Florence Kasumba – People Talking

Movie Review – ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ – The Gang’s All Here

Directed by Anthony Russo & Joe Russo

Written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (screenplay), based on the comic book story by Jim Starlin, George Pérez, & Ron Lim, based on characters created by Steve Ditko, Jack Kirby, Joe Simon, and Jim Starlin

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Peter Dinklage, Benedict Wong, Pom Klementieff, Karen Gillan, Dave Bautista, Zoe Saldana, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Angela Bassett, Jacob Batalon, Isabella Amara, Florence Kasumba, William Hurt, Terry Notary, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor, Carrie Coon, Michael James Shaw

Soundtrack: Alan Silvestri

It all comes down to this.

(Until Ant-Man and the Wasp comes out in ten weeks, which I’m actually more hyped for, but whatever.)

Eighteen movies in ten years have all been building up to the conflict to end all conflicts (until the next one).

The Infinity War.

So, what do we got?

Well…that kind of depends on the question.

As far as its purpose, which is the joining together of multiple sub-franchises to form, more or less, a single, cohesive story, I think this film does an admirable job of hammering the puzzle pieces together, but it’s not seamless enough to transcend the limitations of adapting one medium to another.

To put it another way, there’s very little about Infinity War that’s bad on its own; pretty much every scene unto itself works just fine, but I don’t think it cuts together well. Frankly, I found the whole thing rather overwhelming (perhaps a second look would be worthwhile, but I’m not sure).

One big problem is that the audience is expected to carry too much into the movie (metaphorically speaking). I’ve seen every MCU film, I assume most people who are going opening weekend have as well, but most of the emotional payoffs in Infinity War rely on you to remember why they’re important, and, as good a memory as I have, I just don’t have that kind of RAM for this, and as such a lot of the emotion of the movie fell flat for me (not to mention there haven’t been many real consequences in the MCU to this point, so…yeah, I’ll just leave it there).

Second, and I know I’ll be in the minority here because it’s the point of all of this for a lot of people, but there’s too much mind-numbing action, which I don’t normally find myself saying about these films. I like action fine, I can even enjoy nonstop action when it’s done right, but let me ask you this:

If two CG characters are fighting each other, why does the camera need to shake so much?

One positive I will mention, because I didn’t hate this movie and want to end on a good note, I actually liked Thanos as a character. Sure, he’s a villain who must be stopped, but at least he has an ethos and isn’t just another bitter revenge dude.

Other than that, hardcore fans will probably eat this one up, but I’m not convinced it has that much staying power for general audiences. Check it out if you want, especially if you’re pot committed to the MCU, but don’t feel bad about seeing it at a discount.

Rating: ★★★☆☆

P.S.
Shoutout to Alamo/Mondo for the swag.

Movie Review – ‘Black Panther’ – Rising Like Olympus

Directed by Ryan Coogler
Written by Ryan Coogler & Joe Robert Cole, based on the comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby
Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Winston Duke, Sterling K. Brown, Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker, Andy Serkis, Florence Kasumba, John Kani, David S. Lee, Nabiyah Be, Isaach De Bankolé, Connie Chiume, Dorothy Steel, Danny Sapani, Atandwa Kani, Ashton Tyler, Denzel Whitaker, Seth Carr, Alexis Rhee
Soundtrack: Ludwig Göransson

I don’t know if anybody had the vision in 1998 that in twenty years time Marvel would be eighteen movies deep into a run of who-knows-how-many dozens of connected films grossing billions-upon-billions of dollars at the box office, but I do know that it all started with Blade.

That’s right. The financial success of Blade was enough to convince Marvel that this whole movie thing was worth getting into (after some, shall we say, false starts in the 80s and early 90s). Ten years later, bing-bang-boom, we’ve got Iron Man, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe is off to the races. Ten years on from there, enter Black Panther. In a way, you could say it’s all come full circle.

But enough about that. Is the movie any good?

Yes, very much so.

Black Panther is decidedly among the better MCU films thus far, is refreshingly story-driven, and has the most stand-alone feel of its peers since the original Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014.

More than that though, it’s got a lot of meat to it.

For one thing, the basic story is downright Shakespearean (King dies, Prince ascends the throne, and so on and so forth), but the film also delves into such real-world issues as the African vs. African-American experience, political isolationism, and violent vs. non-violent revolution, all naturally worked into the script without feeling like they were tacked on by some committee.

Of course, Black Panther is also a superhero movie, and a pretty good one at that. I wouldn’t call it entirely perfect (some of the visuals felt a little lacking, and a few creative choices felt a bit off), but I liked that it was something of an origin story without starting all the way back at square one, and I particularly enjoyed the array of enjoyable characters (unlike some other movie).

If I have a couple of nitpicks, for one, it bums me out that seemingly everybody can put on an effective accent except for Chadwick Boseman as the titular character (although Forest Whitaker for some reason decided to sound like an Afrikaner…weird), and, second, I felt like Michael B. Jordan’s performance was a little too “I’m from the streets!” I thought a little subtlety could have gone a long way there, but, like I said, these are nitpicks.

Overall, I have to hand it to Ryan Coogler for making yet another quality film that’s undoubtedly part of a larger franchise but also has enough legs to stand on its own, and credit to Marvel for letting him do it his way. I was feeling pretty superhero-fatigued heading in, and I was worried there wouldn’t be enough to overcome that, but, in that respect, the movie triumphed.

Hail to the King, baby.

Rating: ★★★★☆

P.S.
Of course stingers, duh.

P.P.S.
As usual, thanks to Alamo Drafthouse for the glass.

Movie Review – ‘Wonder Woman’ – What Do We Have Here?

Directed by Patty Jenkins
Written by Allan Heinberg (story and screenplay), Zack Snyder (story), and Jason Fuchs (story), based on the character “Wonder Woman” created by William Moulton Marston
Cast: Gal Gadot, Chris Pine, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen, Elena Anaya, David Thewlis, Lucy Davis, Danny Huston, Saïd Taghmaoui, Ewen Bremner, Eugene Brave Rock, Wolf Kahler, Ann Ogbomo, Eleanor Matsuura, Doutzen Kroes, Samantha Jo, Brooke Ence, Florence Kasumba, Emily Carey, Lisa Loven Kongsli, Lilly Aspell
Soundtrack: Rupert Gregson-Williams

Ever since Chris Nolan and company packed up shop after The Dark Night Rises in 2012, DC’s been having a rough go of it, to say the least. Their attempt to compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe with an Extended Universe of their own has so far resulted in three films (Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, and Suicide Squad) that have largely failed to win over critics and moviegoers alike (though at least they haven’t been unprofitable).

However, despite this track record, I got the feeling that Wonder Woman could turn the tide, or at least stand against it, if only because it’s set so far in the past that the filmmakers could pretty much do whatever they want with it, without worrying too much about fitting it in with the rest of the Universe. In other words, the question is not, “Could this be the best DCEU movie?” That’s not difficult to imagine. The question is: “Could Wonder Woman actually be a good movie relative to other good movies?”

Well, disappointingly, no. Wonder Woman is every bit as bloated, confusing, and tonally dissonant as its three predecessors (in some ways perhaps more so). The only real distinction is that it’s a bit nicer to look at.

I’m not joking. There’s a whole bunch of great visual concepts in this film, and some award-worthy production design to back it all up, so in that regard you know there were some talented people who worked on this picture, but, unfortunately, I still found myself saying at the end of the first act “I haven’t connected with this yet; this is a problem,” and nothing much came afterward to change that assessment.

One of the most glaring issues, and it absolutely pains me to say so, is Wonder Woman herself, Gal Gadot. There’s no question she’s a fine-looking woman, and I bet she’s a first class human being, but her acting shoulders are not broad enough to carry a movie the way she’s expected to here. I’ve seen her do well in supporting roles (I love her in the Fast & Furious movies), but ultimately I think she’s been miscast, and her performance quite often took me out of the film. It’s not entirely her fault, as the proliferation of bad dialogue (and/or poor acting) is not limited strictly to her character, but, as I said in my review of Superman: some call it corny, I call it earnest, but one reason why that movie works is because Christopher Reeve is a great actor whose performance makes you believe what you’re seeing. No such luck with Wonder Woman.

Another major problem, at least for me, is the action. There are times when sequences should be shot more naturalistic or more stylized (you know, one or the other), and this film tends to throw it all together with a lot of signature Zack Snyder SLOW DOWN-SPEED UP-REPEAT (which became a tired trope well before this movie). This messes with the tone of the action scenes which in turn hurts the emotional resonance of the film (not to mention the CGI looks super janky at times; maybe if the movie wasn’t 141 minutes long they wouldn’t have had to stretch the effects budget quite so far).

Beyond that, it’s hard to put my finger on exactly why the film doesn’t work, and I don’t want to get into a DC vs. Marvel pissing contest here (I’m on record as historically being more of a DC guy anyway), but it seems fair to compare Wonder Woman to something like Thor, in that both movies have protagonists with mythological origins (and scenes with mythological exposition) who become fish-out-of-water. Now, I’m not going to argue that Thor is an all-time great, but it is a solid movie, and it succeeds where Wonder Woman fails in reconciling some inherently “silly” elements with more grounded ones (though this issue is not exclusive to DC; The Amazing Spider-Man movies are just as unsuccessful in this regard).

Overall, Wonder Woman is a mix of good and bad ideas, and the result is something that looks appetizing but is ultimately unsatisfying. I wanted to like it; I definitely didn’t hate it (like another recent blockbuster). There’s some stuff that from a conceptual standpoint I love (the World War I settings in particular), and some of the supporting players are a bright spot, but as an entire movie, I can’t give it a passing grade; there just wasn’t enough entertainment.

Rating: ★★½ (out of five)

P.S.
No stingers or any other end credits sequences.

Movie Review – ‘Captain America: Civil War’ – Counting the Cost

Directed by Anthony Russo & Joe Russo
Written by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely (screenplay), based on the comic book by Mark Millar & Steven McNiven, based on characters created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Florence Kasumba
Soundtrack: Henry Jackman

I’m not going to spend too much time on this because the reality is you’ve most likely made your mind up already, and that’s fine.

Captain America: Civil War is the latest offering in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which is now up to 13 movies (and counting) since Iron Man first hit the screen in 2008. It’s basically another Avengers movie because almost everyone is assembled except for Thor, Hulk, and Nick Fury, though the plot does mostly focus on the eponymous Captain. Marvel also wisely brought back the Russo Brothers to direct the film, after their successful turn with Captain America: The Winter Soldier (which I highly rate in terms of the MCU).

I do have some issues with the movie. For one, it’s overly long. I’m not even saying it drags, though many may have that opinion, but I do have a problem that all the big Marvel movies are becoming 2.5 hours long. It’s not like the Nolan Batman series where it’s a closed trilogy and you need to pack in as much as you can, Marvel has these planned out til Infinity [Wars]; maybe they could find a way to be a little more economical with the storytelling? ‘Winter Soldier’ wasn’t that long.

Also, and this is likely related to the previous point, there are some scenes that I suppose are in the movie to connect it to future movies, but in the movie at hand they feel like superfluous vestiges (like your appendix, you can live just fine without it). Dare I say, we may be seeing the first real signs of fatigue from the MCU, but then Dr. Strange might revitalize things a la Guardians of the Galaxy, so I don’t know.

Overall, Civil War holds a good balance of fun, action, and more serious themes of power, friendship, and the intersection of the two. It has a great cast giving solid performances (though some appearances are little more than cameos), and I actually found myself invested in the story outside of the action set pieces. Most importantly, there are no giant blue lasers shooting into space.

If you’re already into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you’ll probably like it quite a bit. If you’re coming in fresh, I don’t really know what to tell you, but I’m sure you’ll get something out of it.

Rating: ★★★½

P.S.
These pint glasses from Alamo Drafthouse are incredible.

P.P.S.
In terms of new characters, I was underwhelmed by Black Panther, but I loved Spider-Man.