What If…? (2021) s01e09 – What If… The Watcher Broke His Oath?

During the first half of the fight scene, I felt bad this episode wouldn’t be any good because there was some genuinely inventive stuff in the fight. The creative material doesn’t last long, but there are some legitimately cool moments. The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) has brought together a bunch of characters from throughout the season—including one who didn’t get an episode (or whose episode was cut)—and they all have to band together to fight Infinity-Ultron (Ross Marquand).

This ragtag team of big-name actors are the “Avengers of the Multiverse.” Wait, no. “Defenders of the Multiverse.” Wait, no. “DC’s Legends of the Multiverse.” Wait, wait, “Guardians of the Multiverse.”

Sigh.

The scene where Wright names them is one of those “wow, Academy Award nominations don’t mean shit,” do they, which is appropriate. There are multiple times throughout the episode the only amusing thing is wondering how episodes of “What If…?” land for all the acting coaches and drama teachers who thought they were training the good actors who’d do great things.

Not Marquand, though. He’s even worse than last time. If his old teachers stuck with “What If…?,” they’re probably just bad at their jobs.

There aren’t really any good performances. While it’s nice to hear Chadwick Boseman, he’s wasted. Ditto Michael B. Jordan. Hayley Atwill’s fine, but her part is forced—especially since her character now is just a riff on Winter Soldier Captain America who banters with Black Widow (still, not ScarJo, even with the lawsuit settling; like Marquand, Lake Bell’s worse than usual). Benedict Cumberbatch is way too comfortable phoning in his performance, and Chris Hemsworth’s wasted. It’s kind of surprising it’s Hemsworth. He gets plenty of bad lines and doesn’t bring any charm to their readings.

Though you’d need the power of the infinity stones to make the vapid dialogue charming. A.C. Bradley gets the script credit. To be fair, it’s not like it’s one of the better-directed episodes either. Bryan Andrews has the handful of good moments in the fight scene, and then it goes to pot.

But it’s actually sort of worth it when you get to the end and Wright monologues about why he’s so invested in the stories of the (animated) Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s just a Marvel Zombie. He’s just a mindless stan. It’s super appropriate for this show, which is entirely about creating variants to sell as in-app purchases or action figures. Disney’s taken the MCU so well in hand, the comics seem soulful in comparison.

Also, did they mean to air this after “Loki,” which establishes an even greater meta-power than the multiverse? Or weren’t the “What If…?” people allowed to see the real shows.

What If…? (2021) s01e08 – What If… Ultron Won?

Well. This episode’s mostly cheap, rather badly written (Matthew Chauncey gets the credit), rather badly acted, and the entire thing is just a setup for a cliffhanger with a very special guest star. The episode’s ostensibly about Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) and Black Widow (Lake Bell showing Scarlett Johansson is actually better at this part than some people would be) as the last two humans fighting all the Ultron drones. There’s no big do-over on Age of Ultron scene because it’s one of the cheap episodes. The entire Renner and Bell plot-line is cheap. There’s a more expensive subplot, but the main plot is back to the series’s inability to work well within its budget.

Now, if James Spader had come back and actually given a good performance as Ultron, who knows what the episode could’ve been. Unfortunately, Spader’s failure in the movie to chew it up—I mean, it’s Joss Whedon’s fault but still—dashed hopes the MCU would ever get a great villain. They did years later, but it was a long stretch of blah bad guys.

Anyway.

Spader does not appear. Ross Marquand fills in for the part. Marquand’s awful. He’s so bad he makes Jeffrey Wright seem good. The B-plot is Ultron discovering the multiverse because he reads about Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness in Variety and realizes the multiverse isn’t just Wright’s secret anymore. Okay, not really, but it’d have been better. And cover some significant plot holes. Though the episode quickly reveals itself to just be a giant plot hole, with the occasional substantive material going down the drain. There’s one good movie reference, thanks to the voice actor (no spoilers, it’s a cameo, well, sort of). However, there are multiple movie references in the episode, and the rest of them are terrible because Renner’s got no time for the script. He sounds distracted through the whole thing, whereas Bell over-exerts.

The bad performance isn’t even her fault. Even if she essayed the poorly written dialogue better, there’d still be director Bryan Andrews’s terrible decisions for the character.

It’s a tiring, tedious twenty-some minutes (I think it’s the shortest episode, but I’m not willing to put the time in to check). Though doing a crappy setup for a two-parter (or three-parter, since next episode is the last of the season) is not an un-comics thing to do.

As for Wright, who gets more to do this episode than ever before… he’s a lot worse in the middle than at the end. He’s not good at the end, but he definitely is weathering the bad episode better than anyone else. Except maybe Toby Jones.

Thank goodness “What If…?” slowed its improvement roll. I was getting worried I’d have to be more bullish about it.

What If…? (2021) s01e07 – What If… Thor Were an Only Child?

I was surprised when Chris Hemsworth showed up for this episode, but even more surprised when Academy Award winner Natalie Portman’s named came up on the titles next. Especially since the part is entirely a girlfriend role, even more than I remember her part being in the first Thor movie. They’ve also got Tom Hiddleston and a bunch of other actors. There are some very notable recasts, however. For example, the title just as well could be “What If… Thor Was an Only Child and His Mom Was an Afrikaner.” Josette Eales is in for Rene Russo, which is a bummer because the Mom role is prominent in the episode, and Russo and Hemsworth’s reuniting in Avengers: Endgame could’ve used a post-script. The other significant recast is Alexandra Daniels in for Academy Award winner Brie Larson. It’s a big deal because the episode’s about Thor wanting to party all the time and Captain Marvel being a serious Buzz Killington.

It turns out Odin not keeping Loki as a hostage child meant an entirely different Marvel Cinematic Universe. Not just one where Loki isn’t teaming up with Thanos, but a generally more peaceful, friendly intergalactic bunch of party animals. All thanks to Thor not having to deal with Loki’s conniving. It’s also unclear if there’s an Iron Man or whatever. But apparently, there’s not a Starlord, but it’s thousands of years of Earth history changed. The episode doesn’t acknowledge any of those changes, instead relying on sight gags, cameos, and general good humor.

And it works. I mean, Kat Dennings is a major supporting player for the first half. Right up until she, Portman, and Cobie Smulders get together for a girl talk and flush Bechdel down the toilet.

It’s unclear what’s up with Hydra because Frank Grillo’s guy is played for laughs here. So presumably, some aspects of World War II went differently in this reality.

Speaking of realities, Jeffrey Wright has very little narration this episode. It’s great.

There are some other amusing cameos and in-jokes. And it’s fun. Being fun helps. Hemsworth’s good at the humor, enough it helps Portman’s phoned-in performance. Literally phoned-in? Possibly, based on her differing audio quality. Maybe they told her Larson did these cartoons too, and then she found out they suckered her.

Oh, and Seth Green’s finally Howard the Duck long enough to confirm… he’s not good. Though the scenes are still funny tJhanks to the costars.

Maybe “What If” should just lean on its strengths, like being amiably sophomoric. The narrower its swings, the better.

What If…? (2021) s01e06 – What If… Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?

What is it with this show’s abject inability to land the foreboding epilogue? This episode is another series highlight—not just in terms of voice acting, but also budget (they don’t skimp on any of it, including a big battle scene in Wakanda)—but they somehow miss the most obvious ramifications of the change. The episode’s all about Michael B. Jordan’s Black Panther villain inserting himself into Iron Man 1 to take his revenge on Wakanda and the military-industrial complex to—theoretically, they glaze over it—break white supremacy and imperialism.

But they forget Iron Man 1 involved more than just Jeff Bridges being the villain; it also set up—sort of—the Infinity Saga, which apparently is no longer a thing in this universe. It’s okay; it’s just an obvious dodge. “What If … Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark (and the Sam Jackson Nick Fury cameo didn’t happen)?” is the better title.

Anyway.

The episode is Jordan inserting himself in Iron Man events to build a bunch of anime robots to fight battles. Tony Stark (Mick Wingert doing an adequate Robert Downey Jr.) loves him because dead father bros, but Pepper (Beth Hoyt in for Gwyneth Paltrow) isn’t sure. It doesn’t end up mattering because Don Cheadle and William Hurt (not William Hurt, but Michael Patrick McGill) trust Jordan because military bros. But can we really trust Michael B. Jordan? Is it possible for a guy named Killmonger to be a hero?

There are twists and turns as the episode goes straight from Iron Man 1 to Black Panther prologue, with a lovely but very heartbreakingly bittersweet Chadwick Boseman cameo. There are multiple movie stars contributing—Angela Bassett is the biggest surprise—and Jon Favreau, Danai Gurira, Andy Serkis, Paul Bettany (for like two lines, they really weren’t willing to pay for more), and John Kani. It’s concerning how easily Kani trusts Jordan; it’s almost like Captain America 3’s events did Wakanda a favor in the main universe.

But while someone like Leslie Bibb, who hasn’t been in a Marvel movie in ten plus years, gets opening titles credit, the actually important recast actors—Hoyt especially, but also McGill and Ozioma Akagha—get shoved to the end credits.

Plus, Jeffrey Wright’s annoying. Some of it’s the dialogue. Also, sitting through the poorly written opening titles monologue just to see what actors they got works against the viewing experience.

Jordan has a lot of fun, and the cartoon beefcakes him to good result and, thanks to the budget, it looks good throughout.

The epilogue’s a whiff, but what else is new. “What If…?” has a bunch of caveats, but I really wasn’t expecting such a successful outing. It’s like the better the source material to riff on, the better the episode. Sadly they’re running out of the good material.

What If…? (2021) s01e05 – What If… Zombies?!

Even with the trite, albeit genre-appropriate conclusion, this episode of “What If…?” is definitely the series high. And not just because Jeffrey Wright barely has any lines. It’s an actually good script—credited to Matthew Chauncey—with good action set pieces, better voice acting, and some good twists and turns. However, after a strong start with Mark Ruffalo, it turns out—once again—the secret to the success of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is Tom Holland’s Spider-Man.

Even if Tom Holland’s not playing him. Instead, they get Hudson Thames, who does a fine Tom Holland impression. The episode takes place when Ruffalo arrives on Earth in Avengers: Infinity War and discovers the world overrun with zombies. Worse, they’re superhero zombies. Turns out the original Avengers (we miss the Captain America and Iron Man reuniting, once again) went to save the day in San Francisco where the outbreak starts—tying into Ant-Man and the Wasp—only to get immediately taken out.

So when Ruffalo’s got to warn the world of Thanos’s impending arrival… turns out they’ve got bigger problems. Ruffalo teams up with Thames and the rest of the, ahem, new Avengers, like Sebastian Stan, Danai Gurira, Emily VanCamp, Evangeline Lilly, and then superhero adjacent Jon Favreau and David Dastmalchian. It feels like an on-a-budget Disney+ kind of cast, but not in a bad way. All of the voice acting from the survivor team is great. Of course, the opening titles have given away three more big Marvel movie superhero appearances, but the action’s so tense I forgot to wait for them to arrive.

When they do, it’s with multiple good surprises.

Marvel Zombies was a comic book sensation (of sorts), riffing on Marvel fans being called “Marvel Zombies,” complete with an Evil Dead crossover series (and an excellent fan-made short film), and this “MCU Zombies” is way better than the comic. Again, the ending’s a bit pat and undercooked—having Wright narrate it doesn’t help—but “What If” finally doesn’t seem cheap. If only Bryan Andrews’s directed every episode as well.

It might also help they’re not jockeying a PG-13 line either. The zombie gore is a lot more than I was expecting. Great voice performances from pretty much everyone, including the three not-surprise surprise actors. But Ruffalo, Gurira, Lilly, and VanCamp are standouts—besides Thames, of course, whose Tom Holland is the web fluid holding it together. The big surprise is Ruffalo being so personable since his last appearance on “What If” was so blah.

A New Avengers is a fantastic idea, but they really need to get Holland signed up for more than one. Or maybe they can just CGI him and have Thames do the voice?

What If…? (2021) s01e04 – What If… Doctor Strange Lost His Heart Instead of His Hands?

Apparently, at some point, if you’ve been a superhero long enough—in this case, Benedict Cumberbatch, who’s five years in—you eventually end up in a junkyard having a Superman III fight; wait, so was Christopher Reeve. Anyway, in this universe, Rachel McAdams is not a disposable girlfriend character in Doctor Strange; she’s the all-powerful girlfriend in a refrigerator. And after she dies instead of Cumberbatch losing the use of his hands, he becomes obsessed with going back in time and bringing her back, even though wise Asian sidekick Benedict Wong tells him it’s a bad idea.

Cumberbatch doesn’t listen, obviously, because he’s the white male savior, and A.C. Bradley’s script for “What If: Doctor Strange” impressively brings in all the colonizing white male saviorism of the movie. He discovers McAdams dying is a fixed point in the timeline—can’t wait to see if anything else time travel going forward in the MCU respects this nonsense—and there’s nothing he can do. Or so Tilda Swinton tells him. She has to bring herself back from the dead to warn him.

But she’s just a girl—I really hope Swinton’s magic bald white lady cultural appropriationist has some amazing history, like she was a missionary to China in the 1800s—so he runs off to find someone who’ll help him. So he goes searching for the mythical library of Cogliostro (or something, I’m just assuming it’s Cogliostro because Cogliostro is Nicol Williamson from Spawn and it’s hilarious to think Marvel-Disney’s ripping off Todd MacFarlane now) but only finds a Black guy dressed in tribal attire who doesn’t seem to speak English.

It doesn’t turn out to be a cringe-y Wakanda reference, and instead, the Black guy, played by Ike Amadi, does speak English; Cumberbatch is just a shitty white guy who assumes making demands while speaking loudly and slowly is the way to get through to people with different color skin.

There’s then a bunch of magic stuff when Cumberbatch is absorbing interdimensional monsters—if there are any Easter eggs, I missed them, save a reference to the Cthulhu from the first episode of “What If”—before eventually discovering there’s going to be the Superman III junkyard fight. It’s going to resolve the episode.

During said junkyard fight, there are moments when you can see the potential in a “Doctor Strange” cartoon. Unfortunately, this episode doesn’t realize them. But you could do it. Even as cheap as they do this episode.

Jeffrey Wright gets to interact with the main story. His voice acting is worse when doing it, but Cumberbatch is somewhat risible, so it’s nice to have a reminder “What If” doesn’t promise any good acting whatsoever. Of course, Wong, Swinton, and Amadi are fine. McAdams seems to have contributed a paragraph of dialogue they keep rearranging, but she’s at least better than Cumberbatch or Wright.

The most compelling experience during the episode is waiting for Wanda to show up since she’s supposedly more powerful than Doctor Strange in the MCU now. Clearly, Elizabeth Olsen has a better agent than Cumberbatch.

Otherwise, it’s just marveling at how cheap the animation’s getting and Cumberbatch’s inability to emote.

What If…? (2021) s01e03 – What If… the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?

What a profoundly stinky stinker of an episode. And not just because the writing is terrible (script credit to A.C. Bradley and Matthew Chauncey), the animation is sparse and cheap, and Lake Bell does a terrible job voicing Black Widow. Because everything about it is bad. Down to the villain reveal. “What If… the World Lost Its Mightiest Heroes?” is about three fateful days in 2010 when Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Thor 1 are all happening simultaneously—whoever thought that bad idea need realizing was wrong—except someone’s killing all the mighty heroes.

Now, the episode opens during a scene in Iron Man 2. Samuel L. Jackson’s back—Jackson puts in way more of a voice performance than the animation deserves, especially when there’s a semi-Matrix fight scene with him and you wonder if someone got him and Larry Fishburne confused—but Bell’s voicing Black Widow (one assumes Scarlett Johansson wouldn’t have been back even if she wasn’t suing Disney for what amounts to sexual discrimination) and not great actor Mick Wingert is playing the Robert Downey Jr. part. Luckily it’s a brief performance because the scene ends with Iron Man dropping dead and Black Widow in custody.

Except Sam Jackson knows she’s good, so he breaks her out and gives her the mission to find out what’s really going on. She interrupts a scene in The Incredible Hulk; Mark Ruffalo plays Ed Norton’s Bruce Banner, and Stephanie Panisello plays Liv Tyler’s Betty Ross. Panisello’s worse than Bell, which is saying something, but the animation on this part of the episode is the cheapest, so it’s having an increasingly negative effect. Plus, the writing’s terrible, and the sequence is boring, and they couldn’t convince William Hurt to do a half dozen lines. So instead, Michael Patrick McGill fills in as the general hunting the Hulk, and… well, McGill’s not William Hurt.

At the same time, Jackson’s trying to avert an alien invasion of Earth without having to use his Captain Marvel beeper because you know Brie Larson’s not showing up, so Bell’s on her own.

It’s a silly, lousy episode with some really cheap moments. Not narratively cheap. Even though the whole thing ends up based on a twist reveal and one too close to DC Comics’s Identity Crisis wavelength—because if DC’s not going to adapt their material, Marvel’s fine using it. But visually cheap. The animation is of the “too cheap to be taken seriously” variety. Disney+ didn’t even give them enough money to get through ninety minutes without the cash running out. What a gem.

I guess… kudos to Jackson for holding it together? No one else is anywhere near as professional. Clark Gregg sounds like he’s literally phoning it in. Tom Hiddleston shows up for a bit and does a little better. But only a little. Jeremy Renner seems held hostage. And is Jaimie Alexander trying to sound British?

You know who’s actually just fine this episode? Jeffrey Wright. He’s got the least amount of lines ever, and it works for his performance.

What If…? (2021) s01e02 – What If… T’Challa Became a Star-Lord?

This episode of “What If” answers the burning question… what if Guardians of the Galaxy hadn’t been an attempt to reach the blandest white bread audience in the Marvel Universe? What if they’d hired an actually charming leading man instead of Chris Pratt? And, as I’ll never pass up an opportunity to diss the worst Chris, he doesn’t show up for this episode. Many other Guardians vets show. Including Josh Brolin—because the story affects Infinity War—Benicio Del Toro, who’s delightfully played as an anime villain, and Kurt Russell.

John Kani is back from Captain America III as Black Panther dad, who apparently doesn’t get killed off in this universe.

The episode opens with a rehash of the Guardians intro, but here Djimon Hounsou is very impressed with Chadwick Boseman, who has turned the intergalactic gang the Ravagers into a band of Merry Men (in the sort of most appropriate white way possible they identify Boseman’s character with Robin Hood instead of finding like a real African hero). Boseman can reason everyone down from violence, including Brolin, who doesn’t destroy half the galaxy instead argues academically about it like any good classical liberal.

It’s fun. Some of the action sequences are a little long, and since it’s a heist narrative, writer Matthew Chauncey apparently felt obligated to throw in some ruses and red herrings. Not to mention the ending steals the episode away from Boseman, which is a particular dig since they then dedicate it to him in the end credits. Probably could’ve made it work with him getting to finish it out and still had the suck-up to white male mediocrity.

Would it be fun without being Boseman? Probably but it definitely wouldn’t hit the same. Michael Rooker’s all right. Gillan’s good. Brolin’s fun. Hounsou’s hilarious. I wish he’d get to have so much fun in live-action sometime. And, again, Del Toro’s good. There’s also a not long enough Seth Green is Howard the Duck scene; it’s still unclear if the bit has any potential. It doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to be funny, but they’re trying to delay that evaluation.

As the narrating Watcher… Jeffrey Wright’s less annoying than last episode.

The strangest part of this one is the seeming admission it’d have made a better movie the first time around this way.

What If…? (2021) s01e01 – What If… Captain Carter Were the First Avenger?

One of the joys of an old What If comic was seeing how the epilogue played out. Spider-Man ends up with eight arms and eating New York, whatever. The show’s apparently not going to do interesting epilogues because they want to bring in big-name guest stars from the major properties.

So instead of Hayley Atwell getting a character arc as she gets to imagine her Captain America part being more than “the girl with asterisks”—though the story still centers on Steve Rogers—it’s just a rehash of that movie. There’s a second-act twist—Atwell’s Captain Carter (not Britain?) gets the magic MacGuffin away from the bad guys—but they just get it back in time for the Cthulhu-inspired finale. Which takes place in an evil Disney tower. Captain America: The First Avenger was before the Disney deal and before Kevin Fiege cut out the Marvel Comics brain trust slash penny pinchers, so this “What If” is also some insight into what they’d do differently today.

Instead of laser zappers so there’s no blood, the Hydra agents have regular guns, but there’s still no blood because they’re Captain Carter fodder. And the Black guy in the Howling Commandos isn’t as present or visible.

And then there’s the voice casting. First off, Jeffrey Wright’s lousy as the Watcher. I’m not sure what the Watcher is supposed to sound like (I imagine helium voice because it’s funny), but Wright’s ostensibly in the Orson Welles or James Earl Jones vein. Forget Rebel Alliance and traitors, Wright can’t even muster whirled peas. Thankfully he doesn’t narrate the whole episode.

But then there’s the regular cast. Since Steve Rogers is still a main character and Atwell showed for all Chris Evans’s outings, maybe he’ll show up for her? Nope, can’t literally phone in a performance (versus metaphorically phoning in a performance like Bradley Whitford or Sebastian Stan). Atwell’s fine. Josh Keaton—filling in for Evans—is mostly acceptable. The dialogue’s not great, neither is the sound editing, but there are occasional flashes of inspiration. One of the Nazis Atwell punches out makes a Disney villain punch-out face, for example.

And the Nazi Disney castle.

Disney+ is targeting fewer quadrants with “What If,” so they’re doing it on the cheap. It’s not just the animation, they’re not even willing to pay for graphics for the end titles. I guess it’s interesting to see return-on-investment realities hit the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Disney pays for less and less, but… damn, isn't the real question–what if Marvel did right by its long-time female stars?