5/March/2021. Written on, 6/March/2021.
Watched.
My rating: 7.8/10.
It baffles me how much the Marvel Cinematic Universe has grown since 2008's Iron Man. 23 feature films, 12 television series, shorts, video games, comic books, insane amounts of merchandise... In 2008, DC had The Dark Knight and Marvel had Iron Man. Yet, Marvel is the one who can say, "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!". Get it?
WandaVision is the latest gear in the Disney's money making machine in which we find out what Wanda Maximoff has been up to since the events of Avengers Endgame. Turns out, she has been starring in her own little sitcom reality that she has somehow created! Remember that episode from Mr Robot in which Elliot gets stuck in a sitcom with ominous overtones? This is that episode stretched to a full season length.
Like my Mandalorian season 2 review, I'll walk you through my experience with this show, episode by episode.
The first episode of any show is arguably the most exciting episode if you don't count the finale. And so was this one. The show begins with a I Love Lucy (1951) aesthetic of black and white sitcom. Even the special effects used to show Wanda and Vision's powers are in portrayed in that vain. The even features an advertisement of fictitious products in each episode; which I also did in Jump Cut Jukebox (2020), only difference being JCJ was 1960s'. To give the show more of a sitcom feel, Debra Jo Rupp shows up as one of the characters! Debra was in a lot of sitcoms back in the day, like That '70s Show, Friends and Robot Chicken.
By the end of the first episode, I wondering if I could respect Marvel for trying something new. Then the generic, orchestral theme played over the credits. Its time we retire those "Avengers-like" themes and tried something new. Just listen to Gustavo Santaolalla's Last of Us theme for inspiration.
Episode 2 made me think of how Marvel uses special effects and other tried and tested methods to bedazzle us and hide the fact that their stories lack emotional depth. The laugh track got old rapidly because the comedy never landed for me; I smiled once. Still, I was giving them the benefit of doubt. Maybe it was intentional. Bizarre. I had written in my notes from this episode that the director breaks/shifts/expands the fourth wall in this episode and I can't remember for the life of myself what I meant by that. If you remember the episode and want to understand that line, go ahead, knock yourself out.
The makeup and costume is terrific, especially with Vision. The colour of his skin translates really well on screen as something which is pleasing to the eyes. As if he was a droid with a velvet cover.
By this point in the show, I was theorizing that Wanda is in a coma, and this is all going on in her head. She is fantasizing about her life with Vision.In the episode, we see a toy helicopter, but its in colour instead of being monochromatic. By the end of the episode, Wanda gets pregnant and her world gets filled with vibrant colours of the '60s. Let me ask you this question: how did the '60s end in Hollywood? By the murder of a pregnant woman named Sharon Tate. There's a connection you didn't expect, now did you?
Episode 3 gave us a little of the Andy Kaufman brand of troller's humor, with the scene cutting and replaying, jarring the audience. I actually checked if the video file was corrupted when it happened. That was fun. I only have two more thoughts on this episode. 1) Is her son the green speedster from the comics? 2) Finally! Someone mentioned Quicksilver!
Which brings us to the 4th episode, with it's cheesy writing. The big reveal in this episode wasn't really a big reveal. It was just a... reveal. We knew it was Wanda from the get go. But Kat Dennings was a fantastic character to return to M.C.U. This episode featured some pretty awesome editing and a great needle drop to end an episode with. Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child, if you were wondering. Why voodoo child? Well, 'cause the children born in this episode are born from magic...
In most of the American films and television now a days, men are portrayed as feminine and women as masculine. There is nothing wrong with that except it feels rather pandering.
Geraldine and Wanda fight and by the end of it I thought she broke Geraldine's back and paralyzed her. That was far from true, it later turned out. The border between film and TV in terms of special effects is narrower than ever.
When Kat Dennings asks for a vintage TVto tune in to what Wanda was broadcasting, she gets one right under the table where she was standing. Where did it come from? It was... super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Time for episode 5, the one we all have been waiting for. The only two reasons that liked this episode as much as I did are: 1) the argument between Wanda and Vision. 2) Quicksilver showed up! The good one! The Fox universe and M.C.U just collided! Woah...
Elizabeth Olsen is so good in this that you can see the tears in her eyes. Thankfully Paul Bettany keeps up with her. But the thing which rubbed me the wrong way was the soldier-not-listening-to-doctor cliche in which Rambeau was put in.
The first half of episode 6 was a little slow and Hayward is such a stereotypical army guy. And the Darcy trio defeated the S.W.O.R.D soldiers (F.B.I agents?) too easily. What was the point of hyping them up? A bit like the storm troopers.
"Its been Agatha all along" is the revelation of the 7th episode. Such a nice, catchy little song. If that wasn't enough, Rambeau now has powers of her own. And it was the seventh episode that I realized she was the daughter of Maria Rambeau, from Captain Marvel. I don't care about Captain Marvel. I think its the worst film that M.C.U has churned out.
I adored The Office (2001) type mockumentary they went for in this. Vision was basically Tim from The Office when he said "I'm not amused." I was also thinking, "Please let Evan be Quicksilver and not make some sort of henchman!".
When Wanda sees the bug in Agatha's house and then proceeds to walk down the stairs, into the basement, it mirrors the climactic scene from The Silence of The Lambs (1991), in which Clarice walks down Tooth Fairy's basement. All that's good, but the show never blew my mind even though it had the potential to.
Episode 8 makes it canon that Bryan Cranston exists in the M.C.U as a part of Malcolm in the Middle, and because of that, and other reasons, episode 8 is the best episode so far. These are the darkest 42 minutes M.C.U has ever produced. We finally get to see Wanda and Pietro's tragic back story and I absolutely loved the way they executed it. And I must admit that finding Vision dismantled was worse than I imagined. All the emotional beats hit me hard in this and I almost cried. Almost. This episode also had me worried that they were gonna waste Quicksilver.
"What is grief, if not love persevering?" that line blew my mind. The only thing that blew my mind in this show is that line. It really hits the spot, doesn't it?
Which finally brings us to the big finale! Yes, they did waste Quicksilver. What a shame... I'm still hoping that he is hiding under the name "Ralph Bohner".
WandaVision continues the tradition of sky beams which are a staple of the genre at this point. I'm not a big fan of the "evil version of the good guy" trope that superhero movies seem to love so much. We saw this trope in Spider-Man 3 (2007), Iron Man (2008) and even 2018's Black Panther. This is just lazy writing at this point and makes the fight dull as hell. But, somehow, WandaVision manages to make this trope fun to watch in action, perhaps one last time. I'm talking about the Vision VS Vision 2.0 fight. The two characters fly and punch through each other like Supermen until the fight comes to a halt. This show's climax gave me what I've been wanting from a superhero movie: a battle of wits instead of punches and kicks. Vision uses the "Ship of Theseus" thought experiment to make Vision 2.0 realize that their is no reason to have a conflict. Fantastic! That's exactly how to computers would resolve problems, not by the violent means of territorial primates.
By the end of it Wanda becomes the Scarlet Witch and her new costume looks fabulous. She even has a "The Darkhold", a book filled with information about magic and what not. What follows are my problems with the finale.
The dialogues were so predictable that its not even funny. Characters conveniently disappear for a while whenever the camera cuts away from them. Darcy? Quicksilver? Rambeau? Jimmy Woo? Where are all of 'em? Darcy has one shot in the whole episode. One shot! And the Vision is back? Great! Nobody dies in the superhero genre! Even Dottie was not even used properly! Hayward, who was a morally ambiguous, a bit shady character up until this point suddenly decides to shoot at a couple of kids just so the children who are watching the show get a confirmation that he is a bad guy.
WandaVision felt very anti climactic. Marvel might've dropped the ball with the ending. The ending is going to be very divisive with the audience. The second last episode was dark and then they geared it down in the finale. That's not how its supposed to work. Marvel has always had commitment issues with what they promise to do. The climax shouldn't have been a big fight scene. It should've been about Wanda fighting her own demons.
For example, the scene in the end when the couple tucks in the children and then bid each other farewell. That scene was rushed as hell. I would have stayed in that moment for about 10 more minutes, for it to be emotionally devastating. The wait for something to die is more painful then the death itself.
The End does not reach the heights I was hoping Marvel would reach. Instead, it opts for a much more lenient, sugary, Disney ending. Wanda never had to deal with the consequences of her screwed up actions. The people she was controlling should have been coming after her in the end, making her transformation into a villain complete.
Fun fact: the scenes set outside Wanda's bubble of reality are shot with Ultra Panatars, which are 1.3x anamorphic lenses. They were especially made for Infinity War, so using the same type of camera gives the audience a sense of familiarity with the world outside the bubble and makes the world inside feel that much more fresh.
Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany and Katherine Hahn make WandaVision a fun time for the whole family. It is, no doubt, one of the most creative Marvel projects ever put to screen and a great segue for the multiverse and secret invasion story lines. And this is now officially, the lengthiest review I've ever written.
