Stuff I Watched Late May-Mid June Edition

 This will undoubtedly be shorter than the last one as it hasn't been so long since the last time.  Even though people don't seem to care about these, I have found it is a lot easier to find reviews on Blogger than on Facebook, so I will continue with this just so at least I'll know what I watched and then when Tony Laplume gets around to more capsule reviews I can see what I thought of the movie.

Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania:  When this movie struggled, haters were quick to announce that superhero movie fatigue was finally here.  Then Shazam 2 flopped to reinforce that--never mind that DC announcing a movie universe reboot had pretty well kneecapped this franchise.  Then GOTG 3 did pretty well so now where are we?  Anyway, the haters should have remembered that the Ant-Man franchise has pretty much been Marvel's weakest one.  That it exists at all is because of Edgar Wright's persistence--only for it to get hijacked by "the MCU."

It is puzzling then that Marvel chose to make this the big launch of their Phase 5, but then it is one of their most venerable franchises remaining.  With Thor basically retired and Gunn leaving GOTG for DC, this was the next oldest franchise left.  Still, the problem is the first two stories were pretty small in scope while this is much, much bigger--and yet technically smaller as it's in the subatomic quantum realm.  As I opined on Facebook, this was like if Alien From LA starring supermodel Kathy Ireland had had a $300M budget.  It is pretty much the same story:  normal people (or normal-ish since it's Scott Lang, his daughter, Hank Pym, and Janet and Hope van Dyne) are drawn into a world beneath our own filled with strange beings that is ruled by an evil empire.

In this case the empire is run by Kang, played by Jonathan Majors who played a different version of the character in Loki.  He was trapped in the quantum realm by other versions of him and then later by Janet.  To escape he needs Pym particles, so he takes Scott's daughter and forces Scott to get the MacGuffin he needs to escape.

Overall it wasn't bad but it really isn't great either.  As I said, the first two movies were much smaller in scope, more street-level superheroics than grandiose battles of huge armies and whatnot.  So it really hits different.  There's also no Luis or Scott's ex-wife and only a brief, lineless cameo of Jimmy Woo.  Jonathan Majors really dominates the movie as Kang while Paul Rudd is mostly given the task of protecting his daughter and looking befuddled.  When Scott and Hope confess their love at the end it's really unbelievable because there's hardly any screen time shared by them that isn't shared with other characters.  Michelle Pfeiffer gets a couple of decent scenes while Michael Douglas really only gets one.  And the latest actress to play Cassie is OK.  Bill Murray guest stars as basically a white Lando Calrissian. 

Much has been made about the effects and some really don't look great--especially MODOK.  I'm not sure why they chose to use him as even in the comics he's pretty goofy-looking.  They should have just left him in the Patton Oswalt stop-motion series.  Or spent more money to make it look better--if that's even possible.  I don't think it is.  Anyway, it's probably too early to announce the MCU is in trouble, but maybe its best days are behind it. (2/5)

Creed III:  As I said on Facebook, this was basically Rocky III meets Warrior.  Like Rocky III it involves the main character facing a jealous rival who takes his title and then has to get it back.  Like Warrior, that jealous rival is someone he knows, only a friend instead of a brother.  Years earlier Adonis Creed (Michael B Jordan) got into a fight with a neighborhood criminal and was bailed out by his friend Dame Anderson (Jonathan Majors) who pulled a gun.  While Adonis got away clean, Dame went to jail for about 20 years.  Once Dame gets out, he manages to take the heavyweight championship in sort of a Rocky fashion.  Then he starts ragging on Adonis until Adonis fights him.  The problem with the movie is the "villain"'s motivation is actually pretty reasonable.  I mean Dame went to prison for saving Adonis and didn't give Adonis up.  Meanwhile Adonis becomes a famous, rich boxer and never once calls, writes, or visits his former friend.  So why shouldn't Dame be angry with him?  Why shouldn't he want revenge?  Really this could have been solved with some talking instead of fighting. While Rocky III is pretty clear in who we want to win, I couldn't really cheer Adonis that much. Otherwise it's OK even if Sylvester Stallone never appears as Rocky. (3/5) (Fun Facts:  no one from the Rocky movies shows up but Drago's son from Creed II appears and Stallone is credited as a producer.  Jordan, Majors, and Tess Thompson are all in this and part of the MCU.)

Renfield:  I watched this on Peacock.  If you're familiar with Dracula--the book and movie--Renfield was the henchman to Count Dracula, sort of his Igor.  This movie stars Nicholas Hoult (Beast of the X-Men soft reboot movies) as Renfield, who has grown tired of finding fresh bodies for his ungrateful master played by Nicolas Cage.  After taking refuge in New Orleans, he joins a support group for people in a codependent relationship.  Soon he meets a local cop (Awkwafina) and the son (Ben Schwartz) of a local gangster (Shohreh Aghdashloo of The Expanse).  Mayhem ensues as Renfield tries to break away from Dracula's control.  The movie was written by Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead fame, though his superhero series Invincible is more of a touchstone as this has that same Matthew Vaughn-type mix of humor, graphic violence, and gore.  Overall it's OK, though not great.  While Cage as Dracula was a selling point early on, his scene chewing ends up as more of a distraction than anything. With someone more subtle the attempts at real feeling would have worked better.  (2.5/5) (Fun Fact:  the movie was directed by Chris McKay who previously worked on The Lego Movie and Robot Chicken, which is more this movie's speed.)

The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard:  2017's The Hitman's Bodyguard was a fun movie, though not particularly great.  Basically Ryan Reynolds was Ryan Reynolds and Samuel L Jackson was Samuel L Jackson and they just did their shtick to a plot that was basically Midnight Run in Europe.  There weren't really many loose ends to tie up, but the movie made money, so they of course had to make a sequel.  Plus it gave everyone a free trip to Croatia!  And also Italy, Portugal, and the UK.  The title is only barely accurate as Reynolds isn't really the hitman's wife's bodyguard.  They are together quite a bit for the first two acts, but it's not really the same thing as the last movie.  Samuel L Jackson has been kidnapped and so they rescue him but then get embroiled in a plot by Antonio Banderas playing a Greek guy with either a bad wig or bad dye job to destroy the EU as revenge for sanctions against Greece.  There's a lot of violence and blood and cameos by Frank Grillo as an Interpol agent and Morgan Freeman as Reynolds's "father" and mentor.  Even if this hadn't been made on the cusp of the pandemic and released during it, it probably wouldn't have made much money because it's just a fairly lame sequel that few wanted and no one needed.  If you have Netflix, watch Reynolds in Red Notice instead--it's slightly better! (2.5/5) (Fun Facts:  Last time I noted if Deadpool becomes part of the MCU he and Jackson--and Elodie Yung who wasn't in this movie--were both part of that.  This time you have two extra MCU alums in Selma Hayek from Eternals and Frank Grillo from Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  At one point Samuel L Jackson grabs a mace and says, "Let's see what what a mace will do."  You know, because he played Mace Windu?  Get it?  Yeah, that's the caliber of humor you should expect.)

Resident Alien (S1):  This Syfy series was one I wanted to watch but couldn't until it was on Peacock and I had the premium Peacock through my cable service.  Based on a comic from Dark Horse, it's a new take on the idea of an alien crash-landing on Earth and trying to blend in.  In this case Alan Tudyk is an alien who takes on the form of Harry Vanderspiegle, a doctor living in a remote cabin in Patience, Colorado.  After his ship crashes, he spends months watching TV to sort of learn to be human.  Then the local doctor is killed and the police dragoon "Harry" into being the local doctor.  Meanwhile there's one kid who can see him in his alien form and he has to find the parts for his ship so he can complete his mission--to exterminate humanity.

The twist in the show is that "Harry" is not a cuddly alien like ET or wacky like Alf, Mork, the Coneheads, or 3rd Rock From the Sun aliens.  Nor is he a monstrous killing machine like Predator or the xenomorphs of Alien/Aliens.  He's just kind of a dick.  If you didn't know he was an alien you might think he's autistic or has Asperger's or something like that.

A lot of the first season is given to relationship drama involving a Native American woman named Asta and the daughter she gave away to a local family.  Probably not enough is given to solving the murder of the doctor Harry has to replace until a new one can be brought in.  Meanwhile a government task force led by an aged Linda Hamilton is seeking Harry and his ship.  Most of the episodes use that Breaking Bad setup of using the pre-title scene to go into something that happened in the past that has an influence on the current episode like the real Harry meeting an artist with a Vulcan haircut in New York who shows up later in the episode to find out what happened to her husband.  

It's mostly a fun show even if you know Harry isn't going to destroy humanity--yet.  I mean, there is a second season. (3/5) (Fun Facts:  Tudyk's former Firefly co-star Nathan Fillion voices an octopus Harry can understand as they're part of the same evolutionary family.  Voyager's Robert Duncan McNeill is a producer and directs some episodes.  Family Guy & The Orville writer/producer Cherry Ch...really long name is also a writer/producer of this.)

Resident Alien (S2):  Like a lot of movies or TV shows, the sequel isn't quite as good as the original.  At the end of Season 1 "Harry Vanderspiegle" was leaving Earth when he realized the human kid who can see him had stowed away.  In taking the kid back to Earth, Harry's ship crashes and he suffers from amnesia until Asta finds him and snaps him out of it.  It's a bit implausible that the ship crashes in a baseball field and yet no one questions why there's a huge rut in foul territory.  I know they can't see the ship but they can see the rut, can't they?

Meanwhile, once Harry gets his memory back, he builds a bunker and starts preparing for the end of the world.  The first four episodes or so are kind of slow and then things start picking up as Harry creates a new "radio" and finds out one of his people is in New York.  This in turns uncovers a baby, which was probably inspired by the popularity of "The Child," aka Grogu in The Mandalorian.  Fittingly this child is not nearly as adorable--or nice.  There's a big twist about who the real father of the baby actually is.

There are also some twists in the case of the murdered doctor in town.  Unfortunately a lot of time is given to residents of the town and their relationship problems.  Mostly the mayor and his wife and Asta's friend D'arcy.  There's also the chubby female deputy who's obsessed with UFOs and the black sheriff who has trouble getting over the death of his partner back in Washington DC.  A little of that stuff is good for added character moments, but when it's taking up 2/3 of the episodes it starts to feel like padding.

The season ends with some action as Harry has to rescue the baby and confronts the "Greys," another race of aliens operating on Earth.  Overall it starts a little slow but builds to a fairly satisfying finish.  (3/5) (Fun Facts:  A Grey alien is voiced by Star Trek's George Takei.  With 16 episodes, this season is like 2 seasons of some shows.)

Picard Season 3:  After a second season that largely disappointed fans, they got a new showrunner and like The Rise of Skywalker seemed to want to do something a lot more fan-friendly.  While I generally enjoyed the show, it was in the end perhaps a little too eager-to-please.  Borrowing from Star Trek II, Picard finds out he has a son--with Dr. Crusher!  It turns out they were friends with benefits.  Picard, Riker, Seven of Nine, and the crew of the ugly new Titan soon are chased by a "bounty hunter" who turns out to be a Changeling.  It was nice they got the Changelings and some DS9 into it, though still no actual characters exclusively from DS9 in the show--I guess the fans of that don't need servicing.  After some OK episodes and some "Just moving the pieces around the board episodes" it finally gets to the grand finale...which kind of annoyed me.  The Changelings are using Picard's body and the Borg to put some code in transporters that causes younger crew to become like Borg only without the metal on their bodies.  And Starfleet has this dumb new system to link all their ships--which of course gets hijacked.  I got thinking it was pretty much like the reboot of Battlestar Galactica and Robotech:  The Shadow Chronicles.  Does Trek really need to rip off other properties?  And one of its own writers since Ronald D Moore created the BSG reboot and wrote for TNG and DS9?  It sort of stuck in my craw.  And like those other two properties, the only thing that would still work is an old ship--the Enterprise-D.  It was kind of neat to see it again but kind of unbelievable.  Also, using Jack as sort of the Borg Queen's stand-in to control the zombies was sort of like the original X-Men movie.

Then it flies into a Borg ship like Return of the Jedi, which was hard to believe.  There's an overly happy ending that leaves a bit too saccharine taste.  I suppose it was appropriate that it ended with a poker game as didn't the series start with Picard playing cards with Data in a dream?  

Overall it was OK.  I suppose how much you like it depends on how much you like being fan serviced.  I thought it was a little over-the-top in trying to give fans everything it thought they wanted.  It was nice to see the old crew again, though really I think Worf was more fun when he was just hanging with Raffi as sort of a Jedi Master than when he reunited with the old cast.  If you were really a fan of the first season (or first two seasons) then you probably wouldn't like how most of the characters from that first season have been either killed or sidelined.  Since I didn't like the first season and didn't watch the second season, it didn't bug me much. (3/5) (Fun Facts:  there are a bunch of cameos of people and ships like Alice Krige as the zombie Borg Queen, Tuvok, Ensign Ro, Commander Shelby, the voice of Walter Koenig as his own grandson, holo-Moriarty, the "HMS Bounty" from Star Trek IV, the Defiant from DS9, and the Voyager.  Plus Starfleet apparently has a Genesis device even though it blew up and the corpse of James T Kirk.  Amanda Plummer plays Vaida the Changeling; she's the daughter of Christopher Plummer, who was the bad guy in Star Trek VI.  I didn't check but I'm pretty sure one of Geordi's daughters in the show was his daughter in real life; I mean they have the same last name.)

Yellow Bird:  This 2022 movie I watched on Amazon is a low-budget story about a middle-aged guy (also the director, who looks like a fat Elon Musk) who was a PR agent until he married a selfish woman with a chubby daughter and wound up working at the eponymous grocery store that looks like a Spartan-type supermarket.  Then he gets promoted to store manager.  It's an OK movie.  Maybe not as funny as you might think it should be.  Really it's the sort that just needed better actors instead of those who should be bit players. (2/5) (Fun Facts: one actress is named "Plastic Martyr" which I assume is not her real name.  Bill Murray's brother Brian voices a ceramic gnome the main guy hallucinates about for some reason.)