This is totally how Deadpool should have ended! That is all. Maybe I will have something to write about tomorrow. Maybe. No promises.
Daredevil Season Two Wrap-Up: If Ninjas Are Boring You Are Doing It Wrong!
I figure enough time has passed for me to give my final judgement of Daredevil season two. Which will be way better than my midseason impressions I assure you! For the most part this was a pretty successful season. The Punisher stuff was very good. Frank Castle becoming the terrifying murderous vigilante was great. Surprisingly what wasn’t great was the Elektra/Ninja storyline.
I mean Elodie Yung was an excellent Elektra, but that story really never went anywhere, and it mostly served as a distraction from all the good stuff that was going on with Frank. It just seemed like any time there was a lull in the story they just threw some random Ninjas at it and started talking about ‘The War’.
The only real positive the ninjas served is bringing up the question of if superheroes should kill or not. For the most part we can all agree that they shouldn’t because then they would be replacing the law, but in the case of the ninjas their clan would just sweep in and collect them, so none of these guys that Murdock was knocking out were ever going to serve any jail time. He was just going to have to fight them again tomorrow. So if he was truly fighting a centuries old war, maybe, just maybe, he should stop pulling his punches. Maybe then he could have saved us from a couple of those boring ninja fights.
I have to tell you that I never thought ‘boring ninja fight’ was something I would write, but here we are. Daredevil has boring ninja fights. Now like I said they are only part of what happens this season, and I do think they are building to something bigger, but they are kind of forced in to a holding pattern until Iron Fist shows up. Once all the Marvel TV series are launched we can probably get to the interesting ninja fights. At least I hope so. If the Luke Cage show is filled with boring ninja fights I am going to be ticked!
Daredevil Is In An Enjoyable Holding Pattern!
The second season of Daredevil launched on Netflix last Friday and my wife and I have been doing our best to binge-watch straight through it. We have made it about halfway through, so I figured I would give my thoughts. Which is kind of what I do on this blog, so it would be pretty odd of me not to. While the show continues to be good it is disappointing that the main characters don’t seem to be progressing.
Foggy is still a brilliant layer that continues to doubt himself and his partner’s night job. Murdock still can’t seem balance being Daredevil and a lawyer even though his firm desperately needs him, and Page still has a mysterious past and her relentless digging in to things endangers her and the others around her. In other words they are all doing the exact same things they were doing last season.
Another bummer is that this is all supposed to be part of Marvel’s connected universe, but they can’t seem to say that New York was attacked by aliens, and even more baffling is that the only hint so far in the show that Luke Cage and Jessica Jones even exist in this world is that Rosario Dawson’s Nurse Temple said that she helped out some big strong guy. I mean not to spoil any of Jessica Jones, but it wasn’t like that at the end of her season she kept any of her exploits secret. People should be aware of her, especially red vigilantly ninjas trying to ‘save a city’.
Luckily the fight scenes and the new characters make Daredevil well worth watching. While Jon Bernthal’s Punisher started out looking like an out and out bad guy as the series progresses you start to feel for him and understand his quest, and my wife is now firmly on team Punisher. Meanwhile Élodie Yung’s Elektra is shrouded in mystery. You have no idea what she is up to and whether she is good or bad, and Matt Murdock can’t seem to think straight when she is around. Pretty much she is the Elektra fans have been waiting for.
It is a shame that the main characters don’t seem to be exhibiting any growth, and that Marvel can’t quite seem to figure out how their connected universe fits together even on their Netflix TV shows which are meant to be even more connected, but great fight choreography and wonderful new characters make Daredevil season two well worth watching. I still can’t wait for all the Netflix shows to combine in to The Defenders, but for now I am happy that Daredevil is as good as it is since we know thanks to Ben Affleck and crew that it could have been much, much worse.
Netflix Trailer Day? Netflix Trailer Day!
Wanna get pumped up for a new season of Daredevil?! Well here you go!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5_A0Wx0jU4
This definitely looks like the best version of the Punisher yet, and I am ready for the knock-down-drag-out-brawl that happens when Daredevil and him get together!
Okay, the Daredevil trailer may have gotten you too excited, so I am going calm you down with a little Pee-wee!
I am not sure if we need another Pee-wee movie, but I am going to watch it anyway. It just makes me feel good to watch him mill about and be himself. My one criticism is that it looks a little too much like Pee-wee’s Big Adventure … but without the bike.
Anyway, happy Netflix trailer day!
Shmee Hangs Out With Deadpool!
After the failure that was X-Men Origins: Wolverine no one thought that a Deadpool movie would ever see the light of day, let alone open to break every ‘R’-Rated box-office record known to man, but here we are, so the question you may be asking, “Is it any good?” The answer is yes. It is not perfect, but it is far better than any movie staring Ryan Reynolds has the right to be.
Mercenary Wade Wilson seems to finally have everything that he wants: a steady job, a beautiful girlfriend, and somehow, an apartment in New York City, but it turns out he also cancer. It is in its advanced stages and he doesn’t have long to live, so he does what any person would do in the Marvel Universe, let super-scientists turn him in to a superhero. Of course things don’t go as planned, and the now disfigured and kind of insane Deadpool must seek his revenge!
I have to admit the writers did an amazing job with Deadpool’s script. It makes you care about Deadpool in a way I didn’t think possible. Deadpool at his worst is an annoying internet meme, but at his best he serves as self-satire to the superhero genre. This movie allowed him be the satirist that superhero flicks desperately need while making him sympathetic. Bravo everyone!
Readers of my blog know that I am not a Ryan Reynolds fan, but Deadpool was the role he was born to play. He is witty and sort of charming even when saying just terrible stuff. It is a shame Origins set this movie back so far because he should have been Deadpool two or three more times by now and never made Green Lantern. If only Days of Future Past had reset that too.
I do have some minor quibbles with the film. One: the bad guy Ajax (Francis Freeman) played by Ed Skrein was boring. He did not make a good foil for the craziness of Deadpool at all. Two: while I know that everything has been reset by the events of X-Men: Days of Future Past, the Weapon-X lab was kind of lame. Like I said those things don’t matter much in the face of all the things this movie accomplishes, but they do keep this movie from being just that much better.
I enjoyed Deadpool a lot. At the extreme rate superhero movies are coming out these days it is necessary to have someone hold up a mirror every now and then to remind people how silly they really are, and I see no one more suited to the job than Deadpool. Quick note, this movie is rate ‘R’ for a reason. Actually it is rated ‘R’ for all the reasons, so please do not take your kids. You know, unless you are a terrible parent.