Third Season of 'What If...?' Captivates Critics

         On December 22, 2024, Disney+ premiered the third and final season 'What If...?', which has received predominantly positive reviews from critics. In the series, the multiverse comes to life in new and exciting ways. The ensemble cast includes Anthony Mackie, Mark Ruffalo, Teyonah Parris, Simu Liu, Sebastian Stan, David Harbour, Kathryn Hahn, Seth Green, Samuel L. Jackson, Oscar Isaac, Laurence Fishburne, Tom Hiddleston, Tessa Thompson, Emily VanCamp, Dominique Thorne, Wyatt Russell, Hayley Atwell, and Jeffrey Wright. But what did the critics say?

       Arezou Amin of Collider says, "What If Season 3 caps off the series with a bleaker final outing that ultimately manages to keep hope at the center of it all." Adding, "Without a doubt, Season 3 of What If...? is the show's bleakest yet. While the earlier seasons had riffs on Christmas movies, winks at the heist genre, or cartoonish showdowns with the episode's villains, moments like this are few and far between in Season 3. This isn't exactly a surprise. It feels as though the world around us has been moving in a bleaker direction for quite some time, and all media is a reflection of the time in which it was made, be it intentional or otherwise. The topics that What If...? Season 3 touches on are hardly new to the MCU, or even the wider superhero genre; greed, power, violence, prejudice, and subjugation remain at the heart of what drives the villains. Episode 6, "What If 1872," is particularly unafraid to directly call out the injustices its heroes are fighting, and unsubtly hints at similar issues still occurring today. What is new, however, is how utterly hopeless so many of the episodes feel.Yes, every story needs a low point in which the characters believe they cannot continue the fight; every Marvel movie has that moment. But the sheer, colossal, multiversal scale of the series really amplifies that helplessness, with the scenarios The Watcher (Jeffrey Wright) chooses to visit feeling more cataclysmic than they usually do. Absent from this season is the lighthearted air of "What If T'challa Became Star Lord" and "What If Happy Hogan Saved Christmas," or the groundbreaking nature of "What If Kahhori Reshaped the World." Season 3 does have its relatively lighter episodes with fun concepts — those starring Howard the Duck (Seth Green) and Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) come to mind — but even those are tinged with the larger, cosmic scale of everything happening around them."

       Alan French of FandomWire notes, "When you dig into the creativity of What If…, it starts at the animation stage. For all the cool storytelling tricks that the series hopes to pull off, What If… Season 3 has to push the boundaries of what is possible in the medium. Like the two seasons before, a mixing and matching of styles allows the show to soar. In the old West, the vistas and gunslinging shine bright. Beyond the cosmos, the monsters look bigger and badder than ever. Magic duels between movie stars are larger than life, and even adding film grain to the frames feels bold and interesting.What If… Season 3 does not work unless this integral piece of the puzzle works. It’s not only that it looks gorgeous, but it adds dramatic tension to every episode. The fight sequences remind us just how tired the action has become in the live-action movies. With stunning creativity, What If… pushes the physical limits and creative uses of the powersets of its heroes. Even better, the writers never focus only on battle. Their powers are just as integral to their interpersonal relationships and antics as they are in battle."

Image Courtesy of Disney

'A Different Man' Reviews: "Writer-director Aaron Schimberg’s third feature boasts three remarkable performances"

         On September 20, 2024, A24 releases 'A Different Man', which has received predominantly positive reviews from critics, currently holding at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the film, "Aspiring actor Edward undergoes a radical medical procedure to drastically transform his appearance. But his new dream face quickly turns into a nightmare, as he loses out on the role he was born to play and becomes obsessed with reclaiming what was lost." The Critics Consensus reads, "Surreal and unsettling, A Different Man overcomes an occasionally tenuous narrative grasp by virtue of its bold, provocative approach to serious themes." The ensemble cast includes Sebastian Stan and Miles G. Jackson. Read the full review round-up below.

       David Ehrlich of indieWire says, "Schimberg creates a house of mirrors so brilliant and complex that it becomes impossible to match any of his characters to their own reflections, and absolutely useless to reduce the movie around them to the stuff of moral instruction." Adding, "Edward’s fate is written in the stars from the moment he defies the gods and becomes a different man (or deludes himself into thinking that’s possible), and Schimberg’s movie settles into an assured feeling of predictability once the rehearsals for Ingrid’s play are interrupted by someone named Oswald, whose neurofibromatosis suggests that he might have some lived insights to share with the show, and whose charisma soon threatens to steal the spotlight away from its very self-conscious star. Oswald is, of course, played by Adam Pearson, who was also in “Chained for Life.”

Photo by John Jackson on Unsplash

        Daniel Fienberg of Hollywood Reporter notes, "Like the famous “Eye of the Beholder” episode of The Twilight Zone, in which humans turn out to be society’s freakish outcasts, this dark comedy suggests what happens when an aspiring thespian afflicted with neurofibromatosis manages to find a miracle cure, only to long for the life he had when he was still deformed."

       Peter Debruge of Variety writes, "With “A Different Man,” Schimberg attempts — and mostly succeeds, with deliciously awkward results — to cram a lifetime of thoughts about beauty and ugliness, attraction and disgust, identity and performance into a postmodern meta-film mold that few (apart from Charlie Kaufman, perhaps) have managed to make tolerable. Add to that Schimberg’s Brechtian way of cueing audiences to interrogate his choices as they go (the makeup is deliberately imperfect, the script brazenly self-conscious), and you get an exercise more appealing to film critics and academics than to an amusement-seeking public."

       Tim Grierson of Screen International praises the film, stating, "Writer-director Aaron Schimberg’s third feature boasts three remarkable performances, including Sebastian Stan as the self-loathing thespian and Adam Pearson, a British actor with neurofibromatosis. Pearson’s very presence challenges the film to avoid exploitation and, instead, offer a blistering portrait of identity, authenticity (both in the arts and in life), and chronic dissatisfaction."