Sonntag, 15. Januar 2017

Review: Civil War II

(Beware of Spoilers)


I'll start this of with saying that I have always been a fan of Brian Michael Bendis aka the Writer of Civil War II.
His New Avengers books were the sole reason I actually got into Comics, Events like Siege, or Secret Invasion are among my favourite Comic events and I love that he has a fetish for putting characters through the wringer. So if you are reading this thinking it will be another case of someone shaking his fist and yelling "Damn you Bendis, you ruined EVAHRYTHING." you might want to stop reading right here and now.
Of course if you are someone who can handle a possibly different opinion than yours you are more than welcome to continue. Now that we've established this, lets begin.

I'll go forward assuming that you are at least vaguely aware of whats going on currently in the Marvel Universe because I wouldn't even know where to start trying to explain it all to you.
Especially since it isn't like I am reading ALL THE COMICS either.

Yeah. That's the Stuff!
Civil War II starts with a dangerous cosmic being attacking the Earth and its Goons. Luckily Earths Heroes are prepared and we see Mutants, Inhumans, multiple Avenger Teams and various other Heroes fighting together and banishing the enemy from the Planet.

That means it's time to celebr-...wait.
How come they were prepared in the first place?
The answer: A new Inhumans who only recently discovered his powers has the ability to see the future.

That's great! Or is it?
Two people have vastly different opinions on that matter. One is Captain Marvel who is pretty much Earths Space Cop #1. The other one is Tony Stark who seemingly has seen Minority Report.

You can see where both sides are coming from but nothing escalates just yet.
Carol uses the Vision Ulysses, aka the Inhuman I talked about before to stop crimes and catastrophes from happening uuuntil one of this Missions goes wrong and War Machine gets offed by Thanos in a ridiculous awesome looking panel.

I mean look at it. LOOK. AT. IT.
Now things started to get heated, both Characters mourn the death as Rhodes happens to be both Starks best friend and Carol Danvers Lover. It doesn't quite help that She Hulk also ends up in a coma due to that fight.
Tony goes on to abduct the Inhuman to scan his brain. Of course he gets captured but while that happens Ulysses sees another Vision and everyone else sees it too this time. The Hulk snaps and kills everyone. Yikes.

Now things are about to get interesting. Or are they?
This looks bad. How to you react to that? Not like Carol did, that's for sure.
A huge group of Hereos confront Banner about this. He gets angry but before anything catastrophic can happen a special Arrow pierces his brain.
So this is the most controversial thing that happens in this event.
The killer obviously is Hawkeye but Hawkeye usually doesn't kill. It's really out of character for him.
And it's uncertain if Banner would have even been able to turn into the Hulk as he was supposedly cured. But during Uncanny Avengers his resurrected corpse is able to Hulk up.
Barton says his eyes turned green but no one else saw that.
Banner did indeed give him a special arrow to kill him if necessary but was it necessary?
This questions aren't really answered in the event nor are they answered in the Comics at this point in time in general.
This is where the plot of CW II falls kind of apart and instead getting finally straight to the fighting we get a trial, insecure Heroes and a funeral.
At this point during the first Civil War SHIELD had already tried to shoot Captain America and Tony Stark & Co had already build a prison for Super Villains in the negative Zone and they were throwing in fellow Heroes who didn't happen to agree with them. And then there was the violent Thor clone...
What I am saiyng is that the first Civil War was really stupid.
Sure it changed the Marvel Landscape which gave birth to some truelly great stories but the War itself was just plain dumb and full of out of character behavior.

Civil War II on the other Hand is ... lacking. It's better written as a whole and it's nice to see the Characters trying to figure out solutions by doing some talking but both sides are to stubborn and they end up fighting anyway for a bit. Then they stop again. Inbetween both main characters act stupid in many ways (Carol holds a woman captive even though she seems to be innocent just because she believes in the Visions, Tony abducted Ulysses and initates the first Superhero skirmish) Then we get an all out fight between Carol and Tony over the fate of Miles Morales who is shown in a Vision to kill Steve Rogers.
Speeeeeaking of.
What makes reading Civil War II quite a bit better is the fact that Steve Rogers aka Captain America aka the bestest and nicestest goodestest Guy imaginable (well okay he's much more complicated than that but you get the idea) acts like he always does BUT it is all an act.
Right now and due a storyline I won't get into now Caps past has been altered making him an Agent of Hydra and he manipulates EVERYTHING.
I'd suggest everyone who is interested in reading Civil War II to read his current book parallel to it.
It enhances many scenes to know that he is constantly planning the downfall of everyone around him including the main actors of the event because he is the one person everyone trusts.

But back to Civil War itself. The Comic ends with Ulysses leaving earth, becoming something more than (In)human as a cosmic beings as his powers grow and grow.

Hm... I was so sure he would end up being or becoming a Villain in the End but I guess that is Rogers part. Before that we see him traveling to Old Man Logans World and Time which is actually pretty damn nice.
It's only with the last issues that it becomes clear that this event is more of a catalyst for future storylines and we actually do get a few hints whats to come in the next few years which is also nice.
But it doesn't help the event itself that it doesn't have an actual ending.
Sure many things changed but they wouldn't have needed a Civil War to go there.
The Comic shouldn't have even been named Civil War in the first place as it's nothing like the first one and it's isn't really a war either.
Avengers vs X-Men. That was a war. That was high stakes, epic battles and a lot of participants.
It was also pretty great at that.
Civil War II was more of a disagreement with casualties.

Conclusion: Calling Civil War II the worst event ever is hyperbole bullshit at it's finest. It's not even the worst Marvel event of 2016 because that would be Death of X which had about as much quality as Ultimatum just with a much lower body count.
It is however Bendis weakest event so far by a landslide and I now know how Scarlet Witch Fans must have felt during Disassembled or Cyclops Fans during AvX because the poop-guy of this event was my favourit Guy: Clint Barton.

Still I always told people to stop whining so much so I won't do it now either. Besides I'd rather read 300+ Issues of Hawkeye going all Punisher on the Marvel Universe written by Bendis than seeing him in the hands of Lemire again.
Matt over and out.

Donnerstag, 5. Januar 2017

Review: Assassin's Creed (Movie)

(Beware of Spoilers)



In case you have never played an Assassin's Creed Game:

It's actually a Sci-Fi series and you play people who use a device called the Animus in order to relive memories of certain ancestors which revolve around a century old war between the Order of the Templars and the Order of the Assassins who have both very different opinions on how to save/ rule the world. Thats is all you need to know.


So there is some kind of unwritten rule to Movie adaptations of Videogames and said rule says they have to.. well yeah..suck.
Okay that is not entirely fair as Prince of Persia was quite good and so was the first Tomb Raider Film... I think.
I was a teenager when I saw it. Could have just been me liking Angelina Jolie in shorts.
But I guess we can all agree on the fact that the Sequel killed all the goodwill anyway.

In any case: Movies based on videogames tend to be really, really bad and people are waiting patiently for a (nother) Movie to break the curse, to defy the unwritten rule.

And now the question is: Could Assassin's Creed be that Movie?
Short answer: No.

Long answer:
What is it people love about the Assassin's Creed Games?
Is it the Sci-Fi stuff with the animus and everything?
Or is it the parkour stuff with stylish take down moves inbetween?

I'm asking because in the Movie we don't get much from the latter. We don't see much of the past (15th century btw) and the Assassine named Aguilar at all.
Instead we get to see a lot more of a guy called Callum Lynch, an ancestor of that Assassine.
Lynch isn't exactly the most interesting protagonist but he is no blank slate either and it certainly helps that the actor portraying him, Michael Fassbender, seemingly REALLY wanted this Movie to be good.
Because he gives it his best and you can see that in every scene.
Sadly that can't be said about pretty much anyone else. Villains, relatives, captured assassins... they all seem to be bored to death. Except for like one guy who tries at times to be funny in a Movie that doesn't do fun.

Don't get me wrong here. I am not saying the Movie is bad because it is not "funny". It doesn't have to be a comedy.
The Movie is bad because it's boring. Exposition left and right, missing character development front and center and a broody and overly dramatic atmosphere that just doesn't work as it's just exhausting after the first 20 or so minutes.

Yes the action scenes are alright for the most part and yes they clearly tried to stay close to the source material (except for the animus itself which is a robotic arm with a claw that holds the subject instead of a normal table/chair for whatever reason) but from Assassin's Creed 2 onwards these Games have been filled to the brim with charming, colorful characters while the Movie is not.


Look, Interesting characters! They even interact!
(Though I'm still mad about what they did with Lucy only because her voice actress didn't want to continue.)

Sure there are one or two people who have the potential to be interesting. One of them is Aguilar's female Lover and Sidekick but she doesn't get to do much. Everything she does, Aguilar does better.
They are about to be executed? Aguilar saves them both.
They fight their way through a massive wave of enemies to escape? Aguilar saves her ass.
They ambush the Main Villain and his Troops? She gets herself captured.

At one point she even falls of a cliff and we never see how she survived it and in the next scene she is back with Aguilar. Maybe I missed something but she is, in any case, wasted.

The Movie wouldn't be much different without her and that is sad considering she clearly is ment to be an important character. But with that she gets off better than the other female lead, Sophia Rikkin.

She is the daughter of the Boss of the Company that holds Lynch captured and is supposed to be a moraly complex character I guess. Too bad her motivations make even less sense than Lynchs.
Both seem to have a change of heart multiple times for no real reason.

So yeah and if all that wasn't enough:

The Movie is ugly.
We either get stale, cold hallways or foggy setpieces from the 15th century that look like Call of Duty Maps. Grey in grey, brown in brown and nothing else.

Let's move on to the...

...Conclusion:

Assassin's Creed is a boring movie. Some things work *cough* Fassbender *cough* but most things don't. [Insert sad emoticon here]