"Thunderbolts*" - Review

Years after the death of her sister, Russian spy and trained assassin Yelena (Florence Pugh) is now working in wetworks for CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Juia Louis-Dreyfus) across the world, clearing her dirty laundry. Unsatisfied with her work, and longing for something to break her free of this anhedonia, she takes one last job for the troubled director (in hot water over her various operations) to eliminate a thief at one of her facilities. There, she bumps into anti-social misfit woman able to phase through objects Ava (Hannah John-Kamen); grouchy asshole and government backed, scandal-ridden Captain America John Walker (Wyatt Russell); old friend and fellow assassin "Taskmaster" (Olga Kurylenko) and a lost young man named Bob (Lewis Pullman). Forced to work together when it becomes clear they are being disposed of, the group go on the lam and seek revenge on Fontaine, drawing them into the orbit of washed up Russian supersoldier Alexei "Red Guardian" Shostakov (David Harbour), bionic "dying inside" Congressman and former assassin/supersoldier Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Fontaine's various schemes, a rather dangerous individual, and Mel (Geraldine Viswanathan, forever the best thing about any movie)...

Marvel, the juggernaut studio, have been having a bloody rough time as of late. Underperforming films, a lack of direction, and a death spiral of cannibalising other people's art with this "Multiverse" horseshit (soon to come to an ugly head with the hideous, creatively bankrupt and not-starring Dan Stevens as Dr Doom "Doomsday"), coupled with a recent uncoupling from their wife-beating major arc villain have come together in a brew so noxious that one forgets they were atop the world and are still being imitated and mimicked for their style of fun blockbuster universes.
"Thunderbolts*", against the odds, comes charging out of the gate to remind us why their moves appeal and are fun, and is among their best efforts in years. They've fucking needed it.
Playing to the strengths (a fun ragtag, hodge-podge group of misfits thrust together and forced to work together) and forgoing many of its weaknesses (an over reliance on quips, weak final acts, sloppy finales, and a lack of focus) to forge something which would fit right at home with their earlier and middle efforts. It's rather refreshing just having the movie be "here's a bunch of people, attempting to accomplish a task, and bonding along the way" rather than hopping between timelines and choking to death on bloated references and groundwork for a movie about Grimmo the Taxi Driver or whatever they have going on. On paper it's an ensemble piece, but in practice focuses on Yelena's arc (there's a neat little opening involving a guinea pig in a maze, and some very "West Side Story"-esque overhead shadow shots) and, later, Bob, both of which are excellent. The movie is a fun romp, with excellent details and character bits (I appreciated Walker punching out a character late in the film, very telling and humanizing...) and Harbour's Red Guardian threatens to steal the show as the embarassing dad figure keen on them being a team so he can relive his glory days; but even the underdeveloped characters such as Ava and John get enough to feel real and grounded and have fun with the team. Refreshingly the film takes genuine swings and reaches for themes and ideas, and the final third act is entirely about mental illness and trauma, and (somewhat excellently) has the message of "one cannot cure mental illness, or deny it and despise it, it is a part of one's identity, and you deal with it through love, acceptance and understanding from those who support you and appreciate you." It was good to see.
The more I thought on it the more I liked it, even when it does the usual "fight the big explodey man", it draws back, remembers it is about characters, and rolls with the themes and punches. I appreciated this film and had a good time with it.

"The Marvels" - Review

After destroying the evil AI which ran the planet of Hala, Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) now operates as a space lesbian protector. Her grilfriend's daughter Monica (Teyonah Parris) works as an astronaut for an organisation called S.W.O.R.D, under Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) in space, and they haven't been talking in a long time. Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani) is an aspiring superhero living in Jersey City, who absolutely adores Carol Danvers.
When space magic from Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) leads to shenanigans, all 3 of these women find themselves swapping places whenever they attempt to use their powers at the same time.

The central concept and rapport between the trio of Marvels is wonderful. They have lovely chemistry and Iman Vellani is one hell of a find: I wish everybody enjoyed everything in life as much as Iman Vellani enjoys playing Kamala Khan. It is a shame that the "Swapping Places" is not the whole film, and is resolved too quickly. The film soars when it is veteran space lesbian, overly keen and adorable fan girl, and unfortunately bland scientist going on adventures and figuring things out. Yeah, Rambeau gets given the emotional core of the film with her relationship to her "Aunt" Danvers (who is fun here, as a spacefaring lesbian with a lot of things on her plate, who usually spaces out and forgets how humans are, due to her frequent interactions with aliens) after her mother's death and how it separated them and the betrayal she felt. But it falls rather flat despite good efforts from the actors due to a half-baked nature of its ideas and plot: Rambeau (a key supporting character from the last film) has been killed off screen (and don't tell me "it's in one of the shows" because this is a film, fuck off), and whilst we can have Khan's powers just be there and have her be a superhero with no context (she's great, I cannot stress this enough), that's fine for her character: this is a core emotional beat and throughline of the film which is effectively an afterthought. This leaves us with the main plot, forgettable despite having the talented Zawe Ashton as the villain, which boils down to "bad hammer lady wants magic thing and is going to 3 different places, Earth is the last one". Fortunately the set pieces (a fight between the trio and some aliens where they swap places between space, Suburbia, and the moon; a musical segment on a water planet with a beard husband and a species who speak entirely in song, again Vellani is too precious for all things; and a sequence set to "Memory" by Streisand) and the chemistry of the leads propel it higher and further than is would go otherwise, and it is a fun, goofy, if underwritten follow up to Captain Marvel.
The pre-credits finale with Vellani is nice.
Mid credits scene is absolute dogshit, however, continuing the trend of movies self-cannibalising. Can this "Multiverse" nonsense piss off already?

"Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 3" - Review

A few years after another movie, and the events of the second, our eponymous team of misfits live in the enormous skull space station of "Knowhere". Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is drinking away his sorrows over a lost love; Gamora (Zoe Saldana) has joined intergalactic pirates "The Ravagers"; Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista, always welcome) is the bouncer, bully boy and loveable muscle of the station; Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) has somewhat softened to his found family; Groot (Vin Diesel) is Groot; Nebula (Karen Gillan) is now a true blue member of the team, complete with a new arm and an attitude best described as "done with nonsense"; Mantis (Pom Klementieff) is absolute perfection, and I wouldn't change a thing about her; Kraglin (Sean Gunn) is trying to master his mentor Yondu's arrow; and they even have a new dog friend named Kosmo (Maria Bakalova), who is most certainly a BAD dog. But when the weapon of an old foe charges through their new home and wounds Rocket, the race is on to find a cure for his condition, hurling them into the orbit of the critter's bastard creator "The High Evolutionary" (Chukwudi "Clemson Murn" Iwuji) and forcing them to not only learn about their friend's secret past but put a stop to his creator's dreadful plans and save the galaxy once again...

It is difficult for me to parse this film from the others, as I have an unhealthy love of James Gunn's work and the first 2 movies. I remember being incredibly excited about his hiring for the first film and having full faith in the material (he made "Super", the best superhero film we're going to get, and I will not be taking questions at this time. Watch "Super"), and he even responded to me once on Facebook in a comment about "Nightbird" from "The Specials." The first film is a vibrant, pastel coloured breath of fresh air which holds up to multiple viewings, and the second carries that over into an emotional gut punch wrapped inside of candy-coloured mayhem, akin to a bonbon with a a cyanide centre.
This one struggles to reach those same heights and freshness, but manages to act as a satisfying conclusion for the series, landing on just the right emotional beats and wrapping things up in a somewhat rushed but altogether sweet way, despite some messy trappings in the middle.
It's as satisfying a send off as one could hope for.
The film soars when it's the gang together, bouncing off of each other and being characters, Gunn finally relishing the ensemble nature fully and putting Peter and Gamora on the back burner for this venture. Mantis consistently falling and stumbling, but being the wholesome heart of things (as well as a sister/buddy cop to Drax, the true highlights of the film, including a gag about a sock and a fantastic use of her powers), Drax being Drax and getting the best gags for the most part when not Mantis, and Nebula being the furious big sister of the crew in lieu of Rocket, who spends the majority wounded and unconscious, giving us his truly dark backstory hinted at and spoken of over the last few movies and tying into the themes of fatherhood and his growing arc over the last 2 films. The flashbacks work well for the most part, and Iwuji makes a wonderful dickhead villain. It's refreshing, as of late, to have a return to legitimate fuckheads and shitbags on screen, and he relishes the part. I hope he goes far, he is a talented actor, and in between being quite vicious he manages to have fun with the line "there is no God! That's why I stepped IN!".
Gunn has some return to his Troma and funny days, with scenes of a panda mowing the lawn, telekinetic dogs, and generally creative stuff, but it loses some focus in the middle, and the songs feel blunt and on the nose and perfunctory for the most part after being so integral and fun in the first. It's still James Gunn, however, and tugs at the heartstrings (a line about Drax being a father rather than a destroyer got to me) despite the weak (though best he could do given the circumstances) links to "Infinity War" and "Endgame" - though to be fair those parts were always going to be awkward, having to deal with the sexist reversal of some great growth of one of its lead characters... The middle is bloated, as I say, and whilst functional, loses mometum after a standout heist sequence in a flesh prison, a starship chase and falling just not really matching, before regaining some of that wonderful momentum to a team-fight sequence set to The Beastie Boys.
But whilst I'm harsh on it, it seems, I do like it, I think it works, it pulls it together at the end in a way which rewards viewers of previous movies: a line about Raccoons, talks of found families, Mantis and Drax getting more to do, returns from The Broker and Ayesha, and more.
It comes together in the end. Oh, he uses "Since You've Been Gone" by Rainbow, and "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" by the legendary Beastie Fucking Boys. It more than earns the song it uses in the mid-credits...
And moreseo than this, it feels a movie about moving on, passing the torch. We get cameos from old Gunn hands (Nathan Fillion, the cool Steve Blackehart, fuck yes Linda Cardellini, Mikaela Hoover yay, Uncle Lloyd Kaufman, and even damn Judy Greer! Getting that "Specials" love in there, no complaints from me! And Judy Greer is always wonderful, and ALWAYS underused.) yes, but also some of his more recent wonderful friends and efforts with DC (Jennifer Holland, again please watch "Peacemaker", Daniela Melchior as a receptionist, who is ALWAYS welcome in a movie, and even Pete Davidson of all folks! Here he's not having sex with beautiful women. Touche!), representing something of a passing of the torch, and a meta commentary of moving on to new things. Gunn and the Guardians are moving onto new, nice things, and there will always be a place in our memories and our hearts for the journies we have had for them, but now it's time to look to the future, and the new stories they are going to grace us with.
Godspeed, you legends.
It's been wonderful.

 "Avengers: Age of Chappie"

This will be a long status update. I shall be reviewing this movie as a movie in and of itself (as well as a sequel to "The Avengers" and other Marvel movies made thus far) and then in relation to the works and perception (both public and personal) of the hypocritical cunt-warbler cum cult-leader Joss Whedon. I will preface it by stating that there will be spoilers, and that these 3 facts are important to consider throughout this read:

1. My showing was about 2/3 women/girls, including a little girl accompanied by her father. This will be important later.

2. I did, on the whole, enjoy the movie, before people get up in my grill about being a "hipster" or contrarian.

3. I fucking despise Joss Whedon and the fan worship surrounding him.

The spectacle was nice, there were some impressive fights, especially a "stripped down" sequence within Stark's penthouse and the final confrontation. It's all very glossy, impressively shot and with some nice little quirks and touches thrown in. However, the action was spoiled somewhat by a very simple fact:

I didn't care.

Not in a truly terrible way, I just had not vested stakes or interests, for I knew that each and every one of these characters was going to make it out in the end. Stark was going to survive, Rogers was going to survive, Dr Banner was going to survive, Thor was going to survive, and so on. 

James Spader has always been a fucking delight on screen. He is a menacing, intriguing, charming screen presence whatever he is in, and here he is on top form. His character was actually the one I was rooting for, for reasons we shall go into soon. Otherwise, I really enjoyed Jeremy Renner more in this one. He added some much needed humanity, gravitas and emotion to the proceedings, and Ruffalo's Hulk has just grown far more in this one, enjoying more screen time and not succumbing to any "Whedon" writing, the two of them felt like characters in their own right. Yet whilst we have seen the Avengers and can kind of describe them, here the dialogue began to very obviously turn "Whedon-like" very, very quickly. Every character (and I do mean every single character...) had some sarcastic quip or cute little "oh look how self aware we are! Teehee!" line/moment at some (often multiple) point in the movie, and it ALWAYS felt forced and pathetic, save for when the lines were coming out of the mouth of Tony Stark, who we know to be a man-child/asshat. Speaking of which, he takes more of a back seat in terms of "the ensemble", which is nice. Some cast members get shafted (Don Cheadle was in "Hotel Rwanda", for fuck's sake, and Thomas Kretschmann is an actor I adore and he gets about 8 lines, including 4 Whedon ones, and 6 minutes of screen time) but this is inevitable as they make way for new characters and juggle around old and new faces as the plot allows.

It's pretty "by the numbers" as far as it goes, it hits the beats correctly, it has a checklist of things to do, spiced up by the performances (as I said, of Spader, Renner and Ruffalo mostly) and nice polished action. The cast are for the most part great, though Samuel L Jackson is bored shitless and Chris Evans is starting to tire of his part. The mid-credits sequence (there is no post-credits one, I've saved you 10 minutes) is actually what got me most excited, and was a brief, but sweet, moment.

Now we get to Whedon.

Fucking Whedon.

There is a very famous exchange which gets nerds wetter than Niagara in Summer:

"Why do you write such strong female characters?"

"Because you keep asking me that question."

BULL.

FUCKING.

SHIT.

Let us count the female characters in this movie and describe their roles:

1. Scarlet Johansson as the Black Widow - Her "character development" is the revelation that she cannot have children (fucking classy stuff there Whedon, bring it back to motherhood) which really, really upsets her, and her romance with Banner, where she makes all the 1950s pinup kissy faces and basically begs to be fucked. Then he rescues her from a robot sex dungeon.

2. Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill - Minimal input, though her normally "stern, cool, collected" character has been replaced with "SASS AND SARCASM! LOL! AMIRITE?!" and Whedon can't resist the urge to show her bare feet.

3. Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff - Actually okay in terms of characters, she has an arc and some nice moments. Then she's a damsel rescued by her brother and Thor.

4. Claudia Kim as Dr Cho - A "brilliant scientist" reduced to going gooey-eyed over Thor and being kidnapped, brainwashed and wounded by Ultron. She is then rescued by Captain America.

5. Linda Cardellini as Hawkeye's wife - I don't even think that she gets a name. She is there to "support her man" and be pregnant. It's a shame, as I like Linda Cardellini.

Five. Five women in a cast. Wow. Fucking classy there Whedon. How's that "feminist angle" cutting out for you? 

It's a fun film, with nice little moments. These nitpicks are me fucking despising Whedon. and me cutting down the "best MOVIE EVAR!" arguments which will ensue. It's alright.

"Deadpool" Review - From the Vaults

 I saw "Deadpool" today.

It wasn't awful.

I was expecting a train wreck, but Ryan Reynolds was (unsurprisingly) good and managed to carry the whole movie. Some jokes fall flat (though there are enough of them that some will stick and some are bound to fail), the colour palette is a little dark and the flashbacks tend to fall flat, but the supporting cast are fun (Colossus and "Negasonic Teenage Warhead" are great) and there are enough creative moments and funny gags to make me laugh. It's not the "Gr8est movie evarr!1!!" as the internet hype machine would have led us to believe, but it's not awful.

It whizzes by, the opening credits are good and the fourth wall breaking wasn't distracting. 

Oh, and the post-credits sequence is an homage to funnier film.

"Black Widow" Review - From the Vaults

 "Black Widow"

On the run from the US government after the events of "Captain America: Civil War", our eponymous heroine (Scarlett Johansson) is contacted by her surrogate sister Yelena (Florence Pugh) to deal with a threat she long thought dead, to free others like them from "The Red Room". On her globe-trotting journey, she will encounter other figures from her past and discuss the true meaning of family! Maybe the true Black Widows are the friends we make along the way...

This movie's alright. For a film ostensibly about Black Widow, she's somewhat overshadowed by the plot and other characters around her; but the latter remain interesting enough and well rounded to be compelling through their connections to her. Special note goes to Florence Pugh who has a good arc in this (and whom I fully expected to be the best thing about this).

David Harbour and Rachel Weisz are excellent (scenes with the surrogate family are the strongest part), the action scenes are fun and what one has come to expect from these movies, it's surprisingly foul mouthed, and all in all it's a solid addition to the MCU.

Ray Winstone sounds so Cockney as a Russian it's amazing

"Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings" Review - From the Vaults

"Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings"

"Sean" (Simu Liu) is working as a valet in Los Angeles alongside his best friend Katy (Akwafina). His past, however, comes back with a vengeance as he is forced into a conflict with the evil ninja army known as "The Ten Rings", led by his father Wenwu (Tony Leung); and soon he must embark upon a journey to reconcile his past, his family, and his present, and save the world...

Fun Fact: I picked this because it looks like he is punching the pixels out of the original.

This is the most fun I've had at a Marvel film in ages. This is a much-needed shot in the arm to their universe, franchise and whatever else you want to call it. Destin Daniel Cretton has basically rejuvenated it all.

We have a rip-roaring, colourful kung-fu adventure with an almost entirely Asian cast, still finding time to tell a story about identity and reconnecting/reconciling one's past and identity in a modern world; and without a forced fucking romance fucking subplot thank the fucking Lord!

The rapport between the characters is natural, fun, breezy, but Katy still manages to be something of an anchor to this madness around her; the villain Wenwu is absolutely fantastic and certainly one of their strongest (introduced in the opening of the movie, in a brightly lit kung-fu battle of romance, wills and softening hearts which sets up the emotional anchor, it's a fantastic scene, telling a story with its choreography and lighting) and theirs is a delightful road-trip buddy cop movie just before our truly bananas dragon kung fu epic battle.

The action set pieces are the best choreographed I have seen in the MCU to date. You can tell that Simu Liu has been training for over a year to do this. The highlight, personally, was the first attack on the bus, just an electrifying display of creativity on display. But each one is shot in different lighting, to reflect different moods (almost like Cretton has, you know, some measure of talent and understanding of how film and structure work...) and feels suitably different in their scope and impressiveness.

Plus Simu Liu is frequently shirtless (if that is your thing) and there is a poster for "Kung Fu Hustle" on his wall (which is certainly my thing).

It didn't really flag for me, and I currently rank this along my favourite offerings of the MCU, "Guardians of the Galaxy", "Captain Marvel" and "Guardians of the Galaxy: Volume 2".