John Wick 3 - Almost Ruined - Almost

I took my time before I went to see John Wick Chapter 3 - Parabellum. Of course the big news was that Halle Berry was going to be in it. It was no big news to me. In fact when I heard she was going to be in it I was disgusted.

Why? Because the John Wick franchise had become one of my favorite movie franchises. Right up there with The Transporter franchise. I thought Chapters one and two were terrific. I was so glad that Hollywood was preserving at least ONE tough guy that was still a dude.

I've lamented recently here on the blog that Hollywood had been turning men into wimps in just about every medium. We've had to see women become the new "tough guys" and the men turned into pussies in every TV show and movie franchise from Star Wars to Star Trek to Flash, Arrow, Person of Interest, and the list just goes on and on.

When The Transporter franchise tanked, thanks to Jason Statham leaving the franchise, I was glad that the John Wick franchise was still going strong. I couldn't wait for Chapter 3. Then I heard Halle Berry was going to be in it. Worse still, she had petitioned to be in it. Here's the link. And here's another. So I suppose the producers figured she was an A-list actress with an academy award in her resume. How could they refuse? Well, if they found a good part for her, I'd have had no problem.

But my fear was they were going to do the same thing to John Wick that they did to the Jim Caviezel character in Person of Interest. Meaning they had two seasons as Jim Caveizel being the show's bad-ass, then in the third season they introduce another bad-ass character in a little chick. Yeah, and she was an even tougher bad-ass than Jim Caviezel. Sheesh.

So I saw the show, and sure enough. Halle Berry is in there beating up and killing fifty dudes all at once, a la John Wick. I mean she was using the same moves and the same type of styles that John Wick had been using in the two prior movies. Did she train with the same people? No. She was just a female version of John Wick. Yeah. All 5' 2" and 110 pounds of her.

Fifty-two-year-old Halle Berry as "tough guy" Sofia in John Wick 3.
Yeah. A real tough guy. She looks about as tough as a middle school girl.
She couldn't take on 50 middle school kids, let alone 50 trained
killers all at once. Her character was a complete piece of crap.

That scene almost ruined the movie. Thankfully, it was just that scene and then she was gone. But not until after spitting in an empty water bottle as Wick is about to undergo a romp in the Sahara desert. And like a pussy, Wick takes it. The scene with Berry was nothing more than gratuitous violence inserted for her egotistical benefit. It was like placating a spoiled child. The movie would have been better without her. And yet the goose-steppers are out there claiming how great she was, which, of course, is bullshit. The fact is she almost ruined the movie.

There were so many holes in that scene and when it was all said and done the scene made no sense at all. They killed her dog? Yeah, where had we seen that before? Except wait...they didn't kill her dog. Whatever. It didn't stop her from going all John Wick on them, and completely ruining the concept that she had laid out of not wanting them going after her daughter. It made no sense for her to go into a killing frenzy for no reason at all. Her dog wasn't dead.

So yeah. Halle Berry sucked in this movie. She did not fit at all. Her character was lousy, and her acting was the worst. What happened to that great acting ability that won a best actress academy award for her role in Monster's Ball? It wasn't displayed in John Wick 3, that's for sure. Her acting sucked. And because of these reasons, John Wick 3 was almost ruined. The best thing about Halle Berry is when we didn't have to see her anymore after that horrible scene was over.

I have to admit this was the worst of the three John Wick movies so far. Will John Wick 4 get back on track? We'll have to wait another two years to see. I won't hold my breath. As far as I'm concerned, the John Wick franchise sucks now. Thanks to Halle Berry.

Maybe it can be great again. As long as Halle Berry is no longer in it. Or maybe if her character is killed off that could fix the problem they created. But I don't expect that to happen. Berry's scene and her privileged demand which was unconditionally granted, proved she has a huge ego belying her diminutive and very NON-intimidating frame. And I wouldn't doubt it if she is one of those actors and actresses who has the kind of ego that refuses to let any of the characters she plays from ever getting killed in a movie she's in. And I'm probably right.

Bottom line is it's a damn shame the producers of the John Wick franchise bent to the will of this privileged and self-serving actress who can demand to be in a movie that had already established itself as a great success without her. She brought nothing to the franchise. And like I said. She almost ruined it. Please, no more Halle Berry. Or if she does return, please, kill her off.

Avengers Endgame -- Sucked

It sure seems like I'm hard to please. At least that's what one might think when reading my blog. But  whatever. I'm not going to say a movie is good when it's not. And even though Avengers Endgame made billions of dollars, it sucked. Big time.

So why did it make so much money? I've said it before...the goose-steppers. For those of you who don't know what that means, goose-steppers are the rabid fans who will like anything, or any movie, that has their favorite heroes in it.

Jack Kirby's rendition of the Scarlet Witch

Like Star Wars for instance. Disney bought Star Wars from George Lucas for four billion dollars, a price he couldn't refuse, I suppose, even though I heard he donated the money. But whatever. In selling his franchise to Disney, he surrendered what little integrity the franchise had left after its atrocious prequel trilogy.

Disney studios proceeded to destroy the legend of Star Wars. First by doing nothing more than rehashing the original story line, albeit with a female "Luke Skywalker" this time. And then by delivering prequels and sequels that totally sucked with boring scripts, tired plots, and bad casting. But the Star Wars die hard fans had been waiting so long for anything Star Wars, they ate it up. These are the "goose-steppers" and Disney made billions off of them.


The same thing was true for most Star Trek fans. So hungry for anything Star Trek, even the stupid movies and TV shows couldn't fail. The goose-steppers soaked it all up and still are. I said "most" fans because once upon a time I was a Star Trek fan. I thought the original series was terrific as did millions of other people. But the second series "Next Generation" was a total load of crap, and so were the ensuing movies...nothing but crap. I didn't buy it. I quit watching The Next Generation soon after it aired, and even though I admit to seeing the movies, I couldn't stand any of them. Therefore I am removed from the "goose-stepper" status.

The Scarlet Witch as drawn by Jack Kirby

But one might argue that since I paid for seeing the movies, doesn't that make me one of the goose-steppers? No. Because a fan will go to see a movie hoping it will be good. The goose-stepper will come out of that theater raving about how great the movie was, even if it sucked. Why? Well, because it was a "Star Trek" movie. Not me. I loved the original Star Trek. But after seeing the movies, I realized I wasted my time and money. So no. I'm not a goose-stepper.

I had been a Marvel superheroes fan since I was a kid and I can call myself an expert on the characters and the Marvel universe, at least so far as the Silver Age is concerned. I still have quite the collection to this day.

Elizabeth Olsen is NOT the Scarlet Witch

I have been critical of the casting and the story lines of most of the movies. Yeah, Robert Downey, Jr. is good as Tony Stark. Yeah, Chris Hemsworth is good as Thor. Jeremy Renner was fine as Hawkeye, and I didn't mind Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange. Chris Evans is a better Captain America than he was the Human Torch. But just about every other actor was horribly miscast.

That means from the first movies like the X-Men to the last one...Spider-man Far From Home this summer. They all have been miscast. And they ruined the characters, too. I remember seeing the first Conan movie. I was a Conan fan and I was thrilled they were making a movie. I saw it, and even during the movie I remember thinking to myself..."That isn't Conan."

But of course the goose-steppers were thrilled just to see a dude dressed up as Conan with a broadsword riding a horse. Never mind the dude had nothing else in common with the character created by Robert E. Howard. Never mind the story completely sucked.

Mila Kunis is the perfect Scarlet Witch

So it's the same thing with Avengers Endgame. The characters are all there. There's Captain America, ending up as an old man, passing the torch to a new Captain America. There's Thor, but with a pot belly and wasting his days playing video games. Yeah, that's right. A pot-bellied Thor doing nothing but playing video games all day. Everyday. I mean, um, that's supposed to be the "god of thunder" but yeah. He's a pot-bellied couch potato now. What was worse was the completely ridiculous story. The bad guy kills half of life in the universe, because... Well, there really was no reason. Balance, he said. What does that mean? The story, plot, and script sucked big time.

One last example before I go. The Scarlet Witch, as pictured above (drawn by the original artist Jack Kirby.) She used to be my favorite female superhero. But casting Elizabeth Olsen as the Scarlet Witch was a disaster. Especially when the PERFECT actress for the part was available and still in her prime.

Imagine that outfit in red-The Scarlet Witch!

Who could argue that MILA KUNIS isn't the PERFECT Scarlet Witch? No one that's who. It's because Mila Kunis is the perfect Jack Kirby drawing of the Scarlet Witch come to life. So why can't the movie people get something right when it's staring them in the face?

I can go on. My point is the actors and actresses are out there. They got Thor right and Iron Man right. But that's like two out of fifty or something. With a little more effort they could get them all right. And with a little more effort they could have great stories, too. I mean it really isn't that hard to figure out. If the movie people went with the stories written by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee during the Silver Age, all of these movies would have been a hundred times better.

Too bad the effort is lacking. But why bother? They're getting their billions. That's all that matters, right? To them, at least.

The Spanish Princess

I enjoyed the first two installments of this series: The White Queen and The White Princess. Both focused on the women, (of course) of the York line, as their male counterparts vied for the throne of England, eventually losing to the Tudors. Ultimately the two bloodlines joined through matrimony, when Henry VII married Elizabeth York, ending the civil wars that plagued England for years.

In the third installment, the timeline of this historically based series takes us to the introduction of Catherine of Aragon, who was famously married to Arthur, (Henry VII's firstborn son,) and after he died, to Henry VIII, (his second son.)

And yes all this is true history, which makes for great story-telling. But being the critic I am, I am not without criticism of this third installment. I've only seen the first two episodes, so far, but right from the start there were some problems. Major ones.

As we know, Catherine's parents, King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, had reconquered Spain from the Moors, (Muslims who had occupied Spain for several hundred years.) And they had rid Spain, (and the entire Iberian Peninsula) of all non-Christians. Meaning there were no more Moors or Muslims left in Spain.

But the story starts with Queen Isabella, in full armor, leading a charge to fight off a Muslim insurrection that had ambushed the royal entourage on its way to send off Catherine to England.

Um, say what? Yeah. It wasn't the king leading a charge, it was the queen fighting off Muslim attackers as if she were the top knight of the land. King Ferdinand was nowhere to be seen, once again playing into Hollywood's perverted mandate to elevate women above men in all ways, up to and including military bravery and leadership. Sheesh. So that was a two for one stain on this new show. Muslims still fighting in Spain and the queen leading the charge to fight them.

That's critique number one. Next, we see in Princess Catherine's royal entourage, one of the royal Spanish soldiers is a black Muslim. I have no problem with skin color, but the Muslim part is complete crap. I had already established that all Muslims had been kicked out of Spain or killed. In this show, not only did they portray an army of Muslims still there, but now we see a Muslim is among the royal entourage as one of Princess Catherine's personal guards!

Princess Catherine and her Entourage

Never mind that he's a secret Muslim. I mean how secret can you be when you're kneeling on your Muslim prayer rug five times a day in the ship that's crossing the English channel? It doesn't work. Clearly the show is pandering, not only to women, but to a Muslim audience. Again, it doesn't work, if only because the entire concept is crap.

As if that wasn't enough, to further the Hollywood mandate to diminish male characters, they have one of the English guardsmen, (of the royal palace, no less) trying to molest the top woman of Catherine's entourage, (a black woman, of course.) If any royal guardsman tried to molest anyone he'd be executed on the spot.



So what's next? How about little Princess Catherine bests Prince Henry in a sword fight... Yeah, that's coming next as the show's preview for the next episode portrayed. Never mind that England won every war it ever had with Spain. Never mind that Henry was 6' 3" and athletically inclined, and trained in the military arts. Never mind that Catherine, (at least THIS Catherine) is a tiny thing, standing no more than 5' 2" and weighing 100 pounds.

This is just too much. But it's  been too much for twenty years now. My only conclusion is that the goose-steppers buy into it. But like I said before. I don't.

Game of Thrones - a joke

I had something to say about Game of Thrones for the first time last week, and now after watching the second to last episode, I was amazed at the joke of a show it is.

I had lamented about how the writers of the show had fallen in line with the female dominance premise which Hollywood has been promoting for the past twenty years. But that really hasn't been unexpected. With last night's episode, it has dropped to a new low.

It's all about the super Danny girl and her super dragon now. The show had established that Cersei's new "scorpion" arrows were very effective in killing dragons, as they had killed one with little effort already. But lining up these "scorpions" only along the front wall of her walled fortress was so stupid it was a joke. Did anyone ever notice that the dragon had wings and can fly? Did anyone care to realize that a flying dragon can fly at their walled city from any direction?

I mean anyone with half a brain would know to position those "scorpion" arrow shooters, not only on the front wall, but on the rear wall, and on the side walls, and throughout the city's interior. I mean, no one realized a dragon could fly directly down from a high point, thus evading the walled "scorpions" to breathe its fire? So the joke is how stupid the positioning of these scorpions was.

And by the way, since when does fire burn stone walls and stone towers? Since when does a fire cause stone walls to explode? It was like the dragon was shooting explosive tipped missiles out of its mouth. Well, it's all part of the joke, I guess.

This show was so poorly written, it was very surprising. And clearly, whenever a show is this stupid it's the fault of the writers. I haven't read the books, so I don't know if the original author wrote it this way. Whoever did, the goose-steppers will buy into it. But wait...not entirely. At least there's a TV critic out there who didn't buy it. You can read her article on USA Today here.

Game of Thrones - Totally Predictable

In all my posts in which I'm lamenting the reduced roles of male characters these past months, I haven't posted about Game of Thrones. Never mind that almost all the male characters have been reduced to wimps and cowards, like in just about every other show and movie franchise, they have also been reduced to subservient pawns at the beck and call of their female "superiors."

And following this, was it any wonder that the character who saves the GoT world from the horrid Night King was, of course, the little girl, Arya Stark, all of the 5' 1" and 90 lbs of her, played by the equally tiny Maisie Williams of England.

But my point is that it was totally predictable. My wife and I, both, had predicted the one who would finally kill the Night King would be Arya. Everyone I knew, with whom I talked about it, also knew it would be her.

While the 6' 6" 250 lbs "Hound" was cowering in the shadows, it was the littler girl Arya who was fighting off dozens of "white walkers" all at once. It was all too expected now that Hollywood has set the precedent that it's the women who are the smart ones, the heroes, the brave ones, and the saviors of the universe, while the men are wimps, cowards and degenerates.

Maisie Williams

So, here we go. The baddest character in the GoT universe is little Arya Stark. And, of course, the goose-stepping fans of the show are "all in" with this. As are all the other "goose-stepping" fans of shows like Star Trek, Star Wars, Disney, the Marvel universe, and every other TV and movie franchise, as they follow blindly the destruction and demasculinization of the male characters in Hollywood.

You know, I do have a suggestion of how that GoT episode could have been better. And it doesn't even diminish Arya's bravery. She had somehow leaped over a crowd of the Night King's followers, I'd say about 40 to 50 feet in distance and about ten to twenty feet in height. Never mind how she managed to do that. But after doing so, the Night King had caught her by the throat. As we saw then, Arya dropped her knife into her other hand and stabbed him, at which point he, and his army, exploded. That was the predictable part.



What would have been a hundred times better and more believable would be if the Night King snatched the blade from her and handed it to his "right hand" man, one of those other elite white walker dudes. But then, the dude turns around and HE stabs the Night King. And after they all explode, we see that he doesn't. Why? Because at that point, he removes his "white walker" face and Arya sees, (as does the TV audience) that he's actually that dude from the "assassins guild" who had been tutoring Arya in the ways of the faceless assassins. You know, those dudes who put on the faces of others to mask their true appearance. That would have been awesome.

But no. Clearly the writers of this show aren't as good as I am. Whatever. It goes to show they are all in with Hollywood's directive. It's the women who are the heroes. And the men who are wimps. The goose-steppers buy it. I don't.

Blacklist Still Sucks - Worse Than Ever

When I mentioned in a previous post that The Blacklist was continuing its downward spiral, I didn't realize how right I was. I dared hope that the Aram resolution was going to be indicative that perhaps the show was coming back to its prior greatness.

But it was not to be. It seems the writers keep finding ways to make the show lousy. It started with the falling out of "Mr. Kaplan" and how "she" became an enemy of Red's after being a staunch ally. That ended badly, with the suicide of Kaplan, in her effort to destroy Red. Then you had Lizzy and her ridiculous antics to "destroy" Red, along with the help of Red's other daughter.

That was somewhat resolved, but only after Red was mere seconds away from being lethally injected. But still, Lizzy, like Aram, came around, unlike Mr. Kaplan.

And now we have yet another falling out. Now it's Dembe. I mean, come on.... If it's not one ally of Red's it's another. And Dembe was Red's most loyal ally of all. But, not anymore...

This is so tiring. I mean, it's been tiring for a long time. My god, don't these writers have any better ideas than to keep sowing discord among Red's allies time and time again? And now Dembe? For chistsake, no.... Not Dembe, but yes. Dembe. I mean he was only my favorite character, after Red in the entire show. His unyielding loyalty was awesome. Apparently it wasn't so unyielding after all.

And there's another thing. Finally we learn who James Spader's character really is. We've been slowly introduced to the idea that he's not the real Red Reddington. Okay, I was willing to go with that, as long as he was the real father of Lizzy. I mean the real biological father. But no, we don't even get that. Talk about a let down. That was the killer. The show sucks. Big time.

The only thing that could possibly had justified Red's apparent "obsession" with Lizzy is if he was her REAL father. But it turns out he's not. He's just the former lover of her mother. Never mind that she had an affair and a baby with another man. (the real Red Reddington.)  Never mind that she's leaving him because the Russians are out to get her. But this guy, some Russian contemporary of Lizzy's mother, decided to take the place of Red because.... Who knows why?

The show didn't explain that to my satisfaction. I think it was to keep Lizzy's mother safe. Say, what? How does him becoming Red keep her safe? Well they tried to explain that somehow, but it was impossible to explain, imo. It turned out to be just plain stupid.

So the guy promised he'd take care of Lizzy as if she were his own. Sorry...that doesn't work for me. "As if" just doesn't work. Look. I'm a father. I have two sons. I would go to the end of the world for them. Just like Red had been doing for Lizzy. But it would only work if she were his biological daughter. Not some baby your girlfriend had with another man. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Only a fool would do that. So what now? Hope that some additional episodes can fix this? There is another one or two on the way before the current season is over. Can they fix it? We'll see.

Blacklist - Aram gets over it

Aram

I had complained about the direction in which The Blacklist was headed, and it was due to the fact that they were writing Samar out of the show. It was a major problem for Aram but the next episode took care of that problem. It was written well enough, and tied up some loose ends, but still I believe Aram should never have blamed Red, or held it against Red for doing Samar a huge favor even if it meant she had to leave him forever.

The character of Aram is actually a very good one. He's a behind-the-scenes type of FBI guy, meaning he's not the one in the field shooting up the bad guys. He's more the mild mannered type, and his ability to work computers is invaluable to the team. He also offers some comic relief.

I didn't like that Samar had to go, because I liked her character, too. I still believe that, overall, the Blacklist is tanking, and it's too bad. It had been my favorite show. Red Reddington is a great character, and James Spader's portrayal of him is golden.

Another favorite character in the show is Harold. He seems to be the only one in the show who actually appreciates Reddington, (although Lizzy is coming around.) I mean Reddington has saved all of their lives time and again, and saved their careers as well. But it seems that this show has the premise that if a guy saves your life, so what? You gotta hate him anyway. Forget the fact that if it weren't for him, you'd be dead. Let's just hate the guy and destroy him.

Harold is the only one who hasn't had that sentiment. (Maybe Samar is another.) But Lizzy, Ressler, and Aram as of recently, have all harbored a hatred for Red. Kudos to Harold, the only decent one in the bunch. If it weren't for Harold, I'd have quit this show long ago.