Venom First Trailer

So... Venom Theatrical Trailer. It's... out.

I, uh. Hm. I'm not really sure what to say about it. I'm thinking my thinly-veiling pessimism from the last trailer was appropriate.

Firstly, looks like the Agent Venom rumors were wrong, which I'm relieved about, but what's the deal with Tom Hardy's voice? Why does he have to put on some weird accent for each movie he's in? Is it even an accent, or just an odd inflection on random syllables? But I can't just blame Hardy, these lines are terrible.

"The guy you work for is the evil person."

Who... who wrote that? Speaking of voices, why in god's name did they give the symbiote a voice? And not just any voice, but the most cliche evil voice anyone has ever used. Why is it just evil right out of the gate? Typically, the symbiote is a character in-itself, but it doesn't need to actually talk to anyone to do that. They're just going with the laziest thing possible, and making the symbiote as close to a devil on his shoulder as they can get.

Unsurprisingly, doesn't look like Spider-Man is involved. Just looks like Eddie Brock stumbled on a secret company program and got the symbiote, which then makes him be evil. Is he even going to have an active role in this movie? Looks like they're going with the rote superhero story where Bad Guy is made the same time Good Guy is, Good Guy fights Bad Guy minions for most of it, and at the end Good beats Bad, the end. You'd think with an antihero as the lead, they might mix it up a bit, but from this it looks like the villains are unambiguously bad, so whatever Brock does is good.

I guess the suit looks... okay? I'm not sure I like the slimy texture of it, but I don't know what else I could expect. The eyes look too small for me. I always thought they looked better when they were bigger, more jagged, and more expressive. Since Spider-Man probably isn't a part of this, Venom looks sorta like him just because. They could have done worse, but I'm not blown away.

The only thing we can't get from this trailer is details on the villain. Obviously it's going to be the "evil person," Carlton Drake, as we were so charitably told, but the real question is: How is he going to have a big fight at the end. My guess is he's going to either alter the symbiote or find a new one and become Carnage. That seems the most predictable route, so there we go.

Gotta say guys, this is inching ever closer to Amazing Spider-Man 2 territory. But then again, after The Emoji Movie, did anyone expect Sony Pictures to produce something good? There's still a chance I won't hate it, but you won't catch me holding my breath.

Spider-Man Redemption Parts 1 and 2

Man, you know who loves clones? I love clones. People always refer to the Clone Saga in Spider-Man is the worst, but there are some parts I can't help but enjoy. I don't know about you, but I'm ready for some clone action!

YOU GET THAT SHIT OUT OF HERE

What I really mean is the sequel to everyone's favorite, the most 90's comic in existence, Spider-Man: The Lost Years, which I've covered previously. This is during the same period of time where Marvel decided Peter Parker was too old and married to be Spider-Man, so they decided he was in fact, the clone, and Ben Reilly was the original. But that doesn't mean Ben gets a family or a home or anything. It just means he has to be Spider-Man. And he has to keep dying his hair blond. What a life.

Comic Review: Spider-Man: Redemption Parts 1 & 2

We open with who else, Kaine, Peter Parker's evil degenerating clone. He's in full-on brood mode, at some random nobody's funeral, so he can think about death. Some cops show up wondering why some weirdo in spandex is caressing a corpse, and he threatens them with the Mark of Kaine, that thing he does where his hand can dissolve someone's face somehow. But instead he does it to himself.

"I FORGOT TO GET PAPER TOWELS AGAIN!"

So after Kaine thinks about how much he wants to die, we cut to the other Peter Parker clone, only not really, (only really) Ben Reilly. He's also thinking about death.

He's sad because Harry Osborn is dead. Well, because Harry died during Ben's years of exile, had a son Ben never met, and all that clone angst. It's almost like they can take a weird subject matter and make a relatable, compelling story about it! Okay, almost. Don't worry, Ben, he'll be back! While that happens, we get narration from some red haired lady on a train. I would say, "I wooonder who!" but considering how many redheads there are in the Marvel universe, this could be anyone.

Back at Ben's apartment, Kaine breaks in and they have a little scuffle which leaves Ben knocked out cold on his floor next to a broken table. I guess this just happens sometimes? Like that's how they hang out, Kaine shows up, smashes Ben's head with a piece of drywall and leaves. After that, Ben's gotta get a drink. At the bar, who else does he run into but Flash Thompson, coincidentally talking about Peter Parker.

Well shit. It would be so weird for a Spider-Man comic now to explore depression and regret like this, where Ben's lost life is mirrored in Flash's squandered one. There's a subtle bit where they both envy Peter, even though one of them is Peter. But Dan Slott doesn't do subtle.

At any rate, after dispensing some life advice, Ben goes back to his apartment to find... Mary Jane?

No no, it's Janine! Who just so happens to look exactly like Mary Jane, but that is never once commented upon. She's back and Ben is incredulous, because apparently she seemed to have died. We cut from their tearful reunion to Kaine, who's having a fun time with friends at a bar.

There's a montage of Ben and Janine together, with So Happy Together by The Turtles playing in the background. Their happiness is cut short when Kaine kidnaps Janine! They have a chase through a closed supermarket, but don't worry, Ben finds Janine!

Oooooooh. I don't think she's taking a nap.

So we open the next issue with Ben confronting some cops who want to know what the hell is going on.

They don't get any more answers.

So turns out Kaine pulled out the ol' switcheroo, putting Janine's clothes and... a mask of her face on a mannequin. Man, he put a lot of effort into this. Did he have a bunch of outfits ready, just in case she wore something different? Anyway, we find Kaine at the "Womb," where the Jackal cloned Ben and Kaine. Typical Friday night for him, just staring at himself naked in a mirror.

After checking on Janine and being super creepy, Kaine meets Ben in the lab. They have another fight, and Ben is knocked out. When Ben wakes up, Kaine is testing out his experimental botox formula.

Ben's knocked unconscious once the cellular degeneration takes effect, and when he comes to, Kaine's brought them both to Peter Parker's house. Kaine jumps through a window, looks at a picture, and leaves. Ben falls unconscious for like the fifth time that day. Geez, I'm having some uncomfortable flashbacks to college. He wakes up on a rooftop, finding that Kaine undid his pain elixer for some reason. Also Janine is back at the apartment and perfectly okay. So... was this just the longform version of beating up Ben and fleeing? Was that it? What was the point?

Whoopsy-doodle! How're they gonna get out of this one?! Find out next time!

Ready Player One (2018)

Ready Player One is Reference the Movie. You probably knew that already. I assumed I did. I even read the book, with the slew of 80's cameos and plot points throughout. But somehow, it didn't prepare me for the film. It's one thing to read a bunch of names on a page, it's another to see, in a mainstream movie, Tracer from Overwatch on three separate occasions. It's another thing to see the Iron Giant, where the entire point of his character is that he is not a weapon to wage destruction, being used as a weapon to wage destruction.

There's some plot in there, I guess. Wade Wilson or whatever is a normal kid who figures out the big important thing in a game and then he and his online friends (who all happen to live in the same city) get to the final big game thing before the big evil corporation. The big evil corporation that views the entire gameworld as a money-making venture. Who uses knowledge of these properties towards the goal of profit, but has no real attachment to any of them. You know, like the big corporation that created this movie.

Is this what movies are now? I'm well aware that no idea is truly original, but could you put a little more goddamn effort in? Half the film is a cavalcade of images from things you've probably seen before, but devoid of context or meaning. They have the dance from Saturday Night Fever. Does any of that have to do with the themes from that movie? Of course not. If you include a reference to a previous work, you want it to have some connection to your creation, either similar themes or character arcs, or something. This just had them thrown in there, like a facebook post on being a 90's kid.

Even apart from the references, of which that leaves little, it wasn't super great. Early on it seems the point of the film is that running to a virtual reality to escape your problems is bad. But nope. Turns out that's just what was needed to get everything you ever wanted, and only then should you take off the VR goggles. For most of the movie I assumed the evil corporation was the government. They have a task force that runs around with guns and forcibly abducts people for their debt, so I figured they were the police. But at the end, it turns out police do exist when they arrest the bad guy! How were they not involved with any other part in the film where shit is blown up and people are shot?! It should not be a big twist in your movie that police exist!

The character designs they didn't take from other people who actually cared about what they created are all pretty lackluster. The female lead looks like a red Na'Vi, the male lead looks like Jack Frost, and that's really all you get. I just don't get this video game from a purely in-universe perspective. How can an entire game world run when everything is just taken from somewhere else? I don't play World of Warcraft expecting to make my character into Spider-Man, it's only good when it has an inner lore to follow.

It's not as patently offensive as, say, a Transformers movie, but if I ever so much as dipped my toe into investment in the plot, I was instantly taken out by seeing a Spawn, a Ninja Turtle, or a Batgirl placed haphazardly into a scene. They say you shouldn't remind viewers of a better film within your own, but obviously Spielberg had some high hopes for this one, because he did not shy away from that at all. They put entire scenes from another movie in this one and it didn't matter in the slightest. It could've been any movie they chose, they just wanted you to see one and say, "I remember that!"

That's the movie. A whole bunch of little moments endlessly repeating, hitting that Pavlov's Bell that makes you say, "I remember!" Anything original they may have created here is overshadowed by the far better works they paid no respect to. Instead of this movie, I'd much rather rewatch The Iron Giant, TMNT, Dune, The Shining, Child's Play, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park, King Kong, or Godzilla.

Ready Player One (April Fool's!)

Ready Player One is Reference the Movie. Going in, I was apprehensive, but I warmed up to it eventually, it ended up being pretty charming. I mean yeah, the plot was derivative, the songs were all old, and it just kept naming old properties in an attempt to make you remember that they exist, but it seemed more original than I had heard.

Most of the movie was CG, which I assume takes place in the virtual world. I guess it looked alright. I didn't really get a lot of the characters, I think I must've missed the references, though for a few the materials referenced seemed really old. And not even, like, video games, which I thought was the point.

The bad guy was pretty entertaining to watch, what with maniacal schemes to kill a lot of people, though there were a few twists and turns in there that didn't make a lot of sense to me. Are there no police in this world? It seemed like nobody cared about what happened to these characters, but I guess it wasn't real life so whatever.

I didn't expect the whole thing would be a mystery plot, or take place entirely in CGI London. Did all their avatars have to be really small compared to the game world? The romance was odd to me, I thought these characters were supposed to just fall in love during the movie, but the way it worked out it's like they were already in a relationship before the movie began. That's probably more my problem than the movie's.

Now I know it's supposed to be full of old stuff, but the score in particular was bizarre to me. Like, yeah, 80's songs, but why did all of them have to be Elton John covers? Were they just too lazy to find other artists to use? And why was one of the main characters a Sherlock Holmes avatar? Another thing, where did this goddamn annoying frog come from? I hated it every moment it was on screen, but was it supposed to be from something?

So yeah, I guess it was okay, but I really don't get what the hype is about. They made a whole bunch of alternate posters, and I think that misled a lot of people. This is the only one I found that actually looks like the movie.

If that looks like your thing, I guess you can go see it. I just don't get it.