SPOILER ALERT
I once wrote that it's cathartic to follow up spoiler-free reviews of massive movies that I enjoyed with spoiler-filled discussions on the things that happened in the movie, and this is especially the case with the gargantuan Avengers: Infinity War, which is so loaded with hidden gems (pun intended), twists and shocking developments that Marvel itself has gone all-out on social media pleading for fans to keep from spoiling anything in the film. Well, I'm putting two spoiler alerts on this post just to make sure everyone understands what they're reading when they click this story. With that out of the way, let's get this started.
AGAIN...SPOILER ALERT
Last chance...okay, here we go...
I had mixed to negative feelings about the first two deaths in the movie, those of Heimdall and Loki, and I don't mean I'm upset that they died. I get that these deaths were meant to establish that Marvel meant business, but I mean, wow. LOKI, the arch-villain of the first Avengers movie who has, over the years, become a fan-favorite character, was dispatched less than ten minutes into the movie, just to make a point. Loki's death seemed oddly anticlimactic, and if I'm honest, I would have preferred something quite a bit more dramatic considering the impact this character has had on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He was the benchmark Marvel bad guy for years, so taking him out with barely any thought, while certainly not without its reasons, just feels a tad disrespectful. But that's just me.
Also, given the unprecedented success of Black Panther, it was also unfortunate that the filmmakers went, inadvertently or not, with one of the most tired, old story tropes around, i.e. killing the black guy first, even though Heimdall died right after doing something appropriately heroic. It seems he survived the holocaust of Thor: Ragnarok mainly so that he could be used as a plot device to whisk one of the characters to safety. Oh, well, at least he was given far more dignity than the Warriors Three.
The other two deaths in the film, that of Gamora and, in the film's climax, that of Vision, delivered real gut punches, even though they were telegraphed fairly early on in the movie, and I found Gamora's death particularly affecting for some reason, in part because she's "real" unlike the synthezoid Vision and because it was her own father who murdered her. Both of these deaths delivered considerable impact, and given the way they played out, it seems unlikely that they will be undone by the next film, though given the nature of the Infinity Stones, one cannot say for sure.
On that note, with regards to the people crumbling into dust at the end of the film, which was basically almost everyone who WASN'T one of the original team of Avengers, I didn't feel quite as shaken because, more than any of the four character deaths I just mentioned, those deaths have a distinct whiff of impermanence about them. I mean, let's be honest, Marvel isn't going to kill off a cash cow like Spider-Man, OR their newest golden boy Black Panther, so I'm pretty sure I can safely call b.s. on that.
It was also quite telling that it was the original Avengers team that was left behind (along with Rocket, Nebula, Okoye and War Machine) because it's somewhat fitting that they'll face off against Thanos for the final battle.
It does a film a great disservice, though, to dwell solely on the deaths or pseudo-deaths that punctuated the narrative. There were quite a few story developments, if not necessarily "twists" that stood out, not just because they enhanced the story, but because kudos MUST go to Marvel for keeping these things so tightly under wraps.
For me, the single most impressive feat of Marvel's "spoiler blackout" effort was keeping the identity of the character played by Peter Dinklage under wraps, and as it turns out, as short as his screentime as Eitri, the maker of Mjolnir, was, it was quite pivotal.
Also, the return of the Red Skull, even if he wasn't played by Hugo Weaving but The Walking Dead actor Ross Marquand, was a lovely Easter Egg that I absolutely did not see coming, even though I had a feeling, years ago, that the Red Skull hadn't actually died but was simply transported somewhere else. I just never figured on him turning up here.
This was, at the end, a bad-guy-centric movie, and on that note there was something distinctly uncomfortable about the fact that Thanos, having presided over the extermination of half of life in the universe, sat down and looked at a sunset in the Philippines. It was most likely unintended, but it was a startling parallel to our own mass-murder-endorsing president here in the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte.
Finally, the return of Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury to the MCU after a three-year and SEVEN-film absence is a truly welcome development, even as he joins the characters who turn to dust, especially since he spends his last moments calling in the MCU's next heavy hitter Carol Danvers, better known as Captain Marvel.
Anyway, in an age of social media and internet leaks I found it particularly impressive that Marvel were able to keep so much under wraps right until the release of this movie, and I honestly hope this is the norm, moving forward.
Friday, April 27, 2018
Marking Ten Years of Excellence in Fine (If a Bit Overwhelming) Style: A Review of Avengers: Infinity War
directed by Anthony and Joe Russo
written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
It's hard to believe it's been ten years since a fledgling Marvel Studios broke away from the studio system with one of their B-list characters and set out to change the way filmed storytelling was done. Ten years and 18 movies after the surprising success of Iron Man, Marvel has, indeed, changed the way blockbuster movies tell stories with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and are, with this film, finally culminating a story that has long been brewing.
Thanos the Mad Titan (Josh Brolin) has, for the last several years, been seeking the six Infinity Stones with the goal of wiping out half of the population of the entire universe, an act of mass murder he justifies as bringing balance (that's not a spoiler; it's in the trailers). In past MCU films, Thanos had others track down the stones, but in this film, he gets somewhat more hands-on in his approach. As a direct result, the story begins with a catastrophic confrontation for Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and the rest of the refugees from the now-destroyed Asgard, who include Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Heimdall (Idris Elba) and Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). They are then separated, with Hulk plummeting to earth, in particular New York and then warning Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Wong (Benedict Wong) of the coming threat, which actually arrives quite quickly as two of Thanos' henchmen, Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and Cull Obsidian (Terry Notary), drawn to the time stone, which Dr. Strange has with him, show up in very short order.
This is enough to bring Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey,Jr.) and Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (Tom Holland) into action, but it soon becomes clear that they'll need the rest of the Avengers, like Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Sam Wilson aka Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch (Mary Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) to do battle with Thanos. Vision is particularly vulnverable as the infinity stone on his head draws Thanos' other henchmen, Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon) and Corvus Glaive (Michael James Shaw) to him. Soon, they find themselves enlisting even more help as they travel to Wakanda to seek the help of King T'Challa aka the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), to help remove the stone from Vision's head without killing him.
Meanwhile Thor, having sent a distress signal while Thanos was attacking his ship, is now floating in space when he encounters the Guardians of the Galaxy: Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel). Having lost his hammer Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok, Thor, accompanied by Rocket and Groot, sets out to find a new weapon with which to fight Thanos, while the rest of the Guardians travel to Knowhere, a mining planet where they believe Thanos will seize an infinity stone stored there some years ago.
One thing is for absolutely certain: Thanos is unlike any threat any of them have ever faced.
I'll keep this review as short as I can, lest I spoil any key plot points, but I will say this: even though the Russo brothers and their writers Markus and McFeely may have stumbled every now and then in telling this story, they deserve full credit for this mammoth effort, unprecedented in its scale.
Amid the truly stunning CG pyrotechnics and the immensity of a movie that has to feature just about every major character from their shared universe spanning 18 films (with the exception of Paul Rudd's Ant-Man and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye, who are explicitly NOT in it), the Russos and their writers made the canny decision to narrate the story mainly from the point of view of the film's antagonist, Thanos, whose coming has been foreshadowed since the end credits stinger of the very first Avengers movie. He is given nuance, and pathos, and a motivation which, while it does not justify his genocidal desires, definitely goes a long way towards developing him as a character and distinguishing him from Marvel's crop of generic bad guys. Brolin turns in a stunning performance, and wears the CGI that brings his character to life as one would wear a costume or makeup. I couldn't imagine anyone else in this role after seeing him in this film. In short, whatever criticisms may be leveled against this film, one cannot say that it has a lame bad guy.
That's not to say that this film is above reproach; as tight as Markus and McFeely try to keep the narrative, which is squeezed into two and a half hours, there's still so much to take in that it definitely feels a little overwhelming, and the rapid-fire shifts in tone are a daunting tightrope to walk. This is an extremely grim movie, but it nonetheless features Marvel's patented humor all throughout. I once raked a movie over hot coals for tonal inconsistency, and had this film been made by lesser filmmakers, it might not have worked. I'll admit that the cracks do show every now and again.
In a movie this big, it's inevitable that some of the characters will get crowded out. Some ballyhooed appearances in the trailers amount to little more than walk-ons, but to be fair, everyone in the cast is pretty much in top form here, no matter how short their screen time.
In truth, EVERYONE here brings their A-game, from the visual effects wizards at ILM, Digital Domain, and Weta Digital, to cinematographer Trent Opaloch, who infuses the different locales, which include several different planet, with a broad (and lush) color palette that breaks away from, and looks so much better than the washed out, blue-grey drabness of his last two Marvel films with the Russos. This film also marks the return to the Avengers of original composer Alan Silvestri, and while he leans on variations from his heroic theme from the first film, he creates, quite possibly, the richest, most nuanced music score I've ever heard from him, and I've followed this guy's work since Back to the Future. His music is a huge part of the characters' journey on this film, and enhances the impact of the Oh-my-gosh moments without being cloying or overbearing.
This was always going to be an extremely difficult film to put together, and it shows, but overall I think Marvel and their cast and crew have pulled off something truly outstanding.
8.7/10
written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
It's hard to believe it's been ten years since a fledgling Marvel Studios broke away from the studio system with one of their B-list characters and set out to change the way filmed storytelling was done. Ten years and 18 movies after the surprising success of Iron Man, Marvel has, indeed, changed the way blockbuster movies tell stories with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and are, with this film, finally culminating a story that has long been brewing.
Thanos the Mad Titan (Josh Brolin) has, for the last several years, been seeking the six Infinity Stones with the goal of wiping out half of the population of the entire universe, an act of mass murder he justifies as bringing balance (that's not a spoiler; it's in the trailers). In past MCU films, Thanos had others track down the stones, but in this film, he gets somewhat more hands-on in his approach. As a direct result, the story begins with a catastrophic confrontation for Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and the rest of the refugees from the now-destroyed Asgard, who include Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Heimdall (Idris Elba) and Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). They are then separated, with Hulk plummeting to earth, in particular New York and then warning Doctor Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his colleague Wong (Benedict Wong) of the coming threat, which actually arrives quite quickly as two of Thanos' henchmen, Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) and Cull Obsidian (Terry Notary), drawn to the time stone, which Dr. Strange has with him, show up in very short order.
This is enough to bring Tony Stark aka Iron Man (Robert Downey,Jr.) and Peter Parker aka Spider-Man (Tom Holland) into action, but it soon becomes clear that they'll need the rest of the Avengers, like Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), Sam Wilson aka Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Wanda Maximoff aka the Scarlet Witch (Mary Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) to do battle with Thanos. Vision is particularly vulnverable as the infinity stone on his head draws Thanos' other henchmen, Proxima Midnight (Carrie Coon) and Corvus Glaive (Michael James Shaw) to him. Soon, they find themselves enlisting even more help as they travel to Wakanda to seek the help of King T'Challa aka the Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), to help remove the stone from Vision's head without killing him.
Meanwhile Thor, having sent a distress signal while Thanos was attacking his ship, is now floating in space when he encounters the Guardians of the Galaxy: Star Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel). Having lost his hammer Mjolnir in Thor: Ragnarok, Thor, accompanied by Rocket and Groot, sets out to find a new weapon with which to fight Thanos, while the rest of the Guardians travel to Knowhere, a mining planet where they believe Thanos will seize an infinity stone stored there some years ago.
One thing is for absolutely certain: Thanos is unlike any threat any of them have ever faced.
I'll keep this review as short as I can, lest I spoil any key plot points, but I will say this: even though the Russo brothers and their writers Markus and McFeely may have stumbled every now and then in telling this story, they deserve full credit for this mammoth effort, unprecedented in its scale.
Amid the truly stunning CG pyrotechnics and the immensity of a movie that has to feature just about every major character from their shared universe spanning 18 films (with the exception of Paul Rudd's Ant-Man and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye, who are explicitly NOT in it), the Russos and their writers made the canny decision to narrate the story mainly from the point of view of the film's antagonist, Thanos, whose coming has been foreshadowed since the end credits stinger of the very first Avengers movie. He is given nuance, and pathos, and a motivation which, while it does not justify his genocidal desires, definitely goes a long way towards developing him as a character and distinguishing him from Marvel's crop of generic bad guys. Brolin turns in a stunning performance, and wears the CGI that brings his character to life as one would wear a costume or makeup. I couldn't imagine anyone else in this role after seeing him in this film. In short, whatever criticisms may be leveled against this film, one cannot say that it has a lame bad guy.
That's not to say that this film is above reproach; as tight as Markus and McFeely try to keep the narrative, which is squeezed into two and a half hours, there's still so much to take in that it definitely feels a little overwhelming, and the rapid-fire shifts in tone are a daunting tightrope to walk. This is an extremely grim movie, but it nonetheless features Marvel's patented humor all throughout. I once raked a movie over hot coals for tonal inconsistency, and had this film been made by lesser filmmakers, it might not have worked. I'll admit that the cracks do show every now and again.
In a movie this big, it's inevitable that some of the characters will get crowded out. Some ballyhooed appearances in the trailers amount to little more than walk-ons, but to be fair, everyone in the cast is pretty much in top form here, no matter how short their screen time.
In truth, EVERYONE here brings their A-game, from the visual effects wizards at ILM, Digital Domain, and Weta Digital, to cinematographer Trent Opaloch, who infuses the different locales, which include several different planet, with a broad (and lush) color palette that breaks away from, and looks so much better than the washed out, blue-grey drabness of his last two Marvel films with the Russos. This film also marks the return to the Avengers of original composer Alan Silvestri, and while he leans on variations from his heroic theme from the first film, he creates, quite possibly, the richest, most nuanced music score I've ever heard from him, and I've followed this guy's work since Back to the Future. His music is a huge part of the characters' journey on this film, and enhances the impact of the Oh-my-gosh moments without being cloying or overbearing.
This was always going to be an extremely difficult film to put together, and it shows, but overall I think Marvel and their cast and crew have pulled off something truly outstanding.
8.7/10
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Guillermo, You Are Sorely Missed: A Review of Pacific Rim: Uprising
directed by Steven de Knight
written by De Knight, Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, T.S. Nowlin
Even though Guillermo del Toro's giant-robots-versus-giant-monsters epic Pacific Rim didn't exactly set the box office on fire, it did win a few fans, including myself. In a world where the bottom line means everything, surprisingly, Legendary Pictures saw fit to greenlight a sequel, a decision they stood by even after their lead actor Charlie Hunnam backed out and del Toro moved on to other projects. Truth be told, I don't think it was a bad decision at all, but I will say that a lot of the decisions they made while making the movie were well beyond bad.
The film picks up ten years after the events of the first movie. The war with the massive Kaiju and their alien masters, the Precursors has ended, and while the world rebuilds from the destruction wrought by the giant monsters from another dimension, the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, which consists of the giant robots called jaegers, stands ever vigilant, in case the threat reemerges. It is in this milieu that we find Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), the son of the legendary jaeger pilot Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba from the first film, who had the rare distinction of delivering the few lines of memorable dialogue in a movie about giant robots punching giant monsters), and who used to be a pilot himself, until he washed out. Jake now lives on the fringes of society, eking out a living selling stolen Jaeger parts, until one of his deals goes south and he finds himself struggling for a spare part with a fellow scavenger, the spunky Amara (Cailee Spaeny) and they are both rounded up by the PPDC, which does not allow trading in stolen jaeger parts. To avoid going to prison and on the urging of his adopted sister Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), Jake re-joins the PPDC, this time as an instructor, with Amara as one of his cadets. This reunites him with his former co-pilot Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), in a not-so-warm reunion. Just as he rejoins, the PPDC is on the verge of a crucial decision on whether to approve the deployment of drone jaegers courtesy of the monolithic Shao Industries, headed by the icy Liwen Shao (Tian Jing) for whom former PPDC scientist Newt Geisler (Charlie Day) now works. On the day of the vote, however, a mysterious rogue jaeger emerges from the ocean and wreaks catastrophe on the PPDC before disappearing again. A new threat has emerged, one which could shatter the peace that Jake's father and many others fought and died to win.
I felt that there was a lot this sequel should have had going for it that could have made it work. The whole story of Jake's fall from grace and his quest to step out of his father's long shadow, while hackneyed, could have made for a compelling narrative, had it been more tightly written. I actually liked Boyega's performance relative to that of Charlie Hunnam, but his dialogue (and everyone else's) was so clumsily written I couldn't believe that De Knight, who used to be the showrunner of the excellent season one of Marvel's Netflix series Daredevil, had script credit. There were decent concepts like mystery boxes and twists that, had they been handled correctly, could have made the film, at minimum, a decent distraction, but again, the execution was just extremely slipshod. Also apart from Boyega, who pretty much threw himself into the role, I got the impression that everyone else, from the veterans of the first movie like Kikuchi, Day and Burn Gorman, to newcomers like Eastwood, was phoning it in bigtime. And the Chinese propaganda here was, in a word, laughable. It was so bad that I don't think even Chinese audiences bought into it, as evidenced by the film's lackluster showing in the Middle Kingdom.
One aspect where the filmmakers made it a point to step things up was to have more jaeger fights, and fancier moves, and in that respect the film definitely delivered, with quicker-moving jaegers that actually engage in martial arts moves rather than just punching, kicking and bludgeoning. It was pretty clear that the jaeger movement of the first film was rooted, as much as it could be anyway, in the actual physics of how a robot the size of a skyscraper would move, and here, physics are all but thrown out the window. Truth be told, I completely understand the imperative to speed things up, and there's even a halfhearted attempt to explain why the robots move more quickly, but at times it does feel silly, even though I'll readily admit it looks cool. Still, I think the filmmakers deserve some measure of credit for trying to fill in at least one of the gaps from the first film. And for whatever it's worth, the fights here made much more sense than anything in the Transformers films; at least there was some coherence to them.
Still, a couple of cool fight scenes couldn't distract me from the really deplorable scripting and some painfully obvious corner-cutting. The body armor worn by jaeger pilots in the first film has been replaced by some really embarrassing spandex-cum-rubber-muscles outfits that would look more at home in an old Power Rangers episode than they would in a $150 million movie, and the jaeger helmets don't even have glass visors anymore. Considering del Toro's painstaking effort to make his absurd proposition of giant robots fighting giant monsters something that could actually feel real, these little details speak volumes about how little the filmmakers really care.
It's still kind of a mystery how this film was greenlit in the first place, considering that the first film cost $200 million and couldn't even clear half a billion at the global box office, but the even bigger mystery is why Universal didn't at least try to make a better movie, which, I'll argue, would probably have sold more.
5.5/10
written by De Knight, Emily Carmichael, Kira Snyder, T.S. Nowlin
Even though Guillermo del Toro's giant-robots-versus-giant-monsters epic Pacific Rim didn't exactly set the box office on fire, it did win a few fans, including myself. In a world where the bottom line means everything, surprisingly, Legendary Pictures saw fit to greenlight a sequel, a decision they stood by even after their lead actor Charlie Hunnam backed out and del Toro moved on to other projects. Truth be told, I don't think it was a bad decision at all, but I will say that a lot of the decisions they made while making the movie were well beyond bad.
The film picks up ten years after the events of the first movie. The war with the massive Kaiju and their alien masters, the Precursors has ended, and while the world rebuilds from the destruction wrought by the giant monsters from another dimension, the Pan Pacific Defense Corps, which consists of the giant robots called jaegers, stands ever vigilant, in case the threat reemerges. It is in this milieu that we find Jake Pentecost (John Boyega), the son of the legendary jaeger pilot Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba from the first film, who had the rare distinction of delivering the few lines of memorable dialogue in a movie about giant robots punching giant monsters), and who used to be a pilot himself, until he washed out. Jake now lives on the fringes of society, eking out a living selling stolen Jaeger parts, until one of his deals goes south and he finds himself struggling for a spare part with a fellow scavenger, the spunky Amara (Cailee Spaeny) and they are both rounded up by the PPDC, which does not allow trading in stolen jaeger parts. To avoid going to prison and on the urging of his adopted sister Mako (Rinko Kikuchi), Jake re-joins the PPDC, this time as an instructor, with Amara as one of his cadets. This reunites him with his former co-pilot Nate Lambert (Scott Eastwood), in a not-so-warm reunion. Just as he rejoins, the PPDC is on the verge of a crucial decision on whether to approve the deployment of drone jaegers courtesy of the monolithic Shao Industries, headed by the icy Liwen Shao (Tian Jing) for whom former PPDC scientist Newt Geisler (Charlie Day) now works. On the day of the vote, however, a mysterious rogue jaeger emerges from the ocean and wreaks catastrophe on the PPDC before disappearing again. A new threat has emerged, one which could shatter the peace that Jake's father and many others fought and died to win.
I felt that there was a lot this sequel should have had going for it that could have made it work. The whole story of Jake's fall from grace and his quest to step out of his father's long shadow, while hackneyed, could have made for a compelling narrative, had it been more tightly written. I actually liked Boyega's performance relative to that of Charlie Hunnam, but his dialogue (and everyone else's) was so clumsily written I couldn't believe that De Knight, who used to be the showrunner of the excellent season one of Marvel's Netflix series Daredevil, had script credit. There were decent concepts like mystery boxes and twists that, had they been handled correctly, could have made the film, at minimum, a decent distraction, but again, the execution was just extremely slipshod. Also apart from Boyega, who pretty much threw himself into the role, I got the impression that everyone else, from the veterans of the first movie like Kikuchi, Day and Burn Gorman, to newcomers like Eastwood, was phoning it in bigtime. And the Chinese propaganda here was, in a word, laughable. It was so bad that I don't think even Chinese audiences bought into it, as evidenced by the film's lackluster showing in the Middle Kingdom.
One aspect where the filmmakers made it a point to step things up was to have more jaeger fights, and fancier moves, and in that respect the film definitely delivered, with quicker-moving jaegers that actually engage in martial arts moves rather than just punching, kicking and bludgeoning. It was pretty clear that the jaeger movement of the first film was rooted, as much as it could be anyway, in the actual physics of how a robot the size of a skyscraper would move, and here, physics are all but thrown out the window. Truth be told, I completely understand the imperative to speed things up, and there's even a halfhearted attempt to explain why the robots move more quickly, but at times it does feel silly, even though I'll readily admit it looks cool. Still, I think the filmmakers deserve some measure of credit for trying to fill in at least one of the gaps from the first film. And for whatever it's worth, the fights here made much more sense than anything in the Transformers films; at least there was some coherence to them.
Still, a couple of cool fight scenes couldn't distract me from the really deplorable scripting and some painfully obvious corner-cutting. The body armor worn by jaeger pilots in the first film has been replaced by some really embarrassing spandex-cum-rubber-muscles outfits that would look more at home in an old Power Rangers episode than they would in a $150 million movie, and the jaeger helmets don't even have glass visors anymore. Considering del Toro's painstaking effort to make his absurd proposition of giant robots fighting giant monsters something that could actually feel real, these little details speak volumes about how little the filmmakers really care.
It's still kind of a mystery how this film was greenlit in the first place, considering that the first film cost $200 million and couldn't even clear half a billion at the global box office, but the even bigger mystery is why Universal didn't at least try to make a better movie, which, I'll argue, would probably have sold more.
5.5/10
Sunday, April 1, 2018
A Whole Lot of Blasts from the Past: A Review of Ready Player One
directed by Steven Spielberg
written by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline
After years of delivering mostly "awards bait" adult fare, and a few misfires (coughcoughINDIANAJONESANDTHEKINGDOMOFTHECRYSTALSKULLcoughcough) Steven Spielberg delivers his most engaging, pure popcorn movie since Minority Report.
Based on the novel by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One tells a story set in the not-so-distant future, where all of humanity is enthralled by a massive, multi-player online role playing game-cum-virtual-reality-platform known as the Oasis, which was created by reclusive genius James Halliday (Mark Rylance) with the help of his former partner Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg). So massive is the game that it has actually become a driving economic force all by itself, and it is somehow the great equalizer in a world beset by egregious inequality, a world in which trailer parks are now filled with whole stacks of trailers.
Upon Halliday's death, a hidden message that he left is revealed to all the players in the Oasis telling them about three Easter Eggs that, when uncovered, will lead to a fantastic treasure: ownership of the Oasis. The mad scramble to find the Easter Eggs begins, at the forefront of which is Innovative Online Industries (IOI), a monolithic corporation headed by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) a ruthless CEO with vague ties to Halliday, who employs full-time gamers in a bid to seize control of the Oasis. On the other end of the spectrum, living in one of the aforementioned trailer stacks is Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) who goes by the online avatar Parzival. Wade spends all of his time in the Oasis to escape the drudgery of his life, and when the contest is announced, he jumps at the chance to win it. With his encyclopedic knowledge of Halliday (including his love of the 80s pop-culture he grew up with), and the help of his online friends Aech, Sho, Daito and the mysterious Art3mis (whose appearances are meant to be a bit of mystery for most of the film, which is why the actors' names aren't mentioned), he might just have a chance.
Just as Minority Report presented an interesting moral and philosophical quandary (i.e. should people be punished for crimes that have not been committed yet but merely foreseen) all wrapped within a piece of sublime entertainment, this film challenges our cultural obsession with the internet, particularly internet gaming, while presenting a thoroughly engaging piece of popcorn entertainment. This is the Spielberg I grew up with in the 80s, not just because of the references with which the film is packed to the gills. No, this is just the rock-solid storytelling that made watching movies such an interesting pastime when I was a kid, before the 90s rolled on and the likes of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay made a career out of dumbing down the blockbuster. From the cat-and-mouse between IOI and the gamers/resistance to the hold-your-breath tension of each time Wade and his friends approach a puzzle, Spielberg just keeps the thrills coming. The slick animation of the virtual world is gorgeous to behold as well, and ILM and whoever else was involved in realizing the Oasis have really outdone themselves here, having vaulted clear over the dreaded Uncanny Valley with this genuinely immersive viewing experience.
Of course, brilliant animation would mean nothing if the human performances didn't work, but Spielberg coaxes winning turns from his entire cast, from Sheridan to the supporting actors, particularly Mark Rylance, who seems to be his muse of sorts, as the shy, nerdy Halliday. It's the first time I've heard Rylance do an American accent (as it's the first time I've heard one from Simon Pegg, of whom I've long been a fan), and they both pull it off flawlessly. I wouldn't mind seeing Rylance in many of Spielberg's other future projects as well.
Unfortunately one of Spielberg's other frequent collaborators, legendary composer John Williams couldn't make it to this particular party due to his Star Wars commitments, but Avengers and Back to the Future composer Alan Silvestri ably fills that gap with some pretty stirring music that pays loving homage to the 80s while coming up with some new flourishes as well. It would have been weirdly entertaining to see an Easter Egg of Mac and Me the truly atrocious late-80s E.T. knockoff which Silvestri actually scored, but there was no such luck.
Speaking of Easter Eggs, though, the film was chock full of them, so many that they actually deserve their own post.
There were drawbacks, of course. Because this was a throwback to the kind of movie I'd grown up on, that meant a few contrivances and unfortunate narrative cliches came along with it, like an Asian character very conveniently knowing martial arts at an opportune time. Also, having people of color serve as sideki--err supporting characters feels so distinctly 80s these days, particularly in the wake of the fantastic Black Panther. I have been waiting for years (yes, before it became fashionable to think about black/POC people in lead roles in action movies) for Steven Spielberg to direct a popcorn movie with a black, male lead, and I'm still waiting. At least Pixar finally broke Disney's white-boys-only streak with Coco last year.
Still, it's been so long since Spielberg's shown this kind of form that it's easy to forgive him these tropes.
7.5/10
written by Zak Penn and Ernest Cline
After years of delivering mostly "awards bait" adult fare, and a few misfires (coughcoughINDIANAJONESANDTHEKINGDOMOFTHECRYSTALSKULLcoughcough) Steven Spielberg delivers his most engaging, pure popcorn movie since Minority Report.
Based on the novel by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One tells a story set in the not-so-distant future, where all of humanity is enthralled by a massive, multi-player online role playing game-cum-virtual-reality-platform known as the Oasis, which was created by reclusive genius James Halliday (Mark Rylance) with the help of his former partner Ogden Morrow (Simon Pegg). So massive is the game that it has actually become a driving economic force all by itself, and it is somehow the great equalizer in a world beset by egregious inequality, a world in which trailer parks are now filled with whole stacks of trailers.
Upon Halliday's death, a hidden message that he left is revealed to all the players in the Oasis telling them about three Easter Eggs that, when uncovered, will lead to a fantastic treasure: ownership of the Oasis. The mad scramble to find the Easter Eggs begins, at the forefront of which is Innovative Online Industries (IOI), a monolithic corporation headed by Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) a ruthless CEO with vague ties to Halliday, who employs full-time gamers in a bid to seize control of the Oasis. On the other end of the spectrum, living in one of the aforementioned trailer stacks is Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) who goes by the online avatar Parzival. Wade spends all of his time in the Oasis to escape the drudgery of his life, and when the contest is announced, he jumps at the chance to win it. With his encyclopedic knowledge of Halliday (including his love of the 80s pop-culture he grew up with), and the help of his online friends Aech, Sho, Daito and the mysterious Art3mis (whose appearances are meant to be a bit of mystery for most of the film, which is why the actors' names aren't mentioned), he might just have a chance.
Just as Minority Report presented an interesting moral and philosophical quandary (i.e. should people be punished for crimes that have not been committed yet but merely foreseen) all wrapped within a piece of sublime entertainment, this film challenges our cultural obsession with the internet, particularly internet gaming, while presenting a thoroughly engaging piece of popcorn entertainment. This is the Spielberg I grew up with in the 80s, not just because of the references with which the film is packed to the gills. No, this is just the rock-solid storytelling that made watching movies such an interesting pastime when I was a kid, before the 90s rolled on and the likes of Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay made a career out of dumbing down the blockbuster. From the cat-and-mouse between IOI and the gamers/resistance to the hold-your-breath tension of each time Wade and his friends approach a puzzle, Spielberg just keeps the thrills coming. The slick animation of the virtual world is gorgeous to behold as well, and ILM and whoever else was involved in realizing the Oasis have really outdone themselves here, having vaulted clear over the dreaded Uncanny Valley with this genuinely immersive viewing experience.
Of course, brilliant animation would mean nothing if the human performances didn't work, but Spielberg coaxes winning turns from his entire cast, from Sheridan to the supporting actors, particularly Mark Rylance, who seems to be his muse of sorts, as the shy, nerdy Halliday. It's the first time I've heard Rylance do an American accent (as it's the first time I've heard one from Simon Pegg, of whom I've long been a fan), and they both pull it off flawlessly. I wouldn't mind seeing Rylance in many of Spielberg's other future projects as well.
Unfortunately one of Spielberg's other frequent collaborators, legendary composer John Williams couldn't make it to this particular party due to his Star Wars commitments, but Avengers and Back to the Future composer Alan Silvestri ably fills that gap with some pretty stirring music that pays loving homage to the 80s while coming up with some new flourishes as well. It would have been weirdly entertaining to see an Easter Egg of Mac and Me the truly atrocious late-80s E.T. knockoff which Silvestri actually scored, but there was no such luck.
Speaking of Easter Eggs, though, the film was chock full of them, so many that they actually deserve their own post.
There were drawbacks, of course. Because this was a throwback to the kind of movie I'd grown up on, that meant a few contrivances and unfortunate narrative cliches came along with it, like an Asian character very conveniently knowing martial arts at an opportune time. Also, having people of color serve as sideki--err supporting characters feels so distinctly 80s these days, particularly in the wake of the fantastic Black Panther. I have been waiting for years (yes, before it became fashionable to think about black/POC people in lead roles in action movies) for Steven Spielberg to direct a popcorn movie with a black, male lead, and I'm still waiting. At least Pixar finally broke Disney's white-boys-only streak with Coco last year.
Still, it's been so long since Spielberg's shown this kind of form that it's easy to forgive him these tropes.
7.5/10
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Why "Black Panther" Should Be a Prime Candidate for 2019 Oscar Glory
When I found out that Jordan Peele had lost the 2018 Academy Award for Best Director to Guillermo del Toro, the first thought to spring to mind was that the distinction of "first black director ever to win an Oscar" was still very much up for grabs, which I jokingly put up on Facebook. I initially contemplated putting up a hashtag for Black Panther, but that seemed a little too fanboyish of me, so I thought better of it.
Then, this morning, I read that the ratings of this year's Oscar program were particularly low, to the extent that Donald Trump made one of his typically infantile tweets poking fun at Hollywood because of it (only to get Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel to point out that Trump is the most reviled president in U.S. history). It hit me pretty quickly: next year's Oscars could use a shot in the arm, and what better way to get it than from a worldwide conversation starter, particularly one that tackles issues of race from a perspective other than the whole "white man's guilt" dynamic? They already took a significant step in that direction by nominating Peele's surprise hit Get Out for Best Picture, even though they eventually wimped out of handing it the big prize.
As big as Black Panther is, the jury is still out, given how early it is in the year, on what kind of pull it can have on awards-giving bodies, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences most of all. It's more than just another blockbuster, though; as has been noted by many others, it's a cultural phenomenon.
But really, does being a movie du jour immediately make one Oscar-worthy? It didn't do anything for Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman, after all, or Joss Whedon's The Avengers, or, for that matter, any other movie based on a comic book, including the movie that arguably got the Academy to expand the field of Best Picture nominees to as many as ten, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. That's a glass ceiling comic-book movies have yet to shatter. As a fan of the genre, and of Black Panther, I'd have to recuse myself from answering the question of what makes a movie "Oscar-worthy" as I am hopelessly biased.
I would, however, like to invite attention to some of the Academy's choices for Best Picture. Titanic was a retelling of Romeo and Juliet,Shakespeare in Love was a gender-bending romantic comedy, Gladiator was basically a revenge movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was an unabashed, unapologetic good-triumphs-over-evil fantasy, and Argo was a spy thriller that leaned pretty heavily on some racial caricatures and some pretty outrageous script contrivances towards its climax to generate tension. In short, anyone who thinks that Academy Awards are reserved only for barely-seen, profound reflections on the human condition would be wrong. If a movie hits the right buttons, the Academy can fall in love with popcorn flicks just as much as the next Joe Average does.
Black Panther has so much going for it other than having captured the zeitgeist, though. It boasts stunning work by history-making, Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison, gorgeous costumes by two-time Oscar nominee Ruth Carter, and prominent, if not quite ostentatious performances by Oscar winners Lupita Nyong'o and Forest Whitaker, as well as by Oscar nominee Angela Bassett. (Then again, Ben Kingsley was in Iron Man 3 and Anthony Hopkins was in Thor: The Dark World, so make of that what you will). And then, of course, there are the glowing reviews. In short, the Academy wouldn't have to rationalize nominating (or heck, even awarding) this movie, as it already ticks so many of their boxes, even on a superficial level. They'd just have to get over their allergy to comic-book adaptations, though they already took a step in that direction as well when they nominated the Wolverine sequel Logan for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Will the Academy nominate Black Panther for Best Picture and a bunch of other Oscars? Time will tell, and if history is any indication, probably not, but personally, I think they'd be fools not to do so, and they can almost certainly look forward to another dip in viewership ratings if they just trot out another passel of little-seen art flicks.
Oh, and he could have just been speaking tongue-in-cheek, but apparently Christopher Nolan feels the same way.
Then, this morning, I read that the ratings of this year's Oscar program were particularly low, to the extent that Donald Trump made one of his typically infantile tweets poking fun at Hollywood because of it (only to get Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel to point out that Trump is the most reviled president in U.S. history). It hit me pretty quickly: next year's Oscars could use a shot in the arm, and what better way to get it than from a worldwide conversation starter, particularly one that tackles issues of race from a perspective other than the whole "white man's guilt" dynamic? They already took a significant step in that direction by nominating Peele's surprise hit Get Out for Best Picture, even though they eventually wimped out of handing it the big prize.
As big as Black Panther is, the jury is still out, given how early it is in the year, on what kind of pull it can have on awards-giving bodies, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences most of all. It's more than just another blockbuster, though; as has been noted by many others, it's a cultural phenomenon.
But really, does being a movie du jour immediately make one Oscar-worthy? It didn't do anything for Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman, after all, or Joss Whedon's The Avengers, or, for that matter, any other movie based on a comic book, including the movie that arguably got the Academy to expand the field of Best Picture nominees to as many as ten, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. That's a glass ceiling comic-book movies have yet to shatter. As a fan of the genre, and of Black Panther, I'd have to recuse myself from answering the question of what makes a movie "Oscar-worthy" as I am hopelessly biased.
I would, however, like to invite attention to some of the Academy's choices for Best Picture. Titanic was a retelling of Romeo and Juliet,Shakespeare in Love was a gender-bending romantic comedy, Gladiator was basically a revenge movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was an unabashed, unapologetic good-triumphs-over-evil fantasy, and Argo was a spy thriller that leaned pretty heavily on some racial caricatures and some pretty outrageous script contrivances towards its climax to generate tension. In short, anyone who thinks that Academy Awards are reserved only for barely-seen, profound reflections on the human condition would be wrong. If a movie hits the right buttons, the Academy can fall in love with popcorn flicks just as much as the next Joe Average does.
Black Panther has so much going for it other than having captured the zeitgeist, though. It boasts stunning work by history-making, Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison, gorgeous costumes by two-time Oscar nominee Ruth Carter, and prominent, if not quite ostentatious performances by Oscar winners Lupita Nyong'o and Forest Whitaker, as well as by Oscar nominee Angela Bassett. (Then again, Ben Kingsley was in Iron Man 3 and Anthony Hopkins was in Thor: The Dark World, so make of that what you will). And then, of course, there are the glowing reviews. In short, the Academy wouldn't have to rationalize nominating (or heck, even awarding) this movie, as it already ticks so many of their boxes, even on a superficial level. They'd just have to get over their allergy to comic-book adaptations, though they already took a step in that direction as well when they nominated the Wolverine sequel Logan for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Will the Academy nominate Black Panther for Best Picture and a bunch of other Oscars? Time will tell, and if history is any indication, probably not, but personally, I think they'd be fools not to do so, and they can almost certainly look forward to another dip in viewership ratings if they just trot out another passel of little-seen art flicks.
Oh, and he could have just been speaking tongue-in-cheek, but apparently Christopher Nolan feels the same way.
Saturday, February 17, 2018
So How About Those Twists? (Black Panther Edition...HEAVY SPOILERS)
Plot twists, usually at the end of the second act, are Marvel Studios' regular stock-in-trade nowadays, but three out of their last four movies have had relatively mild revelations. The "bombshell" that the villain Erik Killmonger was, in fact, the son of T'Challa's brother N'Jobu and therefore a legitimate heir to the throne was telegraphed pretty early on, though the revelation that N'Jobu's betrayal was motivated by his desire to fight for oppressed people of African descent everywhere gave the movie a very interesting new complexion. It meant that Erik Killmonger was less like Hela from Thor: Ragnarok and more like Magneto from the X-Men films. And the question posed was a valid one: why couldn't Wakanda lend its technology to oppressed black people the world over to help them improve their lot in life?
When T'Challa learns of Killmonger's existence, he comes face-to-face with the fallout of Wakanda's millennia-old policy of shutting out the outside world, and has a couple of really difficult choices to make. It's not unlike the opposing viewpoints of Charles Xavier and Magneto, which in turn were based on the opposing views of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Killmonger may have had his methodology wrong, but he asked the right questions: given that there are 2 billion black people all over the world suffering in poverty and subjugation, why is Wakanda standing by and doing nothing? Killmonger is of the Magneto persuasion, whereas T'Challa is more like Xavier, and for some reason, his solution to the problem he faced felt more satisfactory than Xavier's even though they're arguably similar approaches.
One thing about the "twist" that really gratified me was how T'Challa was able to confront T'Chaka for both his duplicity and his cruel abandonment of N'Jobu's son, who grew up to be the murderous Killmonger. This scratched a major itch for me as an MCU geek, because quite frankly I was really disappointed that Odin never had to face the backlash of his decision to conceal from Thor the fact that he had an evil, super-powerful older sister. Like T'Chaka does to T'Challa, Odin appears to Thor from beyond the dead, but unlike T'Challa, Thor basically begs Odin for help instead of calling him out for being a lying SOB. In his final afterlife vision, T'Challa really lets T'Chaka, and all of his ancestors have it for their selfishness, and the film is that much richer for it. There was something cathartic about that moment somehow.
Father issues, like story twists, are another staple of the MCU, whether it's Tony Stark's love/hate relationship with his dad, Thor's constant insecurity about living up to his father, or even Peter Quill's finding out that his dad is basically a god-like megalomaniac, and T'Challa, of the lot of them, did, for me at least, the best job of confronting his issues head on, though it probably helped that his relationship with his father was the least dysfunctional.
Speaking of fathers and sons, I'd like to take the time to heap even more praise on Sterling K. Brown's portrayal of the doomed Wakandan prince N'Jobu. I quite like how Coogler used a well-worn Marvel trope, i.e. the plot twist in a very different way. It's established early on that N'Jobu has betrayed Wakanda, but by saving the revelation of why he did it for much later in the film, Coogler gives that scene that much more emotional impact. One of my favorite sequences in the film is Killmonger's visit to the ancestral plane, where he speaks to his father. It was a heartrending, powerful bit of storytelling quite unlike anything I'd ever seen in a superhero movie.
Of course, the appearance of Bucky Barnes in the final post-credits scene did not exactly come as a surprise considering that it was in Wakanda where he voluntarily went into deep freeze at the end of Captain America: Civil War and considering further that he shows up, alongside a Wakandan army, in the Avengers: Infinity War trailer, but it was nice to see that the Wakandan way of healing his battered soul doesn't just consist of keeping him in a lab.
In truth, there's so much to unpack from this movie, which is shaping up to be an even bigger cultural phenomenon than Wonder Woman was last year, but these are the points that stuck with me the most. Oh, and I was happy that, unlike Woman Woman, with its ultra-generic climax, complete with her unbelievably corny "I believe in love" line, Black Panther actually managed to stick the landing.
When T'Challa learns of Killmonger's existence, he comes face-to-face with the fallout of Wakanda's millennia-old policy of shutting out the outside world, and has a couple of really difficult choices to make. It's not unlike the opposing viewpoints of Charles Xavier and Magneto, which in turn were based on the opposing views of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Killmonger may have had his methodology wrong, but he asked the right questions: given that there are 2 billion black people all over the world suffering in poverty and subjugation, why is Wakanda standing by and doing nothing? Killmonger is of the Magneto persuasion, whereas T'Challa is more like Xavier, and for some reason, his solution to the problem he faced felt more satisfactory than Xavier's even though they're arguably similar approaches.
One thing about the "twist" that really gratified me was how T'Challa was able to confront T'Chaka for both his duplicity and his cruel abandonment of N'Jobu's son, who grew up to be the murderous Killmonger. This scratched a major itch for me as an MCU geek, because quite frankly I was really disappointed that Odin never had to face the backlash of his decision to conceal from Thor the fact that he had an evil, super-powerful older sister. Like T'Chaka does to T'Challa, Odin appears to Thor from beyond the dead, but unlike T'Challa, Thor basically begs Odin for help instead of calling him out for being a lying SOB. In his final afterlife vision, T'Challa really lets T'Chaka, and all of his ancestors have it for their selfishness, and the film is that much richer for it. There was something cathartic about that moment somehow.
Father issues, like story twists, are another staple of the MCU, whether it's Tony Stark's love/hate relationship with his dad, Thor's constant insecurity about living up to his father, or even Peter Quill's finding out that his dad is basically a god-like megalomaniac, and T'Challa, of the lot of them, did, for me at least, the best job of confronting his issues head on, though it probably helped that his relationship with his father was the least dysfunctional.
Speaking of fathers and sons, I'd like to take the time to heap even more praise on Sterling K. Brown's portrayal of the doomed Wakandan prince N'Jobu. I quite like how Coogler used a well-worn Marvel trope, i.e. the plot twist in a very different way. It's established early on that N'Jobu has betrayed Wakanda, but by saving the revelation of why he did it for much later in the film, Coogler gives that scene that much more emotional impact. One of my favorite sequences in the film is Killmonger's visit to the ancestral plane, where he speaks to his father. It was a heartrending, powerful bit of storytelling quite unlike anything I'd ever seen in a superhero movie.
Of course, the appearance of Bucky Barnes in the final post-credits scene did not exactly come as a surprise considering that it was in Wakanda where he voluntarily went into deep freeze at the end of Captain America: Civil War and considering further that he shows up, alongside a Wakandan army, in the Avengers: Infinity War trailer, but it was nice to see that the Wakandan way of healing his battered soul doesn't just consist of keeping him in a lab.
In truth, there's so much to unpack from this movie, which is shaping up to be an even bigger cultural phenomenon than Wonder Woman was last year, but these are the points that stuck with me the most. Oh, and I was happy that, unlike Woman Woman, with its ultra-generic climax, complete with her unbelievably corny "I believe in love" line, Black Panther actually managed to stick the landing.
Friday, February 16, 2018
Seismic: A Review of Black Panther
directed by Ryan Coogler
written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole
It's hard to review Marvel Studios' latest cinematic offering The Black Panther without bearing in mind the storm of publicity it's generated for the last few weeks, but I am going to give it the old college try.
Following the violent death of his father King T'Chaka (John Kani) in Captain America: Civil War, Prince T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), must now assume the throne of the sovereign African nation of Wakanda, the most technologically-advanced society in the world. T'Challa assumes a great burden considering that, as advanced as Wakanda may be, it has kept its secrets hidden from the world for thousands of years, masquerading as yet another impoverished African nation while keeping its scientific advancements and its deposit of the highly valuable and unique metal, Vibranium to itself. With the throne, therefore, T'Challa must therefore safeguard Wakanda and its technology, the development of which is overseen by his younger sister, the prodigy Shuri (Letitia Wright). He will rely on the counsel of the elders, of Okoye (Danai Gurira), the general of his military, the Dora Milaje, and his old friend W'Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya). In contrast, though, one of Wakanda's spies and T'Challa's ex-lover Nakai (Lupita Nyong'o) disagrees with Wakanda's millennia-old policy of keeping to itself, having seen the misery in the rest of the world, and feels there is much they can do to help.
Only one man from the outside, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) has been able to steal Vibranium from Wakanda, which he was only able to do with inside help from no less than T'Chaka's brother N'Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) several years ago. With the death of T'Chaka, Klaue surfaces again for the first time in thirty years, this time allied with the mysterious Erik (Michael B. Jordan) who has terrifying plans for Wakanda and its technology. T'Challa brings Okoye and Nakai along to stop Klaue from selling (newly) stolen Vibranium in South Korea, but things go awry, and when long-held secrets are revealed, even the mighty Black Panther may not be prepared for what's coming.
After they basically revolutionized cinematic storytelling by pioneering the concept of the cinematic universe, Disney's Marvel Studios has been repeatedly criticized for playing it "safe," by adhering to specific narrative tropes, and while I respectfully disagree with it overall, this criticism isn't entirely without basis. One particular trope I agree with was that the persons of color in their movies, whether it was Don Cheadle's James Rhodes in Iron Man, Idris Elba's Heimdall in Thor, Anthony Mackie's Falcon in Captain America, Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo in Doctor Strange or Jacob Batalon's Ned in Spider-Man, were invariably portrayed as sidekicks to the white protagonist. It was getting downright embarrassing, especially after rival Warner Brothers/DC came out with the risible Suicide Squad, a film that featured African-American superstar Will Smith in the lead role, albeit as a bad guy turned good. With Black Panther, Marvel finally put to rest the notion that only white males can star as leads in their movies. I'm neither black nor American but the cultural significance of this film is not lost on me.
Still, as a fan of these films, my first question is whether or not the film is any good, and I'm quite happy to say that it is.
From the basics like the writing, acting and directing the film hits all the notes. I find it extraordinary that Ryan Coogler and his co-writer Joe Robert Cole have crafted a script that pays faithful homage to the comics from which the film is derived, yet at the same time builds an entire world here that doesn't require an encyclopedic knowledge of either Marvel's printed or filmed universe to make sense. It's particularly remarkable that, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe nears its tenth year anniversary, they are able to come up with a movie that can stand alone as well as this does, even though its connection to the bigger universe has already been established. Doctor Strange was the last such Marvel movie, but in that instance Stephen Strange had only just "entered the universe," whereas T'Challa has already been introduced to audiences and his fellow heroes. Recent Marvel hits like Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok cashed in on having other MCU characters appear in them, but this film stands proudly, almost defiantly on its own. In a way it mirrors the dilemma T'Challa, as the head of state of a very powerful nation, faces in the film: should Wakanda keep to itself, safe from those who would exploit its wealth, should it open up to the world and provide aid to those who need it, or should it use its wealth to arm those who have been oppressed for thousands of years? This movie is easily the most thematically ambitious of any Marvel production.
Even though there has yet to be a badly-acted Marvel film, it's worth noting that the cast of African-American, African-British and African actors led by Boseman, Nyong'o, and Gurira and a couple of "token" white British actors in Serkis (who first appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron) and Martin Freeman (who reprises his "Civil War" role as Everett K. Ross), totally deliver the goods here. In particular, I was really happy to see Gurira, whom I had, prior to this film, exclusively seen as The Walking Dead's dreadlocked, katana-wielding bad-ass Michonne take to this new role like a fish to water. Sure, Boseman was excellent as T'Challa, but Gurira, Nyong'o, and the scene-stealing, wise-cracking Wright as Shuri demonstrate that you don't need to be an Amazon goddess to be a formidable woman in what has, up until this point, been almost exclusively a man's universe, i.e. the world of the superhero movie. I was not quite as sold on Michael B. Jordan's Erik Killmonger, even though there was clearly a lot of narrative investment in him, but to be fair he is a significant step up from the generic Marvel villain. Still, I'm sure Jordan is glad to have at least added one excellent Marvel movie to his resume to cancel out the utterly rancid Fantastic Four reboot he did three years ago. In contrast, I found Sterling K. Brown's turn as the tragic Prince N'Jobu to be both forceful and heartbreaking despite the very limited screen time the character had. It's so very calibrated, unlike Jordan's mostly unchecked rage; I haven't read a lot of reviews talking about it, but I feel it deserves a fair bit of recognition.
I do feel, however, that the cast feels a bit to bloated at times, with characters like Winston Duke's M'Baku serving more as a convenient plot device and even comic relief than a fully-fleshed out character. While veteran actors Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett do a creditable job filling out their roles as Zuri, the royal adviser and Ramonda, the queen and T'Challa's mother, again, for constraints of running time they feel more like archetypes than characters in their own right, though Whitaker has a powerful scene with Boseman deep into the film. W'Kabi, the character of Kaluuya, now a superstar in his own right thanks to his Oscar-nominated turn in Get Out, feels distinctly underdeveloped and I sometimes wonder if he has scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor. Still, I suppose with a cast this big, it was inevitable that people would get lost in the proverbial shuffle. It's impressive that the 31-year-old Coogler juggled as many performances as he did.
Apart from those aspects, the production is a showcase of everything that's made Marvel movies such enjoyable cinematic outings over the last decade, from the meticulously-realized sets to the eye-popping visual effects, and then some. It's worth noting that there have been some departures from Marvel's "house style." Cinematographer Rachel Morrison's palette of colors is bolder and warmer than the often washed-out colors favored by Marvel's frequent go-to-directors of photography Ben Davis and Trent Opaloch, and Ruth E. Carter's fantastically-realized costumes, while not necessarily "better" than frequent MCU costume designer Alex Byrne's lively superhero wardrobe, are definitely unlike anything we've ever seen before in one of these movies. Composer Ludwig Goransson provides a score that fuses brassy superhero fanfare with traditional, percussion-based African rhythms and electronic urban hip-hop, and even though I'm still partial to Michael Giacchino's trippy Doctor Strange score as far as MCU music goes, this film is, again, wonderfully unique in its musical signature. There's also some very impressive bone-crunching hand-to-hand fighting here, something that Marvel films have been pretty good at depicting on screen since Captain America: Winter Soldier.
I hesitate to use the tag of "best Marvel movie ever" that a bit too many critics have been heaping on this film, as I feel that this distinction still belongs in equal measure to the first Iron Man film and the first Avengers film, without either of which, this film would not have been possible. I will readily agree, however, that this film is an extraordinary piece of work and that it is, by far, the 10-year-old studio's most important one to date, and quite possibly the most likely to alter the cinematic landscape as we know it.
9/10
written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole
It's hard to review Marvel Studios' latest cinematic offering The Black Panther without bearing in mind the storm of publicity it's generated for the last few weeks, but I am going to give it the old college try.
Following the violent death of his father King T'Chaka (John Kani) in Captain America: Civil War, Prince T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), must now assume the throne of the sovereign African nation of Wakanda, the most technologically-advanced society in the world. T'Challa assumes a great burden considering that, as advanced as Wakanda may be, it has kept its secrets hidden from the world for thousands of years, masquerading as yet another impoverished African nation while keeping its scientific advancements and its deposit of the highly valuable and unique metal, Vibranium to itself. With the throne, therefore, T'Challa must therefore safeguard Wakanda and its technology, the development of which is overseen by his younger sister, the prodigy Shuri (Letitia Wright). He will rely on the counsel of the elders, of Okoye (Danai Gurira), the general of his military, the Dora Milaje, and his old friend W'Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya). In contrast, though, one of Wakanda's spies and T'Challa's ex-lover Nakai (Lupita Nyong'o) disagrees with Wakanda's millennia-old policy of keeping to itself, having seen the misery in the rest of the world, and feels there is much they can do to help.
Only one man from the outside, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) has been able to steal Vibranium from Wakanda, which he was only able to do with inside help from no less than T'Chaka's brother N'Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) several years ago. With the death of T'Chaka, Klaue surfaces again for the first time in thirty years, this time allied with the mysterious Erik (Michael B. Jordan) who has terrifying plans for Wakanda and its technology. T'Challa brings Okoye and Nakai along to stop Klaue from selling (newly) stolen Vibranium in South Korea, but things go awry, and when long-held secrets are revealed, even the mighty Black Panther may not be prepared for what's coming.
After they basically revolutionized cinematic storytelling by pioneering the concept of the cinematic universe, Disney's Marvel Studios has been repeatedly criticized for playing it "safe," by adhering to specific narrative tropes, and while I respectfully disagree with it overall, this criticism isn't entirely without basis. One particular trope I agree with was that the persons of color in their movies, whether it was Don Cheadle's James Rhodes in Iron Man, Idris Elba's Heimdall in Thor, Anthony Mackie's Falcon in Captain America, Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo in Doctor Strange or Jacob Batalon's Ned in Spider-Man, were invariably portrayed as sidekicks to the white protagonist. It was getting downright embarrassing, especially after rival Warner Brothers/DC came out with the risible Suicide Squad, a film that featured African-American superstar Will Smith in the lead role, albeit as a bad guy turned good. With Black Panther, Marvel finally put to rest the notion that only white males can star as leads in their movies. I'm neither black nor American but the cultural significance of this film is not lost on me.
Still, as a fan of these films, my first question is whether or not the film is any good, and I'm quite happy to say that it is.
From the basics like the writing, acting and directing the film hits all the notes. I find it extraordinary that Ryan Coogler and his co-writer Joe Robert Cole have crafted a script that pays faithful homage to the comics from which the film is derived, yet at the same time builds an entire world here that doesn't require an encyclopedic knowledge of either Marvel's printed or filmed universe to make sense. It's particularly remarkable that, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe nears its tenth year anniversary, they are able to come up with a movie that can stand alone as well as this does, even though its connection to the bigger universe has already been established. Doctor Strange was the last such Marvel movie, but in that instance Stephen Strange had only just "entered the universe," whereas T'Challa has already been introduced to audiences and his fellow heroes. Recent Marvel hits like Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok cashed in on having other MCU characters appear in them, but this film stands proudly, almost defiantly on its own. In a way it mirrors the dilemma T'Challa, as the head of state of a very powerful nation, faces in the film: should Wakanda keep to itself, safe from those who would exploit its wealth, should it open up to the world and provide aid to those who need it, or should it use its wealth to arm those who have been oppressed for thousands of years? This movie is easily the most thematically ambitious of any Marvel production.
Even though there has yet to be a badly-acted Marvel film, it's worth noting that the cast of African-American, African-British and African actors led by Boseman, Nyong'o, and Gurira and a couple of "token" white British actors in Serkis (who first appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron) and Martin Freeman (who reprises his "Civil War" role as Everett K. Ross), totally deliver the goods here. In particular, I was really happy to see Gurira, whom I had, prior to this film, exclusively seen as The Walking Dead's dreadlocked, katana-wielding bad-ass Michonne take to this new role like a fish to water. Sure, Boseman was excellent as T'Challa, but Gurira, Nyong'o, and the scene-stealing, wise-cracking Wright as Shuri demonstrate that you don't need to be an Amazon goddess to be a formidable woman in what has, up until this point, been almost exclusively a man's universe, i.e. the world of the superhero movie. I was not quite as sold on Michael B. Jordan's Erik Killmonger, even though there was clearly a lot of narrative investment in him, but to be fair he is a significant step up from the generic Marvel villain. Still, I'm sure Jordan is glad to have at least added one excellent Marvel movie to his resume to cancel out the utterly rancid Fantastic Four reboot he did three years ago. In contrast, I found Sterling K. Brown's turn as the tragic Prince N'Jobu to be both forceful and heartbreaking despite the very limited screen time the character had. It's so very calibrated, unlike Jordan's mostly unchecked rage; I haven't read a lot of reviews talking about it, but I feel it deserves a fair bit of recognition.
I do feel, however, that the cast feels a bit to bloated at times, with characters like Winston Duke's M'Baku serving more as a convenient plot device and even comic relief than a fully-fleshed out character. While veteran actors Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett do a creditable job filling out their roles as Zuri, the royal adviser and Ramonda, the queen and T'Challa's mother, again, for constraints of running time they feel more like archetypes than characters in their own right, though Whitaker has a powerful scene with Boseman deep into the film. W'Kabi, the character of Kaluuya, now a superstar in his own right thanks to his Oscar-nominated turn in Get Out, feels distinctly underdeveloped and I sometimes wonder if he has scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor. Still, I suppose with a cast this big, it was inevitable that people would get lost in the proverbial shuffle. It's impressive that the 31-year-old Coogler juggled as many performances as he did.
Apart from those aspects, the production is a showcase of everything that's made Marvel movies such enjoyable cinematic outings over the last decade, from the meticulously-realized sets to the eye-popping visual effects, and then some. It's worth noting that there have been some departures from Marvel's "house style." Cinematographer Rachel Morrison's palette of colors is bolder and warmer than the often washed-out colors favored by Marvel's frequent go-to-directors of photography Ben Davis and Trent Opaloch, and Ruth E. Carter's fantastically-realized costumes, while not necessarily "better" than frequent MCU costume designer Alex Byrne's lively superhero wardrobe, are definitely unlike anything we've ever seen before in one of these movies. Composer Ludwig Goransson provides a score that fuses brassy superhero fanfare with traditional, percussion-based African rhythms and electronic urban hip-hop, and even though I'm still partial to Michael Giacchino's trippy Doctor Strange score as far as MCU music goes, this film is, again, wonderfully unique in its musical signature. There's also some very impressive bone-crunching hand-to-hand fighting here, something that Marvel films have been pretty good at depicting on screen since Captain America: Winter Soldier.
I hesitate to use the tag of "best Marvel movie ever" that a bit too many critics have been heaping on this film, as I feel that this distinction still belongs in equal measure to the first Iron Man film and the first Avengers film, without either of which, this film would not have been possible. I will readily agree, however, that this film is an extraordinary piece of work and that it is, by far, the 10-year-old studio's most important one to date, and quite possibly the most likely to alter the cinematic landscape as we know it.
9/10
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