There's a lot in common between Marvel's latest box-office smash Captain Marvel and once-disgraced director of the Guardians of the Galaxy films James Gunn. They're both part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's "cosmic" corner, which came to prominence in last year's Avengers: Infinity War and will again be crucial in this year's Avengers: Endgame and certainly the films after it. Both of them employed Nicole Perlman, who wrote the screenplay for both Captain Marvel and the first Guardians movie. Another commonality they have is that both of them were targeted for destruction by trolls and finally, both of them came out on top.
Captain Marvel's success at the box office despite the dogged efforts of alt-right personalities like Jack Posobiec and even actor James Woods has been extensively written about so there's really no point in discussing it again, but with Disney making public its decision to reinstate James Gunn as director of Guardian of the Galaxy 3 after firing him in the middle of last year for social media posts made back in 2009, for which he had already apologized before Disney even hired him, it's worth revisiting how Gunn's public takedown came about.
Unlike Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey or even Louis CK, James Gunn wasn't exposed by someone he had abused. He wasn't exposed for raping or physically or even psychologically molesting any particular person. He wasn't even exposed for anything he had done in the last ten years. No, James Gunn was exposed through the efforts of two fanatical supporters of Donald Trump (one of whom was Jack Posobiec, the other I will not bother to name anymore) who took strong exception to Gunn's vocal criticism of Trump, and what was exposed were years-old tweets of terrible jokes making light of sensitive topics like pedophilia, rape and even the 9/11 tragedy.
On its face, these could have been regarded as fairly serious evidence of a deeply perverse mind, but there were extenuating circumstances, such as the fact that these tweets were, at least in part, a by-product of Gunn's tenure at Troma films, an independent film company known for its schlocky, in-your-face and downright offensive films, as well as the fact that Gunn had long ago acknowledged and apologized for these tweets well before Marvel had hired him to work on Guardians of the Galaxy. Whether or not Gunn's gestures were sufficient to absolve him of these utterly insensitive tweets, Disney made the decision to hire him with this information fully available to them.
As a result, Disney's decision to fire Gunn following the revisiting of the tweets by Posobiec and his co-conspirator was not at all well-received, whether by Gunn's cast on the GOTG films, all of whom signed a letter of support for him, or by a significant portion of fandom. Even conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, who frequently takes opportunities to roast liberal personalities like Gunn on a spit, disagreed with Disney's decision, distinguishing it from the earlier decision to fire the resurgent Roseanne Barr from her popular show as a result of brand new racist tweets. Unlike Barr (or Trump, for that matter) Gunn did not deflect, deny or gaslight; he showed what appears to be genuine repentance, and even though he had already acknowledged his past, he apologized anew, and accepted Disney's verdict. Rival studio Warner Brothers had no problem with the revelations, and in fairly short order, they hired Gunn to write, and later on to direct, a reboot of 2016's Suicide Squad, titled simply The Suicide Squad.
Apparently, Disney didn't have that much of a problem rehiring Gunn either, because even though it was only recently revealed that Gunn would be returning to direct Guardians of the Galaxy 3 as soon as he had wrapped up work on The Suicide Squad, apparently the decision was made months ago.
What, then, was the reason for the timing? Well I'm sure Marvel has their reasons, but it's plain to see that they were riding on a high after Captain Marvel, cleaned up at the box-office, despite the pathetic efforts of right-wing personalities like Posobiec, who promoted the ludicrous #alitachallenge, to take it down.
In my humble opinion, the timing of Marvel's announcement regarding Gunn, especially on the heels of its auspicious success with Captain Marvel, was meant as a clear message to its haters like Posobiec, whose #alitachallenge campaign against Captain Marvel had failed quite spectacularly. To my mind, this wasn't just about welcoming a beloved director back into the fold, which they'd already done months before; it was about telling the trolls, and anyone else looking to tear them or their family down, that they're not going to bend over for anybody. When one looks at it, the pop-culture crusade of the alt right's personalities has never really been about one particular movie, be it Captain Marvel or Star Wars: The Last Jedi. It was ever and always about emphasizing how much they mattered. They could cause a beloved director to lose his job. They could crater a movie's box-office performance with their online venom. The sun rose and set on what they liked and what they didn't, and because their hero is in the Oval Office right now, they figured that, more than box-office figures and global audiences, they matter.
To me, announcing James Gunn's reinstatement as director of the Guardians of the Galaxy franchise months after the deal was sealed, and on the heels of Captain Marvel surpassing all but the most optimistic box-office predictions was Marvel's way of telling Posobiec and his ilk, "No, you don't."
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
Saturday, March 9, 2019
(SPOILER ALERT AND STRONG LANGUAGE) So...How About Those Twists? (Captain Marvel Edition - MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD)
(SPOILER ALERT)
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(LAST CHANCE)
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(Okay you've been warned)
So, according to Captain Marvel, Skrulls aren't bad guys.
Holy fucking shit, Kevin Feige. What in the name of the late, great Stan Lee have you done?
I have absolutely no problem with any of the other liberties that were taken with the characters in this film. I don't really care that Nick Fury lost his eye because an alien that looks like a cat scratched him and not in a more badass incident like a bomb explosion or something. I don't give a shit that Mar-Vell went from being a man to being a woman because that character, who's been dead in the comics for 37 years, was never much more than an excuse for Marvel to hang onto the name "Captain Marvel" in the first place. I don't even give a flying fuck that the Kree-Skrull War takes place outside an Avengers movie, even though it would have made a pretty solid follow-up to the Thanos mega-arc.
But through this business of basically stripping one of the most long-standing rivalries in your comics of any nuance whatsoever, you have done both the comics and your future movies a huge disservice.
By allowing the makers of Captain Marvel to cash in on one of your usual story tropes, i.e. the third-act story twist, using this egregious deviation from the mythology of the characters, you may have shot yourself in the foot on a level that only the people over at Warner Brothers have done so far.
Truly, this twist makes your Mandarin-related twist over in Iron Man 3 look like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Here are a number of reasons why this ham-handed attempt to shock the audience really is just a bad idea:
1) Not only do fans of the comic books (who apparently don't matter at this point) already know that the Kree are capable of mayhem, mass murder and supreme displays of egotism, but fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, thanks to Ronan the Accuser's antics in Guardians of the Galaxy, know it as well, so the "revelation" that the Kree are bad guys isn't much of a twist at all. Hell, my eight-year-old daughter saw Ronan the Accuser show up and said, almost instantly: "Isn't he a bad guy?" You weren't really fooling anyone, in short.
2) The story doesn't work hard enough to earn the reversal. There is little to no camaraderie between "Vers" and the Star Force, just a few quips that don't really work all that well, and a brief exchange with Yon Rogg in the beginning this is equal parts flirtation and violence. Apart from a few lines of dialogue there is very little to really cement the notion that Vers really believes in what she is doing as a member of Star Force, especially because she is given very little reason to believe in it, quite honestly. Finally, there is something really off about the way Yon Rogg acts all throughout the film that telegraphs the twist way before it is eventually unveiled. This is truly a far, far cry from the masterful twist in Spider-Man: Homecoming that basically pulled the rug out from under almost everyone who wasn't paying close attention.
3) To go back to your printed universe, your twist actually does quite a disservice to the Skrulls themselves, who have long evolved past mere villains and have acquired plenty of character nuance through the work of Marvel's talented writers and artists. In fact, there are quite a few Skrulls who are either heroes like Hulkling of the Young Avengers or Xavin of the Runaways or, at the very least, sympathetic characters like Lyja. The fact that these and other characters have to transcend the sins of their race makes them all the more interesting, and re-casting the Skrulls as plain-vanilla "refugees" or "victims" deprives characters such as these of potential journeys in the MCU. Talos has a throwaway line about having dirty hands because of war, but it really isn't enough to give him the moral ambiguity he deserves.
4) Finally, declaring that Skrulls aren't bad guys takes a number of landmark stories off the table, like Secret Invasion, or the Fantastic Four's encounters with Kl'rt, the Super Skrull. I imagine that Captain Marvel was already deep in development, if not already shooting, by the time you found out you were getting the Fantastic Four back, but really, to totally rule out the possibility of the FF fighting one of their most formidable villains feels uncharacteristically short-sighted of you.
I gave this movie a decent rating, no matter how much the twist infuriated me because 1) I honestly enjoyed the movie; I thought it was good, though quite a long way from greatness and 2) This twist, while a central part of Captain Marvel's narrative, can be easily undone by shifting the larger narrative, making Talos and his sympathetic group of Skrulls outliers, and introducing Veranke, the Skrull Queen, and her followers as the true representatives of the Skrull Empire. Imagine, if you will, the Avengers going up against Veranke and her armada, or even Carol Danvers going toe-to-toe with an enhanced Veranke herself. You can't tell me the possibility of this happening hasn't crossed your mind. Tweak the writing; make it clear that while there are some good Skrulls, there are nonetheless very, very bad ones who are very much at large.
Please consider this last suggestion, Kevin (and Nate, Victoria, Louis, and whoever else is in charge). I had faith that Captain Marvel wouldn't be the clusterfuck that all of its pre-cooked haters already knew it would be when it was announced, and by and large I feel my faith was justified. You're no Kathleen Kennedy, in that you've always put story over some heavy handed advocacy, and unlike her, you have managed to produce excellent movies that actually contain meaningful, socially-relevant themes rather than be "woke" just for the sake of it.
To recap, the twist involving the Skrulls was to my mind (and to those of many fans, I'm sure) a huge mistake, but not an irreparable one. You already course-corrected the Mandarin twist over in Iron Man with a well-received short-film revealing a different, true Mandarin, so maybe you can consider rectifying this error, too, and pave the way for some pretty awesome stories as you embark on the next Phase of Marvel movies.
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.
.
(LAST CHANCE)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(Okay you've been warned)
So, according to Captain Marvel, Skrulls aren't bad guys.
Holy fucking shit, Kevin Feige. What in the name of the late, great Stan Lee have you done?
I have absolutely no problem with any of the other liberties that were taken with the characters in this film. I don't really care that Nick Fury lost his eye because an alien that looks like a cat scratched him and not in a more badass incident like a bomb explosion or something. I don't give a shit that Mar-Vell went from being a man to being a woman because that character, who's been dead in the comics for 37 years, was never much more than an excuse for Marvel to hang onto the name "Captain Marvel" in the first place. I don't even give a flying fuck that the Kree-Skrull War takes place outside an Avengers movie, even though it would have made a pretty solid follow-up to the Thanos mega-arc.
But through this business of basically stripping one of the most long-standing rivalries in your comics of any nuance whatsoever, you have done both the comics and your future movies a huge disservice.
By allowing the makers of Captain Marvel to cash in on one of your usual story tropes, i.e. the third-act story twist, using this egregious deviation from the mythology of the characters, you may have shot yourself in the foot on a level that only the people over at Warner Brothers have done so far.
Truly, this twist makes your Mandarin-related twist over in Iron Man 3 look like something out of an Alfred Hitchcock movie. Here are a number of reasons why this ham-handed attempt to shock the audience really is just a bad idea:
1) Not only do fans of the comic books (who apparently don't matter at this point) already know that the Kree are capable of mayhem, mass murder and supreme displays of egotism, but fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, thanks to Ronan the Accuser's antics in Guardians of the Galaxy, know it as well, so the "revelation" that the Kree are bad guys isn't much of a twist at all. Hell, my eight-year-old daughter saw Ronan the Accuser show up and said, almost instantly: "Isn't he a bad guy?" You weren't really fooling anyone, in short.
2) The story doesn't work hard enough to earn the reversal. There is little to no camaraderie between "Vers" and the Star Force, just a few quips that don't really work all that well, and a brief exchange with Yon Rogg in the beginning this is equal parts flirtation and violence. Apart from a few lines of dialogue there is very little to really cement the notion that Vers really believes in what she is doing as a member of Star Force, especially because she is given very little reason to believe in it, quite honestly. Finally, there is something really off about the way Yon Rogg acts all throughout the film that telegraphs the twist way before it is eventually unveiled. This is truly a far, far cry from the masterful twist in Spider-Man: Homecoming that basically pulled the rug out from under almost everyone who wasn't paying close attention.
3) To go back to your printed universe, your twist actually does quite a disservice to the Skrulls themselves, who have long evolved past mere villains and have acquired plenty of character nuance through the work of Marvel's talented writers and artists. In fact, there are quite a few Skrulls who are either heroes like Hulkling of the Young Avengers or Xavin of the Runaways or, at the very least, sympathetic characters like Lyja. The fact that these and other characters have to transcend the sins of their race makes them all the more interesting, and re-casting the Skrulls as plain-vanilla "refugees" or "victims" deprives characters such as these of potential journeys in the MCU. Talos has a throwaway line about having dirty hands because of war, but it really isn't enough to give him the moral ambiguity he deserves.
4) Finally, declaring that Skrulls aren't bad guys takes a number of landmark stories off the table, like Secret Invasion, or the Fantastic Four's encounters with Kl'rt, the Super Skrull. I imagine that Captain Marvel was already deep in development, if not already shooting, by the time you found out you were getting the Fantastic Four back, but really, to totally rule out the possibility of the FF fighting one of their most formidable villains feels uncharacteristically short-sighted of you.
I gave this movie a decent rating, no matter how much the twist infuriated me because 1) I honestly enjoyed the movie; I thought it was good, though quite a long way from greatness and 2) This twist, while a central part of Captain Marvel's narrative, can be easily undone by shifting the larger narrative, making Talos and his sympathetic group of Skrulls outliers, and introducing Veranke, the Skrull Queen, and her followers as the true representatives of the Skrull Empire. Imagine, if you will, the Avengers going up against Veranke and her armada, or even Carol Danvers going toe-to-toe with an enhanced Veranke herself. You can't tell me the possibility of this happening hasn't crossed your mind. Tweak the writing; make it clear that while there are some good Skrulls, there are nonetheless very, very bad ones who are very much at large.
Please consider this last suggestion, Kevin (and Nate, Victoria, Louis, and whoever else is in charge). I had faith that Captain Marvel wouldn't be the clusterfuck that all of its pre-cooked haters already knew it would be when it was announced, and by and large I feel my faith was justified. You're no Kathleen Kennedy, in that you've always put story over some heavy handed advocacy, and unlike her, you have managed to produce excellent movies that actually contain meaningful, socially-relevant themes rather than be "woke" just for the sake of it.
To recap, the twist involving the Skrulls was to my mind (and to those of many fans, I'm sure) a huge mistake, but not an irreparable one. You already course-corrected the Mandarin twist over in Iron Man with a well-received short-film revealing a different, true Mandarin, so maybe you can consider rectifying this error, too, and pave the way for some pretty awesome stories as you embark on the next Phase of Marvel movies.
New But So Very Familiar: A Review of Captain Marvel
directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
written by Boden, Fleck, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve
Much has been said about the new film Captain Marvel, and so in reviewing this movie I found myself having to tune out a great deal of noise. All told, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.
Vers (Brie Larson) is a loyal and particularly powerful soldier of the Kree, a race of warriors who live on the planet of Hala. Even though she's troubled by dreams she doesn't understand about what may or may not have been her past, she serves the Kree Star Force under the command of Yon Rogg (Jude Law) whose primary mission is to destroy the threat posed by the Skrulls, a race of shape-shifting conquerors and the mortal enemies of the Kree. Vers possesses great power she does not quite understand, and recounts her dreams to the Kree Supreme Intelligence, an A.I. that manifests as a woman (Annette Bening) whom Vers supposedly admires and yet cannot quite remember even having known.
When a mission to rescue a Kree spy from Skrull-occupied territory goes awry, Vers is captured and wakes up, hanging upside down in a Skrull contraption meant to read her mind, with a Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) presiding over the attempts to extract the information. Using her considerable power, Vers breaks free, commandeers an escape pod, and crash-lands on the nearest planet, which happens to be Earth. With the Skrulls in hot pursuit, Vers turns to earthbound allies, like S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury (a digitally de-aged Samuel L. Jackson) and retired U.S. Air Force pilot Maria Rambaeu (Lashana Lynch) whom she may have known in a past life. Vers realizes that it is up to her to stop the Skrulls from finding what they're after, especially since her friends in the Star Force are too far away to help her in time. In the process, she finally uncovers the truth about her mysterious past, which is not at all what she expects.
As the political statement it has far too often (and somewhat incorrectly) been described as, this film is a strangely nebulous animal; it's too feminist for the right, and not nearly feminist enough for the left. It's best, then, to take it as a bit of entertainment, which it is first and foremost. As such, it never quite scales to heights of greatness, especially not next to the more pedigreed of its stablemates in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but it definitely qualifies as good. I was expecting something along the lines of the first Thor movie walking in, and I had my trepidation considering that, to me at least, that 2011 Phase I movie has not aged well at all, and so it was with a sigh of relief that I noted that this movie was better than that one in many key aspects. It certainly wasn't as goofy as that film could get at its worst moments.
That notwithstanding, the film is unmistakably a Marvel movie, and leans quite heavily, often to its detriment, on quite a few "Marvelisms" or storytelling devices that have helped make the majority of their now-21 movie catalog box office smash hits, foremost of which the humor. This is easily one of the "quippiest" Marvel movies of recent memory, and while not all of the jokes, verbal and otherwise, work, enough of them do, largely thanks to some real onscreen chemistry between Larson's Vers and Jackson's Fury and to a treasure trove of jokes about what life was like in the 90s, with computers that take forever to load, grunge bands and actual video rental shops. As someone who came of age in that decade, this film felt like slipping into comfortable old shoes. It also makes heavy use of another narrative trope in Marvel movies that I cannot discuss at length without venturing into spoiler territory. In truth, this particular aspect I found problematic, for reasons I won't discuss here. Also, the film, like most of its predecessors leaned quite heavily on computer-generated imagery.
This is one aspect that stands out; the computer-generated imagery, which was a major pitfall of the now Oscar-winning Black Panther was, to my considerable surprise, done quite cleanly in Captain Marvel. The seams show here and there, but considering that this was an effects-heavy movie with a significant portion set in space, it was no small relief that directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck managed to pull off the more fantastical scenes, especially since this is their first-ever big-budget outing. Even the smaller touches, like the CG that de-aged both Jackson and Clark Gregg who shows up as a young Phil Coulson, worked supremely well.
What didn't work all that well, for me at least, was the somewhat generic music score by Pinar Toprak. Sure, it underscored the action well enough, but after Ludwig Goransson treated us to a delightful blend of earthy African rhythms and soaring orchestral fanfare in Black Panther I was kind of hoping for something a little more special. It was the song selection, which consisted of an interesting selection of 90s tunes, that basically carried the movie.
The writing also had a number of issues, some of them serious, which I unfortunately cannot go into because they involve disclosing quite a few spoilers. Suffice it to say that, after the sublime script that Joe Robert Cole and Ryan Coogler crafted for Black Panther, where just about everything made sense, both as a reflection of how people actually behave, and within the context of its own logic, this one was distinctly disappointing. I'll have to stop there.
Marvel has always hired actors whose talent ranges from competent at worst to sublime at best, and whatever noise she may have generated with her off-screen comments, Brie Larson was a decent choice for the role. She manages to strike the right emotional balance between someone who is both confident in her own abilities and who is fraught with doubt as a result of flashes of a past she cannot quite grasp. Also, not that it matters, but she cracks plenty of smiles throughout the movie, yet again proving the age-old adage that it's best to watch a movie before judging it for what its star is or isn't doing in the marketing materials. Apart from the rock-solid, buddy-comedy chemistry Larson gets from playing off Jackson, she gets more than able support from other players in the cast, like Jude Law, Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau, Akira Akbar as her daughter Monica, who actually assumed the Captain Marvel mantle in the comics many years ago, and in a surprising turn, Ben Mendelsohn as the lead Skrull Talos. Mendelsohn's sort of been Hollywood's go-to bad guy of late, and having found him generic in films like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Ready Player One I thought Marvel had fallen into their old trap of generic villains, but Mendelsohn's performance was a pleasant surprise, even though I found it distinctly strange that he was the only Skrull with an Australian accent (no, really).
That's another, admittedly minor quibble I have with this film; Asgardians all have British accents, while the residents of the Guardians of the Galaxy's corner of the galaxy all have American accents (including the Scottish Karen Gillan), but for some reason, Jude Law manages to be the only Kree thus far with a British accent, while Talos bears the odd distinction of being the only Skrull to have an Australian accent. It makes for some oddly inconsistent storytelling, though I was gratified that the scriptwriters finally made mention of a "universal translator" to address the issue of aliens being able to speak perfect English to Earthlings.
One final note: altering the Marvel Studios logo to feature solely the late Stan Lee as an homage was a really nice touch, as was featuring him reading a script of the 1995 film Mallrats, in which he had a cameo role. We'll soon see the last of his cameos this year, either in Avengers: Endgame or in Spider-Man: Far From Home, but it's still sad to be reminded that he's gone.
Carol Danvers' inclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been long overdue, and while this film has its issues, this was definitely a decent big-screen debut for the character. Comparisons to DC's Wonder Woman will be inevitable, and if I'm honest, Patty Jenkins still made a better movie overall, notwithstanding WW's completely messed-up climax and the spotty CG, but selling Captain Marvel was always a bit of an uphill battle (against their own boss, no less, before Disney gave Ike Perlmutter the boot) and I think Marvel have given us a worthy enough addition to their ever-growing library.
6.5/10
written by Boden, Fleck, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, Nicole Perlman and Meg LeFauve
Much has been said about the new film Captain Marvel, and so in reviewing this movie I found myself having to tune out a great deal of noise. All told, I liked it a lot more than I thought I would.
Vers (Brie Larson) is a loyal and particularly powerful soldier of the Kree, a race of warriors who live on the planet of Hala. Even though she's troubled by dreams she doesn't understand about what may or may not have been her past, she serves the Kree Star Force under the command of Yon Rogg (Jude Law) whose primary mission is to destroy the threat posed by the Skrulls, a race of shape-shifting conquerors and the mortal enemies of the Kree. Vers possesses great power she does not quite understand, and recounts her dreams to the Kree Supreme Intelligence, an A.I. that manifests as a woman (Annette Bening) whom Vers supposedly admires and yet cannot quite remember even having known.
When a mission to rescue a Kree spy from Skrull-occupied territory goes awry, Vers is captured and wakes up, hanging upside down in a Skrull contraption meant to read her mind, with a Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn) presiding over the attempts to extract the information. Using her considerable power, Vers breaks free, commandeers an escape pod, and crash-lands on the nearest planet, which happens to be Earth. With the Skrulls in hot pursuit, Vers turns to earthbound allies, like S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury (a digitally de-aged Samuel L. Jackson) and retired U.S. Air Force pilot Maria Rambaeu (Lashana Lynch) whom she may have known in a past life. Vers realizes that it is up to her to stop the Skrulls from finding what they're after, especially since her friends in the Star Force are too far away to help her in time. In the process, she finally uncovers the truth about her mysterious past, which is not at all what she expects.
As the political statement it has far too often (and somewhat incorrectly) been described as, this film is a strangely nebulous animal; it's too feminist for the right, and not nearly feminist enough for the left. It's best, then, to take it as a bit of entertainment, which it is first and foremost. As such, it never quite scales to heights of greatness, especially not next to the more pedigreed of its stablemates in the Marvel Cinematic Universe but it definitely qualifies as good. I was expecting something along the lines of the first Thor movie walking in, and I had my trepidation considering that, to me at least, that 2011 Phase I movie has not aged well at all, and so it was with a sigh of relief that I noted that this movie was better than that one in many key aspects. It certainly wasn't as goofy as that film could get at its worst moments.
That notwithstanding, the film is unmistakably a Marvel movie, and leans quite heavily, often to its detriment, on quite a few "Marvelisms" or storytelling devices that have helped make the majority of their now-21 movie catalog box office smash hits, foremost of which the humor. This is easily one of the "quippiest" Marvel movies of recent memory, and while not all of the jokes, verbal and otherwise, work, enough of them do, largely thanks to some real onscreen chemistry between Larson's Vers and Jackson's Fury and to a treasure trove of jokes about what life was like in the 90s, with computers that take forever to load, grunge bands and actual video rental shops. As someone who came of age in that decade, this film felt like slipping into comfortable old shoes. It also makes heavy use of another narrative trope in Marvel movies that I cannot discuss at length without venturing into spoiler territory. In truth, this particular aspect I found problematic, for reasons I won't discuss here. Also, the film, like most of its predecessors leaned quite heavily on computer-generated imagery.
This is one aspect that stands out; the computer-generated imagery, which was a major pitfall of the now Oscar-winning Black Panther was, to my considerable surprise, done quite cleanly in Captain Marvel. The seams show here and there, but considering that this was an effects-heavy movie with a significant portion set in space, it was no small relief that directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck managed to pull off the more fantastical scenes, especially since this is their first-ever big-budget outing. Even the smaller touches, like the CG that de-aged both Jackson and Clark Gregg who shows up as a young Phil Coulson, worked supremely well.
What didn't work all that well, for me at least, was the somewhat generic music score by Pinar Toprak. Sure, it underscored the action well enough, but after Ludwig Goransson treated us to a delightful blend of earthy African rhythms and soaring orchestral fanfare in Black Panther I was kind of hoping for something a little more special. It was the song selection, which consisted of an interesting selection of 90s tunes, that basically carried the movie.
The writing also had a number of issues, some of them serious, which I unfortunately cannot go into because they involve disclosing quite a few spoilers. Suffice it to say that, after the sublime script that Joe Robert Cole and Ryan Coogler crafted for Black Panther, where just about everything made sense, both as a reflection of how people actually behave, and within the context of its own logic, this one was distinctly disappointing. I'll have to stop there.
Marvel has always hired actors whose talent ranges from competent at worst to sublime at best, and whatever noise she may have generated with her off-screen comments, Brie Larson was a decent choice for the role. She manages to strike the right emotional balance between someone who is both confident in her own abilities and who is fraught with doubt as a result of flashes of a past she cannot quite grasp. Also, not that it matters, but she cracks plenty of smiles throughout the movie, yet again proving the age-old adage that it's best to watch a movie before judging it for what its star is or isn't doing in the marketing materials. Apart from the rock-solid, buddy-comedy chemistry Larson gets from playing off Jackson, she gets more than able support from other players in the cast, like Jude Law, Lashana Lynch as Maria Rambeau, Akira Akbar as her daughter Monica, who actually assumed the Captain Marvel mantle in the comics many years ago, and in a surprising turn, Ben Mendelsohn as the lead Skrull Talos. Mendelsohn's sort of been Hollywood's go-to bad guy of late, and having found him generic in films like Rogue One: A Star Wars Story and Ready Player One I thought Marvel had fallen into their old trap of generic villains, but Mendelsohn's performance was a pleasant surprise, even though I found it distinctly strange that he was the only Skrull with an Australian accent (no, really).
That's another, admittedly minor quibble I have with this film; Asgardians all have British accents, while the residents of the Guardians of the Galaxy's corner of the galaxy all have American accents (including the Scottish Karen Gillan), but for some reason, Jude Law manages to be the only Kree thus far with a British accent, while Talos bears the odd distinction of being the only Skrull to have an Australian accent. It makes for some oddly inconsistent storytelling, though I was gratified that the scriptwriters finally made mention of a "universal translator" to address the issue of aliens being able to speak perfect English to Earthlings.
One final note: altering the Marvel Studios logo to feature solely the late Stan Lee as an homage was a really nice touch, as was featuring him reading a script of the 1995 film Mallrats, in which he had a cameo role. We'll soon see the last of his cameos this year, either in Avengers: Endgame or in Spider-Man: Far From Home, but it's still sad to be reminded that he's gone.
Carol Danvers' inclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been long overdue, and while this film has its issues, this was definitely a decent big-screen debut for the character. Comparisons to DC's Wonder Woman will be inevitable, and if I'm honest, Patty Jenkins still made a better movie overall, notwithstanding WW's completely messed-up climax and the spotty CG, but selling Captain Marvel was always a bit of an uphill battle (against their own boss, no less, before Disney gave Ike Perlmutter the boot) and I think Marvel have given us a worthy enough addition to their ever-growing library.
6.5/10
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
Knowing How to Quit When You're Ahead: A Review of How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World (MILD SPOILERS)
written directed by Dean DeBlois
In this day and age of never-ending film franchises, it is refreshing, nay, shocking to see a profitable film franchise actually end, but that's exactly what the popular How to Train Your Dragon series does with the new film How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. It's an emotional, if sometimes flawed coda for the enjoyable film series.
For the last several months following the last film, Viking Chief Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), his girlfriend Astrid (America Ferrera) and the rest of his friends from the island of Berk have spent their time saving dragons from dragon trappers and bringing them back home to Berk, where they offer them sanctuary. Unfortunately, this has made Berk a target for dragon trappers everywhere, particularly the deadly Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham) who has been hired by the dragon trappers to capture the dragons of Berk, especially the alpha, the Night Fury, Hiccup's best friend Toothless. Hiccup, during flashbacks from his childhood remembers a place that his late father Stoick (Gerard Butler) told him about where dragons roam freely and safely, a hidden world, and decides that the Berkians must move there with their dragons. Time is not on their side as Grimmel closes in on them, and Hiccup will have to call on the help of his family, namely his mother Valka (Cate Blanchett) and his friends Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig) and Tuffnut (Justin Rupple), Gobber (Craig Ferguson) and Astrid to face the oncoming threat, especially since Grimmel has a particularly formidable weapon to use against the otherwise indomitable Toothless: a female Night Fury.
One nice thing about framing a movie as a final installment is that it helps give the narrative emotional heft because we viewers know that the characters won't be doing this anymore. Fortunately, apart from the hype, the film earns its emotional resonance when Hiccup realizes he has tough choices to make. There's also a sense of real peril given that Stoick has already met his maker in the previous film (um, spoiler alert) and so we know that character death is a real possibility. This adds a sense of menace to Grimmel and his fantastically-designed dragon-scorpion hybrids. A good chunk of the fun of these movies, which, together with the Kung Fu Panda films, are my favorite in Dreamworks Animation's catalog, is seeing what new outlandish designs for dragons the artists and animators can come up with, and the creatures here are a lot more intriguing than the generic gigantic dragons that were so central to the plots of the first two films. Size doesn't always matter. These dragons are defined by their unique abilities (spitting venom, scorpion tail).
There are some false notes in the narrative as the film kind of departs from the first movie in characterizing Stoick as wanting to leave the dragons in peace rather than destroy them, which was what he was all about in the first film. Also, the film wants to emphasize that Hiccup doesn't need Toothless to be a great man, and yet about the only thing he does without Toothless in the film is, well, rescue Toothless, so the filmmakers kind of undercut themselves there. I also had some issues with the film's bad guy, but I think Abraham acquits himself well, as do all of the returning cast members.
Still, this is still a film in which the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, and apart from the generally strong storytelling, the movie makes its case with astonishing visuals that are, thanks to the leaps in technology in the nine years that have passed since the first film, leagues upon leagues improved in terms of quality and overall craftsmanship from the first film. In terms of visual pizzazz this movie is every bit the equal of anything coming out of Pixar from the rendering to the camera movement to the sheer beauty of what appears on the screen; it's a real treat. Contributing to this sensory feast is a soaring musical score by series mainstay John Powell that calls back to the familiar themes of the series but adds quite a few stirring choral pieces. Powell received an Academy Award nomination for his work on the first film, and personally I wouldn't mind if he got another nod for this one.
To anyone who cynically scoffs at the "last installment" hype, I can categorically say that whatever direction the franchise may take from here, it's done with this particular set of characters, and I'm happy to say that despite a few missteps, this particular iteration of this film franchise still managed to end on a high note.
8/10
In this day and age of never-ending film franchises, it is refreshing, nay, shocking to see a profitable film franchise actually end, but that's exactly what the popular How to Train Your Dragon series does with the new film How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World. It's an emotional, if sometimes flawed coda for the enjoyable film series.
For the last several months following the last film, Viking Chief Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), his girlfriend Astrid (America Ferrera) and the rest of his friends from the island of Berk have spent their time saving dragons from dragon trappers and bringing them back home to Berk, where they offer them sanctuary. Unfortunately, this has made Berk a target for dragon trappers everywhere, particularly the deadly Grimmel the Grisly (F. Murray Abraham) who has been hired by the dragon trappers to capture the dragons of Berk, especially the alpha, the Night Fury, Hiccup's best friend Toothless. Hiccup, during flashbacks from his childhood remembers a place that his late father Stoick (Gerard Butler) told him about where dragons roam freely and safely, a hidden world, and decides that the Berkians must move there with their dragons. Time is not on their side as Grimmel closes in on them, and Hiccup will have to call on the help of his family, namely his mother Valka (Cate Blanchett) and his friends Snotlout (Jonah Hill), Fishlegs (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig) and Tuffnut (Justin Rupple), Gobber (Craig Ferguson) and Astrid to face the oncoming threat, especially since Grimmel has a particularly formidable weapon to use against the otherwise indomitable Toothless: a female Night Fury.
One nice thing about framing a movie as a final installment is that it helps give the narrative emotional heft because we viewers know that the characters won't be doing this anymore. Fortunately, apart from the hype, the film earns its emotional resonance when Hiccup realizes he has tough choices to make. There's also a sense of real peril given that Stoick has already met his maker in the previous film (um, spoiler alert) and so we know that character death is a real possibility. This adds a sense of menace to Grimmel and his fantastically-designed dragon-scorpion hybrids. A good chunk of the fun of these movies, which, together with the Kung Fu Panda films, are my favorite in Dreamworks Animation's catalog, is seeing what new outlandish designs for dragons the artists and animators can come up with, and the creatures here are a lot more intriguing than the generic gigantic dragons that were so central to the plots of the first two films. Size doesn't always matter. These dragons are defined by their unique abilities (spitting venom, scorpion tail).
There are some false notes in the narrative as the film kind of departs from the first movie in characterizing Stoick as wanting to leave the dragons in peace rather than destroy them, which was what he was all about in the first film. Also, the film wants to emphasize that Hiccup doesn't need Toothless to be a great man, and yet about the only thing he does without Toothless in the film is, well, rescue Toothless, so the filmmakers kind of undercut themselves there. I also had some issues with the film's bad guy, but I think Abraham acquits himself well, as do all of the returning cast members.
Still, this is still a film in which the strengths outweigh the weaknesses, and apart from the generally strong storytelling, the movie makes its case with astonishing visuals that are, thanks to the leaps in technology in the nine years that have passed since the first film, leagues upon leagues improved in terms of quality and overall craftsmanship from the first film. In terms of visual pizzazz this movie is every bit the equal of anything coming out of Pixar from the rendering to the camera movement to the sheer beauty of what appears on the screen; it's a real treat. Contributing to this sensory feast is a soaring musical score by series mainstay John Powell that calls back to the familiar themes of the series but adds quite a few stirring choral pieces. Powell received an Academy Award nomination for his work on the first film, and personally I wouldn't mind if he got another nod for this one.
To anyone who cynically scoffs at the "last installment" hype, I can categorically say that whatever direction the franchise may take from here, it's done with this particular set of characters, and I'm happy to say that despite a few missteps, this particular iteration of this film franchise still managed to end on a high note.
8/10
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