Captain America : Brave New World (2025)

DJ Nik and Keith Bliss review "Captain America : Brave New World" !!! Enjoy ! If you would like to come on and discuss YOUR favourite movie send us a email with your movie of choice to : [e-mail] . Check out our great tiers on Patreon : patreon.com/happinessindarkness !!!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You asked for me here I am.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
You want to help me?

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Is there anything you remember.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Ladies and gentlemen, the president of the United States? That
is wrass?

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Whatever this is, camp, be careful. What do we know?

Speaker 2 (00:32):
There were five shooters.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
This was a coordinated terrorist attack.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
Sir.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
I was a wartime general. Now I'm a wartime president.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Your inner circle has been compromised.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Let me fix it. Watch yourself. You're not Steve Rogers.
You're right, I'm not. Wait for it. We're on the
brink of war. I can't trust anyone.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Nothing about this feels right.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Captain America. You ever ask yourself who's playing who?

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Someone's been pulling the strings on everything. You're under arrest.
I don't want a variable out there that I can't control.
Captain America, caught without his wing.

Speaker 2 (01:35):
You like to play dress up and blindly execute the
state's orders. You don't even know what this is.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
Since when were they read?

Speaker 3 (01:50):
You want me?

Speaker 1 (01:52):
I shum up, people, and welcome to our two one
hundred and eightieth episode of Happiness in Douglas, the Superhero
Movie Podcast, where we discuss superhero movies, Marvel, DC doc

(02:14):
Horse Image and more. Naturally, there will be spoiled as folks,
so you have been warned. I am one of your
co hosts, did Nick, and it's always joining me as
my superhero partner in crime, mister Keith Bliss, Hey Keith,
how are you today?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Not too bad? I can't complain too much. We have
a winter storm weather advisory in effect, so apparently global
warming may not be real. But I'm going to be
under a foot of snow tomorrow, so hey, go figure. Otherwise,
everything's good. It's I think Tuesday, I don't know, or
as I call it, Second Monday. I'm just here to
talk about what is this Incredible Hulk to the Search

(02:50):
for the Winter Soldier or something. I don't even know anymore.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
I guess we could call it almost a cross between
The Incredible Hulk Too and a prequel or Eternals Too.
I guess we shall see. But actually today we are
discussing Captain America Brave New World from of course this
year twenty twenty five as of this recording, directed by
Julius Owner, who co wrote the screenplay with Rob Edwards,

(03:15):
Malcolm Spelman, Daylon Musson and Peter Glans. The story was
by Rob Edwards Malcolm Spelman, while the score was by
Laura Upman. This movie cost one hundred and eighty million
dollars to make and so far has made one hundred
and ninety two million at the box office. It stepinitely
made its money back and hopefully we'll continue to grow.

(03:37):
So Keith getting to general impressions here, what did you
make of this fourth chapter? When it comes to the
Captain America movies?

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Anyway, I wanted to like the movie. It is not
a terrible movie. That being said, it is not a
Captain America movie. This is a repurposed Hulk story that
happens to have Captain America. And we've seen this before
with thora Ragnarok. Marvel takes very good Hulk stories and

(04:06):
then tries to insert other characters in as a pseudo
Hulk to kind of introduce a new story point or
a new arc, or whatever the case may be. I
think with this one, it just it didn't stick. The landing.
It was very janky in terms of talking points and

(04:27):
just how it flowed. It tend to jump around a lot.
They introduced random new characters, like the pseudo Black Widow character,
which we didn't need. They focused on her a lot
for some unknown reason, and then you jump over to
the Hulk, I'm sorry to Ross, who is now president,
which again apparently he ran for president at some point

(04:49):
between the last movie Eternals and any other point in time,
even though you really don't see much reference to this
and other Marvel properties. And then the shoe drops that
big spoilers he is now the Red Hulk. But even
then that conversion from him to Ross Hulk just seemed

(05:11):
very clunky. It didn't It made sense in the continuity
of how they shoveled it into this story, but in
the grand scheme of things it did not. So I
feel like, and based on things I've read online, they
had initially done a different movie for this whole Captain

(05:31):
America Brave New World, and didn't screen very well, so
they kind of went, oh crap, back to the drawing board,
and they gave us this weird deformed leader character and
some other random story points about how Ross had a
heart condition and so on and so forth. But it
just didn't really make a lot of sense in terms of, well,

(05:55):
if the Leader was this big, smart, bad guy locked away,
you know, why did it take him thirty years to
finally break out of prison? That was one of those
things that they're just like, oh, I admitted this stuff
and now I broke out. You were literally the smartest
Gamma character in the Marvel universe, and it took you

(06:16):
three decades to figure out how to break out of jail.
Seemed kind of counterintuitive. Yes, I get that he was
experimented on for the better part of those decades and
so on and so forth, but eventually they gave him
his own lab to do stuff, and it still took
him another decade or two to finally break out. So
I'm like, eh, I just couldn't believe. It wasn't believable

(06:42):
enough for me, considering all the stories that I've read
with this character and I know his backstory, that they
just didn't do him justice. A lot of these characters,
they took bits and pieces matched it together to kind
of give us this story that we have, when in reality,
there were a lot of points that they could have
brought up that would have helped explain things a little

(07:04):
bit better, or focused on one specific thing like Ross
becoming Right Hulk and then saving the Leader for something else,
or focus on the Leader and then bring the Red
Hulk in later. It just they were trying to take everything.
They spaghetti did it threw it against the wall so
it stuck, and everyone's like, oh, I like Harrison Ford ooh,
I like the color red. Let's talk about the Right Hulk.

(07:25):
Done boom go, And you're like, but, but there's so
much more to this character, and it just would have
made more sense in the context of regular Green Hulk
Banner all of that, because that is his original introduction,
is he's fighting Hulk, and this is where we meet

(07:46):
right Hulk. So it would have made a little bit
more sense even if they brought Smart Hulk in at
some random point during this movie. But you don't see
any other Gamma characters other than Ross and the Leader. Yes,
I understand this takes place in the spand of like
a week, but still you think you would have picked
up the phone and called Smart howk and be like, hey,

(08:07):
blah blah blah blah blah blah, I've got Gamma stuff.
You know Gamma what's going on? You know, None of
that happened. So I feel like there's a lot a
lot of missed opportunities.

Speaker 1 (08:16):
I mean, I guess one could even lament the absence
of Doc Sampson as well could have been an interesting
addition to this as well, speaking of Gamma characters. Now,
when it comes to my impression, this might be colored
by recency bias, because as of this recording, I literally
went to see this film yesterday, and I have to

(08:36):
say I was actually genuinely impressed and happy with this film.
In fact, on my way back from my subway ride
back to going home from the movie, I was intually
texting some friends of mine saying, I'm so glad Marvel
is pulling back or Marvel Studios is going back to
the formula which worked for such a long time, as

(08:58):
in it came across to me as a much more
balanced film compared to some of the entries we'd had
where the comedy was excessive to where it detracted from
some of the things that we're trying to say here.
You did have some comedic moments, and yes I did,
I generally chuckled, but I think they were balanced enough.
It wasn't trying to say, oh, let's do something funny
and let's do something serious and see what happens here.

(09:19):
I think it Dare I say, within such an unrealistic
situation with superpowered characters and red Hulks and all sorts
of things going on. It felt more grounded and I
really appreciated that. And I think for being Sam Wilson's
first outing as Captain America officially since Falcon Winter Soldier,

(09:41):
I thought this was a good introduction when it came
to what is his tenure going to be? Like the
story in general, I was, I was invested in, and
I did appreciate as much as like you said, the Keith,
they are kind of pilfering from great Hulk stories and
rather making Hulk movies, they're repurposing them for other characters,

(10:03):
in this case Captain America. But I really did like it.
There are there were some moments where I was like, huh,
how did that happen? Case in points a certain Bucky
Barnes showing up and running apparently for Congress, and I
guess we could probably address that later down the line.
But even the introduction of a new characters, I think
it was I think it worked enough. And even you know,

(10:23):
bringing bringing back cameos from people from the incredible Hulk film,
I did appreciate. Heck, I'd never really expected liv Tyler
to make an appearance in this film, but it was
actually generally a welcomed cameo, at least when it came
to me. I did have some thoughts when it came
to the post credit scene, but I think I'm starting
to get where we're going with that. Other than that,

(10:46):
I did enjoy. As said, I thought the characters were written,
were written well, the performances were good. I mean, it's
Anthony Mackie, so you know he's going to do a
good job. And some of the other characters will talk
about today. So by and large, it's not a absolutely
fantastic It's not Captain America The Winter and the Winter Soldier,
it's not Captain America The First Avenger. But I really
really enjoyed this. I was really happy with this. Of

(11:08):
the latest entries from the MCU, this is probably my favorite,
and I hope it will carry on in this vein
when we get to the next two MCU films we''re
reviewing during the course of this year. So I consider
myself so far a happy camper, I will say that.
So let's get into our characters on the board. Let's
kick off with three key characters in this film. We

(11:30):
have the aforementioned Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson Captain America,
Daniel Ramiers as Juaquin Torres the Falcon, and introducing on
this film Shira hass as Ruth Batsaraf, who US folks
in the world of comics will probably know better as
Sabra when of the few Israeli superheroes. So, Keith, what

(11:52):
did you make of these three?

Speaker 2 (11:53):
I'm not trying to be mean with my review of
these three characters, but they are very cookie cutter. Sam's
character was definitely by far the standout of the three,
because obviously he's the lead's Captain America and this is
focusing on him. Ramier as his character reminded me of
Blue Beetle in terms of being the annoying kids sidekick. Ay,

(12:18):
He's like, hey, can I get any huh? Can I
kind of like all right, coming down there, Champ. You're
you're just a little too eager to get shot out
of the sky, like no matter whatever's happening, He's like, ooh,
can I co howbot now?

Speaker 1 (12:27):
How about now?

Speaker 2 (12:28):
And You're like pump the brakes, like let let the uh,
the more experienced vets deal with this, And just every
time you saw him on screen, it was always something like, ooh,
can I get you know, my blinged out armor or
whatever it was, and then kind of get to the
vibranium from Wakanda, and you know, Sam's like the easy killer.

(12:49):
Let's talk about this one. So I you know that
being said, I did like the banter between the two
of them. They definitely seem like comrade and arms. They
seem like they were, you know, the same squad together,
and they had that kind of banter leader and sidekick
or partner or whatever the case, maybe Batman, Robbin, pick
your analogy. That I will say their chemistry was very

(13:12):
good and I enjoyed watching them on screen. Again, Danny
was a little over zealous some of the times, but
I get it. It's sort of the you know, I'm
getting to see action for the first time, so I
want to do as much as I can while I can.
And then what happens. He gets shut out of the sky.
So he learned his lesson. In terms of Sabro, she

(13:36):
was a very forgettable character. You could have cut her
entire character out of the movie and had a very
similar result. It could have been any generic person, any
CIA person or security person. We didn't need this pseudo
reject black Widow ex Black Widow, whatever her origin story was,

(13:59):
because in the comic book it is completely different. She's
a mutant, has powers and abilities. There's actual depth to
her character. Here it's just generic person number four. And again,
they had so many other security people in this movie.
One of them could have done the exact same thing
as she did and would not have blinked an eye.

(14:22):
There was just no Without her, you would have had
the same end results. Generic person talking to Sam would
have given you know, exposition and moved on. Generic person
shoots bad guy again, rinse and repeat. So the fact
that they tried to bring her in just seemed very
head scratchy. And the fact of the matter is that

(14:44):
you're taking an ex ex black widow and putting in
charge of the president's security with no explanation whatsoever, just
seems kind of odd on top of eye because you're like, wait,
she's a what and you're gonna do what? No. No,
So you know we know that based on previous experiences
in the Marvel universe, black Medow programming is pretty intense,

(15:08):
and she went through this program, so we know she
can fight. I'm not taking that away. But at the
same time. We know it's a lot of you know,
mental conditioning and brainwashing and so on and so forth. Hell,
they wouldn't even let Bucky be the head of security,
and that dud's a little super soldier. So it's just,
you know, they made some very odd choices. Could she

(15:30):
have been an agent in the force one hundred percent?
Could she have been part of the squad that Bucky
and Danny's characters work with. Again, but to make her
the head of security for the President the United States
was definitely one of those like, okay, but what why?
So you know, I hope they do something with her,

(15:51):
otherwise it's just another random throwaway character.

Speaker 1 (15:57):
I mean, well, I guess from a cynical perspective, I
think clearly see this as this is a lead up
to our next movie, which of course, you know will
be The Thunderbolts. As in this film, you know, we're
getting the whole concept of President Ross telling Sam he
wants him to rebuild and recreate the Avengers, and so

(16:20):
I think the fact that we get somebody like Ruth
introduced into this is because, by the way, in a
couple of months we have we have the Thunderbolts, So
we kind of need to create a team to counteract
the Thunderbolts, and likely Ruth or Saber if that's what
the name they will essensibly give her when that movie
rolls around, and if she sticks around, I have a

(16:42):
feeling she probably will because she probably will be the
counterpart to the current Black Widow, who obviously will be
in the Thunderbolts ranks. Then I think Elena, of course
you're in the Belova, so that will probably be the case,
is what I'm thinking, because like you said, she was
trained in the Red Room. She's the next Black Widow,
so likely that's what's going to be the pairing between

(17:03):
the two because obviously, sadly Natasha is no longer with us.
So that's that's why I think is the role that
Ruth will likely play when it comes to the Thunderbolts.
This is obviously a course speculation, but if the films
have taught me anything, the MCUs taught me anything, this
is likely. What we're doing is we're rebuilding. This is
one of the core moments where we're rebuilding a new

(17:26):
set of Avengers. So you're like it going to be
having Sam Juaquin, Ruth and a couple of others, you know,
along for the ride. So when it came to the
introduction of her, I enjoyed it. I thought I didn't
feel it was too forced or anything. I was wondering,
like you said, about her being almost like the head
of security for the White House. I mean, clearly she
has the training because obviously she's next Black Widow, and

(17:46):
at first, you know, knowing that she's Israeli at first,
before we got the whole review of her being having
been trained in the Red Room, I wondered whether maybe
you know, it's because it's not unknown for a leader
of a country to hire X Massade people in their security,
because we know Massad are very good at what they do.
So at first of all, like she like X Massade

(18:09):
because I could clearly tell she was Israeli from her
accent and everything else. And obviously your name is Ruth Batsarath,
so you're likely from Israel. And so my first was that,
so maybe that's what they were trying to do, is like,
rather than give her a Mossade background, they gave her
a black widow background, because let's be honest, they're just
as lethal. So I appreciate the character. Also because even

(18:31):
though her prime directive is to protect the President the
United States. She's not the type to like, okay, the
presidence like has been threatened, everybody is bad. She actually
does take a moment to analyze the situation and does
her own research. You know when we of course, it
then gets revealed that it's the leader behind all this,

(18:52):
or Samuel Sterns. We actually doesn't get name checked as
the leader, but we know hiss Samuel Sterns, which is
the leader's name. So she does show that she's doing
a lot, just like Natasha would possibly do, doing her
research well at the same time doing her job. And
then you know, when she ultimately allies herself with Sam
and Joaquin, they make for a good trio I found.

(19:15):
And I did like the fighting scenes where she showed
off her skills when she's taking down entire army of
soldiers like it was nothing. Because as we said, ex
Black Widow. So I'll be interested to see how things
progress with this character as we progress. If we do
see her again, I think we will, but it remains
to be seen. When it came to the dynamic between

(19:38):
Sam and Joaquin, I think they were trying to we'd
seen relationships of course between Captain America and falcon before
in this case obviously Steve Rodgers and Sam Wilson very
different dynamic of course. Here. Like you said, Joaquin is
very much the fanboy, kind of chomping at the bit,
really wanted to see some action because he's been a
fan of Sam's for the longest time. We actually saw this. Also,

(20:00):
for those who've seen The falcon and Winter Soldier, there's
always been that that sense of I admire you so much,
You're amazing, You're my hero. And Joaquin tells as tells
Sam this as much during the course of this film. Yes,
he is a little bit too enthusiastic, and like you said,
this causes him to literally end up in the ocean.

(20:21):
But I do like the the the the relationship that
you have, and I think given time and giving it
to grow, I think it could be just as endearing
as say Steve and Bucky or even Steven Sam. So
I did appreciate that when it came to Sam's journey
in this you know, we're coming off of once again

(20:43):
Falcony Winter Soldier, where he still is even though he's
been at this for a while, he still is feeling
that responsibility of why did Steve pick me? Why am
I here? Why? I wish I had the super soldier serum.
It would really come in handy because you know Steve, yes,
he was a great leader, but he also had that
enhancement I don't, and so they maybe trying to show

(21:05):
us he's a regular guy who, yes, has worked out
like crazy, so his body is in excellent shape and
he's an excellent fighter, but he is human, so he
can he is facing way more trials and tribulations than
Steve Rogers would because he doesn't have that enhancement. So
I did appreciate that, even though Sam is constantly questioning

(21:25):
himself throughout the course of this. And it will be
curious to see as the movies progress where Sam will
be out where they will finally gain that confidence that
he is the right man for the job. And I
think it's very much shown here why he is the
man for the job, because while Steve was more of
a fighter and a leader, Sam is the negotiator and

(21:46):
he's very good at talking people down. We'd seen this
in Falcon and Winter Soldier when it came to the
flag smashers, and we see this here when it comes
to talking down Thaddeus Ross in his Red Hulk form.
And this is why Steve chose him, not because I
mean one, of course, for his military expertise and fighting prowess,

(22:07):
but especially because Sam is good at negotiating and gets people.
And I think that is why he is this. He
is the Captain in America, the new Captain in America
because of that, because that's I think what Steve was
looking for with you, you know, taking into account Steve
Rodgers's values, he was very much about people and ethics
and values in that sense, so he sees Sam as

(22:28):
the ideal replacement for him, and I think it's very
much proven throughout the course of this film. He clearly
cares about everybody. He has a huge heart and just
really wants to do the right thing, even though he
feels that he's inadequate because he doesn't. He is literally human.
He has this great tech, but he's he's human, so
he he doesn't have that shield if you will, no

(22:50):
pun intended that will allow him to maybe possibly have
an advantage over some of his adversaries. But I did
like this, as I said before, as a first outing
for Sam as Captain America. So I guess we'll see
where we go from here. So I guess. Then let's
get to another character who does get quite the spot light.
We have a mister Cole Lumley speaking of Falcony Winter

(23:10):
Soldier as Isaiah Bradley. So what did you make of
Isaiah Keith.

Speaker 2 (23:16):
I'm kind of mad we didn't get more of them.
He is a true super soldier and has part of
the expression seen some shit, as has been mentioned to
us via the TV series, and I want more of
his character. I want you know, he was a super
Soldier or the new Captain America when they lost Steve.

(23:38):
He was the one of the first successful candidates for
the program, and he went to war for Uncle Sam
and again wound up being thrown in jail. That's an
interesting story. I want more of that story.

Speaker 1 (23:52):
I would.

Speaker 2 (23:53):
I don't know who you'd get to play a younger
version of him, but I feel that he was under
utilized and it just they repeated his story again where
something happens, he gets accused of something and they gets
thrown in jail and just sits in jail the entire movie.
And even when he has proven innocent, they're like, now

(24:16):
we'll just leave him in jail. It's fine, it's not
a big deal. But it's shown that he didn't do this, like, yah,
it's fine, it's okay. So they're still showing that there
is that animosity toward certain individuals within the Marvel universe.
And it was kind of a rehashing the exact same

(24:37):
story point from the TV series that they went down
this road again with this poor character. You're like, okay,
so super Soldier, something happens. He gets thrown in jail,
accused of shenanigans, and because he is African American, he
is left there to just rot because as we see
with Ross, he doesn't care about anybody. He just about

(25:00):
himself and what people think of him, and Isaiah is
collateral damage to that, which is unfortunate. Yes, I think
he's only in jail for again, I want to say
a week. But still it's the fact of the matter
that they show evidence, they prove it, and they're like,
that's fine, we'll just leave him here because just in
case it happens again. You're like, happens again. It barely

(25:22):
happened the first time, so it just you know, it
was again one of these lazy writing points. I like
the character I like the actor. I even liked their
training session the very beginning. I appreciated that the whole thing.
I thought it was funny. I was like, where's this going?
And then they start training, You're like, okay, And I
expected Sam to hold his own with a I think

(25:43):
he's like seventy or sixty five, seventy year old super soldier,
so of course he's going to lose a step or two,
and the fact that he is able to keep up,
and then you see Danny's character, He's like, nope, I'm good,
So I would have I hope they do a little
bit more mentor mentee type of training in future iterations

(26:07):
of this movie, because again, I want to see more
of Isaiah's character. He has a grandson which potentially has
his powers and abilities, So I want to see more
of this family and more of what potential these characters
have because in the comics, his son or grandson becomes

(26:29):
Captain America type character, but we haven't seen him yet
other than thirty seconds on one episode in a TV
series and he's in and out before you can even
realize what's going on. So I hope we get more
of that character and him as well.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Well, if you know, if everybody's theories, you know, you
and I've actually talked about this affair quite a bit.
If the Young Avengers are in the works, I would
not be surprised if we saw Isaiah's grandson become the
Captain of America to that group. And I definitely agree
with one hundred percent. My favorite character is this whole
film was Isaiah. I love this character to bits, not

(27:06):
to mention it's Carl Lumley, who is a fantastic actor,
and just the way he plays the pain and the
trauma this character's been through is nothing short of spectacular.
I would almost have preferred it to be a story
about Isaiah over what we got. As good as a
movie as it was, I really would have liked even
more of a spotlight on Isaiah and when he is

(27:30):
falsely accused because he was of course brainwashed by Samuel Stearns,
and just a terror in his face when he says,
I can't go back to jail, because you know how
taxing and how traumatizing that was with him was for
him because he was in jail for thirty years, he'd
been experimented on and tortured, and even more so when
he's told he's going to solitary confinement because they're concerned

(27:53):
about what happens in the in the prison cells, with
some of the prisoners getting killed once again because of
mind control by Samuel Stearns. Once again. Just the expression
on his face was like, I can't go to solitary confinement.
Your heart breaks seeing those moments. And he adds so
much to this film, Like you said, with the training session,

(28:15):
that was one of my favorite scenes in the movie.
And even he just is back and forth with Sam
and how supportive he is of Sam because we know
coming off of Falcon and Winter Soldier that bond happens
towards the end of that show, where first Isaiah was
rather skittish and it's like the world might is probably
not ready for a black Captain America, and Isaiah at
first was like, I don't know if this is going

(28:36):
to work. I can't be a fan of the government
for what they did to me and somebody who is
now working for the government, because at this point, Captain
America his answerable to the President of the United States.
Isaiah's a little bit on the offence and understandably seeing
how his government treated him, but he still is super
supportable what Sam is doing, and I love that there
is somebody like Isaiah to support Sam and give him

(28:59):
that confidence boost outside his sister. It was interesting we
didn't get any of Sam's sister in this film, and
you'd also think that he might want to invite his
sister to the White House. Granted it was for mission
reasons and political reasons, but heck, she could have been
mingling there and just enjoyed some time at the White House.

(29:20):
So I did think it was odd that, excuse me,
Sam's sister was not name checked at all or mentioned
at all, so that might be a bit of a
problem there, or even him talking to his sister, It's like,
you know this, this and that happened. What do I do?
Because they seem pretty close, but there was nothing of
her in this whole film. But I really loved Isaiah

(29:41):
and even showing off that he is still just as
strong and still just as powerful, even though he is
so frail at least when it comes to his feelings
and his trauma. It's a beautiful character and I definitely hope,
like you said, we get more of him because he's
just such a beautiful character and so well acted in
I think probably the most well written of our characters

(30:03):
in this film. So more of Carl Lumley please. It
seems like both you and I agree with that, Keith,
So I guess then, rounding off our characters, let's get
to our antagonist and antagonistant villains. In this film. We
have the aforementioned Harrison Ford as Thaddeus Thunderbolt Ross aka
the Red Hulk, and we also have a Tim Blake

(30:23):
Nelson reprising his role from The Incredible Hulk as Samuel Stearns.
So what do you make of these two?

Speaker 2 (30:33):
I it's one of those you don't like rooting for
the bad guy, but at the same time you understand
his motivation behind everything. And again I'm not saying the
leader is a good person or a nice person or
any anything by that stretch of the imagination, but the
fact that when he first meets sam and he's still

(30:57):
in this super secret prison because reasons he lets him know, like,
I've been here for the last thirty years. They found
me in the rubble and they've been experimenting on me.
So he kind of has a very big chip on
his shoulder when it comes to Fatteus's character because again,
he's locked in against his will. He's been experimented on

(31:19):
for the better part of three decades, so to have
him that weird, disfigured shenanigans. I didn't personally like the design,
but I get what they were trying to accomplish because
they kept exposing him to more gamba just to see
what it would do, and so on and so forth,

(31:40):
and he becomes this super genius type of character. I
hope we see some of his other powers and abilities
develop over time, and hopefully he gets some sort of
cream or ointment because he's looking pretty rough. But that
being said, I get his breaking out. I'd get him

(32:02):
trying to kill Thattius Ross because he has lied to
him every step of the way, which seems kind of
odd because the leader keeps telling everybody how he's so
smart and he's all about probabilities and statistics and seeing
patterns and so on and so forth, and he still
has this stuff happened to him. So it was just
kind of like, okay, but if you knew this was coming,

(32:25):
why did you so? That seemed kind of a weird
sticking point, And it was just every so often in
a movie somebody says something there's a character does something
and there's like, wait, that doesn't make any sense at all,
And in the grand scheme of the Marvel universe, that
was that one thing. When he said that, I was like,
but if you do this was gonna happen, why did

(32:46):
you let it happen? So whatever it is, what it is.
Harrison Ford as Statius Ross was definitely another highlight of
this movie. I see him as Ross. He has a
lot of the mannerisms he reminds me of and I'm

(33:06):
going to be date myself, boys and girls and everything
in between of when he was President the United States.
Back in the nineties, he did a movie where he
literally played the President of the United States. So this
was just him rehashing that character, which I'm fine with
because I enjoyed that movie as well. So I was
not necessarily surprised by this or taken back by any

(33:29):
of this. Again, wrinkle in this whole story is he
has a heart condition and he the only person on
the planet who can figure this out. Is the leader,
not Conda, who has technology that can make paralyzed people
walk again and fix damn near everything on the face
of the planet, or smart Hole, who again can fix

(33:53):
all kinds of crazy stuff, or the scientist from what
was the one ultron with her little curol tube that
she sticks a hawkeye in. None of that. None of
these other super smart characters were able to fix a

(34:15):
heart condition, not like cancer or some like harpoon to
the chest or some crazy wild stuff. He was dying
from a heart condition, Like that's just like okay. And
then again you go to a guy that you're holding
against his will and have been torturing for thirty years,
and you're like, that's the guy who can fix me.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
He's not going to.

Speaker 2 (34:37):
Screw me at all because he needs me alive. No, no,
this is still just all dumb. This is terrible. And
the fact that he has been slowly poisoning ross with
gamma pills for however many years, which we don't really know,
so we'll say four or five years, maybe I don't know.

(35:00):
And he finally gets to the point where when he
stubs his toe he flips out into the hulk, and
you're like, you're telling me he hasn't lost a shit.
At some point between starting to see this guy and
this point in time where he's accidentally hulked out or
has hulked out or had a night terror and turned
into the Red Hulk because again reasons, so that kind

(35:24):
of I don't know why that irked me, but it
bothered me that you're telling me he was being changed
or converted or whatever exposed to Gamma for four or
five years and none of these other traits have popped
up during that time frame, which seemed kind of surprising
based on his sparkling personality and his wonderful uh grasp

(35:49):
on his temper. So it's just okay. And the scene
that left me scratching my head was when the Leader
somehow manages to hack in to Thaddeus's headset while on
an aircraft carrier across the world, Like do you understand
the the the weird chain of events that has to

(36:13):
happen that you can find that specific headset, Like just
like he just magically pops into his ears, Like he's
like hi, General, and you're like, who who's he talking to?

Speaker 3 (36:22):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (36:23):
He's actually talking to the General. How does he know
he's a headset on? I don't know, but he's on
the phone talking to General Ross. Like that's a thing,
it's happened, Go with it. So here just like weird
points in the story. You're just like, that doesn't that
doesn't track at all? Why? And you know, I get it.
They had to our famous ten minute will happened. They

(36:45):
had ten minutes left in the movie, so they had
to speed the shit along and they had to introduce
Red Hulk, and yeah, that's what happens.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
That's pretty much in the nutshell. I do have to
I do have to ask you, though, Keith, ye knowing,
of course, but this is the first time that a
different actor played the Thunderbolt Ross because of course surprised
that William Hurt had played this character. I mean, I
don't know, it's been a of course, it's been a
hot minute since we saw William Hurt Hurt as his character.

(37:12):
But did you see a similarity between the two, as in,
could you tell could you see Harrison Ford being William Hurt?
If you know what I mean is in playing the
same characters in it's the same guy that we saw
in Captain America's Civil War? What did you feel like
different to you?

Speaker 2 (37:30):
He reminded me more of the incredible Hawk Ross in
terms of how he was interacting with the characters. He
did have a little bit shorter a temper. Again, the
guy has spectacular anger management issues. So and he did
also portray a little bit more of the Avengers and

(37:53):
the Wholesakovia Shenanigans. So I did see bits and pieces
of the characters or the previous character in this iteration
of him. But Harrison also managed to put his own
little spin on it, because the banter he has with
the Secret Service agent about doing five miles on a treadmill,
you know, that little comedic back and forth. I don't

(38:15):
necessarily see the other individuals that have played Ross over
the years having the same type of comedic timing, and
Harrison Ford is one of those. You don't realize the
timing or the comedic skills he has, even though he's
kind of shown him a little bit in the old
Star Wars movies from way back before a lot of
people were born. So it was nice to see him

(38:38):
put his own little touches on the character.

Speaker 1 (38:43):
Which is totally fair. Yeah, because as I mentioned you,
prior to to Harrison taking the role, William Hurt had
played him up until Avengers Endgame, where at the time
he'd already moved into politics because then he was Secretary
of State. Thunderbolt Ross, so they had given him some advancement.
But yes, sadly, William hurt Is and along with us,
and apparently they had told William. The creators of the

(39:06):
you know, Marvel student had told William that he was
going to become the Red Hulk at some point, and
apparently William was really really excited at the prospect. So
obviously this didn't happen overnight. They'd already thought it out
that at some point to Ross would become the Red Hulk,
and apparently he was really excited about. Sadly did not
get to play it, because as I mentioned before, he
passed away, but was Thunderbolt Ross up until endgame. And

(39:30):
that's what I was trying to kind of channel and
see whether going from one actor who had played the
character for pretty much the whole Infinity saga when he
was present, to having this new chap step in. I
think that's what you're trying to, obviously do, is is
recreate that same energy that your previous, the previous character
person playing him was. I mean, heck, we even had

(39:51):
that a you know, homage to the fact of I
was told to cut off the mustache and the beard
because I would never become president, which of course is
a big harm to when William Hurt played him, because
there he had the signature mustache going on, and I
will say Harrison does did not look particularly great when
he was looking trying to look more like William Hurt
with that big mustache. She definitely look better, clean shaven,

(40:15):
almost still five o'clock shadow ross. But yeah, so it
wasn't any particularly surprised to anybody that he had gone
into politics because we had already seen him, as I said,
being Secretary of State during Endgame, So he was already
pursuing a political career and he is he's reached the
pinnacle of that and has literally become president in the
United States. Now. I think where they're trying to what

(40:35):
the writers tried to do with this film is tell
us that as great of a sonar a president might project,
there are a lot of dark secrets and scatters in
the closet, to the surprise of nobody, because we know
that politics is a dirty game and very rarely do
any politicians not have dirty hands. Regardless of what political

(40:58):
stance you take or what side of the political spectrum
you're invested in, there's always some dirt on both sides.
And I think that's what they were trying to do
with this as well, is that even though he might
seem like the right answer for America at the time,
there was so much dirt on this character as well,
seeing the kind of people he was working with, i e.
Samuel Stearns. Even though he is keeping him as a prisoner,

(41:19):
he is literally using him in order to win the presidency,
which is literally revealed in this movie that that's what
Ross was doing. Even though he kept him there. He
had promised him that once he became president, he would
grant Samuel pardon. Of course he never did, and that
of course ends up biting him in his rear end,
because that's the whole thing that really sets Samuel off,

(41:42):
the fact that he promised me that he would rehabilitate me.
I was here forever I was being experimented on. He
never kept his promise. Interestingly, Samuel himself reveals, or the
leader reveals, that he never had any intention of killing Ross.
He wanted to show the world who he really was,
which is why he you know, obviously he says, yeah,

(42:04):
I'll cure you of your heart heart issues, but I'll
lace them with a little bit of good old gamma
radiation to then reach my ultimate goal of showing the
world what a monster you truly are. And in a
literal way, as we learn that he has increased the
dosage of gamma in these pills progressively to ultimately reach

(42:27):
the goal being able to turn Ross into the Red Hulk,
because this whole thing is I literally want to tear
down the veil and show you that your beloved president
is not as squeaky clean as he claims to be,
which I think is the message they're trying to portray
here when it came to the relationship of these are
the kind of people that Ross works with, and of
course it and the empty promises that possibly a politician

(42:52):
might make, and how that will then ostensibly rebound on them.
And so that's I think what they were trying to do.
I mean, at the same time, Ross is also very
much a tortured man because he's he's still granted, it's
he it's a bed that he made when it came
to the estrangement with him and Betty, his daughter, even

(43:12):
though he can constantly thinks about wanting to make up
with her, and you know, go back to seeing the
cherry blossoms like they once did, and so on, while
trying to run with the most one of the most powerful,
not the most powerful country in the world now in
a situation of where everybody's buying for this new mineral Adamantium,
which I think we will definitely touch up on before

(43:34):
we get to ratings, which is obviously one of the
big deals of this film talk about leading to future films.
Here we have the introduction of adamantium, which of course
will play a huge role I'm sure in future films.
So he's dealing with that, the uneasy relationship that he
has with Japan and everything that that that entails, while
at the same time as a father wanting to become
wanting to once again have that familiar relationship with his daughter.

(43:58):
What I did appreciate when it came to this character is, yes,
he holks out and he goes a muck and almost
kills Sam Wilson. But not only is it showing then
Sam being very good at talking people off the ledge,
but then ultimately I think Ross is redeemed by the
fact that he turns himself in. I mean, we know
a lot of presidents that don't turn this themselves in

(44:20):
when they do horrendous things, they don't step down, whereas
in this case, Ross decides to literally let go of
the presidency and serve his time in prison, and that's
obviously where we find him by the end of this film,
and that's where we get that wonderful moment of a
liv Tyler showing up as of course, reprising her role
as Betty Ross and saying, I love you father. Everything's

(44:41):
funky door, You're in prison, but I love you anyway.
So it was a cute little moment, and of course
Gaber live a moment to reprise her role as Betty.
When it came to Samuel Stearn's AKA The Leader, I
agree with you, Keith. I was a little bit thrown
back by the design they chose for his character because

(45:02):
he almost looked like that character from Doctor Who when
the Daleks creates human Daralek hybrids, and he seemed to
almost be like a Dalek human with almost like these
little tentacles sprouting out of his head. I'm like, is
that an extra from Doctor Who? Very much reminded me
of that. But other than that, I agree with you.

(45:24):
You definitely see where his anger comes from because he
was experimented on, and he was promised things which never
came to him. And so this is how his taste.
He's taking his revenge is literally destroying Ross's life rather
than physically killing him for destroying him as a person.
And I think Tim Blake Nelson returning was a great
stroke of genius. Was very clever, and was glad they

(45:45):
brought him back because he does a fabulous job, especially
it comes to his voice. It's so menacing when he
has those conversations with Ross. I absolutely love that, and
I hope we do get to see more of him
because great stuff. And plus I was a big fan
of the Fleetwoods Mister Blue. I knew that song and
my father literally played that song for me when I

(46:06):
was a kid and we'd go off to see my granddad.
He'd play all these oldie, you know, oldies but goldies songs,
and among them was mister Blue by the Fleetwoods. Like, wow,
this is brilliant. Even I enjoy listening to mister Blue
even more so now hopefully it won't make me turn
me into a murderous machine, but I absolutely love that choice. Grant,

(46:26):
of course, Timber, you know Samuel being known as mister
Blue in The Incredible Hulk. So maybe a little bit
on the nose, but I really like that song choice.
So before we get to ratings, Keith, I think we
have I think that we would be reminius if if
we didn't talk about about a couple of things here.
So first off, get into our post credit scene where

(46:50):
we have Sam visiting Samuel, you know, Sam meeting Samuel
in prison and Samuel literally telling him of a threat
coming from different worlds. When it comes to that statement,
what did you make of out those greatest scene?

Speaker 2 (47:06):
So we were talking about this after the movie. I
would have preferred that to be the actual ending of
the movie where he goes to the raft and he
sees Samuel and he's like, Haha, I told you I
was gonna catch you, and blah blah blah and so
on and so forth. And I would have like, cool,
done makes sense based on the movie, based on everything
we've seen, and the fact that he turns back to human.

(47:29):
You just assume when they cut to the White House, Okay,
things are back to normal and cool beings. Let's go.

Speaker 1 (47:36):
I would have.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Preferred that, and then bonus scene be Ross in jail
and so on. And so forth. I feel like they
were just trying too hard. They were reaching with this
bonus scene because there was nothing really to allude to
those things happening in this university. Yet in terms of

(47:58):
what we've seen in the Sam Wilson and so on
and so forth, Yes, I get it. The Leader has
seen other things going on in the world, but in
terms of the universe being fractured with Spider Man, he
wouldn't remember that. Possibly the Celestials, but since they literally
other than calling the Celestial Island the Celestial Island, no

(48:21):
reference to them at all. Same thing with the Eternals,
you know, the whole stuff, with the time travel, with
the Infinity Stones, none of that is really referenced other
than the snap. So for him to get to this
weird crazy like we're going to smash into other universes
and shit's going to go sideways. Okay, I don't know

(48:42):
why you think that or what gave you those ideas,
but that just seemed very like left field. If he
was if he had said something to the effect of
things are coming or things are gonna get crazy, or
wait till you see what happens next, or whatever, more
of a evil moniacal like doctor no evil genius type

(49:05):
of double O. Seven Shenanians were, it's making an evil,
moniaval statement, but vague enough that you have to fill
it in yourselves. Him telling us that worlds are literally
going to collide and dimensions are going to collapse and
so on and so forth. You're like, Oh, okay, just
run it for the poor guy. So I just I
think they were really trying too hard with that bonus scene.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
I wonder whether they were trying to recapture the magic
of the tees of the Infinity War that we got
in the previous saga, where you know, you kept getting
a tease of Thanos or things happening in that vein.
And I wonder whether this is a teas to Secret
Wars when it comes to world's colliding and all sorts
of things. It remains to be seen, because if the

(49:52):
ultimate endgame nopund intended when it comes to this saga
is avenge of Secret Wars, this is likely what they're
trying to tease. That's my thought because if if you know,
you see a pattern, and it's usually the case. And
so I just like they were teasing Thanos when it
came to the Infinity Saga. I think that's what they're

(50:12):
doing here when it comes to what might be known
someday as the Secret Saga. Who knows, but I think
that's what they were doing here, is we're starting to
plant the seeds of the other Secret Wars. Even that's
even if that's going to be a couple of years
from now, if not longer, it remains to be seen,
because I think it's supposed to come out in about
twenty twenty seven or thereabouts, so a couple of years

(50:34):
from now. But that, I think is what they're trying
to do is trying to give us that tease of
this is what the overarching story will be, just of
course the theory. We'll see if it pans out. And
the other things I wanted to pick your brain on
were the little things that we got here. One the
introduction of Adamantium. Two what the fact that Bucky Barnes

(50:56):
is now running for congressman? And three the lived Hi
the cameo. So what do you make of these three moments?

Speaker 2 (51:03):
So I'll start with the Bucky Barnes because that just
arbitrarily pops up in the middle of the movie out
of nowhere. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
I just I didn't.

Speaker 2 (51:13):
I didn't like it, and it's weird to say that,
And I get it. This is setting up because of
the Thunderbolts and he is there's a scene in Thunderbolts
where he's sitting at some hearing for something or rather
so clearly he's in the government, and they had to
kind of go, crap, we need to set this up,
so they kind of throw that in here where he's
telling Sam that he's off to go do a fundraiser

(51:36):
for some election of some sort, and he was there
for a pep talk, and I kind of understand Bolt arguments.
I understand Sam's argument about should have taken the superhero
super Soldier's serum, and then Bucky's saying, no, that's why
Cap wanted you, because you were you. And that's literally

(51:59):
the exact same argument given to Steve Rogers in Captain America.
They wanted him because he was him. So the see
it's the pot clung the kettle. So the fact that
they Sam or excuse me, Steve saw the same things
in Sam as he saw himself would not have had

(52:22):
a super adverse effect to him if he had gotten
the Super Soldier serum. I get why he didn't take
it because, based on his experience with individuals who had
did take the serum, they all were completely crazy, unhinged.
Look at the curb stomping in the TV series and
then look at the flag smashers. All those characters, granted

(52:45):
were not the most mentally sound individuals, But the fact is,
this is his experience with that serum. Other than Captain America,
everybody else has been slightly broken for the best term
I can come up with, So I can see why
he didn't want to do it. But then at the

(53:07):
same time, you're like, well, are you sure, because Kat,
you know, Steve Rodgers, the original thought you were good,
odds are decent. You were not going to go completely
off the reservation and start murdering everybody just because it's
Tuesday or something. So I'm kind of of both minds.
I would have liked to have seen a what if

(53:28):
of him getting the Super super Soldier serum. And yes,
that is a mouthful because we already see him without it.
And yes, you can theoretically chalk his suit up to
vibranium and potentially some other types of augmentations. That's why
he's able to hold his own for the most part
with the Red Hulk, but I still think there's potential

(53:52):
to do more with the character and or create a
super super soldier out of him. Even if it's yes, yes, guys,
I'm struggling with super soldier serum because there's too many
s's in the words. Even if he gets say like
a blood transfusion and we go the route of She

(54:13):
Hulk where he becomes slightly enhanced and slightly augmented just
because of something that happens, Sign me up. That would
make sense too. I also do appreciate him struggling coming
to terms being selected as Captain America because of all
the crazy stuff in the world, and we know how
society is and how individuals of color get treated, so

(54:36):
I get why he has that. You know that self doubt.
So it's kind of like the I see both arguments.
I would have preferred one over the other, but we'll
see where this goes. There's still potential in terms of Adamantium.
I don't I don't know. And the reason why I
say that is because in the comic books and yes

(54:59):
this is it a MCU version of adamantium. In the
comic books. There are several iterations of adamantium, and depending
on where they go with this metal, yes, it is
always one of the strongest materials. It's vibranium and adamantium.

Speaker 1 (55:14):
They kind of.

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Go tit for tat in terms of strength and durability.
I would be fine with everybody getting battle armor made
adamantium vibranium mesh because whoever had that would be damn
near unstoppable and would make perfect sense for Sam and
Falcon to get that type of stuff, or actually every

(55:36):
hero in the MCU, because again, things are about to
get crazy. So the fact that they took this long
to introduce it, it's kind of a it's about time
you got here type of situation. I just hope they
do it justice. And depending on the mutants, because that
is supposed to be the next leg of this journey

(55:58):
after everything is done, we're supposed to be getting mutants.
So depending on what mutants we get and how they
integrate this material or these materials, because both can be integrated,
it'd be interesting to see do we get a wolverine,
do we get some weird hybridy, do we get weaponah

(56:19):
which if nobody knows what webonah is that is a
Bunker's character, so we'll have to wait and see. I'm
like the happy hesitant kind of with this introduction because
I know where they're They're setting the chess pieces on
the board for a bigger story eventually in a decade
or two.

Speaker 1 (56:37):
I definitely think that that's the point. I mean, granted,
as we said, these days everything being so into connected,
each film is supposed to introduce some elements that we'll
see in the film following it, and I think that's
very much the case one when it comes to setting
up some of the things that we will see in Thunderbolts, like,
for example, the introduce of Saber possibly, and I think
even the concept about amantium will probably play in heavily

(56:58):
down the line that it comes to this saga of
either characters getting it, either we get the origins of
Wolverine getting his adamantium clause or heck, even the new
version of Ultron, who in the comics is literally made
of the stuff, so you might get something along those lines.
And how the various countries will be fighting to get
their their hands on this this new mineral, and and

(57:19):
how they're gonna use it more often than not, when
we find something new and shine, you, we tend to
think of ourselves to ourselves, what military applications does this have?
So likely this is what's going to happen with this too,
So I can see what they're doing with the with
of course, the concept of adamantum and how it might
resurface during the course of this new saga. When it

(57:40):
comes to uh, you know, we're now Bucky. I was
happy to see Bucky, but like you, I was. I
was also kind of scratching my head and was like, okay,
so now now you're doing politics, because the last time
we saw Bucky was in Falcon and the Winter Soldier,
and he seemed like happy, go Lucky to kind of
chill for a while and just enjoy himself. I don't

(58:01):
know if somebody once said you're good, you should be
in politics, man, and so he decided to pursue that.
Because I'm really trying to wrap my brain around, wrap
my brain around why did Bucky go into politics. It's
just I hope we get an explanation maybe in Thunderbolts,
as to why he's doing this, because going once again

(58:22):
from Falcon Winter Soldier to to this, there's no hint
of Bucky might be interested in being in politics, because
even when we see him in that show, he doesn't
seem to be the guy you'd want to have as
a congressman. I'm not saying he's a bad dude, but
he's not exactly the most people person either. So I'm
wondering who it was that suggests this to him. Maybe Lady,

(58:46):
maybe Lady Valentine is behind this. She maybe whispered in
his ear saying, you could go far in politics, my friend,
and that's maybe why he's there. Hopefully we'll get some
questions answered when it comes to that. And you know,
last time, when it comes to even though the fact
of I said before we lived Tyler making a return,
I was very happy about that. I was pleased that
so that she returned, even albeit briefly. I doubt we'll

(59:09):
see her again. It would be interesting to see her
pair up with Mark Ruffalo, if that ever happens. But
I thought that was a that was a that was
a curious one, if you will, when it came to that,
even though it was I'm sure folks who've been following
the MCU for so long found it as it was
a nice payoff when it came to that situation. So
I am large, I'm I'm pleased with with with all

(59:31):
the things, but like I said, we'll see how things
turn out in a couple of months. When we returned
to the theater once again to talk more MCU so
I guess then getting to ratings, Keith, what do you
give this fourth Captain America movie out of ten?

Speaker 2 (59:50):
Hm? I don't know. I hate going with my standard
seven and a half out of ten, but this is
definitely one of those. It warrants it more than most,
so I'm gonna give it. I'll do it a little
bit better. I'm gonna go eight out of ten for
no other reason than the Red Hulk. Getting to see

(01:00:14):
him on screen was awesome. I wish we got to
see a little bit more of him, or actually a
lot more of him and potential groundwork for future movies.
I'm taking points off for Bucky the Winter Senator and
the Butzer Face the Dwarf Soldier because they were just

(01:00:36):
kind of extra characters we didn't necessarily need.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
Well, hopefull you warm up more to Ruth. It may
possibly in front of the boats if she makes a return.
I'm also going to get this an A out of ten.
I was very happy with this film. I'll be looking
forward to when it comes to streaming because I definitely
want to want to rewatch it. And as I said,
for the first first officially of Sam as Captain America. Yes,

(01:01:03):
he did call himself Captain American Falcon the Winter Soldier,
but this was his actual official, you know, party, coming
out party moment of being Captain in America. So I
thought it was It was a strong start to this character,
and with all the doubts that come with it, and heck,
it's Marvel. How many heroes have self doubt? We know
it's a big deal when it comes to Marvel characters.

(01:01:23):
We could literally throughout a shopping list of all the
Marvel characters that have self doubt. So it's now a
ten for me and definitely looking forward to seeing where
some of these characters we see go in this new
chapter in the MCU. So getting the recommendations, Keith, did
you have anything you'd like to recommence for our listeners
this week?

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
I would definitely have everybody check out the two thousand
and eight Red Hawk story or introduction to the character
show how the Marvel Comics actually did introduce him, and
they've left him a big question mark secret. They just
had Red Hawk and he just started beating everybody up
and it took several issues to finally explain his origins.

(01:02:07):
There's also the Ultimate Universe's version of the Leader, which
kind of lines up a little bit more with this
disfigured Leader that we have here. He had his entire
Inhuman series. Go check that out as well, And then
if you want a decent representation of the character in
quote unquote live action, they had the Avengers cartoon a

(01:02:29):
couple of years ago introduced the Red Hulk as well,
and that did actually a pretty good justice for a
live action for a lack of a better term, version
of the Hulk. So yeah, that's all I got this time.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Well, and it's always great stuff, you know, you piggybacking
off what you mentioned about the Leader. If you want
to see the origin of the Leader, folks in comic
book form, can you be sure to check out Tales
to Astonish issue sixty two from December of nineteen sixty four.
We will remember that yet, don't we. So if you
want to check that out, be sure to pick that up,

(01:03:03):
and it gives you literally where this character comes from.
Of course, an incredible Hulk villain for the longest time,
and created by two legends in comic books, Stanley and
Steve Ditko, an artist who I think does not get
enough credit but definitely deserves it. I mean Steve is
of course the co creator and some even say the
creator of Spider Man. So I think that speaks volumes.

(01:03:25):
So if you want to check that out, that's Tales
to Astonish issue sixty two from nineteen sixty four. Either
guess check out your local comic book store and see
if they have a you know, an issue of that.
If not, of course Comic Soology is your friend. You
could definitely pick it up in digital form. I did,
and I definitely enjoyed it from once again Comic Soology
free plug there, So if you ever feel like sponsoring

(01:03:46):
us by all means, so getting to Happiness in Darkness feedback,
we have some this week from our friend and fan
of the show, Aaron Case. So Eron writes in, and
I love the subject line and he can't do this
all day? Well played, there, Eron. Saron writes in, hey
de Jennik and Keith, Aaron, I have a high respect

(01:04:09):
to the Captain America trilogy. Not only do I find
it to be the most consistent trilogy in the MCU,
but I find myself thinking of it as one of
the best trilogies period. The first is a great World
War II period piece, the second an exhilarating political thriller,
and the third an excellent convict on the run experience,
and together an ever evolving saga of CAP's flight. So,

(01:04:32):
going into this fourth movie and the first in the
new trilogy featuring Mackie Sam Wilson, I can't help but
have high expectations. Unfortunately, as I walked out of the theater,
I just found myself thinking the same words Ross says
in the movie You'll know, Steve Rodgers. I don't dislike
this movie, but it's yet another instance of being a

(01:04:54):
by the numbers story that warrants little to no rewatch value.
Beginning with the positives, Mackie is a great actor, and
he gives his best, paired with Ramires, who comes out
of nowhere and charms as Torris. Perhaps what I liked
most here is now that Wilson has to be a
little more serious in upholding the Captain America mantle. Doris

(01:05:15):
provides the lightheartedness needed to balance the story As a
DC person. This relationship made me think about Robin keeping
Batman from becoming too serious. It seems like you and
Aeron I are thinking the same way there, Keith. Perhaps
the most important moment in the movie comes from Torris
making several jokes about his ability to not die, coming

(01:05:38):
face to face with the reality with the dangers of
being the New Falcon. Has is excellent as a black
widow trying to figure out who to align with, and
I enjoyed trying to figure out whose side she was on.
Lumley is a rare instance of a great character from
a TV series transitioning to the movies with ease. I
actually wish you would have been given a bigger role.

(01:06:00):
He agrees with both of us. There these four people
did their absolute best with what they were given. Here's
where I get into the negatives. This is a Hulk movie,
but with no Hulk. We have Leader born through the
events of the Incredible Hulk, Ross becoming Red Hulk, and
a cameo by Betty. But somehow all these Hulk characters

(01:06:21):
find themselves in a story where Captain America is the
main character. Nelson is fine as leader, and I always
welcome the idea of an intellectual villain, but he ends
up feeling like a lesser, less effective Baron. Zimo is spositor,
who we didn't talk about on this podcast, someone I
generally love as an actor and I agree's a fantastic actor.

(01:06:42):
Is just a waste of time and space in this movie.
I get the feeling that he was originally supposed to
be marketed as the main villain in order to hide
Red Hulk, but considering that revelation was spoiled, I find
his scenes to be little more than filler. So as
Keith had even mentioned Arin there was there was supposed
to be a bigger role for this Serpent Society, but

(01:07:03):
it got cut erin continues. Now for where this movie
fails Ford as Ross and the Red Hulk. First off,
Ford is fine, but he's playing a different character than
the one William Hurt created, and he just didn't command
the scenes like Hurt did. I was skeptical when Marvel
decided to recast, and unfortunately it just didn't pan out

(01:07:25):
like Marvel had hoped. Then there's the revelation of Ross
becoming Red Hulk, a plot point that was clearly intended
to be the big twist, if not for being spoiled. Now.
I don't know how much the two of you are
aware of how this plot point was spoiled, but it's
fascinating how this spoiler is due to some behind the
scenes issues between Marvel and McDonald's. The movie was originally

(01:07:50):
set to release at the beginning of May of twenty four,
with McDonald's scheduled to include toys of characters from the
movie in their happy meals that same month. When Marvel
delayed the movie, McDonald's was left with a warehouse full
of toys were asked to delay. The issue was that

(01:08:10):
they had no other toys available, so they were faced
with taking a financial loss by holding off or spoiling
the movie. Marvel said they wouldn't help cover the costs,
so McDonald's went ahead and rolled out the toys, spoiling
both Red Hulk and Sidewinder. Marvel was then forced into
acknowledging Red Hulk was a part of the movie and

(01:08:31):
recut a trailer showing Red Hulk because the cat was
out of the bag. Had none of this happened, I'd
be curious as to how well, the twist would have
worked probably better. All that aside, Red Hulk just doesn't
work as an enemy for this iteration of Captain America. Rogers,
as a super soldier, had the strength to go toe
to toe with a Hulk, but Wilson is just a

(01:08:52):
guy who gets his ass kicked. During this fight, I
found myself thinking of Rogers constantly getting knocked down, getting
back up, and defiantly claiming, of course I can do
this all day. Wilson looks like he's trying to remember
which pocket he's put his white flag in. Knowing he
can't overpower Red Hulk, so how does he win the fight?
He talks about Betty and Ross anti climactically. He talks

(01:09:16):
about Betty and Ross anti climactically gives up. This makes
me wonder does this mean Ross has better control of
his emotions than Banner did. Originally, Banner would rampage until
he got tired and roverted, but Ross instantly calms himself
down and changes back. Banner had to reconcile what it
means to be the Hulk in order to merge his

(01:09:37):
two personas, whereas Ross easily keeps his emotions in check
to prevent changing a second time. To me, this is
another example of this Ross being drastically different from Hurtz
Ross proof reading my message. I look at the line
I don't dislike this movie, and now that I'm at
my conclusion, I find myself thinking, I'm not sure I

(01:09:58):
like it either. Something I love about writing Into the
Two of You is that I get to sift through
my thoughts and arrive with a conclusion. This movie is
simply okay, but sadly proves to be yet another reminder
of just how Marvel has fallen since Endgame. I'm giving
this a six out of ten because the actors, especially Mackie,

(01:10:19):
make this movie just barely passable. Mackie deserves so much
better in his first starring role as cap Take care
erin So, Keith, did you have anything else you'd like
to add to this very in depth analysis from Aaron
when it comes to this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
So I'm gonna give him a little crap just because
you know I'm me. In terms of this Captain America trilogy,
the second Captain America which everybody loves the Winter Soldier
movie is James Bond. It is a generic movie you
can pluck Captain out. You can pluck the Winter Soldier out,
throw any two other goobers in there, any agent of Shield,

(01:10:59):
and literally the same exact end result, two goobers beating
themselves up on a shield carrier because of Hydra. So
it's very I thought that was one of the weaker movies.
And then you have the next Captain America Civil War,
which was just Avengers three because they couldn't come up
with a better story for Captain America. So again it

(01:11:20):
took all the Avengers to keep Humpty Dumpty back together again.
So I Kapp is one of those. He's good as
a character in a group, but up until recently his
stories in the comics have not really warranted all the hooplah.
You know, Chris Evans is a great actor. You know,
he plays his character perfectly. So I kind of the

(01:11:43):
Winter Soldier in this one. I kind of look at
in the same light in terms of they were okay,
they were super Generican paint by the numbers, and they
really with or without those movies, we could get to
the same points in the Marvel universe. It's just like,
this is what they were doing last week before the
planet blew up. They were saving the world from some

(01:12:05):
other weird shenanigans. So I mean, it's fine. It's a
movie to kind of fill in time between the bigger
plot points. But anybody who reads comic books knows you
usually get a filler issue before the next story arc,
or two filler issues, and this is to be expected.
So everybody thinks Marvel. And this is not against Aaron

(01:12:27):
or anybody in general, but the fact that everybody's like, oh,
they've mister Stride. Every movie can't be a banger. Every
movie cannot be a ten out of ten. Every movie
can't be five stars. Pick your whatever your analogy is.
There's always going to be a lull or a calm
before the storm. This is that calm before the storm.
This is showing a character what he's doing before the

(01:12:50):
big bad hits or what is going on, you know,
building out the universe in terms of what's going on.
It doesn't always have to be a level event in
every single movie, or pick your doctor Doom or any
other character. A Celestial is just a generic action movie

(01:13:12):
that happens to have superpowered beings. Could it have been
better one hundred percent? We'll never know because the original
cut had as I mentioned to you, and you had
mentioned the Serpent Society. This was probably supposed to be
closer to a James bond Ish type of movie, where
it's a lot more undercover, more cloak and dagger type

(01:13:32):
of stuff, and then the big reveal is Leader in
the Hulk. But because Disney wanted to be cheap and
McDonald's was being stupid, they ruined the movie for everybody,
I mean exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:13:45):
Speaking of which, did you know of this whole McDonald's
marvel debacle.

Speaker 2 (01:13:50):
I did not know of the Marvel, the McDonald's one.
I knew of the Funco Pop one. Fun Co somebody
had gotten their hands on some fun Co Pop figures
and on the side of the box had all the characters,
or the primary characters. So they had the Leader in it,
and it looked like the Leader from the comic books
that most of us are very familiar with. It had

(01:14:11):
Red Hulk, it had Sam, and it had Falcon and
I want to say there was one other one, but
all those characters were leaked way ahead of time. And
then McDonald had their thing. But I knew about it
from Bunco, so when they had Ross in it, I
just expected or thought there was going to be a
Red Hulk type of thing going on, and the fact
that they cast the Leader. Once you cast those two characters,

(01:14:33):
it's not hard to connect the dots as to what
characters are probably going.

Speaker 1 (01:14:37):
To be in this movie. That's exactly it. And I mean,
and also why we got the Trader that we got
because I was kind of surprised myself, Brunt, I did
not watch The Trader, but unfortunately social media spoiled it
for me there would be the Red Hulk in this film.
I mean, I ended up seeing the Trada when I
went to see another film. My video was Craving The Hunter.
When I actually got to see The Trade of four

(01:15:00):
or Captain America Braid New World, and I saw the
Red Hulk. But the Raid by that's haven't been spoiled
for me by social media. And I think it's crazy
because it does make it. It does it does make
you think that it would you would want to keep
that as a secret for your theater going audience. But
because of business deals and apparently this movie is supposed

(01:15:21):
to come out about a year ago, and then of
course this is like, Okay, we won't pay you back,
but we will acknowledge that the Red Hulk is in this,
so you guys can sell toys. So amazing. But then again,
also the whole Funko episode that you mentioned, Funko is
not new to doing that either. I mean we saw
this in Agatha all along as well, where certain characters

(01:15:41):
were revealed way before the episodes that would introduce and
reveal those characters came out. So it seems like either
as a communication issue between Marvel Studios and Funko, or
Funko is not aware of the main story points in
the movies they're making the toys fall, so like they're
given the list of characters that will be in said

(01:16:03):
film or said show, they'll make those, but they don't
know which ones are. This is don't do this one
yet because it's going to be a big review in
the show. That's my reasoning. Obviously. I don't think I
don't think funkers doing things because they're dumb. I think
it's because maybe they're not given enough information to where
this is a list of the characters we're doing. But
maybe you should put an asterisk next to someone saying

(01:16:25):
don't come out with this one yet because it's a
major plot point and don't feature this character on the
back of the box of other characters because it's a
major plot point, so it might be simply a lack
of communication between the two companies, unlike what happened between
Marvel and McDonald's. Like Erin gracefully illustrated for us, I

(01:16:45):
did not know that story, So thank you for a
loom you know, enlightening us with that story, Erin, And
thank you so much for your feedback. It's greatly appreciating,
really like the detail and heck giving making Keith and
myself freeby to things we would never have read about
or new of. So cheers man. So of course, the listeners,
if you want to be like Erin and send the

(01:17:07):
thoughts on the movies we discuss here, you can shoot
us an email to Happiness and Darkness how at gmail
dot com. Once again, Happiness and Darkness How at gmail
dot com. You can send your feedback again with any
movie that we discussed, doesn't have to be necessarily the
movie we're discussing currently. We can go back as all
the way back to our to our all the way

(01:17:28):
down our catalog, and even throw in your feedback on
other movies we discussed. We will read it and of
course if you are listening to us on such platforms
as Spotify or podcasts, you should have rate and review us,
as that of course keeps that algorithm stimulated and allows
our little show to grow even further. Big thank you
for those who have done so in the future. Thank
you to those who will so Keith, you're not here

(01:17:52):
discussing MCU films and all kinds of superhero films with myself,
Where can folks find you on the interwebs.

Speaker 2 (01:18:00):
Trying to take over the world? You know I need
a hobby, so then that way I can find trillions
of dollars and just live on an island somewhere with
my fun co figures and my dogs. Otherwise, you can
find me on our Facebook page and occasionally I pop
up on all our friends' podcasts. I will eventually be
gracing your podcast in the coming weeks, and what's the

(01:18:25):
other one star Trek the Undiscovered podcast I will be
popping back up again later this year. I had to
cancel my last appearance due to commitments, and then crazy enough,
I will be on the hour Comics that should be
recording tomorrow theoretically, so you'll hear a new hour of
comics with my scary voice, and you know, just keep

(01:18:49):
an eye out because I'm all over the place. If
you want to reach me, you can hit us up
on our Facebook page. You can just drop a message, comment,
whatever the case may be. I'm always ready, willing and
able to talk about anything cartoons, anime, manga lines, tigers
and bears online.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
Fantastic stuff for sure, and more about what Keith will
be talking about when it comes to the podcast that
he mentioned. When it comes to me, folks, you can
find it my day job hosting the radio show Whiskey
and Cigarettes. We play the very best and nothing but
the best of country music for you guys from Alabama
to Zach Brown from. More information about that you can

(01:19:24):
is our website which is Whiskey and Cigarettes show dot com.
Podcast Wise, you can find myself and those lobby ladies
Rachel Friend and Zan Sprouse on gold Standard the Oscars podcast,
where we have reviewed all the best picture winning movies
in chronologic order. We're now reviewing movies that we have
picked or we pick and also have returning in new
guest co hosts bring their favorite movies to the gold

(01:19:47):
Standard Theater and then, of course will be the case
on our upcoming episode where mister Keith Bliss will be
making his debut at the gold Standard Theater and the
movie that he has of course chosen, which is definitely
an interesting one because I had not seen this one
and that movie is Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
So I think it's going to make for a very

(01:20:09):
lively discussion for sure. In a couple of weeks as
of this recording, so Keith will finally make his debut
there and the last, but say not least myself and
Charles Skaggs will be returning to the Fandom's own podcast
next month speaking of Marvel and the MCU. We will
be tackling Daredevil Born again, so once again very excited
to do that and speinlings to come on this show

(01:20:32):
next time. We will be returning in two weeks folks,
as next week we are we going to go dark
as Keith has to plan on taking all over the world.
I have other plans going on too, so do not fret.
We'll be back in two weeks and we'll be taking
on what we had originally planned before this review, the
two thousand date Louis de Terrier film The Incredible Hulk

(01:20:52):
and Erin. I know that you have already sent in
feedback for that, so do not worry. It will be
read when we return. So are Keith any quick thoughts
or anything else I'd like to add on our next
movie or anything else before we sign off.

Speaker 2 (01:21:05):
No, just a quick shout out to our friend Rachel,
no pun intended. It is her birthday, so happy birthday
to her. Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:21:13):
Indeed, as of today, Rachel friend is the birthday girl,
so definitely a very very happy birthday to Rachel, my
co host on Gold Standing Hope. Rachel, if you're listening,
you had a wonderful day. That said, Folks, thanks to
always this is Show and supporting us. We'll be returning
in two weeks with the incredible Hulk. Until then, thank
you so much for the privilege of your time.

Speaker 3 (01:21:34):
Stay super Chow Moppy. No no, no no