heatsink98

It's that time again when the studio dusts off the Superman franchise and puts up a summertime tentpole. James Gunn takes the helm this time to give us our Superman story, and he makes, let's say, decisions about how this take on the famously blue and red caped hero goes.

Is it good? Sort of. Bad? Sometimes. Odd and goofy? Yeah, a little here and there. But the strange thing about Superman is that Clark Kent in this film is not very interesting. Maybe it's because he's the same character that everyone knows from all the other Superman films. There are other notable characters that turn up in the story that are interesting, however. The Justice Gang comes to mind. Their shenanigans might be enough reason to see the film by itself--and we found ourselves wanting more screentime for them.

Other issues: the Kents sounded like satirical characters meant to poke fun at Southerners. Kansas people don't sound like these folks at all. And some plot points played like they were cribbed from SNL skits. An encounter with a certain cousin in the film comes to mind, among other things.

From the weak plot to the weak acting, BRAVE NEW WORLD fails and then fails again. Poor Anthony Mackie is now stuck with the Captain America mantle, and his character hasn't been given the proper foundation to meet the task. We've heard the "He's no Steve Rogers" from the fans, and now even the movie dialog makes light of this. So what's Disney doing here with the property? Nobody knows at this point.

We also have a villain that relies on letting things play out, as it were, while having a good idea how those incidents will end up. It's interesting as a thought experiment but weak if not written properly. "Stuff just happens" means the characters are only along for the ride, which makes for a boring story.

It's the typical Hallmark we've been getting nowadays--low quality in just about every department. Poor acting with excess and unnecessary exposition. There's a comical establishing shot of the island toward the beginning of the movie, and someone thought it should also be titled onscreen "Mystery Island" because...reasons. The plot ends up not going anywhere, relative to the usual murder mystery. And once the truth comes out about how things ended the way they did for our victim, it also reveals that this story had a significant chunk of underlying support for the plot that was never there to begin with.

That makes for a dull visit to Mystery Island overall.