The Roundup with Jeff Stockton (Season 31 Round 9)

 

Nine rounds down, just one more to go in Season 31. Here's The Roundup....

3. Box Office

The studio had two decent sized hits this round which continues turning the rough opening of the season around. A lot will depend on just how much money Justice League War earns to close out the season. It will probably one of the lower profits in the studio's history, but I think it is safe to bet that it will at least cross the $1 billion profit mark for Season 31.

2. Black Widow x Hawkeye

BWxH turned out to be a decent, fast-paced action film. It doesn't do much to push the Marvel Universe forward, but there are some fun action sequences and it moves at a brisk pace, never letting up enough to allow for boredom to creep in.

1. Friday the 13th

Cooper Wilson with the Earl Hays Press put it best when he said in his review that Friday the 13th: Blood Ties is "far better than it has any right being". The filmmakers have found a way to cater to both slasher fans and the more sophisticated horror fan in an impressive manner.

3. N/A

2. Marvel Universe

The franchise hasn't necessarily had bad films, but it does feel like the various filmmakers and maybe the studio itself has been treading water a bit (outside of the X-Men films) waiting for The Avengers to finally come around. While I liked Black Widow x Hawkeye, it didn't seem to push anything forward for the MU. I feel you could say the same thing about the majority of the projects for the last few seasons.

1. Repeal and Replace

I will give Alex Conn some credit for not showing his political bias too much in Repeal and Replace. But he loses a lot of points for other storytelling errors. The stakes and urgency for Paul Ryan to reach his goals are never made clear, the characters have no personality - even Trump, whether you love or hate him, IS a big character, but here he is a non-factor. Repeal and Replace ended up being balanced, but also boring, unfortunately.