I’m currently trying to watch Loki for, I think the third time. It’s…not very good.
Here are the things I don’t like about this show:
Owen Wilson.
CGI overload.
Corny mumbo-jumbo.
Now, I’ll address these things one by one. Starting with Owen Wilson. Man, this guy just isn’t funny. He’s fine at acting in the one way he knows how. He’s the same here as he was in Wedding Crashers in 2005, and every other movie he’s ever done. It’s now 2023. Humor stagnates if it doesn’t evolve with the times. Owen Wilson has not evolved. His delivery, his jokes, they’re the same as they were 20 years ago. It’s just strange to see a not-that-popular comedian from the early 2000s co-lead a Marvel television show. It’s a very weird choice, and it tanks the show for me.
Problem 2: CGI overload. Since COVID, Netflix, and Marvel itself have basically killed what was once the movie going experience in America, we’re now left with a Marvel superhero movies, copy cat CGI IP epics, and a few well made genre movies sprinkled throughout the year (PLANE was one of those bad boys!). This means the majority of movies that are released in theaters now exist in a green screen reality with people dressed in costumes standing in front of it. And, unfortunately most of these movies do not take 13 years to produce like Jim Cameron’s AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER, so, they look awful. That’s what we have going on here in Loki. The physical sets that actually exist, they look fine. Nothing special (mostly offices, a dessert with real sand), but we don’t even get to enjoy these real locals for long, as constant fake looking holograms appear to bombard us with exposition, and or “world building.” People constantly turn to CGI dust when touched with little sticks, and there’s CGI robots, people being controlled by remotes. All of this, could maybe work, but it doesn’t even have a chance since it looks so bad.
Problem 3: corny mumbo jumbo. There’s a lot of bad lines that have to be delivered in a Marvel movie (and now show) in able to tell these stories. Characters have to say stupid villain or hero names, talk about “realms,” “dimensions,” and “timelines,” and they have to do it with a straight face. Some of the stuff that gets info-dumped on us here, just isn’t sold well to us by the actors delivering the lines, and I don’t know if it could be. It just comes off dumb. The way any well executed fantasy or sci-fi property pulls this stuff off (getting us to believe in their fake convoluted worlds) is by jumping in, getting us involved with characters, and then slowly giving us bits of information to fill in the world. Loki just info-dumps all this stuff about the sacred time-line, variants, and then keeps going. The mumbo-jumbo is the story, instead of some event. That’s how episode 1 plays out, which is a terrible way to start any story. (It’s lazy, and bad writing).
Overall, Loki comes off about as fresh as a bottle of flat soda. You can kind of tell that it could almost be enjoyable, it has a lot of the pieces of things you probably liked. Bits of BLADE RUNNER aesthetic, a dash of STAR WARS, a nod to JURASSIC PARK, but, unfortunately, it’s not even as good as the bad third sequel in any of those series. It’s a stinker, but, here I am, watching it anyways. You win Marvel. Baskin Robbins always finds out.