The Boys S03E08: The Instant White-Hot Wild

© Prime Video

The Boys ends a complicated season with a blowout and a lot of trouble to come.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The third season finale of The Boys is called “The Instant White-Hot Wild” which is a reference to a wholly unrelated issue of the comics, but who really cares about that? After all, isn’t everyone here to see who wins in the big Homelander versus Soldier Boy fight? Of course, the show is clever enough to subvert such expectations, but getting there is half the fun.

Things get set up further as Homelander retrieves Ryan and worryingly seems to reasonably connect with him -- telling him it’s not his fault he killed his mother, because people with their power sometimes have lethal accidents. This is also contrasted with Soldier Boy revealing his own traumatic backstory with his abusive father, a rich dude who never loved or respected his son -- yet all his “real man” talk sunk so far into Soldier Boy he never escaped it.

We also see a glimpse of the Homelander versus Starlight protests, and it’s pretty clear what real life situation this is meant to be mirroring. The final heist/battle is well set up, with everyone getting something to do one way or another, even if they aren’t all on the same page. Frenchie will be creating the neurotoxin to take down Soldier Boy, while Kimiko will keep him safe -- Maeve is able to escape using trickery and badassery, but she only wants Homelander to die at any cost.

Billy hides the truth of the Temp V stuff from Hughie and knocks him out to keep him safe, who finally realizes his own trauma when Annie tells him the truth -- that Billy saved him, just like his own father (who Hughie always looked down on as weak) was always there taking care of his son. “I didn’t know what strength was,” he says, and this is certainly made true later when Hughie doesn’t take the Temp V and instead powers up his girlfriend with a clever move.

We see The Deep killing the VP pick at Homelander’s command, which is clearly the quid pro quo he had with Victoria, who gets to become the next VP candidate and likely the first supe in office. Noir is sadly killed, just after getting a bit of characterization last episode, by Homelander who feels betrayed -- almost understandably.

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But the most horrifying part of the episode is the tension when Homelander introduces Ryan to Soldier Boy -- if they team up, it’s clearly a bad situation. But Soldier Boy passes down his own abuse and calls Homelander a disappointment, then attacks Ryan when the kid lasers him in retaliation. Suddenly Butcher is conflicted, as he wants to protect Ryan, while Maeve intercepts Homelander and actually gets his nose bloody (although she loses an eye).

The well structured fight ends with Maeve sacrificing herself (it seems at first) to protect the hundreds of innocent people in the building by pulling Soldier Boy out of the building when he tries to use his detonation power. So that just means we need know how everything goes for the gang.

Maeve becomes a normal human and goes into hiding with her girlfriend, and is called a martyr by the news. Butcher has only 12 to 18 months left to live, but he doesn’t tell the gang this, only that he’s gung ho to take out Victoria as the new VP candidate. Starlight can now fly, just as in the comics, and seems to be in a healthy relationship with Hughie. The Deep’s ex Cassandra puts out a memoir hilariously called “In 2 Deep: My Journey 2 Freedom” which is great. MM (who has been the most underserved this season and by the show in general) gets to hear his daughter call him her hero.

But in the great, fascinatingly creepy ending, Homelander greets his fan and introduces his son to applause. Then Ryan gets hit by something from a random pro-Starlight protester calling Homelander a “fascist” (hmm) and Homelander snaps, lasering the protester. But instead of turning on him, Homelander’s fans (perhaps started by stepdad Todd) begin to cheer, their own dark impulses made manifest.

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And we end the season with Homelander pleased that people (if awful people) love him and Ryan smiles too. So... that means two potential Homelander types to worry about in the future, while Soldier Boy is still alive and put back on ice this time by Mallory. At least Homelander isn’t deciding to rule by fear, right?

Ultimately this was a great way to end this season, which sometimes suffered from satirical confusion and underserved some of its huge cast of characters but stayed strong with the horrifying Homelander and Soldier Boy arc. Perhaps that makes it the best season so far, and a great way to look forward to the next season whenever that comes out.

The Boys S03E06: Herogasm

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The Boys goes for broke by breaking the barrier of bodies.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of The Boys is called “Herogasm” which is naturally named after one of the chapters from the original comics. Of course there, the circumstances are so incredibly different it’s really pointless to connect the two except superficially. In the comics it’s a secret event created by Vought for the supes to let off steam in whatever debaucherous way they want (with paid sex workers that aren’t necesarily being treated safely) and here it’s a secret party for supes to hook up with each other and sometimes sex workers also not necessarily being treated safely. I did notice an Easter Egg where someone in the background shouts “Come on my hump” which is a pretty memorable and absurd moment in that chapter. They also brought back that “Love Sausage” character for a pure joke moment (which I didn’t really find that funny).

But although that’s the similar line and the title of the episode, it’s really not about that at all, other than we discovered that Soldier Boy started the thing in 1952. The plot throughline is really still just about image and truth. The episode starts off with another dated (if funny) joke about tone deaf celebrities singing “Imagine” in March of 2020 (which is already over two years ago if you want to feel the cold vacuum of time speed through you). I noted such luminaries as Patton Oswalt, Josh Gad, Ashton Kutcher & Mila Kunis, Elizabeth Banks, Kumail Nanjiani, Aisha Tyler and Rose Byrne, and none also sang in that actual video. It would’ve been funnier if they had been able to get one of those people.

Otherwise the show doesn’t really (as usual) really get that deeply into satire, the majority of the humor coming from Soldier Boy’s outdated references to supporting our Mujahideen brothers and how Bill Cosby is America’s dad. Easy jokes but they were funny. In the more tragic part of the episode, Kimiko ends up brutalizing people without any powers -- it’s badass considering that she could actually die, but it only serves to make her think of herself as a monster after all. Yet in a completely non-monstrous way, she refutes the horrible assertions Nina said about Frenchie.

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We do know that Compound V has already been said to make “you more you”, but that doesn’t mean Kimiko is a monster at all, as she has a particularly awful and traumatic backstory. In a similar “who am I?” sequence, A-Train actually sincerely apologizes to Hughie over his accidental killing of Robin from way back in the series premiere as he’s now seen how people can be cruel and hurt people he loves. It’s something even if he was one of those “he gets it now that he feels affected” things, and you do wonder if Hughie punching him will really change anything.

After that though, A-Train does actually run for the first time since his health diagnosis, scraping the racist Blue Hawk along the highway -- only of course for his heart to give out. Doesn’t mean he’s dead yet though, I never trust that until I see it confirmed. There’s still a bit with Victoria trying to ally in a way with Starlight, which is another “who am I?” thing.

The Soldier Boy versus Homelander storyline finally gets to the real action moment, as he confronts the TNT Twins (which are reported to be a parody of Northstar & Aurora from the X-Men comics), another set of toxic people. With the combination of our two taking temporary V along with Soldier Boy helping out, it seems that Homelander is nearly done for.

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But our Homelander identity moments are the more complex ones, as he literally questions himself in the mirror, his other self talking about protecting them in the “bad room” (which is shades of Dissociative Identity Disorder) while also admitting he still wants people to love him. Although his other self demands he remove the remnants of humanity, we can see in the final moments of the episode that he hasn’t done that yet -- being actually hurt in the fight and in real danger for the first time since he was a child may be making him feel more human than ever before.

And Starlight reveals the truth of it all to the world, for those who would still believe her -- it’s a great cliffhanger. Although I found the extreme over-the-top sex stuff to be pure shock value, if sometimes cleverly done, the actual content of the episode aside was really pretty good. The show is doing a great job of showing the bizarre problematic humanity of these supes, the balance being doing terrible things and still feeling human. As we go into the last episodes of the season, it’s hard to predict how things will go, which is always a good sign.

The Boys S03E05: The Last Time to Look on This World of Lies

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The Boys shakes things up as the gang considers a new deadly mission.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of The Boys is called “The Last Time to Look on This World of Lies” but I’m for the first time unsure if the episode title is meant to have special meaning. The episode gets into a few interconnected storylines, some of which have relatively interesting satire instead of just the same old jokey parodies.

We see a few scenes of fallout of the last episodes, like Homelander struggling in a board meeting because he doesn’t really know any business things (the theme of being unsure of who you are), which is then later connected to Starlight wanting his help to track down and stop Soldier Boy. When she’s commiserating with Hughie about their messy situation in Russia, the show drops a few “subtle” advertisements to the delicious, cool, crisp cans of White Claw which I found amusing because the show is usually pretty subtle about in-show advertising.

There’s more of the problematic nature of Hughie taking the temporary V, loving the feeling of not being afraid. This comes to a head again in the final moments of the episode, when Starlight tries to get Hughie to come back from his and Butcher’s plan of helping Soldier Boy to murder his former teammates in exchange for the old supe’s help to take out Homelander. The “I don’t need you to save me, I need you” fights against Hughie’s self-esteem issues, and it’s clear that he’s heading down a path that ends in the self-destruction of Butcher -- if he can’t stop.

The big setup to where we end up is Maeve pushing forward the narrative again, actually hooking up with Butcher in a classic sort of hate-hookup situation, with a reiteration of that theme as Butcher points out that the V simply makes him more him -- doesn’t make him worse or better, just more. She only has one of the big cliffhangers of the episode as Homelander and Black Noir attack her, leading us to suspect she may be dead (although I never trust that sort of thing in this show without confirmation).

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The episode really plays on this identity issue through a lot of our villains and heroes alike, including with Kimiko in the hospital who is delighted to not have powers, giving us that classic Karen Fukuhara smile we rarely get in this show. She gets caught in another fantasy in her head and actually kisses Frenchie in an awkward moment -- but is it really what either of them want? After all, Nina is still coming for them.

The jam packed episode also follows up with A-Train as he gets into it with racist supe Blue Hawk, who non-ironically mocks about being “canceled”, says he doesn’t see color, only crime -- which just happens to be in black neighborhoods. This is the sort of satirical touch that feels extremely close to reality, just a step further than politicians would say out loud. Similarly, Homelander proclaiming things to be safe on the Fox News parody when they clearly aren’t doesn’t feel so far from reality either.

The episode drops a semi-major new character called “The Legend” (played by Paul Reiser), in what I call a lot more charitable portrayal than the comics. His shtick is pretty amusing, though, and he plays a pretty important role in the episode to grant knowledge to the heroes. The other cameo (of sorts) is Seth Rogen showing up paying for a fancam of Crimson Countess in a sort of Boys parody of OnlyFans. MM gets more drama at home when he gets infuriated by stepdad Todd taking Janine to a Homelander rally and making her a fan of the dude -- his triggering of the connection to Soldier Boy connects to Soldier Boy’s own PTSD triggering related to that Russian music. Clearly the dude isn’t over his horrific and tortured captivity.

It’s a pretty crowded episode, but I felt one that was a bit more coherent thematically than usual, which wasn’t as funny in general (Paul Reiser aside) but more dramatically entertaining than usual. One of the issues with a show like this is balancing all of the characters and their storylines, but so far this season has been handling that pretty well, and this episode is a good example of that.

The Boys S03E04: Glorious Five Year Plan

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The Boys now is less a satire than an extended horror movie, but does it realize that?
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of The Boys is called “Glorious Five Year Plan” which is a reference to a classic USSR economic plan and also a team in the comics of Russian superheroes, continuing the tactic of loosely connecting the story in the comics to the highly divergent TV show. Here we don’t meet any such team, nor even any Russian supes for that matter, but we do get a few intriguing and harrowing scenes in Russia.

The episode does contain laughs, like always, like the terrible Soldier Boy commercial or the might-as-well-be-real parody of the tone deaf Pepsi BLM commercial starring Kendall Jenner. Considering the commercial actually happened in real life, it’s not really much a satire at all, and SNL already had a hilarious sketch about it back in 2017. So not exactly covering new ground here.

I think the funniest little continuing gag was the Russian state media videos emasculating Hughie about Starlight, but I don’t know if that’s based on reality -- just felt more organically funny instead of super in your face “satire” like Ashley saying that her Instagram feed is nothing but black squares. It feels like a legitimate parody in some ways of Hollywood corporate culture, but the problem is that The Boys also spends most of its time dedicated to showing the parallels of power between Homelander and Butcher in a more realistic, painful way.

And honestly that’s where the show really shines, not so much the half-baked parody pieces, as much as I often find them funny. They just aren’t really integrated well anymore, as the show has proceeded too far into a dark territory (which isn’t a criticism inherently, just the direction it’s gone).

Here we see Supersonic foolishly trusting A-Train with their mysterious plan to take out Homelander -- with good intentions, but poorly thought out. If he had asked Starlight if they could trust him, I doubt she’d have agreed. Maeve is shown practicing her sword fighting while planting fake news stories about going to seed, which does present an interesting direction for her character with the plan that she really started to kill Homelander.

We also get a “fall” of Stan Edgar as Victoria actually turns on her father figure to keep with Homelander and her fellow supes (if only Homelander actually knows about it). The meeting with him and Stan is an interestingly tense one, connecting to a few scenes in the comics, although Stan calling him “bad product” is an interesting choice, as it was a particularly emotional moment in the often emotionless comics that’s here used as a needle drop.

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But as for our team of heroes, the episode is concerned with setting up the failure of Butcher from the start. He convinces MM that he needs him to be there as a stabilizing element, is not careful with keeping his backup Compound V dose from Hughie, and flat out tells Kimiko she’s his gun. The action scene with her killing people with vibrators and dildos was pretty gratuitous, but that’s The Boys for you, the concept isn’t inherently funny to me -- and besides, Everything Everywhere All At Once did it better.

When they actually break into the lab, Butcher breaks open a mysterious container without (again) being careful about it, letting out a long-haired Soldier Boy, a direct allusion to the Winter Soldier character from Marvel. Somewhat oddly out of character, they all just stand around in shock, letting the dude blast at Hughie (although he seemed to be aiming just at the wall?) and Kimiko takes the energy blow instead -- and for some reason she’s not healing her wounds.

Obviously there’s a potential twist there that could impact their plan to hurt Homelander, but who knows how they might go? The episode ends with MM and Frenchie desperately trying to keep Kimiko alive while Butcher keeps his mind on the Soldier Boy mystery and Hughie, worryingly, is smiling happily about his new temporary powers. If there’s anything The Boys likes to tell us, it’s that giving a weak person powers is destined for trouble.

Overall, I did like the episode, even if my general feeling about the show is still that it doesn’t entirely know what it wants to be. I suppose part of it will have to be a “wait and see” about the season’s potential payoffs.

The Boys Three Episode Season 3 Premiere: 'Payback'/'The Only Man in the Sky'/'Barbary Coast'

The Boys Season 3 starts off bloody and brazen in a world headed for horror.
by Jeremy Fogelman

As we head into Season 3 of The Boys, things start off in “Payback” in a place that seems almost okay. The show immediately shows a clip of a new movie with the Seven fighting against Stormfront, here played in a cameo by Charlize Theron with obviously worse special effects -- this is called the “Vought Cut” in a direct reference to the Zack Snyder cut of Justice League. Although it’s also a way to rewrite history, by showing Homelander also fighting against Stormfront instead of supporting her.

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The episode’s title is a reference to a team of supes in this universe, one that’s a parody of the “Avengers” in name and composition. Soldier Boy is a direct parody of Captain America, Crimson Countess of Scarlet Witch, Mindstorm of Vision, Swatto of Wasp or similar flying characters, and Gunpowder of such gun-based characters like Deadshot. The TNT Twins I’m not sure about, but they don’t have much of a presence so far.

Meanwhile, there’s now a Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs led by now Senator Victoria Neuman with her chief of staff, still out of the dark on her supe powers Hughie. Now Butcher isn’t permitted to simply kill criminal supes, here the Ant-Man or Atom parody “Termite”, who fights with Frenchie in a pretty ridiculous fight scene. Instead Butcher simply captures the little accidental murderer, who then gets off easy in exchange for other supes instead -- all part of the scheme by Stan and Vought, who are still pulling the strings behind Victoria.

The shoe drops after not much of a tease, as Hughie catches her in the act of using her powers to kill her childhood friend and we get a callback to Billy Joel when the episode is wrapped around with “Uptown Girl”, here given with multiple meanings for the two superpowered women in Hughie’s life.

The episode also introduces new political candidate “Dakota” Bob, a character adapted from the comic now in a different but similar way, a hardline military man who may be corruptible after all. Hughie and Starlight are doing pretty well as a couple, but things get shaken up when Stan offers her the co-captain position in the Seven for optics reasons, which means obviously Homelander is furious -- Antony Starr is unmatched in showing crazy behind in the eyes.

The other plot threads set up to drop are the worrisome group the “Stormchasers” supporting the now hospitalized Stormfornt still, Kimiko sadly considering her inability to do anything beautiful (thus the lovely and sad scene where Karen Fukuhara shows off her pipes but it’s all a dream), and MM with his mysterious vendetta against the supposedly dead Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles). And of course, Homelander and Butcher coming to an accord that yes, things will only end when one of them is dead.

It’s a pretty entertaining episode, getting into the half-baked comic book movie satire directly (which is not really the point of the show, just the varnish on it), an immediately overly bloody opening death and ridiculous fight, and a whole bunch of plot threads setup.

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Episode 2 is called “The Only Man in the Sky” which is a terrifying quote from Homelander about being the only true power in the world. It also starts off with a direct parody, a fake “television for women” movie with Billy Zane doing an intentionally terrible version of Goran Visnjic’s accent for the now-dead leader of the Church of the Collective. This movie is given the terrible title “Not Without My Dolphin”, another joke making fun of the 1991 movie title Not Without My Daughter, but the movie title has already been parodied a lot.

There’s more here of the fake “Hero Idol” show with Starlight’s ex, Supersonic (originally Drummer Boy), and his character is certainly softened from the comic, as here he’s actually a decent dude. We also see the (entirely believable) backstory behind Victoria working for Stan, as he became a new father figure for her, in another example of the messed up parent-child relationships on this show.

Probably the funniest throughline is A-Train’s attempt at cynically winning back people by using so-called “African” colors in his new costume, referencing a “tasteful” take on the slave trade. The sort of tone deaf thing that actually feels close to reality. There are also a few different investigations going on, Hughie heading to a home for supe kids that’s mostly played for laughs, and Kimiko and Frenchie trying to get info out of the Crimson Countess, which is played for laughs and horror when she accidentally kills a “Homelander” mascot.

The show also finally introduces the temporary Compound V concept and Butcher actually takes it, but not exactly handling it well -- this does lead to a fun little fight between him and Gunpowder, who does reveal a connection to Soldier Boy’s death and a mysterious weapon that might have the power to kill Homelander. This is also tied into MM trying to track down more info about racially motivated murders by Soldier Boy to MM’s family.

The big plot line though is Homelander’s birthday party, which ends with him giving an impassioned speech about being sick of kowtowing to corporate interests and says instead that he’s the only real hero. It’s terrifying but it also clearly strikes a chord with a certain percentage of the population.

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The last dropped episode, which is Episode 3, “Barbary Coast”, another mixed up reference to a storyline in the comics. The satire here is about that Hero Idol show parody, where one of the contestants is called “Body positive but not too body positive” -- another line that feels like it’s actually been said. The over-the-top nonsense brutality here is primarily when Homelander forces The Deep to eat his octopus friend to get back into the Seven in a classically funny but horrifying scene.

But the big reveals this episode come from Mallory giving a flashback to the utter failure of how the supes came to “help” in the fight with the Contras during the Reagan era, in a different (if similar) take to the WW2 version of this scene in the comics. The actress playing young Grace (Sarah Swire) looks a lot like Laila Robins and really does a great job in the scene alongside Justin Davis channeling Giancarlo Esposito for young Stan Edgar.

The situation goes as badly as to be expected, but the mysterious part comes in with a weird energy shooting out and both killing Soldier Boy and severely injuring Black Noir, who is revealed to simply be a superpowered black dude who originally was actually able to talk (a pretty big divergence from the comics).

This is all tied into Frenchie being approached by Russian mafia types calling him “Sergei” which he corrects to “Serge” instead, as we see him meet up with the sinister “Little Nina” played by Katia Winter (in a portrayal that’s a lot less problematic than the version in the comics) who wants him back working with her.

So it makes perfect sense that Butcher sees the obvious connections, because it was pretty obvious, and now we have a take on the gang heading off to Moscow for a new adventure. This is also a fallout from Butcher forcing little Ryan away by doing the “Get out of here!” classic trick, but Karl Urban does a great job of showing how he’s conflicted in those moments.

The show wraps around Starlight faking it to make it, both in awful to watch ways, with the ode to oversexualizing young girls “Hit Me Baby One More Time” playing as the episode starts and ends. Homelander calls Starlight’s bluff, explaining that he prefers to be loved over feared, but he’ll take the latter if it comes down to it. And he pushes a new bluff on Starlight, announcing publicly that they’re actually a couple -- but this is just the natural progression of the “Q” rating of the two being so high as a couple.

These episodes work pretty well as a crazy way to back into the world of The Boys, with the usually pretty consistent comedy and over the top violence we’ve come to expect. I appreciate the changes the show has made in adapting the comic, which never could have been directly adapted as is -- even if sometimes I feel that show isn’t quite sure how much it wants to tilt in the parody versus drama angle. It’s still as engaging a tale as ever.

Hotchka Movie Review: Cinderella

‘Cinderella’ has an odd balance to it, with uniformly bad humor but fairly well done musical scenes.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Starring: Camila Cabello, Idina Menzel, Minnie Driver, Nicholas Galitzine with Billy Porter and Pierce Brosnan

Is the world finally sick of James Corden? I know many of his antics are incredibly annoying, but I always had a soft spot for his “Celebrity Noses” recurring sketch. Although in those he’s always being constantly frustrated, as opposed to throwing out a bunch of hacky awkward “jokes” in many of his appearances. But I think he can be entertaining when he’s not doing his shtick, for example, his short part in Ocean’s Eight. And apparently he had some idea for a new take on Cinderella.

Cinderella comes from director and writer Kay Cannon, who is known for all three Pitch Perfect movies, a bunch of 30 Rock episodes, and the cancelled show aptly named Girlboss. This version of the Cinderella tale is a bit close to the Disney version, although it never quite gets close enough to be a direct ripoff. The baseline story (or at least the well-known French version that inspired the modern versions) is the main inspiration, with animals turning into other things.

Here we follow Cinderella, played by Camila Cabello, similar to the classic version except that this version of Ella has dreams of being a dressmaker and running her own business. The movie incorporates both arrangements of song covers in very clunky and obvious ways and a few originals, like Cinderella’s “Million to One”. Weirdly, that song sounded very auto-tuned to me, and I know Camila Cabello can sing so it’s a bit odd.

But there’s a constant, very heavy-handed “girls rule, boys drool” sort of performative wokeness here, and a real resistance to any actual sort of antagonist with depth or legitimate threat. Cindy’s evil stepmother is played here by Idina Menzel, and her perspective could be easily explained by the overly obvious needle drop cover of “Material Girl”. She’s really let off the hook at the end of the movie for essentially trying to force Ella into an unwanted marriage.

This is one of the “they don’t know their own message” issues, because the movie is at the same time trying to comment on medieval sexism and patriarchal systems while at the same time trying to do the same about the modern world. But there’s quite a difference between the two, and it takes a deft touch to draw parallels and comment in an effective way about it. This way is entirely unsubtle.

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Sometimes the unsubtle part is fine, like when Billy Porter shows up to sing some great songs and call himself the “Fabulous Godmother” -- but then he’s also called “Fab G” and it’s immediately cringey. Essentially every attempt at humor here is like that, not funny at all, and very try-hard. Still, the performances are pretty good, for the most part.

The Prince here is played by milquetoasty Nicholas Galitzine, who gets a lot better when the script gives him more emotional scenes and not so great when they try to make him jokey. His parents are played by Minnie Driver and Pierce Brosnan and it’s a real dissonant mess with how this world is constructed with a “monarchy”.

Most of the song arrangements are pretty good, and some are great, some of the performances are very good, and some, like unfortunately every terrible moment with James Corden or the very 90s parody rap moments, drag the movie to a halt every time. The real issue here is that the movie has pretenses of being a feminist subversion of the Cinderella tale, but it can’t help but try and appeal to all of the sorts of things that make you think of the “hello fellow kids” meme.

I feel like the song choices, if mostly executed well enough, were often so obvious it felt like a bad joke. When the movie actually slows down and takes some time for its characters, it’s greatly improved, but the comedic tone is just not good. It’s probably entertaining enough for a weekend stream anyway.

Cinderella is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video. The film has a run time of 1 hour 53 minutes and is rated PG for suggestive material and language.

Hotchka Movie Review: Tom Clancy's Without Remorse

© Amazon Prime Video

Without Remorse is the latest attempt to ignite the Tom Clancy universe nobody has been asking for.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Cast: Michael B. Jordan, Jamie Bell, Jodie Turner-Smith, Lauren London, Brett Gelman, Jacob Scipio, Jack Kesy, Colman Domingo, Todd Lassance, Cam Gigandet, Luke Mitchell and Guy Pearce

So how many reboots have there been for the ‘Tom Clancyverse’ (which I think is actually called the ‘Ryanverse’) over the years? In the movies first it was Alec Baldwin playing Jack Ryan, then Harrison Ford, then reboot #1 with Ben Affleck and reboot #2 with Chris Pine, and of course there’s the TV show with John Krasinski that’s still going. That Chris Pine movie was not good, although it had an entirely original script, unlike the first movies. It’s a move that’s potentially very risky, and ultimately, maybe impossible to avoid.

Tom Clancy's Without Remorse comes from director Stefano Sollima and writers Taylor Sheridan and Will Stapes, ostensibly being adapted from the 1993 book of the same name by Clancy. However, other than the main character being named John Clark, nothing is remotely the same. The book is about a white guy who has to deal with a bunch of pimps and early 90s nonsense -- naturally I’m unsurprised that the movie handles it differently.

Here John is played by Michael B. Jordan, and the movie starts off with him leading a team of fellow Navy SEALs on a secret mission to Syria to rescue a mysterious hostage from Russians. Back at home, we get a slight amount of character development with John and his pregnant wife Pam (Lauren London), his various interchangeable team members, and his superior officer Karen (Jodie Turner-Smith).

The movie actually “starts” with a classic “fridging” moment when a bunch of masked soldiers kill everyone on John’s team and invade his home -- they kill his pregnant wife and seriously injure him. John manages to kill all but one of the men but sees his face (Brett Gelman) before they escape. It’s a classic very bad driving motivator for a character -- his pregnant wife is killed so now he’s going to get results by “any means necessary”.

Cue scene with Karen with clunky dialogue about serving America while being black, which feels forced in there because the fact that John and Karen are black has nothing to do with anything else in the movie. John gets sent on a mission to find his killers by CIA officer Robert (Jamie Bell) and the Secretary of Defense (Guy Pearce), so there are quite a few good actors here completely wasted.

We get perhaps one scene where Michael B. Jordan gets to act, when he’s momentarily screaming in grief, and then it’s mostly acceptable action scenes and muddled conspiracy nonsense for the rest of the movie. The “twists” of the movie, if they can charitably even be called that, are unoriginal, uninteresting, and mostly nonsensical. Just typical “we’re all pawns” sort of talk.

If you’re hoping for exciting action scenes, it’s probably also disappointing because they’re all fairly repetitive and milquetoast. Nothing remotely John Wick adjacent here -- and nothing that really takes advantage of the lead actor’s inherent charisma. We even get a mid-credits tease for the next movie in the franchise, which I recognized as a reference even though it felt a lot like the post-credits tease of the Super Mario Brothers movie, except that this sequel might actually get made (it’s technically been announced).

Unfortunately I really do have the majority of the issues on the very weak script, and it’s hard to say enough about that. Taylor Sheridan has done some decent writing, but he’s also done some clunkers, and Will Staples has only a little -- neither has done this sort of spy/conspiracy writing, and although there’s a first time for everything, the conspiracy here is really just 'nothing sauce'. I could even forgive it if the action scenes were exciting and dynamic, but they’re really just okay. It’s too bad, I was hoping for a better franchise opportunity for Michael B. Jordan, but I’m sure he’ll find something else in the future.

Without Remorse has a run time of 1 hour 49 minutes and is rated R for violence. The film is streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

Movie Review: The Map of Tiny Perfect Things

©Amazon Studios

 

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things is a surprisingly great, heartfelt time loop movie.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The time loop concept is hardly a new one, although it was popularized by the perfect movie Groundhog Day which oddly came out the same year (1993) as TV movie 12:01 which was also about a time looped day (itself based on a short story from 1973). There are many different takes on the loop idea, and many that simply poorly copy Groundhog Day, but only a few truly stand out.

I think of Edge of Tomorrow that incorporated a kickass Emily Blunt with a sci-fi twist, or last year’s Palm Springs that hit just right in pandemic times. Neither of those movies mentioned any other time loop movies, and Palm Springs only discussed it as “one of those time loop situations you hear about”. But to pretend they don’t exist is tricky, and those two are a high bar to clear.

The Map of Tiny Perfect Things comes from director Ian Samuels and written by Lev Grossman, based on his short story of the same name. We start in medias res with Mark (Kyle Allen) already in the midst of his umpteenth loop, amusingly predicting his kid sister’s insults and doing little tricks and helping people in small, unnoticeable ways along his path throughout the day.

At first it seems that what’s driving Mark’s efforts is a desire to hook up with local girl Phoebe (Anna Mikami), as we see him retry multiple times that consistently fail, often around saving her from falling into a pool. In something that will be called back to multiple times, Mark hangs around his friend Henry (Jermaine Harris), who is playing a sort of first person shooter game without a name (they later call it “Warfight” which is pretty silly).

Henry offers his advice about Mark’s girl troubles, although we know that this scene must’ve been happening many times before in different ways. And unlike those other movies I mentioned, here both Groundhog Day and Edge of Tomorrow are referenced explicitly, which is good because you have to use these nerds have seen them.

But Mark’s life gets shaken up when a girl interferes with something at the pool, which has never happened before. He eventually tracks her down -- her name is Margaret (Kathryn Newton) and she tells him almost nothing about herself. But that doesn’t really matter, as they do begin hanging out and wondering about the nature of their loop.

The title of the movie comes from an idea that Mark comes up with, a way to map the little perfect moments that happen over the course of the day in their small town. There’s a kind of almost-romance going on here, and their rapport is quite charming -- even if Margaret is always holding something back. There is clearly a mystery there, but the payoff actually works -- it’s a movie that succeeds in its emotional and humorous beats, which I was certainly surprised by.

The mechanics aren’t really the point exactly, and sure, it’s not as funny as Palm Springs, but there’s a sincerity and honesty to these two teenagers, both 17 and literally and metaphorically stuck in a moment in time. There are a few things that don’t work quite as well -- the video game callbacks aren’t really working and there’s a bit of an extended sequence about astronauts that goes on a bit too long, but there’s so much more that really works. The movie has a great way to show its scenes, some out in nature, but it’s got a kind of surreal vibe that totally fits.

The two leads are quite good, with Kyle Allen starting as a kind of nerdy athletic dude and moving on to more complicated situations. And Kathryn Newton really does a lot of great work to avoid some of those dreamgirls tropes and show off a more fully considered character. Honestly, I was surprised because Palm Springs was already so good last year and had a great romance -- although that one was more about people in their 30s stuck in time instead of the pre-college situation.

But just because it’s a surprise is no reason to be annoyed -- this movie is a very good entry in that shortlist of time loop films, a strong recommendation for either those that like that genre or simply want an elevated YA movie.

Movie Review: Bliss

© Amazon Studios

 

Bliss is an unstable sci-fi film that has a lot on its mind.
by Jeremy Fogelman

Science fiction is something that’s easier than ever to visualize due to the higher capabilities, if you have an idea and the right budget, anything you can imagine can be shown, for good or ill. But inherently science fiction is about using the genre to examine ideas about the modern world, using the advanced science in such movies as a way to help us understand them. You can handle this in a way that’s subtle or a way that’s entirely without it.

Bliss comes from writer/director Mike Cahill, and he’s an interesting artist - I recall his movie Another Earth from ten years ago that was also a sci-fi movie that didn’t really utilize its own conceit to its fullest potential. But one of the things about Bliss is that it really wants to be “interesting” and “complicated” with an ambiguous ending. But I don’t think the movie quite realizes what it’s trying to say.

We start with Greg (Owen Wilson) as he gets fired from his job at some sort of caller response company and it’s kind of a light, interesting story so far. But then quickly his life falls apart and he winds up homeless and here’s where the movie gets muddled. In a diner, an odd woman Isabel (Salma Hayek) tries to do something to him, but it has no effect. She is surprised that her “powers” didn’t work.

She then tells him that they are in a world that’s a physical simulation (the term or the movie The Matrix is never mentioned) and nearly everyone is fake. Because they aren’t, they have the capability to use telekinesis on people and objects, and she promises to show Greg how to do it. There’s a lot she isn’t saying, but there seem to be a lot of hints that she’s right, especially when Greg is also able to perform the supernatural feats.

But at the same time, Greg’s daughter Emily (Nesta Cooper) is looking for him, and from her perspective her dad is homeless and maybe out of his mind. So suddenly everyone is possibly a figment of Greg’s imagination, and every criminal act he performed with Isabel he justified because the other people are “fake” may be real after all.

© Amazon Studios

Isabel insists that the “real” world is a utopia and Greg’s concern about his fake daughter threatens to sink him into the simulation permanently. Which is a convenient story angle. Although who knows? If Greg truly is imagining everything, perhaps it’s just himself talking to himself and it’s a movie about the blurry lines between reality and technological future.

There’s a lot of interesting visuals, and the chemistry between the two leads is decent enough, but the problem is what the movie shows us. The movie is uncareful about which points of view are shown, which inherently bias its own reality in certain directions that belie the theoretical ambiguous ending that it clearly desires.

Another Earth had a similar sort of “non-ending” although I found that one more infuriating. Bliss is mostly coherent and I did care about the characters until the final act, when the craziness of the world isn’t really explained in a logical enough way to buy into it anymore. I really enjoyed a lot of the movie but I thought the ending was kind of a cop out, but on the other hand, I respect the audacious attempt at a mind bending concept.

Perhaps it’s less clever than it thinks it is, but I think the director does have a good sense of his characters, even if his worlds may need to be improved in the future.

The Boys S02E04: Nothing Like It in the World

The Boys takes it slower as things get worse for everyone.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The latest episode of The Boys is called ‘Nothing Like It in the World’, which is yet another direct title reference to an issue of the comics, albeit without any connection whatsoever. As somewhat close as the show stayed similar to the comics, it’s completely different now -- honestly I can’t even imagine the same ending, at least not in the same way. I suppose I appreciate that freedom, although I hope the showrunners actually do have a plan about it.

There is a bit of a continuation of Kimiko’s grief, anger, and desire for revenge, but the Frenchie kissing her was so absurdly out of character it made me realize that Frenchie has no characterization at all in the show. He is legitimately the least interesting character in the show, and I don’t know if that’s going to improve -- it didn’t this episode, nor did his tryst with his “therapist” raise anything interesting.

Mother’s Milk takes Hughie and Starlight on a classic road trip to track down a mysterious old supe from back in the day, nearly fifty years ago. This leads to some decent moments of relationship drama and interactions, and there’s even a little backstory finally on MM -- he’s been incredibly underutilized until now. It was a bit long in the tooth as a subplot this episode, even if the final moments are useful backstory (although it was pretty clear to those who knew the original material).

The revelation, that Liberty was simply Stormfront before she changed her name, isn’t much of one unless it leads to more darkness in the past with that supe -- thus why she changed her name. Stormfront essentially says the same thing when confronted by Homelander, that she had to change with the times. Her creepy attention is likely sincere -- obviously a superhuman blonde, blue-eyed, white guy is the pinnacle of her ideals. I’m just glad that Aya Cash gets an interesting character to sink her teeth into after years of being ignored for excellent work on You’re the Worst, even if often it feels very unsettling to watch her in action.

Butcher’s storyline, of tracking down his wife Becca, is fine enough, although the final moments are a bit... strained in the believability department. Butcher calls Becca’s son a freak, and doesn’t want to bother to take him along -- honestly, it’s a bit ridiculous that he wouldn’t try. Becca seems to be the one thing that’s different for him among the rest of the world.

In last place of interest is the Deep’s storyline of interviewing potential wife candidates from his thinly veiled Scientology parody. It’s hard to care about it, and it’s not really funny -- but at least the other two storylines are interesting still. Black Noir’s creepy search for Butcher was interesting, if unsettling, in the “this will hopefully pay off soon” way.

Homelander’s further descent into increasingly monstrous behavior continues, including threatening Starlight and having Doppelganger pretend to be the woman he killed. The final moments, of killing “himself” by rejecting caring about what other people think of him, as the music twangs discordantly, should certainly raise alarm bells.

His change of heart with Maeve is a step back in a way from the pit, but he takes the wrong lessons from racist monster Stormfront. As usual, it’s acted exceptionally, even if it feels paced a bit oddly -- slower than normal. Overall, it’s interesting to watch an episode of the show when not binging it -- it feels quite a bit different than normal. Still an entertaining watch, but it does feel a bit like one of the “place setting” transitionary episodes than something self-contained.

The Boys streams new episodes weekly on Amazon Prime.

Images © Amazon Prime Video

The Boys starts off its second season as bloody and over the top as ever

‘The Boys’ drops three episodes for a third season of bloody explosions and attempts at subversive commentary.
by Jeremy Fogelman

The first season of The Boys was decent enough, as I reviewed at the time, spiraling off significantly from the comics storyline enough that I was completely unsure of where it was going. The second season so far continues that trend, killing off characters like Raynor (Jennifer Esposito), who certainly lasted far longer in the original comics. In fairness, she was a pointless character in the adaptation, so the impact of her death doesn’t feel particularly significant.

 

All of the original ensemble has returned, continuing the story with varying degrees of success. Hughie continues to suffer PTSD from his misadventures, and it’s only been touched on a little since then. Frenchie and Mother’s Milk still have almost nothing to do, but they at least give Karen Fukuhara more to do with the now named “Kimiko” (she also was finally utilized well in the She-Ra Netflix animated show).

 

Kimiko’s arc with her brother (played by Abraham Lim) was pretty good in these first three episodes, setting up a mystery about who this mysterious new “super terrorist” was, getting Butcher almost killing him, Kimiko reconnecting, and them fighting over his terrorist ways (that he justifies by American imperialism and wanton destruction and murder in his home village). It all connects with the final moments of not-so-secret white supremacist Stormfront (Aya Cash, always welcome -- she was great in You’re the Worst) murdering her brother and tossing off some racism casually.

 

Of course, Stormfront in the comics was a literal Hitler Youth superpowered child extracted from Germany who grew up to be a monstrous “Thor” styled rip off because Garth Ennis thought it would be clever to combine Norse mythology with racism, like the Nazis did (both the original and modern day Nazis co-opted Nordic imagery). Here Stormfront is American, from Portland, and female, allowing a bit more rug pulling later on.

 

Now, when I read the comics in the first place, I recognized that the name Stormfront was itself a reference to the white supremacist website, even though that too is an appropriation. So I was not exactly surprised when the character turned out to be racist. Here she’s shown softer at first, quirky and rude, making fun quasi-feminist jabs against Vought and systemic patriarchy, but she’s only (hardly a coincidence) really interacting with the white superheroes of the Seven -- Homeland and Starlight.

 

I was wondering when the other shoe would drop, and it does in the third, brutal episode where Stormfront, on the tail of Kimiko’s brother, casually kills many black civilians for no reason except her hatred and racism. Her savvy nature presents an interesting new sort of antagonist, both against the already monstrous Homelander (who simply thinks all humanity to be worthless compared to him, but he’s not racist about it -- small help) and the Boys.

 

The final shot of episode three, the Boys surrounding Kimiko as she stares hatefully at Stormfront’s press conference, that’s a good setup and really getting us finally invested in her story -- we want to see her take revenge on the racist monster that killed so many people. That storyline works so far.

 

Less successful is the Starlight business in general -- her theoretical spywork feels a bit scattershot, with only a few interesting moments, and the romance angle doesn’t feel that interesting yet. A-Train has little to do yet, other than moments of dizziness, and Maeve just has a little backstory with her secret girlfriend to explain why it must be a secret.

 

Homelander continues to be a fascinating sociopath of a character, trying to push his son with Billy Butcher’s wife to display superpowers, and although eventually the kid does display some, it feels like Homelander still won. Antony Starr is still really great in the role of this odd, terrible person, who suffers and causes suffering in turn.

 

Least successful of all is everything with the Deep’s attempts at recovery, which parody Scientology pointlessly and have an extended hallucination montage where Patton Oswalt plays the Deep’s gills (he’s funny but...) and ultimately tries to push the idea that the Deep’s issues comes from self-hatred. Sure, I can buy that, but he’s still someone that sexually assaulted and killed people. He hasn’t done nearly enough to be forgiven, and I was glad to see that Starlight immediately rejected the attempt.

 

But the show continues to be gory and profane, and Giancarlo Esposito gets another role where he exudes confident sociopathy so that’s fun. I feel like there’s some good setup here for the rest of the season, which will be released weekly going forward, and I’ll continue to be amused at how they use titles from the graphic novels completely differently for the episode titles.

New episodes of The Boys stream weekly on Amazon Prime.

Images © Amazon Prime Video