Robert Battinson

Half the internet says Robert Pattinson is a terrible actor.  The other half has actually seen him in movies besides Twilight.  Personally, I haven't seen him in enough things to have a strong opinion one way or another.

But in my opinion, it doesn't really matter who plays Batman.  The character is supposed to have the personality of a dead fish - that is 100% by-the-comics canon, fight me.  The action scenes will be done by a stuntman, so Pattinson only has to "act" sporadically, and only with the bottom three inches of his face.  The qualifications it takes to play Batman are thus:  Have a pulse, don't have a beard.

He only needs to have personality in Bruce Wayne mode, but since Bruce is the real mask, that barely matters as well.  Everyone who has ever played Bruce Wayne has portrayed the character differently; there doesn't seem to be a canon way for him to act.

But all I'm really saying is don't judge Pattinson by Twilight.  Much like the Star Wars prequels, the Twilight series made all its actors look worse than they really are.  I mean, look how much Anna Kendrick's career has taken off.  Either some directors just don't know how to get the most out of their actors, or some scripts just don't bring out an actor's full ability.  I don't know. 

My prediction is that he'll be somewhere in the Kilmer range: better than Affleck and Clooney, but not as good as Bale or Keaton.

Life is Strange 2 - Episode 3

Disclaimer:  This blog contains major spoilers for “Life is Strange 2”.

If the first couple of chapters were about racism, this chapter was about pot.  You spend the chapter working at a pot farm, living in a small commune in the woods.  Once scene actually has you controlling Sean on the job, trimming the leaves off buds.  It's tedious work, so the game makes you feel it by having you press repetitive buttons to control your cutting.  It reminds me of Shenmue.

Each night after work, the characters drink beer and smoke pot around the campfire.  They have several spaced out conversations in scenes that could have been straight out of Dazed and Confused.  They discuss free love and pansexuality.  If any of that offends you, well, you probably didn't get this far into the Life is Strange series anyway. 

Speaking of potentially offensive content, this is was the first chapter in any of the LiS games to have nudity in it.  In fact, three different characters show some skin, including the 16 year old protagonist.  I'm not offended by nudity, and what it showed was pretty tame.  But I've heard rumors that Sony is about to start getting tougher on PS4 censorship, so this surprised me.

I saw the climax coming.  You can choose whether or not to help rob your boss's safe, but even if you say no, it happens anyway.  I don't know if there's a way to keep your little brother from making the decision on his own, but going by the "Choices" screen at the end of the chapter, it looks like some version of the climax plays out no matter what.

Daniel's disobedience another theme for the episode.  He's getting more and more powerful, and Sean is having more and more trouble controlling him.  The kid needs guidance, but a lot of your efforts to teach him morality just end up pissing him off, backfiring and pushing him more towards the Dark Side.

For the third chapter in a row, I'm going to say it again:  It doesn't feel like a lot happened in this chapter.  This story is slow.  It feels like they're trying to get five chapters out of what could have been a three chapter story. 

Bottom line: This was a decent chapter, but pretty slow and light on plot.  The climax was important, though, and should have serious repercussions in Chapter 4.

My Choices:

The Future of the MCU

(Endgame Spoilers)

I’m a little worried about Marvel’s future after Endgame.  I’ve heard a lot of people talk about being tired of superhero movies, and Endgame is the best possible stopping point for those who want to get off the train.  I’m curious to see if “Spider-Man: Far From Home” does well.  It looks like a fun movie, but it’s not going to come close to making Endgame money.

Remember when Solo didn’t do well, so Disney blamed “Star Wars fatigue” and cancelled all the Star Wars spin-off movies?  If and when Spider-Man fails to keep the Marvel momentum going, I wonder if Disney will start being more selective there too.  Now on the bright side (and it pains me to type this in any context), but the Marvel movies are way better than Star Wars (seriously, ouch).  Star Wars will always be my #1 fictional universe, but I can’t with good conscience claim that it has maintained the same consistency of quality as the MCU.  It’s not an insult, any more than it insults gold to say it’s not quite platinum.  But Star Wars simply isn’t as impressive as it was when I was a kid, back when there wasn’t as much sci-fi for it to compete with.

It will be a pity if the MCU winds down.  With these first 22 movies, the MCU has done a great job of presenting iconic versions of their most popular characters.  But they’ve also done a decent job of introducing the world to some lesser-known characters.  Now’s the time to phase out the old characters and really start giving up-and-coming heroes more exposure.  If the series were to end in the next couple of years, it just means it would get rebooted in a decade with the same tried-and-true characters.  Characters Disney considers safe, characters who have been proven to sell tickets.

But if they can keep the current MCU going, with the current actors gradually aging out and the new generation of heroes taking their place, it will be better for both the comics and the movies.  Giving exposure to some of the more obscure heroes keeps things interesting – I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of the same six heroes being plastered on everything.  Also, the most iconic characters tend to be white males, and it would be nice if more variety would become mainstream.

Look, call me a “Social Justice Warrior” all you want, but it’s not just about racism/sexism.  The sea of white male faces just gets boring.  The MCU has been really good about choosing diverse supporting characters, but until the last three or four movies, they were just that – supporting characters.  It’s hard for anyone to break through and become a main character while the big four (Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Thor, and Bruce Banner) are around.

But now that Endgame has come and gone, we have a new generation in the works.  Sam Wilson as Captain America?  That’s cool and all, but so far there aren’t any movies on the horizon that would necessarily have him in it.  (Yes, I know about the TV series, but I’m talking about movies right now.)  I doubt we’ll see much of War Machine either; I just don’t know where they’d work him in with the upcoming selection of movies. 

In a couple of months we get “Spider-Man: Far From Home” – This is the only MCU movie with a definite release date.  After that, the whole series goes dark for a while.  It’s odd, for the last few years, they’ve always had approximate dates for at least the next five movies.  But after Spider-Man, they’re being kind of vague.  There’s a lot of stuff in the works, but everything’s so early in production that any one of them could still get cancelled or rescheduled.  Maybe that’s on purpose, they want to give people a break to avoid super hero fatigue, before they dazzle us with a bunch of new characters.

Here’s what’s supposedly on the horizon, and their estimated/rumored release dates:

Black Widow (2020) – It’s hard for me to get excited about this one.  Yeah, I love the character, and any female-led movie is great.  I guess it would be neat to see her origin story, but I have to wonder what will keep it from being a generic spy movie.  I think it would do better as a TV series than a movie, to be honest.  With the right script and director, Black Widow could be the next James Bond, but I just don't think that will happen.

The Eternals (2020) – So far I have no interest in this one.  The title makes me think of The Inhumans, which was not good.  Wikipedia says it’s about a race of godlike beings, which sounds boring.  I hope they surprise me.

Doctor Strange 2 (May 2021) – I can’t wait for this one, the first one was so fun and flashy. 

Black Panther 2 (2021) – I love the character, but his movie was just okay.  I hope this one has more action scenes, and a bigger special effects budget.

Guardians of the Galaxy 3 (2021) – The GotG series is one of my favorites, so I have high hopes for this one.

Shang-Chi (release date unknown) – I know nothing about this character.  It’s nice that it has an Asian lead, but again, I wonder what will keep it from being just another martial arts movie.  Netflix already cornered the market of “super hero whose main power is to punch people” with Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist.  It’s hard for me to get excited about what’s basically a kung fu movie with the Marvel logo stamped on it.

Ant-Man 3 (release date unknown) - Of course this will be fun, though this series is so shallow that it barely even feels like part of the MCU.

Blade (release date unknown) – Yeah, according to some sources, they're working on bringing Blade into the MCU.  I really, really, really don’t care.

So, yeah, I’m looking forward to a couple of those, mostly the sequels.  I’m hoping the rest will surprise me.  But I just don’t get some of the choices they’re making.  Surely there’s more Marvel heroes than this.  I’ve been reading comics since I was a kid, and I know there’s a lot of characters more interesting than the ones they’re picking here.  I mean, I was more of a  DC fan, but I've heard of better Marvel characters... oh wait, those were mostly X-Men.  Well, that's a problem that should be rectified shortly.

I’m not saying these movies won’t be good, but like I said, I’m just worried that they won’t draw a crowd.  I don’t want Disney to ax this series after a couple of them underperform.

I want the MCU film series to last long enough that more of the obscure characters become title characters, and become moneymakers in their own right.  I want it to last long enough that Tom Holland ages out of the Spider-Man role, and they start making live-action movies with Miles Morales and Gwen Stacy.  That’s what I want, I just don’t know if the momentum is still going to be there.  I just have a feeling the series is going to peter out in a couple of years, things will get quiet for about a decade, and we’ll see another reboot starting over with new actors playing the same old characters.  I love Steve Rogers and Tony Stark, but I don’t want to see them again when there’s underrated characters out there that deserve the spotlight.

Update:

Marvel is now saying that there will be some big announcement about future MCU movies after “Spider-Man: Far From Home” is released.  Maybe I should have held off on this blog a little longer.  I hope it’s good news.