Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania an extended TV episode.

Ant-Man and the Wasp find themselves exploring the Quantum Realm, interacting with strange new creatures and embarking on an adventure that pushes them beyond the limits of what they thought was possible.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is the newest installment of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and is the introduction to Phase Five. Phase Four was the very definition of a mixed bag leading towards the bad side (Wakanda Forever, Loki and a few others are exceptions.) so this was definitely the chance to start the new phase off strong…that did not happen unfortunately.

To be absolutely fair I do think Quantumania is a bit better than some of what phase four had to offer and it is definitely better than the last Ant-Man movie (Ant-Man and The Wasp), but that honestly does not mean much when it suffers a very common problem that a lot of the MCU has been facing lately. Before we get into that there are the positives.

Like everyone has said and will continue to say Jonathan Majors easily steals the show as Kang, he plays such a strong villain and puts his powerhouse acting ability into the role which leads to some quite fantastic moments, similarly Michelle Pfeiffer does a fantastic job here as well, she plays Janet Van Dyne who is actually decently written here, granted there are some scenes where had the writing been so much stronger the character could have improved. But from what was shown it wasn’t too bad, Pfeiffer and Majors are truly at their best when they share the screen together and are able to combine their talent.

Lastly there’s the father and daughter relationship that Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Cassie Lang (Kathryn Newton) that while does come off a bit basic at times, it’s mainly due to Paul Rudd and Kathryn Newton being so likable as performers that really makes it work, because Cassie Lang as a character was just not exactly well written at all here. But as I said Newton takes what she’s given and makes the most of it.

Unfortunately everything else is a complete and total mess that just about sums up the main issues currently going on with the MCU, first off the movie is just the usual MCU formula again. Rather than tell a story the movie focuses on introducing the main villain of the new phase Kang, which while is nice it sacrifices writing, storytelling, character development and much more. Most of the other characters are given almost nothing to do especially Hope and Hank who are largely given a backseat this time around.

MODOK is unfortunately not used well at all, he only really serves as a sort of example I’ve used in the past with a lot of MCU films and that’s “the Dragon Ball Z movie henchmen effect) which basically means he’s given a few scenes and then gets written out of the movie. Darren Cross (played by Corey Stoll) makes a return from the first Ant-Man, what’s shocking is somehow this movie manages to make Cross even less interesting to the point where him as Yellowjacket was more investing than him as MODOK. But what really hurts MODOK is the stuff the movie decides to do with him towards the end, it’s the usual MCU humor that flat out makes very little sense given Darren Cross’s personality and the story.

Lastly Quantumania just doesn’t risk any stakes, which I imagine is going to be a huge problem with this phase given that it’s about the Multiverse. Which if you aren’t going to risk any stakes or do something out of the ordinary at least try and build interesting characters and story elements, which is what this movie really lacked. The Star Wars similarities are painfully obvious and really don’t serve any point other than for someone to point and say “hey isn’t this like Star Wars?”

Overall Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is basically an extended TV episode, it’s main purpose is to introduce the main villain which as I said Majors is one of the best parts. But doing just that sacrifices just about everything else.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is available in theaters.

4/10 D+

Legion Of Superheroes is the worst of The Tomorrowverse so far.

Kara, devastated by the loss of Krypton, struggles to adjust to her new life on Earth. Superman mentors her. Meanwhile, she must contend with a mysterious group called the Dark Circle who searches for a powerful weapon held in the Academy’s vault.

Legion Of Super-Heroes is the sixth installment of DC’s The Tomorrowverse (I incorrectly said Batman and Superman: Battle Of The Super Sons was the sixth installment but that was just a standalone movie in my review for that movie.) and as these movies go on it becomes increasingly more hard to say things that I haven’t already said about the previous ones.

The main problem with Legion Of Super-Heroes is despite it’s name the focus is mainly on Supergirl, so if you like Supergirl you are going to love this one. But if you are someone who was hoping the focus would also be on the other characters prepare for disappointment, with that said I do think the voice acting isn’t too bad. Meg Donnelly does a decent job as Supergirl (despite a very rough start) and everyone else definitely does the best they can with a script that’s just not very good. A lot of the movie is focused on Supergirl and Brainaic 5 bonding, which does have it’s moments but ultimately feels very misplaced.

It takes away time from the actual plot and other characters getting much needed development, it’s something that a lot of these DC animated movies are guilty of they will throw in a bunch of characters making it seem like they have a lot of characters but in reality they get no development at all and just sort of exist to back up the main characters. The animation is fine enough combined with the action there are some strong action scenes but that’s where it really ends, there isn’t anything truly exciting here.

Lastly there’s the villains who one of them is so predictable as soon as he comes on screen, and the other Brainaic while really neat appears at the very end of the movie which at that point is too little too late.

Legion Of Superheroes is by far the worst of The Tomorrowverse so far, it’s exactly what you expect and unless you are a die hard Supergirl fan you aren’t going to like this one.

Legion Of Superheroes is available on all VOD platforms.

3/10 D-

Black Adam comic book movie fatigue at it’s worst.

In ancient Kahndaq, Teth Adam was bestowed the almighty powers of the gods. After using these powers for vengeance, he was imprisoned, becoming Black Adam. Nearly 5,000 years have passed, and Black Adam has gone from man to myth to legend. Now free, his unique form of justice, born out of rage, is challenged by modern-day heroes who form the Justice Society: Hawkman, Dr. Fate, Atom Smasher and Cyclone.

Black Adam is a prime example of what people mean when they say they are having comic book movie fatigue, it’s a genre that’s been very successful over the last several years. The problem is a lot of studios see this as a money making opportunity rather than making good quality films. That’s where Black Adam comes in, while there are a few things to praise such as some of the action scenes actually being well done and the performances from Pierce Brosnan and Aidis Hodge who really do the best they can with such a limited script. Everything else is beat by beat comic book movie genre plot points, the ideas of Black Adam are interesting and does seem like the movie wanted to tackle more of the anti-hero parts of Black Adam but for whatever reason held back and actually felt very watered down. The characters are completely one note and if you were to take some of them out of the movie nothing would change, like the ideas of the movie I like the concept of the characters it’s just a shame we never get to learn about them. Cyclone (played by Quintessa Swindell) and Atom Smasher (played by Noah Centineo) seem like neat characters but they mostly just serve to be part of a team in this case “The Justice Society”. Doctor Fate (Brosnan) and Hawkman (Hodge) get a bit more development but not by much, it does seem like the movie was trying to explore more with their characters but halfway through just said “screw it”. Dwayne Johnson gives a fine enough performance as Black Adam, it’s truly nothing special as it is what you expect it to be, the villain is easily one of the most forgettable villains in these comic book movies and that’s truly saying something given how many forgettable villains have shown up in the last few years. Ishmael Gregor who becomes Sabbac (played by Marwan Kenzari) has no personality outside of being evil and wanting to destroy everything, finally there’s the writing that really just can be summed up by saying it’s been done better before. There’s such a lack of trying to go more than surface level with the movie’s ideas which in the end truly hurts the movie, it’s a shame because Jaume Collet-Serra is actually a very solid director who’s done some great work in the past such as The Shallows, House Of Wax (2005) Orphan and Run All Night. I’m sure this isn’t going to be the end for Black Adam and maybe in the future the character as well as the other characters will get far more development because this movie really didn’t do much.

Black Adam is currently in theaters.

4/10 D+

She-Hulk is a huge missed opportunity.

Jennifer Walters has a complicated life as a single, 30-something attorney who also happens to be a green 6-foot-7-inch superpowered hulk.

She-Hulk is the eighth Disney+ and MCU series….and it’s by far the absolute worst one. But before that let’s get the positives out of the way because they are very straightforward, for starters Tatiana Maslany is very solid as She-Hulk, that’s mainly due to her just being a really strong actress who can work with any sort of script. She’s hands down the best part of the entire series it’s just such a shame she wasn’t given a better show or script, episode eight is the highlight by far. While it’s not perfect it’s the only episode where the humor genuinely worked, plus having Charlie Cox back as Daredevil was pretty neat, he also gives a solid performance. The chemistry between Cox and Maslany while short is actually really charming and very entertaining. As for the rest of the show it’s a complete and total mess, if you thought the Marvel humor was terrible in previous shows or movies then you are going to have a dreadful time here, outside of a joke every once in awhile a lot of the humor really comes off as obnoxious. There’s a lot of fourth wall breaking humor that at this point way too many films and TV shows have done, I get that the source material has a lot of fourth wall breaking humor. The problem is the writing doesn’t do it in creative ways, in fact it quite honestly gets progressively worse as the series goes on. Heck the final episode ends up being this whole “this series was meant to be bad!” type of thing which again had the writing actually been investing or knew what it wanted to say that could have worked. Then you have the other characters who are just sort of there Jameela Jamil, Mark Ruffalo, Tim Roth and Ginger Gonzaga are fine enough but they are really not given a whole lot to do outside of unfunny lines. There really isn’t anything else to say here which is unfortunate because a She-Hulk show could have easily work had the writing been a lot more focused and actually attempted with the humor.

She Hulk- is available on Disney+

3/10 D-

Batman and Superman: Battle Of The Super Sons is a fun addition to the Tomorrowverse.

Jonathan Kent and reluctant young sidekick Damian Wayne are burdened with saving the world from impending doom. The two must join forces to rescue their fathers and save the planet by becoming the super heroes they were intended to be.

Batman and Superman: Battle Of The Super Sons is the sixth installment of the Tomorrowverse, this one is pretty straightforward, it focuses on the sons of Batman and Superman Johnathan Kent and Damian Wayne. As far as characters go this one does a fine enough job, the father and son bond of Clark and Johnathan is genuinely really sweet and makes for some corny yet genuinely funny humor. So at the very least the movie has heart, where it lacks is mostly an interesting villain and story wise. The villain is Starro the conqueror which I do like the concept of but it’s just another “people are brainwashed” type scenario. The voice cast are quite great as well, Laura Bailey and Jack Dylan Grazer being the standouts who add quite a lot to their characters. Story wise this is again very straightforward which isn’t necessarily bad it just does a lot what you expect it to, it plays out like how a Saturday morning action cartoon show would. However the team up of Damien and Johnathan is genuinely charming and a lot of fun, which by far makes this movie worth a watch.

Batman and Superman: Battle Of The Super Sons releases on VOD Platforms October 18th

6/10 C+

Samaritan is a generic superhero story.

A young boy learns that a superhero who was thought to have gone missing after an epic battle twenty years ago may in fact still be around.

I was actually pretty excited for Samaritan despite the plot reading exactly like a generic superhero story, I wanted to see how Julius Avery (director of Overlord and Son Of A Gun) would tackle the superhero genre. Unfortunately the movie itself is a very generic one, the story of a kid unexpectedly meeting a superhero has been done numerous times before and it’s not any different here. Javon Walton at least gives a fun performance that gives the movie spirit and Sylvester Stallone is really solid here as he usually is, the few action scenes that there are not bad but not anything to write home about. Had this movie come out several years ago like in the 90s there would be a lot more leeway, the main issues here are mostly the villains who are very one note and for half the movie barely do anything. Then you have the writing which I’ve said before is written in the most generic way possible, the movie hits a lot of the typical superhero movie beats that have been done far better elsewhere. There’s some decent moments with Stallone and Walton who bond over the course of the movie which leads to some great moments, but a lot Samaritan is very forgettable and sort of sits among such a crowded genre. Overall Samaritan isn’t bad, there’s definitely some heart and the acting is at least solid. But it’s not enough to really standout.

Samaritan is available on Amazon Prime Video.

5/10 C

DC League Of Super-Pets is a fun kids superhero movie.

Krypto the Super-Dog and Superman are inseparable best friends, sharing the same superpowers and fighting crime in Metropolis side by side. When Superman and the rest of the Justice League are kidnapped, Krypto must convince a rag-tag shelter pack–Ace the hound, PB the potbellied pig, Merton the turtle and Chip the squirrel–to master their own newfound powers and help him rescue the superheroes.

DC League Of Super Pets definitely surprised me in a few ways, this could have easily been a very unfunny and forgettable kids movie but there’s actually a decent amount to enjoy here. The voice cast is overall great Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Kate McKinnon, John Krasinski, Keanu Reeves and a few others do a fantastic job here. There’s a few jokes here that land pretty well and there are some that fall flat but they aren’t terrible or anything to complain over, the animation is fun and colorful plus it gives some of the characters a decent amount of detail. What’s the most surprising about the movie is there’s some genuine heart in it, there’s a few heartfelt moments that actually give the movie some strength when it comes to storytelling during those scenes. The movie mainly suffers from a lot of beat by beat plot points that really don’t add anything new and the animal characters outside of Krypto, Lulu and Ace just sort of exist, the three I mentioned get character development at least and are fun characters but the same can’t be said for the others. The others mainly serve to be this movie’s “silly sidekicks” but for a movie called League Of Super-Pets you would think they would get a tad more development right? Overall DC League Of Super-Pets is a serviceable kids movie that definitely had a surprising amount of effort put into it, what could have been a forgettable cashgrab ends up being a decent enough kids movie.

DC League Of Super-Pets is available on all VOD platforms.

6/10 C+

Secret Headquarters is a harmless kids movie but not much else.

A kid discovers the secret headquarters of a powerful superhero hidden beneath his home and must defend it with his group of friends when villains attack.

Secret Headquarters is basically if you took Spy Kids and Sky High then made it forgettable. I can easily see why this movie didn’t end up releasing in theaters like it was originally going to, there are some good bits here such as Walker Scobell, Owen Wilson (even though he wasn’t in it all that much), Keith L. Williams and Abby James Witherspoon were great and they all genuinely seemed like they were having a blast with this movie. So at least the passion was there it’s mostly the writing that hurts this movie, I will say that it is a completely harmless movie for kids there’s some jokes in here that actually worked quite well and reminded me of the type of humor that Spy Kids had. However the plot is a bit too predictable and the villains are very one note characters that feel like they teleported from a very early 2000s family movie, Secret Headquarters is at least not as bad as it could have been. I’m sure there will be an audience for this movie I’m just not one of them.

Secret Headquarters is available on Paramount+

4/10 D+

Green Lantern: Beware My Power is a weak entry in the Tomorrowverse

When a Power Ring is bestowed upon former Marine John Stewart, it leads him on a life-changing mission. With Justice League member Green Arrow and Thanagarian Hawkgirl by his side, Stewart is thrown into a complicated galactic war.

Green Lantern: Beware My Power is the newest installment of the new DC Animated Universe the Tomorrowverse. The DC Animated Movie Universe finished with Justice League Dark: Apokolips War in 2020 (a pretty solid ending) the Tomorrowverse began with Superman: Man Of War a few months later in August 2020 so far there’s been 5 films…Superman: Man Of War, Justice Society World War II, Batman The Long Halloween Parts 1 and 2 and finally Green Lantern: Beware My Power.

Green Lantern: Beware My Power I was a bit interested in mainly due to John Stewart’s version of The Green Lantern who was one of my favorite characters from The Justice League TV series back from 2004. The movie serves as an origin story for the character but unfortunately the writing really hurts this movie. The movie starts out fine enough, it does a decent job of introducing Green Arrow, Hawk Girl and a few others and there’s even some decent action scenes as well. The animation is also pretty solid with a few scenes in particular that are actually pretty well done, the main problem is despite the movie being about John Stewart that gets lost during the midpoint of the movie, he ends up being in the middle of all these other characters and their problems. The focus suddenly switches to them rather than Stewart and just leaves any fan of John Stewart’s Green Lantern very disappointed, the voice acting is at least decent giving each of the characters their own personality. The plot however is very Saturday morning cartoonish outside of a few scenes it really doesn’t dive deep into the characters and is very very surface level. Unless you know these characters you aren’t going to get a whole lot of information about them here. Overall it’s not a terrible movie but it is a pretty disappointing one, that had the writing been a lot better could have made for something interesting.

Green Lantern Beware My Power is available on all VOD Platforms.

5/10 C+

Thor: Love And Thunder…an underutilized mess.

Thor embarks on a journey unlike anything he’s ever faced — a quest for inner peace. However, his retirement gets interrupted by Gorr the God Butcher, a galactic killer who seeks the extinction of the gods.

To say the MCU Phase Four has been divisive would be the understatement of the year, while there have been some really installments that I would actually go as far to say are some of the best of the MCU such as Doctor Strange: And The Multiverse Of Madness, Loki and Spider-Man: No Way Home, there are also ones that completely missed the mark (Black Widow and Eternals) or had a ton of great ideas but settled on playing safe or were just hindered by the 6 episode format (looking at you Moon Knight even though I gave it a 7/10).

Thor: Love and Thunder is truly baffling the way it came out, there was so much here that should have absolutely worked but didn’t for several reasons. I’ll start with what I liked, Natalie Portman who returns as Jane Foster and becomes The Mighty Thor is truly fantastic here. Like in the first Thor films she really captures Jane Foster quite well and absolutely tries her best with the bare bones script she is given, what hurts her character is she isn’t explored nearly enough which is quite odd considering this was supposed to be a huge part of the film. Christian Bale who plays Gorr (or The God Slayer) also gives a strong performance but is the very definition of underutilized, Gorr as a character is very interesting and has a backstory that could have been quite emotional and actually powerful as well. The problem is Gorr is not given enough screentime to make that work, plus his backstory itself is nowhere near as explored as it should have been, Bale goes all out with the role which is just another huge reminder of how good of an actor Bale is. There’s a few fun action scenes here and there but a lot of it feels very empty that goes completely off the rails towards the end in all the wrong ways. Lastly there’s Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie who for some reason gets put into the backseat and just becomes some sidekick, when she does get time to shine she’s really great but Thompson and her character deserved far better than this.

Now for what it is completely wrong with this movie and that’s mostly due to three major things that completely break it. The first being the jokes, while I do understand the criticism of Thor Raganrock having jokes in it at least they worked to an extent and were at least controlled on a tight leash, the jokes in Thor: Love and Thunder are the complete opposite the first half of the movie is filled to the brim of jokes that are painfully unfunny. Even resorting to the screaming goat meme which is from 2012 (went viral in 2013), the first time it might have gotten a chuckle but the film kept doing it over and over again. The biggest problem here is the movie tries to juggle between jokes and serious moments, there’s some okay setups for some emotional scenes but are hindered by poorly written jokes that feel like they should be in an entirely different movie. The second major issue is the writing which can be pretty much summed up as being the definition of bare bones, characters who could be interesting have no character development, plot lines are introduced and abandoned with a snap of a finger and writing that completely prohibits any emotion or depth. Lastly there’s what I hinted at the beginning of this review, this another case of Phase Four having a ton of great ideas but completely wasting them. Particularly with Gorr and Jane Foster, there were many ideas about them that are interesting the movie just completely fails to do anything with them and if the movie does do then it’s barely anything at all, Thor finding out who he really is could be interesting but once again that’s only mentioned a few times throughout the movie but is quickly abandoned. Overall Thor: Love And Thunder is a huge missed opportunity that should have absolutely worked, it’s honestly quite baffling how wrong this went and is just massively disappointing overall.

Thor: Love And Thunder is in theaters.

4/10 D+