Tag: Jonathan Majors

Creed III (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick Synopsis: Adonis Creed retires from the boxing world, and is met by Damian, a childhood friend who has just got out of prison. Damian turns out to be a very good boxer, but also a massive prick.

On balance, I probably prefer the Creed franchise to the Rocky one. The first two Rocky films are great, no doubt about it. But the Creed films have something different to them. I think it’s because there is a real-life undercurrent to the whole thing. The character of Adonis Creed is trying to step out of the legacy of his father Apollo, whilst also wanting to pay respect to him. Similarly, the films want to stand out on their own away from the Rocky films, whilst also paying respect to them.

There was still the worry that this would be the film which lets the Creed franchise down, especially since it was being directed by Michael B. Jordan. He is a FANTASTIC actor, but this is his directorial debut, so there is always the risk that handing the reigns over to someone so inexperienced could backfire, especially when that person is the lead.

Thankfully, turns out that he’s pretty damn good. The first Creed film was notable for how it shot the fights, really making you feel like you were in there with them. This goes in a different direction, especially for the final fight. That scene is already one of the best I’ve seen this year. It doesn’t aim to make the fight realistic but uses more abstract visual language to show how it actually FEELS to be in there. For example, at one point, the crowd disappears and the fight takes place in an empty arena, it really highlights the personal nature of the feud between the two characters. Jordan has said he was heavily inspired by anime when it came to how to shoot the fight scenes, that makes a lot of sense. It’s a bold choice, but it pays off.

Another smart choice is casting Jonathan Majors, who was last seen in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania. As daunting a presence as he was in Quantumania, it’s in Creed where he is more imposing. He looks like someone who can punch your head clear off your head, and carries himself as someone who would. It is kind of a weakness of the film that his point is too good. Most people would do what he did in that situation, so it’s hard to not only sympathise with him but to kind of root for him. I’m not asking him to come out and punch a child, but they could have done more to make him more of a villain. Wouldn’t even take something (Jonathan) major, his incarceration was kicked off by Adonis punching someone who abused him at a children’s home. All it would take is for Adonis to find out that Damian planned that person to be there to steal the money Adonis won from betting earlier. Or have Adonis’s mother Mary Anne point out horrible things Damian did to Adonis as a child (stealing his stuff, belittling him, stopping him from entering a boxing tournament, I dunno, something). He is still a prick, and his underhanded tactics in the fight to make you slightly hate him, but Damian is definitely too easy a character to root for.

Michael B Jordan continues to shine as Adonis, but he is slightly overshadowed by not only Jonathan Majors, but also Phylicia Rashad, who provides much of the emotion, kind of like Stallone did in the last one. On that note, I should point out that Stallone is not in Creed III. To be honest, he’s not missed. If Stallone was in this then it would be far too busy. There’s no space for the Rocky character, it also means that Adonis stands out more as a focused character. You’re not sitting there waiting for Rocky to turn up, you might not even notice he’s not there until you think about it.

Onto the downside: the pacing is a little off. It ends brilliantly, but the middle section seems rushed. Damian chases the title for a while, but we don’t get to see him as champion that much. It’s a shame as there is room for an interesting story about how the boxing world views him. We don’t really get how the boxing world reacts to someone winning the title in their first professional fight, and being much older than most professionals. There’s definitely space to tell this story too, it keeps going back to the incident at the grocery store when really we only needed to see it twice, once at the start, and then again later on for clarification with new context. It also wouldn’t be a bad thing for the opening to be a bit quicker. Those are minor issues, and it doesn’t stop Creed III from being a fantastic film, but it does stop it from being among the best I’ve ever seen.

So in summary, definitely go see this. I’m not sure where the franchise can go from here, but at the moment this is a damn fine conclusion to the saga.

Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania (2023) Review

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

Quick synopsis: It’s a Marvel movie, you know what the plot is.

M.O.D.O.K looks fucking stupid. Sorry, I just had to get that out of the way before I start this.

*gathers notes and restarts*

Since Endgame, it feels like the MCU has been stagnating slightly. It’s doing the cinematic equivalent of setting up a lot of dominos, which will hopefully all tie together wonderfully, but at the moment it’s kind of uninteresting. Quantumania looks like it may end that, the next stage is set up so heavily that it needs to start being acknowledged soon.

First off, yes, this film has flaws. The visuals are a bit inconsistent. It’s both beautiful yet ugly, technically astounding yet a cheap mess. Everything looks green-screened, and the Quantum Realm itself is a bit bland. It’s a shame as there are moments where it is glorious to watch, where you truly get a sense of scale and wonder. But for the majority of it, it’s kind of bland. There was a chance to fill this world with colour, so that every scene pops off the screen, as it is, it’s just there. I mean, it’s still impressive that it was all created, but it still doesn’t look like a $200million budget film.

There was some controversy before Quantumania was released due to the recasting of Cassie Lang. Nobody was assuming that Abby Ryder Forston was going to come back due to being too young, but there was an assumption that Emma Fuhrmann would. I don’t know why they cast someone in Endgame when they were planning to look to recast if Cassie Lang came back. Secretly, I’m glad they did, Kathryn Newton is one of my favourite performers around at the moment, and she is a REALLY good Cassie. So yeah, I get why, and she is the better choice, I just, I think it’s a shitty thing to do to recast like that.

In terms of the other performers, the main issue is that Bill Murray feels wasted. I don’t want him as a main character, but having him in it then doing what they do with him feels like such a weird casting decision.

There are some people annoyed that Michael Pena didn’t come back. Luis was one of the most popular characters in both Ant-Man, and Ant-Man and The Wasp, with his rapid-fire delivery and vocal style of summing up events being a highlight. Truth be told, there wasn’t really a way for Luis to fit into this. If they did, then Luis would have felt unnaturally shoe-horned in and would have been weird. Part of this is because Quantumania does SUCH a good job in terms of pacing. Sometimes you can be waiting around for a lot of the running time waiting for the story to kick off, but it happens here incredibly quickly. Same with the way it ends. It doesn’t linger long after the story is resolved, they resolve the story, give a quick coda, then end it.

There is no Luis, but there is Kang (weak segue, I know), and Kang is a fantastic villain. Part of that is due to Jonathan Majors, he CRUSHES it. Josh Brolin was fantastic as Thanos, there’s no doubting that. But if they let Majors do what he is capable of doing, Kang could end up being better. Majors has such a screen presence, especially physically. He is a hell of an actor for the MCU to have going forward, and the concept of different multiverse versions of him is incredibly exciting when you think of the potential for Majors to show what he can do.

Now onto the big issue I have: M.O.D.O.K. I’ll admit, I’m not that familiar with M.O.D.O.K as a character, but I assume we’re supposed to take him somewhat seriously? It doesn’t help that when I look at M.O.D.O.K I don’t see a “Mechanized Organism Designed Only for Killing”, I see Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It doesn’t help that the CGI is awful and just looks ridiculous. To be fair, I don’t think there is a way to make a giant human head look threatening, so there’s not much they could have done to help that. Well, they could have just kept the fucking mask on and NOT SHOW THE ACTUAL FACE. Do the reveal through dialogue instead of unmasking. That would then make it seem like the face has been disfigured, and let the audience wonder how badly it has been ruined by what it’s been through.

Overall, Quantumania is a bit like the last few Marvel films; entertaining enough, but won’t change your mind on the genre. On the plus side, you don’t need to have watched all the TV shows for the film to make sense, although Loki will need to be watched to understand the post-credits scene.