Harrison Ford | A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies.

It is always a bad sign when a superhero action Marvel movie is released within the weak months of January or February. The best example is last year’s “Madame Web”, released one year ago today – arguably the worst movie ever produced.

The problem with “Captain America: Brave New World” is that the screenwriting collaboration using three writers did not work – the same problem with Madame Web. You would think that the executives at Marvel Studios would have realized that having three screenwriters for this movie would again, not work, after the disaster with Madame Web last year.

This story plays like each of the screenwriters wrote their different part(s) without communicating with the other screenwriters, resulting in a completely disconnected story. While watching this mostly bad film, it is impossible to know why something is happening or the reasons why. There is no attempt to educate the audience. Action, facts, and dialogue are thrown at the audience, with no possible way to follow what is happening. Considering the budget of this movie is 180 million dollars, not having a great screenplay is a huge mistake.

The stars of this film are Harrison Ford, who plays President Ross, and Anthony Mackie, who plays Captain America – a version that can also fly. Once again this action movie adopts the philosophy of action scenes first, who cares about the story – which has not worked for more movies over the years than can be counted.

The attempt to save this movie comes at the end when Harrison Ford turns into a giant red Hulk and a huge fight scene with Captain America. The special effects are good in this scene, but by then the entire movie made almost no sense and anyone watching this cannot wait for the film to be finally over.

This time around the very low 52% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes are accurate, only giving this movie this high a rating because of some of the acting with Harrison Ford and Anthony Mackie and the action scenes. This movie is far better than Madame Web which I rated a zero, but is still not worth recommending.

The Apple TV series “Shrinking” is brilliant with unusual, funny, and sometimes crazy dialogue. People in real life never talk this way, but the good thing about dialogue like this is that it will hold your attention throughout each hour of this series.

The cast of Shrinking starts with Harrison Ford, in his first-ever television series, playing a character that seems a lot like the person he is on talk shows. Somewhat quiet, moody, funny, and sarcastic. Harrison plays Dr. Paul Rhoades who works as a published Therapist in the Pasadena California area where he shares the same office complex with two other Therapists – Jimmy Laird, played by Jason Segel, and Gaby played by Jessica Williams. This idea of several doctors sharing the same office complex and dealing with so many patients and personal problems is the backdrop of this extremely entertaining two seasons with the last episode #12 of season 2, recently released on Apple TV.

Unfortunately, Jimmy lost his wife at the start of this series in a car accident and Paul has been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Jimmy frequently has conflicts with his daughter Alice that also include problems as a direct result of his wife dying in a car accident. There are also several conflicts with Jimmy’s two neighbors Liz played by Christa Miller and Derek played by Ted McGinley that are very often funny despite the real life issues that they all face.

The best part of this series is the character Sean played by Luke Tennie. Sean has several psychological problems after his experiences in the war in Afghanistan including getting into fights and lashing out in anger. At first Sean is patient of Jimmy and their friendship grows during Sean’s many sessions leading to Sean living in Jimmy’s pool house. Paul does not approve of Jimmy and Sean’s friendship, because it violates a fundamental rule of doctors and patients, and because of this, Paul takes over Sean’s therapy sessions.

Several other characters are also standouts in this series, including Brian, played by Michael Urie, who is gay and sometimes works as Jimmy’s lawyer. His presence generates many scenes of humor throughout this series and Louis played by Brett Goldstein, who was the the drunk driver who killed Jimmy’s wife. After a great deal of conflict between Jimmy and his daughter Alice, Louis slowly becomes a friend of the family despite the extremely tragic circumstances.

From what I have seen that is currently on Apple TV, this series is the best and most entertaining.

The Rotten Tomatoes reviews are an extremely high 97% for this series and I agree with this rating and highly recommend Shrinking.