By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated 21 hours ago

Among fans and Hollywood execs alike, “reboot” has become something of a dirty word. After all, you can throw a rock and easily hit one of countless terrible reboots. The new Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), for example, had none of the demented fun of the original movies, and audiences hated it. Psycho (1998). The Thing (2011) was such an unnecessary prequel that even putting Ramona Flowers in it couldn’t get fans to care about this film. And The Fantastic Four (2015) lacked the charisma of the earlier two movies, quickly establishing itself as one of the worst superhero films ever made.

What do all of these reboots have in common? Simple: they failed to attract new fans while driving away older fans, ultimately damaging the brand in a lasting way. Nobody is more aware of the dangers of reboots than Kevin Feige, who previously called reboot “a scary word” and who prefers to call his own upcoming MCU reboot a “reset.” Now, in a recent statement, Feige has clarified some of what we can expect to happen after Avengers: Secret Wars. “It will establish a streamlined, simplified, single universe that we can keep up with.”

Reboot Or Reset?

From the outside looking in, Kevin Feige’s comments about the post-Secret Wars MCU seem contradictory. He previously confirmed that the MCU would be getting a reboot, but noted that he preferred the term “reset.” Now, in a recent interview with Joshua Horowitz, he denied that there would be a reboot and suggested fans read Jonathan Hickman’s 2015 Secret Wars comic because it provides “a nice roadmap to where we can go.” So, how is the universe resetting but not rebooting? In a statement made to Chinese media, Feige has squared the circle, promising the MCU would “establish a streamlined, simplified, single universe that we can keep up with. Some things will be familiar, but many, many things will be entirely new.”

What does all of this mean? Regarding “reboot,” it seems Feige is avoiding this word for two reasons. First, as outlined above, most reboots are awful, and audiences have come to rightfully fear them. Second, this isn’t a complete reboot in the traditional sense. Marvel isn’t going to recast every single role or dramatically change the kinds of stories they tell. That means you shouldn’t expect the kind of major transformation we got from the Battlestar Galactica television reboot or the Star Trek (2009) cinematic reboot. Instead, we’re getting a reset that keeps most of what we know and love while tweaking things just enough to keep the movies fresh.

The World’s Worst-Kept Secret

That brings us back to Hickman’s Secret Wars comic. That tale deals with our heroes trying and failing to stop realities from colliding with one another. After they fall, Doom rebuilds the entire multiverse into a single reality that he is the ruler of. Eventually, he is defeated, and we are left with a new reality that is mostly very recognizable to fans. However, it’s got a few new continuity tweaks. For example, Miles Morales, who was originally from a different universe, is now part of the familiar 616 universe. Furthermore, future writers had license to make more tweaks as needed, all of which are retroactively explained by Secret Wars.

What does this mean for the MCU? More or less, the exact same thing will happen. Our heroes will lose in Avengers: Doomsday and be reborn in Doom’s weird Battleworld in Avengers: Secret Wars. Once he is defeated, we’ll have a unified multiverse that allows popular multiversal characters (like Deadpool and the Fantastic Four) to become a permanent part of the MCU. It also paves the way for popular characters played by aging actors (like Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor) to be recast. Mostly, the reset of Secret Wars will make it easier to add the X-Men to the mix without screwing up too much existing continuity.

Why are the X-Men so important? They are arguably the most famous superhero group in history, and Kevin Feige is betting big on these merry mutants being the cornerstone of his new, hopefully improved MCU. Now, the reset news isn’t all that surprising; it’s what myself and countless others predicted as soon as the title dropped for Avengers: Secret Wars. However, it’s cool to hear the big guy basically confirm what’s about to happen. Plus, given how much everyone has loved X-Men ‘97, it’s safe to say the entire fandom is ready to see these guys optic blast their way into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

By Robert Scucci
| Published 21 hours ago

When Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez’s names are brought up, nobody will blame you if you immediately think about Hot Shots! and The Mighty Ducks. But when the brothers teamed up for a crime comedy like 1990’s Men at Work, it’s easy to see why they were such popular comedic actors during the height of their careers. Men at Work benefits from its stars’ chemistry because, while they’re not portraying brothers on screen, they have the same kind of reluctant best friend energy siblings have, allowing every heightened situation they find themselves in to come off as grounded and believable, which is no easy feat when you learn just how stupid their situation is.

Men at Work wasn’t a huge financial success upon its initial release, earning $16.2 million at the box office against its reported production budget of $9 million. And even today, it’s far from a critical darling, presently boasting a 30 percent critics score on Rotten Tomatoes and only a slightly better 44 percent audience score on the Popcornmeter. Like most crime comedies of this era, however, it holds up shockingly well because of how hard it sells its premise.

My running theory is that there were so many movies like this coming out at the same time that critics simply became jaded, and their fatigue can be seen in the numbers. But just like Fatal Instinct and National Lampoon’s Loaded Weapon 1 (another Emilio Estevez banger), you just need to be built for movies like Men at Work. Whether you are or not is entirely up to you, but if you’re going in blind and love a solid crime comedy, you really can’t go wrong here.

Two Garbage Men, A Dead Body, And A Toxic Waste Conspiracy

Men at Work centers on garbagemen Carl Taylor (Charlie Sheen) and James St. James (Emilio Estevez). Day to day, their lives are pretty simple. They collect garbage, make a total mess by throwing trash barrels all over the place, and recklessly drive their truck. Their behavior is so unprofessional that they’re placed on probation, forcing them to work under the observation of Louis Fedders (Keith David), their boss’s brother-in-law.

One day after work, Carl and James are hanging out at the former’s apartment when they feast their eyes on Susan Wilkins (Leslie Hope), the woman who lives in the apartment across the way who Carl clearly has the hots for. They witness her get into an altercation with the man in her apartment, which prompts Carl to shoot him in the butt with a pellet gun. The whole story turns into a convoluted murder plot as Carl and James hide beneath the window laughing when two men enter Susan’s apartment, strangle the man, drag his body out of the building, stuff the body into a toxic waste drum, and haphazardly place the drum into the trunk of their car.

The body, which is revealed to belong to City Councilman and mayoral candidate Jack Berger (Darrell Larson), is discovered the next day by Carl and James while running their route with Louis because the drum rolled out of the hitmen’s car and straight into a garbage pile sitting by the curb. Fortunately, Louis, who hates cops, is quick to point out that they didn’t actually kill the man with a pellet gun, but also brings up the fact that nobody knows this guy is missing yet, and they have to do something with the body before anybody finds out. 

While figuring out their next steps and waiting for the whole situation to blow over, they keep Jack’s body at Carl’s place, concealing his true identity with a Richard Nixon mask. It seems like a solid plan until a pizza man (Dean Cameron) shows up, making him a witness and prompting the gang to kidnap him so they don’t get thrown under the bus for a murder they didn’t commit.

Complicating matters further are hitmen Biff (Hawk Wolinski) and Mario (John Lavachielli), who are scrambling to find the politician’s body after failing to properly dispose of it, and officer Mike (John Putch), who is pretty much harmless but, for some reason, has always had it out for Carl and James.

Sibling Energy Steals The Show

On paper, Men at Work is a near-perfect comedy of errors, which is then elevated by the chemistry between Sheen and Estevez. The entire situation Carl and James find themselves in is so out to lunch that you need two charismatic leads to actually sell it, which they do in spades. The situational humor alone is enough to keep your eyes glued to the screen, waiting for the next big mishap, but it’s the stolen glances between Carl and James that add a whole new layer of charm to the equation. It feels like two brothers way in over their heads after getting caught in the middle of an assassination plot, when all they want to do is go to work, come home, crack open a few brews, and watch some TV.

As Men at Work barrels into its second and third acts, we get a tight story about political corruption, and how working class men with no clue how much trouble they’re getting into can rise to the occasion and become heroes in their own right, when all they really want to do at the end of the day is go back to their slacker lifestyle and forget any of this ever happened.

If you’re looking for a solid, forgotten comedy of errors that may have been railed on a little too hard by the critics when it was first making its rounds, you can stream Men at Work for free on Tubi as of this writing.

By Chris Snellgrove
| Updated 19 hours ago

One of the biggest fumbles in Warner Bros. history is Green Lantern. The movie should have been a surefire hit: the title character is one of DC’s most popular heroes, and he was played by a reliable leading man (and future Deadpool actor) Ryan Reynolds. Plus, the film is filled with an entire galaxy of colorful characters. Nonetheless, a combination of bad writing and shoddy CGI made this blockbuster film into something worse than a failure: an embarrassment. Since then, the studio has been hesitant to bring the character back. However, that all changes with Lanterns, the DCU show premiering on HBO Max on August 16th.

The show takes the surprising approach of making Hal Jordan (the most popular Green Lantern) into an older character, one who is responsible for training Jon Stewart, the new kid on the block. Together, they must solve a murder on Earth that Jordan is convinced is tied to a larger extraterrestrial mystery. These space cops have to make nice with the local law enforcement, one of whom is deeply resentful of these big-time heroes muscling in on her jurisdiction. Does all of this add up to a show worth watching? Below, you can decide for yourself by watching the first full-length trailer for Lanterns.

The Lanterns Always Ring Twice

This Lanterns trailer quickly establishes the dynamic between our two main characters. Hal Jordan (played by Kyle Chandler) is training a rookie Lantern, John Stewart (played by Aaron Pierre). The new guy seems ready and willing to become a full-fledged space cop; meanwhile, Jordan has mixed feelings about the fact that he’s training his own replacement. In the trailer, we see a handful of fun mentor/mentee moments, several cool action moments, and even a brief conversation between Jordan and Sinestro, his greatest nemesis. Towards the end, we get a cool action montage to go along with Green Lantern’s familiar oath, followed by a cutesy moment between Jordan and his sheriff love interest.

For the most part, the trailer makes Lanterns look really exciting. I was on the fence about making Jordan an older character because I hoped that he (my personal favorite) would be the one to join the Justice League. However, the performances of the two leads really put my concerns to rest. Chandler is great as a grizzled space cop, and I’m now excited to see him in a Logan-style story about a cowboy hero going for one last ride. It helps that Pierre is so compelling as Stewart: he has a stern coolness that belies a fiery passion, and I’m hyped to see him evolve into the DCU’s next big character.

A Different Dynamic Duo

This is admittedly a low bar to clear, but Lanterns looks like it is going to be much better than Supergirl. While it’s something of an apples-to-oranges comparison (movie vs. TV show and all that), Lanterns already seems like it’s going to strike a better balance between its more grounded elements (like character relationships and an ongoing investigation) and its cosmic elements (like visiting Sinestro’s jail cell in deep space and making a mysterious alien enemy). The trailer also distances itself from most of the whimsy of Superman, Supergirl, and even Peacemaker, presenting a show with the sensibilities of your favorite cheesy action movies from the ‘90s.

Sure, it’s a great trailer, but will the TV show blow our minds or suck like the vacuum of space? Only time will tell, but we don’t have to wait that long. Lanterns premieres on HBO Max on August 16. Considering the high quality of Peacemaker Season 2, it’s fair to say that fans have high expectations for the DCU’s second live-action television show. Fingers are crossed it lives up to those hopes and that Green Lantern finally becomes the popular mainstream character he deserves to be. If not, the show might end up like Supergirl: an evil that we only wish would escape our sight!