The Kristian Harloff Show - AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM SPOILER REVIEW!

Episode Date: December 26, 2023

Become a Patron!:  https://www.patreon.com/TheBigThingShow Aquaman and the lost kingdom is the latest DC movie starring Jason Momoa. It critically was not received well and word is starting to come in from the audience. Did you see it? Kristian Harloff and Coy Jandreau give their spoiler heavy thoughts on the film. Was the chemistry with Jason Momoa and Patrick Wilson enough to save the film?  #Aquaman #Aquaman #DC #dcu JOYMODE: http://www.usejoymode.com CODE BIG THING AG1: http://www.drinkAG1.com/BIGTHING ROCKET MONEY: http://www.RocketMoney.com/THING OUR MERCH STORE IS LIVE: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/the-... FOLLOW KRISTIAN + FIND HIM ON CAMEO https://cameo.com/kristianharloff   TWITTER: https://twitter.com/kristianharloff FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/harloff INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/kristianharloff AMAZON WISHLIST: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls...

What's going on, everybody? Merry Christmas. That's right. You're getting this on Christmas. I wish I could give you a better movie. But it's the Aquaman, Spoiler Review, Lost Kingdom, spoiler review with myself and Coy Gendro on this Monday. It's Christmas time. Maybe you're taking a break from Home Alone or a Christmas story or whatever it might be. Or maybe you're watching it tomorrow. What eb's. It's myself and Coy as we're going to be breaking down this movie in general and talking

about that. So thanks for joining us here today. If you're brand new to this channel, you've never been here before, that thing's swirling around in the air because it wants you to subscribe. It wants you to be part and get us to 200,000 subscribers faster than we got to 100. And in order to do that, you got to hit that button, man. And we're going to be discussing everything that we think was wrong with Aquaman. Yeah, that's it.

That's what we're going to do. It's me. It's great thing. It's Monday. It's Christmas. Let's do it. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. It is Christmas time

And it's the big thing I thought we were going to have the day off But then I realized that we needed to get the spoiler out here today And joining me on this Christmas day Is Christmas Coy Everyone that wants a bad review from me Because they think I love everything Is getting the biggest Christmas present of all

And it's not what I want I don't want to be a grudge, but here we are Here we are, I know, man And there's Winston That's actually appropriate That's really funny Because here's the thing is that Winston was here When we were going to shoot this

But the problem was that this movie, normally what they do is they'll send an embargo out. And it's usually like, in the case of the Marvel's. Yeah. It was about two weeks. It was like two days before. Oh, it was like two days before. You're right. You're right.

It was like Tuesday. And even that was like, uh-oh. Yeah. This embargo dropped the day it released. It was out in some places. I know people that broke embargo that said, hey, I'm not breaking a bargo because I bought a ticket myself. There are places this was out. It's crazy.

I've never seen that for me. It's crazy. And then there's a plus, and then the plus one side of it all was that normally when you go to the screenings, they give you, if there's room, they give you plus one. So I'm going to this screening yesterday going, well, it's probably packed out. There were so many empty seats. They chose, and I'm very appreciative that I was one of the people that they chose to have at this screening, but they chose a select amount of critics who were going to go. Yeah. And then I sat, I was empty seats all around.

Yeah, I went with a friend to another screening and it was, it was, you know, a fun event and experience. Right. But I definitely felt that it was really close to release even then because I saw it like, I think Monday or Tuesday. So I didn't see it that long ago either. Like they usually have a swath of events leading up to a thing. And we were at the only two. It was. And it was just, it kind of, and you understood though.

And you kind of understood right as the movie started. even the opening with the voiceover. Yeah. I said to myself as the voicemover started, I said, this is what the writing in the movie's going to be. We're in trouble. It felt like a trailer, the opening, where it was like, let's just consolidate a lot,

and then the whole movie felt truncated. Like, the whole movie felt edited and pushed together. And it didn't feel like there was another longer movie necessarily. It just felt like it was a bunch of pages from a bunch of different scripts. They did not seem that they put any effort and it's trying to write the script to make it.

And it's a sequel to a billion dollar movie. I know. I don't understand. understand the foundational elements of this because you know you're making the sequel to the only billion dollar DC EU film from the jump before it everything started falling apart when they first started making this when the script is written everything's good comparatively so as things fall apart I could see getting worried but when it got written they weren't worried they had a billion dollar hit on their hands how did this script come out of let's make a billion dollar sequel is it

too many cooks in the kitchen? Is it the fact that... Because look, the first movie is not a well-written masterpiece. But it's so fun. It is. And I think that they were maybe trying to do that again with this one, but where they maybe caught lightning in a bottle by doing the fun thing last time, it didn't work this time. And the movie's not... There are moments that are fun. There are moments, but not really.

And Jason Mamoa does his damnness to make everything he can fun and try to light up the room when he walks into it. But like... So does the eye out. with making the dialogue that he's given like extra like, his dialogue is so bad. Oh, it's the worst dialogue. I think we've had a villain have since, I don't know, pretty,

since like the Fox Marvel era. And also, Randall Park, who I like, first of all, why would you cast Randall Park in this when I think you have an opportunity? And I know that my argument at first is because he's been in Marvel and everything too, but if you could get, like, Kehoe Kuan is someone I thought of right away, but I also, but if you can get, give another actor an opportunity for this role too because here's Randall Park who has done a he's playing the same character as one division just right not as funny right not as funny no magic

no flourish right and it's like and and it's tough because i like him but like i've seen him in this other role of marvels for so long now and his character was written really terribly too and he's just stupendous marvelous wonderful and it's like this is and and so many jokes it painfully, quiet in the audience. You could hear it just thud on the floor. Because there's that pause for laughter that never comes. Never comes. It's like when you...

And you saw it in a packed house, right? Yeah. And when you go to like a stand-up set and the comedian like waits because he's had it go well, it felt like that the movie where they expected it to go well where it's like, Akamanteau. And I hate to say it. Like, I don't like not liking things. But there were a lot of moments where I was watching this going, who was this for? Why did this get greenlit? Who said yes to this page? You?

why are you here? Because I must get my revenge. It was so bad. And leaks have come out online where there's like sections of the movie like there's a black mantis scene that's like not only did you take his throw but you took his girl. And yes, in an out of context excerpt that does feel like

a cheesy comic book line. And it can work. And I said this briefly on a non-spoiler. It can work if that's the character that speaks that way, because it's fun to be like, but if everyone talks that way, you just immediately within 20 minutes are exhausted at bad dialogue. It doesn't become a reference. It doesn't become kitschy. And like we talked about, Bibiani, he likes those sometimes because it's like a spirit.

But there's no spirit here. There's no spirit to it at all. And a lot of it just doesn't make sense. A lot of it is predictable. The stuff that like, here's, we joked about this. There's this moment where Aquaman is now the king of Atlantis and he's doing his thing. He's got his duties that he's doing. and then he's trying to be a dad at the same time

and the kid's pissing in his face and ha ha ha laugh laugh and he's dodging in the kid can talk to fish and he has this moment with his dad and this scene that happens right beforehand where the kid's been peeing in his face so here he is now he's with Mara she's there with him in the room they're parenting together and then the kid goes to piss in his face

and he dodges it and she goes and makes the kid piss in his face the next scene or close to it he's sitting there with his dad and he goes, here's the single parenting. What are he talking about? You just had your, the mother of your child was just there, and she's doing the same thing that you're doing. Yeah, and apparently she's with the kid most of the movie,

because when the kid's gone, I assume she's like, and she's pissed when it happens. And then, you know, the stuff with the brother was set up, that was the only thing that I think they should have gone from the beginning and tried to do it. And then the silly thing with the octopus that they throw in there. They made the one-note joke that was funny. in the first film,

the octopus playing the drums, became a viral sensation. And I think they got the wrong memo. I think they were like, oh, this character's popular. And they made it like a co-lead for an act. I forgot about him.

Tapos or whatever, but like a third lead in a movie. In that scene, yeah. But for like 20 minutes. I know. And he's like, he's like a spy and doing all these things.

And that's not what you get out of this is a funny visual. You don't go, let's make him a lead in the movie. So not only does it show that they're not aware of what the audience found funny about it. And I think that's part of the spirit. it we were talked about is they don't understand

what made the first film even if it's not the best written, even if it's not the most tight, it still had a spirit of joy and spontaneity. This movie didn't feel spontaneous. It felt color by numbers. It felt like they took the wrong messages from the first movie and it definitely felt like they underused

somehow a second time. Yeah, yeah. And also felt like the major criticisms of like the Star Wars prequels they took those elements. Yeah. And all the Lord of the Ringsness they tried to do and you're, if you're not Peter Jackson, if you're not that Or Game of Thrones. Yeah.

They even use the actor for Game of Thrones to play the villain who's again, I mean, the major, the main villain who's like, again. You see him twice. Doing this thing where he's, it was like dark side. Yeah. And he had like a Soron vibe when the suit took over him. And that lore is just kind of like set up at the end with the sphere. It's like, it was so sloppy. And it's like the whole thing.

It's just like you didn't care. And it was so predictable, like these moments of like the main, a few of the moments that I think of when Dolph Lundgren is hanging. off the side of the thing and he's going, don't leave me. And then Patrick Wilson, who they've been setting up, has had a redemption arc the whole entire time, looks at him and goes, and leaves,

were they trying to fool us? At no point was I worried about Dolf Lunger. I'm like, when is he going to, okay, and then what's going to happen in my head? He's going to save him and then Dahlv's going to give him a gun. And then at the end of the movie, they obviously let him go because he's redeemed himself. Like, everything was so called by numbers from the beginning.

From everything. And I get, it's a younger skewing comic movie. It doesn't matter though. But it shouldn't be dumb to adults. It should be catering to all audiences. To all everything. And even even, but even kids, they can handle something a little smarter than that. Yeah. Yeah. That's predictable. And like the end. All right, this whole time. So they set it up in the beginning that Mamoa wants to be the one who full disclosure to the entire world that these, that we live here. We're going to show them they can handle it. Let's do it. And then they ruined the moment. At the end of the movie, he gives his speech, and you're

like, in my head, the second the speech starts, I'm like, it's going to start out, he's giving the whole speech, and at the end he's going to go, yeah, dude, or something too, and then he's going to, and he does, and it completely kills. Also, you can't end the DCEU. This is spoilers, obviously, but you cannot end the DCEU with a Marvel reference.

Oh, right, what, what, he literally says, I am Aquaman. Right. The end of the movie is a reference to the beginning of the MCU, and I get self-referential humor. I get, it's all in comics, I get it's all in good It just felt like it didn't. It felt like it didn't care about the DCU. If you could just go like I'm Aquaman, like that's your last moment?

The last moment actually wasn't. Oh, even worse. It's even worse. So they set, which again, they set up this moment where they're walking through the jungle. They're walking through the jungle of wherever the hell they are. And they're talking about food that Patrick Wilson's missed out on. And he goes, you never had a cheeseburger man, you know this. And then they see a cockroach.

And I thought it was a prank. And he goes, yeah, it's a cock. and it's the shrimp of the land. And it seemed like he was going to prank his brother and making meat a cockroach. And then he eats it and Momoa's like, yeah, see, good. And doesn't really ever call back that it was a joke.

Yeah. And because we think it's gross, but Aquaman apparently doesn't think it's gross because it didn't seem like a joke to me. Right. He never said like one of the stupid YouTube videos, it's a prank, dude, it's a prank. So here's this moment that happens

and you're like, okay, that was fine. Then he's sitting at the end in this post-credit scene, Patrick Wilson eating the cheeseburger. You're like, okay, nice moment. He's eating the cheeseburger. He enjoys it. Then the cockroach shows up.

He puts it in the cheeseburger. And that's your last scene. It's okay if it's the Ant-Man moment where that's the drum scene. Sure. But you don't, at all the freaking reshoots that you did. Yeah. You don't say, hey, Ben, gal. Or even show a scene from Flash with Superman for all I care.

Any thing? Because they shot stuff with Caval. I was thinking, like, maybe they'll just give us a montage. They had an montage. A montage. Show us a montage. Oh, right, because yeah, because Affleck was on set. And the paparazzi were like, yeah, they literally shot stuff.

James Lamo announced he was going to be in the movie at one point. I totally forgot about that. And so, and then they, because of everything going on, they didn't want to confuse people, so they took it out. But it's like, if it's done. Put together, if you know that this is the end of it. Put together a little montage at the end to say like, look, we did our thing. That was it.

And we're done now. And it's over now, a new thing. It's like one last thing. Spend a grand on editors. and put together something with all the footage we'll never get to see. I would love to have seen Henry Cavill one last time. I'd love to see Affleck one last time.

I couldn't believe that that was the last thing that they ended with. They're just like, let's just get out of here. The movie was a cockroach burger. Yeah, yeah. They gave us that as the movie. And the last, I mean, I don't know if you saw the Mamoa speech with James Juan.

It was very like, it felt like a memorial already. And then the movie felt like that. Like, Mamoa sang by. It was very heartfelt, which I appreciated. James Juan. At the screen. Yeah, yeah. And, like, one, having that, like, this is part two of my two-act saga, like this is the movie I wanted to make.

I love that it felt heartfelt. But it didn't feel like we were celebrating Aquaman. It felt like we were more than DC-E-U. But the movie then felt like it was just trying to be done with it. Like, it was just trying to get through it. And you know, the movie's not sexy. No. It's not sexy.

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You can be a young buck like this guy. It can be an old broken horse like myself. It is good stuff. I'm telling you. Moving on. Back to the movie itself and the things that they just, and I mentioned this on our show on Friday, was that people are like,

You can't compare this to Godzilla minus one. Why not? And I'm like, why not? Why not? And I'm not talking about the movie and the story points. I'm talking about taking a movie and I understand Japan's budget, the way that they worked their budget is significantly different. They made their movie for $15 million.

But in reality, they probably make it for $100. Okay, great. This is still two. Right. This is over two. Right. So like, if you want to compare it. And it looks like shit.

The CGI is awful in this movie. Yeah. It's awful. People being like this the most comic accurate suit. I was like, where? And dude, that's the least of my concerns. Right. There's that whole scene where Nicole Kidman is is jumping around in the water when when

Yaya first attacks and she's like doing these moves and like them. This looks like early like 2000 like Sam Ramey stuff. It looks like actors doing warmups on stage. There are so many moments that look like actors doing their like got to shake off the weird warmups and it's in the movie. And I feel like Yaya underserved again. Like I feel so bad that he keeps getting underserved. Like he doesn't get to.

show how good he is again. And that was my big play with the first movie. It's like you've got this guy as Black Manta. How are you going to waste him? And then an entire other movie waste him. What a terrible story it is. It's like, what's his motivation still? The same motivation he had in the first one. I need revenge. Still. I need revenge because this guy killed my dad. I need revenge in night. And I'm just trying to figure. Oh, I got very lucky and found this thing. And now I'm being possessed. And when it really comes down to it, after I lose this power, Akamand is just going to tossed me off like a bitch and then the stupidest moment of the, when he's like, no, was he no chance or no way and he tries to do the Hans Gruber moment and flies back.

And it's so bad. It's so bad. It's written like it's, I love James Wan. Yeah. This is a blemish on his wonderful career. Oh, huge. And that's, that's so unfortunate that it had to be this. Yeah.

Because like a $200 million movie should never be this big of a blemish. And that's why I feel like it's so much studio jumbling. And like, to be honest, this gives me so much more hope in the, DCU because I want to like let this go. But you know you mentioned that. You know whose name's all over this? Peter Safran. His name is all over this movie. It's all over this movie. What was he doing? No, you're not wrong. It's all over this movie. Yeah. It's like Peter Saffron production, this, that is this one of the things they look at and they go, hey, you need a little bit of help on the here. We need James Gunn to balance this out. Because that's very true. There's sometimes you maybe

were part of a band beforehand. Sure. And you had some things that you were working in that band, but if you just had a better lead singer. But that first Shazam was his baby. Peacemaker was his baby. I think he was involved in part two. No, no, but I think Shazam 2 is much better than this. Yes. And Shazam 2 didn't feel like it was all interference.

Whereas this, to me, feels like it was one of the most studio made movies I've seen in years. But that's also hearsay. Sure. But the feel didn't feel like an art. I don't disagree with you. No artist made this movie. A committee made this movie. Just like the Marvels, I felt like it was made by committee.

A lot of notes about this movie. Yeah. Like, I feel like the Marvels was written by committee. edited by committee and like the actors and directors didn't get to do what they they should do. This to me even more so, written by 30 different people with cliches, edited, I didn't even have as big a problem with the editing that did with the Marvels, but the actual movie, even beyond the edit, never felt like it had anything to say. And when it did say stuff, it was cliche, like global warming bad.

I'm aware. Right. And it's so dull, dude. It's so dull. I would have loved an Acompan movie. And this is my, you know, aggressively empathetic sensibilities. I would think it'd be fascinating to have a global warming villain if done right for the age we're in.

On paper, that sounds aggressively like SJW, but in reality, Aquaman would give many bleeps about it. So why not do it right? But you can also say it in a way in a different... I mean, the references... They beat it over your head. They say it out loud like five times. So many different times.

It just kind of glossed over. It went right over my head. It kind of glossed past it because it just wasn't... I didn't take it serious because how do you take it... There was back in the day when Ellis and I used to do reviews, when movies were written poorly, we said it was written by some cartoon cat that got hammered and goes, oh, my God, I'm going to do a whole thing about,

oh, there's a global warming, and then we like the guy from the marvels. We're going to put the guy in the, from the, yeah, we're at the park. We like him, throw him in there. Oh, my goodness, there's a trident and Game of Thrones. Yay! And it's like, what? What? That's what I felt.

Right. It was just some crazy. And people got paid for this. Yeah, I know. And they're going to lose a lot of money. Oh, yeah, studio-wise. But like those writers already got paid. It's crazy.

And well, here's the other thing, though, too, is because I love Jason Momoa. I think he's a star. I think he's got a charisma. I think the second the guy walks into a room and goes, whoa, there's that guy. And he's a massive presence. Yeah. Not only do I think that he just, they let him just be too Jason Momoe in this and not even really Aquaman. he had a lot to do with the writing.

Yeah, they've made that really clear in the promos. And I think that was a problem. I think that he made it, he was like he, when you have a billion dollar movie and the billion dollar star, the only billion dollar star of the DCEU, you let him go. He goes, oh, what do you think we want to do? And people really like this guy,

especially coming off to probably the best performance in Fast X, right? Yeah, 100%. And you go, well, what do you want to do? Well, people really like when I do this. And like, even when he's like, King's, Bridges, whatever it is too, and he does that, the surfer thing runs out, does it. And it's like, it's just, he does this in everything. I feel like the same thing he's doing in interviews. He's doing as Arthur. And I, and I like that there's like, uh, you know, Simone culture represented

in the movie, but it did feel like that became the character, not a part of the character. And that's different than the first movie where like, I felt like every time he did something that was a, like one of the chance or one of the things. And I was like, okay, we, we, that's cool because the character as shown in the first movie is Samoan and Atlantean. Great to represent culture. But when it becomes the only thing I can tell you about the character, I don't know who the character is. And why do you really do it? It's because, you know, you know, Tamara Morrison is very strong in the culture and that he's,

and his representation of what he's done and everything from whether it's Boba Fed or this. He brings that with him. So is that why you're, because it's not represented very well in the script? No, because I feel like Tamara Morrison, whenever he does it, it feels authentic. It does. And not to say that Momoa was not doing it authentically, but in the script, it doesn't feel authentic. Because in the first movie, and I don't love the first movie, but what I will say about the first movie is that they do deliver a good kind of emotional dilemma that Arthur's going through. True.

And from his quest to know his mother, the quest to like really understand what he's about, who he is, it was all in there. All of that was in there. And there are scenes that stand out like Nicole Kibben's fight with the overhead. Yeah. And like James Wan directing got to shine. the stuff in the trench. Like there's a reason that was almost a spin-off.

There's nothing that feels like James Juan in here that feels like he got to make some art. It does. It's insane. If you didn't know, if this was James Juan's first movie, you're just like,

it was like, it was just like this. Who, who's directed? It doesn't feel like it was directed by anyone. No, it's just like a very, it's, it's, they put a camera on and they said, well, we want to do this and have some, you know,

editors throw some big moments in here and let Jason Momoa do his thing. And then they have this one woman who is, they tried to make her so important. kept being like what's happening with this woman. So there's a woman who starts to scream a lot. We don't know her name. No clue who this woman is.

She works for Yaya and she's going, you get over here, you do this. And she's screaming. And you're like, well, who is that? I thought I missed a scene. They don't sit at it. There was no introduction to her that I remember. Who is she?

Yeah. And then you get to a place where she's fighting. She's in the big mech robot. She's in the robot. She's in the robot. And she's kicking Momoa and Wilson's ass. And then you get at a place where she's going to be really in trouble. And they shoot it in a way like, oh, look.

looks like they finally got hurt. And my question is, who is she? I have no idea who she is. Never found out who she was. And that's an important enough character to that needs to be answered. From the way you're shooting it, you're telling me that I should care about,

that they've defeated this villain. Yeah. Who the hell is she? Her and Topo got so much screen time that I have no understanding. Nothing. And the movie's only two hours and it felt like four.

Yeah, and they also don't do a good job of, and I think every sequel should do this and every movie should do this. Even if you think that everyone has seen your movie because it was a billion-dollar movie. Give me a little bit of set up on who the hell Dolph Longgren is again, because I've seen the movie. But it's been a while.

Yeah, and the crabs doing the reference of the, my hand got cut off. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I guess that was a thing. It was five years ago, guys. It was five years ago. And it's like, you forget stuff. Because the TV shows, if they've been out, if it's been two years since the show has come out. They'll give you a little.

They give you a big rundown of previously on. Now, you can't do that in a movie. No, but you can do that through dialogue. You can do that through some things. The dialogue isn't, I got my hand cut off. No. Like that's not what we're saying. It's like that's a reference and you're trying to make a joke, but I don't know who you are, Mr.

Crab. Can me, let me care about, I don't care about these guys. They were like, there was these CGI characters that just didn't give a shit. And that's the James Juan saying this is part one, part two. If you watched them back to back,

I get that, but it's still a five-year leap and it's still a sequel where we don't have a lot of investment. And if you think about it, there's not a lot of new characters. And I'm still not invested in the characters that I was last time. Right, because it's a very quiet one billion dollars. movie. You know what I mean? It's like there are some billion dollar movie and even like

something like Avatar. You've got to go back and revisit Avatar before they come out because first of all the first one was 2009. The second one was last years ago or whatever. So you've got to revisit it in order to find out what the hell's going on and that was the highest grossing movie of all time. You still got to revisit it because of the time gap

and that was 10 plus years as opposed to five but still five is a lot. Like seven months and my brain's going, wait, who's that? Five's the whole generation nowadays. Yeah. Like if you think about like how quickly things evolved, how much things change. Like society five years ago, we hadn't had a pandemic yet. I know. Like it's, you know what I mean? Like the world is literally different. The amount of stuff that it came in and out between that time. Yeah. It's crazy. That was the superhero heyday. And now it's like, we're rebuilding here. And that's another conversation that we're going to have

about the superhero genre and how it's changed and how that had a big to do of why this movie is in the place that it is in right now. We'll talk about that in the second. But before I do, I want to tell you about AG1 and Rocket Money. Here. You're go. I always get excited when I get a chance to talk about AG1. You guys know if you've been listened to this show long enough, you know that I've been talking about them. I've been drinking them now for it. It's got to be at least two years. I started drinking AG1. I think Brett Sheridan told me about it. I said, you can't mess around with this man. You've got to try it. And I did. And it's a foundational nutritional supplement that supports your body's universal needs like gut

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Go to rocketmoney.com slash thing. That's rocketmoney.com slash thing. Rocketmoney.com slash thing. All right, thank you to our friends who are at AG1 Rocket Money. It's the holiday season, man. If you're able to support the show and you're like, hey, I really like this show. I like what you guys do and I want to support. How do I do it?

That's how you do it. Get yourself something. I'm telling you to get yourself a Christmas gift today. Get it today. That helps out the show and you get yourself a gift. I think that's a good deal. We talked about before the break, Coy, that the genre in 2018 when this came out was at its peak. Yeah.

You had Infinity War was either out or coming out or whatever. I think it probably was out at that point. I think into the Spider-Verse as well. I think literally the best. That was our album year. Like that's the now that's what I call superhero movies. It was crushing. And all these movies were crushing at this point.

And it was at people weren't in a place where every superhero movie that comes out now. They go, what's this? Yeah. Who is this now? What do I have to know? That wasn't there back then. And it definitely helped. And D.C. was on this climb of

coming back with Wonder Woman and everything, they were coming back. They were kind of climbing back. And that has gone away now, especially after Black Adam, Shazam, Blue Beetle, which I liked, but, but, but I actually, I'm one of the few people that liked both Black Adam, Shazam 2. And I did, the funny part is I think Shazam 2, the worst part of Shazam 2 was, was Zach Levi. Right, right. Yeah, no, I think this year, D.C. had their smaller hits were, not bad. Like, they're not great, but like those three aren't bad. They're not bad, but they, but they've done, but they did bad. The Flash did bad. They all did bad. And so it doesn't help. And they're like, end the fact that now you get

James Gunn. Shazam 2 was this year, wasn't it? Yeah. So we had four DC movies this year, all of which. Well, Black Adam was last year, wasn't it? Was Black Adam this year? No, last year was Black Adam and Shazam did, um, did, uh, Comic Con together. Wasn't it? Shazam was this year. But was Black Adam? Shazam was March and I think Black Adam was, let me check. I have no, dude, what a year. So yeah, Shazam 2 was March of 2023, and then Black Adam was last year. So we had four this year with Blue Beetle Shazam Flash and this, which is insane that DC had a four movie year. And none of them delivered.

It was a major. And this is why Warner Brothers is meeting with Paramount. Right. And that's what worries me most is, you know, we talk about monopolies. And we talk about the more consolidation there is, the less overhead, the less creativity, the less people can compete. competition breeds, you know, creativity. And I do worry if Warner Brothers owns, you know, Top Gun.

If Warner Brothers owns, you know, a lot of the opposite. I think if Paramount owns. I don't know who's doing better. How's Paramount plus do? Paramount's doing. At least they're in the up in the black. Paramount did not have the amount of loss that Warner Brothers had. That's true.

And they've got Yellowstone. If Warner Brothers wasn't in trouble, they wouldn't be meeting with Paramount. Yeah, that's fair. Paramount's going to be making. And who, I can't remember who brought this up. I think it was. I can't remember.

I can't remember. But somebody brought up the fact of like, all right, so now we have this DC universe that James Gunn has. And so if Paramount gets a hold of it, and they get a hold of it this year, like this year. Is Superman the only movie that's his control? Not necessarily. This is the way that I looked at it.

I'm curious if you agree. So the way that if Paramount gets a hold of it, and they go, okay, well, look, James, you got the keys to the castle, you stick with your plan. If you plan, if Superman doesn't work, it's over. We're pulling the plug. I think that's no matter what.

No matter what. But definitely a Paramount and they're probably going to pull the plug on it, stick DC on the shelf for a little bit, give it some rest because it's just a damaged brand. If Superman doesn't pull. Flip side of that as Superman pulls, they go, okay, keep going. What does your plan look like? But you've got, you've got different, you've got different rules now. Yeah.

So. I think Paramount, you know, they actually, it'd be ironic because they released Iron Man. If you're really ironic, if Paramount becomes the other side of the superhero, you know, two-sided coin. But I do worry overall having less versatility in the studio system to that scale. I think we talked about was it Apple and Warner Brothers. And I was like, fuck it. Yeah, because I was like, well, because it was, I was just saying I want more money behind the superhero films. I don't remember who it was.

But I remember just thinking like, but then the more I think about it, the more I'm concerned for oversight. Like, I don't think a monopoly. I think that's fair to call that a monopoly. The Marvel DC Warner Brothers thing is already scary and the Marvel Fox thing is already scary. Yeah, it's funny. I think, and I don't disagree with it. I've seen tons of people who twid the stuff out.

It doesn't phase me as much because I'm like, it's just, you're basically just whittling down superpowers. And it's like, you're making one more powerful. You're not whittling. You're taking out one of them. Yeah, that makes the thing bigger. They basically is kind of teamed up.

You have Disney and Fox, which Disney became this thing. It didn't help them. No. Like the Yankees. You know, it was like, too much to look at. It's so much, you had so much budget. You had star power. And Disney had, Disney on its 100th year.

Had its worst year. Worst year ever. Its stock is down like, the billions of dollars. It's crazy how much, like the amount of like where they were going and how they were this, again, this incredible. The reason why they were able to buy Fox is the years that they were having. And then now they've done. a terrible year, and then you look at Warner Bros.

Who is starting to fail now, too. If it's just Disney and then Paramount and then Universal, I understand, and you lose a lot of jobs and everything, too, and I'm not taking that away too. Also, you piss off one PR person, we're out of work. I understand all of it. If we piss off a third of town by making one person an enemy. I understand all of it.

I understand all. I'm just saying that for like, I don't, I just don't, and I also don't look into it as much, too, but I do get it. I do get it. I just think that it is going to be monies. for sure. And the question is it going to help or hurt? But what if Paramount loves a director?

What, okay, what if Warner Brothers hates Tyler Sheridan just for an easy name? Because Paramount loves them. Right. How does that affect the entire industry? Because that's millions of jobs because Taylor Sheridan has like, you know what I mean? Yeah, sure. But that's also who's got the power positions inside of this deal? Who's got veto power?

Who has all this? I don't know if anyone does because Zazov clearly doesn't care about anything. Well, no, Zazlov's probably, from what they said when Zazov came into this thing, that Zazlov was ready to sell this thing. Right, that's what I'm saying. He doesn't care. He cares about them. So Paramount's going to be the ones in charge.

I'm getting rid of Tyler Sheridan, but I know what your point is. I'm just, yeah, I'm not saying to get rid of it. I'm saying a big fixture of blank. It's like any other company that gets bought over everything to, the deals that you thought were going to go into place because someone got replaced. Like, I've worked for companies where the particular person, we had this whole plan going on and they said, once this year happens, you're going to be doing this, this, this, and then that person leaves and so-and-so goes in.

that job's gone. Yeah. And that's why I'm saying like what if someone at Paramount Haynes James gone. Again, these are all hypotheticals but the big players here. And that's what worries me

about any sort of monopoly and any sort of thing of this scale with something this big. But I do agree. It's actually interesting. I haven't thought about that. Disney pre-Fox acquisition and then in this case

if Paramount acquires, one of brothers or vice versa, the bigger they are, the harder they fall. I think that's why these two companies get hit so hard by the pandemic is because they had so much more to lose than a company

that didn't need to make billions each time. But they're also, their heavy hit, well, Disney, their heavy hitters weren't delivering. Marvel didn't deliver this year. And then Star Wars has been sitting on the shelf since 2019. Yeah, which is insane. And their last movie

wasn't, you know, love or hated. It made a billion dollars, though. It did, but it didn't get, nobody talks about it. People talk about the Last Jedi because it's, you know, as you texted me, very polarizing. But you did, you did that to piss me. I love the Last Jedi.

It is my favorite sentence empire. Comfortably. Look at me in my eye and tell me that you did not send that tweet out because you knew it was going to cause a fire. Every year, I tweet about The Last Jedi to defend it. I phrased it in a way that would get traction. So both things are true. I did phrase it very coldly because I knew it would get traction. But that's what Twitter's for.

And therefore, for me. But I immediately muted it and went, thanks. And instead of being like, instead of being political, I was like, I'll be political about Star Wars. But I will tell you to your face. It's my favorite since empire personally. Yeah. But we talk about it. You didn't say it's fair.

You said it's best. That's fair. That's too shay. And that's the antagonizing part. That's the phrasing. No, but I think that we talk about last Jedi. We don't talk about the ninth one, which I can't. It escapes my name.

Yeah. So to me, 2019, not only did it end with a whimper culture. It made a billion. Nobody talks about that billion dollars. For sure, but it doesn't change the fact that still,

you haven't put a movie. The Patty Jenkins movie was supposed to come out this year. Whoa. It was just come out this month. Yeah, we looked up. We're doing an episode this upcoming Friday about our best and worse of 2023. We looked up,

23 and there was an article from December Craven, Madam Webb Blade and strikes and stuff too Push and stuff. But like, sure. But also How crazy is that? Also smart for Sony because Sony ain't going to make profit on those movies. But next year they're going to be the only game in town. Yeah, but those movies aren't going to do well. I think they'll do better than they would have this year.

Maybe. Because like this year they would have been competing with other movies failing. But Aquaman, dude, Aquaman Lens like all these movies they all create a ripple effect. Dr. Strange doing what it did and people going, because that movie's not like beloved, people, Ramey fans love it. But it's Rise of Skywalker.

We won't talk about it in the conversation. Exactly, but it does, but it also adds to the casual audience going, sure. And then as, and then Thor Love and Thunder, which also made money, but people go, oh, sure. That's a good point.

And then it starts to do it. And then you get Black Adam and then you get these movies in there. It's like, boom, boom, boom, boom. And you're like, whoa, it's a casual audience member. Like, this is just not. good stuff. And then a movie like Craven comes down. Like, what the fuck is that? And then, again, it's a casual viewer. And then Madam Webb and you're like, no thanks. And these movies just add to the studios going, maybe no one cares about this stuff. Right. And especially with

the Sony ones in particular being Marvel adjacent. Right. Because the Marvel banners on it. So I think that's going to throw a lot of people off next year because all we have is Deadpool. Yeah. Again, I think Deadpool's the most important movie Marvel has had since Infinity War. It's as big as Superman legacy is for DC. Yeah. it has to deliver. And Aquaman basically, I think, again, it's, it's, we recorded this to air on December, right, to air on Christmas. The movie had just come out when we're taping it. It was tracking for $35 to $40 million. I think it's going to be lucky. What do you think the audience is going to think of this movie, the audience? The audience. The real audience are the people that spam brought in tomatoes. No, I think the real, you know, the casual, like, look at Rebel Moon. That, that audience score, I've never. Never seen more of this. Rebel Moon was like the critic score came out low

and then the audience score came out middle and then all of a sudden the audience score was super high because Snyder fans got, I don't think Aquaman has that by any means, but I do think there's going to be a very inconsistent what reality is versus what it looks like optically with Aquaman. So I think that audiences will like this in a bubble, pun intended.

But I don't think every day audiences will vibe with this. Will the casual fan go to this movie and find it like, it was fun. I think we'll have a lot of that, but that doesn't mean it have legs. Because I think it'll be this or Wonka, which is ironic

that Warner Brothers is cannibalizing itself. And I think once people find out that Wonka's a musical, people are going to turn left. I don't think it's ironic that it's cannibalizing himself. I think they know what this movie is. I think it is clear as day

that they knew that Aquaman was going to be a big loss for them. So they threw Wonka to... They said, put Wanka. Look, Wanka will be there, and then for us, if Wanka does well, and Owanka is doing well. It's killing it.

It will overseas. It's doing well. And it basically serves as the Christmas movie now that if you want to see, and they know. It buoys their quarter four numbers, too. They knew that there's never more of a clear telling sign that, A, they put the screening up the day before, hardly, and not a mass press screening, limited. Also, very telling 7 a.m. drop for the embargo because people who went and bought their tickets already had tickets. Already had tickets. Anyone that's pre-reserved was well before 7 a.m.

So they knew it. They go, we need, and this is why I also say it. They knew it was that bad. Why not take a tax break? Because you're making a $250 million movie. You've got to get something back in the, and you have to get something back. Yeah. So even if they know like, okay, look, they strategized about this.

They go, this is not a good movie, guys. It's not. And there's a reason. They're never going to tell you. Even Gunn barely mentioned it. Remember the thing why back in the day and he was like, I love Blue Beetle. She's really excited for Saddam to. And we've got Aquabat.

And I remember being like, oh no. And that was a year ago. Gunn knows this movie. 100%. They'll never say it, obviously, but Gunn knows this movie stinks because there's a reason why it's four reshoots. Reshoots are normal. One or two? Sure.

And additional photography's normal reshoots are not the same. Of course. And then, but to do it, and then he gave an extra round of it and where they were, who knows, but they knew. So that's the reason why Wonka is out there. But I don't know, what else can you really say about this movie? The performances again, so Amber Hurd, people are asking about Amber Hurd if she's in it. She's in it. I mean, you can definitely, she's in the movie.

I think she was in way more. I think you're probably right. And they probably, they cut her up. You couldn't cut her out of the movie entirely because. But it makes it so much worse. Because I was, you didn't have the same sense. You didn't have the same sense as I did.

But I felt like every time she showed up, she was like a DeSX Machina to save Aquaman. This is the spoiler review. Every time she was there, it was either to remind you that he is a baby or it was to be like, oh, Aquaman's hurt, I'll save you. And it made it like she's the hero that's stronger than Aquaman,

which is going to antagonize the exact. the exact people that didn't want her in it. So she's not like a, the white savior in the traditional sense of being a problem narratively. She's a savior in the sense of like, I'm only here conveniently to save the strong lead we have. Pissing off the fucking people that don't want her there

in the first place. Because of editing her to her only, because she doesn't serve a narrative other than like scooping. She gets hurt. And that, Ray is worthless. It shoots her. She recovers quick.

Then it shoots the brother. He's fine. He's fine. He's totally fine. And we finally get a direct shot of Black Manta onto Orm, and that was the bloodiest anyone got, and then like, he's okay. Yeah, everybody was okay. Everyone's fine. Everyone was fine. It was kids playing with action figures, smashing him together, going like tight. And explain to me this.

Here's this powerful thing. Yep. And so, what is it? The Trident. And so he throws it at the guy at the end, the guy catches it. And he just throws another one. That one goes through. We set up a villain for two hours. We make him the boogeyman. We make him the manifestation of climate change itself.

We make him literally Lord of the Rings meets Leonardo DiCaprio documentary, like huge powerhouse. And then he catches, like you said, and is destroyed without new dialogue. He has one line out of the ice and literally gets killed by and the dialogue is so, I don't

know specifically, but it's something along the lines of, now I can return. And he like breaks the chain, it is so bad. It's a Disney Channel ride. I mean, a Disney park ride. It reminds me of the first, not the Suicide Squad, but Suicide Squad Oh yeah, which we learned

from, I thought, because that movie is known to be bad in that sense. I want to see the Ayer cut because I do believe David Ayer is a good director. That is not a David Ayer movie. This isn't a James Juan movie, and that's why I'm saying it's directed by studio. It feels like, that's a great example. It feels like Suicide Squad in that, that's not the director

I know. The only difference is the air was out there from the beginning saying, this ain't my movie. That's true. I think Juan might, he so wants to play ball with Conjuring, he's got the Conjuring verse and all that stuff too. He makes a lot of money for them. He makes a lot of money for them. The nun too made a lot of money. And that's all in-house. I think I think he needs to keep. Of course. He's like, yeah, you know what? You know what Ayer's not doing?

What a word orator brothers? No. You know what I mean? What a great point that is. Because to James Juan, if I'm James Wan, I'm going to look. Yeah, if someone says to me, how you're feeling? I'm all right. Look, the movie didn't come out of it. It's not yet. I'm going to go work with Orm on a conjuring movie. I've got Patrick Wilson still in my house. He makes so much money. Yeah. Of what he's doing. The amount of money. He's making it on The Conjuring First and there's none movies. And this is just exposure. It's not good exposure.

But it's like, okay, I made Aquaman and then I went back and made my billions. Right. So I don't know. I wouldn't say anything. And Ayer did. And now Ayer's still trying to get the air cut out. Right. Right.

There's a reason James Gunn said, yeah, we'll get it out because it's like it's making that audience feel like it's possible. Hopefully it does. Is it the air cut? Yeah. At some point. Oh, is it James Gunn's? Yeah.

At some point, but I hope it happens because I like Ayer. I want to see it. I'm curious to see it. if it's that different because I do like David. But that's appeasing the 10% of Snyder fans that are giving him a chance to me. And you know what I mean?

Like I think that 90% of Snyder fans will never give him the time of a day. I think 10% will and I hope Ayer gets the benefit of that. But I don't think anyone in Juan's position would ever even acknowledge it. Well, look, that's it, man. Merry Christmas. Everyone that's always wanted to negative view from me.

This is all I could give them because I could not find, I wanted to love this. I really did. I mean, again, like Jason Memoa. How do you know move for that guy? And James Juan, but you can't, you gotta be honest. And Yaya Abdul Mateen, man.

Like literally looking at Yaya's filmography, he's a star. This feels like the same level of blight as James Wan. Like it's that same tarnish of like, he deserved better. Does. Coy, where can I find you? You find me on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube at Coy Jondro.

I'm gonna be doing my end of the year and my most anticipated probably early January. This year's actually, and we talked about it, one of the episodes. I think one of the better years in film, not. You got canceled. Oh, that episode got canceled. In an episode, in the Snyder cut of Caves and

There's an episode where we talk about. I think honestly, 2023 is one of the better years for non-superhero film with two exceptional superhero films in Spider-Vers and Guardians. So I'm really excited to look at the non-superhero fare like Salt Burn and Air

and Godzilla. So I'm going to be making my top 23 of 2020 next week. So you'll see a lot of those here for me, and I think Quay means this week because this is Christmas. Oh, yeah, this week. So same here. I might have my top list up already. I got a Best of Movies coming out,

movies and TV with Roka and Merrill. We have a best of the comic book years. We have the comic book TV and movies. We have a lot of stuff going on here. So if you're brand new the channel and never been here before, click that subscribe button. Get us to 200,000 subscribers, faster than we got to 100. So thanks for joining me here today and Koi. Appreciate you.

And we'll see you on the flip side. Bye.