Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

We have now come to the end of this new Star Wars trilogy. I have taken some time to let it sit with me before I wrote about it. I had some very strong feelings afterwards and after a few days, I still have them. What you are about to read is a severe nitpicking of some of the elements of this movie. I only do that when I have turned on a movie. Although I did not find this movie objectively bad (re: The Last Jedi), I still have problems with it.

I will warn you before you go further. There will be a lot of spoilers here. I can't make my main complaints/compliments without mentioning specific moments in the film. There, that's your warning. After this point, it is on YOU.

I will be up front and say I thought it was okay. I did not love it (Force Awakens) or hate it (Last Jedi), so this falls in between.

While I like J.J. Abrams, I think he and Disney tried to do two things with this film. Right the wrongs of Last Jedi and also double down on the nostalgia and history of the Star Wars franchise. I think both of those were at the detriment of this film. This movie works so hard to do both that this movie comes off feeling like a retread.

It is almost as if they are ticking off check boxes, to make sure the fans are happy after the backlash of the last movie. Let's be honest. Trying to cater to extreme Star Wars fans is the wrong direction to go in. To keep it simple, I will call out nostalgia plot points in the rest of this review. Once you see how many added up, you'll see what I mean.

At the end of the day, this is a movie that was just afraid to take chances. First of all, after all that was set up, you're going to tell me that Emperor Palpatine (Nostalgia) was the big bad all along?! We spend all this time setting up new characters and the First Order and this is who is behind it all? Well doesn't that just negate Vader's actions at the end of the Return of the Jedi? As cool as it might be that he's back, I wanted the new characters to fight a new threat that is supposed to be worse than the previous one. If you are going to bring people back, why can't we ever get Darth Maul? This highlights the fact that we don't have a real good villain in these movies. Snoke was unceremoniously killed off in the last movie, so this is what we're left with. Can I also add that we didn't need to see the remains of the Death Star (Nostalgia) playing a huge part here?

Speaking of villains, let's just get to Kylo Ren. They have teetered back and forth on whether he is bad or not. When he killed Han Solo, I praised them for having the stones to kill off a beloved character to complete his heel turn (to steal some wrestling lingo). Kylo got over as a heel, but then they have him being more emo and whiny in Last Jedi, as he pines after Rey. The whole time they kept teasing an arc of redemption with him and I was really hoping they wouldn't. Well, they did. Despite all that he's done and all the people he killed, he ultimately redeems himself in the end and sacrifices himself. If he had lived, I would have had a real problem with him turning face and helping out the rebellion. Trying to live up to the legacy of his grandfather made him more compelling, since he clearly had daddy issues. Also, I do NOT like how he and Rey resolve their issues at the end of the film.

While on the topic of villains, I did not like Rey's parentage revelation either. We all wanted her to be the daughter of Luke, but that was not meant to be. Instead, she IS a big deal after all. After the reveal (I won't say here but it is Nostalgia), it only left me with more questions. Here it was as if they wanted to go away from what everyone wanted and instead decided to go with a swerve that really makes no sense. For once, going with the fan opinion would have been the best option. I guess this was in service to how she was treated in Last Jedi and they wanted to make all that make sense. As if she couldn't decide who she wants to be on her own. I hate the idea of a predetermined fate and that is what they try to get across with Rey.

I'm almost done with my gripes and then we will get to what I did like about the film. There is a point in the film where they appear to kill two main legacy (re: Nostalgia) characters. Again, I won't reveal because I want to hold some things back. For me, if they actually had the stones to go through with it, it would have been a big deal. Instead, it is quickly reversed, so the emotional roller coaster they put you on is a fake out. Take some chances, movie!

This is all spilling out of me now. Star Wars is now having a real problem with locales. In every Star Wars movie now, we get these in no particular order: Sand Planet, Forest/Jungle planet, Planet with Ice on it, Dreary Planet. In playing on Nostalgia, we gotta make sure people recognize these traditional settings or they might get confused. As much as I hated that casino scene in Last Jedi, at least it was somewhere we haven't seen yet. Also, lets make sure we see Ewoks (Nostalgia) because they are still around.

Finally, a couple of shorter gripes and then I promise I am done. I do have some positive things to say, I promise. The McGuffin in this movie is some ancient artifact that will help our characters find the secret Empire army on some unknown planet. So once again, some characters band together for a secret mission that they hope will win the war? Where have we seen this before? Perhaps every Star Wars movie ever? (Nostalgia). Just once I would love to see the Rebellion win in a tactical battle without tricksn Anyway, I bring this up because to get there, they have to extract info out of C3PO's head and that comes at a price. I should mention that they don't really give C3PO a choice. As a character in these movies, he's earned that option. Anyways, they do so, only to find out that there is another one in the hands of Kylo Ren that they happen upon anyway. So it was all for naught. It's problematic because they spend a lot of the movie looking for this item.

Finally, I don't know if it is in response to all the negative backlash from the last movie, but the biggest casualty of this movie is the character of Rose Trico. She was a new character in Last Jedi and her inclusion sparked some controversy that even lead to the actress (Kelly Marie Tran) getting off social media after being constantly bullied. So the studio's answer to that? Let's limit her to a few scenes and call it a day. There are new characters that pop up in this film alone that have more screen time than her. Also, she had maybe a romance with Finn and that is quickly swept under the rug and forgotten. Like her or not, but her exclusion speaks volumes. Especially in light of the fact that we even got a few more new characters to try and keep track of.

So I have spent a lot of time detailing what I don't like. Let's try and end on some positives. One of my biggest problems with the last movie is that our cast of characters barely spent any time together. They are supposed to be our new group and this movie thankfully addresses that. They are not split up as much this time and move together as a group. I loved that.

Also, another wrong that was righted was having Billy Dee Williams return as Lando Calrissian (Nostalgia). Better late than never, Disney! It was good to see him again and he played a part in the movie. Wish would could have seen him interact with Han, Luke or Leia, but it wasn't meant to be. At least we saw him with Chewy and C3PO and that was great.

The one thing these movies have going for them is that there is a lot of action. I do like the light saber battles that they have put together and the choreography is pretty good. I will say that sometimes there is too much action without a lot of time to breathe.

I said it before and I will say it again. I am an absolute sucker for the Millenium Falcon. So every time it shows up, it makes me happy. Seems everyone in the world flies it, so who actually OWNS it now!? Anyways, glad to see it show up again and play a big part.

Although I griped about all the nostalgia here, this movie does serve as a nice bookend to all nine movies. So it at least felt like we wrapped things up here.

Finally, I want to say that we did get a nice send off for Princess Leia here and it was touching to see her in some of the scenes. The actors all did a great job and I still really like Daisy Ridley as Rey. Oscar Issacs as Poe, John Boyega as Finn all have great chemistry with one another and it was good to see them act off each other more.

With all the complaining I did, I would give this movie a 2.5 out of 5 stars, if I was to rate such things. The nostalgia (even though I railed against it), affected me enough that it earned an extra half star.

Ultimately, these movies feel like a missed opportunity. It never felt like they had a real idea of where they wanted this story to go. They were making it up as they went and it definitely feels like that. Using this movie to correct Last Jedi, which undid some of Force Awakens hurts the overall trilogy. We know they will make more. Let's hope they get one unified voice next time and have them shepherd that thing all the way to the end and fit those pieces together so it all makes sense.

If you've seen the other movies, you owe it to yourself to see this one too. That is about as high a praise as you will get from me.

Wolverine: The Lost Trail "Podcast"

It has been a long time since I have written on this blog and I come out of my hibernation to talk about a months old "podcast"?? Look, it is what it is, okay?

Anyways, I finally finished "Wolverine: The Lost Trail" and these Marvel podcasts (the new buzzword for Radio Drama apparently) are really good. I know I had my gripes about Richard Armitage as Wolverine, but I take that all back. He is pretty good here. What's even more, they have expanded the cast in this story to include Gambit. You can't be in New Orleans and not bring in our favorite Cajun. The voice actor for Gambit sounded a little older than how I would imagine it in my head, but he was still good nonetheless.

Equally impressive is the actor for the new character, Marcus Baptiste. The relationship between Wolverine and Marcus is akin to Wolverine and Jubilee or Wolverine and Kitty Pryde. I guess I'm trying to say that Wolverine seems to go through more child sidekicks. The difference is, his don't die. (Oh snap!)

What I liked about this series and the one before it is the scale of the adventure. These are tales focused solely on our characters and the situations effecting them, not the entire world. That smaller scale lets us get more intimate with the characters.

The production on this "podcast" is top notch. I know that is a wild claim, since my only exposure the past couple of years are these two Wolverine shows. In listening to it, it will be hard to disagree. They use sound really well here.

I really enjoyed this and I am all in on any other radio dramas they do. The next one is called, "Marvels" and is based on the graphic novel of the same name. What makes that interesting is that METHOD MAN will be voicing Ben Urich. Sign me up.

Before you go looking for that though, go give "Wolverine: The Lost Trail" a listen. It should be free on iTunes.

House of X/Power of X Hot Take

X-Marks the spot with this series! (Ugh. I know. Sorry about that)

Last week, the last issue of Jonathan Hickman's X-men two mini-series came to an end. His return to Marvel was billed as a big event that would change the landscape of the X-men forever (until the next big thing).

I can say definitively that he has done just that. If you read comics, I get that Hickman is not everyone's cup of tea. He tends to write grand, long spanning, complicated stories. Separately, the pieces do not make sense, but they come together as a whole at the end. There is a brilliance in the way that he writes because he is well aware of what he is doing and you just have to wait till the end.

I say all that to say that each issue of his book went from confusing to masterful. Now that it is all done, I can say it is definitely masterful. He has definitely reshaped the X-Men. Their mission is now different. I truly enjoyed this series and there were genuine, mouth wide open surprise moments from me.

The most amazing thing about this series is that Hickman took characters from deep into the X-Men lore and made them relevant. I think the biggest star of these books is Moira McTaggert. To say anything else would spoil things, so I will leave it there. She has been kind of retconned into being probably the most important mutant ever. I know that sounds like the hottest of hot takes, but once you read this series, you will know what I mean.

Some of the forgotten characters from Brian Michael Bendis's run on the X-Men appear and they are have also been thrust into an area of importance. We get characters such as the Phalanx, Doug Ramsey, Forge, Nimrod and others. He pulled in as many X-characters as he could and breathed life into them.

I'm speaking around all the big things that happened in this series because I really don't want to spoil it for people. Okay. Maybe one thing. The mutants now have a sovereign nation built on island called Krakoa. If you know anything about the X-Men, the name Krakoa should be setting of your nerd sense. There are grand ideas here that are going to play out for a little while and I am over the moon. After the last couple of years of trying to do something interesting with the X-Men, I think we finally got it.

To go along with the writing, we get wonderful art from Pepe Larraz (quickly becoming one of my favorite artists) and R.B. Silva (I had written him off a while ago about not being so good on X-Men: Gold. I was wrong).

These books were pure Hickman. The issues are full of graphic design pages and charts. We jump back and forth between the present and the future.

Nevermind anything that came before this, the X-Men are back and I am genuinely excited about what happens next.

The Joker

If I hear send in the clowns one more time...

I wanted to write this up as soon as I could while my memory is still fresh.

I will start off by applauding DC for trying to do something different than it's normal super hero fare. With that being said, this was not a movie that we needed. This is the kind of origin story I don't want, especially for the Joker.

As I think about this movie, there were many things that I thought were problematic. I swear I will have a few good things to say, but let me start with what I didn't like. This movie is extremely slow. I get they are trying to do a slow build, but time is money and this movie wasted both for me in the first half of the movie. We follow around Arthur Fleck, who will become the Joker. He is the saddest of sad sacks, with aspirations to be a comedian, but missing that thing you need. Good jokes.

We spend too much time in his day to day as he lives with his mom and tries to chase his dreams. They try to make him sympathetic by saying that he has a mental illness and a tough upbringing. The first mistake is to attribute his iconic laughing as some kind of mental condition where he laughs for no reason. I call shenanigans. To say that the one thing the Joker is known for is out of his control is BS. So I guess he's not really a bad guy, he's just misunderstood? Please.

As the movie unfolds, surprise surprise, things are not quite what they seem in Arthur's relationship with his mother and his relationship with those around him. Let me pause and say that Joaquin Phoenix does an amazing job. In fact, his acting might be the only thing that is good about this movie. However, if I have to see a few more scenes of him weirdly dancing in his underwear again, it would be too soon if it is any time before NEVER.

Probably my biggest problem about this movie is they try to make him sympathetic and I found that hard to do. This is a guy that I'm supposed to root for? Life beats him down and the way he finally stands up for himself is to start killing people? I hope this isn't a spoiler, but this is a movie about the Joker right? This movie goes out of it's way almost to convince you that in some twisted way, he is justified in his actions. I don't know if I can be down with that.

This movie is really dark and depressing. For half the movie, I was thinking, "Why am I watching this?" It wasn't enjoyable. The movie then quickly starts building to it's crescendo as things spiral out of control and only then, do we start to see the Joker emerge. It was a very long walk to get to that point. I kind of liked the last twenty minutes of the movie. Not because of the escalating violence, but because now there is some real tension and things are actually happening.

Bravo to DC. Slapping Joker on this film is bound to make money and from the looks of it, it already has. If you take away the Joker and it's loose ties to Batman, you're left with a movie about a sad sack that is angry at the world. You can say it is a good psychological study if you want. It just didn't need it to be "Joker".

No origin for the Joker will ever be good enough. The mystery of how he came to be is most of his appeal. It is what made Heath Ledger's Joker so menacing. He was truly unpredictable. In this movie, Arthur's turn is well forecast in bright, blinding lights. This movie also really fails to surprise.

Finally, my last thought. This movie had sections where you see stuff is happening in Arthur's head, so the rest of the movie I am left questioning what is real and what isn't. So then I kept waiting for the reveal and when it didn't happen, I am disappointed. The movie got too clever with it's own narrative and that was to it's detriment. If you have an unreliable narrator, how can you believe what you are seeing? The whole move starts to feel like some weird dream and we're about to wake up.

What I will say is that the acting is really good in this movie. The look of this movie is very consistent, as everything is grim and dreary. Again, Phoenix puts in some good work here and I will admit he has one of the best Joker laughs. Still though, I cannot in good conscience recommend this movie.