Tangled Webs (Spider-Man: Far From Home, 2019)

After the massive epic that was Avengers Endgame, a smaller story to actually close stuff off may seem like an odd choice. And yet? Well, it may have been what was needed.

Bringing back director Jon Watts and the cast of Homecoming, we get a personal story in which Peter Parker really just wants to go on his school trip abroad and confess his love to MJ. But things are complicated. It turns out that pretty much every major character from Homecoming was caught up in the snap. And now they have to deal with the fact that all their classmates are now five years older. The film explores some rather interesting aspects…like all the returned people who were displaced. Peter and May found themselves homeless, which was one of those things you just do not thing about in the grand schemes.

It turns out that Nick Fury is trying to reach Spider-Man, but Peter refuses to take his calls. But once on vacation in Italy, the class comes under attack by a water monster, which is defeated by Mysterio. A mysterious man who Nick Fury informs Peter is from an alternate earth where he fought the threat of elemental men that are now plaguing Peter’s world.

Far From Home bumps up certain characters too much bigger roles, and it is to the benefit of the film. Holland and Zendaya have real chemistry and their storyline is both adorable and a lot of fun.

The Mysterio storyline is really well done. There is a scene where his illusion powers is straight up the stuff of the comics. The visuals in the film are terrific and Gyllenhaal gives a solid performance.

Unlike Homecoming, Happy seems more invested in Peter and Spider-Man. This makes sense on a few levels, but I really did enjoy their interactions in the film.

I really enjoyed this latest outing, even more than Homecoming. It is funny, has heartfelt moments, good performances and great visual effects. Oh, and stay for the Mid and Post Credit scenes. They are game changing moments.

July 10, 2019 0

That’s It… For Now (Avengers: EndGame, 2019)

This is a Spoiler Free Review. This also means it will be super short.

So, back in the early days, the plan was to have a two part Avengers: Infinity War. Then Marvel announced that this would not be the case. There would be Avengers Infinity War and then there would be a fourth stand alone Avengers Film. Frankly? This was a terribly kept secret. Nobody really believed the two films would be unconnected. And boy…when you are reaching the final few moments of Infinity War, you knew that was not going to be a one off film.

And a year later, we are finding the remaining Avengers trying to determine how to undo the Snap Heard Around the Universe. They come up with a long shot plan to get the stones to bring everyone back.

There is a lot of stuff to love. Some real exciting moments, many great lines. It has some real heartfelt moments and a lot of fun sequences. There is a lot of surprises as well.

There are a couple things I am still not sure how I feel, especially in regards to one of the MCU’s big characters. And there are some logic issues for sure. If you read comics, you know that sometimes there are those things where you start to try and apply the logic…but I am finding myself not bothered enough for it to ruin the film.

On the other hand, they do some great stuff with certain characters. I really like how they build up Hawkeye, and their use of Hulk is a pleasant surprise. I also love the setup for certain characters (that I hope play out), and certain characters get well deserved resolutions.

Really, the limitations are few and far between, and the positives are enough that this is a strong bookend for the first four phases. I really enjoyed Avengers: Endgame. It offered plenty that I wanted to see, and stuff I did not know I wanted to see.

April 26, 2019 0

Higher, Further, Faster (Captain Marvel, 2019)

Set in the 1995, Vers is a Kree warrior. She struggles with no memory of her life past six years. The Kree are in a war with the shape shifting Skrulls. Vers and a few Skrulls end up on earth, and Vers is in a race against time to locate the MacGuffin. She finds herself allied with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nicholas Fury.

Vers starts to put her life back together with the aid of Fury as the Skrulls close in, all while Vers awaits the arrival of her fellow Kree.

The film is action packed. Captain Marvel (Vers) is one of the more powerful of the Marvel Cinematic Universe heroes, but hardly over powered. The action sequences are pretty exhilarating with good effects. The Skrulls are pretty cool looking, matching fairly closely their comic book counterparts. I really liked their transformation process.

The Relationship of Vers (who learns she if from earth and was named Carol) and her fellow pilot Maria works quite well. In fact, I really like the little team the film assembles. And then there is Goose the cat. Greatest movie cat ever.

The film has Stan Lee’s final cameo and it has an extra layer if you are especially observant. Since this is set after Captain America the First Avenger and before Iron Man, there is a slight bit of prequelitis, where the film acknowledges some stuff that happens in later films. You know…answering the questions we never had. For the most part, these are unobtrusive. But there was really only one bit that really made me groan. The film is largely self contained, so it does not lose to much focus from that.

Captain Marvel has faced some definite hurdles. It got pushed from 2017 to 2019 to make room for other films. The one other film to get moved (the Inhumans) actually went through a drastic change into a television series. Add to that a campaign against the film by certain folks who saw it as the opportunity to send a message to Disney and Marvel about “SJW Politics”. These folks also went on a crusade against star Brie Larson. Larson made a reasonable concern over a lack of diversity in journalists at press junkets, only to have people twist her words into a caricature and accusing her of saying things like she “hoped white men did not see Captain Marvel”. On Jimmy Kimmel, she joked about how she and Sam Jackson “hate the same people” and this was made out to be a reference to fandom (she made no mention of fandom).

Add in attempts to review bomb (put negative reviews of a product in order to create a false view of a majority of negativity. Often this is done to new product from creators who have committed the crime of having opinions) and the film had a bit of an uphill climb.

So…is Captain Marvel a hardcore Feminist and SJW screed?

No. In fact, if that is your perception of the film? Actual Feminism will kill you.

What the film actually is? Quite a lot of fun. No, it does not rewrite the script on the MCU. But I had a great time and the audience I saw it with were very into the film, even clapping after it ended.

March 8, 2019 0

You Can Never Have Too Much Spider-Man (Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, 2018)

A few years ago, after the big Sony hack, Sony and Marvel resumed the failed talks about Spider-Man films. It resulted in the very fun Spider-Man: Homecoming, pretty much run by Marvel. But Sony still holds the rights to do with the Spider-Man characters what they want. And so…that gives us this animated feature.

Miles Morales lives with his mom and dad, but is starting life at a new school. After a frustrating week, he goes to see his uncle Aaron, who takes him to a hidden place where he can do some street art. Miles gets bit by a Spider-Man. When he witnesses a tragedy and finds himself having to make a promise to Spider-Man moments before he is killed…with no idea how to do it. Until he stumbles across Peter Parker…Spider-Man???

They discover that whatever the Spider-Man of Mile’s Morales’ world was trying to thwart has actually brought several Spider People into Miles’ world. But the world may end and so they have to team up to send everyone home and stop the destruction of the Spider-Verse.

And you know what? This only sounds confusing. Because the movie manages to make everything pretty darn simple. Our focus is on Miles, and even the Spider-Man we meet in the beginning is a celebrity. We don’t get to know him. We just get glimpses, enough to know he was a real hero.

The film also gives us intros to each character that are a whole lot of fun. Each Spider-Man has a unique look and artistic style. And it even impacts how they interact with the world they are in. Spider-Man Noir speaks in dark pulpy fashion and is always in black and white. And he is perplexed by color.

Jake Johnson’s Spider-Man is one whose life went a bit off track compared to the Spider-Man of Mile’s world. Spider-Gwen is keeping the world at bay, avoiding really connecting to people. And Spider-Ham is just hilarious.

This movie has a lot of heart, there are genuinely touching moments. Moments between Miles and his father, Peter and the life he has left in his universe (wondering if it is even worth going back to). Miles and Gwen, Miles and Peter….

But the film is also ridiculously funny. I mean, seriously funny. And part of that is in how the movie makes use of its medium. I cannot recall another animated film that took such grand opportunity to put it’s possibilities on full display.

In my book? This has been the best of all the Spider-Man movies. I want more with these characters. I want more movies with this version of Miles and his family and all the other Spider-People. This was a genuinely fun movie and I recommend checking it out. Sony raised the bar here…And I did not expect that. But Marvel better pay attention.

December 13, 2018 0

Is it the End of an Era?

December 8, 2018 0

Big Little (Ant-Man and the Wasp, 2018)

We last saw Ant-Man in prison with the other heroes who sided with Cap in Civil War. People noticed that he was absent from all the Infinity War promotions, and while Infinity War gave a quick explanation of where he and Hawkeye were, Ant-Man and the Wasp gives us the “full story”. With days to go on his house arrest, Scott Lang has been out of contact with Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne for months, having parted on less than good terms as he stole the costume for his role in Civil War.

Hank and Hope have renewed hope that Janet Van Dyne (believed lost in the Quantum realm) may be alive. They are working in secret to locate her. When one of their experiments coincides with a crazy dream of Scotts, the three are brought back together to try and rescue her. But it is not as simple as they hope, as they are in competition with underground arms dealer Sonny Burch and a mysterious villain called Ghost. Ghost is trying to get the Pym lab because she has phasing powers, but cannot control them. Add to this being hunted by the FBI, rescuing Janet may not be as easy as they hoped.

The film is more focused on Hank and Hope, with Scott brought along somewhat unwillingly, but I found this worked okay. The first film had a running joke about how Hope was far more competent a super-hero, but never got to wear the suit. This film gives us a lot of Wasp action, and it is a whole lot of fun to watch. Scott gets some solid action of course as well, and he even gets a few opportunities to really show his cleverness (a FBI breakout sequence calls back to a scene in the first film, but flips the roles).

Rudd is as goofily charming as in the first film…and Michael Peña is hilarious (even though they only give us one of his elaborate stories). The return of Judy Greer and Bobby Cannaval is welcome. I really like that the relationship between Cannaval’s Paxton and Scott is not some sort of rivalry over their shared family. Instead, Paxton seems to want the best for Scott and genuinely like him.

The film has some genuinely touching moments with Scott and his daughter Cassie. A wise kid who looks up to her dad and wants to be his sidekick.

The story works very organically, the things that bring the first film’s cast together makes sense (Scott, Luis and their team of ex-cons now have a security business to help businesses avoid being hit by folks like…well, themselves).

The first Ant-Man was a surprising film and a welcome relief to the trend of telling bigger and bigger stories in the solo Marvel films. Ant-Man and the Wasp carries the fun over, building on it’s small scale mythology (the post credit scene ties it to Infinity War). Ant-Man and the Wasp is a pretty worthy sequel and a lot of fun to watch.

July 20, 2018 0

The Never Ending Story (Avengers: Infinity War, 2018)

In 2008 Marvel began their ambitious plan of creating a cinematic version of their comic book universe. The lead up to the Avengers seemed like a giant mountain to climb…and it paid off for Marvel. And over and over, Marvel saw themselves succeed. And here we are at ten years and 21 movies later were arrive at the culmination of that success.

The Avengers were left in a pretty broken state after Captain America Civil War. Picking up shortly after the end credits sequence of Thor Ragnarok, the film kicks off with a sense of sacrifice. Thanos has finally stepped into the light and with his acolytes has decided he must collect the stones that have been the undercurrent of the films for so long himself.

As the various corners of the Marvel Universe come together, Thanos and his minions get closer and closer to achieving his goal. This can be a tricky balancing act, to bring together such a large number of characters. And the film mostly is able to make this work by pairing groups off. The Guardians of the Galaxy meet up with Thor and they split into two groups while Iron Man, Spidey and Doctor Strange go on a trip through space and so on.

Thanos is one of the stronger villains the Marvel Universe has presented. Brolin gives him a dark sincerity. He clearly believes in his goal, and sees it as good. It becomes clear that when his acolytes proclaim he brings mercy, he actually believes this.

Seeing the interactions between characters who have, so far, been in their own worlds, such as the Guardians and Doctor Strange is a lot of fun. The film contains plenty of entertaining and light hearted dialog.

The movie is full of exciting action and moves along at such a fast clip the two and a half hours just flew right on by. Infinity War is fun, with just enough seriousness to keep some of the shocking moments from feeling cheap.

I really enjoyed Avengers: Infinity War and am looking to see how this all plays out in the films to follow (well, Ant Man & the Wasp and Captain Marvel both take place before Avengers: Infinity War, but hey, there is an Avengers movie after that).

April 29, 2018 0

Swing High (Spider-Man: Homecoming, 2017)

Spider-Man has the distinction of having been rebooted three times in the last fifteen years. Both the Raimi Films and the Marc Webb films have good points. Raimi’s Spider-Man 2 is a high point for super-hero themed films. But they also never quite fully got Spider-Man as a character. Maguire’s Peter Parker could be to goofy, while Garfield’s Peter was to moody and mopey.

Sony hit some hard times, made all the worse by a major hack that exposed all sorts of internal issues. One thing it revealed? Sony had talked with Marvel about a deal that would allow Spider-Man to be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The talks fell apart before the hack. But this brought them back to life.

Sony decided to let Marvel bring a heavy creative hand in. In exchange, Sony got to include MCU characters in their Spider-Films. The MCU introduced Spider-Man into their world via Captain America: Civil War. Spider-Man was a highlight of that film. And rather than try to retrofit Peter Parker in, as if Spider-Man had been there all along… they stepped into his career early, so he is new on the scene.

Homecoming picks up roughly eight months after Civil War, with Peter enjoying using his Stark supplied super-suit and anxiously awaiting his next big Avengers mission. Which seems to never come along. Instead, Peter races around trying to get better by fighting street crime and helping lost old ladies. His day to day life has, of course, been tougher since Tony Stark has come into his life, and he starts to withdraw to make more time. He dreams of beautiful classmate Liz and hangs out with his closest friend Gan-uh-Ned. Of course, he makes a major discovery, the adults don’t listen and Peter over-confidently decides to take on guys who may be out of his league.

One of the refreshing story points is that this is not about Peter learning about “with Great Power comes Great Responsibility”…at this point, he has learned that lesson. We only get vague reference to Uncle Ben’s death. In fact, the origin of Spider-Man is tossed out in a two second exchange.

Holland’s Peter Parker is sweet and awkward…his Spider-Man is quippy, but still learning. He is not yet the confident Peter Parker, he practices lines, tries to get into a good pose before alerting bad guys to his presence. But of the previous film versions, this is easily the strongest portrayal of Peter. He may be in-experienced, but there are just so many things that make this version…well Spider-Man.

The rest of the cast of characters are updated in some interesting ways. Ned Leeds is really Ganke from the Miles Morales Spider-Man comics, and he is a very fun character. This is largely due to the comic timing and enthusiasm of actor Jacob Batalon. I was most hesitant about Marisa Tomei as Aunt May…not because of her acting ability…but because she is only a few years older than me…and she feels more youthful and vibrant than traditional portrayals of Aunt May. But I ended up really liking her in the role.

Michael Keaton’s Vulture is a terrific improvement on the character. I never really cared for the comic version…he never seemed like he was all that much of a threat. And the green suit did not help. Keaton’s performance is solid and menacing…yet his motives are understandable. He is a guy who wants to provide for his family, and saw secret government agencies undercutting his business. He turns to crime to make up for that. The Vulture look is a nice combination of modern with hints of his original look. It works very well.

The action scenes are all nice and effective. Sometimes these films can get confusing during busy action scenes. Homecoming makes the action easy to follow. And the film is infused with humor. While theses were not absent from the previous versions, it is much more present here. And yet, the humor is not at the expense of Peter’s character. He feels the heavy weight of responsibility, regardless of his experience.

Admittedly, the film does not break new ground for Spider-Man…but I think it may be the best of the Spider-Man films so far. Or, at worst, a close second to Raimi’s second Spider-Man film. This is a fun film, and fun should be part of (a lot more) super-hero films. Being overseen by Marvel, there are plenty of easter eggs…but what Marvel is usually really good about is that the easter eggs are a bonus for fans who love the comics…and if you have not read the comics, you won’t feel like you are missing something.

Honestly, I recommend seeing Spider-Man: Homecoming in the theater. It benefits from being seen with an audience.

July 9, 2017 0

Lost to An Alternate Universe?

So, the day Sony and Disney drop the new Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer (which was met with a pretty positive response) producer Amy Pascal drops the bomb.

One of the things that I think is so amazing about this experience is that you don’t have studios deciding to work together to make a film very often.

In fact, it may never happen again–after we do the sequel.

It appears Sony is hoping to pull Peter back into their fold-out of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We probably should have seen this coming, after Sony announced plans for their own Spider-Verse, starting with an ‘R’ rated Venom movie. Sony and Pascal seem to be misreading this situation.

Sony had some success in 2002 and 2004 with the Spider-Man franchise when it was headed by Sam Raimi. But after the mess of Spider-Man 3 and then a somewhat lackluster reboot…Sony was floundering. They made the deal with Disney after the big hack two years ago humiliated the studio.

Marvel Studios, on the other hand, won praise for Peter Parker’s appearance in Captain America: Civil War. The previous incarnations of Spider-Man tended to get aspects right, but Marvel’s team pretty much got it all right.

And I suspect that everything that looks so good about Spider-Man: Homecoming is from the Marvel Studio’s side. Backing out and taking him out after the next sequel and Avengers: Infinity War would be a mistake. Sony will, no doubt, mess up their progress. To remove him from the MCU just to start their own Marvel Universe? Not a wise decision.

If Sony insists on starting their own Spider-Verse. I propose the following…

Leave Peter Parker in the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper. Let Marvel continue to handle him. Instead, create your Sony MCU around Miles Morales from Ultimate Spider-Man. Sony can double their money and have their alternate Spider-Man themed MCU. And fans get to see Spider-Man remain in the MCU.

March 29, 2017 0

Something Strange Going On That Wasn’t Here Before (Doctor Strange, 2016)

Every now and then, Marvel Studios opts for a riskier venture for their tent-pole pictures. In some cases, such as Thor, the risk is levied by the Avenger’s Connection. But sometimes, that connection is much thinner. Guardians of the Galaxy and now Doctor Strange.

And what we have here is another Guardians of the Galaxy result. Doctor Strange is an exciting, emotional, funny trip of a film. Benedict Cumberbatch carries an arrogance early on in the film. Stephen Strange is a truly prideful man, but he has very carefully crafted an image. When that is all taken away, at the end of his rope, he finds a man that had, similarly faced bodily destruction and appeared to have fully recovered. He is pointed towards Katmandu and a place called Kamar-Taj. There he encounters the Ancient One who, with her followers Mordo and Wong, begin to train Strange.

Meanwhile, the rebel Kaecilius and his disciples are trying to for ever alter reality. Doctor Strange finds himself in the “New York Branch” which leads to battles with Kaecilius and his minions. With Strange Mordo and Wong coming to a final fight with Kaecilius.

The movie manages to skirt the line of seriousness, but an undercurrent of humor. The humor is dryer than other Marvel films, but it works, as often Strange finds his attempts at humor falling flat with Wong. There is a fun payoff with that one.

It is hard to ignore the impressive visuals. Early trailers made things look like it was ripping off Inception. But Derrickson and his team actually gave us much more. The film brings to life those trippy multidimensional visuals that Steve Ditko drew in the 60’s with a beautiful and lush feel.

There has been a lot of controversy over the issue of Tilda Swinton playing the Asian One. In the comics the character was Asian. And yeah, it was a pretty blatant “Mystical Asian” stereotype. Which is what resulted in the choice to cast Swinton. The film does overcome this. But as written? They easily could have cast and Asian actor in the role. There are not a ton of major roles for Asian actors. Avoiding stereotypes is done in the script and performance. And I believe this film would have successfully avoided the stereotype, without making one less role for Asian actors. I do not believe racism was at Derrickson and his casting teams heart. I suspect it was an attempt to avoid the very issue of racism. I think they made a choice I would not. But Swinton is entertaining in the film.

Doctor Strange is one of Marvel’s strongest entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It is certainly yet another origin story, but it is handled so very well. It also has no requirement that you be familiar with the character. You can enter the film with zero knowledge of the character and fully enjoy this film.

November 5, 2016 0