RnR Munimula

This is such a sweet, simple, yet profound movie. The contrast and bringing together of city raised Benny and his traditional grandmother is heartwarming and endearing. Eaqually so is watching Benny and his cousin “Frybread Face” form a friendship and kinship rooted in their family, culture and traditions. They’re different but in so many ways alike. The other characters, the aunt, the uncle, even “Reba MacIntyre”, a perfect accompaniment to this simple yet beautiful story. I loved it.

There were things about Loki I just didn’t enjoy. Throughout, as with “Falcon and Winter Soldier”, it felt like there were elements to the story that were there only to satisfy current social issues. Like when Owen Wilson states to the female judge: “I like you being above me, it feels right.” What the hell is that supposed to mean? The entire point of all the antics and slapstick making Loki look like a buffoon was to set up the conversation between Owen Wilson and Loki where Loki comes to the realization that his ambitions have been empty, destructive and useless. From the very beginning, he’s made helpless at every turn. In the Mongolian desert, the (strong female) time cop unceremoniously slaps a collar on him after smacking his face and leaving it in an over long slo-mo where you see his face ripple. Hardy-har-har. He’s stripped physically, by a robot, no less, after stating how fine his clothes are, then dropped through a floor making the slapstick complete. He tries to but can’t use his powers; again, joke’s on him. All his freedoms are stripped away. Once he finds the Tesseract, he finds it’s just part of a time keeper junk drawer, making that part of his plan kind of meaningless in the big scheme of things. And I can’t decide if I like the fact that the story deliberately strips everything from him, i.e., hits rock bottom, so that he will want a shot at redemption. The conversation between Owen Wilson and Loki reveals a purposeless life, where Loki’s misguided ambition led to the death of his mother, and, then we see his own sad death. The dynamic between them was the first moment where I felt myself excited about this story. The 1950’s/60’s/70’s stylization of the TVA was weird to me. Why would an omnipotent, technologically advanced organization use mid-century American architecture, push-buttons, etc.? We’ve seen this trope enough already and it felt a little like a “Men In Black” rip-off. This was the best the writers could come up with? My biggest irritation was the Southern accented expository video that Loki watched before going to be judged. It felt like yet another rip-off, this time from the first “Jurassic Park” movie, but, about 100 times more annoying. I’m hoping it gets better, but, after “Wandavision” and “Falcon and Winter Soldier” being disappointing, I’m not holding my breath.