"Everything is as it should be."

                                                                                  - Benjamin Purcell Morris

 

 

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Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 80 - Black Adam

On this episode, Barry and I head to Kahndaq to go toe-to-toe with Black Adam, the new DC superhero movie starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Questions debated include to Rock or not to Rock? Will aliens murder us to put us out of our cinematic misery? And who ya got...The Rock or John Cena?

Looking California and Feeling Minnesota: Episode 80 - Black Adam

Thanks for listening!

©2022

She-Hulk Season One: Final Thoughts

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

My Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. DO. NOT. WATCH. This is easily the worst Marvel show (no small feat) and one of the worst shows I’ve seen in quite some time.

In Rob Reiner’s brilliant 1984 mockumentary This is Spinal Tap, Reiner’s Marty Di Bergi delicately brings up to the band Spinal Tap a critical review of their dismally received previous album, “Shark Sandwich”. The concise and precise review he references has only two words, “shit sandwich”.

After enduring the odious slog that was the nine-episode first season of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law on Disney Plus, the two words that kept popping into my head were, “shit-hulk”.

In keeping with the fecal theme, I would declare two things. First, that She-Hulk truly is one of the most abhorrent shit sandwiches of a show I’ve ever seen, and second, the finale was the diarrhea icing on the repellent poop cake.

The fourth-wall busting finale was a desperate attempt to salvage a flaming garbage barge floating on a sea of sewage and it failed miserably.

The show decided to get all meta in the finale in a brazen attempt to disguise the fact that it had literally lost the plot. The result is it’s too clever by half and not half as clever as it thinks it is.

Believe it or not, it turns out the true villain in She-Hulk is not Abomination or Titiana, but rather people on the internet who criticize the show. I’m not joking. The insecure and self-absorbed makers of She-Hulk decided to make their online critics out to be the ultimate villains, and labeled these alleged internet trolls as misogynist incels in the process. How clever. How brave.

I guess in some ways She-Hulk’s finale is meta-textually interesting since it takes the decidedly feminist route of discarding reason and accountability in favor of embracing mealy-mouthed victimhood, a common approach in this narcissistically addled, masculinity-deprived day and age.

In this vein, people being held accountable is something that is of the utmost import to She-Hulk, and she makes sure in the finale that all the dubious men she comes across are all held to account for their failings. But in true girl-boss, neo-feminist fashion She-Hulk is herself allergic to self-reflection and blames others instead of taking responsibility for her own misdeeds and missteps. Big green physician, heal thyself.

She-Hulk is one of the most terrible, awful, no-good shows of all time for a variety of reasons, bad writing, bad acting and bad CGI not the least among them, but what bothered me most about it was that it defecated upon poor Daredevil while it shat upon itself, and I don’t know if the character will be able to escape the stench.

Daredevil the series was a stellar Netflix production (2015-2018) that ran for three season and Disney has now gotten back control of it and is saying it will reboot or restart the series.

The Netflix Daredevil was the best Marvel series ever made and it isn’t even close. Netflix gave Daredevil a gritty, grounded, R-rated feel…which is exactly what the character and story demanded and needed.

Rumors are that Disney is going to give its Daredevil its patented G-rating treatment and totally neuter the character and the series in the process. Watching Daredevil’s impotent appearance on She-Hulk was like witnessing a castration, and forbodes the once great Daredevil being turned into just another flaccid Disney Plus piece of trash series. Mark Ruffalo’s eunuch of a Hulk was bad enough, but now Daredevil? Can’t Disney just leave these big, bad conflicted men alone and let them kick ass and crack skulls?

The bottom line in regards to She-Hulk is that it’s instantly forgettable and entirely atrocious. It’s a cornucopia of everything that is wrong with our current culture and popular entertainment. I hated this show. I truly hated it. The only thing that would’ve made me hate it more was if Lena Dunham was in it.

On the bright side, at least the makers of She-Hulk succeeded in proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that women are entirely, absolutely, unequivocally incapable of being funny. Good to know.

As for the bigger MCU picture, She-Hulk’s egregious failure is a warning sign for Disney that the Marvel machine is in dire straits. The last three Marvel TV series, Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel and now She-Hulk, have been absolute disasters. The last three Disney/Marvel movies, Thor: Love and Thunder, Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and Eternals, have been equally abysmal.

Marvel is such a money maker that the ‘three strikes and you’re out’ rule does not apply, but it also doesn’t mean that Marvel is invincible. Black Panther: Wakanda Forever comes out in November and a lot is riding on it. The original Black Panther made a billion dollars, but this is a different time and different movie with Chadwick Boseman’s unfortunate death. If the advertising is to be believed, the new Black Panther is a woman, and the movie has the familiar stench of Disney once again pushing a socio-political agenda on to viewers. Will audiences flock to Wakanda Forever? Maybe. Or will audiences be less inclined to go out and see it because they’re tired of the relentless cultural propaganda? A distinct possibility. My guess is the film will do well…but not too well, and not well enough to cast concerns over Marvel’s future into the abyss.

As for the tv side of things, the slate of upcoming Marvel TV series does not look very promising. And if the shitty She-Hulk is any indication, Marvel TV has gone deep into the toilet and it’s going to take a Herculean effort to remove it from its dark and dank depths. Consider me not optimistic.

 

©2022

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - Episode One: Review

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is the new Marvel series that premiered on Disney + on Thursday, August 18th. The comedy series, which will drop a new episode every Thursday for the next 8 weeks (9 episodes in total) until its finale on October 13th, follows the trials and tribulations of Jennifer Walters, a not-so-mild mannered lawyer who becomes a hulk just like her cousin Bruce Banner.

The opening scene of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law basically tells you all you need to know about Marvel’s latest series.

In that scene, Jennifer (Tatiana Maslany) is in her law office and a Ruth Bader Ginsburg bobblehead that says, “I’m not arguing, I’m explaining why I’m right” is prominently displayed next to her. So apparently just like her hero RBG, Jen/She-Hulk is going to be an attention-seeking, self-aggrandizing feminist lawyer who’s unfettered narcissism assists in aborting Roe v Wade! Just kidding.

What I meant to say was…Yay! Marvel is still committing mass entertainment malpractice with its relentlessly trite woke posing and pandering!

In case the RBG bobblehead was too subtle for the Neanderthals out there, the first episode also gives viewers one of the most ham-handed, gag-inducing, girl power garbage monologues in MCU history. In the rant Jen/She-Hulk womansplains to Bruce Banner/Hulk,

"Well, here's the thing, Bruce, I'm great at controlling my anger, I do it all the time. When I'm catcalled in the street, when incompetent men explain my own area of expertise to me. I do it pretty much every day, because if I don't, I'll get called 'emotional' or 'difficult', or might just literally get murdered. So I'm an expert at controlling my anger because I do it infinitely more than you!"

Hysterical. “Literally”. As in Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk, like so many privileged women today, is suffering from hysteria, a mental illness causing ungovernable emotional excess, in this case mixed with self-serving, decadent delusions of grandeur and persecution.

While I find this shameless brand of vapid virtue signaling in a series or film to be at its very best tedious (regardless of whether it’s from the left with its wokeness or the right with its vacuous flag waving and militarism), the reality is that in this day and age one must simply accept insipid cultural politics as part of art and entertainment and try to ignore it as best you can and judge the work on its other potential merits.

In other words, the question becomes, if you put aside the obvious malevolent misandry, neo-feminist foolishness and girl power garbage, is She-Hulk: Attorney at Law any good?

It’s difficult to decisively declare after watching just one episode, but I will say this…it doesn’t look promising…at all.

The first episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is guilty of being a truly terrible bit of television and portends yet another miserable Marvel monstrosity in a string of miserable Marvel monstrosities.

Since Avengers: Endgame Marvel has churned out one piece of detritus after another. Just this year alone the Marvel machine has shat out the muddled mess of Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness and the insidiously silly Thor: Love and Thunder. On the tv side, Marvel has cranked the crap up to eleven with an array of fecal matter in the form of Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel, whose pungent stench is spectacularly repellent.

To be fair to the geniuses over at Marvel, I didn’t think they could do any worse than the recent Ms. Marvel series, but to their credit they really pushed themselves and it sure as hell seems that She-Hulk is even worse than that moronic shit show.

A huge issue with She-Hulk is that it’s supposed to be a comedy and yet seems deathly allergic to being funny. The show certainly loves itself and thinks it’s hilarious as it’s chock full of lame Marvel inside jokes (how clever!) and breaking of the fourth wall (how original and clever!) and a bevy of nonsense that is altogether too cute and faux clever for its own good. Never mind laugh, I didn’t even crack a scintilla of smile for the entire episode.

She-Hulk bills itself as a legal-comedy in the mold of Ally McBeal with a strong female superhero in the lead, an idea that would’ve made me throw up in my mouth at the pitch meeting…reason #2,467,942 why I’m not working as a suit at Disney.

Whatever creative genius thought, “hmmm…you know that Marvel needs to do? They need to make a…(checks notes)…legal comedy with a third-rate Marvel character and load it with divisive cultural politics!” should be found guilty of egregious bad taste, disbarred and ejected from the Writer’s Guild, the Producer’s Guild and all of Hollywood.

Of course, the oblivious Marvel marketing machine was in full swing leading up to the premiere with countless commissioned articles declaring She-Hulk to be the “best Marvel show!”

The other narrative around She-Hulk is that it’s vitally important for studios to support female-led superhero projects, especially in the wake of the Batgirl movie being thrown in the dumpster by Warner Brothers…or at least that’s what an absurd article at Yahoo news told me. Sigh.

How about we just support good shows and movies and abort this addiction to diversity, equity, inclusion horseshit now before it destroys cinema and television completely? And yes, I know I’m pissing in the wind with that exhortation but good lord Marvel is quickly circling down the drain and can’t seem to get out of their own way when it comes to this stuff.

Speaking of which, given that the politically correct cultural politics of the show make it nearly impossible for critics to give it the savaging it so rightly deserves, it’s still astonishing that it’s only getting very mild praise from a cornucopia of critics, many of whom delicately say it’s “good” but “could’ve been better”. In our current cultural climate of critical cowardice, that benign critique registers as a scathing review.

One of the biggest problems with She-Hulk, besides the fact that the character is a joke of a superhero that no one gives a rat’s ass about, is that the CGI in the first episode is God-awful to the point of being embarrassing.

There has been a lot of press about how over-worked and mistreated CGI artists are right now, so the show’s piss poor CGI is understandable in a certain respect, but it’s so egregious as to be unprofessional, and that’s a major problem.

I remember when I went to see Batman v Superman and Superman’s face looked really bizarre in a bunch of scenes…just grotesque, and then I read later that actor Henry Cavill had grown a mustache for another movie (a Mission Impossible movie if I recall correctly) and couldn’t shave it so when they did re-shoots for BvS they had to CGI out his mustache. That terrible BvS mustache removing CGI is a million times better than the junk in She-Hulk.

Speaking of technical misfires, the action sequences in She-Hulk, of which there are a scant few in the opening episode, are uncomfortably amateurish too, and feel like they were choregraphed and shot by a toddler.

Also abysmally atrocious is the editing and the overall cinematography. The first episode is poorly shot and the editing seems chopped together by a band of blind monkeys let loose in an editing room.

The biggest problem though is that the script…my God the script. The remarkable thing about the She-Hulk script is that it’s both too slow and too fast at the same time. The first episode, which runs forty minutes or so, feels like it takes 3 hours to watch. In that forty-minutes the story is completely rushed as there is no character development, no relationships fleshed out and no worthy story arc introduced.

For example, Jennifer Walters becomes a She-Hulk because she gets some of Bruce Banner/Hulk’s blood in her system. This sequence is so bland, forgettable and throwaway as to be astonishing. A kid playing with action figures would’ve given it more gravitas knowing that it’s the cornerstone of the entire series. In the show the event happens and is never commented on again…it’s just something that happened and is forgotten.  

As for the cast…well…they don’t fare well at all but you can’t blame them as the dialogue they have to regurgitate is asinine.

Tatiana Maslany was great in Orphan Black but here she seems…off. Maslany is forced, unfunny and aggressively anti-charismatic. Maslany’s inelegant recitation of the odious dialogue is wooden and lifeless.

Speaking of wooden and lifeless, Mark Ruffalo utters every line of dialogue like he’s locked in a coffin suffocating on his own farts.

She-Hulk has eight more episodes to go and things could improve over those episodes, but considering the startlingly low quality of episode one, and of Marvel’s recent cinematic and tv output, I’m extremely doubtful.

The bottom line is that She-Hulk episode one is bad, but I’ll check back in midway through the series and again at the end of the series to let you dear readers know my ultimate ruling and whether She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is guilty of egregious storytelling malpractice in the first degree and deserving of the death penalty.

 

©2022

Ms. Marvel (Disney +): TV Review

MS. MARVEL

Season One - 6 Episodes - Disney +

My Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

My Recommendation: SKIP IT. This series is embarrassingly bad and embodies everything that is wrong with the current Marvel machine. Under no circumstances should you watch it.

I just finished watching the season finale of Ms. Marvel, the latest Marvel superhero series on Disney +, and my question is this…what in the hell are we doing? Seriously, like, what the fuck are we doing as a country, as a culture, as a species?

The six-episode series, which tells the origin story of Kamala Khan aka Ms. Marvel – a superhero obsessed teenage Pakistani-American girl living in Jersey City who discovers she has super powers, is the most embarrassing, most egregious and most-cringe-worthy piece of garbage Marvel has released on the small screen, which considering it came out right after the steaming pile of feces that was Moon Knight, is quite an achievement.

A brief rundown of the plot is that Kamala loves Marvel superheroes (Captain Marvel most of all) and wants to be one. Then through some family history and Pakistani lore, she ends up discovering she has powers but has to hide them from her loving but conservative immigrant parents and her friends. A journey from Jersey City to Karachi and back again ensues and there are some poorly written and poorly delivered expositional monologues and some hysterically bad action sequences and then it comes to the most-inane anti-climax imaginable.  

Ms. Marvel sucks…it really, truly does suck, the reason for that is because Ms. Marvel as a character is extraordinarily dull, her origin story (at least the one presented in this series) is even duller and her superpowers are absurdly bland. The series itself looks unconscionably cheap, most notably its laughably amateurish special effects, not to mention the inept acting, insipid writing, incompetent directing and its mind-numbingly pedestrian action sequences.

The reality is that Ms. Marvel is, at best, a third-rate show for kids…and by ‘kids’ I mean really, really stupid, little kids. It’s like a superhero version of Hannah Montana or Lizzie McGuire or That’s So Raven, because it doesn’t show what life is really like for teenagers, but what adults think little kids think life is like for teenagers. The series would be better suited for Disney Kids or Disney Junior or whatever the fuck the money-hungry monsters at Mickey Mouse now call their mind-destroying, child indoctrinating channel.

Speaking of which, the star of Ms. Marvel, Iman Vellani, is, to her credit, a somewhat appealing presence – sort of like Hillary Duff as Lizzie McGuire or something like that, but she is also…just like Hillary Duff, a truly atrocious actress, and watching her try to vacuously mug, pose and preen her way through scenes is like watching a toddler repeatedly soil their Underoos.

To be clear though, Ms. Marvel’s awfulness is not Iman Vellani’s fault by any stretch, hell, you could cast Meryl Streep in this thing and still want to gouge your eyes out rather than keep watching it.

There has been a lot of hype around the series with critics fawning all over it, so much so that it is “officially the highest critically-rated Marvel series in history”, with a 98% critical score at review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.

Of course, this is just more proof of critic’s desperate virtue signaling and pandering than anything else. Critics are falling over themselves to adore Ms. Marvel simply because of the show’s ‘representation’ in the form of a South Asian centered storyline and diverse cast.

The critical praise of Ms. Marvel highlights the trouble with film/tv criticism in these hyper-politicized and polarized times. Namely, film/tv critics have placed representation, diversity and inclusion atop their hierarchy when evaluating a movie or show, with quality, creativity and artistry barely registering as something of value. These critics could never give an honest assessment of Ms. Marvel and excoriate it for its obvious failings because that would give comfort and aid to the bad people…or something like that. It would also open them up to attacks from the swarms of Savanarolas on Twitter who bring down the hammer on anyone who dare question the woke inquisition.

While Disney/Marvel may revel in the praise of the sycophantic simpletons who make up the Rotten Tomatoes roster of critics, they’re not faring nearly as well with audiences, as Ms. Marvel is officially the least watched of all the Marvel tv series.

Disney/Marvel and many intellectually impotent critics are blaming Ms. Marvel’s poor viewership numbers on…you guessed it, “racism!” This is par for the course and is standard operating procedure at the Disney distillery of dismal drama. The masterminds at the Mickey Mouse mansion make a shitty show or movie and then call people “racist” for pointing out how poorly conceived and executed the stupid, shitty show/movie really is. This happens all the time with the god-awful Star Wars shows and movies, and with the Marvel products as well.

Unlike most critics, but like most fans, I truly do not give a flying fuck about representation, diversity and inclusion, all I care about is quality, creativity and artistry…of which most of what Marvel and Disney vomit out onto the public nowadays, Ms. Marvel included, has none.

Am I supposed to pretend Ms. Marvel doesn’t suck just because the main character is a Pakistani-American and a Muslim? That seems absolutely absurd to me, and frankly, feels mightily paternalistic, condescending and cowardly.

The idea of a Muslim superhero is pretty intriguing, and if it that part of a character and story could be explored in a well-executed, serious and profound way, say, like the terrific Netflix series (which is now streaming on Disney +) Daredevil and how it used its main character’s Catholicism as a crucial part of his inner life and mythos, then I’d be all in. But the Muslim aspect of Ms. Marvel is the most offensively vapid and vacant bit of window dressing meant to do little more than check a box.

As for the claim that ‘racism’ is the motivating factor in audience’s dislike and distaste for Ms. Marvel, it is equally condescending and frankly, aggressively moronic.

It seems much more likely that audiences have stayed away from Ms. Marvel in droves because the character is a forgettable, fourth rate superhero that’s painfully new to the Marvel canon (she was created in 2014), so no one has ever even heard of her or cares about her.

Another factor is that Marvel fatigue post-Endgame is a real thing and is only growing stronger everyday as Marvel/Disney spew out one more piece of junk tv show or movie after another.

And on top of all that there are no “stars” in the show…I mean even the dreadful Moon Knight had Oscar Isaac in it.

Of course, if viewers did tune in to Ms. Marvel, they would’ve been met with such an incorrigibly incoherent story that they would’ve been wise to bail early…I wish I did. But lucky for you, dear reader, I watched this piece of shit so you don’t have to….and you really don’t have to.

The bottom line is that Ms. Marvel is just another buoy guiding Disney on their collision course with the deadly iceberg of wokeness, which worships representation, diversity and inclusion and ignores quality, creativity and artistry, a formula which will ultimately sink the previously-believed-to-be-unsinkable cash cow known as the good ship Marvel.

If you are one of the myopic mental defectives working at Marvel or Disney, grab a life-jacket and hop into a life-boat now, because by the looks of things your corporate caretaker is steaming full speed towards its own oblivion and is completely blind to its impending doom.

 

©2022

Thor: Love and Thunder - A Review

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

My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

 My Recommendation: SKIP IT. A manic misfire of a Marvel movie. If you are a Marvel completist then save your money and wait for it to stream on Disney +.

In order to set the context for my review of Thor: Love and Thunder, which premiered in theatres Friday July 8th and is the newest film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and the Marvel behemoth’s 29th movie overall, it’s important to note that I am an enormous fan of the film’s writer/director Taika Waititi.

Waititi directed my favorite Marvel movie, Thor: Ragnarok – of which Love and Thunder is a direct sequel, and also adapted his 2014 vampire comedy movie What We Do in the Shadows into my current favorite television show of the same name, which is set to premiere its fourth season on FX this coming Tuesday.

The reality is that Waititi’s distinctive comedic style is an acquired taste, and, like the new strain of Super Gonorrhea going around, I most certainly have acquired it.

Which brings us to Thor: Love and Thunder. As exhilarating as Thor: Ragnarok was, Thor: Love and Thunder is disappointing. Yes, it has its moments, but those moments are very few and very far between.

The film’s plot is relentlessly convoluted, and revolves around Gor the God Butcher, a surprisingly subdued Christian Bale, who seeks revenge on the gods for the death of his daughter. Gor kidnaps the kids of New Asgard, who are the perfect dream children for Disney’s human resources department because of their remarkable ethnic diversity, and uses them as bait to draw in Thor and his goofy companions.

The plot twists and turns make just about no sense at all, and the tonal shifts of the film are jarring to the extreme. Make no mistake about it, the film is a comedy, but it opens with a little girl dying and then puts other little kids in frightening peril as a key plot point. The comedic tone and the kids in peril plot mix together like birthday cake at a beheading.

Needless to say, this PG-13 movie is much too scary/dark to be suitable for kids under 13…and frankly, much too shabby to be worthwhile to adults with half a brain in their head.

There are some bright spots though, among them the brief appearance of the Asgard Players acting troupe, which features Matt Damon and Melissa McCarthy dramatizing great moments in Asgardian history on stage. As well as Korg, Thor’s sidekick (voiced by Waititi himself) repeatedly mis-stating Jane Foster’s name…a gag that made me laugh every time. There’s also an absolutely absurd appearance by a hammiest of hams Russell Crowe as Zeus. Crowe’s Zeus is a gonzo piece of bloated bizarreness but I found it amusing as hell.

Another very bright spot is Chris Hemsworth. Hemsworth is so good as Thor it’s simply miraculous. Hemsworth is, of course, buff beyond belief and impossibly handsome, but he’s also effortlessly charming and astoundingly funny.

Unfortunately, Natalie Portman is the exact opposite. Portman returns to the Thor franchise as Dr. Jane Foster, Thor’s ex-love interest, except this time, through some not very clear plot machinations, Dr. Foster is somehow turned into a Thor…and takes the title of The Mighty Thor.

Portman as Jane Foster/Mighty Thor is more wooden than a log cabin and makes a cigar store Indian seem lively in comparison. Portman pushes so hard to be frolicky and fun but she’s so stiff and unnatural that when she attempts to smile, she seems like a cadaver getting a colonoscopy.

Portman may very well be a talented actress, or she may not be, but what she definitely isn’t is a gifted comedic actress and that is glaringly obvious in Thor: Love and Thunder.

Other issues with the film abound. For example, Gor’s villainous minions are these shadow creatures that are so generic and bland as to be ridiculous.

These shadow creatures highlight the film’s other big problems, namely its lack of visual clarity and cinematic crispness, as well as its pedestrian fight sequences…in other words the movie features third-rate action sequences and looks like shit, which is criminal for a movie with a $250 million budget.

And last but not least, the movie, like seemingly all Marvel movies and tv shows nowadays, of course, features some heavy-handed human resources inspired social engineering and woke pandering and preaching. The previously mentioned rainbow of Asgardian kids being a perfect example. As is the cringiest of cringe scenes where Gor calls Portman’s Thor, “Lady Thor”, and she angrily responds “my name is The Mighty Thor! Or you can call me…DOCTOR! JANE! FOSTER!” My only wish was The Mighty Thor aka Dr. Jane Foster had been wearing a pink pussy hat in that scene for affect. That cringilicous scene along with the “female Avengers unite” scene from Avengers: Endgame, should only be legally permitted to be played in voluminous vomitoriums because they’re such gag-worthy, girl-power garbage.

On top of all that, the final act of the film is entirely rushed and completely devoid of any dramatic impact while being detached from narrative coherence.

Due to my love of Thor: Ragnarok and my Waititi fandom, I was looking forward to Thor: Love and Thunder. I was also curious to see if, after the cinematic and creative debacles (and for the most part, box office misfires) of the recent spate of Marvel movies, from Black Widow to Shang-Chi to The Eternals (God help us!) to Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Thor: Love and Thunder, with the brilliant Waititi at the helm and the equally brilliant Chris Hemsworth in the lead, could stop the bleeding over at the Marvel money factory that pays for Mickey Mouse’s mansions. I am here to report that it doesn’t.

Thor: Love and Thunder will do fine at the box office, but it won’t signal a return to Marvel magnificence. The reality is that Marvel is in deep shit, and if they don’t realize that then they’re delusional. Their new movies are sub-par, their tv shows are cratering in quality (I’ll have a review of Ms. Marvel out late this coming week – here’s a preview…”YIKES!”) and it is now very clear that the Marvel monstrosity has lost the plot and has their head’s so far up their asses they’re incapable of finding it.

Marvel has dominated cineplexes and our culture for nearly fifteen years, but Thor: Love and Thunder is just one more piece of proof that the bloom is off the Marvel rose and I’m here to tell you that it ain’t coming back.

The bottom line is that Thor: Love and Thunder is nothing but a major disappointment. If you are a Marvel completist, then wait for Thor: Love and Thunder to stream on Disney + in a few weeks or months, and watch it then, because it simply isn’t worth your time and hard-earned money to see in the theatres.

 

©2022