Marvel’s Biggest L? Captain America 4 is Worse Than We Thought!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: What up, everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the Nerd Jin Report. This is one of the episodes I've been waiting for for quite some time, Brian. And we both, I guess, have. Will have our take and discuss what's been said about the film, what we think about the film. So that should be an interesting conversation. I was trying to be thoughtful how I thought about this film, trying to ignore some of the same stuff that I was reading in reviews that I already had thought this movie would come out and turn out to be. So I tried not to let that influence my thought on it. So I've been taking my time and sort of thinking about how I'll do, how I will talk about this movie. Brian, you saw it when Friday night. And Brian texts because this was going to be a quick conversation. Then he says, it made me angry. I'm ready. I would like to hear what made you want to extend perhaps what this conversation was going to be in terms of time. So let's start off with you, what you think. [00:01:21] Speaker B: I thought it was awful. I hated it. I thought it was, I mean, all the, this was a situation where everything that we heard in the kind of the rumblings and in the wind leading up to this, I thought you could see on screen, especially towards the end. I, I really them on the PR circuit trying to on downplay and deny the extent of the reshoots and the extent of the is. Is just silly because you can see it. [00:01:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:01:52] Speaker B: Throughout this film, the way it's cut, the way it moves, the way characters like Giancarlo Esposito really feel just stitched in place. Yeah. But it, it's a bad movie. It's a really bad movie and it is a boring movie. I mean, that boring word has been around this film since the beginning. And like, Even though it's 2 hours and 1 minute, it felt like 3 hours. I sadly have almost nothing good to say about it. I have maybe the germs of one idea that I thought was vaguely interesting. And I mean, maybe there's like a shred of, you know, I can give a nod to some of the actors who were, who didn't totally mail it in, but there's really not much to recommend this movie. And if I was, you know, anyone in my life who's sort of not a Die Hard, even if they are a Die Hard superhero movie fan, I would say just wait for it to come out on streaming. Like, don't go. Don't waste your money, because there's nothing cinematic and cool. Big screen about going to see this. And that is really, really sad. [00:03:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I had the same feeling when I came out of the movie theaters. I was like, I could have. I could have seen this joint at home. You know, I could have seen this movie. Does nothing to get me excited for whatever the hell they got next coming up, but continue. [00:03:19] Speaker B: So I was trying to think of the analogy because they did some things so blatantly in this movie. And I came up with. I don't know if, you know, it's kind of been in the news a little bit with trade policy, but I don't know if you're a big TEMU or shine shopper, but. Okay, but you know what they are, right? They're like, you know, okay, so you look at all the ads on those sites, and everything looks like it's designer and everything looks like his brand name. But then it costs like 39 cents, and you order it and you receive it from China, and it looks like it cost 39 cents. Like, this is the Temu. Captain America. That's what this movie is. They. They attempt to do almost all of the elements of Captain America Winter Soldier. It just looks cheap, sounds dumb, doesn't work. And at the end of it, you're kind of like, yeah, this is like a. This is a cheap dupe of the franchise that I used to love. And that's kind of what, you know, the. The tagline felt like to me because it was so. Didn't you find it so blatant? It's like, okay, here's their. Here's. Here's this version of the Lemurian star scene. Here's this version of the Samuel Jackson vehicle assault scene. Here's this version of Natasha's fight scene. You know, this is. Every element of this was copied in a cheap, worse way from Winter Soldier because they were trying to recreate the vibes of an actually great Marvel movie. [00:04:43] Speaker A: And they tried to recreate the moment in what if season three with him talking down the Hulk, the Godzilla Hulk. [00:04:52] Speaker B: The floor is yours for the Hulk. I'm not even going to mention the Hulk because this did not improve the overall Hulk standing in the mcu, let's just say. So where to begin, I guess with where this went wrong. And I guess I don't know what your thoughts are, but the first thing that really disappointed me and actually seeing this movie was the whole idea of it feels flawed. We find out that. And these are. There'll be spoilers here to the extent people care, but we find out that sort of Three years have passed. Right. It's basically Sam has been on the job for three years, hence he already has this dynamic with Joaquin Torres. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Well. And he could finally get a loan. [00:05:36] Speaker B: Right. So I'm kind of like, oh, yeah, that's right. So he gets a free drink too. Drinks. But it totally eliminates the process by which he earns respect as a new Captain America. He just has it. At the start of the movie, the soldiers treat him basically the same as they would Chris Evans. And him and Joaquin Torres just have their dynamic. There's no feeling. There's no building of chemistry or no introduction or finding their way. It's just. We're just given that. And this is a recurring issue that I've had with Disney in the post endgame era, where they take the idea that could have been actually interesting and they're too lazy or too incompetent to actually develop that on screen. And so they just skip it entirely. And then they just go to a place that kind of doesn't make total sense, drop you in it, and they're like, let's do this. So immediately I thought the entire idea from which they started this missed kind of the. The promise of what a Sam Wilson Captain America could have been in the shadow and then emerging from the shadow of the Steve Rogers Captain America. [00:06:57] Speaker A: No, no. Yeah. I. They try to make us feel as if he has earned the mantle of Captain America. And. And it came across to me like, it's like all these references. I should have taken the serum. And they were just playing with the joke of. Because that's been the conversation even before the movie came out. She should. He get it, whatever. Right. And so they made a joke of that I didn't like too much. I didn't like his character, man. Because although you don't know the guy that you're going to go meet in Con Lumsley, Isaiah, Isaiah Bradley, you don't go in there and start, you know, playing games with him and calling him names and trying to make him feel awkward. That's just. For me, that's a lack of respect. Him going in there and start mentioning his age and stuff like that. You don't do that in real life. So for me, that took me out of it. The other thing is, like, I don't know if they were trying to be funny, but when he was being interrogated and he said, I was going to get a haircut, yo, his haircut was crazy. What barber did he go to? I'm sorry, his. His fro was. I don't know what was that, but that threw me off. And the fact that yo. Khan, Lovely didn't really need to be in this movie. He didn't need to be in this movie. And the fact that this dude is a congressman, after all the stuff that he's done, it's crazy. [00:08:27] Speaker B: It must be a fun debate. The. The Bucky Barnes. The Bucky Barnes or his opponent must have some very fun. [00:08:34] Speaker A: I want to hear that debate. I want to hear that debate. [00:08:37] Speaker B: So here's. [00:08:38] Speaker A: All you gotta do is. Because all you gotta do is say a few words. This will go crazy again. We don't know. We gotta. We gotta say it and just watch him, just see what happens. But it was just ridiculous. Yo. Some of these characters and who they were and how they made this look like. Yo. And you write, this is the table of Captain America, which is soldier. [00:09:00] Speaker B: Yo. So you're flowing into the second thing, which is. Look, so the idea. The idea to me is flawed. Right. They get the idea wrong. They get the stakes wrong. But that, to me then gets trumped by the fact that this is the worst written superhero movie I've ever seen. Ever. Ever. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:19] Speaker B: Like, this makes the Sony product look like Shakespeare. [00:09:23] Speaker A: Oh, hey, Brian, you going. You. [00:09:28] Speaker B: I'm not kidding. This is why I got angry. This is why I got angry. [00:09:33] Speaker A: Okay. [00:09:34] Speaker B: Because they had five screenwriters, I think, work on this that are officially credited. So you knew. We knew from all the reshoots. It was kind of a mess. [00:09:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:09:43] Speaker B: But some of the lines that they're asking these people to say, mind control. The world needs this treaty. You're gonna die. Like, are you kidding me? Like, seriously, if I just went to chat GPT right now, and I. And I said, give me a updated version of Captain America, Winter Soldier. A hundred over 100. I get a better script than what we actually got. You want an endorsement for having AI involved in movies which I know is controversial right now, this Oscar season, this movie is it. This script wasn't F minus. Minus. Minus. This is the worst superhero movie script I've ever, ever, ever been seen or been around. [00:10:22] Speaker A: Can we get to the scene where Bucky appears? [00:10:24] Speaker B: Sure. [00:10:26] Speaker A: So we get to the scene, Bucky appears, you get the oohs and ask from people, whatever. Right. Then, you know, you get this. You get. You try to give us the Iceman and Tom and Maverick scene. [00:10:38] Speaker B: Yep. [00:10:38] Speaker A: And then you go into the thing that you saw in the first Ocean's Eleven film when George Clooney is talking to Brad Pitt about how he got to do this and stuff like that. And then he says, did you rehearse that? Yeah, a little bit. You gave us that line, yo. [00:10:53] Speaker B: And not only that. [00:10:54] Speaker A: Done over and over and over in films. And you want to do that, yo. [00:10:58] Speaker B: So they gave you that line. Right? So you gave the ocean's 11 ripoff. That line also riffs on Mackie telling Evans when he's in the helicarrier. Did you write that down first? Right. That's obviously a ripoff of that small point. They're having that exchange while Joaquin Torres is lying in critical condition on the surgeon's table in front of them. Talk about not reading the room. [00:11:21] Speaker A: It's like you forget about this dude is in critical condition here. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Which, by the way, is obviously a recut of the Nick Fury on the table scene in Winter Soldier, Except I don't recall them wise cracking each other and one upping each other with jokes while he was lying there. [00:11:41] Speaker A: It was serious stuff going on in. [00:11:43] Speaker B: A movie that actually had humor. But then that's what I mean. Like, the writing is God awful. And it's weird because, like, the. I don't remember feeling like other than the. Other than the last episode of Falcon and Winter Soldier. I don't remember feeling like the writing in that show was that bad. Yeah, but the lead writer on this is the same guy, Malcolm Spellman. So I don't know if his version. [00:12:08] Speaker A: Got shocked up, he gave up. I don't know. [00:12:11] Speaker B: But I mean, this is. This is grade school level dialogue. I mean, that scene when, like, the leader, who we'll get to later, is wrestled to the ground and he's basically yelling at him, you'll die. You'll die. That's. That's his last line before the. Before the credits stinger. Like, it's childish. [00:12:28] Speaker A: You go through the. All these length to hide or leak out what the leader looks like. Oh, yet you show me Galactus. Yo, you show me Galactus, but you hide this guy. We don't see him until that moment in the theaters for a reaction, but yet you give us Galactus right there in the film. [00:12:52] Speaker B: We'll get to that. [00:12:53] Speaker A: In your trailer. [00:12:54] Speaker B: We'll get to that. Actually, I do think there's a Fantastic Four. That's part of the reason I wanted to have the longer discussion. There's a Fantastic Four connection to this movie I want to talk about. Anyways, okay, so we've killed the writing, which there's no coming back from. The direction of this movie stinks. I'm sorry. Like, name one scene in this movie that you were like, wow, I'm glad I went to the theater to catch that on the big screen. [00:13:20] Speaker A: No, there wasn't a scene like that. At least somewhat entertained for that moment that they're fighting in the Indian Ocean without the super serum and all these things that he's able to do. Yo. It's just. I don't know. [00:13:34] Speaker B: But, but see, so I agree that the premise of that fight scene is the most interesting fight scene in the movie because I think the. As ham handed as it might have been, the efforts to tie Tiamat to the universe and to the X Men is the one interesting thing that occurs in this movie. I actually like what we. The rumor we heard ahead of time that the. The material adamantium would become this politicized tool that would bring nations into conf. I actually that's the one idea in this movie that I was like, interested in and would like to see further explored. But here's my counter on the Indian Ocean thing. Think about. You reference Iceman and Maverick. So think about the blocking and the staging of aerial combat in Top Gun. Think about how it's done in Dunkirk and then think about how it's done in this movie. This is terrible. That's like the premise of the fight scene makes sense. How it's executed and how it looks is inexcusably bad. And this is throughout the film. There's multiple action scenes that occur in dim light or in darkness that look terrible. You can't see what's happening. There's nothing cool. There's no cool fighting the way there was in Winter Soldier or the way there was in Daredevil, which is also done a lot in darkness. It's just gobbledygook with bad lighting, bad staging, poor focus. Like, it's bad direction. Like, I'm sorry, call it for what it is. Like, I, you know, I don't know who else they talk to about directing this movie, but Julius Ona didn't do a good job. He didn't. And maybe he's not. This is not his bag. I mean, if you look at his resume, he hasn't directed this type of movie. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. We've seen Marvel have success with directors making the leap before the Russos being the most notable, But I didn't see anything in this movie to say to that. Showed creativity, that showed command of the camera. There's even like non scenes with non fighting scenes where I was like, why is the sun in my eyes right now? Literally, like, there's a sun glare. I'm like, why are you doing that? That's stupid. Like, that doesn't. That's distracting me from. Maybe you're trying to distract me from the bad dialogue, but that's distracting me from the actual scene. So this movie looks poor, and not just because of the cgi. [00:15:48] Speaker A: I didn't believe Sam Wilson in the Captain America role in being like, not everybody can fight, yo. I don't. Not everybody can fight or are able to go one on one with somebody, especially this other. The guy that they got him. And then when he fights Giancarlo, he's like, oh, come on, man. He should be able to take out Giancarlo like that. He ain't special. He ain't special. But yet you. When he's. He's fighting five, ten dudes, and it's all good. But when he gets a young kylo. Come on, man. Come on. You want to make me believe all of this? [00:16:31] Speaker B: Well, this is a recurring theme in this movie, right? Because. So the fighting and the believability of the fighting. And we. We talked about this when we saw the trailer. This was a question I asked about, like, is the suit. Can the suit do too much versus what can he actually do without the. Without the serum? And we do get the inconsistency because on the one hand, as you say, he has no problems in his Lemurian Star replay where he's taken out multiple guys. Then all of a sudden, he comes up against one big guy who. One big human who breaks his ribs who, like, inflicts real damage. Right? File that one away. That. That's kind of the limit of where he's at. Then Sidewinder kind of slices and dices him a little bit, but then he's sort of saved by the Kevlar weave of his shirt. So, like. And I'm with you, I'm kind of like, okay, but maybe he didn't have his gear, so that. Maybe that's sort of. We can get away with that. But then he takes multiple direct blows from the Hulk in the suit, which. Which he sustained broken ribs in from a human punch in the first scene, and he's fine. When you make the stakes the way they did, you can't have that inconsistency. You have to be smarter. Again, indictment of the writing, indictment of the direction to make it believable. And part of the art of a fight, in his case, with the Hulk, to me, would have been avoiding the contact, right? Knowing that if he takes even with the Vibranium suit. If he takes one or two direct blows, he's probably dead. But instead, he takes the blows and it powers up his suit to where he can then stab the Hulk more effectively. [00:18:17] Speaker A: I mean, not good. There is that, I guess, feature of the Vibranium material that he's wearing that it. That he's able to receive blows and redirect that energy, that kinetic energy. Right. But I get the point is, like, if he's able to do this with the hook, he shouldn't have a problem with all these other people. [00:18:51] Speaker B: So why, if that's the case, why didn't the one guy's punch at the start of the movie just rebound on the guy? Like, wouldn't it have been cooler if he had punched. Punched the suit and the suit had just repelled him across the room? And Sam's, like, totally fine, I think. [00:19:02] Speaker A: But I think the Vibranium is only in the wings. In my. That's what I think is only in the wings. The Vibranium should, In my. From my perspective, is only in the wings is where he has that. That. That capability. [00:19:15] Speaker B: Well, fine, then they should have had. Then in that opening scene, they should have had him fold the wings down so that he took the punch off the wing. Like, it. Like I said, it's just inviting this sort of like, how is this possible? How is he having so much trouble here? And then he's, like, impervious over here. [00:19:30] Speaker A: And what did you think of Harrison Ford's performance? [00:19:35] Speaker B: Horrendous. Awful. Totally miscast. [00:19:41] Speaker A: This is. This is Kevin going Hollywood, but go ahead. [00:19:44] Speaker B: You got it. I'm a massive Harrison Ford fan. He's one of the top two or three actors in my lifetime. So this is. This is. This is a guy that's in my personal hall of fame a billion times over, but he's miscast. [00:19:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:56] Speaker B: And I don't know if they intended to make a. An inadvertent commentary on the state of politics today, but they certainly did a great job of underscoring that. He's too old and too old to be the president, and he is the same age as the guy who just exited office. But I think the issue is just his affect as Ross is wrong because he's just kind of channeling the Harrison Fords that we've seen. Right. He's kind of part Indy. He's kind of part his character from Air Force One, and it just doesn't work. He's also saddled with horrendous dialogue. I mean, how many times did he Say the word treaty. Seriously, like, how many times did he say that word? You could have had a drinking game for? How many times he says treaty without actually kind of explaining the true ins and outs of what the treaty means. It's just treaty. [00:20:46] Speaker A: The treaty. What did you think? Because in one breath he says he stays, and then the next moment, you're not Steve Rogers. I don't know where that you're not Steve Rogers sort of moment came from. I think it was just put in there just to. For. For an effect. But it didn't affect me in a way. Like, why. Like, why you say that? Like, that would have been like, yo. I mean, where did that come from? [00:21:11] Speaker B: They put it in there because it's the thing they should have been exploring all along in the movie. And they'll. Other than that one line, which is no different than Mackie's speech at the end when he's sitting by Falcon in the bed and he's giving sort of a very. Sort of Supposed to be his gravitas, sort of, you know, commentary on race. Right. Which is what he's saying at the end about the seat of the table and all that sort of stuff. But it's like the movie was too afraid to explore that. Yeah. So, no, I mean, for. Ford's just wrong for the part. He's too old for the part. He can't channel the Ross energy. And when he tries to display the range of emotions, it comes off kind of either flat or melodramatic. You know, the big build up to his reunion with Betty is very anticlimactic. I mean, Liv Tyler's in the movie for like 10 seconds. You know, it. None of it works for me. None of it works. It's like legendary actor in a bad spot. [00:22:09] Speaker A: You know, there was one thing I was listening to. Emergency. Awesome. And by the way, he got one part of his breakdown wrong when he said that Kevin Feige introduced Serpent Society and then changed it to Winter Soldier. That is incorrect. He did that for Civil War. That was the joke. Initially, he named the Serpent Society, and then he changed it to Civil War. Winter Soldier had already happened. But anyway, he explained how Adamantiums first was introduced not here, but in the comics. And it represented to me the ingenuity of humans to create something like this. Whereas in this movie or in this, MCU is given to us by somewhere external, whatever alien. We're not capable anymore because to me is almost like Apple. They're not innovative anymore. They get whatever other people's doing and they make it A little better for me, that was like, it's. They just making it very simple for us to believe all these things by giving us. But not making it interesting in the possibly. There's no Howard Stark anymore. There's no. There's no. There's no smart people that are able to innovate and create things anymore. [00:23:28] Speaker B: Well, one sec. One point on that, because I think you're. I think that's fair. What I feel happens there, though, is that's Marvel being handcuffed or choosing to handcuff themselves by the amount of strands they've created in their own universe. This movie also goes out of its way to try to give relevance to a lot of projects that honestly were not that successful. So I don't hate the Tiamat idea, but the reality is, what is that doing? It's just trying to give relevance to what happened in Eternals, which was a failed Marvel project. Right. A lot of the premise of this movie with the Leader and Betty and Ross is to try to close the book on the Incredible Hulk, which was also sort of a lesser received Marvel project that mostly has lain on the shelf for 15 years. This movie is trying to reconnect these ties to things that, quite honestly, I don't know that we needed to remind. You know, it's like, some stuff works, some stuff doesn't. The stuff that doesn't work, you don't have to pay it off. [00:24:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:33] Speaker B: You know, it's like, if you choose not to pay off Charlize Theron and Harry Styles and Brett Goldstein, my life will go on. But I think they feel like if they don't, they're betraying the idea of the cinematic universe. And so they feel kind of imprisoned by that a little bit. And they like, okay, they're like, where can we. Where can we do it? Can we slot it in here? Great. Now we finished that. Like, I do feel that in this movie, too, where, like, they're boxed in by some of the other things that haven't worked. And speaking of haven't worked, let's talk about the Leader, because you were onto this from way back, that he would look pretty much as he looked. You said he would look ridiculous, and he looks absolutely ludicrous. [00:25:19] Speaker A: He looked like he got a bad case of shingles on his head. Yeah. Nothing like the Leader, yo. Nothing like the Leader that we know. He was just a crazy dude complaining and mad. They just created this dude because in the comics, the Leader a hates the Hulk. And from what I've gathered and read, he just Wants to take his powers to do something else. They made the Leader into something, into another completely different character. He just happens to be. He's not even the leader here. He's just. Samuel Stern is a crazy dude with whatever. And it's, you know, it's like, whatever, yo. It's just every time I saw this dude on screen and it was just like, I didn't enjoy one second of it, you know, because I knew the. [00:26:24] Speaker B: Thing is gonna get. You know, the whole pitch of his gamma mutation is that it makes him super duper smart. But do we actually see him do anything super duper smart in this movie? It's like, oh, he learned how to. He learned how to flash some brainwashing signals through the phone. And, like, he learned how to put the gamma into pills for Ross to ultimately turn him into Red Hulk. And I don't know, he doesn't really. He doesn't really reach the level of diabolical genius. And then his plots are kind of foiled pretty easily. I mean, like, you know, his big thing in the Indian Ocean is basically foil because Captain America and Falcon can fly pretty fast. It's like, well, you should probably know that if he's been capped for three years and you've been waiting for 15. And then his Red Hulk, his big red Hulk design is diffused by cherry blossoms. It's like, that's. That's what you got. I mean, I feel like somewhere the real Reed Richards is being like, man, I can checkmate this guy in one move. So it was just a complete waste. It was a complete waste. You know, I was thinking the whole time, I kept thinking, like. And we knew this was coming. They kept building up. Tim, Blake, Nelson, right? He's in the shadows. He's in the shadows. And then, of course, he just reveals himself. He just, like, walks in the room with Cap, right? He doesn't even make any effort to hide. And I kept thinking in my mind, I'm like, see, this is why Villeneuve cut you from Dune. I was like, you should have been cut from this movie. And not the actor's fault, but the part is just so bad. And I get. The whole time, I was just like, I could have done without any of this. Could have done without any of it. The fact that it was the Leader really didn't mean much of anything other than he happened to be in the same place at the same time as the Incredible Hulk movie, back when the. [00:28:21] Speaker A: Characters of the Incredible Hulk universe are being destroyed right before our eyes. Do you want to go into after credit scene and then the ratings. [00:28:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So I want to go into that. But let's use the after credit scene as a segue to ramifications as I think this is the real, like, this is also what made me very concerned. So a lot of people are unhappy with the credit stinger. I actually don't totally hate it, only because it was the type of credit stinger that we used to like, which was it wasn't about putting a new celebrity in there. It was about trying to give you something about what's coming. [00:29:01] Speaker A: Mm. [00:29:01] Speaker B: Now, when the movie is this bad, it kind of takes the steam out of that. But what scares me about Tim Blake Nelson, kind of teasing, you know, kind of the Multiverse and Secret wars and all that sort of stuff. I have Viewed Captain America 4 and Thunderbolts as this is the backward looking part of Marvel and Fantastic Four is the forward looking part of Marvel. This movie made me worry that the stuff to come really isn't going to be much of an upgrade. And that's really where I want. This movie made me more scared for Fantastic Four than I expected to leave the theater for two reasons. Number one is the people that worked on this movie were largely a TV show crew that were then asked to make a big screen product and failed miserably. It really, as I said, if this was part of a TV show, a lot of these scenes would feel more appropriate. Not a good TV show, but it felt more like a TV show. And Matt Shackman's a TV guy. So your guy directing the Fantastic Four is also being asked to make the leap from having worked on TV to now go do movies. And that can work. We saw the Russos do it obviously very spectacularly, but it made me nervous in this current era of Marvel of having TV people working on something cinematic and as important as Fantastic Four. So that was number one. Number two was just the quality control is so plainly so bad right now at Marvel. And this movie affirmed to me that every meaningful shot of the movie was in fact in the trailer. They did Green Lantern this. Think about it. Like every meaningful action and meaningful piece of this movie is in the trailer. They gave it all away. That makes me nervous when I look at the Fantastic Four thing that, like, you're being given, like with the Galactus shot, like, you're kind of going to be given all of the pieces to this puzzle before you go to the theater because they don't have any confidence in it. They can't quality control it. And as much as we think the look, seems really cool. Let's not forget this is also a project that has gone through multiple iterations with multiple writers and multiple directors. So it made me more afraid that Fantastic Four is going to go horribly wrong when I left the theater on this. [00:31:45] Speaker A: I still have hopes for Fantastic. For my only thing was right before the movie started, I don't know. You saw it on IMAX. Did you see on IMAX? [00:31:54] Speaker B: No. [00:31:55] Speaker A: Okay, I saw it on IMAX. And you know how they do that. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. [00:31:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. [00:32:00] Speaker A: It was more Fantastic Four type of feel to it. And I'm like, yo, you're trying to get us into this movie and you're showing us that you're doing Fantastic Four stuff. Yo, you're making me think about Fantastic Four right now. A movie that I'm really hyped for and you making me hype right now to what? So that your. Your hope is for that, that hypeness to translate over to this movie. Save that, yo. Save your Fantastic Four for Fantastic Foster. Detach yourself from garbage. I'm sorry, don't do this Fantastic Four sort of feel. And the excitement that we have for it to then transition over to a bad film, that was upsetting. The thing about the leader and his end credits scene is like, nothing this guy did, although he did much to reach certain goals. It's like, I don't care what he has to tell me. Yo, he didn't thanos me. Which is what you should have aimed for somehow. But I understand you couldn't. But if you can't do it, don't do it. Especially, yo, why are you trying to transition me from garbage to something that I'm excited for? It doesn't make sense how you're trying to get us to that point of level of excitement by giving us horrible stuff. It's like if I go to a restaurant and you tease me with horrible stuff. I'm not trying to look forward to that main course. I might just leave. If you have people there who were there for the success that you had with Ain't Game no Way Home, and they are still there now, these people. You have to. I don't know if the. I think you're wasting money on these retreats because nothing is changing. They're only getting worse. I'll say it again. The wrong people are in the room creating this stuff. [00:34:21] Speaker B: What was the real motivation for this movie like, given that it became all sorts of different movies and got chopped up. But, like, you know, I am cringing a little bit because I feel like at some point, if it hasn't happened already, the commentary and the discussion around this film, it's going to turn toward the ethnicity of those who made it. And I don't think it should. But I feel like when something is this bad, there's the risk of that. And this is where I kind of say, you're not. You're not helping the cause you purport to help when you put those people in this type of thankless position. Mackie's a really charismatic guy. He doesn't have anything to do in this movie to let that out. You know, like, there's talent individually up on the screen, but it's not really put in a position to do anything. Like, I think we're supposed to think he was supposed to have some sort of romantic chemistry with that one Secret Service agent who's a kind of a name actress. But that's totally cut out of the movie because we heard in one of the test screenings it didn't work. Like, they cast an Israeli actress and Shira Haas into a role that made absolutely no sense. And I gotta be honest, like, she. She looks really miscast as a tiny black widow. And, like, if you Google now, if you Google her life story, part of the reason she is that small is she dealt with a really severe form of cancer as an infant and overcame it. [00:35:59] Speaker A: Yes. [00:35:59] Speaker B: So I gave you full marks for wanting to, you know, for that actress kind of reaching this. That kind of stage. But then she's handed that part and it's like, to do what? Like, she doesn't get to do anything. And she doesn't make any sense. She doesn't have any chemistry with the characters. And then they told, like, she's an Israeli actress who in real life completed her military conscription even though she didn't have to because of the illnesses she suffered. And Disney totally disowned her heritage because it was protested because it was the. The character is a Mossad agent, is an Israeli agent, who, by the way, is supposed to be a mutant, and she's not in this movie. So they just gutted the character entirely, except for the name. So this is what I mean by, like, on the one hand, you seem like you're wanting to champion this thing, but then on the other, you're just ripping the heart out of it to where it's not doing it any favors. And I. I felt this way about the whole. You asked, like, why is Carl Lumbley in the movie? It's the same thing. We know why he's in the movie, especially if you've seen the TV show. But they don't actually give that any airtime or any place to breathe in this film. And so it go. It's a. As I've said, I've read very accurately, this is the political thriller trying to be apolitical and in the end is kind of just falling apart on. On these fronts. And yeah, I would have. [00:37:24] Speaker A: I would have much enjoyed Isaiah Bradley alongside this mission. That would have been interesting to me. [00:37:31] Speaker B: As like a mentor type of figure, Sort of like a wise man in the room kind of guy. [00:37:36] Speaker A: Yes. That and on the missions with. With Falcon, him on the ground, him in the air, whatever. Yeah. I don't want to go prison. Come. He's. He's. He's looking crazy with his haircut. And it's crazy, yo. It's crazy. He just. It just don't. That. It just don't make no sense, yo. So, Anthony Mackey, I blame you for saying you should have been the guy in the room. Hey, this haircut. I don't see this haircut nowhere. This dude look like freaking Fraggle Rock. Take that off. Give him a real haircut. The haircut that we don't. Don't give him a super cuss haircut. Come on, T. Moo. [00:38:18] Speaker B: The Hulk, all you. [00:38:22] Speaker A: Listen, man, I don't really have too much to say about the Hulk other than the Hulk's universe is being destroyed by the very people who are the caretakers of this universe of these characters. And every Hulk character is just being. It's like, I don't care. Are we gonna see the red Hulk again? I don't know. Do I care? Absolutely not. From the Hawaiian shirt yoga wearing yoga practitioner. Then you got his son, who we haven't heard from nobody. There's no headlines. Kid in school breaks, you know, whatever. There's nothing. And then you expect us to what, be excited when we actually see them? The leader for me is a connection to the Hulk and his attempts at doing whatever to the Hulk is the. Is Hulk. Because when I grew up, I was watching the cartoons and it was always about that. And in the comics is always something to do with. He's. He. He's behind the scenes and he's comfortably in his lair doing whatever. This dude was locked away, yo. He couldn't figure out how to get out of it. It's just they're destroying these characters. The MCU is. The MCU is destroying these characters, you know, and out there, for those of you who are. Are Hulk fans, You should be livid with this interpretation of these characters. I'm sorry. [00:40:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I totally agree. Because the Leader is effectively. Again, if we're doing the Teemu Winter Soldier analogy, the Leader's role in this movie is effectively what the Toby Jones HYDRA infiltration of SHIELD Underground in the bunker is. Right. If you think about it like, that's when Cap and Natasha go into the bunker and you see Zola basically telling them hydra's been this invisible hand moving global geopolitics for 50 years and gradually poisoning kind of infrastructure and governments and SHIELD and you. And you kind of see this, like. And you're like, wow, this is sinister retcon of everything, right? Cold War, everything. That's what the Leader is doing in this movie. Except he's not executing any of that. As I said. Like, as you said, his gra. He is also hidden in a bunker, basically same as Zola was in the computer, but for 16 years, he basically is just Ross's doctor gradually converting him and kind of just laying in wait and doing a whole bunch of nothing throughout the whole Infinity saga and then trying to pull a few pieces around this Tiamat thing to create a war that kind of doesn't really work. Like, again, for a guy who sees all the combinations, that's what he sees. [00:41:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:43] Speaker B: I mean, the abacus is not working right. So I just. It just. Yeah. Although he physically. The way they costumed him and prosthetic him, he did actually remind me a little bit of the Bixby Show. I kind of was like. When I saw him, I was like, he physically might have fit in better with the 70s show than with modern Marvel. Just the way they did the glittery green on his face kind of reminded me a little bit of that era Hulk. But no, but to your point, I gotta ask you, because we've heard, and I think this movie did nothing to dissuade us from the fact that the Leader is potentially pulling the strings on World War Hulk. Right. [00:42:28] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:29] Speaker B: But given that this is the launch point for that, that feels like a failed project already. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:38] Speaker B: Yo, and why should we be. Here's the other thing. Why, after what we've seen in this movie, with how Red Hulk comes out and how Red Hulk is defeated. [00:42:52] Speaker A: Why. [00:42:52] Speaker B: Would A, a government view its own Hulk as this huge asset, and B, why would any other government be so scared of another government's Hulk? I mean, this Hulk was taken out by a speech within 10 minutes. [00:43:11] Speaker A: They redid. What if. See what if season three, episode one, when he. When he Talked down Godzilla, Hulk, they redid that scene. And by the way, that was a scene that's. That. That is obviously where one of the. The reshoots were, because it looked quantum. [00:43:31] Speaker B: Oh, my God. That. That whole scene with the cherry blossoms, you're like, is somebody literally, like, at the fringe drawing a tree? Like, it's so bad looking. I can't imagine how it looked on IMAX to you, because it looks so bad on the regular screen to me. [00:43:46] Speaker A: It was obvious to me. I was like, oh, there's. There's one. There's a reshoot right there. As soon as it came on, I was like, oh, man, Quantum mania. It just brought me back to Quantumania horribleness. Oh, but no, you want to dance around, oh, it costs you $180 million. Yeah, right, man. Yeah, right. [00:44:07] Speaker B: It costs way more because of the reshoots. We know that. [00:44:09] Speaker A: Don't Andrew Garfield. This. [00:44:15] Speaker B: The thing on the Hulk, Right Again. So again, you go back to before the Hulk was ruined. Like, think about some of his trail of destruction. I think about, like, when he fights Iron man, as in the Hulkbuster. Like, that Hulk is destroying that city. And, like, even with Stark's maximum technology. [00:44:39] Speaker A: He can't really subdue him. [00:44:41] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And then here we are. This guy talks him down with, like, a speech about cherry blossoms and walking with his daughter. And even before that, I mean, I get it. It's vibranium wings, but he's cutting them up pretty good. It's just, again, like, World War Hulk doesn't seem that scary to me. If that's your best weapon. It reminds me of, like, Justin Hammer's weapon in Iron Man 2, where they, like the little missile that goes. Doesn't do anything. [00:45:06] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that Hulk jumping and. And I like that. I. I like that when Hulk was jumping and. And try and chasing him down. I like that movement. Okay. The thunderclap thing was kind of dope. I mean, but that's something. Obviously. We saw an incredible Hulk that I thought was fantastic. And when you do Hulk things, they're interesting to me. But the collateral damage stuff is what I think doesn't make sense, I guess. [00:45:41] Speaker B: Well, they were clearly desperate on the promotion because they really featured Red Hulk pretty heavily in the promotion. And you saw almost his entire participation in the movie in the trailers, and that's normally something that you should want to hold back and not give away. [00:45:55] Speaker A: He's like, yeah, like, why show the Red Hulk, yo? Why. Why show him at all? Why can't we be surprised in the. [00:46:02] Speaker B: Movie things anymore because they don't trust that we'll go otherwise. That's why it shows you they don't have any confidence in these anymore. That's why I say with Fantastic Four, you should be a little concerned. Because in old days, they wouldn't have shown you Galactus, and now they are showing you because they want to make sure you're there opening weekend, I think. [00:46:19] Speaker A: For the Galactus thing. And then we'll get into the rating for this, which is. I can guess. I could. The pro, my leader. All I see is zeros and ones. The reason why I think they're showing Galactus also is because they want to show people we didn't make the same mistake. These are the guys. Me with the cloud stuff. Right. But again, don't show it. Yo, the Fantastic Four is your star. Those people are your star. Whatever else we get is gravy. But let us see it at the end. Let us be surprised by it. Let us be surprised by it. Yo, they're just doing things just. It's upsetting you. It's like, yo, man. It's like, what are you guys doing over there? Kevin. Because this. He greenlights this stuff. [00:47:24] Speaker B: Yeah. Are you. [00:47:25] Speaker A: Are you looking at it? How does it make it for me is like, I would ask. Yo, be honest, Kevin. When you see this movies, what are your feelings? Because you have to be feeling the same things that we are. I'm sorry. You have to be. Because you gave us the best of the best endgame. Infinity War, Winter Soldier, Civil War, and all those other great movies that people really highly regarded. You must have seen them and felt the same thing that we all felt. You can't. And you've done it before by saying the Marvels is going to do the Marvels. Yo, the Marvels. You're trying to. Trying to game us with the Marvels. You. You're in the bucket with these guys now. Zaslav telling us Black Adam and Flashpoint, all these executives. You're in that bucket now. Especially after saying that the Marvels is gonna. And it. And it is one of Freddie said that people are saying that. And I. It seems to be that you think the same way that this movie is worse than the Marvels is in that same bucket of garbage. [00:48:34] Speaker B: All of the lowest CinemaScore Marvel movies are the most recent ones. This one set a new low. This is the lowest one they've gotten. This is. But the ones right above it, Marvels, Quantumania, Love and Thunder Eternals. Like, these are all the. It's all the New stuff before we. [00:48:56] Speaker A: Wrap this up and go into the ratings. Eternals again, to me, is not that bad of a movie. There are a lot of dope stuff that happened in that movie. Obviously there's no chemistry between Icarus and the other character, but some of the, the speedster was dope. Some of the, the action sequences, the way they make it look when they're doing projectiles, that is dope. There's some dope stuff in that movie. And like you said before, there's a great movie that got left. They got left at the, the cutting room floor and there's a great movie in this, but they gave us what they gave us. [00:49:37] Speaker B: So this is a key point in the post endgame era that you're making here. And it will tie into the ratings in particular to me. Doctor Strange, Multiverse of Madness, Eternals, Love and Thunder. Those three in particular and even to a lesser extent Quantumania, just because of Jonathan Majors. But those first three in particular, there are moments of brilliance in those movies. Absolutely. There are visual sequences, there's individual characters, there's moments where you're, you're like you're around. Maybe could have been edited different, like to give specific examples. In Doctor Strange 2, the music note fight is really innovative and cool. [00:50:31] Speaker A: Yes. [00:50:33] Speaker B: In Thor, Love and Thunder, the black and white action sequence is really well done and looks really big budget. [00:50:41] Speaker A: Yes. [00:50:42] Speaker B: You mentioned Eternals. The, the actual effects kind of affect that they use shooting in real light with the gold and the sound. Like there's some really cool looking stuff that like Thana gets to do that the Speedster gets to do that Icarus gets to do. Like there is some really cool looking things in there. And even like Quantumania, just anytime Majors is on screen, you can't look away because he's doing it. This movie does not have that. That's what see those movies, it's like they're a flawed, but there's potential. There is no version of this movie that would have been good. None. [00:51:23] Speaker A: No, no, no, no, no, no. [00:51:25] Speaker B: And that's why I would segue and say, yes, it is one of the two worst movies the MCU has produced. And I could argue it's actually the worst because of the legacy of Captain America. Like, I don't have the same, I don't have the same expectation of Captain Marvel because we never really got an awesome Captain Marvel experience. But the Captain America franchise is the best thing Marvel has done with an individual character. And this iteration of it soiled that Legacy. [00:52:01] Speaker A: Wow. Rating 0. [00:52:06] Speaker B: There's nothing to me about this movie that I would recommend. I hate to say it. I realize everyone associated put real work into it as doing all the projects, but this movie is unacceptably bad on every level. It is just as bad as anything Sony has given us in the last couple years. It just doesn't make it. I think it's zero. If you want to give it a half for a little, like, you know, Mackie's still trying to do everything he can to save this movie. And the Tiamat idea, I'll listen to that. But you get anywhere, you get to one or above, you're being unacceptably generous. [00:52:35] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. When I saw this rating, I was like, what? What? Comicbook.com. i follow them on Instagram. And the dude, I guess, runs it or is a big part of it. He's a cool guy, but I. But he does the circuit. He interviews these people, so he has to be careful. He gave it a four and a half out of five. [00:53:06] Speaker B: That's like. [00:53:07] Speaker A: Like, if I sat in a room with this dude, I would be like, explain that to me, man, because what is a five then? What is Winter Soldier? What is Iron Man 3? It's like, come on, dude. You can't. You can't honestly come out and say four and a half out of five on this movie. Yo. Because. What are you saying about these other films? Marvel's Avengers? So you got a lot of fives up in there. I don't know where those other. Yeah, I don't know what these other 10. I don't. I don't. I don't know what these other questionable movies are, but this is not a four and a half out of five. [00:53:49] Speaker B: No, this is not a two. [00:53:50] Speaker A: This is not a one. You gave it to me when I was thinking about it. A half. And I would say that because there were certain instances that I like, but that's not really saying much. That's like me going to a great. A restaurant I always equate as a restaurant because it's like you like what you like and you rave about things that are good. The fries were okay. And this is not a restaurant that is known for his fries. [00:54:26] Speaker B: I think it's appropriate to grade it overly harshly, too, because I can feel the. This is not an indictment of necessarily the filmmakers. This is more an indictment of Kevin and Marvel. I can feel your arrogance in this movie. I really can. I can feel you trying to give me these cheap imitations of Winter Soldier and assuming that I'm gonna fall for it. And that's why, you know, that's why I have no problem giving it this kind of low score. Because I feel like if I give it a two or I give it a three, I'm actually tacitly endorsing your behavior at the highest of levels. And that's not okay. It's not okay for the fan base to have to spend money to consume this stuff. And if we're gonna sit here and chastise Sony for how they handled their spider verse, we can't then turn a blind eye. We can't then turn a blind eye when Marvel does the same. [00:55:17] Speaker A: Right. You're right. They have to be more harshly. [00:55:21] Speaker B: Right. Because reviewed. Exactly. Because Sony on their own has almost never shown us they have it in their bag to entertain us to that degree. Marvel has outside of Spider Man. But I'm saying that's a generally a co production with Marvel at this these days. Right? They're not doing that. [00:55:40] Speaker A: I mean, oh, you talk about the. [00:55:41] Speaker B: Random Spider man back in the day. Fine. [00:55:43] Speaker A: And the Spider man unit. Miles Morales, one spider. [00:55:48] Speaker B: Spider force. Fair enough. Okay, I'll give them that. But Marvel has shown they not only had the highest of highs, Marvel used to show that they had a very high floor. It used to be that when you went to see a Marvel movie, you knew that your downside was like, I'm going to be entertained. Right. Like, we used to hold up Dark World as the hands down worst movie the Marvel ever made. I tell you what, man in that guy's a six. Like, compared to these movies, Dark World ain't looking so bad these days. [00:56:20] Speaker A: I got to watch that. [00:56:22] Speaker B: Big winner of this movie. It's, it's, it's, it's probably the dark elves, right? They're probably the big winners of this movie because all of a sudden we going up in the world. [00:56:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:31] Speaker B: So when you're capable of true greatness and then you give us this, I'm going to react more angrily than when someone I don't believe was really ever capable of being great gives me something average. The joke's on me then for falling for that. [00:56:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:46] Speaker B: So. [00:56:48] Speaker A: So yeah, if you guys went to go see Captain America for Brave New World, let us know what you guys have sighted. Let us know what you guys thought of Anthony Mackie himself, his performance, Harrison Ford's performance, the Red Hulk sidewind is like, he really even belong in this movie. Really? Like, come on. These are forgettable characters. Taurus man, that dude rubbed me the wrong way. Is like you, you, you meeting Isaiah Bradley. And obviously he didn't know who he was. But still, out of respect of your elders, you don't come in there, start making jokes about her. You just don't do it. [00:57:31] Speaker B: And not after. Not after being Captain America's boy for three years. That's the kind of stuff you do when you've been around him for three days. [00:57:41] Speaker A: So when he got hurt, I was like, I don't feel sorry. You're not trying to goose me into this moment. No. But yeah. Let us know in the comment section below what you guys thought of this film and Red Hulk, what you. There was again, there was some cool parts of it, but none to redeem. Like, if it comes up, as I'm scrolling down in the channels, if it comes up, I am passing it very quickly because I don't want to see it. Don't want to see it. Perhaps I want to initially when it comes out, I want to see what it looks like on tv. Like. Yeah, I enjoy nothing. This movie did not belong in the theaters. [00:58:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:26] Speaker A: Happy. This would have been a. This should have been a Disney plus. This is. This should have been it should have gotten the Black Widow treatment. [00:58:35] Speaker B: I don't. I can't argue with you. And Black Widow, honestly, is more cinematic. Black Widow looks good compared to this movie. [00:58:40] Speaker A: Yeah. We learn the conversation below what you guys think. We really went in on this one, Brian. One hour. [00:58:49] Speaker B: Deserve it. [00:58:49] Speaker A: But yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah. Let us know in the comment section below what you guys think. Hit that like, and subscribe. Share it with your friends and we'll see you next time on the gym report.