Tag: MCU

Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3 (2023) Review

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Quick synopsis: The Guardians struggle when Adam Warlock gravely injures Rocket, and they have to band together to find a way to save his life or risk everything falling apart.

Guardians Of The Galaxy Volume 3 (or Gotgv3, pronounced Gotgivthree) is exactly what you expect this film to be; for better and worse. The MCU (pronounced Mackyew) has felt like it’s been spinning plates for a while; as if it doesn’t matter what order the films get released in because they don’t connect to each other in any way. I remember before I watched Doctor Strange I made sure to watch Wandavision and the Doctor Strange episode of What If? so that I wouldn’t be lost. I have yet to watch The Guardians Of The Galaxy Holiday Special which was released last year on Disney+, and I wasn’t lost. Looking at the wikipedia page for that TV special and the first sentence is “The Guardians of the Galaxy have purchased Knowhere from the Collector and taken in Cosmo the Spacedog as a new member.”. That’s pretty much the only important thing and both of those you can kind of piece together anyway just by paying attention. They do mention Mantis and Quill being related in Gotgv3, but your brain kind of assumes they are anyway, and it makes no difference to the narrative so it doesn’t matter. I’ve said it before, and I will say it again if it doesn’t change; the MCU needs to start advancing the overall narrative, or people will start to think “I’ll wait to see it” and not feel they’re missing out on a cultural zeitgeist.

The last film James Gunn directed was The Suicide Squad, but this feels more like the other Suicide Squad movie. By which I mean the needle drops are too frequent and badly placed. It’s a shame as the other two Guardians films had iconic soundtracks, and this does too, but the songs are just badly used. Some of the choices are a little too predictable too, it’s not quite “We need to show this film is happy, so play Walking On Sunshine” levels of obviousness, but there are moments where it’s close. Like a lot of films in the MCU, there’s also a problem with tone. Bleak depressing moments of horrificness (that’s my band name) are followed by glib jokes or fun rock songs. It’s a shame as there are plenty of truly emotional moments that will kind of break you at times, but it could hit you harder.

Now onto the good, this features one of the best action scenes in the MCU, a single-shot sequence that encapsulates every character taking out a group of enemies in increasingly elaborate ways as we make our way down a hallway. It’s so beautiful to watch it all unfold in front of you, the delicate interplay between the characters and the moments making it feel less like a fight scene, and more like a highly choreographed ballet. It’s the closest the MCU has ever got to Oldboy.

Gotgv3 also features one of the most detestable villains the franchise has ever witnessed. A lot of villains so far have been sympathetic and tragic, or have been so cartoon-ey that it’s hard to take them seriously. The High Evolutionary isn’t justified or given a sad background like an X-Factor contestant, instead, he’s just a complete prick who you want to see fail. Unlike Thanos or Killmonger, you’re not likely to see swathes of people supporting him and wearing his face on t-shirts. What you will see is a large sense of cathartic release when he suffers, which is how it should be. Amazingly, Chukwudi Iwuji manages to pull off this character without seeming one-dimensional. It is strange to see Superstore’s Nico Santos as such an evil character too, I was just sitting in the cinema thinking “Mateo, you dick”.

It’s a good thing the High Evolutionary is as impressive as he is, as the eagerly anticipated Adam Warlock feels slightly underused. If he is in future projects then this can be forgiven as a set-up, but only if he does develop as a character. If he stays as he is, it will feel like a missed opportunity.

This is likely to be the last film with this iteration of the Guardians together as a group, and this is a fitting send-off. All the characters are given a chance to shine, and their fantastic chemistry continues to be a delight.

The real highlight in terms of characters though, is Rocket Racoon. He’s given a lot more to do in this and provides a lot of the emotional high points. It’s truly harrowing seeing what he goes through, and it actually helps explain his characterisation from previous films. This is what flashbacks should do, they should not just tell a story, they should also help provide context to things that have already happened and help flesh out the character. From the moment he meets his friend group, you know how it’s going to end, but that doesn’t make it any less distressing when it does, and it means his violent response feels warranted (even when you see the true extent of the injuries he doled out).

So in summary, I would recommend this. It’s exactly what you’d expect from a modern MCU film, I wouldn’t bother staying for the second credits scene though.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

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Quick synopsis: A bluefish with achilles wings tries to protect his homeland, by invading another.

This was always going to be a curious watch. How exactly would they deal with the death of Chadwick Boseman? It was going to need to be handled delicately, not just because of what happened, but who it happened to. Boseman was regarded as one of the nicest people in Hollywood, and the circumstances of his death, where he went to children’s hospitals to meet fans even whilst he himself was dying, which could not have been easy for him. Often the goal with watching a film is to forget the external influences and review it on its own merits. It’s why I didn’t watch Don’t Worry Darling, because the on-set conflicts overshadowed everything about it and it would be difficult to watch it and not analyze everything for hints of the backstage drama. It’s like how you can’t read old lostprophets interviews without looking at every sentence for clues of the singers misdeeds (polite way to put something horrific). But this is different, you CAN’T go into this blind, you know the circumstances of Boseman, and it’s too big for the film to ignore.

They don’t ignore it, they have the character die of an unspecified illness off-screen. I’m glad they did that, if they just had him disappear there would be the worry he’d be recast in the future, and if he got killed by the villain it would seem a bit cheap. His death hangs over the film and defines the characters, you feel that this, more than any other film in the MCU, was one that was needed. It was needed as a tribute, and it was needed for the cast (and to a lesser extent, the audience) to help them grieve and get through it. None of this would matter if the film itself wasn’t good though. Phase Four has been divisive, some of that has just been due to people complaining that it’s not the Infinity Saga again, and some of it has been because “too many women”, but when the phase has also included its weakest film to date (Eternals), and a general lack of focus, it’s hard to get the same level of excitement as you used to get. Especially since lately they’ve eschewed plot and instead gone with “surprise cameos”. This doesn’t really have many surprises, it focuses on good storytelling. This is probably the most mature Marvel has been in a long time. I hate that saying “mature comic book movie” because it usually means (ironically) that it’s just full of blood and swearing, in a way that only really appeals to 15 year olds. This is actually mature. It deals with themes of loss and legacy. It’s genuinely heartbreaking at times and is well done.

The script is helped by the performances, Tenoch Huerta Mejia probably needed more to do but he does brilliantly and I’d like to see him return in the future as there’s a lot that could be done with his character. Letitia Wright looks a natural to lead the franchise going forward (if she stops making enemies on set). But the best performance was Angela Bassett, who gives a tremendous performance, thre’s one scene in particular where we see all her characters pent up rage and emotion, it’s the kind of scene which makes you wonder if she could get an Academy Award if given the right script. It’s weird that in an action movie the best scene is one which is just dialogue, but it has so much power that it’s hard to deny that’s the case. Although I’d be lying if I didn’t say a part of that is how pedestrian some of the action scenes are. There’s a running theme in Phase Four of overly busy final fight scenes. Shang-Chi is the best example of something that should have ended with a small one on one fight scene full of emotion, but instead they went with a multi-person CGI one. They do the same here. If this ended with a hand to hand fight between Namor and Shuri it would allow it to not just be a fight, but be a scene with emotion and character work. But it keeps cutting from that fight to another scene where blue creatures fight people dressed in blue in the middle of the ocean against a bright blue sky. This makes it hard to maintain momentum. Plus, personally I hate when films cut away from fight scenes then cut back a few minutes later; either the audience missed some of the fight, time stood still and the two timelines now aren’t concurrent, or they just stood around doing nothing. A fight between two hardened warriors should have an air of “any mistake will be punished” and like it could all be over in an instant. But when you cut between two seperate fights, film-making rules determine that usually those two fights end at the same time (or follow the same momentum), so you can tell the one on one isn’t going to end early when the multi-person scene is only just starting. There also multiple “that should have killed them” moments, there’s one in particular that stands out as being especially egregious.

A big downside for this is that it, even more than most Marvel films, will lose A LOT if you haven’t seen the previous entry in the series. Say what you want about Black Adam, but it works as a stand-alone film (I know people for whom that’s the only superhero film they’ve seen this year, and it made sense to them). The same cannot be said about this, it’s so dependent on you knowing who people are, and who they are to each other too. The continuity lock-out is strong, and that’s a shame as this deserves to be seen by people who wouldn’t watch this genre normally. It would do well with them, IF it wasn’t for the lockout.

So in summary, the best possible way for them to end this phase, and they achieved it by aiming small. It’s not about the end of the universe, or the world imploding, it’s smaller, and because of that, it’s much better.

Orphan: First Kill (2022)

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Quick Synopsis: Leena Klammer is a 31 year old woman with a rare disorder that causes her to look like a child. She uses this to worm her way into a family by pretending to be their lost daughter Esther.

When you go to see a film you usually have questions you want answered: How will John Wick surpass the previous films? Who’s that mysterious person in the trailer? Is this where we begin to see that the MCU actually does have a plan? With this, the question was more “so it’s a prequel to a film that came out 13 years ago? How’s that going to work? And we already know the twist, she’s not a child, she’s an adult killer, so again; how is this going to work?”

As a general rule, prequels are terrible. They have zero tension because the film tries to put have life or death situations with characters we know to survive. As good as they were, NOBODY watches X-Men First Class and thinks “oh no, I don’t know whether Magneto or Charles Xavier are going to survive”. There’s also sequel escalation to deal with: because it comes after, the natural choice is to have bigger stakes, but it’s a prequel so it just feels weird. The “prequels are terrible” rule is ESPECIALLY true in horror movies; they have a habit of exploring characters who we don’t want to see explored, they ruin the mystery of the villains and make them seem weaker, ruining the whole franchise.

All of that, combined with the fact that I didn’t see any trailers at the cinema for this lead me to go in with low expectations. On the bright side, it’s just over 90 minutes so at least it will be over soon, plus I’m getting free nachos so that’s something.

I was surprised. I genuinely loved this movie. There’s a reveal in this where your experience as a viewer changes. It’s SUCH a good reveal too. The kind that makes you want to watch the film again to see if you can catch it before it happens. It also doesn’t impact the other film in the franchise. This does tie into the previous film, there are a few allusions to it here and there, and the ending directly leads into it. But it is a stand-alone film. It explains the character well enough that if you hadn’t seen the original, you won’t be lost. THAT’S how a film like this should be, it should reward viewers of the original, but it shouldn’t appeal ONLY to them. This is probably my favourite prequel I’ve seen.

Now onto the stand-alone analysis. There seems to be more of a focus on bright colours in this one, which provides a kind of nice motif throughout the whole thing. It’s not exactly unique, but it does make it stand out among the dark greys and browns of a lot of horror films. Directed by William Brent Bell, I’ve seen two of his films before (The Devil Inside, Brahms The Boy 2) and I fucking hated them, but his style works for this. There are some great uses of blank spaces to highlight how small Esther is compared to her surroundings.

Onto Esther, she’s played by Isabelle Fuhrman again, the last time she played her she was 12, she’s now 25. To reiterate: she’s 25, playing a 31-year-old who looks like a 9-year-old. It’s so weird but she pulls it off. This performance puts the character of Esther on another level, and makes you think that they must be really regretting killing her off at the end of the first one, and making the ending of this one tie so heavily into the start of the original. This character deserves to feature in more films, and I’m not sure how they’re going to do that now (although they are planning it). Her story is locked in, we’ve essentially seen the beginning and the end, with no room for a middle. The other members of the cast are okay, most of them are serviceable. Julia Stiles is a revelation though, I’ve seen her in a lot of stuff before, but this is her at her best. It felt like the first time she was a character and not just Julia Stiles. Rossif Sutherland is okay, I guess, but he’s stuck between two superb performances, and just doesn’t match it.

In summary I’d say definitely watched this. It’s a different film to the first one, but one I enjoyed a lot more.

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022)

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Quick synopsis: It’s a Marvel film. Obviously, you’re not going into this for the plot.

I’m going to say this at the start: I thoroughly enjoyed this. I appreciated what it did with some of the characters, it’s probably the best-directed film in the MCU, and it managed to take a difficult concept and make it simple enough for everybody to understand (yet also feel smart for understanding it). I say that now, because a lot of this review will consist of me pointing out the negatives.

The big one, the MCU has a problem. It’s no longer exciting when an unexpected character appears. Because we’ve now come to expect it, you go in with the knowledge that anybody can appear. So there’s a small part in your brain going “well maybe the Fantastic Four will turn up, maybe the X-men will be in this” so when characters do appear, you’re not surprised because a part of you expected it. There are times they have managed to surprise you (Ben Kingsley in Shang-Chi being the obvious one) but mostly it’s just “I knew it!”. There are a few that people have been speculating would be there since Endgame.

Where this becomes an issue is that this seems to be what the MCU have anchored their films around, when No Way Home is discussed it’s usually about the subject of the other Peter Parkers (and the fact they only included movie ones is a huge missed opportunity and made it feel like a film, including random ones we’ve never seen before would have helped it). It reminds me of when Ricky Gervais made Extras and it became about who the celebrity cameo was, rather than the story.

It’s a shame as that does a disservice to this, Scarlet Witch is a fantastic villain, and I appreciate that they rushed into that at the start of the film rather than revealing it near the end. I mean, it is a bit weird that the most powerful villain of the MCU so far has only really lasted one film. Her face turn at the ends makes it highly unlikely that she’s going to be the next Big Bad of the franchise. Which is a shame as that would have been interesting. They would have to fight someone who they’ve been friends with, someone who knows their weaknesses and fears, and can use that against them. More importantly it would have made it seem like the MCU has a plan, the new introductions are because Wanda never met them so she doesn’t know how to defeat them, and Thors arc lately has been about facing his fears, which he’d have to do. It would also make it seem like those weird scenes in Age Of Ultron had a point. As it is, the overall plan for the MCU seems to be “more people! Each more powerful than the last” and it’s getting unfocused and incredibly bloated (unpopular opinion, but major MCU characters HAVE to start dying. Properly dying, not “dead but can come back due to multiverse”).

The biggest issue? It’s a 12a. It should be a 15. This is the closest the franchise has got to a horror movie, and it feels slightly neutered by its age rating. The scene with the Illuminati is horrifying, but if it was a 15 then it could have gone slightly further with some of the moments, make it truly disturbing.

I said earlier that it’s the best-directed of the franchise so far. I stand by that, it has some incredibly creative set-pieces, having moments which could only happen with this character. It absolutely nails the large set-pieces in a way that truly deserves the big screen. On the other hand, there are a few one on one fistfights, and they’re not done well. They look clunky and full, overchoreographed and edited in a way that distracts from the action rather than adds to it.

On the plus side, they have finally fixed their third-act problem that has plagued a lot of their films lately (Shang-Chi in particular had a huge drop in quality for the final section). The final section for this is actually entertaining and creative as hell. The downside is it’s when the offscreen inertia is most obvious. Characters don’t seem to do anything when the camera is not focused on them. The film cuts away from someone in the middle of doing something, they’ll be a big action set piece that lasts about 10 minutes, then when it goes back to them, they’re still doing the thing. It’s weird and makes it seem like something was ruined in the editing suite.

So yeah, if you like the MCU, go see this. If you don’t, this isn’t going to change your mind. It’s one of the most unique MCU films so far, but that’s not saying much lately.

Oh, also the last scene is bad. Just bad.

Morbius (2022)

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Quick synopsis: After living his whole life with a dangerous blood disorder, Doctor Michael Morbius decides to try a radical approach, vampire bat blood. This turns him into a vampire of the non-sparkly variety.

This was originally supposed to be released in July 2020, and has been delayed multiple times since then. That kind of delay is never a good sign for a film, it usually indicates a lot of studio interference, which makes the film feel incredibly disjointed. That’s definitely the case here. It lacks a coherent vision. There are times when it feels like one of those assignments you had to do at school where one person would write a chapter, then someone else would write the next one etc. There are also quite a few moments where I felt like I missed something. A character is shown in hospital recovering from serious injuries, and in a pretty bad way. They’re established as being there in a lot of scenes, and then suddenly they’re being stalked by someone who is watching them through their bedroom window. When were they released? There wasn’t even much indication that they were getting better and suddenly they’re not only back home, but also completely recovered from their injuries, with no indication that they were ever hurt.

While that’s not shown, what is shown is not always needed. The bit in the trailer of him cutting his hand and then bats flying towards him? Not needed. That’s how the film opens, and it adds absolutely nothing. If we just saw the character in his lab with the bats, we’d know he got them. It’s even weirder that this scene is followed by a flashback of him and his “brother” in Greece growing up. I mean, it’s in Greece, but all the characters speak English, with American accents. Now you could say “oh they went there because it’s a specialist place that deals with those blood diseases”, but the bullies outside speak in English too. It feels lazy, and completely unnecessary. Just have the building in America. Yes, it changes the character backstory from the comics, but you’re doing that anyway. Fuck it, if it is important to you, if he absolutely MUST be from Greece, but you still want to cast an American, there’s a town in New York (Rochester, specifically) called Greece, just use that. Yeah, it’s cheating, but it’s not as though you’ve stuck to the comics with the rest of how you’ve treated him.

Now, onto the post-credits scene. It’s strange. The trailers featured The Vulture from Spider-man: Homecoming, so you knew he was in this film. Technically he’s not, he doesn’t appear until the post-credits scenes. So to clarify, they put the post-credits scene in the trailer. That’s really weird and also destroys the point of post-credit scenes, they’re supposed to be surprises. The nature of it just raises more questions. So for some reason, Vulture comes from the MCU universe to this one? He’s the only one this happens to. The only way this works is if he was originally from this universe, got transported to the MCU at some point, and then the events of No Way Home sent him back. Still requires explanation but still, it’s not as though that’s the only thing that raises questions (other questions, Morbius’s reaction to “I blame Spider-man” isn’t “who the f is Spider-man? Why would I blame him? This was all me”, where did Vulture get his equipment from in this new world? Doesn’t he miss his family? The prisons reaction to a stranger turning up from another universe is “meh, free him” rather than asking ANY questions about how he got there).

Now onto the absolute worst thing for me in this film, there’s a fight scene near the end which is among the worst I’ve ever seen. There’s a moment where there’s just an incomprehensible mess on screen for a few seconds, just a blur of brown and black. No need for that. That should not exist in a film this big and it’s a disgrace to modern cinema that it is. There are a lot of bad scenes in films this year, and there will be more, but that is almost a dead cert to win “worst scene” at end of year.

Now onto the good, the performances weren’t too bad, the character has clear motivations, the love interest doesn’t feel tacked on, and the music choices for the trailer were good. Although no matter how good Leto was in it, it has to be acknowledged he was a prick on set. He decided to method act, so would walk around very slowly using crutches, like his character. This meant his pee breaks took so long it was slowing down filming.

Congratulations Leto, you’re pissing off people who are working longer hours than you, for less money, and less recognition. I wonder whether his use of method acting is purely an excuse to be a massive prick to everybody. From what I’ve heard of his behaviour on Suicide Squad, seems the case. But it’s fan, the Hot Topic crowd love him. So films cast him, then make him ugly, but not TOO ugly, because they still want horny teens to buy tickets.

It’s a film you come out of thinking it’s stupid, although the more you think about it, the more you pontificate on what happened, the more you realise it’s actually INCREDIBLY stupid. And filled with characters who do stupid things. Like at one point he turns down a Nobel Prize because he was rewarded for discovering a new technique while trying to solve something else, so he sees it as being rewarded for failure. This is supposed to show him as dedicated and headstrong, in reality it just shows him as incredibly stupid. He is doing all this research work, seemingly with one other person. He’d have a much higher chance of success if he showed he was willing to work with others. So really the whole thing just makes him seem like a petulant dick, who is more focused on HIM curing the disease, than the disease being cured.

Prick.

Eternals (2021)

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Quick Synopsis: Immortal god-like beings fight beasts, themselves, and their own purpose in life.

This is……it’s far too long. I’ve only seen one film directed by Chloe Zhao before, and that was Nomadland, I feel her skills are wasted here. Nomadland was about the personal, it was about focusing on the small, this is a very big film so it’s a weird mesh of style and story that doesn’t really work. Maybe part of that is the script. It’s trying too hard to feel big. It has to tell the story of this entire group, that’s a lot to do. It also tries to tie it into the history of humanity as a whole. It doesn’t do this in chronological order, it jumps back and forth for the first half of the film, almost as though it’s acknowledging that there’s too much backstory but they feel they need to put it in there somehow anyway. The fractured storytelling also really hurts the story being told. The group have been separated for hundreds of years, the film spends a long time getting them back together and the relationships between them all are strained. But we as an audience don’t feel that. And we don’t feel that because of the non-linear editing. As characters, it’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other, but as an audience, it was only 5 minutes or so since we saw them all together and working as a team, and we haven’t seen the split yet. So we don’t feel that tension between them at all. If they did the “Eternals involved in the history of humanity” stuff as a montage at the beginning, then have them split, then we’ll feel it.

The issues behind the split between the group are weirdly underplayed. There are two main incidents that I feel aren’t explored enough: one is the Spanish Conquistadors laying siege to an Aztec city. This could be a haunting emotional setpiece. The whole group should be emotionally devastated at not being able to help, they should all carry that guilt around with them, as it is only one of them does. It’s quite telling that this film doesn’t even have a “Nightmare Fuel” entry on the films TVTropes page. How is that scene not one that stays with you? It’s genocide on film. Yet we don’t really get any emotion from it. The way they do Hiroshima is better, they have the character completely break down and be overcome with guilt. You FEEL that, briefly, then it passes because the film has more stuff it has to cram in.

So far you may think that since I’m discussing what it missed, that I think it should have been longer. Noooooooooooo. This film is over 2 and a half hours, and it feels it. It’s actually longer than Infinity War, yet it feels like it does less. So much of the time is wasted. This is a short excerpt from the Wikipedia entry on the film:

In the present day, Sersi and Sprite live together in London. After Sersi was left by her partner Ikaris centuries earlier, she is now in a relationship with human Dane Whitman, who works at the Natural History Museum. The trio is attacked by the Deviant Kro, with Ikaris arriving and chasing the creature away. Realizing the Deviants have returned, they travel to South Dakota to reunite with their leader, Ajak, only to find that she had been killed by Kro.

I estimate that just that section, not including the flashbacks interspersed throughout, that on it’s own, takes over half an hour. There is no sense of efficiency to any of it. Now I know action scenes can be like that. “they fight” can be a five-minute battle that entertains the hell out of you. But for that to work, the action scenes need to be amazing, they need to be creative and inventive to truly WOW you. This doesn’t do that, and it should. The characters are basically gods, so why are the action scenes duller than the ones in Shang-Chi? There is nothing even close to the use of space or location for fight scenes that that film had. There’s no inventiveness, no spectacle, basically no fun.

On the upside, the performances are hard to flaw, and it does one thing I was really worried it wouldn’t be able to pull off. It avoids the whole “I will now explain all our superpowers in a completely unnatural way” problem that similar films have. It does something better: it just shows you. That’s a more difficult way to do it but much more impressive. The general look and cinematography is also to be commended, even standard scenes are shot in a way of great beauty. It’s not just individual performances, the cast gel together incredibly well and their chemistry is obvious for everybody to see.

So in summary, to be honest, you probably don’t NEED to see this, it’s relatively unessential and not exciting enough to make up for it. One thing better than Shang-Chi is it could lead to a lot more exciting things. The world being made aware of their existence opens up some possibilities, and there are a few more characters implied who could be fun to watch develop.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

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Quick Synopsis: Martial-arts master Shang-Chi confronts the past he thought he left behind when he’s drawn into the web of the mysterious Ten Rings organization.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a Marvel film that had so many people WANTING it to fail. The internet seemed full of people who were desperate for any bad news so that they could say “see! Go woke, go broke!”. They NEEDED it to be bad. Sucks for them then that is incredible. Comic book movies need a compelling villain. Loki was the only bearable part of the first two films, and the villain problem is why some Marvel films haven’t quite hit as they needed to. Wenwu is one of the most compelling villains in the MCU so far. Usually a lot of their villains are “same powers as the hero, but evil”. Sadly, this does do that, but the fact that the villain is the heroes father adds an emotional level to it. Especially since he’s not inherently evil, he’s misguided and being controlled by forces beyond his control. He was a villain before the events of the film, a figure of pure fear for people across the globe. But by the time the film starts all he wants is to get his wife back. That’s what inspires everything he does, and it’s weirdly beautiful. The downside of him is there is so much time spent on him, that the bigger bad that he’s doing it for only really matters in the third act, and doesn’t last for long. It’s his desire and love which leads to the third act CGI battle.

That’s the biggest issue, how underwhelming that final third is. It seems too big that it becomes impersonal, which considering the main core of the film is personal relationships is a bit weird. Instead of being a controlled dynamic set piece, it’s just CGI against CGI, and lets be honest, CGI hasn’t exactly been the MCU’s strong point so far (just look at some of the flying scenes in Captain Marvel for example).

It’s weird as there are some great fights in this. There’s a great rhythm to the way the fights operate. The way they use the surroundings brings to mind the best of Jackie Chan, where the layout of the room effects the way the action operate and it becomes almost a puzzle coming together, and means every fight is different. They also do a great job of demonstrating character through the action. You could show somebody the bus fight and they would get not only the main character, but also Awkwafina’s character.

Time for me to mention it. Awkwafina steals the show here (much like she did in Raya). She’s absolutely hilarious and serves as the audience in terms of introduction to the world, with Shang-Chi explaining everything for her. An incredibly unsubtle way of doing it, but it’s effective. She gives the best lines of the film, which considering the return of the fake Mandarin also happens (spoilers btw) is really something. One downside of her character? Her character arc doesn’t really work. She starts off as the standard “uncertain what to do in life and constantly changes plans” character, then picks up firing a bow and arrow, and is unnaturally good at it. She becomes good at it so far, and becomes so important in the final fight that it feels like Marvel knew she’d be a popular character and wanted to make her powerful. Does the MCU not have any normal characters? It’s okay to have characters who can’t fight, the way they’re treating it seems to be that if you can’t kill people, you’re worthless.

The mid-credits do a good job of setting up the future, with Captain Marvel and Bruce Banner working together (with Banner in full human form). If this is picked up in the future it could be exciting, but I doubt they’re going to deal with it in the new Spider-man movie (how fucking stoked are you guys for that, btw?) so might have to wait a while for that storyline to be moved forward. Eternals is released this year but that will have to be introducing so many characters that I’m not sure they’ll have time to deal with the ones we already know. The Doctor Strange, Thor, and Black Panther films will probably have their own things going on. So the best bet will be in The Marvels, and that’s not out until November next year. The MCU is juggling a lot of balls right now (lol, I said balls) and it’s going to take some skill for them to make the whole thing a coherent narrative again. Fingers crossed.

That’s why I think this is a great film. It works brilliantly on its own, you’re not there thinking you have an unfinished story like you do with something like Brightburn (or even Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 to an extent), but it also sets up the future plans. I’m excited to see what happens, and I like being excited for cinema. When I do the round-ups at the end of the year I can sometimes struggle to not repeat myself, but there is so much I didn’t mention in this review. The lead performance, his sister, the brutal nature of some of the fights, hotel california, Abomination, Wong, the sonic connections. There is so much to talk about with this, and that’s really what you need, to feel excited, to become a fan again, to the point where you become like a little kid describing something he loves “oh, and another cool thing, and then this happened” etc.

Black Widow (2021)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

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.

2019 In Film Day 6: The Amazeballs

On By troubledproductionsIn Year round up1 Comment

Avengers: Endgame

I wasn’t going to put this in this one originally. It’s so deeply flawed, not within the film itself, but in terms of what it closes off. It basically means so many things I was excited for will now never happen; Civil War meaning anything, a villain taking advantage of the chaos of half the universe disappearing to motivate himself, or even one that’s motivated by his family disappearing, blaming the Avengers for not doing enough to stop him. None of that will happen now. I decided to put it here because it’s a three-hour film that I watched on a flight and didn’t feel the urge to skip any of it.

Original review here

+The sheer sense of scale.

-What it closes off. Also the “big emotional moment” was incredibly obvious.

Childs Play

Damn this was entertaining. This had a lot working against it, not only was it a remake (I say “was”, still is, not as though it’s status as a remake has changed), it’s a remake of a film franchise which I’m very familiar with and kind of love. It was made without the consent of the original creators, whilst the franchise is still going strong (unlike Nightmare On Elm Street etc, where it’s pretty safe to say the original franchise is dead). If this had major flaws, trust me I would have picked up on them and used them as a stick to beat the bloated corpse of a terrible movie with. But it was hard to think of any major flaws with this movie. The biggest one isn’t even a dealbreaker for me; it’s just that it feels a little restrained, like it could go further. I’ve read some reviews which talk about the teenage characters being annoying; personally, I found them funny. They weren’t fully realised people, but then again teenagers aren’t. Their decisions made sense considering their age and personalities. So yeah I enjoyed this film. I found it a worthy addition to the name and a good way to kick-off a new franchise (which this is so obviously trying to do)

Original review here

+Mark Hamill’s performance.

-The scene in the toy store near the end REALLY needs to be more brutal and more chaotic. Some scenes feel slightly neutered, and none more so than this.

Fighting With My Family

Personal bias; I loved this movie. I found it heartwarming with great performances and engaging characters. Yes it takes A LOT of, shall we say, “creative liberties” with the truth but I feel it has to. Professional Wrestling is a really weird industry at the best of times, once you get into “yeah she was in the developmental company which gets higher review ratings than the main show, but MUCH lower ratings, so whilst she was never likely to lose her job, her promotion to the main roster was still a bit of a surprise”. This film would not work if it wasn’t for Florence Pugh. She doesn’t do a great impression of who she plays, but she embodies the character so perfectly that it’s hard to unsee her as who she’s supposed to be. Essentially she’s not doing a good impression of her, she’s doing an impression of what your memory thinks of her. Subtle difference but very important.

Original review here

+So darn lovely at times.

-The woman it’s based on was forced to retire before this movie came out and the movie never mentions it, just bad timing.

Happy Death Day 2 U

This is not as tight as the first one, not by a long shot. It’s still a great movie though. Yes the sci-fi based plot isn’t as good as the more straight-up horror of the first one, but there’s just something so endearing about this film. A lot of if is down to the performances of the two leads; Jessica Roth and Israel Broussard. Not only do they have great chemistry but they are great individually too. There’s a scene where Jessica Roths character is in an alternate universe and realises her mother is alive in this one, I defy anybody to watch it and not feel for her. Similarly when she’s trying to decide whether to go back to a universe without her parent in it, or to stay in one with a parent who has memories of things she doesn’t. It’s a compelling character piece and would be ideal for a really depressing short film.

Original review here

+The montage editing is superb. Plus it feels like a second part of the first movie, rather than a sequel. It doesn’t feel tacked on, it slots in perfectly.

-Not quite as good as the first one, and the ending feels a bit cruel

John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum

This film features Keanu Reeves riding a horse in a city and killing people. Of course, I’m going to love this. I will admit this is not as good as the first two; it goes on a little bit too long and the sequel-hook is a little bit too obvious. Quite a few scenes really drag to the point where if the cinematography wasn’t as impressive as it is you’d be bored. This rating all depends on the next move though. If the next film is poor then this will be known as the film where the cracks started showing. I have faith that the next film will still be good though, so it stays here, for now.

Original review here

+The world building is immense.

-A bit too long at times.

Knives Out

Was genuinely surprised by this, which is a bit weird as it had really good reviews and people seemed to love it. I guess I just thought that it would be one of those films that I would just not “get”. But yeah I loved this. I have a soft spot for ensemble cast films, mainly because they’re really hard to do without having some characters seeming underwritten. Now that I think of it though, that’s usually a bigger issue with multi-story films (such as Men, Women And Children) than ensemble films. I’m also a sucker for mystery films, I like it when they’re so well written that when the reveal happens you feel like an idiot for not getting it earlier because in retrospect it was obvious but you didn’t realise at the time. This gets it out of the way by revealing the “killer” very early on, but then giving you another mystery to solve, albeit one which isn’t as unobvious as it thinks it is.

Original review here

+The script, it’s that damn good

-Not quite as slick as it could be.

Late Night

I have a lot of personal love for this film. I loved the story being told, the characters, and how funny it was. It had a real warmth to it, but not a nice warmth that you feel envelop you like a hug, this was a warmth that stings. The satire is razor-sharp and accurate, to the point where it’s kind of depressing as the points they’re making are ones we should be past as a society by now. The main draw is the chemistry the two leads have; the role was allegedly written specifically for Emma Thompson by the other lead (Mindy Kaling) and you can tell this is kind of a dream project for Kaling. When I criticise films I often say “I can’t imagine someone fighting and dreaming to write this script”. With this I can. It feels like a script that Kaling NEEDED to get out of her.

Original review here

+So damn relevant

-Doesn’t seem to make the most of opportunities to make it seem like it exists in this world. There are a lot of chances to have cameos but it doesn’t take them.

Rocketman

Why was this not a bigger film? The fact that this film got less Oscar nominations than Bohemian Rhapsody is a travesty. Everything Bohemian Rhapsody did well, this did a lot better. The performances, the directing, the story, all of it was better; plus it didn’t tell lies about a real persons death to sell the narrative. Some people didn’t like that the film occasionally resembled a musical, I thought that was a perfect way to do it though. This is Elton John, you can’t do a standard film for someone like him, it has to be something extravagant and extra. Let’s be honest, does Bohemian Rhapsody really tell us ANYTHING about who Queen were as a band? This film tells you who Elton John is through the style, and that’s brilliant. It also shows you how many brilliant songs he’s done in his life.

Original review here

+Incredibly honest about his flaws.

-Some of the supporting characters seem a little underwritten.

Shazzam

So damn warm. The second best DCU film (Wonder Woman is top in case you were wondering) I’ve seen. I realise this film is heavily flawed; the pace is slow at the start, there are sections where the villain is missing, and it doesn’t have a unique visual style. It didn’t matter to me though. It was so enjoyable it allowed me to ignore the multiple flaws. I realise now that feeling matters a lot to me in films. If it gives my cynical self that feeling of magic it increases the chance of me loving it. If when I watch it I’m genuinely transported outside of myself. This does that perfectly.

Original review here

+Zachary Levi NAILS the performance perfectly.

-Needs a distinct visual style to truely be great.

Spider-Man: Far From Home

OMG, Mysterio turned out to be the bad guy? Who would have guessed? Well, everybody, let’s face it. It still worked though. We knew he’d be bad, but the way they did it was brilliant (albeit the worry that both of the Spider-Man villains seem to hate Iron Man more than they hate Peter Parker won’t go away). Watched this again recently and it still holds up. It’s probably one of the most visually interesting earth-based MCU films, some of the hallucination sequences are stunning to watch, incredibly inventive. You do have to question the logic of having such an obvious sequel hook when you’re not 100% certain you’re going to retain the rights to the character though.

Original review here

+So funny.

-Can we please have a Spider-man villain who’s motivation isn’t Tony Stark?

Toy Story 4

I had doubts about this, how can you make this film work after the almost perfect ending of the third one? Well, you do it like this. The Toy Story franchise has a great approach to sequels. You never think they’re essential until you watch them and then you wonder how the franchise coped without them. The new characters work well too, Tony Hale, in particular, gives a wonderful performance full of just enough depth and comedic background to make a suicidal spork seem like it fits into the universe.

Original review here

+It looks GLORIOUS

-Wait, so sporks are sentient now? Great, I now have to feel guilty about how I treat cutlery. Thanks.

Us

Expectations were high for this after the success of Get Out. Personally, I think this met them. The story is great, with smart social commentary and absolute genius use of foreshadowing meaning you don’t fully get it until the second viewing, when you can watch it and appreciate all the genius moments in it. The performances are great two, almost everyone plays two distinct characters in it, yet I think even without the costumes you’d be able to understand who is who due to how the actors distinguish each character through facial expressions and how they carry themselves. Best horror I saw all year, by a long shot.

Original review here

+The sense of unease over the entire thing so that even something as simple as a family walking on a beach is somehow unsettling.

-Not quite as well written as Get Out.

Wild Rose

Another film that I feel was robbed from an Oscar nomination it deserved; specifically, best original song. Bear in mind that’s coming from somebody who doesn’t like country music. But the music in this is so well done, so full of emotion that it doesn’t matter to me. It’s helped by the central performance. Jesse Buckley plays the role with such iron vulnerability that it’s hard to feel anything but joy for her when things start to go well for her.

Original review here

+The heart to it.

-Occasionally it seems like things only happen because the story needs it to.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

On By troubledproductionsIn ReviewLeave a comment

I’ll start with the bad: there’s no Stan Lee cameo in this film. That’s weird, it’s the end of an era. A definitive part of these movies will now no longer happen. You’re so used to it that you expect it, then when it doesn’t happen you remember why, and it’s kind of depressing. But enough about sadness, onto this post-genocide film. This is the first film in the MCU to come out after Endgame, so a lot of eyes are on it. It’s also the first one after Iron Man and Captain America have left. So this needed to be great. Anything less than that would leave it being dubbed a failure. Thankfully this is great, simply great. The story is fantastic. I mean, everybody who knows anything about comic books knows that Mysterio would actually turn out to be the bad guy, so when that happens it’s not exactly a surprise. Jake Gyllenhaal continues to remind you that he’s actually really good. Not as good as he was in Nightcrawler, but good enough to annoy you that he’s not in more films.

Mysterio-700x500
Continuing my theory that all good looking people are evil.

The way they do it is pretty damn great though, featuring callbacks to characters you probably don’t even remember existing. It also continues the emerging relationship between Peter Parker and MJ in an incredibly sweet way that will melt the coldest of hearts. A similar heart-warming moment occurs between Ned and Betty Brant. Oh, I guess I should talk about spoilers. I can’t talk about this film without mentioning spoilers. Particularly for the mid-credits scene. Tbh I have been kind of underwhelmed with quite a few of them. They’ve mostly been jokes or otherwise moments which didn’t feel worth waiting for, the notable exception being the Ant-Man And The Wasp mid-credits, which used the mid-credits scene to not only provide an emotional gut-punch, but also make you genuinely excited about what happens next. This tops it. The first one anyway. The second one shows that Nick Fury hasn’t been Nick Fury, he’s actually been one of the Skrulls from Captain Marvel this entire film (you do have to wonder how long that has been going on, how many times in films has Nick Fury not actually been Nick Fury?). This is kind of interesting for the future as it shows how he’s preparing to set up an earth defence system.

Umbrella-Over-the-World--20002
Don’t know what it is but I imagine it will be more sophisticated than this

But it’s the one before that which is the most interesting: J. Jonah Jameson turns up! Not as a newspaper editor, but as some kind of internet “news” prick like Alex Jones. He plays doctored footage which implicates that Spider-Man committed mass murder. He then shows a video of Mysterio announcing Spider-mans real name. Well, he goes “Spider-mans real name is Pe-” and then it cuts out. You think it’s salvageable. You feel safe. Then it comes back “real name is Peter Parker” then shows a picture of him. This is a huge game-changer for the character. But you know what? I REALLY wish it happened earlier. Just imagine if the two Spider-Man films were somehow earlier, and this happened whilst Tony Stark was still alive. This leads to Peter Parker becoming hated by the world, Tony tries to protect him but Captain America thinks he’s guilty. THIS kicks off Civil War, leads to characters dying, and the guilt of that stays on the conscience of Peter Parker. Then the guilt on Captain America when he has that realisation that he’s been leading a war against a teenager. The emotion of that “shit, I wasn’t thinking, I was a complete prick” moment would have been off the charts. I would have loved that, and not because of how disappointed I was with the lack of consequences from Civil War. Now, that’s all well and good, but who has to play Jameson? JK Simmons was the PERFECT casting for that role and is the best part of the original Spider-Man trilogy. I may not be a big fan of those movies, but I have to admit they nailed that and anybody replacing him would have to try VERY hard to delete JK Simmons from peoples memories. Which poor bastard is replacing him? Luckily they got the perfect replacement. This guy is not better or worse than JK Simmons, but is on the same level. Once you watch this movie, you won’t be able to unsee this guy as Jameson. Instead of JK Simmons, we have……..

JK Simmons

Screen_Shot_2019_05_06_at_9.05.57_AM.0
I know, I’m crying with joy too

Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

So yeah, go see it, it’s brilliant, and sets up the next stage perfectly, shit’s changing, and it’s going to be great to see.