Tag: Marvel

The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and the Thing face their most daunting challenge yet as they defend Earth from Galactus and Silver Surfer.

I’m not as opposed to the recent MCU films as most people seem to have been. They haven’t been fantastic, but I think the worst post-Endgame movie is still better than Thor: Dark World. We are fifteen films away from Endgame, and I think it would be hard to argue that there’s been A LOT less progress made since then than there was in the first 15 films (which would take you up to Guardians 2). The MCU’s desire to introduce as many heroes as possible has meant that many of them have felt forgotten or like their movies had no consequence. The introduction of TV shows has meant that keeping up to date with developments in the MCU has felt more like homework than a fun way to spend time. The lack of focus is causing them to lose viewers (let’s be honest, a focus on women and non-white heroes is also driving people away, but only assholes, so who gives a shit about them?), and the fact that it would take nearly 80 hours non-stop to catch up, it’s going to be difficult for them to attract new viewers.

That’s all a rather long-winded prelude to me saying that this is kind of a return to form. Importantly, it actually stands out as unique. It has its own visual identity and style, something that has been lacking from the MCU lately where everything has looked the same and had the same feel to it. TFF: FS (To-foof Foos) is something which the MCU hasn’t been in a long time: different. Its set in the 60s, but a different version of the 60s. It feels like its set in what people in the 50s thought the 60s would be like; incredibly future retro. Visually, it reminds me of the Jetsons more than it does the Fantastic Four animated TV series.

Not that it doesn’t pay tribute to that series. It’s heavily inspired by the animated version, but not in a way that feels out of place. If you’re familiar with the series, you’ll catch the little winks and nods. It’s done skilfully enough that if you aren’t aware, you won’t feel like you’re missing out. There was the risk that having H.E.R.B.I.E would make it too silly, but it kind of works. Much like Krypto in Superman, it adds a level of comedy when needed.

Nows the best time to say that the phrase “much like Superman” could be all over this review. There are multiple comparisons. The colours, the importance they both have to their franchise, the playfulness etc. They’re also both anchored by great performances. Pedro Pascal is as good as you expect him to be, but the rest of the main four also play their parts. It’s a weirdly English cast, with a lot of them doing American accents. Yet you never really notice their accents slipping. There is one part where Galactus does go a slight bit Yorkshire, but you have to be really listening to notice. I loved Julia Garner as Silver Surfer, her character is believable, and her performance suits the greatness.

Now onto the downside. This is possibly the worst time for this film to be released. The next MCU film is Spider-Man: Brand New Day, then there’s Doomsday. Doomsday is going to be big. The biggest movie since Endgame. But does it really feel like it? Does it feel like it’s been set up? Fantastic Four is a fantastic standalone movie, but with the exception of a mid-credits scene, it doesn’t really do anything to get you excited for the next step. It reminds me of Captain Marvel, but that at least came JUST after Infinity War, so it still felt adjacent to an event. This doesn’t have that. I’m genuinely curious how they’re going to make Doomsday feel like a big deal without spending a lot of that movies runtime just setting stuff up.

That’s a very minor niggle. This is a fun film, with great music. It’s definitely the best Fantastic Four movie. Although that’s not really saying much.

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.

The Second Act aka Le Deuxième Acte (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: It genuinely doesn’t f*cking matter, seriously.

It’s weird how a trailer can win you over by not showing a single second of what’s in the film. It may seem counter-productive to not include anything from the movie in the trailer, but sometimes it’s not needed. Sometimes, all you need is a way to tell people “This is the tone and style”. The Second Act (TSA, pronounced Tizz-ah, but not like the drink) trailer did that brilliantly and is probably the best trailer I’ve seen in a while. It tells you everything while showing you nothing. The complete opposite of most Marvel trailers.

Now, the film itself. It’s meta and weird. Near the start, a character says something mildly transphobic and then is told “You can’t say that we’re being filmed” Then the character tries to rephrase it differently. He doesn’t say that as the character, he says it as the actor playing the character, if that makes sense? It’s a weird moment, the first of many, and how you react to that scene will let you know whether its worth continuing with the rest of the movie. Personally, I found it funny. But I will admit that it does highlight a small issue I had with this; it is occasionally too meta. As much as I do love the opening scene and how meta it is, there is still a small part of you that thinks “Get on with it”. I’m not saying be less meta, I never say that, but spread it out more among the story. As it is, TSA will stop the story for 5 minutes to focus on meta-commentary, then pick up the story again. In a film that’s less than 90 minutes long, that’s a lot of waiting around. There should have been a more seamless way of threading the meta-ness through the narrative without pausing. I typed that after 10 minutes. Really I should delete it because this film wouldn’t exist without the meta. All it has is “we’re actors making a film” and fourth wall breaks upon fourth wall breaks (16 walls?).

That kind of stuff is to be expected from fans of Quentin Dupieux, those who watched and enjoyed the *checks notes* sentient tire that kills people with psychokinetic powers movie Rubber, will enjoy this. It’s very similar, you have to go into it expecting it to break the very notion of narrative and cinema, you’re not watching it for the plot, you’re just watching it for the experience of watching it. If you are expecting some form of sense, you’re going to be deeply disappointed.

I’m quickly falling in love with Lea Seydoux, she was phenomenal in The Beast, and continues to impress throughout TSA. She’s charming, friendly, and seems believable as a slightly frustrated actress. The others are all fine, but Seydoux is the best of a very good bunch.

From a technical standpoint, this is a marvel (and not just because it stops the plot to make jokes), not in terms of special effects or even outstanding beauty, but because of the tracking shots. Oh my science, the tracking shots. They’re so prevalent that the pre-credits scene makes a point of showcasing just how long the tracks were to make them happen.

Really the only thing to take from TSA? Films are silly. Making them is silly. Writing them is silly. So what not make it so watching them is silly too? It’s not for everybody, and I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a slightly frustrating watch at times, but it’s also one that’s not entirely without merits.

Captain America: Brave New World (2025) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Captain America punches things.

I’m assuming you guys have seen The Producers, right? If not, I’ll briefly explain the plot (spoilers for a nearly 60-year-old film by the way). The two characters (Leo and Max), attempt to produce a play that’s so bad that it gets cancelled quickly, allowing them to earn money (nobody checks the books on failures, so they can accept more funding and give away over 100% of stock). Why am I mentioning this? One, because it’s a great film and you should watch it. Two, so you can understand just how good season 4 of Curb Your Enthusiasm is. Three: because are the studio heads at Disney trying to do something similar with the MCU? This is not because of the film, but because of the trailer. Captain America: Brave New World (or CA: BNW, pronounced Car-Bo-new) is a good movie. The failure is in terms of the marketing. What was in the trailer? Red Hulk. What was the focus of all the merchandise? Red Hulk. What’s on the posters? Red Hulk.

But this isn’t really about Red Hulk. He appears in one scene near the very end. It’s also supposed to be a twist. It’s something that’s foreshadowed and built up to, so you wonder what’s happening to the character. It would be like if the marketing campaign for Saw 3D was based entirely around the return of Cary Elwes and this time he’s a villain. The Wait For Red Hulk means that CA: BNW feels like a prequel. You’re not watching to see what happens, you’re watching to see HOW something you know will happen happens. I’m incredibly disappointed that they did that. Not just because it ruins the film, but also because it makes it seem like they chased “butts in seats” rather than compelling storytelling.

It’s not a prequel, obviously. It’s a sequel. It’s not a sequel to the Captain America films, that would be too obvious. It’s a sequel to Hulk. With returning characters and cameos from Hulk, instead of from the first three Captain America movies. I get it, it’s a new Captain America, so villains from the first three movies wouldn’t have any beef with New Cap, but they certainly have more in common with him than the people the film decides to use.

That aside; CA: BNW is actually a lot of fun if you don’t stop to think about it for more than a few seconds. It has some decent side characters who are worth investing in. They’re well-written enough that if they died, it would mean something, so the action scenes actually have tension in them. It also has a genuinely great performance from Carl Lumbly. His performance has SO much emotional weight behind it. Giancarlo Esposito is also good, but not in it anywhere near as long as he should be.

That is a common criticism of the MCU. It puts so many eggs of character in its narrative cake that it ends up inedible and confusing (a bit like this metaphor). That’s definitely the case here. You could eliminate one of the villains (and probably the other black widow) and it wouldn’t affect the narrative that much. The MCU has a habit of changing films in post-production a lot, but it never seems to have “make it streamlined” as a goal.

It’s inevitable that some people will hate this, it’s now cool to hate the MCU, plus it has a black lead, so that’s going to annoy some “people” automatically because “WOOOOOOOOOKE!”. It doesn’t deserve that. It’s not as good as Winter Soldier, but I found more to like about BNW than I did the first Cap movie. The main villain is logical and is awarded a decent redemption arc. It would have helped to give them a few more moments of humanity, but there’s enough to give a teaser that he isn’t a complete shit before the full heel turn. I hope the other MCU films this year are better (especially Fantastic Four), but if this is the worst then it’s going to be a cracking year for them. Most of the flaws are down to (presumed) studio interference, so it’s hard to be annoyed at the creatives for that.

Kraven The Hunter (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Sergei Kravinoff is a big-game hunter who specialises in dickheads. His family history brings him into conflict with Rhino and Foreigner, who wants to know what love is. And to kill people. It’s mainly the killing people.

So it’s ended. After six films, the Sony Spider-verse has closed. Or, as Sony initially called it: Sony Picture’s Universe Of Marvel Characters, shortened to SPUMC. The fact that that is not a joke tells you everything you need to know about it. They have always felt like unwanted distractions. Once people realised they were all setups and spin-offs of a main universe it would never meet (outside of fleeting moments) they began to feel like wastes of time. It’s not a good sign that out of six, two are generally regarded as some of the worst films ever made. If they knew, you’d have to think they would have ended it with The Last Dance, because Kraven is a weird choice as a curtain closer. There’s no sense of closure or wider universe development. Truth be told, the films have NEVER felt connected, which is a baffling choice, almost as baffling as “let’s make a series of films based on villains we treat as heroes”.

So, how about Kraven on its own? It doesn’t work. It’s not as bad as Madame Web, but it’s not really good. It feels like it was written scene by scene by different writers, with no rewriting going on to connect them once they’ve happened. Characters are not just inconsistent, there are times when their very existence seems baffling. He finds a woman based solely on the fact that she put a card in his pocket. He meets up with her and asks for her help in finding people, within five minutes of telling her “I’m a hunter, I can find anybody”. So……..why does he need her again? A lot of his attributes are not only informed attributes (where we hear of them, but never see them), but they’re also often visually disproven. Characters speak as if he hasn’t been spotted and is a complete mystery. He then runs along the street in central London with no disguise. Not only would he have been seen, but there would also be youtube edits of him 5 minutes after the first time he runs on the outside of a building.

Some of the performances are serviceable, but they never ever get better than that. However, they sure do get A LOT worse. The accents are as inconsistent as the visual effects (and that’s not a compliment to either of those), there’s one performer in particular who is only in for a few minutes at the start, but her line delivery is SO BAD that it’s almost laughable. It’s so bad, in fact, that I won’t even name the actor or the character because there’s no way this performer was trained, and if they were, they should ask for their money back.

The ADR is more noticeable than any film I’ve seen in a while, the CGI is ropier than a BDSM pirate ship, and the action scenes are flat, with even bloodshed moments feeling like they have no impact. It’s not just that there are a lot of bad moments, there’s nothing good. The soundtrack is completely forgettable, even Madame Web had a Cranberries song.

In some ways, I’m sad the SPUMC is other, people always look forward to a load of SPUMC coming at them, and every film in this franchise has potential. But it’s never lived up to that. There’s not a single drop of SPUMC that hasn’t made you wonder whether it could have been better.

Venom: The Last Dance (2024) Review

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Quick Synopsis: Eddie Brock and Venom must make a devastating decision as they’re pursued by a mysterious military man and alien monsters from Venom’s home world

The Venom movies are without a doubt, the best of the not-Spider-Man Spider-Man movies. Let’s face it, that’s not a difficult hurdle to clear. Whilst the likes of Madame Web and Morbius have been absolute shit, Venom has, at worst, been incredibly frustrating. They are the epitome of wasted potential. There are moments throughout the franchise which I love. In The Last Dance (V: TLD, pronounced Vee-Told) there’s a fantastic moment where Eddie Brock/Venom is travelling with a family and the dad starts a singalong of Space Oddity. It’s hard to explain why, but it’s incredibly sweet and powerful. Usually, when you hear that song in popular culture, it’s because of an astronaut, and the message is “Look, he’s in space”. The use here is more “he’s completely alone”. It starts off funny, but the sense of isolation and despair quickly sinks in, and it’s incredibly powerful, to the point where it actually has genuine emotion.

It’s not just in the Bowie-oke where you see what V: TLD could be. The closing carnage of the multiple symbiotes is a cavalcade of chaos and fun, but it also only lasts around 15 minutes. That’s such a shame, as there’s enough for a whole movie there; the idea of different versions running around causing mayhem is exciting, especially since they all seem to have their own powers and identities.

Instead of those potential fun times, V: TLD decides it wants to spend its time with Knull, the creator of the symbiotes, who spends the film attempting to retrieve a codex from inside of Eddie/Venom so that he can be freed from prison. So the main villain in this, which has been advertised as the closing film of this trilogy (although we all know that it’s not), is locked in a prison for the entire runtime and never interacts with the characters. It is possible to have a villain like that, but they need to have that little something extra which means that even when they’re not onscreen, their presence hangs over everything. That never happens, the creatures he sends out are scary, but he has no presence. In fact, it could be argued that using the Xenophage lessens his impact because they’re so deadly and hard to kill, it means that THEY are the narrative beast to defeat, not the Big Boss. Ironically, this means the impact that Knull has? Nul.

It feels like V: TLD is building towards something, which feels misguided for the closer of a trilogy. Despite it being marketed as such, it never FEELS like the finale of a series. There’s no sense of completion, no sense of book-ending, no feeling that we’ve gone on a journey. It’s a shame, as the series has potential, and has found talented performers (the franchise would be A LOT worse without Hardy, and seeing Stephen Graham on the big screen is always welcomed), but it has never figured out what to do with either of those things. It has never felt like a coherent story across all three, especially in terms of tone. At times it’s felt more like a horror movie (the allusions to Alien are far too common to be accidental), at times they feel like a road movie, and at times they’re zany action movies. It really needed to focus on one genre and try to excel at that. Instead, it feels like they’ve tried to throw every idea they have, whether it suits the tone or not. Nobody stopped to ask “But this derails the themes” etc. They also never stopped to say “but this doesn’t make sense” at any point. The perfect example can be found in V: TLD. There’s a subplot of a family travelling to Area 51 due to it being closed down. They’re the only ones who try this. Are you saying that if the US government announced they were closing down Area 51 at a certain date, there would only be ONE family making that trip? There would be thousands of camper vans making that trip and I can’t think why the film would make us not think that would be the case. It would be more realistic, plus it would mean that the final chaotic action scenes would have a lot of near-deaths. The only reasons I can think they wouldn’t do this would be because the writers don’t want the characters in this universe to be aware of Venom (which is a shame, as having Venom die knowing that society accepts him is perfect, plus he’s been in enough crowd scenes that he’s definitely not a secret), or for budgetary reasons. Either way, it feels like a disappointing waste. Back in my review of the first Venom, I said “it wasn’t the worst film ever, but nowhere near as good as it could have been”, and my review of Let There Be Carnage mentioned how moments could be an entire movie are relegated to brief distractions. So whilst trilogies like Creed changed how I want fight scenes to be shown, Planet Of The Apes changed my expectations for motion capture, all I get from the Venom trilogy is to prepare to be disappointed. , I’m English, that’s my default state.

Madame Web (2024) Review

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Quick synopsis: Cassandra Webb is a New York City paramedic who starts to show signs of plot convenient-clairvoyance.

I was supposed to watch this a week earlier, but I was unable to go down to the cinema due to a random bout of sickness. Now I’ve not only recovered from illness but have managed to catch this at the cinema I can finally say…

I miss the days when I was ill.

Going to start by saying this; Madame Web is not as bad as Morbius. Morbius had absolutely nothing going for it. MW at least has one GORGEOUS shot, sets something up for the future (which now probably won’t happen), and ends with a Cranberries song. I mean, the rest of the film is dogshit though.

I actually went into this knowing it would be terrible. I don’t think that affected my viewpoint though. I mean, I went into Ghostbusters: Afterlife having only seen negative reviews, and that won me over. Conversely, I went into Wolf expecting it to be great and that………was not. It wasn’t just the early reviews that caused me to think this, it was the trailer too. The trailer said absolutely nothing about who this character is, or why we should bother paying for a ticket to see her movie.

I don’t get how Sony decided that THIS was the movie they wanted to release. They picked the screenwriters of Morbius FFS. How does that make sense? “Hey, these two people wrote one of the worst movies of all time, let’s hire them again”. The plot is DUMB, the dialogue is some of the worst I’ve ever seen, and the characters are badly written. It feels like it was written by AI; nobody speaks or behaves like an actual human. Nothing really has consequences. Cassie is thought to have kidnapped the children, so she has to hide out with the teens to avoid suspicion. All standard so far. But there’s not really a reason for people to believe that. There were witnesses to the police being attacked by the villain, and all it would have taken was one of the multiple police officers on the scene to radio in “It’s a man in a Spider costume”. At least one person would have seen the villain get off the moving train too. They also would have seen him pace down the train whilst angrily staring at the teens. The kidnapping (which happens during working hours), is later reported in that day’s newspapers. You know, newspapers are famous for 3pm printings and distributions, everybody loves picking up a newspaper on the way home from work instead of in the morning. That’s such an easy problem to fix too, just show it on a TV screen. It only seems to be done via newspaper so the film can get a daily bugle reference in.

Usually when I’m writing a script I go through one draft where I delete the names and see if I can figure out who is who just by character actions and dialogue. You could not do that with MW. Characters change personalities from scene to scene, going from nervous and bookish, scared of drawing attention to themselves, to dancing on the table in a diner (completely sober).

The song that woman is dancing to? Toxic by Britney Spears. A song which wasn’t released until January 2004, in a film set in 2003. Why is it set in 2003? No idea. I’ve heard rumours it’s so they could tie it into the Andrew Garfield films, then the Tom Holland ones, then realised none of those timelines work. I’m not entirely sure I would believe that, but it would back up the absolute clusterfuck that is this movie. It being set in 2003 adds nothing. I suppose you could argue it means that you can use Uncle Ben as a living character. I mean, him being Uncle Ben adds NOTHING, if anything it makes Spider-Man a worse character, as it means he likely based himself on the supervillain from this film. All the 2003 setting adds is weirdness, especially in terms of music. It’s not just “that song wasn’t out yet”, it sometimes goes too far the other way, using too many songs from the 80s and 90s. I don’t think many radio stations in 2003 would play the 1987 Tiffany song I Think We’re Alone Now early in the morning. It doesn’t feel very 2003, and unlike the Spider-Verse soundtrack, it doesn’t feel very New York. Except for a Yeah Yeah Yeahs song near the start, it’s the most generic soundtrack outside of royalty-free music. That’s not the most offensive part of the audio though; it feels like a lot of Tahar Rahim’s dialogue was rerecorded in post-production. Sometimes it’s not as noticeable, his mouth being obscured, but then there are some times when the dialogue doesn’t match his mouth movements at all. That’s not just bad, that’s a failing grade at film school.

MW doesn’t even have the decency to look good, it overdoes the swoopy 180 shot. Some of the action scenes are incomprehensible in terms of staging and choreography. That being said, there is one PERFECT shot; a car quickly drives away, turning as it does so. The shot is a standard “snow gets kicked up into the air by a speeding tyre”, but with broken glass. It looks absolutely stunning and may be one of my favourite shots of the year. But other than that? It’s like a glass of cloudy lemonade left for four days; it’s murky, it’s flat, and it’s ugly.

So that’s established that the script is shit, the directing is shit, and the sound is shit, what of the performances? Sydney Sweeney, Isabella Merced and Celeste O’Connor are good and I would like to see a full-length Spider-Women movie featuring them (just with a different director and screenwriter). That’s actually my main takeaway from this; it was a trailer for a film that will now never be mad. I don’t know how much Emma Roberts was paid but considering her level of stardom it was undoubtedly too much for how little she’s in it. Adam Scott is fun, but again, isn’t in it enough to really be memorable. So, no issues with casting there.

Dakota Johnson is fucking terrible though.

Black Widow (2021)

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Quick Synopsis: It’s a marvel action film. Do you need to know anything else?

So, this is it, the first Marvel film in two years. Perhaps more importantly, the first one since cinemas reopened. So in summary, there’s a lot riding on this. I actually saw this the day of release, first screening possible. I did this because I felt if I didn’t, that people on twitter would ruin it for me, much like I’m going to ruin it for you, so there’s your warning about that, as this will have spoilers.

In retrospect, I don’t think I needed to do that. There’s nothing in this film which you would really consider ruined if you were warned about it. There’s no moment where your jaw drops and you think “I can’t believe that happened! This changes everything!”. The closest you get to that is the post-credits scene where a character played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus asks Yelena to kill Hawkeye. I saw “character played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus” because I don’t know who she is. Apparently she’s in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier, but that was set for original release after this, so are we supposed to know who she is or not? That moment is the closest we really get to a seismic shift. Otherwise it’s just standard stuff really, Florence Pugh’s character looks likely to be a newer version of Black Widow (albeit more morally ambiguous), and her “parents” are free to do whatever.

A note about her “parents”, and about Pugh’s character too, really. Although they weren’t introduced until now, they existed in this timeline for years, having been operational since just after Civil War. Would Natasha not have thought to get them involved in Endgame or Infinity War? You can argue “she didn’t want them involved” or “they didn’t know it was happening”, but that’s only really true for Infinity War. For Endgame there’s not many people left, and most people she was close to got snapped, so you would have thought she would have got all the help she needed. Or at the very least, they would have tried to find her.

I’m so used to Marvel setting things up, that it’s kind of disappointing there’s nothing here that you can really look back at post Civil War films and go “ohhhhhh, okay”. Basically, this film doesn’t need to exist. It’s a two hour way of introducing a few new characters, and to say goodbye to an older one.

Maybe it’s the timing, if you release a prequel it’s for a reason, and this doesn’t really have one. If this got released just after Civil War I’d have looked upon it more favourably. As it is, it just feels, I dunno, needless? It never feels anything other than a footnote. The cinematic equivalent of money you find in the pocket of a coat you haven’t worn in a while.

Now, the performances? Mostly good. Florence Pugh slots in beautifully like she’s been there all along. David Harbour is a lot of fun and I wish we saw more of him in previous films. He’s probably the best written character in the film. Rachel Weisz does fine, she never really wows but she does what she needs to. The worst performer is probably Ray Winstone. You’d think having him as the leader of a villainous group would be perfect for him. Having him in charge of an underground group of assassins would be great for him. There’s just two issues: 1) he’s not really in it enough. 2) His accent. It’s supposed to be Russian (I think), but really it’s just Russian’ around between a multitude of accents.

It’s not just his performance, the way he’s written is kind of weak too. He never feels like a presence over the rest of the film, when he’s not on screen you don’t get the feeling he’s going to attack or anything, you forget him as soon as he’s not there. Doesn’t help that despite being a big deal, he’s never really been mention to much before this. I’m not saying you needed to introduce him earlier in the franchise, but it would have helped to have the opening scene based on HIM doing something, rather than putting so much thought into some of the needless padding. Trust me, there’s some padding here. There was more than one fight scene where I was thinking “okay, so why are they actually fighting? What is this scene adding?”. Our main introduction to Taskmaster (the other “villain”) was one that wasn’t really needed. It took about 5-10 minutes to advance something that could have been done in a single line of dialogue.

Now onto the good side: there’s some great dialogue in it. The new characters work and provide a good future for the MCU if used properly. We finally find out what the turning point was in Black Widow turning into a hero. It has the potential to kick off some very exciting things for the future (all of the trained Widows are freed, so there’s a group of pissed off trained assassins walking the world, if the MCU doesn’t make use of that, it’s a missed opportunity). I like the idea of more prequels, mainly because I still think we need a film set during the period where half the population was missing. Some of the action set-pieces are tremendous fun (although one does seem a bit too Saints Row 3 for me). Very excited to see what kind of things Cate Shortland can do as a director in the future. Has a great cover of Smells Like Teen Spirit during the opening credits (which may possibly be my favourite opening credits in an MCU film). It’s an apt send off for Johansson, and a lot of fun. It’s just, so very popcorn. It is very very good, it just doesn’t seem important enough, and doesn’t really add anything to the franchise as a whole, it just seems to exist solely as a send-off to the character. Which is nice, but still…

Also I bingewatched Taskmaster (the British show with Greg Davies) so it was hard to unhear Taskmaster quotes throughout. No matter how good a film is, you can’t take it seriously when all that’s in your head is British comedians trying to guess how wide a caravan is in baked beans.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

So, that’s it, as close to a season finale the MCU has had yet, this film genuinely feels like closure for a lot of the characters. A fitting closure too, it completes a lot of story arcs which have been running since 2008. Whilst there’s been a few missteps along the way it’s generally accepted that the films have been of high quality and with interacting storylines to keep you invested (even if they weren’t as carefully crafted as they needed to be at times, with major plot holes and continuity errors between separate films). I did love this film, I really enjoyed it, and didn’t feel it outstayed its welcome (which considering it is 3 hours long, really says something). It deserves the praise it’s getting, but I still can’t help but feel slightly disappointed, not with what happened, but with now can’t happen. Like I wish they pushed the Civil War storyline further, as it is it never really felt like a proper division between two sets, it always felt temporary and outside of Civil War itself, kind of small. It never had that urge of paranoia, you never felt like the heroes against registration were under any threat (with the possible exception of Ant-Man in Ant-Man And The Wasp). If you look at the movies after Civil War:

  1. Doctor Strange (completely unaffected by Civil War as not recognised by the government)
  2. Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 (In space so unaffected)
  3. Spider-Man (pro-registration but didn’t affect the movie much. This is annoying as a big part of the Civil War comics was Spider-Man unmasking and revealing his identity, nothing similar to that has happened in this universe since the first Iron Man movie, and that was clearly Tony Starks decision, there’s no “forced to reveal identity” moments yet.)
  4. Thor: Ragnarok. (Again, in space)
  5. Black Panther (not as affected by the Registration Act as it could have been)
  6. Ant-Man And The Wasp (The most affected, but not essential)
  7. Infinity War (just causes a slight “we need to find this person” moment)
  8. Captain Marvel (Set in the past)

To be honest, I can’t even remember if the Act passed at the end of Civil War. That’s how little it’s affected the movies, and that can not be fixed now, it’s too late for it to start coming into effect now, and that’s disappointing. The other thing I’m disappointed in is that there were no post-snap movies. Ok, yeah, technically all movies now are post-snap, but they’re also going to be set after the resolution. There should have been a film between them, so many villain origin stories start with them losing their families, and yet the perfect opportunity for one now won’t happen (oh, spoilers, the people killed by the snap come back, but 5 years have passed in this world so they will be 5 years younger than they should be when they come back, I REALLY hope they make a big point of this in future films). We mostly saw how the snap affected heroes, we didn’t get much of it affecting the world, the opening scenes were done to show that, but the audience isn’t as invested in that as they should be as they’re sitting there waiting for everyone to get revenge on Thanos. Can you imagine how much more effective it would have been if there was an entire movie set in that world? The chaos, the frustration, the paranoia, the fear, the bastards using it to make money, the conspiracy theories! Do ordinary people know it was Thanos? As far as most of them saw, half the world just disappeared with no explanation. The only way they’d know it was Thanos is if someone put out a press release, which I can’t really see happening somehow. So can you imagine the conspiracy theories that would arise from that? It would be INSANE, and yet we will never find out (although I am thinking of writing a short Marvel story set in that universe, just to express that idea).

I know I haven’t spoken much about this film, but I feel if you wanted to see it, you would have seen it already, there’s nothing I can say in this review that will change that. Also, the entire internet has opinions on it and has expressed them better than I could. They’ve been right; it’s emotional as hell, full to the brim with references and fan-service, things are paid off which you didn’t even realise they were setting up, and most characters get their time to shine. It’s not perfect though; Captain Marvel seems misused, only seeming to exist as a Deus Ex Machina, and she’s involved in one of the most cringy moments of the franchise so far which is clearly designed to get a reaction in the cinema but is so false it seems like pandering. Despite how many characters are included, some rather important ones are missing with not even a mention. Also if you think about some aspects of the plot for too long it does seem to fall apart slightly.

But despite that, I highly recommend it, so far it’s been the best example of spectacle so far this year, and I doubt even the Godzilla movie could top it

Journeyman (2018)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

I was excited but nervous about this film. The last film by Paddy Considine I watched was Tyrannosaur, and that was a hard watch, in the best possible way. That film starts with a dog being kicked to death and then only gets more depressing from then on in. This is similar but not as depressing. This is not an easy watch, this is not a cosy watch you can snuggle down and watch with loved ones. This is not a film you can drift in and out of to cheer yourself up. This is a film you need to set out time to watch, turn off all distractions (your cat can go without food for the duration). It’s a film you don’t just watch, you WATCH. It draws you in to the world it’s created and grips you tightly, not letting you go for the duration. I think it’s time we realise that Paddy Considine is a REALLY good writer. He’s never going to be tasked with writing a Marvel film, but he’s definitely got the talent needed to write the best possible episode of Black Mirror.

The way he writes the characters is great, they seem fully fleshed out and all have their own motivations and desires. He starts the movie as champion, boxing movie tradition dictates the story goes like this: he loses the first match. Every boxing movie would start like that. This goes double for this if you know what the story is; it’s about a boxer who suffers a severe injury that debilitates him severely. Nope, he wins the first fight, but collapses that night when he’s at home. This is kind of genius. Most films of this ilk only show ring damage. We as an audience assume that if they survive the fight, they’re safe, that the worst is over. This does a great job of showing the reality, that that’s not the case. Most films, you’ll be lucky if a concussion is still affecting them later on, let alone showing delayed damage like this does. Even before he collapses you see the damage, not so much in the way he looks (cuts and bruises etc), but in the way he moves. He moves like every single inch of him hurts, like just walking causes him immense pain.

That’s just one example of how Considine’s performance is great. There’s so many subtle tics and nuances that make his performance great. It says something that he shares the film with the actress who now plays The Doctor, but he still steals the show. It would be so easy for his performance to border on comical, but the way he does it is heartbreaking.

Now onto the bad; my main issue with this film (and the only bit where I was concerned I wouldn’t like it); the fight scenes themselves. It is possible I’ve been spoilt by films like Creed, which feature some of the best fight scenes ever filmed. Meanwhile the ones in this, whilst serviceable, just don’t seem enough. When the punches land you don’t often feel them (with one noticeable exception), you don’t feel like they’re too damaging. That’s really a minor flaw in the film, and shouldn’t detract from the personal story that this tells. This may not show the best movie boxing, but it’s the best boxing-related movie I’ve seen in a long time. It’s like a British version of The Wrestler, and everybody who has seen that knows why that’s very high praise.