The Batman (2022)

The mayor is watching the news report of the debate with his challenger.  He is not pleased with the polls and thinks he should be winning easily.  Suddenly, a man in a mask appears behind him and beats him to death.  Lt. James Gordon (Jeffery Wright) arrives with the Batman (Robert Pattinson) to investigate the scene.  The other cops are horrified that Gordon brought Batman.  Batman surveys the scene, noticing several things that the detectives had missed.  Of particular interest, there is a card left for The Batman.  When opened, it offers a riddle.  What does a liar do when he's dead?  "He lies still," Batman states.  There is also a cypher to solve, which Batman takes to the bat cave.  Soon, there are more corpses and more riddles to solve.  The Riddler (Paul Dano) is exposing some dark secret related to city corruption and all the participants are getting eliminated.

Many of the standard characters appear: Catwoman (Zoe Kravitz), Penguin (an unrecognizable Colin Farrell), and Alfred (Andy Serkis).  Carmine Falcone (John Turturro) proves to be something of an enigma, a man who has a history with Thomas Wayne.  In a dramatic shift from the Christian Bale version, this Bruce Wayne is a brooding hermit reminiscent of Howard Hughes.  There is much more emphasis on Batman's skills as a detective; he solves most of the riddles, is frequently trailing suspects, records all his observations in journals, and discovers important facts through deduction.  He is active by day but not generally in costume.  Paul Dano's Riddler is very different from previous incarnations.  He isn't the cackling psychopath (Frank Gorshin) nor an over-the-top redhaired goofball (Jim Carrey).  This is more Unabomber/Zodiac Killer.

Though long, the pacing is good.  There are a few scenes that didn't work, especially the one where the police transport an unconscious Batman back to the police station without removing his mask, especially since the police are hostile toward this version of Batman.  Good popcorn fun!

Peacemaker

The HBO series pickups up soon after The Suicide Squad concludes.  Peacemaker (John Cena) has recovered from his bullet wound and being caught under a collapsing building.  Surprised that no one has arrived to put him back in jail, he goes to his home, a mobile home that is painted in patriotic colors.  However, it turns out he is not free.  An independent group - including two office operatives seen in The Suicide Squad - impress him into service.  Clemson Murn (Chukwudi Iwuji) is the leader of the team and declares they are up against the Butterflies.  Harcourt (Jennifer Holland) and Economos (Steve Agee) have been assigned to the task force as a punishment for their actions in The Suicide Squad.  The crew also has a greenhorn agent named Leota Adebayo (Danielle Brooks), who is actually the daughter of Amanda Waller (Viola Davis).  Added to the crew is Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), Peacemaker's occasional partner.

Though Peacemaker remains a homicidal goofball, much like he was in his last appearance, there is a lot of character development.  His dynamic with his abusive and racist father, Auggie Smith (Robert Patrick), explains how he came to be who he is.  His father is also the White Dragon, an Iron Man like supervillain with high-tech battle armor and a variety of powerful helmets that Peacemaker acquires.

The opening credits scene is awesome.  All the characters dance onto the stage like some Vegas show.  It is so unexpected and funny that I watched it virtually every episode.  Great stuff.

The downside of the series is the insertion of politics.  There is a big message about environmentalism and how humanity is on a course to destroy the earth.  Yeah, okay.  Also, it turns out that Leota is a lesbian and her wife appears in most of the episodes to voice concerns about what Leota is doing.  5'5" Harcourt easily trounces a thug who is nearly a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier.  Fine.  White males get all the big character flaws: Vigilante is abysmally stupid, Peacemaker's father is a rabid racist, John Economos is a mostly pathetic loser, and Peacemaker is a dim bulb.  By contrast, Murn is competent and focused.  Harcourt is kickass and qualifies for a serious spy thriller.  Leota is a noob who blossoms into a hero.  However, she is the butt of some physical comedy, something mostly reserved for the white males.

Despite the modern political tropes, the show is highly watchable and quite entertaining.  I look forward to further antics from Peacemaker and his crew.  Recommended.

The Suicide Squad (2021)

Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) is bringing the band back together for a new mission.  The first recruit is Savant (Michael Rooker), a man with supernatural spatial awareness.  He can bounce a ball off a wall and ricochet it on three more walls before it hits an unsuspecting bird.  In exchange for 10 years off his 15 year sentence, Savant accepts a suicide mission to Corto Maltese.  Other members of the team are Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman), Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), Mongal, Javelin, TDK, Blackguard, and the Weasel.  No sooner have they landed on the beach than all hell breaks loose.  The landing is compromised!  Meanwhile, on a different beach, another suicide squad has landed.  Bloodsport (Idris Elba) leads this team, which has benefited from the distraction of the first suicide squad.  Among his forces are Peacemaker (John Cena), Ratcatcher 2, Polka-Dot Man, and King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone!).

The movie is hilarious, a massive improvement over its predecessor.  Bloodsport plays the straight man with his team, being the only relatable person.  Everyone else is odder than the next.  Ratcatcher 2 is basically the Pied Piper, capable of summoning rats to do her bidding.  She has a pet rat named Sebastian.  She is always tired but has a good heart.  Peacemaker is so keen on peace that he will kill as many men, women, and children as it takes to get it.  The constant one-upmanship between Bloodsport and Peacemaker is great fun.  He delivers ridiculous lines with the utmost seriousness.  I had been impressed by John Cena's comic abilities in Trainwreck and that was no fluke.  He's terrific and I am now eager to watch the spinoff series, Peacemaker.  The Polka-Dot Man, who looked like he might be some cringy villain, is absolutely stellar.  Though arguably the most powerful member, he is clearly not leader material. Despite being depressed and infected with a potentially lethal multidimensional virus, he is a constant source of laughs.  Oh, to see through his eyes!  His mom is epic!   As great as all these characters are, King Shark is nonstop fun.  Silvester Stallone does his best dumb Rocky voice, making the constantly hungry shark-man a source of immense humor.  He is both childlike and monstrous.  He's nigh indestructible, insanely strong, and a lovable dunce.  His primary attack is to eat you!  And he eats a lot in this movie!  Num num.

James Gunn had taken the low tier material of Guardians of the Galaxy and turned it into gold.  Here, he has done it again.  More of this and the DC-verse could become an equal competitor to the MCU, especially since Marvel has been sagging since Avengers: Endgame.

Highly recommended.  Great popcorn fun.

Doom Patrol

The latest DC comics TV series is Doom Patrol.  The Doom Patrol consists of a bunch of misfits with superpowers, more or less.  There is Robotman, Elasti-Girl, Negative Man, Crazy Jane, and the Chief.  Cyborg shows up early though he appears to be on -loan rather than a full member.  The series opens with introductions of each character and their origin story.  Cliff was a race car driver who, in 1988, 'died' in a car crash.  Now he is a brain in a can.  Rita Farr was a successful Hollywood actress who, in 1955, was exposed to a toxin that made her melt when stressed.  She has achieved some control so as to maintain her shape but she's still iffy.  Larry Trainor was a test pilot with dreams of joining Project Mercury in 1961 until he flew through a radioactive entity that left him horribly disfigured and inhabited by an alien symbiote.  Crazy Jane has multiple-personality disorder with the twist that most of the personalities have a superpower.  Chief is a rich, secretive genius who appears to be immortal.

Early on, the Chief (Timothy Dalton) is abducted by archvillain Mr. Nobody (Alan Tudyk).  The entire season has the general goal of finding Chief.  Instead, it mostly delves deeply into the ruined hyper-sensitive psyches of the misfits.  Robotman is obsessed with the daughter who grew up without him.  Rita misses the limelight but starts melting at the slightest provocation.  Larry is gay.  Though the show takes place in the current year, he is still stuck in 1961 and obsessed with a lover he hasn't seen in almost 60 years.  Flashbacks and imagined encounters have gratuitous face sucking.  Of course, the comic version of Larry was straight (he was written in the 60s after all).  Crazy Jane is just a basket case who emotes venom at everyone and at all times.  She shifts from one unappealing personality to another.  Cyborg is guilt-ridden about his mother's death and can't seem to master his cybernetics.

The biggest problem of the show was the timeline.  It keeps flashing back to each character's origin which becomes infuriating.  Rita and Larry are in their 90s.  Cliff and Jane are pushing 70.  The Chief was an active explorer in 1912 and doesn't look any older as of 2019.  Clearly, the comic was published in the 60s and the character bios would work just fine if the setting was somewhere in the 1960s.  Robotman looks like he was assembled with 1950s technology rather than 1990s tech.  Why?  Every time you start to buy into the characters in the modern era, we flashback to the 1950s or 60s and you wonder why these characters aren't dead already.

Beyond the timeline issues, the characters suck.  Robotman and Crazy Jane spend their time being angry and dropping a variety of four letter words.  They scream and yell and curse to prove that they care and want to be proactive.  Or, in Jane's case, just wants to scream and yell and curse because life isn't fair.  Negative Man is generally apathetic.  When he isn't having his imagined trysts with his 1960s boyfriend, he mopes and bemoans his fate.  Wow, 60 years on and he still hasn't adjusted or even figured out how to communicate with his symbiote.  Rita is similar though she is more of the keep up appearance type person.  When forced to participate, she complains and whines.  Cyborg is tolerable.  In fact, he's a fairly likeable character who isn't either in a constant rage or soul-crushing depression.  Chief is rational and stable but has a very small part and is absent for much of the series.  Of course, the 'team' he has assembled reflects poorly on him.

Skip this turkey.  I wish I had.

Shazam! (2019)

DC may have turned the corner and finally discovered how to make a fun movie.  in 1974, Thaddeus Sivana is with his father and older brother in a car.  Suddenly, the car windows get covered in frost and his father and brother are gone.  Stepping out of the car, he finds himself in a cave where a wizard (Djimon Hounsou) tests to see if he is worthy of the power of Shazam!  Sivana fails and immediately finds himself back in the car.

In the present day, Billy Batson (Asher Angel) embarrasses a pair of police officers before going to a house where he thinks he will find his mother.  It is not his mother.  And the police show up.  Billy has been in foster care since he was separated from his mother in a crowd when he was 4 or 5.  A regular runaway from every foster home, he is placed in a new one with a mix of kids.  While on the subway, the windows freeze and he finds himself tested by the wizard.  He is worthy!  Shazam!  Having no idea how to be a superhero, the antics of Shazam (Zachary Levi) are quite funny.  Any heroics are accidental.

 

Elsewhere, Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) has not been idle.  He has spent that last 45 years trying to find his way back to the cave.  He has tracked down a vast number of people who had the same experience as him, all having been rejected by the wizard.  Unworthy of the power of Shazam, he instead frees the power of the seven deadly sins.  Shazam may be powerful but he's only 14.

 

Humor, excitement, uplifting, epic action, and just an overall great time.  Highly recommended.  More like this for the DC-verse, please.