The Roundup with Jeff Stockton (Season 37 Round 3)

 

This round we got a solid DC sequel, a respectable Grand Theft Auto movie that somehow forgot to be much fun, and an animated fantasy that apparently decided subtlety was for cowards. Nothing here was disastrous, but I’m still waiting for Season 37 to produce another movie that feels genuinely enormous. Here's The Roundup....

NIGHTWING: BLOODHUNT

I wouldn’t call Nightwing: Bloodhunt a high point for either Jimmy Ellis or APJ. But I was entertained. Sometimes that’s enough. The biggest improvement here is finally giving Nightwing villains who actually feel worthy of a superhero movie. Professor Pyg brings genuine creepiness, while Deathstroke gives Dick Grayson the kind of physical threat he should have been dealing with all along. That alone makes this feel more substantial than some of Nightwing’s previous outings. The screenplay isn’t especially deep, and I don’t think either writer will be pointing to this as career-best material, but the movie moves, the action works, and Sam Hargrave knows how to make a fight scene land. For a third solo Nightwing film? I’ll take it.

BOX OFFICE

Now this is more like it. Last round, two of three films lost money. This time? Two of three made money. Amazing what a difference reversing those numbers can make. No, Round 3 didn’t deliver another Pokémon-sized monster hit, but honestly, the studio doesn’t need every round to produce one. Sometimes a couple of solid profitable releases are exactly what keeps a season healthy. Nightwing: Bloodhunt did well. Grand Theft Auto IV did enough. And while The Silver Swan dragged the round down, at least it didn’t completely wipe out the gains made by the other two. After Season 36 spent half the year finding new ways to turn decent rounds into financial headaches, I’ll happily take boring profitability.

SOUNDTRACKS

Finally. Through the first two rounds, Season 37 had produced exactly zero soundtrack contenders. Round 3 suddenly gave us two. Now, did I personally enjoy both of them? Absolutely not. We’ll get to The Silver Swan in a minute. But from an awards standpoint, this is good news. Best Soundtrack is always more interesting when there are actual stylistic choices competing against one another instead of voters scrambling to fill out a ballot. Two soundtracks in one round gives the category some life. I may not want to listen to all of them again. But at least there’s something to argue about now.

THE SILVER SWAN

I understand the message. Trust me. The movie makes absolutely certain of that. Again. And again. And again. There’s a perfectly decent animated fantasy buried inside The Silver Swan, but every theme gets hammered so relentlessly that eventually I stopped feeling anything and just started waiting for the next speech from Morgan Freeman's narrator explaining what I was supposed to feel. Subtlety was apparently not invited.

Then there’s the soundtrack. Look, I respect The King’s Singers. I understand the appeal of a cappella. I do not understand why this story needed quite so much of it. The music didn’t just fail to connect with me personally — I’m not convinced it always connected with the movie either. Several numbers felt like they had been selected because somebody liked the idea of an a cappella animated musical, not because the songs actually strengthened the story being told. Interesting experiment. Not one I need repeated.

GRAND THEFT AUTO IV

Let me start by saying this: Grand Theft Auto IV is not a bad movie. It’s probably not even the worst Grand Theft Auto adaptation LRF has made. That almost makes its problems more frustrating. Because where was the fun? This is Grand Theft Auto. Crime. Chaos. Dark humor. Bad decisions. Bigger bad decisions made to fix the first bad decisions. Instead, the movie frequently feels surprisingly restrained and gloomy. Taylor Sheridan obviously knows how to handle crime material, but this sometimes felt like he was trying to turn Grand Theft Auto into one of his prestige westerns with cars.

And then there’s Sebastian Stan. Good actor. Wrong role. I never completely bought him as the guy at the center of this particular world. He can play damaged and morally compromised all day long, but GTA needs a little more danger, humor, and unpredictability in its lead. Stan gave me brooding. I wanted trouble.

BLOCKBUSTERS

Three rounds into Season 37, and the picture is starting to come into focus. We’ve got two solid hits. One enormous blockbuster. That’s a perfectly respectable start. The problem is what comes next. Looking over the rest of the schedule, I see plenty of movies that could make money. I see potential hits. I see franchises with built-in audiences.

What I don’t see are a whole lot of obvious monsters. Where’s the next Pokémon? Maybe Zelda gets there. Maybe Mortal Kombat explodes. Maybe X-Force does X-Men business. Maybe something nobody expects catches fire. But after watching Season 36 fall short financially because too many modest successes were asked to compensate for too many expensive failures, I’m a little nervous about another season built around “pretty good” box office. Hits are nice. Blockbusters pay for mistakes. And LRF always makes a few of those.