{"id":920,"date":"2025-07-18T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/?p=920"},"modified":"2025-01-06T12:55:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T12:55:00","slug":"flame-boy-aka-michael-b-jordan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/2025\/07\/18\/flame-boy-aka-michael-b-jordan\/","title":{"rendered":"Flame Boy AKA Michael B Jordan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WARNING: <\/strong>This Article May Contain Spoilers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as many of you know – Michael B Jordan is one of a few to play two Marvel characters, in Killmonger and Flame Boy. The mantle of the latter was originally held for my generation by Chris Evans (hence why his article is based around the same character instead of Captain America). Of course I had to cover Jordan before he became Flame Boy for two reasons – 1) the role came first and 2) technically Killmonger could be considered as a villain in Black Panther <\/em>but I would say he is potentially more of an anti-hero\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chronicle<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                I think the Spider-Man <\/em>quote \u201cWith great power, comes great responsibility\u201d is pretty apt for this film. In a weird kind of way, this film is actually a found-footage superhero film. In all honesty, in comparison to Dane DeHaan character of Andrew, Steve (played by Michael B Jordan) is more of an ancillary role \u2013 especially as Andrew seems to be more of the hero in the beginning. It\u2019s funny to think that Andrew and Steve aren\u2019t friends from the start – our first introduction to Michael\u2019s character is through his picture plastered around the school. He\u2019s introduced about 10 minutes into the film when he finds Andrew outside a party upset. I worried that he was going to be a little bit of a dick, a little like Usher in The Faculty<\/em> because that\u2019s normally the way the jock characters are written but I\u2019m so glad that Jordan doesn\u2019t play it that way at all. He\u2019s kind to Andrew from the eoutset even noting that he remembers him from a specific class. Their bond grows through the gaining and testing of their powers to the point I actually think they become better friends than Steve and Matt, Andrew\u2019s cousin. I love the fact that even though Andrew is clearly the more powerful and the main character – Steve is the first to fly. This is my second watching of this film, and I think Andrew actually kills Steve! I think he causes the storm or at least his emotions make it worse, causing Steve to get struck by lightning when he\u2019s there to help him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fruitvale Station<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Warning \u2013 the opening scene of this film is real! It is genuine footage from 1st<\/sup> January 2009 at 2:15am when the incidents depicted in this film took place. Michael takes on the role of Oscar Grant III, the real life victim of the Fruitvale Station incident. Yes, I know that gives away the ending of the film but I always warn you about spoilers at the beginning of articles. This is a \u2018Black Lives Matter\u2019 story before that term was even coined. Oscar spends a lot of the film pretending everything is OK \u2013 lying to his family about his job. Obviously, this is only depiction of his life, but Michael B. Jordan portrays Oscar as a loving father and partner (even though the film starts with us finding out he cheated on Sophina), a man trying to turn his life around. The final scenes are intense and I feel that it is brave on behalf of the director to not only include the genuine footage at the beginning but to also re-enact the incident at the end \u2013 almost bringing the film in full circle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Red Tails<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                This film at no point purports to be based on a true story. Yes, the Tuskegee Airmen (African-American Airforce servicemen) existed but all the characters featured in the film are fictional even though they are based on real individuals that took part in World War II. Now, I mentioned before about Michael having an ancillary role in Chronicle <\/em>but there\u2019s a difference between ancillary and still having an impact on the film as a whole and only appearing around 15 minutes in to the film and only having a few scenes here and there. This could be because the main focus of the film is on Captain Martin \u201cEasy\u201d Julian and 1st<\/sup> Lieutenant Joe \u201cLightening\u201d Little as well as the attitude towards the Tuskegee Airmen as a whole from the rest of the army. Even though he plays a new recruit to the Tuskegee by the name of Flight Officer Maurice Wilson, we don\u2019t actually see him in a plane until over an hour into the film! Both Ne-Yo and Andre 3000\u2019s roles are bigger than Michael\u2019s but this could be because he hadn\u2019t been acting as long as them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Honorary Mentions<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Outside of the films above, Michael had only appeared in 4 others \u2013 Black and White, Hardball, Blackout <\/em>and Pastor Brown. <\/em>The majority of his acting career up to making Fantastic Four <\/em>was based mainly on TV with main roles in The Wire, All My Children <\/em>and Friday Night Lights. <\/em>The interesting thing is, he was actually credited as Michael Jordan for his first ever role in an episode of The Sopranos <\/em>instead of Michael B Jordan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WARNING: This Article May Contain Spoilers Now, as many of you know – Michael B Jordan is one of a few to play two Marvel characters, in Killmonger and Flame Boy. The mantle of the latter was originally held for my generation by Chris Evans (hence why his article is based around the same character … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-before-they-were-marvel-ous-heroes","latest_post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":921,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920\/revisions\/921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leoloves.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}