3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Redux Redux

2025, The McManus Brothers (The Block Island Sound) -- download

We have a tag for "multiverse" with most of it being dominated by Marvel's attempt. I have found that most pop fiction breaks the genre into two areas: parallel worlds, where we are only exposed to and only care about two, and a multiverse based on branching timelines leading to endless possibilities. But my favourite has always the idea of an infinite number of universes that are not inherently based on timelines -- all exist at all times. I still think Sliders portrayed the best example of this.

Interestingly enough, the Wikipedia article on the scientific idea of the multiverse has a brain-breaking number of versions / theories. As for a Wikipedia article on the "multiverse in fiction" it redirects to one only about "parallel worlds" which tells me, there is some work to do.

Irene (Michaela McManus, Law & Order: SVU) is on a journey. She arrives, seeks out a dilapidated house, fishes for a box from under the bed and pulls out a lock of hair labelled "12". Then she seeks out Neville, the owner of the house and kills him. Sometimes she kills him in the house, sometimes she kills him at his place of work where he works as a short order cook. After each murder she climbs into her mechanical coffin, flicks a switch and BOOM, she's in a new parallel universe. 

Irene has been doing this for a very very long time. She has a routine where she kills him on payday, to get money. She has a giant ring of keys to get a rental truck in which to carry her multiverse hopping coffin. Some keys work in the next universe, some do not. She has a gun, either carried with her, or retrieved next time she kills Neville, from his own stash. 

Neville (Jeremy Holm, House of Cards) is / was a serial killer and Irene's daughter was his last victim. In each universe she arrives at, he has done the same thing AND in each universe Irene herself is not present, because each subsequent universe's Irene had killed herself in grief over the loss of her daughter. Irene is a broken woman showing the wear & tear of her journey on her face, and on her body, as the murder doesn't always go smoothly. Most trips she gives herself one small reprieve, sleeping with a man she meets at a Grief Support Group, the same man every time. 

That said, I just realized there must be a time component to this universe hopping -- as she always arrives just before that Thursday when Neville gets paid, before she meets and sleeps with Jonathan.

Then, on one trip, she meets and frees Mia (Stella Marcus, feature debut), who was to be "13". That's new. Mia's a broken runaway and, of course, Irene cannot help but she her own daughter's plight in Mia's face (and fate). Irene sees this as a one-time occurrence, freeing Mia to go back to whatever life she had, but Mia is quickly wrapped up in Irene's journey as she is forced to take to her with her on the next hop. From there it only gets more complicated.

The world building of Irene and her universe hopping coffin is next to nil. We don't know where she got it. We are introduced briefly to others who have such equipment, a sort of network of rundown smugglers. We know Irene can go onto the next universe but also can go back to one she has previously visited -- she offers to take Mia back to hers. Irene calls her universe 0-0. But that's it. The movie is primarily about the tragedy that is Irene and what this technology has allowed her to do / become. She doesn't want that for Mia but 15 year olds with terrible lives have other ideas. 

Surprisingly the movie actually does provide a satisfying conclusion to this journey. I won't spoil it but it provides a reason for both to stop hopping. Revenge can finally be done with. As with all indie movies, this is rough around the edges. But like all good indie movies, you can see the dedication in the actors and film makers present everywhere. Sure, certain choices are made for the sake of budget but few distract away from the story. This was a solid movie that made me think, and want more, but still be satisfied with what I got.

The Dark Year: The Cloverfield Paradox

2018, Julius Onah (Captain America: Brave New World) -- Netflix

I have been fascinated with the idea of multiple dimensions and a "multi-verse" for a very very long time; it likely emerged from how comic books handled it, but started with that Mirror Universe episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. I even started up my own story idea (90% in head, 10% on paper) back in 2010ish (and every year after) with inspiration from that year's version of Gamma World, in which the Large Hadron Collider causes realities to smash together, and it was all supposed to happen on Dec 21, 2012, which was supposed to be an apocalyptic date predicted by the Mayans and Nostradamus. IRL nothing happened. 

Are you sure? Have you looked at the news lately? 

The multiverse is probably irrevocably tainted by the arguably failed implementation of the idea in the Marvel movies. It is, at least in the general pop culture eyes, which is fine by me, as this allows it to revert back to the nerds' realm. We will continue to write our stories and explore the idea of multiple realities and crossing over. I might even eventually write mine, set more than a decade after our world (and logically many others) is changed, left post-apocalyptic in theme.

Anywayz, long rambling preamble to say that this movie is both exploring alternate realities and the impact upon such by particle colliders. It even smashes cinematic realities together by taking a previously unrelated script and mashing it with the Cloverfield not-franchise, more or less explaining the first movie.

In this movie, set "20 minutes into the future", the world is on the brink of war and collapse due to the lack of power, fuel-based power, not political power of which there is plenty of. Despite the failing infrastructure and fraying political landscape, a coalition of nations builds a particle accelerator in a space station, hoping to provide "free unlimited energy" for the planet. After a few years of failure (many many days in space), they finally turn the thing on, but suffer an overload. When they all stand back up again, they look out the window and the Earth is not there anymore. That is the elevator pitch for the movie.

And now begins the scifi - horror mashup movie as the crew of the space station: a) have to figure out what happened and whether they can find the Earth again, and b) start to experience all kinds of weird shit generally left to horror movies in space where people are suffering Space Madness. At least in this movie, there is very little madness, beyond a guy not dealing well with his eye going all wonky on him.

Some of the experiences are classic "two realities smooshed together" kind of stuff, like finding a stranger jammed into the wall, behind a plate, wires and pipes running through her. She claims she is one of the crew, but not this crew. And details in their logs state things other than they remember. But the rest of the strange shit is just wonky random shit, such as the worms (their protein source, I guess?) disappearing and then reappearing inside one of the crew, reappearing in a vomit fountain of worms. The best random occurrence is when the wall tries to eat one of the crew's arm, and succeeds on detaching it, sans any blood or trauma (beyond psychological), and when it returns, still separated, crawling about, with some sort of ... independence, like it was this universe's version of Thing from The Addams Family. Its fun, but it makes no sense at all.

Meanwhile back on Earth, the husband of one of the crew is experiencing his own extraneous plot -- something is causing destructive havoc on the planet.

I recall not being very impressed with the movie, especially the shoe-horning in of the Cloverfield plot, which was also done with 10 Cloverfield Lane but at least that was a good movie on its own. This time I just enjoyed the classic Stuff in Space going on with a familiar, capable cast consisting of Gugu Mbatha-Raw, David Oyelowo, Daniel Brühl, Chris O'Dowd, Ziyi Zhang, and Elizabeth Debicki, and a few others. I just wished the plot had tried to make more sense, instead of falling back on the idea that paradox means "anything can happen". Its an excuse to be random, to do "looks cool" stupid shit but doesn't serve a plot very well.

So, the Cloverfield tie-in's? Well, the idea is that this happening, in the future, affects multiple realities, in multiple times. Not only do two Earths and two space stations exploring particle accelerator based power get smushed together, blended or whatnot, but also some other reality, one with kaiju, is leaked into other Earths, in other time periods. That means the monster from the original appeared because of this experiment gone wrong.

Kent's write up way back then.

I should also do a proper rewatch post for Cloverfield.

KsMIRT: Why you gotta go and make things so animated

 K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month Kent steps through the TV series he completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format.  Although December was dominated by watching Hallmarkies, the work schedule winding down meant more time to catch up ...on cartoons? Superhero cartoons, to be explicit.

This Month:
Young Justice Season 4: Phantoms (2021/2022, Teletoon, 26/26 episodes)
What If Season 3 (2024, Disney+, 8/8 episodes)
The Venture Bros Season 7  (2018, Adult Swim, 10/10 episodes)
The Venture Bros.: Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023, d. Jackson Publick - bluray)
Kite Man:Hell Yeah Season 1 (2018, Adult Swim, 5/10 episodes)
Creature Commandos Season 1 (2024, Adult Swim, 7/7 episodes)

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The What 100: Superboy and Miss Martian travel to Mars to get married and get embroiled in the contentious politics and race/class war that is consuming the planet. Superboy apparently dies in the conflict, traumatizing many of his teammates. Meanwhile as the Lords of Chaos accelerate their agenda against the Lords of Order, Orm has a new ploy to become king of Atlantis, and on New Genesis, Rocket attends a summit with the New Gods and Green Lanterns to petition for support against an unseen enemy. General Zod becomes Superboy's saviour in the Phantom Zone and plots his escape.

(1 Great) Of the various story arcs this season, my favourite by far was the Zatanna-led segment. Here she is acting as mentor to a trio of young mages, including Mary Bromfield (who, offscreen, has foregone being Mary Marvel due to being addicted to the power), Khalid Nassur (who in the comics is the current Doctor Fate, but not yet at the start of the show) and Traci Thirteen. They face agents of Chaos, first Klarion, and later face the far more powerful Flaw and Child. They are outmatched and need the help of The Demon and Doctor Fate. It's just rife with deep-cut characters from the DC pantheon, which is some of my favourite things.  I generally don't love magic and/or fantasy unless there are rules to apply and here YJ explores the concepts of the Lords of Order and Chaos in a manner that's both nebulous and still quite clear the way things work. 

(1 Good) I love the Milestone Universe. It was a BIPOC-created superhero universe published by DC in the 1990s, featuring characters of colour as heroes, villains, sidekicks, supporting characters...just generally elevating the prominence of people of colour in comics, as well as creators of colour. Once Milestone ceased publishing, it took over a decade for the characters to return, and when they did, they did so integrated into the DCU. So when Young Justice started expanding its roster in season 2, there was some low-key placement of Milestone heroes like Static, Icon and Rocket in the peripherals of the show. I've been waiting a long time for any Milestone character to get featured play, and Rocket gets a 5-episode arc as the Justice League's emissary to the New Genesis summit, except the arc starts weaving itself tightly into the Connors-in-the-Phantom-Zone story and Racquel gets a bit lost. I wish we had spent even more time with her and Orion, as he teaches her how to embrace her autistic son.

(1 Bad) I'll rant in the meta section, but my least favourite part of season 3 continued to be my least favourite part of season 4. I generally like Beast Boy as a character but the character as presented in this show is constantly aggravating. In the opening episodes on Mars, he was behaving like a totally ignorant Ugly American, and after Connor's "death" he spirals into a sleeping pill addiction and becomes a total asshole to everyone, which is very hard to watch (largely because I can't stand the vocal performance). I miss the happy-go-lucky Beast Boy of the Teen Titans animated series, and I can only hazard that since it's the same voice actor they really tried to push the character on a radically different path.

META: I was frustrated by season 3 because it hyperfocused on a singular storyline I didn't really care too much about, when we knew there was a larger story percolating underneath. I went into season 4 thinking that the larger story, that's been basically teased since season 1, would finally reveal itself and lead to an epic DC-style event story. 

But no, instead we are once again presented with 26(!) episodes that only hint at the major conflict to come while it treads water on a half dozen stories that themselves seem utterly decompressed and at times quite tedious. Four of these story arcs take place on other worlds - Mars, Atlantis, New Genesis, and the Phantom Zone - and the Weisman/Vietti tendency to wallow in the world building made for frustrating viewing. 

This is a show with a cast of dozens, maybe even exceeding 100 active characters, but, just like last season, it spends most of its time developing only a few of these characters. Superboy, Miss Martian, Aqualad, Halo, Forager, Rocket, Beast Boy, Zatanna... and it seems like they should be able to do so much more.  The fact that the end of the season reveals that Mary Marvel has now gone evil and is a new Female Fury should have happened on screen.

Knowing that YJ was cancelled (or "not renewed") I was hoping that we would have some closure. Alas....

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The What 100: Uatu, the Watcher (Jeffrey Wright, Westworld), is an ancient celestial being tasked with observing and recording the events of the Multiverse. He is our guide through the MCU Multiverse as we explore the weird and divergent worlds.

(1 Great) Where the comics version of "What If?" was generally focused on tweaking one plot, story or character element to manufacture an intriguing alternate reality for the Marvel Maniacs out there, this animated series has instead taken great delight in just creating bizarre scenarios that use existing (and newly created) MCU characters in different, darker, or outrageous scenarios. For me, my greatest delight of season 3 was the weird and wild pairings, such as Agatha (Kathryn Hahn) and Kingu (Kumail Nanjiani) as 1930's Hollywood icons,  or Howard the Duck (Seth Green) and Darcy (Kat Dennings) hooking up and the resulting baby egg being the most sought object in the universe.

(1 Good) The voice talent in this series is off the freaking charts. Each episode is a stacked cast of voice talent that's just one mind-blowing name after another.  Like in "What if... the Hulk fought the Mech Avengers", you've got Wright, Anthony Mackie, Mark Ruffalo, Teyonah Parris, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Simu Liu, and Oscar Isaac. Or in "What if...Howard the Duck got hitched", it's Wright, Dennigs, Green, Samuel L. Jackson, Christ Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Clark Gregg, Michael Rooker, Rachel House, and Josh Brolin. Insanity. You just kind of forget that all these people have played Marvel characters. 

(1 Bad) Like the comics version, what might appeal to one person may not appeal to the next. I wouldn't say any of these stories are bad, but some of them feel a bit under baked compared to others. I wish "What if...the Emergence destroyed the Earth" had more time to play in the very bizarre sci-fi reality it exists in, as I was less interested in the Riri Williams vs. Quentin Beck conflict than I was about the strange reality of life on an exploded planet.

META: What If...? was always a series for the die-hards, the fans. It's fun to play and explore other ideas with these characters, but ultimately it doesn't mean anything to the larger face of the MCU. It was the same with the comics....they're a lark. There is continuity in What If...? as each season has ended with a two-part wrap up that ties some of the previous episodes and characters into a story where Uatu himself gets involved. Here, Uatu's occasional interference in events in various stories puts him on trial, and it's up to Captain Carter and her allies (including Howard and Darcy's child, Byrdie, now grown up and voiced by Natasha Lyonne) to save him from being erased from existence.  Unlike the previous two seasons, where the climax was threatening reality, this climax brings it to very individual stakes of Uatu's life. It might not be the epic conclusion to this series that some were looking for, but Uatu's appeal to his fellow watcher The Emminence (Jason Isaacs) is kind of a really great moment.

I don't know if I'm sad that there's not going to be more What If...? or not.  They're kind of an amuse bouche, but hardly a meal. I enjoy them but they're not exceptionally memorable...and as I said, they're not really important to the canon of things. But that said, I really want to see Byrdie in live action (and Devery Jacobs' Kahhori too).

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The What 100: The Monarch takes his guise as the new Blue Morpho, scourge of the underworld, to the next level if only to stick it to the Guild of Calamitous Intent, now headed by his wife, Dr. Mrs. The Monarch (nee Dr. Girlfriend). Hank gets left behind as both Dean and his girlfriend head off to college, then gets a concussion in a snowstorm. The Venture building in Manhattan takes on a life of its own. Dr. Venture chairs a peace summit between the Guild and O.S.I. and later builds a teleporter which becomes the hottest contested object between factions. Billy Quizboy gets his first nemesis, and a hundred and one other things occur....

And then in the movie... a new villainous agency, ARCH, starts messing up the treaty between the Guild and O.S.I. The heroes and the villains are going to have to find a way to work together against this new mutual threat. Plus the secret connection between Rusty and the Monarch is finally revealed.

(1 Great) Every episode of The Venture Bros. has its own stand-alone arc and yet is also jam packed with world building, character expansion and jokes galore. The absolute commitment that creators Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer have to ever-propelling things forward means that nothing is stagnant. Publick and Hammer never get comfortable with a scenario or setting.  The early seasons of The Venture Bros. were far more episodic and self-contained, but as the duo got more comfortable with the idea of exploring the in-world reality of the show, and it's labyrinthine, near-incestuous history, it blossomed as one of the most consistently entertaining shows (despite its radically inconsistent schedule, of seven seasons and a movie over the past 20 years).  Each episode leaves me satiated by the resolution of the adventure-at-hand, and yet there's always a slice of "I need to know more" based on the nuggets of info or teases that were dropped. And I can only imagine, based on where the show (followed by the direct-to-video movie, Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart"), that we would actually see Hank and Dean grow as distinct individuals. I get the sense that Hammer and Publick could keep developing this forever, and they would never run out of ideas on how to fuck with the characters, nor run out of new characters to introduce.  

(1 Good) The animation, the voice acting, the swearing, the violence, the nudity, the pop culture references, the exploration of generational trauma and daddy issues, the exploration of relationships (lovers, family, friends, employee/employer etc), the general weirdness, the twisting of expectations, the striking visual designs, the toying with other Warner Brothers properties... pretty much all of it is good. I never go into watching The Venture Brothers with any expectations, and so everything delivered is always a surprise.

(1 Bad) Despite originally being picked up by HBO for a season 8, the show was prematurely cancelled. WB/HBO threw Venture Bros. fans a bone by letting Hammer and Publick take their in-development Season 8 plans and turn it into a direct-to-video movie.  The "movie" does play like a highly compressed season, and the only thing that separates it from a regular episode of VB is its length and the absolutely thumping updated Venture Bros. theme by the incredible J.G. Thurlwell.  The animation is the same great animation, and the story has the unfortunate task of wrapping up some (a mere few) loose threads while also really propelling things forward even more, and ultimately ending up at a place of familiarity which one might find satisfactory if there weren't so much more left to watch these characters do.  A much as I enjoyed the movie, I feel like we were cheated out of a season rather than gifted a movie.

META: The Venture Bros. has never been readily accessible in Canada. If it ever had a home on Canadian cable broadcast as a first-run show, I'm either not aware or I've forgotten (maybe the early seasons?). For me The Venture Bros. has been primarily consumed on physical media, and the DVD or Blu-Ray releases of the show have been erratic at best.  Availability for the later seasons - especially in the 2010s, when physical media was on the rapid decline and streaming was taking over - was sparse. I'm only just learning that there is in fact a season 7 physical media release in 2019, despite checking numerous times over the past few years.

My point is, I have, pretty much since the show's inception, always been behind the curve, which always meant there was more Venture Bros. for me to watch. There was a comfort in knowing that I always had more ahead of me, and now, having gotten to the end, there's only the emptiness of knowing there is no more to be had.  

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The What 100: The run-down hangout club where Kite Man and Golden Glider spend their "off hours" is going to be spitefully purchased and shut down by Lex Luthor, so the pair run a heist to raise the funds and buy the bar themselves. Bane becomes a regular and Darkseid's daughter Malice, in a desperate position becomes a server at the bar.

(1 Great) It's remarkable that Kite-Man, of all characters, has his own TV show. An also-ran of the also-rans, Kite-Man was always a deep, deep cut character that most comic readers had never actually seen in action. He would have probably been popularized on one of those early 2000s-style websites that would have "25 lame supervillains you've never heard of (for good reason)" following Doctor Bong and the Calculator. He was given a little spike of attention in a semi-recent Batman run by Tom King who seeded the character in as a point-of-view character of a lackey caught in the crossfire of the War of Jokes and Riddles. "Hell yeah" became Kite-Man's catchphrase in that storyline. So, really, what's great, is to see this ridiculous character get his flowers in what is surely a done-in-one season of animated television.

(1 Good) I have to be honest, when I had started writing this I had only seen up to episode 5. I had fallen asleep/sugar-crashed early in the second episode and went in and out of consciousness until the fourth episode, so I didn't really absorb all of what Kite-Man had to offer and I wasn't too enthused by what I had seen. But I returned to it and binged episodes 6-through-10 which, I have to say, built up on each other quite well, increasing the stakes for the characters and beyond. In episode 7 or 8, Darkseid turns up looking for the anti-life equation, which is the maguffin of the entire series, and, as voiced by Keith David, he is a freaking delightful dose of entitled surliness. There is a scene where it's David, the late Lance Reddick as Lex Luthor, and Judith Light as Helen Villigan which is just a joyful sequence of voice acting...not to mention Darkseid always has a Greek chorus following him wherever he goes punctuating everything he says, which is an comedic trope that just keeps on giving.

(1 Bad) It took me a while to get into the show, but, as I said, I zonked out for a few of the early episodes, so it's fair to say I didn't give it a fair shake on my first watch.  Coming out of "viewing" the first half,  I was hoping Noonans, the bar that Kite-Man and Golden Glider buy, would be a hotbed of DC's lowest-tier supervillains, and it's just not scratching that itch for me.  After watching the second half, I enjoyed it a lot more, especially when Kite-Man gets powers and becomes Beast Mode, whose superpower is all about being a conceited dickhead. What Beast Mode did, though, is accentuate Kite-Man's bro-energy, to the point that when he returned to being Kite-Man all I could think about was Alex Moffatt's Guy Who Just Bought A Boat (to the point where I thought Moffatt was Kite-Man all this time, not voice actor Matt Oberg). The amount of times Kite-Man and Golden Glider call each other "babe" drives me insane.

META: Reading the recaps I may have to give, at least episode 3 a (re?)watch.  Episodes 4 through 6 served as a connected story, exploring time travel shenanigans and elaborating on Golden Glider's dark history. I applaud the show for thread building and some really clever plotting to lead to some heavyweight character moments, but the show doesn't capitalize on that weight. With The Venture Bros. fresh in mind, I'm really reminded about how a comedy cartoon can both capture emotional moments while still retaining its offbeat tone. I don't think Kite-Man is successful in doing so (and for that matter, neither is Harley Quinn)... the emotionality tends to be undercut here by the comedy.  It's the kind of thing where I don't think the show cares about its characters as people, and that leads to these more sentimental moments falling flat.

I like it?

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The What 100: In the wake of the events of Suicide Squad and Peacemaker, Amanda Waller is no longer able to use human prisoners as an expendable task force. But they said nothing about inhuman prisoners. Led by Rick Flagg Sr., Waller assembles the Creature Commandos, consisting of The Bride (of Frankenstein), G.I. Robot, The Weasel, Nina Mazurski (a fish lady), and Dr. Phosphorous, tasked with stopping the witch Circe and her squadron of right-wing toxic masculinity from assassinating the royal family of the nation of Pokolistan...only to later be tasked with doing exactly the same thing. Meanwhile Eric Frankenstein (Frankenstein's monster) resumes stalking The Bride.

(1 Great) I watched the first five episodes in a binge, and the latter two week-to-week. The first episode is all setup and it's the usual crackerjack rapid fire comedy, hyperviolence and pathos that we come to expect from James Gunn. I was immediately getting those Venture Bros. vibes I was just mentioning I was missing. The subsequent episodes are sort of Lost-style, where the main plot progresses while diving into one character's backstory (origin stories actually).

(1 Good) The music, as to be expected from any Gunn production, is top notch. He crafts scenes to songs, and here he has chosen a soundtrack filled with the Dresden Dolls and Gogol Bordello, with Clint Mansell and Kevin Kiner returning from Peacemaker and The Doom Patrol to be the key orchestrators of sounds for this new television universe arm of DC.

(1 Bad) The show starts losing steam around episode 5, as it begins to feel like its stretching out the main story in order to provide enough episodes to cover each Commando's "flashback". The fact that episode 7 features both a flashback and concludes the story really does highlight how out of steam that main plot was.  By that point in the show the hyperviolence in both main and flashback story begins to get exhausting, especially as the heaviness of the main story increases (and it seems each flashback just gets progressively darker). Plus [spoiler] at some point G.I. Robot gets exploded and he was such a source of levity for the show, but his joke is pretty one-note, and Gunn probably wisely didn't run it into the ground. I'm also quite a fan of Frankenstein and The Bride in the comics, and I'm not sure how I feel about Gunn turning Frankenstein in to a stalker, and then trying to turn his abhorrent lack of self-awareness into comedy.

META: This was a very bold choice to be the very first product released under the Gunn-headed DC Studio's new DC Universe. Clearly his forthcoming Superman film is an all-ages affair, but this is a hard-R cartoon rife with violence, sex, and the foulest of foul mouthed swearing.  It's clearly right in line with Peacemaker, and not too far off from the R-rated The Suicide Squad (both Gunn-written before taking on the the head of the studio) but it does signal that Gunn is not looking to mirror what Marvel is doing (except that Marvel is now very much in the Deadpool game which is not far off from Gunn's sensibilities).

The voice cast is phenomenal, with recognizable names all throughout. Of course, Viola Davis is back as Amanda Waller, Sean Gunn does double duty as G.I. Robot and making the Weasel's weird squeaks, Indira Varma plays The Bride, David Harbour is Frankenstein, Alan Tudyk hops over from voice work as  the boisterous thespian Clayface on Harley Quinn to be the much more sinister Dr. Phosphorous her, Zoe Chao plays Nina Mazursky, and Frank Grillo rounds out the main cast as Rick Flag Sr.  Guest voice actors include Steve Agee, Stephanie Beatriz, Michael Rooker, Peter Serafinowicz, and Linda Cardellini.

 

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3 Short Paragraphs (Yeah, Not Likely): Deadpool & Wolverine

2024, Shawn Levy (Free Guy) -- Cinema

Why didn't David Leitch do this movie? Just because of The Fall Guy ? 

Also, I know why I only liked this one, and not loved it like the other two -- it was Shawn Levy. This movie is more a vehicle for Ryan Reynolds indulgences than either of the two before. Look at his two previous Ryan Reynolds movies, Free Guy and The Adam Project; one was a lot of fun but I have never felt the need to rewatch, and the other was ... ______ (????)

Sorry, I just don't remember what snarky, quippy or actually plot-based reason I chose to put that underscore into the latter write-up.

Also, speaking of indulgences, Levy also did the inestimable Real Steel.

Also, I should begin with Kent's exhaustian.

So, when we last left our "hero" he was using his time watch to wander around the timelines/multiverse to set some things right, basically make his own life better. That was the last movie.  But when we pick up in this movie we are not in the exact same universe. This one is kind of sucky. Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds, IF) has lost his way, broken up with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin, Gotham; like really, WTF dudes) and has saved Shatterstar (Lewis Tan, Mortal Combat; like REALLY, WTF !?!). They are now besties. Suckier Deadpool has a pity dick in his mouth after having tried to do as Vanessa asked, and Do More, and... failed? He even auditioned to be in The Avengers, which didn't go well. But I am still not sure why he didn't keep on trying.

But diiiiiid he really try out for the Avengers? I mean they even label that scene as Earth 616 which is the MCUniverse. Deadpool has never had his universe labelled, but when he is rejected by Happy, he returns to a universe with a different label. So, I consider that scene a toss away for fun scene, representing another Deadpool being rejected, not our one. But then again, as I said above, this is probably not even our Deadpool but a suckier one. That's the multiverse for ya.

And that's when the TVA shows up, like literally during his birthday party, to tell him he sucks that his universe is fading away because it lost its Anchor Being. And that Anchor Being was Logan, the Wolverine who died in the movie called Logan. So, Deadpool steals one of those cool TVA (remember, pronounced Teh-Veh-Ahh) mobile phones and hops through a glowy door to dig up said mentioned Wolverine. He doesn't believe he could be dead as they both have unlimited regeneration, right?

Also, another confirmation This Is Not Our Deadpool -- the movie "Logan" takes place In The Future (2029) after all the X-Men when kaflooey and Wolverine has discovered the adamantium is poisoning his blood letting him finally age. We will also ignore that our Deadpool has a musical box piece of merchandise from "Logan" implying it is a movie in his universe. 

Yeah, Wolvie is definitely dead. But the TVA still shows to take out Deadpool, and we get our "classic" Deadpool movie combat scene, and opening credits, to the sounds of a boy band. And apparently the antics of Dancepool, some pseudo-celebrity-influencer who dresses like Deadpool and .... dances. I am not sure I am on board with a dozen or more TVA agents being murdered so horrifically, as we have not yet determined they are Bad Guys yet, just playing a part in alignment on how the universe works. Also, Deadpool doesn't care if they are Bad Guys so I should remember he is a sociopath.

Anywayz, he survives and decides to again travel the multiverse in search of a Wolverine he can steal as a replacement Anchor Being for his universe. Insert Montage Scene of alternate Wolverines from around pop culture. My favourite is Patch. He ends up finding Sad Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, Chappie), one from a world not unlike the original scene from the X-Men movie (surly Wolverine just wanting to drink) but probably more emotionally connected to the cameo scene in X-Men: First Class. Anywayz, this is the one he goes with.

Exceeeept Bad Guy Mr. Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen, Pride & Prejudice) explains you can't just replace an Anchor Being with another person from another timeline. That's not how things work. No matter, they get zapped by the not-disintegrating TVA wands and sent to The Void. Cue a bunch of scenes of Wolverine and Deadpool fighting each other because .... well, just because. 

The Void is that extra-dimensional space outside the timelines and multiverse where "pruned" timelines are sent. That timelines are still being pruned by someone makes me wonder if there are alternates TVAs for alternate universes because multiverse continuity is meant to give you headaches. I mean, if the blobs of paint universe as shown in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness makes use of the TVA from the TV show Loki, wouldn't they all be confused? I mean, when you are talking about infinity, infinite versions of infinite things means the potential for LOTS of cross-overs that just never happen. Anywayz, lets assume this is The Void for this Deadpool's infinity of pruned timelines, which includes the Fox Universe laid waste. 

In a way, this movie is meant as the death knell for the Fox Universe? Was there ever any official tie-in between the "Fantastic Four" movies and the "X-Men" movies?

So, yeah The Void, ruled over by Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin,  Murder at the End of the World) from her Thunderdome-ish base inside the dead corpse of Giant Man. In The Void there are two types of people: those that work for her, and those she feeds to The Purple Smoke Monster (which in my head canon is related to cloud monster Galactus, cloud monster Parallax, and possibly the smaller cloud monster from Lost). There are not many "rebels" left to fight against Cassandra.

After the fight, after the confrontation with Cassandra, after the escape from Cassandra, the pair meets NicePool, the most annoying of the Deadpools and his disgusting dog DogPool (sorry, just not into the 'ugly is cute' thing). They are directed where to find the rebels, but instead fight again, inside a compact car. Again, just because (cue Kent's exhaustion). But at least we get to meet Blade (Wesley Snipes, Blade), Electra (Jennifer Garner, Elektra), X-23 (Dafne Keen, The Acolyte) and Gambit (Channing Tatum, GI Joe: Retaliation). Apparently one of the Punishers was also there. I really hope it was the Dolph Lundgren one.

You are being a bit facetious -- they always do provide the minimum plot required in order for Wolvy and Deadie to jab each other's naughty bits with weaponry.

So, yeah after a bit of soul searching, they all agree to attack Cassandra's lair. Her army is made up of a small handful of B and C grade villains but mostly just Mad Max castoffs with guns. You would think that many guns fired into a barrel would take out all but X-23 rather quickly, but its a superhero movie. Meanwhile, Wolvy and Deadie are attacking Cassandra so they can place Fox Juggernaut's helmet on her head, which will turn her to the OFF position. It works but they retract that statement so she can send them back to the TVA, to undo everything that Mr. Paradox has been trying to accomplish, leaving her to her Void playground.

The movie ends with Deadpool and Wolverine sacrificing themselves to destroy Mr. Paradox's ultimate nullifier type machine. There is a another "let's fucking go" battle scene, but this time against a bunch of other variant Deadpools, buuut .... well, I am tired already now. Sure, its fun, sure its hilarious seeing all those variant mercs doing Cassandra's dirty Deadpool work for her, but I guess I am also exhausted by now. 

Peter's balls !! Peter's balls !!

So, its a romp. Its a hoot. Maybe I need another viewing to determine if I will add this to The Shelf? I do think once I have divested myself of my nitpicking over continuity, something I should even be considering during this franchise, I will be .... more entertained?

In the end, I still prefer Ryan Reynolds being LESS indulged, and less pandered to, as much as I don't think The Fans should be pandered to. As a concept, this one was almost in the works as long as Ryan Reynolds original desire to be The Merc with the Mouth. And as a nod to the X-Men movies that spawned the idea of Hugh Jackman as the on-screen icon, it was brilliant. But do we really need #snyderverse versions of these characters?

Watching: Dark Matter S1

2024, download

The multiverse is in. Not enough movies of TV shows are properly exploiting its potential. What we really need is a Max reboot of "Sliders". But I will be OK with this one, though it suffered much from what I feel a lot of genre TV does -- adding into much dramatic filler, in order to ground it in a world where a wider audience will enjoy.

SPOILER WARNING: In order to actually relate my 1 Great bit, I need to spoil the best part of the entire show.

What 100.  Jason Dessen's a physics teacher at a Chicago college, unsuccessfully attempting to convey the idea of Schrödinger's cat to his bored students. He's also rather checked out at home. Then another Jason Dessen shows up and steals his life, shoving Our Jason into his world, where he discovers his alt had invented a method to traverse alternate universes. Our Jason escapes back into the box, along with Other Jason's wife, and spends the rest of the season desperately trying to get back to his own world, his own wife. It takes awhile and the return has some unexpected consequences.

1 Great. The consequences. You would assume that if one Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton, Zero Dark Thirty) has invented a box that can traverse infinite number of alternate universes, that there is also an infinite number of Jason Dessen's doing the same. But most of these stories consider a one to one linear path for the traversal. Jason 001 goes to Jason 002's universe, and Jason 002 ends up going to the universes of Jason 342, Jason 881, Jason 9999, Jason 41001, etc. And in those universes, if a Jason is using his box to steal another Jason's place in another universe, then they are all similarly displaced from our perspective's early versions. But, since the show postulates, like so many other multiverse shows have, that new universes are born of choices, then there were new choices for Jason 002 each and every time there was one to be made, creating Jason 002.1, Jason 002.2, Jason 002.3, and so on. Guess what happens in the last few episodes? All those Jason's return to what is technically their original universes as well. Suddenly Jason 001 is not only dealing with a very very angry Jason 002 but many many MANY more. But who gets to have this world, this life, this wife (Jennifer Connelly, Dark Water)?

Does your head hurt yet? Its not perfectly thought through, but its sure a novel take on the multiverse traversal idea.

1 Good. Jason 002 gets to visit a BUNCH of worlds before he figures out how to properly control the box. Until the final few episodes, I was convinced they were going to reveal that it was never actual, physical, travel but just perceptual, and Jason 002 was going to wake up in a box eventually, but that theory was too fraught with paradoxes, so the show did do as expected --- have him do the Sliders thing, and go to a bunch of slightly different worlds. Some were good, some were only imperceptibly different, and some were vastly, terrifyingly different. Some were incredible, utopian places, others were just apocalypses. As Jason and Amanda (Jason 001's wife; Alice Braga, Elysium) work to control the boxes, things become less... interesting.

And no, we never get a "everyone is a cartoon" or "everyone's a blob of paint" universe, which just told me that Jason and Amanda are not very imaginative.

1 Bad. The drama. This is an idea that has to be spread out over season for accessible viewers. It knows where it wants to go, but it has to establish the Jason's and their family dynamics and their relationships and their worlds. And all too often, all that filler became boring AF. I just didn't find either Jason's rather compelling.

This is a show that doesn't need a Season 2; its all done and if I was be asked if it was "good" I am not sure what I would answer. I know I like anything multiversal in nature, but until the final few episodes and a handful of segments as they visited other worlds, I wasn't always very engaged.

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

2023,  Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, Justin K. Thompson -- download

Its always weird trying to do my usual "in parentheses" bit about previous works a Director has done (usually above) when the work is an animation. Something in the way animated movies are done often requires the work of more than one director. I imagine the nature of the creation requires more, but those are the ones that get to put their names on it.

Never is that more apparent in an animation than in a movie set in the Multi Spider-Verse. The movie really goes a long way to play up the differing styles presented in different universes and with different characters, right down to the music choices made, colour palettes and background art styles. 

Of note, another big movie requiring another multi-day rewatch, to generate the buzz in the brain again.

That opening. The painterly approach taken to Gwen's world that both sets the tone for the rest of the movie and reminds us how utterly creative this whole concept is. And all this is just the before-credits opening!

Yeah, I should have seen this movie on the big screen, like Kent, multiple times BUT but, the movie also needs to be seen multiple times on the small screen so you can do "wut?" rewind & pause, just to look at stuph.

Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld, True Grit) is atypical for Spider-Man canon, given that she is Gwen Stacy and not Peter Parker (like, duh). But she shares the contentious relationship with her father figure, her father, and her experiences on Earth 1610 with Mile Morales (Shameik Moore, Samaritan) have strained things between her and people even more so.

What is atypical? Once we poke our head into Spider Central we see a LOT of different spider-folk, who diverge from the central reality a LOT. I suppose we have to consider Earth 616's as the prime Spider-Man, but what is stranger, what is more divergent, a Gwen Stacy spider-person or a cartoon pig or a .... car?

Boing, over to Earth 1610. Miles is growing up. But his world is still bright and bouncy and full of life, and full of four-colour panels. Alas the tension between his family and him continues to grow, mainly because he continues to play the Spider-Man role without telling them. That distracts him, delays him, has him hiding things from his very aware parents. 

Four-colour? No, not really, more "original Spider-Man animated movie from Sony" colour, which is bright and spray paint. Four-colour literally has its own universe.

But, oh boy, is this re-introduction to Miles fun! The Spot (Jason Schwartzman, Asteroid City) ! Cow Man! Dalmatian! A (not!) Villain of the Week who tries really badly to rob an ATM (machine) from a bodega and ends up playing the clown, while declaring really loudly that he is Spider-Man's nemesis. But he kind of is, given that he is (!!!) responsible for the creation of the Miles Morales version of Spider-Man. Which they quickly, without much fanfare, explain why in this version of Earth there was a Peter Parker Spider-Man who died, and he was replaced by a new Spider-Man with some very different powers, totally breaking with the canon. And breaking with the canon is a Big Deal.

The tension with his family, and how much he misses Gwen (and how much she misses him) has him follow her through one of her Spider-Team ("small elite force") dimension hopping holes. Its typical Miles not thinking things through but doing what feels right to him. Gwen is actually on a mission and visiting Miles was a side-quest; she is tracking down The Spot who, because of his emerging multi-verse affecting powers is hopping one from one reality to the next collecting "holes". The danger this carries is never more apparent when they end up in Mumbattan on Earth 50101, which is basically "India Spider-Man" universe. 

The Spot pops into the Alchemax lab to collect his spot energy and damages the building, causing it to fall onto other structures. Earth 50101 is realllllly vertical and really over-populated. While the Spider-folk do what Spider-folk do, and save lots of people, there is no way they get everyone out of all those buildings that are crushed by the falling lab. No matter, the key event is the Gwen Stacy moment where Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni, Safety Not Guaranteed) can either save his GF or her father, the "Captain Stacy" of this world. Miles intervenes and SCRRRRTCH, "canon event interrupted".

What? No mention of Hobie Brown, aka Spider Punk showing up? He really is my favourite of all the alternate Spider-Folk, from an anarchist vs fasco-totalitarian UK Earth depicted as if comics were made like punk rock zines from the 70s & 80s -- badly photo copied and pasted and collaged together with tape & glue. Totally punk rock, dude.

Is the hole growing ever larger fallout from The Spot's damage or is it because Miles saves Police Inspector Singh? No matter, as a bunch of other Spiders-Men show up with tech thingy stuff to contain the damage and the gang have to return to Spider-Society central, and bring Miles along. 

Spider-Society, in a World of the Future. In fact, its the world of Spider-Man 2099, which is in The Future, and is the home of the leader of the Spider-Society, Miguel O'Hara (Oscar Isaac, Moon Knight). Oh boy, there is so much to unpack in this segment. For one, the place is chock full of Spiders-People, of all shapes and sizes and types and origins. Their goal is to keep the canon, to return anomalies to their home universes and repair issues. But as we get deeper, we get he real story, the real story to Miles, to these movies. Miles had been bitten by a spider from Earth 42. The spider had been found by The Spot, in his original role as just another scientist doing stupid stuff. The spider bites Miles, which, according to Miguel's logic, led to the death of Miles's universe's real Spider-Man and the explosion of the Kingpin's dimensional collider thingie which is causing lots of and lots of Spider-Verse damage. He calls Miles the "original anomaly". Does that mean he found out about dimensions after that event, which led him to destroy a universe accidentally by majorly disrupting a canon event? Either way, they want to do something nefarious to Miles and the rest of the gang seems onboard with it, in that they knew about it, and did nothing to stop Miguel. What are they going to do with Miles, beyond letting his own canon event (death of his father) proceed? Who knows, but no matter, as Miles escapes.

Sooooo much to unpack in this segment. Like constantly pausing to look at all the Spiders-People, who are not even always people. There are sooo many types. Pause, look, pause, look, pause, look. Dinosaur?!? But what the fuck are they all doing hanging out here? Shouldn't they be back in their own universes saving people? Isn't hanging out in Miguel's universe depriving villains of the week from being stopped in their own universes? Also, Miguel's is supposed to be In The Future. Does that mean the universes are tied to points where there is an active Spider-Man? Also, seems like a major canon BREAK for there to be a universe where a Spider-Man dies, and Miguel even implies that Miles caused the death of his world's Spider-Man by being bitten. Did Miguel cause the death of that world's Spider-Man so he could have his family? Also.... vampire?!?!?

Miles escapes back to his.... well, not quite his universe but the Earth 42 caused by a glitch in the Go Home Machine. In this Darker Timeline, they were deprived of a Spider-Man because The Spot stole their spider, and Miles has ended up being The Prowler cuz his dad died but his uncle didn't. And he is not exactly happy to see our Miles.

END. MOVIE. Wait for the follow up.

What ?!?! Oh yeah, I entirely forgot it was a two-parter, as is the way these days. In my first watching, I didn't really catch onto the Earth 42 fake-out but I had some inkling. The colours were just slightly off. 

This movie was surprisingly satisfying follow-up to the ground breaking original animated movie. It is able to keep the humour and excitement and heartfelt nature of the original while introducing sooooo much more. And the visuals, while not as impactful as the introduction in the original (it was just sooooo unlike anything we had seen before) are still a wonder to look at. Just pause ANY scene and just look at it. Each still could be a piece of art. 

New one now please?

The Flash

 2023, d. Andy Muschietti - in theatre

The DC Comics fan in me, the one who had spent over two decades investing in nuance, continuity and legacy, has a really hard time saying bluntly what needs to be said about The Flash, because more than anything I wanted it to be amazing. I've lived a large portion of my life dreaming of big screen adventures of DC heroes other than Batman and Superman, and with very few exceptions those dreams have been dashed. So I knew The Flash wouldn't be amazing, because I knew the foundation the film is built upon is loose shale fortified with cheese curds.

I'm not angry about it because I've long gotten over the fact that the Snyderverse doesn't work for me. I'm not even disappointed because I could tell from the trailers -- which sold this as a Batman movie featuring The Flash -- that there was definitely something wrong with the film (the final trailer, which I saw about two weeks before the film's release, finally sold it as a Flash movie, and I had a visceral 'no thank you' reaction).

My problem stems from Ezra Miller's casting, which even before their controversies, didn't work for me. They are fundamentally wrong for the character as written, and the character, as written, is fundamentally unrecognizable as Barry Allen, or any other Flash for that matter. I can get over changing Barry Allen as a character -- he's about as boring a figure as they get in comics (I'm much more of a Wally West fan) -- but this character, who is twitchy, anxiety-addled, seemingly neurodivergent (except when he's not), is inconsistently written and likewise inconsistently played. Whatever type of person Barry Allen is supposed to be, Miller either struggles to find him, or struggles to convey him. And, physically, whatever Miller's weird floppy hand thing they've chosen to do when running as the Flash looks really, really, really stupid (just as it did in Justice League). Mindboggling choice on their part. One of many.

Then they introduce a second Barry Allen. He's a 10-years-younger alternate version whose mother never died because The Flash has figured out he could mess with the timeline, and then did, only to accidentally wind up in an alternate past. Miller plays this second Flash like Pauly Shore in every 90's Pauly Shore vehicle, buddy. Your mileage may vary on how amused by this performance you will be, but your tolerance for Pauly Shore is a good benchmark for expectations. The smart tactic would have been, at the very least, recasting this second Barry Allen (understanding that the film was too far gone once the Miller controversies hit to really make big casting changes.... Even still....)

Beyond that fundamental casting flaw (singular. Miller is the only casting problem, just doubled up), the other fundamental flaw of the production is that the DCEU/Snyderverse hasn't earned a story that revels in, and relies upon its cinematic history so deeply. The heroes of the DCEU haven't been explored enough to start tinkering with what we know about them and their place in this universe, and the film revelling in all the differences of the new timeline Barry has created has no resonance, unless, I guess, you were really, really, really invested in the Snyderverse. Even as a big DC fan, this all rang very hollow and unjustified.

Michael Keaton certainly seemed game for resurrecting a variation of his Bruce Wayne, while Michael Shannon has not been quiet about how much he disliked returning as Zod (I would say his apathy shows, but he's barely in the film enough for us to care about his performance). Ben Affleck was always good casting for Batman, but this is taking on the Joss Whedon Justice League as his worst appearance (the performance is fine, but what's being done with the character, not so much). Sasha Callie's Supergirl is good, but she's got maybe a dozen lines of dialogue at most...she's a presence more than a character.

If the good special effects of The Flash aren't notable, it's because the bad special effects are. The cgi characters, almost universally, look terrible. I've heard the uncanny valley of Polar Express cited and I'm not even sure it looks that good. Director Andy Muschietti says it was a deliberate choice. I call BS on that and say that Warner Bros pulled out of investing any further cash into finishing the effects once they learned about Miller's extracurricular activities. Not all press is good press.

When Miller is acting against themself, it's clear there were two people in the room, but one always gets a digital Miller face slapped over top, and it's as noticeable as Henry Cavill's digitally removed moustache in Justice League. It's unsettling. CGI babies, a weird time arena, ghoulish and weirdly conceived alternate earths as viewed through various CGI Supermans (why Supermans and not Flashes?)...it's a frequently ugly film, and yet the problem that bothered me the least.

From the nerd side of things, the Flash's powers were wildly inconsistent. The drawbacks and constraints of using the powers -- the charge they build up, or the need for fuel, or the effect on moving people, or rapid healing powars, among other traits -- were scattershot in their application. I noticed, and it bothered me.  The conceptualization of the speed force, the visualization of the Flash running, what it means to move that fast and the effect it has on one's body or one's surrounds, it doesn't hold together. With dozens of writers having worked on a script for this film for almost a decade, there's likely a hodgepodge, piecemeal effect of disparate parts that don't invariably fit as it iterated over time.

The costume designs, while nominally an improvement over those found in Justice League are, to be frank, still ugly. The Flash costume is very rubbery and glossy and bulbous and makes me uncomfortable (reminding me of Schumacher's fetishistic Batman and Robin costumes). Supergirl's costume has weird darts jutting from her hips to her crotch as if pointing to it for some unknown reason.  Consistency for consistency sake but Keaton's Batman still can't turn his head after 35 years of iterating costume designs?  And what was up with the nose on Affleck Batman's costume...?

I didn't enjoy myself with this movie. I started the film with my arms crossed, and sunk even deeper into my chair as it progressed. I like time travel and multiverse stories, so I did really want to get caught up in the adventure of it, but at every turn I was faced with an actor who wasn't working and reminded of a universe I don't really like.   I think about superhero films like '78 Superman or Ang Lee's Hulk or Iron Man which put you into the position of the hero in certain moments, that give you that sense of what it's like to fly or leap or smash or be in the suit of armor, a moment or two that is like a visceral experience. I never felt connected to Flash's speed. They try to replicate the great visualization of Quicksilver in the X-Men movies early on, but to lesser effect.  Flash's speed has so many different visual iterations that there is no connection point to it as a viewer.

I hate to say it, but I have to...The Flash is bad. If I'm being generous, it just doesn't work for me. If I'm being mean, it's good-bye and good riddance to the Snyderverse. 

KWIF: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (+3)

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week (or so) I have usually have a spotlight movie which I write a longer, thinkier piece about, and then whatever else I watched that week I do a quick little summary of my thoughts.  

This Week:
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023, d. Joaquim dos Santos, Justin K. Thompson, and Kemp Powers - in theatre)
Shazam!: Fury of the Gods (2023, d. David F. Sandberg - in theatre)
Your Sister's Sister (2011, d. Lynn Shelton - Crave) 
Blackberry (2023, d. Matt Johnson - in theatre)

---

I worried that Into the Spider-Verse was an anomaly, that its unique and pliable animation would be a one-shot thing, that any repeated effort to replicate it, either by a sequel or another studio emulating it, would be met with failure. Likewise, I worried that the animation, should attempts be made to replicate it, would make it less special.

There haven't been any other films to attempt what Into the Spider-Verse did with animation in the 4 1/2 years since. The truth is, I don't think that anyone else could. The sheer intricacy of the animation, the sheer variety within the animation, the sheer density of information on screen, you can only do that with a massive budget, and it needs to be attached to a property, like Spider-Man, that will all but guarantee making its money back. As such, stepping into Across the Spider-Verse, I wasn't quite prepared for my return to the Spider-Verse, and the opening sequence, in which Gwen Stacey talks of her friend Miles Morales, his origin story, and how it ties to her own origin story, all while she's playing the drums with increasing intensity... it's pure audio-visual stimulation. The kind that makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. The kind that make you sit up straighter and try to pay even closer attention. The kind that you try to take in not just with your eyes and ears, but through all your senses. You want to just absorb it. But, eventually with this film, you need to stop trying so hard to absorb it, and instead, let it absorb you.

There's no easy way to describe the animation of Across the Spider-Verse, except to say that, if you saw Into the Spider-Verse, it's like that, but more. If you have sensory input issues, like if a lot of visual information is hard for you to digest, these would be difficult movies for you.  There's a lot of distinct visual cues going on, such as Gwen's earth being accentuated by a muted neon watercolour backdrop that kind of moves and bleeds and changes tones and crispness with the emotion of the scene. It's replicating the art of Robbie Rodriguez from the initial Spider-Gwen comic books, but you don't really need to know that reference to feel the impact of its beauty and intensity.  We spend a lot time with Gwen (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) up front, taking a great supporting character from the first movie and fleshing her out as the co-star of this film.

Gwen's deal is her police captain father doesn't know she's Spider-Woman, and he thinks Spider-Woman killed their earth's Peter Parker, who was Gwen's best friend. The death of Peter hit Gwen so hard that she kind of pushes everyone away lest she experience that kind of pain again. But, even in  the year since the end of the story of the last film, she still thinks of Miles Morales all the time. The connection between Gwen and Miles isn't just happenstance. We learn in this movie that all Spider-persons are connected through shared "Canon events", incidents of loss and triumph, trauma and success that connect them all despite the sometimes drastic variations of their realities (one spider-variation is a sentient dune buggy, named "Peter Parkedcar").  But Gwen and Miles seem to have an additional connection, an attraction, but maybe even something deeper, and they both seem to recognize it.

After a parchment Vulture from a da Vinci-esque reality makes it into Gwen's, she's aided by Miguel O'Hara (Oscar Isaac) and Jess Drew (Issa Rae), a futuristic vampire Spider-man and a motorcycle-riding mom-to-be, respectively. Since the events of Into the Spider-Verse (as well as Spider-Man: No Way Home, it's mentioned off-handedly) the multi-verse is in turmoil and Miguel heads a vast web of spider-agents who help try to repair chaotic fluctuations. Gwen is reluctantly recruited and given a "watch-thingie" that helps keep her stable when traveling to other dimensions. 

Miles (Shameik Moore, absolutely outstanding voice work here), meanwhile, has become more comfortable as Spider-Man, but still yet to hit his groove. Balancing school, his family and his Spider-manning hasn't been easy, and despite having initially made some multiversal friends who showed him the ropes, he's since been learning on his own. He encounters a being named The Spot (voiced by Jason Schwartzman), who can open up portals from one nearby point to another. Miles sees him as a nuisance, but The Spot attempts to convey how closely tied the two of them are. The Spot, see, was created as a result of the collider incident from the prior film, and blames Spider-Man for it. Miles dismisses The Spot as a nothing villain-of-the-week, which only fuels The Spot into a deeper anger, driving him to level up his powers, leading to dimension-crossing and dimension-threatening abilities.  Gwen, now working for Miguel's agency comes to visit Miles' earth, as much to see Miles again as to do her job of keeping track of The Spot, who is about to become a real problem.

This leads to a trip to the world of Pavitr Prabhakar (from the Spider-Man: India comic, and voiced delightfully by Kiran Soni), in which Miles disrupts a "Canon event" and is brought back to Miguel's headquarters for, basically, a dressing down, and, ultimately, an eye-popping, mind-blowing, sensory-overloaded chase sequence as Miles attempts to escape back to his home to stop something bad from happening there. 

I won't get into the grit of what happens in this film, as it's such an incredible world of discovery and inventiveness, but as much as it is an appeal-to-the-senses film, its greatest strength, and what makes it even superior to the first movie, is its connection with the characters. Miles' mom and dad, nurse Rio (Luna Lauren Velez) and cop Jefferson (Brian Tyree Henry), who were present in the first film, are vital characters here, as is Gwen's dad, cop George (Shea Wingham).  The connection between parents and their children is a major theme of the movie.  There's something to be said with how much parents trust their children by how much the teenagers in this film trust their parents. They keep their identities secret from their parents, knowing that, for as complicated as things are, it could only be more so if they knew who they really were. It's not just exclusive to being a Spider-person, it kind of goes for all parents and children. To Miles and Gwen, being Spider-Man and Spider-Woman is a part of their identity, and there's a fear there that in revealing that, their parents will try to control, constrain or even quash that identity.  As parents, Rio, Jefferson and George all have to face their own limitations of how they understand their children as individuals, that the dependency their kids had on them since birth diminished.  Just as the teens need to learn that being independent doesn't have to mean severing ties with their parents, their parents need to learn that giving their children independence doesn't mean letting them go.

Inside of all of this are the desires the teens have, to flourish and grow as a person, to find their own way, but also to find guidance. Other Spider-people who have had more experience are easy targets for this desire, but mentoring means nothing if there's not also respect, and trust.  The idea of trust is another theme throughout the movie, and it's as much the adversary of the film as The Spot is. Knowing who to trust with secrets, knowing how to trust your own instincts, trusting others with your emotions, (even Rio trusting Gwen with her son's affections), they come in and out of play, but they're very important to both Gwen and Miles' journey. 

The connection between Gwen and Miles leads to a very tender and gorgeously rendered Spider-persons version of a "walk-and-talk" romantic interlude. It's possibly my favourite scene in a movie that is pretty much wall-to-wall with amazing scenes. Even Pavitr comments on the romantic tension within minutes of meeting them, and the film does an amazing job with conventional romantic storytelling beats.

It's got some of the most eye-popping, incredible action sequences, as well as this amazing love story, this absolutely radiant story of family, and still it manages to be wildly funny. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller wrote the script with David Callaham and it's such a well-balanced picture. It has the patented Lord and Miller humour, the awareness of genre tropes which also doubles as self-awareness in characters.  That type of humour can get utterly grating (see Family Guy) but Lord and Miller have always had a knack for using that meta/self-awareness in both a disarming and natural fashion that much more often than not feels smart, or clever but with no self-satisfaction beneath it.  There is a density of rapid-fire quippage happening during every action scene that basically demands rewatching because it's impossible to catch it all the first (or even the second) time around.  There's also an impressive amount of spectacular Spider-Man references to films, comics, and other media of the past, none of which should hamper the enjoyment of this film if you don't get them.

The soundtrack is wonderful, both the song selection and the score from Daniel Pemberton, which starts from beat one. There's a lot of frenetic energy to the animation, but there's also rhythm and timing brought back to it all with the music. Even at 2 hours and 20 minutes, it's still an incredibly tight, and dazzling, package.

This is the second film in three weeks that is the first of a planned two-parter. Where Fast X really seemed to just be playing around mindlessly with its toys with no real stakes or direction, Across the Spider-Verse just keeps escalating, using everything it's been building to lead to a genuinely thrilling "To be continued".  I cheered when it came to its conclusion.  I could feel it coming and I was ready for it, even as I was just as ready to continue on with the story.  That's what makes it such a good "To be continued" is it feels like the creatives know exactly where it's going and where its leading to, and, going back to trust, they've earned the trust that this massive journey has a destination in mind. 

It's like getting a delicious foot long submarine sandwich and eating half and feeling completely satiated. You know the other half is there to enjoy later, but you're feeling good right now. 

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Shazam!: Fury of the Gods did not succeed at the box office. There are many reasons for that. It could be due to the shake-up of the DC Cinematic Universe. It could be that there's increasing superhero fatigue (I think Guardians and Spider-Verse do dispel that concept somewhat). It could be that Zachary Levi's social media presence started to sour people on him. It could be that the first Shazam was a modest hit and that more shouldn't have been expected out of a second. Or it could be that the story of this film, as presented in the trailers, feels utterly lifeless, and no amount of goofy mugging and rapid-fire quipping from Levi could save that.  If anything, in watching the film, it's Levi's goofy mugging and rapid-fire quipping that seem to be its greatest detriment.  At one point, the Shazam family discover the meaning of "SHAZAM", that each of the letters is representative the power of a god, and it's pointed out that Billy Batson, when in his Shazam form, seems to utterly lack the wisdom of Solomon.  Levi's portrayal of the superhero is at odds with the arc of Billy Batson, which is a kid who's afraid of losing the only family he's ever really known. There should be weight to it, but Levi plays everything pretty upbeat and goofy, and none of what's weighing on Billy emotionally seems to be conveyed on screen.

As entertainment, Fury of the Gods is fine. It's a fairly good looking movie with some decent set-pieces, and charming little moments, and has a generally amiable cast that seem game for everything asked of them. I mean, Helen Mirren is really giving it a go, bless her. This looks to be an expensive film, more so than the prior Shazam! by anywhere from 30-50% depending on the numbers you find.  But from the moment this film was announced, with Mirren, Lucy Liu and Rachel Ziegler as the antagonists (the daughters of Atlas seeking to steak the powers of the Greek gods back from the Shazam family) the fan response what, in a nutshell, "what?"  Like, were we really cramming for Shazam vs a dragon. This is so 2017 "let's Game of Thrones this $#!&".

This is a weird poster

To generate any excitement among the fan community about a property, there has to be something familiar to the fan community. Captain Marvel has a rich rogues gallery of bizarre and entertaining villains, and if "the daughters of Atlas" are among them, I've never heard of them. The end of the first movie teased Mr. Mind (a talking green alien worm) teaming up with Mark Strong's Sivana to lead the Monster Society of Evil and fight Shazam in order to take over the world. That's the movie everyone wanted to see. Something bonkers, like classic Shazam comics were. I don't know how Sandberg arrived at this "daughters of Atlas" idea, out of all the Captain Marvel history he could have latched onto, but it was the wrong choice.  Writer-director Sandberg pokes fun at that expectation in the post-credits teaser, which, I hate to say given how much energy was put into the rest of it, was my favourite scene in the film.

I respect the intention behind the Shazam family and Sandberg, more than anything, uses this film to lean into the concept. But Captain Marvel/Shazam has existed for 80 years, and the "Shazam Family" as seen ehre has only been around for a about a decade and not really explored all that much. Sandberg's doing as much heavy lifting with them in these two films as the comics have since their origin, and I wonder if the Shazam Family basically handcuffed what he could do in these films. 

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If you're not familiar with the term, mumblecore is a term used to describe low budget, typically intimate, naturalistic, lightly-dramatic films with small casts in limited locations that focuses relationships that favours dialogue (often improvised) over plot. They were quite the rage in aughts and early 20-teens.  

The late Lynn Shelton, director of Your Sister's Sister, is one of the bigger names in the mumblecore genre, Mark Duplass, who co-stars here, is another. It's sort of a super-team-up of mumblecore royalty. God, just typing that makes me want to hit myself in the nuts.

The film here finds adrift 30-something Jack (Duplass) set to meet up with his best friend (and recently deceased brother's girlfriend), adrift 30-something Iris (Emily Blunt) at her family cottage. He arrives a night early only to happen upon Iris' older sister, Hannah (Rosemary Dewitt), a lesbian who just separated from her partner. Jack and Hannah get to know each other, and get drunk, when Hannah agrees to Jack's hypothetical propositioning of her. They have awkward sex, and things get even more awkward when Iris shows up the next day and they try to keep the secret of their rendez-vous from her. Then Iris confesses to Hannah about being in love with Jack (inexplicably), and you just know eventually it's all going to come out, including the part about Hannah poking holes in the condom to steal Jack's sperm.

I struggle with how I feel about this film. I was both intrigued enough to watch it twice, and yet kind of annoyed by the whole thing. If it were a 60's production it would be a farce, but it's a mumblecore which carries with it as a genre its own nuisance baggage. I think what bothers me most is Duplass, who I've enjoyed in many things, but his general vibe is low-key asshole. So for him to be, supposedly, a woman's best friend, and yet get a few drinks in him and he's propositioning his best friend's lesbian sister...I mean, that's what I expect out of a Duplass character, but that's not who this character needs to be for us to feel like he's worthy of a romantic interest for Emily Blunt (maybe Emily Blunt from The Devil Wears Prada, but not sweet, meek Irish here.  Jack has a speech late in the film which conveys some sense of self awareness of not being worthy of Emily Blunt, or of being a potential dad+uncle to a baby...but it doesn't change the fact that I feel like Duplass was the wrong choice for this role.

I thought the ending was pretty shrewd on Shelton's part, though. Despite the mumblecore model, there's always a sense of control to Shelton's work here, a sense that she's getting what she wants out of every scene, even when it's heavily improvised.  What surprised me most is how well Shelton dispersed awkwardness. What could have easily turned into cringe comedy or uneasy drama is tampered by largely emotionally aware characters, and a handling of scenes with warmth and intimacy.

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I cannot honestly remember the last Canadian film that got me out to the theatres. I'm wondering if it was Guy Maddin's The Saddest Music In The World, which feels like half a lifetime ago (a third at least). I've definitely watched some at home, and I'm certain I must have seen something in the cinemas. But even if there was, none of them had the *must watch* drive behind them that Blackberry had for me. 

Don't ask what it was that was stimulating me so much about it... I tend to find the pseudo-bio genre almost a deterrent rather than a draw, more often than not.  I like Jay Baruchel generally, but he isn't a "gotta see it" kind of screen persona.  Same with Glenn Howerton.  But this is a distinctly Canadian film, and there's a distinctly Canadian punchline in the trailers that, no matter how proud (or jaded) you are about our country, it lands pretty good.  The saga of the Blackberry phone's rise and fall (alongside hockey-obsessed Jim Balsillie's vying for an NHL team) are not quite children's stories here, but if you're over the age of 40, you definitely have an awareness of some of the story.

What writer/director/co-star Mat Johnson (Nirvana the Band the Show) delivers is -- if I'm going to do that thing that Toasty hates -- the punched-up, purple-prosed melodrama of The Social Network by way of the over-the-shoulder, in-the-room hand-cam comedic awkwardness of The Office, with more than a little of the peppery biting satire of Glengarry Glen Ross. It of course goes beyond that to become what the various parties bring to the production with Johnson clearly having an overall sensibility in mind for this and accomplishing an incredibly well-balanced delicate tone that is more comedy than drama, but is always taking its characters seriously. Baruchel's premiere shtick for two decades now has been "confidently anxious", and he manages to transition his interpretation of Mike Laziridis from overly anxious beta nerd to overly confident beta nerd over the course of the movie, as if he learns the wrong things from Balsillie's hubris.

As great as all the players are, it is Howerton's Balsillie that steals the show. Egotistical, brash, conniving, convincing and shrewd, only he could do what Research In Motion needed to get them where they got to. Everything that RIM did couldn't have been done without him. But at a certain point, the status and the success blinded both Balsillie and Laziridis from what made them successful, which was doing something different in the field of mobile technology. The iPhone was seemingly lightyears beyond Blackberry, and they, as a company, refused to adjust, too confident in what was already a problematic product.

Blackberry is a gloriously entertaining, decidedly Canadian, rise-and-fall story that is sometimes ridiculous but almost always riveting, with a killer soundtrack that felt like a mix tape I made in the late 90's.  Quite loved it.