reviewed by Julian Lytle
grade: D
Okay, so the issue I have with this movie is, like many others is, how run-of-the-mill it is. It does feel like a shortened Disney+ show. The film tends to be slow and moves through things too fast simultaneously. The story feels a bit light, even with all the looks of adventure.
The production design doesn’t work much for me as there are times when you see really creative and brightly designed locales and characters and then others that feel like a generic alien landscape in others or just sci-fi base jail. The color of the film is very dark than what I expect from an MCU project, where it’s usually just flat or a bit gray versus a more DCEU dark look to the movie.
Most of the characters have a very one-note direction in the movie – Scott just wants to get his daughter home, Hope wants to know more from her mom, Hank is just riding along, etc. Jonathan Majors as Kang and Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet bring some good performances here, with their acting adding a lot to their characters that aren’t there in their dialogue.
Then we have MODOK, who is mostly here as a joke and a complete reimaging of the character, but how he looks does it zero favors. While it’s still a big head with little arms and legs and flying around, the design and execution to me made it look like an upscaled N64 character model on the screen of this 200-million-dollar movie. I was just disappointed every time he was on the screen. I will give them kudos for having Kang look like classic Kang and it being one of the best and most accurate comics to screen I’ve ever seen.
I can’t say I wished I’d liked it more, but I do think this movie isn’t even in the usual standard of MCU entries as this was a movie that just had Kang on screen more than telling a good and fulfilling story and one worthy of Ant-Man and the Wasp standing on its own.
Originally posted on the Geek Girl Riot podcast on idobi.com
RIOTUS 