Moon Knight - Season One

Even though I finished this show weeks ago, I haven't gotten around until writing about it until now. At first, it was to search my feelings. Did I like the show? Am I only liking it because it's a Marvel product and I'm such a fanboy? Then it turned into, "Man, I don't want to talk about this, I don't remember anything."

However, I have an obligation as "that guy that loves comics" that you know, so here we are. Ultimately, this show is kind of a mess. Before I go further (and I will probably say this a lot), Oscar Isaac is fantastic. He and he alone is the reason to even give this show a chance.

I'll spare you my thoughts on what I know about Moon Knight. Like most of the audience, barely enough. He has always had a cool look, but in the Marvel Universe, there is a glut of characters all based out of New York, fighting crime. Not all of them are winners. Marvel has spent a lot of time trying to get a guy over that has a cool look, but not much else. They have even leaned into his multiple personalities as a way to freshen up his character. The fact that he has multiple volumes of a series, but never a sustained run in the past twenty years should tell you everything.

When it was announced they were making a show, it was one of those moments where I was like, "Cool! I don't care for him THAT much, but glad he's getting a shot." Disney is clearly digging deeper into that Marvel toybox to see what sticks. I can applaud that.

I will say that I appreciated that this show takes place in London and then Egypt, fully moving the character out of New York. All these shows are dead set on using new locales and I love that. It at least makes the shows feel fresh. I even love that they got an Egyptian director to add Egyptian representation to the entire show. That was obvious in watching it and I'm a big fan of that component. It makes it feel more diverse and different.

Unfortunately, here is where most of my praise will end. I wrestled with this and I don't think this show is particularly good. It's not bad, per se. It's just boring. Outside of Oscar Isaac playing essentially dual roles and infusing each character with a lot of differences, there's not much else going on. The show tries to be smarter than it needs to be with a lot of misdirection. It tells you, but doesn't show you. For example, the bulk of the show bounces between Moon Knight's multiple personalities. It cuts away when action is about to happen and then cuts back to the aftermath. As a storytelling device, it is cool AT FIRST. The fact they keep doing it and don't reveal to us what happens in between the spaces by the end of the series is annoying. We are told many times that the Marc Spector personality is a bad ass, but we rarely see it represented so we can believe it. The rest of the events are fine, but not particularly exciting.

So the show gets away with not showing us a lot of action. There's some cool hand to hand moments spread throughout, but it's not enough to make this show a joy to watch. I shouldn't have to wait 5 episodes to see a cool fight. I also want to add, the pacing on this show is really weird. Additionally, there are some real TV quality special effects here. I know Marvel puts some money behind these shows and probably why they are only six episodes each, but they didn't stick the landing on this one. There's a lot of digital stunt work with Moon Knight. Most of the time it didn't look like an actual human doing anything, which is unfortunate. It takes you out of the action.

I'm also being on the record of saying I like smaller stories that don't have world ending implications. This story grows in scope to have Egyptian gods fighting each other and I didn't like that at all. I got major "Mortal Kombat: Annihilation" vibes at the end. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about. I'll use one word. Animalities. Anyway, in a Cinematic Universe where we see large villains fighting the Avengers, it is weird to see one guy protecting the world like this. Moon Knight has a lane and it needs to stay in it. Small stories for a small character.

I also had trouble imagining where Moon Knight even fits into Marvel's larger tapestry. You know they can't resist bringing everyone together, so where will this guy even fit in thematically. I don't know. We deserve more Oscar Isaac and I love what he brings to the show. I just think this project failed him in a way.

Out of all the Marvel Disney Plus offerings we've gotten (and there has been a lot), this was by far my least favorite. Would I watch another season? Of course, because I'm a fan boy. They leave enough of a mystery at the end, but I don't think that means it will be great. This show is and always will be powered by the brilliance of Oscar Isaac.

The Thing - The Next Big Thing - Walter Mosley

A few months ago, I reviewed the first issue of The Thing mini-series written by Walter Mosley. It's been a few months and the series has wrapped. I thought it was time to come back to this and share my thoughts. Overall, I thought it was really good. As much as I like Mosley, I always worry when a novelist comes to write a comic book. It's a completely different medium and some writers understand that better than others. Less is more. You can convey actions in the panels without having to explain everything. You can be shown.

Here, Mosley clearly understood the assignment. There were many pages without dialogue, so that the action could happen. What was most surprising to me is that Mosley is a huge fan of old school Marvel. He fondly remembers those comics from when he was a kid. So with that kind of aesthetic and thinking, I thought this would harken back to those days of overwritten comic books where the pages were chock full of exposition and clunky dialogue. That was not the case with this at all. It moved at a breakneck pace, which really, is how his books feel. I mean that in a good way. They are easy reads.

You can tell that he let the artist do some of the heavy lifting and Tom Reilly was definitely up to the challenge. His art, not to be reductive, reminds me a lot of Chris Samnee. The cartoony-ness belies the skill and detail that goes into the panels. Emotions are conveyed very well, so in those silent scenes, you get a sense of what is going on in a character's head. I'm going to continue to keep an eye on his work.

The other thing that really stood out is the characterization of Ben Grimm. Throughout this story, Mosley shows again and again that he gets what makes the Thing tick. At times I didn't feel like the dialogue was 100% right, other times it was spot on. At it's core though, the sentiment was there. I think this book is a good primer for those that are not familiar with the Thing. And I don't mean his powers or his place in the Marvel Universe. I mean the character of a guy that was dealt a bad hand and still never gives up. That only wants to live a normal life and is destined to never truly have that. 

So let's talk about the actual story itself. This series is placed in an earlier era of the Fantastic Four and it has that feel. The smart choice here is that there is not a lot of technology on display so it can feel timeless in a way. If you see people using rotary phones or watching black and white tvs, it would feel a lot older. You can always wave a wand around anything you see in the Baxter Building because Reed Richards is a genius and he just builds things. We get a mysterious figure haunting Ben and that story plays out. I don't want to give too much away but it definitely effects Ben and everything around him. Throughout the story he interacts with some of the more deep cut characters in Marvel, which makes sense. Mosley was reading during an older era of Marvel and he clearly has an appreciation for it. I also appreciated that the Fantastic Four barely make an appearance here. It gave the story a chance to only focus on Ben. I read the story twice and the reveal of the villain makes a lot more sense the second time around because now you notice the breadcrumbs.

One of the things I called out in my earlier review is that with Mosley writing, all the ancillary characters are black. It's not in your face in a bad way, but it is refreshing to see black characters rounding out the cast or just being in the background because they do exist. Something older style comics forgot.

All in all, I really liked this series. Would I want Mosley to take over the main title? Absolutely not. His sensibility is more geared to more classic tales. There's enough space in between the lines for him to play around in there. He's too prolific to spend that much time on a regular ongoing series anyway. I also don't feel like it would work. Now more mini-series? Absolutely and I hope he gets the chance to do more of these, if Marvel can lure them back.

I highly recommend checking out this mini-series. Like I said before, it will read very quickly in trade, but it was satisfying.

Peacemaker - Season 1

Wow. I didn't realize I hadn't written about this yet. The Peacemaker show on HBO Max. The show I didn't ask for, but didn't know I needed. After his appearance in THAT Suicide Squad movie last year, more of anything related to that movie is the last thing I wanted. However, like some invisible rope tied to me, I feel obligated to watch any comic book related thing. So I watched this show.

I have never been more wrong about my pre-conceived notions. I like James Gunn's sense of style and jokes in his movies. With Suicide Squad, I felt like it was a lot of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. Too much James Gunn and too cute for it's own good.

Here, it feels like he's more restrained, oddly enough. Maybe because of budget reasons he couldn't film big sweeping battles with CG everywhere. I don't know. He found the right tone with this show.

There are so many genuine, laugh out loud moments. This is a band of regular people who are screw ups, not the super powered ones we saw in the Suicide Squad. I also can't put my finger on what didn't click with me and John Cena in the Suicide Squad movie, but I loved him here. Maybe because he got to be goofy and tap into some real emotions. Whatever it was, this was the perfect vehicle for him.

Before I go any further, if you have never seen just the opening to this show, go do that and come back. I love choregraphed dance numbers and to know that the cast went all in can only bring you joy.

Let's go a little deeper. Why did I love this show so much? Gunn's style of irreverent humor hits all the notes for me. I can't explain it. It's just the jokes really hit home for me. I am a sucker for a bunch of losers that try their best. Vigilante is completely hysterical here. I could watch him and Peacemaker bounce off each other all day. Their goofiness starts to infect the rest of the cast and it gets even better.

This invasion of the body snatchers thing I was okay with to a point. I wanted them to take on just regular people, not try to stop an alien invasion, but whatever. I was here for the jokes.

Normally I would go on and on, but I'm trying to restrain myself more with my little reviews. So I'll end with this. The cast is all great and perfect for the roles they play. I hope to get more of this show's aesthetic and humor in the second season. I hope they don't get a bigger budget which I feel would make them get lazy (re: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2). 

Also, ten episodes is about the appropriate maximum length for any comic book based show. I hope this becomes the new standard. If you haven't already checked this out, I recommend it. DC is starting to find that Marvel magic in their more lighthearted shows. Keep it up and maybe we'll get some different, weird stuff when we get fully done with Marvel.

The Batman

When I heard this movie was announced a few years ago, I rolled my eyes pretty hard. Here we are with yet ANOTHER Batman movie. We were starting to get diminishing returns with this franchise. I get that they want to keep trying to make money, but maybe we need to let Batman take a rest.

Then I watched this movie and I take it all back. I only saw this a week ago, so I'm still in hot take mode, but this is EASILY one of the best Batman movies I have ever seen. Right now, I have Dark Knight first, this movie second and the 1989 Batman movie coming in at number 3.

There are just so many things this movie does right. It is almost a master class in how you juggle multiple villains. We also get to see Batman be, *GASP* a detective and try to solve a crime. Not in the ham fisted ways that we've seen in the past either. 

In no particular order, let me talk about what I loved about this movie. First of all, we don't have to get an origin story about Bruce Wayne/Batman. It's a story that has been told to death and they don't dwell on it here. We join the story with Batman having been around for about two years. So he's still kind of an urban legend and also figuring things out. This plays out when he encounters criminals early in the movie. They build up his appearance like it was a horror movie. Scenes are filled with tension as them and the audience don't know if Batman is about to appear. Then you hear slow, deliberate footsteps.

I also love that instead of being completely antagonistic with the Gotham PD, Batman/Jim Gordan are like a buddy cop duo. They work hand in hand and show the trust in each other that makes this a more refreshing take. What I mean here is that Gordon is actively involved, just as much as Batman. Not waiting for Batman to hand off every clue to him or order him to act. The fact that he is the only one that has Batman's back against his own squad shows the position he is in.

I love the ominous, simple piano theme they use for when Batman appears. When you hear it and Batman is around, some stuff is about to go down. In the trailers, I thought his car was stupid. The way it makes it's first appearance here and when is involved in a chase scene shortly after changed all of that. It's about as practical as a Batmobile will get. Also, in two years, clearly Batman hadn't ironed out his branding yet.

I hated the Riddler's look, but it works in the context of this film and he is a great, creepy villain. You almost side with him because he is like Dexter. He's only killing the bad people, so to speak. The cat and mouse game he has with Batman drives this film and it is fantastic. A friend or two compared this movie to "Seven" and I would agree with that. This movie has some of those vibes.

For once, I thought the action was filmed well and felt pretty realistic without going over the top. It's more brawling than full on martial arts. Which really, would have been silly since he's fighting regular dudes most of the film. He fights to the level of his competition.

I loved that the stakes for this movie was to just stop the Riddler and everything drives towards that. It's not some grandiose, save the world plot. It wasn't even really to save Gotham city for most of it, as it's about trying to just track a killer. That focus helped with the intrigue as you are invested in all the characters that get caught in it's wake.

This movie had three of Batman's rogues gallery show up and it didn't feel overstuffed at all. That's been a problem in past films as they try to juggle dueling schemes between the villains or finding some stupid way for them to team up. Everyone is caught up in it, but not playing for the same team. For those wanting to keep score at home, we get Catwoman and the Penguin along with the Riddler.

One major point I want to bring up here before landing this plane. There is a lot of Batman in this film. What I mean is, in most Batman films you get equal time with Bruce Wayne, if not less. Here it is almost 75/25 Batman to Bruce Wayne on film. I always figured it was because the actors want to have their faces seen all the time (I'm looking at you EVERY Marvel movie). It says a lot that Pattinson didn't seem to have that hang up. It really helps the film. No one is paying to see Bruce Wayne.

Let me finish by saying we get some great actors here and they are given stuff to do. Robert Pattinson was a far better Batman than I thought he would be. His Batman voice is worlds away better than Christian Bale. He's not trying so hard.  Jeffery Wright as Jim Gordon is inspired casting. Zoe Kravitz is fantastic as Selena Kyle/Catwoman. Colin Farrell is unrecognizable as Oswald Cobblepot and I mean that in a good way.

Props to director Matt Reeves. If Warner Bros. is hell bent on shoving another Batman movie down our throats, I hope they stick with his sensibility for a few more noir/crime drama films. I highly recommend checking this out.