The Film that Marvel Studios Needs to Make

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Quo Vadis, Guardians? A Spoiler-Heavy Discussion of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

WARNING: HEAVY SPOILERS FOR GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VOL. 3

When James Gunn started hyping up Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, which is his third Guardians movie and his last work for Marvel Studios for the foreseeable future as he now heads off to run DC Studios, he promised an ending for the franchise, and he delivered one.  Nobody died a la Vision, Natasha Romanoff or Tony Stark, but just about every key character arc of each of the individual team members was quite neatly and definitely concluded. As trilogy cappers go, it was reminiscent of some pretty satisfying third installments from different franchises, like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade or The Bourne Ultimatum.  I specifically mention those two movies because the very good work they did in wrapping up their respective trilogies was unceremoniously undone by ill-advised follow-ups which left both critics and audiences cold.  With so many of their Phase Four releases floundering and with Phase Five having gotten off to a very wobbly start with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Marvel might be tempted to lean on a property that, with its box office success, seems to have  thrown a lifeline to a mega-franchise that has lost its way.  Bitter experience, however, has shown that this might not be a very good idea.  Still, money is money and it's virtually inevitable that someone, somewhere down the line, will want to greenlight another Guardians of the Galaxy movie. 

When that day comes I sincerely hope that Marvel is able to answer, among themselves, the following questions, or something like them:

1.  How do they address Adam Warlock's god-like powers?

Much ado was made about the casting of one-time child actor Will Poulter as the iconic Marvel character Adam Warlock, whose appearance in this film was teased in one of several post-credit scenes in the second Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  To be fair, Marvel made good on their promise, but the problem is that they've created a character so powerful that he had to be removed from the story for prolonged chunks of time, kind of like Captain Marvel in Avengers: Endgame.  The guy is basically indestructible, and even though this aspect of his character is played for laughs, it obviously posed a few story problems, and since Warlock ends the story as one of the good guys, Marvel are now faced with the problem that would have confronted the Captain Marvel film franchise if it weren't overshadowed by what a PR nightmare Brie Larson proved to be.  It's the Superman conundrum.

The only way to pose a threat to Warlock is to confront him with a bad guy who is tougher than he is, or who can negate his power advantage somehow, and while it shouldn't be that hard to find a character that fits that description in Marvel's 5,000+ catalog of characters, this still highlights why it's important to have characters with defined vulnerabilities, because it makes the hero's journey all the more compelling. Marvel has to figure out how to handle this in a way that doesn't make their hypothetical sequel into a pissing contest about who's more powerful.  Also, I hope they don't nerf him because that kind of sucks too. Remember how Bucky was virtually invincible as the Winter Soldier but was conspicuously less formidable in Falcon and the Winter Soldier against he likes of John Walker? Marvel should avoid that. 

2.  With the group broken up, will any of the original actors come back for any follow-ups?

It made perfect sense to leave the Guardians deep in space, far removed from the problems of the more Earth-bound Marvel heroes like Captain America or Spider-Man and to therefore insulate them from any potential overlap. So many post-Avengers solo Marvel movies where the hero faced problems on their own suffered from the awkward question "but where are the Avengers?"  With the exception of Peter Quill, whose return in at least one more movie has been explicitly announced after the final post-credits scene, there is no need for any of the other characters to return as they can solve problems in their corner of the galaxy. 

If they did revisit that corner, though, would they be able to get any of the original cast members back? Most of the actors involved have declared that they're done with their characters. It quite honestly wouldn't be the same recasting them as a key part of the chemistry between these characters was the actors' performances.  Sure, they've brought in a bunch of new faces, but none of them have any defined personality or interactive chemistry yet, so they'll probably need familiar faces (or voices, in the case of Groot and Rocket) to anchor future stories, which means they'll either need to bring back some of the originals or (gasp) recast. On a related note...

3.   Will they ever transition to new leadership for the team?

Of the new characters who comprise the Guardians during the first post-credits scene, the only one who's had any meaningful screen time is Adam Warlock, but it might be a little challenging to have him anchor the series moving forward, not just because he's hyper-powerful but because he is basically an infant in a hyper-powered adult's body.  He's actually no different from Kai Zen's Phyla, the white-haired kid who has joined the team in the post-credits scene.  Someone's got to be the adult from among the new members.  

More importantly, though, and let's be honest here, from a commercial perspective one would need someone charismatic to anchor a huge franchise moving forward, someone like Robert Downey, Jr. or Chris Pratt, and right now they don't have that from any of the actors playing the new characters. 

4.   Is Marvel ready to plumb the depths of its cosmic corner?

While the first Avengers movie featured a full-on alien invasion, it wasn't until the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie that conversations about the cosmic portion the Marvel Universe, i.e. the whole chunk of Marvel's stories set in deep space, could begin in earnest. It introduced key characters like the Kree, the Nova Corps, and, of course Thanos, and laid the foundations for Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.  The only other film so far that has dared wade into that corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been Captain Marvel, but despite the literal billions that the Guardians movies and Captain Marvel have collectively made at the global box office, Marvel doesn't seem all that keen on exploring that part of its universe.

It's notable that, ten full years after the first Guardians movie, Marvel has yet to introduce major space-based characters like Nova or the original Quasar (though Phyla is one of the latter Quasars).  My hot take is if they do go back, they should be ready to introduce these new spacefaring characters and get serious about their deep-space worldbuilding.  

5.   Exactly what kind of adventures can Star-Lord have without the Guardians?

The irony of this question is that Star-Lord was conceived as a solo character by Steve Englehart and Steve Gan in 1976, so it theoretically shouldn't be hard to tell solo stories with him. In reality, though, he only really shot to prominence when he assumed leadership of the Guardians of the Galaxy...and that was in the comics. In the movies, his whole identity is tied into how he interacts with the other Guardians...in space.  With him on Earth and away from his crew/family, Marvel will either have to write Quill very differently or find another ensemble for him to play off of in this planned solo film or film series. The problem with the latter solution is that any such team will no doubt feel like Guardians-lite.  

The good news for Marvel is that Chris Pratt has proven to be a box-office draw outside of the MCU so he could probably sell whatever movie it is they're going to cook up. But it just seems to me that they've created a bit of a problem for themselves here. Only time will tell if they made the right call.

If Bob Iger is to be believed, Marvel probably won't be revisiting this property for a while, which is probably a good thing given the state of the the MCU brain trust right now, and given that the man responsible for this particular corner of the MCU has left the building, but to my mind, it's inevitable that they'll look in this direction every now and again, so I hope they consider points like the ones I raised above before they greenlight anything.  

A Loving Send-Off: A Review of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

 written and directed by James Gunn

After a series of movies over the last couple of years that ranged in quality from decent (Shang-Chi) to creative misfire (Eternals) to complete and utter clusterf**k (Thor: Love and Thunder) Marvel Studios has finally managed to rediscover the mojo that made its movies both critical and commercial successes for the better part of a decade. With Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3, Marvel brings to a close at least one iteration of one of its  most remarkable individual franchises, built entirely off D-list characters, and as sendoffs go, they do not get much better than this.

The Guardians of the Galaxy, namely Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Nebula (Karen Gillan), Drax (Dave Bautista), Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and Groot (Vin Diesel),  are pretty much settled in at their new headquarters of Knowhere, when they are attacked by the extremely powerful Adam Warlock (Will Poulter) the champion of the race of golden people known as the Sovereign, headed by Ayesha (Elizabeth Debicki) of whom they ran afoul in the last movie.  Warlock attacks for a different reason, though: to capture Rocket.

The Guardians are able to repel the attack, but not without cost; Rocket has suffered grave injuries, and when Peter and Mantis attempt to treat him, they discover that he actually has a kill switch built into him.  The Guardians realize they need to track down the person responsible for putting the kill switch into Rocket in order to turn it off, and that puts them on the path to the ruthless, evil and powerful scientist known as the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwudi), the man who took Rocket when he was a hapless, helpless raccoon, along with several other animals and cut them up and subjected them to unspeakable cruelty to achieve his goal of a perfect society. He's also the very person who dispatched Warlock to get him in the first place, as he covets Rocket's highly-developed brain.  It's a tough challenge up ahead, even with the help of alt-Gamora (Zoe Saldana), who comes from a different timeline from the Gamora the Guardians knew, and whom Peter loved.  Will the Guardians be able to save their friend before it's too late?

Back in the first movie, when Peter Quill got thrown into space jail along with his future teammates Rocket and Groot, James Gunn teased a glimpse of what Rocket had been through by showing metal bits sticking out of his furry back. Later in that same movie, Rocket hinted at his horrific past by mentioning that he was taken apart "over and over." In part two Rocket had a bit of a heart-to-heart with Yondu (Michael Rooker) about his attitude towards family. In short, it's fairly clear that Rocket's story is one that James Gunn has been waiting to tell for a long time, and with this film, he finally gets to do exactly that.  As his friends rush to save him, Rocket, on the brink of death, finds himself remembering his painful origins, when he was trapped in a lab with other animals whom the High Evolutionary had also mutilated in his endless experiments. He befriends three animals, an otter named Lylla (Linda Cardellini), a walrus named Teefs (Asim Chaudhry) and a rabbit named Floor (Mikaela Hoover), and their hushed exchanges of dialogue are some of the richest character moments of the entire trilogy of films, as brief as they are.  Marvel has gained quite a bit of infamy for their shoddy treatment of visual effects artists of late, and this has tended to show in their movies, but in this film the animators behind Rocket and his furry friends are very clearly at the top of their game, bringing these cute and at the same time horrifically disfigured animals to life just as surely as their skilled vocal performers do. 

While Rocket's story is clearly the core of this movie, Gunn does not, by any stretch, neglect the rest of the cast of characters, and even though it takes an extra bit of runtime, it's worth pointing out that every major cast member, from Quill to Mantis to Drax to Sean Gunn's Kraglin, gets their moment to shine. Quill may have taken a back seat to Rocket this time, but Chris Pratt still gets to flash that winning charm and swagger that catapulted him to Hollywood's A-list. As expected from these films, there's a hefty dose of humor, and not all of the jokes hit, but this film's heart and the sincerity of its characters more than makes up for a few gags that fall flat.  It also helps that Gunn really does know how to shoot his action sequences, which is exemplified by a real showstopper of a battle at the film's climax.  If I were to have any nitpicks, it would be that the series' previous composer Tyler Bates wasn't brought back to end the trilogy, having been replaced by John Murphy, who references the theme, but who doesn't really contribute anything meaningful to the soundtrack, and whose work is largely overshadowed by the overstuffed catalog of music from Gunn's favorite playlist of old songs. In particular, though, I liked the use of Radiohead's "Creep."

With its emphasis on character-driven storytelling and its heartfelt moments, this truly feels like the kind of film that's been missing from Marvel's catalog of late, and I, for one, am really grateful that they delivered on this. 

Farewell, Guardians of the Galaxy, and thanks for the awesome ride. 

9/10

Cotton Candy for Gen-Xers and Their Kids: A Review of the Super Mario Brothers Movie

 directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelenic

written by Matthew Fogel

As a direct result of the disastrous 1993 live-action adaptation of the Super Mario Brothers game, it would be nearly thirty years before Nintendo ever let Hollywood near any of its properties, let alone the jewel in its crown.  That has finally changed with the release of The Super Mario Brothers, a new animated film produced by the money-printing juggernaut that is Illumination Studios.

Mario (Chris Pratt) and Luigi (Charlie Day) are Brooklyn-based plumbers who have just quit their jobs with Spike (Sebastian Maniscalco) much to the disapproval of their father Giuseppe (Charles Martinent) and the derision of other family members. When their first gig as self-employed plumbers goes awry, Mario is downcast, but when he sees a plumbing crisis on the news, he rushes Luigi there in the hopes of fixing it and boosting their business, only to find themselves sucked into a mysterious portal down in the sewers all the way to a whole new world, a magical but terrifying world in which the evil King of the Koopas, Bowser (Jack Black) wishes to marry Princess Peach (Anya Taylor-Joy) of the Mushroom Kingdom and is willing to destroy her kingdom and a whole bunch of others in the world if she doesn't consent.  Mario and Luigi are separated on the way here, with Mario ending up in the Mushroom Kingdom and Luigi ending up Bowser's territory. Mario asks for help from Peach, who in turn needs to enlist the Kong army if she hopes to defeat Bowser.

The movie is very much a love letter to the wildly popular video game series that started back in the 1980s, with references galore to them, so many that even I, who have barely played the games, got more than one reference. It's also, with its bright colors, broad humor and fast-paced (90 minutes) storytelling that really doesn't stand up to any measure of scrutiny, the perfect example of Illumination's tried-and-tested kid-bait.  It's a fun movie that sets very simple goals for itself and accomplishes them with a little bit of flourish but really, nothing more than that. Chris Pratt and Charlie Day are well cast as the title characters, and even though the script gives them next to nothing to work with they really give it their best. The same can be said for supporting players like Jack Black, Anya-Taylor Joy, Keegan Michael Key who plays Toad and Seth Rogen who plays Donkey Kong. To be fair, nobody is phoning it in here, but with a script as devoid of any substance as this, how could they have screwed it up?

While this was a fun movie in its own right, people really shouldn't wonder why critics and awards giving bodies continue to keep animation as a medium of cinematic storytelling stuck in a ghetto  considering how Illumination studios has dominated the box office in the post-pandemic era with stories like this which barely even bother with basic things like character development or even a meaningful story.  I mean, this is a studio that built its fortune on tiny people who speak gibberish so I guess this is the most we can expect from them.  

People cheering for the success of this movie and the box-office failure of outfits like Disney may not realize it but when the market is later flooded with brain-dead video game adaptations, they may come to miss the kind of movies that Pixar or even Dreamworks used to offer like Inside Out or How to Train Your Dragon.  Granted, Disney has only itself to blame for losing its way recently, but really, audiences should demand better than this. 

By now, the film has made over a billion dollars at the global box-office so we should really expect more of the same of this in three years or so and another two or three years after that...at least until the audience gets tired of consuming what is essentially the equivalent of cinematic cotton candy. 

7/10

 

Falling Into Place: A Review of Tetris

 directed by Jon S. Baird

written by Noah Pink

Right about now, people around the world are going bananas over the latest big-screen adaptation of Nintendo's "Super Mario Brothers" game.  Perhaps lesser-known, however, is another story involving a different game that Nintendo made famous on its first-ever handheld platform, the Gameboy, namely Tetris.  

The film Tetris isn't about anthropomorphic blocks seeking their purpose in life. Rather, it's about how struggling Dutch-American businessman Henk Rogers (played in the film by Taron Egerton) upon learning of the existence of this obscure but utterly addictive game went all the way to Soviet Russia to secure the rights to publish and distribute the game, roping in no less than video game giant Nintendo in his scheme. In his quest to secure the rights, he deals with Russian bureaucrats Trifonov (Oleg Shtefanko) and Belikov (Igor Grabuzov) and their goons, a corrupt English magnate Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) and his irritating son Kevin (Anthony Boyle) as well as an underhanded wheeler-dealer Robert Stein (Toby Jones).  Not only that, but the creator of the game Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) wants nothing to do with him. 

So certain is Henk of the mass appeal of Tetris that he has literally bet his home on it, taking out a lone with his Tokyo apartment as collateral, much to the consternation of his wife (Ayane Nagabuchi).  His dealings behind the iron curtain hit quite a few setbacks, and Henk gets threatened, beaten up and given the run-around so many times that it's kind of a wonder that the heads of Nintendo in America (Ken Yamamura and Ben Miles) even want to deal with him.  Will he prevail?

I often enjoy movies based on true stories, even those that take considerable liberties with historical events. This film is overtly light-hearted and comedic in its general tone, but at the same time the undercurrent of menace remains ever present, as well as the tension that accompanies Rogers' race to secure the rights before Maxwell and Stein. It's a given that there was a lot of embellishment here, but winning performances by Egerton and Efremov as Rogers and Pajitnov basically sell the story, even when Shtefanko's corrupt Trifonov threatens to derail the fun with his cartoonish villainy. Heck, even the bad guys, most of whom are fictional (except the Maxwell father-and-son duo) are fun to watch, with Allam (and his massive prosthetics), Boyle and Jones providing some excellent antagonists whose faces you really would want to punch. 

One challenge to enjoying films based a true story, especially a success story, is suspending disbelief considering that I already know how things turn out, but this movie still managed to engage me for its relatively short running time. About the only thing that had me rolling my eyes towards  the end was an entirely fictional car chase to the airport that looked like it had been ripped straight out of Argo, but set as it was to a Russian-language cover of the Bonnie Tyler hit "Holding Out for a Hero" and stylized with pixellated 80s graphics, it still managed to entertain.    

I'd be shocked if this were up for any serious awards about a year from now, but it was a genuinely fun watch. 

7.5/10

2023's Biggest Surprise (So Far): A Review of Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

 directed by Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley

written by Goldstein, Daley, Michael Gilio, and Chris McKay

Twenty-three years after the first-ever film adaptation of the beloved Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game opened to terrible reviews and dismal box office, Paramount Pictures is now unleashing an all-new, big budget adaptation with a new cast of characters, a lively script packed with Easter Eggs, and a Marvel movie's worth of computer-generated effects. The result is...surprisingly good.

The film begins with buddies and partners in crime Edgin Darvis (Chris Pine) and Holga Kilgore (Michelle Rodriguez) busting out of prison during their parole hearing.  We learn that they landed in prison after a heist that they were staging with Edgin's partner Forge Fitzwilliam (Hugh Grant) and a sorcerer Simon Aumar (Justice Smith) went terribly wrong. They had been sent by the mysterious Sofina (Daisy Head) to steal a mysterious artifact from the Harpers, a sort of society of protectors to whom Edgin used to belong before his wife Zia (Georgia Landers) was killed by the dreaded Red Wizards. In fact, Edgin had only agreed to this particular heist to get a magical tablet with which to bring his Zia back. Edgin and Holga discover that Forge has somehow become Lord of a town called Neverwinter, with Sofina close by as his adviser and Edgin's daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman) now living under Forge's care. It turns out their imprisonment wasn't exactly an accident, and now Edgin and Holga determine that they need to both rescue Kira and get the tablet back from Forge. They'll need help, so they track down Simon, who in turn recruits the shapeshifting Doric (Sophia Lillis), and they approach the paladin Xenk (Rege Jean Page) who leads them to a magic artifact they'll need in their quest. Will it be enough to help them prevail? 

Full disclosure: I am not a D & D geek by any stretch of the imagination. I played the game once or twice as a kid with my cousin who had a couple of the basic books, and only sporadically watched the 1980s cartoon that ran in the mid-80s.  I also admired the iconic artwork by artist Larry Elmore whose name D & D fans will surely recognize instantly. I knew next to nothing, in short, about the source material, and I had caught some of the risible 2000 movie on cable TV, so that kept my expectations to an absolute minimum.

I was not expecting to have nearly as good a time as I did. This movie is a blast. 

 Writer-directors Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley, who comprised half of the quartet of screenwriters behind Spider-Man: Homecoming, have done a great job of creating a world that is both accessible to outsiders like me and a real treat for those with some inside knowledge.  They've crafted a story that is easy to follow and populated it with likeable, deeply flawed characters whose story arcs help ground the film, even in its most fantastical moments.  Their storytelling is rock-solid, and it helps that they have a surprisingly good eye for staging some pretty kick-ass action sequences. 

It helps that they are working with a truly stellar cast. As the bard Edgin, Pine effortlessly brings in the roguish charm that he shot him to stardom in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies, and considering that starship appears to have sailed it appears he may have a new home here. As the barbarian Holga, Michelle Rodriguez, a veteran of multiple action franchises, brings serious action chops as expected, but also lends a surprising amount of heart to her character.    As the bumbling Simon who wrestles with his own insecurities as the latest in a long line of sorcerers, Justice Smith does a commendable job fleshing out his character's arc.  Sophia Lillis may not have the strongest character moments as Doric the druid, but she definitely has strong screen presence, and thanks to some pretty solid VFX works she delivers quite a few of the movie's moneyshots, including a "oner" that really showcases her abilities. Hugh Grant, who's garnered attention lately for his curmudgeonly attitude on the red carpet, is well and truly having a blast here as the villainous and hilarious Forge, a welcome foil to the super serious arch-villain of the story, Daisy Head's Sofina. Rege Jean Page cuts a fine figure as an action hero (with an awesome fight scene to boot), but perhaps more importantly, as a straight man who basically sets up the jokes for the rest of the cast to knock out of the park.  All told, this is an acting ensemble that really works well together.

The filmmakers have been pretty open about their influences, naming The Princess Bride and the Indiana Jones movies as among their main ones, and to be fair they really have captured the proper blend of humor, charm and action from movies like that, and yes, from the earlier Marvel movies as well.  The Marvel references, if I'm honest, seem quite overt in Doric in particular, who quite honestly looks like she was designed as an homage to Black Widow, and who also manifests quite a bit of Hulk very, very late in the film (no spoilers here).  The good news, though, is that as fashionable as it is to hate Marvel nowadays, D & D: HAT takes what used to be good about those movies and puts it to very good use, including, dare I say it, the computer-generated imagery, which is used rather judiciously here. So yes, it is a bit derivative and unapologetically so, but at least it makes its borrowed elements work really well. 

Time will tell if this movie gets a sequel, but speaking for myself, I'd be happy to take another roll of that 20-sided dice with these folks. 

8.5/10