Category Archives: Sci Fi

“I’m just so happy the sad man has friends.” Spider-Man: Brand New Day

12 September 2026

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Spider-Man: Brand New Day is as close as Hollywood has ever come to replicating the true mainstream comic book reading experience, while still remaining artfully cinematic. And I’ve seen a LOT of superhero movies.

Like a thoughtfully developed six issue comic book story arc, the film is episodic but never stilted. Events and moments and guest heroes flow thoughtfully, naturally, intentionally, logically from one to the next.

This also feels like the first time the Marvel Cinematic Universe has fully realized the promise of its integrated concept, moving away from EVENT FILM-thinking where cameos of heroes and villains from prior films pop up willy nilly (perhaps chiefly to sell action figures and t-shirts) toward a deeply immersive world where common sense and natural order dictate superhero interactions. 

This tracks given that Brand New Day’s director Destin Daniel Cretton also helmed the equally winning, warm, funny, poignant Disney+ Marvel series Wonder Man. Cretton just really gets it, leveraging all the toys in service to narrative and heart, first and foremost.

The plot picks up deftly from Jon Watts’ excellent Spider-Man: No Way Home (a film that was EPIC!, not necessarily to its detriment but definitely with commercial designs sharing the driver’s seat with more artistic notions). After a veritable multi-verse of Spider-Men (and villains) in that film converge to make Tom Holland’s MCU Peter Parker’s life a living hell, Parker convinces Dr. Strange (an arch and world-weary Benedict Cumberbatch) to erase all knowledge of Parker’s existence and secret identity from the world, including those who know and love Parker most.

Brand New Day could have ended up a mopey slog as Parker tries to navigate life without the safety net of friends and family, notably his girlfriend MJ (the soulful and sparkling Zendaya) and his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon, still reveling in his second banana status but bringing more nuanced and layered reactions this go ‘round). The film does a fine job balancing the tragedy of Parker’s isolation with the whiz bang pyrotechnics of a superhero using high-flying crimebusting as the ultimate coping mechanism. Yes, the first quarter of the film is filled with a literal rogues’ gallery of lesser-known Spider-Man villains but it never feels indulgent. We get our popcorn and eat it too.

Into this vigilante mayhem, a shadowy new antagonist enters the scene, nameless and faceless (at first), jumping telepathically from body to body of one innocent bystander after another, eluding our wall-crawler as the unknown villain executes a masterful scheme to infiltrate government agency Damage Control, a group ostensibly helping superheroes by mitigating the “damage” potential of other supes less heroically inclined. You can likely predict where this is going … but the film gets there in a way that is refreshingly unpredictable.

On top of Parker’s pre-existing woes, his arachnid-infused DNA starts to mutate (that will be important later methinks), confounding him with sensory overload and organic web-shooters that have a life of their own. As Parker attempts to unravel both the mystery of his failing powers and his insidious new opponent, he enlists the aid of Bruce Banner/The Hulk (the ever-dependable Mark Ruffalo, a cozy woolen sweater of an actor in all the best ways), Frank Castle/The Punisher (a delightfully low-key unhinged Jon Bernthal, who brings some of the film’s funniest moments in quintessential off-kilter buddy cop comedy schtick with Holland), and Yelena Belova/Black Widow (the dynamite Florence Pugh who takes her deadpan “Boris and Natasha/spy who came in from the cold” characterization to slyly hysterical new heights here).

At this point, you could be thinking (if you are one of the three people who HASN’T seen this film yet), “WOW, that sounds needlessly complicated and overstuffed.” And yet refreshingly, the movie is anything but. Each of the guest heroes has a distinct purpose to play, in commitment to the plot, moving it along logically, and with very neatly and distinctly drawn relationship ties to Parker. These characters aren’t just showing up to show up, kill time, or distract the audience. They enrich the film’s perspective and meaning, illustrating in part that Parker isn’t as alone as he fears himself to be and more importantly that none of us can save our world on our own. At one point, Belova observes in a video call with Parker, now reunited with Ned and MJ, “I’m just so happy the sad man has friends.” Trust me, you will laugh heartily when you hear how Pugh delivers that line.

The film is shot in gorgeous, golden light, never garish, evoking the look of a comic book in a dreamlike way, mirroring Parker’s lost state. The many, many, MANY fight scenes are never tedious as, again, they serve to propel Parker along his tortured path of reclamation and rediscovery and healing. The battles are choreographed and stylized to maximize Holland’s dance background. This is comic book mayhem staged as ballet.

Michael Giacchino turns in a score that is less burbling and percolating than he usually delivers. Awash in 80s synths, the soundtrack (also peppered with some fabulous pop rock deep cut needle drops) echoes, like a sweepingly symphonic, swirling stomach ache, the inescapable nightmare-scape in which Parker finds himself.

And I really, really, really don’t want to squelch the surprise around the film’s unseen telepathic assailant. Spoilers already abound on the internet – from the production team itself. The film has been released for nearly a month and half now. Nonetheless, I’m not going to reveal more than that a spiky and mournful Sadie Sink introduces a Marvel legend back into the MCU fold in a way that creates both heartbreak and feverish anticipation for the next 83.5 cinematic installments that are likely to come.

This is a film about finding oneself, and it could have devolved into a mess of maudlin cliches. It never does. That is in great part due to director Cretton’s empathic craftsmanship and especially to Holland’s heart-wrenching turn. Yet, Holland never loses the boyish adventuring joy he has always brought to the part. In some parallel universe, there would be serious Oscar conversations about the film and notably Holland’s performance. There were moments in the film where I found myself sobbing and giggling, practically simultaneously and utterly unexpectedly. THAT is rare and why I dearly love movies.

Dying is easy, comedy is hard. Comparably, keeping summer blockbuster butts in seats while also giving us a true hero’s journey from his shattered ground zero to his world-weary but hopeful affirmation, while still making us laugh and gasp, and, yes, marvel is a true high-wire act that deserves recognition. Doing so, while leaping and bounding through two-and-a-half hours in a red and blue leotard is nothing short of remarkable.

 

“Mathematical. Ethical. Available.” The Fantastic Four: First Steps

26 July 2025

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Perhaps it is just the ravages of living in this present timeline, but this summer it seems as though all of us are just ready for some good-hearted, brightly-lit escapism (see: Superman). The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the latest installment in the sprawling 20-year epic that is Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe, couldn’t be timelier. There have been a *few* previous attempts to bring Marvel’s “first family” to the big screen with varyingly debatable levels of quality. It puts a big ol’ nerdy smile on my face to declare Hollywood finally got it just right. Chef’s kiss. At first you don’t succeed, try again … try again … try again.

Director Matt Shakman, working from a kitchen’s sink script (seriously, there are like 83 writers on this thing … which normally is a huge red flag), delivers a tightly paced, deeply immersive experience. In order to offer a self-contained fresh start (don’t worry, you don’t need to have watch 412 previous films and tv episodes to know what’s going on), the film is set on a “parallel earth” (because that’s now a thing) where mid-century futurist chic rules the day. From an art/production design perspective, the film is sumptuous. Saarinen wept.

I think most of us take for granted the degree of difficulty to pull off a convincing world, with its own unique visual language, that feels both familiar and exotic at the same time (see: Star Wars, Black Panther, Lord of the Rings). This film deserves all the Oscars for this design feat. Eye candy galore. And the distinctive look is aided and abetted by composer Michael Giacchino’s evocative, percolating score – one of his best yet!

Blessedly, the creative spark doesn’t end there. As fanciful as the setting appears, the movie is grounded in its own humanity, but not lazily gritty and dark and heavy (sorry, not sorry, Zack Snyder). The stakes are real and impactful – our intrepid heroes do have to save humanity from a globe-eating giant named Galactus (because it is a summer blockbuster after all), but the saving isn’t just for saving’s sake. Shakman leans into the longstanding familial dynamic among team leader Reed Richards (an arch, brilliant, befuddled, debonair Pedro Pascal), his spouse Sue Storm (a luminous, stately Vanessa Kirby), her brother Johnny Storm (a wry, spritely, slightly haunted Joseph Quinn), and honorary uncle Ben Grimm (a warm, big-hearted, anguished Ebon Moss-Bachrach). We care about the fate of the world because we care about them. Their joys and fears are our joys and fears – this is as much a dramedy about the ties that bind as it is about people who stretch and flame on and turn invisible and clobber, while rocking some very natty Spandex couture.

(Say this about producer Kevin Feige and the Marvel machine: they know how to cast a film.)

Deftly, the film skips through any origin-retelling and jumps four years into our heroes’ nascent world-saving careers. The film employs an Ed Sullivan-style chat show as a narrative device to catch up anyone who somehow doesn’t already know that our quartet got bombarded by “cosmic rays” on a space voyage and thereby developed their strange and wondrous abilities. We get a greatest hits overview of all their victories, vanquishing no end of fever dream silver age villains (Red Ghost! The Wizard! Giganto! Mole Man!), and we are quickly apprised of how beloved The Fantastic Four have become, bringing world peace and utopia, with their good-natured wisdom and heroics. (As an aside, it’s also interesting in this present moment that both Fantastic Four and Superman depict worlds where noble heroes save us from our darker impulses and from our free-wheeling animosity for “the other.”)

Into this blissful global existence, a shiny metallic herald arrives on a boogie board. We’ve seen the Silver Surfer onscreen before, but Julia Garner brings a world-weary gravitas we haven’t yet observed in such a tragically drawn character (a plot point which I won’t spoil here). She ominously advises this Jetsons-esque planet’s inhabitants to “get their affairs in order” because the big, purple Cuisinart named Galactus (a frighteningly detached and unrelenting Ralph Ineson) is on his way to gobble them up.

As a galactic hail Mary, the Four pursue the Surfer back to Galactus’ home base to, well, attempt to talk him out of it. That … doesn’t go well, and he demands Sue’s unborn child in trade for potentially sparing Earth. Understandably, Reed and Sue are, like, “Nope!” and high tail it back home to divine a different hail Mary altogether. Beyond that, I’ll let you see for yourself how the plot resolves itself, but as “comic book-y” as it all sounds, the wrap up is believable, accessible, and affirming.

Scene stealer alert! Paul Walker Hauser has what amounts to a glorified cameo as another longstanding Marvel villain Mole Man (yes, you read that correctly), and he is utterly brilliant, lovable, infuriating, and iconic in his screen time. We can only hope that there is an alternate Hollwood in the space/time continuum where the filmmakers were brave and silly enough to dump Galactus and focus the entire film on Mole Man’s love/hate relationship with the Fantastic Four. Hauser’s scenes crackle with unpredictability and comic sparkle – and not in what has become that clichéd Marvel “bro humor” way, but the kind of elegant comedy that spins from altogether relatable jealousy and misdirected tension. “Johnny, don’t be mad. I didn’t dress you.” – a quip from Hauser that is far funnier onscreen than it reads here, both from the context of the scene and from Hauser’s delivery, dripping with pointed sarcasm.

If I have any quibble (and I really don’t), the film sands down the rougher extremes of Reed, Johnny, and Ben. Kirby’s Sue is perfection – she nails the emotional high wire act of being an alpha-level matriarch who carries the weight of worlds both immense and confined on her shoulders. “I will not sacrifice my child for this world, and I will NOT sacrifice this world for my child” she observes in a powerful speech to, well, every resident of our Big Blue Marble.

Pascal is a fabulous presence, and one of his innate gifts is imbuing morally ambiguous characters with a compelling lovability. The script fights him a bit on this here, not giving him quite enough opportunity for us to worry that Reed’s pursuit of scientific truth (and quite frankly hero worship) might lead him to throw everyone over for victory. That said, it is quite chilling at the Four’s Sunday family dinner when he calmly intones that potentially sacrificing his only child is “Mathematical. Ethical. Available.”

Similarly, Ben and Johnny are missing some of the emotional extremes that make their characters more interesting in print: for Ben, a sense of outsider loss and insecurity from existing as a lumbering pile of orange rocks, and, for Johnny, the mammoth chip on his shoulder that he isn’t the brainiest member of the group, offsetting that with reckless daredevilry. Again, these are minor character nuances, the absence of which doesn’t detract at all from what Shakman delivers, and perhaps we will see more of this in future installments … of which I hope there are many! 

 The future foundation is bright again for the MCU.

“What would I do with mutant dinosaurs from an accounting perspective? Is that REALLY what we are asking?” Jurassic World Rebirth

12 July 2025

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My God, Jurassic World Rebirth is an astonishingly stupid movie. The kind of movie that makes me angry I saw it. I don’t want to devote any more time to the damn thing by writing about it, to be honest, but I have … thoughts.

Here’s the thing. The overarching conceit – 32 years in – just doesn’t work anymore if it ever actually did past the first installment. As an audience, can we in good faith care about, worry over, or invest in the humans in peril if they are such nitwits that they willingly return to the former park setting, research lab, holding island, WHATEVER where chaos has already ensued countless times? Shouldn’t we in fact feel utter sorrow for the dinosaurs at this point? They asked for NONE of this, happily extinct until “life found a way” with greedy entrepreneurs who only worried about whether they “could not if they should” (and all the other pseudo-philosophical bromides that have peppered this film franchise).

Have these films become my generation’s version of those Irwin Allen disaster pics of yore where random celebs at various points of their careers survive an airport on fire in the middle of a hurricane which is also on fire? Paging Shelley Winters.

Rebirth director Gareth Edwards is one of our more interesting filmmakers, particularly with this kind of capitalistic science run amuck enterprise. Why didn’t he finally flip the script on its head and give us a film where without equivocation humans were the real enemies?! That would have been interesting. No one would have bought a ticket, but at least there would have been a raison d’etre.

What do we get? An L.L. Bean catalog costumed romp through Spielberg’s greatest hits:

  • Beautiful cinematography of sweeping jungle vistas
  • The epic swell of John Williams’ iconic theme (a LOT)
  • Random yuppie family members inexplicably in peril – people who should be nowhere near ANY of this but by dumb luck and poor life choices are
  • Chic product-placed SUVs
  • One whimsically likable and infinitely merchandisable pocket dino to contrast with those mean big ol’ SCARY ones just looking for a meal
  • Thumbnail tragic back stories ONLY for the characters who will clearly survive so we are manipulated into fretting over them
  • A handful of other people, each of whom will clearly get offed every seventeen and a half minutes because they’re painted as marginally unlikable
  • Absolutely zero grief from the survivors (UNLESS it’s a red herring death of a cast member who will reappear from the jungle ten minutes later)
  • Internal logic that is all over the map – e.g. don’t make a sound to inadvertently attract the dinos UNLESS we need you to scream and wail in the next scene with little existential consequence
  • Flippant jokes made amidst the carnage to show how chill the characters really are
  • Characters who periodically whoop and holler with glee at unearned “victory” or “in awe” moments – like they are attending a college football game
  • AND a terrifically talented and terrifically wasted cast who would have been better served playing Pickleball than showing up for this drivel

Scarlett Johansson plays a kind of remixed Lara Croft mercenary version of Chris Pratt’s and Laura Dern’s characters from earlier films. Mahershala Ali is the wise and world-weary boat captain with a secret heart of gold. Jonathan Bailey fares the best of the three as the Sam Neill/Jeff Goldblum arch-but-sexy-nerd “voice of reason” paleontologist. Bailey manages to wring some gold from the lines he’s given, landing a few zingers along the way – my favorite: “What would I do with mutant dinosaurs from an accounting perspective? Is that REALLY what we are asking?” Or maybe I just found that funny because it felt like an indictment of Universal Pictures still pumping these movies out.

Seriously, the film is sharp enough to cast three smart, winning, box office draws who can act but then has them wander around cavalierly for two and a half hours like they are at a blood-splattered country club. It felt like this was the direction they were given: “Yes, we know being surrounded by frantically carnivorous dinos should elicit some authentic reactions of abject fear, but we think it would be better if you portrayed your characters like they were in a Hallmark movie on their way to a county fair after grabbing a low-fat soy macchiato at Starbucks and some workout gear at lululemon. Can you make that work?”

There are simply no stakes in this film. I suppose I should tell you the hook for all the mayhem THIS time. In short, people in this Jurassic universe just don’t care about dinos anymore – they’ve moved on. Ho hum. And the remaining dinos can’t survive anywhere but a few equatorial islands. THAT could have been an interesting concept to explore in detail – how jaded and indifferent we have become as a society through the lens of dinosaurs becoming extinct, not literally but in popularity. We cavalierly cast aside such a miracle of science because it ceases to entertain; not to mention the planet’s atmosphere is so effed up these amazing creatures can’t survive here anyway. But, no, that’s just a passing thought in the first 10 minutes to set up an excursion to the equator to draw DNA from THREE – count ‘em THREE – very specific dinos (one by sea, one by land, one by air … naturally) in order for big pharma to develop a cure for heart disease. Yup, that’s why these nincompoops travel to hell on earth and get themselves killed (or mostly killed). For MacGuffins. Bailey’s character is stuck being the Jiminy Cricket conscience, periodically chastising with comments like “Science is for ALL of us, not SOME of us” and “WE don’t rule the earth … we just THINK we do.” Sigh.

Hey, Amblin Entertainment and Universal Pictures, the next time – and that is a fiscal inevitability – you start cranking up your marketing machinery to gestate another one of these Jurassic babies, just take a moment and remember what Jeff Goldblum cautioned alllllll the way back in 1993 (and I repeat for those in the back): “You were so preoccupied with whether or not you could, you didn’t stop to think if you should.”

“You have a flying saucer, but you couldn’t get a faster garage door?” Superman (2025)

12 July 2025

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Writer/director/mega geek James Gunn’s new cinematic take on DC Comics’ mainstay Superman is indeed, well, SUPER. Sorry, not sorry for the corny lead in. In fact, Gunn’s film (and one could argue his entire oeuvre) pops corn into anarchic, infectious punk rock. For some reason, “being punk” is a running theme in the caped blockbuster – in this case, grace and decency being a new form of rebellion. Even more inexplicably it works. I suppose many of us are just hungry for nice, a concept so out of vogue that it seems revolutionary now.

Gunn runs headlong into every goofy trope that makes Superman interesting. He owes a good bit to Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely’s miraculous run on the All-Star Superman comic book, written twenty years ago, remixing half-baked silver age futurism, radioactive monsters, pocket universes, and merchandisable sidekicks into an infectious summertime confection that packs a poignant punch just when it seems ready to spin into fizzy incoherence. Gunn is that kid who takes every toy from the box, piles them in the middle of the room, and curiously spins a compelling yarn from absurdity.

Before I go further, there is nothing “political” about this film (not sure when that word became anathema but here we are anyway). This is ironic since one of the many, many narrative conceits is that the big blue boy scout has gotten himself into a social media quagmire after intervening in geopolitics, preventing two warring nations from blowing each other up. This is a film about kindness and compassion, delivered with such bonkers glee that I’m hard pressed to identify how anyone could be offended by it. Although many will try, glomming onto the media hype to eke out a moment of attention (or ratings). Gunn is savvy enough to lay a meta trap for these types by depicting in movie universe how supervillains big and small vilify the good-hearted and the downtrodden to score their own points. If hyperventilating real-world pundits WANT to be aligned with bald baddie Lex Luthor then more power to them, I suppose.

This is about as comic book-y a movie as I’ve ever seen, and on the balance that is a breath of fresh air. The film is unashamed to be bright and cluttered, buoyant and episodic, with not one whiff of “grounded and gritty.” That said, Gunn also finds ways to embrace every type of Superman that has come before, with Easter Eggs and callbacks to every movie era, unafraid to acknowledge, nay embrace, that we in the audience have long term memories. The smartest move the film makes is working in John Williams’ iconic 1970s/80s theme to the score as a periodic emotional exclamation mark. Oh, and we even get some of the swooping neon font used previously in the Christopher Reeve films for this take’s opening and closing credits. Those touches never seem pandering – homage maybe but utterly welcome. They cue us that we are back on familiar ground where Superman can be fun.

I’ll admit there were times where Gunn’s script and the day-glo CGI lost me. I still have no clue what was happening interminably with some interdimensional rift threatening all of humanity, and I guess I don’t care. Gunn’s strength is always in the off-kilter character dynamics and the softer moments of human connection, arguably illuminated in how they stand out from the video game antics.

And the man knows how to CAST a film. David Corenswet is a rangy, floppy golden retriever to former Superman Henry Cavill’s sleek, GQ Dobermann, but the shift is needed here. (Cavill got saddled with one rotten screenplay after another so he’s not really to blame.) Corenswet’s Superman – and especially his Clark Kent – is kind of an adorable mess, which makes the character’s boundless co-dependent compassion that much more compelling. This Superman is every bit the sweet orphan who hopes to change the world by encouraging us all to find our better angels. When grilled by Lois Lane regarding his controversial intervention in that global firefight, he responds in pained befuddlement, “I wasn’t representing anyone but me. And doing good.” Oh, if we could only have more of that today.

Speaking of dogs, for the first time in film history, we also get the treat of seeing Superman’s canine companion Krypto on the big screen – he’s an even bigger mess than Supes: disobedient, reckless, and utterly perfect. One day, we’ll look back on all of Gunn’s films and realize the actual key to them is how much he understands and respects animals (I’m still a mess from that last Guardians of the Galaxy installment).

Rachel Brosnahan gives us a Lois Lane for the ages – yes, in love with Superman/Clark – but more in love with the truth, complete in her agency as a character. No damsel in distress, Lois is in fact key to helping rescue humanity from the precipice, with some smart reporting … while piloting a flying saucer.  Yes, you read that correctly.

Speaking of the spaceship, it’s owned by another superhero Mr. Terrific, a beautifully deadpan Edi Gathegi, whose smarts and tech prowess and cynicism are a nice palate cleanser from Superman’s “gee whiz” winsomeness. When Terrific and Lois team up in the film’s final act to rescue Superman from the clutches of Lex Luthor, the film crackles with comic energy. I can’t do this moment justice (and don’t want to spoil it), but just know that Brosnahan’s delivery of this line to Gathegi will bring down the house (as it did in my showing): “You have a flying saucer, but you couldn’t get a faster garage door?”

(I flash back to Carrie Fisher’s Princess Leia breaking through all the self-seriousness in the first Star Wars with her acerbic delivery of “Aren’t you a little short for a Stormtrooper?” Summer movies need those “get over yourself” bits.)

Nicholas Hoult, who would be remarkable just reading the phone book, nails Lex Luthor’s egomania, entitlement, and xenophobia without devolving into cartoon histrionics. For all of the cotton candy whimsy in this film, Hoult’s Luthor is genuinely terrifying, NOT because he’s chewing the scenery, but because he ISN’T. Hoult nails an inherent truth in the character. Yes, he’s monstrously envious of the adoration Superman receives and wants it for himself, but Luthor, like all great villains, thinks he himself is the hero, trying to save us from ourselves by redirecting our idol worship onto a more worthy subject … Lex Luthor. The subtle tears he sheds when his scheming inevitably falls short are a surprising but brilliant choice, Hoult’s haunted, beatific, yet spoiled brat face, a contortion of frustration, isolation, and grief.

Nathan Fillion is clearly having a ball as the petulant Green Lantern Guy Gardner, nailing the unearned swagger of a failed football hero, and Anthony Carrigan brings a nice touch of circus freak sadness to the shape-shifting Metamorpho. Skyler Gisondo is low-key hysterical as Jimmy Olsen, jettisoning the overeager insecurity we’ve seen in the character previously for a wily wit and opportunism that works nicely. 

But the pure heart of the film is provided by Ma and Pa Kent – Neva Howell and Pruitt Taylor Vince. Their scenes are brief but utterly charming, capturing deftly the folksy, insular world of farmers blessed with an adopted son who fell from the stars. Vince is one of those remarkable actors who just doesn’t get enough mainstream attention or praise – it’s criminal really. If you aren’t a puddle when he tells Clark/Superman how proud he is to be his father, well, YOU’re the monster!

The film isn’t perfect – it doesn’t need to be. The sheer exuberance offsets the flaws. At times I wondered if it wouldn’t have worked a bit better as a series, so the viewer could digest/compartmentalize the many subplots that are likely unnecessary but add to the entire enterprise’s escapist delight. The film bursts at the seams with too many ideas, too many characters, and yet miraculously still hangs together as a breezy, yet powerful reminder that kindness matters. When the theatre lights go up and you’ve happily sat through all the credits, not caring if there are any bonus scenes (there are two – and they’re just cute little touches – not attempts at sequel-driven world building), you’ll exit with a big, dumb silly grin on your face. That’s summer movie magic, right there.

“Violence is the universal language.” Gladiator II

27 November 2024

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Are you not entertained? No, I wasn’t.

File under sequels no one asked for. Cross file under no CGI baboons were injured in the writing of this review.

Admittedly, it’s been 25 years since I saw Gladiator. So it might not be as good or impactful a movie as I remember it to be. And right now, having suffered through its utterly unnecessary sequel – oh so cleverly titled with the Roman numeral “II” – I don’t know that I ever have any desire to watch the original again.

What’s next? Titanic 2, Under the Sea?

I found this movie interminably boring – as if Director Ridley Scott had consulted with the George Lucas who thought the prequels to Star Wars should focus on a galactic civics lesson. I think there was a clever idea here, yearning to breathe free, in a script that was somehow simultaneously underbaked and overwritten, but all of the soap opera palace intrigue, coupled with relentlessly grim, poorly staged fight scenes, made it nearly impossible to find any nuggets of gold.

The one actor who didn’t make me want to gouge my own eyes out was Pedro Pascal, primarily because he had a look on his face the entire time like he was searching for the emergency exit.

Our eponymous protagonist Paul Mescal has a fabulous presence – and he has a profile that most assuredly belongs on a Roman coin – but that’s about the sum of it. I don’t blame him entirely. The script doesn’t give him much to work with, but he also seemed entirely too bored to bring any kind of emotional resonance to the series of unfortunate events befalling him throughout the film. Loss of a spouse? Shrug. Revelation that his lineage isn’t what he thought it was? Shrug. Rammed by a poorly digitally rendered attack rhino? Shrug.

And Denzel Washington? A performance that gobsmackingly is generating Oscar talk? Imagine Iago played by one of the lesser-known contestants from RuPaul‘s Drag Race. The one good line he has – “Violence is the universal language” – pretty much sums up the movie’s raison d’être. Like 2.5 hours of WWE Smackdown with more blood and less joy.

I honestly don’t have the energy or heart to write anything sensibly about this film. It is a turgid mess, akin to just about any poorly conceived 1950s sword and sandal epic you might’ve watched on a random weekday afternoon when you had the stomach flu as a kid. I kept waiting for Charlton Heston and Jean Simmons to make a surprise return-from-the-dead appearance, riding on the back of a cartoonish sea monster.

I do believe there was an intention here to use the fall of the Roman empire as some kind of on-the-nose analogy for present day American political turmoil. But for my money, and I can’t believe I’m typing this sentence, that allegory is far more effectively achieved in Wicked. So go see that instead.

At least that flick has the presence of mind to bring you a snappy show tune every 18 minutes. Even if you lose out on the sight of seeing an army of CrossFit gym bros in leather tunics.

Postscript text from my dad: “And my title ‘When will this be over?’”

“Sometimes not giving up is the most heroic thing you can do.” Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom AND Wonka

3 January 2024

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“Sometimes not giving up is the most heroic thing you can do.” – Aquaman’s dad Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison)

“Every good thing in this world started with a dream.” – Willy Wonka’s unnamed mother (Sally Hawkins)

Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, contrary to popular reports, is not a bad movie. It’s not a very good movie either. But it is fun and good-hearted in the spirit of big dumb blockbusters from the mid-80s. Director James Wan continues the day-glo world-building from its predecessor.

Wonka, contrary to popular reports, is not a great movie. It’s not a bad movie either. But it is fun and good-hearted in the spirit of big dumb musicals from the late 60s and mid-70s. Director Paul King continues the day-glo world-building from its predecessor.

(Sensing a theme here?)

What both films do really well is explore the ideas of legacy and familial love, both the family you are born into and your “found” family. I would say Wonka does a better job of that than the Aquaman sequel, but taken together (as I did in a post-New Year’s double feature), the films send a loving message about leaning on (and lifting up) friends and family to make the best of a tricky situation … be it preventing a glowy-eyed supervillain from destroying the earth through global warming or a chocolate cartel fixing the prices of yummy confections and driving all competitors out of business. (You can guess which challenge goes with which movie!)

Interestingly, if I had my druthers, I would have suggested some choose-your-own-adventure mashup of the two respective casts. Jason Momoa with his wild child ways actually would have made a far more effective Willy Wonka than the slight, safe Timothée Chalamet. Chalamet is perfectly serviceable as a reedy-voiced song and dance man (Wonka is a musical … Aquaman not so much), but he’s missing the malevolent, unpredictable glee of, say, Gene Wilder who so notably originated the role of Willy Wonka waaaaay back in 1971. Chalamet looks the part and has a (pun-intended) goopy sweetness, but he never delivers that electric charge of creative madness the character requires. Momoa on the other hand nails creative madness on a routine trip to the grocery store.

And then I might swap Patrick Wilson, who plays Aquaman’s ne’er-do-well brother Orm, in for Aquaman himself. Wilson is far more interesting than he’s ever given credit. He looks like he’s carved out of cream cheese (to quote Steel Magnolias) but he has the comic timing and gravitas of someone trained for the Broadway stage (twice Tony-nominated no less!) that would bring some classic zing to the King of the Seas IMHO.

Both films benefit from strong ensemble work, and, like some zany repertory road show, I’d mix and match any and all performers across the films: Sally Hawkins vs. Nicole Kidman as fretting but steely matriarchs in Wonka and Aquaman respectively; Yahya Abdul-Mateen II vs. Paterson Joseph as smoldering but surly baddies Black Manta and Slugworth; Olivia Colman vs. Randall Park for lightly malevolent comic relief; Martin Short vs. Hugh Grant for the “wait, why are THEY in this?” stunt casting (one’s an Oompa Loompa and the other a … fish-man mafia don?). You get the gist.

Oh, and ironically, Aquaman’s totally tubular, synth-rich score by Rupert Gregson-Williams is a smidge more compelling than the songs for Wonka, an actual musical, as composed by The Divine Comedy’s Neil Hannon. That said, I wouldn’t mind seeing/hearing Wonka’s catchy “Scrub, Scrub” being performed by Aquaman’s CGI deep ocean denizens Topo, the crabby scene stealing cephalopod, and Storm, the majestic bioluminescent seahorse. And Wonka director Paul King does wring a new heartbreaking context from classic Leslie Bricusse/Anthony Newley cut “Pure Imagination” toward the conclusion of the prequel. (I’m not crying. You’re crying.)

At this point, anyone reading this “review” has likely given up making head nor (fish) tails of it all. And that’s rather how I feel after having watched both Warner Brothers Discovery flicks. They are fine, fun, decent holiday diversions with enough good in each for you to roll out of bed in your sweatpants and spend an afternoon escaping January’s grey malaise. Both will play far better on a big screen as each film seems to be set-designed by Salvador Dali after raiding a Toys R Us while hopped up on Pixie Stix.

Before we begin our annual slog through Oscar-bait films that *may* be lurking in a theatre near you or are now more likely hidden on some streaming by-way that requires a pricey subscription and/or password you’ve forgotten, go have some big dumb fun at the movies. That’s why we all really love cinema, if we’re truly being honest, Scorsese be damned.

“We’re invisible to people like that. It’s our superpower.” Blue Beetle

27 August 2023

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I still haven’t seen Oppenheimer. But I did just see Blue Beetle. And it’s a delight. I’m not one bit ashamed!

Representation matters. It is especially impactful when done with such love and with detailed cultural inclusion. It’s a shame the film isn’t doing better than it is at the box office – whether due to the impact of actors’ strikes, weather weirdness, and just late summer doldrums. We can simply hope it finds an expanded audience on streaming and cable and gathers good-hearted steam the way the equally charming Encanto did. 

In fact, both films, albeit showcasing different cultures (Blue Beetle the Mexican-American experience, Encanto set in Colombia), center themselves on the ties that bind: mi familia. This theme gives both films their superpowers, highlighting the magic, both tangible and ephemeral, in a close-knit clan.

Director Angel Manuel Soto slows the pace, not often a luxury in superhero spectacles, to shape our understanding of the Reyes family, who are hitting hard times in the fictional Palmera City but never losing their love for each other, their hopefulness, nor their senses of humor. Much of the rest of the film is a paint-by-numbers superhero origin tale, but it works because of the moments we spend early in the film, investing in this beautiful family dynamic.

Karate Kid’s Xolo Maridueña is well-cast as the Peter Parker-esque Jaime, recently graduated from college and quickly realizing that the “American Dream” is not all its cracked up to be. Maridueña acquits himself nicely in the film with an easy charm as he finds himself in possession of a mystical alien scarab that affixes itself to his back (and soul) and imbues him with seemingly limitless superpowers (much to the chagrin of the furnishings and structure of his family’s home). Maridueña deftly makes the leap from small to large screen and carries the film without breaking a sweat.

But his family, oh, his family. I deeply wish DC Studios’ head James Gunn posthaste would turn this film into a streaming series, following the Reyes’ misadventures. Soulful Damián Alcázar as gentle patriarch Alberto, compelling Elpidia Carrillo as deep-feeling mama Rocio, sparkling Belissa Escobedo as quick-witted sister Milagro, zany George López as conspiracy-theorist/tech-aficionado uncle Rudy, and, most notably, beguiling Adriana Barraza as flinty/sassy Nana are a collective, well, marvel. Their ensemble scenes crackle with a world-weary merriment and a canny resilience that give the film its corazón.

There are so many intentional, thoughtful touches throughout, highlighting the socioeconomic and cultural challenges endemic in this country, without ever devolving into moralizing. The film doesn’t pull its punches, though – particularly where fictional global conglomerate Kord Enterprises is concerned. Kord is the chief source of all disparity in Palmera City, a creeping corporate fungus reshaping anything down-to-earth (like the Reyes’ neighborhood) into a Blade Runner-esque high rise megalopolis. At one point, Milagro observes (with a healthy hint of justifiable anger), “We’re invisible to people like that. It’s our superpower.”

Kord is run by Victoria Kord, portrayed in an understated way by Susan Sarandon, who, quite honestly looks a bit lost amidst the summer blockbuster bombast, but holds her own. Blessedly, Sarandon, as the film’s primary villain, plays the role like the misanthropic captain of industry Victoria is, not like Cruella de Vil. A trap lesser actors would fall into, chewing every bit of scenery in their path. It’s just that Sarandon’s believability – refreshing as it is – can’t quite keep pace with a kid who gets glowing blue superpowers from alien tech. Ah well.

Victoria is after the scarab – natch – to develop an army of tech-infused killing machine warriors … and, more importantly to her, to make a lot of moolah by selling to the highest bidding nation state. Eventually the film does devolve into the wham/bam/CGI-fest that one would expect. There are refreshing differences, however.

The film is not afraid to offer overt critique of the evils the military industrial complex wreaks upon the world, nor to question the corrosive impact rampant capitalism can have on authentic community. In a final act twist, Victoria’s henchman Carapax (an occasionally haunting Raoul Max Trujillo) is revealed to have been tragically shaped by the very real-world human collateral damage such warmongering causes. It’s a bit of a stunning reveal for a popcorn kids’ movie, unfortunately a bit rushed, but nonetheless impactful. Kudos to the production team for including.

Structurally, the film feels like a modern-spin on 80s blockbusters that championed the underdog, cracked more than a few ill-timed (but funny) jokes, used moments of tragedy to impel their heroes onward (sometimes defying logic TBH), and gifted us a joyous ending (with one spectacularly prurient one-liner). Ah, memories. Hell, Blue Beetle’s evocative, synth-soaked score by Bobby Krlic sounds like something Tangerine Dream would have knocked out in an afternoon.

Blue Beetle is a charmer. Great cinema? Nah. But a lovely and loving exploration of the Mexican-American experience (the warm, the heartbreaking, the inspiring) in the guise of a superhero yarn. I can only hope that the sociocultural critique subtly woven throughout will impact positively the young people who find this gem on streaming – much like I used to discover cult classics like Buckaroo Banzai and Flash Gordon and Time Bandits and The NeverEnding Story on HBO in the 80s, eating sugary cereal and staying in my pajamas all day but nonetheless … thinking.

“You should seek the help of a mental health professional. The Justice League isn’t very good on that part yet. Trust me.” The Flash (2023)

3 July 2023

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Early on in DC’s latest cinematic effort The Flash, the titular hero (a manically charming Ezra Miller) averts a literal “baby shower” (i.e. babies and a cute rescue dog falling from the sky) when a Gotham City maternity ward starts crumbling after some criminal attack. (Honestly, I’m not sure what caused the near catastrophe … the opening sequence which also features Ben Affleck’s pitch perfect Batman is that chaotic, though nonetheless entertaining.)

After said rescue (yes, all CGI babies and pup end up … unscathed?), The Flash AKA Barry Allen tells an (also rescued) nurse, “You should seek the help of a mental health professional. The Justice League isn’t very good on that part yet. Trust me.” Honestly, it’s a line that is a bit unnerving given Miller’s real-life troubles. (Google him.) Yet also forms a kind of meta thesis for the whole enterprise, an epic existential meditation on regret and healing, wrapped in the wobbly cinematic logic of time travel and parallel universes. Everything Everywhere All at Once. In Spandex.

You see, Barry’s father (shaggy Ron Livingston … at his shaggiest) has been imprisoned (wrongfully Barry believes) for the murder of Barry’s mother. Barry realizes his ability to travel at light speed (he’s the fastest man alive, you might recall) and beyond light speed will allow him to step back in time and avert this family tragedy from ever befalling. And a carefully placed can of crushed tomatoes is the key. (You’ll have to watch the movie to understand.)

Even though Bruce Wayne (Affleck) cautions Barry not to go back in time because of some space/time continuum risk mumbo jumbo (not dissimilar to Willy Wonka intoning exhaustedly “no, don’t do that” to any number of the ill-fated Chocolate Factory brats), Barry does it anyway. And mumbo jumbo ensues.

It all works better than it should but is probably more enjoyable to nerds like me who have subsisted on a steady diet of DC Comics and tv shows and movies since birth. Fan service at its self-indulgently finest. 

Michael Keaton returns to form as another Batman (that would be the mumbo jumbo), and is a welcome reminder to how a grounded yet winking performance sells these summer blockbuster shenanigans. Sasha Calle is a lovely, wounded Supergirl with not nearly enough to do amongst the overstuffed spectacle. Michael Shannon, always a presence, pops up again as General Zod, who seems as beleaguered by superhero cinema as the rest of us at this point.

Oh, and Ezra Miller does double (triple?) duty as another version of himself from earlier in the timeline. It’s a shame his offscreen antics have overshadowed his talent. He really does excellent, nuanced work differentiating the performances, effectively capturing the angst and poignancy of interacting with one’s younger, more impulsive, less world-weary self.

Director Andy Muschietti, working from a screenplay by Christina Hodson, strives overtime to offer haunting and witty character moments throughout. The film is most effective when it’s quiet. That’s not often. But the stellar cast gives it their all, as if they are performing a reflective tragicomic piece by Thornton Wilder or Arthur Miller … but with a lot more kabooms, capes, and poorly rendered CGI. (Truly, the time travel nexus or whatever it is which appears repeatedly is astoundingly bad. Like all the SFX crew had to work with was an old Sega game console.)

But here’s the thing. I actually liked the film. A lot. Maybe in spite of itself. As a musing on what any one of us might do to turn back the clock and prevent life-altering experiences that weigh on our hearts, it’s quite astounding. And refreshing. It may be the most human-centric superhero flight of fancy to ever grace the silver screen. And a timely one as so many of us read the daily headlines and wonder how our world has become so cruel and unkind and callous. 

Or maybe the world has always been that way. And no amount of running back through time could change where we are now. And that’s ok?

That’s the ultimate lesson of The Flash. And it’s a sobering one. No wonder it’s not making any money.

“There are the hands that made us. And then the hands that guide the hands.” Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

8 June 2023

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There are but a few movies in my life that so deftly balance abject horror and empathetic peril and heart-tugging poignancy that they reduce me to repeated fits of ugly crying: Dancer in the Dark, E.T., Watership Down, and now … Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3?!? I did NOT see that coming.

This latest Marvel installment in the lives of Star-Lord Peter Quill’s merry band of space-faring misfits landed in theatres about a month ago. I’m behind. Hell, I’m only halfway through Ant-Man and Wasp: Quantumania on DVD. (It’s not nearly as compelling.) Nonetheless, I will try mightily to avoid spoiler territory while still warning my animal-loving, humanitarian friends that this damn movie is TRIGGERING. But toward good (I hope) ends. Director James Gunn has somehow fashioned a high-flying summer blockbuster from a timely, haunting cautionary tale against the evils of eugenics and animal experimentation. The man swings BIG and it lands (mostly) in a powerful way.

The film centers chiefly around the beloved miscreant Rocket Raccoon – voiced terrifically again by an unrecognizable Bradley Cooper, giving classic film mobster with heart of gold vibes. We finally learn Rocket’s backstory (although fans of the early 80s Rocket Raccoon mini-series by Bill Mantlo will see that Gunn doesn’t stray far from that source material). Told in flashback as the team races to save Rocket’s life after a random attack by literal golden boy Adam Warlock (a pouty Will Poulter, criminally underutilized given the vast potential of THAT trippy godlike character), we bear witness to Rocket’s deeply disturbing origins. He is a sweet, gentle raccoon cub plucked from his pack by the menacing High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji walking a fine line between outright scenery chewing and method acting tortured madness) and turned into a cyborg killing machine through relentless surgical and emotional abuse and manipulation.

Rocket has an adopted family in the Evolutionary’s HQ – similar cast offs: an otter, a walrus, a bunny … at least I think that last one is a bunny. They love each other, they are kind to each other, and they lift each other up in the most daunting of circumstances. Think the Plague Dogs by way of Frankenstein. Linda Cardellini, per usual, is particularly luminous and warm as the voice of otter Lylla. She offers the film’s central thesis with this line: “There are the hands that made us. And then the hands that guide the hands.” In an era of such ugliness toward all creatures great and small in America, this message of “found family” or “framily” couldn’t be more needed.

When Rocket, still hopeful for a better life, volunteers a scientific insight the Evolutionary has overlooked, Iwuji turns all “no wire hangers” Joan Crawford and things get EVEN uglier. Ain’t that always the way? Sadly, Rocket’s pals bear the brunt of Rocket’s “punishment.” It’s one of the hardest things I’ve witnessed on screen in years. It’s a really tough watch. Be prepared. Is it kid-friendly? Probably not. Is it essential and brave of Gunn and sends a piercing message about how all beings deserve grace and kindness? Darn tootin’. PETA should send screeners of the film to every household in America.

Further note, for those who worry about such things as I do, there is a wonderfully redemptive “button” toward the end of the film, where the menagerie of remaining animals imprisoned by the Evolutionary are all rescued Noah’s Ark style to live the rest of their days in peace and happiness in the Guardians’ Knowhere HQ. I know that’s a spoiler, but it’s the kind of spoiler I like to know going in. So you’re welcome. At the film’s climax, Rocket does get his revenge on the evolutionary but not as you might expect, ultimately delivering the kind of compassion Rocket was never shown. Rocket solemnly intones, “You didn’t want to make things perfect. You just hated the way things are.”

In parallel to the flashbacks to Rocket’s origin, the Guardians are scrambling in real time to find one MacGuffin after another that will save Rocket’s life. It’s all done in epic, manic, classic rock-soundtracked style – per prior films in the series. Gunn ensemble standby Nathan Fillion has great fun as a stoic, slightly dim, very uncollegial security guard, dressed like the Michelin Man … in creamy yellow. The best comic bits are offered by Guardians Drax (Dave Bautista, a lovely goof throughout), Mantis (Pom Klementieff, who does earnest rage better than anyone), and Nebula (Karen Gillan, who arguably has had the best arc of all in the series, never losing her ill-tempered ferocity but layering in beautiful moments of grudging compassion). At one point, Mantis cuts Nebula to the quick when Nebula has been disparaging Drax’s value as a teammate: “He makes us laugh. And he loves us. How is that a liability?” It’s a wonderful time capsule moment, capturing the dynamic authenticity of this great trio.

The film is far too long – I’m not sure what could have been cut, but a 30-minute shorter run time would have made the flick more of a jet-fueled roller coaster. Chris Pratt just seems worn out as Star-Lord at this point. He appears to have one note – one might call it “smugging” (read: smug mugging). It’s fine. It serves the role, but I think he (and we) need a break.

All in all, go for the incredibly deep message around animal autonomy, stick around for the day-glo shenanigans, enjoy your popcorn, and then have a thoughtful conversation at home about the crucial role we all must play in being better caretakers for all living beings. Bambi ain’t got nothing on Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3.

Celebrating one year of The Ibis’ Beyond the Ghost Light, discussing reboots, remakes and reimaginings (oh my!)

11 July 2021

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Had a great time popping in briefly to celebrate one year of this great show Beyond the Ghost Light from The Ibis and hosted by the divine Luna Alexander, Victoria Rose Weatherspoon, and Nick Rowley. I mused about what The Black Hole and American Psycho The Musical reboots could look like in 2021. I appear around the 22 minute mark.

VIEW VIDEO HERE: https://fb.watch/v/2QHD4ky67/

Show description: “This Sunday join the Creative Coven and returning guest, the ever delightful Michelle Kisner, as we discuss reboots, remakes and reimaginings and celebrate a whole year of Beyond The Ghost Light.”