Jessica Jones Season 2

I finally finished this a few weeks ago. I'll elaborate more, as is my way, but I have to say this. I didn't like this season. At all. It made me truly appreciate how great Killgrave was as a villain in the first season.

I won't leave you with just that bit. I'll try to keep from any spoilers.

The biggest crime of this season is that it was boring. What I want from Jessica Jones is a story about a very good Private Investigator as she solves mysteries. This is the show that would greatly benefit from being a procedural and not serialized tv. At the end of the day, we just haven't seen enough of Jessica Jones doing a lot of investigation before that goes out the window for the main plot. Now you may be feeling this is an unfair assessment, but that is the lasting impression I get.

With that being said, let's go into this season. I feel like this show wasted all the good will it earned from the first season and the Defenders.

The characters have unsatisfying arcs which I will elaborate down below. A mysterious woman shows up and starts murdering people. The rest of the season follows Jessica and her confrontations with the mysterious woman. I know this has been out for a few months now, but I don't want to spoil the twist.

Clearly, I have run out of steam on writing this. When I love a show, I talk about it endlessly. When I hate a show, I talk about it endlessly. In this case, I just feel apathetic. Which is sad because I have nothing against the character.

However, in this season, we see more self-destructive behavior from Jessica which is tiring because we saw this arc last season. It is time for her to grow and we don't really get that. Also, we have to simultaneously deal with Trish as she gets hooked on the designer drug that made our made villains from the last season. Watching both of these characters circle the drain at the same time is maddening.

Also, we get more Hogarth and she is also dealing with her own stuff. We have three strong female leads all dealing with drama at the same time, but rarely interacting with each other. As a viewer, this is frustrating watching all of these characters deal with their issues in silos.

My final complaint is the setting. In the first season, we spent most of our time in New York and it felt like it. Here, they almost go out of their way to NOT be in New York City. The stylistic touches we got were practically absent this season. This show was at it's best with a strong villain and the villain in this season was terrible. The also comes to an unceremonious end.

I'm sure this will get a third season and I hope they can right the ship.

Avengers: Infinity War

Ten years and Eighteen Films later, we now have Infinity War. This is the culmination of everything they've done and what I love about it is it seems like this was the plan all along.

To the surprise of no one, I saw this movie twice over opening weekend. Then I had a great conversation with all my friends about it. Still, I needed a few more days to fully decompress and get my feelings right.

Oh, I've spent two small paragraphs without saying how I felt about the movie. I loved it. This was like a big comic book crossover, brought to life on the big screen.

Gun to my head, in all honesty, it would be forth on my personal favorite Marvel films list. This isn't a bad thing, I just liked my three movies better. For the curious, that ranking is Black Panther, Captain America: Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy.

What impressed me about this movie is that it accomplished two things that can be difficult. It felt like there were real consequences to what was happening. The other thing is that this movie manages to juggle like thirty characters and does it in a way that the movie flowed very well. I'm surprised that it didn't get crushed under the weight of it.

At this point, I should mention that there might be spoilers. I will do my best to not give away too much, but some things I will have to comment on.

Where to begin without giving away too much? I really liked the pairing of characters that we get. In comic books, it's always great to see characters that have never met get thrown into a situation to fight a big threat. It's throwing your typical team dynamics into a potential pressure cooker. This is comic book 101 and it is done expertly here. What is impressive though, is that they paired up characters that fit together tonally. For instance, you get Tony Stark, Iron Man and Spider-Man in one group. Seeing Tony and Strange play off each other, you realize how similar they are in some ways, yet also different. You get two alpha males and a kid that is still figuring it all out.

Tom Holland is still great as Spider-Man. I hope they keep him around for a long time. Also, it feels like Benedict Cumberbatch has lost that weird American accent he used in his own movie. Thank goodness.

Another pairing we get is Thor with the Guardians of the Galaxy, which was another team up that worked. Their brand of comedy meshed well. Again, this was a great thing to see.

In fact, to tie this up, it was great to see all the actors/characters on screen in all the different permutations.

Before I go any further, for a movie this big, you need a great villain. I am glad to say that now that we finally see Thanos for more than 5 seconds, he is the perfect antagonist at the perfect time. They had to change his origin a bit, but at the end of the day, he was a great and they played him perfectly. I have said this before, but my favorite kind of villain is the one that thinks they are the hero in their own story. In this movie, he had a clear motivation for what he was doing. It's a warped way of thinking, but he had a plan and truly thought he was making the universe better.

Also, they did a great job with the CG on Thanos. Sometimes you truly forget he's not a real person. It's clear where some of the money went.

Another particular thing that speaks to my soul is watching fight scenes where the heroes are fighting together with various team up moves. If there is one thing that gets me in a team movie, it's synchronized moves. With stakes this high, it is good to see the heroes fighting together, not apart. Same goes for the villains.

Speaking of which, we don't get any background on Thanos' Black Order, which is okay. They are mini-bosses for the heroes to fight, so they serve their purpose.

There are specific moments in this movie where I either let out an audible, "YES!" or I was so excited I got goosebumps. One moment is when we first see Captain America. Another is watching Spider-Man swing into battle. I can't say when, because that would be spoiling. There is also a moment where you see Captain America and Black Panther running into battle and as they turn on the jets, it's a cool visual to see them leading the charge into a battle (that I am trying hard to not reveal).

I will say, that if you do not like quips, you would hate this movie. The quips are all over the place. As the movie goes along, you will see this is very necessary as this movie is extraordinarily dark. We need those moments of levity. If you haven't heard anything about this movie, the ending will be a huge gut punch.

Before I end this review, since we had to follow a lot of characters, we get to see a lot of different locales and they were all different while being distinct.

As you can see, I clearly had a lot to say about this movie and yet I feel like I didn't really talk about anything. I did this for YOU, dear reader. I wish I could get into more specifics, but I don't think the statute of limitations has passed yet.

Runaways

I initially meant to talk about Hulu's Runaway series months ago when it ended. This one slipped through the cracks and not due to anything with the show. Sometimes life gets in the way.

I want to start off by saying I really enjoyed this show. Almost more so than some of the Netflix Marvel shows. I think by being in LA and not in grim and gritty New York, the atmosphere was just so different. I think the fact that it was about a bunch of teenagers and not maladjusted adults helped too.

It has been a long time since I read the first volume of the Runaways comic, but this show felt pretty faithful to that. This series was a fresh concept when it came out and still feels fresh here. If there was any difference between this and the comic book series, I think the parents get more fleshed out here. In the comics they were basically mustache twirling villains. Here, they all have their own motivations and we get to see those played out.

They did a really good job with the young actors that played our main characters. I liked them all in their own ways. I think that is what really makes this show. The strength of our main characters. They also felt like authentic kids. I didn't cringe at the dialogue as you can do when a show is trying too hard.

I've become more convinced that ten episodes is about the right amount of episodes in a show. There is little filler because time is at a premium. This show gets going, but doesn't hang around too long. If the Marvel Netflix shows could do the same, we would have something.

Let me talk about the look of the show. I feel like some money really did go into this show. Old Lace (Gert's pet dinosaur) looked pretty good. The sets looked good and even though I have never been to LA, this show felt like it was authentic enough. The costume designs seemed pretty spot on too.

I wanted to keep this review short, so I will end by saying that this show is definitely worth a watch. It ends on a cliffhanger that makes me excited about where this show will go next. My initial excitement for this show was the reason I finally decided to subscribe to Hulu. It was well worth it.

The Fantastic Four Are Coming Back!!

Alright, Alright. So you've heard my whining pleas as I wistfully pined for the days of yesteryear. Nothing gets more yesteryear than the Fantastic Four. After Marvel was teasing this "Fresh Start" (ugh) initiative they are doing with their comic line, they spent days teasing what was coming. Then today, they announced that the Fantastic Four are coming back! I couldn't be more happy! Absence truly makes the heart grow fonder.

Even better, they get a really good creative team. We get writer Dan Slott, fresh off his ten plus year run on Spider-man and Sara Pichelli on art. If they can sustain this, that's a pretty good team. I hope this book doesn't fall into the double booking scheduling that Marvel/DC seems to be doing right now. I'm not going to lie, I really wanted Chip Zdarsky to get that shot at writing this book after the great work he has been putting in on Marvel 2-In-One.. Since he signed an exclusive with Marvel, maybe they have other plans for him.

I'm definitely over the moon. You could tell because I felt compelled to actually write a timely post on this here blog. That is all.