My Own Little World

Having just come from Infinity War , the Marvel Cinematic Universe is reeling. The film with the largest scope and greatest stakes (along with arguably the franchise’s most menacing villain) has left all fans in a sort of mourning period. I saw that film twice in theaters, and because of its weight I felt like I needed a bit of space to process all the consequences of its insane climax. That’s part of what makes the franchise’s next entry both fitting and puzzling. Ant-Man and the Wasp takes a completely different tone than Infinity War , and that split my opinion of it. I appreciate that it does not have the large stakes and scale of most MCU films, but at the same time it also feels unimportant and almost like filler. In a similar manner to the first ­ Ant-Man film, its lightweight nature undermines its own sense of self-importance but in an even worse context for such a film because it follows a much grimmer installment. I know that that might be a strange area of criticis...

Infinity War is the Empire Strikes Back of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is a comparison made quite often – not just for this film, but for nearly every franchise. At some point, every gritty sequel will be likened to the practical perfection of Empire and its usurping of its predecessor’s formula. Whether this is deserved or not is a contentious subject with the fans of whatever franchise falls prey to the discussion. With the Marvel Cinematic Universe, though, Infinity War fits the mold perfectly. For the first time in these nineteen films, the stakes are real and not contrived by an incompetent villain. For the first time, the villain is a true psychopathic terror that gets true sympathy that can even approach empathy. For the first time (at least in an Avengers film), this group of god-like beings feels truly threatened by the antagonist, incapable of stopping them. There’s other parallels to be made for sure – like how both Infinity War and Empire split up ...

Comic book films have begun to vary quite a bit in the past couple of years. Deadpool opened the doors to R-ratings in the genre, Logan showed how emotionally compelling and tonally focused those films can be, and Wonder Woman brought a strong female presence to the genre for the first time. In Black Panther , we have yet another drastic change; this time, though, it is to more than just the superhero genre. Sure, we do finally have a properly fleshed-out black superhero; but the bigger thing here is the subtext. There is so much to this film’s major themes that make it one of the timeliest comic book films ever made. This is rooted in the film’s villain Killmonger, played by Michael B. Jordan. Besides Jordan’s great performance, this is a highly and uniquely motivated villain. His core motivation is to flip the narrative of blacks worldwide and to leverage Wakanda’s (the African nation at play) premier technology to do so. He wants to oppress their oppressors and demand ...

By this point, there has been an established formula in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. There’s a reason they are so successful at the box office: people see them as a reliable option for being entertained at the movies. That’s not a bad thing by any means – I thoroughly enjoy every single one of these movies and plan to for the foreseeable future – but it does mean that each successive film in the franchise needs to stand out at least a little bit from the rest to keep interest high. This year, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 partially failed at that with its convoluted plot and somewhat rehashed humor; on the contrary, Spider-Man: Homecoming successfully rebooted a character that has had problems in past in film, giving me a film that I really enjoyed. Thor: Ragnarok does something I didn’t expect in trying to change up the formula from the previous two films focusing on the character: it cranks the humor up to 11. OK, there’s more to it than that, like the way the film ...

I was going to write this review a few days earlier than I did. I saw Spider-Man: Homecoming  last Tuesday, and afterwards I left the theater feeling slightly underwhelmed. I knew what I had just seen was good, but I was most definitely not wowed by what I saw. To be honest, I am not the biggest fan of Spider-Man in the first place, and I have never thoroughly enjoyed a film starring the character. It has nothing to do with cinematic quality but entirely with tone. The Raimi trilogy often felt too campy, while the Andrew Garfield films felt like they veered too much into conventional comic book film territory. Homecoming  definitely felt more in my wheelhouse than any prior Spider-Man film, but I still didn't love it. Two days later, I was watching the trailers prior to Dunkirk , Christopher Nolan's latest film (which I'll have a review of very soon), and suddenly something clicked. Spider-Man: Homecoming  is actually really, really, really good.  This might be...

I loved the first Guardians of the Galaxy  film. It was so relentlessly original and infectious, and up until the release of Captain America: Civil War  it was my favorite movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I loved the cast, the writing, the soundtrack, and virtually everything else about it (save the villain; Marvel almost never does well there). Naturally, after the success of that first film, Marvel decided to attempt a repeat, bringing back the same cast, the same writer and director, and the same talking tree and raccoon. Marvel's sequels have usually at least in some ways improved on the originals, and sometimes they have struck gold, so I was quite hopeful for Vol. 2 . In some ways, this film does quite well, mostly due to the clever humor. Part of this is because of the writing and how fast and furious the jokes come, but I feel a majority of the humor's success comes from the chemistry of the cast and how everyone has different comedic slants. Every charact...

A little over a year ago, Marvel released one of the first R-rated comic book films: Deadpool . It's huge box office returns changed the game for the genre, allowing studios to realize that their audiences were not just OK with their favorite characters being placed in more extreme films -- they actually welcomed the change. Fast forward to today, and Marvel is taking another stab at the R-rated comic book film with Logan . Unlike Deadpool 's attempts to parody and make light of the superhero genre, however, Logan  aims for the skies and tries to transcend the genre's limitations entirely. Instead of seeing itself as confined to any sort of box, it tries to be an "indie superhero film," for lack of better phrasing. It goes for a small-scale character-driven drama with some bursts of action along the way. And you know what? It works perfectly.  This is the perfect film to send Hugh Jackman's portrayal of the Wolverine riding off into the sunset b...

In closing the door on 2016, I realize that there are a lot of films that I have seen that unfortunately I was unable to review for one reason or another. That doesn't mean, however, that I don't want you guys to know what I think of most of these films, so just like the last couple of years I will be doing a few posts over the next month or so wrapping up all of the films I got a chance to see from this past year. First up, a trio of big blockbusters from early on in the year... Deadpool - Buy it, and eat some chimichangas while you're at it.  Deadpool is not your parents' superhero movie, and it also is one of the few superhero movies you wouldn't want to watch with your parents. Ryan Reynolds might have just saved his career with his witty delivery, and the way this film pokes fun at itself and other superhero movies is impeccable. The direction of these action sequences is also really solid, and the effects are done well too. It's a wild time an...

I've taken a little more time in prepping my year-end wrap-up this year, mostly because I was making sure I had seen everything I wanted to in theaters before publishing. Like last year, I've written mini-reviews on all the films that I either saw too far into their theatrical run to do a full review on or after their home video release. Without further ado, I present to you Part 3 of the Rest of 2015... Ant-Man  - Buy it.   What sets Ant-Man apart is its unique tone. From 2014 on Marvel has done a really good job of making each film's tone distinct, and this continues with Ant-Man . It feels less like a superhero film and more like a heist comedy, allowing Paul Rudd to flex his comedic muscles quite a bit. The way Peyton Reed crafts the film's shrunken sequences puts a very unique mark on this Marvel film that will allow it to stand apart from the rest of their body of work.  Grade: 85 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 2  - Watch it.  Mockingjay...

The Marvel movie machine is an unstoppable force that will earn its money whether or not they produce good films. Thankfully, they have a high standard for their films that makes them critically successful as well as commercially. However, that standard has been slipping as of late, with Iron Man 3  and Thor: The Dark World  drawing in some of the poorest reviews of the series. Does the second installment of the Captain's story bring Marvel back to its former heights? In short, yes. The Winter Soldier  succeeds where the recent Marvel films have not: the story. Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely make The Winter Soldier 's story suspenseful yet thematically rich at the same time. Like The Dark Knight trilogy, it mixes political undertones and themes prevalent in our world today with incredible action sequences and tense, chaotic moments, propelling the movie through its 150-minute running time quite quickly. It never lets up on its relentless pace, mak...