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We wrap up our Avengers part of our Hickman series with the 9-issue Secret Wars event that sees Hickman rebuild the Marvel Universe first in Doom's vision then from Reed's. Secret Wars is one of those events where you don't have to read all the related non-Hickman written issues to understand the story but you want to. It's a good cap to the end of the story Hickman has been telling not only from Avengers but all the way back to SHIELD. Also, just like in Time Runs Out you start to see where he lays the seeds for what he later does in X-Men. 

There is one more episode we're doing in this Hickman series and it will be to cover Hickman's run on X-Men and the new dynamic he created for mutants in the Marvel Universe. But before that we're going to head over to the DC world to talk about Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing. 

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Director: Colin Trevorrow

Screenwriter: Colin Trevorrow, Emily Carmichael, Derek Connolly

Starring: Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard, Laura Dern, Sam Neill, Jeff Goldblum, DeWanda Wise, Mamoudou Athie

Runtime: 2 hour 26 minutes

Synopsis: Four years after the destruction of Isla Nublar, dinosaurs now live--and hunt--alongside humans all over the world. This fragile balance will reshape the future and determine, once and for all, whether human beings are to remain the apex predators on a planet they now share with history's most fearsome creatures in a new Era.

The 1993 Jurassic Park was a classic. It revolutionize the blend of CGI and practical effects. It had a story based in science that . Unfortunately after the success of that movie, the franchise had been nothing more than expensive tech demos. That's especially true of the Jurassic World trilogy of films with each one getting progressively worse. These films are ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous with things that make absolutely no sense. Like how did large dinosaurs repopulate the entire world after a handful escaped an auction in the last film? Look, we get it. Sometimes ridiculous nonsense films are enjoyable (Hi Fast & Furious series). But it's really hard to turn your brain off for a ridiculous film that doesn't think it's ridiculous. Director Colin Trevorrow is no doubt trying to make a serious film with a coherent storyline which makes the ridiculousness of this film not a feature but clearly a bug. 

Look, if folks just want to see some dinosaurs then that's fine. You could cut out the few and far between horror-like scenes and put them on Youtube and get your fix. When the film does that, it works. The problem is, it's full of humans your don't care about in a story that doesn't make any sense. That's par for the course at this point. What makes Jurassic World Dominion even more egregious is the blatant and heavy handed nostalgia scenes it goes for. There are times when this film will have a character from the original Jurassic Park say or do something exactly like they did it in that movie but it doesn't land because it's such a hollow attempt.

Jurassic World Dominion is the Matrix Resurrections of Jurassic Park films. This is a series that should die and not be brought back.

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Stephanie Williams is a comic book historian and pop culture critic who has written for SYFYFANGRRLS, The A.V. Club, Nerdist, Den of Geek, and Rotten Tomatoes. Stephanie is also a comic creator with three ongoing webcomics, Parenthood Activate!, But What If Though?, and Living Heroes. She made her Marvel debut with a short story featuring Monica Rambeau in Marvel’s Voices: Legacy. She recently made her DC Comics debut in Wonder Woman Black and Gold #2 and is co-writing the Nubia and the Amazons miniseries.

 

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Halo Season 1 was not good. Let's just get that out of the way right now. This isn't coming from the perspective of a Halo stan/fan. Objectively, this show was a mess. It had no idea what story it wanted to tell and whenever it got a decent idea of a good story, it would then shuffle off to something no one cared about. Episodes 8 & 9 weren't bad, but coming off of that terrible episode 7 there was really no where to go but up anyway. The the real problem with episodes 8 & 9 are that they should have been episodes 4 & 5 and been the focus of the story the whole time. Instead because they weren't, so much gets crammed into them that they are illogical and the key points don't hit how they should. This show has some good action scenes and there are some good ones in 8 & 9 but it seems like overall the show is allergic to the thing it does best. Considering there's no follow up on Kwan and what they were trying to do in episode 7, one has to wonder why that was even a storyline to waste time on in season 1. But the entire first season of this show is full of that kind of confusing nonsense. 

We also need to talk about how this show does a terrible job with female characters. It seems to fall into that old trope of "Oh look, this female character has emotion so let's show her being irrational and compromised." It was bad enough when they did it with Kai-125 but then they turn around and did it with Makee in the last 2 episodes. Makee goes from unflinching coldness when killing a whole ship of people to being a frail, scared woman holding a gun cause she fell in love with John and got some dick after 1 day? Come on. It's insulting. 

Halo is getting a second season but it doesn't deserve it. The writing and execution of season 1 was a huge disappointment. Rewarding this show with a second season is just going to reenforce all the things it did wrong. 

 

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Director: Chloe Okuno

Screenwriter: Zachary Ford, Chloe Okuno

Starring: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Madalina Anea, Chloe Okuno, Burn Gorman, Gabriela Butuc, Tudor Petrut

Runtime: 1 hour 36 minutes

SXSW Synopsis: set in the midst of a citywide panic over an active serial killer, a young woman moves into a new apartment with her partner and is tormented by the feeling that she is being stalked by an unseen watcher in an adjacent building. (This review was originally part of MTR’s 2022 festival coverage.)

**

Watcher, director Chloe Okuno’s feature debut, follows Julia (Maika Monroe) and Francis (Karl Glusman), a young couple just arrived in Bucharest, Romania for Francis’ new job. Julia doesn’t speak Romanian or know the country. Almost immediately, she finds herself adrift in the city with an increasingly unavailable husband. She spends most days listening to language lessons and otherwise wandering around at loose ends. Francis does little to help his wife adjust. He’s quick to speak in Romanian, cutting her out of conversations by often failing to translate. He makes no attempt to orient her in the city or their new lives. The first night in their home, she notices the silhouette of a man standing at a window in the building across from theirs. He appears to be looking at her. Days later, in an attempt to convince herself she’s imagining things, Julia waves when she sees him. The man raises a hand and waves back. 

If this setup has a decidedly Hitchcockian feel, have no fear you’re not imagining it. The hints of voyeurism and Rear Window vibes echo thematically throughout the film. There’s even a very meta moment early on where Julia can’t shake the feeling of being stalked inside a theater while watching Stanley Donen's Charade. Okuno plays with visual perspectives with overhead shots, shots from below, and three-quarter angles to build an ever growing specter of doubt in what Julia’s actually experiencing. Her approach invites the audience to transfer their own anxieties and fears onto the main character. It’s not unique but unlike its predecessor films in the genre (think Hereditary or Repulsion), Okuno uses Julia’s seeming aimlessness to credibly make room for doubt without completely leaving the character as an empty cipher. In Monroe's capable hands, Julia’s got depth in her distressed gaze.  Her growing listlessness and lack of focus aid in distorting time and recollection. 

Paranoia is self-replenishing. Once something trips that switch, it's like a constant itch at the base of your skull; a twitch between your shoulder blades. If the feeling lingers long  enough, you can find yourself practically jumping at shadows, flinching away from people, and avoiding places where you can’t put your back to a wall. Thread that paranoia into a story centering a woman convinced she’s being watched (and possibly followed) who can’t get anyone to take her seriously and you’ve got the perfect nightmare fuel. 

As Julia’s sense of being followed increases, Francis begins to fully discount her unsettled feelings, casting her further adrift. It doesn’t help that there’s an actual serial killer, called the Spider, preying on women in the city. Pretty soon, she’s sleeping poorly and coming off as a blurry eyed hysteric to the people around her. So when her only friend, Irina (Madalina Anea), goes missing from the building; no one’s willing to take her seriously. Whenever she tries to articulate what she’s feeling, it comes out sounding hesitant and unconvincing. To others, the situation begins to look more and more like an unhinged American woman targeting a solitary local man. Monroe’s performance convincingly pushes you into questioning her reliability as a narrator. As incidents and inexplicable encounters keep happening even Julia begins to doubt herself. But if you, like me, automatically say, “oh no” whenever you see Burn Gorman’s name on a cast...

Kriss and Dpalm discuss the last two episodes of the Flash. This season has felt disjointed. The way that things are unfolding don't make a lot of sense. The show goes from caring about Iris disappearing in episode 15 to opening with a fun D&D game. Then there's the fact that nobody checked on Caitlyn until the very end of episode 16. And when Barry does, he basically turns her into a villain. It's all just really weird.

We also discuss some random news and trailers that have come out over the last 2 week.s 

Kriss and Dpalm record the Mailbag at the end of every month. If you want to send in your own questions and thoughts, email us: [email protected]

 

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With the mention of the word "Incursions" in Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness its timely for us to reach the "Time Runs Out" portion of our Into the Hickmanverse series. This is the lead up to Secret Wars and its basically Hickman destroying the Marvel Universe. All of it. Time Runs Out is actually jarring at first because there is an 8 month story gap. The Avengers have split. The Illuminati is on the run with new members. The Captain Britain Corp has been wiped out. The Cabal is given free rein to destroy other worlds. So much has happened and Hickman takes his time explaining it all.

We also get the reveal of who "Rabum Alal" is and it's...Doctor Doom. Hickman does what he always does and calls his shot and takes us back to the beginning. And not just this series but all of his series. At one point the Illuminati takes refuge in the Immortal City that we saw Nathaniel Richards and Howard Stark as members of S.H.I.E.L.D. There's also some connections to Secret Warriors. And you really start to wonder if "All Hope Lies in Doom" from the Fantastic Four series with Val & Franklin from the future was also talking about the work that Doom is doing in this series that leads to him confronting the Beyonders. 

And then there are the hints at future Hickman stories. Like when Scott talks about the name of the game being "resurrection". Knowing what we know now about Hickman's time on X-Men and it seems like he called his shot here as well.

Every time we read this series we pick up something new. By the end of Time Runs out there's only two universes left: 616 and 1610. And that's where we will pick this all back up with Secret Wars in the next episode.  

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Kriss & Dpalm review the last two episodes of The Flash Season 8: Death Falls and Funeral for a Friend. Death Falls sees Frost sacrifice herself to stop Death Storm and well...it's a choice. Didn't seem like it was entirely necessary to do that but maybe they're working on something else with this storyline considering what we see Caitlyn do at the end of 14. Episode 14 though is just...not good. It didn't seem well thought out. We get what they were trying to do but the execution just wasn't there.

Kriss and Dpalm record the Mailbag at the end of every month. If you want to send in your own questions and thoughts, email us: [email protected]

 

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After way too much recording today, Kriss and I decided to make it a marathon and cap our weekend with UDPod. Recorded before either Game 7 in the Conference Semis, we talk about how our age has adversely affected our playoff experience thus far, NFL anime schedule releases, and Tom Brady making more talking ball than playing it.

Guest: Kriss - @InsanityReport

 

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Movies that adapt Stephen King novels don't have a great track record. Firestarter seems to be proud to not only continue that tradition but works hard to make it one of the worst. Someone said, let's take one of King's novels that was already made into a bad film in the 80's, get the guy who wrote the terrible Halloween Kills to write the screen play and then rush through any story so that the plot is incoherent at best. That pretty much sums up the 2022 Firestarter.

Zac Efron really needs better people. He's not a bad actor but he's continually given projects and direction that just don't work. Apparently no one told him he was playing the father to Charlie, not her annoyed big brother. To be fair to him, the script didn't seem to really want to write his character that way anyway. The script is rushed and half thought out and it does a disservice to everyone involved from the actors to the audience. 

At some point we need to have a conversation about how Blumhouse seems to be making the laziest excuses for horror films lately. Cause this just isn't it. 

Listen as Ro, Brandon and Kriss talk about how much of an absolute shit show this film is.

 

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