Nerd Legion

MonteCristo and DoA are on opposite sides of Spider-Noir, and the gap between them is wider than a Prohibition-era speakeasy. DoA loved it. MonteCristo thinks you should watch something else.   Raycon: quality wireless earbuds with open-ear and noise-cancelling models for every listening style, with a 30-day guarantee and over 3 million happy customers. Use code NERDLEGIONOPEN at https://buyraycon...

The critic reviews are a lie. Disclosure Day is sitting at 81% on Rotten Tomatoes and it is terrible. MonteCristo and DoA break down how Steven Spielberg, John Williams, David Koepp, and Janusz Kamiński, four of the most accomplished filmmakers alive, collectively produced a movie where nothing makes sense, nothing is explained, and the climax is hijacking a local Kansas City news broadcast in 202...

Masters of the Universe cost $200 million and it's probably the best He-Man movie anyone could have made. That's a compliment to the filmmakers and a ceiling on the IP. MonteCristo and DoA break down why this is a genuinely fun popcorn flick, why Jared Leto's Skeletor is the single best thing in it, and why the movie exists because Barbie made a billion dollars and Mattel greenlit everything in th...

The Mandalorian & Grogu is not a good movie. It has a James Bond cold open that made both hosts genuinely excited, and then it spends two hours systematically destroying that goodwill with flat performances, cartoon-level writing, and a villain nobody asked for. MonteCristo and DoA break down how Dave Filoni turned Mandalorian Season 4 into a feature film that's 45 minutes too long, wastes its ent...

We watched every episode of The Boys so you don't have to. The verdict on the series finale: it's worse than Game of Thrones Season 8, and unlike Game of Thrones, nobody will ever rewatch it.   PrizePicks — Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/NERD and use code NERD and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup!.   Into the AM — men's apparel from tees to bombers to denim. Memorial...

Mortal Kombat is a meme franchise built on Bloodsport, Big Trouble in Little China, and Monty Python-level gore. It has never been serious. So why is this movie better-crafted than most $200 million blockbusters? MonteCristo and DoA break down why Mortal Kombat 2 is the best video game movie ever made and what Hollywood should learn from it. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswiz...

The decanonization rumors are back, Kathleen Kennedy is out, Dave Filoni is running Lucasfilm, and Galaxy's Edge is finally putting Darth Vader back in the theme park. MonteCristo and DoA catalogue the evidence that Disney is soft-erasing the sequel trilogy and debate whether Filoni is the right person to rebuild Star Wars.   PrizePicks — Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/NERD and use code...

Ex Machina came out in 2014. It feels like it was made yesterday. MonteCristo and DoA revisit Alex Garland's directorial debut a $15 million chamber piece about a tech billionaire, a coder, and the AI that outsmarts them both and break down why it's only gotten sharper in the age of AGI, Anthropic, and autonomous vehicles.   PrizePicks: Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/NERD and use code NE...

We were fans of The Boys. Seasons one and two were genuinely great television: it was a cynical, funny deconstruction of corporate superhero culture that understood how Vought International would actually operate in a modern media landscape. That show is dead now. Three episodes into its final season, The Boys hasn't just jumped the shark; it's jumped about fifty of them, and the Deep is responsib...

MonteCristo and DoA celebrate the 35th anniversary of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze: the 1991 Golden Harvest sequel that traded the original film's dark, gritty tone for full-on cartoon commitment, and made itself a cultural artifact in the process. DoA has watched this movie so many times he has it memorized. He's not even a little bit ashamed about it.   Manta Sleep: bl...

Project Hail Mary is a massive box office hit, a visually stunning sci-fi spectacle, and genuinely well-crafted filmmaking, so why did one of its reviewers spend nearly three hours waiting for it to be over? DoA and MonteCristo land on opposite sides of a movie they both agree is good but can't agree on whether it matters. The result is one of Nerd Legion's most honest conversations about what sep...

Netflix's One Piece might be the most ambitious live-action anime adaptation ever attempted and, somehow, it works. Season 2 takes Eiichiro Oda's gloriously absurd world of devil fruit powers, talking snail phones, and pirates who commit zero acts of piracy, and translates it into eight episodes of practical sets, committed performances, and fight choreography that has no business being this good....

A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms just wrapped its first season on HBO, and it might be the most important template for franchise storytelling in years.   Six episodes. Thirty minutes each. No world-ending stakes. No required homework from other series. Just a tight, character-driven story set in the Game of Thrones universe that stands completely on its own.  It's also a massive hit, averaging nearl...

What happens when you take the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight… and turn it into an 80s fantasy fever dream starring a glitter-covered Sean Connery?   In this episode of Nerd Legion, we dive into Sword of the Valiant (1984): one of the strangest fantasy adaptations ever made. Featuring Miles O’Keeffe, Peter Cushing, John Rhys-Davies, and Ronald Lacey, this stacked cast somehow delivers o...

Wonder Man is the rare MCU project that feels like it was written by people who actually understand character, comedy, and theme. It succeeds without leaning on CGI sludge, multiverse homework, or the usual “you must watch 14 other things first” burden.   In this episode of Nerd Legion, we break down why Wonder Man works: it’s an acting-first show disguised as superhero IP, a behind-the-scenes Hol...

In this episode of Nerd Legion, MonteCristo and DoA break down HBO’s latest Westeros spinoff and ask the core question every fan is wondering: does this series understand what made Game of Thrones work in the first place?   Secure your online data TODAY by visiting https://ExpressVPN.com/NERDLEGION   Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code NERD at http...

Starfleet Academy should have been an easy win for modern Star Trek: it's a smaller, character-driven series about young cadets learning what it means to serve in a post-scarcity utopia. Instead, it’s a massively expensive show that seems unsure who it’s even for.     Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with Mando and get 20% off + free shipping with promo code NERD at https://shopmando.com   Hosted by Sim...

James Cameron’s Avatar: Fire and Ash is an undeniable technical marvel, but does groundbreaking spectacle excuse shallow storytelling?     Raycon's Essential Open Earbuds are here to help you crush your new year goals. Go to https://buyraycon.com/NERDLEGIONOPEN to get 20% off sitewide.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of p...

SUBURBAN COMMANDO is one of the strangest artifacts of 1990s Hollywood: a kids’ movie starring Hulk Hogan as an intergalactic bounty hunter who crash-lands in suburbia, rents a converted toolshed, and solves neighborhood problems with raw strength and alien technology.     Turn your expensive wireless present into a huge wireless savings future by switching to Mint Mobile! Shop Mint Unlimited Plan...

The movie Nintendo wants you to forget is somehow even weirder than you remember. In this episode of Nerd Legion, MonteCristo and DoA dive headfirst into the 1993 live-action SUPER MARIO BROS: a film so chaotic, so baffling, and so aggressively not Mario that it took Nintendo over 30 years to try a movie again. Turn your expensive wireless present into a huge wireless savings future by switching t...

Star Wars Visions Volume 3 is here and, unfortunately, it might be the weakest entry yet. In this episode of Nerd Legion, MonteCristo and DoA break down all nine anime shorts and ask the big question:   Why does Star Wars keep returning to the same tired ideas?   From endless Tatooine stories to recycled Jedi tropes, half-animated CGI ships, and baffling creative choices, Visions Vol. 3 shows just...

In this episode of Nerd Legion, MonteCristo and DoA dive into PLURIBUS (aka PLUR1BUS), the new Apple TV+ sci-fi series where a mysterious pathogen slowly fuses all humans into a single, global hive mind. They break down the show’s philosophy, dark comedy, and unsettling medical horror along with why Vince Gilligan’s creative fingerprints are all over it.     Shop the Into the AM Black Friday Sale!...

Predator: Badlands shouldn’t be this good.   MonteCristo and DoA went in expecting another forgettable franchise sequel and came out calling it the best Predator film since 1987. In this episode of Nerd Legion, the hosts break down how Dan Trachtenberg turned a dormant IP into a bold, emotional, and surprisingly funny sci-fi blockbuster.   They discuss the film’s unexpected focus on the Predator’s...

MonteCristo and DoA return to dissect Netflix’s latest fantasy implosion, where Liam Hemsworth steps into the role of Geralt and discovers that charisma and coherent writing have both been exhumed. From botched tone and nonsense plotting to uneven VFX and dialogue that feels AI-generated, The Witcher has finally become the kind of fantasy parody it used to mock.   The hosts break down why the show...

Splinter Cell: Deathwatch might be the most unexpected comeback in gaming history: an animated Netflix series based on a franchise that’s been dormant for a decade. MonteCristo and DoA dive deep into Ubisoft’s strange revival of Sam Fisher, the stealth-action legend who’s now older, grizzled, and apparently stuck in an anime-style John Wick universe created by Derek Kolstad.   In this episode, the...