Aug 222017
 
1.5 reels
The Defenders

The evil ninja crime syndicate, The Hand, led by Alexandra Reid (Sigourney Weaver), needs the Iron Fist (Finn Jones) to fulfill their scheme in New York city. Coincidentally, Luke Cage (Mike Colter) runs into pointless Hand activity in Harlem. Doubly coincidentally, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter) takes a case that leads to The Hand in the most unlikely way possible. Stretching the notion of coincidence far past the breaking point, Daredevil (Charlie Cox) becomes Jessica Jones’s unrequested lawyer. And requiring a new word to replace “coincidence,” the four of them all end up attacking The Hand’s headquarters at the same time. Along with Stick (Scott Glenn), who coincidentally (that word sure is popping up a lot) shows up at that moment, the four superheroes decide to team up to destroy The Hand, while saying repeatedly how they can’t be a team. And Electra (Elodie Yung), who is coincidentally Daredevils ex-girlfriend, coincidentally is resurrected for no reason ever explained besides Alexandra‘s personal prophecy, so that she can be the big bad.

The Defenders is bad. Not Iron Fist bad. Nowhere near. It is leagues better than Iron Fist. Iron Fist was terrible in every way used to evaluate a show. The Defenders is simply empty and unnecessary. You skip Iron Fist because it is unpleasant. You skip The Defenders because there’s no good reason to see it.

The Defenders is The Avengers of the MCU Netflix series. After two seasons of Daredevil, and one each of Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist (go here to see my reviews of all of these), The Defenders should bring together the parts of the Netflix universe into a greater whole. It does bring the characters together, but only as a cheap, empty, crossover event instead of as a climax that brings additional meaning and depth to the individual pieces.

Discounting Iron Fist, the separate shows are worthwhile, but flawed. They are too long at thirteen episodes and often wander about aimlessly (a problem that The Defenders avoids by being a more appropriate eight eps long), but Jessica Jones and Luke Cage—and to a lesser extent Daredevil—overcome those and other flaws with powerful themes. They mean something. The Defenders is themeless. There’s no message here. There is nothing to think about. There’s a plot, but it isn’t much, and without theme, it is abundantly clear how little there is to the plot.

Joining lack-of-theme is lack of character development. The only character that has an arc is Electra, which could have been engaging if she was the main character (not something I am recommending), but as is just takes up time. The rest are just what they were before, with no change nor examination of their character. Danny—the Iron Fist—is still an unpleasant, juvenile, privileged douche bag, performed by Jones as if his laxative hasn’t kicked in. Matt Murdock—Daredevil—doubles down on the most annoying parts of his personality, making him little better than Danny. For Luke Cage, Marvel has forgotten what they did with Captain America. Luke is so noble, so good and pure and straight-laced that he is a walking sleeping pill. Only Jessica comes out looking good. We learn nothing new about her, but she is engaging and often funny. Krysten Ritter is superb in the role, perhaps even better than she was in her stand alone series, but one actress, and one character, cannot support an ensemble work. Making it worse is that she plays no part in the feather-light plot. This is The Iron Fist & Daredevil show, with Jessica and Luke just along because it said so in the comics.

The character interactions are a mixed bag. The jokes work, and it is cute to see the other three Defenders reacting to Danny the way much of the audience did in his solo outing, but the “I work alone” discussions get old fast. And like all the other shows, this one insists that the characters knowledge and beliefs are far behind the audience’s. We know that Danny has mystical, semi-racist, oriental powers, so watching the others catch up is a bore. “Sure, space aliens, Nordic gods, green rage monsters, mind control, and super science are all real, but I draw the line at ninja powers!”

The fight scenes are—with the exception of a bit in a hallway which was in all the trailers—nothing special. One glaring flaw is that everyone does the same thing. They all punch things. Danny and Matt even punch with the same style, the one used by all the villains. Sure you can have great action without Avengers-type power diversity—the Shaw Brothers prooved that over and over—but that requires talent and money not on display. To make the combat scenes work to the limited degree that they do, they resorted to old tropes: the villains shoot like stormtroopers and each wait to attack in sequence. That can produce enjoyable fights in a properly goofy show, but The Defenders wants to appear serious and real. If those scenes had been directed “realistically,” the heroes would all be dead. Why is it they can’t aim at anyone except Luke?

The villains are reasonably good for the MCU. Alexandra has some depth, even if her “Black Sky” plans are never explained and mean nothing; Weaver is a pro and it shows. The rest do their jobs. The sidekicks neither elevate nor depress the proceedings. Only Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick) stands out for being horrible when she’s with Danny, but OK when she’s with anyone else. The dialog is significantly worse whenever he’s involved, a sign that the writers had no idea what to do with him.

I’m saying to skip The Defenders, but I’m not saying it emphatically. Ritter and Weaver almost save it, it isn’t too long, and except for anything related to Danny and a little of Matt, it isn’t a bad time. It’s just an inconsequential time. It clearly will not affect what is to follow in the Netflix MCU. It’s just
there. I’m not sure it is any worse than Daredevil Season 2, which I gave a very restrained thumbs up. But I prefer a positive reason to watch something. If you already are paying for Netflix, and you feel compelled to keep up the latest super hero shenanigans, letting this play as you make dinner or dust the living room won’t hurt anything.

Aug 152017
 
2.5 reels

Poison Ivy (Padget Brewster) and the Floronic Man (Kevin Michael Richardson)—yeah, I had no idea who Floronic Man was before this—plan to turn all animal life into plants. Batman (Kevin Conry) and Nightwing (Loren Lester) need Harley Quin’s (Melissa Rauch) help to find Ivy and stop her.

The last eleven DC Animated films have—more or less—fit together into one universe, vaguely based on The New 52 comics run. Not Batman and Harley Quinn. This looks and feels like Batman: The Animated Series, though with more comedy. Considering the major fall off in quality of the movies, that’s a good thing. Batman and Harley Quinn is the best of the franchise in the last four years, which is not a bold statement. Beating Throne of Atlantis is not a significant accomplishment.

The plot is kid’s show simple, as are the villains. The bad guys have an over the top and unlikely plan to kill everyone and our three “heroes” just have to reach them and punch things. That’s it. Even with the addition of swearing and implied sex, this is juvenile. But it isn’t as if the other DC animated films have been sophisticated. What it lacks in story and character, it makes up in humor. This is the Anti-Killing Joke. If you need your superhero films to be serious to justify your childhood, you are going to hate this movie.

Harley dominates, though Nightwing and Batman have their moments. She’s cute, with every other line a joke, and every third of those a really solid one. She’s played even more broadly than in the TV show where she originated, but I’ve no complaints. The linear story pauses from time to time for unrelated gags which tend to be a better use of time than anything that progresses the plot.  The henchmen dance bar is one of the better ideas DC has had in recent years. DC has never used music so well, in animation or live action.

Batman and Harley Quinn isn’t quite as silly as the 1966 Adam West Batman, but it isn’t as clever either. It is at least as funny. After sitting though Batman v Superman, this is the proper medicine.

Aug 042017
 
two reels

Unlovable rogue and antiquities thief Nick Morton (Tom Cruise) stumbles upon an ancient Egyptian tomb that is really a prison for Ahmanet (Sofia Boutella), a “mummy” who failed to bring the god Set into the world. Now freed, Ahmanet has chosen Morton as the new host for Set. Standing in her way is archeologist and misconceived love interest Jenny Halsey (Annabelle Wallis) and a secret organization of monster hunters lead by Dr. Henry Jekyll (Russel Crowe). Along for the ride is Morton’s dead friend, Jake (Chris Vail), who appears to make comments.

If somehow you missed the entertainment news on this one, The Mummy is the first entry in Universal’s attempt to create a shared universe. Shared universes are all the rage now that Marvel has made a few billion dollars on the concept and even though the other attempts, such as the DCEU (Superman, Batman, and friends) and the giant Monsterverse of King Kong and Godzilla, have met with mixed results, everyone is trying their own. Universal dug into their back catalog of ‘30s and ‘40s monster films and decided to start with The Wolfman (2010). But they hadn’t nailed their plan yet and the film failed, so they decided to restart it with Dracula Untold (2014). However that film failed as well so it was jettisoned and the first film in this shared universe is now The Mummy. Considering it is not making the kind of money Universal had hoped, it is unclear if this is the start or the end of a franchise.

What everyone, including Universal, seems to have forgotten in christening the original Universal horror films as the first shared universe is that it wasn’t. There was little connection between movies and less to imply things happened in the same universe. The Mummy movies (there were five) didn’t even connect up completely with each other. Likewise the Invisible Man films had little to do with each other and nothing to do with any other monster films. Of the 30-80 films in the cycle (depending on what you count), only four crossed monsters (Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man had the two titular monsters and House of Frankenstein, House of Dracula, and Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein had those two and added Dracula). All four films were tacked on after the fact and didn’t concern themselves with continuity or that the dates didn’t line up. The best of the old pictures (Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, Dracula, The Invisible Man) stayed in their own universes and were the better for it. But these are the properties Universal owns and they are going to make a shared universe out of them no matter what.

So we get The Mummy, a film far more interested in introducing its universe-connecting threads then telling a story. We get plenty of time with Dr. Jekyll where he explains this universe of evil and get to see plenty of Easter eggs for films not yet made, and none of it matters for this film. All could be cut with very little effect on the story.

As for that main story, the film had six people involved with the screenplay and it shows. I’m surprised there wasn’t six directors; that would explain why it all fits together so poorly. At times the movie tries to be a dark horror picture. Other times it wants to be a serious action film before it slips into horror comedy and then onward into pulp. They clearly wanted to make a mummy movie, but no one decided which one. Many sections would have been fine in a full movie that matched that style, but as is it is a stitched-together mess. That’s made all the more visible by the volume of theft involved. The Mummy swipes bits from The Mummy ’99, An American Werewolf in London, Lifeforce, and Queen of the Damned. The pieces don’t work together and only draw attention to themselves—the sandstorm face and sarcastic ghostly friend are the worse offenders. Rumor has it that Tom Cruise and his people got involved during editing, trying to salvage the production, and I believe that. The Mummy looks like a film that was constructed in post.

With all the differing and unfitted parts, the characters get lost. They play with Ahmanet being ultimate evil as well as being sympathetic, but not enough is given to either view for it to mean anything. Taken one way, it might have been interesting. Taken the other, it is likely to have been moving and given Sofia Boutella something to do with her underwritten part. But we get nothing. Still, Ahmanet comes out better than Wallis’ Jenny. She has little personality and the only clear thing about her is that she wouldn’t be romantically involved with Nick. So naturally, she’s romantically involved with Nick. As for Nick, he never becomes a stable character of any kind, changing as often as the style of the film changes. I suspect that when one of those screenwriters re-wrote a scene, he didn’t bother to look back at what the others had done. The only certain thing about Nick is that he would never be romantically connected to Jenny. And yet


Cruise is never a great actor, but he has enough charisma to pull off an action flick; here he looks tired. There is no sign of a movie star. I question if Wallis bothered (or was allowed) to read the entire script as she is disengaged, and Crowe is in easy-paycheck-mode. Boutella is the only one not embarrassed by the film, though it isn’t the actors’ faults. There was nothing they could have done.

I wish they had made a horror film as what works could have best been served by that genre. If not, than a fun, empty, monster mash-up where character development is of little importance. But this is what they made, and I can’t hate it, no matter how stupid it is, and it is pretty stupid. It is hardly a film at all, but there is a lot of running and jumping and zombie fighting and stabbing, along with magic casting and pretty girls, and that’s all stuff I like. I can’t blame you if you hate it, as there is so much to hate, but for me, it’s OK. Universal was hoping for more than “OK.”

Other Universal Mummy films include The Mummy (1932) The Mummy’s Hand (1940), The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), The Mummy’s Curse (1944), The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns (2001), and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008).

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