Spoilers for everything in the ranking except for Thunder Force, Y: The Last Man, M.O.D.O.K., Hit-Monkey, Sweet Tooth, and all the CW and HBO Max DC shows released this year. I’m not going to talk about those because I haven’t seen them. I’m probably forgetting some other things I haven’t seen. I try to keep up with all the comic book stuff, but there’s just so much of it. Also I’m not talking about Venom: Let There Be Carnage. I was gonna see it but then I remembered that I didn’t want to. Also remember this is my opinion so I’m sorry if you disagree but this is the internet and we respect the opinions of others here. This is a safe space.
But specifically massive spoilers for the movie Spider-Man: No Way Home.
13. The King’s Man
I don’t know why, but with the last batch of trailers I had convinced myself that this might not be a bad movie. And I guess it’s not terrible, but it’s not good either. The first movie was pretty good, but the sequel is absolute garbage, so I didn’t really know what to expect from this one. It’s probably better than the last one, but that one was at least entertaining. This one is boring and way too long. In the trailers it seemed like Rasputin was going to be the main villain, and he seemed fun. But he’s not that fun, and they kill him off halfway through the movie. He tried to have sex with literally every character he came into contact with, and that made me very uncomfortable. The twist main villain was also kind of obvious from the beginning, and it wasn’t interesting.
The frenetic action sequences from the first two movies are few and far between in this, and we are instead subjected to lots of boring scenes of people having conversations about geopolitical conflict. Oh, and this is a prequel that takes place before and during World War One. It’s actually more about the war than the founding of Kingsman, which is what this was billed as. My theory is that the director wanted to make a World War One movie, but no studios were willing to fund it. So he made it anyway, but also kind of put Kingsman in it. The result is a long and boring mess. None of the emotional beats in this are earned.
The characters aren’t particularly interesting or likable, despite all being played by great actors. Djimon Hounsou, who is great in literally everything, is underused except for one fun action sequence. Daniel Brühl and Stanley Tucci, who are two great actors, are both in this for like five minutes and do absolutely nothing. Ralph Fiennes, who is a very charming actor, plays a very crabby and unenjoyable main character that spends a good amount of the movie almost falling off of things. Also Hitler shows up at the end, possibly teasing a sequel that I won’t watch. This is last because somehow despite being two hours and eleven minutes, it felt infinitely longer than Zach Snyder’s Justice League.
12. Zach Snyder’s Justice League
I envy you if you don’t know what this is. And if you do know what it is, I’m going to explain it anyway. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice was critically panned upon release, and DC were reluctant but unable to let Zack Snyder make this film, since he directed BVS. But they were already filming it, so they couldn’t do it. Snyder eventually had to leave for personal reasons, and Warner Brothers replaced him with Joss Whedon, who directed The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. Massive reshoots occurred, leaving a tonal mess of a film with rushed effects. Studio interference is always good. Some of the louder people that liked Batman V Superman got super pissed and started demanding that Warner Brothers let Snyder release his cut of the film. Every time anyone who had ever been remotely involved with Warner Brothers tweeted or said anything on any form of social media, they would get bombarded with comments telling them to #RELEASETHESNYDERCUT. Even if the person in question was speaking about a relative who had recently passed. This went on for three years, until AT&T, who has since relinquished ownership of Warner Brothers, forced WB to finally make the Snyder Cut happen. Some scenes were reshot, old scenes were added back in, and the effects were massively improved. They also, unfortunately, added a scene with Jared Leto’s Joker that was atrocious and really hard to watch.
The end result was essentially just a four hour long sizzle reel of everything that Zach Snyder loves. Lots of slow motion and incongruous scenes that look pretty cool but make no sense in terms of plot. It’s fine, from memory. I watched it while I was doing other things back in March, so it’s been a while. It’s funny more than anything else. Most of the problems I have with this movie come from poor casting decisions that were made in past movies. Jessie Eisenberg, Jared Leto, and Ezra Miller continue to suck in their roles and in real life. But it’s definitely better than the original. The plot and character motivations make way more sense. I don’t think this is the version we would have gotten if Snyder hadn’t left the original movie, though. It probably wouldn’t be as good, and it definitely wouldn’t be so long. I guess I’m happy with the version we got, but it’s so long.
11. Hawkeye
I don’t like Jeremy Renner. I don’t think he’s charismatic or enjoyable to watch. Hollywood seems to disagree. They tried to have him replace Tom Cruise in the Mission: Impossible movies. But it didn’t work because Jeremy Renner doesn’t have the on-screen presence that Tom Cruise has. They tried to make a Bourne movie without Matt Damon. But The Bourne Legacy wasn’t interesting or good, because Matt Damon is an enjoyable actor to watch and Jeremy Renner is a block of wood. A lot of people criticize the character of Hawkeye in the MCU as being uninteresting and useless as a whole. They say that Renner hasn’t been given much to work with. None of that is true. In the comics Hawkeye is a great character with a sarcastic, down on his luck sense of humor, and he’s proficient enough with a bow and arrow to fight alongside Thor. But In the Ultimate Marvel comics universe, Hawkeye is a secret agent with no personality, and that’s the version we’ve been given. Stoic, no-personality agent guy is kind of the only character Renner can play. I wish they had cast literally anyone else, but the damage was done eleven years ago.
I don’t really care about this character in the movies, but this TV show is meant to be an adaptation of an amazing Hawkeye run by Matt Fraction, David Aja, and Annie Wu. It’s one of my favorite comic books. It’s smart and funny, with lots of great action and intrigue. But it only works if Hawkeye is a completely over-confident idiot like he is in the comics, and that’s not the version that Renner plays. So putting that version into what is meant to be a tribute to the original comic is like putting a square peg into a round hole. He’s not good in this. I’ll admit he’s had okay moments in the past, but because he’s the main character in this, he has to have a bit more screen time. And you can’t hide the uninteresting and grating performance of your main actor, no matter how much annoying Hailee Steinfeld fangirling you throw at the audience.
Hailee Steinfeld plays Kate Bishop, the second and supposedly superior Hawkeye. In the comics she’s smarter, cooler, and better than Clint in general, and a great character. But in this she just talks a lot and worships Clint. I don’t blame her, I blame the writing. The plot of this show isn’t that good. There are about three different characters from the comics that are in this purely to make the audience suspect them as the main villain. The main villain turns out to be Vincent D’Onofrio returning as Kingpin, which just happens in the last episode and carries no real emotional weight and makes little sense if you don’t know who that is. But Florence Pugh is really fun in the last two episodes, and Jared Leto isn’t in this, so…
10. What If…?
I’ve never really read that many What If…? comics, but I always enjoyed the concept. I think it’s cool to explore certain storylines from a different angle, but from what I can tell, none of the What If…? issues are actually that good. But I was kind of a little interested to see what this show would be like? It’s fine. I don’t like that they brought the characters together in the end. I was hoping that every episode would be standalone and instead it all came together in the last episode and it wasn’t very good or interesting. It would have been better if they put more effort into each individual story instead of throwing a weird-sounding Ultron into the mix. I did enjoy Jeffrey Wright’s performance as the Watcher though. He’s a great actor that I’ll talk about more on Friday.
I did enjoy the first Ultron episode as a whole, but mostly because of the scene where the Watcher just yelled at Hawkeye to look around. That was funny. I thought the Doctor Strange episode was fine, but not as good as everyone else said. I talked about the zombie episode already, it’s good. The Killmonger episode was good until the very end, mostly because Michael B Jordan is the best. The murder mystery episode was interesting, but the reveal made very little sense with the clues given. Rather, it made sense, but you need prior knowledge of a character that didn’t show up until the reveal that is not given in the episode. I found the Thor episode and the Captain Carter episode to be very disappointing. I don’t know why I didn’t like the Thor episode, but the Captain Carter episode is just The First Avenger but gender-swapped. And I’ve seen that movie before.
But the main reason I have ranked this above Hawkeye is because of the absolute joy that was the second episode. It was such a joy to hear Chadwick Boseman again, even if it was bittersweet. I also just love this really fun new version of T’Challa going on heists with Thanos and Yondu. I think I might have even liked this episode more than either of the Guardians movies. It’s definitely shorter. And I enjoy the idea that if Chris Pratt wasn’t around, everything in the Marvel universe would just be so much better. I really liked this episode, probably more than most of the things on this list. Maybe because it was one and done and I didn’t have to invest weeks to a show or movie only to be disappointed. Oh and Tony Stark is killed off in like every episode of this show and I think that’s funny.
9. Falcon and the Winter Soldier
This show was so disappointing. And I can’t quite put my finger on why. I like Anthony Mackie and Sebastian Stan. I thought Wyatt Russell was good as John Walker. It’s always nice to see Julia Louis-Dreyfus in things, even if her character is a little annoying. And I liked the return of Batroc and Zemo. But there was no point to this show. It could have easily been a movie, but there still wouldn’t have been much of a point. I was excited to see the banter between Sam and Bucky, but there was like five minutes of that in this. And Emily Van Camp’s portrayal of Sharon Carter continues to be boring and meaningless. I’m sure she’s a good actress, but judging by the MCU appearances she’s had, she’s like the female Jeremy Renner. Making her evil doesn’t make her interesting, Marvel. She still hasn’t really done anything. Stop making all of your interesting characters boring. And the villains weren’t interesting because they were right. The world probably would be better if it went back to the way it was when half the population was gone. Because people suck. But yeah, this show wasn’t that interesting. I like how comic-accurate Sam’s costumes are, especially the last one. But it was just kind of boring and that’s sad. I hope Captain America 4 is better than this, but I’m pretty sure the same writers on this are going to be writing that. Which means I probably won’t like it. So…
8. Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
I was really excited for this movie. When I heard that Simu Liu had been cast in the lead role, I watched every episode of a great TV show he’s in called Kim’s Convenience, which is now cancelled, but also it’s better than this. I don’t hate this movie. I like Simu Liu a lot, and he’s pretty good in this. I really liked Tony Leung as the villain. I did not, however, enjoy the return of Ben Kingsley as Trevor. Trevor is a bad character that was introduced in a bad movie in a really bad twist. I hated Iron Man 3 eight years ago when it came out, and I was eleven years old and had no taste. I really didn’t need a reminder of that movie from the guy that played Ghandi. Also Awkwafina was kind of annoying in this. The bus action sequence and the fighting tournament sequence are both great. I thought those scenes were really cool. But I really disliked the third act fantasy battle with dragons and stuff. I don’t find any of that particularly interesting, and from a cinematic standpoint, the third act didn’t even look that good. Also they killed off yet another great villain and gave Shang-Chi the rings, even though the whole point of that character is he’s just a great martial artist. But Wong is in it, and I always enjoy a Wong appearance.
7. Eternals
I know people don’t like this movie. I just don’t care about these characters and had very little expectations for this. I know it’s long and a lot of the plot doesn’t make sense. I also already reviewed this, so I won’t spend too much talking about it. But it’s fine. I like some of the characters, and I would like to see more of them in the future. But not that horrible CGI troll voiced by Patton Oswalt. They need to change that design, because it looks atrocious. I’m sad they killed off Gilgamesh, because he’s a fun character. I’m surprised they didn’t kill off Angelina Jolie, because she obviously doesn’t want to be there. I liked the five minutes that Salma Hayek was in this movie, but her helmet is horrible. It looks like she’s being swallowed by a fish. I just want more Kumail Nanjiani though. He’s the best. All in all this movie is fine, and I only ranked it above Shang-Chi because I had expectations for Shang-Chi that got let down.
6. Black Widow
I’ve always liked Black Widow as a character, and Scarlett Johansson as an actress, but I didn’t really expect much from this movie. It seemed fairly generic. Also it got delayed over and over and over again, and I was just waiting to see the other movies. I was excited to see David Harbour though, because he’s great in literally everything. But I thought this movie was super fun. The plot is fairly generic and the villains kind of suck, but the action is really hard-hitting and visceral. Even though we know Natasha is going to survive, I still winced every time she got hit. It was fun to watch. The characters are really funny and sweet. As I said earlier, I’m a big fan of Florence Pugh, and she’s so damn good in this movie. Scarlett Johansson is good, but I miss her dynamic with Steve. I love her costume at the end. Rachel Weisz is fun, and I enjoy her weird pig obsession. But my absolute favorite character, and I knew this would be the case, is David Harbour’s Red Guardian. He’s loud and funny and sweet but also menacing and just the best to watch. I love the scene where he talks about his dad peeing on his hands because he loved him and didn’t want him to get frostbite. His costume is pretty awesome, and I just loved him in this so much. Fantastic.
My main complaints are that this movie came out way too late. They should have made this years ago. It probably would have been better received if they released it after Captain America: Civil War, since that’s when it takes place. Especially with the post-credit scene of her being dead and Hawkeye being the killer, since we hadn’t seen that movie yet.
5. Spider-Man: No Way Home
LAST CHANCE SPOILERS FOR NO WAY HOME SKIP TO THE WANDAVISION REVIEW IF YOU DON’T WANT THIS SPOILED
Going into this I wasn’t super excited. Mainly because this wasn’t the movie I wanted. Tom Holland recently confirmed some rumors that the backup plan for this movie was going to be Spider-Man vs Kraven. Which I really wanted to see! And it might still happen, but this movie has so much going on, and I would have much preferred a smaller-scale, more intense and emotional story. I don’t hate what we got, but I think this would have worked better down the line. Anyway, I’m stalling. I thought this movie was fun, but I definitely don’t think it’s the best Spider-Man movie, live-action or otherwise, and there are some plot points in this that are so goddamn ridiculous. A few days before this came out, the hype got to me and I spoiled the big secret that wasn’t really a secret for myself. I went on YouTube and watched the leaks of Tom, Tobey, and Andrew. And I know what you’re thinking: “John, you love these movies, why would you spoil the reveal of the past Spideys teaming up for yourself?” Because it wasn’t really a reveal? We knew it was coming, and the clips just made me more excited. But what those clips omitted were the reasoning for why all the multiverse crap kicks off to begin with.
So Peter’s identity is revealed, and the world hates him, but the legal stuff is quickly solved by the return of New York’s greatest lawyer, Matt Murdock, AKA THEY FINALLY BROUGHT DAREDEVIL BACK THANK GOD HE’S MY FAVORITE CHARACTER IT’S TIME HE’S BACK EVERYONE AGGHGHGHGHGHGHGH. And his friends aren’t really in that much danger. He goes to Strange to make everyone forget who he is because him, Ned, and MJ didn’t get into MIT. And as they say in the movie, he doesn’t think to appeal his case, or maybe go to Pepper Potts because Tony Stark is the most famous MIT graduate in the MCU. And yeah, he’s supposed to make mistakes, but there is no world in which that plot point makes sense. And because he wanted to go to MIT, his Aunt dies and the whole world loses all memory of Peter Parker. And yes, I like that he’s poor and has a homemade suit that looks fantastic, by the way. Best live-action Spidey suit ever. But Sony could also have done this to cut him off from the MCU. Which is bad because Sony can’t make good Spider-Man movies on their own. Anyway, that’s a really dumb plot point.
Most of the villain motivations make no sense whatsoever. Doc Oak disappears for half the film with no explanation. There are some effects in this that are just laughably awful, if you rewatch the first scene with Electro and Sandman. I also find it incredibly hard to believe that Maguire and Garfield were in Holland’s universe for a day and had not done anything to stop their villains. That reveal would have been better if they were still in their universes. I hate the whole Spider-Man wearing his suit inside out thing. It looks lame and it only happened because the writers wanted him to wear a third suit. I’ll get to what I liked about this movie in a second, just let me rant a bit more. There was no reason to put Tom Hardy’s Venom in this movie. That was so lame and unnecessary, especially since they only did it to bring the symbiote to the MCU. They also brought five villains over to the MCU. Five?!?! That angers me to no end. This movie is already overstuffed and incomprehensible, but you’re telling me that in this movie that is just a collection of fan-service moments, you’re only going to give us five villains?!?! IT’S CALLED THE SINISTER SIX FOR A REASON!!! IT’S THE MOST ICONIC GROUP OF SPIDEY VILLAINS AND YET YOU GAVE US FIVE VILLAINS?!?! HALF OF THEM WEREN’T EVEN VILLAINS ANY MORE, AND THEY’RE ONLY FIGHTING SPIDER-MAN TO GET THAT BOX THAT’LL PROBABLY KILL ALL OF THEM. YOU COULDN’T JUST SHOVE PAUL GIAMATTI AND HIS RHINO SUIT INTO THIS MOVIE?!?!
But otherwise it’s fine. Benedict Cumberbatch is still very charming, even if Doctor Strange seems to just be a complete idiot at this point. It’s always nice to see JK Simmons as J Jonah Jameson, even if he was more mean than funny in this. And I really liked that, when positioned next to Tom Holland and Andrew Garfield, it is now finally clear to the world that Tobey Maguire has no charisma whatsoever. What a boring version of that character. Of his movies, I only ever liked Spider-Man 2, and that was only because of Alfred Molina, who is barely in this. You might be wondering, “John, if you had all these problems with this movie, than why is it ranked so high? And why is it above Black Widow, a movie you really enjoyed? And why do comic book movies make you so angry?” And those are all good questions.
The answer, of course, is Andrew Garfield. I’m an Amazing Spider-Man apologist. That movie is terrific. I won’t defend the sequel, but Andrew and Emma Stone are both great in that otherwise awful movie. I’ve always loved Andrew Garfield. And this movie is his redemption story. This movie is all about Andrew Garfield finally showing the world that he really is just the best. He’s the closest of the three to what Spider-Man has been like in the comics for the past twenty years: a quippy man in his thirties who just rolls with the punches. He’s so good in this movie, and I’m so so glad that he got another chance. One of the best scenes in the movie is when he saves MJ, which most of the world predicted would happen, but he acts the hell out of it. You can see the face of two men that have redeemed themselves. Peter Parker finally getting some closure for his guilt over not being able to save the love of his life. And Andrew Garfield, who wanted so badly to be Spider-Man, a character that meant so much to him, but was screwed out of the role by a really bad movie and a lot of studio interference that led Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper. He’s the best part of this movie, and I hope they do more with him going forward.
Oh and Wong is in this. I almost forgot. He’s the Sorcerer Supreme because Strange was dead for five years. Genius move. Wong is so much more competent that Strange. I look forward to what they do with Spider-Man next, as long as he stays with Marvel, who know what to do with them, instead of Sony, who don’t. And yeah, I know Sony made Spider-Verse, but that was because they let a lot of amazing people who love Spider-Man just go all out. So we’ll see.
4. WandaVision
I’m sorry these reviews are so long, by the way. So it’s time to talk about WandaVision, the show that came out seventy years ago. Which isn’t a comment on quality, by the way, it’s just been a long year. There are elements of this I didn’t love, like the finale where two witches shot magic crap at each other for thirty minutes. It’s not interesting, Marvel. Third acts don’t have to always be characters blasting at each other and meeting in the middle or sky beams or faceless armies. Be more creative. And I find it hilarious that they brought back Quicksilver from the FOX X-Men universe and used him to tell the most unnecessary and convoluted boner joke of all time. I’m not going to explain it. Look it up. But all the sitcom stuff was just so much fun to watch. The effort that went into every episode, with the costumes and the sets and the in-studio audiences! Paul Bettany, Elisabeth Olsen, and Kathryn Hahn nailed each time period as well. The best part of this show was easily the sitcom stuff. But the action outside of the sitcom stuff is where the show faltered. I do think though that if they had more time with that finale and worked a bit more on some plot points, this show would be perfect. Because the writing, as a whole, was really strong until that last episode. The second to last episode where Agatha and Wanda visit certain points in her past is really great and emotionally powerful. If they had focused less on bringing in some of the MCU action into it, I think it would have been a much more interesting watch. But I really enjoyed this. Despite some plot problems I have, I think it was awesome to watch Elisabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany just show how amazing they are. It is truly spectacular to watch the two of them together.
3. Loki
This show is awesome. I am the nitpicker, obviously, so I’ll say that I wish this was wackier. But that’s the only bad thing I’ll say about this. I love Tom Hiddleston. He’s very good in this role and he always has been. Owen Wilson is also fantastic in this. I am mad at the show runner for not letting him say “Wow” in this though. That’s another reason this show sucks. Oh, I just thought of one more nitpick and then I’ll be quiet. At one point in the fifth episode, there’s a shot of a jar stuck in the ground. And in the jar, there’s a little frog leaping at a mjiolnir a few feet away. This frog is wearing a winged helmet and a cape and armor. Because he’s Frog Thor, or Throg; one of my all-time favorite comic characters. You can hear him screaming as the camera zooms past him, and it’s Chris Hemsworth’s voice. Because they had a whole fight scene planned between Loki and Throg, and had even brought Hemsworth in to record dialogue for it. So why wouldn’t they put that in?!?! My hope is that he’s going to show up in Thor: Love and Thunder instead, because if not, they made a big mistake.
But other than that this show is awesome. I love the bit in the first episode with the weird animated clock explaining the TVA through an old-fashioned Hannah Barbera-esque animation sequence. I really enjoyed the dynamic between Loki and Sylvie, and I know it’s pretty creepy that he falls in love with himself, but he’s also incredibly self-absorbed, so it’s not like it’s out of character for him. I liked how hatable Renslayer was and how weird the lizard robots were. I liked that Jaimie Alexander showed up for an episode just to knee Hiddleston in the balls a bunch. But the two best parts of the show, hands down, were Richard E Grant and Jonathon Majors. The writing wasn’t always fantastic for this, but the performances were. Richard E Grant absolutely killed it as “Classic Loki”. He was maniacal and sweet all at the same time, and I just hope he’s cast in everything now. I always love when an older actor that maybe never reached the spotlight just kills it in a mainstream role like this. And Jonathon Majors… holy shit. Talk about killing it. Most of the Marvel shows this year didn’t really stick the landing on villains or villain reveals, but this one hit it right out of the park. Somehow Majors took a character that would only be in one episode and made him the best part of an already fun show. And he’s also easily one of the best villains we’ve seen. I can’t wait to see what this man does with other iterations of this character in Loki season 2 and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Between this and The Harder They Fall, Jonathon Majors has easily become one of my favorite actors, and Hollywood needs to cast him in everything.
2. Invincible
I’ll be surprised if a lot of you reading this know what Invincible is. It’s a TV show based off a superhero comic book that was written by Robert Kirkman, the man who wrote The Walking Dead comic book. I haven’t read or seen any of that, but this is better. Invincible is about a kid named Mark Grayson, and his dad who is essentially Superman, and it slowly evolves from a grounded, Spider-Man-esque superhero story to a bloody galactic epic over the span of 144 issues. It’s amazing. It’s probably the best comic book to ever come out of Image Comics, and I’ve read all of this. I’m not going to talk to much about this, because I want everyone to watch this, but it’s also a very good TV show. It’s a solid adaptation, and every change made enhances the story in some way. And it only covers the first two volumes, so hopefully this show gets more seasons. And the voice cast is incredible, too. The dad is voiced by JK Simmons, who is really really good in this show. Oh and there’s a brutal moment in the last episode with a train that isn’t from the comics that completely caught me off guard. That’s all I’ll say. Watch this show!!!
1. The Suicide Squad
DC makes me angry. Irrationally so. They have some of the most iconic and amazing characters in the world, and they’ve managed to do so little with them that it hurts. I don’t love every Marvel movie, but you cannot deny their success. They had to sell the film rights to their most popular characters just to stave off bankruptcy, and yet they were still able to start a multi-billion dollar franchise off of the Avengers and the Guardians of the Galaxy, characters that no non-comic book fan knew or gave a shit about. In the last 13 years they’ve made 27 movies and 13 TV shows, and show no signs of slowing down. DC have always retained the rights to their characters, and yet, since 2013, they have managed to put out 10 films of wildly varying quality. And I think they’re now just abandoning the idea of a cinematic universe altogether? I don’t know. Of those 10 films, I have liked SHAZAM!, Harley Quinn: Birds of Prey, parts of both Wonder Woman movies, and this. Speaking of this movie, I should stop ranting about DC and say why I love this movie.
I was cautiously optimistic going into this movie. I had been really excited for the 2016 one, but that movie sucked ass. And I really didn’t like Guardians Vol. 2 either, so I was really worried that this movie would be more like that. But it wasn’t. It turns out I just find half of the Guardians insufferable to watch, and James Gunn is still fully capable of movies that I love. The trailers for this movie were excellent, and, unlike Suicide Squad, this movie was just as awesome as those trailers made it seem. The action is bloody and visceral and just super fun to watch. The characters are hilarious, endearing, and, most importantly, really weird. What I love about DC is how ridiculous their characters, especially the villains, can be. This is the first time I’ve seen DC really go all out with the wackiness of their characters. Aquaman, SHAZAM!, and Birds of Prey are pretty wacky, yes. But Aquaman is mostly explosions, the villains in SHAZAM! are grey wispy monsters, and Birds of Prey… I don’t know what to complain about there. That’s a good movie. But what I’m saying is they don’t go as all out as this one.
There’s really not much else to say. It’s just a really great movie that I really loved. It’s probably my favorite DC movie. My favorite characters are Harley, who only gets better with every appearance, Ratcatcher 2, a completely original and excellent addition, Rick Flag, even though he was the most boring part of the original, and Polka-Dot Man. David Dastmalchian absolutely knocks it out of the park, which isn’t that surprising, considering how funny he is in the Ant-Man movies. The running joke about him seeing his mom everywhere is so funny. And I know I said those are my favorite characters, but I love pretty much everyone in this. Nathan Fillion as TDK shows how little screen time he needs to be goddamn hilarious. Peter Capaldi does a great job playing just a screaming British man. I would like to thank James Gunn eternally for making Starro the villain of this. So disgusting and weird and fun but also a really sad, broken character somehow? I am a little sad that none of the Squad members got taken over by Starro though. And even the new non-comic characters are great. Like Luna, the incredibly charming dictator that loves birds, who’s only in the movie for like ten minutes. And Milton. Poor Milton. Stallone also did a very good job as King Shark.
I could talk about this movie for years, but I’ll finish up by just mentioning how amazing Harley’s action sequence in the palace is. Full of blood and guts and animated birds and flowers. So good. Watch this movie if I haven’t spoiled literally everything for you. It’s bloody and disgusting and just an incredible movie.
So that’s my ranking of some comic book things. If you want to know what I think about non comic book or Paul Rudd things that came out this year, then come back on Friday, where I lament watching too much shit this year. I’ll probably also talk about The Suicide Squad again, so yeah. Happy New Year in a few days!
Too Many Servings Of John 