Familiar but Still Kind of Fresh: A Review of Elemental

 directed by Peter Sohn

written by John Hoberg, Kat Likkel and Brenda Hsueh (with Sohn)

Elemental marks the first time since 2017 that Walt Disney Pictures has released into theaters on a worldwide scale an original film not based on any previous property like Toy Story or The Incredibles. It carries a heavy burden of a sort, especially considering that Pixar's last theatrical release post-pandemic, the spinoff Lightyear, flopped upon release a year ago, costing the studio millions and the director his job. 

Set in a fantastical world populated by anthropomorphic versions of the four elements, air, water, earth and fire, the film tells the story of fire girl Ember (Leah Lewis) the daughter of immigrants to Element City Bernie (Ronnie del Carmen) and Cinder (Shila Ommi) who run a convenience store which Ember is set to inherit when her parents retire. The only problem is that Ember has a bit of a temper, which makes it challenging for her to deal with the inevitable difficult customer, as a result of which Bernie puts off retiring as long as he can. One day, however, he puts her in charge of a major sale, during which Ember of course loses her temper yet again. As she rushes down to the basement to blow off steam, however, she ends up bursting water pipes that had long thought to be dry, and ends up sucking city inspector and water guy Wade (Mamoudou Athie) into her home. Desperate to prevent Wade from reporting her father's stores various infractions to City Hall, Ember tails Wade and pleads with his boss air lady Gale (Wendy McLendon-Covey), and is given the briefest of reprieves to fix the problems. In the days that ensure, Ember and Wade learn to work together, unbeknownst to Bernie and Cinder, to solve the store's problems and experience the unlikeliest of attractions to each other.

This is Peter Sohn's second feature length film from Pixar, the first being 2015's The Good Dinosaur, a film which, even before Pixar was waylaid in its momentum by the pandemic, had the dubious distinction of being the rare Pixar film that a) bombed at the box office and b) was frightfully boring.

The good news is that Elemental, for all its flaws, is, at the very least, not boring. It tells an engaging story about two generations of immigrants and how the children of immigrants often face the dilemma of living up to their parents' dreams.  Sohn, who came up with the story, draws on his own personal experience as the son of Korean immigrants, and it shines through in the interaction between Ember and her aging dad, which is played very effectively by voice actors Leah Lewis and Ronnie del Carmen, the latter of whom is actually a veteran Pixar animator who has worked on some of their most significant movies like Inside Out and who, in my opinion, deserves to direct his own movie more than Sohn deserved this second crack at directing after the grossly mediocre Good Dinosaur.  Ahem.  Well, at least this movie is not about cowboy dinosaurs like that one was, so the narrative works when it focuses on the parent-child dynamic.

The fire and water love story, however, which was front and central to the film's marketing and is supposed to be a central aspect of the film as well, is nowhere near as compelling as the filmmakers seem to think it is. Sohn mercifully eschews the more conventional aspects of the "meet cute" such as an openly antagonistic relationship between the two characters, but even then he cannot help but have the characters drift into cliche time and time again. It doesn't help that, if I'm frank, Ember can be distinctly unlikeable while Wade, despite his clearly tragic backstory, seems genuinely uninteresting.   In short, fleshing out the two protagonists as individuals, instead of leaning much more heavily into Ember's complicated, culturally-infused relationship with her dad, would have really helped the love story along a lot more. 

The good news, though, is that the film is drop dead gorgeous. Sure, it is highly evocative of the visuals of Zootopia, another movie with diverse anthropomorphic creatures living in a city, but Pixar clearly tried to give this film its own visual identity, including each of the key characters.  

I also appreciated a lively score by Pixar mainstay Thomas Newman, best known for Finding Nemo and WALL-E.  While Newman's signature sound permeates it, there are new elements like new-age, Enya-like vocals supplementing it as well this time.

This is a far cry from Pixar's best work, but I'm grateful for it, and if they are to continue to convince audiences to catch their movies on the big screen instead of at home on Disney+, they need to keep making movies along this vein and, I hope, with better storytelling. 

7.5/10 

Grotesquely Bad Faith: Why the Flash Deserved to Flop

 I generally don't cheer when a movie fails. I've given bad reviews to movies I don't like, regardless of their success or failure, but I don't generally celebrate a movie flopping. 

I will make an exception for The Flash, though, even though I haven't seen it, because more than anything in recent memory, it illustrates Hollywood's unparalleled hubris when it comes to making movies. 

Well before The Flash began principal photography, Ezra Miller was caught on video choking a woman in Iceland in April 2020. I found this news story such an oddity when it first broke, but the world was in lockdown then and there were other things to worry about, so I forgot about it.   Warner Brothers was fully aware of this and yet pushed through with Miller, shooting their blighted movie a year later, in April of 2021.  Incidentally, around the same time, they fired Johnny Depp from another movie because of his legal troubles (that he eventually overcame), but more on that later. 

When Warner Brothers finally dropped a trailer for The Flash in early 2022, I suddenly found myself remembering that April 2020 news report and asking, "whatever came of that?" I even posted a vlog entry about it on my now dormant YouTube channel. The story had been quite effectively buried; I couldn't find anything more substantial about it than people sharing opinions on message boards.  Not a lot of people watched my video, but some of the few who did reacted dismissively, saying that I was making a big deal out of nothing, with at least one commenter saying "dude, it was a joke" with no real evidence to back up this assertion.  I wanted to make it a jumping off point for discussing how hypocritically selective Hollywood's cancel culture is, considering what had happened to Johnny Depp, but as a talking point it kind of went nowhere.

It's pretty common knowledge what happened after that; Miller's legal troubles came to light, one after the other, Warner Brothers embarked on a bizarre marketing campaign that excluded Miller, but included random celebrities like Tom Cruise and Stephen King, and the film went on to flop in the most spectacular fashion imaginable, with its second weekend box-office drop being the worst in the history of the now doomed DC Extended Universe. 

I'd like to reiterate: Warner Brothers had a pretty good hint of the s**tstorm to come when Miller choked that woman in Iceland a full year before a single frame of The Flash had even been shot. With shooting halted by the COVID-19 pandemic, they had a full year to recalibrate, including the opportunity to recast the role with someone who wouldn't have been a lightning rod for controversy, like Grant Gustin for example. For reasons only they know, though, they thought they could magically make their problems go away by pretending Miller's shenanigans never happened. 

It is debatable whether or not Miller's legal problems were what effectively kneecapped The Flash's box-office prospects, but what I respectfully submit is not up for debate is that this was entirely and completely avoidable. Warner Brothers could have fired Miller the same way they fired Johnny Depp, but they chose not to, and I wonder if we'll ever find out why.  Whatever they would have lost in buying out Miller's contract, assuming they even had to, could not possibly compare to the tens--possibly hundreds--of millions they are now destined to lose on this movie.  I find myself cringing at the arrogance of the Warner Brothers execs who greenlit this movie thinking that what was happening in the real world would not ultimately affect their bottom line. It's fitting that their heads rolled long before this movie was crapped into theaters, though part of me wishes they'd been around to reap the fruits of their hubris. 

Warner Brothers' rivals over at Disney/Marvel would do well to pay attention, given that two of their own stars are now facing legal troubles of their own. Now, while admittedly Jonathan Majors and Tenoch Huerta may triumph over their legal troubles as Johnny Depp did, Disney should, at the very least, tread carefully.

SPOILER DISCUSSION on Across the Spider-Verse

 Again, HEAVY SPOILERS for Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.  It admittedly seems silly to still be putting spoiler warnings for a movie that has already been in theaters for around a month, but I want to make absolutely sure nobody stumbles onto this post by mistake. 

One of the greatest virtues of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is, ironically enough, one of its greatest vices as well. It deconstructs the notion of what defines Spider-Man by challenging one of the very central pillars of the Spider-Man story: tragedy.

Miles Morales, the central character of Across the Spider Verse and Gwen Stacy, who is arguably his co-lead in this film, have both experienced their fair share of life-defining tragedies.  Miles' uncle Aaron who moonlighted as the Prowler, died at the hands of the Kingpin, while Gwen inadvertently killed her best friend, Peter Parker, who fought her to the death as the Lizard. 

According to the Spider Society led by Spider-Man 2099, however, this isn't enough; just as Peter Parker, in his many iterations across the multi...err...Spider-verse, has had to suffer the death of Captain George Stacy, so must Miles suffer the death of his police captain father (as he did, incidentally, in the 2018 Playstation 4 game Spider-Man). So committed, in fact, is the Spider Society to bringing about this "canon event" as they call it, that they imprison Miles to make sure he cannot prevent it from happening.

Now, this was a real "wait, what?" moment for me and not for the reasons that I think the filmmakers may have intended it to be.

The idea of imprisoning someone who is out to save his father's life is, to the best of my knowledge as a regular Spider-Man reader for nearly forty years, not something any Peter Parker would agree to, let alone a multitude of them.  This is NOT the same thing as Peter Porker telling Miles he can't save everyone in the first film after his uncle's death at Kingpin's hands, nor is it the same thing as Peter Parker of the PS4 game choosing to save New York with the cure for the city wide pandemic, even if it means that Aunt May dies from the disease in the process. This is hordes of different versions of Peter Parker, agreeing that a precognitive process that is, at best, questionable, should take precedence over the impulse to help people, which is what Spider-Man does. The film is asking us to believe that Peter Parker, or worse, MANY Peter Parkers, would agree to let people die and would even IMPRISON someone out to prevent it.

Suddenly, the Spider Society doesn't feel like a realm full of Spider-Mans nearly as much as it does a realm full of Spider-Man editors, those eternally anonymous, utterly insufferable bogeymen who have, for decades, foisted narrative abominations on hapless readers like "Sins Past," "One More Day," and most recently, "What Did Peter Do?"  These people are the real reason why Peter Parker cannot hold down a regular job, unlike, say Clark Kent, or keep a stable relationship, unlike, say Reed Richards; because his life, like that of an eternal adolescent, has to remain mired in tragedy, trauma and personal setbacks. Peter has actually obtained a graduate degree throughout his sixty years of existence in publication, but depending on which branch of editorial you ask, some would say he hasn't even graduated from college.

Miles is no exception to Marvel's addiction to tragedy; in the early, Ultimate Universe iteration of the book, his mother Rio died from a gunshot wound, which actually caused Miles to quit being Spider-Man. Marvel walked the death back when they transplanted him from the Ultimate to the mainstream 616 universe, but elsewhere, Miles has seen his dad die (the PS4) game, or his uncle (Into the Spider-Verse).

I appreciate the fact that this movie pushes back against that concept and its proponents, and even ends on a cliffhanger that strongly suggests that for Miles to lose his dad would only push him into villainy, contrary to the Spider Society's thesis that he needs the tragedy to become a fully-realized hero.  It's something that needs to be said, after all. There is far more to being Spider-Man than just reacting to personal tragedy.  

My problem is that in trying to make this point, the movie dehumanizes its army of Spider-Men into mindless automatons ready to do Spider-Man 2099's bidding, a whole bunch of sheep who have bought wholesale into this concept of "the canon" without any semblance of critical thinking, which seems problematic when one considers that most incarnations of Spider-Man are supposed to have, as their alter-egos, geniuses. 

I enjoyed the movie, make no mistake, but in trying to make a broader point I feel it undermined its narrative ever so slightly. I don't know if anyone else shares my opinion, but I stand by it just the same. 

Defining Spider-Man: A Review of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

 directed by Kemp Powers, Joaquim dos Santos and Justin K. Thompson

written by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller and Dave Callaham

This review, like my viewing of Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, is a bit of overdue, in part due to my soon-to-be-ex internet service provider, and in part because I actually struggled a little with what I wanted to say about this movie, which I honestly found brilliant but a significant part of which I actually found problematic. I won't be able to discuss that without spoiling plot points, so I'll keep my review short and post the usual spoiler-review follow-up.

In Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, which takes place a little over a year after the events of the first film, Into the Spider-Verse, we find Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) adjusting to his life as both Spider-Man and a high school student, when he encounters a new foe, the Spot (Jason Schwartzman) a former scientist who was apparently transformed into a living portal gun by the events of the last film, and who has since turned to a life of crime. Because of the Spot's ability to create portals into other dimensions, he has also come up on the radar of Gwen Stacy, aka Ghost Spider (Hailee Steinfeld) who, in the beginning of the film, joins up with a society of Spider-Men from multiple realities, led by Miguel O'Hara aka Spider-Man 2099 (Oscar Isaac).  She tracks the Spot back to Miles' home universe and cannot resist the urge to meet up with Miles, even as she tries, and fails to catch her quarry.  Miles, who has missed Gwen and his other Spider-friends terribly since the end of the last film, follows Gwen back to the Spider Society's massive headquarters and even accompanies them on their mission to capture the Spot.  When Miles does something that apparently violates one of the central tenets of the Spider Society, things degenerate fast. Will Miles be able to get home in time to stop the Spot from carrying out his nefarious plan?

The film is superbly made and is a visual masterpiece. After changing the game with the first movie, it was hard to imagine how Sony would be able to top themselves, but they managed to just the same, and everyone involved basically brought their A-game, from the directors and animators, to the voice actors like Moore, Steinfeld, and Isaac, to composer Daniel Pemberton. The artistry on display here is simply second to none. It's not just like watching a comic book come to life; this basically feels like an entire art gallery.

That said, well, there was a story beat that I found out of place, but I dare not discuss it lest I spoil several key plot points. It should be said, though that even in the face of this problem I have with the story, I'm only docking the movie one point. It's simply that good.   

9/10 

Bigger and Better: A Review of Extraction 2

 directed by Sam Hargrave

written by Joe Russo

I'll be honest; I thought so little of the first Extraction film that I didn't bother to watch it until nearly a year after its release, content to watch it on my phone while waiting for my wife.  I had no interest in most of Netflix's movies, finding them to be generic, forgettable affairs reminiscent of the straight-to-cable movies of old.  I ended up enjoying it way more than I thought I would, so much so that when the sequel, Extraction 2 dropped last Friday, I made sure to catch it on the biggest screen I had access to, so I plopped in front of my modestly-sized TV and tuned in. 

At the end of the first movie, mercenary/exfiltration expert Tyler Rake (Chris Hemsworth) was shot in the neck and fell off a bridge in India, and as a result, he spends much of the beginning of this movie being nursed back to health by his colleagues Nik (Golshifteh Farahani) and her brother Yaz (Adam Bessa). He is then apparently retired and living in a cabin in Austria when he is approached by a mysterious man (Idris Elba) who has a job for him: exfiltrate the wife of a vicious Georgian crime lord (Tornike Bziava) and her kids from the prison in which he has forced them to live alongside him as he serves his prison sentence.  It's a bit personal for him, as well; the wife Ketevan (Tinitin Dalakishvili) is the sister of Rake's ex-wife Mia (Olga Kurylenko).  What is supposed to be a surgical exfiltration gets extremely violent, and as result, Tyler and his team have the crime lord's entire gang, led by his vengeful brother (Tornike Gogrichiani) hot on their heels as they attempt to flee the country with Ketevan and her kids Sandro (Andro Japaridze) and Nina (Miriam and Marta Kovziashvili).  Will they make it out? 

As an action movie, this film ticks all the boxes for me: just enough story to keep everything that happens coherent, actors with strong screen presence, and tightly-choreographed and shot action sequences with striking visuals and a propulsive soundtrack. This has all the grit of the best movies from the John Wick franchise and, if I'm honest, never feels repetitive the way some films from that franchise often did. Sure, the plot barely holds the whole thing together and would probably not stand up to anything even resembling scrutiny, but director Sam Hargrave, his cast and crew keep things moving along so briskly that it isn't worth taking the time to wonder if things make sense. It's just a rip-roaring, good time in much the same way the first one was, only this time the storytelling feels even tighter. 

Outside of his tenure as Marvel Studios' Thor movies there is not a whole lot that I have liked Australian actor Chris Hemsworth in, but at least that list has grown. I thought he was great as James Hunt in Ron Howards' criminally-underappreciated Formula One film Rush, and now, well, I think he's great here. I also especially liked Golshifteh Farahani's Niki, a hard-boiled, ass kicking woman that puts to shame a great majority of the so-called "strong female characters" infesting too many movies these days.  There's not much to say about the cookie-cutter bad guys, but the hell they put our heroes through made for some incredibly engaging viewing. 

My only real gripe with this movie, if I'm perfectly honest, has little to do with its craft and everything to do with Netflix's insistence to keep a film like this, which would be perfectly at home on the big screen making big money, away from movie theaters. It is honestly frustrating to see a wide-screen adventure like this confined to a platform which quite frankly diminishes the viewer's experience, and yes, I have to take that against the filmmakers who agreed to make this movie under those conditions.

It seems that a third installment of this franchise has already been greenlit, and I, for one, would honestly love to see it up on a movie screen.  

8/10 

The Film that Marvel Studios Needs to Make

As of writing, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 has grossed around $660 million at the global box office and is still going strong. While Marvel fans everywhere are breathing a sigh of relief, I, for one, am not convinced that they are out of the woods yet.

 

 

Obviously, the issue audiences had with the last few Marvel movies was never really the so-called "superhero fatigue" and it was always clear that people would come to see a movie if it was good, i.e. if it told a compelling, entertaining story. That said, it has to be acknowledged that superhero movies, particularly those of the Marvel variety are prone to several tropes that can often limit the filmmaker’s ability to tell the best story possible. Whether it's the overabundance of humor, generic villains or the perception of low stakes, the presence of one or more of these tropes often makes it hard to convince viewers that Marvel isn’t telling a story as much as they are selling a product. Guardians transcended that with some pretty well-written and hard-edged storytelling that, among other things, managed to convince the audience that the characters were in actual peril.  Almost all of the marketing focused on how this film was the “last ride” of the Guardians, with the implicit threat that one—or even ALL—of them could die before the movie was over. After all, Marvel had already killed off a couple of its marquee characters in Avengers: Endgame. This created an urgency to watch the movie, and infused the story itself with a bit of urgency.  Not all of Marvel’s upcoming movies are going to be like this, and it’s probably safe to say that most of them won’t be like this.

 

Now, emphasizing a character’s mortality is far from the be-all and end-all of engaging storytelling. There are plenty of terrible movies out there in which important characters die left and right. That said, when a storyteller creates likeable, relatable characters, then introduces the very real possibility that they won’t make it to the end of the story, then it becomes that much easier for the audience to get invested in these characters’ fates.   To be fair, Marvel has shown willingness to kill off some of its key characters, albeit under specific circumstances, like big event movies like Avengers: Endgame.  

 

Here's a thought, though: What if, at the very outset, Marvel told a story which introduced likable, relatable, compelling characters who were not guaranteed to make it to the end of the movie? To make it even more extreme, what if the question Marvel posed was not which of the characters would die before the end of the film, but rather, which of would actually live to see the end?  What if I told you all that there is a thirty-plus year old Marvel comic book out there that has told stories exactly like this, solidly entertaining but with the added element of impending peril for its heroes?

 

Strikeforce Morituri, created by Peter B. Gillis, Brent Anderson, and  Whilce Portacio was a monthly series published by Marvel comics from 1986 to 1988 which featured an alternate Earth that was distinct from the “616” Earth that is regarded as the mainstream Marvel Universe. In this version of the Marvel Universe, the usual Marvel superheroes only exist as fictional characters, and the Earth has been conquered by marauding aliens known as the Horde.  The planet’s only hope is a select group of people who have been endowed with fantastic powers through a process developed by a Finnish scientist which, morbidly enough, has been dubbed, the Morituri process. Unfortunately for these brave volunteers, within roughly a year from the time they get their superpowers, they are destined to die because of them. 

 

You read that right: this book tells the story of characters whose deaths are basically guaranteed.  When one looks at all of the characters on the cover of the comic book, the question that comes to mind isn’t whether or not any of them will die, but how long they’ll make it before the Morituri process claims their lives.

 

Now, Gillis didn’t create these characters to be glorified Star Trek red shirts or eventual zombie victims in the Walking Dead.  Each character gets their due. There isn’t a lead character who serves as the story’s anchor while everyone around them drops like flies. No, to Gillis’ credit, he gives each and every member of the team defined characteristics well beyond their superpowers and the certainty of their deaths.

 

The first six members of the team in the early issues are a remarkably diverse bunch for a  comic book was spawned in the 80s, back when the word “woke” referred to getting someone out of bed.  They are Harold Everson, aka Viking, Lorna Raeburn, aka Snapdragon, Louis Armanetti, aka Radian, Jelene Anderson aka Adept, Robert Greenbaum aka Marathon, and Aline Pagrovna, aka Blackthorn. This, clearly, is not a male-heavy group (or one with especially inventive codenames). Other characters would eventually be introduced as members of the original six would die off one by one as the story lived up to its premise.  

 

Ironically, this comic book was a commercial failure; its publication run lasted under three years, and apart from three collected editions of its thirty-tree issues, it’s gotten very little love from Marvel on the whole. It’s never even been rebooted. To my mind, however, the reason why it failed as a form of serialized storytelling is the very thing that makes it potent material for a film adaptation: its characters’ stories inevitably end.

 

Imagine not having to lock actors into multi-film contracts or having to figure out how to retire characters when a big storyline ends. Imagine being able to just focus on the here and now of telling a gripping story about heroes fighting off an alien invasion.  Marvel could actually focus purely on telling the story, without having to worry about what comes next. And as Marvel stories go, this one is full of richness and nuance, like the very best that 80s comics had to offer.  Between the heroes' constant struggle with their accelerated mortality to the fact that the aliens have actually become Earth pop-culture junkies, there are amusing commentaries on consumerism and the military-industrial complex. There's even a little bit of geopolitical commentary mixed in there somewhere, and all without the beat-you-over-the-head self-indulgence of much of today's "woke" storytelling.  

 

It may not be the most kid-friendly storytelling, but Marvel’s core demographic of 18 to 34 year-old males will almost certainly eat all of this up if the movie is directed by the likes of the Russo Brothers or James Gunn.  Also, thanks to the whole multiverse concept that Marvel has now embraced, there won’t be any problem telling a story set in a separate reality from the one viewers are familiar with, and it wouldn’t affect the bigger MCU.

 

It's not all good news, though. From a visual perspective, the story and characters would require quite a lot of reworking, and not just because this story was created in the 80s. The costume design and overall look of the heroes is generic at best, but the real problem is the design of the pink-skinned horde aliens, each of whom walks around with what appears to be a very prominent scrotum for a chin. Suddenly, that joke from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 doesn’t seem quite so ridiculous anymore.

 

At the end of the day, the fact remains that Marvel needs new material, and I, for one, hope they show willingness to think outside the box. 

In my humble opinion, a film or series of films based on this short-lived series could help Marvel get back to their roots and rediscover what has made their films a global phenomenon. 

Why James Gunn's Departure to DC Doesn't Hurt The Way Bryan Singer's Did

 So with Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, we have come to the end of an era that was kicked off in 2014, back when a quirky independent filmmaker with a mostly horror-movie background took a bunch of D-list Marvel characters, who included a talking raccoon and a walking, talking tree, and turned them into a global box-office sensation.   Writer-director James Gunn has very publicly declared that this is his last Guardians of the Galaxy film and that he has crafted this story to serve as an ending for these characters, and to be fair, he has completely delivered  on that promise.  He has also decamped from Marvel Studios, the studio that gave him his big break, and is now presiding over DC Studios, who have had a considerably more troubled time than Marvel getting their film slate off the ground. Gunn's first film for DC?  A new Superman film tentatively titled: Superman: Legacy.  

To those old enough to remember, or who have a fondness for reading about these things, there might be something vaguely familiar about how this has played out.  Maverick filmmaker with strong indie background gets a big break to direct a property based on Marvel Comics characters, then gets poached by Warner Brothers to direct a Superman movie?  This has happened before, only the filmmaker involved was Bryan Singer. 

This time, though, it's different, and I'm happy to talk about why. 

Back in 2003, Bryan Singer was red-hot following the release of X2: X-Men United, which made a then-stellar $407 million at the global box-office off a $120 million budget, got great reviews and was regarded by many fans as a high watermark in superhero movies. Unfortunately, though, even with this success, Singer's clout wasn't nearly enough to get the suits at Twentieth Century Fox, led by Tom Rothman, to agree to the kind of budget that Singer felt was necessary to execute his vision for X-Men 3.  After all, it wouldn't be for another five years that a comic-booked based movie, The Dark Knight would gross a billion dollars, and it wouldn't be for another nine years that a movie based on a Marvel Comic book, The Avengers, would gross that much. Comic book movies based on Marvel properties were, at the time, far from the sure thing at the box-office that they became during the heyday of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Singer haggled for more money, but Fox management was intransigent.

Suddenly Warner Brothers came along and offered Singer a blank check and the opportunity of a lifetime: to revive their dead Superman franchise, which had not been seen in theaters since 1987.  Singer left the X-Men franchise to do Superman Returns, which infamously flopped at the box-office. Fox went on to do X-Men: The Last Stand without Singer, ironically handing a budget of $210 million to the eventual director Brett Ratner. That movie didn't necessarily flop financially, but it went on to live in infamy as the film that derailed the X-Men franchise, irreparably damaging it. 

Singer and Fox would eventually mend their fences, and Singer would go on to direct X-Men: Days  of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse for them. The first of these two movies was a hit, but the second one wasn't, and for the second time, their relationship would end in tears and would leave the X-Men film franchise with even more scars which, as of date, have yet to heal. But that's another story. 

The Singer/Fox breakup, with Warner Brothers swooping in to play the third party, was an especially ugly story, but even though, on the surface, James Gunn's split with Marvel resembles it, it was, in reality, much easier to accept for a number of reasons.

 For one thing, when Singer left, the X-Men franchise was on the verge of truly taking off, with Singer having lined up the seminal Dark Phoenix story for his next film. Fans were robbed of what this story could have looked like in the hands of a competent director, and if I'm perfectly honest, the X-Men franchise as a whole never fully recovered from that. Singer would eventually come back to Fox thanks to Superman Returns flopping, but the damage had been done and things were never the same again.

In contrast, James Gunn has been able to comprehensively share the tale of the Guardians of the Galaxy, with a great deal of love for the characters and a keen eye for excellent storytelling. We had ten years to savor the work he's done for Marvel, compared to the paltry three we had with Bryan Singer before he was whisked off to DC.  We got to enjoy the best Gunn had to offer Marvel, whether it was his films or his input on the various scripts that Kevin Feige threw his way. This guy truly helped build the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a true  powerhouse of cinema.  Fans don't have to wonder about what could have been, like they did with Singer, because they got to see Gunn's work in all its glory. 

On a related note, back when Bryan Singer left the X-Men, there were only two movies in the franchise.  In contrast, the MCU was a fully-fleshed out universe by the time Gunn announced his departure from Marvel, with three whole phases having been completed in fine style thanks to Avengers: Endgame. In short, there's nothing to regret. Whatever the state of the MCU may be right now, there are, at least, glory days to speak of, unlike the then-burgeoning X-Men franchise, which basically felt like it had been killed off in its infancy. 

Finally, whatever may be going on behind the scenes, there is no open acrimony about Gunn leaving, even though Marvel basically precipitated this by firing James Gunn in the first place due to old, admittedly inappropriate Tweets. This paved the way for Gunn working over at DC and producing The Suicide Squad and, perhaps more importantly, the much-beloved Peacemaker series.  Fortunately, Kevin Feige never gave up on his buddy and got the big brass at Disney to take him back and let him wrap up his trilogy. Singer's parting from Fox, as I understand it, wasn't exactly amicable, and as I wrote before, everyone, from Fox to WB to the fans, lost in that scenario. In Gunn's case, I'd say everyone wins: Gunn learned a valuable lesson about the internet being forever, Marvel got a heartfelt, well-crafted finale from Gunn for the Guardians of the Galaxy, and DC Studios now has serious hope for the future with Gunn in charge. 

Does it hurt that Gunn is leaving? Oh, absolutely, especially given the visible decline in quality of the MCU's releases post-Phase III.  Apart from Spider-Man: No Way Home, there has been very little to really cheer about in Phase IV of the MCU, and Phase V started off an a truly embarrassing note with the critical and commercial failure of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, so the high quality and success of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, while most welcome, are also a sad reminder that we won't be seeing James Gunn's work on a Marvel movie again any time soon, if at all.  But if he has left for good, then at least he's left in the best way possible: on a high note.