Matt Reviews: The Shape of Water

WARNING: SPOILERS

The Oscars have come and gone, and my man Gary Oldman finally went home with a little golden man! The Shape of Water also went home with the Best Picture award, and seeing as how (of this writing) it’s the only movie on that ballot that I’ve seen, I decided to finally put my thoughts out there on it.

In 1962, a mute woman named Elisa (Sally Hawkins) works as a cleaning lady at a government laboratory. There, she discovers a mysterious fish-man (Doug Jones) with whom she develops a bond. While Colonel Strickland (Michael Shannon) plans to exploit the creature for the benefit of the U.S. government, Elisa enacts a plan to free the creature, helped by her gay neighbor Giles (Richard Jenkins), her co-worker Zelda (Octavia Spencer), and a Soviet spy with a heart of gold (Michael Stuhlbarg).

The movie is basically Beauty and the Beast meets E.T., and it relishes in the fact that its setting is the Cold War of the 1960’s. It has all of the trimmings of a sci-fi B-movie from that era: a creepy monster, shady government experiments, Russian spies, etc. However, with this setting, it allows the movie to create characters that are dynamic and sympathetic because of how their differences make them outcasts in society.

Aside from being mute, Elisa is also Hispanic. Giles is gay. Zelda is a working-class black woman. The fish-man is, of course, not even human. Dimitri, the Russian spy, is an outcast on two fronts. He’s a Soviet masquerading as an American to gain our secrets, but he has such a strong moral center that he ends up disobeying the orders of his handlers in order to help Elisa free the creature, thus making him an outcast from his own motherland as well. Dimitri wound up being a particularly interesting character because of this. Much like how the fish-man wound up not being a dangerous monster (a trope that, admittedly, had been done many, many times before), the Soviet spy turning into one of the good guys was another twist on the Cold War B-movie environment of the movie.

Peekaboo.

Contrasting the outcast nature of the main cast is Michael Shannon as the bad guy Colonel Strickland. Strickland very much fits into the “norm” of 1960’s culture: a straight white man with a wife and two kids working for the betterment of his country. However, his sexism and bigotry are on full display here, showing just the kind of toxic behavior that this time period idolized. And as it is in movies like this, the human bad guy winds up being a thousand times more monstrous than the actual “monster” in the film.

When I saw Baby Driver, I thought one of the best things about the movie was how Baby and his deaf foster dad communicated entirely in sign language. It’s a form of communication you don’t see too often in movies, and I wished that film had more of that in there. This movie takes that concept and ups it by having the main character be the one using sign language this time. And with the creature’s inability to speak English, that means that our two leads communicate exclusively in sign language. Not only does this allow Sally Hawkins to show off the range of her physical acting by taking away her ability to speak, but it also creates a unique type of romance for the movie – one where the two of them never speak out loud to one another.

There are not a lot of issues I have with this movie, and what I do have problems with are not major enough to affect my enjoyment of the overall film. One such issue is the aforementioned Michael Shannon as Colonel Strickland. While the rest of the cast is quite three-dimensional characters that take the roles normally portrayed in sci-fi B-movies to new, interesting heights, Strickland felt more one-note. In a movie with characters with believable and sympathetic backstories, Strickland was more of a cartoon character. He was the big bad government man with sexist remarks that sometimes strayed a little too far into the “over the top” territory, and that was about it for his character. He felt like he would fit more at home in the B-movies this film was paying homage to, and maybe that’s the point of his characterization. Regardless, his performance and character in this movie was a bit distracting compared to how much effort went into the rest of the cast.

The other point of contrition I’ll mention is the pretty-much-out-of-nowhere musical number sung by Elisa. That’s right, our MUTE main character has a musical number. Granted, it’s a dream sequence meant to showcase Elisa’s love for the creature, and like the musical number in season 2 of Agent Carter, the time period kind of justifies the presence of a big band show stopping number. What I thought was happening in the movie is that somehow her having sex with the creature resulting in his healing powers fixing her voice, and then she’d spend the rest of the movie speaking normally. Fortunately, that was not the case, but the musical number still came quite out of the blue and is never brought up again. Maybe they just needed an excuse to show off Sally Hawkins’ singing abilities?

Tale as old as slime...

Also, while I’m on this subject, how exactly does the creature have these healing abilities? I’m not expecting a full explanation in this movie, since the creature is interesting because we don’t know that much about him, but what kind of scientific explanation is there for how an amphibious fish-man can somehow heal peoples’ wounds just by touching them? And I really hope that the ending – in which the creature turns Elisa’s neck scars into gills to save her life – was some sort of weird dream fantasy or Giles’ own interpretation of what happened after the creature disappeared with Elisa’s body. Because if that really happened, that makes the creatures abilities make even less sense.

Overall, I think the success and appeal of The Shape of Water can be attributed to its simplicity. I’ve watched other “Oscar Bait” movies in the past, and they were either so slow that they bored me to tears, or so complex that I had a hard time following them. The Shape of Water has neither of these problems. Like I said before, it’s a Beauty and the Beast love story mixed with the “hiding a fantastical creature from the government” plot of E.T. Both of these are incredibly familiar plot devices to people, so it makes it easier to connect with a wide range of audiences.

It’s got a little something for everyone. Fans of sci-fi, romance, spy thrillers, B-movies, and period pieces will all get something out of The Shape of Water. It’s got well-defined and likeable characters, with fantastic performances being put out by all of them. Special mention once again goes to Sally Hawkins – acting the entire movie mute save for the musical number – and Doug Jones, who shows a wide range of emotions while not even resembling a human. And who would have thought that a romance between an inhuman fish-man and a human woman could work so well?

The fact that the movie is now the winner of a Best Picture award – as well as Best Director – just shows the importance of passion in movies. Director Guillermo del Toro is always someone whose passion I always feel in every single movie he makes. He liked the Hellboy comics, so he made two Hellboy movies. He liked kaiju movies and anime, so he made Pacific Rim. He wanted the Creature from the Black Lagoon to wind up with the girl at the end, so he made The Shape of Water to make his fanfiction come true. I don’t think he ever sets out to specific make movies to win Oscars like some directors do. He makes movies because he loves making movies, and it’s this passion for what he does that winds up making them wonderful flicks every time.

This movie’s success is a testament that with the right passion, any fanboy that makes his way into Hollywood can achieve greatness.

Final verdict: 9/10

Matt Reviews: McDonald's Szechuan Sauce

Even if you’re not a fan of Rick & Morty, you’ve probably heard about what’s been going down with McDonald’s and their Szechuan Sauce.

Really, it’s kind of amazing. Because a cartoon character had nostalgia over a discontinued dipping sauce made as a tie-in to the movie Mulan, a massive fan outcry resulted in McDonald’s bringing back the sauce for a limited time. Less amazing is how the Golden Arches’ lack of planning resulted in them running out of sauce very quickly and rabid Rick & Morty fans nearly burning every McDonald's to the ground in an extreme childish backlash that doesn't even surprise me anymore from today's internet fanboy culture.

But McDonald’s apparently listened to whatever death threats they were receiving, because they just re-released the sauce again in larger quantities and for a longer stretch of time. As a fan of Rick & Morty, Chicken McNuggets, and re-releasing discontinued movie tie-in foods (Ecto-Cooler’s return was the best thing to come out of the new Ghostbusters), I figured I’d try the sauce out this time since I, like most people, missed out in October.

So, does the fabled Szechuan Sauce live up to the hype?

Unfortunately, it does not.

When I first took a bite of a nugget dipped in the sauce, I didn’t taste much flavor, so I figured I just didn’t put enough on the nugget. After covering the chicken in more sauce and then sticking my actual finger in the stuff, I came to the realization that the Szechuan Sauce just doesn’t have much of a flavor to it.

It’s a very thick and sweet sauce, with a near microscopic hint of Asian spices and tang. It tastes less like a teriyaki dipping sauce and more like someone added a tiny bit of teriyaki to some corn syrup.

It doesn’t compliment the chicken well, either. Chicken McNuggets are fine on their own, but the dipping sauces usually enhance the rather basic flavor. Honey mustard is my go-to choice. With the Szechuan Sauce, there was barely a difference between that and a naked McNugget. I only used one of my Szechuan packets for my 10-piece McNuggets, resulting in me eating the last two or three nuggets with no sauce. I enjoyed them exactly the same as I would have without the sauce.

The real disappointing part is that I attempted to make Szechuan Sauce myself before they re-released it, and my homebrewed concoction was much better. Thanks to a few different internet tutorials, I found that by mixing two parts of the Sweet & Sour dipping sauce with one part of the Tangy Barbeque sauce, you get a strange sweet and tangy sauce that you could almost see being served at a lesser-tier Chinese restaurant. It was full of flavor, and I was expecting something similar to that with the official Szechuan Sauce re-release. But what I got was a watered down version of these terrible teriyaki chicken wings I had once at a local pizza place.

I’m not sure if this is the same formula McDonald’s used when they initially created the sauce in 1992 (or even the same formula used to re-create it in October), but I certainly hope the Golden Arches changed up their recipe at some point, and that the 1998 sauce was much better.

I hate to say that Rick Sanchez has terrible taste, but if this sauce tastes anything like the original release, I can’t see it as anything somebody would obsess about in a dream world. And I certainly don’t think this was worth almost taking Ronald McDonald to the guillotine in a Szechuan-based French Revolution.

Final verdict: 2/5

Now if Rick & Morty wanted to help bring back something worthwhile, bring back Taco Bell’s Triple Steak Stack. That is still, to this day, my absolute favorite way to get terrible indigestion.

Matt's Top 10 Marvel Cinematic Universe Villains (Not Including Netflix)

WARNING: This post contains SPOILERS

And even worse: OPINIONS

If you’ve been paying attention to my recent reviews of Marvel movies, it appears that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been making a conscious effort in making their villains better.

Marvel  - and superhero movies in general – have had a problem when it comes to making their villains actual characters and not just a plot device for our heroes to beat up. While the focus should definitely always be on the hero and their journey, some superhero movies just can’t make villains as compelling as The Dark Knight’s Joker or X-Men’s Magneto.

With Black Panther’s recent release and the buzz surrounding its compelling antagonist, I decided to make a list detailing my personal favorite villains from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Now this is just for the movies, so any villains from the TV shows – such as Kingpin, Kilgrave, and Cottonmouth from the Netflix universe – will be left out of this lineup (though they’d probably score pretty high if they were on it).

10. Ultron (The Avengers: Age of Ultron)

For most of these villains, they’re memorable mostly because of their performances. Any great actor can take even the most minimalist villain and make him interesting. That’s the case with Ultron here.

Ultron’s concept is that he’s an artificial intelligence that grew beyond his programming and decided to rebel and turn evil. That concept has been done to death before, but my hope was that the movie would do something interesting with it. The trailers made him seem like he viewed the Avengers as a threat more than saviors, after all. And then the movie came out and Ultron’s ultimate plan was to drop a city out of the sky and case an extinction level event. Okay then.

But the saving grace here is James Spader. My god, what a difference the right actor makes. And it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I like Ultron as much as I do, given that the performance is similar to Spader’s Raymond Reddington (another one of my favorite villains) from The Blacklist.

Spader gives Ultron a snarky sense of humor that he obvious inherited from his creator, Tony Stark, which makes him a subtle mirror to Iron Man in a sense. Not only that, but Ultron is surprisingly immature, lashing out and throwing temper tantrums and such. Almost as if he was literally a newborn and hasn’t reached emotional maturity yet – oh wait, he was.

In a universe full of cool, calm, collected bad guys, it’s nice to see one that’s basically a child who has a breakdown every time someone compares him to his dad.

9. Hela (Thor: Ragnarok)

Hela was the MCU’s first primary female antagonist, and she doesn’t disappoint.

Thor: Ragnarok was heavy metal action movie from beginning to end, so it’s fitting that such an awesomely insane movie should have an awesomely insane villain. Hela is menacing. Hela is funny. Hela can create knives and throw them around in super cool fight scenes that remind you why she’s the Goddess of Death.

Not only that, but they give Hela a personal connection to Thor by making her his long-list sister, and a personal vendetta against Odin for locking her up for her ambition. The best villains are the ones who have a personal connection to the hero in some way, and Marvel really knows how to make compelling villains out of estranged family members.

Cate Blanchett really knocks it out of the park in this movie. She’s clearly having the time of her life being the super cool mistress of evil, and she totally rocks the badass, comics-accurate costume they gave her.

The only downside with Hela is that, even with her personal connection to Thor, she spends much of the movie separated from him, so we don’t really get a lot of their interactions until the end. Fortunately, that time wasted is given to the real star villain of Ragnarok…

8. The Grandmaster (Thor: Ragnarok)

I love Jeff Goldblum.

The Grandmaster is just Jeff Goldblum in space.

He’s just playing himself but in tacky makeup.

That’s why he’s on this list.

Next.

7. Obadiah Stane (Iron Man)

Another actor named Jeff that I really love? Jeff Bridges.

Obadiah Stane works as a villain because Jeff Bridges doesn’t normally play villains. If you’re familiar with the comics, you know that Obadiah Stane is a bad guy. So when it’s revealed that he’s been allied with the terrorists that kidnapped Tony all along, it’s not a huge surprise to some.

But Jeff Bridges plays the character with such a casual, friendly demeanor that you don’t want to admit to yourself that he could be the bad guy. This is the guy who bought Tony pizza from New York and just randomly plays the piano in his house. Even though he’s dressed like a businessman, he still acts like the Dude from The Big Lebowski, so you feel like you can trust him. Even when he’s doing villainous things, he’s still casual and charming about the whole deal. He’s a guy you could easily have a beer with while he tells you about his plan to kill half the world’s population. And then when he acts all threatening when he’s taking out Tony’s arc reactor, it’s all the more disturbing because friendly old Jeff Bridges is making us terrified.

The downside with Obadiah Stane comes in the third act, once he dons the Iron Monger suit. That’s when the movie turns into a generic action climax, and Bridges spends the whole time hollering and overacting while inside a giant CGI turtle shell. But I think his performance in the first two acts is strong enough to where I can overlook the weak third act. (In fact, that’s kind of my stance on the first Iron Man movie as a whole.)

6. Ego (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2)

Guardians of the Galaxy was a fun romp, but antagonist Ronan the Accuser was criticized as being the weakest part of the movie for not being as memorable or entertaining as the rest of the cast. Volume 2, on the other hand, more than makes up for it with the inclusion of Ego the Living Planet.

Admittedly, this was a weird concept for a villain of the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel. Even weirder was making a living planet the father of Star-Lord, and even weirder is casting Kurt Russell as said living planet. But the thing is, it all works. Ego’s character deals with a lot of themes of the loneliness of immortality and being the last of your kind in the vast universe. His status as Star-Lord’s dad adds some real emotional weight as he conflicts Peter over what is right. He teaches us that blood doesn’t always mean family.

And of course, Kurt Russell nails it in this role, as he always does. Much like Jeff Bridges as Stane, Russell is friendly, charming, and nonchalant throughout the film, even when it’s revealed that he’s the villain. The twist actually does work in this movie despite Ego’s status as a villain in the comics. The movie changes Ego’s character so much that you could honestly believe that he’s not the bad guy, and that’s only helped by Kurt Russell’s humble performance.

Much like Stane, Ego starts to get a little generic in the third act once the big battle kicks in and he’s mostly delegated to a big CGI cluster of rocks fighting the Guardians. But even during that, Russell still gets in some good lines to remind us of the type of character Ego is.

And I can’t explain quite why, but Kurt Russell being the father of Chris Pratt is some spot on, brilliant casting genius right there.

5. The Winter Soldier (Captain America: The Winter Soldier)

I don’t know if this is cheating or not, considering Bucky eventually switches sides back over to the good guys after his stint as an antagonist. But I guess he was an antagonist at one point – in fact his name is the subtitle of the movie where he’s the villain. Plus, this is my list, and I can do whatever I want with it.

Part of the interesting thing about the Winter Soldier is how we actually saw his fall from grace in a previous movie before he became the antagonist in the sequel. Very few superhero movies actually do this, opting to show us the villain after they’ve already become, well, villainous. This allows us to have an entire movie focused on his humanity and good side before we’re reintroduced to him now acting the polar opposite.

The Winter Soldier is a deadly professional. He doesn’t mess around, and every time he’s on screen, you instantly feel just how serious the situation has gotten. On top of that, he has a very personal connection with Captain America being his best friend turned evil by HYDRA. That provides an interesting dynamic between the two once the twist is revealed. Cap doesn’t want to fight or hurt someone he cares so much about, and his heart grieves every time he sees what his buddy Bucky has become. Conversely, Bucky doesn’t even remember who Cap is until the very end, so that makes their interactions all the more heartbreaking.

This all of course leads up to Bucky’s well-received redemption arc, and he currently stands alongside Captain America as a hero once again. But for that time in his life where he was a bad guy, he earns a spot on the list.

4. Zemo (Captain America: Civil War)

Okay, so I’m still a little salty that they didn’t include Zemo’s purple ski mask from the comics in some way, cuz his design in this movie is very plain and boring by comparison. However, what they do with the character more than makes up for it.

Zemo in the movie is almost unrecognizable from the character from the comics. Baron Zemo was a Nazi scientist who fought against Captain America during World War II, and then eventually his son took up the grape-colored mantle to carry on the family legacy. Zemo in the movie – not a baron here – is a soldier, not from Nazi Germany, but from Sokovia, the place where the final battle in Age of Ultron took place. His family wasn’t evil and bred him to be evil. His family were good people who were killed because of something the Avengers caused. He’s human, as expertly shown when he constantly listens to his dead wife’s last voicemail to him.

Zemo represents the consequences of superheroes like the Avengers. He represents the common man’s struggles living in a world where superhero battles, while looking cool on the big screen, are big, disastrous war zones where countless lives are lost. He’s not a big galactic conqueror or a god of death or the leader of a powerful army. He’s pretty much a nobody who had everything taken from him and wants revenge on those he deems responsible.

My only gripe with Zemo is that, while he’s a skilled planner and manipulator, his plan to pit the Avengers against each other was a little convoluted and smelled a little similar of Jessie Eisenluthor’s plan from Batman V Superman (though no where near as obnoxious). Nonetheless, Zemo did manage something that no other threat had done before: tear the Avengers apart. Not by being a physical threat, but by attacking their emotions. That alone deserves some respect from me.

3. Killmonger (Black Panther)

The Marvel comeback story to end all Marvel comeback stories: Michael B. Jordan goes from the disastrous Fant4stic to being lauded as one of the best villains in the MCU.

And those praises are well deserved. Erik “Killmonger” Stevens is an incredibly sympathetic antagonist with a tragic backstory caused by the supposed heroes. Jordan portrays a complex antagonist who completely sells all the parts of Killmonger’s character. Aside from his likeable demeanor and deadly prowess, Killmonger also shows powerful scenes of vulnerability, such as when he visits his dad in the spirit realm, and his very poignant death scene.

Killmonger’s plan is also surprisingly sympathetic. He criticizes the Wakandans for keeping all of their technological marvels a secret for themselves, while across the world, their fellow black people are being oppressed and stuck in poverty. It’s an incredibly topical and political ideology without getting overly preachy.

And although Killmonger’s end goal was to arm the impoverished with Wakandan weapons in a bloody revolution against those on top, he does have a point about the Wakandans turning their backs on their fellow man to hide their achievements. He’s got so much of a point in fact that the heroes actually change some of their viewpoints to match his, with T’Challa vowing to reach Wakanda’s influence to the outside world more. How often do you see a villain’s plan in these movies actually influence the heroes to change the world like this?

Despite his over-the-top villainous name, Killmonger is such a well-defined and sympathetic antagonist that he’s got people asking: Is Killmonger really the villain here?

2. Loki (The Thor movies/The Avengers)

Of course Loki is on this list. He’s the original Marvel bad guy golden boy.

By this point, everyone knows what makes Loki work as a villain. He’s sympathetic, with a lot of daddy issues caused by a lot of terrible father figures in his life. He’s charming and has a razor sharp sarcastic wit. Tom Hiddleston loses himself completely in the role as he portrays both the brutal villain and the broken orphan with pinpoint precision, flip-flopping between the two with the ease of a highly skilled thespian.

But I think what really makes Loki stand out is how we’ve seen him change. As of this writing, Loki has appeared in four separate movies, five once Infinity War comes out. We’ve seen him go from a treacherous brother to a primary antagonist to an untrustworthy ally, and then back to being Thor’s trusted brother again.

The length of the MCU is a true testament to how a character like Loki can work. You usually see the whole “villain turns to the good guys’ side” in longer works like TV shows or comic books. Rarely is this done in movies, unless they’re in a longer series. But Loki’s popularity and Tom Hiddleston’s performance has meant that Loki keeps coming back again and again, and each reappearance gives us another installment in a compelling redemption character arc on par with something like Prince Zuko from Avatar: The Last Airbender.

But wait, if Loki’s only at number 2, then who’s such a good villain that he’s stolen the number one spot away from Marvel’s golden boy?

1. The Vulture (Spider-Man: Homecoming)

That’s right. I’m gonna be the guy that puts the Vulture above Loki in a best villains countdown.

There’s a lot of factors that make the Vulture my favorite MCU villain. For starters, he’s Michael Keaton, and Michael Keaton is one of my favorite actors. Bias aside, I legitimately love his performance in this movie because it showed how effectively threatening he can be as a villain. That scene in the car where he figures out Peter is Spider-Man is the best scene in the movie by far, and neither the hero nor the villain are even in their respective superhero outfits.

He’s also a dad that’s a villain, which is always effective, but differently so in this case. We’ve seen instances of fathers being villains in the MCU before, with characters like the aforementioned Ego and Lauffey from the first Thor movie. But those characters wound up being bastards who sometimes played into the drama of the hero not knowing what was right and often having to fight their own dad. With the Vulture, it’s the exact opposite; he’s a good father, and everything he does is for his family. The twist that the Vulture is the father of Peter’s love interest worked so well because not only was it so unexpected, not only did it fit so well with the high school movie theme, but it added and revealed so much about the Vulture’s character that put him so much above other villains before him.

But the moment that really solidified the Vulture as my favorite MCU villain was the post-credit scene. In prison, the Scorpion makes reference that the Vulture knows who Spider-Man really is, but the Vulture doesn’t reveal anything. There’s a level of respect between the Vulture and Spider-Man that was created when Spidey saved the Vulture from a clichéd superhero movie villain death (another of my favorite moments from Homecoming). It’s a similar admirable quality that was put into Loki: a change in character. Because the Vulture didn’t die by his own hubris like many superhero movie villains, there’s an opportunity for him to change and evolve. He’s already shown that even though he’s a criminal, he’s got a strong moral core that stems from the love for his family. I wouldn’t be surprised if they bring him back in Homecoming 2 as more of a supporting character to Spider-Man rather than a flat out antagonist.

The Vulture is a villain that combines a lot of good things from previous entries on this list. He’s an everyman villain whose life was affected by the Avengers, like Zemo. He’s a father, like Ego. He changes as a character, like Loki. And he’s got one of my favorite actors portraying him, like the Grandmaster, who in hindsight probably should have been my number 1.

So that’s my Top 10 Marvel Cinematic Universe Villains. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Did I leave any of your favorites out? Let me know in the comments or wherever you see this post what you thought, and what some of your favorite superhero movie villains are.

I don’t know if I’ll ever update this list when new movies come out, but I’m really excited and nervous to see where Thanos is going to rank on this list. Marvel’s been building him up for six years, so he better not be another Alien Elf Guy from Thor 2…