John Wick Chapter 3 Parabellum review

Chapter 2 ended with quite the hook, so needless to say excitement levels for Chapter 3 were high. Once again this movie picks off right where the last one left off; calling these "chapters" is completely appropriate.

While Chapter 2 felt different to me from the first movie, Chapter 3 feels very much like Chapter 2, only everything is taken further. The action is bigger and better. The supporting cast is more characterful. John's opponents are more dangerous. The criminal underworld is even more exaggerated. There's more dogs than ever before!

Now I've generally been of the opinion that "bigger and better" is not the best way to make a sequel, because even if you actually do succeed in making something "better" than it's predecessor, it will probably still have less impact because the novelty will have faded; it will likely feel like "more of the same". And it's true that Chapter 3 has lost some of the novelty factor of the original or even of Chapter 2.

However, I think I prefer it to Chapter 2 at least. While the action in Chapter 2 was fantastic, the action in Chapter 3 has an additional spark of creativity. Fight scenes, whether they be gunfights or close combat, are more interesting and complex, with more environmental interaction, and even a touch more humor.

Furthermore, Chapter 3 addresses (or at least tries to address) a complaint I had about Chapter 2: John's own motivations and thought processes seemed to lack the depth of the original. While not as deep as the first, at least in my view, Chapter 3 at least touches upon John's motivations, something that Chapter 2 never really seemed to bother with.

Another factor I think is that, because of how closely each film in the series feels follows the last, they feel more more episodic than most sequels. I suspect that this contributes to these movies feeling  slightly less "same-y" than they otherwise might.


I really don't think there's much more that I need to say. I'm giving this an 8/10: it's just a great action movie that's very stylish and has a very well fleshed-out world.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

I enjoyed the "playful" element of the weapon-museum fight scene. The shootout with the trained dogs was creative, brutal, and very well choreographed, really an action highlight of the series in my eyes. I loved the gunfight against the armoured squad, it really showed how good John is at overcoming obstacles. The martial arts battles at the end were great, though the setup felt a little awkward to me - the Table's assassins don't kill him when they have the chance and give him the chance to recover a bit, even though his killed a number of their comrades already? It's just a little bit... awkward.


As I touched upon in the previous review, I personally find the representation of the criminal underworld as being this supremely ordered and organized affair to be a little bit hard to swallow; it interferes with my suspension of disbelief I suppose. Chapter 3 takes this element even farther than Chapter 2, personally that was my biggest issue with Chapter 3. The Table is portrayed as being so large, so powerful, that it's practically omniscient - they knew that the Russians had helped John, they even knew exactly how many bullets were in the gun that the Bowery King gave him.

Sure, the first film gave us glimpses to a connected and somewhat organised criminal element, with the Continental being the most obvious element. But it all felt like just one local organisation, or possibly a collection of loosely associated local organisations, with some level of order. But now it feels more like all the crime in the world is rigidly controlled by one all-powerful entity. I'm just finding it hard to reconcile the structured, ordered, exaggerated world of Chapter 2 and 3 with the rougher, looser, more grounded world we saw in the original.

Well, being less grounded and more exaggerated is not a bad thing, it's more a matter of taste. I think I could enjoy it either way, it's probably just the transition that's bothering me; I think I like a certain degree of consistency in my fictional worlds. At the end of the day the change has given the franchise a direction to go that it might not otherwise have had, keeping it fresher than it might otherwise have been. And of course it provides a sense of escalation that is valuable for a follow-up.



This might be a bit of a strange comment, but I'm starting to suspect that John isn't actually very smart? I mean, no-one ever explicitly said that he was, but he gets built up so much as this terrifying boogey-man (to the point that he's actually described as the guy who kills the boogey-man) that it's just kind of implied that he's smart? I mean, don't you have to be kind of smart to be a good assassin? You just kind of expect him to be able to out-think his opponents as well as out-shoot them, right?

But I feel like he doesn't really make very intelligent decisions in the sequels (well, not in the original either, but it wasn't really an issue there he was operating on a purely emotional level). Perhaps the bigger problem is that, at least in the sequels, he doesn't really make decisions, he basically just does what people tell him to. He killed Gianna at Santino's behest, idiotically walked across the desert on foot exactly as he was told to rather than maybe figuring out a smarter way to get to the Elder (like maybe using a vehicle of some kind rather than, you know, WALKING ACROSS THE DESERT ON FOOT), he agrees to do the Elder's bidding, then immediately betrays him when Winstons suggests it, only to risk his life to protect Winston while the man relaxes in a bunker.

Yes, there's certainly times when he plans his next step on his own, but these are only when there's no-one there to tell him what to do. He only takes the initiative AFTER following directions gets him into a bad spot, but then he goes ahead and follows directions again as soon as someone shows up who's willing to give them. He never refuses to follow a path that someone else lays out for him (the exception of course is when someone wants him to die).

I don't exactly want to say that it's lazy writing, but it is very convenient for the plot and is focused more on setting up the next scene than on exploring John as a character. Which is a bit of a shame since I still think there was a spark of brilliance in the character development we saw in the first movie, but not since.


So why did the Zero and his men attack John after the Elder had pardoned him? I mean, I assume the Elder called off the hit; it would be kind of stupid to order someone to do something while the rest of your organisation is trying to stop them. I mean, the Adjucator seemed to know about John's mission, and Zero was working for the Adjucator, so... eh, whatever. The motorcycle scene was pretty cool after all.

John Wick Chapter 2 review

Needless to say I had high expectations for John Wick Chapter 2. This is something I generally try to avoid, but I enjoyed the original John Wick so much that I couldn't help it.

John Wick gave us a glimpse into an interesting hidden world of organized crime. Chapter 2 built on that, drawing us deeper into this world of connections, rules, and obligations. The world-building in this movie is interesting and impressive.

It also made it a little harder for me to buy into the premise. It's always been my understanding that criminals are generally not too big on following rules, so the idea of a massive criminal underworld that is pretty much built entirely on rules and codes of honour was a bit of an obstacle to my suspension of disbelief. Yes, I know that such things do exist in real life to a certain extent, but the degree to which Chapter 2 shows them as being organized highly functional and ever-present hierarchies was just a little much for me.

Perhaps it wasn't necessarily that I couldn't buy into the concept, but rather that to me it didn't exactly feel consistent with the first film. There John and his adversaries operated more or less as they wished. There were hints of structure, but overall my impression was that the Continental Hotel was an independent oasis of order in a sea of chaos. But in this film, we find out that the Continental is part of a criminal organization that seems to rule all with an iron grip, it's agents on every street corner, it's rules followed to the letter. Well, perhaps I'm exaggerating, but my point remains: I find it hard to imagine the events of John Wick 1 happening in the world of John Wick 2.


My other hang-up was that I kept looking for something like that little moment the original had that revealed what was really happening inside John, but I just never saw it. I didn't really feel as if I understood what was driving him through most of this movie; he seems so motivated, but I saw no indication that his motivation ever went beyond anger at being double-crossed. Consequently I just never felt as if this one had the same depth as the first.


Of course the John Wick films are first and foremost action movies, and the action in Chapter 2 does not disappoint. Keanu Reeves has genuine action chops, which the movie is eager to show off (as perhaps is Keanu himself...). The camera work and editing are great, the environments are stylish and colourful, and the cast is a great deal of fun.


Overall I give it a 7/10: if you're here to see Keanu Reeves punch, stab, and shoot his way through a medium-sized army, you won't be disappointed!

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

Santino tells John to kill his sister Gianna. My hangup here is: why did John actually go through with it? I know that he owed Santino a debt, but he has no issues saying to his face that he wants to kill him. And killing Gianna is clearly against the "rules". So don't the rules trump his debt, at least in this case? Plus of course he clearly suspects he is going to be double crossed (it was pretty much guaranteed in fact; can't leave witnesses lying around right?). Why not just tell Gianna that her brother is forcing him to kill her? Maybe even ask her to pretend to be dead for a short while to lure out the brother or something? Surely that works out better? I guess John is just really big on honour and paying your debts and stuff.


Keanu Reeves is really showing off in this film. He pretty much just straight-up runs a three-gun course in the sewers, complete with fancy shotgun reloads, then at one point he pulls a one-handed press check on a pistol... even though there's nothing wrong with or filling his other hand. But hey, I'm not complaining!

John Wick review

The last Keanu Reeves movie I'd seen before John Wick was Man of Tai Chi, which I loved, so I was reasonably optimistic going in to this one.

First of all, let me address casting. There were a great many actors in this movie who I am very fond of but many of whom I feel are under-appreciated: John Leguizamo (I love this guy!), Willem Dafoe (probably my favourite actor for playing a villain), Bridget Regan, Lance Reddick, Adrianne Palicki, Dean Winters, and Daniel Bernardt to name a few. Special mention goes to a short but enjoyable performance by Kevin Nash; I forgot how big that guy was! I enjoyed seeing them all here, although sadly most of them had only minor roles - even Willem Dafoe had surprisingly little actual screen time. Still, each of them put in a great performance and was enjoyable on-screen.

Michael Nyqvist's performance as the main villain impressed me at times, though there were occasions when I think going a little more over-the-top might have better suited the film. Still, there were certainly moment that endeared the character to me, which is more than I can say about many movie villains.

Keanu Reeves himself actually puts in one of his better performances here. Yes, he plays much of it in his standard "strong and silent" mode (which I have no problem with), but there's moments where the character's emotions come through, and I thought he handled them well.


Of course it's Keanu's physical performance that really shines in the film. Because where John Wick really stands out is in it's excellent action. Smart, hard-hitting and extremely well choreographed and shot yet acted out with just a touch of roughness that actually added to the realism, the is exactly the kind of action movie that I love. Both the gunfights and the fistfights are miles ahead of most of what Hollywood puts out. Despite being the action being fast and intense, I could still see and understand pretty much everything that happened on-screen, even in the darker scenes such as the club shootout. That's impressive.

Let's not forget that the brilliance of the action is in no small part thanks to the fantastic choreography and cinematography. The camera work and editing do a great job of showing off how John delivers death with confidence and skill, and the world he inhabits is a stylish blend of the old and the new, of upscale hotels with old-world charm, colourful neon-drenched nighclubs, gothic churches, and rain-drenched dockyards.


In a movie like this you might not expect too much from the story. And on the surface, the story of John Wick doesn't have too much to it, initially coming across as a simple and straightforwards tale of revenge. At least that was my own first impression. But there was one scene in the film that bothered me a little bit, and as I contemplated that scene I came to realise that this film had more depth than I originally thought. Though a little subtle perhaps, John Wick is a story of how we deal with grief, of how hard it is to change, and how easy it is to slip back into destructive habits when we are in pain. Well, that's my read anyway, and in my eyes that elevates the movie beyond a simple action movie.


Overall I'm giving John Wick an 8/10: a fantastic and stylish action movie with just a little bit more depth than you might have expected. Fortunately it seems other action movies have started to take notes from John Wick, hopefully we will eventually be rid of the plague of the "quick-cut shaky-cam". It can't happen quickly enough if you ask me.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

While the film initially seems to be driven by Wick's desire for revenge against Iosef, the actual kill is not the climax of the movie. This is the scene that I mentioned bothered me a little, because it seemed to be given very little importance: John doesn't say anything before or after, he barely even looks as Iosef as he kills him, and doesn't seem to register any satisfaction when the deed is finally done. He barely even waits for the body to hit the ground before walking away.

That's because John didn't really care about Iosef. He was never after revenge, not really. John was always a killer; he left that life behind for his wife's sake, but it was still a part of him. Suffering after his wife's death, the dog was something to hold on to, a way to remember and feel close to her, but when even that was taken away from him he was left with no way to handle the immense grief and pain that was overwhelming him. So he reverted back to old habits: he decided on a goal and threw himself into it, focussing on it as a way to avoid thinking about what was really hurting him. Killing Iosef was his goal, but he didn't gain any pleasure from it. Quite the opposite, with Iosef dead John no longer had anything to keep him busy, to distract him from the pain.

I think that was a brilliant bit of character work and a subtle subversion of the standard revenge trope.


I personally found the final battle with Viggo a bit anticlimactic. Viggo had earlier traded his son's life to save his own, but it seems he later regretted it and deliberately antagonized John into killing him. He didn't try to set a trap for John, he didn't wait until he was safe before calling John with news of Marcus' death, he deliberately did things in a way that would most likely end with his own death. Suicide-by-Wick as it were. It was interesting and tied into the theme of grief, but John fighting one out-of-shape old man was not really the most satisfying climax to such an intense action film.


Something about the way John adopted a dog at the end felt a bit off for me. He didn't stumble onto a dog and decide to adopt him, he didn't pick a dog that reminded him of Daisy, he just walked into a pound and picked a dog at random (as far as we could tell anyway), as though one dog was as good as another. Perhaps that was deliberate? Perhaps the idea was less to inform us that John was going to heal, to be OK, and more to say that he still didn't know what to do with himself and figured he would try the dog thing again out of desperation more than anything else? Is this not actually a happy ending, but a nihilistic one? I find that rather interesting to think about, if not perhaps the most satisfying way to end the movie.

Cold Pursuit review

With the exception of Taken 3, I've enjoyed pretty much every Liam Neeson post-Taken action/thriller. Taken 2, Unknown, Run All Night, Non-Stop, The Commuter; none impressed me as much as Taken, but I pretty much enjoyed them all. So of course I was on-board for Cold Pursuit as soon as I heard his name. It turned out to be a bit of a different beast however.

There's moments in Cold Pursuit that are classic "Neeson thriller", but overall that's not what this film is about, and if you go into it expecting to see Liam Neeson single-handedly beating the crap out of armies of thugs, you will be disappointed. Liam Neeson's character Nels Coxman does NOT have a particular set of skills, unless of course you count driving a snowplow.

No, Cold Pursuit is not really an action movie. I'm not sure I'd call it a thriller either. If I had to give it a label, I'd describe it as a crime-comedy. And when I say "comedy", I'm talking dark comedy: if you don't think people dying in stupid ways is funny, then this might not be the movie for you.

Personally, once I understood what I was dealing with, I was able to sit back and enjoy the film for what it is. It doesn't hurt that the story is fundamentally a good one. This is a movie about the cyclical nature of violence, about the dangers of seeking revenge. That's not to say it's preachy or anything; the subtext is there if you want to think about it, but it's not obtrusive for those who aren't looking for a morality tale.

I found many of the characters entertaining, with more depth than I might have expected, and the actors did a great job of bringing them to life. Liam Neeson was fun as always, and I would say he got to show a bit more range here than in his standard thriller roles. Tom Bateman was great as the characterful Viking, and playing opposite him Julia Jones was a force of nature as Aya. I loved Willaim Forsythe's performance as Brock, Tom Jackson brought a suitable sense of gravitas to White Bull, Nicholas Holmes brought surprising depth to the role of the young Ryan, and as always I enjoyed watching Michael Eklund die.


Subjectively I would rate this film 8/10. It doesn't have the size or spectacle of the kind of film that I tend to make time for these days, but I think it does what it set out to do very well, and I at least enjoyed it.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

In retrospect I think the first clue that this film is a comedy is the fact that we see Liam Neeson running around with a cut-down bolt-action rifle with the scope still attached. It was right there in front of us the whole time!

Avengers: Endgame review

I guess I haven't yet finished processing Endgame, but I wanted to get my feelings down anyway. I enjoyed it, but it made me feel sad. I was pleasantly surprised in some ways, but couldn't help but feel disappointed in others.

This is definitely an emotional movie, yet many times the characters felt less developed to me than they did in Infinity War - while I was expecting many characters who had a lot of screen-time in Infinity War to get much less here, I was still surprised by just how little time some of them got (some didn't even get a single speaking line), while at the same time a few characters got a lot of screen time in both (coughtonycough). Of course some characters who we barely even saw in Infinity War got much more development here as expected, I just feel like I was hoping for a better balance.

Speaking of balance, I feel that Infinity War trumped this film in both action and comedy as well. Somehow, despite being a film with so much loss and death, it feels brighter and more colourful in my mind. As much as I had issues with that movie, and as much as it ended on a downer, it just feels like the better of the two to me.

To be fair though, Infinity War didn't exactly grab me right away. It impressed me, but I had issues. I guess it grew on me more over time. Perhaps Endgame will be the same. It did have some great emotional beats, visual spectacle, and triumphs after all.

At the end of the day, Endgame was an impressive capstone for an impressive cinematic storytelling accomplishment. As Shakespeare once wrote, "Parting is such sweet sorrow"; that's pretty much how I feel right now. I have enjoyed the Marvel cinematic universe, and I am sad that this chapter is over, yet I like a story with an end; better a clean fulfilling ending with closure than to just drag things on forever. Of course Marvel isn't exactly done making these things; I can only wonder what the future holds. How much lore can they build before the universe becomes too unwieldy, the way the comics usually are? Will they decide on a reboot at some point, will they deliberately but softly move away from the "everything is a consistent shared universe" idea, or will they just try to keep it going but create more and more plot holes until the cinematic universe is as inconsistent as the comics? We'll see I guess.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

I mentioned that I felt like there was less character development here. Specifically I felt like there were character arcs that were set up yet didn't get the payoff.

First of all there's the Hulk. In Infinity War there's a subplot where Bruce Banner can't get the Hulk to come out anymore. This was very interesting; why was it happening and what did it mean? How would he fix it? Remember that the Hulk is a facet of Banner's personality, a manifestation of his repressed anger issues, so this kind of thing is a great opportunity to explore human issues. Instead there's a couple of lines of casual dialogue about how he's all great now. You can't just have that kind of thing happen off-screen! You're telling me that Bruce solved his anger issues and integrated his split personality, learning to control a previously uncontrollable power? Off-screen? At a time when everyone on the planet is at an all time low, when Hawkeye is running around chopping people up and Thor is so down in the dumps that he can't even be bothered to step out of his front door, that Bruce Banner has solved all his emotional issues? To me it made little sense and felt like a big let-down and a hugely wasted opportunity. Also I found it weird that his personality seemed to be different. In all the previous films he was always a little on edge, a little uncomfortable. Here he's just really relaxed and chill the whole time, just sort of passive about everything, even when everyone else is always down. I guess it makes sense if we accept that his whole personality has changed as a result of integrating his two personas, but... it felt weird.

Then there's Quill. There's a lot to be said about how his life has been so strange and unstable that he's only now starting to mature as an adult. In Infinity War he made a terrible and stupid mistake that allowed Thanos to succeed. We needed to see... something. To see him talk about how it happened, to see him tortured by regret, to see him find an opportunity to atone for it. What we got was... nothing. Nothing at all. He just appears, throws some punches, and gets kicked in the crotch.

And then there's Thor. Thor is... strange. In the early films (everything before Ragnarok), he was more of a straight character. Well, he was funny, but that humor mainly came from his constantly being in environments that he didn't understand. Things like the way he went to a pet shop to buy a horse to ride, or how he threw his coffee mug to the ground as a complement, or how he hung Mjolnir on a coat rack. In Ragnarok, he became... a bit of a buffoon. Things like the way he was screaming on the chair, or pleading not to have his hair cut; it was more about him being a clown than being a fish out of water. But in the middle of this his character was growing and changing, and still he was always the noble warrior; he never gave up, always kept trying to do what was right, what needed to be done. Overall the film was so funny and entertaining that it just worked despite being a departure from how the character had previously been portrayed.

Infinity War dialed it back a little bit. He was no longer a buffoon. He had some comedically stupid lines, but there was depth to them. It worked really well. This may have been the best Thor we've seen yet.

In Endgame, he is beyond being a buffoon. He is just... sad. This was the first time Thor ever gave up, the first time he was ever called upon to fight the good fight and he ignored the call. It was painful to watch, but at least I had hope that he would pull himself out of this funk. That... did not exactly happen. They kind of went through the motions, but it just didn't really work, at least not for me. But let's back up a bit.

In his first film, Thor grew up from a spoiled child to a responsible adult. In Ragnarok, he learned to stop crutching on Mjolnir and believe in his own strength. He becomes king of Asgard, and sets off determined to lead his people. In Infinity War he loses everything and everyone he had left (or so it appeared at the time), but bounces right back to his feet; not for a second does he entertain the idea of giving up despite the pain. Yes, he's being motivated by revenge, but that doesn't change the fact that in that situation there would be a strong temptation to surrender to despair, but he never succumbed. In End Game, he starts off by regressing to a useless drunkard who is not fulfilling his responsibilities as king. By the end of it he... has decided to be himself, whatever that means, and completely abandons his people and his responsibilities, running off to have adventures in the stars alongside his friends. Well, some of them; he seems to have left Korg and Miek behind for some reason. Not sure why, I kinda feel like they wouldn't have minded tagging along. Maybe the ship's not big enough?

Initially we are led to believe that he feels guilty for failing to stop Thanos. There's a scene where his mother gives him some speech about not being who we are supposed to be, but being ourselves. Which kind of just feels like a cop-out to me; "just be yourself" is good advice for acting around new people, but never struck me as a good guiding life principle. Anyway, that's pretty much the end of his character arc; it even ends with him feeling overjoyed because Mjolnir responds to his call, proving to him that he is still worthy. But in Ragnarok he outgrew the need for Mjolnir, the need for a weapon to validate his worth. So the scene with Mjolnir here further regresses and undermines his character! It just doesn't work for me, it never felt like his arc had been concluded. I spent the whole movie waiting for the payoff, and I never felt it was there. He failed again, repeatedly, to stop Thanos, and then after the battle is over just runs off and leaves the hard work to Valkyrie.

To be honest I was expecting the payoff to be him actually defeating Thanos this time. It might not have been a very deep arc, but it would have been more satisfying. And I do believe he should have been able to do it; when he lost the first time Thanos had already acquired some of the Infinity stones, and the second time when Thor had Stormbreaker he actually defeated Thanos. So now, with both Stormbreaker and Mjolnir, against a Thanos with no Infinity Stones, it felt like he should have been able to win. Especially alongside Iron Man - who once singlehandedly drew Thanos' blood for the first time himself - and Captain America wielding Mjolnir and therefore power equal to Thor's own.

Actually, I am a bit bitter about the fact that it was Iron Man who actually ended things. I don't really like Iron Man, and the MCU's version is an annoying jerk (entertaining though he may be). He didn't deserve to have that victory. I'm actually even annoyed that he got to be a martyr. Simply coming home to his family would have been enough payoff for his arc, instead he stole the payoff from Thor's arc. Well, that's how it felt to me anyway. He got the most screen-time of anyone in this movie, as well as doing the most move the plot (got the big monologue at the start, invented time travel, dealt the final blow, had the big ending funeral wrap-up), all this despite getting a great deal of screen-time in the last movie as well. Meanwhile Captain America seems to just... be there for most of the movie, despite doing very little in the last one too. Yeah, he gets a couple of good fights, and a nice little story wrap-up at the end, but very little of what he does is actually all that important or something that only he could have done, and overall it was all very much overshadowed by how focused the film was on Stark.

Even Thanos himself is less interesting this time. It could be argued that his character arc was concluded in the first film I suppose, but that doesn't feel satisfying to me because his arc needs to end with him, well, losing. Yes, he loses at the end here and it's a powerful moment. But the thing is, the Thanos who loses here is not the Thanos that we know, it's an earlier version, one who didn't do all the things we saw him do, one with different goals. He feels like a different person.

Perhaps the issue I have is that our heroes' victory is... physical, but I never exactly get the sense that they won the argument? I'm not sure why I feel this way here but not in other films; perhaps this was the first film where the villain's character and motivations were so fleshed out? Maybe I feel this way because the topic of societies surviving and flourishing despite limited resources is never actually discussed in Endgame? In most (good?) comic books, when the protagonists and antagonists are battling due to a philosophical disagreement, the two points of view are usually explored to some extent and the heroes either have their position validated or they have to admit that their position is not perfect, but it's still better than the alternative. That did not happen here; Thanos established his position in Infinity War, but then our heroes never really presented a contrary perspective: they just punched Thanos until they won.

Maybe we are supposed to feel a "moral victory" from how people were really sad for a few years, like that somehow proves that Thanos was wrong? That's not really a compelling argument in my mind. By the way, I don't understand why Thanos changed his goals. He's been running around wiping out half of each planet's population for a very, very long time; you're telling me he was surprised to find that people were sad for a while afterwards? I just feel like this shouldn't be a revelation for him is all.

Several other characters get less to do than I had been expecting - I guess that's because they are still going to be around for a while so they didn't feel the need to squeeze in some screen time for them, but still I felt their absences. Fury doesn't get a single line of dialogue (having Samuel L. Jackson in your movie and not giving him anything to do should be an actual punishable crime imho). Danvers feels shoe-horned in; she never really does anything that contributes to the actual plot, and could be cut out of the movie without changing anything. Strange pops up and then just stands there spinning some water around. I'm very disappointed that they brought in Tom Hiddleston yet couldn't be bothered to give Loki more a than a couple of seconds of "new" material. The dance at the end with Peggy was super sweet and emotional (and made me feel happy), yet I really wish that had given her some actual dialogue or something - Howard Stark got to walk around and talk for several minutes after all, and Peggy was always a far cooler character! Despite technically being there in the action scene at the end, Potts felt like nothing more than background to me - I don't think she had a single scene with her own daughter (which is made far more egregious by Hogan somehow getting a long emotional scene with young Morgan Stark).

It might not be fair of me to complain about some of the side characters getting too little screen time in a film that's already very long, but it's partly because I enjoyed seeing some characters that we hadn't seen for a while - such as Frigg, that was great - so much, that it felt somewhat unfair that some of my other favourites didn't get the same treatment. Oh well, that's just the way the cookie crumbles I suppose.


So let's talk about the "reverse-snap". They brought back everyone who was killed by the Snap. Hulk mentions that he tried to bring back Widow as well, but couldn't. Fine, but does the fact that he tried to bring someone back who wasn't killed by the Snap mean that he tried to bring back other people who were killed by Thanos before the Snap? People that he SAW die? I'm talking about the Asgardians: Loki, Heimdall, and all the refugees that Thanos killed at the start of Infinity War? How about Eitri and the dwarves? Hell, why not bring back Odin and Frigga while he was at it; he may not have been there for their deaths but he did spend some time with Thor. Hell, Thor was standing right there when Hulk had the gauntlet, and he had spoken to his Mother again (and had to deal with the knowledge of her death again) only a few moments ago so it should have been pretty fresh in his mind, maybe he could have mentioned something? I mean, since you're bringing people back from the dead ANYWAY? What about FREAKING VISION (remember that according to Infinity War he didn't necessarily need the mind stone to survive)? How about Agent Coulson - as far as they know he's still dead, and it was his death that got the Avengers together in the first place right? I could go on: Cap was there and he had just seen Peggy again, why not try to bring her back too (at the correct age of course)?


Endgame just felt less entertaining to me than Infinity War. I felt that there was less humor, and generally less interesting action - some of it was very cool, but not as interesting or creative as some of the battles in Infinity War. I feel like a lot of the environments were just darker and less interesting; the big final battle for example was dark, felt de-saturated, and took place in... well, in a big pile of mud. Just... the drab colour palette was a bit of a let-down. It was very emotional to be sure; more so to me than Infinity War - but that might because I never for a moment bought into the "deaths" from the Snap, so I never felt the emotions that a lot of people seemed to when they watched all those characters fade away. For those who did buy into that moment, perhaps Infinity War is the more emotional of the two as well?


Time travel is a real Pandora's Box. I do admit the film made good use of it, allowing us to revisit times and characters in an emotional walk down memory lane. And to a certain extent they limited the potential future damage by establishing that you can't change the past. However... they still opened Pandora's Box. How many problems do you think they will face in the future where the solution could just be "go back in time, borrow some Infinity Stones, save the day, go put them back"? Or even "go to alternate timelines, borrow a few dozen Thors and Hulks, save the day, go put them back"?

What's more, the use of time-travel has created alternate timelines. Now it's a common trope that alternate timelines exist (usually portrayed as an infinite number), but the way they were introduced here suggests that they were only created by traveling back to the past and changing things. In other words the Avengers have created, what, four entirely new universes? That's pretty insane, and the implications are hard to process.

What's more, in all but one of these universes, the Snappening is likely still going to happen! All that pain and suffering will be experienced all over again by multiple universes worth of sentient beings. And in each of them, won't the Avengers pull the same time travel stunt? Leading to yet more alternate timelines being spun off? It's essentially an infinite loop! The more you think about it the stranger it gets. What's more, somehow the creation of all these alternate timelines feels like it lessens the importance of "our" timeline to me. What makes "our" timeline more important than the others after all? I don't know, it's... the idea of actually creating alternate timelines feels too big and messy to me to have been handled as casually as I feel it was.

Speaking of which, how was Captain America able to "target" alternate timelines to travel to at the end? It seems like they didn't need the big time travel machine as their little wrist gadgets allowed them to jump around (as we saw Cap and Stark jumping back further after their first attempt failed). If those tiny little wristbands were self-contained time machines, why did they need the big fancy one? Why did they even need the big time machine if the van worked as a time machine, and if the van didn't work as a time machine then why were they trying to get the gauntlet to it? And even if it did work as a time machine, weren't they out of Pym Particles? If they weren't out of Pym Particles, why did they need the van (if you can use the time machine before it was even created, why can't you use it after it was destroyed)? Perhaps they only needed the Pym Particles for the trip back because they didn't have the big time machine for that? Although they were shrinking stuff (doesn't that use up Pym Particles), so why not shrink a full sized time machine? Also, how did Thanos shrink his whole battleship (it feels like Nebula should not have had that many Pym Particles on her)? Why waste Pym Particles shrinking a spaceship when they could have just sent the two teams directly to the correct planets, instead of sending them together to one place then having them fly off somewhere else? Am I over-thinking this?

While we're on the topic, why the hell was the new time machine set up outside, instead of, I don't know, INSIDE A LAB OR SOMETHING? In the film it feels as if Captain America was waiting for them the whole time, suggesting that he had gone back in the past and lived there. Except that was impossible according to the rules they established. It was explained in an interview that he had lived in an alternate timeline, and used the time machine to come back to that point in order to speak to them. But then why go sit on the bench in the distance? It felt as if he had been there for at least a few minutes, which would have meant that he was there from before he left, which of course was impossible, so I guess he was only sitting there for a few seconds? Are we sure he didn't create any new timelines while he was jumping about? Feels like he must have.

By the way, where did he get the shield? His shield was broken, so I guess he stole another Captain America's shield? Meaning he left another timeline without the iconic shield? Seems like a crappy thing to do; what is that timelines' Falcon going to do? How is that timeline's shield not broken anyway, didn't they have to deal with the whole Thanos thing the same way? I guess it must have been the one timeline where Thanos left for the "main" one? Ugh, this is why I wish they hadn't pulled this time-travel stunt; too many paradoxes!

Of course the Time Stone creates all sorts of questions now that we have established some rules for how time-travel works in the MCU. For example, in Infinity War we saw Strange doing... something with the Time Stone to see the future. But if you're seeing the future, that means the Future already exists? OR it means you're going forwards into the future, then coming back to the past? Does the time stone allow actual time travel, or is Tony's time machine that he put together in one day more powerful than the Time Stone? Was Strange splitting off alternate timelines when he was examining the future?


How did Nebula know where the soul-stone was? I don't specifically remember it ever being mentioned in front of her? I guess I need to watch Infinity War again to be sure.


In all that chaos at the end, Thanos somehow gets his hands on the gauntlet? OK then.


So the infinity gems - or at least the gem of time - protects Earth. That is what the Ancient One said. So now that it's been destroyed in the main timeline... what? Is Earth doomed? The gems will be destroyed in all but one of the created timelines too; does that mean that the only timeline where Earth won't be destroyed is the one where Thanos left to enter another timeline?

Oh, and another thing: in some of these other timelines our Avengers stole the Infinity gems, then replaced them with - hopefully - minimal interference. So in these timelines, when their own Avengers go back in time to steal the Infinity gems, they will logically go to the same moments in time, right? And in doing so, they will bump into "our" Avengers (or rather a new spinoff version of our Avengers... ugh, this is complicated) trying to steal those same stones, right? So now there's THREE instances of the Avengers at that point in time! Oh... I actually want to see that! Imagine the "Cap vs Cap" scene with a third Captain America thrown in! Man, imagine the stories you could tell about the butterfly effects rippling outwards from all these time loops.


How are there any Asgardians still alive? In Infinity War Thanos destroyed their ship and seemingly killed all of them. Even if some of them took escape pods (which I don't think we ever saw), how did they end up on Earth? How is Valkyrie and Korg just casually sitting there - even if escape pods were used, wouldn't Valkyrie have stayed behind to try to fight off Thanos? I'm not saying it's a plot hole or anything, only that there was no mention of them in Infinity War, then they show up here without any real explanation; I would have appreciated at least a couple of lines of dialogue or something. Sigh. I guess it's just my nature to like things to be clear.

Oh, and where the hell did Valkyrie get a pegasus from?


Yeah, so, I was disappointed we didn't see Loki return. I mean, he of all people just keeps coming back right? Either he could have faked his death to Thanos again, or he could have been brought back by the stones; either way I would have been happy.


So the Gamorra we have now is from nine years ago, right? Of course Quill has only aged four years since he's been gone for the last five years. I guess that's fine.


How does Tony Stark know enough about quantum mechanics to figure out time-travel in, like, one day? Isn't his area of speciality... I dunno, things to do with machines and computers? He built missiles, robot suits, and a new power source in the first film, and since then we've seen him build more suits and advanced A.I.s; none of that has very much to do with quantum mechanics and cutting-edge physics does it? In the comics Ant-Man built Ultron, in the films they changed it to Iron-Man. And I was OK with that, because it makes sense: Ant-Man does stuff with... I dunno, quantum everything, Iron-Man does robotics. But by that same token it should have been Ant-Man (I'm talking Hank Pym of course) who figured out time-travel, as that area (quantum physics) been very much established to be his wheelhouse in the cinematic universe. So why did they feel the need to hand it over to Stark? Seriously, Stark gets EVERYTHING in this movie. Is RDJ blackmailing the Russos or something?


When we see Hulk here he seems to be a beloved celebrity. But here's the thing: the whole Earth has suffered the biggest tragedy EVER. People are in pain, even five years later. Normally when this sort of thing happens, people look for someone to blame. I feel like a lot of people would resent the Avengers for failing to stop it; it might not be logical, but we aren't always very logical when we're emotional. Loss leads to resentment. Even if people didn't blame the Avengers, they might not enjoy seeing them as it would just serve as a reminder. And even before the Snappening feelings things were strange; Civil War and all that.

So I feel like Hulk walking around in public might not attract the sort of adoration that we're seeing here. Yes, the kids we see asking for his photo are perhaps too young to carry all that emotional baggage, but still; he just seems to be very happy and comfortable walking around in public as the Hulk. Which felt especially out of place to me considering how down all the other Avengers are. Again, the Hulk was just so weirdly handled here. I mean, the part where he tells the Ancient One that "he's not asking" - while smiling no less - and tries to just take the stone by force rather than trying to actually explain to her why he needs it... it just felt out of character to me.


There's a scene with all the female heroes coming together. It was a cool scene, but it didn't exactly make sense: why in that chaotic maelstrom did all the participants of one gender suddenly congregate? Co-incidence? Unlikely. Weren't they busy with other stuff? If they were, then why did they suddenly all simultaneously think it was OK to leave the guys they had been fighting alongside on their own in the middle of this pitched battle? And if they weren't busy, then why was not a single male free enough to join them? Yes, I know, I'm overthinking this. I dunno why, but this movie really has me picking at the seams; not every movie does this to me you know.


Infinity War dealt with themes of sacrifice. Thanos was prepared to sacrifice anything any anyone to achieve his goals, and in the end he did. Several times the Avengers or Guardians were called upon to make sacrifices, but they weren't prepared to do so; even when they did - such as Wanda destroying the Mind Stone - it proved to be too late. Now, in Endgame, the subject of sacrifice appeared again, but this time the Avengers won through self-sacrifice. Widow, Hulk, Thor, Stark: all were ready to sacrifice themselves. And in the end their sacrifices saved everyone. Is the message here "only self-sacrifice is OK"? I dunno, but it's interesting.

Superman Red Son comic review

This is an interesting but, in my opinion, deeply flawed comic. If you're wondering whether to read it or not, the answer is: if you're a Superman fan you kind of have to (rather, you probably already have). Personally I found it highly aggravating. That's all I can really say before the spoiler tag.

#####SPOILER WARNING#####

The obvious direction to go, and the one I was NOT expecting this comic to go in as I thought it too obvious and too shallow, was to make Superman a villain simply because he was raised in the Soviet Union. So initially I was happy when that did not seem to be the case, only to be deeply disappointed when it was in fact the story that the comic ultimately settled on.

Superman, in this story, is a good man. A VERY good man: he devotes his life to helping others. Everything he does is out of a desire to better those around him. Meanwhile Lex Luthor is portrayed as being very self-centered and amoral. His methods are highly questionable, and the motivations given for his desire to defeat Superman are selfish: he is doing it out of pride.

In other words, the characters are fundamentally unchanged. The only difference is that Superman is Soviet and communist this time, which somehow is enough to make him the villain despite his basic nature being completely unchanged. Luthor, despite also being the same character as always, is still American, and somehow that now makes him the hero.

It is all ultimately extremely jingoistic: Superman is a Soviet communist, so he is the villain, no matter how selfless he is and how good his intentions are. Lex Luthor is an American capitalist, so he is ultimately the hero who saves the day, no matter how narcissistic and selfish he is. I understand that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions, but when you say that one change leads to completely different, far worse results then you are condemning that change, and that change here is simply the country that Superman grew up in.

Now I'm not an American, so I suppose this kind of deep-seated jingoism is more obvious and egregious to me. I can fully understand how this story might feel natural or... correct perhaps to people raised in America. I apologise if that sounds condescending or if I'm constructing a strawman: I too have my blind spots, and there's plenty of stories that I've casually enjoyed without picking up on problematic elements until they were pointed out to me.


Other than the nationalistic elements, I also disliked the moral ones. Superman could have "won" at any time, but he did not because his morals held him back. Luthor, who's methods were not restrained by any moral code, ultimately wins. That alone might be a fair reflection on real life; it's often easier to win if you cheat, and in many arenas (such as politics and business) those who pull ahead tend to be those who will do anything to win. My issue in this story though is that Luthor is ultimately portrayed as the hero, and Superman as the villain: Luthor saved the day using amoral methods, and that's the happy ending! In other words, it seems to me to be condemning individual morality and endorsing the idea that all that matters is the results! I can't even see it as endorsing the idea that the end justifies the means, because Luthor's end goal was simply to defeat Superman, not to save the world! The message reads to me as being that we should pursue our own personal benefit using any means necessary! And somehow that makes the world a better place? I don't know very much about Objectivism, but this seems to fit the descriptions I've read of it. And I hate it.


Let's talk for a moment about the origin of Superman. According to Wikipedia, Superman was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and first published in 1938. The character initially went through a number of changes and backstories before that time, but the published version was an alien from a distant planet.

Superman is therefore an immigrant. He came to Earth, adopted our culture and values, but brought with him knowledge, skills and attributes of his own home. By gathering the best of both worlds he serves his adopted home, improving and enriching the land, people, and culture. Just as the X-Men represent minorities, Superman represents immigrants. The "American Way" that Superman stands for is that of immigration and integration, of diverse and different people coming together, learning from each other, and working alongside each other for the benefit of all.

In Red Son, Superman is portrayed as a distant descendant of Lex Luthor himself, sent back in time to escape Earth's destruction. I don't really know why they felt the need to end this way; was it just so they could leave us with one more surprising twist? Because while it was indeed a callback to some of the earlier concepts that Jerry and Joe were working on for Superman, it would seem to be completely missing the point of the actual published Superman, the one people have been following for over 80 years now, as he's no longer an immigrant.

So yes: the original Superman is an immigrant who helps people through his selflessness and kindheartedness. Red Son Superman is a local who almost ruins the world through his selflessness and kindheartedness. I don't know if this was all deliberate or not, but I just feel like Red Son is an insult to Superman, a slap in the face of the original ideas and morals that Superman represents and champions. I just... I guess I have to say I actually feel offended by it.


Well, those are my biggest issues with the comic. I do have some other minor nitpicks to close things out with. First of all, I didn't like their treatment of Wonder Woman. For a very long time she was arguably the most well-recognised female superhero in the world. She starred in her own TV show, she's one of DC's "big three", and she was the first to have her own movie. While there are some... debatable elements in her history, overall Wonder Woman has been a comic book icon of female empowerment for many years now. So I did not like the way this comic reduced her to an inconsequential background character. She supports Superman's facist regime due to falling in love with him - love that is completely unrequited as Superman never even realises how she feels about him. Really? Wonder Woman is so passive that she never even makes a move or expresses her feelings to him? Then when she stands against him he simply blows past her with minimal effort? Good grief.

I also thought Batman's representation was strange. This kind of story is usually built on the idea of a single change to the established history, in this case Superman landing in East Europe rather than North America. But it doesn't really follow that that single change would have created such a different version of Batman. Which made him feel out of place to me. His character also kind of feels "wrong" to me, but I can't really explain why. I guess I just didn't really get why he was in the story? It felt gratuitous, like somehow you can't tell a Superman story without squeezing Batman in? I say why not? I just don't think he was really needed. Also what was the purpose of the reveal at the end that he had survived (despite it making no sense that he could have)?


At one point we are told that Lex Luthor has solved all of America's problems (at least the economic ones), but we are never given even the slightest suggestion of how he actually did it, which somehow made the assertion feel hollow. I know that no-one actually has the solutions, but I would have liked if some kind of surface-level explanation was provided. Oh well, maybe that's not reasonably of me, I just have a bit of a pet peeve when we are told that someone is super-intelligent but we don't exactly see them demonstrate that intelligence is an intelligent way, we are just told "hey look he just did a super-smart thing!".


Lex Luthor implies that everything that happened, including his own apparent defeat on multiple occasions, was all according to some long-term grand plan of his. Are we supposed to believe that this is all true, that it all happened according to Luthor's design? I choose to believe that it is not true but Luthor, an arrogant narcissist, has convinced himself that it is because that's just how big his ego is. History is written by the winners right?



Finally I will admit that there was one idea that I really liked; it's not a new idea to me but I don't see it addressed very often in comics so I enjoyed when it was brought up in Red Son, and that's the idea that Superheroes solving all our problems might not be a good thing. It robs us of the opportunity to learn how to solve them ourselves, denying us the chance to grow and improve as people and as a society. I do believe the ultimate solution to most problems is education, understanding, and empathy. Superheroes solving every problem in the most direct and straightforwards way - typically with the application of violence - is very shallow and, in the long run, could be considered a trap.

We develop problem solving strategies and tools through education, experimentation and experience, but if all you do to make problems go away is punch them then the only tool you have developed is a hammer, and if all you have is a hammer then everything starts to look like a nail, right? I would say this is even baked in to superhero universes: the same villains keep coming back, the same problems keep repeating themselves, the world as a whole never actually gets any better, if anything it just keeps getting worse.

I have to admit that ultimately I do like Red Son's treatment of the issue, with America eventually learning to solve it's problems on it's own - yes, OK, we are told that it was just one guy who figured out solutions to all the problems, but as he was a native part of the system it still more-or-less represents us figuring out solutions to our own problems rather than having them handed to us by a deity-like parent figure (in which case we would not have gained actual problem-solving skills and would have need help with the next problem etc).

EDIT:

Initially the nationalistic elements of the comic were what stood out to me, and so were given priority in my review. After thinking about it some more though, I suspect they are actually secondary to the political/economic elements. Basically the comic is probably more about Capitalism vs Communism than about America vs the Soviet Union. Of course it's not a pure distinction since the elements are somewhat intertwined (in this story at least). But it's easier for me to accept it when I think of it as an examination of economic and political ideologies than as a jingoistic condemnation of the Soviet Union.

But even that has it's problems. By picking Superman to represent Communism and Luthor to represent Capitalism, the comic has muddied the waters by having the communist be a heroic figure and the capitalist be a villainous one. Of course I believe that was deliberate for narrative reasons; it's a more engaging and thought-provoking read and arguably it creates a deeper and more nuanced story. But unfortunately it still ends up condoning the selfish and amoral actions of Luthor and condemning the selfless and moral actions of Superman.

And that too might be deliberate. Whether it is or isn't, that's the part that I still have issues with. Besides, I don't know if painting Capitalism as inherently selfish and amoral is something that most capitalists would agree with, and I'm not convinced that Communism's problems stem from well-intentioned selflessness and morality. And I don't personally agree with the ultimately binary conclusion - Capitalism is right, Communism is wrong - that seems to be presented.

This is all assuming that Luthor represents Capitalism of course. But as I said earlier, his actions feel closer to Objectivism than Capitalism, at least based on my VERY limited knowledge of the two. I wonder how the same story would have worked if it had been, say, Bruce Wayne filling the role of Luthor? Would it have been more of a pure representation of the ideologies involved, with less interference from the baggage the characters bring (although admittedly that baggage was a main part of what gave the story it's impact)? Or would Bruce Wayne have needed to be changed too much from the character we know in order to properly embody Capitalism?


Ultimately for me it comes down to comics as morality fables; I like superheroes when they are inspirational icons. Yes, character flaws add realism and depth and allow the stories to tackle real issues that actually affect the readers. Yes, real life is not black and white, comics can explore difficult moral issues without always coming to a clean-cut conclusion. Yes, it's possible to write a morality tale even if your protagonist himself is not a moral character. But... I don't like comics that champion amoral characters. I typically don't like the message they send. So even though I can respect Red Sun more now than I initially did, I still don't like it.