(film review) - Thunderbolts*

The Marvel franchise is a bit of a rollercoaster ride at the moment. Movie-wise, since the end of Endgame (or Spider-Man: Far From Home, the last film in Phase 3), we have had hits and misses coming from Marvel. More movies that hit, and only a handful that have missed completely, and others that are just ok. 'Black Widow' started Phase 4, and whilst it was not trash or just ok, because in my opinion, it was a hit, it had its problems, coming out way too late was one of them. 'Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings' was an absolute hit, 'Eternals' was good but received mixed reviews, 'Spider-Man: No Way Home' was a hit, 'Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness' was mostly a hit, but it did have some story problems that brought the movie down as well as execution, so we can say that it was just ok, 'Thor: Love and Thunder' was a miss. It had all the promise in the world, but they went too silly with it, and Gorr was not as intimidating as he could have been or should have been. 'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' was a hit, but was held down by the incredible loss of Chadwick Boseman. What Ryan Coogler achieved is nothing short of a miracle, AND after the aftermath of the pandemic. 'Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania' was ok. Johnathan Majors was not the issue with this movie at all, and maybe they should have kept with the more sinister end they were rumoured to go for. 'Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3' was excellent, 'The Marvels' was just ok, it had it's problems, 'Deadpool & Wolverine' was excellent, and 'Captain America: Brave New World' was ok as it was a weak story riddled with patch-work ideas put together with the promise of something soo much better. Now that I have listed the movies in order of release and my subjective thoughts on how they went, which ones were bad and which were good, ok, etc, the movies on the whole since Endgame are not all that bad. What is it, three to four ok movies? At a push, five to six out of the twelve they have put out? Let's call it six, ok-to-bad movies; it balances out. Not to mention the TV shows they have put out, which are also hits and misses. I guess what I am trying to say here is, although people are saying Marvel is back, movie-wise, they are "fine", but what we do need is less 'ok' and more 'good to excellent' for the ship to feel that it is back on course. I feel the rollercoaster of the movies and the rollercoaster of the TV shows has not helped the fans feel that Marvel is in the right position to right the ship, but if this movie is anything to go by, I think they are.

The Thunderbolts* is about a group of individual characters, led by Yelena, a former Black Widow, who is sent on a mission that brings not only her, but a group of troubled individuals, all riddled with their own personal issues, who find themselves working together to ultimately tackle the big bad.

It is a simple premise, but the subject matter is great and something that can feel a little bit like a bit of a downer. Usually with these movies, we are dealing with 'smack', 'pow', 'crash', 'explosions' that we are too busy having fun watching our heroes beat the brakes off of a bad guy, but when you are dealing with life troubles and personal things that way you down, life is not as fun anymore and this movie touches on personal trauma and dealing with it, somewhat similar to how the TV show Hawkeye dealt with Clint Barton being a normal human being. 

Florence Pugh is incredible in this as she tries to navigate her past and her current life. If you have seen Black Widow, you will understand her character a bit more, especially with the angle of The Red Guardian being involved in that movie and their relationship. It is the conversation between these two people that had me a little emotional. When one person feels lost with no one to reach out to, and another person feels lost and does not know how to reach out, you are at a stalemate of two people who could communicate only if one of them did something, you know. Check on your friend. It is beautiful, but real storytelling, and it helps to make our characters feel like normal people. If you take notice in that scene also, these two are out in the open having a conversation, and people are naturally walking by, some people looking, but people are minding their own business whilst two people are having a meaningful conversation. That is real life. I am pretty sure I saw some people looking over at them, talking, but the decision for that allowed me to connect more with these characters. For the most part, they are "normal" people going through normal day-to-day things, kinda. As for Wyatt Russell and Hannah John-Kamen, they are great as the supporting cast, along with David Harbour, but the banter between Yelena, Ghost and John Walker is comedy gold. Throw in Red Guardian for more laughs and Bucky (Sebastian Stan) being ultimately, the serious granddad of them all, all worked well. A team that should not work, does not work, but they make it work. As for Lewis Pullman, I am not sure if I would have preferred Steven Yeun more because of his voice acting, and the emotion he puts into his characters is incredible, but Lewis did a great job. Lewis plays a character who is ultimately the same as the others; he has his own issues and/or demons that he wrestles with on a day-to-day basis, like the rest of them, so he fits into the team of "troubled" heroes just fine. What he brings to his character, Bob, has many different layers. His facial acting in some places seemed a little off for me, but I know it was the vulnerability he was portraying, but when he shifts from the sheepish and vulnerable to the more stern, decisive and vulnerable is where he sold it for me. I understood and recognised him as me at times in my life that I could honestly relate to, and THIS is why this movie hits. This is why the movie is relatable, because whether these are people with fantastic skills and abilities or people with enhanced strength and stamina, for the most part, they are still human.

The visuals and the music is great! There is a character design I was not fully sold on in this movie, but with that said, the other design was also a little bit of a turn-off, but I understand why they did it, especially as that design is what is always used to depict the idea of what it is (no spoilers here). There are some great shots and cinematography that are pretty much "comic book accurate". For example, there is a "drone" shot (a shot from high up) where there is a building, and you see one lone person walking towards it. In the comics, you'd see the exact same thing and the footsteps behind them. Also, the mood of this movie, although dark in places, has splashes of colour that spill into the scenes that help bring the joy and positivity that also work hand-in-hand with the score.

So not only is the storyline great and cohesive, the acting is spot-on, fun, funny and dramatic, the visuals are great, the music is great, the action is superb, like The Winter Soldier level of choreography, with two after credits scenes, one mid-credit and one post-credit, both that are really good and the second one even better as it does the old traditional, "does this play into the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe?", I would say that this is a great watch and Marvel are on the right track to becoming great again. We just need more quality storylines and risks taken because they have not missed in their casting, just in their execution and of late, it does not seem as though Marvel has taken many risks when taking risks is what they were built on.

 

(film review) - Black Widow

We are currently in a funny place with the MCU at the moment.  I say this because there has been a year with NO MCU movies, the second to last MCU movie, there were some seemingly prominent deaths and the last MCU movie showed us a bit of how life is or will be after the events of Endgame.
On another note, after the year gap AND the MCU now going into TV, MTU (maybe, working title), Disney has now released 3 TV shows connected to the MCU showing the continuation of the stories from our favourite and beloved characters after the events of Endgame.  So where does Black Widow sit within the timeline and having it arrive now, is it a healthy addition to the timeline? Should it have come out now after the events of Endgame? Is it a little too late? Do we even care anymore? Is it any good? Where does it leave the MCU now that it is out?  Soo many questions, soo many...but I guess I can try to answer them starting with, well, the film is good-ish.  I'll explain.

Black Widow picks up after the events of Captain America: Civil War, The Avengers are fractured after a fight and falling out and Natasha is on the run as a fugitive for violating the Sokovia Accords.  She seeks refuge at a safe house where she is met with some supplies, but shortly afterwards, she is attacked by Taskmaster which leaves her catapulted into a situation that involves her mother, father, sister and The Red Room, a training facility for Black Widows she long thought she took down and destroyed.  Natasha must now confront her past, her family and put an end to the Red Room, once and for all.

I believe this film is too late.  This film should have either came out before Endgame between Civil War and Infinity war where it takes place or come out in Phase 2.  There is a lot of politics and behind the scenes reasons as to why this did not happen, but I really do feel that the movie would have hit harder. The movie would have been more compelling and I feel it would have hit the audience harder.  I think more thought would have went into the movie.  It's not that Marvel haven't done a bit of back tracking before like Captain Marvel and at the time Captain America: The First Avenger, but I just felt the movie could have done a bit more with the story and some of the characters.  By all means, this is not a terrible film nor a bad film but I just felt a little underwhelmed although they did use it to set up the future or a few future characters in the MCU going forward.

It's Scarlett Johansson! She has been playing this role for over 10 years, she knows what she is doing and she is excellent as she IS Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow at this point.  Everything about the character is second nature to her as she knows the character soo well that the characters around her need to be strong or stronger and thankfully, Natasha's family is strong.  The mother and the father are played very well by Rachel Weiss and David Harbour respectively, where the sister, played by Florence Pugh knocks it out of the park.  Two sisters who loved each other but grew apart and are somewhat estranged.  The acting is superb and there are no real complaints here, but the villain(s) are just not strong and one of the villains, in my eyes was terrible, similar to something the MCU has done before with one of their villains.  I won't say which film, due to spoilers, but I didn't like that direction at all.  We have come to the point where, people can fly, there are aliens, androids, wizards and super soldiers, so why couldn't this character be more comic book accurate? The story-arc, although I understood, just felt like a waste.

When I said earlier I that I feel they could have done more with the story had they given it proper thought, maybe they had, but since Avengers (Avengers 1 aka Avengers Assemble) when Budapest was mentioned, it would have been nice to have a substantial scene that tied more strongly to the comments made since Budapest kept being brought up.  Although I understand now having scene this movie, maybe a flashback scene would have worked better...show, don't tell.  Unless there are to be more Black Widow movies (and I do believe this CAN happen in between the Black Widow 1 and Endgame) this movie will as a stepping stone to how excellent a character Black Widow is, but if we have no more Natasha, then this movie will simple serve as a footnote to her character, although this film was good, it just wasn't great.  A nice watch but a little underwelming.  Remember when Natasha tells Steve about her "Bikini line" in The Winter Soldier? More epic adventures and encounters with many foes, but none of these are referenced and having such a great character as Natasha, it would have been nice to actually see that, this movie not withstanding.  Just nothing like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, something I had hoped for.

The action in this movie is great every step of the way.  There were some great comedy element too and some real heartfelt moments with the family.  The pacing was excellent although it did seem a little formulaic with quiet moment, fight, quiet moment, fight, quiet moment, fight...I felt like I knew when they were coming.  The Widows were great but all in all, I just wanted more.  The Prison scene, I wanted more. The Black Widows fight, I wanted more. I just wanted more dammit! Maybe I had too high of an expectation.

Unfortunately, due to Covid and people having anxiety to go out, Marvel need to be hitting us hard with their storytelling and their action for people to actually want to go to the cinema otherwise people will just wait for it to appear on Disney Plus.  Whilst that might not be a bad thing for some people, lifestyle and responsibilities etc, but if a film just looks ok, people won't feel inclined to make the effort to go to the cinema and as this film was meant to drop last year, maybe this film would have received the traction it could have got normally had it come out when it did due to the epicness that was Endgame, when now, it's simply watered down and lacking.  My final thought, bring back Scarlett and make a sequel that is somewhat a prequel and sequel to Black Widow, Creed it if you have to, but I feel more Natasha is needed and maybe if done correctly, we can have a stronger bond between these two specific characters due to their actions and the past, where the past catches up to the future in a more significant way.  Hawkeye will be cool, but give us something more.

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(series review) [STREAMING] - DC's Stargirl

Greg Berlanti is the one guy who I can imagine in the most recent of years to be the living and breathing depiction of Scrooge McDuck jumping off of a diving board into a pool of money.  You see, he is solely responsible (to my knowledge anyway) for every single DC show you are seeing now, hearing of or have seen in recent years.
In 2012, the show Arrow starring Stephen Amell played the DC character Green Arrow.  Fans and critics alike deemed the show to be a Batman "Rip-off", not rip-off per-say but, his enemies were Batman's enemies.  That didn't stop the show as the show was great and improved by each season.  I believe it was season 2 where they introduced Barry Allen whom would later become The Flash, to then have his own series a year later, introducing crossovers from each show and then expanding the now aptly titled 'Arrowverse (Arrow universe) wider to include lot of other heroes and different teams throughout DC history.  Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow, Black Lightning, Batwoman and the up and coming Superman & Lois, not to mention other DC shows he helps to produce, Titans, Doom Patrol and Stargirl.  Even when you watch the Chillin Adventures of Sabrina, Greg's name is there! But without him and his input and efforts, Stargirl may not have been made and be as good as it is.

I'm not sure which year Stargirl takes place, whether before the Arrowverse characters as I'm assuming, techinically, it is meant to be as Stargirl is part of the Justice Society of America which comes before the Justice League of America, but the JSA have been wiped out by the villains.  The villains win and the sole survivor, Stripesy meets and marrys a lady named Barbara, Courtney's mother and they move to a town called Blue Valley and he leaves his past behind him.  Unfortunately, Courtney stumbles across the Cosmic Staff, previously held by Starman and would ONLY work for Starman, Courtney, now Stargirl wants to pick up where Starman left off and try to uncover a plot of villainy.

This show is decent and well worth the watch.  Having watched ALL of The Arrow episodes season after season, fairly caught up with The Flash, up-to-date with Supergirl, Black Lightning and Titans (although Titans is a separate thing, kinda), I'd like to say that Stargirl has the tone of the Arrowverse, especially shows like Supergirl and The Flash as it is fairly lighthearted, but it does have some slightly darker elements, not enough to be Arrow dark or Black Lightning dark in some cases, but we are talking about a bunch of teens taking on supervillians and these supervillains are no joke.

With that said, the choreography, like all the aforementioned shows have been amazing.  This show, blatantly wirework, but the use of movement with these characters are excellent.  As stiffly fluid as they possibly can as most of if not all of the fight scenes are practical.  There are some fights that are blatantly special effects but most of the special effects are for other elements of the show, so i found that the fighting scenes were very entertaining.  Yes you can tell it is wirework, but the fights are just great.  These teens get slapped up soo much, it made me laugh out loud on numerous occasions.  They do give as hard as they get in some cases and the work with the cosmic staff is excellent.

The cosmic staff is essentially its own character.  If you are into Marvel movies and know about Thor's trusty hammer, the cosmic staff is similar to that in the sense that only the user can use it, but the staff is sentient.  The staff moves by itself, helps the user to fly, flashes a bright light and can be used as a formidable weapon in combat.  The way the staff moves with and around Stargirl helping her whilst she is wielding the staff is nothing like i've ever seen before.  The staff does however come across as very convenient to plot and story though.  When they want to have the staff work for the story or move/act in a particular way, it would. If they don't want it to work in a particular way and they want to show Courtney get hurt or whatever, then it won't.  There were times I felt like the Staff could have assisted Courtney in moments and it did nothing.

Onto doing nothing, some of these villains were just in the show for the numbers.  Some were pointless and others didn't really show face until the end and still didn't do anything.  I liked that some of the villains were selfish, had their own goals and ideas which caused conflict between some of them, that was good, but for the most part, you only had possibly 3-4 villains which were great and entertaining.  The music was decent and just overall, the story was intriguing enough to have you engaged.  A little fluffy and bubblegum in places but I liked how they managed to balance teenage angst and heroism.  If you can watch the show. It would be interesting how a second season would go especially how it ended.

(trailer review) - Black Widow

(Final Trailer)

(Big Game Spot Trailer)

(Original Trailer)

I don't plan on making this a THING!  Where I review every trailer that comes out for a movie.  1. That is insane and 2. I simply just won't have the time.  Besides, who wants to read me saying "as it brings that same Captain America: The Winter Soldier energy, then I'm all for it"...for possibly the third time.  I know by now, you totally overstand where I stand on this movie by this point.  However, they have UPPED the trailer, AGAIN!!!

One might state this trailer is simply unnecessary and for the most part, I do believe they are showing a lot of the movie especially the end set of sequences, but guess what? I. Don't. Care.  At this point...*throws money at Disney* "TAKE MY MONEY!!!" As this looks great!

The last trailer brought more characters, more scenes, more action and more of Taskmaster, but this time we got even more character development, more intimate scenes and MORE Taskmaster showing us exactly what he does and how he does it.  Like I've said before and I've even quoted it earlier, as long as it brings that same Captain America: The Winter Soldier energy, then I'm all for it, and it looks like, they have captured that vibe and are running with it. Maybe even a little "Civil War" vibes with the multiple Winter Soldiers we didn't get that deep down we wanted.  Watching this trailer had me thinking, "Ok, Black Widow is bad-ass, but against ALL THOSE BLACK WIDOWS??? Ummm...".  Even the poster for the movie is similar to her pose from The Winter Soldier for her standalone picture. I loved that one too.  Can't wait!

Directed by Cate Shortland and starring Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, Florence Pugh, O-T Fagbenle, Rachel Weisz,

(trailer review) - Black Widow

(Big Game Spot Trailer)

(Original Trailer)

I actually forgot Superbowl drops some trailers of familiar or noted movies to unknown surprises.  This is yet another trailer for us to get hyped over and start to salivate at the mouth for another Marvel movie as well...it has been a while, kinda.
Due to this costing a billion to show, I thought I'd watch all 30 seconds of it and I loved it.

More characters, more scenes, more action, more of Taskmaster and he just ripped off Captain America with that Shield flip!  Like I've said before, as long as it brings that same Captain America: The Winter Soldier energy, then I'm all for it.

Directed by Cate Shortland and starring Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, Florence Pugh, O-T Fagbenle, Rachel Weisz,

(trailer review) - Bloodshot

(International Trailer)

(Official Trailer)

So, they have dropped another trailer for Bloodshot and I'm honestly wondering if anyone really cares.  The movie is due out in March and we are coming into mid-january and I'm wondering, "is Sony shooting themselves in the foot?" I mean, I am sure they are on a Hugh from releasing the Morbius trailer yesterday, but for releasing this Internaitional trailer now?  To be fair, it's not too early for another trailer but Vin Diesel isn't really a bankable star, unfortunately, or at least, doesn't seem to be.
Stating this is a comicbook movie in the trailer COULD push the movie and propel it higher, but at this rate and from what I believe, people just want good movies with a good enough of great story behind it.

A few news shots in this Internaitional trailer and A LOT of Wolvering/Ironman nanobots self healing shown.  Another pairticular shot that stood out to me was the motorbike scene (because there is always a motorbike scene) and it is a blink and you will miss it (I rewound 3 times), someone leaping and clearing a moving car (and what looks like) running through a walk.  What amazed me about this shot was the leaping of the car when the car is coming from the sides of you, NOT directly or from behind.  Impressive.
Hopefully, Vin Diesel does well with this as The Least Witch Hunter & Riddick didn't do too well in North America and better worldwide.  The Return of Xander Cage, did excellent worldwide.  Maybe he is just a worldwide star?  Whatever it is, let's hope this movie catches on because this trailer won me over just that little bit more.

Directed by David Wilson and starring Vin Desel, Eiza González, Guy Pearce, Sam Heughan & Toby Kebbell,

(trailer review) - Black Widow

It's been a long time coming.  So I'm guessing, those who have waited all 11 years for this, I'm wondering if they are even excited any more or are they literally foaming at the mouth from excitement?  Me personally, I am neither here or there with it, but I will say, I hoped that the film has a espionage feel to it, kinda like The Winter Soldier, because I feel this character deserves that kind of treatment as The Winter Soldier is possibly the absolute greatest stand-alone MCU movie! - Come at me bro!

This trailer though, reminds me of Atomic Blonde mixed with The Winter Solider and a bit of Bond and Deadpool 2.  Watching it a second time, I couldn't help but think of Bourne Identity.
David Harbour looks amazing in the role and the tired "Arm-cock" is hilarious (I mean, Henry Cavil has solidified that).  I'm very intrigued about the Black Widows Club and would like to see the bunch of them doing their thing, where Civil War didn't even give us any of that with The Winter Soldier Program.  The hand-to-hand looks great and it does have that Marvel Spectacle feel, however I'm just hoping it feels more grounded like The Winter Soldier.  Task Master looks ok, but more than anything, I really want to see Black Widow use her skills more predominantly with some more Assassin-like kills like in Avengers Assemble.

Directed by Cate Shortland and starring Scarlett Johansson, David Harbour, Florence Pugh, O-T Fagbenle, Rachel Weisz,

(trailer review) - Bloodshot

For those of us who are comic book readers or read graphic novels or just novels, we understand that for the most part there are no new ideas.  With that said, watching this trailer not only provided nothing new to what we have seen before, it also reminded you of various other incarnations of such stories where a man has died and was brought back to life, RoboCop or for me, (because I am of that age) Universal Soldier.

I was not bought on this movie at all, however the scene where Vin's character is falling and the guy he was falling with has some kind of elongated mechanical arm or something, THAT I liked.  I also did like that his body can heal, like Wolverine (in the X-Men), so I will be very interested to see if he has any kind of weakness and can be destroyed although we most likely won't see that.


Sidenote:  The story has to be a draw because Vin Diesel isn't at all and he essentially plays the same tough guy in every movie.  Let's just hope he gets success with this, Sony need it and so does he.

Directed by David Wilson and starring Vin Desel, 

(series review) [STREAMING] - Raising Dion

You'd think by now we would be oversaturated with comic-book movies, shows, etc and we'd basically see another one and physically vomit from reading the synopsis, however this one does something we haven't quite seen yet on TV.  Well, at least from what I have seen, thus far. The series ‘The Boys’ brings drama and action in a dark and gritty world with dark humour, whilst ‘Umbrella Academy’ brings drama, action with a family dynamic accompanied with a bit of humour and comic book absurdities.  As for this one, Raising Dion on Netflix, not only brings THAT with fantasy and adventure included, but leans heavily into family drama and isn’t about a bunch of adopted kids (family).

I stumbled across this on Netflix and I saw a little chatter online regarding it.  Kid with super powers, whoop-ti-doo.  But I thought I would give it a go and see what it was all about.

Nicole Reese (Alisha Wainwright) is a woman who is Raising Dion (roll credits), her son (Ja’Siah Young), as a single mother after her scientist husband (Michael B. Jordan) is killed in a freak storm.  As this becomes increasingly difficult with the loss of her husband in whom she misses dearly, things become more strenuous when she discovers her son has now got superhero-like abilities.  Knowing this to be a problem, Nicole tries her best to keep her son’s powers a secret especially when a shadowy organisation grows interest in little Dion.  With the help of her deceased husband’s best friend Pat Rollins (Jason Ritter), Nicole does what any good parent would try to do…and that’s keep her child safe.

This 9 episode show was good and I really enjoyed it.  In places it slowed down and in other places I felt it added scenes that were character building, but I was disinterested.  I understood the reasons behind them but I already understood what the showrunner and director was going for.  A mum struggling trying to raise her child in a world where being a single parent is difficult as you are not likely to have that support.  Not to say they were beating you over the head with it, but I think I just wanted something else.  Also, that having no support after having a child can also halt your dreams.  Life gets in the way sometimes.

When the series was finished though, not only was I in shock by the penultimate episode and the very good ending (obviously leaving you wanting more), the show ends with a “to be continued” feel, without having the words displayed.  I was also very keen on the age the child was when they started filming as I would like for a sequel to play out in “real time”.  An example, if the child was 8 when filming and the show came out two years later (hypothetically), then it took another two years to green-light and make another, if the child is 10, for them to explain that season two picks up 2 years later where the actor is 12 playing a 10 year old, so on and so forth.  I believe this way, as the child gets older in real time, we don’t end up having a child looking too old for the role and recasting as I would like to see where this story could go, considering his powers and the content.  I do believe it would be interesting to see Dion in his teens with his powers.  With that said, the content, I would like to see if there are any other people with powers and if more powers get revealed over the course of the series with bigger, badder and more dangerous threats so that Dion can truly turn into the Superhero he wants to be.  Plus we could use the same actor as other than a mischievous little boy who doesn’t listen, I believe Ja’Siah was good in the role.  Alisha was great playing the mum and Jason was also great playing the Godfather to Dion.

If you are interested in superhero shows like this, although very different from The Boys and a little younger in age bracket than Umbrella Academy, this is still a very decent watch with great special effects and a brilliant “no-name” cast which is also all-inclusive  I think they should green-light a second series immediately and get on with it…lol. Enjoy!

(film review) - Joker

I've probably said this before in a review somewhere, Warner Brothers have no clue with what they are doing since Marvel Studios released a movie called "Avengers".  Quaking in their boots and doing the only thing Hollywood does when something is successful, and they want IN, or they think that they have a great idea, they force it.  They copy and paste.
Warner Brothers (WB), would have done soo well if they followed Man of Steel with Wonder Woman and then The Flash or (from what they said at the time) the Flash and Cyborg movie and build their characters first.  However, they decided on shortcuts and they rushed out a Batman v Superman (in which I had a much better storyline from my own head which would have spanned over 3 movies leading to Justice League).  They rushed out Justice League which was, decent-ish.  They released Suicide Squad which was, "Meh", ok at best I guess and now the only pretty decent films since, have been the Aquaman movie and a pretty good Shazam movie.  In comparison to the line-up they gave many moons ago, what they have done fails miserably in comparison and that is not even comparing it to what Marvel has done.  Not to sound like a Marvel purist, but this is one of the reasons why people look at the DC "universe" with disappointment because there is NO structure whatsoever.
NOW, we can only "look forward" to Wonder Woman 1984, Bird's of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn), The Suicide Squad (Suicide Squad 2) and Joker as it seems Warner Bros has thrown caution to the wind and seem to be getting their foot-in, solidifying who they are as a studio whilst simultaneously still confusing the audience and messing it up by announcing a new Batman movie called 'The Batman' yet rumour has it, the commissioner may be played by a black actor where in the Ben Affleck version, is played by a white actor, #sigh.
We can only hope that this Batman "year one" movie IS a prequel to Ben Affleck's and they bring back Henry Cavill for Superman at some point, he deserves it.  As for this Joker movie with the actor not being Jared Leto and is a different Joker altogether, we can only hope this "elseworld" or "standalone" movie is good, well we hope.

Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) is a guy who wants to become a comedian.  He lives with his mother and looks after her whilst working in a world that doesn't give a shit about the poor and unfortunate.  Gotham is a society where the rich stay getting rich and the poor stay getting poor.  However, trying to navigate through his tormented life and caring for his sick mother, an incident on a train leads to a stream of unfortunate events, accompanied by some truths that help escalate and bring Arthur onto the path of becoming, the Joker.

I can't write much more than that, unless I would be going into spoilers, but there is a great deal of talk surrounding this movie stating that it is "unsafe" for society and it is "dangerous". That the film presents crime and villainy as something to aspire to, that it makes murder and such, right or that it is ok if you have been treated in a way, that acting out violence is the way to go about it.  No, it doesn't.  If you think that. It is possible you are missing the point.  The world depicted in this movie is not soo far off from actual life.  In actual fact, everything that happens in this movie is currently happening somewhere in this world or is leading up to it, although we wouldn't want to believe it.  The movie touches on the social and socio-economical construct of the world and what we humans do to one another and then wonder why these things are happening to us.  It's happening to us because we get what we deserve and THAT is the message of the movie.  Somewhat political, I guess, but IS the fact of life.

Todd Phillips did an excellent job here.  I know him from films like, Starsky & Hutch, Borat (he was involved in the story [who knew]), Due Date and The Hangover films.  The comedy in this movie, the little it has, is a little dark (but what would you expect?).  However, Todd has been receiving backlash from before it was even released! The movie is currently receiving mixed reviews (also there are movie critics who claim he has taken huge elements from ‘Taxi Driver’ and ‘King of Comedy’ - I haven't seen those movies), it goes to show, the cord it has struck with people and this is possibly why people are upset.

Joaquin Phoenix is excellent.  There isn't a lot of movies I've seen from this guy.  Gladiator, Signs and now Joker.  I've heard a number of great things about the movie ‘HER’, but I've still not seen it.  From the way he would run, contort his body, laugh, dance, his facial expressions and display his emotions, you could empathise with the character, but at times he could terrify.  Robert DeNiro and Zazie Beetz were both excellent in the small roles they had and accompanied with an excellently directed psychological thriller that not only leaves you with questions, also makes you want more from Todd and cast, it seems we are onto a winner.  I mean, what was real in that movie and what wasn’t?  If Warner Bros continue to make quality movies like this, people will start paying more attention to them.  It's like they do a great movie, every 10 years.  Let's just hope these up-and-coming movies at least reach the benchmark of a Aquadman or Shazam and maybe WB will get their confidence to start linking the old with the new as well as doing some standalone movies un-connected like this movie, (we hope) to set them apart from Marvel.  Imagine a movie all about Mister Freeze or a movie about Killer Croc, Hush, Ventriloquist, Firefly or Clayface.

I left the movie having to gather my thoughts before I wrote this.  And although I was falling asleep during the movie (so so tired), it didn't take away from the story, pacing and soundtrack - great! Just don't expect that Cape Crusader stuff and that action you'd get in most Superhero Movies, this one is different and all the better for it.  I mean, they are talking Oscars.  Well done Warner Brothers.  Enjoy!