Browse Tag: marvel

RECAP: Iron Man 3

Iron Man 3 (2013): Shane Black

Imagine a time in which Marvel let pass an entire year without releasing a movie. It happened, and as recently as 2013, when Iron Man 3 became the first Marvel movie after the enormous hit that was The Avengers. The events in New York weigh greatly on Tony Stark, and will trouble him for most of the film.

Shane Black rvteams with Robert Downey Jr., a pair that made a cult hit in 2006’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. That movie’s modern noir elements creep into this Disney blockbuster. The film opens with a Stark narration. “We create our own demons,” he says, as several Iron Man suits explode. A classic noir trope (the narration, not the exploding flying suits). He wants to tell the story from the beginning, and that means revisiting a famous party night in Bern, Switzerland.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Iron Man gets a blast from the past and present, tries to find proper superhero/life balance, and uncovers a dangerous conspiracy all while trying to overcome PTSD.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018): Peyton Reed

Marvel’s unlikeliest hit was Ant-Man, a superhero movie starring Paul Rudd in a shrinking suit. It was hard to imagine such a hero fitting into the Marvel Cinematic Universe of world-shifting heroes and villains, but Ant-Man found a way to entertain.

The sequel, Ant-Man and the Wasp, returns to check in on Scott Lang after the events of Avengers: Infinity War, the biggest movie yet in the 20-film-deep MCU. That made the movie must-see viewing.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: With mere days to go until the end of his house arrest, Ant-Man and the Wasp try to find Wasp’s mother, long thought lost in the Quantum Zone. Continue Reading

RECAP: Spider-Man

Spider-Man (2002): Sam Raimi

Oh boy did the fan boys rub their hands together for this one. Spider-Man spent the latter third of the 20th century as America’s third or fourth most popular comic superhero character, behind Superman and Batman (and possibly Wonder Woman).

Spider-Man was the first Marvel character to get his own movie, and people wanted to see what a Marvel movie wold look like. Unlike those DC characters, Spider-Man was a kid, and he saved many a day in an actual American city.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: A high school nerd becomes a high school science experiment/savior of New York and his lovely next door neighbor.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Black Panther

Black Panther (2018): Ryan Coogler

If it’s a month ending in -ary or -ember, or it’s a short-named month, it must be a month for a Marvel release. Don’t forget August, either.

Point is, no month is safe from a Marvel release. Black Panther was the first to come out in February, and I don’t think it was a coincidence that February is also Black History Month.

An undeniable sensation, Ryan Coogler’s third (!) movie outearned the following movies, based on ticket price inflation: Back to the Future, The Lord of the Rings, Aladdin, Toy Story 3, and even Avengers: Age of Ultron.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Less than a week after the death of his father the king, T’Challa returns to his home of Wakanda to assume his place on the throne, until challengers throw him off it. Continue Reading

RECAP: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017): James Gunn

2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy was a surprise hit for Marvel. Released in August, the film finished third in that year’s box office.

A team partly comprised of a raccoon and a tree, the Guardians could have flopped out of theaters in a week and been forgotten.

Marvel never let them have that chance. A sequel was already in the works before the first movie came out. Arriving a year before all the Marvel characters assemble to battle Thanos, the Guardians have two important pieces: two of Thanos’s daughters.

These daughters take their relationship to another level. Peter Quill, the leader of the Guardians, sorts out his own daddy issues, and Rocket Raccoon raises a young, reconstituted Groot.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: The Guardians sort out some family drama while a god tries to kill all life in the galaxy. Continue Reading

RECAP: Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014): James Gunn

Marvel took a chance in sending a team of total unknowns into theaters in August 2014. Chris Pratt was a bit player on a NBC sitcom, and the other actors were voices or covered in strange paint colors.

Producers injected humor and a great soundtrack to attract audiences likely tired of overly dramatic hero slogs. The Awesome Mix, Peter’s collection of his mother’s favorite pop songs, became the first soundtrack devoid of new songs to top the Billboard charts.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: A band of galactic misfits protects a planet that doesn’t want them from a warlord who wants to kill everyone with a purple Infinity Stone. Continue Reading

RECAP: X-Men: Apocalypse

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016): Bryan Singer

The ageless first class of X-Men actors advance to the 1980s in X-Men: Apocalypse. Mutants have many powers, but did you know they can age not a day in 20 years?

Consider that Sophie Turner, who plays Jean Grey, is 20. The events of First Class took place 20 years before Apocalypse shows up. So she was a wee baby when Xavier lost his walking ability and Magneto first donned his helmet.

These folks haven’t aged in the 20 years of this series. I can suspend the disbelief, because I like what the producers have striven for in setting the mutants in older times. Still, the idea seems to wane in public consciousness. This third film of the prequel series’ theatrical earnings will fall much behind Days of Future Past when it closes its theatrical run.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: The first, and most powerful, mutant tries to destroy the world right after he forms an awesome band of backup mutants.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Captain America: Civil War

Captain America: Civil War (2016): Anthony and Joe Russo

The 2014 sequel titled Captain America: The Winter Soldier was a taut political thriller that dealt with espionage and double agents. Were it not for a guy in a blue spandex suit, we might have forgotten we were watching a Marvel movie.

For Cap’s third solo turn, Marvel decided to cast Robert Downey, Jr. on the same level. The studio used a major plot line from the comics and maxed out the emotional stakes for the world’s greatest team of heroes (Justice League be damned).

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: Captain America refuses to sign away his do-gooding powers and suffers the consequences.  Continue Reading

RECAP: Ant-Man

Ant-Man (2015): Peyton Reed

Before sneaking into theaters between and Avengers flick and a Civil War flick, Marvel’s Ant-Man was troubled. Its first director backed out. Then another, but he left his work on the script. Finally, the movie endured a phase shift, when Marvel moved it from Phase Three to Phase Two, which has got to be the most 21st century thing anyone has written about a movie.

Ant-Man was always going to be Marvel’s weak link in the phases. Turns out that the movie made a less-than-ant-sized box office, banking $180 million in the US. That puts it near the bottom of the list for Marvel, ahead of the debut of Captain America and practically tied with Thor’s. Those guys are mainline Avengers.

Ant-Man draws on Marvel’s expanded universe you’ve heard much about by now, leaning on other characters seen and unseen far more than any other character introduction movie yet seen.

ONE SENTENCE PLOT SUMMARY: A reformed thief returns to crime for one last gig, and his most important, in a shrinking suit.  Continue Reading

SPOILER-FREE REVIEW: Captain America: Civil War

There’s a moment in Captain America: Civil War when a bad guy narrates his evil plan. Yes, you’re right, every bad guy in cinema history has narrated his evil plan.

While he narrates, Captain America fights Iron Man. Their fight is titanic, nearly in the mythic sense of that word, because these two men are possibly metahumans.

Chris Evans‘s third solo headlining turn as the eponymous captain is his, and Marvel’s, most ambitious project to date.

2012’s The Avengers was a culmination of sorts, a party picture with each Avenger cracking wise when not cracking alien skulls. Their enemies were literally out of this world. It was an easy film to get behind, a movie made for the rah-rah crowd.

Civil War shatters all that good will. True, this is the second movie of 2016 to feature two Hall of Fame comic book heroes fighting each other. Unlike Batman v Superman, Civil War won’t allow the movie’s other plots to drown it out. The central superhero conflict IS the noise.

Cap and friends begin the movie united, fighting more baddies with the tested Avengers-style teamwork. Old demons are haunting them. Villains of movies past creep back, forcing the Avengers to choose sides–sign away their crime-fighting rights or not.

Central to the plot is, again, the brainwashed Bucky Barnes, childhood friend of Steve Rogers. A recycled plot disappointed this reviewer in Star Wars–The Force Awakens, but Civil War offers more than enough different side dishes to complement last night’s leftovers.

Robert Downey, Jr. earned $50,000,000 to bring Tony Stark to screen and nearly make this movie a dual headliner. Downey earns every dime with his Stark attitude and barely veiled despondency and anger about the bodies Iron Man and the other Avengers keep leaving in his wake.

Evans, time and again, nails Captain America. Always the stalwart of, not democracy, but “what’s right,” Steve Rogers takes the American ethos of individual choice to its logical extreme–answering to no one. Evans plays Cap as a man certain of his rightness and willing to accept the price of that certainty.

Civil War could be called Avengers Lite. Excepting Thor and Hulk, the gang’s all back, and two new guys replace those AWOL Avengers. Spider-Man, played by actual teenager Tom Holland, oozes with youthful glee, characteristics the movie, stuffed full of heavy theme, craves.

Spidey earns a long debut scene. Luckily, with five standalone movies behind him, the public needs little introduction to the character. It’s enough for the movie to say “Hey, here’s a new Spider-Man.”

Earlier the audience meets Chadwick Bozeman as T’Challa, a prince of the African fake-nation of Wakanda. When that nation suffers from a terrorist attack, T’Challa suits up in his alter-ego Black Panther, a terrific fighter who wears a suit made of vibranium (same as Captain America’s shield), crosses paths with some of the Accord-signing Avengers.

Throughout Civil War Panther’s motives remain unclear, but his martial skills are shown often. And that vibranium suit.

All this adds up to the longest run time in Marvel history. It’s worth it. The fight scenes and effects are stellar, possibly Marvel’s best, and the emotional stakes have never been higher for these heroes. Civil War is Marvel’s The Dark Knight moment.

Exploder viewing guide: FIRST RUN WATCH

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