MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE
CHAPTER... WHO KNOWS ANYMORE?
WEREWOLF BY NIGHT
Yep, I returned to that once great obsession of mine, the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I've missed a few chapters of the MCU in the last two years and fallen off of the MCU gravy train. I used to be hopelessly addicted to the MCU, never missing a thing. I watched anything with even the slightest hint of being connected to the MCU (Agents of SHIELD, Daredevil, Agent Carter, Jessica Jones, Inhumans, all of it!). 2018 felt like a high point with Black Panther, Infinity War, and Ant-Man and the Wasp. But ever since 2019 my enthusiasm has been drying up.
An ending can sometimes make or break the whole story (or at least lessen the journey making you question: "Was it worth it?"). I did not like Avengers: Endgame and the film has only grown worse with each subsequent viewing. Endgame hit the mark for so many viewers, but it missed the mark with me. Endgame felt like the start of the MCU's significant decline with me personally. With the exception of the Spider-Man films, every entry in the MCU since Endgame has either only slightly been better or has been far worse in my opinion.
I gave up on watching the D+ MCU shows in 2021, but I stayed for the movies, naively hoping they'd be different, better, with more effort put forth into them. To be fair, I am not the typical viewer of the MCU. I have a modestly extensive knowledge base of Marvel's comic books. Perhaps the most egregious fault I have found with the MCU since Endgame, the big reason why I have largely felt alienated by the MCU, is in their adaptions of the source material or lack thereof. The MCU barely resembles the characters and stories I have read for years, for most of my life. It's surprising now when I see something in the MCU that actually resembles the comics in more than a superficial way.
Let's put it this way: Say you've read Stephen King's IT or Harry Potter or the Lord of the Rings and not only that, you loved them and read them multiple times for years. Then you went to see the movie based on the book and that movie was about punk rockers traveling into space to battle the cheeseburger empire. You'd be saying something akin to: "Hey, that's not Harry Potter." This is more or less how my experiences have been with the MCU since 2019.
I came back to D+ for Moon Knight and did not like it. I saw Doctor Strange 2 and that film finally broke me. I had to walk away. Of the dozen or so D+ MCU shows I've only seen three and disliked them all. I haven't yet seen THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER, but have been told by close friends and multiple other sources that the film is... disappointing to say the least. And from all indications BLACK PANTHER 2 seems to be headed in the exact same direction. Unless something convinces me otherwise, I will be sitting out Black Panther 2 as well.
To be completely transparent: I am not in Marvel's corner anymore.
A MOMENT OF WEAKNESS
But, like all junkies, I had a relapse. I went back to D+ for, I won't say the "last time," but hopefully the last time for a while. Another adaptation of an IP I have a strong attachment to received its MCU debut: WEREWOLF BY NIGHT.
Needless to say, nothing has changed. There were four characters in this 55 minute special that I recognized from the comic books: Jack - Werewolf by Night, Ted - Man-Thing, Elsa Bloodstone, and Ulysses Bloodstone. And none of them felt like the characters I know and love from the comics. Nothing about Jack recalled the character I've read for years from the comics. Man-Thing looked great, but was characterized completely different. And the depiction of Elsa was all wrong beyond the accent.
The only character among them that felt somewhat accurate was Ulysses Bloodstone and he was dead at the beginning of the film. But if that WAS his talking corpse spelling out the details of the plot then he was physically unrecognizable as the character (my impression is that it wasn't his corpse, but another corpse he was speaking through, at least I hope that's the case). And if that corpse was supposed to be the Frankenstein Monster or N'Kantu ~ the Living Mummy then it's still wrong.
The black and white classic horror filter felt tacked on and not fully thought through. The special was actually filmed in color and the black and white was added after the fact. I noticed a few digitally added spots of cigarette burns, but it would've been nice to have seen more, for instance: film grain, 4:3 aspect ratio, camera jutter, have the score drop out at times, and overall a little more effort and authenticity in recreating the 30s horror feel. 2007's GRINDHOUSE went to far greater lengths to recreate the 70s and 80s film experience and this special put forth the shallowest effort by comparison.
The tongue n' cheek tonal approach signaled a few things to me: 1 - it felt like the filmmakers themselves didn't think much of these characters and treated them as cheesy schlocky B-movie fair. 2 - that the MCU refuses to drop the humor and will go to great lengths to maintain said humor. 3 - if this is how they treat the horror characters then we have reason to believe that Blade and Ghost Rider will be treated no differently. Above all, it showed me that the MCU is firmly entrenched in their formula and will drive it into the ground, potentially killing the genre as a whole, before changing.
Jack and Ted were cut and paste copies of Rocket and Groot. If Elsa was Gamora (which isn't that far of a stretch) and they were on a black and white alien planet (there was one in Thor: Love and Thunder), with only a few minimal changes this could've easily been a scrapped Guardians of the Galaxy story. This entire film felt empty, devoid of care or emotion, and lacking any love for the genre, characters, and source material. In short, it felt like a soulless product.
Overall Ranking: 4 out of 10
The filmmakers couldn't even be bothered to get the characters right, provide an authentic story, nor embrace the black and white classic horror homage beyond a filter change and three digitally inserted cigarette burns.
Look, I realize these characters are considered D-Listers or worse by many and would say that no one cares about these characters anymore. For the majority of people, that's probably true. But so were the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, and many others. I realize I'm in the minority in that I know and love Werewolf By Night, Man-Thing, Ulysses & Elsa Bloodstone and the majority of people don't care. But if there's anyone who should care, more than me or anyone else, for these characters it should be Marvel themselves. And this definitely feels like Marvel doesn't care at all. So, if Marvel themselves doesn't care that signals to us that we shouldn't care either.
I wanted a Werewolf By Night film adaptation. I want to watch and like every Marvel show and movie coming out (for a decade there I almost did). But it feels to me that Marvel themselves doesn't care about their characters or source material anymore. It feels like Marvel is actively eroding their fans and destroying their IPs with each new product. Again, if Marvel is signaling to us that they themselves don't care about their comics, characters, history, or movies and television shows... then why should we?
If you'd like to read about my rising love and falling out with the MCU, check out the posts linked below
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