Iron Fist…things I haven’t heard mentioned yet.

Iron Fist came out on netflix Friday.  ***this review is spoiler free…so don’t worry, anything I mention is vague or was shown in the previews ***  I had no expectations. I didn’t care for the character much as a kid, I didn’t as an adult…The only reason I knew about him was because he was teamed up with one of my favorites-Luke Cage.  So I’m a pretty fair judge here.

The early reviews where “meh”. Complaints were that it was too slow paced and the fight scenes where so-so, and the story was “meh” and the acting was bad. None of which sways me one way  or the other.  I thought it would be stupid because…all the the marvel shows on netflix were stupid.  I’m being honest here…every single one had some (or many) part, elements, or plot points that were flat out stupid.

Jessica Jones- someone want to explain to me how if Kilgraves power is a biological virus…how it can be transferred over the phone or a hospital loudspeaker?

The last scene in the second season of Daredevil..why?  You and Electra have agreed to spend your lives on the run, and then stop running to fight an entire army of ninjas instead of running out the door…and then running like hell? Just run away. That was the plan, right?  Better yet, SHE is the Dark cloud..or black storm…or whatever the hell the title of leader of the Hand is, command them all to kill themselves and leave.

Luke Cage- I don’t have enough time to even skim the surface because every single episode was stupid, starting with the first one where a multi million dollar arms deal is hijacked by three teenagers in ski masks with hand guns.  AND the “arms” they were selling where “Stark tech” level of munitions.  That’s like defense department experimental type stuff. You don’t sell that to a drug dealer for a few million…you sell that to Putin or Red China for billions  and your own tropical island. AND you sure as F*CK don’t sell it to your competition for any price.

So I knew it wouldn’t be very good because none of the netflix Marvel shows were very good.

I also knew it wouldn’t be very good because all of the Marvel Netflix shows WERE very good. 

The bar was set too high.  As stupid as the shows were, once you were able to suss out what kind of stupid that show lived in, you could just accept that and move on ( except for Luke cage which was a constantly moving target that was stupid in every way possible and inconsistent with it’s type of stupid) and see that they all had their own moments/elements of brilliance. 

We were NEVER going to root for Iron Fist the way we rooted for Jessica Jones.

Iron Fist would NEVER be able to top the fight scene in the stairwell in Daredevil season 2. 

The villain would never seem as 3 dimensional as Cottonmouth in Luke Cage. 

It would NEVER have a scene as touching and jarring as the Punisher bleeding out against a gravestone while telling his tragic tale. These are things that are as good as has EVER been done in ANY show or movie.

So…I knew it would have all the suck and never be able to match the good of the other marvel shows.

I watched and…It sucked.  I must say it is nice that for once that I’m not the only one who sees something for the garbage fire that it is.  I will first briefly concur with the early reviews then quickly touch on a few things I haven’t seen mentioned.

Ahem…This was a disjointed disorganized rambling mess. It was in acting, story, special effects, dialogue, costume design, and set design, a 12 hour grade B movie.   Recall if you are old enough, or track down, the Punisher Movie from 1991 staring Dolf Lundgren ( the gold standard of poorly adapted comic book movies) and tell me this was any better.

***this next part COULD sort of be a spoiler…it’s still pretty vague  but if you want to be on the safe side- skip this gray paragraph**

That Punisher movie was bad, but at least it made sense.  This thing just had me scratching my head the whole time.  Lemme give you an example of what I mean. Episode 12 Harold and Ward are at the hospital talking on the phone to Danny who is in the car with Colleen.  Harold TELLS Danny he is at the hospital with Ward, Danny TELLS Harold he is going to the dojo.  THE NEXT SCENE Ward texts Danny “to get out, they are coming for you”. Colleen says “how does Ward even now where you are?” Danny says ” I don’t know”……..WHAT?!

THEN DEA agents burst through the door with riot gear and automatic weapons to arrest Danny.  I want you to think of the world we live in…can you FATHOM this happening?  DEA agents in riot gear with weapons drawn bursting to to arrest a 140 pound white billionaire with no criminal record?  WHAT?!

And that is just ONE episode of a 13 episode MESS.

I don’t know that it was any more or less stupid than the other shows, but I know I didn’t give crap about Danny, Colleen, the Meachams or anyone else. I just didn’t get me to care..at all.  Hell, it even managed to get me to NOT care about the Night Nurse, who heretofore I like a lot.

***this next part COULD sort of be a spoiler…it’s still pretty vague and I think it was mostly shown in the preview but if you want to be on the safe side- skip this gray paragraph**

And, briefly, on the topic of the Night Nurse. LADY YOU KNOW THREE DIFFERENT SUPERHEROS, and they all owe you a favor…how about you CALL ONE to help out?! W…T…F?!  I was a mechanic for awhile before doing comics. I know how to fix my exhaust pipes. Yet, if I have to fix one, I’ll ask my brother for help…because it’s easier with two guys. This broad…is about to fight some Ninjas and doesn’t bother calling Jessica Jones…WHO WORKS FOR HIRE?! Jessica has super powers, you can pay her to help..Iron Fist is a Billionaire…CALL HER. She doesn’t call Daredevil?! Who’s girlfriend was killed by the hand?!  WTF?!  Here’s how the phone conversation would go…

Nurse “Matt, I could use some help. the Hand is…”

(loud knock on the door)

Daredevil (yelling through the door) “open the f*cking door and tell me where those c*ckersuckers are…NOW”.

So yeah…I even got tired of her. And when I am tired of looking at some hot black chick, that means your show is awful.

“she’s not black, she’s Latina”

…She is?  I thought she was black.

“her name is Rosario…idiot”

So? My last name is Paszkiewicz, and I’m Italian.  Whatever, the point is she’s hot and I still got tired of her real fast and if she caught a katana right in the face I couldn’t have cared less…that’s how bad this show sucked.

The acting ranged from okay to bad to 1980’s porno bad.  I say the 1980’s…not now. It wasn’t even as good as porno acting now…like, now it’s okay…like I believe that really hurts. but in the 80’s it was a lot of “hello, I am here delivering pizza for you now. would you like some hot pizza in you?”  and you’re just like “these people don’t nuthin about delivering pizza, where’s the big “hot bag” they keep it in?  It doesn’t matter how rough the broad looks…you just don’t buy that it’s really going down.

 

Also,  I’m confused every time he makes reference to Asian martial arts and culture…I thought this guy was training and learning in ANOTHER DIMENSION, that you can only get to through a portal that only exists for a short time every 15 years…yet somehow they studied Buddhism there..? Whatever.

A word here on props.  Slowly but surely, as practical effects have gone by the wayside for CGI, the making/acquiring of props used in even high budget shows and movies have become armature hour.  The swords and such used in this show ranged for ridiculously fake looking, to stuff that looked like it was bought at a dollar store, to things that are ridiculously fake as in never existed and would have no practical use.  That last part would be tolerable if this show wasn’t presenting the characters and villains as knowledgeable, well trained martial artists. I’ll give you one , non spoiler, example.  There is a scene in episode 8 where Madam Gao has two big thug body guards in suits…look at those things they are holding.  WTF ? What actual use are those things in a fight? Imagine holding that thing, is there anything you could do with that besides taking big wild swipes? If you miss once, you are f*cked. That is something you would use in a butcher shop or slaughter house, not in a fight with someone who has a long SWORD. 

AND…could they look a little more fake? This type stuff needs to STOP.  Thor’s hammer, which always looked to me like the efforts of two hours of plaster of pares with gray spray paint and some dry brush marks added here and there to make it look worn, was bad enough.  I had hoped that was a fluke. But this show looks like the props department just went to a Halloween store and grabbed every fake weapon on the shelves, sh*tty gold paint, shiny tassels and all.  They are supposed to be Asian assassins and a bunch of the weapons they were using were from like midevil Europe. 

“that’s rich coming from you, you thought Rosario Dawson was black”

Hey, I don’t see race alright.  I’m more enlightened than that…and her ass looks like black lady’s ass.

Stop jacking up my point. the point is….

SPEND SOME TIME AND CARE ON THE PROPS.  For F8cks sake. Or, if you are just so in love with CGI now that you can’t be bothered to pay attention to anything tangible, have them all hold blue sticks and let that crew handle it. That Punisher movie, as ridiculous as it was…at least his daggers looked real.

So, it sucks…everyone already told you it sucks. But here’s the thing that I couldn’t get past.  Does this guy look like a “living weapon”?

No, he does not.  That looks like the body of the guy who delivers Amazon packages to the “living weapon” THAT is an average build.  Now, let’s be fair, you think maybe Scarlet Johansen has to do a bit of work in order to fit into a size zero leather body suit to play the Black Widow? yeah…I be she does. Or the lady who played Wonder Woman…you think she did some training to look strong and formidable? Yeah, I bet she did.  That’s part of the job…for which you are paid a lot of money. What’s Finn’s problem?  He’s supposed to be playing the role of a guy who’s trained non-stop for 15 years.  Do some f*cking push ups, man! You’re supposed to be the  “living weapon”. he looks like the guy at the gym who spends 45 minutes on the exercise bike at slow speed and stops peddling every time he changes the song on his Iphone.

Recall if you will the complaining that was going on when they cast Wonder Woman because she wasn’t a big thick Amazon body type…and it didn’t subside until some pics where released and people saw that she did look pretty strong.  No double standards…if Wonder Woman should look the role , than Iron Fist should look the role…not like A roll.

I apologize to the guy who played Luke Cage…you ain’t scary or intimidating at all, but at least you made the effort to look really strong.

Everybody else managed to hit the gym for the sake of looking the role.  Why does Finn who is supposed to be the ‘Living weapon” look like a guy who occasionally does crossfit?!

  Sure, you don’t have to be jacked to be believable as a guy who is good at martial arts. Steven Segal is 200 pounds of bread dough with a pony tale..but he’s BIG AND SCARY. Finn is average height and really pretty. When that’s the case, you gotta bulk up junior! The kid playing spider-man looks more intimidating than Finn. If I had a choice between who to get in a fist fight with…this guy

Or this guy…

I’d pick the first one in a second. That second kid’s chiseled out of marble, I don’t even know where I’d hit him that would hurt him.  I’d defiantly have to kick that kid in balls, Finn you could just punch anywhere and get a nice satisfying “ooff!” sound out of him. I bet you could punch him right square in the chest and knock the wind out him without half trying.

And don’t go thinking I picked a specific shot of Finn just to make him seem mediocre, look for yourself.  He’s a wet end. 

AND the camera adds 10 pounds, and you can do all sorts of tricks with lighting, and he was probably sucking in his gut the the whole time, meaning his physic is probably complete sh*t. The guy didn’t care enough to do some training? Why not?  It’s not like he had to spend a lot of time learning some challenging role…this wasn’t f*cking Othello it’s a comic book tv show. And his acting was ridiculous.

F*cking Paul Rudd managed to hit the gym and he’s a comedian….ANTMAN was more intimidating than this guy.  ANT…MAN.

 

This looks like a “before” and “after” shot for an ad for a workout supplement. Let me repeat…Paul Rudd is a COMEDIAN, playing the role of a cat burglar who accidentally becomes a super hero. And Finn is playing the role of the greatest marital artist of a city of martial artists where all they do is train all day everyday.

Buy some dumbells, man! You’re supposed to be a superhero. Lazy f*cking bastard. This ain’t 1967 and you ain’t Adam west. Go to the f8cking gym if you’re going to play a superhero.

Why didn’t the produces get on his ass about this? That or have Colleen take her shirt off too so I ain’t paying attention to the doughy kid with the sharpie tattoo.

By the way both of these screen caps where when he was being treated for wounds..and wincing and yelping like a child.  The Iron Fist YELPED when the nurse poured alcohol on the wound.  What the fu…? We watched the Punisher GIVE HIMSELF STITCHES WITHOUT MAKING A PEEP….TWICE.  I didn’t hear Daredevil yelp like a child when he got stitched up, or Electra for that matter.  My sister…when she was 4 and got stitches in her chin…didn’t yelp. W…T…F? Iron Fist, in the MCU is a doughy, flabby, pussy.

Anyways, the show ends with a requisite end boss battle that is so full of tropes that I could literally recreate the whole thing with sections of other show’s final battles.

Actually, that’s not the very end. The Very end is a scene in the Himalayas. Two actors standing  in “snow”.  It is 2017…can Hollywood PLEASE figure out how to make fake snow look like real snow?  They are standing in powdery fluffy “snow” that looks and acts as much like real snow as the “snow” in a Muppet X-mas movie from 30 years ago. It’s like arts and crafts level of fake snow.  Some of us are looking, right now, at actual snow and sure as f*ck don’t look like the giant powdered flakes that go floating around every time the actor takes a set.   If real snow was that pleasant no one would move out of the Midwest…or die in a car crash because of it, or get a heart attack shoveling it. 

Every time the actor takes a step the “snow” just *poof* floats away. NO…that’s not how it works, you step in it and it sticks to your shoe, pant legs and melts and soaks in and makes you cold and soggy and miserable, and your toes freeze and hurt. This asshole’s just wandering around in it, in some pair of f8cking cotton ninja boots. I’d like to get the prop guy and force him at gun point to wander around in the snow outside my apartment for half an hour so he learns the hard way how much NOT like actual snow his fake snow  is and realizes everyone living in a climate with real snow is giving the screen the middle finger.

OH! and the biggest flaw of the whole show is this- He took a vow of chastity… so he’s a virgin, he’s never had sex before…and he starts doing it with Colleen… and the scene lasts longer than 4 seconds. I call bullsh*t on that.

“Dude!  That was a spoiler!”

Give me a break…If you didn’t know those two were going to sleep together from even just seeing the previews than you must have never seen an action movie or t.v. show in the last 30 years.  The dialogue of the first scene they had should have been “hello, I’m going to act like I’m not going to sleep with you but eventually sleep with you…like every action movie or tv show of the last 30 years”.  You think me saying that was a spoiler, than the bulk of Daredevil season 2 was a spoiler because the parallels between Matt and Electra’s tryst and Danny and Colleen’s was something to behold…Iron Fist basically Plagiarized Daredevil season 2…here I’ll show you…

**SPOILER ALERT, skip this nest gray paragraph**

Matt doesn’t want to team up with Electra but does anyway=Danny doesn’t want to team up with Colleen but does anyway.  Matt finds out dark secret about Electra=Danny finds out dark secret about Colleen.  Electra gets poisoned and Matt needs help from someone else to cure her=Colleen gets poisoned and Danny needs help from someone else to cure her.  I could go on, but you get the idea.

 One last thing that I noticed early and couldn’t get past for the rest of the series.

WHERE ARE THIS GUYS EARLOBES?!

I know some people have ’em and some people don’t…but this is an extreme case ain’t it? I mean. look how far down the neck that ear attaches.

Weird.

So, that’s how good that show was. I spent half the time staring at his ears, and the other half thinking about how much better other grown men looked with their shirts off…and I’m not even gay…anything apparently was better than focusing on what was going on in the show.

On the upside..I never cared about Iron Fist anyways.  I did like MoonKnight, and I hear they are thinking about doing him.  His story is stupid to begin with so there isn’t much they can do to make that worse, but I look forward to him being 40 pounds overweight, crying a lot, and wearing a white t-shirt with a crescent moon outlined with glue and glitter.

One part really confused me on the whole MCU on netflix

****this may be a spoiler, if you’re a idiot***

Madam Gao is some captain for the Hand in this show, which I guess was supposed to be a big reveal scene as she was in the shade for the first few episodes, but …it’s a silhouette of an old Asian woman with a cane.  We all knew it was Madam Goa.  Duh.  It makes as much sense as if it where the Kingpin as a silhouette. A distinct shape and voice of a main character isn’t much of a mystery…is why I say only a spoiler if you’re an idiot.  Maybe I missed something in Daredevil while yelling at the screen about how stupid something is (like that’s not how hospitals work), but I thought Goa was independent of the Hand. If she is part of the Hand why in F*CK would she need Daredevil to go after the Blacksmith?  The Hand could have handled that guy and his 16 knuckle heads pretty easy.  They sent like a hundred Ninjas after Daredevil…they couldn’t wack one boat full of dope with a skeleton crew? I don’t get it.


When Douglas is not complaining he and his work can be found here

www.arseniclullabies.com

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