This is a Film Stories original podcast. Adobe Express makes it quick and easy to create everything I need for my business. From social posts, TikToks and flyers, all in just a few clicks. Get Adobe Express for free. Search for Adobe Express to find out more. Hello everyone and welcome back to Podcast 616, the Marvel podcast that most definitely expected Liv Tyler to return to the MCU at some point. I mean, we all did, didn't we? Surely we were all waiting on it.
I am your host Hugh McStay and we have reconvened podcast 616 to look at the first MCU project of 2025 which is Captain America Brave New World. My trusty wingman or wing gal. Ashley Thomas isn't feeling too well tonight so she's going to sit this one out but we send her all our love and best wishes and we'll speak to you soon back on the podcast Ashley but
To discuss Sam Wilson's first solo outing in the red, white and blue, we need a man smarter than the leader and twice as fearsome as the Red Hulk. We have the host of the Creepy and Geeky podcast, Mr. Robert Clark. Hello, Robert. Welcome back to the podcast. Hey, Hugh, how's it going? It's great to be back on. It's great to have you, man. How have things been since last I spoke to you? Have you been keeping up with the animated Marvel stuff, or have you just been plodding along doing your pod?
uh i have not caught up on any of the animated stuff i'm i did not watch what if season three or the new spider-man series so uh no i've just been mcu proper is pretty much just for me uh the the live action shows and movies, of course.
I am delighted that you said that because you're in good company. I just have not had the time to get anywhere near those shows. I like the look of them. They look terrific. And Ashley's coverage of season three of What If was terrific. But goodness God, if only there were more hours in the day, Robert. Right. Yeah, no, exactly.
Yeah, so we're here to discuss Captain America Brave New World, Anthony Mackie's first outing really properly as Captain America. So before we kind of dig into the film... give me your general thoughts on Robert are you a thumbs up guy or a thumbs down guy when it comes to this movie
Oh, I'm definitely a thumbs up guy. I enjoyed it for what it is. I mean, obviously it's got some issues. I mean, we all know that it went through reshoots and some writing stuff and everything. Characters were dropped in and dropped out. You know, but, you know, obviously we'll get into that. But yeah, no, overall, I thought it was a lot of fun. It did what it needed to do. Like my expectations weren't super high just because, you know, I'm a realist. I knew this wasn't going to be like.
The best thing ever. And anybody who thinks that any of these Marvel movies are going to be the best thing ever, you guys got to lower your expectations. Come on. But it was a lot of fun. I enjoyed it. It's interesting, isn't it? It's a difficult one because for me...
I mean, this is quite a decent entry in the MCU canon. I would say it sits kind of firmly in the middle. It's not breaking any new ground, but it kind of did what it was doing pretty well, I thought. In and out, you know, one of the shorter MCU.
movie we've had yeah um and it really doesn't i don't think it really wastes much of its runtime it really it knows the story it wants to tell it's got problems robert it does and you know be curlish to say that it doesn't but we can kind of get into that but i definitely want to start off a more positive footing because I mean I think as an action film it largely works with some really memorable set pieces some interesting visuals and
I think it's at its best when it's exploring what makes Anthony Mackie's Sam Wilson a slightly different flavour of Captain America. Exactly. Every moment we get with Mackie, I think it's great. He's really the best thing in the film. And in a franchise where, and I don't mean Cap, I mean... marvel in general you know where occasionally the hero can get overlooked in their own story um i think it's impressive that they've put him front and center and his kind of natural charm and charisma
just about keeps everything afloat and keeps things moving and it gives us it gives us a real hero to root for you know it's like he is a good person there's no shades of gray there's no ambiguity sam is a good man and it's nice to kind of have that sometimes isn't it yeah exactly
I think that's what's interesting about the character as well is that I think there's this weird thing with... some of the audience where they think that he's supposed to be Steve Rogers and he's not he's a completely different character on his own and he's the only thing that makes him similar to steve is the title of captain america everything else about him is a completely different person i saw online um somebody was talking about it and you're making that distinction was very key
because of the way things were handled in this movie compared to the way things were handled in earlier movies by Steve. You know, because Falcon Sam Wilson is a character who lives in our modern time, has existed in our modern time.
without that interruption uh like steve had and is somebody who has a different not just a different upbringing but also a different like adult life you know so you know a different way of going about things than steve does and so i love that distinction that they made with him that they weren't
making him a carbon copy of steve in any way they made him his own unique character and they need to keep doing that oh yeah you know i couldn't agree more i mean one of the things i enjoy most in this film is the way that it
it puts Captain America front and center, but not necessarily as the soldier, you know, that Steve was, you know, fighting the good fight and doing the right thing. I mean, Sam here really has to spend a lot of the film using those counseling skills that he's learned. Absolutely. And put them to good use.
which I think is such a clever way to reframe the character. He doesn't have Steve's ridiculous strength and supernaturally powerful abilities, but he has other skills that play into it. And again, that plays into the finale, but I don't want to...
jump too quickly to that as we're going but you know i think it's fascinating and they kind of do this a little bit with the steve character but much i think there's much more interesting things to do here with sam the idea of a captain america trying to work out what it means
to be a symbol of a country that's kind of in the middle of tearing itself apart of not being that shining light of democracy and progress that it used to be and it's like it's so interesting the way that this film has him standing on these sort of
shifting sands you know a political nightmare that he doesn't quite know how to deal with and so the way in which he deals with it is by just doing what he personally believes to be correct and to be right and i mean that plays into the stuff with sam and isaiah bradley Well, I mean...
I think their relationship throughout the film as an emotional through line was the thing that I held on to that really worked for me, even when the film seems to forget about it for about 40 minutes. But all I could think... I don't want to turn this into a Hugh Bash's Falcon and the Winter Soldier series again.
As I was watching this movie, all I could think was, if they'd given us more of that relationship, and had that been the focus of Falcon and the Winter Soldier, I think that would have been a lot more interesting and a much stronger project. Yeah, I mean, obviously I disagree with you about the Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I enjoyed that a lot. And I think that they did. But I do agree that I think the relationship between Isaiah and Sam really gets fleshed out a little bit more in here.
And I think it's a through line that I'd love to see continue to happen throughout the series as well. I mean, hopefully we get another Captain America movie or something with Sam again. It'd be great to see Isaiah. and get that relationship going a little bit more and see how that blossomed. Because, I mean, obviously they've got to...
really great respect for each other, you know, especially after this, once, you know, the ending happens. But it's a really great through line to see that connection that they have from one Captain America to another. And that is... a lot of fun that legacy because it's different because you know it's kind of similar to what Stephen Bucky had in a way but you know obviously slightly different because of Isaiah and Sam are still kind of in the beginning of their friendship.
So, you know, it's still something that needs to be built on. And I'd love to see it get built on more. Yeah, it definitely feels like a thread that needs to be picked up again. Whether or not we're going to have any time as the MCU huttles towards Doomsday in sequence. war i'm skeptical uh but i do i would like to see more of it i do enjoy what was there
So, listen, that's going to lead me in to one of my first criticisms of the film. It's going to tie to that. Are you familiar with the director of this movie, Julia Sona? I had not been, no. yeah the only other kind of significant entry in his filmography is the um i'll be polite the um underwhelming the cloverfield paradox um you know i was very excited about that film when it came out huge cloverfield nerd here and was very disappointed with the output and here
I think, if I'm honest with you, I think the direction is a little bit flat across the film. There's a very little sort of visual flourish that kind of distinguishes it from, again, this is going to sound harsh, but at times it almost looks quite televisual.
I could absolutely imagine seeing a lot of this film on a week-to-week Disney Plus budget. Right. Everything up to that finale, of course, which they definitely threw a lot of money at to get right. But I just found that some of the action scenes don't quite sparkle the way that you'd... hope they would and it was a little bit stagey and to be honest with you
my biggest issue with the direction of the film is the way that he handles exposition now look we always joke about this on this podcast when we talk about the the connected universe that look it's understandable that you know you need exposition in films let's take drag the general audience along i get it right and this film has got an unbelievable amount of disparate threads that it's trying to weave together but like it's almost all delivered in a really
uninteresting way like carl umley's entire backstory is just said out loud you know when they're all in the gym together yeah it's like you know i think it's um torres i think you know the the other fucking basically almost says it loud words to the effect of yurizaya bradley the original secret super soldier who was in prison for 30 years by that sinister government agency they created you to cover their asses it's like oh that there had to be any
easier way into that um robert am i being am i being overly harsh no i mean i think the problem is is it's just hard to especially with some of this stuff you've got to kind of shoehorn it in for the audience I think it just feels weird to us because we've seen everything because we do watch everything that when they do add that in it feels a little weird whereas with you know maybe the the rest of the audience who hasn't watched that kind of stuff, maybe it's not as bad. I'd have to ask my...
my wife or my daughter who also watched it, but they didn't seem to have any issues with anything. They weren't confused or bothered by any of it. So I think it's one of those necessary things. I will say, here's where it gets very similar to comic books, because there are things...
sometimes where you're reading a comic book and somebody will do exactly that same thing we'll be like oh yeah here's this guy and then you know and and we'll over explain it to the you know but if this is your first comic book then yeah Yeah, that makes sense to do it that way. And so that kind of one of those things that's one of those tenants for some people in comic books is to remember that.
every comic book is somebody's first comic book. And so I think that's kind of largely where they're coming at is this could be somebody's first MCU movie. So we need to kind of explain things to kind of get things up to the snuff. Look, it's clunky. Sure.
Did it bother me? No, I didn't even notice it like enough that it bothered me until you brought it up just now. I didn't even think about it. So and I think, again, that's largely because I read a lot of comic books and that kind of stuff doesn't bother me in general.
I think my thing is more I look at the way that other films within the MCU handle their exposition and it's much less sort of in your face you know they get the same information across but they do it in a way that's maybe visually interesting
something a bit larger to service the ongoing plot there were two or three moments in this film where it genuinely felt like someone had just written a paragraph in the script saying like we need to get this information in there otherwise people aren't going to know what's going on and they just had a character say it out loud
It's like, not sure you're allowed to do that, guys, but all right. But you are right. I mean, to their credit, it does make things clear about, you know, the audience's is no ambiguity about who is who and what is happening. But it just feels like...
get if this was end game or infinity war and i was getting scenes like this i'd be like hang on a minute we have surely surely you need to trust the audience more than this surely yeah i mean there's there's a certain level of trust i think that sometimes they have to give to the audience audience and kind of just you know gloss over some of that and and let the people be confused for a little bit and so that way then afterward you can go hey you know what if you were confused by this
Go back and watch this show that tells you a lot more about this, you know, and kind of get people to. And that's what's to me what's ultimately frustrating about this is that if you're going into this movie blind. That's kind of on you as an audience member. There is stuff you could watch. You don't have to watch everything. You could literally just watch Falcon and Winter Soldier and The Incredible Hulk and be kind of up to...
date with everything you kind of need for this movie maybe a few things with Thunderbolt Ross and stuff like that over the years if you really wanted to but like those two like that show and that movie I think give you just enough background to get to this point that you wouldn't need anything else.
And it's minor things. So, I mean, that's, that's just where I'm at. No, no, I'm doing nothing wrong with that. I just, like I said, I just, I just hope for a little bit more finesse, you know, get, get, get me, get the audience. No, I totally agree. Yeah, but don't make it as in your face is what you're doing. Again, people who listen will know, huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan here, right? Oh, yeah.
I love Buffy so much. But Mr Giles in the early seasons of Buffy is very much an exposition machine. But, you know, he does it in such an interesting way. The writing's clever enough that sometimes you don't even notice that what he's doing is just dumping exposition on you. But I just think, yeah, I felt maybe a stronger director or a tighter script maybe would have been the way to kind of fix that. But given the reshoots that we've heard about, which we'll maybe talk about in a moment.
there are things in this film that kind of jump out at me as being issues i think with the with the reshoots well and there was something like six writers on this movie too so and certain characters which we'll get to certainly feel like they've been um
entirely course corrected and changed in post-production and yeah again we will have a conversation about that but listen look i want to jump back to more positives we're going to go back and forth a little bit here oh robert we finally have at long last A film that addresses the celestial island in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
I don't know about you, but I couldn't take another think piece online or another writer complaining that it's been four years and we still haven't talked about it. Thank the good Lord. Now, look, the idea of having the celestial being made up of adamantium, I really like. I think it's very clever. Yeah, but I know there's been some grumbling online about it, but, you know, it kind of imbalances what you're doing, what they were doing with vibranium. I disagree, and I think presenting...
the celestial island and the opportunities that it brings as something that could almost spark off the next Cold War or the next arm phase is really, really interesting. And, you know, that mid-film set piece where, you know, there's almost like a Cuban missile crisis.
style standoff with the Japanese and the American troops is really well pitched. And look, if the world suddenly had access to those sorts of minerals, you can absolutely imagine this thing happening within 25 minutes, can't you? Like if we would be at DEFCON 1 immediately. So listen.
What did you think of the way in which they've used the Celestial Island and what did you think of that set piece with the two standoffs between the fighter jets and Falcon and Cap? I think it's interesting with the whole Celestial Island thing. It's like, oh, nobody's ever referenced it.
or anything it was like well look there's a lot of in between these movies that maybe a lot of people have been like wondering about what's going on with it yeah obviously that was the case because now we finally get some information about it's made of adamantium you know now that Disney owns the X-Men again.
So now they can finally use adamantium. But yeah, I just always thought that that complaint was always just the weirdest thing to me. It's like, well, what do you want them to do? I don't know what you think, but it's the same to me as all those people complaining about, oh.
what happened to avengers tower it's been six years why is no one told us where it is and then we got the reveal for it in the thunderbolts trailer and people were like oh i don't know if i like that what do you want people what do you want you want absolutely not
Exactly. It's like, I don't know. Like, I think people just like to complain. There's no rhyme or reason for it. They just have to have something to complain about. Yes. You know, it's just so I turn a deaf ear to most of that, you know, because nobody actually. Yeah, yeah. Don't get me wrong. I love that they finally picked up on the thread and that they were making reference to it. Look, the Eternals.
Not a great movie. But, you know, I'm glad that they are picking up on that thread and going, hey, you know what? There is this giant celestial here that almost destroyed the world. You know, let's see what we can do about it. being the source of adamantium on the planet. makes perfect sense in this way. Yeah. So I'm happy about that. But yeah, that set piece, the standoff between the US and the Japanese was great. Great visuals, great aerial battle.
between the jets and Sam and Falcon and everything. It was a lot of fun. I couldn't have asked for anything more. And again, that's something Steve couldn't do. Steve couldn't be flying around up there. you're battling jets and everything like that that's sam's world man yeah no and
I'm avoiding all talk about a certain red monster in the room until we get to the finale. This was my favourite set piece in the movie, if I'm honest with you. Even more so than the finale. Because the aerial combat, the fighter jets, it just looked different to what we're doing.
used to seeing in these films yeah um and the whole battle actually hinges on sam as captain america de-escalating everything and you know like making peace and again that's so not in keeping with what we maybe expect you know you expect oh you know we need to take out the ships he's doing everything you can to stop this becoming an all-out war i love and it plays into kind of the heart of his story and his art across the movie and obviously while this battle's playing out
with a giant sort of celestial hand in the head behind him it's just it's it's like it's pure comic booky goodness isn't it oh man it was so great you like that moment where like sam like is holding onto the side of the celestial at one point everything it was just it was so much fun because it's just it's it's a great action piece that you know
for Captain America movie that only Sam could do. Um, and yeah. And, and just, and then in between all of that, you've got Ross like talking to, um, tim blake nelson's character and trying to fight off whatever's going on with him at that moment and so you've got this really tense scene going on with him during all of this too. So it's like the tension of the dogfights and the de-escalation and then Ross's problems and everything. It's just like...
It was very tense, very, very exciting. They paced that well. And that was a complaint I saw online, too, was that there were a lot of pacing issues in the beginning. And I agree. I think that's largely where the pacing problems are.
get to the big scenes towards the end things start to clip together really well so yeah you know it's it was a lot of fun you know i argue that you know at least for me like i think both this and the end the in battle word like at least even in terms of fun and excitement and and for all the the complaints i've seen online about like you know marvel and it's you know diminishing returns when it comes to the sfx um other vfx sorry i thought this film
when it was doing its battle scenes when it was doing its big moments I thought it looked generally pretty excellent to be honest I enjoyed all that again I'm holding back I'm holding back all talk about Red Hulk we'll get there we'll get there when Captain America throws his mighty shield Right, so I'm going to jump back to something else that may be a bit questionable. Robert, did we really need a spiritual sequel to The Incredible Hulk 16 years later?
Again, cards on the table. I like The Incredible Hulk. I really do. I think it's a really good movie. I don't think it's, again, it's mid-tier, maybe lower mid-tier MCU. But every time I go back and watch that when I'm doing a rewatch, it's like... Yeah, this is creepy. This is all right. But...
You know, that film kind of sunk without a trace and is very, very rarely referenced as part of the wider MCU. I remember when Thunderbolt Ross showed up in Civil War, I almost dropped my popcorn. How? How has this happened? And I defy...
a single person in the audience who is not a massive geek like us, Robert, to have any idea who Tim Blake Nelson was when he showed up in this movie. They treat it as some big reveal when he steps out of the shadows. And again... the the geek inside me was like oh that's cool they're referencing that thing that happened 16 years ago i think the rest of the audience is like who's the green dude what's happening there and then
And then Liv Tyler, God bless Liv Tyler, giving a performance so flat and phoned in that she actually phoned in half of it. I mean, I have no idea. why they brought her back for this it felt so completely tacked on really took me out of the film and I think Harrison Ford and Liv Tyler spent about maybe 36, 37 seconds together on screen. It's meant to be the emotional punch of the film, the minor redemption of Thunderbolt Ross, but it has no impact whatsoever.
First of all, what do you think of The Incredible Hulk? And do you think that anybody was waiting for this? I don't think anybody was waiting for this. I think I like... The Incredible Hulk, I don't love it, but I think it's not a bad film. It itself has a lot of issues, of course, but overall, I thought it was a fun film, a lot better than the first Hulk movie.
but it's always stood apart because it was a universal film and not part of, I mean, it's always been part of the MCU, but it was like the weird little. stepbrother of the mcu the whole time so it's one of those weird ones to like all of a sudden like like you said 16 years later pick up on this all this time later and it's fine i didn't hate it
But also at the same time, and it made sense in terms of the big red elephant in the room that we get later in terms of how that comes about. It does make sense for that. But does it. Does it really matter? Could they've done it in a different way? Yes, of course, 100%. I think that the Liv Tyler reveal was unnecessary if this is her one and done.
And this is all she's ever going to do. If they're building her up to coming back, then fine. That makes more sense. But if this is her one and done movie, she's just coming back from this little thing. I mean, it's a little weird. But, you know, I didn't hate it, but I didn't care either. It held no real emotional weight for me. So I wasn't like, oh, my God, Liv Tyler's back. No, I don't care.
um it was so bad robert that i read an article uh the other day where there was someone questioning whether she was just an ai construct and that live tyler had maybe given her permission because she couldn't be arsed showing up for it but apparently no apparently that was her voice
that was her face that we saw on screen but yeah that's funny so beneath contempt that i really had an issue with it i was just like you have got to be me that you want me to care about this after after doing precisely no work
Harrison Ford does his best with what he's got to do on his end, and he's great. No, Harrison Ford is brilliant in this movie. He's so good. To me, this... is a performance just like any of his other great performances in my mind he's doing top level work for a movie that he doesn't need to do top level work for but he gives it everything and I love that about it I think
Everyone's the same. Everyone loves Harrison Ford. He's such a great actor. He's got tremendous range. And he's really good here. I mean, I'd always really liked William Hurt's portrayal. And I'm a little bit sad we couldn't get to see him kind of complete that character arc. Because I do feel that they have...
this in mind for him when they brought him back and oh i'm sure this was a long like the long game was to get him here and so it's sad that we don't get to see him do it but ford gives us a really different side to that character that we haven't seen before because there's you know he's got that sort of and humanity just...
just beneath that gruff exterior which you never really got from William Hark he was playing like a comic book character you know he was like the hard bit in general and that's what he was but here with you know you get a man wrestling with his own conscience and his I was going to say morale
But morality and mortality, because how much of his soul has he sold to sacrifice in order to get what he perceives to be the right thing done? Unless it's just a side of the character that I'm glad that we got up on screen. I mean Harrison Ford absolutely knocks it out of the park and as I said in theory you know tying that fragility to the breakdown of his relationship with Betty makes sense when you write it down on paper but in execution
is incredibly flat and again that's no harm to Harrison Ford because he really throws himself into it and have you seen any of the press interviews and things or the promotional stuff he's been doing in the run up to it he has been very gamely talking about this film I've enjoyed
that a lot there was a there was a guy who asked him you know was it difficult to try and was it to have to you know to care when you're wandering around set with all the cgi dots and stuff on you and he's like oh it's very easy very easy they paid me lots and lots of money Anthony, Alfred.
And the guy's laughing and he said, no, no, he said, I'm serious. They paid me to do a job. He said, so I go in there and I give 100% because they paid me to do this job. It'd be fascinating to, you know, I think a lot of actors, when you hear that they...
just did it for the money you you think badly of them but this is a guy who like he remembers that i'm being paid to do a really good job and i'm being paid very well for it so i'm going to give everything to it and he really does i think it's funny too because like everybody really wants like actors to like have passion for every role and and i'm not saying that they don't and i'm not saying that even harrison ford didn't i think he did harrison ford literally called up
marvel and was like hey i would love to play in your world what do you have for me and so the fact that he called them up and and talked to them is actually really telling that he wanted to play in that universe, knowing that he could end up being the Red Hulk or something similar, something crazy like that. But it makes it a lot more interesting.
though too like you know at the end of the day as much as this is art and fun and and getting to play pretend and everything like that it's still a job and so that always is a little weird when people like get offended the fact that people are like well i got paid Yeah, but that doesn't take away from their desire to do it well and to be interested in it.
to do it well um and i think that's yeah it's very telling that you know because don't get me wrong we've seen harrison ford phone in some performances before look i love him as han solo but force awakens was a was a phone in and so to see him even older now and being very passionate this performance is very passionate and you can tell like you said with the emotion just under the surface he's a his character like you said William Hurd's character was all bluster and
bad guy comic book-ness, which is fine. But yeah, I don't, like, I... Never been a huge William Hurt fan, but I don't think I just don't think he could have pulled off what Harrison Ford pulled off, at least in terms of the way he's always played the character. I do think that there's a there's a. It's interesting to get somebody new into the character who could maybe do it differently. And I feel like Ford absolutely.
pulled that off in a way that I don't think William Hurt could have but I just I love the performance I know there's a lot of people who there's some people who really don't care for people who think it's rehabilitating a warmonger and stuff like that and sure i guess you could take it that way but i didn't see the movie in that way it felt like somebody who was
dying. He was going to die. And he found a way around that. And because of that, he was like, look, I'm taking this second chance that I have right now. and i'm gonna do better he looked around and realized this is not the legacy i wanted to leave yeah um and you know because he saw himself as the hulk hunter and like you know like everybody else saw him and so you know to go out on a message of togetherness and to try to be unifying and trying to work with people when
That's never been your life. It's hard. And I love that you see the struggle in this character, in this movie, that he falls back on some of his old habits and his old thinking. but still struggles and is still trying to work towards something better. And I love that's what the character was about was, yeah, sure. He's going to still fall back. He's 70, 80 years old at this point. you know he's got a lifetime of doing things this one way
And needing to try to get to this next point is a lot harder when especially when people don't think of you in that way. So I love that, you know, there was something that was a through line through this whole movie of this redemptive arc. that he was trying to do the work himself and people were trying to hold him to that as well. I mean, Sam completely the entire time was like, look, you said you were going to do better.
do better your reading of it is pretty much my reading of it which is which is a really fancy we don't have to retread that anyway the only thing i will say on a surface level reading you know having an alien aging president-elect who is desperate to do something in the world while being manipulated by an incredibly clever tech bro doesn't at all doesn't at all sound familiar i'm just going to move swiftly on from that
I'm going to talk about another issue I had for the film. I think the plot is absolutely overstuffed. Look, do we need Giancarlo Esposito's Sidewinder in this film? There's enough. There is enough going on with Stern and Ross as sort of villains and antagonists and the sort of interesting political thriller vibes that the film's going for in its early, like maybe, I'd say the first act, that kind of gets lost in the noise of the rest of the film because there's too much going on.
Sidebar, I love you Giancarlo Esposito, but maybe it's time to stop playing villains in everything. I really hoped that he would have a really juicy MCU role, but this just isn't it. I feel really disappointed and almost as disappointed as when Mads Mikkelsen was utterly wasted as Kaecilius in Doctor Strange but these are two excellent actors give them something with a bit of depth
So yeah, it doesn't quite work. Timberlake Nelson, I quite like the look that they settled on. I think it's especially good in the darkness. And I know that sounds damning with faint praise, but I just mean it looked very creepy in the darkness.
you see it up close it just looks a little bit goofy um did you see any of the early effects that they were talking about in the concept art because it was very very different to begin with no i didn't see any of that but yeah i agree i think the i think the overall effect was Yeah, definitely better in the dark because once you see them out in the light.
especially towards the end and everything like that looks a little goofy um it looks like a martian from a 60s b movie yeah it's hard to make that character visually interesting because i mean even in the comic books is just a a green dude with a big head.
So it's just kind of like, all right, well, I mean, I get it. But, you know, what else are you going to do with it? And his overall plan as well, Robert. I mean, again, this is probably my big criticism of it. And it doesn't take away my enjoyment. of the movie because i came out of this really having enjoyed it a lot in fact
I went in, you know, having heard the noise about the sort of like the very, very either negative or incredibly lukewarm reviews. And I came out like, well, that was a, that was like a three-star movie, maybe a little bit more than that. Actually, I enjoyed it. But its big problem is like...
the key plot points are just a retread of things we've already seen done in the mcu but kind of done much better you know you've got you you know you've got your mind control assassin you know check got that we did that in winter soldier we did that in civil
or a fabricated assassination attempt, which is actually designed to do something else entirely. Yep, we've got that check. That's in here as well. Handing yourself over to the authorities in the last act, happy in the knowledge that your plan has succeeded. Yep, we've got that as well.
we did that in civil war it's like the film wants to link itself to films like winter soldier i mean we even we even get a bucky cameo which we'll talk about in a minute in civil war but when it's doing that it only makes you remember how
good those films are and those are much stronger works with fully formed ideas that kind of are quite they're quite contained from start to finish they know what they want to do they get in they get out i feel that this one's a little bit too unfocused when it's referencing those sort of bullet points Real quick, just let me go back to the Giancarlo Esposito part. Yeah. I liked the role. I liked kind of what it built up. There was supposed to be more with the Serpent Society. Oh, right.
That was stuff that happened during the reshoots. He didn't come in until the reshoots. And so they punched some of that up. I guess maybe the first act was even weaker. That's what I'm assuming since that's where the bulk of his... arc is but there were actually supposed to be a couple other Serpent Society members there was supposed to be Diamondback and I'm not sure who the character who the character was supposed to be but there was a wrestler oh is it Seth Rollins yeah Seth Rollins
Collins was supposed to be in the movie as one of the Serpent Society, and he disappeared as well. So those two characters didn't show up. They were cut. and so i think there was supposed to be more with them but i think it was one of those things where maybe the runtime was getting a little long and they felt like let's punch it up let's slim this down even though we had to change this already to add this in
Maybe it's getting a little too long. I didn't hate it. I honestly didn't hate it. I thought Jim Carvalho Esposito did great. I think he does really good at playing. like really shitty evil villains and everything so he does Robert but do you not just do you not think sometimes like could we just do something else though could we find something else for him to do this week because you're right he is very good and that's not a criticism of his performance right
was it was it they say he understood the assignment i get that because then and he gives a really good account of himself and he's fun enough when he's on screen but i think he's such a terrific actor i mean there's so much more to him than just like the bad guy on screen give him something a bit more with a bit more the thing i think he's choosing these roles so he's okay no i know i know so he's just like look i like playing the villain i'm good at it i'm gonna keep doing it
Yeah, if they were throwing money at me to do these sorts of things, I don't think I'd be saying no. Another victim of the reshoot seems to be Shira Haas' Ruth Batzer app. Well, I mean, that has a lot to do with geopolitical things going on too. I'm just about to say that, yeah. Because I think for what she has to do in the film, she's fine. I would even go as far as to say she's quite cruel. But I have absolutely no idea what she's doing in this film.
just another character from the comics kind of shoehorned in for no discernible reason and as you said I do feel that not only was a role largely reduced I also think they completely changed her like what she was meant to be doing oh absolutely
i think she went from you know i don't know what she was originally going to do um but she just kind of got reduced to being a boss's security detail um you know and like we'll dance around this because this is not the place to be having these larger discussions Kevin, the current controversial state of the world and his really superhero up on screen perhaps would not have been the best thing to do. So...
I think maybe rather than doing what they did with her, I would have just maybe tried to cut her out of the film because she's so superfluous. She absolutely is. I was told at one point she has the Sabra suit on under the biker jacket. How would anybody know that? How would I possibly know? So yeah, I just feel like, yeah, she could maybe have done with being downsized entirely, which is a shame because no harm to the actress because she's very good at what she has to do. But like I said...
I think in a film that's already kind of stuffed with plot and only a two-hour runtime, there are certain things that probably could have been trimmed down a little bit more. Like I said, I think there's a really interesting story at the heart of this film, but it's kind of been suffocated a little bit by the weight of...
dare I say the word franchise but it does feel a little bit like that at times and this will lead us into talking about the finale here Robert so just bear with me it is a little bit odd that the plot seems to hinge on a massive third act reveal that disney gave away six months ago in their marketing for the movie like red hulk is on
every piece of promotional material available for the film yet we're meant to be caught off guard when he shows up towards the end of the movie like the entire plot with stern is about sam trying to work out what what exactly has he done what did these pills do to the press And we only get the reveal in the movie on screen with about maybe 20 minutes left to go.
And I genuinely think on the first edit, I think the audience were meant to be aghast at what was about to happen. But like, guys, we know we're like 10 steps ahead of the characters. And that's not somewhere you want your audience to be. I get Marvel want bums on seats. They want people to come see this movie. But I do think you're selling them.
the wrong film you're selling them an action extravaganza with red hulk which really only lasts about 15 minutes at the end of a two-hour international spy political thriller so it's a bit odd it's a bit odd what do you think do you think that they should have maybe held that back
a little bit or can you can understand why they went with it well part of that wasn't their fault um because of the nature of the reshoots and pushing it back especially because of the writer's strike and stuff like that there was there were moments they were this movie i think was supposed to be really
And a big part of the reveal that happened was McDonald's Happy Meal toys that... came out a little too early in terms of when the movie was scheduled now as to when it was originally supposed to be done because the contract for that license
was supposed to be for last year and so mcdonald's just pushed it out um and so everybody's like oh well i guess i mean it was rumored that it was gonna be red hulk anyway but marvel was being cagey about it but as soon as those toys came out everybody's like okay well here's all the things and this was
interesting too one of the toys was a diamondback toy um so like so it's for a character that's not even in the movie now so there's all this there's there's definitely things that happen because of that it kind of messed up their surprise and i think that in this instance, rather than try to do something...
that because they couldn't really re-edit at this point they like you know they had to continue with what they were doing and so i think by that point because it had already been revealed and everybody knew it at that point they they had to lean into it into the marketing for it And so they just they said, OK, well, everybody knows it's Red Hulk. We'll just, you know, we'll put it out there.
And I don't think that was the original plan at all. I think it was supposed to be a little bit more under the radar. But yeah, it felt the reverse of kind of what happened with Spider-Man No Way Home, where everybody knew there were other people. were likely going to be the other two Spider-Man in the movie, but they kept every advertisement for it showed you just Tom Holland. And so, yeah.
You know, they were being really cagey, even though we were just like, look, we know already. Would you just tell us? And so I think they went in the opposite direction and they were just like, look, everybody already knows. Let's just do it because otherwise it just seems silly. Because I did. I do think that because.
They had done that with No Way Home and people were just like, this is ridiculous. We know that. I think they were just like, they just leaned into it. And yes, does it kind of ruin the third act a little bit? But even though we know it's going to happen, I still love that. Like that tension of when is it going to happen?
It's just the fact that it's Stern's entire, like, raison d'etre in the film. Like, the entirety of his evil revenge scheme, which we slowly unpack over the course of an hour and 40 minutes, and then the reveal is, I've turned him in. to the Hulk. And the audience are sitting going, Yeah, we know. So like I said, it completely takes the wind out of his big green seals. But, you know, hey, look, let's have a talk about Red Hulk versus Captain America, okay? Because...
I thought this was great. Listen, for all you naysayers out there, I don't give a flying shit. I thought this was brilliant. Proper comic book nonsense two two heroes a hero and just kicking the crap out of each other and i don't have the same cgi hang-ups as i said a lot of people seem to have developed over the years so i'll just say I thought it looked very good. It doesn't outstay its welcome, which is another big thumbs up for me.
I don't want 45 minutes of like people smashing each other, but like a 15 minute finale where they go balls to the wall. That's brilliant. I'm happy with that. And crucially, something they do, I didn't think they'd be able to do. They do a good job.
of making you believe that a non-powered hero could stand against the hulk for a little while at least and yeah crucially they don't have sam beat him because he's more powerful than him or because he has better tech although the wakandan stuff is pretty cool I like that he defeats him with words do you know what I mean with his tying back into what we said at the start this idea of Sam as
a peacemaker as a counselor as someone who doesn't want to like go straight to fighting you know he plays into his strengths and the film pays off that that sort of that character arc across the movie and i think that's brilliant although big thumbs up for the line should have taken the super soldier serum Bucky was full of shit
He's kind of muttering it to himself as he's walking towards his death. Yeah. No, I agree. I think it's a great finale. I think that once Ross turns into Red Hulk and starts wrecking the White House, it's a lot of fun. I went with my wife and my daughter to go see... this and my daughter and I we were just like oh my god this is crazy like you know like the damage that it was doing and stuff it was just that was just a lot of fun and
Yeah, I don't have the same. I'm with you. I don't have the same CGI hangups. Like, I don't look for every nitpicky stupid like, oh, no, there's a shadow where it's not supposed to be. Who cares? Like, just enjoy the damn movie. Some of the screenshots for what you see online.
are going look at this and i look at it and go oh that was quite cool oh yeah this is a disgrace this is hot imagine releasing this into the world and i'm just like well it looks fine what are you losers talking about looks funny the most nitpicky stuff all the time like i every time you see these people talking about oh
VFX, oh, the background. Who's looking at the backgrounds? They're supposed to be kind of like blurry in the background. You're supposed to be watching the action in the front. Who cares about the backgrounds? I always remember Robert Turnbull in this podcast and we were talking about...
uh the incredible hulk actually and he was talking about people complaining that we don't have a photo realistic hulk it's like what the is a photo realistic hulk have you seen a hulk in the wild what's your comparison point It looks fine. It's a comic book come to life. It looks fine. Oh, man. People expect way too much. But yeah, no, I love this.
this in sequence i love the whole like the the fight amongst the cherry blossoms that's like such a great moment because it it's literally that moment and that's great because it's part of what sam uses to talk him down and so it's it's i love that you know again like we said it goes back to sam being a much different captain america than Steve was and I love that there's that legacy of what Steve was but that Sam is making it his own.
He's not trying to imitate or be Steve. And if he had the super soldier serum, that would make him a little bit too much. And maybe he'd be a little bit more reliant on the strength and the speed instead of using the tools he already had. And I love that he has to figure that out. And I mean, because even his wings get clipped and he's down and like, you know, he's like, OK, well, what do I do now? And he's like, OK, I got to talk him down. So I just I love that that's that's a part.
of the character and that it's something different and anybody expecting to see flying steve that's not what we're ever going to get sam is a much different character and i love that for it so it's it makes it makes it a much more compelling movie to have somebody like Sam and don't get me wrong I miss Steve sure but like I think Sam having his own time as Captain America is great
And I hope that we see a lot more of him. I'm exactly the same. You will know my ridiculous man love for Steve Rogers. He is my favorite MCU character by a distance. But it is so nice that Sam gets to kind of take center stage here.
said he's not like a proto steve he's not just like the next one in the assembly line he's a very different character yep he's got the shield he wears the the red white and blue and the star but he is not the captain america that that we that we've kind of come up with over the course of the infinity saga we've got someone completely different and as you said bringing his own skill set to it really makes a huge difference
Another very quick sidebar, another one of Hugh's very surface level readings of the film. Do you think they were saying anything, Robert, about the current state of the world by having a brightly coloured gibbon-faced president wrecking the White House and destroying other symbols of democracy?
democracy or is that just me looking too hard i don't know i don't know so i i did read something recently about that i think it was last night i read it and it's there's no way they could have known like that's the thing like sure they could they could have been like oh yeah this is you know similar to his character but I think it was more just I think it was just the natural progression of what they need to do with Ross and the fact that
In the comic books, Thunderbolt Ross becomes Red Hulk. So, I mean, it's very much in keeping with that more than anything else. But yeah, no, I mean... the unintentional parallels, that's great. And that's how movies work. You know, sometimes things parallel things by accident more than by purpose. And I think that's more where we're at in things, especially because of...
the long time that this movie had been worked on, there was no way in knowing who would be president at the time this movie came out. As I always say, Robert, trust the tale, not the teller. That's what I'm going to say to that. He's out of line.
But he's right. Before we move towards our sort of post-credit discussion, because I want to have a quick chat about what that is, in terms of any other business, a couple of things that we've not really mentioned that I'd like to kind of give a very brief shout out to. I thought that Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres was fantastic. Absolutely a brilliant addition to the MCU. I know he was in Falcon and the Winter Soldier kind of fleetingly. I was delighted to see him get a bit more front.
the center just absolutely hilarious his chemistry with anthony mackie is absolutely terrific i really hope we see more of him my only complaint Could we give him a better costume, please? Because he looked a bit like a shit Mandalorian. That's all I could think whenever I was looking at it. Just not a good look. Not a good look for him. But what did you think of him?
No, I thought he was great. I liked him in Falcon Winter Soldier, and I thought he was really good, even better in this, for sure. They've got great chemistry. They work well together, and I would love to see him as the new Falcon some more. definitely definitely definitely in like i would just we just need a captain american falcon movie and just you know let them high fly together uh a lot more and the last the last thing i've got in my notes here that i'll bring up before we talk about the
end is um one uh sebastian san cameo which i was not i was not spoiled for me in advance which is great it was a lot of fun their relationship is kind of like it's one of the few things that's hanging over really isn't it from the infinity saga that we get touched on again and again because
so many of those early relationships are gone through characters being dead or having moved on elsewhere it's lovely that they remember that the two of them you know they've kind of forced at first a begrudging friendship but uh throughout the course of of that sort of
Falcon and the Winter Soldier show they grew quite close together and I thought it was great when he showed up you know turns up when he needs him just to offer a bit of advice and a bit of support I thought it was great and what's this Bucky Barnes is running for
was it congress or was he future congressman but james buchanan barnes yeah that was an interesting thing and i wonder how that's going to play in the thunderbolts yeah because from that thunderbolts trailer he did not look like a man running for congress No, not when he's riding that motorcycle back there. He looks like a guy. Here's the thing. Maybe he's running for Congress and maybe he just doesn't get in. I don't know.
it's an interesting plot point to bring up just before the major movie where he premiered, like, you know, he's in the next one. So.
It's definitely odd, but it was great to see him. Because I saw this on opening night on Thursday, and there were lots of audible gasps when he appeared on screen. Everybody's like... you know my wife was actually laughing about it because she's like oh all the other ladies in here like going gaga over him my daughter and her best friend as well the minute they stepped on the screen i looked along the aisle and the two of them were like grabbing each other
just shaking back and forth like, it's Bucky. So yeah, he's very much a popular character. It's so funny. He was a character I didn't quite get on with the first run through, but he's really grown on me and everything comes back. I enjoy him more and more. And yeah, I'm very excited about the Thunderbolts. We'll talk about that later, but I cannot wait for that movie. Very excited for it.
me too oh one last thing that i'd kill myself if i didn't get in i enjoyed the parallels between steve's i can do this all day and sam's let's get this over with i've got shit to do today
Again, wonderful bit of contrast between the two men and what they want to do, how they want to live their lives. Can you move Ucina? No. all right so let's have a quick talk about the post-credit scene that we get here so um the raft we're on board the raft the film ends with president ross imprisoned in the raft because the red hulk genes in his dna aren't going anywhere you know he could go any time and he actually gives up the presidency and uh um and
and lets himself be jailed, you know, to, you know, serve time for his crimes. Very interestingly used this phrase, it was important that I let the country move on. Again, trying not to see any moral parallels, I'm just ignoring that. Yeah. So then we... get the credits and Sam has lingered about because he's got nothing better to do with his days he's chilling out at the raft and he goes to visit Samuel Stern and Stern basically ominously tells him something's coming you're in trouble
You're not ready for what's coming next. There are other worlds in these pretty much, Gunslinger. What did you think of that post-credits scene? Uh, it was pretty lame. Um, I'm not going to lie. I was just, I was very underwhelmed. There was no mid credits scene. So like, like the major credits ended and like, that's normally when they have that mid credit scene. And then my daughter and I were like, what?
where's the mid-credits scene because it just rolls into the regular credits and then it just it didn't make sense and so we're just like okay well there must be something at the end and then to have that was like yeah but we already know this like anybody who does doesn't know that there's something coming at this point. Like I would, I would assume he would know because he's in touch with some of the other heroes. I'm, I'm, I would assume. Yeah. But it was just, yeah, I don't.
It was definitely a letdown compared to other more fun things. I mean, they should have at least had something fun or something. I don't know, something better to go out on than that because that was not it.
i felt that that would have been an okay final scene in the movie and you know it's actually right it's part of the film what him kind of ominously saying there's more to come and then you can maybe jump to the president ross scene and that's that's how you go out and then give us something else in the post credit because it almost
was like like you said it's so vague and so generic that it's like you're giving me nothing here brother like yeah we all know this you're just telling a character on screen who probably knows as well that something bigger is coming and there's always something bigger bigger
something this is comic book 101 there's always a big or bad guy well for the audience it was like it was nothing like we already know all this we know the incursions are coming we know things are happening it's like come on man tell us something more I have to admit, I'm still getting used to the new look. They said to lose the mustache or lose the election. Alright, so listen, let's have a very brief chat about where we go from here.
before we have a quick talk about the Fantastic Four First Steps trailer. Yes. So... I don't know about you, but I get the impression that the ending of this film is very much setting Sam off on a job to put an Avengers team together. Yeah. It very much feels like he... even before he caught the leader's very ominous warning about something generic on its way, lads. Even before that, having spoken to Ross, I think it reaffirmed the Earth needs.
defenders and it needs some it needs a team put together so my question for you Robert is who are these Avengers what is this Avengers team because like there's lots of interesting heroes out there but some of them feel like they've already been like picked for other
projects that you know that are on the way like like we've got thunderbolts there was the tease at the end of the marvels for um you know the young avengers although let's be honest it will now be the not so young avengers given how it's taking to get that to to film So what do you think? What's the makeup of Sam Wilson's Avengers team? Oh, man, I don't even know at this point because it's who'd they get? Who's left? I mean, we could get Ant-Man.
Ant-Man, Spider-Man, Shang-Chi, maybe Moon Knight. Peter Quill. Yeah, because they purposefully put him back on Earth at the end of Guardians, so I'd think so. Yeah, Quill is unearthed. The ones I'd be interested in feel that they are out of reach. Like, I want Hayley Steinfeld's Hawkeye. Give me her. I want Yelena from the Thunderbolts, but she's...
busy with yeah we're not getting elena we're not getting uh we're not getting uh hailey steinfeld's hawkeye we won't get kamala khan either i don't think no um we'll make it she hulk oh she hulk would be a good show yeah i i get the impression these characters may appear in
avengers movies at some point but they're not going to be i think the team that sam's putting together and i think the glaring one for me is doctor strange because look we should have had another doctor strange film by now we really should have because
he's kind of taken off the boat at the end of that movie where he disappears through the multiversal portal and we haven't seen him since there's been no noise nothing at all it's really frustrating and I think this is Marvel's big problem at the moment to be honest with you
fellow critic and friend of the show and friend of many of the shows i do darren rooney i think he's a really interesting writer and he's got a lot of issues with the mcu and we don't always agree you know in fact there's a lot of things we disagree on but he was tweeting last night and i kind of tweet an agreement as something he put together was
that they haven't really committed to enough through lines when it comes to characters in these phases. There are story beats that are paying off as we move along that will all kind of connect. But as you say, Iron Man appears in nine movies in phases one through three.
Eight of them is the lead. Cap appears in eight movies in phases one through three. Seven of them is the lead. But there's been nothing like that after phase three. We haven't had any emotional through line. And kind of my take on it was like, yeah, like...
Where's my emotional connection to Shang-Chi? What am I hoping to see Doctor Strange accomplish? What's his arc? Where are Kate Bishop and Kamala Khan? I wanted Steve and... i wanted steve to get his happy ending which he got i wanted tony to find some peace i wanted them to reconcile i was rooting for those characters and those those arcs across like eight or nine years right they haven't done a good enough job here doing that for me and look
I will be there opening day for Doomsday. I'll be there at the first screening and I'll be as giddy as a teenager. But it's hard when you step back a little bit from my geekdom and my fandom to kind of disagree with that. It is a bit disappointing that they've not been stronger on that when they were so good at it in the first three phases. No, I agree. I think, well, I mean... I would argue that the first phase was a little uneven. And second phase kind of found its footing midway through.
Because I think that they finally figured out what they were doing. But we're at the end of this. We're at the end of the fifth phase now. And like you said, I mean, at least with one and two where they might have been uneven, there were still.
through lines um we were still getting you know nick fury was popping up a lot um and colson was popping up a lot in in those early in those early movies and we're not getting yeah like you said we don't have that through line in these there's nobody who keeps popping up there's nobody who's kind of holding it together And without that, it really does feel very disconnected. And when we get to Doomsday, like I'm sure it's good. I'm sure there's going to be something.
that happens and i'm hoping that because we don't really know the movies that are happening in phase six except for the fantastic four and doomsday um so it's We don't know what those movies are that are going to then connect to that from Fantastic Four to Doomsday to Secret Wars. So there may be that may be where they piece in. It's going to be a little.
shaky i'm sure but i think that's where we're finally going to get that cohesion again that we just haven't had i think that's if they get good enough writers and directors to make all the weird pieces that we've been given so far in phases four and five to finally connect. That's my hope. Just because, I mean, what else is going to happen? It's got to happen that way.
so well i mean with phase six i mean like you said it kicks off with fantastic four first steps that we're going to get in july this year and then there's nothing until doomsday
which is May 2026. And then there's kind of tentatively penciled in. It's kind of been... unofficially officially announced which is the Spider-Man sequel that we're getting which they've penciled in for July 2026 so that'll be in between the next two Avengers movies so I can see that doing a lot of the heavy lifting in terms of the emotional stakes
But I just think it's asking a lot heading into Avengers Secret Wars. The only thing I can think of is that maybe Secret Wars itself isn't quite the end as we think of it. Maybe there is going to be some things after.
that yeah and and i think that's the interesting thing is that i think that you know this may have been the original idea was that secret wars was going to be the end event like end game was but secret wars may break everything out in a way that you know can change the status quo a lot um because if anybody knows anything about the secret wars comic book um at that
at the time that it happened, it changed things for a bit. I mean, things have kind of gotten back to status quo, but it kind of weirded things out for a little bit. And I think that may be where they go with it is like, look. you know we haven't been able to figure this out we're going to do something here that's going to change the status quo a lot and
this will give us some breathing room maybe. It's so confusing as to what exactly they're going to do. I think that there were so many things between COVID and the writer's strike that kind of threw them off.
and that they were trying to do too much in the beginning. Don't get me wrong. I loved how much the output that they were putting out in the beginning, but they were doing a lot. And I get that they were trying to... figure themselves out what do we what do we do in a post in-game world um yes they'd been building up for so much with that but now what do we do and so i think there's a little bit of floundering kevin feige i think it was the problem that
they had was that Feige was put in charge of Marvel television as well and so his focus kind of got shifted um and so i think that's what's ended up being the biggest issue so hopefully now that he's supposed to be back on just focusing on the movies again that hopefully we'll start getting a little bit more of that focus again
I don't, it's so confusing. I wish I knew more, but I don't even think, I mean, hopefully they know better. Hopefully they're kind of resetting. That was supposed to be what these three movies this year are kind of supposed to do. What I heard was that Brave New World. Thunderbolts and Fantastic Four were big resets.
in a lot of ways to get us back on track and you know I feel like they're kind of starting to get that I feel like there's a lot of Brave New World that was kind of throwback let's kind of tie up some loose ends Oh, yeah. And so Thunderbolts will probably be doing a little bit of the same, like tying up some loose ends, maybe introducing some new stuff. So we'll see what happens. I don't know. Red Hulk could be a member of the Avengers. Who knows? So we'll see what happens. Yes.
It's funny, though, the way you say about that, the reset, because a lot of the stuff I've been reading about Thunderbolts and a lot of the vibes coming from the studio is they're quite confident about that film. I think it's one of the reasons why I'm putting a lot behind the marketing.
I think they feel that this could be a big hit for the studio again, which is interesting because it's a team made up of kind of, you know, the lower tier characters. Yeah, the B-listers. But within that, you've got Florence Pugh. who is an actress who comes with an inbuilt audience, let's be honest. There's a lot of Florence Pugh fans out there. You've got Sebastian Stan, who, as I said, like...
When he started doing these movies, I think he was a jobbing actor, doing a few interesting things. But he's now a very well-regarded actor, Oscar-nominated, doing some of the most interesting work of his life.
And you've got these two leading this film, which is a kind of a broad action comedy. Like I said, it looks like a lot of money is going to be put into the promotion of it as we get nearer the time. I'm really excited about that film. I think it's going to be good. The trailer that we got...
about a month or so ago was exactly what I wanted in terms of tone. There's something of the James Gunn Suicide Squad movie about it. You know, it's hard not to shake that, but that's fine. You know, a lot of superhero movies often have kind of shared DNA in some way. years i've got no issue with that um and the sort of chemistry of the actors that we've seen on screen has just been a lot of fun you know david harbour is
is just an absolute riot as the Red Guardian, as he was. He was so good in Black Widow as well. Yeah, I'm seeing it here, folks. I'm cautiously optimistic that The Thunderbird is going to be a really strong film.
I'm really excited about it. But... enough about the thunderbolts let's talk about the film that's coming after that robert the fantastic four first steps due on july 25th 2025 uh directed by matt shackman so we got our first trailer over the super bowl weekend end with this sort of like what we'd all been told was going to be happening this sort of like retro 60s
kind of like future tech world that is not that is not to the emcee here that's very important to state and we get lots of little you know we get to finally see what the team looked like what their uniforms are the vfx used for for the thing. And crucially, we get a glimpse of that beautiful big bastard Galactus as he hovers over the Statue of Liberty. What are your kind of impressions of that trailer? Did that whet the appetite sufficiently? Oh, man.
Like, look, it was very exciting. I have not been excited for a Fantastic Four movie in a very long time. Like, I think the original Fantastic Four movie was okay. It wasn't great, but it was fun. But this one definitely, I feel, embraces that.
the uniqueness that the fantastic four has as a family as as weird stories go um just like all of it just was really great um we finally get a version of the thing that looks really really good it's so good isn't it so good yeah um you know and and i'll i'll chime in uh with the rest of the chorus on his voice isn't exactly how i would have
loved it but I don't hate it it's fine if that's the only minor quibble I have that's great because otherwise he looks fantastic you know pun intended yeah but You know, he just looks so good. It's well done. Herbie, Invisible Woman. Everybody gets their powers kind of like on display, which is great. Except for Reed. We never see any stretching for Reed. So that'll be an interesting...
thing that's always going to look silly i'm not going to lie it's not going to be an issue for me like it's it's it is what it is so yeah but i also think with the sort of the retro futuristic vibes that they're going for i think it's going to be a bit kitschy a bit camp okay if his if those special effects look a bit silly because as you said
I don't think there's a way you can do those effects. And it doesn't look a bit sort of, what am I looking at here? What is this? And that's fine. And it does feel like the film is absolutely going to lean into that. Yeah, I am very... very excited about it the little glimpse of galactus we got was it was enough i really hope so good closer don't give us too much well i i want to experience it in the cinema i want to i want to go to the biggest imax screen i can find and i want to sit there
And I want to have the shit scared out of me by Ralph Innocent's terrifying galactic voice. That's what I want. I want the seat to be vibrating, Robert, when he's speaking. I want to be, what's happening here? I want to feel like he's outside the cinema coming for me. That's what I want.
I've got such high hopes for it. I really hope that they land. And I'm not going to be one of these nasals. I'm going to be optimistic until I'm given a reason not to be optimistic. Yes. It looks terrific. The casting is brilliant. i really like matt shackman and you know he's directing the movie um everything i've seen so far everything i've heard about it so far gives me cause to be optimistic that it's going to be good so i'm going to just i'm just going to
I pray that they absolutely knock it out of the park. And I think they've got a very good chance of doing so. Oh, absolutely. No, I agree. I think it's going to do well. I think this would be a nice, fun movie. Like you said, it's not set in the MCU proper. It's set in... in an alternate universe. So we'll have to figure out how they're going to get to ours, which is the most interesting bit. My son and I have theories.
Which I won't say here, but give us one. Give us one. Well, I mean, I'm assuming so. My theory was that this will be interesting because maybe they have to exit their universe because... They have no chance in stopping Galactus and their universe dies. Yes. That's kind of where I'm at with that is that that's what it. feels like it has to happen my son added on to that his theory was that they enter the negative zone to get away and then the negative zone is a is a
conduit between universes. So I'm like, all right, that's a, that's good theory. I have exactly the same theory. Well, not the negative zone part, but I think it's fascinating if they feel, you know, it's a fascinating way to start it. No, absolutely. that they don't save their universe and they're kind of cast out and it also leads me on to my second bit of the theory which i'm absolutely look guys pure fan fantasy here right just just go with me
I fully expect this to be the reason why Downey Jr.'s Victor Von Doom is so hatefully against the Fantastic Four because he will sneak through into our world the same way that they do. And he will know... reed richards as the man who failed his own universe and you know as you know from the comics and uh you know secret wars we get the emperor doom sorry the god emperor doom who takes control of all reality in order to
protect her as he sees it anyway to protect everyone um right i think that i can just see that that's the plot line that they'll go down that you know he feels reed has let the universe down he has decided to take matters into his own hands and control everything which ends up pulling the multiverse apart that's that's my wild theory and i'm gonna stick with it until i'm proven wrong i think no i like that theory it's really good
Enough of this mad fan theories. It's time to take us out of here, folks. So, I mean, this is about all we have time for this week on Podcast 616. So all that it means is for me to thank everybody for listening and a huge thank to our awesome guest, Romer Clark, for helping us out. on the pod today. Robert, where can people find more of you online or hear more of your work? Alright, well you can find me personally online at geekthulu.com
That's where all my social links and everything are. And you can find my podcast, Creepy and Geeky, at creepyandgeeky.com. Awesome, awesome. We'll get some links in the show notes for you. And remember, Podcast 616 is a part of the Film Stories Podcast. So check out our website for a whole host of other shows you might like to subscribe to.
Well, the multiverse saga continues to head towards its conclusion with Secret Wars in 2027, and Podcast 616 will be with you every step of the way. We'll be back in March for our weekly coverage of Daredevil Born Again, provided my heart doesn't give out on me. halfway through and we'll be covering thunderbolts and of course marvel's first family the fantastic four across the rest of the year
As discussed offline with Rover, we will be covering some of Marvel's animated shows, but I'm leaving that in the more than capable hands of our wonderful co-host, Ashley Thomas. So she'll be in touch with more news when we've got some things up and coming for that. An exciting year ahead for Podcast 616 and for Marvel Studios. But until next time, Podcast 616, disassemble.