Doolittle-2020 - Jan 23

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It sucks just because, and your family, as well as yourself, are a part of it. Yes, every new day is different, one way or another, but as a rule – real life sucks. You may want to discuss the long-tailed duck or something, but you cannot, simply because real life sucks, and your personal life sucks, and you suck. Plus – priorities. No matter how much you love nature, sometimes you just cannot master the enthusiasm to write about the ducks, (or the woodpeckers, hedgehogs, squirrels, etc.). So, let us talk about something else – the doctor. He, (i.e. Doolittle), is in the house!

…And apparently, he sucks almost as much as real life does, according to many reviews and critics. They are wrong. ‘Doolittle-2020’ is not bad. It is insipid.

Does anyone remember Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ that’d aired several years back? If not, it is not surprising – the show lasted for a single season, and it numbered only eight episodes. Yes, in the pre-Disney+ era Marvel TV shows didn’t last for more than two or three seasons, (AoS is the exception, period), but even so, ‘InHumans’ stood-out: they were that bad.

And yet… there did not appear to be something that was specifically damning that prevented them – in theory – from continuing from another season or two. (Marvel’s ‘Runaways’ ended after 3 seasons, for example). Instead, it was an entire assimilation of small flaws, including bad script and rushed acting that did Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ in. In different hands, under different management and circumstances, they could have been good, but because real life, they failed to launch instead. ‘Doolittle-2020’ is in the same boat, even though it is a single film and not a TV series instead.

On one hand, it had a lot going for it, actually, starting with the Iron Man being the titular character and a story plot that sounded good on paper. On the other, with such an illustrious name playing the main lead in a film that just couldn’t be anywhere near the level of the last two Avenger films, (let’s be honest – even in the best of circumstances ‘Doolittle-2020’ wouldn’t be anywhere near the level of ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’), enough people would feel gipped, as if this was a step down or something – and they were probably right.

 …And top of those failed expectations and the subconscious feeling of being cheated out of something that is Avenger-level film, the film itself is flawed, let’s be polite. The plot felt rather like Stark’s new Welsh accent – completely unnecessary and a straight-out failure. Queen Victoria is poisoned, so Stark – er, Doolittle – is off to bring back the miracle cure? What is this – the Avengers, Victorian era? Well, maybe – we did also get Sony’s current version of Spider-Man voicing a dog, so it could have been a start. Instead, we got a failure with a bunch of grown-up jokes in a decisively pro-child film, (children under the age of 10 will enjoy ‘Doolittle-2020’ moreso than their parents, yes), the titular character farted by a dragon, (what is this – mockery of GoT? If so, then ‘Doolittle-2020’ is excessively late for this party), and, oh yes, a gorilla fighting a tiger, (sort of) among other things.

Off topic, if a gorilla fought a tiger for real, who would win? In AFO, when a gorilla faced-off with a leopard, it actually won, but a tiger is much bigger and heavier than a leopard is and carries a much heavier punch than a leopard does. In a feline clash, tiger will triumph over a leopard, as ‘Jungle Book-2016’ showed openly and clearly – even though it is fiction, it actually did a good job of being realistic, at least to a point. But a gorilla is completely different beast than a leopard is. A tiger is a professional hunter and killer, but if it fails to get a drop on the modern world’s biggest and strongest primate, period, then it can go either way – and, of course, ‘Doolittle-2020’ went in a completely different direction to begin with. What next?

Well, for me, Chee-Chee the gorilla brought back memories of the Soviet adaptation of Doolittle, (where Chee-Chee was actually a capuchin monkey instead). To wit, this adaptation consisted of one large poem where the Soviet Doolittle went to Africa to cure all the cute animal babies there, because they all were sick; and of another large poem, where the good doctor comes to Africa to rescue a couple of human children from the Soviet analogue of Rassouli; and also a couple of novellas for children where the good doctor crosses swords with the pirate leader time and again, until he defeats the villain for good. Not such a small assimilation, especially by children’s standards, after all.

…And then the Soviet cinematography produced a cartoon series, and a couple of movies, all about the good doctor confronting the wicked pirate and his crew, and frankly, one of them, ‘Soviet Doolittle-66’ is just as crazy, but much more coherent and enjoyable than the U.S. 2020 version. Not unlike the gender-flipped ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot, ‘Doolittle-2020’ is just bad as in uninspiring and insipid, which brings us back to Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ TV series – they had the same problem and collapsed, though compared to them, ‘Doolittle-2020’ is better, (and it is certainly better than ‘Cats-2019’, cough), simply because the younger children will enjoy it with all the poop and fart jokes as well as periodic clothing, and, hey, the Iron Man is riding an ostrich in this universe, while a giraffe is talking to him in voice of Selena Gomez. Fun! Anything else?

Well, the second ‘To all the boys…’ movie is coming out on Netflix on Feb 12, 2020. Why before 2020’s Valentine Day – who knows; who cares, too – while the first film had its’ flaws, clearly, the entire franchise has proven to be tough, enduring and popular enough to bring forth a second movie. (Jenny Han wrote a trilogy about LJ’s adventures, so there is at least one more movie in store for LJ and her love life). By comparison, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ franchise apparently hadn’t – so far there’s no news about a second movie in this franchise; maybe because it tried to be a pro-American propaganda piece among other things back when it aired and ‘Boys-1’ didn’t? Who knows, but ‘Boys-1’ was a very good romantic movie, surprisingly so, given all the flaws of both it and the original novel…but it was not insipid. It delivered. It gave enjoyment to the views. It made real life slightly more endurable than it is on its’ own. I am actually looking forwards to ‘Boys-2’ coming to Netflix next month. Yay.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

Avengers: Endgame and etc. - March 15

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In this particular case, you can ask the folks down in the island nation of New Zealand – that was just wrong as to what went down, it was just wrong. Admittedly, I do not know as to why Andrew Scheer is under attack – his statement is as politically correct as it comes, but that is real life politics for you. What next?

No, we are not going to discuss the upcoming ‘Avengers: Endgame’ movie, because by now it has been established that people love or hate the MCU films (and associated franchises, aka Sony), but they will still go to watch them, which means that they spend money, which means that Disney makes money, and that, in the end, is what counts for Disney. Disney is not progressive or regressive, it just wants to make money, and it is really good at doing so, and it is almost just as good at detecting factors that hinder it from doing just that, aka controversy. This time, in ‘Captain Marvel’, the only twist was making Skrulls the good guys, but…

But if you’ve watched AoS, you would’ve seen that while, admittedly, in S1 the Kree had been mentioned as ‘blue angels’ and their blood helped S.H.I.E.L.D. to create the GH formula which was an important factor in S1, but from S2 onwards AoS cast Kree as villains, up to S5, where they were the Big Bad in the first half of that season, so here ‘Captain Marvel’ wasn’t exactly coming out of the left field either; we’ll need to see any follow-up to this movie, (and yes, it includes A:E, let’s be honest here), before making any final conclusion as to what goes where in Earth’s position of the Kree-Skrull warfare.

Anything else? The ‘Boom Buffy’ comic series have begun to come out already, (I think that this series is on its’ third installment already), and… so what? Yes, the obvious part is that the BtVS-verse was rebooted: Anya, (or rather – Anyanka) is running the Magic Box in Sunnydale already; Drusilla is much less insane than she was in the canon and is more of a straightforward, stereotypical villain; Buffy and Spike got chemistry already, (seriously?); and Willow and Xander seem to be more street-savvy and vampire-savvy to begin with. That is fine, but so what? The previous comic incarnation was working just as well; ‘Boom Buffy’ does not appear to be bringing anything better to the table. 

...Yes, all of those DC and Marvel reboots/re-incarnations that are the same old thing in a new package (and maybe new depictions) are annoying, but ‘Boom Buffy’? This was fixing what was not broken, and kind of reminds of the new ‘Charmed’ reboot – yes, it is going for its second season, but somehow it is not talked too much anymore, and people just are not as excited about it as the big wigs who brought it back to begin with thought that they would. Sometimes reboots work, other times people are just mystified: what was the reason behind this decision? Just ask the Disney/SW merger – that seemed to have backfired in a bad, sad way. ‘Boom Buffy’ is not as bad as that, but neither it seems to be flourishing – the old guard are not exactly happy with the reboot, (or at least – not unanimously happy), and the new aren’t so interested in the reboot to begin with. Whether ‘Boom Buffy’ will flourish or not – we will just have to wait and see.

Anything else…no, this is it, actually. With ‘Captain Marvel’ out, MCU is taking a deep breather before unleashing the next ‘Avengers’ movie, and C&D S2 are coming out only next month. Real life being what it is, there’s no guarantee of steady updates of it – or AoS S6 – yet, and with ‘Aquaman’ being out and ‘Shazam’ only coming forth, the same can be said for DCEU as well. Therefore, see you all next time!