luke and Danny running into each other on a case were really natural, simple connections between shows. When Foggy was told to keep Jones out of Hogarth’s (Carrie-Anne Moss) firm’s business, the handoff to Matt—who then became Jessica’s lawyer—was smooth and part of a nice, continual build of connections before the team finally converged on Midland Circle. The Defenders’ casual conversation in the Chinese restaurant worked really well to bond them into a single unit, even if Danny remained the odd one out. It’s probably more a function of the plot than his character, since Jones’ ribs at Daredevil’s costume aren’t much different from everyone discounting Rand’s experience with the supernatural, but it felt like Matt, Luke, and Jessica formed a stronger bond with each other than they did with Danny. He’s also removed from the team, so the rest of them have more time to bond without him. I wish the Hand had utilized more of the supernatural—that’s the one area Defenders seemed to back off from when blending tones early on—and it probably would’ve helped Danny come into the team’s good graces faster if they could see examples of the supernatural happening around them. It also could’ve made him the team’s supernatural expert, giving him a specific role to play besides “brash new guy.” Otherwise, the series blended the tones of its forebears very well.

As much as the miniseries seemed to back off of the supernatural outside of resurrections and the Iron Fist, I loved that there was an actual, literal dragon skeleton under the city! I assume the dragons were buried, domed over, and had cities built on top of them to obscure their locations, but it would’ve been nice to get confirmation of that. An extensive excavation of the dragon skeleton as the cause of New York’s “fall” wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but I didn’t mind it. Perhaps there should’ve been a more epic cause of the city’s destruction than a sink hole, like the monks of K’un-Lun had blessed the cities to stand eternally over the dragons and if the dome were breached the city would be cursed by its imminent destruction or something. Still, in hindsight I think the normal, logical result of removing the dragon’s skeleton is a little underwhelming, but not disappointing.

The Netflix series have an issue with connecting to the larger MCU, but there’s one area that I think really should’ve been touched on here. As I saw pointed out in an IGN comment section, Luke, Jessica, and Danny should’ve had to sign the Sokovia Accords as part of the Midland Circle cover-up. I liked that breaking the law was a legitimate concern for these street level, civilian heroes, and slapping them with the Accords would’ve been a good way to re-emphasize that status. It would’ve been particularly clever if even after the Hand’s hidden agents were routed from their positions throughout the city, the heroes still had to sign the Accords because of a different status quo. Once Matt returns, his unregistered status could add increasing pressure to Daredevil as he goes forward, while the others could be forced to operate within the constraints of the Accords.

All in all, Marvel’s Defenders is definitely worth watching, even if it falls short of the epic final confrontation with the Hand it could’ve been. Even so, there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s solidly good. The heroes’ bond—particularly between Matt, Luke, and Jessica (with hints of good material between Luke and Danny to be mined in the future)—was the show’s biggest strength and always a lot of fun. Defenders doesn’t function like a standalone crossover and that’s a great thing: the heroes come out of this changed and I can’t wait to see where they go as their shows continue! Until then, if you’re not following the show’s Twitter accounts I highly suggest it; they’re written in-character and they interact with each other, busting each other’s chops just like on the show!

I’m definitely ready for another Defenders miniseries!

#marvel #defenders #daredevil #matt murdock #charlie cox #jessica jones #kristen ritter #luke cage #mike colter #the hand #alexandra reid #elektra natchios #elodie yung #stick #scott glenn #claire temple #rosario dawson #madame gao #wai ching ho

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deadcactuswalking · 5 years ago

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REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 1st December 2019

REVIEWING THE CHARTS SPEEDRUN – 1:20 (WR)

Top 10

For the eighth consecutive week, “Dance Monkey” by Tones and I is at #1.

Up a whopping 17 spaces off of the debut last week is “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi hits number-two, becoming his fifth top ten hit in the UK.

At number-three, we have Stormzy’s big debut for the final single from his upcoming sophomore album, Heavy is the Head. With the album release, this can likely get to #1, but for now, “Own It” featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy has debuted at number-three. It’s Stormzy’s 19th UK Top 40 hit and eighth placement in the top 10, Sheeran’s 53rd UK Top 40 hit (Jesus Christ – that might actually be an inaccurate figure since I manually counted) and 27th top 10, and Burna Boy’s highest-ever peaking song and both his third UK Top 40 and top 10 hit.

The two new top three entries sadly crush Dua Lipa’s hopes at a #1, as “Don’t Start Now” is down two spaces to number-four. Let’s hope the Christmas period isn’t too rough on this track.

Billie Eilish’s “everything i wanted”, is also down two off of the debut at number-five, fairing a lot better than I expected it to, to be honest.

Lewis Capaldi is two-for-two in the top 10, as “Bruises” is steady at number-six.

Unfortunately, Arizona Zervas is up to number-seven with the clunker that is “ROXANNE”... trust me, I’ll be covering this in about a month, although not to that much of an extent. My year-end worst list seems to be pretty small and uninteresting this year, actually.

“Memories” by Maroon 5 is down three spaces to number-eight. God, that sounded like an AI-written sentence.

At number-nine, we have Ed Sheeran’s pathetic “South of the Border” featuring Camila Cabello and Cardi B continuing to fall down two spaces this week.

Finally, at #10, finishing off the top 10, is “Down Like That” by KSI, Rick Ross, Lil Baby and S-X, becoming what I’m pretty sure is the first UK top 10 hit for all artists here, although I could be wrong about that. Congratulations, I suppose, although the song is far from great.

Climbers

I am my own best source when fact-checking what the BBC site says. I don’t go to the Official Chart Company’s UK Singles Chart, I don’t go to ACharts, I go to last week’s REVIEWING THE CHARTS, especially for situations like this, in which BBC messes it up so badly that I’m confused to how they messed it up in the first place. BBC says that “Pump it Up” by DJ Endor, is down nine to #29. The issue is that it is placed after #20, and #22 continues after it. After looking at my climbers section last week, I found that “Pump it Up” by Endor was already at #29... last week. So, “Pump it Up” by Endor is up eight spaces to #21... and “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles is up seven spaces off of the debut to #28. BBC got that one wrong, too.

Fallers

There are only a couple here. We have the unfortunate continuing fall for the great “Must Be” by J Hus down seven spots only on its third week down to #20, as well as a couple of massive songs that have probably had their on-demand streaming numbers cut. It sounds about time for “Ride It” by Regard featuring Jay Sean and “Circles” by Post Malone to be affected by that arbitrary chart rule and they have, as they’re now down 21 and 26 spaces respectively, at #25 and #35. Oh, and “Paper Cuts” by Dave continues to flop down 10 spaces at #40.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

We have a pretty plentiful number of drop-outs and, uncommon for the UK Top 40, two returning entries. The drop-outs are all reasonable and in order of their last chart position (For now, at least), we have “Buss Down” by Aitch featuring ZieZie getting its streaming cut from #21, Dermot Kennedy’s ballad “Outnumbered” finishing its run at #23, “Jerry Sprunger” by Tory Lanez featuring T-Pain flubbering off of the debut last week from #32 after Chixtape 5 fails to continue its hype beyond the first week, “Post Malone” by Sam Feldt featuring RANI dropping out from #34, “Follow God” by Kanye West embarrassing itself out from #36, “Opp Thot” by Poundz suffering from the amount of new and returning entries from #37 (This one’s the most likely to rebound), “Lover” by Taylor Swift dropping out from #38 despite returning last week and the release of the first dance remix, and finally, as expected from last week, “Take Me Back to London” by Ed Sheeran featuring Stormzy and remixed by Sir Spyro featuring Aitch and Jaykae, is out from #40. Hopefully, I never have to type that mouthful again. Our first returning entry is “Orphans” by Coldplay returning to #27 after dropping out from last week, thanks to the album release. Our second, well...

IT’S CHRISTMAS INNIT

It’s starting! We have a second returning entry this week in the top 40, and it’s “All I Want Christmas is You” by Mariah Carey at #34, which is making a play for #1 in the US. I’ve already reviewed the song last year, and I just love this song even more now, to be honest. That’s the only Christmas song in the top 40 (For now), but I figured I should just mention the other Christmas songs in the top 75. “Fairytale of New Yorks” by the Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl is back at #71, “Last Christmas” by WHAM! is at #43... and that’s all for now. We’ll definitely have more to fill out the new It’s Christmas Innit section next week.

NEW ARRIVALS

#39 – “Can’t Fight This Feeling” – Bastille featuring the London Contemporary Orchestra

Produced by Mara Carlyle and Hugh Brunt – Peaked at #4 in Scotland

It’s not exactly an unpopular opinion to admit that the original REO Speedwagon version of “Can’t Fight This Feeling” from 1984 is an incredibly well-written pop song, especially for the time, but real talk: I don’t like that version of the song at all. While I can’t deny the anthemic chorus, the song is such a slog at nearly five freaking minutes and it is exhaustingly dull. I was actually quite interested in hearing the full version of the cover, as the John Lewis Christmas advert always has a hit single to go along with it, in fact the next song I’ll be reviewing includes an artist who got their big break from John Lewis... and it’s only three minutes, and better yet, features the London Contemporary Orchestra in their first credited UK Top 40 appearance. I also like Dan Smith’s voice a hell of a lot more than I do Kevin Cronin’s. Notably, for a bit of trivia, this isn’t a John Lewis-exclusive single, as it features on a Waitrose advert as well. Huh. Anyway, is Bastille’s eighth UK Top 40 hit any good? Well, I feel it’s misleading to call it a Bastille song as this is very much Dan Smith crooning over an admittedly pretty gorgeous and busy orchestral rendition of the original Speedwagon single. Smith does sound overwhelmed in the mix by the strings at times, and the dude has a couple weak moments at times, especially during the verses, but he mostly holds his own and I’m always a sucker for some well-placed horns riffing out of nowhere. Even then, I don’t think the song is all that great, and nearly two minutes in, there’s a really abrupt, distorted string riff that clips heavily and it just sounds gross. Do I prefer it to the original REO Speedwagon song? Of course I do – it’s nearly half the length and I’m a fan of both Bastille and well... the Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack, as the tones of this instrumentation do resemble that at points (Which is never a bad thing). Oh, and I love the addition of the twinkly pianos at the end as a nice touch. Otherwise, it’s pretty good, but I don’t see it reaching the heights of the Lily Allen’s cover of “Somewhere Only We Know”, also from the John Lewis advert, that peaked at #1 in 2013. I guess it didn’t warm the cockles of my cockles.

#36 – “Into the Unknown” – Idina Menzel and AURORA – from the Frozen II soundtrack

Produced by Kristen Anderson-Lopez, Robert Lopez and Christophe Beck – Peaked at #55 in the US and #5 in South Korea

I don’t know or care about Frozen II. I am not a film person; I watch about five movies a year, and they typically aren’t boring Disney sequels that pose no interest for someone who has already seen the first film. I don’t think the sequel will ever reach the absolute phenomena that the original Frozen was because that era starting from 2013 is impossible to match, even for the monopoly that is Disney. This is Idina Menzel, or as most people know her, Elsa’s fourth UK Top 40 hit excluding those that she had as part of the Glee cast and AURORA’s second after the indie darling’s brief stint of fame she experienced due to covering the Oasis B-side from 1994 that was attached to a standalone single that peaked at #3 and got them sued by Neil Innes of Monty Python fame. AURORA’s version was featured in a John Lewis advert in 2015 and peaked at #11, and then she became a folktronica-influenced art pop songstress, who is still getting calls from companies to promote their products, despite the inaccessibility of her newer material. Regardless, this is “Let it Go” part two, or at least Disney’s attempt at one, and I have no idea what relevance this has to the film, but the song itself is okay, although it struggles, as do a lot of cinematic, orchestral show tunes, with structure and a lack of transitions that make the shifts in sections any less abrupt, as at times, it does feel like a certain string section is off-beat simply because you’re never prepared for what’s coming next. AURORA’s verse has a lot of odd empty space, and overall, her presence seems to kill the momentum of the song entirely, even if the chorus has a lot of swell despite some painful, dry mixing that Disney tends to have. Also, this will not be the next “Let it Go”. It’s way too disjointed and not nearly catchy enough, and nobody will be able to hit the belting notes these guys do in the chorus... except maybe Brendon Urie, who in fact did hit those notes in his inferior cover that debuted at #74 (Might be one of the first times since at least 2016 where both the US and the UK have had the same song twice on their charts). Weezer have a song on this soundtrack, too, called “Lost in the Woods”, and I kind of like it, to be honest, with some pretty cool, chugging guitar riffs and great harmonies from Cuomo in the pre-chorus. It’s kind of reminiscent fo the White Album, but I digress. “Into the Unknown” is listenable; next!

#35 – “French Kisses” – ZieZie featuring Aitch

Produced by Tré Jean-Marie

This might not be listenable, however. Aitch was the worst part of their last collaboration, “Buss Down”, which ironically dropped out this week (It’s almost like they called the Official Charts Company and asked them to switch the two out), with ZieZie being equally mediocre, although in his chorus, he was pretty cool, and in the verse, he was vile. I don’t have high expectations is what I’m saying. What a fitting producer for this song, though, and it’s ZieZie’s third and Aitch’s sixth UK Top 40 hit, so... eh? I actually quite like the vintage French vocal and string sample used here, but it’s abruptly drowned out by a bass-heavy Afroswing beat that sounds pretty okay but ZieZie doesn’t play it cool here, reaching into his relatively non-existent higher register in both the chorus and his verse, although admittedly that pre-chorus has some swagger. The post-chorus, on the other hand, has a nasal repetition of nonsense sounds, and Aitch just... Jesus, man, what the hell WAS that? He sounds half-dead, and his monotonous flow is continually harbouring on off-beat! His lyrical content is far from interesting either as he follows the main theme of the song, which is “I’ll give this girl French kisses and make her girl, “ooh-la-la”.” It’s a bit of a flimsy concept, and to quote a geography teacher, there isn’t enough place-specific detail to really excuse this dreck. This is pretty disposable.

#31 – “Loyal” – PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake

Produced by Dregotjuice, OG Parker and 40 – Peaked at #63 in the US and #19 in Canada

Alright, well, I’m surprised this debuted so high but I’m not surprised it’s here. I’ve only ever liked PARTYNEXTDOOR on uncredited guest appearances (“Ghost Town” by Kanye and “Ratchet Happy Birthday” by Drake) so that doesn’t exactly bode well for him. I assume this will be a very Views or More Life-type song, which also doesn’t bode well as those albums are some of Drake’s worst but obviously have a very large PARTYNEXTDOOR influence. I don’t have much hope for this, but it’s PARTYNEXTDOOR’s third UK Top 40 hit (First as lead artist), and God knows how many of those Drake has at this point. The song starts off well with some lo-fi keys that could make a very smooth R&B ballad... but then the snares come in and it’s obvious this is some garbage. PARTYNEXTDOOR sounds checked-out as does Drake, although at times PARTY decides to just belt and it sounds freaking awful. It’s almost hilarious, actually. To be honest, the synths paint a really pretty atmosphere behind the Young Thug impersonator with the out-of-place “Ayy” ad-libs and the 808s that cover any sense of lead melody. This barely has a groove or melody to catch onto, and Drake’s heavily Auto-Tuned which leads me to believe he just came into the studio for about five minutes whilst drunk. It sounds like both of these lads are drunk, actually. Honestly, I’ve been nice. This is disposable, mediocre garbage, although the outro does seem promising, with some nice strings and cute synths... but I doubt that’ll lead to anything good on the album, if it even does. I doubt PARTY has that foresight. God, this guy is really only good for uncredited backing vocals, huh?

#16 – “New Dior” – DigDat and D-Block Europe

Produced by RXR Music

Okay, this song debuting high shouldn’t be a surprise. D-Block Europe get this high purely off of YouTube and Spotify every few weeks, and they’ve gotten to their highest peak of #16 before with “Kitchen Kings” and even “Nookie” featuring Lil Baby. DigDat, on the other hand, has never reached this high with one of his three UK Top 40 singles, not even “Guten Tag” with Hardy Caprio, which I’m still impressed by and don’t think he’ll make anything as good as that anytime soon, especially not with these two hacks. Young Adz and... the other one have consistently proved to be some of the most untalented yet also the funniest duo from this crop of British rap of recent years. I can’t take these guys seriously, and I know they want me to. This starts as all D-Block Europe songs do, with some incoherent murmuring from Young Adz and nonsensical guitar strumming, but this one has a lot of momentum initially, with Young Adz’s comedic inflections in the chorus (Which is all he has: for once, he doesn’t provide a verse) failing to cover up the hilariously cheap producer tag... but Goddamn it, I like it. I’ll admit, this is a pretty decent song all things considered. First of all, Sean Donoghue, the mixer of this song, sorted out the issues D-Block Europe constantly have with vocal mixing, and to be honest, now that I’ve got to hear his voice a lot better, Young Adz may be more talented of a singer than I thought, although he sticks to a pretty monotone cadence here. In the post-chorus, Young Adz genuinely raps pretty well, and the 808 hits that pound through the beat are a cool addition, as are the yells that act as screaming ad-libs throughout the chorus. DigDat is on-brand, and by that I mean a misogynist and untrusting gangster, but he has two verses here, and they both detail his court case with his brother – not in great detail, but it’s really interesting how he depicts his materialistic mindset failing to let prison tame him. It’s kind of emotional, which is something I never expected D-Block Europe to be. Dirtbike LB is just extra weight as always, although his line about telling his mother that Percocets aren’t vitamins is kind of funny. For once, I think these guys have won me over... well, this song has. I still don’t think these guys are any good, and this may be a complete fluke, but I don’t care. This song is good.

#3 – “Own It” – Stormzy featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy

Produced by Fred Gibson and Jay Weathers

Somehow, I have less hope in this song than I do D-Block Europe’s. Since I’ve already said everything else about this song in the top 10 section, I can skip the pre-amble and get this done pretty quickly. I like the sporadic vocal samples, they have a crowd cheering effect and a sound you can genuinely attribute to found footage rather than some sampled pack. Stormzy doesn’t sound great here, in fact, he sounds asleep and oddly distorted, clipping in the mix several times in the chorus. The synths here are airy and boring, the groove is stiff, the ad-libs are awkward and the beat cuts out for no reason when they come in. Burna Boy comes in with Stormzy on the chorus and for a random bridge / interlude, so I don’t know his purpose here and it makes the song feel very disjointed. The extra glittery synths in the post-chorus are really nice-sounding, and Ed Sheeran can sing better than any of these guys, so he somehow gets the crown of the best verse here, especially due to the harmonies with his multi-tracked vocals and Burna Boy’s. I don’t like Ed, but he definitely brought his talent here, even though his vocodered contributions on the chorus are pretty gross, in fact the mixing on the song entirely is pretty gross – and muddy. Everything sounds a lot more distorted and loud than it should. Is it disappointing? For Stormzy, yes, but for a Stormzy collaboration with Ed Sheeran and extra baggage Burna Boy, it’s about what I expected.

Conclusion

Well, Best of the Week goes to... DigDat and D-Block Europe. Colour me surprised, but “New Dior” is actually pretty good, and Honourable Mention goes to Bastille and the London Contemporary Orchestra for their improvement on the REO Speedwagon classic, “Can’t Fight This Feeling”. Worst of the Week is definitely going to PARTYNEXTDOOR and Drake for “Loyal”, and Dishonourable Mention... uh, sure, ZieZie and Aitch. “French Kisses”. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank and I’ll see you next week!

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chicagoindiecritics · 5 years ago

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New from Every Movie Has a Lesson by Don Shanahan: REWIND REVIEW: Where’d You Go, Bernadette

(Image: cnn.com)

For an occasional new segment, Every Movie Has a Lesson will cover upcoming home media releases combining an “overdue” or “rewind” film review, complete with life lessons, and an unboxed look at special features.

WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE

There are parallels between which filmmaker Richard Linklater always seems to operate. It was either “free-wheeling fun” or “poignant realism” with “scant middle ground.” Call them Party Linklater and Deep Linklater. The question mark skipped from the title of Where’d You Go, Bernadette can be placed in the sentence of which Linklater did we get? Welcome to the uncharted and unexpected “scant middle ground” where grandiose fiction is the party and odd eccentricity is the depth.

Neurotically charming, yet misshapen in many ways, Where’d You Go, Bernadette is wholly unique from the Texan and Hollywood outsider. The movie has the equal ability to disarm and disgust depending on your perspective or experience with the Maria Semple source material. Non-readers will float with the staccato blustering and the Antarctic kayak currents of fancy. Ardent fans will wonder where all the scintillating mystery went that gave merit to all the haphazard happenings beset on the family of narrator Balakrishna Branch, affectionately known as “Bee” and played by debuting talent Emma Nelson.

ANTICIPATORY SET AND PRIOR KNOWLEDGE:

Bee is the uber-precocious 15-year-old daughter of a pair of brilliant-minded, attracted opposites. Her father is the Microsoft-backed tech innovator Elgin Branch, played by Billy Crudup, earning industry kudos and TED Talk stages with groundbreaking new mind-to-text recognition software. The extroverted and borderline workaholic is matched by his reclusive and agoraphobic wife and Bee’s titular mother, played by Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett and her bangs. Detailed by exposition-minded video essays viewed by characters on screen, Bernadette Fox was once the toast of Los Angeles and the most brilliant architectural design savant of her generation before professional disappointment burned and stomped over her creativity.

LESSON #1: “THE BRAIN IS A DISCOUNTING MECHANISM” — Bernadette’s own explanatory observations of self-diagnosis are fueled by empirical study, plenty of science, and a side of doubting bullshit. It’s true that the brain looks for risk and signals accordingly. To call it a design flaw for danger instead of joy, however, is where you squint at the woman’s nuttiness to a degree. Still, this background and Cate’s delivery of it all sheds light on the movie’s nervous system.

For years, Bernadette has buried herself in two projects: being a mom and endlessly tinkering with restoring a huge derelict old school building into the family’s home in the Seattle burbs. Anxiety has grown into to insomnia and a racing heart during social and domestic confrontations. Her most common clashes are anything requiring Bernadette to interact and keep up with the joneses of the hoity-toity private school Bee attends (something matching of Semple’s inspiration). That judgy crowd is led by the granola and snooty next door neighbor Audrey (Kristen Wiig) and her minion Soo-Lin (TV actress Zoe Chao) who works with Elgin.

LESSON #2: DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES ON FAILING LIVES — We learn a great deal about where Elgin and Bernadette stand in a dynamite sequence of two separated venting sessions. Elgin has approached a psychiatrist (Judy Greer) about how to deal with his wife. In a different location, Bernadette catches up with an old colleague (Laurence Fishburne) that she hasn’t seen in years. Deftly constructed with surgical editing from Linklater regular Sandra Adair, his lament combines with her rant. His conclusion is help while hers is to create, showing just how far apart the two former lovebirds are now.

Outside of her impressionable daughter, Bernadette’s verbose and unrestrained external monologue is received and filtered through “Manjula,” her unseen automated text-to-speech personal assistant service. Even with the prospect of an Antarctic cruise vacation for Bee on the horizon, all of the loose threads of Bernadette’s current course are unraveling to several breaking points. Everyone can see these potential disasters coming except her and the loyal Bee who considers her mother her best friend.

MY TAKE:

LESSON #3: LOVE SOMEONE’S FLAWS — The movie presents a family that still loves the mess that Bernadette has become. Her husband, for all his worry, remains a willing confidante. The nearly unconditional love between daughter and mother is tremendous. Mom defends her daughter’s independence and the resilient girl gives it right back in the face of the catty other moms. Accepting and inspiring familial love trumps every quirk or mistake and the film forces a great many syrup-coated steps to ensure that happens.

Showing off as much if not more unstable petulance as she did winning the Oscar for Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine, Cate Blanchett bring a dizzying level of detail to her characterization of depressed pizzazz and wallowing pluck and play Bernadette Fox. There is never a wasted movement or breath with Cate. This is complete immersion and her vocal and physical expressions and actions of exasperation are fascinating to watch. Sure, maybe we’ve seen this level of difficulty before from the newly-minted 50-year-old, but the capability and brilliance she brings to these odd roles is nearly second to none. Put her right there next to Meryl Streep where her dedication to any and every challenge cannot be questioned.

Across from that celebrated star of rich and storied career heights is Emma Nelson, the rookie in her first movie. Experience be damned, she becomes the emotional linchpin of the whole darn thing. Every arc of personal improvement for Bernadette lifts one for Bee and the first-timer exudes mettle and moxie. That girl is going places besides just her next year of high school.

Admittedly, Where’d You Go, Bernadette is tricky business for Richard Linklater. Semple’s best-seller is a uniquely mystery-driven collection of documents, emails, and transcripts, stuff not easy or clear to translate on screen without heavy narration or the wild visual creativity of something like Searching. Linklater and the Me and Orson Welles screenwriting team of Holly Gent and Vince Palmo bent and stripped away that hop-scotch of truth and “you never know everything” intrigue to fashion something more straight-forward and safe as a character piece narrative. In doing so, the resulting film skimps on opportunities to wreck more havoc in personal lives. The fits and spurts of how far to raise eyebrows comes out in the film’s unevenness. Luckily, the acting is steadfast and satisfying.

LESSON #4: TAKE A JOURNEY OF SELF-DISCOVERY — Critique aside, the clear goal for Linklater was to create or hone something more pleasant than a tawdry yarn of competing gossip. The third act of this movie takes a walkabout-ish excursion and turn for Bernadette and company brings aims positivity to elevate the doldrums of everyone’s downward spiral. Choose your journey to reinvigorate your soul. The Antarctica location doesn’t matter. It’s the fact you take one when you need it most.

3 STARS

EXTRA CREDIT:

(Image: filmlinc.org)

The 20th Century Fox home media edition of Where’d You Go, Bernadette offers a tiny sprinkle of background on Linklater’s feature film. Tiny does mean tiny. There are only three special features and one of them is a 26-picture gallery of production stills. That’s hardly a deep dive. Someday, a talkative casual guy like director Richard Linklater needs to grace us with an audio commentary on the level with his legendary Dazed & Confused track. Until then, these vignette crumbs made the Trailer Park Content house will have to do.

The main feature is the 15-minute “Bringing Bernadette to Life.” It’s a sharp behind-the-scenes retrospective on how this project came to be with its assembled talent. The blue-jeans-casual director talks about how he was introduced to and dissected Maria Semple’s book with his trusted screenwriting collaborators Holly Gent and Vince Palmo. Linklater was captivated from the opening line of “Just because you can’t fully know somebody doesn’t mean you can’t try” while Cate Blanchett called it a “bugger” to adapt with its format of letters and emails. Richard’s goal was the show everything about the main character and not shy away from raw truths and painful confrontations.

Blanchett was the actress Linklater pictured while reading Semple’s novel and came to realize she was the only one to pull off this discombobulated lead role. The Oscar winner puts in her interview time in the feature discussing all the quirks and themes. For a fun fact, Blanchett wore Semple’s own sunglasses from when she wrote the novel. Furthermore, nice bouquets are also shared by Emma Nelson, Billy Crudup, and Kristen Wiig. Each player speaking on the main character and her wavelengths.

The second mini-doc is the five-minute “Who Is Bernadette.” For a movie about thinking and talking out loud, we get the talent thinking and talking out loud. It’s more of the same with the edited montages set to the voiceover sharing of the cast and crew. It’s not much, but the insight is appreciated, especially with Semple herself offering her stamp of approval. All in all, the special features won’t be the reason one purchases this movie. They’ll be there for the finished film itself.

LOGO DESIGNED BY MEENTS ILLUSTRATED (#843)

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kevinpolowy · 8 years ago

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'The Lost City of Z' Star Robert Pattinson on His Epic Beard, Embarrassing Amazon Habit, and If He'd Ever Return to the 'Twilight' World

Robert Pattinson on April 5 at the ‘Lost City of Z’ premiere (Photo: Steve Granitz/WireImage)

Robert Pattinson has been waiting for his new movie The Lost City of Z to be revealed to moviegoers for nearly a decade. That’s about how long ago the 30-year-old Twilight alum was first approached by writer-director James Gray for his adaptation of David Grann’s popular non-fiction book about explorer Percy Fawcett’s long and dangerous search in the early 20th century for a hidden indigenous civilization in the Amazon.

Pattinson hung with the project through multiple lead changes (from Brad Pitt to Benedict Cumberbatch to, finally, Charlie Hunnam, who plays Fawcett). He even outgrew the role he was initially in the running for: Percy’s son Jack, played by Spider-Man Homecoming star Tom Holland. Pattison now portrays Henry Costin, a minor character in the book expanded for the screen, Fawcett’s hard-drinking, thick-bearded aide-de-camp. (The movie opens in theaters on Friday.)

In an exclusive interview with Yahoo Movies, Pattinson talked about the risks he’s attempted to take over the course of his career (even if no one noticed), if he’d ever consider returning to role of vampire Edward Cullen, and his embarrassing online habit that will pay dividends come one of his next films, Good Time.

How familiar were you with the source material for Lost City of Z? Had you read David Grann’s book? Yeah, James gave me the book when it was a totally different script. Or I may have read it long before there was even a script at all. I think at the time he was thinking about me to play Percy’s son. Because I must’ve only been about 21. And then I just kind of stayed with it as time went on, and it went through all these different casts. [Laughs]

It sounds like the script changed a lot over the years. What were the biggest changes made over time?When I first read it, it was a straight action movie, like Indiana Jones. It was this rip-roaring adventure movie, and not this kind of epic, elegant saga that takes place over 30 years.

Costin is a much more minor character in the book. What did you build off of to shape him? Well, I always thought with Percy’s character it would be a good idea to have a foil. I always interpreted Percy’s character as this man determined to fix the reputation that he thinks he’s deserved, and which his father has ruined for him…. He keeps going back to the jungle again and again and again, just to fix this insecurity. So I liked the idea of Costin being this character who basically had a total disregard for the English aristocracy or any kind of social climbing whatsoever. So he didn’t really want to bring anything back from the jungle, anyway. The entire point for him was just to go because he had nothing to live for in England.

Robert Pattinson in ‘The Lost City of Z’ (Photo: Amazon)

How much information was out there about the real guy? Any sense of his military career? Well, Costin in reality was a refrigerator salesman. There was an advert in the Times of London saying, “Adventurers Wanted.” That’s actually how he got the job. [Laughs] He was one of the only people who applied for it. But he was in the army — he was a physical fitness instructor. But really, I liked the craziness of just applying to be an adventurer.

You rock some pretty rad facial hair in this movie. Did that look grow on you (pun intended), or did you not care for it? By the end, I was definitely over it. But at least when you’re shooting a movie with your face covered, there’s very little makeup to be done. It was definitely, “Get out of bed, and that’s it” situation. That helped in the middle of the jungle.

You’ve played lead roles, you’ve taken supporting parts — this is more of a supporting role in an ensemble. Do you have a preference these days? There are certain directors I just really want to work with, and you bring what you can to a part. But in some ways it’s kind of nice [to play a supporting role]. It is a little bit liberating because you don’t have to concentrate on the narrative thrust of the story. You’re just purely thinking about character and just embellishing it a little bit. But with this, I would’ve played any part in it, pretty much.

Costin has some great lines in this movie. I think one of my favorites is when you say to Hunnam, “We’re too British for this jungle.” Did you guys feel out of your element filming in the jungles of Colombia? No, I really loved it. I guess in some ways, it was kind of hard. But it’s just incredible, going to work every day in a little boat, going up river in the middle of virgin jungle in Colombia. It was very, very close to being on vacation, to be honest. [Laughs]

Watch Pattinson and Hunnam in a scene from ‘The Lost City of Z:’

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But the type of vacation where you couldn’t eat anything? Well, yeah. There’s a certain degree of harshness, and we were trying to lose as much as weight as possible in a really short period of time. So I guess there’s that element to it. But there’s a reason those guys wanted to keep going back as well. It’s amazing.

Do you consider yourself pretty adventurous? Could your relate to that thirst for exploration? Yeah, definitely. I do sometimes find myself gravitating toward a job just because it’s shooting out in the middle of nowhere. If I’m shooting in a city, generally it can become a repetitive scenario. If you have anyone taking pictures on their phones, it just constantly reminds you of the reality of your life. And I find it becomes a little more difficult. Whereas if you’re out in the jungle and everyone is on the same page as you, you just sort of believe in character a little bit more.

What is your own personal Amazonian adventure? What is the biggest risk you’ve taken in your career so far? I don’t know: I’ve done things which I thought were going to be really risky, which ended up not being risky at all. I generally try to keep finding ways to push the envelope as much as I can, and whenever I get the opportunity to do it, I generally try to take it. But I don’t really worry about taking risks, to be honest.

What’s something that you thought was risky that ended up not being? I did this movie years ago called Bel Ami, which was at the height of all the Twilight stuff. It was this Guy de Maupassant novel about a guy who seduces women specifically to screw them out of their money and ruin their lives. I thought that was a relatively subversive choice to make at the time. [Laughs] And no one really seemed to think the same thing.

What is your relationship with your Twilight fanbase these days? Has the madness that surrounded your life calmed down at all? It’s definitely calmed down in terms of my everyday life, but mainly because I spend more time in London, which is totally different. And I’m doing more parts that just sort of interest me, while in a lot of ways taking a little bit of a step back just to learn and get better. I guess I’ve never really acknowledged what the fan base is, or even if I have one. [Laughs]

Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson in ‘Twilight’ (Photo: Summit)

Oh, you have one. But yeah, I’m always pretty curious about what people say afterwards, and who turns up, who likes the movie. It’s always kind of random. But I love it when someone who you just really wouldn’t expect says, “Oh, I liked you in this.”

What films have been most unexpected? It’s always just really strange. I’ve done a bunch of movies which I thought might’ve been impossible to be seen. There was this film Little Ashes, where I played Salvador Dalí, from years and years ago, and just the other day I was walking down the street and somebody came up and said, “Oh, that’s my favorite film!” You kind of forget that people even watch your films. [Laughs]

What do you think of all the universe building that is going on in Hollywood right now, and the possibility that they could reboot Twilight and expand its world? Could you ever see yourself playing Edward Cullen again? Really, they’re expanding it? So I’ll get my own spin-off? [Laughs]

Potentially! It could be called Edward: Homecoming. Yeah, exactly.

But would you ever dip back in if the opportunity presented itself? I mean, I’m always kind of curious. Anything where there’s a mass audience — or seemingly an audience for it — I always like the idea of subverting peoples’ expectations. So there could be some radical way of doing it, which could be quite fun. It’s always difficult when there’s no source material. But yeah, I’m always curious.

What type of role haven’t you been offered yet that you’re eager for? I sort of, to a fault, rely a little bit too much on being inspired by things that land on my doorstep. I literally just did this movie called Good Time, which I think is a really interesting role. But I would’ve never, ever predicted that I would’ve liked it. [Pattinson plays a New York bank robber running from the police.] I think that he’s basically the embodiment of an angry commenter on the internet.

That sounds great. Well, if you watch the movie you’ll probably be like, “Huh? What are you talking about?” But one of my favorite things to do — this is quite embarrassing — but you know how when you look on Amazon, and you see a product that’s got a consumer review that is so scathing, on like an electric toothbrush or something? Like, literally buying this toothbrush has ruined this person’s life. I always click on that person’s buying history, or their other reviews, and I’ll just read them for days and days. And I’m really amused. These people just have to vent this kind of furious anger on product reviews. I’ve always found that sort of character really interesting. [Laughs]