Marvel's Contract Negotiations: The Movie!

Year: 2018

Director: Joe & Anthony Russo

Cast: C'mon

Run Time: 2 hours 29 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

So, the time has come. More or less the entirety of modern cinema has led to this, the culmination of ten years of multi-million dollar blockbuster filmmaking. People online have made fun of Marvel's comment about Avengers: Infinity War being the most ambitious crossover event in cinema history, but people online don't have a great track record of thinking things through. Marvel is right. Infinity War is an act of pure Hollywood hubris, cramming as many successful properties into one punch-kicking chunk as humanly possible. It was either going to be the best movie ever made or a fully incomprehensible hash.

Unfortunately, because the world doesn't live in binaries like we want it to, Infinity War lands somewhere in between. But honestly, that's the best case scenario, because it could have been so much worse and frankly we as a species don't deserve the glory of what would have happened if they threaded that needle.

But we DO deserve Danai Gurira and Chris Evans' beard being in as many movies as possible, so at least we're getting that started.

Oh boy. This is the part where we recap the plot of the movie. Wish me luck. 

Umm... remember all the Marvel movies since 2008? Well, you'd better. Every character you've ever known and loved and a bunch of characters who you assume are from the ones you didn't see are in danger, because the big purple Jay Leno alien known as Thanos (Josh Brolin) is finally ready to bedazzle his Polly Pocket glove with the sparkly Infinity stones that have been cropping up oh so often lately. Once he collects them all, he can send in the box tops to receive his prize: the death of half the population of the universe.

Turns out, people don't like that idea, so pretty much everyone who has a superpower or who looks good in a leather catsuit have assembled to prevent this catastrophe on as many fronts as possible. Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Rocket (Bradley Cooper voice, Sean Gunn mocap), and Groot (Vin Diesel) search for a mythical god-killing weapon. Meanwhile the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy - Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) - head to cut off Thanos at the site of some Infinity Stone or other. 

Meanwhile meanwhile, Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) has disappointed girlfriend Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) by hopping onto the ship of Thanos' right-hand monster Ebony Maw (Tom Vaughan-Lawlor) to save Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) with stowaway Spider-Man (Tom Holland).

Meanwhile meanwhile meanwhile, Vision (Paul Bettany) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) are trying to bone in peace, but he's got a big ol' Infinity Stone in his head so he must be evacuated to Wakanda by war criminals Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) into the custody of Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and also Hulk is there (Mark Ruffalo).

Did I miss anything? Oh yes, 45% of the cast. Well, I tried. I really did.

I'm getting why Thanos wants to destroy half of these people. It would really make things easier to follow.

Much like the screenwriters of Infinity War, I really don't know where to start. There's a lot of good in Infinity War and a lot of bad, but they're all hopelessly entangled. Maybe we should start with Thanos, who has been lurking in the background of this franchise since the end credits tease in 2012's Avengers. The movie really wants to have a sympathetic villain, but doesn't quite stick the landing. Maybe it's the fact that it's easier to relate to someone who doesn't look like a CGI gummy bear. Maybe they cashed in their small supply of Good Villain points to make Killmonger back in February. Maybe it's just the fact that every time the script shifts to its serious tone, the gears start to grind a little bit. I'm going to assume it's all the above, but let's discuss the latter.

The screenplay, from the writers behind your favorite Marvel entries including Captain America: The First Avenger and Thor: The Dark World, is kind of a mess. Whenever it attempts to get profound (as any apocalyptic movie is tempted to do), it adopts a clownish grimace and forces its characters through a gauntlet of the most maudlin, overwrought monologues yet known to man. Combined with the barbaric clunkiness of the exposition every time that rears its ugly head, a lot of sequences in this movie are just punishing to watch.

A scene where you can see exactly where it's going within seconds drags out its overheated drama for full minutes, jam-packed with explanatory dialogue that finds endless ways to rephrase "you say that things are THIS way... But they're THAT way!" Infinity War never cuts to the chase, and its complicated labyrinth of life-or-death contrivances, arbitrary ticking clock action sequences, and bizarre character motivations isn't smoothed out by how painful and empty the emotional scenes are.

But it's hard to drum up stakes when you know that there are going to be 18 more of these movies in the next, like, three months. Especially when the punches are as hyperbolically pulled as this one. The Marvel films have always had a problem with balancing the power levels of its various characters, but Thanos is so perilously overpowered that when he stoops to the level of a punchfight, you wonder why he doesn't just crush these people like ants. His strength and ability wax and wane exactly as the plot needs them to, and that almost completely neuters his ability to be an impressive villain. He's literally upstaged by his sidekick Ebony Maw, who has a crazy frightening countenance, a startlingly powerful telekinetic ability, and a much more mustache-twistingly eeevil approach to his work.

The fact that the movie doesn't realize how freaking terrifying he is just goes to show that you shouldn't add characters willy nilly when you're stuck with the ones you've been teasing for a decade.

This arid, emotionless state of affairs isn't helped by the cast, which is like 800 pounds of sexy glowering shoved into a five pound bag. Whether it's because they're finally grown tired of their characters or if they just feel like they don't have to try too hard considering they'll only get like five minutes of screentime, a lot of our team roster here is on autopilot. Much like the script, these performances are leaning hard on the assumption that you already know and love these characters and they don't have to try too hard to earn your trust.

Robert Downey, Jr. has obviously getting tired of playing Iron Man for some time, and Chris Evans has literally been fatigued by the lifestyle he's had to live to keep Captain America afloat, but their disinterest is front and center here. Mark Ruffalo also seems to have lost his hold on what exactly Hulk is doing in these movies, and some of the one-scene reappearances from actors like Idris Elba are clearly catnapping. And Gwyneth Paltrow is practically comatose.

Luckily, this isn't an actors' movie. This is a posing in tight shirts movie, and that more than does the trick. And a lot of material is patched up by the people who really are pulling their weight, usually the newer additions to the franchise. The Guardians of the Galaxy, fresh off their sequel, are still packing a comic punch that keeps the lighter tone in the air, Danai Gurira from Black Panther owns the screen with just a twitch of her lip, and Chris Hemsworth is still harnessing the Kiwi magic that made Tho: Ragnarok so special. Plus, Tom Holland is flat out great, giving me the only scene that actually impacted my emotions in any way at all.

Even though the Iron-Spidey suit is... questionable.

OK, finally we've transitioned into the good parts of the movie, of which there are quite a lot. In an infinite universe all things are possible, and there's no universe as big as the MCU, so there was always going to be just as much good as bad. Or... almost as much.

The action scenes aren't all spectacular, but they're definitely engaging popcorn cinema, and one fight that brings back the magical aesthetics of Doctor Strange is a decadent visual feast, reminiscent of Dumbledore and Voldemort's showstopping battle in the Ministry of Magic in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Aesthetically, the film comes alive for a lot of its spacefaring adventures, painting worlds and landscapes we've never seen before with candy colors that are drunk on the visual potential of comic books. Not every setting is perfect (a climactic battle is staged in a location where everything is a different shade of "rust"), but there's a lot of big budget whimsy to be had here.

And when the script does shift to its lighter tones, the comedy pretty much always works. Obviously laughs are in the mouth of the beholder, but over the past few days since I saw this movie my mind has been irresistibly drawn back to a lot of the one-liners, of which I have retained a much higher quantity and with greater accuracy than even most straight-up comedy films I like. Again, the best of these are delivered by the actors who are actually trying, but everybody gets a shot at a line or two that undeniably works.

And... fine. Not all the melodrama is bad. I wish I could talk about it without spoiling it, but I can't, so I'll suffice it to say that a metanarrative decision on the parts of the filmmakers really drives home the emotional impact of an event in the third act, retroactively making it feel much more brutal than it felt, at least to me, in the moment. Ask me in the comments if you want more detail on that.

Anyway, there's really a lot wrong here, but I'm going to err on the side of enjoying popcorn cinema and forgive some of its sins in favor of the parts I did really like, at least on a shallow entertainment level. The sheer amount of balls they manage to juggle is impressive, and while it doesn't feel seamless, it's at least comprehensible, which it almost certainly didn't seem like it was going to be.

TL;DR: Avengers: Infinity War is surprisingly legible and certainly fun, but emotionally unavailable due to its jam-packed story.

Rating: 6/10

Word Count: 1764

Reviews In This Series

Guardians of the Galaxy (Gunn, 2014)

Avengers: Age of Ultron (Whedon, 2015)

Captain America: Civil War (Russo & Russo, 2016)

Doctor Strange (Derrickson, 2016)

Black Panther (Coogler, 2018)

Avengers: Infinity War (Russo & Russo, 2018)

Ant-Man and the Wasp (Reed, 2018)

Guns... So Primitive

Year: 2018

Director: Ryan Coogler

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong'o 

Run Time: 2 hours 14 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

For a huge corporation dominating the box office, Marvel sure does manage to take some risks. Let's not pretend that these risks aren't carefully calculated and demographically analyzed within a nanometer of their lives to be as safe and sure as possible, but they're risks nonetheless. 

They hand movies to indie auteurs with only a few low budget gems under their belt (Taika Waititi earned his way to Thor: Ragnarok with Hunt for the Wilderpeople, and James Gunn nabbed Guardians of the Galaxy with Super, a film that had literally 1% of that Marvel flick's budget), they adapt low-performing properties into mega-blockbusters (the aforementioned Guardians had two brief runs, and hadn't had a comic published in at least four years when the movie came out), and though all their movies have the same general sheen, they aren't afraid of changing up the tone and even genre of individual entries (from the paranoid political thriller of The Winter Soldier to the frothy heist antics of Ant-Man, there's a pretty wide range of material at this point). When you really take a look at the way they've gone at least a teensy bit out of their way to make sure their mass-market product is guided by interesting, dynamic people, it's pretty, well, marvelous.

Black Panther is a combination of all of these things, and way more. The character of Black Panther is a Marvel B-side, though he's right on the cusp of being a household name, at least in nerdier families. The director, Ryan Coogler, only had two films under his belt, though admittedly one of them was Creed, already a successful, critically acclaimed franchise extension. But most importantly, this is the biggest budget film ever to have a predominantly black cast, a black director, all while being the first Marvel film with a female cinematographer to boot. These are all very wonderful, and yes, capital-I Important things. While I personally wouldn't consider this kind of casting and hiring particularly risky (because I live in the real world, and am aware that all kinds of people can make all kinds of art), Hollywood has a tendency to view anything non-whitewashed as a potential financial loss. In the eyes of Hollywood, the near-future careers of many hard-working, diverse crew members depends on the success of  the mega-multi-million dollar Black Panther, as does the continuation of the box office juggernaut Marvel Cinematic Universe. That's what I'd call a risk, and a very Important one.

Of course, the movie also has to be good in addition to important, but would Marvel take a risk on something that wasn't good?

Well, you got me there.

Spoiler alert: It's good. But first, the plot, which is blissfully as insular as it can possibly be from the greater orchestrations of the Marvel universe. After the events of Captain America: Civil War, which saw the death of T'Chaka (John Kani), King of the African nation of Wakanda, the throne has been passed to his son T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman, who is finally free from playing every significant historical African-American figure the country to offer). Wakanda, though it seems to be a third world farming country from the outside, is secretly a high-tech utopia thanks to its vast deposits of vibranium, a magical compound that does, I dunno, comic book stuff. It's magic.

Unfortunately, not everyone in Wakanda is as pleased with T'Challa being crowned King as his mother Ramonda (Angela Bassett) and tech-genius sister Shuri (Letitia Wright). The five tribes of Wakanda slowly begin to splinter according to their various allegiances, but the real breaking point comes in the form of two villains: the chav-bro arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, using his actual god-given face) and his partner in crime Erik Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan, who is three for three on Ryan Coogler films at this point), an Oakland native who has mysterious ties to the Wakandan War Dog tribe.

Everything swiftly descends into what you might just call a "game of thrones" involving every major Wakandan figure, including General Okoye (Danai Gurira), leader of the bald, entirely female royal guard; W'Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya, currently an Oscar nominee for Get Out), a friend of T'Challa whose overwhelming hatred of Klaue makes him unpredictable; Nakia (Lupita Nyong'o), T'Challa's former flame and an international spy who wants to use Wakandan technology to help those in need out in the world; and also Zuri (Forest Whitaker), but I'm honestly not really sure what he does. 

He mainly just delivers exposition and takes care of flowers.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Black Panther how very political it is. It's necessarily about political engagement and the responsibility of upper-class minorities to reach out and help the oppressed (which honestly isn't as far from the general theme of superhero movies as you'd think, although it is much more fervently expressed here). Occasionally the movie gets a little didactic, especially in a clunky monologue it shoves onto Michael B. Jordan's shoulders midway through, but otherwise it's soaked with an urgency and vitality that's startling for a film with this corporate pedigree.

But that's yet another thing about what makes it Important, and I'm a little sick of dwelling on that for the time being. Because Black Panther is fun, and it doesn't serve the movie to forget that. A tremendous cast is delivering crackling dialogue here, with just enough of a snappy edge to remind you that you're watching a Marvel project, but still shedding the vestiges of Joss Whedon flop sweat and finding its own personality in the process.

I mean, there's no way you can deny how awe-inspiring it is to look at that cast list. These people are all from different genres, mediums, and levels of fame, but they come together to create something spectacular. Everyone is having fun here, even Lupita Nyong'o, who is saddled with a tragically generic love interest role. A bright spot here is certainly Letitia Wright (whose biggest credit up to this point has been the odious British TV series Cucumber/Banana, which I regretfully watched all of in my capacity as a recapper at The Backlot) as the eager younger sister, whose energy and vivacity light up the screen like a thousand gigawatt bulb, but sometimes it's hard to look anywhere but the villains.

Marvel has notoriously had a problem with crafting solid antagonists, and that issue is cracked wide open here. Klaue is maybe not the best example, but the anarchistic glee with which Andy Serkis digs into the role is immensely satisfying. Killmonger, however, in spite of the ridiculous name, is a force to be reckoned with. Michael B. Jordan takes a role that we've seen in every Marvel origin story from the beginning of time (a villain who is a dark mirror-image of the main hero's costume and power set) and tosses in about a dozen extra layers of prickly emotion, charismatic intimidation, and moral ambiguity. He's not just a one note slab of eeeeevil, but rather a complex, satisfying character who serves up the themes of the movie on a silver platter. And not for nothing, he's so good-looking it almost hurts. Part of being a movie star is drawing the eye like an electromagnet, and he's at full charge.

Dude knows how to rock a vest, what can I say?

On top of all that, Black Panther is probably the best looking Marvel film to date, although - to be fair - only recently has it seemed like they've been trying to create any sort of visual beauty in their movies. But it also inhabits a wholly unique space in the American cinema sphere, bringing the traditions and aesthetics of Afrofuturism to the grandest scale they've ever seen. From the costumes to the sets to the sweeping cinematography of Rachel Morrison, Black Panther fully invests in the color, patterns, and majesty of Africa to create an arresting visual schema that dares you to look away for even a second.

There aren't nearly enough high quality screenshots of the film yet for my liking, but here's a quick taste of some of what it has to offer:

In the future, we don't question that women are badasses.

Western clothing patterns can go f**k themselves.

Oh yeah, did I mention Martin Freeman is in this movie? Should I have? Eh, probably not.

Sometimes set designers just get it.

The bottom line is that Black Panther is spectacular, and it makes itself so by utilizing a perspective that's been long absent from modern cinema. The heavy drums that propel the soundtrack straight through your skull, the elegant simplicity of the sci-fi gadgetry that blends old traditions with hyper-futuristic tech, and the eye-searing color scheme that doesn't remotely feel 80's in the way that most bold color palettes have gone recently, none of it could have come from Western culture, and the fact that it has been given such a platform is a blissfully new, visually entrancing experience.

What does come from Western culture, however, is the plot structure, and it's nothing we haven't seen before. Marvel falls back on a lot of their favorite tropes and plot devices, so nothing in the plot itself is going to particularly shock you. And while the action sequences are fun (especially a trawl through the streets of Busan, a South Korean burg we should all know very well, and a fight on the edge of a waterfall), none of them are blow-the-roof-off unique, especially the too-busy, dizzying CGI-fest that closes the third act.

The reasons to watch this movie are ample, but the parts where it fails are exactly the elements that mark it as a Marvel project. It's not Black Panther's fault that a formula we've seen 18 times before is getting a wee bit stale, but this is one in a long line of movies that are doing something unique and memorable, but I probably never need to see again. And it's a shame, because the act of seeing Black Panther is exactly what makes it so incredibly satisfying. 

It's a triumph of aesthetic, world-building, character-creation, and political urgency, and I highly recommend it. But it's still a Marvel movie, y'know? Thank heavens they're taking risks, but they're never going to make something one hundred percent new. There's no shame in that, but there's also no   longevity.

TL;DR: Black Panther contains a lot of material we've seen before, but it's presented with a vision that we certainly haven't.

Rating: 8/10

Word Count: 1767
Reviews In This Series
Captain America: Civil War (Russo & Russo, 2016)
Black Panther (Coogler, 2018)
Avengers: Infinity War (Russo & Russo, 2018)
Ant-Man and the Wasp (Reed, 2018)

When Tony Comes Marching Home

Year: 2016

Director: Anthony & Joe Russo

Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson

Run Time: 2 hours 27 minutes

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Captain America: Civil War is one of those frustrating movies that renders film criticism even more useless than it already is. A negative review is but a fragile echo in the void while Marvel plows through their stacks of money with a bulldozer. And a positive review is extravagantly pointless, because you know you’ve seen the goddamn thing. But I watched it, and I’m morally obligated to give my two cents. Why not have some fun with this exuberantly pointless exercise?

I’m not a regular blog. I’m a cool blog.

So, Captain America. The Avenger that nobody would give a flying fart about if he weren’t played by the human mountain we call Chris Evans. Full disclosure, I haven’t seen the first two Cap movies, but I’ve been on my roommate’s Tumblr page enough to grasp the gist of things. The constant between the films (aside from a set of wholly bland villains) is Captain Steve Rogers and James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and the fact that the series is essentially a longform exploration of male friendship is by far the most interesting thing about it. Oh, also Cap’s friend Falcon (Anthony Mackie) is there, though he hardly finds a convincing reason for his presence. A third wheel is a third wheel, even if you’ve got a bird suit.

Bucky has been brainwashed by the Nazis Hydra to become the Winter Soldier, a mindless assassin who carries out their wickedest deeds when read a special passage from a Dr. Seuss-esque red book. Tensions have already been rising between the Avengers when, following a botched mission, the government decides to regulate the team, having them answer to the UN. Because nothing streamlines saving the world like handing the reins to international bureaucracy. This effort is spearheaded by Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), Iron Man himself.

When Bucky lands himself in the sights of the coalition, an already dubious Steve assembles a team of MCU cameos to help him save his friend and also the world (from the requisite milquetoast villain, Zemo – played by Daniel Brühl), defying the UN Accords. Iron Man assembles his own team, including an olive branch from Sony: Spider-Man (Tom Holland).

Meanwhile, Hulk and Thor are vacationing in the Poconos.

It’s intriguing that both of this year’s major superhero mash-ups (Civil War and Batman v Superman, and please allow me to extend my humblest apologies for bringing up that crapfest again) directly grapple with the collateral damage caused by superhero brawls. It’s an important conversation to be having, in terms of the depiction of onscreen violence, but I can hardly think of a less exciting tend for comic book movies. It’s just one step above that stultifying superhero standby of “I must resist using my powers because they’re bad (and we can’t afford the special effects).”

And do you want to know the worst thing? In terms of directly addressing the repercussions of their own violent content, Batman v Superman is actually the superior film. Only in that regard, mind you, but talk about a plot twist. That movie, while incomprehensible, actually had high stakes and some clear consequences. In Civil War, the Accords are pretty inconsequential, just a garnish for a massive action sequence between two sides chosen as arbitrarily as a game of dodgeball.

Civil War plays it way too safe, and the supposedly grand, operatic plot beats feel like they’re tiptoeing on eggshells, not wanting to throw a wrench in Phase 3 with anything as gauche as [SPOILERS a major character death or even a stubbed toe. They refuse to even allow ludicrously minor characters like War Machine (Don Cheadle) the dignity of being bumped off to raise the stakes, no matter how clearly he super duper died in the film. And so help me God, if I don’t get to see Thanos crack open Vision’s (Paul Bettany) stupid, didactic Klaatu forehead before the end of Phase 3, I’m going to rip myself in half.] All I’m asking for is that a storyline as grand and sweeping as Civil War be treated with a little more gravity than Thor’s latest bubble bath.

Well, maybe I’m overextending myself expecting gravity from this guy.

OK, I’m calming down. Though Civil War fails to reach the heights of the raging maelstrom promised by the comics, the trailers, and the advance reviews, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad film. I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed. But as a piece of popcorn superhero mayhem, the film largely delivers. Frankly, the one-on-one action sequences between Captain America and Iron Man pull so many punches that they end up smacking themselves in the face (and yes, a hardcore moment that is almost instantly retconned counts as a pulled punch), but when our other heroes get in on the fun, the movie gets a shot in the arm.

Where Civil War truly triumphs is its ensemble action, which is an astonishing feat of character juggling. The ubiquity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is helpful, precluding the film from having to reiterate backstories for returning characters like the spuriously-accented Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), the expert agent Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), or the sharpshooter Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner, and I am pleased as punch to report that his appearance got the biggest applause from my audience), but the script stays true to their personalities and longform arcs.

It manages this while also introducing two entirely new heroes to the pack: the vengeful Wakandan prince Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and the snotty teen Spider-Man in his third cinematic iteration. I’m deeply concerned to admit that I actually enjoyed Tom Holland in the role, because I sure as hell don’t want to shell out money for an umpteenth Spidey flick.

The guy has more regenerations than a Time Lord.

Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah. The movie doesn’t get as distracted by its massive smorgasbord of superheroes as I do. In a jam-packed chase sequence as well as the inevitable showdown between both teams in a massive airfield, Civil War effortlessly weaves an infinitum of motivations, personalities, and character struggles into one seamless, breathtaking tapestry. The only hero who doesn’t get his fair share of the pie is Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), who’s just here to have fun. Although, considering the cotton candy froth that his film turned out to be, I guess that’s still staying true to Ant-Man’s mission statement.

Plus, despite the stakes being dismayingly low on the grand narrative scale, these fight scenes are filled with little moments that will sock you in the gut. One scene in particular with a helicopter stopped my heart for a second.

OK, TWO scenes in particular with a helicopter.

The relative intensity with Russo brothers bring to the action also serves to give the Whedon-tinged dialogue more comedic punch when it does arrive. This is a transitional film between two Marvel phases with two distinct personalities, and tonally it’s an excellent midpoint between the both of them. So while I found myself immensely frustrated by large portions of this overlong film (this is no empty complaint – I could slice half an hour off this behemoth and never miss it – including two, count ‘em, two romances so chaste they feel vacuum sealed), it’s still an excellent entry in the overall Marvel canon. Enough that I can confidently proclaim that, whatever happens, Doctor Strange will still be the worst MCU flick out this year.

TL;DR: Captain America: Civil War is a grand achievement in unwieldy ensemble filmmaking, but plays it too safe to be a superhero classic.

Rating: 7/10

Word Count: 1286

Reviews In This Series
Avengers: Age of Ultron (Whedon, 2015)
Ant-Man (Reed, 2015)
Captain America: Civil War (Russo & Russo, 2016)
Black Panther (Coogler, 2018)
Avengers: Infinity War (Russo & Russo, 2018)
Ant-Man and the Wasp (Reed, 2018)