The Week In Geek 12/2/15

Last Week In Movie Stuff: The trailer for Captain America: Civil War dropped last week. If a trailer's purpose is to whet your appetite for what's to come, then GODDAMN, this was 2+ minutes that would make any Marvel fan drop to their knees and thank the geek gods. I'm not going to bother doing a whole breakdown of the trailer because a solid week has passed so EVERYONE has likely done a breakdown of the trailer by now and in the immortal words of Ricky Bobby, "if you're not first, you're last." So, I'll just point out a couple of awesome things about what I saw.

First and foremost, the best thing they could do to adapt Civil War from the comics is keep it firmly in Captain America's wheelhouse. They don't have enough established heroes (or villains) to make it a standalone Marvel event and the plot itself is flawed (giving the most irresponsible superhero in comics government oversight), but tying it directly to the existing Cap timeline is smart. "Cap loses Bucky, Cap finds Bucky, Cap fights for Bucky's freedom." That's about as straightforward of a trilogy as you can possibly get while still conveying a basic theme of the bonds of war (which is a big selling point for movies about soldiers from The Greatest Generation). Having said that, the thing that worked the best about Winter Soldier is that it worked independent of the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, free from having to sell other movies. After the middle-of-the-road response to Avengers: Age of Ultron, Marvel has to prove that they can balance a large cast of characters effectively. Sure, the pulled it off in the first Avengers movie, but now there's twice as many characters to cram into one movie (including Spider-Man's Marvel debut which, I suspect, will be a post credits scene). The only other time we've seen so many superpowers on the screen at the same time is probably Fox's X-Men movies and it's arguable that was way too many.

Also, there's the little matter of the Black Panther. We didn't get much to go on, but judging from what we're given, the Panther seems to be fighting on Iron Man's side against the Winter Soldier. I hypothesized a long time ago that he might appear to bring Bucky to justice for some former Hydra crimes committed against Wakanda. It's entirely possible that they might set Bucky up as being T'Challa's father's killer while he was brainwashed by Hydra, adding to Cap's whole "Bucky's a changed man" thing. Black Panther is such a long hyped character that we've waited for, I'm going to say that, to make the fans happy, T'Challa is going to have to dole out no less than three ass whuppings. The first is to prove that his fighting prowess is comparable to Cap (who has taken on Georges St. Pierre Da Gawd), the second is prove that he can take on Bucky, who has stood toe to toe with Captain America himself. The third is just for awesomeness' sake.

Meanwhile, This Week In Movie Stuff....The new Dawn of Justice trailer debuted and umm...I don't know if they grade trailers on Rotten Tomatoes, but if they did, the general public so far would have rated this one somewhere between Alex Cross and Stealth. Personally, I feel like the trailer is taking it in the teeth a little worse than it deserves. The whole thing was "meh" and for some reason, people in this 0 to 100 culture have decided that "meh" immediately equates to bad and it really doesn't.

I WILL say that the trailer shows way too much of the plotline even though most of us had guessed the plot long before we saw any trailer. "Heroes don't get along, they get manipulated, they fight, they join forces to beat manipulator." That's a long standing trope of superhero lore that has carried this whole Batman/Superman rivalry for ages now. So, I don't understand why fans are pretending like they're disappointed as if they didn't at least entertain the notion that this was where the movie was going. Part of the backlash is very clearly due to the underlying notion among the collective consciousness that Marvel is basically reigning supreme over this film genre and DC is desperate to play catch-up (I mean, they are), so in many ways, it's become cool to piss on DC. At the same time, I guess they're making it easy, so there's that.

My comic reviews for the week on Star Wars, Invincible Iron Man and Cyborg are up and available on Black Nerd Problems for your viewing pleasure. And don't forget the latest page of my ongoing webcomic series, Neverland: The Untold.

My Favorite Things 2014: Movies and TV

Television

True Detective: If someone had told me a year ago that "American Horror Story For Murder Mysteries" would be one of the most awesome things to happen to television in 2014, I would have laughed heartily at them. And I would have been dead wrong. Nic Pizzolato took everything that's enjoyable about the experience of a hard boiled mystery novel and packaged it into a well-produced, streamlined series. I mean, these were some of the most beautifully shot parts of Louisiana I've ever seen. And it took full advantage of Matthew McConaughey's new season in the limelight. Rustin Cohle is one of the most compelling (at times, confounding) characters I've seen on a show like this in years. The only sin committed was that we didn't get to spend more time with these backwater super sleuths.

The Flash: I have to say this one took just about everyone by surprise. CW finally has the expanded superhero franchise its wanted so badly. The best thing about the Scarlet Speedster's series is that it never attempts to capitalize off of Arrow's success with creating a dark, gritty, Nolan-esque universe for it's lead to play in. In fact, it does the opposite. It's genuinely hopeful and intentionally trite, making Grant Gustin's Scarlet Speedster a Superman surrogate of sorts. And Jesse L. Martin playing Joe West does this show so many favors on so many levels.

Movies-

Captain America: The Winter Soldier- TWS is easily the best representation of where Marvel is in terms of production quality and representation of source material on the screen. This is what it looks like when you manage to tell a decent story and still deliver fast paced action without really compromising either element. Who would have thought the same guy who killed it as Johnny Storm (the only real standout aspect of the Fantastic Four movies) would go on to become and, basically, OWN the role of Captain America?

Because You Wanted Me To Talk About Guardians of the Galaxy......

I'm going to try not doing a fleshed out review like usual for Guardians of the Galaxy since EVERYONE has kicked out a review at this point. In fact, Chace Morris and Whitney Walker collaborated to do a fantastic review for Black Nerd Problems that's absolutely worth your time.

I will say that it was a shockingly enjoyable film that is probably the best representation of where Marvel's at in terms of the superhero genre of film. I mean, they're getting REALLY good at this. I hate to make this a "Versus DC" thing again because it seems like I've been doing that a lot lately (though you almost HAVE to, seeing as they're the only two in the field and we're not likely to get that Spawn reboot Todd McFarlane promises almost annually), but in terms of quality and output, they're doing laps around anything DC is doing right now. Sure, you could make the argument that The Dark Knight trilogy is where the bar is because Those Are Incredible Goddamned Movies, but it's also drastically different from virtually anything Marvel puts out (often times, its most effective moments....and there are many....are more crime drama than superheroics), it's comparing apples and oranges.

The Dark Knight series was an experiment in what most superhero films had been up until a certain point: Taking comics and distorting them to create a visual experience unique to cinema in a way that wouldn't necessarily do as well translating back to comic format. In other words, Nolan did well in taking elements of Batman: Year One and Knightfall and putting them more in line with the aesthetic he's known for, but those movies (most notably Dark Knight Rises) wouldn't be as effective for fans as a comic. Guardians of the Galaxy was one of the closest I've ever seen a movie being a 1:1 translation of comic book sensibilities to the screen, aside from maybe Sin City and Watchmen (which was, perhaps, a little too enslaved to the source material).

The movie tailored itself to what its principal cast does well. Drax is pretty much the role Dave Bautista has been TRYING to play since he started acting so this worked out very well for him. I am convinced that Josh Brolin could have been on screen with no make up or costuming and still been an effective Thanos. Right now, nobody else in Hollywood does the "sorta squinting death stare" as well as he does. Who would have thought Vin Diesel would be given three words to say in different inflections for an entire movie.....and end up with maybe the most poignant role of his entire career? And Bradley Cooper's Rocket Raccoon was so good, I almost had to remind myself that was Bradley Cooper's voice. There were so many naysayers before there was even a trailer (I'm looking at you, Cracked), making fun about a movie with a talking raccoon as if Man of Steel didn't make Superman's dad basically the best Siri update ever. All those shadebenders almost HAVE to shut up now.

As a whole, Guardians, as well as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, have shown exactly why Marvel's rather rabid fanbase remains reasonably loyal to what is basically the monolith of superhero movies at this point. I stand by my statement that Batman v Superman won't be a terrible venture like everyone thinks, but as far as competition (and let's face it....the Big Two ARE directly competing), DC has a lot of ground to cover.

Oh and Chris Pratt's slightly more irreverent portrayal of Peter Quill confirmed what I've known for some time now: Han Solo has become a genre of film.

.....That Time When People Gave A Fuck About Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Again

So, this week, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. became relevant with the fanboys again. This is monumental because this is something that hasn't happened since the first episode....which was 16 episodes ago (once everyone realized Joss Whedon was only directing the first episode). Part of the newfound buzz is mainly thanks to it marginal tie-in to Captain America: The Winter Soldier. I wouldn't have guess that movie would be such a resounding success all across the board, it's curative powers would trickle down a show that has spend the better part of it's opening season like a Dawson's Creek character trying to find itself.

This show was always something of an experiment from the start. It's meant to be 50% a stand-alone series and 50% a supplemental Hype Machine powered by the latest addition to the Marvel Cineverse (Winter Soldier, Thor: The Dark World, Phil Coulson). The problem is that the second wave of Avengers related films, despite their success in the box office, were met with questionable results among the eight cylinder engine of fanboys that are a necessary Hype Machine all their own. Thor: The Dark World was immensely fun and entertaining, but after all that destruction of Nondescript Alien/God Stuff, it had a fiercely unmemorable villain (which is tragic considering how awesome Comic Malekith is) which just leaves the remnants of Nondescript Alien/God Stuff which isn't the most interesting springboard to branch off into varying plotlines with.

Even if you go with Phase One...is Phil Coulson an entertaining character? Sure. Were we sad to see him die in Avengers? Of course. Was the Fanboy Hype Machine united in happiness when Marvel announced he'd be one of the principal characters (or, let's be honest, THE character) in a primetime Marvel series about spies doing spy shit in a superhero universe. Hell Yes. But this is treading a different ground than most. In defense of Marvel's writing team, when someone dies in television, you usually want to give some sort of explanation as to why for fear of the plothole whores. On the other hand, this is Comic Book Land where the reasons for resurrections are insanely vague purely out of necessity because, ultimately, we don't particularly care why a character we like is back (even though, really, they're back because we like them). I mean, let's face it. Does ANYBODY remember exactly how Bruce Wayne came back from the dead (or whatever happened to him that time)? Take your time. IlI'll wait. How much sleep did you really lose trying to figure out why Captain America came back to life after being shot dead on the courthouse steps a la Nino Brown? With that said, it probably wasn't necessary to drag out the hanging "How is Phil Coulson still alive?" plotline if the explanation is just going to be "dead alien DNA" or whatever the fuck that is in the basement.

However, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a movie that is, quite honestly, Marvel's most fully formed superhero movie yet (for reasons I won't retread) taps directly into the things we expected out of this show pretty much from the start. It had espionage, double/triple crosses, political intrigue, fighting, standoffs, people gunned down in cold blood, etc. You finally got the feeling that Phil Coulson's A-Squad was playing for actual stakes.  The writers weren't afraid to actually put their characters lives in real jeopardy. This is essentially what a well done crossover tie-in comic looks like when cut/pasted onto primetime television. Honestly, this is the sort of place Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. should stay in. And hopefully, it's a lesson to Marvel that if you're going to put out product based on major releases, make sure your major release is Grade A+. Hopefully, since they've been clearly making up the second half of the season on the fly anyway, they'll take this and run with it.

Or maybe they won't. Because, you know....Hollywood and shit.