J Castell – Google

I love virtually everything Matthew Vaughn has ever done, with Layer Cake being in my all-time top 5 films. I'm a huge Henry Cavill (forever the true/best Supes to me!), Sam Rockwell (HH Guide also in my top films) and Brian Cranston fan as well. I of course appreciate a good expletive-filled batch of dialogue from king MFer Sam Jackson, and who doesn't love the mom from Home Alone and all the brilliance she's done with Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy? So believe me when I say I wanted to enjoy this film, but this is hands down one of the absolute worst pieces of garbage I've ever seen. I can't make heads or tails of how these mostly brilliant and talented folks made this or what they were even trying to do here. It's supposed to be kitsch and absurd - I think I get that, but this could not be further from a clever, stimulating, or fulfilling manifestation of those elements. It wasn't even fun. It was just... ...excruciatingly terrible. All copies of this film should be destroyed and it should never be spoken of again. Do not waste your time or money on this incoherent drivel.

Up until Eli fast forwards 4 years in age, this was one of the best written and best acted things I've ever seen on Netflix. Up until the final episode, it was still pretty good and compelling. Then the final episode, Ala GOT, was one of the absolute biggest letdowns I have ever seen. It rapidly descends into a total mishmash of incoherent nonsense that barely makes any sense or is remotely plausible. The final action scene is so absolutely brainless it belies all possible arguments in its defense. They were telling an amazing story and local drug dealers were more than enough to drive the stakes and drama, even with some of the allusions to supernatural/unexplainable phenomena and their implications on faith. Just why... why did they go and ruin it all? This is based on a true story in the way that Jurassic Park is based on there having been Dinosaurs on earth once. I'd advise watching up until the last episode and then literally imagining your own conclusion to the whole thing instead of the garbage they gave us.

It looks great, story mode is a hoot, but it just doesn't have the same hooks and engagement as the previous 2 titles... invasions mode is extremely boring and repetitive within like one hour. Klassic towers are cool also, for like one or two playthroughs. I don't get the Kameos as a new "combat system" or any of that hype - I'd rather have more playable characters and better depth than simply a tag team partner you can't control pop in here or there. So many of the series stalwart characters are just missing. The rewards you can earn in terms of character customization also just feel flat and the juice isn't worth the squeeze. I played 10 and 11 for quite a lot of hours and found myself coming back to them periodically for a weekend at a time and getting great enjoyment, also loving customizing rhe characters. With this one, I likely won't even pick it up again after the initial 2 days of playing and beating story mode. Not worth the 100 bucks shelled out for the premium edition and unfortunately will impact whether or not I purchase the next one.

Meh... cool to have all your favorite characters but that wears off right quick and you're left with this immensely hollow grindfest with repetitive card-based combat and super-flat dullified RPG mechanics to engage with said cool characters. Before long even the coolest of characters and your interactions with them come through as totally hollow and monotonous. I gave it a few hours and likely won't ever start it up again. Truly meh.

Incoherent mess, barely developed or explained characters. Where is Shazam himself in all this? Oh wait, The Rock made sure there'd be no connection to him for his little vanity project even though these two characters basically haven't existed without one another for like 80 years... DC has really struggled to put out quality for a long time, but this one might be the worst of the current gen (conversely, Shazam is likely the best thing they've made thus far). The movie is also full of woke nonsense that isnt even consistent with itself - is it cultural appropriation for a Samoan with no middle eastern heritage to play an arabic person/hero? And please never put that kid on film again... The only redeeming point of the whole film is Cavill's appearance mid-credits, which ultimately doesn't matter as they are scrapping him now entirely from DC. This is truly the last DC product I'll ever consume other than the next Shazam. Marvel has had some missteps recently but holy smokes DC can't compete.

The movie as a movie isn't so bad... in fact various aspects of the filmmaking from the cinematography to sound design and score to the acting are all quite good. If you are a western fan and/or a Tarantino fan it'll check some boxes for sure. I can appreciate what they tried to do with a different spin on an old genre, telling forgotten histories, and the idea of representation. Where I have a serious problem is the absolute dribble that is yielded by taking real, historical characters and turning them into cartoons with no semblance of regard for the reality of the lives they lived. They just took any black figure from the old west and used them quite recklessly and lazily. The real, actual stories of figures such as Bass Reeves, Nat Love, Mary Fields, et al. are plenty compelling and incredible on their own merits, and if they were actually told would go a long way towards achieving the cultural objectives that I think they set out to accomplish with this film in the first place. There was simply no need to create this half-coherent mess like this and hijack the names and narratives of those extraordinary, real humans.

Undoubtedly an improvement over the incoherent train wreck that was the theatrical release... But so too would be me filming myself defecate for two hours. Still some of the worst scoring I've ever heard (the wonder woman / amazon thematic sound that plays every time she does something is so completely absurd and distracting, you can't help but laugh every time), so much of the dialogue is horrible, ben affleck still seems like he drank himself into a depressive stupor before and after each take, and the cgi is over done and cheap feeling. That said, ezra miller is awesome, henry cavill is perfect, Darkseid rules, the ending treatment of steppenwolf is so much better now, and jason momoa is fun as hell. the inclusion of all the other characters and story elements that were cut from the original release makes it worth watching if you are a fan of the comics. lf you're not a fan of the comics don't bother giving it four hours, but if you are, it'll at least give you a few reasons to smile.