So while everyone is waiting for Black Panther and Infinity War and Ant-Man and the Wasp,
it can be easy to forget that there’s actually a whole other corner to the MCU on the small
screen.
Besides the Netflix shows, there’s Agents of SHIELD, Runaways, and Inhumans.
I’ll talk about Agents of SHIELD season 4 and 5 in another video, if you want the
short version, yeah it’s pretty fun.
But today I wanna talk about those other two.
With Runaways I’m not gonna spoil anything cuz I suspect a lot of people haven’t watched
it and I don’t wanna ruin anything if you plan to.
Although I’ll just say, I will be talking about a few minor plot points in it, so if
you wanna go into that completely fresh, maybe don’t watch that.
With Inhumans, yeah I’m just gonna go full spoilers.
Cuz if you wanted to watch it you already have, and if you’re considering, I’ll
just save you the time.
Don’t watch it.
Also there’s a little announcement-ish type thing at the end, so wait around for that
if you want.
Ok, there are timecodes to the different reviews down in the description, let’s get into
it, starting off with Marvel’s Runaways.
*clip* Now little background here, I
had no idea what this was before watching it.
I’ve never read the comic, barely knew it was even coming out.
But because I wanna stay up to date with the MCU I checked it out and overall, I really
enjoyed it.
For one, I suppose this is more of a credit to the comic book, but I love the premise
of this.
If you don’t know, the very basic premise is a group of friends who have fallen out
find out their parents are supervillains and in this weird cult thing and the kids have
to come together and stop them.
That’s a great idea.
It also sounds like it could be more of a kid friendly almost Sky High type thing, which
is what I initially suspected, and while there are elements of that, it’s not really for
kids.
It’s not exclusively adult, it’s very heavily teen-focused.
At first you think maybe it’s a kid thing and then they throw an attempted rape in there
and you’re like oh nevermind.
It’s for people the age of the characters in the show, basically.
And in that sense, it succeeds.
The cast and characters are great from both the parents and the kids.
Although they don’t really look like 15 to 16 year olds, all of them are great and
really no one is just kind of forgettable or average.
Often in an ensemble like this there’s one who you’re just like, oh yeah then there’s
that guy.
But no, here I thought every performance was good and each character was well written,
unique and interesting enough to help them stand out.
I especially liked Chase, which is odd, cuz at the start I thought he was the one I would
like the least.
I wasn’t a huge fan of some of the writing for Gert, like I get it, that’s her thing,
she’s so over the top with all this stuff.
And while it got better, at a point towards the start it just felt so stereotypical and
just like a high school cliche that I wasn’t a big fan.
Overall the kids felt a little generic at the start, like they’re kind of just typical
high school movie TV show stereotypes, and the show in general can feel a little generic
initially, but as the show progresses they get more developed.
The teens also feel like real teens (most of the time), and their interactions are fun
and believable and interesting, because they’re all so different they really play off of each
other well.
The romances that build here are also believable and not totally cliche all the time, which
was refreshing.
Often times they’re kind of pricks to each other, and sometimes the romances and love
triangles that build are ridiculously and stupidly complicated, but as a teenager I
can say, that’s realistic, a lot of the times teenagers are just kind of pricks to
each other, and a lot of the time the romantic stuff is stupidly complicated.
So I enjoyed that these actually felt like real teens.
As far as the parents, again the acting is pretty stellar all around, and it’s also
really interesting and shows how it’s a step above what it could otherwise have been
by not having it be totally black and white.
Like the parents are in this weird cult, yeah, but not all of them are evil.
Some are actually really likable.
And some are unlikable and then get redeemed, or are interesting to watch.
I know these sound like basic character premises, but I just felt considering how many characters
there are it was impressive how well balanced it all was.
The drama and conflicts that develop with both the parents and the kids were mostly
interesting.
The show is quite well shot, visually it’s not anything insane but the way it’s shot
kind of sets it apart from other stuff in the MCU.
In general it just feels like a new thing for that universe, for the most part it doesn’t
feel like anything else that’s happened in this world.
The music is pretty good, especially the opening theme music with that synth.
The footage is fairly generic but I actually didn’t skip the intro ever (which I normally
do) just cuz I loved that music so much.
Something I really enjoyed with this show is how it balances the superhero stuff with
the normal character stuff.
It starts out very kind of real world feeling, and then takes a very sharp turn into more
magical superhero stuff, and I really liked that.
It gets pretty crazy with powers and magic and dinosaurs and all that, but it didn’t
feel super tonally inconsistent.
It felt more interesting, having a pretty normal world and then suddenly bam all this
weird supernatural stuff.
As it goes more fantasy aspects are added but the personal mysteries and dramas also
continue to unravel and it’s pretty fascinating to watch for a lot of it.
In terms of all that superhero stuff, action wise there isn’t much here and when it’s
there, it’s pretty good.
And effects wise, again, not too many especially towards the start.
But when they are there, they’re pretty great.
One character in particular who I won’t spoil here has some very special effects heavy
power and it actually looks really awesome.
HOwever, I gotta come back to this, the best part of this isn’t the crazy superhero stuff,
for me it was the character stuff that I found more intriguing.
The directions this goes in and how character’s alliances change as more information comes
out and the mystery’s get deeper, it’s pretty interesting.
Because of the relationships these characters have with each other, that being either friend
or parent-child, it’s a unique take on something that could’ve been more standard.
The plot twists throughout are also generally surprising.
However, it’s not all perfect.
It can be a little slow and meandering sometimes, like even though it’s only 10 episodes there’s
a bit of moving around in circles here, and sometimes it becomes more of a background
show while I do other stuff.
While the plots are interesting, there are some subplots that felt kind of poorly woven
into the main narrative, like they set up a big thing with Alex’s dad early on and
then it kind of just disappears for a while until the end, and it just felt kind of sloppy.
Also while I liked the characters, some of the subplots are just not all that interesting.
There’s quite a bit of cheating drama with the parents and at points it’s just kind
of boring, and I sort of just wish we could get back to the kids.
Some visual effects also don’t look amazing, like this dinosaur sometimes looks great and
then sometimes looks terrible.
A few emotional moments don’t really hit in the way I think the show intended, in particular
one towards the end involving Molly.
There are also just specific lines that are bad, like there’s a very Fant4stic Suicide
Squad moment where a character is like, what are we, some kind of Runaways, or something
to that effect.
Alex at one point says this line *deep asshole*.
Did anyone think that through?
And while there are actually a lot of pretty funny moments, a few jokes fall flat.
I can’t remember what it is specifically but in my notes I just wrote Kardashian, so
I guess you’ll know that when you see it.
There are other very minor nitpicks I have, like how Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
apparently both exist in the MCU, despite there being President Ellis for when Obama
would’ve been in office, what’s up with that?
But my main two complaints are one, the ending was kind of anti climatic and felt more like
a setup for season 2.
And while I’m sure season 2 could be really cool, there wasn’t really a big payoff here
and it was kind of unsatisfying.
And my second point is a pretty big spoiler, so if you don’t wanna know about that, you
can pause and skip to this point in the video.
You’ve been warned, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ok.
So for most of this this is a more kind of low stakes personal story for these characters
and I quite liked that, but then at the end it’s revealed that the bad guys are actually
doing this way bigger operation with digging and causing cities to collapse and that kind
of stuff.
And 1, that was kind of disappointing reveal and it felt kind of like jumping the shark
for what this show had otherwise been, and 2, considering these are technically part
of the same franchise and came out not too far apart timewise, isn’t it weird that
this is a very similar plot to the plot of the Defender's.
Spoilers for that as well, I guess, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, ok.
There’s a mysterious secret organization who are weird and mystical and are digging
underneath a city, which in turn will cause earthquakes and tons of damage.
Plus there’s a thing involved that prevents or reverses the aging process.
Maybe that’s a nitpick, but I just think it’s weird that just a few months later
we’ve got another secret society digging underneath a cit plotline in an MCU show.
Speaking of which, as far as connections to the larger MCU, this has pretty much nothing.
There’s that news station that goes around this universe….that’s pretty much it.
But you know what, I kinda liked that.
The fact that this totally unrelated side story is happening in this universe and has
nothing to do with Thanos or Iron Man or whatever, it makes this world feel so much bigger and
just more deep and like a real universe.
And it also makes it accessible for non-MCU fans.
So they can just watch it and enjoy it as a show, and fans of the MCU can watch it and
occasionally think, oh it's kinda fun to think that all this is happening while Captain America
is in hiding and Thor is off somewhere fighting the Hulk.
Overall Marvel’s Runaways is a really cool premise with a pretty good execution.
The characters and acting are what keeps this together, the tone and style makes this feel
unique in the MCU, and although the pacing isn’t perfect and there are some inconsistencies
in quality, it’s overall quite entertaining all the way through.
Would I watch a season 2?
Probably.
I’ll give it an 8/10.
Ok, now let’s talk about the other show.
Marvel’s Inhumans….oh boy.
And yeah, full spoilers here.
You’ve been warned.
I’ll be honest, I don’t generally like to just go out and hate on stuff on this channel.
Cuz I realize, a lot of people put a lot of time and work into these things.
So I’m still gonna try to be more balanced here, but yeah, this is not a good show and
I’m not gonna lie about that.
But hey, let’s start with the positives.
Cuz despite what you may have heard, it’s not actually the worst thing ever created….it's
close though.
I actually really liked Black Bolt in this.
Sometimes unironically, cuz the actor seemed like a decent choice for the character, and
despite not being able to talk he was actually decently interesting to watch.
And then sometimes ironically, because of the limitations of not being able to talk,
so him always having to do very over the top faces to get his emotions across was amusing.
I thought that was kind of fun.
Also his stuff on Earth initially wasn’t terrible.
I quite enjoyed his Tom Cruise-esque muppet run.
Ramsay Bolton, the most evil man in the universe, his character isn’t super well written but
I thought he did an ok job.
And there were a few moments where I was like, hey that’s a kind of interesting direction
for this character.
I mean it’s kind of cliche, but it’s more interesting than the other stuff that’s
been happening.
Some visual effects are ok, the giant dog looks pretty good….sometimes.
Some bullet stopping stuff (ep 5) looks kinda cool.
I liked the rock face man.
I enjoyed the little title sequence music.
The first two episodes where they were trying to get that IMAX money, some of those shots
look pretty nice.
This is more of a credit to the MCU, but I liked when the Inhumans went to Earth people
like knew what they were somewhat, or at least weren’t insanely surprised to see them.
Like oh you have goat legs, well we’ve seen weirder stuff.
That’s like, the one cliche this show avoided, and it really just wouldn’t have made any
sense if it hadn’t.
Aaaaaaand that’s the good stuff.
Now for everything else.
Firstly, the rest of the cast and characters.
They range from ok, to below a high school play level of acting.
Especially the yellow dress girl whose name I can’t remember….yeah.
The characters also, not great.
Or good really.
They’re either not very well written or compelling or funny or interesting really.
They sort of just fall into cliches and tropes, and some of them are just flat out unlikable.
Like this dude.
The whole time, from like the first thing he does to the very end when he’s supposed
to have learned his lesson or whatever, I was like, you’re just a prick.
Like through and through.
In terms of writing and dialogue, yeah this is also terrible.
This show has every cliche you can imagine in it, from most of the stuff the villain
does to the fish out of water stuff with the Inhumans on Earth.
And none of it is funny either, with Medusa talking to an ATM machine or this dude not
knowing how bras work, it’s like, we get it, we’ve seen this before.
I can forgive cliches, just the rest of the show has to be not awful.
Also, pretty much no humor works in this.
And the show is just borrrrrring.
The plot is uninteresting, the characters aren’t engaging, unlike Runaways I wasn’t
interested in any of the drama or conflicts, there’s a subplot about the politics in
their moon city and how the caste system there works and it’s so boring.
There’s also a plot about this one woman from NASA and that’s probably the most boring
subplot of all.
Dialogue wise, it’s either very generic or hilariously bad, like there’s some romantic
dialogue in here that’s Star Wars prequel level bad.
(opening of ep 5 with asian guy).
The twists here aren’t surprising at all, in fact, everything is very predictable.
Like not just plot lines but just scenes, like oh I wonder if the yellow dress girl
is gonna say something against Maximus here, oh what a surprise.
Any attempts at emotional scenes also don’t work here, they’re either unintentionally
kinda funny, including some flashbacks, or they’re ruined by just the worst music choices.
Also this is a very small thing that I just found kinda odd, is there a producer who worked
on this who is Hawaiian?
Cuz there's a considerable amount of weird Hawaiian pride stuff in here.
Like, I’m sure Hawaiian people are lovely, but at points this almost felt like an ad
for Hawaii, which just added to the weirdness.
The stories also get very repetitive, like each storyline feels like it's sort of going
in circles, especially towards the start.
Maximus is sad about being human, Black Bolt wants to find his wife, etc.
It’s the same thing going again and again, this is only 8 episodes and still feels too
long.
Also, you don’t buy the relationships that grow here, in such a short period of time.
Like there’s a part where this unlikable character asks this woman if she trusts him
and she’s like, yes.
No you don’t, you just met him, you had sex, and that's it.
You wouldn’t trust him wiwt your life!
And this satyr guy is talking to these surfers at one point and he’s like, you guys feel
like a family to me.
No they don’t, you just met them!
It’s worse than Suicide Squad to be honest.
At this point in the review I would like to formally thank the game Super Mario 3D Land
for the Nintendo 3DS for helping me get through the really boring parts of this show, playing
that and having Inhumans on in the background I think is the only way I could’ve gotten
through this.
The writing is also bad in the sense that it basically spits in the face of the show
don’t tell rule.
There’s pretty much nothing about the storytelling here, everything is very on the nose and just
said to you, there's nothing that’s really left up to interpretation or told visually.
It feels quite lazy.
There are some moments that are so bad that they’re kinda funny, there’s one point
where a character yelled out, to the mines you go in a very over the top way, and that
just made me crack up.
Speaking of which, one of the things I liked the least about
this and also just found so strange about it is the plot.
And how uninteresting it is.
Like, you have these superheroes with awesome powers who live on the moon with their own
society, there are so many very interesting things you could do with that.
And you send them down to Earth, to walk around Hawaii for 8 episodes, fighting drug dealers
and police officers and that kind of stuff.
It just kind of baffles me that this is the story you take with something you could do
so much with this.
At this point we’ve had crazy stuff in this genre, hell, even in Agents of SHIELD they’re
now in space fighting aliens and that kind of stuff.
I just thought this had potential to be something different and it was just squandered.
It’s so bizarrely just not interesting.
I mean, you can make anything good, so sending the Inhumans to earth could’ve been cool,
it just wasn’t executed well.
And who knows, if they tried something crazy maybe it also would’ve been terrible, cuz
the stuff that’s not on Earth is also pretty boring here.
I just think it at least would’ve been more interesting and/or entertaining.
CGI wise, besides some decent effects, this is pretty weak.
The show on the whole also just looks cheap.
The costumes look like comic con cosplay and a lot of the sets just look like sets.
I know everything can’t be Game of Thrones, but just a bit more than this.
The action scenes (end of ep 2 fight) are horrible and hilarious in this.
Basically everything that could be bad about an action scene, this has.
Close ups, quick cuts, unnecessary slow mo, terrible choreography like really terrible
choreography, like worse than Iron Fist.
You can hide terrible choreography with camerawork but there are some shots in here where it’s
just painfully obvious that no punches connected.
Plus quite a few of the action scenes are set to music that doesn’t fit the scene
at all and just takes you out of it.
It feels like a really bad action scene from the early 2000s.
In general the editing is just really bad, some stuff cuts away way too quickly, some
scenes just end very abruptly, at points it’s just very poorly put together, sometimes it
seems like it was edited by someone who has never edited something before.
Unlike the Netflix Marvel stuff and even a bit of Agents of
SHIELD, this has no blood and feels totally dry and sanitized and TV friendly.
There’s a part where some guy gets shot in the face (ep 5), and besides the bad editing,
yeah, no blood.
Alos, any violence there is looks fake and unconvincing and is kinda funny (knife through
eye ep 5).
Sound effects are also hilariously bad, they’re like stock punching sound effect sin the action.
At one point, I kid you not, I’m pretty sure Maximus falls down and that boom sound
effect from every terrible Vine ever, you know the one, *boom*, yeah I’m pretty sure
they used that.
(e7 at 38 minute mark).
This whole thing I just find so bizarre, the fact that this was made by Marvel.
Marvel Marvel, billions of dollars biggest franchise of all time Marvel made something
this terrible.
It’s so strange.
Most of this is either really bad or just super generic.
There’s hardly anything that’s actually unironically good in this, and coming from
the MCU that’s sort of insane.
When it's not awful it's really just bland.
Also, this is totally breaking the flow of the review but I just remembered it and I
forgot to put it in before so I’ll say it now, I wish Black Bolt used his powers more.
Like, I think he uses them 3 times in the whole show.
Once in a flashback, once by accident, and once at the very end to break some rocks.
He never does anything cool with it, and considering how much they build up to it that’s kind
of disappointing.
On the whole, yeah, Inhumans sucks.
I’ve talked about a ton of reasons why and honestly there’s a bunch of other stuff
that I just didn’t wanna mention for the sake of time.
You get it, it’s really bad.
I wouldn’t recommend you watch it.
It really makes you appreciate the more average Marvel stuff, like I’ve complained about
Agents of SHIELD and Defender's before, but they are so much better than this.
Even Iron Fist I would say.
So yeah, there’s not gonna be a season 2 for this, and even if there was, I wouldn’t
watch it.
This is probably the worst thing to ever come out of the MCU.
I’ll give Inhumans a 3/10.
So those were my thoughts on the Inhumans and Runaways.
What did you think of these?
Let me know all of your thoughts down below in the comments.
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Thanks for watching and I’ll see ya next time.