Ken and Robin Consume Media: Thunderbolts*, Final Destination, Daredevil
May 20th, 2025 | Robin
Ken and Robin Consume Media is brought to you by the discriminating and good-looking backers of the Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff Patreon. Each week we provide capsule reviews of the books, movies, TV seasons and more we cram into our hyper-analytical sensoriums. Join the Patreon to help pick the items we’ll talk about in greater depth on a little podcast segment we like to call Tell Me More.
The Pinnacle
Die Nibelungen: Kriemhild’s Revenge (Film, Germany, Fritz Lang, 1924) With her brother King Gunther (Theodor Loos) refusing to turn over her husband Siegfried’s killer, his aggrieved widow (Margarete Schön) marries Attila the Hun (Rudolf Klein-Rogge), setting in motion her inevitable retribution. The second part of Lang’s seminal epic sets aside the fantasy tropes of part one for historical human tragedy with a mass-scale conclusion.—RDL
Recommended
Daredevil: Born Again Season 1 (Television, US, Disney+, Dario Scardapane, 2025) The assassination of friend Foggy Nelson and the rise of the Kingpin (Vincent D’Onofrio) to the mayor’s office test the determination of Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) to put his vigilante past behind him at a new law firm. Surprisingly coherent for a show that underwent a conceptual correction in mid-shoot, this doesn’t reach the heights of the original first season but at least understands what was great about it. Unusually for Marvel, which usually vaguebooks its politics, this not only deals with authoritarian criminality in high office but, in a subplot showcasing the Punisher (Jon Bernthal), addresses rogue cops’ co-optation of the character’s insignia.—RDL
The Gilded Lily (Film, US, Wesley Ruggles, 1935) When the charming stenographer (Claudette Colbert) he loves falls for an incognito English lord (Ray Milland) a cynical reporter (Fred MacMurray) turns her into a tabloid sensation. Smart romcom tackles such classic 30s themes as reality stardom and the friend zone.—RDL
Horse Under Water (Fiction, Len Deighton, 1963) Jaundiced MI6 agent accepts a dodgy-seeming mission to retrieve counterfeit currency from a sunken U-boat near the Portuguese coast. Applies knowing bureaucratic realism to a pulpy spy mystery.—RDL
No Greater Glory (Film, US, Frank Borzage, 1934) A put-upon boy strives to prove himself to his military-styled kid gang as dirt bomb warfare with older rivals approaches. Borzage’s depth of feeling lifts this anti-war parable, based on a Ferenc Molnar novel, from stifling didacticism.—RDL
Good
Background to Danger (Film, US, Raoul Walsh, 1943) American visitor to Turkey (George Raft) accepts the plea of a distressed traveler (Osa Massen) to smuggle an envelope into the country, placing himself in the crosshairs of a voluble Nazi operative (Sydney Greenstreet) and the excitable Soviet counterpart (Peter Lorre) opposed to his disinformation scheme. One wonders what Cagney, Bogie or Flynn would have done with the material, and whether writers W. R. Burnett and William Faulkner pared it down to fit the limitations of its stolid, once-popular star. Nonetheless, Walsh moves this wartime Eric Ambler adaptation along and gives Greenstreet and Lorre plenty of room to play.—RDL
Final Destination Bloodlines (Film, US, Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein, 2025) Fifty-plus years after a premonition of disaster allows her to prevent mass fatalities in a skyview restaurant in 1968, Iris’ (Brec Bassinger and Gabrielle Rose) granddaughter Stefani (Kaitlyn Santa Juana) inherits the premonition and (along with the rest of Iris’ bloodline) Death’s Rube-Goldbergesque attentions. From the heightened surrealism of the initial disaster to the cunning sadism of the multiple kills throughout, this is exactly what one wants from the franchise, plus a touching farewell from semi-regular Tony Todd. Recommended for fans of the series, so Good for more character- or motive-focused horror fans.—KH
Okay
A Guilty Conscience (Film, HK, Wai-Lun Ng, 2023) Irresponsible jerk lawyer (Dayo Wong) seeks a redemptive underdog win after an influential family frames his client for her young daughter’s murder. Part of the recent cycle of Hong Kong courtroom dramas, this gets you rooting for the comeuppance of the bad guys while showing as much concern for legal procedure as wuxia films do for gravity.—RDL
Thunderbolts* (Film, US, Jake Schreier, 2025) Duplicitous biotech corpo turned CIA director Valentina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) inadvertently creates a new albeit underpowered team when she tries to get her various loose-end semi-super contractors (Florence Pugh, et al.) to kill each other off. While superior to the recent ruck of Marvel outings, it’s not actually Good despite the presence of a Theme (depression), one (1) interesting super-encounter (Winter Soldier vs. three (3) Humvees), and Pugh’s actual acting chops. Moments of joy amid a tiresome slog are on theme, though, I guess.—KH
