Oh my God, Ant-Man admit it! (CREDIT: Marvel Entertainment/Screenshot)
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Kathryn Newton, Jonathan Majors, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, David Dastmalchian, Katy O’Brian, William Jackson Harper, Bill Murray, Corey Stoll
Director: Peyton Reed
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: February 17, 2023 (Theaters)
I liked the beginning of Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, because it was bright and sunny, both literally and metaphorically. I also liked the end, because it was once again bright and sunny. But I didn’t like the parts in the Quantum Realm as much, because they were quite dark. I saw it two days after my birthday, and it definitely wasn’t the best birthday movie, so it’s good that I didn’t see it on the exact anniversary of my expulsion from a uterus.
While the credits were unspooling, a youngster of about six told his dad, “I hate this movie,” as he walked past me. I try not to hate, but I kept holding my head at a weird angle while watching, and that wasn’t good for my neck. Both literally and metaphorically.
Grade: Infinity Plus 3 out of Infinity Times 2 Kangs
Starring: Letitia Wright, Angela Bassett, Tenoch Huerta Mejía, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, Martin Freeman, Winston Duke, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Florence Kasumba, Dominique Thorne, Michaela Coel, Divine Love Konadu-Son
Director: Ryan Coogler
Running Time: 161 Minutes
Rating: PG-13]
Release Date:] November 11, 2022 (Theaters)
Upon seeing the first Black Panther back in 2018, my expectations were sky-high, and there was pretty much no way to meet them. For Wakanda Forever, however, I arrived with significantly subdued enthusiasm. I doubted that it could fully process the grief of Chadwick Boseman’s passing or that it could be another Landmark Cultural Event. So I ended up seeing it more than a month after its release with a much more chillaxed approach. And you know that? That may just have made all the difference. Also, the conflict with Namor was plenty satisfying and I totally didn’t see it coming.
CREDIT: Marvel Entertainment/Screenshot; IFC Films
Thor: Love and Thunder
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Christian Bale, Taika Waititi, Tessa Thompson, Jaimie Alexander, Russell Crowe
Director: Taika Waititi
Running Time: 119 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: July 8, 2022
Flux Gourmet
Starring: Asa Butterfield, Gwendoline Christie, Ariane Labed, Fatima Mohamed, Makis Papaditriou, Leo Bill, Richard Bremer
Director: Peter Strickland
Running Time: 111 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Release Date: June 24, 2022 (Theaters and On Demand)
Wow, here I am, a few days older and a few days wiser from having taken in a couple of the latest cinematic offerings. As Thor: Love and Thunder began, I felt invigorated by the current state of the MCU in which we’re not just building up to the latest chapter. Or, we are, but it’s not thuddingly obvious what direction we’re headed in. That felt freeing! But then after a while, I was worried that I had lost the plot – what was the deal with the kids again? At least we had a lot of fun with Russell Crowe’s Zeus. I wondered why he was doing an Italian accent, and then I realized it must be Greek, so that was a journey.
As for Flux Gourmet, the uncertainty was even more ever-present. Partly that was because I’ve never seen any other movie quite like this, but more pertinently it was because I kept nodding off. I guess I need to institute precautions when drinking vodka lemonades during a mid-afternoon show. Anyway, this flick ultimately struck me as most relevant in dramatizing what it’s like to be diagnosed with celiac disease. And any part not expressly about that was probably still metaphorically about it.
Grades: Thor: Love and Thunder: More Love, Decent Thunder Flux Gourmet: Straightforward Flatulence, Everything Else in Flux
Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Xochitl Gomez, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Stuhlbarg
Director: Sam Raimi
Running Time: 126 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: May 6, 2022 (Theaters)
So exactly how much multiverse and how much madness is there in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness? Honestly, there are other movies out there that are more multiversal, or madder, or both more multiversal and madder! But that’s okay, because this movie features a scene in which two Doctor Stranges fight each other with musical notes. And also Bruce Campbell punches himself a bunch of times. It doesn’t get much better than that!
Starring: Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Lia McHugh, Bryan Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Keoghan, Don Lee, Harish Patel, Kit Harington, Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie
Director: Chloé Zhao
Running Time: 157 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: November 5, 2021 (Theaters)
Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time” plays during Eternals‘ end credits, which is pretty cool, as that’s a fun song to rock out or sing along to. But then it cuts off before the guitar solo! And that made me feel pretty cut off. That’s the micro of how I feel about Eternals in the macro. The premise is intriguing, and multiple characters have an engaging hook, but then it just never lets loose. That’s two-and-a-half hours of waiting for something unforgettable. At least this isn’t the same-old, same-old I’ve gotten so used to from the MCU. Alas, a dozen or so central characters that have been around for millennia can be pretty imposing.
Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Florence Pugh, David Harbour, Rachel Weisz, O-T Fagbenle, Olga Kurylenko, Ray Winstone, William Hurt
Director: Cate Shortland
Running Time: 134 Minutes
Rating: PG-13
Release Date: July 9, 2021 (Theaters and Disney+ Premier Access)
“Plug it in, plug it in.” That’s the classic slogan of the famed Glade air freshener line of products. I currently find myself revisiting it in light of having recently watched the Marvel Cinematic Universe superhero film Black Widow, as my primary reaction to that movie was, “Well, that character has now been plugged into the MCU.”
Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova? She’s been plugged in. David Harbour as the Red Guardian? He’s certainly been plugged in. And Rachel Weisz as Melina Vestokof? Yet another character that’s been plugged in! Yes indeed, they plugged ’em all in.
Bob Malone (aka Dad, aka Brother Bob) returns, while Jenn from The Community ReWatch Podcast makes her That’s Auntertainment debut, because like Aunt Beth and Jeff, they’ve all been seeing the world through WandaVision goggles lately.
They also have some thoughts about the 93rd Oscar nominations!
Starring: Tom Holland, Jake Gyllenhaal, Zendaya, Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Jacob Batalon, Jon Favreau, Angourie Rice, Martin Starr, J.B. Smoove, Marisa Tomei, Tony Revolori, Remy Hii
Director: Jon Watts
Running Time: 129 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Nicks and Bruises from Webslinging Around and Awkward Situations That Teenager Somehow Stumble Into
Release Date: July 2, 2019
The name of the game is the ol’ switcheroo, the bait-and-switch, the smoke-and-mirrors routine … yeah, that’s the ticket. It’s only been a couple of months since the release of Avengers: Endgame, but despite all that seeming finality, the MCU must continue. And the first arrival in this new status quo is Spider-Man: Far From Home, which means we’re going to kick things off with an in memoriam montage that features Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You,” Comic Sans lettering, and a Getty Images-watermarked photo. But there are also some baddies to defeat, although Peter Parker (Tom Holland) would much rather focus on his school’s European class trip and taking things to a more romantic realm with his friend MJ (Zendaya). You get the sense that this cinematic iteration of Spider-Man would also like to just focus on the high school ecosystem. But superhero movie requirements beckon, and Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers’ script does a fun enough job of incorporating Peter and his pals’ shenanigans into the CGI blowout.
The topsy-turvy hook begins with the fallout from the fact that the people who were snapped away in Infinity War and then returned in Endgame (referred to here as “the Blip”) have not aged the five years that everyone who remained did. Adding to all the pandemonium is the appearance of Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), a caped-and-suited fellow who claims to be from a parallel Earth and is here to help fight some monsters that have escaped from his world. But not all is as it seems, as characters may not be who they say they are, relationships have sudden accelerations and decelerations, and it really isn’t what it looks like when a classmate discovers Peter taking his pants off next to a much older woman.
That sense of the wool being pulled over and off and back on everyone’s eyes lasts all the way through to the end of the credits, with the extra scenes turning out to be surprisingly essential in clarifying what just happened. Peter’s efforts to puncture his way into what’s really going on have a satisfying vibe of getting past the bullshit. However, that level of satisfaction is not met with any corresponding visual panache, as Far From Homeplays it way too safe in the standard-issue Marvel CGI department. If this is the post-Endgame status quo, at least it won’t be so stressful.
Spider-Man: Far From Home is Recommended If You Like: Spider-Man: Homecoming, High Quality Character-Centric Jokewriting
Grade: I don’t know how to grade these Marvel movies anymore. I could give it a 4 out of 5 for Fun, but I also want to downgrade it to 3.5 out of 5 for (Lack of) Originality, and then I also want to downgrade it to Less Than 3.5 out of 5 for Frustration about this being yet another good-but-not great Marvel movie. So my overall grade is all of that somehow mixed together.
Maybe some movies should be reviewed in parts over the course of months, or maybe even years. That’s how I’m feeling about Avengers: Endgame. So I’m going to go ahead and talk about what’s striking my fancy about it now and maybe talk about it some more later.
The closest comparison I can think of for the premise of Endgame is The Leftovers. The opening scenes for the two are eerily similar in terms of both tone and function. But of course they then head in very different directions. I didn’t stick with The Leftovers because I just wasn’t hooked by how its particular characters responded in their particular ways to the disappearances. But with Endgame, I already know the context, so I’m already in, baby. And no doubt about it, I am happy that the ultimate focus is on Tony Stark’s beating heart, and everyone keeping things right with their families. That emotional resonance is enough to buoy the whole affair along for three hours. And it’s also enough to prevent me from getting too angry about the characters who don’t have much meaningful to do or the moments that make me go, “But why?”
Also important: how about those end credits? It’s not very often 50-plus above-the-line cast members have to be assembled in some sort of appropriate order, so we must cherish it whenever it happens. And I’ve got to say, it appears that for the most part, there was no rhyme or reason to the assembly. But we shall, and must, investigate whether or not that is true for as long as we can. The cursive credits for the core Avengers are great, though.
I give Avengers: EndgameA Handful of Snaps to the Beat.
Starring: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Annette Bening, Djimon Hounsou, Lee Pace, Lashana Lynch, Gemma Chan, Clark Gregg
Directors: Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck
Running Time: 124 Minutes
Rating: PG-13 for Sci-Fi Action Violence That Tends to Cause Nosebleeds
Release Date: March 8, 2019
It’s been a while since I have felt consistently sustained excitement for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I’m a fan of superheroes, and Marvel in particular, but I’m a bigger film buff, and I often find myself in a weird liminal space where I want to have more unbridled emotions for these movies, but it is hard to feel that way about a series sticking to a formula that is so much about ticking off obligatory long-term checkpoints. Captain Marvel does not burst free of that formula, but it has enough of its own magic to make it the first MCU movie in quite some time in which I left the theater wanting to re-watch it. It could have just been the way it happened to hit me on one particular day, but I think it has also something to do with its vibe of ignoring all the noise and getting on with it mission.
The plot is a little too complicated to easily synopsize, which Disney and Marvel are surely happy about, as they do not want us spoiling any of their MCU flicks, particularly this one, as it is uniquely dependent on backstory reveals and memory retrieval. Suffice it to say then that Vers (Brie Larson) is an intergalactic warrior fighting for the race known as the Kree, but she is also plagued by visions of a past life as U.S. Air Force fighter pilot Carol Danvers. The Kree are stuck in a long-term struggle against the shapeshifting Skrulls, which leads Vers to Earth in 1995 in a race for a powerful energy source. This is a typical McGuffin-focused Marvel film, but this particular McGuffin is unusually resonant, touching on themes of refugees and the perils of deep psychological deception.
Captain Marvel is also your standard MCU movie insofar as it builds to a climax with an unengaging, undistinguished action set piece. But luckily, that is not the main attraction. Vers teams up with a pre-eye patch Nick Fury, resulting in a buddy flick that serves as Samuel L. Jackson’s biggest showcase thus far in this franchise. His and Larson’s dynamic is one of instant respect that still leaves plenty of room for clowning around as they save the universe. That feeling is matched by a strong sense overall of the film being aesthetically tuned in. I cannot think of any other superhero movie that features a steady stream of crickets chirping amidst characters talking outside.
Captain Marvel is not massively revolutionary. While it may be the first MCU movie fronted by a female hero, it is not about femininity the way that Black Panther is about blackness. But while it does not respond hard to the big questions, it gets so many of the little things right.
Captain Marvel is Recommended If You Like: Top Gun, Nineties Rock, Friendly and Intelligent Aliens Who Speak English or At Least Have Universal Translators
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