Tag: Marvel Cinematic Universe

Twofer Review – ‘Apollo 11’ and ‘Captain Marvel’ – Up and Down

Directed and Edited by Todd Douglas Miller
Soundtrack: Matt Morton

In an era in which we have seemingly unlimited options for content, and the only event “everybody” stops and looks at anymore is the Super Bowl, it can be difficult to:
A. have an appreciation for a truly shared cultural experience
and
B. think of a “documentary” as a must-see cinematic event.

Apollo 11, however, will make you a true believer.

This is a big, beautiful movie; as big as anything you’ll see on the big screen this year.

Rather than a traditional documentary with face-to-face interviews and a lot of experts explaining things, Apollo 11 is more of an art house experience, but make no mistake, it’s for everyone, not just a niche audience. Whether you’re a NASA nerd or a complete space novice, the power of the film is undeniable.

There’s not much else I can say in terms of the moon landing itself or the movie, but the score by Matt Morton is as nearly perfect as the rest of the film (and, as confirmed to me by a source, was performed on strictly Sixties period instruments, which is impressive).

You will laugh; you will cry; you will cheer.

If you see nothing else theatrically in 2019, go see Apollo 11.

Rating: ★★★★½ (out of five)



Directed by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck
Written by Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck (story and screenplay), Geneva Robertson-Dworet (story and screenplay), and Nicole Perlman & Meg LaFauve (story)
Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan, Annette Bening, Clark Gregg, Jude Law, Akira Akbar, Azari Akbar, Mckenna Grace, London Fuller, Marilyn Brett, Stan Lee
Soundtrack: Pinar Toprak

It stands to reason that after twenty-one feature films since 2008 (and three per year since 2017) the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) would start to unravel at some point.

I haven’t seen every MCU film theatrically, but I have seen every single one in full. They’re not all great, but to this point they’ve all maintained a certain level of quality, be it through ambition, emotion, charm, or just being quirky.

Unfortunately, Captain Marvel is lacking in all of these areas.

Frankly, it’s a boring, predictable tonal mess that feels like a Frankenstein’s monster of a script, and it tries to skate by on some mild Nineties nostalgia that largely falls flat (REMEMBER BLOCKBUSTER VIDEO!?).

The one true highlight of the movie is some quality de-aging effects for Sam Jackson (who finally gets to have some fun in these movies).

Other than that, there’s just not a lot to grab onto. I like Brie Larson as an actress, I’ve seen her do quality work, but her attempt to be laid-back and cool here just comes off as lethargic; and she’s not the only quality performer who goes wasted (Jude Law and Ben Mendelsohn among them).

Overall, there’s nothing Captain Marvel does better than any MCU film beforehand, and for the first time ever in seeing this giant franchise I felt like the movie was just total a waste of time.

The worst sin, though, is that the biggest question the film asks goes unanswered. I could forgive a lot but to get to the end of a movie like this and not have that “Why?” answered is just too much.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Movie Review – ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ – All The Small Things

Directed by Peyton Reed
Written by Chris McKenna & Erik Sommers and Paul Rudd, Andrew Barrer, & Gabriel Ferrari
Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Hannah John-Kamen, Abby Ryder Fortson, Randall Park, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Douglas, Michael Cerveris, Riann Steele, Tim Heidecker, Tom Scharpling, Jon Wurster, Divian Ladwa
Soundtrack: Christophe Beck

Another week, another sequel.

Such is life.

(And I won’t even mention how this is the fourth Marvel movie in eight months.)

Let’s keep this short and sweet though.

2015’s Ant-Man was a film I thoroughly enjoyed except for one nagging thought, and that is, “How much better would it have been had Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish been able to see it all the way through?”  The answer is it likely would have earned another half (if not full) star in my rating, but still, I think Peyton Reed and company did a fine job making a mostly stand-alone movie with a fun, underdog, Eighties vibe.

Similarly, I enjoyed Ant-Man and the Wasp, though not as much as its predecessor.  The tone is largely the same, and the action is still very much to my liking (aka you can actually see what’s happening and who’s punching who, not to mention the miniaturization is unique and interesting), but the comedic execution isn’t as sharp and I found myself visualizing the ending long before we actually got there.

Even so, it’s an entertaining movie, and in a rare occurrence for Marvel, I actually noticed and enjoyed some of the score.

Quite simply though, Ant-Man and the Wasp isn’t as strong as the first one, but I’d still recommend it without any qualms.

Rating: ★★★½ (out of five)

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.