Michael Hawthorne

If a Haruki Murakami novel were adapted to film by Guy Ritchie you might experience a similar conflict of style and personality. The original's core is effortlessly cool, filling 24 minutes with believable characters responding and adapting to the chaos of a complex world. We are taken into back-alley refuges, lingering and exchanging wit with strangers that have complex motivations of their own. Real characters come to life in a hand-drawn world, dressed lightly with tasteful musical accents and careful shot direction. The amount of shot-by-shot recreations in this version make it difficult to tell if this is an adaptation or a remake. In any case, this version does not "stand on its own" and doesn't pretend to. We are presented with the same story beats, same shots, same costumes, and same dialog from the original show, blasted to death with the original's soundtrack and a pace so fast that there's no chance to connect to anything of meaning. The result is an uncanny recreation that isn't sure if it wants to be its own thing or a self-indulgent remake. Threatening antagonists are replaced with wooden, incompetent imbeciles. That connection to "cool" that had drawn from overcoming real threats is replaced with the generic "everyone is stupid but the main character" trope we've experienced over and over again. Faye's formerly poised yet chaotic character is reduced to a single dimension: a brat. There is plenty left to be desired when a mediocre crew sets out to recreate a masterpiece of cinema. But it's not all bad. Mustafa Shakir clearly understands Jet's character and plays him with impressive faithfulness to the source. There are moments where jokes land, and they feel like they get what this production is supposed to be. But these moments can't save us from the 2D characters written into this flat CGI world.

The NCIS of superhero shoes. With options like The Boys, Invincible, and the newer Marvel shows, the fliers of this franchise fall flat. The origin story is too long and drawn-out. It substitutes world-building and lore with prattling conflict between the one-dimensional characters. I still have no idea what caused them to actually recieve their powers. I also still have no idea why the other superheroes fell in-line to their self-appointed leader in the first place, which is an important detail because their struggles with him are the root of all conflict in this show. A primary conflict in the show centers around preserving the lives of the supervillains even though they threaten to kill the heroes. The drummed-up drama around this conflict feels empty compared to many other hero shows, movies, and comics that have executed it well.