I’m always looking to decode the subtle political messages they (I do NOT mean The Jews) are transmitting via blockbuster movies. But a film about how “America” shouldn’t have to give up her “superpower” even though she’s been irresponsible with it? (Accidentally killing her parents / doing Vietnam, Iraq, etc.) Because the other people who might have them would use them even more irresponsibly? (The witch lady / China, etc.) That’s not very fucking subtle at all! It’s not even a fucking metaphor it’s just the literal text! It’s no fun when they make the entire plot the political message!

Ok, so it’s imperial propaganda. So is Top Gun but Top Gun has sexy guys and cool plane stuff, which significantly works to redeem it. But these Marvel movies are looking worse and worse. This movie looked like goddamn shit.

Look, the cameras are too good. I heard someone complaining the other day about how they heard on TikTok that the hipsters have moved on from film cameras to early-2000s digital cameras. Yeah, yeah trends are dumb, but I’m sympathetic to the plight of these hipster-refugees. The camera, in photography and especially in cinema, is supposed to be part of a transformative process. It’s not simply supposed to capture and store reality because information will always be lost in that process, and the art is often in what information is lost. What colors get saturated, what details become blurry. The camera’s special imperfections, its artful distortion of reality can make it an instrument of wonder. But as cameras become more and more like exterior eyeballs, the style-conscious gentleman or lady must seek out past limitations in order to reclaim that old, glorious reality-to-art metamorphosis. The hipsters are sensing, instinctively, that there’s something gross and sterile about ultra high-def, so they mine the past for something that was kinda shitty and less convenient but at least had some discernible, noticeable, aesthetic to it. Since the future is bland, they must retreat to the past. And since the film camera scene is kinda played out and, more importantly, since disposable film cameras are like 30 dollars each now, the hipsters have to cling on to a different moment in history: the flip phone era.

Anyways, what I’m saying is that the whole film looks like behind the scenes footage. There is no “movie magic.” Every scene, every lighting choice, every movement works to dispel the suspension of disbelief and constantly remind you that these actors are in a warehouse in Atlanta by themselves (due to scheduling conflicts), fighting the air in front of a green screen. Negative 5 stars.