Tron: Ares - My Take (Spoilers)

 

First and foremost I'm not doing the "It's Tronning Time" or bashing the movie because it stars Jared Leto. That's just lazy when it comes to making a movie review. I also only saw the movie once so I'm going to get things out of order. Deal with it.

The short version is that it's too much story for too little movie. My movie buddy and I agree that this much story would have fit better into one of the six episode series that are so popular on streaming services. That would have given far more time for creating depth, both in characters and story. However, they did not do that so I'll review what they did.

They introduced an interesting concept of disposable, replaceable battlefield assets. When one becomes a casualty, build another. This is especially interesting when it comes to soldiers because it means they show up trained and equipped to continue fighting, with no sense of anything but completing the mission they're given and knowing what prevented that to this point. That's something that could have, but did not, have some very interesting plot development on the ethics and ramifications on the future of warfare.

We got Tron red lasers creating things in the material world. And because they're the red lasers you know they're working for the bad guys. It's nice that some things stay the same - red for bad, blue for good. Red in this movie is the Dillinger company, blue is still Encom. There's no orange as in Tron: Legacy because there's no CLU anymore.

The core plotline is the inherent problem - both red and blue - of object permanence in the material world. Creations last twenty-nine minutes. After that, they disintegrate into dust that for some reason sticks around. You'd think the dust would go back to the Grid or something. I know, they did it for cinematic reasons because watching something/someone crumble to dust instead of just fading out is more interesting. But it's one of those things that make you kind of tilt your head upon reflection. Maybe it did go away later? Maybe it's just the cohesiveness that's lost after twenty-nine minutes but the material sticks around? Dunno. Never mentioned.

Continuing on the things not explored is the power consumption needed to make this stuff. The cinematic effect of (red) lasers playing over the things they're building is great but where is it getting the source material, how much energy are those lasers using, and how practical is the whole mess to do on a larger scale? The intent seems to be completely military in function so those things would matter, even in the initial demonstration.

Good timing in the bad guys kept their presentation under the deadline so the potential buyers didn't see that everything crumbled to dust in a short period of time.

This is where we get to meet Ares, the super soldier. It seems he's the head super soldier - the new CU (Control Unit. Don't quote me on that because it could also have been MCU for Master Control Unit but that term has very different meaning since the original Tron movie came out so it was probably shortened to prevent confusion and lawsuits) of the entire shebang. He's supposed to be super strong, super smart, and super something else. They say "Biblically strong" for some reason, maybe referencing Jared's cult status or some throwback to when they used more religious allegory in the movies. But onward.

Onto the blue side of the board.

There's a quick wrap-up of Sam Flynn stepping away from the company and the sisters who stepped up into leadership. They're also highly skilled computer geeks. Spoiler - one of them has already died of cancer at this point, leaving the other sister grieving and floundering. All future references refer to the living sister as a solo entity.

The Encom CEO is looking for code that Sam left behind somewhere that gives these constructs permanence. The Dillinger CEO is also looking for that code, obviously. So there's your McGuffin - The Permanence Code. She found some way off-grid lair that Sam Flynn left behind, complete with 80s computers and memorabilia. Digging around she finds it and copies it to a very fancy flash drive. She tests it and leaves the test object in place, conveniently pointing the way to the lair for later. Then she's off to bring the code home.

That's our intro to the female lead. She's smart and she's focused on the goal. There's hints that she's doing it because her dead sister was also focused on it but at this point she's pretty one dimensional.

The Dillinger company head finds out she's got the code by doing fancy computer searching using surveillance cameras, etc. just like every computer themed movie has ever used. Grainy footage stays pretty grainy tho and that's a refreshing change from Temu level camera footage being processed into 8k beauty.

Dillinger creates another Ares and team to go get the very fancy flash drive from her. After a chase scene where she's cornered on a pier she breaks it in half and drops it in the water. Obviously the only thing they can do is bring her back to Dillinger so that they can extract the information from her brain. No one brings up the fact that data recovery exists, if they go back and get the pieces of the drive she dropped.

They put her into the Grid as a user so she's in the blue light suit. I guess it's easier for them to get code from her brain when she's code herself? Whatever. She's blue light in a sea of red. There's talk of whether or not she'll survive the process and eventually the Dillinger CEO decides it doesn't matter. He shows up as a Wizard of Oz talking head when he's communicating with the Grid. OK then.

Ares has been spending time doing his own browsing while he's back in the Grid and in another actor it might be seen that he's seeing a world beyond his programming. Leto is stoic so all you see is close up shots of his face as his eyes move, showing that he's reading the stuff that's been inserted by CGI later. Right around now it seems that he's deciding he wants permanence and the only way to get it is to save the Encom CEO to get the code for himself. He also seems to have a moral quandary about the lack of care for the person of the Encom CEO. It shows Ares is growing beyond his programming, as a plot development.

I forget the place in the story where the Encom CEO and Ares kind of team up in the material world and she sends him back to the Grid using their one and only laser portal gun things, promising to bring him back and make him permanent when she can. Of course, the laser portal gun thing, their one and only laser portal gun thing, gets damaged by the Dillinger n second in command when she's there to capture the Encom CEO. Conveniently she drops her red laser portal gun when she disintegrates. This time there's a reason for the laser portal gun remaining - the Dillinger CEO gave it to her when they started the chase.

The laser portal gun thing is important, as you can tell by the amount of film time they spent on them.

Onward.

Ares decides that they only way he's going to get to be permanent himself is to help her, so he does. He gets her to the portal, they meet up with Kevin Flynn who's intrigued by Ares as a "malfunctioning program". There's fancy blue light CGI as he manipulates stuff to bring out the orange Permanence Code, which he calls the Impermanence Code. There's a bit of moralizing because he wants to make sure Ares realizes that he's a one and done if he accepts the code. That's pretty decent of Flynn and is one of the few deeper moments in the movie. Ares accepts the code and his red light turns blue.

The Encom CEO realizes there's another functioning laser portal gun right in front of her freaking face and she and her unmemorable sidekick work to create a single functioning laser portal gun from the two of them to bring Ares back as they promised.

Ares shows up in his new blue light glory. The Dillinger CEO is miffed that he lost out on getting the code and creates a big red light task force to get her back including one of the flying cargo lift shaped ships seen in Tron: Legacy. During this the second in command gets promoted because Ares has gone off his programming and the first thing she does is stab the CEO's mother who's going to shut the whole thing down because she does have ethics. A throwback to Tron: Legacy to the whole "create a perfect world" situation. This is the character defining moment for that CEO as he holds his mom and sees what his directives have done. It doesn't stop him from changing his orders to his creations, tho.

Funny enough both Ares and the second in command have triangle shaped identity disks rather than the more common round ones. The corners pop out into stabby things. I guess they needed to show something special on the higher command models? More than likely it was a merchandising thing. But there it is. The rest of the mooks have the standard round ones.

Sidebar since I can't remember where it fits into the narrative. Pre-permanent Ares sums up the Encom CEO's life, motivations, hopes, and dreams in a single monologue as they're driving through the city. She never gets a chance to develop as a character since it's all laid out for us nice and tidy so we can focus on the special effects and Jared Leto staring at things.

Battle in the city with lots and lots of red lights. There's only one blue light to oppose all this - ARES. Yeah. There you go. The Biblical thing. There's light cycles, there's light flyers, there's light tanks, there's light all kinds of vehicles and weapons. All of which will disintegrate twenty-nine minutes from creation. So really all the good guys need to do is hole up somewhere for a while and it all ends. But that wouldn't be very exciting or colorful.

The end battle is predictably between Ares and the second in command. Somehow he still can do all the fancy fighting that he could before he was made permanent. It's one of those things that was necessary for the movie but brings up the whole moralistic thing of what is Ares when he's code made permanent?

Ares wins, with a little help from time and I think the Encom CEO using a broken red light polearm. He conveniently disappears from the area. The Dillinger CEO ends up putting himself into the Grid to avoid the jail time he earned and gets his own identity disk of unknown origin and while it's round it's of a different design than the regular ones. (Edit: IMDb trivia says its the SARK program from his grandfather.)

There we go. The movie. There's a way to get things between the two worlds now. There's a way, only found in one program so far, to make Grid things permanent in the material world but it's implied that once they're gone they can't make another Grid-to-material one even though they have the code sitting right there. 

We're set for another Tron movie with the Dillinger CEO out in the Grid. He's in red so he's technically a program at this point but who knows what they'll make of that. Maybe his company's process doesn't turn the light blue when they go in that direction. Maybe he's a program now. Maybe he's a hybrid of some kind. There's that odd identity disk that was waiting for him.

I saw it in the fake IMAX and the sound was way too loud. I'm not talking "I'm old and the sound was too loud". I'm saying it was flat out too loud. Hopefully they'll mix it better for the digital releases because the contrast between the music/effects and dialogue was atrocious. I guess they wanted to make sure that everyone knew there was new NIN music to be had.

The Jared Leto bashing is a bit overdone, imo. Pretty much any good looking action hero actor could have stepped into his jumpsuit and done the role. Given the material it's not like they could have done worse. For everyone bashing him for his performance they're not giving enough bashing to the writing and directing that created the role. It was a joint effort to make him that forgettable.

There is an after credit scene where it's Jared Leto in all his beard goodness riding a Ducati somewhere in the world. He'd sent a postcard to the Encom CEO saying he's working on finding himself. No one asks how he's funding his world adventures or how he can travel outside the country (implied by location) without a passport or any identification of any kind, unless it's also implied that he's got networking skillz to make fake stuff.

I like the Tron movie. I like Tron: Legacy. I'm disappointed in Tron: Ares and hope that someone can smack people around enough to either make a smaller movie the next time around or stretch it out into the multiple episodes and do justice to the Tron universe itself.

I don't plan on seeing the movie again. It's best seen in IMAX and I just can't stand the idea of sitting through that noise again. Seeing it in the digital format means losing out on the big screen, with the potential of badly mixed sound on fewer speakers. It wasn't compelling enough for me to risk it.

Superman - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I found out I can watch movies in FauxMAX! I call the movie chain theater IMAX that because it's not real IMAX. I have a friend who's a movie snob cinephile and they go to one of the thirty-one actual IMAX theaters when they can for certain movies. But I digress.

I went to the movie to be entertained. I have no opinion about the director, which seems to put me in a distinct minority. Nor do I have an opinion about the previous director, which puts me in a Venn diagram distinct minority. Don't expect any of that nonsense in this post.

First and foremost. I have on very big beef with something that was obviously filmed for the 3D version of the movie. During a fight scene Superman punches a bad guy, teeth go flying towards the camera, and they actually make a "ping" noise and bounce away. Seriously? They're flying and teeth bounce off clear air and make a noise? Gratuitous makes me angry.

I liked this take on Superman. He's not invincible. Lex Luthor is completely, totally, and unrepentedly evil. There was a moment in the theater when there was a collective gasp at what he was doing. That's impressive. He wasn't unhinged evil either. He was focused on his goal/goals. Obsessed might be a better word. They didn't try to give him redeeming qualities or excuse away the fact the guy was just bad.

Having Hawkgirl, Mister Terrific, and Green Lantern in the mix is something that helped. It helped a lot. It gave Superman some balance in that there were other people who had powers and he wasn't this solo entity. Each one of them had enough screen time to flesh them out as distinct characters and they were true to the comics. Well. As true as they could reasonably be because let's face it - sometimes the comics go off the rails.

The movie opening setting up the state of the world was just right. It was a series of bullet points with a timeline of what led up to the moment the movie itself started. No long intro scenes, no origin story. It was "These things happened and here we are now". Those come up while the camera moves into find the beaten Superman in the snow that's in all the trailers. The bullet points are helpful in knowing how that happened.

There's an excellent secondary story going on and I think it's the base for the next movie. I said there's spoilers so I'll talk about it. The main story is, of course, Superman and Lex Luthor. But a pivotal event is when Superman intervenes in an international event, causing problems with a US ally. Of course that US ally was invading a neighboring country but that's beside the point. The problem the government has is that Superman decided to deal with it by himself without any input from them. They're not wrong.

Another part of this comes out when Lois Lane is interviewing Clark and is asking real questions. It turns out Clark Kent has been doing all the Superman interviews and Lois rightly calls him out on how hollow, if not misleading, that is. He finally agrees to do a real interview with her and things get very tense when she asks real and difficult questions to the point where he storms out of her apartment.

Yes, they have Superman being the Kansas farm boy here. He's very much that farm boy. His core value is that people shouldn't get hurt or killed. While that's not a bad thing, it's going to happen. It worked out fine until he went for international policy.

In the Fortress of Solitude he's got helper bots which I have to assume are canon. How he got them is not explained. Nor is how he got a Fortress of Solitude. When he's there he watches a message from his Krypton parents that was sent with him but got corrupted so he watches what he can. It's a loving message on how they picked the best world for him then it glitches. But he gets to see and hear his birth parents.

The Fortress of Solitude is only around when he is. When he approaches, it unearths itself. It opens for him. When he leaves, it goes back underground. So imagine everyone's surprise when Lex Luthor approaches the spot with a couple of his people and it unearths and unlocks. They find the recording (seems to be on autoplay when the door opens), trash the place, and leave.

I know. This is getting long. So what? And I'm going out of order because I've only seen it once and didn't write this directly after.

Lex Luthor took a copy of the recording and was able to have the rest of it reconstructed. He did so in a way to make it incontrovertible. The second half of the message that Superman hear for the first time when everyone else did on international TV is that he was sent there to rule over the planet and to (this one bugs me too) gather a harem to have as many Kryptonian children as he could. This is a turning point in the movie, of course.

Public opinion immediately turns on him. Lex refers to him as "the alien" and "the Krytonian", reminding everyone he can that Superman isn't human or American or even from Earth. Of course Superman is rocked by finding out what his parents were really like and what they really intended. He goes where he needs to go. He goes home.

Ma and Pa Clark are very much alive in this version and they're very much Kansas farmers. They also are loving parents. They believe in him and what he's like, because they're the ones who raised him with those values. Pa gives a very good speech which comes across as real, not corny. Pretty much they help Superman reconcile who he is with who people think he is now.

Lex had been lobbying the government to use his special enforcement teams for things like, oh I don't know, handling threats like aliens from another planet. The government has not been keen on this, until their pet alien has been "proven" to be something other than he seemed. Lex gets the go-ahead and Superman gets imprisoned in a pocket dimension that Lex has created. Lex ain't stupid here.

While he's gone it's up to the reporters at The Daily Planet and the Justice Gang (as they're called here) to figure out the truth and to get him back. Mister Terrific finds and rescues Superman and is aghast that Lex has made a pocket dimension, since getting it even the slightest bit wrong can cause the destruction of Earth. Of course, Lex knows the possibilities as we find out later.

While in the pocket dimension prison he's caged with a similarly, but worse, imprisoned Metamorpho since he can create Krytonite. Lex covers all his bases. Metamorpho is shackled by having his child held hostage, right across from him. So he's not particularly sympathetic to helping Superman since it endangers his child. The two of them come to an agreement, Metamorpho recharges Superman (no yellow sun in the pocket dimension), Superman grabs the child, there's a kind of chase scene, they all escape through the almost closed gateway Mister Terrific opened and was holding open. It's the car chase scene, really. It also sets up that there's black holes in the pocket dimension and Mister Terrific gets to explain why pocket dimensions are A Bad Idea.

OK. Superman is back and he's pissed. The US ally starts another invasion. Lex looses the pocket dimension's instability to keep Superman from interfering this time. Jimmy Clark uses a source's information to figure out what Lex's part is in the invasion. Lois and her gang write up and publish the story. (Lex is subsidizing the war in exchange for half the territory.)

The bad guy who's been kicking Superman's ass, directed by Lex who gives him fight moves as they go at it, turns out to be a Superman clone. Hence why he could get to the Fortress of Solitude that's keyed to Superman's DNA. (Is DNA universal?) Lex had obsessively visited every known scene where Superman had fought, looking for anything he could use and finally found a hair which was used to make the clone. This really was a twist.

Superman is dealing with Metropolis being endangered by the rift in the pocket dimension, leaving him unable to interfere with the invasion. There's a confrontation in Lex's headquarters. One of his employees has some morals and wants to enter the code to stop/close the rift but Lex won't allow it. This is where Lex gets to go on his bad guy spiel and reverse what it all seemed to be. He wasn't distracting Superman to conquer the country. He was conquering the country to end Superman. He really doesn't like that he's an alien who shows that he's better than everyone else on the planet.

Mister Terrific shows up to enter the code and close the rift. Lois gets her story out and Lex is exposed. He's shown being taken away.

The invasion? Superman took care of that by "calling in friends". Hawkgirl takes care of the leader of the invading country, who thought he was safe because Superman doesn't kill. Spoiler - Hawkgirl does. Green Lantern takes care of the invasion force and sends them back on their way. Metamorpho shows up and helps out too. Green Lantern brings him into the Justice Gang, mostly because he likes the name and no one else does.

Having Superman not have to be the guy who fixes everything is important, in my opinion. Having him ask others for help, and having them give help, is important. It's a setup for the Justice League, I know. But it's good to see the comic source material as well as showing Superman knows how to work with others.

The dog. I know I haven't talked about the dog. That's because he's kind of a dux de machina at times. Yes, he's funny and yes, he advances the plot. He's also the reason for the audience gasp when it seems like Lex kills him (he doesn't but we all know it was possible because there's no way to make an evil character more evil than to have them kill the dog). But overall he's not much more than obvious comic relief. In the mid-credit scene we find out that it's not Superman's dog. It's Supergirl's dog and she collects him when she shows up in the fortress. She's a party girl rather than a superhero here.

The post credit scene is Superman and Krypto sitting on the moon, looking at Earth.

All in all I liked it. I liked Nathan Fillian's Green Lantern best. I know he's been doing the character voice for a while but he really did portray this Green Lantern well. Hawkgirl is the least developed of the characters but I'm not sure how much there is to develop with her. Mister Terrific is defined well enough to carry him forward and make all his parts in the movie believable.

The setup for the next movie, I think, revolves around the government and how superheroes seem to be making decisions without consideration for what the government might want. That's the secondary story I mentioned way earlier. It's also a good continuation of what's been done here and draws all of the characters into the mix, since this is the second time it's happened and it's a different group of superheroes. Not to mention they killed the leader of what was probably a US friendly country.

There's a cheese factor in this movie. Superman is very boy scout but loses some of that by the end. He's still who he is, he accepts that Ma and Pa Clark are more his parents than the ones from Krypton, and he's once again beloved by most of the world. As long as they keep the ensemble around him in future movies they should be good.

Captain America: Brave New World - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I know this blog has been light on hobby content for a while. I'm planning on changing that. But until then I'll report on some geek-related stuff.

I'll be honest here. I wasn't all that excited about this movie from the start. The trailer didn't grab me and it seemed like another yawn-fest of CGI. As much as I try to avoid spoilers I did end up absorbing a lot about how this movie was forced. I'll get to that.

One thing I will say outright - I don't like that they cast Harrison Ford as Red Hulk. Why? Because the man is ancient. They already recast the Thaddius Ross role when William Hurt passed away and giving a major, probably recurring role like this to another actor who's getting up there in years doesn't make a lot of sense. There's more about the character that doesn't make sense but I'll get to that later.

I didn't like the movie because I didn't like the story. It felt weak and cobbled together. Test audiences seemed to feel the same way, hence Sidewinder getting a bigger role. Adding another bad guy to the mix seems counterintuitive because that brought the number of them up to three so none of them got proper treatment.

There's a lot of preaching going on in this script. Lots of rah-rah, be the best you can be, try to do better, etc. While it's a lovely sentiment I'm not going to a comic book movie to be preached at. Yes, yes I know that the comic books cover a lot of societal issues too. But this is a discrete block of very expensive time to tell a story and you gotta figure out what story you're going to tell.

They didn't tell a story. At least they didn't tell one that held together or held audiences. There's so many disconnects and leaps of logic that it just didn't cohere into a singular line. There was no grand coming together at the end even though they put all the characters into their own moments.

One thing that has come out during the discussions has been the push to make a Black man Captain America. I will say that it wasn't overtly pushed here. There wasn't much if any race contention. It's established that Sam Wilson is Cap. As said in the movie "he's no Steve Rogers" but that was going to happen with anyone trying to take on the story role and indeed did happen during the TV series too. I honestly don't think the producers were trying to force acceptance of a Black Captain America as much as a Sam Wilson Captain America.

I will say that this movie did address two things that were kind of skipped/glossed over until now.

• The celestial in the Indian Ocean is part of the plotline and is now Elemental Island. I'm not sure but I don't think any of the movies since that one even noted it existed.
• Who's supplying and maintaining all the tech now that Tony Stark is gone. It's Wakanda. I did wonder about that one since Endgame.

There's adamantium in them thar celestials. Yes, adamantium is now officially in the MCU. But it's not nearly as rare as it seems to be in the comics, considering one of the plotlines is the attempt to build a treaty between India, Japan, France, and the United States for all the resources. I have no idea why France would be in there. India and Japan make sense. It's in their backyard. The US is because we're greedy bastages. But France? Why the heck would France make a claim?

India and France get the short end of the stick in the movie. They get one Zoom meeting scene where they defer to Japan for guidance on the treaty. That's because one of the (many) plot points is 'the package' that was being delivered/sold/whatever that turned out to be Japan's refined adamantium, which was stolen by ~gasp~ the United States!

There's a naval battle scene between the US and Japan. Japan is rightly upset that the US tried to screw them over and decided to go out and stake their claim on Celestial Island. I don't blame them. It was nice to see a country not roll over for the US for once in these movies. The battle is another issue because it has the President directly controlling the war maneuvers. Yes, I know he was a general. But he's not a general and he's not the captain of the ship. He's not in that chain of command. Mostly. What he's trying to do is stop the mind controlled pilots from starting a war with Japan but it's still jarring to see him making tactical decisions better left to, oh I don't know, the ship's tactical officer?

Whoops. Gave away one of the sloppy plot points. But the underlying plot under these was the return of Samuel Sterns from the original Incredible Hulk movie. Since I still haven't watched that one I needed to read online why he mattered. Considering the character has been MIA since 2008 I think I'm not going to be the only person questioning who this guy is and why he's in the plot. He's doing mind control stuff. Big surprise.

While we're on the mind control thing either someone paid a lot of money to have their cell phones placed in the movie or someone on the production staff really liked a brand because every freaking cell phone looks the same. I know people are addicted to their phones but there was a LOT of obvious cell phone usage here. Spoiler - it's how Sterns mind controls a lot of people. But c'mon. Everyone carrying large black cell phones with four cameras on the back? I don't see that happening without someone making the decision that's how it's going to be.

Mind control is big in the comics. It's a lovely dux de machina that helps shuffle the plot along. Poor Wolverine has a revolving door in his brain for all the times he's been mind controlled. But this one stretches things to the breaking point with how easily Sterns is able to use what should be highly encrypted communications and pinpoint accuracy to mind control people. I know. It's a comic book movie.

Here's another thing that bugged me. When Ross transformed into Red Hulk (like that's a spoiler) he immediately knew how to use his new form. No learning curve on the size, strength, etc. Just right out there tearing stuff up and doing physics-defying leaps, tearing up buildings, exploding and throwing vehicles, having perfect hand-eye coordination, etc. I'd think if you suddenly became a Hulk you'd have to take a bit of time just not to fall over much less walk.

They are going to form another Avengers team. It's not subtle. President Ross told Sam to do it. We've got him as Captain America. He's already got his buddy in as Falcon. The head of the President's security just happens to be a Red Room trained Soviet, just like Black Widow (no security issues there, right?), and I don't know who else will get in on this since the only other major character was Isaiah Bradley as the Forgotten Supersoldier. I guess they could put him in for his super strength but they might need to be careful about dropping him into the Wise Old Black Man trope. He's already the Wounded Veteran and the Resentful Veteran.

Bucky makes a brief cameo so that he and Sam can have a dialog about what it means to be Captain America. Of course this takes place while the guy who's now Falcon is in surgery and they're watching that. Bucky seems to have won an election to Congress too. I have no idea how that's going to figure into Thunderbolts*, or if it even is.

They put the trope of Alienated Parent in there too with the President being estranged from his daughter since the Incredible Hulk thing and he's trying to show her he can do better. That's brought up several times. Sure. The President of the United States is going to make decisions based on making his kid not hate him. There is a redemption arc at the end but it's forced narrative with a 'blink and you'll miss it' cameo from Liv Tyler, who gets billing in the movie for some reason. Granted she's reprising her role from the first movie but billing? Her agent should get an extra percentage point for that.

Nothing comes together at the end. It kind of trails off with each of the bad guys having a moment with Sam. Ross and Sterns are in the special prison and Sidewinder giving up a lot of narrative to get himself into a regular prison, which he promises he'll break out of. There's what's supposed to be a touching moment with Falcon (I don't even bother to try to remember the character's name) that is supposed to have a tension breaking end but overall feels forced.

Forced is a good way for me to describe this entire movie. They wanted to do .. something. I guess it's a transition movie to build The New Avengers? There's only one mention of X-Men and that's the adamantium. There's no Fantastic Four references. This movie doesn't seem to have much of a purpose other than to keep the characters on screen.

There is one after credit scene that tries to build tension by stating that they'll have to face the Others. What Others? It's more confusing than tantalizing. It's said by Sterns who can calculate probabilities and stuff like that but why would he know anything specific outside of his general area? Maybe something they discovered in the celestial? I have no idea and honestly I won't think of it much past writing this. 

So there you go. I'm not nearly alone in my evaluation of this movie as cobbled together and not interesting. Someone brought up the point that with the exception of Ross none of the characters developed. Even Ross is a redemption arc trope but at least he's trying. Every other character is exactly the same as when the movie started so what's the point?

Will I see the next Captain America movie? Of course. I've got the subscription that lets me see movies every week so it's no skin off my nose to use one of my weekly slots to see the new Marvel movie. Will there be a next Captain America movie? Even though this one is getting panned there will be another one. The character IP is too valuable not to keep making movies. I have a feeling it will have different writers and a different director tho.

Gladiator II - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I know I'm writing this before the movie has been released. You'll find out why soon enough.

I haven't seen Gladiator. I never wanted to see Gladiator. I had no plans to see Gladiator. I didn't want to see Gladiator II. I had no plans to see Gladiator II. I saw Gladiator II.

See, AMC has this fun thing called 'Screen Unseen'. They give you the genre and a teaser blurb. Here was the one for this movie: "Save on a never-before-seen film with a secret twist - the title will only be revealed at showtime!" How could I resist that when I have subscription movies to use up for the week? I'd been wanting to go to these but wasn't willing to pay full ticket price for them since they're single 7pm showings. Now? Not a problem.

I mentioned this to my cinephile friend (who also has a subscription) and he decided to go as well. I was pleased because I haven't seen a movie with someone in over a decade. It would be nice to have company for once and someone who's interested in movies is a bonus.

We're watching the leading commercials and previews while trying to figure out what movie it would be. He was looking at December 6 release dates and guessing which one it might be. We both laughed when he said it might be Gladiator II, since we both have the same opinion on going to see it.

As the movie started and the opening credits were rolling they looked ominously familiar. The production companies rang a bell for me. Then the movie title showed up. Gladiator II. We both used profanity as our reaction. AMC tricked us into seeing this movie.

We did discuss leaving because it's not like we paid for the tickets but decided to suffer through it. I think I'd suffer more because of my decades long informal research into the Roman Empire and I wasn't completely wrong. But I also accept that it's a movie, not a documentary, so as long as they make am honest effort I can forgive a lot of mistakes. At least during the movie. After it all bets are off.

My biggest peeve for this movie was the lack of time breaks. It didn't show the passing of time between situations so it quite literally felt like each new plot point happened the day after the previous one. Since there was a time sensitive plot point it got completely lost in the mix. By not showing character development over time there was no reason to get invested in the characters. Without that investment it's a flat movie.

My friend did point out that they didn't linger on the gore parts and that's true. There's enough to show what's happening and what the result was but they weren't extended scenes and gore wasn't amplified. It was inconsistent (two stomach stabs, different stabee responses). Considering it's a movie about arena fighting I'd say that's something in the favorable category.

The story depends on the audience not knowing much about Roman history, especially the legal aspects. Sadly for me, I know those. I'll get into that later. By playing fast and loose with those they can flatten out the story where there would have been significant problems. I'm fine with that for the sake of the movie. Not everyone is going to know the laws regarding slaves, their rights, the various punishments for infractions, etc. so those weren't mentioned at all.

Pedro has a few facial expressions - the weary general, the concerned general, the frustrated general, then back to the weary general. To be fair they didn't give him a lot to work with so they fit the character he was given. The 'weary general' expression at the beginning is a big set up for his role going forward.

The classic 'mad emperor' is doubled by having twins in the role of emperor. So, two of them ruling together. This is historically accurate, oddly enough. There'd been several instances of joint emperors to various extents for a few decades along with sole power ones. Mind you, for a long time the way the position of emperor was attained was to be adopted by the previous emperor who then elevated them into the position so they could keep it after the first one's death. But I'm pleased and surprised they used the real names for this movie. A plus for them and I had to look it up to be sure.

This is where things break down because the movie makes it seem like the position of emperor is a bloodline thing. It most certainly was not. It was a power thing. Romans didn't make much distinction between natural and adopted so it was the name, not the lineage, that mattered when it mattered. Spoiler time - the main character is supposed to be the son of the emperor Marcus Aurelius's daughter which, for the sake of the movie, makes him the heir apparent to the throne. They refer to him as Prince of Rome. This is so not true but again, plot required it.

The main character becomes a gladiator champion with a huge grudge against the general because the general just happened to be doing his job and ordered the person who shot one of his soldiers killed in battle. Spoiler alert - the person killed is the main character's beloved wife. So yeah. Vengeance thing going on here. Big foreshadowing that there's going to be a confrontation later.

The more interesting storyline, in my opinion, is a freeman maneuvering to become emperor. The politics there are glossed over but told enough to show the steps taken to get there. This could and did happen. Pretty much anyone could be proclaimed emperor. How long they stayed emperor was a matter of how well they knew how to hold power. There's not much in the way of buildup to this until he says that's what he's going to do.

This freeman buys the main character to be a gladiator. He promises him he can have the general's head. He's very certain of it but then again the promise costs him nothing. It might have been considered foreshadowing except there wasn't enough going on to make it viable during most of the movie. His 'rise to power' was an accelerated bit of story.

The former emperor's sister was just a mess of a character. She wasn't developed past the necessary parts and is a Mary Sue in that regard. Maybe she's got more importance in the first movie so that knowledge would make her more important in this one so I'll hold off on fully raking her across the coals here. Spoiler - she's the mother of the main character and sent him away after Maximus was killed in the first movie. Second spoiler - Maximus is his father. He's the son of an emperor's sister and a slave, which wouldn't give him any standing in Roman society. If anything it would remove any standing she had as well. Consorting with male slaves was not condoned.

So yeah. Battle scenes, pretty well done. The concept that gladiators weren't disposable, pretty well done and refreshing. The whole 'I'm your mother' thing, poorly done due to only meeting twice before him saying he'd give his life for her. The confrontation, mediocre in general (pun intended). The rise to power, shallow and disjointed.

Disjointed is a good word to describe this movie. As a sequel to a movie where the main character was killed they did what they could. There's a little footage from the first movie and possibly some CGI to make it fit into this one, I can't know whether or not that happened. Slave to possible emperor is the classic rags to riches trope. The inspiring speeches, required. The mad emperor(s), required.

They did a pretty good job representing Rome at the time. The profusion of beggars is a heavy handed visual for the state of the Roman Empire at the time, where the emperor(s) were more focused on winning wars than running the empire. It's pretty to watch when looking at the architecture itself.

On to things that bothered me, both historically and in the movie.

The emperor(s) were too exposed to danger. They had a swordfight staged ten feet in front of them with no guards between them and the two sword fighting slaves with nothing to lose.

The sea battle has crossbows and those are 200 years in the future for Rome. It's a plot point for the main character to pick one up to do a surprise shot at the Imperial Box. But they don't exist at that time for Romans.

The arena fights weren't what they should have been. They didn't just have men show up and hack at each other with swords. Romans demanded spectacle. So they would pair men with different weapons against each other. The only time this happened was when the Emperors' champion, riding a rhino, uses a few different weapons. Otherwise it's some men hacking at each other with swords. The Romans would never have tolerated that when there were important games going on.

The defeat in the beginning of the movie has the captives being branded. Three things here. First is that the new slaves took their branding with barely a wince and it showed up like maybe a second degree burn. The second is that they didn't seem to have any medical attention after that and burns can be deadly. The third is that they wouldn't have been branded on the spot. They would have been sorted into what kind of slaves they were and then sold, when their new owners would brand them. Just because they were fighting in the battle doesn't make them soldiers.

They let the main character keep a ring his wife gave him. I would think that would have been removed/looted when he was captured. Slaves didn't wear gold rings. Plot point but annoying in that respect.

The crowds lined up to watch the carts bringing in the new captives, which would happen since entertainment is where you find it. They were throwing things at them, which probably wouldn't happen because they just didn't care enough about even more slaves to do that and they didn't want to damage someone else's property in case they would have to pay for it.

The general had his troops arriving at Ostia, the port of Rome. Generals were only allowed an honor guard in Rome. Remember 'cross the Rubicon'? The rulers were smart enough not to allow generals to bring their armies into the city. So plot point but very much not happening.

The emperors were far too unguarded in general. The fact that an arrow was shot into the box during the sea battle was proof of that. Plus there's any number of times when they should have been more guarded due to who was in the rooms/area. They were killed (spoiler) because they weren't guarded like they should have been, especially during the time there was a big unrest that they caused.

The Praetorian Guard wore purple horsehair and purple cloaks. Nope. Purple was for the emperor and no one else. I know they did this to differentiate them visually from other troops and I can forgive that one. The purple was also very wrong so I'll have to forgive that one too.

Big spoiler here. The main character kills the guy who bought him and who was almost at the point of being proclaimed emperor. Unless the laws changed drastically the main character, and every other slave the guy owned, would have been put to death. I know, I know. Main character. But it was a very big deal when slaves outnumbered free citizens so they made it so slave conspiracies were something to think about many times over. No matter who the main character's parents are, he's still a slave.

Those were things that stood out to me as problematic. The use of glass? Not wrong except in the street cafe where they would have used something far more durable. The brass trumpets instead of ivory? Not a big deal unless you're really into the minutia of Roman history. The setup of the arena that didn't have the eggs and dolphins for chariot racing? They weren't showing those so they didn't have to have the setup. Flooding the entire arena for the sea battle instead of using tarred ships beams to make a pool? Again, the visual aspect of it. The sharks in the water? Not problematic - they did have them. The lack of variety of performers in the arena? It would have slowed things down since the focus was on the gladiators. The legal stuff? Boring to the audience and better not to mix up real and plot armor stuff.

I would not have chosen to see this movie. But having seen it I can say that if you liked the first one you'll probably like this one. For a sequel I think they did well to tie things together just enough so that this one can stand on its own. It's not one I'm going to watch again even with my free movies and it's not going on my media server any more than the first one did.

Deadpool & Wolverine - My Take (Spoilers)

 

If you didn't read the full title of the post there will be spoilers. I'm not going to white them out. You've got your warning.

I've seen both of the Deadpool movies but none of the X-Men movies. I have them. I just haven't watched them. If you've read any of my blog you'll know I'm woefully behind on my media watching. But these have moved up the list. Any references I make to Wolverine will be things I found from the comics. Not that I've read those either but cut me some slack.

Comparing this one to the previous two it's clear that Disney let them go to the limits of an R rating. I'm going to give an example here. In the first movie the concept of pegging was implied and Wade was reconsidering his decision. In this movie the word is used and it's darn clear that Deadpool isn't new at it. The profanity is easy enough to brush off but this is a whole new thing to bring into Disney. And Disney let it in. Pun kind of intended.

This is a buddy cop movie. Mostly. But the interpersonal stuff is very much a buddy cop movie. And that helps it immensely because I think Deadpool needs a strong straight man to play against. Without that he's quite frankly annoying after a while. With someone to play off and pull the character back it becomes more effective. Wolverine is a very good straight man here.

Small note. I have a major crush on Hugh Jackman at the moment so, sorry.

I know that there's a lot of comic and fan art showing Deadpool and Spider-Man in a ship (relationship, I'm trying to keep up with my slang) of some kind. That won't work in the MCU because of the age they're playing Spider-Man. We'll never get that combination. But Wolverine? Well ...

The Beginning

I think they did a great job bringing back Wolverine without taking away from the legacy that X-Men built. Nothing here diminishes Logan. They used the TVA to open the multiverse to bring in A Wolverine, not THE Wolverine. Because now there's no such thing as A character. By bringing in a completely different variant they could make this version what they needed for the movie. A reboot with the same actor, as it were.

Oh. Someone online pointed out that Mr. Jackman is no longer the only actor to play Wolverine due to one of the cameos. I hadn't thought of that but it also didn't matter too much to me. I don't think anyone should get their hopes up about a change to that actor. It was done for the LOLs and fan service.

The plot is a bit thin if you want my honest opinion. Rogue TVA agent needing to be stopped. X-Man variant about to cause multiverse havoc and needing to be stopped. Confluence to stop them. Buddy cop movie stuff. But honestly this movie isn't about plot. It's about Deadpool and Wolverine. So accept it and move on.

Wolvie and Deadpool (I won't abbreviate him to DP because, well, IYKYK) end up in The Void from the Loki TV series. That sets up a lot of the rest of the movie and allows for an absolute shit ton of X-Men characters to be introduced to the MCU without any regard for what happens to them in the future movies. These are variants in The Void. As I said, MCU used what they had and used it well.

I may get these fights out of order and I apologize for that if I do. Because for me this is a movie where great fight scenes are strung together with some dialog.

The Void Fight

This is the first fight between the two. The long-awaited fight. It showcases both characters' abilities and lots of action. And gore. But since both heal there's plenty more gore where that came from. They did right by the fans on this.

The sound of Wolverine's claws extending through the suit glove? Oh yeah ...

The Sabretooth Variant Fight

Another well done thing here. Yes, this is an important fight in X-Men canon. But it isn't here. So after the fight everyone wanted here's another fight everyone wanted.

They had Wolverine make the smart decision and it was the smart decision for the fight itself.

The Capture Fight

The boys are captured. The head Void bad guy is revealed. Many naughty X-Man variants. Fighting occurs, the boys escape due to Wolverine's knowledge of X-Men gadgets or because he just knows stuff. It's not explained and it doesn't need to be. They get the heck out of there.

Why am I not talking more about this? Because it's not a bad fight scene, it's just not that interesting to me.

The Honda Odyssey Fight

I will put this fight into the top five fight scenes in my personal record book. The fight choreographer deserves an Oscar for the movie but this fight? *Chef's kiss*

This is where two inhumanly strong unkillable (Note 1) characters really try to, well, kill each other. Since they both know it can't happen it's where they can just let go and fight to their little hearts' content. They have different fighting styles, there's a lotta gore, and I love it. There's a break in the fight scene where both of them are sprawled out over seats in the minivan and I'm so going to get a screen capture of Wolverine from that. Deadpool is admittedly in a similar type of position but he just doesn't do it for me and never has, in that way.

The fight is creative and has elements of humor from both of them that make it so much better.

I have to do this and I apologize in advance. There's a fan theory out there that the fight is a metaphor for a different kind of, um, action. I can see that. I can see how it was intended to evoke that question. But I'm gonna leave that one alone because there's other points in the movie where they also tease the question.

The Headquarters Fight

After meeting up with the resistance group they were told about earlier the whole team heads over to do two things - get the boys back to their multiverse and give the variants 'an ending' since they're tired of living in limbo in The Void. Wolverine gets to make an entrance since he at first declined to join them then hitched a ride in the still functional Odyssey, just so he could unfold from the hatch and make up the iconic standing team pose.

Much fighting. They get back to the multiverse. The fate of the others isn't known but at last seeing they were all still standing. Which makes sense since it didn't need that kind of tragedy.

The Deadpool Fight

As a diversion the head bad guy brings in all the variant Deadpools to prevent the boys from doing what they need to do. So one yellow suit in a sea of red. Both red suits and gore. I had to watch the movie twice and focus on following Wolverine because it's fast paced action. I'm honestly not sure if they sped up footage or not. But Mr. Jackman's arms and back must have been sore after filming those due to how many times he punched those claws into various Deadpools.

I'll watch this one a few more times to get a feel for what's going on but overall, not bad. It's going to be more of a challenge to pick out Deadpool Prime (his own term) from the others but I should be able to do it. I like seeing the choreography.

There's variants here from a lot of the comics. There's some cameos as well but it's more difficult to know since they all wear freaking masks. Go to IMDB or fan sites if you want to know those. I won't bother here.

The Ending

The ending has predictable setup of something that needs to be done but will kill whoever does it. There's some pretty good stuff between Wolverine and Deadpool over who should do it. And, predictably, it will end up needing both to make it happen.

This is where the Hugh Jackman shirtless scene occurs. Some people are saying it's CGI enhanced and I can see why but I think it's just good lighting and baby oil that makes the difference. Mr. Jackman works hard to get into shape for these and he went through the standard dehydration routine to make sure the muscles showed to their best advantage. The pose helped too.

Was the shirtless scene gratuitous? Of course it was. But it was also enjoyed and didn't last long beyond the pivotal scene. Then it was mocked so it all works out.

Spoiler - they don't die.

There's a bit of a redemption arc in the final scenes but it works given how things have developed. There's also a little more of why fans are talking about the two of them being closer than buddies, if that's what you want to see in it.

The mid credit scene is backstage, blooper, and clips from all of the X-Men movies. Even never having seen them I will admit I teared up a little. It was a lovely sendoff to the Fox versions.

The after credit scene? Well played indeed.

Summary

I'll get this out of the way first. Deadpool is comic book canonically unapologetically pansexual. Comic book Wolverine is in a thruple with Jean and Cyclops and they've hinted that it's a true thruple with the men also being involved in the situation. In that case Wolverine is at least heteroflexible if not bisexual. So it could happen.

As I said earlier I felt the story was thin. That happens and honestly there was no way the plot was going to or should compete with the two main characters themselves. It was a reason for them to do things and that's enough for a comic book movie, really.

With the amount of money Deadpool movies make and the recent MCU flops I think Disney had to sit on most of their objections and let this movie be a hard R. That gave them creative freedom to decide where to push limits and actually toned down what they might have done otherwise. When you have that freedom you can direct it to where it's best suited to be.

I asked a friend if Wolverine was more openly violent in this movie than in the others and the answer was an emphatic 'Yes'. Fox must have also reined in the visual violence to keep them at PG-13. It makes sense given the atmosphere at the time and the desire to have a larger audience. Comic book movies were meant for kids and fans. They weren't as mainstream as they are now.

The fights all made sense in context. The characters were consistent. The cameos were good. It was a solidly entertaining movie and I look forward to watching it again.

If you have your own opinions or want to correct me about something feel free to comment. If I'm terribly wrong I'll update the post. If it's an opinion thing we'll duke it out in the comments.

Note 1

That whole 'unkillable' thing has issues. There's a lot of debate about just how unkillable each of the characters really is and why. They do have different types of healing factors where what is worse for one is not much for the other. The healing factors are also plot armor in all cases so they're what they need to be in the story. I'll just say 'unkillable for the needs of the MCU' and there you go. No need to rip me a new one.

In the first Deadpool movie Ajax/Francis injects Wade with what looks like blood droplets in plasma. As with so many things it's questioned whether or not that's Wolverine's blood. Given the healing factor thing it would make sense. The comics bring up Weapon X. It's never explained in the movies and I doubt it will be so make up your own mind on it. Didya even remember that injection thing?

But Am I Having Fun?

 

That's always my baseline when playing games - if I'm having fun. Not if I'm winning, even though I like winning, but whether or not I'm having fun.

This brings us to Magic: The Gathering again. There's almost infinite ways to build decks and with that the ability to set them up to play in a way you like. I'm having fun tweaking mine in response to how they play and as I go. I can do that because I don't use real cards, so I have an advantage there.

That advantage is mitigated by my cardinal rule of whether or not I think it would be fun to play. There's a lot of cards and card combinations that would be great if I were a cutthroat competitive player. I can see the advantages and risks of those. But when I look at them I find that I don't want to do it.

One thing I avoid is something called 'infinite combos'. Those are sets of cards that create a situation that create an infinite loop to win the game or at least knock out a player before someone breaks them. I don't like those. I don't want to win that way. I prefer to use tactics and luck rather than a game mechanic that, while perfectly legal and acceptable, isn't fun for me. I also find infinite combos boring since they just sit there and do their thing on their own.

I accidentally had a different type of win condition using a set of cards. I honestly didn't realize that by putting all three together it would mean no one could do anything else (called a deck lock since they can't do anything with their card decks). Again, that's not how I like to win.

I'm finding my current favorite deck has a problem where it becomes a war of attrition. Again, not fun for me. I've had two games where it was obvious that's what would happen unless the other player had some way of chipping away my protection so we called the game. I don't consider that a win or a loss. It's a stalemate and I don't care who would have won since it could go either way in any game.

I spent last night finding and printing cards that would let me get more options while taking out cards that create true attrition. A number of people would say that weakens my deck because I'm making it so other players can attack me. They're right. But I see it as game interaction and it makes it more challenging for me because I don't have the ability to block everything, all the time. I think it makes for more fun play all around.

I did stop into another game store that plays a lot of Magic. I wanted to see what the crowd was like. Overall it was fine but the group I was with also plays a lot of the tournament style game (the format I play is casual) and they play in a tournament fashion. That means playing fast and not always announcing what they did. There's nothing wrong with that play style and I will play there again but if I find that I'm the odd person out by playing slower and playing strictly for fun then I'll move on. I don't have a tournament mindset for any kind of game.

I'm still ambivalent about the game itself. It's enjoyable. It gets me out and social. But there's no way I'm going to turn into someone who has to play it. I'll play it when I want to play it. I'll play it when it's the only game that's going on around the city. But I'll continue to build my random decks in ways that I like and play them in a way I like. If the group doesn't enjoy it I'll find another one because I'm not going to drag down their fun.

I'm finding that the hard core players tend to have very odd decks they like to play at times. They're gimmick decks or odd configurations that they find amusing. I skipped out before someone could pull one of those out last week but I know I can't avoid it forever. Since I'm pretty sure that it's not a deck I'll like I'll use one of my other ones to practice it and see how I want to tweak it.

One thing I have found is that my limit is two games in any one day. After that my brain hurts and I'm tired. There's a lot to keep track of, there's tens of thousands of cards that could be in people's decks, and it's the limits of my need to be social. Maybe three games if two of them are quick but overall it's been two games and done. That sets me apart from the people who can play literally until they're kicked out of the store.

So back to the question of if I'm having fun. Overall I am enjoying myself. I'm finding the social aspect important to me and the ability to play a game well (or well enough) is good. The fact that I don't have to spend money on it means I don't feel I have to pay since I've made the investment in the game. I also like making the cards because it's crafty and I like crafts. So. Yeah. I'm having fun for a given definition of fun.

Some Blog Housekeeping and A Request

 

I've finally started going back into the old posts and replacing the missing pictures. They got lost during one of the many blog migrations and I just hadn't gotten around to doing it. It will take some time but it will be nice to have a complete blog again.

That was the housekeeping portion of the post.

My request is simple. I'm seeing some heavy traffic here but I'm not seeing comments. I like comments. So please leave at least a couple of comments on posts you like to cheer me up. From the high level stats (the only kind I get) I'm concerned my blog is being scraped for nefarious purposes so comments means humans are reading it.

I do have comments set to approval to weed out spam so if you don't see yours, assuming you were nice enough to leave one, wait a bit and it will show up.