Solaris, but not the good one

So glowy

Solaris (2002): adapted for the screen from Stanislaw Lem's novel and Andrei Tarkovsky's previous adaptation and directed by Steven Soderbergh; starring George Clooney, Natascha McElhone, Jeremy Davies, and Viola Davis: 

Ostensibly adapted straight from Polish sf writer Stanislaw Lem's 1960's novel, this version of Solaris really seems to have been adapted from Soviet film-maker Andrei Tarkovsky's early 1970's adaptation. Its emphasis on family matters and its changed ending both reflect the film, not Lem's much more coldly rational novel. 

But at least Tarkovsky's Solaris deals with Lem's main focus -- the unknowability of the universe. This movie can't even be bothered to explain the reasons the alien planet Solaris so fascinates and disturbs humanity. We never even see the surface, instead seeing the planet only as a trippy lightshow around which the space station orbits. Of course, in neither the novel nor Tarkovsky's version does the station truly orbit -- it floats inside the atmosphere, above Solaris's mysterious world-covering ocean.

George Clooney does what he can, but the script is far from good and Clooney himself is too ironic a screen star to make the rational, skeptical main character believable. Viola Davis, Jeremy Davies, and Natascha McElhone do what they can, which ultimately isn't much. Soderbergh turns Solaris into a triumphant story about love conquering death, which is not the emphasis of Tarkovsky's ending, and is found nowhere in Lem's original. The mediocre Event Horizon is a better English-language adaptation of Solaris, and that's really saying something.

Soderbergh and company do accomplish something remarkable, though. This Solaris is half the length of Tarkovsky's meditative, glacially paced original. But it feels twice as long. Not recommended.

The Jugger by Richard Stark

The Jugger (Parker #6) (1965) by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark: For once, Parker isn't planning a heist but rather trying to find out why a retired 'jugger' (slang for 'bank robber,' though the character in question is a safe-cracker by trade) has written him asking for help. Parker really, really isn't someone one asks for help. 

But when Parker arrives to find out what's going on -- and whether this retired, occasional partner in crime represents a threat to Parker's hard-won anonymity -- the man in question is already dead. 

The local police chief starts following Parker almost immediately, and another thief is already in town. Why has a safe-cracker who's been retired for five years suddenly the focus of all this attention? Well, there's the novel. 

The Jugger plays more like a mystery than most Parker novels, with Parker as the reluctant detective. The small-town, Midwestern police chief plays a lot like something from a Jim Thompson novel like Pop. 1280, corrupt and scheming. But getting one over on Parker is a very, very difficult thing to do. 

But Parker novels are also lessons in how even the most competent of men may be at least partially undone by unforeseeable circumstance. The trick is knowing when to walk away. Highly recommended.

Injury to Eye Motif

Justice League: War (2014): The second animated film in the just-completed DC Animated Movie Universe (the first was The Flashpoint Paradox) reimagines the origin of the Justice League. War mostly adapts the somewhat clunky, post-Flashpoint reboot in the DC Comics universe, though it substitutes Shazam (aka the original Captain Marvel) for Aquaman. It's actually better than its Geoff Johns/Jim Lee source, though it's still burdened with some of Lee's fussy, busy superhero costume re-designs, none worse than on Superman's high-collared, no-red-trunks look.

It's also better than the live-action Justice League movie, which also adapted that Johns/Lee graphic novel/first six issues of the new Justice League. That it also explains both the origins of the heroes who  need one (Cyborg) better than the movie AND deploys Darkseid rather than his lieutenant Steppenwolf in the invasion of Earth -- well, maybe the DC Movie Universe needs to hire more people from the animation wing to work on the live-action movies.

Two somewhat perverse elements may amuse or freak out the casual viewer. For one, Alan Tudyk voices Superman, one of the most baffling voice-casting choices ever (Tudyk voices the Joker in Adult Swim's Harley Quinn series, as a point of comparison). Of course, the voice-casting here, as in the Young Justice series, deliberately establishes this as a different universe than the DC Animated shared universe of Batman: The Animated Series, Superman, Batman Beyond, and Justice League [Unlimited].

The second involves a lengthy climactic battle in which the heroes' goal is to poke out Darkseid's eyes. I shit you not!!!! In any event, recommended.

It Follows... Again!

It Follows (2014): One of the ten great horror films of the past decade, It Follows rewards multiple viewings with new observations and revelations. This time around, I wondered if the Creature had problems with water because of Its behaviour during the climax.

As the 'expert' exposition about the Creature's capabilities comes from a very fallible source, one whose knowledge of the Creature is purely anecdotal and personal, his explanation of what the Creature can do must remain suspect. Everyone comes to believe that the Creature only moves at a relatively slow walking pace. 

But while it does indeed so while near its prey, it is intelligent and it isn't a ghost. There's no reason to believe the Creature can't use public transportation, as funny as that seems. Indeed, there's no reason to believe that it's incapable of faster movement when its prey gets too far away. 

Otherwise, from what we see, It is only capable of traveling about 72 miles a day as the crow falls. That doesn't seem to work all that well in terms of its arrival at a cottage about midway through the film. 

Though I did give myself a bit of a laugh when I realized that Its slower return to the suburbs of Detroit from the cottage on the shores of Lake Michigan may be attributed to It not being able to secure a ride. And as it can open doors, It could also hop into the back of someone's car or truck. Unless one has been infected by the Curse, one cannot see it -- though one can hit it, shoot it, or get clobbered by it. Oh well. Highly recommended, as always.

Previous reviews are HERE and HERE...

The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort

The Book of the Damned (1919) by Charles Fort: Charles Fort is an important figure in both paranormal circles and in the science-fiction and horror genres. Financially able to not work, Fort decided to work at compiling strange stories from journals and newspapers and historical accounts during lengthy days spent in New York's public libraries. The result was what sometimes reads like The Book of Lists: Early 20th-Century Paranormal Edition.

Buried under a mountain of metaphysical gobbledygook is a fairly simple thesis: things are not what the experts tell us! The 'Damned' of the title are any 'facts' either excluded from theories of the way things work or explained away as being explicable.

Unfortunately, Fort's writing is often tedious at its best and almost incomprehensible at its worse. The book falls into a fairly consistent tripartite pattern:

1) Metaphysical and philosophical theories that slide rapidly into endlessly repeated Fortean platitudes.

2) Lists of hundreds of items, most of which could profitably be moved to an appendix because once you've read about ten things that were reported as falling from the sky, the list of another 700 things that fell from the sky gets pretty boring.

3) Rinse. Repeat.

What saves the material is Fort's almost throwaway gift for specific science-fictional speculation. These speculations are the stuff that many stories can and have been made of. Do alien spaceships jettison spent fuel into Earth's atmosphere? Is Earth's atmosphere partially covered by a gelatinous dome? Does Earth occasionally pass through the debris fields left by ancient space freighters? See, that's great stuff!

Fort tries to pass himself off as a bold iconoclast. However, while he has oodles of derision reserved for scientists, he seems to accept that stories from newspapers and journals of the 19th century and earlier are for the most part reliable. 

Another problem is that Fort perplexingly begins this, his first of four forays into the paranormal, with perhaps the most boring of topics -- weird stuff that purportedly fell from the sky. About 200 pages of it. This rapidly loses its interest long before the 200 or so pages Fort devotes to it is over. Frogs, fish, red rain, black rain, slag, cannonballs, thunderstones, rocks... on and on and on. You can almost taste the boredom -- and Fort's desire to get all that research he did into the book.

This is an important book when it comes to various genres. But if you read it, you will skim long sections. There's only so many strange rains of the 19th century one can find interesting. Recommended.

Demon Knight !!!!

Tales from the Crypt Presents Demon Knight (1995): written by Ethan Reiff, Cyrus Voris, and Mark Bishop; directed by Ernest Dickerson; starring Billy Zane, William Sadler, Jada Pinkett, CCH Pounder, Gary Farmer, and Thomas Haden Church: 

Based on a  script that had been floating around Hollywood for years, Demon Knight isn't a typical Crypt offering insofar as the main story isn't terminally jokey. It also has a solid cast and good, stylish direction from long-time Spike Lee cinematographer Ernest Dickerson. 

It also seems refreshingly colour-blind in its casting. While protagonist William Sadler and demon antagonist Billy Zane are both white, the remainder of the cast is a very mixed bunch -- and its most heroic members are all African- or Native American.

Demon Knight also takes advantage of Billy Zane's always slightly off presence, slightly off whenever he's played a hero (as in The Phantom or even Twin Peaks). He's much better as a villain than he ever was as a hero.

A young Jada Pinkett Not Yet Smith is spunky, William Sadler is his always good self as a long-lived warrior for good nearing The Final Round-up, and CCH Pounder, John Schuck, Dick Miller, and Gary Farmer all do what they can with a few lines of dialogue and a whole lotta shooting and exploding.

Indeed, if only they'd cut the jokey, punny Cryptkeeper frame story from the film and let it stand on its own, it might find more of an audience even now. It breaks the knee-jerk racism of Hollywood casting just enough to be more interesting and involving than the sum of its parts would suggest. But Jesus, the Cryptkeeper is the worst. Recommended.

Bad Acting Playhouse

Tales from the Crypt Presents Bordello of Blood (1996):  There are a certain number of laughs to be had from the second and last of the features bearing the 'Tales from the Crypt' imprimatur. 

Some come from the fact that neither protagonist Dennis Miller nor antagonist Angie Everhart can act their ways out of a paper bag. Everhart is especially terrible as Vampire Queen Lilith, so much so that Miller looks pretty good when he's acting against her. 

Chris Sarandon can act, but he's strictly here for the paycheck. That means the best performance comes from Erika Eleniak, previously best known for coming topless out of a cake in UNDER SIEGE. Oh, well. 

Despite a frame tale featuring the Crypt-keeper, this very much doesn't resemble the great TALES FROM THE CRYPT comic book of the 1950's, though it does resemble the often slapdash, sophomoric HBO series of the 1990's that it's technically a spin-off of (spun off from?). 

EC Comics'  TALES FROM THE CRYPT was one of three pre-Comics Code horror anthology comics from that company, along with THE VAULT OF HORROR and THE HAUNT OF FEAR. The more you know! Not recommended. 

Now in Smell-o-rama!

Mr. Sardonicus (1961): adapted by Ray Russell from his novella; directed by William Castle: Enjoyable though somewhat low-budget adaptation of one of Ray Russell's terrific nods to the Gothic. Some time just after the invention of the medical hypodermic needle in 1853 (seriously, this is a plot point that allows one to date the narrative), a British expert in the field of curing muscle paralysis is summoned to a Gothicky manor in Eastern Europe by the woman he loved who was forced to marry for money... marry Baron Sardonicus!

Sardonicus wears a life-like mask for reasons he will soon explain to our recently knighted English doctor. The One Who Got Away doesn't love Sardonicus, nor does he love her. Sardonicus' creepy yet sympathetic majordomo, played by the under-rated Oscar Homolka, is found putting leeches all over the face of a maidservant. But it's all for a good cause...

Peasant tales of grave-robbing, corpse-eating ghouls will follow, as will a money-grubbing first wife for Sardonicus, a fantastic lottery win, and the origin of his self-selected baronial name (Sardonicus is descriptive, not inherited). 

The cinematography and staging often tend towards the bland and too-bright but the acting is more than adequate and the make-up and prosthetic work come across nicely, though they will have been shown too much by the end. Oscar Homolka steals the show here. Castle added a hilarious Coda to the film in which the audience voted to choose the ending. There was only one ending to the film, though -- Castle was a great showman, but two-way movies were still a long way in the future. Recommended.

New Heroes

The Invisible Man (2020): written and directed by Leigh Whannell; starring Elizabeth Moss: Enjoyable though overlong update of H.G. Wells' venerable tale of the dangers of not being seen. 

Having escaped the manipulative clutches of a tech billionaire, Elizabeth Moss' Cecelia soon finds herself stalked by him. But as he's an "optics genius," he's built an invisibility suit! So unlike previous Invisible Men, he doesn't have to run around naked to be invisible. Moss is solid as usual as a wounded woman finding her strength even when no one believes that she's being stalked and framed, you know, an Invisible Man. This may have started life as part of Universal's abortive Dark Universe franchise, especially given the superhero origin story ending. Recommended.

Bloodshot (2020): based on the Valiant Comics character created by Kevin VanHook, Don Perlin, and Bob Layton; directed by Dave Wilson; written by Jeff Wadlow and Eric Heisserer; starring Vin Diesel and Guy Pearce: Perfectly serviceable superhero origin story for Bloodshot, a cyborg hero who first appeared in Valiant Comics books of the early 1990's. 

There's a pretty good twist about 40 minutes into the film that was spoiled by the trailers. And then Covid-19 arrived in force during the first week of the film's North American release, pretty much shutting down the box office. The movie didn't cost much, relatively speaking, so it may yet return as a Vin Diesel vehicle. I suppose one of the ways the movie kept costs down was by having virtually all the action take place in buildings and other enclosed spaces. This may account for what I think is the longest battle on top of an elevator in movie history. Recommended.

Invaders

They (2002): written by Brendan Hood; directed by Robert Harmon; starring Laura Regan, Marc Blucas (Buffy's Riley Finn!), and Ethan Embry: 

Underwhelming horror movie with a far-too-passive heroine as played by Laura Regan. Can Regan act? The script doesn't give her much to do other than run around screaming or stand around woodenly denying the supernatural, so who knows? Marc Blucas, Buffy ex Riley Finn, has almost nothing to do. 

Really, no one has much to do -- the shadowy monsters drive the action completely and prove to be unstoppable so early in the movie that one wonders what the point is. They do have an odd array of powers -- not just shutting down electricity but also operating elevators and running subway trains. It sure seems that way, anyway. An interesting film involving Night Terrors hides under the inept writing. Not recommended.

Unidentified Flying Objects: The True Story of Flying Saucers (1956): written by Francis Martin; directed by Winston Jones: Odd, seminal combination of documentary and docudrama covering the evidence of Flying Saucers Over America! as of 1956. Great for those who love this sort of thing, somewhat tedious for those who don't. The film interpolates actual colour footage of UFO's as captured by reputable civilian photographers -- fleeting, fascinating stuff given extra zing by the fact that the real stuff is in colour and the rest of the film is in black and white. Dry, great stuff. Recommended.

Of Worms and Demons

 

Mysteries of the Worm: The Cthulhu Mythos Stories of Robert Bloch: edited by Lin Carter: (1935-1958; collected 1982): The first mass-market collection of all of legendary Robert 'Psycho' Bloch's Cthulhu Mythos stories from the early 1930's to the late 1950's. 

Like most writers writing in the Lovecraft vein, Bloch starts as a pastiche artist. Of course, Bloch knew and corresponded with HPL and engaged in a friendly game of killing each other's proxies off in stories (Bloch killing an HPL stand-in in "The Shambler from the Stars" and HPL reciprocating by killing 'Robert Black' in "The Haunter of the Dark.") 

Real-world poignance slips in as Bloch stops writing Lovecraftian fiction for a decade after HPL's death. When Bloch returns, he's much more assured and no longer writing pastiches in the last four stories in the collection. The best from this later quartet is "Notebook Found in a Deserted House" (1951), which is sort of like Huckleberry Finn vs. Cthulhu, if you can dig it. The collection takes its title from Bloch's most famous addition to the fictional books of the Cthulhu Universe, De Vermis Mysteriis. Highly recommended.

The Hollow Ones [The Blackwood Tapes Volume 1) (2020) by Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan: As with del Toro and Hogan's previous collaboration, The Strain trilogy, The Hollow Ones seems to have an eye to becoming a TV series if it isn't in pre-production already. It's an enjoyable, fast read in the Supernatural Detective genre, pitting a young FBI agent and a mysterious British gentleman against supernatural shenanigans in and around the New York area. Recommended.

George Romero's Land of the Dead (2005)

George Romero's Land of the Dead (2005): written and directed by George Romero; starring Simon Baker (Riley Denbo), John Leguizamo (Cholo DeMora), Dennis Hopper (Kaufman), Asia Argento (Slack), Robert Joy (Charlie), Eugene Clark (Big Daddy) and Joanne Boland (Pretty Boy): 

George Romero's fourth Dead movie gave him a mostly name cast and a decent budget; Romero's own quirky muse caused him to use these things on what wasn't a horror movie at all, or at least not the horror movie the studio thought it would be getting. But George Romero's movies were always about more than just flesh-eating thrills.

Land of the Dead is part-satire, part-social commentary. The zombies aren't really the villains any more: indeed, they don't seem to have any interest in hunting humans until the humans piss them off. And piss them off, they do. 

I don't know that the movie benefited from having known actors in some of the roles, though I am sure that this was necessary to secure funding. Dennis Hopper just seems miscast as a scheming businessman, but Leguizamo, Baker, and Asia Argento are all fine. But the real hero is the massive zombie gas-station owner dubbed Big Daddy. He's the Robinson Crusoe of zombies.

Essential viewing, in part because it now looks like an allegory for America Now. Hint: most of us are the increasingly intelligent zombies, while Donald Trump is played by Dennis Hopper. Fittingly for today's horrorshow world, the leader of the sympathetic zombies is a working-class African-American. Highly recommended. 

From Beyond the Grave (1973)

From Beyond the Grave (1973): Based on stories by R. Chetwynd Hayes; screen play by Robin Clarke and Raymond Christodoulou; directed by Kevin Connor; starring Ian Bannen, Peter Cushing, Diana Dors, Margaret Leighton, Donald Pleasence, David Warner, Lesley-Anne Down, and Angela Pleasence: Highly enjoyable anthology movie adapting four stories by English horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes, with Peter Cushing as the frame story's owner of a sinister antiques store (called Temptations, nudge nudge). 

There are some nice moments of horror here, along with some bleak humour very appropriate for any adaptation of the often tongue-in-cheek Chetwynd-Hayes. The climax of the segment starring Donald Pleasence and daughter Angela especially reaches a tone of extremely dark whimsy. In any case, the haunted or possibly cursed items in the stories are a mirror, a Distinguished Service Cross, a snuff box, and an ornately carved wooden door. So avoid such items at all costs.

This isn't a Hammer production but rather an Amicus one, for those who know about such distinctions. Cushing seems to be having quite a bit of fun behind some moderately heavy make-up. The moral of the story seems to be that one shouldn't barter to lower prices at an antique shop, and for God's sake, don't steal anything. Recommended.  

Happy Colossus Adventure

Colossus: The Forbin Project (1970): Based on the first novel in a trilogy by D.F. Jones, this film somewhat jarringly stars Eric Braeden, now so much identified as Victor Newman on the long-running soap opera The Young and the Restless. 

Dr. Forbin has somehow convinced the U.S. government to hand over all control of its nuclear stockpile to the super-computer he designed, the eponymous Colossus. And it's surrounded by an impenetrable radiation barrier! So of course nothing can go worng...

It makes for an enjoyably sober piece of near-future science fiction. Look for a young Gordon Pinsent as the President of the United States of America! Recommended.

Happy Death Day 2 U (2019): Unnecessary but entertaining sequel to the more enjoyable Happy Death Day. It's sort of the 2010 of sequels, as it spends a lot of time explaining why the time loop happened in the first movie. Jessica Rothe is as charming and spunky as ever in the lead role. Christopher Landon directs again, this time taking over the writer's credit from Scott Lobdell. Affable might be the best way to describe this. Lightly recommended.

Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure (1989): Amiable comedy without a huge number of laughs. Keanu Reaves and Alex Winter do a lot of heavy lifting because with the exception of George Carlin in a few scenes, this movie has the most undistinguished supporting cast in movie history. Or at least ostensibly big-budget studio movie history. But there is something admirable about a film the climax of which is an oral presentation on history that has to be delivered in an auditorium to one's entire high school. Now that's weird. Lightly recommended.

 

BlacKkKlansman (2018)

 

BlacKkKlansman (2018): Brilliant, mostly true true story about Colorado Springs police officer Ron Stallworth and his infiltration of the KKK back in the 1970's. The catch? Ron is African-American. So he infiltrates over the telephone while fellow officer Flip Zimmerman (played by Adam Driver) 'plays' the white Ron Stallworth. 

Funny and harrowing by turns, this 2018 film has somehow become MORE relevant than ever in less than two years. Spike Lee is in top form, as is the cast. Highly recommended.

The Knock

I like to say 'Hello," Dmitri... just not right now.

Knocking Etiquette seems to be something that's degrading at a fair clip.

Over the last two years or so, I've noticed that virtually anyone knocking on our door does so with a volume and fervor normally seen only in officers serving warrants and angels announcing the End of Days.

And the person knocking in this fashion (usually but not always male) always wants something from me they're not going to pay for -- permission to take hay off the North field, permission to put 100 beehives on our property, permission to shoot deer on our property, or some other goddam thing.

And these knocks always come either before 9 a.m. or after 8 p.m..

So now I just don't answer the door when some dumbass knocks in this fashion because there's nothing in it for me and in any case, learn how to knock, asshole.

Godzilla vs. Matt Helm

Godzilla vs. Mecha-Godzilla (1974): The penultimate Godzillaverse movie in the original Toho Studios run demonstrates that old adage about history beginning as tragedy, returning as comedy, and ending in farce. 

Aliens send a giant robot Godzilla to conquer the Earth. Godzilla teams up with kaiju King Caesar, some scientists, and Interpol to save the world. King Caesar is easily the worst kaiju Toho ever created, a sort of cross between a lizard, a Muppet, and a team mascot. Godzilla demonstrates another new power, generating a massive magnetic field. Well, why not? Lightly recommended.

Terror of Mecha-Godzilla (1975): Original Godzilla director Ishiro Honda returns for this final entry in the original Toho series. That makes for a decent finalé, with Godzilla even strolling off into the sunset at the end, sort of. There's a bit too much Interpol vs. the Space Aliens action in this one which may have contributed to its series-ending low box office. 

Along with a resurrected Mecha-Godzilla, the undersea-dwelling Titanosaurus also battles Godzilla under the control of the aliens and a misanthropic human scientist and his alien-resurrected cyborg daughter. This last leads to a scientist-hero telling the woman, "I don't care if you're a cyborg, I still love you." Shakespeare, eat your heart out! Lightly recommended.

The Wrecking Crew (Matt Helm 4) (1968): Sharon Tate is pretty much the only reason to watch this unfunny, boring yet fascinating mess -- fascinating mainly because Mike Myers drew a lot of inspiration for the Austin Powers movies from the Matt Helm series, including Dean Martin's cover job as a fashion photographer. When someone says movies today are bad and overly parts of serials, make them watch this. And it's purportedly better than Matt Helms 2, 3, 5, and the TV series!!! Not recommended.

Horror Movies Seen As Pithy Life Lessons

• Phantasm: Don't have sex in a cemetery at night.
• The Night of the Living Dead: Frankly, just avoid cemeteries altogether.
• Dracula: Beware of illegal immigrants.
• Frankenstein: Early childhood education is vitally important to the development of a child.
• The Exorcist: Don't become a Roman Catholic priest: Low pay, high mortality rate.
• The Nightmare on Elm Street series: Don't take justice into your own hands, especially if it involves burning an alleged felon to death.
• The Friday the 13th series: Don't have pre-marital sex.
• The Hallowe'en series: Seriously, don't have pre-marital sex.
• Cujo: Have your pet regularly vaccinated for rabies and other diseases.
• The Omen: The Italian health-care system is a mess.
• The Invasion of the Body Snatchers: Home gardening can be a life-changer.
• The Day of the Triffids: Green energy is bad.
• Gremlins: Have your pets spayed or neutered.
• Pet Sematary: If you have young children, don't live close to a road.

The Score (aka Killtown) (1964) by Donald Westlake

The Score (aka Killtown) (1964) by Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark: A typically terse, concise, matter-of-fact entry in Donald Westlake's series of novels featuring super-thief/burglar Parker. Westlake wrote them as 'Richard Stark' in order to avoid flooding the early 1960's market for Donald Westlake. Lee Marvin, Jason Statham, and Mel Gibson have played the amoral, hyper-efficient Parker in movies, to varying effect (Marvin was clearly the best, in the John-Boorman-directed Point Blank (1967). 

The scheme this time is fascinating and clever, and, as always, complications and double-crosses come into play before the 'caper' is over. Though 'caper' is far too jolly a word for anything in a Parker novel. So call it a heist. Grofield, a slightly more amusing Westlake character, is a member of the team in this one. Highly recommended.

Thanos: Titan Consumed (2018) by Barry Lyga

Thanos: Titan Consumed (2018) by Barry Lyga: Very enjoyable back-story for Thanos in the Marvel Cinematic Universe does a nice job of gradually making the Mad Titan unsympathetic after depicting his childhood and early adulthood as a time of isolation and sorrow. All this and we find out where and when Thanos gets the Mind Stone! Though Thanos' ultimate plan of killing half of the population of the universe to save it still doesn't make much sense, Lyga at least specifies that we're talking about the sentient population of the universe and not every virus, bacterium, and tree. Recommended.