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Reviews
Cruella (2021)
No Such Thing as Halfway Crooks
While Emma Stone and Emma Thompson are electric in their respective roles, the movie which had the potential to be a knockout villain origin akin to Joker ends up being a Disneyfied, watered down mess. Cruella is taken from the merciless puppy killer that she was in the 60s to a plucky antihero who feels like a pale imitation of the iconic fashionista fatale. If you were to tell me that Emma Thompson's character was actually supposed to be the Cruella de Vil of the movie and Emma Stone was her understudy, I would be inclined to believe you. It's yet another example of Disney not allowing its villains to truly descend into "evil" territory and instead leaving them to wade in the waters of the misunderstood.
The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (2021)
A Good (Not Great) Show Plagued, Once Again by Marvel's Inexperience in TV
On the whole, TFATWS serves as a great Globetrotting Espionage action series. From start to finish, Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson and Sebastian Stan's Bucky Barnes are finally able to shine without the larger than life presence of Steve Rogers around to stifle them. However, while Sam's character arc in this series, and to a lesser degree, Bucky's, is somewhat fully realized and well-written, many of the characters in the periphery do not get the same treatment. The return of former MCU characters like Baron Zemo and Sharon Carter was exciting to see, but nothing wholly new is added to their developments. New characters like John Walker and Karli Morgenthau exist, more or less, to give Sam a reason to take up the mantle of Captain America by the show's end, instead of standing on their own in a meaningful way. Furthermore, the snap decision to cut a storyline that reportedly saw the Flag Smashers releasing a deadly virus on the world is extremely noticeable, and hurts the series in the long run, leaving plot holes big enough to walk through. This array of issues causes TFATWS, much like WandaVision, to fail in fully sticking the landing in its final episode. And, as many fans of Game of Thrones or How I Met Your Mother know, a good ending is just as important as everything that came before it, and will drastically impact how fans remember the show as a whole. Moving forward, I hope that Marvel is able to learn how to adapt stories from the cinematic window to long form television a bit more neatly, so that fans souring on a show because of its dud of a finale becomes a thing of the past.
Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021)
Better, but still mediocre
While it is far and away better than the miserable 2017 version in the way of tone, dialogue, and action, Zack Snyder's Justice League ends up suffering from its own self-indulgence. The four-hour runtime starts to wear on you after hour 2 and many of the scenes feel forced in the mix for sparkle instead of substance (the Knightmare scene with Jared Leto's "new" Joker and the unnecessary inclusion of Martian Manhunter, in particular). But even with its many flaws, this version of JL makes you realize the most important statement about the film and its place in the DCEU. It is a testament to how poorly Warners has executed their attempt at a DC Cinematic Universe. It gives you glimmers of what could've been if each of the characters was able to get at least one solo movie in before the big-budget team-up, as it's able to flesh out Cyborg, The Flash, and Aquaman a bit more than in 2017. But unfortunately, when you pack what should've been a minimum of six hours of character development into an hour of exposition dumps and dialogue, you're still left short-changed when all is said and done. At the end of the day, it all boils down to this: if they took the time and effort to do it all properly after Man of Steel's passable intro to the universe in '13 (like the other guys in red and white did, starting in '08), this could have been the DC Universe's epic finale akin to the Infinity War/Endgame duo.
In short, die-hard DC fans will likely love it, while casual moviegoers won't have the interest or the stamina to endure its mammoth runtime.
How to Get Away with Murder: He Betrayed Us Both (2019)
Hasn't jumped the shark yet, but is getting the water skis out
Seemingly long and buried in expositional flashbacks, this episode is evidence that the show is starting its decline. The writing is bland, and rehashes events we've already experienced with these characters, reopening storylines that have long been closed. Not a great sign of things to come, although there is still plenty of season left for the show to recapture its dramatic charm.