I started a new limited series on Netflix that had been on my queue for a few weeks now. I wanted to wait until a couple of the shows that I am currently watching were coming to an end. Loki is now done. Goosebumps has one more episode next Friday. Gen V is over. It felt like the right time to start something new.
There are eight episodes of this British limited series. It is called Bodies. I had seen the premise of the series on Netflix and it sounded remarkable.
The premise on Netflix said, “Four detectives. Four timelines. One body. To save Britain’s future, they’ll need to solve the murder that altered the course of history first.”
1890. 1941. 2023 and then eventually 2053. Four timeframes that all wound up with the same apparent murder victim, his eye shot out, stripped naked.
In the 2053 year, we learn that something terribly tragic was going to happen in 2023 that we did not yet know. It sounds like whatever it was is a huge destructive event.
These characters in the different timeframes are all fascinating and complex.
I have found this to be so great so far and I am fully engaged with this show so far.
A powerful episode of Picket Fences, “Rights of Passage” featured a small band of Native Americans taking over the court house because the town of Rome decided to build a golf course that would extend over the burial grounds of their ancestors. The eventual showdown was built to exquisitely and was used, as is always the way with this show, to deal with some deep insecurities of one of its characters, in this case, Jimmy Brock, the sheriff, as Jimmy had some deep reflections on his time as the sheriff and what the job entails from him.
Jimmy really did not want to lead an attack on these Indians to reclaim the courthouse despite having the Mayor and Judge Bone making demands of him.
Seriously, Judge Henry Bone looked very much out of line through most of this episode, making demands of the police, especially Jimmy, whom he asked “What kind of sheriff are you?”
I found Henry to be really obnoxious during this episode. He seemed to be more concerned with get “his” courthouse back than dealing with the situation calmly and under control.
Chief Winnetka forced Jimmy’s hand with his demands to get rid of the golf course. It was a powerful episode with some painful moments for everybody.
The side stories included Matthew fighting a bully to protect Zach and Ginny protesting Jill’s office with other ‘little people’ because she was giving a small child HGH shots so he could grow bigger.
Either way, the standoff at the courthouse was clearly the main storyline and led to the death of the Chief. It was a sad ending.
I’m starting to believe that I did not see very many season one episodes of The X-Files as episode 16, Young at Heart, is another one that I do not remember ever seeing before.
I also would hate to be a partner, friend, associate, co-worker, mentor of Mulder or Scully because they are always doomed. As soon as FBI agent Reggie Purdue walked on the screen and started talking to Mulder about the old days, I knew immediately that this guy was not long for the world… and damn, if I wasn’t right.
This was a tale about a killer that Mulder had caught early in his career, but not before the killer, John Barnett, had killed a couple of agents. Mulder had a clean shot, but did not take it because of the Bureau’s policy, and he blamed himself for the deaths after.
Barnett was supposed to be dead, having died in prison years ago, but it turned out that he survived and had been taken as a guinea pig for an anti-aging process meant to help cure the disease called progeria, a disease that causes rapid aging in children, by the prison doctor at the time, Dr. Joe Ridley. Ridley was doing human trials with his aging procedure, and they all failed, except for Barnett.
Barnett was also the X-Files version of Dr. Curt Connors of Marvel Comics (aka The Lizard) as he had grown back an amputated hand with use of some salamander DNA. That is never a good idea.
I liked this episode with the back and forth between Mulder and Barnett. It did not have a lot of X-Files-like weirdness, but it made up for that with a very creepy and vicious villain. It was also satisfying to see Mulder shoot and kill Bartlett at the end, making up for his previous non-action.
David and Maddie are babysitting a woman who claims to be a leprechaun.
Kathleen Kilpatrick was a wee little Irish lass with bright red hair. She was being chased by a man who was trying to capture her so he could get her pot of gold. She hired Dave and Maddie to protect her. She was not hiding the fact that she was a leprechaun.
Alexandra Johnson played Kathleen Kilpatrick and she was great. She was charming, charismatic and funny. She fit very well with David and Maddie, holding her own with these two powerful actors.
The case caused conflict with Dave and Maddie, as every case would, but this one was not as much of a conflict as usual. That was because of the bubbly performance of Johnson.
There is a fun sequence with Dave, Maddie and Kathleen being chased through the airport by the man seeking her pot of gold.
The gold turned out to be stolen from a bank years before by three men, including Kathleen’s father. She discovered that he had lied to her about being a leprechaun and that he was a thief.
Kathleen leaves the gold with Dave and Maddie and heads back to Ireland.
This was a fun episode, but it was not the most standout one. Alexandra Johnson did a solid job, but she did not do much more than a handful of guest appearances after this.
In the office scene just before Kathleen arrived and during the time she was talking with Maddie and Davie, the lighting of the scene was really messed up. There were huge shadows in the room coming from Dave and Maddie as well as other objects of the room. There was one time when you could barely see David’s face because Maddie’s shadow was blocking him. It was real noticeable and distracting. There were other moments of the episode that made it feel as if it were shot differently than other episodes of the series and thus made it fell cheaper.
Boy, there was a big week of comics this week. However, there was one in there that seemed not to fit with the others.
It was Fire & Ice: Welcome to Smallville #3. I do not buy many DC books and I certainly do not buy Fire & Ice. Sometimes, Todd sticks books in my pull list as a joke. I usually come across them because I look through the pile at Comic World pretty carefully. But Todd has been sending me pics on Tuesday of what is in my box so I can tell him if there is anything missing. Since that, I did not go through the pile as closely as I would have. I found this book at home afterwards. I texted Todd and he blamed Drew, another employee and, to be fair, Drew has put books in my box before too. I’m exchanging it next week.
I have started to collect the horror anthology series, Ice Cream Man. I read the first four issues, compiled in a trade paperback, and I really enjoyed it. So I started picking up some issues on eBay and at Comic World. I actually wound up with some doubles because the set that I purchased on eBay did not have some issues listed on it (or at least, not on the one I was looking at) and I picked up these back issue at Comic World. That is fine. I am still working on completing the series. I am missing around 11-12 issues of the 37 that have been released. It looked like #38 is scheduled to come out in January.
Other books this week:
Punisher #1. “The Bullet That Follows.” Written by David Pepose and art by Dave Wachter. Cover art was done by Rod Reis. Frank Castle is gone, and we seem to have a new Punisher. I did like what I read here and, even though the Punisher has never been my favorite character, I am going to give this new version a chance.
Predator Versus Wolverine #2. Written by Benjamin Percy and art by a trio of people, Ken Lashley, Andrea Di Vito, and Hayden Sherman. The cover art was by Marco Checchetto. They followed up an excellent number one with an okay issue 2.
Amazing Spider-Man #37. Written by Zeb Wells and penciled by Ed McGuinness. I am truly ready for the Gang War storyline that is coming soon to these pages, because I have had the right amount of Rek-Rap. Looks like there may be one more Limbo demons issues of ASM so I hope to get through it and get back to some street level action.
Inside the Mind of Sherlock Holmes graphic novel. “The Case of the Scandalous Ticket” By Cyril Lieron & Denoit Dahan. A really fun graphic novel with an original Sherlock Holmes story. This graphic novel does a great job of showing us the skills of Sherlock during the story and presents it in a creative and very original manner. I love the cover with the Sherlock Holmes head cut out on it. This was a ton of fun.
What If…? Dark: The Tomb of Dracula #1. Written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by David Cutler. These What If Dark books have been up and down. This one falls right in the middle. We get Dracula transforming Blade into a full-fledged vampire. I kind of enjoyed the ending sequence, but the whole book was, at best, okay.
Avengers Inc. #2. “Case Number: 002 The Ghost of Avengers Mansion.” Written by Al Ewing and art by Leonard Kirk. Daniel Acuna did the cover art. Wasp introduced Victor Shade to Victor Shade, aka Vision. This has been an interesting comic, with a tone of noir about it. Janet Van Dyne and Victor Shade make an intriguing pair and the story was decent.
Cereal. “Sweet Darkness.” Written by Mark Russell and drawn by Peter Snejbjerg. Another book that I technically did not ask for, but Pat (another Comic World employee) had gotten one for himself and he thought that I would like it and he put it in my box. And he was right. Cereal is a weird satire of the monster movies of the past while using the characters from American breakfast cereals such as Count Chocula or Frankenberry. I was constantly looking for more allusions to the cereal mascots (there are a bunch of them) while enjoying seeing this (sorta) serious story with them involved. The Comic World guys are good to me.
Thanos #1. Written by Christopher Cantwell and art by Luca Pizzari. Leinil Francis Yu and Sunny Cho did the cover art. Okay, I did not think I would care much about this book, but I was totally engaged with it. I loved the way this book was about Roberta, a character that I did not know, but easily started to root for and when the Illuminati arrived… well, the story picked up again.
Unleashed #4. Written by Kyle Starks and art by Jesus Hervas. David Baldeon and Israel Silva did the art of the cover. The super hero pets team up, Marvel style came to a close with this issue as D-Dog heads to the great beyond. This series had no right to be as fun as it was, but I did enjoy the exploits of these animals.
Phantom Road #6. Chapter Six: “Monsters Don’t Make Campfires.” Written by Jeff Lemire and with art by Gabriel H. Walta. This series returned after a bit of a hiatus with a strong issue as we get a name for these strange creatures…Horror Men.
Transformers #2. Written and drawn by Daniel Warren Johnson. The Decepticons, led currently by Starscream are after energy and they may have found it where Spike’s dad worked. Oh… and we get the debut of Duke, from G.I. Joe. Cool.
Uncanny Spider-Man #3. “Superpositional” Kurt Wagner and Silver Sable get their groove on. And what has happened to Cloak and Dagger? This is a continuing entertaining book.
Destiny Gate #2. Written by Ryan Cady and art by Christian DiBari. Mitchell is facing the monster in the water. Destiny Gate has been a fun new horror book with some inteersting ideas.
Nights #2. “Into the Woods” Written by Wyatt Kennedy and art by Luigi Formisano. Vince has found himself in a world of vampires and creatures while he has feelings for Gray.
Other books read this week: Dark Ride #9, Captain Marvel: Dark Tempest #5, Hunt for the Skinwalker #3, Damn Them All #10, Guardians of the Galaxy #8, House of Slaughter #19, Star Signs #6, Midlife (or How to Hero at Fifty) #2, G.O.D.S. #2, Groo: In the Wild #4, and The Enfield Gang Massacre #4.
Throughout the year, I induct worthy nominees into the Embrace Your Geekness Hall of Fame. Whether it be the regular vote on the ballot by the EYG Nation, the Legends nominees, the Comic Issue Wing or special inductees, the EYG Hall of Fame is very active.
I decided that it was time to open a new wing of the EYG Hall of Fame. One of the biggest ‘geeks’ that many people have is movies. There are some movies that have made it into the EYG Hall of Fame, but I have always felt like there had not been enough considering how many amazing movies there have been over the years.
The films that have already been inducted into the EYG HoF are as follows: The Princess Bride, Star wars: A New Hope, Ghostbusters, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Planet of the Apes (1968), Marvel’s The Avengers, Back to the Future, The Terminator, The Empire Strikes Back, Jaws, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, The Wizard of Oz, Marvel’s Black Panther, Die Hard, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame, Return of the Jedi, and Jurassic Park.
I approached Death Tribble, one of the members of the Hero Games Forum. DT had been active in the ballot this year and he had some suggestions for future possible inductees. Several of his suggestions were movies and he sounded very well versed in them. I asked him if he was interested in helping open an EYG Hall of Fame Cinema Wing, and he said that he would be happy to be involved.
He suggested several ideas on how to proceed. In order to kick off the Cinema Wing with a bang, he commented on organizing a series of decades, choosing potential inductees from each decade and narrowing it down to one from each of the following: 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s,70s, 80s, 90s. We chose not to do anything from the current century.
There was some question between us about what makes up a decade. DT was with the idea that the decade of the 1950s should run from 1951-1960 and so forth. I was more of a 1950-1959 guy for this, even though I recognized that the decades technically end with the aught year.
To get past this, we agreed to also include a group of ten that were from the “aught” years (1950, 1960, 1970 etc.).
DT provided me with a list of ten possible films from each of these decades to consider. I looked at his lists and made a couple of adjustments, but, honestly, I did not make too many changes. Then we went decade by decade and discussed the positives and negatives of each film. There were times when we each had to put aside personal biases and favorites in order to find the most worthwhile films for the first official induction into the EYG Cinema Wing of the Hall of Fame.
We looked at such things as influence, awards, acting, personal choices, what could be considered ‘geek’ and success. Every decade was a little different in how we made decisions. There were even a few times when DT used his percent dice to help make a decision (if you are on the NGD forum board, you know about DT’s percent dice).
After several weeks of work, we have found nine inductees into the first class of the EYG Cinema Wing of the Hall of Fame. They will join the other films that are already in the HoF.
Moving forward, the plan is to not induct a many films as this first year. Specifics are yet to be determined, but the initial plan is to do this Cinema induction at the beginning of May, to coincide with the summer movie season.
So without any further adieu, here are the first inductees into the EYG HoF Cinema Wing.
1920: Nosferatu (1922)
1930: King Kong (1933)
1940: Citizen Kane (1941)
1950: Seven Samurai (1954)
1960: Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
1970: The Godfather (1972)
1980: Blade Runner (1982)
1990: Silence of the Lambs (1991)
Aughts: Psycho (1960)
There they are. Congratulations to all of the inductees into the inaugural Cinema Wing.
I would like to thank Death Tribble for his efforts in making this happen. His knowledge and insights were extremely helpful and welcome in making these decisions. I appreciate his time and everything that he did to help make this a great kickoff. He really put in some work on these lists and helping to highlight the credentials of each film.
The first five minutes was just about as disturbing of a five minute scene television has ever seen. It was also very tough to watch as a character that we have come to like, Tate, played expertly by Evan Peters, is shown to have gone into his school as an active shooter, killing a whole bunch of people along the way (many of whom we had seen in the Halloween episode as the group chasing Tate).
However, Tate’s origin and backstory was not the only shocking and horrifying moment of this packed episode.
Here piggy, piggy, pig.
Eric Stonestreet had a guest appearance as Derek, one of Ben’s patients who was afraid of urban legends, especially the one about the Pigman. Derek could not look in the mirror in fear of saying the words, “Here piggy piggy pig” which, much like the story of Candyman, is supposed to summon the Pigman. The explanation of the story by Derek to Ben was absolutely the creepiest, scariest thing I had seen on TV in a long time.
Derek’s absolute fear was palpable and his attempt to overcome this fear in the Harmon’s bathroom in Murder House was frightening and just not a good idea. The irony of how the story ended up was amazing writing, if not tragic.
Tragedy was all over this episode as Tate saved the life of Violet, who had taken a handful of pills in a suicidal wave. Tate dragging Violet’s body into the bathroom and forcing her to vomit the pills while running the shower over her was heart-wrenching.
Watching Constance eating some of the disgusting things that Constance brought her ‘for the baby’ was stomach-churning.
Speaking of Constance, her ‘talk’ with Adelaide through a medium, Billie Dean, was another tragic moment of this episode, providing Jessica Lange with some wonderful material to play. Billie Dean was the first appearance of the brilliant Sarah Paulson in the series. Sarah Paulson becomes a fixture in American Horror Story and other projects by Ryan Murphy.
And we hear from the ultrasound technician who had fainted when giving Vivien’s ultrasound. She claimed that she had seen the beast in Vivien’s womb, hooves and all. She had left her job and had taken up residency in a church where she was praying. Between this and the raw brains and pancreas Vivien has been consuming, this baby is going to be something else.
“Piggy Piggy” is one of the best episodes of the season. It is disturbing and keeps the audience constantly on guard, uneasy about where the show is taking us. It is full of some great acting, from Jessica Lange to Eric Stonestreet to Evan Peters.
Picket Fences has the most well developed ensemble cast of characters of any TV show I can remember. I do believe this show is the precursor to shows like LOST or The Walking Dead where even the secondary characters are deeply developed and have real feelings and emotions. Picket Fences was truly ahead of its time as a show.
Tis episode focused on Carter Pike, played as always wonderfully by Kelly Connell. We have seen Carter through other episodes in little bits, but this time we really dive into the doubts and mind of Carter, and, because he is a morose and melancholy individual, with terrible feelings of insecurity.
They take Carter and rip everything away from him, his reputation, his job, his self-confidence.
When a missing man shows up dead with radiation burns in garbage outside the Brock house, questions about the possibility of UFOs take over Rome. A traveling group led by a woman named Wendy of UFO believers arrive and gain Carter’s support. When Carter announced to the press that he was listing exposure to radiation from a UFO as a possible cause of death of the man (after seeing something in the sky the night before), things went terribly wrong. Jimmy and Mayor Pugen fired Carter from his post as Medical Examiner because his credibility had been damaged beyond repair.
Turned out that Wendy was using Carter for publicity and her people had used a hologram projector to make Carter think he saw a UFO.
The UFO story was countered in the episode by the fact that the man they found in the garbage was a Jewish man and Carter would not release the body for burial. So the episode has some serious scenes dealing with the Jewish faith and the beliefs of Judaism. Douglas Wambaugh had some amazing scenes dealing with his own issues in connection to his religious beliefs. There was one with Doug and Miriam, his wife, in bed that again showed a deep understanding of Wambaugh and who this character was.
I really did feel for poor Carter by the end of the episode and, once again, Picket Fences showed why this show won as many Emmys as it did.
Interestingly enough, this is yet another first season X-Files episode that I do not remember seeing at all. It is also another one that felt somewhat lacking.
It also is horribly dangerous to be a former friend or loved one of either Mulder or Scully as life expectancies seem to plummet.
On the other hand, Scully did shoot someone, and that doesn’t happen often.
With the spirit of the dead bad guy taking over the body of the dead FBI agent/friend of Scully, this had too much of the negative Freaky Friday vibe going on. The doctors worked on reviving the FBI guy for 13 minutes? Do they do that? Scully wanted more. I found that whole situation to be iffy.
Then, as the body of the dead bad guy was being shocked when they shocked FBI guy, this looked funny.
The relationships in the episode were weak. I had no connection with the FBI guy and there was nothing with him and Scully. The two bad guys did not work together well either and the twist that she betrayed him to the FBI did not make sense.
Then, apparently FBI guy had some kind of obsession with main bad guy and we never see any of this. We only hear it mentioned. I did not believe any of that either.
This one was quite disappointing. Second consecutive weak episode after the excellent Beyond the Sea.
Dana Delaney guest starred on Moonlighting as a former flame of David’s who had left him without a word three years before.
Sadly, this was Moonlighting and when she came back into David’s life, it was not the happy reunion that it seemed.
Jillian (Dana Delaney) came to Blue Moon to hire Maddie to find a necklace that had been stolen from her hotel room. When David came in, they were both surprised to see each other.
Jillian was having marriage problems and it was not too long before David and Jillian were back together. Jillian set up David to be the witness to her shooting her husband. Of course, she made it look like she was being attacked by her husband so that David could testify that it was self-defense.
The episode ended with one of the better chase scenes we have had. Maddie and David chased Jillian in the hearse and the funeral procession followed behind.
There was quite a bit of a tonal shift in the episode from most of the show until that chase scene. I did enjoy the chase scene much more than I enjoyed the first part of the show.
November 11th is recognized as Veterans Day in the US and, in honor of the day, I watched one of the classic films of the 1960s that I had never seen before. It told the story of D-Day, the Allied forces storming the beaches of Normandy. It was called The Longest Day.
An unbelievable cast of stars and recognizable actors littered this film. The cast included John Wayne, Robert Mitchum, Eddie Albert, Sean Connery, Henry Fonda, Richard Todd, Robert Ryan, Richard Burton, George Segal, Paul Anka, Red Buttons, Robert Wagner, Rod Steiger, Peter Lawford, Richard Beymer, Steve Forrest, Ray Danton, Sal Mineo, Jeffrey Hunter, Arletty, Fabian, Roddy McDowell, Alexander Knox, Irina Demick, Hans Christian Blech, Bourvil, Donald Houston, Curd Jürgens, Stuart Whitman, Richard Dawson, Bernard Fox, Gary Collins, Georges Wilson, Peter van Eyck, Tom Tryon, Jean Servais, Tommy Sands, Norman Rossington, Madeleine Renaud, Wolfgang Preiss, Kenneth More, Richard Münch, Michael Medwin, Dewey Martin, Christian Marquand, Karl John, Werner Hinz, Peter Helm, Paul Hartmann, Leo Genn, Gert Fröbe, Mel Ferrer, and Ron Randell.
The Longest Day is a fairly realistic and accurate retelling of the invasion of 1944 by the Allied forces. The battles of the invasion were rendered extremely well for 1962, and I am sure that those survivors of the actual D-Day invasion had some difficulties watching this recreation. While we do not get the gore or blood of say Saving Private Ryan or other more recent war films, this does not shy away from shocking imagery and depends on the psychological more than just seeing the carnage associated with it.
It is a three hour movie, but to be honest, I felt like it moved extremely well. I did not feel the length of the film and there were enough separate characters and storylines to keep me engaged through the whole of the film.
An epic presentation of one of World War II’s most seminal moments. An amazing cast and some powerful imagery really helps to make this a total classic in American cinema. I am not a general fan of war movies, but this was really near the top of the list.
Happy Veterans Day. Thank you to all the veterans who gave their time, efforts, and, in some cases, lives to make sure that we have the freedom we live with in this country. Thank you for your service.
One of the great things about Picket Fences when they went into the court room, I was never sure what the outcome would be. In particular, any of the controversial topics of the day could have gone in any direction and with Judge Henry Bone sitting on the bench, it often did.
The controversy of this episode was the use of stem cells from aborted fetuses being used to treat Parkinson Disease.
On Picket Fences, the major argument against the use of stem cells falls into the idea that it becomes an umbrella issue under abortion and that it was argued that this type of experimental procedure would only encourage abortions to be done. Obviously, this wound up involving the church as well as the community.
The other major storyline was the specialist Jill called into the case was her former fiancée before Jimmy. The attraction between the two doctors remained strong and Jill ended up kissing him.
The show used this plot point to investigate the deep ceded resentments by Jill and her choice to come to the small town to be the town doctor instead of becoming a top-line surgeon. This then was used as a conflict within the marriage of Jill and Jimmy. As always, this show uses their stories to inform their characters at a different level than most shows.
Honestly, this is a perfectly enjoyable episode of Picket Fences, but it did not stand out. It was fine. Of course, this hour was probably better than most series like this.
David Fincher returned with his latest film that has been in select theaters and debuted on Netflix this weekend.
Michael Fassbender played the Killer, an assassin who missed his most recent target and had to face the consequences for failure.
After his girlfriend is attacked in response, Fassbender methodically started on a quest for vengeance against everyone that was involved in the attack, even adjacently.
Honestly, the story of the movie is pretty simple. Fassbender does a voice over narration but his character says almost zero lines of dialogue through the film. We follow this man who is clearly anything but your typical protagonist as he brutally and without passion executed person after person.
Fassbender is a likable actor and that helps make this assassin human, because his actions are anything but. The voice over repeats the Killer’s mantra before every kill, reminding himself to stick to the plan, and that empathy is weakness.
Fassbender is excellent in this role. It seems to fit him beautifully. Again, he is the standout of the movie because the simplistic plot is only somewhat engaging and the dialogue is nearly non-existent.
Tilda Swinton makes an appearance as one of the eventual targets and her short time on screen was excellent as always. However, we know so little about her character that it does not give us much to feel with her eventual fate.
There is an effective use of tone and mood in this piece, but it is a surprisingly sleight film.
Goosebumps felt like a finale last week, but there were two more episodes remaining and I was not sure where the show would go from there.
The ninth episode was back to Mr. Bratt who was struggling with what to do next. He chose to write a book based on the whole Slappy situation. The publisher loved it but wanted a new ending. That led to Bratt going back to find the dummy.
There was a whole thing with a dead body and the spirit came from Slappy into the body and he headed out of the house to … um… cause problems I guess.
We had seen Mr. Bratt’s backstory as he was truly a loser. I wondered how he wound up being hired as a teacher. I guess he was pretty pathetic.
The kids have gone to Seattle, and Lucas and Margot broke up after they realized that they were not really compatible.
Colin proposes to Nora. The parents were not really in much of this episode.
This episode felt like a filler until the finale next week.
There have been a lot of negative comments about the latest MCU film, The Marvels from the reviewers that I usually listen to or follow. And I understand perfectly that I am more likely to like this than most people considering my background with Marvel. To call me the target audience would not be a stretch. I have also been a fan of almost everything Marvel Studios has put out (I’m looking at you, Secret Invasion).
So going into The Marvels with a little trepidation because of the reviews (even though it is currently at 61% on Rotten Tomatoes, so considered FRESH), I was nervous.
I am pleased to say that I thought this was a lot of fun and that I enjoyed myself watching it. It is definitely messier than many of the other Marvel Studios movies, but, for me, that did not distract from the key of this film.
That key is the three lead women of the film, Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel. Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and Iman Vellani have such an easy chemistry with each other and they are truly well written. Iman Vellani is a joy and she is charming. She was great in the Ms. Marvel Disney + series and they bring her right into this without skipping a beat. I really believe that Iman Vellani can be the next face of the MCU if done properly. She is a star.
I did enjoy the conflicts that were there between the leading ladies, especially with Carol and Monica. It just felt as if these conflicts were too surface level and could have been deeper and were dealt with too quickly.
They also included Kamala’s family, actors Saagar Shaikh, Zenobia Shroff, and Mohan Kapur, in The Marvels. While it was great to see them again and they did provide some wonderful moments grounding the character bits with Kamala, but they were part of the messy aspects of the film too as Nick Fury brought them aboard the spaceship for some reason.
I have heard a couple critics talk about two major things that were too silly, and ruined the tone of the film. I think a big reason why you may not like this movie is that these two moments bother you. Those who want more serious superhero movies or who may not believe the humor worked well will probably allude to these scenes as the ones that ruin the film. For me, neither of these moments (one deals with cats, one deals with music) bothered me in the slightest, but I have never been opposed to some silliness in my superhero movies.
The villain of The Marvels was Kree warrior Dar-Benn, played by Zawe Ashton, was admittedly weak. There was not a ton of development for her, much like Ronan the Accuser, her predecessor, was in Guardians of the Galaxy. She did have motives that were potentially good, but she was approaching this in too much of a vengeful manner. There have been considerably better villains in the MCU than Dar-Benn.
The special effects of the film were up and down. Much of the CGI was really good, but there were enough moments that stick out to notice.
The last scene of the movie is really like a post credit scene and involves a great cameo that I did not expect to see but was totally welcomed. Meanwhile, the actual mid-credit scene had a cameo that had been spoiled for me, but it opened up a huge area for the MCU.
One problem here is that if you had not watched the Ms. Marvel or WandaVision Disney + shows, you would be more confused than you should be. That is, again, not a problem for me considering that I watch all of these Marvel Disney + shows. However, the normal film goers might struggle at times with the new characters. The film does an okay job of letting us know who these characters are and some details, but it just has a lot to get through considering Monica was involved in 9 episodes of WandaVision and Ms. Marvel had 6 episodes of her own show. I do think that is an issue that Marvel Studios needs to address moving forward.
I enjoyed this movie quite a bit. Iman Vellani was wonderful and I liked both Brie Larson and Teyonah Parris too. There are a lot of Goose the cat (actually the Flerken). The Marvels had its messy moments but it was fun and entertaining.
EYG- Embrace Your Geekness 