Daredevil Season Two Trailer: All about the Punisher

 

 

The Daredevil season 2, part 1 trailer addresses an interesting dilemma, “How far are you willing to stop crime.” That’s the dialogue between Daredevil and Frank Castle/The Punisher. The Punisher believes that Daredevil is about half measurea and isn’t willing to solve the problem permanently by killing criminals. The Punisher also doesn’t care about collateral damage as long as his goal has been reached. The Punisher probably feels that the Kingpin should have been killed by Daredevil to send a message to all the criminals in Hells Kitchen. Daredevil decides that the Punisher needs to be stopped.

 

The Punisher is a military vet in the comics and is suffering from the trauma of the murder of his family by organised crime. Their murder drives him crazy and turns him into a violent socio-path who puts his advanced military skills to work. He won’t be a match for Daredevil when its come to hand to hand combat but will be difficult to catch with his advanced military training. Jon Bernthal (Walking Dead, Wolf of Wallstreet and Sicario) looks perfect in the role and will not relent. Netflix will dump the series on the 18 March. Next week Netflix will release a trailer focused on Daredevil’s ex-girlfriend Electra. I can’t wait.

Aka Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones (She’s out of my league and Breaking Bad’s Krysten Ritter) is introduced as a private investigator under her business, Alias investigations. Jessica also does some work for a law firm and works closely with Jeri Hogarth ( the Matrix trilogy’s Carrie-Ann Moss). The majority of her work is getting dirt on cheating spouses. In her  personal life, Jessica is a lonely alcoholic doing her best to push people away.  Jessica has drifted from best friend Trish Walker (Greys Anatomy and Crisis’ Racheal Taylor) and is constantly pushing her away. Jessica is getting over an abusive relationship and can’t let go of the accident that killed her parents and brother when she was a teenager.

 

 

When an Omaha couple hires Jessica to find their daughter, Jessica’s rebuilt life takes a turn for the worse. Her investigation take her back to familiar territory and she discovers the return of her former abuser, Kilgrave (Dr. Who, Broadchurch and Gracepoint’s David Tennant). Kilgrave had been presumed dead. Upon his return, he wants her to suffer for leaving him. However, his obsession with her changes his motives and he wants her to love him.  Jessica runs away and is on her way out of the country but the destruction that couple is murdered by the daughter they were desperate to find.  Jessica embarks on finding Kilgrave’s weakness and hunting him down.Whilst Jessica is hunting down Kilgrave, Jessica develops a relationship with Luke Cage (The Good Wife’s Mike Colter). Lukes reveals that he is also a gifted individual like Jessica. After Kilgrave goes after the Trish, Jessica pushes him away so that he doesn’t get caught up in the Kilgrave mess.

 

Jessica Jones is similar to the old school cinema noir crime drama. The eerie score by Sean Callery is so appropriate and well placed by the editor. Show-runner Melissa Rosenberg adds some voiceover to the score whilst Jessica tails or runs surveillance on a person of interest. Krysten Ritter’s portrayal of a broken superhero is so real. She does a great job of showing her vunerability in spite having super human strength. Her ability to face her fears whilst still being afraid and traumatized is very well depicted.  David Tennant’s Kilgrave is formidable. He is a cruel, sadistic villain who inflicts true horror onto his victims. When I compare him to Daredevil’s Kingpin they’re on the same level but Kilgrave doesn’t have a greater vision for Hells Kitchen or New York. He has an obsession and vendetta against Jessica and he will use anyone to get to Jessica or anyone she cares about. As the series progresses, it becomes apparent that all the main characters are broken, traumatized people. Kilgrave has abandonment issues because of his parents. Trish was physically and emotionally abused by her mother. And Jessica’s family died in an accident that she may have been a cause but survived. Jeri Hogarth maybe an exception. In this story she is an villain similar to Kilgrave but she has limits.  These events shaped who they are as adults and their behaviour is a reaction to those traumas.

 

Netflix and Marvel television have once again delivered on high quality comic book drama. However, its different with Jessica Jones. The focus is more on people and not their abilities or superpowers. These people are going the same problems as normal people and don’t want to be heros in the conventional sense. They want to be loved and protect their loved ones.

Avengers: Age of Ultron Review

” Fine I’ll do it myself.”

The words of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) main antagonist, Thanos at end of Marvel’s Avengers: The Age of Ultron.

After watching Age of Ultron for second time I have a clearer opinion on it. It has been a long time since I’ve watched a movie more than once in the cinema. Inception was a movie I watched four times at the cinema back in 2010.  My initial thoughts after the first time was that something was missing and there were even instances when it felt boring. Maybe it was the hype that made it feel like that.

Age of Ultron is well made movie. It’s a good story with the accustomed Marvel wit. The movie opens with the Avenger attacking Baron Strucker’s base in the fictional Sokovia in Eastern Europe. This action sequence is something special and a massive upgrade on the Avengers action scenes. The camera moves from the Black Widow/Natasha Romanov (Scarlett Johanssen) driving a truck with Hawkeye/Clint Barton ( Jeremy Renner) to the Captain America/Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans) on a motorcycle wreaking havoc on the Hydra forces while Ironman/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jnr) flys past to the Strucker’s castle. Interwoven in between is Thor (Chris Hemsworth) displaying tremendous skill with his hammer and the Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) just smashing stuff. The Avengers retrieve Loki’s scepter and take it back to the Avengers Tower for analysis before Thor returns it Asgard’s vault where the tesseract and the infinity gauntlet are being kept. Ironman discovers an alien artificial intelligence and wants to use it to create Ultron. Ultron would be an autonomous defense system that would protect the world from all threats including inter-galactic ones like the Chitauri invasion. Ironman had been manipulated by the Scarlett Witch/Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) and wants Ultron to help prevent the death of his team.

Joss Whedon addresses some of the conflict the Avengers are facing. Banner is struggling to trust himself and build a relationship with the Black Widow. He feels can’t have a normal life as long as he turn into the Hulk. Hawkeye appears to have no relationships outside of the team while Captain America is still feeling the affects of being a man out of time. While the achievers are having a dick measuring contest to see if anyone can lift Thor’s hammer ( great scene by the way),  Ultron then establishes himself as their antagonist and begins his master plan of an extinction level event. Ultron has been heavily influenced by Ironman’s personality and is determined to “protect” the world in a very twisted way.  Ultron is delusional. He is convinced that he is doing the world a service in a similar fashion to Netflix’s Daredevil series‘, Wilson Fisk’s rationale that he is a good guy . He is driven by fear and hatred. He believes that the human race is weak and doesn’t want to be the puppet of Ironman. For this he resents Ironman and the human race. It seems like he is also fighting some of his programming while he is trying more and more to evolve into an advanced version of the human race. This motivates him to create the Vision and he wants to upload his consciousness into the Vision. Ultron is well written character and its refreshing that Ultron was given a personality like other AI/robots we have seen in various mediums. Ultron is like a fun version of homicidal maniac that the FBI BAU unit is used to dealing with.  Ultron, voiced by the James Spader, is one of the highlights of this movie and one of the great villains in the MCU.

The creation of Ultron causes an inevitable conflict within the Avengers ranks. The Avengers like a team up of superstars with strong opinions and used to being in charge. Captain America and Ironman have a philosophical clash on how to deal with preventing wars and even fight when debating what to do with the Vision. This is pre-cursor of their clash in next year Captain America:Civil War.

The appearance of Ulysses Klaw was very pleasant. It was interesting that he had a South African accent because all weapons dealers and mercenaries are South African. I guess we need to thank Neil Blomkamp’s Elysium and Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond for that stereotype. Klaw’s appearance provides that connection with the upcoming Black Panther movie. While the Avengers were at Klaw’s base, the Scarlett Witch mind control reveals the infinity stones to Thor. This is great plot device and connects all the dots to end phase 2 of the MCU.

Age of Ultron goes as per the conventional superhero/blockbuster path with the big climatic fight between the Avengers and Ultron’s army. Just like in the Avengers, one of the heroes gets killed but this time in a heroic way. Ultron is defeated with no trace that he will return in a future movie. In the final moments of Age of Ultron, a number of Avengers walk away from the team and a new Avengers base is established away from New York City.  The new recruits are War Machine, the Scarlett Witch, The Vision and the Falcon.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is a very good movie. It had great acting, action sequences, SFX and a story but it wasn’t a game changer and didn’t take the franchise to another level. Maybe it suffered from the brilliance of Avengers and Captain America:Winter Soldier and my expectations were high. Maybe this is the best any superhero movie can do. It seemed restricted to the normal superhero and action conventions – that was disappointing. Grantland’s Andy Greenwald and Chris Ryan in the past mentioned the problems of superhero movies especially the destruction of a city in the second and third act of a movie, and the Age of Ultron suffered from this. The Ironman – Hulk fight shot on the streets of Johannesburg was entertaining but there was nothing special about it and it was too long. Some may argue that it was to establish the dangers of superheroes to the world but I think there’s ample proof already in the MCU. Maybe I’m wrong but I will be watching and hoping for the next game changer in the MCU.

Daredevil Season 1 Episode 1: Into the Ring

When Marvel announced that they were making a Daredevil TV series I had mixed feelings. Firstly, Daredevil still had the stink of the 2003 movie starring Ben Affleck. The stink was so bad that when Affleck was cast as the Dark Knight in 2016’s Batman v Superman movie, the internet went crazy. Mind you I have never watched the Daredevil movie but when something has such a bad reputation you have to listen. Secondly, I didn’t know much about the character. My comic book education had been limited to X-men, Superman, Batman, Spider-man and the Fantastic Four. The Daredevil character was always a B or C level superhero in my mind and didn’t warrant any attention. My perspective changed when I watched the 1st trailer and a trailer breakdown by Emergency Awesome.

After the enlightening view of Emergency Awesome I went into research overdrive. What interested me was Frank Miller’s run on the comic and his critically acclaimed, “Man without Fear” Story. Frank Miller is one of the great comic book writers and he made his mark in 80s and 90s. He is writer of the Dark Knight Returns and Batman: Year 1. With that type of resume, Daredevil TV series has massive potential. After the success of CW and DC’s Arrow series, I have a feeling that Marvel wanted to have their own TV vigilante and have a superhero team with their vigilante as a key cog. Marvel’s thinking here is to duplicate the success they have had in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Marvel then announced that they would have a superhero team up called The Defenders. The Defenders would be comprised of Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones and Iron Fist. The miniseries would run after each of the character’s first season.

After my crash course in Frank Miller’s Daredevil, I was hoping for a better acted, bloodier version of the Arrow in the Marvelverse. Episode one: Into the Ring didn’t disappoint. The show-runner and creator Drew Goddard, doesn’t waste any time establishing some important aspects of the show. We begin with how Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) becomes blind and his family’s relationship with the Catholic Church. Afterwards Daredevil apprehends human traffickers at the port of New York. The fighting sequences and choreography is incredible by the TV standards. Arrow is the current standard when it comes to fighting sequences but sometimes the sequences do not look real. There’s nothing fake about how Daredevil kicks these thugs’ asses. He also gets his ass handed to him but ultimately prevails. The show then moves to Matt Murdock and his partner looks for office space for fledgling law firm in Hell’s Kitchen. This is in the aftermath of the battle of New York in Avengers. I like the acknowledgement of the Battle of New York and how it has affected the city physically (the destruction of a sizable chunk of the city) and psychologically (the appearance of Aliens and super powered individuals, and the potential reaction from the criminal underworld).

Nelson (Murdock’s partner) and Murdock do not have any clients so they use a connection in the NYPD to find their first client. Their first client is Karen Page.  Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) is being accused of murder involving a big construction firm. Matt Murdock gets Karen off and she becomes part of Nelson and Murdock. The importance of the introduction of Karen Page is her connection to the crime bosses in Hell’s Kitchen. This leads us to the crime hierarchy in the city and how the crime bosses are going to take advantage of the battle of New York. The Kingpin doesn’t make an appearance but his presence is felt through his emissary doing his bidding throughout the episode. The heavy hitters in the Hell’s Kitchen crime syndicate meet at a construction site and this shows us the level of thinking amongst them. The street level criminals don’t seem concerned that one of their shipments was hijacked by Daredevil whilst the Kingpin’s emissary can tell that this could be a major problem. By the end of the episode we are at the quiet before the storm. We are intrigued about the Kingpin and what his plans are exactly and his pending with clash with Daredevil.

It was a good first episode. It wasn’t wow and didn’t blow me away but I have a feeling this will be a much better version of Arrow. Kingpin may prove to be the equivalent of Arrow’s Slade Wilson and solve Marvel’s lack of a great villain problem. I hope this series is great and it matches the heights in the MCU.