Tag Archives: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

07 Monday Aug 2017

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D: Jon Watts / 133m

Cast: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr, Marisa Tomei, Jon Favreau, Gwyneth Paltrow, Zendaya, Donald Glover, Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Tony Revolori, Bokeem Woodbine, Michael Chernus, Logan Marshall-Green, Tyne Daly, Hannibal Buress, Jennifer Connelly

What must it have been like back at the tail end of 2014 and the start of 2015 if you were “in the know” at Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios, and were aware of what was about to happen to everyone’s favourite neighbourhood web-slinger? How exciting must that have been? If you were a fan of Spider-Man, just the anticipation that he might be coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe was enough to send you into a giddy spell of mega proportions. And then to find out that not only was there going to be a new Spider-Man movie designed to bring him into the MCU, but that he was also going to make his first appearance in another movie within that Universe – well, it was like having Xmas every day (if you were a fan). And then to have that early appearance, in Captain America: Civil War (2016) no less, and for him to steal the movie – well, that was like having the best ice cream in the whole wide world, and with sprinkles on (but again, if you were a fan).

But what if you’re not a fan? What if the very idea of another Spider-Man reboot (the third in fifteen years) has all the attraction of a Liam Hemsworth movie? What if the idea of all that ice cream, with sprinkles on, holds no attraction at all? Well, if that’s the case then be assured: this is a Spider-Man movie that even non-fans can enjoy. And why? That’s the clever part. This is the first Spider-Man movie where the whole notion of “with great power comes great responsibility” is sidelined in favour of seeing Peter Parker struggle with the basics, and not some overwhelming sense of guilt over the death of his uncle, or his parents, or Mary Jane Watson (or even Norman Osborn). This is the first Spider-Man movie where the makers have done away with the more traditional origin story, and instead have got things started by accepting that we all know the story by now; so why bother? Why not just get on with it?

Which is exactly what happens, but cannily, not before a trip back to 2012 and the aftermath of the Battle of New York. There’s Chitauri technology all over the place, and salvage contractor Adrian Toombes (Keaton) has spotted a way of exploiting it in order to make a lot of money. But no sooner has he thought of it than he’s shut down by the US Department of Damage Control and forced to continue his plan to make weapons in secret. And before long, that plan is coming to fruition. Fast forward five years and high school student Peter Parker (Holland) still can’t believe he was involved in the airport scrap that took place in Berlin between Team Captain America and Team Iron Man. Still buzzing, Peter believes his involvement in that fight means he’s a member of the Avengers team, but Tony Stark (Downey Jr) has other ideas, and does his best to mentor Peter from a distance. But Peter is irrepressible (and naïve), and his determination to show Stark what he’s capable of inevitably backfires. When he inadvertently takes on some of the men that work for Toombes, it brings him to the attention of Toombes’ alter ego, The Vulture.

Peter decides it’s his mission to stop The Vulture from building and selling any more Chitauri-based weaponry, and one (future) classic scene where Peter and Toombes realise each other’s secret identities aside, the movie follows a predictable pattern before the inevitable superhero v supervillain showdown. But what makes the movie so charming and so enjoyable is both its backdrop and its setting: Peter’s first year in high school and all the trials and tribulations that follow in the wake of that teenage milestone. Already described as a superhero movie by way of John Hughes, Spider-Man’s first solo outing in the MCU paints a much more believable portrait of Peter Parker than we’ve seen in the previous five movies. By keeping Peter at the age he was when he developed his powers in the comics, Marvel have actually managed to breathe new life into the character and make him seem fresh and relevant, rather than  an angst-ridden science nerd with literally no friends. Here, Tom Holland’s incarnation is bright, overly enthusiastic, and immensely likeable (just like the movie). Holland perfectly captures the giddy sense of euphoria that comes from doing something so cool you want to shout from the rooftops about it – but know that you can’t. This is a Spider-Man who knows how to have fun (at last).

By focusing more on Peter’s attempts at fitting in, both in high school and in the wider world of superheroes, the script allows the audience to have a lot of fun at Peter’s expense. But then he is only fifteen, and he’s bound to make mistakes, whether from plain old exuberance or because he hasn’t built up his street smarts yet. Seeing him fail is more refreshing than expected, and a pivotal scene involving Stark and the loss of his Stark-created outfit highlights the true dilemma of being able to shoot webs and swing between tall buildings but not be able to talk to a girl. But again, it’s a happy dilemma because this is what the movie is all about: providing audiences with a surfeit of fun. Marvel know how to incorporate humour into their movies, but this may well be the first MCU movie that knows how to sustain that humour throughout, and round things off with the best end credits sting since Nick Fury first tried to recruit Tony Stark to some team he was trying to put together. This is a movie that is enjoyable and joyous at the same time, and proof that Marvel really do understand their characters better than anyone else (sorry Sony).

And for the first time since Loki we have a villain who has a credible motive for being the bad guy, and thanks to Keaton’s performance, he’s one we can have a degree of sympathy for. Toombes is about providing for and protecting his family, but though that’s an honourable sentiment, Keaton shows how that has become inexorably warped over the years, until his motives aren’t quite as clear-cut as when he began putting on the flying suit. Together, Holland and Keaton are terrific adversaries, and easily outshine the rest of the cast, who, to be fair, don’t stand out quite as well (though Batalon as Peter’s best friend, Ned, comes close). There’s the possibility of a romance for Peter with debate team captain, Liz (Harrier), that takes an unexpected turn, a series of action scenes that vary between broadly exciting and acceptable, competent direction from Watts that fares better away from said action scenes, a little too much moralising from Tony Stark, and a “get-to-know-your-suit” sequence which is possibly the movie’s true highlight. Smartly written – and by a team of six writers at that – this is the Spider-Man movie fans have been waiting for. Now, how about all you non-fans?

Rating: 8/10 – a giddy fun ride of a movie that can’t contain its own excitement about existing, Spider-Man: Homecoming adds another superhero to the MCU roster and does so with exuberance and no small amount of wit; you know Marvel have got a firm grip on things when the opening music cues reference the original Sixties animated series theme tune, and web-swinging in the suburbs brings its own measures of difficulty and danger.

Question of the Week – 23 November 2016

23 Wednesday Nov 2016

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First, the answer to the last Question of the Week from 13 November 2016: which of the five stars mentioned – John Goodman, Sandra Bullock, Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling, Kristen Wiig – didn’t appear in one of the following movies: Infamous (2006); Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011); Lullaby (2014); Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close (2011); and The Midnight Meat Train (2008)?

The answer is Kristen Wiig, and she didn’t appear in Lullaby (2014).

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This week’s Question of the Week is connected to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This year, the release of Captain America: Civil War saw Marvel pass the $10 billion mark in box office returns. It’s an amazing feat – based on just thirteen movies – and Doctor Strange‘s returns have already passed the $500,000 mark, so there’s no sign of their success slowing down, or being curtailed, any time soon. With that in mind, this week’s Question of the Week is:

Could another studio ever achieve the same level of success as Marvel is currently enjoying?

NOTE: This will be the last Question of the Week for the foreseeable future. It’s making way for the return of Poster of the Week.

Doctor Strange (2016)

25 Tuesday Oct 2016

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D: Scott Derrickson / 115m

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Rachel McAdams, Tilda Swinton, Mads Mikkelsen, Benedict Wong, Michael Stuhlbarg, Benjamin Bratt, Scott Adkins

Stephen Strange (Cumberbatch) is a gifted neurosurgeon. He’s also an arrogant pain in the ass. His ego is on a par with Tony Stark’s, and he enjoys reminding people just how good he is. But one rainy evening, Strange’s car ends up in the river and his hands are so badly damaged that he’ll never be able to operate again. Angry and full of self-pity, Strange learns of a man who suffered a severed spine and was paralysed from the chest down, but who somehow managed to walk again. Strange tracks the man (Bratt) down, and is told of a monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he learned how to walk again. Strange travels there and meets The Ancient One (Swinton), a mystic who teaches him that their plane of existence is one of many, and that Strange must let go of everything he thinks he knows in order to achieve “enlightenment”.

Strange proves to be an eager and willing (if still slightly sceptical) pupil. He learns how to cast spells, how to travel from one place to another by visualising it in his mind and creating a portal through which to get there, and the existence of a former pupil, Master Kaecilius (Mikkelsen), who believes he can gain immortality by helping a creature from the Dark Dimension, Dormammu, take over the Earth. As Strange’s powers grow, Kaecilius begins attacking the three sanctums that help keep Dormammu and his like from entering our world. Aided by another Master, Baron Mordo (Ejiofor), Strange attempts to stop Kaecilius from bringing about the end of the world; he also receives help from an unlikely source: the Cloak of Levitation, which chooses Strange as its master.

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But the London sanctum falls to Kaecilius’s onslaught, and he moves on to attack the sanctum in Hong Kong. Strange and Mordo arrive too late to avoid its destruction and the arrival of Dormammu in our world, but Strange has an idea that will counter-act all the death and destruction that has followed in Dormammu’s wake. If he fails, however, it will mean the end of all life on Earth…

Another Marvel movie, another origin story. But Stephen Strange has always been the odd character out in the Marvel Universe (cinematic or otherwise), a humbled physician redeemed by the power of magic and able to deal with the kind of villains that would give the likes of Iron Man and Captain America more than a run for their money. (Not that Strange is in any immediate danger here; Kaecilius isn’t exactly the most threatening villain Marvel has come up with, but he is good at running a lot.) With Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe now under way, this gives Marvel the opportunity to add fresh characters to the roster, and take their ongoing series of movies in a new direction.

But is it any good? Well, predictably, the answer is Yes – for the most part. The standard Marvel formula is firmly in place, although there is less humour to be had this time round, and while the template is tweaked here and there, most viewers will be reassured that the House of Spidey hasn’t strayed too far from the formula that has made their movies so successful in the past. What is different, and markedly so, is the visual style adopted for the movie. Away from all the mind-bending, Inception-style graphics, Doctor Strange is both darker in tone and look. Even the hospital where Strange works isn’t as brightly lit as you might expect. But it’s not a gloomy movie over all, it’s just that for once, Marvel have realised that – scenes involving the Cloak of Levitation aside, and Strange’s “borrowing” habits in the library – this needs to be a serious piece above all.

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Strange’s arrogance, and then his anger, in the beginning gives Cumberbatch the opportunity to play unlikeable with an unexpected fierceness. One scene in particular with McAdams as Strange’s one-time significant other, Christine Palmer, sees the actor deliver cruel lines of dialogue in a way that hasn’t been done before in a Marvel movie (he’s the hero and he’s being delberately objectionable). Even when he begins to accept that magic really does exist, he’s still an egotist, making snarky, caustic comments, but thanks to the script – by Derrickson, Jon Spaihts, and C. Robert Cargill – he’s also on a journey of self-discovery, and this comes across more and more effectively as the movie progresses.

With the main character in good hands (Cumberbatch inhabits the role with his customary panache, and even slips in an Alan Rickman tribute for those paying attention), it’s a shame that the rest are painted in such broad strokes. Baron Mordo, Strange’s arch-nemesis in the comics, is here very much a secondary character whose time will come in a later movie, while The Ancient One, despite being well-played by Swinton, is burdened with some astonishingly po-faced dialogue (“I spent so many years peering through time… looking for you.”) that you start to wonder if the half-smile Swinton adopts at times is in acknowledgment of how daft some of her lines truly are. As mentioned before, Mikkelsen’s master-turned-bad is not one of Marvel’s best villains, while McAdams is sidelined for much of the movie, though at least she’s not there as a damsel in need of being rescued.

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The visuals are, unsurprisingly, stunning. The folding of cityscapes and the weird monstrosities glimpsed in the Dark Dimension are both equally impressive, but there is one sequence which stands head and shoulders above all the others: when Strange reverses the destruction of the Hong Kong sanctum. If anyone wants a clue as to why Marvel is more successful at the box office, and critically, than DC, then it’s this particular sequence that should be watched for one of the answers. Both DC and Marvel have been guilty of going down the destruction-porn road before, and audiences have begun to voice their dislike of these big, CGI-driven demolition extravaganzas. But here, we don’t see the destruction of the Hong Kong sanctum, just the aftermath, and then, in a complete stroke of genius, we see the destruction in reverse – and it’s so much more effective for being shown in this way. Clearly, someone at Marvel is listening.

Where Stephen Strange will fit into the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe remains to be seen (though a pre-end credits scene points him in one particular direction), and he won’t be back in another solo outing for some time, but as an introduction to a character with so much more to be explored, Doctor Strange has to be considered a success. Like most of Marvel’s output in the last eight years, though, it does have its fair share of pitfalls, and it does stumble at times in trying to simplify the more esoteric aspects of playing with magic, but overall this is an exciting, well-crafted, rewarding, and enjoyable first outing for the future Sorcerer Supreme.

Rating: 8/10 – superb spectacle can’t compensate for some poor decisions when it comes to the secondary characters, or the tangled logic surrounding Kaecilius’ need to bring Dormammu into this world, but these are minor gripes in a movie that takes a challenging character and does him justice from start to finish; by doing more than enough with the formula to make it more interesting, Doctor Strange becomes a movie that contradicts the claim that Marvel are just churning out the same movie over and over again.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

04 Wednesday May 2016

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Captain America Civil War

D: Anthony Russo, Joe Russo / 147m

Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Rudd, Emily VanCamp, Tom Holland, Daniel Brühl, Frank Grillo, William Hurt, Martin Freeman, Marisa Tomei, John Kani, John Slattery, Hope Davis, Alfre Woodard

And so begins Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Though the Marvel formula is pretty well established now, and is beginning to show through a little too often for comfort – Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) disappoints more and more with repeated viewings, Ant-Man (2015) was fun but too married to the formula for its own good – the company that should finally give us the Spider-Man movie a lot of people have been waiting for, has cannily begun the process of dismantling and rebuilding the work it carried out in Phases 1 and 2. Having introduced us to the more well-known Marvel superheroes – Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Captain America etc. – over the next few years we’re going to meet several newer additions to the roster, so that by the time we get to Avengers: Infinity War Part II (2019), the Avengers will hopefully be comprised of a different set of superheroes.

With that in mind, there’s a lot that needs to happen before then, and while Captain America: Civil War looks as if it’s the first step in getting there, and while it’s still the best Marvel movie this side of Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Marvel are still playing it safe in terms of the characters – contrary to what you may have heard, all the main players survive in this movie – but they are trying to make things grittier and more true to life in relation to the characters’ relationships and feelings. Hence we have a falling out between Tony Stark (Downey Jr) and Steve Rogers (Evans) over whether or not the Avengers should be “policed” following the destructive events in Sokovia. Tony believes that their actions in the past have caused too much death and suffering (even though they’ve saved the world twice), while Steve feels that it shouldn’t be left up to anyone else but the Avengers as to where they go and who they stand up to; what if they’re not asked to go somewhere they should be?

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It all leads to the various core Avengers – except for an absent Thor and Bruce Banner – taking sides over the issue, and for each side to bring in back up when it’s clear that a showdown is inevitable. Meanwhile, as if things aren’t bad enough, Steve’s old friend and Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes (Stan) is still on the run and apparently responsible for the bombing of a United Nations building that has taken the life of T’Chaka (Kani), the king of African nation Wakanda. His son, T’Challa (Boseman), swears to have his revenge on Barnes, and with Steve unwilling to give up on his friend, the battle lines are even more fiercely drawn. (T’Challa is one of the new characters, aka Black Panther, and will have his own movie in 2018.)

What it all boils down to is whether or not the Avengers should be autonomous or inducted into the world’s police force and used accordingly. There are good reasons on both sides for inclusion or exclusion but the interesting thing about the arguments put forward is that Tony’s are emotionally driven by his feelings of guilt over the numerous deaths that occurred in Sokovia, while Steve’s are still rooted in his past. Having fought against Hitler and Hydra both in World War II, Steve knows one thing for sure: if there’s evil to be faced and defeated, then you just do it. It’s a simple idea, but for Steve a very powerful one. And though the movie does its best to keep the narrative focused on this divisive idea, there’s a spanner in the works.

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The “spanner” is this movie’s principal villain, Colonel Helmut Zemo (Brühl), who is operating in the background and using Barnes’ past to cause maximum distrust between Tony and Steve. He’s doing so for personal reasons, and credible ones at that, and they have a bearing on the division that threatens the future of the Avengers. Zemo may not be trying to destroy the world like Loki or Ultron, but it’s good to see a villain causing so much harm all by himself and without an army of aliens or robots to help him. Brühl puts in a good performance, and its one whose quiet determination isn’t overwhelmed by all the sturm und drang going on around him. But Zemo is also the device by which the Avengers reach their own accord, an uneasy truce if you like, but one that introduces a further interesting dynamic for future movies.

As for the other characters, and with so many to include, the script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely rightly concentrates on the falling out between Tony and Steve, while doing its best to address and develop issues surrounding everyone else. There’s the tentative romance brewing between Vision (Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Olsen) that has them on opposite sides (as well as Vision’s understanding of the Infinity Stone in his forehead), the return of General Thaddeus Ross (Hurt) as the man charged with bringing the Avengers into line, the various drawbacks encountered by Falcon (Mackie) and War Machine (Cheadle) as the sidekicks of Captain America and Iron Man respectively, Black Widow’s (Johansson) kick-ass yet conciliatory occupation of the middle ground when necessary, the return of Hawkeye (Renner) to make up the numbers on Cap’s side, and the return also of Scott Lang aka Ant-Man (Rudd) who provides much of the comedy that makes the airport confrontation so much fun.

As mentioned before, we’re introduced to one of Phase 3’s newer characters, Black Panther. Originally meant to have a much smaller role in Captain America: Civil War, Boseman’s portrayal is extremely good, and bodes well for his solo outing. The character’s place in the MCU is assured thanks to the way in which the script integrates his own personal mission of revenge into Tony’s attempts to achieve regulation of the Avengers. Neither a part of the Avengers or against them, Black Panther is a neutral figure in terms of the differences affecting them, and acts as a buffer for the audience by following his own path.

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And then there’s the little matter of finally seeing Peter Parker aka Spider-Man in a Marvel movie – at last. With all due respect to Sam Raimi and Tobey Maguire, and Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield, in the space of roughly half an hour, the Russo brothers and the writers have given us the best Spidey yet seen on the big screen. Holland is terrific as the garrulous super-teen, nervous and perplexed in his meeting with Tony Stark, unabashedly starstruck in his set-to with Captain America et al. It’s an absolute joy to see him portrayed in this fashion, and for fans who stay to (almost) the very end, the caveat “Soider-Man will return” (a la James Bond) will be a welcome sight.

With this movie, Marvel has begun the next Phase of its assault on our hearts and minds and disposable incomes in such an enjoyable way that even though it’s not a movie that takes any real risks with either its characters or the storyline, it’s still a marked improvement on recent outings. The humour is there, the action/fight scenes are as inventive and thrilling as ever, and (some of) the characters are allowed to develop further, thereby consolidating our affection for them. It’s a huge juggling act, but here the writers and the Russo brothers have made such a good job of things that there are only minor gripes to be had, and those aren’t really worth mentioning. Where Guardians of the Galaxy raised the bar considerably for the MCU, Captain America: Civil War has just vaulted over it with accomplished ease.

Rating: 9/10 – while many may regard this as just Avengers 2.5, there’s more to Captain America: Civil War than meets the eye, and Marvel can be rightly proud of what they’ve achieved; as a stand-alone movie it works incredibly well, and as a part of the wider MCU it’s even more effective, being more tightly scripted and more efficiently directed than any other superhero movies out there at the moment – and yes, that does mean Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016).

Ant-Man (2015) and the Problem with the Marvel Cinematic Universe

23 Thursday Jul 2015

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And so we say farewell to Phase Two of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a place audiences have become incredibly familiar with in the last seven years. It’s been a wildly successful run so far: including Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Marvel has made eleven movies and reaped over eight and a half billion dollars worldwide. Their movies make up the most successful franchise ever… and with Ant-Man and a further ten movies making up Phase Three due between now and July 2019, it’s clear that title isn’t going to be relinquished anytime soon.

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But while Ant-Man is pleasantly entertaining, and features possibly the best supporting turn in any Marvel movie – stand up, Michael Peña! – it’s also the most formulaic and predictable, from its opening scene set in 1989 and featuring an amazingly youthful Michael Douglas, to its introduction of Scott Lang (a criminal with a moral backbone), to the nefarious activities of villain Darren Cross and his attempts to replicate the work of Dr Henry Pym, to Scott’s friends/sidekicks, to the revelation that Pym is estranged from his daughter Hope (not really!), to Scott’s easy acceptance of Pym’s recruitment of him, to his quickly established command of the Ant-Man suit, to the foiled capers, and the eventual success of Cross in emulating Pym’s work. It’s a Marvel movie, true enough: safe, non-controversial, carrying a faint whiff of po-faced seriousness in amongst all the goofy humour, and sticking close to the established Marvel movie template, all the way down to the post-credits teaser for Captain America: Civil War (2016).

Ant-Man isn’t a bad film. In parts, it’s quite spirited and enjoyable, and there are clear indications that Edgar Wright knew what he was doing before Peyton Reed inherited the director’s chair (the toy locomotive derailing silently could only have come from the mind of the co-creator of the Cornetto Trilogy). The special effects are superb, with the 3D conversion (especially in the IMAX format) proving particularly immersive and impressive. But the story is bland, and so are the characters. When you have a cast that includes the likes of Douglas, Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Anthony Mackie and Peña, surely it would be a good idea to have them do something more adventurous and original than try to steal a suit (no matter what it can do). Even the humour, usually something that Marvel gets right, feels tired and derivative of other Marvel movies.

Marvel's Ant-Man..Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd)..Photo Credit: Zade Rosenthal..? Marvel 2014

And it’s this derivation, this close sticking to the perceived required template that is leading Marvel astray, leaving only Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) as their most fully realised and effective movie so far. With each stand-alone movie having to fit into the larger Marvel universe (an issue Guardians didn’t have to worry about), it’s clear that these entries lack the attention to their own stories that would allow them to be more distinctive. As it is, the similarities keep on coming: Iron Man fights another robot or batch of robots, Thor fights a race intent on destroying either Asgard or just about everything, Captain America acts as a moral compass while performing acrobatics with his shield, and both Avengers movies see the group fighting off overwhelming hordes of attackers (while also laying waste to whichever city they happen to be in). And the Hulk is sidelined because they can’t work out what to do with him.

Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – and there’s obviously more than a few of them – will suggest that the movies are delivering almost exactly what they want, with all their in-jokes and easter eggs and cameos, and those post-credit scenes that keep people in their seats right until the very end of the movie, but the formula is already showing signs of becoming tired. Ant-Man was the project that prompted Marvel and producer Kevin Feige to go ahead with the whole Cinematic Universe idea; how sad then to see that the movie is less than the sum of its parts, and doing just enough to raise a smile or a jaded bout of wonder.

But maybe there is hope. In amongst the two Avengers movies (three if you count Civil War) and the Guardians and Thor sequels, there are some hopefully different movies coming, with new characters – Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Captain Marvel – and maybe, just maybe the promise of a new direction for the whole Universe. It would be great to see these characters carry Marvel forward into Phase Four and in doing so, offer audiences new experiences rather than the fatigue-ridden outings we’ve started to see in the last couple of years. Let’s hope so, anyway.

Rating: 6/10 – saddled with the kind of storyline and plot that would be more at home on the small screen, Ant-Man never lives up to its “Heroes don’t get any bigger” tagline; in many ways a kind of contractual obligation, it skimps on depth to provide the most lightweight and undemanding Marvel movie yet.

Uh-Oh! Here Comes Summer! – Furious 7 (2015) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

03 Sunday May 2015

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Furious 7

Furious 7 (2015)

aka Fast and Furious 7

D: James Wan / 137m

Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jason Statham, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Tyrese Gibson, Ludacris, Kurt Russell, Nathalie Emmanuel, Elsa Pataky, Djimon Hounsou, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, John Brotherton, Lucas Black

Having bested Owen Shaw and his gang in the previous instalment, now Dominic (Diesel), Brian (Walker), Letty (Rodriguez), and what seems like every main character from the series, have to pull together – with the aid of the mysterious Mr. Nobody (Russell) to take down his vengeful brother, Deckard Shaw (Statham). Throw in the hunt for a software programme, and its creator (Emmanuel), that can track anyone anywhere in the world, a trip to Abu Dhabi, and the usual amount of hyper-realistic cartoon violence, and you have the most successful entry in the franchise to date with, at time of writing, a worldwide gross of $1,352,724,000 (making it the fourth highest grossing movie ever).

Avengers Age of Ultron

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

D: Joss Whedon / 141m

Cast: Robert Downey Jr, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, James Spader, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Cobie Smulders, Anthony Mackie, Hayley Atwell, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgård, Linda Cardellini, Claudia Kim, Thomas Kretschmann, Andy Serkis, Julie Delpy, Henry Goodman

In an attempt to retire the Avengers from group duty, Tony Stark (Downey Jr) creates a robot that comes equipped with artificial intelligence. Only there’s a flaw: the robot, named Ultron (Spader), sees the best way of carrying out his peacekeeping mission is to wipe out the human race (and thereby ensure a peaceful world). With internal conflicts hampering their efforts to combat Stark’s creation, the introduction of Quicksilver (Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Olsen) to the mix, a showdown between the Hulk (Ruffalo) and Iron Man in his Hulkbuster suit, and Ultron planning an extinction level event, you have a sequel that has made $424,460,000 at the box office in just over a week.

And so we have the first two candidates for 2015’s Mega-Blockbuster of the Year Award. In the red corner we have the testosterone-fuelled, carmageddon-inspired Furious 7, and in the blue corner we have Avengers: Age of Ultron, the latest juggernaut designed to increase Marvel’s grip on the world and its wallet. The inclusion of their box office takes is deliberate, as this is really what both these movies are about: making as much money as possible off the back of a heavily marketable idea. That the idea is becoming stale (Furious 7) or showing signs of running out of steam already (Avengers: Age of Ultron) is neither here nor there. These movies are guaranteed crowd pleasers, and all the studios that make them have to do is give the fans enough of what they like most to ensure those big box office grosses.

It’s a well-known fact that recent entries in the Fast and Furious franchise have been built around the action sequences: the stunts come first and then a story is created around them. Such an approach isn’t exactly new, but as the series continues, it appears that the writer, Chris Morgan, is fast running out of ways to keep it as real as possible given the absurd, physics-defying world Dominic and his family live in. Morgan has scripted every movie since The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006), and this time round the law of diminishing returns has clearly set in with a vengeance. With its dodgy timescales, crude attempts at characterisation, and action sequences that go on and on and on without ever changing pace (or should that be, gear?), Furious 7 is a movie that believes in its hype so much that it’s forgotten it still needs to make an effort beyond what’s expected of it.

Of course, script revisions had to be made due to the untimely death of Paul Walker, but like so many of the cast, he’s marginalised in a movie that has too many characters and too little time to do much with them apart from put them in continual jeopardy. Brewster is sidelined in the Dominican Republic (admittedly, not so bad), Johnson winds up in hospital until needed at the end, and Walker’s contribution seems reduced to fighting Tony Jaa. But with the script showing more interest in the villains (Statham, Hounsou, Russell maybe) than its heroes, it comes as a bit of a shock to realise that the main characters have nowhere to go – everyone, even Letty with her amnesia, is still the same as they were when they first appeared. Maybe this kind of familiarity is what the fans want but ultimately it just means that future entries – and there are three more planned for release – will continue to mine the same formula and with less satisfying results.

Furious 7 - scene

The same problem that occurs in Furious 7 occurs in Avengers: Age of Ultron, namely what to do with so many different characters, especially the new ones. Writer/director Whedon doesn’t appear to be as sure this time round as he was on the first Avengers movie (and it may be why he won’t be helming the two Avengers: Infinity War movies). While he does effective work exploring the personalities and idiosyncrasies of the Avengers themselves – Stark’s continuing egotism, a burgeoning relationship between Bruce Banner and Black Widow (Johansson), where Hawkeye (Renner) spends his downtime – he’s less successful when it comes to the villain, the villain’s sidekicks, and the whole let’s-level-a-city-and-cause-as-much-destruction-as-possible angle.

With so many characters to deal with, it’s inevitable that some of them don’t receive as much attention as others. The introduction of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch is a case in point, with Taylor-Johnson reduced to asking people he’s knocked over if they saw that coming (and not just once), and Olsen saddled with a perma-frown as she casts spells on people. They have a back story but it doesn’t impact on how they behave in the movie, and their teaming up with Ultron seems convenient rather than a well thought out plot development. Likewise, we have appearances by Kretschmann (dispensed with too quickly), Serkis (as an intro to his character’s appearance in Black Panther), and Delpy (as Natasha Romanoff’s childhood instructor). All great actors, and all reduced to walk-ons in the service of the ever-expanding Marvel Cinematic Universe.

But all great superhero teams need a great villain, and while Ultron seems to pass muster, the main problem with him is the actor cast to play him. Now it’s not that James Spader is a terrible actor – far from it – but what’s clear from his performance is that, rather than come up with an entirely new characterisation, he’s gone for a slight deviation on Raymond Reddington from The Blacklist… and it’s been encouraged. As a result we have a robot that often sounds whimsical rather than destructive, and petulant when he should be megalomaniacal. Whedon is good at injecting comedy into his movies – here, the throwaway line “No it wasn’t” is used perfectly – but when he tries too hard, as he does with Ultron, the effect is lost, and the viewer could be forgiven for wondering if Ultron is meant to be so eccentric.

On the action front, once again we’re treated (if that’s the right word) to another massive showdown where buildings are levelled, the Avengers fight off an army of attackers (last time the Chi’tauri, this time Ultron’s robots), and the special effects budget goes through the (recently blasted) roof. The whole massive destruction approach is a huge disappointment, having been done to death already in movies such as Man of Steel (2013) and the previous Avengers outing (and even Furious 7 with its car park demolition). (If anyone is listening, please let Thanos take on the Avengers on his own when he finally “does it himself”.)

Avengers Age of Ultron - scene

Ratings:

Furious 7: 6/10 – overblown (though no surprises there) and lacking a coherent story, Furious 7 has all the ingredients the fans love, but as a tribute to the late Paul Walker it falls short; a triumph of hype over content, someone seriously needs to look under the hood before taking this particular baby out for another drive.

Avengers: Age of Ultron: 7/10 – overblown and lacking in any real drama, Avengers: Age of Ultron skates perilously close to being Marvel’s first dud since Iron Man 2 (2010); saved by Whedon’s attention to (most of) the characters, it lumbers through its action set-pieces with all the joy of a contractual obligation.

Top 10 Actresses at the Box Office

04 Saturday Oct 2014

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Having looked at who makes up the Top 10 Actors at the Box Office, it’s time to see which ten actresses are the most popular with the cinema-going public.  There are a couple of actresses you might not expect to see in the list, but with the preponderance of movie series’ that are out there, most shouldn’t come as much of a surprise.

NOTE: HGM stands for Highest Grossing Movie, and the figures represent the worldwide gross.  And all figures are courtesy of boxofficemojo.com.

10 – Anne Hathaway / HGM: The Dark Knight Rises (2012) – $1,084,439,099

Anne Hathaway

While you might not hear the phrase, “Let’s go see the new Anne Hathaway movie” very often, nevertheless she has made some good commercial choices over the years, from The Devil Wears Prada (2006) to Alice in Wonderland (2010), all the way to her Oscar winning performance in Les Misérables (2012).  With a role in Christopher Nolan’s upcoming Interstellar, and a return to Wonderland in 2016, her place on the list seems assured for some time to come.

9 – Scarlett Johansson / HGM: The Avengers (2012) – $1,518,594,910

Scarlett Johansson

Outside of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Johansson has made a number of movies that have performed well (if not spectacularly), and she’s often the best thing in them.  With some canny choices behind her – The Prestige (2006), We Bought a Zoo (2011) – it will be interesting to see how her career develops, as, Black Widow aside, she doesn’t seem to gravitate to one particular kind of role.  But with multiple trips to the Marvel well ahead of her, her place on this list is assured.

8 – Sandra Bullock / HGM: Gravity (2013) – $716,392,705

Sandra Bullock

With a career that now spans over twenty years, and with a proven track record in both drama and comedy, it’s Bullock’s more recent forays into drama that have won her the most acclaim and industry kudos.  She doesn’t always make the right choices – Gun Shy (2000), All About Steve (2009), a certain sequel that Keanu Reeves wisely side-stepped – but she has a loyal fan base that will probably keep her in the Top 10 for the foreseeable future, even though at present, the only movie she definitely has on the horizon is next year’s Minions.

7 – Sigourney Weaver / HGM: Avatar (2009) – $2,787,965,087

Sigourney Weaver

Weaver’s inclusion on this list is due mainly to her role in James Cameron’s epic, and the combined totals for the Alien series – even Alien Resurrection made over $161m – as, like Scarlett Johansson, she’s made a number of movies that have performed well enough at the box office but which aren’t as repeat-friendly as you might expect.  Still, with three Avatar sequels in the pipeline, Weaver’s likely to be heading on up the list come 2017, but with a career that’s often been more about the material than the box office, it should be the other movies she makes that will be the more interesting to watch.

6 – Kathy Bates / HGM: Titanic (1997) – $2,186,772,302

Kathy Bates

Betcha didn’t see this actress being on the list anywhere!  Cameron’s blockbuster aside, Bates has appeared in some well-received movies over the years, from Fried Green Tomatoes (1991) to About Schmidt (2002) to The Blind Side (2012), as well as her Oscar winning role in Misery (1990).  She’s an actress you can rely on whatever the movie, and while she’s not a box office draw by herself, she’s definitely earned her place on the list (though how long she’ll remain here will probably be down to her fellow listees).

5 – Cate Blanchett / HGM: The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) – $1,119,929,521

Cate Blanchett

Perhaps of all the actresses in the list, Blanchett has the best resumé, her movie choices over the years having proved that she has a keen eye for a good script.  Even where a movie hasn’t quite worked out as its makers would have hoped – Bandits (2001), Robin Hood (2010) – she’s still been eminently watchable and, as in the wretchedly disappointing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), has risen above the constraints of the material.  Her alliance with Peter Jackson and the realm of Middle Earth has certainly propelled her to this point in the list, so she’s another actress who won’t be dropping out anytime soon.

4 – Helena Bonham Carter / HGM: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011) – $1,341,511,219

Helena Bonham Carter

Your husband is a gifted, visionary filmmaker who regularly finds roles for you in his movies.  Do you turn him down, afraid of cries of favouritism?  Or do you take every opportunity he gives you, and so cement your place in the list of the top ten actresses at the box office?  It’s a no-brainer really, but Carter’s place at number four does rely heavily on her work with Tim Burton and the latter entries in the Harry Potter saga.  But even so she’s a remarkably talented actress who does some of her best work in movies that get very little exposure – Till Human Voices Wake Us (2002), Enid (2009) – and with a return trip to Wonderland fast approaching, she’s not moving from this list for some considerable time.

3 – Julia Roberts / HGM: Pretty Woman (1990) – $463,406,268

Julia Roberts

Is it really almost twenty-five years since Pretty Woman made an overnight star of Julia Roberts?  (Well, yes of course it is.)  One of the most consistently successful actresses of the last quarter century, she’s achieved her place on the list without the benefit of being part of a franchise (the first two Ocean’s movies are the nearest she’s come to being in a series), and by virtue of making some very astute choices; a case in point: Charlotte’s Web (2006) took over $144m.  Despite a couple of missteps in recent years, she’s still an actress who commands attention, and with a role in the upcoming remake of The Secret in Their Eyes (2009), it seems she’s not about to slow down anytime soon.

2 – Emma Watson / HGM: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 (2011) – $1,341,511,219

Emma Watson

The youngest member of the Top 10 owes her place to a certain bespectacled wizard, but with This Is the End (2013) and Noah (2014) both taking over $100m at the box office (and Noah considerably more), she seems to have secured her future (and put Hermione firmly behind her).  Watson effectively has the world at her feet and it’ll be interesting to see if she continues to make as many interesting movies as she’s made in the last few years.  Whatever happens, her place on the list is assured (and especially if J.K. Rowling bows to popular demand and comes up with Harry Potter: The Adult Years).

1 – Cameron Diaz / HGM: Shrek 2 (2004) – $919,838,758

Cameron Diaz

Ruling the roost is an actress whose career has had its ups and downs in recent years, but even the critical duds have made money (The Green Hornet (2011) somehow made $227,817,248 – incredible).  With the Shrek franchise, plus fourteen other movies that have broken the $100m barrier, Diaz is an A-lister who consistently brings in the audiences (especially when she’s starring in a comedy).  With the remake of Annie due later this year, and a return to being a Bad Teacher also on the cards, Diaz’s mix of safe movies interspersed with more edgy fare looks set to continue to keep her in the top spot.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

08 Friday Aug 2014

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Guardians of the Galaxy

D: James Gunn / 121m

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, Benicio Del Toro, Laura Haddock, Peter Serafinowicz, Christopher Fairbank, Josh Brolin

As a child, and following the death of his mother (Haddock), Peter Quill (Pratt) is kidnapped by aliens; as an adult, all he has as a memory of Earth and his past is a Sony Walkman and a cassette of his mother’s favourite songs.  Now a skilled thief working for the bandit who abducted (and raised) him, Yondu (Rooker), Quill steals a mysterious orb for an equally mysterious buyer but decides to sell it himself, taking it to the planet Xandar.  When the fence he tries to sell it to refuses to take it when Quill mentions the orb is being sought by Kree warlord Ronan the Accuser (Pace), the man who’d prefer it if people called him Star Lord finds himself attacked by Gamora (Saldana).  Gamora is the adopted daughter of Thanos (Brolin), sent by Ronan to retrieve the orb.  As they fight for possession of the orb it attracts the attention of Rocket Raccoon (Cooper) and his companion Groot (Diesel), who want Quill for the bounty on his head.  They all end up being arrested by the Xandarian police and are sent to the Kyln, a prison in orbit around Xandar.

Once there, Gamora reveals she means to betray both Ronan and Thanos, and wants the orb to be given over to another buyer who will know how to keep it safe.  The four become five when they convince inmate Drax the Destroyer (Bautista) to join them; he wants revenge on Ronan for the death of his family.  They escape, with the orb, and rendezvous with Gamora’s secret buyer, The Collector (Del Toro).  He reveals that the orb contains an Infinity Stone, a powerful gem that in the wrong hands could be used to destroy whole worlds.  One of The Collector’s assistants tries to use the Stone to kill him but she is unable to control the Stone’s power and she is killed, while The Collector’s base is partially destroyed.  Quill and the rest escape with the orb but are ambushed by Ronan; in a dogfight with her sister, Nebula (Gillan), Gamora’s ship is blown up and Nebula retrieves the orb, leaving Gamora adrift in space amongst the wreckage.  Quill rescues her, but not before he alerts Yondu as to his whereabouts.

On board Yondu’s ship, Quill convinces him to help retrieve the orb and join in the fight to stop Ronan (who has since absorbed the power of the Infinity Stone and has threatened even Thanos).  Quill devises a plan to stop him, and as Ronan heads toward Xandar in order to destroy it, the five disparate “friends” realise that only they can save the galaxy.

Guardians of the Galaxy - scene

Long regarded as the riskiest move in Marvel’s assault on the box office, Guardians of the Galaxy is likely to be their most effective, most enjoyable and most well delivered movie for some time to come (and if there’s any justice in the cosmos, their most financially successful movie as well).  This latest instalment in Marvel’s ever-expanding Cinematic Universe is a joy to watch from start to finish, a winning combination of thrills, heroics, action, hugely impressive special effects, enthralling set pieces, well grounded characters, and laughs galore.  It’s a mix that could easily have gone wrong, but thanks to an assured hand at the helm in co-writer (with Nicole Perlman) and director Gunn, Marvel’s bold mov(i)e has paid off.

There’s so much to enjoy here that it’s hard to know where to start.  As an origin movie, Guardians of the Galaxy, at first glance, appears to paint in broad brush strokes, but as the movie progresses and we learn more and more about the characters and get to know them, their individual quirks and foibles become more established, until by the movie’s end, all five guardians seem like old friends.  Pratt takes Quill’s exuberance and cocky charm and establishes it as a cover for the more serious, more regretful character he really is, while Saldana takes Gamora’s hardened exterior – necessary as a daughter of Thanos – and gradually softens it to reveal a more caring demeanour underneath.  That they complement each other is expected, but their fledgling romance is played out with due reference to their differences, and never feels as stereotypical as it might have done given the conventions of the genre.

As Drax, Bautista takes his physical presence and subverts audience expectations – both of the character and his acting ability – by providing a clever, rounded performance that overcomes some arch dialogue and draws laughs from Drax’s literal interpretations of metaphors and analogies.  The WWE star has a great sense of comic timing and delivery and more than holds his own against his co-stars, even the CGI creations Rocket and Groot, whose odd couple pairing is the movie’s strongest suit, their friendship providing an indelible emotional heft.  Cooper invests Rocket with energy and devil-may-care recklessness, while Groot is just… Groot, Diesel investing his simple lines (“I am Groot”) with enough variation of delivery to make his meaning clear throughout.

With five great performances anchoring the movie so well, the supporting cast can only hope to hang on and keep up.  As Yondu, Rooker is all blue skin, pointy teeth and unconvincing thuggishness, while Gillan oozes venom as the villainous Nebula, her voice cleverly distorted to reflect her cyborg attributes.  Pace as Ronan is the antithesis of his role as Thranduil in The Hobbit trilogy, his sharp features broadened and cloaked in make up, his physical presence as threatening as his vocal manner.  And as Xandarians Corpsman Dey and Nova Prime, Reilly and Close offer sterling support (witness Nova’s conclusion after a less than satisfactory discussion with a Kree diplomat).

The performances are the icing on the cake, the story propelling itself forward with undisguised vigour, Gunn’s expert handling never losing sight of the wider story arc that is obviously to come in future movies and is hinted at towards the end.  The dramatic elements fuse well with the humour – Guardians may just turn out to be one of the funniest movies of 2014 – and the action set pieces are exhilarating, especially the aerial assault on Ronan’s ship, the Dark Aster.  There are a couple of missteps: Drax alerting Ronan to their presence at The Collector’s reeks of awkward (and unnecessary) plot advancement; and Thanos (Brolin) is just a guy on a throne, with no menace to him at all (no wonder Ronan betrays him).  But otherwise, the movie is a genuine winner, a crowd-pleaser for everyone of all ages.

Rating: 9/10 – a huge delight for fans and for newcomers alike, Guardians of the Galaxy cements Marvel’s position as global box office leader; with a post credits scene that is just sublime, this is one movie set in a galaxy far, far away that is (almost) pure entertainment from beginning to end.

Marvel One-Shots (2011-2014)

09 Sunday Feb 2014

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Marvel One-Shots

Created as a way of expanding the Marvel Cinematic Universe, these short films feature minor and/or new characters from said universe, and have been made with the aim of showing what can, and does, go on outside of Marvel’s feature films.  It’s a clever, fun idea that allows fans of the movies a further glimpse of (mostly) established characters but in set ups that wouldn’t have fit in with the movies but provide a riff on them at the same time.  To date there are five such short films, with Marvel planning more in the future.

The Consultant (2011)

Consultant, The

D: Leythum / 4m

Cast: Clark Gregg, Maximiliano Hernández, Robert Downey Jr, William Hurt

Set mostly in a diner, Agents Coulson (Gregg) and Sitwell (Hernández) discuss the World Security Council’s plan to have Emil Blonsky aka The Abomination released to join the Avengers initiative.  With both agents aware that Nick Fury has no wish for this to happen, they try to come up with a plan to sabotage Blonsky’s release.  To do this Sitwell decides the best course of action would be to send the one man that General Ross (Hurt) would be so annoyed by that the whole idea would be stalled before it got started, namely Tony Stark (Downey Jr).  Agent Coulson is reluctant but agrees.  We then see the footage from the end of The Incredible Hulk where Stark meets Ross.  Sitwell and Coulson meet again at the diner and we discover their plan has worked and Blonsky will remain in prison.

Consultant, The - scene

The Consultant is a neat, concise addendum to both Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk and shows how S.H.I.E.L.D. orchestrates things from behind the scenes.  With pleasing performances from Gregg and Hernández allied to witty, informative dialogue, the movie establishes a lot in a short space of time, and thanks to Eric Pearson’s tightly constructed script, makes a virtue of its brevity.  Strangely, the inclusion of footage from the end of The Incredible Hulk actually undermines the cleverness of the movie’s structure (and besides which, we’ve seen it before).

Rating: 8/10 – a well-crafted, concise addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe that works on various levels and all to good effect; a great introduction to a series of movies that complement Marvel’s main features.

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer (2011)

Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer, A

D: Leythum / 4m

Cast: Clark Gregg, Jessica Manuel, Jeff Prewett, Zach Hudson

Set before the events seen in Thor, this sees Agent Coulson travelling to Albuquerque, New Mexico.  When he stops at a gas station, he finds himself caught up in a robbery attempt.  Disabling the robbers with ease – and a couple of Matrix-inspired moves – he leaves and carries on with his journey, leaving the sales clerk (Manuel) still astonished at what’s just happened.

Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor's Hammer, A - scene

With Agent Coulson appearing a little nerdy in the previous movies, it’s fun to see him kick some butt, and with more than a little style.  Gregg is obviously having fun too, and his dialogue is delivered in a dry, deadpan style that adds to the enjoyment.  Of the five short films so far released, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Thor’s Hammer has the least relevance to any of the movies, and does come across as a bit of a throwaway piece.  But it is entertaining, and again, Eric Pearson’s script is a model of economic storytelling.

Rating: 7/10 – enjoyable on a superficial level and providing Agent Coulson with the chance to show off his moves, A Funny Thing… hits the spot with the accuracy of a bag of flour; and true fans will have spotted that the gas station is owned by Roxxon, a name that may have some relevance in the future.

Item 47 (2012)

Item 47

D: Louis D’Esposito / 12m

Cast: Lizzy Caplan, Jesse Bradford, Maximiliano Hernández, Titus Welliver

Occurring in the wake of the battle of New York, Item 47 introduces us to Bennie and Claire, who have not only found one of the forty-seven Chitauri weapons that fell out of the sky during the battle, but have also got it to work.  Looking to make their life more comfortable, they use the weapon to rob banks.  Naturally, the use of alien technology in these circumstances comes to the attention of S.H.I.E.L.D.  Agents Sitwell and Blake (Welliver) are assigned to the case.  Leaving Blake to his computer programmes, Sitwell reveals he has a lead on the couple and is about to apprehend them.  When he tries to do so, the motel room they’re staying in is destroyed along with all the stolen money.  Realising that Bennie having worked out to use the Chitauri weapon could be an asset to S.H.I.E.L.D. Sitwell recruits him, and Claire, who becomes Blake’s assistant.  (There’s an advance nod here to Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. TV series, with Bennie and Claire close matches for the show’s Leo and Skye.)

Item 47 - scene

With its longer running time, and introduction of three new characters, Item 47 shows Marvel gaining confidence in its One-Shot “division”, and feeling comfortable about broadening the scope of its remit.  With multiple locations and more acknowledgments to Avengers Assemble crammed in than seems feasible, the movie still manages to keep it simple throughout and again, thanks to a cleverly constructed script by Eric Pearson (give this man a feature-length movie!), is entertaining and grabs the attention from the start.  Caplan and Bradford make a great team, Hernández stakes his claim to a larger role in a feature, and the humour is as well-played as in the previous shorts.  The only stumble is a clumsy reference to Agent Coulson’s demise, but it’s a momentary lapse and more awkward than out of place.

Rating: 8/10 – a winning mix of sci-fi and S.H.I.E.L.D.-related humour, Item 47 proves a quantum leap from its predecessors; bright, funny, with great special effects, this shows Marvel increasing in confidence and showing everyone else in the superhero field how it should be done.

Agent Carter (2013)

Agent Carter

D: Louis D’Esposito / 15m

Cast: Hayley Atwell, Bradley Whitford, Dominic Cooper, Tim Trobec, Neal McDonough, Shane Black (voice only), Chris Evans

A year after the events shown in Captain America: The First Avenger, we find Peggy Carter (Atwell) working for the Strategic Scientific Reserve, a task force dedicated to dealing with similar threats to those encountered during World War II which led to Steve Rogers’ (apparent) demise.  Stuck compiling data while her male colleagues are routinely given field duties – but not always succeeding in them – Peggy finds herself alone in the office one night when the case line rings.  The mysterious Zodiac has been located but time is of the essence.  Ignoring the recommendation that five or six operatives are required, Peggy heads off to retrieve Zodiac and show her misogynist boss, Flynn (Whitford), that she’s just as good, if not better, than the rest of the agents.  She completes the mission, and when Flynn challenges her the next day, he’s forced to eat his words: the case line rings and Flynn has to relay a message from Howard Stark (Cooper) that Peggy is to come to Washington and help him run S.H.I.E.L.D.

Agent Carter - scene

Easily the best of the One-Shots, Agent Carter bristles with invention, wit, style, a great performance from Atwell, and yet another razor-sharp script courtesy of Eric Pearson (seriously, the man can do no wrong).  With an attention to period detail that grounds the action without drawing attention to it, and a fluid camera style courtesy of DP Gabriel Beristain, Agent Carter looks and feels like it could be part of a feature-length outing.  There’s been lots of talk about an Agent Carter TV series, but on this evidence a movie would be a much better idea (and allow a look at the origins of S.H.I.E.L.D.).  With cameos from Howard Stark and Dum Dum Dugan to keep the fans even happier, Agent Carter is a joy to watch from start to finish.

Rating: 9/10 – a perfect example of Marvel’s ability to pick the right cast, and put them in a storyline that rewards its audience no matter how many times it’s viewed; superb on every level and perhaps the best Marvel movie so far… of any length.

All Hail the King (2014)

All Hail the King

D: Drew Pearce / 14m

Cast: Ben Kingsley, Scoot McNairy, Lester Speight, Sam Rockwell, Matt Gerald, Allen Maldonado

Doing time in Seagate Prison, and happily affected by the perils of being a national celebrity, actor and one-time Mandarin impersonator Trevor Slattery (Kingsley) is being interviewed by documentary filmmaker Jackson Norris (McNairy).  With help from his “butler” Herman (Speight), Slattery has managed to maintain his notoriety while in prison and many of the inmates regard him as a star; they even ask him to quote lines from the videos he made as the Mandarin (“You’ll never see me coming”).  With the interview proving a hit and miss affair – Slattery is evasive and rambling and self-serving in almost equal measure – things begin to take a worrying turn when Norris starts talking about the Ten Rings terrorist group, and its links to the real Mandarin.  Oblivious to the implication of what Norris is telling him, Slattery remains unaware of the danger he’s in even when Norris kills the guards with them and tells Slattery he’s going to meet the Mandarin in person.

All Hail the King - scene

And that’s where All Hail the King ends.  It’s a little unsatisfactory, and while Kingsley returns to the role of Slattery with the same mischievous glint in his eye that he had in Iron Man 3, the structure of this particular One-Shot is not as effective as Item 47 or Agent Carter.  The problem lies mainly with the content of the interview, which like its interviewee, rambles all over the place for around five minutes before abandoning its own agenda in favour of the unexpected twist that Norris is there to abduct Slattery so he can face the music elsewhere.  With a script by director Pearce (who also co-wrote Iron Man 3) that isn’t as cohesive or sharp as those by Eric Pearson, All Hail the King isn’t as successful as its predecessors, and struggles to keep its focus.  The expected humour is there, and there is a terrific cameo from Rockwell as Justin Hammer, bemoaning Slattery’s celebrity status (and in the movie’s best moment, likening him to the offspring of… well, I won’t spoil it, but it’s the best joke in the whole movie – hell, in all the One-Shots), but these two positives shine out while the rest of the short is more mundane.  (And for the eagle-eyed out there, yes that is Captain America’s shield tattooed on the back of Slattery’s neck, and yes Seagate Prison is where Marvel’s Luke Cage was created.)

Rating: 7/10 – a misstep rescued by Kingsley’s performance and Rockwell in pouting mode; not as clever or as well thought out as the other One-Shots but, thankfully, not entirely a dud either.

X-Men: Apocalypse and Cinema’s Dependency on Superheroes

10 Tuesday Dec 2013

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The announcement a couple of days ago that Bryan Singer would be directing another X-Men movie, due to be released in 2016, seemed equally exciting and dispiriting at the same time.  When I first heard the news, my reaction was mixed: if the forthcoming Days of Future Past is as good as it looks then another X-Men movie, especially if it involves Apocalypse (a fan favourite), will be worth looking forward to.  But then I also thought, they’re talking about a movie that won’t be here for another three years.  Three years!  Can anyone really be that excited by the prospect?  And then I realised that yes, there probably was: that rare breed of upright ape, studio executives.

Apocalypse

Ever since Marvel went all Phase One on us and released Iron Man (2008), the big studios have lagged behind in their efforts to match the  returns that Marvel have made at the box office (at time of writing, the eight Marvel movies that have made it out of the gate so far – Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Thor (2011), Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), Marvel’s The Avengers (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Thor: The Dark World (2013), have amassed over five and a half billion dollars).  That level of success has definitely got the suits at Warner Bros., Sony and Fox practically scrambling to catch up.  So now, in various stages of development we have the follow-up to Man of Steel (2013) which we now know will also feature Batman and Wonder Woman as well as Superman, reboots of Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and the upcoming X-Men movies, as well as the Spider-Man franchise which is going to run to at least four movies and may even spawn some off-shoot movies featuring characters from that particular strand of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

With Marvel committed to a Phase Three that will begin in 2015 with Ant Man, and continue with two movies in 2016 and one in 2017, it seems that we’ll be wading through big-budget superhero movies for some time to come.  And while it’s true Marvel has been canny enough to attract the right talent both behind and in front of the camera – Kenneth Branagh? Did anyone see that coming? – and as a result have garnered a degree of critical acclaim, the fact is that the movies that the majority of people on the planet want to go and see at the moment involve weird men and women in weirder costumes.  Now, I’m not some cineaste who thinks the only good movie is one that examines the plight of the dispossessed or that one ten minute static shot of an actor’s face eclipses any CGI-fuelled spectacle hands down, but I do have to question whether or not we’re losing some kind of perspective here.  Don’t get me wrong, I look forward to seeing a Marvel movie as much as the next person (providing they’re not still living with their mum at the age of forty), but what are we missing when the adventures of a man in a high-tech tin suit, or an ex-wimp with a shiny shield command so much of our attention and excite us so much?

Is it the grand scale on which this particular brand of escapism is served up?  Is it a combination of seeing characters previously only seen to good effect in comic books, now looking incredibly real on the big screen, and having them do all the things we’ve had to settle for seeing in flat old 2D?  Perhaps.  Or is it because the rest of the movies out there are pale and uninteresting in comparison, the skinny kid on the beach to Marvel’s Charles Atlas?  I think it’s all these things, plus one more, one very important part of the whole package that Marvel have done, and continue to do, since Tony Stark first stomped out of that cave in 2008: tell the audience what they can expect next time…and then the time after that.  Not in detail, but just enough to keep their attention from waning, and carefully spaced out between movies so that it’s always there, that knowledge that, like the legendary bus of English urban mythology, there’ll be another one along soon.

Which brings us back to the announcement that in 2016 we can all head down to our local multiplex and revel in the antics of a wheelchair-bound mind reader, a psychotic spoon bender, and their merry bands of malcontents.  If I’m being a bit facetious with my descriptions of Professor Xavier and Magneto, it’s because I can’t help but think it comes back to perspective.  The best film I’ve seen so far this year – by a nautical mile – is Captain Phillips.  It is one of the most gripping, emotional, tension-filled dramas you’re ever likely to see, and despite the high drama depicted, it’s a relatively small-scale movie (until the US Navy arrives).  It’s filmed with an emphasis on tight close-ups and even tighter locations: the bridge of the ship and its confines, and most of all, the lifeboat that houses Phillips and the four Somali pirates for about an hour.  It’s tour-de-force filmmaking, bravura in its style and scope, and an emotional rollercoaster ride to boot; it’s quite simply, breathtaking.  And yet, despite glowing reviews, an Oscar-worthy performance from Tom Hanks, and the exceptional directing talents of Paul Greengrass, more attention will have been paid to some blond bloke with a hammer and his sneaky adopted brother than to the real life story of a captain forced to engage tactically with Somali pirates.

Captain Phillips

Yes, but Marvel are making “entertainment”, I hear you say, their movies don’t have be deep and/or meaningful.  And I would agree with you, except that Marvel themselves are trying their best to make sure their movies have some depth and/or meaning to them.  These are largely tragic heroes, each trapped by fate or destiny into being the heroes that they are, and yet longing for peace, and mostly for themselves.  But ultimately, and in spite of Marvel’s good intentions, the focus will always remain on blowing things up, or knocking things down, or fighting.  The spectacle is what matters most.  Imagine turning up to see the next Thor movie, only to find it’s two hours of Thor and Jane Foster discussing their relationship à la Before Midnight (2013).  The fans would stay away in their millions. Ultimately, Marvel are giving people what they want, and the other studios will follow suit until the sight of yet another superhero crashing unscathed through yet another building is considered passé, and we all move on to the next big genre, whether it’s Westerns, or musicals, or play-doh animation.

For me, the news that Bryan Singer will be directing X-Men: Apocalypse for release in 2016 is neither good nor bad.  At this stage it’s very much an unknown quantity; it may not even happen.  What frightens me most, I guess, is that, already, too many people care about the announcement and the proposed movie for it to be a truly good thing.  Call me an old curmudgeon but if you’re excited by a movie that you won’t see for three years, and you can’t wait for it to get here, then the marketers and the sales guys and the executives and the CEOs have all won the jackpot in advance… only you’ll be providing the winnings.  Opt for a kind of studied indifference instead.  Damn it, make them work really hard for your attention!

Agree?  Disagree?  Feel free to let me know.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

05 Tuesday Nov 2013

Posted by in Movies

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Thor The Dark World

D: Alan Taylor / 120m

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston, Stellan Skarsgård, Kat Dennings, Idris Elba, Jaimie Alexander, Zachary Levi, Ray Stevenson, Tadanobu Asano, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Rene Russo

Another sequel to Avengers Assemble, rather than to the first Thor movie, this opens with a prologue that introduces us to the Dark Elves, evil creatures who want to see an end to the Nine Realms (if you’re not a Marvel fan, just go with me on this).  Their leader Malekith (Eccleston) plans to use the Aether, a swirling mass of energy that will allow him to do this when the realms are in alignment.  Thwarted by Odin’s (Hopkins) father, Malekith is forced into hiding, and the Aether is hidden “where no one will find it”.

Fast forward five thousand years (how often the realms are in alignment) and Malekith returns to do his worst.  Meanwhile, Loki (Hiddleston) is imprisoned in Asgard, Jane Foster (Portman) is unhappy that two years have past since she last saw Thor (Hemsworth), and Thor is busy bringing peace to the Nine Realms by fighting anyone who stands in his way.  Alerted to strange phenomena in a deserted warehouse somewhere in London, Jane stumbles across the Aether and becomes its host.  With Jane’s life on the line, it’s up to Thor to save both her and thwart Malekith’s evil plans.  But in order to do so he’ll need help…

Thor The Dark World - scene

This third outing for Thor is huge fun from start to finish, with spectacular set-pieces, humour that ranges from subtle to broader than Volstagg’s (Stevenson) pectorals, gravitas courtesy of Hopkins (as Odin) and Russo (as Frigga), further explorations of the fraternal bond that chafes between Thor and Loki, and the best cameo from another Avenger… ever.  The romance between Thor and Jane is given more space – which is a good thing otherwise Portman would have remained sorely under-used – while the accepted jealousy that Sif (Alexander) feels towards Jane is handled effectively.  It’s the quiet moments such as these that offset the action sequences so well, and while those sequences are directed with accomplished flair by Taylor, it’s the ongoing character developments that Marvel are getting right each time.  At the heart of the film , though, is the relationship between Thor and Loki, here given added depth by their having to work together to defeat Malekith; the interaction between Hemsworth and Hiddleston is a joy to watch.  Hiddleston has a ball (again) as Loki and grabs all the best lines, while Hemsworth continues to mature in the role he’s made his own.  Of the supporting cast, Elba, Russo and Dennings shine, while Eccleston makes more of a villain whose sole motivation seems to be ‘destroy everything’.

Taylor handles the various twists and turns of the storyline with experienced aplomb – can we stop mentioning he worked on Game of Thrones now? – and while the script by Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely has its fair share of plot contrivances, they don’t detract from the enjoyment provided by this latest instalment in Marvel’s plans to dominate the cinema box office.  There’s also some great location work at Greenwich (three stops from Charing Cross on the underground – really?), and fantastic production design courtesy of Charles Wood.

Rating: 8/10 – top-notch episode from Phase 2 of the Marvel Universe that also helps set up the forthcoming Guardians of the Galaxy; bold and more confident in every way.  And by the way, note to Marvel: find some way to give Loki his own movie – okay?