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New Escapist Column! On “She-Hulk” and Unnecessary Origins…

Posted on August 18, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of She-Hulk, which is streaming weekly on Disney+. The first episode of the show released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.

Like a lot of these streaming shows, She-Hulk suffers from an identity crisis. It is caught between the show that it clearly wants to be and its obligations to the familiar formula of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In particular, She-Hulk begins with an extended and unnecessary origin story, which the show itself doesn’t seem particularly enthused about. It’s strictly formula. Giving the first thirty-odd minutes of the show over to this generic and paint-by-numbers exercise undermines a lot of the show’s potential appeal.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Television | Tagged: a normal amount of rage, Ally McBeal, comic books, Comics, disney, formula, lawyer show, marvel, Marvel Studios, mcu, origins, she-hulk, streaming, superhero, tatiana maslany | Leave a comment »

297. Steel – Shaq Week 2022 (-#47)

Posted on July 30, 2022 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, this time with special guests Niall Glynn and Graham Day, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, we’re doing something a bit unusual. To round out Shark Week, we are marking Shaq Week. So today, ending the week with Kenneth Johnson’s Steel.

Following a horrific accident during weapons research, John Irons returns home to South Central Los Angeles to discover that some of the weapons he helped design have been making their way into the hands of the local gangs. Unable to accept this, Irons crafts a superhero persona for himself, vowing to protect the local community as the vigilante Steel.

At time of recording, it was ranked 47th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: African American, annabeth gish, basketball, comic books, graham day, Judd Nelson, niall glynn, podcast, shaq, shaquille o'neal, Steel, superhero, superheroes, The 250, The Bottom 100, Warner Bros, warners | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Deadpool” Dresses An Eighties Throwback in Superhero Spandex…

Posted on February 5, 2021 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at The Escapist this evening. Because Deadpool was released five years ago this month, it seemed like a good time to take a look back at the two films in the series.

Deadpool tends to be discussed in terms of the humour and self-awareness that it brought to the superhero genre. However, that isn’t the most interesting aspect of the films. Instead, what’s so fascinating about the two films is what they use that humour and self-awareness to accomplish. Deadpool effectively smuggles an eighties action movie throwback into the superhero genre by cloaking it in irony. It is a fascinating hybrid of two schools of action movie cinema.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: action movie, Deadpool, humour, irony, ryan reynolds, self-awareness, superhero, throwback | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On “The Old Guard” and Offering Easy Answers to Tough Problems…

Posted on July 10, 2020 by Darren

I published a new In the Frame piece at Escapist Magazine this evening. The Old Guard was released on Netflix this evening, so it seemed a film that was worth discussing.

The Old Guard is essentially a film that exists half-way between a turn-of-the-millennium high-concept action film and a modern superhero blockbuster, and it doesn’t always split the difference in a particularly elegant way. This is a film that is about the importance of doing good in the world, even when the results aren’t quantifiable or apparent. However, it makes a rather clumsy and facile argument about that, lacking the strength or vision to make its point from first principles.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: On Second Thought | Tagged: escapist magazine, greg rucka, netflix, superhero, the old guard | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Scoob!

Posted on May 15, 2020 by Darren

Have you ever wondered what it might look like is a beloved fifty-one-year-old children’s television franchise had a midlife crisis?

If so, Scoob! might just be for you.

We have lift-off.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: animated, blockbusters, Dick Dastardly, film, franchise, hanna barbera, Movie, non-review review, review, scoob!, scooby doo, shared universe, superhero, superheroes | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Brightburn

Posted on June 20, 2019 by Darren

Brightburn is effectively an elevator pitch movie. It’s a heady cocktail combining Man of Steel, The Omen and We Need to Talk About Kevin into a single ninety-minute movie.

Brightburn often feels more like a sketch extended to feature length rather than a movie of itself. Its characterisation is light, its worldbuilding is shallow, its premise is not so much developed as directly stated. With the notable exception of Elizabeth Banks, who largely anchors the film in emotional terms, the performances are largely blank and generic. This is especially true of Jackson A. Dunn, who is cast in the title role. There is something very threadbare about Brightburn, as if the film is operating on nothing more than its fairly simple premise.

Red eyes at night…

Oddly enough, this all serves to make Brightburn more effective than it might otherwise be. Brightburn is a single-minded film, arguably powered entirely by its own high concept. That high concept is ingenious, and enough to sustain the film across the entirety of its ninety-minute runtime. Brightburn feels relatively light, but that is almost by design. There is little ambiguity about what it is doing, and why it is doing it. There is no clutter, no distraction, no wondering attention. Brightburn is little more than its central narrative engine, but that engine is a powerful and compelling force.

Brightburn is not a subtle film. It has all the nuance of its title character, smashing through wood as though it were wet cardboard. Somehow, that lack of subtlety makes it all the more effective.

Holy Moses.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: brightburn, film, man of steel, Movie, non-review review, review, superhero, superman | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Skyscraper

Posted on July 11, 2018 by Darren

Hollywood never really gives up on a genre that it loves, even when it might appear that the audience has moved on.

The perpetual reinvention of the western is one example, a genre that is constantly updated in terms of style and substance to reflect the times. The western has been reinvented and reimagined countless times over the past few decades, whether by combining it with other genres or by examining its underlying assumptions. The western survives in movies like The Hateful Eight, The Revenant, Bone Tomahawk; films that are very clearly westerns even if audiences from the genre’s peak would struggle to recognise them.

Hanging on in there.

Disaster films are another example of Hollywood’s perpetual reinvention of a genre that has fallen out of style. While by no means as ubiquitous as they once were, disaster films still pop up from time to time. The attempts to update the disaster film often take the form of hybridisation, of tying the trappings of the genre into a more marketable template. In the nineties, Independence Day cleverly wed the disaster movie to an alien invasion narrative. More recently, Patriots’ Day tied the structure and rhythms of the disaster movie into a counter-terrorism epic.

Skyscraper hits upon what might be the ultimate genre fusion for the disaster movie template. At the very least, it feels like an inevitable hybrid in the modern cinematic climate. At its core, Skyscraper essentially asks… “what if a disaster movie, but also a superhero film?”

The bed Rock of a stable marriage.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: action, die hard, disaster, disaster movie, Dwayne Johnson, film, non-review review, review, skyscraper, superhero, the rock | 2 Comments »

Luke Cage – Step in the Arena (Review)

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Darren

My name is Luke Cage.

Step in the Arena is the obligatory origin episode. It is also the strongest episode of the season.

One of the most striking aspects of Luke Cage is the thrill that the show takes in being a superhero story. It isn’t simply that showrunner takes an established set of plot and character beats and stretches them over thirteen episodes, much like the first season of Daredevil seemed to do with the structure of Batman Begins. After all, Luke Cage messes with the superhero story structure in a few interesting ways, particularly with regards to the character of Cornell Stokes.

lukecage-stepinthearena29a

Luke Cage adores the trappings of superhero storytelling. It thrives on comic book iconography. It revels in the familiar tropes. It embraces the goofy concepts. It latches on to the absurd coincidences. Step in the Arena is a very familiar superhero origin story, populated with familiar beats like the suspect human experimentation or the dead best friend or the fugitive status. However, the film executes those story beats with an incredible and infectious energy. There is no hesitation here, no deconstruction, no undermining.

However, the beauty of Step in the Arena lies in how it subtly shifts the emphasis of these familiar storytelling beats in a way that emphasises its status as a black superhero origin story. A lot of the charm of Luke Cage lies in realising that the writers do not have to choose between telling a story that speaks to the black experience in contemporary America or offering an archetypal superhero television series. Luke Cage never has to compromise, using broth threads to illuminate and inform one another.

lukecage-stepinthearena33a

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Filed under: Movies, Television | Tagged: blaxploitation, luke cage, step in the arena, superhero | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Birdman (or, The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)

Posted on December 4, 2014 by Darren

Birdman is a staggeringly cynical piece of work.

Alejandro González Iñárritu’s showbusiness satire has its knives out from the opening sequence, and never puts them away. It is a movie that is relentlessly snarky and bitter about just about any facet of the artistic process. The movie seldom pulls its punches, lawing into its targets with a vengeance. There are points where it almost seems too much, where it feels like Iñárritu might be better served to pull back or ease off for a moment as the film becomes just a little bit too much.

Showtime!

Then again, Iñárritu turns the film’s relentlessness into a visual motif, structuring Birdman as one long unbroken take. This structure is only slightly disingenuous. While there are any number of “cheats” that allow Birdman to stitch together multiple takes, the end result is still a hugely ambitious and impressive piece of work. Even viewers as cynical as the film itself may find themselves marvelling at some of the incredibly fluid transitions and extended sequences. Birdman‘s anger might occasionally come close to suffocating, but its energy is infectious.

That is to say nothing of the performance at the centre of the film, with Michael Keaton playing a washed-up has-been celebrity desperately (and pathetically) fighting for artistic credibility after a career spent in blockbuster cinema. One of the more interesting aspects of Birdman is that it seems just as dismissive of the attempts at artistic rehabilitation as it does of the original “sell out” work. Birdman is a wry, clever and vicious piece of work. It is also a phenomenal accomplishment.

You wouldn’t like him when he’s angry…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Andrea Riseborough, birdman, comedy, edward norton, Emma Stone, films, hollywood, meta, michael keaton, Movies, reflexive, reviews, show business, superhero, washed-up | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Pusher (Review)

Posted on November 27, 2014 by Darren

This November (and a little of December), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the third season of The X-Files and the first (and only) season of Space: Above and Beyond.

Pusher is perhaps one of the most effective stand-alone “monster of the week” stories that the show ever did.

It is no wonder that the episode is frequently cited among the best episodes of The X-Files ever produced, but it is telling that it was identified by Slate as the perfect “gateway” episode of the show. If you want to give someone a taste of The X-Files without burdening them with continuity or back story, this is a good choice. It may not be the best episode that Vince Gilligan ever wrote, and it may not even be the best episode of the third season, but it is one the strongest demonstrations of what the show does on a weekly basis.

Mano a mano…

Pusher is the first episode that Vince Gilligan wrote after joining The X-Files writing staff. It is the only episode credited to Gilligan in the show’s third season. He had been offered a position on staff after turning in Soft Light at the end of the second season, but had hesitated before accepting the job. When he did accept the job, he came down with a dose of infectious mononucleosis. As a result, Gilligan only wrote one script for the third season, despite becoming one of the show’s most prolific writers.

Pusher is a pulpy delight, a spectacularly constructed standalone that perhaps points the way to Gilligan’s later work.