The Boys - Season 4: TV Review - Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT/SEE IT. This is the worst of The Boys’ seasons thus far. It is a sprawling and unfocused disappointment.

When The Boys hit tv screens in 2019 via Amazon Prime it was a glorious jolt of savage energy into the superhero genre that gave a sharp and satirical middle-finger to Marvel, the cultural behemoth of cultural behemoths at the time.

With Marvel on the mountaintop in the wake of its astonishing MCU run which culminated in 2019 with Avengers: Endgame, the superhero genre was prime for a slap in the face and The Boys delivered it exquisitely, with a solid kick in the nuts to boot.

The Boys’ evisceration of the superhero genre and corporate cultural power as well as its clear-eyed, cynical take on corrupt American politics, made it must-see tv for its first three seasons (Here is my review from season three).

But a funny thing happened while The Boys became the go-to satirical superhero tv series over the last five years, namely the superhero genre declined in popularity and relevance, and that decline was steep and rapid. Since the dizzying heights of 2019 with Avengers: Endgame and Joker, superhero films have fallen off a cliff in terms of quality and cultural relevance.

The creative energy propelling The Boys has, in conjunction with the precipitous fall of its once-lofty satirical target, lost considerable steam (and with it, relevance) in its fourth season, and the show has started to resemble the politically-correct corporate IP it so expertly lambasted in its first three seasons.

Season four once again features ‘The Boys’, a group of misfits and miscreants like Butcher, Huey, Mother’s Milk, Starlight, Frenchie and Kimiko as they try to bring down the villain Homelander and the whole corporate superhero monster Vought (a wondrous stand-in for Disney and its awful ilk)…and save the world in the process.  

Butcher is trying to save his “son” while dealing with a terminal illness. Mother’s Milk is trying to save his family. Starlight and Huey are trying to save each other and the world. And Frenchie and Kimiko are trying to save their souls.

None of this is new and frankly, none of it is very interesting anymore. Season four is less vivid and vital than the previous three seasons, and the drama, and comedy, tends to fall flat, and the characters tend to grate.

For the most part the performances all feel tired and cliched as well. Karl Urban as Butcher has been great up until now, but his work in season four seems a bit banal and predictable. The same is true of Jack Quaid and Erin Moriarty as Huey and Starlight respectively. The actors no longer seem to be embodying characters but just going through the motions.

The one exception to this is Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko. Fukuhara consistently brings a vibrancy and verve to her work as the mute superhero, and she fills her every moment on-screen with a vitality lacking in the rest of the cast.

There have been much complaints online about The Boys’ left-wing politics, but I don’t think that is the reason for season four’s failure. The reality is that The Boys has always been overtly leftist in its politics, been even in doing that it, maybe inadvertently, made fun of its own ideology.

While it’s true that the liberal politics are much more overt in season four than in previous seasons, that’s not a big deal, the real problem is that they’re so painfully vapid and trite. I mean, in season one the show savagely yet surreptitiously made the argument that 9/11 was an inside job and now in season four its reduced itself to scenes which feature torturing rich right-wing superheroes by donating their money to Black Lives Matter. That is so on-the-nose as to be embarrassing. Yikes.

The other issue is that the plot has gotten so convoluted and unwieldy as to be tiresome. The main objective of stopping Homelander and Vought has now gotten lost in a maze of odd personal tales that generate neither heat nor light.

For example, out of nowhere season four features a gay love story for the character Frenchie. That Frenchie wasn’t gay before is beside the point, but what is the point is that this storyline is superfluous at best, and egregiously tedious at worst….like when Disney added a gay character to The Eternals – they did it to check boxes, not drive drama.

Other storylines feel just as vacuous, vapid and venal. For instance, all of the stories surrounding Mother’s Milk, Starlight, Huey and even Butcher, feel redundant and devoid of the dramatic and comedic edge of earlier seasons.

I get it, things lose momentum the longer they go, but season four of the The Boys feels like a series trying to stretch things out by adding garbage filler rather than a genuine attempt to drive a story forward with energy, electricity, attitude and aplomb.

Season four ends by setting up season five, which will be the series’ finale. Unfortunately, season five is not set to arrive until 2026 and considering how much creative momentum and cultural relevance The Boys have lost between season three and four, one can only shudder to think how far season five will drop in quality and dramatic dynamism.

The bottom line is that The Boys was brilliant…until it wasn’t. And unfortunately, the bloom is off the rose and the series is now just playing out the string. Hopefully, and I really do hope this, it can right the ship and go out on top in season five with a furious finale. Considering the maddening missteps and malaise of season four, I’m not optimistic.

©2024

The Boys (Amazon) Season Three: TV Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

THE BOYS

SEASON FOUR - 8 EPISODES - AMAZON PRIME

My Rating: 4.5 stars

My Recommendation: SEE IT. A batshit and brilliant evisceration of the monolithic Marvel superhero myth and America’s corrupt culture and politics

When the alternative superhero series The Boys first premiered on Amazon Prime Video back in July of 2019, it was a sublime, and well-deserved, kick in the nuts to the mega-Marvel monolith that had grown to dominate American culture like no other corporate IP before it.

The Boys, which is based on a comic book series of the same name, tore back the curtain of the superhero craze and exposed these superbeings for what they really are…narcissistic, megalomaniacal monsters used by the ruling elite to propagandize the masses into mindlessly worshiping corporatism, militarism and fascism.

The series was jarring for its savage, realistic violence and for its daring, cutting-edge politics. For example, in season one it more than implied, but nearly shouted from the rooftops, that 9-11 really was an inside job. Pretty ballsy for a piece of pop entertainment streaming on Amazon.

Well, The Boys are now back with their third season (8 episodes), which premiered its first episode on June 3rd and its season finale on Friday July 8, and despite some minor flaws, it’s as gory, gloriously gonzo, batshit, brilliant and beautiful as ever.

I will avoid spoilers but will just say that on the menu this season is penis spelunking, a superhero orgy, octopus fucking and hospital bed handjobs and many other obscenities and absurdities, and all of which are manic, mad and magnificent.

The machinations of the plot for season three are somewhat complex but remarkably easy to follow. The Boys, which consist of Billy Butcher (Karl Urban), Hughie Campbell (Jack Quaid), M.M. (Laz Alonso), Frenchie (Tomer Capone) and Kimiko (Karen Fuluhara), are still on their seemingly Quixotic quest to destroy the “Supes” (superheroes) who have harmed them or their loved ones in one way or another.

Meanwhile, the Supes and their corporate overlords at Vought International are just as diabolical as ever and are intent on controlling the masses and expanding their power and profits by any means necessary. Sound frighteningly familiar? If you have half a brain in your head and eyes to see the world around you, it should.

Unlike the relentlessly politically-correct, anti-septic, cash-grab Marvel movies, The Boys boasts insightful and cutting social and political commentary that is more even-handed (maybe unintentionally so) in extending its middle-finger than it might appear on the surface. The series isn’t just some left-wing screed or right-wing rant as it eviscerates and devastates both sides of the universally vacuous and villainous corporatist, oligarchical, aristocratic, kleptocratc ruling party that currently enslaves America. The Boys is brilliant pop entertainment because it uses the cloak of a snarky superhero story to get out its not-so-secret, subversive sub-text about the vampiric power of American corptocracy, media mendacity and government duplicity, to a mainstream audience.

In addition to its penetrating and perceptive social and political commentary, it also features top-notch acting across the board.

Karl Urban is brutishly charismatic and charming as the foul-mouthed Butcher. Equally good is Jack Quaid as the doe-eyed Hughie, who is a complex character just beneath his goofy, scared-rabbit exterior.

Both Tomer Capone and Laz Alonso as Frenchie and M.M. respectively, have stand out seasons as their characters are given more depth and their backstories more fleshed out.

My favorite performance among ‘the boys’ is actually by the female, Karen Fukuhara as Kimiko. Kimiko is mute and Fukuhara fills her with such a visceral inner life and longing that she lights up the screen.

As for the Supes, there are a plethora of great performances to acknowledge there too.

Antony Starr’s Homelander – who is sort of a cross between Captain America and Superman, is one of the best/worst villains on television and boasts one of the most punchable faces imaginable. Starr’s performance is mesmerizing as Homelander barely conceals the hatred and insecurity boiling beneath his all-American surface.

Jessie T. Usher as the knock-off Flash, A-Train, is given more to do this season and certainly makes the most of it as the writers explore his race and his place in society.

Chace Crawford is spectacular as The Deep (basically a perverted Aquaman), and his storyline, which guts the self-help/celebrity industrial complex, is deliriously good.

Equally terrific is Jensen Ackles as Soldier Boy, a sort of Reagan-esque wet dream Captain America 1.0. Ackles gives complexity and depth to the character that in lesser hands would’ve been just an empty bad guy.

As for Nathan Mitchell who plays the masked Black Noir, his performance is difficult to judge, but the Black Noir storyline is spectacularly written and executed. I won’t give any of it away but that story brings an invigorating perspective shift and visual flair that I found greatly appealing, and ultimately extremely moving.

Other solid performances from the likes of Dominique McElligott as Queen Maeve, Erin Moriarty as Starlight, Claudia Doumit as Victoria Neuman, and most especially a brilliant Colby Minifie as whipping post, errand girl and babysitter for supes Ashley, fill out a superb cast that raises The Boys to sublime creative heights.

In a time of rampant government and corporate corruption, media mendacity and artistic/entertainment conformity, watching The Boys brash and brazen approach, which features supreme writing, acting and directing, along with its decidedly unorthodox, anti-establishment ideology, is like walking under a crisp, cool waterfall on a stifling Summer day.

If you aren’t faint of heart, don’t mind blood, guts and bizarre superhero sexual situations, and like your superhero stories with an edge, then The Boys may very well be for you. It certainly is for me, and I highly recommend it as I believe it to be one of the very best shows currently streaming.

©2022

Scream (2022): A Review

****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****

My Rating: 1.5 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A dull blade, short on scares, devoid of the winking wit, wisdom, vibrancy and vivacity of the original.

The original Scream, directed by horror master Wes Craven and written by Kevin Williamson, hit movie theatres in 1996 and revolutionized the form with its giddy self-awareness of its genre after a cavalcade of inane ‘Halloween’ and ‘Friday the 13th’ sequels had drained slasher movies of all signs of life.

Now, twenty-five years and three sequels later, and for the first time without the brilliance of late director Wes Craven and sans writer Kevin Williamson, Scream is back to take another stab at the box office with the new, aptly yet oddly titled movie, Scream.

You see, even though Scream is the fifth movie in the franchise and is a direct sequel to 2011’s Scream 4, it is not titled Scream 5, which to quote Spinal Tap, is a mystery “best left unsolved, really.”

The original Scream was a breath of fresh, blood-soaked air and a box office bonanza back in ’96, as it brought in $173 million on a measly $14 million budget. Not surprisingly, over time the budgets for the sequels grew and the box office haul shrunk, with the most recent film, Scream 4, bringing in $97 million on a $40 million budget.

This new Scream, which is written by James Vanderbilt and Guy Busick and directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, has a manageable budget at $24 million, and in spite of potential audience hesitancy born by the Omicron surge, it hopes to be the first blockbuster of 2022. There’s a very strong possibility it earns enough in its opening weekend to be the first film to knock the juggernaut  Spider-Man: No Way Home out of the top spot of the weekend box office for the first time in a month.

Scream defines itself, through the franchise’s formula of slasher movie self-awareness, as a “requel”. It’s not a reboot and it’s not a sequel, but instead it’s a “requel” that features fresh new characters but also connects back to the original movie in order to revitalize the franchise.

Back in supporting roles for the fifth installment of the franchise are original cast members Neve Campbell, David Arquette and Courtney Cox reprising their roles as Sidney Prescott, Dewey Riley and Gale Weathers respectively.

They join the main cast of Scream newcomers, including star Melissa Barrera as Samantha Carpenter, Jack Quaid as Samantha’s boyfriend Richie, Jenna Ortega as Samantha’s sister Tara, Mikey Madison as Amber and Dylan Minnette as Wes, among others.

The storyline for the new Scream is like all the other Scream movies. In the unfortunate town of Westboro, there’s a killer on the loose targeting a group of friends, who dons a ghost face mask and calls to torment his victims before brutally stabbing them to death.

The original Scream was vibrant, vivacious, incredibly clever and as sharp as a serial killer’s blade. But after beating, stabbing and shooting this dead horse to near dust, the franchise on its fifth outing is as dull as a baby’s plastic spoon by which they feed their audience this thin gruel of watered-down nostalgia.  

The movie tries desperately to re-ignite the fire from the original, but it just cannot, for the life of it, find a spark anywhere. The new cast are a bunch of unappealing dullards and even the return of David Arquette, Neve Campbell and Courtney Cox falls flat and feels like a sign of the franchise floundering rather than flexing.

In an attempt at being coolly self-aware, Scream admits its creative bankruptcy when it has characters discuss how “Hollywood is out of ideas”, but admitting you’re out of ideas isn’t actually an idea.  

And when the film has characters muse “how can fandom be toxic?” and declare that “this time the fans are gonna win!”, it feels pathetically patronizing because the fans aren’t winning when they shell out their hard-earned money to see this tired, unoriginal old retread.

While I found some of the more subtle, inside jokes regarding the Halloween franchise and particularly Once Upon a Time in Hollywood to be mildly amusing, the truth is they aren’t exactly insightful and they’re certainly not worth the price of admission.

Scream labels itself as a slasher-whodunnit, so I won’t give away any twists and turns, but let me assure you, after sitting through this dull and derivative, two-hour mess of a movie that in its final third descends into an orgy of utter incoherence, I’d say it’s less a slasher-whodunnit than a blood-stained-who cares?

The greatest sin of Scream is that unlike the original film, it isn’t smart, it isn’t clever, it isn’t fun, and worst of all, it isn’t scary. Scream isn’t a horror movie, it’s just a horror of a movie.

 A version of this article was originally published at RT.

©2022