I missed ALL OF THESE! Let's talk just a little about the Marvel releases since this blog went underwater (that's what happens when anything on the internet goes away. So many Angelfire Atlantises).
Avengers: Age of Ultron
This one suffered amongst fans and critics alike for, I guess, not being The Avengers. That said, I liked it rather a lot. It felt like a movie that knew its characters very well and created an interesting situation for said characters to deal with. It certainly wasn't perfect; Age of Ultron drags a bit in the middle and, likely thanks to the studio, ties its hands a little by cementing its place as a building block in the Marvel Cinematic Universe rather than its own removed entity, but that's to be expected with such a huge franchise (especially given that the Avengers films will likely always be very concerned with building towards the next big thing). That aside, we got good characters in Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (whose introduction felt fitting for comics fans without being a carbon copy of the source material) and in Paul Bettany's Vision. Some good jokes, some decidedly fun action, and plenty of character development for a movie that would surely have survived on action and brand recognition alone (*cough* Batman vs. Superman *cough*) make AoU a very nice addition to the MCU. It seems like the movie's biggest crime was that it wasn't as big of a surprise as its predecessor, which is like saying that Aristotle was a real let-down when compared to Plato. I'm sure Marvel's happy to have both in its stable.
Ant-Man
It goes without saying that nobody likes Ant-Man. Like, it's Ant-Man. Don't give me any "oh, sure, Hank Pym is real plain toast and one time hit his wife, but he's not so bad" or any "Eric O'Grady sure is an interesting character!" Like, sure, Scott Lang is your best option; a good guy thief, jailed for trying to save the life of his daughter (the way more fun Cassie Lang who, truth told, is probably only in our hearts because of her ties to the Young Avengers), but saying Catdog is the best cartoon starring a cat/dog creature doesn't really scream praise for Catdog now does it? Anyway, all this to say that the movie was fun. Yup, that was a real turn, right? I have some complicated feelings towards this movie. I like Paul Rudd and I like his inclusion in this universe (after Civil War, I'm pretty sure we're just slowly morphing him into Bobby Newport, which is the best of all possible MCUs) and I thought the movie, while probably the most paint-by-numbers Marvel has yet been (which is probably saying something in its own right), was more than entertaining enough to merit a favorable review, it's hard not to see a better movie creeping in at the seams. That's right, this mini-review, which started with a rant about Ant-Man turned into a positive review about Ant-Man and is now turning into a glowing review about a movie that was never made: Edgar Wright's Ant-Man. Wright, as we probably all now know, was literal years deep into his Ant-Man movie when he abruptly was removed from/left the picture. Rumors have it down to Marvel's insistence that the movie tie in to the greater universe vs. Wright's control freak director personality, which has yielded unbelievably good movie after unbelievably good movie. Marvel's done well for itself since it hired Wright (allegedly) to work on an Ant-Man movie, so I can't really fault them for wanting to continue to build and to change their original promise to Wright (a hypothetical promise; it makes sense to me that they'd have offered Wright full control over the title before they really knew how big they'd get), but Wright is an excellent filmmaker and was a perfect choice for this project. Let him do what he does and get out of his way. You can still see very Wright-esque shots in this perfectly acceptable version of the movie, but those shots only let you see just how delightfully quick Ant-Man could have been.
Captain America: Civil War
Why even mess around? This is quite possibly the best movie Marvel has put out yet and it has absolutely no right to be. This many characters, both new and old, appearing in a film (some for only ten or so minutes) is a recipe for disaster, as so many examples have shown (WHAT UP, SPIDER-MAN 3 AND X-MEN 3?). The Russo brothers, though, have a story they want to tell and set to work expertly telling it and bringing in all the pieces they need to tell it most effectively and efficiently. The movie moves exceedingly well for it's two and a half hour runtime and every character gets at least a few good moments throughout. Special mentions to their treatment of Spider-Man (and the performance of young Tom Holland), which really defines just how the next wave of Spidey movies could turn out, and to both their treatment of Black Panther and Chadwick Boseman's stellar performance as the Wakandan royal. Excellent character work throughout with a few killer action sequences (Marvel has, very intelligently, made every single one of their characters' fight styles distinctive so it's easy to watch a longer fight sequence and still lose yourself in it) and a really tight, exciting, and, most important of all, different story launches this entry right up to the top of Marvel's best.
BONUS ROUND:
X-Men: Age of Apocalypse
I walked out of this movie saying to my fiancee, "boy, Bryan Singer sure knows how to make a competent movie." I like the way this X-Men film series is going, but none of the movies its spawned strike me as particularly great movies. They are, however, eminently watchable. There aren't ever particularly exciting ideas (though one could make an argument that placing these movies smack dab in the middle of real world events like the Cold War and the JFK assassination and, just, the '80s, I guess is a decidedly compelling idea) or particularly outstanding writing. The characters who always seem to be the most focused-upon and, perhaps therefore, interesting are Professor X and Magneto, which isn't exactly a bold new direction for the X-Men franchise as a whole. This movie, for example, introduced Jean Grey, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Storm, Psylocke, and Angel, to name a few, and yet I walked away feeling like only Professor X and Magneto had really developed as characters (maybe Jean a little bit, but that's starting from zero, where development should be easy). Granted, I really only find three of the characters I mentioned in that "just introduced" group genuinely interesting in X-Men lore (HINT: none of my picks are original X-Men), but still there should be more there. Obviously they're intending to build on those characters specifically as we move forward (well, maybe not Angel, there aren't many places for him to go post-Apocalypse. Frankly, I'd be a little surprised if they go back to Psylocke, which is a dang shame, but then again, she wasn't even British in the movie, come on), but this was the chance to lay a foundation and, instead, we got another movie about Magneto, Professor X, and boring ol' Mystique. Still, I'll put on FXX when this one is on, won't I? Just like with First Class and Days of Future Past (for what it's worth, Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World don't get that kind of treatment).
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