Kurt Pankau Dot Com

🙊 Woke Up This Morning, Didn't Recognize the Man in the Mirror... The Crime:  X-Men Origins: Wolverine The Guilty Party: Hugh Jackman, weirdly enough Overview: An ugly, dumb, badly-paced, and wholly unnecessary film that is mostly remembered for how it tried to ruin Deadpool. Why I Hate It... It's been hard to pick topics this month. There's no shortage of bad movies and shows that fall under the Marvel umbrella, but it's been hard to come up with things that are truly awful that I've seen and remember well enough to write about. The big stinkers: Iron Fist , Elektra , Dark Phoenix , Amazing Spider-Man 2 , and Josh Trank's Fant4stic  are things that I just never bothered to watch. There's Sam Raimi's  Spider-Man 3 , but talking about how bad that movie is has almost become a cliché at this point. So instead I've focused on things that weren't terrible, but didn't work in interesting ways. Black Widow 's not a terrible movie, it's not

🦸 And 4, 4, 4 For My Headaches... Even the most devoted MCU fanboy (read: me) has to admit that the content of Marvel's "Phase 4" has been lackluster. For a little context, I started this rant while I was writing up my critique of the Loki  Disney+ series and it quickly became evident that I had too many digressions and needed to break this out into a separate post. But I think it's useful to keep Loki  in mind when considering all of this because the problems plaguing the post- Infinity-Saga  Marvel content are evident there in microcosm, from the re-arranged schedules to the inability to do anything interesting with a multiverse to the seeming lack of quality control especially in the scripting. Indeed, these problems started with Phase 4 and are continuing into whatever phase we're in now--5, I think?--but Loki  was the first indication that the wheels were coming off the wagon. So, with that table-setting out of the way, what are the problems with Phase 4? T

 🧝‍♀️ Because I'm Sick of Myself When I Look at You... The Crime:  Loki The Guilty Party: Series creator Michael Waldron, probably? Overview: Instead of multiverse shenanigans from a trickster god, we get a lazy, plodding, and kinda icky character drama that's bogged down with franchise building. Why I Hate It... Loki  on Disney+ has, at the very least, an excellent pitch. At the midpoint of  Avengers: Endgame  an alternate-timeline version of Loki escapes the Battle of New York with the Tesseract and is now traversing space and time causing mischief before ultimately stumbling across Kang the Conqueror. There's a lot you can do with that premise. There are also a few unique storytelling challenges that come packaged with it. The Loki that audiences know has undergone a lot of character growth that this version has not. He's also a very big and bombastic character who's something of a punching bag. This is all well and good for villains and sidekicks, but it can b

😈 Set Out Runnin' But I'll Take My Time... The Crime:  Daredevil The Guilty Party: Mark Steven Johnson Overview: An overly earnest take on a tricky character is mishandled by a director whose love of the property is undermined by him just not being all that good of a filmmaker. Why I Hate It... Daredevil was never going to be an easy property to adapt to a live-action movie for mainstream audiences. He is a B-list hero at best . His costume is stupid. His gimmick--wherein the accident that blinded him also enhanced his other senses--is built on tropes that disabled people find offensive. His supporting cast is no help at all: Bullseye and Elektra are C-listers at best , and Kingpin is better known as a Spider-man foe. A lot of his lore was parodied in the  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles  which was a much more successful property, which means if he suddenly starts fighting a bunch of ninjas calling themselves "The Hand," people are just going to scratch their heads. I m

🕷️ I Cry When Angels Deserve To Die... The Crime:  Black Widow The Guilty Party: Ike Perlmutter Overview: The MCU awkwardly shoe-horns in a too-little/too-late solo film for the only woman among their original six Avengers. Why I Hate It... Not every Avenger needs a solo movie. Some characters (Hawkeye and Hulk come readily to mind) work well as foils and utility players, but when you put the spotlight on them, is there really enough there to carry a movie? A TV show, sure-- Hawkeye  on Disney+ was actually quite good--but a movie is a different type of compressed storytelling. It has to grab you immediately and go, rather than simmering for three episodes building up character narratives, and not every character has that in them. Now, granted, there was definitely an audience for a Black Widow movie right after The Avengers . For one, there's female representation. But even beyond that, the character is a spy and intrigue stories are compelling, plus they're something that wa