Film Review : Spider-man No Way Home

 This phase of the Spider-man trilogy comes to an end in a big way. I have a couple of friends who have not cared for Tom Holand in the role and this movie dismisses such notions in a very vivid manner. It picks up where the previous film left off with Parker's identity being revealed. If you have seen the trailer and have half a brain the plot is not surprise. Nor are there any surprises that are not numbered among the fan theories. Though there are a few theories that do not come to life, this movie does not include Captain Marvel who was rumored to appear and try to hunt Spider Man down. Nor does Miles Morales appear. Kraven the Hunter is also not one of the film's villains.  Dr. Strange is one of the main characters but really only bookends the film, yet this movie is a clear cut set up for his sequel. 

If you did not like the previous Holland movies, I do not think you are going to like this one. Since magic figures in as a key plot point, if you need hyper realism then stick to Bat-man movies.  It feels more like a comic book. Which is the tone these movies should have. They try to fix a few problems the movies have had. It is well paced and two of the major fan's theories do occur and pay off well. It almost made me think if the internet buzz is the new focus group and wonder if Marvel did reshoots for these. I think there is a balance of meeting expectations. The focal point is not his legal disputes though the thought of Spider-man being painted as a more of an anti-hero is present. His relationship with Dr. Strange is pretty comics accurate.  I think the only flaw in the movie this version of MJ.  She worked better in the previous film, but the chemistry is not believable and trying to paint them as a couple in real life is one of the oldest Hollywood tricks in the book, if you need an example of this watch the movie "Hail Caeser" . I give that picture they are trying to paint with them a month or two before that clause in their contract expires. 

Yes, this movie is a huge marketing vehicle. The Marvel brand is out the center. To the point that this is the first time one of the post credit scenes has been a trailer. This is done in a way that works and is not heavy handed until that moment. The movie is a lot of fun, one of the strengths is how it redeem William Dafoe, who has the movies best performance, no that is not a spoiler, he is in the trailer so if you get your feelings hurt by thinking it is, then go fuck yourself.  This movie sets up the next phase of Marvel movies better than anything we have seen so far and is the best of the four Marvel movies released this year.   

Marvel Comics -2021 a Year in Review

 When I started this blog, I reviewed the comics that came out every week. Perhaps I need to go back to that, are maybe once a month would be a better goal, as their need to be some voice of quality control out there which does not just pay lip service to the current comics trends since that is what got us here in the first place. Marvel is a mess this can be summed up in the most recent Kazar comic. How hard is Kazar to mess up? Instead, they turn it into an acid trip, giving him new powers, when it is ok that he is their version of Tarzan, there is no reason to turn him into Animal Man. They want to celebrate but the artist felt the need to slut shame Shanna because her costume has worked for years. Is he a character that could use more depth? Yes, but this story does not do that and the art is awful

It is not all bad news, when the Fantastic Four is not cluttered up by becoming a home for wayward cosmic kids, they capture the feel of the first family and the art works. But the bulk of their books clutter up the stories by diluting the book with supporting casts that take away from what makes the hero special. Hulk was the first I noticed falling victim to this when we saw too much focus place on a multitude of other colored hulks.  do we need a Red and Green She-hulk? The off-shoot books from this work, but not as a main book. The Immortal Hulk book got mired into this as we had Sasquatch merged with Doc Sampson tagging along, which did not play to the strength of Leonard Sampson and melding the two characters did nothing.  They tried making She-Hulk more like Banner and took away what makes Jennifer Walters work.  The whole Hulk spaceship story they are on now is going to tank hard, I think Immortal might not have been as great as people made it out to be, but was better than what we are getting now.  

The Avengers would work better with Vision and Scarlets Witch re-joining the team and getting rid of Blade and Ghost Rider, who did not fit and are not about the same kinds of missions. Blade was best made an example of in Hulk when he just threw him across the city. If it is not a vampire, then it is not his problem. Both Spider-man and the X-men suffer from similar problems, though perhaps Spider-man to a lesser extent. The Hulk issue we touched on earlier too many Spider-people. The X-men are clustered up on a island, which is not unlike the Mansion in that regard, but rather than focus on certain characters in certain books, we get a bunch of books that have no focus. 4 X books is what works best Uncanny, the main team big mutant threats. X-Force- black ops team. X-- Factor- the CSI teem and New Mutants, the training camp.

With Spider-man, it felt like we were circling the same drain. the Black Cat off shoot book at times working better. Amazing is really all we need, Spider-woman works thought Jessica Drew does not need to get mired down into other spiders, nor does Mile Morales need his own clone sage, it is like they never learn. Thor was another hit or miss book, that jumped around to Thor's past and future and forgot what makes him great. This unworthy thing, well I have talked about how if Jesus was a comic character, they would never treat him that way. Why kill off Dr. Strange? he is the least likely character to stay dead as he knows how to traverse the astral plane. Why replace Daredevil with Elektra?   

Over in DC the Bat books are overcrowded with other Bat characters so learn the lesson here. The days of big events are done, they were all anti-climactic anyway. Hopefully 2022 sees Sentry coming back and more Elsa Bloodstone. Given to how they follow the movies expect big emphasis to the point of over kill for Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, She Hulk, and the movie stars pending Thor, Dr. Strange and Capt. Marvel. Which I am fine with as two of those are two of my favorite characters. Comic books are already on life support sales wise do stick with what works and build off it rather than deconstruction and build it back into something that does not work. 

Film Review : the Eternals

 

There is a great deal that needs clearing up in regards to "the Eternals" . Both the "gay" superhero hype and the film's underwhelming Rotten Tomato score, which has marked it as the MCU's worst film. It shows you how fair weather critics can be, and how hyping a movie based on a marketing agenda with a false sense of inclusion is running out of gas, if this box office does to show the tank is already on empty. We had the "first" black superhero movie from Marvel studios, since we are not supposed to count "Blade" and if you did not think "Black Panther " was a great movie you were a racist. Though the tides have turned , since not liking  "Eternals "  does not make you a homophobe. Despite the gay back lash over this hype, this movie is far from "Brokeback Mountain". The fact the character is gay is a minor detail, really only accented by the most awkward kiss we have seen in a Marvel movie .In truth Kingo's character seemed more gay. Kingo's character also show how Marvel makes a mess when trying to force diversity, as this Indian heroes being a part of the Bollywood world plays into stereotypes in a more racist way. I am surprised it is not getting banned in India as well, it is worse that what they did with Shang Chi, But they needed an angle since know one knew who the Eternals were unless they were a hard core Marvel comics reader. 

The Eternals tend to only cross over in the more cosmic titles , with perhaps Hulk being the one exception, but he traverses so many places he runs into everyone at some point. They do not come in contact with the street level heroes at all really . Thor , Dr. Strange and Fantastic Four, sure even Captain America not so much ,really due to the fact they they are so far out of his league in terms of their powers. The movie conveys this pretty well. It does a good job of making the more unknow among the like Druig and Gilgamesh more fully formed characters. Where Ikarus is more card board due to his stoic nature. There is some gender flipping as Ajax is a make character and is portrayed n the film by Selma Hayek. What the movie does get wrong is the lineage of when these beings were created and in what order as well as leaving out some character in the comics that might have made for more interesting story telling.  

This movie could have uses some serious editing, but it was more fun than tedious. I think some of the elements that could have taken it from being just ok to great would have been to go ahead and use Black Knight, Star Fox and Pip. There was speculation of Hercules being in this . Instead we get characters used in ways that might not have played up to their strengths.. The Deviants would have been better served in a more humanoid form like they are in the comics , rather than just video game monsters. There is more fighting and action than the trailers lead you to believe I would say on par with Justice League. This movie is more like the Thor films than other Marvel movies. It is better than both Shang Chi and Black Widow, as well as Black Panther and Captain Marvel. It could have been better and maybe Marvel is going to learn their lesson when it comes to straying from source material, I think it will also serve as a wake up call regarding the direction they have been heading if it is not too late to course correct.      

       

Film Review : "Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"

 The monumental accomplishment of this movie by Marvel Studios was the make the studios first Asian super hero movie did this by making a sampler platter of all the other Asian super heroes that just do not fall under the Marvel banner. We have have some breaded "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" cheese sticks. We have a side of Sesame "Dragon Ball z" balls, along with bacon glazed Jackie Chan strips. When some white guys from New York decided they wanted their own comic book version of Bruce Lee back in the 70s, they  created Shang Chi, the Master of Kung fu- David Csrradine also had a show with a similar premise at the time. Over the years the character managed to stay on life support cropping up here and their , but was a 3rd stringer who mainly sat on the bench. So when the actor playing him seems to grasp at straws in a effort to make him something other than a Bruce Lee homage, well that is because he never really had much of a fleshed personality. 

While I think a good rule of thumb for super hero movies would be a a minimum requirement of being able to carry at least a hundred issues under the belt, to have them and their world flesh out . Marvel just wants to pump out product and will do whatever to market it. The first hour of the movie is fun, but it is there when the formula begins to reveal itself. We are going to have a big fight, then tell you a fable about the days past when all this back story is supposed to matter.  While I like how the untangled the mess they created with Iron-Man's version of the Mandarin, Every one is pretty disposable, aside from his comic relief side kick all the other supposedly kick ass women who make up his familiar are all inter changeable. Depending on where you are in the story his mother , aunt and sister could all be the same person. While praise is being heaped on the Mandarin, is he really any different from another evil emperor we have seen be it from "Mulan"  or insert martial arts movie here. 

The trap this movie falls into is the third act gets lost in non-sensical anime like fantasy. Does it have to have dragons in it ? Wait isn't that stereo typing? Shang Chi at any time could have been replaced by Iron Fist and it would have almost been the same movie. When he does get more powered up there is not explanation , and these are certainly not what his powers are in the comic books. Instead we get a bunch of non sense that feels like a child dumping all their action figures on the bed and trying to come up with a fight for them to have. This fantasy wonder land of eye candy is an exaggeration, yeah we get cgi creatures walking around but otherwise t he land scape looks no different than any other martial arts movie which is what this is, just another martial arts movie with a heavy dose of fantasy. More manga than Marvel. 

Film Review : "Suicide Squad"

 Is the new Suicide Squad movie better than the first installment ? Well that is a pretty low bar.For all practical purposes it is a sequel . The only similarities it bears to Gunn’s other SuperHero films is much like the first Guardians When it comes to the characters the bulk of them were in the fringe so even comic book fans do not have a great deal invested inh how they show up on screen . More people knew who Howard the Duck was than knew who Groot was , now Groot is a household name. Harley, Captain Boomerang, and Flagg were the only hold over aside from Amanda Waller who they have positioned as the Nick Fury of DC. This is Margot’s 3rd outing as Harley Quinn, so she has the character on lock. Everyone else had plenty of wiggle room      

DC’s track record with anything non- Batman related is pretty dreadful. Sure the first ⅔ of “Wonder Woman” was pretty good, but the formula of throwing the rest of the effects budget at the end of the movie, shat all over it . This movie worked where “Aqua-man” failed in terms of blending the humor. They had come pretty close in the past thanks to Harley Quinn who has been DC’s attempt at Deadpool. 4th wall breaking anti- heroics heavy on the crazy  absurdity which finally works here as the rest of the script gives it something to contrast. There is also a balance with Rat Catcher, who does not compete with Harley to see who can bring the most girl power. It is just organic and works. 

King Shark, Peace Maker and Polka Dot man all excel at what they bring to the characters though at times it feels Cena is having to try too hard , when with Polka Dot Man it is more organic. The style ,feel and direction of the movie all work well. Starro was oddly used and handled, I would have preferred to have seen them go up against the Legion of Doom , as there was no personal connection to the bad guy or reason for them to turn around and do something different. Why become heroes? That kind of went against who they are as characters and they should not have felt the need to save the world without a personal investment. Kind of a crucial part of who they are. So this was fun yet, flawed in some vert fundamental ways though given the track record these movies have had it was an improvement for sure, the bar just could not have been any lower.

Film REVIEW- "Black Widow"

 Black Widow is not the worst Marvel movie. I'm not sure what the point of it was. What the movie leads up can be explained in a three minute flashback when the Disney Plus “Hawkeye” show comes out. If we are just trying to have equal time for female superheroes I would have rather just sat through a movie about She-Hulk, Tigra, Elsa Bloodstone, Shanna, X-23,  Black Cat, Lyra, Thundra, Satanna, or Moondragon. Natasha first appeared as a villain, she is a spy and an assassin, while the is discussed her dark side never comes across. She was written as a supporting character so has no Rogue’s gallery of her own. The one comic book villain that is present is less accurate than the version of Ghost that was in the last Ant-man movie.

They try to use a convoluted ‘family “ cooked up for the movie which does feature actual characters from the comics , this is not the movie's best executed plot device despite all of the actors having great chemistry the writing just falls flat. While the Winter Guard was alluded to and the Crimson Dynamo is name dropped, there are lots of missed opportunities filled with some of the same now formulaic tropes being dragged out again .  Movies like Red Sparrow” and “Atomic Blonde” did this better than what this movie could have pulled off if it had a grittier tone and less of a video game feel.  Before you try to defend this with “But this movie is for little girls they need a role model” . That is bullshit, as a parent of a pre teen girl, I can tell you she had no interest in the character and prefers Harley Quinn. 

They fucked up Task Master so badly , it is hard for them to save face here, but I will say it is well shot. The effects are way better than those of both Black Panther and Capt. Marvel. For what purpose ?  They want  you to think it is for filling in gaps that did not need to be filled in the first place. While this movie works best when it is making fun of the title character, it needed to  have been a much more serious movie. It was at times more fun than not though much like most D/C films I was bored by the big climatic ending. If you miss this movie there is nothing you are not going to be able to connect the dots to on your own when it comes to future films. Thankfully they can not make a sequel.