Another good episode of Ms. Marvel yesterday. I realized I've never seen Karachi portrayed on screen, real or fictional, and know very little about it. That's pretty sad for one of the largest cities in the world.
Ms. Marvel is definitely the best of the Phase 4 output so far imo
It’s working with a lot of would be drawbacks and it still shines. Basically an unknown cast, little known main character, centers around a Muslim family. One thing I really appreciate is that there’s a white guy main character but he’s not an avatar for the audience. He’s just a family friend and part of the community.
I really don't know why I seem to always be in the minority on everything, entertainment-wise...but I think Ms. Marvel is flat out terrible. The only bright spots being Iman Vellani and the guy who plays her dad...I think they're both great in their roles.
I have so many problems with the show...and I know what kind of reactions I'll get, but whatever (EDIT: god, I went back and read this and it's sooo long, but it really is a terrible show, and I just binged all 4 episodes tonight and went back to a few eps/spots to write about specifics)
I know it's going to come across that I'm just angry that it's not another white superhero in America show, but it's really not it at all. I get that it's a show that's trying to spread a new corner of the world to mainstream, and bring a rarely-seen culture to the hoards of Disney viewers, but its just throwing as much culture, history and imagery at the wall and hoping it sticks. Most of the show is about history, but doesn't connect it to the story other than the Partition is when Aisha got lost and magically found her father and left the country. I really do want to learn more about the culture and history of the Partition, but they make it difficult.
First, right off the bat it starts off terribly...and this is so nitpicky, but during her driving test, she starts the car and just slams on the gas? Who does that? It would have been much better had they just made the gag her backing into the instructor's car and left out the slamming on the gas. She doesn't even put it in gear? I know that's such a stupid thing to complain about, but that stuff always gets me.
But after that, everything is just so all over the place. There's very little explanation of things, and even when they do explain, it just leads to 10 more questions. Every single episode has random scenes that jump from one to another...it always seems like they cut out scenes in the middle so that they get all of the story beats. "Ok we need to get from A to B to C to D....so let's cut out all the stuff in between"...It always seems like you missed a scene or that they plucked a key scene out of the middle of the show, but multiple times an episode. Just horrible pacing.
For example, in episode 4...Kamala meets Kareem...(which if you go back and watch is just them throwing stupid jabs/pop culture references/questions at each other with no answers, just "Where'd you learn to jump, Ninja Turtles?....Where'd you learn to jump, Donkey Kong?....Who are you?....WHAT are YOU?") and then has the scene where she learns about the Noor dimension and the Red Daggers...then immediately has a scene where she's talking to her Nani on the terrace...then Kareem texts her and they go sit on the beach kumbaya style and eat some Pakistani dish** and listen to a guy play guitar for 20 seconds (TF?)...then Muneeba (Kamala's mom) has a 2 minute conversation with Kamala's grandmother (Nani) about her liking toffees, then Kamala walks in the door and sits and has a toffee with Muneeba...there seems to be no transition or anything, Muneeba is with her mom and then immediately in the kitchen with no perceived time passage or anything...they have a toffee, and it's the next morning and she's training with the Red Daggers again.
**If you go back and watch there are soooo many closeups of just the food they eat. Just the food. Just to show "Hey, they eat different stuff than you/us." They throw in 1000 terms from Muslim/Pakistani/South Asian culture, expecting everyone to know what it means (which granted most of it can be gleaned from context, but still). That last part isn't much of a gripe because I get that they are trying to immerse the viewer in the culture, but it's hard to know what's going on when you have no reference to what Eid is, or a masjid, or other terms thrown in randomly. Again, I'm sure all of you know all of those terms already, and it's just me being ignorant....and I get that it's on the viewer to gather the meaning from context or whatever, but with things like holidays or celebrations, it'd be nice to connect it together.
Add to that the complete lack of character development and just little bits of info thrown in with no context or weight/consequence.
For example, she goes from barely being able to use her powers in Episode 3, to being a master of them in her fights with the Red Dagger/Kareem or with the Clandestine in Episode 4. It really feels like we missed an episode.
Which guy is supposed to be the love interest for Kamala?...Bruno?...Kamran?...Kareem? So sloppy to introduce 3 guys and not give any of them any significant screen time. I'm sure he'll come back into the story, but what was Kamran's purpose? Just to introduce Najma?
Take out the few story beats or exposition bits and the show is mostly just Kamala wandering around looking at stuff.
The writing is terrible...particularly the villains. The Clandestine/Djinn are boring and not fleshed out at all. It's been 2 episodes since they showed up and we have no idea what their power set is, or how they got here. There are 5 or 6 of them and you only really know about Najma, and barely anything about her other than she knew Aisha. And Kamran is her son? Like she just hung around in this dimension for 100 years and started procreating? He has powers? Is he going to go back to the Noor dimension? Somehow the Clandestine were "banished" or "exiled" to this realm/dimension, but to get back they use the bangle to combine their realm with ours? (Speaking of that, how many times is the MCU going to use different names for different spaces/places? They use universe/realm/dimension/world/plane/and more to mean the same thing. It's so confusing. They need to delineate these things more clearly.)
Oh and there's this group called the Red Daggers. They don't like the Djinn/Clandestines....why? No clue. What's their history with them?
Why is it just one old guy and one teenager? Where did they get their tech?
The fight scenes are mediocre as fuck. The Djinn seem to be super strong (they punch holes in the floor/crack walls/etc), but there's no explanation. They also pull random weapons out of nowhere, or just tap their chest or pull of their belts and have these magical weapons. They edit it like crazy and you can never see a person's face or make out who is fighting who, it's just a flash of body parts striking other body parts. At one point when the Clandestine drop in on Waleed/Kamala/Kareem, Waleed is fighting Fariha (the black woman member of the Clandestine)...he gives her a shoulder shove and punches her to the ground, she falls down, and the camera swerves around to Najma, and she runs to the left and Waleed is standing there waiting for her....he was literally just fighting someone else and 0.5 seconds later he is stationary in a fighting pose ready for Najma to attack him?
Also, what's with the D.O.D.C. "Supermax" facility? It seems to be the same facility shown in the She-Hulk trailers, but there, it's surrounded by a desert. Is it actually in Pakistan? That seems weird to put that in a She-Hulk show based in New York (though I know any prison in a desert is not going to be in NYC). I assumed it would be in the Southwest region of the United States.
And for it to be a SUPERMAX prison, all it took was someone to choke a guard out, someone else to grab a weapon and take out another guard? Really? 2 or 3 guards for 5 beings from another dimension? And how easy must it have been for them to just get out and get to Pakistan? And ON TOP OF THAT, how did they immediately get to Pakistan anyway? Did they fly commercial? Didn't they say it was like a 16 hour or 26 hour flight with multiple layovers? (I think I remember that mentioned, maybe not).
The dialogue, particularly for Najma is horrendous, clunky and cliche.
She literally drops from the ceiling and says "SURPRISE!"...and then during the fight screams "GET HER!"....
During the car chase in the streets: "DON'T LET THEM GET AWAY!"...."GOT YOU NOW!"...
And the stilted dialogue between Kamala/Kareem: Kamala: "Can't you go any faster!?"...Kareem: "No I can't go any faster!".
And the number of times someone shouts "GO, GO, GO, GO!" in the chase scene is hilarious. Literally every character says it.
So there...all of my problems so far with Ms. Marvel. That was wayyyy too much, but I honestly haven't had this kind of reaction to any other MCU property. Even Hawkeye and Falcon & the Winter Soldier seemed more cohesive and interesting. I know there's still 2 episodes left, but it feels to me like "WTF, there's only 2 episodes left, they need to get to explaining some shit."
It boggles my mind that this is apparently the highest rated Disney+ series so far. Interestingly, I also read that it is least-watched of the Disney+ shows. That shows that the critics don't have as much of a finger on the pulse of the audience as they want to believe. But based on a couple of people on here, you guys really like it as well! Go figure.
I feel like so many people, critics, YouTubers, etc are scared of criticizing it because it's based on a minority character from the Middle East and don't want to seem like ignorant white nationalist blowhards...but IDC...I know that's NOT the reason I don't like it and am fine with that. Like I said at the beginning, I really DO want to like this show, and to learn more about the Pakistani/Muslim/Indian culture and history, but NOT at the expense of an overall story.
I hope the last two episodes redeem the first four and I can rank this show a little higher, but to me, I don't think it can come close to WandaVision, or on top of that LOKI. We'll see.
