platsy

[platsy]

Eternals - Middle Ground

It’s been a while since something has gotten me to sit down and write a little essay. I’m a college student with a lot to do, as well as a wife to support. Things change and things pass by like a leaf pissing in the wind. But here I am now because I just saw The Eternals, and I was left foaming at the mouth and wildly gesturing. As of right now, I have a quiz and a rough draft due tonight, but I am here writing this because I have been struck by abstract horror and existential dread.

I would rate this movie a 5/10. It’s a cinematographer’s wet dream, a beautifully realized vision of an obviously talented director, a great move of Marvel to have a lot of diversity in terms of race and even a deaf person in a lead role, and a very lofty story scope that pushes the boundaries for Marvel story-telling. And yet, for as much as the director wants you to believe that the Eternals have human characteristics and feelings, I don’t get any soul out of the movie. I don’t like a chunk of the characters, I don’t like what the story has done, and I don’t feel any passion or hatred for this movie. It’s middle ground material, but I can see a lot of effort that has gone through the movie. In the end, I appreciate the movie for being a different superhero movie and a thoughtful one with big ideas. I just don’t like it. 

SPOILERS

Throughout this essay, I’m going to go through a negative point and then a positive point, because they balance each other out.

CHARACTERS BLOATING

The movie is way too bloated and yet lacks substance. Watching it was like reading through the Wikipedia synopsis of the movie. We have ten characters, but most of them don’t have anything that makes them stand out. They all have distinct powers, but their characters are pretty bone-dry. Sersi and Ikaris don’t have a speck of character. Ikaris is a duty-bound soldier who likes Sersi because... she’s attractive. Sersi is a kind, human-loving person who likes them because... they’re essentially just cute dogs. She likes how primitive they are and enjoys laughing at them when they can’t get through the little doggy door. The weirdly hyped sex scene even doesn’t make me think that they love each other. It’s more of an inevitability. You plop down a white man with brown hair and abs you can grate cheese with into a room with a woman with not a single bit of imperfection on her face because it’s been covered up by makeup, you can imagine that they would do a little lying on top of each other. By the way, that’s the sex scene. They just look at each other blankly and then the camera pans up. I want to direct your attention to an article from elle.com (https://www.elle.com/culture/movies-tv/a38194852/chloe-zhao-eternals-ending-sex-scene-interview/) wherein the author says that Ikaris and Sersi have sexual tension so palpable that it’ll perk up your nips or make your special mushroom rise a little bit, but I didn’t get that at all. In order for sexual tension to be had, both characters have to have chemistry. But the only thing we got from them was Ikaris learning a bit of the language to tell Sersi that she’s beautiful. This and one other little moment I’ll talk about in a bit are the only kinds of humanizing that Ikaris gets. The article says that critics have been saying that Marvel should start including sex. Now I posit, who is asking for this? Is it necessary to show characters having sex when sex is the laziest way of demonstrating love between two characters? Sex isn’t the perfect storytelling device. As a matter of fact, it’s not a device. Sex should be communicating that two characters who have chemistry and actual personalities really do love each other. All we have with Ikaris and Sersi is them looking at each other with bedroom eyes and then they joylessly start discussing how a plug fits into an electrical socket. It really feels like Zhao wanted to shove sex in there but didn’t have the time to flesh it out, so she did the laziest thing. 

Ikaris is also boring. In the class of “What if Superman was EVIL?!!!!” he ranks the lowest, with Homelander in first, Omni-Man in second, and Injustice (the game) Superman in third. He just follows his god because... no reason is given. He has an evil turn with none of the weight. It too was an inevitability. Any Superman-like character has to be evil because that’s what realistically would happen. Why can’t Superman be a good guy again with a smile and genuine love for people? That’s an essay for a different day. 

The other Eternals aren’t really afforded much either. Ajak is just the doctor, who is around and does stuff. When she died, I felt nothing. We didn’t have much time to get attached nor did we see what she meant to the other Eternals. Everybody drops their head low or cries, but I was just thinking about how much time is going to be allotted to her in flashbacks to hopefully get us to appreciate by way of hindsight. But it didn’t work, sorry. 

Druig did... something, I’m sure of it. Much like Kit Harrington or the deaf lady, there wasn’t much time to flesh out his character. We know he’s an Ezra Miller in Fantastic Creatures, who looks like he’s just getting out of puberty but the voice crack follows and he really wants you to believe he’s an edgy and dark individual. We’re told he and Makkari are in love. We are told, they do a little cuddle thing, and then that’s it for that. If we edited that part, nothing would change. It’s one of the many inclusions that are jammed into the story without a thought about what it adds to the story. It’s surface-level character development with no passion. 

Sersi doesn’t have anything going on, besides being the obvious protagonist. She loves humans because she sees that they are cute dogs, as mentioned, and has a human boyfriend because she needs a love interest. Just a brick wall of a character. 

The deviant Kro just shows up and is killed in the final fight. He didn’t really have a purpose. If the deviants were nothing but mindless monsters, then it would have worked better instead of having another useless element. 

THE BIGGER YOU ARE, THE MORE OF YOU THERE IS TO LOVE

Some of the characters do have good characterization but are only afforded one personality type. Sprite wants to be human and envies the fact that the other Eternals can blend in so seamlessly but she can only throw up illusions to get her to look older. It’s tragic and an engaging idea. 

Kingo, the Eternal who is more complex comic relief as opposed to his valet who is less complex comic relief but still my favorite character. Kingo is fun and has some life and shows some depth when he philosophically follows his God but doesn’t want to hurt his fellow Eternals so he doesn’t participate in the final fight. He’s an active player and one that makes choices based on what he believes. He’s a believable character and I like him. 

Gilgamesh and Thena have my favorite trope, wherein one of them is a danger to themselves or others and must have a companion who loves them unconditionally and takes care of them (IE, Aang and Katara when Aang finds his whole village slaughtered.) They demonstrate their love in a lot of ways if being a little shallow. 

Dane Whitman, for as little time as he had, was the one my wife and I were most invested in. He was nice and inquisitive about Sersi and was a character who felt warm. They also didn’t have chemistry, but Whitman was cool and I’m more interested in his story. 

STORY THREADS AS THICK AS A THUMBTACK

The story is big and gigantic and that means I can’t swallow it all, nor can the movie. Kingo and Phastos have reasons to not be involved, but the director and the husband are so supportive that they scurry them along. Any opposition or reason to be engaged in their character is taken away. While it moves the plot along, we don’t have time to dwell on it or have much time to absorb it. It happens mainly because it’s what has to happen to get the characters to hang out. 

The deviants awakening from centuries of being dead come back for... a reason that I’m sure was spoken about but it passed through me like Mexican food. Yes, they have to be there because that’s the Eternals whole goal is to wipe out deviants. They protect humanity for story reasons. That plot point takes a back seat when we’re inevitably shown that the Celestials, who are seemingly the good guys, aren’t actually the good guys (WHAT?!) or have bad reasons for genocide or whatever. Just like that twist from Iron Man, Thor, Iron Man 3, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy 2, Thor: Ragnorak, Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Loki. It’s a launchpad for interesting questions like is the human race worth protecting but that doesn’t really have anything to do with the deviants. The fact that Kro just evolves and is gaining power doesn’t amount to anything. It’s more obligation towards the source material because Kro is the deviant leader and they need to honor that, whether or not that makes sense for the story we’re telling now There’s enough substance in the movie that his inclusion could be cut entirely and his presence wouldn’t be missed at all. He shows up and is killed as quickly as he’s established. 

VISUAL METAPHOR AS THICK AS QUICKSAND

Eternals is so full of visual metaphor and cinematography that it does a lot of the story for us. I’ve been getting into magical realism as of late, and a lot of the stories that magical realism tells is told through metaphor rather than choosing to explicitly tell us what’s happening. It’s mostly up to the viewer to take their own interpretation and run with it. I get that kind of vibe from Eternals, which is an interesting choice. God and Christ imagery abound, like Sersi handing a boy an ornate knife that resembles Michelangelo's “The Creation of Adam”, Makkari runs around Rio de Janeiro, where the Christ the Redeemer statue is, among other things. This communicates how the Eternals are the Jesus’ to Arashem’s God. They go through history and influence a lot of culture while Arashem guides them to do his will. He created humans and the Eternals are there to save them. That’s some good symbolism and metaphor. 

A lot of time is spent demonstrating how the Eternals have a lot of humanity. The earlier sex scene, as poorly executed as it is, shows that the Eternals feel human emotions. Even though humans murder their fellow man and destroy the earth (Makkari runs by oil rigs and shows another way humanity is poisoning the world. Phastos says that humanity isn’t worth saving, but finds a family in his husband and son.) Druig wants humans to be peaceful but forces peace upon them by way of mind control. He runs off into the forest and starts a cult. I’d give more context and effort into explaining that, but I’m only doing what the movie did. Sersi likes humans. So does 7 Up. Kingo loves stories and loves telling stories, showing how he wants to teach and experience human life. Gilgamesh and Thena like fighting and each other... Makkari likes collecting artifacts because they’re neat. Ajak...

At the end, the Eternals are divided as their true purpose overshadows the attachment they have for the human race. All of them have different motivations and beliefs, Kingo in particular chooses not to harm his fellow Eternals but still believes in Arashem. Sprite goes with Ikaris (who has no personality and thus has no motivation to do anything besides follow his god) because she has a little crush on him. Totally willing to sacrifice her family she’s known for all her life because she likes a hunky boy. Yep. 

GENERAL NITPICKS

While I admire that the cast is diverse, it brings up some weird questions within the canon. The Eternals are created by Arashem to be soldiers of war, but why would he make one that’s deaf? I have to assume it’s because of a defect in the creation process, but it’s not well explained. I love that she’s deaf, I love that she’s bringing interest in sign language to people, I just question the story reasons. Everybody else is fine. Arashem likely looked at the existing humans and saw that people had different skin tones and modeled the Eternals after those humans. But when it comes to physical handicaps, what was the reasoning behind making her deaf, if that was intentional. 

Also, the Eternals are essentially just recycled machines, so why would he make Eternals have emotions. They can just go through and do their purpose and then get out of there when it comes time to let a baby Celestial get born. Emotion begets rebellion, and since Arashem has no apparent emotion or motivation besides carrying out his purpose, why would he program the Eternals to have emotions that he doesn’t have?

Despite the fact that the characters had disagreements, those disagreements didn’t really pay off. Everybody remains friends despite fundamental issues with how they carry on. Kingo is fine with all his Eternals pals even though they stopped the purpose of Arashem, whom he still believes in. Sprite does a 180 after stabbing Sersi and is now totally cool with her. They don’t have any qualms, they just act like it didn’t happen. Just another unresolved plot point.

Humanity is at the center of Eternals. Doesn’t feel like it is, but that’s what the movie insists on. Humans are present and the Eternals could probably be seen as humans because they do human things like sex and save people. It’s a shame that not even the humans have an ounce of humanity in them. If the father who told his son to run from the deviants showed a little bit of fear instead of flatly telling his son, “goodbye son, I’m gonna die, hope you survive.” Any normal person would panic and run, which the extras are doing, but the father is such a bad stoic that he barely even moves. It gives me Superman’s dad from Man of Steel vibes.

GENERAL GOOD THINGS I LIKED

The visuals and cinematography were pretty good. I loved the shots with Arashem, especially when he’s talking to Sersi or Ajak. He’s so big that the camera can’t even capture all of him. In the shot where he comes to earth and abducts some of the Eternals, he parts the clouds and appears from the sky. It’s a gorgeous shot and makes him seem imposing and impossible to deal with. I also enjoyed the on-location scenes and the soundtrack in the beginning. It gave me Arrival vibes but then the music died down later on. I also love me some metaphors and similes and this movie is so full of them that it makes me happy. Sersi can change the chemical composition of things, drawing a parallel to Jesus and how He turned water into wine. Another illusion to them being Jesus. 

I love characters that show humanity not by doing things that are surface level, like saving people or being horny, but by doing unusual human things. There’s a brief scene where Ikaris is looking at an emerald tablet and Druig is eating some Twinkies. They have a look, have a little altercation about trading, and then Ikaris gladly takes some Twinkies and starts chomping. It’s cute and shows me more that Ikaris has human desires. More so than fanaticizing about Sersi’s family Gem’s (wink wink). Shame it’s the only good humanizing moment he gets. 

I will applaud Zhao’s efforts to have such a diverse cast of characters, and I admire Disney's willingness to not censor the intimate scenes of Phastos having a kiss with his husband. This will definitely impact sales, but it’s a good effort on their part. Even including a deaf superhero is great. Shame that doesn’t benefit the story in any way besides having a diverse cast. Again, I want to emphasize that I love that she’s deaf, I just have to question if the story benefits from it and makes sense because of it. 

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS

In the beginning, the movie was impressing me by the differences it has to other Marvel movies. It mostly revolves around characters talking to each other and having thoughtful discussions, telling the story through visuals, and letting the setting speak for itself. But then I realized that I was really bored. The conversations started to go on and on and weren’t engaging in the least bit. My favorite movie is Arrival, and a lot of that movie is based on language and talking. So I can take slow scenes and slow starts, it’s just that that pace is a detriment to Eternals story. The characters that are heavily focused on don’t have character and aren’t engaging to watch. Sersi and Ikaris have no character, the other characters don’t have time to grow and change, and so many of them are just quickly forgotten about. Thinking of you, Dane Whitman! It tackles a lot of ideas, but they’re not focused on enough and they just make me feel tired and exhausted. I was waiting for the movie to be over for so long. There was no character that I hoped we would go back to, even though my favorite pairing is Gilgamesh and Thena. As much as I liked them, I only liked them because of their dynamic, and that only had two or three moments where they did something with it. It’s really good, for what we have of it, but it needed more time to bake. Everything needed more time to bake. Zhao just wanted to shove as much as she could into the movie and she couldn’t make it work. It’s sad that the most interesting part of the Eternals is the stuff that it sets up. I can’t wait to see more of Dane Whitman and Blade, and I like the inclusion of Thanos’ brother and three of the Eternals going to find the others.

I also don’t want to posit that this movie does something different from the Marvel formula and is therefore bad. I want there to be different kinds of Marvel stuff. With this current phase, things feel more and more like they’re milking the Marvel formula for all the nourishment it can bring. Now the tit is running dry and Marvel keeps sucking. I hope Marvel learns the right lesson from Eternals performance. That the story can deviate from the formula and be different and explore different areas of the world, it just needs more time. But knowing companies, they just recede back to doing the thing we know them for and don’t budge for years. 

I appreciate Eternals in what it sets out to do, but I want Marvel to succeed, so I feel the need to criticize. 

FIX IT

How would I fix it? I mean, you totally care, right? I’m a stranger ranting out loud at an empty room. You value my opinion despite not knowing me. If you got this far, then that means you’re interested. This is more for me than it is for you, so I’m going to plop my storytelling flab onto a table and you’re going to observe it.

First of all, make this a series. That way we can get attached to more characters over long periods of time. The story can be as heavy as it wants without feeling like it’s not enough. Of course, the movie Zhao wanted to make would lose something if she made it into a Disney Plus series, where the big visuals are meant to be seen on the big screen instead of your phone or your small TV. So she can have her big movie, we’re just going to go a bit smaller. So, Eternals can have several movies to justify its plot, we’re just going to start small. I’m going to cut the cast in half. There are ten characters, but we can have five to start with. Ajak, Sersi, Ikaris, Phastos, and Kingo can stay, and the rest can be developed in a sequel. Only five Eternals are designated to this planet and the other Eternals can be sent elsewhere. 

Ajak is still in charge and still works under Arashem, who still tells them to protect humanity from deviants so another celestial can be born, but we’ll find out about that later. The basic gist of the plot is largely the same, but the characters have more room to grow. Ajak is the mother of the group, healing their wounds from their battles and showing them genuine love and affection. Ajak loves humans because of their capacity for love towards each other. She mimics them and treats her fellow Eternals with kindness. This way, Ajak is portrayed more like a mother and therefore gives us something to miss when she dies. No longer can they go to Ajak who would normally heal their wounds and give them hugs and supports. Now there’s only an empty spot at the table. Ajak’s biggest flaw is that she sometimes mothers the Eternals too much and sometimes that means they don’t grow as much as they should. She is extremely cautious, to the point where she has to learn to let them go and fight. Her character would conclude by taking action, which will be strange for her because she never takes action. She sacrifices herself to save her kids. 

Sersi really likes teaching humans. This is implied in the movie, but guess what happened. She gets genuinely giddy when a human learns something and demonstrates growth. She helps them build buildings, grow gardens, gets down and dirty when helping them and does all kinds of Jesus metaphor things. You just really have to hammer that in. But show that she has a genuine love for humanity because they’re growing up in front of her eyes. She too is a mother, but a young mom who is holding her newborn baby in her eyes. Ajak is an empty nester who sees her kids rarely but is still as warm as her kids remember. She also loves jokes and pranks and is generally a nice person to be around. She specifically likes teaching kids and learning from them, hence why she teaches younger kids. Sersi isn’t afraid to be firm when she needs to, though everything she does is out of love. She doesn’t like acknowledging the ugly side of history. As a matter of fact, she basically ignores it and acts like it didn’t really happen. She blinds herself to the truth so much that nobody who sides with Arashem can talk any sense to her, despite making good points. Her arc would be finally seeing what humanity has done and she sides with Arashem toward the end. But what she’s done so far inspires Ikaris, whom I’ll get into now. 

Ikaris will become a bright and happy sentry. He dishes out justice with a smile and a wink, going out of his way to make sure that people are inspired and hopeful. Truth be told, he couldn’t care less about humans. He enjoys fighting more than spending time with them. He sees all the bad that humanity has done and despises them for it. Sersi tries hard to convince him otherwise, though it usually doesn’t go well. Ikaris does have a crush on Sersi because he actually envies that she can enjoy the humans. As a sign of inspiration, he feels most inspired by Sersi. He feels most at home spending time with Sersi, letting his guard down and showing his true self. He’s a big foodie, specifically for sweets. That’s the first point that Sersi manages to get him on. He starts seeing humanity differently but is still shown plenty of reminders that humans are the worst. Sersi and Ikaris now have a better dynamic, where they both help humanity, but Sersi can’t help but feel like she can change him. Ikaris knows what she’s doing and they have squabbles about what they believe in. No relationship is perfect, but they manage to pull through and help each other grow. When the shoe drops and everybody learns that they’re automatons used for giving birth to Celestials, Ikaris is torn. He sees value in humanity but sees the bad they’ve done too. In the end, he is duty-bound to Arashem and fights the Eternals to get the celestial born. While Sersi starts to side with Arashem he starts to think about everything he’s been taught. Through the movie, we see that he carries a little figure that a child gave him. It’s poorly made but it reminds Ikaris of the things that humanity is best at. While traveling around, he finds that it gets destroyed during his battles. Making a heel turn, he finishes the job and sacrifices himself to do so by, you know, flying into the sun. That’ll save the day, somehow. Sersi and Ikaris would essentially switch sides, Ikaris being the one to save humanity while Sersi is actively contemplating just flipping the table and starting again.

Phastos wouldn’t change much. He’s still married and has a kid, he and his husband are both sports fans who like to do carpentry and making little machines, their son likes comic book heroes and Star Wars and his parents take him to those movies even though they don’t get it. He’s still hesitant to go but his husband understands the mission and lets him go. 

Kingo would also be the same, just with one small change. He really does not want to go with the Eternals and would rather make movies, but this isn’t because he likes telling stories, it’s because he’s scared to fight. He never enjoyed fighting, he just liked spreading stories around the world. He actively ran from conflict and still does to this day. When everybody picks a side, he chooses Arashem but doesn’t go into the fight, not wanting to hurt his family. He’s pulled into things because his valet buddy says that having a documentary would be good for business. We can still have the documentary thing that already exists because I liked that part. 

The deviants are just going to be vicious monsters. They won’t evolve into humanoid creatures, they’re just going to be vague monsters that the Eternals will slaughter. But while it’s revealed that the world will explode, Arashem also warns the Eternals that disobeying him will have dire consequences, revealing that the deviants are actually older Eternals that disobeyed Arashem in the past. All the monsters they’ve been killing were once soldiers protecting different worlds but are now no longer warriors of peace. Some of them the Eternals actually knew in the past, but they believe they went and fought on other planets. The mind-wipe thing is still in effect, but as the movie goes on they remember more and more things about their past. Just monsters fighting against Arashem because that’s all they know to do at this point. This probably goes against the comic canon, but if Marvel can change things in big ways to fit their story, then this is something they can definitely change. This makes killing faceless monsters deeper instead of the typical Marvel fare. 

I’d think of things to do with Dane Whitman, but I’ve got a rough draft due soon and this thing has to end at some point. Just know I wouldn’t do much different. 

The ending also wouldn’t be too different. Arashem is disappointed in them but takes them to see if humanity is worth saving. Sersi and Phastos are kidnapped and taken with Arashem. The mid-credits scene would show the deviants dragging Ikaris and Ajak into a cave and sucking their energy. This births Kro, who would be more involved with a future sequel. Dane’s current credit scene would stay the same too.

That’s all I have. I appreciate Eternals for being interesting and having plenty to talk about. I hope Marvel keeps doing different things and adapting. But my expectations are low for now. 

[platsy]

Disney Monopoly

You know, I don’t enjoy the Disney monopoly. The pimp daddy that is Mickey Mouse has his old, wrinkly hands wrapped around tons of hookers, all of whom are now out doing what Daddy wants. Fox is newer, so it’s struggling on the streets, but at some future point, it will hopefully be more useful than giving Marvel a couple new STDs called “Fantastic Four” and “X-Men.” And Marvel’s doing great, it’s got all of us wrapped around its finger and can break us in half if it wanted to. 

The problem with all these prostitutes is that Daddy wants them to do things his way. They gotta adhere to rules, they gotta have a singular vision of work, and they can’t do more “creative” things. Scott Derrickson has since left Doctor Strange 2 because Disney wants a very specific vision. There’s not even that example. I could point to so many other directors who wanted to do things differently, but Disney wants to do things its way. It’s very hard to do things creatively when a company that’s typically known for family-friendly entertainment wants to keep things that way. And if you don’t do things the “mickey” way, you’re not going to have the opportunity to sleep with that hooker than you think is in love with you.

While the acquisition of many companies is fine, I can’t help but wonder what this means for the future. Imagine Disney becomes so big that it is basically where all entertainment comes from. And all of it starts to blend together into an amorphous mass of entertainment that feels like it’s just spitting out film, tv, or what-have-you every time somebody puts a quarter in it. None of it matters, it doesn’t feel special or artful in any way. It’s just another easily digestible thing that will leave your memory banks once you walk away.

My fear with this is that we’ll lose a lot of stories. We need R-rated films because sometimes the lessons and morals we need are harsh and require us to be uncomfortable. I recently watched “Eighth Grade” directed by Bo Burnham. That whole movie makes me want to shrivel up and die. Not because it’s particularly violent or anything, it’s just, for lack of a better word, cringey. Things happen in the movie that are just hard to watch. It’s an endurance test. It makes it actually hard to recommend, but I’ll tell you that it’s a movie that you should watch. This movie is far more genuine and real than anything I’ve ever seen. As a man with anxiety, I can say that the dialogue coming from the main antagonist is an accurate depiction of what my speech patterns are like in reality. I can’t help but stutter and think too hard about what I’m going to say that I end up rambling, missing my point entirely. I’m so worried about the impressions I make on people and I can’t help but feel inadequate in so many aspects. Eighth Grade managed to be the most real thing I’ve ever seen about anxiety. Even the message about social media and technology hurt me. I finished the movie and had an existential crisis, asking myself why I use social media and what the point of any of it even means. It’s a movie that struck my soul and made me rethink everything. 

How would Disney have handled the same issue? It would have been done in a Disney Channel Original movie starring one of the younger stars that has yet to be completely defiled by the mouse. The movie is unnaturally bright, the kids have perfect skin and perfect teeth, the adults are fake with terrible dialogue, and everything feels so synthesized. The teenage girl spends too much time on her phone and is wrapped up in that world that she doesn’t see the world around her. She gets taken on a weird, whimsical journey and learns the importance of seeing the world around her. Safe, protected, and boring. 

On my last post about Frozen 2, somebody had commented that “It’s literally a Disney movie. It ain’t that deep.” But isn’t that the problem? Are we to say that Disney movies aren’t supposed to be mature? Are we to say that they’re nothing more than cheap entertainment? The movies that I enjoy are ones that make me feel, that push the envelope, that feel like they value my intelligence. I demand more from my movies. I’m not saying that everything needs to be artful and deep. I enjoy my fair share of mindless entertainment. Godzilla: King of the Monsters was one of my favorite movies of 2019, purely because seeing Godzilla fight King Ghidorah was hype. What I’m saying is that stories that stick with you and matter to you are not stories that are safe and play by the books. I’m sick and tired of having comic relief characters that have no other purpose than to drive up merchandise sales and help the kids be entertained. It’s okay to have them, but when they stop the movie and detract from the point that the movie is trying to make, then I can’t help but feel like they don’t trust me to have emotions and think. I can never go into a Disney movie and expected to be challenged. All I can expect is safe entertainment that holds my hand and leads me along. 

Am I a hypocrite because I love the MCU? I wouldn’t say so, mainly because those movies are becoming more and more philosophically challenging. I love Infinity War so much because it provides an excellent story that actually had stakes and losses that will affect the story moving forward. I wish I could have been there in the theater when the movie first came out because I wanted to see the looks of kids who were crying because their favorite heroes turned to dust. I wanted to experience that challenging and downright terrifying final sequence on the big screen at the same time. That movie rules! I just wish Disney had the guts to do something different and make movies that I can care about without the aid of nostalgia or overused tactics. 

You know, this was originally supposed to be about Tangled: The Series, but I got sidetracked in the first paragraph. In summary, the show relies too heavily on miscommunication and “whacky” hi-jinx from comic relief characters and backs away when it starts to get interesting and mature. Much like other Disney properties. I’d do a more in depth look at the series, but I think this rant does the job for me. 

[platsy]

Frozen 2 has entered my top 5 worst movies list after one watch.

This is going to be a long one, so buckle up.

   I don’t think I’ve seen a movie that’s made me more passionately angry than Frozen 2 has. It entered my top five worst films I’ve ever seen immediately after my first viewing. There’s a lot of reasons, but I’ll break down the aspects and concepts that I found particularly problematic, which is character, plot structure, themes, and corporate greed. 

I’m going to break down each character in order of annoyance.

Olaf

Olaf is absolutely the worst part of this movie. Olaf offers nothing of thematic importance besides being the classic comic relief character that Disney will always shoehorn into their films. They did it in The Hunchback of Notre Dame with the gargoyles, they did it Moana with the chicken, and they’ve done it in countless other films. 

They try to tell me that Olaf has aged since Frozen and try to show this by having his dialogue be purple prose philosophy and by saying (keyword is saying) that he’s grown up, but they undercut all this by having him sing a song about how he’s not old enough to understand why strange things are happening around him. Also, Olaf has several instances where his immaturity is in full swing. There’s several jokes that are very obviously targeted at five-year-olds that he spouts throughout the movie. The line where he says, “I don’t even know a Samantha” and then he giggles for a while is the first instance that comes to mind. There’s also the problem that at any time in the movie, Olaf can grab the camera, focus it on him, and he can do whatever he wants to. He gets a musical number, he recaps the entirety of Frozen 1, gets a fake out death scene to emotionally manipulate the audience into thinking there are stakes (and oh boy, will we get to that.)

So they establish that Olaf is more mature now, but they take that away from him as soon as the writers realize that they still have to make a movie for toddlers. He’s learned nothing and hasn’t grown since the first movie. Got it. However, the problem gets worse as you go along. And that’s a point I’ll get to later on.

But since I want to be constructive, I will also offer my two cents on how to fix the movie. Since the main idea behind the film’s production was to grow up with the audience, have Olaf actually grow up. Keep the philosophical musings and have him be one to ask questions. Question why things in the world are the way they are. He is actually a toddler, technically speaking. And when he asks questions, have him be the vehicle to have questions regarding the plot and themes directed to the audience. “Should the actions of your grandpa be reflected on you?” “Is it really worth it to abandon your family so you can pursue something out of your grasp?” “Does a kingdom built on slaughter and violence need to be torn down so we can repent for the sins they’ve committed?” 

This way, the movie can actually be grown up, which I know is super important to the filmmakers.

Christoff

Why was Christoff in this movie? He made no impact on anything, he was entirely used for a plotline that stretched out for the entire movie. Olaf might have been insufferable to watch, but the handling of Christoff has tied Olaf in terms of pure agony that I sat through. Basic writing tip. If a problem can be easily solved by simple communication, then the plotline doesn’t need to be there. There’s an entire song dedicated to his mourning over the fact that he can’t propose to Anna. It adds nothing to the themes of the movie, it gets really annoying immediately, and doesn’t showcase Christoff’s positive qualities at all. 

Why do sequels have to break up the love interests? Why are there so few stories that develop the chemistry of a couple after they’ve gotten together? It always revolves around the hero trying to win back the girl. Why do people always have to go back to this plotline? 

I’m going to diverge from the movie slightly to go into a semi-related topic. Divorce rates are rising and so many things are being blamed for it. I’m not saying that movies where they don’t go into the relationship of characters are the ultimate cause, but as a firm believer that art is a tool used to help people understand life and to make sense of things, I think movies can help people in small ways learn to grow with their spouse. How about a movie sequel in which a newly wedded couple must now operate through life together instead of individually? Whatever the obstacle, whether it be working together as one, making sacrifices to better gel with your loved one, helping your loved one through personal flaws or tragedy, or an evil space-lord is destroying the world and the two of you need to stop him by flying a plane into the spaceship, there are plenty of avenues to explore.

But I digress.

If it were me writing the script, have Christoff and Anna spend more time together outside of Christoff’s attempts to propose. As a matter of fact, we start the movie with knowledge that Christoff has already proposed. Anna has said yes, and now they’re all giddy and excited to get hitched. I’ll admit that there’s a bit of ret-conning in here, but we realize that Christoff isn’t exactly squeaky clean. He had some shady dealings with bandits and was responsible for ruining lives and stealing from people. But he had a change of heart and helped a lot of people. He’s a better person. But when they go into the enchanted forest, Christoff meets a corrupt knight who Christoff had previously been very involved with in stealing from a lot of people. We can’t have this be PG-13, there’s a demographic of kids who are going to see this movie as well. But once Anna finds this out, she starts to doubt the marriage. Christoff struggles with whether or not he deserves to be forgiven or not, and Anna wonders if their relationship should continue. They’re forced to be together, so no going off and figuring things out on their own for most of the movie. They do have some alone time to think about it, turn it into a duet of duality, and then Anna realizes that just as Arendelle needed to be burned away and rebuilt, Christoff has adopted that philosophy and truly grown as a person. She can forgive him. This fits in with the theme of the movie, that being historical revisionism and sins of the father. Or in this case, Grandfather’s sin. Or more rather, does somebody or a group of people deserve to be forgiven despite the things they’ve done in the past. 

Elsa

This movie is a really big fan of keeping their characters the exact same. Elsa is still needlessly isolated from everybody. Even though she’s now closer with her sister and has a couple new friends, she’s always dragging herself away from them. She makes Anna stay behind and watch Olaf pretend die just so she can take on self-imposed challenges for... nothing really. Just because she wants to be a strong, independent woman. 

Remember when Elsa realized that connection to loved ones was the thing that she really needed to help control her powers? Frozen 2 sure doesn’t remember. I know the first movie was six years ago, but it’s not hard to find a copy and watch it again. I does hold up pretty well and would have survived fine without a sequel. But again, we’ll get to that. 

Another problem I have is that Elsa’s ultimate decision to leave the kingdom to Anna and go off on her own adventures came out of nowhere. I don’t think I ever got that vibe that she didn’t want to be queen anymore. It never seemed like a concern for her, or even a big problem in the movie. Elsa was more concerned about some voice calling after her. I’m still not confident that we got an answer for what that was. But whatever. Also, the plot about Arendelle and the forest people being at odds with each other felt pointless and didn’t add anything substantial to the plot. The main reason this movie existed was to get answers for why things are the way they are and to bring new ideas to the franchise. But none of that matters to the movie. It’s brought up for nothing and goes out like a fart. 

I’ll give Elsa the same treatment I gave the other two. Her problems mimic the themes. Instead of the grandfather being responsible for the fighting going on between the two kingdoms, it’s actually Elsa’s mother. She hated Arendelle for having things that she never had and she believed Arendelle was responsible for her parent’s murder. Which, it was. Arendelle saw the forest dwelling people as monsters and attempted to destroy all of them. So Elsa’s mother decided to start the fighting between both factions, but had a change of heart when she met Elsa’s father. She got amnesia and didn’t remember that she started the war. She married Elsa’s father and she forgot she had powers at all. 

It’s revealed that neither faction is as squeaky clean on the surface. I’ll fully admit to stealing what Pocahontas had going on, but it’s a poignant message that doesn’t get as much attention as it should. Both factions have good points and bad points, but they’re both responsible for doing awful things. And when they are frozen (heh) in the forest, it makes us think of grudges. When you hold onto them, they stay there for a long time. You’re left in the same place, unable to let go of your pride and take a step back and recognize the wrong that you’ve done. 

Elsa is also struggling with her past, wondering if she can be forgiven for almost sending the kingdom into a devastating winter. I mean, she seems to get away with it scot free and becomes the queen of Arendelle. We should at least acknowledge it. Not everybody is down for her rule, and she finds ruling a people that don’t trust her very taxing. But since she’s so deep into it, she can’t exactly abandon everything. 

As Elsa attempts to be a better ruler, she does a lot of research into the past and learning about the kingdom. She even learns about the river and some more mystical things. She finds that the two factions have never gotten along, and she’s saddened about it and hopes to unite the two factions. But pretty soon, the voice calls after her and she is called onto an adventure to learn the truth about the kingdom. Not her powers. We don’t need an answer for that. It’s just something that she inherited from her mom. There’s no deeper reason. It’s a kids movie, we don’t need to have these big reasons that somebody gets their powers. Says the guy who’s trying to put historical revisionism and forgiveness topics into a kid’s movie, but Inside Out managed to condense complex psychological functions into an understandable and easily digestible format for everybody to understand, then you can simplify this for the kiddies. I digress. Elsa realizes that the only way to fix all the problems is to destroy both faction’s kingdoms and build them up from the ground up. The two kingdoms unite together, and Elsa let’s Anna rule Arendelle while she rules the kingdom with magical powers. 

Anna

Make Anna less of an idiot, give her more to do than be oblivious to Christoff, have her stop telling Elsa that she’s there for her over and over again, and I’m good. I have less about her than everybody else. What do you want from me, this is getting to over 2,000 words. 

PLOT

But that’s just the characters. The plot is fundamentally broken. We were supposed to be told how Elsa got her powers, where her parents were going when they died on the boat, but none of that happened. We got vague answers and nothing explicit. We got just enough information to justify more Frozen sequels for the foreseeable future. 

Why was destroying Arendelle pulled out of the movie’s butt? How did that come into play except to copy Thor Ragnarok? I think it’s a good idea, but it felt like it wasn’t properly built up. 

Elsa comes out of being frozen learning... nothing, I don’t think. She sees the past and present and learns that her grandfather killed a man. Man, that revealed so much that I care about... 

SELF-INDULGENCE

I told my little sister that my prediction for Frozen 2 was that it was going to rely heavily on callbacks to Frozen 1. She told me that I would be surprised at how my expectations were going to be flipped on their head. And I’m proud to say that my expectations were exactly right and that my little sister is wrong.

Every character is a tool for bathing in Frozen 1’s success. Everybody points out how cool and fun Frozen 1 was, to the point where I start to think that nobody in this movie wants to be in this movie. You have to acknowledge events from previous films, but if you spend more time making callbacks to previous movies, why are you bothering making a sequel? Olaf literally recaps all of Frozen 1 for no reason just to remind us of what happened. But that’s basically pointless for both audience members and the characters who have to listen to Olaf talk. We’ve all seen the movie enough times to have the movie ingrained in our mind forever. I remember the movie backwards and forwards and I wish I had my memory erased. 

Are you so insecure of your movie that you have to remind people of something that was better so you can feel good about your efforts? The screenwriter, Jennifer Lee, is a one-hit wonder, can’t recapture any kind of magic that the first movie had. I applaud her efforts to tell a new story, but she just couldn’t do it.

CORPORATE GREED

Let’s face it, the real reason Frozen 2 was made was for merchandising. It’s a tale as old as time. Marvel movies keep getting made because people keep watching and buying the merchandise. The difference between the two is that Marvel is a lot more well thought out and smart. Frozen 1 is the highest grossing animated movie of all time. It would be stupid not to capitalize on it and make more money from it. From a business perspective, it’s a smart move. I just wish the movie was better.

TL;DR: Frozen 2 is deeply flawed, its characters haven’t grown at all and are even worse than when they started. The movie could have been better with some more apropos theming and better characters, but the fact that the writer is one-hit wonder makes me think that she can’t move forward from her past victory.

[platsy]

IT (Chapter 2) Sucks

Isn’t it apropos that the joke against Bill’s writing is that his endings suck? Because this movie’s ending sucks. 

You ever watch the same thing happening in a movie for two straight hours? That’s how I felt watching It 2. For the sake of making this simple, I’m just going to refer to the movie as #me2. 

My biggest gripe is that the movie spends more time sniffing the first movie’s sweat drops and spending more time in #me1’s epilogue rather than tell its own story. But that’s the issue with #me2 is that it no longer possesses the relatability of the child actors. I don’t know about you, the majority of people that I know that saw the movie were between the ages of fifteen and seventeen years old. They’re closer to the age of the kids, so they have more to identify with. Now that the kids are All Grown Up! (trademark Nickelodeon 2003), I’m confident that the demographic (because let’s face it, that is the target demo at this point) doesn’t much care for their problems. I certainly didn’t. So I have a feeling that the director of this movie decided not to try and make the adults interesting (which they were, and never can be at this point) and chose instead to backtrack and have the characters learn the same things as they did in the beginning. Because once you’ve struck gold, it’s impossible to do it again so you might as well put the gold back and act like you’ve found more gold.

The issues even go down to the jumpscares. Once you’ve seen the same bait and switch, it’s impossible not to just see it coming throughout the rest. Once the flashbacks started happening and the main characters all had to find their MacGuffins, it’s just the same spooky garbage happening with little to no consequence because Pennywise still doesn’t want to kill them. Despite the fact that they’re all aware of him and have bested him once before. You gotta get those kids out of the picture, you ninny! Anyways, it was that for a long time. Each character goes wandering off into their own personal memories, and then something spooky happens. Badda bing, badda boom, MacGuffin.

The ending just turned into, if we believe in ourselves, then we can win! And they un-believe It out of existence. My favorite part was when Bev told sick boy that the spear she impaled It with in the first place would kill monsters. And then it didn’t and now sick boy is dead boy.

I do regret going to this movie, it was bad. 2/10.

[platsy]

I Blame Video Games

You know what I like? VIdeo games. I have been playing too much of them. From Bloodborne to Horizon Zero Dawn, from Minecraft to Smash Brothers, I am a big sucker. That is why I have not been keeping this blog up to date. At all. I’ve seen a lot of movies, none of which I have deemed suitable to write a blog about. Maybe I have and I just don’t remember. My mind has been corrupted by video games. There are too many games to play. So today, I’m going to write a think piece on... frick, I don’t know, Godzilla: King of the Monsters?

Why are people angry about the story? Who goes to a Godzilla movie for the story? You don’t need set up or compelling human drama, who watches a Godzilla movie for the human parts? Is it because you need a body to relate to in this time of animal fighting? If you ask me, there are plenty of ways to make Godzilla relatable. Are you protective of your garbage? Godzilla can be protective of the earth. Are you angry when people think they’re better than you. Godzilla will literally kill anything that wants to be bigger than him. 

You know, if I were to make a Godzilla movie, I would make it completely about him. No humans, just Godzilla living in a Godzilla world. A completely primal, animalistic movie about Godzilla. What does he do? He as the king, has a queen. Naturally. And a prince. A wife and son (maybe daughter). A competitor rolls into town and takes him down. His wife and son leave him for the bigger boy/girl. Godzilla has to reclaim his title by getting stronger and stronger in order to beat the new bad. 

That’s my Godzilla movie. What’s yours?

[platsy]

Shazam! (But it’s more like, Shazam?)

I’m a filthy slug. A disgusting urchin with no sense of right or wrong. Up is down, left is right with me. Marvel is bad, and DC is good. Actually, Marvel and DC are both doing pretty well. 

Let’s talk, Shazam!, the newest creative endeavor from noted Hollywood screwups. 

I really liked it. 9/10.

The first time. 

6/10.

This is going to be really simple. I wanna get the positive out of this movie. The subtext, subtlety, and foreshadowing in this movie are great. I’ve watched this movie three times thus far, and the things I picked up on my second and third viewing were starting to pile up. My favorite bit of foreshadowing was when young Sivana was going for the evil eye orb, you could see it in his glasses. But by far, the best work that’s been done in any DC movie (although, that’s not a very hard bar to clear) is with Freddy. That conversation about flight or invisibility we’ve all seen from the trailers talks about his aversion to invisibility because it sounds like a supervillain’s power. Later, after Shazam catches the bus, Freddy starts talking about how nobody can see him and everything he does is an attempt to get people to notice him. He literally feels like a supervillain. You won’t see anything like this in, say, Man of Steel. Where everybody is a stern, colorless robot with all the charisma of a parent telling his child that their puppy is dead.

Plus, the movie is fun. We can finally smile while at the theater instead of feeling depressed about a little boy turning into a big man and having shenanigans. If this was in the hands of Zach Snyder, Billy would have been cutting himself. 

But that’s where all my praise ends. In short, I had a fun, positive experience with Shazam and I’m glad this is where the DCEU is heading. 

My biggest and most annoying bugbear is the with the actual character of Shazam and Billy Batson. I separate them because these two are clearly not the same character. It’s annoyingly obvious. Billy Batson is a cynical, angry, and upset character. Even after post-Shazaming, he’s still a jerk. There’s a little change, but not enough to justify Zachary Levi’s performance. Weirdly, I did like Levi’s performance, it just feels like he ad-libbed his lines instead of reading the dialogue for Asher Angel. But if you make Shazam and Billy the same character, all the comedy would be gone and the movie’s quality would drop quite a bit. 

The way I would have approached this was to make Billy Batson a troublemaking, stubborn, but positive and kind kid who really feels like a kid. If you really want to keep all the bad modern humor in there, go ahead. It’d fit his character. It would be embarrassing, but it wouldn’t be completely out of character like how it is in the movie. 

Overall, it’s a step in the right direction, but it’s dragged down by sub-par character in the place it matters most. 

Penis McButtFart out.

[platsy]

X-Men

    Alright, I’m going to be real here. I don’t like the X-Men. Not that I’m transphobic (meheh) it’s just that the X-Men have never struck a chord with me. They’re a totally fine bunch of boys and girls, they’re just not too interesting. But now they are back home with the big boys at Marvel. What does that mean? Who knows? I actually want to talk about what I would do with the X-Men had they been in my control. Forget cost, forget scheduling with different actors, this is the dream scenario. Where everything magically works out. What magic. Yes, I realize that I’m stealing this from MovieBob, shut up!

My fix would be real simple. Don’t establish an entirely new group of X-Men, no reboots. You use the same X-Men cast. Considering how popular the X-Men are to a lot of people, I’m sure it would get annoying and confusing to have another bunch of origins for a whole group of characters. Keep the same continuity. I know the Inhumans are taking the mantle of, “nobody likes people with superpowers” angle so that role is filled in that world. The special thing is that we introduce them from a different universe. We have a whole lot of talk about stuff like that going on in Endgame already (I have my doubts, but whatever) so it’s a good idea to grab them from one of them multiverses. I’m sure Marvel could contrive some reason for them to come on over. You see, that’ll open up a lot of possibilities to bring in characters and tell different kinds of stories in the MCU.

As for the X-Men themselves, I would focus my storytelling on the lesser-known characters. Some of the niche, popular characters that the comic characters really like. But I know everyone would be clamoring for Wolverine to show up, so I would use Laura as X-23. She was bizarrely popular, it would be a mistake not to use her. As for Deadpool, keep Ryan Reynolds. He’s also really popular, so use him as well. I’m not a big fan of the character, but Ryan reynolds plays his character well enough. I do enjoy the actor behind Deadpool. Really looking forward to Detective Pikachu.

That’s all I’ve really got. Been doing some other stuff recently, but I shall get back into this in the future.

[platsy]

Thor Ragnarok

Well howdy there neighbor boys and girls, glad to see you in my basement!

The only people I know that really like Thor: The Dark World are two female sisters. One of which I had (I still do, but the past tense still applies) a crush on. I am a man of artistic analysis and the knowledge of what art can do. My crush believes that art is nothing but entertainment and should not be taken so seriously. Which probably explains why she and I don’t work well together. But why does she like Thor? Because Chris Hemsworth is hot. Okay, granted, but what else is there to like about the film. It’s villain is bland and forgettable, its story is forgettable, Thor himself isn’t too interesting, the only real thing that keeps this movie afloat is its importance in knowing where one of the Infinity Stones is. And also Loki is in it, which, surprise surprise, my crush thinks he’s hot too.

As much as I want to crush the man-candy aspect of films, my main point is not to harp on about how much pain and hurt I have from a past relationship, My main point is the redemption of Thor by way of tossing out everything that nobody liked about the first two, save or the aforementioned pair of sisters. I’m not going to talk about the main thing that the other Marvel films can take from, (for the sake of brevity) Thor 3.

What I’m going to talk about is mainly about the visual style of the film. Because Thor 3 is the most visually interesting film, save for Guardians 2 (really gonna ruffle the feathers of that one person who made a note on a previous post about Guardians and how he didn’t like it and I do). This is a lesson that they’re already learning and incorporating, because each film is starting to look better and better as we go along. Because Thor 3 has some interesting shots and the director is actually coming through in the writing. His sense of humor is in there, an actual part of his being was in the movie. In each movie, the movie and the director are a separate entity. Which is sometimes good, you don’t want the director’s petty problems coming into the movie. But there are talented people out there with a lot to say and interesting ideas. They can truly make a movie something else. But creativity is hindered when you want to keep the same thing in production over and over again. Sure, the public will eat the same whopper all the dang time, but if you’re stuck making whoppers than you won’t be able to make steak. Can you imagine the same thing over and over? Not great, huh? Which is what a lot of Disney films are. A corporation, a faceless entity, trying to make a film. Now, they’re really good at it (fite me manwith2heart (love you, smooches)) but at some point we’re going to get sick of it.

So, you can hire a director who has his own vision. You make sure it’s not a stupid vision, and let the guy (or girl, we don’t know) have a little fun. I want to see a Sam Raimi Spider-Man style film in the MCU. Something where the blood of the man lies in the very essence of the movie, like the sacrosanct virgin ready to be sacrificed to the blood god, Niluth.

Let me tell you, Thor 3 is a good step forward I am in desperate need of something that doesn’t look like tofu.

Kiss me, I’m gorgeous, bye.

[platsy]

Jumanji: Welcome to the Mess

Let’s just take a moment to realize that this movie was somebody’s idea. And we all saw it. Don’t act like you didn’t, you curious just like the rest of us! Everybody wanted to see a train wreck, and I believe that is what we got! At least, not according to 87% of y’all. Sickos.

Alright, keeping with the theme of improving things, I’m going to avoid using the “ctrl+alt+delete” joke, though I’m very, very tempted. But let’s take a look at it and see what we can do to improve it.

First off, let’s get some consistent characters. As much as we enjoy Kevin Hart playing Kevin Hart, for the sake of story and not just, what I’ve come to deem, “loud comedy” (which is a term used to describe characters whose main source of getting a laugh out of the audience, is being loud and overactive. Which, contrary to popular belief, is not funny) we need to either get him to play a character that’s not himself, or recast. So, pre-Jumanji Kevin Hart shall be pre-Jumanji Kevin Hart and not post-Jumanji Kevin Hart (Are you sick of his name yet?). That goes for three out of four of the actors. Karen Gillan’s character largely stays the same. Instead of Jack Black spouting “GIRL!” over and over again like a garbage can being lifted up by a garbage truck, we have Jack Black be an actual character. Jack Black can still be a snobbish girl, but at least give her an actual character, not just the cut/paste floozie that is the “California Girl.” Last time I checked, woman have emotions. Use them. Dwayne can do a little more stuttering and awkward rambling when he’s talking to people. You can even have the way that everybody walks portrayed with their character. Have the jock walk like a jock, the safe kid walk like a safe kid, etc. If you even need to exaggerate the character stereotypes to have them be better characters, then go for it. It might be funny. But here’s the thing, as character’s develop, have them grow. As Dwayne (I’m calling the actors by their real names because why would I call them by their character’s name when they don’t even have character) starts to realize his own bravery, he stops stuttering. There was literally a scene where characters told each other to develop themselves, and they didn’t listen.

And also, why is the video game world a terrible video game? On a related note, how did board game Jumanji know how to transform itself into a video game? And why did it suck people into the game instead of having the game come into the real world? Because somebody in Hollywood had the brilliant idea to, “instead of having the game come into the real world, we have the real world come into the game world!” The real world is boring, so why don’t we go into a fantasy world? Which is a good idea, but it’s Jumanji! I haven’t thought about Jumanji in years! So, if you’re going to make a better move, then think of a better property to do this with. If you want to explore new and exciting ideas about an intellectual property, then do one that people actually care about it. But wait! We already do that. And we all don’t enjoy them for the most part. The ones that are actually good, see Blade Runner 2049, were ones that were handed carefully by artful directors and had a team of good writers. And things. Am I saying a Jumanji sequel, spinoff, whatever this creature is, can’t be good. No, I’m saying that nobody cares about Jumanji. I could also make the idea of scrapping the project altogether and creating something original, but we live in a world where the original gems of the modern era are like indie games. A dime a dozen, and they go out on shelf up against titles like Mario Odyssey and other such games. The majority of people don’t care about Undertale or Firewatch, they just want to play around in Hyrule or splat some Octolings. They don’t original ideas like a depressed teenager dealing with the fact that he’s a normie amongst Gods, struggling to convince a populace that there is something evil afoot. (Original content, do not steal (no really, don’t, it’s mine))

Speaking of video games and going back to the terrible game, if you’re going to have a video game world, know what a video game is. They know some cursory details about video games like NPCs and character types, but the world itself just feels like a normal world with a video game skin. Occasionally doing some video game ramble like it’s a guy at a costume party acting the part. Or better yet, it’s the episode where other characters dress up as one another and start to imitate each other. It’s not charmin, it’s just drab. If you put all of this into a real video game, it would be kind of garbage.

There’s also plenty of sequences in the film that, if you removed them from the film, you wouldn’t miss a thing. Why did Kevin Hart drop the crystal only for them to go right back and pick it up? The fact that he has one life left isn’t touched on and didn’t make me feel a sense of urgency for him, or any of the characters with one life left. If anything, have those scenes be about something instead of being about nothing. If they’re not useful, don’t put them in the film.

When I step back and think about all that Jumanji really needs to do to improve itself, all it needs is a writer who understands how to not only write a decent story, but also somebody who understands video games. This isn’t one of the worst films I’ve ever seen, but I definitely did not enjoy it. I enjoy the kind of film that is so bad it’s good, and this ain’t one of them. It’s just awkward and uncomfortable to sit through. It’s like Diary of Wimpy Kid: The Long Haul, or the Emoji Movie. Yes, I saw both of those films, in theaters, I bought actual tickets for those, don’t expect me to hide that kind of stuff from you, I know exactly who I am, and I am not ashamed, for the most part!

Morgan Turner is cool, and I like her, the end!

[platsy]

Improving A Quiet Place

What’s good, yo?

I feel as if that a lot of what I have to say about film is not exactly new, nor relevant. Praise or hate has already been given to the film and I am pretty far late into it. But who can blame me? I’ve been gone. So rather than give my two cents on whether or not a film was good or bad, I want to take certain films and make them better. Or worse. Depending on my feelings that day.

Today is going to be A Quiet Place. Specifically, a couple aspects I feel could have been amplified. This is not to say that A Quiet Place is a bad movie. I just want to exercise my creative juices and have a little experiment. If you want my thoughts, than I thought A Quiet Place was a smart, original, and emotional story of survival and family. 9/10.

We all know how the film was praised for being extra special quiet. Now, let’s take that and take it up a notch. No dialogue save for sign language. Only one instance in the movie do we get speaking, and that’s in the place with the sound proof area. While the waterfall scene is poignant and gives a little relief to the characters, what if letting us go even further into the movie without hearing a single word until the baby is born and is safe? What if there’s an audible sigh of relief when that happens in the theater?

Also, just remove the old man scene in there. You can tell that it was really about getting in a another monster scene because they were halfway through the movie and something spooky hasn’t happened in a while. So, instead of that scene, we follow the father and the son getting a chance to witness a monster just hanging out. They study it, learn more about it, and we get some insight on how these creatures behave. And if you really want to get the adrenaline pumping, you can have them mess up and make a noise and they have to run away from the monster. But here’s the thing with the scene, it’s not another chase scene. It’s them learning to outsmart the monster. We can also see how the son learns from his father and show them bonding a little bit. Not only that, we see the son’s growth in character and knowledge. Based on how this trip went, he’s definitely learned something and is probably mentally scarred and won’t want to go anywhere ever again.

Honestly, there’s not a whole ton to improve from the film when it’s already pretty good. I appreciate the lack of jump scares. I can imagine how tempting it was to put those in there, considering the easy set up for them. Go Jon!

Overall, the film is an excellent way to show that horror is not dead, and can be dramatically improved in the coming years. But, knowing Hollywood...

[platsy]

Infinity War

While I was gone, I missed a lot of things. Such as Infinity War. The big boy. The grand hallmark of the Marvel universe. Like the towering monolith, it’s grip and influence overshadow us with its grace and majesty. It takes the very shape of glory incarnate and shows forth the shining grace of hype and overwhelming squealing from me as I sat in my living room.

It’s no secret that Marvel is my big ball of bias. My father was very into comic books as a child and past down that love to me. And here I am now. Sitting atop of a mountain of wish fulfillment like the tiny boy I am. The Marvel Cinematic is great, and I love it. That being said I’m going to fully admit that it has problems. Plenty of them. Some of which I shall discuss with y’all today. In fact, that’s the bulk (or should I say HULK pew pew pew pew pew) of the discussion for today. Now sit down and buckle up, because the praise mobile is topped with fuel and my tears of joy mixed in there.

[SPOILERS]

To start out with, I know the deaths in this film are what everybody was waiting for and highly expecting. I had the film spoiled for me before I even saw the film, so I knew pretty much everything going in, save for the all the little details in between them and a good chunk of the actual film. And seeing just how much Marvel was willing to do to ensure that this really was the end made me think that they were just playing it up because they knew that a good chunk of the characters would come back in some form or fashion. So it makes me wonder if Marvel playing around with all these deaths and then bringing them back will ruin the sanctity of life by making everybody seem invincible.

And I understand that there’s a whole lot to deal with it in this film, so not everybody is going to have the same amount of screen time nor overall presence. My thing is that I feel that not everybody should or could be in the movie. Tell me, what do you remember Falcon doing in the movie besides becoming dandruff flakes? Was Wong’s presence really needed if he was just going to canter on back to the Sanctum Sanctorum? Was he even in the fight? Barely? I’m glad he exists and is there, but to what end? Would it not be more fitting to have all these side characters appear in the inevitable Endgame and give them further characterization and drive. What’s the reason why Falcon doesn’t want Thanos to win? Why doesn’t Wong want Thanos to win? You can answer these questions on your own, but would it not be more interesting to visualize and give some smaller characters more spotlight?

Now, that’s pretty much all I had for negative critiques? Does my critique stand as wish fulfillment rather than actual issues with the film? Possibly. That’s pretty much all I got from Infinity War. It left a good taste in my mouth, and I likely would have been more blown away by it had it not been spoiled to me. Thanos is good, the characters who do have spotlights are good, the action is good, the movie is good. But have I said anything new for Infinity War? No. I’m sure my plights and praise have been echoed far and wide. So what, I hear you ask, is the point of this hear post? Well, it was more of an exercise to see just how much control I have over you. Have you made it to this point of the post? If the answer is yes, that means you have given me control over your mind, even for the space of two minutes or so. I now control you. Get me some money, I want some money to purchase House of Leaves on Amazon.

[platsy]

Haha, I'm back! Remember the sentence in that one review I'm not even bothering to go look for that I was going to leave for two years? Yeah, that came true. I'm not even sure if it was for two years, but nonetheless, I am back and honed and crafted and perfected! I'm like the resurrected Superman! Haven't even seen that movie because I've been doing other things for a year instead of film. Mind you, I am religion.

I love Venom. A lot. Out of all the Marvel characters, he's one of my favorites. So I was pumped all those years ago when I heard about a Venom movie. I'm a sucker. A dumb sucker. A lollipop, if you will. And then I got older and became more of a tootsie pop than a sucker. I was wiser, and less excited for things. And Venom no longer seemed cool. And then this movie came out. And I was wrong about how cool he is.

So, I'm out of the loop of film in general, so I thought this film was supposed to be rated R. And to my knowledge, it has a little remnant of that with all the swears and the violence. So I have no idea what happened with the R rating. Also, I thought Carnage was going to be the villain. He's there, but I got a different villain. I like the villain...the Venom villain not the human Venom villain. He's boring and generic.

Now, back to the nitty gritty, Venom. Dumb. 4/10

There's not a whole ton to talk about in this movie, because this is one of those movies that just happens. It's fast and shot, and it's gone as quick as a fart. It's stupid. Not overly stupid, but stupid enough to the fact that it was fun. Venom isn't your annoying kind of bad, it was more of a watch and marvel (pun INTENDED) at what it attempts to do. It's like your little cousin trying to replicate your hobby. He doesn't do it well, but he gives his best try and it's hard not to smile and tear it down bit by bit.

I think the main things that the film does bad is character. Tom Hardy does perfectly alright, no complaints there. I know there are some, but it didn't really bother me. What bothered me was how calm and collected everybody was. Some characters bite people's heads off and they barely bat an eye. Michelle Williams character is weirdly calm about a lot of things. Like biting the head off of a man. As a matter of fact, a lot characters are weirdly calm with a lot of things. Eddie's metal banger dude neighbor isn't totally freaked out that Eddie's face got spoooky, and then didn't bat an eye when there was a fight going on outside. He should have heard that and there should have been police at that sight a long time ago. Mrs. Cheng was totally cool with Venom eating a guy alive. She doesn't scream or faint. Nobody does... anything. It's all... pointless.

And now, my digs at Sony and the universe. Give your garbage to Marvel and let them fix it. The End. My thoughts on Shazam trailer coming next.

Venom

[platsy]

Beck

Remember that time I said I would leave this place to die for two years? Prophecy fulfilled. Hey again...

[platsy]

DCEU Shenanigans (And Why They’re Going to Collapse in on Themselves)

Hi, my name is Dunder Woman

I was planning on working on Jessica Jones today, but then I got some very interesting news about the DCEUE (which was a simple typing error on my part, but now I’m going to keep it because I think it sounds funny when you say it out loud) that really tickles my sadistic need to see failure.  

Since I haven’t really gotten into it in this blog, I really like keeping up to date with DCEUE and whatever nonsensical ways they’re trying to save themselves, because I really hate the DCEUE and I find it funny to see them fail and ty to scavenge the wreckage for anything salvageable.  And I’d like to share with you some recent bits of news that I find really, realy funny.  After some initial hatred, of course.

Joker origin film.  Okay, two words in, and I’m already angry.  First of all, making a Joker origin film is the worst possible movie to make. We don’t need another origin film.  Joker is popular enough character, we already know who he is, know at least one of the many ways he potentially came to fruition, we’re already good to go. And also, why bother creating a setup for the Joker?  You put him on the screen, give him a script, and you already know what the Joker is all about.  Besides, one of the most interesting things about the Joker is that not even he knows how he got there.  He could be Jesus Christ himself having a bit of a weird phase for all we care, and you know how much we care, NONE! Filling in the blanks on that character is not the smartest way to go.  See Darth Vader or Sauron.  But, the previous paragraph is moot, because maybe hopefully the moviemakers have some semblance of smart thinking and know not to do that, and will probably just be how the Joker met the Batman.  However, there’s only so many times I can see the same version of the same story through the eyes of some overpayed toolbag.  

So while that didn’t exactly make me laugh, what followed certainly did.  Some of you may have heard that Ben Affleck, or Batfleck, is not looking like he’s having the best time working with Warner Brothers and taming a dumpster fire.  At first he was going to write direct his own standalone Batman movie, but now he’s not, and it kind of looks like he’s not even going to be Batman anymore.  Instead, the new director, Matt Reeves (unless he leaves for creative differences, which in the DCEUE is pretty much the norm at this point), tossed Batfleck’s script out the window. And recently, it was revealed that this movie was going to be outside of the DCEUE.  And I burst out laughing and had to type this out somewhere.  

DCEUE has this thing (among other things) where instead of focusing on the now, slowing themselves down for a second to write a decent script with some actual character and pacing, and maybe brighten up the movie a little bit so that it doesn’t come off as if you’ve dragged it through the dirt.  But the studio is so overly ambitious and fast, they can’t help but make all these big plans for the future, none of which will ever come to fruition because they can’t curve there excitement for all these big things they want to do.  And now considering that the DCEUE’s horrible body odor is starting to show, I have a feeling that it’s cross Warner Brother’s minds to push the DCEUE under the fridge and let somebody else deal with the water under their socks.  But they still have the rights to some of the most popular superhero characters, they might as well use them in a different way.  And now, different Batman, different Joker.  Which is Warner Brothers admitting defeat and packing it in.  Which has been making me laugh for the past half an hour.  Not really, though, I may have a smirk, but I still can’t laugh.  

0/10, bad movie.

[platsy]

Dunkirk

Hi. Still working on Jessica Jones, don’t you worry none, I just had a bit of a dry spill with work, motivation loss, but I’m pushing myself back into the limelight whether I like it or not. Anyway, Christopher Nolan is one of those directors. I’ll straight up say that The Dark Knight is the quintessential Batman film, a really good comic book movie, and just a fantastic movie in every sense of the word. While Interstellar wasn’t the film I thought it was going to be, I still liked it just fine. Inception is another genius film with a lot of layers and terrific performances. And a great number of his other films are smart action movies with a lot of thought put into them. It was a guarantee that I was going to go see any film he would put out. Dunkirk’s trailer gave no real indication of what was going on. I’m not even sure that it gave a title. It just showed a bunch of soldiers ducking as something approached them. I didn’t keep tabs on the movie, so I wasn’t aware that the film was a historical action movie, but that didn’t matter to me, it was a good trailer that likely got a lot of butts in seats. Upon learning that it was going to be a historical, I said “alright” and went and saw the movie. Of all of Nolan’s films, this has to be my least favorite. Look, the movie is good, but there were a few things in it that hampered the film a lot. But I’ll get to those after I get to the positives. Like his other films, this movie looks very expensive and shiny, despite all the dirt flying in our faces. Things look pleasing to the eye, I couldn’t detect a hint of CGI, and it must've been a giant undertaking to organize all of those extras. Or maybe they’re CGI, but then that would mean the CGI is that good. The whole movie has this sound effect that makes the whole thing feel very uncomfortable and keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time. But perhaps, this worked a little too well. The whole time I was watching the scenes with the evacuation of the soldiers, I kept wondering how long the movie was going on for, save for the quieter, slower points. The airplane scenes and the civilian boat scenes didn’t have that problem. I was fully invested there, but it was at precisely the action bits where I felt myself fidgeting a little bit. And not in a jumpy way, just in a bored way. That’s not to say that they were poorly done, it’s just that the sound made actually so uncomfortable that it brought me out of the movie. Other than that, the film felt kind of empty. There were definitely characters, but I don’t remember much of them. The evacuation characters all blend together, save for Harry Styles (whom I legitimately thought was Dylan and/or Cole Sprouse) whose stood out merely because I recognized them amongst the durgy evacuees. Tom Hardy definitely... was there. We got to see him think a lot, but thinking took up most of his time. Thinking is not the same as doing. The characters I favored were the civilian boat characters. They felt a lot more human and relatable because at least they had some semblance of character. But having character wasn’t the main point of telling this part of history. It’s merely just showing us a bit of World War 2 untouched by popular media and history in general. So view this movie as more of a unnarrated history short film that your history teacher brings out so that she can save her voice for a different lesson. And it’s a very visually interesting one, that’s something that Nolan does best, so that’s a plus. I find myself thinking that it’s a little odd that I have more negative things to say than positive, but still giving this movie a 7/10. But Nolan has this thing where he can save a movie from a 5 or 6 out of 10 by including some really neat visuals. Overall, I’d give it a watch but perhaps no more than that. I’ll get to Jessica Jones some time in the future, or maybe Logan Lucky, or maybe War for the Planet of the Apes because I’ll hopefully finally get around to watching that.

[platsy]

Marvel Netflix: Daredevil Season 1

Hi, my name is brood. As a self proclaimed movie critic who isn’t as good at his job as he thinks he is, it feels inevitable that I would get to talking about Marvel at some point instead of the jab I use against the punching bag that is DC films. It’s pretty much objective fact that Marvel is better at its job than any other company putting out superhero movies at the moment. Fight me, I said it. They’re passionate, they’re expertly put together, intelligent, and insert other adjectives here. But what I want to talk about is the Netflix stuff. I don’t hear a lot about them, which is a shame, because there’s quite a lot of interesting garbage going on in there. So, in order to properly get myself for Defenders coming later this month, I’m going to go through the series in canonical order. So Daredevil season 2 will come after Jessica Jones. I’ll be doing this separately so that I can get these out there before I let this place die. SPOILERS As a whole, the Netflix narrative is more about how the Avenger’s actions shapes the little guys. They’re the ones who sat by and watched the city fall, now they have to deal with it. It’s a show that deals with more nuanced and more interesting characters, in my opinion. While I love every single character apart of the current Avengers roster, Spider-Man, Hulk, The Guardians, and Iron Man being my favorite, I find that the characterization kind of lacks in the movies. But that’s a problem with the movies, they only have so much time to establish that. TV shows have a lot more time to establish character and stories. As a result, I feel as if I know Matt Murdock more than I know Captain America. I’m also not going to judge them by comics, I’m looking solely at the adaptation. The comics can be a “Pretentianism” piece all on their own. So, Daredevil season 1 is incredible. It follows Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), the classic <job> by day, vigilante by night. The <job> in today's case is attorney. Matt feels a very strong desire to protect the streets of Hell's Kitchen. I could make the Gordon Ramsay joke, but I feel making it would make me unfunny. Heck, even bringing it up at all would make me feel as I I have no idea what comedy is. Ha ha ha ha. Anyway, Matt finds himself up against the criminal empire lead by The Kingpin, the best gosh darn Marvel villain to date. I said in my Spider-Man review that Marvel has really been cranking up the villain quality, and I like to believe that Kingpin was the beginning of that trend. He’s very well thought out, he’s sympathetic, nuanced, wonderfully acted, and violent as all Hell (hahahahahaha). Kingpin is the most metal dude, I swear. The first act of aggression we see from this dude is him brutally beating a Russian dude and then slamming his head off with a car door. We even see the headless body fall to the ground, and it was freakin’ great. Daredevil quickly establishes its tone in the first episode, making sure that people don’t think that this will be a fun jaunt through Marvel’s world. This will be a jaunt, but it will be a jaunt through broken glass for 13 miles. And by the end of it, you’ll probably want to start self-harming yourself. Make no mistake, these series’ are depressing. I had to stop watching halfway through for a bit so that I could recover from being so destroyed. I find that Daredevil’s strength is in its fight scenes. All of them are grungy, up close and personal, and very well-choreographed. My favorite fight scene is the hallway fight scene. That fight scene is simply amazing. It’s one take, just going and going, as we see Daredevil fight one dude after another for a while, and we see him breathing heavily, taking short breaks in between people trying to pummel him, him start to lose that finesse and style over time as he gets more and more tired. The supporting characters are... there. If there was one thing that I didn’t like about season 1 was that Daredevil’s friends weren’t that interesting. Since there are 13 episodes in each Netflix series (save for Defender’s eight upcoming episodes) they dedicate a lot of time to some filler plot stuff involving them. I don’t think it’s their fault, I believe it’s because of that filler, boring stuff that gets me. It’s not awful, but it makes the series a little slow. But overall, this season was golden mind the few scratches. By this point, it’s one of the more thoughtful projects that Marvel has put out. I give this season 9/10.

[platsy]

Yarn: Chat Fiction

Hi, my name is annoyed. Platsy, you waste of space of critical space, why are you reviewing an app instead of like, I don’t know, something that’s actually supposed to be art? This thing left such an impression on me, that I have to tell you about it. Let me be frank, this app is terrible and don’t download it. It is the least interesting and most annoying app I’ve ever seen. But perhaps I didn’t need to tell you that. Just look at some of the ads that these people cranked out. Like the one with a girl with goth make-up, royalty-free horror music playing, walking towards the camera trying to pull her best “I have been traumatized” look, saying: ”I used to be like you. Find out my story.” That was about as compelling as performing mundane actions while having severe depression. Sad. So I went ahead and downloaded it just to see what was up with the app, and I only read some of it before it was locked behind a “wait for tomorrow for more <maguffin> to listen to the rest of the story” wall. That’s... deplorable. Perhaps if the story was actually good, then maybe I’d hesitate and think about signing up for a membership before throwing my phone across the room and eat my fingers. Do not stop me when I’m reading a book halfway through and demand that I wait until tomorrow to get more “hoots”. You have a certain amount of hoots for everyday, kind of like a free-to-play app game. You know, the worst part about free-to-play app games. I’ll go ahead and critique the story despite the fact that I don’t know how it ends, but then again, I don’t care. My story that I got was a story that I’ll call, “Your father.” It starts out with somebody texting their mom and saying that there’s a baby in the basement crying, even though the main character doesn’t have any siblings. Her mom then says, “there’s something that I never told you about your father.” There are several times throughout the story where the character sends their mother a picture of what she sees, but in order to see those, we have to join its membership that costs about seven or eight dollars per month. I hope I don’t need to explain to you how stupid that is, but just in case you’re the person who falls for these things, I’ll break it down for you. This app is asking that you give it money to keep up lackluster development on something that isn’t worth it. You can find better horror stories on the Internet by not even trying. And considering that advertisement, I’m willing to bet that they’re lazily made by people who don’t understand horror and just submit pictures of people in, to their credit, good makeup but bad photographic acting. Gore does not make good horror, gore just makes me want to throw up. Anyway, the mother isn’t helpful in explaining what’s going on, claiming that she’ll explain when she’s there with her child, but could easily just explain it right then and there. Also, she uses ellipses in her texts, and I will never understand why people do that. Why would you imply an unnecessary pause? You act like it’s dramatic, but it doesn’t make sense to. Just type, you don’t need to add pauses. And it makes less sense in this context, because the mother is acting super cryptic for no adequate reason, and is wasting her daughters time. And then her mom says that a car arrived five minutes ago but nobody came out. The mom says that she’s twenty minutes away. It turns out that there’s a crazy woman who’s probably after her baby in the basement. It shows a picture of her, but again, paywall. She stats banging on the door and screaming. This stops being scary when you imagine this crazy woman driving over to this person’s house and then taking a long time to start banging on the door. What was she doing in between that time? Just building up the scary? Because I’m annoyed, not scared. And then I had to stop reading because they said I didn’t have anymore hoots and had to wait until tomorrow to start reading again. And then I deleted the app. What drove the creators of this app to make this? Who thought that this was a good idea? Who is paying for this? And most importantly, WHY?! I’ve lost all will to continue today, have a good night.