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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KWIF: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (+3)

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film, after a few weeks away.

This week:
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice (2024, d. Tim Burton - in theatre)
The Instigators (2024, d. Doug Liman - AppleTV+)
Orion and the Dark (2024, d. Sean Charmatz - Netflix)
Justice League: Crisis on Infinite Earths Part 1 and Part 2 (2024, d. Jeff Wamester - AdultSwim)

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If you were to ask me if I was a fan of Tim Burton, I would indeed say "I was."

I haven't seen a new film Burton has made since 2003's Big Fish. There was nothing ostensibly wrong with Big Fish that made me say "no more", and besides the terrible Planet of the Apes, pretty much every on of his films before that I enjoyed quite a bit. 

But post-2003, I couldn't even stand to look at the trailer for his monstrous Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and Corpse Bride, looked like low budget The Nightmare Before Christmas devoid of the Henry Selick magic. The parade of Johnny Depp features that followed Sweeney Todd, Alice in Wonderland, Dark Shadows didn't even come close to intriguing me, and I would say whatever Burton train I had been on in the '90's, I had jumped off and could barely see it chugging along in the distance.

Of his first 10 features, if you were to ask me what was my favourite, I would probably say Ed Wood,  or I would have up until the trailers for Beetlejuice Beetlejuice started popping up. The excitement for a return to that world was shockingly intense and immediate. The sudden surge of sense memories, of watching the original Beetlejuice countless times and being so stimulated by it every time... besides Star Wars, there was probably no other film series from my youth that I desired more of.  I had forgotten.

And so, 36 years later, we finally have a sequel.  

And as movie, it's fine. 

As someone who eyes his movies critically, I know it's merely fine. I wanted it to be everything that it was for me as a pre-teen, but I was a different person, and Tim Burton was a different filmmaker, so there's no way it can recapture the magic. Truth is, no sequel or prequel or remake can ever recreate the experience of watching an original, because times, places, people change and evolve.  The best a film can hope for is to create a new experience for the viewer.

As a fan, though, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice did transport me,  not back and time, not back to my youth, but back into the world I'd always wanted to spend more time with, and I cannot discount that exceptional feeling, even if the movie is only just... fine.

Why just "fine"? It just takes too long to get going is all. Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, with a 30-year gap to fill, can't just get up and going, it's got to catch us up with some characters and introduce new ones, and explain what happened to old ones, as well as establish a plot contrivance or two, or three, or four that will bring everyone together.

The film opens with Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder, Stranger Things), now a widowed mother of a nearly estranged teen daughter, Astrid (Jenna Ortega, X) and host of a paranormal investigation show. She still sees dead people, but has recently started seeing Beetlejuice everywhere and it's freaking her out. Her boyfriend, Rory, is also her producer and a bit of a new age twerp.  The Lydia and Astrid are reunited when stepmom Delia (Catherine O'Hara, SCTV) breaks the news that her husband, Lydia's dad, has died.  A return to Winter Falls is necessary.

Meanwhile, Beetlejuice (Michael Keaton, Birdman) is running a scare business, when he learns that his ex-wife, the soul-sucking (literally) Deloris (played by Monica Belucci, The Matrix Reloaded) has returned and is coming for him. He also has never stopped pining for Lydia, which is gross, but then that's on-brand for Beetlejuice.

Eventually Astrid gets caught up in some supernatural business, and Lydia needs Beetlejuice's help to save her.

I'm skimming over a lot of plot set-up here because there's really five or six threads at play that all eventually collide about mid-way when nearly everyone has made their way into the afterlife. Once this happen the film is crackling with energy. Keaton is clearly having a blast, O'Hara is in top comedic form, and Ryder treats Lydia like she slipped into her favourite pair of slippers...absolute comfort. 

Once we see Lydia and Beetlejuice team up, I suddenly got a jolt of the Beetlejuice cartoon, which spun out of the movie in a very unfaithful way and was primarily about the weird adventures Lydia had with this weird demon creature in the afterlife. This film sparks that notion but doesn't sustain it long enough which is why I wish it got to it much sooner.

The sub-plot that takes Astrid to the afterlife...well, it's doesn't not work, but it doesn't have the time to fill it out properly, and it resolves abruptly. There were ways to get Astrid into the afterlife that would connect her to her mom, and Beetlejuice that wouldn't have to involve a complete extraneous threat (when there's already another complete extraneous threat).

Speaking of, Deloris would have been just a great central plot on her own. I could see if this were, say, the fifth Beetlejuice movie, that it would revolved entirely around the threat Deloris presents. Instead it's a subplot that never feels fully integrated into the central character story here, as enjoyable as it is.

Is Tim Burton back? I dunno. Even in its overstuffed form, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice still ultimately delivers what I wanted from it, which was more Beetlejuice. And, much like how I felt after each time watching the first movie, I would still like more.

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A young crook (Jack Harlow, Dave) is in deep with a small scale crime boss (Michael Stuhbarg, A Serious Man) and has to gather a team to pull off a daring robbery. He winds up with alcoholic motormouth Cobby (Casey Affleck, Oceans 12) and depressed veteran Rory (Matt Damon, Oceans 13). Neither Cobby nor Rory are really that experienced at crime, and the foolproof job turns out to be a monumental shit show. And the shit show just escalates with each passing hour. Car chases, arson, kidnapping, these guys keep getting in deeper and deeper as they start uncovering a whole conspiracy of corruption in the mayor office.

Damon and Affleck together again. At this point, it's like Matt and Casey are in just as many projects together as Matt and Ben. It doesn't matter, these guys have decades of friendship under their belt, great affection for one another, and so pairing Damon with an Affleck on screen is always going to deliver.

The younger Affleck co-wrote the screenplay here with Chuck MacLean, and it's a script that has far more surprises and laughs than expected. It's a fairly lighthearted romp, but one that doesn't ever dismiss the characters, and toys with themes of corruption in political and legal circles. I've seen criticisms that there's no sense of threat or danger to these guys, and it is true that Damon and Affleck don't play like they're in mortal danger, but that's more of a case that both of these characters are far more troubled by their inner demons than external ones. These are men with nothing left to lose. This is why the fake kidnapping of Rory's therapist, Dr. Rivera (Hong Chou, The Watchmen), is so integral to the story, in helping to explore the mindset of the men and perhaps reframe what it is they're hoping to achieve and provide them a path back to living. 

Damon pairs up with Doug Liman for the first time since The Bourne Identity, a film with a pretty great car chase sequence. This film has a pretty big car chase, but it's not terrific. It's evident the production was limited in the speeds they were capable of going through the streets of Boston, and there's no amount of cross cutting and editing that can mask just how slow this chase really was going. There are fun aspects to the chase, but overall it's missing a lot of the oomf.  But the rest of the production looks pretty good.

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Charlie Kaufman is known for his twisty, heady, cerebral-but-weird films that trade in anxiety, delusions, and other mental conditions that often externalize these internal thought processes by way of scenes, sequences, or entire stories. Kids films also often trade in externalized emotions, but they're usually metaphorical, so in a way, a Kaufman-scripted kids movie kind of makes sense, even if none of Kaufman's prior work even hinted at being child-friendly.

In this Netflix animated feature, Orion is a boy of about 10 or 11, and is an absolute nervous mess of a kid. He's anxious and afraid of everything. He doesn't want to say the wrong thing, or embarrass himself which pretty much leads him to saying the wrong thing and embarrassing himself all the time. He doesn't want to draw attention to himself, which invariably draws attention to himself. His school days are nightmares, and at night, well literal nightmares. In the dark, when everything gets quieter, and time seems to slow down, all he's left with is his anxious thoughts and an absence of light.

Enter The Dark personified. The literal darkness who is tired of this kid always cursing his name. So The Dark takes Orion out for a spin in the night sky, to experience the beauty of the night world, introduce him to his nighttime crew: Sleep, Insomnia, Sweet Dreams, Quiet and Unexplained Noises. But Orion's reluctance to accept The Dark leads to near disastrous consequences that Orion needs to face up to.

Orion and the Dark is a charming enough film in the Pixar-knockoff vein of personifying things or ideas, but as a full blown adult, I'm not certain I was absolutely sold on the execution of the conceit. Kids will probably dig it just fine though. The voice cast is rock solid with Paul Walter Houser, Angela Bassett, Natasia Demetriou, Carla Gugina, Nat Faxon, Colin Hanks and more, and Kaufman constructs some narrative twists that kind of work but also kind of break the film at the same time(?). What really holds me back from liking the film is the animation, which is, as most CGI animation has been for the past 25 years, very soft, rounded, and charicature-like. The characters have their eyes set together, Jim Davis' Garfield-style and, well, I hate it. Hate hate hate it. It's a design decision that I never got comfortable with and threatened to soil the whole movie for me.  

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I've watched many of the various direct-to-video DC animated movies since they started appearing in the late-Aughts, but nowhere near all of them. I'd wager I've seen 1/4 of the 55 animated productions since 2007, but you won't find many of them reviewed here. I'm not sure why...I review TV, I review movies, hell...I even do Hallmark movies, so why not spend more time on these superhero cartoons?

I think the answer is they are not good enough to really waste time thinking about too much, nor are they bad enough to really vent about. They aren't part of the main cultural discourse, nor really part of film discourse. They are animated features, typically based off one DC Comics mini-series or story arc, made for DC Comics fans. It's a miracle if anyone who's not a DC fan happens to watch them.

Over the past four years, much of the DC animated movie output has been connected in what's casually called the "Tomorrowverse", culminating in three movies that retell the classic comics epic Crisis on Infinite Earths. The gist of it is the Multiverse is being destroyed, universe by universe, a wave of energy destroying everything in its path. An eons-old being called the Monitor diverges from his observational duties to intervene, assembling heroes from across the Multiverse who may have a hope of finding a way to salvage...somthing.

This is not the first time the classic event was adapted, as it was used as the denouement of the Arrowverse, but this is a somewhat more faithful adaptation. The thing is, in the comics, there was 50 years of comics history and thousands of comics stories and characters to bridge together. In the Arrowverse, there was nearly 10 years of shows and hundreds of episodes of TV, and the Crisis there started bridging gaps with all the other DC superhero TV shows past and present. It made sense.  This... this Crisis... only really makes sense if you know these characters from the comics.

I don't think I've actually watched any of the Tomorrowverse movies and it didn't seem to matter, because I have 45 years of DC Comics reading history under my belt, and I've read Crisis on Infinite Earths at least a half dozen times over the years.  This does tailor the story a little to the Tomorrowverse animated universe, but there's not a great history that it's bringing together.

Crisis... is an epic story, and the only thing that makes this animated trilogy "epic" is that it's an animated trilogy. Part One is a time hopping, non-linear Barry Allen Flash story as he's unmoored from time and  trying to piece together what his actual objective is. Along the way we learn about the Crisis and Barry's integral role in ensuring the continued existence of not just one earth, but infinite earths. It uses its time jumping effectively, although it's often stiffly animated and edited, and the general tone of the piece isn't adventuresome, it's ominous. But even that ominousness is pretty dry.

Part Two is a story that could have been told in scant minutes, but it drags out its plots over roughly 85 of them.  It opens reminding the audience that, indeed, there's a crisis, but there's been a temporary patch put in place thanks to Barry Allen's sacrifice (spoiler for a 40-year-old story). And then it jumps back in time across two character storylines, first exploring Kara Zor-El (Supergirl)'s originals with The Monitor, and secondly delving into the tortured drama of the Psycho Pirate. It's some of the most tedious cartooning I've ever watched.  

Eventually it comes out of these flashbacks but by then it's too late and all the momentum of Part One is utterly lost. Any attempts to build up momentum fall flat, and the emotional beats it's hoping to convey never quite land.  To be honest, if I wasn't such a nerd for this stuff, for just seeing how it plays out differently than what I know, I would have turned it off.  It's not great, and I certainly couldn't recommend it.

1-1-1-KsMIRT: May I have another...

K'sMIRT is Kent's Month in Reviewing Television, where each month (or mebbe twice each month?!?) I step through the TV series I completed watching each month in the 1 Great-1 Good-1 Bad format.  These are shows I finished (or was finished with) in the past few weeks.  

This month:

Ripley Season 1(?) - Netflix 

Sugar Season 1- AppleTV+ (8 episodes)

X-Men '97 Season 1- Disney+ (13 episodes)

Extraordinary Seasons 1 & 2 - Disney+ (8 episodes each)

Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 - Disney+ (15 episodes) 

Star Wars: Tales of the Empire - Disney+ (6 episodes)

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Ripley Season 1(?) (8 episodes)

The What 100: A new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel The Talented Mr. Ripley, set in the 1950s, finds small-time New York con artist Thomas Ripley sent to Italy to try and convince Dickie Greenleaf, son of a shipping magnate living the life of leisure, to return home to his parents. When Tom presents himself, Dickie finds Tom curious and brings him into his life. Tom becomes entranced by both Dickie and his lifestyle, and eventually takes both for his own. But some people find Tom totally suss....

(1 Great) Holy crap does this show every look capital g Gorgeous. Shot in black and white, every single scene is lit perfectly to accentuate the light and the shadows. The night scenes have a particularly ethereal quality to them, with a backdrop of light seemingly far in the distance that makes everything so crisp. Or the scenes of Ripley on a ferry between Italian islands, the images of the water are mesmerizing in their inky blackness. Plus the costuming is such finely tailored Italian 1950's leisure wear, and oh, those Italian villa settings, even all those stairs. It's all just so sumptuous.  I don't have a background in Fellini or the other Italian new wave directors who seemingly inspire so many filmmakers to venture into black-and-white endeavours in the country, but I've never seen it look this good. It's all around a pretty good series, but the filmmaking, the style, the look is what makes it so worthwhile.

(1 Good) I've read the book and seen, a few times, the 1999 Matt Damon-starring version of this story. I don't know that the story needed to be padded out to the roughly 8-hour running time of this show, but it all still works. It's what I'd call "patient television", or even "patient cinema" as it is extremely cinematic. It is a change of pace, it is methodical, it is very interested in composing a scene and living within it for as long as possible. What the pacing does is really ratchet up the tension as we know, very very early, that Tom Ripley is a fraud, not a good guy, and that sense of danger that Maude senses in him is what attracts Dickie to be around him (and us to watch him). He is an cunning parasite, Mr. Ripley is, and, what's more, he's not particularly that charming. He truly is an off-putting person (Andrew Scott, despite playing a character at least 10 years younger than his actual self, inhabits the role and is brilliant in his very controlled mannerisms) and yet, the amazing feat of the show is how it makes you both despise him and root for him at the same time (it's something inherent in the story but still a challenge to pull off). You know a person like that needs to be stopped, he needs to be found out, and yet, you also want him to get away with it. You want him to develop, to become more appealing, to become almost superpowered in his ability to get away with things. It's a nasty trick to play on an audience. 

(1 Bad) I would have to say that it is, indeed, too long. Especially since the tone of the series, which is really foreboding and intense for the first four episodes, starts to lean into Highsmith's jet black humour in the second half. Both Dakota Fanning and Johnny Flynn are really good in their roles (Fanning, particularly, as Dickie's girlfriend Maude, is so great at making Maude so average as to be inoffensive, but her spot-on distaste for Tom somehow makes her very unlikable...it's a crazy tightrope she walks flawlessly) but the show ignites when Maurizio Lombardi playing Inspector Ravini arrives in episode six and it's the very flame that the show was clearly missing all along. It really needs to compress the first half to get to Ravini faster.  The pacing won't be to everyone's liking, and may be the reason many bow out, but wow is it ever a rewarding series.

META: We watched the first two episodes in a row, then watched the next five week-to-week, because I really couldn't take the intensity of pacing more than one episode at a time.  That is, until Ravini came on the scene.  I am 100% on board for more Andrew Scott as Ripley if Netflix should consider further seasons adapting the other novels, but, man, oh man do they ever need to spin off Lombardi's Ravini into his own series. What a charm machine that guy is with a sense of humour so dry you need to apply lotion afterwards.

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Sugar Season 1 (8 episodes)

The What 100: Henry Sugar is a private detective who finds missing people. He is brought on board a case where a Hollywood mogul's granddaughter has gone missing. She was an addict in the past and had disappeared before, but this time is different, her grandfather says. So why does the rest of her Hollywood Elite family not seem to care, and in fact seem to be working against Sugar's investigations? 

(1 Great) I have to say, I think Henry Sugar is a wonderful character. The first episode of the show I was absolutely floored by how decent a human being Sugar is. He's just the most grounded person, a guy who connects with people, who looks them in the eye, and listens when they talk. He thinks in film noir, as if they're his frame of reference for life, but as much as he admires movies, they sort of teach him how not to behave. Sugar's last resort is violence, and more than anything tries to avoid it, but when he must, well...he certainly can inflict it. Colin Farrell has gone from being someone I reluctantly appreciated for his talent to someone I greatly admire for it. He is such a deep performer, one of the best of his generation, quietly so.

(1 Good) The tone of the series is modern noir, and it works within that milieu quite well, until....

(1 Bad) The ending, if you were ever in doubt, has Sugar finding the missing girl. But with the investigation seemingly wrapped, there's still one thread left untugged. And once Sugar starts tugging on that thread, the show starts falling apart for me. It's the end of the series and things should have wrapped up, but no, they have to start connecting the case to something much more personal to Sugar and it is so ham-fisted how they just smush in the setup for a second season. It was perfectly poised to have a sweet ending with a sense of closure, but they blow it wide open with a Kool-Ade Man level of energy busting through the wall that the show did not need at all.

META: Neither good, nor bad, at least for me, was the secret revealed in the sixth episode. I was forewarned by another TV critic (ha! like I'm a TV critic) that such a twist was coming, and so I was prepared for it. In fact I had already sussed out the twist by I think episode two, or three at latest.  As such I wasn't surprised, nor put off as many people had been. The clues were all there.  It's not a successful reveal and I definitely understand why viewers were kind of repulsed by it. But frankly I found the sort of Shyamalan-esque twist in the finale much, much more off-putting. 

One other really off-putting aspect of the series is its woozy handheld camera style that leads to some really abrasive edits and whole sequences which are kind of repulsive to watch. I really greatly dislike this style of film and/or television production, and when paired with that ending, I'm not really looking forward to any more of the show, despite liking the character.

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X-Men '97 Season 1 (13 episodes)

The What 100: X-Men was a cartoon that ran five seasons from 1992 through 1997. X-Men '97 picks up where it left off, as if it were the very next season of the series. Charles Xavier is dead, and mutantkind has received a sudden burst in sympathy because of the sacrifice he apparently made. Cyclops is burdened with running the school (which isn't really operating as a school) and leading the X-Men. He's being a total whiny baby about it. He was plotting a life away from both with pregnant Jean and now he's stuck, and upheaval after upheaval follow.

(1 Great) Episode 5 has an absolutely Earth shattering moment of undeniably nuclear superhero animation proportions that left I, along with many other fanboys and fangirls with their jaws on the floor. It was a brassy storytelling move that will probably upset any children that might find their way to this continuation of a 90's kids' programme.

(1 Good) I really hated the animation of the old X-Men series. It was taking Jim Lee, Whilce Portacio, Marc Silvestri, and Rob Liefeld's very detailed and line-heavy art and designs and trying to simplify it to repeatable animation with clunky and disastrous results. I found it borderline unwatchable. But this series, the animation is so much cleaner, crisper, tighter, and the action sequences are so dynamic with a touch of anime thrown in.  At times you can tell different animation studios were handling chores of different sections of the episode as certain segments get so much more dynamic than others.  I even think the animators for the first episode or two tried to replicate the clunkiness of the old series and ease into the newer animation style.

(1 Bad) Holy crap does this series ever burn through storylines at a breakneck speed. It doesn't spend any time lingering on any event or plot for much longer than an episode. It feigns interest in the idea that these stories have some sort of impact on the characters, but it never explores them to any satisfactory degree. It's all American animation shorthand and platitudes. It's like it's trying to race through the past 25 years of X-Men stories from the comics as fast as they possibly can, like they need to get through them all or they're doing something wrong.  What has made the X-Men such a popular entity for 60-ish years isn't the action, but the characters and their evolution as a result of the drama and the melodrama. I'm not sure this show captures that effectively.

META: As I said, I really couldn't stand the old cartoon. Lady Kent and I, for a lark, watched a random selection of episodes of the series one evening, and after maybe five or six episodes, around two hours worth, we tapped out. What we liked the most were the episodes that didn't really feature the X-Men at all, the ones where the story detours into a different era and focuses on characters other than the main ones.  The main cast of this series, to me, are an utter drag.  I find Cyclops, Jean and Xavier to be insufferable characters, and I roll my eyes at almost every spoken line of dialogue they have. 

The vocal performances are, somewhat, stuck with what came before by and large, and I always disliked the voice work on the old show. Comparing the voice work of X-Men to the Bruce Timm animated DC series (Batman, Superman, Justice League, Batman Beyond) is like comparing pop music to elevator music. Both are made by skilled professionals, but one has a power the other just does not. One had Andrea Romano as casting director, and the other did not. The voice work here is not terrible, but it's not great either.

Is this better than the old X-Men series? Absolutely. But did I enjoy watching it...? I found it to be a curiosity. I turned in week to week to puzzle over the decisions made and the many, many, many opportunities lost for dramatic interest. Yes, the action is pretty wild (and so fast-paced!), but I found myself yelling at the TV far more often than clapping with excitement or joy.  A hearty "not for me".

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Extraordinary Seasons 1 & 2 (8 episodes each)

The What 100: It seems everyone in London (and maybe on the planet) was granted superpowers...well, almost. Jen is one of the few who either does not have a power, or it has not revealed itself. She is roommates with her best friend, Carrie who can channel dead people (including Jen's father), and Carrie's boyfriend Kash who can turn back time a brief amount. Demure Carrie is trying to establish some authority in her life, while unemployed Kash wants to start a superhero team. Then they take in a stray cat, whom, for reasons, they dub Jizzlord, who turns out to be an amnesiac shapeshifter.  Season 2 delves into Jizzlord's past, Kash and Carrie (ha!) start new lives, and Jen goes to therapy.

(1 Great) In a time of superhero fatigue, something like Extraordinary comes along to remind you of the pliability of superpowers as a storytelling vehicle. Not being beholden to any specific property, or shared universe, or expectations allows the show to just do what it will. And what it does is character-based comedy with a few very sharp bits of personal and interpersonal drama. But there's also the sly bit of world building that circles it, that shows all the weird side hustles that people set up using their powers, and the way that some other jobs, and dating, and relationships with friends and family and whatnot change as a result. It's a show that's not afraid of being foul or gross but also has a pretty deep heart as well.  So, what's great is this show. Not perfect, but greatly enjoyable.

(1 Good) I really like all the performers on here, most of whom I'm unfamiliar with (though Jen's mom is played by Derry Girls' Siobhan McSweeney, and her dad is voiced by Father Ted's Ardal O'Hanlon) but it should be Carrie performer Sofia Oxenham who gets the first spotlight. The character of Carrie is so mousy, reserved and unassuming that it's easy to dismiss Oxenham's performance, but when she channels the dead, often a very specific person for a legal case at her law firm, her whole mannerisms change to the nature of the character, and it is transformative. It's not showy at all which is what makes it so effective. The first big spotlight is a Halloween episode where she channels a 1950's cinema sexpot who then completely takes over Carrie's body, but there's usually a new example each episode.

(1 Bad) I honestly have no complaints about the show. They even get most uses of superpowers right (at least right enough for a comedy program). I guess if anything I just want more of it. Two seasons of 8 episodes each was just too easy to consume.

META: There's so much to like about this show, but it does character development very well. There is definite growth to every main character of the show from the first episode to the end of the second season. The story arcs are pretty fun and they're more full-bodied in the second season. Jizzlord's ____ entering the picture leads to a lot of wild sitcom moments, while Jen's therapy visits in the second season are conceptually very stimulating.  Jen is a difficult person, which can be off-putting to some when starting the but it is a series that's endeavouring to show her potential to be better, while still letting her darker nature get the better of her for comedic effect.

Each season also ends with a pretty ripping cliffhanger. The first season was easy enough to deal with as we already had the second season on tap. The second season, though, is a big "woah" and we're going to have to wait for...whenever it is a new season is coming (not likely until next year, boo).

Also, I love to just say Jizzlord in Máiréad Tyers's Irish accent, just at random for no reason... "jizz-lahrdh".

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Star Wars: The Bad Batch Season 3 (15 episodes) 

The What 100: Omega has been captured by the Imperials, in the same protected facility as Crosshair. Together they escape, but now she is perhaps the most hunted person in the Galaxy and nowhere is safe. Crosshair and his Batch 99 brothers have an uneasy reunion, and reestablishing trust proves hard. The team's objective is to keep Omega safe, but Omega insists that they find the uncharted planet of Tantiss and go back to the facility to rescue all the other imprisoned clones and force sensitive children that are there.

(1 Great) I have to say that the coda of The Bad Batch season 3, episode 15, was maybe my favourite moment of the series. It's not just that it takes a jump forward in time to show a few of our surviving characters where they are when the Rebellion against the Empire is in full swing, but it let me know that I really care about these characters, and really wanted to know what happens to them in the Star Wars time line going forward and what role they may have played in, or around future events than depicted elsewhere in the series.  I think the path for the 99 crew did run its course, those soldiers deserve their rest, but Omega has become such a unique, creatively cunning and talented character that she should definitely have a place retrofitted for her in later Star Wars adventures.

(1 Good) I think Star Wars, in the wake of Marvel's success, fell a bit to hard into the self-referential, shared-universe side, and in the process many of its stories and series lost site of the trees that make up the forest. The first season of The Bad Batch maybe traded a bit too much on being a Clone Wars spinoff, but certainly this, it's third and final season, it found its lane where it really had a story to tell and an objective it wanted its characters to achieve.  Even with a cameo from Governor Tarkin or Assajj Ventress, they're not overshadowing the overall story or character journey, but flow into them and help them progress.  Even if the backdrop of this show was around cloning and potentially tying into the stories of The Mandalorian  or even The Rise of Skywalker it never got specific about it, it never fully tied those threads together, because it wasn't what it was ultimately for. 

(1 Bad) This was the tightest scripted season of The Bad Batch, much like how Star Wars: Rebels got increasingly tighter as it progressed through its four seasons. If anything I think this season is the tightest of any of the Star Wars animated series so far, which just makes me wonder why the prior seasons needed to be so much looser, why Filoni has this strong desire for so much table setting that's as much navel gazing as it is establishing characters or environments.  So, the "bad" is not really about this season, but what it reveals about prior seasons and Dave Filoni's show construction in general.

META: There needs to be a Rebels prequel movie that doubles as a Bad Batch crossover

Why is the Bad Batch action figure situation such a shit show? Hunter and Crosshair were the first Bad Batch figures released in The Black Series back in the early pandemic times, in a wave that was short shipped due to such disruptions. I eventually got a Hunter (thanks to GZ for finding it for me at an American convention) and I had to settle for Crosshair in his second release Imperial costume. Then the other Bad Batch lads (and Omega) were seemingly everywhere, easy enough to get. But then newly designed costumes for season 2 came out only as Wal-Mart exclusives except Omega who was available everywhere. The hell was that all about?

And with the Vintage Collection, they released a Hunter figure last year...and that's it. It's baffling to this toy nerd how they decide these things.

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Star Wars: Tales of the Empire (6 episodes) 

The What 100: Star Wars: Ahsoka villain Morgan Elsbeth gets an origin story set during the Clone Wars when the Night Sisters were massacred. Then Morgan finds herself tested by Admiral Thrawn, before landing in place where we found her in The Mandalorian Season 2. Plus, former Jedi turned rogue assassin turned convict, Barriss Offee is recruited to the fledgling Inquisitorus, where she has to fight to the death other disillusioned Jedi to earn her place. But she finds the job she is tasked with well beyond what was called for, and seeks her own form of redemption.

(1 Great) I know not everyone has been as hot on the Inquisitors as I have (as many as stuck on the idea that Vader himself tracked down every remaining Jedi or force sensitive creature and killed them), but I've been a fan ever since they debuted in Rebels. I've been trying to track who all the Inquisitors are (as I know there are at least 14 brothers and sisters) and this Barriss Offee tale just provides more insight into them and their culture, but, like Reva in Obi-Wan Kenobi doesn't necessarily mean they are all completely Dark Side force users, and many have their own motivations. I can't say I was itching to find out what had happened to Barriss after the events of Season 5 of the Clone Wars, but I really, really, really like her journey here. In fact, I think Episode 6 of this series (the third in Barriss' arc) is an incredible piece of Star Wars storytelling, right up there with some of the best animated stories Filoni has produced. Kevin Kiner (with Sean and Deana Kiner), of course, doing stellar work as always.

(1 Good) I like this Tales of the... "series" as a construct. Tales of the Jedi came out in 2022, highlighting Ahsoka and Dooku but was less structured than this. Here it's taking a smaller-exposure character and using three quick (less than 15 minutes each) episodes to step them through their journey from either what happened after we last saw them, or what their journey was before we found them.  It works so well, an improvement upon Tales of the Jedi for sure.

(1 Bad) Because of timelines, Tales of the Jedi felt more disconnected, where Tales of the Sith seems more closely tied to The Clone Wars and The Mandalorian (and Rebels), but it just highlighted that these Tales of the... stories so far have mainly been playing in the Filoni-verse of Star Wars characters (Dooku being the only character to begin life as a live action). I would like to see Original Trilogy and Sequel characters get the treatment.

META: Why is this only 6 episodes covering these two characters? Why not 12 episodes covering four characters, or 18 episodes covering six characters? I would love that they do this with...well, any character of any significance. Give us a Lobot story or a 4-LOM story or a Balen Skol story or a Pelli Moto story or a Holdo story, or. or. or.... It's enough for these tertiary characters to just give them a little spotlight like this, ones that can both help with character building and galaxy building.

ReWatch: Suicide Squad

2016, David Ayer (Fury) -- Netflix

Apparently I didn't dislike this, as much as I recalled, the first time round. And in this post-Snyderverse world, I actually have very few issues with it. But, this is also the This Guy universe and he is much more forgiving of stuff.

So, yeah, it does work so much better in the post-Snyderverse world. What exactly do I mean by that?  First, let's define The Snyderverse; my definition. It was the incarnation of DC Cinematic Universe that began with Zach Snyder's Man of Steel, completely ignoring what Zach Snyder considers the Snyderverse himself, i.e. only his three movies. So, any of the movies that spun off this Superman movie are included, with some debatable films. So, the Justice League movies are there, for sure, and Wonder Woman but the Shazam! movies are questionable. THIS movie hinges entirely on the Death of Superman and the rise of metahumans becoming an issue in the future, so I would include it. And, as Amanda Waller's prediction pretty much proves true (a Superman goes bad), she is lucky her worries are contained by the rest of the Justice League taking care of a Big Angry Superman.

That said, it kind of bugs me that nobody even peripherally involved in the other movies shows up in this one, when a Big Evil Witch almost destroys an entire city, slaughtering many of its inhabitants. All that is left are the Suicide Squad that Waller sends in? I get that Batman is probably containing his rage to Gotham, but what about Wonder Woman? Or Cyborg? And if there is a long list of second string villains, there must have been at least a few second string heroes hanging around? If not metahuman, at least ultra-skilled humans like Deadshot (Will Smith, I Am Legend) and Boomerang (Jai Courtney, I, Frankenstein) are depicted as? Maybe if it had gone on for a few more days, someone else, someone more heroic would have arrived?

Furthermore, in this post-Snyderverse world, I am less annoyed by the emergence of a villain teamup as I was when I first saw the movie. That dislike is probably what I recall having for the movie as a whole, but that was mostly pre-judging it before actually seeing it. I no longer have any skin in the game as for what they will do nor any displaced hate-on for the chosen Cinematic Universe's tropes.

Re-reading my original post, this elicits a chuckle:

"In fact, that is exactly what I was expecting them to do, to have a fun run with a stand-alone movie with only some tenuous connections to the coming movies. Alas, no."

Of course, we do get the stand-alone movie, removed from the continuity of anything Snyderverse, and as a movie about super-villains sent to their death, it is nigh perfection. You would think that the Gunn movie would make me dislike this movie, in comparison, but no, I still kind of liked it. In fact, I almost wish that we could have received an untampered version, let's call it a Ayerverse copy, and seen how these followup movies would have gone. I think it would have made for a much more interesting DC Cinematic Universe than we eventually got.

Favourite bit? The emergence of a godlike being from Diablo (Jay Hernandez, Magnum PI), giving him more weight than just being a pyrokinetic with rage issues. 

And again, I still like this version of Joker (Jared Leto, Morbin' Time) for all the reasons the purists (Kent included) do not. I don't need the classic be-suited Joker, and if you are going for dark & gritty, a sleazoid, drug dealing, violent psychopath with cartel tattoos works well for me. And I believe this was also the first appearance of Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie, Babylon) in this definitely-not-the-animated-series look & feel? IIRC it was an adaptation of the more sexified version of her in the the Injustice: Gods Among Us video game. Whichever, they work for me.

All in all, still enjoyed it, but still disappointed it was not more.

Dune, Part Two

2024, d. Denis Villeneuve - In Theatre

[toasty's review]

I felt like a loose beige scarf, flapping in a desert sandstorm while watching Dune, Part 2. I was not lost, as I was securely draped around someone's neck who was still forging ahead through the swirling grit with purpose, but I was ready to go where the wind was trying to takes me yet feeling the tug of resistance to stay in place.

I have a love for David Lynch's Dune, a brilliantly messy, often impenetrable film that looks like the product of a brainstorming lunch between H.R. Geiger and David Cronenberg. There's nothing like it. But I've never read Frank Herbert's novel, so the only think I have to compare Villeneuve's Dune(s) to is the Lynch movie. 

Most of Lynch's Dune is covered by Part 1 and the remaining final act of Lynch's version, I learned after watching Part 2 and having a detailed discussion with Toasty about his recollection of the novels, was largely constructs of Lynch, and not Herbert.

So I sat through Part 2 waiting for some iconic moments (to me at least) of the Lynch film that would never arrive because they were not from the source. Thus, pretty much of all Part 2 was surprising.

I'm so used to the idea of sequels picking up with time passing in universe (especially when years of real time has passed in between releases) that it's always a shock to me when the sequel picks up immediately where we left off, no recap or nothin. We don't have time to backtrack.

Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet) is creating a stir among the Fremen. There are those who believe he is the Kwisatz Haderach, a prophecy that the Bene Gesserit witches have been seeding for centuries as part of their religion, and have been trying to make literal in this current age in a push for more power. But there are also Fremen who think him just an outsider and should be left to waste in the desert. Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson), meanwhile, takes over for the ailing Reverend Mother of the Fremen, and has a powerful spice-augment witch gestating in her belly whom she already communes with.

The Bene Gesserit who have the ear of the Emperor (Christopher Walken) are uneasy with the Atreides' possible rise to power, have contingency plans for the Kwisatz Haderach with Fayd-Rautha of the house Harkonnen (Austin Butler), as cunning as he is sadistic. The Emperor already put the Atreides down because they were rising too high, and now things only seem to be getting worse.

But what Paul wants is not "destiny" or "power", he wants Chani (Zendaya), the girl he's been dreaming (/having future visions) about for years. She's reluctant at first, but does start to develop feelings for Paul, but is also very uncomfortable with all the prophetic worship he receives. With good reason.

At it's heart, these two pieces of one text are about whether destiny means that you have no control about where you wind up. It's about power, how to accept it, and how to use it wisely...and it's a warning about the corrupting influence of it. Where the first film was highlighting political intrigue, Part 2 plays with religious intrigue, and to be clear, it doesn't denote a whole heck of a lot of difference between them.

The acting in this is all pretty great, with one exception. Many people complain that Walken is "too Walken" and they can't separate Walken the pop-culture icon from the role. I had no such trouble. Cast the glance aside, though, and one of my favourite actor among the Millennials, Florence Pugh, has moments in her performance that made me wince. She's only in a couple scenes and I suspect the casting is largely in preparation for the next movie. If she spent more than a week on set I'd be surprised, so maybe she's not so heavily invested. I have to wonder if she was a late addition. Butler is the scene stealer, here, simultaneously repulsive and alluring. You hate him, but you can't look away from him.

Toasty said that he wasn't sure how Chalamet would pull off getting into the leadership role, as he seems so low key as a person, but time and again in these films he proves himself. Just as Paul has to prove himself to the Fremen, Timothee has to prove himself to the audience, and both are very big wins.  Unlike Toasty, I though Zendaya was remarkable. I think her whole deal is that even as she's falling in love with Paul, she's still wary of him, and though I haven't read the book, from what I hear it's in how this relationship plays out that is the biggest change. Just as Paul had visions of Chani coming into his life, and he was in love with her before he even met her, it's almost like she had visions of outsider bringing absolute ruin to everything she loves and holds dear. Her heart and brain are in conflict and Zendaya sells that throughout.  She never goes "soft" emotionally, she's always guarded, she's a warrior, so she not going to let her emotions get the better of her.

I'm talking a lot about themes, plot, and acting, which is testament to how involving a story its, and how well performed it is that I'm really not talking about the visuals, which are, as with the last film, epic. The visual tone of this film is daringly monochromatic. The only real colour seems to be the blue of the Fremen eyes, where everything else is browns and greys, blacks and tans. But it's richly realized and gorgeous. Everything fits, from wardrobe to makeup, sets and effects, creature design and sound design.

If there's a weak point, and even that is subjective, it's Hanz Zimmer's score. The chanting seemed...overused, and began to irritate me (if only because it was reminding me of the Snyder Cut of Justice League, bleh).

I rewatched Part 1 the morning before our afternoon screening, and as I mentioned in our review (yes, Toasty and I did a joint review which for a few glorious weeks in 2011 was going to be the whole deal blog) I didn't outright love it upon first watch. I did suspect, however, that "when it's completed with its second half, it will be even better.... probably amazing." and I have to say, that prediction bore true. I loved it pretty fully on rewatch and it had me so psyched for Part 2.

But with Part 2, I once again felt like I did when I came out of Part 1, that I didn't love it, but once it is more of a complete story with Dune: Messiah, as promised by Villeneuve, I will feel much more strongly about it.

KWIF: Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (+2)

 KWIF = Kent's Week In Film. A real mixed bag.

This Week:
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023, d. James Wan, in theatre)
American Fiction (2023, d. Cord Jefferson, in theatre)
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (2023, d. Kelly Fremon Craig, Crave)

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The meta-narratives around the Aquaman sequel are plenty. Most revolve around the dissolution of the DC Expanded Universe (nee, the Snyderverse), and others circle bad faith narratives revolving around Amber Heard, stemming from the most toxic of online actors (and if you're one of said toxic personas who has embraced the word "toxic" as a descriptor, please, by all means, paint yourself with that radioactive brush as much as possible so that we can see your sickly glow coming miles off and know to just avoid you).

But I don't really want to rehash all of that, because this film doesn't seem particularly interested or concerned about the meta-reality of its existence.  This film wants little more than to be the sequel to Aquaman, which you may or may not recall, grossed over one billion dollars at the box office, which was substantially more than any Superman, Wonder Woman, or Justice League film managed to do before it. 

I was more impressed by Aquaman than actually liking Aquaman when I first watched, but a rewatch or two since, I've really grown fond of it's tonally schizophrenic nature, and it's you've-never-seen-this-before bonkers ambition.  In some respects, "...Lost Kingdom" reaches for the same thing, and, in some respects, succeeds.  But not always.

It's unfortunate then that the film starts with a tedious and aggressively annoying "catch-up" montage of Aquaman explaining everything that's been going on in his life since we last saw him, all while "Born To Be Wild", one of the most cliche needledrops in history, plays over the proceedings. Aquaman talks to fishes. He beats up pirates. Aquaman got married. He is king of Atlantis. Being king is hard and it sucks. Aquaman had a baby. The baby likes to pee on his face. You know, the usual opening montage where superheroes get piss in their mouths....

The he-bro energy that Momoa brings to the role is what held me back from liking the first movie the first time around, and it's working twice as hard at getting in your face here. It's like the character, rather than growing out of ridiculous, juvenile behaviour as sovereign of the seven seas, has doubled down on it. It's unfortunate that it's the title character of the film that I can least tolerate. 

The story finds two pairs of odd-couple team ups. First there's Black Manta (Yahya Abdul Mateen II) and nebbish Dr. Stephen Shen (Randall Park) who are venturing in dark corners of the world looking for Atlantis and its powers, only to find something really dark and powerful, leading to accelerating earth's climate crisis (the very same crisis that the Atlanteans are willing to go to war with the surface world over, rather than expose themselves and try to collaborate on a solution). Then there's Aquaman and his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) learning to be brothers, amend their differences, and stop Black Manta's evil plot.  It's basically a buddy road-trip movie, writ large.

Mateen's Black Manta basically is possessed by the Lost Kingdom's ruler, and he's acting irrationally in his quest for vengeance against Aquaman, and it's up to Dr. Shen to be both the comic relief and voice of reason. Park seems to be having fun in the role. Mateen has presence, but seems trapped by the plot which doesn't really allow his character to have much depth.

Heard's Mera, Nicole Kidman's Atlanna (can we get a character named Toronno?), Dolph Lundgren's Nereus, John Rhys-Davies' the Brine King, and Temeura Morrison's Thomas Curry all are in the film but in the type of supporting roles that signifies the creatives wanted continuity with the prior film, but doesn't have much more for them to do beyond fight sequences and occasional japes.

It's really Wilson's Ocean Master that brings the film to life, and clearly what Wan intended with his muse (Wilson is an integral part three of Wan's four major franchises). Just like Aquaman and Mera had a globe-spanning adventure in the first film, Aquaman and Orm have a not-too-dissimilar adventure here. It feels like the classic 80's sequel trope of doing-it-all-again, the-same-but-different. 

The imagination, creativity, scale and design is all still on the screen, and boy did I delight in the ships and seadragons, and Cephalopod sidekicks, and big James Bondian-style villains lair, and henchmen and jailbreaks and anything but cliched superhero action out of this. Putting Mera and Atlanna and others sort of on the sideline did provide the film the ability to put the focus on its four leads.

It's 2 hours and 4 minutes long, which by superhero movie standards of the past decade, is on the shorter end of the spectrum. It feels like the opening act was rushed, yet still feels like it could have been further clipped. Same with the post script where Aquaman has to give a big rousing speech, which I barely buy into to begin with, and then he caps off with a big howl and devil fingers like he's leaving the ring at a WWE event.

On the one hand I wish Wan could do a third one of these, because I think there's something's utterly unique and wild about these pictures, but I also don't think I really want more of Momoa in the role. It never was a great fit.

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I never intended to watch so many films up for Oscar contention. I was, instead, more gravitating towards the films that seemed to be prevalent on "best of 2023" lists I came across. That there's a heavy cross-over between those lists and The Oscars this year signifies, possibly, that the Academy may have gotten past it's "Oscar bait" drive. But I guess there's still Nyad, which tells you that Oscar nominations can still be bought and paid for.

American Fiction is up for best picture, best adapted screenplay, best music, best lead actor, and best supporting actor. It's been a year where the roles of women had stood out immensely more than the men, and I had a list of favourite actresses, most of who got nominated. Of the men, I couldn't even think of a list... but Wright and Brown are so intrinsically watchable on screen, so good as to seem effortless generally, I understood their nomination before I even watched the film.  After watching, both nods are well earned. (Plus, Wright has been one of my favourite on-screen presences for over 20 years, he's due for the recognition). I wish there was more Tracee Ellis Ross though.  

Best Screenplay also makes sense, as I quite loved American Fiction's mix of satire and family dramedy, which deftly juggled both in presenting the story of Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (Wright), an erudite author and professor whose sense of the world seems to be crumbling around him.  Put on leave of absence, and unable to get a book published, he returns to visit the family he keeps at a distance, while also writes a novel full of trashy Black stereotypes as an exercise in parody but it immediately sells. As it becomes a sensation, spiralling wildly out of his control, he struggles with what it all means across many contexts, and it wrecks him.

Monk's wrestling with identity and race, shaped off the back of his upbringing is a pretty complex one that the film scratches at enough to draw blood. It's a character study, not a universal statement of Black existence (which doubles as one of the theses of the film), and Monk actually learns a lesson or three which seems to be a result of age and the well-masked trauma of facing his own mortality and thinking about his legacy.

There is so much to glean directly on the surface, but there's so much underneath as well. Where some may love the literary lampooning, others may gravitate towards the wry familial connections. To me, both are an integral part of this portrait of Monk in his mid-to-late 50's still coming to terms with who he is and who he should be, to himself, to his family, to the Black community, to the literary world, and to the culture at large. It's a lot for anyone to process.

Minor spoiler warning. The film's post-script is freaking hilarious, but it completely dodges the James Frey-esque fallout that you would think would happen given that it has actually happened. Of course Monk is a genius and could probably spin his deception right back onto his audience and have them buying into his experiment even further. But the film missed the opportunity for him to showcase his genius and really mess with the elistst crowd.

I enjoyed this film immensely.

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This cinematic adaptation of Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret is a coming-of-age period drama, both in the sense that it takes place in the 1970's and that it's framed around Margaret's desperate desire for her first period to come while other traumas in her life occur. Young Abby Rider Fortson (the original Cassie from the Ant-Man series) is a talented young performer, as were most of the young cast. Rachel McAdams is great as a mom trying to hold together her own ideals of what a mom should be (given that she rebelled against her own parents), and Kathy Bates made me wish she were my grandma.

Her family relocates from New York City (away from Grandma, her best friend) to New Jersey, where she is immediately friended by her neighbour, Nancy, who's best described as the prototype for Cher from Clueless or Regina from Mean Girls. As Margaret tries to fall in step with Nancy and her gang (all who cannot stop talking about getting their periods and becoming women) she starts to desperately wish for hers. At the same time, she starts questioning her faith, as the daughter of a lapsed Catholic mother and Jewish father. Her mother's estrangement from her family also comes into play, as does a bit of boy trouble, and reckoning with being part of the mean girl crowd and the other girls she's bullied.

As a father of a non-binary child with ADHD and GAD who was the same age as Margaret at the tail end of COVID lockdowns and in the internet age where every child has a half-dozen screens at their disposal, I found AYTG?IM,M to be adorably cute and simplistic, and wished that my child could have such basic concerns as Margaret instead of the 2+ year coming-of-age shitstorm they had to wade through.  I suppose that young, cis het, neuro-typical girls may still find something very relatable in this for-its-time revolutionary young-adult fiction, but it feels like like an ancient artifact to me. Beyond that, it's a very well told, charming picture for what it is, and yeah, I enjoyed the 70's decor, wardrobes, vehicles and everything else quite a bit.