What is This Generation’s Star Wars?

Inasmuch as I’d like to write a diatribe about Tiger King this week (I finished it this past Sunday), it’s unlikely that I’d be able to say anything interesting about it that you didn’t already know, especially given that Joel McHale swooped in with some postgame analysis of his own on Easter Sunday. Instead, I’m again rotating away from current movies/shows here in the time of coronavirus and whiling away a few hundred (or thousand, we’ll see where this goes) words on another deep-divey, or dare I say clickbait-y question, in this case: what is this generation’s Star Wars?  When I talk about Star Wars, I’m really only referring to the original trilogy (Episodes 4, 5, and 6), mostly because those were the ones that were such a cultural event/game-changer in the world of cinema, and also because those are the films from a galaxy far, far away that took place at such a time that they could belong to a generation that’s not mine.  An initial subquestion that I feel is worth asking, though, is: does our generation even have a Star Wars? Can any future generation have one? At the end of the day, an eventual answer to this question may simply be that there’s only one Star Wars, and that its sheer incalculable effect on pop culture as we know it is unmatched and likely can never be matched. Let’s crack on anyhow.

Tfw you helped put away an insane gun-toting meth head exotic animals dealer for a myriad of crimes including attempted murder.

With all of this in mind, at first blush a lot of people could be inclined to cite the MCU as a cultural touchstone of similar magnitude, and there’s no doubt that decades from now there’s a good chance we’ll all be talking about Iron Man the way our parents and grandparents talk about A New Hope.  However, a critical difference – at least I think – between Star Wars and the comic book franchise that has essentially ruled the box office with an iron fist for over a decade is that Star Wars actually ended. Now, these days that statement is up for debate for sure, both because of the prequel trilogy of the oughts and the sequel trilogy that just wrapped up with The Rise of Skywalker, but what’s clear is that for 15 years or so, the story did end, and at this point I’m skeptical at best that the MCU, profit machine as it is, will ever experience such a hiatus. Endgame surely provided a climax and a conclusion to the so-called Infinity Saga that’s on par with that of Return of the Jedi and the Rebellion’s ultimate victory over the Empire, but I suspect that we’ll find in a year or less that it was also careful to set up another immediate 10-15 years worth of films in some subtle way, and in spite of the eventual release of The Force Awakens and the subsequent devaluation of the Battle of Endor, that’s something that Star Wars, at least initially, never did.

Without a doubt one of modern cinema’s greatest moments, but we need a chance for it to breathe before we can look back on it fondly, and there’s little hope of Marvel ever giving us that.

When we think back on films that changed the game, or better yet for the purposes of this discussion, franchises that changed the game, we often think of trilogies that had final destinations. The original Star Wars trilogy, The Godfather, even Back to the Future. And I’m not here primarily to lament the current situation in Hollywood, as I feel like I often do, which is that moneymaking franchises are being designed to never end, or even if they’re not designed to be that way, they end up that way anyways. But I do think it’s part of the equation here. Mega-players like Pirates of the Caribbean, which certainly isn’t on par with Star Wars and never was, started with charm and are souring with each additional installment.  The MCU, Transformers, The Fast and the Furious, X-Men, and many other such worlds aren’t being allowed to die, or at the very least aren’t being given hibernation periods (like the Bond franchise and Batman, both multi-generational properties no doubt, smartly do) to allow for any semblance of nostalgia. Even Jurassic Park is a bit of a fringe candidate here, as the first film was certainly a touch point in the art form, but subsequent installments were lackluster, even before the recent reboot. Assuming that some kind of finality is a component of this discussion that has any level of importance, then, we’re left with very little, but let’s plow ahead anyways and look at universes with some kind of terminus.

Indiana Jones: the latest franchise to be unearthed for monetary gain with little regard for the sanctity of the character.

Specifically focusing on trilogies for a second, two that would come to mind are The Matrix (definitely at least something of a game-changer in the action genre, especially in the sense of visual effects) and The Lord of the Rings, which was both a commercial and critical success, arguably a phenomenon, and debatably paved the way for later fantasy phenomenon like Game of Thrones by telling everyone that being at least a little bit of a nerd was just fine. While the former is marred by what was a lackluster conclusion, the latter in particular comes close to fitting the bill for sure, at least in my book, but I think to some extent that it could be argued that it lacked the originality that Star Wars had, which is another important factor here. Not only is The Lord of the Rings an adaptation of some admittedly great source material, but it’s also hardly the first fantasy epic ever attempted, and better yet it’s not even the first adaptation of said source material set to the screen.  There’s also the Twilight trilogy and The Hunger Games trilogy, both of which bring me closer to the eventual answer that’s now present in my head but lack the widespread appeal that I believe Star Wars possesses; after all, I haven’t seen the second and third films in the Twilight saga (I’m unfortunate enough to have seen the first), and in spite of the fact that I’m maybe as far as possible from their target audience, I also love movies more than a lot of folks, and so that seems like a black mark on its record.

Anyways, you need people of intelligence on this sort of mission…quest…thing.

We’re now at the point where we need to acknowledge what I think is the answer, or is as close to the answer as we’re going to get, and it’s Harry Potter.  While it does definitely have a bit of baggage in the originality department, and is these days dangerously close to upsetting its own self-contained nature, it’s probably the most significant phenomenon that I’ve mentioned here besides the MCU, and it undeniably flipped the script in various ways when it comes to film adaptations of novels, let alone young adult novels that were still in-progress when the cameras started rolling. The midnight premieres were bona fide events, the trailer hype was about as real as that of The Phantom Menace, and the institution of the silver screen quickly contributed further oomph to the addition of words like muggle and names like Voldemort to society’s everyday lexicon. It’s not remotely hard for me to imagine myself thirty years from now explaining the storytelling triumph that was the HP film saga (and also the book saga) to my kids, or better yet dusting off a DVD so I could watch it with them. Then again, at that point DVDs will probably be obsolete (they kind of already are) – we’ll probably be watching movies by directly injecting them into our brains or something, or via literal magic.

Mr. Potter…our…new…celebrity.

So there you have it. I’m sure at this point you either agree or you don’t, and I’m more than willing to hear you out in the comments of wherever I wind up posting this thing if you think you have a better answer (even if the better answer is that there’s nothing quite like Star Wars, the logic of which is hard to deny).  And before it’s mentioned, yes: I do know that the mention of both Rush Hour and The Mummy is glaringly omitted here, but I sort of think those belong in my personal pantheon rather than in everyone’s.

Old Men Shake Fists at Comic Book Clouds

This week, I don’t really have an actual movie review for you (though I did rewatch Interstellar with my girlfriend who had never seen it, and I feel like the experience taught me a fair bit more about that movie than I previously knew).  Instead, an attempt to watch The Irishman on Netflix (before realizing that this weekend was actually its limited theater release, with the Netflix release coming later this month) coupled with a stew of reactive thoughts to it in my head has stirred me to rant a bit about the recent comments of Martin Scorsese (The Departed, The Wolf of Wall Street, Goodfellas) and Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) on Marvel movies and why they apparently suck, or something.  If you haven’t read or heard about the comments, you can get a brief summary here, but suffice it to say neither of them are particularly impressed with what Kevin Feige has accomplished, and the main point that I want to make is I just don’t get that, and a number of people – Bob Iger, Samuel L. Jackson, Kevin Smith, and Damon Lindelof among them – are in the same corner as I am.

Before I begin disparaging his remarks, let me just thank Martin Scorsese for giving us one of history’s best meme shots.

Sure, I’ve had my issues with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  Don’t get me wrong, overall I’m as big a fan of it as anyone, but even its biggest fans will readily admit that most of its films – especially the solo outings – are formulaic to a fault, and a lot of the time it feels like the motions the films are going through amount to box-checking, unless of course the stakes are at the leviathan levels of Endgame (I talked about these problems a bit here, though I’ve also obviously reviewed a lot of MCU material positively on this blog).  But to call Marvel movies “despicable,” as Coppola does, or to minimize them in ways that include derisively calling them “not cinema” as though cinema isn’t already a nebulous enough term is selling them short in at least one way that I can think of: namely, I’d argue that Marvel movies, even in all of their commercialization and monopolization of the average cineplex (I’d have to imagine this fact may be at the core of these directors’ gripes – more on that later) are fundamentally well-meaning, and better yet, the reason that they’re so successful, not to mention what I think does make them “cinema”, is that they tap into a very relatable desire that many have, even if they don’t admit it to themselves.

If a movie scene gives you chills, I feel like it could be argued that it’s “cinema” in at least some sense.

One of the major themes of any given Marvel movie involves the discovery of a strength that the protagonist may initially not know they possess, and even more so, the movie typically pivots on how said protagonist uses that strength (spoiler: it’s for good).  The Avengers’ climactic moment revolves around our band of heroes putting aside their differences and working together to achieve an end goal.  Doctor Strange involves a man’s critical journey to the surrender of his own ego.  And of course, Peter Parker’s character teaches us that with great power comes great responsibility (sure, maybe this isn’t said in the MCU rendition, but you get my point).  In at least some small way, they all indulge the hope – or maybe the fear – that a lot of us have: that deep within us, there’s some great untapped power waiting to be discovered.  If they’re theme parks, as Scorsese claims they are, they’re more fun than most of the ones that I’ve been to, and they have better interest at heart – and sure, maybe they can’t deal in the hard and criminal truths the way a mafia movie can, but I think that’s more than fine, and they still deal in an understanding of human nature.  Even if they’re repetitive – a knock which definitely has ample evidence – they’re no more so than Scorsese’s works, which while good feel like repetitions of the same thing.  Organized crime, liberal drug use, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joe Pesci, repeat.  Better yet, they’re not as brooding, probably not as psychological, and certainly not as violent, and I get the feeling that Scorsese sees at least a couple of these qualities as necessary for creation of compelling “cinema” – his body of work bears this theory out some.

My favorite scene from Taxi Driver.

To empathize at least briefly with the “side” of this debate that Scorsese is championing, I think one his main concerns is that some quieter movies with far less fanfare that are also quality films – he specifically cites the work of Greta Gerwig, Noah Baumbach, and Paul Thomas Anderson in this plight, for whatever reason – are being elbowed out under the premise that there are only so many screens and Marvel is flooding box offices.  While I can sort of understand where he’s coming from here, I’m not sure I agree with his theory that movies like these are in trouble – Gerwig’s recent Lady Bird was without a doubt a well-deserved critical and commercial success, as was PTA’s Phantom Thread.  The markets for these movies certainly aren’t as large as Marvel’s, but even without Marvel’s presence, I’m just not sure how much larger they’d be.  Furthermore, this section of his remarks leads me at least slightly to believe that he feels that this is why The Irishman was shortchanged by various studios until Netflix swooped in to rescue it from development hell, when in fact I think it reached that point because it’s a movie from him that we’ve all already seen before.  Either way, his reference to these directors sets up a snobs-versus-comic-book-nerds battle that isn’t nearly as diametric as it’s framed to be.

I would be remiss if I didn’t also thank Marty for this gem of a scene.

Because Scorsese and Coppola’s comments – which I should mention they’ve both made attempts to walk back in spite of the fact that a number of other self-proclaimed auteurs have chimed in in support of their main point – signal a coming changing of the Hollywood guard in the same way that Steven Spielberg’s semi-recent eschewing of Netflix does, and it seems like the transition period may be full of bumpy stretches like this one, but all I know is I like Goodfellas, and I like Avengers: Endgame, and I like The Wolf of Wall Street, and I like Captain America: Civil War, and I like The Godfather, and I like The Departed.  To make any claim that there’s no place for either of these kinds of movies (a distinction that’s limiting in and of itself) in the umbrella term “cinema” seems both needless and wrong to me, and while guys like Scorsese and Coppola are of course entitled to their opinions on the state of the art form – they’ve earned that at the very least with their level of success – it’s hard not to see these as misplaced parting shots at an industry that they may feel has betrayed them in favor of larger stacks of money.  Maybe fifty years from now the Russos will be throwing shade at the next big silver-screen fad, or maybe they won’t, but I have a feeling that this sort of thing is cyclical, and we’re just hearing about it now because we tend to hear about just about everything.

Spider-Man: Far From Home – Review

It finally happened!  I saw a relatively current movie, and in fact, I saw two in a row in what was my first ever theater-bound doubleheader experience.  Spider-Man: Far From Home is Marvel’s latest billion-dollar film, was released way back on July 2nd, and it was actually the second of the two films that I saw, but I’ll be talking about it here first given its earlier release date (tune in next week for my thoughts on Crawl, that ridiculous alligator-hurricane horror film that has been surprising people on the Rotten Tomatoes scoreboard).  After a month of having had this film available to you – and I say this knowing full well that it took me over a month to write about it – I feel like I don’t super need a spoiler warning, but here’s one for you anyways: I’m going to be at least hinting at major plot points below, and if you aren’t familiar with the characters of Spider-Man and Mysterio in the comics, you may want to wait to see this movie before reading, however far in the future that may be for you.

A question my boy Tobey was probably never fit to answer given the continued aging of his movies: does Spider-Man text and swing, and if so, what does it look like?

To say the least, Far From Home is exactly what you’d expect, but that doesn’t really make it any less fun than it is.  Like any Marvel movie worth its salt, it contains a smattering of family-friendly one-liners, a few of which are legitimately funny, and it’s packed with comic book beat-em-up action.  The visuals – best highlighted by the Elemental fights and (later on) the Mysterio mind-melding special effects sequences, which play much like scenes from Doctor Strange in all their mysticism – are predictably excellent and on-par with the surrounding universe, and Michael Giacchino‘s jaunty score reprises a number of the themes introduced in Spider-Man: Homecoming.  None of it – save, perhaps, for Zendaya‘s interesting take on Mary Jane, her awareness of Peter’s secret (great poke-fun-at-yourself moment here) and her eventual folding into the group that Peter’s friend Ned dubs “FOS – Friends of Spider-Man” – is particularly new or exciting relative to both the practices of the surrounding MCU and the Spider-Man mythos as we’ve known it since the Tobey Maguire days, but that certainly doesn’t mean it’s bad or remotely the worst of the countless Spider-Man films we’ve been given; we need only revisit the Andrew Garfield era, which wasn’t even all that bad in its own right, to be reminded of that.  Couched within its MCU clothing, Far From Home does its best to contain a teenaged love story that has its fair share of cute moments, and certainly does its damnedest to diversify the film from its contemporaries using that juicy center, but that’s about its only real source of originality.

The dreaded Hybrid Elemental: a combination of Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water, and most likely a CGI nightmare for some poor overworked Marvel Studios graphic artist.

Spider-Man: Far From Home is in the unique position of having to clean up a lot of the plot-hole-riddled mess left behind by Avengers: Endgame, and it does this fairly well, even going so far as to take advantage of the fact that age gaps have changed in light of the “blip” (why they changed the terminology from the original “Snap” I do not know) in the form of comedy (at one point, we find the ever-annoying and cleverly reinvented Flash Thompson trying to order an alcoholic drink but being refused because he spent five years “blipped”).  Some of this expositional detail isn’t delivered quite as gracefully as it could have been, following the format of Homecoming to breathlessly cram as much catch-up data as possible into a beginning segment that’s framed as a student-made YouTube video, but given the task of explaining to audiences how things will be post-Snap, along with the time constraints, it’s at bare minimum a reasonable attempt.  And as can be readily imagined based on the outcome of the Endgame, and as promised by Far From Home‘s spoilerific final trailer that came out just after Endgame was released, a lot of the emotional content of Spider-Man’s second MCU outing focuses on Peter Parker’s addressing both his grief in the absence of mentor/father figure Tony Stark and the feeling that the metal shoes left behind are his to fill.  This last transitional vestige of Phase 3 is handled reasonably well here, allowing for some well-composed scenes involving the oft-forgotten Happy Hogan, and naturally appearing to indeed frame Peter Parker as the prodigal son inheriting Stark’s tech wisdom, heroic mantle, and of course his toys.  Tom Holland certainly seems up to the task, and continues to be one of the MCU’s most exciting young stars, urging us to hope that with all of the craziness promised in Phase 4, and with the continued contract dispute between Marvel and Sony, he remains involved.

The MCU’s take on Spider-Man’s Stealth Suit, which essentially looks like what Idris Elba is wearing for all of Hobbs & Shaw.  Maybe they have a costume-sharing deal between the franchises?

But Spider-Man’s biggest weakness is in a sense also it’s biggest strength, and this goes back to its source material.  A problem that I don’t often encounter when watching entries in the MCU – both because of my own lack of familiarity and because of Marvel’s too-occasional penchant for making bold character choices – is knowing what’s going to happen because I have a certain (limited) degree of knowledge about the comics upon which the films are based, but in Spider-Man: Far From Home, anyone who is aware of Spider-Man beyond the many films featuring him will know that Jake Gyllenhaal‘s Quentin Beck will turn out to be a turncoat.  While I’ll readily admit that this made Mysterio essentially no less fun to watch, and while such a phenomenon has also surely shown up in other films, laying character’s hidden motives bare for any of Marvel’s truly initiated (Aldrich Killian in Iron Man 3, anyone?), it inevitably takes a bit of the wind out of the sails of the big reveal scene in Prague.  It’s still very well-sold by Gyllenhaal, who is clearly having the time of his life being part of the MCU – and who reportedly wanted to be seen wearing his suit whenever possible on camera – but knowing that the turn is coming only adds to the sense of “let’s get this over with” that the film at times seems to weirdly embrace.  With all that said, the cameos involved in the reveal of Beck’s special-effects team are awfully fun, providing an Endgame-ish set of flashbacks to Iron Man and Civil War while also posthumously calling into question Tony Stark’s already arguably dubious code of ethics.

Quentin Beck: known thanks exclusively to an Italian newscast as Mysterio.

Spider-Man: Far From Home doesn’t find the MCU quite at the height of its powers, nor the height that Endgame reached, but if you saw it with such high expectations as those, you probably shouldn’t have, and were bound to be let down in some way.  For what it is – the latest standalone entry in an ages-old character’s story, pitting him against a classic villain with a new MCU-ified twist while shooting some of its subtler webs in the direction of future films – it’s probably about as good as it could have been.  The mid- and post-credits scenes, complete with a downright glorious J.K. Simmons cameo in his fated return as J. Jonah Jameson, give us a meaty cliffhanger for Spider-Man’s own character arc while also fueling the fiery question on everyone’s mind by the film’s end: where are the Avengers, and why are they leaving a kid to fend for himself?  We’ll assumedly find out in Phase 4.

Zendaya’s Mary Jane, shown here thinking about how much dating Spider-Man is going to improve her morning commute.

Tune in next week for something completely different: a discussion of the zany but decently-crafted survival antics of Crawl.  In the meantime, thanks for reading!

Avengers: Endgame Review

First things first – an obligatory spoiler warning.  If you’re one of the few people left who has not yet seen Endgame and wants to, read no further unless you want to be preemptively let in on some major plot points.

Captain America always looks like a bird just flew away with his hot dog.

We’re in the Endgame now.  So said Dr. Strange – a man that we now know the Ancient One had assumed to be “the best of us” – at the end of last year’s Infinity War.  In what has surely been one of the most anticipated movies of the past God knows how many years, the Russo brothers have delivered another showstopping experience to the MCU’s countless fans (with more of their customary Community cameos to boot), and in spite of the fact that I waited a few days too long to see it and got spoiled by freaking LeSean McCoy on Twitter, I loved it 3000.  Indeed, I don’t have much to say here in the way of actual critique, nor do I have really anything at all to say in the way of theories as to how the time-travel in Endgame worked (seriously, guys, it’s just a MacGuffin, and shouldn’t be taken too seriously – Endgame itself even saw fit to poke some fun at it, and explained it what I thought was the appropriate amount), but I still think it’s worth talking about why Endgame is great, and why it’s still shattering box office records and recording high Rotten Tomatoes reviews as you read this.

Steve Rogers is looking as beefed-up as ever, which makes sense – he probably has an easier time getting machines at the gym with half of the population dusted.

The list of “goods” here is just too long to enumerate, and that starts with the ensemble cast, which at this point is large enough to populate a small country.  All of the performances are great, and range from the clearly-having-a-blast type (Mark Ruffalo and Paul Rudd come to mind here) to the actually-tearjerking type (Robert Downey Jr., of course, and also Tom Holland in his brief few moments).  Either way, they all certainly accomplish enough to keep a movie like Endgame – which, in spite of its increased emotional range, is still a comic book movie – afloat.  Endgame uses this cast effectively with smart writing that employs the typical dose of MCU quippy humor while taking its audience on a surprisingly twisty journey that leaves anyone who has seen the film’s many trailers and feeling like they know what to expect (me) confused after the first twenty or so minutes of Endgame‘s three-plus hours.  The time-travel mechanic, while littered with plot holes and seeming inconsistencies that have the internet teeming with explanatory videos and articles, is well-crafted in its ability to give audiences the opportunity to revisit some of the MCU’s best and most iconic moments over the past 11 years along with the characters they’ve grown to love, and in this respect Endgame is a master class in fan service.

The tenuous detente between Captain America and Iron Man was one of the more fun interpersonal elements to watch in Endgame.

Along the way, you’ll also find a lot more emotional content than Infinity War (or any other MCU movie to date, for that matter) ever had, which makes some amount of sense and is large amounts of predictable given where last year’s blockbuster left us, but is still overall well-executed.  While a lot of this content is found in the expected places and isolated within the film’s exposition and denouement (our heroes coping with the Snap, and of course where they end up at Endgame‘s conclusion), some of it comes in the midst of the Avengers’ fight to bring back all that was lost – Black Widow and Hawkeye’s battle for sacrifice on Vormir comes to mind, as does Thor’s reunion with his now-deceased mother, who really takes the idea of time travel in stride.  For me, and given my undying love for Iron Man, Endgame‘s most poignant moments usually involved him, and given his newfound family-man archetype and his continued treatment of the dusted Peter Parker as something of a surrogate son, these poignant moments were in no short supply.  Of course, a lot of this emotion is also propelled into the audience’s heart at hypersonic speeds by Alan Silvestri‘s outstanding score, which on top of mixing themes from his previous MCU exploits (he provided the work for Infinity War, and way back when, Captain America: The First Avenger), also provides the perfect soundtrack for the film’s triumphant reunion of all of the MCU’s countless heroes to take down Thanos once and for all (seriously, Portals is amazing).

Avengers!  Assemble!

Which brings me to the film’s final hour, and wow, what an hour it was.  This is where the movie really takes off and produces its “Holy shit, I am literally on the edge of my seat and shaking with joy” moments, from the aforementioned portal moment to the revelation that Captain America is indeed capable of wielding Mjolnir, as teased in Age of Ultron.  The final battle, in all its chaotic glory, serves as the ultimate payoff for those that have been with Marvel Studios through any portion of its 11 years of filmmaking, and also serves as a reward for anyone that’s capable of suspending their disbelief at the theater door – and also going three hours without using the restroom.  This battle’s end, while seemingly avoidable according to some, completes the so-called Infinity Saga the same way that it began – with Tony Stark getting the last word, as always, and proclaiming his mantle as Iron Man.  This end – while in reality followed by twenty minutes or so of wrap-up that also finds Captain America’s passing of the torch to Falcon to be the end of his character’s arc – is a beautiful one, and the beginnings that come along with it (who’s hyped for Asgardians of the Galaxy?) aren’t bad either.  If there’s one effective way to expand an already massive cinematic universe, it’s to follow the lead of your comic book source material and create a multiverse with assumedly infinite and independent timelines.

We’ll miss you, Tony.

Avengers: Endgame is not a perfect movie – not by any stretch of the imagination, in fact -but it does show just how much movie a single movie can give you, and also how much an estimated $356 million can buy (and subsequently recoup in a mind-blowing single weekend).  In spite of recent reports, I think it’s unlikely to garner much awards consideration (except, perhaps, for Silvestri, whose main competition at this point I expect to lie in December), and while it’s largely exempt from a number of the problems I listed in my recent Captain Marvel review due to its uncharacteristically high multi-movie stakes, it still signals a potential jumping-off point for people who may want out of the taxing continued commitment to the churning money machine.  But given its mammoth scale, along with the long list of tasks it has to accomplish as the capstone of a 22-film saga, it gets the job done and then some, and features countless moments and shots that are among the MCU’s most thrilling and most emotionally charged.  If you consider yourself of a fan of Marvel’s work thus far, it’s virtually impossible that you’ll be leaving the theater disappointed.  It’s definitely hard to imagine a continued MCU reaching a peak of this sort again, but if Kevin Feige and Co. have proven anything to us thus far, it’s that they’ll do whatever it takes to get their audience atop another one.

Dissecting the Avengers: Endgame Trailer

Irony abounds.  A mere week after ripping into Captain Marvel a bit for being “too Marvel,” I’m back to talk about, well, Marvel.  Better yet, I’m not even here to review a movie, I’m here to review a trailer.  However that may make you feel, if you’ve been living under a rock for the past few days, or have in some other miraculous way avoided seeing or hearing much about the second Avengers: Endgame trailer, which dropped on Thursday of last week, here it is:

Now that you’ve assumedly watched it, I’m going to roll out a mixture of predictions, hot takes, and general nerd tidbits for your reading pleasure.  Cut me some slack – it was a slow movie week.

Tony Stark was edited into that epic white-suit-walking shot.  This is the main thing I showed up to say, so I’m leading with it.  Any of the multitudes of YouTube commenters who are apparently thrilled to see that Tony manages to escape that ship lost in space clearly didn’t learn anything from the Infinity War theatrical trailer, which shows the Hulk in all of his Hulk-ness tearing it up in Wakanda – something we now know didn’t happen in the movie.  I’m as big an Iron Man fan as there can be, but given his brush with death at the end of his fight with Thanos in the last film, he’s operating on borrowed time at this point, and although a lonely death in space is hardly an extravagant one for the man who kicked off the MCU, it may be his time and place.  As for Nebula, it’s a little less clear what her lost-in-space fortunes are, given that I’m not really sure what her oxygen needs are.

Goodbye Tony, it’s been nice, hope you find your, paradise.

Another point to this end: the internet was positively abuzz when the teaser trailer for Endgame dropped and people were noticing conspicuous gaps in the walking groups of heroes.  While most at the time suspected that these gaps were meant for the yet-to-be-revealed Captain Marvel, now Marvel is leading us to believe that at least one of those gaps was meant for Tony.  I’m not buying it, and furthermore I think the original prediction was right: Captain Marvel will take Tony’s place in this shot.

Black Widow shooting at a target in preparation for a fight with (assumedly) Thanos is pretty ridiculous/funny.  I like Black Widow, and I wish her standalone movie would finally happen, but you have to admit it’s a little comical to see her surrounded by demi-gods and superhumans showcasing her seeming primary ability as “aim that’s not quite as good as Hawkeye’s, or even Hawkeye’s daughter based on the beginning of the trailer.”  Which brings me to my next point…

What will finally take Thanos down, you ask?  A 9mm.

Hawkeye’s hair is clear indication that the Snap threw him into a complete mental breakdown.  Clint Barton’s curious absence in Infinity War has been made up for with two trailers that lay out his state of being pretty clearly: he’s living happily on that farm from Age of Ultron with his family after taking a deal after the events of Civil War (my God, so many movies), when suddenly the Snap happens, assumedly vaporizing his family or most of it (this is how I expect Endgame to start), and he essentially loses himself and becomes the significantly darker-seeming assassin Ronin.  What’s also clear is that either his original barber was also a victim of the Snap, or he’s using his hair as his primary grieving mechanism, or both.  Either way, it’s bad, and while Black Widow’s continual hairstyle decline that started with Infinity War is, well, continuing, MoHawkeye takes the cake here for worst ‘do.

Black Widow sports like 4 different hairstyles in this trailer, and Hawkeye also has a few different styles, further suggesting a time travel mechanic being involved in the plot.

By the end of Endgame, Captain Marvel will be the new Captain America: i.e., the new leader of the next generation of Avengers.  This isn’t a super bold prediction.  Sure, Bucky Barnes may become the new Captain America in terms of taking on the title (based on the character’s comic-book arc), but Carol Danvers has much more of a chance of inheriting Steve Rogers’ role as team leader, based both on her seemingly infinite powers (I talked about this a bit here) and her leadership resume (leading the Skrulls in their attempt to escape a lifelong Kree war and find a new home seems like a pretty strong bullet point).  I mean, the name “Avengers” is also based on her Air Force callsign, as we now know.  How much more storybook could it get?

Pre-RIP to the Thor-Carol friendship.

Will Tony’s vision from Age of Ultron come true?  This is something I’ve admittedly been thinking about since well before this trailer dropped, and even well before the Infinity War began.  You’ll recall – well, maybe you will, I don’t know – that at the beginning of Age of Ultron, Scarlet Witch (now a good guy, and one of many lost in the Snap) shows Tony Stark a vision that seemed to predict a dark future in which the current cast of Avengers (Steve Rogers, Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye) all die:

Sure, Captain America’s “you could have saved us” line is pretty hammy, but it’s the imagery that sticks with me here: Captain America’s broken shield, the callbacks to the initial invasion of New York City from the first Avengers film (an invasion, you’ll recall, that was orchestrated by Thanos in conjunction with Loki), and so on and so forth.  At the time, this was thought to be a false vision, and furthermore a prediction that wouldn’t extend beyond the events of AoU.  What I’m wondering now is if this vision was indeed the prophecy it claimed to be, foreshadowing the deaths of these characters at the conclusion of Endgame.  I’m not necessarily expecting a shot-for-shot recreation of this motif, especially considering how different Thor and Black Widow look, but it would definitely be a cool way to wink at the MCU fans who remember this moment from Ultron.

The teaser trailer for Endgame was better.  I have no sense of the hotness of this take, but I’ll start by saying that I think both trailers were great.  People may grumble about this most recent one’s gratuitous use of archival footage, but I think it was a clever way to remind us of how far these characters have come while also avoiding creation of a trailer that reveals too much about what may be one of the most anticipated films in the past few years not containing “Star Wars” in its title.  I simply think that the high points in this trailer failed to match that of the teaser, and this one’s highest point (honestly might be the Thor-Carol shtick at the end – it’s a crime that Marvel is only going to give us one film’s worth of a clearly fun dynamic) wasn’t as explosive as a few of the moments in the teaser (Ant-Man and Hawkeye’s respective long-awaited returns, namely).

10 years ago, it all began.

Only a month or so to go now until we get to watch a bunch of these folks die.  Either way, we can apparently rest assured that Peter Parker will be back safe and sound in time for Far from Home.

Captain Marvel Review, or: A List of Reasons Why Marvel Movies Have a Marvel Problem

Captain Marvel – the first big MCU film of 2019, and certainly not the last (with Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far from Home on the way this summer).  Released on International Women’s Day, Captain Marvel is the biggest franchise in Hollywood’s first film with a female protagonist, and is also directed and co-written by women, which immediately begs the question: is it as good as Wonder Woman (i.e. really good)?  Is it better?  Is it worse?  That’s one of many questions I’ll try to answer here, but after talking a bit about Captain Marvel and its ups and downs, I expect to naturally segue into a discussion of why Marvel movies are in a rut, and likely will be for the foreseeable future, with one or two exceptions.

Carol “Avenger” Danvers.  Vers for short.

The word that jumps to mind when I think of my Captain Marvel experience is “fine.”  It was fine-to-good on average, mostly because it had some great parts and some not so great parts, much like most fine things.  What people reading this may care about most is the fact that it has the appropriate amount of tie-ins with the rest of the Marvel universe, in particular featuring a mid-credits scene that builds hype for Endgame in a solid and tangible way and draws exactly the connection you’re probably hoping to see.  In that way and all others, it’s the origin story you’d expect, with some excellent high points involving the theme of female empowerment and a second-act turn that I must give a small amount of credit to for being the most unexpected (read: still fairly expected) part of the film.  The visual effects are Marvel-grade, with the constant de-aging of Samuel L. Jackson (rookie Shield agent Nick Fury) and Clark Gregg (even more rookie Shield agent Phil Coulson) standing out as the most impressive.  Brie Larson‘s performance was neither incredible nor underwhelming, with the rest of the cast (Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Jackson, Gregg) doing pretty much the same across the board.  Let’s face it: Marvel movies simply don’t demand much out of their actors and actresses, and that’s just fine.

Jude Law’s contacts went a pretty long way in terms of making him look like an alien – props to Captain Marvel’s makeup department.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect of the film overall is the fact that for an origin story, it more often than not fails to do one of the things that origin stories are typically responsible for: explain the protagonist’s powers.  Let me be clear: it explains the origin of the powers just fine, but never really explains the powers themselves, allowing them to be pretty nebulous from start to finish and framing Carol Danvers as more of an unstoppable Superman-like hero than I’d like, especially after the climactic “becoming the true hero” scene towards the film’s end (seriously, what is that chip in her head? They never even attempt to explain this).  This is a bit of a double-edged sword in that it keeps us guessing as to what Captain Marvel is capable of, which is at least mildly engaging, but is also makes her essentially infallible as I’ve already mentioned, and furthermore it cements the film as an experience that’s surprisingly not mandatory viewing pre-Endgame, given that you’ll know roughly as much about her abilities if you haven’t seen Captain Marvel as you will if you’ve only seen the trailer.

It’s about time we got an MCU hero that sports a mohawk.

But here’s the main point I want to make with this review: most of what unfolds in Captain Marvel amounts to nothing more than checking boxes, and to be clear, its creators are pretty darn good at checking those boxes.  There’s no doubt that the movie has some fun moments, some funny moments, and especially some empowering moments with at least a medium-rare emotional core, but at the end of the day, it also feels like there’s very little heart in any of it.  If there’s any heart anywhere, it’s probably in the film’s moral thesis of female empowerment, as it should be, but the narrative itself is largely devoid of passion, and it shows.  It’s hard to blame Captain Marvel‘s creators for this, though, as it’s not hard to envision a scenario in which their potential for imagination and creativity is hamstrung by the need to stay within the MCU’s electric fence and, well, check boxes.  Effective but occasionally clunky broad-strokes characterization is essentially an MCU hallmark at this point, as is a sprinkling of PG bits of situational humor that always seem to come at certain predetermined times in the films’ action, and fail among many other elements to be completely original or truly gut-busting funny.  On top of that, there also looms the MCU’s biggest issue of all, and that’s the setting of stakes.

The Skrulls – the latest alien race the MCU is introducing us to.

Here’s my likely unoriginal and not-hard-to-reach conclusion about the current age of Marvel movies: they can simply no longer be interesting unless the stakes are truly titanic.  To put it another way: at no point during Captain Marvel are we ever concerned about Danvers or any of her friends falling into legitimate mortal peril, and at no point are we ever concerned about Larson’s character overcoming any obstacle or achieving a given objective.  Again, this is hardly the fault of the screenwriters, as they’re being told to tell a story that’s essentially predetermined, and this is a dramatic quandary that has plagued all Marvel movies for the past few years that have not been Infinity War.  What made Infinity War so compelling were the titanic stakes set by Thanos, the harbinger of doom employed for numerous post-credits scenes, coming to end it all, and the fact that its creators finally had the temporal buildup to start making choices of actual import with regards to the lives and deaths of characters that we’ve been conditioned over multiple films to actually care about.  An exception to this rule, and proof that this dramatic quandary can be conquered with a certain game-changing sense of style that Captain Marvel arguably lacked, was 2018’s Black Panther.  Another non-Marvel piece of superhero IP that falls into this category of genre rejuvenation is Deadpool.

My perception of myself after I go to the gym once.

And yes, before you say as much: I know that in order to get lovable characters and plotline-combining epics like Infinity War, you at some point need easygoing origin stories like Captain Marvel, but at the same time, there’s only so much of this on repeat that an audience can take over a brief 10-year MCU lifetime before heading to the exits (if the box office is any indication, we clearly haven’t hit that point yet, but I feel that it’s coming).  The failing of Captain Marvel (and other recent MCU films like it) to pose a dramatic question that has a difficult answer takes all of the air out of the film’s ultra-predictable and also somehow logistically confusing climactic sequence, and instead lends it to elements that are probably intended to be secondary, and gives scenes focused on Nick Fury and Phil Coulson’s backgrounds a lot more weight than was likely intended, and for a simple reason: these characters, characters with multi-movie and multi-show arcs, are the ones that we care about.  In fact, chunks of the film serve as a better origin story for Fury than it does for Carol Danvers, and we the audience do get a great two-for-one deal in that way, but it also strikes me as a problem when we’re more concerned with determining how Nick Fury loses his eye than with how Captain Marvel is going to win, and become the day-saver we’re teased with at the end of Infinity War.  You do find out how he loses the eye, by the way.

Pre-eyepatch post-digital-manipulation Nick Fury.

Captain Marvel certainly has the heart of Wonder Woman, and a great message, but it lacks the directing talent of its predecessor, and furthermore doesn’t seem to have as much of a spring in its step as 2017’s Amazonian adventure.  While it goes through the motions and hits all of the typical beats in arguably the exact right way, it’ll be precisely what you show up expecting to see, and for that reason alone, it more often than not fails to excite or revitalize the genre.  And yes – before you ask, I know full well that I’m saying all of this while lowering myself into the gears of the Marvel machine to the tune of $11 and a whopping $455 million opening weekend – the same churning gears that seem well-suited to smushing the creative will of the filmmakers the MCU has ensnared with its promise of boundless riches.

Avengers: Infinity War Review

***WARNING – MAJOR SPOILERS WITHIN***

At one point I had planned to write my review of Avengers: Infinity War without including any spoilers.  That point was decidedly before I saw the absurd and unbelievable ending, in which Marvel does the unthinkable and shatters the expectations many – myself included – had both before and throughout the film’s events about who would survive and who wouldn’t.

Ironically, the Hulk is never spotted on Earth, so this image (taken from the trailer) is pretty disingenuous.

But outside of the gonzo ending, Avengers: Infinity War is in most respects exactly what you’d expect, and if you’re showing up at the theater to watch it, it’s exactly what you want: non-stop breathless action scenes punctuated by bananas CGI-fueled setpieces, featuring about a billion characters who only have enough dialogue to toss in a couple of zippy one-liners dripping with wit here and there.  While I’m not out to disparage the cast, who have all clearly done what’s been asked of them (and in some cases, done more), it’s a pretty easy gig for them.  They’ve all (far too many to waste time naming) played these characters, and now the goal is to just mush them all together, and their biggest job is simply to show up.  They all certainly do, some more briefly than others, but at the end of the day, it’s undeniably satisfying to see the Avengers working together with the Guardians of the Galaxy, regardless of any sort of acting prowess or lack thereof.

Another image from the trailer.  Not gonna lie, I’m still a little mad at Star-Lord, as this is mostly his fault.

The story of Infinity War is exactly fine in my book.  It doesn’t make a whole lot of groundbreaking choices, but it plods at a reasonable pace, with the plot being moved along primarily by the critical mistakes of a choice few protagonists (looking at you, Star Lord, you colossal buffoon).  We maintain the split-crew configuration featured in Captain America: Civil War, with Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Spider-Man, Drax, Star-Lord, and Mantis protecting the Time Stone and fighting Thanos on Titan, while Steve Rogers (formerly Captain America, now possible Nomad), Bucky Barnes (formerly the Winter Soldier, now possibly White Wolf), Black Panther, Black Widow, War Machine, Falcon, Scarlet Witch, and the Hulk fight Thanos’ minions and protect Vision and the Mind Stone in Wakanda.  There are also a number of floaters amongst multiple crews, namely Thor, Rocket Raccoon, Groot, Gamora, and Nebula.  Omnipresent and in the midst of all the hubbub, though, is Thanos, the supposedly mega-powerful supervillain we’ve been teased with for literal years in post-credits scenes galore.  As a Marvel antagonist, he certainly doesn’t disappoint, keeping the MCU’s bad-guy hot streak going with a decently convincing motivation and a frightening amount of sheer power, displayed especially at the end of the film.  The good guys may have finally met their match with this one.

Thanos – basically a purple Josh Brolin with gigantic arms/hands and a really weird chin.  Menacing.

In any case, what results from all the noise is a film that’s doubtlessly worthy of the ten-year buildup and the estimated $320 million price tag, even without considering the jaw-dropping ending.  It embodies a culmination of a generational phenomenon that’s similar to the final Harry Potter movie, and its scope is (dare I say) similar to Justice League, given that at one point you have Spider-Man (a relatively grounded MCU member) fighting alien creatures in deep space and on Titan, and that’s just one example.  The difference, though, is that Marvel has taken the time and done the due diligence to build each character up before mashing them together and dropping them into such an earth-shattering scenario, and by virtue of both that and its much lighter tone, it clearly succeeds in places Justice League didn’t.  What I will say, though, is that Infinity War did leave me slightly longing for a more grounded and traditional Marvel adventure without so many faces to keep track of.  Maybe it’s silly to give the MCU credit for making me want to see even more of their future comparatively more subdued movies, so I won’t.  With that said, if that was indeed their backwards plan…it worked.

Spider-Man (Iron Spider) in space!

The good news – we won’t have long to wait to figure out what happened to all the folks lost in The Snappening, as the yet-untitled Avengers 4 is set to drop on May 3rd, 2019.  In the meantime, we have Ant-Man and The Wasp coming later this summer (perhaps Marvel’s cruelest joke of all is using Infinity War to dramatically increase my minuscule interest in seeing that seemingly already-played-out hero story; now I need to see where he lands in all the chaos), and then in March of 2019 we have Captain Marvel, which is apparently poised to take place in the 90’s and assumedly set the stage properly for a character who is evidently – according to Nick Fury and Maria Hill’s brief post-credits stinger – supposed to swoop in and save everyone.  While there are a number of rumors swirling about Avengers 4 (including but not limited to talk of time travel, Soulworld, and the Quantum Realm), we’ll just have to wait and see how the surviving heroes can manage to undo what’s been done.

Oh you know, just a talking raccoon, a sentient tree, and a one-eyed demi-god on their way to attempt to reignite a neutron star to forge an all-powerful axe.  Welcome to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Because let’s face it – those who are “dead” aren’t truly gone.  More specifically, while Gamora and Loki are likely out of the picture for good, all who kicked the bucket by quietly turning to dust in Infinity War‘s last five minutes I’d say are all extremely likely to return, especially Marvel’s new poster boys King T’Challa and Spiderman (who, among others, already have future solo installments confirmed).  This theory is heavily bolstered by Dr. Strange’s telling Tony Stark that “there was no other way” before fading into whatever shadow realm all of those characters entered.  Having used the Eye of Agamotto (read: the Time Stone) to view just over 14 million conflict scenarios with Thanos, and having only found one possible future to be victorious for the good guys, the assumption is that Dr. Strange knew what he was doing when he gave up the Time Stone to Thanos to spare Iron Man’s life – something he had expressly proclaimed earlier in film that he would never do.  All of this boils down to a few strong suggestions:

1.) Tony Stark needed to survive for the Avengers and Co. to succeed in defeating Thanos, and therefore he’ll play an instrumental (and perhaps final) role in Avengers 4.

2.) As a corollary to Suggestion 1, Dr. Strange’s vision of the future must have shown that our heroes must first lose a battle before they can win the war.

3.) Thanos is super screwed, though it’s unclear how.  Captain Marvel must be pretty dang powerful.

Lots of combined brainpower here.  And Wong.

If I were to lay money down on who I thought would survive Avengers 4 (and/or return from the shadow realm, as I’ve been calling it), I’d bet on pretty much everyone who departed at the end of Infinity War, along with a chosen few of the people left behind (namely Black Widow, who is slated for her own film).  I still see Iron Man, Captain America, and Thor as most likely to shuffle off their mortal coils – due to both contracts and character arcs – but Marvel has taken my presuppositions regarding the Infinity War and subverted them beautifully (they really toyed with me with Iron Man in particular, basically killing him in the manner we all expected and then saving him at the last second), so at this point I’d say anything is still on the table.  We’ll see soon enough.

Check out Avengers: Infinity War (currently in theaters literally everywhere) if you haven’t already, though if you’ve read to this point and haven’t yet seen it, you’ve been hella spoiled.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

 

Black Panther Review

While I’m aware that Black Panther has broken a bunch of box office records – like recouping its $200 million budget in its opening weekend – I don’t know who has been going to see it, as I’m sure all of you have been waiting to read my review.  Wait no longer!

One of the most telling lines from Black Panther – uttered by Shuri, King T’Challa’s little sister and probably my favorite new character – is “Just because something works doesn’t mean it can’t be improved.”  This line seems to embody what the game plan has been with Black Panther, and Kevin Feige and company seem to be at the height of their powers in terms of making plans into realities.  Black Panther is a complete, well-polished, and above all unique Marvel thrill ride that elevates the MCU to new heights at a time when new heights probably weren’t thought possible by most.  It also seems to arrive at a very opportune time, when the current political climate and social issues at the forefront of our minds tie in well with the messages of the film, begging the question of how calculated the timing of its release really is.

Too sharp to touch.

Before I get into the deeper stuff, let’s just start by saying that Black Panther is fun in exactly the way you’d expect a Marvel movie to be, and perhaps more fun at times.  The casino and car chase scenes in Korea – shown frequently in the trailer and marketing materials – are some of the better action scenes in the MCU, on par in my book with the fight scenes in Winter Soldier (my personal favorite MCU installment – a ranking of all of the Marvel movies probably deserves its own post at this point).  These portions of Black Panther have the feel of a James Bond movie more than a superhero flick at times, with a powerful aura of coolness and little mention of superhuman abilities.  This de-emphasis on superhuman abilities also extends to the ritual combat scenes taking place in Wakanda – also some of the more thrilling bits of Black Panther, probably for that very reason.  Stripping away T’Challa’s powers immediately prior to a deadly battle with axes and spears allows all of us to relate to him just a little bit more, and obviously adds suspense where suspense might be needed.

T’Challa and Killmonger squaring off in ritual combat.

The cast is all around very good – Michael B. Jordan in particular is fantastic as Killmonger, the MCU’s latest (and definitely most competent) attempt to solve Marvel’s villain problem.  A villain with a somewhat typical revenge plotline but atypical motivations beneath the surface, Killmonger is teamed up with Klaue – an arms dealer you may remember from Age of Ultron, played by Andy Serkis of Lord of the Rings/Planet of the Apes fame.  This duo of baddies, in their craftiness and wanton desire for destruction, composes the strongest set of antagonists Marvel has seen since Winter Soldier (you know – before he turned into a good guy).  Also of note are Lupita Nyong’o as Nakia, a Wakandan spy, Daniel Kaluuya (as seen in Oscar darling Get Out and Black Mirror) as T’Challa’s best friend W’Kabi, Letitia Wright as T’Challa’s Q-like little sister Shuri, Angela Bassett as Ramonda, Danai Gurira as Wakandan general Okoye, and Forest Whitaker, appearing as Wakandan shaman Zuri in a role similar to his stint in Rogue One but far better executed.  Of course, there’s also Chadwick Boseman as the Black Panther himself, introduced in Civil War but given a more full-fledged origin story of sorts here.  In an overly star-studded cast, Boseman holds his own in the titular role, but just barely, as he’s often overshadowed by the likes of Jordan, Wright, and Nyong’o specifically.

One of the more tense dramatic scenes in Black Panther.

And there’s also Everett Ross, played by Martin Freeman (Sherlock, The Hobbit).  Ross is a former pilot turned CIA agent who has popped up briefly in the past – during Civil War – and who appears to perhaps be the next Phil Coulson (a glue-like character similar to the continually absent Nick Fury, and who in my opinion was killed way too soon).  What the future holds for Everett Ross is uncertain, but what seems clear is that he’ll be an important piece of the puzzle as we approach the Infinity Wars.  In the meantime, it seems the character is apparently inspired partly by Chandler Bing (yes, that Chandler Bing), so that’s…something.

I was going to try to find a picture of Ross, but this is just way cooler.

These characters are all placed against the backdrop of one of Marvel’s more in-depth worldbuilds in the fictional African country of Wakanda, a well-hidden nation consisting of five tribes and built upon a veritable goldmine of Vibranium – that stuff that Captain America‘s shield, along with plenty of other Marvel gear, is made of.  Wakanda has hints of Asgard, hints of Sakaar, and even a bit of Themyscira, but it’s also on a whole other level in terms of the use of color and high-tech toys in a low-tech world.  Wakanda is Blade Runner-esque completely foreign in its futurization and its mythos, and it’s also here on Earth, which gives it a compelling leg up over the more cosmic locales mentioned.  Ryan Coogler (Fruitvale Station, Creed) seems to have been a fantastic choice to direct, and does some excellent work creating the world of Black Panther.

Our first view of Wakanda, early in the film.

Throughout the building action, Black Panther does the globetrotting that most Marvel movies do, bouncing quickly from Nigeria to Oakland to the UK to South Korea, but of course, Wakanda remains the primary focus throughout, as members of its power structure struggle with the responsibility to use its resources and technology to help the countless people across the world with whom they share ancestry.  Black Panther deftly handles the social issues that you’d expect it to, but it also asks sobering and timely questions about complex ideas that completely transcend the fictional universe in which they’re asked, touching on things like altruism versus isolationism, and the best ways in which to use power when it’s yours.  While it’s clear throughout that responsibility is a core theme and a core Wakandan value, what Black Panther’s characters grapple with is how to best help those that need it, and what’s entertaining about this journey is that most characters likely have motives that aren’t either completely virtuous or vice versa.  There’s a fair amount of grey area in which to operate, and while some ideas – namely Killmonger’s plan for escalation of violence – are clearly wrong, there are others that can’t be painted as black or white.

Shuri is the bomb.

It all adds up to an incredible ride that’s suitably and adequately different, and lives up to the enormous hype that it has built over the past few months.  It’s not as funny as more recent MCU installments like Thor: Ragnarok, nor should it be.  It also doesn’t have as many callouts to other franchise components as many other Marvel movies do, and in fact it doesn’t do much of anything to set the stage for the coming Infinity Wars – it’s overall self-contained, which is refreshing, and it doesn’t overreach because it probably knows it doesn’t need to.  Either way, Black Panther is a thrilling ride that convincingly bucks the notion that Marvel films are turning into one same-old after another, and it’s well-worth checking out.  And of course, stay tuned afterwards for the post-credits scenes – there are two – though I’ll admit that they’re probably the most underwhelming part of the whole experience.

Thor: Ragnarok Review

This is a big one – Tuesdays with Cory gets its first crack at American cinema’s most formidable juggernaut: the Marvel money machine.

Short hair, don’t care.

What consistently amazes me about the seemingly infinite draw of the MCU is the fact that no matter how intense the action may get, no matter how powerful the endless forces of evil may be, and no matter how dire the circumstances of its various heroes may seem, it feels to us the viewers that these heroes are never in any sort of real danger, be it because of our faith in their godly or otherworldly skills, or – on a deeper level – because of our trust in their purity of drive and spirit to do good.  What is perhaps more interesting than even that, though, is the fact that in spite of this certainty that nothing truly devastating can happen to a primary protagonist in the MCU, we keep coming back.  Maybe the promise of some bloodshed when the Infinity War installments drop is what has us on the hook as an audience, or maybe what makes the MCU so fundamentally appealing has nothing to do with the creation of any edge-of-the-seat thrills.  Either way, or whatever the answer may be, I know I’ll be a continued viewer after Thor: Ragnarok (no real surprise there), and based on the turnout I saw this past Friday, I join a hefty portion of America’s audience in saying so.

In any case, enough with the psychoanalysis.  As usual, let’s try to avoid the spoilers.

Pacing-wise, Ragnarok starts somewhat slow – though I’ll be the first to admit that I may only feel this way because I hadn’t seen the comparatively maligned Thor: The Dark World, and therefore was at times slightly confused about how a given character had wound up where.  When things started to pick up for me was when Dr. Strange briefly entered the picture (I’m not considering this a spoiler, as this scene is also featured in the post-credits scene for Strange’s own movie), and from there the action was more or less non-stop on a journey to a pretty bananas ending – when I say bananas, I mean this more in terms of CGI and the insane breadth of the battle-scale than in anything plot-related, which I’d say is pretty typical at this point for the Marvel fare we’ve all grown to love.

That headdress would probably be pretty useful for roasting marshmallows…

Indeed, throughout most of the movie, Thor: Ragnarok follows the now twice-tested formula pioneered by another of Marvel’s more successful mini-franchises – Guardians of the Galaxy.  The similarities are at times as subtle as 80’s-esque scoring (provided here by Rugrats/Devo legend Mark Mothersbaugh) and the overwhelmingly vibrant use of bright pastel colors, but more often than not where the callouts show up are in the movie’s extensive use of humor, specifically in terms of banter-heavy dialogue.  By dropping an immensely likable cast of characters into a vividly depicted and outrageously cosmic world – a world capable of containing such timeless fixtures as an intergalactic wormhole known simply as the Devil’s Anus (yes, really) – the opportunity for such banter, which is often juvenile in nature but never remotely tasteless, is near-infinite.

My face when people walk into a sold-out theater during the opening credits, foolishly expecting to find good seats.

Another strong similarity Ragnarok shares with Guardians is that Thor’s third go-round is consistently driven by a star-studded and endlessly talented ensemble cast.  Chris Hemsworth, while clearly trying to maintain his strong grip on the title of most physically impressive on-screen hero (I mean, that shirtless scene, come on), also gets ample chance from Kevin Feige and director Taika Waititi to flex his comedic muscles as well, and his constant injection of humor throughout is one of the things that makes Ragnarok great.  Other highlights from the main cast of protagonists: the return of Mark Ruffalo‘s continually tormented but often hilarious Bruce Banner/Hulk, Tom Hiddleston‘s further development of what has to be the single deepest relationship in the MCU (with his brother), and relative unknown Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie.

Yep, Loki’s still kickin’, and not only that, his character still seems unsure about good versus evil.

The true gems of Ragnarok in the way of cast, though, are the so-called “guest stars” in what might as well be a Marvel television series at this point (though I suppose those already exist).  Jeff Goldblum, who apparently finally got sick of making those thoroughly lackadaisical Apartments.com commercials, is incredible as the Grandmaster of Sakaar (if you haven’t seen Ragnarok yet, just think a more fleshed-out and perhaps slightly more comically sinister version of Benicio del Toro‘s Collector from Guardians, and you’re basically there), as is director Taika Waititi himself playing a cameo voice role as unexpectedly kind deathmatch arena fighter Korg.  Cate Blanchett, though given a woefully unoriginal role as Hela (I swear, it seems like Marvel has more or less given up on writing an interesting antagonist at this point – Loki may be as close as we get), also performs well, even if she really only took the role to “get fit and punch people.”  There are a few other surprise cameos of note, but I won’t spoil them here.

The Grandmaster himself.

The highlight reel scene of Ragnarok is most likely the Sakaar arena setpiece we’ve all seen in the countless trailers and TV spots – it was even cleverly featured as a turn-off-your-cellphone ploy in the theater I was in before Ragnarok began.  There’s a lot to love about the scene, from Hemsworth’s “friend from work” line, reportedly supplied by a Make-a-Wish kid visiting the set, to the appearance of Thor’s classic helmet from the comics.  On top of that, it’s without a doubt more interesting to watch Thor fight without his trusty hammer Mjolnir (more on that in the movie itself), and one of the themes of Ragnarok’s slew of combat scenes is that at the end of the day, as Anthony Hopkins‘ Odin so wisely states, Thor isn’t God of Hammers.  Taking all of the frenzied fights we’ve come to expect and adding a dash of drama, a healthy supply of comedy, and some truly badass background music in the form of Led Zeppelin’s Norse-inspired Immigrant Song, and you’re good to go.

That is 100% not Mjolnir.

While I’m not sure Thor: Ragnarok really “sets a new standard for the MCU” as the Rotten Tomatoes consensus seems to suggest, what I will say is that it’s doubtlessly another successful entry in the Marvel mythos, treading on ground that’s surely familiar at this point, but doing so confidently and with a nonzero measure of flair.  With an ending that clearly does its part in setting the stage for the upcoming Infinity War, it’s fair to be excited for what’s to come.