Why I Hate Everything...

I have decided that I don’t like a lot of things these days.  I have very strongly held beliefs about how the world should be.  Whether that be ideas of faith, family structure, love, citizenship, morality, patriotism, or ideas about how my favorite tv, movie, video game, and comic properties should be represented.  I also find that as time goes on the world seems to move further and further away from my ideal version of it, and as that move occurs I find myself more disagreeable and grumpier. 

I have become the proverbial grumpy old man.  I didn’t used to be this way.  I used to be very open to new and exciting things, embracing what was around the corner instead of holding bitterly onto the past.  Josh Flanagan from iFanboy helped me realize why this was occurring while discussing on his podcast why he disliked the Superman vs Batman movie.  He basically said that 12 year old Josh would have loved that movie, but 40 year Josh hated it.  Part of that was because it was just a poorly made movie but part of it was because he’s had 30 years to think about and reflect on these characters, particularly Superman, and found that the version of the characters presented wasn’t in his mind the version he preferred.  And when I heard that it dawned on me.  Wow, that’s what’s going on with me.

At some point in my past, probably in my early teen years, the world crystalized and everything was perfect.  From that moment on the world looks less and less like my ideal version of it.  Whether that be problems with people figuring out which bathroom to use or Superman no longer wearing the red trunks on the outside, I find myself feeling more like a foreigner in a strange land. It’s kind of like what Steve Rogers experiences being a man out of time, but on a smaller slower moving scale.  

I can only image that this problem will get worse as I continue to age, and now I can see that this is exactly why grumpy old people talk about the good old days and why they don’t like anything anymore.  That, and hip and back pain. I don’t want to be that older person, but I’m not sure how to avoid it.  Should I be more willing to accept what I naturally am inclined not to like?  Or should I go kicking and screaming, fighting for what I think is right and good and true, for all mankind?  

The trouble with X-Men...

I never posted my thoughts on the X-Men Apocalypse movie experience.  It certainly was no Captain America: Civil War but it was marginally better than Superman vs. Batman. 

The X-Men movies have never been among my favorites.  The strongest one was without a doubt the original and they’ve all been lackluster since then, however First Class was a very strong showing.  I’m not real sure what it is about the X-Men movies that makes me feel incomplete, I just do.  We all wish that Marvel would get the license back from Fox but that’s never going to happen because Fox makes X-Men movies that are just “good enough” to still be profitable.  (as opposed to Paramount and the failing Fantastic Four franchise, or whoever had Ghost Rider)

Fox on the other hand seems to have the action elements down, hitting fast paced battle sequence moments in these movies that we all want to see, yet the movies seem hollow.  A perfect example of this is the Psylocke character as played by Olivia Munn.  They really nailed her.  They got the costume right, the powers right, and Munn seems to have actually been good casting.  What they didn’t do was giver her any story, or character development, or us any reason to care about her.  And that is the essence of what is wrong with Fox’s X-Franchise.  They have a lotta flash and glitter.  They look good and sound good.  They even successfully hit some comedic bits from time to time (Quicksilver speed montage).  But at the end of the show it all feels a bit hollow because the story just wasn’t there. 

I never really learned much about who Apocalypse was, or where he got his powers, or why he was determined to rule the world, except for them to say they that Apocalypse has around a long time ago, he’s really powerful, and he wants to rule the world.  So without even any real “bad guy motivation” (he just exists to be evil) then the fight against him also rang hollow.  The only reason they seemed to fight him was because they stumbled upon him and well that’s what we do. 

If all you wanted to see was X-Men Characters fighting each other then you’ll be pleased with this movie.  If however you actually want a substantive story to enjoy, then they should just give us more Deadpool.  Despite its depravity, there actually was a good story at the heart of that movie.

I'm not evil, I'm just written that way!