Is Marvel Fatigue Real?

 It seems silly to even suggest that the Marvel Cinematic Universe, officially the biggest box-office franchise in the history of movies is in any sort of trouble.  As of writing, the MCU has an unbroken and unequaled streak of 29 films that have opened at number one, the aggregate global box office gross of which, as of writing is $27.1 billion.

Since restrictions brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic have eased, the MCU has released six films theatrically, all of which have opened at number one, all but one of which spent at least two weekends as the number one movie in North America, and one of which, namely Spider-Man: No Way Home has the distinction of being the first movie released during the pandemic to gross over a billion dollars at the global box-office. 

It's not all happy news, though; of the six MCU movies released during the pandemic, four of them, namely Black Widow, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, and Thor: Love and Thunder,  shed over roughly two-thirds of their audience in their second weekends.  Black Widow was arguably a victim of Disney's idiotic day-and-date release strategy which saw the movie released in theaters at exactly the same time as it was made available for a fee on Disney+. In the case of, Spider-Man: No Way Home, there were extenuating circumstances, namely the second weekend coinciding with Christmas eve. That movie is an outlier, though, as it has since gone on to recover quite well from that first-to-second weekend drop, grossing over three times its mammoth opening weekend of $260 million. 

The steep second weekend drops of the Doctor Strange and Thor sequels, however, don't have any particular explanation behind them, other than that, perhaps, the long-dreaded Marvel fatigue may finally be setting in. 

The films of Phase 1, like the first installments of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Avengers, on the average, saw second weekend drops of around 50%. Captain America's first movie, with its 60% drop, was the outlier there.  With Phases 2 and 3, the average attrition of a Marvel movie in its first to second weekend shifted gradually from the low 50% to the high 50%, bordering on 60%. This was tempered, of course, by the fact that Marvel movies tended to have bigger and bigger opening weekends as the sprawling Infinity Saga neared its climax.  There were outliers, like Black Panther and Spider-Man: Far From Home, which experienced gentler-than-average drops from their opening weekends, but overall attrition tended to be higher.

Looking at Phase 4, I found it notable that only one of the six MCU movies released, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, experienced a first-to-second weekend drop below 60%, although it was also among the lower grossers of the six.  It didn't shed as much of an audience as the other films because its audience wasn't as big to begin with. 

Is it fair to say, then, that audience interest in these movies is waning? 

It is really hard to say, since these movies are still making money hand over fist. At the very least, though, these figures, coupled with the less-than stellar reviews for three out of the last six Marvel movies, should at least put Kevin Feige and his brain trust on notice that they may have to shake things up a bit in terms of how they tell their stories.  The chinks in Marvel's armor are showing. 

Another Type of "C" in the MCU (HEAVY SPOILERS for THOR: LOVE AND THUNDER)

 After posting spoiler-free reviews for tentpole movies, specifically Marvel ones, I usually follow up with a deep dive into the fun stuff like cameos and plot twists, which inevitably involves heavy spoilers. 

For Thor: Love and Thunder I'd like to do something similar but nonetheless a little different given the subject matter. 

FINAL WARNING: HEAVY SPOILERS

Though the movie itself was conspicuously flawed in a number of ways, I'd like to applaud Marvel for choosing to tell the story of a hero with stage-four cancer. 

I can't help but feel that Natalie Portman was enticed to return to the role of Jane Foster, who was basically just window dressing in the first couple of Thor movies before staying out of the third one altogether, by the prospect not only of donning the superhero tights but by the prospect of finally giving Jane her own, compelling story, especially since hers is basically the only compelling story in the whole movie.

Her severely-ill Jane Foster is basically the perfect counterpoint to Christian Bale's Gorr the God Butcher.  Both of them are empowered by their magical weapons and both of them are actually dying as a direct result.  The Necrosword which empowers Gorr is slowly poisoning him, while Mjolnir, which empowers Jane, is actually draining her of the energy she needs to fight the stage-four cancer ravaging her body.  Gorr points this out to her late in the film, and she is thus confronted with the choice to sit out the final battle and recuperate or stop Gorr once and for all at the cost of her own life. Jane, of course, chooses the latter. It's not the first time a Marvel hero has laid their life down to save the world, but Portman really sells the moment and her sacrifice at the end really does resonate as a result.

Jane's journey, drawn in large part from the comics written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Esad Ribic and Russell Dauterman, is about the only part of the film that has any real narrative heft or emotional resonance, and it can be genuinely annoying to see Waititi constantly undercutting these emotional beats with forced jokes before he finally lets the story breathe a little bit towards the end of the film.  

I've said before that terminal illness, or in particular cancer, can fit into a superhero narrative  effectively; James Gunn did it to superb effect in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie, and had TLAT not been so obsessed with referencing 80s songs and making fun of itself, it could have been even more on point here. 

More to the point, though, the folks at Marvel could have taken this opportunity to salute one of their  own heroes whom they lost in real life to colon cancer, Chadwick Boseman. The joke-a-minute storytelling, unfortunately severely diluted this, as did the bad CGI, the lazy music scoring, and Russell Crowe's weird Mediterranean accent (though I confess it has a guilty pleasure quality to it). I know that the movie could not have spent its entire running time grappling with a topic as depressing as terminal illness--that would have made for an even worse story--but telling a story like this needed a delicate sense of balance which Waititi unfortunately did not strike and which, quite frankly, he didn't even attempt. 

 Still, the fact that Marvel was willing to tell the story of someone who was basically doomed to die tells me something interesting about where they may be willing to go in the future...but that's a topic for another day.

The Thunderous Return of Jane Foster: A Review of Thor: Love and Thunder (Spoiler-free)

 directed by Taika Waititi

written by Taika Waititi and Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

I'm going to be blunt: I was not expecting much from Thor: Love and Thunder. When it was announced some months before the pandemic I rolled my eyes a little bit, wondering why unlike Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Evans, who had wrapped up their tenure in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in fine style with Avengers: Endgame, Chris Hemsworth was insisting on having another go.  It didn't really matter that Taika Waititi, who had breathed fresh air into the Thor franchise with Thor: Ragnarok, was returning to direct and this time write the film, I just felt the film was superfluous at a time when Marvel needed to start focusing on their next generation of Avengers. Subsequent announcements like the casting of Batman himself, Christian Bale, as well as acting legend Russell Crowe piqued my interest, but I still felt jaded about it.

My mind changed quite a bit with the trailer, though, which promised a dazzling, fun romp through space with the God of Thunder with colorful new characters and some familiar old ones as well.

The film starts with Gorr (Bale), the last of an unnamed race who walks the desert with his ailing child Love (India Rose Hemsworth) and who offers the last of his strength praying to his god for her to live, all in vain, as she dies. Shortly thereafter, Gorr stumbles into an oasis where the very same god to whom he was praying is apparently celebrating the defeat of a mysterious creature with an even more mysterious sword and discovers just how indifferent that god is to his plight. The sword, which is actually called the Necrosword calls out to Gorr, and he uses it to take his bloody revenge on the god, which then prompts him to take an oath to kill all gods.

Meanwhile, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) following the events of Avengers: Endgame is a bit aimless. He goes on adventures with the Guardians of the Galaxy (Chris Pratt as Star Lord and the rest of the gang are all back sans Zoe Saldana's Gamora, of course) but when he hears reports of a mysterious figure killing gods all over space with a mysterious sword he sets off on his own in search of the threat with his best bud Korg (Taika Waititi).  Elsewhere, Thor's ex-girlfriend Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is in a bad way health-wise, and basically at the end of her rope. Having exhausted normal scientific treatment, she heads over to New Asgard, where the broken pieces of Mjolnir are on display in a museum, and hopes to receive just a little bit of its magic. What happens next takes her by surprise and she soon finds herself reunited with Thor in a way neither of them had expected. `

Suddenly, Gorr then kidnaps the children from New Asgard, and Thor, King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), and Jane, realizing the scope of the threat, seek help from the gods themselves, led by the powerful, pompous Zeus (a gloriously campy Russell Crowe). Will it be enough, and will they be in time? 

Thor: Ragnarok was, for me one of the real gems of Phase 3 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, so to reiterate, I was not really thrilled to hear about this new installment, which honestly felt tacked on. Fortunately, Waititi's unhinged sense of fun, along with earnest, genuinely moving performances by series newcomer Christian Bale and the returning Natalie Portman really helped keep things interesting. Hemsworth really knows that Thor is at his best as a goofball so he brings on more of that, trying on a loud new outfit and quite notably shedding the dad bod his character had picked up in Avengers: Endgame.  

There's an energy to the production that helped me overlook most of its foibles, but not all of the jokes hit, and the shift in tone from the more serious scenes to the lighthearted ones was, at times, enough to give one whiplash. A light and bubbly superhero movie featuring terminal illness? These are not necessarily mutually exclusive concepts; Star Lord's mom died of cancer in Guardians of the Galaxy but the movie somehow balanced these scenes out.  Waititi, however, doesn't quite pull it off and for the first time I understand some of the disdain that some critics had for Jojo Rabbit's irreverent look at the dying days of World War II. 

Still, I really do enjoy Waititi's love for the more out-there aspects of Jack Kirby's work. He features the cosmic megabeing Eternity as, well, kind of a MacGuffin, and there are lots of visual nods to the Celestials as Jack Kirby drew them, not how Chloe Zhao reimagined them in Eternals. 

Speaking of visuals, though, I was a bit disappointed at how, after letting Sam Raimi have his way with some incredibly moody lighting to Doctor Strange In the Multiverse of Madness, Marvel seems to have reverted to a more generic look in terms of lighting and color grading. Also, majority of the VFX scenes were shrouded in darkness, which is never a good thing. Considering how long Marvel have been at this, it was distinctly disappointing

Equally disappointing is the seemingly half-baked work of yet another Marvel veteran, composer Michael Giacchino, who doesn't even seem to have thought of a proper theme for this film, which is even more of a let-down considering the kind of work Giacchino has previously done for the MCU in its Spider-Man and Doctor Strange films. Thor now has the unfortunate distinction of being the only solo franchise in the MCU to have had four different composers across as many films. They didn't even bring back Led Zeppelin for this; instead they made Axl Rose and company a whole lot richer by featuring a whopping FOUR Guns 'n' Roses songs.  It's somehow apt, therefore, that Thor has an identity crisis of sorts in this film considering that musically, his character, after all these years, still doesn't have an identifiable theme. 

If nothing else, though, Hemsworth, Waititi and the gang have shown that there are still a few more decent Thor stories to tell, and with any luck, they'll be better than this one. 

6/10

A Hero is Born...Sort of: A Review of Lightyear

 directed by Angus MacLane

written by Angus MacLane, Matthew Aldrich and Jason Headey

When Toy Story 4, which ended with Woody leaving his crew of toys, including Buzz Lightyear, to join up with his love interest Bopeep and HER crew of toys, made over $1 billion worldwide back in 2019, Disney took it to mean that there was plenty of interest left in the brand. They then decided that the best way to follow this story up was...with the origin story of Buzz Lightyear. Not the toy, mind you, but the fictional character within the Toy Story universe on whom the toy was based. 

The result is a movie that could have been a lot worse, but which could have been better, as well. 

Lightyear is the story of, well, Buzz Lightyear (played here by Captain America himself, Chris Evans, making his Pixar debut) a Space Ranger of Star Command who, together with his commanding officer and best friend Alisha Hawthorne (Uzo Aduba) is accompanying a team of scientists as they explore possible the galaxy.  While exploring the surface of the planet T'Kani Prime, they are attacked by hostile wildlife and have to flee in a hurry. Unfortunately, this results in severe damage to their ship, and the entire mission is marooned on an alien planet, without a functioning hyper-drive to get them home.  Buzz then takes it on himself to run the test flights for new hyperdrive fuels, only to discover that each unsuccessful flight, which lasts only minutes for him, results in a lapse of four years upon his return.  He perseveres, however, going into space again and again and losing time in four year clumps, even as his marooned colleagues, living behind a force field, have made a life for themselves on this new planet, including Alisha, who starts her own family.  Meanwhile, the closest thing Buzz has to a family is a robotic cat, Sox (Ben Sohn) that Alisha gives him. After one trip, Buzz is shocked to find that more time has passed than even he could have imagined, and that the T'Kani Prime is now facing a threat the likes of which he has never seen before: the evil Zurg.  

To be clear, the Toy Story movies were never straight-up adventures aimed at kids. The bright colors were incidental to the existential crises that the film's characters, led in all three films by Woody, felt. I've often said to my kids that Tom Hanks' greatest acting performance is actually as Woody considering he makes a near-homicidal maniac to be one of the most endearing characters in the history of animation. Those movies were all about the characters' foibles, including Buzz's delusions of grandeur in the first film. 

This movie is, to be clear, is not about any of that, and I honestly think it's unfair that a lot of people were measuring it by that metric.  One thing this film gets right, even as it tries to distinguish Buzz from his toy counterpart, is to make Buzz, like all of Pixar's best leads, a flawed character. His singlemindedness and determination to finish his mission at the cost of all else is not extolled as a virtue but rather as a flaw that causes him to basically miss out on much of his life, and this is the lesson he learns over the course of the film. There are plenty of callbacks to his Toy Story incarnation, with lines lifted directly from the earlier film, but it's clear this movie is meant to be its own thing.

I liked how this film eschewed the pastel colors of the Toy Story movies (and most other Pixar movies, for that matter, with the obvious exception of WALL-E) in favor of a darker, murkier color palette to reflect the grittier aspect of the narrative. There's a pretty obvious visual nod to Star Wars in at least one scene (and probably many others that I missed) but overall, the goal is to make this universe feel more lived-in, and it works.  And yes, whatever the Tim Allen fanboys may say, I liked Chris Evans' performance as the "real-life" Buzz Lightyear. He was properly engaging as a character. 

A gripe I had with the movie was a bit of a dissonance between the highly atmospheric, action- adventure approach and the goofy, lovable supporting characters that the film inevitably introduces later on, like the idiot played by Taika Waititi or the ex-con. There are space bugs that, in a movie rated PG-13 or higher could definitely have the potential to kill one or more supporting characters, but this movie is only PG, so do the math.  All of the main antagonists are robots, so there's no worry about the gratuitous henchman deaths that earned The Incredibles Pixar's first-ever PG rating.  That said, despite the considerably lower body count of organic lifeforms, this movie still gets a PG rating for "action and peril" despite the fact that, at no point did I ever really feel like the characters were in actual peril. You know in Coco there was this ever-present threat that Miguel might not make it back to the land of the living, which grew greater and greater as the film progressed?  This film, despite its villain, doesn't have that sense of urgency.

It's a handsome film, to be sure, but far from Pixar's best work. It's actually more reminiscent of a family-friendly version of an episode of Love, Death and Robots, the animated anthology series on Netflix. 

A lot has been said about a certain aspect of one of the supporting characters which has caused a furor among conservatives all around the world. I have no opinion on that; I will only say that Disney/Pixar made a judgment call and ultimately paid the price for it in terms of global box-office. 

7/10