Anger at 37,000 ft: Pt II. The misleadening.

So part one went pretty smoothly, as did the entire flight I'm happy to say. I've been on the ground in Tokyo a few days now and I'm discovering a number of things. Jet lag comes in many forms and for me it consists of falling asleep at a regular person's time of around 10 (or earlier) and then waking up at around 3 in the morning. Our hotel is right smack in the restaurant part of Akasaka and as a result everything is neon or has uncannily accurate plastic versions of the food they serve in the window. 7 eleven stores are more pervasive here than Tesco Metros. Cash is still king in Japan and I weigh roughly 3 pounds more than usual through the shrapnel of change in my pocket. Most common though is the feeling that Tokyo was not constructed with my fat ass in mind, because I am perpetually in the way or struggling to actually fit in shops. Anger in a Kaiju suit.

Anyway, back to the flight over and the matter in hand. With 7 ish hours left to kill I thought sleep might be a wise plan so it seemed wise to put something on that I wouldn't be fussed about too much if I didn't catch all of it. My first mistake of the trip.

Look, we all knew X Men Dark Phoenix was going to be an utter shitshow, especially if you'd seen Apocalypse which drained my will to live sufficiently that gargling my own piss every morning for the remaining 40 odd years of my life seemed like an inviting prospect. Dark Phoenix though. Just, no.

There are a host of problems with this movie; anonymous, generic bad guys (who would have been the Skrull if they'd had the rights) with a bunch of unexplained powers and abilities seeming bestowed simply for the purposes of set pieces and FX shots, a plot which is supposed to be about the duality of good versus evil raging within Jean Grey but is actually the same "bad guys want the apocalypse for some reason" plot we've seen a million times before, a bait and switch on Professor X which kind of comes out of nowhere, and X Men so anonymous some of them may not have been there at all.

The overall problem with Dark Phoenix is that it's just exhausting to watch. Good guys become bad guys, bad guys become good guys, audiences become sad and confused and we all go away somehow less than when we went in. They're trying to go for the "relatable villain" thing Infinity War and Black Panther managed, but they aren't even playing the same sport, let alone in the same ballpark. Even decent actors like James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender find themselves stumbling over the dialogue. Well Fassbender does, McAvoy sort of trundles over it. Honestly, it's a shame the First Class saga had to end like this because it had real promise.

Anyone who's been here long enough will already be aware of my deep seated love of terrible action movies from the late 80s and early 90s so it will be no surprise that I'd have a pop at recent Will Smith vehicle Gemini Man. It will also be no surprise to hear that Will Smith reprises his best role to date as Will Smith, this time with added age related jokes because a spring chicken he no longer is. Also because the whole concept of the movie, thoughtfully given to us almost in its entirety in the trailer, is that old Will Smith must avoid being assassinated by young Will Smith because the thespian tree also know as Clive Owen has deemed it necessary. Look, this is Sci Fi action bollocks of the highest order but the one thing that lets it down is the slightly inconsistent de-aging VFX work that leaves it looking much more like old Will Smith is fighting young Plastecine Will Smith being badly lip synced by old Will Smith. On the up side it is quite violent and Mary Elizabeth Winstead is a bad ass on the sly without having to make any awkwardly woke Girl Power references. 

Last, but certainly not least of the Five Flick First Flight Film Fest (boom, stick that aliteration in your pipe and declare it as duty free at UK border control) was an absolute shock to the system. I mentioned one bad superhero movie (Dark Phoenix, you terrible bastard, you) and one good one, but I never thought for a moment it would come out of the grim, gritty and largely lifeless walking corpse that is the DC cinematic universe. 

Shazam! is actually a really decent movie. Sure, it's not exactly groundbreaking (it's yet another origin tale) and it isn't going to convert anyone to either DC, or superhero movies as a genre, but it was at very least enjoyable. At the heart of it is a family-based drama revolving around belonging, abandonment and acceptance but before it steers into uncomfortable Oscar nomination melodrama territory it's about a 14 year old boy with a bit of an attitude problem suddenly gaining superpowers. The script is witty enough to get a few actual chuckles (DC fans probably don't remember what they sound like, unless they're derisory scoffs) and at no point does anybody seem like they're taking things seriously at all. It has a bit of the Goonies, a bit of Big and just an overall 80s kids action movie vibe to it and it just works. Plus it's the polar tonal opposite of the Joker and I'm still trying to work out why that was so popular. 

Next time I post I'll be back on the Brexit-soiled streets of the UK (assuming my flight isn't quarantined over the Coronavirus and assuming the country isn't just a smoking crater) having sauntered through customs with one of the last burgundy passports to be issued. It's 13 hours back, so I'm hoping to sneak in 6 movies if I can; challenge accepted.