Thoughts On The Dead

Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

Tag: MARVEL

Thoughts On Avengers: Endgame (With Spoily Spoilers)

April 27, 2019 / / 1 Comment
  • No joke, Enthusiasts.
  • Gonna spoil the shit out of this movie.
  • Avengers: Engarde! will be more spoiled than a gas station oyster po’boy left out in the sun and coughed on by Magic Johnson.
  • More spoiled than Ivanka.
  • More spoiled than my tum-tum after eating two pounds of popcorn, and it’s not like I didn’t know what was going to happen: every time I go to the pictures, I buy the Super Duper Jumbo Combo Snack Pack–it’s cost-effective, dontcha know–and then feel grody for hours afterwards.
  • Spoiled!
  • So, if you’re planning on seeing the flick this weekend or whenever, and don’t want to know who dies or who comes back or how much hardcore pornography there is: leave now.
  • (There is an almost uncomfortable amount of hardcore pornography in Avengers: Enkidu’s Revenge. I can’t believe they got Chris Evans to go that far; the man takes more cocks than a chicken thief.)
  • Seriously, spoilers.
  • Make up your minds, Enthusiasts.
  • I’ll provide you with some decidin’ music:

  • Okay, then.
  • You’ve been informed, and I’m assuming you’re consenting.
  • Here we go.
  • …
  • …
  • …
  • I have no idea what happened in Avengers: Encephalitis.
  • There was time traveling.
  • And quips.
  • I don’t know whether the quips came in between incidences of time travel, or vice versa; the quip-to-time travel ratio was just about even.
  • BUT since there were the aforementioned temporal jaunts, none of it made any sense if you thought about it for more than a second.
  • Or less than a second.
  • You really shouldn’t think about this film at all.
  • (Time travel is–IN RE: suspension of disbelief–almost impossible for me to swallow. Guy builds himself an armored super-suit? Sure. Evil robot wants to take over the world? Absolutely. We’re gonna go back to ten minutes before the bad guy gets theNO STOP IT SHUT THE FUCK UP.)
  • Anyway, the movie starts and half the world is dead.
  • The ramifications of this fact are not delved into.
  • A toe is barely dipped into the fact, honestly.
  • We are shown boats anchored around Liberty Island.
  • Why?
  • Dunno.
  • Were there zombies?
  • Seems like you could turn Lady Liberty’s isle into a good fortification against chompers, but we are not informed of any zombies.
  • Citi Field is also in ruins, but that most likely had nothing to do with Thanos.
  • The Mets could do that all on their own.
  • (FUN FACT: even with their park destroyed and half the population disappeared, the Mets were still paying off Bobby Bonilla’s contract.)
  • Captain America goes to a support group meeting; while there, he is supporting of homosexuality.
  • Robert Downey, Jr. has had a daughter.
  • Gwyneth Paltrow helped, but the kid clearly belongs to RDJ.
  • Hawkeye is now executing Yakuza members, for some reason.
  • He’s upgraded from the bow and arrow to a sword, and he has a fashy haircut, and that stultifying family we had to spend 20 minutes with in Avengers: Ultron Gonna Getcha is dead.
  • STOP TRYING TO MAKE ME CARE ABOUT MRS. HAWKEYE, MARVEL.
  • Oh, apropos of nothing: if you use the word “feels,” then you should kill yourself.
  • Right now.
  • Do it.
  • Don’t be a coward.
  • You used a word that irks me, and thus your life is forfeit.
  • EAT THE GUN, PUSSY.
  • Dude.
  • Mm-hmm?
  • You’re reviewing a comic book movie. 
  • Was I being a little intense?
  • Little bit.
  • This isn’t technically a review, though.
  • Whatever is happening here: tone it way the fuck down, muchacho.
  • Gotcha.
  • It’s not much of a spoiler to reveal that everyone who “died” in Avengers: Intricacy Warp comes back to life.
  • Did you really think they were going to kill Spider-Man?
  • Or Black Panther?
  • Do you have any idea what Clarkisha Kent and the rest of Black Twitter would do if they didn’t bring back T’Challa?
  • Or the Disney stockholders?
  • Everybody comes back!
  • Trumpy Chris comes back, Ballyhoo Condiment comes back, the other black guys come back.
  • The cat came back.
  • We thought he was a goner, but the cat came back.
  • Upon the heroes’ return, there was–and you’ll be astonished at this piece of information–a grand battle in which the opposing sides ran directly at one another on an open field.
  • I know that I’ve said this before, but Captain America was literally in the military.
  • That was his rank.
  • Captain.
  • It’s not a nickname, or his nom de punch.
  • He should be able to come up with a better tactic than “LEEEEEEEROY JENKINS!”
  • (Captain Marvel was also in the military, but she was in the Air Force and I don’t think they learn about ground maneuvers beyond “When you see the enemy maneuvering on the ground, press the button that kills all of them.”)
  • Jesus, I’m still nauseous from the popcorn.
  • I’ve forgotten most of the movie already, but the snack lingers.
  • Anyway, the flick has three parts, each lasting around an hour:
    • The Moping.
    • Time Bandits.
    • It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye.
  • Second bit is the best: our heroes go bipping and bopping through the history of the Marvel Corporate Universe stealing Infinity Gems, and they’re inserted in scenes from the previous movies like in Back To The Future 2 (which is referenced twice by the characters) and Captain America gets to fight with himself, because if you are time traveling and meet yourself, you must fight.
  • Those are the rules.
  • And Black Widow dies.
  • Her and Hawkeye–and I feel we glossed over the fact that Hawkeye dealt with the trauma of losing his family in the Snapture by becoming a ninja–go to the planet that looks like Night on Bald Mountain and the Red Skull’s there.
  • “Either of you two Jewish?”
  • “Inappropriate.”
  • “Wow.”
  • He’s got the Soul Stone, right?
  • And he’ll give it to you if you throw a loved one off a cliff.
  • Those are the rules.
  • So Hawkeye and Black Widow start arguing over who’s gonna throw themselves off the cliff cuz they’re superduperheroes and that’s the kind of conversation those types have.
  • Must admit: Marvel subverted my expectations with this one, Enthusiasts.
  • Thought it was gonna be Hawkeye taking that doozy of a first step.
  • Mostly because the Black Widow solo movie has been in pre-production for months.
  • But she bought it, and that was sad.
  • She was such an important part of the MCU.
  • Remember that time she had a husky voice?
  • We’d miss you, but you won’t go away.
  • (You should know that for all my cynicism about Avengers: Engelberthumperdink, I’ve already found a sketchy pirate site that’s streaming a Chinese bootleg and I am planning on rewatching the movie immediately Recall, please, that your humble typist learned to read from Spidey comics, and is utterly incapable of being unbiased about these dumb flicks.)
  • And then there’s the big ending.
  • But it’s no game, this end!
  • World-changing events!
  • NOTHING WILL BE THE SAME, TRUE BELIEVER!
  • Because Robert Downey, Jr. is too old, and Chris Evans wants to be an artist.
  • So they each get their Crowning Moment of Awesome–Tony saves the universe or something, but Cap wields the mighty Mjolnir–and then they die.
  • It is so very sad.
  • An epic finale, a thrilling conclusion, the end of an era.
  • Spider-Man: Far From Home hits theaters July 2nd, 2019.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe: A Catch-Up, Volume 2

April 26, 2019 / / 1 Comment

There’s revenge, which is for middle-aged white men in action films, and there’s testevengeria, which was when the Pope would dip his balls into hot wax to seal especially important documents, and don’t forget stonevenge, which is like Stonehenge but not quite. And then we have avenging; such behavior requires a super-suit and great hair. Assembling is also required.

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (2015) You don’t mind that I bailed on the intro, do you? We all know what what’s happening here, and I won’t slow the class down for latecomers. Besides, it’s Part 2. We’re talking about Marvel movies, so naturally we’re dealing with sequels. Would you have me do a catch-up of the catch-up? Fuck that, Charlie. Not on my watch.

Anyway, A:AoU is one of the more maligned Marvel Comicbookmovie Universe films, and rightly so: it’s bloated and patched together and we’re forced to spend twenty minutes doing chores on Hawkeye’s farm. But it does have this scene:

Which My Dinner With Andre did not.

ANT-MAN (2015) Alligators sun themselves in the mornings. Soak up them rays, heat up that blood. If it’s the right time of year, maybe they do some fucking. Middle of the afternoon, slide back into the water. Turn back around, face the land, keep them eyes peeled. If food comes around, maybe they eat.

Human beings make Ant-Man.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR (2016) The dirty secret of comic books is that there’s, like, half-a-dozen decent villains. Doctor Doom, Lex Luthor, Magneto, Joker. All the rest are jobbers. What the fans really want is to watch the heroes punch each other. DC tried it with Batman v. Superman, and Marvel laughed and lit cigars with million-dollar bills and flopped CA: CW onto the table; it landed with a meaty THWAMP.

“Oh, you have one superhero fighting another? Wow. HOW ABOUT EVERYONE FIGHTS EVERYBODY?”

When I was a kid, I would buy (or, more correctly, hassle my mom into purchasing for me) every Marvel action figure they made. First, when I was very young, were Megos.

The bodies were made of molded plastic and were held together by a rubber band; the heads were cheap vinyl. The boots were removable, as was the costume, so you could gang-bang ’em with the Barbies your cousin would bring over. This was Falcon, and he was my favorite. He had wings.

Then, in 1984, Marvel did a big crossover event called Secret Wars. All the big heroes and villains were transported to someplace called Battleworld–gosh, they put so much thought into it–where a nigh-omnipotent being called The Beyonder forced them to fight. The entire reason for the story was that Marvel had signed a deal with Mattel to produce a line of toys and needed a hook.

I didn’t give a shit; I bought every one from Silverman’s Stationery right there on Livingston Avenue.

It is difficult to overstate the shittiness of these figures.

This photo is a lie: the moment you removed the toy from the packaging, the paint would begin to rub off.  And it’s tough to see, but Doctor Doom is wearing a bride’s garter. Keep your fetishes in Latveria, Doom.

BUT this is all there was. No super-realistic, 95-points of articulation, computer-produced “collectibles” back in 1984. Your toys had five points of articulation and clip-on claws that you lost almost immediately and they wouldn’t stand up on their own. It was fine. You laid on the floor and smashed them into each other.

And that’s what the Reagan Years were like, kids.

DOCTOR STRANGE (2016)

  • Professor Oogie-Boogie.
  • Alistair Unexpected Outcome-Smythe, Lecturer-In-Residence
  • Dean Jennifer R. Peculiar (Emeritus)

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 2

For your pleasure and edification, TotD now humbly presents a fluffy piece of nonce entitled Hodor And Groot Borrow A Book From The Unseen University Library. Enjoy!

“Hodor.”

“I am Groot.”

“Ook.”

“Hodor.”

“I am Groot.”

“Ook.”

…

“Hodor.”

“I am Groot.”

“Ook.”

We thank you for your patronage.

SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING (2017) Holy shit, I love this movie so much. I would be in an abusive relationship with this movie. Emotional abuse, physical, whatever. Just stay. Don’t leave me, Spider-Man: Homecoming. You’re the only Spider-Man movie that’s any good. I’ve been with the other Spidey films, and none of them will shut the fuck up about dead uncles and Peter’s sex life. They’re not the films for me, SM: HC. I’ll never testify against you, baby.

THOR: RAGNAROK (2017) Holy shit, I might like this one even better. Thor: Ragnarok is the apotheosis of comic book movies because it is, above all, fun. It’s about a giant lummox with a hammer, who–along with his pet gorilla–fights a goth chick and a giant dog. Along the way, he and his rough trade brother visit an orgy planet. FUN.

Stop brooding, the lot of you. Oh, boo-hoo, Steve. You were trapped in ice and now your boyfriend is a Soviet assassin? Get over it. Is your boyfriend a robot, Wanda? Deal with it. Look at Ant-Man. See how he’s happy-go-lucky? Be more like Ant-Man, and stop staring into the middle distance.

BLACK PANTHER (2018) About an hour into Black Panther, I thought to myself, “Man, I haven’t seen anyone on the screen who looks like me in twenty minOOOOOHHHHHHnowIgetit.” So I get the representation angle.

(Although there aren’t any Jewish superheroes, at least not definitely. Ant-Man’s name is Scott Lang, so he might be a Jew, but none of the other heroes are Hebrews, and that’s bullshit. We really do live in Trump’s America.)

The movie, however, was fine. The movie, not the cultural bullshit surrounding it, just the text: it was fine. Effects were janky. Forest Whitaker’s eyeball was sloppy. There should be a Constitutional amendment banning kid genius characters. Also, “panthers” aren’t really a thing. Panthers aren’t their own species of big cat, just jaguars or leopards with melanism.

This world is made of lies.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR (2018) 

  • Space Stone (blue): Refills any beverage the wearer is drinking, automatically and for free.
  • Mind Stone (yellow): May or may not make squirrels nervous.
  • Reality Stone (red): Name is misspelled; the gem is actually the Realty Stone, and it can find you a two-bedroom in a great neighborhood.
  • Power Stone (purple): Summons the ghost of Prince.
  • Time Stone (green): Summons the ghost of Morris Day and /or Jerome.
  • Soul Stone (orange): No parking tickets, ever.

ANT-MAN AND THE WASP (2018) Only thing in the world that don’t take shit is an asshole. You remember that, boy. Now go fetch up your momma and tell her t’ bring the shovel. We got another one t’ bury.

CAPTAIN MARVEL (2019)  Ladies can’t be superheroes; they’ll menstruate on the capes.

…

That’s how you’re wrapping it up?

I grow weary.

We all do, pal.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, A Catch-Up

April 25, 2019 / / 2 Comments

The game, Enthusiasts, is ending. Did you know this? Have you been made aware of the current contestation’s cessation? Lawn Boy is ongoing, but not this game, nosiree. Another match shall begin at the precise moment of this one’s finale, but that’s not important: this game is ending.

I speak, of course, of the upcoming film Avengers: Choke On It, Thickies. Our favorite Marvel heroes are back to battle, once again, Thanos the Mad Titan, who has a giant purple cock and an idiosyncratic definition of the word “sustainability.” Thanos also has a gauntlet, which is like a glove that fucks.

You gonna be unpleasant and sexual this whole post?

Yup.

Sally forth, then.

Now, none of this will make a lick of sense unless you’ve seen all the previous Marvel films; there are 21 in the series, and all of them lead up to this installment. (Now called an “extended universe,” older Enthusiasts will recognize this strategy from soap operas.) Because I love you–and can’t bear to write any political bullshit–I will catch you up on the MCU, film by film. We begin with:

IRON MAN (2008) The first, and still probably best, of the Marvel Cryptofascist Universe movies, Iron Man concerns an abdominally-superior dunce who invents a world-changing piece of magical bullshit, and then proceeds to use it to punch people, specifically someone who has stolen the magical bullshit. (Those of you who have seen the MCU movies will recognize this as the plot to a full quarter of the canon.)

THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008) The Incredible Hulk is the Tiffany Trump of the MCU: it mostly doesn’t exist, and no one loves it. Edward Norton made a decent Bruce Banner, but he couldn’t stop himself from pulling his usual “I went to Yale” stunts and demanding to rewrite the script, re-cut the flick, whatnot, and so he got fired and now tends a lighthouse in Nova Scotia.

IRON MAN 2 (2010) Iron Man 2 is generally regarded as the worst of the Iron Man trilogy, and one of the worst of the entire MCU; this is because most people are dullards. IM2 is secretly the most entertaining of all 20 films. Allow me to list its attributes:

  • Mickey Rourke and that slushy, lippy nonsense he called a Russian accent.
  • Iron Man–who, I will remind you, is Iron Man–fistfights a man with two super-bullwhips; it’s pretty much a draw. (This is a common trope in the MCU: characters are precisely as strong as the script needs them to be at that moment, and not a titch stronger.)
  • Sam.
  • Fucking.
  • Rockwell.
  • Stand up, Jean-Louise.
  • Your daddy’s passing.
  • SAM FUCKING ROCKWELL.
  • And the black Sam Rockwell, Don Cheadle.
  • (You never realized that Don Cheadle was the black Sam Rockwell, did you? And now you’ll never be able to get it out of your head.)
  • Extended shot of Tony peeing in the armor.
  • The most gratuitous cheesecake-y/male gaze-y portrayal of a female character in the MCU’s history: Scarlet Johansson’s Black Widow, who–in her debut appearance–displays the following qualities:
    • She has an ass which is the shape of an upside-down heart, and looks as though it would be firm yet giving to the touch.
    • Titties.
    • High heels.
    • When threatened, she launches herself vagina-first at her assailants.
  • And that’s pretty much it.
  • Plus, Garry Shandling is in it, and he was wonderful, and it is not fair that Garry Shandling is dead and [HATED CELEBRITY] is still alive.
  • This is Mad Libs now?
  • It’s all Mad Libs.
  • …
  • Maaaaaaaaaaan.
  • Simpleton.

THOR (2011) The Greek gods were in Marvel Comics, and the Romans’, too–both Hercules and Ares have been Avengers–but the Norse pantheon was always on top at Mighty Marvel. Stan Lee said that it was his idea to feature the Asgardians; Jack Kirby said the exact same thing. However the origin, Odin and his kingdom have always dominated the Marvel Universe.

The Eddas were written to be plundered by comic book hacks, seemingly: there are bands of brave warriors, and lands of the dead, and evil wolfs. In addition, there was a large man with a giant hammer who occasionally turned into a frog. The large man had a weaselly brother, who was secretly a snowmonster. This is comic book gold, Enthusiasts.

At first, Thor was a much more typical superhero: he had an alter-ego, Dr. Donald Blake. Allfather Odin, you see, had grown tired of Thor’s arrogance. (Tamed down for the comics: in the Eddas, the God of Thunder was a bully who only took a break from raping humans to murder dwarfs; Marvel Thor was just kind of a blustery douche.) So he trapped Thor within the body of Dr. Donald Blake, but he could tap his walking stick against the ground to summon the Mighty Thor, which isn’t much of a punishment, really. It’s like being grounded, but only when you’re sleeping.

Eventually, the Blake conceit was dropped in favor of letting Thor be Thor and making Asgard great again. Over the years, Thor has been: a lady, a guy named Eric, the aforementioned frog, an alien horsemonster, and a specific frequency of violet.

In 2011, a motion picture was produced featuring the characters from the Thor comic books; it starred a slab of cock-steak named Chris and Kat Dennings. The film also introduced Tom Hiddleston’s ambiguous sexuality as Loki and was, for some reason, directed by Kenneth Branagh. (Sir Kenny is one of any number of actors in the MCU who are–officially and objectively–Too Good For This Shit. Glenn Close comes to mind.)

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER (2011) More like Captain Colonialism, amiright? Who’s the REAL Nazi here?

MARVEL’S THE AVENGERS (2012) The Tesseract. It’s a box. It’s magical bullshit: a macguffin that produces zero-point energy. But it looks like a box. Small box. Wouldn’t be of any use when moving house. You could keep jewelry in it, maybe. That’s the size of the box, and it glows. Thanos–you remember Thanos; he’s got a purple dick–wants the box, so he sends Loki to chew on the scenery and wear elaborate headpieces at the problem.

“Loki, you will fetch for me the Tesseract.”

“Yes, great one. I will use my stealthy magicks.”

“Oh, no, no. Frontal assault right up Fifth Avenue.”

…

“What now?”

“Let’s send a whole army of dickfaced goblins in the middle of the day.”

“I could…I could just yoink it. All of my powers are based around trickery. Lemme steal the thing.”

“Nope! Dragons up Broadway!”

Which was good thinking on Thanos’ part, if only on a dramatic level. Loki PWOPPING into existence from a Dark Dimension, slipping the Tesseract into his coat, and PWOPPING back into nothingness is not enough material for a two-hour action movie.

Anyhow, the Tesseract was really an Infinity Stone. Ain’t that always the way?

IRON MAN 3 (2013) The Avengers also introduced Hawkeye, who had a bow and arrow the first time we met him, and still has a bow and arrow despite, you know, knowing Tony Stark. Me? I ask my buddy Tony to build me a suit, but Clint is sticking with the good ol’ compound bow.

THOR 2: THE DARK WORLD (2013) Among the many challenges of translating the Thor comics onto the screen was the Asgardians’ habit of speaking in dog Elizabethan. It’s kind of Shakespeare, but not really; it’s shaky Shakespeare. There’s a lotta “thy” and “thine” and “Doth mine eyes betray me?” On any given day in Asgard, you have a 50% chance of being called a varlet or a cur.

This is tricky to portray in live action. The first two Thor pictures did it too much, but Ragnarok just let everyone be posh and British, and that was better.

Fun fact: This is the only Marvel film I’ve never seen all the way through, and that is because it is lousy. You got some evil elfs or dwarfs or whoever, and they want something called the Aether, which I always misheard as “ether” and thought they wanted to have a gas party. They didn’t, though. That might have been entertaining.

Fucked-up fact: once again, Thor chooses Natalie Portman over Kat Dennings, and that’s why we can’t have nice things. It wouldn’t even work, physically: Thor would break Natalie Portman. He would split that shit in two. Natalie Portman couldn’t handle the hammer. Kat Dennings, though? She’s got the base. She’s got the sturdy base, and–far more importantly–she’s got the mindset. The woman wants to win. Can’t teach that.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER (2014) Cap’s dick must have grown, too, right? When Dr. Erskine and Howard Stark gave him Super-Soldier Serum, he got a foot taller and a hundred pounds muscle-ier. One would assume his shwanz kept up with the rest of him, so it’s weird that he didn’t spend the majority of his first film playing with his new super-dong. That’s what I would have done, honestly.

This film introduces Sam Wilson, also known as the Falcon, who–along with Hawkeye–stretches the definition of the word “superhero” until it loses all meaning. He’s got a magic backpack. And goggle, I guess, but it’s mostly the backpack. Wings come out of it, thus enabling him to fly. While aloft, Sam shoots people and aliens and spacedogs with uzis.

We can draw two conclusions.

ONE: If you steal the magic backpack, you get to be an Avenger. Those are the rules; I didn’t make ’em up.

TWO: Yet again, we see Tony Stark’s reckless disregard for his teammates’ safety. How tough is Everybody who doesn’t have superpowers gets a suit? Just give ’em your hand-me-downs, Tony. Because one guy’s got a bow and arrow, and the other has flappy wings, and neither of those is going to help when Galactus comes calling in a few years.

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014) Pardon my authenticity, but I was into Rocket Raccoon before anyone. See this shit?

This shit was the shit, yo. I had this particular issue and read it to shreds; it was operatically dumb, and therefore thrilled me.

(One of the recurring motifs in the Hulk’s life has been getting zipzapped into other dimensions or galaxies. Sometimes it happens by magic, and other times Reed Richards and Tony Stark give him the ol’ B.A. Baracus treatment. Here, he had been exiled to someplace called Halfworld, which was inhabited by intelligent animals; adventures and punching ensued.)

Sleepy, So sleepy, and hungry, too.

Hit the sack, champ. Part two tomorrow.

Yay, a reason to live.

Thoughts On Ant-Man & The Wasp

July 10, 2018 / / 0 Comments
  • Michael Douglas runs like an old fucking man.
  • They hide how old that motherfucker is for one hour and 59 minutes of the movie, but at one point Michael Douglas has to chug up a ramp or something, and it’s geezer city, man.
  • They do the de-aging thing, too, and Marvel needs to stop that shit because the technology is getting too seamless.
  • Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Lawrence Fishbourne all get digitally youthified and it is creepy as hell.
  • Fishbourne, especially.
  • Remember Boyz in the Hood?
  • That’s what he looked like: Furious Styles.
  • I thought he was about to tell Paul Rudd that there’s no place for a black man in the army.
  • The rest of the movie was fine.
  • Oh, wait, I guess Michelle Pfeiffer coming back was a spoiler.
  • SPOILERS.
  • Listen, it’s fucking Ant-Man & the Wasp: it literally cannot be spoiled.
  • For example, Walton Goggins is in it.
  • Knowing only that piece of information, you now know precisely who his character is, right?
  • He’s the comedic bad guy.
  • And he’ll end up hoisted on his petard in a comedic way.
  • As always, Judy Greer gets to play the ex-wife or the step-mom or the best friend or whatever.
  • Evangeline Lilly was decent, but I would have preferred Judy Greer as the Wasp.
  • About halfway through the movie, I realized that none of the Marvel heroes actually have personalities.
  • Of their own, I mean.
  • Ant-Man, for example, has Paul Rudd’s personality.
  • Iron Man, on the other hand, greatly resembles Robert Downey, Jr., in every way.
  • Anyway, Paul Rudd Paul Rudds.
  • Paul Rudd Paul Rudds as hard as he can for two hours, occasionally becoming bigger or smaller, while the rest of the cast techobabbles.
  • “What about the quantum vectors!?”
  • “I’ve calibrated those! Check the relays on the quantum tunneler!”
  • And then Paul Rudd cracks wise.
  • Shit like that, constantly.
  • Ant-Man & the Wasp misuse the word “quantum” more than Deepak Chopra does.
  • But they have to, as absolutely none of the superpowers work if you think about them for more than an instant.
  • Hulk makes sense.
  • He’s just big and strong.
  • Thor makes sense.
  • He’s a literal god.
  • But growing and shrinking and what keeps its mass and what doesn’t?
  • You need some professional-grade handwavium for that nonsense.
  • And give Peyton Reed (the director) and his crew credit: they have–like alchemy–found the purest of handwavium, and it is this:
  • Cast charming people and keep the film moving forward at all costs.
  • That’s why people hated The Last Jedi.
  • The movie slowed down and gave you time to think about how fucking stupid it was.
  • I assure you that Ant-Man & the Wasp is every bit as dimwitted as TLJ, but it did not strand two characters in Space Atlantic City for 45 minutes in the middle of the picture and therefore is better.
  • TO THE PROBLEM ATTIC WITH YOU: Why were the special effects for AM&TW better than they were for Black Panther?
  • I am calling you out, Marvel.
  • TO THE PROBLEM ATTIC WITH YOU, PART THE SECOND: the Hyundai Veloster is not a fucking sports car, Marvel.
  • Consumers enjoy their funky styling and lean handling, but they’re not actually fast.
  • I know that your contract with Acura is now up, so everyone onscreen–including FBI agents, for some reason–has to drive a Hyundai, but don’t treat me like an asshole, Marvel.
  • Okay, if you’re not going to see it and want to know what the all-important end-credit scene is, I’ll tell you.
  • SPOILING BELOW
  • Serious.
  • …
  • …
  • …
  • Honest to gosh, gonna spoil it.
  • …
  • …
  • …
  • All right, you asked for it.
  • Fisting.
  • It’s like a fist-off.
  • Paul Rudd shrinks his hand and inserts it into Evangeline Lilly, and then regains resize; when he does, she orgasms and vomits simultaneously.
  • And you think, “Well, that’s over.”
  • It is not.
  • Michael Douglas and Michelle Pfeiffer do mutu-fisting.
  • It takes a while to get into the right position, but when they do: fireworks, baby.
  • Then there’s a close-up of Evangeline Lilly’s face.
  • She smiles.
  • Cut to Paul Rudd.
  • He smiles back.
  • Camera tracks down EL’s arm only to find her fist is buried deep within Lawrence Fishbourne.
  • He smiles.
  • And they fist again.
  • Like they did last summer.
  • Yes, they fist again.
  • Fisting time is here.
  • Excelsior, True Believers!

Thoughts On Avengers: Infinity War Having Actually Seen The Film This Time (Spoiling Within)

May 2, 2018 / / 0 Comments
  • There will be spoilers.
  • And I will drink your milkshake.
  • Drink it right the fuck up.
  • SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSLUP!
  • (I watched There Will Be Blood for the first time last week; I have to say it is a better film than Avengers: Infinity War in every category other than “number of baffling performances by Peter Dinklage,” as Peter Dinklage did not appear in TWBB at all.)
  • So, you know: if you don’t wanna know who’s gonna be resurrected in the next movie, ripcord out of here.
  • Not kidding.
  • I’m a spoilyboi.
  • …
  • You sure?
  • …
  • There are plenty other sites you could get computer-AIDS from.
  • I’m working on it.
  • And by “working on it,” I mean “desperately praying for someone to fix the problem for me like last time something went wrong with the cyber.”
  • Is Barron available?
  • Man, that kid’s gonna put some therapist’s kids through college.
  • Again: SPOILERS.
  • So many things to spoil, too.
  • Cuz half the universe dies.
  • AND SOME OF THEM ARE OUR BELOVED STARVEL HEROES.
  • (I’m just referring to Star Wars and Marvel as “Starvel” now, because having your childhood dreams come true is apparently a curse. Couldn’t some of my adult dreams manifest? The economic security, or the henchmen? I’d even take some of my teenage dreams, even though I do not have the penile endurance for teenage dreams any longer. But these kiddie fantasies of Han and Spidey being everywhere all the time turn out to suck in real life. It’s like living in a fairy tale, but not one of the cleaned-up stories from the pop-up books: the original Bavarian fairy tales.)
  • All right, here we go:
  • Everyone’s dead!
  • But they’re not, because Disney has stockholders and if you even think about killing off Black Panther, they send their proxies to your Malibu house in the middle of the night and beat you to death.
  • Spider-Man, whom they killed, is not dead.
  • Doctor Strange, whom they killed, is not dead.
  • Don Cheadle looks a little dead.
  • Enthusiasts, you know that TotD loves him some Don Cheadle, so you know this hurts me to say: Don, you have aged out of this role.
  • You are officially the old guy at the club.
  • “What the hell is a Migo? PLAY SOME KOOL & THE GANG!”
  • Honestly, they should have killed DC off in Captain America: Civil War and just thrown Wendy Williams in the suit.
  • “War Machine! I need some backup!”
  • “How you durrrrrin?”
  • Okay, so here’s what happens:
  • A purple fellow wants jewelry.
  • White people and Chadwick Boseman do not want the purple man to have the jewelry, for fear of what he will do with it.
  • Maybe he will wear it at an occasion too casual for jewelry of that nature.
  • He is so mean and tough, purple people-eater is.
  • The filmmakers need to show this during his first appearance onscreen, and poor Hulk has to be the Worf.
  • He beats Hulk so bad that Bruce Banner can’t get it up for the rest of the film in what has to be the first gamma-related impotence plot thread in film history.
  • (This is, of course, setting up the brutal beating that the green person will give the purple person in the next film.)
  • Starvel is run by geniuses: you only have to see one, or at the most two, movies to make sense of most sequels, but you need to see at least a dozen flicks for any of this bullshit to be comprehensible.
  • And then the Chrises emerge.
  • Australian Chris, who spent his last film learning that he did not need a hammer.
  • He spends this film looking for a hammer.
  • Wholesome Chris, who now has a beard.
  • He has a new super-suit, which is all-black like Luke’s in Jedi; this is to show how sad he is.
  • Trumpy Chris, who sucks.
  • I’m just so far past “No, thank you” with that guy.
  • Why the fuck are you talking back to Iron Man, doofus?
  • And why are you letting him talk back to you, Iron Man?
  • Speaking of which: Robert Downey, Jr., is now in the “doing an impression of himself” phase of his career.
  • RDJ was RDJing, if that makes sense.
  • And Spider-Man!
  • Whose death scene was undercut just a smidge by the fact that they’re currently in pre-production on his next film.
  • Unless we will be treated to some sort of Weekend at Bernie’s-type scenario.
  • I would like to see that.
  • He’s got one of Tony’s super-spidersuits, but it’s doing all the work and he’s dead inside the sucker.
  • And, like, there’s a smell.
  • And that’s Zendaya’s whole part in the movie: she tags along with Corpse Spidey and when the Hobgoblin says, “Is something dead around here?” she’ll be all, “I don’t smell anything. Maybe you’re having a stroke.”
  • And then Dead Peter starts leaking out of the suit.
  • I would totally see that movie.
  • Spidey’s on some sort of alien planet for most of the movie, because when you think Spider-Man, you think cosmic adventures.
  • I am almost certain that not only was Thanos created digitally for this movie, but so was Benadryl Cupertino.
  • There was something off about that fucker’s face.
  • Please, Lord, do not let me be dragged by Black Twitter for saying this, but: just let the Wakandans speak in their normal accents.
  • American, British, whatever.
  • Couldn’t understand a word.
  • Thanos is from Titan, which is just as made up as Wakanda, but he talks like Josh Brolin.
  • New rule: everyone talk like Josh Brolin.
  • I always get distracted by mundane bullshit in movies like this.
  • Like: where did Thanos get his boots?
  • He had to get his fancy glove made bespoke, so we know that he doesn’t just use his weirdo-powers to zippity-zap his wardrobe into existence.
  • Did Thanos go to the mall?
  • “Gamorra, how do these look?”
  • “WhatEVER, Dad! Can we leeeeeeeeave?”
  • “Am I a sexy daddy?”
  • “Oh my GOD you are embarrassing me!”
  • And so on.
  • “THANOS HAS EXCELLENT IDEAS AND HE IS JUST EXPRESSING HIS FREE THOUGHTS!”
  • Hey!
  • Get out of here, Kanye!
  • “PETER DINKLAGE MADE STRANGE CHOICES IN HIS PERFORMANCE!”
  • …
  • Okay, you’re right there.
  • Peter Dinklage was playing a giant.
  • Which is fucked up.
  • Honestly, Starvel?
  • Fucked up.
  • Vision and the Scarlet Witch have some business to take care of.
  • She gestures.
  • He looks like he’s about to die.
  • That’s pretty much their arc.
  • THE BIG FIGHT SCENE, YAY!
  • Bucky’s back!
  • Said no one with that much excitement.
  • Stop trying to make Bucky happen, Starvel.
  • The bad guys have toothmonsters, and the good guys run at them in an open field so that punching may take place.
  • Instead of, you know, lining up every machine gun and howitzer you can find and opening fire at the toothmonsters from an enclosed position.
  • I thought humanity learned that “running straight at ’em” was a poor tactical decision around 1918.
  • If you’re a Marine and you suggest to your superior officer that the plan should be “engage the enemy at full-sprint with weapons akin to baseball bats,” then you will have to do push-ups.
  • Of all people, Captain America should know better.
  • That’s the first day of boot camp, I would imagine.
  • “If your enemy is in the clear with no cover, then drop as much lead and explosives on them as possible. Okay, repeat that back to me. Rogers?”
  • “Join them in the clearing and whomp ’em in their heads with ranged weapons, sir!”
  • “Go stand in the corner, Rogers! Sick of your shit, boy.”
  • “I’m from Brooklyn.”
  • “SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
  • Black Widow continues to be white, and continues her streak of having something to do in the next movie.
  • She’s completely irrelevant to the one you’re watching.
  • But the next one?
  • She’s all over that shit.
  • Starvel better not be thinking that bringing Hawkeye back in Infinity War: Infinitier will be welcomed with cheers.
  • You better have more than that in your pocket, Kevin Feige.
  • Hawkeye’s like that roommate you had that you didn’t mind.
  • Wasn’t your friend.
  • Wasn’t your enemy.
  • You didn’t mind him.
  • And now it’s like seven or eight years later and you run into him at a bar and there’s no way to avoid him and you’re like, “Oh, hey, Hawkeye. What’s up?”
  • And you know he’s gonna talk about archery.
  • Then Nick Fury dies, but he’s already shooting the next one and he kinda says “Motherfucker” but he doesn’t, and now Brie Larson is coming to save the day with her feminism and enormous jaw.
  • Oh, the magic of the movies.

Thoughts On Avengers: Infinity War, Necessarily Spoiler-Free Because Moviepass Sucks The Big One

April 28, 2018 / / 0 Comments
  • Fuck you, Moviepass.
  • Or MoviePass.
  • However the lawyers decided that your name was spelled.
  • Basketball Head is clamoring for a Nobel Peace Prize because of Korea; he’s–as usual–misapprised of the situation, but if he dropped a nuke or two on Silicon Valley, I would support him getting the Prize.
  • Maybe going to the movies didn’t need to be disrupted, huh?
  • Anydoodles, this is what I thought:
  • I understand that a few characters had to die, but the choice to have Iron Man succumb slowly and graphically to pancreatic cancer was an odd one.
  • There was punching!
  • Kicking, but less so.
  • One or two headbutts.
  • Wow, Fangfarter Venus went toe-to-toe with Mr. How’s Your Momma!
  • End-credit scene was just a shot of Kevin Feige in his swimming pool giving the camera the finger.
  • I know Captain America is from the 1940’s and all, but the scene where he angrily screamed, “THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS!” over and over was a bit much.
  • Black Widow was as useful and fascinating a character as ever.
  • How about giving her some armor or something?
  • Also: Black Widow met secretly with Donald Junior and Steve Bannon in October of 2016.
  • YES, it is far more realistic to have Bruce Banner’s pants rip off when he transforms into the Hulk; NO, they should not have made this choice.
  • Imagine a pantyhose leg, green, that’s filled with about a dozen softballs.
  • And flopping all over the place.
  • Very distracting, Marvel.
  • PEW PEW PEW!
  • No, that’s the other Disney property.
  • Oh, right; I get confused.
  • Josh Brolin was fine as Thanos, but I would have preferred Daniel Day-Lewis, if only for the stories of how annoyingly he behaved on set.
  • “Even though they created the character’s look with CG, he still sat in make-up for six hours a morning to get himself all purpled-up. And he made everyone call him Thanos. He would sneak up behind you and growl in your ear, ‘I love death and jewelry.’ It was weird.”
  • Why were there so many explicit tuggers?
  • I couldn’t pick out exactly what was problematic about the movie, but I’m sure Twitter will tell me presently.
  • Using the 5/14/78 Let It Grow as the score for the big fight scene was a left-field choice, but it worked.
  • Worst new additions to the Avengers: Diamond and Silk.
  • There are three blond Chrises in this film, and I refer to them as Wholesome Chris, Australian Chris, and Trumpy Chris.
  • The guy who used to be fat on Parks & Rec?
  • That fucker is Trumpy as fuck.
  • If you looked up “Trumpy” in the dictionary, you would not find it because I just made the word up.
  • And the guy’s picture wouldn’t be there.
  • If you looked in Variety, you could probably find him.
  • He is so hot right now.
  • For those of you thinking, “TotD cannot remember this person’s last name and refuses to look it up,” give yourself an extra slice of pie for dessert tonight; you are so very clever.
  • What the fuck is his last name?
  • Anthemum?
  • Tophercross?
  • Peecritters?
  • I am not looking it up.
  • Fuck that guy.
  • No.
  • No.
  • No.
  • …
  • Pratt.
  • I looked it up.
  • Shame on my whole family.
  • Is he related to the Pratt Institute?
  • I’m not related to any institutes.
  • Had a cousin who was a symposium, but he bought it in the war.
  • You’re just babbling now.
  • I know.
  • Wanna tie this one off and let it fly free?
  • I was going to introduce Kanye.
  • Please don’t
  • He was going to be Yenos.
  • No.
  • “EVERYONE WILL BE WALKING AROUND WITH PURPLE FACES NEXT SEASON BECAUSE OF MY INFLUENTIALITY!”
  • No.

Thoughts On Doctor Strange

November 8, 2016 / / 7 Comments
  • Nothing else going on today, right?
  • Time enough to sit around, smoke doobies, and watch matinees wherein people with cheekbones throw special effects at one another?
  • And then drink coffee (and smoke more doobies) and write a thousand words of nonsense about it?
  • No worldly matters of pressing urgence?
  • Good.
  • Okay, let’s get this out of the way:
  • Boccecourt Chameleonface.
  • Bongledong Coffeemate.
  • Bradleycooper Cooperbradley.
  • Okay, I needed to get that out of my system: obviously, Doctor Strange is played by Benedict Cumberbatch doing his Doctor House impression, and he fights Mads Mikkelson, who is the single most European man that has ever lived.
  • Along the way, several minorities aid Doctor Strange and tell him how special he is.
  • You know, Enthusiasts, that I don’t write reviews.
  • Someone wants to pay me to do it, I will, but no one is, so I will not: if you’re looking for a thumbs up or down, then you have come to the wrong place.
  • Go read A.O. Scott, who is a grown man who makes a living seeing comic book movies.
  • (Why am I mocking him? That’s a great scam.)
  • And make no mistake: Doctor Strange is a comic book movie; moreover, it is a Marvel movie, mostly the script.
  • Do they still make paint-by-numbers?
  • Paint-by-numbers was a big thing when I was a kid: you get the book and a special set of paint labeled with numbers instead of colors, and the book would have line drawings of a well-known piece of art broken into numbered segments.
  • You would paint the sections marked 1 with the appropriate paint, and so forth, and when you had finished there would be a painting (kinda).
  • I think they found the screenplay version of paint-by-numbers.
  • Stephen Strange blah blah arrogant surgeon barble barble car crash yadda yadda magical foreigners boom boom boom special effects ending.
  • There were several iterations of this line of dialogue:
  • “Doctor Strange, do you remember the thing you said to me in the first act? Well, I now repeat it back to you in the third.”
  • The bad guy did bad things for reasons which I feel like they explained in the film, but I was not paying attention to.
  • The hero was tall.
  • It’s that kind of story: either there is exposition, or there is CG-enhanced gesturing.
  • SO MUCH GESTURING.
  • According to movies, magic is 80% gesturing.
  • The other 20% is wardrobe.
  • You cannot wield the Wand of Watoomb in your jeans and tennis sneakers: it requires a robe/karate pajama/amulet combination.
  • The draw for this film is the hoodoo, and there is so much of: cities fold in on themselves, and Hong Kong fractalizes into spiraling mandalas, and the Dark Dimensions look just like Steve Ditko drew them.
  • These effects are rather special. (Except for the car crash scene, which looks like a well-made video game from 2011.)
  • See the 3D version, or the IMAX if it’s available, and smoke many doobies immediately prior to entering the theater.
  • It’s trippy, man.
  • Anyway: it’s a Marvel movie, with all that entails, and the most consistent feature of Marvel movies has been the hiring of actors who are stupidly over-qualified for the jobs.
  • Anthony Hopkins, and Alfre Woodard, and Glenn Close, and Tommy Lee Jones; that sort.
  • Strange is no exception: Chiwetel Ojiofor–one of my favorite actors since Serenity–and Mikkelson are superb; so are the women, Tilda Swinton and Rachel McAdams.
  • Rachel McAdams plays The Girl, and this sentence I am currently writing represents more thought about her character than the screenwriters applied to her over the entire course of production.
  • Marvel movies are not about The Girl: they are about white guys learning how special they are, and how they can do anything they want.
  • Tilda Swinton plays the Ancient One, who lives in China and is not Chinese.
  • At one point, one of the characters exposits that she is Celtic, but she ain’t fucking Celtic.
  • Tilda Swinton is Tllda Swinton.
  • That would have been an audacious choice to have the Ancient One actually be Tilda Swinton, like she defends the Earth with magic and she also does movies.
  • “That’s the Ancient One? She looks like Tilda Swinton.”
  • “That’s because she is.”
  • “What now?”
  • That’s a twist you would not see coming, as opposed to the other twists in the movie which you can be sure of before even leaving your house.
  • Again: this movie is Super Hero Product – subsection: origin story.
  • First half is the Call to Action, and the Shaman, and the Training; second half, the hero gets thrown into a situation he can’t deal with, but overcomes through believing in himself and also by using something he got in the first act.
  • I only had one major quibble, and it is a ludicrous one.
  • The secret magic monastery (NOT Hogwarts) in which Doctor Strange learns to wave his hands around mysteriously has a library, naturally, because you kinda have to have a magic library.
  • I mean, what’s the point of anything if you’re not going to have a magic library?
  • And this particular magic library, like all others, has a Librarian.
  • (The most magical of libraries only hire orangutans as librarians, but that’s a whole other story.)
  • He is Wong, who in the comics and in the next films plays Strange’s assistant.
  • In the comics, he was referred to as Doctor Strange’s manservant, but I have a feeling they’re going to drop that terminology.
  • Wong is your prototypical magic librarian: you don’t check out the books so much as ask him if you may borrow them.
  • You can’t have just anyone walking in and grabbing the Necronomicon.
  • That’s how you get demons.
  • Do you wanna get demons?
  • Because that’s how you get demons.
  • Which is all good and proper, except either Wong or whoever his boss is simply has no idea how to run a magic library.
  • For example, the Ancient One’s private stock of occult literature is not hidden in a secret vault, or turned invisible, or protected by giant, fanged bookworms.
  • They’re chained to a bike rack in the middle of the room, and not even with mystical chains.
  • Chains.
  • Like the Ancient One went to Home Depot and they cut her a length.
  • The Orb of Agomotto is also sitting in the middle of the room, and they try to slip in some bullshit about “the relic choosing the owner,” but I think this is just a case of lax security.
  • Plus–PLUS–the library has apparently had no protection spells cast over it whatsoever.
  • The magicians in Doctor Strange can create portals between places, and not with any great effort: it is literally the first trick that Strange learns.
  • Wong won’t give him a book he wants, so Strange zaps a little portal between his room and the library and grabs the book.
  • You have to be shitting me.
  • What kind of magic library is this that you can just blip in and out of?
  • The whole movie is about how Tilda Swinton and the rest of the magicians protect the world from the Dark Dimensions, but someone who has been learning spells for two weeks can apparate into the room where all the important books are kept?
  • We learn in the next scene that what Doctor Strange did was against the rules.
  • Rules?
  • Are we using the honor system, Doctor Strange?
  • It’s against the rules to steal money from a bank, too, but they still lock the doors.
  • Get your shit together, Wong.

Thoughts On Captain America: Civil War

May 10, 2016 / / 2 Comments
  • What’s so civil about war, anyway?
  • So much punching, and of things you would not think punchable: faces wrapped in super-armor, or German planes, or concrete support columns.
  • Also many pretty people, and not just pretty white people: there are three black guys in the film, and they play two best friends and an African guy.
  • That’s progress, I guess.
  • I suppose I should say SPOILERS at this point, but…well, wait: even explaining why there aren’t any spoilers might be construed as spoilerific, so if you haven’t seen it yet and want to go in utterly clueless, then you gotta go.
  • …
  • …
  • …
  • They gone?
  • Superman dies.
  • I’m kidding: that was the other movie about heroes who are actually terrible people punching one another.
  • Okay, so: this is not a Captain America movie.
  • Cap was the star of his first movie, but the past two have been Avengers movies; this is not a bad thing, as the character is not as interesting as Iron Man or Spidey, nor does he have a cool location and supporting players like Thor does.
  • So Marvel has chosen (wisely) to make Captain America more of a through-line than a lead character; he gets the most screen time, but just barely.
  • There are ten Marvel heroes in this film, four of whom have solo movie careers, and so the scene where Cap goes to the mall and is dazzled by the all the new gadgets gets cut early.
  • (Plus, he’s got out of that ice almost ten years ago at this point; he should be caught up by now.)
  • Black Panther has a large sub-plot because his movie is coming out next year, and so does Bucky; Spider-Man (and the new, hot Aunt May) gets his introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe plus a big role in the climactic fight scene; the relationship developing between Vision and Scarlet Witch is given several scenes: there’s a lot packed into the two-and-a-half hours.
  • Hawkeye is back.
  • Yay.
  • Anyway: the plot.
  • Um.
  • Huh.
  • Robert Downey, Jr. wants Captain America to sign something that makes super-heroing legal?
  • Cap’s like “Nuh-uh.”
  • And they don’t punch each other yet, but you can tell they want to.
  • Stuff blows up in a foreign country.
  • William Hurt is tall.
  • Stuff blows up in a different foreign country.
  • Robert Downey, Jr. and Captain America assemble their teams, starting with their black best friends.
  • Punching.
  • Paul Rudd seems to be in a different movie than everyone else.
  • Absolutely nothing is resolved, but the larger plot is moved forward, maybe.
  • Ta-da?
  • Remember Bucky?
  • They just put his crazy ass back into cryo-sleep at the end.
  • Maybe he’ll become a Guardian of the Galaxy.
  • And nobody died, though the movie does pretend to cripple Don Cheadle; Robert Downey, Jr. has already built him a robot exo-suit that fits under his clothes and it will never be mentioned again.
  • Cap and Black Widow and Falcon and Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye and Ant-Man (I am a grown man talking about other grown-ups) are now on the run; maybe they will go back to Hawkeye’s farm like in the second Avengers movie because that was so much fun.
  • Scarlet Witch is played by the Olsen Twins, and she has done something about the accent from the last movie, which could only be described as “foreign.”
  • She didn’t take classes or practice or anything: she just stopped doing the accent, and now the character is from California.
  • In the comics, she and Vision fell in love and married, and it looks like they’re going that way in the films.
  • Vision has a robot dick.
  • Paul Bettany, however, might be the MVP of the movie: the Vision is a potentially film-ruining character; he’s an android wearing a sweater; Bettany makes the humanity of the android come through.
  • Good for you, Paul Bettany.
  • A lot of the actors have prominent noses.
  • Noticed it halfway through and then couldn’t stop seeing it.
  • The noses don’t stand out because these are all very attractive people, except for Jeremy Renner, but some tremendous schozzes.
  • Okay, but why were they fighting again?
  • …
  • Where did you come from?
  • I’m always here.
  • Sure, but I already recapped the plot.
  • You did not.
  • Lemme try again: a creepy German guy we later learn is Baron Zemo framed Bucky for killing Black Panther’s father.
  • Why?
  • The German guy was from Sokovia, the pretend city that the Avengers destroyed fighting Ultron in the last movie and some of his family died.
  • So he decided to become a criminal mastermind?
  • And Bucky murdered Robert Downey, Jr.s’ parents.
  • Does that makes sense?
  • Maybe, but let me get back to whatever it is I was doing; if someone wants to pay me to write a review, then I will, but I’m not thinking about this dopey nonsense for free, and I’m certainly not looking up the stuff I forgot.
  • Good attitude.
  • Thank you.
  • As regards to the actual plot and the machinations of the villain’s schemes: I am the wrong person to ask about not just this film, but any; any movie more complicated than Run, Lola, Run is a total hodgepodge to me, at least the first time around.
  • You know those movies where people double-cross each other?
  • I have never understood a single one of them.
  • Spider-Man showed up, as we all know, and they are setting him up as Tony Stark’s protegé or something; also, he is now twelve years old.
  • He was funny, though; that’s one of the things they always get wrong about him.
  • There was jumping and webbing and kicking: he was a Spider-Mannish boy.
  • Give the Marvel movies this over the DC stuff: since the Avengers got together, the main storyline has been the response to them and their constant fucking up.
  • New York was the doing of one of their brothers, Sokovia got fucked up when the super-intelligent death robot that Robert Downey, Jr. built decided to live there, and–in the last Cap movie–several Helicarriers crashed into D.C.
  • The “No Super-Heroes” position is a solid one: these people are terrible neighbors, and worse visitors.
  • “Sorry we destroyed your downtown, but our human tank had to fight our giant green ragemonster. Yes, I said ‘our’ both times, as both of them are Avengers. We’re the good guys.”
  • And the movie does do it as truthfully as a movie about pretty people in silly outfits punching one another can do: Alfre Woodard plays the mother of someone killed in Sokovia, which seems unfair.
  • Alfre Woodard’s a serious actress.
  • (But, you know: she probably shot her scenes in a few days and received a lovely check, so good for Alfre.)
  • There was quite a bit of action, so those of you expecting a gentle comedy of manners will be disappointed.
  • I don’t even know where you’d get that idea, quite frankly.
  • All of the characters action in their own way: Black Panther has cool retractable claws, and Ant-Man does his size-changing thing, and Black Widow leaps at soldiers crotch-first.
  • Although the directors, the Russo directors, have made the choice to shoot the action sequences in a style that might be called “violently undulating.”
  • It’s not quite Paul Greengrass-level shaky-cam, but the point of view moves both with and independently of the characters with a fierce intent.
  • If there’s a problem with the movie, it’s one that’s intrinsic to any team-up movie (or comic, for that matter): the range of powers within the group assembled is so large as to make some of them irrelevant.
  • You’ve got to make the incredibly powerful characters (Vision) weaker, and the scrubs (Hawkeye, Falcon, Widow) stronger.
  • This is because of the First Rule Of Super-Hero Films: there needs to be a fist-fight.
  • Shooting computer graphics at each other is fine, and so is tossing computer-generated dump trucks, but in the third act, there needs to be a fist-fight.
  • Which means you end up with Hawkeye lasting more than two seconds with Black Panther, and this would not happen: not only is the Black Panther a better fighter than Hawkeye, he might be a better archer, too.
  • And dopiness like Vision engaging in a punch-up.
  • He’s a synthezoid super-intelligence who can control his own mass and has an Infinity Gem for a bindi: he doesn’t get in fist-fights.
  • The effects are as good as you would assume, and the heroes had weight and grit to them; nothing looked shiny, and no rubbery faces; plus–and I mention this frequently–Marvel’s movies take place during sunny days, so they can’t hide shitty CG with rain and darkness.
  • (There is one scene where it rains, but it had to rain, because Robert Downey, Jr. was very sad.)
  • The sound was also good enough that I noticed it: the punches (have I mentioned there were punches?) land with a huge and percussive PLAMP.
  • To sum up, I enjoyed this Super-Hero Product, and would recommend it to others; I also enjoyed the commercial before the movie for the upcoming Super-Hero Product starring Bensonhedges Coffestump and plan on consuming that one, too.

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