An Over-Analysis and Comparison of Captain Marvel and Captain America: Winter Soldier

Wow, so I started writing a review of Captain Marvel almost exactly 1 year ago, but its been sitting in my draft folder as I stewed (procrastinated) since then. On the plus side I did come to some odd realizations about the film in the meantime, which are hopefully worth discussing.

Just to jump back to 2019 for a second. I always found there was something strange about Captain Marvel, I liked the character, the themes, the movie was funny, everything really.

BUT – for whatever reason I never really felt that emotionally invested in the film. Definitely there were significant moments, in fact quite a few, though in the end they were always moments, rather than an overall sense of investment in the story. I suspect there were a few reasons for this – oddly though I realized as I idly day-dreamed about this while I supposed to be working, that our two Captains, Marvel and America: Winter soldier, have a lot in common – with a few key differences.

Bear with me and I’ll do a summary, and then a contrast comparison.

Both stories begin with a similar establishing scenario – fish out of water MCs who are mostly supportive of the institutions they are part of – ‘Vers’ is a Kree soldier, Steve is an important part of SHIELD.

Due to some external events both characters have to go ‘on the run’ and buddy up with other characters to discover what has gone on with their respective institutions and basically have a complete reversal on their perspective of the ‘good-guys’ and are hit with personal challenges along the way.

Some of the contrasts are interesting to me however:

In Winter Soldier – Captain America questions SHIELD’s plan to deploy killer heli-carriers for pre-emptive strikes, Fury accuses Steve of lacking understanding of the world – in Captain Marvel Vers is warned not to be emotional in order to advance within the Kree, this isn’t really tied to any external issue (at this stage). Both beginnings are interesting however as we go on I think I can show that part of the problem is that Captain Marvel’s personal journey doesn’t match with the plot as well as Winter Solider.

When Steve investigates SHIELD he discovers that Hydra has infiltrated and compromised the entire organization, AND to make it personal, has essentially down the same mentally and physically to his best friend Bucky. The juxtaposition of both SHIELD and Bucky work well as they severally challenge Captain America institutionally and personally.

Captain Marvel’s journey is technically more complex, but doesn’t gel quite the same. On her journey Vers discovers that the Skrull (the assumed baddies) are effectively refugees, and the Kree genocidal maniacs. On the personal level Vers finds out the the Kree have been manipulating and gaslighting her. Now these are not insignificant plot points – and as mentioned above, in my opinion really interesting themes. My criticism though, is in some respects the institutional and personal elements of the story don’t fit together in any particular way. The only way these elements interact is really just to practically tie the plot points together, and almost just make it easier and quicker for Captain Marvel to turn on the Kree and save the Skrull.

To re-iterate, basically our MC discovers that not only are the bad-guys dicks in warfare, they are dicks to her specifically.

The revelation of Bucky being the Winter Soldier didn’t make the story easier it added personal complications that made the whole story work.

In Captain Marvel the two elements are essentially co-incidental, and made the plot more convenient not more challenging. For example the story about Vers discovering her past didn’t need the Skrulls except as macguffins that moved the plot on.

If I could propose a modest change it could be something like a faction of Skrulls that had been brain washed and used to betray others – that Vers was tasked with managing – and that rather than Carol Danvers essentially just randomly being on a test flight – her exposure to the tesseract could have been intentional by either Skrull rebels or the Kree as a test to create a powerful soldier. The point of this change would be to keep the institutional issues in line with the personal.

Having subplots not completely enmeshed isn’t the end of the world for a movie, however it can undermine the emotional impact – because each revelation kind of just ‘is what it is’ rather than having flow-on significance. When Bucky is revealed as Winter Soldier, its both the personification of the hydra corruption and intensely personal for Steve, calling into question what he is going to do.

It could be argued that similar revelations occur in Captain Marvel, but it just doesn’t fit the same. Vers/Carol finds out that the Kree have been gaslighting her AND are geocoding the Skrull. The two issues are related because the reason Carol got caught up in the situation is her mentor/CO was (a Skrull or a Kree I can’t remember) and both the actions are objectively terrible and signal the Kree as obvious bad-guys but as I recall Carol eventually helps the Skrull more because Fury and friends convince her ‘that’s what heroes do’ rather than the two plots driving each other.

It think what I’m trying to say is that Captain Marvel needed a plot that represented her internal struggle – which could have elevated the movie to something more memorable. Again this isn’t a criticism of any particularly part of the film, its objectively fine – its just an overthough point I considered as I held off on reviewing Captain Marvel.

Review: Falcon and Winter Soldier

Heavy SPOILERS for the series

After the sublime wierdness that was WandaVision I had some mixed feelings about FnWS when it started, not that I thought it would be bad, but more just many questions about what the show would be like. Obviously it wasn’t going to be quite the head-spin and mega-twisty of the previous series, so what would FnWS be?

Then in the first scene of the show I was ultra worried: we saw Falcon zooming around off the border of Turkey engaged in physics defying battled with bouncy french dude (actual name) from Winter Soldier. And look don’t get me wrong, the action was fine the dialogue was snappy, all that, but really it just felt kinda flat, I was worried that the show was going to be a series of simliar scenes over some fairly inane something vaguely military something.

Pretty much as soon at that sequence was over the show took a sharp turn into a deep dive that I a. didn’t expect and b. was incredible happy with!

The first twist was that Sam/Falcon decides to place the shield in a museum rather than picking up the mantle of Captain America. His decision isn’t purely based on his own insecurities but his worries of being a Black Captain America. It’s pretty hilarious that pretend not-bigots were trying to get at the series for implying race issues from the first episode when the whole series was about this plot point.

This decision creates a series of tensions – Bucky is upset with the decision, ‘America’ appoints a brand new Captain and we see more of Sam’s personal life where we see his family struggling to maintain their family boat/business.

To be honest I could have watched a series based purely on those issues, but we also are given an overarching plot line of rebels with super-soldier serum (crap I hope I get this plot-point correct) who are fighting against the deportation/resettlement of people returned after the ‘Snap’ (I like the MCU’s attempt to delve into issues arising from the Snap/Blip but I did find it confusing, I think the issue is that following the return of people snapped there are any number of citizenship, ownership and much other issues and at the beginning of the show I believe the prevailing plan that the ‘flag-smashers’ are opposing is to place people returned into the equivalent of refugee camps)

The plot weaves in Wakanda, Baron Zemo, and Sharon Carter who have their own character arcs in response to the various events of the MCU and along with the rest of the fanbase I was oddly drawn and fascinated by the return of Zemo. Many thought that he would essentially be the big bad of the series, but instead he takes the role as a sort of anti-hero protagonist whose goals align with the heroes while his methods most assuredly do not.

What is particularly great about the series is rather than focussing on action pieces the story is effectively about different methods of achieving political goals. Very few of the characters are portrayed as completely evil, or completely flawless either. In fact much of the story is about Sam and Bucky healing rather than defeating the enemy (again which is why I like it so much).

The underlying thematic story of Isiah Bradley gives me goosebumps, its just so perfectly written to show both Sam and Isiah’s change and struggle!

There were a few flaws to the series – at times I think the fit between MCU shallow quippy action didn’t fit with the more complex story of the series (e.g. that first scene I mentioned) but I think in some respects that was almost intentional, showing that the world can’t be simplifed down to action sequences.

Some will also be disapointed in having very little Steve Rodgers resolution involvement – many fan theories were that the series would begin with a funeral for Steve and/or have some input. In fact other than discussion between characters about him there is very little about the previous Captain America. I didn’t really mind it fit with the story to not memorialize Steve, however I think some fans will be annoyed not to know exactly what and where Steve is at. Endgame actually left old-Steve’s fate ambiguous, did he continue on in the MCU timeline as an old dude, some have suggested he might have zipped back to his time-line to finish up his normal life there.

Ultimately my feelings about the MCU is that I am highly pleased that they apear to have utilized the format to tell stranger and deeper stories. I would have been super annoying to have formulaic and familar stories just told each week, both WandaVision and Falcon and Winter Soldier have challenged the MCU to broaden and better the stories and I confess now the question I’m wondering is will future movies have more to offer after enjoying the series so much?

What were your thoughts on FnWS?

WandaVison: A Review

Where to start?

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

WandaVision is the first of the MCUs ambitious new TV Series. I know that technically Agents of Shield are part of the MCU and the ‘street level’ series (Daredevil etc) are ‘Marvel’ (AFAIK not technically in the MCU?? I could be corrected though)..

But WandaVision is the first series produced explicitly not merely tied into the MCU, but explicitly starring movie characters and continuing on storylines of the Movies.

Its worth taking a moment to consider just how mad this really is. It’s no new thing to have lengthy movie sequels and/or television series explanding on a franchise however in my experience these are typically diminishing returns money grabs with little craft in the link between materials (e.g. Transformers) or somewhat sloppy (e.g. X-men). The fact that the MCU can produce in excess of 20 movies that are set within a single ‘universe’ develop multiple characters and have a satisfying overall story arc and THEN produce multiple TV series of different genres that do the same is pretty wild.

Anyway, gushing over, its worth touching on how WandaVision sits within all of this. At one potenital ‘flaw’ WandaVision probably is one of the few MCU properties that I believe relies on prior watching – some might call me crazy for this assertion, but I belive one of the strengths of the MCU that despite all the clever cross-plotting each movie was crafted correctly to be enjoyable in its own right, obviously EndGame kinda requires at least Infinity War to inform it, but you don’t absolutley have to know prior movies to understand most MCU movies.

For multiple reasons, both factual and emotional WandaVision is best view after seeing the MCU movies with the both of them (Age of Ultron, Civil War, Infinity War and Endgame). The first issue is that WandaVision’s mysterious and quirky premise does rely on you having the momentum of knowing the characters and situation to enjoy and work through the plot (I honestly can’t fanthom how a naive viewer would manage WandaVision). Following on from this much of the emotions of the show rely on you having some connections to the characters, don’t get me wrong its brilliantly acted and portrayed but its a hard sell that Wanda loves a synthoid without having experienced the backstory.

All that covered I do find it incredibly interesting and hilarious that Disney chose to lead with this series. Its a crazy gamble (that appears to be paying off). For the unusual individual who is reading this reivew without already seeing the series, the quirky premise of Wanda and Vision living through decades of sitcoms while we try and work out what the heck is going on is truly unique.

I have to admit at first I was unsure if I liked the series. The sitcom shows were a little funny, but didn’t seem enough to sustain the show, but the writers perfectly incorporated ‘real life’ intruding into the shows to explain the situation. What the writers did an amazing job of, is balancing the mystery, silly fun and reveals. They didn’t overdo the mysteries, they didn’t reveal them that quickly, and they balanced the different aspects of the show.

It does make it hard to explain what sort of series it is, part comedy/satire part horror part action. (SPOILERS AGAIN) Ultimately its a superpower origin story for Wanda that creates a much more morally ambiguous story than ever seen before in the MCU (sure MCU movies dived briefly into moral territory but was still basically good guys versus bad guys 99% of the time).

So in conclusion WandaVision is a strange hybrid of a series, which combines and extremely emotional core for Wanda and Vision, still has any number of easter eggs and teasers for future series and movies but somehow still experiments with the style to ridiculous lengths. By rights this series could have been a huge flop, trying to incorporate sitcom satire, magic, and the relationship between a witch and a synothoid – instead its potentialy the most popular TV series since streaming began.

If anything is in doubt its a huge win for the MCU and upcoming series, I am hugely interested to see what is done with the rest of the upcoming series and future MCU movies.

What were your thoughts on WandaVision?

Endgame: A 1/2 Spoiler Free, and 1/2 Spoiler Filled Review

Don’t worry I will warn yas before any spoilers (but consider yourself warned! No reading until we’ve gone to it together Disgruntled Luddite!!)

I just got home after Endgame and am just putting my thoughts together.

Probably the first thing that is worth saying is that this movie feels a lot different from other MCU movies, including Infinity War, which to me was quite interesting. It’s hard to explain without spoilers, but given the ending of the previous movie its hopefully no surprise that Endgame is quite dark. Although tonally the movie is quite a ride, the Russo Brothers successfully managing to pull off quite a dynamic movie – almost bizarrely so.

Where Infinity War was long because the number of character’s included, Endgame felt long because of the depth of the character work, and oddly was quite light on action for the majority of the beginning arcs of the film.

Ultimately the film was a fitting “end” for this massive and ambitious project by Marvel Studios, and it felt like a suitable conclusion to Infinity War.

Now onto the Spoilers.

SPOILERS

Really, people are taking Endgame spoilers serious no peeking.

SPOILERS

I’m not going to rehash all the events of the film but there are some major events that I want to respond to, starting with the nitpicks.

Firstly I found a couple of characters ‘development’ pretty unpredictable and weird. Thor becoming a fat depressed oaf was certainly surprising – Banner and Hulk actually becoming The Credible Hulk (google it) was again very unpredictable – kind of awkward and not really earned. After becoming shy in Infinity War, all of Banner’s and Hulk’s development happened purely off-screen. He didn’t even participate in any fights as said sensible Hulk could have been an interesting play.

Tony and Steve’s reunion was probably my biggest disappointment of the film – I wasn’t too sure exactly what I expected but an infirm and starved Tony ranting at Steve like a demented older relative just felt kind of odd choice (post rant they got along just fine).

My final odd issue with the film is that the way the story is constructed it sure led to some weird tensions, the big bad being a past Thanos who managed to hijack the Avengers attempts to right ‘present’ Thanos’ snap. The action and sequences all worked on paper – it just created a weird sense of dissatisfaction – for example when Scarlett Witch confronted Thanos he admitted he didn’t even know who she was.

Still the writers and directors managed to pull together an appropriate conclusion to a vastly ambitious precursor – and a massive and sad send-off to at least 2 of the main Avengers. The final scene(s) were incredibly intense and absolutely masterpieces of action directing. What probably served the film well was some incredible acting – and equally incredible passion for the project. I think in the future Endgame will sit aside from the other MCU films not just in being a conclusion 10 years in the making, but as something very different – an unusual and strange film, that could certainly not be argued to be formulaic, not by any stretch.

If anything, as Marvel have always been brilliant at doing is creating a sense of more adventures to come, which after 10 years of build-up is quite a feat, to the point of cultural phenomenon. I’d kind of love to see what future analysts will say about the MCU and Endgame!

Mourning the End of a Story

As the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Endgame approaches, and the final season of Game of Thrones is in progress, many fans are worried about the fate of their favourite characters. More on my mind though is the bittersweet sense of the end of the story as whole.

Granted, the MCU will continue, and Game of Thrones will have prequels, and the actual books still to be published. However I think ‘post-series-depression’ is a worthy topic.

My rough internet search largely found mildly mocking or patronizing articles on the subject, and not too much of substance so mostly I’m just going to bank on my own experiences and theories.

Embarrassingly my own first experience of post series blues came after one Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I’m not actually embarrassed to be into Buffy, more that a. it wasn’t until I finished the series years after it actually aired, and b. as my first experience of this sense of mourning a series was in my early twenties! Essentially once the final episode of the final season had been binged, I fell asleep that night unsettled, and found myself heading down to University the next day unable to focus and strangely put-out. After realizing I was not going to get any work done, I returned home and watched the various ‘special features’ and Googled what I could about the season (a common coping mechanism I have heard).

Since then I’ve had many a similar experience, following ‘Logan’ (Hugh Jackman’s final outing as Wolverine) the end of Lost (of all things) and my favourite local show Outrageous Fortune. Usually along the lines of either a low-day or more often an unsettled night post viewing.

Broadly speaking this phenomenon tends to happen after longer running series (somewhat rationally) although as books can last for long periods I think the effect can occur for stand-alone books as well as series – possibly its felt all the stronger for a series as there is a sense of promise of more material.

But what is this all about? Why do stories have this effect?

You’d think that because stories are made-up and we know they are made up that there wouldn’t be too much of a problem with the full stop at the end of the story. Although there are some obvious potential causes – for example if we enjoy a story, then it stands to reason that the end will be a little upsetting – but my sense is that this isn’t that simple. Some articles have suggested its the sense of loss of never being able to experience that story again for the first time, as in it can always be reread (or watched) but never again as a novelty.

But I just feel like there is something deeper going on here – for example sometimes when I finish a good book I do lament not having something good to read during my usual hours, but its more a simple frustration, akin to having nothing yummy in the cupboard rather than post-series blues. And if the blues are indeed due to the loss of novelty, really why would that only occur at the end of a series? Maybe if the ending does bring us to that realization, but its not usually what I’m thinking about.

Some people believe or seem to genuinely feel connections to characters as if they were real people, and this certainly is a sign of brilliant fiction to make us feel that way. I suspect that part of mourning a story is mourning the characters, after all its almost like a true character death.

Here is my (perhaps over the top) deep theory though. I think that the post-series-blues is in fact the mourning that comes with personal change coupled with the pain of reality. Fiction really is blissful escapism, as much as we sometimes want to deny that we need an escape, or that our psyche’s are so fragile as to dive into fiction so completely, we obviously do (why else would stories be such a backbone of humanity?)

Truly powerful stories stick with us – not only in the moment, but the lessons and themes stick with us afterwards. Indeed any book ‘on writing’ will tell you that this is the point of the story. What we often don’t think about though is learning is change, and change means the loss of our former selves.

What I’m trying to get at is really good stories leave us different than before, and we need time to adjust to that. It’s only often once a tale ends that we fully realize this.

Or maybe I’m just indulging myself a little too much perhaps we just miss our favourite characters, or the hour or two of enjoyment we get from a long running story.

What are your thoughts on “post-series-depression”?

Is it a familiar feeling?

What series (book or screen) gave you “PSD”

 

Captain Marvel

SPOILERS AHEAD, BEWARE

I’m not going to lie, a big part of me watching Captain Marvel was really just looking out for hints and links to Infinity War and Endgame.

The movie itself on its pure ownsome is actually really hard to review.

Captain Marvel was pretty damn awesome and epic enough to pull the movie along nicely.

On the other hand elements of chemistry felt a little forced, Fury and Marvel were instant sass buddies which happened all a bit quick, as did the not particularly unpredictable mid-point twist. I think part of the problem is the whole amnesia plotline thing. It’s always hard to pull off unless we’re attached to some elements of the character’s life outside of their current memory. Also the whole “she’s the weapon” thing didn’t sit well, would a relatively advanced Kree race really allow her such free reign and/or such a poor plot to track down the Skrulls?

The humour of the movie was pretty all over the show – for every great gag, there was another that undermined the action, or didn’t sit too well with the tension of the scene, sometimes the smart talk landed, other times it just felt out of place.

Unfortunately for my tie-in focus it didn’t really get that satisfied, the appearance of “Who?!?” and Ronan the Accuser really just made who the bad-guys were more obvious, and the credits scene started great but kind of ended with jump-awkward moment that didn’t really hype anything (IMHO)

Finally there has been complains of retconning the MCU, given all the events it feels difficult to believe that Thor showing up was the catalyst for the Phase II mentioned in the Avengers and Avengers one feeling like the first threat to Earth, the film felt a lot like a Men in Black episode with a sort of silly take on aliens etc, rather than the the more melodramatic MCU we’re used to.

I dunno, I’ll let the film percolate a little longer and see what other have to say…

Marvel Marathon: Ant Man and The Wasp

 

 

I’m not sure if I already said this – but back when I decided to work through this Marvel Marathon I thought I was perhaps being a bit greedy starting at Xmas, yet here we are just as Captain Marvel is about to come out, and I’ve only just caught up. It’s kind of hard to put all of that movie material into perspective.

Anyway so getting to Ant-man and The Wasp, I can’t work out whether this movie’s release was genius or a little contrived and tone-deaf. Released after the multiple gut punches of Infinity War Ant-Man is set a few smidgens prior to the War and the final credit scene brings us up to the ‘snap.’

On the one hand its a nice breath of humour after the dark romp, on the other its hard not to feel a little underwhelmed. There are plenty of good gags, some really good character tensions, for example Hank and Hope are really hacked off at Scott for his antics in Germany getting them into trouble. Ultimately it feels like a bit of a “side-quest” that sets up some world-building for Endgame (something something quantum realm although I hope its not really an integral part).

What it does bring into question is will the MCU stand up under its own pressure? Will any future movie stand up to the epic double event of Infinity War and Endgame?

Well I guess let’s get through Captain Marvel first! I’m interested to see whether jumping further back in time (the 90s was it really that long ago????) will create a similar problem of struggling to maintain tension – at any rate I guarantee the analysis will be extremely thorough and avoiding EndGame Youtube videos will become a full-time occupation.

Marvel Marathon: Infinity War!

Holy Cow

 

I fully expected to have to take my time getting through Infinity War, as I’d essentially had to watch the past few MCU movies as a series, however the movie is just too damn good, I did have to break the film up across a weekend day but there was no way I could sleep not finishing it!

This is the 3rd time I’ve watched Infinity War and there is still stuff I’m picking up on, so prepare for a long winded post…

The crazy thing is I remember when Infinity War was first coming and I made big assumptions about what the movie would be like – essentially I thought that the ‘story’ would be basically collecting all the different good guys (in Wakanda according to the trailer) while Thanos approached and then there would be the big battle and whatever. So I found it quite cunning and mind-boggling how the writers managed to split the movie up the way they did.

Especially, and this still does my head in TONY AND STEVE HAVEN’T MADE UP YET, are they going make up – what if like one of them gets killed in the meantime, Tony almost did ARG.

One has to appreciate the torture that we’re being put through on this – it was really interesting that when Civil War happened, Steve wrote that letter and gave Tony the phone and they though everything was fine again. NOPE. Just some interesting thoughts along the way – in Spiderman Tony ships a prototype shield for Cap’n America, this was after the events of Civil War so he’s still working on Cap related things, also while people give Tony a lot of crap for hesitating to ring Steve at the beginning of Infinity War can we just acknowledge that, a. he was actually about to before the space-ship appeared AND he was walking around with the cellphone in his pocket the whole time he didn’t go collect it from the Avengers headquarters or anything, he’s been walking around with the cell to Captain America for two years.

The the otherside of the coin it’s not as clear how Steve feels about the situation, he obviously still respects Tony greatly, calling him Earth’s greatest defender. To be honest I almost care less about Thanos and the dusted people, just let us see Tony and Steve in the same room dammit!

Anyway back to everything else going on in this film, I’m not sure if my eyes are getting old (Actually pretty sure its this film) the action is absolutely frenetic, but actually pretty good. To draw another contrast I initially preferred the action sequences in Civil War to Infinity, in part I suspect because the Russo brothers indulged and drew out the action, whereas with tonnes of material to cram into Infinity War everything is all go, but once your brain has a chance to catch up Infinity War is pretty hard core, its kind of hard to put into words the extreme change in tone and darkness – I did note working through the films that Civil War was a step towards the more grim and serious, and Ragnarok despite the jokes was very deadly, but Infinity War – right from the first scene is downright fatalistic. It’s a pretty bold move from the studio, and one I personally applaud because its a hella intense film, but one I can understand kinda freaked many people out on the topic, especially given that Thanos essentially tortures his way through the plot and stabs one of the most beloved superheroes through the gut.

Speaking of tone one small bugbear is that I felt that Infinity War pushed relationships a little too hard, back in Age of Ultron the whole Hawkeye has a family thing felt very forced, and in Infinity War we have Tony talking about children with Pepper, Vision and Witch hooking up, and Gamorah and Starlord too, (personally I found Loki and Thor to be more heart-breaking) but at some point its like “we get it this isn’t going to go well” I hate to be a hater but my feeling was with such limited screen time for all characters they could have found some other emotional tags, for example isn’t the theme of this films about found families, shouldn’t Starlord have been gushing about all of the Guardians (Ok the Gamorah stuff is very vital for a later plot point). Anyway its a small rant.

Finally what is really cool about this moment in MCU history is that no-one, NO-ONE really knows what the heck is going to happen. We’ve had Empires striking back, and cliff-hanger films before, but I don’t think any series has had such an audacious conclusion to a film before. The internet and my friends are rife with theories and for once in recent trailer history, the teasers give almost nothing away.

I’m almost terrified of seeing Endgame because it seems like nothing can quite top the 2.5 hour build-up of Thanos winning!

For what its worth I still think the most likely solution is that the original avengers will hold an infinity stone each (to their ultimate demise) as per the mythology of Guardians of the Galaxy, however who knows whether that would be to reverse the ‘snap’ defeat Thanos or what! I sort of can’t believe Marvel released a trailer for the next Spiderman film but somehow managed to reveal nothing about the conclusion to Endgame, its not even clear if it could be a bit of a prequel or something…

Anyway I still have Ant-man and the Wasp to go, and then off to see Captain Marvel, I think I’m most interested to see how the momentum works with Cap’n Marvel. People will be so desperate to see Endgame, will Marvel be a frustration or a welcome balm until the next month?

Marvel Marathon: Black Panther

So I have a major problem with Black Panther…

And that largely is I honestly cannot think of anything meaningful to say other than various gushing and fanboying about this film!

The funny thing is prior to Black Panther appearing in Civil War (in which he is awesome too) I didn’t really care much for the character, he seemed kind of blah in terms of powers and the whole he is a King and a Superhero just seemed kind of Over the Top,

Yet Marvel pull it off, not just suspending our disbelief in Wakanda and the Black Panther but actually creating a compelling storyline both personally and politically, while still being a ‘superhero’ film.

I don’t even want to get into the cultural phenomenon of the film, other than to say again I love every aspect of it, not just the celebration of cultures often not celebrated in film, but the full blown embrace of issues of race from a Wakandan perspective. I think its fair to say that some of the issues raised in Black Panther could have been risky especially for crisp and squeaky Disney owned Marvel Studios but they threw a story out that challenged, but did not confront, that prompted thought, not conflict.

Of all the Marvel films I feel like Black Panther has the most flawless story, a flawed hero, a sympathetic but scary villain and overall filled with heart.

 

 

Marvel Marathon: Spiderman Homecoming

Back in Christmas I thought I was being a little overeager starting my Marvel rewatch so soon, however now that the year is in full throttle I think I was about right. Essentially I had to watch Spiderman as a short TV series in 20-30 minutes blocks!

Spiderman is an interesting one in the context of the whole MCU, of course we have the whole ‘rights’ debacle, but also, similar to Civil War I feel like this was a movie that Marvel put a lot of effort into – not saying that some of the others were low effort – just that between wanting to get Spidey right in yet another reboot, superhero fatigue creeping around, and some fairly heavy complaints about casting choices in Dr Strange I think that Spiderman Homecoming was a high priority for Marvel Movies.

And I think overall they succeeded, watching through all the films, Spiderman feels very fresh (quite an achievement as film number 16) Tom Holland and the character writing for Peter Parker is brilliant. I usually don’t like secret identity plotlines, or superheroes trying to balance their ‘real lives’ because it comes across as cheesy, yet I think Homecoming plays this game with just enough humour and fun that its not a drag. Not to mention the scene where Peter discovers the vulture is Liz’s father and we have a tense car ride to Homecoming where we see Vulture work out Peter is Spiderman – it’s a almost psychological thriller-esque style of moment which is unusual in an MCU but probably one of my favourite Marvel scenes ever.

So between the meme-y and awkward humour there isn’t too much to hate about Spiderman. I confess the action gets a little tired in the film, I sort of felt like once a few gags were made about Spidey having to run across a sports field, using the wrong webs etc, the action always devolved into Spidey clinging to walls (a difficult tension to sell as wall-climbing is a superpower so like we don’t know how powerful it is) and then webbing together the environment again, eventually engaging in some sort of muscle straining moment.

What is really cool though is Ragnarok is next, and I’ve been dying to rewatch that for ages!