April 1, 2025 • 40 mins
DJ Nik and Keith Bliss review "Avengers Confidential : Black Widow & Punisher" !!! Enjoy ! If you would like to come on and discuss YOUR favourite movie send us a email with your movie of choice to : happinessindarknesshow@gmail.com . Check out our great tiers on Patreon : patreon.com/happinessindarkness !!!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
A Marvel animated film featuring The Avengers. Two legendary heroes
go toe to toe against one unstoppable voice, with the
(00:24):
voice talents of Jennifer Carpenter as Black Widow and Brian
Bloom as The Punisher Marvel's Avengers Confidential Black Widow and Punisher.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Charby Ball And Welcome to our two hundred and eighty
fifth episode of Happiness and Darkness, the Superhero Movie Podcast.
We'll discuss superhero movies marveled eced Ark, Horse, Image, and more. Naturally,
there will be spoilers, folks, so you have been warned.
I'm one of your co hosts, Dijinik and as always
joining me as my superhero partner in crime, mister Keith Bliss. Hey,
(01:00):
how are you today?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Oh, Heynick, not too bad. It's a nice, warm day
here at the beach in North Carolina, and we were
plotting this year's misadventures and movies. So I'm having a great.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Day, you and me, both the Keith and dear listeners,
because we've had quite a nice chat off air about
what we plan to do, what we plan to unleash
upon the world when it comes to your ears, and
I think you might be pleasantly surprised. But today we
are going to be going by the book because we
(01:31):
are discussing Avengers Confidential, Black Widow and Punisher from twenty fourteen.
As well as directed by Kinichishi Mitsu. The story was
by Marjori Yu, while the screenplay was by Mitsutaka Hirota
and the score was by Titsuya Takahashi. So getting to
general impressions, Keith, I believe this is not a first
watchful Is you actually suggested this one? So probably not?
(01:54):
So what did you make of this particular movie?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
This is one of those weird movies you can like
it for one aspect and not like it for another aspect.
And why I say that is I liked it because
it's very anime inspired. The artwork, the drawing, everything is
very anime esque. That past that the story is very flimsy.
(02:18):
This really feels like a filler episode in one of
the seasons of an Avenger cartoon because it's a misadventure
for excuse me, Natasha and the Punisher, who we don't
really get to see in any type of movies very often,
since you know, before Daredevil came out. So this was
(02:41):
an interesting interpretation of it, and they were begrudging bit
partners in crime, as it were. The one thing I
didn't really like, and it irked me because just what
they do with Nick Fury and a lot of these
movies is they kind of, for lack of better term,
make him an asshole, and there's no other nice way
(03:03):
of saying it. He sends the two of them off
on this mission, but leaves out huge swaths of information
that we're actually very vital to the mission that he
just didn't want to tell her for reasons, and he
doesn't really give a good reason other than like it's
above your pay grade. And her response is, but you're
(03:25):
hindering the mission because you're not telling us this information,
And she's like, we'll just put a pin in that
and come back, and like really glosses over that fact
and then continues on. So she gets mad at him
for like, I don't know, two point five seconds and
then continues on with saving the day. And I appreciate
that they took two street level heroes, and what I
(03:47):
mean by street level is they don't have crazy powers
and abilities. Although Natasha technically is a semi enhanced human,
punisher is just the punisher you don't have the you
don't have Captain America, Iron Man, and so on and
so forth. You don't see some of these characters until
the third act when they come in and save the day.
(04:08):
But I get it. They were literally up against an
army and they had to bring their own army. But
up until that point, that third act, there was just
a lot of dead time or low points in the
story that I've really found myself drifting off. When they
were fighting, it was great, but in some cases the
(04:29):
fighting went on for a little too long. They're like,
all right, hey, they're still fighting. Yeah, it's about forty
five minutes. Cool, all right, And then you come back, oh,
look they're still fighting, Like are they not done yet?
Or is somebody not dead? I will say Natasha can
take a hit like a champ. Same thing with the Punisher.
The two of them get beaten the hell up, and
(04:50):
they just keep walking. You would never know that they
were not both super soldiers because they get beaten on
Literally the entire movie, there's I think maybe fifteen minutes
that nobody's fighting, maybe if we're lucky, But the rest
of it is hand to hand combat, shooting stuff, so
on and so forth. As we'll talk about later in
(05:12):
the film. But I I don't hate it. I don't
like it. I'm very just like it's there. It's a
filler episode in a season of Avengers, and that's kind
of how I look at it. In a lot of
these movies in this type of release window, kind of
felt like bonus episodes in a season of a cartoon.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Very well said, because yes, I can see how this
movie would work as a stand alone film. Granted, there
are some narratives plot points that's you know. I guess
had you maybe watched, you know, previous entries of this franchise,
you would have maybe understood more casing pointing when we
talk about him Elias Starr. But other than that, I
(05:56):
did enjoy the star I mean, I you know, Keith,
you and I were talking about this off about our
love for certain anime properties and what have you, and
I very much enjoyed the anime style when it came
to seeing characters from the from the Marvel universe drawn
this way and acting the way that an anime would do.
I mean because originally this film is inge of in
(06:19):
Japanese and of Japanese property, and I know both of us.
I assume watched it dubbed, and I was surprised, pleasantly
surprised by some of the voice actors they got for
this this particular film. And yeah, it's true because it's
very much street level, because both Black Widow and the
Punisher that's that's their environment. And we only get the
Avengers towards the end, and I was amazed at the
(06:39):
cameos of not just the Avengers, but also villains that
we got towards the end when it comes to the
buyers for Leviathan and these pseudo super soldiers, but by
and larger. I thought it was a good story. I'm
right there with you the moments where I was getting
a little bit of battle fatigue where it seemed like
things just went on and on and on and there
was less storm per se going on. But at the
(07:02):
same time, I think a decent story is told, especially
when it comes to our titular characters and how you know,
unlikely allies then end up respecting each other and becoming
friends to a certain extent. So I thought there was
it was a good It was a good entry into
this and likely if we don't talk about them on
this podcast, I may actually check out more of this
(07:23):
side of the Marvel Marvel side of things. So let's
get to our characters on the board. Starting with our
two titular characters, we have Jennifer Carpenter, who folks who
will likely know from Dexter and like I do, as
Black Widow, and Brian Bloom as the Punisher aka of
course Frank Castle. So what did you make of our
(07:45):
titular characters, Keith.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
There is a big side there for a reason. I
like the actors. I don't think Jennifer was the right
fit for Natasha. Yes, she doesn't really have an accent,
a Russian accent by the time we have met her
in the MCU, but there's still potential undertones to it,
(08:12):
and you don't really feel that. You don't get that
feeling with Jennifer playing Natasha. Is she bad at it? No,
by no means necessary, she a bad actress. I liked
Brian better as Frank because I live in a town
with marines and he very much fits the tee, the
(08:34):
art style, the way he acts. I will say he
had a really shitty marine tattoo. I will one hundred
percent say that I know many marines who have much
better marine inspired tattoos. It looks like somebody with a
crayon happened to draw on his arm, And like, I'm
just gonna leave it at that. If any of our
listeners are ex military and you have military inspired tattoos,
(08:57):
you will one understand what I'm talking about. If you don't,
then just know it's a shitty tattoo.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
We'll just leave it that.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
But with the two of them, I like the chemistry.
I did appreciate it. They first start out butting heads,
which is to be expected because Frank Castle is very
headstrong and he's a single minded individual, and he even
says that in this cartoon. And I appreciate the fact
that he comes to terms with a lot of these
(09:29):
ghosts and limitations he has or has put on himself,
or whatever you want to call it. The fact that
he's sitting in a cell at one point reflecting on
what's happened to his family and how he accidentally killed
some innocence, which I don't really know how innocent these
guys were on the Hella Carrier, but that's that's a
discussion for a whole different day. And the fact that Natasha,
(09:54):
you get to see some more of her personal life
outside of beating bad guys, and we'll again get onto
that a little bit later. But the fact that they
first meet up and they are immediately butting heads. Hell,
they got into a brawl within the first three sects
of talking to each other, which for these two characters
is not too far off. So I can appreciate that
(10:17):
they did that because again, anybody who knows Frank, and
anybody who's watched Daredevil knows how Frank works. He will
punch first and ask questions later, and he very much
does that here. But as time progresses, which I'll say
it's probably a week maybe ish in their universe, or
(10:38):
several days at the very least, they do eventually develop
a admiration for each other in a respect, So it
goes from enemies to partners to slash respectful and respect
for one another because they both handle what they have
to handle in their own way. Frank is very much
(11:00):
if you killed somebody, I'm going to come after you.
Natasha is I need to go find the root of
the enemy and then I'm going to go after them.
So they both do go after bad people. Is just
again Frank has big stick, Natasha's more than Scalpel, so
you know, it's nice to see how they work. I
(11:21):
will say it was kind of a head scratcher where
they broke into the facility with all the people in
tubes that we don't know what the hell they are
at the time, and she's downloading information and gets something
that like ninety seven percent complete, turns and sees a
bad guy and rips the USB drive out and takes off,
and I'm like, are you serious? You had points three
(11:43):
seconds you could have waited, and you're like, look one
hundred percent cool and them off, and you would have
had all this data that they could have brought back.
And I get it. It's it's for you know, moving
the story along that she doesn't get the data. But
at the same time, it's like a second, like literally
you were like ninety seven percent, you could have waited
(12:04):
and just be like hold that thought, you know, made
some sort of silly quip like a Spider Man equip
or whatever the hell it is, and then gone and
beat up this guy, and then you'd have all this
extra data and all this extra information and so on
and so forth, and blah blah blah. Yes, I know
if she'd actually done that, the story would have ended
very abruptly at this point, but that's for you know,
(12:27):
a whole different conversation. Were their stories perfect? No? Did
they actually work very well together eventually? Yes, the beginning
with them always butting head over every little thing, but
by the end of the movie, again they had the
mutual respect, but you see them working together better, sort
(12:49):
of like how Her and Bart worked together very well.
Her and the Punishers started to work very well at
the end, is it. And you know that's how they
are superheroes. They will adapt to their situations and they
did so. You know, again, it's interesting to see that
Frank Castle can literally punch a super soldier to death
(13:11):
being an average idiot. But that's you know, I guess
he has you know, rage, crayon rage or something.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I don't know, crayon rage, I like, I think that's
a great, great way of describing it. But yeah, in fact,
the fact that he literally takes on the Oryan's single
hand and entry stabs him through the eye and kills him, Like, okay,
that's very much a thing that Frank would do. And yeah,
I mean, I think you very you make a great
point there, because I think we start off with two
characters who have a certain set of rules and coming
(13:43):
from different places when it comes to how they do things.
Even Natasha at one point says, you do you go
your way, I go mine, to paraphrase the the theme
that even though they have a common enemy, as in
Frank is going after Cain, and his object aligns to
a certain extent with what Natasha's mission is, and especially
(14:04):
Shields mission is, so he goes along with it, even
though at certain points, Okay, my job is done. I
gave you the information. Now I have to go after Caine.
He is, like you said, Keith, very single minded because
to him it's all about bringing down Kine, who's a murderer,
and he wants to literally kill people who do wrong.
But even though he seems so single minded, I think,
just like Natasha, he has we learned throughout the course
(14:27):
of the film, he has a very set moral compass
as well to where he will ultimately punish himself if
he strays from that, like when he's being taken over
by the virus and you know, becomes like a red
eyed murder machine Frank Castle and literally dangerous people and
kills a fellow marines and such. He can't deal with
(14:49):
that because he literally felt that he has gone against
his own code, which is you kill the bad guys,
you don't kill the innocence, or rather you kill the
bad guys so to spare innocent lives. But now that
he has done the thing that he hates the most,
he almost can't live with himself. I mean, you see
that moment when he comes back and realizes what he's done.
(15:10):
He doesn't even put up a fight, which is like, yes,
arrest me, put me away, because I deserve to be punished,
which I think shows you how, maybe to an extent,
how black and white Frank sees the world. It's like
they are the good guys or they're bad guys. There's
in the grain between. And so he accepts his punishment
and is literally, you know, taken off to the brig
or what have you. And it's a Natasha who springs
(15:32):
him because she needs him. And Natasha, I think, is
in a similar situation. She's following the rules set by
her boss, Nick Fury and Shield. She has been given
a mission and she has to carry out that mission
for Shield. But I think as Springs progress, she learns
that you can stray outside of that and bend the
(15:52):
rules a little bit, i e. Freeing Frank from the prison. Granted,
Nick doesn't bat the only eye he has left when
it comes to that, because he probably expected Natasha to
do that. But the fact that she doesn't, you know,
go go it alone and sees Frank now as her partner,
I think shows you one. Like we were mentioning earlier,
the mutual respect that's grown between the two and the
(16:14):
fact that I think she sees a so maybe some
of herself in Frank, as in the guilt of doing
something wrong and feeling that they need to be punished
and that he's ultimately is a good person. And yeah,
and I like that by the end of it, they
did develop this cambarader in, this friendship, even though they
realize obviously they're very different people. But yeah, and I
(16:38):
was kind of chucking myself, like, you guys, you're in
like a secret base, and you're going to fight now
when you don't need to draw attention to yourselves. That
was I thought that was rather hilarious. But I did like,
as I said, the chemistry that ultimately formed between the
two because they both come from great places of pain.
Even more so, I think Natasha after finding out that
the man that she loves a star is now working
(17:02):
for Leviathan, and so she has that pain going on,
and Frank of course going on with with his with
the having lost his family and still carrying that to
his day. And I think also survivor's guilt to a
certain extent as well, brings them together. And I think
as unlikely a team up as it could be, they
ultimately become a fantastic team. And by the end of it,
(17:24):
the fact that once again it's Natasha who sets Frank
free when Nick Fury is like, take him away. He's
done bad things. We have to we have to imprison him,
and she literally, you know, lets him out of his handcuffs,
tells you the relationship and the bond which has now
been created by these two. And if they ever made
a follow up, I would definitely watch it because we
(17:44):
see nice to pick up with these characters again. So
let's round off our vision our characters with our villains,
because we have a lot of characters, but they don't
really get much development. So when it comes to our villains,
we have one reformed and the other not so much.
We have the aforementioned Grant George as Elijah Star in
the comics, also has the name of Egghead in JB.
(18:08):
Blanc as Oriyan. So what did you make of these two?
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Keith Eliza is and I don't mean this to be mean,
but I'm going to be mean. The dumbest character ever.
He literally fakes his own death, makes himself a super
soldier because he didn't think he lived up to Natasha's standards.
(18:32):
So because he couldn't communicate, the dude literally created a
super soldier army to impress his girlfriend, but he didn't
feel like he was on the same level. The dude
could have just experimented on himself as a shield agent,
gotten the exact same end result and would have been
(18:55):
in better standings with his ex girlfriend or his girlfriend
at the time or whatever they were supposed to be. No, Nope,
he fakes his own death, steals a shit ton of tech,
goes to this weird organization, creates I don't know, one
hundred thousand super soldiers, and enhances himself all all because
(19:17):
he had self doubt, which you know, I get is
a thing one hundred percent, But I've never gone on
the rampage and kidnapped two hundred thousand people, turned them
into super soldiers and all this other fun stuff to
you know, try to impress somebody. So I think that
was kind of a lame explanation as to why he
did his things. If he was just like I snapped,
(19:40):
I went off the deep end. Something happened, you know,
say there was a family member that got murdered due
to something Shield did. Okay, sign me up. Makes sense.
This is you didn't communicate very well with your girlfriend.
I mean, I guess that's the thing. I mean, everybody
has their reasons for everything. But again, the fact that
(20:02):
he steals all this shit and creates all these weapons
and whatnot is you know, weak sauce. And then this
other guy who's supposed to be his boss, who is
a badass and I will not disagree with that statement,
has this awesome body armor or power armor whatever we're
gonna call it, and shoots all these crazy lasers and whatnot,
(20:25):
and super Tech gets destroyed by Frank Castle, a guy
with a handgun and a Bayonetta blade right to the face.
I was like, well, all right, he's holding off a
super soldier and a super assassin. But Frank Castle comes
charging in with two I don't know, nine millimeters or
(20:45):
whatever handguns and a knife and takes a dude out
in thirty seconds. I'm not saying that's not a thing.
I'm just saying that, you know, you have these two
other guy, two other characters beating him up, and he
is just wrecking shop. Frank comes charging in, and I
get it, he's supposed to be the White Knight and
(21:06):
you know, save everybody and get his just desserts. But
considering he walks in the room and the first thing
he does is pull a gun on Eliza and be
like you need to die for all the stuff you
did and Blake what was Like whoa, whoa? He was confused?
You're like, oh, okay, in that case, I shouldn't kill
this guy. Like how many people did Frank kill that
(21:28):
were just quote unquote confused? Like at some point they
probably should have registered. Like wait a minute, if you
had a mental breakdown over killing three armed guards who
attacked you while you're on mind rage mode, that sets
you off, but you didn't think of, you know, somebody
being possibly confused or whatever the case may be. All Right,
(21:50):
I guess that that's a thing that we're just not
going to talk about, and we're just never going to
explain ever again. I would have actually liked to have
seen more of the Big Bad. We only got to
see him for a few minutes. And for all we know,
this could be a life model decoy. There could be
another one of him somewhere else. We don't. Since the
(22:13):
movie ends so abruptly, we see that Eliza has been
killed or he's given his life, I should say, to
save Black Widow. And then this other guy he's just dead.
And again, after I don't know, a fifteen minute battle,
he gets murdered by Frank with a knife to the skull.
As we've always said, we have the crap five minute rule.
(22:36):
We have five minutes left to clean everything up, and
we're just going to have this op battle get you know,
taken out by a mosquito bite or some equivalent stupid thing.
I would have if they ever make another one or
even use this organization again. I think it'd be awesome
(22:57):
if they find out that, oh, this was really a
life model decoy or an android or some you know
variation of that, and this character has really been pulling
the strings all along someplace else, sort of like Doom
and his Doombot. This would be awesome if they did
that with his character as well, and since they still
take from everybody, it's completely plausible.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Almost definitely, because apparently Elias himself literally says Orion is
one of the higher ups, is not necessarily the top dog,
which makes me think that there's other people around when
it comes to Leviathan, and these are and he's not
the only one. So I guess we'd have to see,
you know, when it comes to subsequent movies, whether Leviathan
(23:41):
makes a return and there's some other person I you know,
kind of another Orion, you know, who literally is running
the shop and is even more powerful than this guy.
Because you know, from what what they they describe, it
sounds like Leviathan is akin to an organization like the
Aim or even Hydra, where you know, as they say,
(24:03):
cut off a head and another will take its place.
So I would not be surprised if in an organization
like this, even with the death of Orion, there might
be somebody else to take his place. Or Orian is
not at the literal top of the food chain. He's
one of the generals, but he's not like right the
head of it, so it'd be interesting to see how
the Leviath and organization works, because I said before he lies,
(24:26):
is like, I'm gonna talk to Natasha's like, you know,
I'm kind of in with this guy Oryan. He's one
of the big wigs and so on, and he will
literally help us out. So I don't think Orian is
the ultimate end or be all of Leviathan, but he's
definitely very powerful. I totally agree with you when it
comes to Elias's story because the fact that he did
(24:46):
this for a girl and just to impress her, it's
a story as old as time. I mean, one, I
thought it was ridiculous, but two, it very much boils
down I guess guys to their their basic instincts, as in,
you'll do everything in anything to impress a girl that
(25:06):
you like. And I just thought that was hilarious because
even just how he's saying, I just wanted to impress
you because I felt so inferior to you, and this
is why I got jacked up and went completely crazy
super villain because I wanted you to love me. So
it was so juvenile and so puerile. But at the
end of the I'm like, they've literally captured what the
(25:29):
average dude thinks that they have to flex their muscles
because if not, the girl won't like them. When if
somebody you're dating is it already is dating you, It
means that she likes you for other reasons. Mey, she
likes you for your brain or whatever else. Because at
the time, Elias was a scientist, so clearly Natasha loved
(25:50):
him for him, as she even says, I think it
was just ELIASI the suffers some incredible inferiority complex of
I can't let my girlfriend be better than me, and
and or rather I don't think his whole thing is
she doesn't see she doesn't see me as an equal,
which is which I think plays up to his insecurity
(26:11):
about himself, because like she's running off saving the world,
and here I am in a lab just to you know,
playing around with chemicals and technology. I want to show
her I'm just as much of a bad ass as
she is. And so the fact that he did it
all for a girl, I thought, well, I thought it
was hilarious. But at the same time it makes me
(26:31):
think of some rock stars to get interviewed like why
do you go into rock music because of women? So
it is as ridiculous as it is, it is also
very relatable when it comes to h T male to
men outside of the superhero realm. But yes, I did
find it rather melodramatic how he went on and on
(26:51):
about it while he was fighting Natar, shows like I
did this all for you because I'm I'm I wasn't
worthy of your love, and so like, dude, tone it
down a little bit because it was really ultra melodramatic.
Then again, these kind of dialogues, this kind of dialogue
can be found in many an anime where you have
(27:12):
so much of that drama that apped up drama, almost
soap opera level. Not this in soap opera's mind you,
but it makes me think of that melodrama that you
find in a soap opera and that you've seen in
many a an anime or heck, even video games inspired
by by anime. It made me even think of stuff
like Metal Gear Solid for example, where you have certain
(27:32):
characters who are so ultra dramatic it's heightened reality to
the nth degree. So yes, I just was like, okay,
stop moaning guy a dude, and just do what you
have to do. And then the fact he ultimately sacrifice
himself to save her. It's a beautiful labor of love.
But at the same time, it's like, I just wanted
to be your hero, and so I guess you ultimately
(27:56):
became her hero, and she was very happy about it. Yeah,
the fact that Elias ends up in a body bag,
it's rather sad for Natasha, but I guess she always
remember him fond as having been her hero. But litill
too dramatic for my taste, Orian, I agree with you
at you and I talked off air about Fist of
the North Star. He almost seemed like a character out
(28:17):
of something like that. Granted a lot of armor and
so on, but just the menace was very reminiscent of
something like that, and I was like, this guy is
bad us. He's going to be really, really tough to defeat.
Of course, like you said, we only have so many
minutes in the movie to go. You have to get
rid of this guy somehow. And who is it takes
care of him? None other than Frank Castle. Yeah, when
(28:38):
you see it's like, shooting at this dude who clearly
is bulletproof, what does he do? He just dives and
boom knife in the eye, and that takes care of business.
But and of course he gets reprimanded by Nick Fury
for having killed both Orion and the fact that Elias
is dead because they needed to find out more about Leviathan,
(28:59):
which tell you that there's it's still a threat out there.
But I did enjoy Orian as a villain. I agree
with you would have been nice to have had had
he had more screen time. I guess they were maybe
wanting to focus more on Natasha and Frank and all
their shenanigans, and possibly, yeah, let's throw in the Avengers
for good measure. Let's have Thor show up, Let's have
(29:19):
Ironman showup, Let's have Captain Marble show up. But it
would have been nice had it been made a more
intimate thing. I get these two alone probably couldn't take
out all those super Soldiers, so you had to bring
in the Avengers because that's Nick Fury. But yeah, I
did enjoy these characters, and hopefully, I mean, I guess
we'll have to look at the catalog and see if
they're more of these of these films. I believe there are,
(29:42):
I think you mentioned to me, Keith, But whether it
features Leviathan again or not, I guess we'll have to see.
So is there anything else you would like to mention
in this movie before we get to ratings?
Speaker 3 (29:55):
So I found one thing that was super funny is
they created this army of super soldiers right there was
like thousands of them, hundreds of them. Why were none
of them bulletproof? Frank Christ was kneecapping all of them,
and I'm sitting there like, wait, wait, they're fulked out,
jacked up. You know, as he had said he enhanced
(30:15):
all these guys. You're telling me you didn't think to
give them bulletproof armor. It doesn't have to be adamantium,
it doesn't have to be whatever. It just has to
be something that can, you know, deflect bullets. Because Frank
was dropping these individuals because there was men and women
with very little effort. He was literally kneecapping them in
scenes and I'm like how, But so they're indestructible war
(30:40):
machines except against guns, which literally everybody has. And they
were talking about sending them to war zones, which again guns,
big guns and land mines like just all of this stuff.
I'm sitting there like, oh, okay, this should be like
really hard to stop. And it was literally barely in
an effort. It was just your numbers. They was like
(31:02):
ten thousand to one for each of them, And you're like, Okay,
I get why they brought the Avengers in, but I
was expecting these characters to put up a little bit.
These super soldiers or whatever, enhanced soldiers, whatever you want
to call them, put up more of a fight other
than oh, they're just brainwashed individuals with really weird armor
for some apparent reason, and even the armor didn't seem
(31:23):
to help them, So again, none of it made any
sense whatsoever other than it looked cool and Frank could
beat up some people.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I think they went more for the esthetic than practicality,
I think is what they did. Or the fact that,
like you said, if even Frank can mow some of
these down with firearms, then Elias, you haven't really been
doing your job. You should maybe be looking at doing
that the kind of stuff that Orian did, where he
had that body armor and literally bullets meant nothing to him.
(31:57):
But I mean it makes sense, I suppose if you
have super powered individuals like thor Captain Marvel or heck,
even I am iron Man with the with his repulsal raised.
But at the same time. If firearms can do damage,
then you have to probably go back to the drawing
board and figure something out here, elies, because this this
is not gonna work, and I know who's gonna buy them,
so heck, even when we see some of the heavy
(32:19):
hitters like Baron Zimo amongst others literally walking out going figures,
this is rubbish. I'm not going to spend my my, my,
ill gotten good money on these on this stuff. So
I had everything that they had to go back to
the drawing board and figure something out, but I guess
we'll never know. So getting then to recommendations, is there
(32:41):
anything you'd like to recommend to our listeners this week?
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Uh, if you want to see Leviathan and other iterations
of this character or this organization rather apparently it was
an agent Carter. I never watched the fourth series, but
that was the big bad organization they were fighting, because
Leviathan was a Russian based organization. And then obviously go
check out the column books because they did appear once
(33:06):
or twice in a handful of issues during Dark Reign.
It to another interesting story that I wish they would adapt,
but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So very timely. Indeed that we get with that you
selected this, Keith, I guess knowing the unknowing that you
chose something which might play into something very important when
it comes to MCU. And well done on the recommendation
there for Agent Carter. I watched that, and yes, sir,
Leviathan is the big bad in that. And I will
(33:39):
definitely echo your recommendation on watching Agent Carter because Sarth
in fact, it's just that it's just a fantastic show
all round. But yeah, if you want to see that
version of of Leviathan, definitely check that out. So great stuff,
and I guess we'll see how certain things play out
when it comes to future MCU movies in if Leviathan
(33:59):
makes an appearance therein two So getting them to a rating, well, yeah,
getting to ratings. Then I suppose what do you give
this movie out of ten?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Man?
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It is hard m hmm. I'm gonna have to give
it a seven. It passes, but it just barely passes.
I think there's a lot of potential in terms of
these characters in this universe, but we just haven't seen
it yet. And this seemed kind of rushed in some
(34:33):
respects And then kind of drawn out others, so there's
a lot of potential with these characters. Also fired Nick
Fury because he's a horrible boss.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yes, this particular version of Nick Fury. I was not
necessarily on board with one, Like you said, he withholds
so much information, and two is like, seems very callous
and very cavalier when it comes to running shields. So yeah,
I wasn't. I was definitely in Natasha's corn then when
it came to her calling Nick out on his BS,
(35:03):
I'm with you. I'm going to give this a seven
out of ten as well. I'm glad I watched it,
and I'm glad you recommended this and that we discuss
it on the podcast, and becaus had you not, I
never would have known that this even existed. So I
appreciate you showing me this other side of the Marvel
universe when it comes to animated properties. And as I
(35:24):
said before, if we don't get to review them here
on the podcast, which we likely will, but if we don't,
I'll definitely be checking out some of the other entries.
When it comes to this side of Marvel. Things to
seven out of ten for me, So of course, dear listeners,
If you want to weigh in with your thoughts on
the movies we discuss here, you can do so by
shooting an email to Happiness and Darkness How at gmail
(35:44):
dot com once again, Happiness and Darkness How at gmail
dot com. You can of course follow us on our
social media on Facebook, Waken Finances, Happiness and Darkness, on
x WA Confinance's High Darkness Pod, and and of course
coming up, we also will be building a Blue Sky
account as well for you Blue Sky people. And of course,
(36:05):
if you are listening to us on such platforms as
Spotify our podcasts, be sure to rate and review us,
as that helps the show grow. It keeps the algorithm
stimulated and allows other listeners to discover the podcast like
you did.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
So.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
We'll also be sure to tell your friends, tell your enemies,
tell anybody about this podcast. We don't care, just we
really appreciate you spread the word so big. Thank for
those who have done so in the future, Thank you
to those who will so. Keith when you're not here
with me discussing anime styled Marvel properties, where can folks
find you on the interwebs?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Well, you know, occasionally pop up on all our friends
podcasts such as star Trek The Undiscovered Podcast or The
Hour of Comixes upon us when I'm not completely battling
on about random cartoon, sci fi, anime lines, tigers, Bears,
or my You can find us on our Facebook page.
You can drop a message or you're going to comment
(36:59):
on an our posts. I'm always ready to talk about
pretty much anything, cartoons, comment books, so on and so.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Forth, fantastic stuff. And then yet, folks definitely be sure
to check out one of our sister podcasts, Star Trek
The Undiscovered Podcast, for sure. Keith has definitely made a
few appearances and some great ones that that will be
making more and I'm definitely looking forward to that myself
and when it comes to me. You can find a
moradio show, Whiskey and Cigarettes, where we play the very
(37:26):
best and nothing but the best of country music for
you guys from Atlabama to Zach Brown. For more information
about that is our website which is Whiskey and Cigarettes
Show dot com. Podcast Wise, you can find us find
myself and Zan Sprouse or Rachel Friend on gold Standard
the Oscars podcast, where we have reviewed all the best
picture winning movies in chronological order. Now as we wait
(37:47):
for the ninety eighth Best Picture to reveat itself. We
are a view movies that we have chosen, and we
have returning a new guest co host bring their favorite
movies to the gold standard theater. We reachedly reviewed a
pick of mine, which was that classic Jurassic Park. Coming
up next to we're going to be reviewing a movie
that Zan picked, which is the front runner, So I
guess we'll see what we make of that starring mister
(38:09):
Hugh Jackman in a political thriller. And last but saying
not least myself and Charles Skaggs can be found on
the fandom Zone podcast where we're currently discussing Daredevil Born
Again the first season and having a whale of a
time doing that and spins to come on this show.
Next time, we'll be taking on another movie that Keith
(38:32):
brought to my attention, the two thousand date Robert Minkoff
film The Forbidden Kingdom. So a Keith, anything you'd like
to add in an upcoming movie or anything else before
we sign off.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
I think I'm just gonna apologize to our dear fans
because I had a very warped childhood. So some of
these movies that are coming up, especially this one, are
very eclectic. So bear with us. You're either gonna love
it or hate it, but you're gonna learn something, that's
all i'm gonna say. You're gonna be inflicted with a
new variety of movies you probably never may have heard of.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Well said, so, I guess it's all about the infotainment
when it comes to this side of the podcast. It
will be a lesson for me because I've never seen
this movie either in that but I'm definitely looking forward
to checking out what it's all about and was I
guess for those like myself. We'll all find out together
next time when we will take on, of course, the
Forbidden Kingdom. Until then, thank you so much to you
(39:30):
guys listen the show and supporting us. We'll see you
next week. Until then, thank you again for the privige
of your time. Stay Super Show Mobi.
A Marvel animated film featuring The Avengers. Two legendary heroes
go toe to toe against one unstoppable voice, with the
(00:24):
voice talents of Jennifer Carpenter as Black Widow and Brian
Bloom as The Punisher Marvel's Avengers Confidential Black Widow and Punisher.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Charby Ball And Welcome to our two hundred and eighty
fifth episode of Happiness and Darkness, the Superhero Movie Podcast.
We'll discuss superhero movies marveled eced Ark, Horse, Image, and more. Naturally,
there will be spoilers, folks, so you have been warned.
I'm one of your co hosts, Dijinik and as always
joining me as my superhero partner in crime, mister Keith Bliss. Hey,
(01:00):
how are you today?
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Oh, Heynick, not too bad. It's a nice, warm day
here at the beach in North Carolina, and we were
plotting this year's misadventures and movies. So I'm having a great.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Day, you and me, both the Keith and dear listeners,
because we've had quite a nice chat off air about
what we plan to do, what we plan to unleash
upon the world when it comes to your ears, and
I think you might be pleasantly surprised. But today we
are going to be going by the book because we
(01:31):
are discussing Avengers Confidential, Black Widow and Punisher from twenty fourteen.
As well as directed by Kinichishi Mitsu. The story was
by Marjori Yu, while the screenplay was by Mitsutaka Hirota
and the score was by Titsuya Takahashi. So getting to
general impressions, Keith, I believe this is not a first
watchful Is you actually suggested this one? So probably not?
(01:54):
So what did you make of this particular movie?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
This is one of those weird movies you can like
it for one aspect and not like it for another aspect.
And why I say that is I liked it because
it's very anime inspired. The artwork, the drawing, everything is
very anime esque. That past that the story is very flimsy.
(02:18):
This really feels like a filler episode in one of
the seasons of an Avenger cartoon because it's a misadventure
for excuse me, Natasha and the Punisher, who we don't
really get to see in any type of movies very often,
since you know, before Daredevil came out. So this was
(02:41):
an interesting interpretation of it, and they were begrudging bit
partners in crime, as it were. The one thing I
didn't really like, and it irked me because just what
they do with Nick Fury and a lot of these
movies is they kind of, for lack of better term,
make him an asshole, and there's no other nice way
(03:03):
of saying it. He sends the two of them off
on this mission, but leaves out huge swaths of information
that we're actually very vital to the mission that he
just didn't want to tell her for reasons, and he
doesn't really give a good reason other than like it's
above your pay grade. And her response is, but you're
(03:25):
hindering the mission because you're not telling us this information,
And she's like, we'll just put a pin in that
and come back, and like really glosses over that fact
and then continues on. So she gets mad at him
for like, I don't know, two point five seconds and
then continues on with saving the day. And I appreciate
that they took two street level heroes, and what I
(03:47):
mean by street level is they don't have crazy powers
and abilities. Although Natasha technically is a semi enhanced human,
punisher is just the punisher you don't have the you
don't have Captain America, Iron Man, and so on and
so forth. You don't see some of these characters until
the third act when they come in and save the day.
(04:08):
But I get it. They were literally up against an
army and they had to bring their own army. But
up until that point, that third act, there was just
a lot of dead time or low points in the
story that I've really found myself drifting off. When they
were fighting, it was great, but in some cases the
(04:29):
fighting went on for a little too long. They're like,
all right, hey, they're still fighting. Yeah, it's about forty
five minutes. Cool, all right, And then you come back, oh,
look they're still fighting, Like are they not done yet?
Or is somebody not dead? I will say Natasha can
take a hit like a champ. Same thing with the Punisher.
The two of them get beaten the hell up, and
(04:50):
they just keep walking. You would never know that they
were not both super soldiers because they get beaten on
Literally the entire movie, there's I think maybe fifteen minutes
that nobody's fighting, maybe if we're lucky, But the rest
of it is hand to hand combat, shooting stuff, so
on and so forth. As we'll talk about later in
(05:12):
the film. But I I don't hate it. I don't
like it. I'm very just like it's there. It's a
filler episode in a season of Avengers, and that's kind
of how I look at it. In a lot of
these movies in this type of release window, kind of
felt like bonus episodes in a season of a cartoon.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Very well said, because yes, I can see how this
movie would work as a stand alone film. Granted, there
are some narratives plot points that's you know. I guess
had you maybe watched, you know, previous entries of this franchise,
you would have maybe understood more casing pointing when we
talk about him Elias Starr. But other than that, I
(05:56):
did enjoy the star I mean, I you know, Keith,
you and I were talking about this off about our
love for certain anime properties and what have you, and
I very much enjoyed the anime style when it came
to seeing characters from the from the Marvel universe drawn
this way and acting the way that an anime would do.
I mean because originally this film is inge of in
(06:19):
Japanese and of Japanese property, and I know both of us.
I assume watched it dubbed, and I was surprised, pleasantly
surprised by some of the voice actors they got for
this this particular film. And yeah, it's true because it's
very much street level, because both Black Widow and the
Punisher that's that's their environment. And we only get the
Avengers towards the end, and I was amazed at the
(06:39):
cameos of not just the Avengers, but also villains that
we got towards the end when it comes to the
buyers for Leviathan and these pseudo super soldiers, but by
and larger. I thought it was a good story. I'm
right there with you the moments where I was getting
a little bit of battle fatigue where it seemed like
things just went on and on and on and there
was less storm per se going on. But at the
(07:02):
same time, I think a decent story is told, especially
when it comes to our titular characters and how you know,
unlikely allies then end up respecting each other and becoming
friends to a certain extent. So I thought there was
it was a good It was a good entry into
this and likely if we don't talk about them on
this podcast, I may actually check out more of this
(07:23):
side of the Marvel Marvel side of things. So let's
get to our characters on the board. Starting with our
two titular characters, we have Jennifer Carpenter, who folks who
will likely know from Dexter and like I do, as
Black Widow, and Brian Bloom as the Punisher aka of
course Frank Castle. So what did you make of our
(07:45):
titular characters, Keith.
Speaker 3 (07:49):
There is a big side there for a reason. I
like the actors. I don't think Jennifer was the right
fit for Natasha. Yes, she doesn't really have an accent,
a Russian accent by the time we have met her
in the MCU, but there's still potential undertones to it,
(08:12):
and you don't really feel that. You don't get that
feeling with Jennifer playing Natasha. Is she bad at it? No,
by no means necessary, she a bad actress. I liked
Brian better as Frank because I live in a town
with marines and he very much fits the tee, the
(08:34):
art style, the way he acts. I will say he
had a really shitty marine tattoo. I will one hundred
percent say that I know many marines who have much
better marine inspired tattoos. It looks like somebody with a
crayon happened to draw on his arm, And like, I'm
just gonna leave it at that. If any of our
listeners are ex military and you have military inspired tattoos,
(08:57):
you will one understand what I'm talking about. If you don't,
then just know it's a shitty tattoo.
Speaker 2 (09:03):
We'll just leave it that.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
But with the two of them, I like the chemistry.
I did appreciate it. They first start out butting heads,
which is to be expected because Frank Castle is very
headstrong and he's a single minded individual, and he even
says that in this cartoon. And I appreciate the fact
that he comes to terms with a lot of these
(09:29):
ghosts and limitations he has or has put on himself,
or whatever you want to call it. The fact that
he's sitting in a cell at one point reflecting on
what's happened to his family and how he accidentally killed
some innocence, which I don't really know how innocent these
guys were on the Hella Carrier, but that's that's a
discussion for a whole different day. And the fact that Natasha,
(09:54):
you get to see some more of her personal life
outside of beating bad guys, and we'll again get onto
that a little bit later. But the fact that they
first meet up and they are immediately butting heads. Hell,
they got into a brawl within the first three sects
of talking to each other, which for these two characters
is not too far off. So I can appreciate that
(10:17):
they did that because again, anybody who knows Frank, and
anybody who's watched Daredevil knows how Frank works. He will
punch first and ask questions later, and he very much
does that here. But as time progresses, which I'll say
it's probably a week maybe ish in their universe, or
(10:38):
several days at the very least, they do eventually develop
a admiration for each other in a respect, So it
goes from enemies to partners to slash respectful and respect
for one another because they both handle what they have
to handle in their own way. Frank is very much
(11:00):
if you killed somebody, I'm going to come after you.
Natasha is I need to go find the root of
the enemy and then I'm going to go after them.
So they both do go after bad people. Is just
again Frank has big stick, Natasha's more than Scalpel, so
you know, it's nice to see how they work. I
(11:21):
will say it was kind of a head scratcher where
they broke into the facility with all the people in
tubes that we don't know what the hell they are
at the time, and she's downloading information and gets something
that like ninety seven percent complete, turns and sees a
bad guy and rips the USB drive out and takes off,
and I'm like, are you serious? You had points three
(11:43):
seconds you could have waited, and you're like, look one
hundred percent cool and them off, and you would have
had all this data that they could have brought back.
And I get it. It's it's for you know, moving
the story along that she doesn't get the data. But
at the same time, it's like a second, like literally
you were like ninety seven percent, you could have waited
(12:04):
and just be like hold that thought, you know, made
some sort of silly quip like a Spider Man equip
or whatever the hell it is, and then gone and
beat up this guy, and then you'd have all this
extra data and all this extra information and so on
and so forth, and blah blah blah. Yes, I know
if she'd actually done that, the story would have ended
very abruptly at this point, but that's for you know,
(12:27):
a whole different conversation. Were their stories perfect? No? Did
they actually work very well together eventually? Yes, the beginning
with them always butting head over every little thing, but
by the end of the movie, again they had the
mutual respect, but you see them working together better, sort
(12:49):
of like how Her and Bart worked together very well.
Her and the Punishers started to work very well at
the end, is it. And you know that's how they
are superheroes. They will adapt to their situations and they
did so. You know, again, it's interesting to see that
Frank Castle can literally punch a super soldier to death
(13:11):
being an average idiot. But that's you know, I guess
he has you know, rage, crayon rage or something.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
I don't know, crayon rage, I like, I think that's
a great, great way of describing it. But yeah, in fact,
the fact that he literally takes on the Oryan's single
hand and entry stabs him through the eye and kills him, Like, okay,
that's very much a thing that Frank would do. And yeah,
I mean, I think you very you make a great
point there, because I think we start off with two
characters who have a certain set of rules and coming
(13:43):
from different places when it comes to how they do things.
Even Natasha at one point says, you do you go
your way, I go mine, to paraphrase the the theme
that even though they have a common enemy, as in
Frank is going after Cain, and his object aligns to
a certain extent with what Natasha's mission is, and especially
(14:04):
Shields mission is, so he goes along with it, even
though at certain points, Okay, my job is done. I
gave you the information. Now I have to go after Caine.
He is, like you said, Keith, very single minded because
to him it's all about bringing down Kine, who's a murderer,
and he wants to literally kill people who do wrong.
But even though he seems so single minded, I think,
just like Natasha, he has we learned throughout the course
(14:27):
of the film, he has a very set moral compass
as well to where he will ultimately punish himself if
he strays from that, like when he's being taken over
by the virus and you know, becomes like a red
eyed murder machine Frank Castle and literally dangerous people and
kills a fellow marines and such. He can't deal with
(14:49):
that because he literally felt that he has gone against
his own code, which is you kill the bad guys,
you don't kill the innocence, or rather you kill the
bad guys so to spare innocent lives. But now that
he has done the thing that he hates the most,
he almost can't live with himself. I mean, you see
that moment when he comes back and realizes what he's done.
(15:10):
He doesn't even put up a fight, which is like, yes,
arrest me, put me away, because I deserve to be punished,
which I think shows you how, maybe to an extent,
how black and white Frank sees the world. It's like
they are the good guys or they're bad guys. There's
in the grain between. And so he accepts his punishment
and is literally, you know, taken off to the brig
or what have you. And it's a Natasha who springs
(15:32):
him because she needs him. And Natasha, I think, is
in a similar situation. She's following the rules set by
her boss, Nick Fury and Shield. She has been given
a mission and she has to carry out that mission
for Shield. But I think as Springs progress, she learns
that you can stray outside of that and bend the
(15:52):
rules a little bit, i e. Freeing Frank from the prison. Granted,
Nick doesn't bat the only eye he has left when
it comes to that, because he probably expected Natasha to
do that. But the fact that she doesn't, you know,
go go it alone and sees Frank now as her partner,
I think shows you one. Like we were mentioning earlier,
the mutual respect that's grown between the two and the
(16:14):
fact that I think she sees a so maybe some
of herself in Frank, as in the guilt of doing
something wrong and feeling that they need to be punished
and that he's ultimately is a good person. And yeah,
and I like that by the end of it, they
did develop this cambarader in, this friendship, even though they
realize obviously they're very different people. But yeah, and I
(16:38):
was kind of chucking myself, like, you guys, you're in
like a secret base, and you're going to fight now
when you don't need to draw attention to yourselves. That
was I thought that was rather hilarious. But I did like,
as I said, the chemistry that ultimately formed between the
two because they both come from great places of pain.
Even more so, I think Natasha after finding out that
the man that she loves a star is now working
(17:02):
for Leviathan, and so she has that pain going on,
and Frank of course going on with with his with
the having lost his family and still carrying that to
his day. And I think also survivor's guilt to a
certain extent as well, brings them together. And I think
as unlikely a team up as it could be, they
ultimately become a fantastic team. And by the end of it,
(17:24):
the fact that once again it's Natasha who sets Frank
free when Nick Fury is like, take him away. He's
done bad things. We have to we have to imprison him,
and she literally, you know, lets him out of his handcuffs,
tells you the relationship and the bond which has now
been created by these two. And if they ever made
a follow up, I would definitely watch it because we
(17:44):
see nice to pick up with these characters again. So
let's round off our vision our characters with our villains,
because we have a lot of characters, but they don't
really get much development. So when it comes to our villains,
we have one reformed and the other not so much.
We have the aforementioned Grant George as Elijah Star in
the comics, also has the name of Egghead in JB.
(18:08):
Blanc as Oriyan. So what did you make of these two?
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Keith Eliza is and I don't mean this to be mean,
but I'm going to be mean. The dumbest character ever.
He literally fakes his own death, makes himself a super
soldier because he didn't think he lived up to Natasha's standards.
(18:32):
So because he couldn't communicate, the dude literally created a
super soldier army to impress his girlfriend, but he didn't
feel like he was on the same level. The dude
could have just experimented on himself as a shield agent,
gotten the exact same end result and would have been
(18:55):
in better standings with his ex girlfriend or his girlfriend
at the time or whatever they were supposed to be. No, Nope,
he fakes his own death, steals a shit ton of tech,
goes to this weird organization, creates I don't know, one
hundred thousand super soldiers, and enhances himself all all because
(19:17):
he had self doubt, which you know, I get is
a thing one hundred percent, But I've never gone on
the rampage and kidnapped two hundred thousand people, turned them
into super soldiers and all this other fun stuff to
you know, try to impress somebody. So I think that
was kind of a lame explanation as to why he
did his things. If he was just like I snapped,
(19:40):
I went off the deep end. Something happened, you know,
say there was a family member that got murdered due
to something Shield did. Okay, sign me up. Makes sense.
This is you didn't communicate very well with your girlfriend.
I mean, I guess that's the thing. I mean, everybody
has their reasons for everything. But again, the fact that
(20:02):
he steals all this shit and creates all these weapons
and whatnot is you know, weak sauce. And then this
other guy who's supposed to be his boss, who is
a badass and I will not disagree with that statement,
has this awesome body armor or power armor whatever we're
gonna call it, and shoots all these crazy lasers and whatnot,
(20:25):
and super Tech gets destroyed by Frank Castle, a guy
with a handgun and a Bayonetta blade right to the face.
I was like, well, all right, he's holding off a
super soldier and a super assassin. But Frank Castle comes
charging in with two I don't know, nine millimeters or
(20:45):
whatever handguns and a knife and takes a dude out
in thirty seconds. I'm not saying that's not a thing.
I'm just saying that, you know, you have these two
other guy, two other characters beating him up, and he
is just wrecking shop. Frank comes charging in, and I
get it, he's supposed to be the White Knight and
(21:06):
you know, save everybody and get his just desserts. But
considering he walks in the room and the first thing
he does is pull a gun on Eliza and be
like you need to die for all the stuff you
did and Blake what was Like whoa, whoa? He was confused?
You're like, oh, okay, in that case, I shouldn't kill
this guy. Like how many people did Frank kill that
(21:28):
were just quote unquote confused? Like at some point they
probably should have registered. Like wait a minute, if you
had a mental breakdown over killing three armed guards who
attacked you while you're on mind rage mode, that sets
you off, but you didn't think of, you know, somebody
being possibly confused or whatever the case may be. All Right,
(21:50):
I guess that that's a thing that we're just not
going to talk about, and we're just never going to
explain ever again. I would have actually liked to have
seen more of the Big Bad. We only got to
see him for a few minutes. And for all we know,
this could be a life model decoy. There could be
another one of him somewhere else. We don't. Since the
(22:13):
movie ends so abruptly, we see that Eliza has been
killed or he's given his life, I should say, to
save Black Widow. And then this other guy he's just dead.
And again, after I don't know, a fifteen minute battle,
he gets murdered by Frank with a knife to the skull.
As we've always said, we have the crap five minute rule.
(22:36):
We have five minutes left to clean everything up, and
we're just going to have this op battle get you know,
taken out by a mosquito bite or some equivalent stupid thing.
I would have if they ever make another one or
even use this organization again. I think it'd be awesome
(22:57):
if they find out that, oh, this was really a
life model decoy or an android or some you know
variation of that, and this character has really been pulling
the strings all along someplace else, sort of like Doom
and his Doombot. This would be awesome if they did
that with his character as well, and since they still
take from everybody, it's completely plausible.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Almost definitely, because apparently Elias himself literally says Orion is
one of the higher ups, is not necessarily the top dog,
which makes me think that there's other people around when
it comes to Leviathan, and these are and he's not
the only one. So I guess we'd have to see,
you know, when it comes to subsequent movies, whether Leviathan
(23:41):
makes a return and there's some other person I you know,
kind of another Orion, you know, who literally is running
the shop and is even more powerful than this guy.
Because you know, from what what they they describe, it
sounds like Leviathan is akin to an organization like the
Aim or even Hydra, where you know, as they say,
(24:03):
cut off a head and another will take its place.
So I would not be surprised if in an organization
like this, even with the death of Orion, there might
be somebody else to take his place. Or Orian is
not at the literal top of the food chain. He's
one of the generals, but he's not like right the
head of it, so it'd be interesting to see how
the Leviath and organization works, because I said before he lies,
(24:26):
is like, I'm gonna talk to Natasha's like, you know,
I'm kind of in with this guy Oryan. He's one
of the big wigs and so on, and he will
literally help us out. So I don't think Orian is
the ultimate end or be all of Leviathan, but he's
definitely very powerful. I totally agree with you when it
comes to Elias's story because the fact that he did
(24:46):
this for a girl and just to impress her, it's
a story as old as time. I mean, one, I
thought it was ridiculous, but two, it very much boils
down I guess guys to their their basic instincts, as in,
you'll do everything in anything to impress a girl that
(25:06):
you like. And I just thought that was hilarious because
even just how he's saying, I just wanted to impress
you because I felt so inferior to you, and this
is why I got jacked up and went completely crazy
super villain because I wanted you to love me. So
it was so juvenile and so puerile. But at the
end of the I'm like, they've literally captured what the
(25:29):
average dude thinks that they have to flex their muscles
because if not, the girl won't like them. When if
somebody you're dating is it already is dating you, It
means that she likes you for other reasons. Mey, she
likes you for your brain or whatever else. Because at
the time, Elias was a scientist, so clearly Natasha loved
(25:50):
him for him, as she even says, I think it
was just ELIASI the suffers some incredible inferiority complex of
I can't let my girlfriend be better than me, and
and or rather I don't think his whole thing is
she doesn't see she doesn't see me as an equal,
which is which I think plays up to his insecurity
(26:11):
about himself, because like she's running off saving the world,
and here I am in a lab just to you know,
playing around with chemicals and technology. I want to show
her I'm just as much of a bad ass as
she is. And so the fact that he did it
all for a girl, I thought, well, I thought it
was hilarious. But at the same time it makes me
(26:31):
think of some rock stars to get interviewed like why
do you go into rock music because of women? So
it is as ridiculous as it is, it is also
very relatable when it comes to h T male to
men outside of the superhero realm. But yes, I did
find it rather melodramatic how he went on and on
(26:51):
about it while he was fighting Natar, shows like I
did this all for you because I'm I'm I wasn't
worthy of your love, and so like, dude, tone it
down a little bit because it was really ultra melodramatic.
Then again, these kind of dialogues, this kind of dialogue
can be found in many an anime where you have
(27:12):
so much of that drama that apped up drama, almost
soap opera level. Not this in soap opera's mind you,
but it makes me think of that melodrama that you
find in a soap opera and that you've seen in
many a an anime or heck, even video games inspired
by by anime. It made me even think of stuff
like Metal Gear Solid for example, where you have certain
(27:32):
characters who are so ultra dramatic it's heightened reality to
the nth degree. So yes, I just was like, okay,
stop moaning guy a dude, and just do what you
have to do. And then the fact he ultimately sacrifice
himself to save her. It's a beautiful labor of love.
But at the same time, it's like, I just wanted
to be your hero, and so I guess you ultimately
(27:56):
became her hero, and she was very happy about it. Yeah,
the fact that Elias ends up in a body bag,
it's rather sad for Natasha, but I guess she always
remember him fond as having been her hero. But litill
too dramatic for my taste, Orian, I agree with you
at you and I talked off air about Fist of
the North Star. He almost seemed like a character out
(28:17):
of something like that. Granted a lot of armor and
so on, but just the menace was very reminiscent of
something like that, and I was like, this guy is
bad us. He's going to be really, really tough to defeat.
Of course, like you said, we only have so many
minutes in the movie to go. You have to get
rid of this guy somehow. And who is it takes
care of him? None other than Frank Castle. Yeah, when
(28:38):
you see it's like, shooting at this dude who clearly
is bulletproof, what does he do? He just dives and
boom knife in the eye, and that takes care of business.
But and of course he gets reprimanded by Nick Fury
for having killed both Orion and the fact that Elias
is dead because they needed to find out more about Leviathan,
(28:59):
which tell you that there's it's still a threat out there.
But I did enjoy Orian as a villain. I agree
with you would have been nice to have had had
he had more screen time. I guess they were maybe
wanting to focus more on Natasha and Frank and all
their shenanigans, and possibly, yeah, let's throw in the Avengers
for good measure. Let's have Thor show up, Let's have
(29:19):
Ironman showup, Let's have Captain Marble show up. But it
would have been nice had it been made a more
intimate thing. I get these two alone probably couldn't take
out all those super Soldiers, so you had to bring
in the Avengers because that's Nick Fury. But yeah, I
did enjoy these characters, and hopefully, I mean, I guess
we'll have to look at the catalog and see if
they're more of these of these films. I believe there are,
(29:42):
I think you mentioned to me, Keith, But whether it
features Leviathan again or not, I guess we'll have to see.
So is there anything else you would like to mention
in this movie before we get to ratings?
Speaker 3 (29:55):
So I found one thing that was super funny is
they created this army of super soldiers right there was
like thousands of them, hundreds of them. Why were none
of them bulletproof? Frank Christ was kneecapping all of them,
and I'm sitting there like, wait, wait, they're fulked out,
jacked up. You know, as he had said he enhanced
(30:15):
all these guys. You're telling me you didn't think to
give them bulletproof armor. It doesn't have to be adamantium,
it doesn't have to be whatever. It just has to
be something that can, you know, deflect bullets. Because Frank
was dropping these individuals because there was men and women
with very little effort. He was literally kneecapping them in
scenes and I'm like how, But so they're indestructible war
(30:40):
machines except against guns, which literally everybody has. And they
were talking about sending them to war zones, which again guns,
big guns and land mines like just all of this stuff.
I'm sitting there like, oh, okay, this should be like
really hard to stop. And it was literally barely in
an effort. It was just your numbers. They was like
(31:02):
ten thousand to one for each of them, And you're like, Okay,
I get why they brought the Avengers in, but I
was expecting these characters to put up a little bit.
These super soldiers or whatever, enhanced soldiers, whatever you want
to call them, put up more of a fight other
than oh, they're just brainwashed individuals with really weird armor
for some apparent reason, and even the armor didn't seem
(31:23):
to help them, So again, none of it made any
sense whatsoever other than it looked cool and Frank could
beat up some people.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
I think they went more for the esthetic than practicality,
I think is what they did. Or the fact that,
like you said, if even Frank can mow some of
these down with firearms, then Elias, you haven't really been
doing your job. You should maybe be looking at doing
that the kind of stuff that Orian did, where he
had that body armor and literally bullets meant nothing to him.
(31:57):
But I mean it makes sense, I suppose if you
have super powered individuals like thor Captain Marvel or heck,
even I am iron Man with the with his repulsal raised.
But at the same time. If firearms can do damage,
then you have to probably go back to the drawing
board and figure something out here, elies, because this this
is not gonna work, and I know who's gonna buy them,
so heck, even when we see some of the heavy
(32:19):
hitters like Baron Zimo amongst others literally walking out going figures,
this is rubbish. I'm not going to spend my my, my,
ill gotten good money on these on this stuff. So
I had everything that they had to go back to
the drawing board and figure something out, but I guess
we'll never know. So getting then to recommendations, is there
(32:41):
anything you'd like to recommend to our listeners this week?
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Uh, if you want to see Leviathan and other iterations
of this character or this organization rather apparently it was
an agent Carter. I never watched the fourth series, but
that was the big bad organization they were fighting, because
Leviathan was a Russian based organization. And then obviously go
check out the column books because they did appear once
(33:06):
or twice in a handful of issues during Dark Reign.
It to another interesting story that I wish they would adapt,
but I guess we'll have to wait and see.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
So very timely. Indeed that we get with that you
selected this, Keith, I guess knowing the unknowing that you
chose something which might play into something very important when
it comes to MCU. And well done on the recommendation
there for Agent Carter. I watched that, and yes, sir,
Leviathan is the big bad in that. And I will
(33:39):
definitely echo your recommendation on watching Agent Carter because Sarth
in fact, it's just that it's just a fantastic show
all round. But yeah, if you want to see that
version of of Leviathan, definitely check that out. So great stuff,
and I guess we'll see how certain things play out
when it comes to future MCU movies in if Leviathan
(33:59):
makes an appearance therein two So getting them to a rating, well, yeah,
getting to ratings. Then I suppose what do you give
this movie out of ten?
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Man?
Speaker 3 (34:12):
It is hard m hmm. I'm gonna have to give
it a seven. It passes, but it just barely passes.
I think there's a lot of potential in terms of
these characters in this universe, but we just haven't seen
it yet. And this seemed kind of rushed in some
(34:33):
respects And then kind of drawn out others, so there's
a lot of potential with these characters. Also fired Nick
Fury because he's a horrible boss.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
Yes, this particular version of Nick Fury. I was not
necessarily on board with one, Like you said, he withholds
so much information, and two is like, seems very callous
and very cavalier when it comes to running shields. So yeah,
I wasn't. I was definitely in Natasha's corn then when
it came to her calling Nick out on his BS,
(35:03):
I'm with you. I'm going to give this a seven
out of ten as well. I'm glad I watched it,
and I'm glad you recommended this and that we discuss
it on the podcast, and becaus had you not, I
never would have known that this even existed. So I
appreciate you showing me this other side of the Marvel
universe when it comes to animated properties. And as I
(35:24):
said before, if we don't get to review them here
on the podcast, which we likely will, but if we don't,
I'll definitely be checking out some of the other entries.
When it comes to this side of Marvel. Things to
seven out of ten for me, So of course, dear listeners,
If you want to weigh in with your thoughts on
the movies we discuss here, you can do so by
shooting an email to Happiness and Darkness How at gmail
(35:44):
dot com once again, Happiness and Darkness How at gmail
dot com. You can of course follow us on our
social media on Facebook, Waken Finances, Happiness and Darkness, on
x WA Confinance's High Darkness Pod, and and of course
coming up, we also will be building a Blue Sky
account as well for you Blue Sky people. And of course,
(36:05):
if you are listening to us on such platforms as
Spotify our podcasts, be sure to rate and review us,
as that helps the show grow. It keeps the algorithm
stimulated and allows other listeners to discover the podcast like
you did.
Speaker 3 (36:17):
So.
Speaker 2 (36:17):
We'll also be sure to tell your friends, tell your enemies,
tell anybody about this podcast. We don't care, just we
really appreciate you spread the word so big. Thank for
those who have done so in the future, Thank you
to those who will so. Keith when you're not here
with me discussing anime styled Marvel properties, where can folks
find you on the interwebs?
Speaker 3 (36:39):
Well, you know, occasionally pop up on all our friends
podcasts such as star Trek The Undiscovered Podcast or The
Hour of Comixes upon us when I'm not completely battling
on about random cartoon, sci fi, anime lines, tigers, Bears,
or my You can find us on our Facebook page.
You can drop a message or you're going to comment
(36:59):
on an our posts. I'm always ready to talk about
pretty much anything, cartoons, comment books, so on and so.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
Forth, fantastic stuff. And then yet, folks definitely be sure
to check out one of our sister podcasts, Star Trek
The Undiscovered Podcast, for sure. Keith has definitely made a
few appearances and some great ones that that will be
making more and I'm definitely looking forward to that myself
and when it comes to me. You can find a
moradio show, Whiskey and Cigarettes, where we play the very
(37:26):
best and nothing but the best of country music for
you guys from Atlabama to Zach Brown. For more information
about that is our website which is Whiskey and Cigarettes
Show dot com. Podcast Wise, you can find us find
myself and Zan Sprouse or Rachel Friend on gold Standard
the Oscars podcast, where we have reviewed all the best
picture winning movies in chronological order. Now as we wait
(37:47):
for the ninety eighth Best Picture to reveat itself. We
are a view movies that we have chosen, and we
have returning a new guest co host bring their favorite
movies to the gold standard theater. We reachedly reviewed a
pick of mine, which was that classic Jurassic Park. Coming
up next to we're going to be reviewing a movie
that Zan picked, which is the front runner, So I
guess we'll see what we make of that starring mister
(38:09):
Hugh Jackman in a political thriller. And last but saying
not least myself and Charles Skaggs can be found on
the fandom Zone podcast where we're currently discussing Daredevil Born
Again the first season and having a whale of a
time doing that and spins to come on this show.
Next time, we'll be taking on another movie that Keith
(38:32):
brought to my attention, the two thousand date Robert Minkoff
film The Forbidden Kingdom. So a Keith, anything you'd like
to add in an upcoming movie or anything else before
we sign off.
Speaker 3 (38:45):
I think I'm just gonna apologize to our dear fans
because I had a very warped childhood. So some of
these movies that are coming up, especially this one, are
very eclectic. So bear with us. You're either gonna love
it or hate it, but you're gonna learn something, that's
all i'm gonna say. You're gonna be inflicted with a
new variety of movies you probably never may have heard of.
Speaker 2 (39:08):
Well said, so, I guess it's all about the infotainment
when it comes to this side of the podcast. It
will be a lesson for me because I've never seen
this movie either in that but I'm definitely looking forward
to checking out what it's all about and was I
guess for those like myself. We'll all find out together
next time when we will take on, of course, the
Forbidden Kingdom. Until then, thank you so much to you
(39:30):
guys listen the show and supporting us. We'll see you
next week. Until then, thank you again for the privige
of your time. Stay Super Show Mobi.
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