Movie Review: Spider-Man - No Way Home

Spider-Man: No Way Home [2021]

Yeah, this review took me a while to write. I knew it was going to take a while, due to how impactful the Spider-Man movies had been to me as a younger child, but I didn't really know how much. It's no exaggeration to say that this movie really did cause me to delay almost all the preceding (and succeeding) MCU Phase 4 movies being reviewed on this blog by half a year or so. 

And... that's mostly because there was no way for me to talk about this movie without fanboying a lot. Which, I think, is what this movie is all about. It's just a love letter to Spider-Man's cinematic history, both before and during the character's tenure in the MCU. It's also a way of solving a bunch of character plot points that the previous movies never got to complete, while also giving the MCU Spider-Man character a soft reboot. Also, it has some of the funnest CGI action scenes we've seen in a while, and a lot of surprise cameos. 

In short: the actual most ambitious crossover movie.

We knew Infinity War and Endgame was coming. When Spider-Man: No Way Home was announced, and that it was going to feature some returning villains from the previous Tobey Maguire/Sam Raimi and Andrew Garfield/Marc Webb movies, I was... I was excited, but I didn't hold my breath. Then Alfred Molina's Dr. Octopus, one of my all-time favourite villains, shows up in one of the trailer! Willem Defoe's Green Goblin shows up after that! Jamie Foxx's Electro! 

The problem is... how much will they show up in the movie itself? Are they going to be the main villains? Are Green Goblin and Sandman and whoever just going to be voice cameos? Hell, I made it a point to remain absolutely unspoiled about this movie, and I did not dare to imagine that they would ever get Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield to reprise their roles not as Uncle Ben or whatever, but as multiversal hopping versions of their Spider-Men. 

(I'm going to refer to them as Tobey!Spider-Man and Andrew!Spider-Man, because I get confused using the directors and the Peter-1, Peter-2 and Peter-3 designations the movie uses confuses me)

And... and if we're really getting down to it, the plot of No Way Home is pretty simple. Hell, it's actually somewhat convoluted when you think about it too much. After a magic spell gone awry, Dr. Strange tasks Spider-Man and his supporting cast to round up the villains, who are seemingly plucked from their home universes at the moment of their deaths. After some handwaving and some 'killing is bad' arguments, Peter and his friends decide that the best way to do so is to rehabilitate them. That is a question that raises a whole can of worms -- not in the least the fact that Sandman was already more or less a nice guy at this point; and both Lizard and Dr. Octopus could easily be 'cured'. And there's also the rather iffy paradox of, say, returning Dr. Octopus back into his timeline right as he's drowning? Or Norman Osborn right as he's about to be impaled by a glider? 

But let's just handwave that to multiversal magic, and it's not often that a movie gets me so hyped up even almost a year after watching it that I can go 'yeah, fuck the logic'. The actual reason is that the writers wanted to take a lot of these under-developed and under-utilized villains and give them a sendoff. Obviously not all of them take equal billing -- the Lizard is reduced to a one-note 'haha, I turn people into lizards' joke, while Sandman just seems tired to be around everyone else. But Electro has often been hailed as the best character in Amazing Spider-Man 2 that just peters out without really getting any sort of catharsis or payoff to his villain story, while we finally get a version of Green Goblin that actually goes back and forth between Norman and Goblin, and also becomes extremely personal to Peter instead of being a starter villain. Admittedly, Defoe's Goblin was one hell of a memorable starter villain in Spider-Man, but here we get to see just why Willem Defoe was so impressive back in 2002. 

And Daredevil's here, too! Matt fucking Murdock, played by Charlie Cox from Netflix. He gets such an underrated role in that scene where he just gives a virtual middle finger to Mysterio's plan to ruin Spider-Man, and boy what a great cameo he got. 

And that's without bringing in Tobey!Spider-Man and Andrew!Spider-Man! I actually cheered when Andrew!Spider-Man came through that stupid ring, because I genuinely had no idea that it was going to happen. The villains have really stolen the show for me, and to see him interact with the MCU cast? And then when 'some dude' shows up, and it's the very first superhero I have ever seen in live-action, Tobey Maguire's Spider-Man in all his dorky youth pastor glory? 

Again, the movie does a great job at having the two senior Spider-Men give their own perspectives on forgiveness and tragedy. Where the movie falters a bit on the comic-book multiversal logic of it all, it does a great job at tying the actual themes together. Is MCU!Peter's bull-headed quest to ignore (and even fight) Dr. Strange in the interest of trying to redeem everyone as much of a mistake as him fucking up Dr. Strange's memory erasure spell? We get some genuinely great scenes between May and MCU!Peter discussing this, and when characters like Dr. Octavius and Norman Osborn are genuinely freed from their 'demons', so to speak... Andrew!Peter also talks a lot about self-forgiveness, something he would have to learn to do after his failure to save Gwen Stacy, and one must remember that Tobey!Peter's last movie had him freak out and go all ham in basically punching to kill Sandman, the guy who shot Uncle Ben. It is actually extremely poignant, I feel, that he was the one that stopped MCU!Peter from impaling Green Goblin on his own glider.

Green Goblin, too, I feel, gets the bulk of the screentime and I absolutely love him. We genuinely see the confused, scared Norman flip back and forth between his Norman persona and the control-freak Goblin persona, and when the Goblin comes out, man is he brutal. He goes straight for what will hurt Peter Parker most, he goes straight for the kill, and he just feels so... so personal, you know? Electro, Ock and Lizard feel like they're just trying to cling on to their power, while Sandman just refuses to be denied the chance to go home, but Goblin is genuinely vile and is out to hurt people, and Willem Defoe's acting between the two (and they even preserved the tooth prosthetic 'tell') personalities is appropriately threatening.

Again, the movie itself could be really be a lot better, either by cutting some plotlines or giving it a bit more runtime. It is a bit irritatingly convenient that serums and magic rings can solve most of their problems, but the acting and the action really does end up being so well done that it distracts me from all the nitpicking I would otherwise have with the movie. 

Let's talk about the other heroes, too. Daredevil cameo making me all excited notwithstanding, it's interesting that we do get Dr. Strange seemingly as an alternate mentor to Peter after Iron Man's death. And Dr. Strange is... he's just so 1000% done with the kid after the memory spell gets fucked up. I really do think that Strange is kind of underutilized in this movie, but that's a good thing. The movie already has way too many characters already, and having Spider-Man use math to tie Dr. Strange and leave him in that train-mirror-dimension is absolutely the right thing to do as far as pacing goes. And, I guess, the biggest usage of Dr. Strange here is to show a more cold-hearted, ruthless way to handle things, which is to leave these 'villains' to their fate.

Also interestingly utilized is May Parker. Up until Endgame, it is a very valid criticism that very few people on the good side ever suffer any sort of tragedy. But building May up as a supporting character over a couple of movies, and then giving her a major supporting role here to both Peter and Norman, and later having her die of her wounds? She gets to be Uncle Ben, so to speak, but instead of dying early on in an obligatory origin story death (and I think it's still heavily implied that MCU's Uncle Ben had the same fate), we actually know and care for Aunt May which makes us really feel MCU Peter's rage and anger and hurt and no small amount of guilt. And when "with great power, comes great responsibility" hits, it really hits. 

I'm really not sure how I feel about the ending of the movie, with the aftereffects of the new memory spell returning the people from the Tobey-verse and Garfield-verse to their respective realities... but also wipes out MCU Spider-Man's real identity from everyone's minds. It just feels like a rather odd way to do a soft-reboot, although I do appreciate a future Spider-Man movie that stars on him being less of a member of the Avengers or as Iron Man's protege and more as... Spider-Man himself. Not the biggest fan of this conclusion, though it is a very well-acted series of scenes by Tom Holland, Zendaya and Jacob Batalon. 

I really could go on and on and discuss Spider-Man, Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, Electro, Sandman and Lizard. I really could. But I think this review so far has been pretty successful in showing how much I am excited about this movie, and how much I love their character arcs. The fight between Spider-Man and Doc Ock with the cars? The Electro/Sandman/Spider-Man three-way in the trainyard? Green Goblin revealing his true colours and just attacking everyone, ramming Spider-Man through the apartment building? The final battle of three Spider-Men facing against the elemental forces of Electro and Sandman (oh and Lizard's there too)? Spider-Man fighting Dr. Strange with math? Green Goblin's epic arrival on the final battle and how he beats up Doctors Strange and Octopus with ease? The primal glider-stab that MCU Peter is about to do on Goblin? Man, so much good stuff.

And... and I get it. So much of this movie rides on its hype and it bringing back Maguire, Garfield, Defoe, Foxx, Molina and the rest. Yes, it's not something that's likely to be anywhere as exciting if they do it with another franchise, nor, I think, are they able to do it. Yes, after the movie is over, you really do have a lot of questions on the nature of the memory-erasure spells. Honestly, though, even if you're being absolutely cynical, this is still a very solid superhero movie on its own. 

But you know what? I really do think that a superhero movie is supposed to get you excited, and I don't think any other movie other than maybe Infinity War has managed to get me as excited as this one. One of my all-time favourite superhero movies for sure, and while it's got a huge subjective and nostalgic bias... I'm pretty sure that's on purpose. 

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• Post-Credits Scene:
• The mid-credits scene shows what happens to Eddie Brock from Venom: Let There Be Carnage... and he's just hanging out at a bar, missing out on all the multiversal madness while he argues with Venom, and gets bamboozled by mentions of Hulk and Thanos. He gets blipped back to his own universe, but leaves behind a single Symbiote blob.
• The post-credits scene is just a trailer for Dr. Strange: Multiverse of Madness.
• Future Movies Foreshadowing: Since we're not too many movies down the line, it's really hard to say, but we do foreshadow a bit on seeing the full scope of the multiverse when Dr. Strange breaks reality apart. There are billboards all over the city advertising Rogers: The Musical, which shows up in Hawkeye.
• Past Movie Continuity [MCU]: 
• Daredevil! Daredevil appears, played by Charlie Cox, which essentially confirms that the Netflix TV shows are canon to MCU after some flip-flopping. He still shows off what a badass he is with his blind reflexes. He also refuses to help people who are lying, which he can tell with his super-senses.
• Notably, Daredevil has a relatively longer scene talking to Happy Hogan. Happy's actor Jon Favreau played Foggy Nelson in the 2003 Daredevil movie.
• The events of Spider-Man: Far From Home (with Mysterio's identity reveal) and Avengers: Endgame are continually referred to in this movie that it would be pedantic for me to list all of them.
• Dr. Strange and Spider-Man's fight briefly takes them through the Mirror Dimension from Doctor Strange, and he also does the 'push someone's astral form out of their body', something Ancient One did in Doctor Strange and Avengers: Endgame.  
• The sketches that MJ did of Peter in detention in Spider-Man: Homecoming are framed in her room. 
• Peter's "I Survived My Trip To NYC" shirt that Tony gave him in Homecoming is the one he changes into after he gets back to his apartment. 
• Throughout the movie, MJ wears the broken pendant from Far From Home.
• The mugshot for Happy used in the news is the long-haired Happy from the prologue flashback in Iron Man 3.
• Past Movie Continuity [Tobey and Garfield Movies]:
• In a general rule, the plotlines and ultimate fates involving Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, Sandman, Lizard and Electro are all brought up at some point or another, and each subsequent villain is at least vaguely aware of the preceding villains' fate. 
• Norman quotes his (in)famous "you know, I'm something of a scientist myself!" line from Spider-Man, itself having grown into a meme. It makes sense in context, though!
• Green Goblin yells out "can the Spider-Man come out to play?", which he does in Spider-Man.
• Tobey!Peter mentions having had a 'web block' before, referencing a subplot in Spider-Man 2 where his emotional state causes him to have problems with his powers.
• Doc Ock keeps repeating the line "the power of the sun in the palm of your hand" in reference to his master plan in Spider-Man 2, which kind of becomes a running gag. He actually gets to hold one when he sees the Stark reactor. 
• Doc Ock mentions 'killing [Peter]'s little girlfriend', a reference to how he kidnapped Mary Jane in Spider-Man 2.
• When Tobey!Peter and a sane Otto Octavius finally get to meet each other, they repeat their first meeting lines ("trying to do better!"), and smile knowingly at the reference. 
• Tobey!Peter mentions that he's been stabbed before, something that Harry does to him in Spider-Man 3. 
• The 'new start' that MCU!Peter does involves him getting into an apartment with a landlord that is all about rent, similar to the Tobey movies. 
• Lizard is missing a finger on one of his arms, consistent with how his arm regenerated imperfectly after Captain Stacy shot it in Amazing Spider-Man.
• Electro is briefly seen in his bright-blue form from Amazing Spider-Man 2 as he recreates his body above the railways, although he would later reform into his full human body. 
• The way that MJ almost died in this movie is, obviously, meant to parallel shot-for-shot Gwen Stacy's death in Amazing Spider-Man 2. Of course, Garfield!Spider-Man actually manages to save her this time.
• Tobey!Peter has a whole scene of him having back problems. The actor Tobey Maguire famously had a lot of back problems (which led to Spider-Man 2 nearly not being a thing), and there were lines in his movies alluding to this too, including the memetic "ow, my back!"
• Both Tobey!Peter and Garfield!Peter note how their respective best friends (Harry Osborn for both) went evil and tried to kill them. The comics version of Ned actually does become the Hobgoblin, although not voluntarily. 
• Tobey!Peter insists that Garfield!Peter is "amazing", telling him to repeat it multiple times, which is a nod to how his film series is called the Amazing Spider-Man series. 
• When discussing previous foes, Tobey!Peter brings up Venom from Spider-Man 3, while Garfield!Peter bemoans that Rhino from Amazing Spider-Man 2 sounds lame next to Venom and Thanos. 
• Multiple themes from the five non-MCU Spider-Man films appear, most prominently Dr. Octopus's theme from Spider-Man 2 heralding his grand entrance, Green Goblin's theme from Spider-Man also in his first entrance, the theme of Amazing Spider-Man being used as the Daily Bugle Tiktok theme; and the very distinctive dubsteb of Electro's theme "My Enemy" when he first attacks Spider-Man.
• Less of a reference, but both Sandman and Lizard's "back to human" scenes are basically their respective scenes from Spider-Man 3 and Amazing Spider-Man transposed via CGI, because neither Thomas Haden Church nor Rhys Ifans were available to physically reprise their role.
• Movie Superhero Codenames: Almost everyone gets to use their superhero codenames (which is hilarious when there are three Spider-Men running around), though our heroes do alternate back and forth on also calling Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, Electro, Sandman and Lizard by their human names since this movie is all about humanizing them. 
• Favourite Action Scene: The final battle of three Spider-Man swinging around? Not even the huge CGI battle against the previous Spider-Man enemies, but just seeing Tobey, Garfield and Holland's Spider-Men doing what a spider does. The original Dr. Octopus fight and the Electro/Sandman clashes were great, too.
• Funniest Line: Garfield!Spider-Man: "So are you gonna go into battle dressed like a cool youth pastor, or do you have a suit?"
• The legendary meme of 'Spider-Man pointing at himself' meme from the 60's cartoon is done in live-action, albeit with the three Spider-Men being uncostumed and none of them is actually an impostor.
• Among the silhouettes seen on the cracks to the multiverse, you could make out the very distinct silhouettes of Kraven the Hunter, Scorpion and a more comic-accurate version of Rhino, three more of Spider-Man's classic rogues' gallery. There are many debates on who some of the other silhouettes are supposed to be (some people swear they saw Black Cat) but these three are probably the most obvious. 
• MCU's MJ also technically has the surname Watson, but she hates it because it reminded her of her dad. 
• Flash Thompson has dyed his hair blonde, which makes him a bit more similar to his comic-book counterpart. 
• Norman Osborn shattering the Green Goblin mask and leaving it broken in the foreground of the shot as he walks away is a homage to the iconic 'Spider-Man No More!' from Amazing Spider-Man #50, albeit that is Peter leaving the Spider-Man costume behind. 
  
• When Peter is out in his astral form, waves of 'Spider-Sense' emanate out of his physical body, more or less identical to how the Spider-Sense is visually depicted in the comics.
• Electro and Garfield!Spider-Man discuss about there being a black Spider-Man somewhere, which, of course, is a reference to Miles Morales. 
• The joke about Spider-Man having spider-pheromones that can subtly mind-control others of the opposite gender is actually the power of Jessica Drew, Spider-Woman. 
• Graffiti that says 'Ditko', after one of Spider-Man's co-creators Steve Ditko, appears on the van Lizard is in, as well as in the background of the rooftop scene with Peter and MJ. 
• When Spider-Man fights Dr. Octopus, one of the cars has the plate 63A5M-3. Dr. Octopus debuted in 1963's The Amazing Spider-Man #3.
• Electro's lightning bolts form his distinctive comic-book counterpart's star-shaped mask, albeit out of lightning. 
• In a very easy-to-miss scene, Liz Toomes, Vulture's daughter from Homecoming, has starred in an article defaming Peter Parker for being a liar. 

One Piece 1055 Review: "Nothing Happened"

One Piece, Chapter 1055: New Age

So picking up from the previous chapter, we sort of tie up the post-Wano arc with Ryokugyu, and... and it's something that I'm pleasantly surprised is able to be done as neatly. And a lot of this, I felt, hinges on Momonosuke's actions in this chapter. He's stopping Yamato from attacking Ryokugyu because he wanted to prove to the Straw Hats (of which he considers Yamato one now!) that the guardians of Wano can handle their own territory. When I read chapter 1054 last week, I was a bit worried on whether we're going to be rushing a confrontation with a brand-new Admiral, but I feel like these two chapters, despite all odds, ended up being very well-paced.

I'm not sure if there's a specific scene from One Piece itself or another shonen manga that this is reminding me of -- that a very specific person has to show that he/she is capable of defending himself/herself despite there being much more viable combatants in the field, but it's pretty damn cool. Ryokugyu, as much as a jackass he is, ends up being pretty damn cool, too. Raizou gets to use a fire release (presumably a Katon jutsu for all my fellow Naruto fans) but then Ryokugyu shows that he's able to utilize a certain technique called Fireproof Forest, allowing him to block that obvious weakness. Poor Raizou then gets drained of his water, though I'm going to assume that he's absolutely fine. The other Scabbards present -- Nekomamushi, Denjiro, Kawamatsu and Shinobu -- don't exactly get taken down, but they're immobilized by the wood tendrils. 

Skipping a bit ahead in the actual chapter, Ryokugyu rants about how Kaidou's tyranny has been a deterrent that kept other predators from attacking Wano... but then it's Momonosuke's time to shine. He talks about how Yamato has been waiting to go off to sea for so long, that he's been relying on Luffy and the Straw Hats for too long... and it's about god damn time that Momonosuke, newly-crowned shogun of Wano, defend his own country in order to prove that, yes, Wano is a country that can stand on its own. 

Which leads to the very badass moment where Momonosuke's Blast Breath from the previous chapter... actually succeeds, and he sends a whole goddamn Hyper Beam straight through Ryokugyu's giant wood man form. Is this the worst actual damage that a Blast Breath has actually done to a character and not just the terrain? 

And after Momonosuke's speech and his character development over the course of the Wano arc? You know what? I'm really liking this kid. I'm still pissed that we never really quite got a 'Momo raises Onigashima like Oden raises the pot' moment properly highlighted in the manga, but this? This scene of Momonosuke giving a speech about protecting Wano while fighting in the shadows, ostensibly away from all of his allies? This is badass. 

Ryokugyu isn't exactly defeated, even though the... the vessel? The avatar? The wood-form? Got roasted to hell by Momonosuke. There's a cool shot of a little sprout growing back and recreating Aramaki's full body -- which is a very cool visual. Ryokugyu is about to go all serious... but then a blast of black lightning emanates from the ocean, and it's Shanks. Yes! Okay, okay now we're talking. I was a bit miffed that last chapter Shanks shows up and does nothing, although that "we'll get the One Piece" line is pretty shivers-inducing. But he ends up unleashing a blast of Conqueror's Haki that freezes Ryokugyu in the spot and essentially sends him running away from Wano with his tail between his pants.

Shanks has an absolutely badass angry expression on his face as he says "does the New Age frighten you that much?" and... and, shit, clearly Ryokugyu is frightened of the old age, because Shanks sending his Conqueror's Haki is enough to get him pissed off and running away. 

And that's cool. That's badass. Momonosuke gets his badass moment, Ryokugyu gets to be an antagonist but gets disposed of in a way that is believable but doesn't make him look too bad (he was still ready to rumble), and Shanks gets to be relevant and look so fucking badass by stopping a Marine Admiral just by literally flexing. 

And, the best part of it? We get the revelation that Luffy, Zoro, Sanji and Jinbe sitting on a cliff overlooking the whole conflict, ready to jump in to help out Momonosuke if he's actually in danger, but content to let Momonosuke do his fight and protect his values and his people. After all of Luffy and Momo's interactions, and Luffy recognizing things like allowing the Scabbards to be the one to strike the first blow of the Onigashima raid and all that? It really does feel very much in-character for them to do that. Very cool sequence, and a nice way to make everyone involved feel competent.

The middle portion of the chapter has more to do with some exposition. Robin and Sukiyaki are joined by Law, who's joined the group off-screen and... and I'm not going to repeat every single part of the exposition here since a lot of it has to do with Wano's unique topography, but essentially, 'opening the borders' for Wano involves literally breaking apart the gigantic earthen walls that have served as a ginormous bowl that has been keeping Wano's internal 'ocean' intact. It's always something that the arc has basically told us since day one of the arc when we were scaling the fountain up the mountain into a secluded area, but the fact that it was man-made and that it relates to the 'borders' really is something we should've put together a lot earlier. 

Sukiyaki notes that Kaidou's group was able to see the bottom parts of the oceanic parts of Wano, including the old-Wano of 800 years ago, because they had Jack the fishman on their crew. Sukiyaki shows the Lode Poneglyph to Robin and Law, and it's the penultimate Poneglyph before we can draw the big X to the One Piece... and Sukiyaki notes that while he doesn't know the specifics, if they go a bit deeper, yes, Pluton is in the depths of the ocean. 

And I wonder. Since the other two Ancient Weapons are Poseidon (Greek God of the Oceans) and Uranus (Roman God of the Skies), then Pluton... Pluton's named after Pluto, Roman God of the Underworld, but one of the domains of Pluto/Hades is the deep earth itself. Is Pluton also a weapon able to create the giant earthen walls that creates the huge earth-walls of Wano? Is Pluton the thing responsible for creating the Red Line, if the Red Line does turn out to be artificial?

A lot of great questions! But the Ryokugyu stuff really does a great job at being a little post-Wano excitement. We got a lot of Revolutionary set-up last chapter, and Ancient Weapon set-up this chapter. Shanks! Yamato joining the crew! A lot of great moments. Honestly, I've really been enjoying this post-Wano arc... all I really want now is some confirmation about Kaidou and Big Mom's fates, and then we're golden for sailing to Elbaf or wherever we're going next! 

Random Notes:

• I really haven't been paying much attention to the marketing behind Film: Red, but that is meant to be Uta in the montage of flashbacks, right? The left-most panel where there's a figure in silhouette?
• This chapter also comes with a one-page manga prologue to Film: Red, starring Uta. 
• Despite what Pokemon teaches us, there are actually fireproof wood. Or rather, wood with high fire resistance. Like birch or cedar! Hell, regular plants themselves tend to have high enough water content in them that unless it's extremely dry or the fire is extremely hot, they don't catch fire as easily as Pokemon might have you believe. 
• Wait, so Conqueror's Haki also lets you communicate through distances? ...okay, sure. 

Movie Review: One Piece: Film Gold

One Piece Film: Gold [2016]

 

...I never reviewed this, huh?

Out of the One Piece movies with Oda's involvement, Film: Gold has kind of been the black sheep of the family. Strong World was great because of how simple it is. Z had the best and most mature story. Stampede was kind of a mess near the end, but no one cared because of the heavy 'let's have everyone fight' fanservice. And then there's Gold, which... which is just kinda there. 

And it's kind of a shame, because Film: Gold really isn't a terrible movie at all! It's very solid! It's just... kinda there. But man, what a stylish movie, especially in the first 10 minutes. Film: Gold starts off with a musical number, "Gold & Jive ~ Silver Ocean", which... I tend to not mention music in these reviews, but this was an absolutely grand sequence. Especially when it transitions seamlessly into our obligatory "Straw Hat Pirates fight against a bunch of riffraff" at the beginning of any given movie. It's easily one of the smoothest-animated sequences of these sort that I've actually seen in a One Piece movie, and it's just kind of a shame that the rest of the movie doesn't actually live up to it. 

I actually do like the setup of the Gran Tesoro, where it's essentially shown to be a super-large resort area -- a giant, mobile Las Vegas that moves through the ocean. There's a bit of a darkness going on, though, because the loser Long Long Pirates got essentially straight-up murdered by Gild Tesoro, the leader of the country-casino, and dragged down and transformed into gold. And while we do have our Straw Hat characters have a lot of fun in gambling -- including a Wacky Races inspired segment -- it's clear that the poor is suffering in this country as well. 

And here's probably where something that most fans probably noticed about One Piece. The movies tend to be a bit of a riff on a recent arc in the manga or anime, and this one is basically just Dressrosa, but with a casino flair and with a lot less setup. A country that looks so happy, but the underbelly hides a lot of sins. 

As our Straw Hats run along and make some fun, they eventually enter the 'VIP' lounge with the alluring Baccarat, who later uses the power of her Luck Luck Fruit to sabotage Luffy during a winning streak... though, to be fair, Luffy is being an idiot by going 'all in' with basically every bet he does. With this loss, Gild Tesoro shows up and enforces the rules of the casino, trapping Zoro and taking him out of the rest of the movie with his awakened Gold Gold Fruit. He holds Zoro hostage, and our heroes need to pay back their debt before a certain time. 

...and then the movie's pacing kind of languishes. One of Gild Tesoro's lackeys, Carina, show up and reveals herself to be Nami's old friend. They talk a bit about how they had a shared backstory and... and I appreciate it because it's trying to make this into a bit of a Nami focus (the way Stampede had a strong Usopp focus) but a lot of the actual Nami/Carina stuff is just briefly alluded to and feels incomplete if you haven't watched Heart of Gold, the accompanying anime-special-episode. 

The subsequent heist segment is actually pretty fun, mostly due to the animation and the energetic voice-acting, but it doesn't last really all that long when Luffy and Franky find themselves in the 'prison' area, and I felt like that's probably the weakest part of the movie because the whole 'we can survive if we have the motivation' resolution by the morale-dead prisoners felt a bit too cheap. 

Speaking of the movie feeling incomplete, so is Gild Tesoro's backstory. You can piece together his backstory by looking at the brief bits of one-panel flashbacks that he has throughout the movie, and his weird antics like being angry at people who laugh without his permission, and his brief dialogue with Spandam at around this point in the movie... but a lot of Gild Tesoro's backstory -- that he was a poor slave who tried to buy the freedom of the slave woman he loves, only for that to be thrown in his face by a Celestial Dragon, thus leading to his warped mentality of 'money is power'... all of that is in the movie, but you really have to be dissecting the movie to find it out. Apparently there's some prequel comic or hand-out that explains Tesoro's backstory in the theaters, which... yeah. For most casual viewers, Tesoro just ends up feeling like a poor man's Doflamingo. 

Unlike Z and Stampede, the subplots here really don't make too much sense either. Spandam showing up is... okay, sure, but then we get an entire subplot of the Revolutionaries having an agent within Gran Tesoro -- Raise Max. Who... who I think is meant to be kooky-yet-inspirational, but ends up just feeling kind of incompetent. This is my second time watching Film: Gold in preparation to do this review and the scene in the prison with Raise Max and the other prisoners just feels like very... basic and drags on and on. There's a lot of neat symbolism here, of course -- the prisoners are stuck in a prison filled with a lot of gold that they can't do anything about... but all that sequence just feels kind of long. Toss in the obligatory "oh no, poor oppressed children" subplot running concurrently through it, and it's just a bit too much. Take out one or two of these sub-plots, and replace it with Gild Tesoro's backstory, which I feel would've also made the same point. 

The multi-chess-play revelation that 'oh, it's a trap by Tesoro' and then 'oh, Carina anticipated it' are cool, sure, but you can't tell me that they banked on Luffy and Franky somehow coming into that flooded room just at the right time? 

Anyway, through these convoluted series of events, they caused Gran Tesoro's golden powder shows to shoot out seawater instead, nullifying the power of Gild Tesoro's gold flakes that he has injected within every person within Gran Tesoro... at which point friendship is more important than money, yadda yadda yadda, time for the final fight. 

Oh, somewhere around this point, Sabo and Lucci have a fight that we don't get to see outside of Gild Tesoro. It's like, the movie wants to insert a lot of cameos here, yeah? Just like Z and Stampede? Spandam shows up, Doflamingo is Gild Tesoro's benefactor, et cetera... except... if you're going to include hype characters like Lucci and Sabo, I think keeping them almost entirely offscreen after a single clash is going to piss off the audience more than make them happy. 

Anyway, the final battle is... it's all right, I guess. Luffy going Gear Fourth and facing off against Tesoro is kind of whatever. Tesoro transforms himself into a giant golden statue robot version of himself, and... okay, that's a form of awakening, I guess? His money-makes-right mantra gets challenged when his fodder goons start to run away, but ultimately it just boils down to him ranting and yelling and shooting golden lasers before Luffy ultimately does a huge Gomu Gomu Leo Rex Bazooka to knock him down. 

Gild Tesoro's goons are a bit more fun. Zoro faces off against Dice, who's masochistic and gets all excited any time he gets cut, but there's really no proper sense of threat from him. Tanaka, the weird cat-man with Kitty Pryde powers, is a lot more interesting, and I actually like that it's Robin abusing her Hana Hana no Mi powers to grab Tanaka since she figured out that the cat-man (?) can't phase through organic matter. And, of course, the fan-favourite from this movie, Baccarat and her Luck Luck Fruit, ends up with the most fun action sequence and gets appropriately defeated by Usopp 'using up' all her luck. 

Ultimately, though, the climax kind of falls a bit flat. I really did feel like the writers and creators of this movie wanted to make a point with Tesoro -- of someone who was oppressed and abused, but ultimately became the very system that oppresses and abuses and takes away from others. But the movie itself is so kind of confused and muddled, and the dialogue in the final fight kind of devolves into generic shonen protagonist fare.

The animation and voice-acting of this movie is still great, and I wouldn't say the movie is bad... but it's definitely the weakest one out of the (currently) four Oda-penned One Piece Films. 

One Piece 1054 Review: Plant Boi

One Piece, Chapter 1054: Flame Emperor

How is that break, huh? Everyone had their One Piece withdrawals? Well, we finally get 1054! Ryokugyu is just walking slowly through the Flower Capital while Yamato and the Scabbards all pile on to him, and Ryokugyu talks about his whole 'justice' ideal. And his opinion is basically that anyone not allied with the World Government has 'no human rights', and... and he's actually a fair bit more unhinged than Akainu, at one point talking about how 'discrimination creates solace'. Ryokugyu has a very strict idea of what ínferior and superior is, and believes that society runs on that discrimination, I guess.

Also, he's a Logia-type Devil Fruit that ate the 'Woods Woods Fruit', and can summon giant wood fists and turn himself into like this wood tsunami monster. Yamato seems to be the only one who can do anything to damage him, whacking his head down with a Conqueror Haki infused strike. Dragon-mode Momonosuke also attempts to help out... only for his 'Blast Breath' to just kind of fizzle out into nothing. He tried, the poor fellow. There's a great panel where we zoom into his face and he's clearly scared, but damn, the boy is at least standing up to the enemy of his country. 

This whole scene ends with Ryokugyu grabbing Momonosuke with his giant wood tendrils and demanding that Yamato not fight, though we really don't get to hear the reason why. 

And then SHANKS randomly out of nowhere and... okay, there's always some degree of hype where ol' scarface is involved, but Shanks' ship is just passing through Wano. We get to see some of the original chapter 1 characters, including, of course, Yasopp being a terrible dad and mumbling about how he's not ready to see Usopp. We get to see a brief flashback of the Red-Haired Crew attacking a young Who's Who and his CP9 vessel, a little recap of Shanks and Luffy's first encounter, and... and I actually do like the little shot of a bunch of random new recruits (including some sort of bizarre gorilla demon creature) gossiping about why Shanks likes Luffy so much. 

Shanks, however, apparently isn't going to set foot in Wano, and is going off to deal with Bartolomeo setting fire to Shanks' flags... before pouring a wine cup in front of Benn Beckman and he goes "let's claim the One Piece".

I never quite get as super-excited as Shanks as most people do (his last appearance is more exciting due to the fact that it involves the Gorosei and Marie Geoise more than anything but that last shot? Badass. 

We then cut to Akainu, Kizaru and a new high-ranking marine called Kurouma -- not an admiral, but part of the 'Bureau of Investigation'. This mystery has been dragged on for a bit too long, but finally we get confirmation of the strange Sabo mystery that we've had during the Reverie arc. Sabo is now called 'Flame Emperor', he's allegedly killed Nefertari Cobra, burned the living area of the Celestial Dragons, and there was an offscreen battle between Fujitora and Ryokugyu against the Revolutionaries that managed to free Kuma as well. Also, Vivi disappeared. Now whether Vivi was taken by the Revolutionaries or Im... 

...and it seems that the next arc will finally focus on the Revolutionaries, with something called the Eight Nation Revolution brewing, and so many people chanting and gathering under the literal giant flag of Sabo. I guess him killing a (former) Celestial Dragon and a king is something that causes the Revolutionaries to get riled up? The news claim that Sabo has more influence even than Dragon himself, and this is sparking huge waves all over the world. The chapter ends with a huge Akainu declaration of bashing everyone to the depths of the ocean, and... well, I for one am just excited to see where we go from here! Again, the idea of the Revolutionaries being pretty involved is fun, and while I do enjoy the reveal of Ryokugyu's power and personality, I do really want to see what's going to happen with him. 

Random Notes:

• I'm back from a pretty long trip, and while you guys did get some updates from me as far as posts and reviews go, they are all of older material. I haven't actually blogged since... since probably the last One Piece chapter? I have a backlog of Revice, Ms. Marvel and a bunch of others to catch up, I have yet to complete Pokemon Legends Arceus and I do plan to finish the MCU reviews. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up eventually! 
• Aramaki gets rather bamboozled by the revelation that Yamato is Kaido's child. Yeah, that's going to be a "Franky needs to really leave Water Seven" moment for Yamato, I believe. 
• In the midst of all the Reverie follow-up, we get the note about what a mess Mjosgard and Charlos's fight are, and that there's a brand-new faction called the Holy Knights that are investigating. 
• I'm not entirely sure if Charlos's "attempted murder" is the conflict we've already seen in the Reverie arc, or if it's something else? As with everything else they are blaming it on Sabo.
• Whatever happens to Vivi -- whether Sabo rescued him or if we'll be going to rescue her or if Kuma paw-paw's her away, she's going to join the crew, right? Right?
• Kurouma means "Black Horse", and he shares the same "colour-x-animal" naming scheme as most of the Admirals and some of the Vice Admirals. 

Movie Review: Catwoman 2004

Catwoman [2004]

I felt kind of dirty even putting that 'DC Comics' tag on this post, but I guess I'm obliged to, since this is technically a movie based on a DC comics property?

I'm not someone who needs all my superhero characters' live-action adaptations to be 100% faithful to the comics. In fact, a lot of characters are actually improved when live-action adaptations tone down some of the dorkier aspects of a character's comic-book background, or retool them in the service of the main character of the movie.

2004's Catwoman, starring Halle Berry, is not one of those good adaptations. 

You know what's a good adaptation that deviates from its inspiration? The Catwoman that this movie is undoubtedly channeling -- Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in 1992's Batman Returns, where there's something almost mystical with Selina Kyle's origin story in that movie, where she was portrayed as being slightly mentally unstable, before falling off a roof and seemingly 'resurrected' after a bunch of cats surrounded her. 

Well, that cat scene, plus the backstory of 'working for a boss' as well as being 'sexy' and 'using a whip' as a weapon seems to be all that the designers of this movie cared about when they did this movie. Catwoman is not only reinvented as "Patience Phillips", but she also gains her powers from... poorly-explained magic powers of cats. And I've seen enough weird comic-book origins to not think of that as being too weird. But a combination of the fact that the movie doesn't even take that concept too far, and the fact that everything else around the movie is so otherwise mundane feels like this is a parody. A parody that puts Catwoman in the most stripper-esque outfit possible, and then focuses on long lingering shots that makes me roll my eyes. This movie is a great example of trying 'too hard to be sexy' and ending up with something that's just embarrassing. 

I know we just reviewed the similarly-not-that-well-regarded Elektra recently, but as dire as that movie's attempt to reinvent the mythos around the character is, that movie is at least a passable attempt at an adaptation. I try to think about all the worst superhero adaptations out there -- Inhumans, Suicide Squad, Man of Steel, Batman and Robin, Morbius -- and there's at least some attempt of adapting the source material. This one just feels like someone spent ten seconds googling someone's cliff's notes on what the Catwoman character is, then writing a whole script about it. 

And it's not even a good story, if we're taking this as "it's own thing". The plot of the movie itself is absolutely insipid, with Patience being straight-up killed after she stumbles upon the nefarious plot of... of side effects in beauty cream product. Because of course a movie about women has to be about beauty products, right? Patience nearly gets killed, gets resurrected with cat powers and some cat-psychosis, and then we find out that... uh... the beauty cream product gives people headaches (if Patience's over-the-top-thirsty friend is anything to go by) and causes its users to become sick. 

Except when it doesn't, because the main villain Laurel ends up lathering herself in so much of it that she gets "skin of marble". Which... is kind of stupid that they're trying to get this out as a mass product when it can apparently cause someone to become basically a superhuman. And let's not mention that the villains' big major plot is... to launch the product. For the good of the company. Except the product literally causes skin disintegration if you 'get addicted' to using it. It's so stupid, and when you consider that this plot point is probably chosen because the writer thought that a plot that isn't related to stereotypically 'girly' interests wouldn't appeal to the women in the audience, it gets stupid and offensive.

Honestly, the more I try to describe the plot revolving around Beau-Line, the more insipid it gets. You really know you have a banger of a plot on your hands when parody movies like, oh, Austin Powers or something have a more sensible plot than this. 

There's a lot of utterly insipid storylines too -- which maybe in the hands of a better director and writer might at least be decent. Patience gets some 'character development'... which amounts to her going from a meek-mild-mannered woman to... a lunatic that can't control her impulses and gorges herself on sushi? It's like they took Pfeiffer's Catwoman's increase in confidence and then cranks it up to eleven, not realizing the difference between 'sexily confident' and 'crazy'. There's a very generic and utterly forgettable romantic plot with the token love interest police guy, there's some investigation about secret identities with police guy, there's a convoluted storyline to make Catwoman look like a villain in the public's eyes that is so stupid that Golden Age comics look sane in comparison... and generally just terrible attempts to address sexism that people smarter than me have dissected online. 

Not to mention that they expanded the 'Catwoman wakes up and reinvents herself after being surrounded by cats' in Batman Returns into something utterly bizarre and unexplained, and any attempts to be 'mystical' to explain this just makes the plot even more stupid. Because apparently Patience is the latest in a long line of "Catwomen" empowered by magical Egyptian cats that apparently "knows a freedom other women never will"... which... uh... yeah, you need freedom granted to you by cat gods to yell at your boss, go all kleptomania over jewelry, excel at basketball, go ga-ga over catnip and gorge yourself on sardines. There's nearly no dignity or self-control with Patience's terrible attempt at showing "empowerment" -- which is treated something more akin to terribly-written split personality, which, I assume, is something that the writers probably intended except that the writing is so muddled that there really isn't any sort of resolution to Patience's character at all. 

Speaking of stupid plot lines, let me single out the stupid scene of Police Love Interest Guy's friend babbling some psychoanalysis about Catwoman and Patience's handwriting. I'm not sure if this is more stupid than the whole "we need to kill whoever listened to the fact that our beauty products will have severe side effects!" 

What about action scenes? Action scenes at least made movies like Blade Trinity or the Resident Evil movies watchable, right? The CGI is probably already dodgy for 2004, and it definitely gets worse now.  The final battle and that nonsensical basketball scene are also pretty damn chaotic -- I'm not someone who cares about good scene transitions or whatever, but god damn that final battle had some utterly nonsensical jump cuts. 

What about hammy, narm-y dialogue, though? I gain enjoyment from that from movies like Batman and Robin or Batman Forever or the Roger Moore Bond movies... but nope. Where someone like Schwarzenegger's Mr. Freeze might own it with his extremely iconic and so-bad-it's-good puns, the scripting and delivery of the lines here are just... just lame. I guess evil husband CEO guy and the crazy cat lady was kinda fun hamming it up, but nowhere enough to salvage this movie. 

Halle Berry, who plays Patience/Catwoman, tries her best, at least, but... but I've seen her in other things. The first X-Men movie was four years before this, and she was cool there as Storm. And, credit where credit's due, she at least looked natural when she was playing the pre-Catwoman Patience? But afterwards, the rest of the movie, we're kind of following around a protagonist who's as confused as the movie's own haphazard plotline. 

So yeah. There are several contenders for 'absolute worst superhero movie of all time'. I'm not sure this movie qualifies, because I'm not even sure if this qualifies as a proper adaptation of DC comics' Catwoman. At least this movie was good for one thing; I definitely appreciate other poorly-made movies better now that this movie has lowered the bar of how bad it can go. 

My Hero Academia, Season 4, Episodes 11-15

More My Hero Academia, as we continue on the rest of the Overhaul/Hassaikai arc!

Episode 11:

• And here is where we get the revelation that the Hassaikai has created exactly five bullets that can permanently wipe out a quirk!
• I love the little bit of Twice and Toga correcting Overhaul for using the wrong pronouns for Magne. 
• It is kind of hilarious that we get to see Toga and Twice's first meeting with the yakuza. Toga is just being an absolute shit and refusing to cooperate (while being so delightfully polite) while Twice goes to "I WON'T TELL YOU ANYTHING" straight into some long-winded explanation on how his copy powers work... 
• And we think it's just Twice's neurosis acting up, but the anime makes it a bit more clear that there's some other Quirk at play here that causes them ton reveal their quirk when questioned by Shigaraki. And we see this happen when Toga reveals her quirk. 
• I do like that they ask the question of whether Shigaraki is planning a betrayal, and I think they're able to answer 'no' out of some loophole. 
• Yeah, Mimic antagonized the two Villain Alliance guys a lot, and it is satisfying as all hell when he ultimately snaps and got his ass beaten by Midoriya, Aizawa and Nighteye. 
  
• More Eight Bullets! Sasaki Deidoro is a gecko-looking guy that gets drunk and then causes vertigo in others. Nemoto Shin is the smartly-dressed guy with a bowler hat and a cloak and can force people to answer his questions truthfully. Deidoro is just making jokes about other people being drunk, while Shin seems to be a prideful egoist and a huge Overhaul simp.
• Hissatsu: PHANTOM MENACE!
• My inner Star Wars geek sense is happy because of it. 
• Damn Mirio is badass. He was so close to ending the whole arc there. Beating two of the Bullets, kicking Chronostasis in the face, even drawing blood from Overhaul... if he didn't use the quirk-nullification bullets, Mirio would've fucking won. 
• Also, god damn, Overhaul is a massive jackass. His gaslighting of Eri just piles into the sheer amount of evil shit he's done.
• Mirio weaponizing the cape to make Chronostasis's bullets miss. That's badass. That also gives him a pretty badass boast to yell at Overhaul as he punches him right in the face.
• Oh yeah, fuck you, Shin Nemoto, for weaponizing Mirio's heroic heart and shooting the quirk-nullification bullet at the little girl.
• Also, holy fucking shit Mirio for still fighting and going through a hero's fighting checklist even as he loses his quirk. What a man. What a hero.
• "I am not powerless! I AM STILL LEMILLION!"

Episode 12:

• Ah yes, Lock Lock's character development! It's actually kind of nice that all the talk about him being rough is also because he recently became a dad -- which made him even less predisposed about letting kids participate in a life-or-death battle.
• Five minutes of fighting a superhuman. Mirio, without power, is able to hold out against Overhaul for five fucking minutes, all the while still never letting Overhaul get to Eri behind him. God damn, Mirio. "You were amazing, Mirio" indeed. 
• Man, fuck Chronostasis and his weird-ass head arrows! I forgot that it's how he activates his quirk. That his hair is somehow styled in the shape of clock hands.
• Yeah, we don't actually get to see what Nemoto's last thoughts about this were, but he was probably one of the few to be shown to be the most fanatical in following Overhaul. And since Overhaul used him as basically a power-up candy...
• Overhaul's first power-up form is basically a gooey Machamp, though. That's not the most imposing figure out there. The plague doctor mask becoming a demonic mask is a bit more impressive. 
• Yeah, yeah, cry about being forced to fuse with someone else, Overhaul, you clean freak. 
• Yeah, you can absolutely feel the simultaneous hurt and pride as Nighteye just absolutely trash-talks Overhaul, talking about how he's pants-shittingly scared of Lemillion. 
• I've never been a big fan of 'I can change the future with my guts' trope in shonen battle manga. I'm still not the biggest fan of it. But damn, Nighteye and Deku's voice actors really do make me feel for it in the heat of the moment. 
• Manchester Smash!
• How fucked up is it to basically 'reset' a little girl back and reconstruct her body just so that she can be used in some mad scientist butchery? And that's without taking into account all the mental anguish Overhaul caused on her... honestly, I am happy what happened to Overhaul by the end of this arc. Fuck him. He deserves to suffer the worst out of any villain in this series. 
• It is annoying when I was reading this weekly, but dang, Eri suddenly freaking out and having her mental trauma stop her from leaving is kind of realistic considering all the emotional abuse Overhaul did on him, huh? 
• Suddenly a dragon pushing a giant muscleman falls through the ceiling! 

Episode 13:

• I forgot, actually, that Natsukame Rikiya, a.k.a. the big Bane-esque guy that Ryukyu fought on topside, actually wakes back up and holds the hero forces left behind. Or that his quirk allows him to 'inhale' and suck in the strengths of everyone nearby. 
• Oh yeah, so Toga ends up showing up and doing a good enough impression of Midoriya to cause Uraraka, Tsuyu and Hado to work together to help Ryukyu drop Rikiya down as a battering ram down to the Overhaul boss fight room. That's kinda cool on all sides, actually!
• I guess we needed Twice to contribute, hence the whole deal with the Mr. Compress copy having a role to create a way out for them. It is hilarious that they don't really care about the risk to the copy, but the Mr. Compress copy is indignant about how they should be doing this to avenge his arm. But the Compress copy literally just got taken out by Ryukyu without much preamble. 
• "Plus Chaos" isn't anywhere as catchy as Plus Ultra, Toga, sorry. 
• Also, we actually get a full-body shot of Toga from the front without any goo or hair or environment in the way of her little Togas, but obviously it's just Barbie-doll anatomy. 
• I absolutely love that the thing that changes Eri's mind, that breaks through her mental shackles and causes her to want to be rescued, is the sight of Mirio's cape, and a reminder of his epic "I will be your hero" line.
• Damn, though, it is still pretty terrifying and sad that a much younger Eri basically accidentally killed her own dad because of her superpowers manifesting. 
• Also, how fucked up is it that out of his twisted sense of loyalty, Overhaul misinterpreted his boss's orders to basically help understand Eri's powers so she can control it, and turned it into carte blanche to dissect her over and over and over again?
• Oh, fuck, that insert song hits well. Yeah, I wasn't the most supportive of this arc in the manga, but the anime adaptation just made me emotional so many times throughout this batch of episodes. 
• There's such a powerful sequence as Midoriya makes his mental declaration, and we just have a quick flash of things breaking apart while only the music plays. That works so damn well. 
• Oh, okay, that effect of Overhaul's arm 'glitching' and reverting back to normal when he uses his quirk is pretty damn cool.
  
• Okay, Overhaul's final form, with all the monstrous Resident Evil G-virus meat-tendril arms? That's much, much cooler than the grisly-Machamp form he had two episodes ago. I love that his original human self is just sprouting out of the Rikiya monster-bird-head. 
• Yeah, never mind the Plus Ultra mentality. People like Uraraka aren't going to stand down and go 'well, it's hopeless' when Nighteye makes predictions about how their friend is going to die. 
• ONE FOR ALL FULL COWL 100%!
• Damn, Deku just went full-on Super Saiyan. 
• 
  Also, as loathsome as Overhaul is as a person, I do like the flashback it gets here, where it does help showcase the full scope of his master plan -- selling the serum and the antidote to villains and heroes. How he feels like this is the way for the outdated yakuza to be relevant again in a world of heroes and villains, as a way to repay back his boss... and somehow through all this he ended up thinking that putting his boss into a coma with his quirk and then mutilating his granddaughter is the way to 'repay' him. What a fucked-up dipshit Overhaul is. 
• HOLY SHIT that giant mass of fists that rains down on Overhaul and tears apart his meat-flesh-monster body is cool and scary as fuck. Also cool-and-scary-as-fuck is Deku's shadowed face. 
  

Episode 14:

• SUNEATER! Holy shit, he totally just saved Aizawa. I legitimately forgot about this whole subplot with him and Chronostasis with all the epicness between Midoriya and Overhaul.
• Gunhead martial arts! Oh, I guess since Eri reverted the fusion, Rikiya and earlier Nemoto are still alive, then?
• Hell yeah, Aizawa's power-eraser vision to the rescue. 
• Oh, I guess Rappa is just hanging out there with Fat Gum and Kirishima until Centipeder shows up to arrest him? Silly Rappa.
• Takodana Villain Hospital! Okay, my Star Wars geekery doesn't extend to the sequels, but I appreciate the easter egg regardless.
• Hell yeah, the Villain Alliance attacking Overhaul. Never have the act of brutalizing another person been so badass and welcoming. Okay, Snatch dying from fighting Dabi and Compress is kind of regrettable since we lost him and his badass mustache, but still. 
• I was a bit confused why he would die until I realized that Mr. Compress compressed the flames as well as Snatch's whole part-sand body. 
• Yeah, Shigaraki thought about what Overhaul would hate the most, and... yeah, having both his arms destroyed and to see the results of his work taken by the Villain Alliance? Yeah, fuck you, Overhaul, you piece of shit, you deserve every second of that depression and torment you're experiencing. 
• I don't remember the specifics, but this episode kind of implies that Eri's power on Midoriya ended up reverting a lot of the damage he sustained in earlier arcs?
• Yeah, it's such a gut-punch to see Nighteye die, huh? It's actually one of the most memorable scenes from this whole arc, though. Again, never a big fan of the 'change fate/future' thing, and the 'energy' explanation is kinda bull. But damn, Nighteye has grown a lot on me during this watch-through that I can't help but agree with his hope for the future. 
• Oh fuck, bringing back Nighteye's penchant for smiles and humour just feels so much more sadder now that he's about to die, huh.
• How fucking tear-jerking is it that Mirio can manage to be strong and never falter all throughout the arc, even when he's about to pass out and even after he lost his quirk permanently... but he just breaks down completely and begs Nighteye to fight and live? 

Episode 15:

• We have the new opening which tells me that we're going to have the much lighter set of mini-arcs after this, but this episode is more of a epilogue to the Hassaikai arc, isn't it?
• I do like that Gran Torino actually points out how weird and stupid it is for a teleporter to be sighted four times. I guess Kurogiri just took a while to find and/or educate Gigantomachia?
• Mirio trying his best to jump back into being an energetic hero, while also immediately acknowledging how strange it is... that's a strange way of healing, but damn, Mirio, you're cool. 
• I also like that Midoriya actually contemplated giving his quirk to Mirio, but, Mirio being the cool guy that he is, rejects it immediately. 
• It's not as prominent as Midoriya talking to Mirio, but I do like that the other teachers are shown taking care of Mirio -- Aizawa in a flashback briefly, and All Might was about to knock the door when he realizes Midoriya is already there. They're also not as prominent as Midoriya and Mirio, but I do like that the story acknowledges that Uraraka is also feeling some guilt about not being able to do more. 
• God bless Present Mic. Between "BADDO BOYZZSUU", poking Bakugou in the head and realizing that seeing All Might and Endeavor's staredown is the best time to buy coffee, he's always good for a laugh.
• Oh, Shiketsu's here too. I completely forgot about them.

...holy shit, yeah. Yeah, that was much better in animated format. 

Movie Review: Elektra (2005)

Elektra (2005)

So I watched this movie at last! A spinoff to 2003's Daredevil starring Ben Affleck, Elektra brings back Jennifer Garner as Elektra in her own spinoff movie. It's often derided as one of the worst superhero movies out there, and... well, clearly that was before they watched 2015's dire Fantastic Four reboot, but it's... it's pretty close. 

And I think a good chunk of what made this movie kind of not really work is that... it just tries to do so much and ends up feeling confused? Let's not even get into the honestly very eye-rolling over-the-top mystification of East Asian martial arts, which is honestly pretty terrible even by the standards of the superhero genre. Let's not get into the fact that despite being billed as a spinoff-sequel to Daredevil and even referencing Elektra's death in that movie, we barely deal with anything from that movie -- you'd think that Elektra would be hunting Bullseye, right? Or that we'll have a story revolving her resurrection? No, no such thing. Elektra returning from the dead is handwaved with the utterly silly and fictional art of Kimagure, which allows Elektra to 'see into the future'. Okay, pretty standard martial arts style... and also her master Stick is able to 'reverse time' and bring her back from the dead by touching her head and belly. Yeah, that plot point is so casually shoehorned in as a handwave to bring Elektra back to life, and... I don't know. Maybe if the secret martial art was given some oomph, some actual substance and event to show how epic of an achievement it would be, then it would mean something. But no. It's just an excuse, and even in terms of comic-book excuses, it's a pretty damn terrible one. 

And then the plot kind of... vacillates between having Elektra as this cold-blooded hired murder by having her kill Lucius Malfoy in the pretty cool opening sequence, and introducing her side-kick and contract-guy McCabe. We also, in very quick succession, get a flashback to her resurrection, her being expelled by Stick's ninja dojo (it's actually not clear if this bit happened before or after Daredevil until like halfway through the movie), and a flashback to young Elektra being bullied by her high-achieving abusive dad (which really doesn't have too much of a bearing to the movie's story). Oh, and we get the ominous pre-movie-title bit about the Hand and the forces of good and evil and all that. None of these are bad comic-book storylines on paper, but the fact that they're just randomly tossed at us with minimal payoff makes the first one-third of the movie a huge slog. 

Not to mention that the setup for the plot of the movie has Elektra being hired by an anonymous client to kill a pair of targets -- a father-and-daughter pair called Mark Millar and Abby -- but Elektra befriends them before she knows that they're her targets! Oh no! Abby is... she's all right as far as these kid sidekicks go, but she's more 'tolerable' than 'likable'. We kind of go through the typical plot expected for these sort of action movies -- badass hero befriends the side characters, shows some vulnerability, there's some awkwardly-written ship tease, yadda yadda. Then we get a fight scene and... okay, I get that it's a low-budget movie made in 2005, but the Hand ninjas exploding into green mist just looks ridiculous. 

Actually, one of the better parts of the movie might be the structure of the Hand, where we get to see the ultimate leader, Master Roshi (Dragon Ball Z joke, ha!) is just watching some of his potential successors vie for the role to obtain the enigmatic "The Treasure", which is obviously Abby. After the failure of whoever sent the original batch of ninjas, our main villain Kirigi show up with a group of superpowered minions -- the decay-inducing Typhoid Mary, the indestructible Stone, the guy with the magical tattoos called Tattoo, and... and Kinkou, who's... does he even have a power? I think he's just a random ninja, or the movie ran out of budget for him. 

And this second act of the movie is reasonably thrilling and well-paced, actually, as far as a mindless popcorn flick goes. Tattoo's ink eagles following our heroes, Elektra finding help with McCabe; McCabe's heroic sacrifice; Typhoid causing plants to decay; Elektra dropping a tree on Stone; Abby showing that she can use her little whip-necklace to fight and take out Kinkou... yes, the CGI for Tattoo's weird meteor-fireball-wolf-thing is bizarre and the showcases of Elektra's future sight is kind of whatever, but it's more or less pretty well-done action movie fare.

And then Stick shows up, rescues our heroes from Kirigi, and gives us some exposition about the 'Treasure', which is apparently a martial arts prodigy. Apparently, these girls that are 'Treasures' are just born... and can fight and shit? It's a bit of a random plot point thrown in that doesn't really make sense, beyond forcibly drawing comparisons between Elektra and Abby, as well as making Elektra's backstory tie to the Hand/Chaste war -- because Kirigi is the assassin that killed Elektra's parents! ...a plot point that doesn't really make sense since the Hand should want to claim 'the Treasure' but he just kind of leaves young Elektra behind? Okay?

And then because the runtime of the movie is about to finish, Elektra somehow is able to make use of her mystic Jedi arts to contact Kirigi and we get a huge fight in Elektra's childhood home between Elektra against Kirigi, Typhoid Mary and Tattoo. There are some shots that are admittedly cool -- like the massive amounts of cloths that drop down from the ceiling when Elektra and Kirigi first face off; or Tattoo enveloping the hedge maze with his snake tattoos, but... but ultimately it's kind of a generic 'final battle' that is nowhere as exciting as the second act fight in this movie. Kirigi himself never really develops much of a personality so I really don't feel much when Elektra kills him. Typhoid is fun, but her personality never goes beyond 'fun sadist', and the random bit of her being a former Treasure feels out of nowhere. 

And after Elektra finally takes care of the villains, we get a bunch more scenes of Elektra resurrecting Abby after she dies from Typhoid's decay powers, because of kimagure. The Millars get a normal life (wouldn't the Hand just send more assassins after them), Stick is revealed to have set up the first half of the movie to let Elektra know that she has a good heart (a dick, but totally in-character to his comic counterpart) and the movie closes. 

And... yeah, yeah. There are parts of this movie that is nice, and I wouldn't say that it's entirely incomprehensible. It's just that the movie had such a nonsensical bunch of storylines and it ends up feeling like a ripoff Kill Bill with some X-Men powers and a child sidekick thrown in, y'know? I think I would defend the 2003 Daredevil movie for being a fair adaptation of its source material, but this one... really isn't. 

Movie Review: Morbius

Morbius (2022)

A superhero movie that's honestly mostly known in the geek sphere for the memes it generates (MORBILLION DOLLARS), it took me a while to finally watch Morbius, and my verdict for it is that... it's not terrible? I don't know. I guess I quasi-expected another disaster of a superhero movie like the first Suicide Squad, but for what it is, Sony's Morbius is... an adequate movie. 

Third in the so-called 'Sony Cinematic Universe' alongside the two movies starring Venom, this movie is Sony's attempt to capitalize on Spider-Man's rich supporting cast and create movies of their own unconnected to the MCU.

And... Morbius itself is... a relatively simple movie. It accomplishes what it sets out to do, which is to adapt Spider-Man's sometimes-enemy sometimes-tragic-ally, the sci-fi vampire Michael Morbius, the Living Vampire, into a superhero movie that seems to be more of a spoof of monster movies or horror movies. And there are a lot of relatively well-executed scenes along these lines, particularly in the first half of the movie. It's just that the movie itself runs for probably half an hour a bit too long, and it doesn't quite have the comedic factor of Venom for me to really get all that invested, especially in the second half of the movie. 

The setup parts of this movie is... it's decent. Morbius himself doesn't really have too much of a diverse supporting cast that Spider-Man or even Venom can call upon, and the main villain of this movie, Milo, really... isn't all that interesting. He's set up as Morbius's childhood friend and adoptive brother from the facility that they are admitted in for the rare, non-specific blood disorder that they have. Eventually in his adulthood, Michael Morbius becomes a super-awesome scientist at a ridiculously young age, and ends up looking for options in curing his and Milo's disease by experimenting with bats. 

And it really does feel like some sort of old-school B-movie horror flick made on a big budget. We've got the local guides afraid to bring Morbius to the lair of a certain species of apparently super-aggressive vampire bats, we get Morbius experimenting on handwaved comic-book science... hell, I actually even enjoyed myself a lot when Morbius let loose and massacred those mercenaries (who were only doing their jobs and doesn't seem to be evil people!) on the boat. Morbius's determination to fight fate, and eventually to try and figure out how to control his monstrous condition... that's not a story that could carry the amount of time that they saddled it with, but Jared Leto's performance is well-done enough.

It's just that the movie itself takes itself way too seriously, and, unfortunately, none of the side-cast are really all that interesting. Morbius's romantic interest and scientific partner Marine Bancroft feels more like a character to exchange exposition with. There's a sub-plot starring FBI agents Simon Stroud and Rodriguez, but their storyline really went nowhere -- at least there was some sort of resolution with their counterparts in Let There Be Carnage, and there were hints from people who analyze the trailers that there was a subplot with Stroud getting a mechanical arm that was cut? And Morbius's adoptive father Nicholas was kind of a non-entity that when he comes back to die at the end it really doesn't feel like it delivered the impact that the movie thought it would. 

Which brings us to the main two characters -- Morbius and his adoptive brother Milo. Leto tries his best, and clearly put in a lot of effort into trying to depict Morbius's frantic obsession with trying to cure his disease, and later on on his horrified realization that he's turned into a monster. It's just that... that 'tragic hero' story is kind of something we've all seen before. Which, while adequate to carry a movie, perhaps, I don't really think that the overall movie really ever rises above 'adequate' for ol' Morb himself. 

And... meme dances aside, main antagonist Milo himself does have an okay motivation. He refuses to be beholden to his disease anymore and wants to break free and indulge in his feral impulses. And the childhood showcases of how he got bullied for his disease does lead some credence how his "we are the few against the many" creed got warped from something meant to be an encouragement between two sick boys into a 'humans-are-worthless' spiel. In Milo's case it's kind of boggling because, like many other reviewers have also pointed out, the movie actually laid the groundwork for Milo's turn to villainy... but none of it is ever brought up when Milo does actually become evil, and the character is just a bag of hammy acting on Matt Smith's part. It doesn't really help either that the movie itself is so serious, and none of the scene we spend with present-day Milo really built him up more beyond a pretty basic villain. Matt Smith does try his best to bring in some funky energy to the movie, but the fact that the rest of the movie is so dour ends up making him feel out of place. 

And I'm really not sure. A chunk of the movie really deals with the origin story, and while it is formulaic, it is the part of the movie that I felt I enjoyed the most out of. There definitely could be ways to make it a bit more horror-based, I suppose, which definitely would've set this movie apart a bit more beyond having a vampire superhero. But the second half, when it's just Morbius escaping from FBI agents and later fighting against Milo? Nevermind the fact that the Nightcrawler-esque smoke effect from Morbius's super vampire speed looks absolutely goofy when it's orange smoke he's trailing with his prison outfits, the second half of the movie really does feel like it's twiddling its thumbs. I feel like there really could've been a much more interesting way to set it up, to make the revelation of Milo's identity as the second vampire killing people a bit more of a surprise. Perhaps by actually making it ambiguous on whether Morbius did the murder of that one nurse? 

The climax is also something that was pretty bland for me. A lot of these superheroes admittedly do rely a lot on CGI fights for the climax movies (and it's something that plagues the MCU and DC movies as well) but I really did feel like the final fight was pretty... bland. Sure, we get the bonus of Morbius having purple smoke this time around thanks to the colour of his suit, and a giant swarm of CGI bats... but I don't know. I guess Milo just doesn't really work as a villain for me.

I don't know. A lot of times, the critics who hate the genre like to bitch about how the "superhero movie machine" keeps churning out a "formula" despite most of the offerings by Marvel and DC tending to have some merit to their own. Despite really trying to break free with its admittedly more unique premise, Morbius ends up feeling a fair bit too formulaic. Suffering from a very basic plot and extremely forgettable supporting cast, this movie ends up trying too hard to just be a setup for Sony's future endeavours (Bancroft becomes a vampire at the end; there's the much-reviled shoehorned MCU Vulture that doesn't get a good explanation). There's sadly not much meat left at the end of things. It's not terrible, it's pretty solid... but it's really bereft of anything beyond that.

Marvel Easter Eggs Corner:

• The events of Venom is noted by one of the FBI agents briefly as something in San Francisco, whereas Morbius himself scares off a thug with "I... am Venom." 
• The mid-credits and post-credits scene show the multiversal rifts from Spider-Man: No Way Home appearing in the sky, and somehow causing Adrian Toomes/Vulture from the MCU, played by Michael Keaton, to show up in the prison. He later shows up in full Vulture regalia recruiting Morbius for some sort of team. 
• The Daily Bugle newspaper show up a couple of times in the movie. Looking at the smaller headlines on top of them would have references to other Spider-Man characters -- the Rhino, Black Cat and the Chameleon. 
• Several advertisements in the movie show a fashion line called "Thomas and Kane", a reference to Roy Thomas and Gil Kane, co-creators of the Morbius character. 

Series Review: Marvel's Hit-Monkey

Hit-Monkey (2021)

Okay, this one is an interesting one! After the previous Hulu attempt at a Marvel comedy show, M.O.D.O.K., turned out to be more of a parody featuring original characters as around half of its cast, Marvel's Hit-Monkey is a bit more... it feels like I'm watching through an adaptation of an actual comic-book series, in vein of something like Invincible. Of course, as with most Marvel's recent work, this one is more of a loose adaptation than anything, but regardless it was a blast to watch.

Running for 10 episodes, Hit-Monkey goes through a pretty solid story of a monkey who is also a hitman... which is something that feels like it would get old and couldn't hold an entire series. And you're right! A change to Hit-Monkey's comic-book counterpart is that his ghostly mentor (who was mostly cryptic/silent in the comics, as far as I can gather) is reinvented as Bryce McHenry (the excellent Jason Sudeikis) who acts as his ghostly mentor-cum-partner. 

The story here is that when Bryce, a hitman himself, ends up getting killed after an assassination attempt went wrong, he ends up being nursed back to health by a colony of monkeys. One of whom is 'Monkey', who would become our protagonist. While the mystical parts of this origin story is never really explained to its fullest (beyond generic 'oh it's the Marvel universe'), Monkey ends up scavenging Bryce's hitman equipment, killing the corrupt soldiers that killed his monkey tribe and Bryce, and ends up traveling to Tokyo... with Bryce as a ghostly tagalong. The dynamic between the two goes through the expected rough patch of this sort of buddy-cop dynamic, but the voice acting and the absolutely excellent comedic scripting make the two actually pretty fun to watch. 

The 10 episodes mostly involve Hit-Monkey and Bryce dismantling the Tokyo underworld, and getting themselves essentially dragged into a conspiracy done to rig elections. Other than Hit-Monkey and Bryce, other primary recurring characters include a couple of policemen investigating the case -- which aren't as dull as certain equivalents to this would be -- and Akiko, a woman involved with the underdog of the election and Hit-Monkey's only real human friend. Again, it doesn't sound super-interesting on paper, but the series has some really great plot twists that make you care for the election plot in the background even though we're all here for the monkey violently killing people with guns.

And violent this show is, of course. And perhaps that's why Marvel discontinued its whole Hulu brand? It doesn't want to be associated with so much violence? But with goriness that would make Invincible or Harley Quinn proud, the excellently-animated series does a pretty great job at balancing action with comedy... and dark comedy. 

It wasn't a series that I was super-interested about, which was why it took me until May this year to watch it, but once you get past the admittedly odd premise, it just hooks you in. I've never actually binged a show as fast as this one in recent memory, and I feel like the show has a great balance at keeping each episode standalone with its own standalone villains while also giving us enough to be invested with the greater plot. 

If we're talking about mild spoilers to the larger Marvel universe, we also get a bunch of established Marvel characters as well beyond Hit-Monkey. Mild spoilers for the later half of the series, but Lady Bullseye ends up becoming the primary antagonist near the end, an excellent foil to Bryce and Hit-Monkey. Silver Samurai, an X-Men anti-villain, also shows up for a brief cameo at the beginning and becomes a major player in the final two episodes... which, to me, is delightful since just like Mr. Sinister in M.O.D.O.K., it means Marvel Studios' properties are starting to use X-Men characters more. It's a bit understated, too, but minor Iron Fist villain Fat Cobra and Daredevil character Yuki also end up reoccuring through the season. And there's still a couple of brief cameos by good ol' Kingpin, as well as Wolverine foe Ogun. 

The show would perhaps be fun but forgettable if it was just about Hit-Monkey committing primal acts of monkey violence and us getting the odd dark comedy joke every three minutes or so, but it actually has a pretty decent heart. Hit-Monkey continually struggles with the necessity of murder, the fact that some of the people he killed had family, and how this would look to Akiko... all of which, of course, is played completely straight. Except Monkey only speaks in ook-ook-ah's, making it still funny regardless. There's a surprising bit of heart and Bryce even gets a fair amount of characterization and backstory as the story goes on, and I really do adore how this is handled. 

Ultimately, a surprisingly great and standalone Marvel superhero series, albeit with a slightly bloodier and gorier fare compared to the standard MCu movie. Great animation, great voice-acting, great comedy and pretty excellent pacing. All in all, a pretty short and sweet series that doesn't really overstay its welcome. Shame that the series is likely not to be renewed for a second season with Disney canceling most of its Hulu content, but this one was pretty fun.

My Hero Academia, Season 4, Episodes 6-10

We're back with some My Hero Academia! Typical disclaimer: I've read this part of the manga, have gone beyond it, but forgot a lot of the details. Also, I'll probably refer to the term 'intern', 'work studies' and 'work internship' interchangeably.

This time, I'll try to be a bit more concise and less wordy with my reactions.  

Episode 6:

• I did really like how the arc structure and the whole 'these interns are following their mentor heroes' causes Kirishima, Tsuyu and Uraraka to end up basically tied in the same mission as Midoriya. It's a nice way to rope in a different set of 1-A classmates compared to the Stain arc. Kind of a shame that we never really got this for basically a good half of the class.
• There are a lot of background heroes that show up in the meeting, but none excite me more than CENTIPEDER. His head is a whole fucking centipede. 
• ...also, fuck, he has a hilarious high-on-helium voice. I'm not sure what I expected a centipede man's voice to sound like, but it sure isn't this. 
• So there exists a 'HN', a Hero Network. Basically a Hero LinkedIn or something. 
• Oh, so the giant kaiju that Ryukyu's team beat up was involved in the drug distribution network!
• There is some really great shots of Midoriya and Mirio's shocked expressions and eyes when they realize and put two and two together -- that Eri's body is being harvested for the raw materials for the quirk-cancelling bullets. 
• That's a very cool stylized image of Overhaul in purple holding Eri in yellow. Very cool. Another very cool shot is the symbolized monstrous plague-mask opening and about to chomp down on Eri. 
• It's not something that really becomes relevant, but I do really like that we highlight how Nighteye brought together minor, local heroes with the mentality to use them to investigate the Hassaikai's bases without raising suspicion.
• Aizawa also almost suspending their work internship, before realizing that Midoriya's the kind of problem child that will move mountains to save Eri, is also a great little moment. 
• Nighteye's trauma about using his quirk on a person in case he sees death in the future is very well-done with the voice-acting. A very neat little detail, too, that Gran Torino sent Midoriya with the purpose of getting Nighteye to get through some of his trauma. 

Episode 7:

• The story does really display Midoriya's confusion and the pressure from all the whole Eri and All Might's death prophecy thing very well, yeah? It does kind of foreshadow a darker bit later down the line when Midoriya succumbs to pressure too... It's also Iida and Todoroki that got Midoriya out of his funk. It's a small scene of him crying a bit, but it's very well-done.
• I don't remember Lock Lock's (Rock Lock? Lock Rock? Rock Rock?) ability, but I'm guessing that he 'locks' things in whatever state it's in. We get to see him lock a plank of wood mid-air. It's like that Stasis ability from Breath of the Wild!
• Fat Gum is all baffled at how Nighteye got information from a Sailor-Moon-esque toy that one of the yakuza bought. "Maybe he bought it for himself!" and "Why did you buy one for yourself?"
• Just like Sentai and Kamen Rider, turns out that "Glitter Squad" has a new show every year. It's an actual plot point because they've been showing Eri reruns of the older shows!
• Yeah, after all that build-up on how the operation's going to go, in the middle of Lock Lock complaining about procedure, SUDDENLY GIANT BANE PLAGUE DOCTOR FIST MEGATON PUNCH THROUGH THE FRONT GATE. I don't remember any of the names of the Eight Precepts/Eight Bullets. "Bane" here is called Katsukame Rikiya. 
• And then we have Ryukyu going into an even bigger dragon to block that punch. What a way to start the fighty-fight portion of this arc! 
• There's a cool background fight of a Yakuza thug that could manipulate like, brambles from a bush. He got taken out by one of the named minor heroes, Kesagiri Man. That's neat. 

Episode 8:

• Mirio and Amajiki's childhood friendship is adorable! I completely forgot that 'Suneater' was because he's someone who wants to shine like the sun, just like how Mirio did. 
• Yeah, giving Mirio clothes 'made out of his own hair' so they can move just as he activates his Quirk... that's the sort of nitpicking detail that I enjoy from this series. 
• It's always kind of a disappointment that Mimic isn't an adorable little anime mascot but just a man that can transform his size, but I guess that's the whole point of the subversion. I'm not sure how 'mimickry' translates into 'control objects from within', but there you go. 
• More Eight Bullets names: Scarecrow Guy is Tabe Soramitsu, "Food". Face mask guy is Hojo Yu, "Crystalize". Blonde guy with a lower-face bird mask is Setsuno Toya, "Larceny". 
• I've always really liked how the Eight Bullets seem to be setting up as a typical 1v1 for a lot of the supporting characters, but then here comes Amajiki, realizing that it's better for one person to hold of these three instead of the group leaving three people behind. 
• The ol 'knife hidden inside a plague mask' trick!
• "Even trash has its pride." "Even trash has strong bonds." None of the Eight Bullets really have too much of a personality, but at least we do get a brief motive rant out of them here. The crystal guy gives a very quick rundown of everyone's one-line backstory, and while they're really not characters anyone talks about too much, it does help to make these minor characters actually feel more like characters. 
• "Vast Hybrid: CHIMERA KRAKEN!!!" Man, Mirio's cool, but Amajiki's my guy. 
• Very cool fight overall. It's so fast-paced, a lot of ups and downs for Amajiki and the three Bullets, a lot of fun powers being utilized without them being over-the-top. I also absolutely love that, in a surprising subversion in a Shonen battle manga, Amajiki actually reverses the concept of the power of friends and weaponizes Tabe's friendship with his companions to knock all three of them out in one go. I like this episode. 

Episode 9:

• I actually do like that the random yakuza punks arrested by Bubble Girl do talk a bit about how the yakuza is different from villains -- that they're supposed to be chivalrous, and it's not until Overhaul's takeover that the yakuza became more modernized and 'villain-like'.
• RAPPA! Rappa is the only member of the Eight Bullets I remember. He's the cool one! 
• His shield-making monk buddy is called Tengai Hekiji. I do like the comparison between the battle-hungry Rappa and how Tengai is just trying to get him to rein those desires in .
• Fat Gum and Kirishima basically going all out in the name of not letting down their resolve and essentially weaponizing manliness... that's manly as all fuck. I also love that Fat Gum quickly realizes that Rappa is the kind of hot-blooded guy who would totally appreciate and get a bit too into taunts and hot-blooded fighting, and does exactly that to goad him. 
• Kirishima's desperation and him just racking his brains as he thinks about what he can do is amazingly delivered by his voice actor, as is the themes about his hardening quirk being so 'boring' compared to everyone else's.
• Oh, hey, the Ashido/Kirishima flashback! With Gigantomakhia making a cameo! 
• "They've started break dancing!" hahahaha!
• I absolutely love how Kirishima's just... completely frozen. I love how we took the 'my body just moved' iconic line from Midoriya and All Might earlier in the series and shows that it doesn't work for everyone... and it probably is a particular gut-punch for Kirishima, who's all about that manly spirit.
• One of Kirishima's classmates in the flashbacks is wearing Luffy's Straw Hat, which was IIRC a little celebration during Shonen Jump where all the other manga snuck in a straw hat somewhere into that week's chapter. 
• I've never paid too much attention to Kirishima and Crimson Riot, but it is kind of neat that Crimson Riot basically embodied a more... old-fashioned 'Golden Age' simple hero. It's a simple "courage is the ability to jump in spite of your fear" moral, but it's delivered pretty well!   
• I mean, shit, Kirishima doesn't get to beat the villain and more like made an opening for Fat Gum, but motherfucker that's a badass moment of him jumping in the way of Rappa's blows. 

Episode 10:

• 
  Rappa is a good man! I love the little bit of correction as he goes from "that ki-" to "that man". I love how his mentality is 'get healed, so I can kill you properly in our next fight!'
• I mean, shit, Tengai is a dipshit, but he is technically just trying to do his job as a yakuza. 
• There's a neat way of 'oh shit, the boss is even stronger' as Fat Gum peels back the reasons why someone as powerful and eccentric as Rappa stays with the Shie Hassaikai. 
• Well, Lock Lock got absolutely fucked up by 'temp worker' Toga. 
• I do like the little flashback to Shigaraki playing shogi and being a jackass about it with Overhaul... and Overhaul's pretentious talk about shogi strategy ended up backfiring, doesn't it?
• I really do love Shigaraki's later (flashback) talk to Toga and Twice about how he's not thinking of the Hassaikai as equals, but rather want to infiltrate and destabilize them, playing along with their plans for now. 
• (Fake) Rappa vs. Nighteye! I completely forgot about this bit, but damn, Nighteye is a badass! He one-shotted Rappa with some seals, and even made a deadpan joke about how 'humorous' his weapons are. 
  
• They are psychopaths, but yeah, this series does a great job at showing how Toga, Twice, and the rest of the Villain Alliance are a family in their own way. There's a neat bit about Toga noting how helping out the Hassaikai -- if they prove to be useless -- is pointless. In-between her psycho-murderer bits, there are a lot of nice points that Toga makes towards the yakuza being a 'soon-to-be-extinct' dying group, leading to them mocking Mimic and getting him riled up. 
• There's also a very realistic flashback to Twice and especially Toga confronting Shigaraki about doing something that they don't want to do. Waving a blade next to Shigaraki's neck is exactly what I expect from Toga.