Tag Archives: Marvel

Jul 31 2024
Leave a comment
Reviews

“DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE” Review (✫✫✫1/2)

Maximum effort, times two.

Note: Since 2016, I’ve had the displeasure of co-writing every Deadpool review with the Merc With A Mouth himself, Wade Wilson. Neither one of us saw a reason to discontinue that tradition now, so without further adieu, here’s… Deadpool.

You did it. You crazy son of a *****, you did it. 

You are NOT Jeff Goldblum, so stop quoting Jurassic Park. 

I’m sorry, I just… I never thought this day would come. I was beginning to think I’d never get a three-and-a-half-star movie. 

Neither did I, but you managed to bring Hugh Jackman back from the dead, so I figured that’s worth something. 

Hehehe, Disney was never gonna let him hang up the claws and you know it. 

Oh yeah, they’re gonna milk everything out of him like the Star Wars franchise. 

Yeah, but let’s be honest — our cameo game is WAY better. 

Oh it definitely is Wade. You and Hugh Jackman both prove that to be true with Deadpool & Wolverine, Marvel’s most bloody, brutal, and bizarre film yet, but it’s also filled with a lot of heart. 

Don’t I know it! See, it’s beating right now! 

Oh God, Wade, it’s outside of you. Please, put it back in. 

Lol, that’s what she said. 

Stop. You JUST got added to Disney Plus. 

Okay, fine. God knows I don’t wanna end up on Tubi. So, what did you like about my third movie, Double D? 

Well I was particularly impressed with how much freedom you had in this movie. Marvel and Fox normally like to gatekeep their characters very closely, and understandably so considering how passionate fans feel about these franchises. That’s why I was so surprised to find just how big of a sandbox you got to play in for Deadpool & Wolverine. You happily hurled jokes and insults not just at the Marvel movies, but also at the Fox movies and even a few DC movies. Did your lawyers clear everything you said in the script? 

Did my who do my what now? 

… okay, Blind Al might wanna call Matt Murdock before this review is over. Bottom line, you made me laugh. A lot. 

Hehe, I always do. And what about ol’ Wolvie? You HAD to be excited about him coming back! 

Well to be honest, I was a bit worried he was coming back at first. Not just because Hugh Jackman is in his mid-50s, but also because Logan was such a perfect sendoff for the character. 

And you had to LOVE how I dug him back up just for this movie, didn’t you??? 

It was… certainly a choice. 

Yeah it was — a GOOD one! 

I’ll… reluctantly agree with you on that one. While I have mixed feelings on how exactly you brought him back, I can’t deny that Hugh Jackman is exceptional in this role, and your chemistry together is unmatched. His stoic, stiff, rough-around-the-edges demeanor perfectly contrasts with your off-the-cuff, smartmouth personality,  and you make a beautifully dysfunctional pair together. 

Hehe, yeah… just like Elon Musk and his dwindling X users. So why dock half a star then? 

The movie in general is actually a lot like you Wade — funny, charismatic, violent, and wildly unhinged, but also very erratic, impulsive, and nonsensical. Structurally speaking, this is your messiest movie to date, with the plot relying more on Easter Eggs and nostalgia more than characters and their motivations. I genuinely wonder if this film works better as a standalone movie or as straight-up cameo porn. 

I’m grabbing the bottle of lotion now. My question is why can’t it be both?

First, put that bottle away Wade, my mom reads my reviews. Second, that’s actually the case you make here with Deadpool & Wolverine, and honestly, I’m not mad at it. As messy and convoluted as your film is, it’s also wildly funny, amusing, and entertaining. I was grinning from ear to ear throughout the whole picture, and honestly, I can’t remember the last time that’s happened to me in a movie theater. 

Definitely not the movie where Dakota Johnson’s mom was in the amazon researching spiders right before she died. 

Definitely not. 

Well, I think we’ve both earned a victory lap after all of this. Are you excited to see us return in Avengers: Secret Wars? 

Not particularly given who the villain is going to be. 

Who’s the villain? 

Kevin Feige. 

Ahhh, understandable. Well, look on the bright side.

What’s the bright side?

At least it isn’t David Zaslav.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Feb 18 2024
Leave a comment
Reviews

“MADAME WEB” Review (Zero Stars)

SOURCE: Sony Pictures

Why madame, what big webs you have! 

Madame Web is an ugly, excruciating, and incomprehensible waste of a film — the cinematic equivalent of excrement if there ever was one. Not a single thing worked in this movie. Every single frame was rancid from cringey dialogue, incomprehensible editing, God-awful visual effects and performances so flimsy and weak that stick figures would have been more convincing. Its failure runs so deep and so thoroughly that I’m more aghast than I am angry. How can you stay mad at something that’s so pathetic?

The movie follows Cassandra Webb (Dakota Johnson), a paramedic who learns that she has precognitive abilities that allows her to see into the future. During one of her visions, she sees a man in a spider costume start killing these innocent teenage girls on a train. His name is Ezekiel Sims (Tahir Rahim), and he has a premonition that these three teenagers will become Spider-Women in the future and kill him. How does he know this, and why do they want to kill him? The movie never explains either because it doesn’t expect you to, well, think, while watching.  

This movie is so baffling to me for several reasons, but let me start with one of the more obvious ones — absolutely nobody asked for nor wanted a Madame Web movie. Out of all of Spider-Man’s cast of characters, Madame Web’s role is minimal at best, and her appearances are limited to just a handful of TV shows and video games. She does not have the notoriety to justify a cameo in a Spider-Man movie, let alone getting her own movie. 

Still, I always say the idea isn’t what matters most — it’s how it’s executed that makes the difference. Several obscure comic book characters have made their big-screen debuts over the past several years, including Thor, Ant-Man, Shazam, Shang-Chi, and The Suicide Squad. All of those movies were successful because they had a deep-rooted love for these characters and they understood how to translate their stories to the big screen. Ten years ago, I predicted that Guardians Of The Galaxy was going to be the MCU’s biggest flop and thought it was Marvel’s dumbest idea to date. Then just last year, the Guardians deeply moved me and made me sob my eyes out in their third and final movie. Because of this, I will never dismiss a premise outright, even if it’s a bad one. It’s all about how you approach it. 

The problem is Madame Web had no approach. No, I don’t mean that it was poorly executed — I mean it had no execution, period. So much is wrong with this movie all at once that it’s hard to break down what exactly went wrong, because EVERYTHING went wrong. It’s like trying to look through a kid’s vomit in the cafeteria — you can see everything that went into him, but it’s harder to see what exactly made him sick.

The biggest problem by far is the film’s writing. I know, surprise surprise that the writers of Morbius turned out yet another dumpster fire. But somehow, Madame Web is even worse. At least Morbius had hilariously bad moments, like when Matt Smith was twerking in the bathroom or when Jared Leto says “I am Venom.” Madame Web’s writing is just as bad as Morbius’ and even less fun, which is really saying something. 

I could talk about how God-awful the dialogue is in this movie, like when Cassie tells a young Ben Parker “What, you don’t want to get shot in Queens?” or when another character absolutely BUTCHERS the “with great power comes great responsibility” line. Instead I would like to focus on the characters, because the character work here is horrendous. All of the pre-Spider-Women are brain-dead nitwits who are more concerned about flirting with random guys than they are about avoiding the murderous Spider-killer hunting them. Ezekiel Sims lacks any sort of intimidating presence and feels like he can be shoved aside in the subway. And Cassie is just straight-up unlikeable. Instead of being protective of these girls once she realizes they’re in danger, she immediately tries to pawn them off, saying “You’re your parents’ problem now.” Are you kidding me??? Why are you a paramedic if you don’t give a rip what happens to other people? You’d be better off being a slimy corporate executive, or perhaps more appropriately, a Warner Bros. or Sony Pictures studio head. 

The most frustrating thing is that I’ve seen these actors in better movies — they can act, and they can act well. Dakota Johnson was a marvel in Black Mass, Our Friend, and Peanut Butter Falcon and shows that she can display depth and drama when given a good part. Tahar Rahim was nominated for both a BAFTA and a Golden Globe for playing the lead in The Mauritanian and “The Serpent.” But Sydney Sweeney is sadly the absolute worst of them all. This is an Emmy-nominated actress who’s put out one emotional performance after another with the likes of “The Handmaiden’s Tale,” “The White Lotus” and “Euphoria.” Yet here, she’s so clueless and ditzy that she couldn’t even pull off a cameo in “Degrassi.” 

And sadly, all of the film’s technical elements are just as awful as the writing and acting is. The CGI is so obviously cartoonish that it looks like PS3-era video game graphics. The sound dubbing is so jarring and awkward that I’m still not entirely convinced the actors didn’t deliver their lines on-set. The editing is so choppy and incomprehensible that it makes Transformers look Oscar-worthy by comparison. I’m not exaggerating when I say that nothing worked in this movie. Say whatever you will about Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, or even Morbius — at least those movies had individual elements that were technically impressive, whether it was the music, the action, or the visual effects. Madame Web has none of that. It. Has. Nothing.

Yet as terrible as this movie is, I don’t want to blame the cast, who feel more like victims to the script rather than its stars. I don’t want to blame the film’s director S.J. Clarkson, who prior to this CGI abomination had an illustrious TV career directing for shows such as “Heroes,” “Dexter,” “Orange Is The New Black,” “Jessica Jones,” and more recently “Succession.” I don’t even want to blame the film’s writers which, sure aren’t good, but they’ve previously written projects that are at least watchable.

No, for a stinker this bad, I place the blame squarely on the shoulders of the film’s producers, especially Transformers and G.I. Joe producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura. Because at the end of the day, it’s their responsibility for how poorly this turned out. Whether they were too involved with this film’s production or they weren’t involved at all doesn’t matter — somebody left the wheel in the driver’s seat unattended. And as a result, this train wreck crashed into all of us poor unsuspecting moviegoers. 

Madame Web represents everything wrong not just with superhero movies, but with movies period. When people say they don’t like big-budget blockbusters, they aren’t talking about legitimately good movies like Top Gun: Maverick, Avatar: The Way of Water, or John Wick: Chapter 4. They’re talking about movies like this — cheap, insincere, incomprehensible hogwash that would fail a fifth-grader in their English lit class, let alone an entire film production. Madame Web clearly does not have the gift of foresight, because if she did, she would have seen how terribly her story would have turned out and fired her agent ahead of time.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Jun 13 2023
Leave a comment
Reviews

“SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE” Review (✫✫✫✫)

SOURCE: Sony Pictures

A wonderful web of infinite spider-people and possibilities. 

When he accepted the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature for Pinocchio earlier this year, Guillermo Del Toro declared to audiences everywhere that animation is not a genre — it is a medium for art, film, and storytelling. This has always been true, but if you need another reminder, let Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse serve as your latest example. Not only is it visually dazzling, eye-catching, emotional, and impactful — it makes the best use of its animation, delivering an unparalleled superhero epic unlike anything we’ve seen before. Not only is this film better than most live-action Spider-Man movies — I genuinely doubt a live-action adaptation can even come close to reaching the cinematic highs that Across The Spider-Verse does.

Taking place after the events of Into The Spider-Verse, Spider-Man: Across The Spider-Verse follows each of our fellow Spider-Men (and women) after they returned to their respective dimensions. Gwen Stacy (Hailee Steinfeld) is back to juggling her life as both Gwen and Spider-Woman. Peter B. Parker (Jake Johnson) is raising a daughter with MJ named MayDay, whose adorable name is matched only by her bubbly personality. And Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) is busy protecting Brooklyn as the one and only Spider-Man.

But across the Spider-Verse, an alternate Spider-Man from 2099 named Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac) is creating a new multi-dimensional organization called “The Spider-Society.” You see, when the Super-Collider went off in the last movie, it sent ruptures throughout the Spider-Verse and put other parallel worlds in danger. With a new multiversal threat on the rise, Miguel assembles a new team to save the Spider-Verse, and Miles has to figure out his place in all of it.

The biggest thing Across The Spider-Verse has working against it by far is the power of expectation. When Into The Spider-Verse came out five years ago, nobody expected it to be the smash hit that it was with its pop-art animation, layered world-building, emotional storytelling, and exciting action sequences that were on par with most live-action movies. That’s because it was made with love and care for the source material and with what Spider-Man means to so many people. It was such a lightning-in-a-bottle experience that everyone wondered if the Spider-Verse team could capture that same magic again.

Well I’m relieved to say that Across The Spider-Verse is just as amazing as its predecessor is — potentially even more so. While Into The Spider-Verse had six Spider-Men and women to focus on, Across The Spider-Verse focuses on a nearly limitless amount of Spider-people that are uniquely different and stand apart from each other. You have the Indian Spider-Man Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni), who is just so happy, fun, upbeat, and has a deep love of chai, while the rebellious Spider-Punk (Daniel Kaluuya) rocks out on his guitar while rebelling against the establishment. There’s a pregnant Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) who is something of a motherly figure to Gwen Stacy, there’s Scarlet Spider (Andy Samberg), a clone of Peter who is way, way, WAY too obsessed with his biceps, and there’s a cowboy Spider-Man who calls himself the Web-Slinger. There are others that are even more ridiculous, including a Cyborg Spider, a Spider-Cat, and even a Spidersaurus Rex.

I list all of these characters to show the depths that the Spider-Verse team goes to explore this vast and infinite playground of possibilities. While Into The Spider-Verse dips its toes into its multiverse concept, Across The Spider-Verse dives headfirst into the whole thing like it’s cliff diving into an infinite sea of Spider-Men. And it would be one thing to just arbitrarily toss these characters into the plot like action figures into a play set, but each of them has their own animation and art styles that speak to their characters and the worlds they’re from. Pravitr looks like he jumped directly out of an Indian painting, while Spider-Punk looks like he was ripped straight out of a rock magazine. Surprisingly, a few live-action Spider-Men make up some cameo appearances as well, though probably not the ones you’re expecting.

My favorite of all of these new Spider-Men, however, is Miguel. As Peter himself observes, he isn’t like the rest of the Spider-Society. He isn’t quippy, funny, light-hearted, or anything friendly neighborhood. He’s a much grimmer, darker, more serious no-nonsense Spider-Man, so much so that others question if he’s even a “good guy.” That makes him so, so interesting because it exemplifies the idea that being Spider-Man is not a privilege or a pastime — it is a burden. It is a responsibility. That responsibility weighs down on Miguel harder than any other Spider-Man, and at times, his fear pushes him to make the wrong choices.

This is yet another multiverse film in a long pattern of recent multiverse films, from Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness to the upcoming Flash movie. So just like the superhero genre itself, I understand if people are somewhat tired of seeing this trend in movies overall.

But the fact is Across The Spider-Verse utilizes its multiverse concept so much better than most other movies do. In fact, Across The Spider-Verse shares more similarities to Everything Everywhere All At Once than it does to its live-action counterpart, No Way Home. That’s because like Everything Everywhere All At Once, it uses its alternate realities to challenge its characters and ask them who they are under the mask.

Here is a movie that just works on every level. The script by Phil Lord, Chris Miller, and Dave Callaham is fleshed out, fully realized, and completely understands every character and the arcs they need to go through. The voice acting by Shameik, Hailee, and Oscar Isaac is passionate and even more compelling than their first time voicing these characters. The animation is jaw-dropping, deftly blending several different art styles and making it all feel seamless and cohesive with each other. There are some shocking plot twists that completely flip the narrative on its head and leave a waking impact on everyone watching. And the movie offers some smart commentary on Spider-Man fandom overall, with an especially scathing critique of those ignorant enough to claim “Miles Morales isn’t Spider-Man.”

But the most impressive thing by far is that by the time the movie ended, I wasn’t thinking about the fast-paced action or the visual effects. I wasn’t thinking about the vast wealth of Spider-people and how awesome they all looked. I wasn’t even thinking about this movie’s jaw-dropping revelations. No, by the end, I was thinking about Miguel and the weight of the multiverse quite literally being on his shoulders. I was thinking about Gwen and how she struggles between her double life of a growing teenager and a multiverse-jumping superheroine. And I was thinking about Miles and how he struggled to fit into this big and wonderful universe that says he doesn’t belong there.

Six years ago, Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse proved just how fitting animation works for the web-slinger and how it could be used for greater feats of storytelling. By every definition, Into The Spider-Verse was a miracle in comic book moviemaking. Now we have another, and it is across the Spider-Verse.

Tagged , , , , , ,
May 15 2023
Leave a comment
Reviews

“GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3” Review (✫✫✫✫)

SOURCE: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Crying over a talking raccoon.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is nothing short of a moviemaking miracle, a genuinely unique, refreshing, and original experience that reminds us all of the power of movies and what they can accomplish. When the Guardians of the Galaxy made their big-screen debut in 2014, many fans were understandably side-eyeing the whole project. How can a movie about a space scavenger, a couple of bounty hunters, and a talking tree and raccoon win over our hearts? Nearly 10 years later, they’ve done just that, and the best part is they didn’t need to be high-flying superheroes or super soldiers to do so. All they had to do was be themselves. 

By the time they suit up together for Vol. 3, the Guardians of the Galaxy have already been through a lot. Peter Quill’s (Chris Pratt) true love Gamora (Zoe Saldana) was killed, Nebula (Karen Gillan) saw her whole family disintegrate and brought back to life in the span of five years, and Kraglin (Sean Gunn) is still trying to master the arrow after his mentor and father figure Yondu (Michael Rooker) died. Groot (Vin Diesel) is now fully regrown and still saying “I am Groot” over and over again. Oh, and there’s a telepathic space dog named Cosmo (Maria Bakalova) somehow in the mix too, and she is a VERY good dog. 

As the Guardians still try to figure out what their place is in the galaxy after saving it from the likes of Thanos in Avengers: Endgame, a figure from the Guardians’ past emerges: the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a cruel and psychotic scientist who engineered Rocket (Bradley Cooper) from when he was a baby raccoon. With the High Evolutionary desperate to reclaim his former experiment, the Guardians must team up for one last ride across the galaxy to defend one of their own. 

Written and directed by James Gunn, who directed the previous Guardians of the Galaxy movies as well as The Suicide Squad, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 is the living embodiment of the Guardians — a wholly unique, wacky, oddball, and heartfelt movie that perfectly captures who they are and why they matter so much to each other. This is a movie that works on every level, from the action to the drama to the comedy all the way down to the soundtrack. So much happens all at once so perfectly that I barely even know where to start. 

I’ll start with the heart of this movie: Rocket. Like all of the Guardians movies, Rocket is the emotional center of this movie, a quippy, snarky, and prickly little cretin who portrays a rough and tough exterior on the outside, but on the inside is quite vulnerable, sensitive, traumatized, and broken. This is the first of the Guardians movies to delve into Rocket’s origins, and they are… horrifying.

I saw this movie with my mom and my wife, and all three of us were crying consistently at every one of Rocket’s flashback sequences. That’s because they deal with a real-world issue, which is animal cruelty. In the first scene where Rocket is dropped into the pen with the rest of the High Evolutionary’s experiments, they quietly comfort him, reassure him, and ask him to say something. “It hurts” are the first words he speaks, quivering and shaking in his corner of the cage. And for most of the movie, that’s the Rocket we see: not the confident, cocky, trigger-happy, gun-loving lunatic, but the lost, scared, and afraid little animal who doesn’t know where he is and wants to be free from the cruel world he’s living in.

Many families will understandably be put off by this film’s darker tone and subject matter, especially in a Guardians Of The Galaxy movie. I for one love it because it shows how it’s relevant to all of us. We all feel like experiments in a broken world, desperately clinging to the small things we can control and finding happiness in the little moments that bring us joy. That’s exactly the spot where Rocket finds himself in this movie, and it humanizes him so, so effectively. The previous two Guardians movies told us what happened to Rocket, but we never really understood what that felt like. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 3 puts everything into perspective, and its impact is more powerful than an Infinity Stone.

But just because this is a darker, more serious Guardians movie doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the traditional blockbuster fun that the franchise is known for. When we’re not following Rocket’s journey through trauma and recovery, we’re following the Guardians on their quest to protect him, and they’re as infectious and lovable as they’ve always been. Their banter and dialogue with each other is hilarious, the one-liners are clever and quick-witted, and their performances are the most passionate and emotional as they’ve ever been. I love how my favorite moments in this movie aren’t fast-paced CGI action scenes, but rather smaller character-building moments where the Guardians share their emotions, experiences, and fears and help each other work through them together. In one scene in particular, a furious Gamora yells at Nebula during an argument, telling her that they’re family. “So are they,” Nebula responds definitively. 

Speaking of performances, I need to give special praise to Chukwudi Iwuji, who portrays the High Evolutionary with Shakespearean-level commitment. Generally speaking, Marvel villains can be a mixed bag. When done right, they can be as compelling and intimidating as Thanos or Killmonger. When done poorly, they’re run-of-the-mill bad guys whose only purpose is to fight our heroes like Ant-Man’s Yellowjacket or The Eternals’ Deviants. The High Evolutionary is neither of those. He is a downright despicable character, a twisted and sadistic madman who takes great pleasure in inflicting pain and torture upon his poor creations. The fact that he feels justified in his actions makes him a bigger monster than anyone else in the movie, and Chukwudi plays him with such conviction that it makes it hard to see him as anything but a vile, sinister, wicked, wretched, unhinged megalomaniac. I’m not quite sure if Marvel has put out a better villain than Chukwudi. The closest I can think of is Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin, and even then, I’m not quite sure that counts. 

There are several other fantastic elements in this movie that are not to be ignored. Kraglin has an excellent arc that brings honor to his relationship with Yondu. Cosmo the space dog is one of the most lovable support characters out of the whole MCU and brings an adorable quality we haven’t seen since Dug in Pixar’s Up. And Will Poulter gives an excellent performance as a new character named Adam Warlock, who is the closest thing to a traditional superhero we get in this movie. His part is small, but he too has a wonderful arc and serves a vital purpose in the story, just like all of the characters do. 

When it comes to great superhero movies, the biggest challenge many filmmakers face is making sure their film does justice to the characters’ legacies, whether you’re talking about Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Black Panther, or Spider-Man. But James Gunn’s accomplishment with The Guardians Of The Galaxy stands apart. Many years ago, he introduced a whole crew of galactic misfits that nobody expected anything from. Yet, his biggest accomplishment isn’t bringing a talking raccoon and his ragtag group of friends to the big screen — it’s how much we end up caring about all of them.

Or, to put it another way, “We are Groot.” 

Tagged , , , , , ,
Nov 22 2022
Leave a comment
Reviews

“BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER” Review (✫✫✫)

SOURCE: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Long live the Black Panther.

“In my culture, death is not the end. It’s more of a stepping-off point. You reach out with both hands, and Bast and Sekhmet lead you into a green field… where you can run forever.” These words that Chadwick Boseman spoke in his first appearance as T’Challa in Captain America: Civil War echoed in my memory while watching Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, a poignant and thoughtful reflection on the Black Panther legacy, what it means to people, and how we are expected to grieve and move forward when our king is no longer with us. Chadwick Boseman is gone. How is the Black Panther expected to survive without him?

After King T’Challa suddenly and unexpectedly passes away, the kingdom of Wakanda is left in a weakened, vulnerable state. The United Nations is after Wakanda and its precious Vibranium. Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett) is struggling to balance her new life as a ruler and as a grieving mother. And while all of this is going on, a new threat emerges from the oceans: Namor (Tenoch Huerta), the king of the underwater nation of Talokan, who seeks war on the world for what the surface dwellers have done to his people. Now left to defend itself from both Talokan and the world, a new Black Panther must rise from Wakanda to protect the nation and its people.

It’s difficult to critique or even write about this movie without reflecting on what it was originally supposed to be. Before Chadwick Boseman tragically passed away from colon cancer in 2020, writer-director Ryan Coogler was knee-deep in writing the sequel and even completed a draft before Chadwick’s sudden passing. Coogler famously said after the fact that he “spent the last year preparing, imagining and writing words for him to say that we weren’t destined to see.” That’s the most heartbreaking part of all, knowing that Chadwick had a big part to play in this sequel that we’ll never get to see what could have been.

So when the movie feels like it’s supposed to be two separate movies, in a way, it’s kind of because they’re supposed to be. There are two intertwining narratives that are conflicting with each other in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. The first and stronger one is the fact that T’Challa has passed away and the nation of Wakanda is grieving for their fallen hero. The second is a geopolitical thriller about two warring nations and how they can peacefully coexist in the same world together. Both of these premises are strong enough to carry an entire movie on their own. Juggling both of these narratives at the same time in a lengthy two-hour and 40-minute runtime feels crammed.

But I don’t blame Coogler for how convoluted the movie feels. The fact is he and the rest of his creative team were thrust into a very uncomfortable position and had to make a difficult choice — continue telling the story of Wakanda without its hero, or let its legacy die alongside Chadwick Boseman? Ultimately, Coogler and the rest of the cast and crew decided that the Black Panther mantle was far too important to be left alone or forgotten, though maybe they should have taken some time to grieve and flesh out the script a little more when the loss wasn’t so raw to them.

One thing I will say is that the performances are powerful in this movie — quite possibly even more so than in the first movie. But that’s somewhat to be expected. After all, the entire cast isn’t so much acting as they are expressing their true feelings of loss and grief. While the rest of the world lost a king, a superhero, and an icon two years ago, the cast of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever lost a colleague, a mentor, and a friend. That pain translates beautifully and meaningfully into their performances. Even traditionally comedic actors like Letitia Wright, Danai Gurira and Winston Duke carry a much more somber, serious delivery with their lines. And Angela Basset was straight-up fierce as Queen Ramonda. She had a couple of truly powerful monologues in the film that was effective in expressing her strength, her resoluteness, and her sadness all at the same time. 

Even the newcomers were just as impressive. Dominique Thorne (If Beale Street Could Talk, Judas And The Black Messiah) takes over for Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark as the new Ironheart, and while I was initially worried about how she would fit into this already packed story, she was a standout among the cast and gave the film some much-needed attitude and energy to help keep up the pace. And Tenoch Huerta especially crushed it as Namor. Far from the cheap one-dimensional supervillains Marvel is usually known for churning out, Namor is a much more complex, layered antagonist who is compelled to action not by world domination or destruction, but out of deep love, care, and protection for his people. He serves as an excellent foil to Chadwick Boseman’s T’Challa, and it makes my heart hurt thinking of all of the great interactions we could have seen from these characters that we’ll never get to.

All in all, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is not as great as its predecessor. Then again though, it doesn’t need to be. While the film makes you feel the weight of Chadwick Boseman’s loss and the hollow, empty feelings that come with it, it’s also incredibly healing and reassures you that tomorrow will still come, even when the ones we love are no longer with us. Chadwick Boseman may be gone, but let us be grateful that the Black Panther continues to live on — not just in the people of Wakanda, but in all of us. 

Tagged , , , ,
May 13 2022
Leave a comment
Reviews

“DOCTOR STRANGE IN THE MULTIVERSE OF MADNESS” Review (✫✫)

SOURCE: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Multiverse of Mediocrity.

Let this be a lesson to anyone working on the Marvel Cinematic Universe: if you’re going to come out with a sequel to one of the strangest heroes in your universe, maybe don’t wait six years to release it. Because at that point, not only do you run the risk of it becoming obsolete — you also threaten to have the whole thing crumble under the weight of its own expectations.

Enter Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. In the span between its two movies, the MCU has debuted 18 new heroes, released six new TV shows, concluded the Avengers saga, and even released an entirely new Spider-Man trilogy to top it all off. So much has happened in the MCU that has affected so much already that it’s hard to release any sequel and have it stand alone as part of its own story. One might even argue that you can’t.

Sure enough, Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness fails in this sequelitis litmus test, a messy, sloppy film that is all over the place and trying to do way too much all at once. To properly understand this movie, not only have you needed to watch Doctor Strange, Avengers: Infinity War, and Endgame, but also “WandaVision,” “Loki,” Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: No Way Home, and even a few Fox-owned movie properties on top of all that. This is a film with the buildup of an Avengers movie and the payoff of a botched “What If…?” episode.

After he wiped the world’s memory of Spider-Man’s true identity in Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is trying to adjust to a world with neither Avengers nor Infinity Stones. But just as he begins to experience some sense of normalcy, he encounters a girl named America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) who is being chased by monsters through several dimensions. Now determined to help this young girl, Doctor Strange enlists in the help Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) to defend her from the monsters of the multiverse.

Before I say anything else, I want to get one thing right out of the way: it was wonderful to see Sam Raimi return to the director’s chair. While most known for creating one of the best superhero movies ever with the likes of Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, his filmography has taken him everywhere under the sun, from deeply disturbing horror movies like Evil Dead and Drag Me To Hell to wildly entertaining B-movie blockbusters like Darkman and Army Of Darkness. But with his last feature-length film coming out in 2013 with Oz The Great And Powerful, it’s been nine years since Sam Raimi’s last movie, 13 years since his last horror movie, and 15 years since his last superhero movie. One has to wonder how his directing chops have held up despite being away for such a long time?

The good news is that Sam Raimi’s still got it. More importantly, he still carries his own unique signature that Marvel thankfully allowed him to carry over into one of their most popular franchises. Combining the campiness of his Spider-Man movies with the horrifying imagery of Evil Dead, Sam Raimi creates a dark and disturbing world with Multiverse Of Madness that feels cursed just by the look and feel of it. There were quite a few times where his imagery was so bold, bloody, and grotesque that it actually made me squirm in my seat. There were several moments where characters were getting straight-up dismembered, contorting into twisted, uncomfortable shapes, and even horrifically burned alive.

I was genuinely surprised that Marvel allowed Sam Raimi to go as far as he did with the violence, and even more surprised that this movie didn’t get an R rating. But Raimi teeters the line just enough to where the film never crosses the line of being over-the-top or gory, though I can’t help but wonder how different the film might have felt if Raimi was allowed to go even further.

I also really like the film’s visual creativity, especially in scenes where Strange is traveling through the multiverse. There was one really trippy sequence where Strange is falling through multiple realities, from the prehistoric era to an evergreen paradise to even an animated world flooded with watercolors. The whole sequence was so surreal and outlandish that I felt like I was on acid while watching it. If someone did happen to wander into the theater while under the influence, I pray for their sanity because it might be broken by the time this movie is over.

That said, some of the movie’s visuals don’t work quite as well, and you especially notice it with a lot of the film’s newer characters. America Chavez’s dimensional portals are one instance where they look like firework sprites coming from your laptop’s screensaver. One character in the mid-credits scene is so shiny and pristine that she looks like a scrapped character from Eternals. And one villain has a third eye appearing on his forehead that looks so photoshopped that I couldn’t help but laugh while looking at it.

However, the worst sequence hands-down comes from one fight scene where two sorcerers are casting spells at each other using… musical notes. I’m not even kidding. They literally lift musical notes off of a page of sheet music and cast them at each other like a game of darts. I remind you, this is coming from a franchise that was once a major contender for visual effects at the Academy Awards. And here, they’re just throwing in a fight scene so silly and cartoonish that it feels like it’s a deleted scene from Disney’s Fantasia.

But I can forgive inconsistent visuals. What I can’t forgive is poor writing, and this is unfortunately where the film falters the most. Not only does Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness have one of the worst screenplays out of the entire MCU: I would argue it is the worst screenplay, bar none. Dead serious.

Sure, there are other screenplays that are childish, silly, stupid, half-baked, or even underdeveloped. Thor: The Dark World, Ant-Man, and Eternals are the immediate ones that come to mind. But even at their most basic levels, those movies demonstrate at least some understanding of their characters and what motivates them. Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness completely misunderstands the heart and souls of its characters, and it makes their actions in the film all the more unbelievable.

Imagine following Tom Holland throughout his six-movie arc, falling in love with his charm, his wit, his sense of humor, his intelligence, and his unwavering commitment to doing the right thing. Then all of a sudden in his seventh movie, he throws all of that out the window and starts going on a violent rampage across the city where he starts viciously murdering people in the most gruesome ways possible. That isn’t just a gross manipulation of his character: it’s a straight-up betrayal of his character, and it does a great disservice to him and the arc he’s built up over the course of the entire franchise.

There are multiple characters that are betrayed in a similar fashion in Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness. And it would be one thing if these were alternate versions of these characters in another universe. But they aren’t: they’re the original characters in the original MCU. That makes their mischaracterizations all the more worse, and it ruins the experience for anyone who has been passionately following their journeys for quite some time.

Oddly enough, there is another multiversal film in cinemas right now titled Everything Everywhere All At Once. Go and see it. Not only does it utilize its bizarre concept to its maximum potential, but it’s also one of the most creative and unique narratives to come out of cinemas in the past several years. The only way Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness even comes close to that potential is in another universe.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Dec 19 2021
Leave a comment
Reviews

“SPIDER-MAN: NO WAY HOME” Review (✫✫✫✫)

Into the Spider-verse.

About halfway through Spider-Man: No Way Home’s runtime, one of the movie’s newest multiversal villains looks out at the new world he’s stumbled onto and says “Look at all the possibilities.” I feel like right now we’re on the cusp of a whole new universe of our own, imagining all of the possibilities for our friendly neighborhood wall-crawler as he plunges ahead into new and unexpected adventures. No matter what your expectations are, Spider-Man: No Way Home absolutely lives up to every bit of the hype surrounding it. The fact that you can say that even when our expectations were insanely high to begin with is more impressive than anything I can share in this review.

After that shocking twist ending in Spider-Man: Far From Home, Peter Parker’s (Tom Holland) secret identity has been revealed thanks to Mysterio’s manipulation. Now the whole world knows he’s Spider-Man, and Peter isn’t the only one facing the consequences. So too is his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), and his Aunt May (Marissa Tomei).

Feeling guilty for how he caused ripple effects throughout the lives of the people he loves most, Peter turns to the sorcerer supreme Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) asking him if he can use his magic to make it so the whole world forgets that he’s Spider-Man. He does, but it comes at a cost: now villains have poured in from other Spider-universes looking to kill Peter Parker. There’s the sinister Green Goblin (Willem Dafoe). There’s the menacing Doctor Octopus (Alfred Molina). There’s the rage-filled Electro (Jamie Foxx), the elusive Sandman (Thomas Haden Church), and the slithering Lizard (Rhys Ifans). Now Peter has to team up with his friends to round up these villains and send them back to their universes before they destroy his.

I’m going to start by saying this review will be very brief and very spoiler-free, because this film is best experienced knowing as little as possible about it, and I don’t want to compromise the surprises for my fellow spider-fans out there. Because of this, my review will seem very vague and very nondescript. Don’t worry, I’ll be publishing a spoiler-filled review later on.

For now, all you need to know about Spider-Man: No Way Home is that it is a masterpiece. You absolutely should go and watch it. Not only does Spider-Man: No Way Home do justice to Peter Parker’s arc that has been building up ever since his first appearance in Captain America: Civil War — it’s also a beautiful and heartfelt love letter to Spider-Man’s cinematic legacy. One of the things that makes Spider-Man such an endearing character is the fact that his greatest superpower isn’t his webs, his wall-crawling or his spider-sense: it’s his heart and his unwavering will to do the right thing even when it’s the hardest road you can take.

A lot of that is in large part thanks to Tom Holland, who gives his most passionate and emotional performance as Spider-Man to date. A lot of fans (myself included) questioned at the beginning how much Tom Holland stacked up against fellow Spider-Man veterans Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, especially when his earlier movies traded out a lot of the dramatic moments for jokes and quippy one-liners. No Way Home shows him at his most challenged and vulnerable, and Tom Holland naysayers are very quickly proven wrong with his acting chops here. Not only is this Tom’s most dramatic, daring, and darkest portrayal of Spider-Man yet: it is also his rawest and most human. Not since Spider-Man 2 has a Spider-Man performance felt so natural and real, and that’s the best compliment I can give to Tom Holland regarding No Way Home.

But it isn’t just Tom Holland who is at his best: director Jon Watts also delivers the best Spider-Man story in the MCU yet with this sprawling cinematic crossover. It isn’t just the fact that he’s bringing in the villains from pre-existing Spider-Man properties: it’s that he’s using them in interesting and engaging ways while staying true to their original characters. In a recent panel, Alfred Molina mentions that what makes these villains so interesting is that they aren’t just some mustache-twirling charlatans, but they carry a depth and complexion as real people who have been changed by unspeakable tragedies and accidents in their lives. That made them so interesting in their initial cinematic appearances, and that makes them just as interesting here because Jon Watts paid them the attention they deserved. They aren’t just dropped into the plot here for cheap fan service: their appearance in this story feels earned and they have a point and a purpose for this crossover with the MCU’s Spider-Man.

Look, I can only go so far without talking about spoilers, so I am going to end the review here. All I can say is this: if you are a Spider-Man fan, Spider-Man: No Way Home will not disappoint you. Not only is the action fresh, fast-paced, and exciting, but the characters’ presence in this sprawling story makes it feel gripping and engaging at the same time. To think that five years ago, we questioned how Tom Holland would not only fit into the MCU, but into the constantly expanding Spider-Man mythos overall. No Way Home gives us our answer, and the payoff is so, so satisfying. What else can I say? The possibilities are quite literally endless.

Tagged , , , ,
Dec 31 2020
Leave a comment
Lists, The Scope

Top 10 Best Movies Of The Decade

Anyone else ready for this year to be over? I know I certainly am. After facing a global pandemic, an economic recession, police brutality, and all of the migraines that come with elections and Facebook arguments, 2020 is a year I am very ready to say good riddance to. And even though I predicted in my Top 10 Movies of 2019 list that 2020 was going to be a “long, pulsating, cancer-sized headache,” I never expected it to grow into the tumorous size as large as it has. This year was so God-awful, depressing, and mind-numbingly frustrating that I’m legitimately happy that Joe Biden won the Presidency. How miserable does your year have to be where you’re actually excited that the oldest carpet-bagger in existence is taking over the White House from the orange idiot that has more Twitter flags that an InfoWars fan page?

But I don’t want to mull around politics too much, especially since so many people are already doing more than enough of that for me on Parler. Instead I want to end 2020 reflecting on better times, namely the 2010s and all of the amazing movies that came with it. Since I couldn’t do my Top 10 movies of the year as I usually do, I wanted to instead do a roundup of my favorite movies from the decade and break down why they are so special to me. So strap yourselves in and join me on this fun detour to the past, where wearing masks wasn’t a thing, the end times weren’t upon us, and theaters were filled with cinemagoers that were just as excited for the movies as you were. From top to bottom, here are 10 of my favorite films of the decade.

– David Dunn

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Jul 19 2019
Leave a comment
Reviews

“SPIDER-MAN: FAR FROM HOME” (✫✫✫)

SOURCE: Sony Pictures

Your friendly international Spider-Man.

How are we still getting more Spider-Man movies? More to the point, how is it that we aren’t even tired of them yet? You would think that after a second reboot, six live-action movies, an Academy Award-winning animated feature, and appearing in three different team-up movies that people would become exhausted from everyone’s favorite web-slinger by the time his third sequel came around. But if anything, Spider-Man: Far From Home shows there’s still a few tricks up his webbed sleeves, as well as a few other surprises that will keep Spidey fans guessing for what’s next for the amazing wall-crawler.

By the time Spider-Man: Far From Home swings around, the young and bright-minded Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has already been through way more than your average teenager has been. He defeated his first super villain the Vulture (Michael Keaton) and threw him behind bars. He went to space and fought a mad intergalactic titan alongside Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), a sorcerer, and a ragtag group of galaxy guardians. Then he disintegrated into thin air, only to be restored to his former self just in time to watch his friend and mentor die right before his very eyes.

At this point, Peter has been through way more in two years than I have in my entire high school career. He’s incredibly exhausted from living the superhero life, and he has just the perfect escape from it all: a summer trip to Europe just for himself and his classmates at Midtown High.

Unfortunately, superhero shenanigans follow him even all the way to Italy. After arriving in Europe, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) recruits Peter to fight against the Elementals, a powerful group of multi-dimensional entities that embody the four elements. Now with the world teetering on the brink of destruction yet again, Peter needs to team up with a new mystical superhero named Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) to defeat the Elementals and save the world once more.

One of the most special things about Tom Holland’s Spider-Man is how he manages to keep Peter Parker feeling fresh and new, despite the fact that his story has been adapted onto film a whopping 11 times now. That’s because at the heart of it all, Tom portrays Peter not as a larger-than-life superhero, but as a kid hesitantly thrusted into a position of power and responsibility. Tobey Maguire possessed a similar sense of humility in Sam Rami’s Spider-Man movies. In both franchises, both actors approach their characters not as comic-book heroes, but as people filled with their own wants, desires, doubts, and aspirations.

That personable aspect was something Holland was missing in his first solo entry Spider-Man: Homecoming, trading out serious drama and character development for snappy quips, gadgets, and gizmos. The Spider-Man in Far From Home, meanwhile, has grown up. He’s become swamped from the hero’s life, and in being caught up in all of the hysteria and politics of superhero mania, he just wants one summer off to feel like a kid again.

His desire for a normal life is a relatable one, and a motive that Holland’s Peter Parker shares with Maguire’s Spider-Man. If I had to compare Spider-Man: Far From Home to its predecessor in one word, it would be “more.” It’s everything you love about Spider-Man: Homecoming, just more of it. More high-stakes superhero action and fight sequences. More dazzling visual effects and CGI. More of the personable, charming, and adorable likability of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker. More awkward high school romance, more funny and on-the-spot quips and one-liners. Whatever you’re looking for, Spider-Man: Far From Home has more of it.

If I had any qualms with Far From Home, it would be perhaps that it doesn’t go far enough with its premise. Spider-Man has had four successful film franchises now, all of them great for very different reasons. Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man focused on the human aspect and the emotional burden he carried on his skimpy shoulders. Andrew Garfield was a snappy and sarcastic teenager that perfectly captured the rebellious aspect of the character. Into The Spider-Verse was a brilliant exploration of the Spider-mythos itself and showed how anybody could become a great Spider-Man. And Holland’s Spider-Man is a great exploration into Peter’s youth and his coming-of-age story.

But the thing that the other movies have one leg up on Holland’s Peter is that they had the confidence to explore their ideas and portrayals of Spider-Man more deeply. The MCU’s Spider-Man, meanwhile, still seems too reliant on the larger cinematic universe and its implications towards this Spider-Man. Can we please just like and appreciate this Spider-Man for the hero he is and not in comparison to Tony or Cap? Spider-Man has always been a stand-up superhero because he’s the little guy standing side-by-side next to the bigger guys. Far From Home is more than content in being in the Avengers’ shadows, and meanwhile I just want Holland’s Spider-Man to step out and create his own.

Regardless of where you stand on the Spider-spectrum, Spider-Man: Far From Home is a clever, exciting, and visually-dazzling Spider-Man movie that pushes the wall-crawler in all-new, head-spinning directions that you may not have been expecting. Fans who are thinking that Spidey’s days are numbered after the epic events of Avengers: Endgame are sorely mistaken. I think everyone’s favorite web-head is just getting started.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Jun 28 2019
Leave a comment
Reviews

“DARK PHOENIX” Review (✫1/2)

SOURCE: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Goodbye Fox, hello Disney. 

Dark Phoenix represents a fatigued franchise on its last legs, a whipped dog that’s gone on for way too long that desperately needs to be put out of its misery. Well, if you need to administer euthanasia, let me be the first to volunteer. If there was ever a case to make in favor of the Disney-Fox merger, Dark Phoenix would be the main arguing point.

In this thankfully final installment of the rebooted X-Men series, Dark Phoenix follows the X-Men, now highly popular celebrity figures, as they venture out onto a space mission to save a stranded NASA crew after being struck by a solar flare. After Jean Grey (Sophie Turner), Nightcrawler (Kodi-Smitt McPhee), and Quicksilver (Evan Peters) make their way to the shuttle to rescue the astronauts, Jean gets left behind and absorbs the full impact of the blast. Miraculously, she survives, though not without some monstrous side effects.

You see, the solar flare Jean absorbed was not a solar flare at all: it was an ancient entity known as the Phoenix, a powerful consciousness that contains vast cosmic abilities. Now possessed by the Phoenix force, Jean has to resist its temptations and rescue her friends from herself, before she loses control and kills everything she has ever loved.

If this plot feels like a retread, that’s because it is. Dark Phoenix was first adapted to the big screen in 2006’s The Last Stand, where Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey lashed out at everyone human and mutant alike with her psychic abilities. That film was lambasted all around, with critics disliking its heavier emphasis on action and visual effects while fans hated how flippantly the movie killed off some of its series mainstays.

I am one of the relative few that enjoyed X-Men: The Last Stand, mostly for the social-political questions it imposed and how significantly it racked up the stakes from previous installments. However, even I must admit that the Phoenix side plot took an obvious backseat to the rest of the film’s main storyline. Fox could have easily split both of the movie’s premises in half, devote more time to both subjects, and make two fantastic movies from it. Instead, they crammed both storylines into one movie and halved both of the experiences for us. Frustrating for passionate fans of the franchise, but it didn’t compromise the overall experience for me.

Here the Phoenix storyline is given the full treatment in Dark Phoenix. And after watching both movies, I now desperately want the Phoenix storyline to take a backseat.

Where do I begin? For one thing, the movie completely fails to follow through on the consistency of its own storyline. If you saw X-Men: Apocalypse, you will remember that the Phoenix force emerges from Jean at the end of the movie to defeat Apocalypse and save her friends. Yet here, it is explained to us that the Phoenix force possesses Jean after the space mission, several years after the events of Apocalypse. The really negligent part? Writer-director Simon Kinberg was responsible for writing both movies. How does he miss a Juggernaut-sized plot hole that large and fail to correct it, especially when it’s in his own screenplay?

But it’s not just Kinberg’s writing that is completely lackluster; his direction is equally as sloppy and misguided. Take for instance the X-Men’s space mission, where they’re roaming around in zero-gravity on the shuttle despite having no space suits or helmets on. What, do mutants not need oxygen to survive? Did I miss that lesson in Mutants 101? The production design itself is also surprisingly lazy, with the costumes and the makeup on Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique so clearly lacking the detail that she looks more like a cosplayer than an X-Man. And one scene between Jean Grey and James McCoy’s Professor X was downright laughable. She manipulated his legs to make him walk in what was supposed to be a terrifying demonstration of her new powers, but his posture was so clunky and awkward that I was wondering if he was auditioning to be Pinocchio for a live-action remake.

The movie’s saving grace lies in the performances, which are as poised and passionate as they have always been in the previous movies. That doesn’t change the ridiculousness of the plot they’re in, or how every line of dialogue is essentially copied and pasted from former and better movies. Mind you that other bad X-Men movies came before this one. X-Men Origins: Wolverine was just as silly and ridiculous, and X-Men: Apocalypse fumbled over its monotonous plot line too many times to count. But at least they tried to tell a coherent story. Dark Phoenix doesn’t even look like it’s making an effort to. It feels more like the writer, director and producers handed in the towel and just gave up, because Disney was going to take back ownership of its characters anyway. The X-Men deserve better treatment than that, even if they are being rebooted in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The really dumb part about all this is that Fox already had the perfect ending to its franchise in Logan, which felt like the last period of the last sentence of the last page of a fantastic journey you just went on. Dark Phoenix tacks on an awkward “but” at the end of that sentence for no reason other than to add words to the page, and it ends up tainting the entire franchise because of it. When Disney inevitably reboots the X-Men for the MCU, let them use this movie as a lesson for what not to do going forward. Dark Phoenix, meanwhile, deserves to stay buried beneath its own ashes.

Tagged , , , , , ,
← Older posts