Peacemaker (relatively spoiler free)

I’m having mixed feelings about this show.  So many of the streaming releases have been disappointing that a passable show stands out!  The story has an interesting plot, the music is good, and although I don’t care for his politics, John Cena’s dedicated to the role.  The action scenes and special effects are well done and the cast has good chemistry.  The writing has some jokes that do make me chuckle or smile but not quite as much as w/ Gunn’s Suicide squad.  Many jokes are carried on too long like an SnL skit.

I don’t think there’s anything “woke” but there’s an interesting peak into how Hollywood and leftists imagine racism and think Trump supporters are which is a bit jarring.  Peacemaker’s father (played by the T2000) is supposed to be a nut job, but they make him overtly racist… all the other characters have dialogue where they say his dad is racist.  I think at one point his dad asks about which race of people he’s killed and he drops a slur for Jews.  It seems like this is how James Gunn imagines his Uncle and Aunt in Florida or Texas talk and think…  I feel it’s a very shallow representation of racism…  and yet they’re also too scared to commit to having T2000 drop a few N-bombs when dealing w/ a black cop.  I think that would have more effective than having all the other cast just blurt out “he’s racist”

Now some people may think the “racism” elements may push in wokeness, but I see it as an interesting exploration of separating your behavior/life from your parents legacy.  One character who is Amanda waller’s (the big boss from The Suicide Squad) daughter also has a parallel plotline.  To account for the horrible things she did, they have to set up a foil in PM’s dad and maybe being mean to a little asian cop is as bad as killing a room of people.  And it’ll be interesting to see how they resolve both of these characters.  I’m hoping they don’t cheat and make Waller’s daughter evil all the time pretending to be naive and struggling w/ these issues…

Most fights are good.  But there are two that seem lame on reflection.  One is where this 100 # blond beats us a 200# guy in a bar to show us how tough she is…  The other scene which I know is popular for other reasons is when PM’s sidekick has a fight against 3 white supremacists.   The guy’s maybe 140#…  those two fights seem like waif-u kung-fu garbage.  This is not to say that you can’t have underweight combatants be threatening because they do two really good versions of this scenario.  There’s a feral woman who beats the crap out of John Cena and it’s believable.  Later there’s a short martial artist who wrecks the team but it’s set up well in that we know this dimunitive guy is the bodyguard for someone who’s tough on his own and some lip service to trained in martial arts his whole life…

Other notes, we finally get to see some tits besides John Cena.  There’s some simulated sex in the 1st episode if you’re watching w/ family.