D4: Do the Heavens Rejoice?

This is a review of Diablo 4, which has the best writing of any Diablo game (low bar) that is actually up to the category of "somewhat good" when judged absolutely[1]. Experiencing it directly is definitely better, so if you haven't played it but you intended to, I recommend to play it first before reading that. But sliver of the population that hasn't played it but plans to must be very, very small at this point. So most of you should read ahead:

In the Diablo-verse cosmology, the human world (Sanctuary) was made when an angel and a demon had blasphemous sex together (they also birthed a son who became the first necromancer.) The angel, Inarius, was cast out of Heaven for this, and exiled to the human world. At some point he comes to hate his demon lover, Lilith, and convinces himself that he can only return to Heaven once he has killed their son. So he spends a thousand years hunting them until he can finally face her in bloody confrontation. His armies had to invade Hell to get him to this point, and the cut scene of this battle is one of the best cut scenes Blizzard has made. It's worth watching. 

INARIUS: I made it right to satisfy the Heavens.

LILITH:  Tell me, did they rejoice? 

LILITH:  They do not want you. We made a choice, and that they can never forgive, no matter what you tell yourself or who you sacrifice. Silence is their judgment. 

 

The voice actress's delivery is silky and chilling, I love it so much. When you killed your son, did the Heavens rejoice? No, Heaven remains silent. It's amazingly existential. Heaven does not care, even when - especially when - you try to placate them.

Then he skewers Lilith, and then she kills him.

Sometimes we want to be returned so much, that we convince ourself that there is a way back into Heaven. Our hope finds its focus in an object that disturbs us. Something - more often, someone - is wrong with the world. They represent everything we hate about the world, and the sins we feel guilt for So, unsurprisingly, we come to believe that if only we rid the world of that objet petit, they would let us back in. 

And so we kill this pharmakon. And do the Heavens rejoice? They remain silent. The blood letting was for nothing, just a delusion that we believed in. One that consumed us. And once we culminate this dream of removing the defiler -- Heaven has nothing to say. We are not welcomed home into paradise, there are no trumpets and light, nothing is changed -- except one person is gone, or a corpse is lying on the floor.

Diablo 4, good writing, as I was saying.

What does this have to do with our world? You don't believe in Heaven. You don't even know someone who really believes in Heaven.

We believe in paradise only by its absence. 

Our world is a wreck of hatred and buffoonery. We come to believe it is some person's fault: I don't mean the president or some systemically powerful person, but someone normal and connected to us. Maybe our son the necromancer, but always someone we know like our foot knows the pebble in our shoe. Reasonably then, we want to get rid of it. Them. And if we can't, then they keep rubbing against us like that metaphorical pebble, gradually wearing us away. We obsess about them.

But when we remove a pebble, at least there is some physical relief. When we remove a person - the Heavens are silent. The world and our problems with it are not actually fixed. Heaven does not suddenly welcome us back with open arms. It doesn't even care.

Fortunately for our conscience, soon enough we forget the silence. A new pebble bothers us and we find a new person to blame for the Fall. Inarius is not welcomed after the death of his son, so he chases down Lilith and tries to kill her. Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.

The algorithms that are trained to capture your attention by showing you negative news and rage bait are not going to stop because you removed the pebble. Revelation will not come as a loud rebuke, but in silence.

A dream is when you know where you are, but not how you got there. 

 

 [1] But don't play the expansion pack, Vessel of Hatred. That's just dogshit.

Fantastic 4:1S - The Best of MCU, the Worst of MCU

Given how many good movies from 2025 there are to see, I'm behind on the Marvel slop and only got around to watching Fantastic Four - First Steps today. (Okay I found out it had Jennifer Garner and I was very impressed with her in Weapons. Plus Natasha Lyonne and Ralph Ineson's voice[1].)

Seriously, if you want some edifying movies to watch, check out my catching up on 2025 list. But for the masochists, we soldier on.

Even with my lowered expectations, I was disappointed. But to my surprise, I was also delighted.

Competition is stiff, but after much reflection I am confident that this is the worst written script of any MCU movie. The comedy is very broad, the plot is paint by numbers and each step spelled directly out by the characters several times, and the emotions are always told instead of shown. I can see where the comic lines are trying to go, but they fall far short. Which gives us the worst line of the film:

"I don't tell you how to pilot, you don't tell me how to kill sexy aliens," by the bad boy Johnny Storm. Or explaining Archimedes lever to "three of the most brilliant scientists in the world" three times.

(The exceptions are the Silver Surfer and Mole-Man. Julia Garner and Paul Walter Hauser[2] get lines suited to the tragedy or comedy of the story respectively, and deliver them like actual Hollywood actors, with nuance and inner thoughts unsaid.)

The scene-changing twists - Silver Surfer rescue and baby Jesus -  are *painfully* telegraphed and cliche, making the drawn out processes before those moments equally boring and agonizing.

Maybe some will disagree with me. I only know I wanted to like this. Pedro Pascal can make bad Disney writing leap off the page. The central theme of the plot - Galactus is tired of living and wants to pass his curse on - has a lot of potential. And I don't like being annoyed, but the dialogue of the movie is fighting me the whole way.

Normally, I'd have dropped out of this movie by the first 30 minutes. But just as I could not ignore the painful dialogue, I can't deny my eyes:

This is the best looking movie Marvel has given us.

Seriously, the cinematography is gorgeous. Look at any scene - there's excellent color matching, the blocking is dynamic enough to keep your attention, there's always something going on the screen. There are some amazing "money shots" like these: 

 

   

You just know they were planning on this shot from day 1.

 

  Alexa, show me how these demigods see normal humans?

 

 

Okay maybe the lesson is Johnny Storm should have been seen and not heard. They even make effective use of the "Human Torch" as a light source in dark scenes. And this makes the decision to gender swap the Silver Surfer more aesthetically reasonable. Johnny and Shala-Bal are set as counterparts, opposites but connected.

Making Galactus - a giant humanoid who also eats planets - into not a joke in a live action movie is very hard. And... well they did their best with ugly machine-factory style planet eater ship, reminiscent of Man of Steel and Omnicron. Nothing could be helped for the bad boy and his purple helmet itself though.

I love how much of the setting is simply shown from the fashion the people are wearing - you don't need technology benchmarks or exposition about the Cold War and the Beatles. Real attention was paid to every extra's outfit.

I couldn't find any shot where I felt it was just "point the camera at the plot." It makes me wish the movie had been silent. (Sadly the score did not add a whole lot either, which I only note because I was spoiled by One Battle After Another and No Other Choice.) 

But there is one omnipresent visual technique that had me nodding in approval and cackling with laughter. But let me use an example from a beloved movie we know well: