Let’s get one thing straight here, folks: DEADPOOL should not be the lead character of anything. He’s gonzo comic-relief, a bit player with a VERY specific bit to play, and that’s where he’s always belonged – or rather, its where he belonged once somebody figured out what to DO with him. Look, I don’t wanna pile on Rob Liefeld because the guy probably does probably get way too much hate on the internet (I mean fucking hell, people, YOU draw that many comics at once during your peak and get everybody’s proportions and perspective right 100% of the time!) but the fact is Deadpool “Mark I” was pretty one note even for a 90s X-MEN character. Seriously: “Wolverine + The Punisher + generically sarcastic and also a Ninja?” If original Deadpool embodied any more overused comic-book tropes of the 1990s he’d be an episode of The Anti-Gravity Room. The character didn’t really get interesting until years later when someone (Joe Kelly usually getting the credit) realized that being a sarcastic asshole who couldn’t die no matter what you did to him effectively made Deadpool a superhero equivalent to Bugs Bunny or Freakazoid or The Mask or whoever your particular frame of reference for that character type is and decided to just lean into it and make him a fourth-wall breaking human cartoon. And just as the “straight” version of Deadpool is cool in limited doses, the “funny” version works well for about as long. Yes, this schtick is funny, but it gets old fast. I bring this up because, if there are criticisms I imagine to be levied at DEADPOOL by people who were otherwise predisposed to love DEADPOOL, it’s that Deadpool himself isn’t really “in” DEADPOOL for most of DEADPOOL. The film basically “opens” at the end of the second act with our protagonist killing a bunch of people to find out where the main bad guy is, then he finds out and hooks up with a pair of X-Men guest stars to go fight the main bad guy for the ending. That’s pretty much it – no, really: All the “classic Deadpool” stuff you’ve seen in the trailers with the red suit and the weapons and the meta “he knows it’s only a movie” jokes essentially comprise two big action scenes, which have been time-expanded into an hour and 47 minute movie by intercutting a series of extended flashbacks wherein the titular mercenary gives us his backstory, explains how Wade Wilson became Deadpool and why he’s trying to kill these specific people. It’s a weird structural decision and I’m not sure it totally works on a narrative level, but what it DOES do is allow the movie to “feel like” Deadpool – as in the red-suited human cartoon bouncing around doing bad standup and slaughtering people – is our focus the whole time even though what the film is actually doing is making sure the character doesn’t actually get to stick around long enough for us to get sick of him. And… I’ll be damned if it doesn’t work. DEADPOOL is a good movie. It’s not GREAT… but once you key on the idea that it’s actively avoiding being great because just being good let’s you get away with more that makes it okay. It’s a fairly weightless, depth-averse, easily-processed lark of thing, but it gets to where it wants to be and stays honest within its own very particular parameters. There’s actually even some real heart and humanity at the core of the thing that, if explored just an inch or two more might’ve pushed it to greatness but, again, it doesn’t really WANT to be great so there you go. Ryan Reynolds is, of course, perfect for the title character; both in personality and on the meta level in that he’s another gifted comic actor who’s been repeatedly forced into the mold of a traditional leading man by virtue of being too conventionally handsome for Hollywood to imagine that he’d be good for anything else. As such, there’s something enormously cathartic and “right” about watching him engage in an extended lowbrow subversion of the now-standard superhero movie, which is both the joke and also as close as DEADPOOL comes to having a “point”: In case you were wondering what the hell Colossus was doing here, the idea is that the metal-skinned X-Man is acting as a stand-in for the traditional square-jawed, morally-righteous family-friendly comic-book movie lead who (for some reason) has decided he’s fond of Deadpool and keeps bugging him about setting all the violence and profanity aside to become a more conventional superhero. Ha. Ha. Colossus is fun, but in terms of the X-Men tie-ins that DEADPOOL is all too happy to point out feel low-rent and tacked-on the breakout star turns out to be Brianna Hildebrand as Colossus’ X-Men trainee “Negasonic Teenage Warhead.” She has real screen presence, but it’s also inspired and close to “brave” to add a character who seems to “get” Deadpool but just doesn’t find him all that amusing – a quintessentially jaded Millennial who seems to regard “The Merc With a Mouth’s” routine as just so much warmed-over Generation-X tryhard clowning that she simply doesn’t the time for. They only really have two extended “moments” together, but it’s endearing to watch Deadpool be alternately frustrated and reactively-invigorated by a “kid” whose already too old to put up with his bullshit. Of all the meta humor one could’ve expected from a DEADPOOL movie, I’d didn’t foresee that it would have the wherewithal to take the piss out of its own piss-taking. Well done. It’s a fun routine, though, even if it is mainly about reminding us of how supposedly “edgy” it is for people to be swearing, spilling blood and having sex in the Marvel Age of superhero movies almost to the point where you might notice that it’s not really THAT excessively violent or perverse when you get right down to it. Oh, if you’re among the 13 year olds sneaking into the movie demographic DEADPOOL was tailor-made for, I’m sure it’ll blow your fuckin’ mind – but anyone old enough to see this legally is probably A.) again, already too old to properly enjoy it and B.) going to feel like they’ve seen plenty of genre-entries just as if not more extreme. But yeah, it’s an “angry little boy” movie and as angry little boy movies go it’s probably in the upper echelon thereof; particularly when you consider how much it gets away with in terms of being (on a thematic level) mostly a love story involving Wilson and Morena Baccarin as his similarly off-kilter would-be fiancée in a movie primarily aimed at an audience whose outlook has only JUST started to roll-over from “Girls eeeeew!” to “Boobies yaaaay!” In many ways this might be the best role Baccarin has ever been afforded in a movie – she’s interesting, affecting, attractive and evenly-matched with Reynolds in terms of playfully-naughty comedy chops. Even though DEADPOOL is actively working to undermine every moment that even begins to approach sincerity, that it actually does almost become a better movie than it wants to be is owed almost entirely to how invested we become in this central relationship; which feels earnest and sweet and real and… kind of quietly, half-jokingly forward-looking in certain respects I wouldn’t want to spoil. If there’s a downside to all this, it’s that it’s occasionally difficult to tell which aspects of the film are deliberately aping the aesthetic of a cheapjack 90s superhero movie for laughs and which ones are honest-to-god flaws because this IS pretty-much a cheapjack 90s superhero movie. Are the bad guys one-note and kinda lame because it’s part of the joke or did they just not try all that hard on the bad guys? Does it all take place in generic action locations like “random freeway,” “grungy basement,” “gratuitous strip club” and “final-boss junkyard” because we’re supposed to laugh in recognition, or were they just saving money? Is Deadpool’s groaner sitcom-punchline sense of humor meant to be genuinely funny, or are we supposed to laugh at his weirdly dated material? It’s stuff like this that keeps the movie from being great, but doesn’t necessarily keep it from being great fun. DEADPOOL is not, despite the inevitable impending overstatement, the grand deconstruction that the omnipresent superhero genre was waiting for; but it’s a fun “B-side” to the genre and a clever snark-off at the expense of its own weird moment in pop-culture history. I don’t necessarily see how this becomes a “franchise” since it’s already openly acknowledging that this guy wears out his welcome fast; but for now as a one-off gonzo side-project for the X-MEN universe it’s the right movie at the right time - an amusing, decidedly well-made distraction that will likely be received as revelatory by the younger audiences who find a way to see it. It’s NOT, of course (not “revelatory,” that is) but if there’s one thing DEADPOOL is good at reminding us of it’s that sometimes it’s okay to just let the kids misbehave for a little while. Reviews like this made possible in part through The MovieBob Patreon. If you like what you see, please consider becoming a Patron.
Full review-text after the jump: PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES is the latest attempt to answer the question of whether or not you can stretch one joke into an entire movie, though this time the joke being adapted is less of the “setup-misdirection-punchline” and more of a “hey, isn’t it funny that this is a thing that exists” variety. Yes, COULD in fact read the original parody novel and get some laughs from it, but the main JOKE in play was that someone actually did sit down and rewrite a Jane Austen novel so that same basic story takes place in an alternate timeline where Regency Era Great Britain went through a zombie apocalypse that necessitated its heroes become martial-arts trained zombie-killers in addition to class-conscious countryside aristocrats. Set it on the shelf, let people flip through and discern “Oh my, they actually went all the way through with this, how silly!” and there you go the joke has been told.
Such as it is with the new movie adaptation, which has a certain amount of style amid some oddly haphazard direction and salvage-job editing to its credit but mainly seems to exist in service of trailers and YouTube mashups to be compiled later: It’s not at all unpleasant to sit through and at times hits some suitable high notes – but there’s no “joke” to be told in the movie-proper that’s any funnier than the mere fact that it actually IS a movie and not a 2 ½ minute Lonely Island skit of SNL.
Perhaps inevitably, making a movie out of a premise that by all rights ought to be a comedy sketch means that it really only feels engaged when it arrives a specifically-timed “Jane Austen Plus Zombies And Zombie-Hunting” setpieces that play out like skits in and of themselves: The Bennett Sisters violent rescuing a fancy party from a zombie attack? Funny! Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy’s argument over his proposal turning into a full-blown mixed martial-arts duel? Inspired! Keeping big chunks of the original dialogue intact even though scenes have been completely recontexualized? Clever! The connective tissue between segments to get us there? Not so much. To be perfectly honest, while also far from flawless, ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPRIE HUNTER is overall probably the superior telling of this particular joke.
A lot of the blame for what doesn’t work has to be laid at the feet of director Burr Steers, who doesn’t seem to yet have a full handle on what to do with a large-budget film that requires such a careful balance of tone and aesthetic to get its central gags across. On the other hand, the film adds a few more conventional zombie-horror subplots to the story that pull the narrative even further away from the original; a strange decision since it’s actively undercutting the premise of its own joke. Then again, they’ve been working on the screenplay to this thing for a ridiculously long development cycle – hell, at one point years ago David O. Russell and Natalie Portman were supposed to make this, so by now it’s amazing that it got to screen at all.
What’s generally disappointing is that the fairly obvious opportunities for this to actually rise above its one-joke premise and have some real thematic merit are all but completely ignored. Zombies are better than almost any monster in terms of creating the opportunity for satire since they are LITERALLY walking caricatures of humanity. But PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES can’t seem to find anything to say about such fertile subject matter as the British class system, arbitrary rules of social decorum or even the broad observational humor at the expense of the landed gentry present in Austen’s original text – even though the poor zombies keep wandering through the frame practically SCREAMING: “Excuse me, sir! Would perchance anyone be having any need of an ideal allegorical shorthand for disruptive inhumanity among humans?”
But, instead, the movie is basically content to just settle in on “Stuff that looks like THE WALKING DEAD happening to people who look like DOWNTON ABBEY” and ride it out to the end. There are some laughs to be had, some inventive action beats and the cast all seems exceptionally “game” for keeping straight faces through all of this absurdity… but it just doesn’t quite get all the way there. I didn’t hate it, I laughed at it, ironically the people who enjoy it MOST will almost certainly be hardcore Jane Austen fans who’ll get all the references and scene-reimaginings; but in terms of all the hype PRIDE & PREJUDICE & ZOMBIES just doesn’t come fully to life.
Well. Needless to say my plans to get back on track for weekly updates didn't go exactly as planned, though I'm sort of glad of that. Episode 3 ("Better Angels") felt a bit lackluster, falling back on elements that have been the least interesting part of the season so far in order to let subplots of later importance (Whitney Frost discovering she can kill with a touch thanks to her Zero Matter infection, Jason Wilkes being a "living ghost" thanks to a blast from the same) handle their setup. Episode 4, on the other hand? Much better - and the immediate payoff to the aforementioned subplots made them retroactively more compelling. I still feel like the dye is already cast that this just isn't going to be the dynamo that Season 1 was, but maybe still solid in its own right.
What I'm liking already is that, after threatening to overwhelm the narrative in Episode 3, The Arena Club (aka Clearly-HYDRA-But-Somehow-Not-Noticeably-So-By-Organization-Founded-Specifically-To-Fight-HYDRA) seem to be receding into the background to make room for Whitney Frost (aka Madame Masque) to be the true heavy of the season, though since the whole "HYDRA is actually an Inhuman-worshiping interplanetary death-cult" thing is the direct lead-back to AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D this season I imagine they'll still be a big reference point... or maybe just popping in at the end to make goo-goo eyes at Arnim Zola and Doctor Faustus as a "how S.H.I.E.L.D got infiltrated" stepping-stone.
Still, Frost is a more interesting villain so I'm glad to see her getting the focus. The cross-cutting of her and Carter's respective childhoods was a nice touch and kept the proceedings interesting, along with being pretty "real world dark" as this series goes. It's a bit of a letdown to realize that we're getting another bad guy whose conception is "Bad Version of Peggy" (Dottie was "evil lady-spy," Frost is "evil rebellious-tomboy") on the other hand, and while the backstory involving Carter's brother was nicely executed I feel like eventually they're going to need to find something to motivate her actions other than the example-setting sacrifices of male loved ones (Captain America in Season 1, Jason Wilkes and her brother in Season 2).
Speaking of Wilkes (who's based off an inversion of an obscure early Marvel scifi story), he's getting more interesting as the invisibility story continues and his relationship with Peggy is compelling (of course she's into him, he's basically a Black Nerd Steve Rogers); but I'm glad to see that they're getting right to the point of the "Zero Matter is Dark Force is Dark Dimension" business as he's concerned. I still wish they hadn't gone and spoiled that that was the deal before the show started, since it'd be more fun to figure this stuff out organically: the clear implication of Wilkes being "pulled" to hallucinations of a rift like the one that's growing behind Frost's scar is that she (Frost) is acting as a human portal to the Dark Dimension, which is a cool premise.
The main angle that still isn't working for me at all is the Red Menace stuff with Kurtwood Smith's evil FBI guy. It feels perfunctory, as though they felt they had to do communist-witchhunt subplots because it was the 50s now, and it just doesn't seem to jibe as naturally with the material as Wilkes and Frost's respective "brilliance overlooked because of race/gender" stories do alongside Carter's fight for respect. It's possible that there's a bigger "thing" coming that we can't see yet (the proto-Black Widow and Faustus stuff came out of nowhere in Season 1) but as of now every time this storyline shows up it feels like wasted space.
I'd also like them to maybe dial back the comedy whenever Jarvis and Peggy are on a joint mission - a little of that goes a long way, and by now I think everyone "get's" that Jarvis is fussy and fidgety despite his hypercompetence otherwise; so you don't need to keep reminding us. The Season has room to grow yet, and this is something that should be addressed sooner than later.
Punk band trapped in a backwoods club with an army of white-supremacists looking to kill them for witnessing a murder. Finally coming out after a big impact on the festival circuit. Looks intense:
With apologies for the week's delay - as you may have heard, I've picked up some work recently. Before anyone asks: Yes, I've also seen Episode 3 - it'll get it's writeup likely sometime later today.
Anyway...
The first season of AGENT CARTER was a revelation: The so called Marvel "assembly line" spinning-off the CAPTAIN AMERICA franchise with a female-fronted period action drama whose narrative functioned as a series-length metaphor for the forced-backslide of women's rights in the post-WWII U.S.? Even if you'd seen THE FIRST AVENGER and thus knew that Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter could more than carry a show, that wasn't what anyone was expecting. And while the first season didn't precisely stay sturdy all the way through (what should've been a gangbusters finale was undercut by TV budgeting, but only just so) it was one of the worthier editions to the canon by far.
So it's with some trepidation that one approaches the series' second season. Sure, the characters more than deserve to be revisited and there are definitely more stories worth telling, but the first run felt like such a meticulously constructed piece - the right actress, the right character, the right story to tell with her - that there was always going to be some worry that any follow-up might stretch the setup too far: The first season felt like it used up every possible angle in the Marvel-ephemera-as-historical-feminist-metaphor toolbox, so where else might there be to go beyond new villains and more world-building for the broader MCU?
The good news is, it turns out that AGENT CARTER still has a lot to say along with being as reliably fun as ever. The less encouraging news, at least thus far, is that there might already be a sense of diminishing returns involved. Notice I said "might."
Make no mistake, Season 2 starts strong: Carter vs Dottie rematch in the opening minutes? Awesome. The SSR Agents (except for Agent Thompson) now holding Peggy in close-to-fetishistic respect? Good development. Shipping her out to the West Coast to help Agent Sousa with a nascent Los Angeles division? Nice change of pace. New mystery involving (thus far) a secret stash of black-hole creating extradimensional black goo already confirmed to be the (chronologically) first appearance of the not-yet-correctly-named Darkforce? Very cool. Lotte Verbeek as Ana Jarvis? Hilarious character, a great addition. All the misdirection business with the frozen lake/bodies? Good stuff. All told, in terms of technical quality and overall charm, it's basically every bit as good as it was before - one of the most seamless progressions between seasons of a non-procedural I can remember.
And yet... yes, it doesn't quite pack the same level of punch the arrival of Season 1 did. To an extent, that's to be expected: We're in the realm of the familiar now, so there's less sense of discovery on the audience's part. But I worry that it also has something to do with the underlying scenario being not as fundamentally compelling.
Realizing that Season 1 really was going to make it's meta-story entirely about Carter as a stand-in for an entire generation of Rosie's who braced at being told to put down their rivet-guns once the war had concluded was an invigorating system shock; not just because a Marvel show was tackling something so specific but because it's a hugely important moment in modern history that we never really get to see in popular entertainment - to the extent that the only major mainstream movie or series I can name offhand that tackled it previously was A League of Their Own. By contrast, apart from the end-of-Golden-Age-Hollywood setting, Season 2's big thematic bugbears (so far) appear to be pre-Civil Rights racism (Peggy's new would-be paramour is a Black scientist with pointedly Steve Rogers-esque dorky/handsome vibe) and early signs of anti-Communist paranoia and... well, we've seen both of those before. They just don't feel as novel.
Or at least they don't so far.
Like I said, it's early yet. And even if AGENT CARTER can't always be super-novel in addition to being super-entertaining, well... "just" super-entertaining is hardly much of a negative. It's encouraging to remember that this series isn't cheap to produce, and its being handled largely by powers from the Film side of the Marvel business, so its unlikely they'd spend the time or resources to bring it back if they didn't think they had a compelling reason to. Given how good a job so much of the same team did last time, I'd say it's worth enjoying the fun for now and being optimistic about everything else. QUICK TAKES:
I honestly wish Marvel hadn't been so preemptively eager to inform us that Whitney Frost is indeed a variation on Madame Masque - that would've been fun (if easy) to put together. I expect she'll end up wearing the signature gold mask at some point.
I'm going to go out on a limb NOW and say that they're building to a "twist" with Dottie this time around. She's back to early to "just" be a heavy again, why would she be trying to steal an Arena Club pin if she was working for them, she's super-insistent about only talking to Peggy, etc - it doesn't add up. I'm calling it now: She has a good(ish) guy agenda this time, and she and Peggy will be fighting on the same side at some point.
Speaking of the Arena Club and/or Council of Nine business, they're logo looks too much like a missing-link in that "devil symbol gradually becoming HYDRA symbol" evolutionary change laid out in AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D to be anything but, right? So the question becomes: Are they HYDRA, or do they and HYDRA just share a common ancestor. At this point, they mainly seem to be standing in for The Maggia, hence the Madame Masque connection.
Masque being an "evil" equivalent to Heady Lamar? Good angle.
I maintain more than ever that I really want Chad Michael Murray's Agent Thompson to ultimately become an MCU equivalent to William Burnside.
