Quick Big Hero 6 review

I went out and saw the new Marvel/Disney movie Big Hero 6 with my girlfriend and a theater full of children and parents. I went into this one pretty upbeat; I love Disney, I love animation, and guys, I love Marvel. I was not disappointed in the least. It's a delightful movie with a lot of genuine laughs and some really moving scenes. Very well-written, extremely well-acted, and overall absolutely delightful. I don't see too many movies aimed at all ages (okay, mostly children) with a theater full of children but boy it's more fun than seeing a movie intended for older audiences with a theater full of children. Can we agree, nationwide, to stop taking kids on field trips to see Gone Girl? So anyway, Big Hero 6 was great, would recommend to friends. And you're all friends.

Edgar Wright leaving ANT-MAN over creative differences

News broke today that Edgar Wright, director of such films as Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, and The World's End, will be leaving the much-anticipated Marvel film Ant-Man over "creative differences." This is rather crushing news as literally the only thing I've been reliably complimenting about this move was the brilliant hire of Edgar Wright, who has a sterling track record and is one of my personal favorite directors. The parting, reportedly, was amicable, though it raises some concerns for me about the shape of Marvel movies in general that there were irreconcilable creative differences between studio and director. Marvel is not currently in talks with other directors. Now I guess I'll just have to be satisfied that it's a movie about Ant-Man, everyone's favorite superhero.

SUPER QUICK REVIEW: X-Men: Days of Future Past

As ever, no spoilers until there's been more time for people to get out and see the movie (believe it or not, I'm still optimistic I'll get full reviews out for all the movies I've missed).

I worried from day one that X-Men: Days of Future Past was going to suffer from a hugely complicated story and from having too many characters. I'm delighted to report that, while the story is pretty convoluted and while there are plenty of roles in this movie, there was no such suffering through this one. There's a bit of suspension of disbelief in play here to get through some of the finer points of the story (though likely no more than you had to suspend to get into comics and the X-Men in the first place) but it's not troubling enough to taint the movie. There are maybe a few too many winks and nudges at the audience (big winks and nudges too, broad ones that everyone can follow and not just the diehard fans who are searching them out). Regardless, the movie easily stands on its own and is certainly one of the strongest movies in the franchise to date, if not the strongest. As ever, stay til the end of the credits for an exciting, if somewhat predictable, teaser.

NOT a full CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER review

SOOOO I promised everyone Thursday night that I'd have a Captain America: Winter Soldier review up today but I have had all sorts of trouble today putting my thoughts into words and those words into coherent sentences and those coherent sentences into a blog post. I have lots of feelings about this movie and they're almost entirely really good feelings. I really enjoyed the movie, you guys. This is one of the best Marvel has so far put out and it's one that only gets better on repeated viewings, which I think they've lacked since Avengers. It's edgy and dark and gritty without having to be edgy or dark or gritty because Captain America has no time for dark or gritty. He's not Batman, toeing the line between "one bad day" vigilante and the only justice in a town corrupted. The movie has plenty of great themes including security vs. freedom, trust, and friendship and manages to really explore those themes in interesting ways. The action is great, the writing is solid, the performances are incredibly impressive. It's everything I liked about the first film but with an entirely new feel to it at the same time. It's a sequel that really adds to the franchise and improves on the mythos, the first movie I think that's really true for from Marvel. I still have lots to say on this and I'll likely post it eventually (I have a long blog post that's not even like, a fifth done yet sitting in my queue right now but I've come to the realization that that one isn't getting posted today) but for now, suffice it to say that Marvel has absolutely knocked it out of the park with this one. Sorry for throwing a sports metaphor into a comics blog.

Quick hits: CAPTAIN AMERICA: WINTER SOLDIER

Hey everyone, just saw Captain America: Winter Soldier. I'm not willing to give a full review of it right now (particularly if I want to get tomorrow's reviews done tonight which, my friends, I do) because I want to let it sink in and I want to let other people see it first before I start going crazy with spoilers and, well, let's face it, I want to see it again first. Suffice it to say right now that it's entirely unlike any Marvel movie so far and I think it may go down as one of Marvel's best movies. AS A HEADS-UP A FULL FOUR OR SO DAYS IN ADVANCE: My full review (I'm aiming for that to come on Monday) will certainly be RIFE with spoilers. If you don't want to hear spoilers by Monday, maybe don't check out that review just yet. I'll mark it pretty clearly on Monday too but that's your cue to go and make this a huge box office opening, okay? I'm pretty sure this blog has the sway to do that, right?

Rating the modern Marvel movies (part three: 9-1)

As amazing as it is that Marvel has built an entire cinematic universe and made it work well enough that they're planning multiple movies years in advance, it's equally amazing that they have well over ten movies to choose from and that the top ten are all good. So let's get into the fun part of this list.

9. Spider-Man
High school me would be SO MAD that Spider-Man came in at number eleven (and also confused that there were ten other movies that qualified) but that's the bounty Marvel has delivered unto us. Even today, after we've had 27 Marvel movies (god, I'm not counting the Blade movies, guys!) and some that have truly changed the game, Spider-Man still holds up. The only big flaws I can point to now, after getting a chance to look back, have to do with characters. I don't think Peter Parker is developed as much as he really ought to be, which is depressing because it's Peter that's brought people to the comic for over fifty years now. Still, it's a good movie and a lot of the effects still look good twelve years later.

8. X-Men: First Class
This one is an interesting one particularly because of the team they built. This isn't about, as you may have guessed, the original five X-Men being trained by Charles Xavier in a world that hates and fears them. It's about a group of mutant teenagers, only one of which is in that original five group from the comics but the rest are interesting and diverse choices (who'd've thought that Havok and Darwin would make the new squad). It was also a bold enough statement that it's launched another X-Men movie franchise that has a new movie coming out this year and another one coming just a year or two afterwards. It's building an interesting world around new and different mutants. Hoping that the new ones don't go too dark; that's part of what DC is doing that's maybe not going to pay off.

7. Amazing Spider-Man
I said that Spider-Man lacked a developed personality for Peter Parker; he's a bit of a blank slate in that one. He's a nerd, sure, but only kind of? He's a nerd that looks like Tobey Maguire and that mostly just seems kind of awkward more than anything else. This Peter Parker isn't so much a nerd as an outcast. He's well-developed and you can see him fitting into the Spider-Man mythos as much as any interpretation of Peter Parker. Andrew Garfield is genuinely fun to watch in the role and you understand how he immediately took to the Spider-Man identity. Of course, Lizard looks pretty terrible and there are some moments that maybe could have been improved here and there, but it's a really fun movie and one that sets up a neat little world all to itself.

6. Thor
Thor gets a couple of bonus points because it was just the second movie in the new Marvel Cinematic Universe and it was Thor. Those italics are both because movie titles should be italicized but also for emphasis, guys. Thor, as a character, was a big ol' risk for Marvel to turn to, particularly to turn to second (emphasis). A world that had just liked Iron Man, a pretty fun movie about a snarky but very human character who uses science and engineering to be a superhero, and had just liked The Dark Knight about a normal human with above average fighting skills and resources fighting a psychopath, was now asked to embrace something straight out of fantasy. There are a lot of things that bug me about this movie when I watch it on TV (whoa dutch angles, some strangely goofy moments, a bit of a weak final boss battle) but there's plenty of really great stuff to it too. The portrayal of Thor, Loki, and other Asgardians, a lot of the writing, strong pacing and development, etc. All of that worked for me. I think, as you can see here, that Thor is the weakest of the Phase One movies, but it's certainly not a weak movie.

5. Spider-Man 2
After a really strong first entry with Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 perfected the tone and the characters we'd liked so much from the first movie while giving us a compelling villain with a heartbreaking turn from good to evil. Spider-Man is a character defined by his own personality and by his villains and this, though a little different than the classic representation of Doctor Octopus, was as good a defining piece as ever. Good action, good characters, good writing, and a movie that really just felt...well, good. It still holds up, too.

4. X2
This one was on TV just the other day and, I gotta tell you, it holds up pretty well. The effects, the story, the characters, they're all present and accounted for. It may not even be as good a movie as some of the ones it's outranked here but it lands a little better on this list because of how much of an improvement it was and the fact that it feels like it may have been released this year and would still work. Can't give it a lot more praise than that.

3. Iron Man
This is one of the big ones. It represents the start of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, something so big that it's now generated billions of dollars in revenue (over a billion on Avengers alone, guys) and franchises within franchises. To do that requires a real A+ effort and it's not made any easier by the idea that they had to kick the whole thing off with a character somewhat foreign to mainstream audiences. It's not Spider-Man. It's not Wolverine. It's Iron Man. He's not exactly a household name before 2008. But here we are, three Iron Man movies later, not to mention the slew of other movies, and this one still works. It loses some points for the rather over-the-top final boss battle that has some bad dialogue and some "this is the best we can come up with for a villain" feel to it, but it's still a pretty great movie.

2. Captain America
It's legitimately hard for me not to pop this one down at number one. Captain America is not an easy movie to make, and certainly not an easy one to make well. Mainstream audiences don't know much about Captain America except as a reference for "PATRIOTISM" so to make a movie where he's eminently and unironically a good guy in a world where we like our heroes cynical and jaded was a bold move. At the same time, the movie doesn't miss a single beat. It's recently made its way on to cable and so FX has been running it pretty constantly and, frankly, I can't help watching it all the way through every time it's on. There's not a bad scene in the movie. I watch the origin part going "geez, this is the best part of the movie," then I say that for just about every part of the movie. I think Hayley Atwell's Peggy Carter is the best love interest in any of the movies so far, a character who is independent and strong even without Extremis running through her veins. I think Chris Evans plays Steve with such heart and such understanding that it shines through just about any other character Marvel Studios has developed. If anything, I think maybe Red Skull is a little weak, but that's really searching for problems. God, I love that movie.

1. The Avengers
What, was I not going to pick the movie that made a billion dollars and seamlessly tied together all of the characters the movies had developed before? This movie was an INSANE risk, something that had never been done before in movies, and yet it worked amazingly well. It doesn't hurt that Joss Whedon was the brain behind it, sure (full disclosure: I'm watching Firefly as I write this list), but this was a risk even after they hired the much beloved director to helm it. In a world where we want our action dark and gritty, Avengers went out of its way to be just a shade lighter than everything else. It was action-packed and fun and smart and fully realized right from the start. The success of Avengers cemented the superhero movie genre for years to come. Every character (with the possible exception of Hawkeye but that's understandable) gets a fair shake here and, even more impressively, every single one leaves the movie stronger than it entered. Really great work and the obvious number one pick for any list like this.

Rating the modern Marvel movies (part two: 18-10)

Alright, moving on to the second half of this list. I feel confident that we shall almost certainly hit movies that can be called "good!" or, at least, "watchable!" in this part of the list. I'm looking forward to it.

18. Daredevil
I rather like Michael Clarke Duncan in it and Jon Favreau is an A+ casting choice as Foggy Nelson. Affleck isn't terrible in it but the rating, the effects, and the soundtrack all rather bring this one down. The director's cut, which cuts down some of the romance and adds some more crime-solving business, is a step above the theatrical version but that doesn't improve the theatrical version and, frankly, the director's cut still isn't really enough of an improvement. Plenty wrong with this one all the way through.

17. Punisher: War Zone
Still not a good movie by any means, but like the sequel to the boring Ghost Rider, this one tries to shake things up. This one is genuinely, on occasion, hailed as a great Punisher movie and that may be true. It's ridiculous, it's big, it's brutal, it's what Punisher should be. It's not at all toned down. Regardless, a perfect Punisher movie doesn't necessarily equate to a good movie. War Zone sits at 17 because I'm not sure it ever could have cracked that anyway.

16. Iron Man 3
I know I'm not particularly popular with this opinion but this one rather drove me nuts. It's pretty well-documented on this site (it was the first movie I reviewed after the blog started and even that nostalgia doesn't make me feel it's any better). This one was baffling to me the first time I saw it. I had to see it a second time to be sure of what I saw and, well, it didn't improve that time. This one was real popular with fans and critics alike but it just didn't sit well with me. Tony Stark had gone from snarky but complicated to just snarky and petty. They added a PTSD sort of element but eliminated it with NO solution, though presented it as if it was a solution. The villains were uninteresting and obnoxious and the movie ended with, after a special effects parade, an unbelievable deus ex machina meant to, presumably, elevate Pepper but it just made her worse than ever. I have problems with this movie, friends.

15. X-Men
This movie, as a couple of others on this list, was REALLY ambitious. This was the first Marvel movie (aside from the Blade movies, which won't be on this list because I don't care, you guys) of the modern age, kicking off in 2000, two years before even Spider-Man. With that in mind, the movie succeeded. Now that we can go back and look at it through the lens of movies like Avengers or Iron Man or even X2, we can safely say it's pretty boring. It's impressive for what it did and what it meant but, you know, it's still pretty boring. And Sabretooth. God.

14. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
This one is probably up higher (lower) on my list than on a lot of other ones. It's not well-liked and I totally get why. Like Punisher: War Zone, it went for something. For me, though, it's entertaining and eminently watchable. I don't like every scene or every line of dialogue or every character, even, but I'll leave this one on if it pops up on TV, which is more than I can say about just about anything this list has mentioned so far.

13. The Incredible Hulk
After an acting change and a directional change, Hulk returned to the big screen in the form of the ever-likable Ed Norton. Whole new set of problems but a Banner who seems to know himself a bit more after some time out of the spotlight. Certainly not a great movie and calling it an improvement over Hulk is very faint praise but it's a pretty well-acted movie and one whose intentions are certainly met by movie's end. It maybe tried to throw itself into the quickly developing Marvel Cinematic Universe a little too hard and it still suffered from the normal Hulk question of "what makes Hulk interesting?" but it's definitely still a watchable movie as Norton's Banner and Liv Tyler's Betty Ross try to evade Thunderbolt Ross before being forced into a team-up against Abomination.

12. The Wolverine
Like its predecessor (both in film and on this list), The Wolverine may not have been a great movie but it's certainly one that I'll watch if it's on. It's fun, it knows what it wants to do, and it sets out to achieve it. I think that it does, in a lot of ways. The acting isn't bad, the action is solid, and the plot moves well enough to keep things going. I'm not sure Wolverine can sustain too many solo movies but this one was a good shot.

11. Thor: The Dark World
This one was one that kind of sunk the more I thought about it after I'd seen it. It ranks higher than Iron Man 3 because I genuinely enjoyed it while I was watching it (parts of it, anyway, not parts with Kat Dennings in it which were ALL TOO MANY) as opposed to being perplexed. Afterwards, though, I couldn't help getting into how much I disliked the Natalie Portman role (what scientist sits around after making an insane discovery for two years because a guy she liked left?), how little the villain meant (and how little he spoke; you have Christopher Eccleston in the role, let him act), and, okay, yes, Kat Dennings and her character. A lot of the action was great but a lot of the humor fell flat (Dennings' character and the once interesting Stellan Skarsgård character).

10. Iron Man 2
This one is often viewed as the worst in the Iron Man trilogy. I can definitely see a lot of the faults in it (that scene where Tony gets super drunk and then fights with Rhodey to some DJ'd music comes RIGHT TO MIND) but I think it stacks up higher than what it gets credited. Not perfect by any means but definitely watchable. It's the start, of course, of the "Tony is a caricature of that guy we saw in Iron Man" that the movies continued to go a little crazy on but there's almost more of an excuse for it here as he believes he's dying. Solid props for a pretty good introduction to Black Widow and some extra Favreau action (that would, of course, turn into a rather obnoxious role in Iron Man 3), plus the always entertaining Sam Rockwell being entertaining despite a somewhat weak role. Not great but certainly not as bad as it's often called.



EVEN MORE, LATER TODAY.

Rating the modern Marvel movies (part one: 27-19)

HEY DUDES AND LADYDUDES. Been a bit of a while since I've made a Monday post (probably. Look, I can't be bothered to remember days) and I've never officially rated the available Marvel movies (though, of course, these ratings will change in just a few short weeks when Captain America: Winter Soldier comes out). So, you know, we're doing that today. Because I saw a list recently that rated them and, well, you know, every one of these sorts of things is obviously subjective but that one was objectively wrong so LET'S DO IT.

27. Ghost Rider
Guys. Nic Cage. A weird thing about jelly beans. Absolutely no personality. And obscenely boring, even considering the fact the protagonist is a guy with his head on fire. Bad and boring, really bad combination.

26. Punisher
In much the same fashion, Punisher is both boring and uninteresting. Again, a man who takes vengeance on criminals of every size and shape just because he hates crime and criminals and his family were killed and STILL I'M ASLEEP, you guys.

25. Fantastic Four
Readers of this blog are probably aware of how much I love Chris Evans but even he couldn't save what amounted to another boring and uninteresting movie. Of course, it doesn't help that it's the Fantastic Four and they're boring already. Ah well, can't win 'em all.

24. X-Men: The Last Stand
The only reason - the only reason - that this one made it past Fantastic Four is Madrox. Sadly, he didn't appear in more than maybe thirteen seconds of this movie. So, you know, that's problematic. Just real ugly plot and character moments and bad writing and everything. The writing, though, is worse on our next entry.

23. Spider-Man 3
I'm just as surprised as you are that this one ended up as high as it did. Or low. The terms are getting hard, you guys. This. Movie. Is. Garbage. It makes me rethink my love of Marvel every time I catch a piece of it on TV. There's literally a point where Harry Osborn says "I used to protect you in high school and now I'm going to kick your ass!" It's something like that and it makes me lose faith in writing and goodness as a concept every time I think about it which, as you can see, is too often.

22. Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance
Also real bad, very much in the same way as the other Ghost Rider but it went for it just a little more. Everyone knew what this movie was going to be like after the first movie. It embraced the ridiculousness of it but, you know, while that earns it points it certainly doesn't make it good.

21. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
Still boring. Still Fantastic Four. Add in the Silver Surfer and it's better. Add in a Galactus level threat but refuse to actually show Galactus because apparently a man bigger than the entire world with a silly world-eating hat is somehow too ridiculous for a movie that stars four people with powers granted by...space, I guess?

20. Elektra
Extra points go out to this one because they tried to make a female-led movie a decade before it would even enter the conversation. Of course, that earns it exactly enough goodwill to enter the top 20 AND NO MORE THAN THAT. Not a winner, you guys.

19. Hulk
Before Ang Lee won the Academy Award for Best Director for Brokeback Mountain and for Life of Pi, he directed Hulk, a really messed up movie that co-stars Nick Nolte, if that says anything about it. Ang Lee brings a lot of interesting decisions to the movie, including a lot of comic book layout feel to parts of it, but that doesn't, you know, make it a good movie at the end of the day.



Part two comes out LATER TODAY, PROBABLY!

Big day of CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER news

I KNOW, I'm super biased about this movie. I may end up just skipping reviews entirely the week it comes out and just writing about the movie every day. ANYWAY, today has been a pretty big day as Marvel released a new clip from the movie (pretty spoiler-free, I'd say, and it gives us our first glance at Batroc) and CBR released a slew of new articles with interviews and the like. Check some of 'em out!

Co-Writers Markus and McFeely: "Winter Soldier" Will "Punch You in the Face"

Anthony Mackie As "Captain America: The Winter Soldier's" Falcon

[Directors] Joe and Anthony Russo Delve Into "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"

[Head of Marvel Studios Kevin] Feige Says "'Captain America: The Winter Soldier' Plays On Multiple Levels"


Lot of neat information in here and the Mackie interview is particularly charming as Mackie talks about wanting to be in Avengers 2, a relationship subplot he decided was in this movie, and working with Chris Evans and Samuel L. Jackson. Fun stuff.

Marvel Super Bowl spots

Been a while since I've had any posts relating to Marvel across other media, driven, perhaps, by the fact that I don't care for any of the Marvel animated stuff out right now (whereas I'd been so happy with it just a few short years ago between Spectacular Spider-Man and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, replaced by the far lesser Ultimate Spider-Man and Avengers Assemble. Don't know if that Hulk show is any good) and I keep tuning in and out (more recently out) of Marvel's Agents of SHIELD. But here we go, the start of 2014 has brought us ample reason to talk about the huge year this will be for movies, with Captain America: Winter Soldier debuting in April, Amazing Spider-Man 2 and X-Men: Days of Future Past coming in May, and Guardians of the Galaxy set to kick off August (also allegedly in production is Big Hero Six, a Marvel property and another Marvel Studios film but launched by Disney and there's been very little talk of it so it's hard to say if it will really happen by November, as it's showing on IMDb). While plenty of those titles are still pretty far out and even the closest one is still a couple of months away, the most one-sided Super Bowl ever gave us a chance to see tiny, tiny clips of what's to come. Fortunately, the internet gave us a little more so LET'S GAB.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Fans of this blog or my friends and family or the manager of my local comic shop or strangers passing by me can tell you that I'm a pretty big Captain America fan. Many of that same number can probably also tell you I'm a big ol' Winter Soldier fan. The WINTER SOLDIER storyline in Brubaker's CAPTAIN AMERICA run isn't just my favorite Cap storyline ever, it's one of my favorite storylines in comics, period. So I'm particularly excited about this movie and hearing people like Ed Brubaker himself saying that Captain America: Winter Soldier is the "best movie that Marvel has ever made"only furthers that excitement (I KNOW, Brubaker's not exactly an unbiased opinion but he's also a pretty outspoken comics creator who no longer has any contractual obligation to Marvel and, while I'm sure there are certain benefits to the movie doing well for him, I truly believe that he wouldn't be heaping praise on it if he didn't mean that praise). It doesn't hurt that they put out a trailer like this one to get people ready:

Thor: The Dark World review

Hey all my buddies, as ever with a movie review (or really any sort of review but particularly with movie ones) there are TONS of SPOILERS below. Read at your own risk.

Thor: The Dark World was released in America (who always gets these movies nearly last, much to the chagrin of comic book reviewers all over readmarvel.blogspot.com) on Friday, November 8th. Thanks to the magic of certain movies being allowed to release early, I got to see it on the 7th at 8 PM, which was reminiscent to me of when Amazon accidentally delivered Thor on blu-ray to my house the day before it was released. That is not where the similarities between the two movies end and, frankly, it's not really where they begin because that is a truly absurd and specific association to make. Probably where the similarities begin is right at the beginning of Thor: The Dark World. Like its predecessor, this movie opens with Odin (Anthony Hopkins) recounting for the audience a tale from Asgard's past. It's a little further back than the tale he opens the first movie with (which had to do with the war between Asgard and Jotunheim and the Frost Giants), giving us a look at Odin's father, King Bor (an apparently uncredited Tony Curran), and his Asgardian army taking down the Dark Elves of Svartalfheim and their leader Malekith (Christopher Eccleston), who had created a weapon called the Aether which, when bonded to it, would make him nearly invincible and would give him the power to destroy the nine realms during the convergence, the event every few thousand years when the nine realms align. If that sounds like an absolute whirlwind of exposition, it's because it is. Within five minutes of the movie starting, we know a movie's worth of plot. It's a bold move, though not a foreign one. It's essentially "A long, long time ago in a galaxy far away..." What makes it a bolder move, then, is that it's the second movie in this series to open this way. In most cases, you'd expect the first movie to have told the story you needed to tell to continue the series. Here we're telling a very different story with the same characters and so there's a different backstory. I've seen the movie twice and I remember the difference in feeling the two different times. The first time I was a little taken aback that they'd start the movie with another history of Asgard. The second time I was grateful. It gives the movie and this world a sense of the epic, a sense that this world has existed for so long that this story that's coming up, as good as it may be and as current as it may be, just brushes the surface of things Asgard has done. And that's how you kick your movie off. Bold choice, I think it pays off.

I did not intend to spend that long on the first five minutes but here we are. Malekith was defeated by Bor and the Aether was taken and hidden away, too powerful to be destroyed or allowed out in the open. Now, millennia later, the convergence is upon us again, aligning the nine realms. Suddenly, in the points where the convergence happens (where the branches of Yggdrasil, the World Tree, meet) small portals are opening and gravitational fluctuations are occurring. Dr. Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), Thor's love interest from the first movie, is investigating one such portal with the not-so-much help of intern Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) and, inexplicably, Lewis' intern Ian (Jonathan Howard), when she finds herself face-to-face with the Aether. It latches on to her and suddenly several interested parties are aware of its existence again, most notably an awakened Malekith. Malekith, along with top lieutenant-turned secret weapon Kurse (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), attack Asgard, killing Odin's wife and Loki's only supporter Frigga (Rene Russo), but fleeing before they can obtain the Aether. After the funeral for Frigga, Thor comes up with a plan to lure Malekith out by bringing Jane to Svartalfheim where Thor can sneak-attack Malekith and the Aether while both are weakened. Odin refuses the plan, preferring the Asgardians fight Malekith on their home turf, no matter the casualties. This sets Thor off on a clandestine quest wherein he breaks out Loki and the two, along with Jane, and with the help of Lady Sif (Jaimie Alexander), Volstagg (Ray Stevenson), and Fandral (Zachary Levi), escape Asgard and enact Thor's plan. It fails and Malekith obtains the Aether while Loki sacrifices himself to save Thor and destroy Kurse. Left with little time to mourn, Jane and Thor return to Earth and enlist the help of Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and soft science Malekith away. They trace the root of the convergence to Greenwich and realize that's where Malekith will come through, setting up shop to doom the universe. After an impressive, portal-hopping fight scene, Thor and the science gang win the day, splitting Malekith between the realms and eventually landing his own ship on him. Thor returns to Asgard where Odin plans to name him king but Thor refuses, wishing instead to protect the realms from the front lines, not with the pressures being king puts on someone. As Thor leaves, given Odin's reluctant blessing, Odin reveals himself to the audience to, in fact, be Loki in disguise.

That's a pretty long plot summary but you should have seen the first draft at this. Anyway, the movie is certainly an impressive one; the fight scenes are well done, Thor and Loki have an unquestionable chemistry and Loki continues to be handled extremely well. The plot itself is interesting and echoes, most recently, a 2010 or 2011 episode of Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, written by...what's this, CHRISTOPHER YOST, CO-WRITER OF THOR: THE DARK WORLD. Don't act so surprised, you guys, I've been hinting at this for months. More than that, one of the things I found pretty interesting about Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, on top of how great it was, was that Marvel seemed to use it as a way to test out some ideas on young audiences, including the popularity of the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Skrull invasion. In that episode, "The Fall of Asgard," the Avengers get separated between the nine realms and have to find their way to Asgard to defeat Loki, who had previously worked alongside Malekith to try to conquer Earth. Anyway, that doesn't make the story any less intriguing. What I would say makes it a little less intriguing is the insistence, as in the first movie, to draw parallels between the world of magic and the world of science, meaning that there's a ton of soft science in here that, when you start to really think it through isn't particularly well-explained. Still, the writing largely covers for it and the action and characterization of Thor, Loki, and the other Asgardians (particularly Frigga and Idris Elba's Heimdall) certainly make for an enjoyable film overall.

Eagle-eyed readers might notice that I'm not saying too much in my positive section about the characterization of Jane Foster or Erik Selvig or Darcy Lewis. There's, uh, there's a reason for that, eagle-eyed readers. As with the first movie, it feels a little like the screenwriters aren't totally sure what to do with Jane Foster. I listened to a podcast recently with one of the screenwriters for Thor who said that Natalie Portman wanted to bring more of a poet/scientist feel to the role of Jane Foster. I'm not totally sure what that entails but I assume it has to do with her clinginess to Thor. Not to say she's necessarily all over him but there are certainly lines here that imply that she's done very little in the way of science since he left (we're told the events of the first movie happened two years prior, with The Avengers happening somewhere in-between though probably closer to this movie than to Thor). She's instead spent time at her mother's and, if Darcy is to be believed (big "if"), hasn't looked at least at the equipment she was using prior to Thor's arrival on Earth in the last two years or so. This is a scientist who we're supposed to believe is incredibly smart and inquisitive who has given up because her boyfriend (who she knew for like, three days, mind you) disappeared two years ago. I have some real issues with that characterization.

Fortunately for Jane, it's far overlooked by my sheer annoyance at Darcy Lewis who is inexplicably still hanging around with Jane. The first movie posited that she was an intern for Jane and Erik, though not particularly into whatever they were doing (she was a political science major but she was the only one who applied for the job so neither party necessarily wants to be with the other). Somehow now we find out she's been at this for an additional TWO YEARS, still as an intern and still knowing very little (and seeming to care very little) about the science Jane does. Perhaps more inexplicably, she has found some dumb British kid to be her intern. Darcy talks non-stop and is given plenty of obvious laugh lines but they mostly come off as annoying and mood-breaking. I was encouraged to hear, in the second viewing particularly, that people by and large were not laughing at her lines which told me it wasn't just me being snooty about it. Her character is a waste and unquestionably hurts the movie. It would be a smaller complaint but her role is larger even than the first film, which had the good sense to pretty much knock her out of the second half. Selvig too sees a bit of a character decline from the first film, going a little over-the-top crazy after the events of The Avengers. All of this, I think, hurts the film and particularly hurts the final fight scene which shows all of them hard at work to try to evade the Dark Elves and to help Thor stop Malekith's attack. The problem is that, with the possible exception of Jane, none of them have shown themselves to be remotely capable of this and still they get an absurd amount of screen time.

Overall, despite these complaints, the film holds up on the strength of the plot and effects and on the characterization of Thor and Loki. Thor is different than the Thor we saw in the first movie, the brash and arrogant would-be king of Asgard. Here he's learned his lessons in worthiness and wields Mjolnir deservedly. He's still somewhat arrogant on the battlefield but, while it's certainly earned, it feels a little like a show for troop morale. Back in Asgard, he's somewhat removed, even covering himself in plain clothes and presenting a bit of a more brooding hero. He's more distant with the Warriors Three and with Sif (who has far too little of a role in this, in my opinion) and he's removed himself from many of their celebrations. Presumably a big part of this is Jane but it also seems to have to do with his newfound love of Earth as a whole, lending itself to the Thor we see in comics, a Thor who spends the majority of his downtime on Earth because he just prefers it. It also gives weight to the final scene, where he tells "Odin" that he wants to patrol the nine realms and that it wouldn't matter if Odin said he could rule Asgard with Jane by his side, he still would prefer to be roaming. It's a nice decision to make Thor someone who's matured as much as this Thor has but who still clearly aches for Earth. His character is far less complicated than someone like Loki; Thor is good, Thor is right, in the same sort of way that Captain America is goodness and rightness (that's not the last time I'll mention him). That means his moral decisions aren't ever really going to be huge draws for a crowd. Instead, it's Loki who draws us to questions of "what will he do here?" Thor, then, has appeal here as someone who knows what's expected of him vs. what he wants to do and as someone who believes firmly in the way he wants things done.

So Loki. Loki, thanks to Hiddleston's portrayal of the character in both Thor and The Avengers has become a huge star in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Here's the thing: it's completely well-deserved. I found his interpretation of Loki in Thor to be dead on, right down to every minute facial expression and movement. There's something utterly charming and utterly slimy, all at once, in this Loki. Here we see him in a sort of different light. He's still angry about the secret of his parentage and he sees nothing wrong with what he attempted to do on Earth during The Avengers. He lashes out at everyone but he has a tender scene with Frigga, giving us the appearance that he isn't just some evil villain. It also plays to Loki as he and Thor put on a bit of a show for Malekith later to try to convince Malekith that Loki is on his side. The audience can speculate that this is all part of a plan for Loki but no one in the crowd can be totally sure because, well, because it's Loki. Loki delivers some of the best lines in the movie and the writers throw in the funniest part based around Loki, wherein he and Thor walk down a hallway in the palace and (SPOILERS YOU GUYS, I KNOW I SAID IT BUT THIS PART WAS SUPER GREAT AND I DON'T WANT IT SPOILED FOR YOU) Loki alters their appearances a couple times, eventually landing on Thor walking with one of his "new companions," Captain America. Chris Evans has a near-perfect cameo as Cap here with Loki-Cap spouting lines about truth and freedom and the American way. It's hilarious, it's well-timed, it's a great surprise, and it's probably the highlight of what was already a good movie.

Final thing to talk about, then, is the post credits scene (there are two to this movie, one in the middle of the credits and one at the very end; the one in the middle is the one that's important to talk about for the Marvel movie-verse). Sif and Volstagg take a journey to a very odd showroom of sorts and are led to none other than future Guardians of the Galaxy villain the Collector (Benicio del Toro). Sif and Volstagg have been sent to deliver the Aether, captured again, to the Collector, hoping that he'll keep it safe there. The Collector asks why Asgard wouldn't keep it themselves and Volstagg reveals that they already have the Tesseract in their possession and it's not wise to keep two Infinity stones too near one another. The Collector lauds this as wise and agrees to protect the Aether. Sif and Volstagg leave a little warily and the Collector murmurs "one down, five to go." YOU GUYS. The Tesseract and the Aether are Infinity Gems! Thanos, key villain for Guardians (though there promises to be a slew of them), is always after those pesky gems and here we've already seen two of them and it rather fits. What is a cosmic cube? Oh, an Infinity Gem! What is this crazy weapon Malekith seems to have created? Not too much, just AN INFINITY GEM. AND NOW THE COLLECTOR HAS ONE AND KNOWS WHERE ANOTHER IS. Geez, that's exciting. Marvel laying some more in-roads here and there to get people talking about their riskiest movie in phase two, Guardians of the Galaxy. Overall, definitely a good movie, lots of fun and well worth seeing.

Tiny "Thor: The Dark World" review

I don't want to review too much just yet because technically the movie isn't out yet and I don't want to let any spoilers out of the bag (that said, SORRY IF THIS SPOILS ANYTHING FOR YOU) so I plan to go super-basic with just first impressions and give a more full review on maybe Monday.

Really fun movie, definitely another win in Marvel's book. There were certainly bits that felt a little coincidental and really existed to bring our plot and characters together but they're easy enough to overlook. I'd say the movie's biggest flaw, by about tenfold, was Kat Denning's character Darcy, who appears far too much in this movie, a complaint I had with the first Thor although she was in that one less. A couple of forced laugh bits here and there but some truly wonderful humor at points and really solid characterization and acting pretty much all around. Like I said, I plan to go more into this and more spoiler heavy when more of the world has gotten a chance to see it (okay, Monday, not that much more of a chance but you're lucky I'm waiting now) but for now, the takeaway is that I really liked it and I'm looking forward to seeing it again.

OH, also, if they make a SANDMAN movie at any point (preferably soon for this plan), they REALLY need to cast Tom Hiddleston. He'd be amazing.

Movie Review: The Wolverine

Movie Review: The Wolverine

Maybe the difference between Iron Man 3 and The Wolverine is that, as much as I tried to clear my mind, I went into Iron Man 3 with expectations. I didn't have specific expectations but I had some expectations about the way Tony Stark was going to be perceived and the way that Iron Man himself would come across. As a result, I couldn't help being disappointed by seeing Tony Stark play "Tony Stark," a caricature of the snappy but heartfelt character from the the first movie in the series. Audiences picked up something in Iron Man about Tony Stark that resonated, something fun but real. It was then misinterpreted as simply "fun" for the next two movies and it weakened his character as a result. I went into The Wolverine expecting an over-the-top Wolverine movie that may have been campy fun or may have been endlessly painful. X-Men Origins: Wolverine had both of those aspects. There were moments where the action, as over-the-top as it was, was fun and exactly what people going to a Wolverine movie wanted to see (when your main character heals, the stakes of each fight have to be raised). Overall, though, the movie had plenty of moments that were really bad and shoe-horned in characters that normal moviegoers didn't need to see and that fans of the comics weren't going to be happy about. My friend Phil runs a Youtube channel and recently reviewed this movie for himself and he touched upon a lot of the same stuff I'm going to be talking about. However, the biggest point he made is that this is a Wolverine movie.


The movie is set in Japan where Wolverine returns after being a prisoner of war in WWII. He was kept on the outskirts of Nagasaki when the bomb was dropped there but saved the life of one Japanese officer, showing off his healing factor and (then) bone claws to the man as they waited out the explosion and the aftermath in a deep rock well. Years later, with the Japanese officer on his deathbed, Logan returns to say his goodbyes but quickly gets wrapped up in several different plots for and against the family. It's an interesting story with multiple twists and turns and enough beats to keep an audience interested. More than that, though, it does a solid job to establish Wolverine as his own character. Sure, the burden isn't really on this movie to do that, as Wolverine is perhaps the most popular character from the very popular set of X-Men films but it's nice to see him away from other superheroes for a bit. Even Origins found Wolverine fighting alongside a group of mutant mercenaries only to inevitably break free a slew of mutant children and have a climactic fight beside his mutant sort-of-brother against another mutant. Here, there are three "superpowered" characters in the movie and everyone else is just skilled in some way or another, leaving Wolverine more on an island. Fans of Wolverine comics, though, will recognize many of the names in the movie as specific to Wolverine, with Mariko and Yukio heading up a movie that also features the Silver Samurai prominently. Frankly, the fact that the movie is almost completely in Japan is rather specific to Wolverine, who spends plenty of time there in the comics. More than all of that, though, this is a Wolverine movie because the main character is Wolverine. Wait, that's not as dumb as it sounds just...just hang on, it'll come around.

Wolverine is a very specific character. Sure, everyone is, but that doesn't necessarily stop movies from making their lead character a parody of him or herself, especially after he or she has appeared in so many titles (for the record, I thought The Avengers benefitted from Tony not being over-the-top Tony). Here, though, Wolverine maintains everything that makes him unique, from his attempts at removing himself from society and breaking from his past to his reluctance to get involved in another plot to his dedication to the people he cares about. Every bit of it is Wolverine at his core, in addition to the normal surly demeanor. A Wolverine movie doesn't work without Wolverine at its center and The Wolverine knows it so it doesn't ever try to make it about anything else. Every facet of the plot is about Wolverine and the life he leads and the decisions he makes. Of course, another important aspect of Wolverine is in the action he brings to the table. The fight scenes are all impressive and nicely choreographed. Fans of ninjas and everything that makes fast-moving kung-fu movies won't be disappointed (it's not exactly kung-fu but it's about as close as any Marvel movie will get until SOMEONE MAKE AN IRON FIST MOVIE). Even the most campy, over-the-top fight, a three person fight as they struggle to stay atop a bullet train, looks cool and is certainly as fun as it sets out to be. The inevitable fights against the three main villains live up to the rest of the movie, with no fight lowering the stakes from any previous fight. Still, the movie isn't all action as we see Wolverine get wrapped into another love affair, one that will be recognized by fans of the comic, who probably anticipated it from the moment they heard this movie was set in Japan. Wolverine and Mariko travel the country together to evade the people who need evading all while forming a relationship of their own. It's a well-paced relationship with nothing too out of the ordinary for a movie but it's a nice structure nonetheless. You really understand the building blocks of the relationship and you can see the movements from point A to point B without any real leaps.

This movie isn't on the same level, necessarily, as movies like The Avengers and Captain America: The First Avenger but it would have been hard to get to that level, particularly after the precedent X-Men Origins: Wolverine set for the Wolverine franchise. Still, this movie comes out looking pretty good when it's all said and done. It's a good plot with plenty of great character moments for Wolverine, Mariko, and Yukio, among others. The action is very strong and a lot of fun and there are enough moments of levity to break some of the gritty tension here and there. The villains are intimidating enough, even if Viper, seemingly a mutant version of something resembling Madame Hydra, lacks any real sort of motivation beyond "bad guy." Her inclusion doesn't ruin the movie by any stretch, though it does make it harder to appreciate her as a villain when even every other villain has a pretty concrete motive (though I might argue that the final villain Wolverine faces, not to give out any spoilers, comes off a little weaker by the end). It's a fun movie, perfect for fans of Wolverine and of action movies in general. It's certainly not without its flaws but I can't imagine anyone went into this one awaiting the Criterion Collection version. I was going to say that it was fair to judge this movie on a different set of standards than I judged Iron Man 3, since both of these movies had a precedent set by their series and one improved the series while the other, in my opinion, devalued it. While I do think that's still true, I don't even know that I need to temper this review in that manner. The movie is fun completely on its own merits and, more importantly, it stays true to the character we've grown to love in every previous X-Men based movie. Don't forget to stick around after the first set of credits to see a special scene that should get you excited about the next movie we'll see out of Fox's Marvel wing (spoiler: it's the new X-Men movie).

Iron Man 3 review

SPOILERS. Guys, there are going to be spoilers here. I don't want to spoil comics for people (I do anyway, hoping that people won't be too mad) but I really don't want to spoil a major motion picture. DO NOT read this review unless you have no desire to see the movie, have already seen the movie, or do not care about spoilers. On with the show.

There's a real flaw with my vocabulary that extends beyond my inability to think of words to describe comics aside from "interesting." That flaw is the term "comic book villain." When I say it, I think of a villain who is over-the-top evil and seemingly evil for evil's sake. I also know that if other people used that term, I'd be mad because plenty of comic book villains have nuances and real backstory and history and a trajectory on their arc that got them to where they are. In many cases (not all of them) the ones who ARE evil for the sake of evil are still done well enough to make them compelling enough to watch. They have motivations. Iron Man 3 has two villains that eventually, thanks to a twist in the movie, becomes one villain. For about half of the movie we have a terrorist known as the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) bombing locations in America with impossible to trace bombs the put out an absurd amount of heat, vaporizing anyone within a few feet of the explosion. Mandarin interrupts all broadcasts and claims responsibility, promising more bombings in time. Not to any end, just to "teach America a lesson." Working under him is Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), creator of a think tank called Advanced Ideas in Mechanics, or AIM. Killian had tried to get Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr., of course) onboard back in 1999 but Tony had ignored him. Tony's date for the night though, a biologist named Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall), apparently took Killian up on the offer, bringing her invention of a way to recode DNA to heal a person, among other things, over to AIM. We eventually find that Killian is, in fact, not working under the Mandarin but directing things himself and that the Mandarin is a construct, with Kingsley actually playing an actor playing the Mandarin on these broadcasts. It's a twist that will throw off most moviegoers and most comic fans, as the Mandarin is a long time real enemy of Stark in the comics. Killian is behind it all, spreading Hansen's data, called Extremis, I'm not sure there's a huge point to the twist other than being a twist though. This might just be from me as a fan of the comics (though I've been told from non-comic readers this was true) but I feel like we knew Killian was a bad guy all along and we even see him working with the Mandarin before knowing that the Mandarin is fake. So if it's a minor twist, at least we have one solid villain instead of several weaker villains who don't get enough screen time to develop.

Guys, that line was meant to make you think that would be true, but it's not true. Aldrich Killian is a comic book villain. He created the Mandarin so that he has a face to hide behind and a lightning rod for hatred. So what is Killian's end game in all this, now that he has the pieces moved into place? I don't know. I mean, he wants power, I guess. He strings the vice president into his plans which, assuming his last bombing wherein the president would be killed goes off without a hitch, would put an AIM supporter in the White House. He mentions that he controls the war on terror with the west's biggest hitter and its biggest terrorist in his hands. So is he in this for the power? For the money? He seems pretty wealthy already. I didn't get the sense in either of my two viewings over the weekend that he particularly cared about money. There's a little subplot with him in love with Pepper and using her as a trophy that seems a little sudden. Simply put, he seems evil for evil's sake, but without the race hatred of a Red Skull or the power and ego of a Doctor Doom. This might seem like picking on just one aspect of a long movie but it's kind of a make-or-break point. A villain without a sincere motivation is just confusing because there are no terms on the table. I think the film tries to set up the idea of Killian as a once-good guy, back in 1999 when he was a nerd hanger-on with physical deformities, who has been slighted one too many times and snapped, but it doesn't stick. The same is kind of true for Hansen, though we see more of her before and after and she gives us a speech about science meant for good being used for evil. Still, there isn't enough time spent on developing these characters to give us a real sense of why they're doing what they're doing. Hansen is definitely better, showing a woman who is doing important research and will do whatever it takes to get it funded, but she also comes away as someone who has seemingly accepted the Mandarin solution and only thinks better of it later.

Yikes. We've gone two long paragraphs without even touching the titular character. Let's talk about the good first because those paragraphs were definitely huge negatives. The action scenes are intense and fun to watch (if at times a little cluttered and confusing). The film never feels really painful to watch, which seems like a backhanded compliment but really isn't; there are plenty of superhero movies (and movies in general) that don't just drag, they actively seem to resent the viewer. Tony is Tony, suave and cool but able to recognize, eventually the good things in his life. It will never not be fun to watch an Iron Man suit fly through the air and in this movie we get a whole slew of them doing just that. The performances are largely what we would have expected out of the talented group of actors. The film also did a great job of keeping to itself, not reaching out to the Avengers in an attempt at pleasing fans (except in a cute post-credit scene). That can't be easy to do in a time where The Avengers made over a billion dollars.

So let's move on. My biggest flaw with Tony is that there's a plot surrounding his time in The Avengers. Tony has come away from the experience a different person. No matter how cool he seems on the outside, he's torn apart inside trying to cope with things that are bigger than him when, before The Avengers, nothing had really BEEN bigger than him. He knows aliens exist, he knows a little about Thor's nine realms, he knows that there's a guy who can fly and call lightning, and he's the only one on Earth who saw what he saw beyond the portal. Tony's now prone to anxiety attacks and hasn't slept soundly since the events in New York. It's explained as how he has so many new suits; he's spent all of his free time (which is considerable now that he doesn't sleep) building new suits and inventing new tech for his new suits. His newest tech is an ability to call his suit to him at a moment's notice, or to throw it on someone else (like Pepper to get her out of the way of debris). But anyway, the idea of his anxiety attacks is an extremely interesting one. It's easy to forget, given the scale of the movies and the fact that the audience has seen all the Marvel movies and is no stranger to Thor nor to sci-fi as a whole, that Tony Stark wouldn't be comfortable with these things appearing in his world. The anxiety attacks fit well with the character and the problems behind them are real ones that are fascinating to unravel. Then, halfway through the movie, the plot drops out to make way for action scenes.

I'll say again, the action is good if a bit dragged out, but when you set up your main character to have a hugely interesting new flaw then kill it with no resolution and no apparent memory that it was a problem (except for a throwaway line later about how he's sleeping better), you've got a problem in your storytelling. Tony's anxiety attacks, which had played a major role in the first half of the movie, all but disappear when he's told by supporting character Harley Keener (Ty Simpkins), a precocious child with a scientific mind and no father, to go build something. Did...did that solve the problem? Because, from Tony's own testimony and as evidenced by all of the Iron Man suits, he's been building things. Then the anxiety never reappears because we have action scenes to get to. So we take a really interesting and new idea of a character who has always been in control and has understood what he's been doing losing a grip on that control and that reality before completely forgetting we did that and watching Tony and his army of Iron Men attacking an army of Extremis powered soldiers (quick side note: Extremis isn't particularly well-explained either. It "rewires" DNA for the next step in evolution and that MIGHT mean that it makes people able to heal, makes them run faster, makes them stronger, makes them hot to the touch, and so on. But all of that is shown, not told, so who knows what this thing really does?) while trying to save the love interest only to find the love interest saving him. TWIST.

I love Marvel movies. I think that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been unprecedented in its boldness and its willingness to tie together this huge web of movies and characters, despite legal flaws like "you can't use Spider-Man or mutants." I think The Avengers was a pretty near perfect film for what it set out to do and I've been impressed by the depth of story and character each film has put forth when it would have been so easy to just make a popcorn flick. I think Iron Man 3 is a popcorn flick. It's got good action, quippy characters that we know and love, and a rather undefinable antagonist and plot. I think it's the weakest entry from Marvel since Iron Man set the whole universe in motion. On the plus side, the Iron Man franchise as a whole never reached Spider-Man 3 or X-Men the Last Stand depths. The movie is still totally watchable and never gets painful to watch. I like the introduction of both AIM and Roxxon to the MCU. Hopefully it's not a sign so early on into Marvel's Phase II that the direction from here on out is going to be coasting. I still have high hopes for Thor: The Dark World and remarkably high hopes for Captain America: Winter Soldier. For the first time seeing a new Marvel movie though, I can honestly say I'm not dying to see Iron Man 3 again.