Tag Archives: Marvel

The Gray Man

21 Jul

‘The Gray Man’: Netflix spends to set spy vs. spy, but the stakes have never been lower for watchers

By Tom Meek Wednesday, July 20, 2022

Beyond “Squid Games,” Netflix just can’t buy a hit. “Red Notice” (2021), the spy comedy starring Ryan Reynolds, Dwayne Johnson and “Wonder Woman” herself, Gal Gadot, had an A-list cast and big budget ($160 million) but a tepid script about a thingamajig of no consequence. “The Gray Man,” ambitious and eye-grabbing on paper, is sadly more of that, with a bigger budget ($200 million) and more star power – this time helmed by the Russo brothers, Anthony and Joe, who rocked the box office with two “Captain America” installments as well as Avenger closeouts “Infinity War” (2018) and “Endgame” (2019).

Based on Mark Greaney’s bestselling 2009 espionage novel, the setup has a man known as just Six (Ryan Gosling) let loose from prison to serve the CIA as a “gray man” operative doing the dirty work for higher-ups. His mentor and main handler, Fitzroy (Billy Bob Thornton, lost in the mayhem), puts him to work as an assassin, and at one point as a house guard to look after his cardiac-afflicted niece (Julia Butters, who reduced Leonardo DiCaprio’s fading cowboy TV star to tears in “Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood”). Flash forward a few years (the film hops around some in time, to little effect) and Six is tasked by a suave new handler (Regé-Jean Page) with assassinating a target and retrieving a data chip. At the last moment he has a crisis of conscience and himself becomes a target of the agency, with a relentless private contractor by the TV soap drama name of Lloyd Hansen (Chris Evans, with a deadly, dastardly mustache that steals every scene) on his tail. What ensues is two alpha males circling and parrying each other at far-flung points around the globe (Vienna, Berlin and Bangkok among the many locales) with that chip and vulnerable niece as stakes. In the mix is an underutilized Ana de Armas, who strutted her spy thriller stuff more engagingly in that last Bond flick, “No Time to Die” (2021), and paired with Gosling in “Blade Runner 2049” (2017), as a sympathetic fellow CIA agent dragged into the not-so-cloaked and explosive-dagger conflicts erupting in crowded European squares. 

The action sequences are fairly well done, but they also feel done before. “Gray Man” is more in the ilk of Jason Bourne than a Bond flick, due partly to Gosling’s cool, laconic presence and the fact that he’s similarly on the run from the agency that indoctrinated him. That quietness worked well in Nicolas Winding Refn’s day-glo neo-noir “Drive” (2011) and even “Blade Runner 2049”; here there’s just wisps about who Six is and was, and because the film’s all action and espionage mumbo-jumbo, Six comes off hollow and vacuous and would be nearly unsympathetic if it weren’t for the halo hoisted about his head when rescuing that imperiled girl time and time again. Evans gets an arch-Bond-villain part tossed his way and bites in deep, with shark-frenzy glee. The performance almost saves the film – but then again, who is this guy other than an overeducated linguist with a cheesy, sub-mullet haircut and a ’stache, jabbering about the definition of SAT words such as “preternatural” before pulling out his blade and getting down to business? The parts and the production values are in place, but without a well-devised thread or emotional soul binding them, that makes for a dull and drab affair.

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Eternals

5 Nov

Marvel squeezes into a mythology suit

By Tom Meek Wednesday, November 3, 2021

And so the Marvel Cinematic Universe expands in a way it hasn’t since 2014’s “Guardians of the Galaxy,” when joyous, self-deprecating humor propelled a merry band of misfits across the stars on their mission to save a star system. That goal has been a thing in any MCU chapter. It’s how it gets dressed up that’s key to the film’s success. In “Eternals,” directed by recent Academy Award-winner Chloé Zhao (“Nomadland”) we get a whole new slate of superheroes, notably diverse (it’s a multiracial lot, with one gay hero, one who is deaf and another battling metal illness) but suited up in unis that have to be some of the most generic, least-inspired Lycra designs in decades. The depth of character too is slight, and the CGI effects don’t really break any ground – and occasionally look “Sharknado” cheesy.

The Eternals of the title are a race of immortal superhumans created eons ago by the Celestials to protect planets such as Earth against ravenous entities known as Deviants. What the what? Yeah, there’s a lot in those big bland tags, barely a notch above Decepticons and Autobots, but Celestials are universe-forming gargantuans akin to the Titans in Greek mythology (Thanos and Ego from earlier MCU chapters are similar in powers and scope), while Deviants are hellish beasties that look a lot like the Taotie from the 2016 Zhang Yimou miscue “The Great Wall,” a hybrid of wolf and dinosaur stripped down to sinew and bone and equipped with flowing tentacles that allow them to sap the energy of their target. Eternals wiped out all the Deviants in the early days of civilization and now hang among us, awaiting their next call to duty. 

Keeping with that lazy borrowing of classic mythos, we catch up with the Eternal Sersi (Gemma Chan) posing as a London museum curator and involved with a mortal named Dane (Kit Harington). She used to be married to Eternal alpha stud Ikaris (Richard Madden), but they drifted apart and haven’t seen each other in centuries – until one day, or one date night with Dane, a deviant crawls out of the Thames and Ikaris drops in out of the blue to help Sersi thwart the malevolent with his laser-beam eyes and square-jawed bravado. One might imagine there’d be some kind of intimate pause here, a “Dane, meet my ex” and perhaps some edgy love triangle dynamics (“Is he super good in bed too?”), but no, bigger MCU matters abound: Why are these things back, and what is Sersi to do? 

Continue reading →

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Black Widow

11 Jul

‘Black Widow’: She’s back for one final adventure that also returns Marvel’s universe to big screens

By Tom Meek Thursday, July 8, 2021

Finally the “Black Widow” backstory drops after long being held back because of Covid. It could be subtitled “All in the Family” or “Family Business,” as Black Widow Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) has a whole family of super spies with super abilities. Dad Alexei (David Harbour) is something of the USSR’s answer to Captain America, called the Red Guardian back in the day (more on that later); mom (Rachel Weisz, “The Lobster”) has crazy tech and disguise skills; and younger sis Yelena (Florence Pugh, “Midsommar” and “Little Women”) is a fellow widow (more on that later).

The film, directed by Cate Shortland, kicks off in early 1990s Ohio, where the clan is an embedded sleeper cell (with Ever Anderson and Violet McGraw playing the young sisters) akin to the Jennings in “The Americans” TV series. We’re barely understanding who is who when the feds come for them. After a shootout and flight aboard a rickety single-prop plane, they escape to Russian turf, where the sisters are drugged and sent to widow school (think the unenviable ordeal J-Law’s reluctant spy had to undergo in “Red Sparrow”). Turns out there’s something called the Red Room, a sky-high hidden fortress where a guy named Dreykov (played by Ray Winstone) cranks out a widow army and controls them with a drug that compels obedience to all his devious commands. He’s a pretty pat – and thin – heavy in search of a Bond film, but it’s up to Natasha and her fam to take him down. Of course, having li’l sis as one of the operatives under mind control means there’s skin in the game. There’s also some nonsense about a coveted red gaseous antidote and a plot for world domination or destruction; I kinda lost the point, as the last hour of the film is a loud, crash-bang showdown that goes on and on and on.

As far as Marvel fare goes, this one is done by the MCU template – Disney must have an app that cranks out the plot points – and as a result has little at stake. We know Natasha still has Thanos and the “Infinity War” to go, and there are several name drops of her Avenger friends, whom she says she needs to bring back together. Shortland, who showed so much promise with edgy arthouse draws “Somersault” (2004) and “Lore” (2012), connects the dots, but as with Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck doing “Captain Marvel” (2019), her intimate indie style is nowhere to be found under an unending stream of bombastic CGI effects. I did appreciate the intricate hairstyles given to the widows, especially Yelena’s neatly nested French braids that seemed almost like an armament in their own right. And Harbour, so good in the recent Steven Soderbergh noir “No Sudden Move,” brings the comic relief in spades. Sure he’s a menace early on, but in the present campaign against Dreykov he’s paunchy and shoehorned into his far-too-tight old red uniform and in constant need of some alpha male ego stroking. He and Pugh’s wisecracking younger widow keep you in the action even as the Russian accents drop and then suddenly return.

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Avengers: Endgame

25 Apr

‘Avengers: Endgame’ was a long time coming, and it’s another exceptionally long time going

 

By Tom Meek Image result for avengers endgame

And so it begins, or ends, and no matter how you see it, it’s a long one. “Avengers: Endgame,” the de facto part two of “Avengers: Infinity War,” clocks in at more than three hours – 30 minutes longer than “Infinity” and chock full of maudlin eddies that should have been pared back. That said, “Endgame” gets the job done, passing the baton as it closes out a long-running chapter with some sentimental eye rubs. Where Disney’s Marvel Universe goes from here is likely a focus on new blood such as Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson). They’re both in “Endgame,” tossed in as inert garnish.

In case you need a rewind: At the end of “Infinity War,” Thanos (Josh Brolin), blessed with the unholy alignment of all six infinity stones (the power of a god to create and destroy), has eradicated half the life in the universe and, with that, half of the Avengers crew. We catch up with Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) floating near-dead in space, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) searching desperately for his wife and children and Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) spit out unceremoniously of a five-year time warp – in a beat-up Ford Econoline or the like, to boot. The film moves along sluggishly for the first half-hour, and I’d be wrong to tell you fully how it flies, but the simple answer is: The remaining Avengers crew need to somehow turn back the clock. Given that this is Marvel, and a superhero fantasy (the opening with Traffic’s “Dear Mr. Fantasy” is nearly as ingenious as the use of “Mr. Blue Sky” in “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” – is there some mandate for classic rock songs with “Mr.” in the title in the Marvel Uni?) that time travel quest – with semi-hilarious film references to “Back to the Future” – happens sure enough, and the “Infinity War” with Thanos gets something of a do-over.

Before that the film notches some of its greatest self-deprecating wins, namely in that the buff god of thunder, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), some five years after Thanos’ win in Wakanda, is now a potbellied booze bag looking like the portly Val Kilmer, “large mammal” portrayal of the latter-years Jim Morrison in Oliver Stone’s “The Doors.” Or take the Hulk/Bruce Banner, (Mark Ruffalo) who has gotten his raging greenness and mild manner intellect to come to terms. And then there’s Hawkeye, who’s been bestowed the worst hairstyle imaginable – an unholy marriage of a mullet and a mohawk. How and why this choice was ever made is never explained and demands a film of its own, but yes, it’s a weird alternate reality out there, and not necessarily a bad one. As one observant Avenger points out, with half as many humans on the planet the water in the Hudson is now so clean, pods of a resurgent whale populations are hanging out where there were once toxically polluted slurries.

Ultimately “Endgame,” like “Infinity War,” both directed by the brothers Russo (Anthony and Joe, who made the far cheekier and superior “Civil War”) turns into a major CGI boggle of superheroes battling a herd of creepy-crawly things from another planet. Amid all the chaos there’s one gratuitous yet neat scene where an all-female phalanx of supers try to get the final wold-saving run done, and yes, Captain America (Chris Evans, with the requisite square-jawed woodenness)  is there to anchor the whole shebang; in very (too) small metes, we also get Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Redford and Tilda Swinton. It’s a very crowded affair.  Some big names and friends move on and out with a tear or two to be shed, but I was more struck by other matters looming at the edges of the frame, including nature’s resurgence in a less populated world, curiosity for how far Brie Larson and the “Captain Marvel” franchise can realistically go and, most of all, that haircut Renner is saddled with. It’s indelible and unshakable. If his Hawkeye could travel back in time to the 1990s there would be NHL hockey teams north of the border that would surely inject him in the first line based on hair alone.

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Oscar-palooza

24 Feb

Image result for blackkklansman

Looking back on a year of film reviews, here’s how I rank the Best Picture nominees critically. As far as tonight goes, it’s wide open, with “Roma,” “Green Book” and “A Star is Born” the favorites. If “Roma” wins it, it will be the first foreign language film to win Best Picture and is only one of five films nominated for both Best Foreign Language Film and Best Picture—“Z” (1969), “The Emigrants” (1972), “The Postman” (1995), “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” (2000) and “Amour” (2012).

  1. BlacKkKlansman
  2. Roma
  3. A Star Is Born
  4. The Favourite
  5. Black Panther
  6. Green Book
  7. Vice
  8. Bohemian Rhapsody

Image result for bohemian rhapsody

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Aquaman

21 Dec

‘Aquaman’: Once we’re in the swim of things, there’s too much for newly hip hero to handle

By Tom Meek
Image result for aquaman

 

On film, DC Comics heroes seem to have heavier backstories than those from the Marvel Universe. You know: Most comes from another planet or an isolated island or underworld and could crush a human with a super burst of flatulence, yet somehow they love us, and there’s deep lore and rules we must be spoon-fed for at least 45 minutes before they ingratiate themselves into our society and ultimately take on the noble task of saving us from certain annihilation.

“Aquaman” is no different. Even before the buff surfer dude – Jason Momoa, who looks like The Rock draped in long tresses and with an extra battery of tribal tats – dips his toe in the water, we get a lighthouse caretaker named Tom (Temuera Morrison) toiling away in the chilly northern coast of Maine and one stormy day finding a beauty washed up on the rocks, glistening trident still in her clutch. This fantastic vision, something of a blend of Daryl Hannah in “Splash” and Gal Gadot in “Wonder Woman” is, in fact, Nicole Kidman with a touch of CGI to make her look more in her 20s than her current vintage – not that she needs it. Kidman is Atlanna, the escaped sea warrior daughter of one of the kings of Atlantis. After eating much of Tom’s goldfish Daryl Hannah style, the two become lovers and bear a son: Arthur, who on a class trip to the New England Aquarium is able to summon the biggest shark in the tank to scare the bejesus out of the class bullies.

The film, directed by James Wan – who cut his teeth on the “Saw” and “Fast and Furious” franchises – is a busy, busy affair. Think of it as swimming through an endless school of silvery fish. Atlanna is kidnapped from the rocky coast of Maine, a pirate by the name of Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is out to kill the now mature Arthur/Aquaman in a poorly justified blood feud and there’s the seven kingdoms of Atlantis that Arthur’s half-brother King Orm (Patrick Wilson) wants to unite to destroy us land dwellers because of all the plastic and shit we dump in the sea. I can’t say I disagree, and in a neat payback trick he sends wave after wave of plastic bags, bottles and beer rings awash onto our beaches. Willem Dafoe has a role as Aquaman’s avuncular counsel and Amber Heard, toting a shock of Christmas-red hair, gets wedged between the bros as love interest. Dolph Lundgren even lends his square-jawed mug for a few nanoseconds as one of the seven kings.

Since this is an “aqua”-tale, much of it takes place below the ocean’s surface, except those early scenes in Maine and and one later in Sicily where the senseless destruction of ancient relics and structures will make archeologists in the audience reach for a vomit bag. The big undersea finale turns into the kind of wham-bam animated affair we’ve become accustomed to with films such as “Ready Player One” and “Avatar.” The wow factor is gone – it’s a bubbly undersea yawn.

Aquaman traditionalists, yearning for the stiff and square-jawed incarnation from Saturday mornings, are unlikely to be roped in. Momoa, who played the beefy barbarian incarnation Drogo in “Game of Thrones” as well as Conan in an ill-advised “Conan the Barbarian” reboot (2011), plays the part with a hip, feral flair. The character’s never given much of an opportunity to speak before his hands are busied. In shards, we know he has a sense of humor, making a “Fight Club” crack to break the ice with Heard’s undersea princess. The film’s funniest moment comes when our wet superhero walks into a New England biker bar. He can drink like a fish and the scene’s wrap-up is a smart departure, but after that it’s all down the drink.

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Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

15 Dec

‘Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’: Bite later, heroes abound and with so much in common

 

By Tom Meek 
Image result for spiderman spider verse

“Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse’’ is a wild spin with a web of plots that not only passes the torch but also reinvents the Marvel comic on screen for a new generation and set of eyes. For starters, it’s animated, a cool blend by directors Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman that’s a bit of the old TV cartoon, a bit of the blurry three-color printed comic and a lot of the creamy rich CGI we’ve come to know since Pixar punted out “Toy Story.” Also, there’s more than one Spider-Man – in fact, there’s a posse of spider-people, but more on that later – and this “Spider-Verse” includes a coming-of-age tale about a Brooklyn kid name Miles (voiced by Shameik Moore) who, like Starr in “The Hate U Give,” is an African-American kid attending a private school outside the neighborhood. Dad’s an overly cautious cop (Brian Tyree Henry, so good in “If Beale Street Could Talk”) and uncle Aaron (Mahershala Ali, “Green Book” and “Moonlight’’) strikes a hip big-brother figure, though pa considers him something of a black sheep.

Miles is a kid at the crossroads of figuring out who he is and who he wants to be. Uncle’s tips on how to woo the other new kid at boarding school, a cute, sassy girl named Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) doesn’t work out so well. But by now you’re probably wondering what any of this has to do with Spider-Man? Well, one night Aaron and Miles break out to tag a wall in a subterranean annex and Miles, after laying down his final aerosol flourish, is bitten by a radioactive spider. Paper, a girl’s hair and even some pigeons stick to his palms – talk about adolescent confusion – and he can walk on walls. In a return to the site, Miles encounters Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Chris Pine) fighting a giant demon goblin and a someone known as the Prowler. Spidey wants to shut down a collider set up by a mad mastermind with the self-aggrandizing tag of Kingpin (Liev Schrei­ber), but needs Miles’ help, while Miles needs Spidey’s help to make sense of his new powers.

Long and short, the collider goes off and uni-“verses” (Marvel’s, something Looney Tunes adjacent and slivers from the past and future) blend and merge. Now we’ve got a new Peter Parker/Spider-man (Jake Johnson), a paunchier, saucier version. The quest to shut down the collider remains, though this gruffer Spidey has ill-timed glitches the way Venelope does in the “Wreck it Ralph” films. Also now there’s spider folk from the pulpy noir past (Nic Cage, voicing an incarnation that seems right out of “Sin City”) a Japanese anime lass (Kimiko Glenn) and her trusty spider-bot and a wise-cracking spider-pig-toon (John Mulaney) who carries a massive mallet in his pocket. Lily Tomlin’s also in there as Peter’s take-no-shit aunt; Katherine Hahn is naughty and nice as a dour lab director with a deviously far-reaching grasp; and Stan Lee’s voice and countenance make a perfect last appearance in perhaps his best cameo ever. 

The directing trio and writer Phil Lord (“The Lego Move”) do a deft job deconstructing both the film franchise and the comic series with wit and verve. If you’re a Spider-Man fan, there’s lots packed in here for you as insider nuggets while it all shoots off in a new direction. It’s packaged to cut smartly across cultural and generational lines, with animation that’s also something new and something old. “Verse” takes the web-head series to a new level that looks bound to catch on.

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Oscar move not so popular

13 Aug

Oscars make room for ‘popular film’ category, ignoring that great popular films already win

By Tom Meek 
Marvel film stars Chadwick Boseman and Chris Evans present the award for Sound Mixing at the 88th Oscars in 2016. (Photo: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences via Instagram)

Brows were raised Wednesday when the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the organizations that puts on the Oscars) announced that a new “best” category – “outstanding achievement in popular film” – would be added to its awards slate. The move, clearly to keep the award and its ceremony relevant as TV ratings and viewership continue to slide to historical lows, would give such popcorn pleasers as “Black Panther,” “Solo: A Star Wars Story,” “Deadpool 2” and “Mission: Impossible – Fallout” a chance to come to the fore and collect a bald, golden Adonis.

Questions abound: Just how do you classify “popular”? Is there a box office bar that needs to be notched or, like the MTV awards, do filmgoers get to cast a ballot? In the eyes of cinephiles and serious filmmakers the move dimmed the shine of the golden pate. A fellow film critic said it makes the Oscars “less relevant than the Golden Globes,” a ceremony largely considered to be more about pop and celebrity than art. 

According to the Academy letter, “Eligibility requirements and other key details will be forthcoming.” The category will be introduced this year and be part of the ceremony airing Feb. 24 on ABC. That’s also where things get interesting. Disney – the company behind “Black Panther,” a clear front-runner in the new category, the bigger Marvel Universe and the “Star Wars” franchise – also owns ABC. Seems like a nice little fix: Pick up an Oscar while propping up sagging television ratings. Continue reading →

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Ant-Man and the Wasp

7 Jul

‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’: Universe gets bigger as a superhero team aims for the microverse

 

By Tom Meek 
Friday, July 6, 2018

There’s plenty big and small in “Ant-Man and the Wasp,” and I’m not talking about the diminutive or gigantic sizes its superheroes can achieve – and do, often and to great effect – but the elements of film. On the small, there’s a hive of plot activity, but little of it resonates or at least feels fresh or smart. On the big (or gigantic) is a kick-ass ensemble that plays off its sharp leads smartly, with fervor and punch in every frame.

For those of you who missed the cornerstone “Ant-Man” a scant few years back in 2015, you don’t need to back up and catch that less interesting flick before diving in. What you do need to know is that “Ant-Man” is part of the whole Marvel Universe run by Disney and that the hero known as Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) sans the suit, is serving the end of a two-year house detention mandated by the FBI for his participation in a fracas over in Germany, seen back in “Captain America: Civil War” (2016). It’s also why Ant-Man didn’t put in a show in Wakanda this year for “Avengers: Infinity Wars.”

All of the crowd-pleasing heat of the film flows through Rudd and his quirky, blue-eyed likability, be it Lang’s wisecracking antagonism of an FBI caseworker (Randall Park, bringing the same sourpuss charm he’s made a career of on “Fresh Off the Boat”) who pops in for random house searches, or his parries with testy ant-suit inventor Hank Pym (Michael Douglas). The on-again-off-again romantic dynamic with Pym’s daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly), which gave the first film a reason to be seen, bears fruit again and elevates Hope to superhero status as the other half of a bill that can shrink or enlarge. Hank’s also got a magic remote that can shrink cars and even entire buildings if properly configured; and there are those German shepherd-sized ants with massive mandibles that help run Hank’s shrinkable lab.

Fun stuff, but Hope and Hank newly believe they have a chance to rescue mother/wife Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer, who’s not in the film enough) from the quantum plane purgatory she’s been lost in for the past decades (there’s plenty of highfaluting mumbo-jumbo like this, and it’s best to just roll with it). The key to getting the right coordinates to her locale is implanted in Lang’s head through a dream or something of an out-of-body experience. To get there’s something akin to “Fantastic Voyage” (1966), but also one of the least interesting plot threads. Meanwhile, Lang, saddled with an FBI ankle monitor, has gone AWOL and there’s a Tom Wolfe-style restaurateur (Walton Goggins) who moonlights in black-market technology and wants Hank’s shrunken lab, while an entity known as Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), ever angry and able to walk through walls, wants to disrupt the quantum plane quest for her own ends. Perhaps the most daunting obstacles are Lang’s ex-wife (Judy Greer) and daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) who pop in via FaceTime at the most ill-timed moments looking for soccer cleats; even better is Lang’s security firm business partners, Luis (Michael Peña), Kurt (David Dastmalchian), and Dave (Tip “T.I.’’ Harris), who are both burdens and saviors, and quite effective as comic relief.

Peyton Reed, who test drove the cast for the 2015 outing, feels more comfortable and in control this go-round. The action sequences are seamless, funny and, with their use of big-small toggles, ever surprising and fresh. As much as Lilly gets near equal time – and she’s more than worthy – this is the Rudd show, and that’s not a bad thing; he’s just more the loose cannon, while the former “Lost” star anchors the film with emotional stability and grit. The combination of the personal and uproarious scenes such as Ant-Man summoning winged ants for transport that get picked off by a seagull put “Ant-Man and the Wasp” in the comedy-cum-action camp with the first “Guardians of the Galaxy” and “Deadpool.”

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Avengers: Infinity War

27 Apr

‘Avengers: Infinity War’: Marvel’s universe has built to a climax, which isn’t this movie

 

By Tom Meek 
Thursday, April 26, 2018

Some might find this a bit of a spoiler, but it’s really more of a public service announcement: If you go into “Avengers: Infinity War” thinking it’s a neat, trim chapter like “Avengers: Age of Ultron” or “Captain America: Civil War” let me set you and the record straight – this is a “Part One.” Somewhere around the two-hour mark of the two-and-a-half-hour running time, I thought to myself, “How that heck are they going to tie this all up in less than 30 minutes?” They do, kind of, with a massive smackdown on the grassy plains of Wakanda pitting warriors and superheroes against a limitless pack of mutant space dogs, but how it ends isn’t an ending. It’s not even like Han Solo getting frozen in “Empire Strikes Back”; the last scene simply ends. You expect another scene, but the credits roll.

“Wah!” you might think, but a quick walk through IMDB shows myriad actors employed by the Marvel universe have signed up for a mysterious “Untitled Avengers Movie.” I can help all the people at Disney and Marvel: Your untitled film’s title is “Infinity Wars, Part Deux.” Continue reading →

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