Kids, get out your popcorn, and let me tell you a story about the space Viking, Thor Odinson. This isn’t Thor as seen in Kenneth Branagh’s terminally boring 2011 outing, which made the mythical god and his world as dour and operatic as possible. No, this is Taika Waititi’s Thor, which we got a snootful of in Waititi’s previous outing with the character, Thor: Ragnarok. As in that film – which influenced the general comedic direction the character has taken in the non-standalone MCU movies in which he appears – Thor, in Waititi’s hands, is here for a good time. But, it’s important to note, he’s not here only for a good time.
Right below the surface of all the sight gags and screaming goats in Thor: Love and Thunder – I laughed out loud more than once at those giant screaming goats – is effective and heartfelt pathos that gives the picture its emotional anchor. That’s Waititi’s stock-in-trade. As can be seen as far back as 2010’s Boy, through 2014’s What We Do in the Shadows, to 2019’s Jojo Rabbit and his work in the MCU, Waititi uses all the goofy humor to disguise more serious themes. His technique is as fresh and entertaining here in Love and Thunder as it’s ever been.
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It seems like advertising is a good enough place as any to start. Maybe that’s because MCU movies themselves are starting to feel less like the art/entertainment that the marketing and advertising is designed to support and more like merely an extension of that marketing and advertising. On the day Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was released, May 6th, I saw an online ad for it. The text of the ad read, “The Marvel universe will never be the same.” I had already attended a press screening for the movie four days earlier, so I knew that claim was basically bullshit.
Things happen in Multiverse of Madness. There’s even a major development in the movie’s final minutes that does promise to change Dr. Stephen Strange in a fundamental way. But, as is increasingly the issue with these movies, the entirety of what comes before that moment feels like a flimsy excuse to get us there, not so that we can marvel (pun completely intended) at the development within the movie itself, but so we can be excited for what this change will mean for future installments.
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The critical rap on most DCEU films – especially those with Zack Snyder attached, like Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice – is that they’re too tonally dark. They’re often too visually dark, for that matter. While titles like the aforementioned Batman v Superman left me feeling beaten into submission and desperate for a way out, the new take on the Dark Knight from director Matt Reeves, The Batman, had me mesmerized, fully in thrall to the world Reeves created. His film is every bit as dark as Snyder’s, tonally as well as visually. (Cinematographer Greig Fraser, who also shot Denis Villeneuve’s gorgeous 2021 adaptation of Dune, listed Gordon Willis’s muted look for The Godfather as inspiration for The Batman.)
So, why did The Batman work for me where BvS failed? Improbably, I think it’s because of proximity to reality. Snyder’s films are bleak, depressing, and oppressive. They also don’t feel particularly connected to the real world in any tangible way. It’s easy to disconnect from them because the worlds created within them feel divorced from our own. The Batman is so hypnotic – and, consequently, so disturbing – because Reeves, who wrote the screenplay with Peter Craig, has crafted a world that isn’t ours, but that feels (to my great dismay) like it will be ours in another three to five years. That feeling is what fueled most of my discomfort and sick fascination while watching The Batman.
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Marvel Cinematic Universe mastermind Kevin Feige’s style and design for the look and feel of the content he produces for his Disney overlords has calcified with his latest entry, Eternals. I use the dreaded word content – it’s a word that makes me throw up in my mouth a little; it’s more at home in a marketing meeting than discussions about art or entertainment – because that’s what Eternals feels like, rather than a story or a movie.
At an interminable 157 minutes, it’s an attempt at entertainment that bolsters Martin Scorsese’s assertion that Marvel movies are more theme park attraction than storytelling. Even as a 200-million-dollar rollercoaster, Eternals is lifeless and largely joyless. The only fun thing about it is a few of the performances where a human spark peaks through the calculatedness of it all.
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"I think it's bittersweet. I've had an incredible decade working with my Marvel family. I'm going to miss not seeing them every 18 months or two years, like those kind of milestones I always really look forward to.” It’s fitting that this is how actor Scarlett Johansson described the (seeming) end of her run in the MCU as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. (MCU overlord Kevin Feige recently said he’s open to Johansson returning to the MCU, if the conditions are right.)
It’s fitting because Black Widow’s standalone movie, delayed for over a year because of COVID, is all about family. Black Widow is a worthy send-off for both the character and Johansson. The picture features some bravura action sequences. I have reservations about a few developments in the film’s last third, but they’re overshadowed by the genuinely fun time I had while watching the latest entry in the MCU.
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Birds of Prey might be the most entertaining DC movie yet – yes, including Wonder Woman – even though I have a few major reservations about it. The cast, just about down to a person, are all going for broke here. Director Cathy Yan’s handling of the action sequences, especially one that involves our hero, a one Harley Quinn, chasing a speeding car on roller skates, is inventive and fresh. The movie’s tone, while still a bit on the bleak side (this is the DC universe, after all), is sarcastic, snide, and overall pretty funny. That all translates into a mostly enjoyable time with this latest comic book movie outing.
Still, the movie’s absolute glee at its own disturbing level of violence was somewhat off-putting.
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“I’m the bad guy?” That’s the question Michael Douglas’s character, William Foster, asks in the final minutes of the movie Falling Down. Despite the fact that the movie, up until that point, solidly aligns itself with Foster’s point of view and his sick sense of vigilante justice, this one line of dialog suggests that Falling Down is a more self-aware movie than director Todd Phillips’s Joker. There’s never any question that Joaquin Phoenix’s Arthur Fleck, who transforms himself over the course of this origin story into Batman’s greatest nemesis, is our champion.
And the movie seems to have no idea how disturbing that is.
The bleak, nihilistic Joker, which, by its final frames, leans into its fascism in a way that even the heavily reactionary Falling Down doesn’t, says a lot more about Phillips’s worldview than the character he is exploring.
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Those of us who didn’t grow up reading the source material, who can’t recite chapter and verse the labyrinthine backstory for the dozens of characters integrated into the MCU, can sometimes feel like outsiders. As one of those outsiders, my first instinct is to focus on these films’ over-reliance on Earth-in-Peril (and more increasingly, Universe-in-peril) scenarios, the deadening effects of pixelpalooza CGI battles, and the constant hype machine always building towards the next movie.
While the criticisms are valid – especially in the weaker MCU entries like Avengers: Age of Ultron – they cause me too often to overlook the moments of emotional resonance that these movies contain, and the connection that their most loyal fans have to the characters. With Avengers: Endgame, the grand finale and culmination of over 20 Marvel movies spanning more than a decade, it’s impossible to overlook the emotional resonance. Screenwriters Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely and sibling directing team Anthony & Joe Russo made a film rich with human drama.
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I hate that I’m starting to repeat myself when it comes to comic book movies. The critique is a fair one, though, so you’ll have to forgive me as I copy and paste my biggest complaint about Avengers: Infinity War and apply it to Deadpool 2. Writing about Infinity War, I parroted the increasingly familiar refrain from many critics that any sense of dramatic stakes in these movies is undercut when, in the interest of protecting the franchise cash cow, the filmmakers hit the reset button to ensure a next installment. That’s what (predictably) happens at the end of Deadpool 2, and in a mid-credits sequence, no less. This franchise relies on its use of snark and sardonic meta style to laugh at these conventions – and itself – so hard that we can’t help but forgive it. The problem is that after just one sequel, the nihilistic and self-referential humor has started to wear a little thin.
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Ten years ago, Marvel Studios launched its “cinematic universe,” using crossovers and tie-ins to connect every property under its umbrella. The strategy has shaken the entire entertainment industry. Any extended universe of characters – from rival DC’s effort at playing catch-up, to Universal Studios’ so far disastrous “Dark Universe” – is a naked attempt at copying Marvel’s lucrative success. To celebrate their decade of dominance, Marvel changed the “i” and “o” in the word “studios” to the number 10 in the Marvel logo at the beginning of Avengers: Infinity War, the 19th feature film release in the MCU.
It’s become harder and harder to think about each of these movies on its own merits, because Marvel’s apparent plan is to work its audiences into a constant frenzy of anticipation for what’s coming next.
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If you suffer from the condition known as Superhero Fatigue Syndrome, as I often do, you might be hesitant to see the latest Marvel movie, Black Panther. There’s no reason to be hesitant. In fact, Black Panther works as an antidote to the feeling that you’ve grown tired of just about anything based on a comic book or that is incorporated into Marvel’s sprawling, at times unwieldy, Cinematic Universe. Black Panther might just be the best Marvel movie yet.
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It’s not my intent to damn Wonder Woman with too much faint praise by measuring it favorably against the abysmal Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. After all, saying this movie is leagues better than that one is akin to lauding really good fast food over something you found in the dumpster because, well, at least it isn’t actual garbage. The comparison needs to be made, though, because both exist in DC’s attempt at a Marvel-style cinematic universe, and the character made her debut in that earlier film. Wonder Woman is a well-crafted action spectacle with its greatest strength (both the title character and the actress playing her) right at the center. The elements orbiting that center, though, keep it from being transcendent.
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The most enjoyable thing about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is exemplified in its very first action sequence. An alien race called The Sovereign have hired the guardians – Star-Lord, Gamora, Drax, Rocket Racoon, and Groot – to protect some highly powerful and very valuable batteries from a giant space slug. An epic battle ensues as a backdrop to the opening credits. There’s plenty of razzle-dazzle special effects work and camera trickery in this sequence, to be sure, but the real focus isn’t the fight at all. Groot, the 12-foot tall extraterrestrial tree-creature, sacrificed himself in the first Guardians film, and regenerated as a tiny seedling now known as Baby Groot. Obviously, he’s not much help in this fight. Instead, director James Gunn has him avoiding danger by showing off some hilarious dance moves to Electric Light Orchestra’s classic hit Mr. Blue Sky.
It’s a clever, goofy way of launching directly into the oddball sense of humor that made the original movie from 2014 so entertaining.
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Since the beginning of the comic book movie’s modern era, arguably starting with Richard Donner’s Superman in 1978, the genre has fought for legitimacy. Critics and audiences alike would dismiss the majority of them as kid’s stuff – they’re fun and entertaining, sure, but not to be taken too seriously. The makers of these movies started challenging that philosophy in earnest when the number of comic book movies released per year ramped up, starting with Bryan Singer’s X-Men in 2000. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy was one major step forward. The superhero’s capacity for emotional and moral complexity got deeper even as the body count and onscreen carnage got bloodier and more overwhelming.
Director James Mangold’s Logan feels like a leap forward. There is an emotional resonance here that’s more profound than any comic book movie I’ve ever seen. It’s made more affecting because there are real stakes in Logan. Mangold – who co-wrote as well as directed – breaks through the usual pitfall of these sorts of movies by having his characters change in ways that can’t easily be reset for a next installment. Logan is a brilliant example of the heights that comic book movies are capable.
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It’s not easy to overlook the many flaws of the new DC comic book adaptation Suicide Squad (and trust me, I won’t), but I have to admit that I did enjoy it more than I expected. The sole reason for that unexpected enjoyment is the cast. The producers of Suicide Squad put together a collection of actors who are not only charismatic individually, but whose chemistry as a team is about the only thing that makes the movie watchable at all. Without Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jai Courtney, and the rest, Suicide Squad would be an unredeemable mess of a movie. Grotesquely nihilistic, with a script that can most charitably be described as cobbled together, a possible subtitle for the film could have been The Plot that Wasn’t There.
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I never really got into comic books as a kid, so their stylistic elements in big screen adaptations aren’t a part of my artistic appreciation as an adult. It means quite a lot, then, that there is a sequence in Captain America: Civil War that even novices like me can realize comes from a powerful connection to the source material: the splash page. Put simply, a splash page is one big drawing that takes up a full page (or two) of any single comic. It’s meant to really catch the reader’s attention, a sort of aesthetic exclamation point in the middle of the story.
The directing team of brothers Anthony and Joe Russo create at least one moment that is on par with the grandeur of the splash page. In fact, the visual design of the whole film evinces a deep respect and love for their movie’s funny book origin, and its uniquely cinematic qualities. The script, by writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, offers up a fairly straightforward central conflict while successfully bringing together multiple subplots that are all in service of the larger story.
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Well, it was as bad as I expected. Whenever I make the decision to write about a movie (being extremely selective in what I review is the ultimate perk of writing as a hobby), I do my absolute best to avoid the critical response around a film before I have a chance to see it myself. I don’t want to be swayed by anyone else’s opinion but my own. I want to react to the movie with an open, unbiased mind. That was near impossible with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. I saw it on opening night, but I was still inundated by headlines on social media, not to mention every website starting with “www” having an opinion about how terrible the film was. The internet even graced me with the Sad Affleck meme. That was particularly delicious, in a “worst angels of our nature” sort of way.
When I sat down in the theater, waiting for the lights to dim, I steeled myself against all I had seen that day. I’m willing to give any movie a fair shake and Batman v Superman was no different. I did my duty as a critic to leave any preconceived notions I had at the ticket counter, so it’s without any reservation that I write these words: Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is an utter mess. There are a few elements worthy of praise, to be sure, but they are so few and far between that they are essentially inconsequential to the overall effect.
BvS suffers from kitchen sink syndrome. In an effort to wow the audience, as well as get their own cinematic universe kick-started, DC Comics and screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer packed any and everything they could think of into an interminable two-and-a-half-hour assault on the senses. Hell, there’s even a literal kitchen sink. Used as a weapon during the titular hero-on-hero battle royale. Actually, if memory serves, it was a bathroom sink. So the movie gets one half credit for avoiding complete cliché.
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There’s been a huge amount of hype by both the media and fans surrounding the fact that Deadpool is the first R rated comic book movie. That’s kind of weird, because it’s not true. Even Marvel – the comic book publisher that aims 95% of their movie adaptations at the youth market with the family friendlier PG-13 rating – has dabbled in R rated film versions of their properties. Both the Blade franchise and the Punisher movies are Marvel joints, and both went for the adult’s only rating. Deadpool definitely feels different, though.
The Blade and Punisher movies came before what’s known as the Marvel Cinematic Universe approach to gargantuan budget, franchise filmmaking, which was kicked into high gear by Marvel Studios with Iron Man in 2008. Deadpool is part of the X-Men Cinematic Universe, though, a separate entity that 20th Century Fox controls. That means you’ll never see Deadpool in an Avengers movie, or Iron Man in an X-Men movie, but you get the point. The idea for both is that the myriad characters from all the different movies interact with each other and cross over into interconnected storylines, just like the comic book versions have been doing since the 1940s. So far all of these movies have had the teenager safe PG-13 rating. Now, Deadpool crashes the party with enough foul-mouthed dialogue and graphic violence to make Quentin Tarantino blush.
Ok, not really, but it is a major departure from the strategy up to now. It makes sense. I’d venture a guess that the millions of dollars spent by fans at comic cons and on these movies every year come more from the mid-20s to early-40s crowd than from the under-20 set. The big question is, did the talent behind Deadpool pull off such a different approach successfully? The answer is a strong, if slightly qualified, yes.
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