"Eyes of Wakanda" and "Marvel Zombies"

Two Marvel universe animated miniseries were released last year, which both skewed nerdier and more mature than Disney+'s usual animated offerings.  Both run four episodes of roughly 30 minutes each, adding up to the length of two feature films.  

"Eyes of Wakanda" explores concepts from "Black Panther," tracking the efforts of multiple Wakandans over the centuries retrieving artifacts and going on special missions around the globe.  In the first episode, a former Dora Milaje travels to the Minoan Empire to retrieve a Wakandan agent who has gone rogue.  The second is set during the Trojan War, the third in China in the 1400s, and the fourth gives us glimpses of Wakanda of the future.  All the characters are new, and don't have obvious ties to the characters in "Black Panther," which means there's some time needed to adjust to the new reality of each episode.

The series is designed to be a showcase for black talent, with the episodes written by Geoffrey Thorne and Marc Bernardin, directed by Todd Harris and John Fang, and cast with an array of black actors including Steven Touissant and Anika Noni Rose.  What stands out are the visuals, featuring a dynamic, impactful animation style that makes the action scenes look great.  The production quality is strong the whole way through, but this is very much an anthology where the individual stories are designed to be self-contained and barely connected to each other, so "Eyes of Wakanda" ends up feeling very diverting but non-essential.  I'd love to see some of the episodes expanded, especially the third where we get a crossover with a different part of the MCU, but getting "Eyes of Wakanda" made was surely difficult enough. 

However, as unlikely as "Eyes of Wakanda" is, I'm downright baffled that "Marvel Zombies" exists.  This is a spinoff of the "What If…?" episode that takes place in a dystopian version of Earth where much of the population and the superhero community have been zombified.  It uses the same visual style and brings back many of the same characters.  "Marvel Zombies" has a mature rating because there is violence galore and characters are constantly being killed left and right.  We start out in the first episode with Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne), and Kate Bishop (Hailee Steinfeld) being gal-pal survivalists together in the remains of New York, who discover a mystery device inside a zombie, which might save the world.  This kicks off a long, winding journey through different realms of the zombified MCU, picking up friends and allies and much more trouble along the way.

  

I appreciate that the status quo is constantly changing in "Marvel Zombies," so it's impossible to guess what's going to happen next.  The stakes are also properly epic, as the miniseries builds to a big conclusion involving multiple big bads.  However, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone but the most die-hard adult MCU fans.  It takes a good amount of knowledge of the existing film continuity to keep all the various characters straight, and appreciate how they differ from their original versions.  The  inexpressive animation style is also not helpful in this regard.  It took me a while to realize that John Walker (Wyatt Russell) had shown up in one of the episodes, and I spent a few minutes of the finale trying to work out who another character was (It was London Master (Daniel Swain) from the second "Doctor Strange" movie).   

If you're confident in your nerd bona fides, however, and you like darkest timeline scenarios, "Marvel Zombies" can be a lot of fun.  A surprising number of MCU actors were convinced to lend their voices to the project, and I like what the series does with some of them.  A few of my favorites get great death scenes, and this is definitely the best use of Agent Woo (Randall Park) yet.  There's a focus on "Shang-Chi" and "Black Widow" characters, which hints at when "Marvel Zombies" was written, but also some fun cameos from other shows.  Also, we get an interesting version of Blade (Todd Williams) who provides hints at what his long-stalled feature was going to look like.  

Marvel doesn't get this dark very often, so if "Marvel Zombies" sounds like it would appeal to you, enjoy it while you can.        

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"Wake Up Dead Man" is the Best Blanc Mystery

I suspect that "Wake Up Dead Man" is the best Rian Johnson film.  It's easily the best of the three Benoit Blanc movies he's made so far, and I really liked the first two.  "Wake Up Dead Man" is another murder mystery featuring the Daniel Craig sleuth, with plenty of social commentary, and some good laughs in the mix.  However, this is a darker, more thoughtful story, set in and around a small Catholic church in upstate New York.  The new assistant pastor, Father Jud (Josh O'Connor) has written to Benoit Blanc about a murder.  Who the victim is probably counts as a spoiler, so I'll just say that the major figures involved in the crime are the charismatic firebrand Monsignor Jefferson Wicks (Josh Brolin), his henchwoman Martha (Glenn Close), her husband Samson (Thomas Hayden Church), and local townsfolk played by Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Daryl McCormack, Mila Kunis and Cailee Spaeny.

Unlike "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion," the rich aren't the targets of "Wake Up Dead Man."  Rather, we're looking at a different facet of privilege and power, with religion put under the microscope.  Christianity is examined from several different points of view, with Monsignor Wicks and Father Jud each offering their own contrasting viewpoints.  Benoit Blanc is the skeptical atheist who comes on the scene trying to find the truth, and it's a much more complicated story than it seems at first glance, touching on a lot of the different roles that Christianity and the church play in American society.  The only way to solve the mystery is to understand the worldviews of the suspects, and the lesson, ultimately, is the importance of empathy rather than faith.  Rian Johnson has described himself as an ex-believer in interviews, and you can absolutely tell how personal this material is to him.  There are some very funny scenes and suitably sharp zingers, but Johnson is also earnestly grappling with questions of how religion fits into the modern world, in a way that only someone very familiar with the church could.

"Wake Up Dead Man" benefits from a very strong cast.  The clear standout is Josh O'Connor, who has the tricky job of staying both sympathetic and untrustworthy in the minds of the viewers for most of the movie.  He has the vast majority of the screentime, and I find it very meaningful that he struggles honestly and openly with his role at the church in a way that feels far too rare.  Unfortunately, this means that the rest of the cast feel less well served.  Or rather, the other characters feel broad and caricatured the way that the characters in "Knives Out" and "Glass Onion" were, but few display the depth and the shadings that Father Jud does.  Wicks, for instance, is memorably vile, and I admire Brolin's performance, but I was never able to quite take him seriously as a threat to our heroes, and he wasn't outrageously nasty enough to be as entertaining as he could have been.  Actors like Andrew Scott and Kerry Washington barely have enough screen time for their characters to register, though they're good enough actors that they do.  Glenn Close, however, finally gets a role worthy of her talents in who knows how long.

Johnson gets a lot of great imagery out of the ecclesiastical trappings, and the visual storytelling is consistently excellent.  I love the local bar that's devil themed, and Father Jud's tattoos hinting at a past that can't be easily erased.  The running gag with Martha is pitch perfect every time it happens.  The editing is fabulous, deftly juggling the multiple POVs and jumps to different points on the timeline.  This is a long movie, and the investigation doesn't really get underway until Blanc shows up around 45 minutes in, but it never feels too slow or too indulgent.  Okay, Rian Johnson probably wouldn't have gotten away with some of the more venal jokes if this were the first Benoit Blanc movie, but he's earned some leeway from me.

Most importantly, the story feels fully explored and the tone is well balanced.  All the little things that used to bother me about Rian Johnson films have been addressed, or are compensated for.  This is the first film of his I'm comfortable calling a great film, and it's timely, entertaining, and genuinely moving too.  If this is the last Benoit Blanc film, the series is going out on a high note.  And it's leaving me wanting more.

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Rank 'Em: "Star Wars: Visions," Year Three

"Visions" is back with nine more shorts, working with mostly the same Japanese studios that produced the first season that premiered back in 2021.  Three of the new shorts are direct sequels to previous "Visions" installments, and I'd say that the quality is more consistently good this time out.   Without further ado, find my thoughts on each short below, ranked from best to least.  I watched the English language versions of all the shorts.

"The Duel: Payback" - Easily the best of the collection, as the Ronin teams up with a Twilek Sith, and fights a seriously warped rogue Jedi.  The combination of Japanese brush illustrations, feudal era aesthetics, and Star Wars concepts remains fabulous to look at.  Even the Ewok bits!  This has the best action and fight scenes of this season of "Visions" by far, and characters I'd love to get to know better.

"BLACK" - The shortest short is a psychedelic, violent "Star Wars" tribute that plunges us into the midst of the endless battle between the Empire and the Rebellion, with a snazzy jazz soundtrack.  This feels more like a combination of "Star Wars" and "Heavy Metal" than "Star Wars" and anime, though I appreciate the willingness to get experimental.  It's the most un-Disney piece made for Disney+ yet.  

"The Song of Four Wings" - This is one of the more visually impressive shorts, though there isn't much of a story to speak of.  The heroine, Princess Crane, rescues a little war orphan and the two of them and the Princess's loyal droid spend the rest of the short battling the Imperials, getting into chase and fight sequences, and making some really pretty explosions.  Bonus points for the X-wing transformation.   

"The Bounty Hunters" - The visuals here aren't the best, but the characters and story won me over completely.  We've got an anti-heroine with a heart of gold (voiced by Anna Sawai!), an assassin droid with two personalities, and a jerk of a villain who needs to be taken down. It's zippy and fun, the humor works, and it's definitely a "Star Wars" story, focusing on the scruffier side of the universe.       

"The Lost Ones" - This is a sequel to the first season's "The Village Bride," following the further adventures of the wanderer F as she tries to help out refugees on a different world.  This is a much more action-oriented story that delves in the background of F and gives her a worthy adversary.  There's nothing too fancy going on with the visuals or presentation, but it's all flawlessly executed.  

"Yuko's Treasure" - Here's another one from Kinema Citrus, about a little girl named Yuko who is protected and looked after by a big, cuddly bear droid named BILY.  It's a story aimed at smaller kids, or those who like to watch cute kids doing cute things, but the execution is solid.  I especially appreciate the kawaii design work that adapts "Star Wars" elements into much friendlier anime forms.     

"The Smuggler" - Studio Trigger's contribution this year is a very charming little adventure story where a smuggler helps out a prince in disguise.  I like the Jedi who shows up in this one, but otherwise the "Star Wars" imagery here is just for window dressing.  As a fan of older anime, the style was very nostalgic.  "The Smuggler" can't hope to match up to the more ambitious shorts, but I enjoyed it for what it was.  

"The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope" - Naoyoshi Shiotani replaces Kenji Kamiyama as director for the follow-up to "The Ninth Jedi."  However, this one is much less interesting that the first installment, focusing on the character of Kara for what amounts to a generic kid-and-droid story.  It doesn't help that the English dub is pretty hard on the ears, with a squeaky heroine and a goofy droid that speaks in the third person.

"The Bird of Paradise" - I'm not a fan of the hybrid animation style, the immature protagonist, the awkward story structure, or the English language dialogue.  There are some lovely visuals, but often this feels more like a tech demo than a proper short film.  

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"Train Dreams" and "Jay Kelly"

More Netflix Oscar hopefuls today.

"Train Dreams" is the kind of contemplative, existential film that it's very difficult to do well.  Directed by Clint Bently, and based on a Denis Johnson novella, the story follows the life of a man in the late 1800s named Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), who spends long stretches working on railway construction and logging sites in Idaho.  The work is dangerous, and forces Robert to spend too much time away from his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones), and young daughter, but their options are few.  

Nearly all of "Train Dreams" is set in nature, specifically in the seemingly endless forests of the American Northwest.  However, the intrusion of the workers brings all the ugliness of westward expansion, industrialization and environmental degradation with them.  Robert has a front row seat to instances of brutal racism and exploitation that haunt him through the years, and his life is marked by too much tragedy.  His friendships are rare and fleeting, and he spends years trying to find a sense of connection with the rest of humanity.  Robert is a quiet man, who avoids trouble and keeps to himself, so many of the particulars of his life are relayed to the audience via narration provided by Will Patton.  

The pleasures of "Train Dreams" chiefly involve the skill of the filmmaking in evoking an older, bygone era of America that has largely receded from the current cultural consciousness. Adolpho Veloso's cinematography is intimate and lovely when it needs to be, and occasionally awe-inspiring as it explores the pristine landscapes.  Robert has meaningful encounters with memorable characters played by William H. Macy, Kerry Condon, Paul Schneider, John Diehl, and others.  However, as much as I admire and appreciate the commitment to this slower, more thoughtful approach to looking back at a chapter of American history, I rarely found it compelling.  Joel Edgerton is an actor who's been very hit-or-miss for me, and without a stronger narrative, the tale of his subdued everyman just couldn't hold my interest.  "Train Dreams" ends up being a lovely cinematic elegy that I wish that I liked more than I did.          

On to "Jay Kelly," the Noah Baumbach film where George Clooney is playing a fictionalized version of himself in the middle of a midlife crisis.  Jay Kelly is a famous movie star who starts behaving erratically after he has a bad encounter with an old friend (Billy Crudup), learns his mentor (Jim Broadbent) has died, and is caught off guard by his youngest daughter Daisy (Grace Edwards) decamping for Europe with friends before she goes to college.  Jay decides to accept a career tribute being offered in Italy that he previously turned down, so he can follow Daisy to Paris, with his longtime manager Ron (Adam Sandler) and publicist Liz (Laura Dern) in tow.  As the tribute draws nearer, Kelly's thoughts stray to regrets about his past and anxieties about his future, while Ron attempts to contain the crisis.  It's a very star-studded picture, with many familiar faces in the cast, playing figures from Jay Kelly's past and present.    

"Jay Kelly" strikes me as a film with some glaring fundamental flaws, and I suspect that it only got made because Clooney said yes to starring in it.  I mean, it's a fine idea to have a self-critical Baumbach film examining the cost of stardom, and highlighting all the little oddities of being extremely famous people, while trying to navigate travel in foreign countries.  However, the story choices and tonal shifts make the film constantly feel like it's floundering, the humor rarely works as intended, and Jay Kelly is surrounded by more interesting characters.  Clooney has the movie star wattage turned up high for the first time in a long time, but it's Adam Sandler and Billy Crudup who deliver the best performances, and have the juicier parts to play.  The plotting is also very messy - does the film only take place in Tuscany because Baumbach is trying to evoke Federico Fellini?   

Frankly, there's not much about "Jay Kelly" that worked for me.  I found it confusing, underdeveloped, and a waste of some very talented people's time.  This was a big swing for Baumbach, and I want him to keep aiming high, but too many of the choices here are wrongfooted, and I know Baumbach's capable of something much smarter and more thoughtful.  Better luck next time. 

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"Wonder Man" Works

The "Wonder Man" miniseries, created by Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest, is being released under the "Marvel Spotlight" banner, meaning that it has very few ties to the wider MCU.   Frankly, it has more in common with "The Studio" than the last few Marvel pictures.  This is a superhero series where the hero barely does any fighting or uses any superpowers.  There's no love interest, no supervillain, and hardly any flashy special effects to speak of.  Most of "Wonder Man" turns out to be about two guys in Hollywood trying to get jobs.  

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II stars as Simon Williams, an actor who is constantly hustling for auditions in Hollywood, and is currently up for the lead in a reboot of an old superhero property, "Wonder Man."  However, Simon has a secret - he may actually have superpowers.  However, since nobody will insure a superpowered actor, Simon has to keep this under wraps or lose his dream of playing his favorite hero.  Unfortunately, a sinister figure (Arian Moayed) has noticed Simon's activities, and coerces a fellow actor to befriend and unmask him - the former Mandarin, Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley).  Over eight episodes, we watch Simon and Trevor bond over old movies and shared career aspirations, while Trevor secretly digs into Simon's past.

Even though this is a very weird take on a superhero story, "Wonder Man" works.  Abdul-Mateen and Kingsley make for a very good onscreen duo, and it's fun to watch their friendship develop.  I'm generally not a fan of media about actors, because I find stories about the acting process pretty insufferable.  Simon, who takes his roles too seriously, and gets himself fired from a job for overthinking and trying to change a bit part, initially had me worried.  However, the far more seasoned Trevor is soon there to set him straight and provide encouragement.  Soon they're trading movie monologues and industry stories, and getting involved in each other's business like old buds.

There's plenty of industry insider chatter, cinephile references, and a few delightful instances of famous actors playing themselves, but "Wonder Man" isn't really that concerned with showing us the ins and outs of show business.  The spotlight stays on Simon and Trevor for the most part.  This is key, because the show is so short and self-contained, there's not much of a chance for it to do anything too ambitious. So, it goes all in on building up its two leads and their attachment to each other, which was exactly the right move.  Once I realized that the show wasn't really about making the "Wonder Man" movie or even about Simon gaining enough self-awareness to be a better actor, I was onboard.  

This also feels like an oddly fitting time for a show about out-of-work actors, since the industry is weathering some tough times, Hollywood itself has been in especially bad shape, and everybody has been feeling the pinch.  Simon is pretty typical as far as fictional actors go - perpetually disappointing his agent Janelle (X Mayo), and incredibly intimidated by the director he needs to impress, Von Kovak (Zlatko Burić).  His personal relationships are also fraught.  However, Abdul-Mateen plays him like an overgrown, somewhat awkward kid without an ounce of cynicism or guile.  He's very easy to root for, and I wouldn't mind seeing more of him in the future.

As for Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery, I've liked the character since "Iron Man 3," and I'm ticked every time he shows up again in this universe.  It's clear why Kingsley keeps saying yes to more appearances.  Trevor's not a comic book character, but more like the third banana comic-relief on a sitcom.   He's the Oliver Putnam of the MCU, a perfectly cuddly old glory hound and name dropper who turns out to be more lovable the more screentime he gets.  "Wonder Man" is a perfect fit for him.

I'm afraid we're not going to be getting many more of these "Marvel Spotlight" shows in the future, which is too bad.  Being smaller scale and less ambitious really worked for "Wonder Man," and I'm sure there are plenty of other Marvel characters who could benefit from this approach too. 

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Love For a "Left Handed Girl"

"Left-Handed Girl" is a Chinese language drama set in Taipei, about a little girl named I-Jing (Nina Ye) with a complicated, tumultuous family.  Her mother Shu-Fen (Janey Tsai) and adult sister I-Ann (Shih-Yuan Ma) don't get along, for reasons that aren't clear to I-Jing.  Her mother runs a noodle stall in the night market, while her sister works for a betel nut vendor, and there's never much money despite all their efforts.  Sean Baker co-wrote and co-produced this film, but is taking a backseat to his long-time collaborator Shih-Ching Tsou, who directed, co-produced, and co-wrote it.  

Through I-Jing's eyes, Taiwan is a buzzy hive of perpetual activity.  Her family may be poor, but she's happy.  She makes friends with fellow merchant Johnny (Brando Huang), goes to school by day, and plays in the market by night.  She reconnects with her mother's parents (Akio Chen and  Xin-Yan Chao), who are constantly fretting over their daughter's life choices.  It's from her grandfather that I-Jing learns that her left hand is her "devil hand," and I-Jing's attempts to stop using it only seem to cause it to act out and cause trouble.  Or maybe it's because Shu-Fen and I-Ann's troubles can't help but spill over into her life, no matter how much they try to keep things from her.  

It's the cultural specificity that makes "Left-Handed Girl" feel like such a distinct creation from the Sean Baker oeuvre, even though it's using many of the same guerilla filmmaking techniques and character types.  Tsou's vision of Taiwan is a familiar one for me, not just because of the iPhone cinematography, or the child's-eye first person views previously seen in "The Florida Project," but because it captures many sides of Taipei that I'm well acquainted with.  The grandparents' apartment looks like my grandparents' apartment.  The city streets teeming with scooters, the endless night market, the restaurants, the clubs, the shops, and above all else the people are all exactly as I remember them.  A visit with the extended family means a constant stream of bickering, gossip, nostalgia, and rehashing of old grievances.  Little I-Jing can't help but be affected by all the money troubles, bad relationships, and family secrets.   

Mother-daughter relationships are at the crux of the film, specifically the antagonism, guilt, and frustrations that come with having to depend on one another during hard times.  As the films goes on, we learn a lot about Shu-Fen and I-Ann, who have both been through many difficulties in their personal lives.  The family is moving back to Taipei after an absence of several years, which forces them to confront parts of their past that they're not ready to deal with.  There are also several glaring absences - the most prominent being Shu-Fen's husband, who abandoned the family years ago and saddled them with debt.  Everyone keeps trying to treat the emotional fallout like it's a thing of the past, but the situation is very much ongoing, and ignoring it has consequences.  

The only thing that didn't ring true to me is that the melodrama gets to be a bit much, with several storylines converging at the end in a very messy, public way.  Having the specifics of the family situation unexplained worked much better for me in the early parts of the film, and the big reveals came off as forced and unnecessary.  Still, I liked all of the performers, and got very invested in the characters' lives.  I appreciate Tsou's efforts to humanize everyone, even I-Ann's scummy boss A-Ming (Teng-Hung Hsia), who is shown to have his own complicated family life.  The overall tenor of the film is heartwarming, humane, and optimistic, even though everyone is still hustling and struggling in the end.

"Left-Handed Girl" is the first feature where Shih-Ching Tsou has a sole directing credit, and it comes two decades after "Take Out," her first feature that she co-directed with Sean Baker.  From what I've read about the film's history, "Left-Handed Girl" faced an uphill battle at just about every stage of its creation, and the fact that it got made at all is a minor miracle.  Even if the movie is imperfect and too much at times, I'm happy to report that it was well worth the trouble.   

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The Worst 2025 Movies I Bothered to Watch

It's April Fools Day, and if I'm going to do a "worst of" list, it's going to be today.  First, I should include the caveat that I'm not a professional critic and not obligated to watch the real bottom-of-the-barrel dreck that I do my best to avoid.  At the same time, I'm not going to go for the obvious choices, like Disney's live-action "Snow White" and Amazon's "War of the Worlds," because you already know that they're terrible.  Instead, I'm going to focus on more low-profile examples of very bad movies you may stumble across by accident.  Here we go.  

Havoc - This made the list because somebody might see that there's a new Gareth Edwards film starring Tom Hardy, and think that they're in for a movie like Edwards' "The Raid" films.  Unfortunately, the long-delayed "Havoc," shot all the way back in 2021, is not anything close.  It's a chaotic, barely coherent mobster movie with a couple of decent action scenes, but utterly hopeless plotting.  How were the performances?  I couldn't tell.

Opus - Ayo Edibiri had a tough 2025.  While "After the Hunt" and "Ella McKay" may have disappointed, "Opus" was clearly the worst thing she appeared in last year.  Written and directed by a first time filmmaker, this wacky cult film starts off well enough with John Malkovitch as the charismatic leader/pop star, but quickly falls apart as the plot turns into a series of absurd trials and sketches.  Was it supposed to be funny?  I wasn't laughing. 

Love Hurts - It ticks me off that we have two recent Academy Award winners, Ke Huy Quan and Ariana DeBose, and the best project they can get to star as the leads in is this very substandard action-comedy.  I don't want to pile on too much because it's clear that there was some effort put into the action and fight scenes.  However, it doesn't cohere at all, and I'm worried that Quan's not going to get more chances as a leading man.  

Wolf Man - I wonder if the whole elevated horror trend has gone too far.  Why does the new version have to be about generational trauma?  Just because the new "Invisible Man" was about gaslighting, do all the monster movies have to be social commentary now?  Is the werewolf as a metaphor for primal rage just not enough anymore?  Anyway, it was rough seeing Christopher Abbott and Julia Garner floundering through this mess.  

Mission: Impossible - The Final Reckoning - There are some defenders out there who point out that the two big action sequences in "Final Reckoning" are very impressive and thrilling to watch.  However, the rest of the movie is still bad, especially a first hour that is composed entirely of montages, flashbacks and way too much exposition.  I like having Rolf Saxon back, it's just not worth the aggravation to get to the few scenes that work.

Playdate - I really shouldn't have watched this.  I don't like Kevin James movies in general, but I thought it was worth giving Alan Ritchson a shot.  Boy do I regret it.  Ritchson is playing the kind of aggro numbskull whose tough-love parenting tactics should have instantly attracted the ire of every Karen in earshot, and the whole movie makes a joke out of fatherhood in a way that's very unpleasant.  Even "The Family Plan 2" managed better.  

Oh. What. Fun. - I don't know what Michael Showalter and this overqualified cast were thinking with this premise.  A mom's response to being accidentally left behind on a holiday outing is to shame her family on national television?  If it were a darker, more astringent kind of comedy it might have worked, but instead this rarely strays far from the tone of your typical holiday streaming movie.  At least Joan Chen is still getting work.

The Old Guard 2 - Finally, the most disappointing sequel of the year was "The Old Guard 2," which managed to recruit Uma Thurman as a new baddie, but jettisoned everything we liked about the first film.  The lore makes no sense, the plot ties itself in knots, and to make matters worse, the ending just sets up a third film and calls it a day.  I don't think we're getting that third film, by the way.  

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