Tag: guardians of the galaxy

Thunderbolts (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A ragtag group of misfits join together to save the day. Yes, it’s been done.

Doctor Strange, released back in 2016, was the 14th movie of the MCU. Think of everything that happened between the release of Iron Man and the release of that. All the original Avengers had been introduced, they had met, teamed up, and split. Tony Stark stepped into a leadership role alongside Steve Rodgers, Thor learned how to step back and not be so pigheaded, the Captain America trilogy showed us something special. I’m saying that because Thunderbolts is the 14th movie since Endgame, it would be impossible to argue that the MCU has taken the same steps. Post-Endgame, it’s still struggling to find an identity or story arc. There’s also been a change in intentions; it used to be focused on “we’re going to tell stories”, and now it seems to be based more on moments. When people talk about Doctor Strange 2: More Strangerer, they often don’t talk about the story, what the characters went through, etc; they talk about the scene where Scarlet Witch kills multiverse versions of characters we want to see. Even Brave New World was focused almost entirely around the scene of Red Hulk (and then spoiled in the trailer, so what was the point of watching the movie?). Thunderbolts feels like a change from that. For the first time, there are no huge reveals that are there to bait the audience (except for the Fantastic Four reference in the post-credits scene, which was spoiled by the “Fantastic Four Theme” listed in the credits itself).

For the first time in a long time, it has genuine emotion and character development. It’s been marketed as being similar to Guardians Of The Galaxy, but to me it felt more like Winter Soldier. Importantly, it feels mature. Even the way the villain is defeated is different from the usual superhero fare. It could be argued that Thunderbolts isn’t even about the villain, not really. It’s about depression, trauma, and youth football (of the non-US variety). It feels like an actual honest-to-god movie, rather than just a comic book movie.

It’s not perfect. There are a few moments which reveal things much earlier than the film intends. This isn’t a criticism of foreshadowing, I love that shit. But there are moments where you realise, “Okay, well, Marvel would never do the thing they want us to think they’ve done, which means there’s no threat in this scene” It’s hard to explain the specifics without spoilers. Also, I find it unrealistic that Bucky Barnes would be nominated as a congressman. Not because he has killed multiple people, including JFK, and the Starks. Not because you can never be truly certain if he’ll kill again. But because he has a definitive history of being anti-Nazi, that just won’t fly in modern America.

I liked how grounded this film felt. This is a weird thing to say about a film that features a character who is basically Superman. But it felt relatively small, in a good way. They weren’t saving the world from an extinction-level event. They were nipping a local event in the bud before it became a problem. This was superheroing as prevention rather than reaction. When people are in danger, it’s not directly because of the villain, but because of the side effects of what he did. The biggest threat to human life, the scenes which feature the most near-deaths, are focused around one helicopter crash; it flies into a building, causing structural damage, and that damage rains down onto civilians below. I love that. I also like when it allowed my favourite superhero cliche to happen; characters running towards danger while everyone else runs away. That image in the Justice League trailer was what sold Affleck as Batman to me, and I love it when it’s repeated.

As I said, a really solid script. But none of that would be worth a shot glass of monkey glass (what the fuck?) if the performers weren’t up to it. Why isn’t Wyatt Russell a bigger deal? Seriously, if you showed someone a photo of him, or one of his performances, they would assume he’s a big deal, someone who producers and directors have to fight to get to lead their movies because they know he’ll make them a success. He just FEELS like a star. I mean, he’s still highly regarded, but it genuinely baffles me how no studio has worked out a way to make him a household name. Florence Pugh is great, and her accent barely wavers, same with David Harbour, but he’s let down by a few moments where his character showcases the worst of Marvel screenwriting; badly timed quips. I will always love seeing Julia Louis-Dreyfus on screen, same with Geraldine Viswanathan. The two of them have weirdly good chemistry for two performers who I don’t think have worked together before; they could easily lead a sitcom or road trip comedy together.

In summary, one of the strongest MCU films in a while, and sets up enough dominoes for future movies to knock down.

Borderlands (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: A group of people aren’t friends, but have to work together to do something to save others. Yeah, original.

I love watching films, I’d just like to point that out (just in case the almost 500 reviews on this site didn’t make that clear). But I’m not one of those people who hunt down trailers of everything and absorb information about everything that’s coming out. My at-home trailer use mainly consists of films I already know I’m interested in/curious about. The way I find myself watching NEW trailers is generally at the cinema itself. So I distinctly remember the first time I watched this trailer (I believe it was one of the trailers before Frozen Empire), I turned towards my cousin and said “Well someone’s watched Guardians Of The Galaxy”. The whole thing looked like a mockbuster GOTG directed by some music video guy on a budget of $11.50 and a tin of chopped tomatoes, starring the editor’s best friends cousin’s wife, only it was directed by Eli Roth and had a budget of around $120million, starring scream queen (and star of Scream Queen) Jamie Lee Curtis, five-time winner of “ohhhhh, her, I like her” award Cate Blanchett (whose crown has now been taken by Olivia Colman), and the person who stole the “I’m gonna fuck that Peach” award from Timothee Chalamet, Jack Black.

Maybe that was just the marketing, maybe the film itself will actually be surprisingly good. I mean, it’s directed by a competent director and has a very talented cast. So there’s always a possibility it will actually be really good. But is it? To answer that question I’ll show you a sentence I sent to someone after I left the cinema that day:

“Watched Borderlands and the new Alien movie today. The new Alien is very good”

That sums it up. Borderlands is not just bad compared to Alien (spoilers for that review), it’s a bad film. For a storyteller as creative and visionary as Eli Roth, Borderlands is a shockingly cliche piece of work. It follows the standard “ragtag group of misfits go in search of a MacGuffin” plot that has already been seen in both GOTG and DAD: HAT. It has gone through ten different scriptwriters in its development, and usually, that causes a film to be inconsistent and a tonal mess. Thankfully that’s not the case here, it keeps a pretty even tone and level of quality throughout; it’s just a shame that level of quality is complete shit. I’m not going to go into the “Blanchett is 52 but the character in the game is 22, and the character Kevin Hart plays is taller” etc. Those are valid concerns and criticisms for fans of the game, but I’ve never played the games so they didn’t affect my enjoyment of it at all. In fact, the cast is one of the few things Borderlands has going for it (and there are some subtle visual storytelling touches which are really good), everything else sucks.

It’s not terrible in a “nobody is trying” way, people are trying, they’re just making terrible decisions. The chief one is the violence, there’s not any. Borderlands NEEDS blood, this film is crying out for it. I’m guessing it’s so it can get a 12A rating instead of a 15, and thus appeal to more people. It’s clear that the studio wanted Borderlands aimed at the mass market, which was a mistake. Not only because of the lack of violence but also because it seems to assume the audience is full of idiots. That’s clear from the opening, which features far too much narration, and holds your hand more than a nervous mother teaching her child to cross the road. It doesn’t trust you to work something out for yourself. Such is its dedication to “No questions! No wonder!” I’m surprised that every character isn’t introduced with a fact sheet saying where you’re likely to know each actor from. The most egregious demonstration of this is when the film tells us that Lilith is from Pandora. Now, how do you think this film did it?

  1. “I haven’t been there in a long time”, and leave the meaning hanging in the air.
  2. Have another character tell them “I need you for this job, I know you were born there”
  3. When she arrives on the planet, have her say something along the lines of “This planet is shit, I should know, I was born here”.

Take a guess. I’ll wait. Have you guessed? Congratulations! You’re correct. I’m not saying that because I guessed that you picked the one most likely, I’m saying that because whichever one you picked you are correct since it does all three. They aren’t even spread out, all three of them take place within a few minutes. So it’s not even “we’re recapping this in case you went to the toilet”. There are other issues with the writing; primarily the amount of moments which make no sense.

The best example; everybody in the group is wanted by the police, so how do they disguise themselves? With a hologram mask. One of the characters has bright red hair, one talks like Kevin Hart, one is giant and muscled, one is a one-of-a-kind robot, and another has bunny ears. With all those visual and audio clues, I don’t think “slight covering of the face” is going to do much good to hide your face. If you saw Superman walking around in full costume but wearing a Lucha Libre wrestling mask, I’m pretty sure you’d still recognise it’s him by the giant fucking S on his chest. Same issue here. That’s not an issue for long as the masks are never used again once the characters pass that level scene. Fuck it, I hid it there but I’m going to flat-out say it here now; there’s zero cohesion between different scenes, as such they all come off as a series of levels rather than one continual narrative. As a result, it sometimes feels like we’re not watching a movie, but instead seeing a 2-hour “highlights” package from a 13-hour videogame. That’s why there are random things which aren’t explained at all, why certain characters’ relationships with each other seem to be based not on emotion or truth, but on the amount of time left in the film, and why it makes bafflingly random time skips at a level not seen since Fant4stic.

It’s nowhere near as bad as Madame Web was, but that’s damning it with faint praise. As I said, the performances from the leads are fine, Ariana Greenblatt in particular is a ball of chaotic energy. There are some nice ideas at play here, and the visuals are pretty nice to look at. But otherwise? When the universe collapses in on itself and completely destroys existence, the resulting void of infinite nothingness will still have more stars than this deserves out of 5. Harsh? Yes, but it deserves it.

The Suicide Squad (2021)

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Quick Synopsis: A group of sociopaths get forced to team up to steal shit from an island. Chaos and hilarity ensues.

This was either going to be amazing or a complete mess. James Gunn managed to capture lightning in a bottle with Guardians Of The Galaxy, but that was a film with (lets be honest) not many people paying attention to it. There wasn’t really much expectations for it. This was the opposite, the critical failure of the last Suicide Squad movie meant that people were waiting for this. Some were waiting for it to fail, so they could continue to decry the DC Universe, they were waiting for the smallest mistake in the film so they could call it trash. Whereas some were the opposite, using anything positive to show that it’s an example of Gunn’s genius.

All I can say is that the first group will be disappointed. This is a brilliant film. It’s incredibly funny, brilliantly slick, and makes the most of the rating it’s been given, being gleefully violent. The violence is strange, it’s kind of horrific in parts, but it’s so out there that it’s weirdly comedic. This is best demonstrated in a scene where Peacemaker and Bloodsport walk through a village killing everybody in a “top this” competition with each other, the kills getting increasingly brutal and sadistic as they walk through the village. It’s disturbing and hilarious in equal measure, but it does a great job of selling you on these characters. It’s storytelling through violence, it actually tells you information. The reveal after this scene of who they killed is also hilarious.

There were early concerns that Idris Elba would be playing Deadshot, replacing Will Smith. I can see why that was thought, the characters are quite similar, and have similar motivations. They’re completely different in the actual films though. It helps that Elba is really good at what he does (but he does sometimes pick terrible movies), as is John Cena. They have great chemistry and make a great double act. It’s still weird seeing Cena swear so much when I normally know him as a squeaky clean hero to all, and I’m really looking forward to the Peacemaker spin-off. Actually the whole cast is wonderful, Daniela Melchior, in particular, is a real highlight and I look forward to seeing her do more stuff. David Dastmalchian is wonderfully neurotic in how he plays Polka-Dot man, taking a character who could be a joke and providing him with depth and tragedy. It really is all about Peacemaker and Bloodsport though.

I reviewed the original years ago, and wasn’t very complimentary. This one improves on it in every way. The performances are better, the story is better (albeit still quite simple), the relationships between the characters are better, and the use of music is much better. The original had an issue where it felt overloaded with music for musics sake. For this the music really suits it, and is placed far enough apart from each other that the film actually has moments of silence that allow you to breathe. There are a few characters returning and they’re all done better in this. Harley Quinn makes more sense, Waller seems more dangerous, and Rick Flag feels like a completely different character.

It also looks a lot better, it’s not as bright, but the colours are vivid enough that it’s a pleasure to actually sit and watch. Plus the actual geography of each scene is much better, even when there’s chaos going on you have a grasp of where everybody is in relation to each other.

Sadly, there is a chance this film may not be a huge financial success. It’s confusingly titled to casual viewers, who may be unsure if it’s a reboot, a sequel, or just a reimagining. It’s hard to tell exactly when this film took place too, as the events of Birds Of Prey are completely ignored. In fact, almost all the films before this are ignored. On the plus side that means it works as a standalone movie. On the downside, what was the point of investing time in previous movies then? Could you have not just thrown in a quick line to explain where Huntress etc are?

That’s a small issue though (as is the fact that they continue to make Harley Quinn herself severely overpowered to the point where it feels like she’s the most powerful being in the film). You will enjoy it, mostly. There’s one moment which you won’t; when The Thinker reveals the truth about project starfish. It’s completely horrifying, and one of the most disturbing moments in modern superhero cinema. Somehow it’s more disturbing than half the world dying in Avengers. It’s just so cold, calculating, and downright evil that it’s difficult to think of far too long without being utterly horrified. And it’s amazing. More superhero films should have the guts to go as horrific as this did. To provoke debate about human sacrifice and government policy.

So in summary, well worth seeing, at the cinema, possibly more than once.

Raya And The Last Dragon (2021)

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A Disney movie released straight to Disney+, the last time I watched a film on that that was supposed to get a cinema release it was Artemis Fowl, and that, that was not a good movie. I had heard rumblings that this was a good film though, so that was a positive.

After watching I can confirm it is really good. It just, it doesn’t seem very Disney. Well, it doesn’t seem very 2000’s Disney, 2020s Disney with a history of Moana, Big Hero 6 etc? That makes sense. Disney don’t always knock it out the park, but when they do the results often are spectacular. Truth be told it’s usually when they step out of their comfort zone that they come up with great stuff lately. When it seems like the writers just wanted an excuse for a holiday somewhere so told Disney they have an idea about somewhere exotic and warm so that they’d be flown out there for research. It’s when Disney stick to adaptations lately that they’ve failed (with one obvious exception) or when they’ve attempted sequels (Wreck It Ralph 2 is a terrible film and I will stand by that).

This? This is a thing of beauty. It’s a running joke that the most dangerous person to be in a disney film is a parent of the protagonist (doubly so if you’re being played by Sean Bean). This goes one further, it doesn’t just kill off the parent, it kills off most of the population. It killed off a higher percentage of the population than Thanos. Most kid films don’t start off with murder on this large a scale. It’s no just Thanos this film seems to emulate, there’s a moment near the end which is very reminiscent of the end of Guardians Of The Galaxy. Yes, Disney, we know you own Marvel.

While I’m on the subject, that moment near the the end I talked about? It should have been better. Spoilers ahead by the way. Basically the villains are things that turn people into stone, and this moment is the main group standing around as it envelops them and they start turning into stone, together. For whatever reason it didn’t really resonate with me. I just didn’t hit right. It may have been because there weren’t that many good facial expressions on the characters that really sold the “if we die, we die together”. You never really got the feeling that the characters felt hopeless, it seemed like they always knew the plan would work. Compare this to Toy Story 3, the moment in the incinerator where the characters didn’t speak, but you knew that in their head they accepted what was about to happen.

Moments like that are my main issue, there’s nothing bad about this film, but there’s a few things you’ve seen done better, or you feel the film is only operating at 90% of its potential.

I know this is something that will annoy a lot of people, but not the people who read this so fuck it: the representation of this film is fucking lit yo (how do you do fellow kids?). I can’t understate how important it is that this film exists and takes the care it does to properly represent other cultures. At least, I think it does that, I’m not actually from those cultures, so it could be woefully insensitive for all I know. But I haven’t heard any complaints about people from South East Asia about it so I’m thinking it did a good job. I mean, it is super depressing that it’s the first film Disney have made that’s based off South East Asian culture (and that they seemed to not differentiate between some of them), not as depressing as the fact that Kelly Marie Tran is the first actress from the area to lead an animated Disney film. She’s fucking great though. Although not the best part of the film. She is slightly overshadowed by Awkwafina as Sisu. She nails it, bringing a delightful exuberance and playful nature to the character. It’s helped by the actual character being incredibly likeable, a powerful creature with insecurities and lightness will always be appreciated by me and I love her.

So in summary. See it, obviously see it. There are times where it will slightly break you, but it’s worth it. The big downsides: it isn’t completely original in terms of story, plus I realised that Awkwafina, who voiced Sisu, released this a few years ago. So now my brain is thinking of an imaginary song about dragons called My Drag

2010’s In Film Day 4 (2014)

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January – Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones

This is probably the biggest horror franchise which I’ve completely ignored. No idea why as I’ve heard the first one is quite good, I’ve just had no interest in them. I was going to do them for Halloween blog last year but I accidentally purchased the mockbuster version instead. Maybe it would have been funnier to do those films instead, but I had so little free time in October that I didn’t want to waste it watching bad films.

February – Robocop

How is this not bigger? Maybe it was a timing thing. The general feeling of Obama’s America was more hopeful than it is now. Now everything seems bleak and horrible. We’re a few days into the year and the political climate is heating up (as is the actual climate, as the devastation to Australia has proven), there’s cynicism and hatred everywhere. Nobody has any hope that the future will get better. Even people who support the parties in charge think the future will suck for a lot of people “but it will be worth it to get blue passports”. So maybe now is the time we need a Robocop film.

March – Captain America: The Winter Soldier

I feel this is the most important movie in the MCU. Not so much because of the story, but because of the quality of the film. This was when Marvel movies went from dumb fun to capable of brilliance. This is where comic book movies stopped being a genre and started being a subdivision of other genres as diverse as spy thrillers, space comedies, and family dramas. All that’s left now is a comic book horror movie. For more of my thoughts, read here.

April – The Amazing Spiderman 2

A month after The Winter Soldier wowed audiences, this came out. I feel those two things are linked. Since the MCU started, a lot of other franchises have been attempted. Not many have worked, probably due to the fact that it took the MCU a while to get going, and people forget this. People think all the Marvel movies started being connected, yet The Incredible Hulk was a standalone movie, the only reference to Iron Man being a short post-credits scene (well the only obvious reference anyway). It was possible to enjoy those films on their own, yet a lot you can’t, they spend far too much time setting up future franchises that they don’t really spend enough time on it’s own story (biggest offender is The Mummy reboot a few years ago).

May – Godzilla

Now, this is a potentially better franchise. Kong and Godzilla work as standalone films and are great spectacle films. I feel age has been kind to this film, there was a lot of disappointment when the film came out. That was mainly because it had Bryan Cranston in it and people expected him to be the main character, so when he died and was replaced with Aaron Taylor-Johnson it was bound to rub fans up the wrong way. Yet if you know about it and watch it again then it’s actually quite an impressive piece of film-making. It’s not a film that you’ll love, but if you have an impressive enough television and sound set-up then it’s a great way to spend an evening with people. A few years ago I watched the Planet Of The Apes trilogy over New Years eve, I feel the two Godzilla movies and Kong would also make a great thing to watch like that. Have a few people round and have the film in the background as you chat shit and eat cheese. This film also has a REALLY creepy piece of music.

June – Oculus

This was the first film I watched with my Cineworld card, and it remains the worst cinema experience I have ever had, to the point where it soured me on the movie. The lights came on about 10 minutes before the film ended, completely ruined the experience. You don’t realise how lights affect the cinema experience but it does. As soon as those lights came on it deflated the room, it took everyone out of the movie. I do need to watch this film again to give it a fair go, I feel the constant “it’s real! no it’s not! yes it is! no it’s not!” fake outs would still annoy me, but maybe not as much.

July – Guardians Of The Galaxy

I feel people have forgotten what happened before this film came out. It seemed destined for failure. A lot of people were saying it’s going to be the first bomb of the MCU. That a film featuring characters most people don’t know, featuring actors a lot of people don’t know, set in space, wouldn’t work. That it would fail, and fail HARD. Just goes to show, nobody has any idea what will work. People expected The Lone Ranger to be huge, and I bet you completely forgot that film existed until now. Again, my thoughts here.

August – Sin City 2

The time between this and the first film: 9 years. That film was a success, this was bombed. Just goes to show the importance of timing when it comes to sequels. If you do them too soon then the audience will get burned out (think of the game series with yearly release cycles), yet if you space them too far apart then the audience either won’t care, or society would have moved on beyond what you’re making (best example of this is the Duke Nukem game). I don’t know why this is so much worse than the first one, it just feels less than. It feels like the first one was a labour of love, and this one was in pursuit of fans of the first one. I could be wrong, and usually am.

September – Life After Beth

I love this film. I know it’s not the greatest film of all time, but it’s unique and very funny. The closest film is Shaun Of The Dead, but that’s only in terms of genre as they’re both zombie rom-coms. When it comes to style and tone, this is a completely different bushel of bananas. Something about this film feels very 90’s or late 80’s. It would be easy to imagine this as a brat pack John Hughes movie. I haven’t said it yet in this blog, but I highly recommend this film. Even if you don’t like it, I very much doubt you’ll be bored.

October – Gone Girl

So damn creepy and dark. I saw What We Did On Our Holidays about 2 weeks before, a very different performance from Rosamund Pike. It also has the best Tyler Perry performance ever. To the point where you almost forgive him for the Madea movies (I feel I’m being mean to those movies considering I’ve never seen them, they could be comedic classics that I love, but after watch the trailers, I sincerely doubt it). Again, I highly recommend you watch this film, but you will need to prepare something nice for after. This film will drain you, but not in a way that makes you feel empty (if that makes sense). It will emotionally kill you, but when some films do that they leave you unable to speak for a while. This is the opposite, you’ll come out talking a lot. It also has the best blu-ray presentation ever. It comes with a childs book that is kind of nice, but when you read it in the context of the film, it’s horrifying. This, and Life After Beth, heavily inspired us to make this.

November – The Drop

Wait, I saw this just after Gone Girl? Damn 2014 was great. I thought this film would be kind of standard “Boston gangster” film. It’s GREAT though. A huge part of that is Tom Hardy, this is the film where I fell in love with him as an actor. It made me realise he gives great performances. I truly believe he’s probably the greatest actor around at the moment, every role he has he throws himself completely into it. He doesn’t really have a performance “type”. He’s helped in this film by the script though It’s so fucking good. It takes you by surprise every step of the way and will hook you in for the duration. Not just a great film, a very very smart one too.

December – St. Vincent

An annoying film. Because it’s really good. It’s smart, funny, and touching. But the worst thing about it is Melissa McCarthy is REALLY good in it. As such it’s disappointing when you see so many films where she returns to type. It also shows another side to Bill Murray, a slightly sadder and softer side. Bill Murray is lucky he’s Bill Murray. Seriously, watch films he’s in and imagine his character is played by another actor, you would HATE that character. Most of his characters are arseholes, complete dicks. Yet somehow he makes them work. Lucky bastard.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018) (Spoiler-Free Version)

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A few years ago I saw a film called Men, Women & Children. A film that had moments of okayness but failed to maintain even that. The main reason for this was it had too many characters and it couldn’t focus on all of them, as such some felt underdeveloped and the time spent with them felt utterly pointless. There was concern that the same would happen with this. This had a lot of characters, and all of them were somebody’s favourite (yes, even Thor), so if you didn’t do them properly then you’re going to annoy a lot of people, and in the age of social media, especially with such a highly anticipated film, the slightest inkling of dissatisfaction and they’d be nerd-rage akin to if you said “maybe not everybody has to be white”. As it is, this balances the characters pretty well. Whilst the characters are split into separate groups, there’s no real “core” group. None of them seem more plot-focused than the others. That being said it’s not entirely equal. It seems like the Guardians characters have a lot more to do within their groups than the others. Surprised there’s not really any new characters in it, I mean, there’s an allusion to one at the end but the only new people are the villains. This is slightly odd as it means that these are the only ones in the entire universe. Where was Stallone etc from Guardians Of The Galaxy 2? You’d think they’d have heard of Thanos’s plan and tried to stop it. Or anybody from Agents Of Shield (is that still going? I got incredibly bored by it quite quickly so stopped watching). It’s going to be incredibly difficult to introduce new characters after this, as the first question anybody will ask is “where the fuck were you when this happened?” Before it’s been mostly localised destruction, but maybe with the potential of worse things happening later. This was half of existence being threatened with extinction. There should have been a lot more people.

I mean, yeah that would have meant the film would be like seventy hundred hours long. But even if you just mentioned “earth has been closed off to visitors” to explain others not being there it would be better. Don’t get me wrong, I did love this film. The character interactions were fantastic (although still disappointed nobody said “no shit, Sherlock” when Doctor Strange and Iron Man shared a scene). It was great that the established groups got split up and we got characters sharing scenes who had never interacted before. On the downside, this causes a problem for any future films. The same problem that hit the MCU post-Avengers. From now on whenever a character has a solo film you’ll be wondering why nobody else is helping. If any other Iron Man films happen in the future then he has space-travelling assistance to come help him.

Has to be said that the fact that this film works, and works brilliantly is a true testament to the skill involved. The script is incredibly tight and focused, barely any fluff at all, which considering how long it is is quite impressive. It looks great, the scenes on Titan, in particular, look stunning, The setpiece in Wakanda, whilst not exactly disappointing, isn’t as stunning to look at as you feel it could be. And the music is still a bit of a letdown. Marvel doesn’t really have a great track record when it comes to original music (Black Panther being the obvious exception), they have that one piece of Avengers music they use, but every time I try to think of that I get the Harry Potter music in my head. Even the Saw franchise had a recognisable theme they used as shorthand for “shit’s about to go down”.The power of good music (and not just in a “using established songs) way) is underappreciated in modern cinema but could work wonders. If MCU had character themes then the introductions would be a lot better, imagine if you see a character in the darkness, you have no idea who they are but then a familiar theme plays, exciting you before you even see them.

So yeah, if you’ve liked these films, you really need to see this, but I can’t imagine you enjoying this if you haven’t seen the others. This is not the film you watch to introduce you to the MCU, you’ll be completely lost. So, see this, but see the others first. Will be posting a second review of this later on in the week, specifically focusing on the ending. So look out for that over the weekend.

5 Amazing Comic Book Movies Still To Come In 2017

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5. Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Okay, not technically based on a comic book, but is the sequel to a film that is. The trailer for this will be released later today, two teasers already been made (one of which is the entire trailer sped up to fit into 10 second, very cool and innovative way of doing it, already led to people slowing it down and discussing it). No idea how they’re going to bring back Colin Firth’s character, but I’m looking forward to it. I’m sure they wouldn’t bring him back for no reason, not as though they’re short of credible actors in this film; they’ve got Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Julianne Moore etc. Not released until September but already really looking forward to it.

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4. Wonder Woman

Saw the trailer, loved it. Gal Gadot was one of the best things about Batman Vs. Superman, so the fact her character has FINALLY got a full length feature is very exciting. Basically seems like an origin story, which I’m okay with as her origin hasn’t permeated popular culture that much so for new people they would need to know that. Of course, it would have been a better idea if they did this film BEFORE Batman Vs. Superman as at the moment I can’t see their being any tension in it all. Not for her character anyway, you know she’s going to survive so you won’t worry if she’s safe, which means that unless the film kills somebody she’s close to it won’t be able to land emotionally enough to be effective. Really hope this does well, mainly because if it doesn’t, internet assholes (and studio executives) will blame the fact it’s a female character for the failure, and be more reluctant to do female-led movies in the future.

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3. Justice League

Mainly curious about this one. Personally (and I’m happy to be proven wrong), I think the DC Extended Universe scheduling has been a complete mess so far. BvS should not have been the second film in the series, you need to build up tension between the characters first in other films so that it feels like it means something, as it was it just felt like “hey, this is happening” “and? Who cares?”. They’ve done that fight so early on in the series that there’s not that much left for them to do, there’s not many “big events” they have to call back on (especially since they’ve also already done The Death Of Superman). Related to this, Justice League should not be released this year. It’s too big a film to come out so soon after Wonder Woman, they’ve already released the trailers for this before Wonder Woman is out. They’re really rushing this through and it could end up harming the product in the long run. Although I am still kind of excited about it, so what do I know?

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2. Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 2

Released very soon, really looking forward to it. Had a kind of average marketing campaign, I’d hoped the marketing campaign of Deadpool would lead to more innovative and unique marketing for “quirky” comic book films, but seems like it’s just standard “trailer tease, trailer, second trailer, release” kind of thing. Trailer looks good though, slight risk that they’re intentionally trying to create memes with it, which hasn’t been too annoying in the trailers but if the rest of the film is like that it could be off-putting. Guardians is in a weird place this time, the first one was so good that expectations are high, which is almost the complete opposite of what the situation was last time, where everybody expected this to be the iceberg that sinks the MCU Titanic. Have to wonder whether this will be the film where they explicitly acknowledge the link between it and the rest of the MCU. Also, I really hope it’s not just going to be a rehash of the first one. I want to be amazed during this, but I trust Marvel, so I think I will be.

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1. Spider-Man: Homecoming

Tom Holland’s Spider-Man was one of the (many many) highlights of Captain America: Civil War, so much so that it almost made audiences completely forget that this is the third reboot of the franchise in a short period of time. Confession time: He’s one of the characters I’ve never really liked in films, he’s always supposed to be a teenager but is never played as one. At least, not an actual teenager, he’s played like the leading man in a teen drama where “anxiety” and “shy geek” just means “is friends with the most popular girl in school but hasn’t dated her yet” and the only sign of their geekdom is that people with letters on their jacket (I now know it’s their school letters, but I will never stop having a small part of me think it’s their initials so they don’t forget their names) shove them into lockers. This Spider-Man however is a teenager, he geeks out over superheroes, he messes up, he gets overexcited (which then leads to more mistakes). More importantly: he’s fun. He’s a funny, engaging character whom is inherently likeable, and should do well in his full length debut, which is thankfully, not an origin story.

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Note to directors: EVERYBODY knows this scene, it’s NEVER been needed in a film

 

5 Things Suicide Squad Did Right (And One Thing It Did Wrong)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

1. The Look

In a world where the colour palette of superhero films can mostly be described as Fifty Shades Of Grey (only much more painful) it’s refreshing to see such bright colours in a film such as this. Pinks and Greens are all over the place, it’s like a film taking place in a neon nightmare, and it’s brilliant. It gives the film a unique look, you can take a lot of still photos from this and know that it’s this film.

2. The Performances.

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Shockingly, and I don’t think I’ve ever done this before, I’m going to have to praise Cara Delevingne, which is something I didn’t think I’d ever do for two reasons:

  1. Her performance in Paper Towns severely weakened the film.
  2. I can’t spell her name.

But her performance in the first half of this is superb. She plays the part of a woman who’s scared of her internal demons spectacularly. You really see her inner torment, and it’s just subtle enough to not be overbearing and too on the nose. She’s also involved in one of the visual highlights of the film when the thing inside her body starts to come out, and the hands wrap around each other, it’s simple but beautiful.It’s not just her though, Will Smith’s performance almost makes you forget about After Earth.

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Almost

3. The Characters

This is not an easy sell to casual theatre goers. The most well known characters in this film are Batman and The Joker, and they’re in it for a combined total of about 15 minutes. As such the film has to make sure the audience knows who the main characters are, which for an ensemble piece is not easy. Yet by the time the film ends you feel like you know the characters well enough that most of them have enough background that a solo film wouldn’t be out of the question. Special mention must go to El Diablo, as played by Jay Hernandez. He’s the only character I didn’t really know anything about, I knew about Harley Quinn from various Batman comics, Deadshot from video games etc. Yet his character is really smartly set up, his reluctance to fight makes complete sense  considering his back story. His character is one with real emotion and heart.

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4. Music

Iron Man changed the game when it came to music in superhero movies, when they used AC/DC it set a new standard for the genre; no longer could they slack off in the music department, they needed popular rock songs by established bands, and a few classic rock songs in their too. This was perfected in Guardians Of The Galaxy, which had one of the best soundtracks of 2014. This film continues in that tradition, with songs from Black Sabbath, AC/DC, The Animals, CCR littered throughout the film.

5. The Joker

Leto is completely terrifying in it. Just like the joker should be. He owns every scene he’s in and carries a genuine sense of danger and does it in a way that’s completely different to the way that Heath Ledger did it. Heath Ledger’s Joker always seemed uncertain in his own skin, like he was made by his vulnerabilities. Leto’s one is completely different, he’s confident, he’s calm, he’s in control of every situation.

The Bad

1. Yeah But….

Everything I mentioned on the plus side? They all come with caveats. The still shots look fantastic, but the way it’s edited? Holy hell do they make some of the most basic editing mistakes ever. The shots are not given enough time to leave an impact, there’s quick cuts between different things in scenes which should be slow paced. Whilst Cara Delevingne performance in the first half is awesome, the second half is awful. She seemingly forgets the meaning of “subtlety”, and she does a weird thing with her body that makes her seem like a wooden marionette. The characters bond and start talking about being like “a family” without any reason or bonding moment. Whilst El Diablo’s sacrifice (oh, spoilers), was noble, it made no sense, it would be like you sacrificing your life for your classmates on the first day. Yes there is a lot of good music, but there’s also A LOT of music. There’s so many moments where you sit there thinking “jesus, another f*cking song? We get it, you’ve got an impressive record collection. How about actually working out how to match the music to the scenes?” The Joker is good? Shame he’s only in it for about 10 minutes. Now I’ve seen people complain about people complaining about this. Saying things like “you could tell he was only going to be in it for an extended cameo”. Really? Tell the advertising campaign which was HEAVILY focused around him, or even the posters which had Jared Leto as the second billed actor. He was billed higher than almost all of the main characters. Now, if you were following press releases etc then yes, you knew he wasn’t going to be in it for long. But the majority of cinema goers aren’t people who spend all the time online looking for details about this film, they’re people who see the trailer, see the poster, and decide to see it.

And that, ultimately is the biggest problem, it’s hard to say something nice about this film without having to quantify it. And as with most modern films, the plotting is all over the place. The opening half hour is nothing but blatant character building, with someone sitting there literally telling you about the characters. There are way too many shots of Harley Quinn that are blatant fan-service (and a scene where an entire group of people manages to climb stairs quicker than a lift travels up 5 flights). That, added to the length equals a film which, despite being almost sold out when I went to see it, had nobody stay through the credits. The second the closing credits started,everyone left, and with a film like this that shouldn’t be the case, and it’s disappointing that it is

In Summary

If you go cinema a lot, go see it. If you only go to the cinema a few times a year, and going is a true event, then don’t make this one of your visits.

Musings On Marvel: Day 10 (Guardians Of The Galaxy)

On By troubledproductionsIn Musings On MarvelLeave a comment

Director: James Gunn (Slither, Super)

Budget: $232million

Box Office: $773million

  • Did kids listen to this music back then? I mean, I did, but I was weird.
  • Hah, “was”
  • Plus, is a song which includes the repeated refrain “big boys don’t cry” a good song to listen to in the circumstances?
  • Can’t anyone become a superhero without their parents dying nowdays? That’s the rouble with the world today, kids lack motivation.
  • I’m curious as to what happened in those 26 years. Ok, it’s not as big an issue as it was in Fantastic 4 (or to give it it’s proper, stupid title: Fant4stic)
  • How have the batteries lasted that long?
  • Or the walkman?
  • Or the tape itself?
  • I mean, I went through about 5 cd players in my youth, and I very rarely went to space.
  • The main hero kicks a tiny animal in the face. But it’s okay because they’re not earth-based. Which is a bit weird as when he was a kid he started fights with people purely because they hurt frogs. And now here’s him, as an adult, gleefully punting animals like rugby balls.
  • “bereet”, is that because she looks like a beet?
  • “your culture is a disease” that’s racist.
  • Groot lost his arms. That’s an arm chopped off in every one of the stage 2 films. Seriously, why do Marvel hate limbs?
  • “I live for the simple things, like how much this is going to hurt” That’s exactly what I was told last time I had sex.
  • “I’m going to slather you in jelly” that sounds sexual.
  • “this one here is our booty” still sounds sexual.
  • So he wants to protect her despite her causing massive physical harm to him and being responsible for him getting arrested. Why? I theorise it’s entirely because he wants the booty.
  • “Your words mean nothing to me” oooooooo, vienna. 
  • “I could care less whether you live or die”. Ok, let’s get one thing straight America, that phrase makes zero sense. “I could care less” literally means “there is a situation in which I could care less, therefore I do care a little bit”. The phrase should be (and is, in every other country in the world) “couldn’t care less”. Because it implies you don’t care at all so there is no way you could care even less. The way you say it implies that despite the fact you don’t care much, you still care a little bit. “I could care less” basically says “I care a little bit”, which defeats your purpose.
  • I bet he never uses that “snap a neck from a distance” on any of the heroes.
  • “your demeanour is that of a child” yeah, and you’re wearing make-up like a teenage emo kid. You shouldn’t be killing people, you should be writing poetry on your blog about how girls ignore you.
  • “all fire on my command” why not start with that?
  • Those headphones blocked out a prison riot? My headphones get drowned out by cars driving past me.
  • Not even that, but surely he should have seen something on the video screens?
  • Okay his face is covered, but his hands aren’t, flying through space with uncovered hands would surely cause problems.
  • He got abducted as a kid, how many kids know of Jackson Pollock?
  • Surely he’s been threatened before? He collects artefacts so must have people attempt to rob him all the time, you’d think he’d have a defence set up.
  • Bowie song! And now I’m sad. Seriously, what is going on this year? I found a facebook status a few years old about how bad it was that three celebrities had died that year already. That seems like a blessing compared to this year. Prince, Lemmy, Bowie, Rickman, Wood, the PG tips monkey.
  • “I will not succumb to your pelvic sorcery” That’s pretty much exactly what my girlfriend said to me the first time we met.
  • Holy shit Bradley Cooper gives a REALLY good vocal performance here.
  • And with that he tells an entire bar full of outlaws how much money you’re about to come into.
  • Hey it’s a tesseract.
  • “it’s not a purse, it’s a knapsack” no, it’s a satchel. Indiana Jones has one.
  • I haven’t seen Star Wars but I imagine it’s basically this.
  • “normal people don’t even think about eating people” Oh, I guess I’m not normal then.
  • Where did they get those matching red suits from? Did they stop at Matalan before continuing with their quest?
  • “I think of them as paper people” Now, he doesn’t understand metaphors, so does that mean he literally thinks they’re people made of paper?
  • “I don’t think anyone is 100 percent a dick” you’ve never met Katie Hopkins then.
  • “We’re just like Kevin Bacon” doing awful adverts for EE?
  • Wait, wasn’t the city evacuated? Where are all these people coming from?
  • The two sisters are attacking each other with swords. I HATE these kind of fights. The ones where it cuts away before each impact. One on one fight scenes should cut as little as possible so the fight flows in one continuous motion. That way it looks like an actual fight, instead of a movie scene.
  • She chops off her own hand. Seriously, marvel hates limbs.
  • So he’s still using that stone just to throw people backwards instead of killing them?
  • “your guardians of the galaxy” Hey, that’s the title of the movie!
  • “what are you doing?” does it matter? Just kill him. Are people really distracted by singing and dancing? They’re not, trust me I tried.
  • “it’s probably good we didn’t deliver him to his dad like we were hired to do” The worst dialogue in this entire movie. It’s like the script writer didn’t know how to deliver that information so just turned one of the final scenes into an exposition heavy nothing piece.
  • “Ronan was only a puppet” No! That’s a metaphor! And that’s not what he’s meta-for. By which I mean, that line doesn’t make sense in the universe that they’ve created.
  • Howard the f*cking duck.

Ranking The Marvel Cinematic Universe Films (so far)

On By troubledproductionsIn ListLeave a comment

So yeah, Captain America: Civil War is out in 14 days. There’s 12 films, you know what that means? Yup, it’s time for the as-yet-untitled Marvel Version of my hugely unsuccessful Nightmare A Day series. What, you don’t remember that? Don’t worry, shall all be explained tomorrow. But until then, I still have to blog today, so what will today’s be? Simple, this will be my last normal blog until Civil War is released, so is really my last chance to do this and make it relevant. So here goes, all opinions are my own, but if you disagree you are wrong.

12. Thor: The Dark World

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I saw this film at the cinema and yet can barely remember anything about it. The trouble was that it’s kinda dull and doesn’t fit in with the rest. Plus by this point it was obvious that the character of Thor isn’t as interesting as his own villain. Loki dominates this film, just as he did the previous film, only this time it’s a lot more clunky in terms of why he’s there. It also completely wastes Christopher Ecclestone. The first film to really be skippable.

11. The Incredible Hulk

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A film that only ranks so low because it doesn’t really mesh with the others. The only thing tying this into to the rest is the cameo of Tony Stark. If it wasn’t for that, (and if it was released first instead of second) then they could just ignore it and pretend it never happened, like the world does with Godfather III.

10. Thor

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Yeah, maybe my personal bias is showing, I don’t like Thor. Mainly because the rest of the MCU tries really hard to be realistic and scientific, and then suddenly this guy shows up and smashes that to pieces. Also I feel his character just displays wasted opportunities. They have a character who is a God, they could do films based on how the world reacts to this, how does religion react to the existence of A God, but not Their God? None of this is shown, at all. Oh, and Natalie Portman’s character has all the background and charisma of a see through piece of tissue paper. Oh, and they wasted Idris Elba. Plus, Thor basically tried to kill Captain America in Avengers movie. Yes, the shield stopped him from being smashed with a hammer, but Thor didn’t know that would happen! From his perspective he just jumped at someone and tried to smash their face in with an unbeatable weapon. That would be like me launching nuclear weapons at a school but it turns out it’s okay as Fuzzy Felt stops explosions (it doesn’t by the way, I can 100% confirm this, sorry Nagasaki).

9. Avengers: Age Of Ultron. 

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This film highlighted a problem with a lot of modern super hero movies: pointless fight scenes and action sequences. Not just that, but poorly made action sequences too. There’s so many moments in this where action sequences just happen for no reason other than the studio thought “Action sequence goes here!”. Which is a shame as other than those it’s actually an okay story. I mean, the trailer did that annoying thing where it showed an awful thing that turned out to be a dream sequence. If it wasn’t for those two things it would be rated much higher (probably top five).

8. Iron Man 2

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Mickey Rourke is good in this, as is Downey Jr. But that’s kind of the biggest problem too. It’s so heavily dependent on performance, that it forgets to carve a good enough story. The villain is too similar to the first one (although don’t get me wrong he is better). The scene where Tony Stark is called into congress to explain himself is fantastic and says a lot about the nature of heroes, but then it just dissolves into casual action fare. Plus it’s hard to imagine THIS Tony Stark being the same one who (maybe, if they go close to the source material) advocates government registration of superheroes.

7. Iron Man

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Ok now we’re getting into awesome stuff. This is the film that launched not only the MCU, but superhero movies being fun again. After Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy it looked like all future superhero movies would just be fifty shades of grey and dark blues (and just as painful as that sounds). A great origin story, brilliantly directed by Jon Favreau, and the casting of Robert Downey Jr. was a master stroke. It was a risky decision but one that paid off.

6. Ant-Man

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Very, very fun. Paul Rudd is very funny. Yes, it would have been better if Edgar Wright stayed on but still. I saw this soon after Age Of Ultron, and the action set pieces in this were a lot better, featuring the best use of Thomas The Tank Engine I’ve ever seen in film.

5. Iron Man 3

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F*ck you I liked it. I know a lot of people don’t, and I understand why. But this was the first time the series tricked me. I’m a pretentious film student so I recognise plot twists early, but this one genuinely came out of left field, but in a way that made sense, it wasn’t one of those “and the killer turned out to be the goldfish all along!”. Yes, it still sucks that Iron Man films have had the worst villains so far but meh. This one also should be commended for actually showing character growth, Tony Stark is haunted by the actions of the Avengers movie, he’s basically suffering PTSD, sadly this was pretty much forgotten about by Age Of Ultron, very disappointing.

4. Avengers Assemble

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I rate this higher than the second one only because the action sequences aren’t as long, and at the time it was new. Plus it resurrected The Hulk as a character after two previous attempts to make a live action film about the character. This film established Loki as THE best villain in the Marvel Universe, which counts both for and against it. For because in this film he’s a charismatic, logical villain. Against because they can never hope to do that again.

3. Captain America: The First Avenger

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Yes, other films have been better, but this was the moment where the series grew from “action fare” to “cinematic genius”. The first (and best) use of cinematic emotion in the series. Usually when people say “Superhero movies are grown up and mature” they show things like Deadpool etc, things which are “adult”, but not “mature” (and yes, there is a difference). This would be a better option, exploring themes of identity, loss, and the commercialisation of war heroes to raise money instead of winning the war. The casting of Tommy Lee Jones in it added authenticity to the film, oh, and Hayley Atwell is superb. This is the first time they went beyond the “superhero saves world” story and focused on the hero themselves, a truly touching tale that was a worthy introduction to the character.

2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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Probably the best example of a comic book movie transcending the genre. This film is almost like a cold-war era spy movie. Has the best plot of any of the films, fantastic characterisation, and is just all round brilliant. Amazing but not too comical, this film is not “look at this ooooo moment”, it’s not spectacle, but it is spectacular.

1. Guardians Of The Galaxy

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A part of this is because everybody expected it to fail. When it was announced people were certain this would be the biggest flop in Marvel history, more so than SuperLee, a superhero who fights crime with sarcasm and bitterness, which was invented by me, in my head, just now. But this film is amazing, it’s funny, smart and perfectly acted. It’s odd that Marvel has made better characters from a tree that only says three words than a lot of films manage with entire monologues. A space opera which is definitely the most fun film from all of them, and overall that’s what films should be: fun. It’s not the film with the best story, or the best acting, but it is definitely the one you’ll want to watch the most.