Tag Archives: disney

Jul 28 2024
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Movies

Movie Review – Deadpool and Wolverine (2024)

G’day 3.5 reader mates.

Time to throw a review on the barbie.

“Welcome to the MCU. You’ve come at a bad time.”

Such is Deadpool’s greeting to Wolverine and not a bad welcome to anyone who is just getting into the Marvel Cinematic Universe these days. What was once a great cinematic achievement i.e. Hollywood figuring out how to finagle multiple highly paid actors, writers and directors to get them to all tell stories that weaved their way into an over-arching narrative, it has since fizzled out into complete drek.

And it’s not the MCU alone. Movies in general are suffering. 3.5 readers, did you even notice that I didn’t even go to the movies for most of the month of June? Had this bad boy not come out, I probably would have skipped the popcorn for the entire month, which would have been great for my waistline, but I digress.

The good news is that this film is the best the MCU has offered in awhile and it fully makes fun of the fact that the last several installments have sucked really hard. I have to hand it to Disney for poking fun at themselves.

It also serves as a love letter to the early days of Marvel movies, those first entries in the late 90s and early 2000s, brought to us through Fox/Marvel collabs. If I name them then I will give away the many fun cameos so you’ll just have to go and watch yourself. If you were sentient during the Clinton/Bush years then you can already guess. It’s unfortunate these films often get panned when in reality, they were the canaries in the coal mine, the films that lighted the way that plotted the course toward the eventual MCU we came to know and love.

The plot? The merc with the mouth is back yet again and once again, he’s broken up with girlfriend Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). So depressed is he after being turned down for a job with the Avengers that he hangs up his swords and goes to work selling used cars for a living. Sad as that sounds, he still eeks out a life with his friends, the regulars from the previous films who stop by but sadly don’t have much of a role in this one. Come to think of it, I’m going to criticize this movie because Deadpool’s friends like Dopinder, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Weasel and so on really made all the jokes come alive. Weasel isn’t even in this one.

But for the uninitiated, way back on the dewy slopes of 2009, Ryan Reynolds starred in a critically panned, total flop of a Wolverine movie that sucked really hard. The intention was that RR’s side character, Wade Wilson, would be developed into Deadpool in a standalone movie but the film sucked so bad that the idea of a Deadpool film was shelved for nearly a decade. In the Deadpool films that came later, Deadpool makes fun of that movie often, going so far as to make jokes about Hugh Jackman’s aussie accent and so on.

So the collab we’ve long waited for is finally here and it is a fun buddy cop type movie.

The bad news? It mostly focuses on the TVA and I freaking hate the TVA. To the film’s credit, even Deadpool hates the TVA, pointing out that you really needed to watch a specific episode of Loki to understand any of this shit. Marvel has gone really off the deep end when it comes to multi-versal theory, time travel and timelines and its all very silly and confusing, such that I don’t even attempt to try to understand any of it.

The overall problem? Wolverine is so important to our universe that because he died in 2018’s Logan, our universe is now disintegrating. Thus, it’s up to Deadpool to travel the many universes and find a suitable Wolverine to return to our timeline and help him save the day from the big bad and repair our timeline from certain doom.

POSITIVES: It’s a lot of fun. It’s the best Marvel has made in a while. It’s intent is to entertain whereas so many Marvel movies these days seem highly agenda driven. The fun trip down memory lane to characters from the early days of Marvel movies is great and done well.

NEGATIVES: I didn’t laugh as much at this one. There were a few good laughs but I recall watching Deadpool 1 and 2 and being in absolute gutbusting, tears in my eyes hysterics the entire time. That wasn’t the case for me, though I noticed many in the theater did, so maybe I’m just getting old and not getting the humor. The film did drag butts into seats, which is rare these days. My theater even had a guy in a Wolverine suit taking pics with customers which was fun.

Speaking of the Wolvy suit, Jackman wears the infamous yellow suit for the first time and its a nice touch. Deadpool, who breaks the 4th wall throughout, occasionally busting on Wolverine’s actor, dumps on Jackman for being too much of a priss to have not worn a bright yellow cartoon suit for the past 20 years.

This is Deadpool’s first foray into the Avengers universe. To the best of my nerd knowledge, Deadpool and Wolverine were classified as X-Men and were therefore owned by Fox and as such, were not allowed to go romping about with Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk and other properties that went to Disney when the House of Mouse bought Marvel.

However, Disney has since bought Fox and now the X-Men and the Avengers can be BFFS on screen as they were in the comics. Problem is, those X-Men movies came out 20 some odd years ago and all those actors are getting long in the tooth. Hell, even some of the Avengers actors are getting up there. It might be time to reboot the whole enchilada, but Marvel seems determined to just keep the whole storyline going forever and just make old characters young through time travel, multi-verse theory and so on.

Personally, I don’t like seeing a movie with this much swearing and naughty jokes being released under the Disney name. I think Walt Disney’s head would be spinning in its cryo chamber. The Disney name really should mean wholesome family entertainment such that a rated R movie and Disney should never mix.

Does that mean Deadpool has to never be on screen again? I don’t know the logistics, but I wonder why he couldn’t have been released under the Fox brand or barring that, create a new brand for naughty comic book movies. It’s all a shell game, I suppose, if its all owned by Disney anyway but even so, I just don’t think a movie where bad guys get Wolverine claws shoved up their butts and worked like a puppet to semi-comedic effect should be released under the Disney brand.

Is this Disney’s first R rated movie? I don’t know enough of movie history but I think it has to be. If you know, let me know.

One last criticism. 2018’s Logan was so good that it was nominated for an Oscar. It was a sad but somber end, a fitting hero’s end to a long journey. A very long one indeed as Jackman holds the record for playing the same superhero in the most number of films for the longest period of time.

But I guess none of that matters now thanks to multi-verse theory and timeline travel because whatever serious consequences happen in one film, they can just be undone in another film. I’ll hand it to the film for making fun of this. It begins with Deadpool digging up Wolvy’s adamantium metal skeleton from the Logan movie and doing an impression of Jackman’s voice while making his skull talk. “Disney gave me a bunch of money to come back, mate!”

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. There’s a clip at the end that shows Jackman and some of the other actors/actresses in some of the early Fox/Marvel movies and they look so young. I was young then too. Amazing how time flies. This movie is gross and silly and like most Marvel movies as of late, relies way too much on time travel and multi-verse nonsense. But it is a good time so if you like this sort of thing, then go see it.

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Jul 18 2024
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TV

TV Review – Star Wars: The Acolyte (2024)

What a stinkfest, 3.5 readers.

Let’s get this review over with.

If you’re a social media enthusiast like me, then you know there’s a lot of hate afoot for this show. The YouTube reviewers REALLY don’t like it. And honestly, they go way overboard. They’re basically hating hard on the show for attention, though I don’t deny their hate isn’t genuine or that the show hasn’t earned it.

But honestly, sometimes the reviews are a bit much. I watch these reviews and they’re like “OMG! THE ACOLYTE IS A FLAMING HOT DUMPSTER FIRE THAT SMELLS LIKE RAW SEWAGE, HOBO TURDS AND REFRIED MOLDY DOG VOMIT! AVERT YER EYES LEST YE PUKE YER GUTS ODD FROM THE HORRIFYING SIGHT!”

And then I watch it I’m like, well, no, while this show does suck, it doesn’t smell like hobo turds or dog vomit or anything. So its almost as if by going too far overboard, the reviewers do the show a service. When you go in expecting hot poop on a shingle and get served cold snot on a shingle, you’re relieved by the upgrade.

All that said, I give the show a solid C, and for most shows I’d say, eh, if you’ve got the time, feel free to waste it on a C. But when it comes to Star Wars, this brand is so beloved by fans that it really burns our biscuits to see anything produced that isn’t a solid A.

The first problem? Star Wars was very much a product of its time. George Lucas invented special effects that audiences of the late 70s and early 80s had never seen before, so it’s hard to recreate a moviegoing experience when people of that era thought they :::checks notes::: LITERALLY THOUGHT THEY WERE WITNESSING MAGIC COME ALIVE ON SCREEN!!!

Flash forward some 40 years later, and we’ve been CGI-ed up the wazoo. We’ve seen it all and we’re so jaded little surprises us anymore. We expect good writing to go along with our CGI fest, which is a challenge for Star Wars, given that it is a story about space wizards who fight aliens and robots with laser swords and push stuff around with magic. Also difficult is that the property is primarily geared toward children and must be produced with children in mind, yet middle aged and even downright elderly fans will scream like stuck pigs if the stories don’t come with some adult sized depth.

Alright, all those challenges aside, Disney is one of the greatest entertainment companies in the world, right? They got this, right? No. Not as such.

Disney has been pissing Star Wars fans off a lot the past few years. It began with Last Jedi, where Luke was turned from hero into crusty old blue milk drinking depressive head case. It carried on in Season 3 of Mando, which took the great success of the first two seasons and pooped on them by turning the third season into a 70s variety act where any asshole in Hollywood could stop by for a cameo. No, Star Wars fans did not want to see a planet run by Lizzo and Jack Black.

There were other offenses, too numerous to mention. The force being turned into a magic “do it all” button with no rhyme or reason. There used to be rules to the force. Now if some character wants to do anything, the force just does it, and dweeby ass purists like yours truly who live and breathe this shit because we haven’t touched a woman in ages get pissed because if we’re just ignoring rules now, then why bother watching?

And don’t even get me started on the lightsaber stabbings that characters just walk away from…except sometimes they don’t. It’s a freaking sword that burns hotter than lava yet sometimes people survive getting gutted by one (I’m no medical scientist but I’m pretty sure a blade that hot would cauterize your intestines and cause you to fart fire out your asshole but that’s just my theory) but if the character needs to live, that a lightsaber stab is like a scratch that you just walk off.

Don’t even get me double started on all the chicks. I’m all for women in sci-fi but sometimes Disney has cast so many women and so few men that it’s like the only thing the Empire and Rebels can agree on is a hiring freeze on anyone with a weiner.

Don’t even get me triple started on Kenobi and…you know what? This is a Acolyte review, so let’s get to it.

The story is a Jedi semi-police procedural or Law and Order: Star Wars Unit, if you will. If, like me, you assumed that veteran sci-fi actress Carrie Ann Moss of Matrix’s Trinity fame would save this drek, you thought wrong, because her ass gets got in the first five minutes and from there on, the Jedi of the High Republic Era rush to solve the mystery of who killed her character, Master Indara.

Master Sol (Lee Jung-Jae of Squid Game fame) leads a team with Jedis Yord (Charlie Bartlett) and Jecki (Dafne Keen, who you might remember as a young Wolverine protege in 2017’s Logan except she’s all grown up now.)

They investigate and arrest ex-Jedi Osha, at first assuming she committed the crime, but we quickly discover that her long assumed dead twin sister, Mae, is in fact, very much alive. Both sisters are played by Amandla Stenberg.

Mae is on a quest to hunt more Jedi, with the assistance of the red saber wielding, smiley masked “Stranger” and ally Qimir in tow. It’s up to the Jedi to stop Mae from killing their BFFs and unravel the mystery of why Mae wants them all outta the picture.

And honestly, that write up I just presented to you makes it sound way better than it is. I thought about explaining more, but I’ll let you watch it, if you choose to do so. There’s really no wrong answer to the question of if you should. You might like to watch it just to see what all the fuss is about or to critique it or to crap all over it. Some of you might actually like it. Truthfully, there were some parts I actually did enjoy but you know what they say. Every poop has some corn.

For example, characters like Sol, Jecki, and Qimir were pretty fabulous and I would have loved to see them in a better project. All the actors did their best with what they were given, even Amandla Stenberg. IMO she didn’t deserve all the negativity the reviewers gave her. And I believe all the stars will find this to be their breakout role with more roles to come.

I do understand the online criticism. Producer Leslye Headland was pretty vocal in interviews about hiring writers who knew very little about Star Wars and it shows. To Star Wars fans, this is the equivalent of hiring a non-doctor who has never even read a medical text book before to do your spleen surgery. Add to that, Stenberg saying Star Wars fans are gay (pretty sure she was just joking around, guys) and Bartlett confusing Luke with Anakin when it comes to the destroyer of the original Death Star and you had a team that just gave an overall impression that they didn’t really care about the world they were trusted with.

Does it sound silly? Maybe. Until you hire someone to work on your house and they have no idea what a hammer is, don’t know how to work a power drill, openly admit they’ve never fixed a house before….this is your beloved house, you’d get annoyed, wouldn’t you?

So ultimately, you had a team that didn’t know a lot about Star Wars and boy did it ever show. Long established rules and canon are thrown out the window and OK, if you’re not one of those nerds who is going to run to twitter and bitch about where a certain alien has three antennae or four, I get it, but even within the show itself, there’s just a lot of silliness, goofiness, and overall absurdity when it comes to the quality of the writing. Plotholes galore.

What are the problems? Too many to list but ultimately, it descends into a “oppressive cops got it wrong” tale. There are lesbian space witches afoot. They prefer to call the force the thread, a different space culture of force users entirely. The Jedi see them as a cult and fear they are abusing Osha and Mae and they need to be taken away and put under the Jedi order’s protection for their own safety.

Sounds like a really horrible abuse of authority…until the show goes out of its way to make the lesbian space witches do all manner of horrible things such that if you were a Jedi, you might say “eff this lesbian space witches” and whip out your lightsaber and fight them to save the children to.

Of course, and not to give it away but I guess I will, all the “bad things” are misunderstandings and the sights the Jedi saw and thought were horrible weren’t really but, you know, holy shit, if you were in the Jedi’s position and saw what you saw, you can’t really blame them so…ultimately I suppose its all an allegory for allegations of police brutality, because god knows that’s something every single last fan was clamoring to see in a Star Wars show.

I could go on. There are some dumb science mistakes and I know, it’s a show about space wizards but holy shit, just things like a crackling campfire in space. What the fuck. Sorry. I didn’t mean to swear.

I could rant for days but I’ll leave you with this. Imagine there’s a new Sex in the City Movie and all you lady readers who are into that sort of thing go to see it with 3.5 of your gal pals. It opens with Carrie and her friends drinking mimosas at brunch, about to dish the latest hot goss on the men they are seeing when…KABOOM! A fuckin’ tank blows up the side of a bank building and a hundred ninjas pour out. The ninjas run inside and karate kick the guards and steal all the cash bags but are instantly foiled when a renegade team of big swingin’ dick mercenary commandos show up on the scene and what? Where’s Carrie and the girls you ask? Fuck ’em, this is an action movie now, because I wrote it and you gals need to like it, you bigots.

What’s that you say? A female rom com written to appeal to male action enthusiasts is a stupid idea and everyone involved should be fired and made to wear a dunce cap? True. That’s probably why it never happens and yet, for some strange reason, Hollywood absolutely refuses to stop gearing action movies toward women.

Oh well. I suppose the all lady audience for movies about space wizards fighting aliens and robots will show up someday if you give them another 20 years.

STATUS: Not shelf-worthy. I’m tired of all this seemingly endless trend to make the Jedi the bad guy. I get it. You gotta do something different but this isn’t different. They’ve done it a thousand times. We want to root for the Jedi. We don’t want them to be the bad guys.

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Jul 04 2023
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Movies

Movie Review – Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Da da da da…da da da!

Grab your hats and whips, 3.5 readers. It’s time for a review of Indy 5. SPOILERS ABOUND!

Hype is weird, noble readers. This movie got a lot of it. Bad hype. Hate hype. All the social media comments and online reviews, youtube videos etc – it all gave me the impression that this flick had taken a big huge steamy corn infested dump all over the legacy of America’s favorite fictional archaeologist.

Indy turned into a pathetic old man! Indy bossed around by a mouthy dame the whole picture! Four decades of a beloved franchise flushed down the toilet in the name of radical feminism.

I only bought a ticket with the intention of hate watching it and writing a scathing review for all 7 of your eyes, but to my surprise, I ended up liking it. It wasn’t that bad a movie at all.

Now don’t get me wrong. The original trilogy was fabulous with a perfect ending that wrapped it all up nicely, so other than the profit motive, I’m not sure Hollywood wants to keep tinkering with it. Well, the answer is because Disney bought the Indy franchise when it bought Star Wars and the rest of Lucasfilm’s IP, and I can’t blame them for wanting a return on investment.

The story begins at the end of World War 2 with a CGI de-aged Indiana Jones infiltrating a train full of Nazis making a run for it before the Allies arrive. They’ve packed the train with a buttload of stolen artifacts, all the relics and artwork they need to sell and fund their post war exile abroad.

With colleague Basil Shaw in tow, the duo is on the hunt for the famed Spear of Destiny, the spear said to have pierced Christ’s flesh when he was crucified. Truth be told, the legend of this spear and how it was passed about through various European rulers and how their downfall often coincided with when they lost control of the spear would, in and of itself, make for a great flick, but its only a premise for our heroes to discover an entirely new MacGuffin, namely that the train is carrying Archimedes’ Dial, an Ancient Greek device that Shaw has been obsessed with for years, due to claims that it can be used to travel through time.

Preposterous, surmises Young Indy, and dutiful suspenders of disbelief that we are, we’re totally supposed to forget that Indy has seen the Ark of the Covenant melt people who looked at it, went mano y mano with a voo doo priest who rips the hearts from people’s chests and turns them into mindless zombies and oh yeah, there was that time he met a still-alive ancient knight who was guarding the holy grail, which he used to cure his father’s bullet wound.

SIDENOTE: I gotta say, this beginning scene felt like it could have been from a lost cut of an old Indy movie. The effects are modern, but the CGI is brilliant, such that it looks and sounds like a young Harrison Ford. One wonders if we aren’t only a few years away from new Indy movies where Ford lends his voice and likeness and lets Disney techs work their magic to bring us new tales set in Indy’s golden age of the 1930s and 40s.

But I suppose that involves a debate of whether or not CGI actors are a good thing. That’s a whole other kettle of fish.

Flash forward to 1969 and Indiana Jones is very old, sad and lonely. It’s his retirement day as a college professor. He’s bummed for without his job he has little to look forward to. Marion, who he married in his 60s according to the Crystal Skull, truly the shittiest of the Indy movies with the exception that at least it left Indy in the happy situation of having a wife and newly discovered son, has left him, because of course she has. I get the online criticism here to an extent. I mean, they don’t ALWAYS have to leave our heroes sad and lonely but other than suffering the woes of old age, Indy proves he still has some piss and vinegar left, as does Harrison Ford.

Indy’s sidekick in this film is Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a woman so excessively British that she probably had relatives who spit shined King Arthur’s codpiece and her blood type is fish and chips. She speaks English throughout the film, but you know, Englishy English. I’m trying to say I have no idea what she’s saying half the time because she’s absurdly British.

Her character, Helena Shaw, to put it simply, is a total asshole. She is Indy’s goddaughter as her father and Indy were once BFFS. She approaches Indy under the guise of being a grad student researching Archimedes’ Dial, but this is just a pretense to steal it and sell it to the highest bidder. Throughout the film she insults and betrays our fearless hero, and I think that online critics didn’t quite get the point that the intention was that her character was written specifically so that she’d come across as a dick. Indy, however, isn’t that pathetic, and goes tit for tat with her throughout the flick.

My complaint is the writers never offer an explanation as to why Helena is such an unscrupulous d-bag. We see her father was a very nice, moral man. We see she was nice as a child. If there was an event, a tragedy, a something or other than turned her into a money hungry scumbag willing to screw over a close family friend in the name of cold hard cash, we weren’t told about it.

But Indy and Helena become frenemies as their larger goal is to keep the dial out of the hands of the villainous Jurgen Voller, a Nazi scientist who dreams of using the dial to rewrite history and turn the Nazi’s defeat in 1945 into a permanent, never-ending world tour.

There’s some great car chases. Incorporation of history. Thrills and chills. Twists and turns. Fun cameos. All in all, a decent flick. Does it outshine the trilogy? No. As good as the trilogy? No. Does it make up for the doody fest that was the Crystal Skull? IMO, yes. It’s a good movie, a fun time, and its far from the crapfest the internet tongue waggers are making it out to be.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Worth a trip to the big screen.

My thoughts on the future of the Indy Franchise:

#1 – Key Huy Quan, who played Short Round in Temple of Doom, just had a major career comeback, winning an Oscar at 50. Maybe it’s time to see what Shorty’s doing as an adult.

#2 – If done right, I wouldn’t be against a Disney Plus animated series where Ford lends his voice and likeness to Indy cartoons of Indy’s younger days.

#3 – CGI actors are getting better and better so before you know it, we might actually see Young Indy movies where he looks as spry as he did in the trilogy.

#4 – There’s talk of Indy passing the torch. Maybe, but the thing is, the franchise is called “Indiana Jones.” If another character becomes an adventurer, they might be inspired by Indy but they aren’t Indy. They might make movies where a younger actor plays Indy in his prime, but the role is so much all about Ford.

#5 – But ultimately, this IP is worth big bucks. Disney bought it, so they’ll want to make bank off it. Let’s hope Harrison eats his wheaties.

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May 29 2023
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Movies

Movie Review – The Little Mermaid (2023)

I wanna be a part of your world, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of Disney’s latest live action remake of one of their classic movies.

Ah, the Little Mermaid, that classic fish out of water (pun intended) story of whether or not the grass is really greener on the other side of the fence, or as Sebastian the Crab tells us, the seaweed isn’t always greener in somebody else’s lake.

It’s been widely lampooned online, from the dead-eyed emotionless talking animals (I can’t tell if Scuttle and Flounder like Ariel or want to kill her and eat her body) to the casting of an African American actress (much ado about nothing), it seemed like this would be more of Disney’s wokesterism run amuck.

But I gotta be honest. Even an only anti-woke curmudgeon like myself enjoyed it. The fun songs, the pageantry, the bright colors, the animation effects that take people and turn them into mermaids, it was all a lot of fun.

It’s the same old plot. King Triton’s (Javier Bardem) youngest daughter/princess, Ariel (Hallie Bailey), is a mermaid obsessed with the surface world. That’s a dangerous place, warns Triton, who forbids her from visiting the surface ever again, but kids will be kids and Ariel continues to defy her old man with BFFs Flounder and Scuttle (Awkwafina and Jacob Tremblay) while royal lackey Sebastian (Daveed Diggs) tags along.

When Ariel rescues Prince Eric from a shipwreck and restores him to life with her magic voice, a romance blooms but alas it’s not to be, you know, because I don’t want to come right out and explain it to you but he’s a dude and her lady business is all mackerel, just for the halibut (pa rum pum pum.) Oh, what do you know? I did spell it out for you.

Alas, Ariel is tricked into striking a devil’s bargain with sea hag Ursula (Melissa McCarthy), trading her voice for legs. Creepo that she is, Ursula puts her thumb on the scales, and it’s a mad cap race for the bird, the fish and the crab to help the now human mermaid woo the prince into a smooch before the passing of three days.

Hallie Bailey captures a lot of that Ariel charm, a combination of ambition and naivete, where the youth really want something but have idea the fire they’ll have to walk through to get it, or the burns they’ll suffer and maybe even inflict on others to get there. Diggs does a fine Sebastian impression. Jonah Hauer King is a pretty standard Prince Eric, but plays Ariel’s match, as he too wants more than what his family wants for him.

Jacob Tremblay is a good Flounder though are fishy friend doesn’t get a lot to do, I can’t remember if he had a lot to do in the original. Scuttle gets a gender swap, which I squawked at, at first, but then I mean, I’m not knocking Awkwafina, but come on. She does sound a little bit like a bird. She gets to flex her comedy rap muscles too.

Hallie Bailey really does shine in the role and doesn’t deserve the crap she’s getting. Her renditions of classic songs like “I Want to Be a Part of Your World) match the quality of the original.

Whether it’s the original or the remake, I always found The Little Mermaid to be one of the most bittersweet of Disney flicks, as it mimics a lot of what most kids go through as they grow up. They have things they want to do but then there’s also what their parents want them to do. Their parents want them to do things that are largely considered the safest route, because they’re older and have been knocked around by the world and since it didn’t kill them, they came out wiser for it. The kids want to do something else but are young, dumb and trusting, easily taken advantage of by the unscrupulous. If they aren’t lucky enough to navigate such dangerous waters to achieve their wildest dreams, then they do may become the old world weary parent urging their offspring to be practical.

Is the seaweed always greener in somebody else’s lake? Maybe. Maybe not. The problem is a) you know the seaweed in your lake and you can’t help but see all its faults, so to you it stinks but you don’t see the greenery another might see. b) the seaweed elsewhere might be truly green, but you won’t find out until you’ve abandoned your lake and the family the comes with it.

That and there’s the whole Ariel has to change and become a human thing. It’s what she wants and um, well changing your body from one form to another takes on a whole new controversial meaning today, but one might argue that Ariel should accept herself as the half-lady, half-tuna, all mer-woman being that God made her as and if Eric doesn’t want any scales on his man business then that’s his problem.

It’s either a tale about a young woman who bravely defies the odds to follow her dreams or a young woman who completely changes her entire self to make a dude happy, depending on how you look at it.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I know a lot of people wonder why Disney keeps making live action remakes. I think it’s just to keep their famous core IP properties going and introduce them to new generations.

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May 21 2023
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Movie Review – Guardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 (2023)

Genetic experiments most foul dominate the latest adventure for the galaxy’s favorite collection of super schmucks.

BQB here with a review.

My initial observation: it’s not their best, but it’s still worth the price of admission.

Why?

Well, the GotG movies have always depended on humor but quite understandably, the plot leaves our heroes rather sullen and depressed. This is Rocket Racoon’s (Bradley Cooper) movie, but he’s far from the lovable trash talking, wisecracking comedy fodder who carries the previous films. An attack orchestrated by the evil High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) takes Rocket out of commission, though through a series of flasohbacks, we learn how Rocket began his life as a hyper intelligent experiment, one in which the HE has taken animals and tinkered with their DNA to give them human traits like speech and higher intelligence. Much to the evildoer’s dismay, Rocket is smarter than his creator, his brain holds the key to making the experiments work, and the Evolutionary has been hunting Rocket for years ever since his escape.

It’s up to the Guardians to save their furry little buddy’s life but if you expect them to fill in with the funny…eh, I mean they do here and there but it’s nothing compared to previous films. Starlord/Quill (Chris Pratt) is depressed, having turned to alcoholism to dampen the loss of his GF Gamora (Zoe Saldana) who died in one of the previous films. There’s an alternate reality version of Gamora in this one because multi-verse theory has ushered in a new era of deaths in Marvel movies having little to no consequences, except the main consequence is this Gamora has no idea who Quill is and has no interest in dating him, which makes Quill sad and not the comedian we’re used to. Without his furry sidekick to bounce jokes off of, it’s like watching an uber depressing Daron Aronofsky movie with occasional quips and a space theme.

Don’t get me wrong. The special effects are there and then some, all best seen on the big screen. And while it lacks the joke a minute pace of previous films, there are still a few big laughs. The overall look of the film is a bit gross as many of the High Evolutionary’s genetic experiments will make you want to puke, thus bringing an overall message against tinkering with nature.

My main complaint: swearing. An f bomb is dropped an someone’s called an asshole. I will admit that sometimes it is possible to craft jokes that depend on swears that are so funny that the swearing can be forgiven but the problems are a) this is a Disney movie and b) it’s primary audience is children so…though I laughed (the only laughs of the movie) I still thought it was a bit much.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. You might want to watch the Guardians Holiday Special before you watch this as it sets a lot of stuff up. The plot gave us a lot of character development and the lack of laughs is understandable, but I hope they remember their comedic routes in the next one.

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Feb 20 2023
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Movie Review: Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Ants! Wasps! Tiny tomfoolery!

BQB here with a review of Marvel’s latest joint.

The good news is that this flick is a special effects extravaganza, a veritable CGI fest for the senses.

The bad news is that only works if you like that sort of thing. Otherwise, it’s a giant, expensive, computer-generated cartoon with people spliced into it. Roger Rabbit on acid, if you prefer.

The plot? The titular Ant-Man aka Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is finally in a good place in life. His ex-con days are behind him. He’s gotten over trauma incurred from past adventures. He’s living his best life with his family, including daughter Cassie (now a teenager) (Kathryn Newton), girlfriend Hope aka the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), and in-laws Hank (Michael Douglas) and Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer).

Alas, things go awry when budding young scientist Cassie accidentally opens a door to the uber mysterious and creepy Quantum Realm, a world so tiny that it exists right under our proverbial noses but it is so inexplicably tiny that we can’t see it. Can you imagine that? Sub-atomic beings living in a society so small that it is invisible to the naked eye. And yes, opening doors to alternate realms is something that teenage scientists can totally do in the Marvel-verse, so shut up.

Ah, but the Lang/Pym/VanDyne family have mastered the art of shrinking and enlarging themselves, thus simply by shrinking they are able to navigate this treacherous world.

It’s all a matter of perspective. :::pa rum pum pum:::

Upon arrival to the Quantum Realm, the LPVs (boy what a modern blended family with so many different surnames), are tasked with the missions of finding each other, finding a way out and most importantly, defeating Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), a villain who has, as his name suggests, conquered the Quantum Realm, ruling over its inhabitants with an iron fist and bending their will to his dictatorial reign. Oppressed inhabitants are a hodgepodge of humans and wacky creatures. If Kang escapes, he will wreak havoc across the multiverse.

Some random thoughts:

#1 – We first saw Kang the Conqueror in Disney’s Loki and TBH, I felt that series was so confusing that its good parts were lost on me. Here, things start to make sense. Majors nails the role and is shaping up to be the most formidable villain since Thanos.

#2 – The MODOK (Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing) character is stupid and an example of something that might work in a comic book but just looks very dumb on the big screen. To the film’s credit, the characters opine on how dumb it is early and often. I wonder if it wouldn’t have been better to have just left it out, though that might have enraged true comic book nerds.

#3 – Fun as the CGI adventure is, one of the coolest parts of the Ant-Man series is Ant-Man and company using their shrinking/growing tech to make random objects big or small. In past films, they have carried around a shrunken building on wheels with a suit-case like handle, kept a tank on a keychain just in case they need to make it big and use it against baddies and who could forget the scene where a Hello Kitty Pez dispenser is lobbed at villains during a car chase and grown to a crushing size?

To be fair, there is a lot of growing and shrinking and you need to take a minute to wrap your head around it. The fam were human sized in human world. They shrunk to visit tiny world. In tiny world, everything and everyone is tiny such that everything (because of perspective) seems normal sized. Ergo Ant-Man can shrink or grow and it still looks like he is getting smaller or enormous (even though enormous Ant Man in tiny world would be tiny subatomic not even as big as bacteria to us.)

#4 – It was nice to see everyone come together as a family in this film. We have seen the various characters work together but they really are a fun, fighting family unit in this film.

#5 – I might be the millionth person to offer an opinion on this but I’m not a fan of Evangeline Lilly’s haircut. Actually, I take that back. In one of the Ant-Man promos she was rocking a weird, short yet curly, almost hobbit-like do that should have gotten her hairdresser fired for malpractice, even if Lilly asked for it. There are just some cuts that should be straight up verboten. Here in the movie the short look is fine and I get it. She’s a scientist and a superhero and doesn’t have time to style and blow-dry a long do.

#6 – Has Michelle Pfeiffer made a deal with the devil to look more or less like she looked when she was early 90s Catwoman? Some aging actresses try to fight Father Time with plastic surgery but I don’t see any traces of that here. I don’t know if it’s good genes, a healthy lifestyle or what have you but dayum girl.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. It’s funny how sometimes the most unlikely and humorous characters can carry a series during its downtimes. With Marvel, we come for Captain America and Iron Man and the main Avengers but sometimes the lesser knowns like Ant-Man can be developed into a franchise of their own. I mean, Ant-Man did come up with the solution to save the day in the last Avengers film, after all. Similarly, many of the DC films have been crap, yet Shazam! always seems to leave audiences happy.

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Nov 28 2022
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Movies

Movie Review – Wakanda Forever (2022)

Wakanda forever, 3.5 readers. Wakanda forever indeed.

BQB here with a review of Marvel’s latest. SPOILER WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!

With the tragic, untimely passing of Chadwick Boseman at the much too early age of 43, Disney/Marvel had some giant shoes to fill when deciding to carry on with the popular Black Panther franchise. They could have recast the role, rebooted the movie, gone the prequel route focusing on past panthers or what have you.

Would any of that have satisfied fans? Most likely not. Thankfully, writers/producers/director etc. stayed faithful to the original film by handing down the Black Panther claws not to a new cast addition but to the most likely heir, Princess Shuri (Letitia Wright.)

When King T’Challa passes, the royal family of Wakanda is devastated. Meanwhile, around the world, a vibranium arms race ensues, as various nations test Wakanda’s limits, believing that the loss of the Black Panther leaves the country vulnerable, and that plunder of the raw material that can lead to deadly technological devices and weapons is possible. To their dismay, Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), now Wakanda’s ruler in the wake of her son’s loss, turns out to be an effective leader, able to foil many a plot to heist the precious metal.

As it turns out, there was another nation built on vibranium all along. Superpowered merman Prince Namor (Tenoch Huerta) leads an underwater dwelling civilization of ancient mer-people who were happy to remain hidden underwater for centuries until the world’s lust for vibranium leads to the construction of a vibranium detecting machine that leads U.S. operatives to search for it in the ocean.

Fearing his nation will be wiped out if he does not wipe out the world first, Prince Namor vows to strike first, and has the ability to reduce all nations of the world to rubble and ash. He urges Wakanda to join him as an ally, but warns they’ll be the first to destroyed if they decline. As you can imagine, from there, the war is on.

MIT student scientist RiRi Williams (Dominque Thorne) joins the cast as a female Iron Man (Iron Woman?), Julia Louis Dreyfus, heretofore only seen on Disney Plus shows as CIA Director de Fontaine (more or less the new Nick Fury) is front and center while Martin Freeman reprises his role as Everett Ross, the Wakandans’ CIA BFF who feeds them intel.

First movie faves such as General Okoye, M’Baku and Nakia (Danai Gurira, Winston Duke and Lupita Nyongo) all return.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. It is very much a Shuri-centric movie and it is her challenge to figure out how to pick up her brother’s mantle and defend Wakanda, not in his way but in her way, coming into her own. At three hours long, the film is a time commitment though to its credit, it didn’t feel like it. Coming up on 3 weeks in theaters now, it still remains strong.

Truly, Chadwick Boseman’s passing was a blow to many, not just to his fans, but obviously to the family and friends who loved and knew him best. There were many directions Marvel/Disney could have taken, even just letting the franchise go, but it was too popular and they found a way to keep it going while remaining respectful to and honoring Boseman’s legacy.

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Sep 24 2022
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TV

TV Review – Andor – First Three Episodes (2022)

Spies! Lies! Something else that rhymes with -ies!

BQB here with a review of the first three episodes of Andor, Disney Plus’ new Star Wars series.

I’m just going to say it up front. It’s OK. It didn’t wow me, but it didn’t zow me either. I’ll keep watching it, but like the recent Obi-Wan, it didn’t blow much wind up my proverbial skirt.

The series is a prequel to Rogue One (ironically, the best and arguably most unsung Star Wars creation amidst a slew of Disney’s SW duds the past decade.) As you may recall, in that film, Diego Luna played Cassian Andor, a rebel spy so committed to the cause that he is willing to commit almost any heartless act, up to and including straight up murder, to further the rebel cause.

How did he get that way? This series aims to tell that story.

At first, the idea of this series seems silly. Aren’t there more popular, longer running characters we’d like to know more about? Where are the Lando Chronicles? The Leia Adventures? Skywalker: A Life?

Ah, but Disney has dipped its toe into those waters. A film where a younger actor played a younger Han Solo didn’t go over well (irony is I liked it). CGI Skywalker is interesting for a brief moment until you wonder how long it will be before all movies are just CGI renderings and actors are out of a job (feel free to discuss whether that would be a good thing.)

An interesting part of Rogue One is it showed a more vicious side of the Rebel Alliance than we are used to. In any rebellion, rebels must ask themselves if the victory they seek is worth the loss of life that must occur to achieve it. So OK, I’ll buy into the story of how one rebel was so angered by the Empire that he became a badass intergalactic spy.

All that said, the whole thing seems adulty. Not as in naughty, for this is still Disney, but as in a plot only adults might be interested in. Three episodes in, there are no light sabers or space battles. It’s light on the aliens. There is a silly droid. Most of the action comes in the form of a shootout in the end of episode three.

The plot? Cassian Andor was once Kassa, a member of an indigenous tribe of the planet Kenari. When his family discovers a crashed Empire ship that was up to no good (illegal mining apparently), the Empire kills the tribe sans Kassa, who is saved in the nick of time by scavenger Maarva (Fiona Shaw), who whisks the lad away to Ferrix, where she raises him as his adoptive mother.

Years later, an adult Cassian searches for his sister, who he believes escaped Empire forces. He checks a brothel where he believes she might be, um, you know, working, but has no luck. Alas, he gets into a spat with a couple of security company goons. Said goons picked the wrong fight with the wrong guy, leading Cassian to go on the run, right into the hands of Luthen Rael (Stellan Skaarsgaard), a clandestine spy recruiter for the Rebel Alliance.

It’s all very interesting. However, I think it might suffer from the fact that the plot might be too heady for kids, yet the subject matter might be too silly for adults.

SIDENOTE: The inclusion of a brothel in the first scene raised my eyebrow. True, no sex is shown. No debauchery is shown. It was part of the script that it was an off night and few customers were there. Still, it seemed out of place for a Disney show.

When George Lucas sold Star Wars to Disney years ago, I thought maybe did so in order to keep Hollywood from doing nasty things to it, i.e. to not make an X rated flick with wookies having wookie sex or Jedis snorting space coke or what have you. Then again, I remembered that Lucas was the one who stuffed Leia into that Slave Leia outfit so he probably doesn’t have a lot of moral authority to stand on.

So, I guess my complaint is less about Disney bringing down Star Wars and more about Star Wars bringing down Disney. The deeper we get into Star Wars, the more inevitable it becomes that we see characters engaged in depraved activities. “Spice” has already been used as a code for drugs in prior Disney SW productions. Meanwhile, while characters have appeared in scantily clad outfits going back to the early films, this is the confirmation that beings in the SW universe not only do it but pay to do it.

IDK. I just think Disney needs to remember it is first and foremost a producer of entertainment for children. I know adults love SW too, but we have to think of the kids first and have plots that are suitable for the younguns. Ergo, no space brothels, even if it’s dark and deserted and the business of said space brothel is only alluded to.

We already saw Disney wrestle with a darker plot line and fail miserably in The Book of Boba Fett. Freaking Boba Fett fights a war to become the head gangster of Tatooine, only to be against all crime, which is a great example to set for the kids but doesn’t bode well for a show about a space criminal.

Maybe Disney needs to just stick with family friendly Star Wars base crimes. Smuggling, but only done to help the rebels, for example.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. I think we are at a point where we have to realize Star Wars in its infancy was more about awesome special effects, and that Vader carried most of it. The further we get from those early films, the less interesting it all becomes. Perhaps some genius will figure out a way to make it interesting again. To Disney’s credit, the Mando series was a winner.

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Aug 28 2022
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TV

TV Review – She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)

It ain’t easy bein’ green, 3.5 readers.

BQB here with a review of the super silly She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

I have to admit I waited a week or two before diving into this, largely because of the social media tomfoolery over it. Various memes and posts suggested the primary focus was going to be an assertion that every woman secretly has an angry green rage monster brewing inside them that they keep at bay at all times because society treats them so harshly, the flip side being that all men live on easy street and la dee da through life with nary a problem.

Though I know women have it rough in many respects, I always thought social media is a place where nuanced arguments go to die. It is very much an either/or place. Post that you love cookies and everyone will accuse you of despising muffins. No, you just happened to really love cookies at a particular moment in time and wanted to share your love of it, but that doesn’t mean you hate muffins or gasp, even cupcakes. Mmm cupcakes.

At any rate, the world is a harsh place like Sisyphus of Ancient Greek legend fame, we all have our own comically massive boulder to push up our own neverending hill forever and ever. Me complaining about my boulder was never meant to imply you don’t have your own boulder or that my boulder is bigger than your boulder or what have you. Sometimes we just need to complain about our boulders and have people listen. Other times if we complain about our boulders, people might, just might either get out of the way or even help give our boulders a little push in the right direction.

Ultimately, we have to stop talking past each other and too each other and social media is a place where that rarely if ever happens.

Bottomline: She-Hulk is a lot of fun in my book. It’s a comedy. It’s light yet mixes in the action and it recognizes and arguably even fixes one of Marvel’s longest running problems, namely that The Incredible Hulk (and other variants by proxy) is an awesome, fan favorite character when part of an ensemble, but when heading up a stand-alone film, he’s box office poison.

Much of the problem, at least with the first two attempts at a Hulk flick in 2003 and 2008 is that said films usually focus heavily on the science (gasp I know, right?) and Banner running around avoiding the law and government agents who want to catch him and study him and avoiding getting angry for fear of losing control and going into Hulk smash mode and then when Hulk is the Hulk he is a big dummy so it’s hard to direct him toward productive activities.

Long story short, She-Hulk embraces the “women have it way tougher than men” narrative to, well, make the long story short. We know how Batman became Batman, we know how Spidey became Spidey and we know how hulks become hulks, so thankfully the show didn’t spend an entire season on an origin story, or rather, at least one in which She-Hulk comes to grips with being a lady hulk.

Instead, the show is a parody, lampooning the superhero genre.

The plot? SPOILER ALERT. Overworked attorney Jessica Walters (Tatiana Maslany) goes on vacation with her cousin, the one and only Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). When a frigging spaceship cuts them off in traffic because that’s life in a world where superheroes exist, Bruce cuts his arm, his hulk infected blood accidentally squirts onto Jessica, and now she’s infected with hulkism and has to live her life as a goddamn frigging hulk.

Sounds like a pain in the ass, right? Bruce whisks his cousin away to a secret island facility, advising her that her life as she knew it is over. Apologetic and solemn, he councils her that as he once did, she too will go on a multi-year journey where she learns to control her rage and learn to use her hulkism for good. Daily training and exercises and…yeah, blah, blah, blah, not so much. Turns out like all women, Jessica was always great at controlling her rage and only male hulks have to sit around and do yoga to learn how to keep from going into unbridled hulk smash mode.

I mean, yeah, it openly embraces the women rule and men drool motif but come on, it’s funny. It’s done in a humorous way and I don’t know about you, but I really didn’t want to watch five seasons where Jessica lives in a cave, outcast from society until she finally learns to control her anger and channel her hulk and neither did you.

Turns out, she doesn’t want to be a superhero either. Yeah, she has a special power now. She can turn into a super strong and enormous lady hulk at will, but she has no interest in running around with the Avengers. They don’t even get paid, she opines, and she has a career as a lawyer to get back to as well as law school loans to pay off.

And so, she returns to her practice, content to hide her hulkism until she learns that old adage “with great power comes great responsibility.” When a supervillain breaks into court one day, hellbent on murdering the entire jury box, Jessica realizes she can’t in good conscience not hulk out and save the day and so She-Hulk she comes to be.

Given the shaft by the legal industry (the bastards don’t want the liability of a She-Hulk on the payroll), she is hired by a major law firm to head up their new superhero law division, because you know, people with super powers tend to destroy a lot of shit so someone needs to handle the legal fallout of that. Her first case? Handle the parole hearing of Abomination (Tim Roth reprising his role as the villain from the 2008 film), a real conflict of interest as the dude tried to kill her cousin, but he swears he’s better now.

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. This is an example of a show trusting the fans to already know what they need to do and delving right into the nitty gritty, rather than boring us with hours upon hours of origin. It dives right in and comes out swinging. It’s funny. It’s got a lot of action. At a half hour per episode, it’s even short and sweet. It’s your own personal Rorschach test. If you think the “women have it tougher than men” narrative is right, then it’s reinforced. If you think it’s wrong, then it’s poked fun at. Ultimately, it is all handled with good humor.

Bonus sidenote: I really enjoyed the scenes with Jessica’s family. Who hasn’t gone to a family dinner only to be peppered with nonsensical questions, to be heavily criticized and talked over and yeah if you had hulk powers, your family would be constantly demanding that you lift their heavy stuff and fix things for them all the time.

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Aug 14 2022
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TV

TV Review – The Orville (2017- )

Space. It’s big, huge, and a never-ending source of comedic fodder.

BQB here with a review.

I have been meaning to check this show out for a long time and finally have, after noticing it was available through Disney Plus.

I’m six episodes in. My first impressions:

#1 – Critics call it a Star Trek rip-off but it’s an obvious Star Trek parody. Seth MacFarlane, the man behind the raunchy, constantly pop culture lampooning Family Guy, is obviously a big Trekkie, and relishes the chance to cosplay a spaceship captain. If you take Star Trek, then add in the ability to make crude jokes, you’d get this show.

#2 – I get why some might call it a rip-off in that it goes beyond the humor to build adventure of its own. If you stay for the funny, you’ll get plenty of serious. In my binge session thus far, I’ve seen Captain Ed Mercer (MacFarlane) and crew rescue an agrarian society living (unbeknownst to them) in an ecosystem built into a massive spaceship, a historic ship dealer who travels back in time to steal spaceships of the past and sell them to collectors of the future, and a battle to prevent a hostile alien species from getting their hands on an aging device. All of these sound like they could be straight out of Trek, so when you see the Trek like uniforms, the Trek like military organization, the Trek like set up of the ship, it’s hard to not feel like MacFarlane didn’t just hijack Trek, change a few things around, then add in plenty of dirty sex jokes.

#3 – Speaking of sex jokes, while I enjoy it, Disney Plus really isn’t the place for it. I get Fox and Disney are part of the same company now and apparently Disney Plus is breathing new life into the series by offering a sequel New Horizons, which is basically just a continuation of the show. However, young kids shouldn’t be watching it. It’s probably fine for teenagers, but if you’re one of those parents who subscribed to Disney Plus so you could park the kids in front of it while you do housework, eh, take another look.

All in all, Trek is the granddaddy of all space opera. Many would say Star Wars, but SW just changed the game by introducing badass special effects. Trek was the first who challenged us to go where no man has gone before. (There are probably others who would say Lost in Space or other 1950s offerings beat them all.)

At any rate, Trek is a 20th century view of what military style space travel would be like. The Trek ships are set up more or less like a large ocean going vessel, so one might argue that Trek doesn’t really “own” that concept. Then again, when you watch The Orville, when you see the captain, you think Kirk, the science officer, you think Spock, the engineer, you think Scotty. Then again, does Trek own the concept of a captain, a science officer, an engineer and so on?

STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Enjoyable. In the end, I don’t think this takes anything away from Trek, and if anything, it’s a humorous love-letter to Trek. Maybe if Trek had been more open minded about captains finding their wives in bed, messing around with blue goo spurting aliens, MacFarlane might have made a deal to create Funny Trek. Ultimately, he did, with just the names changed to protect the innocent. Come for the funny, but stay for the space drama.

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