Fantastic Four (2025) review

    THE FANTASTIC FOUR is a movie that a lot of us were looking forward to as much, if not more, than Superman (2025). A lot of people complain about superhero fatigue but I actually think it's more like "cinema fatigue" with the problem not being that people aren't going to see superhero movies but that they aren't seeing movies period anymore. Streaming and Covid-19 are a one-two punch that means that if people are going to the movies, they'll probably do so only for things that are big events.

    Unfortunately, I'm going to have to say that I this one is a miss rather than a hit. I think Superman (2025) was a far better movie and this is just sort of okay--if that. Rather than compare it to Superman (2025) exclusively, I'm going to compare it to Marvel's other movies from the year with Thunderbolts and Captain America: Brave New World. I liked it the least of the three with Thunderbolts having a lot more heart and Brave New World being okay but still enjoyable.

    The premise is that on an alternate 1960s Earth, the Fantastic Four have managed to bring about world peace and elevate everything to a zeerust Pre-War Fallout-esque future. All in the span of about four years, which is already something that puts me off world-building wise. Sue Storm is pregnant with Franklin Richards and the family is in a really good headspace when they receive an ominous warning from the Silver Surfer: their world will be destroyed by Galactus within the year.

    The positives of this movie first: Julia Garner is fantastic as the Silver Surfer and I would have probably enjoyed a movie about her over this group. All those people complaining about the Silver Surfer receiving a gender flip are being silly. First, it's an alternate universe. Second, those saying it's a big support of the 'womenz' miss that a substantial chunk of the male audience (and some women) are going to enjoy her sexy re-design.

    I also appreciate a comics-accurate depiction of Galactus. The whole idea that audiences would never accept a skyscrapper-sized giant space god depends on the idea that there's something inherently less silly about guys with cosmic ray-induced powers over a Titan-sized being. If you're here for the comic book silliness, you're here for the comic book silliness. Which is why Krypto was perfectly fine and comic book editors were stupid to try to get rid of Supergirl for decades. In fact, Galactus being onscreen only for about ten minutes total is my biggest complaint about the film.

    As for the Fantastic Four themselves? Well, they're definitely the Fantastic Four. Reed is smart, Sue is the mature one, Ben is a rock guy, and Johnny is driven by his desire to bang the Silver Surfer. Honestly, it's a very bland and vanilla take on the characters with the only one who elevates the material being Pedro Pascal. His Reed is coded as autistic and I appreciated the representation even as I got pissed off when he called himself broken because of it. Mind you, this is a personal issue for me so it might not irritate you like it did me.

    In simple terms, the movie is boring. The action scenes have no stakes, no one is threatened, and our heroes don't seem to struggle throughout. The fact the entire world hangs on their every word and only turns on them briefly (before being resolved by a speech) is ludicrous. I just didn't have much fun during the film.

4/10

Thunderbolts (2025) review

 
    THUNDERBOLTS (2025) is a movie that I was looking forward to a lot more than a lot of other Marvel Cinematic Universe fans. I enjoyed the original Thunderbolts comics with Baron Zemo, Hawkeye, Songbird, Mach IV, Moonstone, and others. I also really enjoyed the Black Widow movie that was an underrated gem of the “original” Avengers era. I also am one of the people who really does love goofy antiheroes doing goofy superhero-adjacent stuff as anyone who has read my Supervillainy Saga books will know.

    I’m even fond of the Sentry, a C-list character that has a very complicated history but has been involved in several fantastic stories. A part of me was also fully prepared to hate this movie because a lot of the praise coming back mentioned things like the handling of mental health and illness. Without getting into any specific diagnoses, I am neuroatypical and my family has so many mental conditions in our history that we might as well be H.P. Lovecraft protagonists, I also was one of the people who fully hates the idea of the Sentry being the poster boy for the mentally ill in Marvel as I’d much rather Bruce Banner (a hero) be the guy over a guy I associate as a cautionary tale of Superman gone wrong. I like the Sentry but I don’t want him to be a functioning hero but a tragedy, if that makes sense.

    So was it good? Was it, as Cyndi Lauper would say, “good enough”? Or was it terrible? Are we grading on the curve enough that I was okay with Captain America: Brave New World? Well, the answer is it’s closer to the “good enough” versus the good. It’s good-ish. It’s better than the vast majority of the Disney Marvel mill’s products and has some genuine pathos, which I legitimately thought was absent after Thanos sacrificed Gamora. It has a couple of actual things to say but being deeper than a kiddie pool doesn’t mean it gets deeper than the shallow end of the pool. Solid B+ movie that I will probably watch again with my niece when it comes out on streaming.

    The movie is fairly straightforward even if there’s a few twists and turns. You’ll be completely spoiled if you watch most of the trailers. A bunch of characters from Black Widow, Ant-Man, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier are being used by Valentina de Fontaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus) to do dirty ops for the CIA. Unfortunately, like many spymasters, she’s actually up to her neck in the Military Industrial Complex and we get the first piece of unbelievable fantasy that someone wants to actually hold her account for human rights violations. Highlighting she’s complete scum, she murders almost all of her scientists and researchers in her private supersoldier program before trying to have the assassins killed.

    Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) is more or less the star of the film and feeling deep depression over all the people she murders for the government black ops group. The movie sort of skates past how many people she’s murdering on behalf of her evil CIA handler because she feels bad about it. This part I didn’t hate because, obviously, Yelena is not going to have a well-developed moral compass with being a child assassin. Still, unlike Natasha, Yelena never really gets herself out of the shady work she hates.

    Things go to hell for her and everyone else once they realize that they’ve become loose ends and very reluctantly team up to survive. This group including John Walker AKA US Agent (Wyatt Russell), Ava Star AKA Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Bob (Lewis Pullman) who seems to be an utterly normal person caught in a bad situation. The Red Guardian (David Harbour) and Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) end up joining their ad hoc group as well. Fans of Taskmaster and hoping for a Bond girl repeat performance by Olga Kurylenko will be disappointed. Action scenes happen, character arcs occur, friendships are formed, the power of family prevails, heroic sacrifices are made, and so on.

    The much praised handling of mental illness wasn’t a disaster like I was expecting but it’s not exactly great either. Mentally ill people are still people and not violent psychopaths (unless they get infused with powers from demon dimensions). It turns out what most of them need are hugs and not beating them up with superpowers. If you think that’s a spoiler, you will realize this is not the case within a few minutes of Bob’s introduction. It comes as a bit ridiculous after we had the same plot beat in Brave New World. The comedy is also far more prevalent and less cringe than I expected. A running gag is that the Thunderbolts are named after Yelena’s childhood soccer team that sucked but I actually found that kind of touching. Certainly, it’s better than trying to pass these guys off as the next A-Team.

    I mentioned that Disney screwed up by making some of their ideas into TV shows rather than movies with Kenobi, Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, and Ms. Marvel all being things that probably would have benefited from being trimmed to 2 or 2 and a 1/2 hours. This is the opposite where just too much happens that doesn’t get developed. A lot more time could have been devoted to the politics behind the scenes, Sentry’s slow descent into megalomania, and all of the characters’ individual traumas that we’re les shown than told. A seven to eight hour miniseries would have been meatier I think but I’m never not entertained either. Better to be all the good(ish) parts and underdeveloped than a slog.

    Watch it.

    But don’t expect to be blown away.

Daredevil: Born Again review

    DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN is a fascinating story both in-universe and out. Out of universe, it is an attempt to regain a lot of lost Marvel fandom that got themselves abandoned as the television shows were declared non-canon only for Disney to pivot to Disney+ after Endgame. In-universe, it is the story of a demagogue seizing power via imagined problems and destroying democracy in the process.

    Daredevil: Born Again had a massive crazy behind-the-scenes story that can basically be summarized as them making a reboot with the same actors for Daredevil (Charlie Cox) and Kingpin (Vincent d’onofrio) before Ms. Marvel Co-Creator Sana Amanat saw the results then decided they could do much better. They took the show away from Matt Corman and Chris Ord before giving it to Dario Scardapane who wrote the Netflix Punisher series. Then they trieed to edit/modify the already filmed six episodes to make it closer to what Ms. Amanat wanted.

    The result? Daredevil: Born Again is pretty good. The problem is “pretty good” is also not absolutely great and while people have the selective memory about the original Netflix Daredevil, forgetting Season 2’s second half was gawdawful and pretending The Defenders wasn’t part of its overall narrative, it isn’t quite up there. However, it is miles above most of the Disney+ shows out there and the fact that it managed to be this good despite all the duct tape and screws keeping it together is incredibly impressive. I am now imagining Sana Amanat as the Night Nurse of Disney executives.

    The funny thing is I don’t think the original work on Daredevil: Born Again was bad either. Episodes 2-7 are perfectly cromulent episodes of superhero television with Episode 5 being absolutely fantastic (and only needed a few less Ms. Marvel references to be perfect). However, they would have driven Netflix fans insane as the focus would have been on episodic crime fighting versus season-long prestige storytelling. “The Trial of the Century” and “Muse” arcs of the comics are reduced to two episodes when both could have been season long storylines. Muse more than White Tiger feels wasted. Generally, though, I give these episodes a 7-8 on average on the basis of Charlie and Vincent’s fantastic acting that occupies much of the screentime.

    Still, it’s very clear what Night Nurse…I mean Sana Amanat saw as the flaws of Daredevil: Born Again and tried to fix with her duct tape. Episodes 1, 8, and 9 are all about creating an overarching season plot that ties everything together. They provide oodles of fanservice like The Punisher, Foggy Nelson, Karen Page, Bullseye, as well as other ties to the original series. Vanessa Fisk had been recast but they got the original actress back to refilm all of her scenes.

    The new showrunners also try to add emotional stakes via edits to the original episodes with one example being a random New Yorker was kidnapped by Muse in “Art for Art’s Sake” being being changed into the White Tiger’s niece in the reshoots. Characters who were very bland get very big changes like Heather Glenn going from Matt’s vanilla girlfriend to someone hateable but who at least has a personality.

    I’d be remiss if I didn’t come on the fact that there’s a Foggy Nelson sized hole in the story that isn’t much of a spoiler if you’ve seen the first episode. Karen Page shows up in the first and last episodes as well but her absence is keenly felt. Amusingly, comic Daredevil hasn’t had Karen Page as a supporting cast member since Guardian Devil but the show one feels incomplete with her in a way like Superman without Lois Lane. They couldn’t simply add them in to the show as so much is about Matt moping about Foggy’s death and her absence. Still, I have high hopes for Season 2 because of this. The show was overall a 7.5 without the new episodes but with them, I’d say they raise it to an 8.5. Not perfect but a significant improvement. I’d say the final two episodes are 9s by themselves and bode well for the future.

    I have complaints, don’t get me wrong. Kirsten McDuffie is nothing like her comic book portrayal of the flirty magpie that loves teasing Matt as well as serves as one of the best love interests in the comic. The character of Cherry feels like they wanted to use Mahoney but couldn’t but never really develops a personality. Cole North is also another character in name only. The Swordsman and Muse are also completely wasted. Still, they’re minor complaints in the grand scheme of things and I feel like the show is in good hands now. Short of scrapping the show entirely (and wasting the last work of Kamar de los Reyes, RIP), this was probably the best they could do.

    A short mention of Daredevil: Born Again‘s politics: Disney goes a lot farther than I expected them to go while also feeling like they didn’t go hard enough. The Fisk-Trump parallels are superficial for a variety of reasons but I liked the handling of police brutality. The toxic fandom of the Punisher among law enforcement gets handled much better than in the comics. Frank Castle is a man of action not words and it’s much more satisfying to see how he deals with Punisher wannabes than lecturing them on Captain America.

    Nuff said.

Captain America: Brave New World review

    CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD is the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe movie. A lot of people wondered if this would be the movie to restore it after a series of less than impressive entries. Others believed it would be another dud that would show that the series was finished after AVENGERS: ENDGAME. The answer is neither. Captain America: Brave New World is fine, above average even. It's no Thor: Dark World or Avengers: Ultron but I'd say it's probably the third best Captain America film, fourth if you count Falcon and the Winter Soldier. It's good but my highest praise is that it's a B+ movie. It's a fun superhero time that involves a lot of shooting, punching, and flying but not much to say about anything.

    The premise is that Captain America (Anthony Mackie) has been working with the US military, which causes some trouble with his mentor, Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly). The United States has recently elected Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross (Harrison Ford) to the Presidency and a lot of superheroes are less than pleased given his role in the Sokovia Accords. Interesting, Thaddeus' bad reputation as a General Ripper-type applies to even other nations. Thaddeus insists that he is a better man than he used to be, though, and wants to secure a legacy as a peacetime president rather than a wartime hero.

    What follows is a basic caper story with Sidewinder (Gincarlo Esposito) and the Serpent Society stealing a bunch of adamantium from Celestial Island. If you don't know what Celestial Island is, it's that thing created at the ending of the Eternals. Apparently, it's made of the substance that fans of Wolverine love and is even better than vibranium. Comic Nerd Rant: Which is ridiculous because vibranium has other properties than just being hard. In celebration of Captain America recovering it, President Ross invites him and his guests to the White House. There, he's almost assassinated and Isaiah Bradley is blamed.

    I won't get much more into the story because there's actually quite a few "mysteries" that were completely spoiled by the trailers for the film. I can understand why Disney did it: they wanted to get buts in seats. However, there's two big reveals in this film that are meant to make MCU fans go, "oooo!" These big reveals are something most MCU fans are going to go into the film already knowing. I'm not going to go into them but one of the biggest flaws of this film is that Bruce Banner has emotional ties to a lot of characters and plots from this story and the movie would have been improved tremendously if the Hulk had been a co-star.

    Anthony Mackie's Captain America is fantastic and the movie "gets" who Captain America is meant to be. He's meant to be a figure who uses his words with his fists (as well as his awesome power armor). Some people may object to the whole issue of a legacy hero but actors age, unlike comic book heroes, and the plot of trying to live up a legacy is interesting. It's just a shame that Steve Rogers never shows up to mention that he was just a kid from Brooklyn. It was everyone else who made him into a legend. We get the next best thing, though.

    Harrison Ford does a fantastic job with the character and brings a humanity to him. Thaddeus Ross has generally just been a one-dimensional but believable character. This Ross has done a huge amount of shady stuff and evil science projects but believes being President will allow him to redeem himself. There's much about whether redemption is possible and the movie also indicates that it's impossible unless you take responsibility for your actions. It's a good message that, sadly, runs into the larger political concerns.

    Basically, this movie has the mother of all bad timing for people to want to see it because of real-life politics. It's not the case of Red vs. Blue (which is actually part of the problem). It's the fact that politics are pissing off everyone in America right now. This is a movie about unity, reconciliation. and a story that doesn't really reflect anything but fictional world stories. Not taking a stand on anything and saying we're all the same may be admirable some times but just about everyone these days is saying pick a lane. Example: one of the main characters is an adaptation of Israeli special forces mutant, Sabra, who isn't a mutant or special forces here. She's also noticeably so short that in a movie with giant red monsters, I don't buy her able to take down grown men.

    In conclusion, this is a good movie. It's a fun movie. It's not a blow you away movie. However, this is a movie that I got out of my seat to go see in theaters rather than wait for it to show up on Disney+. I'm as stressed by the world as anyone else and this was a fun insight into a planet much much better off than our current one.

8/10

Secret Invasion (2023) review

    SECRET INVASION by Marvel and Disney was the MCU project I was looking forward to most. Well, not quite, I think I was looking forward to Ms. Marvel and Hawkeye a bit more since I'm a huge fan of the former as well as love Kate Bishop from the comics. But Secret Invasion was high on my list of series to watch because I am a big Nick Fury fan and I really enjoy the Skrulls as villains. 

    While it was mostly an excuse to have superheroes fight versions of themselves with multiple powers, it was still fun. I was hoping Emilia Clarke would play the role of Queen Veranke from the comic, the religious fanatic Skrull. It was too much to hope that she would play Jessica Drew, even if just as an agent of SHIELD.

    Unfortunately, the series chose not to follow anything but the basic plot of Skrulls attempting to take over the Earth. This is also extra-confusing because Captain Marvel had already done a surprising twist with the Skrulls being homeless refugees rather than the conquering Empire. The show's solution? Well, let's just ignore all of the changes and make the Skrulls generically evil now. They want to kill all of humanity to claim our planet. Why?

     Honestly, the show never gives a very good reason for why the Skrulls want to kill all humans. There's some vague acknowledgement of radicalization based on the idea that Fury and Carol Danvers made a promise to find them a new home but didn't succeed in the past thirty years. Except, it seems an exceptional jump from "we're understandably pissed at you for not living up to your promise" to "let's kill you and all of your children."

    The problem of Secret Invasion is that it suffers on both a political as well as character-based element. We never understand the motivations of the Skrulls and while it's possible they're all just a bunch of bastards, that's clearly not what the show wants us to think of them. They portray the Skrulls as struggling and sympathetic, you know, except when they don't.

    The show basically consists of a few action scenes and excuse plots ("oh no, the Skrulls are going to do X and start a nuclear war. How will Fury stop them this week!") tied together with duct tape as well as bailing wire. The show somehow manages to make an espionage thriller starring Nick Fury boring and fairly one-dimensional. This is in direct contrast to Captain America: The Winter Soldier that managed to be both a superhero story as well as a spy thriller.

    The show also wastes its cast of characters with the show held aloft by Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelson, and Olivia Colman. Kingsley Ben-Adir and Emilia Clark try their hardest, but their characters are so sketchily drawn that I'm not sure what we're supposed to make of them or their motivations Ironically, the show's main villain is at his most interesting in perhaps the last five minutes of his screentime when he explains how abused he felt by Fury's misuse of Skrull agents.

    The show's politics seem damn toxic. Whether you're on the Right or Left of the political spectrum, most people don't think the proper solution to discovering some terrorists among a group is wholesale genocide. However, the show is full of weird fearmongering about secret cabals, lizard people, and Russia being set up as America's enemy by an outside third party. Apparently, the invasion of Ukraine caused massive reshoots and I shudder to think what the original was like.

    In conclusion, the show is just bad. There's some standout moments, Nick talking about his past during Segregation and Talos defending his daughter in a restaurant but these are few and far between. Maybe it was silly expecting they'd have a bunch of fundamentalist Skrull invade or even try to replicate the comics but it wasn't too much to expect them to tell a coherent story. There's rumors part of this may be due to reshoots removing all reference to Russia invading Ukraine (which was apparently the Skrulls original plan). If so, that's probably a more interesting story than the one we got.

4/10

WandaVision (2021) review

    Being an author doesn't leave as much time for reviews as I used to do and so my blog has suffered a bit. However, I still manage to squeeze in time for a review of books and games that I like. Generally, I don't try to review the big stuff because there's no point. Reviewing WandaVision would be pointless if I was trying to draw attention to it. Millions of people have already watched the show and it's in no need of me spreading the word about it. It would only be worthwhile if I had something interesting and unique to say about the show. Maybe?

A five minute joke stretched to three episodes.

     Having watched WandaVision from beginning to end, I have mixed feelings about the problem. It's something that aspired to David Lynch meets Marvel comics greatness but never quite lands where it should. This is a show that has the freedom to color outside the lines of the MCU and I think that it sort of made a mess rather than pure art. So, this is going to be a partially negative review of the show as I discuss a show that has three or four good episodes, one fantastic one, plus a few terrible ones.

    The premise of the show is hard to tell without spoiling everything as it's a mystery box show where the point is to gradually reveal all the strings coming together. A well done mystery box show has you walk into the storyline, sit down, and watch it gradually unfold. Really, you shouldn't be spoiled about anything for that but I'm not sure that WandaVision is that show. Honestly, I think the show probably would have been better if it had been re-edited as a narrative that didn't attempt to hide anything from the audience. So, with that in mind, I'm going to discuss the show with spoilers free. You have been warned.

    What is WandaVision? WandaVision is a follow up to Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. The Vision was killed by Thanos after a failed attempt to keep him from the Infinity stones and Wanda was left devastated. In an attempt to deal with her grief, she creates a fantastical alternate reality where sitcom television tropes are literal and her husband is still alive. Unfortunately, this results in 2000 people in a small New Jersey town being trapped in an artificial reality where they are forced to playact as Wanda's oddball neighbors. 

Is it wrong I like this outfit more than the final one?

    It is a fantastic premise and one that draws from multiple works that I have enjoyed. This includes the Twilight Zone episode, "It's a Good Life" a.k.a "the one about the kid who can wish people into the cornfield." Another source is drawing from multiple comic book stores involving both the Vision and the Scarlet Witch. The John Byrne West Coast Avengers stories where they lost their kids and he was rebuilt as a soulless robot, The Vision comics where Vision attempts to build an artificial family, and House of M where Wanda creates an elaborate fantasy land where every hero gets what they want.

    Part of the problem is the fact that many a comic book fan knew where most of these stories were going and even those who weren't suspected the truth. Many people had theories about Mephisto or Nightmare but the most obvious candidate was Wanda herself. We also had the revelation that Katherine Hahn's "Agnes" would be Agatha Harkness and the SWORD agents would be bad. All of which came true.

    My three least favorite episodes of the series are the first three of the series because they're extended parodies of 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s situation comedies. It's essentially an extended joke that the series believes we'll be mesmerized by. As excellent as Paul Bettany's comedic timing is and as lovely as Elizabeth Olsen is in a Zatanna outfit (not that she isn't hilarious too--its just very memorable), none of it really landed for me. It felt like a five minute joke extended into an hour and a half movie. It didn't require entire episodes to establish them in a sitcom and the weirdness is not that far removed from the MCU to really sustain it.

John Wick wants a word with Agatha.

    The fourth episode, where everything is tied back into the greater Marvel Cinematic Universe, was easily the best and that was because we had likable characters like Monica Rambeau as well as Jimmy Woo working to save everyone in the town. Oh and Darcy too. Silly as it sounds, it felt far more like the kind of show I wanted to see where there was a big supernatural problem and our heroes were trying to solve it.

    Unfortunately, that is the central flaw of WandaVision: the story I want to see is not the one they want to tell. I want to see a Agents of SWORD season about Monica and her friends trying to save the town. It looks awesome and the stakes are desperate. The show is interested in exploring Wanda's complete break from reality and the people of Westview are really just props to deal with that story. The problem is that the stakes are too high and the people of the town exist enough to be cared about. Wanda's grief just does not matter nearly as much as Dottie's (Sarah's) and the other people who would rather die than remain part of her false reality.

    Really, I think the show picked up tremendously when the fake Pietro showed up and we were left speculating if Quicksilver was coming back. Also, Katherine Han's Agnes was her second best supervillain role after Doctor Octopus in Enter the Spider-Verse. However, those do feel like they should have been earlier reveals. It's a harsh statement but the show was good when it was like a superhero show and bad when it was trying to be a meditation on grief or weird Lynchian mystery. The mystery just wasn't that compelling.

I'm glad she survived. One of the best MCU baddies.

    I should note that some fans were disappointed with the fact some of their fan theories weren't true like there would be a tie-in to the X-men, that Fake Pietro was the one from the Fox movies, or that there wasn't an introduction to Reed Richards or Ben Grimm. I think this is a bit more on the fans than the show. The show introduced Photon, brought in Jimmy Woo, returned Darcy, acknowledged the Darkhold, and did plenty of other deep cuts. I also think it gave a decent number of answers to the questions raised and that was more than most shows have delivered.

    I think the ending is also somewhat flat too. Wanda is revealed to have done most of the horrifying kidnapping and mind-rape that is the basis of the show but is let off the hook by "sacrificing" her summoned husband as well as children. This isn't exactly atonement given if you give up your resurrected husband you sacrificed people to bring back, you're not a hero. You're still just a necromancer. We also resurrected Vision but he somehow didn't think that it was appropriate to go down and deal with his insane girlfriend. There's just not enough closure when we could have had a more final ending. 

Captain Kirk never talked down a computer so well.

   I was very often entertained by WandaVision but it was the cast acting in spite of the script and its premise. I think I would have enjoyed a series about the Vision and Wanda actually moving into a neighborhood and dealing with the fact the locals don't want them there (that was actually a comic book story in an Avengers annual I read), Wanda being a prisoner of a being like Nightmare, or a SWORD series than what I got. Everyone is acting great and whenever they're not engaged with the plot or parodying sitcoms then the show is great. When they are, then the show skids to a halt. I'm here for, "It was Agnes All Along" and Halloween shenanigans but not Wanda reassuring herself enslaving people is okay if they are brainwashed into liking it.

    Could they have done more? Yeah, they could have done more but I think WandaVision's biggest problem is that it really is a two hour movie that could have been trimmed down and rearranged into a pretty solid one. As is, it's bloated and yet somehow skips over a lot of what made it great. The ending didn't require Monica, Darcy, or Agent Woo when it should have heavily involved them. Yet, the show was never interested in them in the first place. As such, I'm not going to say it was a failure but it was full of mistakes.

5/10

Avengers: Endgame review

 Spoilers - Will attempt to avoid them but describing the movie comes with some risk. Let the reader beware.
 
    AVENGERS: ENDGAME is the culmination of eleven years of storytelling. Starting with the introduction of the Tesseract, the movies have continually laid the foundation for the Infinity Gems to be found in order to do an adaptation of the Infinity Gauntlet miniseries that I read when it first came out in 1991 at age 11. Honestly, I was always kind of perplexed by this because The Infinity Gauntlet series wasn't that great. It was basically Thanos getting the "I win" button to impress Death and then wiping out half the universe before beating up the Avengers. It was the Secret Wars with the Beyonder/Doctor Doom combo replaced with Thanos and Nebula.

The losses are keenly felt by everyone.

    I was actually impressed with the depiction of Thanos in the previous movie, Avengers: Infinity War, because I liked his motivational change. While his reasoning was absolutely insane, you understood it was coming from a place of well-intentioned extremism. Quite a few scientists were even upset with the movie because it forwarded the long-discredited "Carrying Capacity" theory that both Thanos and Ra's Al Ghul are the only kind of people to champion who aren't a bunch of psychotic racists.

    This movie does away with Thanos' more sympathetic sides and I regret that because I think it would have been more interesting to defeat him by convincing him that his actions were wrong. To have Thanos sacrifice himself in order to undo what he'd done in a snap. Instead, this is a movie that is solved by copious amounts of punching, breaking the rules of reality, and continuity porn to the other MCU movies. We all knew that was going to happen when 1/2 of the world was slain at the end of Infinity War (as well as the fact Peter Parker had a new movie coming out).

The only thing missing was Thor hooking up with Kat Dennings.

    Honestly, I think the handling of the aftermath of Infinity War was surprisingly good. The characters are all hit with how they not only failed but they failed royally. Steve, Thor, Tony, Clint, and everyone else have little character arcs that elevate the material. I think Clint's is the most interesting even if a bit stereotypical and Punisher-esque. It's actually fairly accurate to the Ultimate version of Hawkeye/Bullseye, though.

    I'm not going to spoil the ending of the movie but I will say there are casualties and not everyone makes it out of this film. Some of these feel dramatic and authentic while others feel a bit like the death of Han Solo. In other words, they feel like they were done because the actors were ready to move on to other projects than because they wanted to tell the most dramatic story possible. Even so, I will say that two of them really moved me while another actually ticked me off. You'll know what ones I mean.

Good but not enough of her.

    The things you expect from an Avengers movie like action, comedy, and amazing special effects are all there. There's a few comedy bits that are hit and miss. For example, Thor's reaction to the events of Infinity War are very similar to what happened to a lot of veterans coming home from horrible situations. However, it's played for comedy and doesn't really do well. I also regret that we didn't get his supporting cast to provide any sort of closure to him as the majority of them were apparently dusted.

    Captain Marvel is underused to my surprise. She basically has only a small but important part to play in the movie with not much character development. Everyone else is carrying the lion's share of the work but having Carol deal with the fact she was off helping Skrulls when she could have been the difference between genocide or victory on her home planet seems like it could have been a missed emotional opportunity.

Ya done messed it up, Tony.

   The Hulk and Black Widow relationship actually has some genuine pathos as well as chemistry for the first time. I felt it was a bad mistake to begin with but they actually managed to carry it through Thor: Ragnarok and Infinity War to something that actually works. I'm not really fond of the treatment of the Hulk here, you'll have to see for yourself why, but I don't think this storyline will last very long. There won't be a Hulk movie but there will be a Hulk TV series with the long-awaited appearance of She-Hulk. We'll just have to wait and see on that end.

    I'm going to miss quite a few of the characters who fell and while I think a number of them will be coming back, I do think that if they stayed dead or retired then this would have been a good final story for them. It was the WW3 of the setting and the deus ex machina at the end wasn't completely successful. Indeed, I think they will probably have to ignore elements of it because it's just plain too changing of the setting. It's like when Kang took over the United States in the comics. No one acknowledged that happening across the titles and they forgot about it soon after. Otherwise, it wouldn't resemble our world anymore.

Surprisingly good acting from a primarily comedic actor.

    So, how was it as an ending for the MCU? Well, it's not an ending for the MCU but it is an ending for a large part of it. Really, it feels like a proper Marvel crossover ala Civil War or the Secret Invasion with everyone getting their moment to shine but it's not something I completely bought into either. It feels like a "What if" or an alternate universe but as the Injustice games show, that's not always a bad thing.

    I think most of the character arcs ended where they probably should have but a few were outright wrong (Black Widow and Gamora, I'm looking at you). Not everyone died or retired but everyone got a story that had a conclusion. So, if it didn't make a perfect landing then at least it didn't fall either. There's also a lot of really poignant moments that reach the proper height of Marvel melodrama. Moments like Aunt May dying or the marriage of Mary Jane Watson to Peter Parker. The good stuff.

9/10

Avengers: Infinity War review

Warning - This may contain mild spoilers for the Infinity War. I tried to keep them out but it's hard to talk about the movie without some of them.

    So, just saw Infinity War. So, was it any good? Yeah, I would say so. However, I'm also going to be one of thos reviewers who doesn't really burst with enthusiasm over Marvel's latest epics. I liked Thor: Ragnarok more than Infinity War but still haven't written my review of that. I think that's because I don't have anything to say other than "It's hilarious, Cate Blanchett is incredibly hot as a space Goth, and Taika Waititi should have gone to high school with me. We  would have been best friends."

    The premise for Infinity War is that it is the culmination of a multiple story arc leading to the arrival of Thanos in the Marvel Universe as well as the adaptation of the Infinity Gauntlet story. Here's the thing, I've never actually been that huge of a Thanos fan. I understand the build-up for Thanos but he's not really a character that has ever leaped off the page for me the way Doctor Doom, Magneto, or other iconic Marvel villains have. I mean, he's basically a rip off of Darkseid who was, himself, ripped off to create Mongul.

If this is Tony's swan song, he did it right.

   I was actually a young teenager when the Infinity Gauntlet crossover came out and even that was a great comic book arc but not something that I also feel like was "the most iconic story of all time." Villains gaining omnipotence isn't exactly a new plot and we already had Doctor Doom having done the same thing in Secret Wars.

    This leads, really, to my problem with Infinity War that was my same problem with the Avengers (2009). The team-up movies rarely have the kind of emotional depth to them the single movies have. Mind you, the exception to this was Captain America: Civil War and even that had its own problems. This is a film which is uneven in places but has a lot more character building than I expected. I was affected by events in it even if I knew a lot of them would be reversed. In short, I liked it and give it a solid B+ for effort even if I think it wasn't something needing as much build-up as it got.

    The premise, for those who haven't figured it out, is Thanos of Titan is a godlike alien who has come to Earth to steal the Infinity Stones possessed by our heroes or their allies. He wants to assemble all six of them and use them to kill half of the universe' population. Thanos manages to assemble them, things get really crappy, and then the credits role because it ends on a cliffhanger.

What would you do with omnipotence?

    The biggest surprise in the movie is that Thanos is probably one of the most well-developed villains in the MCU alongside Killmonger and Loki. Basically, they took a lot of Ra's Al Ghul and his concern for the environment then grafted it onto Darkseid. This a more human Thanos and reminds me a bit of his post-Infinity Gauntlet characterization, actually. The original motivation of Thanos was to impress Death like a love-struck teenager while this version is more a subdued philosophical sort, resigned to his actions but believing them to be for the greater good.

    I've seen some reviewers criticize the fact Thanos has the powers of God but is still dead set on his "balance the universe through murder" plan. I think that runs into the fact that villains, inherently, are people who have to have a few screws loose. We shouldn't agree with Thanos' intergalactic genocide plan even if he's doing it with a heavy heart and through random execution rather than any ethnic or ideological bias. Thanos also seems to genuinely love his children but is obsessive enough about his quest to be able to turn that love off until he's done.

    The massive numbers of heroes in the movie means that some of the fallout from Civil War like the fractured Captain America and Tony Stark relationship. It does have a surprising amount of characterization packed into little moments, though, emphasizing facts like Tony's father figure relationship to Peter Parker or Thor's failure to save Asgard. You also have dangerous consequences to Star Lord's immaturity, which is something I never expected to see in a movie series which normally celebrates it.

The Guardians play a much bigger role than I expected.

    There's a lot of surprises in this movie, including the return of a character which I never expected to see again but feel was somewhat underused here. I think the emotional center of the story was also the relationship between Gamora and Thanos, which I did not expect. Still, the writers made the right call in highlighting the complicated and fascinating past between them. I've always felt Zoe Saldana was underused in these movies and she does a great job here.

    By now, the films have special effects and fights scenes down to a science. There's really nothing to say about that. The film is beautiful and the battles were incredible. Thanos is given the right sort of strength level too, which is to say that he's stronger than the heroes but not so much that he doesn't have a chance of losing as well. A good fight scene should be something that can go either way or be something that is resolved in a speedy as well as efficient manner.

     I'm not a big fan of the "Children of Thanos" which is the Black Order from the comics. They exist just to pad the movie's running time and give Thanos a bunch of midbosses for our heroes to fight. None of them get much in the way of characterization and I think that they could have been removed from the story without much in the way of problems. Mind you, it might have been too much to have Thanos just do everything himself but I think he could have accomplished it.

Peter attempting to lecture everyone is hilarious.

    The best moments, storyline wise, are seeing each of the characters deal with the fact they're probably not going to make it out of this one alive. Due to contractual obligations and the fact characters are aging out of their roles, I really have no idea who will live and who will die. I mean, well, I know one or two characters who have movies coming up but I'm of the mind certain characters will have their passing sticks. Are there deaths? Well, I'm not going to spoil but it looks bleak at the end of the movie (or maybe everything will be reversed with the Time Stone).

    In fact, the biggest flaw of the movie is the fact I don't quite believe all the death and destruction which occurred will be followed through with. In the Avengers (2009), I believed the thousands of nameless innocents who died would lead to a long term set of consequences. Here, I think it's entirely possible everything will end up reversed with only emotional and mental consequences. As much as I would hate to see characters I love stay permanently dead, I think it'd have been a bolder choice to make it so we didn't know there would be some kind of reset button. I.e. everyone who dies stays dead permanently. I'm hoping that's the case for characters killed before the movie's climax, no matter how much I love certain ones. 

    This is also just the first half of the story. I don't mind this as I had to wait years and years for the next installment of the Lord of the Rings. Indeed, I think this movie might have benefited from being a three part series rather than just a duology. Certainly, I think the movie's Thanos is a character who can carry it even if I don't think the comic book one or Infinity Gauntlet story is one that deserves such a treatment. Everything I like about the movie is more or less the invention of the writers. It's good but not great yet, well, that's enough for me.

8.5/10

Black Panther (2018) review

  

    So is the Black Panther any good? *sarcasm* Yes, this movie needs my approval to become a success *sarcasm*. Really, I don't feel like reviewing this movie at all because everyone who is going to have seen it has probably done so already. It's a movie which has surpassed Titanic and the Avengers or will soon enough. It's certainly changed the dynamic of a lot of people's perceptions regarding black-led superhero films (which I respond to with: wait, did just forget Blade existed?). Still, I feel like I'd be denying my fanbase if I didn't do a review of the film. So, what did I think?

Great characters.

    It was okay. Not great. Better than Doctor Strange. Not as entertaining as Thor: Ragnarok. It's kind of a bizarre situation as Black Panther is now a cultural icon with ludicrous things like the movie being attacked by Forbes magazine for taking away viewers from white-driven movies. Yet, really, I think my biggest objection to the movie comes from the fact I'm a Black Panther fan. Yes, of the comic book character.

    I was a big fan of the interpretation by Reginald Hudlin and Christopher Priest. That version of the Black Panther heavily influenced this version but this is just different enough to be not quite as interesting to me. Again, nobody in the world is going to care what my blog has to say on the subject and I'm glad everyone else in the world mostly seems to like this story. It's a phenomenon and, like Avatar, if you like it then you like it. Still, I'm not afraid of critiquing something that's popular and if you're interested in hearing my thoughts then read on.

Wakanda is awesome.

    The premise of the movie is T'Challa is ascending to the throne of Wakanda in the aftermath of his father's death in Captain America: Civil War. He manages to deal with early challenges well but things go completely off the rails when his unknown cousin, Eric Stephens a.k.a Killmonger, comes to Wakanda in order to claim the throne via Necromonger-esque challenge. T'Challa survives, barely, and must make a Rocky-style comeback to reclaim his throne before Killmonger unleashes Wakandan technology on the world in an attempt to create a global revolution.

    Like the comic (and Avatar for that matter), Black Panther is fundamentally an anti-colonialist movie but actually stars real people. Killmonger has the plan of creating black liberation throughout the world by arming oppressed peoples with advanced Wakandan technology. He believes it will create a Wakandan empire, which basically is a very intelligent and well-thought out jab at American foreign policy where plenty of groups were given weapons by the USA that turned out to not want to be our friends.

    However, I had a lot of issues with the story because Killmonger's plans are so poorly thought out and driven by his rage that it contrasted against a lot of points which the movie is trying to bring up. The film chastises Wakanda for being a nation that remained in isolation for centuries when the slave trade as well as other criseses were occurring but portrays it as a utopian nation otherwise. There's a lot of really good moments, like the fact Wakandans don't see other Africans as their problem, but these are hurt by the fact the movie is forced to gloss over the larger issues in order to get to the next action scene.

Killmonger is excellent.

    Still, I have to give Michael B. Jordan credit for creating a character where the shortsightedness and lack of planning for a supposed genius is entirely justified. Killmonger came to Wakanda in hopes of finding a home and a sympathetic ear for his pan-African crusade as well as wars of liberation. Instead, like many revolutionaries throughout history, his one-dimensional black and white view of history as well as politics meets deaf ears. Rather than try to see the perspective of his opponents, he simply dismisses them as evil.

    Much of the comic Black Panther's story is driven by the dramatic irony of the fact T'Challa is a reformer and man with slightly more respect for the outside world than your average Wakandan (which is to say any at all). While the story touches on the idea T'Challa is going to bring Wakanda into the greater global community, this occurs at the end of a longer character arc that I think would have been a better focus of a movie than the existing story where he finds out his country is not as picturesque as he thought.

I want a Wakandan plane.

    I also admit I wasn't a big fan of the changes to existing Black Panther supporting characters. The transformation of Everett Ross from a somewhat bumbling bureaucrat who is, fundamentally, a good man to a very competant CIA agent somewhat warps the narrative around him. Sort of like turning Jimmy Olsen into a CIA agent in Batman vs. Superman. I also am probably the only person who prefers the Dora Milaje plot as unwanted fiances of Black Panther to maintain a peace. The movie versions are certainly badass and awesome but I'm a sucker for stories about unrequited love. What did I think about Shuri? I had no complaints about her and actually prefer her to the comic version--T'Challa should totally give the kingdom to her.

    The movie is beautiful from start to finish and does an excellent job of making a fantastical place real. Wakanda is not so much believable (when it starts with a cloaking field to keep it hidden--you've already left the realm of that description) but it is authentic. The choice of attire, architecture, and statements give a sense of how this nation might have been created. My view being that it was once a much more cosmopolitan culture with influences from all of Africa but which turned inward centuries ago.

T'Challa has a secret to share.

    In a real way, I think my biggest issue with the movie is T'Challa is the straight man for more interesting characters to bounce off of. I say that with all respect to Chadwick's Boseman, who does an immensely good job in every scene he's in. Still, I can't help but think Black Panther is a character who works better as an older more proactive character than one who is just starting his career as here. Still, T'Challa is on an arc throughout the story and completes it in a way which is both interesting and not at all superficial.

    Sill, the action in the movie is tremendous and visually stunning from beginning to end. Black Panther easily sells that he might be the single greatest fighter in the MCU and that's before Killmonger manages to one-up him.  I just prefer genius chessmaster T'Challa to the one in the movie.

    8/10

The Punisher: Season One review

    There's an argument the genre of superheroes is inherently fascist. It's a line which is frequently trotted out when someone wants to look smarter and put down popular culture. The argument basically depends on the idea that individuals taking the law into their own hands and vigilantism are inherently reactionary Far Right attitudes. This is a very American attitude which ignores the fact uprisings of workers in coal mining towns and with unions are a part of our history.

    Also, it weirdly believes authoritative groups like the police and government should be the only ones to wield violence that would get you laughed at in most Third World governments. Which, fine argument, but it's a weird argument from a revolutionary anti-fascist perspective given tyrannies usually move to take control of such. It's also an argument which falls apart immediately when you mention the X-men. However, the Punisher tends to get a bit more argument weight than most since he's based on the character of Mack Bolan and tends to advocate the death of all criminals with unlimited military force.

The Punisher is never in a good mood.

    Even the Punisher is a lot more nuanced character than people give him credit for, especially under Garth Ennis who interpreted the Punisher as the kind of guy who is a serial killer like Dexter but has great contempt for systemic evils of society. He's a monster but a monster who has a clear vision of society's evils from slavers to the Military Industrial Complex. However, no one has quite given him the kind of makeover which Netflix has.

    Daredevil's season 2 gave a lighter and softer interpretation of the Punisher which showed Frank Castle as manifestly NOT Garth Ennis' serial killer of criminals. He's a man who hates the criminals who murdered his family and kills them but is obviously neither mentally ill or who enjoys killing. Instead, it is a simple revenge tale about a man who was wronged by the system and went on his own way. The Punisher Season One takes the lighter and softer approach of that season and expands on it to make a surprisingly left-leaning anti-Establishment version of Frank Castle who arguably has more in common with the Nomad version of Captain America than he does than his comic book inspiration. This Frank Castle is actually capable of retiring from his war against crime and trying to live a normal life (albeit failing miserably because evil knows where Castle lives).

I found the idea of crusading Homeland Security agents funny.

    The first thing to note about this season is it doesn't really take place in the Marvel universe, cinematic or otherwise. While Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) shows up for several memorable scenes, the series removes any and all references to the other series. It's squarely a show about the long-term effects of the War on Terror and the aftermath on everyone from the government to the public to the soldiers who have returned from it. A war which, seventeen years later, is still going strong.

    Now if this is not the longest, most drawn out introduction to a review, please note it's a necessary one as I feel like The Punisher feels very much like a show for people who wanted the anti-24 (which admittedly is the Bourne Identity so let's say the OTHER anti-24). It's an anti-establishment thriller where the villains are the Military Industrial complex, Right Wing domestic terrorists, corrupt government officials, PMCs, and CIA black bag men instead of Frank Castle's usual foes. I don't mind this but I do think it's not the most absolutely necessary re-envisioning ever done. I mean, it's not like the Zeta cartel, Russian Mob, or ISIS are suddenly not awful people. But, still, is this a good series?

    Absolutely. This is easily the best of the Netflix series. I put it up over Jessica Jones, Daredevil's two seasons, and yes Luke Cage as well as Iron Fist. It's a fantastic character piece with the normally one-note Frank Castle showing a myriad range of emotions as he bonds with multiple characters. He's a man who is emotionally guarded but dead, not by a long shot. I especially liked his interaction with Micro's family.

Micro is a great foil for Frank.

    Supporting cast members Dinah Madani (Amber Rose Revah), Billy Russo (Ben Barnes), and Curtis Hoyle (Paul Schulze) do an amazing job playing off the various sides to Castle. I especially loved the Department of Homeland Security plot. Dinah is an Iranian immigrant couple's child determined to prove herself a patriotic American but ends up mirred in an investigation everyone wants to go away. She researches into the activities of Castle's old military unit under the erroneous belief justice is not a complicated ever shifting thing on the battlefield. She could easily have been the star of her own program and it helps Amber Rose Revah is a gorgeous woman.

    Strangely, my favorite storyline isn't any of the conspiracies, government corruption, abuse, and the lone crusading heroine against them (plus, you know, Frank Castle). It was actually the tale of Afghanistan veteran Lewis. Lewis comes back incomplete from the war and does his best to find an outlet for his anger from extremely well-played veteran's support therapist Curtis but gets drawn in by reactionary ideology by a fake veteran named O'Connor. His story spirals from there and it draws a fascinating parallel to Frank who explains, in no uncertain terms, as not only is he different from Lewis but Lewis is a disgrace to every other veteran who has suffered. 

I really like Dinah's character and hope she sticks around.

     While it would also be easy to say this is the Left Wing Punisher, I will say the liberals of America get plenty of shots as well. At one point, Karen Page is put up against a United States Senator who has decided the entirety of the recent violence as well as rampages are a result of insufficient gun control. Even for people who support it, it's a capitalization on tragedy for political points with nothing to actually say about the motives of the people engaged in the shooting spree. It's a blue collar Punisher more of the Bruce Springstein type than any sort of bleeding heart interpretation of the character.

    In conclusion, I really recommend this season for those who enjoy spy thrillers and Post-War on Terror fiction. Frank Castle doesn't do nearly enough Punishing and doesn't get to face many ordinary criminals to the point this almost feels like a Jack Reacher series over a Frank Castle one but I very much enjoyed it. Certainly, it gives them ample room to navigate the character that isn't always the case in the Punisher.

10/10

Iron Fist Season One review

    I'm a big fan of Iron Fist and I'm going to make the very hipster-esque quote of the fact I was a fan of Iron Fist before he was cool. I may have only read him in The Essential Iron Fist but it's not like there's actually much of a character between his Heroes for Hire days to when Ed Brubaker re-imagined him for an extremely good tournament arc. Who is Iron Fist? Iron Fist is basically Batman Begins Batman or Arrowverse Green Arrow with the benefit of actually possessing superpowers. He's the extraordinarily rich kid who ends up learning the martial arts in a foreign land who goes back to take the fight to the streets.

    Before I get to the actual story, I feel the need to address the fact Iron Fist gets under certain people's skin. I'm usually on the side of the Far Left progressives in comics who promote diversity and a more rainbow colored world in comics because, gosh darn it, that's reality. However, the fact Danny Rand is a rich white guy who learns the secrets of an Asian culture than returns to beat up criminals is something which really ticks a lot of people off who use words like cultural appropriation, the Mighty Whitey, and so on.

This should happen all the time.

    The thing is, I'm actually going to state while there's definitely a way you can frame it that way, the story zigs from where people who actually have read Iron Fist assume it would zag. Much like the Karate Kid, Danny's ethnicity is important to his character because he's a white guy who becomes a better person because he enriches himself in another culture. There's a difference between multiculturalism and cultural appropriation.

    People look at Danny and see the rich white guy but he's a guy who barely remembers New York and grew up in Kun'lun. There's a subtle dig at appearances and assumptions if you write the character correctly. He's not the world's best martial artist (aside from Shang Chi) because he's white and does it better, he's the world's best martial artist because he moved to the land before adopting its ways. He also isn't as good as Lei Kun the Thunderer who taught him either--it's just he's the guy who trains the Iron Fists versus being the Iron Fist.

I knew who Colleen Wing was before the show.

    Also, Kun'lun isn't a real place. While it's based on the mythical Buddhist city of Shamballah and its spin off Shangri-La, there's no actual Chinese mythology he's involved in any more than Shang Tsung and Shao Kahn. There's a level of barrier between real life culture and mythology versus the one created in Marvel comics. It's the difference between Tolkien's elves and the Tuatha de Dannan. In simple terms, you can't be racist against fictional races and peoples. There's a horrible history of exploitation and theft with the British Empire against China but Kun'lun isn't China or even Tibet. It's closer to Asgard. I welcome disagreement on the subject and understand why people feel the way they do but think it's a 2 on the cultural insensitivity scale versus a 10.

    Okay, having spent way too much time talking about this subject, I should mention Iron Fist the television show isn't very good. It's not terrible and I actually have enjoyed it more than Luke Cage (blasphemy) but there's a lot of places where it was clear they didn't quite have a handle on who Danny Rand is as a character. It's also clear they struggled with the fact Iron Fist is a lighthearted Pulp adventure with fantasy martial arts, dragons, mythical cities, and good vs. evil when they've been doing gritty street level stories for three series. The fact Danny barely uses his magical fist is a minor but pointed complaint people had about the show but underscores the larger problem.

The corporate plots in this show go nowhere.

    The premise Danny Rand returns after fifteen years of absence and attempts to take back his company from Joy and Ward Meachum (Jessica Stroup and Tom Pelphrey). After getting locked up in a mental hospital, he escapes and becomes involved in a fight against the Hand in New York City. This gets him manipulated by Harold Meachum (David Wenham), a corrupt corporate executive who faked his own death, and results in him teaming up with Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick).

    The story is, bluntly, all over the place. Danny Rand states he's uninterested in money, which he demonstrably is. He likes giving it to his friends but would be satisfied sitting on a mat in a dirty apartment. So, there's no real reason why he wants his company back. He acts like a crazy person and can't prove he's Danny Rand but he could easily prove he has superpowers. Also, while they give reasons why he couldn't have a DNA test or fingerprints, they forgot he'd had dental records. Also, they could exhume the bodies of other relatives for a DNA test. Ward and Joy are alternatively supporting or condemning Danny so the entire corporate plot is poorly written.

I love the homage to her comic outfit.

    The parts where Danny are fighting the Hand feel like they come from a different show and actually work much-much better. There's an entire episode dedicated to a kung fu tournament which feels grossly out of place and yet is easily among the best in the season. The cheesiness of it all is something that works well for Iron Fist and it's when they try to stuff Danny in the same box as Jessica Jones or even Daredevil then they fail as a result. He's a man who punched a dragon to death. They should embrace that.

    It also hurts they try to make Danny into a moron. Danny constantly makes poor impulsive decisions which his training would have required him to overcome. The character is played as an immature youth despite the fact the character is thirty while also having spent his life as a monk. Much of the plot depends on Danny not sitting down to explain his situation or show his powers. There's also a few moments of inexplicable rage from Danny which feel out of place with his otherwise Zen attitude. I don't think this is Finn Jones' problem and think he's mostly stuck with bad writing.

Harold Meachum is easily the most entertaining part of the show.

    David Wenham basically runs circles around the majority of the cast, which is ironic because the character doesn't really have much to do for the majority of the show. The fact he's a Hand ninja as well as corrupt corporate executive makes me think the biggest problem with this show is its inconsistent confused mess when a much simpler story would have worked better: Danny comes back to the company, finds Harold controlling it, and Harold dispatches a bunch of ninjas to fight him.

    Jessica Henwick also does a tremendous job with the perpetually likable Colleen Wing. Indeed, you could eliminate the Meachum siblings from the story to increase the role of her and Harold and I think the show would only benefit. Colleen is a likable sensei, Japanese to Danny's Chinese in style, and someone who is struggling with her own desire to beat the crap out of people. I even like their romance, though I think they also could have worked well as friends.

Finn and Jessica have real chemistry.

    There is one major problem with the show, though, which is the fact it's a martial arts show where the lead doesn't know martial arts. Finn Jones' allegedly, had about ten minutes to get ready for his first fight scene because of late casting. He does a reasonable job of making fights look effortless (because he can't actually hit anyone) but this is a severe issue in a show about punching people. It's also a major step down from the electric fight scenes we saw in Daredevil. It's also confusing because they could have given him the Iron Fist mask and used a stunt double.

     The Hand is probably the best handled part of the show as Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho) does an excellent job being the archnemesis of Iron Fist and I hope they have her come back after The Defenders. We get a tie between Kun'lun and the Hand as well as get to see how their street operations work. Seeing them work in corporate offices, criminal gangs, and in dojos where they recruit teenagers without hope is a perfect display of Illuminati-level terrorism. Sadly, they don't get to show off their awesome until the end.

    In conclusion, Iron Fist is the weakest of the Netflix shows so far because they weren't willing to commit to an over-the-top martial arts show. They wasted much of the season on Danny getting thrown into idiot situations where showing he had superpowers or dental records would have resolved most of the issues. They also portrayed a very competent and intelligent hero in the comics as an immature manchild. I enjoyed the show enough to watch it to the end but it could have been much-much better.

6/10