Batman & Robin seemingly killed the franchise with just two words: Bat Nipples. But in 2005, Christopher Nolan managed to ressurect the dead.

While I have a couple of problems with it (I have a couple of problems with everything), it is easily a better film than its four predecessors—or five, if you’re including Adam West’s Batman. Almost anything’s better than that.

Except Batman & Robin, of course.

DISCLAIMER:

As with all the other Batman reviews, this will contain SPOILERS.

SUMMARY:

Bruce Wayne becomes Batman. This process includes learning to fight like a ninja while under the influence of psychotropics, putting together his Batsuit with various improbably designed prototypes, and getting figuratively and literally bitchslapped by his childhood friend and love interest, Rachel Dawes.

NOTES:

1. Let’s talk acting for a good long while. We might as well begin with the dark knight himself, Christian Bale.

Because this is an origin story, Batman Begins focuses much more attention on Bruce Wayne than any of the other films have in the past. And there’s no doubt that Christian Bale makes for a better Bruce Wayne than Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, and George Clooney combined. He’s a strong lead, and compelling—Bale is extremely successful at balancing the charm and silliness of Bruce’s put-on playboy image with his actual grim determination to protect the innocent and save Gotham.

What he is less successful at, of course, is Batman’s voice.

About half the time, it’s actually not so bad, I think. I mean, it’s raspy as hell, but when he’s just talking to someone or whispering, I’m actually okay with The Voice. But when he goes for intimidating—my God. It’s so, so bad. The first time I saw this in theater, I cracked up so hard at “SWEAR TO ME!” And you know what? I still do, every time I watch this movie. That has become this movie’s most unintentionally hilarious line. (Though there are a few others, which I will point out later in this review.)

Despite Batman’s ridiculously gravelly voice, I can still say that Christian Bale is my favorite live-action Batman (and Bruce Wayne) of all. My actual favorite Batman of all time, though, is Kevin Conroy.

“Clark, what the hell are good villains?” LOVE.

2. While we’re on the subject of villains, though . . .

Ohmygod, I love Cillian Murphy in this movie. There are no words for how much I adore him as Dr. Crane/Scarecrow. He is, at turns, condescending, slimy, creepy, and crazy, and I love, love, love it. Other than his awesome line deliveries and great facial expressions—Murphy lifts an eyebrow and just exudes disdain—the man actually manages to land a couple of puns. For the most part, Christopher Nolan took all the camp and silliness right out of this series, but the few jokes he left in—like “you need to lighten up” right before setting Batman on fire—actually work. Good for you, Mr. Murphy.

Also . . .

Liam Neeson plays Henri Ducard, but really he’s playing Ra’s al Ghul. As a child, I had no love for Ra’s al Ghul—like Phoenix/Dark Phoenix in X-Men (the 1992 cartoon series), Ra’s seemed to pop up every other episode solely to annoy me—and I was not at all excited when I originally heard he was going to be a villain in this movie. (Side note: I don’t know that Ra’s actually did show up that much in the animated series. I suspect my penchant for exaggeration started at a very young age.) So in Batman Begins, when Ra’s (Ken Watanabe) is unceremoniously killed off, I was fairly surprised . . . although secretly grateful.

In retrospect, I suppose I should have seen Neeson coming, but perhaps I was distracted by Cillian Murphy’s big, blue eyes. No matter. I actually like the twist, if only because it’s nice to see a dark spin on the kindly mentor role that Neeson often gets suckered into. (Or used to get suckered into, for a while. Right now he seems to be primarily starring or co-starring in all the action movies I don’t want to see.) Neeson is suitably villainous as Ra’s, and he has some awesome line deliveries. I just wish he would stop appearing in things where he inexplicably stands next to American bald eagles while encased in super glowy armor.

No, really. I HAVE been nominated for an Academy Award.

And if that wasn’t enough villains . . .

Tom Wilkinson plays Carmine Falcone, and he’s definitely lower down on the food chain here, as far as evil villains go. Falcone is Gotham’s ultimate mob boss, and while Wilkinson’s accent is just a bit on the cartoonish side, I’m willing to let it go because the actor seems to be having a good time and his performance is actually fairly enjoyable. I am not at all willing to let go of the fact that Falcone is a complete moron at one point in the movie—what the hell are you doing at this last big shipment, anyway that’s what you have lackeys for, and when your underlings tell you to get the fuck out of dodge, why are you not getting the fuck out of dodge—but that can’t be blamed on Tom Wilkinson, of course.

3. Then we have allies . . .

Michael Caine makes for a different Alfred than Michael Gough . . . bit less posh, I suppose, and more likely to directly challenge Bruce on something he disagrees with than to serve up some gentle, grandfatherly advice . . . but I like him all the same. Alfred’s loyal and funny and, at the very least, he isn’t constantly badgering Bruce to tell Rachel about his secret identity, so there’s something to smile about.

Also . . .

Morgan Freeman plays Lucius Fox, who heads up the Applied Sciences Division of Wayne Enterprises. It sounds like a more impressive job than it actually is—apparently, his work consists of sitting in an old basement with a bunch of ridiculously awesome weapon prototypes that aren’t being used. (Actually, that sounds like an awesome job.) Fox is no big stretch for Freeman, but he’s still good here, and all of his scenes with Bale are enjoyable to watch.

Best moment? Lucius gives this little nervous chuckle as he speeds around with Bruce in what is soon to become the Batmobile. It’s just a tiny little moment, but it’s awesome nonetheless.

And let us not forget . . .

Okay, I’ll admit it. The first time I watched this, I wasn’t sure how much I liked Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, probably because I was nursing a grudge against him that I have since gotten over. (The first time I watched it, I was very unhappy with his Sirius Black in Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban. I have since done a 180 on this, but I still maintain that his shrieky line, “I did my waiting! Twelve years of it! IN AZKABAN!” is not Oldman’s finest moment.  {Clearly, that honor goes to Red Riding Hood and his purple robes of destiny.})

Gordon, mercifully, is not an incompetent buffoon the way he’s been portrayed in the last four movies. He is a bit on the it-doesn’t-matter-nothing-matters-I-should-just-throw-myself-in-front-of-a-train-and-get-it-over-with side, but I suppose he’s got cause to be a bit depressed about life. Other than one unfortunate line delivery (unintentionally hilarious line delivery # 2: “Covering Gotham in this poison”) and one bad joke that he can do nothing about, Oldman is very good here. Seriously, words can not express how much more I appreciate his performance now that I’ve just watched Batman through Batman & Robin.

4. And then we have The Love Interest . . .

There are so many problems with Rachel Dawes.

I’ve watched this movie a fair number of times now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that not all of these problems can be blamed on Katie Holmes. Maybe not even most of them, although to this day, I still have problems taking her seriously as an assistant D.A. It’s not entirely her youth, but that’s a big part of it. She just doesn’t seem mature enough to me. I swear to God, at one point in the film, she practically does a ‘talk to the hand’ motion. (Most Unintentionally Hilarious Line Number Three: “I’m an assistant district attorney. Let me pass!”)

Still, there are serious issues I have with her character and her whole relationship with Bruce Wayne. I feel like I get what the movie is trying to do—she’s the opposite of Ra’s al Ghul, the angel instead of the devil on Bruce’s shoulder. Both believe in justice (I think they might even both say that justice is balance, or something like that) but they go about fighting for justice in very different ways. That’s all fine. It’s Bruce’s and Rachel’s actual relationship that I find to be problematic.

See, the night Bruce almost kills Joe Chill, something is supposed to be broken between the two of them. I guess she’s supposed to lose her faith in him, or something, feel betrayed that he isn’t the good person she takes him to be? The thing is, I’m really not sure why she feels so personally betrayed. Disappointed, sure, maybe a little pissed off—I do like that Rachel slaps him—but this bitterness that she shows for the rest of the movie doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, especially since it appears to be one-sided. (I get why, thematically, saying your dad would have been ashamed of you is important, but in actuality, that’s a pretty shitty thing to say, and Rachel doesn’t even acknowledge that until the end of the movie. And it’s almost off-hand when she finally does!)

Their relationship throughout the film is supposed to be irrevocably altered because of this one moment, but I just don’t think the scene’s strong enough for that. We need to really understand where both of them are coming from, and it’s hard to relate to Rachel’s complete lack of empathy for her best friend whose parents have been murdered. Every subsequent time Rachel snipes at him, it just doesn’t play well. Even if she’s making a good point, it’s hard to listen because she’s so underhanded and bitchy for most the film. That’s another big problem with Rachel—and with a lot of female characters in Hollywood—the director and writers are shooting for “strong” but end up at “bitchy” instead. They aren’t synonyms.

Oh, and the ending of the movie, with the whole ‘the guy I loved didn’t come back’ bit . . . I don’t think it plays right, either. Maybe because Rachel was so clearly pissed at the guy who didn’t come back? You know, the billionaire boy-whore Bruce isn’t her Bruce, but when he’s jumping off buildings and saving lives, that isn’t her Bruce either? I’d be like, woman, you are absolutely impossible to please. Seriously, the ideas are all there, but the execution seems sloppy to me. While I approve of actually having a woman in Batman’s life who isn’t a helpless bimbo, Rachel Dawes doesn’t even seem like a real person to me, just a mouthpiece for idealism—and a bitchy one, at that.

5. Look, I know there’s this whole idea in parenting that every moment’s a teaching moment, but when your kid has fallen down a well—perhaps it is, in fact, not time to explain that we fall so we can get back up again and, rather, time to take your child to a hospital. (Yes, yes, Thomas Wayne is a doctor, and he can just set his kid’s bone at his ridiculous mansion. Can the CT’s and x-rays looking for internal bleeding and skull fractures be done at his ridiculous mansion too? What do you mean, you’ll just go later? Your kid fell down a WELL. Go NOW.)

Dad, my arm is broken, and I was just attacked by about a hundred bats. Maybe the gentle lecture on fear can wait till morning. You know, AFTER MY RABIES SHOT.

6. Keeping with tradition, Bruce’s mom is completely irrelevant. His dad is there to teach inspirational life lessons. The mother is mostly there to wear pearls.

7. Almost everyone in this cast is putting on an American accent except Morgan Freeman and Katie Holmes. Surprisingly, everyone does pretty well with it—I was particularly impressed with Cillian Murphy the first time I watched this—although Linus Roache (Bruce’s dad) and Guy Lewis (young Bruce) are a bit less successful. They’re not absolutely horrible, just . . . kind of off.

8. Origin stories are a dime a dozen now, but Batman Begins was the first one to really start this trend of telling the genesis of a superhero. I mean, Batman was a relatively new superhero in Tim Burton’s Batman, but he wasn’t brand new. We didn’t see where he got the idea to become the caped crusader or how he found all those wonderful toys. Some people complained about it when the movie came out, but I actually like how much time we get to spend with Bruce training for this life—he’s a billionaire’s son, you know? He shouldn’t start the movie just being a crazy ninja.

And it’s completely awesome they address a lot of those questions you always wondered about, like what is he making this costume out of, or how does he have so many spares, or why don’t the citizens of Gotham suspect that the one guy who can afford to be Batman is actually Batman, etc.

Also, as an aside, I like the fact that Bruce chooses bats as a symbol because they actually frighten him. It makes a little more sense, I think, than the ‘figure in the dark was my destiny’ nonsense that Val Kilmer is forced to sell.

8. More casting I forgot about earlier. Little Joffrey Lannister is in this movie!

Dude, this kid grows up evil.

9. My biggest problem with this movie other than Rachel Dawes: The League of Shadows and their shadowy past.

Now, I don’t mind that the League of Shadows exists. I’m not usually a huge fan of stories with secret organizations and global conspiracies that have lasted thousands of years, but I’m actually okay with it here. I can take the fact that these dudes were behind sacking Rome, burning London, all that cheery stuff. What I can’t take is that these guys were apparently behind the economic depression that hit Gotham twenty years ago and are thus indirectly responsible for the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne (and, for that matter, how the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne galvanized the city and temporarily ruined the League of Shadows’s shadowy plans).

Because ugh. I actually remember rolling my eyes at this twist when I saw Batman Begins in the theater for the first time. It is dumb and overcomplicated and just too ridiculously diabolical. You don’t need this; it was perfectly fine when Ra’s was just arguing that the city was irreversibly corrupt and Batman was arguing that the good people in Gotham made it a worthwhile fight. The League of Shadows’s economic attack just feels like a cheap way to make this into a revenge-but-not-really-revenge story, and I hate it. I mean, I like this movie a lot—I think it’s my favorite of all the Batman films—but I absolutely despise this twist with every fiber of my being.

10. Finally, Nolan really likes to repeat his dialogue. (For instance, ‘why do we fall sir’ and ‘it’s what we do that defines us’ and ‘didn’t you get the memo’ and ‘theatricality and deception are powerful allies’ and ‘you never learned to mind your surroundings’ and on and on and ON.) I don’t think this happens in The Dark Knight quite as much as it does here, but it sure does happen in Inception. (Can we say waiting for a train?)

Anyway, here are some quotes:

Policeman: “It’s a black . . . tank.”

Ra’s al Ghul: “If someone stands in the way of true justice, you simply walk up behind them and stab them in the heart.”

Bruce: “I want to borrow it. For, uh, spelunking.”
Lucius: “Spelunking?”
Bruce: “Yeah, you know, cave diving.”
Lucius: “You expecting to run into much gunfire in these caves?”

Alfred: “When you told me your grand plan for saving Gotham, the only thing that stopped me from calling the men in white was when you said it wasn’t about thrill-seeking.”
Bruce: “It’s not.”
Alfred: “What would you call that?”
Bruce: “Damn good television.”

Ra’s: “You took my advice about theatricality a bit . . . literally.”

Lucius: “I analyzed your blood, isolating the receptor compounds and the protein-based catalyst.”
Bruce: “Am I meant to understand any of that?”
Lucius: “Not at all. I just wanted you to know how hard it was.”

Falcone: “Don’t burden yourself with the secrets of scary people.”

Bruce: “What’s that?”
Lucius: “The Tumbler? Oh, you wouldn’t be interested in that.”

Alfred: “What is the point of all those push-ups if you can’t even lift a bloody log?”

Bruce: “Bats frighten me. It’s time my enemies shared my dread.”

Alfred: “I assume that as you’re taking on the underworld, this symbol is a persona to protect those you care about from reprisals.”
Bruce: “You thinking about Rachel?”
Alfred: “Actually, sir, I was thinking about myself.”

Crane: “Dr. Crane isn’t in right now. But if you’d like to make an appointment . . .”

CONCLUSIONS:

Other than the problematic Rachel and the stupid economics-as-a-weapon twist, this is a very, very strong Batman film with good dialogue, good ideas, and good performances. Great origin story. Probably my favorite live-action Batman film.

MVP:

Christian Bale (I think he earns it, but I came this close to giving it to Cillian Murphy.)

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

We fall so we can pick ourselves back up and save the good from tyranny! Also, it’s what you do that defines you. But that’s not always going to win you your childhood sweetheart. Sorry.

Well, here it is, the last of the Batman movies. (Until July.)

The Dark Knight Rises has a lot to live up to.

DISCLAIMER:

This review will include spoilers.

SUMMARY:

Batman (Christian Bale) wants to retire and give the city of Gotham the true hero it deserves, a man who can fight injustice without a mask. That man? District attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Unfortunately, before any of that can happen, the Joker (Heath Ledger) needs to be stopped.

NOTES:

1. First off, this review is going to be a little less epic than I would normally like. Tomorrow, I’m flying to Seattle for six weeks, and I will have a lot less time there to snark about movies, so I’m kind of rushing this one. But never fear, dear readers. (All three of you.) I have planned out a few things ahead of time, so you will not find yourself alone in the wilderness for 42 days without my sarcastic voice to guide you on.

Now, as far as the film itself goes, it’s definitely the best live action Batman story there is. Unfortunately, it also features the worst Batman voice you could possibly imagine. Christian Bale took the “swear to me” line from Batman Begins and multiplied it by about a billion. It’s so utterly ludicrous . . . you have to wonder what the hell Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan—who signed off on this voice—were thinking. Kevin Conroy, who provides Batman’s voice in Batman: The Animated Series, talks a little about that here. He’s actually a little classy about it, I thought. I probably wouldn’t have been.

Cause the voice, it’s just . . . it’s just bad. The parodies you see from College Humor and Funny or Die? They don’t even have to exaggerate. It is just that awful. And maybe in the big picture, a superhero’s voice is a minor thing to bitch about, but honestly, it’s actually pretty distracting. Hard to take someone seriously when you can’t stop giggling at him.

2. Thankfully, we have the Joker to make things better.

Heath Ledger as the Joker . . . well, it’s a thing to behold. His performance is sinister and manic and magic. It is a complete transformation. You really forget that it’s Heath Ledger under all that makeup.

I suppose there’s little to say about Ledger that hasn’t already been said. I wish I could have seen what he would have done after this movie—he was so talented and so, so young. Hell, I’m not that far off from 28. It’s sad.

I can’t say if Mr. Ledger should have won his posthumous Oscar or not—I haven’t seen the other films and performances that were in the running—but at the very least, he definitely earned his initial nod. There have been a lot of pretty good Batman villains out there—Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman is still a personal favorite—but Ledger’s version of the Joker is such a great example of chaotic evil that you can’t help but love him.  From almost the second he popped up on screen, you could tell he would be Iconic, capital I. He is the perfect foil for Batman. It’s hard to imagine anyone else surpassing his mastery.

3. But again, a lot of that has been already said. The unsung hero of The Dark Knight, I believe, is Aaron Eckhart as Two-Face.

Harvey Dent/Two-Face is kind of a hard role. Playing the Golden Boy straight is not an easy thing—you can easily come off as either smarmy and insincere or gooey and freakishly earnest. Eckhart makes Harvey idealistic but likable, charming but dedicated. Hell, I’d believe in Harvey Dent . . . except, you know, I’ve seen the end of this movie.

And while Two-Face doesn’t have a lot of time to be villainous, boy, does he make that time work. His descent into bitter madness is both wonderful and awful to watch.

4. The writing in The Dark Knight is better than it was in Batman Begins. Not that Batman Begins is bad. I just think the story is a bit more complex here. Also, the themes are a little less obvious, probably because they aren’t actually repeated multiple times by various characters. (I would get more into these themes because I like them—the hero a city needs versus the hero it deserves—but again, we’re on crunch time, and I really need to finish packing.)

5. All that good stuff about writing being said, though, Rachel still pretty much fails as a character.

When I first heard that Maggie Gyllenhaal was going to take over Katie Holmes’s role from Batman Begins, I was ecstatic. Gyllenhaal is a good actress, and I figured she’d be much more suited to the part. And while it’s true that I take her a little more seriously as an assistant D.A., Rachel is still . . . bitchy, and generally bitchy without cause. At least you could (kind of) see why she was all pissy with Bruce in Batman Begins. In The Dark Knight, I’m not sure what she has to be pissy about. And yet, it always seems like people are just not living up to her standards.

Gyllenhaal also doesn’t seem to have a lot of chemistry with Aaron Eckhart, and she has absolutely none at all with Christian Bale. She only looks more natural with Bale because she’s older than Katie Holmes. Her performance isn’t horrible, it’s just . . . not great. Then again, Gyllenhaal actually has even less to work with than her predecessor did. By the time The Dark Knight comes around, Rachel isn’t even the movie’s one beacon of idealism anymore . . . she’s just The Girl, and her character is flat as hell. Her best scene is easily her death scene—which, to be fair, is pretty good. I like how she gets blown up before you have any idea what she was going to say.

This all makes me a bit nervous for Catwoman in the upcoming The Dark Knight Rises . . . but hopefully, the fact that she’s a villain (or, at least, a quasi-antagonist) will make it easier for Christopher Nolan to create a compelling character for her.

6. You know who is awesome? William Fichtner.

He might be a four minute cameo, but come on. He is the most badass banker you ever saw.

Also, we get Nicky Katt as a funny SWAT guy and an awesome Scarecrow cameo! YES! I love me a good cameo. Let’s keep that tradition going.

7. Now, I don’t drive, but I know that sometimes the choice is between hitting a deer and crashing your car into a ditch. If you can help hitting the deer, you should, not only because that makes you a good person, but because running over a deer can seriously fuck up your car. That being said, if you can’t avoid hitting the deer without going into a ditch and probably killing yourself . . . kill Bambi.

The same basic rule applies for villains who are trying to kill you.

If you don’t have it in you to run someone down, seriously. Figure that out before you total your ride avoiding him.

8. I’m happy that, unlike in Tim Burton’s Batman, we don’t find anything out about the Joker. We don’t know his true name, where he comes from, how he really got those scars on his face. (I love the scar stories.) Sometimes, I want to know more about my villains, but I think it’s great that we never learn anything about him, that the Joker remains this madman that just came from out of nowhere.

9. Also, here’s a scene that’s always bothered me—after The Joker drops Rachel out of a window and Batman flies down and rescues her, they just chill there for a second and then the movie cuts away to another scene. Er, isn’t the Joker still up there? What, he just decided to leave? Maybe we should have shown him leaving because, as far as we know, the Joker is just slaughtering the rich people of Gotham left and right while Batman and Rachel are busy making eyes at each other.

I was gratified to find that I was not the only one who had problems with this.

And seriously. How awesome would it have been if Batman had hit the Joker with his motorcycle? Hee.

10. Finally, here are some quotes:

Alfred: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Detective Wuertz: “Dent. Jesus, I thought you were dead.”
Two-Face: “Half.”

Harvey Dent: “Any psychotic ex-boyfriends I should know about?”
Alfred: “Oh, you have no idea.”

The Joker: “You see madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push.”

Lucius Fox: “Let me get this straight. You think that your client, one of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the world, is secretly a vigilante who spends his nights beating criminals to a pulp with his bare hands . . . and your plan is to blackmail this person? Good luck.”

Gambol: “You think you can steal from us and just walk away?”
The Joker: “Yeah.”

Batman: “He must have friends.”
Maroni: “Friends? Have you met this guy?”

The Joker: “What’s the time?”
Jim Gordon: “What difference does that make?”
The Joker: “Well, depending on the time, he may be in one spot, or several.”

Batman: “Let her go!
The Joker: “Very poor choice of words.”

The Joker: “You complete me.”

CONCLUSIONS:

The most well-written, intelligent, and darkest Batman film yet with a villain who I’m not sure is ever going to be topped. Rachel remains a problematic character, but you know what? She’s dead! So we don’t have to deal with her in the sequel! Hallelujah!

MVP:

Heath Ledger

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A

MORAL:

Be the bigger person. Sure, you’ve stopped some psychotic villains and saved a bunch of lives, but that’s not enough. If you’re really a good guy, you’ll also pretend you did a bunch of horrible shit to protect one dead guy’s reputation. If you’re not willing to do that, well. Go be a superhero somewhere else.

My love for Joseph Gordon-Levitt has been well-documented on this blog — he was a big motivator in seeing movies like G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and Stop-Loss, and he’s pretty much the only reason I saw Premium Rush at all– so I don’t imagine it’s any big surprise that I went to see Looper in theater as well. But the truth is, as much as I like JGL on his own, it was the reunion of him and Brick director Rian Johnson that made me desperate to see this film for over a year.

For my money, it’s not perfect. But despite its flaws, it’s still a pretty damn good movie.

SUMMARY:

In the future, time travel is invented but illegal as all hell. Also, it’s really hard to dispose of bodies properly because of Future Forensics. So, crime organizations in 2072 send people they want dead back to 2042 so that Loopers can kill them and get rid of the evidence. If a Looper encounters his future self, he’s supposed to kill the guy anyway (closing the loop) or else suffer the consequences. Which Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) learns all about when his future self, Old Joe (Bruce Willis), is sent back to the past and quickly escapes.

NOTES:

1.) I don’t despise time travel stories the way my friend Cory does, but they aren’t necessarily my favorite, either — although it has nothing to do with mechanics or logic because, pah. Who cares about mechanics and logic? (Answer: many people. But as we all know, science bores me, and my little pop culture obsessed brain has a lot of trouble unraveling time travel paradoxes, so mostly I just don’t think about them.) Point is, if you want to know more about the time travel itself and if it makes sense and that kind of stuff — go to another blog after you finish reading my (clearly superior) review because I am going to spend zero time talking about that shit.

My problem with time travel stories is the exact same problem I have with prophecy stories — I never feel surprised by the endings. Not because each and every story is predictable in itself but because there always seems to be only two ways that the story can play out: the future either happens the way it’s foretold, or it changes. I suppose you can think of most stories that way (the guy either gets the girl or he doesn’t; the girl either escapes from the monster or she dies) but it feels different in a time travel story, somehow, maybe because the future is what gets the plot going and thus always seems inevitable? I’m not sure. That probably doesn’t make sense — I’m still trying to work it out in my head.

Point is, I think Looper has a really original premise to start with but it eventually veers hard into some pretty used time travel tropes — which I’d be cool with if the movie did something really original with them by the end, but it doesn’t really. And it’s not a bad ending, exactly — it’s just not a particularly exciting one, either, and I can’t think of a time travel movie where I watched the last scene and thought, Wow, that was AWESOME.

( . . . actually, that’s a lie. One time travel movie definitely surprised me, but since the time travel element itself is kind of a spoiler, I can’t say which movie it is.)

2. The biggest problem, though, facing Looper is not the ending (which, actually, I can pretty easily forgive) but . . . let’s call it a subplot. I don’t know if subplot is really the most accurate term here, but it’s a hard thing to talk about without spoilers, so . . . subplot. It’s problematic, mostly because it’s just not necessary. I mean, I want to like it — it leads to some pretty cool scenes — but with one really quick fix, I can edit it out of the whole movie and change virtually nothing in the rest of the story.

The problem is, I don’t actually want to delete this element — I just wish this subplot actually felt essential to the main plot. I think there’s a pretty easy fix for that too — but I can’t talk about it until the Spoiler Section. Suffice it to say, this movie has an unusual structure — it’s like two time travel stories in one film — and if this one element or subplot was handled a little better, I think it would tie everything together. As is, the movie is just a bit too uneven for me to give it a solid A.

3. On the other hand, the very best thing Looper has going for it is awesome moral ambiguity.

I’m the hero. Also, I kill kittens.

Okay, he doesn’t kill kittens. There is no kitten-killing in this movie. But most of the characters in this movie — Joe, Old Joe, Sarah, even Cid — have done some pretty shitty things, on screen or off. Which isn’t to say you don’t have sympathy for them or can’t see why they’re doing what they’re doing, but that doesn’t negate the fact that they’re not the nicest people in the world. This isn’t a story of white hats versus black hats, and I was honestly surprised when characters who I thought would be good guys turned for the dark quite quick.

4. Also, the violence is excellent. I really can’t praise that enough. Looper isn’t a slasher gore fest, but it has some fairly violent moments, and they are done well. One part in particular actually made me cringe, and I like to think that’s not entirely easy to do.

5. We have a fairly excellent cast here in Looper. Sadly, some very good actors — Paul Dano, Garrett Dillahunt, Tracie Thoms, and to a certain extent, even Jeff Daniels — are fairly small parts. The major roles go to Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, and Emily Blunt.

Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt)

. . . do I even need to say he’s awesome? I mean, was there any doubt? Well, in case there was . . . Gordon-Levitt is awesome here, specifically because he’s extremely successful at playing a younger version of Bruce Willis. Prosthetics will be its own note later, but the acting itself is pretty terrific — you can really see Willis in all of Gordon-Levitt’s mannerisms and facial expressions, and I thought that was very cool. The performance is a great imitation but never descends into parody, and I think with a lesser actor it probably would have.

Old Joe (Bruce Willis)

I like Bruce Willis here too. I’m not certain it’s much of a stretch for him — Bruce Willis is kind of always Bruce Willis — but he still does a good job with the role of Older Joe, and I really like the scenes where he and Joseph Gordon-Levitt play off each other.

Sara (Emily Blunt)

I like Emily Blunt a lot too — I believe her when she’s standing in front of a cornfield, shotgun in hand. She can be both tough and vulnerable without being a total cliche, and I’d like to say that’s not difficult, but a lot of actresses seem to have trouble with it. I think her performance allows me to have more sympathy for Sara than I normally would have. Also, her American accent is pretty good. I only noticed it slip once.

6. The only other actor I haven’t mentioned yet is Noah Segan, who plays Kid Blue.

I’m assuming Rian Johnson and Noah Segan are best friends because this guy is in all of Johnson’s movies. Once I realized that he was Dode, the piehouse rat from Brick, I couldn’t think of him as anything else, and while Segan isn’t bad here or anything — I don’t know, I think he gets more screen time than the role actually requires.

7. I actually wasn’t expecting this movie to be a sci-fi noir, but it sort of is. I mean, there are no private investigators, and the script isn’t packed full of Brick slang, but there’s definitely a noir tone here that I really enjoy. It does kind of fade out in the second half, though. I actually really enjoy the tone of the second half too, just . . . there’s a pretty clear divide between parts one and two of this film.

8. Still, this movie looks great. I think Rian Johnson shot the hell out of Looper – if you get the chance to see it in theater, I’d recommend it because it looks awesome on the big screen.

9. The worst thing about seeing something relatively new in theaters is that it’s really hard to look up quotes online. I damn well know there were a handful of quotes I really liked, but it’s been about four or five days since I’ve seen this now, and I no longer remember them all. The few I could find . . .

Abe: “I’m from the future. Go to China.”

Abe: “Ask yourself: who would I sacrifice for what’s mine?”

Joe: “Your face looks backwards.”

Old Joe: “You know, there’s another waitress who works here?”
Joe: “Jen?”
Old Joe: “Yeah. Less letters.”

10. Finally, the prosthetics . . . you know, I’m still torn on those. Sometimes, it drives me nuts when they cast two actors who don’t look a damn thing alike to play the same person, and Bruce Willis and Joseph Gordon-Levitt would have to work pretty hard to look less alike. I thought the prosthetics were a smart idea to fix this, and sometimes I didn’t even notice them, so focused was I on the action . . . but then there would be a shot where the wrongness of Gordon-Levitt’s face was unavoidable, and it would jar me out of the story.

So, I still have no conclusion on that. For all my other conclusions, though, continue below.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Let me very briefly set up the TK subplot, and then I’ll go over the whole movie.

So there’s apparently some gene for telekinesis, and the people who have it can float quarters in the air a little. Unfortunately, that’s about all they can do – X-Men, this is not — so no one really cares about it. (I would still be pretty impressed with myself if I could levitate coins, but I’ll have to agree with Joe that it seems sort of “tacky” to try and impress girls with this.)

Clearly, this is important because no one brings up ‘oh yeah, so a few people like my buddy Seth here just happen to be randomly telekinetic’ for no reason, but it takes a little while before we find out why.

Now. Joe’s life is pretty much a rinse and repeat cycle of drugs, prostitutes, and murder. Also, French lessons. (Any excuse for Joseph Gordon-Levitt to speak French.) He plans to retire to France as soon as he’s saved up enough money to leave, and there’s something pretty amusing about him practicing his vocab by listening to one of those language tapes right before he calmly blows some guy away.

Je suis Joe. Now fuck off and die.

Now a lot of Loopers have been closing their own loops lately, which makes people a little nervous, but hey . . . that’s what they have drugs for, right? Also gold. When a Looper kills some regular dude from the future, he gets silver, but when he kills his future self he gets gold, and a shitload of it, enough to retire on. Joe’s friend, Seth (Paul Dano), can’t do it, however, and tries to hide out with Joe while Old Seth tries to run away. Joe is  taken to his boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels), who basically says we know you have Seth, and you’re going to tell me where he is, or I’m going to take all of the silver you’ve been saving to get away.

So, Joe sells Seth out. And admittedly, Seth is kind of a whiny useless excuse for a friend, and I certainly understand the desperation you feel when your escape path gets cut out from under you, but still . . . Joe betrays his friend. That’s not nice.

As the mobsters take Seth, we see Old Seth trying to escape the city. Just as he’s starting to climb a fence, though, fingers start disappearing off his hand, leaving scarred stumps in their wake. A giant scar starts to pop up on the inside of his arm, telling him to be at some location in, like, fifteen minutes. Old Seth doesn’t really have any other choice but to follow the directions because he keeps losing pieces as they cut them off of Young Seth. By the time Old Seth crashes his car at the meeting spot (it’s hard to drive when you suddenly don’t have feet), he is also missing his nose and his tongue. It’s all pretty horrific and made me squirm a little in my seat — I love when a movie can do that.

Anyway, Old Seth is killed, and Joe tries to go back to his life. He has a thing for a pretty prostitute named Suzie (Piper Perabo), but while she seems to like him okay, she’s also clearly just doing her job and isn’t particularly interested in his romantic notions of someday taking her and her kid away from this horrible life of depravity.

Things go seriously awry for Joe when he shows up to work one day and the target doesn’t pop up at the usual time. He’s just checking his pocket watch, going, “Hmmm . . .” when Old Joe shows up. However, Old Joe isn’t tied down, and he doesn’t have a bag over his head like the usual targets. Joe hesitates for just a second, and that’s long enough for Old Joe to get the upper hand and knock Joe out. Joe later wakes up with a note pinned to him that says get the hell out of town.

Joe, of course, does not do that because he’s a bit of an idiot and is determined to a) get the silver out of his apartment, and b) kill Old Joe and get his life back. He is quickly knocked unconscious again. (I’m convinced Rian Johnson enjoys beating the shit out of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.) So Old Joe is forced to save his life and leaves another note that basically says: leave town and this time I mean it.

Joe again refuses to do that and sets up a meet between the two of them by cutting into his own arm. At first, it looks like the same message Old Seth got (BE AT . . .) but it turns out to be BEATRIX, the name of a waitress at this diner. Old Joe later points out that Jen is also a waitress there, and her name has less letters. It may be my favorite line in the whole movie.

Beatrix, by the way, is played by Tracie Thoms, who is fabulous –

– but sadly only in the movie for about seven minutes. I would like to see her in more things.

Moving on. We get to see how men in the future came for Old Joe, killed his beautiful savior wife, and tried to send him back in time. Old Joe managed to kill those guys but decided to go back in time anyway, in order to kill the Rainmaker in the past. (The Rainmaker is the Big Boss Dude in the future who starts closing all the loops and killing people and whatnot.) He doesn’t know exactly where Young Rainmaker is, but he has three different addresses.

Joe is not on board with this plan and says he’s going to kill Old Joe. Having come to an impasse, Old Joe beats the shit of Joe. The bad guys come and try to kill them, and they both run off in opposite directions. Joe has one of the addresses and goes there. This ends up being Emily Blunt’s house by the corn.

She is not happy to see Joe.

Emily Blunt plays Sara, and Sara has a ridiculously smart kid named Cid. When she was younger, Sara was addicted to drugs and doing all kinds of bad shit in the city, and she abandoned Cid with her sister and partied instead of being a mom. She only came back to the job when her sister died, although to be fair, she’s all cleaned up now. Still, my sympathy for people who abandon their kids is severely limited, and I think credit is due to Emily Blunt for making me care about Sara at all.

Anyway, Sara doesn’t trust Joe for any number of reasons, not the least of which is his addiction to the Eye Drop Drug, but she eventually lets him stay there so that he may kill Older Joe when Older Joe comes by to kill her kid.

For yes, this has suddenly become a reverse Terminator story — or a let’s kill Baby Hitler story — and Old Joe has come back in time to murder three children. For some reason, I didn’t fully pick up on that during the diner scene, so when he kills Kid One, I was surprised because he initially seemed to be moving into the role of Hero while Joe was considerably less sympathetic at that point. It never occurred to me going into this movie that Old Joe would become the real villain, way more than Abe and his future goonies, and I was really impressed with this development.

And he’s not even just killing one kid — he plans to kill two other children that he knows are innocent, just to make sure he gets the right one. Evil. But at the same time, you totally get where Old Joe is coming from, and he’s never all gloaty or mustache-twirly about it– in fact, there’s actually a nice little breakdown scene after Old Joe kills Kid One. Also, the scene where he’s desperate to make sure he remembers his dead savior wife in the midst of all this changing timeline stuff is a nice moment of good character development. *Does the complex characters and moral ambiguity happy dance.*

So, it turns out that Cid will actually become the Rainmaker, and also he’s a little TK monster.

The Face of Terror.

Which is to say that when he gets hurt or angry or scared, Cid can pretty much float everything in the house and also explode people. Which he does to Garrett Dillahunt when he comes looking for Joe.

This is an awesome scene.

Turns out that Cid accidentally killed his aunt in one of his telekinetic temper tantrums . . . so even the kid has done some awful shit, even if he didn’t mean to. As a side note, I like how you think Sara is running to catch her boy from falling down the stairs when you suddenly realize she’s actually moving to push Joe out of the way of Cid’s rage. I thought that was nicely done.

Meanwhile, Old Joe goes after Kid 2, but this turns out to be Suzie the Prostitute’s Kid. He feels bad about this for a little while but goes to do it anyway . . . only to get caught by proverbial fuck up Kid Blue, who set a trap for him there.

Amusingly, Kid Blue catches him for the wrong reason, figuring Old Joe is just as obsessed with Suzie as Joe is. But hey, he catches the guy, at least, so good for him. He’s been pretty obsessed with it for the whole movie, actually, because he wants to make Abe proud.

Abe has not been so proud during the film.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter because Old Joe eventually gets loose and kills Abe and everyone else. Everyone, that is, except for Kid Blue. For my money, this is where Kid Blue should die because he really serves no further purpose to the story except for a stupid complication later that could have been cause by anything . . . but moving on.

Old Joe makes his way over to Sara’s before Sara and Cid can run for the hills. Cid freaks out and starts doing his TK thing again, nearly killing Old Joe and Sara. (Joe has been waylaid by Kid Blue. Like I said, it’s a little dumb — the execution of it feels way too convenient.) Sara manages to talk Cid down, which is basically the first time this has ever worked.

Normally, she goes to hide in her massive safe. I’ve seen tree houses smaller than the safe in this house.

Sara tells Cid to run away and blocks Old Joe from going after him. Old Joe is about to kill her, even though he doesn’t want to. Joe pops up (finally) and sees how the future is going to play out — Old Joe will kill Sara, and Cid will become a monster because his mom was murdered by a Looper and, also, because he never learned how to control his gift/rage and all that. So Joe does the only thing he can think of: he shoots himself in the heart. (I figure he could have shot himself in the hand or foot or something, but Old Joe’s pretty relentless. I don’t think it’s cheap that Joe shot himself — I’m just a survivalist by nature, and I think that I would have tried shooting myself in the hand first before I came to the conclusion that I absolutely had to shuffle myself off this mortal coil.)

Anyway, Joe dies and Old Joe disappears, and Sara and Cid are safe. That’s about the end.

Now . . . it’s the telekinesis subplot where this movie falls down a bit for me. I actually don’t mind that the story shifts a bit in tone, and I’m actually okay that it turns to a pretty well-known time travel trope/cliche. I like old stories, as long as you do something interesting with them. And while self-sacrifice is not exactly original, I’m so happy Looper ended with Joe dying instead of Sara — because the whole future Joe imagined where Cid becomes the Rainmaker because of murdered Mommy? Yeah, I called that about an hour into the movie. I would have been extremely disappointed if the movie had ended this way.

But the reason the telekinesis fails . . . it’s just not necessary. If Future Cid was just some truly awful person who started killing all the Loopers and causing havoc and mayhem and whatnot . . . you know, if he was just a terrible, non-psychic human like, I don’t know, Hitler . . . the story doesn’t change in any meaningful way. If we saw Future Cid using his telekinesis to destroy the world or something, then it might be different . . . maybe the two stories would tie together better . . . but as is, the telekinesis feels thrown in instead of woven, and the whole movie suffers a little for it. Like I said earlier, the telekinesis scenes are awesome, and I don’t want to get rid of them . . . I just want them to feel intrinsic to the story itself, not just a dangling thread.

Even with that problematic subplot, though, this movie is still pretty awesome.

SUMMARY:

Great acting. Great cinematography. Neat story. Awesome violence. Good dialogue. Complex characters. So, so close to being an amazing movie instead of just a pretty good one.

MVP:

Joseph Gordon-Levitt

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Times are tough, but any job that demands that you kill any version of yourself is probably not a job worth having.

We don’t really go for the inspirational Christmas films in the St. George household. For instance . . .

Yeah, it’s totally a Christmas movie.

DISCLAIMER:

Spoilers. I’ve been doing a lot of reviews with spoilers, lately, and I should probably stop doing that — but it’s not going to be today because, let’s face it: this movie was made in 1987, it has three sequels, and if you don’t know that the bad guys die and the good guys win, you probably don’t know very much about action movies in general.

SUMMARY:

Family Man Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover) is paired up with Suicidal Headcase Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson). Their first case? Solving the murder of a young prostitute — and taking down a group of well-connected drug smugglers while they’re at it.

NOTES:

1. Can I just say . . . this is the most ridiculous premise ever?

Don’t get me wrong — I love Lethal Weapon. I grew up on this movie, and it’s one of those films that I’d hate to see Hollywood remake because, really, what would they do? I mean, they could change the tone of it, make it darker or grittier or something, but . . . you know, why? Better to just write a whole new story for that. And this is pretty classic as far as buddy cop action movies go . . . I have a hard time seeing anyone improving it with a modern update.

But honestly . . . we have a possibly suicidal cop on our hands, and our solution is to promote him to homicide?

Hire me! I’m totally the guy you want talking to victims’ loved ones and solving bloody murders!

I know the Chief doesn’t actually believe Riggs is suicidal, but I’m generally of the opinion that even people who might be suicidal probably shouldn’t be working with guns — and even if he was trying to score some insanity insurance cash — how, exactly, is working in homicide as opposed to narcotics going to change that? And what do you even employ a department shrink for, if you’re not going to listen to her? (Although, admittedly, Shrink Lady does use the words “suicidal” and “psychotic” like they’re synonyms, so maybe she’s not the best shrink in the whole world. Still.)

It’s hard to see this as a good move in either direction — we’re either heaping more pressure on an unstable guy by forcing him in a new, potentially grislier department with a new partner who hates him, or we’re basically rewarding him for his shitty, greedy ways — because from every cop movie I’ve ever seen in my life, being a homicide detective in a police force is like being one of the coolest kids on the playground ever.

2. Shrink Lady, by the way, is played by 80′s Veteran Small Part Actress, Mary Ellen Trainor –

– who was also in such notable movies as The Goonies, Romancing the Stone, and Kuffs. (Okay, so Kuffs is actually early 90′s and probably isn’t very notable to anyone who isn’t me. Still, I like that movie. It’s Slater before his career went all to hell and has a very young Milla Jovovich, before she became a B-movie action heroine. It’s sort of refreshing, actually.)

(EDIT: She’s also in Die Hard, of course, which I can’t BELIEVE I forgot to mention. Thanks, Kirsten, for the heads-up.)

In movies, psychologists either seem to be Deeply Insightful Godsends or Foolish People Trying to Bring a Good Man Down. In Lethal Weapon, Shrink Lady is clearly one of the latter and will continue to be for the rest of the series.

3. Also, what I said about not remaking Lethal Weapon? Still true, but if you just absolutely had to remake it — let’s cut out some of that homophobic humor, shall we? There actually isn’t too much of it, but a couple of the lines are pretty awful. Like when Riggs refers to the idea of two women sleeping together as “disgusting.” That was pretty standard quo for the 80′s, I guess, but it’s a different world now, and some changes are thankfully for the better.

4. There are three villains to concern yourself with.

4A. Will Riker’s Daddy

Will Riker’s Daddy — or General McAllister — is the Big Boss Man but not particularly menacing standing next to his right-hand man, Mr. Joshua. This is probably why he dies first. (I kind of like the way he dies, though. Trapped in a car with a grenade about to go off — you’d be making some shrieky, desperate sounds too.)

B. Mr. Joshua

There’s something about referring to your villain as ‘Mr’ that automatically makes the character sound more villainous. At least, it’s a working theory, based on Mr. Chance (from Plunkett & Macleane), Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar (from Neverwhere), and of course, Mr. Joshua. Gary Busey is fun in this. I miss those good old days where Gary Busey was scary without being, you know, SCARY.

C. The Best Henchman from Die Hard

You know, the one who really likes Crunch bars.

Okay, Al Leong is in this movie for about four minutes, if even, but he’s just one of those 80′s small-time icons — I had to pay tribute. In Lethal Weapon, Leong’s the guy who electrocutes Riggs for a while. He’s also the guy Riggs refers to as “the Chin” — so yeah, this movie’s a bit less PC than I remember it being.

(Also — and just as an aside for, er, diehard Die Hard fans — Special Agent Johnson {Grand L. Bush — my God, that’s a truly awful name} is in this for about two minutes too. He’s not a villain, though. He’s the cop that tells Murtaugh about his new partner. Sadly, Special Agent Johnson {the other one, Robert Davi} does not make an appearance.)

5. This is probably the first movie I ever saw Danny Glover in.

Actually, there’s a good chance that this is the first movie I ever saw any of them in — but I point out Danny Glover in particular because when I think of him, this is always the first movie that comes to mind. Also, while Murtaugh is just turning fifty when this film starts, Danny Glover was only forty when it was filmed. I mostly find this amusing because Riggs spends the whole moving calling Murtaugh an old man, but Gibson’s only a decade younger than his co-star.

By the way, in case I forget to mention it later — one of the reasons this movie works as well as it does? Gibson and Glover’s natural chemistry. All their scenes together are fun — I’m particularly a fan of Glover’s little nervous breakdown while driving. (“Fifty years old; what a birthday; goddamn fifty years old; been on the force twenty years, not a scratch on me, not a scar; got a wife, kids, a house, a fishing boat, but I can kiss all that goodbye because my new partner has a death wish; my fucking life is over.”)

And whether you buy into their emotions or not — man, these two are going for it. Mel Gibson’s whole face goes red when he’s angry, and the veins on Danny Glover’s neck look like they’re going to pop at any second. (Also, his voice gets really low, like absurdly low, when he yells. It’s actually a little funny.)

6. By the way — while it might be different for boys — I don’t want anyone to sing me happy birthday and give me presents while I’m in the bathtub. The bathtub is private time. Cake and presents generally come when I’m dressed, thanks.

7. This movie begins with some holly jolly Christmas music that quickly transitions into something a bit darker when a young woman jumps off a building.

This is Amanda.

I might complain about the fact that of course Amanda is topless when she jumps out of her window — I mean, who doesn’t walk around her place with covered feet but exposed breasts — but to be fair, we do get to see Mel Butt, so. It’s not like there isn’t some nudity on both sides of the equation.

[I do not have a picture of Mel Butt for you. This is a family friendly blog, for godsake!]

8. It’s not a big wonder I like this film, of course. I mean, other than being a sucker for the buddy cop movie, Lethal Weapon was directed by Richard Donner and written by Shane Black. Donner’s directed some pretty awesome movies – The Omen, Ladyhawke, Maverick, The Goonies – and Shane Black wrote Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which is just one of my most favorite things ever. (Here’s to hoping, Iron Man 3!)

And of course, what would Lethal Weapon be without . . .

9 . . . that angsty 80′s sax.

Mek and I can’t watch this movie without chiming in with that angsty 80′s sax.

Also, you know who worked on this movie’s score?

Yeah, Eric Clapton. See, you do learn things every day. (Even if they’re things that are totally irrelevant to your everyday life.)

10. Michael Hunsaker (Tom Atkins) is yet another prime example of why you never stand in front of a giant open window.

Also why you shouldn’t drink eggnog. Eggnog leads to death!

Even as a small child, I was like, dude, move away from the fucking window, you assclown. 

11. I’m feeling lazy and skipping over all sorts of good scenes we could be talking about — but we can’t skip over a couple of things. First, briefly, let’s at least mention this scene . . .

. . . and just be very, very clear that there’s no way Martin Riggs wouldn’t have been fired on the damn spot. Okay, maybe not on the spot, but definitely shortly afterwards. Come on. Seriously. He controlled the jump my ass — he forced a civilian off of a building; he’s done. It doesn’t matter that this is the most annoying suicidal guy ever known to man. I’m  may not be a cop, but I still feel pretty confident about this.

But, you know, Riggs can make pretty pictures with bullets . . .

. . . so to hell with the rules. He’s a keeper.

12. All this, however, might be slightly less ridiculous than the ending. Oh, the ending.

Okay, so here’s how the final fight goes down:

Riggs and Murtaugh beat Mr. Joshua to Murtaugh’s home. They have time to set up a clever little ‘fuck you’ note to Mr. Joshua, which they plant inside the house. What they apparently don’t have time for? To warn the two cops stationed in front of Murtaugh’s home.

These cops aren’t alarmed at all when Mr. Joshua comes by . It’s not like he gets the drop on them. He just casually drives right up to the car before saying a quick howdy and killing them. I’m sure the cops knew that they were stationed there for something, but apparently, they didn’t get a suspect description — and it’s not like Mr. Joshua is that hard to describe. (“So . . . if I see a six foot tall menacing albino in the vicinity, maybe I should be on guard? Cool. Good to know.”)

Pressing on. So while Mr. Joshua is inside the Murtaugh’s home, snooping around and shooting up innocent televisions, Murtaugh and Riggs distract him by sending a car through the living room wall. And while I know that the element of a surprise is a big deal in a fight . . . is this really the only way we could think to get the drop on Mr. Joshua? I hope it doesn’t cost a lot of money to, you know, rebuild your house or anything, Murtaugh.

Then we could just arrest Mr. Joshua — but what fun would that be? Instead, Riggs offers him a chance at the title as they try to kill each other on Murtaugh’s lawn.

A few things:

A: Who says Riggs holds the title anyway? I’m not sure it’s his to offer. I mean, I’m just saying.

B. While this is totally ridiculous, at least Murtaugh is shown to repeatedly be holding off other officers while saying that he’ll take full responsibility for what happens. Considering Mr. Joshua is a cop-killer, I can see some people bending the rules for a beatdown . . . although I’m not sure this extends as far as murder. So, you know, probably a good thing Riggs doesn’t go with Murtaugh’s suggestion to “break his [Mr. Joshua's] fucking neck,” or Murtaugh would be taking on a whole lot more responsibility than initially figured.

C. One of my least favorite ways for a bad guy to die: the good guy has the chance and the motivation to kill him but decides not to — because he’s a better person and revenge is wrong and the bad guy is just “not worth it” and blah blah blah. But then the bad guy gets a gun or otherwise puts everyone in jeopardy again, and so the good guy is forced to kill him anyway.

And — blah. This is a cheap cop-out, Lethal Weapon, and I hate it in every movie I’ve ever seen it in.

D. Oh, oh, one more thing: in the denouement, Riggs is still all beat up because, you know, Mr. Joshua was one tough motherfucker. Murtaugh, on the other hand, looks fine, and while we don’t know exactly how long these last scenes take place after the fight with Mr. Joshua — he did get rather beat to hell himself, not to mention shot in the shoulder. But, you know. Everyone knows a bullet to the shoulder leaves no lasting damage.

13. Finally, some quotes:

Murtaugh: “See how easy that was. Boom, still alive. Now we question him. You know why we question him? Because I got him in the leg. I didn’t shoot him full of holes or try to jump off a building with him.”
Riggs: “Hey, no fair. The building guy lived.”

Mr. Joshua: “Well, our problem, and yours too, is we have a shipment of merchandise to deliver.”
Riggs: “Why don’t you guys just call it heroin?”
Mr. Joshua: “It’s rather large, this shipment. It would be unfortunate, however, if we showed up to deliver our heroin, and we were surrounded by fifty cops.”
Riggs: “That would be too bad.”

Murtaugh: “Saved my life. Took a bayonet in the lungs.”
Riggs: “That was nice of him.”

Murtaugh: “Piece of cake. Now I’m happy. You go read him his rights, and I’ll stand here, being happy.”

Murtaugh: “God hates me; that’s what it is.”
Riggs: “Hate him back. It works for me.”

Murtaugh: “You sure?”
Riggs: “Yeah, I’m sure, man. I never forget an asshole.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Some ridiculous moments — okay, a lot of ridiculous moments — and a few unfortunate lines, but this is the quintessential buddy cop movie, and I love it. One of my favorite Christmas movies — although not quite as good as Die Hard.

MVP:

Mel Gibson

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Suicide is bad. Also, if you’re going to be a part of a nefarious operation, totally make sure to name it something cool like SHADOW COMPANY!

It’s been far too long since I reviewed a mindless action flick. Like, it’s been at least a month, right?

I’ve seen S.W.A.T. at least a dozen times since it came out ten years ago. It remains one of my favorite silly, entertaining, no-thought-at-all-required action films.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS. I want to be upfront about this, in case you’re concerned that the bad guys might win or that our devastatingly attractive lead hero might perish. This review will answer these questions.

SECOND DISCLAIMER:

Colin Farrell doesn’t perish. Also, the bad guys don’t win.

SUMMARY:

Newly Captured French Bad Guy Alex Montel (Olivier Martinez) offers a hundred million dollars to anyone who can bust him out of police custody. Lots of people are eager for such money. Thankfully, Sergeant Hondo (Samuel L. Jackson) has just formed a new and ridiculously good looking SWAT team who’s been entrusted with the thankless job of transporting the prisoner.

NOTES:

1. I say their job is thankless, but really, the pity should go to the poor fuckers who showed up to work that day and realized they were on Decoy Duty. I mean, it’s one thing to die whilst guarding a flesh and blood prisoner; it’s quite something else to get shot six times whilst protecting an expressionless dummy from enemy capture. Supposedly, only one officer died during this massive decoy operation, which I’m calling serious bullshit on. When a semi slams into a sedan, the end result isn’t a couple of bruises. I’m sure that police cars are reinforced and whatnot, but come on. I’m sure people can survive that, but when two or three semis crash into two or three cop cars? I think we need to bump up our fatality rate, guys.

2. But this all happens later. Let’s start in the beginning prequel shit, shall we, when Bullseye and Hawkeye were partners.

Only in this movie, Bullseye — otherwise known as Jim Street (Colin Farrell) — is the good guy and Hawkeye — otherwise known as Brian Gamble (Jeremy Renner) — is the reckless and consequently evil guy. (Oh, we’ll get to that.) Gamble disobeys a direct order in a hostage situation and accidentally shoots an innocent woman, although to be fair to him, she doesn’t die and the bad guys are taken down. Still, people frown on disobeying orders and shooting civilians, so Gamble — who doesn’t help things with his big mouth — gets shitcanned, and his partner gets sent to rot in the gun cage. (Apparently, a fate worse than death.)

Street does have the opportunity to save his job if only he’ll turn on his partner and testify against him, but a man has to have a code and all, so he doesn’t. Nevertheless, rumors will circulate that he did sell Gamble out. Gamble will also accuse him of this because, really, as much as I like Jeremy Renner, his character is kind of an obnoxious whiner, at least in the first ten minutes.

Still, a few notes about all of this:

A. Did you notice how our reckless bad guy’s last name was Gamble? I bet you didn’t. It’s super subtle. I can only assume that Jim Street is so named because Jim Manly and Jim Kickass were taken.

B. The whole point of the first ten minutes is to set up two things: our hero’s conflict and our villain’s motivation. The hero’s conflict stuff is fine — people think less of him now; he has to prove himself, yada yada. Villain’s motivation, on the other hand . . . yeah, we need to talk about that.

Like I said before, Gamble’s kind of an obnoxious hothead. This cannot be denied. What he isn’t, however, is a cop-killing mercenary. Does he make bad judgement calls? Sure. Should he be responsible for saving lives? Probably not. But it’s quite a leap from accidentally shooting a civilian in the shoulder while trying to save her life to casually shooting down a police helicopter to score a shitload of cash.

Mind you, I’m not saying it couldn’t happen. People change over time — even six months time, I suppose. Gamble’s clearly bitter about his time on the force, and a hundred million dollars is a pretty big incentive. Just ask TJ. (Oh, TJ. We’ll get to him in a while.) I’m just saying that at the point where he storms out of the locker room, Gamble isn’t quite set up as the Big Bad he’s going to become. Cause, you know, reckless people can certainly do evil things, but reckless and evil themselves are not synonyms. If the hostage had died and Gamble had showed no remorse of any kind, well, I’d buy this villainous turn a little more. As is . . . yeah, I don’t think he’s quite the violent psychopath that S.W.A.T. clearly wants me to believe he is.

Although really, he should learn to choose his words better. “I saved a hostage from getting shot!” Er, no. You saved a hostage from getting killed. There’s a subtle difference, particularly when you’re the person who shot her.

3. Okay, moving on. Let’s see what Jim Kickass Street has been up to after six months.

Well, he’s still working in the gun cage, which is apparently where all the likable yet totally schlubby cops work — providing Street some angst because, you know. Street is a Real Man! To prove this, he runs on the beach a lot, to the point where he actually vomits, which is not really something I needed to see. And don’t bullshit me about authenticity, people. Let’s not pretend this is some gritty action flick. One of the reasons I like S.W.A.T. so much is that it (usually) knows exactly what kind of movie it is: silly, ridiculous fun. Ix-nay on the vomit, okay?

Street also has some fifteen second BS subplot about his girlfriend dumping him. The actress has maybe four lines, and honestly? They’re not great lines — written or delivered. The only reason this half-assed bullshit is even necessary is because the girlfriend is also Boxer’s sister. Boxer (Brian Van Holt) is one of Street’s coworkers, and the tension between the two of them . . . well, it isn’t really that important to the plot of the film, but since it’s pretty much all Van Holt gets to work with, I’d hate to take it out. That being said, couldn’t we just make the animosity between the two of them job-related? Like, Boxer doesn’t trust our boy Street because he thinks Street sold Gamble out? Do we really need a girlfriend if she’s only going to get two minutes of screen time?

4. It occurs to me that maybe I’m bitching a lot about a movie that I supposedly enjoy. Snarking and enjoyment aren’t mutually exclusive for me — obviously — but it’s also true that S.W.A.T. doesn’t do much for me in the first fifteen minutes.

And then . . .

. . . we introduce Samuel L. Jackson. Obviously, this makes everything better.

I love Hondo. Hondo is awesome. I never saw the original television show, so I can’t exactly compare and contrast — although I can tell you that Original Hondo has a cameo in the film, as well as Original Deacon. Still, regardless of whatever Past Hondo was like, this Hondo is pretty awesome. He doesn’t chase after suspects on foot when it’s clearly faster to drive after them. He doesn’t roll when he shoots his gun because cops “only roll in John Woo movies.” (Although it’s worth pointing out that TJ, Street, and Boxer all roll.) And he gets all the best quips.

In fact, the only thing that’s not awesome about Hondo is that he apparently golfs on his day off . . . which is a character flaw that I’m, charitably, willing to forgive.

5. Speaking of golf, though: one of the DVD Easter eggs is a short video where Samuel L. Jackson and Michelle Rodriguez play in a S.W.A.T. cast and crew golf tournament. It is unexpectedly hilarious because there are two commentators — sadly anonymous — mocking them the entire time.

6. So, Hondo’s recruiting a brand new team on the Chief’s orders, much to the displeasure of Captain Fuller (Larry Poindexter). Fuller is the same asshole who fired Gamble and sent Street to the gun cage, and — shockingly — he’s not a big fan of Hondo, either. Hondo only manages to get the team he wants because he makes a deal with Fuller: the first time Hondo’s team screws up, Hondo and Street are off the job. Not just SWAT but off the police force entirely.

Again, I’m calling such bullshit. There’s no question Captain Fuller could fire Street. He already has a questionable history . . .  but that he could fire Hondo? Hondo, super star veteran cop who was personally requested back to the job by the Chief of Police? Something tells me Hondo’s job isn’t really on the line here, movie, so stop trying to sell me stakes I’m not buying.

7. Before we meet Hondo’s Super SWAT team, let’s see who isn’t on it: Officer David Burress, played by Reed Diamond, best known — to me, anyway — from Dollhouse.

David fails his interview because — and I shit you not — he’s a vegetarian. Okay, fine, I shit you a little. He also won’t or can’t contemplate doing anything against the rules in service of the greater good. But mostly it’s because he orders a soy dog and a tomato juice from a hot dog vendor. Hondo’s own words: “How the hell can I trust a man who won’t even eat a good old fashioned American hotdog?”

Sometimes, when I watch this movie, I like to imagine vegetarians all over the nation flipping off the screen at this part. It should probably be said: I’m not one of them. I really like cheeseburgers. Also, chicken parmesan. And chicken enchiladas. And pizza with pepperoni and sausage.

8. As for the actual Super SWAT team members:

Street

Okay, we’ve already covered Street a fair bit. I just thought I’d mention that Colin Farrell is decent enough in the role. He’s not amazing or anything — certainly no In Bruges, not that I would really expect In Bruges quality acting from S.W.A.T. — but I’ve seen far worse. His American accent is completely serviceable, if utterly disappointing. (Why, movie? Why do you deny us our sexy Irish accent time? I’m so sad now.)

Deke

LL Cool J plays Deke, and he does what LL Cool J does in most action movies — runs around, shoots things, utters a few witty lines, and shows off his abs. Mind you, I’m not complaining about this. Cause, damn. Those are some nice abs to have. I had abs like that, I’d be showing them off all the time too. My favorite LL Cool J moment in the whole movie is probably the celebration dinner where he lifts up his shirt and the team tucks dollar bills into the band of his jeans and underwear. (Or, alternatively, tells him to “put that away.” Oh, envious boys.)

Sanchez

Michelle Rodriguez plays Chris Sanchez, and like LL Cool J, she’s doing basically the same thing she usually does too, which is to shoot things and scowl a lot. She does this well, although — as I’m sure I’ve mentioned in other reviews — I get tired of it sometimes, mostly because I see these little glimpses of range, and I’d like to see her tackle a badass who’s also three-dimensional, or even a three-dimensional character who isn’t a badass. (Maybe I just want to see her as a lead character in a non-boxing movie. Boxing movies are kind of the lowest of the low for me, when it comes to sports films and interest.)

From interviews I’ve read, I get the feeling that Rodriguez likes playing the go-to badass chick, which honestly, more power to her. I would just love to see another side of her, or at least a different level of badass. Although Rodriguez does do something here that she fails to do in many of her other films: live. This is the rare movie where her character doesn’t bite the big one by the end.

(Oh, and if you’re interested in one of those glimpses of range I mentioned — there’s this great expression that comes over Rodriguez’s face when she’s sees Boxer’s been shot. It’s a fleeting thing, but it works really well in scene. You know, she conveys emotion quickly over her seriously injured teammate without getting all teary-eyed and useless, which I appreciate immensely.)

Boxer

As I mentioned earlier, Brian Van Holt doesn’t have a whole lot to do here except occasionally snap at Street. I kind of like him anyway, but I won’t kid myself or you: this is mostly because I enjoy him in other things like Cougar Town and Basic — another ridiculous guilty pleasure starring Samuel L. Jackson. (Jackson’s just in so many great ones.)

Boxer’s best moment? Hmmm, I don’t know. Can I just single out his mustache instead?

TJ

TJ McCabe is surprisingly likable for a greedy turncoat, which I suspect is entirely due to the fact that Josh Charles is the one playing him. I don’t know if I can pick a favorite moment for TJ. I like when he’s victory dancing on the shooting range after beating Hondo. I like when he’s openly laughing and munching on popcorn while Street and Boxer are start brawling. Admittedly, the line he tries on his date (“You know, I may work in the mud, but I certainly like to play up in the clouds”) is absolutely terrible, but I still like the guy anyway. Oh, TJ. Don’t join up with Gamble! I like you too much to watch you shoot yourself in the head when it all goes to hell.

In retrospect, I should have known that TJ would be a bad guy from the moment I saw him drinking French champagne, much to the delight of his annoying date. After all, as we already know from the hotdog incident, real heroes? Only eat and drink good old-fashioned American food, like beef trimmings and beer.

9. Actually, let’s talk for a minute about foreshadow in this movie. Specifically, let’s talk about how it’s terrible.

Exhibit A: “Reminds me of my third divorce”

Hondo and Street go to the hospital to meet Chris Sanchez for the first time. They’re hoping she’ll be a better fit for their team than Soy Dog Guy. What they don’t know, however, is that she’s a woman — because apparently police files don’t mention the officer’s gender. Yeah. I believe that.

Hondo sees a bad guy that Sanchez beat up. His reaction? The quote above. Which pretty much flat out tells the audience that Sanchez is going to be a woman. Nevertheless, Samuel L. Jackson and Colin Farrell will spend the next two minutes pretending that they (and everybody in the audience) don’t already know who will be behind the curtain when they draw it aside.

If you want it to be a surprise, guys, don’t clue us in with the line. But really, let’s just go ahead and not make it a surprise because seriously. YOU ARE LOOKING AT HER FILE RIGHT NOW, HONDO. Maybe there isn’t a picture in there — I guess I could believe that — but I refuse to believe that the LAPD is so advanced in their thinking of gender roles that they didn’t at least mark F for Female somewhere in that folder.

Exhibit B: “I’m good now”

So, TJ is a bad guy. Technically, this is revealed when he turns his gun on Street and Boxer. It’s actually revealed, however, fifteen minutes earlier, when he shows up late with some BS excuse about bad Thai food and tells Hondo that he’s “good now.” I actually remember watching this in theater and thinking, “Oh, okay, so TJ’s working with Gamble.”

Unlike Exhibit A, which is just a bunch of artificial nonsense, you actually do need foreshadow for TJ’s abrupt character turn. (Non-champagne related foreshadow, that is.) But to do it here in this way . . . it’s so bad. We might as well just see him calling Gamble, if we’re going to be this obvious about the fact that he’s switched sides.

10. It occurs to me that I haven’t really talked about our villains yet.

Gamble

This is hardly Jeremy Renner at his Oscar nominated best, but he’s totally serviceable in this movie. Although, honestly? This is the first thing I ever saw Renner in — way back when I was maybe eighteen and still navigating what kinds of movies I liked and didn’t like — and I kind of despised him at the time. I suspect this had to do with the character’s whininess in the early locker room scene because he’s really not so bad later on. (Well, Gamble does make a J-Lo crack at Michelle Rodriguez. I mean, he remains an asshole. He’s just not such a whiny one.)

I bring all this up because I remember seeing 28 Weeks Later in theater — which I was already concerned about, considering how much I loved the first one — and feeling my heart sink a little when I realized that the annoying bad guy from S.W.A.T. was a main character. But as I watched the movie, I was like, Huh. This guy is . . . kind of good. And then I watched The Unusuals and was like, Holy shit, I LOVE this guy.

Alex

I certainly don’t love Olivier Martinez as much as Jeremy Renner, but he’s okay in this movie. I mean, he has smarmy smirk down pat. That’s mostly what he does in S.W.A.T., smirk in a smarmy and vaguely evil manner.

As far as his scenes go . . . it’s not that they’re so bad or that they take so long. I just don’t care about them. Every time we flip back to watch Alex murder relatives or wile away in a prison cell, I keep thinking, Yeah, this is great and all, but can we get back to the team-building please? (I’m pretty big on team-building. This is probably why I remain obsessed with fanfiction for The Avengers and Inception.)

Olivier Martinez’s best moment, on the other hand, is easy. It’s when he dismissively calls Street a loser for making less than 66 K a year. I just love how he says the word. It’s super French.

11. Apropos of nothing: Olivier Martinez is standing just behind LL Cool J when he makes a joke about how hot Halle Berry is. Since Martinez and Berry are — as of August 2013 — married, this amuses me more than it should.

12. Most of the action scenes are pretty enjoyable. My favorite?

Okay, so normally, it’s in English. Half the scene has no dialogue anyway, though, and the rest can pretty easily be understood whether or not you speak, er, German? Swedish? Russian? Look, I’m an American, and I eat hot dogs. (Although I don’t drink beer.) I’m clearly really bad at this kind of thing. Regardless, it’s totally worth watching for the voice they get to dub Samuel L. Jackson. Also, for Velasquez, who says, “Oh, yeeeeeah,” at one point. I’ve never even noticed this in the English version, but it stands out so starkly in this version that it sounds like they got Barry White to dub the part.

Point of possible — if unlikely — interest: the music from this scene gets stuck in my head all the time. Including once at work — I’m walking around a bunch of sick patients with someone in my head singing, “Time is running out!” Inappropriately, I giggled a lot that night. (Although nothing quite beats working in Pediatrics and having “Children’s Day at the Morgue” stuck in your head. I swear, I’m not trying for a morbid sense of humor. My unconscious is dark and inappropriate and will not be tamed.)

13. I forgot to mention Velasquez (Reg E. Cathey) earlier.

He doesn’t have very much to do, either, but I enjoy him and Samuel L. Jackson playing off each other. They seem like they’re having fun, and they add a lot of humor to the proceedings. Which is one of the reasons I like this movie so much — sure, there’s a lot of shitty logic that’s easy (and enjoyable) to tear apart, but S.W.A.T. is just a fun movie with a whole bunch of jokes and little asides that really work for me.

For instance: Deke’s first partner, who’s pretty openly laughing at LL Cool J’s annoyance with another character in scene. I’ve always liked that guy, well before I found out that he’s actually the director of the movie, Clark Johnson. Gotta give a dude props for casting himself in a role where someone throws a frying pan at his head.

14. I feel like I started this review as more of an actual recap and then quickly let it spiral into my usual random nonsense. As much I like my own brand of nonsense, should I get back to the plot? Yes, if only so I can bitch about these guys apparently being The Only Swat Team in the World.

So our guys have passed the Big Airplane Test and are officially a SWAT team proper. To celebrate, they’re each enjoying their day off. (Hondo’s golfing with Velasquez. TJ is drinking non-patriotic alcohol. Boxer is ignoring the broken kitchen sink. Deke is buying groceries with his kids. And Sanchez is throwing a birthday party for her little girl, which Street is also attending because . . . Reasons? I mean, it’s a cute scene and all, but the actual invitation always comes off a little awkward to me, like they don’t seem close enough for this yet. Anyway, whatever.)

Sadly, the team gets called in. Thankfully, TJ has not yet partaken of his French champagne yet, but if he had and couldn’t come . . . would he be held responsible for that? I mean, I understand that working for a specialized police division is not exactly like working at Arby’s. Really, I do — even though I’m not a nurse or a doctor or anything, I’m pretty sure that in the event of a geological disaster (read: earthquake) I can be called into work cause, you know, someone’s gotta find IV poles and pick up blood.

That being said, every situation SWAT gets called into is an emergency situation, isn’t it? They can’t actually be on-call all the time, right? There have to be other SWAT teams in the city to handle these problems. In fact, I know there are because this movie mentions them later — and yet, for no apparent reason, our SWAT team is called in on their day off to deal with this one crazy and totally not plot relevant bad guy. The hell?

Because our guys are so badass — and by our guys, I really mean Street and his giant ram/harpoon thingie — don’t snicker — they easily dispatch of Crazy Bad Guy. But they can’t go back to their day off because now they have to transport Actual Plot Relevant Bad Guy Alex Montel to his prison transport. Hey, here’s the actual story!

15. Eh, can we just skim over the actual story? Here’s basically what happens: our Super SWAT Team tries to escort Alex to a helicopter, but Gamble and his Big Ass Gun blow up said helicopter because, really. Helicopters are vehicles of death.

Then they take Alex underground while all those poor schmucks get assigned to Decoy Duty. (And while making this plan, we affirm there are at least two other SWAT teams in the city, not that they will do shit for the rest of the film.) Our Super SWAT team splits in half. TJ reveals that he’s a bad guy. Gamble shoots Boxer but only handcuffs Street because he clearly still loves him and can’t kill his old partner. (Don’t believe me? Keep going.)

Lots of chasing and action scenes through subway tunnels and sewers ensue. Eventually, they all end up on a bridge. Best part about the bridge scene: when Gamble refuses to back up or even blink as his getaway plane is speeding straight at him. Cause, you know. Real men don’t flinch.

Our Super SWAT team keeps the bad guys from escaping. Sanchez gets shot in the chest, but is thankfully wearing a bulletproof vest and is only down for a matter of minutes. TJ of the guilty conscience makes sure Boxer is still alive before shooting himself in the head. Alex is caught yet again because he’s not a very self reliant villain. And Street follows Gamble down to the train tracks where they fight mano a mano.

16. About this fight –

A. The Navy Seals taught Street how to track people. They taught him how to fight. They taught him how to activate and deactivate bombs. What they apparently didn’t teach him is how to recognize the most obvious traps IN THE WORLD.

Picture this for a second: you follow your evil ex-partner under a bridge where a whole bunch of train tracks are. You’re kind of exposed, and you don’t see your ex-partner anywhere. What you do see is a gun. It’s just sitting there randomly in the middle of a moving platform, just a little bit out of reach. Do you try to go for the gun? Or do you already know this ends with your ex-partner leaping out of the shadows and stabbing your hand through the platform?

B. Once again, though, Gamble fails to kill Street. He likens him to a bad rash — not the most devastating insult I’ve ever heard, I must say — and takes off, even though he could easily just pick up the gun and shoot Street, now defenseless, in the head. Yeah. Gamble totally still loves him.

C. Street, however, has no real problem killing Gamble. All right, fine. He probably isn’t trying to kill him. He gets free and they fight. At one point, Street has the upper hand but throws his gun away because he doesn’t just want to arrest him, clearly. He wants to beat the everloving crap out of Gamble. Which is one way to describe what happens. Another way: Street kicks Gamble; Gamble falls, and a train runs over his head.

Street then bows his head in what could be anguish but probably isn’t, since he makes a crack not five minutes later about the cops needing to get a body bag for his dead once-friend.

17. Time to go home, right? HA. Someone still needs to transport Alex to prison. Should it be one of the other two SWAT teams, perhaps? You know, the ones who’ve just been chilling at an airport, assuming Alex was heading there? Should it be one of the fully intact SWAT teams, or should it, in fact, be up to the team who has one traitorous officer in a body bag, another officer in critical condition, an officer who just killed his ex-partner, and an officer who’s been shot and is probably feeling some pain, despite the fact that she was wearing a bullet proof vest?

Well, I think we all know the answer to that.

18. So, our Super SWAT Team drop Alex off at prison, and they’re on their way home. Another call comes in, police requiring assistance. Hondo mentions that they’ve technically been off duty for about forever now, and Street’s all, “So?” And I’m like, “Fuck you, Street. What do you mean, SO? There’s no way your ass would still be running around!”

But since our Super SWAT Team is apparently up for the challenge, no matter how ridiculous it is, they ride off into the credits like heroes, leaving me — a vehement non-hero and couch potato enthusiast — to shake my head in disgust.

QUOTES:

Street: “Why’d you pick me?”
Hondo: “To piss off the captain.”

Sanchez: “Guys, it’s only eleven o’clock! I got a babysitter for the first time in three months.”
Deek: “I’ve been up since four.”
Sanchez: “That’s weak.”
Deek: “If I get home by midnight, I might get me some.”
Sanchez: “TJ?”
TJ: “If I get home before midnight, I’m finding some. Sorry, babe.”
Sanchez: “Boxer?”
Boxer: “I know I’m not getting some. If I don’t get home soon, my wife’s going to freak.”

Hondo: “Shame you’re not playing a terrorist.”

Hondo: “Is that a new course record?”

Hondo: “You look like you need a Band-Aid.”

Street: “Sure you don’t want to sit in the back? I could wear a little cap.”
Hondo: “I like the view from up here. Cap thing’s a nice touch, though.”

Alex: “What do you make? 66,000 a year?”
Street: “Not even with overtime.”
Alex: “Loser.”

Hondo: “Street, you got a driver’s license?”
Street: “Got a library card.”
Hondo: “Good enough.”

Hondo: “Don’t beat him so badly I can’t get a rematch.”
Street: “I won’t make any promises.”
Hondo: “It’s my money, man.”

Captain Fuller: “Sometimes doing the right thing isn’t doing the right thing.”
Sgt. Howard: “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

CONCLUSIONS:

Oh, it’s dumb fun. But it’s still fun.

MVP:

Samuel L. Jackson. But silver medal would probably go to Josh Charles.

GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Heroes eat hot dogs. Vegetarians and vegans, go fuck yourselves.

So, my parents? Not real strict about what kind of movies I could watch as a kid. And by “not real strict,” I mean I don’t think there actually were any rules, not of any kind. To be fair to them, though, there probably didn’t need to be. I didn’t like scary things as a child, so if I was frightened by whatever they were watching, I excused myself to go play with my dolls. And honestly, I’m still a tiny bit baffled by parents who absolutely forbid their children from watching any rated R film, no matter what the story is actually about.

Still. This is not the kind of movie most kids probably watch at eight or nine years old.

Because I’m not willing to post a picture of what they do while swimming in that pool.

Besides being wholly inappropriate, Color of Night is just a terrible, terrible movie. Like it won a Razzie for ‘Worst Picture of 1994′ terrible. But the film’s long been a joke between my sister and me because, really, who else has childhood nostalgia for a movie that shows Bruce Willis in all his, uh, resplendent glory? So we decided to rent it from Netflix.

Yeah. You’re welcome.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be SPOILERS here because please. You don’t actually want to watch this movie yourself, right?

SUMMARY:

Psychologist Bill (Bruce Willis) is left emotionally scarred — and colorblind — after a patient commits suicide in front of him. He takes some time to get his head together and visits his fellow shrink buddy, Bob (Scott Bakula). But when Bob is murdered, Bill takes over Bob’s Monday Night Therapy Group, suspecting that someone in the group is the murderer.

NOTES:

1. Man, there’s just so much to talk about in this movie. Let’s begin at the beginning with our soon-to-be-suicide, Michelle (Kathleen Wilhoite).

Michelle is not just crazy; she is cuh-razy. We know this because we see her crying, smearing lipstick all over her teeth, and giving oral pleasure to the barrel of a gun. Because yes. That’s necessary. That is certainly the best way to depict mental illness as quickly as possible.

She then goes to her appointment with Bruce Willis, where she promptly throws herself out the window. Since Bruce’s office is in New York and a bazillion stories high, well. She doesn’t make it. Bruce looks down and sees her body all smeared on the ground with blood everywhere. The trauma of this leaves him incapable of seeing the color red. Like, instantly.

1A. Okay, so the whole traumatic onset colorblindness? Yes, it’s totally silly, but to be honest, I kind of enjoy it, at least conceptually. I’m all about the weird and terrifying things your brain can do under stress, and if worked properly into the plot, I could totally have been into this colorblindness, and ridiculousness be damned. But you know, the plot . . . the plot is not this film’s strong suit because this film has absolutely no strong suits of any kind. Some neat ideas, maybe. Execution, nooooooo.

1B. Still, perhaps Bruce Willis shouldn’t immediately lose the ability to see red. Cause, yeah. That shot is pretty bad. Maybe in a remake — that would never happen in a million years — he should go to bed, wake up, and eventually realize that, huh, something’s not quite right here.

1C. Also, Michelle should probably shoot herself instead of jumping out the window. For one thing, Bruce Willis repeatedly says throughout the film that he doesn’t like guns, as if there’s some specific trauma associated with them. (Even though there’s not.) For another, I’m pretty sure my various creative writing classes taught me this rule . . . I can’t remember exactly how it goes, but it’s something like this:

If a woman gives a blow job to the barrel of a gun in the first act, it should go off sometime in the second or third. Pun intended.

Not to mention, Bruce’s office is stupidly high up in this building. Mind you, it always makes me a little sad whenever Bruce Willis enters a tall building, but more importantly, this is his initial view of the body from the eightieth story, or whatever:

Of course, the camera then zooms in so you can see this:

But the problem is, our eyes? They don’t come with a fucking zoom function. So Bruce’s whole, “It was the reddest blood I ever saw,” and associating trauma? It makes no godamned sense!

2. After Michelle jumps to her death, Bruce goes to talk to some psychologist friend of his. This guy’s only around for exposition, though, and it’s not even exposition we really need, so we’ll skip him to talk about Bruce’s more plot relevant and other psychologist friend, Bob.

I watched Quantum Leap a lot as a kid, so frankly, I’m surprised Little Carlie made it through the whole movie and didn’t beat a hasty Barbie Retreat after Bob’s death scene. But that’s for later. (Oh, we’ll get back to that death scene. Boy, will we.)

Bob and Bruce — I just can’t make myself call him Bill — are vaguely dickish to one another because competition is the basis of their friendship, or something. Bob probably wins the dick-off because he basically forces Bruce into participating in a therapy session with his Monday Night Group.

3. We should probably talk about the various members of the Monday Night Group.

Clark (Brad Douriff)

Clark has OCD and also rage issues. There isn’t really a lot to say about him, but he’s kind of enjoyable, not because he’s a particularly great guy (he’s not), but because he’s played by Brad Douriff, who I very much like and has made a career out of playing strange, quirky, crazy, and/or villainous side characters. I would happily keep Brad Douriff around for my imaginary remake.

Casey (Kevin J. O’Connor)

Actually, I kind of like Kevin J. O’Connor too — I like most of these actors, considering how bad this film is. Casey is the tortured artist who burned down his father’s house and has a sadomasochistic lifestyle . . . cause you know. That S&M be crazy. (Considering this movie was made in 1994, it’s no big surprise that there are a few highly unfortunate choices about what’s considered crazy. Like Richie’s supposed gender identity disorder, for instance . . . but oh, let’s hold off on the myriad of problems that is Richie.)

Anyway, Casey has one or two emotional outbursts that are kind of laughable, but I sort of enjoy his snark. It wouldn’t be much of a therapy group without at least one snarky patient, right? (I’m keeping that in mind  in case I ever end up attending some kind of group therapy, although I suspect I would be exceedingly bad at such a thing, considering my likeliest cause for entering said therapy would be social anxiety.)

Buck (Lance Henriksen)

It’s funny just how different Lance Henriksen looks to me in this movie, even though his physical appearance isn’t really all that changed. Anyway, Buck is a cop whose wife and child were killed in an unsolved shooting. That’s important — well, not really — but we’ll get back to that later.

Honestly, Lance Henriksen doesn’t have a whole lot to do — most of the supporting cast is left out in the cold — but I like his whole gruff, angry persona anyway. I should watch more movies with Mr. Henriksen. I mean, how have I not seen Pumpkinhead yet? That sounds like the kind of movie I need to see.

Sondra (Lesley Ann Warren)

Of course, the one woman in the entire group is a nymphomaniac. (She’s also, apparently, a kleptomaniac. It’s brought up, like, once.) Sondra is, well, not good. Lesley Ann Warren plays her in this bizarre, giggly, almost silly sort of way — I guess to remind us that she’s on the verge of orgasm, like, all the time? It seems like the performance that the director probably wanted, but . . . yeah. It’s not great.

Richie (Jane March)

Oh, Richie.

Richie has some rage issues and drug issues and, most importantly, wants to be a woman. The thing is, though, that Richie already is a woman, not just because he perceives himself as female, and I should be referring him to as ‘she’ and ‘her’ — but because Richie isn’t actually Ritchie. You see, it turns out that Richie is already dead, and the person we think is Richie is actually Rose. Rose is a girl who gets into a fender bender with Bruce and pretty promptly starts screwing him. Rose is also Richie’s sister.

Why, you might ask, is Rose pretending to be Richie? Well. Richie killed himself because he was being molested by his old therapist (not Bob), the same therapist, in fact, who molested Richie and Rose’s older brother, Dale. Dale snapped after Richie died and forced Rose to start wearing her dead brother’s clothes. He started calling her Richie until she snapped and started believing she was Richie. But Richie isn’t her only personality because, oh yes, she has three. She is Richie and Rose and also Bonnie — which doesn’t at all fit with the ‘R’ names but fuck it, right? Anyway, Bonnie is the secret girlfriend to everyone in the Monday Night Group. Seriously, she is having sex with all of them. Well, except Buck because Buck favors an old-fashioned kind of girl who wants to wait until she’s married to have sex . . . so Buck and Bonnie are just courting, or whatever. Oh, and technically Bonnie isn’t banging Bruce Willis, I suppose. See, he gets Rose’s true personality because their never ending sex scene love is more pure, or something.

Honestly, there’s so much wrong with everything I just wrote . . . I don’t even know where to begin. Well, that’s not true. Let’s begin with the fact that it’s stupidly obvious that Jane March is playing Richie, Rose, and Bonnie.

Honestly, maybe I wouldn’t have picked up Richie right away — it’s hard to say. I mean, I knew going in that Richie was also Rose — even after twenty years, I still remembered that particular convoluted nightmare twist. But I don’t remember getting a super good look at Richie’s face when we first meet him, and I might have chalked up the weird voice to bad acting or something.

But this is the thing — Jane March? She has a very distinct mouth. Her teeth are rather large, and she has a pretty big overbite, which, hey. I get it. I’ve got an overbite, too, and I’m not all eager to go out and pay a bazillion dollars to fix it. Your acting career shouldn’t be judged on the size or straightness of your teeth — but it also means that adding a wig, an accent, and some terrible pancake makeup just isn’t going to cut it if you want me to believe Rose and Bonnie are different women. (On the positive side, Bonnie’s British accent is real, and I’ll give Jane March this much: it took me a bit to catch that her American was wrong. Though maybe I was just distracted by all the crazy.)

Honestly, I knew Bonnie was Rose almost the second I saw her, and once I saw that, it was easy to see the same actress was playing Richie too. And for Christ’s sake, I’m not even that good with faces. If we’re going to keep this twist around, we’d probably need to cast an unknown with no terribly distinct facial features as R/R/B. Richie would have to wear a much better disguise. And it’s probably for the best if we just don’t see Bonnie at all.

On the other hand, maybe it’s better if we just scrap the whole Richie/Rose/Bonnie thing entirely and come up with a whole new reason for Bob’s murder. Cause Mek and I have been talking about how you would go about fixing it, and . . . honestly, I don’t know if I can. If I was going to try?

Well, first, I’d probably get rid of the MPD/DID diagnosis entirely. Dale would still force Rose to dress up as her dead brother, but she wouldn’t believe she actually was Richie. See, there’s this line in the movie about how Rose can supposedly become anyone her partner needs her to be — which is a kind of interesting idea that’s, unfortunately, never fully explored. I think I need Rose to have some reason to make all these personal connections with the group. She would try to be the person that each of them needs, but their relationships shouldn’t all (or even mostly) be sexual in nature. For instance, she could be a daughter surrogate for Buck, as he’s lost his child, etc.

Still, the whole thing is so convoluted and ridiculous, it might be better to just get rid of it entirely.

4. But I’ve jumped far, far ahead of the plot. Okay. Shortly after Bruce meets the Monday Night Group, Bob is murdered in his office. His death scene is . . . horrible. Really, I’m not sure I can convey just how bad this scene is. Scott Bakula, who I generally enjoy well enough, overacts like whoa, and that’s not helped by the fact that he’s stabbed a bazillion times in slow motion until he finally busts through a glass pane window and is impaled on the shards. (Actually, we only see him get stabbed maybe six or eight times, I think, but Bruce Willis later tells us that he was stabbed, like, thirty-something times. Because restraint is clearly not this film’s strong suit.) Anyway, it’s one of the most laughable scenes in the whole film, which is really saying something. I don’t know if I’ve giggled quite this hard since Kurt Russell’s, “NOOOOOOOOOOO!” in Tombstone. 

5. We then meet the most holy shit unsympathetic cop on the face of the planet.

This is Martinez, and seriously, there is no way this man would have a job working in law enforcement or possibly of any kind. He continually insults Bruce Willis and completely makes fun of his dead friend, but then . . . strikes up a partnership with Bruce? It’s just . . . it’s mind-boggling.

See, Bob was getting these death threats, and he suspected someone in the Monday Night Group was sending them. He, of course, doesn’t tell Bruce Willis this before he drags his friend to meet everyone because . . . he’s an asshole? I don’t know. Bruce supposedly has some super special radar for diagnosing people and picking up on secret shit, but Michelle’s swan dive out of the window broke that radar, so Bruce can’t help Bob. He does tell Martinez about the threats, though, and Martinez decides that Bruce should break the news to the group, then take over the group, and see if he can figure out who killed his friend.

Martinez’s motivations never seem entirely clear to me. His general hostility would seem to indicate that he suspects Bruce of the murder, but his actions don’t really line up with that idea. If he truly wants Bruce to be his inside man, well, he goes about it in a spectacularly terrible fashion. I mean, really. If you want someone on your side, it’s probably best if you don’t crack wise about their recently murdered friend, even if said friend was a bit of an asshole. I just can’t imagine Bruce would actually team up with this guy, like, ever.

What might make sense in a remake: Martinez can’t investigate the case because he has a conflict-of-interest. (Which he, in fact, does. He and Buck used to be partners in Vice. Also, he slept with Buck’s wife shortly before she was killed.) So Martinez enlists Bruce’s help in investigating the group on the DL. And he doesn’t act like a total jackass while doing it because honestly. There’s a guy who’s got a job to do and has little time for feelings, and then there’s a guy who acts more like a coked-up asshole than a cop.

6. Of course, it should also be said that Bruce doesn’t seem to really care very much about Bob’s death. I mean, I’d say for a scene he’s pretty broken up about it. After that, well, you know. He has Rose’s constantly naked body to comfort him. Honestly, Bruce seems way more upset about Michelle’s death than about the brutal murder of a friend he’s had for at least ten years. Again, I know Bob was an asshole, but come on. Living in his house, having sex in his bed, driving his car, and taking over his Monday Night Group without a single tear shed does seem a little callous. Sure, Bill’s from out of town and all, but would you really make yourself cozy in the empty home of your murdered friend? That seems . . . decidedly weird to me.

7. You know what else seems weird? Continuing to have your therapy sessions in the same place where your last therapist was brutally murdered. I don’t understand why no one raises their hand and says, “Wait, Bob was killed, like, right HERE? Dude. Can we just move this down to the park or something? Or a church or a food court or pretty much anywhere else?”

8. My personal experience with therapy is, admittedly, pretty limited, but it seems to me that a group of people with such varied illnesses and disorders wouldn’t necessarily benefit from a joint session like this. Like I could see if they were all committed to an institution of some kind, but since that’s not the case . . . wouldn’t you try to find a group that would address your specific problems? I’ve seen meetings for addicts, classes for anger management, support groups for people who suffer from OCD, but rarely have I seen a flier or advertisement with the header “Casserole of Crazy.”

That being said, this isn’t actually a serious problem I have with the film. Like, I can address that it seems silly and then just move on because, hey. It’s important to the plot, and maybe there are more generic mental illness support groups than I’m aware of.

I refuse to believe, however, that any therapist, even amateur detective therapists, would go alone to each of his clients’ houses to investigate . . . and that the clients themselves would be okay with this.

Uh, what exactly are you doing here, buddy?

If your detective in a story is a therapist, and all his suspects are clients, then the majority of the investigation should probably take place in the actual therapy sessions. The tension of the film should come from these group discussions — suspicions should arise, secrets should be revealed, words should be coded with double or triple meanings. Always, always the audience should be aware that Bruce Willis is sitting right next to a homicidal maniac. (Even if he’s actually not.)

I’m not saying that kind of thing is easy — your writing and acting have to be sharp as hell — but that would have made for an interesting story. I know I sound crazy, but I swear there’s potential in this movie . . .

9. . . . if only it wasn’t so interested in Jane March’s tits.

Color of Night is a so-called “erotic thriller” — less emphasis on the thrilling, obviously, and more focus on the supposedly steamy sex scenes. And admittedly, I’m usually pretty bored by sex scenes myself — that’s been well documented on this blog. But these sex scenes really are pretty awful. For starters, I see far more of Bruce Willis than I ever wanted to. (Not to mention, poor Jane March probably spends half of that movie without clothes on.) But also the sex scenes just . . . keep . . . going. One in particular ran so long that Mek and I actually started fast-forwarding until we got back to plot advancement.

Jesus. It’s like reading Laurell K. Hamilton’s books all over again.

10. And here’s the thing about this film — it doesn’t know what the hell kind of movie it wants to be. Well, erotic. Yes. It wants to be that, although it really lands somewhere just shy of bad porn. But for a while there’s kind of a whole neo-noir thing that I find sort of intriguing, or would, if there was even a small measure of consistency to it. But Rose, see, she rear-ends Bruce Willis, right? (Not a euphemism.) And he gives her Dead Bob’s home address for insurance reasons, which is — well, stupid. Anyway, she comes over, and out of nowhere he starts talking like a private eye in a really terrible hardboiled detective novel. (“There she is like an angel dancing on the head of a pin.” Ugh.)

Anyway, it could be kind of neat, given better dialogue, but we’re nearly fifty minutes into the movie at this point, and this is the first time Bruce has made a reference to noir of any kind. He also only does this whenever he sees Rose, and it doesn’t really go anywhere, so it just doesn’t quite fit. (Imaginary remake: Bruce is watching a detective movie or reading a detective book right before his appointment with Michelle, and for the rest of the movie it’s a consistent character quirk of his. Martinez can even catch him doing it once and appropriately rib him for it.)

Okay, so then Rose and Bruce go on this date, right?

This is the moment I mentioned earlier, where Bruce makes a special point to say that Rose can become anybody she wants to be. It’s awkward dialogue that comes out of nowhere (and is clearly only around to exist as terrible foreshadow), but it also works to help paint Rose as this kind of femme fatale, which interests me a lot more than this MPD sufferer who’s — knowingly or unknowingly — sleeping with everyone in the group. (She knows what she’s done at the end of the film, but it’s still unclear to me if she’s supposed to be aware of what and who her personalities are doing during the film.)

And it certainly doesn’t help that for a woman who supposedly has three distinct personalities, Rose doesn’t really have personality. It’s hard to say why everyone falls in love with her, other than her willingness to cook in an apron and nothing else.

For Christ’s sake, woman. There’s a murderer on the loose. I don’t care if it’s your brother. Put on some godamned pants.

11. It occurs to me that I haven’t directly said this before, but yes, Dale is the real killer here. And he doesn’t just kill Bob. He also kills our tortured artist, Casey.

See, Casey reveals in group that he has paintings of his muse-girlfriend’s face. (This is before we know about the whole Rose/Bonnie thing.) Rose apparently tells her older brother this because Dale kills Casey in his studio. (What’s weird is that Casey seems to recognize his killer, so I’m not sure if the two somehow knew each other, or if Dale brought Rose along with him.)

Shortly before Casey dies, though, he calls Bruce because of . . . reasons. Anyway, Bruce shows up, looking for Casey, and walks through some paint. It’s not until he finds Casey’s body does he realize that it’s not paint he’s walking through. And you know what? I think this could have been a cool scene. I honestly do. I think it’s creative, and I think if it had been shot well, it could have been uber creepy.

Unfortunately, the blood in this movie looks like . . . well, paint.

And all my giggling that followed kind of took something from the creepy factor.

12. Other than this scene, the colorblindness rarely factors into the actual plot of the movie, which is clearly a mistake. The only other time it really ever comes into play is this highway chase scene where Dale calls Bruce and sing-songs that Bruce can’t see him because he’s in the red car! The voice disguiser Dale uses also sounds like a demented child, which only makes the line funnier. Also, this line: “Suck my tinker toy!”

Wow. Just wow.

13. Bruce finds out that Rose is Bonnie long before he figures out that Rose is also Richie. At this point, his brain is telling him that Rose is the bad guy, but his heart is telling him that Rose isn’t a killer. (Magic radar, my foot. It’s totally his heart. Heart knowledge!) With this in mind, Bruce goes to nicer cop Anderson (Eriq LaSalle) and gives him Rose’s license plate number, implying that he wants her address so he can ask her out or something. Anderson agrees, which utterly horrified me at first. I was like, Seriously? SERIOUSLY? You’re just going to abuse your police resources and give this near stranger a girl’s HOME ADDRESS?

But it turns out that Anderson is the smartest person in the whole movie, despite having less than five minutes of screen time. He figures that Bruce is tracking down a lead on the case and gives the info to Martinez. Admittedly, this is partially to appease Martinez, since he’s pissed at Anderson, but whatever. It still makes him good at his job, which is frankly more than I can say about anyone else in this movie.

14. Like Martinez, who takes his eyes off the crazy homicidal maniac with the nail gun pointed at him. Martinez clearly deserves to die for this. Luckily for him, he just gets nailed to a wall or something, so that he can be no help of any kind during the big finale.

15. The big finale, by the way, sucks monkeyballs.

Bruce “reveals” that Ritchie is actually Rose. Dale reveals himself as the bad guy. Martinez is an idiot. A very short fight scene occurs. Dale is about to kill Bruce, but Rose kills him first. This, actually, is okay . . . until Rose runs to the top of the building and prepares to throw herself off. Bruce talks her out of it, but before she can step away, a fucking breeze knocks Rose backwards and Bruce has to swing onto something and save her because he’s the hero and he has to do something useful. And because he saved Rose the way he couldn’t save Michelle, his sense of color is immediately returned to him.

Good Lord.

16. Finally, allow me to blow your mind for a minute. Color of Night was actually nominated for a Golden Globe.

Oh yeah. It happened. For “The Color of Night” — best original song.

Oh my god, you guys. I understand if you don’t want to subject yourself to this whole movie, and in fact I support that decision, but you have to watch this video. You just have to. At least to the part where Scott Bakula bites it because, wow. I just started giggling until tears were in my eyes all over again.

This is just . . . this is a terrible song. Brandon, should you read this — I know you and I have come to the realization that we have wildly different tastes in music, at least when it comes to film scores, but please tell me you don’t approve of this song. Please, or I’m afraid we may have to come to fisticuffs at the next Dragon Con.

CONCLUSIONS:

So bad. So, so bad.

MVP:

Brad Douriff

TENTATIVE GRADE:

D

MORAL:

Um. Completely taking over your dead friend’s life is totally the way to get over his death?

So, we rented a serious movie and a silly movie.

I’ll let you decide which one you think White House Down is.

SUMMARY:

Wannabe Secret Service Agent John Cale (Channing Tatum) turns out to be the only man who can save the President (Jamie Foxx) when bad guys take over the White House!

NOTES:

1. This movie is totally ridiculous. Let’s get that out of the way. It is utterly, hysterically ridiculous. It is ludicrous on an epic scale.

I like it anyway.

When I initially saw the trailer for this film, I was not impressed because I haven’t enjoyed a Roland Emmerich film in over a decade — and also because it had the same plot as Olympus Has Fallen, which looked pretty awful. But then I saw a few more trailers and I couldn’t help but notice that this film, at least, appeared to have a sense of humor, which really makes all the difference sometimes. I don’t know if the movie’s quite self-aware enough to be considered an outright parody, but it certainly doesn’t take itself too seriously, and I enjoyed that. At 137 minutes, White House Down IS longer than it needs to be, but the time goes by relatively fast, and I had a pretty good time watching it.

2. Which isn’t to say I’m not going to mock the shit out of the CGI and green screen, though. Because my god, is it BAD.

It’s not like I expected this movie to actually be made on the White House lawn, but Jesus, guys. Those helicopters alone are pretty terrible, to say nothing of the buildings in what I assume is supposed to be downtown D.C. This movie had a pretty gigantic budget — is this really the best you could do, or did you want the audience to laugh at how terrible it looked? Because I did. A lot.

3. Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx have pretty good chemistry, which is probably the best thing this movie has going for it.

Channing Tatum, in particular, has a great sense of comedic timing, and I had a good time watching his arms him run all around the White House, blowing shit up and trying to save the President. Jamie Foxx is a little hard to take seriously at some points, particularly later in the movie when he seems increasingly less presidential, but I kind of figured that was part of the fun. Besides, I’ve seen Air Force One. I’m not sure Foxx makes the most ridiculous fictional president to ever grace the big screen. (Man, if you haven’t seen Air Force One, you have to watch this, assuming you don’t mind being spoiled for a mid-90′s action movie. This just cracks my shit up. A lowly growled, “Get off my plane,” followed by triumphantly soaring patriotic music. I. Am. Dying.)

4. Actually, this movie has a pretty impressive supporting cast that I hadn’t been anticipating: Jake Weber, Matt Craven, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Jimmi Simpson, James Woods, Richard Jenkins, Lance Reddick, Devil from Justified. (Okay, I can’t remember his real name right now.) There’s a lot of talent in that lineup, which is always good to see. Sometimes people forget how important a good supporting cast can be.

5. Although I kind of wish we got the chance to see Maggie Gyllenhaal do something particularly action-y.

Obviously, not every strong female character needs to be a badass in leather, but she is playing a Secret Service agent. It wouldn’t hurt to have her punch someone at least once.

On a weird semi-related note, this is the third movie I can think of in the last couple of years where a female character tries to talk a male action hero through a dangerous situation. There’s also Source Code and Unstoppable. (I STILL have trouble thinking of that movie as anything other than ‘Runaway Train.’) It’s not a complaint, exactly, just . . . is this some kind of trend? Can you guys think of other movies that fit this pattern, or movies that reverse the gender roles?

6. Before watching this film, I’d heard people refer to it as ”Die Hard in the White House,” but I hadn’t anticipated just how many similarities there would be. I will detail these similarities in the Spoiler Section, but let me assure you: there are a LOT of them.

7. While I’ve been tired of ‘workaholic, screwup and/or deadbeat daddy tries to reconnect with his bratty child’ stories for about, oh, seventeen years now, I eventually forgive this movie for being exactly that, I guess because I like Channing Tatum and Joey King — who plays his precocious and politically obsessed daughter — enough to let it go. Still. We could try not framing our action movies with this storyline for just a little while, and I’d be cool with that. Just for a change of pace, mind.

8. There’s a moment where Jamie Foxx, hiding from the bad guys in the Residence, looks over his shoe collection and skips past all the shiny black loafers in favor of some bright red Reeboks. Excellent. I may have little use for the inevitable, “Get . . . your . . . hands . . . off . . . my . . . Reeboks” line — it’s hard to get the ‘hittingbetween each word’ joke right, and this movie fails at it twice — but I approve of a man who picks appropriate footwear. Good priorities, man. Good priorities.

9. Also of incredibly minor note: Jamie Foxx plays President James Sawyer, and as a LOST fan, I can’t help but find that name amusing.

10. Finally, the best moment in the whole film is almost certainly this one:

There’s nothing like watching the President of the United States lean out of a limousine and fire a rocket launcher at the gates of the White House. Mekaela and I were dying, we were laughing so hard.

If that kind of thing doesn’t strike you as funny, this particular movie probably isn’t for you.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Okay, here’s the White House Down/Die Hard breakdown:

• Hero named John
• Hero John eventually strips down to a dirty wifebeater
• Hero John has a female family member taken hostage
• Hostage’s relationship to Hero John is kept secret from the bad guys until the near end of the film
• The Bad Guy’s Right-Hand-Man wants revenge for first fallen henchman
• Total failed helicopter assault on hostage takers
• Before they all die, friendly helicopters shoot at Hero John (sadly, he never actually says, “I’m on your side, assholes!”)
• Good guys tank gets hit while seemingly stuck trying to move up and over an obstruction. (In this case, I think it’s a curb?)
• Bad Guy’s demands are just a smokescreen for a secret agenda
• Funny hacker guy working on unlocking computer for Bad Buy’s secret agenda
• Bad Guys like junk food. (Okay, well, one does. The other passes because he’s diabetic.)

Clearly, someone worships at the altar of John McTiernan and Bruce Willis.

Now. John is a police officer at the Capitol who provides protection for the Speaker of the House (Richard Jenkins). We know Richard Jenkins is a secret bad guy pretty quick because, well, because he’s played by Richard Jenkins, honestly, and it would be kind of a wasted role on him if there wasn’t more to his character than meets the eye. But we especially know he’s a bad guy when he glances at his pager in the beginning of the film and goes, “It’s going to be a busy day,” or something like that. I kind of wish this part hadn’t been in the movie — or, if it had to be in there for foreshadowing purposes, that we saw a lot of characters looking at their pagers or cell phones or something so it just wasn’t so obvious. But whatever.

John takes his daughter, Emily, to the White House — basically as a bribe because she’s pissed at him for missing her talent show — but also because he has an interview for a Secret Service job. The interview is basically a last-minute favor from a friend, which I guess is why Carol (Maggie Gyllenhaal) isn’t even a little prepared to interview him — like it isn’t until she bumps into him in the hall that she realizes she already knows her interviewee, despite the fact that she has his file in her hand.

Wait, I was supposed to read this thing?

Which, honestly, is such bullshit. I refuse to believe that the Secret Service would ever interview someone without doing an incredibly thorough background check on them first. I mean, come on, guys. It’s not like we’re just meeting a friend of a friend for a job at Macy’s or something.

Also, I’m not actually sure why writer James Vanderbilt bothers creating a past history between the two of them in the first place. Carol doesn’t believe in John because she knew him in college, and he was a big slacker back then who didn’t finish things — but she easily could have dismissed him for plenty of other reasons without getting in the way of his dual ‘all you need is a dream’ and ‘look how responsible I can become’ arcs. At first, I just figured they were setting her up as a love interest, but the movie never really goes that way, nor does John end up back together with his stereotype of a mildly nagging ex-wife. Of course, I’m perfectly okay with an action movie that doesn’t have a love interest, but it seemed a little weird to introduce two such obvious potential ones and then never really do much with either of them.

Anyway, Carol dismisses John out of hand. John lies to Emily that there’s a chance, which she excitedly tells the President when she briefly meets him on the tour. President Sawyer leans in and whispers to John, “Stop lying to children,” which made me laugh. Meanwhile, the evil, retiring, and secretly dying head of the Secret Service, Walker (James Woods), sends Carol home — because she has a vagina — before getting some mercenaries to detonate a bomb in the Capital. Walker then crashes the White House, supposedly for the President’s safety, while his henchmen pop out of their hiding places. All the good secret service agents are killed, while all the civilians are rounded up and held hostage . . . except for John, of course.

John has shit to do.

John escapes to go find Emily, who left right before Walker crashed the White House for a bathroom break. On his way to rescuing her, John ends up rescuing the President instead, while Emily gets caught videoing the bad guys. And then there’s a whole bunch of action shit that goes on. I’m not recapping all that.

Here’s the stuff I need to talk about:

1. The Vice President — along with his annoying aide guy from House M.D., the woman who got John the interview in the first place, and a bunch of other nameless people — go up in the air for safety. The VP’s encouraged to invoke the 25th Amendment and take over the Presidency, which he does after it appears that President Sawyer and John have been killed. This is when Mekaela — who got it first, damn her — figured out why Richard Jenkins was a bad guy. Soon after Sawyer takes the presidency, Air Force One is shot out of the air, and everyone dies, leaving our Speaker as the new president.

1A. Jenkins plays this moment straight, like he isn’t a mustache-twirling villain, and it’s beautiful. He has the very best, noncomprehending, “What?” when Lance Reddick gravely informs him that the Vice President has been killed, and the Speaker now has a new job title again. Richard Jenkins is the best.

1B. I feel a little bad for the woman who got John that interview, considering that nobody ever mentions her again after she dies. I’m not saying John or Carol had time for a moment of prayer or anything. She was just kind of funny, and I was like, Aw. That’s sad. I’m sure someone somewhere is mourning you, honey.

2. Walker’s plan all along is to launch a nuclear weapon against Iran — who President Sawyer is just about to seal a controversial peace deal with — because his son died in the war, and we shouldn’t be negotiating with these terrible people, and everyone needs to see America as the strongest and the best, and blah, blah, blah, crazycakes.

2A. One decently attractive mercenary is not at all excited about this plan to launch nuclear weapons, which is smart of him. Unfortunately, he then decides the best course of action is to tell Crazy Walker he’s not doing this shit and then turn his back on him like the walking Darwin Award he is. Not surprisingly, he is quickly killed.

2B. To launch the nuclear weapons, the President has to put his hand on this box. Walker tells President Sawyer to do this. Sawyer refuses. Walker puts his gun to Emily’s head and asks again. Sawyer, in a surprisingly awesome moment of priorities, tells Emily he’s sorry and explains why he can’t do it. Not that I want Emily to get killed, you understand, but . . . you know . . . it’s still the right call.

2C. Emily dies. No, I’m just fucking with you. Of course she doesn’t die. I think this is when Channing Tatum sets the White House on fire, and in the ensuing sprinkler chaos, Walker grabs Sawyer and forces his hand down on the box. I feel like there should be some kind of safeguard against this.

Oh, also, Walker shoots Sawyer. Sawyer lives, though, because the bullet hits his special Abraham Lincoln pocket watch. Man, I was just starting to think they didn’t do this trope anymore. Because it’s idiotic.

 3. Meanwhile, our hacker, Skipp Tyler (Jimmi Simpson), is killed when he tries to leave through the tunnels.

There’s a bomb on this gate, and when he tries to get past it, it blows up in his face. Here’s my problem: Skipp totally knows about the bombs. It’s not like he accidentally ran across them. In fact, earlier dialogue suggests he’s the one who set them in the first place. So . . . why couldn’t he get past them again? I feel like I must be missing something here. I’m not saying there aren’t dudes who accidentally blow themselves up with their own bombs, but come on. This is pretty lame. Maybe I’m particularly annoyed because I like Jimmi Simpson, but I don’t know. Skipp could have been killed half a dozen other ways that would have made more sense, and I wouldn’t have had a problem with it. (Even though a REAL Die Hard fan would obviously make Donnie the Tour Guide just knock Jimmi out instead.) Unless someone sabotaged it so Skipp couldn’t escape, this makes little sense to me.

4. Instead, Donnie the Tour Guide (who’s simply the closest I can think of to an Argyle equivalent) takes out Devil from Justified in another one of those ill-advised ‘I-am-hitting-you-between-every-word’ jokey-kills. I usually like it when the not-action-hero side character steps up to the plate, but for some reason I couldn’t help but focus on the fact that even the skinny, fussy guy obsessed with the White House art collection gets more action time than our female secret service agent. Sigh. Man, even Reginald VelJohnson got to shoot somebody in Die Hard.

5. The Speaker orders an airstrike against the White House in an effort to cover up any evidence linking him to what’s happened. Carol tells John he has eight minutes to save his daughter before it comes. Minutes until airstrike actually comes: sixteen.

6.  Emily, who’s talent was flag-twirling in that show John missed, picks up a giant flag from the Oval Office and waves off the planes. I’ll be honest: I totally missed the whole talent show callback at first because I was too focused on my strong flashback to The Rock:

Oh yeah. More spoilers for mid-90′s action films.

7. Finally, the President does this thing where his plane deviates from the flight plan and flies low through the city or something . . . which seems implausible at the beginning of the movie but fucking ridiculous at the end after he’s caught a shard of glass with his stomach. (And, also, been shot in the watch.) I don’t care what that man wants. The only place that plane is taking the President is to a secure location for medical attention, STAT.

But, whatever. The day is saved! Except for everyone who died in the White House, the Capital, and on Air Force One — those deaths were necessary sacrifices for John Cale to get a better job, dammit.

QUOTES:

President Sawyer: “I lost the rocket launcher.”
Cale: “You lost . . . how do you lose a rocket launcher?!”

Cale: “Special Agent Todd keeps making those sounds, I’m gonna start looking at him.”

Walker: “You just killed the Secretary of Defense.”
Stenz: “Well, he wasn’t doing a very good job.”

(watching President Sawyer with a rocket launcher)
Kellerman: “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

Walker: “Cake?”
Stenz: “No, I don’t want cake. I’m diabetic!”

Speaker: “This country is stronger than one house.”

Cale: “Where’s my daughter?”
Stenz: “She’s right here with me in the Oval Office, so why don’t you come down here and get her?”
Donnie: “What are you going to do?”
Cale: “What do you think?”

Emily: “Nobody says blog anymore, John.”
John: “What do you mean they don’t say blog? I just learned blog!”

Cale: “Tell me you have some weapons in the Residence.”
President Sawyer: “No. We usually have two agents there with machine guns. We’ve got some knives in the kitchen.”
Cale: “What?”
President Sawyer: “They’re big knives.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Ludicrous nonsense, but with a decent sense of humor and a good cast.

MVP:

Channing Tatum

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Saving the President of the United State is an awesome way to get your daughter to love you again.

Also: pack your Reeboks. And your pocket watch. Appropriate footwear is key, and your iPhone ain’t saving your heart from shit.

Valentine’s Day is soon upon us. You (might) know what that means.

Bloody Hearts has come. Let us mock . . . Open Grave.

SUMMARY:

A man wakes up in a pit full of dead bodies with no idea of who he is or what he’s doing there. He and a handful of other amnesiacs try to figure out what’s going on.

NOTES:

1. Open Grave starts out well. Waking up in a pile of dead bodies? Always creepy. It’s pretty hard to go wrong with that kind of opener. Also, there’s this weird bone-cracking thing the amnesiacs do when they wake up . . . it’s unsettling and kind of awesome. For a few minutes, I even wondered if we had accidentally picked up a good horror movie by mistake.

2. Thankfully, that was not the case.

The movie’s biggest problem is that the characters are all mind-bogglingly stupid. Even for a horror movie, where characters are frequently logic-impaired, these people make no  godamned sense. Their investigative technique primarily consists of random yelling. They refuse to thoroughly search shit, and when they do explore, they mostly go off on their own in clearly dangerous situations.

Like, once you’ve found the dead dude who’s missing part of his skull and has been tied to a tree . . . this is when you stop running around by yourself, okay?

And if we can briefly touch back on their appalling investigative skills? One member of the group — and this is not much of a spoiler because you find out in the first ten minutes — does not have amnesia; therefore, she knows why men who are missing part of their skulls have been tied to trees. Unfortunately, she doesn’t read, write, or speak English, which, sure, can be hard to work with. After all, Picard and Dathon didn’t reach Tamarian/Sumerian mythological understanding in an hour.

But apparently these characters have never played Charades or Pictionary before because there is almost no legitimate attempt to get answers out of this woman. One guy screams in her face about needing answers . . . before abruptly walking away without actually trying to get them. Another guy gets uncomfortably close to the woman and spouts a bunch of nonsense about feeling a shared connection . . . but otherwise makes no serious attempt to communicate in any way she might be able to actually understand.

If we saw this movie from her POV — like, if we stayed close on her story and switched up everyone else’s language to something the audience couldn’t translate — this movie might be genuinely frightening because we’d be primarily sympathizing with a woman who appears to be entirely surrounded by crazy people.

3. John Doe (Sharlto Copley) — otherwise known as the man in a pit of dead bodies — is particularly terrible at getting anything done.

He seems more interested in learning his last name (and deciding if he’s dating the pretty blonde) than figuring out what the hell’s going on with all the dead people lying around. Also, his primary method of investigation, apparently, is to find small children hiding behind padlocked doors, scream, “DO YOU RECOGNIZE ME!” at the top of his lungs, and then shoot at them in a manic frenzy when they refuse to cooperate.

Yeah. Our protagonist is kind of an asshole.

4. And unfortunately, Copley’s accent doesn’t help any.

There are no American actors in Open Grave. None of the characters need to be American for any particular plot reason. And yet a handful of the actors have American accents anyway, and while Joseph Morgan’s isn’t actually bad, Sharlto Copley’s is terrible. His voice is grating to the point where it’s kind of hard to listen to him. I liked him well enough in The A-Team – where his accent was less southern than cuh-razy — and I know he’s supposed to be amazing in movies like District 9, but . . . maybe he needs his South African accent for any serious work because his deliveries here are . . . not good.

5. The worst of the acting, though, is done by Erin Richards — previously known as the pretty blonde.

Her accent frequently slips, but at least her whole voice doesn’t hurt my ears.

It is possible that Richards is a better actress than Open Grave allows her to demonstrate because — in fairness to her — her role is utterly useless. Still, she rarely changes facial expressions and all of her line deliveries are hideously flat. She is easily outacted by the Asian woman who never says anything at all.

6. Of course, the prettiest blond in the whole movie is actually Nathan (Joseph Morgan).

The funniest thing about Nathan: maybe halfway through the movie, he’s running around the woods on his own — naturally — and comes across a pair of glasses. He puts the glasses on and, lo and behold, begins to see glimpses of his memories through the lenses — because there’s nothing like a good pair of Flashback Glasses to give your audience clues to the plot. Mind you, Nathan has not appeared at all visually impaired up until this point. Even assuming the glasses are primarily for reading . . . Nathan is one of the few characters who has actually spent some time looking at books prior to his romp through the woods, and he didn’t seem to have any difficulty with the letters then, no matter what language they were in.

Still. Joseph Morgan’s a good looking man, and he looks kind of sexy in his Flashback Glasses, so. I’ll allow it.

There’s a limit to how much I can talk about this movie without going into spoilers — and a limit to how much time I want to waste writing about this movie at all — so let’s just get down to it, shall we?

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

It turns out that Jonah — formerly known as John Doe, formerly known as the man in a pit of dead bodies, formerly known as oh my God, you are NOT American – and Flashback Glasses are brothers. (This is of no surprise because Nathan instinctually feels close to Jonah — there’s a lot of instinctual ‘I trust you’ in this movie, and not a lot of fun repercussions when that trust turns out to be misplaced.) Jonah and Nathan are also doctors, and they’re here in the ass end of nowhere to save people from the Great Zombie Virus. (Okay, they’re not exactly zombies — I mean, they’re alive and all — but please. They are totally zombies.)

Our amnesiac strangers discover the zombies relatively early on, but no one ever says the zed-word or even seems particularly troubled by their existence. I mean, they’re scared of them, sure, but no one’s like, “Dude, did you see that woman in the shed? She’s, like, all messed up. We should talk about that.”

Anyway, the doctors are doing good work, helping cure the local zombie people, but Nathan fucks up somehow . . . I think he might forget to lock up, or something, and a few of the crazy people get out to infect everyone else? Doctor Jonah tells Doctor Nathan and Blondie . . . Doctor Blondie? She appears to have some kind of medical training, but I was never sure if she was supposed to be a doctor herself or possibly a nurse. Well, let’s say doctor. In fact, I could call her Doctor Sharon but I refuse to do that because she doesn’t have enough character to warrant a name. She is married to Doctor Jonah and will thus be known as Doctor Love Interest because, really, that’s all she’s there for.

Anyway, Doctor Jonah tells Doctor Nathan and Doctor Love Interest to inject themselves with the Great Zombie Antidote. Unfortunately, the Great Zombie Antidote causes temporary memory loss and there’s, apparently, not enough time to write a note explaining the barebones of the situation. In Doctor Jonah’s defense, a zombie is currently pushing him into a pit of dead people, so he really doesn’t have much time. I’m not convinced Doctor Nathan and Doctor Love Interest couldn’t have scribbled a quick ‘zombie virus/meds caused temp amnesia/army coming to kill you all’ on a Post-It or something.

Oh, and the antidote, by the way, is basically the Asian Woman’s Magical Blood.

She’s immune to the Great Zombie Virus, see. We never do learn Asian Woman’s name, but she’s referred to as ‘Brown Eyes’ on IMDb — because that totally makes her casting less problematic. (It might not be so terrible, having a literally inscrutable Asian woman as the miracle cure, if she wasn’t the only non-white person in the entire cast.)

Anyway, so that brings us back to the beginning of the movie when Dr. Jonah wakes up in his pit of dead people, and Magic Blood — which is clearly a better name than Brown Eyes — helps him out with a rope. (This will happen twice more in the movie. Dr. Jonah really loves his corpse pit.) She scampers off, and he eventually finds his way to the house of amnesiacs. There are two other guys there — one is killed early on by a barb wire fence zombie, and the other is an antagonistic bastard who doesn’t trust Dr. Jonah and is slowly turning into a crazy zombie guy himself.

The crazy zombie people wield weapons in this movie. The guys with the axes are by far the funniest.

Antagonistic Bastard is mostly there to yell at things and chase Magic Blood around, and I’m sure he eventually dies . . . I’m just having trouble remembering how. I think someone might bash his brain in? But who? It’s weird, how quickly I’ve forgotten some of this.

And . . . yeah. After a strong opening, the story basically breaks down into characters randomly running around, doing things that make no sense. Like, they go on a quest to find their cars — presumably to get the fuck out of there — but when they do find their cars, they just . . . go back to the house. (I mean, there’s an argument on why the cars are a bad idea. But then . . . why go look for them at all? Why not have that argument back at the house, where there are no dead people?) And the script itself is terribly repetitive at points — I’m convinced that at least a quarter of the dialogue is made up of lines like this:

“Do you recognize me?”

“Do you know my name?”

“I think I know you.”

And so on and so forth. Of course, these are perfectly natural things to say in a mystery starring amnesiac characters, but it’s almost all these guys ever say. It’s a little infuriating.

Eventually, everyone regains their memories. Dr. Love Interest and Dr. Nathan are together in the house, which is surrounded by zombies. Dr. L.I. writes a letter to Dr. Jonah in case she and Nate die and Dr. Jonah’s forced to wipe his brain again, or something. (Gee, how oddly prescient of her.) The army comes and shoots the shit out of the plague zombies, and Dr. Nathan remembers why today is such an important day — it’s the Army Comes and Rescues Us Day. Because Dr. Nathan has never seen a movie before.

Dr. Nathan goes running out into the woods, calling for the army to come. When he realizes that they aren’t here to help, he puts away his glasses, you know, so he can die like a man. And then he does, indeed, die. (Almost certainly as a punishment for fucking up in the first place. Can’t let the screw-ups survive.)

Dr. Love Interest and Dr. Jonah run away, but one of the zombie patients stabs Dr. L.I. With the army coming after them, the two run and fall into the zombie pit. Dr. L.I. is dying and gives Dr. Jonah the letter. Dr. Jonah shoots them up with the Great Zombie Antidote so that they’ll look dead when the army comes. I wish the army set the entire pit of corpses on fire — like they totally would — but instead they just leave. Boo.

Dr. Jonah wakes up later, but oh noes! The letter blows away as he stands up. (Dr. L.I. doesn’t stir, but I’m not sure if that’s because she’s truly dead, or if she’s just going to wake up later with no one to help her out of the corpse pit.) Thankfully, Magic Blood is still around, and she helps Dr. Jonah out for the third time this movie. We get to hear the letter as a voiceover, telling us all about the zombie apocalypse and Magic Blood and whatnot, and . . . well, that’s about the end of the movie.

Sigh.

This movie is particularly frustrating because of all the wasted potential. I love the idea of a story featuring a bunch of characters trying to figure out who they are and what’s going on, but it never seems to work out to my satisfaction. One idea that might help, at least a little: make this movie a true ensemble piece with no one protagonist. If there’s one main dude, the focus is very much on if he’s a good guy or a bad guy, and it’s not usually too hard to figure out which one is the truth. Like, when Dr. Jonah’s acting all crazy and having vaguely sinister flashbacks and such . . . it’s pretty obvious the movie’s trying to fake us out into thinking this guy is a villain, and that’s kind of boring. But if everyone is having sinister flashbacks, well, it’s a little less obvious.

And, of course, it would help if the characters would make even a little bit of sense.

CONCLUSIONS:

Good start, pretty much bad everything else

MVP:

Joseph Morgan. But that’s probably mostly because he’s pretty — I think Josie Ho and Thomas Kretschmann do an equally acceptable job in pretty lackluster roles. They can all share gold.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

C

MORAL:

The most important thing is to know who you are. Figuring out why your memory is missing, why dead people are tied to trees, and why a mute woman is taking care of a crazy, zombie-like person tied up in a shack is interesting, sure, but as long as you know your full name, you’re going to be okay.

I watched my last modern noir of the year.

I like Drive — it’s stylish and well-crafted — but I don’t love it the way I might have hoped.

SUMMARY:

A mechanic, stunt car driver, and getaway driver (Ryan Gosling) falls for his married neighbor, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and finds himself in a mess of trouble because of it.

NOTES:

1. Drive has an interesting sort of structure to it. The first ten minutes or so work really well, with a nice action sequence that draws us into the movie and a brief glimpse at our unnamed protagonist under pressure. We never learn a lot about the Driver, not where he comes from, not what he’s done, but I think you get a decent glimpse at what kind of man you’re dealing with fairly early on, and then again through several small moments throughout the film.

After the teaser, though, the pace of the film slows down considerably. If you came upon Drive maybe twenty minutes into the movie with no prior knowledge of the film, you could be forgiven for thinking you were watching an indie romantic drama. The second half of the story is considerably more action packed and violent than the first. Obviously, I’m a bigger fan of the second half, but overall, I think the pacing of the film works fairly well. In particular, I like when the movie chooses not to show you things, like when we watch Irene apply makeup as the phone rings, but we don’t actually see her pick it up. It’s all small stuff, but it helps give the movie a sort of quiet, sparse quality that I enjoy.

2. As always, though, I’m not sure I’m entirely sold on Irene and the Driver’s romance, mostly because Irene has absolutely no character.

Carey Mulligan is perfectly fine as Irene, but unfortunately, Irene herself is such an archetype that it’s impossible to give a damn about her one way or the other. She has next to no personality and is really only around to be in danger and thus give our male characters motivation; that is her one and only function in the entire plot. For bonus cliche points, she’s also a mother, making her doubly necessary to protect. If she at least said something funny or profound or interesting in any way, I might be able to look past this, but Irene doesn’t have much in the way of dialogue in this movie, as her romance with the Driver is entirely based on gazing into each other’s eyes for uncomfortably long periods of time.

(In fairness, the silence between their characters does evoke a certain romantic mood and fits the general tone of the film. But in real life, it would be awkward as hell, all . . . what? Do I have something on my face? Hello? Seriously, man. The HELL is wrong with you?)

3. The movie has a stellar cast; other than Gosling and Mulligan, we also have Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Ron Perlman, Oscar Isaac, and Christina Hendricks. (Although I feel the need to point out here that some of these people don’t get nearly as much screen time as I’d like.) I think Brooks is probably the standout of the supporting cast, although I like Bryan Cranston quite a bit too. He brings a certain energy to the screen, even when his character doesn’t actually have that much to do.

4. Certain scenes in this movie are also creepy as fuck.

Okay, well, this scene anyway. Part of it’s the spooky ass mask pictured above, and part of it’s the music that’s playing the entire time. The soundtrack here is very interesting: the majority of it has a super retro 80’s feel, despite the fact that none of it’s actually 80’s music, and definitely helps give the movie a certain singular voice. Drive is an entirely different movie with a different soundtrack behind it. (I guess you can say that for any movie, but it feels especially true in this case.)

Other noteworthy moments: any of the car chase sequences, everything that happens at the motel, the big showdown, and the Suddenly-Less-Romantic Elevator scene.

5. I wish I had more to tell you, but I actually don’t know if I have much to say about this one. I’ll talk a little more about the plot and certain things I liked in the Spoiler Section, but I don’t have a particularly deep analysis for you guys because I just don’t feel super passionate about it one way or the other. It’s an interesting piece of filmmaking, and I wouldn’t mind seeing more work by Nicolas Winding Refn, but the story itself leaves me a little cold, and I think my problems with Irene (and probably the lack of interesting women in general) are a big part of that.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

First: I don’t know if it’s a Fail, exactly, but there is certainly a Netflix Misdirect here: His [the Driver’s] newfound peace is shattered, however, when her [Irene’s] violent husband is released from prison.

It’s not entirely untrue, but the word that’s tripping me up is ‘violent.’ Standard (Oscar Isaac) is an ex-con, but while one scene implies that violence could be in the near future if the Driver and Irene carry on with their ‘special friendship’, Isaac never hurts anybody that we see in the film, seems remorseful about his past criminal activities, and only commits the pawn shop robbery in order to protect his wife and son. (Because again, that’s all they’re there for.) The way this summary is worded, you’d think Standard was the chief antagonist, which is just not true.

The basic story goes like this: Driver falls in wuv with Irene and bonds with her cute, shark-prejudiced son, Benicio. Unfortunately, Standard is released from prison, putting a stop to their near silent romance. Worse, he owes money, and if he doesn’t pay back, his family will be hurt. So the Driver negotiates on his behalf and agrees to help with one last job in order to free Standard from his debt. Along for the ride is Blanche (Christina Hendricks), whose only real job in this movie is to wear high heels and look scared.

The job goes bad fast. Blanche and the Driver get away with the money, but Standard is killed at the scene. Also, they end up stealing about $960,000 more than expected, but the news reports that the robbery was unsuccessful. The Driver gets intimidating and rough with Blanche fast, reminding the audience that no matter how helpful he is when his attractive neighbors have car trouble, this is an unrepentantly violent man. Blanche confesses that she and some goon were in on a double-cross, although she didn’t think anyone was supposed to die. Shortly thereafter, Blanche gets her head blown off.

It’s a good, shocking scene, and I don’t mind that Blanche dies, but I was hopeful that Christina Hendricks would have a little more to do, especially because she and the entirely boring Irene are the only female characters in this whole movie. If you read my reviews with any regularity, it’s possible that you’re tired of hearing me complain about this, but I’ve got to tell you, you’re probably not as tired as I am of writing about it. I’m exhausted of this bullshit male-to-female ratio in action, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, and horror stories. These are my favorite genres. It would be neat to find some representation in them. (And if that’s how I feel as a white woman, that must go, like, quadruple for women of color.)

Okay. The Driver is wounded but escapes and eventually finds out that Nino (Ron Perlman) is behind the setup. He tries to return the money to Nino, but Nino would rather just kill him, given the opportunity. And after the Driver’s buddy, Shannon (Bryan Cranston), makes the well-meaning but ultimately pretty stupid decision to tell Nino who the Driver is, Nino hires a guy to do just do that. Of course, the Driver kills the guy, but now everybody is in danger, including Shannon. Nino’s partner, Bernie (Albert Brooks), is the one who kills him.

This isn’t particularly surprising because Shannon had “Dead Meat” written on his forehead from pretty much the second he showed up on screen, but it’s also especially not nice because Shannon and Bernie go back a ways, could even be considered friends. They’re shaking hands when Bernie slices deep up Shannon’s arm, severing the hell out of his arteries. “Don’t worry,” Bernie says immediately after doing this. “Don’t worry. That’s it. It’s done. There’s no pain. It’s over, it’s over.” Like most of the violent moments in this movie, it’s a pretty great scene.

The Suddenly-Less-Romantic Elevator scene is another good one.

Sometimes, I’m critical of female characters who are like, “Oh noes, my man killed someone for totally justifiable reasons, IT’S LIKE I NEVER EVEN KNEW HIM,” but here, I feel that stepping out of the elevator was a pretty appropriate reaction. In fact, this is probably the closest I come to actually liking Irene.

After finding Shannon dead, The Driver kills Nino by ramming his car off a cliff and shortly thereafter drowning him in the ocean. (I still maintain that the scene right before, where the Driver’s standing outside Nino’s restaurant watching him, is one of the creepiest things I’ve seen all year.) He then calls up Bertie and alludes to the story of the scorpion and the frog, which immediately made me groan because I’m so tired of hearing people recite that story. I mean, it’s a decent fable and all, and I understand why it’s popular, but I’m so damn tired of hearing it.

So I was deeply and pleasantly surprised when the Driver didn’t proceed to tell the entire story for the audience members who haven’t heard it before. (Sorry, dudes. But Google will help you out.) The one-line allusion quickly became my favorite quote in the whole movie. (The fact that the Driver is wearing a jacket with a scorpion on his back is also a nice touch.)

The Driver and Bertie set up a dinner meeting, and I really like how the scene plays out. It’s like a less sexy, more violent version of That One Scene Everyone Remembers from Out of Sight. Their negotiation of sorts is intercut with scenes of the Driver handing Bertie the money outside the restaurant. Bertie immediately stabs the Driver with one of his carefully cleaned knives, but doesn’t do a good enough job of it because the Driver stabs Bertie right back. The Driver has better aim, and he leaves Bertie dead on the ground, next to his money.

The movie ends with Irene knocking on the Driver’s door to no answer, and the Driver (presumably still bleeding) driving away to destinations unknown. It’s a fine ending as far as endings go — I think I’m glad the two don’t get together — but once the movie was over, my immediate reaction was, Okay, so, what’s next?

It’s possible I might like this movie more on repeat viewings, especially because the more I think about the film, the more I like specific moments and scenes, but as a whole, I can’t shake the thought that the story is lacking something, and as of right now, I continue to feel a little disappointed with it.

QUOTES:

Driver: “You know the story about the scorpion and the frog? Your friend Nino didn’t make it across the river.”

Shannon: “A lot of guys mess around with married women, but you’re the only one I know who robs a joint just to pay back the husband.”

Standard: “Do you want to hear about how Mommy and me met?”
Benicio: “Yeah.”
Standard: “Yeah? Okay. We were at a party, and she was nineteen years old.”
Irene: “Seventeen.”
Standard: “You weren’t seventeen.”
Irene: “I was.”
Standard: “Wow. So it was illegal. All right. So I illegally walked over to a seventeen-year-old girl.”

(Bernie sticks his hand out to shake. Driver does not shake it — in a nice bit of foreshadow I forgot to mention before)
Driver: “My hands are a little dirty.”
Bernie: “So are mine.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Stylistic and enjoyable, but not quite as Fist Pump Awesome as I’d hoped it would be.

MVP:

Ryan Gosling

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Never try to explain to the bad guys that your friend has their money, particularly if the bad guys didn’t even know that you or your friend were involved. You’re trying to sell them on your buddy’s good intentions, which is all very noble, but bad guys don’t care about good intentions, and such a call can only lead to your demise.

You may or may not have noticed that — save Kingsman: The Secret Service — there have been a distinct lack of movie reviews these past few weeks. That’s partially because I went on vacation, partially because I got sick, partially because I’ve been writing other things, and partially because TV has been ruling the St. George household these days. One of the shows we’ve been watching?

The Wire has a reputation for being The Best Show to Ever Exist Ever Ever Ever. And while I’m not sure I’ll go quite that far — I’m unlikely to ever proclaim any show, movie, or book better than all other shows, movies, or books — I’ve got to admit, we just wrapped first season and so far, it’s pretty damn good.

SUMMARY:

When Detective Jimmy McNulty (Dominic West) complains to a judge that nobody is investigating drug kingpin Avon Barksdale (Wood Harris), even though his people keep getting away with murder, a special police detail is created to take Barksdale down. Absolutely NOBODY is happy with McNulty about this. Meanwhile, D’Angelo (Larry Gilliard Jr.), Avon’s nephew and one of those people who just got away with murder, is demoted to running the drug trade in one of the projects.

NOTES:

1. The Wire premiered on HBO in 2002. I didn’t watch it because I was 16 at the time and wouldn’t have access to HBO, Netflix, or Amazon for about a decade. But I doubt I’d have been all that interested anyway; even now, I don’t generally gravitate towards gritty stories about cops, drugs, and Baltimore. (Hell, it took me a good solid moment to remember where Baltimore is, only proving that either I am entirely hopeless or my elementary school teachers quite seriously failed me.)

But I’m glad I started watching it now. The Wire is probably one of the most cleverly structured television shows I’ve ever seen. It’s extremely effective at setting up small moments early on in the season and paying them off in big ways by the end. The balance between the cops and criminals is extremely well done and never goes the easy way out by making it a show about Good Guys vs Bad Guys. The plotting is tight, the dialogue is sharp, and the cast is supremely talented.

2. Which makes it all the more infuriating when you realize that The Wire was only nominated for two Emmys during its entire five year run, both of them for writing. And to add insult to injury, it didn’t win either.

Guys, this is just . . . it’s so utterly unacceptable. By this point in my life, I’m pretty used to all my genre shows being utterly ignored, but The Wire is like what the Emmys were fucking MADE for. The fact that it didn’t manage to garner a single acting or best drama nod is insane, and honestly, I can’t help but feel that if the cast had been primarily white, The Wire would have been positively drowning in Emmy love.

Cause seriously, can I just show you some of the other shows and actors who were chosen over The Wire during it’s 2002-2008 run? CSI got a best drama nomination in 2003. Anthony LaPaglia got a best actor nod for Without a Trace in 2004. Jennifer Garner got a best actress nomination in 2005 for Alias and lost to Patricia Arquette, who won for her work in Medium. None of these actors or shows are necessarily terrible — hell, I enjoyed a few of them — but c’mon. Who in the HELL is going to stand there and tell me that CSI, Without a Trace, Alias, and Medium deserved more acclaim than The Wire? It’s bullshit.

3. There are a LOT of people in this show, and we’re going to discuss many of them. Get comfy.

Jimmy McNulty

Dominic West

McNulty’s kind of a judgmental ass sometimes and a pretty terrible parent, but he’s also surprisingly likable. He’s sort of a deconstructed hero, actually — all the usual I’m-the-Smartest-Most-Reckless-Badass-Ever tropes are there, but The Wire isn’t afraid to call him out on his bullshit, either. It’s sort of a nice balance. This is easily the best performance I’ve ever seen from Dominic West, who usually plays total schmucks like Theron in 300, Jasper in 28 Days, or Fred Casely in Chicago. It’s a nice change of pace. He’s also fairly consistent with the accent, I think, although I’m seriously wondering if he and Paul Blackthorne from Arrow have the same vocal coach because their voices sound so similar to me at times. (Though I should stress that West’s accent is SO MUCH BETTER than Blackthorne’s. Sorry, Lance. I generally like you, but you’re not fooling anyone.)

So, yeah. I like McNulty. I do. But when he loses custody of his kids or his liver shrivels up and DIES, I’m not sure how sorry I’m going to feel for him.

Avon Barksdale

Wood Harris

I’ve seen Wood Harris pop up now and again on TV, most notably as a guest star on Justified, where he was underused but kind of delightful anyway. This is a much less comedic performance overall, but I like Avon. He’s sort of an interesting character too, mostly because he actually has character. He’s not a horrifying stereotype. He’s not some Fiendish Criminal Mastermind. He’s just the dude in charge — kind of a hothead but not a total idiot. I like that about him.

Stringer Bell

Idris Elba

My God, Idris Elba is a good looking man. I know that’s not really relevant right now, but DAMN. Good. Looking. Man.

Okay. Stringer is Avon’s right hand man and basically seems to be the real brains of the operation. (Again, it’s not that Avon’s dumb, but between the two of them, I’d be way more scared of Stringer.) I don’t know if I have anything really insightful to say about his character right now — I’m not going to talk too much about Idris Elba’s talent because OBVIOUSLY. But I’m really interested to see how his storyline develops post Season 1 because it seems like he’s going to have more to do.

D’Angelo

Larry Gilliard Jr.

I know Gilliard Jr. from The Walking Dead — one of three Wire alums to join in on the zombie action thus far — and I definitely like him better here. Which only makes sense, as D is a pretty big player in this show, whereas Bob never really felt like a fully developed character to me. But this is good stuff. I don’t know if I exactly like D, but I do grow to feel sorry for him. His arc from beginning to end is pretty damn solid.

Kima

Sonja Sohn

Sohn may be the only actor in this whole cast who I was unfamiliar with prior to the show, and so far Kima is definitely one of my favorite characters; in fact, she probably is my favorite character. (Admittedly, it’s a pretty close race. Lots of good people abound.) While she does occasionally makes mistakes (like, arguably two mistakes), Kima actually owns up to them, which is kind of refreshing, honestly. And the rest of the time, she is super competent, which I think everyone knows is something I like in a fictional character. Competence is write up there with a manic smile and daddy issues for Qualities I’m Just Ridiculously, Hopelessly Attracted To.

Between her relationship with her girlfriend, her relationship with her CI, Bubbles, and her relationships with all the other cops, Kima is a strong and fully developed female character. MORE OF THIS, PLEASE.

Bubbles

Andre Rojo

Bubbles is fun. Rojo is very expressive, and I’m interested to see where his character goes over the course of the show. I loved watching his undercover work — who knew that colorful hats could be so useful? I absolutely put a red hat on Mekaela while we watched this, by the way.

The only problem with Bubbles is that I find his junkie friend — who refuses to take life lessons, even when they violently try to bash their way through his skull — pretty annoying, and I was kind of bored during all the scenes where they’re just hanging around, getting high. If said junkie friend could just go away in Season Two, I would definitely appreciate it.

Omar

Michael Kenneth Williams

Oh, man. Omar is the BEST.

You don’t get a lot of badass gay characters in Hollywood. Which isn’t to say that there aren’t any good gay roles, of course, but — there aren’t, like, tons of them, and they’re rarely of the Ominously Whistling, Let Me Just Kill This Motherfucker variety. But Omar is that guy, and he is delightful. I’m super happy with him so far.

The only thing I’ve seen Michael Kenneth Williams in prior to this is Community, which he guest starred on a couple of times. Now I absolutely HAVE to watch the Law & Order parody episode again. Cause, you know. “A man’s gotta have a code.”

Freamon

Clarke Peters

Freamon is pretty excellent, too — he and Omar are probably Kima’s main competition when it comes to Carlie’s Favorite Character. In fact, I liked Freamon almost immediately, especially in a scene early-on when most of the cops are totally failing at this semi-simple task, and he’s just sitting back, smirking, because he’s already figured out what they’re doing wrong. Freamon is also exceptionally competent, and it’s sort of enjoyable when you realize that despite having worked in the Pawn Shop Unit for a bazillion years, he’s actually a superior detective to McNulty.

I do wonder about Freamon, though. Maybe it’s just some residual impressions from Peters’s run on Person of Interest, but towards the very end I couldn’t help but wonder if Freamon might eventually become corrupt or go a little Dark Side. Honestly, I’m not really sure where that’s coming from, though. Maybe I’m just naturally suspicious of people who make tiny doll furniture.

Daniels

Lance Reddick

I’m primarily familiar with Lance Reddick from Fringe, and in a way, Daniels doesn’t seem like such a huge stretch from Broyles. You know, they could be cranky, taciturn cousins, only Daniels deals with bullshit police politics and Broyles deals with mad scientists who use LSD to enter the minds of unresponsive FBI agents. He’s a bit more sympathetic here, though, because (like Gilliard Jr) he’s a bigger player in The Wire and we actually get to see a few more sides to him. Including — and this was shocking — a smile.

I’m serious, guys. I’ve watched Lance Reddick in one season of The Wire, five season of Fringe, and a few episodes of both Lost and The Blacklist, and this man does not crack a smile, ever — except here where in one episode he full on grins and reveals that he actually has adorable bunny teeth.

I was utterly delighted by the revelation.

Rawls

John Doman

John Doman pops up all the time — most currently, he’s starring as Falcone on Gotham — and he is well-versed in the art of playing an asshole. Still, I think he might master his craft here. What makes Rawls so particularly great is that he isn’t as one-note as you might initially assume. I actually find him pretty funny, and I am a huge fan of how his and McNulty’s storyline plays out.

Wallace

Michael B. Jordan

Ack! It’s baby Michael B. Jordan! I first saw this guy in Chronicle, where he is DEFINITELY more grown up. It was kind of a trip to watch him here. (Wallace is 16 but looks 12 to me — although maybe that’s because I first watched him as a 25-year-old playing an 18-year-old. Oh, typical Hollywood.)

And I like Wallace. I think he is monumentally stupid at some points, but I can’t help but feel for the kid. He doesn’t have it easy, in this show, and it’s hard not to feel sorry for him, even if he does brings some of that trouble on himself.

Carver & Herc

Seth Gilliam & Domenick Lombardozzi

Finally — and that’s only because I’m giving up and skipping several other key players for Time Constraints/Fear of Carpal Tunnel — here are the guys Mekaela and I dubbed the Wonder Twins. Let me assure you that we meant this in the most sarcastic sense possible.

The thing is, in the pilot? Mek and I both liked these guys. They worked with Kima in Narcotics, and it seemed like they were a pretty solid team — until the second episode when they turned into a couple of incompetent dickbags. Which was disappointing — I so wanted to like Deaton. (And can I just say, Seth Gilliam has had the strangest TV career? He starred in critically lauded shows like The Wire and Oz, only to go to . . . Teen Wolf? I mean, The Walking Dead, I get — it’s genre, but it’s critically acclaimed enough that non-genre fans can assure themselves that they enjoy it because “it’s not really about the zombies; it’s about HUMANITY.” But Teen Wolf is about bad werewolf makeup, good character dynamics, and homoeroticism — no one’s watching Teen Wolf if they’re closeted SF and fantasy fans. Anyway, I just think HBO to MTV is an interesting career leap.)

It’s fair to say, though, that — on the rewatch — I discovered their bullshit actually is brought up in the pilot. I just took it as all talk. It’s also fair to point out that I enjoyed the Wonder Twins more by the end of the first season. They’re certainly not my favorite characters and they consistently continue to make dumb ass decisions, but they do begin to function as the task force’s main comic reliefs and not just as asshole fuck-ups. So I could at least somewhat enjoy them in that capacity.

4. I will say this: The Wire is like the anti-PSA for drunk driving. Good God. Between this and Cougar Town, I’m actually concerned for my liver. (She says while trying a hard cider. Verdict: it’s not bad. Hey, maybe I’ve finally found a pub drink!)

5. Finally, there’s a limit to what else I can say without Spoilers, let me just offer up a list of scenes that I especially enjoyed in the first season:

The Desk Dilemma
The Great Pet-Sitting Misunderstanding
The Exploration of How Many Different Ways Two People Can Use the Word “Fuck” Whilst Investigating a Homicide
The Complete Verbal Shutdown of Ervin Burrell
The Most Badass Whistle of All Time
The Search For a Missing Officer, and . . .
The Profanity-Laced Absolution Offered From the Most Unlikely of Sources

If you, like me, have also failed the Television Gods by not watching The Wire, I’d suggest that you don’t read on any further and give it a try. For my money, it’s pretty impressive, or at least the first season is.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

In no way am I going to try and write a recap of everything that happened in Season One. I have zero interest in doing that. But I would like to discuss a few things I couldn’t talk about earlier, like how watching television in the current “Holy Shit Did You See Who Got Killed Last Week” era may have ruined Mekaela and I for watching any television show that aired before Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead.

Case in point: Mek and I made a bet during the pilot about which cop would be killed by the end of the season, a bet we both lost because none of the cops were killed. I mean, shocking, right? Although I guess Mek would ultimately have to be declared the winner because at least her choice (Kima) did come seriously close to dying. The only thing that happened to Bunk (Wendell Pierce) was that he got hugely drunk in one episode and set his clothes on fire in a bathtub. Oh, classic Bunk.

Kima, meanwhile, nearly died when she got shot in an undercover op. Pretty much everything about this was great — well, not the part where my favorite character got shot, but the part where she didn’t actually die worked pretty well for me. Also, the scene where the other cops are trying to find her is tense as hell, and I just downright loved the scene where Rawls comforts McNulty, primarily by swearing at him.

See, Rawls is mightily pissed at McNulty over the course of the first season and is looking to exact revenge in any way possible, including getting him thrown off the force. We’ve already seen Rawls ask another cop to spy on McNulty, looking for anything they can fire him over. (Drunk driving seems the most likely possibility.) When Kima is shot, you’re thinking, Okay, here we go: Rawls is totally going to blame this screwup on McNulty somehow. But Rawls — showing a surprising and absolutely welcome moment of character development — reveals that this is a line he won’t cross. It’s a really solid scene and great work by John Doman and Dominic West.

Of course, not everyone in this show makes it out alive. Save Kima, the cops are largely left unscathed — at least physically — but the same could hardly be said for Avon’s crew.

So, when I said Wallace doesn’t have it easy in this show? Yeah, well, what I meant was that his two of his own childhood friends murder him on Stringer Bell’s say-so. Mind you, some of this is his own godamn fault. Wallace ends up snitching to the cops because of all the guilt he feels over his part in this one guy’s death. Which is fine — he goes to live with his grandmother out in the country to keep himself out of harm’s way. The problem arises when he can’t hack it in the country — cause, like, crickets — so he decides to come back to the Pit.

This is so not okay. I mean, I get it — crickets can be loud motherfuckers. And I know that Wallace has left behind everything he’s ever known and it must be scary as hell, particularly when you’re trying to make a new start with a grandparent you barely even know. And yeah, this kind of thing isn’t my world. I’m a white girl from the sticks, so the hell do I know about drugs in West Baltimore? Still, I feel pretty confident that there’s really no going back once you make the decision to snitch on your crew. (To be fair to Wallace, Stringer never actually knows that the kid snitched on them. He only knows that Wallace is a potential loose end and that things are too shaky to be dealing with loose ends. Still. Why, kid, WHY?)

Despite all this, it’s really sad when Bodie and Poot murder Wallace, especially because the scene is intercut with the cops looking for him, like there’s a chance they might find Wallace in time. (There is zero actual chance of that.) Damn you, Bodie and Poot. Now how am I supposed to like you two? There’s something particularly cold about asking the kid’s own childhood buddies to do the deed. I am now imagining my own childhood friends having murdered me, and it’s just so much meaner than, you know, all my other friends murdering me.

Throwback Thursday (on a Monday.) Christ, those glasses were terrible.

Lindsey and Chris, don’t get any ideas. I fight back.

While we’re on the subject of children, though, let’s move on to McNulty’s because I’d like to think we can all agree that he deserves to lose custody of them.

McNulty — like so, so many protagonists — is going through a messy divorce and is fighting to see his kids more. And I was more or less sympathetic to his cause, right up to the point where he actually lost his children after asking them to track a dangerous criminal for him.

Yes. McNulty just happens to spot Stringer Bell while shopping with his two boys. McNulty knows that he can’t get close, so he tells his kids to follow him through the market. Cause, you know. Spy games. And while, sure, it’s daytime and Stringer Bell isn’t the kind of out of control psychopath who’s likely to kill a couple of children in the middle of the day (particularly if he knows they’re a cop’s kids), he’s still partially in charge of, like, a drug EMPIRE. He orders hits on people: little Wallace, for one, and also Omar’s boyfriend, Brandon — and Brandon, you guys? He dies badly. Stringer is unequivocally NOT a nice dude.

Maybe I wouldn’t have called an emergency custody session like McNulty’s wife does, but I would absolutely have fed that shit to my lawyer and used it to get my kids away from him. McNulty’s ex might seem like a bitch and, hey, maybe she is one, but until I see her use her children as baby spies? Yeah, I’m going to guess she’s the better parent of the two.

What else — well, how about surprises? Like, who thought the awul cop who accidentally shoots walls and blinds kids for no reason would actually end up being hugely instrumental to Avon Barksdale’s takedown?

Less shocking, I suppose, is the identity of the mole, although I’m sad to say that I still guessed incorrectly.

I did consider Carver but initially discounted him for the other Wonder Twin, Herc. Then I had what I thought was a pretty awesome epiphany — in a twist, the mole was never on the team but would instead turn out to be Daniels’s wife. I can’t remember what the hell she does for a living (or if they ever said), but it seemed like she was pretty chummy at that big party with all the politicians and the police upper-ups. And we see a handful of scenes where Daniels tells her all about his case, so I thought he was inadvertently his own leak. Alas, it turns out to be Carver after all.

Damn it, Deaton. I’m so disappointed in you, man.

Of course, I’m also curious to see what happens to you — and to everyone else in this show. At the end of Season One, the task force is disbanded with everyone going their own separate ways, either back to their old departments (like Herc) or to new ones (like McNulty, who gets demoted, or Freamon, who gets promoted — and gets a near-sighted stripper girlfriend to boot). I feel like any attempt to get the whole band back together in a new task force would seem awfully contrived, and yet we’ve spent a whole season with these characters. While a few of them (like Sydnor in Auto Theft, for instance) could probably disappear with ease, I can’t imagine them getting rid of everyone — and that goes for the drug dealers too. Obviously, we’re not going to drop Stringer Bell now that he’s taken over Avon’s crew, but  . . . we aren’t really going to spend four seasons trying to arrest him, are we? Because I feel like that’s going to get old long before the end of the show.

Which leaves me wondering — will there be new bad guys? A significant time jump? Will Carver take any of Daniels’s speech to heart? Will Kima come back to duty against the wishes of her girlfriend? (Uh, yeah. Pretty sure she will.) What about Daniels’s wife — will she divorce him because of all the backlash and passed up promotions? Will McNulty find someone’s dead body in the water, which will start the beginning of a new case that will somehow involve Homicide, Narcotics, Auto, and Stringer Bell?

Guess I’ll be tuning in to find out. Same bat time (well, anytime), same bat channel (or Amazon).

QUOTES:

McNulty: “Teach you to give a fuck when it ain’t your turn to give a fuck.”

Bunk (to dead body): “You. Moldering motherfucker, don’t even think about coming back a murder. Don’t even think of that shit.”

Rawls: (flipping McNulty off with both hands) “You see these, McNulty? You see em? These are for you. These are for you for as long as it takes me to get even.”
McNulty: “Major, what — ”
Rawls: “No, don’t ‘Major’ me, you smart-ass, backstabbing piece of shit. What are you even doing at the courthouse anyway? Why are you talking to some shitbag judge? These are for you, McNulty. This one here is going up your narrow fucking Irish ass. And this bad boy here is in your fucking eye.”

Kima: “Fighting the war on drugs, one brutality case at a time.”
Carver: “Girl, you can’t even think of calling this shit a war.”
Herc: “Why not?”
Carver: “Wars end.”

D’Angelo: “Nigga, please, the man who invented them things, just some sad-ass down at the basement of McDonalds, thinking up some shit to make some money for the real players.”
Poot: “Naw, man, that ain’t right.”
D’Angelo: “Fuck right. It ain’t about right; it’s about money. Now you think Ronald McDonald gonna go down in that basement and say, ‘Hey, Mr. Nugget, you the bomb. We selling chicken faster than you can tear the bone out. So I’m gonna write my clowny-ass name on this fat-ass check for you’? Shit, the nigger who invented them things still working in the basement still thinking up some shit that can make the fries taste better or some shit like that.”

Kima: “How complex a code can it be if these knuckleheads are using it? Then again, what does it say about us if we can’t break it?”

McNulty: “Lester, are we still cops?”
Freamon: “Technically, I guess.”

Daniels: “I’m embarrassed for you all.”

Landsman: “Last night I’m at home. I’m sitting up buck naked and I got one hand wrapped around a cold domestic beer and the other wrapped around my magnificent flaccid four-and-one-half-inch wonder, and I’m trying with all my might to remember what Layla Kauffman’s nipples looked like when her bathing top slipped at the Hillandale pool party.”
Rawls: “Layla Kauffman?”
Landsman: “Yes, sir. It’s the summer of ’72. I’ve got the saucy wench in my gun sights, so to speak, and uh, I’m dangerously close to engorged — when all of a fucking sudden, out of fucking nowhere, fucking detective fucking Jimmy McNulty pops into my head.”
Rawls: “McNulty?”
Landsman: “Obviously I’ve got to open my eyes and admit that my whole night is ruined. At which point I’ve got nothing to do but think about the problems of Jimmy McNulty. Because clearly this guy and his problems are standing between me and worldly pleasure.”

Avon: “How come you wearing that suit, B? For real, it’s 85 fucking degrees out here and you trying be like fucking Pat Riley.”

Wee-Bey: “You pretending to take money out this truck I didn’t even know was there.”
Carver: “You know, I know how that shit is. The other day, I took off the sofa cushions off my couch? Found a buck forty I didn’t even know was there.”

Judge Phelan: “McNulty, I hold you in contempt.”
McNulty: “Who doesn’t?”

Kima: “Anyway, what took you so long getting up in here? Shit, no cards, no flowers. I mean, what the fuck, Jimmy?”
Jimmy: “I couldn’t, I . . . I felt . . . well, a case like this, it’s always you or Sydnor or some other black cop who ends up going undercover. I swear, if I could do it over? If I . . . ”
Kima: “If I could do it over, you know what I’d do? Put more tape on that fucking gun.”
Jimmy: “I’m sorry, Kima. I’m sorry.”
Kima: “Anyway. Since I got you up in here acting like my bitch and shit, with all your guilty ass crying and whatnot, maybe you can do something for me.”

Carver: “See, that’s why we can’t win.”
Herc: “Why not?”
Carver: “They fuck up, they get beat. We fuck up, we get pensions.”

Daniels: “You do what you feel. You wanna pull Avon in on half a case, you go ahead. You wanna put my shit in the street, feel free. But the Eastern had a lot of stories — mine ain’t the only one. A lot of people came through that district. If you were gonna do me, I’d already be done. But there ain’t nothin’ you fear more than a bad headline, is there? You’d rather live in shit than let the world see you work a shovel. You can order warrants, and I’ll serve ’em. But as long as I have days left on those dead wires, this case goes on.”

D’Angelo: “I just wanna go somewhere where I can breathe like regular folk.”

Carver: “Kima, if you don’t mind my asking, when was it that you first figured that you liked women better than men?”
Kima: “I mind you asking.”

Rawls: “Listen to me, you fuck. You did a lot of shit here. You played a lot of fucking cards. And you made a lot of fucking people do a lot of fucking things they didn’t want to do. This is true. We both know this is true. You, McNulty, are a gaping asshole. We both know this. Fuck if everybody in CID doesn’t know it. But fuck if I’m gonna stand here and say you did a single fucking thing to get a police shot. You did not do this, you fucking hear me? This is not on you. No it isn’t, asshole. Believe it or not, everything isn’t about you. And the motherfucker saying this, he hates your guts, McNulty. So you know if it was on you, I’d be the son of a bitch to say so. Shit went bad. She took two for the company. That’s the only lesson here.”

Kima: “You know, sometimes things just gotta play hard.”

McNulty: “Why’d you ask out of homicide?”
Freamon: “Wasn’t no ask about it.”
McNulty: “You got the boot?”
Freamon: “Uh huh.”
McNulty: “What did you do to piss them off?”
Freamon: “Police work.”

Freamon: “Detective, when they ask you where you want to go — and they are going to ask you where you want to go — do yourself a favor: keep your mouth shut.”

Rawls: “I want to see you land okay, Jimmy. So tell me: where don’t you wanna go?”

CONCLUSIONS:

Damn good first season of what I expect is a damn good show through and through. I think I had one small problem with the whole thing, a scene that I thought we should have actually watched instead of heard summarized. But other than that, really solid stuff. I’m looking forward to watching more of it.

MVP:

I’m giving it to Sonja Sohn today, but Dominic West was a close contender.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A

MORAL:

If you make the hard decision to snitch on your friends, you’re gonna need to man the hell up when it comes to crickets.

So. I am way, way behind on my 2015 Best Picture Winner Challenge. Thus far, I’ve only watched one film and I didn’t care for it at all. I thought maybe I’d reward myself with a movie that — hopefully — would be more my speed, but I took too long in doing so, and before I knew it, spring had come. Which meant only one thing: I had to watch Gone With the Wind.

See, knowing that Gone with the Wind is a four-hour American epic, Mek and I decided to make an Event out of it: an indoor Easter picnic. We spread a blanket out over the carpet and ate classy finger foods like lunch meats and cheese slices and Bagel Bites. (Briefly, we considered classing it up for real, but I don’t much like cucumber sandwiches, and Mekaela chose Martinelli’s in wine glasses over actual wine, so that was basically that.) I put on my petticoat and we both wore our fancy hats and it was, all in all, a pretty good time.

But maybe we should have gotten real booze because oh my God this MOVIE.

DISCLAIMER:

To my mother: Mama, if you read this, I’m sorry. I know how much you love this movie, and I will say some nice things about it. Just possibly not very many.

To everyone else: this movie came out in 1939. SPOILERS abound.

SUMMARY:

The melodramatic life and times of Scarlett O’Hara (Vivien Leigh), a spoiled Southern belle who finds her courage, greed, and — I guess — love in and after the Civil War. Rhett Butler (Clark Gable) also shows up periodically to flirt like a scoundrel or act like an ass.

NOTES:

1. Before I get into the movie itself, I feel like I should more properly set the stage.

I had a great deal of fun flitting around in that petticoat. Mekaela, meanwhile, chose to color-coordinate her fancy hat with her purple pajamas. Clearly, between the two of us, we are the future of fashion.

Alas, the cats would not wear any matching fancy hats of their own — such infrequently cooperative creatures, cats — but they did have a great deal of fun with our picnic basket.

A week later, and we still haven’t had the heart to put up that basket. Bane and Nygma keep climbing in there for naps. It’s adorable.

2. Now that I’m through with the blatant kitty cuteness, though, let’s move on to the actual film. I think I would like to begin my cinematic blasphemy with this question: holy fuck, what is wrong with everyone? Gone with the Wind is many things, but it is NOT a romantic film.

We’ll go into more detail about each of these points later, but if it’s been a while since you’ve seen this classic romance, let me just remind you of some of the things that take place besides all the flirting:

Marital Rape
Dead Children
Spite Marriages
Stealing Your Sister’s Fiancee
Domestic Disputes That Lead to Miscarriages
Everyone Treating Their Partners Like Shit

If I’m supposed to find any of this passionate and stirring . . . well, I guess that explains why I’m still happily single.

3. But maybe I should back up. I’m discovering that Gone With the Wind is sort of an unwieldy film to tackle — there is, after all, a great deal of material to go over.

As I’ve already complained groaned wept said, Gone with the Wind is roughly four hours long, and though Scarlett sometimes makes me wanna hit my head against wall, I didn’t have any real big problems with the first two hours. (Well. Other than the horrific racist stereotypes, but we’ll get to those shortly.) I felt like the story was building to something. I was interested to see how our silly, spoiled protagonist would grow — and she did grow, at least for a short time. The first fifteen minutes or so in Hour 3 where Scarlett kills the Union soldier who comes into her house, and she and Melanie (Olivia de Havilland) have to get rid of the body?

Man, I adored that scene. Not only did it quickly fulfill Scarlett’s promise to “lie, cheat, steal, or kill,” (which, upon hearing, I was immediately like, “Okay, all that shit better come true”), but it was awesome to see another turn in the relationship of these two women who were once sorta-enemies (even if Melanie never actually realized it). I really wanted these two to be genuine friends after this. In fact, I was shipping the two of them pretty hard. (I support a surprising amount of ships in this story.)

And I’ll be honest — a big chunk of my problem with Gone With the Wind is that I kind of want it to become Fried Green Tomatoes. You know, with more petticoats. And that’s not entirely fair because clearly no one ever intended for this story to turn out as Fried Green Tomatoes — but I’m just desperately unhappy with what it actually became.

Hour 3 is okay — Scarlett does some deeply awful things, sure, but they’re done in the service of saving Tara and never going hungry again, so they work for me because they’re consistent with her character arc. But I think the pacing seriously starts to suffer when Scarlett marries Rhett Butler, and sweet Jesus, Hour 4 is such insane melodrama — and not the fun Melrose Place kind of melodrama, but awful, awful shit. Hour 4 is what breaks Gone with the Wind for me.

4. But let’s go back to Hour 1. This is how we begin Gone with the Wind.

Yeah, this is a problem for me. Of course, this movie was made in 1939. Romanticizing the antebellum South probably wasn’t particularly controversial back then. Hell, I’m not sure it’s all that controversial now — I sometimes get a little tired of Hollywood’s love affair with the Confederacy, particularly when you hear news stories about the various states who want to ban AP US History courses because they want to pretend that America wasn’t partially built on blood. But holy shit, people. Look at that language. This is the age of gallantry, of knights and their ladies fair? We’re going to address slavery in a tone of wistful nostalgia? I mean, Jesus. That’s some scary shit right there.

5. The stereotypical black characters are also, well. Upsetting. I know there’s a lot of mixed feelings on Mammy and Hattie McDaniel’s career in general, but I also think she put a lot of force and character into that performance, and the fact that she actually won Best Supporting Actress for it — I mean, there aren’t words for how huge that is. I can’t see a lot of shame in that role.

Prissy, on the other hand.

Let me clear: I don’t believe that shame belongs to Butterfly McQueen at all; the shame in its entirety should lie with the writers and directors of Gone with the Wind. But holy God, is watching Prissy painful. She is a cringing, lying, idiotic mess of a character, and a horrifying reflection of how white people saw (and, in too many cases, see) black people, as not only inferior but . . . but subhuman.

6. But let’s move on to something a little more lighthearted than problematic messaging and institutionalized racism. This era did have one thing going for it, and that one thing is fashion.

Man, you guys. The costumes in this movie are amazing. Scarlett’s wardrobe alone, I mean, damn. I’d wear that dress above in a heartbeat — it might’ve been my favorite in the whole movie, even more than her spectacular green curtain dress. (Between this and The Sound of Music, I guess the lesson here is that I really need to learn how to sew. My creation, unfortunately, would probably turn out more like this.) Admittedly, I don’t know what I’d wear the dress to, exactly, but still. We can’t all be practical in our desires, can we? And I must confess, I’m mildly delighted by the idea of grocery shopping in a dress that could fill the entire width of an aisle. “Where am I going in this fine outfit? Oh, just to Lucky’s. I need to pick up some canned chili for dinner. Also, Pop Tarts. Can’t miss out on the essentials.”

7. Also, for whatever problems I have with Gone with the Wind, acting isn’t really one of them. In fact, I’m still having trouble deciding who I want to give MVP too.

Vivien Leigh gets a lot of the acclaim and, in my opinion, rightly so — Scarlett is not a deeply likable character, and yet — up until Hour 4, anyway — I find her an engaging lead. Flawed, certainly. I absolutely want to pelt her with terrible Easter candy, like Peeps, which are obviously the Devil’s food. But that I am invested in her character at all, that I find any sympathy for her spoiled, silly ass, well, I would put that down to Leigh’s strong performance. And — not for nothing — I didn’t catch her British accent once.

And of course Clark Gable himself is charming as hell.

In a way, I suppose it’s no real surprise that Scarlett and Rhett’s relationship is considered one of the great romances in cinematic history. They do have remarkable chemistry with one another, after all, and I really did get a kick out of watching their antagonistic flirting. Let’s be real here: Rhett Butler is basically Han Solo in the Civil War, and who doesn’t love that? (Up until that dread fourth hour, anyway, when Rhett’s shitty behavior is too awful for even Gable’s near endless charm to overcome.) Plus, Gable has chemistry with everyone — I really loved Rhett’s relationship with both Mammy and Melanie. In fact, there were a number of scenes in this movie where I kind of hoped Rhett and Melanie would get together at the end. In case you needed more cinematic blasphemy.

(Also, this: I went to Archive of Our Own in search of either Melanie/Rhett or Melanie/Scarlett fanfiction and found absolutely bupkis. Everyone’s OTP is, for once, both a het romance and the traditional pairing. Fanfiction writers, I’m a little disappointed in you.)

Actually, it’s Olivia de Havilland herself that I feel gets overlooked.

If Leigh has the challenge of making a terrible person sympathetic, then de Havilland has the challenge of making the Nice Girl not syrupy and boring. And there’s no doubt about the fact that Melanie is the Nice Girl. She never turns on Scarlett, ever; it’s like she’s simply incapable of thinking the worst in people, which is not actually a character trait that I particularly admire in real or fictional people. I should at the very least find her a little pathetic — but I actively like Melanie. Maybe it’s that one scene with Scarlett and the Union soldier that does it, the one where she comes down the stairs, sickly and frightened but also with a sword in her hand. She may not make me laugh the way Rhett does, but she still might be my favorite character in the whole movie. Melanie’s only Fourth Hour problem is that she dies. I guess you can’t really blame her for that one.

8. And then there’s Ashley (Leslie Howard).

Honestly, I think most of my problems with this movie have to do with this guy.

See, in the beginning, Scarlett is infatuated with Ashley and is certain that he loves her as well, despite the fact he’s getting engaged to Melanie. Scarlett pretty much throws herself at him, a proposal he politely rejects. And seriously — take a shot, people. Scarlett throws herself at Ashley, what? Three more times in this movie? It’s insane. At the beginning, Scarlett is young and immature and makes intensely stupid decisions, like responding to this rejection by spitefully deciding to marry Ashley’s cousin. (Lucky for her, Charles dies in the war.) But she’s sixteen and I suppose I can forgive her for it, even if I feel like I personally had better common sense at sixteen. But Scarlett stays in love with Ashley for a VERY long period of time — twelve years, I believe? That’s what Google is telling me anyway; I’ll admit to initially thinking it was fifteen or twenty years.

And the thing is, I have absolutely no idea why Scarlett fell in love with Ashley in the first place, much less why she stayed in love with him for over a decade. Ashley has next to no personality, no apparent sense of humor, no real defining character traits. He is the blandest of bland love interests. Also? He’s not particularly attractive. I mean, the guy’s not ugly, and obviously beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all, but I don’t think anyone would argue that this dude is so Joseph Morgan or Jensen Ackles levels of hot that it somehow makes up for his total lack of personality. Hell, even if Ashley had been played by someone unfairly gorgeous like Tom Hardy or Idris Elba, I mean, come on. Ashley has still said NO for 12 YEARS. Rejection sucks for everyone and I appreciate that Scarlett isn’t a quitter, but by the end of the movie, this is just equal parts ridiculous and pathetic.

Mind you, Scarlett is supposed to think that Ashley loves her too, that it’s only his marital duty to Melanie (and not actual feeling) that has kept him away. She only discovers at the very end of the film that Ashley actually loved Melanie all along, which apparently causes her to realize that she really loves Rhett after all, or something like that. Which, what total shit. Seriously, you shouldn’t realize you love someone only when another dude’s like, “Actually, I never wanted to marry you in the first place.” I feel pretty bad for Rhett here, and I don’t even like Rhett at this point in the movie.

Also, who CARES if Ashley loved Melanie or not? Regardless of his motivations, he was still pretty clear about the whole ‘I’m Not Going to Leave Her’ plan. I get that the heart wants what it wants and that intentions matter, but for Christ’s sake, people. Actions matter too.

9. And the thing is — I’m okay with the fact that attaining Ashley is Scarlett’s driving motivation for the first two hours. Sure, it’s maddening — Girl Pines After Guy is not really my favorite type of story — but it works. She’s immature and frivolous and she imagines that this one entirely boring guy is the most important thing in her life. Fine.

But once she’s been through the horrors of war, once she’s delivered Melanie’s baby on her own (Prissy hardly counts) and makes it through a dangerous and devastated countryside back to her own home? Ashley should no longer be her driving motivation. Too much has happened. She’s grown up. Scarlett’s driving motivation for the rest of the movie should be to keeping her promise to God that she’ll never go hungry again.

I’m not saying she can’t have feelings for Ashley. She can. You can’t turn off your heart, I get that. I could even have dealt with one last seduction attempt (even though I heartily rolled my eyes when she did so — and that wasn’t even the last attempt). But after that, that’s it. It’s time to move on, not just because I want her to but because I think the story needs her to. I mean, clearly I’ve been outvoted by time, God, and everyone, but still. Gone With the Wind doesn’t have to be Fried Green Tomatoes, but it’s hard to hold onto any respect or even much interest in a character whose primary goal in life has been the exact same since she was sixteen and an idiot.

10. And it’s especially hard when this tale of unrequited love spirals into pure ugly melodrama.

So, here’s a rundown of what happens: Scarlett is attacked while traveling alone, and her second husband, Frank, is killed when he and some other men go to get justice and avenge her honor or something. Extremely shortly thereafter, Rhett proposes to her and it’s kind of romantic, I guess — as much as a proposal can be when the guy mocks the hell out of the woman he’s proposing to, and the woman admits that she’s in love with another man and that she mostly says yes because of the money. I do feel a little bad for Rhett because he obviously does love Scarlett and she repeatedly treats him like shit, but seriously, she straight up tells him that she’ll never love him, and he thinks, what? He can just kiss that away? Rhett, you’re an asshole. You absolutely knew what you were walking into, buddy — marrying someone with the belief that you can change them over time is just stupid. My sympathies are limited.

Anyway, they do seem happy for a short while, but then Scarlett remembers that she loves Ashley and it all quickly goes to hell. She has a kid, Bonnie Blue, who Rhett adores but Scarlett doesn’t seem to want. (I suppose that’s up to interpretation. She has, like, one scene with the kid.) She refuses to have any more children or sleep with Rhett. Then she ends up kissing Ashley, which everyone finds out about. Melanie, bless her soul, never believes it, but Rhett sure does — he forces her to go to Melanie’s party in this red gown, having her basically dress the part of a whore.

The whole thing is squicky and terrible, and it’s not going to get any better.

Rhett gets drunk that night, and the two argue again. This time Rhett threatens to get Ashley out of Scarlett’s mind by smashing her skull in. He doesn’t do that, which is good, I guess. Unfortunately, what he does instead is tell her that they’re having sex, and when she says no and fights back, he physically restrains her and carries her upstairs. So yeah, Rhett totally rapes Scarlett. But it’s clearly meant to be okay because the next morning she’s all smiling and content because all she really needed was a good fucking? Jesus Christ, this is so many levels of gross.

Rhett feels bad about his behavior — as well he fucking should — and offers Scarlett a divorce. She doesn’t want one, but he leaves for London anyway, taking Bonnie Blue with him. Bonnie misses her mom, though, so eventually he comes back to drop her off — because sure, Scarlett seems like she’ll make a great single parent — and the two get into another argument, this one conveniently at the top of a staircase. (Lot of staircases, in this movie.) Scarlett tells Rhett that she’s pregnant and that she doesn’t want the baby. Rhett tells her, “Cheer up. Maybe you’ll have an accident.” Scarlett wildly tries to strike him and when Rhett dodges, Scarlett immediately has that accident, falling down the stairs and losing the baby.

(I suppose I should point out that this scene is rife with moments where you can see that the two actually do care about one another. Scarlett is clearly ecstatic when Rhett comes home but immediately falls back to lying at Rhett’s cold greeting. Rhett is delighted to hear about the baby, but draws back when Scarlett jerks at his touch. I know I’m supposed to watch them and think, You guys are so perfect for each other, if you could only get your shit together, and in a way, I DO think that. But once again, my problem is that it’s not only intention — action matters. Sure, I shipped the hell out of them early on — but that was well before the rape scene, you know? At some point, love isn’t all you need.)

Because the staircase miscarriage isn’t tragic enough, little Bonnie Blue dies about five minutes later. And not only does she die — she dies the exact same way Scarlett’s father did.

Moral: horses get you dead.

I’ll say this: the whole thing about dead Bonnie being scared of the dark? That was actually genuinely sad. And I really liked that Melanie came to talk to Rhett, even though we disappointingly don’t get to see the actual scene itself. I really do think their relationship is interesting. I basically want to ship everyone with Melanie.

Unfortunately, Melanie dies too because of course she does. She collapses immediately after leaving Rhett — tragedies are one after another in this movie, paced like explosions in a Michael Bay film — because she also has a miscarriage and dies from complications, I guess. (Actually, that’s debatable. Wikipedia says miscarriage, but some people say that she did deliver the baby. I don’t remember seeing one, and she didn’t look particularly far along to me — but then I can’t remember if they bothered giving her a pillow to stuff under her dress the first time around, either. Look, Melanie died for Plot Reasons, okay?)

Before she kicks the bucket, Melanie tells Scarlett to look after Ashley. And once realizing that Ashley never loved her, Scarlett runs after Rhett to tell him she’s loved him all along. Rhett’s not having any of it and takes off, but supposedly the movie ends on an up note with Scarlett realizing that she’s always gained her strength from Tara and that she’ll go home and find a way to get her man back again.

“After all, tomorrow is another day.”

And I get the idea, I do, but honestly, Scarlett’s speech here just reads to me as vaguely delusional at this point, that she’ll never get Rhett just like she never got Ashley, and at the end of the day, it will all end in tears.

11. Finally, I’m left with a small handful of random notes that I haven’t managed to address yet.

11A. The cinematography in this movie is pretty lovely. This famous shot, for instance, with 800 extras and 800 dummies?

It’s a great shot. And the rest of the movie, too, just looks beautiful — I’m such a sucker for Technicolor. Maybe we see that majestic vista one too many times, but hell. It is pretty.

11B. Scarlett is constantly hating people forever, especially in the first half of the movie, and that gets a little tiresome. Still, I’d be pretty pissed at Rhett, too, if he left me alone on the road with a very sick woman, a woman who’s clearly not all there, and a newborn baby, all so he could go ease his conscience by signing up for a losing war. Screw you, Rhett Butler.

11C. Finally, I couldn’t stop playing the Celebrity Game while watching this movie. Actors kept reminding me of other actors, so I kept remaking the movie in my head. For instance, Frank would be played by Mark Ruffalo.

Ashley would be played by Tom Hiddleston.

Melanie would be played by Amy Acker.

And Joan Cusack would play Belle.

Of course, my remake of Gone with the Wind would turn out a lot differently.

QUOTES:

Rhett: “You should be kissed often and by someone who knows how.”

Rhett: “You’re like the thief who isn’t the least bit sorry he stole, but is terribly, terribly sorry he’s going to jail.”

Rhett: “This is an honorable proposal of marriage made at what I consider a most opportune moment. I can’t go all my life waiting to catch you between husbands.”

Melanie: “Scarlett, you killed him. I’m glad you killed him.”

Scarlett: “Well, I’ve guess I’ve done murder. I won’t think about that now. I’ll think about that tomorrow.”

Scarlett: “Go on! I want you to go! I hope a cannonball lands slap on you! I hope you’re blown into a million pieces! I — ”
Rhett: “Never mind the rest. I follow your general idea.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Jesus, I don’t even know. There are a lot of strong elements here. It’s certainly not the worst movie I’ve ever seen. But I hate where Scarlett’s arc goes. I’m appalled by her and Rhett’s romance, at least post-marriage, and that last hour of that movie is just ridiculous tragedy after ridiculous tragedy. I was probably never going to LOVE Gone With the Wind, but after that fourth hour, I can’t even really like it.

MVP:

Clark Gable, I think. It’s his performance that really makes Rhett Butler so iconic, and while his love story with Scarlett ultimately doesn’t work for me (like at all), there’s no denying that it did for countless others. And if I didn’t like Rhett as much as I do (for 3/4 of the movie, anyway), I think the whole thing would have been torturous to watch.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

C+

MORALS:

Horses lead to death.

Pregnancies rarely work out well.

Marital rape isn’t such a bad thing.

Four separate rejections is not enough to stop a woman’s passion. All she really needs is to hear these words: “He’s just not that into you.”

Land is the only thing worth fighting for.

THE CONFEDERACY WAS GLORIOUS.

I first heard about Sense8 a couple of weeks before it aired on Netflix. Instantly, I was intrigued: a story about eight different people, all over the world, who become psychically linked in some way, who can share thoughts and abilities and even their own bodies with one another, eight people who are also somehow one. I thought it sounded fascinating.

Then reviews started to trickle in and they were . . . mixed, at best. Critics didn’t seem to like it at all, complaining that the show was slow, muddled, and confusing. At the same time, my Twitter feed was blowing up with mad love for Sense8, praising their in-depth, complex characters, particularly their multiple queer characters.

I figured, Well, there’s only one way to find out for yourself.

Overall, I agree more with the Twitter folks than the critics.

SUMMARY:

Eight strangers around the world are suddenly telepathically linked to one another, sharing thoughts and experiences and often even jumping into each other’s bodies. At the same time, there are shadowy, government-like people led by an evil Sensate named Whispers (Terrence Mann) who’s busy hunting down and eliminating their kind.

NOTES:

1. I’ll be honest — I was a little worried that I actually wasn’t going to agree with the Twitter folk on this one. As awesome as the show sounded, I found myself a bit uneasy when I kept read this same sentiment over and over: “This is a character-based show, not a plot-driven one.”

Now, I’m a character-based kind of girl in a lot of ways. If I don’t give a shit about any of the characters, I’m probably not going to care about your story, no matter how great the language or cinematography is. And as a serial medium, I think TV has probably the biggest advantage towards telling character-based stories, which might explain why I’m often so obsessed with it.

However, sometimes when people describe a book, film, or television show as specifically “not plot-driven,” I find that the story is detrimentally aimless, that there is no forward movement, no interesting choices, and often not so much of a story but a music video or beautiful word salad. Character-based I tend to like. Avant-garde, not so much, and I knew that if Sense8 was going to be twelve hours of beautiful shots and thematic significance without actual events, it wasn’t going to be my kind of thing.

2. Not to mention that Sense8 was created by the Wachowskis, who I’ve had something of a mixed track record with thus far. (It was also helmed by J. Michael Straczynski, but I’ve never seen so much as a scene of Babylon 5, so I’ve got no opinion on him one way or the other.) Which is to say that I loved the first Matrix, didn’t like the second, never saw the third (though was unimpressed when I heard what happened), and had some pretty serious problems with Cloud Atlas. And, honestly, it was my dislike for Cloud Atlas that I found most concerning because it seemed like this show wanted to play with some similar issues and themes: gender identity, racial identity, love, more love, and the human connection.

But it seemed to me that Sense8 was everything that Cloud Atlas wanted but ultimately failed to be. Sense8 told interesting stories about diverse and complex people, tying them all together so that no one person shaped the narrative, so that this wasn’t a story about one straight white cop or one gay Mexican actor, but a story about interconnectivity, about humanity, about how — despite our different ethnicities, classes, sexualities, genders — the commonalities in our experiences, the love and loss and joy and sacrifice, bring us all together as a species. (Which sounds corny as hell, as I type that out. But Sense8 didn’t drive me nuts the way Cloud Atlas did.)

3. There are approximately a dozen important characters to discuss. We’re going to stick to our eight Sensates (plus one slightly dubious mentor figure) for now.

Capheus

Aml Ameen

Of the many, many characters I love on this show, Capheus might actually be my favorite. He is utterly endearing. He is easily the most optimistic of the Sensates, full of wonder and joy despite how dangerous and awful a lot of his life is — and really, that’s a pretty hard character to rock because let’s be honest: nobody actually likes incessantly cheerful people, do they? Incessantly cheerful people just make you feel bad about your own cynicism. But Capheus is so damn charming that you like him despite yourself.

I feel like I owe it to Capheus to watch more Jean-Claude Van Damme movies. I’ve still only seen Street Fighter, and now that just feels wrong.

Sun

Doona Bae

Sun’s storyline takes a while to get going and, taken individually, is not one of my favorites. (Though I wouldn’t characterize it as problematic, not the way that I find some of the others.) Still, I like Sun herself. She has a couple of really nice moments that I unfortunately can’t discuss here, and she’s usually instrumental in all the best fight scenes. I’m curious to see where her story will go in Season Two. (I’m just assuming there will be a Season Two, although that hasn’t been announced yet and reviews were definitely mixed, so who knows.)

Nomi

Jamie Clayton

Nomi is a transgender blogger/hacker living in SF with her completely awesome girlfriend, Amanita (Freema Agyeman, of Doctor Who fame), and she’s pretty great. Her gender identity is a very important part of her character and her story, but it’s not the only important part, and she’s one of the few Sensates that’s really instrumental in moving the Being Hunted plot forward. She’s funny and resourceful and, seriously, her love story with Amanita is easily the best romance in the whole show. Not that I want a spinoff of Sense8 — cause, why — but if there was going to be one, I’d want it to be about these two playing detective. The Nancy Drew shit is just the best.

Kala

Tina Desai

Kala, like Capheus, is quite endearing and I like her a great deal — but her story is definitely one of my least favorites, mostly because there just isn’t a lot to it. One review I read argued that her story seemed like it belonged to the wrong genre (Bollywood romantic drama, instead of SF action), and I don’t actually agree — one of the neat things about the whole concept of this show is how many different genres it can naturally tie together — but Kala begins the season with a dilemma on her hands and by the end of the season, not very much has changed. That annoys me, especially because the dilemma she’s facing already seemed pretty stretched. I don’t need Kala’s personal storyline to be as action-heavy as, say, Wolfgang or Will’s, but there were opportunities for much more interesting discussions about class and religion, opportunities that I think were missed.

Riley

Tuppence Middleton

Unfortunately, Riley is easily my least favorite character, the one that I’d care the least about if she was unceremoniously killed off for some reason. And it’s not that I dislike her, exactly, or that I don’t sympathize with her at times — because she’s gone through some pretty tragic shit — but she’s definitely the one I get the least sense of personality from. I don’t care much about the first half of her story, which kind of meanders, and the second half actually ends up getting a bit repetitive, particularly in the season finale when we keep getting flashbacks of stuff we’ve already figured out. (There’s a reason for it, I know, but there’s still something about it that doesn’t quite work for me.)

This isn’t to say that I couldn’t like Riley in future seasons, but right now she’s the only main character I haven’t really connected with in any particular way.

Wolfgang

Max Riemelt

Wolfgang turns out to be a lot violent fun, so yeah, I enjoy this guy. Like Sun, he’s also involved in some of the best action scenes — I particularly like the one where he needs Lito’s help because Wolfgang can shoot people and blow shit up but doesn’t know how to bullshit, particularly when his pride’s on the line. He’s also one of the only characters who has an important, non-romantic relationship outside of the cluster, a brother “by choice,” which I quite like (even if I like Flashback Felix a lot more than Current Felix).

Lito

Miguel Ángel Silvestre

Lito’s quite funny at times, and I like him, even if there’s one scene where I want to slap the shit out of him. (I get why he does what he does and I even feel sorry for him, a bit, but seriously. Screw you, guy.) His boyfriend, Hernando (Alfonso Herrera), is also just spectacular — seriously, Amanita and Hernando are way high up on my favorites list, particularly for people who aren’t even technically main characters.

But Lito does feel the least connected to the others for a very long time, so much so that when he finally starts directly talking to Nomi, it feels super jarring — like, wait, you know who Nomi is? You actually have some idea of what’s happening to you? I’m hopeful that second season will be able to figure out some of these occasional balance problems.

Will

Brian J. Smith

Will’s the guy you’d expect to be the protagonist of this piece — heterosexual white male American cop — and he, like Nomi, is instrumental in moving things along. But the story never feels solely about him, which I really like. Also, there’s something about Will that’s enjoyable. I’m not sure what it is, exactly, but there’s something about his performance or maybe his reactions that keeps him from being a generic action hero dude. Will’s actually one of my favorite characters, though I’d be hard-pressed to say why, especially since he’s the one constantly being caught talking to himself when he’s actually talking to someone halfway across the world. Due to my ongoing sympathetic embarrassment syndrome, this meant I had to watch at least half of Will’s scenes through my hands.

Dear God, people. Stop doing shit like this in public. You’re hurting me.

Jonas

Naveen Andrews

Finally, we have Jonas, who’s a Sensate like everyone above but doesn’t belong to their main cluster. He’s more like a mentor figure, I guess, except even now I’m not sure I fully trust this guy. Still, he’s interesting. Naveen Andrews sort of just oozes intrigue. Which is great because he’s the show’s main Exposition Fairy, and you’ve got to find something to keep that shit interesting.

4. As far as exposition goes — this show might actually benefit from a little bit more of it here and there. Not too much: I generally like that Sense8 forces you to work things out for yourself, and I never find the main story particularly confusing. (More on that in a sec.) But it wouldn’t hurt in Season 2 to remind the audience of some of the Rules: just who can talk to who, why this person can’t see that person, etc.

5. One of the main criticisms I’ve seen of Sense8 is that it’s either too slow or too confusing. (Or possibly both.) Personally, I don’t think it was either. The very first episode did drag a little for me, which is perhaps not surprising, considering it’s over an hour long. But while it does move at a slower pace than some shows, it really didn’t take very long to pick up, especially once the Sensates really starting interacting with one another, having actual drawn-out conversations instead of just feeling their emotions and shit. (Sense8 is probably not helped by the fact that, right now, fast-paced holy shit WTF TV is in high demand. That’s not a criticism, by the way; I like plenty of fast-paced WTF holy shit TV shows too; in fact, I find value in all kinds of pacing. But Sense8 isn’t quite on trend right now, which is probably hurting it in reviews.)

And yeah, I don’t find Sense8 hugely confusing, either. Which isn’t to say that I don’t have moments where I’m trying to figure out exactly how something is happening — for instance, in the very first scene, when a woman is talking in her head to two different men who can’t hear each other — but I understand the overall story just fine.

Which reminds me — if you’ll permit the brief digression — of Inception, actually. I recently watched this movie again (because Arthur/Eames 4EVER!) and while I still have moments where I have to remind myself who’s the current dreamer or who’s filling the dream with projections, the actual story itself seems pretty straightforward to me, to the point where I’m a little nonplussed when people tell me that they didn’t get it at all. (Though Troy’s breakdown about it will never not be funny, as all of Troy’s many breakdowns are.)

And it’s not like I’m some Story Genius who always understands everything — cause, HA — so I wonder if those technicalities are the hangup, if for some people they’re pivotal to understanding and appreciating the story, whereas for me they’re more like background noise, like — I don’t know — the science of FTL travel in science fiction. For some people, improbably handled FTL just kills the story. For me, what the fuck do I care, I barely understand how my television works, can we get back to the alien language that’s entirely centered around myth and metaphor, or at least give me some ships going pew pew pew and BOOM, please?

6. Finally, the car chases and fight scenes and all the big action stuff? They’re pretty awesome.

Spirit of Jean-Claude Korean Lady

What’s really great about this show is that everyone has a different talent or ability to help out the others. Some are more action-based than others (Wolfgang and Sun beat the crap out of people, while Kala primarily has science on her side and Lito’s best weapons are deception and flirting) but they’re all pretty useful, and it’s exciting to see all of the characters come together to help each other towards the end of the season.

It also, unfortunately, led Mekaela and I to the disheartening realization that if either of us were to become Sensates tomorrow, we wouldn’t have a lot of practical things to offer the team. I’m not bad at snarky one-liners, provided I don’t get flustered, and I could probably write the hell out of your English assignment, but yeah. That’s about what I’ve got.

I think I need to work harder on my kickboxing videos. Someday, somebody might be relying on my ability to throw a cross that’s actually worth a damn.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

I will now switch to the ABC system to discuss a handful of random things I couldn’t mention above.

A. I was well-prepared for the orgy scene; in fact, in true Carlie fashion, I found myself asking, “Hey, I wonder when that psychic orgy I keep hearing about will happen,” right before we watched the episode where it did.

I was not, however, prepared for the multiple delivery scenes.

This is the PG version, not the version you get in Sense8, or your Health Education class

Honestly, I wasn’t actually a big fan of this scene, and not just because I was startled by actually witnessing a baby crowning. (I may work in Labor & Delivery, but dudes, I’m generally at the desk, not the delivery room. I didn’t even actually watch that Health Education video.) I’ve seen plenty of things on my television that I didn’t feel a deep, abiding need to see in HD, though (read: penises), and survived. I just figured this was more of that.

No, the real reason I didn’t care for this scene was that the logic of it tripped me. So far (and since) the Sensates haven’t remembered anything beyond their own natural ability to recollect; that is to say, they can experience each other’s nonsense, sure, but there’s nothing about their telepathic, body-swapping powers that indicates that any of them would have the capability to remember their own births. Remembering Riley giving birth, sure. Remembering Riley being born, what?

Maybe this is something they’ll go into further in second season, but right now it feels like a mistake to me. Also, I’ll be honest: there’s one other thing about this scene that bugged me, too, and it’s one of those times when I know I’m probably reading too much into it . . . but it just needles me anyway.

So, we see all of our eight main characters get born, some of them home births or water births or accidental cemetery births. (Seriously, Sun’s Mom. Did you have one contraction and your kid fell out? I’m seriously raising my eyebrow at this.) And they’re all painted as pretty miraculous . . . except the one hospital birth, the C-section that Nomi’s Awful Mom gets. It’s not terrible, I guess, but it’s clearly the most traumatic of all the births (saving Riley giving birth to her daughter, for obvious reasons), and . . . look, this is just one of those things I get tetchy about. There’s a lot of bullshit with our healthcare system in America — one of my friends is constantly dealing with it right now, and it’s infuriating and awful to see her suffer because of it — and I do my best to never deny anyone else’s experience in the hospital because, hey, I wasn’t there and I didn’t see their treatment.

But it grates me a little when my experiences don’t count, when I see a lot of hardworking healthcare employees get summarily dismissed as invasive or even threatening — and I feel like this happens especially with Labor & Delivery. The narrative that nurses will try to force you to get an epidural or that doctors will just rush you into C-section for no reason at all or that midwives won’t try other delivery positions with you — that might resonate with your experience, but it sure as hell doesn’t resonate with mine. Not to mention, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with wanting either a home birth or a hospital birth. I don’t think that either has to be less miraculous. So, yeah. Like I said, tetchy.

B. Related (though less of a rant, hopefully): Nomi is briefly kept prisoner at what I’m assuming is some kind of private hospital, and Evil Doctor Dude is going to lobotomize her for Whisper’s people. This obviously isn’t a normal situation, so I’m trying not to call bullshit on too much — especially since I’ve only worked in one hospital, so maybe certain details about her treatment aren’t as ludicrous as they seem to me. But between the hard core old school leather restraints, the locked door which is clearly a fire hazard, and the ridiculously fast power of attorney/patient declared incompetent shit that apparently all happens while Nomi’s unconscious . . . yeah. I was definitely making my WTF face.

C. I generally like how most of the stories resolve — Wolfgang gets bloody vengeance, Lito makes up with Hernando (and stops prioritizing his career over an abused woman and friend) — but the fact that Kala doesn’t definitively decide to marry her dude or break off the engagement drives me nuts.

I obviously didn’t want to marry you in the very first episode, but . . . STILL SO CONFLICTED.

This isn’t okay. This is, at best, a season-length arc — and honestly, it probably could have resolved even earlier than that. I thought they might go more interesting places with Rajan’s family’s possibly shady connections, not to mention the brewing conflict between Rajan’s Daddy and the devout Hindus — but Daddy’s stabbing feels a little abrupt and almost like an aside, like the showrunners realized that Kala just didn’t have enough to do to fill a whole season. Seriously, you can only hem and haw about if you want to marry a guy for so long, especially when you clearly don’t.

And can we be clear about something? When Wolfgang’s all, “You have to marry this dude that I’ve telling you not to marry ALL season because I’m a monster?”

Bullshit.

Seriously. I can totally see Kala having second thoughts about dating a dude she just watched brutally execute his own uncle; that seems perfectly legitimate to me. But it’s not like she only has two choices in the world, you know? Wolfgang and Rajan are not the only XY fish in the sea, and Kala was clearly having second thoughts long before Wolfgang and his giant German penis popped up to interrupt her wedding. This whole one-or-the-other horseshit? Unacceptable. Kala, I need you to climb up on that cross Wolfgang’s busy hanging himself on and knock some damn sense into him. Please, cause I just find that shit infuriating.

D. So far, the cluster has two romantic pairings: Wolfgang & Kala, and Will & Riley. I think Wolfgang & Kala have better chemistry, but Will & Riley are okay — I’m just not particularly invested in them as a couple. (I think they actually meet each other before Wolfgang & Kala do, but somehow their love connection feels even more sudden. To be fair, though, the very nature of Sensates makes me buy into Instant Love more than I normally do.)

Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, Riley is really the only character who hasn’t been able to contribute much to the other Sensates. That’s okay for now, but I hope in Season 2 that changes — and maybe that means I’ll like her more?

E. Though I’m still bothered by one thing: what the hell even happened to Riley, anyway?

Okay, Riley’s at her father’s concert when everyone starts reliving their own births for whatever reason. And Riley relives not only her own birth but the holy shit traumatic delivery of her own child, which happens like so: her husband, trying to get her to the midwife, crashes the car in the middle of snowy nowhere and dies, leaving her alone to give birth. Unfortunately, she’s still in the middle of the aforementioned snowy nowhere, and the baby dies of exposure.

So, Riley’s rocking an impressive case of depression and PTSD, which I’m fine with. How these things lead her to have the most epic nosebleed ever, though, I have no idea. Seriously, did I miss something? It’s okay if I missed something — I just don’t understand how a PTSD flashback apparently caused a stay in ICU, and it’s kind of a Thing, considering this leads to Whispers coming for her and the big rescue mission of the finale.

F. Going into the finale, I was pretty worried about Will — specifically, that he would finally look at Whispers and have to kill himself to save the rest of the cluster. So when Will does, indeed, accidentally see Whispers, I was like, well, fuck.

But when Jonas tells him he has to kill himself to save the cluster, Will’s like, “Yeah, no.” Admittedly, Jonas is telling him to kill Riley too, and we all knew that wouldn’t happen — I figured her rescue was pretty much guaranteed — but I really did think Will was going to bite it, so I was very happy when he found another way out. Admittedly, drugging yourself into unconsciousness for an indefinite amount of time isn’t, like, an awesome solution, but it beats eating a bullet. Anyway, I was very happy the story didn’t go to the predictable place.

What will happen in Season 2? Will Will — heh — be asleep until the others can pull off some daring mission to kill Whispers? Or will he be able to wake up, so long as he’s kept in a room he doesn’t recognize without windows? And how about everyone else — will anyone rescue Jonas? Will Sun bust out of jail? Will those papers she signed come into play? Will Kala finally call off her engagement?

Renew this series, Netflix. It’s not flawless but it’s definitely engaging, and I want to know what happens to these people next.

QUOTES:

Capheus: “Spirit of Jean-Claude Korean Lady, I know you have more important things to do, but for me nothing is more important.”

Will: “Do I know you?”
Lito: “We had sex.”

Jela: “How can I tell them apart if you keep calling all my friends ‘motherfucker’ . . . oh, it’s this motherfucker.”

Hernando: “In the end, we will all be judged by the courage of our hearts.”

Prisoner: “Do you miss your family?”
Sun: “No. I miss my dog.”

Wolfgang: “He’s my brother. Not by something as accidental as blood. By something much stronger.”
Kala “What?”
Wolfgang: “By blood.”

Capheus: “It worked better in the movie.”

Sun: “I take everything I’m feeling, everything that matters to me. I push all of it into my fist, and I fight for it.”

Will: “My dad was shot.”
DeShawn: “Dead?”
Will: “Some parts of him.”

Nomi: “The real violence, the violence I realized was unforgivable, is the violence we do to ourselves when we’re too afraid to be who we really are.”

Lito: “I see you with your fucking villain mustache!”

Capheus: “Maybe he’s right.”
Jela: “No.”
Capheus: “Maybe Jean-Claude’s time is over.”
Jela: “No, never, come on, Capheus! Van Damme is a man. He doesn’t need costumes and gadgets to fight. He fights with his fist and with his heart.”

Jela: “Everyone must pay.”
Customer: “Here.”
Jela: “What am I supposed to do with this?”
Customer: “This is worth more than the fare.”
Jela: “Look, I believe you, but how am I to make change out of a chicken?”
Customer: “Send me an egg.”

Sun: “I do not understand this. So, if you do not mind, I prefer to assume you’re a hallucination.”

Sam: “You’re just another colonizing male trying to take up any space left to women.”
Amanita: “Sam, say one more thing about my girlfriend, and I’m going to colonize your face with my fist.”

Kala: “I mean Rajan is, according to everyone — including my mom’s astrologer — the perfect husband for me.”

Hernando: “I’m sorry. You know I’m just jealous. I want to be your arm piece.”
Lito: “Why to be jealous of the arm when you already have my heart?”
Hernando: “. . . what movie’s that from?”

Hernando: “I think perhaps I misjudged Ms. Valesquez.”

Amanita: “Something is going on. I don’t know what it is, but until we do, I will burn this building down before I let anyone touch that beautiful brain.”

Daniela: “Oh, I see. So as long as I didn’t know the truth, you were fine with using me, making me feel like you cared about me, but now that I know the truth, you prefer to dump me, move on, and use someone else?”
Lito: “No, no, no, no.”
Hernando: “Interesting. I’ve said the exact same thing to him. Lito, I like this girl.”

Bad Dude: “Shut the fuck up!”
Jela: “Love to! Happy to! Shutting the fuck up is a specialty of mine!”

Uncle: “It would be an irony of Shakespearian proportions if a son fucked his own life cracking the safe his father failed to crack.”

Female Prisoner 1: “You stole all of those investors’ money.”
Female Prisoner 2: “Shamed her father and brother.”
Female Prisoner 3: “And almost destroyed their company.”
Female Prisoner 2: “Well done.”

Capheus: “How amazing is this, huh? I’ve never been on a plane. You are so lucky.”
Riley: “No, I’m not lucky.”
Capheus: “Of course you are! You are flying above clouds.”
Riley: “Privileged, not lucky.”

Amanita: “Oh wow, it worked!”
Nomi: “You read that in a book?”
Amanita: “The power of literature.”

Nomi: “We make such a good team.”
Amanita: “Maybe Bug’s right and we should become a crime-fighting dynamic duo.”
Nomi: “I think we already are.”

Nomi: “This guy is as interesting as a mouthful of sawdust. He doesn’t even have any porn stashed away.”
Amanita: “No porn? He is weird.” (gasps as she picks up a picture) “Oh, my God, Nomi. BFFs with Cheney. He’s gotta be evil.”

(Amanita finds Nancy Drew book.)
Amanita: “Uh-oh. He can’t be all bad!”

Kala: “My love for science doesn’t preclude my faith.”

Will: “Shit, there’s four guards.”
Sun: “Is that all?”

Riley: “Death doesn’t let you say goodbye. It just carves holes in your life, in your future, in your heart.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Fun. Interesting. Some balance problems, one or two convenience issues, and I am seriously unhappy with Kala’s lack of resolution. Still, the concept is fascinating and the characters, for the most part, are really well drawn. Excited to see where this one goes.

MVP:

Jamie Clayton, I think. Other contenders: Aml Ameen, Brian J. White

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B+

MORAL:

Glass elevators are the worst.

All right, people. After several days of frantically dodging spoilers on social media, I FINALLY saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

The more I think about it, the more I find small flaws and nitpicks, but overall I had a great time watching this.

SUMMARY:

Hm, shall we err on the side of vagueness today? How about this: thirty-ish years after the events of The Return of the Jedi, the galaxy is still being threatened by the remnants of the Empire, now known as the First Order. Luckily, there is still the Rebel Alliance Resistance fighting them off. Also, we’re introduced to a scrappy young band of new heroes, namely a scavenger, a fighter pilot, and a Stormtrooper who deserts his post.

NOTES:

1. Here’s the thing: I was excited to see this movie, but unlike the rest of the internet, I did not get particularly misty-eyed when I watched Han tell Chewie, “We’re home,” in that one teaser trailer. I felt vaguely bad about this, but eventually made peace with the fact that I had no heart and moved on about my day.

Watching it in theater was different. And I don’t know if it’s just because the tiny pieces of my geek soul finally caught up to me, or I was just having an emotional day (later on, I also broke down during the season finale of Adam Ruins Everything, although in my defense, that shit was totally depressing), but when STAR WARS appeared on the big screen, followed by the opening scroll, I was mildly horrified to realize I was actually tearing up. I was also excited, though, so excited I almost forgot I had to actually read the opening scroll this time.

Cause the thing is, this felt different to me. I grew up with the original trilogy, but I’m too young to have seen any of them in theater. I did see The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones in theater, but . . . yeah. I didn’t despise The Phantom Menace when I watched it, but it didn’t feel special to me, either; it didn’t feel like a return, you know? And the dialogue in Attack of the Clones was so bad it turned me off the new trilogy entirely, so that, to this day, I still haven’t seen Revenge of the Sith. (I really meant to watch all of them this year and give everything a second chance, but never quite got around to it. Maybe in 2016?)

This, though. I sat in theater and finally had my “Chewie, we’re home” moment, and that was pretty cool.

(Especially since someone brought their four-year-old along to periodically kick the back of my seat throughout the film, and that sense of wonder helped me grit my teeth and remember that I actually like children, usually, when I’m not stuck in a theater or on an airplane with them.)

2. The Force Awakens is basically A New Hope for a brand new generation. That is simultaneously the best and worst thing about it.

On one hand (the positive, happy hand–keep your lewd jokes to yourself, people), The Force Awakens feels like the old Star Wars movies and is chockfull of great homages to the past films while updating the story with some much needed diversity. A female hero! A black hero! A Latino hero! Also, the humor is really excellent in this film, like the comedy totally outshines anything in the past. In the middle of watching, I distinctly remember thinking, This might actually be my favorite Star Wars movie.

On the other, more negative hand, the basic plot of The Force Awakens is so derivative of A New Hope as to be a little lazy, and it’s not like A New Hope had a particularly exciting plot structure itself, since it’s basically a step-by-step model of the hero’s journey, but with lightsabers and neat, cinnamon bun hair. I won’t detail all the similarities between the two films until the Spoiler Section, but there’s definitely a way to invoke the feel of something without directly copying it, and I think The Force Awakens falls down a little in that regard.

3. But back to the happy. Let’s talk about our new heroes.

Rey

Daisy Ridley

Rey’s pretty great. She’s funny, smart, badass, interesting. She needs very little rescue from her male co-leads, and has a mysterious past that I’m looking forward to exploring in the future films. I buy her character and Ridley’s performance entirely.

Of course, Max Landis and others have called Rey a Mary Sue because, I guess, she has all the qualities that make an action hero great and just happens to be a woman? I mean, there’s an argument to be had about a hero being so awesome that the story fails to have tension or stakes; the problem is that a) The Force Awakens HAS tension and stakes, and b) people are far, far less likely to call out that particular story flaw, so long as that awesome hero is a man. (I’m bummed here, by the way, about Max Landis. I really like Chronicle, which he wrote, not to mention The Death and Return of Superman. I still like those things, but it’s nonetheless disappointing when you find out that someone whose work you’ve admired or enjoyed has opinions you seriously disagree with.)

I won’t talk too much more about the Mary Sue thing, partially because a lot of other writers are already handling the topic, and partially because I was already planning to write this thing next month about the whole concept of Mary Sues, but just for the record: Rey is totally awesome, and if you find her that unbelievable . . . well, fine, you don’t have to like her. But try thinking of it this way: maybe she isn’t for you. Maybe, just for once, you’re not the target audience. Feel free to repeat this to yourself if you’re also struggling with the shocking idea of black people in the Star Wars universe.

Finn

John Boyega

I pretty much adored Finn. John Boyega brings the humor in a big way, but I also buy his more serious moments too, which is great. I really hope we get more on his backstory; I feel like there’s a lot that can and oughta be fleshed out, and I’ll probably be a little annoyed if it never is.

Also, not for nothing: Boyega’s American accent is spot-on. I actually forgot he was English for a good solid ten minutes before remembering that, Nope, this is the kid from Attack the Block. The American is a lie.

Poe Dameron 

Oscar Isaac

Because of the way the story plays out, Poe doesn’t have as much to do as Rey or Finn, but I liked him pretty much immediately. He kind of feels like a throwback to an old school space swashbuckler, like he’s the cocky, quippy, fighter pilot dude who’s not really scared of much and can fly pretty much anything. I’ll talk more about him in the Spoiler Section (well, all of them, really), but for now I’ll just say that I found Poe rather charming.

4. We also have the return of some of our old heroes.

It was mostly good to see them all again, but for the most part, I’m going to table this discussion until I can continue with spoilers. For now what I’ll say is that it was a little strange listening to Leia since Carrie Fisher’s voice has changed with age. Mind you, that’s not a knock or anything. People, like, age. It’s just that Han basically still just sounds like Han, and Leia sounds almost like a whole different person. I guess I just wasn’t expecting it because I’ve seen Carrie Fisher in plenty of things since Star Wars, and her voice has never seemed off to me until I watched her as Leia again, and that dumb part of my brain was like, “But . . . wait?”

5. And to talk a little bit about our bad guys:

Kylo Ren

Adam Driver

For the most part, Kylo works for me pretty well. I wouldn’t call him a hugely intimidating villain, but he has just enough character to be interesting. Although I read one review that called him “sympathetic and menacing,” and I’m like, “Menacing, maybe, but uh, sympathetic? Yeah, meet me at camera three, guys.” Kylo primarily works for me because I don’t find him particularly sympathetic; if I was supposed to . . . well, we might have problems in future films. Much more on that in a while.

General Hux

Domhnall Gleeson

Gleeson does everything he’s supposed to do in this movie, and I don’t dislike him, exactly, but . . . unless there’s a plot twist where it’s revealed that he’s secretly a younger clone of Grand Moff Tarkin, I’m not really sure  what to do with him. I meant what I said before, about liking a lot of the specific homages to the original trilogy, but after a while, the movie starts staggering under the weight of just how many homages there are. Gleeson feels so much like Tarkin that it’s nearly impossible to judge him as his own character.

Captain Phasma

Gwendoline Christie

My brain keeps trying to insist her name is Captain Plasma. Go home, brain, you’re drunk.

Captain Phasma is kind of cool, although Christie is almost as criminally underused here as she was in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part II, so hopefully she gets a lot more to do in future movies. Then again, maybe we should all just try to start a cult love of Phasma, anyway. After all, it worked with Boba Fett, and really, what did he do except die extremely ingloriously?

Finally, we also have our new Emperor dude, Supreme Leader Snoke, and . . . guys, I snickered every single time we went back to this loser. He appears to be some kind of fifty foot tall abomination that’s like a weird mix of Gollum and the aliens from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Holy shit, he was actually played by Andy Serkis? Hand to God, I didn’t actually know that. Unfortunately, it doesn’t make me like Snoke any better.) I just couldn’t take him even remotely seriously. I understand why we couldn’t have Ian McDiarmid back, but maybe we could have done, like, anything else with this guy’s design. Like, we could have modeled him after the Gatekeeper in Atmosfear. (Skip about 18 minutes, if you click on that link, unless you really want to know the rules for a V/H/S board game that you almost certainly don’t have because it’s just about 2016, come tomorrow.) Sure, the Gatekeeper was basically the Emperor already, but come on, I think we all know The Force Awakens wasn’t too worried about being original.

6. Other than Snoke, I thought the film looked pretty great. I’m afraid I don’t have any particularly deep analysis on that: it just looked and felt like old school Star Wars to me. (Nobody has any crazy Amidala-esque hairstyles, unfortunately, but I won’t hold that against the film.)

7. Finally, the script generally works for me–I’m pretty sure I preferred the dialogue here to the old movies, actually, although my opinion on that might change after a second viewing–but holy shit, there are a couple of moments where the lack of subtlety just killed me dead. Like, come on, guys. If you’re going to be that obvious about your symbolism, you might as well just show the scene with captions that read: “Get it? GET IT?”

Everything else I want to say includes spoilers, but you’ve probably already seen The Force Awakens, right? Like, it’s been out for weeks. If you haven’t seen it, what have you been doing with your life?

Assuming you have your priorities in place, you may continue onward.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, I was pretty bummed when I first heard that the new Star Wars trilogy was going to include the old Star Wars characters, and The Force Awakens proves that my fears were founded: Han Solo bites it.

Of course, it’s not that surprising that Han Solo bites it. For one, it’s that whole ‘the old gives way to the new’ thing that generally happens as franchises age. Our once-young heroes are now old enough to be the mentors, and mentors die: that’s just a fact. For another thing, Harrison Ford is a grumpy old bastard who’s wanted Han Solo to die for years. Going into this movie, I had a pretty good idea that he was going to go, and if it wasn’t him, it’d be Luke or Chewie. (I was never particularly worried about Leia, for some reason; I would have put money down that she’d survive, and hey, she did.)

So, sure, it wasn’t a shock. And the death doesn’t feel entirely cheap, either, even if it was obvious that Han was a goner from the very moment he stepped out onto that bridge. (Although, for me, it felt a little bit too reminiscent of Obi-Wan dying in A New Hope, particularly with Finn and Rey watching on, and for fuck’s sake: Kylo kills Han the second the sunlight is obscured!? Jesus. Yes, J.J. Abrams, I understood Poe’s hideously clunky line, “As long as there’s light, we’ve got a chance!” YOU ARE KILLING ME, MAN. I mean, I like your work more than a lot of my friends do, and I don’t give a shit if you want a lens flare every 25 seconds or not, but the foreshadow in your movies hurts me. Do we need to talk about the dead tribble again?)

Okay. My point, before I got off track, was this: eventually, you hit a mark where your heroes have survived so long that, if they were killed off, all you’d feel is bummed out and annoyed. My favorite example of this is NCIS–uh, SPOILERS here, although seriously, that show’s been on for like twelve years or something, so, like, deal with it. At the end of the second season, Kate, one of the main characters, is killed, and it’s kind of awesome. Not because I hated Kate or anything; she was generally fine, but it was a really well-handled, surprising moment, particularly for a procedural where killing off characters is a little trickier. (NCIS ain’t exactly The Walking Dead. You’re supposed to win in procedurals; that’s kind of the whole point.)

So, yeah, Kate’s death was a totally good, daring moment of the show. But nobody would have wanted to see her die in Season Ten, just for a Shocking Moment. That’s bullshit. Ziva was Kate’s replacement, and admittedly, I’ve always liked Ziva better than Kate. But if Ziva had died after eleven seasons when Cote de Pablo wanted to leave? Nope. Nobody wants that. At a certain point, you’ve been watching people long enough that you feel that they (and frankly, you) deserve to have a happy ending.

The Return of the Jedi came out in 1983. We’ve all known that Han, Leia, and Luke have been living their Happy Ever After for over 30 years . . . until now. Now, Han’s been murdered by his own evil son, impaled on a lightsaber and tossed to his doom. Call me silly, but that bums me the hell out. I feel like I’m going to go back and watch the original trilogy now, and every time Han makes it out of some scrape, I’m going to be like, “Yeah, you’re alive for now.” And of course it’s true that everyone dies, but I’ve got to tell you, I don’t really come to Star Wars looking for nihilism. I want cool lightsaber battles, not an existential crisis.

So, yeah. All of this is to say that while Han Solo dying isn’t ultimately a problem I have with the film, it does, for me, definitely detract from my enjoyment of the story. Maybe this will happen less and less with repeat viewings, but for now I’m just like, You bastards, you’re ruining my childhood! What’s next? John McClane? Maverick? INIGO MONTOYA?

Okay, let’s see. Well, perhaps we should talk some more about the similarities between A New Hope and The Force Awakens.

So, even during the movie’s opening scroll, I couldn’t help but feel a tiny bit letdown that in thirty years essentially nothing had changed in the political landscape of the Star Wars universe. Of course it would be silly and unrealistic to assume the entire Empire was destroyed simply because the Emperor was dead, but some movement here would not have been a terrible idea.

Instead, it’s almost as if the events of The Return of Jedi had zero effect at all because, apparently, all that’s really happened is that the major factions have changed names. Everything else is the same: the Resistance is still the underdog, the First Order still favors totalitarianism, despite not seeming to have any real clear platforms or goals about what they plan to do with the whole universe anyway. (One just assumes they’re big 1984 fans, you know, “the object of power is power” and so forth.) Even their methodology hasn’t changed: the First Order just keeps building bigger and bigger Death Stars (that are totally different this time because they can take out multiple planets at once!) and the Resistance keeps destroying them with their little dinky ass planes because their whole “The Little Guy Always Wins” philosophy is reflected even in their starship design.

I’m saying, none of it’s terrible, but The Force Awakens would be a lot neater if it felt like the original trilogy had any sort of consequence on the universe, particular because the plot feels so recycled. After all, the movie begins with one of our heroes sticking a vital message into a droid and releasing it on a desert planet to keep it out of the hands of the bad guys. Of course, this time our hero is Poe instead of Leia, the droid is BB-8 instead of R2-D2, and the message is about Luke’s whereabouts instead of blueprints for the Death Star, but yeah, it’s the same godamn plot. And sure, that’s obviously intentional and might even have been something I would’ve enjoyed conceptually, but since the plot continuously echoes the original and never really veers anywhere new, I find myself, on reflection, more and more disappointed by the film’s lack of originality.

But let’s get back to the story, shall we?

Okay, so our dashing pilot hero, Poe, is captured by Kylo Ren (and not Rylo Ken, which I keep trying to write), who turns out to be Han and Leia’s evil child. A bunch of people seem to think Rey is also their child, but while I wouldn’t mind the nod to the tie-in novels, I hope that isn’t the case, mostly because the writers would have to work awful hard to make me believe that Han and Leia happened to have another kid who nobody decided to mention during this movie. I mean, that just seems like shoddy writing. Personally, I’m in favor of the fan theory that Rey is one of the kids who was training to be a Jedi before that little asshole Kylo decided to kill all of them.

Because oh yeah, this guy?

SUCH an asshole.

When we meet Kylo Ren, he’s busy killing a harmless old man and also burning down an entire village, so, you know, sympathy is already a little hard to come by. Like, you can’t just say, “Whoops, my bad, I probably shouldn’t have done that. It wasn’t my fault! The Dark Side made me!” Mass murder isn’t like shoplifting a pack of gum; the excuse of peer pressure really isn’t going to cut it.

Now, we do know that Kylo feels some inner turmoil about all this, but not because he acts particularly conflicted throughout the film. No, we mostly know about his inner pain because he confesses being drawn to the Light while talking to the twisted shell of a helmet that his dead grandfather used to wear, like, oh okay, that’s normal. But seriously, inner turmoil only counts for so much. After killing Max von Sydow and dozens of helpless extras, Kylo Ren also tortures Poe, tries to torture Rey (while doing that creepy too-close talking thing that male characters are always doing to women, like, I bet you guys everything that Kylo wasn’t all up slithering on Poe Dameron’s cheek) and then, if that wasn’t enough, blowing up entire planets of innocent people. And that’s all before he murders his father/beloved fan favorite of the franchise.

Star Wars has always been desperately weird when it comes to family. For one thing, so much seems to rely on genetic predisposition, like Luke isn’t a farmer because his dad wasn’t a farmer, despite the fact that he never met the man, and Kylo Ren is swayed to the Dark Side because he has too much of his grandfather in him, despite the fact that Darth Vader was dead long before this kid was even born and his parents are pretty godamn awesome. Does this mean a certain aptitude for the Force is a dominant genetic trait? After all, even Leia has Force intuition, although it doesn’t appear she ever learned to levitate shit. And perhaps the inescapable pull to the Dark Side is recessive, since it seemed to skip Leia and Luke (please, he was tempted for, like, a second) but hit Kylo (or Ben) pretty hardcore. What I’m saying here is that Darth Vader’s spunk apparently had some serious godamn staying power, and I think more essays about Star Wars should talk about that.

For another thing, though, being related to one of the story’s heroes probably shouldn’t garner the audience’s automatic sympathy for any one character, like, this is Darth Vader going to Glowy Blue Jedi Heaven all over again, despite all the terrible things he’s done, including Little Kid Slaughter. I mean, for Christ’s sake, he is standing a foot away from the man he fucking murdered. But we’re supposed to forgive him because he had one measly moment of, Huh, maybe I SHOULDN’T let this guy kill my son in front of me? What kind of bullshit is that?  The last thing you do, whether it’s good or bad, shouldn’t be the only thing you do that matters.

If I’m honestly supposed to sympathize with Kylo (up till the point where he kills Han, anyway, because I’m pretty sure that’s the No Going Back moment–as if murdering all his fellow Jedi classmates prior to the movie was just an example of the foibles of youth), well, the movie completely failed to make that happen, kind of like how nobody actually feels sorry for Anakin Skywalker even though you’re supposed to, because Anakin’s a whiny piece of shit. There are obviously plenty of parallels between young Anakin Skywalker and Kylo Ren, but what I enjoyed about Kylo was that I felt like the movie was inviting me not to give a shit, not that he’s a parody of Anakin, exactly, but that he’s never meant to be the tragic figure Anakin’s supposed to be. (It’s probably worth mentioning that, thus far, none of the Star Wars movies have sold me on the oh-so-tempting power of the Dark Side. Like, when it comes to makeup, I totally get it. Dark Side’s makeup obviously kick’s Light Side’s ass. But the movies themselves have always had a very tell, don’t show storytelling approach to this that’s never really won me over.)

While watching the film, I felt like Kylo was intentionally built up as a villain who you love to hate, an angsty, almost adolescent type guy who needlessly murders people and constantly throws temper tantrums when things don’t go his way. That interpretation works for me, so we’ll see how his character develops over the course of the trilogy, because if I’m supposed to feel sorry for him (or worse, if they actually do try to redeem him later on), well, we’re going to have problems.

(By the way, Kylo’s big temper tantrum–I think after Rey escapes?–was one of the funniest moments in the whole movie. Two Stormtroopers come up as he’s in the midst of his giant hissy fit, and just as Mek and I are silently gesturing, Run, Stormtroopers, run, the Stormtroopers slowly back away and leave. I laughed so hard I clapped.)

Okay. Back to the beginning, again. Evil Sulkmonster Kylo Ren captures Poe and successfully tortures information out of him with the Force.

Meanwhile, Finn (or FN-2187), is a Stormtrooper who’s horrified when he’s asked to help slaughter that entire village, so he breaks Poe out of his cell and they escape together.

Two things about this:

A. Like all Stormtroopers, apparently, Finn was abducted (either at birth or a very young age), conscripted into duty, and brainwashed. Somehow, Finn easily shakes off that conditioning, and I’d be pretty disappointed if the sequels don’t follow up on that. I don’t necessarily need to know where Finn comes from or who his parents were or anything (unless that’s significant to how he broke through the brainwashing, which, given the weird genetic predispositions of Star Wars, it probably is), but I would definitely like to know more about his upbringing and exactly how and when Finn grew a moral conscience, if it never properly worked on him, if it’s not working on other Stormtroopers as well, etc. Also, who was Finn’s dead friend from the beginning? I mean, sure, they probably just added him so that Finn could get blood on his helmet and be distinguishable from all the other dudes in white armor, but Stormtrooper Friendship is fascinating and I’d love more expansion on that.

B. Finn and Poe are my new OTP.

Apparently, our ship is called Stormpilot.

Here’s the thing: The Force Awakens was out for almost a week before I had the opportunity to see it. During that time, I tried desperately to avoid reading spoilers online and was, for the most part, successful, but my eyes scanned over something on Twitter that made it sound like a Finn/Poe romance was canon. I turned away very fast and was about 98% sure I’d misread it–mostly because if the two had kissed, I was pretty sure no amount of caution could have stopped me from seeing Gay Star Wars! all over the internet–but I kept it in mind, and when I watched the two characters in the movie . . . I was like, Hell YES, I want that.

There’s just . . . I don’t know, some kind of chemistry there. I honestly don’t expect the relationship to bloom into a romance (partially because I think they’ll go Finn/Rey, particularly with that line about boyfriends, and partially because I just don’t think anyone in Hollywood is bold enough to have the main heroes of their giant mainstream blockbuster franchise be gay, unfortunately) but I’d be ecstatic to be wrong about that. Because I was into it, and because it’d be a big deal to have action heroes who weren’t straight. Not a tragic gay romance or a family dramady with a gay brother or something, but badass gay fighter pilots and rogues. Like, let’s make that whole ‘this generation’s Star Wars’ really mean something, you know?

So, okay, Finn and Poe crash-land on Jakku, and Poe appears to be dead. Poe is totally not dead, which you know because you don’t see his body. What’s funny about this is that I was actually really worried about Poe, right up until the moment you’re supposed to think he’s a goner, because there was something about that opening scene that made me think, Oh shit, he’s going to be a fake out hero. He’s going to be one of those guys that’s heavily promoted as a big star, but he’s really just the dude who sets up the plot and gets killed in the first act, paving way for our REAL heroes to take the stage. I was pretty much convinced when Poe explains to Finn why BB-8’s important and what he looks like, and kind of bummed about it because there’s just something about the guy that’s immediately charming. But when there was no body left behind, just a fabulous jacket, I was like, Oh, okay, I’m pretty sure he’s coming back. Cool beans.

Two things, quickly, before we move on:

A. About that jacket . . . wasn’t Poe wearing it when he escaped? I’ve only seen this movie once, so maybe he took it off when he got into the TIE fighter for some reason, and I just forgot? Because I initially assumed that Poe wasn’t thrown from the crash like Finn was; I figured he’d woken up, found Finn was gone, and went to go looking for him. And I was like, That’s weird he left he jacket behind, like, it’s almost a stupidly convenient passing of the hero mantle. But I could have sworn he was wearing it when they crashed, right?

B. Apparently, JJ Abrams’s initial plan was to kill off Poe, so ha! Instincts! Also, this is just like Lost all over again, although, hopefully, Poe will remain considerably more lovable than Jack ever was.

So, Poe goes missing for most of the movie, and the story shifts focus to Finn and Rey. Rey, of course, has come across BB-8 and saved him from people who would salvage him for parts. There’s no way I’m actually going to recap everything that happens during this movie, not with a review thats already’s probably upwards of 5,000 words, so this seems as a good of a time as any to stop and talk in more detail about how awesome Rey is.

Cause, yeah, Rey is awesome. She’s funny and super competent and, while she doesn’t know how to do everything right away, has the typical action hero learning curve where she figures it out pretty fast. She rescues herself. She has a mysterious past and a child’s hope that whoever abandoned her will someday come back.

And, oh yeah, she also has THE FORCE.

I’d make a lousy Jedi. The Jedi philosophy doesn’t do much for me and never has, but nonetheless, I (and many girl nerds, I imagine) have always been disappointed that there were no girl Jedi characters, that all the telekinetic action and big glow stick fencing battles were reserved for those with penises. So it’s a big deal to me, to finally have a girl pick up a lightsaber or read someone’s thoughts or command weak-willed Stormtroopers to do what she wants, particularly when I believe there are only, what, four women with speaking roles in the entire original trilogy? And only two of of those characters are actually named in the films. (No, Mon Mothma doesn’t count. They don’t say her name in the movie.) If you go here, you can see every line spoken by a woman who isn’t Princess Leia in the entire original trilogy. The whole video, including credits, is less than two minutes long.

I think this is why I wasn’t really upset when JJ Abrams said that Star Wars would no longer be a boy’s thing. I think a lot of female fans felt like Abrams was effectively trying to erase them with that statement, like oh thanks, Great Male Savior, but I’ve liked Star Wars pretty much my whole life without your help, and I think I’ll just go ahead and keep on doing that, okay? I totally get that reaction because it can be incredibly frustrating to be treated like you’re some rare mythical creature, like, a girl willingly entering a comic book store on her own with the intent of purchasing comics for herself? WHAT SORCERY IS THIS?

Still, that’s not really how I took Abrams’s comments when I read them myself. I, personally, assumed that he’d made an effort to actively be more inclusive, that he wanted The Force Awakens to have more interesting and active female roles that little girls could get excited about. Because while there are plenty of girls who’ve been fans of the Star Wars universe for years, I’m sure there are plenty of other girls who looked at the original trilogy and said, “Fuck this shit. I’m going to go watch a movie where the male to female ratio of the entire universe isn’t 99 billion to 1.” Which is a fair reaction. (Especially for non-Caucasian girls, who get absolutely zero representation in the first trilogy. Things unfortunately aren’t much improved in The Force Awakens on that front, at least from what I remember . . . obviously, Lupita N’yongo is in it, playing some kind of Barkeep Yoda character, but since she also looks like this, you know, it’s not quite the same sort of presence that John Boyega has. It’s possible that I’m forgetting more minor characters, though. Like I said, I’ve only seen this once.)

Anyway, overall, The Force Awakens gets a yay, feminism! vote for me. It’s not just Rey, although obviously seeing a super competent girl-Jedi is a huge plus. It’s also that you see a few more women in the background, too, like they actually exist in this universe now. I was unreasonably happy about the female fighter pilot. She didn’t even do that much, and I was so excited to see her.

(Now if we could only get the toys to catch up. If you’re reading this more because you like me than because you know or care anything about Star Wars toy merchandising, look at these links to get an idea of just how hard it is to find Rey action figures, despite the fact that she’s the main character. This is what you get when you search “Poe Toy Star Wars Force Awakens.” This is what you get when you search “Finn Toy Star Wars Force Awakens.” And this is what you get when you search “Rey Toy Star Wars Force Awakens.” Notice the difference? Girls play with action figures too, people. Cardboard cutouts, costumes, and travel mugs rarely made my Christmas list as a kid.)

Hm, what else do we have to talk about? You know what, I’m just going to give up and do alphabetized notes for the rest of this review because, damn it, I would very much like to get this done before I go to sleep. So.

A. I really hope Leia gets more to do in the next movie.

I’m okay with her not having much to do here because Han kind of takes center stage when it comes to original characters, but now Han is super dead, so. I know it won’t happen, but I really wish Leia would kick her evil son’s sulky emo ass. (You know, without a big “you can be good again speech” because seriously. See the above rant.) Mostly, though, I just want Leia to get in on the action. Changing her title to ‘General’ doesn’t do much for me if you don’t actually have her really doing anything, like, I don’t find Princess a derogatory term if she literally is a Princess.

B. Personally, I’m hoping that Supreme Leader Snoke is, much like the Fear Demon in BTVS’s “Fear, Itself,” only about six inches tall in real life. Seriously, there’s somebody out there besides my sister who thought this dude was ridiculous, right? I can’t find anyone talking about this, and I don’t know if that’s because nobody else noticed, or if people are so jazzed about the movie that they don’t want to admit that the Chief Villain looks dumb as hell.

C. At the end of the movie, Dumb Looking Snoke says that Kylo Ren has to complete his evil training. I’m . . . curious as to what this entails. He can already read thoughts, levitate shit, and freeze people in place. He’s also already committed both patricide and genocide. For his Dark Side Graduation Ceremony, does he get to eat babies or something? Will this allow him to, like, somehow generate fireballs? Shapeshift? Ooh, will he FLY?

D. Here’s a thing: you never really feel the mass slaughter when the bad guys are just blowing up planets wily-nily in Star Wars. Like, this is an improvement on A New Hope because we actually get to (very briefly) see some of these people before they die, but there’s, like, zero gut punch to it. Can you even imagine how many people died in The Force Awakens? More people died in The Force Awakens than in every single movie you watched this year COMBINED. You think it’s all popcorn and lightsabers, but there is some seriously bleak shit in this movie that nobody wants you to notice. (Related: it would be pretty awesome if they introduced a character in the next film who was from one of those now annihilated planets and was utterly devastated. It has always bothered me how little Leia was allowed to react to the destruction of Alderaan in the original trilogy. Oh, the fanfiction that needs to be written.)

E. Finn lies to Rey for quite some time, pretending to be a part of the Resistance instead of an ex-Stormtrooper, and I’ve got to tell you: I was ecstatic when there was never a huge “I’m so betrayed!” blowup, like, I was so sure we were gearing towards that part in a romantic comedy where the girl realizes that the boy was paid to ask her out, and then the guy has to show how he’s really, truly fallen in love with her, and I was like, “Ugh, no; please no manufactured drama bullshit!” And then they pretty neatly sidestepped the issue. I was deeply relieved.

F. There are a good number of cameos in this movie, some that I missed (like Simon Pegg, for instance, or Daniel Craig) and some that surprised and delighted me. I should have known Greg Grunberg was going to show up, considering who was directing the movie, and I was especially happy to see Ken Leung, whose presence will always make me happy. Is it too much to hope that he comes back for the sequels and actually has stuff to do?

G. I think The Force Awakens does have the occasional pacing problem. Sometimes, it feels a little unnecessarily stuffed with action pieces, like, the scene with the monster dudes that Han’s smuggling felt fairly silly to me. (I mean, I enjoyed Rey saving Finn from them and all. But . . . did this scene actually accomplish, like, anything? It felt pretty squeezed in.)

I was also a little disappointed by the big attack on the Super Death Star. It’s not a huge flaw, but it does feel a little uneven because while all the stuff with Rey and Finn is exciting, Poe and his fellow Resistance fighters feel almost stranded, like, there is zero tension in any of their scenes. I don’t think I even noticed the moment when they destroyed the big weapon; it was just like, “Oh, hey, did they succeed? I guess they succeeded. Uh, yay?” I wish the movie could have found a way to make that part of the battle more exciting, partially because I like Poe, and partially because it suffered pretty deeply from comparison to the original. Like Luke turning off his computer and using the Force to destroy the first Death Star is kind of iconic. This stuff, not so much.

H. Finally, finally, I really like the last shot of this movie, with Rey desperately holding out the lightsaber to Luke, while Luke makes a face that’s like, “Jesus, no, I have to go back? NOOOOOOO!” I’m super excited to see where the next one goes, especially because Rian Johnson’s the one directing it this time, and I suspect he’s going to take the franchise to whole other, weirder and wilder places.

QUOTES:

Rey: “This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs!”
Han: “TWELVE!”
(mumbling to himself, irritated)
Han: “Fourteen.”

Rey: “Stop grabbing my hand!”

Poe: “Why are you helping me?”
Finn: “Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Poe: “. . .you need a pilot.”
Finn: “I need a pilot.”

Finn: “We’ll figure it out. We’ll use the Force!”
Han: “That’s not how the Force works!”

Rey: “You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.”
Stormtrooper: “What did you say?”
Rey: “You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.”
Stormtrooper: “I will tighten these restraints, scavenger scum!”
Rey: “You will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.”
Stormtrooper: “I will remove these restraints and leave this cell with the door open.”
Rey: “And you will drop your weapon!”
Stormtrooper: “And I’ll drop my weapon.”

Han: “Escape now. Hug later.”

Finn: “Okay, stay calm, stay calm.”
Poe: “I am calm.”
Finn: “I was talking to myself.”

Finn: “He almost killed me six times!”
(Chewbacca grabs him by the throat.)
Finn: “Which is okay.”

Han: “Is there a garbage chute? A trash compactor?”
Finn: “Yeah, there is.”

Finn: “I need help with this big hairy thing!”

Finn: “What about that ship?”
Rey: “That ship’s garbage.”
(The ship they were running toward is blown up.)
Rey: “The garbage will do.”

Han: “You sure you’re up for this?”
Finn: “Hell no.”

Poe: “. . . do I talk first or do you talk first? I talk first?”

SUMMARY:

I know I picked at it a lot (I can’t help it; it’s my way!) but I really had a great time watching this in theater. I wish it could have been a little more imaginative at points, and I’m still making my peace with Han’s death, but credit where credit’s due: JJ Abrams gave me the kind of return to the series that The Phantom Menace never did.

MVP:

. . . you know, I think I’m going to give this one to John Boyega. It’s super close, and I think Daisy Ridley did an awesome job, but there was something about the humor that John Boyega brought to this film and franchise that really resonated with me. (Also, I’ve just got a thing for henchmen who are like, “Hmm. New life plan, maybe?)

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

As long as there’s light, you’ve got a chance. Once the sun is gone, though, RUN! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Especially you, mentors. Get living while the living is good because, eventually, your father figure days are coming to an abrupt and depressing end.

Also, girls can do anything boys can do better.

Also, POE AND FINN 4EVER.

I still haven’t quite gotten around to seeing the not-exactly-critically-beloved Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. (I’m not particularly jazzed about going, either, but I do want to check it out for myself. I like making up my own mind about shit, particularly if Batman’s going to be involved.) However, I knew I wanted to watch Man of Steel before I made my trip to the theater, so a few weeks ago I finally sat down and put it on.

Man. That long, dreary ass film did not help motivate my interest in Batman v Superman AT ALL.

DISCLAIMER:

I feel like all my reviews lately have been chockfull of spoilers, and I feel kind of bad about that . . . but yeah, this one’s going to have SPOILERS too. Sorry,  fellow folks who are also behind on their DC superhero film viewing.

SUMMARY:

Kal-El/Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) grows up rather miserably on Earth after his birth planet, Krypton, is destroyed, eradicating almost his entire species. And despite Pa Kent’s best efforts, Clark becomes a hero when General Zod (Michael Shannon) and the Rest of The Last Kryptonians arrive on Earth, threatening to destroy the entire human race.

NOTES:

1. Before we started the movie, I had this lovely dream that I could write a quick little review that would only take an hour or two, tops, as if I’d ever written anything brief in my entire life. Needless to say, that dream was dashed within the first twenty minutes of the movie because boy, do I have problems with this prologue. And admittedly, some of those problems are possibly inherent to the source material, not just this particular film adaptation . . . but some of it’s definitely the film adaptation.

In fact, I have so many issues that I might as well just summarize everything that happens in the first twenty minutes so I can better discuss why I think it’s crap:

We begin our tale with Jor-El (Russell Crowe) telling the Kryptonian High Council (or whoever) that the whole planet has only a couple of weeks left to live.

“Dudes, it’s sort of a problem.”

The Council is basically like, “Do you expect us to evacuate the beach during tourist season?” and Jor-El’s like, “Why bother? We’re all doomed anyway.” Presumably he’s about to pitch his totally weird ‘Baby Soul Survivor Plan,’ but that’s when General Zod pops in, and he is not happy. Zod’s like, “Fuck you, Council, we’re taking over your shit,” and proceeds with all the usual rebellion/treason/murder stuff. His plan, I guess, is to escape (somehow) and use the Kryptonians genetic codex to preserve only the pureblood lines.

Unfortunately for him, though, Jor-El is emphatically not an alien Death Eater, and he’s like, “All people deserve to live, but especially my newborn son because he was born naturally THROUGH A VAGINA.” He then proceeds to do a bunch of silly action stunts so that he can steal the codex and fuse it to Kal-El’s cells, or something. I guess his plan is to boot Kal-El to a new, populated planet so that he can bow-chicka-wow-wow his people–or at least their DNA–back into existence? Which, I’ve got to say, would have probably made a much more exciting movie. Oh my God, is there a porn like this? Superman knocking on various doors wearing his cape and nothing else, and saying, “Excuse me, but I need to bang you in order save my people from extinction?” If there isn’t, SOMEONE NEEDS TO MAKE IT. (And then, for the love of God, don’t send it to me. My eyes don’t actually want to see that.)

Anyway, Jor-El and Lara successfully see Kal-El off the planet before Zod murders Jor-El. The Kryptonians manage to crush Zod’s rebellion and send him and his cronies into this blackhole prison deal. And then two weeks later, Krypton blows the hell up, taking everyone on the planet with it.

So.

A. Let’s begin with the fact that this is a twenty-minute prologue to a story that basically everyone already knows, even non-geeks. I’m aware that this version includes certain individualistic elements (that I generally didn’t care for) but even taking that into consideration, twenty minutes? If you’re going to do that, you need to make sure those twenty minutes are both necessary and really, really interesting, neither of which was the case for me here.

B. Also (and this is, admittedly, my least significant problem), the whole prologue had a weird, almost vaguely Shakespearian feel to it that I just didn’t buy. I struggled taking it seriously, which is not the reaction you generally hope for when it comes to tragic origin stories.

C. Far more importantly, I just can’t seem to buy the total annihilation of the Kryptonian people. Cause, like, the Kryptonians seem to have a pretty advanced society. They’re capable of propagating their entire species through artificial means. They have devices which can terraform whole planets. They have prisons inside black holes. But for some reason, Jor-El is entirely convinced that they’re all doomed, that two weeks isn’t enough for anyone other than one entirely helpless newborn baby to escape? There’s only the one infant-sized escape pod on the whole planet? Even if Jor-El actually was advocating for evacuation (which, again, he totally wasn’t) and the Council was like, “Nope, no one gets to leave the planet because we’re all going to be totes fine!” I just don’t believe for a second that word wouldn’t get out, that people wouldn’t try to escape. I know you have to look past some stuff when it comes to Superman source material (glasses make you a whole new man, and all that), but I just can’t buy this.

For God’s sake, Krypton. The Enterprise managed to save thousands of Vulcans in JJ Abrams’s Star Trek, and they only had minutes. Get your shit together.

D. The whole mudblood/pureblood thing feels super random, probably because no one really ever bothers to bring it up again. It’s so inconsequential to the story that I wonder if it only exists at all to make sure we understand that Zod is the bad guy.

By this point, we’ve mostly figured it out.

Cause, at first, this guy is kind of sympathetic, isn’t he? Yes, yes, killing off Council members is bad, but it is the Council’s fault that billions and billions of people are going to die in the first place, right, and while Zod’s military coup seems hilarious mistimed, I do get the general idea: he punishes and overthrows the bad rulers so that he can save as many of his people as he can. That doesn’t really sound so bad until you realize that he only wants to save, like, the noble lineage or whatever and fuck the rest.

Still, prejudiced and awful as it is . . . it does seem that Zod’s plan saves more people than Jor-El’s. Seriously, Jor-El’s plan is just awful, right?

E. Lara’s only real contribution to this story is pushing the button that sends Baby Kal-El into space. She doesn’t even get to be a Helpful Exposition Hologram. This is what I call the Martha Wayne treatment: the father is the inspiration and/or source of angst, and the mother wears pearls. (In the dozens of movies and animated movies and TV episodes and comics I’ve read, I have seen one Batman story do something interesting with Martha Wayne. One. If you’ve seen more, I’d love to hear about it!)

F. Finally–and this is just one of those IMO, pet peeve things–I feel like one of the laziest ways to describe an evil and/or dystopian future society is to have everyone be born artificially. It’s so boring and cliche. I’d love to see someone use this trope in a positive light. (Again, if you know of one, please let me know! I love recommendations, provided they aren’t given to me in as condescending of a manner as possible.)

2. So, yeah. All of that? Just the first 1/7 of the movie.

On the plus side, I really don’t have a problem with any of the acting. (Well. Okay, I did have a pretty hard time taking Michael Shannon seriously, which sucks because I know he’s supposed to be a great actor, but . . . yeah, Zod didn’t quite do it for me.) There are a lot of good-to-great actors in this cast, and it’s the material, not their performances, that really make the movie fall down hard.

Henry Cavill, for instance:

Acting-wise, he’s totally fine. I actually really enjoyed that one scene where he’s in an interrogation room, speaking evenly to the frightened and intimidated human generals. He felt a little like the Superman I’m familiar with. (Which, to be clear, is primarily the one from Justice League and Justice League Unlimited. I am not comparing this film to the Christopher Reeve movies, as I was probably about four the last time I watched them.)

It’s just that, story-wise, I’m totally bored by everything about Superman. Clark Kent is one broody motherfucker in Man of Steel, which I guess isn’t so surprising because he’s had an entirely miserable life, at least in this particular version. Admittedly, Mopey Superman is pretty weird because it’s kind of like giving us a movie about an optimistic and happy-go-lucky Bruce Wayne or, IDK, a movie where Thor’s really depressed about having to hit things with his hammer. But I’m sure there’s a way to give us a darker Superman story, one that focuses on his literal alienation from everyone around him, that is still compelling and nuanced. This is just . . . flat and dull.

It reminds me a little of the whole grimdark debate, which is unfortunate because I basically hate that debate as, inevitably, people on both sides of it get on my nerves. Really dark stories are not inherently any better or worse than really upbeat stories; it’s just a matter of how you tell them. DC’s whole film brand is Dark and Gritty, particularly in comparison to Marvel, and despite what a lot of Marvel fans will say, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. The problem comes when you mistake dark and gritty for joyless and one-note. Dark can still be funny. Dark should still be entertaining. Dark ought to have the highs, so you can better feel the falls. It’s earned consequences and depth of emotion that make dark stories great, characters doing immoral or questionably immoral things for understandable and believable reasons. When it’s just asshats acting like asshats and some angsty dude trudging around the earth for two hours, when it’s grim for grim’s sake in lieu of actually making sense . . . that’s not deep or complex or noteworthy. That’s just poor storytelling.

3. I generally enjoy Amy Adams as Lois Lane, though.

Lois and Clark’s romance doesn’t do much for me, admittedly. Their kiss at the end feels a little forced, like, I would have totally bought a ‘Holy shit, we survived!’ kiss, but I think this was supposed to be much more romantic than that. Still, Amy Adams is a great actress who I rarely get to watch, as she generally picks Oscar-bait shit that I have little interest in seeing, and I think she provides Lois a good deal of fire and zeal that I enjoyed. Some of my favorite scenes with her, actually, are on the Kryptonian spaceship with Hologram Jor-El. I was happy to see her have actual stuff to do. Also, I got a weird kick out of watching Russell Crowe doing his best Scarecrow while giving her directions. I can’t even give you a reason why I enjoyed that so much; I just did.

4. Diane Lane and Kevin Costner are perfectly fine as Superman’s parents, at least, acting wise. I haven’t seen Diane Lane in a while, and I enjoyed her performance. She didn’t really have so much to do, but she still had presence, purely by being awesome. (I continue to love this tweet about gender/age inequality in Hollywood roles. I would totally watch Diane Lane play a superhero.)

Meanwhile, I don’t know that I’d say Kevin Costner’s performance was terribly compelling, but it also wasn’t bad. Everything wrong with Pa Kent–and oh ho, are there things wrong with Pa Kent–comes straight from the script.

I knew going in that a lot of Superman fans weren’t happy with Jonathan Kent’s characterization. (And yes, that’s the last time you get his actual name. Chief Asshats like Pa Kent don’t deserve a real first name.) I knew there were some questionable ethics (or lack thereof) in play, but I imagined something a little less clear cut, like . . . well, honestly, I don’t know what I imagined, but I’ll tell you what I sure as hell wasn’t picturing: Pa Kent telling Lil’ Clark that when his school bus crashed into a lake, he maybe should’ve let roughly thirty kids drown, rather than potentially expose his big secret. Pa Kent pretty much just advocated child murder, and not just one annoying kid but the mass murder of children. Holy shit.

See, it’s little things like this that make it very hard for me to feel sorry for Pa Kent when he gets eaten by a tornado. There’s also the not insignificant fact that his death is entirely his own fault. Check this out: Angry Teen Clark and Pa Kent the Terrible are fighting in the car when a tornado comes along because, you know, Kansas. Appropriately, they run away, but unfortunately a dog needs rescue. Obviously, Clark is the proper person to retrieve sad dog, but Pa Kent goes instead, and you know what? I probably could have been okay with that, if it was played like Pa Kent instinctually thought “storming death cloud” and “my kid” and went NO, even though he knows that his kid basically can’t die. I will take a certain amount of protective parental instinct in the face of clear logic. (I’m considerably less excited about “get your mom to the overpass,” though, like Martha Kent doesn’t actually come with her own set of legs.)

But Pa Kent isn’t so much worried about the tornado hurting his boy as he is about protecting Clark’s damn secret, so much so that he needlessly sacrifices his own life to keep Clark from revealing his powers. Yeah. There he is, about to get blown into the next state, and he actually holds out his hand, all Stop in The Name of Love, to silently tell Clark that he’d rather die than potentially expose his son’s true origin. Which might have been moving in some other world where all aliens are immediately executed or sent to concentration camps or something, but that’s totally not this world. Pa Kent lets himself die because of the possibility that his son can’t convince humanity that he’s a good guy.

Jesus H. Christ. Never mind how little regard Pa Kent clearly has for his own life . . . can you even imagine what something like that would do to the kid?

I’m not okay.

Seriously. I’d rather spend the rest of my life on the run from every government on the planet than live with the fact that I could have saved my dad’s life but didn’t because he wanted to become an asshole martyr instead. Clark has to carry that guilt now until he dies. If this movie had ended with Clark eating a kryptonite bullet, Ghost Pa Kent would only have had himself to blame.

And what’s even more infuriating about all of this isn’t just that Zack Synder and David S. Goyer turned Pa Kent into a completely terrible human being, but–somehow–they still want him to be an Inspirational Mentor Figure, the reason Clark becomes a hero. Like, WHAT? People. People. You can’t have a dude kill himself to keep anyone from knowing about his son’s superhuman powers and then later have that dude’s wife say, “He always believed you were meant for greater things, and that when the day came, your shoulders would be able to bear the weight.” NOPE. Not happening. Pa Kent did not want his son to do great things. This fucker pretty much died to make sure that day would never come, and the only reason it actually did is because, you know, it’s kind of hard to make a Superman movie where no one ever becomes Superman.

Pa Kent is the worst, everybody. Think how much better off Clark Kent would’ve been if Martha Kent had raised him on her own. (Maybe in this universe, that’s just how it happened.)

5. The supporting cast in this movie is kind of ridiculous. It felt like I recognized someone roughly every there minutes: Toby from The West Wing, Morpheus from The Matrix, Roman from True Blood, Boyd from Dollhouse, Gaeta from Battlestar Galactica, Helo from Battlestar Galactica, Snow from Person of Interest, Liam from Teen Wolf, Vanessa from Daredevil, and Death from Supernatural. (If you don’t almost exclusively watch SF/F TV shows and movies, that’s Richard Schiff, Laurence Fishburne, Christopher Meloni, Harry Lennix, Alessandro Juliani, Tahmoh Penikett, Michael Kelly, Dylan Sprayberry, Ayelet Zurer, and Julian Richlings.)

There is some insanely good talent in that list. Can you imagine what this movie could have been like if the actors were given material actually worthy of their talent?

6. One of the only actors I wasn’t familiar with was Antje Traue, who played Faora-Ul.

Faora-Ul is General Zod’s right hand, and I bring her up because she’s kind of a badass. In fact, she is about 80 times more intimidating than General Zod, who–for being Krypton’s Chief Military Dude–does not strike me as a particularly great strategist. I mean, come on: Kal-El knows almost nothing about his home planet, right? Sure, he did get some very brief exposition from Hologram Jor-El in the Fortress of Solitude, but it wasn’t very in depth: all he knows about Zod, for instance, is that he led a military coup against the leaders who doomed billions of people to death. Instead of Zod coming down, all, “I’m going to destroy the only planet you’ve ever known, Clark, and kill everyone here!” why doesn’t he just try to, you know, trick him? Considering how literally alienated Clark has been this whole time, I really don’t think it would be that hard to do. He’s clearly desperate for anyone the least bit like him–if Zod had pretended to be a friend for five seconds, his evil plan might have worked.

Then again, perhaps not because I just can’t take Zod seriously. Perhaps it’s the hair. It’s too bad Faora-Ul didn’t outlive him because she has all the markings of a good Super Second Banana.

7. I feel like I should cover the events of the film chronologically with the same amount of time and care (and rage) I spent on the first twenty minutes, but I don’t really want to. For a 2 1/2 hour film, there doesn’t seem to be all that much plot involved. Clark Kent broods a lot. Lois Lane investigates. Zod threatens people. The government is suspicious of Clark but eventually works with him to take down the aliens, and Clark becomes a journalist for a major newspaper because, according to TV and movies, basically anyone who wants to become a reporter can without the slightest hint of training, education, or prior work experience.

So, I think I’ll just wrap-up this up in typical me fashion with a few random sub-notes:

7A. I will admit this: Zod’s death, which infuriated plenty of other people in the nerd fanbase, actually didn’t bother me all that much.

Well before I saw this movie, I found out that Superman killed Zod, and I wasn’t crazy about it, which may surprise the few of you who are aware of both a) my bloodlust, and b) my belief that sometimes killing the bad guy actually is the morally correct thing to do. (Clearly, I will never become a superhero, no matter what radioactive creature bites me.) Superman is a weird pick for that sort of thing, though, and people made it sound like he straight up murdered the guy in cold blood . . . which is totally cool if you’re making an Injustice: Gods Among Us movie, but–sadly–nobody is. (I desperately need to get back to the comic because it is intensely awesome.) And while I may be interested in stories where superheroes cross lines, Superman is definitely the wrong choice for straight-up murder.

That all being said, the way it was shot? It didn’t strike me as super immoral. It wasn’t like Superman killed someone who had surrendered or was otherwise defenseless. I believed that the family was in imminent danger, and that Superman felt he had no other choice in order to save them. (Actually, I believe that those people would have been dead well before Superman could have helped, since if Zod wasn’t such a loser, it might occur to him to just glance right instead of insisting on turning his head. But that’s neither here nor there.) Pivotally, I believed Superman’s anguish when he made the choice to kill. If he had been happy about it or if he’d tossed out some kind of glib one-liner, or even if he just hadn’t seemed to be particularly broken up about killing someone, I would have been angry. But I bought Cavill’s grief in the moment, so ultimately, it worked for me.

7B. So, Clark Kent finds the Fortress of Solitude through . . . heart knowledge? Seriously, I’m not sure. There must have been an actual explanation for this, but apparently I missed it somewhere between Clark broodily staring at the sea and Clark broodily staring at the sky. I’m not watching it again to figure it out.

7C. A helicopter crashes in this movie and does NOT explode. For 30 years now, movies have taught me that this is a physical impossibility, so needless to say I was quite stunned when it happened.

7D. Things go badly for a lot of people in this movie, but I might feel the worst for Richard Schiff’s character. And yeah, some of that is surely because I will always love Toby Ziegler, but there’s also the fact that this dude totally helps save the day but dies anyway when Meloni heroically sacrifices himself . . . which, as a consequence, sort of less-heroically sacrifices Schiff too, who more than likely didn’t even realize he was about to die, since he was on a different part of the plane when Meloni crashed it.

Meanwhile, Lois Lane only survives because she falls out of the plane. How often can you even say that?

7D. Finally, I kind of like the switch-up at the end where Lois already knows Clark’s secret identity when he begins work at the Daily Planet. Of course, it’s still ridiculous that no one else can figure out that he and Superman are the same person given the events of this film, but like I said, there are some things you have to take with a grain of salt when it comes to Superman stories, and that’s one I can, personally, accept.

But for a movie that’s clearly not afraid to significantly change up Superman’s origin story . . . I wish it did something much more interesting with it.

QUOTES:

Superman: “You might want to step back a bit. Maybe a little bit more.”

Jor-El: “You’re talking about genocide.”
Zod: “Yes! And I’m arguing its merits with a ghost.”

Lois: “What’s the ‘S’ stand for?”
Superman: “It’s not an S. On my world, it means hope.”
Lois: “Well, here, it’s an ‘S’.”

Dr. Emil Hamilton: “The ship appears to have inserted itself into a lunar synchronous orbit, though I have no idea why.”
General Swanwick: “Have you tried communicating with it?”
Dr. Emil Hamilton: “Well, they haven’t responded, as of yet.”
General Swanwick: “I’m just speculating, but I think whoever is at the helm of that thing is looking to make a dramatic entrance.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Meh. The action scenes and cinematography are all good. I have no beef with the technical filmmaking, and little with the acting, either. But the tone is dreary, the script sloppy, and the overall story is kind of screwed as a result.

MVP:

Amy Adams. I’m pretty sure it’s entirely her performance, and not the script itself, that makes Lois Lane even a little bit interesting.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

C+

MORALS:

Letting a bunch of kids drown when you could save them without ever being in the slightest bit of danger is definitely a tough philosophical dilemma, right up there with the Trolley Problem or the Overcrowded Lifeboat.

Letting your kid watch you die when he could have saved you equals A+ parenting. That definitely won’t fuck him up at all.

In the event that your apartment building is very, very slowly burning down, do not take the time to try and escape yourself, or warn others that they should try to escape, or take down the evil landlord who doesn’t want anyone to escape because that would mean he was responsible for the fire in the first place. Instead, take that time to make a very special baby carriage, strap your newborn child inside it, and toss it from your window into another window of a different building across the street. Surely your newborn will make it because you programmed that carriage to take special care of its passenger, and–just like HAL 9000 taught us–absolutely nothing could go wrong with that. And while you and everyone else you know in the apartment building will die, you and your partner can comfort yourselves with the knowledge that at least one person survived and will grow up to procreate with people from other apartments, meaning that a piece of you and your people will always live on. Though I suspect the person from 2B will not see it the same way.

Well. I did it. I FINALLY saw Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. But my God, is it a hot mess.

SUMMARY:

18 months after the events of Man of Steel, the world is still divided on the issue of Superman (Henry Cavill). Most consider him a hero, even a Messianic figure, but others think that he’s a serious threat to public safety. Batman (Ben Affleck) is in the latter group and is determined to take him down. Superman, likewise, thinks Batman is a dangerous criminal who needs to be stopped. Meanwhile, the actual villain who needs to be stopped, Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg), is up to some serious shenanigans, though why he’s up to them is really anyone’s guess.

NOTES:

1. BvS came out roughly a month before I went to see it, and in that time I’d heard a LOT of negative reviews. I’d also heard a few positive reviews, but between the sheer number of criticisms that the film had received, and the multitude of problems I’d had with Man of Steel, my interest in the movie was minimal at best. I tried to keep an open mind because– hard as this might be for some of you to believe–I’m not much of a hate-watcher; at least, I’m not going to pay theater prices for the experience. But I absolutely walked in with low expectations, and an outfit that may, or may not, have reflected a state of anticipated mourning.

Okay, the lipstick was less about mourning and more about me finding it and going, “Hey! I forgot I had black lipstick! Let’s wear some!” But my roots, I think, are definitely a Sign of Dark Things to Come. As she walked closer to the theater and her impending fate, Carlie’s light hair began to darken, reflecting the inner turmoil of her Batman fangirl soul.

The truth is, BvS has some pretty decent things going for it. In fact, the story actually starts out pretty well for me . . . before entirely off going the rails and never really managing to recover. I’m trying to remember the exact point I went from “well, maybe this isn’t so bad” to “what the shit is even happening?” and, honestly, I’m not sure that I can. The story, unfortunately, is a convoluted mess, full of poorly written character motivation, general hypocrisy, alarming amounts of stupidity, confusing dream sequences, and far too many rushed attempts at foreshadowing the future Justice League movies. There’s also absolutely no need for it to be two hours and thirty minutes long. (Seriously, I’m getting pretty tired of this, Hollywood. Unnecessarily long runtimes have kept me from going to see movies that I would have otherwise seen in theaters.) The film drags considerably, and while I felt that it at least had more of an interesting dynamic than Man of Steel (which virtually had no energy or momentum whatsoever), it’s nowhere near fun enough to be entertaining, nor well-written enough to be particularly thought-provoking.

It’s going for thought-provoking, of course. And there are worthwhile thoughts in there, somewhere, buried in that chaotic, conflicting mess: presumably, I’m supposed to come out of the theater contemplating questions like who deserves to have power and when do superhuman powers require federal oversight . . . the kind of questions that I suspect will also dominate Civil War. However, the questions I’m actually thinking after watching this movie are more like why is Clark such an idiot and when did Batman become a villain and what in God’s name happened to Lex Luthor?

2. Seriously, let’s talk about Lex for a minute.

Just like in Man of Steel, the actors in this movie by and large do a fair to great job, despite being stranded with very shitty material. The only real exception is Jesse Eisenberg, and even then, I’m not entirely convinced he’s the one to blame. After all, half his scripted dialogue is pure gibberish, so it’s not like his manic, overblown delivery isn’t keeping with the text. For some reason, it seems that Zack Snyder, Chris Terrio, and David S. Goyer want Lex to be some poor man’s version of the Joker, but for the life of me, I can’t imagine why. It seems obvious that Lex isn’t going to come out the victor in the inevitable comparison between these two characters, and it doesn’t seem to serve the story in any shape, way, or form. Like you’d almost expect Batman to address it in some manner, right, meeting this blatant ripoff of his worst nemesis? Well, that never happens. (Actually, Bruce and Lex spend very little time together in the film at all, which makes a certain amount of sense, considering that Lex is Superman’s nemesis. He just doesn’t act anything like Superman’s nemesis. Making Lex an unhinged millennial is so wildly different from every version of Luthor imaginable that it feels less like a reinterpretation and more like the creators just slapped a recognizable name on a total OC.)

Lex’s motivations also make no godamn sense whatsoever. You’re probably going to get really tired of me complaining about character motivation by the time this review is over, but Lex might actually be the worst of the bunch. I have zero idea why he does almost anything he does in this movie, and I’m hardly the only one. I had a good time reading two Vulture writers trying to puzzle out Lex’s evil plans, much the same way my sister and I did over nachos after coming home from the movie. (Warning: the link has SPOILERS.)

3. While we’re talking about characters making poor life choices because of bullshit reasons . . .

Oh, Batman.

So, this is an older Batman. Not as old as Batman from The Dark Knight Returns (which was pretty obviously an inspiration for the film, especially in one particular scene) but still, a slightly more tired and far more cynical Dark Knight. His suspicion, distrust, and anger with Superman were all believable to me at first, and his insistence on having precautionary measures is absolutely in character because Batman has always been about contingency plans. Batman is the guy who thinks about consequences, who worries about unchecked power. I’m even okay with the idea of him going a little too far when it comes to roughing up bad guys because this is supposed to be him at his most disillusioned, and Superman needs a reason to distrust him, too.

But concept is one thing and execution quite something else, because Batman bypasses going “a little too far” and lands somewhere in homicidal vigilante territory, which may not bother viewers who could give a damn about canon, but, generally speaking, Batman is all about saving lives, not taking them, even when it’s the bad guys. This is a pretty big departure for him, and one which I don’t think makes a whole lot of sense in this story: after all, it’s really hard to listen to Batman talk about Superman’s disregard for human life and the dangers of him going rogue while Batman’s entirely disregarding human life and, well, basically going rogue. You can do a story where Batman’s engaging in a more brutal brand of Bat Justice, but then he probably shouldn’t also be the guy judging other heroes for their potential Dark Sides.

And while I’m totally okay with Batman having contingency plans to stop Superman should he become evil, I’m not okay with how quickly Batman gets to “Holy shit, dudes! Superman must be stopped!” Evidence is not a thing Batman, the World’s Greatest Detective, cares very much about in this movie. He actually uses an argument that you mostly only see from totalitarian dictators or dystopian regimes. Let’s not kid ourselves, folks: in this movie, Batman is a hypocrite at best and an out-and-out villain at worst.

4. One of the things that’s possibly fueling Batman’s suspicion of Superman? Dreams. I can’t go into too many details without spoilers, but here’s what I will say for now:

4A. I’m weirdly fond of surreal dreams in stories, especially if those dreams are clues to a mystery.

4B. However, Batman seems like an exceptionally weird choice for these bizarre dream sequences, especially if he’s making real life choices based on them.

4C. Not to mention that I suspect these dreams mostly happen to foreshadow future films, which makes them feel almost prophetic, and Batman is definitely a weird choice for prophetic dreams.

4D. Generally poor editing makes these dream sequences far more confusing than they need to be.

5. On a slightly more positive note, Ben Affleck’s pretty damn decent as Batman.

I don’t know if I’d say he’s my favorite live-action Batman, but he’s certainly not my least. He’s definitely better than George Clooney and Val Kilmer, and his Batman voice (in which he realistically uses a modulator) is leagues better than Christian Bale’s ridiculous SWEAR TO ME voice. I wouldn’t have any problem seeing Ben Affleck act as Batman again, provided he was given material that didn’t totally suck. For as much shit as this guy got since the announcement of his casting, I kind of hope that Affleck read the multiple positive reviews of his performance (if not the movie itself) and privately did a “Fuck You, World! I’m Awesome” happy dance. I would’ve, anyway, if I was in his place.

Instead, we got the Sad Affleck interview, which I just couldn’t watch. It kind of struck me as unbearably mean, and pretty shitty behavior on the interviewer’s part.

6. Also on the upside: Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot).

Like pretty much everybody on the planet has been saying, Wonder Woman’s pretty awesome. She doesn’t have a whole lot to do in this movie, but honestly, that’s probably for the best. BvS already has way too much going on as is. It’s enough that she’s a small, enjoyable glimmer of badassary in what is otherwise a lengthy and fairly lackluster action film. I’m definitely more excited now about a Wonder Woman movie, especially since Zack Snyder isn’t directing it. (I like Snyder’s earlier films, but he’s been on a downward spiral for me for some time now, and I’m definitely happy he’s not directing a female-led superhero movie. I don’t really know Patty Jenkins’s work–I never actually saw Monster–but I’m still hopeful.)

And, not for nothing, Gal Gadot and Ben Affleck have fairly decent chemistry together. I’d totally watch them fight more bad guys. Or have moments like this or this.

7. In general, I like the women of this movie quite a bit. I’m not crazy about everything that happens to them, but the female characters are by and large by my favorite people in this story. First we have the aforementioned Wonder Woman, who is pretty delightful. Then we have Lois Lane, who I still really enjoy as portrayed by Amy Adams.

Her story goes to entirely stupid places by the end of the movie, but I enjoy her performance and, for a second there, I thought there was a glimmer of something interesting happening with her relationship to Superman at the beginning. Obviously, that ended up not being the case, but Lois has a lot of potential that could really be tapped if different writers and directors were in charge of her character.

Meanwhile, I was surprised to see that I really enjoyed Senator Finch (Holly Hunter), who I assumed would be your usual witch-hunting, death to civil liberties, clearly terrible secondary antagonist, like General Ross or Senator Kelly. Instead, it turns out she has pretty reasonable doubts and asks pretty reasonable questions and, hopelessly folksy aphorisms aside, seems to be a fairly decent person. It was a pleasant change of pace.

8. I also rather enjoyed Jeremy Irons as Alfred.

He doesn’t get as much screen time as I’d like, but he’s fabulously cranky at Batman for all the stupid decisions our hero makes during this movie, and that works well for me. (I’m especially fond of the time when Batman’s like, “This {taking down Superman} may be the only thing I do that matters,” and Alfred’s like, “Twenty years of fighting criminals amounts to nothing?”) I’d love to see the two actors together in a Batman story that’s actually worth a damn, because I suspect they could build a really solid and interesting character dynamic between them.

At any rate, Jeremy Irons isn’t slapping children across the face, so that puts him one up on the Alfred from Gotham, at least.

9. Sadly, Superman isn’t much smarter than Batman. Arguably, in fact, he’s even worse.

Take that back.

I can’t discuss the specifics of this yet, of course, but at two separate points in the movie I desperately wanted to sit Superman down and ask him, “Sweetheart, why would you even do that? What on God’s green earth could have made you believe that was a solid plan? Why wouldn’t you have done this instead? Or even this?”

He also just doesn’t quite react right to . . . well, anything. In one scene, his immediate reaction to some pretty horrific stuff is basically no reaction of any kind, which is definitely a problem. And then later he has a pretty melodramatic response that doesn’t quite seem to line up with what’s actually occurred, like I’m having trouble following the cause and effect of his reasoning. Basically, Superman just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, which is, unfortunately, pretty fitting for this movie.

10. Finally, a few random mini-notes before we get to our epic Spoiler Section.

10A. The ‘v’ instead of ‘vs.’ in the title is dumb, but doesn’t really annoy me the way it annoys other people. I find I’m more irritated by Dawn of Justice because one, it just sounds stupid; two, we really shouldn’t have been using this movie to try and set up the JL anyway; and three, it’s entirely unnecessary. No one’s calling this movie Dawn of Justice. No one was ever going to call it Dawn of Justice. You don’t need a subtitle for the first (or only) movie in a series, just like how very few people refer to the first Captain America movie as The First Avenger when they can just as easily call it, you know, Captain America.

10B. The heavy mech suit Batman wears to fight Superman looks a little silly, but it makes sense given that he’s fighting Superman (not unlike Iron Man donning the Hulkbuster in Age of Ultron), and there are comics which back up the idea of Batman using armored Bat-Suits. That being said, I was still relieved when he went back to his normal outfit. It just looks better.

1oC. Like most superhero movies, BvS is a PG-13 film and it’s one I can see the majority of 13-year-olds dealing with just fine. (Well, other than being bored.) But much younger kids often go to see PG-13 movies, too; The Avengers, for instance. Most people aren’t shocked by eight-year-olds getting into Iron Man movies or dressing up as Black Widow for Halloween.

But this is a little different. Despite it being a PG-13 movie, I was a bit thrown when I saw small kids at the theater while watching the film because the story is definitely geared towards adults. (And then I was annoyed with those kids, and especially with their parents, because while I might not have been enjoying the movie overmuch, if I actually leave my couch and pay to go see something, it’s helpful to be able to hear it, which is considerably harder to do when kids are running up and down the stairs and literally bouncing up and down in the aisle. I’m just saying. Death glares were given.)

Anyway. Despite what Hollywood will undoubtedly take from the massive success of Deadpool, not every superhero story needs to be rated-R. But I could genuinely be into watching some more adult, violent, and even philosophical superhero films in the future, provided, of course, that they’re much better than this one. Still, I think we need to seriously re-think the MPAA ratings system if BvS got the same grade as Guardians of the Galaxy, you know?

All right. If you can stand to hear even more about this film (and boy, is there more to talk about), continue below.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

We begin our story where every Batman story begins: in Crime Alley with two gunshots, an orphaned boy, and a strand of pearls. You know, in case there’s anybody on the planet who isn’t aware of how Batman became Batman. It’s all very silly, but I’ll allow it because . . .

a) Unlike the Man of Steel prologue, it’s pretty brief.
b) Irritation with those godamn pearls aside, I have to admit that the shot with the gun and the necklace together works pretty well.
c) Lil’ Batman’s parents are Negan and Maggie, which, honestly, is probably worth the price of admission.

I knew I should have brought my bat.

We also get to see Baby Bruce falling into the Bat Cave, but instead of his dad coming to rescue him with thematically relevant questions about why we fall, a swarm of bats emerge in order to, uh, levitate him back to the surface? Clearly, it’s odd, although I’ll be honest here: some of the more surreal shit in this movie did kind of make me interested in seeing a magical realism Batman story, no matter how totally screwy that sounds. Anyway, it turns out the whole thing’s a dream, which is fine except for those pesky editing fails when it comes to this movie’s dream sequences. I’m not quite sure how to describe it properly. They just don’t work right.

But we’ll come back to dreams later. In the meantime, we fast-forward in Flashback Land to the more recent past, where Superman and Zod were destroying buildings everywhere in their big battle over Metropolis during Man of Steel. Turns out, Bruce Wayne was there too, trying to help his people at Wayne Enterprises. One of his executive dudes bites it, but Bruce helps another dude get free of a beam crushing his legs and saves a little girl whose mom almost certainly doesn’t make it. I can’t remember if anyone actually gives an official death toll in the movie, but one way or another, Bruce blames Superman for the rampant loss of life.

I’m basically fine with that, just like I’m fine with Bruce planning to steal Lex’s supply of kryptonite–and not just to keep it out of Lex’s untrustworthy hands, but to make sure that he, himself, has something at the ready to use against Superman, should our red-caped crusader ever turn Dark Side. What I’m not okay with is this argument: “If there is a one percent chance he is our enemy, we have to take it as an absolute certainty.”

What? WHAT?

That is not an argument used by superheroes, nor is it an argument used by any rational human being. That is the argument of Lawful Evil supervillains. That is the argument of someone who supports internment camps. That is the argument of someone who says, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people, so why don’t we just kill all the people so they can’t kill anyone else?” Batman not trusting Superman? No problem. Batman wanting to murder Superman on the mere possibility that he might become evil? SERIOUS PROBLEM.

The fact that Batman absolutely does not kill people under any circumstances in the comics or cartoons isn’t actually my issue here; I’m generally willing to take a certain amount of deviation in film adaptations, especially where Batman is concerned, as he’s been interpreted in so many different ways over the past 50 years. And I get it: he starts this story in a darker, less heroic place. That’s fine. But there’s a subtle difference between these two scenarios:

A) Jack tells Frank not to push a button that will blow up the whole building, killing 100 people. Frank, gloating, starts to push the button. Jack shoots Frank in the chest, killing Frank but saving the 100 people.

B) Jack knows that Frank has telekinesis and could, theoretically, push a button with his mind that will blow up a whole building, killing 100 people. Frank has stated no intention of doing this, but there is a 1% chance he could someday decide to. Jack shoots Frank in the chest, killing Frank but potentially saving the 100 people that, most likely, did not need to be saved.

Traditionally, Batman would never allow either of these two scenarios to happen. In the case of Scenario A, for instance, Batman would pull some Bat Gadget out of his utility belt, neutralize Frank, and save the day without anyone dying. But given that the DC film franchise has clearly put all their chips on Gritty Realism, I’m completely okay with Batman acting like Jack in Scenario A. (Well. Provided he doesn’t use an actual gun, of course. Some things are fucking sacrosanct, no matter what Zack Snyder or Frank Miller says.) Scenario B, on the other hand? No. Just no.

If Batman’s going to decide that he absolutely has to kill Superman, then as an audience member, I need to believe without a doubt that Batman has just cause for thinking Superman is an imminent threat that can only be stopped by death. I need a story where Batman’s suspicion of the Last Son of Krypton grows larger and larger until Superman appears to do something so evil that Bats decides he has to die to secure the entire world’s safety. Perhaps Zack Snyder thought the collateral damage from Man of Steel would qualify, but if so, he was sorely mistaken.

What might have worked for this (but didn’t): the bombing at the Senate hearing which kills a few hundred people.

If only I had super hearing or x-ray vision or something that might help with this.

Superman doesn’t blow anyone up, of course; this is all evil Lex Luthor’s scheme, partially to punish Senator Finch for refusing to help him import kryptonite and partially to make Superman look bad, I guess. But if Luthor convincingly framed Superman for the explosion, I could maybe see that as being the tipping point that rocked an already emotionally unstable Batman to believing Murder is the Only Way. The problem, unfortunately, is that everyone already knows that Superman didn’t cause the explosion, and when some reporter suggests that he might have been complicit simply because he disappeared for a couple of weeks after it happened . . . it just feels like a giant stretch. I need Batman to have that last straw moment, and this story just doesn’t provide one. It’s a huge problem for me.

It’s also just hilarious (and by hilarious, I mean kind of awful) that Batman thinks he has any room to judge Superman when he kills bad guys left and right in this movie without even blinking, like he’s Frank fucking Castle or something. Not to mention those unfortunate few times when Bats literally brands child molesters with a giant bat symbol, then hands them off to prison where they are swiftly executed by other prisoners. (Remember when I said that Batman engaged in a brutal brand of Bat Justice? The pun, if you can believe it, was actually unintentional, but when I reread it and laughed for twenty seconds straight, I decided it was worth keeping around.) And far be it for me to have sympathy for disgusting child molesters, but you really can’t have a story where your hero tortures bad guys and leaves them for dead (when not just outright killing them himself) and then complains about the bad behavior another superhero might get up to. Batman is shadowy, threatening, and can be manipulative as all hell, but this movie turns him into a supervillain without ever really acknowledging what they’ve done.

Of course, there are two other factors in play when it comes to Batman’s awful behavior: one, his totally weird dreams, and two, the fact that Lex is playing the World’s Greatest Detective like a bat-shaped fiddle. Let’s discuss the dreams first.

As mentioned, Batman has some weird ass nightmares in this movie. At one point, he appears to be in some post-apocalyptic desert world (tinted yellow, as everything else in this movie is filtered in blue) where Superman has clearly taken over the Earth and has a bunch of soldiers serving/bowing before him. Batman, who’s wearing a brown trenchcoat over his Batsuit for reasons unknown even to God, shoots Superman’s goons left and right. There are also these incredibly random flying monster deals that Rob Bricken’s Spoiler FAQ of Justice informs me are Parademons, but which I just assumed were mutated flying monkeys sent by the Wicked Witch of the West because, at this point, who the fuck even knows, right?

Anyway, Batman wakes up from his incredibly WTF dream to come face to face with a very blurry Flash talking about Lois Lane being the key and Superman being evil before whisking away again when Batman wakes up for realsies this time. Now, I admit to finding this a bit interesting because I immediately jumped on the idea that BvS was trying to set up Injustice: Gods Among Us, which–if you’re unfamiliar–is a graphic novel series and video game where the Joker manages to trick Superman into killing Lois Lane, and Superman responds by murdering the Joker and going into Full World Domination mode. The Justice League is essentially split in two, with half of the heroes allying up with Superman, and the others working against him with Batman. The comic is surprisingly awesome, so I couldn’t help but get excited by the idea that DC was building towards something like it . . . but even if that is the case, such a story would work a lot better if you hadn’t set up a world where your heroes are already murderous assholes.

And God help you if you merely enjoy the occasional superhero movie and have no idea who the shit the Flash even is, much less the Parademons. This whole part of the movie is a serious muddle, even for nerds, not unlike Thor’s weird ass vision shit in Age of Ultron.

Anyway, I think it’s implied that these dreams might be influencing Batman’s terrible life choices, but mostly they just don’t make any sense and probably shouldn’t have been in the movie at all. I get that DC wants to compete with all the crazy shit Marvel’s got coming down the line, but they’re trying to juggle way too much crap. It’s no wonder that, as a result, the film feels heavy and weighed down.

Now, switching gears to Lex:

It turns out that he always wanted Batman to steal the kryptonite because his Big Evil Plan (well, one of them) is to have Batman kill Superman, or to have Superman kill Batman. What Lex has against Batman, I really couldn’t say. For that matter, I’m not even sure what Lex has against Superman in this particular film, other than the fact that maybe he’s just offended by the idea of god-like beings on Earth? It’s not like Superman gets in the way of his evil schemes or anything.

No matter. For whatever reason, Lex hates Superman and Batman and wants them both to die. So in the beginning of the movie, he frames Superman by, apparently, making it look like he got a lot of people killed while trying to save Lois Lane in the Middle East. It’s an incredibly poor frame up job, though, and so badly executed in this film that I honestly didn’t initially understand that the people Superman had supposedly killed were the ones who had been shot to death. (Cause, you know. Why would Superman have bothered to pick up a gun to kill anyone in the first place, when he could have just heat-visioned, freeze-visioned, or, IDK, squeezed people to death?)

Then there’s the nonsense with Wallace, the employee Bruce saves in the beginning of the movie. Wallace is in a wheelchair, and he blames Superman for how his whole life’s fallen apart. (Because God forbid Hollywood ever use a person’s inability to walk as anything other than a shorthand for tragedy.) Lex takes advantage of Wallace and organizes it so that he (in a brand new, Lex-approved wheelchair) meets Senator Finch and goes to testify at the fateful Senate hearing. At the same time this is happening, Bruce sees that Wallace has been returning his disability checks with angry messages scrawled in colorful ink about how Bruce let his family die, and other mean stuff. That’s when Wallace’s wheelchair (stuffed with explosives that, presumably, Wallace didn’t know about) blows up, killing him, Senator Finch, Mercy Graves, and a bunch of other extras.

Jesus, there’s a lot to unpack here.

A. I’ve spent a fair bit of time on this, and I’ve come to the realization that I still don’t understand what’s going on with the checks at all.

Supposedly, Wallace is sending them, except that such a thing makes absolutely no sense. Why would he be returning money he clearly needs? Why would he be writing threatening messages to the dude who saved his life and, pretty clearly, isn’t a Superman supporter?

Of course, later Lex gloats about how he’s been manipulating Batman and mentions the checks, insinuating that he was the one behind the threatening messages. That made a little more sense to me at first, but after thinking about it for half a minute, I realized I still had questions. Why would Bruce ever think these actually came from Wallace? How the hell did Lex get ahold of all these checks in the first place? How long has this evil plan of his been going on for? And why do these notes somehow tip Bruce further into his whole Let’s Murder Superman plan, anyway? (Also–and perhaps I’ve just forgotten the answer in the middle of all this ridiculousness–how does Lex know that Bruce is Batman, again?)

B. There was absolutely no need to kill Mercy Graves.

The point, presumably, is to show that Lex is EVIL and willing to kill even those closest to him to accomplish his dastardly goals; what it actually proved, unfortunately, is that Lex is an idiot, because you don’t sacrifice your right-hand unless you’re actually sacrificing it for something. Since there’s zero reason Lex and Mercy couldn’t have snuck away from the hearing together, Lex is obviously both a total bastard and a moron.

C. Other than Wonder Woman, Senator Finch was probably my favorite character because I was so happy to have someone who acted like a reasonable human being. Quite naturally, she died for it.

D. If you read my Man of Steel review, you may remember that I didn’t really mind Superman killing Zod all that much, partially because I saw that as much more of a justifiable homicide a la Jack killing Frank in Scenario A type of thing, but also because Henry Cavill really sold me on Superman’s anguish at having to make that choice. Pretty much the opposite happens here, because Supes’s reaction to everyone burning and dying around him? Zip. Zippo. Nada. He basically just stands there, all glum, like, “Man, my life really sucks sometimes.” Superman reacts to mass murder the way I react to accidentally dropping a gummy bear in the dirt, or how Eeyore reacts to life in general. (If you read the FAQ I linked to earlier, you’ll find a musical cue that basically represents Superman’s expression to a T. I don’t agree with Rob Bricken on everything about Zack Snyder’s DC universe–for instance, the death of Zod–but I do agree with him on quite a bit, and I’m not going to lie: reading the FAQ was a big motivator in going to see the movie at all.)

So. Where the hell was I? Right. Lex has now successfully manipulated Batman into trying to murder Superman. He can’t do the same to Superman, though, because you can’t just pull the wool over Clark Kent’s eyes; you know, he’s not a gullible, trusting fool like Bruce Wayne. (Can someone do me a favor and invent a font that’s only used for when people have to write supremely sarcastic sentences, something like cursive that also appears to be melting under the heat of intense scorn? I would enjoy that.) So, instead, Lex kidnaps both Lois Lane and Martha Kent. Lois is quickly saved, but Martha Kent–who’s shown bruised and bloody in some pretty disturbing and not particularly necessary Polaroids–will be killed unless Superman returns to Lex with Batman’s head. (Actually, now that I think about it, Lex probably goes the manipulation route with Batman because he doesn’t have a woman in his life to terrorize, only Alfred.)

Finally, Batman and Superman fight. Seriously, for a movie called Batman v Superman, the two don’t actually spend much time duking it out. Maybe that’s why it’s a ‘v’ rather than a ‘vs?’ A trial (of sorts), rather than a battle? It doesn’t matter. Superman flies to Gotham (where Batman has called him out) and tries to get Bats to listen to reason, only it doesn’t work. I know you’re probably thinking it’s because Batman’s a homicidal lunatic in this movie, and that’s surely part of the reason, but most of it, actually, is Superman’s fault, since, idiotically, he keeps advancing forward on the dude trying to kill him, while very half-heartedly trying to explain what’s actually going on. If Supes would just stop moving for one second and say, “I need your help to save my mother,” the fight would never have even begun.

But he doesn’t do that, so yeah, they fight. The scene itself is pretty decent, although at this point, I was so checked out of the story that I wasn’t focusing on things like “Cool! Action!” and instead thinking stuff like, “Seriously, Superman, you’re such an idiot,” and “Jesus, how much time is left?” Batman and Superman both gain and regain the upper hand a few times before Batman, finally, is about to kill his foe. Weakly, Superman says that Batman needs to save Martha, and Batman responds by freaking the hell out and demanding why Supes is saying that name.

I know some people thought this was dumb, but honestly, the ‘Martha’ development is probably one of my favorite bits of the whole movie–and not just because the rest of the story is so stupid that this benefits by comparison. Part of the reason I like it so well, I think, is that it makes sense to me for someone to finally acknowledge the weird coinkydink that DC’s biggest, most-well known heroes have mothers with the same name. Mostly, though, I really like it because Batman seems a little unhinged here in a way that doesn’t seem totally OOC and awful. For the first time in this movie–and maybe in any of the live-action movies–I actually get the vibe that for all his cool ninja moves and awesome gadgetry, Batman is really just a fucked up kid who will, at least partially, always be stuck in that moment where he watched his parents die. It worked for me.

Well. Except for the fact that they replayed the whole Crime Alley flashback when just a two-second shot of Lauren Cohan’s face or JDM saying “Martha” would have worked better. And the fact that Lois arrives to explain that Martha is Superman’s mother because, clearly, Superman can’t articulate shit when he actually needs to. Other than that, though, I liked it.

Once Batman stands down, well. He and Superman are pretty much fine with each other, which is obviously ridiculous–and hysterical, particularly when Bats saves Martha Kent telling her that he’s a friend of her son’s. I mean, I guess I understand why he doesn’t go with, “Hey, I’m Clark’s friend. I mean, I did just try to kill him, but then we totes hugged it out.” Still, I have this image of Martha telling Clark that he should invite that nice young man who saved her from the bad guys over for dinner, and Clark doing a spit-take over a glass of milk and saying, “Gosh, Mom, I would, but I’m still feeling a little sore about the time he tried to impale me with a kryptonite spear.” Okay, I’d probably pay money to watch that scene.

Sadly, this is about the time the movie takes another ludicrous turn for the worse. Superman goes to confront Lex, and Lex proceeds with the next part of his Big, Evil Plan: Doomsday.

So, Lex has made this super strong monster, Doomsday, out of General Zod’s dead body, or something. (I would desperately love to know how much Michael Shannon got paid for showing up to be a dead body in various locations. I think that could be a pretty sweet gig, actually.) Doomsday, if you’re unfamiliar, is the dude who kills Superman in the comics, and in this movie, he looks like a slightly spiker version of the Abomination from The Incredible Hulk. It is not intimidating in the slightest.

Including Doomsday is, IMO, a pretty terrible choice because sweet Jesus, how many stories are they trying to fit into this one movie? BvS is a sequel to Man of Steel. It introduces a Batman divorced from any of the previous Batman films. It’s a reinterpretation of both The Dark Knight Returns and The Death of Superman. It’s trying to set up for Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and The Justice League, Part One, not to mention hinting heavily at the next Big Bad, Darkseid, and maybe an Injustice storyline? NO. This is too much to explain or even sum up.

Not to mention, if Lex was going to release Doomsday, what the hell was the point of getting Batman and Superman to fight in the first place? For that matter, why release Doomsday at all? At the end of the movie, Lex (in jail, where the guards inexplicably shave his head) appears to be totally nuts for no good reason I can tell, talking a bunch of craziness that hints at Darkseid’s arrival like that was the whole plan all along? So . . . Lex wanted a powerful alien threat? Why the hell would he want that? How does any of this benefit Lex even a little?

More things (primarily dumb) about The Fight Against Doomsday:

A. Batman realizes that there’s only one weapon which can stop Doomsday: the kryptonite spear he’d been planning to use against Superman. Unfortunately, it’s still back in Gotham. Does Batman leave Doomsday where he is, on some abandoned bit of earth, while he goes to get the spear? Nope. He decides, instead, to have Doomsday chase him all the way back to Gotham, and while I appreciate that they bother to drop a line that this particular part in Gotham is also abandoned . . . why would you even do that? Isn’t it far more likely that innocent citizens along the way will get hurt during this plan?

You know what I really want at this point? A Batman story that’s primarily focused on him as a detective, not just a dude in a cape with big fists. I want a story where he has to inspect clues and spy on people and run down leads and use all of his ridiculous gadgets. Historically, Batman is all about being super smart and having a ton of gadgets. When can I have a live-action movie like that?

B. Lois is literally only around at this point to be a damsel in distress. I can take some damselling, but this shit is just boring.

C. Thankfully, Wonder Woman returns for the big fight against Doomsday, and she is glorious.

She is basically the only good thing that happens in the last twenty minutes of the movie. Did I mention I’m ready to see a Wonder Woman movie now? Because I am. I really, really am. Please be better than this.

D. Superman sacrifices himself to kill Doomsday and save the world. I’d like to say that it’s sad, but my heartstrings were not significantly tugged, mostly because Superman’s death is entirely his own fault.

So, Superman goes to get that kryptonite spear, the one that seriously hurts him to even be near, much less use.  Does he give the spear to Wonder Woman, who’s also super strong and can use it against Doomsday far more effectively? Nope. Does he hand it to Batman, who isn’t nearly as strong, but isn’t currently using the Lasso of Truth on Doomsday–or, really, doing much of anything–and could still totally wield the weapon without poisoning himself? Nope. Superman sacrifices himself for absolutely no reason at all, proving that the apple really doesn’t fall far from the tree. Pa and Clark Kent, I hope you’re both happy in Hell.

Finally, a few more random notes before I can finally, finally, be free of this review/thesis/treatise:

A. Killing Superman in this movie is just dumb. We all know he’s coming back for the JL film. Why even do this? It makes no sense to me. (I know, I know: it’s because Doomsday killed him in the comics. Don’t care. You lose nearly all emotion from a character’s death scene when you know for a fact he’s going to be resurrected in the next film.)

B. In the beginning of the movie, Lois’s cameraman is executed. They don’t mention him by name, but it turns out that he’s Jimmy Olsen. That’s . . . pretty fucked up, to kill a major supporting character from the Superman stories like that for no real reason at all, especially if you’re not even going to bother naming the poor bastard. On the other hand, it could be further evidence for my Injustice theory, since–sorry, SPOILERS–Jimmy Olsen is executed with a gunshot in the beginning of that story, too. Although I should say that, as much as I’d love to see an Injustice movie, I would hate to see it made by Zack Snyder. Injustice is dark and violent and heartbreaking as hell. It’s also hilarious, just hugely entertaining, and nothing I’ve seen in Man of Steel or BvS has led me to believe Snyder could possibly make an Injustice movie that nails the comic’s awesome tone. (Besides, it’d work better as a TV show on HBO or Netflix, anyway.)

C. Lois is pretty upset at the beginning of the movie, and while she’s sitting there (naked in the tub, which I guess is slightly better than crying in the shower), it occurred to me that it might be kind of nice to see a girl break up with a superhero, not because he didn’t make it to dinner or something stupid like that, but because he chose saving her over saving other people and those people died. When a superhero and his GF break up, it’s almost always about the superhero’s guilt, his feelings. It might be kind of nice if it was about her guilt, for once.

D. Lex has a deep and abiding interest in pain foreshadow metahumans, so he just happens to have files on Wonder Woman, Aquaman, The Flash, and Cyborg. The fact that Lex has this info at all feels more than a little convenient. I agree with my sister that the video footage on these guys (excluding WW) would have worked better as a post credits scene. Also, in case anyone’s looking to fake geek girl me, here’s your ammunition: I totally couldn’t figure out Cyborg until after I got home. I kept trying to scroll through the JLU characters I knew in my head and kept coming up blank, probably because–despite having seen him with the Justice League before–I tend to associate Cyborg with the Teen Titans cartoon. Appropriately, I bow my head in shame.

On the other hand, I just wrote over 7500 words about a godamn superhero movie. If that doesn’t properly qualify someone as being a geek, I really don’t know what does.

QUOTES:

Bruce: “We’re criminals, Alfred. We’ve always been criminals. Nothing’s changed.”
Alfred: “Oh, yes, it has, sir. Everything’s changed.”

Bruce: “Twenty years in Gotham, Alfred. We’ve seen what promises are worth. How many good guys are left? How many stayed that way?”

Bruce: “Maybe it’s the Gotham City in me. We just have a bad history with freaks dressed as clowns.”

Bruce: “You don’t know me, but I’ve known a few women like you.”
Diana: “Oh, I don’t think you’ve ever known a woman like me.”

Batman: “It’s okay. I’m a friend of your son’s.”
Martha Kent: “I figured. The cape.”

Alfred: “Even you’ve gotten too old to die young, though not for lack of trying.”

Superman: “Is she with you?”
Batman: “I thought she was with you.”

Wonder Woman: “I’ve killed monsters from other worlds before.”

Alfred: “Master Wayne, since the age of seven you’ve been to the art of deception like Mozart to the harpsichord, but you’ve never been too hot at lying to me.”

Perry White: “Crime Wave in Gotham. In other breaking news, Water, Wet!”

Batman: “Oh, shit.”

Alfred: “Thermal imaging is showing me two dozen hostiles on the third floor. Why don’t I drop you off on the second?”

Anatoli: “I’ll kill her! Believe me, I’ll do it!”
Batman: “I believe you.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Christ. It’s just such a mess. There are good moments in it. I don’t feel like I completely wasted 2 1/2 hours of my life. (After all, think of all the nerd rage debates I can now participate in!) But it’s just not particularly fun or smart or even a little bit cohesive. Maybe at some point I’ll try to write an outline in how I would fix this movie, but right now I’m tapped out.

MVP:

Gal Gadot

TENTATIVE GRADE:

. . . C?

MORAL:

If there’s even a 1% chance a person is guilty, convict, and then send them straight to Death Row. Do not let them pass GO. Do not let them collect $200. Fry those fuckers, and rejoice in a job well done.

Well, my friends. The time has come.

CIVIL WAR IS UPON US.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be no spoilers for Civil War until the aptly named and easily avoidable Spoiler Section. However, there will be SPOILERS throughout the review for previous movies in the Marvel franchise, particularly Age of Ultron and The Winter Soldier.

SUMMARY:

The Sokovia Accords are created to ensure superheroes work solely for the UN, rather than as vigilantes with no oversight. The Avengers are divided on whether to sign the Accords, with half the team agreeing with Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) that it’s the responsible thing to do, and half following Steve Roger’s (Chris Evans) lead when he refuses to sign. Things become further complicated when a manhunt begins for Cap’s BFF and wanted fugitive, Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan).

NOTES:

1. I’m not going to lie, folks. I was a little worried going into this movie. I know I probably shouldn’t have been. I adore The Winter Soldier, which the Russo brothers also directed, and the early reviews of Civil War were glowing so hard that they were basically radioactive. (Well, Hollywood radioactive anyway. It’s a very specific shade of bright neon green.) But I worried anyway, due to some combo of these factors:

1A) I really wanted to like this movie, and expectations are a bitch.

1B) Especially taking Age of Ultron into consideration, which genuinely has some good stuff going for it but did ultimately disappoint me.

1C) There are a lot of players in Civil War, and the more you’ve got to juggle, the more likely everything’s gonna come crashing down.

1D) If I didn’t understand where both Captain America and Iron Man were coming from, I was going to have serious problems. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ll forgive a lot if I’m having a good time watching something, but if I don’t buy character motivation, you will lose me entirely, and that goes double for the characters I actually like. If this movie was so hell bent on making Tony the antagonist that it turned him into an insanely idiotic jackass (the way he was in the Civil War comics, apparently), I was not going to be happy and you were all going to suffer for it.

Thankfully, that is (mostly) not the case.

2. In truth, Civil War is a lot of fun. It effortlessly juggles its ridiculously large band of superheroes like you would not believe; more ensemble casts (looking at you, Star Trek) could stand to take a cue from this film. Almost everyone gets something pretty memorable to do; even the smaller roles that are basically just glorified cameos are exciting to watch. It’s fairly impressive.

The movie also manages to strike a pretty perfect balance between Funny As Hell and Angsty As Shit, which, of course, is just my favorite thing in the world. All the Laughter, All the Feels should basically be my fan motto.

And, of course, the action scenes and battle sequences are just spectacular.

The One Scene That Everyone’s Talking About with, like, eighteen different superheroes? (Okay, actually twelve.) You guys. It’s so good. Like, okay, there’s this spot inside my soul where all my impossible childhood dreams live, right, and one of those dreams comes from being a huge X-Men: The Animated Series fan as a kid. In the opening titles, there’s a shot of all the good mutants and all the evil mutants running at each other in some big, epic battle, and I’ve always wanted to watch that scene–but, unfortunately, it was never a real scene, just something they made to look cool for the opener. This disappointment has lingered in my childish heart for YEARS . . . but now, it’s been lifted because the giant ass battle in the middle of Civil War pretty much just gave me the best live-action version of that scene (albeit with different heroes) that I could have ever imagined. For that alone, I have to love this movie.

3. Still, that doesn’t mean I don’t have some problems with the film . . . because I’m me, yes, but also because as awesome as this film is, there are certain things that could have been handled better (or, in some cases, just eliminated entirely). I can’t get into too many details outside the Spoiler Section, of course, but here are a few vague allusions to my problems with the film:

3A. In matters of the heart, I take some issue with how two different relationships are handled. By no means do they ruin the movie for me, but . . . I also wouldn’t call them small issues.

3B. A particular element of the denouement feels pretty anticlimactic to me and almost a bit . . . convenient? It’s a minor problem, but I was annoyed by it.

3C. For the most part, the Team Cap vs Team Tony stuff is handled really well. There aren’t a lot of easy answers, and I can see where both sides are coming from . . . except at one point, where I think Captain America makes a crucial error in judgment that, frankly, slides me just a little to Team Tony’s side. (Should it be Team Iron Man? Probably, but I like the alliteration of Team Tony.) Now, I wouldn’t consider this a problem, necessarily, except that I didn’t get the impression that the writers felt Cap made a mistake here, and since I absolutely did . . . it bugged me. (It’s also a plot convenience issues. Oh, the things characters choose to do or not do in order to serve the plot.)

4. The truth, though, is that whether you were Team Tony or Team Cap (or Team Can’t We All Just Get Along) before this movie started, your allegiance probably changed to Team T’Challa or Team Spider-Man by the time the movie ended. Because hot damn, are they both awesome.

I liked Black Panther well enough while watching Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, but I must admit to being a little worried about how T’Challa and Wakanda itself were going to play out in a live-action movie. I mean, I don’t know why I worried–Hollywood having that stellar reputation for its careful depictions of other cultures, countries, and continents that it does—-but still. I was a bit concerned.

But Chadwick Boseman just hits it out of the park. He has such presence as T’Challa, I’m not even quite sure how to describe it. He is equal parts dignity, regality, and BADASSERY, and I am all on board for a Black Panther movie now.

Meanwhile, I have to admit that for all my doubts about a third Peter Parker in under fifteen years, Tom Holland does a pretty great job with the role.

His Spider-Man is nerdy, hyper, hilarious, and kind of adorable, and his presence brightens up the whole movie. I also have a weird amount of feels about the interactions between him and Tony. They’re kind of the best. And while I wasn’t surprised to find out that Holland was British–he just has a British sort of look to him?–I also don’t remember hearing his accent at all. So, kudos, kid. You’re what, 19? Yeah, don’t mind me as I collapse, weeping, as I consider the wide range of nothing I’d managed to accomplish by 19.

5. Unfortunately, most everything else I want to talk about includes spoilers, so I’m going to wrap this section up pretty early with a quick note about our antagonist, Zemo (Daniel Brühl).

What I can say about Zemo is limited, but I will note that, while not going on my list of Most Awesome Cinematic Villains Ever or anything, Zemo isn’t bad, especially by Marvel’s standards. He’s a little different than the usual Annihilate Everyone on the Planet for Evil Reasons of Evil bad guy, and I liked Brühl’s performance, especially in one scene near the end.

I am, of course, obviously disappointed that Marvel chose not to go with Baron Zemo’s costume from EMH, but I guess we can’t have everything we want in life. (For shame, Marvel. For shame. Think of what we could have had: ostentatious gold belt! Dalmatian fur shoulders! Matching Dalmation fur-lined boots! Purple EVERYWHERE! This is the pinnacle of supervillain fashion right here, Marvel, and you missed out big time. Go sit in a corner and think about what you’ve done.)

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

So, we begin our story back in 1990, when Bucky Barnes was still the Winter Solider. The bad guys use a set of particularly random words to trigger Bucky’s Killing Mode, and I’m absolutely sure those words won’t be relevant again. Bucky’s mission, it appears, is to crash some dude’s car so he can steal some blue junk out of the trunk. (Er, not a euphemism? Honestly, I don’t even know what that would be a euphemism for. It just sounds vaguely wrong. Please don’t offer suggestions.)

We don’t see the occupants of the car, but even before we get to Hilariously Young Tony Stark reminding us that his parents died on the way to the airport, I was like, “Oh yeah, Bucky totally just murdered Iron Man’s Mom and Dad. Shit be going DOWN tonight.” And then I was like, “Wait, 1990? Isn’t that math a little . . . off?” But I decided to trust my understanding of narrative over my incredibly limited abilities to do math in my head. This is always the right call.

(Also, can I just say: thank God CGI has advanced some since the days of X-Men: The Last Stand. 20-year-old CGI RDJ is weird because, like, your brain knows it’s wrong, but his face didn’t actually look bad, or at least not to me. This is a far cry from the attempt at Young Patrick Stewart and Young Ian McKellan in the worst X-Men movie of all time.)

Anyway. We’re now brought to the present, where Cap, Black Widow, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch stop Brock Rumlow (last seen on fire in The Winter Soldier) from stealing some weapon or other. Unfortunately, Rumlow also manages to distract Cap long enough to trigger a bomb, and when Scarlet Witch tries to levitate it into the sky to save Cap, it detonates too soon, destroying a building and killing a number of people inside.

This, along with what happened to Sokovia in Age of Ultron, prompts something of an outcry. Which, by the way, I do understand. There’s always the debate on whether superheroes should be held accountable for the civilian deaths that happen while they’re busy saving the world, which I think is an interesting one. On one hand, if the superheroes weren’t there, maybe–even likely–everyone dies. It’s not fair to blame them for an inability to save everyone. On the other hand, it really depends on how those civilian deaths occur, doesn’t it? Because I think there’s a difference between, say, these two different scenarios:

Scenario A: A cop is unable to evacuate two of the ten hostages in a building before the bad guys set off a bomb.

Scenario B: A cop sets off a small bomb to kill the bad guys holding ten people hostage, but the same blast which kills the bad guys also takes out two of the hostages.

As applied to superheroes . . . well, it’s complicated. Think the first Avengers movies with the Chitauri invasion: if Hulk tosses one of the Chitauri’s flying sea turtles into a building, and it crashes into six people, killing them, is that more Scenario B than A? Or do you think that Scenario A and B can’t be applied to extra-powered people? I’m just saying, I find the whole thing interesting. I think there’s more nuance in the debate than some people give it credit for.

But I’ve gotten off track again. Okay, so, the UN creates the Sokovia Accords, which honestly seem fairly reasonable, all things considered, although you’ve got to seriously side eye any plan that has General Ross (now Secretary of State Ross, apparently) on board. Anyway, The Avengers (current and retired) divide pretty squarely in half:

Cap votes NAY. He does not trust any government, even a collection of governments, to send the team on missions that are morally right. He also believes that the UN will keep the Avengers from helping people who need help purely due to political reasons, and he’s almost certainly not wrong about that. Cap definitely has cause not to trust the upper-ups (kids, can we say HAIL HYDRA?), and his journey over the last few movies from a dude who just wants to fight for his country to a guy who doesn’t really trust his country is actually kind of awesome. Still, it’s worth pointing out that his philosophical stand against the Accords rather quickly become almost entirely about saving Bucky.

Iron Man votes YAY. It’s a weird vote if you’ve recently watched Iron Man 2, where Tony’s absolutely refusing to give the government control of his suits, but since Age of Ultron, Tony’s got mad remorse like whoa, especially after grieving mother Alfre Woodard appears to guilt the holy living shit out of him. Tony thinks the Avengers need accountability, and I don’t think he’s wrong about that. Some of the moves he makes, though, start getting a little sketch, despite the best of intentions.

Black Widow votes YAY, mostly because she reads the political landscape and figures this is happening whether she likes it or not.

Oh, some shit’s about to go down.

Vision votes YAY because statistical analysis suggests that there may be a causation between superheroes trying to save the world and supervillains trying to destroy the holy hell out of it.

Scarlet Witch ABSTAINS but then switches to NAY when Vision, acting under Tony’s orders, keeps her confined against her will to Avengers Headquarters. (See what I mean about sketch? Tony’s trying to keep Wanda safe, but imprisoning anyone against their will when they haven’t broken any laws is pretty much never a good idea.)

Hawkeye ABSTAINS because he’s retired but then switches to NAY when he goes to break out Scarlet Witch. I’m guessing that it’s her imprisonment which causes Hawkeye to get into the game? He’s really the only one in the whole film whose motivation seems a little bit shaky. Maybe it’s the fangirl in me, but I kind of assumed he’d pick whatever side Nat was on unless he had strong motivation not to, which I’m not sure the Sokovia Accords alone provides, not for him.

Falcon votes NAY because he’s Captain America’s bestie.

War Machine votes YAY because he’s Iron Man’s bestie, but also because he genuinely believes in the Sokovia Accords, which is entirely consistent with his character throughout the Iron Man movies.

And in the midst of this debate, something deeply upsetting happens: Peggy Carter dies, and I am Jack’s total despair.

Yes, yes, Peggy lived a full, happy life, and I had a few months to make my peace with the likelihood of her death, as my sister correctly predicted she would bite it from the trailer, but . . . ugh. I’m just so bummed now. Peggy Carter was the best. Word is that Season Three of Agent Carter is looking less and less likely–oh, no, it just got cancelled? AS I WAS EDITING THIS?! Motherfucker. We have now killed and cancelled Peggy Carter. Now I’m just depressed.

Especially because we’ve hit upon my first semi-serious problem with the movie:

WHERE HAVE ALL THE GOOD LOVE INTERESTS GONE?

I want to be 100% clear about this: I do not ship Steve Rogers and Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) at ALL.

Hey! That’s my girl you’re talking about.

Look, I never thought Sharon had much in the way of personality. VanCamp and Evans barely have even a thimble of chemistry between them, and I was deeply unenthused when I found out that Steve’s new love interest was Peggy’s great niece. Like, that’s taking “dumping the old ball and chain for the hot, younger model” thing to a whole new level of squick, you know? But not only is Sharon an incredibly lackluster replacement for Peggy, I seriously object to the timing of Steve and Sharon’s smoochies. Like, okay, clearly I love Peggy, but even I didn’t expect Steve to stick with Peg when she’s, like, 90-years-old. I figured he’d move on, and I was fine with that, especially if he moves on with Tony Stark because COME ON YOU KNOW YOU SHIP IT. (Unless you’re a Bucky/Steve shipper, of course, in which case I can’t help you because I’m just not. I know, Half of the Internet: I’m letting you down right now. I can’t help it. I just dig this too much.)

So, yeah, moving on? I’m cool with that. What I’m less cool with is Steve and Sharon macking on each other, what, later that very same day? Or is it supposed to be the next day? Either way, I’m sorry, it’s gross. Peggy’s supposed to be the big love of Steve’s life. She is barely in the ground, and he’s already giving tongue to Peggy’s great-niece? Well, that’s romantic. I mean, the whole thing is so rushed. I can’t help but feel like Peggy kicked the bucket just to pave the way for these two to get together, and really, who’s actually invested in Agent 13 and Cap anyway? (Well, other than Bucky and Sam, who, admittedly, have pretty hilarious matching “Go Steve, it’s your birthday” faces while watching The Kiss. I did laugh pretty hard at that.) Sharon and Steve have had a couple of scenes in two movies where they kinda/sorta half-ass flirt, and that’s about it. Do they even have a ship name? (Is it Agent America, because it should be.) I know romance in the Marvel movies can be kind of hit-or-miss, but this one is such a miss for me it’s not even funny.

And while we’re on the subject of problematic romance stories in this movie . . .

So, yeah. Let me tell you about some bullshit.

Apparently, Tony and Pepper broke up sometime off screen, presumably because Tony couldn’t quit being Iron Man, but really because . . . I don’t know, the Russo Brothers wanted to make sure Tony was super, super isolated and depressed? (Or maybe because Gwyneth Paltrow couldn’t appear? But I’m pretty sure they could have written around that.) And it’s just like, come on, dudes. I like that you at least acknowledge the end of Iron Man 3 (the way Age of Ultron totally failed to do), but seriously, Tony Stark has enough angst in this film as is. He has, like, four previous movies worth of guilt, plus his BFF gets badly hurt, plus he finds out that his parents were murdered. You know? Did you really need to give him a breakup too? (I know it’s never going to happen, but I’ve got to say: I’m kind of ready to see a Tony Stark story which doesn’t go like this: Tony fucks up, Tony has guilt, Tony tries to fix his mistake which leads to Tony fucking up again, Tony having more guilt, Tony trying to fix his mistake, etc. Maybe we could just have a lot less fucking up and guilt the next time around?)

Plus, while I’m not particularly interested in watching Tony and Pepper’s unnecessary romantic melodrama, their relationship is easily the biggest, most well-liked canon relationship in the MCU. (It certainly helps that, unlike Evans and VanCamp, Robert Downey Jr. and Gwyneth Paltrow have mad chemistry.) We’ve been following their romance since 2008. Breaking them up off screen is bullshit. If they were going to breakup, we deserved to actually, you know, see it. Instead, the Russo brothers cast Pepper aside like she was just some extra, a minor part in a past film, and between that and the Peggy/Sharon Carter fiasco, I’m left with a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Love interests seem awfully replaceable in Civil War, which might not frustrate me so much in a film that had a better female-to-male ratio, but, yeah. This is what we’ve got:

Important Male Characters: Steve, Bucky, Tony, Rhodey, Sam, Vision, Clint, T’Challa, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, Zemo, and Thaddeus Ross.
Important Female Characters: Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Sharon Carter.

And truthfully, I still don’t find Scarlet Witch much more compelling than Sharon Carter. She seems to have more potential, at least, and her powers remain cool. Still, her whole story (people are scared of me!) feels more like an outline of a character arc than an actual character arc. And while her hint at a romance with Vision (who also doesn’t interest me much) is probably my favorite romance in the movie, I still was kind of like “Must we? We must? Fine.” I will freely admit to being amused by the paprika bit, but still, no amount of cute floundering with yummy spices will make up for imprisoning your would-be girlfriend, so I find I’m having trouble being excited by their possible romance. Although it’s worth pointing out that Scarlet Witch and Vision manage about 80 times more burgeoning chemistry in their forty-second cooking lesson than Cap and Sharon have managed in two movies.

Time to get back to the main plot? Okay. World leaders meet to sign and implement the Sokovia Accords, but it goes badly when Zemo (pretending to be the Winter Soldier) assassinates T’Challa’s father, the King of Wakanda.

And T’Challa is PISSED about it.

Even if I’d known nothing about Black Panther going into this movie, I like to think I would’ve figured out that the poor former king of Wakanda was a dead man walking. He might as well have worn a shirt that said DOOMED FOR PLOT PURPOSES. (I should like to own such a shirt. It would go nicely with my red one that has EXPENDABLE written across it.) Naturally, T’Challa goes into Badass Revenge Mode, and the official manhunt for Bucky begins with orders to kill on sight. Naturally, Steve takes issue with that, so he and Sam try to get to Bucky first. Much action ensues, but the takeaway is that Steve, Sam, and Bucky are all arrested.

Before I go any further, it occurs to me that I have not yet discussed Everett K. Ross (Martin Freeman), not to be confused with Secretary of State Ross. I didn’t know anything about Ross, so I looked him up, and apparently he’s an ally to Black Panther in the comics, which, honestly, surprises me quite a bit because all I really got from Freeman’s performance was a) a surprisingly decent American accent, and b) the impression of a schmucky little G-man who thinks he’s a bigger deal than he is. Like, that whole speech daring whoever to misbehave? (I can no longer remember if he’s talking to Bucky or Zemo here.) I was flat out rolling my eyes at his idiocy. Maybe this will change with the Black Panther movie, but right now Everett K. Ross strikes me as a minor villain, not a superhero’s ally.

But back to the story: Bucky meets is a psychologist (well, supposedly). The session goes poorly.

The psychologist, of course, is Zemo, who uses those random trigger words we heard in the beginning of the movie to activate the Winter Soldier. Bucky escapes, causing destruction and death as he goes, but he’s more or less back to normal by the time Steve and Sam (who have also escaped) catch up to him. Bucky explains about the trigger words and what he believes is Zemo’s Master Plan of Evil: to release the five bigger, badder Winter Soldiers (who we’ve never heard of before) because they have the capability of DESTROYING THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT.

This turns out not to be Zemo’s plan, which, thank God. On one hand, it makes sense that if you can brainwash one dude and turn him into a human weapon, why not brainwash some more dudes? More bang for your Buck, so to speak. (No, I’m not sorry for the pun.) On the other hand, revealing that the ultimate evil is a handful of miscellaneous assassins on ice (Disney’s best figure skating show yet!) is pretty underwhelming, like, is this really the threat that’s going to bring Captain America and Iron Man back together again?

Well, kind of. But before we get there, let’s get to my next problem with the film.

LEARN TO SHARE WITH THE FUCKING CLASS, CHILDREN.

I’m Captain America, and I’m here to teach you about NOT using your words.

Here are the things that Steve knows:

A) Bucky didn’t kill T’Challa’s father.
B) Bucky was purposefully triggered by a fake psychologist.
C) The same fake psychologist (supposedly) hopes to control five SUPER ASSASSINS.

Now, it’s true that Steve can’t prove any of these things yet. And I wouldn’t expect him to try and reason with Ross (who clearly can’t be reasoned with) or, say, T’Challa (who’s unlikely to hear much while in Full-On Vengeance Mode). But instead of reaching out and telling these not-insignificant things to Tony or Natasha (you know, people he’s saved the world with and trusted to have his back), Steve just says something like, “Tony will never believe it,” and moves on. Which is a huge fucking mistake.

Look, Tony probably wouldn’t have believed Steve without proof, or at least, wouldn’t have trusted Steve to be objective about his BFF’s innocence. I doubt Tony would have stopped trying to bring Cap and his cohorts in. He might, however, have put some resources into investigating Steve’s claims, you know, as happens much later in the film when the real psychologist is found dead. And if Tony had made that discovery before, say, the Big Awesome Battle at the Airfield? Here’s how the story would have played out:

Instead of a Big Awesome Battle at the Airfield, Team Tony and Team Cap warily call a truce to investigate Bucky’s new lead into Zemo’s whereabouts. Because there’s no battle, Rhodey isn’t paralyzed, nor are Hawkeye, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, and Ant-Man captured and imprisoned. All twelve superheroes head out to the Ice Fortress, where Zemo probably still breaks Tony’s heart by revealing the truth about his parents, but the fight doesn’t last nearly as long since he’ll have eleven people trying to keep him from outright murdering Bucky Barnes. So, it’s still sad, but not, like, quite so much catastrophe, right?

Instead of making sense, Steve only tells Tony about the fake psychologist when they’re duking it out at the airfield, and obviously, that’s just a half-assed effort that comes way too late in the game. It actually reminds me a little of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (if you’ve seen it, you probably know which scene), and honestly, this might actually be a little worse because there’s a way better chance that Tony would be receptive to what Steve is saying, considering they’re, you know, friends, and no one’s actually trying to kill one another.

And what really annoys me about Cap’s decision is not just that it’s made for clearly plot-related reasons, but because nobody calls it out as a mistake. After the Big Awesome Battle at the Airfield, Natasha tells Tony that they played this wrong, and I’m just like, “No, no you didn’t! Before this scene, no one has bothered to tell you anything like ‘Bucky didn’t do this’ or ‘Bucky was set up.’ Your reactions and responses to the information you had at your disposal were completely logical. It’s Captain America who played this wrong, damn it!” But nobody listens to me.

Moving on. Both teams feel like they’re the underdog, so they each recruit some ringers. Team Cap gets Ant-Man, who’s very enthusiastic about the prospect. Meanwhile, Tony goes to recruit Spider-Man, and these two teaming up might be my very favorite part of the whole movie.

Other than the fact that they’re just hilarious together, Tony finding this kid, giving him costume upgrades, and looking out for him in the big fight ties in pretty well thematically, given both his philanthropy in past films and his introduction at the beginning of this movie, donating a bunch of dough to college kids in financial need. I’m happy that Tony’s going to appear in the next Spider-Man movie. Shit, I can’t believe I even want to see the next Spider-Man movie. (I never loved the Tobey Maguire films the way other people seemed to, and I never saw Andrew Garfield’s at all.) I even enjoyed Tony flirting with Marisa Tomei, although that does not at all negate my annoyance about the unceremonious disappearance of Pepper Potts.

Then we get to Big Awesome Battle at the Airfield, which is just . . . well, awesome.

There isn’t much I can say about it here that hasn’t already been said, but a couple of highlights:

A. Hawkeye and Black Widow have an amusing “are we still friends” moment, which I was very grateful for. I was going to be very unhappy if the film refused to acknowledge their relationship.

B. Falcon, to Winter Soldier: “I hate you.”

I love that Cap’s two BFFs are decidedly unimpressed with one another.

C. Ant-Man becomes Giant-Man, and it’s pretty awesome. I probably should have been expecting it, but wasn’t. Iron Man’s reaction is pretty priceless, too.

D. Natasha betrays Team Iron Man, which despite my annoyance with Cap’s reticence above, does actually work for me because if anyone’s going to play both sides, it’s obviously going to be Natasha, who continues to be the best. Stop screwing with me, Marvel. I want a firm commitment to a Black Widow movie NOW.

E. Vision attempts to take down Falcon but, instead, hits War Machine, who plummets to the ground and hits it hard, despite both Falcon and Iron Man trying to save him.

I have slightly mixed feelings about Rhodey’s fall. On one hand, it’s such a great scene, and it’s good to see actual physical consequences come from such a huge superhero confrontation. (How often does the superhero actually fail to catch someone, especially someone who matters to both the superhero and the audience?) On the other hand, I just finished writing an essay on the trope of Throwing Off the Disability, so I couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at the pretty quick transition from “Rhodey’s probable permanent paralysis” to “Rhodey using a Stark exoskeleton to walk (with, admittedly, some difficulty).” I think I’ll reserve judgment for now and see how it plays out in future films. I’d like this experience to be an important part of his character development going forward (and not just another rung on Tony’s Ever-Growing Guilt Ladder), but I have a sneaking suspicion that this will not be the case. Would be lovely to be wrong, though.

So, everyone on Team Cap (other than Bucky and Cap himself) are thrown into Ross’s Floating Prison, which is clearly not quite what Tony had in mind when he signed the Accords. Hawkeye is fairly derisive, which is fair: Tony keeps trying to prevent bad things from happening, but also keeps failing to visualize the potential ramifications of his preventative measures. On the other hand, I also agree with Tony: he didn’t make Hawkeye or anyone else break the law. Whether they were right or wrong, Team Cap’s actions got them where they are.

Meanwhile, Bucky and Cap make it to the Secret Ice Fortress. Tony also arrives, offering a truce after realizing that Bucky’s been framed. T’challa, covertly, follows Tony and watches from the shadows. It turns out that Zemo killed all the Random Winter Soldiers; his real agenda was always to destroy the Avengers from the inside. To do this, he reveals that Bucky is the one who killed Tony’s parents, and despite the fact that I already knew this, I somehow never put it together that this big secret was Zemo’s Master Plan all along. I just figured it would come out somehow.

I liked this turn, though. It’s sort of nice, having a villain whose motive isn’t just RULE THE WORLD or DESTROY THE WORLD or something of that nature. Also, it nicely fulfills the not-so-subtle foreshadowing: Natasha and Clint separately tell Tony to watch his back within about three minutes of each other, so I’m sitting there in the theater thinking, Okay, I get it, I see your foreshadow, guys. I just don’t know who’s betraying Tony here.

Well, turns out it’s Steve, of all people. Because when Tony, devastated and furious, asks if Cap knew, and Cap has to admit that he did . . . I mean, I was like, oh, SHIT. For some reason, I just assumed that Steve had no idea Tony’s parents were murdered. This just makes everything so much worse.

Time to fuck some shit up.

Tony, not shockingly, attacks, and the whole fight sequence is so good because it’s fueled by such actual emotion. Seriously, the moment where Tony’s like, “I don’t care. He killed my mom,” just kicks me right in the feels, you know? Everyone gets the upper hand at one point or another, but in the end, Steve uses his shield to break the arc reactor in Tony’s suit. The symbolism of this is not subtle, but it’s effective as hell. Steve Rogers breaks Tony Stark’s heart. Come, shippers, weep with me.

Steve and Bucky take off, leaving the shield behind. Meanwhile, T’Challa chooses not to kill Zemo after all (and prevents Zemo from killing himself), which is sort of a stereotypical superhero choice that, in this case, really works well for me, something I mostly credit to Boseman’s dignified performance. (And when I say stereotypical, I’m not trying to suggest that I wanted to see the alternative. It’s just that vengeful superhero choosing justice over revenge at the eleventh hour is a pretty standard story.)

We then move into the denouement, where we hit my last and probably least serious problem:

THIS ISN’T THE ASSASSINS ON ICE SHOW I WAS LOOKING FOR, DISNEY.

After all this shit, Bucky decides to hibernate in a refrigerator again until they can find a way to keep him from being triggered. I’m not sure how likely it is that anyone else will learn his weird Brainwashing Grocery List, nor am I sure how they plan to come up with any cure to brainwashing solutions while their primary test subject is asleep, but whatever, fine.

While I’m sure that Marvel is setting Bucky up to return at some critical juncture, right now it really feels like Bucky was just inconvenient, so they shoved him in a fridge. While it’s sort of nice to see that kind of thing happen to a man for once, it does feel like a serious lack of payoff to me. Bucky’s finally at a stage where he seems to know who he is, who he was, and what he’s done. There’s a lot of really interesting character stuff that could come from him and Steve being on the run together. Instead, Bucky decides to temporarily martyr himself, and we’re just supposed to call it “peace” because T’Challa says it? Sorry, guys, I’m not buying that, even from Awesome Sauce T’Challa.

Meanwhile, Steve rescues the rest of Team Cap from the Floating Jail and sends a letter to Tony, apologizing for not telling him about his parents’ murder. I suspect Tony won’t be all, “Well, that’s okay, I totally understand now!” the next time he sees Steve, but nonetheless there’s a hint that these two might eventually be able to move forward into a loving embrace. At the very least, Tony seems happy that the other Avengers have been rescued, as he gleefully puts Ross on hold with no intention of picking up when the Secretary calls to yell about the escape.

And . . . well, I guess that’s about it.

QUOTES:

Captain America: “This doesn’t have to end in a fight, Buck.”
Bucky: “It always ends in a fight.”

Hawkeye: “We haven’t met. I’m Clint.”
Black Panther: “I don’t care.”

Iron Man: “Who’s that? Who’s speaking?”
Ant-Man: “It’s your conscience. We don’t talk a lot these days.”

Peter: “I can’t go to Germany.”
Tony: “Why not?”
Peter: “Because I have homework.”

Bucky: “Can you move your seat up?”
Sam: “No.”

Falcon: “Tiny dude is big now!”

Spider-Man: “Holy shit.”

Spider-Man: “You have a metal arm? That’s AWESOME, dude.”

Tony: “So, you’re the . . . Spiderling. Crime Fighting Spider? You’re Spider Boy?”
Peter: “Spider-Man.”
Tony: “Not in that onesie, you’re not.”
Peter: “It’s not a onesie.”

Black Widow: “Are we still friends?”
Hawkeye: “That depends on how hard you hit me.”

Iron Man: “Okay, anybody on our side hiding any shocking or fantastic abilities they’d like to disclose, I’m open to suggestion.”

Scott Lang: “Hank Pym did say never to trust a Stark.”
Tony: “Who are you?”
Scott: “Come on, man.”

Spider-Man: “Did you guys ever see that really old movie, Empire Strikes Back?”
War Machine: “Jesus, Tony, how old is this guy?”
Iron Man: “I don’t know. I didn’t carbon date him. He’s on the young side.”

Bucky: “Couldn’t you have done that earlier?”
Falcon: “I hate you.”

Falcon: “I don’t know how many fights you’ve been in, but there’s not usually this much talking.”

Captain America: “He’s my friend.”
Iron Man: “So was I.”

Sam: “Bird costume? Come on.”

Iron Man: “All right, I’ve run out of patience. Underoos!”

Iron Man: “Clearly retirement doesn’t suit you. Get tired of playing golf?”
Hawkeye: “Well, I played 18. I shot 18.”

Steve: “You know, I’m glad Howard got married. I only knew him when he was young and single.”
Tony: “Oh really? You two knew each other? He never mentioned that. Maybe only a thousand times. God, I hated you.”
Steve: “I don’t mean to make things difficult.”
Tony: “I know. Because you’re a very polite person.”

Tony: “Sometimes I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth.”

Wanda: “Is that paprika?”
Vision: “I thought it might lift your spirits.”
Wanda: “Spirits . . . lifted.”
Vision: “In my defense, I’ve never actually . . . eaten anything.”

Natasha: “Tony, you’re being uncharacteristically non-hyperverbal.”

Iron Man: “Manchurian Candidate, you’re killing me here. We’re on a truce. Put the gun down.”

Black Widow: “Looking over your shoulder should be second nature.”
Falcon: “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a little paranoid?”
Black Widow: “Not to my face. Why, did you hear something?”

Sam: “So. You like cats?”
Steve: “Sam.”
Sam: “What? Dude shows up dressed like a cat, and you don’t want to know more?”

T’Challa: “The Black Panther has been a protector of Wakanda for generations. A mantle passed from warrior to warrior. Now because your friend murdered my father, I also wear the mantle of king. So I ask you, as both warrior and king, how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?”

Clint: “I retire for like, what, five minutes, and it all goes to shit?”

Friday: “Multiple contusions detected.”
Iron Man: “Yeah, I detected that too.”

Spider-Man (about Cap’s shield): “That thing doesn’t obey the laws of physics at all!”

Scarlet Witch: “What are you doing here?”
Hawkeye: “Disappointing my kids.”

Captain America: “This isn’t going to change what happened.”
Iron Man: “I don’t care. He killed my mom.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Overall, pretty great. Awesome action, wonderful character beats, mostly believable motivations. Tying the whole story together with a personal (rather than an idealogical) conflict was a great call. Would be happier if Black Widow wasn’t the only female character in the whole franchise that I actually gave a damn about, though, and if Steve had at least tried to explain things to the other side.

MVP:

Chadwick Boseman, I think. There was just something magnetic about him. But Tom Holland was a lot of fun, too, and Robert Downey Jr. effectively punched me in the heartstrings.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Communication is important. You hear that, Captain America? You have a perfectly functioning larynx. Use it.

So, Suicide Squad was out for about a week before I had the opportunity to see it, and the reviews in that week were . . . not kind. I’d heard from a few people directly who enjoyed the movie, but overall it was sounding like yet another DC live action fail.

The thing is I’m, like, contrary and opinionated and shit, so despite the poor press, I had to make my way to the theater to try it out myself.

Ultimately, it’s a bit of a hot mess. More than a bit, honestly; I want to edit the holy shit out of this movie. On the upside, it’s way more enjoyable than Man of Steel or BvS!

SUMMARY:

After the events of BvS, Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) puts together a team of supervillains–including Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), and a few other people that are obviously less important–to work suicidally dangerous ops for the government. Things go . . . sideways. And upside down. And basically any other direction that means “not good.”

NOTES:

1. The majority of reviews I’ve seen for Suicide Squad have lambasted it for being a tonal disaster. The basic idea seems to be that David Ayer made what was presumably a typically uber-dark DC film. The studio panicked after the harsh critique of BvS and wanted a considerably lighter film, especially after people responded so positively to the incredibly fun trailers. The studio interfered, and everything was ruined.

Here’s my thing: I actually didn’t have huge problems with the overall tone. With one specific scene, yes. That scene has tonal weirdness. But pretty much everything about that scene is troublesome for me, from its placement in the overall story to the problematic character backstory that’s revealed to the fact that it doesn’t include prominent dialogue that was featured in the trailer, like, come on, dudes, everyone hates that crap. Suicide Squad has a bit of a weird tone, sure, but sometimes I like a weird tone, and sparkly ultra-violence with sucker punch moments of Holy Shit Dark! and/or Holy Shit Feels! is actually kind of my jam. So, yeah, tone? Not actually a big problem I have with the film.

Structure, on the other hand . . . Oh. My. GOD.

Obviously, I’ll talk in more detail about this during the Spoiler Section, but for now . . . just . . . good Lord. The movie has one introduction it doesn’t need at all. Then it has two further introductions when one would have sufficed. It has an ensemble cast to balance (admittedly, a difficult thing to do) and falls spectacularly short of giving the team equal screen time. We’re told things up front that are later treated like Big Reveals. The plot is simple and should work, yet manages to feel muddled with unnecessary flashbacks and action sequences that just don’t stand out. It’s almost bizarre, how badly the story is laid out.

2. On the upside, I generally enjoy almost all the actual characters! Let’s discuss the team first.

Deadshot

Will Smith

Deadshot has the clearest personal arc and the most screen time, and despite being the most softened version of Deadshot I’ve ever seen . . . you know, he’s still a lot of fun. I didn’t anticipate this going into the film, but halfway through the movie I realized that I’ve kind of missed Will Smith, especially in this summer blockbuster type shit. Obviously, he’s acted in plenty of things over the years, but the last Will Smith movie I watched in theater was I, Robot back in 2004. So, this was sort of cool. I like all of his scenes with his daughter (especially the final one), and he has a good deal of seemingly natural chemistry with Margot Robbie.

Harley Quinn

Margot Robbie

Performance-wise, she’s pretty much perfection. Robbie really seems to have a good handle on the spirit of Harley Quinn, and it was a lot of fun for this childhood Batman: The Animated Series fan to finally see a live-action Harley on the big screen. Also, her voice sounds pretty decent, particularly considering Robbie’s Australian. She’s obviously not Arleen Sorkin or Tara Strong, but I was still happy.

Ultimately, I’m disappointed with Harley’s actual arc–more on that later–but Robbie is easily still the shining star of the movie. I would absolutely watch a spin-off film with just her and Deadshot, although preferably with different people behind the camera.

Diablo

Jay Hernandez

So, Diablo has significant problems for me, but unfortunately, I can’t discuss any of them until the Spoiler Section. Jay Hernandez does a pretty good job with the role, though; I’m just disappointed because I’d rather see him in almost any other part.

Although to be fair, while he doesn’t quite rack up screen time like Deadshot and Harley Quinn, Diablo gets considerably more to do than the rest of the people on his team. So, that’s something, I guess.

Captain Boomerang

Jai Courtney

For instance, this guy. Captain Boomerang is mostly around to say a few funny lines and then quickly fade into the background. He has no emotional or personal arc to speak of and very much strikes me like he’s supposed to be the Funny Guy on the team . . . except most of the funny lines are handed to Deadshot and Harley Quinn, which doesn’t leave him a whole lot to do. On the upside, this is easily the most personality I’ve ever actually seen from Jai Courtney. (Which is a deeply unfair thing to say because I’ve never actually watched any of his movies, just trailers for Terminator Genisys and A Good Day to Die Hard. It’s just that those trailers have severely underwhelmed me.)

I could potentially enjoy watching more Captain Boomerang, you know, if they bothered to give him something to do the next go-around.

Killer Croc

Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje

Of course, even Captain B might be better off than Killer Croc, who’s just . . . like, I don’t even know why they have him in this movie. I mean, I do: he’s supposed to be the big inhuman heavy, like, I’m thinking a more villainous version of Groot: he shouldn’t talk a lot, but when he does, it’s to say something hilarious. It’s super archetypal, of course, but it works and it doesn’t even require a lot of screen time: you just need a few standout moments where he’s totally awesome. And yet when I try to think back to a Killer Croc moment that stands out, any funny line or action scene that highlights his specific badass-ness . . . I’ve got nothing. (The same goes for Captain Boomerang, particularly when it comes to action scenes. The Thor movies make good use of Thor’s hammer. The Captain America movies make good use of Cap’s shield. And yet Captain Boomerang’s boomerang? Yeah, not so much.)

It probably doesn’t help that Killer Croc is nearly impossible to hear. I like Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje in plenty of things (Lost and The Mummy Returns, for instance), but he’s just utterly wasted here.

Katana

Karen Fukuhara

Katana’s lack of screen time may depress me even more than King Croc’s, though, because everything about this woman is awesome, and yet we get to see so little of her. She’s a Japanese badass seeking revenge for her refrigerated husband, and her sword contains the souls of every person she’s cut down. (Including her Dead Hubby, who someone killed with her sword. More importantly, she talks to Dead Hubby through the sword. So. AWESOME.) Based on this description alone, I want to see a Katana movie NOW, and yet she has basically nothing to do here, like, again, I’m a total loss to understand what she’s even doing in the film.

Rick Flag

Joel Kinnaman

Flag is the only other good guy on the team besides Katana, and he’s . . . okay, I guess. He gets more to do than the last three people I mentioned; it’s just that none of what he has to do is terribly interesting. I suspect his dullness is more of a writing thing than an acting thing, although I’m admittedly not very familiar with Kinnaman’s other work. (I watched maybe a whole two episodes of The Killing.) But yeah, he’s pretty boring. If Suicide Squad actually gets a sequel, the writers need to infuse him with a personality, STAT.

3. As far as our other characters go:

Amanda Waller

Viola Davis

Viola Davis is obviously a great talent, and she does a perfectly good job with Amanda Waller–like a more homicidal (yet also more emotionally stable) version of Annalise Keating–but I still can’t help wish that someone else had been cast. It didn’t have to be CCH Pounder (even though it obviously should have been, probable scheduling conflicts aside), but Viola Davis is not a large woman, and goddamn it, Amanda Waller is. Admittedly, I appreciate them not casting someone incredibly thin (like Cynthia Addai-Robinson, who played Waller on Arrow), but it’s still frustrating to finally have an opportunity to see a badass fat woman on the big screen, only to not go forward with it. It’s not surprising, obviously, but frustrating? Yes.

That said, Viola Davis effortlessly commands every scene she’s in, and her performance is one of the only solidly good things about the movie, so . . . you know. It’s good and yet vexing, all at the same time.

Enchantress

Cara Delevingne

So, Enchantress has the potential to be an awesome villain. Her backstory is interesting. She looks cool. And it’s kind of neat to have a female supervillain again, like, when was the last superhero movie to feature a female Big Bad? X-Men: The Last Stand, maybe? I mean, you know, that was only 10 YEARS AGO. Oh, let me walk that back: I guess, technically, The Dark Knight Rises would count too. All right, fine, only 4 years ago, then. We can still do better.

This probably isn’t going to shock you at this point, but despite the Enchantress’s potential, the execution is somewhat lacking. Delevingne herself seems fine. Unfortunately, her story is criminally underwritten, and frustratingly, scenes that should be about her often feel like they’re about a different character instead. Also, her Big Bad Agenda is vague and pretty bland. She’s not the absolute worst villain I’ve ever seen, or anything, but she could have been a lot more fun.

The Joker

Jared Leto

And, finally, this motherfucker.

Performance-wise, Jared Leto works okay for me. I mean, I don’t know if he’s worth all this crap (actually, I do, and he’s not, because no one is–method acting, I swear to God), but he’s perfectly respectable in the part; if Cesar Romero and Jack Nicholson both went for campy, Heath Ledger went for Chaotic Evil, and Mark Hamill went for, oh, sheer perfection, then I’d say Jared Leto went for sadistic glee, like, this guy is more about colorfully costumed torture porn than electroshock zappers or balloon animals filled with acid. In fact, he might be a pretty good Joker for a live-action adaptation of The Killing Joke. (Note: I never, ever want to see this. PLEASE never make this movie, DC.)

The Joker is a problem, though, because he has pretty much zero bearing on the plot. We don’t spend a ton of time with the Joker, but it’s still way more than we need for a guy that could easily be cut out of the story. He either needed to do something of considerably more significance, or else be cut down to a cameo.

4. One of the reasons I’m marking this review as a Blasphemy is that I seem to disagree with every single person on the planet (other than my sister) on tone. The other reason, though, is that most people seem to be blaming the studio’s reshoots for why the film failed, and I’m not entirely certain I agree.

Of course it’s hard to know for sure, considering I never saw what the original cut of this movie was like. I am pretty sure that the studio’s interference was at least partially responsible for how the story structure was Frankensteined together, and that’s a serious problem, but . . . despite how much needs to be fixed, there are still elements that I really, really enjoyed. Other than the stellar cast, I liked the colorful fonts, the intro stats, the in-your-face-and-far-too-on-the-nose soundtrack. This was FAR less of a grim, boring slog than either Man of Steel or Batman v Superman. Was it great? No. Good? No, that’s probably pushing it too. But if someone wanted to me watch this one again with them, I could easily do it. If someone wanted me to watch Man of Steel again, I’d demand to get paid for it.

I have been exceedingly unimpressed with how DC has handled its dark, gritty stories, like, I don’t even have a problem with grimdark and I still want to see DC learn how to balance some goddamn humor. This actually had humor. Was it a structural nightmare? Absolutely, but if the studio’s panic is the reason Suicide Squad wasn’t a completely boring 145 minute slog of protagonists making unrealistic and terrible life choices for the sake of Life is Dark, Man? Shit, I’m more than happy they did it.

5. People either seem to love the soundtrack or find it obnoxious. I’m . . . somewhere in the middle. It really probably is a bit too in-your-face sometimes, like, it does smack a teeny tiny bit of desperation. Still, I went with it and I found it generally enjoyable. I’ve certainly been listening to Suicide Squad playlists on Youtube all week, which has led to more than one dramatic lip-syncing of “Bohemian Rhapsody,” I can tell you. (It’s also led me to The Airborne Toxic Event’s cover of “Goodbye Horses,” which is weird because–while I quite like the cover–it doesn’t appear to be on the soundtrack or in the movie, far as I can tell.)

6. I feel like it might be worth mentioning that DC goes all out in this film when it comes to SF/F comic weirdness. Like, sure, the previous films have had aliens (that, for the most part, looked just like us) and okay, a few incredibly brief mentions of meta-humans, but that’s about it. This one casually throws in magic and immortal beings and possessions and monsters and swords that contain souls and all sorts of shit.

This isn’t really a compliment or complaint (actually, in my mind, it’s kind of both), but I do find it interesting. Marvel has this hodgepodge of weird shit going on, too, of course, but Marvel also has been building a shared universe for a lot longer than DC has. DC is still playing catch-up, which means that they’re still learning their own voice (Alasdair Stuart has a good article on that in Tor.com that I mostly agree with.) It also means that sometimes I can’t help but get an impression of ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ from their movies.

I understand this isn’t how big studios work, but I do wish that maybe DC would consider slowing down their timetable just a bit, because while I desperately want them to have a win, I’m not convinced that dealing with their obvious growing pains while trying to keep up with Marvel’s pace is really doing them any favors. Quality over quantity, you know?

7. Finally, before I get into the spoilerific meat of this review, I just wanted to say that Suicide Squad has a decent shot of winning either my Worst WTF Moment or my Most Unintentionally Hilarious Moment; I haven’t quite decided which yet. But it’s bad. It’s so laughably bad.

If you’d care to find out what it is, you’ll have to follow below.

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Disclaimer: To discuss this movie in detail, I surprisingly feel the need to also discuss Battle Royale, so expect SPOILERS for that film as well. It was made nearly 20 years ago; you’ve had time.

I know you’re all excited to hear The Most Unbelievable Line of All Time (hint: Diablo says it) but first, let’s begin at the beginning, shall we?

We start our movie with an introduction of both Deadshot and Harley Quinn in their cells at Belle Reve. The scenes themselves are fine, but they add absolutely nothing to the story, and it’s distinctly noticeable that no one else gets them. (To be fair, JJ Abrams’s Star Trek does something kind of similar when it singles out Kirk and Spock for introductory glimpses at their childhood, ignoring the rest of the crew, but it didn’t really bother me there. Here it feels so slapped on.)

We then cut to Amanda Waller selling the Suicide Squad (and helpfully introducing us to its members) to two government dudes, one of whom is Jim Hopper from Stranger Things! (One of the things I did enjoy during this movie was catching actors in small parts: I also saw Art Bell from Orphan Black and Hoyt from True Blood, although for whatever reason, I totally didn’t recognize Common as Monster T.)

This scene is fine, much better than the last, except we then proceed to Amanda Waller trying to sell the Suicide Squad to even more government dudes, and while I understand that doing anything in real life requires multiple meetings, there is absolutely no reason to have both scenes here. Although the second meeting does come with a nice shot of June Moone giving way to the Enchantress, so that’s kind of cool. And I suppose it does give us one of our only small glimpses at June Moone herself.

Oh, June Moone. Okay, so for people who didn’t watch the movie and are cheating by reading this–CHEATERS!!!–here’s the skinny: June is an archaeologist who’s a mite unluckier than Indiana Jones, so instead of finding the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail, she ended up getting possessed by the Enchantress. Bad luck, lady. This could be a pretty interesting story for June, but sadly, we barely ever meet her; the few scenes she actually has are almost exclusively viewed through the lens of her role as Rick Flag’s Love Interest. June has zero interiority, which is a serious problem for me; she is less of a character than a waif-like damsel-in-distress 100% of the time.

And unfortunately, Enchantress herself isn’t much more interesting. She could be interesting if she had a unique villainous plot, and/or we got to spend time with her and June fighting for control; alas, June gets no time at all, and Enchantress’s Big Evil Plan is to construct a generic Doom Machine of some kind that will apparently kill everybody on the planet. (It’s irony, see, cause humans worship machines now.) She also brings her brother back to life, so he can serve as her right hand man/Chief Henchman, but he’s even more boring than she is and easily replaceable by any random Level 9 Boss. Mostly, I wish he wasn’t in the movie at all–I think he just takes time away from Enchantress.

But I’ve gotten away from the story. Right, we were in the third version of the 1st act. Somehow, despite the multiple, repetitive introductions, the movie never once bothers to introduce Slipknot (Adam Beach).

This poor bastard. You can see his face in the background during Waller’s second meeting, but nobody ever actually talks about him at all. So when he’s randomly thrown in with the rest of the team, I’m like Oh, he’s a Nobu. He’s here to show that the bomb collar will really detonate, that it’s not a big bluff. The thing about Nobu, though, is that he isn’t immediately painted as such a Red Shirt in Battle Royale; that he’s eventually gonna die, oh yes, but not necessarily that he’ll die in the first ten minutes. So, Slipknot not getting any kind of introduction? Yeah, not so sure that works for me.

But I’ve skipped ahead again: everyone on the team is released from their cells, including Diablo, who doesn’t want to use his devastating pyrokinesis. Harley gets a nice moment where she looks at her original costume from The Animated Series; I definitely appreciated that little Easter Egg. And then things go badly when the Enchantress (who Amanda Waller originally intended to be on the team) gains full control of June and starts doing a bunch of villainous shit.

As far as the villainous shit goes: well, it’s muddled as hell. I don’t even remember all of it now. I know Enchantress wakes up her brother so he can start killing people in a subway station. If I remember correctly, we see Enchantress reveal her true evil self at this point, and then the scene cuts off–but not like in a Leverage way, where we know we’ll find out The Real Plan at the end of the movie. No, here we just suddenly flash back to this scene that I thought was already finished, and learn . . . things we mostly already knew? I don’t know; the whole thing’s bizarre.

So, okay, then the Suicide Squad goes in, and I initially assumed they were going after the Enchantress, but I must have missed a line or twelve because it turns out that their mission is to extract someone from the city. (Re-watching some clips, I realize where I missed the line.) Turns out, that person is Amanda Waller, which I think is a twist? It’s hard to say, since I only realized the Suicide Squad was trying to rescue someone about four minutes before they actually did. (Though I did figure out who they were rescuing before they opened the door. Yay me, I guess?) Meanwhile, the team has been fighting all these weird monster deals (who were once normal people) in a bunch of action scenes that should stand out but mostly don’t.

It’s weird because all of this should be doable. Like, okay, they fumbled the beginning, fine. But once the team starts the true action portion of the movie, it ought to work, cause, like, it’s not a complicated setup. You introduce your characters and then you give them an hour-and-a-half or so of awesome action sequences with the team fighting their way through the city until they come up against the Big Bad. I mean, that’s essentially the structure of Dredd, and it works fabulously there. But here it just fails, and I know why some stuff goes wrong, but I’m at a bit of loss to describe how the action scenes fall down. They’re just . . . muddy.

Anyway, they rescue Amanda Waller, who proceeds to kill a bunch of good guys because they knew too much and she’s a stone cold motherfucker. After that, the Joker comes by in his stolen helicopter to rescue Harley Quinn.

A few things of note:

A. Waller orders Deadshot to shoot Harley, but at the last moment Deadshot realizes he can’t do it (or chooses not to, anyway) and purposefully misses. I don’t fully buy this loyalty to Harley quite yet, but he does make a point of saying that he doesn’t kill women (though doesn’t mind threatening to smack them around, apparently), and he and Harley do have a cute villainous rapport, so I’m basically fine with it. (I will not feel the same about other happy fuzzy team moments later, but we’ll get to that.)

B. Joker’s helicopter goes down anyway, though, because helicopters be going down like CRAZY in this movie. Obviously getting into a helicopter in any movie is a seriously risky proposition, but it seemed particularly egregious here. Were there three? I want to think there were three.

C. Joker . . . does he push Harley out of the helicopter to save her? It kind of looked like that’s what he did, but then he seems upset about it, so . . . maybe she fell? I feel like I should be more sure about this plot point. Regardless, she lands on a handy roof, and he supposedly dies when the helicopter goes down, except that he doesn’t because OF COURSE HE DOESN’T. It’s so obvious that he survives that I actually wished they showed it, because if his return at the end was supposed to in any way be a surprise . . . nope. Not having it.

More importantly, though, this is the last we see of the Joker until the end of the movie, which means he is extraneous in the extreme. The flashbacks we’ve been seeing between these two (one of which I’m not terribly convinced was necessary, at least, not for this particular cut) have painted the typically unhealthy relationship that Mister Jay and Harley have, so I assumed that when push came to shove, Joker was going to betray her somehow. Like, maybe he’d throw her out of the helicopter because it needed less weight, or maybe he’d try to kill her new buddy Deadshot or something. Similarly, I assumed Harley was going to eventually defy him or change or grow in some way . . . and yet, nada, nothing.

This frustrates me on a couple levels. It’s not solely because I generally enjoy Harley more when she has a solid feminist arc (although that’s definitely a part of it). It’s also that there’s just no shape to Joker and Harley’s story, no arc, no nothing. We spend way too much time on this guy for someone who barely impacts the plot. Even Harley getting pushed out of the helicopter and thus being stranded from her team has no meaningful impact. She’s on her own for roughly five minutes, and then the team quickly comes across her, and that’s that.

Moving on. Amanda Waller goes down in her own helicopter (I’m telling you, man, helicopters are DOOMED in this movie) and is captured by Enchantress. The Suicide Squad, meanwhile, is shocked to hear the truth of who they’re up against, and look, I know there’s such a thing as dramatic irony and all, but that’s just not flying today. The characters on screen are so disgusted and angry with Flag that they walk off the job for a drink, even good guy Katana, but all I’m thinking in the theater is “yeah, and?” Because I’ve known all this shit for over an hour. If the movie was going for some kind of tense reveal . . . boy, did they miss the mark.

Then, of course, we get to the bar, and let me tell you: nothing good happens here.

For starters, that funny bit from the trailer where everyone but Diablo asks for alcohol? Not in the movie. GRRRR. ARGGGH.

More importantly, though . . . what do you call a problem like Diablo?

Oh, my life’s been so hard.

It turns out that Diablo has a huge temper and accidentally murdered his wife and kids when he got pissed off about something. This is easily the darkest scene in the whole movie, and it’s really the only one that makes me start questioning tone. I sort of get what it’s doing here, like, I see the (slightly forced) connection between him and Harley, who berates Diablo for trying to have a normal life, even though it’s later revealed that she dreams of boring domestic bliss with the Joker too.

Here’s where I start having problems:

A. Learning this brutally dark history ten minutes before The Big Showdown means that I know without a shadow of a doubt that you’re planning to kill Diablo in some big redemptive death.

B. Despite Jay Hernandez’s solid acting, the redemptive death doesn’t work for me because we’re essentially talking domestic violence that ends in multiple homicide; the only difference here is that the family weren’t beaten or shot but set on fire. Let me repeat: this is a dude who lost his temper, killed his whole family, and now feels really bad about it. Gee, guy, let me get you a hankie; I feel super awful for your loss.

Now, it’s true that Suicide Squad is made up of a group of supervillains, and it’d be more than a little silly if they were all secretly noble or something. I mean, they can’t all be Deadshot, I know. It absolutely makes sense that we have some truly awful people in here.

But–and this is critical–if you want me to feel sorry for someone who did something so unspeakably awful (and let’s be honest: you’ve already got an uphill battle with this particular blogger when you’re talking domestic violence), then you need to start that redemption shit way earlier, like, you can’t just tell me a dude did something absolutely horrific, then have him kick the bucket while saving someone’s life in the next scene and say, “See? REDEMPTION! He wasn’t so bad after all!” I’m a very firm believer that the last act you do in life is not the only act you do that matters, and I needed a lot more time seeing Diablo trying to achieve redemption before I gave a shit about this guy. (And no, sitting on the sidelines not using his powers does not count as redemption. That counts as being useless and mopey.)

Anyway, let’s continue and end this thing, shall we? Flag enters the bar, and eventually they all decide to go on with the mission for . . . Reasons. I forget them now. Killer Croc separates for strategy purposes, while the others sneak in together. Enchantress, sensing them near, bewitches the team with visions of their biggest fantasies: Harley plays domestic with the Joker, Deadshot kills Batman so he can be with his daughter, Diablo’s family isn’t dead, etc. Christ knows what the others dream about since we don’t get to see Captain Boomerang or Katana’s visions, an especially frustrating missed opportunity, particularly in Katana’s case.

Only Diablo can break the enchantment, that magical redemptive bastard. He levels up and fights the shit out of Enchantress’s Boring Brother, and eventually they both die. Before his noble sacrifice, though, Diablo tells the others, “I lost one family. I’m not going to lose another.”

This is basically me in the theater.

If I was a less well-behaved audience member, I would have pointed at the screen, cackled madly, and loudly asked, “What the fuck?” I’m an impeccably behaved audience member, however, so I settled for subtly throwing up my hands and merely mouthing, “What the fuck?”

Cause seriously. For starters, Diablo? You didn’t lose shit. Your dead wife and kids aren’t a pair of car keys, or a few people who died tragically because Life Happens sometimes. You murdered your family. Let’s all be clear on that.

More importantly, though, what the HELL do you even mean, another family? Are you seriously standing there with a straight face telling me that the Suicide Squad after, what, a few hours of kinda working together with exactly one pathetic and short-lived bonding scene . . . are you actually telling me that the Suicide Squad is your family? Excuse me while I BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

This is the most bullshit line ever. It is the King of Bullshit lines. I will someday make a list of the most unbelievable lines anyone ever expected me to take seriously in a movie, and if this isn’t at the top of the list, it will absolutely be in the top three. Jesus Christ, this is dumb.

So, Diablo dies. Enchantress seems to have the upper hand for a while, but Harley tricks her and Enchantress dies too. June seems to be dead for a hot second but of course is still alive. Amanda Waller promptly throws everyone back in jail, although most have special privileges, like Deadshot gets to help his daughter with geometry and such. (The daughter, whose name I did not catch, figures out the problem using assassin logic. I like her. She can come back.) For some reason, Captain Boomerang doesn’t get any kind of good stuff and just ends up screaming in his cell, if I remember correctly. I can’t remember him specifically betraying the team or Waller in any important way, so I’m really not sure why, although it’s definitely possible that I missed or have forgotten something.

And that’s just about the end.

QUOTES:

Rick Flag: “This is the deal: You disobey me, you die. You try to escape, you die. You irritate or vex me, and guess what? You die.”
Harley Quinn: “I’m known for being quite vexing.”

Harley Quinn: “Harley Quinn, nice to meet ya! Love your perfume. What is that, the stench of death?”

Harley Quinn: “Huh? What was that? I should kill everyone and escape? Sorry. The voices. I’m kidding! That’s not what they really said.”

Floyd Lawton: “Stay evil, doll face.”

Griggs: “Ames, If this man shoots me, I want you to kill him and I want you to go clear my browser history.”

Floyd Lawton: “You might want to work on your team motivation thing.”

Harley Quinn: “Are you the devil?”
Amanda Waller: “Maybe.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Boy, its a hot mess, like a gigantic inferno of a mess. On the plus side, despite it’s weird triple beginnings, seriously muddled middle, and just generally uneven structure, I found it much more fun to watch than the last two DC movies, maybe because the bad guys working as good guys worked better for me than the good guys totally acting like villains? I genuinely enjoyed some of the characters, and a lot of the flashy trappings worked well for me. But the story’s structure is just awful. More than half of the characters are ridiculously underused or underdeveloped. The Joker is unnecessary. The villain’s endgame needs work, and Diablo is a serious issue for me.

Believe it or not, I actually do want to see a sequel to this movie. I just want to pick and choose the next writer and director. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

MVP:

Margot Robbie

TENTATIVE GRADE:

. . . C+? (I mean, I know it should be absolutely nothing higher than a C for all of its flaws, but watchability is important, and the fact that it wasn’t a miserable slog of a movie is a significant factor to me.)

MORAL:

Sometimes, you need the bad guys to get shit done.

Also, maybe we shouldn’t shoot for the absolute Worst of the Worst when it comes to picking bad guys, Waller. Magical and malicious immortal spirits who possess human bodies, for instance . . . let’s just leave them out, okay? Try for Middle of the Worst instead.

Also, NEVER GET IN A HELICOPTER.

Man, I’m behind on so many things for this blog: I’m way off schedule for my Disney Princess Movie Challenge, and I definitely should have watched Revenge of the Sith by now for my ongoing Star Wars Re-Watch. But today, at least, I’m finally getting around to reviewing a show that I did have the opportunity to check out (forever ago): Stranger Things.

There are, admittedly, a few things I’d like to change. Overall, though, I’m pretty into it.

DISCLAIMER:

I was planning on making this review spoiler-free, but then I was also planning on having this review out, like, three or four weeks ago, so. Sorry. SPOILERS ABOUND, for I am lazy and weak. (But you’ve all seen this show by now anyway, right? Right?)

SUMMARY:

A boy goes missing, and a search begins. Found along the way: a mysterious, super-powered girl, a government conspiracy, and a whole bunch of other spooky ass shit.

NOTES:

1. Here’s the thing: I don’t consider myself an 80’s child. I mean, technically, I am, having been born at the ass end of ’85, but it’s not like I remember a whole lot from those four years, either. (Rounded down, obviously. Please don’t comment just to tell me I suck at math. You won’t be giving me any new information.) In my heart, I’m definitely a 90’s kid.

Still, I’ve learned an appreciation for the 80’s, partially because some parts of that decade are just fun, and partially because so many of the creators I like are obsessed with the era. You don’t watch seven seasons of Psych without developing some sort of weird nostalgia for the decade, even if you didn’t actively participate in it and/or refuse to watch certain 80’s classics because it’s gone on so long now that it’s become a part of your identity, like, The Girl Who Hasn’t Seen ET. Anyway, you’ve got to enjoy the 80’s: they had the most hilarious music videos. Watching ridiculous 80’s music videos has become my new method of digging myself out of a bad mood.

This is a particularly long-winded way of saying that while I don’t automatically go gaga over 80’s nostalgia, I did appreciate the sheer dedication and attention to detail that the Duffer Brothers put into making Stranger Things look and feel like a show ripped out of that decade. As a point of comparison: I’ve also just finished watching Dead of Summer, another horror show set in the same time period, and while there are some good things about it (and other things that are deeply vexing) it doesn’t feel like an 80’s show at all: it feels like Freeform’s bubblegum version of the 80’s. Stranger Things, though . . . I mean from the grainy filming to the terrible hairstyles to the perfect music choices to even the themes; it’s on point. I was especially impressed with the title sequence, both with the theme song and what I assume we’re all just calling the Stephen King Font?

I’m not gonna lie, though: I’m still kind of waiting for movies and TV to start showing some love for the 90’s. Come on, guys. Give me some All That, some dresses with combat boots, and maybe a few Mentos commercials for old times’ sake.

2. Now that all being said . . . while I appreciate how dedicated this show is to the 80’s, there are some things I wish were a bit updated to more current times, like, gender roles. I can’t help but shake the feeling that Stranger Things would be a lot more exciting if almost the whole cast was gender-flipped. In fact, the only person who I absolutely do not want to gender flip is Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who is amazing. I love Eleven, and I will gush about her awesomeness a little later–but she’s also the only major female character who I think is particularly innovative.

To dive into that, let’s talk about the other ladies. Joyce Byers (Winona Ryder), for instance, is the mother of the kid (Will) who goes missing, and I’ve seen just a ton of praise for her.

And acting-wise, I would entirely agree with that praise: Winona Ryder gives a fantastic performance, at times tough as nails, at times seemingly losing her mind. Often, both simultaneously. I like her a whole lot. But when people are praising Joyce as being this exciting female character, this determined mother who goes at all out to save her son from supernatural and/or otherworldly forces? I kind of don’t feel it. Jillian goes to Death Tower after her son in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Diane goes through the portal after Carol Ann in Poltergeist. It’s not that unusual for female characters to be fierce when their children are involved; I mean, that’s basically just the Mama Bear trope, right? And that doesn’t mean it’s bad by any means; I’m just not excited by it. I don’t think it’s new at all. I’d be a lot more interested in a female character who goes all out to search for a sister or a friend or anyone who isn’t a love interest or their own child.

Which brings us to Nancy.

Theoretically, Nancy (Natalia Dyer) is a little more interesting: for one, she proves she’s not a totally useless character who just stands on the sidelines while the men do the work (always a plus); for another, her chief motivation in getting involved in this mess is finding her best friend and fan favorite, Barb (Shannon Purser), who goes missing very, very early on in the show. And this should be great: I’m all about girl friendships on TV that aren’t solely of the toxic, backstabby variety.

My problem is that, for the most part, I agree with this Vox.com article that Barb’s disappearance and subsequent death is mostly an excuse to bring Nancy and Jonathan closer together. Joyce is primarily defined as a character by her relationship to Will, but I wouldn’t define Nancy by her relationship to Barb at all; instead, far more time is spent on the triangle between her, Jonathan, and Steve–and a teenage girl whose primary storyline centers on one or multiple love interests isn’t exactly what I’d call original, either. We’ll talk more about the triangle itself later, but for me, Barb is less of a character than she is a plot device, which is why no one but Nancy seems to care about her when she’s gone. Yes, yes, Stranger Things has promised us more emotional fallout from Barb’s death in Season 2, but does anyone really believe that was always the plan? Or was that the hurried response when audiences unexpectedly fell in love with a character who was really only in a couple of episodes and probably had six minutes total screen time?

Don’t get me wrong: I really like Barb too (despite her mom jeans–I’m sorry, everyone, but I just cannot go with you on those awful mom jeans) and I was seriously disappointed (if not surprised) when she died, but Shannon Purser pretty much said it herself on Twitter: Barb wasn’t supposed to be a big deal. We made her important. If Nancy’s relationship to Barb was actually supposed to matter, wouldn’t we have seen more of it? Even in flashbacks? Even in nightmares and dream sequences? Nancy’s chief motivation for getting involved might have been finding/avenging her best friend, but let’s not pretend she gets to spend anywhere near as much time on her fear and grief for Barb as Joyce does when it comes to Will.

3. But yes, back to the gender-bending: if you flip the women, I’m immediately more interested in them: now you have a single, hardworking father hysterically trying to communicate with his missing son via Christmas lights, and you have a studious, slightly uptight, and naive teenage boy considering losing his virginity and mixing in with the popular kids. And that’s not even taking the male characters into consideration. For instance, the boys:

While it’s always relieving to see kids actually getting to act like real kids (you know, ones who swear and like weird things and look like normal children and are capable of cogent thought), I can’t help but feel like it’s always little boys who get to nerd out at A/V Club and play D&D and journey off to find dead bodies and stuff. (Yes, that last one is Stand By Me, and observant people reading this blog will probably realize how my whole 10 Movies I Wanna Gender-Flip NOW list came about in the first place.) But seriously ladies, especially Nerd Ladies, how awesome would it be to watch a group of young geek girls doing science, playing D&D, and banding together to find their friend? Cause I think it would be pretty awesome.

Still, the most exciting role to gender-flip (at least to me) might actually be Sheriff Jim Hopper.

Again, I like Hopper (David Harbour) quite a bit. In fact, he’s my second favorite character in the whole show. But just think about this guy for a minute: at the beginning, he’s this schlubby, sardonic, alcoholic cop who initially seems like a worthless schmo but quickly becomes this badass character who you end up rooting for . . . how often do we get to see female characters like that? I can’t really think of many. Jessica Jones, maybe. (Not that you ever think she’s a worthless schmo, exactly, but she’s the tough, mean, alcoholic PI character men regularly get to play. Anyway it’s the closest I can come up with at the moment.) And don’t get me wrong: Jessica Jones is super cool and complex, but I want more. Strong Female Characters so often come in only one variety; I want ALL the variety, all the personalities, all the badass women.

Oh, and pivotally? Lady Jim Hopper wouldn’t look like your typical SFC, either, i.e., super skinny, tight clothes, etc. Lady Jim Hopper would be an overweight woman in a Sheriff’s uniform, and her size wouldn’t ever be a joke: she wouldn’t be clumsy and falling all over the place for the usual BS laughs. She would be overweight and badass simultaneously. I want to see it. I want to see it NOW.

4. Oh, and as far as that love triangle goes . . . I’m pretty sure the show wants me to ship Nancy with Jonathan (Charlie Heaton).

When we flash forward at the end of the season and realize that Nancy and Steve have gotten back together, I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be a blow, like, oh noes, after everything they’ve been through, Nancy still got together with the wrong guy.

I’m . . . not so sure.

For the most part, I generally like Jonathan, or at least, I feel sorry for the kid: his younger brother is missing, his mom appears to be going nuts, and his deadbeat dad sucks donkey balls. But Jonathan secretly also takes pictures of Nancy stripping down when she’s about to have sex with Steve, and that’s all kinds of oh HELL no. I’m not saying the kid’s automatically irredeemable, but it’s also going to take a long time for me to ship Nancy with Peeping Tom kid. And I sure as hell don’t feel bad for Jonathan when Steve goes “psycho” and destroys the kid’s camera. Presumably I’m supposed to because he’s poor and can’t afford a new one? Yeah, fuck that. You take pictures of someone undressing without their knowledge or consent, you don’t deserve a camera, simple as that. In fact, the only thing that does disappoint me is that Nancy doesn’t break the camera herself. (Although I do love that she calls Jonathan on his whole ‘I try to take pictures of people as they really are’ bullshit. I was going to be so pissed if we were honestly supposed to buy that crap.)

Meanwhile, Steve isn’t exactly a winner himself.

He’s not nearly as bad as he could be, actually. You think you know exactly who Steve is when the show starts (preppy rich boy jerk who only wants to get into Nancy’s pants), but he quickly surprises when he doesn’t tell the whole school about having sex with Nancy and/or immediately dump her afterwards as expected. But when he thinks that Nancy is cheating on him with Jonathan, Steve is quick to go along with his friends publicly slut-shaming her. It’s gross and awful . . . but is it any worse than what Jonathan did? I’m not convinced that it is. (Not to mention I was way more impressed with Steve later yelling at his friends than I was with Jonathan’s half-assed apology in the woods.)

Either way, though, I can’t find myself getting too excited about Nancy ending up with either of these guys, at least, not so soon. So yeah, dump these losers, Nancy, and find someone better. Or else, stay single for a while! I actually kind of enjoy when characters do that–not everyone jumps straight from one relationship into the next like ladies often do on TV.

5. So, those are some of my more negative/critical notes. On the other hand, did I mention that I’m a fan of Eleven?

Because I am. She is the BEST.

Seriously, I want to be all articulate and analytical and composed about this, but I’m not sure I can. I just like her a whole lot. Eleven is nuanced and badass and vulnerable and interesting. Millie Bobby Brown does a fantastic job with the character; in fact, she probably has the best facial expressions on TV since Nadiya on The Great British Bake-Off. If I had to pick a favorite . . . hm. Her face when testing out the La-Z-Boy is pretty great, but I think the very best is when Mike gives her a makeover. The face she makes as she’s attacked by blush for the first time is THE BEST AND MOST ACCURATE FACE EVER. (Oh, and not for nothing, I don’t think I caught Brown’s English accent once. Although, to be fair, she rarely says more than three words at a time, so that might have something to do with it.)

God knows what’s up with Eleven at the end of the season, if she’s living between worlds, occasionally eating Eggos or what. But I assume we’ll figure that out in Season 2. Hey, maybe we can also find out whatever happened to One through Ten while we’re at it? Are they failed, dead experiments? Or are they EVIL CHILDREN waiting to be released?

6. I’m running out of steam on this review–as happens when a project that was supposed to take a week takes over a month instead–so I’m going to finish it up with a bunch of short, even more unrelated notes than before:

6A. Seriously, there is so much Stephen King love in this show. Hints of IT, Firestarter, Cujo, etc. I also couldn’t help but think of Dean Koontz’s Seize the Night, which also has a government experiment that goes rather wrong; in that book, they’re trying to travel forward in time (I think) and up going sideways instead.

6B. The whole show has a pretty cool look to it, but the Upside Down is especially creepy and awesome looking. Also neat: anytime Eleven goes into a sensory deprivation tank. Those scenes are very simplistic, but also seem incredibly effective.

I don’t know if I’d call Stranger Things scary, exactly, but there are definitely some great creepy visual moments, not just with the demogorgon popping up behind people, but also with that one tree passageway, and the dead deer that’s suddenly dragged away. That moment definitely got a jump out of me, I’ll admit it.

6C. The soundtrack in this is pretty great. The theme music is a pitch perfect fit for the show and will get stuck in your head for WEEKS, and I’m always happy to hear some Clash. Also, Echo and the Bunnymen. Also “Hazy Shade of Winter” and “White Rabbit,” among other songs I’m surely forgetting now.

6D. As I’ve said, I really am super fond of Hopper and Hopper’s angsty facial hair. (In the happy past–before his kid died–he was clean-shaven, naturally. Frankly, I think the light beard looks a little better on him.) But if Eleven is my absolute favorite and Hopper is my very close second, then Dustin (Gaten Matarazzo) has to be my extremely close third.

He’s obviously the primary comic relief of the kids, and I liked him early on, but Dustin definitely won me over when he yelled at Mike for not understanding why Lucas was upset, not to mention just generally being an awesome kid constantly stuck in the middle of his two best friends. Plus he’s generally pretty cool to Eleven. Obviously, I found this endearing.

6E. I forgot to mention this before when talking about my Big Dream Gender-Swap, but it would also be nice to see a female nerdy science teacher comforting her freaked/grossed out boyfriend while watching a horror movie. Very rarely do you get to see a dude scared or cringing while watching a scary flick, and it’s almost as rare to see a female character who really enjoys horror movies. The latter is VERY MUCH not my experience with life.

6F. I like Flo (Susan Shalhoub Larkin) a fair amount, but there’s a scene with her and Nancy at the police station that kind of bugs. Jonathan has just been arrested for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer, and Flo tells Nancy that “only love makes you that crazy, sweetheart, and that damn stupid.” It’s a great line and one I’d normally enjoy, but I don’t much like it in this context because it assumes that Jonathan has hit Steve for Nancy’s honor . . . except that’s totally not what happened. Jonathan attacked Steve because Steve was a giant douchecanoe about his family; it had nothing to do with Nancy at all. And that would be fine if it was just a character making an incorrect assumption–God knows people do that all the time–but the way it’s shot here, it seems clear to me we’re supposed to agree with Flo. And I don’t. It’s yet another example of how I feel the show is pushing us to ship Jonathan/Nancy, but I remain unmoved. (I mildly ship Hopper/Joyce and Eleven/Mike, but that’s about all.)

6G. Finally, I wanted to mention my fourth favorite character: Connie Frazier (Catherine Dyer).

She doesn’t have a whole lot of screen time. Not much actual character either, unfortunately, but she is a government agent in her 50’s who goes undercover and murders people and all sorts of things. (I still weep for you, Benny.) Since women in Hollywood regularly stop getting anything to do but have babies after the age of 32, seeing a woman in her mid-50’s getting to be this badass villain lady? Pretty awesome.

Sadly, Connie Frazier dies. But at least it’s equally badass Eleven who kills her. I genuinely feel better about that. Is that weird? That’s probably weird.

QUOTES:

Mr. Clarke: “Science is neat, but I’m afraid it’s not very forgiving.”

Dustin: “We never would have upset you if we knew you had superpowers.”

Joyce: “I need this phone, and two weeks advance. And a pack of Camels.”

Dustin: “All three of you were being a bunch of little assholes! I was the only reasonable one.”

Dustin: “Why are you keeping this curiosity door locked?”

Joyce: “Look, he’s a sensitive kid. Lonnie–Lonnie used to say he was queer, called him a fag.”
Hopper: “Is he?”
Joyce: “He’s missing, is what he is.”

Dustin: “Sometimes, your total obliviousness just blows my mind.”

Dustin: “You really need to learn more about compasses.”

Barb: “Nance . . . seriously? He invited you to his house. His parents aren’t home. Come on, you are not this stupid.”

Barb: “Is that a new bra?”

CONCLUSIONS:

Pretty fun. I think it could push boundaries a little more than it does–because at the end of the day, I want it to be doing something old and something new simultaneously–but I still had a great time watching it: it’s creepy and funny and meticulously well-crafted. I’m definitely looking forward to the second season.

MVP:

Millie Bobbie Brown. But Winona Ryder and David Harbour were also quite strong.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORAL:

Hm. It’s either D&D will prepare you for life and the supernatural adventures that go along with it, or don’t crawl inside creepy trees, NANCY. Choose whichever advice you thinks suits you the best.

So, I haven’t been here as regularly as I’d like to, and unfortunately that’s probably not gonna change anytime in the near future. I have Novel Writing Deadlines to meet, which means I’m instituting a hard rule for myself: no playing around on MGB until I’ve at least finished my weekly writing goal. Luckily, I’m doing pretty well on that right now, which means I get to talk about The Defenders. Which THANK GOD, cause y’all know I’ve got thoughts on The Defenders.

I’m gonna try to keep this brief, but let’s be real here. Brevity isn’t my strong suit, and we’ve definitely got some things to discuss.

DISCLAIMER:

Sorry, people. SPOILERS abound. Watch your eight episodes and come back to me. (Also, you might find SPOILERS for Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, so, um, yeah. Block out a month of your life, and then come back to me.)

SUMMARY:

Matthew Murdock, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand come together, sorta, to stop Alexandra and The Hand from destroying New York City. Fucking New York, man. I’m asking, where are the superheroes in Wisconsin? NYC is always hogging the spandex.

(Also, Elektra’s in on the whole ‘destroy New York’ shit too, but I like how Alexandra and The Hand sounds. It’d make a pretty great cover band name.)

NOTES:

1. Look, let’s just get this out of the way: The Defenders has a weak ass plot. Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the show at times. I totally did. There are plenty of scenes I’ve re-watched, I’ve been reading Marvel fanfiction again, and I’m excited to see more from our heroes (well, most of them.)

But I’m also really unclear on what the hell they even saved New York from. Like, okay, there was an earthquake, and The Hand managed to get their, er, hands on the magic dragon bone goop that lets them come back to life, or whatever, which is obviously not good . . . but it’s also not an imminent threat, either. Everyone in The Defenders acts like the goddamn sky is falling, but let’s be real here: the Chitauri aren’t invading. No mystical hell beast has come through the door that Danny stupidly opened. The Hand aren’t even summoning anything; essentially, it’s all just one big heist job, except for some reason, our heroes are running around screaming, “The stakes are so high! Oh my God, the city, THE CITY!”

So, yeah. The stakes, not so high. The bad guys have pretty vague goals and the plot is pretty murky as a result. Which probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise, considering how poorly The Hand has been executed thus far. (I’m basing this primarily on Daredevil, as I still haven’t–and probably won’t–watch Iron Fist.) Christ, I’m so bored of The Hand. Hopefully, we won’t have to deal with them for a while, since they’re mostly super dead now. (Except maybe Madame Gao and Elektra, who I’m assuming are both still alive, you know, somehow.)

2. Briefly looking at the villains on an individual basis:

2A. Alexandra (Sigourney Weaver) is okay.

Like, Weaver plays the part fine–she’s basically a super rich white lady to the power of a million–but I was also pretty glad when she got killed off. See, I turned against her early, when she talked down to Madame Gao, and MG was all subservient, and I was like, What is this bullshit? I sorta wish MG had killed her, honestly, but I understand that Elektra makes a little more narrative sense.

On the upside, Alexandra’s death was a nice surprise. I assumed it would happen much later in the show.

2B. Elektra (Elodie Yung) is also okay.

Once again, my dissatisfaction with Elektra has absolutely nothing to do with the actress, who I quite like in the role; it’s that for as much time as we spend with the character, she still ends up feeling underdeveloped to me. A huge part of this, certainly, is that the writers don’t seem any more confident on what it means to be the “Black Sky” than they did in Daredevil, Season 2. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop anyone from dropping those words every other sentence.

Here’s a quick poll: which is used more in this show, “Black Sky” or “The City?” You decide.

2C. Madame Gao (Wai Ching Ho) continues to be awesome. I will always have a soft spot for Madame Gao.

2D. Sowande (Babs Olusanmokun) is deeply underused, like, you can’t just say a dude can slow people’s hearts down without letting him do that to an MC at least once. I’m okay with Stick decapitating the guy because hey, that’s Stick for you, but seriously. Let this guy be a badass first.

2E. I liked Murakami (Yutaka Takeuchi) in his introductory scene (even if I was totally making fun of the whole barehanded butchery thing, like, dude, you’re in khakis, and you’re not even rinsing off your hands before wiping them on white washcloths; what’s wrong with you), but he basically just becomes the guy who says “our leader sucks” over and over for the rest of the story. Still, I found myself intrigued by him and thought there could be a decent campy villain in there somewhere. I’ll expect we’ll never really get him, though, since Murakami gets impaled before a building collapses on him.

2F. Finally, Bakuto (Ramon Rodriguez) is apparently a villain from Iron Fist, and I gotta be honest: between him and Danny Rand, I’m pretty sure I’m never, ever watching this show unless someone pays me for it, cause Mek and I didn’t buy Bakuto at all. Like, we both immediately and independently began recasting him in our heads. Mek went for Pedro Pascal, while I ended up choosing Alfonso Herrera. Apologies to Mr. Rodriguez, but I feel either actor would’ve been a significant improvement here.

3. While we’re on the subject of needing improvements, let’s talk about Danny (Finn Jones).

I really, really tried to give Danny a fair shake, but it quickly proved nearly impossible to do so. And while I’m a little loathe to add to the dog pile, a fair amount of my dislike appears to stem from Jones’s acting.

All of Danny’s anger comes across as petulance. Like when he says, “Well, that’s the problem, Matt. I’m all out of calm,” I’m just thinking of an extremely watered down and whiny version of Bruce Banner saying, “That’s my secret, Cap. I’m always angry.” When Danny says stuff like, “I am the immortal Iron Fist,” I immediately start laughing–and while the show is also quick to laugh at him, possibly even a little too quick, I couldn’t take him remotely seriously, even when I was obviously supposed to. The Defenders really only needs one angsty white boy on the team, and Matt Murdock is by far the superior choice.

I also can’t shake the feeling that I’d have a lot more sympathy for Danny Rand if he was about 16-years-old. He kind of seems like a teenager, doesn’t he? I’d buy his mood swings a lot more if he wasn’t a dude pushing 30, especially when said dude spent the majority of his life with a bunch of monks. I’d empathize more with some of his shitty choices, like abandoning K’un-Lun to go run his father’s company, despite the total implausibility of such a plan. As a teenager, I can see that as an identity crisis mixed with both grief and too much self-confidence; as an adult, I mostly just see it as astoundingly poor decision making. And even when Danny’s trying to get the others to join Team Defenders, he kind of strikes me as the geeky comic book nerd who wants everyone to stop arguing, band together as a family, and defeat the bad guys for good.

If Danny Rand was Peter Parker with a glowing hand, I’d like him so much more.

4. Okay, some more thoughts on Danny. (Sorry, I can’t seem to stop!)

4A. Look, I know I just said I wanted to avoid the dog pile, but . . . but . . . okay, I was watching one of those press junket interviews, right, and Cox, Ritter, Colter, and Jones were each asked what their favorite Sigourney Weaver movie was. There are multiple acceptable answers to such a question. Alien, Aliens, Ghostbusters, and Galaxy Quest are all easy choices. (Colter also mentioned The TV Set, which I’ve never even heard of.) Copycat would have been fine. Snow White: A Tale of Terror would have made me laugh my ass off; it also would have made me fall in love with that actor for life. I’d even have taken either Jeffrey or The Cabin in The Woods, despite the fact that Sigourney Weaver only cameoed in both films.

But Finn Jones settled on Avatar. AVATAR.

Look, if you like Avatar, that’s okay. Personally, I was pretty bored by the story and I’ve never felt much inclination to watch it again, but it wasn’t the worst movie I’ve ever seen, and plenty of people find some of my favorites questionable too. (Say, for instance, Snow White: A Tale of Terror.) But to pick that movie out of all the great Sigourney Weaver movies out there, like, really? Really? C’mon, this is, like, expert trolling, right? The dude who was heavily criticized for playing a white savior picked the one Sigourney Weaver movie heavily centered around the white savior trope? Honestly, I think I’d almost be a little impressed if I actually thought Jones had done this on purpose.

4B. Seriously, Danny’s decision-making skills are questionable at best.

The worst instance of this, I think, is soon after Luke Cage calls Danny out on white privilege (which, BTW, is a great moment) and how he uses his power against people just trying to get by and feed their families. This causes Danny to rethink his strategy against combating The Hand, which is great, except that his new plan, apparently, is to put on a nice suit, march into a Midland Financial CEO Meeting (who are all members of The Hand), less than politely introduce himself, and explain his master plan to bring down the corporate shell they’ve been hiding behind.

Now, trying to bring The Hand down through legal means is fine. It’s going to fail, obviously, but there’s nothing wrong with making the attempt. Still, why in God’s name would you tell them like this? Even if they didn’t immediately attack you (which they do, of course, to absolutely nobody but Danny’s surprise), why even give them a heads up on your big play? You understand that only allows them more time to prepare for it, right?

(There are only two good things about this scene: one, it leads to the first Defenders vs. Bad Guys fight, which is cool but totally could have been established in a way that actually made sense, and two, Sigourney Weaver is pretty glorious here. Alexandra’s condescension towards Madame Gao is unacceptable, but to the Immortal Whiny Fist Danny? Oh my god, LOVE.)

Danny also just tends to overreact to basically everything. When Matt tells him not to act like a kid, for instance, or the scene where the Defenders discover that The Hand wants to use the Iron Fist to open some mystical door. (Danny refuses to believe that this is possible with a vehemence that continues to make no logical sense to me.) The Defenders tell him he needs to sit this one out, and Danny pretty much goes ballistic. And at first I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, like, maybe he noticed how Stick was standing around ominously with his sword, cause yeah, I sure did. Maybe Danny was scared that Stick would try to kill him. (Legitimately scared, as it would turn out.) But it quickly became clear that Danny wasn’t nervous, just pissed–which, sure, is understandable to an extent, but you’d think that The Defenders had just kicked his dog and called his momma a bad name, rather than suggest he should probably hang out in this warehouse for a while instead of playing straight into the hands of The Hand.

Which leads to his other incredibly dumb move: Danny Rand plays straight into the hands of the The Hand.

So, Elektra kidnaps him, right? Okay, that’s not entirely his fault. But then she brings him down to the big mystical door, which he says he’ll never open . . . right before easily getting goaded into a fistfight. Elektra dodges a couple times, Danny punches the door, and boom: door open. Her manipulation isn’t even subtle. Danny Rand is just that dumb.

5. Moving on to briefly discussing the other Defenders:

A. Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) is considerably less of a dick than he was in Season 2, much to my relief.

It’s obviously nice to like Matt again. I’ve always had a soft spot for Daredevil (Charlie Cox’s version, anyway), which is why Season 2 was so awful to watch. This is a definite improvement. Matt’s scenes with Jessica Jones are some of my favorites in the whole show, like, I already ship the hell out of them–although I’d also be cool if they ended up platonic drinking buddies instead, you know, they kind who talk about their own personal traumas and call each other out on their respective shit.

I have absolutely no idea how Matt survived a building falling on him. (I’m presuming Elektra dragged him to safety, but like, before that part.) Regardless, I’m glad because if Matt had actually died this way, I’d have been pissed. I do buy his decision to stay behind with Elektra because it’s become pretty apparent that he’s a self-destructive character (something else that he and Jessica have in common), but anyone spinning that decision like it was somehow heroic? Nope, not buying that at all. And if I’m supposed to buy it, I really needed something else to happen, like, Matt tackling Elektra off the elevator before she can kill our heroes, or whatever.

B. Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) remains awesome.

She gets the best one-liners, obviously, and just generally kicks all kinds of ass. She’s The One Woman on the team but somehow never feels like The One Woman, which is pretty impressive. (Possibly this has something to do with how many important supporting roles are given to women here. Claire, Colleen, and Misty, for example, are all actively engaged in the story.)

By the end of The Defenders, Jessica is ready to start working cases again, setting up for Jessica Jones, Season Two, which I’m obviously jazzed about. Also, can one of those cases be finding Matt in the nunnery? I know it won’t happen, but I’m super invested in these two sharing as much screen time as humanely possible.

C. Luke Cage (Mike Colter) also continues to be awesome.

Luke gets out of prison in Episode One, but otherwise seems to be the least impacted by the events of this show, though I do really like his last scene with Jessica and how it provides some closure for old wounds. (I don’t really ship them, unfortunately, but that might just be because I worry for what that’ll mean for Claire. If Luke/Jessica are endgame, that’s fine, but if Claire has to die to make that happen–or if she has to become shrill and annoying, or if Luke has to cheat on her–like, NO, that’s not okay, EVER.)

I think one of the most interesting things about Luke is that he’s kinda the moral center of the team. Jessica’s the damaged wisecracker and Danny’s the annoying rich kid and Matt might be the leader if he wasn’t such a secretive bastard and emotional fuck-up, but Luke, he’s the heart. Unlike virtually everyone else here, Luke Cage is not an “ends justify the means” kind of guy. Which is pretty great, actually. I like that he’s easily the most decent person on the team.

6. We should also briefly discuss the sidekicks and supporting characters:

6A. Trish and Malcolm (Rachael Taylor and Eka Darville) are the most underused characters in this story, and I miss them desperately. I understand why they have so little screen time here, but hopefully they’ll get much more to do whenever The Defenders join forces again.

6B. Foggy and Karen (Elden Henson and Deborah Ann Woll) get a little more to do, although nothing too hugely plot relevant. (Particularly not Karen.) Honestly, they both kind of annoyed me at first because they seemed super judgy about Matt being Daredevil, which is funny since I was totally on their side in Season Two, but Jesus, Netflix. The problem was never that Matt was a superhero. The problem was that Matt was an asshole. There’s a huge difference there, and for some reason I feel like Foggy and Karen are really the only side characters who don’t get that. Which is frustrating because I’m 100% NOT here for trumped up angst bullshit.

I did like that Foggy helped Matt at the end, though. (We’ll have to see how his guilt plays out in Season 3.) And the scene where Foggy and Karen hug each other when Matt doesn’t come through the door . . . look, I’m gonna be honest: I totally teared up.

6C. I continue to love Claire (Rosario Dawson) because CLAIRE . . . but I do feel like her attitude towards superheroes and vigilantes shifts a little for whatever the story requires. It’s not quite as bad as Foggy and Karen, I think, but it does bother me a bit. I’d also like to reiterate that I would be completely down for a one season show or even a Netflix special about Claire running a clinic for superheroes. I know she’s not technically Night Nurse, but seriously. Who cares, right?

6D. Misty Knight (Simone Missick) also continues to be pretty cool. I honestly don’t know that much about her from the comics, but I do know she gets a robotic arm, which The Defenders lines up after lame villain Bakuto chops hers off. I’m curious to see where she’s going.

6E. Colleen (Jessica Henwick) is a little difficult for me.

In the first few episodes of the show, I feel like she only gets Girlfriend Lines. You know the kind, right, where everything she says is pretty much about Danny’s pain? I do like that that the show focuses a bit more on her journey in the back half of the season, though. Also, I basically wanted to shake everybody who was treating her like she was Karen or Claire or something. Like, that’s not a knock against either Karen or Claire. I like both characters. But Colleen isn’t a civilian who needs to be protected. Colleen is a fucking ninja. I get that she doesn’t have the a glowing hand or anything, but Jesus Christ, that doesn’t mean she can’t be useful in a giant ninja fight. For fuck’s sake.

Personally, I’m with all the people who are hoping that Danny dies at the end of Iron Fist, Season Two, paving the way for Colleen Wing to take over. I think it’s actually possible, too. The Defenders certainly proved that Netflix is very, very aware of Danny’s unpopularity, and while I can understand that they might want to wrap up any loose ends (like, Danny’s totally-not-dead mom), I can’t help but think that they must also be savvy enough to realize that replacing Danny is probably a hell of a lot easier than trying to turn him into some magnificent comeback kid.

7. Finally, a few more random side notes:

7A. I’m pretty glad that Stick (Scott Glenn) died. Honestly, I like Stick well enough (for being a mean, ruthless fucker), but he felt a little played out, and it works for me that Elektra’s the one who kills him. Also, did anyone else find it kind of hilarious when he cut off his own hand? Like, he just chops that thing off with a sword. He doesn’t even have to swing it. He basically just pushes down.

7B. I’m totally amused that Matt plays his own theme song on the piano for Detective Reasons.

7C. As  everyone on the planet has already noted in their own respective reviews, I like how the show cleverly uses color. I don’t have the proper vocabulary to get all technical about it, but it’s pretty cool.

OTOH, there were a fair number of shots that just seemed . . . weird? Again, my tech vocab is gonna fail me here, but the angles were strange. Like, when Foggy and Matt are at the bar and we see them framed awkwardly through glasses and beer bottles, or when Jeri Hogarth is shot off-center as she’s talking to Jessica Jones. There must be artistic or story-telling reasons for it, but I just kept finding it distracting.

7D. I haven’t really talked about the fight scenes yet, and that’s probably because I like them but don’t find any capital “A” amazing. Like, the office fight is fun, particularly Matt vs. Elektra, and I enjoy Matt, Jessica, and Luke all fighting against Danny, but there’s nothing here that makes me go, “Holy Jesus, that’s awesome.” It’s not a big complaint from me. I’m just saying nothing from this show is winning Best Fight Scene.

7E. Claire and Luke have a steamy hot sex scene in the first episode, and being me, all I could think was, “Jesus, guys, you couldn’t have waited 30 seconds to get to the bedroom? The kitchen table’s all broken now. Furniture’s not cheap, you know.”

7F. Okay, one last thing about Danny? He’s not exactly quick on the uptake.

Like Matt’s all “I’ll be right behind you” (TV code for “about to croak”), but then he whispers into Danny’s ear, “Take care of my city.” For some reason, though, Danny doesn’t seem to realize this as the obvious Will & Testament it is until after the building collapses, and I’m like, sweet Jesus, D, learn to read between the lines. I’m pretty sure that Matt entrusted his precious city to Iron Fist because he knew that if he’d said that shit to either Jessica Jones or Luke Cage, they’d have knocked his ass out and carried him to safety.

7G. Last but not least, I’ve begun writing The Defenders Drinking Game. Feel free to add more rules in the Comments!

The Defenders Drinking Game

Take a sip when

Someone says “the city,” “this city,” or “my city”
Someone says “Black Sky”
Someone says “K’un-Lun”
Someone makes fun of Danny
Jessica makes fun of anyone
Jessica drinks
Matt withholds information (or straight up lies)
Danny says “chi”
Danny says “Iron Fist”
Danny overreacts to something
Danny’s silly chest tattoo appears

QUOTES:

Kid: “I’m already angry.”
Matt: “At who?”
Kid: “Everyone. I just want my life back.”
Matt: “They can’t give you that. Maybe to walk again. I hope so. But maybe you won’t. But your ability to get through it, as this gets harder, that is a hundred times more powerful than slapping a smile on your face and pretending like everything’s just fine. Do you understand? Hey, listen. No one can give you your life back. You, you gotta take it back.”

Trish: “You know what your problem is?”
Jessica: “Sentences that start like that.”

Foggy: “People call me Foggy.”
Luke: “And you let them?”

Malcolm: “Yooou took a case. I can tell. You got that glow about you.”

Jessica: “Who the hell uses payphones anymore?

Misty: “Don’t give me that “officer” bullshit. What did you see?”

Danny: “He punched me.”
Luke: “You punched first.”
Claire: “Seriously?”

Luke: “What’s the deal with that fist?”
Danny: “I earned it.”
Luke: “You what?”
Colleen: “He earned it. There’s this mystical place called K’un-Lun–”
Danny: “I can answer myself . . . there’s this mystical place called K’un-Lun–”

Danny: “I trained for years. There was a test. There was a dragon.”
(Luke starts laughing.)
Luke: “No, there wasn’t.”

Danny: “You know nothing about me.”
Luke: “I know enough. And I know privilege when I see it. You may think you earned your strength, but you had power the day you were born. Before the dragons, before the chi, you have the ability to change the world without getting anybody hurt.”

Danny: “Rand Enterprises has put together a case to take you down. Extortion, narcotics, human trafficking. There’s no end to what we’ll uncover.”
Alexandra: “And?”
Danny: “And you can’t hide anymore.”
Alexandra: “Does it look like we’re hiding?”

Danny: “You’re going to lose everything just like I did.”
Alexandra: “You haven’t lost everything, Mr. Rand. Not yet.”

Jessica: “You look like an asshole.”
Matt: “It’s your scarf.”

Matt: “I still hear neon.”
Luke: “Who hears neon?”

Jessica: “We met, we drank, I shot him in the head.”

Danny: “Look, we need to figure out our next move.”
Matt: “There is no next move.”
Jessica: “And there is no we. They came at us, we fought our way out. Let’s call it professional courtesy, end of story.”

Danny: “Are those pork?”
Matt: “No, they’re shrimp. Oh, this guy’s got pork.”
Danny: “Great!”
Jessica (to Matt): “God, you’re weird.”

Danny: “Come on, I even put on a tie.”

Danny: “Bulletproof, blind ninja, whatever it is you are.”
Jessica: “Classy.”

Murakami: “He nearly killed me.”
Alexandra: “They always nearly kill you.”

Stick: “We call ourselves The Chaste.”
Jessica: “Ugh, these names are killing me.”

Matt: “Why are you here, Stick?”
Stick: “Because this one, the Immortal Iron Fist, Living Weapon, and Protector of the Ancient City is still a thundering dumbass.”

Architect’s Wife: “What time is it?”
Jessica: “Late. Or early, depending on your life choices.”

Jessica: “The scarf looked better.”

Matt: “Well, no one’s digging into your past.”
Jessica: “My past is none of your goddamn business, and isn’t actively trying to kill us.”

Luke: “Hey, why don’t you tell me again about how you punched a dragon and got your ‘magic hand’.”
Danny: “During the final trial of Shao-Lao the Undying, I plunged my fist into his molten heart—”
Luke: “Dude. I was kidding.”

Danny: “Seems like you’re just making this up as you go along.”
Stick: “I am, kid. That’s what survivors do.”

Jessica: “You took my case, I took yours. I just think we’ll work better together if we trust each other, don’t you?”
Matt: “That is the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”
Jessica: “Yeah, don’t get used to it.”

Matt: “I have no choice. He’s the Iron Fist.”
Foggy: “I’m not going to pretend to know what that means.”

Misty: “As of right now, you’re a person of interest. A witness to a crime.”
Matt: “A witness. What, do you want me to describe how it sounded, detective?”
Misty: “Perhaps you didn’t hear me when I said cut the shit.”

Claire: “We all know what The Hand is capable of. We’ve all been affected. They keep coming back, and when they do it’s not just crime. It’s horror movie murdery shit.”

Claire: “Colleen, the three of them have certain abilities.”
Collen: “I can fight.”
Claire: “Exactly. I’m saying as your friend, if I’m going to do this, I need your help a lot more than they do.”

Jessica: “Look, I don’t give a shit what you guys are doing down here . . . in your secret . . . cave thing.”

Colleen: “How are you feeling?”
Misty: “Great. Not quite whole.”

Luke: “I’m not hugging you.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Enjoyable, but not epic. The writing is too sloppy for that, which is kind of a shame because I feel like the showrunners had time to work out a better story. Basically, I wanted at least 50% more of scenes like the ones in the Chinese restaurant, and a whole lot less of The Hand and their incredibly vague plans for destruction.

MVP:

Krysten Ritter

TENTATIVE GRADE:

B

MORAL:

Noble sacrifice or needless sacrifice . . . just do whatever it takes to save THE CITY.

(Also, no one likes Danny Rand. Pretty sure that’s the true moral here.)

So. The Last Jedi, huh?

I saw this movie basically the second it opened, but I haven’t had the opportunity to write about it until now–although, of course, I’ve read everyone else on the internet analyze it to death. Per usual, my commentary is belated and possibly unnecessary at this point, but that’s we at My Geek Blasphemy strive for: somewhat thoughtful, somewhat snarky, and late AF.

Also, for the most part? I really enjoyed the film.

DISCLAIMER:

There will be no blatant spoilers for this film until the SPOILER SECTION. All bets are off, though, for any other movie in the franchise.

SUMMARY:

After the events of The Force Awakens, Rey tries to get cranky old Luke Skywalker to come back and help the Resistance. Meanwhile, said Resistance is basically just trying to survive the First Order’s onslaught, which leads to long-shot secret missions and friction between allies.

NOTES:

1. As an ongoing series of science fiction stories that have spanned literal decades, I find Star Wars fascinating and can easily talk about it until I’m blue in the face. Still, my enjoyment of these movies has never been anywhere near reverence, and I’m definitely not going to win any Ultimate Star Wars Nerd contests out there. So, when The Last Jedi shakes up the status quo by flipping a lot of typical Star Wars tropes on their heads, that worked for me; in fact, it’s what I like most about the film. That’s obviously not true for everyone out there, something we’ll talk about in much more detail in the Spoiler Section.

It’s also true that, despite not being Queen Nerd, I apparently still get really excited (and maybe a wee bit emotional) when the opening scroll starts up. So, I’m not saying I don’t have any skin in the game.

2. The last couple of years, I’ve spent a fair bit of time bemoaning Hollywood’s trend towards action movies that run over two hours. That being said, I must say that The Last Jedi is 2 hours and 35 minutes long, and never once felt slow to me. The movie has a lot to accomplish, and for the most part, I feel it used its minutes well. Which is not to say I won’t be critiquing some subplots because, dudes, me. But generally speaking, I feel the movie was pretty decently paced, with a good bit of time spent on each character.

Well, okay. Chewy didn’t get much to do. Or Phasma. Damn it, people. Stop casting the excellent Gwendoline Christie in your movie and then giving her nothing to do! This is madness.

3. I’ve been trying to figure out how to formulate this review–there’s so much to talk about, and so much I can’t say without spoilers. Maybe if I try to break up the cast into pairs and address them as such?

Luke & Leia

Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher

One of the best surprises for me about this movie is just how much I like Luke. Like, yeah, Luke Skywalker was always okay, but he was never exactly a favorite. I certainly never found him to be a particularly compelling hero. And come on, that whine. Look, I get the whine was intentional and all, but when I mock annoying people in my head, I’m usually picturing them saying, “But I was going over to Tosche Station to pick up some power convertors!”

In The Last Jedi, though, Luke gets to be something that I never thought I’d actually see him be: a motherfucking badass. Honestly, it was kind of neat. And Mark Hamill gives an incredible performance in this movie; I know there’s been a lot of press about how he and Rian Johnson didn’t initially see eye to eye on Luke’s character development, but one way or another, Hamill put the work in here.

Meanwhile, Carrie Fisher’s last performance as Leia is both lovely and, not unexpectedly, a little depressing to watch. Everything I want to say about Leia includes spoilers, but what I will throw out is that The One Scene which is pissing off a bunch of fanboys? They’re wrong. I swear, when it comes to The Last Jedi and the Great Fandom Schism that’s occurred, I honestly hope to provide a much more thoughtful and balanced analysis of the various viewpoints, but in this one scene I cannot even pretend vague objectivity. It is the best, and I will defend it to my dying day.

Kylo & Rey

Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley

Another pleasant surprise: the dynamic between these two characters works really well for me. One of my biggest disappointments with the Star Wars universe has always been the lack of screen time given to telepathy and Force bonds and the like, and I really, really enjoyed how all that is handled here. Rey continues to be awesome; meanwhile, I actually do garner a small amount of . . . oh, I don’t know if sympathy is quite the right word, but . . . I find Kylo to be a vastly more interesting character in this movie than he was in The Force Awakens. (I mean, I didn’t mind him in The Force Awakens, but only because I saw him as an intentionally whiny and entitled little shit. If I was supposed to see him as a more fully developed, sympathetic baddie, then the movie utterly failed for me in that regard.)

Prior to seeing The Last Jedi, I definitely wasn’t looking forward to Rey and Kylo’s interactions. (Which I assumed would go like this: Kylo: “Come to the Dark Side!” Rey: “No, but wait, I’m so strangely tempted for no apparent reason, but no, no!” Kylo: “But THE POWER!” Rinse, repeat.) Strangely enough, however, their interactions actually turned out to be one of the film’s highlights for me.

That all being said, a lot of people apparently came out of this movie shipping Rey and Kylo, and . . . like, I try not to be the person who’s shitty about other people’s ships, but God, this one makes me cringe. Like, fanfic writers, you do you, but if these two become a canon ship in the third movie, just, you know, prepare yourselves, people. Because I will be screaming, and not in the good way.

Poe & Holdo

Unfortunately, here’s where I start running into some problems. Not, like, movie-breaking problems, but definitely stuff that I would’ve changed, if I was in the fabulous position to do so.

Here’s my thing: this whole subplot is so, so close to working for me. Holdo is a potentially interesting new character in a command position. I adore Poe, and the emotional journey he goes on in this movie (like what makes a hero a hero, when is a sacrifice necessary, etc.) really works for me. These two characters don’t see eye to eye, and that works pretty well for me, too . . . except for when it doesn’t.

Obviously, I’ll discuss specifics later. For now, here’s what I’ll say: one of these characters makes a choice in this movie that I simply do not buy, and because so much of the plot is predicated on that choice, I have Writer Problems.

Rose and Finn

Kelly Marie Tran and John Boyega

I really like both Finn and Rose, but I also have some problems with their storyline. Unfortunately, I’ve had more difficulty trying to identify exactly what isn’t working for me and how I would like to fix it. I feel like the Poe and Holdo subplot could be fixed to my satisfaction with basically, like, one line. Finn and Rose are harder.

On the plus side, Rose is pretty neat. Part of that is simply because Kelly Marie Tran is the most adorable person alive, but it’s also because I find Rose really interesting, at least initially. She’s a different character than we’ve seen in the Rebellion/Resistance thus far; like, she’s not a princess, an admiral, a Jedi, or a fighter pilot. She’s a mechanic, and her work is a day-to-day grind, all behind the scenes. Rose also suffers a great personal loss early in the film–it’s actually how we’re introduced to her–and it’s this grief that really informs her first interactions with Finn. It’s excellent stuff, and sold me on Rose pretty much immediately.

I do feel that as the film goes on, however, Rose’s own emotional journey kind of just stops in lieu of Finn’s emotional journey. Which, hey: I like Finn’s emotional arc, especially when taking the events of The Force Awakens into consideration. But it does seem to me that Rose loses out a bit here, and while I’m mostly okay with it, I’d really like to see Rose have a great fucking arc in Star Wars X.

4. This all leads us to one of the film’s universally least liked segments: Canto Bright.

See, this is the part of the movie I don’t quite know how to fix. You can’t just cut it. It’s vitally important, not just plot wise but also thematically. And I like the moral lessons that are learned here, although I will admit they can be a touch heavy handed. (Then again, it’s not like subtlety has ever been this franchise’s strong suit, right?) You absolutely need Canto Bright. And some of it I actively enjoy!

And yet.

I really feel part of the problem here is DJ (Benicio Del Toro), a hacker who comes to Rose and Finn’s aid. He just . . . never quite works for me. I also suspect that Canto Bright might just go on a bit too long, like, maybe we cut or at least seriously minimize this one chase scene? It’s not the pod racing scene from The Phantom Menace or anything, but you know. It feels a bit drawn out and unnecessary.

5. Of course, I know what you all really want to know: Carlie, where do you fall on porgs?

They’re adorable. I’m not a monster.

Seriously, I do like the porgs. They’re cute. I have no problem with cute alien creatures in Star Wars; what doesn’t work for me are cute alien creatures that take up too much of the plot, or otherwise cause significant plot problems. The Ewoks, for instance: as a kid, I loved them, but as an adult, I want to paint FILLER on their adorable little faces. They just take up too much time, time I really needed to be spent on other things, like, oh, I don’t know, the bullshit redemption arc of Darth Vader. (No, people, I’m never getting over this.)

The porgs, meanwhile, are deeply not plot relevant, and no one pretends they are. They’re just around for a few cute, comic relief scenes. That totally works for me. (Though I suspect I wouldn’t want to actually own one, for the same reasons I don’t want to keep any birds as pets: they’re probably loud as shit. I’d totally take one of those crystal foxes, though.)

6. Finally, a few awesome things about the movie before we get into Spoilers:

6A. Oh my God, the women. Before we had Leia and Rey (and briefly, Maz); now, we still have Leia and Rey, PLUS Rose and Holdo. (Maz, too, technically, but her role is so small I’m not counting it for the purposes of this note.) That’s four significant female characters with, like, names and dialogue and honest-to-God agency. They’re not even all white! (I mean, okay. They’re still mostly white. Still, Rose is progress–if insanely overdue progress–so I’m going to take it as a win.)

I’m kind of annoyed that I’m so fired up about a movie having four whole roles for women, but in this franchise? People. That’s a goddamn jackpot.

6B. The humor, generally. I know there were a few jokes that didn’t land for me. (Finn saying, “Let’s go, chrome dome,” for instance.) But for the most part, I really liked all the comedy, partially because I like to laugh, but mostly because I really think you need it as a counterbalance for some of the dark shit in this movie. Cause, honestly. There’s some dark shit in this movie.

6C. Seriously, the trope-flipping. The movie would start going in one direction, and I’d be like, Oh no, please don’t do this . . . and then they didn’t do it! That actually happened more than once, and while I know a lot of fans feel betrayed by these choices, to me, they’re not merely interesting; they’re also necessary. In fact, I personally feel that Rian Johnson makes some decisions here that, while unusual in a Star Wars story, actually fit the Moral of the Franchise so much better than anything we’ve seen in the past.

But that’s about the best I can do without spoilers. So, let’s just get down to it, shall we?

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

SPOILERS

Okay, so let’s basically repeat everything I just said, but with a lot more specific detail:

An Incomplete List of Big Twists, Subverted Tropes, and/or Flipped Expectations in The Last Jedi

Kylo abruptly murders Snoke (our supposed Big Bad), like, halfway through the movie.
Kylo doesn’t get redeemed.
Rey’s parents were garbage people of absolutely no importance.
Finn and Rose’s long shot mission to save the day totally fails and arguably makes everything much worse.
Leia survives getting spaced by awesome Force powers and basically floats her ass back to safety.
Luke Skywalker never actually leaves his secret hideout and astral projects his ass to fight Kylo. (Also, expelling this much energy ultimately kills Luke.)

Okay, that’s a lot. Let’s take each of those one by one.

Kylo abruptly murders Snoke (our supposed Big Bad), like, halfway through the movie

Initially, I both loved and despised this moment. Despised because I was very frustrated with Kylo’s redemption arc (we’ll get to that in a minute). Loved for . . . well, multiple reasons, actually. Absolutely despising Snoke, though, was definitely one of them.

So, look: I can see how some fans were upset about this. I can absolutely think of movies and TV shows that killed off characters prematurely, at least IMO. One of the most recent examples is Star Trek: Discovery, and no, it’s probably not the character you’re thinking of. (Though that definitely pissed me off, too, just for different reasons.) No, this person was a minor character who, I assumed, was a major player. I didn’t like them, exactly, but I assumed they were a vital part of upcoming Big Plot Shenanigans and, at the very least, I thought they had significant potential to become interesting. Instead, their death was sudden and senseless and just ridiculously dumb, and I was very frustrated by it.

So, sure, theoretically, I could see how Snoke’s death might have felt the same to other people.

For me, though, Snoke’s death was pretty much perfect. For one, I never could take that guy seriously; I was laughing my ass off at him during The Force Awakens. Like, THIS guy? THIS guy I’m supposed to be scared of? But it’s not all design. The thing about Snoke is that, to me, he comes off as a really poor retread of Emperor Palpatine. There’s nothing new or interesting about this guy. He’s, like, Evil, capital E and that’s it. And the thing is, that’s boring. I guess it’s possible that discovering his secret origin story might have made him more interesting, but nothing in either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi really supports that idea. So, killing him off quickly and making Second Banana Kylo Ren the Big Bad instead? I found that much more fascinating.

Kylo doesn’t get redeemed

This was a big one for me.

I’m not 100% against the idea of redemption arcs; I do, however, feel that the bigger the crime(s), the stronger that redemptive arc really needs to be, and Kylo’s arc wasn’t nearly good enough for me. Yes, we saw that Luke Skywalker was (seemingly) about to kill him*, and yeah, that’s some traumatic shit, but that’s also when you leave Jedi Camp and say, “Fuck off, Jedi Assholes and all family reunions ever! I’m out!” It’s NOT why you murder a bunch of Jedi kids and join up with a galactic force that engages in slavery, mass genocide, general tyranny, etc. (Or, for that matter, murder your father/one-of-the-most-popular-characters-in-this-entire-franchise.) Like, I get it, Snoke already had his hooks in Kylo, blah blah. I don’t care. Accountability is still a thing, folks.

Kylo’s connection to Rey is super interesting–like, I have LONG since wanted more Force communication/mind-meldy shit–and allows him to showcase a bit more vulnerability.(Which is a bit stronger than just random people saying shit like, “I still sense Light in you.”) I really like how these scenes are shot, and I find Rey and Kylo’s dynamic fascinating. Still, I just don’t see anything here that would instigate such a gigantic turning point; there’s nothing big enough to make Kylo realize he’s been on the wrong side all along, kill his Dark Master for the greater good, and go join the Light.

But Kylo killing Snoke so that he can say, “Fuck the Light Side, the Dark Side, my parents, tradition, my current master who treats me like shit, and my old master/uncle who once tried to kill me? I’m going to burn it all down and rule motherfucking EVERYTHING.” That I believe. That completely fits everything we’ve seen from Kylo, and what’s more, it’s interesting; it is a new, more complex motivation than we’ve seen from any Star Wars villain thus far. So, yeah, I was all for it.

*This generally works for me cause, like, people aren’t perfect and I don’t expect Luke Skywalker to be, either. But I do think just one or two short flashbacks to Young Kylo, steadily growing darker and darker, wouldn’t have gone amiss. Cause, like, Luke was the guy who thought Darth Vader still had a Light Side to bring to the table. Watching him plan to murder his nephew, even for just a second . . . I feel like we missed a step.

Rey’s parents were garbage people of absolutely no importance

YES. THIS. SO MUCH THIS.

I could have taken a certain amount of backstory. Like, if Rey had been one of the Jedi kids who actually survived Kylo Ren’s slaughter fest or something, sure. But I never wanted Rey to have Super Important Parents, and I absolutely didn’t want her to be one of the Skywalker line. So, obviously, this was just all my dreams come true.

Here’s my thing: I’ve discussed again and again how family and/or genetics have always been desperately weird in the Star Wars universe, but when you think about it, does it really make sense for our heroes to all descend from some ultra-powerful bloodline? One of the primary complaints about The Last Jedi is that it betrays core components of the franchise, and theoretically, I totally understand that; I like a lot of Quentin Tarantino movies, but I still can’t help but feel that everything he brings to the table isn’t what I come to Star Trek for. And while I’m perfectly happy with multiple flavors of Batman, the kind who flat out murders people or prepares to assassinate dudes based on the 1% chance that they might be evil? Fuck that bullshit flavor. That’s not my Batman and never will be.

The important distinction here, though, is that while a powerful bloodline has been historically significant to the Star Wars franchise, I don’t think excising it from the movies takes anything away from the fundamental message of these stories. For starters, we haven’t even done that: we’re just back to the villain coming from the all-powerful Force bloodline, not the primary hero.

But more importantly . . . what Star Wars has always fundamentally been about, to me, is the common goal of rebellion, of resistance, of little guys all over the galaxy stepping up to fight back against seemingly unstoppable tyranny. It’s fighter pilots in their tiny ass planes taking on Death Stars. It’s smugglers realizing that there’s a cause so much bigger than their own self interest. It’s about people coming together to beat unspeakable odds, and in that case . . . doesn’t it actually make more sense to have a heroine who doesn’t come from some magical bloodline, who isn’t some secret space princess or Famous Jedi’s Daughter, but instead comes from nothing, who was thrown away and made herself into a hero? Should the Force really be some kind of weird royal birthright, or should it be something that even a girl from nowhere can tap into to affect change for the better?

Personally, I think that’s a far more compelling story. More than that, I think it’s the Star Wars story that deserves to be told.

Finn and Rose’s long shot mission to save the day totally fails and arguably makes everything much worse.

So, here’s my thing about this: I actually think it’s great that the mission utterly fails. My problem here is two-fold. Let’s deal with the Poe and Holdo aspect first.

See, after Leia is temporarily knocked out of commission (more on that in a while), Holdo becomes the new commander. Unfortunately, the fleet is being tracked by the First Order through lightspeed, and it’s all the Resistance can do just to keep out of range of the big guns. Holdo doesn’t appear to have much of a plan, other than just ‘go forward and hope for the best.’ Poe (quite rightly) thinks this is a bullshit plan, but he’s also (quite rightly) in the doghouse because he disobeyed orders and made a pretty huge tactical error, destroying a big target but losing way too many people to do it. So, he disobeys orders again and sends Finn and Rose off on a secret mission that ultimately fails. Meanwhile, Holdo had a secret self-sacrificing plan all along to try and secure the fleet, but the secret mission ends up seriously putting that plan in jeopardy.

My problem is this: a lot, a LOT, of the plot rests on Holdo’s decision to keep her plan a secret from Poe, and ultimately, I just don’t buy it. There are multiple reasons for this, but probably the biggest one? I honestly don’t understand why her plan was a secret at all. Like, from anyone. Yes, Poe just got demoted, I get it. Poe done fucked up. And sure, this is a militarized resistance, and the military leaders don’t have to explain shit to their soldiers, but . . . come on. Why not reassure your troops that you have a plan? Why not tell it to them ahead of time so everyone could, I don’t know, prepare for it? Evacuate to the life pods faster, that kind of thing? And if your plan on first glance looks like it’s going to meet certain, inevitable doom, why not briefly explain what’s really going on instead of waiting for a perfectly timed dramatic reveal? It all just feels too cheap to me.

Presumably, Holdo doesn’t trust Poe because she knows very little about him, maybe just that he’s pilot and was demoted for insubordination. But if you don’t trust a guy enough to tell him the plan, seriously, what are you just letting him walk around for? Again, this is a stupid secret to keep, especially from the dude who is obviously likely to take matters into his own hands. Either keep him clued in to keep him in line, or don’t tell him anything and confine his ass to quarters.

Also, this: Holdo mistrusts this dude so much that she won’t tell Poe even the most basic information . . . but then later says she likes the little shitstarter and fondly ruffles his hair after he basically starts a mutiny against her? (Okay, I can’t remember if the hair-ruffling actually happened or not, but you know what I mean.) No. No, people, you can’t have this both ways. Holdo can’t mistrust Poe so much that she won’t tell him the plan, demand that he follow her orders without question, and then think of him as a mischievous little scamp. That shit don’t fly.

The thing is, there’s a pretty easy way to fix all of this: introduce a traitor on board, someone who made it possible for the First Order to track the Resistance through lightspeed. I don’t care who the traitor is; hell, I don’t care if there actually is one, or if Holdo and Poe are both just wrong. But if Holdo thinks there’s a traitor in the fleet, of course she won’t tell anyone her secret plan, certainly not Poe, who could very well be the traitor. (After all, he did just make a decision that wiped out half their pilots.) And if Poe–and presumably the audience–suspects it’s Holdo (who, after all, doesn’t even look like she’s trying to save her people), that works too. Everybody wins!

Well. Not Holdo, really, because she dies. Everyone else, though.

Meanwhile, back to Finn and Rose’s actual mission: I think the biggest problem for me here is DJ, the hacker they end up with after they totally fail to retrieve the actual hacker they came for.

On one hand, having to settle for Hacker #2 is totally in line with the Failure Mode that runs rampant in this film. On the other hand, DJ just hanging out in their prison cell feels way too convenient, and there’s something about Del Toro’s whole performance that just doesn’t do much for me. It feels, IDK, contrived? The weird, not terribly consistent stutter thing probably doesn’t help.

And while I really like that DJ completely screws them over (like, that’s huge, both for the plot and for Finn’s whole emotional arc), I can’t help but feel this might have been stronger if I actually liked DJ, or at least gave a damn about him. Theoretically, he’s a compelling character. Like, he’s basically Han Solo if Han never came back to help the Rebellion take out the Death Star . . . and yet . . . he just doesn’t feel right to me. He doesn’t quite feel like an actual character yet, somehow.

Leia survives getting spaced by awesome Force powers and basically floats her ass back to safety.

You already know how I feel about this. This is the best.

When Leia was first blown out to space, I was pretty upset. I knew there was a possibility that she would die, of course, but I wasn’t expecting it anywhere near this early, and I was Not Happy. So when Leia started to, like, open her eyes and spacewalk or whatever, I was like YAAAAASSSS.

I’ve seen some people upset over this new power, but I gotta be honest: I just don’t have much time for that. Seriously, it’s about time Leia actually got to do something interesting with the Force. And it was so badass and unexpected. I adored it.

I’m also pretty happy they didn’t kill Leia off in this movie. I’d be okay, I guess, if Part X picked up with her funeral or something, but I’d personally be much happier if we just got a line about her heading up the Resistance from some planet base, maybe a CGI shot of her reflection in a window or something, and that’s it. Focus on the new kids and let Leia live on, as we wish Carrie Fisher could have.

Luke Skywalker never actually leaves his secret hideout and astral projects his ass to fight Kylo. (Also, expelling this much energy ultimately kills Luke.)

Again, some people have been unhappy about this new ability. (Although from what I’ve seen, FAR more people are angry about Leia’s power, something that surprises me not at all.) And look, if it breaks your suspension of disbelief, I guess I get that; I know I’ve had that problem with other stories too, like, just because this kind of magic has been established doesn’t mean I’ll accept that kind of magic without previous foundation.

Here, though . . . yeah, it just doesn’t bother me. I don’t think it’s weird that either Skywalker sibling might have learned a new ability after, like, 30 years.I certainly don’t think it’s weird that their abilities are Super Fucking Strong, considering their grandaddy is The Force itself, or whatever. And come on, the astral projection shit was awesome, like, that was another badass reveal that I totally wasn’t expecting. I loved pretty much all of it: when Kylo basically has his FIRE EVERYTHING moment, when Hux snidely mocks him for that overreaction, when Luke tells Kylo he isn’t there to save him, the reversal of the “every word you just said is wrong” line, and the spectacular “see you around, kid” exit. It all works really, really well for me.

Luke’s death is sad, but it doesn’t feel cheap to me like Obi-Wan’s always has. It also doesn’t depress me nearly as much as Han’s, partially because the first death is often the hardest, partially because I always liked Han more, and partially because this movie gave Luke Skywalker the chance to be so badass and compelling in a way he has never been before, at least not for me. (Whereas Han basically remained the same smuggler he’d always been, never really changed or grew, and eventually had an evil child who murdered him. Seriously, that is so DARK.) Sure, it sucks to think that Luke’s been a depressed, cranky old hermit for the past however many years, but . . . that’s pretty much what The Force Awakens set up, right? Like, tossing the lightsaber was funny, sure, but it also seemed to perfectly line up with my expectations; Luke clearly didn’t fly out to Jedi Rock, waiting for the Chosen One to come find him. He went there to hide until he died. If you’re not happy with how Luke’s life turned out, I absolutely get it, but I’m not sure The Last Jedi is the right movie to blame for that.

Also: I did cry after Luke died, but I’ll be honest: it was a little less about Luke than it was about Carrie Fisher. When Leia is saying her goodbye to Luke, and we’re saying goodbye to Carrie . . . ugh. Heart. Break.

Good God, I’m already at 5,000 words. Let’s ABC the rest of this shit, shall we?

A. Despite the brand new Jedi abilities that were introduced in this film, I feel like The Last Jedi’s general understanding of the Force is much more in line with the original trilogy, rather than, say, The Phantom Menace and the bullshit midi-chlorians ever were.

B. So, there are a lot of people saying things like The Last Jedi killed their childhood. Some of these people I think are being pretty silly. OTOH, I totally get fans of the original trilogy who are just completely bummed about how these new movies have literally killed off their childhood heroes. Again, The Last Jedi personally bothers me a lot less than The Force Awakens in this regard, but either way, that’s a totally valid viewpoint and is, in fact, why I was initially hoping that this new trilogy wouldn’t include the original heroes at all.

Killing off Luke Skywalker does not make The Last Jedi a bad movie, but if that means you personally don’t like the movie because, damn it, you wanted to be Luke Skywalker when you were a kid, and couldn’t they have just let him have his happily ever after? I mean, yeah. That seems totally fair to me.

C. As far as my Star Wars shipping goes:

C1. You can pry my Poe/Finn ship away from my cold, dead hands.

C2. People hating on Rose purely because they’re Poe/Finn shippers need to get their heads on straight.

C3. If Rose/Finn is endgame, that’s okay (I at least like it more than I like Finn/Rey, who I just see as total bros), but if I’m supposed to feel it by the end of this movie . . . like, eh? I could maybe see it on her end, but I didn’t really get any romance vibes from him at all. And as far as the kiss goes, honestly . . . I need to watch it again to make up my mind. I’ve seen some people argue it’s not really meant to be a romantic kiss, but if that’s the case, I’ve gotta say, having it right after Rose says “saving the people we love” was probably not the best call.

C4. If the next movie makes any kind of serious love triangle between Finn, Rose, and Rey, I will hurt people.

C5. So . . . Leia and Holdo had a thing once, right? Tell me I’m not the only one who sees it.

D. The movie never really goes into it, but I’d find it fascinating to see what Rose thinks of Poe. NOT as a potential rival of Finn’s affections, but as the commanding officer whose order ultimately got her sister killed. Honestly, I’m perfectly content for there not to be a bunch of rage/angst: after all, Paige Tico does make a choice, and Rose seems to totally understand it, even as she keeps Finn from making a similar choice at the end of the film. Still, I’m potentially interested in an on-screen acknowledgement of these choices.

E. Although . . . okay, I’m just going to say it. Much as I love the sentiment of Rose’s line at the end of the movie about how they’re going to win the war by saving the people they love, not destroying the things they hate . . . like . . . if Luke hadn’t shown up (sorta), the entire Resistance would indeed by toast right now, like, that’s it. Game’s over. We lost, kiddos. Everyone’s dead.

I mean, I’m okay with it. I actually like that Rose gets to make a choice here, and she chooses to save Finn. I’m just saying, this isn’t quite the same thing as, say, Paige sacrificing herself to destroy a valuable but ultimately unnecessary target. This is the fucking ballgame, folks. If ever there was a time for a “self-sacrifice for the greater good” mission, like, here it is.

F. I continue to like Finn’s character growth. In The Force Awakens, Finn’s journey includes a) choosing to leave the evil military force he was conscripted into, and b) sticking around to help Rey, rather than running away as far as he could. In The Last Jedi, Finn’s journey is about finding a purpose bigger than just Rey, like, he’s a good guy, but Finn doesn’t really become a member of the Resistance until the end of The Last Jedi, and I like that.

G. I don’t care about Kylo’s shirtless scene. At all. Get me a shirtless Poe scene, though, and I might wake up a little.

H. I really wish The Last Jedi could have made more use of Phasma.

She really is this trilogy’s Boba Fett . . . although her death, at least, is not quite so inglorious as his. (Instead, she gets a “fall into the flames of hell” death, such as this one in Sorority Row, or this one in Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. SPOILERS for both of those films at the links.)

Oh, Gwendoline Christie. You deserve so much more.

I. You know whose death totally bummed me out? The female fighter pilot who blew up in the hangar bay. She was in it for like four seconds, and I have absolutely no idea what her name was. But I latched on to her immediately, perhaps simply because I’m still used to desperately searching for female faces in Star Wars movies.

J. Dude, they totally killed off Admiral Ackbar! Like, really nonchalantly. I didn’t even notice, at first.

Okay, this kind of bums me out, too.

K. The scene where Yoda comes along to blow up all the old Jedi stuff? I liked it. I guess I could see how some might feel like this is a betrayal, but honestly, Yoda was always a kooky ass little shit. It really doesn’t feel OOC to me. And I love seeing him and Luke share a scene together.

L. Also, I have to say that Hux is growing on me. Admittedly, he’s used primarily as an ineffectual villain/comic relief in this movie, but still. Domhnall Gleeson may be channeling Peter Cushing for the role, but he’s channeling him at, like, 112%. I appreciate the effort.

I also can’t help but wish Hux would be the one to kill Kylo in Star Wars X by just stabbing him in the back or something. I know it would never happen. But it appeals to me regardless.

M. The scene where Luke, like, really aggressively drinks green milk is so utterly bizarre, I honestly can’t tell if I like it yet or not. But it’s a Moment, all right.

N. Finally, it’s probably worth being said that everything I most loved about this movie–not redeeming Kylo Ren, not giving Rey significant Jedi parents, etc–could easily be overturned by JJ Abrams in the next movie. It totally shouldn’t be. But it’s possible, in which case it’ll be my turn to be utterly, bitterly disappointed.

Cause, okay. Rian Johnson absolutely makes some unexpected choices here, but, like, he didn’t reinvent the fucking wheel, either. Tropes were subverted, sure, but it’s not like this movie didn’t have tons of Star Wars callbacks and tie-ins. Nor, for that matter, was it some 2 1/2 hour David Lynch mindfuck. This is an unusual Star Wars movie, but it IS a Star Wars movie.

And yeah, I really liked it. I can see why some people didn’t. And I don’t want to sit here and tell those people that they’re wrong. Obviously, I enjoy discussing my opinions, but I don’t actually write these reviews to convince people that they’re obviously being idiots and, clearly, they should listen to me. I don’t really write these reviews to try and convince anyone of anything, except to describe where my head’s at when and after I watch something.

I do feel, though, that if JJ Abrams spends the entire next movie retconning everything that happened in this one, well. That would be pretty shitty. Obviously, he could. Rian Johnson clearly went in a different direction than Abrams would’ve taken this story. But to me, nothing Johnson did seemed to shit on The Force Awakens. Nothing made me think Johnson was secretly saying, “Fuck you and your Star Wars idolatry, Abrams. I’m going to tell a story that both makes your film obsolete and betrays the whole franchise.”

But if Abrams just completely erases all the shit that happens here, if he redeems Kylo or brings Snoke back to life or says that Luke was secretly Rey’s father all along? I’m really struggling to see how that won’t come off as a giant middle finger to The Last Jedi. And I really hope that isn’t the case because this movie moves the franchise forward to tell new kinds of stories without simultaneously destroying it.

And if Disney is going to keep releasing 1-2 Star Wars films for the foreseeable future? Then I think forward is the direction we need to go.

QUOTES:

Yoda: “We are what they grow beyond.”

Kylo: “The Empire, your parents, the Resistance, the Sith, the Jedi . . . let the past die. Kill it, if you have to. That’s the only way to become what you are meant to be.”

Luke: “Where are you from?”
Rey: “Nowhere.”
Luke: “No one is from nowhere.”
Rey: “Jakku.”
Luke: “Yeah, that’s pretty much nowhere.”

Luke: “See you around, kid.”

Kylo: “Did you come back to forgive me? To save my soul?”
Luke: “No.”

Luke: “Amazing. Every word of what you just said is wrong.”

Poe: “This is Commander Poe Dameron of the Republic fleet, I have an urgent communique for General Hux.”
Hux: “This is General Hux of the First Order. The Republic is no more. Your fleet are Rebel scum and war criminals. Tell your precious princess there will be no terms, there will be no surrender.”
Poe: “Hi, I’m holding for General Hux.”
Hux: “This is Hux. You and your friends are doomed. We will wipe your filth from the galaxy.”
Poe: “Okay. I’ll hold.”
Hux: “Hello?”
Poe: “Hello? Yup, I’m still here.”
Hux: “Can he hear me?
Poe: “Hux?
Comm Officer: “He can.”
Poe: “With an ‘H’? Skinny guy. Kinda pasty.”
Hux: “I can hear you. Can you hear me?”
Poe: “Look, I can’t hold forever. If you reach him, tell him Leia has an urgent message for him . . .”
Comm Officer: “I believe he’s tooling with you, sir.”
Poe: “. . . about his mother.”

Poe: “Permission to hop in an X-wing and blow something up?”
Leia: “Permission granted.”

Rose: “We’re not going to win this war by destroying what we hate, but by saving what we love.”

Rey: “I’m Rey.”
Poe: “I know.”

(Kylo has fired basically every weapon ever to blow up Luke Skywalker.)
Hux: “Do you think you got him?”

(R2-D2 plays Leia’s old message to Obi-Wan.)
Luke: “That was a cheap shot.”

Poe: “You must have a thousand questions.”
Finn: “Where’s Rey?”

Snoke (about Kylo’s mask): “Take that ridiculous thing off.”

CONCLUSIONS:

Some disappointments, but overall I really enjoyed this addition to the franchise. It’s funny, moving, genuinely surprising, and steers the story in a new and mostly gratifying direction. I haven’t figured out where The Last Jedi fits in my Overall Star Wars Rating System yet, but it is my favorite movie of Rian Johnson’s since Brick.

MVP:

As much as I’d love to give it to Carrie Fisher, who was fabulous as always, I think I’ve gotta go with Mark Hamill for this one. He’s pretty terrific.

TENTATIVE GRADE:

A-

MORALS:

Fight for what you love, not against what you hate.

You don’t have to come from somewhere to be somebody.

Boy, be quiet and listen to the women, okay? They got this.