This is an honest, spoiler-free review coming from your average fan (not a critic):
I just saw this new marvel film, and I have to say... it's no where near as bad as the critics make it out to be.
Yes there is a lot of dialogue. But it gives the characters a chance to shine and for scenes to breathe.
People call this film dense. I would disagree. Yes there is a fair bit of plot and history told, however I would say that other mcu films have simply much simpler plotlines most of the time.
There are moments when things are just about to become exciting, and then it is interrupted with more dialogue which instantly kills the suspension.
There are a number of plot twists in this film, and some unexpected things happen that I wouldn't have seen coming.
This film has a slow burn, but sometimes that's a good thing. Would I have liked more action? Yes. Was I unhappy with the action we do get? No.
I will admit, going into this film I was expecting a masterpiece, and while I wouldn't quite call it that, its definitely a well-made film, marvel or not.
Oh. And expect to have to do some reading at the very beginning. Kinda reminds me of a classic Star Wars opening crawl.
Bloodsport: “Nobody likes a showoff.”
Peacemaker: “Unless what they showing off is dope as fuck.”
James Gunn recently said in an interview that he finds superhero movies “mostly boring” right now. Anything ranging from safe and boring or technically well-made but disposable, at best. Gunn received at bit of heat from fans for those remarks, but in some sense, he’s not wrong. Because sometimes following the same formula will eventually wear fin and more risk taking needs to happen.
And here we have ‘The Suicide Squad’, the soft reboot to the 2016 film, but this time directed by Gunn himself, where he delivers a highly entertaining movie that is bursting with creativity and ultra-violence. James Gunn once again shakes up the superhero formula with a slick style. I’m just glad DC is finally letting directors have a voice and a vision, and I hope it stays like that.
The first 10-15 minutes tells you exactly what the movie is going to be.
I just can't believe we got something like this. It's 2 hours and 12 minutes long, but it's always on the move. It’s bonkers from start till finish, and I enjoyed every minute of it. This is probably one of the best shot movies in the DCU. The soundtrack is great as well and used effectively. The action scenes were insane and made the overall experience one of the most fun I had at the cinema in a long time.
A massive improvement over the 2016 film, AKA ‘the studio cut’, is that the movie doesn’t look ugly and isn’t chopped together by trailer editors. The movie is vibrant in colours that made it look pleasing to the eye. The structure at times is messy, and yet strangely well-paced, as there’s a lot going on.
Did I mention the movie is very gory? It’s cartoonish violence, or what people call "adult superhero movie", so it's not for kiddies or for the faint of heart. You would probably guess that not everybody on the team is going to make it to the end credits, so deaths are to be expected, but how certain characters “bite the dust” are so unexpectedly gruesome and brutal, it took me by surprise each time. The marketing for the movie was right, don’t get too attached. As I said before, James Gunn had complete creative control over the movie, and he doesn’t hold back on what he wrote and show on screen. But then again, it's a movie, it's not real, the actors who die on screen are fine in real life...I think.
All the cast members have equal amount of time to shine, and you like these super villains this time around, as each character had wonderful chemistry with each other. John Cena plays Peacemaker, who can be best described as a “douchebag version of Captain America”. An extreme patriot who will do the most horrific things for liberty. John Cena excels in the deadpan line delivery for comedic effect, but surprisingly enough, worked well in the serious moments. Looking forward to the spin-off show ‘Peacemaker’.
Margot Robbie once again nails the role of the chaotic but gleeful Harley Quinn. While the character isn’t front and centre this time around, more of a side character, but whenever the character is on screen, it’s instantly memorable.
Idris Elba plays Bloodsport, a contract killer who’s doing time in prison after failing to kill Superman with a kryptonite bullet, while also dealing with family issues, especially with his daughter. While the character may sound like Will Smith’s Deadshot from the 2016 film, but trust me, the execution here is much stronger. This is by far Elba’s best work in a while. Charismatic and a strong leading presence.
Polka Dot Man, played by character actor David Dastmalchian, a socially awkward, weird, and lame sounding character that has some serious mummy issues, which has a funny running visual gag throughout. However, because of Gunn’s writing and Dastmalchian's performance, the character is more than a joke, but a unique character to watch.
Ratcatcher 2, played wonderfully by Daniela Melchior, who brought so much warmth and heart to the film. I loved how they tied in her tragic backstory into the finale, as it honestly made me cry. And let’s not forget the king himself, King Shark, voiced by Sylvester Stallone. He stole every scene he’s in, because he’s so adorable and has such kind eyes, but when he’s hungry, he can be a killing machine.
The rest of the supporting cast, even in the smaller roles, still manage to stand out amidst all the chaos. I liked Joel Kinnaman as Rick Flag a lot more this time around, because the actor was given more to work with in terms of good material. Viola Davis is brilliant as the cold and ruthless Amanda Waller. And Peter Capaldi is always a pleasure to see. Also, I like the character of Weasel, who I can describe as a unholy offspring of Shin Godzilla and Rocket Racoon. He may not be beautiful to look at, but he's beautiful to me.
Like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, the movie has a lot of heart and I like how they took certain characters, who on page sound stupid and ridiculous but are handled with such love and depth, while also being self-aware of its own characterization.
You can literally watch this as a standalone movie and you won’t be lost or confused, as you don’t need to watch 22 other movies to understand it. This is by far the strongest entry in this jumbled mess of a cinematic universe.
Overall rating: Nom-nom!
Ahhhhhh i’m so happy they are not shying away from the tough conversations on what it means to be Captain America in this decade. I love symbolism in storytelling and there’s no stronger symbol than that shield, and the way they have used it as a vehicle and representative of the different American identities (good and (really) bad) has been incredible.
Steve Rogers, John Walker, Sam Wilson and Isaiah Bradley all represent sides of the US that co-exist, and John Walker being the effective Captain America for most of this show isn’t accidental - he’s the side of America that’s most present and salient right now (in the world off the screen), but ending the show with Sam Wilson carrying that shield - and going through all the issues that that might bring up - is as powerful a message as any - one of hope and of what the US should aspire to be. Steve Rogers is no longer enough, Steve Rogers is the American Dream - Isaiah Bradley the American Reality - and Sam Wilson is both. This show, and all of Captain America’s storyline, is about so much more than just men in spandex and they’ve done a fantastic job taking it even further here. Glad Marvel is still delivering after so many years, makes me proud to be a fan!
I don't get nearly as excited about the MCU as I used to (mostly because they're churning out movies and TV shows at a rate that I just can't keep up with), but I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Definitely worth watching.
Some loose thoughts/things I enjoyed below (spoilers are marked):
- the story is good, the 2nd act is kind of slow, but it picks up towards the end
- the fight scenes are super cool and creative (especially the one on the bus and the one on the scaffolding)
- I liked the way they utilized the rings in fights, it felt really fresh and like something we haven't seen before
- the final battle is actually awesome (monkey brain loves big monsters and explosions)
- the cast is excellent (I'm particularly thrilled to see Awkwafina getting more recognition)
- the soundtrack is beautiful and I love the way they used traditional Chinese melodies
- badass women all around (Michelle Yeoh my beloved)
- impeccable CGI
- some gorgeous scenery
- MORRIS
- loved the callback to the Mandarin mess from Iron Man 3
- Brie Larson cameo (I know the fandom has collectively decided to hate her, but I don't care, that was a treat for me and me only)
- Xialing effectively utilizing girl power by taking over her father's crime empire (I feel like there was definitely some comic book reference flying over my head there but who cares). My friend and I joked that she'll be getting a Disney+ series shortly
Overall, it was a treat. Strongly recommend.
I can see why Marvel wanted to start with this show rather then WandaVision. I liked Wandavision, but this show felt more like the movies and had more of a direct relationship with them. It dealt more with "the blip" and seems like a more natural beginning of phase 4. Episodes of this length and substance are also more rewarding to watch week to week then the short run time of the wandavision episodes, especially given you had no clue what was going on until a few weeks in.
The opening action sequence was great, they made a good choice starting this story with Falcon and moving to Buckie mid way in. It was great learning a little more about Falcon being that they've really shed very little light on his story at all in the movies other than his loyalty to Steve. We know more about Bucky, so the focus here was correct. I like that these shows add more substance to the characters then the movies can fit in, it was sad watching Bucky come to terms with the damage he caused, but something his character needed since he was really only used for action scenes since the winter soldier all those years ago.
Very solid start for this show, I can't wait to see more but also felt satisfied with what I got which is something I struggled to feel with the short and mostly irrelevant WandaVision episodes.
And then the ending comes where everyone let out a collective "oh hell nah."
[7.8/10] “Previously On” is the sort of episode that answers the questions fans have been asking from the beginning. Who caused the hex? (Wanda) What made her do it? (Cumulative trauma) Who’s controlling it? (Sort of Wanda, sort of not.) What’s the deal with Pietro? (Total fake). What about Vision? (Wanda recreated him.) What’s Agnes’s angle here? (A witch trying to attain more power a probably drain Wanda the same way she drained the rest of her coven.)
For a lesser show, these could be mechanical answers to mechanical questions. Instead, this episode answers those technical points while also getting at the why of all this. It confirms, once and for all, that WandaVision is a story about the slow accumulation of trauma, and the ways the shiny sitcom worlds on the television screens are an escape from it.
Agnes (or Agatha, depending on your preference), plays Ghost of Xmas Past with Wanda, forcing Wanda to guide her through major events of her history in an effort to uncover how she became this powerful. Rather than centering on incantations or magical artifacts (give or take an Infinity Stone), it hinges on the moments of both comfort and loss in Wanda’s life.
It’s a strong conceit, giving Elizabeth Olsen plenty of notes to play across the years and showing how Wanda has lost so much of the year. We start with a scene of serene domestic bliss, or what passes for it in a war-torn Eastern Bloc country, with Wanda and Pietro as children with their parents. Suddenly a bomb disrupts the peace of “TV night”, destroying the young kids’ lives amid a moment of happiness and depicting events described in Age of Ultron. \
That sets a pattern for these things, where each moment involves how Wanda copes with such losses. We see her becoming a freedom fighter (or terrorist, depending on your vantage point), out of an attempt to avenge her parents in a way. It leads her to connect with the mind stone (something that, alongside a shadowy figure, will no doubt be explored in more depth later). The experience heightened her powers, but was also a source of further trauma, of being experimented on and treated as disposable.
(Just my crazy theory: [spoiler]I predict that the shadowy figure Wanda saw in the Mind Stone will be Wanda herself, from the future, creating a stable time loop and deciding to set these events into motion, even knowing the hardships of where they lead, because it’s a way to let love persevere.[/spoilers].)
But then we get the best scene in the whole episode, where we jump to Wanda still grieving her brother’s loss, another unfathomable trauma, only to get some unexpected comfort from Vision. The writing and acting here is magnificent. The imagery of Wanda talking about grief as a series of waves, continually hitting her every time she tries to stand, is haunting and effective. But Vision’s retort, of not knowing what loss is given his origins, but appreciating the notion that it is love persevering, is just as beautiful a counterpoint. You can see the way the two of them are connected not just through the mind stone, but through their unique experiences of grappling with the human condition from opposite sides, of learning how to move forward together. The chemistry, easy rapport, and connection between them in those moments is off the charts.
It’s a minor miracle. Having lost everyone close to her, Wanda forges a connection with someone else, someone who helps fill that space. Only then, he’s taken from her too. The final flashback we see is Wanda barging into Sword and seeing Vision being torn apart. We see the man she expected to be waiting for her when she was un-blipped lying in pieces before her. She reaches down and can no longer feel her, the last thread of that connection severed.
It’s enough to send anyone sprialing. We witness the mechanics of what happens next -- a grief-stricken Wanda coming to Westview, uncovering what was meant to be the place where the rest of their lives together began, the ghost of a new chapter of domestic bliss that she was once again robbed of by chaotic forces.
So she snaps. She explodes in her grief, for her parents, for her brother, and for her love, each ripped away from her in the times she most needed comfort, most thought she could be safe and happy like those people on the television screens.
That’s the most piercing thread of “Previously On.” At each stage, Wanda watches these sitcoms as a form of relief, of escape, to have a glimpse of the life denied her by circumstance and tragedy. She’s watching The Dick Van Dyke Show and seeing a happy couple when her parents are killed. She’s watching The Brady Bunch and a couple of friendly but needling siblings when she and her brother are treated like lab rats. She sees the comical violence of Malcolm in the Middle where the father figure can endure large scale mishaps but come out unscathed because “it’s not that kind of show.”
The import is clear. The allure of these stories, this pristine or even hardscrabble sitcom worlds, is that even when the edges are rougher, tragedies rarely happen. Happy families get to persist, to flourish. They get to happen at all. It’s a world where the worst losses of the world are kept outside of the frame, made digestible and easily resolved, one half hour at a time. It is, a world where she can have the life that she dreamed of as a little girl, the life she and Vision imagined for themselves, back.
Who wouldn’t want to bury themselves in that world at a time when the universe has taken pound of flesh after pound of flesh from your body? Look, we’re talking about a famed Scarlet Witch using her “chaos magic” to rewrite reality for a small town in New Jersey. None of this is down-to-earth exactly. And yet there’s something that feels so relatable, even natural, to Wanda choosing (or instinctively reacting) to conjure the sort of place that’s bereft of the traumas she’s suffered again and again and again.
We know the ruddy details now: that Agnes wants power, that Hayward wants a Vision of his own, that Wanda is firmly the source of the Hex. But more importantly, we understand why it came to this. “Previously On” gives us all those stark moments of love and joy and happiness that Wanda was robbed of, and the comforting glow of a place where no such heart-wrenching thefts can occur. Whatever season-ending fireworks happen next week, no one can blame poor Wanda for retreating into her static-filled dream world, when so much of her life has been this crystal clear nightmare.
[7.7/10] I was so pleasantly surprised by this! I didn’t really know what to expect, with this being Marvel Studios’ first foray into animation and the high concept premise of the show. But I really enjoyed what we got.
For a while, I expected that this was really just going to be the plot of Captain America: The First Avenger except with Peggy slotted in rather than Steve. And that would still have been perfectly fun! Watching this show hit the same beats of that film, except with small but significant difference thanks to Captain Carter being in the role rather than Steve Rogers would have been worthwhile on its own.
For one thing, I like how this episode, as Agent Carter did, focuses on how even with her accomplsuhments, Peggy faces discrimination because of her gender. Of all the people for the MCU to bring back, it’s funny that it’s Bradley Whitford’s returning from the all-but forgotten Agent Carter one-shot. But he makes sense as someone who always thought too little of Peggy, stepping into a leadership role after Col. Phillips is shot, and creating an internal impediment.
To the same end, I like how the episode flips the dynamic with Peggy and Steve, but tshowing how they still understood one another and would bond with one another, even if their situations were changed. The two still falling in love, only to have Peggy making the heroic civilization-saving sacrifice play instead, is still heart-rending, and a nice sign that even as major things change, some things stay the same.
But I also liked the places where this episode goes off the reservation! Howard Stark building a proto-Iron Man suit for Steve Rogers called “The Hydra Stomper”? Yes please! Captain Carter saving Bucky, thereby avoiding the Winter Soldier situation (at least with him)? Hell yes. Her finding the tesseract and bringing it back to the good guys on an early mission? Awesome!
The further along the plot of First Avenger that this episode gets, the more it diverges and makes its own rules and own story, and I really appreciated that. Her team’s attack on Red Skull’s stronghold made for a rolokcing conclusion. I don’t know who Red Skull’s “champion” was. (Hive? A Chithuri?) But watching Peggy fight a giant squid monster while the Howling Commandos rescue Steve made for a killer conclusion.
I was especially impressed by the fight sequences here. I have to admit that I had some reticence about the cell-shaded graphics. In truth, the vocal tracks didn’t always sink perfectly. But the action was surprisingly fluid and well-staged. The show uses the freedom of animation to add greater flow to Captain Carter’s badassery, and some of the combat has a more impressionsitic style that makes it top tier MCU fisticuffs. Even the use of lighting and color in these fights stand out. Going into What If...? my biggest concern was the visuals, but they came through like gangbusters.
Overall, this was an exciting start to this new show and raised my expectations for What If...? to be more than a shiny lark, and instead be a meaningful exploration of what these changes in the path might look like.
[9.3/10] A few years ago, for some strange reason, I decided to watch every Spider-Man animated series from the 1990s. The different shows had different takes on the wall-crawler, plopping him into very distinct settings and scenarios. But I realized there were two main things about Peter Parker that united the various versions of the character across years and franchises: (1.) he chooses to do good, even when it’s difficult, because it’s the right thing to do, and (2.) he suffers for his art.
Spider-Man: No Way Home strives to encompass a lot. It is the culmination of the Jon Watts/Tom Holland version of Peter Parker and the journey through his high school years that began in Homecoming. It has to service broader MCU connections to Doctor Strange and Captain America. It finds grace notes and meaningful moments for M.J., Ned, Happy, Flash, Aunt May, and a host of other characters who’ve been major parts of the series. And if that weren’t enough, it brings back five villains, two heroes, one conspiratorial agitator, and scads of loose threads from the five movies that preceded this Peter’s arrival.
And yet, what makes it work, what gives No Way Home a clarity and a balance other mondo Spider-Man movies missed, is the way it’s built around those twin ideas, those dual core facets of the character. Despite the multiversal stakes, Spider-Man strives to live up to the values instilled in him by the people he loves, even when it’s the absolute hardest thing to do so. And endures tremendous losses, makes grand personal sacrifices, in the name of looking out for everyone but himself. It’s what bolsters this Spider-Man, and all Spider-Men, and elevates this film into one of Spidey’s very best.
It helps that what starts these multiversal problems is something smaller and personal. So much of the MCU’s Spider-Man is about this overwhelmed, undermanned kid standing in the face of grandiose events. Spider-Man trips the time-space continuum not from battling interdimensional beings or from going up against titans with reality-warping powers. Instead, he’s upset that being associated with him kept his best friends from getting into college, that they were taken in and interrogated by law enforcement, that it blew up his aunt’s life. His exposure poisoned the well for everyone around him, and he effectively asks for a wish to undo it, not for himself, but for those he cares about.
It’s a strong setup. No Way Home takes seriously the unmasking from the last movie, and the impact it would have on Peter’s life and those of friends. It puts this comparatively charmed version of Spider-Man into the familiar guises of his counterparts. He is broke. He is embattled. He is concerned he’s a burden and a threat to those he loves. He no longer has Iron Man, or S.H.I.E.L.D., or the other tech resources to fall back on. Half the world believes in him, but the other half, spurred by J. Jonah Jameson, thinks he’s the traditional “menace.” Exposure has ruined his life and forced him to grapple with the sort of problems so many other Spider-Men (Spiders-Man? Spider-Mans? Homines Aranearum?) have faced over the years.
So he goes to Doctor Strange for help. The dynamic between Peter and Stephen/Sir is a low-key strength of the film. It completes Sony’s presumably bargained-for requirement that at least one major MCU star have a substantial supporting role in each Web-Head film. (See also: Robert Downey Jr., Samuel L. Jackson, Martin Starr.) It provides a reasonable in-universe excuse for a non-magical, mostly street level hero to play around with parallel dimensions. And it builds on the shared experiences Spidey and Strange had in Infinity War. There’s antagonism between them, but also a budding mutual appreciation which pays off in unexpected ways.
When Doctor Strange tries to help Peter, though, things go awry. Peter asks that the world forget he’s Spider-Man, only he keeps trying to add exceptions for the people he wants to stay in the know. The complications disrupt the magicks involved, and while Strange is able to contain the botched spell, it manages to accidentally draw in Spidey’s foes from other corners of the multiverse, a tantalizing setup for fans who’ve been watching the wall-crawler in action since 2002.
That’s right! Dr. Octopus, The Green Goblin, The Lizard, Sandman, and Electro all pop into the MCU after the events of the original Sam Raimi trilogy and Marc Webb’s Amazing Spider-Man duology. It is an absolute treat for fans who’ve followed the Web-Head’s cinematic trials and travails over the years. None of the performers has lost a step (and many manage to improve on their original outings). And watching them interact with each other, not to mention a different hero than “their” Peter, has all the crossover glee that comic book stories can deliver. Peter, for his part, is tasked by Strange with rounding them up so they can be returned to their proper universes.
Their interactions are hilarious. The baddies poke fun at one another and the eccentricities of their different stories and universes. At one point the film turns them into the world’s wildest sitcom, with four supervillains and a host of their helpers playing temporary roommates in a bachelor pad. As in all of the Watts films, the banter here is consistently on point. And even as the film loses a bit of its momentum in its “Four Men and a Spidey” section, watching Peter go back and forth with this collection of villains, while they spark off one another, is still a consistent treat.
There’s a catch though. Peter soon discovers that each of these baddies was pulled from their timelines right before they were about to perish, so sending them back is a death sentence. Dr. Strange is unmoved, but Aunt May pushes her nephew and surrogate son to give them the help they need. When push comes to shove, Peter can’t sit idly by and send these men to their dooms, even if it means another cool psychedelic, fractal-based fight with “Stephen” to get the time and space to try to heal them.
I love that twist so much. The only thing cooler than Spider-Man fighting a multi-dimensional version of the Sinister SIx is Spider-Man trying to save each of these villains who came to bad ends in each of the films that spawned it. It’s true to the spirit of the character, understanding his responsibility not just to protect the city or stop evil, but to try to show compassion and decency to those who need it. It’s a wonderful affirmation of the values that have undergirded Spider-Man from the beginning, with a challenge that cannot be encompassed by a simple smash-fest, but requires more altruistic motives, unique strategies, and psychological challenges for Peter.
It’s just as wonderful that the push toward kindness, the warning against “not my responsibility” thinking from Peter, comes from his Aunt May. Peter tries so hard to help these people, even though there’s an easy way out, because of her encouragement. And it comes at the cost of her life.
The most brutal gut punch in the film comes when the avuncular, seemingly reformed Norman Osborn turns out to have been plotting and scheming the whole time. At the moment of truth, he reveals his true intentions, powers up, and goes on the attack. It’s a hell of a turn, sold by Willem Dafoe’s convincing performance as a penitent Norman to that point. Even though the ensuing super-fight between him and Spider-Man is a fairly generic building-buster, the threat to Aunt May, and her eventual death at the Goblin’s hands, gives it a greater force.
In that, the sharpest choice in all of No Way Home turns out to be making Aunt May into Uncle Ben. The MCU spider-flicks have conspicuously avoided Peter’s overplayed origin story to this point. No scenes of spider bites. No uncle’s dying words. Nothing more than initials on a suitcase to suggest that traditional part of the character’s mythos is even a factor in this universe.
In one fell swoop, No Way Home fills in that gap with flying colors. We know Marissa Tomei’s Aunt May. We’ve watched her guide and care for Peter through two films. So when she’s the one who urges him to do good even when you’re inclined to look the other way, when she’s the one who tells him that with great power comes responsibility, when she’s the one who dies because of her nephew’s choices, it has more meaning and wounding force than any other cinematic depiction of Peter losing his mentor and inspiration. A smart, almost clockwork choice, brings this Spider-Man in line with his predecessors in devastating fashion.
It also speaks to the smart construction of No Way Home’s script, penned by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Spider-Man reaches his lowest point, as all heroes seemingly must at the two-thirds mark of their movies. He’s tried his best, to help his friends, to save the bad guys, to put everything on the line for the greater good. And he not only failed but lost the most important person in the world to him in the process.
So who can lift from this funk, who can give him the wisdom and insight to go on? Two other Spider-Men, of course! McKenna and Sommers smartly make most of No Way Home a story that belongs to the MCU’s Peter. Sure, we get the dimension-crossing villains in play, and references to past adventures, but they’re all this Peter’s responsibility and cross to bear for most of the runtime. Only when he needs them most do the Web-Heads played by Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire show up.
And they are utterly fantastic! The script smartly introduces them apart from our Peter, giving the audiences a chance to reorient themselves to the characters and have a few laughs. There’s such cheer-worthy moments when each arrives, and such hilarious interactions when M.J. and Ned try to figure out what’s happening and each Spider-Man tries to prove they are who they say they are, to Peter’s friends.
But when push comes to shove, they find this universe’s Spidey lost and ready to give up on the roof of his school. His friends give him comfort, but his alternate universe counterparts give him perspective. Tobey and Andrew (you’ll have to forgive the naming convention in the spirit of clarity) speak of their losses, of Uncle Ben and Gwen Stacey. They tell Tom how those deaths led them down the wrong path, to things they ended up regretting, and how they want better for him. It’s the sort of comfort only a fellow Spider-Man could provide, with resonant words that speak to truths that stretch across their experiences and lift each of them up out of darkness.
Herein lies No Way Home’s arguably greatest achievement. It would be so easy to do less than this. It would be so easy to have Maguire and Garfield simply swing in for a cameo, or just jump into the fray for the usual “save the world” reasons, and expect audiences to cheer based on recognition alone. But this film not only builds on the stories and character growth these figures have already experienced, but uses their histories to inspire, caution, and comfort the latest Spider-Man in his darkest hour.
It works! The pep-talk gives MCU Spidey the motivation he needs to keep trying. He, his friends, and his new arachnid allies all work together to cure the remaining villains, and it is absolutely delightful. The multi-Peter team-up provides something I didn’t know I needed. At one point, Garfield’s character says he always wanted brothers, and it’s the perfect way to describe the dynamic between the different Spider-Men. There’s a sweetness, an easy familiarity, a source of mutual support among that simply snaps into place. A Spider-Verse team-up could thrive on novelty alone, but these three Peter Parkers make sense together in a way I wasn’t expecting, but ends up being the most endearing part of the film.
It’s also the most hilarious. The rapport among the various Spidies is outstanding on its own, leading to a host of great lines. But the film also pokes fun at the differences and eccentricities of the different movies cross-pollinating. Holland and Garfield marvel at Maguire’s organic web-shooters. Ned blanches when he finds out the fate of another Peter’s best friend. A call to “Peter Parker” elicits three simultaneous responses. There’s even some delightful meta-gags, like when Garfield laments feeling like a lesser Spider-Man only to be reassured that he’s amazing, or Maguire once again complaining about his wall-crawling back pain. There’s all sorts of little touches and great jokes that play on the unique scenario of continuities colliding and popular commentary on this uber-series of films.
Of course, it can’t all be fun and games. The group has to collaborate to lure in, battle, and ultimately cure the quartet of remaining baddies, each of whom gets a moment in the sun. The Statue of Liberty (remodeled to include Captain America’s shield) makes for a good home base of the climactic final set piece. And the ensuing multiball battle among Spider-Men and super villains finds a way to give the MCU Peter an edge and a reason to lead despite his comparative youth -- unlike the other Spideys, he knows how to work as part of a team.
The ensuing battle is fun, if occasionally confounding given the number of similarly-dressed heroes and a blur of villains smattered across indistinct scaffolding. It mainly works thanks to the continually entertaining dynamic of the different Peter Parkers working together, and the villains receiving their grace notes. The CGI lizard is still an ugly design, but this Dr. Connors gets to make a personal history-backed point about trying to fix people, and have a moment of recognition with his Peter. Sandman doesn’t have much in the way of a character arc, but still gets to swirl and impress with particle effects more than a decade since his last outing.
Electro comes out the best for his transition from one film series to another, as this universe’s “different energy” magically makes him into a much better (and better-looking) character, something the script wryly comments on. Sporting a modern, but more traditional design, Jamie Foxx finally gets to have real fun in the role, as basically an entirely new character. And he’s stopped by none other than Doc Ock, the only villain MCU Spidey managed to fix earlier, in a wonderful mini-twist. Alfred Molina, who fared the best of any of his counterparts in his original movie, continues to soar in the role here. And his arriving to help save the day is an excellent, minor tribute to the idea that not all of Peter’s good deeds go unpunished; some of them come back to him right when he needs them.
It speaks to how this movie gets both the big and the little things right here. So many of its choices not only delight you, they feel right. The energy-focused Electro is drawn to one of Iron Man’s arc reactors. Dr. Octavius grasps it and declares, “the power of the sun, in the palm of your hand,” the thing he was hoping to achieve in Spider-Man 2. He and Maguire’s wall-crawler share a moment of recognition, where Otto’s touched to see how this “dear boy” is all grown up. Ned discovers that his grandmother is right, he is, in fact, magic. M.J. goes from the eternal pessimist, preferring to expect disappointment rather than be blindsided by it, to reassuring her friends that they’ll go forth and kick ass here. There’s something worthwhile for anyone and everyone here.
There’s even brilliant visual echoes to prior movies. Garfield’s Spider-Man, who nearly steals the show both comedically and dramatically, manages to save this universe’s M.J. in the exact way he couldn’t save his universe’s Gwen. It’s an emotional payoff to a seven year old movie that still lands like gangbusters. It’s emblematic of No Way Home’s remarkable ability to not only invoke past events and characters from the Raimi and Webb films, but to pay them off, round them out, and in some cases even fix them. It extends Peter’s desire to save all of these lost souls and see the best in them to a meta level, evincing a similar wish in the heart of Watts and his collaborators with regards to the films that paved their way.
The ultimate challenge, though, comes in the form of the Green Goblin, the original Spider-Man villain, and the one who’s taken the most from Holland’s Peter Parker. The fight here is not a physical one, even as Spidey and Gobby do go toe-to-toe once more with our hero coming out on top. It’s a personal one, as the MCU Spider-Man must decide whether to exact vengeance upon this dastard who killed his surrogate mother, or to relent and try to fix him too.
It must be said that Dafoe gives a tour de force performance here, rivaling Molina himself and Michael Keaton among Spidey’s cinematic antagonists. He’s entirely plausible as an apologetic Norman desperate to be reformed, warming to this Peter as another surrogate son. And he’s an equal and opposite terror as the Green Goblin, menacing and insidious in ways that go beyond frightening, instead cutting to the bone. He growls at Holland’s Spider-Man that the altruism his aunt preached and which Peter himself has taken up, is a weakness, a pathology. He blames Peter for May’s death, arguing that it was Peter’s compassion, his willingness to try to help rather than just solve the problem by the simplest means necessary, that led to his aunt’s demise. These words carry extra sting in the shadow of Peter’s lingering sense of guilt for how his “controversies” have ruined the lives of those close to him.
As a lego figure in the film’s aftermath hints, Osborn is basically demanding that Peter turn to the dark side. And like the other fresh-faced heroes before him, he stays strong in the light. Only he’s not alone. The other Spideys figure into the finish in ways that are meaningful without stealing the spotlight. Maguire’s Spider-Man holds back a vengeful Peter from stabbing his foe with the Goblin’s glider, a weapon whose deepest cuts he knows all too well, and Garfield’s wall-crawler delivers him the cure. Despite everything, despite his justified anger and the ease with which he could give into it, Peter instead decides to save and forgive even his aunt’s killer, a man who can then only sit and wonder “What have I done?”
I can think of no greater tribute to the spirit of Spider-Man and the character’s legacy across a multi-media empire. The choice to save someone when you have every reason not to, when you’d rather vindicate the values of your lost mentor rather than merely avenge them, is a triumph of the character’s abounding heart and compassionate ethos. Peter chooses to do good, when his powers make it physically easy, but his life makes it emotionally impossible. That, more than anything, is Spider-Man.
Only he’s not done. The ongoing wrinkles of Doctor Strange’s original spell are tearing reality apart, and the only way to stop it is a counter-spell with a tremendous cost: everyone must forget Peter Parker entirely. His best friend, his young love, his allies from across the universe, will no longer know him. And he suggests it, chooses it, because he’ll willingly lose everything to save everyone.
I’m always hesitant about uber-magic as the solution to problems, but there’s an emotional logic here that lets this tack succeed. What matters here isn’t Strange’s spell, which runs into all sorts of logical problems if you start to try to untangle what it means in practice. What matters is Peter’s willingness to give up his life, the friendships that have sustained him, the resources that have helped him, in the name of the greater good.
There’s something profoundly heartening-yet-melancholy in that. In a small way, the Goblin wins, convincing Peter that he is, in fact, a source of hardship to those close to him. Even when he walks into the donut shop where M.J. works, a speech in hand to try to find his way back into her good graces despite the erasure of their shared history, he relents when he sees how happy she and Ned are. He is, like so many Spider-Men before him, unwilling to make even people he cares deeply about a part of his life if it means disrupting their joy and putting them at risk. There as well rests the heart of what Spider-Man is about: great sacrifice, immense suffering, enduring karmic unfairness, in the name of doing the most good.
With that, No Way Home is one of those miraculous films that takes on so much and yet somehow achieves everything it sets out to do. It tells a compelling story of the MCU Spidey losing everything and still striving to uphold his Aunt’s values. It takes on the chief criticisms of this version of the character, bringing him more in line with traditional depictions. It honors eight films’ and three continuities' worth of stories and characters, integrating them into a seamless whole. It pays off and even fixes dangling threads and broken character arcs from prior movies, providing rousing, cathartic endings for familiar heroes and villains alike. And despite feeling like the culmination of so much, it forges a new origin story for Spider-Man, one that clears the board for more adventures while still offering a heartening conclusion to the ones of old.
In the end, Peter chooses mercy over vengeance. He chooses tremendous self-sacrifice over personal gain. He finds strength in his closest friends and likeminded counterparts. He saves those even his would-be teacher thinks unsalvageable. He gives up everything, loses everything, and despite it all, chooses to start again and help people, to carry on the spirit of the lost parent who molded him into the extraordinary person he became. If that’s not Spider-Man, I don’t know what is.
[9.0/10] There’s so much to talk about in this one. X-Men’s Quicksilver as Avengers Quicksilver! Bulletproof hotpants! 1980s TV spoofs! Scarlet Witch’s stand-off with Sword!
But here’s the thing that stands out to me, the thing that grabbed me the most while watching this “Very Special Episode” -- Vision confronting the woman he loves over what’s happening. That moment has extra oomph because of the effects. There’s something eerie about the two of them arguing over the end credits until they stop. There’s something scary about the two of them rising into the air at the same time they raise their voices to one another.
What stands out about it, though, is the emotional rawness in the moment. Vision isn’t just upset; he’s worried that he can no longer trust his wife, that she’s done something terrible to him, to everyone, and doing everything in her power to keep it from him. Wanda is trying to hold it together, feeling just as vulnerable and admitting she’s not even sure how this started. They are both just so messed up by what’s happening, so riven by it, but in ways that drive them apart over whether to tear this all down or do everything they can to continue propping it up.
The tenor of the scene is familiar to anyone who’s spoken with a loved one who’s unwell, who is not themselves, whether through grief or mental illness or some other trauma that jeopardizes their ability to process the world as it is. There’s an honesty to that scene, one that is frankly startling, and it’s the kind of place I never really expected an MCU project to go. It’s draped in reality-distorting fiction and the trappings of family sitcoms, but somehow that just makes it all the more disturbing and poignant when the truth of those moments bursts through those bracing layers of abstraction.
That’s bolstered by the second most stunning revelation of “On a Very Special Episode” -- that Wanda stole Vision’s corpse from Sword. More to the point, that he left a living will and wished never to be revived, not wanting to be anyone’s weapon. It’s plain that Wanda, either by herself or with the help of someone else, revivified him, and that he’s starting to reckon with the margins of what happened to him, if not the full picture.
He’s starting to see through the illusions and deceptions that Westview is made of. Again, the show does so well making the moments where it breaks the sitcom rhythms unnerving. Agnes’s “should I take it from the top” bit is eerie, and for once, Vision has a chance to realize it before Wanda resets things. Instead, she tries to play it off, tries to distract him with puppies and doorbells ringing and other head-fakes that Vision’s nevertheless noticing.
It comes through in the odd behavior of his coworkers, who respond to a Sword email by reading and laughing in unison. Vision briefly frees Norm, who is understandably frantic and undone and, most importantly, in pain over what’s being done to him. The secret truth of WandaVision is that it’s not a comedy show or sitcom homage or a superhero series. It’s a horror show, and Vision’s starting to realize that. He’s realizing that everything is wrong here, starting with him, what he can and can’t remember, and the mother of his children.
Meanwhile, there’s some more traditional but still cool developments on the outside. Monica Rambeau, Jimmy Woo, and Darcy Lewis are trying to save Wanda, trying to show her compassion despite what’s happening, while Sword Director Hayward thinks she’s just a terrorist who needs to be taken out. Meanwhile, our trio of familiar characters are finding solutions to the problem, realizing that 1980s tech can penetrate the Hex without being transformed by Scarlet Witch’s powers.
Of course, it doesn’t go unnoticed by Wanda, and she storms out of the Hex to threaten Heyward and everyone else when, unbeknownst to Monica, he tries to use their drone to eliminate her. It’s a scary moment, one only slightly cut by Elizabeth Olsen reverting to her dodgy Eastern European accent. We see definitively that Wanda has at least some control and awareness of her surroundings and what’s happening, enough to want to protect it from interlopers and those intruding on her surroundings.
It’s become increasingly clear why she’s so protective of her perfect bubble of happiness and what she is running from -- grief. The show channels that idea through 1980s sitcom pastiches in an amusing fashion, with Agnes as the friendly, albeit intrusive neighbor, kids growing up too fast, and dogs dying so that parents can give an important lesson about making peace with certain facts of life.
At the root of it, though, is a deep sense of loss and the artifacts of reckoning with death, something difficult whether you’re a child or an adult. Wanda says to her boys, and to herself, that she cannot reverse death, that they cannot turn away from it, because some things aren’t meant to be elided and some lines shouldn’t be crossed.
We confirm that she has brought the corpse of the man she loves back to life, presumably because she couldn’t deal with his absence and the tragedy of what happened to him. The commercial break this episode name-checks Lagos, the Nigerian city from Civil War where Scarlet Witch accidentally killed dozens of civilians when trying to redirect a blast, more mess than any paper towel could clean up. And she reflects, at her sons’ urging, on the loss of her own twin, Pietro, the only lifeline she had when she lost her parents at the same tender age Billy and Tommy are now.
So she does what she’s already done -- she brings him back, after a fashion. It’s an inspired bit of stunt-casting to bring in Evan Peters to quasi-reprise his role as Quicksilver. But beyond the jolt of the misdirect and reveal is a simple truth, that this whole thing is wrong. It is a coping mechanism, one meant to shield Wanda from yet another horrid demise marring her personal history.
So she, or some other force working with and through her, has constructed this place to evade that destabilizing realization. Vision is breaking out of it, shaking off the cobwebs of his violative rebirth and seeing through the comforting lies that Wanda is straining so hard to hold onto. It is difficult, hollowing, wounding to watch someone you care for undone by grief and trauma, dragging the world down with them. So much of what WandaVision does is clever or exciting or amusing. But what it does here is disquieting beyond words, and deeply, painfully true.
[7.4/10] Blaise Pascal came up with a philosophical concept known as “Pascal’s Wager.” It’s an argument to believe in God. Pascal maintained that if you believe in God, and He turns out not to exist, you’ve lost nothing, or comparatively little. If He turns out to be real, you gain the infinite rewards of Heaven. Whereas if you don’t believe, and God is real, you risk the infinite pain of Hell, the chance of which would outweigh any meager reward disbelief might grant you on this mortal coil.
Now there’s four centuries’ worth of counterarguments to this famous wager, so if you’ll pardon the expression, don’t take it as gospel. But it seems like the same argument He Who Remains makes to Loki and Sylvie: believe me and gain the power and glory you’ve always wanted, or don’t and face a terrible calamity. Our heroes (or anti-heroes) have to weigh that proposition, whether two beings innately prone to betrayal and mistrust should take this odd man’s pronouncements at face value, or instead assume he’s lying and risk multiversal catastrophe to bring free will back to the masses.
I don’t know what I would choose. There’s been enough lies and, frankly, weird shit in the last six episodes that I’d be ready to believe both that this mysterious, calm-but-deranged figure’s tale of inter-dimensional battle quelled into harmony and that he’s yet another huckster trying to preserve the status quo because it suits him and because agitators like our protagonist soon become flies in his ointment.
It’s enough to divide the Lokis. Sylvie is ready to kill him, tired of other people controlling her destiny, willing to believe that her counterpart has succumbed to the lures of glory and a throne. Loki is ready to buy his story, willing to leave a system he’s risked everything to overthrow in place and offer his trust to someone for a simple reason -- because he wants to keep this woman he loves safe. Do you unravel a lie that keeps the world stable and relatively peaceful, or do you slay the liar, discard his stories, and let the chips fall where they may?
The announcement of future films with subtitles like “Multiverse of Madness” and “Quantumania” tips the MCU’s hand here. But the ultimate choice, the debate, and the willingness to sacrifice oneself rather than betray another, have meaning despite that. The finale of Loki’s first season is essentially one big conversation with God, the Devil, or maybe just the showrunner personified in their own work, and it’s a compelling conversation.
It should be said, after fireworks-filled swan songs for the likes of WandaVision and The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, it’s nice to have a season finale to an MCU show that is, outside of little swordplay, all talk. The rollicking action came last week, giving us a climactic and cinematic battle which cleared the decks for the major characters to mainly consider their actions here, and listen to the pitch, rather than blow things up before reflecting on them.
Perhaps that’s more possible since, as our mid-credits surprise indicates, Loki is the first MCU show to announce a second season. This is, then, a major mile marker along the series’s journey, not the end of it. More ground to cover gives the show room to hinge its finale on a choice and a discussion, rather than on fist-fights and explosions.
That discussion is led by Kang (Can we call him Kang? They don’t call him Kang, but it’s definitely Kang), a scientist and conqueror who spins the tale of forging multiversal peace from his own warring variants. I don’t know quite what to make of the character’s debut. Jonathan Majors (of Lovecraft Country fame) makes big choices as an actor, which I’m always inclined to admire, but there’s something off about him here.
Then again, maybe that works. Taken generously, this variant of Kang has “lived a million lifetimes.” He’s tired. He’s at peace with either two gods of mischief running the show or the throes of inter-dimensional combat beginning anew. He should be weird! Too often these godlike beings fall into the same tropes of stentorian-voiced automatons (something the Time Keepers’ presence low-key spoofs).
It’s refreshing, in its way, to have the man behind the curtain turn out to be some unpinnable weirdo, sitting in a big empty castle, shuffling papers and reacting with awkward bemusement to each new development. I’ll confess to having trouble connecting to the performance in the moment -- a little too much “Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor” quirkiness for my tastes -- but the acting choices align with the strangeness of the character, and the more I think about that, the more I can appreciate it.
We also see confrontations and teases from the rest of the cast. Hunter B-15 is spreading the word to her comrades, using proof in front of their faces that Renslayer is a variant, and by extension, so’s everyone at the TVA. It’s a smart, succinct way to show the fire spreading.
Better yet is the confrontation between Mobius and Renslayer. Just as Sylvie and Loki take differing approaches to the choice laid out in front of them, so do their TVA counterparts when deciding what to do with the knowledge that the TIme Keepers were a lie. Mobius announced last week that he was ready to burn it all down. But Renslayer stays firm, reasoning that even if there’s more to the story than they thought, there must be a reason for how things are, a justification to maintain the status quo, even if it’s not the one they thought.
It speaks to the essential question Loki has been asking from the beginning. What do you do when what you thought was your purpose is taken away from you, when the person you thought you were is upended? Renslayer clings to the wreckage, hoping the tides will push her where she needs to be. Mobius aims to bring the truth to the people, to stop what he once supported, as the best way forward. Sylvie breaks in the same direction, championing free will and a life unbound to a dictator, benevolent or not, no matter what transdimensional boogiemen he conjures up in warning.
And Loki too finds his purpose -- to save himself, only for once, that means saving someone else. There’s a meta quality to Loki’s season finale, with plenty of comments on this all being a game, or an effort to rewrite the story. You can even read it as a commentary on Marvel Studios’ quality control, maintaining this cinematic universe with consistency so that dozens of hours of entertainment can feel reasonably cohesive and connected. In a post-Endgame world, with gutsier and more out there concepts at play, this could be the MCU’s declaration that things are about to get wilder and woolier.
But for Loki, who tries to stave off that all-but inevitable unraveling of the multiverse, it’s about holding onto something, a bond to someone outside of himself that’s worth holding the rest of existence in thrall for, if it means keeping her near. Since his abduction and deconstruction by the TVA, Loki has found his new glorious purpose, and it’s Sylvie. Whatever infinite pleasures and punishments this would-be god presents to him, they can’t outweigh the presence of this person who changed his life. He bets on her. Let’s hope he doesn’t lose anyway.
[7.7/10] Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson are fun together. That might be enough to power this show alone. Both are talky, smart aleks as Loki and Mobius respectively, but they have different energies. Loki is theatrical, comical, smirking, and sarcastic. Mobius, by is wry and sardonic with a workaday wisdom vibe to him. The pairing clicks in the contrast. They’re close enough to mesh but different enough to compliment one another, and it’s the best part of the show.
But I like the plotting in this episode! If the first outing for the series set the table, this one finally starts serving up dishes, as Loki and Mobius actually get a break in the case. Loki realizes that his counterpart, the Superior Loki, is hiding out from the TVA in pre-apocalyptic zones, because her mucking about won’t leave any “time variances” since they’ll all be washed away by the impending disaster. Mobius cross-references that with a candy bar found at the scene of the crime in the last episode, and it leads them to actually locating their target.
Look, it’s not much, but it shows how Loki could be useful and clever when pointed in the right. It shows how Mobius is good at his job and right, however fleetingly, that this God of Mischief could be an asset to their investigation if used properly. And it plays by the rules established by the show of how time travel and detection work, while preserving the timeline. In a way, this is all a basic cop show plot, but dressed up in temporal finery and 1960s drudgery, the results are tons of fun.
I’m also a fan of Loki and Mobius’s conversation in the lunchroom about life, the universe, and everything. I’m a sucker for those sorts of navel-gazing conversations on the nature of existence, but I genuinely enjoy the two of them bouncing off one another in these grand matters of creation and philosophy. Mobius is intriguingly zen, chalking up anyone’s existence to a certain weirdness, resolving that existence is chaos, and being grateful this slice of chaos gave him the TVA. Loki, on the other hand, is not content to just ride the wave. He wants to know how things began and how they’ll end and seem to reject the notion of the Time Keepers forging order from chaos and allowing all souls to meet at the end in peace. These cosmological conversations are well-written, both in terms of getting at the big questions of existence in a compelling way and rooting them in differences between characters.
There’s also a lot of pure fun to be had here! The show opens with a good gag when we see a medieval scene and expect the heroes or villains have leapt far into the past, only to reveal that we’re seeing a Renaissance fair in 1980s Wisconsin. The droll librarian retorting to Loki’s every file request with “That’s classified” is a hoot. And Loki himself, making goofy mischief in pre-volcano Pompeii is utter delight.
The one catch is that the show is less interesting every time Loki and Mobius are separated, more or less. I’m not wild about Mobius’s interactions with his boss, Renslayer, which has a very generic, “I get results, chief!” vibe with a 1940s screwball twist. I’m not averse to the vibe, but the execution is generic.
Likewise, the final setpiece in a futuristic ersatz Wal-Mart didn’t do much for me either. Superior Loki using her abilities to hop bodies is a trick, but none of her hosts are as good at spouting smug, knowing dialogue as Tom Hiddleston is. Her motivations are opaque, which is fine at this juncture, but still a hindrance for a series’s villain. And the action is choppy and mild, with none of the flair of the time-dilated dust-ups from the last episode. The one saving grace is that Superior Loki’s immediate ploy to massively disrupt the timeline is a promising hook. Setting up the TVA to work like clockwork, only to have a variant of our favorite Trickster God throw a cosmic monkey wrench into the proceedings promises entertaining disarray to come.
Overall, though, I’m still most compelled by just watching two superb actors and two stellar characters bounce off one another in a high concept scenario. The plot remains a little convoluted if you stop to unravel it, but works well enough on a scene-to-scene basis that it’s easy to get the gist even if the details are fuzzy. I do appreciate the “It’s not about you” kiss-off at the end, which may be a metonym for the series’s main theme, and there’s zing in what the narrative promises will come next, but after two episodes, I’m still mostly here to watch a pair of quality scene partners have fun together.
(Spoilers for Star Wars: The Bad Batch: I find it funny that in two months, Disney+ has released two shows with a setup of “Here’s a scenario featuring lots of different versions of a popular character only -- wait for it -- one of them’s a girl!”)
[9.5/10] Holy hell. This was incredible. I love that after A New Hope pulled a lot from classic Japanese films like Yojimbo and The Hidden Fortress, the franchise is coming full circle. Japanese artists are now translating the tropes of Star Wars back into a feudal Japan setting, and it could hardly be cooler.
The art here is just gorgeous. This is the most beautiful blend of 3D animation with 2D flourishes since Klaus. The choice to go black and white, with only electronic things like lightsabers, droid lights, and whistling birds appear in color creates a striking aesthetic. And the design choices are downright stunning, from straw-covered R2 units, to the force-sensitive combatants and their artistically-conceived hair and clothing, to vehicles, weapons, and whole species reimagined with an ancient Japanese flair.
The basic premise works just as well. The notion of a Sith warlord coming to harass a humble village, while a calm ronin springs into action to save the innocent from their oppressors, fits wonderfully into this new rendition of Star Wars. That’s no shock. Episode IV reinterpreted a number of standard ronin tropes into a space setting, and watching those tropes reabsorbed and remixed back into a feudal setting is a thrill.
The action here is top notch. This is one of the best lightsaber battles we’ve seen in ages, with stellar choices in the blocking, shot-selection, and choreography. I love the little choices like letting the “camera” focus on the Sith’s hood floating away in the wind while we only hear the sound of her clashing with the hero. There’s a real mood and atmosphere which adds to the epicness of the confrontation. Intensity in the pace, eye-catching poses, and clever shifts and ruses to get the upper hand all make this a stand out among Star Wars skirmishes.
I’m also a big fan of the texture to this one: little moments that don’t contribute that much to the fairly simple “story” but which add color and intrigue to the world the characters inhabit. A ten-year-old being the chief because his dad’s asleep or ran-off, the hunched tea-maker fixing the droid, the bounty hunters fighting back against the Sith are all little details, but make this world feel more alive and lived-in beyond the immediate story.
On the whole, this is one hell of a coming out party for Star Wars: Visions. I’ll confess, I’m not much of an anime afficionado. But “The Duel” is enough for even a relative neophyte like me to sit up and take notice.
Omg, this episode is hilariously terrible. How is it possible to make something this terrible?
First of all, why the hell is Barry their father? Afaik their still themselves and "Nora" is the Speed force, a primordial force of nature who's been reborn, they even say that in the episode. So, again, why is he their father? Just because I create my dinner doesn't it's my child. Stop it, it's terribly cringe.
Second, how is Psych faster than Barry? He's literally a speedster supposedly faster than anyone, yet he's caught every damn episode, at this point you might as well take away his powers for good.
And third, why the f*ck does Barry need a stupid, sappy ass speech ever goddamn episode? God, just rehashing the same trash every episode, just do something different, just give us something good. The most exciting thing that's happened the last 4 seasons, apart from Barry meeting Justice League Barry was Frost vs Flash and him turning evil.
This episode was just so awful that I was laughing the entire time because of the stupidity of the episode with them being "family" even though they literally never met each other. I must say I did quite like Psych tho, he adds a much needed dynamic to the show other than the feel good, extremely nice characters of the show.
Honestly, if it wasn't for the Flash being one of my favorite superheroes of all time since I was a kid, I would've stopped watching this a long time ago. I sincerely hope this show ends for good at the end of this season, Grant is a great actor and deserves better than to waste away on this God awful show.
[7.1/10] Pick an ending, am I right? First it’s having to remove the soul stone from Mega-Ultron. Then it’s removing all the stones. Then it’s getting them in the infinity smasher. Then it’s using Hawkeye’s Zola arrow on Ultron. Then it’s Zola and Killmonger having an uber showdown. Then it’s Cosmic Dr. Strange trapping them in a pocket universe. Then it’s The Watcher having planned it all this way from the beginning.
It’s a little exhausting, making it feel like we didn’t really build to any of this, but rather, it just happened by fiat. The best you can say is that The Watcher picked these folks knowing the progression and so saw the parts they would play, but it’s not especially clear how and why this was the necessary path or that these were the necessary people to walk it.
(As an aside, why Gamora? I know there was one episode of What If? that didn’t get made because of COVID and other timing constraints. Was it hers?)
Still, some of the interactions are fun. Thor-as-Sterling-Archer is still a hoot, and his happy-go-lucky dopeyness around the other “Guardians of the Multiverse” made me laugh. I also loved the bond between Captain Carter and Black Widow. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is one of the MCU’s better films, and I wouldn’t want to trade it, but this finale definitely made me want to see more adventures of Peggy and Natasha as a team.
And there’s some solid emotional stuff here. Cosmic Strange getting a little redemption after his early mishap is a nice beat. The stinger with Captain Carter getting to see her lost love again much as Steve did is a nice touch too. And I like Black Widow returning to the Avengers-less timeline from episode 3, finding a new home and place to belong, with that being the abiding moral of the series. The overall themes and character beats work well.
It’s just the big climactic battle -- which in fairness, is most of the episode -- that falls flat for me. There’s some cool visual moments, mostly in the way of Cosmic Dr. Strange channeling the dark forces with some multicolored splendor and turns into a tentacle monster. For the most part, though, it’s just a bunch of undifferentiated fireworks and fisticuffs without even the imaginative fun of The Watcher and Ultron’s smash-tour through the multiverse. It wasn’t bad by any means, but nothing we haven’t seen before, without any new twists or wrinkles to set it apart despite the advantages of working in an animated medium.
Overall, I still enjoyed What If? quite a bit as an entertaining lark. The anthology format is a good one for a comic book universe, and several of the remixes were inventive and clever. It’s just the attempt to put them all together, and leave several of the stories unfinished so that they could be concluded in the grand finale, that I’d count as a misfire.
This episode is alright. Not as strong as the others, but it's still fun. The action scenes are cool, and Loki and Sylvia's banter is fun to watch. Although I enjoyed them venturing down this planet , some scenes seem either too easy or like a waste of time. They could pay stuff off later, but I'm unsure.
Anyway, I'm still invested, but I'm not in as much suspense as I was in the previous two episodes. Wondering "who is this variant Loki?" and "where did they go?" is a lot more intriguing than "how will they survive?!" Like, I don't believe they'll die, or that they'll use character instead of plot convenience to get them out. We'll see.
SCORE: 7/10
I have mixed feelings about this episode, there are some things which are quite good but also a lot of totally stupid ideas.
Let's start with the positive things. Kaer Morhen looks beautiful, it is quite similar to its depiction in the games which is a plus as I feel it was very well presented there. It is definitely atmospheric, and it is always rather dark inside the fortress even during the day, the same as it was in the game. The castle has a feel of mystery as well as long history. I liked the addition of the tree with the medallions of dead witchers, it was quite a nice touch. I wasn't sure about the actor who plays Vesemir when I first saw the promotional images, but it turns out that he plays his role well and fits the personality of Vesemir, he is very convincing as Geralt's father figure and his mentor relationship with Ciri is also well-presented, as he tells her the history of Kaer Morhen and its witchers. The conversation between Vesemir and Geralt, when Geralt tries to get advice about Ciri was also well done. The last scene with Ciri learning sword-fighting with Geralt and the bird-eye view of Kaer Morhen is quite impressive, too. Here we can see the symbolic transition in Ciri's character as she puts away the fox fur mantle to become a fighter, earlier in the episode she behaved with a lot of dignity, a princess every inch, and she could stand up to the witchers. Now as she takes off the mantle, she leaves her life as a princess behind to start a new period in her life.
The story of Yennefer and Fringilla had nothing to do with the books, but turned out to be rather interesting, maybe because I had no idea where they were going to due to the fact it was not taken from the novels. Yennefer and Fringilla cease to be enemies as they are forced to cooperate after being taken prisoner by the elves. There is also a contrast between Fringilla's faith in the empire of Nilfgard and Yennnefer's more cynical worldview. The elven mage Francesca is introduced, though she is a bit disappointing since in the book she was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, she is not ugly but Yennefer and Ciri are better looking than she is. I wonder why the elves from Sapkowski's novels are depicted as rather ugly in all of the adaptations? It is also the case with the games and the Polish TV show. The dreams Yennefer, Fringilla and Francesca have are quite interesting, though they end with the revelation that Yennefer lost all her magical ability during the battle of Sodden, which I don't think was the case in the novels. She is really devastated when she discovers that she cannot perform magic anymore. I wonder why she didn't join Francesca's train as she would be in danger travelling alone without magic to protect her.
The worst thing about the episode was the plot with Eskel turning into a leshen, and the party with prostitutes that the witchers organised in Kaer Morhen, a totally unnecessary addition and without any sense, as Kaer Morhen was in an isolated place and there were no brothels nearby. It had no function in the plot and served only to add some gratuitous sex scenes, I hated that. The idea of Eskel turned into a leshen was totally stupid as nowhere in the books or even games there is said that a person can be turned into a leshen, it seems it was only added to show Geralt fighting and to highlight his father-son bond with Vesemir, as when he is faced with the choice whether to kill the Eskel-leshen hybrid or let it murder Vesemir, Geralt decides to protect Vesemir. But it was completely pointless to kill off Eskel so early as according to the novels he outlives Geralt together with Lambert and Vesemir. It was definitely an unnecessary addition and deviation from the books. Also his character was changed to more aggressive and unlikable one, though it may be said it was the effect of the leshen on Eskel.
[7.6/10] I like that in some ways, this was a Karli Morgenthau episode. She’s been our antagonist, if not quite our villain, for a while now, so it’s nice to get an episode that delves deeply into both her motives and methods. While her conversation with Sam is a little on the nose, it also does a good job of illustrating why the Flag Smashers want to go back to how things were during The Blip: a sense of displacement, not just of people but of the border-crossing communities that formed in the wake of a world rent in twain. Sam doesn’t agree with those aims, just how she goes about achieving them, and it makes us understand her position better too.
It’s also a good episode for super soldier serum fans. We see meditations on the reason why folks would and wouldn’t want to take it. Karli and her crew take it to empower people otherwise lacking in it. Zemo smashes vials of the serum on sight on the principle that wanting to make more super powered individuals is inherently supremacist. Sam professes, without hesitation, that he wouldn’t take it if offered, even if we don’t get to hear his reasons. And John feels his limitations as a simple physically gifted mortal, and decides he needs to have those extra abilities to be able to measure up.
It’s a telling development for Walker, and a good episode for him too. It’s not exactly flattering for the character, but we see more of his presumptuousness (this time with the Dora Milaje -- it goes about as well as you’d think), but also his insecurity. He wants to do this right, and doesn’t understand why it doesn’t come easy to him like so much else has. We see his temper and impatience, not to mention his propensity to default to violence, which makes it scary if the dearly departed Battlestar is right and the serum magnifies who you already are, then the blood-stained shield he holds in vengeance as the episode’s cuts to the credits is a bad portent.
We also get some good Bucky material here. There’s some great non-verbal acting from Sebastian Stan in the opening sequence, where we see glimpses of his slow but meaningful recovery in Wakanda from his horrible brainwashing. His back and forth with the Dora Milaje is powerful in its intensity and his standing up to John Walker is potent, especially when Walker lays on the guilt trip. Hell, even the simple facial expression he takes on when a member of the Dora Milaje detaches his arm is pretty damn impressive.
Zemo is also a blast here. I love him as an agent of chaos, one who isn’t afraid to slip out unnoticed whenever possible and has a blasé attitude to various parties trying to arrest and re-imprison him. There’s a droll-yet-principled quality to him which, backed by Daniel Bruhl’s performance, makes him a real treat of a presence.
And not for nothing, it’s a good Sam episode too. As I said, his conversation with Karli is a potent one, and it’s particularly telling that his default is to at least try to get through to his foe, to understand where they’re coming from and aim to deescalate the situation, whereas Walker just wants to come in and punch things. Even when Karli threatens his sister, he’s angry and tense, and even shows up in his battlesuit, but doesn’t take violence as a first option. Another sign of his worthiness to succeed Steve, in spirit, if not in the mantle.
Overall, there’s some big time plot developments here, but the big thing that stood out to me was the character work. I’m willing to forgive a lot of janky plot material (which this episode definitely had some of), if I buy the characters and their relationships, and The Falcon and the WInter Soldier is delivering on that front.
[8.3/10] I’ve played a couple of Star Wars games recently where high ranking Imperials defect to join the good guys. And to be honest, it feels cheap. There’s a real opportunity when exploring a villain’s perspective. Why someone chooses to do evil, or at least do harm, is a rich vein to examine. These games squander that opportunity, with the (theoretically) bad guys simply seeing the Empire do one more bad thing and declaring, as Britta from Community once put it, “I don’t know why, but this is the last straw.”
But that’s why I love what The Bad Batch does with Crosshair here. He’s not just a generic amoral villain who fights for his love of evil. He has complex, believable motivations behind the choices that he makes, choices he hashes out with Hunter. I’ll cop to being a sucker for those kinds of philosophical conversations between old friends (hello fellow Star Trek crossover fans!), but they give depth to the major antagonist of this show’s stellar first season.
The rest of the Bad Batch is grappling with what to do now that there’s no more missions. Crosshair has found his, or at least, a new institution that gives him the clarity that comes with orders. The rest of the Bad Batch struggled with the fact that one of their own turned on them, trying to take their lives. But Crosshair is the one who feels abandoned and betrayed, as though his brothers turned their back not only on what they fought and stood for, but on him. And while the Bad Batch had loyalty to the Republic and remains wary of what the Empire is up to, Crosshair sees the power and potential in this new galactic force that could allow him and his brothers to do more in this new age.
In short, he has comprehensible reasons for how he feels about the Empire, his former comrades, and most importantly himself. He’s granted a believable inner life in all of this. More than anything, The Bad Batch makes him into a tragic figure, one who still has loyalty to his brothers, who wants to fight alongside them, but who’s been too enmeshed in all of this for too long to see things with the moral lens Hunter and the rest of the team do.
And then “Return to Kamino” drops the bomb. Crosshair had his inhibitor chip removed. Questions of how and when abound. But regardless, it makes his position and his thoughts that much stronger and more complicated, because they’re his own. Most of Crosshair’s actions to this point could be written off as a product of a control mechanism cranked up to eleven. But now he’s ostensibly free, and still wants to fight for the bad guys, albeit with his brothers at his side rather than at the other end of his blaster.
Oh yeah, and they also have to stave off a base full of stormtroopers, survive an assault from a bunch of battle droids, and find shelter as Admiral Rampart destroys the Kaminoan cloning facility. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy, right?
There’s a sense of things coming fully circle to all of this. Not only is it a reunion for the Bad Batch as originally constituted (or at least after Echo joined the team), but it takes place in the same battle arena where Admiral Rampart tested their abilities in the first episode. The danger is enough for Crosshair and Hunter to stop targeting one another and take on the common threat, a sign that their camaraderie isn’t dead.
It’s strangely heartening (albeit a little puzzling) when Crosshair chooses to kill his stormtrooper team in order to give the rest of the Bad Batch a second chance to join him. It’s rousing when the group sets aside their differences to show a united front in this battle, much as they did in the series’s first episode. And its bittersweet when Hunter and Crosshair have a post-skirmish showdown, and Hunter shoots his friend, but on stun rather than kill.
Omega is sidelined for most of this. I imagine she’ll get more focus in the season finale. She proves useful not only in navigating the cloning facility, but in creating distractions and teaming up with good old AZI-3 to neutralize some stormtroopers on her own. In particular, we get another hint at her suffering some trauma in a cloning lab (much like the one in “Battle Scars”). She’s clearly upset when having to go back to Nala Se’s lab, even as she pushes through for the good of her team. The episode sets up things for her here, even if she isn’t as big a presence as in other installments.
But her influence is still felt, particularly in how she’s moved Hunter over the course of the season. Despite the better part of valor being to just run, despite the safest thing to do being to eliminate Crosshair after all the trouble he’s caused them, Hunter decides to save his villainous brother-in-arms instead. It’s a choice of understanding. Hunter plainly disagrees with Crosshair’s ideas, but he thinks the fellow clone can be saved, and deserves to be given the chance that he tried to give them. It’s a sense of altruism and understanding toward those who need help, even when it creates more danger, that Omega’s represented from the beginning, when she told Crosshair it wasn’t his fault.
Much of The Bad Batch has felt like a postscript to Star Wars: The Clone Wars so far. The show’s examined what someone bred for war does when the war is over. What side do you choose, what orders do you follow, when the body giving those orders has dramatically changed? There’s a desire among some of our heroes to go back to the way things were, or at least a wistfulness about the certainty of their role in the war ending.
The destruction of the Kamino cloning facility is a dramatic ending, creating a series of explosions and mortal threats for our heroes to survive. (Which they will -- my bet is on Omega leading them to safety via more tubes.) It’s a practical ending, as the industrial clone production has ended in favor of stormtroopers, and the Empire is holding the cloning technology. (Pickled Snokes, anyone?) But it’s also a symbolic ending, for the legions of clones birthed there, a last bastion of how things used to be rended to rubble. From here, there is no going back.
We’ve seen Hunter, Omega, and the rest decide that the way forward means helping people, even when it’s not easy. We’ve seen other clones like Rex, Cut, and Gregor struggle to make their way in the new world. And now we’ve seen Crosshair, fully liberated, choosing to side with the Empire. Showing that spectrum, making each clones choice understandable, makes for a deeper conflict, and a sort of evil more tragic and insidious than any run of the mill Imperial bad guy can muster.
The reaction to this movie has been a “love it” or “hate it” outcry. I think the dividing line of responses is whether or not it fits the Marvel mega-action template and if that is okay or not. Just to deal with that question out of the gate, this does not fit the Marvel cookie cutter. There are a variety of differences. It is diverse in both casting and subject matter. The cast is international, multinational and multi-ethnic. We have our first openly gay superhero. We have our first hero who is deaf. We have our first hero to struggles with their mental health. All artfully and beautifully presented, in my opinion. This is not a single character’s origin story. It is 10 characters’ origin story spanning over 7,000 years, plus the introduction of 3 distinct and new species: Celestials, Eternals and Deviants. It also acknowledges superheroes from other universes, like the potshots at DC’s Superman. There are also some Marvel staple components, humour, brilliant CGI, fight scenes and world weaving. This film is also beautiful, in its casting, cinematography, graphics and music. The story is rich and the immense timeline is artfully woven into small bites. There is also a deeper treatment of relationships and some mature but tasteful scenes. The draw for me was Marvel and the stellar cast, especially Gemma Chan, whose career I’ve been following for a long time, now (do yourself a favour and binge her filmography). I have to confess that when I left the theatre I wasn’t sure how I felt about the movie. Then, I heard Rotten Tomatoes gave it the lowest of all ratings for a Marvel movie (49%) and the critics who saw early releases were brutal. But, I also read the positive reviews by ordinary theatre goers and in writing this, I’ve decided to give this film an 8 (great) out of 10 and, personally, I look forward to seeing it again. [Superhero Action Adventure]
At first this episode might seem like a filler, but it serves as a good episode for the characters to breathe and immerse in the moment they just experienced.
One thing I liked from the episode is contrast.
On the cold Earth we get to see Amos and Clarissa walk through a forest the kids planted on field trip. Clarissa spoke of field trips, saying that her dad was one that donated his money to plant that much trees, and throwing references like "Schroedinger's parents", unaware of her upper class upbringing. Amos never went to field trip and didn't catch her reference. He asked instead, what does her dad get in return for planting those many trees? For Amos who grew up in the streets of Baltimore, the idea of charity field trips where people give something (plant a tree) for free is unimaginable. Clarissa then talked of her time with her distant father, and how a caretaker should be a good person. Amos rejected this idea: “There are ways that you can live a good life without being a good person.”
Other character arcs that weave the threads the plots in this episode similarly have that contrast. Avasarala struggles with uncertainty and seemingly loss of husband, as the acting secretary-general calls her for other duty. We get to see Holden aboard Rocinante, a place he would call home, but his home is manned by strangers, none of his families. In a way, Holden is alone in his home. Similarly, Filip asked Naomi how could she betray her family and if she doesn't think them as her family anymore. Naomi retorted shortly, "I guess I don't." He "family" is no longer them - but one of Rocinante crew.
Speaking of Naomi, her relatively sluggish plot line in previous episodes pays off decently in this episode. Drummer's coming to terms to temporarily ally with Marco, the one who killed two of her friends knits nicely with Naomi's story.
And there is of course Filip's story. All he has ever known in his life is the (delusional) grandeur of his dad: the swashbuckling rebel of OPA who fights for his people. Marco portrays himself a determined, righteous hero of the Belt, and his son knew no better. He never saw Marco as someone would do wrong, until Cyn - Marco's own crew - confronted him, trying to assert his duty as a supposedly foster father Naomi believed him to be. "I've never seen the two of you like that before," Filip, shaken, told Cyn. "Wouldn't be the first time," Cyn replied. And then there was the line when Filip was told that Naomi "saved everyone" during her time in Behemoth.
Filip was (is?) still a naive young boy, seeing the world only through the lens of his self-proclaimed hero of a father. He sees his father's quest as nothing but a struggle of one man to do things right where others failed. A firebrand agitator, Marco blamed everyone else as wrong, and he as right. It was the first time Filip sees the possibility that Marco himself might be as wrong. As Filip desired to know further, Marco snooped on Filip's conversation with Naomi in disgust, but unable to intervene as doing so would prove that Naomi does hold a grain of truth. And that seems to be why Filip might still worth saving - after previous episodes showing him as no better than a hard-headed boy - free from the clutch of his ambitious father.
All these are achieved with very good acting of every cast members. There were some minor slopes and disappointments, such as Clarissa's modded fight that was choreographed very poorly (they did it better in Season 3), and Bobbie and Alex's minor, relatively swiftly resolved win. But this is still a pretty decent episode, and one that has nice character development.
[8.6/10] A wonderful little Star Wars fable. This one consciously gives us three major characters in three different stages of life. Dan, the padawan, young and hungry. The master, in his prime, possessing calm and perspective. And the titular elder, a former Sith, wild and looking for a challenge.
The episode’s constructed beautifully. We get plenty of time with Dan and his master before the excitement starts. While slower and talkier than some of Star Wars, that downtime lets us understand their different deanors and establishes their bond. Despite his experience and skill, the Jedi master is very sanguine, slow to act and one apt to consider well before he does. Dan, by contrast, is anxious for the thrill of adventure, and bristles a bit at his master’s calmer ways.
So by the time the master senses a disturbance in the Force amid the planets of the outer rim, the relationship between master and apprentice is a familiar one. And we see the differences and merits in their approaches.
The former Sith is a pip. He’s old, wily, threatening, and even playful. His wrinkled look, devilish smile, and twin short lightsaber blades gives him a distinctive look versus the padawan. Their fight is a thrill, if only for the sense that the Elder is toying with his young foe. He uses Dan as a means to an end, and Dan sees how far his spoiling for a fight nature gets him. Here too, the combat is measured, with downbeats before crescendos, but that just adds to the tension.
And it adds motivation for the master, who senses his learner’s near-death experience while he’s far away. We see what would spur the normally reserved Jedi to action. His fight with the ex-Sith is just as exciting, with a particularly cool method of execution, as the master places his unlit blade to his opponent’s abdomen and then penetrates his torso with it.
But what puts this one over the top is the closing moments of compassion and understanding between Dan and his master. The master lays bare the lesson here: Dan is ascending, the Elder was diminishing, and even the power of the master himself is fleeting. The nature of the things in this universe is impermanent, and but for a shift of the clock, the outcome in both fights might have been different. Power can be used to protect people, but it must be wielded hubly, with the knowledge that it too will fade, and must be used judiciously and with kindness.
The tone, archetypal relationships, and action here are all top notch. Another winner for Star Wars: Visions, with a vignette that feels like it could belong to any era of Star Wars, given how it embodies the solemn spirit that runs through all of this galaxy’s best stories.
Some more characters and elements from the book are introduced, as Istredd is doing his research and visits Codringher and Fenn (Fenn is a woman in contrast to the books but it does not seem such a big problem), they are both shown in a bit more positive light than in the novels rather as researchers and collectors of old literature (pity it's going to go down in flames together with Codringher & Fenn) and they tell Istredd about Lara Dorren and Ciri's ancestry. Mother Nenneke and the temple of Melitele are also introduced. Nenneke shows a lot of empathy and support towards Ciri, and the temple is atmospheric with its addition of the candle burning custom. It is really a nice touch that they included the historian apprentice Jarre, who was not a crucial character so it is great to see him included as well. I wonder if Shani and Yola would make their appearances later on? They become important in further volumes of the saga. Jarre also tells Ciri about oneiromancers and the tower that can be a portal, which suggests that the events with Tor Lara and the character of Condwiramurs Tilly would be introduced in further seasons? I hope so.
I do not really care about the Cintrean storyline, it is nice that Francesca finally has her baby (Fringilla seems genuinely happy about having helped the child to survive) though that does not have much to do with the novels. Cahir seems bent on following Emhyr's orders and finding Ciri, he seems rather a cold-blooded person who does not have any feelings for the girl, whereas in the novels he was secretly in love with Ciri and wanted to find her only to protect her. His character seems to be permanently changed for the worse. Just like with Lydia, who works with Rience rather than being an innocent mage blinded by her love to Vilgefortz, here she seems to be a conniving and calculating person. Rience attacks Kaer Morhen and almost kills Vesemir, but manages to steal the vial with Ciri's blood (this resembles a bit the story from the game Witcher 1, where the gang of Salamandra steals the witcher mutagens). Triss helps the wounded Vesemir but finally decides to teleport to Tissaia and inform on Ciri.
Yennefer and Geralt reunite in the temple of Melitele, they kiss but from their conversations later it does not seem like they are fully reconciled. And anyway, Yennefer is yet another person who wants to use Ciri for her own purposes, this time to regain her magic, Geralt senses that she is nervous but cannot really detect the reason behind this, but Yennefer is here to kidnap Ciri. It seems that only Geralt cares about Ciri herself and not for the purpose she can be used to gain, he is the one who protects her rather than use her. He doesn't think what Ciri can do for him but rather how he can save her. It turns out that Ciri is not treated fairly by any other characters, even the positive ones, who perceive her as a means to their end rather than as a person with her own feelings and dreams, even Vesemir, Yennefer, Triss and others do it.
[8.0/10] Now that’s more like it! This episode felt fresher, more endearing, funnier, more pointed, and a better harbinger for interesting things to come than anything we got in the first episode. I wish Disney had released the first two at the same time, because it would have left me much more enthused about the show’s potential than the relatively staid first outing we got.
Let’s start with the easiest improvement. Sam and Bucky play off one another really well. The sheer fun and combativeness of their dynamic buoys every scene they share. Chemistry is a tricky thing. You can’t manufacture it. It just has to happen. And the repartee between Sam and Bucky shows that it’s there. Their playful banter, their brotherly spats with one another, the way each knows what the other’s deal is with neither of them having to say it, plays really well in this episode.
And it also has to be said -- the show is strongly hinting at them as a couple, which is intriguing. I don’t think Disney has the stones to go through with it, which tempers my expectations a bit. But the two of them have a cool-down scene mid-fight where one lands on top of the other. (Something the MCU did with Banner and Natasha in Age of Ultron, among the umpteen other places that trope has shown up.) They literally go through couples counseling together, at one point even doing the “gaze into each other’s eyes” exercise.
It’d be really interesting to see if part of the answer for Sam and Bucky coping with the void that Steve’s departure left in both of their lives would involve filling it in with one another romantically, not just platonically. But I imagine these coy hints will be as far as a Disney show is willing to go.
That said, even if the queer-bating is questionable, their back-and-forth is still enjoyable, and the substance behind it is strong. Bucky is frustrated that Sam gave the shield away. Sam wishes Bucky understood why he did what he thought was right. The former is freighted with Bucky’s guilt over his past actions and Steve seeing the good in him despite that, a good that’s jeopardized if Steve was wrong about Sam. And Sam’s choice is freighted with both the pressure to live up to a public figure like Captain America and the episode’s racial undertones.
That’s the next most interesting thing about “Star-Spangled Man.” I assumed that John Walker’s replacement Captain America would be a straightforward baddie, or at least a dope. Instead, the show adds real nuance to him as a foil for Sam and Bucky. The episode opens with things that endear him to us. He understands the moral responsibility of stepping in for Steve Rogers. He didn’t ask for this, but rather is the good soldier who just tried his best and wants to help people. He’s not explicitly racist himself, with a best friend who’s Black and a wife or girlfriend who’s a person of color. The episode paints him as a decent guy, trying to do his best, who’s not plainly a baddie.
And yet, he centers himself in the narrative. He wants to commandeer Falcon and The Winter Soldier not as partners, but as his wingmen. He thinks he’s doing them a favor, not simply helping them because assistance is what’s needed, when he leaps in for the fight with the Flagsmashers or he springs Bucky from prison. He asks them to follow his lead, expecting that they’ll owe him and act accordingly, and then tells them to stay out of his way when they refuse.
There’s some real nuance to that. John Walker is not a cross-burning racist. He may not even be racially-prejudiced in a meaningful sense. But he views himself as the center of this, instantly assumes leadership and expects deference, in a way that not only makes Sam and especially Bucky bristle, but which leaves him lacking in the collegial spirit that Steve Rogers embodied.
At the same time, there’s more explicit racism at play in the episode. Sam gets hassled by the cops until they realize he’s an Avenger, an interesting intersection between the hero worship that’s been a part of the MCU from the beginning and the whiff of respectability politics that’s only recently come to the fore. Bucky introduces Sam to Isiah, a black super soldier (Black Marvel?) who Winter Soldier tangled with, whose complaints of imprisonment, experimentation, and deception carry the air of Tuskegee. “The Star-Spangled Man” is subtle about these things, gesturing toward them rather than making them explicit, but that gives them more power than grand speeches or more ham-fisted dramatizations of these ideas would.
That just leaves the Flagsmashers, who are far more interesting this week than they were the last week. I still have some questions about the show positioning the villains as proponents of open borders last week, and this week they’re in favor of the conspiracy theorist’s worst fear/wet dream -- a one world government. But their wants and motivations feel way more compelling here than they did in the prior installment.
For one thing, their position isn’t as reductive as “We want things to be the way they were when half the world was effectively dead.” Instead, they feel like the government is favoring the people who returned at the expense of the people who survived. Some view them as modern day Robinhoods, reallocating vital resources to people who feel, ironically, left behind after the end of The Blip. Their sense of combatting the “GRC” -- a vague quasi-governmental organization to help refugees whose decisions and actions they disagree with -- is far more compelling as an M.O. than generic dudes in masks punching things in a flash mob.
But hey, the punching isn’t bad here! While you can see the seams in the CGI, and the action isn’t exactly smooth, the fight aboard two big rigs running in parallel at least makes for a creative and exciting set piece. The indications that the erstwhile villains are supersoldiers, with strength founded on the same formula that Steve and Isiah received, is a nice lead for Sam and Bucky to follow, and along with banter about the “Big Three” (Aliens, Androids, and Wizards), sets up plenty of interesting threads for the Falcon and the Winter Soldier to follow. (And that’s all before the Zemo tease.)
All in all, “The Star-Spangled Man” feels like an episode from a much more confident, entertaining, and depth-filled show. I hope the series continues that trajectory, and instead of reverting to the generics of last week, maintains this far more interesting course.
Just knew that it was gonna get goooood the minute Clint pulled off his flip and shoot (when he shot at Kate's binds). And I loved that shot of Kate shooting the first trick arrow with the camera right in front of her. That was probably my favorite, but I loved the rest of that chase scene. All the trick arrows were so fun! ... it reminded me of how not fun Arrow became when this was the kind of buffoonery I wanted from that show. * nervous laughter * And that Pym trick, daaang! Plus the dongle arrow! ;)
And Clint and Kate finally communicating.... just not going very well at the moment. :laughing: I did like seeing a glimpse of Kate realizing how she kind of messed up Clint's Christmas plans. But alas, thus is the life of a superhero. One optimistic Kate doesn't quite get yet.
Kate's line about her father... when someone says a certain character's "all about helping people", it makes me think the exact opposite. Maybe whoever his father was in business with (Uncle?), her mom took over it, thus today's dilemma.
LOL at the classic Hawkeye suit nod. And Pizza Dog! :heart:
And I guess I take back my comment from the previous episode. I guess we're getting introduced to a lighter, somewhat still new to the scene, Tracksuit Mafia-leading Maya, not ninja Echo whose dad got murdered then got raised by Fisk (Uncle!! hand cameo) when she was a kid, given how she almost throttled Kate here (Star-Lord flashbacks), and I'm okay with that. Realized we don't really need all our badass heroines to be sulky, be level-headed, or have unlimited resources lol. Also remembering that this is supposed to be fun and lighthearted (I honestly forgot, the wait for this was long). And since they're planning a spin-off for her already, it makes sense to not introduce her as a fully-developed character immediately.
It’s hard to even fathom why anything that is happening on this show is happening at the moment. The Flash suits up every week to run around and get shown up by whomever he faces against, to the point that the viewers have lost all sense of power he truly has. This is the same Barry Allen who sped back in time to save literally everybody’s lives in the first big crossover event, similar to his Snyder Cut counterpart. Now, his only way to win, and I mean only way, is to resort to repeating the same cliched, talk-down lines you’ve ever heard in your life. And if he can’t do it alone, Iris is there, even over the coms this week, to provide some extra advice and be his ‘lightning rod.’ I’ve loved this show for years, and I’ve loved all the characters at some point or another. I used to think Iris got hate for no reason and even remember the weaker seasons being very engaging. Now all the hate is warranted because the show is leaning into the problems its always had and completely losing sight of what once made it great. There are still glimmers of hope between the madness and the actors are all great, but the writers and people behind the show need to realize that with only a small handful of seasons most likely remaining, they have to step up to the plate if they wanna be remembered as fondly as Arrow.
I'm not sure about this episode. The premiere seemed better. Even though it was a slow start: and had only a tiny bit of story progression. This episode had more progression, involving Geralt and Cirilla arriving at Kaer Morhen; and whatever the sections with Yennefer, Fringilla, and Francesca were about. Yet, it felt tedious. Almost. Something to do with that. Regardless of that, this episode was still entertaining to watch.
Here are some of my minor beginning thoughts:
At the start of the episode, I noticed that, in her dream, the room Yennefer was in looked like Cirilla's room in Kaer Morhen. They could merely look similar, but I'm guessing that they were both the same set-piece (?) or actual castle-type room. I found that interesting.
I had a feeling that it was elves at the end of the premiere, but I'm a little mad that I didn't bring that up in my review. Elves are always depicted alongside archery, and I found it doubtful that Tissaia/the Aretuza mages would be using harpoon-like weapons to shoot. Two plus two equals four.
Even though I haven't read the books, the casting choice for Francesca is a bit dubious, appearance-wise. I think she was said to be the most beautiful woman in the world. Yet Mecia Simson doesn't seem to reflect that. Considering she's part Jamaican, her looks emanate somewhat of an "other-worldly vibe."
cont.) But Anya Chalotra, MyAnna Buring, Jodhi May, Emma Appleton, and Anna Shaffer all look "more attractive" to me. It's all relative, though: isn't it? And she does look somewhat otherworldly; I feel like everyone else doesn't have that factor. At least to the extent that she does, so I guess the casting choice for the character was, in actuality, pretty decent.
Here are things that I liked:
It was nice to see Kaer Morhen in live-action. Everyone involved in bringing it to life did a great job. The first shot of it from the inside, as Geralt and Cirilla were coming in, looked very much like in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. Since Cirilla will probably begin training more seriously in the next episode, I wonder if something big will happen at the end, like in the game. Or maybe the equivalent of that was leshy-infected Eskel.
I liked Eskel's character, despite the very little of him there was. Basil Eidenbenz did a good job with the tiny bit of material he had to work off of. His death was disappointing, even though I haven't read the novels. That should be a testament to how killing him off wasn't a good decision.
The fight sequence against leshy-infected Eskel was much better than the one against the Bruxa in the premiere. Henry Cavill's movements were pretty smooth; although, I wish more was done by Eskel. But maybe that would've cost a lot more to do, as well as being harder to film/coordinate.
The score during the end credits was super good. I liked it a lot. The beginning of it was reminiscent of scores in Assassin's Creed games, specifically the ones with Ezio Auditore da Firenze: and then it started sounding reminiscent of scores in the Modern Warfare trilogy. Very nice.
Here are things that seemed iffy to me:
Having prostitutes at Kaer Morhen was weird, given how Cirilla never heard of Kaer Morhen in the premiere and how Geralt told her it's because they like it that way. Bringing any outsiders to there would be risky, given that what almost wiped them all out was because the attackers knew where it was. The writers seemed self-aware regarding that based on the dialogue by Vesemir to Geralt after the latter asked him about the party. But that doesn't make it any better.
cont.) Maybe it was only fanservice for those who've played the games. In the games, I think some moments considered iconic involve parties. But they may not have taken place in Kaer Morhen. This series is based on the book series. There probably were parties in the books and probably in Kaer Morhen, too. But something about how it happened in this episode is iffy.
How did Danica, the prostitute from the first season, know about Cirilla? Geralt seemed taken aback, so I was expecting him to ask her. But he didn't. I guess one of the other Witchers brought it up to her. Pretty stupid if you ask me. I can't think of how else she would've known that Geralt "has a daughter now."
I remember the leak/rumor a while back that Eskel was killed; people were pissed. I wonder if they're more pissed now: because it was correct. Seemingly, there was no point in doing that. His death didn't seem to serve a purpose. Supposedly, it was never said in the novels or even the games that someone can be infected/turned into a leshy. And even Vesemir said that's not possible to Geralt when the latter told him that the leshy infected Eskel.
cont.) In the premiere, Nivellen did say that the world is acting of its (own) strange accord these days. He also mentioned the Wild Hunt. Maybe Eskel getting infected was done to coincide with that. If so, that counts as a purpose behind killing him, I guess. Still, his death could've been done better. Or better yet, no need for that if he wasn't off-ed.
In short, the premiere was better. But this episode was still somewhat entertaining. The first ten minutes up to the title sequence was good, so was the second half and everything in Kaer Morhen; that had the best parts. The plot with Yennefer and Fringilla, while necessary: to introduce Francesca and bring the elves back into play; as well as revealing that Yennefer is having a magic problem; was the weakest. The ending with Cirilla's training starting was nice, too.
I was going to give this episode a seven out of ten. I did, initially. But after getting to this point of writing all of this, I decided to change it to a six. It's still close to a seven, but I think a seven would be an overstatement. It had its perks, though.
[8.0/10] Wrecker is such a big teddy bear most of the time. Sure, he likes whomping folks and blowing things up, but he mainly scans as an overgrown toddler. It never seems odd when he bonds with Omega, or has a playful big brother vibe with Tech. There’s a kid-like quality to him that belies his build and his power. Those attributes make him seem friendly and even sweet.
That makes it extra scary and extra impactful when his inhibitor chip goes off and suddenly he’s a slasher villain. You see the same power, the same strength, deployed against the people Wrecker cares about, his comrades and his surrogate little sis, without any hesitation or remorse. It’s the most frightening thing The Bad Batch has shown so far, and also one of the most heartbreaking for the same reason -- because the Wrecker we know has no control over this situation.
It’s an appropriately big event to coincide with the appearance of none other than Rex, one of the most important and well-loved characters to emerge from Star Wars: The Clone Wars. There’s lots of connections to other Star Wars properties in “Battle Scars”. Wrecker and Omega dine on popcorn you can find at Galaxy’s Edge. The Venator-class destroyer our heroes sneak aboard on Bracca is very much at issue in Fallen Order. It’s hard to find an episode of The Bad Batch that hasn’t had these sorts of tie-ins to elsewhere in the galaxy far far away.
But Rex is the biggest and most momentous because he comes laden with as deep an understanding as anyone of what damage those inhibitor chips can do. His desire to free his brothers from their hold, and his fear about what they’re capable of if the chips aren’t neutralized, is more than justified, as anyone who’s seen The Clone Wars knows.
So he makes for a natural guide when it comes time to pay off Wrecker’s recurring headaches. The show does some of its best work in terms of design and direction, as our heroes spelunk through the Venator ship, fight off squid monsters, and eventually have to defend against one of their own. Rex’s presence adds urgency and gravitas to what’s been an exciting but lighter adventure so far.
The height of this one, though, comes when Wrecker turns on Omega. The show’s right to spend much of the early going on the two of them having fun together, chowing down on popcorn and having their own post-mission tradition. It reinforces the sweetness between them we’ve seen as early as Wrecker making Omega her very own bunk.
So it twists the knife even harder when Wrecker accuses her of treason and comes close to destroying her. Their size disparity becomes real and menacing for the first time. The stand-off intensifies the double-edged tragedy of Order 66, with good people killed by those they trust and people who are just as good forced to become butchers of those close to them against their will.
As scary as Wrecker advancing on young Omega is, there’s an equal and opposite sweetness to her refusing to leave his side when recovering from the inhibitor chip extraction. It comes with a certain sorrow when Wrecker tries to apologize for his actions, feeling as though he’s done something unforgivable, only to be wiped away by a heartwarming gesture from Omega, reinstating their popcorn tradition, a sign that she understands that heartless beast was not the same person who made her a bunk.
In the end, Rex doesn't exactly pass the torch to Hunter, but he does give our new leader figure a benediction. Rex is still fighting the good fight, but Hunter isn’t sure what that means just yet, or if it’s right for his squad. The closing conversation does right by both clones, acknowledging their different ages and experiences, and pointing toward things both certain and unsure for both of them. The combination of their understanding, and the journey of Wrecker from lovable lug to terrifying brute and back, makes “Battle Scars” The Bad Batch’s best outing yet.
Continuing to confirm my theory that everything involving Wakanda is leagues above everything else in the MCU, this is a big improvement over last week's disappointing outing, even if the show continues having problems pacing itself. This is a big concept to do in 30 minutes - one that involves literally removing one of the MCU's biggest characters from the equation entirely - and while it does a great job in setting the stage, once the stage is set, it just... stops. This is a shame too cause the concepts explored here are really cool and fascinating, and like some prior episodes clearly needed more time to breathe.
Still, the good stuff is damn good here. Killmonger is one of the MCU's best villains and here we get another glimpse into just how good his planning, manipulation, and intelligence is. And just like in Black Panther, you can't help but root for him despite his obvious lust for power here, even if it's with extremely noble intentions. I do wish we got a more interesting, longer conversation between him and Rhodey about their differences in ideology, but the short runtime is once again to blame there. Still though, enjoyed this quite a bit.
We were gonna reach a boiling point for Clint and Kate at some point, and having it here is probably the smartest choice they could have made. While not a lot of progress is made on the overarching mystery (outside of confirming some small details), the real treat is all of the strong, strong character work being done here for pretty much the entire cast. Clint in particular I think stands out here as the real treat - the PTSD of his time as Ronin, as well as the death of Natasha, still cast a shadow over the entire series and I love how the show is making that the main emotional hook for him to overcome here.
Just as interesting too is how the show continues to handle Kate, whose naive attitude towards crimefighting and lack of planning is starting to really backfire. The final argument that occurs, a hot kettle of these two opposing arcs clashing with each other, really works because of that, and the action scene that proceeds it - which features a wonderful four way battle including a really great surprise - uses that backdrop for strong emotional beats and great choreography. Cinematography is aces as well here. Still absolutely in love with Hawkeye, and with two episodes left to go I'm eagerly awaiting what they have next.
This whole crossover made absolutely zero sense. Look at my comment on 8x04 for everything wrong up until that point, but this episode just keeps adding to the mess.
First off, nobody supposedly remembers Despero, because of the timeline shift in the last episode. Yet somehow, everyone seems to be very acutely aware of who he is, what he can do, and more importantly, how badly Flash got his ass handed to him on a silver platter the last time they fought (they even literally talk about this fight).
Second, Joe acts completely out of character in this entire episode. Threatening to "break up" the family if they let Thawne die, THE arch-nemesis of the entire show, the person who killed Barry's parents, who has consistently proven time and time again he is a giant threat, the guy who caused Armageddon in the first place. Suddenly Joe thinks his life is more important than the safety of his whole family? The hell?
Third, Damien Darhk's interaction with Nora. In 8x01, Ray literally says Nora is fine and is out doing her fairy godmother thing. 8x01 was already happening in the manipulated timeline that Thawne set up (because Joe is gone already and Despero shows up). Yet somehow, Nora is magically dead all of a sudden because Damien's alive, and later on Damien and Nora meet in "the land before time"? That makes zero sense.
Expanding on that, are you trying to tell me that the timeline, something that has no conscious thought, kept Damien outside of his own timeline long enough so he could give Joe a present? Again, makes no sense.
Expanding further on the timeline nonsense... Thawne is dying because the timeline got reset, so he technically doesn't exist anymore. Time's just catching up with that fact. Great. Ignoring everything that was wrong during the previous episodes, I get that premise. But how does taking away Thawne's speed change any of that premise? They don't explain this at all, they just... say that it'll work, so it works. But regardless whether he keeps his speed or not, Thawne's timeline still got erased. Again, no sense.
Also, Flash's "Wizard of Oz" go-go boots that make him able to beat Despero all of a sudden. Hilariously bad.
Also, Mia Queen's completely pointless cameo, which basically was only there to tell the audience that, no, they totally didn't forget about the cliffhanger they ended Arrow on two years ago. The audience forgot about it, though, because no one cares about Mia friggin Queen. There's a reason her spin-off got canceled.
And I might be remembering this wrong, but did Cavanagh always have such puffy cheeks in his suit? It looked ridiculous. I swear that wasn't the case way back when.
2021-01-01T00:00:00Z2021-12-31T23:59:59Z