TV Review: WandaVision (2021)

Original Run: January 15th, 2021 – March 5th, 2021
Created by: Jac Schaeffer
Directed by: Matt Shakman
Written by: various
Based on: Scarlet Witch by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby; The Vision by Roy Thomas, John Buscema
Music by: Kristen Anderson-Lopez
Cast: Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Kathryn Hahn, Teyonah Parris, Randall Park, Kat Dennings, Evan Peters, Debra Jo Rupp, Fred Melamed

Disney Platform Distribution, Marvel Studios, Disney+, 9 Episodes, 29-47 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

There’s been some criticism over the last few years that movies set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe have become too formulaic and predictable. Well, with the announcement that there would now be MCU television series streamed exclusively on Disney+, the possibility of breaking the mold and doing something very different had apparently arrived.

WandaVision is pretty ambitious and it doesn’t fit into any mold that came before it, MCU or otherwise. Because of its originality, I at least found it refreshing, interesting and intriguing, as it was initially hard to figure out where it could go.

However, its attempts at being so different also kind of bogged it down in the first half of the season.

The show recreates the world of sitcom television through multiple eras. As each episode progresses, we see WandaVision through a new decade’s lens. It starts with two episodes that take place in what appears to be late ’50s/early ’60s sitcoms then moves on to the ’70s, ’80s, ’90s and ’00s. It was a cool concept but it started to get tiresome by episode three. Thankfully, the show evolved beyond just the sitcom format at the end of episode three and started to allow the regular Marvel Cinematic Universe to creep in, as it began to show the real world outside of the sitcom setting.

By episode four, we’re introduced to new characters for the show, many of which we’ve seen before in the films. This is where things started to be revealed and the mystery behind what was going on got really interesting. While there were some Easter eggs and clues in the first three episodes, the fourth one is where everything took shape and got the viewer grounded in the concept.

For the most part, I liked this show. It has its hiccups and faults but the chemistry between Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany was so damn good that it kind of overshadows everything else that one might find faulty or annoying.

I also really liked Kathryn Hahn in this but then I like her in everything. It was really cool seeing her get to do something so large beyond just comedy, though. She obviously does the comedy parts well but when she has to get serious and more dramatic, she proves she can hang with actors on the same level as Olsen and Bettany.

Additionally, I liked Teyonah Parris, as the adult version of Monica Rambeau, who becomes another version of Captain Marvel in the comics. She’s pretty solid in this show and really carries the production on her back in the real world scenes. Also, this show serves as her superhero origin story, as we see how she gets her powers towards the end of the series. Granted, her excusing Wanda’s behavior at the end was baffling and weird and shows that the writers may actually lack any understanding of actual morals.

WandaVision was a pretty cool concept and it was mostly executed well, even with a pretty shaky ending. While I’m familiar with the comics well enough to kind of know what was happening from the get go, the show still had some good surprises that kept my interest till the end.

But no, it’s not okay that she did horrendous shit to lots of people and just walked away because she was grieving.

Also, the guy made out to be the villain the whole show was actually right about everything. But whatevs, white authority guy bad!

Rating: 6.75/10
Pairs well with: other films and television series that take place in the MCU.

Film Review: Dark Phoenix (2019)

Also known as: X-Men: Dark Phoenix (alternative title)
Release Date: June 4th, 2019 (Hollywood premiere)
Directed by: Simon Kinberg
Written by: Simon Kinberg
Based on: X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, The Dark Phoenix Saga by Chris Claremont, John Byrne
Music by: Hans Zimmer
Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Jessica Chastain, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Alexandra Shipp, Evan Peters, Halston Sage

Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, The Donners’ Company, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios, 114 Minutes

Review:

“You’re always sorry, Charles. And there’s always a speech. But nobody cares!” – Magneto

Well, I guess there’s a new rule. That rule is that if an X-Men film tries to tell a Phoenix story, it’s going to be the worst movie in the series.

I honestly didn’t think that the regular X-Men films of the rebooted/prequel era could get worse than Apocalypse but this one takes the cake.

That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy parts of it, I did. However, for the most part, this movie is a fucking mess and ignores previous continuity more than any other X-film from either era and this comes after they tried to course-correct five years ago with Days of Future Past.

The big narrative problem for me is that it was established that the Phoenix Force in the film universe was dormant in Jean Grey all along. When Days of Future Past corrected the wonky timelines of the film, that shouldn’t have been a reboot of every aspect of the film series. Otherwise, that’s just some J. J. Abrams Kelvin Timeline bullshit.

In this film, Jean Grey gets infected with the Phoenix Force during a space mission. It’s more in line with how it happened in the comics but it doesn’t make sense with what was already established. Also, in just the previous movie, she sort of taps into the Phoenix Force when she’s battling Apocalypse. So it was in her but then it wasn’t? Fuck, these movies are a goddamned clusterfuck of epically biblical proportions!

Anyway, like the three films before this one, this takes place in a new decade: the ’90s. Somehow though, no one fucking ages in these movies even though First Class was thirty years earlier than this chapter. Cyclops and Quicksilver were in their late teens in the ’70s in Days of Future Past. Here they look like they’re maybe in their early twenties. But whatever, it’s not like the filmmakers cared, as Dazzler is wearing her disco outfit in 1992 and everyone else is dressed like its 2019.

Another thing that irked me somewhat, is that I love Michael Fassbender’s Magneto but it took an hour for him to show up. Also, three movies into the subplot with Quicksilver and Magneto still doesn’t know he’s the kid’s father and it’s actually just dropped in this movie and not mentioned.

It seemed pretty apparent that the regulars didn’t want to do this movie. Other than McAvoy’s Professor X, the rest of the main cast were only in half the movie, got killed off or got beat up and put on the shelf. That being said, Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique was insufferable in this installment and I’m glad she got impaled.

The main characters that did actually appear for the entirety of the film were completely misused, however. Professor X was a careless prick and didn’t act like himself, Beast was super emo and almost became Dark Beast and Magneto switched his allegiances on a dime because he conveniently didn’t have all the information.

The threat in the film other than the Phoenix Force was a bunch of shapeshifting aliens that were obviously written to be the Skrulls but probably got changed late in production because Disney bought Fox and they couldn’t have Skrulls in an X-Men movie just after they introduced them in Captain Marvel.

Everything in this film feels scaled down as well. Every big battle is in a small area. There’s the fight at Jean’s daddy’s house, the confrontation on a small island, the big second act battle in front of a modest sized New York City building and its generic lobby and then the big finale which takes place on a train. They definitely didn’t do anything epic in scale, which seems like a missed opportunity considering that this is a movie that features the Phoenix Force trying to cleanse the Earth with fire.

Sophie Turner is also the focal point of the movie and I’m still not sure if she can act or not. This movie doesn’t help her case, as she was monotone in every scene, barely conveyed emotion and just acted like she was completely disinterested in the whole project.

While it sounds like I’m bashing the film and honestly, I probably am, I did like a few things.

For one, the Hans Zimmer score was damn incredible. It’s rare that I even notice music in movies anymore but I noticed it here and it actually made some scenes better and more emotional when some of the actors couldn’t even do that themselves.

I also liked the opening sequence, even if these teens going into space, untested, at the request of the United States President seemed strange.

Some of the new mutants in Magneto’s camp were also pretty cool additions in the New York and train battles but they were just kind of there and then discarded. The dude with the killer dreads was pretty badass; think Omega Red… but with dreads instead of hand tentacles.

I was really happy to see Dazzler show up too but she’s completely wasted in a cheap cameo. She sort of just hangs out in the background and doesn’t do anything else. Fans that have wanted Dazzler since 2000’s X-Men will probably feel cheated, especially since she was played by Halston Sage, who is dynamite on The Orville.

Additionally, I can’t say enough about how good Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are in these films. Their bond transcends the screen, it truly does. It just sucks that the material they had to work with here was so fucking lackluster.

On a side note, I really liked Nicholas Hoult too. He’s a solid Beast, even if I wasn’t initially keen on the casting. But like the other two great actors in this, he also had shit to work with in this picture.

To be fair, a lot of this film’s issues might not be the fault of the actual filmmakers. Simon Kinberg can do some solid stuff and he’s mostly handled this franchise well. However, Disney bought Fox just before this movie was slated to come out. It’s pretty well known now that they meddled with it in post-production because they thought it was too similar to Captain Marvel, which they were banking the entire future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on.

In the end, though, we got a really mediocre movie made by people that don’t seem like they care anymore. I guess it’s fitting that this incarnation of the cinematic X-Men franchise is now dead.

So I guess we’ll have to wait a few more years (or longer) to see what Disney does with the X-Men once they are rebooted into the MCU.

Rating: 5.25/10
Pairs well with: all the other Fox X-Men films and spinoffs.

Film Review: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Release Date: May 9th, 2016 (London premiere)
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Written by: Simon Kinberg, Bryan Singer, Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris
Based on: X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Music by: John Ottman
Cast: James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar Isaac, Nicholas Hoult, Rose Byrne, Tye Sheridan, Sophie Turner, Olivia Munn, Lucas Till, Alexandra Shipp, Hugh Jackman (cameo), Caleb Landry Jones (archive footage)

Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, Bad Hat Harry Productions, Kinberg Genre, The Donners’ Company, 20th Century Fox, 144 Minutes

Review:

“[sends the world’s nuclear weapons into space] Always the same, and now all this. No more stones. No more spears. No more slings. No more swords. No more weapons! No more systems! No more! No more superpowers… So much faith in their tools, in their machines. You can fire your arrows from the Tower of Babel, but you can never strike god!” – Apocalypse

At this point, the X-Men films don’t give a crap about continuity and I don’t care that Days of Future Past was used to try and fix that. Fox still dismisses a lot of what’s happened and just does what works well for each movie as a standalone picture. Because you can’t have Angel appear as a late teen in a 2006 movie and then have him in his twenties in 1983, regardless of whatever Doctor Who timey wimey shenanigans you try to pull. But truthfully, I don’t care at this point. I sort of just see each film as its own reality where each movie just shares some similarities. Sorry, I’ve got to make it make sense for my brain or I have to just dismiss the absurdity of it.

That being said, I don’t hate this chapter in the X-Men movie franchise. In fact, I liked it quite a bit in spite of its flaws, continuity hiccups and the underwhelming way that they presented Apocalypse.

What made this film work for me was the evolution of Magneto, who is the best character in these films and who seems to be handled with great care. I don’t care so much about all the teens and the constant influx of new characters every time I blink my eyes. It’s the core characters that matter in these movies. That being said, I think McAvoy’s Charles Xavier is damn good too.

When I first saw this film in theaters, my initial reaction was worse than it is now. Having time to digest and reflect on Apocalypse, it really isn’t as bad of a movie as I thought it was at first glance. It is the weakest of the newer generation of pictures but it is certainly better than 2000’s X-Men and 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. Don’t even get me started on X-Men Origins: Wolverine, as I find it less enjoyable than a piranha enema.

The plot in this is a bit rushed and shaky. Apocalypse, one of the most powerful forces in the entirety of the Marvel Universe just shows up, learns all about human history by touching a TV and starts taking over the Earth and brainwashing other mutants to be his “Four Horsemen”. It was interesting that Oscar Issac played Apocalypse because it wouldn’t have really mattered who played him, as he was just a dry, one note tyrant. Frankly, he should have been the X-Men‘s version of Thanos, at least in their movie universe.

The sequence with Wolverine is, by far, the high point of the movie. Hugh Jackman only shows up for about ten minutes but it is some of the best Wolverine action ever put to celluloid. Granted, Hollywood is allergic to celluloid now.

This is an epic film but it doesn’t feel as grandiose as its predecessor. It isn’t as good as its predecessor either and I think that is why I was disappointed with it initially. But the main players in the cast add more to their stories in a good way and ultimately, this enriched the modern X-Men movie universe.

I can’t say that I’m excited about the upcoming X-Men: Dark Phoenix movie but I’ll still see it because these films still have more positives than negatives. But really, it’s just time for the X-Men movies to get a much needed reboot and join the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Rating: 7.5/10
Pairs well with: The current crop of X-Men movies since James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender took over the lead roles. Also, the last two Wolverine pictures.

Film Review: Deadpool 2 (2018)

Also known as: DP2 (promotional abbreviation), Daisy, Love Machine (both fake working titles)
Release Date: May 10th, 2018 (US limited)
Directed by: David Leitch
Written by: Rhett Reese, Paul Wernick, Ryan Reynolds
Based on: the character of Deadpool created by Fabian Nicieza, Rob Liefeld
Music by: Tyler Bates
Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Josh Brolin, Morena Baccarin, Julian Dennison, Zazie Beetz, T.J. Miller, Brianna Hildebrand, Jack Kesy, Leslie Uggams, Karan Soni, Terry Crews, Lewis Tan, Bill Skarsgård, Rob Delaney, Brad Pitt (cameo), James McAvoy (cameo), Evan Peters (cameo), Tye Sheridan (cameo), Nicholas Hoult (cameo), Hugh Jackman (archive footage), Alan Tudyk

Marvel Entertainment, Kinberg Genre, The Donners’ Company, 20th Century Fox, 119 Minutes

Review:

“I was born into war, bred into it. People think they understand pain, but they have no concept of it. What’s the most pain you’ve ever felt? Maybe the kind that leaves you more machine than man. ” – Cable

*There be spoilers here!

After what felt like too long of a wait but was actually only 27 months, Deadpool 2 has arrived. I guess if I were to sum up the experience in one word, that word would be “consistent”.

The film is very consistent to the first movie but it had a few things that were better and a few things that weren’t, which makes it break even, as to whether or not it was better or worse.

The positives were the addition of new cast members and the genesis of what is going to become the X-Force team.

Josh Brolin’s Cable is everything you would want a Josh Brolin Cable to be. I think the casting of Brolin was perfect and one hell of a great move and lucky break for this pocket of the X-Men film franchise.

Zazie Beetz’s Domino was really fun to watch and while I love the old school X-Force comics, which Domino was a big part of, this version of the character eclipses the comic book version. Plus, most of the Domino stories I remember were actually just Copycat posing as Domino because I stopped reading X-Force about a year after Rob Liefeld left and the X-Cutioner’s Song crossover ended.

The negatives or really just the one big one for me was that the plot seemed all over the place and kind of aimless at times. Lots of things happened that seemed way too convenient despite the film actually making note of that once or twice, especially with Deadpool’s “lazy writing” jab at his own film. Joke aside, poking fun at it doesn’t necessarily excuse the parts where it happens.

It’s just that the first film felt more refined and more fluid. This one propelled forward at a good pace but it seemed like it was all over the place. There also wasn’t a clearly defined villain, which isn’t a necessary component but I felt like Deadpool and Cable’s first meeting and eventual team-up should have come with a real threat other than just trying to save a kid from his anger. I was kind of hoping that Stryfe would at least appear, even if only to setup the X-Force film.

Juggernaut shows up and his bits are great but he’s really just there to setup a cool fight with Colossus. Also, you get Black Tom Cassidy but he was totally wasted and just sort of a prison thug that ends up getting killed in the lamest way possible. We didn’t get to see the BFF pairing of Black Tom and Juggernaut like we got to see in the earliest Deadpool solo stories and in the original X-Force run. I really hoped we were going to get to see Cassidy and Juggernaut form their villain tag team that was a thorn in Deadpool’s side back in the early ’90s.

My favorite part of the film was the mid-credits sequence, actually. This is packed full of some really cool stuff and more great moments of Ryan Reynolds poking fun at himself.

Deadpool 2 was good but it was a wee bit of a disappointment. With the mythos getting richer with new characters people have wanted to see for years, this should have taken the franchise to the next level. They had a solid foundation, new tools to work with and a world to branch out into. I’m hoping that X-Force, whenever that arrives, takes things to that next level.

Rating: 8/10
Pairs well with: Obviously the first Deadpool film and Logan for being the only other R rated X-Men related film. I’d also pair this up with Legion, which is TV’s more mature take on the X-Men universe, although it’s nowhere near as hilarious as Deadpool.

TV Review: American Horror Story (2011- )

Original Run: October 5th, 2011 – current
Created by: Ryan Murphy, Brad Falchuk
Directed by: various
Written by: various
Music by: Cesar Davila-Irizarry, Charlie Clouser, James S. Levine, Mac Quayle
Cast: Evan Peters, Connie Britton, Dylan McDermott, Taissa Farmiga, Denis O’Hare, Jessica Lange, Zachary Quinto, Joseph Fiennes, Sarah Paulson, Lily Rabe, Lizzie Brocheré, James Cromwell, Frances Conroy, Emma Roberts, Kathy Bates, Michael Chiklis, Finn Wittrock, Angela Bassett, Wes Bentley, Matt Bomer, Chloë Sevigny, Cheyenne Jackson, Lady Gaga, Cuba Gooding Jr., André Holland, Billie Lourd, Alison Pill, Alexandra Daddario, Grace Gummer, Lance Reddick, Alexandra Breckenridge

Ryan Murphy Productions, Brad Falchuk Teley-Vision, 20th Century Fox, 78 Episodes (so far), 37-73 Minutes (per episode)

Review:

*written in 2015.

I just binge watched the first three seasons of American Horror Story, as I was running out of things to watch on Netflix and this was in my queue for a few years. I have yet to see season 4, as it isn’t available yet.

I have a few friends who obsess over this show, which is probably why I put it off for so long. Usually, when a bunch of people build something up really high, I am left disappointed. I think the only time I wasn’t was when I finally sat down to watch Breaking Bad.

I wouldn’t call American Horror Story a disappointment though. It was pretty enjoyable and I’ll watch future seasons, albeit at my own leisure. But I wouldn’t call the show special or hype it up to everyone I know.

The premise of the show is horror, which is obvious by the title, but other than tapping into supernatural elements and showing something scary every now and then, it plays more like a teen drama. But that is the way of Hollywood these days. Sure, most of the characters are older than teens but this is definitely a show written for them.

The show just isn’t scary and that is why I have reservations about horror being used in a television format. Sure, you can churn up a few frights and provide creepy visuals and a dark tone but over the course of a 13 episode season, the monsters you are selling get less and less scary. When the reveals have to happen early because modern audiences can’t tolerate suspense, there is nowhere else to go other than adding in more teen drama and stretching out a resolution.

I guess the one thing that irks me about the show, is how the payoffs seem rushed, the resolution happens almost too early and the final few episodes of each season play like an epilogue that is too fleshed out. The grand evil each season is conquered around episode 11. So what you get is two more episodes that really aren’t necessary. I don’t care about any of these characters that much. It’s like the ending to the extended edition of The Return of the King – you just want it to be over.

Highlights of the show include the acting talents of Jessica Lange and Evan Peters (who was Quicksilver in X-Men: Days of Future Past). The rest of the cast, at least the actors who appear over multiple seasons are all pretty good. Although, Angela Bassett as Marie Laveau was horrible. I don’t blame her, as the character of Laveau was horribly written. The writers really tarnished the well respected legacy of the New Orleans Voodoo Queen and turned her into an evil vengeful idiot. Kathy Bates was fantastic though, I do want to point that out.

I like the show more than I dislike it but it hasn’t solidified me as a fan and it is a moderately enjoyable way to waste a weekend.

Update:

After the third season, I watched two more. Each year gets worse and worse, to the point that I’ve completely stopped caring about the show. The last season I watched was Hotel and I have no more interest in the future of this anthology franchise. I think there are two more seasons after Hotel with the possibility of this going on forever… but I’m done.

Rating: 5/10

Film Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Release Date: May 10th, 2014 (Javits Center premiere)
Directed by: Bryan Singer
Written by: Simon Kinberg, Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn
Based on: Days of Future Past by Chris Claremont, John Byrne
Music by: John Ottman
Cast: Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart

20th Century Fox, Marvel Entertainment, TSG Entertainment, Bad Hat Harry Productions, The Donners’ Company, 131 Minutes

Review:

*Originally written in 2014.

I’m not really sure how Professor X is alive again after being disintegrated in the third X-Men movie but I don’t care. I also don’t know why he and Magneto showed up at the end of the most recent Wolverine film to ask Logan for his seemingly immediate assistance when they didn’t actually need him until much further in the future and only after Logan told them why they needed him. But who cares, right? This is a film series littered with massive continuity errors. And the point of this newest film in the series, is to rewrite its own history, wash away the confusion and reboot the series.

I think I still like X-Men: First Class the best. However, this film is certainly the best of the series out of the films that feature the original cast from the first three films. Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen have an amazing chemistry and this film maximized it. The plot was well constructed – for an X-Men film anyway, the action sequences were pretty well put together and the acting was top notch.

The fact of the matter is, I’ll pretty much watch anything with Michael Fassbender or James McAvoy in it. I’ll also watch Hugh Jackman as Wolverine every day of the week. Mix in the awesomeness that is Patrick Stewart and Sir Ian McKellen and you have damn near a masterpiece! Jennifer Lawrence was also great, as were Nicholas Hoult and Peter Dinklage. Actually, in many ways, Dinklage stole the show. Additionally, everyone was ripping Quicksilver before this film even came out. Well, jokes on you people because he was awesome!

Going into this chapter of the series, I felt that adding time travel and a massive cast of characters to the mix would make the plot convoluted. It actually flowed quite well and the balance between both sides of the universe came across nicely. However, I was hoping to see more from the future characters; Blink, Bishop, Sunspot and Warpath were just there to really add to the action and had no character development whatsoever. They just felt like fodder for the future Sentinels and really, that’s all they were. It’d be interesting to see their characters fleshed out more or even minutely, as they were just faces on a screen dying multiple times.

I felt like despite being integral to the time travel element, Kitty Pryde should have had more of an impact or an expanded role. Her entire presence in this film was just two hours of her leaning over a dude’s head and moaning. Iceman had some cool moments but nothing all that noteworthy. Hey was that Sookie? I couldn’t tell because she had less than two seconds of screen time! And man, Vampire Bill is going to be pissed she’s holding hands with the Ice Princess!

This was a damn good X-Men movie. For me, First Class still has the lead but this washed away the pain of The Last Stand and that first Wolverine film, which I still haven’t seen in its entirety. Speaking of which, it would’ve been nice to see Sabertooth in this film and by “Sabertooth”, I mean Liev Schreiber with claws straight tearing shit up!

Lastly, stay until the end of the credits because there is a scene that leads into the next film in the X-Men series. The scene introduces my favorite villain in all of X-Men lore, so enjoy.

Getting back to the question I had to start this review, I must have missed where this was mentioned in the film. However, IMDb answers the question of how Professor Charles Xavier is alive in the future. Here’s what their FAQ says:

It is said that Xavier transferred his consciousness into a comatose body believed to be that of his brother prior to being disintegrated. Thus, we can assume that the physical body of Xavier in Days of Future Past is actually that of the body which Xavier took control of.

Wait.. what?!

Rating: 8.5/10
Pairs well with: The current crop of X-Men movies since James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender took over the lead roles. Also, the last two Wolverine pictures.