The hello, welcome to the extra credits of Superman versus the Fantastic Four, First steps, the rise and fall of the DCU and the MCU.

I'm Trey.

And I'm Kelsey.

So this is not our usual territory.

No, we do not regularly cover superhero films anymore.

In fact, I think we'd like made a rule of it.

And the last one we we covered was like Doctor Strange and we were being negative because of what we'll talk about in our relationship to Marvel, how they came out as we were kind of growing up like was very, you know, key for our generation.

And so we're like, you know what we're saying too many bad things.

And it's already like going downhill.

We don't need to fuel the fire.

We just don't, we just don't need to cover it.

But, you know, I, I do think that superhero movies are like on the upswing and I don't know how I feel about it so.

Yeah, I was surprised you said yes to this episode when I asked you.

You know, we have had moments in our life of loving this genre.

Yes.

And the different iterations of this kind of formula of movie making.

We are the generation of, I think the, you know, superhero golden age of movies.

We had the Tobey Maguire and Sam Raimi Spider Man trilogy.

We had Nolan and Christian Bale's Dark Knight trilogy, the original X-Men films and even the prequels.

At least a few of those are really good.

And of course, you know what you're noting Marvel's phases one through 3, the Infinity Saga all the way up to an end game.

Or maybe I think in 2021, Spider Man, No Way Home, with the return of Andrew Garfield and Tobey Maguire to Tom Hollands universe for almost 20 years, we're 30, we have been the exact target audience for superhero movies.

But like you're saying, over the last five or six years, it's been tough.

You know, the superhero industrial complex has been spiralling.

You know, we've been pretty vocal.

But in certain spaces, usually Patreon, that shareholder greed has overtaken superhero storytelling movies and quantity has become more important than quality.

And we've been sadly watching studios push really rushed, formulaic projects into theaters filled with stars that aren't allowed to be themselves, and even seeing our streaming platforms filled with like, superhero IP continuation stories.

Right, And then it becomes so much to keep up with too.

And it kind of dilutes the art form into content, which is really unfortunate.

That's a good way to put it, yeah.

In the guise of like comic book storytelling and you have like executives being like, but this is like comic books, all these different issues or different series of different iterations.

And I think everyone's just like sort of exhausted.

I don't want to speak for everyone, but I think there's a large, I think, past fandom that has now kind of been leaving theaters and not going to every superhero movie who do, who do feel a little bit tired.

Yeah, I think there are definitely, you know, still people who are very invested in the Marvel project.

And I'm assuming these people also have a large connection to the comics like you're saying.

So it is cool to see these things on screen.

It is cool to see different iterations or different universes and like where different directors and kind of creative, you know, turns that it can take on screen.

But for people who are not as invested like us.

And I think there's a a big pocket of like general audiences too.

It's the the stories just aren't that great.

I'm often like bored when I see them.

It feels clunky, like visually even.

And yeah, they're just not like the I'm not as invested in the characters also or kind of like the team up of it all.

It feels kind of forced in certain ways.

Like Spider Man.

No way Home was a a different story because of our relationship to Tobey Maguire.

Like that's our Spider man.

And then, you know, Andrew Garfield is also in a way sort of our spider man.

We just love him as an actor.

And then Tom Holland obviously is like just like the perfect spider man.

So that that's.

Kind of an exception.

Yeah, yeah, Norman's on sabbatical, honey.

You know, like, that is all great, but I think everything else feels like just, yeah, I'm watching actors now being cast to bring, like, seats to the theater.

Yeah.

It just feels kind of forced.

Yeah, And you know, from what I can see, the superhero fandom, I think is one of the most loyal fan bases in modern cinema over the last 25 years.

It's just starting to crack.

You have half the fandom on the side of the studios who want more and more stuff, who are very loud.

And they could be, they could be fake, right?

They could just be bots, AI bots.

And like little, I don't know, DC or Marvel monkeys on computers as we see Superman in the pocket universe that Lex has working on stuff.

And what do they call Superman?

What's his nickname?

I don't know.

I forget what they call him, but they gave him a bunch of nicknames and he's like, I don't like that nickname that they give him that Lois tells him.

The hashtags.

I forget, but they're funny.

And then you have another half of the fan base who wants, you know, these, these studios to slow down, to focus on quality, hire people who care about these stories and characters.

And if you log on to superhero Twitter, which I do not recommend, but it's part of my job.

Yeah.

You've got people yelling at Matt Reeves to hurry up on The Batman Part 2.

We haven't really talked about DC on this podcast outside of a Patreon episode that I'll get to, and they've been yelling at him on Twitter for years now.

Because The Batman Part 1, you know, came out in 2022, I think.

Do you think he's logging on?

I don't think he gives a shit.

You know, he's very accomplished.

He made one of the most surprising trilogy's or I guess 2 blasting movies of the Trilogy of the Apes franchise, you know, in the 20 tens.

And he made, I think, arguably one of the most impressive superhero films of all time in The Batman, the Pattinson's performance in that movie.

In the Pattinson.

Penguin.

Yes, he's like my favorite actor now.

Like you said, neither of us are die hard comic book fans, but we're not casual viewers, you know what I mean?

We're somewhere in the middle.

Yeah.

Like we've seen all of the core properties, right, Like we've seen, Well, that's actually not fair for me.

I think, because I I've seen all of like Marvel up until end game and then I've fallen out.

I try, we did try with like the Wanda Vision, the Loki like.

We watched the TV series during the pandemic.

Yes, yes, so, but then have dwindled out and I think maybe Doctor Strange was like the last movie I maybe saw in theaters.

The third, the 4th Thor movie and then maybe Ant Man Quantum mania Yeah we.

Haven't seen, yeah, so we've seen a couple, but I think that the Marvel Universe and all the Spider Man properties are like what I'm familiar with, but I wouldn't say so yes.

Like I'm not a casual viewer of Marvel.

I know things about the lore more so than just a general audience who kind of maybe goes to see like when End Game came out, my dad was like, should I go see it?

I was like, absolutely not.

You haven't seen any of the other movies.

And he was like, I just can't invest.

And I was like, I respect that, but.

Yeah, it's a long project.

Yeah, so I I like feel a connection to the characters and and the kind of like what it took to get there, but I haven't seen DC properties.

I actually don't really like the DC world personally.

You.

Don't like how gritty the DC world was in the 20 tens?

I just, I've never, I haven't seen the Ben Affleck Batman's.

I've seen every other Batman franchise.

But yeah, so I, I wouldn't say that I'm a big DC person, which makes Superman an interesting conversation for us today because this is the first Superman I've seen in theaters.

And I think the first Superman movie I saw in full.

And then I also saw the we went back and watched the first Superman or finished it.

Yeah, before we're doing this podcast.

So I've only seen two Superman movies.

So I wouldn't say like I'm a, I am very much a casual Superman person, which will I guess be interesting for today.

But in terms of Marvel and like being invested in Fantastic Four for our conversation on that today, like I'm I have a little bit more feelings towards a a movie like that because of what it's in the line of.

Right what's it's a chapter of it's the 37th chapter of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It's the 37th film.

If you want to include the TV series or you want to go pre 2008 Iron Man like to die Hulk movie or something like that.

Then you could argue it's in the 40s in terms of like how many how many stories that this massive?

You know, now six phase saga has, which is wild, but to get to the point that I was trying to set us up for, I wanted to do some context there, You know, because we're about to talk about Superman, we're about to talk about Fantastic Four.

We're an independent show and we've been cautious about superhero properties because frankly, the fans are really excited.

That's the.

That's the.

Right, that's the nice way to put it.

Honestly, sometimes they scare me.

That's I guess what.

I'm trying to say I'm also afraid of of comic book fans because I and we had this talk on on Star Wars as well.

It is fine to leave nice corrective comments in.

Fact.

I like that, yeah.

Like it's nice to be in dialogue with you.

I want to learn from you.

What I don't want to do is be intensely corrected by you because like I don't care that much.

So it's like that's A1 sided relationship that you are, you know, deciding to really put a lot of work into in terms of a comment.

And I think that's like something that maybe you can reflect on instead of being like, you got that wrong.

Also, because I, I have seen Marvel movies, but I haven't seen any Fantastic Four movies except for this one.

So I have a very interesting relationship to this episode in particular.

Yeah, I come with a little bit more history.

I've seen all the Fantastic Four movies.

I've seen all the Superman movies.

So I'm, I'm lost, I'm lost in it.

I've already been, I've I've gone through different ups and downs of this superhero relationship.

Before we dive in new or old listeners on our Patreon right now, you can sign up as a free member and get access to a bunch of exclusive content that we've unlocked.

And while Superman and Fantastic Four are in theaters, we've unlocked one of our favorite superhero episodes ever, which is our only superhero episode, which is a four hour deep dive on Matt Reeves The Batman.

We talked about the IT was 4 hours.

So I think because we talked about like all Batman, right?

Like Nolan Batman.

I think we even talked about like the evolution of superheroes, like from comic books to television to movies.

We talked about their relationship from being like these symbols of like militarism and nationalism to them becoming cautionary tales.

We get into a lot of different conversations.

We rank the Batman films.

We talk about the TV shows, we talk about Robert Pattinson's best performances.

I talk about how I would love a Blade Runner 2049 Batman Beyond movie, which is a very personal Trey thing that I would love.

I know that doesn't mean anything.

Wait, does that mean something to?

You.

Well, no, I just mean any kind of Blade Runner or Batman universe.

Yeah, which I I think Matt Reeves kind of did.

I think we did talk about that also.

His is more like graphic novel Batman animated series.

Yeah, but I think Gotham and the way that he showed it on like Halloween felt a little Blader under.

Oh, I agree with that.

Yeah.

You could certainly see like where it could go with the Terry McGinnis character.

That's where the real heads out there, so you can sign up as a free member on our Patreon in the description of this episode.

There's also more episodes on there.

We've hereditary for the free members.

It's in the free collections.

Tab Ari's movie out.

Yeah, because Eddington, 28 Days Later, Asteroid City, Civil War, lots of episodes.

So check that out.

All right, the two episodes we're talking about today are going to be James Gunn Superman, which kicks off his new DCU as he's the the kind of universe runner while also directing and writing movies.

And it is going to be, I think a big box office hit, if it not already.

I think it made made like 500 million globally so far, which is a lot.

It's sort of a 2008 Iron Man style launching pad for a new universe, which is exciting.

The second movie we're going to talk about is Fantastic Four First Steps.

Again, this is Marvel's 37th film in 17 years.

That is 2 movies a year.

So like we talked about, we're all a little bit exhausted.

Maybe they're diluting the the storytelling by making too much.

But this is the beginning to their phase six, which is going to include Fantastic Four, the new Tom Holland Spider man next summer, which I think many people are assuming the live action Miles Morales will be introduced in which.

Is what?

Would be wild.

And then the two-part Avengers event that are going to be the most expensive movies ever made.

Apparently, that will be starring Robert Downey Junior as the Big Bad.

Villain as the the Doom guy.

Doctor Doom, The Doom guy, as Kelsey put it, that's correct.

It's kind of Marvel's last shot to reclaim it'll.

Be so sad if it like, flops just because of bringing Robert Downey Junior back, you know, like it'll feel.

I don't know.

I was going to ask you this.

I feel like we can probably wait till the Marvel conversation, but I was going to ask you, would you rather see a continuation of this end game series?

Would you rather see Mark Ruffalo and Chris Evans be brought back?

Scarlett Johansson's no longer dead as Black Widow?

Do you want to see this return to characters you've already seen before?

Or do you want to see like bring us the X-Men, Marvel hire Jordan Peele make?

That definite.

I mean yes, that.

Will that happen?

No, probably not yeah.

But yes, I want to see the X-Men.

I don't think we should bring back people for fan service.

Would it be cool for a moment?

Yes.

Would I get like maybe teary eyed I mean.

The spider man no way home feeling of being like.

Oh.

Tap and yeah, Iron Man.

Yeah, I think like that.

Would, you know, I would have an emotional reaction to that.

But do I want to see that in a movie?

Not necessarily.

I just feel like it's at this point, if the movies were going really well or there were at least some that were landing for me and I was invested in some of the the characters, then it would be fine.

But right now it just kind of feels like, I don't know if you've ever returned to like a place in your childhood that you had thought about.

Like there was this one time I was like, I used to play on this massive playground and I went back to this playground.

I was like, this is like, wait, what?

And my whole kind of, you know.

Right now I know what you.

Mean my relationship to that memory changed, right?

And it that's kind of what, what that feels like.

It is like if Robert Downey Junior's movie fails.

It just feels like that, that kind of emotion of like it's like a yeah it.

Can be a little embarrassing if it does fail, yeah, and we'll all look back on it and be like we can't taken advantage of by people with a lot of it'll.

Just feel kind of like deflating or something.

Yeah, I agree.

By the way, the hashtag was super shit.

I looked it up for Superman.

Oh, yeah, it was funny.

All right, we're let's get into Superman.

I think we should start with Superman.

You know, one of the reasons we're doing this episode and Kelsey agreed to it is because I think we both liked these movies.

I, I think I like them more than Kelsey did or I don't know.

I think Kelsey likes Superman more than me and I like Fantastic Four more than you.

I think that I liked Superman more than I expected.

You liked Superman a little bit more than me, and you like Fantastic Four a lot more than me.

OK.

All right.

Well, that that'll be the framework for how we go into this conversation, starting with James Gunn, Superman, and you can go to the time stamps listeners if you don't want anything spoiled for you or you just want to jump to Fantastic Four because that just came out this weekend.

Let's start with our relationship to Superman.

We just watched the original, as you noted from 1978, Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder, Gene Hackman, the whole iconic crew.

We're also the Smallville generation, which I don't know if you noted when you were saying that.

You're not a.

Huge person.

So Tom Welling, Michael Rosenbaum, Kristen Crick, Erica Durants.

That's my lowest.

Both Donner Superman and Smallville are really important to me and like my relationship to this character.

I've always been more of a, you know, interested in the cautionary tale of Batman and interested in the character psychology crisis of Peter Parker, Spider Man, that I have anything Superman related.

But those are my 2 Superman things I like.

Especially Smallville.

We're big, Smallville.

Oh yeah.

I mean, yeah, I so I haven't watched like the full thing of Smallville, but I've watched a good amount.

And like, yeah, that is the Superman that I like the most because they're also able to work in a lot of coming of age, you know, moral dilemmas that feel natural instead of Superman being like this massive man in a diaper, which is like, one of my other kind of qualms with this superhero is he looks like.

I have never seen someone say that.

I was OK, I was paying attention the whole time we walked.

The original actually was fine.

It was a little tighter fitting, but the way James Gunn went with this like spider started Spiderman Superman outfit, It was like a little bit like there was some give on the red underwear and I was like, why would you do that?

Like I, I love how Hornswat looks as Superman.

He looks a little bit more like a human, not just this like guy who, you know, goes to the gym and takes like steroids.

Yeah, not like a Gold's Gym like Henry Cavill.

Yeah, yeah.

Which I I understand why he's cast as Superman, but I felt like David Hornswat.

You know, he looks like he, he's like Rocky, right?

He's like doing different weird, you know, lifting tires, picking up chickens, just doing yeah, like actual like labor or something, right?

He looks like a normal person who is also just like has a great physique.

And anyway he but I just don't understand the outfit anyway that I think.

He's a bracing this in the silliness.

Like I think James Gunn is embracing the corniness, the silliness, the earnestness of the Superman world, the cotton candy colored world, the character accepting the fact that he is kind of scary because he's all powerful.

So he wears his tights and he's accepting the tights.

Yeah, but I do think there's nothing wrong with the tights.

It's the it's the underwear.

It's the like the Yeah, it was just a little.

It should be form fitting.

OK.

Oh, I see.

Yeah, he made.

Yeah.

In Guardians.

He makes all the characters look really cool.

Right.

Like Gamora Star Lord that they look even though they're goofy, they look cool.

I agree.

And Superman did not look cool.

I think that you're right.

It is a part of kind of making Superman this nerdy.

Do you?

Intimidate him.

Yeah, guy like a relatable person, but you don't got to do that with a costume that already is a little bit.

Weird, I've never heard the the diaper take, but I I stand by that.

I stand by you.

Nobody come in the comments for Kelsey.

Honestly, I want to see you disagree with me.

Just defend the diaper like.

So Tom Welling and Michael Rosenbaum have always been my my Clark Kent and Lex Luthor.

Yeah.

From Smallville, right?

This is the first time where it was put to the test with David Corn Sweat.

I truly thought this was like a special cast.

Like I the the casting of Superman was really incredible.

He I think, represented A existential farm boy bad journalist turned Superman figure who's having an identity crisis and while also being really sweet.

Yeah, he was.

That's one word I really like came away from it from, like, David Cornspet, like if you watch him in interviews, is just a sweet person.

Yeah, he is.

But you really felt that he was, like, sweet in other movies.

I feel like he is acting sweet.

OK, what do you mean other movies?

Who?

Who's he?

You mean David Cornspet?

I'm no sorry, I mean.

It's on Superman.

Yeah, I mean like caval, caval cause I've seen clips, right.

But like and then also the original and then.

It's it's not fair for Smallville, it's not fair for.

For Tom Welling.

Yeah, because he he's like a again, it's a coming of age.

So like the sweetness works, but still sometimes you're like aware, right?

And he gets seasons of television to build that character out.

Right.

But I'm saying like it.

It came across very naturally here with with corn sweat.

I agree, I was prepared to be a hater, that's why I was starting off like that, because I really didn't like him and Twisters, but I think that was more of a problem with that movie in general.

He.

Plays the bad.

Kind of like tech bro villain, right, that movie.

But you know, James Gunn, for all of his flaws as a filmmaker, and we're going to get into some of those in in our opinion, is really good at building a found family ensemble.

And he really knows how to take weird, goofy personalities and make them feel like friendly people and to stand that word goofy.

That is how I I would describe the tone of this movie.

Going back to your your diaper comment, there is a really unique blend of silliness and earnestness with some stakes in this Superman film.

And it mostly worked for me and then sometimes did not work for me.

It's just a really bizarre, nerdy tone that's kind of winking at you.

We just talked about Dave's gun on our Scooby-doo episode on Patreon and he, you know, if you're into that kind of that winking at you kind of humor, then this movie's comedy probably will really work for you.

But he also tries to go for that more sentimental goofball balance from Guardians.

Right?

Exactly.

Also can be off putting when there's moments of stakes.

And so sometimes I feel like there's a tonal clash throughout Superman.

There's other times where I go, this is really just nice.

Like it feels like a kind movie and the and the vibes between people feel very kind except for whatever you know Lex has got got going on and his monologues.

Yeah, that was tough.

We'll talk about Lex for sure, even though I, you know, absolutely love Nicholas Holt.

But yeah, I think the there was a tonal clash too, because Gun, you know, we we know him from like Guardians and that's one of the most successful tones that stands out from like the Marvel Universe, right?

And and he brought like a lot of great things to this movie, like Superman seeing his real family at the end, doing that kind of like spin of, of watching Superman actually interacting with his like real family who raised him.

And those are kind of his values to help people.

And it's a kind of almost too sweet moment.

But you're just like, you know what?

I I'm in it like you have a vision here.

It's nice.

But yeah, I think that it the reason that it clashed at moments is also because Gun decided to take themes or kind of like the aspects of the plot in the movie from real world events.

And then also same with like Lex Luthor, he was also like kind of pulling on different ideas of like tech billionaires controlling.

So, yeah, so it was difficult because we were bouncing around from like Super dog and corn sweat being like sweet and not naive, but like overly, I don't know, whatever.

And then we also have like things that are reminding us of actual real world stakes.

And so that's why I think I agree.

Like there was some some clashing.

But there was an effort given to like, elevate the standard of this movie, of this kind of iteration on Superman.

Which I definitely appreciate.

Which I do appreciate.

Let's talk about aesthetically what this world has got going on before we get into some of that, the more theme thematic stuff.

This is a candy colored world and the trailer was really off putting for me personally.

I know not everybody felt that way.

I thought it was just, I thought it was too much of A pivot from the Moody Gray's and angstiness of the Snyder verse.

Even though I don't like any of that aesthetically in Man of Steel, in those moments of that movie, I like or even Superman Returns, those movies kind of come off to me as like cinematically dull.

And this one was like, let's just completely 180 this vibe.

And one thing I appreciated about that is that this new Superman is not sad and he's not self important while still having this complexity of a politically messy world around him.

And he's not overwhelmed by it.

And I do appreciate that the the color palette of this film makes it feel like I'm I'm looking at panels from a comic book, which is really awesome for comic book fans.

But there's just moments in this film where it feels so goofy of Superman fighting monsters and following.

Too many monsters.

Pocket universes and like, pocket lava, that just makes me like check out.

And then there's other moments where Superman is feeling bad for animals being tortured that are like creatures, or he's saving squirrels from being squished and he's just trying to help organisms and people survive.

Where I'm like, OK, I'm in love with this energy of what?

This I love when he when he saved a squirrel.

Yeah, that was really cool.

I was like, OK, that is my Superman.

Like I like that.

And he's like a six foot four QD with quippy, hopeful energy while having all these, you know, more dire political stakes that are very relevant to our world still happening in the backdrop.

And while sometimes that feels like it's contrasting with the the candy colored environment and contrasting with the tone of the movie, you can't help it but be sort of crushed by what Superman is going through in this movie because corn sweat is just nailing the performance.

But yeah, I I would say the the world building just is not my personal aesthetic.

Yeah, and not my personal flavor of superhero films, but I appreciated that it was like a totally realized package and vision on screen, even if it wasn't for me.

I don't know if that's how you felt because it was like, it's weird to watch something where you're like, you realized it, you got it.

You could see that this is somebody's vision, just not really mine.

My interest in this.

Yeah, I I think I understand that.

I don't have any relationship to the more Moody Superman movies because I think the first one felt comic bookie just in the era that it came out.

So we were in a lot of really bright spaces.

I also was going into a James Gunn movie expecting kind of the the pop color of a Guardians movie, so that I didn't really have any clash of my expectations in that way.

But I can see how, you know, if you've seen sort of like more Batman aesthetic world of a Superman movie, this might be totally different, which is what I've heard people say.

But it's interesting coming into this like I didn't really, I I didn't notice anything in terms of because I have nothing to compare it to.

But I was also, yeah, I was thinking this is a lighter kind of superhero movie that even in like something like Spider Man, there's a little bit more.

It's not stakes, but I guess maybe it is.

There's a dreamy realism to Raimi Spider Man movies, the original to the McGuire trilogy and then also to Nolan's Batman films that was just a part of that like 2000s era that is pretty much absent now.

And now we move to like a gritty realism of the Christopher or sorry to the Matt Reeves first, where he's like, what if David Fincher the Batman movie and I'm like, what if?

Hell yeah, take my money.

But this new gun vision, I agree.

I've never seen anything quite like it.

So maybe that's why I was put off at first.

So again, I was going into this movie expecting to be a hater.

Like I wasn't going into criticizing a movie.

I didn't.

I hadn't seen just the trailer, the vibe, guns, humor, his political sensibilities even from the guardians movies which do come off to me sometimes as like anti establishment libertarian quote UN quote punk rock.

Even though I think he gets to redefine what punk rock means in this movie Superman, which is pretty cool when he tells like Lois, like I can be punk rock.

Yeah, well, I like when he's like loving everyone or whatever.

Maybe that's the real punk rock.

That's funny.

But I like their kind of back and forth between, like him listening to a band or something that isn't that she doesn't think is actually punk rock.

Right.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

So when he's like fighting these, you know, creatures, I'm just like, not super into the movie.

Yeah.

However, when Clark or Superman is bickering with people, especially when Clark is and he's bickering with loved ones, he's bickering with friends or Lois.

I'm in any time Clark Kent is shown on screen trying to fit in, but he can't fit in, I'm in.

I I think that's the most interesting aspect of this character cause Superman to me has always been a pretty like hard character to be attached to because the movies and the TV show seems to seem to be sort of scared to really investigate what it means for Superman to be an outsider.

However, when Clark is a character in the in the Donner film, the original 78 film or the Smallville TV show or this movie, it feels like he's struggling to assimilate into like office politics, into like relationship dynamics.

In this movie, in this comic series that the movies are adapted on, was, you know, originally written by Jewish immigrants.

And Clark Kent was supposed to be read as a Jewish immigrant metaphor in those stories.

And I think that's a really compelling symbol for Superman to represent in that tension between personal identity and expectation for Clark in this gun Superman movie to be the symbol of a nation that Superman feels sort of insecure about or uncomfortable about politically and morally.

Where he's like, I don't know if I want you to want to represent, yeah, this country anymore because I'm getting I might get sued or taken to to jail because I'm helping refugees who are being occupied by this like, you know, threat that represents Russia, represents Israel.

Like that to me.

It was really interesting.

And when the movie, you know, Guns movie is leaning into the workplace dynamics at the Daily Planet or that relationship in the political bantering between Lois and Clark, I'm like, OK, this is a great representation of this property.

And then the movie turns into something else in the second-half.

It kind of pivots into like this less compelling theme of like preserving the sanctity of family.

That's how it felt for me, like Superman going through this realization that his ideal of who his biological parents were.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Is kind of broken now and that they wanted him to be a God like person on earth and act in like kind of fascistic ways and I thought that was like really.

Bradley Cooper.

Hi, son.

That was awesome.

Take over Earth.

Yeah, that's so weird.

How did you feel about that?

Because I was, when I was watching, I was like, oh, that's kind of subversive.

Because Jorel's never been the dad and no one ever knows who Clark's mom is.

Because.

She's not a.

Character mom is because she's like not a character in the original film and certainly, you know, not in this one either, even though she has things to say.

But how did you feel about the dad turn turning out to be like, I want you to repopulate the earth with, you know, our bloodline?

I like that.

I, I mean, because like this might be, I didn't realize that was not a part of the Superman lore.

I don't think it is.

I I liked that we had this idea of him thinking his parents were these great people.

They sent him to earth to help people.

And really he had, I guess learned that from like his parents, who is his found family on earth.

But I, I like the kind of switch up of like, oh, even though people I'm connected to like think this way, this is not my mission, right?

Like this is not actually what I believe.

And I think, you know, especially it's not even something that I considered, but especially kind of in the political moment we're in in the US and families like voting different ways and having conversations.

Like I actually think that's a probably an interesting theme to add to this.

I didn't realize that it wasn't a part of the the Superman world.

I think I think that's interesting.

Also.

I we realized I was watching the first half of the first Superman, right?

The the 78 was it and you were watching me watch Jorrell Dad.

Jorrell, Yeah.

Tell Kal L sun Superman all about his planet right when he had like been sent there and he's in the icicles he's like talking yeah about his planet Oh yeah yeah yeah he's talking to him as he's being sent to earth and for I was like wow oh interesting you were watching me like so connected and you're like oh I realize you literally know nothing you.

Didn't know anything about super.

I didn't.

Realize it?

Yeah.

Which was cool.

I felt like I was getting my own education because I hadn't seen that movie since I was a kid.

And so rewatching was really helpful.

I, I guess you're right.

I guess it is interesting.

The way you explained it kind of convinced me.

Maybe it's more so that I felt that the whole Superman dealing with his personal crises of like who he thought his parents was or were was kind of conflicting with all the other major themes that we were getting in the backdrop of this movie that were more relevant to the contemporary world that Gum was trying to play with.

Which then made me feel like Superman.

The film was flirting with real political imagery as to be sort of opportunistic because we're getting a lot of exploration of post truth media and how Lex Luthor and Luthor Corp controls media.

And in trying to control land and buy up real estate or win real estate by manufacturing wars and having their hands in the pockets of government, which is a very real thing right now, and we'll get to that in a second.

Or immigration anxieties about refugees or surveillance, the the occupation of Palestine or Ukraine.

There are these ideas or conversations being had that are very direct with the audience that is very relevant.

But I felt like those themes became like backdrops in the film going into the second-half.

And I don't mean that to be like a major criticism because I'm not saying that this movie needs to be the most intellectual superhero movie about contemporary anxieties, but the movie does feel like it wants to have some credit for having modern politics.

And the audiences are certainly giving the movie credit.

And this movie is being really well loved and and it is beloved, but it doesn't really engage with those ideas because it's spends so much time, I mean, post Lois Clark argument and their, you know, interview sequence.

Which I love.

Which is amazing, probably the best scene in the movie.

And the movie in the second-half turns into this more, I don't know, like CGI fest and then Park being like, my parents are not good.

Wait.

And I'm like, all right, I don't know.

I thought my dad was so cool.

Yeah, I think I, I feel similarly Like I was interested that we were having these like conflicts introduced like within the plot and and Superman like immediately, right, in terms of him like losing this battle and where was he fighting and then understanding like what that represents in the real world.

And then I think it dropped off for me after Superman like kind of gets out of the pocket world.

And if I never had to see another CGI monster again in my life, I'd be good.

But that all of that stuff kind of just doesn't work for me.

I'm just not interested in it.

I do like the team, though.

That was the justice.

Gang.

Yeah, and I like the moment at the end where Metamorphose, Yeah, the the guy was like, I like that name.

And he's a you're in, you know.

Yeah, that's a good.

Moment.

But those are good examples of like James Gunn humor that that I I think are funny.

But I yeah, I think the the conversational piece that was really good at the beginning of the movie between Lois and and Clark was I didn't let's I I said I loved it just a minute ago, but I loved that it was in a superhero movie, The back and forth interview, but I didn't love that Lois was kind of like having this.

She's playing devil's advocate for a a nationalistic government who was trying to like, she's some kind of global superiority indirectly.

And she was like trying to talk about all the rules he still needs to follow.

And he's like, what rules people, kids are being killed?

Like, yeah, it just seems strange to have like, honestly, like a like a woman, but also just like Lois, Lois's character be the representation or the mouthpiece for those ideas.

And then Superman, who is essentially this like white man in the US be like, no, but like, it just felt that.

I think that part felt off to me a little bit.

But ultimately I think it was a conversation like for the audience, right?

Because they're so attached to Superman and they're like, Oh, well, if Superman is seeing like just, it's actually a simple kind of idea that we should just not kill people like that.

We should not be OK with people being killed and starving.

And like, so I think him being like, it's actually, it's actually pretty simple.

Like everyone wake up.

That idea was good in the conversation and in a superhero movie But and I like the the talking like aspect of it.

And sort of how he influences and how Lois influences the Justice gang to go help at the end.

And they go into that that occupation and they'd start blowing up the, you know, Russian or Israel, whatever that country is called, their tanks and some shit like that.

But again, I feel sort of opportunistic because like, what does that mean?

And the significance of like the story?

But I, I agree with you.

One of the reasons I was really skeptical about David Corin Sweat outside of him being just like this basic beauty who's like a tall, attractive man, was that he was another white American blue eyed hawk guy playing Superman, who is a refugee character.

And it seems like a really obvious thing not to do if you're trying to modernize the character.

But they did take the subversive route of making him be like the person who's supposed to be speaking to the audience who would connect in all caps with a character like that.

Wears like a red, blue, not white, I guess, but whatever.

It represents America like how he says in the Richard Donner film where he literally says, like I represent America in that film.

On to Lois on their balcony, which I was surprised to see last night because I don't remember that scene from the movie I also want.

To say just because I don't have a connection to the Super Superman like character, I know what he like has represented and and kind of everything that you were just talking about like previously as we're setting up this conversation.

But I think what Superman has become in terms of American iconography has been like different.

Does that make sense?

Has been this like American all American man, quote UN quote, right.

Like so it's yeah.

So there's a difference between to like the audience's relationship to him and I like like for the most part what Dunn did with him.

And I also I I agree though, that I like the moments we're in kind of like the Clark moments, which is merged here, right?

Interestingly, we'll we'll talk about this on Fantastic Four two, and this is not a spoiler or anything, but, and then also in Superman, we didn't really get the both the directors were like, we've already seen this, right?

We've already seen the origin story.

We're just going to start like in Superman here where he is both Clark and Superman, like, were you surprised to see that?

We enter into the apartment and we see Lois.

They've already been dating.

Oh, I thought it was so smart.

I thought it was so cool.

I I was so excited to expedite that.

I got worried because when they first showed them The Newsroom and she's giving shit to like, Clark writing his interview with Superman.

And I was kind of confused.

I was like, OK, so she doesn't know.

And then when he's in there making dinner or whatever for her and I was like, oh, she does know when he picks her up and they start making out.

And I was like, all right, like, let's get it.

We just skipped the whole movie.

I'm watching the sequel to a movie I didn't want to watch anyways.

That feels good.

But yeah, to your point, I think.

There were a lot of things they expedited for me in this in this story by starting off the movie with the crawl, that Star Wars crawl of like 300 years later.

30 years.

Later, three years later, yeah, I'm sorry ago and Superman.

And you're just like getting normalized to the fact that, like, Superman just lost his first battle to somebody we don't know, but we learned it's his clone.

I'll get to it.

Stupid as well.

I love the idea of, OK, audiences can't connect to Superman.

They could connect to Clark.

Let's combine them and let's have his him get his ass kicked for two hours.

That was really clever writing.

Because one of the big problems with Superman is that there's no villain that can really live up to him except for kryptonite.

And Kryptonite gets really kind of old quickly.

When you see it, you're like, OK.

That's one of my things why I've never really seen a lot of Superman stories, because I think he's kind of a boring character to me.

A.

Lot of people feel he.

Doesn't have flaws.

Little bland, Yeah.

Last thing I love before we get into any more serious criticisms.

Crypto.

Dog, the dog.

Super dog, yeah, super dog.

My extra credit goes to crypto and the use of crypto.

I've seen some anti crypto propaganda online.

To those people, this is not the podcast for you.

Every time crypto was on screen I was happy.

No notes was IA little bit skeptical of the off and on pro animal commentary of Guardians of the Galaxy 3 and and what that movie was trying to say and it's politics through that commentary.

Yes.

However James Gunn proved to me he does like animals a lot.

Me too.

I love the idea of Superman saving squirrels.

I love the idea of him being like, Crypto might not be a a good dog and he's not nice to me, but I need to save him.

He's innocent.

And I like Crypto kind of symbolically representing Superman's relationship to humans in this movie where they sort of turn on him and he's like after they find out about his parents or whatever from Lex deciphering that message.

Some questions about that, I guess in terms of the logistics of how you do that, but in the nanobots as a Mac Guffin.

But I love Crypto.

I just thought he was so funny and when Millie a Cox Supergirl shows up or Al Cox Supergirl shows up and and we learned it's her dog, I thought that also added a whole.

Other that actually makes a lot of sense.

I didn't realize.

I guess I, I did like understand it was her dog, but I never really thought about like, oh, it's just this kind of like free.

20 something partiers dog and she comes and goes she's.

Going to different planets?

Yeah, like her cousin's watching the dog.

It's like when you eat wild dogs when you're in college and you're like, their owners are probably party animals.

That's like exactly what she's representing.

There is like a yeah, a bunch of different animals.

I I remember from just different people's like house party is like there was once in a just hanging around like an iguana like next to like massive like base and I was like.

That sucks.

Yeah, I was like that iguana probably hates that noise.

Anyway, sorry for the tangent about the iguana, but anyway, I loved I loved her in was a House of Dragon, right?

And so I'm glad to to know that she's like in this role.

I thought she was a great like actor in in that I love to performance.

So she her movies coming out though pretty soon next.

Summer.

Yeah, next summer.

I What else did I like?

I like the robots in the Fortress of Solitude.

Good humor with the robots that helps.

Superman #4 in particular where he was like, hey, I could use a name.

Oh yeah, Gary.

Gary would be nice.

Well he's like 4 is a name, so is Gary, so is Gary I.

That shit works for me.

Yeah, Gun is funny.

It's just it's just sometimes it's just clashing when he's doing something serious.

What else?

I think it's basically it.

All right, Problems.

Wait, wait, wait.

Lex problems?

Oh OK, that's a problem.

I think.

So oh, OK, well, let's go into problems hit.

The way he's written is a problem for me.

Nicholas Holt is a.

Nicholas Holt.

Flawless.

Is a plus for me.

Yes.

Can we start with just the biggest problem, which I think is 1/3 act, which we've touched on a little bit, but just to kind of cement that, I think this is a common complaint across all superhero movies.

But I want to know from audiences, do we care about the big fight at the end of superhero films or have we just been like taught to want that studios?

Being like, they need a popcorn moment.

Like I'm getting anxious that there's not enough action in this so we can't have these dialogue, people talking in rooms scenes.

It's like, but do people actually want that?

Do we need this like massive toad monster to be like just this filler fight that Superman goes?

Through it does make you a little bit sad because Superman has so much like empathy for it being killed, but I meant more so Ultraman, which is the Superman clone and then his partner, which is the nanobot woman villain, the engineer.

So you have Superman's clone, you have the engineer and then you have this pocket universe setting an environment in the third act.

And like I said, there were some good jokes in between there, but I thought that whole subplot or plot plot of the third act, including the CGI setting was just kind of like really forgettable.

And those villains of Ultraman Superman's clone and the nanobot lady were just bad.

Like, I don't, I haven't seen a lot of writing about them.

I haven't seen a lot of discussion about them on podcast about the end of this movie, about him fighting himself with long hair.

I just thought it was really stupid.

Yeah, and, you know, it kind of reminded me there was a a villain.

Oh.

Oh, it reminded me of like Thanos's children, like in the early Avengers.

Did you know like they felt like CG ish like non characters, but we were supposed to be afraid of them, but they felt more like computer game avatars yes that's that was the vibe I was getting from them.

Do you know what I mean?

The Thanos like Thanos daughter.

Yes.

Or like, yeah, no, I know exactly what you're talking about.

They're they're going to find Captain America at the end.

And he catches the spear and you're like Chris Evans.

Where'd you get that beard?

Did they glow that?

Did they, like, glue that beard on your face?

That's pretty wild.

But yeah, I guess I just, you know, I, I think when Clark is getting his ass kicked outside of the Cape and he's in this double life of getting into philosophical fights with Lois and his dynamic with the Justice gang about when it whether to join them or not because they're their own kind of corporate.

They're like a private superhero military of Metahew.

Yeah, I was confused.

Who like owned them?

Yeah.

James Gunn's brother plays the character who owns them, but I don't know what direction they're going to go with that.

I thought that was like, you know, Lex Luthor's crew of Ultraman and Nano Girl or Nano Woman.

I thought that was a really evil forgettable crew that was just so cartoonish for the setting.

Like he basically spends 45 minutes finding a clone who is supposed to be like this manifestation of his like anxiety I guess.

But that's just that screenplay choice.

Just feels so weird.

And then the nanobot villain when she plugs into like his fortress of solitude computer which isn't even a computer.

I guess I feel like it just, it would work in a cartoon, like if this was Justice League, the animated series, Superman animated series.

I see it and maybe in a comic book, but not really in a live action feature in my opinion.

So I feel like unfortunately Dunn continued the formula for a superhero finale, getting a big bat or two, big battle of CGI craziness with stakes that feel kind of hollow because they kind of lost that.

I don't know.

For me, it lost a lot of that kind of Clark Superman, personal anxieties about the political state of the world and his own personal crisis with his parents, and from his biological parents to his adoptive parents.

I feel like a lot of that got lost in the mess that was that battle, if that makes sense.

Yeah, I agree.

I I think the the clone also like came at a time where I was falling off like I was like, let's wrap it up, you know.

And so it like in that moment didn't really mean anything to me because I was like, he's going to defeat his clone.

I had no question around that.

I know he had been defeated before, but like at the beginning of the movie, but it just it didn't have like the effects that I think it should have because of what you're saying.

Like there wasn't yes, like I can connect the logic of putting him in the movie and like here's what they were talking about in the storyboard, like room or like I was thinking and that didn't though come through or it didn't it wasn't meaningful in in any sort of way to me because we didn't really see Clark going through that like in this particular story.

So it was strange.

Do you think people are over hyping Superman or forgetting how good the Batman was?

Because that movie made like 600, seven, $100 million right at the tail end of the pandemic, which is a lot of money at that at that time.

And that movie ends with a January 6th coded group of in cells who were indoctrinated by the Riddler who are trying to assassinate a progressive politician.

And Batman realizes he needs to be more than just vengeance and his own kind of self deputizing symbol, which is very important today.

And then and how he's like led to this mass kind of terrorist violence.

And he needs to be a symbol of hope as a result.

And I think the Superman movie is getting a little bit overhyped, even though I like it.

Clearly we like it.

And I and I feel like that movie because it was 3 hours long and people are like, there's too many twists, there's too much shit going on.

It's now like underrated in the culture of movies.

Because I thought that was such a big deal for that movie in that direction to go into and somehow keep a comic book, graphic novel vibe, but also feeling sort of grounded enough to really feel the impact of this billionaire falling off roofs and like hitting the ground do.

You know what I mean?

No, I totally agree.

I think and also to kind of like go back on on what I just said to to make sure I am speaking to like what was in the movie.

I think the clone for Superman was trying to be, as you said, a reflection of him and the anxieties.

Like I said, what I said was that I don't think it really, like showed him going through these anxieties.

That was that the clone would be a reflection of.

That's not totally true.

Like the the movie did show us like you're saying him kind of grappling with this idea that his parents, like, had a different message for him.

But at no point was I, you know, under the impression that Superman really was like devastated by his parents saying this.

He was more like, yeah, he was like confused.

He's like, I, I kind of can't believe that.

I don't think that's true, but maybe it is true.

Seem more disappointed, which then in connection to what was happening at the stakes of the real world plot of the villain.

He was trying to defeat or like people he was trying to help right save and and him having that kind of monologue of like people were going to die.

It's that simple.

Like, and that then was not like him having any sort of anxieties in the reflection of his clone didn't work because like there wasn't a lot of like, like conflict with him before the parent piece of it.

But in Batman, So that's yeah.

So like doing something in real world.

And then also him having a good personal crisis, which didn't really like feel realized was a flaw of Superman.

But in Batman, like I think you're right that it does it actually does not get enough credit for doing the the Riddler plot piece like the the Riddler, you know, calling two people on the Internet.

Yeah, like his whole like basically like this.

What is representing like a red Pilling like algorithm, right, That young boys are are possibly being shown was a good a a really great way to take the Batman direction.

And as we talked about to make a Batman sort of a loser, like to make him right, someone who it it he doesn't even completely understand why or the responsibility that he is taking on in his role and showing kind of the contradictions of a Batman as a vigilante like character.

Right?

Which Christopher Nolan, which I love Christopher Nolan's like verse, right?

His his world that he creates with Batman that's like shiny and in suits.

And I obviously love Christian Bale, but.

And they do the more like.

Makes him cooler.

Yeah, it makes him cooler.

And he's, he's emotionally considering, you know, the the consequences of his actions.

But here it's no actually like, no, like, let's actually think about what Batman's doing.

Like he's kind of weird and like should we support what he's doing?

Like like that that whole idea of like the self-interest within how Batman's acting and then also the the Riddler character and and and yeah, that that whole like kind of the stakes of the real world, but still feeling comic booky felt so realized in the Matt Reeves universe.

Again, they're totally different, like tones in terms of like super light, super dark.

But yeah, I I think that's a really good comparison to make because it was so much more successful in Reeves movie.

Well, now I think we can talk about Lex because he's also the, you know, the major villain.

He's the major villain figure of the movie, and he's working behind the scenes.

He's doing like, basically video game fights.

BBB Yeah.

Square.

I think it's yeah.

And I think it's interesting to have a tech billionaire be the person who's creating the rifts of society, literally splitting society in half the pocket universe, and also splitting society in half through, like, I guess radicalizing people with hashtag super shit.

Like, that's funny.

I think it's a good direction to go in.

But what did you think about Nicholas Holt as Lex Luthor?

Yeah, I mean, I love Nicholas Holt.

I've loved him and been a supporter of him since the great when we we saw him in also like the favorite right where he was doing a very similar thing as the the great TV show.

Mad Max Fury Rd.

He was also a good child actor.

He's also a Nosferatu.

But a good career.

Yeah.

And then he was in Jordan #2 which I didn't see.

But was he good?

Very good in that.

OK.

And the order.

He's also very.

Good in that watch some of but yeah, I it's a tough.

Accent work but good.

I think he's great.

Yeah.

We also, I mean, forget like the menu and an unsung performance in Mad Max Fury Rd.

Even though I know he is like beloved for that.

I just don't think like the general audiences might connect him with that.

I I just love Nicholas Holt's thing and he is like kind of this annoying presence, right?

Petulant.

Yeah.

And is like very loud about it, but he's not in this like traditionally masculine.

I'm going to suck all the air out of the room.

He's like kind of his whole thing is kind of responding to that.

It's like yes, like making it seem like childish to want to be the one to be looked at in the room.

And I, so I, I think that's also a, a part of like why I love his, the madness of his performance in terms of like the, the different, like archetypes of masculinity we, I guess the general audiences have beloved in the past.

So I, I, I like him in this role because I like him in almost anything.

But I do think it was really difficult for him in terms of the writing, like I think.

So too.

He did everything he could to deliver, especially those lines at the end.

Like he he started like I forget.

He was like talking about all these great leaders and like naming people and talking about him side by side, but it was a really long winded, dense, strangely written monologue for him.

Strangely operatic in Shakespearean.

And I get that he's supposed to be this fragile billionaire with a God complex, but the character, his whole thing is that he is envious of Superman.

He's just like, I am jealous of you.

That's my whole bit.

I kind of hate you, which I enjoy.

I think that's funny.

It's just a lot of the writing I don't think was really convincing to make the character interesting.

And then the actor was tasked with this really challenging job of playing somebody that is resembling a Jeff Bezos meets Elon Musk meets Mark Zuckerberg.

But I kind of wanted to see him do more awful things, if that makes sense, to really represent those figures.

I wanted to see more of him and his corporatocracy of manufacturing the occupation, how we learned about in the third act.

I kind of wish we got that earlier.

There's also a moment where they don't really know how to make his character more hateable, so they have him kill one of the street vendors in the pocket universe who likes Superman or has empathy for Superman and helps him out of that crevice in the ground at one point.

And I felt that was kind of questionable.

Well, that was also so forced.

It felt, yeah.

Like it was, it was trying to tell us like Lex is so evil.

He just he doesn't even care.

Like killing people is is nothing to him.

People are just numbers essentially.

Right.

And like that.

But that didn't really come across because of the the acting style too, that like if you cast Nicholas Holt, it becomes it.

It becomes a strange tone, kind of how as we keep.

Talking about of.

Like making this, you know, Nicholas Holt funny in this moment of being like, oh, whatever, I just killed someone.

And but you're trying to have stakes at the same time and make it an emotional moment for Superman's character.

So yeah.

Yeah.

How do you it's it's the hardest balance so that you can make in a superhero movie, which is trying to be goofy and serious.

It's like that's, I know that's James Gunn's whole thing, but that's why he's kind of, that's why a lot of people have allergies to the gun.

Well, it's a good example because it's like, I don't mind sometimes when it's going back and forth or like there are kind of two different movies within this one movie, But when it's all in one scene like this, that that's a good example of kind of how you start to see the cracks.

Yeah, however, counterpoint, I did get really satisfied when Crypto beat Lex's ass.

Shout out Crypto once again literally tore his ass up.

Let's go.

I think, you know, Crypto felt a little repetitive to me, but I liked him.

Do you mean that?

Because I've heard of many people say that.

Yeah, OK.

I mean, I think I just, I don't know it, it makes me sad.

Here's the thing.

If I felt like the dog didn't feel as CGI then maybe I would be like cool, but I I wasn't like against the crypto moments.

It was just that I felt like I was seeing a character interact with the CGI dog.

Superman CGI dog verse Fantastic Four CGI baby go.

It's crypto, OK.

But here's the thing I did.

What really worked for me was when Superman was at home in, in the bed he, like, grew up in, in crypto.

Like, he woke up.

Yeah.

He was laying on him.

Yeah.

OK, what else?

The Justice Gang stuff.

Yeah, I, you know, that was something I was worried about at first, but they grew on me, so it's pretty funny.

Yeah.

I think that the costumes like felt like clunky on purpose I guess.

I was going to ask you about that because it's supposed to be a private superhero military, so.

Yeah, I don't know.

But I mean, they didn't feel like they purposely didn't feel like cool costumes.

They felt like kind of retro, but also the hot girl hawk girl was like a clunky.

Do you remember the movie Sky High?

The high school?

That's what they reminded me of.

But as adults meets like the boys in terms of the politics.

Remember the Amazon show we watched a little bit of Yeah.

But I mean, I like that Mister Terrific had like more to do.

Yeah, in in the movie.

So basically Nathan Fillions and I might mispronounce some of these names, I apologize.

Nathan Fillions.

Guy Gardner is basically again like the boys styled Green Lantern.

He got great jabs at Superman throughout, which I thought was fun.

Isabella, Merced's hot girl, is a pretty cool character.

She assassinated A fascist, which was surprising.

I didn't think they would do that in a movie like this, but they did it, so it was cool.

Eddie Gatigi as Mr.

Terrific is probably the third or fourth lead of this film.

He's got a lot of screen time.

He's good.

He seems to be a fan favorite online.

I think we spend a little bit too much time with his character just doing exposition while Lois is like slowly uncovering the pocket universe where money is being is money is going because of Lexus funding and manufacturing this, this conflict and this occupation.

And so that was a little bit annoying.

We do get a good fight scene where Mr.

Terrific is like swirling around Lois and cleaning up the Lex Luthor military.

It looks really cool.

It's very James Gunn style.

I was like, that's a very James Gunn moment, yeah.

Yeah.

I liked his little circle things.

Yes though.

Yes, agreed.

Now like a gadget.

The last character we haven't discussed and then I think we can get to the the last bit of criticism that I just want to mention as like a superhero movie problem since End Game to me is Skyler Gazando's character in this movie, Jimmy Olsen.

Yes, this is like the sin of the movie to me.

I went to see this movie not knowing he was in this.

I actually was not not even going to see this movie.

I don't know why I saw this movie but I I guess we have a movie podcast.

I think we started the original Superman and you're like, oh, I kind of like this, and I think you like the original Superman more than this.

One I do, yeah, yeah.

So.

So, yeah, I think yeah, that is that's true.

So we, we started it because we were like, at least just because.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I, I gave you the choice.

I said I'm either going to go see the new one or I will watch the original.

And I was like, OK, and I just watch the original, yeah.

I was like, you can choose one and then yeah, watch the original.

You're right.

And then I was like, that's.

Crazy because I don't even.

Really.

Superman is not into my thing, so it's a crazy.

Dilemma.

No, yeah, I mean, I, I just basically, I felt bad too 'cause you're like, I'm excited to see this like new version of Superman, right I.

Was excited 'cause people were excited.

You know what?

I mean, I want to see what the people are talking about.

Yeah.

And so then of course, because we have a movie podcast and because I wanted to go see a movie with you, we we saw it.

Skylar Jasando showed up as a surprise and I was like, amazing.

It was similar to when we were.

Watching you didn't know he was.

In it no, I didn't know he was in it similar to I think maybe you had told me like a long time ago, maybe even on the podcast, but I just it totally slipped my mind because I haven't don't think about Superman in my free time.

But I think with like the the Godzilla movie that we also watched in preparation for our number one boy episode where we're doing like classics on on Patreon.

We also watched, or I watched for the first time, the 2015 rate Godzilla.

And I was like, oh, Aaron Taylor Johnson's in this.

Like, why didn't you tell me?

I would have at least just checked it out.

But I think, I think here it was.

I was so happy to see him and then I was immediately annoyed and how they used him.

OK, I was going to stop making my favorite weirdo actors preppy straight men.

OK, It's a call to all studios.

It's kind of the same conversation around this idea of like the audience wants to see action and let's bring the action.

Like do we though?

Like do I don't know, Like I think that broadcast news is like my favorite action movie, you know what I mean?

Like I.

In terms of dialogue, yeah.

Like I, I want to talk a movie.

I, I think with Skyler, he will probably be someone who broader audiences may not have seen before, may not be familiar with him.

I love Yeah, Licorice.

Pizza.

He shows up.

Righteous Gemstones, but I don't think the Superman crowd is watching.

Righteous Gemstones isn't.

The.

Vacation.

We like a clashing target.

Audience.

We're big fans, though.

We're big fans of his.

Fan I love his humor.

I love his strangeness.

He was also in licorice pizza.

Like PTA obviously sees talent, you know, and I think we first saw him though, in that movie.

What was it the the Netflix movie?

Like the the class rink.

Remember, he's like, yes.

That was low key.

That came out like almost 10 years.

Ago.

Yeah, where he plays this kind of like nerdy kid running for president, right?

He's got a Co.

Star in that movie, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, so.

So I first saw him there and fell in love with him as an actor and then, like have loved how he's been used in a weird way and like licorice pizza, for example.

Like PTA really got the humor here.

I was like why is he?

Why is he this like?

Playboy kid.

Yeah, kid who like this like there was supposed to be a humor also, I think like in in his character of like the woman who is Lex Luthor's girlfriend at the time being so not in love with Skylar Desondo, obsessed with him and there's like a it's supposed to be a humor there.

Yeah, because.

It's not David Corn sweat she's obsessed with.

It's Skylar Desondo I feel like is a nod to maybe what's happening.

I think what's happening with Timothy Chalamet, what's happening.

Tom Holland is probably the better actually example where he just playing like this kind short king, which I respect.

Yeah, I just.

Yeah, but I agree.

But it also felt like just really off.

Like, it felt like a 2000s plot where a woman would be like this kind of vapid, mindless representation of like a blonde woman that we used to see as like a comedic archetype in 2000s movies that it felt so dated in a way for her, her to be like obsessed with him and him being like, I don't, I'm not even like interested in you like that.

I don't know.

I understood that people thought that was funny.

They try to subvert it because they make her actually like this genius.

Yeah, she's.

Like, yeah, I love that plot twist of her like taking selfies, right.

Yeah.

Like, and you assume it's for this like social media follower influencer kind of purpose and, and like capturing violence and that kind of the the that looking at that at the very beginning.

But then you realize like she's doing it so she can have like some sort of evidence.

That's not the right word that I'm I'm looking for, but whatever to end up leaving this like abusive relationship.

But I just, yeah, but I felt like the way that it was done like wasn't really funny to me.

Like, I'm not coming at it from a, a lens of like, because this is morally like, I don't know, it's kind of sexist.

So like then I am, I can't watch this.

It's not that.

I mean, yes, it is kind of sexist, but like, and it feels dated.

But also I just didn't like think it was funny.

So and also Skylar Desondo should not be used like that.

OK.

You had a personal relationship to him as an actor, too.

Yeah, that makes sense.

It's the same way we're going to talk about how Pedro needs to be used differently too.

A.

Very unique problem that I don't think I've seen before in Hollywood like this at this level.

I mean, they're both Divas of a different sort, you know what I mean?

And they're not being used in that way.

Yeah, I agree with you.

I my issue with it more was that it was just kind of like an easy 2005 different era of comedy kind of joke to make about the unassuming guy that all these women are in love with.

Yeah, actually I was lazy writing, but I it adds some levity.

I think the the movie is missing more scenes between Lois, Clark and Jimmy to me.

Yeah, I think I.

Need more of that.

I also think that like corn sweat and Jasando and then Rachel Brosnan, like, oh, sorry, yeah.

Have a great, great chemistry.

Yeah.

We forgot to talk about her in the pros.

I think she was a great Lois.

I I don't mind her as Lois.

Like I said, Erica Durant's from Smallville's like my Lois and Margot Kidder and their original is incredible.

Amy Adams is forgettable because Zack Snyder doesn't know how to write woman and I'm forgetting the woman from the 2006 film.

But I think that's what I'm saying about Lois's character.

She should be more interesting.

I was like a bad ass investigative journalist and when she's going back and forth with Superman and he's feeling insecure and he doesn't know how to like play with the recorder or like turn it on or whatever.

That's all.

That all works for me.

I still don't think men know what to do with her as a character.

With Lois's.

Character.

I think they're very confused with.

Yeah, I didn't love the writing for her, but I love the performance.

Yes, I I, I agree.

I I like.

Her, she's a great actor, but she was, Oh yeah, fantastic.

Marvelous Miss Mazal.

Miss Mazal something?

Else yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

OK.

So Superman, goofy, silly, earnest fun, I think a stand alone success at the beginning of this new DCU.

I'm excited about the future of this universe with James Gunn running it and assigning new directors and writers and casting future stars of this universe.

There's a Clayface horror movie coming out.

I only know Clayface from the Batman Animated Series episodes, which were very scary as a kid, and I'm excited to check that out and I want to start a campaign.

Millie Aycock, Alcock, her movie Supergirl's coming out next summer.

This is going to sound like a cringy virtue signal.

Can we collectively like, can we do a little Snyder verse thing?

Can we change the title of that movie to Superwoman?

I think that'd be cool.

This Supergirl.

I just never have understand understood that choice in the comics and television shows and the movies.

Now I do not understand why DC continuously is going is making this character, framing her as a girl, but she's like a grown woman.

Yeah, that is strange.

I mean, because there's Wonder Woman right and there, but it's not like spider boy.

I guess I'm confused about that and it does sound I'm that's what I'm saying.

I want to sound like whatever, like I'm performative feminism right now, but I just feel like it's it's a very strange thing.

They they are doing or historically have done with that character.

I don't think they know how to use that Cara character.

Cara Cara, I think character.

But I got immediately worried about it.

I thought she was really funny as a drunk and being like no, fuck off.

And whatever she says to Superman and she leaves the room and it's really funny because they have such contrasting emotions.

Yeah, and also just so funny to see Superman be like, that's my cousin, like.

Yeah, but I've always just felt like a little bit strange about the idea of infantilizing.

Yeah.

A grown woman who has superpowers.

I don't know.

Yeah.

It feels like it's 2025.

And I am.

That is the sensibility of James Gunn I am worried about, even though he's been satirical about that before with Daphne and Super Scooby-doo when he wrote that character to be kind of subversive.

And then like Gomorrah 2 of of like kind of highlighting that star child, star child star Lord Lord star child is a man child.

Yeah.

Anyways, does that make sense?

Yeah, OK.

Just putting that out there.

No one's gonna join me on this because I didn't set it up well enough.

Well, because she is framed as it like kind of being in College in her 20s.

Yeah, the actress is like 25 years old, so yeah, I get it.

But still, it's like I it's been, I think it's kind of getting reclaimed to call women girls again.

And I just don't know if that's.

Well, there's a difference, right?

Like yeah, contextually if.

You're a man calling a woman a girl.

Yeah, that's why I'm a little bit worried about because it's a man directing the movie.

Yes.

So.

And it's different also if you're making a coming of age.

But again, then like it yeah, it just depends to like with the responsibilities like Spider Man is this kid and it's coming of age story.

But like the yeah, I think the language it does matter in terms of the taking the character seriously.

And I don't really take a super hero shit very seriously besides maybe some Batman things or like, but I still think that like collectively like general audiences.

Like I get what you're saying.

I like the language.

There are like comic book nerds who wrote Supergirl comics in the 70s and I think there's a problematic reason for why they aren't finalizing her character so much that has never been really explored.

Anyways, final thoughts, Smallville still my Superman story so shout out all of our Smallville heads.

We see you.

I think we're returning or my algorithms on TikTok are manipulating me and the monkeys are going crazy in the pocket universe being like make sure Trey just sees Tom Welling.

Clips.

Edits with David Cornswat doing like podcast.

He's like, mom, I'm an immigrant, like.

That's that's a great scene that came up recently about how Smallville was like very clear about, you know, it's politics and Tom Welling Superman calling his parents out on their nationalistic conservative, you know, kind of ethos of their household that they hadn't been kind of confronted with yet.

OK, let's talk about Fantastic Four.

What's what's your relationship to it?

Never seen a Fantastic Four.

I've seen the Incredibles.

OK interesting.

The Incredibles is far better than Fantastic Four at the jump here.

Sort of a satire.

Fantastic.

I mean, I think The Incredibles is one of like the all time great movies, but yeah, I never saw a Fantastic Four.

We tried to start the Chris Evans one and then that way we could watch the Michael B Jordan 1 but I.

Couldn't never showed you the Michael B Jordan Miles Teller one.

OK, well, I thought I was just going to do it for a little background research.

I couldn't even get there.

OK, I was going to waste my time.

Once I I saw the first one, it was just two like it, you know, I I just couldn't do it anyway.

So it's this is a brand new, you know, story to me, characters to me.

I didn't know anything about them.

I didn't know that Johnny Storm and Vanessa Kirby's character.

What?

Who?

What's her name?

Who are you talking about?

Vanessa Sue Storm.

Sue Storm.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I didn't realize, like, they were related.

I didn't know that they were like scientists.

I I didn't know anything about this world.

But similar to, you know, Superman, where we don't have like, we kind of skip everything that everyone's already seen.

I actually like didn't mind that we skipped everything that I didn't even know about and just kind of went into a a story like we didn't get this origin story.

But at the same time, I felt like maybe people who are know the the Fantastic Four lore and had seen kind of origin stories.

Maybe we're more connected to these characters because of that reason.

Even though I don't need to see the the back story.

I just felt that the characters are kind of boring.

And I don't think that, OK, I'm, I'm being nice by saying like, maybe I just wasn't connected.

I thought it was kind of boring.

I thought it was like the characters were not well written.

They're just kind of stale, you know?

But in a whole, it was OK as a Marvel movie.

Good review.

I agree.

What was your relationship?

Fantastic.

Four, I agree with most of what you said.

I want to start off with something nice because I'm scared of comic book fans.

This might be the best looking non Avengers Marvel production since Black Panther or Guardians of the Galaxy.

I think it looks incredible.

I think it looks good relative to this, you know, specific genre in the specific studio.

And I feel like that's kind of a bold statement considering, you know, how cursed Marvel CGI has looked for the last decade because they've been rushing their special effects artists.

But I think this movie has such a distinct visual language that I was genuinely really surprised by.

Yeah, I think it it's like you want this like dual realism and like not at the same time.

I I think Fantastic Four felt like I could step inside that world.

Everything felt like tactile.

I love gadgets.

I think it it felt like a world that I could stand in right, like step into the screen, but at the same time comic bookie right, like at the same time kind of distance and sci-fi.

Yeah, So I I think that's like a good balance that it it struck.

I like the the visual aspect of it too.

I love the future, the kind of retro futuristic world.

I think it was really cool.

What you're saying about the set design is right on how practical it looked.

The F4 house, the lab that Reed Richards has, I think it's genuinely impressive set design, the gadgets, the teleportation device, the flying car, the suits, the different kinds of suits, the spaceship that they have that that Sue Storm gives birth in the hyperspace technology.

And the visuals of that were really cool.

The feel of this world and how you're saying how tactile it was while also being very stylish.

I just want to give a shout out to the effects artist because you can tell there was an actual care put into this movie.

And then I get to my favorite part of the film, Silver, Silver Surfer, who I found to be like incredibly cinematic, like unreal relative to other Marvel villain adjacent characters.

I thought Silver Surfer and Julia Garner's performance and how she was, you know, crafted on screen was really imposing, kind of mesmerizing.

And the VFX team nailed her chase sequences in particular.

And that trippy Interstellar, the Interstellar set piece that was so inspired by like Sunshine or Interstellar with getting close to the the gravitational pull.

I thought the way that they depicted her hand going into Sue's stomach to pull out the baby for Galactus was just insane.

It was a terrifying image, yeah.

Truly horrifying and I haven't felt stakes in a Marvel movie since probably Spider Man, No Way Home.

So it's been like 3 or 4 years and I felt them in moments where the Silver Surfer was used in a really imaginative way.

So I thought the production design, the visual effects, the Silver Surfer was the highlight of the movie.

I thought the 1960s retro futuristic world that is a blend of this comic bookie utopia with while still having like underground mole guys trying to run their own societies play by Paul Walter Hauser really elevated this film's, you know, aesthetic and texture in world to something where I I thought, OK, I get the multiverse thing.

Where in other movies I felt like the multiverse was just a a way to cash grab, a way to keep printing money away for stakes to not exist within this universe.

This was the first time, especially in the first act, where I was like, oh, I I could be fully invested in what Marvel has next.

Whereas the past two phases I've been checked out.

Yeah.

Is the CGI perfect, especially in the third act?

No, absolutely not.

Galactus and his Death Star looking planet eating ship was all confusing to me, not in terms of what was happening, but what I was looking at.

And I thought while Galactus himself, when the Fantastic Four show up to his house, it was a little intimidating the way he turns his eyes on and he's looking at them and he's like imposing, a lot like Silver Surfer, but in a different way Here I thought even though he was towering over them, there was almost no sense of scale.

Like I couldn't tell exactly what I was looking at, what its infrastructure he was sitting in.

I couldn't tell what his ship looked like in the sky when we saw it or if he was a part of the ship like.

Physically, I think, I really think that was a decision made to to try to make him seem more imposing and mysterious.

And I think it actually backfired.

Like, I, I totally agree.

I was like, where are we OK?

He's like a space God.

Does he have legs?

Is he like kind of the wizard?

Is he the Wizard of Oz?

Like where he is a man that is like projecting this massive, you know?

Space God person, but then also like he does suggest that he needs to rest until like he is somehow running this I was never made clear so the baby needs to take over like but also later on.

Baby God, yeah.

Later on, or as Johnny Storm calls him, a magic baby, which was cute like Jack Jack.

But I I think that the also the, the end sequence where he comes to what I think is like New York City, right?

Yes, I.

Basically, yeah, whatever.

A major city A.

Metropolitan's amalgamation.

The the way that he I know they're trying to do this scale with like the Statue of Liberty and this the, you know, sky rises.

But even then I was like, this feels like he was plopped in here.

Like I'm still struggling.

Like I understand he's massive but it looked weird.

That Transformers movie, Yeah.

Yes, OK.

Yeah, that they were trying to get like a Godzilla Kaiju kind of effect with.

And I don't think it totally works.

You know, sticking on the baby for a second, I don't think do you think that people are going to make the connection that we did where we were like, oh, this is Renesmee too, right now.

Like this is the Twilight baby.

Because there are moments of this film where I was like, that's a different baby.

Those are different eyes, that's CGI, that's a real child.

And the flip flop was weird of the baby really confused me.

And I genuinely for a second was like, I'm in a $200 million movie that we paid like 30 bucks to see.

I don't understand why they couldn't just use a real fucking baby.

Like I was just so.

Confused.

About that choice, I know they were like, it's kind of the Twilight logic of we need a baby that looks both like, you know, these two characters, so let's digitally create one.

But then I'm like, it looks like no one's baby and it looks like a.

Weird child.

It's strange.

And then I was like, maybe, well, it's a God baby.

It's a magic baby, so it looks a little weird.

But then nobody really acknowledged how it looked.

And I started thinking, I'm going crazy.

And I looked over to you and I was like, what's up with the baby?

And you're like, yeah.

And I was like, OK, cool.

Because I I was like wait, am I the only one experiencing this?

No, yeah, I did think, especially when they were sitting on the couch at one point and I think the rock guy was like holding the baby.

That was particularly weird.

Because the costumes were composited on the actors.

Because every time they had their costumes on, they were holding the baby.

It looked like it was floating.

Oh, I don't know.

Or were there was?

Sometimes the costumes look real and sometimes they look digital.

I guess this is a part of my problem.

It's not as much the visual effects as much as it is the compositing.

I'm not sure exactly how that works in terms of time spent.

I'm assuming that's mostly post production.

And if this movie was rushed, which I don't believe it was, but you can't really tell anymore with Marvel, then I can imagine some of this feeling rushed in the third act, which it does in the compositing imagery.

And that's not to say like every Marvel movie, you know, that has good visual effects doesn't have issues like Guardians of the Galaxy sometimes looks like mush.

Black Panther has set pieces that look like Phantom Menace.

Like those are great movies that have visual aesthetics and palettes that are really interesting in their colorways and everything like that.

But this movie has all those good stuff, but it does have those issues as well.

Now the big criticism getting to your point, what you were saying in your in your review, I think both of us agree that the screenplay is what hurts this movie.

The tough screenplay.

It's hollow in many moments outside of one to two emotional scenes.

I would say the scene between this this family unit on the ship when they're getting out of that sun's gravity or whatever that gravitational pull and she's having the child's Sue Storm is.

And then the end, the very end.

And big spoilers obviously now for this new movie that just released when Sue Storm we have her fake out death.

I would say those are the two emotional moments of the movie that do work on me because not the screenplay, but because the actors are really.

Yeah, you have a connection.

Yeah, I think especially at at that very end, I I think the, the birth sequence didn't really work for me because there's a lot going on and it felt very digital.

Like I didn't feel like, like I was watching like humans.

I don't know the way that he was like, we need gravity and like, I don't know that that whole sequence didn't.

Work.

There's a lot going on, but Pedro really is selling it.

Yeah.

But in at the end when she's like when we think she died, although I never thought she died.

Unfortunately, it fucking got me.

I was like, this is the same studio that gave me Infinity War.

I know no one's dead, but at the same time I was like, she's pretty dead.

Yeah, Johnny Storm is now crying.

I didn't think about the baby.

I was like, Oh yeah, that's the Macguffin baby.

That's Franklin Richards.

He's like the comic book Macguffin.

So like of course the baby has life saving powers.

Yeah, but Pedro is doing a lot of work there.

Like, like, like, come on, baby.

Like that like, and him crying.

Like I believed in their marriage.

I believed in like their, their partnership emotionally.

So like, yes, like I felt like that was a good emotional scene.

Also, Joseph Quinn did have me questioning for like a millisecond of Oh well, they they just like held on him crying.

Maybe she is dead.

Maybe they're actually going to do something which I don't think we need to kill off Seustorm.

That's like not what I I need or want but.

I did think it was a choice though.

But yeah, I was like, oh, interesting.

OK, like stakes.

But but yeah, so like, I, I, I think that worked.

And I liked the baby bringing her back.

I like those eyes that she had.

So, yeah, so I was trying to say that the screenplay feels hollow.

Those are the two emotional moments for me.

But I was going to say, I think we both agree that this screenplay really relies on you caring about this family and for it to be kind of quippy in that 60 sitcom way.

And I think this movie is like so unfunny and has so many boring moments.

I I don't even think like I, I don't think I laughed.

Maybe I laughed once.

I liked a few times a Johnny Storm.

I liked when Johnny Storm was like deconstructing, like, oh, OK Silver Surfer, like, yeah, the, the, where's the surfboard from?

Like, is it attached to your body?

He's got like the.

Thing there was moments.

Like the yeah, oh, that's that is true.

I liked their, their relationship, but like 2 uncles it was, it was just so Oh yeah.

And the magic baby thing.

But like, it was so, yeah.

Like trying to use, here's the issue with it.

You're trying to use like Mad Men humor, right?

Like a sitcom humor that you're talking about to make jokes that feel like the characters at this time would make those jokes.

But here, here's the thing.

We're in 2025 and you don't need to just because something set in a certain era of like American history, you don't need to like basically go back to what media and fictional stories in TV or in film or.

Fantasy that's also showing us utopia because as we know, the 1960s in America did not look like the way they're presenting the.

19 they're like we are family cut to non white person as like Sue Storm is saying we're family.

Yeah, that was all extremely cringy.

It like, it wasn't even like, of course there are elements of of like calling everyone family and not looking at actual history as like problematic, but I wasn't even like because it's a superhero movie.

I was like, this is just honestly embarrassing or whoever wrote this to think that this is something that is emotionally resonant or even like thoughtful.

Because there's a difference of saying like let's work together everyone on Earth to, for example, like a build these transport, whatever they're going to do to move Earth right to a different place.

Like that's a different thing of like everyone working together for a common cause like 1.

Child is the same value of the.

Earth like looking at pollution or something like that, right?

But the way that it's framed is all like a family oriented emotional connection like it.

It was just so cringy and like dated and just like again, I, I think the best word is embarrassing, I think.

That I like the movie.

OK, I don't like the movie, but I.

But I agree with everything you're saying.

I still like it because I like being in the world and I felt emotional stakes with these characters.

I just felt a lot of what you're saying, which is that it felt like it was written by 4 dads who have dads who liked sitcoms from the 60s.

And they're like, what if we put in that movie, but we remove all the political tension of the 1960s?

And then I, and then I looked on the screenplay.

It was written by 4 middle-aged men and two of them who don't have a screen credit in their filmography.

I don't know those guys, maybe they're excellent, talented writers, but they're credited on the screenplay.

There's four people on the screenplay.

There's a couple on the story.

That's not a good sign and I think you can feel that in the movie.

There's also this movie's cut to death.

I think there's a lot of subplots taken out.

There's subplots with the thing taken out.

We don't see any if not except 1 scene of Evan Moss Bacharach in this movie.

Just a few cutbacks.

Our relationship with the flashback or sorry, Ben Grimm, who is the man who plays the Thing, which is not something you would know callus because you don't.

You've never seen the 2005 film with Michael Chiklis, who plays like that character.

But you when he becomes a thing, you feel something for him when he's trying to re, you know, inject himself into society, he's trying to find a way to normalize his life and and trying to find a new normal.

Rather, you don't really when he's talking to the Natasha Leone, you don't really feel that tension as much.

And so they're kind of like this movie just feels.

Like, yeah, I think there's like a maybe relationship to the character where I could see I understood sort of what was happening, but I didn't feel anything because it wasn't explored.

Yeah, Well, I guess that's, I guess what I'm trying to say is like, I loved being in this imaginative world.

I also was then real and I love the actors.

But then I was really confused about why they did not make this, why the movie kept telling me this is a personal human family story and why I kept feeling like this is a very distant, non personal, apolitical story.

And I don't understand how they didn't see that that contradiction in the post of this movie.

And trying to be emotional about the nuclear family was very strange.

You discussed with me, like on the ride home, the strange gender politics of the Sue Storm character.

And well, yeah, I think also it's like making her main characteristic as a character, like mother and then like playing off of this idea of like you're saying this, like this idea of her baby, like mattering more than the world, you know, has complicated connections to arguments that are happening outside of this movie.

And strange because I set her up as the diplomat of the team at the beginning of the movie where she speaks to all the nations across the world, right?

And I was like, and then they made her someone who's like, we will not even have the conversation of, like, sacrificing the baby for the entire planet.

And I was like, first of all, ethical dilemma.

This is stupid, Yeah.

Very superhero.

Yeah.

It's literally over and over again we get the train dilemma of like, will you save one person versus everyone?

So on that level.

But also just like it like the the idea of like this unborn child rhetoric, like, you know, there's so much especially it being said in this era, like, and and so there there was that.

But also like Johnny Storm, I know he's her younger brother, but she's like, I haven't gotten any sleep.

And it's like he's not it's not like you chose to have a baby, you know?

And like that kind of that kind of humor is like, whoa, that that's like just.

Strange targeted.

And I know it's like a little brother jab thing, but like, I think there were, there were just too many laughs from like men in the theatre that were like ha ha, ha.

I was going to ask you about that.

There was some like belly laughing from certain pockets of theater that we're all very specifically.

Well, it's there are different types of laughs, right?

Laughs, right.

If you are an avid theater goer and you like watch movies with like just big audiences, like we try to see these movies in like big theater so we can get kind of a, a feel.

But there are different, different laughs.

There are laughs of like this is absurd belly laughs, like a lighthouse kind of laugh.

My favorite type.

There is a, a, like, you know, secondary laugh of like, I, I got the joke and now it's like even funnier now that I'm sitting with it for a second.

And then there's some jokes where it's like someone finally said it laughs.

And those laughs are so like a, a gross twinge of it's just strange.

Yeah.

And so like it, it just felt weird to see in the, in this Marvel movie.

I was like, why #1 like, why are you deciding to make a boring movie that is like, let's all hold hands, You know?

It's kind of exactly what, like, Jordan Peele's like, hands across America.

US is about to bring Jordan Peele into this.

That's a funny.

That's a very.

Fantastic Four.

Conversation listeners.

But yeah, there is a sort of kind of like false idealism of like what humanity is possible of in this movie.

And it's very strange to compare to Superman, which is both about that having optimism and hope in the face of like terrible things, but also very realist about what's happening in the world versus Fantastic Four is like, that stuff didn't happen.

Like, in fact, the civil rights movement, I don't know.

Where is it like that's like the 1960s.

This is not that 1960s.

So I was like, oh, that's convenient.

And then I looked into the director, Matt Chapman.

So I wasn't familiar with him.

And the only thing he's made in the past 10 years was the TV show Wanda Vision, which I don't know if you remember, which made more sense about the sitcom inspired energy because that show is very subversive about that idea.

But that show also takes a look at grief through a very specific woman lens or from like a what I would say maybe a male lens on a woman lens.

And that genre exercise of being a subversive sitcom was fun and interesting for five episodes.

But then I think there's something about the way they mishandle Elizabeth Olsen's character from that TV show that then they double down on in the Doctor Strange movie that made me also find a connection here where I was like, oh, they are Co opting woman characters to find tension in these narratives.

And they're very clearly written by men.

And they are doing this like maximalist maternal archetype with both Wanda, what they did with her in that TV show in the Multiverse of Madness and now here again with Sue Storm to a lesser degree, but it's still there and but.

It's still there.

It's there because it's the only like part of her character, right.

Yes, it's her main like thing.

And so yeah, yeah, I mean, I I totally agree.

And I didn't realize that with Wanda Vision, but that's a great, I think thread to to connect Sue Storm to to Wanda.

The reason I liked Wanda Vision at first is because I was like, oh, cool, we're doing like a Stepford Wives situation here in conversation with a genre that's like very beloved by American audiences.

That's cool.

But but yeah, you're right.

They.

Pivot so hard.

Yeah, after that, this.

Child mother Connection and and it going differently there.

I guess I don't want to spoil it, but I'm sure if people are seeing Fantastic Four they probably sell Wanda I think.

It's fine to spoil at this point.

They basically Wanda Maximoff loses her relationship to her family and then becomes a villain right as a result.

Right.

But it it's like, yeah.

And then Sue Storm, they're kind of doing this thing where it's like child in danger, like moms could lift cars like you know, like they get super strength.

Yeah yeah and so and it was also weird when her and what's Pedro Pascals character.

Okay, Reed, Richard, Mr.

Fantastic, Captain Fantastic, another great movie.

Yeah, Mr.

Fantastic like when they were having different conversations again, I know a lot of people might be like, this was the era it was written in.

And so they're looking at like they're essentially the the characters are written gendered in the in a particular type of way.

Again, my response is it's 2025 and it's fiction, so you can still, like comment on those things even if you have them as a part of the story.

But their relationship felt like weird in terms of him being like, this is the logical thing.

This is like the only thing we can do.

And then her being like, don't do it, but I know we have to do it.

But like him being a logical force, I don't know.

Maybe that's his character.

I just wasn't really into it.

So I want to go to more spoilers and evidence for what we're talking about with strengths and weaknesses, but I want to specifically do it through how the film need you to care about the family dynamic.

And I'm going to be trying to be fair about this because I know some people are really loving this movie.

Some people are kind of indifferent about it.

I think Kelsey is, you know, I'm more the former Kelsey's the ladder or I guess I'm more in between.

But you know, there there's the main characters in this movie are basically 2 parents, 2 uncles, a God fetus and a silver surfer who don't really know anything about except for one cutscene away about her past life.

And so I want to talk about this movie and through the character dynamics and through pairs because I think this movie does an interesting thing with pairs that I don't think totally works.

But it's evident in the film or the structure of the film that that's the direction they wanted to go in for probably reasons of not having a fully developed screenplay and not knowing how to connect this movie to the larger universe while also having a stand alone movie.

So I want to start with the pair that actually works, Joseph Quinn, Julia Garner.

I think this is the part of the movie for me that really sings these two.

And they play, by the way, Johnny Storm.

And then Julia Garner is the Silver Surfer.

And you probably know Joseph Quinn.

He's been very popular lately for maybe like Gladiator 2.

Most famously from Stranger Things is Eddie Munson, Julia Garner, most famous as Ruth from Ozark, one of the great TV performances of the last decade.

And I think also Joseph Quinn with Eddie Munson.

So these are TV stars turned down movie stars.

Which is really so like, I mean, well, not rightfully so because that suggests that there's a lesser like caliber for TV stars, which I don't agree with, but I mean.

It's good they got their payday.

But I'm, I'm glad they got their due.

Like, I'm glad they're getting recognized.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I think they're magnetic together.

I don't know if people agree with.

Me also did you say quiet place day one?

I did not.

He's also very good in there with Lipia Nuongo, but I think there's something very mysterious and sad in both of their performances.

Yeah, I feel like they're two science fiction characters in the middle of this fantasy movie with that I find to be really interesting.

They both feel disconnected and stuck between worlds.

We see a lot of Joseph Quinn, like, looking out into space in this movie without a lot of background or context about why because we don't see the origin story of them all getting their powers.

And I think he sort of feels disconnected from himself and his family and everyone else because like the law of physics doesn't really apply to him.

I know none of their characters law physics really applies to, but especially him.

And I think their chemistry between Silver Surfer being somebody who's sort of disconnected from their reality as well really sells it.

And I, and I'm giving a lot of credit to these actors because I think they they get so much kind of like pathos and like human condition and their expressive faces through the fire of Johnny Storm and through the silver fluids of like, Julia Garner's face.

Yeah.

It was like a cold and a fire.

Yeah, I thought it was really impressive.

And I I usually, that shit usually comes off as like, really sentimental to me.

And it really worked for whatever reason.

Maybe it's because I like these actors, but I thought they gave really like, soulful, soulful performances and have the great action sequences of the movie.

And Johnny Storm is the great comedic, you know, moments of the movie.

I agree.

Yeah.

So they are the highlight of the film outside of like a Vanessa Kirby scene or two to the point where when I left the theatre and this didn't matter to you.

So we didn't really talk about it, but I was like, oh, I want to talk about this on the podcast.

I not to rewrite the movie, but I would have rather had seen Garner Silver Surfer as the focus villain of the movie and not really know about.

Galactus and him just being this being that was going to show up in a future movie.

I think that would have been more interesting because she was kind of this tragic reluctant villain who we got a little bit of back story with about her child.

And it reminded me of Loki from the first Avengers.

Tom Hiddleston's character where he is a sort of reluctant avatar and sort of fragile and is is in kind of stand in of a God like being being Thanos in the original Avengers movie and this being Galactus, nobody come for me in the comments.

If Thanos is not a God like being, I don't give a shit.

But you know, like because Galactus is crammed into this movie, even though he's intimidating looking at first, I think the stakes of the film then become incomprehensible, like so cosmic that they feel hollow.

I don't really understand what's at stake outside of them losing their planet, which I get, but like also then it feels diluted by like, I don't know how fantastical it comes off.

So it's really hard to balance that more personal character journey if it already feels kind of corny to you, which it did for us if this found family or this nuclear family rather.

And then also this like planet eating monster.

And I think they if they focused on this like this, these two people feeling like outsiders in their own reality between Silver Surfer and Johnny Storm, that could have been really cool.

And that's why it's my favorite part of the movie.

Yeah, no, I, I also think it's like the best mystery of the movie.

And I I kind of like that Johnny Storm is solving the the kind of like cracking the code of translating language that is that that's transmitting out it just like kind of how I guess there's a lot of different examples.

I was thinking like in Prometheus when they like pick up Shaw's, you know, transmission or obviously they're a bunch of examples in space movies.

But yeah, contact.

Did I say Prometheus?

Yeah, Interstellar.

Yeah.

But yeah.

So I like the idea of like picking up a signal, like trying to understand the language and then him talking to her.

There are there's a mystery around like who is she?

But also, you're right, like their relationship and and the the kind of like sadness in both of them.

You're right.

And I think Joseph Quinn is a great cast for that reason for like what he's asked to do in those moments of being someone who has a lot of personality.

But I mean he is able to emote like his eyes are wild.

Exactly.

He's electric, but he's puppy dog eyes.

But the weird thing is, again, it's the same thing with Pedro Pascal and also with Joseph Quinn.

It's like they they just felt like off being written in this very straight laced character.

Well, Johnny Storm isn't a straight laced character, but he is like this kind of like quarterback right character.

And we should say you've never seen the Chris Evans version of that.

OK.

Yeah, just so you know well.

Chris Evans makes sense.

He's like a womanizer in that movie and he's but he's very funny and he's kind of like a screwball comedy to a certain degree.

And so, yeah, there is something a little bit more straight laced actually about this iteration on Johnny Storm where he's just like he wants to be accepted by the smart people around him because he's also a scientist.

Yeah.

And, and can we, OK, can we talk about like how Pedro Pascal and Joseph Quinn were kind of not weirdly cast, but I guess like strangely used.

Strangely used, Yeah.

Like they weren't able to, to be the charismatic people that they are or bring that to the role, right.

You don't need to like have an actor like play themselves or their press run, but like to, to basically.

It's what I talked about with Skylar Gisondo too, who's like lesser known.

But to not let them do their thing or yeah, it's it's just so strange to to be like, let's put them in this role but make them be kind of boring.

OK, yes, let's so let's talk about the second relationship dynamic then, which is Reed and Sue.

And then we can talk more about the misuse of some of these actors and then the CGI fetus God, that is the baby, whatever.

So Sue Storm is like a passionate diplomat in this movie, kind of the mother of the group.

Then you've Reed who is more of the reserved self questioning scientist, more introverted, and Vanessa Kirby does more face acting in this movie than I think I've seen in a film since like Jim Carrey's The Mask.

I I've not seen this much face acting in a long time in a movie theater.

Do you know what I mean?

Like she's doing a lot with her face, Like in a good way.

Like, she's being very expressive because the dialogue's pretty bad for her.

Yeah.

That's that's what I'm saying she's.

Trying to, yeah.

She's trying to bring her own emotionality to a character that's kind of muted.

I genuinely think she deserves like percentage on the box office like that because if anybody cries in this movie, it's probably because of what Kirby's up to with her expressive face.

Now, as you've noted, like this is not a very complex character, though I've already seen some critics and like TikTok movie pundits call Sue Storm complex in this movie.

But I felt like again, it's more Vanessa Kirby carrying pretty lifeless material along and being asked to play a Rosemary's Baby archetype that does not age very well from like that Poinski film.

And I hope she got paid.

Pedro Pascal, on the other hand, we can talk more about the the gender politics in a second after the Pedro stuff.

I'm going to let you go ahead with Pedro because you said it when we walked out the theater last night.

Like you were just kind of like just so dumbfounded by like how they could have misused him in this way.

It's not only that I think it's like the I think it also is this idea of like compounding frustration of how Pedro is being used.

Yeah, this whole summer, like we we've seen him in materialists play this like rich guy in a suit who is cool because he can like move around the world without stress because of of his money.

And again, that was like the character, but he wasn't like allowed to Pedro and then.

Yeah, they were asked like, hey, can you do like, Richard Gere or Pierce Brosnan, but like, kind of play it like you're on Xanax, Like, don't really have that much expression.

Yeah, it's like it it's like, you know, the the Pierce Brosnans like Harrison Ford, Richard Gere's of the world can't do what Pedro Pascal can do.

So it's like it's weird to make him fit a box that we've seen in like previous, especially ROM com.

That's a good way to frame it.

He is like our generation's Harrison Ford, you know, which is an interesting way to like, look at him like a more modernized version.

Yeah, he has.

He has so much charisma that it's like strange to Yeah, it it feels like it it's being suited up like in in that movie, in this movie, too.

It it's weird to see again.

It's not that that like we can't have.

There's a a character written that he is cast to play, right?

Like the scientist who is kind of internally stressed, carries like the weight of the world on his shoulders, feels like he needs to solve all these problems and with logic.

He's a sedated he's a sedated math professor doing like a scientist cosplay and you noted walking out like I can't believe they made Pedro Pascal play a bland straight guy 3 movies in the theatre at once right now, which is tedious.

Eddington and.

This Eddington's a that's not just a more.

Interesting screenplay and he gets more wiggle room to do some like funny satire in that movie, but still I like what he gets to be.

Up to though in Eddington, like what he's able to do with the character.

Well, I like all three of the performances.

It's just the characters are pretty like uninspired considering the level of talent that the directors are given or the writers are given with the actor.

Yeah, I think when we were when we were writing the letterbox review, like I was like, you have to put like, have have they met him?

Like why does, why does everyone keep casting Pedro like this?

And and it's not only like casting him, it's then it's saying like, let's make the decision to make him seem like sedated.

And I was like, have they met him?

And then like you like did a great job.

You're you like wrote, have they met this diva?

You know what I mean?

Like I have the same comment for scholar Desando, although they did use his like comedic tone in Superman.

But I, I, they're like actors who it's like there is a collective active love around the what the actors can do and what they're capable of as terms of, in, in terms of like a personality.

Yeah, they're unique, that they're fun, you know?

Knowing how to like, be compelling or charismatic on screen or their own specific humor.

Yeah, I, I guess it's really confusing that they made him into this Goodwill hunting Oppenheimer, great man.

That's like tortured.

Because, you know, I don't mean great man seriously.

I just mean it lightly.

Like he's playing an archetype and many of the characters are to the point where it almost feels like caricatures, but it doesn't work.

And I think in the comics he's more arrogant, which I thought would have been more interesting because here he's just so sedated.

Like I made the Xanax joke, but it really does feel like that.

And I want to be clear, it's not the same as like, serious, right?

Like there's a different thing than someone playing someone serious.

Sedated is the right word.

Yeah, so the way I thought about this and why I'm so confused about why Marvel let this happen is because for real MCU heads like us who watch the original first 3 phases and you watch them throughout schooling.

And like then you got older with them and there were some movies you're in on, some of your out on.

But you knew that there was like a turning point, right, leading around that first Avengers movie release.

And I felt Marvel learned their lesson after Thor 2.

Kelsey, I don't know if you remember Thor 2, but it was like the last time Chris Hemsworth was asked to play Shakespearean who like monologues and he stopped doing that.

And after Thor 2, Marvel was like, Oh yeah, we're paying movie stars millions of dollars.

Let them cook with their own personalities and let them bring the ethos of their characters and what they mean to their stories or comics along with their own personalities and combine the 2.

And so after Hemsworth was allowed to like comedically redefined Thor, they let Chris Pratt also come into this cinematic universe and be a self loathing, charming, funny guy, a star Lord who we all liked Chris Pratt around that era and then lately not as much, but around that era, very famous for that very reason.

They started letting Scarlett Johansson evolve past the cold hot assassin and she became more like strategic and interesting and funny and had good banter with Captain America.

And therefore Chris Evans 'cause they have good, I think their friends off set.

Mark Ruffalo got to be weird.

Like Mark Ruffalo is as sexy as Bruce Banner.

After Thor 2, around 2013, they let actors do the RDJ thing, the Robert Downey Junior thing, which is I'm going to bring the audience's relationship to who I am, to this role, because that's the whole point of like, even cashing in on movie stars.

Well, exactly.

Yeah.

Like we're, we are not like, I don't think, like, advocating for this in every movie.

Right.

It's just these, like, very specific superhero movies.

Yeah, exactly.

Like Robert Downey Junior was able to do this kind of right off the bat because they cast him for that reason to be Iron Man.

But you're right.

Like Chris Hemsworth is a good example.

Christian Bale, they let him do this.

They just let Robert Pattinson be.

Yeah, and I think also even like a a Chris Evans, right, like we see him evolved from even the the like straight laced Captain America and kind of doing this winking performance.

And it's just so you're right.

It's so weird to see a 2025 just dwindling of Marvel and not and have them not be aware of of that.

Right.

Yeah, anyways, hopefully that didn't seem too much like a rant, but I just, I, I couldn't believe it.

I was just like, how, Pedro, did you not see the little spoon big spoon interview with Dakota Johnson where he was like big like, did you not see that?

I don't understand.

Anyways, do we want to talk at all about the more anything more about the gender politics like the the I?

Think I already talked about it like the OK when I yeah, yeah.

Because the ethical dilemma of the movie is save the baby or save the planet.

And the four guys who wrote this didn't just kind of lean toward writing Kirby Sue with this like accusational tone toward her husband.

There's one argument scene they have where he's like saying something and not saying anything at all.

And she's being like, how could you say that?

I'm in the theater watching this being like, did a man lose an argument with a woman once and like wrote and materialized it on screen?

Like, I don't I'm very confused about this conversation, but in particular, they really tried to connect this like divine feminine archetype of her giving birth and all of her expressions giving birth to her pushing out Galactus to the point at the end of the movie where I realized that they just had two mother figures push Galactus into another Galaxy because Silver Surfer.

We get back story with Julia Garner that she was taken from her child.

And I just felt that to be like the most, I don't know, just kind of baffling commentary in a 2025 film to have mothers who were like, I have the power that I have because I'm a mom and I'm going to use my mom powers to knock you into a different Galaxy.

I was like what the fuck is this?

Yeah, it was really strange.

Especially because, like, the whole movie is about, I don't know, these supposed tech geniuses were saving the city.

And Pedro Pascal's character at one point was like, yeah, I got these cops all over the place and they have all these villains in different areas.

And I was like, what is this pro natalist commentary here?

Like, how is this movie trying to be apolitical, ripping the 1960s kind of discourse out of this country while also then doing problematic things politically?

I yeah, I was just as if someone who liked this movie, I was just kind of baffled by that choice to say that we're all one big family anyways.

Yeah, No.

No, yeah.

I mean, I think that, but it's a really good example of people thinking that they're essentially apolitical, right?

Or basically they're like apathetic, but they're they're kind of sentiments, right?

Are very political in a way that is like, so, yeah, baffling.

And it was just so strange to see in this movie.

And I think also because like, we have a relationship to the the characters and and the actors who are actually acting in things that are interesting and, and have like a point of view.

And so I think that also probably was was something that created the the contrast even even more so.

But like, 'cause we haven't even talked about, well, a little bit, but we, you know, didn't talk about Evan Mossbach.

Rack.

Yeah.

Who is one of the the funnier actors in this movie, if not like the funniest actor in this movie?

But it still has a lot of emotional depth that he was able to communicate through his like voice, but he he wasn't even like able to to really have a presence or the talent wasn't being able to to be shown here.

This is my biggest criticism of the movie, I think.

Oh, interesting.

He's not present.

Yeah.

And then Mos Bacharach's not in this movie.

And anybody was like, oh, I really liked this rendition of The Thing.

It's because it's like he's a good voice actor and because The Thing has is funny.

He has a personality.

He likes to cook, right?

He wants to reintegrate himself with society with Natasha Leone's character, who's also like a Jewish school teacher and this character is historically Jewish and this other sort of exploring that and they kind of cut that out.

He also wants to like be the symbol of goodness around the city that they live in with like, I don't know, making the kids excited about him and not being terrified of him.

They give him a lot to like in his like banter as an uncle figure and just being really sweet ultimately.

And the voice of things Good, ABBA Moss Bacharach is like one of the funniest physical comedy actors working right now and has an incredible role as Richie on The Bear, which by the way, new season of The Bear.

Yeah, it was good.

Rips, yeah, much better than season 3.

And yeah, he's just so likeable.

He's a really sympathetic face.

Like he's one of the sad, tragic faces of somebody that you think is kind of pathetic but you feel really bad for, which is perfect for this character.

And I think it's just honestly a great example of, like, why Marvel's just doing too much or not enough in post to like, rush these movies out because anybody could have just been like, we need 10 minutes of this guy on screen before we turn him.

But a big problem with the movies can see is they don't want to show you another origin story.

Yeah.

So you don't get to see who he is outside of 1 moment where he was like, yeah, I'm the hot scientist.

But it's like a flashback could have been fine.

I know there were a few, but they're very brief, yeah.

I thought that was the most irritating thing in the movie.

And maybe I just like that actor a lot.

So I've.

I'm very subjective about it.

Yeah, it's like just my own opinion.

I mean, it's why they cast the Fantastic Fours that these four people so.

Yeah, OK, so Fantastic Four, I think visually stunning within the context of this studio.

I think emotionally kind of manipulative, a little bit hollow.

I cried at the end a little bit because I thought fucking Sue Storm died.

So it got me OK.

And it's frustrating just because I thought Marvel had a chance to reset the whole universe with this film and they didn't really do that.

And Galactus ends up being like shot out into another universe or Galaxy, whatever.

Are we excited for the rest of Phase six?

Because this is the beginning of Phase 6.

I don't know what's happening in phase 6.

Tom Holland spider man movie comes out next.

Summer.

OK.

Excited for that.

And then we have two Avengers films back-to-back within like I think.

Six months, but The Avengers are who?

It's a good question.

We can send an e-mail to Marvel.

I don't know if they know either.

It sounds like I'm being a hater.

We're not even being haters.

It's just very confusing.

I don't know.

Yeah, it sounds like they're going to bring everyone back.

That's what I think it's leaning towards.

Yeah, I think that.

Would be a lot of money.

Yeah, I think they have that.

I think I think it's going to be a 400 to 5.

100 million, they're going to be like we are going to use all of the capital that we like got from you all just to spend it back on your salaries.

Yes, absolutely.

I think they should just wipe the slate and give us X-Men, like immediately.

I yeah, I totally agree.

I I want to see X-Men also like.

And I'll see a sequel to this movie to be.

Honest.

So keep them there.

Yeah, but I think, you know, the the issue with like Marvel 2 is that we had like a bunch of really cool characters introduced in The Avengers, right?

Yeah.

Beloved characters that get their own movies people are going out to see.

We see we have an emotional connection to them in Infinity War and End Game.

But then as Marvel is starting to just kind of like be this content machine and starting to lose quality, then Marvel starts introducing different like superheroes and the superheroes are also people of color.

And then there's like a really like big issue with then like not taking stories of like the the basically the superheroes who aren't white seriously.

And then.

Evidence.

Shang Chi hasn't had a sequel.

It's been like four or five years.

Black Panther 2 was pretty tough, but that was for a variety of other reasons.

Blaze Marshall Ali has had like 6 or 7 directors, 20 screenwriters.

They can't get it to work.

It's it's been a real problem, yeah, across the board.

And then and Captain Marvel.

And then the then the solution is not for, you know, Marvel to like be like, let's make movies that actually like matter And we can have like a diverse cast.

It's like, let's bring back all the just Avengers like that.

So bring the X-Men, right?

Like do just like do an interesting story, have a good cast, like tell something that has at least some political stakes, because that's why comics are interesting.

Like we talked about this, how, you know, different superheroes have issues in terms of being these kind of like military figures or like agents of the state in disguise and.

And X-Men is the most political comic book because it emerges out of the civil rights.

Right.

And so, so it's like it just, yeah, it, it's obviously like a, a huge issue in the superhero, you know, genre, but it, it would just be so like such a missed opportunity, I think.

Bring in good film makers who have a point of view.

Please, please take my money and hire Jordan Peele to make X-Men.

OK, Superman and Fantastic Four might not be perfect.

I think we both like Superman a little bit more or a lot more.

Depends.

I like Fantastic Four in terms of the universe building.

The world building doesn't totally work for me as a movie as a whole.

I guess still tour the better movies of the summer because it's been a rough summer, which I guess we can talk about for like a few minutes at the end here.

22 notes.

I wanted to ask you one, Skylar Gesondo, we didn't bring this up, is going to be starring in a Meet the parents reboot.

I know I saw that last.

Night, Ariana Grande.

I think so.

Are you excited?

Yes, I I mean I, I haven't watched meet the parents in a very long time, but like I love De Niro and and Ben Stiller in this I I really love family comedies as a sub genre.

That's why I like like Righteous Gemstones to which Skylar Gesondo's in and yeah, so I I'm excited for it just to see him do his thing because I think that's like will be his type of humor.

I I love how he's he's he plays sometimes like this person who's in trouble to like an older man child.

It's.

Very Michael Cera.

It's Michael Cera adjacent kind of humor, which I enjoy.

Great comparison.

Yeah.

So I, I really love that too.

And yeah, I I'm pumped.

That was my one question before we get to some of the summer movies that we saw this past month.

My second question, big question for the comic book nerd.

So I guess I should ask this first before they left for that Meet the parents conversation.

Robert Pattinson's Batman, David Corn Sweat Superman.

Do you want to see it?

No.

OK, Do you?

No.

No, yeah, I don't.

I don't need them to meet.

I know it's a cool thing to be like yes, but.

It's just not.

I don't need Robert Pattinson to be cute.

I like that we make him someone who is complicated and we're questioning why he's doing.

This and his goofy humor is its own kind of.

Humor.

Yeah, we already have.

You've got a lot of cats.

Yeah, and we already have like you know, Gordon.

Yeah, if you're right.

Yeah, we already have like, humor so.

Yeah, thumb drive.

There's it's his own comedy.

We don't need corn, sweat, sweetness injected into this or the OR even James Gunn sensibilities.

Like I think Reeves and James Gunn like Clash because they're cheesy in different ways but would not meld well.

Together I I agree.

I think people would argue being like, that's the whole point, the contrast of Superman and Batman and so those people's characters, but not cartoons that.

Work, not these film film makers visions.

Yeah, I think cinematically it's of these characters.

OK.

So in terms of summer movies, just a quick recap.

In June, we got 28 years later, which rips friendship, which we have discussed on the podcast.

No, we have.

Not a funny movie too much for me.

It was.

I miss Paul Rudd but a little.

Bit yeah, it was cringe humor in a way.

And I know this is like Robinson's whole thing, but cringe humor in a way that just like went on too long for me.

And again, I know people like love that and I love that in different ways.

I love like Pen 15, I love Curb Your Enthusiasm.

I love Righteous Gemstones, a lot of crunch humors and those properties.

But for for this, I think there's also a weird thing of like, you know, when he eats soap.

Sorry for a spoiler but things like that, it's just like too much for me.

I don't even think I saw that.

I think.

I think I looked away.

You were looking down for a lot of the movie.

Not performatively like.

I but there are a lot of funny, there are a lot of funny things that that I appreciate where, you know, there was one guy who like stood on a, a chair to like give a speech and he was like, huh.

And I'm all of a sudden I'm nervous, you know, like they're just things like that, what he says when the camera like gets away.

And yeah, I, I, I think those aspects work.

I like Paul Rudd.

A lot of it was funny, but I just like put it in the camp of like it was successful for what it was.

I totally get why people might love it and most of it worked for me it.

Represented a pretty funny male loneliness epidemic, you know, in terms of like for mid 30s like men where it's just kind of like pathetic but also very real in the post Internet era I guess.

Well, I think I think for a lot of people, like especially moving for jobs or like being remote or just trying to make new friends in new stages of life as like people might move like that was an interesting concept and particularly for men like this idea of like what to connect over and like thinking Paul Rudd so cool like.

It's funny.

We're talking about this on the superhero episode.

Like the new Marvel movie.

Yeah, funny.

In July we had Eddington, which we did.

The new Marvels.

Which we did an episode on our episode's doing really well.

Shout out all our new listeners from TikTok, from Spotify, Apple, wherever.

How do you feel about some of the reaction Eddington's we talked about on a podcast?

Like we've listened to Ari talk about it more.

I feel honestly, I feel kind of validated, which is why I asked the question.

A lot of our thoughts on Eddington seem to be where Ari was living with it.

And I, I did get worried publishing it that night.

I was like, is this conversation going?

To.

Age well, So I was like, maybe he is being a little bit more contrarian and then hearing his thoughts kind of, you know, solidified how I felt about it.

Why?

Yeah, I think, I mean, we've watched a lot of Ari Astor interviews.

Like we've done our homework on him.

I think we, like, understand where he's coming from as a film maker and as a, again, as like a beau he's afraid supporter.

I want to see him go in this direction more.

And I'm really interested to see what he has next.

But yeah, like, I feel interestingly about the Eddington discourse and how people have read it.

Yeah.

I we don't have to still feel the same.

Yeah.

Yeah, I feel like it's good.

Yeah.

I feel like we could find ourselves falling into a pit of conversation about that movie once again.

Sorry Baby is the movie I regret not covering today.

Sorry Baby.

Is go see.

Sorry baby.

Thus far this year, the greatest independent film and I think the real winner of the summer so far, Eva Victor.

Eva Victor, I apologize if I mispronounced her name, is a star of this film, lead actor, screenwriter, director.

She's special.

Our Lord and Savior Lucas Hedges returns back to the any indie world in this film.

Yeah, I love seeing Lucas Hedges return here.

I also, there's a a moment.

This is not spoiling anything.

Don't worry, Go see this movie.

But there's a moment where he is considering whether he should, like, get his shoes or not or his coat or not.

That moment was like peak Lucas Hedges for me.

Yeah.

Yeah, Victor's a great comedy writer.

I'm really excited for their career.

Meanwhile, terms of bad movies that we were going to cover, that I don't think we are anymore.

I know what you did last summer.

The remake.

I thought it totally missed the satire of the original.

Genuinely depressing.

It's a movie we love, the 90s film.

We covered it on Patreon about a week ago and.

We talked about why it's one of the four great 4th of July movies.

The original.

We think it's one of the great satires on American paranoia, like I think, and I, and I mean that seriously.

I mean that.

Seriously too trashy B.

You know what people call remake of Scream?

Kevin Williams and screenwriter making money off that original movie that he wrote.

But I thought this new movie was just like had some good horror slasher set pieces but totally did not understand the original film.

Totally.

Well first of all felt like it didn't even like see it because of how it ends.

Can I spoil it?

Hell no, No, don't.

No.

There's a third act decision that's unforgivable.

OK, yes, unforgivable.

Doesn't make sense.

And yeah, completely like misunderstands why the first one is so interesting.

I almost would go to see it just to see the third act twist because I was like, are you kidding?

Like why are you slapping me in the face like this?

I paid money to see this and I'm AI.

Felt so disrespected.

Jurassic World Rebirth offensive movie.

We're covering Jurassic Park like tomorrow on our Patreon and.

Which is like one of the episodes I've been the most excited to do.

I am really stoked for that discussion.

It's I usually don't have too much fun.

I'm just interested by prepping for episodes.

But in prep for Jurassic Park.

I've had a ton of fun.

I did not have fun prepping the reviews and reading reviews, listening to podcasts about Rebirth because I thought this movie was like garbage.

Characters in Jurassic World Rebirth literally say that they're only there to make money and they're speaking directly to the audience.

And that is basically the movie.

And there are certain set pieces or dinosaurs were like that's cool I guess.

But this movie doesn't give a fuck about dinosaurs.

It doesn't care about the anti capitalist paradoxical themes of the original.

It it can't even pretend to like what it's about.

And that was irritating as somebody who paid, you know, money to watch the movie.

Well, I think you when we walked out, you were like, I think dinosaurs are cool and like to see the sort of well, OK, I mean in the I agree with you saying in the Jurassic Park world, right?

Like, so to have a movie where it's like no one gives a shit about dinosaurs and then we're like, oh, OK, there's a.

There's what I call a Chuck E Cheese soda dinosaur in this movie, which I don't mind stepping on, but I think they call the D Rex where they just do like all the fountain.

Sodas in one.

Soda.

And I was like, are you kidding me?

Did the 8 year old write this screenplay?

Nope.

It's David Kepp, the guy who wrote the original Jurassic Park screenplay.

Got it.

Yeah, sometimes I wonder if people just put their names on movies and get paid for.

It, yeah, I don't know.

Yeah, pretty cynical.

Yeah, it was a bad movie.

I did like the family aspect of it though.

Like I I kept wanting to go back to the family.

I liked how the little girl collected a Pokémon dinosaur.

Like that works for me.

And then I was nervous about the whole like boyfriend, dad conflict with that kind of ended up working.

So I liked the family aspect of the movie, but weirdly, like the stars who are supposed to bring audiences in Scarlet Johansen and Hershel Ali.

And then Rupert finds, I believe, yeah.

Or friend.

Friend, Yeah, who I who I like and I thought was used in a way that is kind of how he should be cast, besides like a Wes Anderson cowboy.

But I I I liked him as this like kind of money.

Money hungry lawyer.

Yeah, yeah.

And so, so it, it worked for me there.

But ultimately it was just like not interesting, I guess.

Like the stakes weren't felt.

It just felt very hollow, especially the the Mahershali and Scarlett Johansson like relationship was so strange of like the the dialogue was just so it was poorly written of like I lost someone, I lost someone, OK.

It was so poorly written they started playing the John Williams theme over.

That was, yeah, they started playing.

Tragedies to one another.

They started playing the John Williams also like wonderment music of like the first time we see a dinosaur.

Essentially they do an iteration of it, but while Scarlett Johansson and.

No.

No, no.

Why am I forgetting his name?

Jonathan Bailey.

Yes, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

While they're having a conversation and they were supposed to be romantically interested, I guess.

And I don't know how this movie made me like, not like Jonathan Bailey's character.

Again, another like sin of casting someone and making the Yeah great actor anyway.

And then and then all the jokes of like biting the the mints like not.

Guys, I swear to God, it went like this.

Scarlett Johansson looks at my Herschel Ali, and she goes, yeah, my husband blew up.

And then he was like, yeah, my kid died and was like, I was like, what the fuck?

Who greenlit this?

Like what?

Yeah, so, so not a great movie.

Yeah.

Should we talk about the you?

Know what's boring?

Dinosaurs sit here for two hours.

I was like.

Should we, before we go, just talk about which we probably should have done this at the beginning, but the James Cameron new Avatar trailer that's dropped?

We talk about the Odyssey first.

Really.

Christopher Nolan's Odyssey trailer dropped at the Jurassic.

World, did we already talk about this?

One blood episode.

I have no idea.

No, I I added it in our letterbox review.

I was like that Odyssey 15 seconds was better.

I guess it was the podcast of our car on the ride.

Yeah, that's a whole.

Those are like definitely behind behind paywalls.

I I want to stick to Odyssey before James Cameron because we we have complicated feelings about Avatar.

For listeners of the big picture, I share the sentiments of Chris Ryan on the recent episode who was like I can't believe Big Jim wasted like 15 years of his life on remaking this like metaverse that represents Pocahontas meets Fern goalie.

Like I don't understand.

So the obvious share that feeling, yeah.

Yes, Tom Holland, John Bernthal, Matt Damon on the Ocean.

Self serious Music.

I'm in.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean.

Oh, well, that was OK.

That was the trailer going into which what?

What's happening with these trailers?

It's like a prime spot trailer.

It's like.

It's a new thing the.

Yeah, 'cause we have the trailers and then it says the movie starting and then we thought that basically the The Odyssey was what Jurassic World Rebirth was.

And we're like, whoa, this looks so good to.

You and I said this new Jurassic Park movie looks dope.

Yeah.

And I thought I genuinely was excited.

I was like, oh, this is different.

Yeah.

It was the Odyssey trailer.

The trailer we don't really get much besides a monologue, but it's just John Bernthal doing being John Birthal, which again, Christopher Nolan, we have issues with some of your movies.

Thank you.

OK, if you're going to put a movie star in a movie, let him let John Birthal go back to ancient Greece and be like, I'm just going to be John Birthal in this location that would have no John birthals.

And also Tom Holland's crying, and he's got a great crying face.

He.

Does he does, Yeah.

Underrated because he's Spider Man and doesn't get enough credit, but great, great crier.

And yeah, Matt Damon.

Is Matt Damon going to be in this movie or is it going to be an Interstellar thing where he pops?

Up at the end, I don't know.

Feels like an interstellar.

Thing it does feel like he wants to hide Matt Damon, not because he wants to hide him like his performance, but he wants him to have the the biggest, I guess, like presents possible.

Odysseus comes out at the end.

Yeah, we're going to have to reread the Odyssey.

No, no, please not.

OK, good.

I used to have to teach the Odyssey and I just scrapped it.

Yeah, but I saw the books.

Nowadays I got graphic novels and some.

Class.

I didn't have to.

It was like an option, like a popular option.

I was like, Nah.

I'm good too.

So, OK, Avatar, you have anything to add about James Cameron?

Yes.

So this Avatar, I was like, as I do for almost all the Avatars, even though I don't like the Avatar movies.

I was like, you know what?

I like epics though, you know, and I was interested the the last one looked good like.

Wave water.

Yeah, the water looked good.

The water looked good and this one, we definitely felt like, you know, he's ripping off Avatar the Last Airbender in terms of like water nation.

We underline that a little bit more.

Yeah, this franchise is ripping Avatar the Last Airbender.

Yeah, the title of the the franchise, the fire water.

I'm sure next it'll be Earth or wind, Air, whatever.

Yeah, like it's ripping it and I'm mad about it.

Yeah, I think, I think that's totally.

Fine.

Our dogs are named Appa and Momo.

Next summer we're going to be covering Avatar because there's a new movie coming out.

Yeah.

Hope it's good the good Avatar, Not this one.

But yeah, so I think, you know, I just learned in preparation for Jurassic Park, though, we were thinking about like the the dinosaurs, right?

They are closer to birds XYZ.

And then we were like, well, hang on, how big is the ocean?

It's big.

OK, We had some questions to Google on the couch then.

How deep is the ocean?

How many species do we not know that are in the ocean that are basically what I was just picturing as like massive dinosaurs in the ocean?

Actually, it goes like this.

Kelsey likes to poke fun at me 'cause I'm I'm scared of the ocean.

We also did Jaws, sure.

Vastness of space.

We just discussed this on Jaws.

I was sticking up for myself as we're talking about Avatar, and I was like, Kelsey, I don't know if you realize this.

Most organisms in the ocean we have never made contact with.

She was like, how do you even get the statistics?

She looked it up.

It's on many websites.

You know, this could be, again, the James Gunn monkeys Googling these things or making up these things on Google.

I don't know, but you know, science teachers let us know as we're, we are educators and we're willing.

To these are on like accredited I guess.

Yeah, it was like science.org or whatever I.

Know it was like or National Geographic, but yeah, government websites are like research websites.

But it was like 80%, right?

It was like 80% of this is turning into patriotic territory where I'm like now embarrassed to talk about this on anyway.

We don't know a lot of species and we and we don't know a lot of what's in the ocean.

Guys, we don't talk about it enough.

We don't know what's going on down there.

I'm just putting that out there.

And OK, the reason that I bring this up is because we.

Got guys who want to take us to the moon and repopulate like Mars or some shit and I don't know what's going on in the water when I go out to the ocean.

It's because then I Google like what's the deepest part of the ocean?

And we, I, I saw like what is it called Challenger Deep or something like that.

And that there have been like 5 or 6 people who have made this journey to the bottom of the ocean.

And I said James Cameron.

I read James Cameron and I showed James Cameron.

I mean, I showed Trey James Cameron's name and he said, yeah, yeah, yeah, he did that.

And I said, what?

He went in a submarine or whatever and went to the bottom of the ocean.

And then you said, yeah, that movie The Abyss is like what that's all about.

And then I said, Oh my God.

Well, he saw some shit down there that he's not telling any of us about because what the fuck?

Like he, he is just using scientific exploration as content per capital.

OK.

And that's where I'm going to end on Fire Earth.

James Cameron, tell us your secrets.

That was the extra credits of the superhero industrial complex and where it's currently at the rise of DCU, the fall of the MCU.

I I'm saying fall with air quotes.

Don't come at us.

I hope you enjoyed this episode.

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And don't forget to be nice in the reviews in the comments.

And also, if you liked Fantastic Four and you're someone who like cares about this franchise, tell us why I'm interested.

Like genuinely why?

Why did you like this iteration of it or Superman?

And I'm also sorry for you, because there's never been like a great cinematic representation of the Fantastic Four, and you deserve one.

You.

Yeah, sure.

Peace.