In honor of the first Marvel movie of the year, Mike dishes out his Mount Rushmore of Heroes (male and female), Villains, Best and Worst Movies. In the Movie Review, Mike gives his spoiler-free thoughts on Deadpool & Wolverine. He talks about how Ryan Reynolds improved the character, Hugh Jackman giving us a different look at Wolverine, the mouth watering comic book accuracy but where the movie fell a little flat. In the Trailer Park, Mike talks about Cuckoo starring Hunter Shafter. It’s about a 17-year-old girl who is forced to move with her family to a resort. However, the reality of the place is very different from the idyllic paradise she thought.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. It has been a great summer.
But what makes us summer better A big Marvel release.
That's what we're talking about all episode long. I'm going
to give you my mount rushmore of Marvel villains, heroes,
female characters. We're talking MCU today because in the movie
(00:23):
review we have Dead Poll and Wolverine. Is it worth
your money? And where does it fit? Inside the MCU
in the trailer park, we're talking about a new horror
mystery coming out next week starring Hunter Schaeffer. It's called Cuckoo.
It looks great, big year for horror. Thank you for
being here. I said horror, not the other word horror. Rhr.
I don't like saying scary movie anyway. Thank you for
(00:44):
being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to
the Monday Morning movie crew. This episode is going to
be unhinged. If that intro is indication enough a movie crew,
let's get into it. Let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infols rate the ears of listeners
like never before in a movie podcast. A man with
so much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTB
with glasses from the Nashville Podcast Network. This is movie Mikes,
(01:15):
movie podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I can't tell I am firing on all cylinders. I
just had my coffee. There goes to can Here we go.
Let's talk about Marvel, one of my favorite genres of
movies to talk about. For the longest amount of time,
superhero movies were my number one go to genre. Probably
a big reason why I do this podcast was because
of the MCU's run from twenty and eight to twenty nineteen.
(01:40):
I've been there, standing by its side all along the way,
seen every Marvel movie multiple times. For most of them.
We'll get into the ones I've only seen once, and
I'll let you know exactly why. But in celebration of
Deadpool and Wolverine, I wanted to talk about my Mount
Rushmoores inside the MCU. So let's kick off first. Because
(02:00):
there have been now thirty three Marvel movies prior to
Deadpool and Wolverine, which makes it thirty four. But I'm
only pulling from the thirty three to talk about this
Mount rushmore because I can include something so fresh and
brand new, because recency bias, and also because every time
a new Marvel movie comes out, with a few exceptions,
(02:21):
it always just happens to be my favorite. Because I'm
writing off of that excitement, I always have to give
it a little bit before I start talking about my
favorite one. So I'm not including that one whatsoever. But
from the thirty three movies, and I'm also gonna include
the ten series on Disney Plus because those are also
cannon to the MCU. None of the Fox stuff counts,
nothing that came out before two thousand and eighths. Iron
(02:43):
Man will be on this list. First, I'm gonna give
you my mount rushmore of MCU hero, So the first
face I have to carve in, without a doubt, it
only felt fitting that this would be the first character
we break stone with, So here we go. Oh yeah,
Number one. It has to be iron Man because in
two thousand and eight kicked off the entire MCU. If
(03:06):
this movie would have failed, if iron Man wouldn't have
been so dominant in this one, then all the other
movies that followed it just wouldn't have had a lect
to stand on. But not only because of that first movie.
It's because of Ironman's presence in every single MCU movie.
He was the poster child. Robert Downey Junior was essentially
(03:27):
the face and the mascot of the MCU, which it needed.
It needed that person to rely on. He was so
influential in all the Avengers movies, and then eventually, whenever
they brought Spider Man into the mix, you had to
have Tony Stark in the movie almost for the movie
to be as successful. If you look at some of
the other ones that are looked at some of the
(03:49):
weak points in the MCU early in those days, what
are they missing? They are missing Robert Downey Junior. And
even the worst iron Man movie, iron Man three, isn't
closed of being one of the worst Marvel movies of
all time. So all those things considered, I have to
put iron Man as that first head on my mount
Rushmore of MCU heroes as that second head, I'm putting
(04:12):
Tom Holland Spider Man. Obviously I have some Spider Man
bias here, but I think Tom Holland as Spider Man
was the breath of fresh air the MCU needed when
he debuted in Civil War. It was such a huge
moment that first time his character came on to screen,
and I think he brought back that youthful energy into
(04:34):
the Avengers, and it was so important moving forward to
have that. Without him, I feel like the tone of
the MCU would have greatly suffered and maybe fizzled out
by the time we got to Infinity War and Endgame.
So it was also a thing that I was not
expecting to see because of the rights of Spider Man
(04:54):
being split between Sony and then Disney coming in and
making a big deal for him, and I just didn't
think I would see Tom Holland Spider Man in that
movie and then also get his own solo films, which
are all fantastic. And once he debuted, I think he
went up there into the number two on the ranking.
It was Iron Man and Spider Man, in my opinion,
(05:17):
as the best heroes in the MCU. Once he debuted,
everybody else was still there. Arguably Captain America would be
rivaling Spider Man for that too, but I still think
he falls down too. With three. Then you drop Thor
in there, and Black Panther would probably follow behind that.
And not only that, we still have more to come.
(05:37):
They are talking about right now, the future of Tom
Holland to Spider Man. Hopefully we get a Spider Man
four in my lifetime. If I had to guess, I
would have to say twenty twenty six, oh at the earliest,
and that hurts me. Most likely twenty twenty seven, but
Spider Man would be there at that. Number two head
(05:58):
on my Mount rushmoreber heroes in the MCU, and number three.
This one's gonna be controversial. I love this character in
the MCU has their own solo film that came out
very early on that most people hate. But in that
third slot, I'm going with Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, that
two thousand and eight movie with Edward Norton. I don't
(06:20):
understand why people hate that movie so much. Maybe it's
because they got the motion captured down better once Mark
Ruffalo was around. Maybe the overall story didn't really play
too much into the world they decided to create. I
will agree the tone is so much different. I loved
(06:41):
Edward Norton as Bruce Banner. I thought he brought an
entirely different side out of it. There's no comedy whatsoever
in that movie. There's a love story y at the
basis of it. Abomination is a great villain. I don't
understand why so many people have a problem with this,
often citing that first Incredible Hulk movie is one of
(07:01):
the worst MCU movies. If you say that you're you're wrong,
You're wrong. I still love it, and aside from that,
I still also love Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. Did
the character get a little bit cartoony and wacky towards
the end of it with Smart Hulk, Yeah, a little bit.
But what I love about the Hulk is he's used
very sparingly. He is like the Kramer from Seinfeld. In
(07:25):
the MCU. He barges in he wrex house and then
he leaves, much like Kramer would just bust open through
the door, say something wacky, come out with some crazy plan,
and then he'd be gone. He really wouldn't have any
episodes where he would be the main focus or the
continuing storyline. He was just used a like Bam, there's
Kramer does something hilarious and then he goes away. Same
(07:49):
with The Incredible Hulk. Most of the time it is
Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner in plain clothes, but then
when the Hulk comes out, he is there to play.
Especially in the first Avengers movie, but also in Age
of Vultron Infinity War, Hulk really shines all the way
up until Endgame, which he has I would say his
weakest performance out of all the MCU movies, but still great.
(08:13):
I have to put Hulk up there as my third
slot on my Mount Rushmore at number four. This one
I thought pretty hard and long about. I'm putting Rocket
Raccoon in that fourth slot because out of anybody in
the MCU, I think he has the best hero journey.
And I've said this about spider Man, but when I
say Spider Man has the best hero journey, I'm talking
(08:35):
about Tobey maguire. I think the Spider Man story in
the MCU is a little bit fragmented, and a lot
of it is a result of the things that happen
in the other Marvel movies, in particular the aftermath of Endgame,
and a lot of his story is tied to Iron Man,
which is great for the MCU, but as far as
(08:56):
just my Spider Man fixed, I don't go to the
MCU for story. I go to it for more of
the spectacle. So that's why I say he doesn't have
the best hero journey in the MCU. It is Rocket Raccoon,
who does if you look at Guardians of the Galaxy one, two,
and three, it is the most complete character development that
fills all of the gaps in my soul. He goes
(09:18):
from being so ruthless and unable to tame, wanting to
work with no one, hating everybody, having this rage, to
then discovering this family among the Guardians of the Galaxy,
and then being introduced to the other Avengers and kind
of warming himself up to those people, but still being
(09:39):
very guarded and really only being all about his family,
to having this incredible backstory and Guardians of the Galaxy
Volume three that shows you an entirely different side of him,
And the fact that that movie shows his origin story
and all the things he went through why he hates
(09:59):
this villain so much, and why he has this rage
inside of him, and to see everything that his character
goes through in that film is just incredible to me.
So I think out of any character in the MCU,
he is the most well rounded, also probably the most unorthodox.
And then you have Bradley Cooper doing the voice of him,
(10:21):
who does an amazing job where if you didn't know
it was Bradley Cooper maybe you couldn't really pick out
his voice, and that is the sign of a great
voice acting performance. So that is my mount rushbore of
MCU heroes, Iron Man, Spider Man, The Incredible Hulk, and
Rocket Raccoon. Chisel it in, guys, kind of a weak chisel?
(10:44):
Was that? Even rock? I think that was ice. Can
we get some more chisel? Here we go, chisel it up.
All right, Let's do my mount rushmore. Let's do villains
before we do female heroes. That first head has to
go to Thanos. Yeah, hammer in Thanos. Without Thanos, the
Infinity Saga would not have worked. He is that driving force.
(11:08):
He is that villain that seems unbeatable, like he says,
he is inevitable. He is the villain that the MCU needed,
which for a majority of the Infinity Saga, the biggest
complaint that people had about Marvel was saying that it
had a villain problem. They were so forgettable that they
(11:29):
would come into a movie and then be gone and
not be a threat whatsoever. Thanos changed all that, and
I love the fact that he was teased all the
way from the beginning in Phase one. Eventually gonna get
to Thanos. There's eventually gonna be Thanos, and then once
he was there, he was a force to be reckoned with.
Josh Brolin did such a great job being such a
(11:52):
menacing character. I Lovetdanos so much that at one point,
before I got my Spider Man tattoo, I was considering
getting a Thanos tattoo before I had any other Marvel hero,
because I feel like he had that much impact on
the MCU so easily as the first villain on my
Mount Rushmore, in the MCU, it has to go to
(12:12):
Thanos chiselom in. Yeah, there we go. As we're working
on that, let's go through some more of these villains
and that too. Slot I'm going with Loki, And like
I was saying, the MCU had a problem there with
not having memorable villains up until the first Avengers, which Loki.
It's hard to look back on that now because of
(12:35):
the TV show and of Loki's journey throughout the MCU,
how he shifted not really being a villain anymore. But
in that first Avengers movie he was so sneaky and slimy,
and you really got to know Loki in his truest form,
just like he was in the comic books. Being so
mischievous and all the twist and turns that happened in
(12:57):
that first one where he looked like they were not
going to be able to defeat him, and his plan
just kept snowballing on all of the Avengers. And it
took me a long time to not see Tom Hidleston
only as Loki because he plays them so well. But
I loved his costume, I loved his performance. I loved
(13:18):
how much he rivaled the Avengers in that two slot
on the Villains Mount Rushmore, I'm going with Loki as
the third head going over to Wakanda. It has to
go to Killmonger along those same lines of Loki being
such a menacing threat. Right after him is kill Monger
and Michael B. Jordan was just made to play such
(13:40):
a great villain, which is odd because he is so
likable in all of his other movies. But once he
has the hair, once he has the markings on his body,
I completely forget all that because he is such a
good villain. And that is a hard thing to do
to go from playing such likable characters, from probably just
(14:01):
being a likable person in real life to flipping a
switch and becoming one of the most ruthless villains in
the MCU, murdering people in cold blood, becoming a thief,
and doing all these heinous things in the MCU that
up until that point we really hadn't seen. A lot
of the villains were more space based and odd creatures,
(14:23):
but kill Monger is a very down to earth character,
and his first appearance on screen in Black Panther is
one of my most memorable introductions of a villain in
the MCU. In that third slot, I'm going with Killmonger,
and as my fourth head, my last villain pick is
going to Green Goblin from No Way Home, Willem Dafoe,
(14:46):
who has such an expressive face he can easily turn
into looking like a maniac. And another instance that I
thought this would never happen because he came from being
the villain in my favorite Spider Man movie of all
time with Toby maguire, the original Spider Man, and came
back in this movie and I would say quite possibly
(15:08):
gave a better performance. And I know he wasn't on
screen as much as he was in that movie. There
were a lot of callbacks to that performance, so obviously
this one wouldn't stand alone without that movie. But maybe
it's also because in those almost twenty years he became
a better actor. I just think if you sit down
(15:30):
and look at the work of Willem Dafoe, who really
is a very versatile actor, I would have to put
Green Goblin as one of the roles that he was
meant to play. There is nobody else I feel could
really bring a life to this role, and you think
about how important his character was in no way home,
(15:51):
very significant and then led to one of my favorite
villain fights out of any Marvel movie. I just think
Green Goblin as a represents everything Spider Man is trying
to fight, and it's his biggest villain in my opinion,
because how close he is to him and in no
way Holmes case what it would mean to defeat him.
(16:13):
He also just looks fantastic. So if I'm looking at
this Mount Rushmore from an aesthetic perspective, I'm putting him
not as Willem Dafoe's face, but the actual Green Goblin head.
I just think that would look good in Stones. So
my MCU villain Mount Rushmore is made up of Thanos Loki,
Killmonger and Green Goblin Chisel It in boys, is that
(16:39):
a chisel or is that duct tape chisel? It in boys?
Here we go. All right, let's go over now to
my mount rushmore of female heroes. This one was still
pretty easy to make. But when you look at all
the characters in the MCU, not as many female characters.
(17:00):
And I think a lot of these heroes here should
have got a movie way earlier on. But it is
what it is. Right in my number one slot, it
goes to Wanda. And I was saying this back when
Age of Ultron came out, that Wanda was a really
good character and really going to show her dominance later
(17:21):
along the line in all of these movies. So I
was a believer of her in that movie, even though
she did come out of that weird accent. But not
only in the Avengers films, and I'll even take her
in Multiverse of Madness. But WandaVision, the TV show is
in the MCU, and I believe is the best Marvel
series to ever be made. I love that they never
(17:44):
try to follow it up with another season of that show.
It is perfect in every way, and that series proved
to me that a Marvel character could work in episodes
and you could flesh them out and it doesn't always
have to be in a two hour movie. I love
the amount of time you get to know her character
and the fact that all those episodes had a different feel,
(18:05):
representing different decades of television. So I think that was
one of the most creative projects to come out of
the MCU. But when you look at her character and
how powerful she is, I think she is one of
the most powerful Avengers. Maybe when you just look at
powers alone, the only person who could rival her is
(18:26):
another female hero, Captain Marvel, because she has the ability
to cripple any of these superheroes. So I think her
powers would probably showcase more on WandaVision than they were
in the movies. But she easily goes up there in
my number one slot Chiseller in Boys, Yeah, all right,
(18:48):
in that number two head, I'm going with Black Widow
because she is a constant throughout all of the MCU,
going back to the first Avengers movie and how just
effortlessly she took out villains in that opening scene when
you first see her, and how good she is at
her job. Everybody needs a Black Widow on their team,
(19:09):
whether you're working in an office, whether you're working out
on an oil rig whether you have a lawn service,
I don't care what industry you're in. You need a
Black Widow on your team who is so reliable, so
good at their job, can work circles around anybody. The
Avengers or she's just sitting there, looks like she's been
(19:31):
captured by these people, but really she is playing them
all to get all of their secrets and all of
the information she needs to know out of them, knowing
that at any point she can break out of that
rope and beat everybody's face into the ground. So we
all need somebody like Black Widow who is at an
elite level of their job and always in control of
(19:51):
every situation. That is what I took away from her character,
because she doesn't really have superpowers. Aside from the fact
that she has such a skilled assassin, has also been
through some really traumatic things in her childhood that fuel her.
So it's not like she's bulletproof, it's not like she
can fly. She is just b a to the core.
(20:16):
Everybody should be more like Black wid except everybody should
be more like Black Widow, except for the killing part.
Don't kill people, Never kill people. I'm not encouraging that,
but in a fictional world where it's only bad guys. Yes,
be more like her. In my third head position, I'm
going with Gomora, and Gomora is somebody who really grew
on me through all of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies,
(20:38):
and she also has one of the most gut wrenching
moments out of any MCU movie coming to us in
Infinity War and again looking at this Mount Rushmore. Aesthetically,
she has such a distinct look. Shout out to Zola's
Eldona for going through an extensive makeup purpose for all
of our entertainment. I mean, she's still made millions in
the process. I think she's also in Avatar in so
(21:02):
many billion dollar movies. I think she set for life,
so she earned her key. But I guess by doing that,
so I won't thank her too much. But Todilla, it
seems like torture to be in makeup for that long.
In that third slot, I'm going with Gomora from Guardians
of the Galaxy. In that fourth slot, I don't think
if it wouldn't have been for the passing of Chadwick Boseman,
(21:25):
that she would have entered into this Mount Rushmore. But
because of that and her really stepping up in Wakanda Forever.
In that fourth slot, I'm going with Shury because, don't
get me wrong, she was great in the first Black
Panther movie, but rising to the occasion and Black Panther
Waconda Forever was something that nobody else in the MCU
(21:48):
had to deal with. Nobody really had to replace anybody.
I guess in a way, Tom Holland kind of replaced
Robert Downey Junior as Tony Stark as being that next
one up, but he never really fully took on the
position as the role of the leader of the Avengers,
but sure he had to do that and did a
fantastic job, although she struggled a lot, which obviously who
(22:11):
wouldn't struggle with dealing with the death of somebody who
was Black Panther and then having the power bestowed onto you.
And not only is she fantastic in both of those
movies and in the Avengers movies, but by putting her
on this Mount Rushmore, I'm also investing that they're going
(22:33):
to continue with their character moving forward. So if it
wouldn't have been for Waconda Forever, this loot probably would
have gone to Captain Marvel, who was great in her
first solo movie, also had a huge part in an Endgame,
although I wish they would have used her more, but
it was probably the Marvels that kept her out of this.
(22:53):
So to recap, in my female Heroes of the MCU,
we have Wanda, Black Widow, Gomorra, and Shury. We'll finish
it out with my mount rushmore of the best MCU movies,
and then we'll get into the worst MCU movies. But
starting with the positive in that first slot, I would
put Infinity War. It is the best in theater experience
(23:17):
that I've had from any of the Avengers movies, even
more so than Endgame, because Endgame really only has that
one big moment that we all know at this point
that every theater in America is freaking out. That is
a core moment. But I still think overall, the first
time I experienced Infinity War left me feeling way different,
(23:40):
and it was also more expected. I kind of knew
what was gonna happen in Endgame, which was the end
result of every Marvel movie that came before it. We
all knew what was gonna happen, We all knew what
it was building towards there was nothing I got in
Endgame that came out of left field, really great moments
of fantastastic movie. But when I sit down to watch
(24:02):
an Avengers movie, I'm gonna watch Infinity War. I still
think it is the best one. So in that number
one slot, I'm going with Infinity War at number two.
Talking about it more earlier in the episode, it goes
to Iron Man being the first MCU movie back in
two thousand and eight and one that still holds up.
There are not that many movies from Phase one that
(24:24):
you can go back and just think that, oh, nothing
here has changed a whole lot. Everything still works out.
Iron Man is that movie. Aside from probably some references
and shots of cell phones from back in two thousand
and eight, yeah, maybe those don't hold up. But when
it comes to the story and the technology, I would
(24:45):
argue some of the visual effects in the first Iron
Man look better than some of the MCU movies that
have come out in the last five years. This was
back when all the VFX artists weren't being worked to
the bone and the technology was new at the time,
with Transformers being one of the first movies to really
use like that photo realism, making things actually look like
(25:06):
the surfaces that they are. That was a big deal
back in the day. So Transformers was very influential on
Iron Man. It got it perfect, it got the suit
down so well, everybody benefited from it. At number two,
I have Iron Man. At number three, I have Black Panther.
Not only because it's such a great movie. Has the
(25:27):
fantastic villain, has the fantastic hero. But I would say
because this movie looks unlike any of the other MCU
movies for a couple of reasons, for the cast, the representation.
It just looks different by the people who are represented
in this movie, which was huge. We didn't have that.
Me as a Mexican American, I didn't get that until
(25:49):
well on the DC side, Blue Beetle, but even in
Wakanda Forever with our first Mexican villain. But that was
important for kids who didn't have a hero that looked
like them. And now you have this awesome black superhero
who was also noble and smart and quite possibly stronger
and more fierce. I mean that has to do a
lot with the technology they had, which is so advanced
(26:09):
and everybody wants. But it looked different because of the
cast and the representation, but aside from that, it was
just more cinematic and a direct result of that was
it actually getting Oscar nominations, which hadn't happened in the
MCU before. So just looking at from a cinematography and
a visual perspective, a wardrobe and makeup perspective, it doesn't
(26:33):
look like all the other MCU movies, and I love
it for that, and number three in that slot, I
have Black Panther at number four because this movie changed
my life because it felt like my inner kid just
having complete joy in the year of twenty twenty one,
which this movie single handily probably saved the movie theaters
(26:56):
that ye're bouncing back from twenty twenty it is no
way home. Aside from what I was mentioning earlier of
Infinity War being my overall favorite theater experience for a
Marvel movie, this one has my favorite moment, yes even
more so than Endgame, my favorite cheer moment, which any
good MCU movie has at that moment that we all
(27:17):
want to get out of our seats and yell and
clap and applaud. This movie did it the best. I
will never forget that. So those are my mount Rushmore
of the best MCU movies, Infinity War, Iron Man, Black Panther,
and No Way Home, Chisela Man Boss. Here we go,
all right to close us out, my mount rushmore of
(27:39):
the worst MCU movies at number one, And I would
say for all of these movies, I've only seen them once,
and not only that, I never want to watch them again.
And out of all of the thirty three MCU movies,
these are the only ones that I would consider bad.
There only happens to be four of them, which is
(28:01):
pretty good. But in that number one slot, it goes
to The Eternals, hands down the worst MCU movie of
all time. It tried to do too much, tried to
create such a big world, introduced too many characters, tried
to be like a more intellectual Avengers. Every element of
(28:21):
this movie fell flat. And it wasn't until the Captain
America Brave New World trailer that came out that it
finally addressed one of the biggest cliffhangers in all of
the MCO This big floating rock, Hey, we forgot about that,
Let's go back to that. So was so confusing. Characters
made no sense. They were oddly emotional for no reason.
(28:44):
Had no connection to the story whatsoever. It was a big,
big mess and a bad movie. Number one goes to
the Eternals at number two. I guess putting a th
is a bad sign for MCU movies because number two
of the Marvels and I think it was probably do
it a tone. It also felt like they didn't have
(29:06):
enough story to make a movie. This probably should have
been a Disney Plus series. And bre Larson. I love
her as an actor, and I think the character is great,
but I really feel like she phoned in this performance.
And maybe it has to do with doing the majority
of this movie in front of a blue or green screen,
no cast chemistry. This movie did not work for me.
(29:28):
Goes in my number two slot. At number three, it
goes to Thor The Dark World, primarily because this movie
is so forgettable. And this was also at a time
where they really didn't have the Thor character down. Chris
Hemsworth still had the long blonde hair. They were making
him too mythical. They tried a little bit to bring
out the humor and Thor, but Chris Hemsworth didn't really
(29:52):
know how to play him just quite yet didn't truly
nail it until the next movie Thor Ragnarok, which I
was like, oh that store he had to look down
to cut his hair, and that led to better Avengers movies.
So I think it's just a product of the time.
I love the first Thor movie, but this one was
not it whatsoever. I never want to see it again.
(30:14):
At number three is The The Dark World and in
that Ford slot. I think it's because this movie was
a little bit of a letdown. It also tarnished how
I feel about one of my favorite villains that I
was talking about earlier. It is Doctor Strange in the
Multiverse of Madness. For a movie being titled The Multiverse
of Madness, they didn't really have much to do with
(30:37):
making the Multiverse mad and me being somebody who loves
a good horror movie. Having Sam Raimi one of the
most beloved horror directors of all time, the product just
didn't match his body of work, also being the director
of the best Spider Man trilogy. It is also largely
cited to being a part of the decline of the
(30:59):
MS in a movie we really had to bounce back from.
As me being one of the people still fighting for
the MCU, I gotta make excuses for this movie, so
that is why it put it and I only saw
it in theaters once and was never inclined to go
back and rewatch it on Disney Plus because I just
didn't enjoy it. So in that Ford slot the Multiverse
(31:21):
of Madness. Rounding out that list, it is the Eternals,
the Marvels for the Dark World, Doctor Strange in the
Multiverse of Madness being my mount rushmore of bad MCU movies,
but again they're only being fo what I would consider
bad movies in the MCU that I just would not
watch again, not bad, so to those, we carve them
and then destroy them out of the stone. So that
(31:46):
is my list. We'll come back and finally give my
review of dead Pool and Wolverine. Let's get into it now,
A spoiler free review of dead Pool and Wolverine, one
of my most anticipated movies of the year. I'm a
huge Wolverine fan. I would say a moderate Deadpool fan.
(32:06):
I get a little bit tired of Ryan Reynolds and
his stick when it comes to Deadpool, which I believe
changed the game when it first came out with Part one,
poking fun at superheroes with the more intense violence with
the swearing. I think it was. I think at the
time it was a breath of fresh air in the
superhero genre. But with Part two, with all the teasers
(32:26):
leading up to Deadpool and Wolverine, I get a little
bit tired of it. I just find that it becomes
a little bit less funny as we're exposed to the
same types of jokes over and over again. So going
into this movie, I really wanted to see less Deadpool
and wanted to see more Wolverine, and I was actually
quite pleasantly surprised how much Ryan Reynolds improved as Deadpool,
(32:51):
giving us a different side of Deadpool where I feel
he grew as a character, and that was largely due
to Ryan Reynolds' performance really stepping in it up of
not just having the one liners, the breaking the fourth wall,
which was an abundance in this movie, but giving us
a little bit more to chew on that For the
first time, I saw how Deadpool could work outside of
(33:14):
this franchise, which is what all superheroes do. They have
their solo movies, but they also branch out in the EMCU.
So for the first time I really saw Ryan Reynolds
how he would be sharing the spotlight with somebody as
famous and as beloved as him. So we'll get into
more of that, But what Deadpool and Wolverine is all
about won't give you any spoilers. For the most part,
(33:37):
everything I'll talk about here was already revealed in the
first and second trailer, but Deadpool started tooling around with
cables travel device, which we learned about in Deadpool two.
So to answer some of your questions draft the bat,
do you need to see one or two? You don't
necessarily have to. I think you could watch this movie
and understand some of the plot points, you wouldn't becomempletely lost.
(34:00):
But obviously with any superhero movie, they're going to talk
about things that happened in part one in part two.
You don't necessarily have to see every Marvel movie to
understand it, but when you do, you feel a lot
more gratification. So I don't think you need to see
necessarily part one or two to understand what is going on.
But you need to see part one and two to
(34:23):
feel the emotional impact of this movie and to know
what got weighed Wilson here. So this could be a
way for some people that haven't seen one or two
want to hop into it because they're fans. With Hugh
Jackman and Wolverine, you could do that. You could watch
this one and go back and watch it BOT one
and two if you enjoy his performance. I really feel
like this movie put all the cards on the table
(34:43):
and wanted to make a really good movie that would yes,
propel the MCU in a way, but also show that
we need to hit right now. We're gonna do everything
in our ability to give the fans what they want
and to bring those back who have straight away from
the MCU to return to the theater to pay for
tickets to see the next one. So not only does
(35:03):
it have a tie in with Part one and Part
two of Deadpool, it also ties in with Loki over
on Disney Plus. But Deadpool is essentially trying to do
something that is larger than himself. He is trying to
find his purpose, and at the beginning of the movie
we kind of find him not wanting to be Deadpool anymore.
After a failed attempt to join the Avengers that leads
(35:27):
him to being recruited by the TVA from Loki. They
give him a shot at trying to save the world,
but in order to do that he needs to find Wolverine.
So from there it is Deadpool and Wolverine teaming up together,
taking on a new villain, and going on a journey
to save the world together. So, like I was mentioning
earlier about kind of being over Ryan Reynolds and his
(35:48):
shtick is Deadpool, I will have to say that his
character did address being a one trick pony. I think
he sees some of that criticism of people feeling probably
after Deadpool two, that it was kind of along the
same lines as Deadpool One, didn't really push anything forward.
So a lot of what his character goes through in
this movie is wanting to prove to himself and more importantly,
(36:12):
to the love interest in his life. He wants to
be a part of something bigger and larger, and all
the actions in this movie are him working towards that.
The first thing that stuck out to me about this
movie is how good it looks Deadpool hopping into the MCU.
He's using that two hundred million dollar budget. Wild that
the first one costs about fifty eight million dollars to make.
(36:34):
Part two ballooned up to about one hundred and ten
million dollars. This one added another ninety million dollars on
top of that, and they use all of that money,
and I think a great deal of it went to
reviving Deadpool suit, which they do a whole montage of
it in the movie. It looks more comic book accurate.
The red is brighter, the eyes are wider, and overall
(36:57):
just looks way more slick, And I think through the
course of this movie, the comic book accuracy was the
ode to the nerds, and I talked about earlier this
year in an episode addressing how I feel like the
MCU should seek out the nerds, pay attention to what
they're saying in order to improve the movies. You can
(37:18):
only do it so much, because I think this movie
walked a really good line on giving us nerds what
we wanted when it came to the comic book accuracy,
which is something that people in the TikTok comments are
always yelling about. We want the characters that we grew
up with reading in the comic books seeing in the
animated shows. So it's giving us that, but also giving
(37:41):
the more common movie goer something that doesn't look too
corny and cheeseball. It's a fine line to walk and
probably pretty influential early on with the X Men movies
in the two thousands, of why they didn't decide to
put them all in comic book accurate suits. The leather
at that time was also greatly influenced by the Matrix
(38:03):
that came out in the late nineties, and they said,
we need to put the X Men in leather, and
then we never saw a comic book accurate suit really
until now for Wolverine, and I was a little bit
reluctant to like it, even though it was giving us
exactly what we wanted back. Whenever the first image was
revealed with Hugh Jackman in the suit, I thought it
looked a little bit too much like a motorcross dirt
(38:25):
bike soup, and I wasn't the biggest fan of it,
and still now, I do believe that the look of
it was made more to compliment Deadpool suit than it
was just to be a comic book accurate Wolverine suit,
So I think in order for them to match on screen.
So I think that's the reason why it has some
(38:46):
of those textures on it that I'm not the biggest
fan of. And for me looking behind me on the
set here that Wolverine that X Men ninety seven that
I feel would be probably more yellow spandex probably wouldn't
look that great on screen, even though that's what I want.
And sometimes you can't give fans exactly what they want,
and this is probably an example of that. So this
(39:07):
is a case that I know I'm being irrational and
wanting that because if you gave us that, it probably
wouldn't look that good, and then I would still find
a way to complain. So I am one of those
people who's probably too hard to please on this, And
I also know that sometimes it is hard to make
a two D image like that, even though that's a
figure behind me right now. So if you're not watching
(39:28):
on YouTube, you have to go and look at the set.
But bringing any two D character, whether it be from
a comic book or a TV show, and putting them
in the real world, you're gonna have some obstacles that
you can't get over. But overall, I think the suit
look fantastic for both dead Pool and I grew to
love the Wolverine suit, especially the explanation they gave addressing
(39:51):
why he is wearing it and really addressing and answering
a lot of questions that I had going into this movie.
I felt like they knew people were coming in with
some hesitationations, and we're gonna wonder a lot about what
Wolverine this is and why Hugh Jackman is back playing them,
and they laid everything out and I was satisfied with
those answers. And the other thing they gave us that
(40:12):
I felt was a plus was whenever Deadpool first goes
and tries to find and locate Wolverine, they gave us
a montage of Wolverine variants. This scene in particular, even
though it wasn't even that long, was for all the nerds,
which is what I enjoyed that this movie continued to
throw in there because there were so many different variants
(40:33):
from the comic books, the TV shows, just figures, and
even though they were very quick, they were all images
and costumes that I just never thought I would see
on the big screen. So again walking that line of
giving the nerds what they want but also giving just
so I think that was a pretty big deal to
give the nerds what they want, because I feel like
(40:54):
not everybody probably understood all of these variants and what
they meant, but oh I was probably one of my
favorite scenes out of the entire movie, and that mixed
with some really great fight scenes between Deadpool and Wolverine,
which is what we had glimpses of in the trailer.
But I feel out of all the fight scenes that
(41:14):
went down in this movie, those were the ones where
I was the most engaged because they do not hold
anything back. And what I really loved my probably my
favorite detail, and what I really loved, which was probably
my favorite detail, was how ferocious they made Wolverine's fighting style.
This was the most animalistic he has ever looked like,
(41:35):
running on all fours. I feel like Hugh Jackman played
this character much differently, which is probably hard to do.
He's been playing the character for twenty four years now.
This is his tenth movie as Wolverine, and I felt
like it was a completely fresh take because it is
a different Wolverine from a different timeline, and I can
actually feel it in Hugh Jackman's performance that he approached
(41:58):
this character differently. He approached the fighting style different that
I truly felt like I was watching a different variant
of Wolverine of logan and that mixed with his physique
looking off the charts, He's turning fifty six this October,
and you cannot tell whatsoever. There was even one scene
in particular where he's not wearing a shirt, and I
(42:19):
was convinced that they brought a stunt double in because
it looks like he had a twelve pack, arms were
super jacked, and I'm convinced he can play this character
for another decade. As I get into now some of
the things I didn't like about the movie, I will
just say that overall, I loved it. It is a
good movie. When it comes to what the MPCU needed,
(42:39):
this is it. You're not going to go into this
one and feel like you did after watching The Marvels
or am Man three. It is a good movie, but
I also hold these movies to such a high standard,
Wolverine being one of my favorite superhero characters. I went
into it thinking it was going to be a top
ten movie. Not quite there, maybe top five. But again,
(43:00):
that doesn't make it a bad movie. By the way,
I did not want this movie to end. It is
a crisp two hours, and I could have been in
that theater for three hours, so that's indication enough. I
had to remind myself that Deadpool is a comedy movie.
That is why these movies have been successful. That is
what people go to wanting to see out of this character,
out of Ryan Reynolds's performance. There were times where I lasted.
(43:23):
There were some good jokes in there, but overall, I
don't feel like it is a great, straight ahead comedy.
I think it's more fun than it is funny, and
because it is more of a comedy, I feel like
it takes away a little bit from the intensity. When
it came to the villain. In Deadpool and Wolverine, there's
really not that moment where everything comes to a head
(43:44):
with the villain, and I would say overall that took
away a little bit of the impact from the third act.
And I was talking earlier in this episode about the
MCU having a bit of a villain problem. I almost
felt like the villain was wasted in this movie. And
I think that's probably because with Headpool and Wolverine being
such big characters, you want to give them all the
(44:04):
screen time. For the majority of this movie, it was
Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman battling for lines, even pointing
out directly when an extra would get a line like oh, hey,
don't let you speak, so I could see their egos
coming out of who is going to be dominating this
movie more. I think it adds to the fun nature
of it then poking jabs at each other's characters, but
(44:26):
also at each other's personal lives a little bit with
it breaking that fourth wall, with it being so meta,
And I would say, I'm somebody who has kind of
gotten away from expecting really big cameos in Marvel movies.
They become a little bit of a crutch I feel
to get people excited. But I really felt this movie
did it well keeping it under wraps, and at times
(44:48):
I feel like it was kind of needed. It needed
that big pop moment and they were really unexpected ones,
which is what I enjoy sometimes giving me something that
I didn't even know I wanted. So overall, I felt
like this movie was a great time. It flew by
at two hours, a rare case that I even wanted
to stay and watch the post credit scene. But when
(45:09):
it comes to rating this movie, I do have to
judge it a little bit differently because I have to
weigh it among all the movies in the MCU. That
is just what happens now. Being the thirty fourth movie,
I have to think is it top ten my top
ten Marvel movies. I would all put it fives, and
that is a tough top ten to break. And as
(45:29):
much as I enjoyed all the aspects as much of
the things, they got right and gave all the fans
just some real gratification of here you've been asking for this,
Here it is enjoy I was expecting to leave the
same way I left No Way home of just this
overwhelming joy, and I didn't really get that from this movie,
even though I thoroughly enjoyed it. So without that feeling,
(45:52):
I don't think it is a top ten. I also
have to think about rewatchability, because I feel like a
lot of these jokes have a real small shelf life.
They reference things that are very specific to the times,
So rewatching this movie in another five years, all those
jokes might not land the same way because the entire
landscape of the MCU is probably gonna be much different.
(46:14):
But for right now, the jokes probably land a lot more.
I just think they won't age as well. I give
it a four out of five clause, and that is
only because I don't think it's top ten, which would
be five out of five, I would really really have
to consider it putting in the top fifteen, which is
what I would consider that four point five at of
(46:35):
five rating. But overall, it gives me a lot of hope.
I also think of what all had to go right
just to get that first Deadpole movie, and now it
is a certified franchise, so it definitely just leads me
excited of all what's to come with the character, especially
now that he's with Wolverine. I do want to do
a spoiler version of this review to talk about all
the cameos, to talk about more of the plot points,
(46:56):
So definitely be on the lookout on the fee for
that review. But again I give it four out of
five clause.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
It's time to head down to movie mics trailar pause.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
We are more than halfway through the year, and if
I had to call out one specific genre for being
the bright spot in twenty twenty four, I think it
would have to go to horror.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
Collectively, this year has been a little bit lackluster. It
really wasn't until July this month that I felt we
had our first really good month for movies. Every movie
I've rated so far this month has been a four
at least an average, which is great, and there have
(47:42):
been some bright spots throughout the year, like Challengers, Love
Lies Bleeding, which is on Max now if you haven't
seen that movie yet, but I would say collectively they
have been few and far between.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Hopefully going to shape up better towards the end of
the year. They did drop another trailer for The Joker.
Looks fantastic, but I've already covered that trailer before here
on the podcast. So when it comes to just the
genre that I feel has been consistently good giving us
unique original stories, it has to go to horror, and
(48:14):
Neon has been one of the studios doing it the
best this year with Immaculate with Long Legs being what
I would still consider to be the scariest movie of
the year. And now they had this movie coming out
with Hunter Shaffer called Cuckoo. I just like saying that
name Cuckoo. And when people say that original movies don't
get made, you're not looking hard enough. Just look at
(48:36):
Neon alone and what they have done in the horror
genre just in this year in twenty twenty four, they
have been consistently putting out good original stories. Not all
of them have been super groundbreaking, but just that studio
alone you can find original stories, not even mentioning a
twenty four who also does great horror movies, but really
(48:57):
can do any genre well, So original stories are getting made.
Twenty twenty four just happens to be an unusually high
amount of reboots and sequels and franchises, but only one
Marvel movie, which you already covered. But this looks good
with Hunter Schaeffer as the lead. I saw the trailer
again when I went to go watch Long Legs, but
sometimes it takes seeing it on the big screen to
(49:19):
really be able to appreciate the style of filmmaking that
I feel. Cuckoo is going to lean into it very much,
has this eighties horror vibe aesthetic even coming across in
the soundtrack, And after watching this trailer, you really don't
know exactly what the movie is about, even looking at
the plot. Her character is a seventeen year old who
reluctantly leaves America to live with her father at a
(49:41):
resort in the German Alps. She starts hearing a bunch
of strange noises, has these weird, bloody visions, leading her
to discover this shocking secret that concerns her own family.
This movie is coming out soon on August ninth. And
before we get into more, here's just a little bit
of the Cuckoo trailer. I would you like come on
from meat there as one try with you. I wouldn't
(50:08):
want to get a hoe even more?
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Why did you bring us here?
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Your family? How along? See that's a weird way to
put it. You told the police that you were chased
by a woman. They think I'm crazy. I feel like
Neon is bringing back really good production of trailers. Had
(50:38):
the same feeling after watching the Long Legs trailer, not
only the style of editing, but the sound design. Not
often do I play a trailer here on the podcast,
and it's so visually pleasing, but you hear all those
little sounds in there. It creates that sense of urgency
that you want in a horror mystery, which is exactly
(50:59):
what this movie is. The big scary part in this trailer,
which probably will not even be the scariest part in
the entire movie, but there's a scene where Hunter Schaeffer
leaves her shift. Looks like she is working the front
desk at a hotel or a resort, and she's riding
her bike at night with these big headphones on, can't
hear anything. And there's this one shot in the trailer
(51:22):
where you see her shadow riding the bike and then
you see the shadow of what appears to be a
woman's hand going to grab her. Next scene is her
being attacked by this mysterious woman who I can't really
tell what is going on with her. I don't know
if she's a monster, if she's a ghost, if she's
a zombie. They make some references later about a certain
(51:44):
species needing help, so maybe it's some weird science experiment
gone wrong and has turned these people into these horrific looking,
almost mutant like creatures who attack people. Because that's what
happens in this scene. She gets attacked, ends up in
the hospital, has this big head bandage, this old school
looking brace, and is all bloody, bruised and broken, and
(52:08):
it looks like that's gonna be the look for her
character throughout the rest of this movie, which I feel
is already a great costume and depending on how good
this movie ends up being, could be the next iconic
look for a character. Which another really great thing that
Cuckoo did with its promotional materials is they finally got
(52:29):
character posters right, and maybe you've seen these on Instagram
or Facebook. Usually when a big movie comes out, there's
usually the main movie poster, the one that gets printed everywhere,
gets plastered up outside of the theater. That is the
main one. But they also make these character posters with
every single actor, and usually that is the one that
(52:51):
they post to their Instagram to show, Hey, I'm in
this movie, I play this character. But I often have
a problem with these because they are so life and
tell you nothing about the movie. It almost feels more
like a vanity thing of like, here's my character. But
I would not really be inspired by any of the
previous character posters to go and want to watch these movies.
(53:12):
One of the most recent examples is actually a movie
starring Hunter Schaefer, Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the Hunger
Games prequel. They all had their character posters and it
was just a big mess because there's so many characters
in that they really say nothing about that movie, which
she was good in that movie. I feel like I
would have been more interested to see a movie about
her character in that than what that movie actually was.
(53:34):
But again, she's getting these pretty good roles But what
Cuckoo did was make the character poster actually tell you
something about the character. If you go and look at
all the character posters for Cuckoo, it shows you these
characters in different situations that give you a little bit
of context of what is going on. People screaming Hunter
(53:55):
Schaeffer in the head bandage and looking all bloody, just
creating some sense of Okay, these are gonna be the
different types of people you're gonna have in this movie,
doing what a character poster should do, showing you their character.
So I feel like more movies should follow suit and
do that, especially when it comes to superhero movies that
(54:17):
are probably the worst at making movie posters because you
always have the floating head cliche and that is the
one that gets used everywhere. But when you think about
comic book movies, literally coming from one of the best
forms of art, the comic book, and we get these
lifeless posters that tell you nothing. Step it up, everybody,
(54:40):
this is how you do it. So back to Cuckoo,
it really doesn't look to me that it's going to
be a full on horror movie. And I'm already sold
after watching this trailer. But I can tell that It's
going to come down to the pacing of this movie
because in a two minute trailer it looks so slick,
it looks so compelling, But by watching it, I can
also tell hell, it's really going to lead into the
(55:02):
absurdness of these characters, gonna be kind of a mind
trip for the viewer, which probably a lot more mystery
than horror. So with a runtime of an hour and
forty three minutes, I hope that this movie is able
to pack a punch. If Hunter Schaeffer is able to
really have success in this role, it could lead to
(55:23):
her probably making that list that I was talking about
just a couple of weeks ago of being one of
the next big bankable A List stars. She obviously has
the Euphoria fan base behind her, which is kind of
a trend we are seeing here in young Hollywood. She
did have a minor role in Kinds of Kindness, so
it's really starting to establish a really good body of work.
So again, the movie is called Cuckoo and it is
(55:47):
coming out on August ninth.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Head That Bar was next week's edition of Movie Mind Framer.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
Bar and that is gonna do it for another episode
here of the podcast. But before I go. I gotta
give my listeners shout out of the week. Posted a
clip over on TikTok. Last week, Kelsey and I given
our review of Twisters. If you missed that review, just
go back one episode in the feed. If you want
to watch that review in its entirety, check out the
YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash mikedistro always all the
(56:17):
links on the episode notes of this podcast. This week's
listener shout Out of the Week goes to Tracy In,
who commented on TikTok and said to me, Glenn Powell
is the next Ryan Reynolds. I have not talked to
one person who doesn't like him. Thought that was an
interesting comparison. In the review last week, I compared him
to being part Matthew McConaughey, part Tom Cruise. And even
(56:40):
if I was going to compare him to one of
the Ryans, I don't think I would go Ryan Reynolds.
I think I would go Ryan Gosling obviously. Here, Tracy,
I think you're attributing his good looks now being to
that of Ryan Reynolds, probably in the twenty tens, where
he probably the best looking actor of that decade, but
right next to him, I agree is Ryan Gosling. And
(57:01):
I think the reason I would compare him to Gostling
over Reynolds is because I feel like Glenn Powell is
going to take the better roles and also going to
have a little bit more of a diversity in his portfolio,
which it looks like they are going to make a
Top Gun three, being very secretive on how far along
they are in that so I know it'll take a
lot for him to get to that Ryan Reynolds level,
(57:24):
but man, he is climbing. So thank you for that comment.
Tracy In you are this week's listener shout out of
the week, And thanks to everybody in the movie crew
for listening, being subscribed, checking out new episodes every single Monday,
and telling a friend And until next time, go out
and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. It has been a great summer.
But what makes us summer better A big Marvel release.
That's what we're talking about all episode long. I'm going
to give you my mount rushmore of Marvel villains, heroes,
female characters. We're talking MCU today because in the movie
(00:23):
review we have Dead Poll and Wolverine. Is it worth
your money? And where does it fit? Inside the MCU
in the trailer park, we're talking about a new horror
mystery coming out next week starring Hunter Schaeffer. It's called Cuckoo.
It looks great, big year for horror. Thank you for
being here. I said horror, not the other word horror. Rhr.
I don't like saying scary movie anyway. Thank you for
(00:44):
being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to
the Monday Morning movie crew. This episode is going to
be unhinged. If that intro is indication enough a movie crew,
let's get into it. Let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infols rate the ears of listeners
like never before in a movie podcast. A man with
so much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTB
with glasses from the Nashville Podcast Network. This is movie Mikes,
(01:15):
movie podcasts.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I can't tell I am firing on all cylinders. I
just had my coffee. There goes to can Here we go.
Let's talk about Marvel, one of my favorite genres of
movies to talk about. For the longest amount of time,
superhero movies were my number one go to genre. Probably
a big reason why I do this podcast was because
of the MCU's run from twenty and eight to twenty nineteen.
(01:40):
I've been there, standing by its side all along the way,
seen every Marvel movie multiple times. For most of them.
We'll get into the ones I've only seen once, and
I'll let you know exactly why. But in celebration of
Deadpool and Wolverine, I wanted to talk about my Mount
Rushmoores inside the MCU. So let's kick off first. Because
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there have been now thirty three Marvel movies prior to
Deadpool and Wolverine, which makes it thirty four. But I'm
only pulling from the thirty three to talk about this
Mount rushmore because I can include something so fresh and
brand new, because recency bias, and also because every time
a new Marvel movie comes out, with a few exceptions,
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it always just happens to be my favorite. Because I'm
writing off of that excitement, I always have to give
it a little bit before I start talking about my
favorite one. So I'm not including that one whatsoever. But
from the thirty three movies, and I'm also gonna include
the ten series on Disney Plus because those are also
cannon to the MCU. None of the Fox stuff counts,
nothing that came out before two thousand and eighths. Iron
(02:43):
Man will be on this list. First, I'm gonna give
you my mount rushmore of MCU hero, So the first
face I have to carve in, without a doubt, it
only felt fitting that this would be the first character
we break stone with, So here we go. Oh yeah,
Number one. It has to be iron Man because in
two thousand and eight kicked off the entire MCU. If
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this movie would have failed, if iron Man wouldn't have
been so dominant in this one, then all the other
movies that followed it just wouldn't have had a lect
to stand on. But not only because of that first movie.
It's because of Ironman's presence in every single MCU movie.
He was the poster child. Robert Downey Junior was essentially
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the face and the mascot of the MCU, which it needed.
It needed that person to rely on. He was so
influential in all the Avengers movies, and then eventually, whenever
they brought Spider Man into the mix, you had to
have Tony Stark in the movie almost for the movie
to be as successful. If you look at some of
the other ones that are looked at some of the
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weak points in the MCU early in those days, what
are they missing? They are missing Robert Downey Junior. And
even the worst iron Man movie, iron Man three, isn't
closed of being one of the worst Marvel movies of
all time. So all those things considered, I have to
put iron Man as that first head on my mount
Rushmore of MCU heroes as that second head, I'm putting
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Tom Holland Spider Man. Obviously I have some Spider Man
bias here, but I think Tom Holland as Spider Man
was the breath of fresh air the MCU needed when
he debuted in Civil War. It was such a huge
moment that first time his character came on to screen,
and I think he brought back that youthful energy into
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the Avengers, and it was so important moving forward to
have that. Without him, I feel like the tone of
the MCU would have greatly suffered and maybe fizzled out
by the time we got to Infinity War and Endgame.
So it was also a thing that I was not
expecting to see because of the rights of Spider Man
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being split between Sony and then Disney coming in and
making a big deal for him, and I just didn't
think I would see Tom Holland Spider Man in that
movie and then also get his own solo films, which
are all fantastic. And once he debuted, I think he
went up there into the number two on the ranking.
It was Iron Man and Spider Man, in my opinion,
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as the best heroes in the MCU. Once he debuted,
everybody else was still there. Arguably Captain America would be
rivaling Spider Man for that too, but I still think
he falls down too. With three. Then you drop Thor
in there, and Black Panther would probably follow behind that.
And not only that, we still have more to come.
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They are talking about right now, the future of Tom
Holland to Spider Man. Hopefully we get a Spider Man
four in my lifetime. If I had to guess, I
would have to say twenty twenty six, oh at the earliest,
and that hurts me. Most likely twenty twenty seven, but
Spider Man would be there at that. Number two head
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on my Mount rushmoreber heroes in the MCU, and number three.
This one's gonna be controversial. I love this character in
the MCU has their own solo film that came out
very early on that most people hate. But in that
third slot, I'm going with Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, that
two thousand and eight movie with Edward Norton. I don't
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understand why people hate that movie so much. Maybe it's
because they got the motion captured down better once Mark
Ruffalo was around. Maybe the overall story didn't really play
too much into the world they decided to create. I
will agree the tone is so much different. I loved
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Edward Norton as Bruce Banner. I thought he brought an
entirely different side out of it. There's no comedy whatsoever
in that movie. There's a love story y at the
basis of it. Abomination is a great villain. I don't
understand why so many people have a problem with this,
often citing that first Incredible Hulk movie is one of
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the worst MCU movies. If you say that you're you're wrong,
You're wrong. I still love it, and aside from that,
I still also love Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner. Did
the character get a little bit cartoony and wacky towards
the end of it with Smart Hulk, Yeah, a little bit.
But what I love about the Hulk is he's used
very sparingly. He is like the Kramer from Seinfeld. In
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the MCU. He barges in he wrex house and then
he leaves, much like Kramer would just bust open through
the door, say something wacky, come out with some crazy plan,
and then he'd be gone. He really wouldn't have any
episodes where he would be the main focus or the
continuing storyline. He was just used a like Bam, there's
Kramer does something hilarious and then he goes away. Same
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with The Incredible Hulk. Most of the time it is
Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner in plain clothes, but then
when the Hulk comes out, he is there to play.
Especially in the first Avengers movie, but also in Age
of Vultron Infinity War, Hulk really shines all the way
up until Endgame, which he has I would say his
weakest performance out of all the MCU movies, but still great.
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I have to put Hulk up there as my third
slot on my Mount Rushmore at number four. This one
I thought pretty hard and long about. I'm putting Rocket
Raccoon in that fourth slot because out of anybody in
the MCU, I think he has the best hero journey.
And I've said this about spider Man, but when I
say Spider Man has the best hero journey, I'm talking
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about Tobey maguire. I think the Spider Man story in
the MCU is a little bit fragmented, and a lot
of it is a result of the things that happen
in the other Marvel movies, in particular the aftermath of Endgame,
and a lot of his story is tied to Iron Man,
which is great for the MCU, but as far as
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just my Spider Man fixed, I don't go to the
MCU for story. I go to it for more of
the spectacle. So that's why I say he doesn't have
the best hero journey in the MCU. It is Rocket Raccoon,
who does if you look at Guardians of the Galaxy one, two,
and three, it is the most complete character development that
fills all of the gaps in my soul. He goes
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from being so ruthless and unable to tame, wanting to
work with no one, hating everybody, having this rage, to
then discovering this family among the Guardians of the Galaxy,
and then being introduced to the other Avengers and kind
of warming himself up to those people, but still being
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very guarded and really only being all about his family,
to having this incredible backstory and Guardians of the Galaxy
Volume three that shows you an entirely different side of him,
And the fact that that movie shows his origin story
and all the things he went through why he hates
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this villain so much, and why he has this rage
inside of him, and to see everything that his character
goes through in that film is just incredible to me.
So I think out of any character in the MCU,
he is the most well rounded, also probably the most unorthodox.
And then you have Bradley Cooper doing the voice of him,
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who does an amazing job where if you didn't know
it was Bradley Cooper maybe you couldn't really pick out
his voice, and that is the sign of a great
voice acting performance. So that is my mount rushbore of
MCU heroes, Iron Man, Spider Man, The Incredible Hulk, and
Rocket Raccoon. Chisel it in, guys, kind of a weak chisel?
(10:44):
Was that? Even rock? I think that was ice. Can
we get some more chisel? Here we go, chisel it up.
All right, Let's do my mount rushmore. Let's do villains
before we do female heroes. That first head has to
go to Thanos. Yeah, hammer in Thanos. Without Thanos, the
Infinity Saga would not have worked. He is that driving force.
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He is that villain that seems unbeatable, like he says,
he is inevitable. He is the villain that the MCU needed,
which for a majority of the Infinity Saga, the biggest
complaint that people had about Marvel was saying that it
had a villain problem. They were so forgettable that they
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would come into a movie and then be gone and
not be a threat whatsoever. Thanos changed all that, and
I love the fact that he was teased all the
way from the beginning in Phase one. Eventually gonna get
to Thanos. There's eventually gonna be Thanos, and then once
he was there, he was a force to be reckoned with.
Josh Brolin did such a great job being such a
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menacing character. I Lovetdanos so much that at one point,
before I got my Spider Man tattoo, I was considering
getting a Thanos tattoo before I had any other Marvel hero,
because I feel like he had that much impact on
the MCU so easily as the first villain on my
Mount Rushmore, in the MCU, it has to go to
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Thanos chiselom in. Yeah, there we go. As we're working
on that, let's go through some more of these villains
and that too. Slot I'm going with Loki, And like
I was saying, the MCU had a problem there with
not having memorable villains up until the first Avengers, which Loki.
It's hard to look back on that now because of
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the TV show and of Loki's journey throughout the MCU,
how he shifted not really being a villain anymore. But
in that first Avengers movie he was so sneaky and slimy,
and you really got to know Loki in his truest form,
just like he was in the comic books. Being so
mischievous and all the twist and turns that happened in
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that first one where he looked like they were not
going to be able to defeat him, and his plan
just kept snowballing on all of the Avengers. And it
took me a long time to not see Tom Hidleston
only as Loki because he plays them so well. But
I loved his costume, I loved his performance. I loved
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how much he rivaled the Avengers in that two slot
on the Villains Mount Rushmore, I'm going with Loki as
the third head going over to Wakanda. It has to
go to Killmonger along those same lines of Loki being
such a menacing threat. Right after him is kill Monger
and Michael B. Jordan was just made to play such
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a great villain, which is odd because he is so
likable in all of his other movies. But once he
has the hair, once he has the markings on his body,
I completely forget all that because he is such a
good villain. And that is a hard thing to do
to go from playing such likable characters, from probably just
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being a likable person in real life to flipping a
switch and becoming one of the most ruthless villains in
the MCU, murdering people in cold blood, becoming a thief,
and doing all these heinous things in the MCU that
up until that point we really hadn't seen. A lot
of the villains were more space based and odd creatures,
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but kill Monger is a very down to earth character,
and his first appearance on screen in Black Panther is
one of my most memorable introductions of a villain in
the MCU. In that third slot, I'm going with Killmonger,
and as my fourth head, my last villain pick is
going to Green Goblin from No Way Home, Willem Dafoe,
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who has such an expressive face he can easily turn
into looking like a maniac. And another instance that I
thought this would never happen because he came from being
the villain in my favorite Spider Man movie of all
time with Toby maguire, the original Spider Man, and came
back in this movie and I would say quite possibly
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gave a better performance. And I know he wasn't on
screen as much as he was in that movie. There
were a lot of callbacks to that performance, so obviously
this one wouldn't stand alone without that movie. But maybe
it's also because in those almost twenty years he became
a better actor. I just think if you sit down
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and look at the work of Willem Dafoe, who really
is a very versatile actor, I would have to put
Green Goblin as one of the roles that he was
meant to play. There is nobody else I feel could
really bring a life to this role, and you think
about how important his character was in no way home,
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very significant and then led to one of my favorite
villain fights out of any Marvel movie. I just think
Green Goblin as a represents everything Spider Man is trying
to fight, and it's his biggest villain in my opinion,
because how close he is to him and in no
way Holmes case what it would mean to defeat him.
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He also just looks fantastic. So if I'm looking at
this Mount Rushmore from an aesthetic perspective, I'm putting him
not as Willem Dafoe's face, but the actual Green Goblin head.
I just think that would look good in Stones. So
my MCU villain Mount Rushmore is made up of Thanos Loki,
Killmonger and Green Goblin Chisel It in boys, is that
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a chisel or is that duct tape chisel? It in boys?
Here we go. All right, let's go over now to
my mount rushmore of female heroes. This one was still
pretty easy to make. But when you look at all
the characters in the MCU, not as many female characters.
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And I think a lot of these heroes here should
have got a movie way earlier on. But it is
what it is. Right in my number one slot, it
goes to Wanda. And I was saying this back when
Age of Ultron came out, that Wanda was a really
good character and really going to show her dominance later
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along the line in all of these movies. So I
was a believer of her in that movie, even though
she did come out of that weird accent. But not
only in the Avengers films, and I'll even take her
in Multiverse of Madness. But WandaVision, the TV show is
in the MCU, and I believe is the best Marvel
series to ever be made. I love that they never
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try to follow it up with another season of that show.
It is perfect in every way, and that series proved
to me that a Marvel character could work in episodes
and you could flesh them out and it doesn't always
have to be in a two hour movie. I love
the amount of time you get to know her character
and the fact that all those episodes had a different feel,
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representing different decades of television. So I think that was
one of the most creative projects to come out of
the MCU. But when you look at her character and
how powerful she is, I think she is one of
the most powerful Avengers. Maybe when you just look at
powers alone, the only person who could rival her is
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another female hero, Captain Marvel, because she has the ability
to cripple any of these superheroes. So I think her
powers would probably showcase more on WandaVision than they were
in the movies. But she easily goes up there in
my number one slot Chiseller in Boys, Yeah, all right,
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in that number two head, I'm going with Black Widow
because she is a constant throughout all of the MCU,
going back to the first Avengers movie and how just
effortlessly she took out villains in that opening scene when
you first see her, and how good she is at
her job. Everybody needs a Black Widow on their team,
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whether you're working in an office, whether you're working out
on an oil rig whether you have a lawn service,
I don't care what industry you're in. You need a
Black Widow on your team who is so reliable, so
good at their job, can work circles around anybody. The
Avengers or she's just sitting there, looks like she's been
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captured by these people, but really she is playing them
all to get all of their secrets and all of
the information she needs to know out of them, knowing
that at any point she can break out of that
rope and beat everybody's face into the ground. So we
all need somebody like Black Widow who is at an
elite level of their job and always in control of
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every situation. That is what I took away from her character,
because she doesn't really have superpowers. Aside from the fact
that she has such a skilled assassin, has also been
through some really traumatic things in her childhood that fuel her.
So it's not like she's bulletproof, it's not like she
can fly. She is just b a to the core.
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Everybody should be more like Black wid except everybody should
be more like Black Widow, except for the killing part.
Don't kill people, Never kill people. I'm not encouraging that,
but in a fictional world where it's only bad guys. Yes,
be more like her. In my third head position, I'm
going with Gomora, and Gomora is somebody who really grew
on me through all of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies,
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and she also has one of the most gut wrenching
moments out of any MCU movie coming to us in
Infinity War and again looking at this Mount Rushmore. Aesthetically,
she has such a distinct look. Shout out to Zola's
Eldona for going through an extensive makeup purpose for all
of our entertainment. I mean, she's still made millions in
the process. I think she's also in Avatar in so
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many billion dollar movies. I think she set for life,
so she earned her key. But I guess by doing that,
so I won't thank her too much. But Todilla, it
seems like torture to be in makeup for that long.
In that third slot, I'm going with Gomora from Guardians
of the Galaxy. In that fourth slot, I don't think
if it wouldn't have been for the passing of Chadwick Boseman,
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that she would have entered into this Mount Rushmore. But
because of that and her really stepping up in Wakanda Forever.
In that fourth slot, I'm going with Shury because, don't
get me wrong, she was great in the first Black
Panther movie, but rising to the occasion and Black Panther
Waconda Forever was something that nobody else in the MCU
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had to deal with. Nobody really had to replace anybody.
I guess in a way, Tom Holland kind of replaced
Robert Downey Junior as Tony Stark as being that next
one up, but he never really fully took on the
position as the role of the leader of the Avengers,
but sure he had to do that and did a
fantastic job, although she struggled a lot, which obviously who
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wouldn't struggle with dealing with the death of somebody who
was Black Panther and then having the power bestowed onto you.
And not only is she fantastic in both of those
movies and in the Avengers movies, but by putting her
on this Mount Rushmore, I'm also investing that they're going
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to continue with their character moving forward. So if it
wouldn't have been for Waconda Forever, this loot probably would
have gone to Captain Marvel, who was great in her
first solo movie, also had a huge part in an Endgame,
although I wish they would have used her more, but
it was probably the Marvels that kept her out of this.
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So to recap, in my female Heroes of the MCU,
we have Wanda, Black Widow, Gomorra, and Shury. We'll finish
it out with my mount rushmore of the best MCU movies,
and then we'll get into the worst MCU movies. But
starting with the positive in that first slot, I would
put Infinity War. It is the best in theater experience
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that I've had from any of the Avengers movies, even
more so than Endgame, because Endgame really only has that
one big moment that we all know at this point
that every theater in America is freaking out. That is
a core moment. But I still think overall, the first
time I experienced Infinity War left me feeling way different,
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and it was also more expected. I kind of knew
what was gonna happen in Endgame, which was the end
result of every Marvel movie that came before it. We
all knew what was gonna happen, We all knew what
it was building towards there was nothing I got in
Endgame that came out of left field, really great moments
of fantastastic movie. But when I sit down to watch
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an Avengers movie, I'm gonna watch Infinity War. I still
think it is the best one. So in that number
one slot, I'm going with Infinity War at number two.
Talking about it more earlier in the episode, it goes
to Iron Man being the first MCU movie back in
two thousand and eight and one that still holds up.
There are not that many movies from Phase one that
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you can go back and just think that, oh, nothing
here has changed a whole lot. Everything still works out.
Iron Man is that movie. Aside from probably some references
and shots of cell phones from back in two thousand
and eight, yeah, maybe those don't hold up. But when
it comes to the story and the technology, I would
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argue some of the visual effects in the first Iron
Man look better than some of the MCU movies that
have come out in the last five years. This was
back when all the VFX artists weren't being worked to
the bone and the technology was new at the time,
with Transformers being one of the first movies to really
use like that photo realism, making things actually look like
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the surfaces that they are. That was a big deal
back in the day. So Transformers was very influential on
Iron Man. It got it perfect, it got the suit
down so well, everybody benefited from it. At number two,
I have Iron Man. At number three, I have Black Panther.
Not only because it's such a great movie. Has the
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fantastic villain, has the fantastic hero. But I would say
because this movie looks unlike any of the other MCU
movies for a couple of reasons, for the cast, the representation.
It just looks different by the people who are represented
in this movie, which was huge. We didn't have that.
Me as a Mexican American, I didn't get that until
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well on the DC side, Blue Beetle, but even in
Wakanda Forever with our first Mexican villain. But that was
important for kids who didn't have a hero that looked
like them. And now you have this awesome black superhero
who was also noble and smart and quite possibly stronger
and more fierce. I mean that has to do a
lot with the technology they had, which is so advanced
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and everybody wants. But it looked different because of the
cast and the representation, but aside from that, it was
just more cinematic and a direct result of that was
it actually getting Oscar nominations, which hadn't happened in the
MCU before. So just looking at from a cinematography and
a visual perspective, a wardrobe and makeup perspective, it doesn't
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look like all the other MCU movies, and I love
it for that, and number three in that slot, I
have Black Panther at number four because this movie changed
my life because it felt like my inner kid just
having complete joy in the year of twenty twenty one,
which this movie single handily probably saved the movie theaters
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that ye're bouncing back from twenty twenty it is no
way home. Aside from what I was mentioning earlier of
Infinity War being my overall favorite theater experience for a
Marvel movie, this one has my favorite moment, yes even
more so than Endgame, my favorite cheer moment, which any
good MCU movie has at that moment that we all
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want to get out of our seats and yell and
clap and applaud. This movie did it the best. I
will never forget that. So those are my mount Rushmore
of the best MCU movies, Infinity War, Iron Man, Black Panther,
and No Way Home, Chisela Man Boss. Here we go,
all right to close us out, my mount rushmore of
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the worst MCU movies at number one, And I would
say for all of these movies, I've only seen them once,
and not only that, I never want to watch them again.
And out of all of the thirty three MCU movies,
these are the only ones that I would consider bad.
There only happens to be four of them, which is
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pretty good. But in that number one slot, it goes
to The Eternals, hands down the worst MCU movie of
all time. It tried to do too much, tried to
create such a big world, introduced too many characters, tried
to be like a more intellectual Avengers. Every element of
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this movie fell flat. And it wasn't until the Captain
America Brave New World trailer that came out that it
finally addressed one of the biggest cliffhangers in all of
the MCO This big floating rock, Hey, we forgot about that,
Let's go back to that. So was so confusing. Characters
made no sense. They were oddly emotional for no reason.
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Had no connection to the story whatsoever. It was a big,
big mess and a bad movie. Number one goes to
the Eternals at number two. I guess putting a th
is a bad sign for MCU movies because number two
of the Marvels and I think it was probably do
it a tone. It also felt like they didn't have
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enough story to make a movie. This probably should have
been a Disney Plus series. And bre Larson. I love
her as an actor, and I think the character is great,
but I really feel like she phoned in this performance.
And maybe it has to do with doing the majority
of this movie in front of a blue or green screen,
no cast chemistry. This movie did not work for me.
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Goes in my number two slot. At number three, it
goes to Thor The Dark World, primarily because this movie
is so forgettable. And this was also at a time
where they really didn't have the Thor character down. Chris
Hemsworth still had the long blonde hair. They were making
him too mythical. They tried a little bit to bring
out the humor and Thor, but Chris Hemsworth didn't really
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know how to play him just quite yet didn't truly
nail it until the next movie Thor Ragnarok, which I
was like, oh that store he had to look down
to cut his hair, and that led to better Avengers movies.
So I think it's just a product of the time.
I love the first Thor movie, but this one was
not it whatsoever. I never want to see it again.
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At number three is The The Dark World and in
that Ford slot. I think it's because this movie was
a little bit of a letdown. It also tarnished how
I feel about one of my favorite villains that I
was talking about earlier. It is Doctor Strange in the
Multiverse of Madness. For a movie being titled The Multiverse
of Madness, they didn't really have much to do with
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making the Multiverse mad and me being somebody who loves
a good horror movie. Having Sam Raimi one of the
most beloved horror directors of all time, the product just
didn't match his body of work, also being the director
of the best Spider Man trilogy. It is also largely
cited to being a part of the decline of the
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MS in a movie we really had to bounce back from.
As me being one of the people still fighting for
the MCU, I gotta make excuses for this movie, so
that is why it put it and I only saw
it in theaters once and was never inclined to go
back and rewatch it on Disney Plus because I just
didn't enjoy it. So in that Ford slot the Multiverse
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of Madness. Rounding out that list, it is the Eternals,
the Marvels for the Dark World, Doctor Strange in the
Multiverse of Madness being my mount rushmore of bad MCU movies,
but again they're only being fo what I would consider
bad movies in the MCU that I just would not
watch again, not bad, so to those, we carve them
and then destroy them out of the stone. So that
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is my list. We'll come back and finally give my
review of dead Pool and Wolverine. Let's get into it now,
A spoiler free review of dead Pool and Wolverine, one
of my most anticipated movies of the year. I'm a
huge Wolverine fan. I would say a moderate Deadpool fan.
(32:06):
I get a little bit tired of Ryan Reynolds and
his stick when it comes to Deadpool, which I believe
changed the game when it first came out with Part one,
poking fun at superheroes with the more intense violence with
the swearing. I think it was. I think at the
time it was a breath of fresh air in the
superhero genre. But with Part two, with all the teasers
(32:26):
leading up to Deadpool and Wolverine, I get a little
bit tired of it. I just find that it becomes
a little bit less funny as we're exposed to the
same types of jokes over and over again. So going
into this movie, I really wanted to see less Deadpool
and wanted to see more Wolverine, and I was actually
quite pleasantly surprised how much Ryan Reynolds improved as Deadpool,
(32:51):
giving us a different side of Deadpool where I feel
he grew as a character, and that was largely due
to Ryan Reynolds' performance really stepping in it up of
not just having the one liners, the breaking the fourth wall,
which was an abundance in this movie, but giving us
a little bit more to chew on that For the
first time, I saw how Deadpool could work outside of
(33:14):
this franchise, which is what all superheroes do. They have
their solo movies, but they also branch out in the EMCU.
So for the first time I really saw Ryan Reynolds
how he would be sharing the spotlight with somebody as
famous and as beloved as him. So we'll get into
more of that, But what Deadpool and Wolverine is all
about won't give you any spoilers. For the most part,
(33:37):
everything I'll talk about here was already revealed in the
first and second trailer, but Deadpool started tooling around with
cables travel device, which we learned about in Deadpool two.
So to answer some of your questions draft the bat,
do you need to see one or two? You don't
necessarily have to. I think you could watch this movie
and understand some of the plot points, you wouldn't becomempletely lost.
(34:00):
But obviously with any superhero movie, they're going to talk
about things that happened in part one in part two.
You don't necessarily have to see every Marvel movie to
understand it, but when you do, you feel a lot
more gratification. So I don't think you need to see
necessarily part one or two to understand what is going on.
But you need to see part one and two to
(34:23):
feel the emotional impact of this movie and to know
what got weighed Wilson here. So this could be a
way for some people that haven't seen one or two
want to hop into it because they're fans. With Hugh
Jackman and Wolverine, you could do that. You could watch
this one and go back and watch it BOT one
and two if you enjoy his performance. I really feel
like this movie put all the cards on the table
(34:43):
and wanted to make a really good movie that would yes,
propel the MCU in a way, but also show that
we need to hit right now. We're gonna do everything
in our ability to give the fans what they want
and to bring those back who have straight away from
the MCU to return to the theater to pay for
tickets to see the next one. So not only does
(35:03):
it have a tie in with Part one and Part
two of Deadpool, it also ties in with Loki over
on Disney Plus. But Deadpool is essentially trying to do
something that is larger than himself. He is trying to
find his purpose, and at the beginning of the movie
we kind of find him not wanting to be Deadpool anymore.
After a failed attempt to join the Avengers that leads
(35:27):
him to being recruited by the TVA from Loki. They
give him a shot at trying to save the world,
but in order to do that he needs to find Wolverine.
So from there it is Deadpool and Wolverine teaming up together,
taking on a new villain, and going on a journey
to save the world together. So, like I was mentioning
earlier about kind of being over Ryan Reynolds and his
(35:48):
shtick is Deadpool, I will have to say that his
character did address being a one trick pony. I think
he sees some of that criticism of people feeling probably
after Deadpool two, that it was kind of along the
same lines as Deadpool One, didn't really push anything forward.
So a lot of what his character goes through in
this movie is wanting to prove to himself and more importantly,
(36:12):
to the love interest in his life. He wants to
be a part of something bigger and larger, and all
the actions in this movie are him working towards that.
The first thing that stuck out to me about this
movie is how good it looks Deadpool hopping into the MCU.
He's using that two hundred million dollar budget. Wild that
the first one costs about fifty eight million dollars to make.
(36:34):
Part two ballooned up to about one hundred and ten
million dollars. This one added another ninety million dollars on
top of that, and they use all of that money,
and I think a great deal of it went to
reviving Deadpool suit, which they do a whole montage of
it in the movie. It looks more comic book accurate.
The red is brighter, the eyes are wider, and overall
(36:57):
just looks way more slick, And I think through the
course of this movie, the comic book accuracy was the
ode to the nerds, and I talked about earlier this
year in an episode addressing how I feel like the
MCU should seek out the nerds, pay attention to what
they're saying in order to improve the movies. You can
(37:18):
only do it so much, because I think this movie
walked a really good line on giving us nerds what
we wanted when it came to the comic book accuracy,
which is something that people in the TikTok comments are
always yelling about. We want the characters that we grew
up with reading in the comic books seeing in the
animated shows. So it's giving us that, but also giving
(37:41):
the more common movie goer something that doesn't look too
corny and cheeseball. It's a fine line to walk and
probably pretty influential early on with the X Men movies
in the two thousands, of why they didn't decide to
put them all in comic book accurate suits. The leather
at that time was also greatly influenced by the Matrix
(38:03):
that came out in the late nineties, and they said,
we need to put the X Men in leather, and
then we never saw a comic book accurate suit really
until now for Wolverine, and I was a little bit
reluctant to like it, even though it was giving us
exactly what we wanted back. Whenever the first image was
revealed with Hugh Jackman in the suit, I thought it
looked a little bit too much like a motorcross dirt
(38:25):
bike soup, and I wasn't the biggest fan of it,
and still now, I do believe that the look of
it was made more to compliment Deadpool suit than it
was just to be a comic book accurate Wolverine suit,
So I think in order for them to match on screen.
So I think that's the reason why it has some
(38:46):
of those textures on it that I'm not the biggest
fan of. And for me looking behind me on the
set here that Wolverine that X Men ninety seven that
I feel would be probably more yellow spandex probably wouldn't
look that great on screen, even though that's what I want.
And sometimes you can't give fans exactly what they want,
and this is probably an example of that. So this
(39:07):
is a case that I know I'm being irrational and
wanting that because if you gave us that, it probably
wouldn't look that good, and then I would still find
a way to complain. So I am one of those
people who's probably too hard to please on this, And
I also know that sometimes it is hard to make
a two D image like that, even though that's a
figure behind me right now. So if you're not watching
(39:28):
on YouTube, you have to go and look at the set.
But bringing any two D character, whether it be from
a comic book or a TV show, and putting them
in the real world, you're gonna have some obstacles that
you can't get over. But overall, I think the suit
look fantastic for both dead Pool and I grew to
love the Wolverine suit, especially the explanation they gave addressing
(39:51):
why he is wearing it and really addressing and answering
a lot of questions that I had going into this movie.
I felt like they knew people were coming in with
some hesitationations, and we're gonna wonder a lot about what
Wolverine this is and why Hugh Jackman is back playing them,
and they laid everything out and I was satisfied with
those answers. And the other thing they gave us that
(40:12):
I felt was a plus was whenever Deadpool first goes
and tries to find and locate Wolverine, they gave us
a montage of Wolverine variants. This scene in particular, even
though it wasn't even that long, was for all the nerds,
which is what I enjoyed that this movie continued to
throw in there because there were so many different variants
(40:33):
from the comic books, the TV shows, just figures, and
even though they were very quick, they were all images
and costumes that I just never thought I would see
on the big screen. So again walking that line of
giving the nerds what they want but also giving just
so I think that was a pretty big deal to
give the nerds what they want, because I feel like
(40:54):
not everybody probably understood all of these variants and what
they meant, but oh I was probably one of my
favorite scenes out of the entire movie, and that mixed
with some really great fight scenes between Deadpool and Wolverine,
which is what we had glimpses of in the trailer.
But I feel out of all the fight scenes that
(41:14):
went down in this movie, those were the ones where
I was the most engaged because they do not hold
anything back. And what I really loved my probably my
favorite detail, and what I really loved, which was probably
my favorite detail, was how ferocious they made Wolverine's fighting style.
This was the most animalistic he has ever looked like,
(41:35):
running on all fours. I feel like Hugh Jackman played
this character much differently, which is probably hard to do.
He's been playing the character for twenty four years now.
This is his tenth movie as Wolverine, and I felt
like it was a completely fresh take because it is
a different Wolverine from a different timeline, and I can
actually feel it in Hugh Jackman's performance that he approached
(41:58):
this character differently. He approached the fighting style different that
I truly felt like I was watching a different variant
of Wolverine of logan and that mixed with his physique
looking off the charts, He's turning fifty six this October,
and you cannot tell whatsoever. There was even one scene
in particular where he's not wearing a shirt, and I
(42:19):
was convinced that they brought a stunt double in because
it looks like he had a twelve pack, arms were
super jacked, and I'm convinced he can play this character
for another decade. As I get into now some of
the things I didn't like about the movie, I will
just say that overall, I loved it. It is a
good movie. When it comes to what the MPCU needed,
(42:39):
this is it. You're not going to go into this
one and feel like you did after watching The Marvels
or am Man three. It is a good movie, but
I also hold these movies to such a high standard,
Wolverine being one of my favorite superhero characters. I went
into it thinking it was going to be a top
ten movie. Not quite there, maybe top five. But again,
(43:00):
that doesn't make it a bad movie. By the way,
I did not want this movie to end. It is
a crisp two hours, and I could have been in
that theater for three hours, so that's indication enough. I
had to remind myself that Deadpool is a comedy movie.
That is why these movies have been successful. That is
what people go to wanting to see out of this character,
out of Ryan Reynolds's performance. There were times where I lasted.
(43:23):
There were some good jokes in there, but overall, I
don't feel like it is a great, straight ahead comedy.
I think it's more fun than it is funny, and
because it is more of a comedy, I feel like
it takes away a little bit from the intensity. When
it came to the villain. In Deadpool and Wolverine, there's
really not that moment where everything comes to a head
(43:44):
with the villain, and I would say overall that took
away a little bit of the impact from the third act.
And I was talking earlier in this episode about the
MCU having a bit of a villain problem. I almost
felt like the villain was wasted in this movie. And
I think that's probably because with Headpool and Wolverine being
such big characters, you want to give them all the
(44:04):
screen time. For the majority of this movie, it was
Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman battling for lines, even pointing
out directly when an extra would get a line like oh, hey,
don't let you speak, so I could see their egos
coming out of who is going to be dominating this
movie more. I think it adds to the fun nature
of it then poking jabs at each other's characters, but
(44:26):
also at each other's personal lives a little bit with
it breaking that fourth wall, with it being so meta,
And I would say, I'm somebody who has kind of
gotten away from expecting really big cameos in Marvel movies.
They become a little bit of a crutch I feel
to get people excited. But I really felt this movie
did it well keeping it under wraps, and at times
(44:48):
I feel like it was kind of needed. It needed
that big pop moment and they were really unexpected ones,
which is what I enjoy sometimes giving me something that
I didn't even know I wanted. So overall, I felt
like this movie was a great time. It flew by
at two hours, a rare case that I even wanted
to stay and watch the post credit scene. But when
(45:09):
it comes to rating this movie, I do have to
judge it a little bit differently because I have to
weigh it among all the movies in the MCU. That
is just what happens now. Being the thirty fourth movie,
I have to think is it top ten my top
ten Marvel movies. I would all put it fives, and
that is a tough top ten to break. And as
(45:29):
much as I enjoyed all the aspects as much of
the things, they got right and gave all the fans
just some real gratification of here you've been asking for this,
Here it is enjoy I was expecting to leave the
same way I left No Way home of just this
overwhelming joy, and I didn't really get that from this movie,
even though I thoroughly enjoyed it. So without that feeling,
(45:52):
I don't think it is a top ten. I also
have to think about rewatchability, because I feel like a
lot of these jokes have a real small shelf life.
They reference things that are very specific to the times,
So rewatching this movie in another five years, all those
jokes might not land the same way because the entire
landscape of the MCU is probably gonna be much different.
(46:14):
But for right now, the jokes probably land a lot more.
I just think they won't age as well. I give
it a four out of five clause, and that is
only because I don't think it's top ten, which would
be five out of five, I would really really have
to consider it putting in the top fifteen, which is
what I would consider that four point five at of
(46:35):
five rating. But overall, it gives me a lot of hope.
I also think of what all had to go right
just to get that first Deadpole movie, and now it
is a certified franchise, so it definitely just leads me
excited of all what's to come with the character, especially
now that he's with Wolverine. I do want to do
a spoiler version of this review to talk about all
the cameos, to talk about more of the plot points,
(46:56):
So definitely be on the lookout on the fee for
that review. But again I give it four out of
five clause.
Speaker 2 (47:05):
It's time to head down to movie mics trailar pause.
Speaker 1 (47:09):
We are more than halfway through the year, and if
I had to call out one specific genre for being
the bright spot in twenty twenty four, I think it
would have to go to horror.
Speaker 3 (47:22):
Collectively, this year has been a little bit lackluster. It
really wasn't until July this month that I felt we
had our first really good month for movies. Every movie
I've rated so far this month has been a four
at least an average, which is great, and there have
(47:42):
been some bright spots throughout the year, like Challengers, Love
Lies Bleeding, which is on Max now if you haven't
seen that movie yet, but I would say collectively they
have been few and far between.
Speaker 1 (47:53):
Hopefully going to shape up better towards the end of
the year. They did drop another trailer for The Joker.
Looks fantastic, but I've already covered that trailer before here
on the podcast. So when it comes to just the
genre that I feel has been consistently good giving us
unique original stories, it has to go to horror, and
(48:14):
Neon has been one of the studios doing it the
best this year with Immaculate with Long Legs being what
I would still consider to be the scariest movie of
the year. And now they had this movie coming out
with Hunter Shaffer called Cuckoo. I just like saying that
name Cuckoo. And when people say that original movies don't
get made, you're not looking hard enough. Just look at
(48:36):
Neon alone and what they have done in the horror
genre just in this year in twenty twenty four, they
have been consistently putting out good original stories. Not all
of them have been super groundbreaking, but just that studio
alone you can find original stories, not even mentioning a
twenty four who also does great horror movies, but really
(48:57):
can do any genre well, So original stories are getting made.
Twenty twenty four just happens to be an unusually high
amount of reboots and sequels and franchises, but only one
Marvel movie, which you already covered. But this looks good
with Hunter Schaeffer as the lead. I saw the trailer
again when I went to go watch Long Legs, but
sometimes it takes seeing it on the big screen to
(49:19):
really be able to appreciate the style of filmmaking that
I feel. Cuckoo is going to lean into it very much,
has this eighties horror vibe aesthetic even coming across in
the soundtrack, And after watching this trailer, you really don't
know exactly what the movie is about, even looking at
the plot. Her character is a seventeen year old who
reluctantly leaves America to live with her father at a
(49:41):
resort in the German Alps. She starts hearing a bunch
of strange noises, has these weird, bloody visions, leading her
to discover this shocking secret that concerns her own family.
This movie is coming out soon on August ninth. And
before we get into more, here's just a little bit
of the Cuckoo trailer. I would you like come on
from meat there as one try with you. I wouldn't
(50:08):
want to get a hoe even more?
Speaker 2 (50:13):
Why did you bring us here?
Speaker 1 (50:16):
Your family? How along? See that's a weird way to
put it. You told the police that you were chased
by a woman. They think I'm crazy. I feel like
Neon is bringing back really good production of trailers. Had
(50:38):
the same feeling after watching the Long Legs trailer, not
only the style of editing, but the sound design. Not
often do I play a trailer here on the podcast,
and it's so visually pleasing, but you hear all those
little sounds in there. It creates that sense of urgency
that you want in a horror mystery, which is exactly
(50:59):
what this movie is. The big scary part in this trailer,
which probably will not even be the scariest part in
the entire movie, but there's a scene where Hunter Schaeffer
leaves her shift. Looks like she is working the front
desk at a hotel or a resort, and she's riding
her bike at night with these big headphones on, can't
hear anything. And there's this one shot in the trailer
(51:22):
where you see her shadow riding the bike and then
you see the shadow of what appears to be a
woman's hand going to grab her. Next scene is her
being attacked by this mysterious woman who I can't really
tell what is going on with her. I don't know
if she's a monster, if she's a ghost, if she's
a zombie. They make some references later about a certain
(51:44):
species needing help, so maybe it's some weird science experiment
gone wrong and has turned these people into these horrific looking,
almost mutant like creatures who attack people. Because that's what
happens in this scene. She gets attacked, ends up in
the hospital, has this big head bandage, this old school
looking brace, and is all bloody, bruised and broken, and
(52:08):
it looks like that's gonna be the look for her
character throughout the rest of this movie, which I feel
is already a great costume and depending on how good
this movie ends up being, could be the next iconic
look for a character. Which another really great thing that
Cuckoo did with its promotional materials is they finally got
(52:29):
character posters right, and maybe you've seen these on Instagram
or Facebook. Usually when a big movie comes out, there's
usually the main movie poster, the one that gets printed everywhere,
gets plastered up outside of the theater. That is the
main one. But they also make these character posters with
every single actor, and usually that is the one that
(52:51):
they post to their Instagram to show, Hey, I'm in
this movie, I play this character. But I often have
a problem with these because they are so life and
tell you nothing about the movie. It almost feels more
like a vanity thing of like, here's my character. But
I would not really be inspired by any of the
previous character posters to go and want to watch these movies.
(53:12):
One of the most recent examples is actually a movie
starring Hunter Schaefer, Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, the Hunger
Games prequel. They all had their character posters and it
was just a big mess because there's so many characters
in that they really say nothing about that movie, which
she was good in that movie. I feel like I
would have been more interested to see a movie about
her character in that than what that movie actually was.
(53:34):
But again, she's getting these pretty good roles But what
Cuckoo did was make the character poster actually tell you
something about the character. If you go and look at
all the character posters for Cuckoo, it shows you these
characters in different situations that give you a little bit
of context of what is going on. People screaming Hunter
(53:55):
Schaeffer in the head bandage and looking all bloody, just
creating some sense of Okay, these are gonna be the
different types of people you're gonna have in this movie,
doing what a character poster should do, showing you their character.
So I feel like more movies should follow suit and
do that, especially when it comes to superhero movies that
(54:17):
are probably the worst at making movie posters because you
always have the floating head cliche and that is the
one that gets used everywhere. But when you think about
comic book movies, literally coming from one of the best
forms of art, the comic book, and we get these
lifeless posters that tell you nothing. Step it up, everybody,
(54:40):
this is how you do it. So back to Cuckoo,
it really doesn't look to me that it's going to
be a full on horror movie. And I'm already sold
after watching this trailer. But I can tell that It's
going to come down to the pacing of this movie
because in a two minute trailer it looks so slick,
it looks so compelling, But by watching it, I can
also tell hell, it's really going to lead into the
(55:02):
absurdness of these characters, gonna be kind of a mind
trip for the viewer, which probably a lot more mystery
than horror. So with a runtime of an hour and
forty three minutes, I hope that this movie is able
to pack a punch. If Hunter Schaeffer is able to
really have success in this role, it could lead to
(55:23):
her probably making that list that I was talking about
just a couple of weeks ago of being one of
the next big bankable A List stars. She obviously has
the Euphoria fan base behind her, which is kind of
a trend we are seeing here in young Hollywood. She
did have a minor role in Kinds of Kindness, so
it's really starting to establish a really good body of work.
So again, the movie is called Cuckoo and it is
(55:47):
coming out on August ninth.
Speaker 2 (55:49):
Head That Bar was next week's edition of Movie Mind Framer.
Speaker 1 (55:53):
Bar and that is gonna do it for another episode
here of the podcast. But before I go. I gotta
give my listeners shout out of the week. Posted a
clip over on TikTok. Last week, Kelsey and I given
our review of Twisters. If you missed that review, just
go back one episode in the feed. If you want
to watch that review in its entirety, check out the
YouTube channel, YouTube dot com slash mikedistro always all the
(56:17):
links on the episode notes of this podcast. This week's
listener shout Out of the Week goes to Tracy In,
who commented on TikTok and said to me, Glenn Powell
is the next Ryan Reynolds. I have not talked to
one person who doesn't like him. Thought that was an
interesting comparison. In the review last week, I compared him
to being part Matthew McConaughey, part Tom Cruise. And even
(56:40):
if I was going to compare him to one of
the Ryans, I don't think I would go Ryan Reynolds.
I think I would go Ryan Gosling obviously. Here, Tracy,
I think you're attributing his good looks now being to
that of Ryan Reynolds, probably in the twenty tens, where
he probably the best looking actor of that decade, but
right next to him, I agree is Ryan Gosling. And
(57:01):
I think the reason I would compare him to Gostling
over Reynolds is because I feel like Glenn Powell is
going to take the better roles and also going to
have a little bit more of a diversity in his portfolio,
which it looks like they are going to make a
Top Gun three, being very secretive on how far along
they are in that so I know it'll take a
lot for him to get to that Ryan Reynolds level,
(57:24):
but man, he is climbing. So thank you for that comment.
Tracy In you are this week's listener shout out of
the week, And thanks to everybody in the movie crew
for listening, being subscribed, checking out new episodes every single Monday,
and telling a friend And until next time, go out
and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.
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