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| I watched The Boys for a little bit a few months ago. by blackwater 11/19/2019, 11:45pm PST | ||||
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| It has an interesting premise. What if superheroes existed, but they were evil?
Of course, they can't actually make their character "Superman, but he's evil" because of copyright. So we get "the Homelander." But we all know what's up. He has all the usual Superman powers. They also have an evil version of Aquaman, an evil Batman, an evil version of that guy from the Fantastic Four who was all stretchy, and so on, and so on. Needless to say, they're all controlled by an evil megacorporation bent on world domination. There is a pretty straightforward plot centered around an everyman-like character and his girlfriend who gets killed by a "supe." And then clearly he needs to unmask the conspiracy and etc. etc. The first few episodes are focused around how they defeat this one particular superhero who is almost invincible. Normal people fighting against superheroes is an interesting twist. The scene where they take a superhero prisoner and then try to kill him somehow, any way possible has a gritty, Quentin Tarantino feel. In a good way. Some of the other stuff is... weaker. Like a lot of other recent TV, the show has exactly two female character types: suffering saints who are victimized by the eeeevil men around them, and strong empowered females. No exceptions. This really takes a lot of the fun out of the evil superheroes because you can't have an evil Wonder Woman, or an evil Catwoman, or whatever (because DAT'S SEXIST.) I don't know-- maybe this changes later on in the show. I haven't watched that far. But it's really grating in the early episodes. For example, Homelander's ex-girlfriend is a good person. Yeah, really. Lesson for scriptwriters: if you spend years around the villain while he commits his crimes, and even date him, you are not a good person. Maybe you can have a redemption arc, but you should be villainous in an appropriately female way, like Tony Soprano's wife or something. Thinking about this show more, it could have been a great comedy spoofing superheroes. What if Batman was a lazy rich douche who has his butler Alfred do all the work of catching criminals (or just framing innocent people, I dunno), and then shows up to throw a punch or two and pose for the cameras? What if Catwoman were an older woman jealous of her super-husband cheating on her with some normal girl? And maybe even willing to kill to get him back. Just file the serial numbers off by renaming the superheroes, and the capeshit spoofs just write themselves. The only real spoof so far is the Aquaman character, who is portrayed as a loser. But... for some reason, it kind of falls flat. I think part of it is that it just doesn't make sense for anyone in the Seven (the ruling council of superheroes) to be an actual loser. I mean, he is famous. Women would be throwing themselves at this guy. Maybe he's at the bottom of the Seven's pecking order, but I think his self-esteem would be doing just fine. The other thing is that his behavior just... isn't consistent. In one of the early episodes, he sexually harasses one of the female leads. So, OK, he's intended to be a frat boy douche. But then he's also a Napolean Dynamite style introverted loser? Doesn't make sense. You have to choose between your negative male stereotypes. Also, there's a scene where he is with his therapist and he says that he was a "diversity hire" for the Seven. Um... he's a white male? Or does EvilCorp have a strict rule about having diversity of superpowers or something? It's not all bad, though. There is a funny scene in one of the early episodes where the heroes encounter baby Cyclops, who has the "shoot lasers out his eyes" superpower. Of course, in the original X-Men, this was probably handled in some appropriately dignified manner, like Cyclops got his eyeball lasers gradually over time as he grew up. (I'm just guessing here, I didn't read the comics.) Anyway, there's no dignity here! The heroes grab the baby and use him as a laser pistol to slice the bad guys in half. A+ scene, guys, please do more of this! I want to see baby Wolverine or Baby Hulk. The last episode I watched was the one where they infiltrate the eeevil evangelical conference. Honestly, I felt like the show was starting to get predictable. Did you know, that evangelicals might be wrong about God, and they're probably all bad people anyway? Hollywood is brave enough to defy the iron grip that the bishops, mullahs, and shamans have on our modern society, and tell you the truth that nobody is willing to talk about (except every sperglord on the internet). Sarcasm aside, is the evangelical church really the most important institution for the villains to corrupt? If you need to cover up thousands of murders a year, you're going to need some people in the police, journalists, and the government to help you do it. When I saw this episode beating up on evangelicals, it just felt like I was reading some Reddit vapelord's manifesto from the mid-2000s about how George W. Bush was staging a fascist takeover of society, maaaaan. (Although I guess vaping hadn't been invented back then? I am old.) And I jut checked wikipedia, and yes, the mid-2000s was when the original comic book was penned. Of course. Anyway, the series succeeds sometimes, but mostly in spite of itself. Like Mr. Robot, it wants to be dark and edgy, but mostly succeeds at being cringey. A little more Adam West (or even, God willing, Terry Gilliam) and this could have been great. Alas. It's still better than most "Netflix originals," though. Not bad for an Amazon Prime pack-in. |
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It's too bad they haven't advertised for The Boys anywhere by 08/02/2019, 7:12pm PDT  Daaaaa boyss da boyss da boyss da boyss da boyss NT by 08/02/2019, 8:30pm PDT great post A+ content charge 10$ to post here profit NT by 08/03/2019, 2:02pm PDT I heard it's like DC Watchmen? I dunno by 08/02/2019, 10:12pm PDT It's Amazon Prime, and not PG-13 by 08/04/2019, 12:55pm PDT I watched The Boys for a little bit a few months ago. by 11/19/2019, 11:45pm PST I thought Amazon's version of The Tick had a better Evil Superman. NT by 11/20/2019, 4:35pm PST The Tick remake was better than expected. Was the second season any good? NT by 12/01/2019, 6:34pm PST Not as good as season 1, but still enjoyable. by 12/01/2019, 6:41pm PST Season 2 was better because it hewed closer to the old cartoon NT by 12/02/2019, 9:59am PST Best cheapness-to-quality ratio by 12/01/2019, 8:05pm PST |
