Said goodbye to February without having done what should’ve been done — that which most people tend to do especially during the Love Month. Go on a date, eat out, engage in an unhealthy amount of unprotected or protected sex both — no, I don’t mean any of those. I mean watch movies. Don’t most people watch movies on and around Valentine’s Day? No? Really? You’re weird, kthanxbye.
I have not seen a single movie in February. Tried watching Malignant, Two, Ghost Rider 2 — not able to finish any. I finished one thing though: James Gunn’s Peacemaker on HBO, a spin-off series of last year’s The Suicide Squad. And you know what? Peacemaker blows out of the water all the Disney+ series from last year: WandaVision, Loki, TFATWS, Hawkeye. Heck, it’s even better than The Suicide Squad. Because every episode opens with a silly dance number involving Peacemaker (John Cena), Emilia Harcourt (Jennifer Holland), Vigilante (Freddie Stroma), and the rest of the cast.
There are other reasons too, which I’m too lazy to elaborate on right now. I won’t say the series goes deep or something, but in terms of character arcs and superhero/supervillain storytelling, it does way better than any of the plot-oriented Marvel series on Disney+. By the way, Peacemaker’s dad is played by the guy who played Liquid Metal.
I went to the mall last weekend and I was surprised to see that the cinemas are already open. They’re showing Spider-Man: Now Way Home and Matt Reeves’ The Batman. In case you don’t know, the latter stars Robert Pattinson, formerly teenage girls’ favorite hunk-from-book-to-film-adaptations until the filthy rich BDSM-obsessed guy from 50 Shades of Grey took over. Okay, I’m not sure whether the demographic of 50 Shades consist of college girls, bored female office workers, or maybe older women — there must be some overlap between the two, I guess? Twilight and 50 Shades? No?
Anyway, while thinking whether it’s worth it being trapped inside the cinema for more than two hours (The Batman is reportedly 3 hours long), considering all the risks, the virus, the possible consequences, I was reminded of what people on Twitter were saying about blockbuster cinema last year. That people don’t go to the movie houses anymore. People don’t line up to see the latest blockbusters anymore, even if the movie’s directed by Steven Spielberg, or Ridley Scott, or Guillermo del Toro. People don’t buy tickets anymore — unless — unless it’s Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Because spoiler-not spoiler-alert, Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield are in it. And there’s a scene where they interacted with Ned, Ned’s grandma, and MJ, and Ned’s grandmother speaks in pure Tagalog, because that’s how Marvel loves (to pander to) their Filipino fans. I don’t know but some people made a big deal out of it. Thought it was totally CRINGE. Probably the cringiest movie scene I’ve seen last year. It was generic and stereotypical, like it was taken from some old Filipino movies and spliced into a big budget Hollywood movie.
So, is No Way Home the best comic book movie of 2021? No, that would be The Suicide Squad. It’s a lot more fun than No Way Home, and it’s better than anything MCU, except Eternals — because I have yet to see Eternals, and the first ever sex scene in an MCU movie, for which Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, was said to be one of the inspirations. It’s a good selling point, I guess, saying your movie’s sex scene was inspired by one of the most sexually explicit erotic thriller/period drama in recent memory. We’re talking about hairs-on-Wei Tang’s armpits-and-Tony Leung’s balls-explicit.
And though it was “theoretically” a blast to see Bully Maguire don the red and blue again (I say “theoretically” because I saw it on a crappy camrip), no, the movie was among the lesser comic book movies of 2021, alongside (though maybe [slightly] better than) Shang Chi and Black Widow. The Disney+ shows were no better; Loki, probably the most interesting. The Falcon and the Winter Soldier‘s probably the worst. Let’s be honest, TFATWS was mostly bad — maybe save for Zemo. Hawkeye? Maybe even worse. It was so boring I couldn’t even bring myself to try sit and finish the series. Hailee Steinfeld is so pretty though. Must be the Filipino blood. (Lols)
By the way, The Suicide Squad isn’t the best supe movie I’ve seen last year. That would be this little-known South Korean movie on Netflix, Psychokinesis (2018). And the best superhero/comic book series I’ve seen last year were Amazon’s Invincible and Season 1 of Netflix’s Daredevil.
Psychokinesis (2018)
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