The Big Picture - ‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Is Marvel’s Rock Bottom. Now What?

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Sean and Amanda are joined by Chris Ryan to review the utter mess that is ‘Captain America: Brave New World.’ They discuss its various rewrites, the ways the movie shows its seams, why Harrison Ford is even interested in taking roles like this, and what it means for the end of Phase 5 in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Guest: Chris Ryan Senior Producer: Bobby Wagner Video Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everyone, it's Amy Poehler, and I'm launching a new podcast called Good Hang. In preparation for that, I asked some of my friends to send in some videos and give me some advice. "...just be yourself and the guests will come." Don't be the celebrity that this is their, like, sixth thing they're doing. "...I love True Crime and Cooking podcasts. Is there any way you could combine the two?" Well, everyone has an opinion and a podcast.

So join me for Good Hang. It's rough out there. We're just trying to lighten it up a little. I'm Sean Fennesey. I'm Amanda Dobbins. And this is the Big Picture, a conversation show about America. A brave new world.

This is America. A brave new world. This is America. Chris Ryan is here today for a State of the Union address on this episode we will talk about Captain America Brave New World. It's a new film from Marvel. Amanda, are you excited about this conversation? I am thrilled. To bring people behind the scenes. We decided to do this episode about 10 minutes ago.

So we have seen the film. Yes. We saw it together. Yes. We had a lovely dinner beforehand. I was in a great mood. Where did we eat? Where?

Wood Ranch? Wood Ranch. Yeah, the Burbank Wood Ranch. You had ribs. I did,? Wood Ranch. Yeah, the Burbank Wood Ranch. Um... You had ribs. I did. I love ribs. Yeah. And...

We had the classic ribs, chicken pulled pork. Right. Triumvirate. But we did not get to have dessert because there was a misunderstanding about what time the screening started. That's okay. We got there.

We got our seats. We saw the film. So, in a way, I'm as prepared as I need to be. And I thought maybe this would be a good idea to do kind of impromptu like this, because this is a film that kind of like, it starts to escape the consciousness, even as the stinger is coming to a close. So I wanted to talk about it as quick,

as close to the actual experience as possible. I think your instincts were right. This is the 35th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It comes to us from Julius Ona. It is written by roughly 19 people. Yes, including Malcolm Spellman, who worked on Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the TV series that had previously featured Sam Wilson.

So thank you for bringing that up. Sam Wilson, of course, has taken up the mantle of Captain America. You asked me during the film, when did that happen? I believe it was officially at the end of Avengers Endgame, when Steve Rogers went back into the past to be with his beloved Haley Atwell. And to that I say, who among us would not travel back in time

to be with Haley Atwell? Completely agree with you. That was also one of the scenes with like the Captain America cute butt jokes. So, right? Sure, yes. That's how you chart time in the MCU. Because he's dancing as an old man and he has a cute butt. There's like a recurring thing in it about him having a cute butt.

They made a couple of jokes about it. It's fine. Like, you know, I like humor too. I asked you before, and the movie started. I did ask you some questions during the film, and we can get into why I needed to ask those questions later in the spoiler section. There are a great many reasons why. But I don't want people, like, in my mentions being like,

how dare you? I want, I asked you to set the scene for me, and I asked you, when did he become Captain America? And I also asked you whether we would get to see him become Captain America in any meaningful way, whether there was a ceremony, some sort of medallion, like the DJs. And, you know, I just want to say I think that that was a missed opportunity. He just sort of started doing it in this television series.

Yes. Which aired, I think, in 2021. It was the second series that aired in the Marvel TV experiment after Wandavision. Yeah, after Wandavision. This and Loki was right around this too. Yeah, so they were roughly around the same time. Maybe it was third.

And that show is relevant to this conversation for a variety of reasons. One of the challenges of this movie is that it's not so much an evolution of the Marvel story, but as a series of loose ends being tied up around a lot of other older Marvel stories. Not just the 2021 TV show, not just, say, the recent film Eternals, which came out three years ago, but also significantly and almost primarily the 2008 movie, The Incredible Hulk,

directed by Louis Leterrier and starring Edward Norton and William Hurt. Now, neither of those men portray characters currently in the MCU that still exist. In fact, one of those men is no longer alive. As actors. Yes. But the Hulk is still in the MCU and Thunderbolt Ross is still in the MCU.

Yes. So, we've got a movie that is speaking directly to plot developments from a movie that came out 17 years ago and has been largely ignored. Like pre-Tony Stark canon. Yes. And it is still a part of the MCU, and that character still matters to the MCU because now Mark Ruffalo of course plays the Incredible Hulk. But Captain America Brave New World,

well, let's just, we'll have it out right here. Uh, what did you think of the movie, Chris Ryan? I went into it with a pretty open mind, honestly, and I was kind of willing to be surprised. I really enjoyed the last trailer, and I thought this was one of the worst superhero movies I've ever seen, probably because it's not a superhero movie at all. It's trying to be a political thriller and like an espionage thriller, but I thought this was brutal. And it was like, kind of of I couldn't tell if it was a catastrophe that had been stitched back together or perhaps like what they really want to be making right now which is directorless

slop that they assemble and like draw back breads to previous things that they need to do or whatever I thought maybe this would be a really cool new step for them or an exciting movie. And instead it seems like it's basically like a tax write-off for a bunch of other properties that they needed to get off their books. Amanda, what did you think? This sucked, straight up. And I know everyone expects me to say that,

but I also went in with an open heart in the sense of, we got to go out to dinner on a weeknight and Harrison Ford was in this film. And typically, I have liked the Captain America movies more out of the, you know, Marvel... Yeah. ...firmament, I suppose. But I thought it made no sense.

Um, it was very clearly, like, tying up a bunch of things that I didn't even remember or had never seen. So in terms of having to do your homework before, it was... I don't know if you could have done enough homework to be able to follow what was going on here, but it felt sort of context-less, confusing, obviously, like poorly executed. I thought, I mean, this CGI is, like, inexcusable, I think.

And I also thought, like, the fight scenes were pretty lame, if only just because I spent my time being like, well, that's not Anthony Mackie, and that's not Anthony Mackie. You could see the cuts, you could see the doubles. I thought that the... I need exposition in movies like this. Like, at some point, you know, you would like it to be deftly or entertainingly done, but like, I guess I kind of need to know what's going on. But it was all boring exposition that still somehow did not explain to me what was going on.

I didn't even really understand what it was trying to communicate in terms of like morals or ideas about superheroes, America, good, evil, natural resources or... Radiation. Yeah, you know, or hostages. And I didn't have a good time. This movie's quite poor.

It is really one of the poorest in the history of the MCU. It's been quite a backslide since 2019 into, I think, not just a vague cultural irrelevance because some of these movies still do make money, but a very overt discomfort with decisions that were made in the aftermath of Endgame, and then an attempt to kind of like unwind and rewind and refocus and reset. This movie, more than any other movie

in the last five years, there was a lot of public awareness of reshoots, of restructurings, of recastings, of ripping it up and starting again. And even your common Marvel movie fan had a lot of awareness of this stuff going in. For example, Jean-Carlo Esposito plays a one of the heavies, sort of like the false flag heavy,

like kind of a fake out of who we think the villain of the movie is going to be. He plays a character named Sidewinder, who's in the Serpent Society. They shot the whole movie and then decided to add him to the movie. And so they just reshot and re-edited significant parts of the movie to add this character of the movie, who's like critically important to the, whatever the story is in terms of like setting up who the actual villain of the story is and all this other stuff.

So, you can see every stitch throughout the movie. You can feel every awkward cut, all that exposition you're talking about. The way he vanishes in the middle of the second act, and they're like, you're done now. The fact that he's barely in a frame with Anthony Mackie throughout the whole movie? But the fact that, like, the end of his shooting schedule, like, clearly coincided with, like, what they could get is what you see on screen.

They can't have him be a part of the third act, because he simply was not there, it was not available. Yeah. And it's a tricky thing, right? Obviously, I thought that Falcon and Winter Soldier was a mess, but actually was making an earnest effort to be about something. I thought it really fumbled the bag in its finale. It's like a really, really misbegotten finale. And this felt like an extension of the finale, where it was sort of like, you know,

that show made an effort, especially in the first two episodes, to really show Sam's life. Like, show his sister, show where he comes from. I think he's from Louisiana. Yeah, he's got like the fishing boat that Sam's life. Like, show his sister, show where he comes from. I think he's from Louisiana. Yeah, he's got, like, the fishing boat that he's got. Yeah, and he's like, it was like a character piece inside of a story about kind of power and the way that the Avengers could or could not reintegrate into a common society.

You know, it wasn't high art, but at least was trying... That's my ideas, though. It was trying to be... The whole forgotten cap thing with Carl Umley is... which gets brought up again in this film. Yes, so the Isaiah Bradley character who is a super soldier, serum taker, who then is wrongfully imprisoned and then is introduced in the story in that TV show,

the movie, because it knows most people didn't watch the TV show, basically needs to like re-explain who he is by having, for example, in this movie, Danny Ramirez, who is the new Falcon, be introduced to Isaiah Bradley, and then say, wait, you are this guy who did this thing and was wrongfully imprisoned for 30 years. And so like when you're watching the movie, whether you've seen the TV show or not,

you know that this is writing that is not even meant to like accomplish anything other than to fill in the gaps for people who don't know about the gaps. I was telling her last night, there was an M plus one article a little while ago about Netflix movies and about how Netflix kind of pushes writers sometimes to write their expository dialogue as if somebody's not actually looking at the screen. So I felt like that was very very present in this film where you would be told where they were going, they would

arrive someone, you would see a sign on the screen that says they've arrived where they were going, and then they would be like, here we are at Camp Echo. And I was like, I know, I was listening two minutes ago. Like, do you think that, like, how at-al's do you think your audience is that they wouldn't be able to sustain that? And then Amanda was made the right point. It was like, that's probably because they're stitching everything together from different shoots and from different storylines that they're like, we have to like kind of even create a through line for ourselves as we're making this film.

And whether it's intentional or not, even though we're close movie watchers in theory, like it feels very insulting when you're watching the movie to watch a character say a series of consecutive sentences that they never would. The way that the president portrayed by Harrison Ford in this movie talks is not how the president would talk. to watch a character say a series of consecutive sentences that they never would. The way that the president portrayed by Harrison Ford in this movie talks is not how the president would talk.

We know that that's not how the president would talk. Where he would have to over enunciate something to what is essentially a vigilante hero who has made his way into the White House. Why would you give that person any information whatsoever? So the writing in this movie is absolutely dreadful. And some of it is a function of that stitching and some of it is just really bad. The performances are okay.

No, they're not. They're not. They're really not okay. They're like Danny Ramirez and Harrison Ford are like charming enough. Yeah, they have like charisma. And Danny Ramirez is given like exposition duty and also like Jokey Robin duty. Yes, he's very robin in this movie. You know, he's like incredibly likable. He's charismatic as an actor for sure, yeah.

But like, he has literally nothing to do. Yeah. Anthony Mackie, not an actor I've really ever loved, but I think... He's also played this part for like 12 years now. Yes, and the whole movie itself, you know, one of the themes of the movie is living up to expectations, you know? Stepping in movie itself, you know, one of the themes of the movie is living up to expectations, you know, stepping in for somebody, you know, like when you go on leave,

CR's got to sit in that chair. And he's the whole time. Never again. We don't have to worry about that anymore. But in that time when he did, you know, when you sat in for conclave. Uh-huh. Which some would say you were born to do, but nevertheless, people are thinking, what's Amanda thinking about conclave? What does she think? What does she? We'll never know.

Yeah. She's like Captain America back in time, slow dancing with her bow. That's right. So Steve Rogers was laid up in bed, and Sam had to step up and fill in. And how'd you do? Falcon and the papal conclave. I think I did okay. You did great. Sam's pretty step up and fill in. And how'd you do? Falcon and the Papal Conclave. I think I did okay. You did great. Sam's pretty hung up on this. I think I did a deep Disney plus TV series version of that.

Yeah. And Chris Evans is a complicated movie star who's been catching a lot of strays here in recent times, but he was a darn good Captain America. He was very, very good in what is actually a very boring character. And he brought something I, very hard to describe, but meaningful. And it's cool that the movie knows that and is trying to address that, but Anthony Mackie never quite rises to it and the writing really doesn't serve him well.

There's a couple of things in watching this film that I was... I know that it would be easy to come here and be like, fuck this movie. And so I was really, really, really trying to like go into it and try and understand some of the choices that got made. And the best excuse I can make for the way the film looks and the way that the action sequences play out is that they are essentially trying to move away from any kind of like cinematic execution of these scenes and these set pieces and move into an almost entirely like replica of the comic book experience. Now, anybody who reads comic books know that different artists have different

like light schemes and work with shadow and have different conceptions of the characters and show them in these different ways and this is the flattest possible way. It's lit in this overhead, like, you know, sort of fluorescence. All the furniture is kind of like set furniture that they have brought in from TV studio, the next door. When you're looking at, like, Harrison Ford on a destroyer in the war room, and the lighting in the war room,

and the lighting in the background is like, it's like an eighth grade play version of like how you would kind of set to create that. And it's kind of start stacking because you're like, you are Disney and Marvel. Like presumably you could actually rent out an actual destroyer and shoot this on there, but it all looks so fake to a way that you're just like,

you become so numb to it after a while. Like there's no excitement in exciting scenes. Did you get that? No, I think there's two things that you hit on that I think are important. One, the scenes that are not fight scenes, compare those scenes to the non-fight scenes in Black Panther.

Look at how Black Panther is shot. Look at the way that images are framed. Look at the angle that he chooses to shoot actors shot. Look at the way that images are framed. Look at the angle that he chooses to shoot actors from. Look at the way that he communicates villainy or heroism or ambiguity in a character or confusion. You might not like Black Panther

because it has a lot of CGI fighting at the end and you find that incoherent. But as a director, there's a lot of choices being made. In a movie like this, it does feel like everybody was like, okay, we got four hours to get this in the easiest way possible. Let's just get it done. Yes, exactly. We gotta make sure that we...

Harrison Ford has to leave at four. So before he leaves to go have some tea and sit on his porch, let's get what we need from him. And I gotta say, like, he's trying in this movie. He's trying to give a performance. He's way too old to be the president and to be a person who is like... I mean, unfortunately not.

I know. It's upsetting. The text is true, but it is true because... Sleepy Thunderbolt. Yeah. It's not quite Biden-esque, but there is just something strange where even in his line deliveries, he's trying to conjure the Air Force One stealiness.

And he can't quite get there anymore. And of course it happens to all of us. It's coming for us all. I got no beef with Harrison Ford. I love the man. He's given me so much as a movie fan. But even somebody as gifted as him at making movies like this better than they have any right to be and using Clear and present danger and patriot games as clear models for what this movie wants to be or at least wants to remind you of

And not being able to get it going setting aside all of the red hulk stuff, which we can get into momentarily um I walked away from the movie thinking why why the hell did harrison ford do this? Like why does he I know money is nice and I know relevance is something that movie stars get addicted to and there's something fun about being part of a big project. But just seemed like a huge waste of his time.

We've only got like two more Harrison Ford movies left here and this is one of them and that just sucks. I think he's just in a real like, I like to work mode. Like he's made another season of 1923, you know? I mean, and it does seem like he has a real, like, I like to work mode. Like, he's made another season of 1923, you know? I mean, and it does seem like he has a lot of control, right? So, like, he can leave at four, you know? And he's not going to be there at four-oh-two

because they didn't get, like, the dogwoods or the cherry blossoms, you know? Just so. Planes are expensive, you know? So, I mean, I know that you did the money, you waved away the money thing, but aviation is an expensive hobby. I know, but I mean, this is one of the five most successful actors in Hollywood for 30 consecutive years.

Like, how much, I don't know, I'm not gonna pocket watch Harrison Ford. I think guys get to like, this is like, why does Ridley Scott make two movies a year? I think because they think that if they stop, like something's gonna happen. Yeah, I just, my thing is just like why this right? Why of all the things why this well, that's an indictment on Hollywood

Then like that there's not more material out there for these people to choose from and I'd like to make this like I'll be a judge In this in this movie rather than I'm Thunderbolt Ross and I have a red Hulk inside of me Invariably I can't do one of these MCU episodes without talking about what they're trying to get over the line story-wise in some detail while driving Amanda either to boredom or insanity. But this movie is trying to do a bunch of things that will be consequential in some way. Even though...

I think it was more accounting for everything that had happened before. So there's like lip service paid to the Snap, there's lip service paid to Eternals, the Hulk obviously, their secret invasion stuff, there's Falcon and Winter Soldier. It's like wrapping up a lot of the street level Marvel stuff that they've kind of set in motion,

that I think they are now gonna get rid of. What was the finale of Falcon and Winter Soldier that you thought was... I don't wanna misremember exactly what happened, but he like... The same way that this movie has this very uncomfortable relationship to like, whether torture methodology in political practice is like right or not right.

Um, it's similarly had a sort of like, ultimately we need to be on the side of the federal government. Um, like we may stand in the face of power, but power also resonates. Like it's very, you remember what I'm talking about? It's just like a lot of stuff with Wyatt Russell's character in the show that like kind of goes up and down and then seems to have been like excised but put back in. I mean, there's ideas that you see in this movie about whether or not these black men feel like properly recognized by the government they're serving in that kind of gets started

in Falconman and Soldier and are among the like more interesting ideas that they have actually tried to reckon with. And there's just something kind of staggering about it coming out now as like the American military and the federal government obviously go through the changes it's going through. We're like, wow, like it's like things we've come so we've gone so low and so little amount of time. Right. This is also a movie that it's like, we need to examine American politics' relationship to the military state,

but also we're going to do so by having a guy with like future technology blasting rockets through the sky all day long to be the good guy. You know, it's like it's all very unexamined. You know, it's like not so good to have, you know, the B-1 bomber or fighter jets, but if you're a guy who has Wakandan technology that can blow things up, that's cool. Like, it doesn't, it doesn't really have a point of view.

The guy who has Wakandan technology who can blow things up is... Captain America. Captain America, who used to be Falcon. Correct. And the suit that made him Falcon was made of vibranium, which is the Wakandan thing. Yeah.

But that's not what's inside of the celestial island. Right. That's the new... Adamantium. Plutonium or whatever. We are fully spoiling now the movie. We didn't already fully spoil it? Not really.

Is that a big reveal? Well, to me the biggest reveal, or at least the most like, that little tingly thing I get where I'm like, okay, at least they gave me this feeling I had was in the first act of the movie. It's revealed that the celestial that emerged from the Earth at the end of Eternals, which was largely unremarked upon in all other Marvel movies,

despite it being a world historical event, um, inside of it, they have discovered a material and natural resource called adamantium. You were confused when you saw this. Chris and I both very excitedly turned to you and said, that's what's inside of Wolverine, you know, that's the precious metal that... In Chris's defense, that, no, that was like, that was...

Chris had the very nice like, hey, that's Daredevil moment that is normally for you of, hey, Wolverine's claws are made of adamantium. Because you knew I wouldn't know that. Or his bones, I can't remember. His skeleton. His exoskeleton. And his claws.

So he... Was Wolverine constructed out of adamantium? He was made into like a kind of super soldier by... Striker. General Striker. Who was portrayed famously in the Wolverine films by Brian Cox of Succession. Okay, so adamantium was added to him.

Yeah. Presumably from the Celestial Island. His bones were fused with adamantium. Yeah, yeah, yeah, but where'd they get the adamantium? It wasn't like natural occurring in him. I don't know the original origins. There's some retconning going on here. This is an X-Men dog whistle.

This whole thing is like, guess what guys, we got X-Men and it's coming. So sit tight for another three phases until we give you X-Men. They said that with the fat head. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. When Beast was introduced at the end of Quantumania, that was also an X-Men dog whistle. There have been a number of these over the years.

So full spoilers now for Brave New World? Full spoilers. ["WARNING THEME SONG"] Spoiler warning. When Tim Blake Nelson at the end of the film is like, I've looked at the statistical probabilities and there are other universes that is the other realities that will eventually come into play in the next couple of dozen movies.

He just refers to them as the others, but the expectation there is that. The others are. Like the Fantastic Four, they're in a different timeline than everything else. And so when we watched this credit sequence... Which came after nine minutes of credits. Yeah, and we were squirreled.

I wasn't allowed to make sure my children were okay on my phone during that time. I think that's what the Disney person was saying to you. Yeah. Um... Um... I... They just, he said some things.

And then you guys both muttered like secret wars? Secret wars. Secret wars, yes. Okay, and so the secret wars are called like the heroes of... Everyone is fighting altogether. I'll give you a little bit of context. Okay. This is the second to last movie in phase five.

Okay, phase five has been tough sledding. Yeah. The next movie is Thunderbolts and then phase five is over. Thunderbolts, another film that has been reshot and rewritten extensively. Yeah, how you feeling about Thunderbolts today, big guy? I'm pro Thunderbolts and then phase five is over. Thunderbolts, another film that has been reshot and rewritten. Yeah, how you feeling about Thunderbolts today, big guy? I'm pro Thunderbolts. I know, I heard, I listened to the podcast.

I'm where I was the other day when we recorded, which is I think it looks fine, it looks cool. Um, I, I, my expectations were really low for this movie. They're higher for Thunderbolts, but to me, they're kind of like... closing all business on this era. And now in phase six, which starts in July with the Fantastic Four movie,

these are the movies that are in phase six. Fantastic Four, Avengers Doomsday, in which Robert Downey Jr. returns as Dr. Doom, Spider-Man 4 and Avengers Secret Wars, which is one of the biggest crossover event Marvel stories ever told. I think it was originally in the eighties. And then redone in the 2010s.

Those are big movies. All of those movies have to make a billion dollars. They all are huge movies with huge expectations. The expectations on the fourth Captain America movie on Thunderbolts, these are smaller things. It's almost like they're trying to get out all of the like mistakes that they made now so that they can get to the real stuff. So the reason to see this movie, if you're an idiot like me or just

a huge fan of these movies, is like what are the little pellets that they've left on the ground for us? Atomantium is one of them. Which is a different thing than he would have said six years ago when it would be, well, another reason to see this movie is that it might at least make gestures towards a kind of film that we like. It might be a political thriller. It might be, you know, like a sort of interstellar comedy.

It might be something, you know? And now- The first Captain America movie is a Gary Cooper war movie. And they have kind of like now arrived at like a flat slop Exposition dump. So I think this just puts a Tremendous amount of pressure on Fantastic Four being good and I think I'll do really I think I'll make a billion dollars or whatever

I think it'll be really big. I think people want to like these things But this was like we are truly in the, like, it's closing time. The lights have gone on. The overhead lights are on, and we are like, oh shit, I'm still up. And that's why when you said that everybody's, like, more optimistic, I was pushing back on that

a little bit, because I knew this was going to be bad. I don't think I thought it was going to be this bad. Yeah. But I had a really good feeling it wasn't going to work. And it's a coin flip on Thunderbolts. It might stink. We really don't know. Right, right, right, right. If they mess up the next five, it's kind't gonna work. And it's a coin flip on Thunderbolts. It might stink. We really don't know. Right, right, right. If they mess up the next five, it's kind of over.

Like, it's over. And it doesn't mean that those movies won't still exist, but it just means that they take on a much smaller mind share. And then I think Hollywood is gonna freak out because they've been able to depend upon these movies so deeply. I mean, Superman's part of this conversation too. They still might be able to depend on this. It still might make $90 million. I mean, Superman's part of this conversation too. They still might be able to depend on this.

It still might make $90 million. I might, I, you know, I could be wrong and I was wrong with, uh, uh, Wolverine and Deadpool and Wolverine, but like, doesn't this feel like a movie that's going to have a huge opening weekend and then a big drop in a second weekend? Because the word of mouth can be pretty bad. Like even the people who love these movies, I've never heard more groaning walking out of a comic book movie than I did last night.

I mean, the theater was silent. Yeah. And people were wearing, like, magneto t-shirts. No cheering, no laughter, no anything. That's not a good sign. No. There was a little bit of recognition... when Sebastian Stan came on screen.

Well, yeah. I mean, that is the one thing that Thunderbolts has going for it, is that, like, the whole movie lit up when he did his two hours, or however long it took for him to make that one. Yeah. And he's always been a fan favorite, Bucky, but I think particularly this, like, confirmation of him

as a person who has entered a different stage of Hollywood success, being Academy Award nominated, being so critically acclaimed in the last few years. I think it's huge for Marvel to be associated with an actor like that, and they helped build him up to become an even more famous person. But I think he also just represents like an energy

that people miss in the movies. And that scene, which I'm sure was a rewrite, and I'm sure like, it felt like they helicoptered him in at the last minute. And frankly, is it absolutely insane? Cause he's either a congressman or running for congress. He's running for congress. And he's a former Soviet asset assassin.

This is literally, so we walked out of the theater and you just kept yelling, he is a Soviet asset! You went full Mueller shoot. I mean, it's insane. This is Russian propaganda. But like, this man killed world leaders. And he is in Congress. Well?

What state does he represent? Florida? When did... Which one? Who did he... When did that happen? He... Didn't he kill... Which leaders? T'Challa's dad? Which movie?

Oh, oops. Yeah. That's not good. The fucking King of Wakanda. Yeah. Oh. You don't want to do that. You don't want that? Yeah. Oh, oops. Yeah. That's not good. The fucking King of Wakanda. Yeah. Oh, you don't want to do that. You don't want that. Yeah.

You don't sleep at night if you do that. Yeah. Did he actually do that, or did Crossbones do that? Your boy Frank Gorillo. He gets blamed for it. I haven't seen, I can't remember the last time I watched WarnerSoul. Where you at on Gorillo these days?

Feeling good? What was he just in? Werewolves. Did you watch that? I didn't. OK. See that one, Amanda? Werewolves. Did you watch that? I didn't. Okay. Is that one Amanda?

Werewolves? No. Okay. What is something else I wanted to talk about here? Who is the president at the end of this movie? Oh, we don't know. We don't know. We don't know.

It's not Harrison Ford because, and now is the time to speak of Red Hulk. He, after one hour and 52 minutes, emerges as Red Hulk, even though they've been promoting the shit out of this movie being a Red Hulk movie, they made me wait a lot longer to see that sequence than I expected. He almost becomes Red Hulk on the boat.

Yes. He does it a couple times. He bangs the fists, like, a few times. Yes. They tease it. It's like Kendrick at the Super Bowl, but not good. Yes. Not like us comes right at the edge. The edges.

Yeah. I... Well, we were discussing this with a movie like Companion in terms of giving away a lot in the trailers to get, because the studios are nervous that people aren't gonna show up and they were nervous about this movie and they want people to come. You got Harrison Ford, you got him to sign up to be Red Hulk. One, do you think it was a good idea that they did,

that they put that at the center of the campaign of the movie? And two, did you think any of that stuff worked? I think that they didn't have a choice, because I don't think anyone really is tracking what the Falcon to Captain America plot is. I don't think that Falcon and Winter Soldier was a warmly received show. I think they had some things to like,

but I don't think anybody's like, of course, I remember exactly what happened. So they needed some sort of world destroying thing in the movie that was like, here's why you come. These movies are supposed to be super, super. You know, like you're supposed to see something that you would not ordinarily see. I don't know if it makes a difference that he... I think it's

annoying that it literally only happens the last 20 minutes of the movie, but it's not like I wanted to see Harrison Ford transform three more times. I will say there was a moment maybe about an hour in or 45 minutes in, I don't know. I mean it was immediately apparent that this movie just did not work, but... I agree, within the first scene. Yeah. It's a 10-minute exposition dump about what happened in the hall.

Right. And then I think, like, I turned to you and I was just like, who wrote this? And you were like 45 people. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, but like... I think it's five story by credits and three screenplay credits. I think it's like four or five screenplay credits. Yeah. Anyway, at some point before, like, story by credits and three screenplay credits? I think it's like four or five screenplay credits.

Anyway, at some point before like my mood really got away from me, I was like, well, this stinks. But like at some point Harrison Ford will be Red Hulk. And like maybe I'll, maybe that'll be fun. You know, like maybe I'll like that. I think I even thought like, oh, maybe they like saved all the CGI money for Red Hulk. They did not.

They did not budget anything in terms of energy, time, or resources to making that good. And that was a real bummer. I still have a part of my lizard brain that likes watching how two characters with different powers fight. Like, I don't... I was nine years old once, and I thought that was cool to think about. But did you notice that, like, he has as much ease

and or difficulty fighting Reg Hulk as he pretty much does red shirts that he comes across over the course of the movie? It's true, and it's historically a problem with all action movies. Yeah. You know, Arnold Schwarzenegger had this issue too, where he would be like having trouble dispatching a normal man,

but then like dominating, you know, someone who was twice his size. But in this case, it's particularly egregious. I think part of that could be like, well, that's kind of the charm of Sam, is that Sam is not super powered. Yeah, he talks about not taking the super serum. He doesn't take the super serum. He's a guy. Which I think makes him kind of a... He's a good hero. It's not a good movie.

I don't even think that they effectively communicated, like, his powers visually or even, like, how he fights. Because... Or what his tools are. I mean, Wakanda, he's got wings. Like, he can throw the shield. He can do other things. But the way that they're framing the Hulk versus Sam, and some of that is like size discrepancy, plus you got like a CGI White House in there. So, you know, there's like perspective stuff.

But you just don't see him. Like I don't even know how he was fighting. I mean, I guess he was like throwing the shield or like flying around, but you don't, to your point about like, I like seeing people with different powers fight. I didn't really feel like I saw them fighting. Yeah. I think it was, again, I don't, I really don't have to spend time on this. I'm sorry. But it's more just like, what were the ways in which Sam determined Red Hulk's weaknesses? That's like reading, that's what reading convos is, you know?

Because like, he just cuts him with his cape a bunch and then he finally gets him to remember the cherry blossoms and walking with Betty. Which are so ugly. The cherry blossoms? The fake cherry blossoms are so ugly. I was just really upset. I do like a cherry blossom. I love a cherry blossom.

And even by the way, like... That writing is terrible. A real life, like a practical fake cherry blossom, like made of like silk or, you know, materials or whatever, like can be very beautiful, but the CGI ones, two thumbs down. I tried to go back through my head and be like, what did I like about this movie?

Like, where were some stuff that was cool? Julius Ohna, who I really don't even know what to say about him as a filmmaker because his last two movies, I think, are this and The Cloverfield Paradox, which I remember. He made one in between called Loose. Okay. Which is a very strange and confrontational drama about race.

Okay. That I liked, but I'm not sure was fully thought through. Do you remember this movie? I do remember it. I'm not sure was fully thought through. Do you remember this movie? I do remember it. I did not like it. I think what I remembered is that... Octavia Spencer's in that? Octavia Spencer and it's Calvin Harrison Jr.

It is. Who I think doesn't usually work for me, the performances. Okay. Tim Roth and Naomi Watts play the adoptive parents at Kelvin Harrison Jr. That's right. And it's unclear if he is being singled out because he's a young black man with white parents

or if he actually is up to trouble basically. And the movie is a bit strange. I think it's an adaptation of a novel. But kind of like the Cloverfield Paradox. I'm like, what does this tell you about point of view? I think Cloverfield Paradox also got taken away from it at a certain point. I only remember that because it was the night the Eagles won the Super Bowl. It's when Cloverfield Paradox came out. Remember, your house, your old house.

So I do think that some of the stuff that's like in quote unquote DC in the beginning of the movie with Isaiah Bradley's maturing candidate moment and all that stuff with like the song and the flashing phones and the assassins is cool. And sort of, but even there, it's like, it takes them literally an hour and a half for someone to be like, it's mind control, which is like literally, that is a direct quote. And it's like, it's no shit. I heard the song the first time.

Like, I've seen a movie before. Yeah, and I guess in a different world, like Ross's relationship to the leader, Samuel Stearns, right? Tim Blake Nelson's character. And him being like, I was gonna die. I needed to stay alive so that I could be forgiven by my daughter. But then I double crossed this guy and now he's feeding me poison and making me into the Red Hulk. It's kind of cool.

It's not, it's really not well done. Yeah. It's really not. It's very, it's very confusing. The idea though of like a president being beholden to a shadowy figure. Yeah, I think there's a lot of on paper stuff, as I said, that like we're doing Clear and Present Danger with the Hulk and a guy who can fly is,

for me, I'm like, I would love to see that. Sure. They didn't make that movie, you know, they made a movie where Harrison Ford is the president and barks at people, but it doesn't really have any of that. And a lot of it goes to some of that physical production stuff that doesn't work. A lot of it goes to the fact that, like, the Mind Control one in particular,

like, the whole movie theater groaned when that happened. People were just like, are you serious? I'm deeply fascinated by, like, whether or not... Because a lot of these shows suffer from the same kind of, like, this feels like it was reshot, or this feels like they had to, like, stitch this together. We are pretty much since the end of the Avengers run in this stretch of Marvel product

that kind of is substandard professionally, you know, it falls short of ready to be released kind of standards. And I'm not like, you know, if you could get into like, it would be sure Kevin Feige is the right person to be running it? I mean, relative to the bar that they set. But why can't they just like make a two-hour movie? Like, I don't understand why that's so hard.

And I don't understand why... It's payback for all the success that came on the first wave. The genius of the first 20 movies is that they somehow created this Jenga tower of movie storytelling, which had never been done before. Where all the pieces fit and it culminated in one of the biggest movie-going experiences ever in the Infinity War and Endgame thing, which I was like, they fucking did it, man.

This is super cool that they did this. And now they have to pay the piper, which is that every story that they do now has to be interconnected and has to make sense. And it's not feasible when they've gotten so big with all the TV shows and all of the movies and they won't let a movie stand alone because the audiences won't accept that anymore.

They will not accept a standalone story. But it's going all the way the other way where I feel like audiences are, like the sort of, it's hard to describe the atmosphere in that movie theater as people sat through all those credits and like the page after page after page of VFX artists. Salute to you guys.

Sorry. Like I'm not trying to be disparaging. Yeah. And you're just like, I can't believe I'm just so trained that I have to sit here and wait for this cut scene and then the stinger comes and it sucks so bad. Yeah. And it's almost like, fuck you guys for waiting. Like you guys sat here for 10 minutes to see Anthony Mackie talk to Tim Blake Nelson about an unexplicit...

You know, at least like when it happens in Doctor Strange, like Charlize Theron shows up and you're like, God damn. Right. Harry Styles showed up once and we were like, all right, well that was amusing at least. And okay, that brings me to my next point of discussion, because this came up immediately after the movie ended. Which is that you guys started talking about how Madame Web was better.

Or at least you liked it more. I liked the experience of seeing Madame Web more than watching Brave New World. Last year was a really tough year for comic book movies. There were three different Sony related Marvel stories, Spider-Man related Marvel stories, all of which were very bad. And there was Deadpool and Wolverine, which was a huge hit. And the conversation that we were having was,

is it better for a movie to be awful while accidentally amusing, like Madame Web, and to a lesser extent, Craven the Hunter and the Venom movies, or to just passively move the ball forward, but be actively unfun to watch. Like I was like, when is this gonna end when I was watching? Yeah.

Brave New World. Brave New World. So it did give you adamantium. It did clarify the Eternals thing, which was completely bizarre. It did, I guess, close the book on Incredible Hulk. It does. How did it do that? Why did I ask that?

By making it clear that Thaddeus Ross is imprisoned, but he has closed the emotional loop with his daughter, and they did give us a Red Hulk moment, which even if it didn't come off that well, is something that is like comic book lore and is exciting. And then I think also also doesn't explicitly state, but makes it clear that Thunderbolts is an offshoot of a lot of the vision that Ross had as a leader,

because he brings to Mackey, I want to restart the Avengers. And that that's gonna, that's clearly what's gonna happen in Thunderbolts, is they're gonna restart the Avengers with all of these vigilantes. Presumably Sebastian Stan loses his Congressional race. I guess. So the Thunderbolts will then become the new Avengers.

Yes. But they're going to seem really B-Team up against Fantastic Four and eventually X-Men and all the other characters who are gonna come in. Didn't you guys say on the watch at some point that they're gonna then redo all the timelines so that the original Avengers can come back?

I think they'll come back in different, I mean, obviously like Downey's playing Doom, but I think they will bring Chris Evans back in some way because it's the same thing that happens in Deadpool and Wolverine where it's like, oh, here's all these different portals of reality that you can just have a constant kind of cavalcade of guest stars. Yes. So, also say, like, they did a bunch of stuff that got you thinking about the future, which I guess is... Which is cool for you. I don't... I... It's not even cool for me anymore, is what I'm saying.

Like, it's not being cool for me five years ago. But to your question of, is it better to be, like, a bad but sometimes enjoyable movie that doesn't move the project forward versus quote unquote moving the project forward, but not having any fun. I wholeheartedly vote for Madame Webb. You know, because at least you get Dakota...

There's a Pepsi can. Yeah, and like Dakota Johnson being like dead. There's nothing weird, not even anything weird in this movie, or like personal at all. Nothing personal. I mean, there's plenty of weird... Just the character of Leader is such a weird character. It's like Tim Ligelso with a green brain. They didn't even like lean into that.

They almost seemed like they were like, well, we don't really know if we want to do this kind of... It's like, it's played straight. If it had been a James Gunn movie, it would have been like, he would have had a fucking huge brain, and it would have been insane, and it would have been funny, and these movies aren't funny anymore. Uh, the special effects are not good.

The fight scenes are kind of dull. Uh, there's really no consequences to 80% of the action set pieces. Um, it's tough, man. I like these movies a lot. I used to like these movies like a fair amount and it's just sort of strange. I just, I wonder how long they can hold. Because when do you lose the essential 40% of your audience? It's like, I don't really understand. I'm just going because they're fun movies.

Well, we watched this happen with the TV shows where the TV shows kind of started at a high, right? Where was Mondavision, Loki and this show to a lesser extent. And it was like flawed, maybe a little too long, but well-made for the most part, felt contained, but with consequences. And then slowly but surely they started just like clearly losing anybody who could be described as less than a super fan. And I stopped watching them.

And I waited my whole life for this shit to happen. And I just don't care. I gotta watch any of the shows anymore at all. And I'm still in like, you know, I'm a more engaged, elevated person. There's a whole rung of people beneath me. There's probably somewhere between me and you. You know, where you probably, if you were not doing the show, would see one out of every five. You would have maybe gone and seen like Endgame and Infinity War. I think Phoebe, I think my wife saw one. I leaned forward to see Endgame.

Yeah, and I think... I think they went and saw Logan. It was sort of like... No, Phoebe and I saw Logan. They were kind of Barbenheimer-esque. Like, everyone's seeing this, we at least gotta go see a thing. But once they start losing everybody below me, the business is in trouble.

They're in danger of turning off the Midnight Boys' Rearverse Squad because they're like, this looks like shit. Yeah. Can we talk about that for a second? Like, when does the production value and the, like... When does that break? Because it is... I thought this was the worst yet. It is so noticeably awful. And, you know, I have, I don't care for, like,

the comic book aesthetic, you know? It's never gonna look, like, beautiful, fine art to me. But it's just, they can't make it work. I mean, it's just gone down. I mean, if you go back and... Of course. And it used to at least be acceptable. Iron Man 3 looks like the fucking conformance. Totally. And the fight scenes at least, like, made sense and you believed that someone,

you know, they were connected to the story. Like, I just... If you're only going to these movies to see Red Hulk and Captain America fight, like, at this point, I don't even think the movies are delivering a positive experience, like a positive, like, fight. It feels like they're kind of, it almost feels like there's a story right now about Disney

realizes that they may be over overpricing their parks experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're addicted to finding new ways of squeezing a hundred, a thousand, whatever out of people by offering like fast pass lightning scheme or whatever. And they're just like, we have to keep cranking it. Like there's no way to come back off of it. And when you watch this, you're kind of like, did you guys just decide we're all so stupid,

we'll go see it no matter what. So why pay money for someone who's like, I have a point of view, this is what I want. I need you to build this set. I don't want to shoot in Hungary. I want to shoot it in. I'm just, let's go, let's even like the slightly nicer version. It's not even that they're like, well... like maybe we don't have the ability. Like maybe, maybe like technology is not there

what it is. No, like at the scale that they're talking about... Watch Jurassic Park in 1993. Like it's... I mean, I guess so. That's true. To me... Watch Rogue One like 10 years ago. You know what I mean? Like it's like we can't make... But at the scale that they're trying to do it. Yeah, I think there's... But the amount of time and the amount of stuff that they're like...

It's really, really hard, and I don't know at what stage the pre-vis and then having to close the effects relative to the reshoots. Because the reshoots are built in, but this was more reshoots than usual as I understand it. But whether or not the reshoots compounded on them to the point where there was just not enough money left to get the visuals. Just as a point of conversation, the directors of the Phase Four movies are Kate Shortland, Destin Daniel Cretton, Chloe Zhao, John Watts, Sam Raimi, Taika Waititi, and Ryan Coogler. Regardless of what you think about those movies, that's a lot of directors with strong visions.

Not all of those movies work all the time, but there are images, even CGI-oriented images, like the black and white stuff in Thor, Love, and Thunder, which is a movie I think is terrible, that stuff looks amazing. You know, there's stuff in the Raimi movie that is really cool. Yeah. This movie has none of that.

It doesn't have a shred of vision. It doesn't have a shred of like, wow, or pop, or daring. Like, there's just nothing in it that makes you go like, well, at least there was a person who had an idea that was different from what we've seen in the other movies. I mean, I think there's shots in this where it looks like, and it's not a shot at him. It's like, I think Ford's reading off a prompter.

Like, you know, he's like standing with Mackie here, but he's like not looking in Mackie's face. He's kind of looking over his shoulder. I'm like, I think he's probably got a... Or Mackie's not there. Yeah, and he's got to read a bunch of stuff he's like not looking in Mackie's face. He's kind of looking over his shoulder. I'm like, I think he's probably... Or Mackie's not there. Yeah, and he's got to read a bunch of stuff that's like, all right, you guys just gave me this page. So I have to talk about what I decided to do in Harlem in 2008,

the Hulk. Is Harrison Ford outside at any point? Just when he gives the speech. Oh, like the Rose Garden. Yeah. But even that is like a set. So he's in that, the, the, the Japanese. For presidents, like palace for a second, they were outside in that garden.

Yeah, you're right. They, the whole idea is he's got to go into this bunker because there's been an assassination. So, but he's like, he is in the bunker for most of the time in one location. Yeah. Yeah. In one set that they built in like his trailer outside of 1920 whatever.

I don't know. I think it's entirely possible that this is a speed bump and that things recover with maybe not even Fantastic Four specifically, but that the Avengers movies because they're so too big to fail, and the Russos know what they're doing with these big, you know, erector set movies, where like all this stuff has to make sense together. I mean, they've done it.

They were literally already done it before, like multiple times. But it's also possible that they don't. And that they don't do it fast enough... to salvage all this new terrain that they have potentially to ply with the Fox acquisition, which I never would have guessed. I just would never would have guessed who would have gotten to this point. This could be seen as a wild overreaction to one really bad movie or not.

I think it's the culmination of a kind of like there was a bunch of different places where you be like, well, it was COVID. Well, it was the strikes, well, it was a changing of the guard. And you got to like build up these new stories and they've had circumstances come in, Jonathan Majors, like all these things that have like affected how they were maybe trying to build things. But for me, I think it's repeated offenses of there just being too many cooks in the kitchen or like the directors or writers being removed where you're just like, I, the most nefarious cynical idea I have about this is that they are like preparing American audiences

to accept AI versions of this stuff. And that they are essentially like, we are going to build an expectation. You guys have such low expectations of this that we can literally manufacture Sam Wilson stories like every three months with like digital... You might be right. He's right. You read the list of directors from phase four, all like people who know what they're doing. And we talked about no matter what, you know,

there was something to hold onto. And my instinct was like, but does like, do Disney and Marvel want that? Like, do they actually want any individuality? Did the experiment of hiring cool directors to, like, put their spin on these things, yield what they wanted? Or do they just want more, like, gruel to feed out to people

who are like, yay! Comics! It's so tricky. I mean, I think they just got really high on their own supply of Thor, Ragnarok, and Black Panther both being risky choices to go with Tycho Ititi and Ryan Coogler and those movies being two of the best movies that they ever made and both huge hits for B-tier characters. So then they were like we're feeling ourselves we know what we're doing we can do this over and over again and now all of a sudden it's Matt

Shackman and the Russos and Daniel Destin Cretton coming in because John Watts doesn't want to make a fourth Spider-Man movie. So I think they've definitely tired of that strategy. You know, I just... Okay, let's pull back just a little bit before we close this. Cinematic universes has become something that did not really exist 20 years ago. It was not really a way we thought about movies. We did have like sequels to individual movies, but we never had this thing where you'd have something that did not really exist 20 years ago, was not really a way we thought about movies.

We did have like sequels to individual movies, but we never had this thing where you'd have multiple characters crossing over and these huge skyscraper-esque constructions of storytelling. It's kind of infected and infested lots of different kinds of movies, the Fast and the Furious movies.

It's like a- Den of Thieves. Den of Thieves is aspiring to a cinematic universe. It is, it is for sure. Is this sustainable? It's obviously not really good. It's not really good for movies. It has been quite destructive for even the idea of sequels.

It has kind of fucked up the idea of a fun sequel. Is it sustainable? Do you think it will continue to exist in the way that it does? Yes. Just because it's easier to get people's to exist in the way that it does? Yes. Just because it's easier to get people's asses in seats with this? Yeah, absolutely. And also because I think for people

who are making these things and by the people who are making these things, I mean the corporations and not the filmmakers. Like, do they really care at some point whether they're giving you, I mean, I guess they sort of make more money from a movie, but like maybe not. And maybe it's easier to just like, you know, make 15 really inexpensive TV show type things that you can watch on your phone. You know,

they just want widgets, right? That they can slot in. I think that movies are still a thing that when they work, have the highest payout. I definitely think you're onto something here. I was thinking about this with Ballerino a lot. The John Wick story where you're just like, then the first Wick is perfect. They never thought they would make a sequel. The sequels are cool. The fourth one is where they've just...

But the John Wick, the fourth John Wick movie looks so beautiful compared to these movies. I think I would be way more open to the cinematic universe stuff if they put any emphasis on the cinema part. Yeah. That is like the response to the like, why does it... Maybe we don't have the technology question. It's like you do. You just have to like kill Keanu Reeves in the process of making the movie to make it look great.

And they're not gonna do that, obviously. I find it to be very dispiriting as someone who is in this professional seat. And I used to wonder when I was a kid and I would read interviews with film critics and they would be so despairing. You would watch Siskel and Ebert talk about Halloween V on their show and they were miserable. They were like, I can't fucking believe I've got us choked down.

And now it's fun to go back and watch that shit. I know and that because that stuff is seems quaint by comparison. But they were so mad at how American movies had been just completely diluted and reduced down to the stupidest fucking thing for a 13 year old. They were so mad. And I was like, these guys don't get it. They don't get what's fun about going to the movies. And I'm in my 40s and I'm thinking about it.

And you know what? I'm sure there's a 13 year old who's gonna be like, Anthony Mackie is my favorite actor. And I love, I love that this guy. And I'm not taking that away from any of those kids, Anthony Mackie is my favorite actor, and I love, I love that this guy. It was so cool when Bucky came back. Yes, and I'm not taking that away from any of those kids, but in my position now, I'm like, so another 10 years of Marvel for me?

Really? Yeah. And I'm sure you feel even worse. I mean, in some ways I don't feel as bad because for a long time it's been like, do I have fun at one of these things or do I not have fun at one of these things? And most of the time I don't, but every once in a while, you know, they pulled it off. And that's just going to be more of that. So to the 13 year old, I would say this isn't even

fun, you know? And I guess if you're 13, if you're 13 and you have fun, like life's, life's hard. Good job you, you know, for, but? But if you're like mostly interfacing with things as vertical video and you're like, you know what I mean, your attention span is like. This movie really gets your attention with the five foot two Mossad agent in the film. What the fuck, dog? What happened there?

Ruth, AKA Seraph. An Israeli born widow. Not widow like in the widow program, the racial place program. a serif. An Israeli born widow. Yes. Not widow like in the widow program, the racial bias program. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. In the comics, she is a mutant

and she is very clearly like an IDF soldier. And in this film, sort of retconned into being part of the widow program, I guess. Yeah. But like, what the hell was that character? Why does that character even in this movie? It's like the president seems to have two head security agents, right?

I don't know. I mean- Because Rokomor plays the other one, right? Yes. But like she was Secret Service. I guess she's like head of the Department of Defense detail. Again, like another thing where it's like, why is this character here? Yeah.

No idea. What did it accomplish in the movie? Nothing. I mean, I guess they needed to have a woman in there. That is this character here? Yeah. No idea. What did it accomplish in the movie? Nothing. I mean, I guess they needed to have a woman in there. That's what it was. Yeah. Checking boxes. There's all these movies where you would say,

your mileage may vary. There might be a person out there that's like, this is awesome. And maybe there is a 13-year-old out there who's just like, Sam Wilson is my favorite Avenger ever. And this is so cool. But man, I kind of wonder with this one, whether people are going to be like us just didn't do anything. She didn't do anything for me. I and I like these movies and I want these stories and I, I make it my business to know all about what's happening in these things. And they're just like this just on a bare bones, like fundamental, like was this movie

assembled well and put together well and did it look cool and did the action sing? And it's like, no, man, it didn't. I don't even think that's up for debate. Any closing thoughts? I think if you're 25 and you thought this was fun, I want you to ask more for your life. I think 13's okay, 25,

you're still in a phase of discovery in your life, but I think we could discover more. I'll be very curious to see whether there's any, like, what's the delta between, like, a critical reception for this film and the box office? And, like, is there just enough of a sustainable engine of, like, interest in these movies, no matter what they are to go?

And, like, these are, regardless of what you say, familiar faces. There is a Hulk, there is Falcon who's been in these movies. Like people will probably anticipate Bucky Barnes making an appearance. Like this is a little bit of old sheet music. So I'll be very curious to see what this makes. But if there's any justice in the world,

I don't think it'll make a lot because I'd like them to get better. Deadpool and Wolverine is a movie that I felt very comfortable saying is borderline dangerous to the future of Hollywood storytelling. But as you guys recall, because we saw it together,

I laughed the whole time. I was like, this is really funny. It's stupid. Yeah, you both did. Bone density. That was also a film that they let Ryan Reynolds make exactly to his own specifications. That was the point I was gonna make, was I was like, they didn't. Stupid. Bone density. That was also a film that they let Ryan Reynolds make exactly to his own specifications. That was the point I was going to make, was I was like, they didn't fuck with that too much.

There were certain things that they probably didn't let him do ultimately, but he got to do his thing. And he's mostly gotten to do his thing. Now, I don't think Ryan Reynolds should get to do his thing all the time. See, 2025 news cycle. But. You know what, I honestly, I, I, he's, I don't, I guess I'm not.

You're team Ryan, team Ryan. Basically, listen, he just yelled at him. Yeah. You know, and, um, okay. That's, I think we need to have some, a little more, a deeper critical lens. Okay. What's what he's up to. Sure.

And also is trying to like ruin this guy. Well, listen, well, it goes much deeper than that in my opinion. Oh, OK. But I don't have any evidence to support those claims. So I will just say, examine the text, then think of the subtext. Did you examine the text? Did you read a lot of the court filings? I have read a lot of them. And I wouldn't want to be texting with him.

But I just like the basic, I mean, like the text that Justin Baldoni claims is like, oh, he's so nice to me. It's like the most like obsequious, annoying, like fake obsequious, annoying, trying to get what I want. Like Hollywood thing of all time. So that's not a conversation I would want to be having. And I am taking no one's side in that circumstance. I'm just saying that there are powerful forces at work.

Yes. What do you think about that? Like, uh, Thunderbolt Ross? Yeah. Akin to Red Hulks. Okay. Certainly. Um, Chris, thanks for coming on board this train with us.

I thought it was going to be funnier. I thought I would be funnier about it, but then I got depressed. This was a solemn and angry episode of the big picture. I told you we should have flipped them. Yeah. I know we couldn't. Listen, like the time and schedule and all sorts of things. We were pre-taping and supporting Robert Wagner

and his ability to participate in a draft episode, which is coming next week. Also next week, we'll be talking about Paddington in Peru and I'll be talking about the desecration of that cinematic universe. Do you want to come tomorrow? To the movie? Yeah, with me and Knox.

I think I'm going to MJ Lenderman. Is it the same time? No, it's at 345. We'll also talk about another extended cinematic universe, Bridget Jones 4, Mad About the Boy. Yeah. That's the fourth film in the Bridget Jones story. And we're going to try...

Christopher, have you read Bridget Jones? No. I, like... I don't know what you think you're doing, where, like, men of a certain age have read Bridget Jones. Like, I don't know a single man who's read that book. But Chris is, like, enlightened, you know? No, he's not!

Chris watches lioness and jerks off. What are you talking about? (*LAUGHTER*) Chris is not reading Bridget Jones? I just feel like... He's my brother! He's my literal brother! I don't know, but, you know, he's an anglophile. It's like, it's very charming.

I'm sure you're right. That's fine. Yeah, I don't want to take anything away from what they've accomplished. It's the most apoplectic that you've been since you came back. Have you ever seen a Bridget Jones movie? No. What in the fuck is wrong with you ever seen a Bridget Jones movie? No. What in the fuck is wrong with you?

I'm sorry, I just haven't. I haven't. I haven't. Remember how you'd never seen Singin' in the Rain until you watched it with Knox? Yeah, that was great. Okay. You know, that's fine. And you want the third chair. I think you have really weird expectations of men. Like, it's something we should explore more deeply in the future.

I don't know if it's like... Are they weird or is it how everyone should be? And it's like you're not meeting them. No, it's your fascistic tendencies that rise to the surface where you're like, this is how it is, and I will accept no other treatment. Because I'm dealing with an entire society of men being like, this is how it is all the time.

And I'm like, no, over here, this is how it is. We're doing an episode about Bridget Jones, are we not? Yeah, and you couldn is all the time. And I'm like, no, over here, this is how it is. We're doing an episode about Bridget Jones. Are we not? Yeah, and you couldn't read the book. It's very light reading. It's breezy. I didn't read whatever this Captain America movie was based on either. It's an entire read-through. Reading the Odyssey and Vineland.

I am reading, I'm rereading Vineland. Book club Vineland? Sure. But also, you could read Bridget Jones. You could read it tonight. You could read it, yeah. Um, no. Okay. But we will talk about the movie on the show,

and we're going to try to do something that might be a horrible idea and that might actually be offensive to Chris, but we're going to try to build the American-British movie canon. That's okay. I feel like you guys are really well suited to do that. What Americans think are great British movies in the 21st century. I'm sure also that all of our British listeners will be thrilled by this. They'll want to assassinate us, but it's okay.

We'll have fun. Like Snatch? Well, don't spoil it. But that's what we're talking about. Yeah. American guys being like Snatch is really good. That's a thing. That will be like what I can contribute, But I think Amanda has a lot more text.

I think also American women being like Bridget Jones diaries starring an American. I want you to know that I respect them. I just think you would like kind of be charmed by the book. I think I would be too. It's not like I'm not trying to be a dick. I literally barely can make it through like Mike Sando's six takeaways from a Super Bowl victory by my team.

It's written in diary entry form. Like you actually could get through this. Yeah. I think the Turner diaries is written similarly. Oh, my God. Um... I'm... I... I went to this fucking Marvel movie 40 minutes early

because you're an idiot and I didn't even say anything. I was like, I guess Sean is gonna be a psycho. The one time you piped down and you should have said something. I was trying to be supportive. I was meeting you. I was very surprised that you weren't like, let's get a dessert.

Where you were. I know, but I thought he was like being so crazy. I just didn't know. I got invited to Wood Ranch. Like this is like Sean's time. I know, but I thought he was, like, being so crazy. And I was like, I got invited to Wood Ranch. Like, this is, like, Sean's time. I'm gonna do it. I don't understand why you can't meet me. Wood Ranch was Chris's idea. It was a good idea. I don't, like, that's fine. So I met you where you were.

What does it matter if I read Bridget Jones? Just don't be a dick. You guys should save this for the Bridget Jones episode. Well, Yasi will be here, so we won't be this fervid. Oh, you guys don't really fight in front of Yasi? Uh, we're working up to it. Yeah. I mean, it's new work, you know? So... okay.

Uh, well, great job, everybody. Um, thanks to Jack Sanders for his work and for staying till 4.49 p.m. on a Wednesday. Jack, thank you. This is a double session. This is all time you get back tomorrow, bro. Thanks to our producer Robert Wagner. What's future Jack gonna do with his life? Maybe he should check out an early screening

of Captain America Brave New World. Thanks for listening along and watching this show. And have you been watching The Big Picture on YouTube? Yes. And what do you think? Good experience? It's a good experience. Did you know the watch is on platform, on video, on Spotify? I did because I listened to the watch.

We are coming to the Spotify platform soon. I can't say when. Join me. It may be. The Spotify cinematic universe. How does that affect my data saving? I don't know the answer to that question and I won't even try to answer it.

But we will see you next week.