Monday at the Movies - July 1, 2019

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, and there have been a good number of summer blockbusters since. So, let’s do this one more time.

Shazam! (2019) – DC has had a rocky road to a shared universe, never quite managing to find its crowdpleasing niche until solo outings for, of all people, Wonder Woman and Aquaman. With Shazam! DC is starting to recognize that its characters fare best when handled in standalone adventures that play to the characters’ strengths. Here, it’s Billy Batson (Asher Angel) with a chip on his shoulder, learning that family is where you find it, while his magical-heroic alter ego (Zachary Levi) plays out a superpowered take on Big and fending off attacks from the Seven Deadly Sins. It’s quite fun and a fine double-feature with, ahem, the other Captain Marvel this spring, and director David F. Sandberg does a keen job straddling the line between the boisterous antics of Shazam and the genuinely scary menace of Mark Strong’s Dr. Sivana, striking a notable balance between competing tones in a demi-franchise that has drawn audience derision for seldom transcending the dire. (As for this filmgoer, why can’t we have both?) You know that I think Batman v Superman remains the gold standard for DC’s latest efforts, but Shazam! is roughly the third winner in a row for DC (because the less said about Frankenstein’s Justice League, the better). And for those who haven’t seen it yet, it’s truly remarkable that a third-act development wasn’t spoiled in the marketing – even though the comics-initiated among us anticipated it coming in a sequel or two, it was great fun to see the film play with its family dynamic in a bold and inventive way.

Avengers: Endgame (2019) – How do you review a masterpiece in 250 words? (You’d need, perhaps, 3,000 to do it justice.) Make no mistake, true believers – Endgame is an impossible film that shouldn’t work at all but manages to work perhaps the best of any Marvel movie at what it sets out to do. Here’s a three-hour film with no baggy weight that manages to tie together 21 preceding films while doing something new; its greatest-hits nostalgia tour is baked seamlessly into the narrative, but it advances the Marvel Cinematic Universe by leaps and bounds while setting a daunting precedent for whatever comes next. The movie is chock-full of things that, even if I spoiled them, you wouldn’t believe me, as when the film hard-180s within its first fifteen minutes by breaking a cardinal rule of superhero epics and then manages to deal with that game-changing plot point with enviable aplomb, both having its cake and eating it too. Recency bias is still pretty strong with this one, so I’m not quite ready to say if it’s the best of the 22 MCU movies just yet (Winter Soldier remains a perfect movie). But I think it’s handily the best of the four Avengers movies for its audacious scope, unreasonable challenge, and entirely confident triumph. How a three-hour film leaves you wanting more is beyond me, so hats off to Anthony and Joe Russo for turning in what very well might be Marvel’s finest hour(s). You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and if you’re anything like the two audiences with whom I saw this one, you’ll be outright sobbing in equal parts sorrow and jubilation. “Part of the journey is the end,” indeed, though I’ll expect you haven’t heard the last from me on Endgame.

Dark Phoenix (2019) – I said it with Venom, and I’ll say it with Dark Phoenix – this movie is fine. It’s a perfectly serviceable X-Men film, and since it’s ostensibly the last one for a while, some of its more compulsory plot beats can be forgiven. In the title role, Sophie Turner slays it as Jean Grey, and Hans Zimmer turns in a great score that sounds like Dark Knight had a baby with Interstellar. It’s probably not as epic as the source material (which, nerd confession time, I’m only just getting around to reading), and the villains led by Jessica Chastain are the very definition of undercooked. More noticeable, Magneto is really only there because it’s the last X-movie from Fox (though his best line, from the trailer, is sadly omitted – “You didn’t come here looking for answers. You came here looking for permission”). But there’s something to be said about the way this movie shows the X-Men at their peak, emphasizing their family dynamics. The film’s action, too, is pretty cool, especially that climactic train sequence. Most importantly, it’s light-years better than The Last Stand. So maybe the X-Men didn’t go out on their highest note (which is, I believe, still X2: X-Men United?), but it’s a perfectly fine capper to twenty years of X-movies, and it seals off this iteration just in time for the MCU to adopt the mutants into their new home. In short, it does just about what you’d expect an X-Men movie to do, and it does it better than some of its predecessors without feeling too much like a retread of familiar ground.

Men in Black: International (2019) – Mark Kermode took the word right out of my mouth when he said that the latest Men in Black film is “perfunctory.” The premise of an MiB reboot with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson (late of Thor: Ragnarok), with Emma Thompson and Liam Neeson on either side of the pond, practically sells itself, and indeed it seems the film was sold primarily on the chemistry between its two leads. What the movie is lacking, however, is precisely character because its protagonists are sadly underwritten, its villains are maddeningly vague, and its structure is bizarrely shambolic as it careens from setpiece to setpiece. Don’t get me wrong – I don’t need a Men in Black film to be Shakespearean in its plotting, but I do prefer that it make a modicum of sense without leaning on attitude as a special effect. (Though if it does, the ever-watchable Tessa Thompson is ILM-levels of sassy.) It feels as though the studio is rolling the franchise out on a lunch tray, as if to say, “Want some more of this?” And in that respect the possibility is about as tantalizing as mystery meat casserole – perfectly edible, but hardly anyone’s first choice. Several times throughout the film, I found myself wishing I were watching the original Will Smith/Tommy Lee Jones vehicle. International gestures at an intriguing sideways take on the central conceit, but man oh Manischewitz did the script need another pass to make it anything but generic and forgettable.

Toy Story 4 (2019) – “Did we need a fourth one of these?” I asked myself when Toy Story 4 was announced. Hadn’t Toy Story 3 been a perfect capper to a perfect trilogy? (This has to be the last one, though, right?) And yet, as they usually do, Pixar found a way to surprise me, with 4 tying up 3’s loose end with the absence of Bo Peep (Annie Potts). Bo ends up being only one of the core ideas in 4, including also Woody (Tom Hanks) and his struggle to fit in with new kid Bonnie, while the playroom crowd grapples with the creation of Forky (Tony Hale), Bonnie’s new toy molded from garbage. I think your mileage on this film will depend very much on how much you indulge the movie’s central premise that there’s another story to be wrung from this universe; I myself was sold fairly quickly, particularly with the way Forky – omnipresent in marketing and toy aisles – allows the film to do something quite unique while giving us a fascinating angle into Woody’s psyche. And yes, 4 is well and truly Woody’s show, even more than Toy Story 2 was. It’s a bit of a shame, because we love all the other toys so very much, but it’s very challenging to imagine, for example, what more Rex or Mister Pricklepants could have done in the movie. It’s a thoughtful and engaging romp through the standard Toy Story plot – toys get separated and find their way back together after meeting shady toys and new friends like Duke Caboom (Keanu “Yes He Canada” Reeves) – but it’s as emotional and essential as the preceding installments. 

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” This was fun; we should do this again some time...

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Avengers, assemble – Avengers: Infinity War brings together ten years and eighteen movies’ worth of stories to pit Earth’s Mightiest Heroes against the strength of Thanos (Josh Brolin) as he gathers the six Infinity Stones in order to impose his will on the universe. From Wakanda to Scotland, from New York to the moons of Jupiter, the Marvel Universe has never seen a threat quite like this one, and so it will take the gathered forces of the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, and more to repel Thanos and his forces to save all of existence.

I don’t know if it’s possible to give a full review of Avengers: Infinity War without spoiling at least something (I’ll certainly try), but I do want to take a moment to applaud the “spoiler culture” of 2018, which has done a fairly remarkable job of not ruining the film. It’s a critic’s burden that a film this big carries with it the necessity of preserving at all costs the sanctity of narrative surprise; then again, I do have a sense that my main audience here will have already seen the film at least twice. Mum is, however, the word here; I can’t, for example, talk about my only major critique of the film because it’s a mammoth spoiler. Reserving a fuller take for later, I’ll say only that I think the absolute ending of the film doesn’t quite accomplish what it sets out to do, both for reasons that are extratextual and because the film doesn’t quite position the last character we see on screen as the film’s protagonist in a way that would make that figure’s journey the center of the film. (It does, however, stick the emotional landing, in an extraordinary way.)

What Avengers: Infinity War manages to accomplish very deftly – and very quickly, I’d say, within the first ten minutes – is establish the stakes of the film with remarkable precision and weight. For a film that assembles eighteen other films and umpteen million cast members, this is a film that feels amazing well-balanced, and it rises to the gravity of the occasion by presenting a story where it truly feels that anything can happen: not just that X favorite character will meet up with unlikely ally Y, but that any important character could die before this is all said and done, that this story will matter more than we might have been led to expect. At one point, Thor says something like, “It feels like it’s going to stick this time.” Despite all the fakeouts, both within this film and within the Marvel Cinematic Universe at large, Infinity War achieves what I call the “Indiana Jones in peril” moment, where – despite knowing that Indiana Jones won’t actually die – we gasp in shock as his car fritters near the edge of a canyon; only in Infinity War, that car might veer off the road and take a hero or two out with it.

As a film that is more a collision of stories than a singular narrative – Iron Man’s addiction to his technology, Captain America as a man out of time, Black Panther opening his kingdom to the world, etc. – the film very nearly buckles under the sheer weight of what it’s called upon to do. And yet the only characters who don’t get a fair shake are the ones who don’t appear at all; everyone else is placed in subplots that use them to their full range, bouncing them against unlikely but pitch-perfect foils. I wasn’t left wanting more of any one character; I was just left wanting more, period. In this way, Infinity War is almost a new ur-blockbuster, mashing together a decade’s worth of blockbusters to create a super-film that was, as early as Sunday morning, already the biggest opening of all time.

Infinity War is such a roaring success because it understands both its core audience and the audience who may not have caught all the preceding films. We don’t necessarily need to have seen Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2, for example – though Star-Lord fills us in, just in case – because the film is much more invested in its characters than in their continuity. That’s the reason that each character’s arrival (and in at least one particularly electric case, a re-arrival) is such a crowdpleasing moment; regardless of where we left Captain America in Civil War, we’re just so glad to see him again because the Marvel folks have put the “care” back in “character.” From major players like Rocket Raccoon and Spider-Man to supporting cast like Wong and Okoye, Infinity War remembers why we love these characters and wisely keeps them to their strengths while nudging them out of their comfort zones. To review the performances in the film would require a scorecard – and maybe that’s a feature for another time, once the spoiler-warning reins have loosened – but suffice it to say that no one phones it in, treating each scene like just one more installment in their own films. Part of the electricity of the film, then, is the unforeseen chemistry between characters who might otherwise be poles apart (though, once more, it’d be terribly rotten to give all that away just yet), and on this count the filmmakers have continued to do the largely admirable work of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Aside from the popular appeal this film is likely to have, the ultimate “good time” popcorn flick, it represents the apotheosis of the very idea of the franchise – we now know that the largest film franchise can spawn the largest film of all time (dethroning The Force Awakens, which is really saying something in terms of hype), but what next? Avengers 4 seems poised to remind us one last time why we started down this journey back in 2008 and why we kept coming back for more, but it seems equally likely that it’ll set up the next ten years. If you don’t believe me, turn to the Marvel Zombie in your life after you see the post-credits sequence. The fullness of the universe is a major theme of this film, but the film is equally a reminder of the fullness of the Marvel Universe – and not just the Cinematic one. There’s always more, as the “_________ will return” credit acknowledges, and so too will the audience – return, that is, for the as-yet-untitled Avengers 4, for the two films (Ant-Man and the Wasp this year, and Captain Marvel the next) in the interim, for another viewing of Infinity War, and for whatever your personal favorite Marvel movie has been (for me, it’s still the masterful Winter Soldier). The Infinity Stones have been with us since the dawn of creation, and the success of Infinity War seems to promise that Marvel will be with us until the end of it.

Avengers: Infinity War is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, language and some crude references.” Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo. Written by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. Based on the Marvel Comics by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and Jim Starlin. Starring 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, Danai Gurira, Letitia Wright, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillen, Pom Klementieff, Zoe Saldana, with Josh Brolin, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, and Chris Pratt.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

It’s been a wild ride here at The Cinema King, getting amped up for Captain America: Civil War by engaging ourselves in a Grand Marvel Rewatch of the twelve-picture Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel’s latest (and longest) film, Captain America: Civil War is also its biggest in terms of stakes, cast, and moral complexity, and it’s a dazzling super-triumph.

After years of operating unchecked amid several major global events, The Avengers find their powers under scrutiny by a United Nations resolution that seeks to oversee their operations. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), feeling guilt over his complicity in the creation of Ultron, signs on almost immediately, but Captain America (Chris Evans) has grave reservations about signing away his liberty. The rest of their teammates are forced to choose sides in the conflict when Cap’s childhood friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) comes out of hiding, further splitting the team as regards Bucky’s responsibility for his actions as the Winter Soldier.

Civil War manages to be both sweepingly epic and deeply personal, with far-reaching consequences stemming out of what is essentially a clash of personalities, a philosophical difference of opinion about the nature of individual power. And what’s really striking – shout-out here to directors Anthony & Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely, because they deserve it – is that the film never sacrifices one for the other. We get wonderful character beats and big-scale action sequences. One minute we’re in the kitchen with Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) as hosts of an adorable impromptu cooking show, and the next we’re in Leipzig for the airport sequence which is even more awesome than the trailers let on. (Honestly, the airport scene might be Marvel’s best action sequence to date, worth the price of a DVD, and eerily reminiscent of Whedon’s two 360-degree shots of the Avengers collaborating.)

And yet, for as much as the film valorizes character development, delivering some of the least opaque motivations for superhero characters yet, I really must quibble with the title of this film. Captain America: Civil War is not quite a Captain America movie – at least, not in the way that Captain America: The Winter Soldier was. In some part, this is due to the inclusion of RDJ as Iron Man, because Downey steals the screen whenever he shows up, but it’s also because the script is uncannily fair to both sides of this conflict. Both Stark and Cap have lines that might convince a fair-minded viewer to change their own opinion, and the film has neither a cop-out “villain orchestrated it all” twist nor any out-of-character beats like the comics source material (in which Tony Stark put Daredevil in a space prison). Civil War is balanced, and it may be difficult to digest for that reason, and kudos to the filmmakers for never cheapening the weighty debate.

Indeed, a better title would have been, simply, Marvel’s Civil War, for the film is unmistakably a waypoint for the franchise as a whole. There are beats in here that pay off all the way back to 2008, bringing everyone from Ant-Man to Thunderbolt Ross into the fray, and Civil War introduces Spider-Man (Tom Holland) and Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) to the MCU in ways that make me incredibly excited for their standalone films. Holland in particular is the new definitive Peter Parker, capturing the webslinger’s inability to keep quiet without letting us forget that he’s perhaps too young for this. Civil War feels very much like a slice of a universe, but while Cap is undeniably a star it’s difficult to say he’s the star.

Ultimately, this is not actually a bad thing. It’s at worst a misnomer, but I’d rather have a film with a handful of fantastic characters than a film that limits its focus unnecessarily. I think we can all agree, for example, that The Force Awakens didn’t necessarily need more Luke Skywalker, especially if it cost us a few scenes with Poe Dameron. Whether it’s Captain America 3, Iron Man 4, or Avengers 2½, Civil War is too exciting, too much fun, and too engaging to write off on a technicality. It leaves you wanting more, a sage move for a ballooning franchise like this one. It sends you out of the theater debating over which scene was the coolest, to be sure, but it also sends you away with a moral question that’ll take up most of the car ride home.

Captain America: Civil War is rated PG-13 for “extended sequences of violence, action and mayhem.” There’s a lot of running/jumping/shooting/punching sequences, several extended; a few explosions and scatological profanities; and a few shots of bloody people. More of the same, really, from Marvel.

The Grand Marvel Rewatch: Avengers: Age of Ultron

Face front, true believers! Welcome to the next astonishing addition to “The Grand Marvel Rewatch,” designed to get us all sufficiently amped up for Captain America: Civil War, which comes out May 6, 2016. Each Wednesday, The Cinema King casts his eye back upon the twelve films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and offers five salient observations about the caliber of the films and the way they might play into Marvel’s latest installment in America’s favorite franchise.

Today’s fantastic feature film takes us to 2015 for Avengers: Age of Ultron, to which Civil War is almost certainly a direct sequel.

1. Shots fired! We saw some personality clashes on display in The Avengers, but here those tensions boil over into physical conflict regarding the Avengers’ methods. Perhaps not surprisingly, the battle lines look pretty similar to those we’ve seen teased for Civil War – Team Cap vs. Team Iron Man. This isn’t just Thor fighting The Avengers for custody of Loki; these are deep-rooted frictions in the team playing out over a question of whether superheroes are going too far. Interesting, though, that it’s Cap who argues for restraint while Iron Man constructs another robotic weapon... 
2. Movie magic. Age of Ultron throws the MCU into a world where magic exists. Previously, everything “super” was explainable by science (either Asgardian or earth-based) – super-soldier serum, iron suits, flying hammers, gamma radiation. With Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver, and the Vision, though, the Infinity Stones walk us into an age of “miracles,” in which honest-to-goodness superpowers stand side-by-side with the technologically upgraded folks we’ve come to love. And to Joss Whedon’s credit, it never feels like a step too far – in fact, it took me until this latest rewatch to notice that Scarlet Witch’s magical red energies were something brand new in the MCU. 
3. Whedon’s got Vision. If you took everything about Age of Ultron and boiled it into one character, it’d be Vision (Paul Bettany). He’s a comics character adapted for the film’s needs, powered by the Infinity Stones, and something wholly unique yet of a piece with the rest of his team. In the same way, Age of Ultron bears a passing resemblance to the Brian Michael Bendis comic of the same name, it foregrounds the Infinity Stones as the narrative thread holding the MCU together, and it’s both different and familiar (see #2). Plus, Vision/Age is vibrantly colored, powerful yet sensitive, funny but packs a punch. And it’s hard to believe they’re barely a year old. 
4. And speaking of the Stones... We’re up to four of six stones discovered thus far, with Vision powered by the yellow Mind Stone (confirmed, now, to have been previously in Loki’s scepter). The Space Stone is on Asgard, the Reality Stone is (probably) still with The Collector, and the Power Stone is in the hands of the Nova Corps. In terms of the comic book line-up, that leaves Time and Soul Stones yet to be accounted for, and dollars to donuts says that at least one is destined to show up in Doctor Strange. Plus we finally get confirmation that Thanos is looking to collect all six to bind in an Infinity Gauntlet. Writing sentences like that last one just reminds me that this is truly the best time to be alive. 
5. (New) Avengers a-- At any given time in the comics, there are numerous flavors of Avengers teams running around – New, Secret, All-New All-Different, Uncanny, Dark, Mighty, Giant-Size, West Coast, Pet, Young, or just plain The. After the PR crisis caused by Hulk... well, hulking out, it looks like Cap is in charge of the first franchised Avengers team, the New Avengers (only some of whom will take his side in Civil War). But it seems we’ll have to wait a little longer to hear the battle cry “Avengers Assemble!” – Whedon cruelly cuts to black before Chris Evans can enunciate those final syllables. Speaking of franchises, Hydra’s been branching out, too – Baron Von Strucker’s group doesn’t seem in cooperation with the two Hydra heads we’ve seen on Agents of SHIELD (led by Daniel Whitehall and Gideon Malick). Cut off one head on film, it seems two more rise on television.

There’s so much more to be said about Avengers: Age of Ultron, so be sure to check out my original review. Join me in the Grand Marvel Rewatch over the coming weeks, and hit the comments to share your thoughts about the MCU. And don’t forget to tune in next Wednesday for the next installment, in which we take a closer look at 2015’s Ant-Man. Excelsior!

The Grand Marvel Rewatch: The Avengers

Face front, true believers! Welcome to the next astonishing addition to “The Grand Marvel Rewatch,” designed to get us all sufficiently amped up for Captain America: Civil War, which comes out May 6, 2016. Each Wednesday, The Cinema King casts his eye back upon the twelve films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and offers five salient observations about the caliber of the films and the way they might play into Marvel’s latest installment in America’s favorite franchise.

Today’s fantastic feature film takes us to 2012 for The Avengers, a film which The Cinema King can confirm is best enjoyed with a nice shawarma sandwich.

1. Can we take a second to talk about how good this movie is? This flick is airtight. Joss Whedon had to pull together multiple disparate threads from other directorial/authorial voices, and he accomplished it in spades. The Avengers does an amazingly effective job (re)introducing all the main characters for experts and neophytes alike, and he does so in a way that never loses sight of either its main storyline or its infectious sense of fun. Simply put, this film is an accomplishment, well-crafted and perennially entertaining. I’ve seen it umpteen times by now, and there’s not a dull moment. This thing just clips. 
2. Civil War prologue? “What are we, a team?” Bruce Banner asks in a particularly heated moment in The Avengers; “No, no, no, we’re a timebomb.” It looks like that timebomb is set to go off in Civil War, and we can see the seeds of that conflict already being sown. These are superheroes with personality clashes like you wouldn’t believe, who find it intensely difficult to work together. They’re heroes because they manage to set those differences aside, but every situation has a breaking point. We can already see the debates about the limits and abuses of power; with SHIELD out of the picture, The Avengers will have to field those questions. 
3. The Avengers Initiative. Remember Nick Fury’s words at the end of Iron Man? In hindsight, a preexisting team of Avengers didn’t really pan out in the MCU plot, so those words are retconned into a failed experiment based on the aforementioned clash of personalities. Instead, The Avengers become literal instantiations of their name, avenging both the late (well...) Phil Coulson and promising to avenge the earth, if need be. It’s also much stronger characterization to give the Avengers a reason to assemble beyond Nick Fury and the government asking them to work together. Every character has a valid motivation, telegraphed with immense clarity.
4. Hail Hydra! This movie sure looks different in hindsight, though. With the revelation in The Winter Soldier that SHIELD is pervaded with Hydra agents, you can’t help but cast an eye askance at nearly everyone in the film. Why does SHIELD want to recreate Hydra weapons? Hey, isn’t that Agent Sitwell on the Helicarrier? Why did Gideon Malick (Powers Boothe, now a major antagonist on Agents of SHIELD) really want to nuke Manhattan? And was the guy playing Galaga secretly sabotaging SHIELD in his own slacker way? Of course, it’s unclear whether that twist was planned out two years in advance, but it’s fantastic continuity either way. 
5. To Infinity and beyond! Having praised the forwards and backwards interconnectivity of The Avengers, I’ve got to quibble with its treatment of the Infinity Stones. Thanos gives Loki a scepter powered, as we learn in Age of Ultron, by the Mind Stone. Did Thanos know the scepter had an Infinity Stone? If so, why relinquish it? Then again, Erik Selvig tells us that the scepter is powered by the Tesseract – “You can’t protect against yourself.” And yet the Tesseract is its own Infinity Stone, the Space Stone. So are the gems interrelated, or is Selvig just wrong? We have to get to six Infinity Stones in time for Infinity War, but I don’t think the films have done a very clear job of sussing out which are which.
6. Bonus round: Can anyone explain to me how Chief Sousa got all the way from 1947 Hollywood to the Battle of New York? Please tell me that this cop is actually the grandson of Peggy and Sousa, and he's finally meeting the man he heard his grandmother talk so much about.
   

There’s so much more to be said about The Avengers, so be sure to check out my original review. Join me in the Grand Marvel Rewatch over the coming weeks, and hit the comments to share your thoughts about the MCU. And don’t forget to tune in next Wednesday for the next installment, in which we take a closer look at the beginning of Phase Two, 2013’s Iron Man 3. Excelsior!

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

The world is a darker place in the wake of the news that Joss Whedon won’t be helming the two-part Avengers: Infinity War (due out in 2018 and 2019). To wit, Avengers: Age of Ultron is a darker, moodier installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe than its predecessor. But if this truly is Whedon’s swan song in the world of The Avengers, it’s a damned good note on which to end, better than the original and a close contender for the MCU’s finest hour.

After a knockout opening sequence that doesn’t waste any time getting to the action, all your favorite Avengers have assembled. When Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) develop an artificial intelligence project that goes awry, the other Avengers – Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) – face the threat of annihilation when the AI builds itself a body and becomes Ultron (James Spader). Along the way, the Avengers are threatened by superpowered twins (Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson) left in the wake of the fall of Hydra.

It seems clunky to type with all those parentheticals, but the Joss Whedon trademark has always been gracefulness when it comes to large ensemble casts. As in the first film, there is an organicity to the assembling of these Avengers, but where The Avengers spent the better part of its first half in assembly-mode (a really lovely first half, actually, perhaps stronger than the action-heavy climax), Age of Ultron throws the group into a cauldron already boiling with tension and camaraderie. The script is well-crafted as ever, with distinct arcs for its characters (which ought to be the norm but, sadly, isn’t) and a tight narrative focus that finds a way to expand the universe without dithering and losing focus.

I don’t want to say more about expanding the universe for fear of spoiling the film, so on the occasion of May the Fourth – Star Wars Day – I’d like to comment on Age of Ultron being ostensibly the franchise’s “Empire Strikes Back” moment, the middle and darkest entry in a trilogy. The mood in Age of Ultron is considerably grimmer than in The Avengers, though it’s by no means unbearable; in fact, what’s surprising about the film is just how much humor it includes among all the foreboding. The Avengers was funny, but Age of Ultron seems to have imported the raucous tempo of Guardians of the Galaxy’s punchlines. “Keep ’em laughing” seems to be the word of the day here, to the point where I began to wonder, amid all the franchise’s one-liners and character resurrections (Nick Fury, Phil Coulson, Pepper Potts, Bucky Barnes, et al), whether Age of Ultron would actually pull the emotional trigger and give us something truly tragic. Suffice it to say, Age of Ultron does go there, and in a way that works better than it actually ought to.

I could lather up the performers, as I usually do, but you’ve seen it all before. The cast continues to do that at which they are best while also successfully navigating through their respective character evolutions. Ruffalo, for one, is still doing the exposed-nerve timidity, but the romantic wrinkles given to his character equally compelling and don’t feel the least bit out of Bruce Banner’s rhythm. Renner gets the closest thing to the film’s center stage (an apology, perhaps, for spending much of The Avengers under Loki’s mind-control) with a development so surprisingly unanticipated that a pin drop would have deafened the audience on opening night.

The true surprises are in the incoming cast, who distinguish themselves quite nicely while also integrating into the ensemble without that feeling of intrusion. Spader in particular stands out as one of the MCU’s better villains, very well-developed and extremely menacing in a creepy sort of way – in other words, exactly the kind of character you’d expect from James Spader. The twins, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, work very well in the context of the film, and they’re the sort of people you’d like to see more of in future films.

One final note must be made of the way that Age of Ultron very consciously engages with the superhero film genre overall. We all have this sense that the bubble is going to burst at some point (with four superhero movies coming out in July 2018 – one a week!), but Age of Ultron never feels overfull or weary. Instead, there’s an interesting way that the film comments on the trend of superhero movies toward ungrounded violence, by which I don’t mean the odd tendency of Marvel films to end with airborne combat and explosions galore. No, there seems to be a very clear commentary on Man of Steel’s ignorance (willful or otherwise) of civilian casualties. At many points in Age of Ultron, The Avengers take great pains to guarantee the safety of the innocent, at the point of risking their own lives to save the citizenry. While I’m one of the few who maintains that Man of Steel’s carnage will actually be a motivating factor for Superman in the sequels, Age of Ultron tackles the issue head-on to demonstrate that the sanctity of life ought to be the hero’s first prerogative.

Is Age of Ultron a bid for a kinder, gentler superhero film? I’m not sure that’s the message, but it is certainly a bid for a more thoughtful one. And while I’m not ready to say it’s dethroned The Winter Soldier at the top of my MCU power rankings, I will say that Whedon had made an indelible stamp on the superhero genre, and the future would do well to take its cues from him – particularly the well-crafted yet innovative juggling act of Age of Ultron.

Avengers: Age of Ultron is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of sci-fi action, violence and destruction, and for some suggestive comments.” The action scenes are standard superhero fare, with all the punching, explosions, and gunfire you’d expect. Most of it is bloodless, as you’d expect from fights with robots, but some of the more personal action beats include blood. The film also includes the standard amount of innuendo and a few scenes of flirting.

By the way, today is May the Fourth – Star Wars Day! – so flashback to 2014 and take a look at my reviews of the Star Wars saga!

Top 10 Marvel Cinematic Universe Films - #2-1!

With Guardians of the Galaxy, the Marvel Cinematic Universe enters the double-digits club.  The job of a Top 10 list in this case is especially difficult because I knew precisely which would be #1 and which would be #10, but the rest I don’t have much complaint about.  The Marvel brand has been very reliable, so assigning ranks becomes a somewhat arbitrary game of quibbling and comparing.  That said, I feel fairly confident in assessing “The Top 10 Marvel Cinematic Universe Films!”  And now we've made it to the Top Two, so without further ado...

2.  The Avengers (2012)

“It works because the movie is so infectiously fun that it quickly sweeps the audience into its world and recruits us into the superteam. ... Honestly, I can’t sell short just how fun this movie is.”

From day one, we knew the Universe was building toward The Avengers, but I don’t think that any of us was quite ready for what we got.  Joss Whedon, nerd-king and archduke of seemingly effortless storytelling, writes and directs the hell out of what might have been a disastrous omnishambles of multiple storylines and vastly different characters.  Instead, all the moving parts coalesce into what might be a perfect film; no knowledge needed of the various franchises at work, because the film introduces them, gives them all something to do, and keeps all the plates spinning while sacrificing neither momentum nor entertainment value.  While some of the final action sequences may be derided as mere cannon fodder, note the way Whedon uses them to wrap up character beats and give closure to the impracticality of uniting so many disparate elements.  Perhaps best of all, The Avengers doesn’t feel like a lowly best-of cover band, but at the same time it doesn’t feel like Whedon is betraying the characters; their trajectories and behaviors fit perfectly with the earlier characterizations while moving them forward in exciting ways.  Dang, now I just want to go rewatch The Avengers – who’s with me?

1.  Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

“Winter Soldier’s willingness to tackle pressing issues in current events might mark a sea change toward greater cultural relevance beyond merely making a literal ton of money.” 

As incredible as The Avengers was, I always had a nagging thought in the back of my mind that it was too big to fail – there was no way we’d get a disappointing Avengers film, not after how good the lead-up had been.  With Captain America, though, we’ve got a “Most Improved” winner on our hands.  The older I get, the more I find myself seeing films more than once in a movie theater; though this is often a casual decision, in the case of Winter Soldier it was a compulsion – I needed to see this film more than once.  While this is, in a sense, Avengers 1.5, Winter Soldier is a perfectly contained unit with an impressive amount of risk-taking and innovating.  The former I won’t spoil because it’s one of those fantastic slack-jawed moments, feeding into the film’s intensely relevant message about surveillance and oversight, but the latter comes in the form of a contagiously compelling performance by Anthony Mackie as The Falcon, a veritable scene-stealer in a film littered with scenes worth stealing.  It moves from character beat to action beat without stalling the plot, a relentless espionage piece that you’d be excused for forgetting was a superhero film to begin with.  This isn’t a “comic book movie” in the derisive sense of the word – this is a proper film.  Plus it has the best Stan Lee cameo to date – ’nuff said!

What do you think, true believers?  Excelsior or excrement?  Sound off in the Comments with your picks for the Top Marvel Cinematic Universe film!  As for next Monday?  Well, we wouldn’t spoil the surprise just yet – in the best Stan Lee tradition, to be continued!

PS - This is the 400th post here at The Cinema King - thanks for reading!  Here's to 400 more, eh?

Top 10 Comic Book Movie Moments - #6-5

We continue with this week’s Top 10:  “The Top 10 Greatest Comic Book Movie Moments.”  A few words of definition:  First, this is not a list of the Top 10 Greatest Comic Book Movies, so you may find your favorites wholly unrepresented on this list.  Instead, what I’m cataloging this week are the scenes that encapsulate what a comic book movie ought to be.  These scenes can fall under one (or more) of three categories:  scenes that translate the experience of reading a comic, scenes that adapt the source material in a brilliantly original way, or scenes that use the language of film to do something that comics can’t (or simply haven’t) done.  Finally, the list is subjective; if I only chose iconic moments, the list would seem predictable, but in sharing my opinions I hope to spark a bit of debate. 

#6 – The Avengers assemble (The Avengers (2012))
Filmgoers waited almost a decade for this moment; through the building of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, we knew that it was all building up to a blockbuster to end all blockbusters.  The Avengers were about to assemble, and for comic fans and moviegoers alike it was exciting.  In true Marvel fashion, the assembling isn’t painless and there’s squabbling before the big moment.  But Joss Whedon deftly gathers all the component franchises together in a movie that never forgets the team element.  The last forty-five minutes or so, which find the heroes gathering for a final showdown with Loki, capture the best of the franchise, including Tony Stark’s attempt (hilariously rendered by Robert Downey Jr.) to go it alone first by intimidating Loki.  But when that doesn’t work, it’s Captain America (Chris Evans) who’s left to call the shots, and seeing the World War II icon issue orders to his team feels right – especially capped off with a nod to the fanboys when Cap directs, “Hulk?  Smash.”

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#5 – “Who’s got you?!”  (Superman: The Movie (1978))
In a lot of ways, Superman: The Movie started it all – comic book movies generally, new fascination with the Man of Steel, even a generation’s perception of the difference between Clark Kent and Superman.  But what the film also accomplished was reinforcing the relationship between Clark and his love Lois Lane.  In this film, Christopher Reeve and Margot Kidder gave performances that can only be labeled “definitional.”  So it’s not for nothing that a recent retelling of Superman’s origin borrowed from the helicopter rescue sequence in the Donner film.  There are a number of moments where Reeve is clearly enjoying the role, and in this one we understand both the need for Superman and how he operates in the world.  Let’s not forget that a sun god from Smallville would first have to enjoy what he does, but let’s also not forget that this scene, the first sustained action sequence with the red-and-blue spandex, convinced an entire generation that, yes, a man can fly.


Come back tomorrow for Moments #4-3!

The Avengers (2012)

If you had any question about when the summer movie season begins, seeing most of your favorite summer movie icons assembled in one film should assuage your confusion.

We’ve been waiting since 2008 for The Avengers to assemble, and under the direction (and script) of fan favorite Joss Whedon, they’ve done just that.  Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) – the gang’s all here.  (Even Clark Gregg, who manages to make Agent Coulson even more likeable, as he has with each successive appearance of this great character.)

And when The Avengers assemble... it’s amazing.

Taking little threads from each of the existing Marvel Cinematic Universe films, The Avengers finds the team gathering for the first time after Thor’s brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) steals a weapon of unimaginable power from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

That’s it.  That’s the premise.  But without spoiling any of the film’s delightful surprises, it’s a deceptively simple plot which allows plenty of room for character interactions.  So while the story won’t surprise anyone, the relationships will; we’ve been fantasizing about a time when Iron Man and Thor would meet Captain America, and here we get to put them all in the same room and see what’s shaking.

Joss Whedon’s greatest strength here is in balancing an enormous cast of characters, something he does far better here than he ever did on the abbreviated Firefly.  Pulling double duty on scripting and directing, Whedon never loses focus on any of the heroes – even the unpowered Black Widow and Hawkeye, who highlight how out of their league they are in a key emotional scene.  Rather, each gets a moment to shine, a line or action that’ll elicit applause or hooted cheers from an audience which is already glad to be there.

Even better, these are the same characters we’ve already met in other films – excepting, of course, Ruffalo’s Hulk, a vast improvement over lackluster predecessors.  By “same,” I mean that Whedon has kept their voices intact; Iron Man still possesses the same narcissistic wit, Thor seems to have walked straight off a Shakespearean stage, and Captain America hasn’t lost any of his 1940s flair despite being more than 70 years out of his time (better yet, we’re not asked to laugh at him for it).

What makes The Avengers a hit is that it’s a successful whole built on successful parts.  Marvel has made a string of delightful films in the lead-up to The Avengers, and if even one of those had fallen flat, this whole enterprise would have been fruitless.  If Thor had floundered or if Iron Man had missed the mark, we’d be stuck with a dud in a team of winners.  Instead, what we have is grade-A comic book movie.

And I say “comic book movie” with no derision in my voice.  Where The Dark Knight took comics and applied filmic realism to spectacular effect, The Avengers translates perfectly to film the experience of reading a comic book.  Flashy colors, exorbitant explosions, clever angles, and costumes that ought to look out of place but don’t (I’m looking at you, Loki) – these are what we’d expect on the newsstands, not in a post-Nolan world.  But it works here.

It works because the movie is so infectiously fun that it quickly sweeps the audience into its world and recruits us into the superteam.  The Avengers isn’t a team of demigods like the Justice League (an updated Greek pantheon in Grant Morrison’s 1997-2000 comics run), it’s a cluster of (mostly) human characters with human foibles.  Tony Stark’s attempts to provoke Bruce Banner into changing into the Hulk isn’t something you’d ever see Batman doing to Superman, but here it’s perfectly in line with what a group of misfits do when they’re assembled in a tight space.

It’s also extremely entertaining to watch.  Whedon singles out each character’s defining traits and pits them against each other; take Downey’s playful lack of sincerity and Ruffalo’s tortured repression, and you’ve got sparks.  Blast Nick Fury’s dedication to the task against Thor’s sense of cosmic perspective, and you’ll be chuckling right alongside Thor. 

Honestly, I can’t sell short just how fun this movie is.  See it with a full house, if you can.  But see it.  It’s the kind of film that makes my cheeks numb from smiling all the time.  Well, not all the time.  There’s a moment – true believers will know it – when the film hits a surprisingly heartfelt beat, but it sweetens, not sours, the film.  I’m already eagerly awaiting the DVD – and a second showing before that.

The Avengers is rated PG-13 for “intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, and a mild drug reference.”  It’s more of the same comic book violence we’ve come to expect from Marvel’s stable, often not bloody (with one notable exception) but dominated by explosions.  I think the aforementioned drug reference is Tony Stark’s continued abuse of alcohol, which would have been a disappointing omission.

 

Welcome back to the summer of full reviews, true believers – we’ll see you next week!