Murphy's Multiverse

Author: Mary Maerz

  • REVIEW: ‘Doom Patrol’ Episode 7 – Bird Patrol

    REVIEW: ‘Doom Patrol’ Episode 7 – Bird Patrol

    Episode 7 of Doom Patrol methodically builds onto the Sisterhood of Dada storyline while gradually weaving in our main heroes. Flashing back and forth from past to present, we see how intricately the details of Laura and Rita’s past have come to a head in the present. While it takes a little time to truly get going, by the end of Bird Patrol there’s no doubt that the story is rolling and rolling fast. While the Dada story is undoubtedly still the heart of the episode, we get very meaningful developments with our main characters that suggest more dramatic changes and decisions will come their way very soon. The end of the episode is wacky and confusing, but is an incredibly intriguing cliffhanger and setup for next episode.

    The episode gives us more of an explanation as to what the Sisterhood’s goal actually is. Last episode, they were simply metahumans trying to find comfort with one another and express their creativity in a safe space. While in present day, we watch foreboding fog roll in slowly throughout our characters’ unrelated lives. At some point, the Sisterhood grow pretty tired of their lives because they realize they are not actually making any difference in the world. The growing fire for change coupled with a triggering event is what moves the Sisterhood from an eccentric group of friends to an odd group of perpetrators bent on the eternal flagellation.

    Laura’s role in the Sisterhood’s transformation becomes apparent as we watch her ultimately betray the Dada by caving into Bureau pressure and reclassifying the members as weapons. What makes this arc so interesting, though, is that Laura does not become “evil” or a “villain”, but rather is portrayed as a woman who saw the need for more soldiers after World Wars I and II. She’s tired, depressed, and somewhat hopeless—there’s not much active intent to do harm, and she truly believes she is doing the right thing.

    The show has been working on filling in the gaps in Laura’s story, but at the same time we’ve been adding on to Rita’s. Her relationship to Laura and Laura’s betrayal causes everything to come together by the end of the episode. The moment the episode chooses to reveal Laura’s true betrayal of the Sisterhood is pretty stunning. After the fog rolls in and takes over, the Doom Patrol and Laura are in a sort of rundown, haunted version of the place the Sisterhood used to meet. Something possesses the characters to do strange dances that the Sisterhood members used to do. All of this causes Laura to regain her memory, and its shown that she is reenacting when she and the Bureau came to apprehend the Sisterhood as well as Malcolm’s death in the process. The past-present switches are phenomenal, and it solidifies how important Rita’s role in the story is after her love Malcolm’s emotional death.

    The only negative to the reveal is that Laura isn’t close enough with the Doom Patrol for the reenactment of her betrayal on them to hit all that hard. Still, it underscores Jane’s realization later that this story has really nothing to do with the Doom Patrol. It’s an interesting stance to take for the show, but the past couple of episodes have proved that they can be a useful vehicle for the Dada story, and the upcoming eternal flagellation along with Rita’s new life will certainly play into our characters’ own stories. Plus, the Dada story certainly benefits in terms of how enjoyable it is from having the Doom Patrol serve as a sort of middleman.

    The Doom Patrol are continuing their (what feels like) mini-stories while the rest of this is going on. Cliff is still addicted to several online activities and is generally being an idiot. Jane is inching closer and closer to a major confrontation with the other personas over Kay growing and maturing—no one really says it explicitly, but clearly the other personas are concerned about disappearing, and it’s interesting that Jane doesn’t seem to either think or worry about it. Vic is still looking into synthetic skin and calls Roni who encourages him to keep the tech to be a better hero—essentially, Vic has to figure out if Cyborg is important enough to outweigh the fact that he doesn’t know if he even is “Cyborg”. Larry’s lump turns into some sort of giant larvae that he vomits up. Laura tells him to burn it, but Larry can’t get himself to hurt it. Instead, he leaves it in the woods with a sleeping bag and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

    The end of the episode is bizarre in the best way. Rita shows back up in the present day as the surprise-ish orchestrator of the eternal flagellation. She’s notably different—she’s much more confident, angrier, and more demanding. She’s certainly not the passive Rita we’ve known. The Sisterhood have some sort of giant cage with a bonkers-looking monster. Rita absolutely insists that Laura has to be the one to open the cage and begin the eternal flagellation. It seems to be pretty important, but Laura doubles down on believing she did the right thing so someone else opens it. Countless strange birds (“Dada birds”) emerge and fly everywhere. It is yet to be seen if the fact that Laura didn’t open the cage has some actual consequences.

    While Rita and Laura are coming to a confrontation, Laura escapes by shapeshifting into a bird and flying off. It’s absolutely chaotic, and this is all happening while the Doom Patrol just sort of stand there confused and not a part of any of it. It seems like they will be, though, because the final scenes are them being sort of zapped up by Dada birds and disappearing.

    Bird Patrol was probably the most exciting episode of Season 3 to date. The ending undoubtedly served as quite the cliffhanger going into the eternal flagellation, which is still incredibly mysterious and unknown. This episode makes it clear that Doom Patrol can tell a story where the Doom Patrol isn’t actually all that important. The show recognizes that they are entertaining and creative vehicles to tell another story through, and the inevitable weaving of them into the greater narrative can only make the actual story more fun than it could be on its own. On the other hand, having the Doom Patrol’s sporadic individual stories organized and portrayed through a larger and somewhat unrelated plotline also amplifies those stories in a way they would not have been otherwise. 

  • REVIEW: ‘Titans’ Finale – Purple Rain

    REVIEW: ‘Titans’ Finale – Purple Rain

    After a difficult season, we’ve wound up at a strangely simple finale for Titans—after not being well set up whatsoever, Purple Rain seems to also want to push through it and get it over with. Only about two-thirds of the finale is devoted to the resolution of the overarching Gotham/Crane plot, so the often convoluted twelve episodes that built up to this moment feel even more insignificant. As a positive, though, the plot in this episode is pretty cohesive and understandable, which isn’t something we’ve been able to take for granted. Otherwise, the ideas and actions in this episode are just ridiculous. 

    By the end of the finale, there are certainly a few loose strings, and a few random elements appeared, but there’s no strong momentum leading into Season 4. Honestly, that could mean there’s some chance of starting “fresh” and making something better, but that’s probably too hopeful. The show is an expert at forgetting its own past though as we’ve seen major characters completely drop off the radar without a mention. Probably worse is the fact that no matter what the characters experience, say, kill, decide, or have an epiphany about, it almost always is completely forgotten in either the same episode or the next. There are numerous examples of this in the finale too, and too many to actually mention. 

    By the end of the previous episode, none of our characters are near each each other, thinking about the same thing, or pursuing the same goal. This is usually not a great place to start a finale, but it is no shock that this isn’t any barrier for Titans. All of our characters magically end up in the same place and on the same page almost immediately. From here on out, the plot feels pretty routine—here’s the problem, within 30 seconds we’ve figured out the solution, and let’s go get it done. It’s not exciting in terms of pacing or creative storytelling, but it’s easier to follow than a lot of Titans so that’s worth something. 

    While the fundamentals of the story are simple, the actual “problems and solutions” really struggle. There are two tracks of the action: the group that goes straight for Crane in Wayne Manor, and the rest that do one of the most ridiculous things we’ve seen (but it definitely has competition)this season to save Gotham citizens . While the concepts for all of this are both laughable and too easy, they at least go by quickly without too many diversions.

    The boy band—Dick, Jason, Gar, and Tim—think they are doing some dramatic stuff. At one point Dick says, “We’re going to beat Crane by doing what Batman never would.” While that sounds like it could be aggressive, violent, or even creative, it is none of those things. Apparently Batman would never break into Wayne Manor through a window, turn off an alarm, have someone else hack into the computer, and then punch the bad guy. There really isn’t any reason why this couldn’t have been done in some form at any other point in the season if it were that easy. They do use this time to shoehorn Tim into the mix, and he gets the dramatic last word in with Crane before being the one to punch him. He’s a Titan now.

    Conner and the women (the people with powers) do the silliest stuff of the episode. After Crane kills hundreds of people, they figure out immediately that they can turn the Lazarus Pit into a storm that rains over Gotham and just casually revive everyone. Some nonsense combination of Rachel absorbing the pit’s nightmares, Blackfire shooting fire into water, and Starfire containing it in some sort of energy ball that she then throws into the sky is what does the trick. Luckily, there is also deadly lightning that Donna gets to lasso easily as a call back to her death by electrocution last season. How a season that started with Batman leaving Gotham managed gave us this ending is wild.

    After all of that, the whole finale battle is over more quickly than Titans has ever finished anything. We get about sixteen extra minutes of post-win content featuring a lot of Jason and Bruce Wayne. Bruce’s dramatic and mopey absence honestly made me forget about his whole role in this. So the dramatic conversation between him and Jason comes across so forced and cringey—they just made Bruce’s character so terrible, and the only attempt to redeem him is have him apologize for being a bad Batdad. We supposedly get some Jason redemption and resolution in the finale, but like everything, it’s too easy. He’s mostly just forgiven for no reason, and no other satisfying or realistic interaction between him and the others happens. As noted above, there are no consequences for the twelve episodes of constant bad decisions we had to slog through. 

    While we know that the Titans are returning to San Francisco, the show doesn’t leave any significant plot on the table. Honestly, that’s probably for the best. What we got in Season 3 has mostly been unfortunate. The episode did drop the fact that V is actually working for A.R.G.U.S.—which was an ex machina for computer hacking apparently—so the organization and characters associated with it are set up to show up again soon. Blackfire now has the ability to return to Tamaran using the ship Conner blew up because Conner perfectly remembers every detail of it. Just in case we forgot there are no consequences. 

    Donna also seems to depart the team while Tim joins it—it is interesting to see how the show will go about Tim’s superhero identity considering he was absolutely not set up to become Robin by never meeting Bruce and leaving Gotham. Maybe the show is appropriately not going down that path after its aggressive Bruce-is-a-child-abuser vibe this season. But it hasn’t been all that self-aware before. 

    The end of Titans Season 3 is absurd and ridiculously simple after this convoluted season. The best part of the finale is that all of this is over. The show left itself in a place no different than where we started honestly—while Jason was supposed to be a cornerstone of the story, he actually got about two episodes at most worth of development and his character barely changed if at all. The “Robin” theme wasn’t tapped into in a way that could have made it interesting. The Blackfire plot was horrible, the best characters were wasted if not damaged, and most actions that any character took made no sense and were hard to watch. At the end of the day, Titans hasn’t necessarily forced itself into a new plot, so maybe—just maybe—they can take advantage of a fresh start.

  • ‘Eternals’ Kumail Nanjiani Shares How Chloé Zhao Pitched Kingo’s ‘Finger Gun’ Powers

    ‘Eternals’ Kumail Nanjiani Shares How Chloé Zhao Pitched Kingo’s ‘Finger Gun’ Powers

    Eternals stars Kumail Nanjiani and Salma Hayek appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live Thursday night to promote the upcoming Marvel Studios film. During the show, we got to see a new scene from Eternals where Nanjiani’s Kingo fights a Deviant. When asked about what Kingo’s powers are, Nanjiani cheekily called them “finger guns.” As we saw in the teaser, he went on to say that it wasn’t just for show and offered some insight into how director Chloé Zhao pitched her vision of his powers.

    I got to work and I said, ‘So, how do I shoot?’…Chloe was like, ‘Finger guns.’ I was like, ‘Chloe that’s so goofy.’ She’s like, ‘No! It’s gonna be finger guns…I promise it’ll look cool.’ And so I felt stupid for six months doing this [mimics finger guns] every day.

    Kumail Nanjiana

    He might have felt stupid while filming, but after watching the new clip of Kingo, Makkari, and Ikaris fighting a Deviant, he said, “It looks pretty cool!”. So, luckily it paid off doing the goofy finger guns for those six months of filming. The teaser also showcased Makkari’s speed while keeping humanity safe from this alien threat. Back in December, we got our first tease of their various abilities and it’s great to see them finally come to life. Going by the various trailers, all the Eternals base their energy from the same source, as we see all of them utilize golden energy that may be our first glimpse into cosmic energy.

    Source: EW

  • REVIEW: ‘Doom Patrol’ Episode 6 – “1917 Patrol”

    REVIEW: ‘Doom Patrol’ Episode 6 – “1917 Patrol”

    By going backward, Doom Patrol’s “1917 Patrol” manages to move the season’s plot forward significantly. The episode filled in much of the blank space the first half of Season 3 created surrounding Laura DeMille and the Sisterhood of Dada and in doing so actually gave Doom Patrol what feels like a concrete and cohesive storyline.

    Episode 6 sends Rita back in time to 1917 to explore the origins of the Sisterhood of Dada, which is helpful and welcome after the vague and mysterious way we met them last episode. Rita forgets who she is like we saw Laura do after using the time machine, but ends up at the Bureau of Normalcy which houses a small number of metahumans. Now known as Bendy, Rita finds a happy life working in the mailroom and connecting with the other metas.

    The group is mostly the same as we saw in the last episode, including Fog, Frenzy and Quiz. Additionally, Laura is a part of the Sisterhood, as well as a man named Malcolm who can turn invisible and has a birdcage and canary for a heart. Rita/Bendy finds a quick home in the Sisterhood, who gather in a place created by Fog to express themselves and be creative—but it’s essentially a speakeasy. In particular, she grows quite fond of Malcolm. The Sisterhood certainly does not come across as any kind of threat yet, so it’ll be interesting to see what happens between 1917 and the present day to lead us to their confrontation of the Doom Patrol and talk of “The Eternal Flagellation.”

    “1917 Patrol” does a phenomenal job in developing both Laura and Rita. While we’ve spent time with an amnesiac Laura and normal Rita, we haven’t had much development for half of a season. Ironically, this episode ramps up the two characters by mind-wiping Rita and putting Laura in a place where she knows who she is. Laura is a recruiter at the Bureau who classifies metas as either weapons or not weapons. She clearly has a soft spot for some—and she is a shapeshifter herself—as she protects the Sisterhood from being used as soldiers. On the job, she is indifferent, professional, and rigid, but once with the Sisterhood she comes alive like the rest of them. Rita, without her memories, is a much more confident and secure person who easily finds a family and a sense of belonging with the quirky group.

    The episode seems very intentional in how it uses this episode to frame the two women, and it pulls off probably several episodes-worth of character development in just this one. We now have an actual grasp on who Laura is and she is much more of her own person rather than just filler at Doom Manor now. Rita feels reinvented but is actually just being interpreted in terms of who she would be if she was not riddled with shame and insecurity. We spend a lot of time with both in the past after we spent a decent amount of time with them together in the present day—their individual growth is intertwined with their chronologically messy relationship, and the ultimate payoff of that, if this continues to be executed well, could be huge.

    Elsewhere in the present-day episode, the other members of the Patrol are handled similarly to how they’ve been dealt with so far this season. They are very separate from one another and are taking stabs at small bits and pieces of their own stories. Some of it feels a bit repetitive, and some of it feels slow—they certainly have not been folded into the newly revealed overarching story yet.

    Larry stands up for himself against his son who hates him for leaving the family after his accident. While Larry has normally let his own guilt weigh down his every move, he delivers a solid rebuke and tells his son that he can’t take his fatherhood from him. Cliff is still living in a haze of black-market Parkinson’s drugs, and he is addicted to online gaming, gambling, and girls. 

    Jane lets Kay go up to the surface to buy her own shoes, and Kay teaches herself how to ride a bike and experiences some joy for once. The other personas are not happy with Jane’s interest in helping Kay grow, and there’s an obvious setup to a bigger referendum on Kay’s trauma on the horizon. Vic is again questioning why he is Cyborg, or why Cyborg is Cyborg, or why Cyborg is Vic—take your pick. This time, though, he’s doing something explicit about it by looking into replacing his technology with synthetic skin.

    Episode 6 ends with Laura being ominously and threateningly contacted by the Sisterhood of Dada in the present day. Something has clearly changed from 1917, but like Laura, we are still in the dark. It’s noticeable, though, that Laura is for sure no longer being set up as the obvious and staunchly established adversary of the season. The mysterious but clearly rocky dynamic between her, the Sisterhood, and the Doom Patrol calls into question whether we will even have that kind of villain at all. The lack of that in the past hasn’t been particularly positive, but the seemingly more well-rounded and complex plot might have a fresh take on it.

  • Tom Holland Teases More “Visceral” Fights and Working with Alfred Molina

    Tom Holland Teases More “Visceral” Fights and Working with Alfred Molina

    The highly anticipated Spider-Man: No Way Home is fast approaching. Fans are clamoring for any information on the secretive third installment of the Tom Holland-led Spider-Man franchise. Sony and Marvel Studios have been keeping mum on the project, but luckily Holland gave an interview with Entertainment Weekly, where he teased what is heading our way. He shared his excitement working alongside actor Alfred Molina, who is set to reprise his role as Dr. Otto Octavius or Doc Ock. He’ll reprise the role for the first time since his beloved performance alongside Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man in 2004’s Spider-Man 2. He went on to say that:

    [He’s] one of my favorite people I’ve ever worked with…It was really fun to watch him see how technology has advanced. When he was making these films, the arms were puppets, and when we did it, they’re all imaginary and CG. It was quite cool to see him relive it, but also relearn it.

    Tom Holland

    Holland also teased that No Way Home will feature fight scenes that are “a lot more visceral,” and with “a lot more hand-to-hand combat.” Based on the actor’s comments, it looks like fans can expect to see more creativity in the film’s action sequences than we’ve previously seen with Holland’s Spider-Man. As the trailer teased several adversaries and even Doctor Strange, he’ll have to change up his tactic. A toy leak did tease his new magical webbing which will also add some new flair to his move set once the film releases this December.

    Source: EW

  • REVIEW: ‘Titans’ Episode 12 – Prodigal

    REVIEW: ‘Titans’ Episode 12 – Prodigal

    Over the course of the season, and particularly with the past few episodes, Titans has dug a hole for itself with many of its questionable (if not cringe) character and plot decisions. The penultimate episode of Season 3 carries on much of this legacy—the rough parts of the episode are very rough—but somehow Tim Drake and Donna Troy are still hanging on as a glimmer of hope for the show. By the end, though, we still aren’t put on an obvious path to a finale.

    For much of Titans‘ third season, there hasn’t been much to add to the Crane and Jason villain arc. Both of their motivations—and often personalities—change dramatically each episode. In “Prodigal,” Crane has started speaking in poems with his focus on destroying Gotham and killing everyone in it. In the last episode, we were still working with the “Gotham’s savior” version of Crane. But perhaps cutting up the pizza guy can change a person. Shockingly, Jason soon realizes that he does not want to help Crane, perhaps for the final time given the swiftly approaching end to the season. 

    Last episode ended with Dick presumably dying at the hands of random Gotham citizens, and Rachel and Gar confirm that. What follows is absolutely bonkers. Through watching it all happen along with Rachel’s later description, we come to find out that the bats that have been following Gar around for quite a few episodes did so because they knew that Gar loved Dick. After discovering Dick’s body, the bats swarm Gar who then inadvertently changes into a bat and leads the bat swarm to lift and carry Dick’s body to the Lazarus Pit. Congratulations to Gar for being given the green light by the series to actually change into an animal, but the rest of that is rough.

    The episode hits again on the fear theme—Gar confesses that fear is what unlocks his ability to change. At this point, it feels like this is an after-the-fact excuse as to why Gar essentially does nothing in the series. But Dick also has to work through fear in the Lazarus Pit. There, he encounters a nightmare Crane who tells him that he let his father down and that he also hates Jason and wants him dead. After miming the Joker and beating Jason to death in the Pit fever dream, Dick realizes that he does not actually want to do that, which is a huge revelation and personal breakthrough.

    He then sees and talks to his late father, and his father telling Dick that he loves him really does the trick—Dick then sees a young girl who calls him her dad. It’s not clear if this is supposed to be a sort of vision of the future or a manifestation of hope and love. Either way, we don’t learn that the girl’s name is Mar’i or anything crazy, but it seems implied that Kory could be the girl’s mother. Lastly, Dick has a very strangely shot and edited conversation with Crane again in his dream, which mostly consists of close, straight-on shots of both of their faces. With terrible editing, Dick goes to punch Crane and simultaneously in the real world punches through the Lazarus Pit to revive from the dead. While there were some decent elements of Dick’s psyche involved in this whole sequence, it’s a letdown that his dramatic fight to live ultimately prevailed because he just wanted to punch Crane of all people.

    Blackfire reunites with Conner thanks to a little help from Krypto. She’s still a hard character to really embrace, but giving her the “fire” actually makes her a bit more enjoyable. Her dominating and confident personality type is complimented by her being more powerful, and it seems like she was immediately given better visual effects and better mastery of the power than Kory ever had. Blackfire convinces Conner that the two should be some sort of super duo. Conner doesn’t take too much persuading after Dick’s betrayal, so we get a couple of “Fuck the Titans” quotes and Conner is now the rebellious type. 

    Kory and Blackfire have a solid moment of sisterly love after Kory explains to Blackfire what their parents did to them as kids. Blackfire is ready to return to Tamaran alone to face her destiny as queen. Conner, newly minted as a bad boy, gets the last laugh of the episode as he psychotically blows up Blackfire’s ship because he is mad she would be leaving him. Honestly, it’s a fun last shot of the episode because Conner’s evil Luthor-side appearance was a surprise in the moment and gave Superboy some (immature) edge.

    Tim and Donna’s side plot with the Drake family ends up being a mild letdown because instead of holding their ground and revolting against the corrupt GCPD, they end up choosing to escape instead. Still, the dynamic between Tim and Donna is the strongest element the show has going for it currently. Tim is gearing up to try and be a superhero-type, but Donna’s big sister energy very clearly tells him it’s a terrible idea and that he wouldn’t be able to cut it. Tim, though, does not doubt that he needs to fight and that he at least has to try. His holding his moral and personal ground against Wonder Girl is a solid way to give his resolve credibility. He may also have the benefit going forward as a hero that his mentor happened to be one the most reasonable and well-qualified around.

    Finally, Jason and Dick—both Lazarus Pit alumni—come together in an agreement to take down Crane. Considering the intended storyline of the season, this should not have felt as hollow as it did. It is too easy, and there is no appreciation for what the characters have been through or what they have done to each other. Any character build-up or side arcs are easily forgotten, and apparently, there are generally no consequences of anyone’s actions. They all simply come back together no questions asked when the plot needs them to. All of the in-between moments are pretty much confirmed to be filler.

    Episode 12 took some interesting liberties with how it moved the plot forward. While the theme of fear has been around for some time, we are now getting some hints of “love conquers fear” — which isn’t exactly where this seemed to be going. Overall, though, this episode felt at least somewhat better than the last few. Perhaps that’s because it did decide to drive itself into a corner where it has no choice but to pick (at least the end of) a plot. It still does not feel like a finale has really been set up, which is probably not a good sign. 

  • Jonathan Majors Talks Transitioning From He Who Remains to Kang the Conqueror

    Jonathan Majors Talks Transitioning From He Who Remains to Kang the Conqueror

    Actor Jonathan Majors is set to play the villainous Kang the Conqueror in the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Majors is in an interesting position after having indirectly introduced his character in the season finale of the Loki series. Having portrayed a variant of Kang known as He Who Remains, a burning question is how the two characters will be different from one another. Asked by Variety how he will handle the transition between his portrayals of the two characters, Majors said:

    Well it’s a different script, so there’s that…different writers and I’m shooting in a different country, so there’s that. And you know, He Who Remains is in the world now, so there’s so much we know about him…there’s [] 40 minutes of that guy and that narrative, and so it really set me up to tell a story and get another canvas with more players this time. It’s not the incredible Tom Hiddleston…I’m dealing with Paul Rudd and Evangeline and the likes of the Ant-Man family.

    Jonathan Majors

    Ant-Man himself Paul Rudd has praised Majors’ work and performance for the upcoming film. It looks like Majors has some praise for Rudd as well, as Majors also stated:

    Paul’s a veteran. And you know, we don’t have the Avengers without Ant-Man. He’s our leader on set…He’s been instrumental in allowing me to kind of land, you know, in the world. It’s his set, it’s his franchise, and he’s been beautiful.

    Jonathan Majors

    Just going off of the words of the two actors, it looks like Ant-Man and Kang the Conqueror are set to be quite formidable characters and instrumental to the growing Marvel Cinematic Universe as well as its new multiverse. The upcoming third installment of the Ant-Man franchise is currently in production in London and is on track to hit theaters on Feb. 17, 2023. 

    Source: Twitter, Twitter

  • Chloé Zhao Talks How the Visuals Ground ‘Eternals’ Story

    Chloé Zhao Talks How the Visuals Ground ‘Eternals’ Story

    By all accounts, Eternals is set to be quite the stand-out film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Phase Four movie showcasing relatively unfamiliar characters from Marvel comics and introducing dramatic new mythology to the MCU. Academy Award-winning director Chloé Zhao has also teased how Eternals will stand out visually.

    Zhao, who is well-known for her work on Nomadland, said that she believes Marvel Studios hired her for Eternals because of her ability to make the movie immersive enough for audiences to believe the premise that these superheroes have been around for 7,000 years. In an interview with Fandango, she highlighted that:

    [T]here’s what I like to call an anthropological way of capturing things. The cameras are very grounded, and the movements are very natural. Shots are longer — we use wide angle lenses, and deep focus. Very similar to the thing you and I did together for Nomadland… it’s about giving the audience the space and the time to be able to explore what’s within the frame, and therefore come to their own conclusion of the relationship between the characters and the space they’re in.

    Chloé Zhao

    Overall, the director emphasized that one of the most important goals of the visual process was the make the otherworldly story of Eternals feel grounded. The key to that, according to Zhao, is consistency:

    In this case you’re going throughout history and 7,000 years, [and so it’s] even more important to make us feel like this world feels real and grounded. I wanted to apply that same digital style to everything from action, visual effects, to also capturing the grand mythology of the Celestials in the cosmos, and the consistency of that. I wanted it to feel grounded yet fantastical.

    Chloé Zhao

    If her work on Best Picture-winner Nomadland and the footage of Eternals released so far is any indication, the upcoming installment of the MCU will be a visual experience unlike what audiences have seen so far from Marvel Studios.

    Source: Fandango

  • Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness Likely to Appear in More Films and Series

    Kathryn Hahn’s Agatha Harkness Likely to Appear in More Films and Series

    Earlier today news broke that an Agatha Harkness spin–off series starring WandaVision’s Kathryn Hahn is in development as Marvel Studios. Hahn’s performance as Harkness in the Emmy-winning series received massive fan praise and critical acclaim. Her turn as Harkness even earned her an Emmy nomination in the process.

    While spin-offs of any kind are quite common to see after extremely successful and popular original works, they often end there. However, it was reported that Hahn’s series deal is, in fact, part of a larger deal with Marvel Studios. The deal not only encompasses Hahn’s Harkness appearing in more Disney+ projects, it also sets the character up to appear in future films.

    The broad deal means Agatha Harkness may be around the Marvel Cinematic Universe for some time. After all, the character has significant history not only Wanda Maximoff, but also the Fantastic Four. The Fantastic Four, of course, are gearing up to make their MCU debut in Phase Four. The versatility of a large Marvel deal might allow her to make appearances in several projects that touch on stories vastly different from WandaVision. In any event, it certainly means Agatha Harkness will probably be around to add the mystical side of the MCU in the near future. 

    Source: Deadline

  • REVIEW: ‘Titans’ Episode 11 – The Call is Coming From Inside the House

    REVIEW: ‘Titans’ Episode 11 – The Call is Coming From Inside the House

    We’re nearing the end of Season 3 of Titans, which means the future is bright. Episode 11 makes sure to hold on to most if not all of the shortcomings the series has compiled this season and repeats many the same bad patterns that have pretty much been on a loop episode after episode. The remaining glimmer of hope is still Tim Drake, and his and Donna’s arc already greatly outshines everything else.

    The main Gotham plot, if it can be found, is once more based on character choices that either come out of nowhere or have been visited unsuccessfully numerous times. The idea of Scarecrow going about drugging all of Gotham with an anti-fear chemical just to play a video that says the Titans are bad and Red Hood is good is disappointing to say the least. But now Jason’s aggressive interest in taking on Nightwing one-on-one to somehow prove that Red Hood is a hero is not only another situation where Jason has done a complete switch of character, but is so meaningless compared to everything else going on at this point. There is no need to worry about Jason being consistent, though, as by the end of the episode he has an internal crisis on being Red Hood.

    Not to be outdone, Dick has gone all-in on being terrible. Not only have his terrible ideas gotten him and the Titans to the hiding places they currently reside in, the leader of this “family” stops at nothing to be able to fight Jason alone for absolutely no reason other than to just make it about himself. Shockingly, this gets him shot and then jumped by the dosed zombie-people of Gotham—not even Jason. Gar and Rachel, after needing a total of probably 45 minutes to learn about and then find a Lazarus Pit conveniently sitting open in a random abandoned building, pretty much hold up a neon sign that says, “Dick is going to die but we will put him in this pit and nothing matters.” 

    After letting Crane be the least threatening and most unnecessary villain around for the entire season, the show did put some type of effort into ramping up his crazy and violent side. The strange new complex about “the time for masks is over” somehow leads him to torturing the pizza guy and acting particularly manic. Why anyone cares whether this guy wears the Scarecrow mask or not is unknown at this time.

    In another part of Gotham, Tim and Donna reunite in the world of the living. Tim’s character and Jay Lycurgo’s portrayal of him is what so much of Titans is unfortunately not—good. We get a better glimpse at Tim through his family, and the episode appears to be setting up a moment where the remaining “hold out” neighborhoods of Gotham revolt. It’s a much more compelling concept than the rest of the current plot, and the street-level and ordinary people aspect of it could be refreshing if it stays that way.

    This episode seemed brilliantly self-aware that the series completely wrecks its most powerful characters for no reason. At least it can only be assumed it is aware considering it does it some more and somehow worse. For one thing, the best line of the episode is Conner telling Dick his is better than him in every way after kindly acting as Dick’s secretary. Because it would apparently be a shame for Superboy to be super, Dick promptly hits him and Krypto with some kryptonite so that the Titans can remain useless and he can get personal with Jason. 

    What they did to Starfire is almost unspeakable. Not only do we get some gnarly visions based on a random baby she saw in the street, but we learn that she was not born with the “fire”, her family used magic to give Blackfire’s fire to her, and now she unexplainably has new blue powers with no clear function or origin. It’s very difficult to understand why her new powers, which has “been with her all along”, are not even green–they won’t even let her be color-coordinated. Titans just won’t leave Starfire alone.

    All in all, nothing much actually changed in the plot or in how the series tries to spin the plot. It is a rehash of the villains being all over the place with no real motivation or personality; Dick being a real hindrance to everything and everybody for no reason; and most good characters being reduced to nothing. Tim and Donna’s neighborhood war could be promising, but only if the rest of the Titans do not get involved.