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.
Read more…
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.
Read more…
"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.
Read more…
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.
Read more…
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.
Read more…
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.
Read more...
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.
Read more...
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.
Read more...
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.
Read more...
