The Falcon and the Winter Soldier

 

I just finished the sixth episode of The Falcon and The Winter Soldier on Disney Plus. I wanted to write this as soon as I could because I want to do this while my feelings are fresh. I had big feelings about the last two episodes. When this series first started, all I wanted was for them to address the impact of having a black Captain American and how Sam Wilson handles that responsibility. We got a snippet of that when Rhodey and Sam speak for a few minutes in the first episode. On it's face, it seemed like a simple conversation. However, it was dripping with a lot of subtext. Basically, Rhodey was trying to tell him that if Sam doesn't take up the shield, that Cap hand picked him for, the Government would get their own guy and it would not be a black man. In the second episode, we meet Isaiah Bradley and we touch on race a little bit more there. We even have a scene where the policy are called and they almost arrest Sam. If it wasn't for his fame, he would have been treated like any of us. They were starting to get to the topic. Instead of digging even more, they decided to follow the Marvel formula for a spy thriller action movie. I enjoyed them, but they did not give me what I wanted at first. They showed that Sam Wilson is more than capable to hold his own and I think that was important for what was going to come later.

Sam's interactions with Bucky were more contentious than they've ever been. You later find out the why for it, but the first few episodes it is exhausting. Like, do they like each other at all? Why even work together?

Then we get to episodes five and six. These were by far my favorite episodes and I'm going to tell you why. Finally, they really touch on the weight of the title of "Captain America" for a black man. You see the pain in the second conversation we see Sam have with Isaiah Bradley. He was a man who was done dirty by the country he serves which hits home because it is all too real. For any black person that was in the military, this resonates. To see it even addressed in a show like this is what I wanted to see. You can't have Sam take up the shield and just ignore the real world that exists around him. To do so would be holding up this idealistic view of the world that just doesn't exist. The scene also displays how this affects Sam and goes into why he was so hesitant in the first place. I keep talking about this scene because it was truly powerful. I'll admit it brought me to tears because this is how it can feel. 

Later in the episode, we get an apology from Bucky and establishes the fact that he and Steve had no idea what it meant for a black man to be Captain America. That admission shows that he opened his eyes and understood Sam's initial decision. He took ownership of that and realized he had been out of line. After all the bickering they did, this was also refreshing to see. Again, this had me in my feelings again.

You see a montage of how Sam trains to use the shield, differently than Steve did, because he does not have the super solider serum to rely on. This only makes you want to root for him more. He is just a regular dude that is putting it all on the line for his country.

Finally we get the sixth episode where he is fully in his new costume and claiming the title. We get some great action sequences where he more than proves his worth. Even though I didn't like the acting of the extras, I loved seeing the black people in the crowd reacting to Sam as Captain American and how proud they were. Then we get the Captain American speech, this time from Sam Wilson. He clearly owns the moment and credit has to be given to Anthony Mackie, which I will talk about later. Again, I was brought to tears because his speech is moving and I loved seeing him give it. All I could think about is how these are the kind of heroes I will want my son to see. Here's a character I want him to embrace. I can tell him that there is a black Captain America too. 

I also want to mention that the scene where Sam walks Isaiah into the Captain America exhibit and shows that he will not be forgotten is also another important scene. Did I tear up again? You're damn right I did.

One last point I want to touch on is how important family was in this show, specifically to Sam Wilson. He showed that he never forgot where he came from and his community returned that in kind. He embodied the best of them and I think it is always a great thing to display positive images of black people in TVs and movies. They did this with Luke Cage as well, but in the MCU, they keep pulling some of the black characters out of their comic origins of Harlem and placing them in the South. For Luke Cage, it was Georgia. For Sam Wilson, it's Louisiana. It's definitely a choice and I don't disagree with it, but I am seeing a pattern. 

The reason I'm saying all this in the past few paragraphs is I do not want to undersell how important a figure Sam Wilson has become. Like T'Challa, it is giving little black kids a hero that they can root for. That they can be the hero. That they can play Captain America.  I always say this, but I truly wish I had something like this when I was a kid. I'm glad that more shows like this exist.

As for the rest of the show, I thought it was well done. It looked slick and well produced. I am so grateful that Anthony Mackie is the Falcon. He has a natural charisma that is hard to replicate. He unfortunately got lost in the other movies, but now that he has his own show, you can see that he can clearly carry it. Like Chadwick Boseman, I think he will be a person that little black boys will look up to. I'm sure he's aware of the weight of carrying something like this and you can tell that is how he approaches it. He has made Sam Wilson a fully believable character. Sebastian Stan was great as well, as his Winter Soldier continued to struggle through his past and finally seems to have come to a resolution on that. 

I loved seeing Baron Zemo, Sharon Carter and the Dora Milaje show up for a bit. I'm glad we get an anti-hero in John Walker. The Flag Smashers, you start to see where they are coming from too. Finally, this one flew under the radar, but this show sneakily introduced Joaquin (Sam's friend) into the universe. In the comics, he also becomes another iteration of the Falcon. 

If I was to say anything bad about this show, it is that it is trying to juggle too many things at once and that leads to a lot of tonal shifts. My favorite episodes are the ones where we spend time with Sam or Bucky outside of the super heroics. When they are just talking. Those are sandwiched in between tense action sequences, espionages and double crosses. When I say this out loud having Baron Zemo, John Walker, the Flag Smashers, the Power Broker and the introduction of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine is a lot. Focusing on maybe two of these three and sitting with those would have been good enough.

I liked this show way more than WandaVision and that is for the reasons I mentioned above. It spoke to me and I had been anticipating it a lot more. I look forward to the Marvel Universe now rallying around Sam Wilson as Captain America and I hope they let him have this title for a while. I highly recommend watching this show.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

Let me tell you why the Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is the best book you have never read. I have been wanting to write this post for a while, but I had to wait until I finished both volumes. While I think her initial origins are silly and maybe her power set is ridiculous, what this book does is place her at the middle of many funny adventures. It also proves her to be a very capable super hero. As she likes to say, she eats nuts and kicks butts. There is a whole supporting cast that is fleshed out around her and each of them are funny in their own ways. Specifically her squirrel, Tippy-Toe, that has a distinctive pink bow so that you will always find her in every panel. I should also mention that she can talk to squirrels, so you will see them interacting with each other, while the rest of the world cannot understand them.

What really makes this book work is the writing of Ryan North and the art of Erica Henderson and Derek Charm. One of North's gimmicks is to have these little editor notes at the bottom of each page that hilariously references what we just read. There are MANY great gags here and it ensures you will want to absorb every ounce of this comic book. Also, there is a recap page before each issue that acts as a faux twitter feed. Lots of funny stuff here too. My wife can tell you that anytime I opened up each issue, I already start off chuckling to myself within the first five seconds. Never ignore these, even if they all appear to look the same.

If you are a computer science major, this is the book for you. In her "secret identity", Squirrel Girl is a second year computer science student along with her friends. So you will get a lot of jokes about binary, algorithms, networking, etc. If you are even remotely familiar, you will get a big kick out of these.

Then there are the hilarious interactions she has with several characters. For example, Galactus as shown here. Take in this whole page. The fact that she has THIS kind of conversation with him is why this book is so funny. 

She has the ability to relate and talk to all the characters of the Marvel Universe. You will find her to be an infectious and innately likeable character. Like I said, although the situations are funny, at the heart is a warm and fully formed character. She is humanized here in a way that she wasn't in other books.

Other characters like Loki make constant appearances and he has an affection for Squirrel Girl's best friend, Nancy Whitehead. 

Then there are the jokes that are roasting other characters of the Marvel Universe. For instance, check out this panel about Jubilee making fun of Wolverine below:

This book is chock full of stuff like this. No character is safe and it is fun to hear some meta jokes about some of the characters. 

To further my case for why you need to read this comic, see to the left where those notes at the bottom of the page come into play. It's a simple gag. Really, this is definitely Kevin humor so maybe I am biased.

There will be notes on just about every page. So you will be doing a lot of reading, but I promise you it will be all worth it.

Finally, I've talked about how funny the writing on this book is, but I don't want you to dismiss the art. Erica Henderson puts in some wonderful work. At first you might be a little turned off by it, but to do so belies some of the brilliance of it. She does a lot of great facial acting in her artwork. I think she draws some of the best eye rolls in the business. When you see them, you definitely feel it come across. Every character has a specific body shape to them and there is nothing gratuitous here. You will not see cheesecakey shots of Squirrel Girl or any other character bent over here. If it is ever used, it is for humor, not to sell art books. 

The characters are infused with all kinds of characteristics and quirks that gives you more insight into who they are. That is why it is so brilliant. Unfortunately, she would leave the book after about 40ish issues or so across the volumes and then Derek Charm comes in. His art is also good, but it is a different style that gets used to because you were originally used to a specific look for Squirrel Girl.

I absolutely loved this book and it is honestly one of my favorite series. I have never had so much fun with a book in all my life. I used to be a huge Deadpool fan, but after a while, his kind of jokes fall flat. In this book, every attempt at humor felt earnest and well thought out. So I don't think I had one issue where I didn't enjoy it. Sure I enjoyed some more than others, but I can't think of any that I would call a dud. As you read on and get more of a feel for the characters, it only gets better from there. 

Although the series ended, I hope it returns some day with this kind of humor. Maybe they can lure Ryan North and Erica Henderson back to do it. I don't know. Strong recommendation to pick this up because if you need a good laugh, you will find it here. I'll end this article with a few panels of Squirrel Girl taking Taskmaster to...well, to task.

Zack Snyder's Justice League

The moment has come that some had clamored for. The moment I never wanted to see happen. Let me start by saying this. I don't like that this exists because it validates all the toxic fan boys, angry over how Justice League turned out, who cried out for the Snyder's original vision of his movie. I hate that public pressure made this happen. If only people like this would use their power for good. How about more representation? How about better story telling? No, give me that thing that I don't have because I'm going to bully you for it. I love comics, but the community surrounding them can be very toxic and I hate that. I feel like this movie is the manifestation of that.

Clearly I have a lot of feelings before even coming into this movie. I will try to be as objective as possible, but remember, these are my opinions and I will feel what I feel.

To prep me, I took the crazy step of re-watching the theatrical release of this movie first, so I can have something to compare to. It is absolutely a mess. It is exactly what happens when you have two people with competing visions working on a movie, like what happened here.

Let me start by answering the question, is this Snyder Cut better than the theatrical. In one of the few nice things I will say about this movie is that yes, this version is better than the theatrical. However, that does not mean that this is a good movie. Before I go too far, let me say a few things about the theatrical version of the film that we initially got. Maybe the shine has come off Whedon, but he made some strange choices with the material he was given and what he decided to add. One huge difference right off the bat is how the movie begins. In the Whedon version, we get these kids taking a video of themselves asking Superman what is the equivalent of "Con questions". You know, dumb questions you would ask at a comic convention. It is such a weird choice. Are they trying to humanize Superman? Show how he is missed? It is out of context and weird. In the Snyder cut, we get Superman being killed by Doomsday and letting out a sonic scream that drives that version of the movie. It goes on for a while. I'll be honest, I hate this as well. Both beginnings are dumb. 

Also, Whedon tries to inject humor into this movie at the wrong places. I guess he was chosen because of what he did with the Avengers movies, but I can tell you that is a wrong choice. It doesn't fit this movie. We get a couple of one liners from some of the characters that are forced. Batman in particular has some that don't fit how they made his character through this movie and BvS. For example, when they fight Superman just after middle of the movie, he quips about bleeding a little after Superman zings him with his own line from the last movie, "Do you bleed?".

As evidenced between the two hour running time of the theatrical version and the four hours of the Snyder cut, there is a LOT left on the cutting room floor. The disjointed nature of the theatrical version is evidence of that. Whedon seemed disinterested in most of this and just wanted to get it done. So things flow weird.

Anyways, I could continue to talk about new scenes, different musical choices and other things, but I'm here to talk about what I thought of the "definitive" version of this movie.

Any version of this movie should NOT be FOUR HOURS. I'm sorry, if you can't decide where to cut your movie to make it into a 2 and a half to three hour film, that problem lies on you. That is where Snyder fails. He needs to be edited. Left to his own devices, we get this movie. He meanders or creates scenes that are completely unnecessary. We do not need an explanation for every little thing. The entire epilogue is confounding and does not need to exist. It tells us nothing.

My biggest complaint is how overstuffed this movie is. This movie is trying to do a lot. It is a tall order to establish a world ending threat, bring together three characters we know and then introduce three new characters and give some of their backstory to get us up to speed. One of my big problems with both of these versions is it does what the Avengers didn't. We learned about Cap, Iron Man, Thor and Hulk from their own movies before they get thrown together. With that out of the way, they didn't have to try and weave in any backstory for them, you could just focus on how they mesh as a team. This movie tries to have it's cake and eat it too. I suspect that's another reason they brought Whedon in. Instead it does a disservice to every character involved, specifically Cyborg but also Aquaman and the Flash.

Let me get to some of the details of what I actually liked in this version before I go into more dislikes. For those of you that are fans, I'm sorry, but there are going to be a lot more dislikes. 

I like that Steppenwolf is now positioned more as the lackey that he is and that he bows down to Darkseid. We even see and hear from Darkseid in this movie. So that is cool. What I didn't like is how Steppenwolf's new design looks. Somehow, they made him even more generic looking. He is wrapped in this silver armor and given the muted colors of this movie, it can be hard to distinguish him from the parademons or the Justice League he is fighting unless the camera is centered on him. I hate his new look. 

So apparently Ryan Choi (another version of "The Atom") is in this version, so he was completely cut from the theatrical version. I wish I knew the reasoning behind that decision. If there is one thing this movie does RIGHT, is it is now starting to world build outside of the main group. This character is done a huge disservice. However, not as bad as how they did Cyborg. Let me just go into that real quick.

I totally get why Ray Fisher, the actor portraying Cyborg, was super pissed about the Whedon version of this movie. A lot of backstory that at least helps to flesh him out is completely lost in that version. As far as you know, he's some black dude that is mostly robot. In this version, you know he was a sports star, was actually smart and really had some deep seeded issues with his dad. None of that is contextualized in the theatrical cut. As much as they cut from him, you would almost be better off cutting him out of the entire movie completely. It's that egregious.

It is weird to see Martian Manhunter show up in this version, but ultimately he feels very fan service-y. When he does feels very weird and out of place. He is a guy you can leave until the next movie. This movie was already overstuffed as it is.

Another issue I have with this movie and the theatrical version is the treatment of Superman in the Snyder films. He is always regarded as a threat and we are shown many times in all the movies preceding this how people were afraid of him. Now that he's dead, the world seems to forget all that and mourns him. Like a LOT. These movies didn't earn that reverence, especially when he was always played up as dangerous and needing to be controlled. Don't forget Batman's whole deal in the previous movie was to KILL him. This movie goes a long way to trying to talk about how Superman is so important, but really he is the Deus Ex Machina in this film. At least in this version of the film we see a little more of him and the fight scenes play out a little different. I do not like that they put him in the black suit here. That is also more fan service we didn't need. Put him in the red and blue. This movie's color palette is already muted as it is, I don't need more monochrome nonsense on my screen. Also, everyone just treated like it was normal and made no mention of it.

Similarly, I think it is a weird choice to say that the invasion of Earth was held back by the presence of Superman and that once he was dead, Darkseid felt like they could invade this world. I truly doubt after conquering thousands of planets, this one dude is a threat to him. To put my last point on Superman, I am tired of Snyder always reverting to having Superman floating in the air with the sun behind him, making him feel like a religious figure. It's so tired.

I have much more I could say, but let me get to my last point. Some of you might have seen a meme or picture about how this movie has over 24 minutes of slo-mo shots. You may be like, "So what?". I absolutely hate how much slow mo is used in this film. It made me come to grips with the main reason why I hate Snyder as a director. When he did it in 300, that was fine. That movie was all about action and no story. I think he did it a lot in Sucker Punch. He absolutely did it a lot in Watchmen. He did it a bit in Man of Steel. He did it in Batman versus Superman. He does it even more here. You can see where I'm going with this. He overuses this a lot. I know that may be his "thing", but it is obscene. Not everything needs to be slowed down. We joke about JJ Abrahams always using lens flares all over the place, but at least he's not doing it once every 5 minutes. That is what this movie feels like. Snyder is a guy obsessed with these shots and he has not evolved over the course of all those films I named. He should be better than this by now, but he isn't. The only time I would forgive it's use is when the Flash is involved. However, look at X-Men: Days of Future Past and watch the Quicksilver scene to know how you SHOULD use slow-mo with a speedster. This movie fails. I'm sorry, but clearly this really bugged me. I'll finish by saying the Flash scene in the movie where he saves Iris (or I'm guessing that is her) is borderline creepy in how long it takes. 

I could probably go on and on, but I will stop here. I subjected you, dear reader, to enough of my complaining. Look, Snyder did a good job setting up pieces to be used by other more talented (or competent) directors, so he will get kudos for that. I do not want him ever touching anything in the DC Universe. I hope this movie does not make Warner Bros. reconsider him because that is a mistake. Put him on cinematography because he knows how to create cool shots, but he cannot craft a cohesive story.

This is your warning to not waste four hours on this if you can help it. Take it from me. The crazy person that watched six hours of this almost willingly.