Moon Knight (05.20.22)

 

Choosing to watch a movie or TV show based on a comic book property can be a daunting task these days if one isn't, as the late legend Stan Lee would say, a “True Believer.” Marvel Studio’s latest theatrical release, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, has no less than four entries in the greater MCU series that are most likely to be required watching before seeing it, if my calculations are correct. Shared universes can be fun for those who get in on them at the ground floor, but it can also be a nice break to invest in something a little more self-contained every now and then. Moon Knight, the latest Disney+ original miniseries set in the MCU, is one such adventure, and this lack of baggage is one of the many factors that make it one of the best ones so far. 

You don’t really need to do any homework before jumping into Moon Knight. In fact, you don’t really have to be a fan of the superhero genre at all (although it certainly does help, particularly by the last episode, which presents a much more straightforward superhero climax). Driven and elevated by Oscar Isaac’s brilliant performance as a very mentally troubled gift shop attendant who finds himself mixed up with an evil cult, a violent Spectre, and Egyptian gods, Moon Knight is an action-fantasy adventure that, more often than not, isn’t content to stay within the boundaries of your typical superhero fare. Things get trippy pretty quickly, and the series occasionally dips into straight horror territory, a first for the MCU (or second, depending on whether or not you watch this or Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness first). The imagery and camerawork are particularly interesting, and the look of the show owes much to its directors, which is not often the case with a studio that usually prefers to churn out content via metaphorical assembly line. Another bright spot is the soundtrack, which is exciting, memorable, and fantastically mysterious. 

The special effects occasionally do not quite measure up to the lofty standards set by these successes. Marvel Studios has claimed that movie-level budgets set their Disney+ original miniseries apart from others, but if this is true than this money was clearly spent inconsistently, as Moon Knight’s CGI sometimes looks goofy and weird (although some of the things are kind of hard to portray in a non-goofy way to begin with, to be fair). A couple of the episodes in the middle of the series are also not quite as good as the others, and it is these two entries that are also the most straightforward and traditional of the bunch (along with the aforementioned finale). Moon Knight is at its best when it is doing its own thing, not aping The Mummy or Indiana Jones. The series can also be quite dark, and not just in its subject matter; occasionally I had a hard time making out what exactly was happening on screen. 

Even with these shortcomings, Moon Knight is by far my favorite of the Disney+ MCU series thus far. The only other one that comes close in my estimation is the equally weird WandaVision, which just goes to show that breaking the mold every now and then can be greatly beneficial, even if the mold is one that has proven to be successful time and time again. 

All six episodes of Moon Knight are now available on Disney+.

 

This review was first published in The Keizertimes on May 20^th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (05.13.22)

 

Nothing dates a movie quite like bad CGI. Take Peter Jackson’s Hobbit films as an example: Released at the very beginning of the twenty-first century, their precursor, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, easily holds up under the scrutiny of eyes that are now twenty years older. The Hobbit films, on the other hand, were pretty ugly to begin with despite coming out much later. Much of this has to do with the timelessness of practical effects over special effects, as one is as good looking as its ever going to get while the other is constantly improving. Sometimes, however, a story is so batcrap crazy and so indistinguishable from the real world that CGI is the only option. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is one such film. Frenetic, trippy, and a joy to look at, the Doctor’s latest adventure is a scarily good time despite a few notable flaws.  

               As part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Multiverse of Madness is a sequel to not only 2016’s Doctor Strange, but also to Avengers: Endgame and Disney+’s WandaVision. If you are already a fan of the MCU, you will be happy to know that Disney/Marvel Studio’s streak of decent to exceptional content is unbroken. If you are not a fan, then you will have absolutely no reason to watch this movie, as the continuity lockout is severe at this point in the franchise. If you can remember the basics of what came before it, however, Multiverse of Madness will be a mostly satisfying experience. Benedict Cumberbatch is back as the master of the mystic arts, and he is as good as ever. He is joined once again by Rachel McAdams (who has slightly more to do in this movie than the last but is still mostly wasted), Benedict Wong, and talented newcomer Xochitl Gomez, but it is Elizabeth Olsen who thoroughly steals the show this time around as the broken, ticking timebomb that is Wanda Maximoff. Taking over director duties is horror and superhero movie legend Sam Raimi (The Evil Dead trilogy, Toby Maguire’s Spider-Man trilogy), who brings a delightfully scary yet endearingly corny touch that is perfect for Doctor Strange’s corner of the MCU. It is his signature style of filmmaking that makes Multiverse of Madness stand out more than anything else, and it’s nice to see that the Disney/Marvel juggernaut still has room for individual flair.   

               Multiverse of Madness definitely has its flaws. The soundtrack by the illustrious Danny Elfman is surprisingly generic and rarely noticeable, and while the unabashed weirdness of Multiverse of Madness works more often than not, some of the weirdness occasionally comes across as simply dumb. This is also the case with the dialogue, which ranges from satisfactory to cringy, as well as the ever-present CGI that will constantly remind you that you that yes, you are watching a movie filmed almost entirely in front of a green screen and no, none of this is something that can conceivably happen in the real world.  

               But Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is still a treat for those who have sunk so much time into a universe that skipping any entry would be tantamount to heresy. With a good many thrills, a few scares, and a cheer-inducing cameo or two, it might be just what the doctor ordered.   

               Sorry, I was dying to get that phrase in there somewhere.   

               Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is now available exclusively in theaters.   

This review was first published in The Keizertimes on May 13th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/

Our Flag Means Death Season 1 (04.08.22)

 

We have a tendency to heavily romanticize the Golden Age of Piracy, and this is not a new phenomenon by any means. For proof of this, look no further than Stede Bonnet, the gentleman pirate and contemporary of other such legends as Blackbeard and Benjamin Hornigold. A lot of people say they want to be a pirate, but to Bonnet this was more than just idle chatter; this relatively wealthy Barbadian landowner ditched his family, bought a big ‘ol boat, and decided that he was going to live the life of a swashbuckler, despite the fact that he knew nothing about sailing. Sounds like one of those stories that’s too fantastical to be true, and also one that is ripe for comedy. Our Flag Means Death takes a stab at the humor inherent in the situation, and after a very rocky start it mostly succeeds with bringing the laughs while saying something at the same time. 

            Created by David Jenkins and executive produced by superstar Taika Waititi, Our Flag Means Death takes two or three episodes before it really gets going and becomes something other than an occasionally funny chore. Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords, Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle) stars as Bonnet, and you’d be right in assuming that his being on a project with fellow Kiwi Waititi results in a whole lot of that silly type of humor that New Zealanders are increasingly famous for. Darby’s supporting cast is entertaining and capable, but it is not until Waititi joins him on screen as Blackbeard himself in the fourth episode that things actually get interesting. Laughs exist before then, but they don’t come as frequently as I would have liked or expected for the creative team in question, and even after that they are not ever-present. Our Flag is funny, yes, but it also has a moral or two to explore as well.   

            Bonnet’s story as portrayed on the small screen has, of course, some giant liberties taken with it, but it is surprisingly accurate when it comes a lot of the basics. He did indeed sail with Blackbeard, for instance, who took the clueless aristocrat under his wing, and he did actually pay his crew a salary and was eventually pressed into being a privateer. The showrunners use this story to explore the deeper theme of societal pressures, whether it be gender-, sexual orientation-, race-, or class-based, and it is nice to watch a comedy that actually has something to say instead of feeling the need to be “on” all of the time. Our Flag is also accurate when it comes to salty language, which parents should know about beforehand, and the violence can be quite intense as well, if over-the-top and a bit cartoony.  

            The production values are decent if not fantastic, having that “made for TV” feel without looking bad. The script is good, the characters likeable, and there is definitely more good in Our Flag Means Death than bad. Just be patient waiting for Blackbeard to show up. It might be worth it.  

            Our Flag Means Death season 1 is now available on HBO Max.  

This review was first published in The Keizertimes on April 8th, 2022. Visit at http:keizertimes.com/

The Adam Project (03.18.22)

 

More is not always better, especially when it comes to movies. Bruce the Jaws shark looks fake? Show him to the audience less. Your protagonist is going through some heartbreak? Show that on their face-- don’t have them say “hey, guess what, I am going through some heartbreak” and then launch into an explanation of why. In the same vein I find it a bit tiring how almost every action movie ever has grandiose stakes that usually include saving nothing less than humanity itself. The Adam Project is, partially, yet another example of this eye-rolling cliché, but I can forgive it because the smaller, more personal moments that it also features work quite well, as does the comedy and action itself.  

            The Adam Project is one of those time-travel movies, and as such it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense if you stop to think about it for even a moment. I certainly didn’t. As soon as Ryan Reynolds started to say something even remotely timey-wimey my brain shut off and I looked at my phone. I don’t think I really missed much, though; the saving-the-world-through-time-travel plot was mostly secondary, instead serving as the backdrop of the smaller story of a family learning to heal after great tragedy. Newcomer Walter Scobell plays the twelve-year-old Adam, who is visited by his future self (Reynolds), and the resulting duo is highly entertaining. Not only is Scobell a dead-ringer for a younger Ryan Reynolds, but he also nails the same comedic timing and snarky cleverness that made his older counterpart famous (I’m still not entirely convinced Ryan Reynolds exists and isn’t just Deadpool in disguise). The supporting cast is also impressive, featuring big names such as Jennifer Garner as the mom, Zoe Saldana as the wife, and Mark Ruffalo as the dad, and the brief runtime of 1 hour and 46 minutes means that nobody overstays their welcome.  

            The fight choreography is also well done, and the coolness of all the bouts is greatly boosted by the licensed tunes that kick in every time the fists start to fly (how Netflix could afford to license a Led Zeppelin song when the band members are notoriously picky over which movies they are featured in, I have no idea). This is the only good part of the soundtrack, unfortunately, as the original tracks are all highly unoriginal and generic. Speaking of highly unoriginal and generic, the futuristic tech showcased in the film, as well as the overall look, is that of your typical sci-fi fare with little to differentiate it from the myriad of other movies of the same ilk. Compounding the blandness is poor CGI, which I guess is to be expected and subsequently forgiven for a streaming original. The bad guys are also kind of just there to be bad guys. You don’t need to know or care why.  

            Overall I enjoyed The Adam Project. Sweet, funny, and exciting, it is the perfect example of small scale being the right scale. 

            The Adam Project is now available on Netflix.   

This review was first published in The Keizertimes on March 18th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/

The Batman 03.11.22)

 

When the Comics Code Authority was established in the 1950s to appease those who thought the funny books were corrupting the minds of children with questionable themes, inherently dark characters like Batman entered an era of lighthearted camp. It was not until the 1980s that Batman would permanently reclaim his throne as the prototypical dark-and-troubled king of angst, despite LEGO and George Clooney-with-bat-nipples iterations. Before now, the darkest version of Batman to ever glide onto the silver screen was in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, a series that helped elevate comic book movies to more “serious” cinema. But just when I thought the Caped Crusader couldn’t get any darker, Warner Brothers decided to double down with The Batman, an extremely well-made, intense film that, much like a black hole, does not let a single photon of light escape its inky depths.  

            Directed by Matt Reeves and led by Robert Pattinson’s almost uncomfortably unhinged, brilliantly subtle, and undoubtedly Kurt Cobain-inspired rendition of the titular hero, The Batman is not for the faint of heart. There is no comic relief to be found, the violence is regularly even more brutal than The Dark Knight at its bloodiest (it is still, somehow, PG-13), and the mystery at the center of it all demands your full attention and brainpower for the entire 176-minute runtime if you expect to understand everything that’s happening. If these things don’t turn you off you will find The Batman to be a fantastic watch. The supporting cast, which includes Zoë Kravitz as Catwoman, Jeffrey Wright as Jim Gordon, and Paul Dano as the startlingly creepy Riddler, is perfectly cast and act the heck out of a script that is sharp if not always compelling. Some of it feels like a horror movie (who imagined the Batmobile could be so scary?), some of it feels like a David Fincher-esque psychological thriller in the vein of Se7en or Zodiac, and none of it is what I would describe as “fun.” The Batman is not a movie you want to see if you want to escape the horribleness of the real world and watch a superhero bam, smash, and pow their way through a colorful rogues gallery for a few hours. “Colorful” is the very last word I would use to describe The Batman-- black, dark red, and various shades of gray seem to be the only colors that exist in this version of Gotham City.  

            This limited and dreary color pallet is one of a few nitpicks I had that kept The Batman from reaching loftier heights in my estimation. I had other issues as well, such as the soundtrack, which is overly bombastic, far too intrusive, and has a fixation on a certain two-note refrain that will drive you absolutely insane by the time it is played for the millionth time, as well as the script’s occasional dip into melodrama and self-importance (some of Batman’s brooding voiceovers come uncomfortably close to self-parody at some points). Yet despite these flaws, The Batman is a thrilling, well-crafted film that is well worth your time if you don’t mind your movies having a whole lot of dark and not a lot of fun.  

            The Batman is now available exclusively in theaters.  

 

This review was first published in The Keizertimes on March 11^th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/

Marry Me (02.25.22)

 

Most boy-meets-girl romcoms follow the same basic structure: two people meet, slowly fall in love, have a misunderstanding that forces them apart, and then get back together at the end just in time for the credits. It’s a tried-and-true formula that has been shown to work over and over again, and this uniformity necessitates that new releases in the subgenre have narrative hooks in order to set them apart from their brethren. What if the meeting happened because a famous pop star decides on a whim to marry a random guy in the audience to spite her unfaithful and equally famous betrothed, for instance? This is the hook of Marry Me, a Peacock original that has very few unique things to offer other than its bonkers premise.

            Based on a graphic novel by the same name (yes, really), Marry Me has romance, a small dash of comedy, and very little originality. There’s really not much more to the story than I described already, and the film leans heavily on the aforementioned hook as well as the likeability of its leads, Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson, to make up for it. As Lopez plays a pop star (not too much of a stretch, is it), there are a few original songs that pad things out as well, some decent (the ballad she writes for Wilson’s character) and some a bit more irritating (the titular track, which they will not let you forget). The inevitable conflict that breaks up the string of fuzzy falling-in-love scenes also feels a bit manufactured and isn’t super convincing, as if the filmmakers were not only fully aware of the basic boy-meets-girl romcom structure but were also determined to follow it to the letter. Or maybe they just realized that they were already three-fourths of the way through the film and hadn’t introduced any actual conflict yet.

            I never really laughed out loud during Marry Me, which is a bit disappointing for a romantic comedy, and I can’t for the life of me see what would have attracted either of the stars to the script other than the chance to have a few kissing scenes with Jennifer Lopez or Owen Wilson. To its credit, the script does try really hard to be memorable and profound, constantly requiring Lopez (and occasionally Wilson) to drop what the writers probably thought were insightful one-liners about everything from self-reliance to the benefits of social media, but the juggling of all of these themes leads to a few balls being dropped along the way.

            Marry Me isn’t a bad film. The warm and fuzzy scenes feel warm and fuzzy, the characters are likeable enough (shout-out to Sarah Silverman as the best friend character, who I have not mentioned yet), and any eyerolls are solidly contained to the ludicrous proposal moment early on. It just doesn’t do much of anything special and is easily forgettable as a result. If you need some comfort food in the form of a movie you might as well watch something that fills you up a little longer.  

            Marry Me is now available on Peacock.

This review was first published in The Keizertimes on February 25th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/

The Book of Boba Fett (02.18.22)

 

If there is one thing that the highly fickle and fragmented Star Wars fandom can agree on, it’s that the only thing good to come out of 1978’s infamous Star Wars Holiday Special was the mysterious bounty hunter known as Boba Fett (and arguably Mark Hamill’s Carol Brady haircut). The cold-blooded killer’s screentime after this coke-fueled and bizarre debut was minimal, having just a few lines in the original Star Wars trilogy before being unceremoniously thrown into a sarlacc pit, but his staying power (and ability to sell toys) was undeniable. It would take over forty years since his introduction to get his own spinoff, however, and that spinoff is the sometimes boring, sometimes awesome, sometimes unfocused Book of Boba Fett, a Disney+ original/spinoff of The Mandalorian.  

            Sixty-one-year-old Temuera Morrison stars as the roughly 41-year-old Boba Fett after previously playing his father/clone template Jango (as well as other clones) in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. Along for the ride is Ming-Na Wen, reprising her roll as master assassin Fennec Shand from The Mandalorian, as well as a couple of new characters that you probably won’t care about and a few that will only be familiar if you’re a fan of the Star Wars comics and animated series (one from the latter I was particularly jazzed about, but that would be a spoiler). There’s not too much to the story: After the events of Return of the Jedi Boba slowly gets his groove back, decides he wants to retire from bounty hunting and become a crime boss but comes into conflict with a rival syndicate, and western standoffs and sci-fi explosions ensue. The first four episodes or so are rather boring, relying far too much on flashbacks to pad the barebones “present-day” storyline, which mostly consists of talking and posturing, and the action varies greatly in quality as well. There isn’t really an excuse for this latter complaint because while the lead is 61, he also plays a character that wears a helmet and could therefore be played by a stuntman for a good deal of the time (the same is true of Wen, who is supposedly 58 but must have an aging portrait sitting in her attic ala Dorian Gray or Paul Rudd). To be fair, the action is not all underwhelming, just inconsistent (as the awesome train scene will attest), and in episode five things finally start to pick up instead of merely chugging along.  

            The only problem? The titular character is completely absent in one of those three final episodes, is barely in another, and has to share focus in the third. It is when The Book of Boba Fett is no longer about Boba Fett that the series gets really good, which is a downright shame considering how long he has waited to get his own spinoff. These last episodes are not awesome because they are furthering Boba’s story, but because they are furthering other stories in the Star Wars galaxy. This alone makes The Book of Boba Fett worth watching, but it would have been nice to have these stories told elsewhere to tighten the focus of the show. Boba deserves better.  

            Also, there is no book. The title is a lie.  

            All seven episodes of The Book of Boba Fett are now available on Disney+. 

This review was first published in The Keizertimes on February 18th, 2022. Visit at http://keizertimes.com/