directed by Chad Stahelski
written by Derek Kolstad, Chris Collins, Marc Abrams and Shay Hatten
Five years (in real time) after retired assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) came out of retirement to put some serious hurt on a bratty Russian mobster for killing his puppy and stealing his car, and two years (again, in real time) after he blew the brains out of a bratty Italian mobster for having John kill his sister, only to double-cross him, John Wick is on the run for his life. Having killed Santino D'Antonio (Riccardo Scamarcio), a newly-instated member of the High Table, on the Continental, where killing is forbidden, John has basically marked himself for death, though Winston (Ian McShane), the manager of the Continental and an old friend, gives John a head start.
This movie, John Wick 3: Parabellum, starts moments after the last one ended, with Wick on the run and the minutes counting down until just about every assassin in the world descends on him. The High Table sends an Adjudicator (Asia Kate Dillon) to ensure Wick's demise, and to punish those who aided him, including Winston for giving him a head start, and the Bowery King (Laurence Fishburne) for giving him the gun and the bullets with which he killed Santino. Meanwhile, Wick pulls in just about every favor he can, including those owed him by Belarusian mobsters headed by the Director (Anjelica Huston), and a retired fellow killer named Sophia (Halle Berry), all to seek an audience with the one person who stands above the High Table, all for the sole purpose of staying alive so that he can continue to remember his dead wife. It'll be easier said than done, though as the Adjudicator then taps Zero (Mark Dacascos), a sushi-chef/killer par excellence flanked by an elite team of assassins.
Well, the good news is that anyone looking for nearly two hours of non-stop murder and mayhem is almost certain to be sated. Stahelski and company know only too well what made the first two movies box-office hits and have piled on the death-dealing quite generously here. One hardly walks into this movie expecting some deep reflection on the human condition; I know I didn't.
My problem with this movie, however, is actually something I started to feel watching the second film (which I still liked, all things considered) and it's that in giving us a smorgasbord of martial arts and gun battles, Stahelski and his crew have become repetitive. I have no pretensions or delusions about what this movie is about, but when a good chunk of running time consists of gun battles that follow a distinctly redundant depiction of judo flips and head shots, the initial thrill at the action gives rise, dare I say it, to boredom, arguably the one mortal sin for any action movie.
The movie still feels hard-hitting when Wick and his numerous opponents are getting down and dirty; Wick's first fight is with a seven-foot (!) assassin who tries to murder him in a public library, and Wick is forced to defend himself using, of all things, a library book, and it is followed in short order by another hand-to-hand fight in an antique store that involves knives and even an axe, and then by a chase scene in which Wick hides in a stable and has horses kick his would-be killers in the head. Later in the film, during a series of "boss battles" between Wick and Zero and his various disciples, the action soars.
Whenever Wick has a gun in his hand, though, it's basically video game mode, with Wick doing the same thing, over and over again, on two different continents. He's later joined by Halle Berry and two ferocious attack dogs when he visits Morocco, but really, apart from the dimly-lit exotic locale, the new setting doesn't really offer anything to differentiate the non-stop head shots made there from those made anywhere else in the film.
Also, unlike its predecessors, this film leans uncharacteristically on computer-generated imagery, and I'm not talking about the slick, seamless kind you see in billion-dollar blockbusters but the really bad, dime-store kind that made movies in the 00s really hard to watch. The first time John Wick has a horse kick a would-be killer it's okay, but the second time it's a sequence right out of Paul Blart: Mall Cop. I kid you not.
Perhaps the worst part of the film is that anyone who comes into the film hoping that this would wrap things up, as I did, will be sorely disappointed. If they insist on doing this again, I really, really hope they at least try to inject some variety in their gun battles.
6/10
Monday, May 20, 2019
Thursday, May 16, 2019
Dear Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...Please Give Alan Silvestri an Oscar for Avengers: Endgame
Originally, I thought it'd be enough to just post one of Alan Silvestri's music clips from Avengers: Endgame available on MarvelVEVO's youtube account, complete with the blurb I've just made the title of this post. In hindsight, that hardly captures the fact that this man is an industry legend, and his body of work is far, far more than just what he's done for the world's favorite team of superheroes.
I then thought to make this a piece of the musical journey of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but in truth there have already been a number of video essays on the topic, alternately attacking and defending the MCU's music themes, which would make my written essay feel a little redundant. Also, the fact that Marvel now bears the distinction of having come up with the first, and so far, only superhero theme to have won an Oscar has pretty much put paid to the contention that no memorable music comes out of a Marvel movie.
So I then thought back to Alan Silvestri, composer of some of the most iconic movie music of my generation, and realized that to date, despite being in the business for four decades and composing some truly outstanding scores, he has yet to win an Academy Award and has only ever been nominated twice. He's kind of like the Roger Deakins of film composers, and even cinematographer Deakins finally broke his Oscar duck two years ago with Blade Runner 2049.
So for my final post before I finally move on from singing the praises of Avengers: Endgame, I've decided to make an impassioned plea to the people who hand out the Oscars to finally give Alan Silvestri his due and give him an Academy Award for Avengers: Endgame. I know it's the online equivalent of basically shouting at the sky and asking it to rain, but given that the music of Endgame was one of the most outstanding aspects of the film, one which was already outstanding in many other ways, I really have to sing one last paean about this movie or more specifically, its composer.
Obviously if the Academy, by some outside chance, chooses to recognize Silvestri’s work it can only be for Avengers: Endgame and not anything he’s done before it, but it’s my fervent hope that they recognize that this man is a cinematic treasure, and that the soaring work he has done for Anthony and Joe Russo’s magnum opus is emblematic of a generations-spanning career spent crafting some of the most memorable movie music of all time. By itself, the Back to the Future theme completely stands out as work that has stood the test of time, but when one throws in Forrest Gump, Predator, A Night at the Museum, Captain America: The First Avenger and even the very first Avengers movie there is no denying the impression this man has made on the pop culture landscape. That Steven Spielberg chose Silvestri as a stand-in for the legendary John Williams when he directed last year's Ready Player One should speak volumes of Silvestri's talent and stature in the industry.
More than that, though, the music for Avengers: Endgame is far more than just a trotting out of the now-iconic theme of the franchise a la Hedwig’s theme from the Harry Potter films, James Bond’s theme or even the Skywalker theme from Star Wars. Here, Silvestri calls upon his four decades of experience in crafting emotional cinematic journeys in helping bring the original team of Avengers, or at least most of them, to the end of theirs. The musical accompaniment to the various scenes really helps establish that, unlike most of the previous films that were tailor-made to set up the next installment of the franchise, this film marks the end of the road for some of the characters. There’s gravitas that wasn’t quite there before, especially considering that, relative to all of the films that have come before this, Endgame actually has the least action proportionate to its mammoth running time, or perhaps even the least action of all. This is a film that spends a surprisingly long amount of time dealing with the grief brought about by loss, and a surprisingly little amount of time on the slug-fests that everyone has come to expect from movies like this, and as a result, Silvestri had to step up quite a bit; he couldn't let the action do most of the storytelling, as it did in the first Avengers film and even Infinity War. I'd argue that his score for Endgame, with highs and lows, soaring orchestral moments and even quiet jazz moments, was instrumental (pardon the pun) to keeping audiences accustomed to seeing their heroes in near-constant motion engaged, even through the moments in the three-hour movie (and there were plenty of them) in which they were just sitting around talking. In itself, that was a feat I think should at least capture the Academy's attention.
Of course, the Academy is hardly likely to award a more "conventional" Marvel movie with recognition like this so soon after it showered Black Panther with a brace of awards, including one for music, but one can always hope.
I then thought to make this a piece of the musical journey of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but in truth there have already been a number of video essays on the topic, alternately attacking and defending the MCU's music themes, which would make my written essay feel a little redundant. Also, the fact that Marvel now bears the distinction of having come up with the first, and so far, only superhero theme to have won an Oscar has pretty much put paid to the contention that no memorable music comes out of a Marvel movie.
So I then thought back to Alan Silvestri, composer of some of the most iconic movie music of my generation, and realized that to date, despite being in the business for four decades and composing some truly outstanding scores, he has yet to win an Academy Award and has only ever been nominated twice. He's kind of like the Roger Deakins of film composers, and even cinematographer Deakins finally broke his Oscar duck two years ago with Blade Runner 2049.
So for my final post before I finally move on from singing the praises of Avengers: Endgame, I've decided to make an impassioned plea to the people who hand out the Oscars to finally give Alan Silvestri his due and give him an Academy Award for Avengers: Endgame. I know it's the online equivalent of basically shouting at the sky and asking it to rain, but given that the music of Endgame was one of the most outstanding aspects of the film, one which was already outstanding in many other ways, I really have to sing one last paean about this movie or more specifically, its composer.
Obviously if the Academy, by some outside chance, chooses to recognize Silvestri’s work it can only be for Avengers: Endgame and not anything he’s done before it, but it’s my fervent hope that they recognize that this man is a cinematic treasure, and that the soaring work he has done for Anthony and Joe Russo’s magnum opus is emblematic of a generations-spanning career spent crafting some of the most memorable movie music of all time. By itself, the Back to the Future theme completely stands out as work that has stood the test of time, but when one throws in Forrest Gump, Predator, A Night at the Museum, Captain America: The First Avenger and even the very first Avengers movie there is no denying the impression this man has made on the pop culture landscape. That Steven Spielberg chose Silvestri as a stand-in for the legendary John Williams when he directed last year's Ready Player One should speak volumes of Silvestri's talent and stature in the industry.
More than that, though, the music for Avengers: Endgame is far more than just a trotting out of the now-iconic theme of the franchise a la Hedwig’s theme from the Harry Potter films, James Bond’s theme or even the Skywalker theme from Star Wars. Here, Silvestri calls upon his four decades of experience in crafting emotional cinematic journeys in helping bring the original team of Avengers, or at least most of them, to the end of theirs. The musical accompaniment to the various scenes really helps establish that, unlike most of the previous films that were tailor-made to set up the next installment of the franchise, this film marks the end of the road for some of the characters. There’s gravitas that wasn’t quite there before, especially considering that, relative to all of the films that have come before this, Endgame actually has the least action proportionate to its mammoth running time, or perhaps even the least action of all. This is a film that spends a surprisingly long amount of time dealing with the grief brought about by loss, and a surprisingly little amount of time on the slug-fests that everyone has come to expect from movies like this, and as a result, Silvestri had to step up quite a bit; he couldn't let the action do most of the storytelling, as it did in the first Avengers film and even Infinity War. I'd argue that his score for Endgame, with highs and lows, soaring orchestral moments and even quiet jazz moments, was instrumental (pardon the pun) to keeping audiences accustomed to seeing their heroes in near-constant motion engaged, even through the moments in the three-hour movie (and there were plenty of them) in which they were just sitting around talking. In itself, that was a feat I think should at least capture the Academy's attention.
Of course, the Academy is hardly likely to award a more "conventional" Marvel movie with recognition like this so soon after it showered Black Panther with a brace of awards, including one for music, but one can always hope.
Tuesday, May 14, 2019
FIVE REGRETS I HAVE ABOUT THE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE THANKS TO AVENGERS: ENDGAME (I’D SAY SPOILER WARNING, BUT IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN AVENGERS: ENDGAME AT THIS POINT IT’S NO LONGER MY PROBLEM)
Given that pretty much anyone who would really care to watch Avengers: Endgame has already done so at this point, there’s been a lot of weighing in. Some loved it, some didn’t, and almost everyone is in agreement that whatever else this movie may be, it provides a definitive ENDING to the grand story arc that Marvel Studios has been building up over the last eleven years, since Jon Favreau’s Iron Man first hit theaters way back in 2008. I’ve already spent two blog posts and innumerable social media posts and comments gushing over this movie, so there’s no doubt as to where I stand, but as strange as this may sound, having seen the film three times now, there are a few things about it that make me feel a little differently about a number of films in the 21-film category that led up to the momentous conclusion in Endgame. Some people have argued, and I’d say correctly, that Endgame has retroactively improved a couple of not-so-well-liked Marvel Cinematic Universe movies like Thor: The Dark World and Avengers: Age of Ultron by either revisiting them in a new light or paying off the things they teased. For my part, though, and I’ll understand if this opinion isn’t necessarily popular, the sheer craftsmanship on display in Endgame has actually exposed a number of creative missteps in the MCU that might not necessarily have been noticeable up until this point. So, in ascending order, here they are…
5. CAPTAIN MARVEL’S SEQUENCES SHOW HOW UNDERDEVELOPED SHE IS AS A CHARACTER - Even fans of the latest MCU hero Captain Marvel (and $1.1 billion at the global box office tells us there are quite a few of them) will readily concede that Carol Danvers served little purpose in Avengers: Endgame other than as a deus ex machina, both at the beginning of the film when she saves a stranded Tony Stark and Nebula from dying in space and at the end when she destroys Thanos’ ship in the big battle and trades a few blows with him. To my mind, these were genuinely cool moments, and the film packages them as such, but unfortunately, beyond being glad that Tony was saved and that Thanos’ ship, which at the time was raining gunfire on everyone, was destroyed these moments really did not resonate with me because despite having been introduced to Carol Danvers a month before Endgame, I was not really given a glimpse into what makes her tick as a character. In my review of the film Captain Marvel I said this was down more to bad writing than any flaw in Brie Larson’s acting, but the net result is really still the same. Endgame smartly avoided using Captain Marvel or anyone other than the original six Avengers (apart from Ant-man) too much in the film, because at the end of the day this was their story, but even Captain Marvel’s extremely brief appearances could have had much more weight if only her character had been better realized in her solo film.
4. TONY STARK NEVER GOT TO INTERACT WITH BLACK PANTHER ONSCREEN, LIKE, EVER – This one, for me, is a real head-scratcher for a number of reasons. T’Challa, aka the Black Panther fought at Tony’s side in Captain America: Civil War. Tony and T’Challa have quite a bit in common, being rich, highly-intelligent men in high-tech suits of armor. And yet, for all of that, in the three movies in which their characters appear together, whatever pleasantries Robert Downey, Jr. and Chadwick Boseman may have exchanged in real life, their onscreen characters have never interacted in any scene that made it to the theatrical cut of these movies. T’Challa has had plenty of interaction with other Avengers like War Machine, Black Widow, Bucky (whom he wanted to kill for most of Civil War), Hawkeye, Captain America and even Bruce Banner, but for some reason, neither writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, nor anyone else from Marvel’s brain trust, ever had Tony exchange so much as a word with T’Challa. Bruce Banner’s oh-so-brief exchange with Shuri, which was basically just a put-down, gave viewers a tantalizing glimpse of the sort of back-and-forth that Tony could have had with the Wakandans had he spoken to them onscreen at any point. In the final analysis it doesn’t make Endgame any less of a movie, but given that we’ll never see Tony Stark in a Marvel movie again, or at least, not as played by Robert Downey, Jr., this feels like a heck of a wasted opportunity. It also would have been a great way of passing the torch, considering that Black Panther is arguably going to be the MCU’s flagship character with Cap and Iron Man out of the picture.
3. STEVE REALLY SHOULDN’T HAVE KISSED SHARON CARTER – When Captain America shared a brief, somewhat chaste kiss with Peggy Carter near the climax of Captain America: The First Avenger, it made perfect sense because the entire movie had basically been building up to it. When Captain America kissed Black Widow in Captain America: The Winter Soldier in order to get a HYDRA agent who was looking for them at the time to avert his eyes, the moment seemed the tiniest bit gratuitous, but it also worked within the context of the narrative and we got the MCU’s one and only Cap boner joke in the process. By the time Cap kissed Agent 13 in Captain America: Civil War, she had already outed herself as Peggy Carter’s niece and, if I’m honest, the kiss served no greater purpose in the narrative; they hadn’t really established that Steve had strong feelings for Sharon, and I say this as someone who knows they end up together in the comics. It was almost as if Marvel had put it there to make sure that all three Cap movies showed him kissing a woman (or two, which happened in the first one), if only to assert to all the Reddit users who were shipping Cap and Bucky that Cap was straight. Every time my kids see that moment while watching Civil War on DVD or Cable TV they wince, and now that we know, courtesy of Endgame, that Cap ends up with Peggy, which was really the natural trajectory of his character, the Sharon kiss is all the more cringe-inducing. It’s a pity, really because Captain America’s character arc that runs through all three of his solo movies and the Avengers films is, to my mind, probably the best-realized of all the individual Avengers’ stories, even more than Tony’s story arc which has arguably had more creative missteps along the way (e.g. Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3). As a result, this one kiss, which feels totally superfluous, is a narrative hiccup that really could and should have been avoided.
2. LOKI’S DEATH IN INFINITY WAR SUCKED – As early as last year, when it actually happened, I thought little of the decision to kill Loki off extremely early in the story of Avengers: Infinity War, but I held out hope that he’d get some kind of big moment in Endgame. It was, alas, not to be, and even though Loki appears in not just one but TWO of the past timelines that the Avengers revisit he literally only has one new line of dialogue, in which he mimics Captain America. It’s as if Tom Hiddleston basically just did a walk-on for both Infinity War and Endgame, the latter of which served no other purpose than to tease his upcoming show on Disney’s streaming service. There is something all kinds of absurd about this as Loki is one the most beloved characters in all of the MCU, and while I was not opposed to having him die, I absolutely detested how they did it. When I think of how much screen time an irritating character like Ebony Maw got in not only Infinity War but in Endgame as well it honestly annoys me that the Russos, Markus and McFeely, who did an otherwise astonishing job mapping out this sprawling narrative, couldn’t even find one stinking moment for Loki to really shine.
1. IRON MAN HAS LIVED AND DIED WITHOUT A MEMORABLE THEME (AND NO, I DO NOT CONSIDER EITHER THE BLACK SABBATH SONG OR THE AC/DC NOISE THAT TONY LIKES TO BLARE ON HIS SPEAKERS AS HIS THEME) – Avengers: Endgame is a movie about the MCU’s history, first and foremost, and one of the reasons that Captain America’s story arc is the most resonant of the entire movie is that the Russo brothers cannily plumb the character’s history by having composer Alan Silvestri (who quite frankly deserves an Oscar for his work here) revisit key pieces of music he wrote for Captain America: the First Avenger nearly a decade ago. When Cap spots Peggy in S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters during his 1970 time-jump, the music swells and plays the mournful notes that played in the First Avenger the moment Cap plunged into the ice back in 1945, separating himself from Peggy forever. When Cap lifts Mjolnir and uses it to fight Thanos, his theme plays rapidly and deftly complements the glorious fight that unfolds onscreen. When old Steve hands his shield to Falcon, the Cap theme plays in all its glory and the emotional weight of the moment is captured perfectly. Now, contrast that with Iron Man, who has a lot of quiet, emotional moments in the film that would have precluded blaring some generic, annoying rock song. Silvestri does not neglect Tony Stark; he composes a theme for him that plays in the very beginning of the film, while he is stranded in space, and later again during his funeral. It’s beautiful, emotionally-charged music, but doesn’t have anywhere near the impact of the musical callbacks to Cap’s wartime sacrifice, because there is simply no history to it. All three Iron Man movies had different composers each of whose themes was more generic than the last. In the last few years, Marvel has clearly paid more attention to the importance of having good music underscoring their movies, as evidenced by the hiring of the likes of Oscar-winner Michael Giacchino to do Doctor Strange and Spider-Man: Homecoming and the re-hiring of Alan Silvestri to do Endgame and Infinity War, after the embarrassing hodgepodge of music that Brian Tyler and Danny Elfman composed for Avengers: Age of Ultron. In fact, thanks to Black Panther, Marvel now has the distinction of having the first superhero music score to actually win an Oscar, something not even the fabled John Williams’ Superman theme can claim. All that said, however, they most definitely dropped the ball in terms of giving their flagship character a distinctive musical identity.
To be perfectly clear, none of this changes how I feel about Endgame, both as a standalone film and the culmination of a decade-long narrative journey. It remains, for me, sublime, all of its flaws notwithstanding. Conversely, I do not suggest that the MCU, apart from what I've enumerated here, is otherwise perfect as a piece of narrative. There are many, many other flaws speckled throughout the 11-year, 22 film cinematic juggernaut that would be too numerous to name, but for me, these are the ones that Endgame made somewhat prominent.
As Marvel prepares for their next big push, I do hope they take stock of what they could have done better, so that when the eventual culminating event of this new generation comes along in a decade or so, we can look back on everything that’s come before and just completely enjoy the ride.
Friday, April 26, 2019
(MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT) Eleven Things I LOVED About Avengers: Endgame (MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT)
(SPOILER ALERT)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I'm not a professional film reviewer, and so I don't really have to go by any of their rules or criteria when it comes to reviewing movies, and unlike them I tend to be generous with my ratings with movies that I like. That said, even I know that giving a movie an 11 out of 10 is a bit much, but in the case of Avengers: Endgame, for all of its quirks and flaws, I really could do no differently. I realize I don't really need to explain why I enjoyed this movie as much as I did, as its review aggregate score of rottentomatoes is insanely high and it looks like the entire world is about to embrace it, but I'd like to share just some of the reasons, eleven to be specific, on account of my higher-than-perfect score of 11, for why this movie is the most satisfying movie I have EVER seen, in over three and a half decades of watching movies. So, in ascending order, here they are...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(Again, SPOILER ALERT)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
11. BRAINY HULK - In my review of the film I made prominent mention of the fact that one of the things that really makes this film work is the filmmakers' clear love for the fans, and a sterling example of this is "smart" Hulk, or the result of Bruce Banner basically embracing his big green "other." While casual fans who know Hulk to be stupid will scratch their heads, fans who have invested in these movies, and especially those who have read Peter David's Hulk comics will nod knowingly and gratefully as this iteration of the character, a staple for much of the 1990s, finally makes it to big screen, and for good reason within the context of the story; while smart Hulk never throws so much as a punch in the whole movie, it's his strength that saves the day as he undoes Thanos' snap with one of his own, and gives some serious foreshadowing as to what can happen to anyone without his power levels who tries to use the Infinity Stones.
10. SCHLUBBY THOR - Here, as it was in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the concept of a well-known superhero who's let himself go and picked up a pot belly is played for laughs, and quite effectively at that, but Thor's increased girth, which, to my gratification, doesn't magically go away when he suits up for the big final fight, is quite effective in helping convey his despair and self-loathing following the events of Infinity War. It also makes him even easier to relate to for those of us who don't adhere to next-to-no-carb diets or spend all of our free time at the gym. Finally, it helps him personify the effect of losing one's purpose in life, and it makes his crucial encounter with another character that I'll describe elsewhere on the list even more meaningful.
9. FULL-ON BAD GUY THANOS - I've read quite a few glowing reviews by now, most of which I agree with, but I've noticed that even the most effusive praise has been, to my mind at least, oddly silent about the very reason why this movie is even happening: Josh Brolin's Thanos, the Mad Titan. Sure, there was much talk of him in the reviews for Infinity War given that he was essentially the movie's main character, but nowadays he's pretty much taken a backseat to discussions about how the original six Avengers, and in particular the core two, Iron Man and Captain America, are the heart and soul of this film, which they of course are. The thing is, though, it is an utter pleasure to watch this particular Thanos, who hails from earlier in the MCU timeline, because he is basically unburdened with the sacrifices and losses that his future self, the one who did the nefarious deed in Infinity War, had to endure to achieve his goal. This iteration of Thanos is a full-on villain, a smug, entitled asshole, who intends to snatch the Infinity Stones away from the Avengers, who basically put in all the work of finding them in this movie, unlike his other self who went through a lot more effort and heartache. Both the script and Brolin quite effectively convey that this is a different, more malevolent Thanos we're seeing, one quite different from the weary, grieving Thanos in the last film, and watching his defeat at the end is that much more satisfying for their efforts.
8. PAYOFFS AND CALLBACKS GALORE - To keep this list down to 11 I had to trim a lot of stuff out, but suffice it to say I think it's about right to at least give a category to the numerous callbacks to not only the last movie but a generous selection from the Marvel Cinematic Universe's 21-film catalog. It's not just some "greatest hits" regurgitation but an inventive revisiting of key moments from earlier films. When Captain America, for example, steps into an elevator with a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents whom he knows to be HYDRA agents because of future events which, at that point, haven't even happened yet, I'm certain many people in the audience were expecting a recreation of Cap's iconic elevator slugfest from Captain America: Winter Soldier, but what we got instead was even better as Cap yet again showed the brains that makes him such a fitting leader for the Avengers, and gave us a good laugh in the bargain, all with two simple words: "Hail HYDRA." There are many others, like when Black Panther addresses Clint by name, harking back to their first encounter in Captain America: Civil War, or Cap calling Spider-Man "Queens," or Spider-Man finally getting to use his suit's "instant-kill" setting, and many, many others besides, but Cap in the elevator was what really stood out for me.
7. FATHER AND SON - Since Iron Man's entire saga has hinged largely on his issues with his father, it was only fitting that the time travel story device would give him one more encounter with his dad, and this was really one of the stronger moments of the film, hugely important because it really helps bring Tony's journey to its end as he is finally relieved, in a way, of one of the heaviest burdens he has borne all throughout the Infinity Saga. It's a moment played to subtle perfection by both Downey, Jr. and an amazingly-retouched John Slattery who, along with Michael Douglas (looking like he walked straight out of The Streets of San Francisco) and the late, great Stan Lee showcase just how far de-aging computer generated imagery has come since the awkward airbrushing days of X-Men: The Last Stand. More than fancy graphics, though, what really sells the moment is some very nicely-nuanced writing and some really fantastic acting from both the men playing Starks.
6. MOTHER AND SON - This one came as a bit more of a surprise than the Stark reunion, given that all throughout her character Frigga's life in the Thor franchise, Rene Russo has had relatively little to do. In the first movie, she was little more than Odin's trophy wife, and in the second movie, well, her main purpose in the story was to die, if I'm honest, so I think it was really nice of the Russo brothers to not only give her one last go at the character but to give her easily her most meaningful moment in the whole of the MCU; she gets to be there for Thor when he absolutely needs her the most. Their family dynamic was a sorely neglected one; Thor's had more than enough interaction with his father, step-brother and long-lost sister, and so it was past time he had an emotionally affecting moment with his mother. It was undercut ever so slightly by gags about Thor's girth and his strange new eye, but it still worked quite well. It's fairly high up on the list because if I'm honest, unlike the Stark moment, I wasn't expecting it at all. Rather, I was expecting him to meet up with Natalie Portman's Jane Foster again. This, I think, was a much better idea.
5. AVENGERS ASSEMBLE - This was one of two moments teased by Joss Whedon in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and which the Russos complete with utter pizzazz. The build-up to the moment Cap utters this signature phrase is considerable; the full force of the "undusted" heroes show up just as all is looking lost for Cap and the other stricken Avengers, with yet another callback as Anthony Mackie's Falcon chuckles "On Your Left" into Cap's earpiece, recalling the very first words Cap actually said to Falcon in The Winter Soldier. It would be higher up on the list, but for two reasons: it followed a bit too closely the pattern of Thor's Wakanda entry in Avengers: Infinity War, and the fact that it had only just been preceded by an even more incredible moment which will show up later on this list.
4. WIDOW'S SACRIFICE - Black Widow's death was one of the two deaths of this film about which so many people (including myself) were so certain that when news of her solo movie was finally confirmed, it was a foregone conclusion that the film would be a prequel. The good news is that her death, while foreshadowed quite early in the film, is about as redemptive and noble as an onscreen death can get, and it's interesting how the Russos basically recreate the scene in which Thanos murders Gamora, right down to the music score, in order perhaps to highlight the contrast between Gamora's unwillingness to die for Thanos, and Hawkeye's and Black Widow's determination to sacrifice themselves even if it means fighting each other for that opportunity. Neither of them having a solo film, they're about equal in terms of how developed their characters are, but whereas Hawkeye has a family who needs him, it was established sometime ago that Nat's only family is the Avengers, and it's quite poignant that she gets to make the supreme sacrifice for them here.
3. TONY'S SNAP - This is the moment that's been foreseen by so many people for the last three or four years that it's been discussed in everything from blog posts to youtube videos to memes. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knew Tony Stark was going to die, and judging by the screams of audience members in the movie theater when Thanos stabbed Tony with his own weapon in Avengers: Infinity War some people thought it might happen as early as that film. As heart-wrenching and widely predicted as his death might have been, however, the Russos gave him a note-perfect moment of sacrifice that recalls his willingness to lay down his life for everyone as he did in the very first Avengers movie. By the time he makes his snap that completely annihilates Thanos and his army, he's seen what it's done to Bruce and almost certainly knows what will happen to him, but he knows exactly what he has to do. It is actually a nice touch that he pauses before uttering his iconic "I am Iron Man;" there may be a number of ways to interpret this, like dramatic effect, but my take is that he hesitates for the briefest of moments because he knows he will die, something that feels a lot more difficult now that he has a wife and daughter, something he didn't have to worry about in the first film, and that makes his momentous decision all the more moving. Iron Man is the heart of the MCU, and it is only fitting that he, and no one else, got to deliver the crushing death blow on Thanos and his evil aspirations.
2. CAP RETIRES - It may seem strange that I rank this over Tony's snap but the truth is that it's high on this list because I honestly didn't expect it. At one point, when whispers of time travel in the plot were first circulating online, it occurred to me that maybe Cap could retire with Peggy Carter somehow, but I never thought to call it because I didn't think Marvel would actually do it. I honestly thought that Cap, being a tragic figure, would die along with Black Widow and Iron Man. I was genuinely moved by Cap's brief interaction with the aged Peggy in The Winter Soldier and even more so by her funeral scene in Civil War, which Chris Evans absolutely nailed with some wonderfully understated acting. Looking back this was all now clearly foreshadowing of where the Russos wanted to take Cap, but I just figured it was a way of establishing that he really had nothing left. I was, therefore very pleasantly surprised that they took this route with Cap, and while at least one reviewer I've read finds Cap's decision to be selfish, I'll have to respectfully disagree as I think that, having saved the world more than once, Cap is definitely entitled to his happy ending, and I am glad that Marvel not only gave him one, but made it the film's ending as well. Nice touch.
1. CAP WIELDS MJOLNIR - This is the second moment that Whedon teased in Avengers: Age of Ultron which the Russos paid off handsomely. If Avengers: Endgame ends up grossing a billion dollars over the weekend, I humbly submit that THIS is one of the main reasons it'll happen. It is a visceral, cheer-out-loud moment that happens at exactly the right time, and in exactly the right way. This is the kind of narrative punch that J.J. Abrams was going for without having really earned it when he had Rey force-grab the lightsaber back in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Here, thanks to the Russos, Chris Markus and Stephen McFeely, Joe Johnston and Joss Whedon, Captain America has absolutely earned this moment. No, it's not the climax, and Cap obviously doesn't defeat Thanos with Mjolnir, but for me, this moment was the absolute highlight of the movie, and has officially displaced Thor's arrival in Wakanda as my single favorite moment in cinema history.
There are many, many other things that rang absolutely true with me about this movie, despite the obvious issues with time travel, but these, for me, are the best highlights. This movie is at the top of my list of all-time greats.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
I'm not a professional film reviewer, and so I don't really have to go by any of their rules or criteria when it comes to reviewing movies, and unlike them I tend to be generous with my ratings with movies that I like. That said, even I know that giving a movie an 11 out of 10 is a bit much, but in the case of Avengers: Endgame, for all of its quirks and flaws, I really could do no differently. I realize I don't really need to explain why I enjoyed this movie as much as I did, as its review aggregate score of rottentomatoes is insanely high and it looks like the entire world is about to embrace it, but I'd like to share just some of the reasons, eleven to be specific, on account of my higher-than-perfect score of 11, for why this movie is the most satisfying movie I have EVER seen, in over three and a half decades of watching movies. So, in ascending order, here they are...
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
(Again, SPOILER ALERT)
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
11. BRAINY HULK - In my review of the film I made prominent mention of the fact that one of the things that really makes this film work is the filmmakers' clear love for the fans, and a sterling example of this is "smart" Hulk, or the result of Bruce Banner basically embracing his big green "other." While casual fans who know Hulk to be stupid will scratch their heads, fans who have invested in these movies, and especially those who have read Peter David's Hulk comics will nod knowingly and gratefully as this iteration of the character, a staple for much of the 1990s, finally makes it to big screen, and for good reason within the context of the story; while smart Hulk never throws so much as a punch in the whole movie, it's his strength that saves the day as he undoes Thanos' snap with one of his own, and gives some serious foreshadowing as to what can happen to anyone without his power levels who tries to use the Infinity Stones.
10. SCHLUBBY THOR - Here, as it was in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, the concept of a well-known superhero who's let himself go and picked up a pot belly is played for laughs, and quite effectively at that, but Thor's increased girth, which, to my gratification, doesn't magically go away when he suits up for the big final fight, is quite effective in helping convey his despair and self-loathing following the events of Infinity War. It also makes him even easier to relate to for those of us who don't adhere to next-to-no-carb diets or spend all of our free time at the gym. Finally, it helps him personify the effect of losing one's purpose in life, and it makes his crucial encounter with another character that I'll describe elsewhere on the list even more meaningful.
9. FULL-ON BAD GUY THANOS - I've read quite a few glowing reviews by now, most of which I agree with, but I've noticed that even the most effusive praise has been, to my mind at least, oddly silent about the very reason why this movie is even happening: Josh Brolin's Thanos, the Mad Titan. Sure, there was much talk of him in the reviews for Infinity War given that he was essentially the movie's main character, but nowadays he's pretty much taken a backseat to discussions about how the original six Avengers, and in particular the core two, Iron Man and Captain America, are the heart and soul of this film, which they of course are. The thing is, though, it is an utter pleasure to watch this particular Thanos, who hails from earlier in the MCU timeline, because he is basically unburdened with the sacrifices and losses that his future self, the one who did the nefarious deed in Infinity War, had to endure to achieve his goal. This iteration of Thanos is a full-on villain, a smug, entitled asshole, who intends to snatch the Infinity Stones away from the Avengers, who basically put in all the work of finding them in this movie, unlike his other self who went through a lot more effort and heartache. Both the script and Brolin quite effectively convey that this is a different, more malevolent Thanos we're seeing, one quite different from the weary, grieving Thanos in the last film, and watching his defeat at the end is that much more satisfying for their efforts.
8. PAYOFFS AND CALLBACKS GALORE - To keep this list down to 11 I had to trim a lot of stuff out, but suffice it to say I think it's about right to at least give a category to the numerous callbacks to not only the last movie but a generous selection from the Marvel Cinematic Universe's 21-film catalog. It's not just some "greatest hits" regurgitation but an inventive revisiting of key moments from earlier films. When Captain America, for example, steps into an elevator with a bunch of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents whom he knows to be HYDRA agents because of future events which, at that point, haven't even happened yet, I'm certain many people in the audience were expecting a recreation of Cap's iconic elevator slugfest from Captain America: Winter Soldier, but what we got instead was even better as Cap yet again showed the brains that makes him such a fitting leader for the Avengers, and gave us a good laugh in the bargain, all with two simple words: "Hail HYDRA." There are many others, like when Black Panther addresses Clint by name, harking back to their first encounter in Captain America: Civil War, or Cap calling Spider-Man "Queens," or Spider-Man finally getting to use his suit's "instant-kill" setting, and many, many others besides, but Cap in the elevator was what really stood out for me.
7. FATHER AND SON - Since Iron Man's entire saga has hinged largely on his issues with his father, it was only fitting that the time travel story device would give him one more encounter with his dad, and this was really one of the stronger moments of the film, hugely important because it really helps bring Tony's journey to its end as he is finally relieved, in a way, of one of the heaviest burdens he has borne all throughout the Infinity Saga. It's a moment played to subtle perfection by both Downey, Jr. and an amazingly-retouched John Slattery who, along with Michael Douglas (looking like he walked straight out of The Streets of San Francisco) and the late, great Stan Lee showcase just how far de-aging computer generated imagery has come since the awkward airbrushing days of X-Men: The Last Stand. More than fancy graphics, though, what really sells the moment is some very nicely-nuanced writing and some really fantastic acting from both the men playing Starks.
6. MOTHER AND SON - This one came as a bit more of a surprise than the Stark reunion, given that all throughout her character Frigga's life in the Thor franchise, Rene Russo has had relatively little to do. In the first movie, she was little more than Odin's trophy wife, and in the second movie, well, her main purpose in the story was to die, if I'm honest, so I think it was really nice of the Russo brothers to not only give her one last go at the character but to give her easily her most meaningful moment in the whole of the MCU; she gets to be there for Thor when he absolutely needs her the most. Their family dynamic was a sorely neglected one; Thor's had more than enough interaction with his father, step-brother and long-lost sister, and so it was past time he had an emotionally affecting moment with his mother. It was undercut ever so slightly by gags about Thor's girth and his strange new eye, but it still worked quite well. It's fairly high up on the list because if I'm honest, unlike the Stark moment, I wasn't expecting it at all. Rather, I was expecting him to meet up with Natalie Portman's Jane Foster again. This, I think, was a much better idea.
5. AVENGERS ASSEMBLE - This was one of two moments teased by Joss Whedon in Avengers: Age of Ultron, and which the Russos complete with utter pizzazz. The build-up to the moment Cap utters this signature phrase is considerable; the full force of the "undusted" heroes show up just as all is looking lost for Cap and the other stricken Avengers, with yet another callback as Anthony Mackie's Falcon chuckles "On Your Left" into Cap's earpiece, recalling the very first words Cap actually said to Falcon in The Winter Soldier. It would be higher up on the list, but for two reasons: it followed a bit too closely the pattern of Thor's Wakanda entry in Avengers: Infinity War, and the fact that it had only just been preceded by an even more incredible moment which will show up later on this list.
4. WIDOW'S SACRIFICE - Black Widow's death was one of the two deaths of this film about which so many people (including myself) were so certain that when news of her solo movie was finally confirmed, it was a foregone conclusion that the film would be a prequel. The good news is that her death, while foreshadowed quite early in the film, is about as redemptive and noble as an onscreen death can get, and it's interesting how the Russos basically recreate the scene in which Thanos murders Gamora, right down to the music score, in order perhaps to highlight the contrast between Gamora's unwillingness to die for Thanos, and Hawkeye's and Black Widow's determination to sacrifice themselves even if it means fighting each other for that opportunity. Neither of them having a solo film, they're about equal in terms of how developed their characters are, but whereas Hawkeye has a family who needs him, it was established sometime ago that Nat's only family is the Avengers, and it's quite poignant that she gets to make the supreme sacrifice for them here.
3. TONY'S SNAP - This is the moment that's been foreseen by so many people for the last three or four years that it's been discussed in everything from blog posts to youtube videos to memes. Everyone, and I mean EVERYONE knew Tony Stark was going to die, and judging by the screams of audience members in the movie theater when Thanos stabbed Tony with his own weapon in Avengers: Infinity War some people thought it might happen as early as that film. As heart-wrenching and widely predicted as his death might have been, however, the Russos gave him a note-perfect moment of sacrifice that recalls his willingness to lay down his life for everyone as he did in the very first Avengers movie. By the time he makes his snap that completely annihilates Thanos and his army, he's seen what it's done to Bruce and almost certainly knows what will happen to him, but he knows exactly what he has to do. It is actually a nice touch that he pauses before uttering his iconic "I am Iron Man;" there may be a number of ways to interpret this, like dramatic effect, but my take is that he hesitates for the briefest of moments because he knows he will die, something that feels a lot more difficult now that he has a wife and daughter, something he didn't have to worry about in the first film, and that makes his momentous decision all the more moving. Iron Man is the heart of the MCU, and it is only fitting that he, and no one else, got to deliver the crushing death blow on Thanos and his evil aspirations.
2. CAP RETIRES - It may seem strange that I rank this over Tony's snap but the truth is that it's high on this list because I honestly didn't expect it. At one point, when whispers of time travel in the plot were first circulating online, it occurred to me that maybe Cap could retire with Peggy Carter somehow, but I never thought to call it because I didn't think Marvel would actually do it. I honestly thought that Cap, being a tragic figure, would die along with Black Widow and Iron Man. I was genuinely moved by Cap's brief interaction with the aged Peggy in The Winter Soldier and even more so by her funeral scene in Civil War, which Chris Evans absolutely nailed with some wonderfully understated acting. Looking back this was all now clearly foreshadowing of where the Russos wanted to take Cap, but I just figured it was a way of establishing that he really had nothing left. I was, therefore very pleasantly surprised that they took this route with Cap, and while at least one reviewer I've read finds Cap's decision to be selfish, I'll have to respectfully disagree as I think that, having saved the world more than once, Cap is definitely entitled to his happy ending, and I am glad that Marvel not only gave him one, but made it the film's ending as well. Nice touch.
1. CAP WIELDS MJOLNIR - This is the second moment that Whedon teased in Avengers: Age of Ultron which the Russos paid off handsomely. If Avengers: Endgame ends up grossing a billion dollars over the weekend, I humbly submit that THIS is one of the main reasons it'll happen. It is a visceral, cheer-out-loud moment that happens at exactly the right time, and in exactly the right way. This is the kind of narrative punch that J.J. Abrams was going for without having really earned it when he had Rey force-grab the lightsaber back in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Here, thanks to the Russos, Chris Markus and Stephen McFeely, Joe Johnston and Joss Whedon, Captain America has absolutely earned this moment. No, it's not the climax, and Cap obviously doesn't defeat Thanos with Mjolnir, but for me, this moment was the absolute highlight of the movie, and has officially displaced Thor's arrival in Wakanda as my single favorite moment in cinema history.
There are many, many other things that rang absolutely true with me about this movie, despite the obvious issues with time travel, but these, for me, are the best highlights. This movie is at the top of my list of all-time greats.
Wednesday, April 24, 2019
Culmination: A Review of Avengers: Endgame (SPOILER FREE)
directed by Anthony and Joe Russo
written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
Eleven years and twenty-one films after a fledgling studio took out a half a billion dollar loan and a chance on some of its lesser known characters, audiences all around the world will be treated to the astonishing, utterly satisfying conclusion of what has quite arguably been the most sprawling, extraordinary ongoing cinematic saga of all time. Yes, that sounds like a lot of hyperbole to start off a film review, and were it any other movie but Avengers: Endgame I would almost certainly balk at such language, but this movie just hit all the right buttons for me, every single one.
After the events of Avengers: Infinity War, specifically the snap of the fingers by the Infinity-Stone wielding madman Thanos (Josh Brolin) which has decimated exactly half the population of the universe, the Earth has been left reeling. Although a handful of the original Avengers, Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor/uhm...Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) joined by James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) almost immediately try to put things right, it's not all that simple, and for a while, people have to simply come to terms with what has happened.
Then, five years later, something happens, and for the first time in a long time, the Avengers may just have the chance to save the world. All the Avengers have to do now is bring back Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Clint Barton/Hawkeye, and go someplace they've never gone before.
It's hard to go into detail about why this film rings true to me without flirting with spoilers of one kind or another. This movie is just packed to the gills with treats and surprises for fans that need to be experienced cold, without any expectations. Before I attempt to navigate the challenging territory of the completely spoiler-free review, I can put down to exactly one word the reason why this movie works as well as it does for nearly the entirety of its mammoth three-hour runtime: love. Love is the bedrock on which this film is built, love for this universe and the characters that inhabit it, love for the stories (for better or worse) that have led to this point, and love for the audiences all over the world that have made the Marvel Cinematic Universe the single most lucrative film franchise in history. This movie is not, as one arrogant, anonymous Oscar voter crassly described Infinity War when asked about its chances for winning the Best Visual Effects Oscar earlier this year, a "cash grab," but a loving ode to over a decade of meticulously interwoven narrative and the people who have diligently followed it.
Underlying it all is a solid story full of real affection for these characters, specifically Captain America, Black Widow and of course Iron Man. It was gratifying to see Cap and Widow get much more screen time here than they did in Infinity War, and to see the follow-up on Thor's story that the last film kicked off quite well. This movie belongs very much to the six OG Avengers. Strikingly enough, the big action set pieces work because there's an astonishing amount of character work going on here; the story involves revisiting various points of the MCU's decade-long history, and it's not spoiling anything to say that one MCU actor in particular gets more meaningful dialogue than she's ever had in any prior MCU movie. In short, it's the quieter moments, the moments of conversation between the lead characters and people they care deeply about, that give the final, slambang action sequence real weight and consequence. Of course, none of it would work if the actors playing the scenes didn't bring their "A" game but they did.
It helps, of course, that everyone else who worked on this film, from composer Alan Silvestri, cinematographer Trent Opaloch, editors Jeffrey Ford and Matthew Schmidt, as well as the rest of the cast and crew, especially the army of visual effects artists from no less than four different outfits brought their absolute best to this momentous closing chapter as well.
So forceful is the narrative that the Russos, their writers, their cast and their crew have crafted that even when the inevitable questions about the implications of time travel arise (which the writers try to preemptively dismiss by explaining "time travel doesn't work that way") it's the easiest thing to dismiss them, as it was with classics like the first two Terminator movies or the Back to the Future trilogy (both of which, incidentally, are explicitly mentioned). This movie is just too good a ride to allow us to get bogged down in the details.
Given the scale of the story to be told, it was inevitable that a number of characters would get short shrift, and so as to avoid spoilers, suffice it to say that there was one such character in particular whose reduced participation would have disappointed me had the movie not been the masterpiece that it is.
After being disappointed somewhat by Captain Marvel I was really overjoyed to have my socks blown off by Endgame. I think it's fair to say that, my love for this film notwithstanding, it is NOT for the uninitiated; there are FAR too many references and callbacks to films in the MCU's 21-film catalog for this film to make anything vaguely resembling sense to anyone who has not seen at least the three Avengers movies. For those of us who walked in fully invested, the payoff was everything we could ever have hoped for...and then some.
11/10
written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
Eleven years and twenty-one films after a fledgling studio took out a half a billion dollar loan and a chance on some of its lesser known characters, audiences all around the world will be treated to the astonishing, utterly satisfying conclusion of what has quite arguably been the most sprawling, extraordinary ongoing cinematic saga of all time. Yes, that sounds like a lot of hyperbole to start off a film review, and were it any other movie but Avengers: Endgame I would almost certainly balk at such language, but this movie just hit all the right buttons for me, every single one.
After the events of Avengers: Infinity War, specifically the snap of the fingers by the Infinity-Stone wielding madman Thanos (Josh Brolin) which has decimated exactly half the population of the universe, the Earth has been left reeling. Although a handful of the original Avengers, Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor/uhm...Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) joined by James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), Nebula (Karen Gillan) and Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) almost immediately try to put things right, it's not all that simple, and for a while, people have to simply come to terms with what has happened.
Then, five years later, something happens, and for the first time in a long time, the Avengers may just have the chance to save the world. All the Avengers have to do now is bring back Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Clint Barton/Hawkeye, and go someplace they've never gone before.
It's hard to go into detail about why this film rings true to me without flirting with spoilers of one kind or another. This movie is just packed to the gills with treats and surprises for fans that need to be experienced cold, without any expectations. Before I attempt to navigate the challenging territory of the completely spoiler-free review, I can put down to exactly one word the reason why this movie works as well as it does for nearly the entirety of its mammoth three-hour runtime: love. Love is the bedrock on which this film is built, love for this universe and the characters that inhabit it, love for the stories (for better or worse) that have led to this point, and love for the audiences all over the world that have made the Marvel Cinematic Universe the single most lucrative film franchise in history. This movie is not, as one arrogant, anonymous Oscar voter crassly described Infinity War when asked about its chances for winning the Best Visual Effects Oscar earlier this year, a "cash grab," but a loving ode to over a decade of meticulously interwoven narrative and the people who have diligently followed it.
Underlying it all is a solid story full of real affection for these characters, specifically Captain America, Black Widow and of course Iron Man. It was gratifying to see Cap and Widow get much more screen time here than they did in Infinity War, and to see the follow-up on Thor's story that the last film kicked off quite well. This movie belongs very much to the six OG Avengers. Strikingly enough, the big action set pieces work because there's an astonishing amount of character work going on here; the story involves revisiting various points of the MCU's decade-long history, and it's not spoiling anything to say that one MCU actor in particular gets more meaningful dialogue than she's ever had in any prior MCU movie. In short, it's the quieter moments, the moments of conversation between the lead characters and people they care deeply about, that give the final, slambang action sequence real weight and consequence. Of course, none of it would work if the actors playing the scenes didn't bring their "A" game but they did.
It helps, of course, that everyone else who worked on this film, from composer Alan Silvestri, cinematographer Trent Opaloch, editors Jeffrey Ford and Matthew Schmidt, as well as the rest of the cast and crew, especially the army of visual effects artists from no less than four different outfits brought their absolute best to this momentous closing chapter as well.
So forceful is the narrative that the Russos, their writers, their cast and their crew have crafted that even when the inevitable questions about the implications of time travel arise (which the writers try to preemptively dismiss by explaining "time travel doesn't work that way") it's the easiest thing to dismiss them, as it was with classics like the first two Terminator movies or the Back to the Future trilogy (both of which, incidentally, are explicitly mentioned). This movie is just too good a ride to allow us to get bogged down in the details.
Given the scale of the story to be told, it was inevitable that a number of characters would get short shrift, and so as to avoid spoilers, suffice it to say that there was one such character in particular whose reduced participation would have disappointed me had the movie not been the masterpiece that it is.
After being disappointed somewhat by Captain Marvel I was really overjoyed to have my socks blown off by Endgame. I think it's fair to say that, my love for this film notwithstanding, it is NOT for the uninitiated; there are FAR too many references and callbacks to films in the MCU's 21-film catalog for this film to make anything vaguely resembling sense to anyone who has not seen at least the three Avengers movies. For those of us who walked in fully invested, the payoff was everything we could ever have hoped for...and then some.
11/10
Saturday, April 20, 2019
Undeserved/Underserved: A Tale of Two Captain Marvels
Having been a Marvel fan for over three-fourths of my existence on this Earth, I can admit to sometimes being as loud and obnoxious as some of the worst of them. After all, I've lived long enough to have actually seen on Betmax, some of the earliest Marvel movies, like disastrous Howard the Duck, as well as the direct-to-video debacles that were 1989's Punisher and 1990's Captain America. I'm old enough to have felt agony seeing Batman movie after Batman movie getting made, while Spider-Man languished in development hell. In short, these days, in which we are virtually guaranteed that every year at least two quality movies based on Marvel Comics characters are released, are the days for which I, and many, many others like me have yearned for decades, and I'll be damned if I don't enjoy them while they're here.
In this context, when I learned that movies based on Marvel's Captain Marvel and DC's Shazam (who used to be called Captain Marvel) would be released within a month of each other, as a die-hard Marvel fan, I knew which movie I would be rooting for when they came out. At least, that's what I thought at the time. Personally, I'd wanted to see a movie featuring Carol Danvers some time ago.
Flash forward to a few years later and I find myself scratching my head, having seen both Captain Marvel and Shazam and having enjoyed the latter much more than the former. I suppose it was bound to happen; having been consistently enamored of Marvel movies for the last few years, it was inevitable that one of their films would fail to click with me. Conversely, given that Warner Brothers and DC have been aggressively retooling their approach to adapting their properties in the wake of the failure of Zack Snyder's ultra-dark approach to set the box office on fire, there was a fair chance that I would like the light-hearted Shazam.
Looking past what I thought of the two movies, though, there was something I observed about their respective performances at the box office that got me thinking: How did Captain Marvel, with its lukewarm reviews (78% on rottentomatoes.com, with an average score of 6.77/10), and its alleged army of haters, manage to gross over a billion dollars at the global box office, while Shazam, with its glowing reviews (90% on RT, average score of 7.3/10) and the love of "everyone" will be lucky to finish with even half of that? The answer I came up with is hardly scientific, but I wouldn't be surprised if data bore it out, and it's that Captain Marvel has tapped into an audience that has been starved for movies in the last ten years of the current cinematic superhero hegemony.
Since 2011, there have been an average of three or four comic-book based movies in a year, most of them based on characters from Marvel Comics. Spider-man has gone from being stuck in development hell to having eight movies in the last eighteen years. My cup ran over quite some time ago, if I'm honest, and the Marvel geek from the 80s who wept in frustration has been satisfied many times over. With all these movies, however, it was inevitable that a pattern emerged; their lead characters were almost exclusively white and male.
This wasn't an issue when these movies first started breaking out and we fans were just overjoyed to see them, but with each box office hit that came and went there was a part of me that wondered when we'd start to see prominent Avengers characters like Black Panther, the Wasp and Captain Marvel, to name a few. That was just me as a casual fan; I wasn't one of the black Marvel fans who wondered where Black Panther was, or the female fans who wondered where Captain Marvel was.
As it turns out, there were quite a few people who wanted to see the beloved Marvel brand do a black superhero, as Black Panther proved to the tune of 1.3 billion dollars at the global box office last year. One might argue that it was the quality of that film, that garnered critical acclaim and three Oscars, which put fannies in the seats, but then one now has to add Captain Marvel to that conversation, a movie that nobody is tipping for Oscar glory and which has conclusively debunked the years-old myth pushed by bitter DC fans that film critics are on Disney's payroll, given that the reviews have been lukewarm at best. Whatever I may have thought of Black Panther and Captain Marvel (loved the former, didn't much care for the latter), what mattered was that they served audiences that had been neglected for years, in the same way that the first Spider-man movie did for Spidey fans back in 2002. I reckon that the people who have propelled Captain Marvel to over a billion dollars in global grosses are audiences starved for content, the ones who made Jennifer Lawrence's (mostly mediocre) Hunger Games movies a nearly Three Billion Dollar global box office phenomenon, and who powered Wonder Woman to $821 million in 2017. My pet theory is that Captain Marvel's success is only vaguely related to its quality, as subjective as that may be. I can think of at least three, possibly five movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that are quite arguably better than Captain Marvel when measured up by objective criteria like story cohesiveness, but which grossed far less than its 1 billion global take. None of these movies, however, were any sort of significant departure from MCU's usual fare.
Viewed from that lens, Shazam doesn't have much to set it apart from the plethora of superhero movies we've had in the last decade or so, with its Caucasian protagonist, cookie-cutter villain and fairly standard storytelling, right down to the generic CGI. Sure, it's entertaining, but the stakes aren't particularly high, and it isn't anything that hasn't already been done before; the die-hards and a few casuals have come out in force (it'll probably manage half a billion when all is said and done) but that's about it.
Superhero fatigue isn't quite a thing yet, but given enough repetition, people are more likely to see something they haven't seen yet than something that they have. Consider that, as good as last year's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was, audiences almost gave it a pass until they realized that it wasn't just another Spider-Man movie.
Whatever I or anyone else may think, therefore, about the quality of Captain Marvel, it remains an important movie because it underscores just how potent underserved audiences can be. In fact, if it can actually be argued that the movie is objectively mediocre, it becomes even more important as a cultural touchstone of sorts because it shows that this particular audience segment is so starved for strong female lead characters that they'll embrace any movie that features them, even mediocre ones, or for that matter, terrible ones (coughcoughAlitaBattleAngelcoughcough). They deserve characters like Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs or Ellen Ripley from Aliens or even Mattie Ross from the 2010 remake of True Grit, and given that superhero movies are basically the most commonly-consumed cinematic staple today, audiences should be able to find their capable female/person of color hero in these movies. Notably, though, the Hunger Games movies demonstrated diminishing returns as did the new Star Wars films, and it's not too much to speculate that future Marvel movies that just coast on their brand name will be similarly afflicted.
While it is just about set in stone that we'll get sequels to Black Panther and Captain Marvel, I sincerely hope Marvel took notes from the legitimate complaints that were raised about both movies (e.g. bad CGI in Black Panther, bad writing in Captain Marvel) and come up with sequels that can stand among their best work like Captain America: The Winter Soldier or the first Avengers movie. Also, given that Marvel's next avowed goal is to bring LGBTQ+ characters into the spotlight with The Eternals, they might want to consider focusing on crafting a strong story before highlighting the sexual orientation/gender/race of any given character. That way, they won't have to ride off the massive reservoir of audience goodwill they've accumulated over the last decade, and will be able to keep the hits coming for decades to come.
In this context, when I learned that movies based on Marvel's Captain Marvel and DC's Shazam (who used to be called Captain Marvel) would be released within a month of each other, as a die-hard Marvel fan, I knew which movie I would be rooting for when they came out. At least, that's what I thought at the time. Personally, I'd wanted to see a movie featuring Carol Danvers some time ago.
Flash forward to a few years later and I find myself scratching my head, having seen both Captain Marvel and Shazam and having enjoyed the latter much more than the former. I suppose it was bound to happen; having been consistently enamored of Marvel movies for the last few years, it was inevitable that one of their films would fail to click with me. Conversely, given that Warner Brothers and DC have been aggressively retooling their approach to adapting their properties in the wake of the failure of Zack Snyder's ultra-dark approach to set the box office on fire, there was a fair chance that I would like the light-hearted Shazam.
Looking past what I thought of the two movies, though, there was something I observed about their respective performances at the box office that got me thinking: How did Captain Marvel, with its lukewarm reviews (78% on rottentomatoes.com, with an average score of 6.77/10), and its alleged army of haters, manage to gross over a billion dollars at the global box office, while Shazam, with its glowing reviews (90% on RT, average score of 7.3/10) and the love of "everyone" will be lucky to finish with even half of that? The answer I came up with is hardly scientific, but I wouldn't be surprised if data bore it out, and it's that Captain Marvel has tapped into an audience that has been starved for movies in the last ten years of the current cinematic superhero hegemony.
Since 2011, there have been an average of three or four comic-book based movies in a year, most of them based on characters from Marvel Comics. Spider-man has gone from being stuck in development hell to having eight movies in the last eighteen years. My cup ran over quite some time ago, if I'm honest, and the Marvel geek from the 80s who wept in frustration has been satisfied many times over. With all these movies, however, it was inevitable that a pattern emerged; their lead characters were almost exclusively white and male.
This wasn't an issue when these movies first started breaking out and we fans were just overjoyed to see them, but with each box office hit that came and went there was a part of me that wondered when we'd start to see prominent Avengers characters like Black Panther, the Wasp and Captain Marvel, to name a few. That was just me as a casual fan; I wasn't one of the black Marvel fans who wondered where Black Panther was, or the female fans who wondered where Captain Marvel was.
As it turns out, there were quite a few people who wanted to see the beloved Marvel brand do a black superhero, as Black Panther proved to the tune of 1.3 billion dollars at the global box office last year. One might argue that it was the quality of that film, that garnered critical acclaim and three Oscars, which put fannies in the seats, but then one now has to add Captain Marvel to that conversation, a movie that nobody is tipping for Oscar glory and which has conclusively debunked the years-old myth pushed by bitter DC fans that film critics are on Disney's payroll, given that the reviews have been lukewarm at best. Whatever I may have thought of Black Panther and Captain Marvel (loved the former, didn't much care for the latter), what mattered was that they served audiences that had been neglected for years, in the same way that the first Spider-man movie did for Spidey fans back in 2002. I reckon that the people who have propelled Captain Marvel to over a billion dollars in global grosses are audiences starved for content, the ones who made Jennifer Lawrence's (mostly mediocre) Hunger Games movies a nearly Three Billion Dollar global box office phenomenon, and who powered Wonder Woman to $821 million in 2017. My pet theory is that Captain Marvel's success is only vaguely related to its quality, as subjective as that may be. I can think of at least three, possibly five movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe that are quite arguably better than Captain Marvel when measured up by objective criteria like story cohesiveness, but which grossed far less than its 1 billion global take. None of these movies, however, were any sort of significant departure from MCU's usual fare.
Viewed from that lens, Shazam doesn't have much to set it apart from the plethora of superhero movies we've had in the last decade or so, with its Caucasian protagonist, cookie-cutter villain and fairly standard storytelling, right down to the generic CGI. Sure, it's entertaining, but the stakes aren't particularly high, and it isn't anything that hasn't already been done before; the die-hards and a few casuals have come out in force (it'll probably manage half a billion when all is said and done) but that's about it.
Superhero fatigue isn't quite a thing yet, but given enough repetition, people are more likely to see something they haven't seen yet than something that they have. Consider that, as good as last year's Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse was, audiences almost gave it a pass until they realized that it wasn't just another Spider-Man movie.
Whatever I or anyone else may think, therefore, about the quality of Captain Marvel, it remains an important movie because it underscores just how potent underserved audiences can be. In fact, if it can actually be argued that the movie is objectively mediocre, it becomes even more important as a cultural touchstone of sorts because it shows that this particular audience segment is so starved for strong female lead characters that they'll embrace any movie that features them, even mediocre ones, or for that matter, terrible ones (coughcoughAlitaBattleAngelcoughcough). They deserve characters like Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs or Ellen Ripley from Aliens or even Mattie Ross from the 2010 remake of True Grit, and given that superhero movies are basically the most commonly-consumed cinematic staple today, audiences should be able to find their capable female/person of color hero in these movies. Notably, though, the Hunger Games movies demonstrated diminishing returns as did the new Star Wars films, and it's not too much to speculate that future Marvel movies that just coast on their brand name will be similarly afflicted.
While it is just about set in stone that we'll get sequels to Black Panther and Captain Marvel, I sincerely hope Marvel took notes from the legitimate complaints that were raised about both movies (e.g. bad CGI in Black Panther, bad writing in Captain Marvel) and come up with sequels that can stand among their best work like Captain America: The Winter Soldier or the first Avengers movie. Also, given that Marvel's next avowed goal is to bring LGBTQ+ characters into the spotlight with The Eternals, they might want to consider focusing on crafting a strong story before highlighting the sexual orientation/gender/race of any given character. That way, they won't have to ride off the massive reservoir of audience goodwill they've accumulated over the last decade, and will be able to keep the hits coming for decades to come.
Tuesday, April 16, 2019
A Bit Infirm: A Review of Five Feet Apart
directed by Justin Baldoni
written by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis
When The Fault in Our Stars, a teen romance film about cancer patients, made a mint at the box-office some years ago, I suppose it was inevitable that someone else would dip into the well of life-threatening-illness-as-a-backdrop-for-romance before very long, and sure enough, five years later, we now have Five Feet Apart, a movie that swaps out Cystic Fibrosis for cancer, replaces one gangly towering matinee idol (Ansel Elgort) with another (Cole Sprouse), and finally replaces one up-and-coming ingenue (Shailene Woodley) with another (Haley Lu Richardson).
Five Feet Apart is the story of cystic fibrosis patients Stella Grant (Richardson) and Will Newman (Sprouse), who meet while receiving treatment at St. Grace's Hospital. Stella, who follows her treatment regimen religiously, has, by her own admission, control issues, and when she sees Will being somewhat lackadaisical about his own treatment it triggers her. After a lot of banter and semi-hostile exchanges, Stella convinces Will, who is suffering from a much rarer strain of CF that makes him ineligible for a lung transplant (unlike Stella) and requires experimental treatment, to take his regimen more seriously and to take his meds at the same time she takes hers. Inevitably, as they get to know one another, they fall for one another, but because CF patients cannot come within six feet of each other, a rule constantly enforced by the nurse in charge Barbara (Kimberly Gregory), they cannot so much as touch one another. Having lost much in her life, Stella, frustrated by these setbacks decides to rebel in her own little way: she declares that instead of staying six feet apart at all times they are near each other, Will and she will, instead, stay five feet apart, hence the movie's title.
It had been a while since I'd seen a young adult romance film prior to this; the last one I saw, coincidentally, also had a distance-themed title ("The Space Between Us") and fortunately, while this was was, like that film, similarly riddled with narrative tropes dating back to the 80s and probably even before then, it manages to be slightly more coherent as narrative.
As with most movies like this, the film stands or falls on the chemistry of its lead actors, and while their leaden dialogue is weighed down by the obvious prime directive of the plot (i.e. they have to fall in love) Richardson (vaguely resembling Keira Knightley in her youth) and Sprouse manage to strike up a fair bit of sparks in a few scenes. There is something off, though, about how glamorously healthy their faces look considering that their characters are both supposed to be quite ill.
Anyway, for all the cliches the filmmakers indulged in throughout this film, some of which made the movie quite predictable, it was gracious enough to eschew some of the more egregious tropes in movies about grave illness. I don't enthusiastically recommend the movie, but fans of this genre might find something to like here.
6/10
written by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis
When The Fault in Our Stars, a teen romance film about cancer patients, made a mint at the box-office some years ago, I suppose it was inevitable that someone else would dip into the well of life-threatening-illness-as-a-backdrop-for-romance before very long, and sure enough, five years later, we now have Five Feet Apart, a movie that swaps out Cystic Fibrosis for cancer, replaces one gangly towering matinee idol (Ansel Elgort) with another (Cole Sprouse), and finally replaces one up-and-coming ingenue (Shailene Woodley) with another (Haley Lu Richardson).
Five Feet Apart is the story of cystic fibrosis patients Stella Grant (Richardson) and Will Newman (Sprouse), who meet while receiving treatment at St. Grace's Hospital. Stella, who follows her treatment regimen religiously, has, by her own admission, control issues, and when she sees Will being somewhat lackadaisical about his own treatment it triggers her. After a lot of banter and semi-hostile exchanges, Stella convinces Will, who is suffering from a much rarer strain of CF that makes him ineligible for a lung transplant (unlike Stella) and requires experimental treatment, to take his regimen more seriously and to take his meds at the same time she takes hers. Inevitably, as they get to know one another, they fall for one another, but because CF patients cannot come within six feet of each other, a rule constantly enforced by the nurse in charge Barbara (Kimberly Gregory), they cannot so much as touch one another. Having lost much in her life, Stella, frustrated by these setbacks decides to rebel in her own little way: she declares that instead of staying six feet apart at all times they are near each other, Will and she will, instead, stay five feet apart, hence the movie's title.
It had been a while since I'd seen a young adult romance film prior to this; the last one I saw, coincidentally, also had a distance-themed title ("The Space Between Us") and fortunately, while this was was, like that film, similarly riddled with narrative tropes dating back to the 80s and probably even before then, it manages to be slightly more coherent as narrative.
As with most movies like this, the film stands or falls on the chemistry of its lead actors, and while their leaden dialogue is weighed down by the obvious prime directive of the plot (i.e. they have to fall in love) Richardson (vaguely resembling Keira Knightley in her youth) and Sprouse manage to strike up a fair bit of sparks in a few scenes. There is something off, though, about how glamorously healthy their faces look considering that their characters are both supposed to be quite ill.
Anyway, for all the cliches the filmmakers indulged in throughout this film, some of which made the movie quite predictable, it was gracious enough to eschew some of the more egregious tropes in movies about grave illness. I don't enthusiastically recommend the movie, but fans of this genre might find something to like here.
6/10
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)