The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Score: 4 / 5

Like the other big summer superhero blockbuster this year, Superman, it would seem that the MCU has again decided that origin stories are sometimes not the way to introduce a well-known hero. Er, heroic family. As if we didn't already know and love Marvel's so-called "First Family," and been treated to multiple previous iterations of them, the writers here smartly toss us into the thick of the Fantastic Four career. We're expected to keep up, and to learn the lore of this particular version of the team as we go. That's not entirely fair; we are given some exposition in the form of a thickly stylized, televised news bulletin, a sort of miniscule mockumentary about the beloved celebrities and how they came to be. But even this narrative device feels more a product of the film's production design than a straightforward means of dumping necessary background info. Because director Matt Shakman (WandaVision, Cut Bank, and exceptional experience in television) does effective worldbuilding and stylistic amalgamation better than most in this ever-expanding genre.

I won't rehash the plot here, but it's nothing new, either for fans of the Fantastic Four or for anyone who's ever seen a superhero movie. But it works -- and works quite well --  as a result of its production design and its earnest, grounded performances. 

Kasra Farahani's (Loki) production design is rich and tactile, evocative and fanciful, and it's just astonishing to behold. As this film is set on an alternate Earth (828, rather than our familiar 616), he isn't bound to specific time or style. He evokes multiple decades from the mid-twentieth century in colors, shapes, textures, fabrics, and general visual splendor, crafting a truly mid-century modernity that feels ripped from any number of period titles, if nothing more obviously than The Jetsons. The dreams, in those days, of space have been immortalized in our cultural mind (think October Sky or The Vast of Night) as aspirational and perfect. Or fanciful yet, to our mind, distinctly old-fashioned in form (think some of the tech in the original Star Wars or Alien, right?). I mean, here we have a cute-as-heck robotic butler named HERBIE yet also large, chunky computers and impractical restrictions on navigating a city when not flying. And there are just enough actual things from our own mid-century brand names and products present in this film that the details are never less than engrossing: which bits are real, and which were manufactured for this alternate reality?

The lead performances are all solid, and I especially appreciated the actors seemingly toning down what could easily have been hammy roles. Especially given the heavy retro-'60s color scheme and trappings, these guys could have overplayed a lot. Heck, as much as I've enjoyed the 2005/2007 and 2015 films of this team, those were all overplayed with nearly opposite energies. Shakman keeps this one pretty even-keel tonally, giving the team enough time to settle in and make their characters comfortable and lived-in. As we're picking up the threads of their collective dynamic, we're able to sense that these four have long since developed a real family vibe, and we never doubt their mutual affection or respect. It's pretty magical ensemble work. There's also a sort of sub-theme here, which becomes apparent as the plot develops, of what happens to an insular group when public opinion eventually turns on them; that's a bit too timely right now, so I'm not going to attempt fleshing out that observation.

Thus, the interpersonal drama of the team didn't wholly work for me, but I'm well aware that's a "me" problem. Stories that hinge on soon-to-be-parents and obsession over infant health and safety are simply not interesting to me, and while I appreciated this Johnny's comparatively respectable cocksurety and subtle undermining of himbo expectations, the relationships between the teammates all felt predicated on the obnoxiously unassailable specter of The Child. To be fair, one must consider the rest of the plot to appreciate why there is so much ad nauseum focus on The Child: the villain of this story, cosmic god Galactus (and, by extension, his Silver Surfer, much as we saw in the 2007 film), plans to basically devour Earth to temporarily satiate his eternal hunger, until he divines that Reed and Sue's baby is powerful enough to be his next vessel. The specifics remain unclear in how any of this works, of course, but the malicious focus on needing this baby provides thematic closure (or, arguably, purpose) for the screenplay's endless obsession with it.

I do think this story, simple as it is, is remarkably effective in introducing us to these characters and their role in the MCU. Most origin stories are simple for a reason: new names, new personalities, new themes, new locations, it's all a lot to take in. So we need a basic narrative formula to tie all those things together in a more palatable form. There's a reason Moon Knight, for example, needed multiple episodes, rather than a single film, to get us on board with not only its new and unfamiliar characters but also its somewhat unconventional themes and storytelling mode. Same can be said for WandaVision, actually, which is doubtless why Shakman and his team of writers opt to attempt mythmaking here. A cosmic deity knowing only hunger and needing human child sacrifice for consumption and possession is a the root of human existential horror. Think about Kronos and his children, or Jehovah's demand of Abraham, or Palpatine and his plan with Han and Leia's child (or Rey in the films). This is a foundational myth capitalized on by the screenwriters and emphasized in Galactus's (badass) physical design and chilling performance by Ralph Ineson (The Green Knight, The Witch, kind of giving here something akin to Tim Curry's Lord of Darkness in Legend).

I also think that, by launching us into the Fantastic Four's celebrity status, the heart of the film wins us by making its characters more human, rather than less. How many superhero films start by taking your average person and somehow transforming them into a hero at the cost of alienating us from them? Well, by definition, probably most. Then they have to spend a sequel or more navigating issues of being somehow more than human, including celebrity status and increased scrutiny. But in this film, we know immediately that they are globally renowned and beloved; it's only as that status begins to crumble -- and their multiple plans as a team successively fail -- that their chilly facade cracks and lets us, the audience, in. It gets quite unexpectedly emotional, much like Thunderbolts, earlier this year.

The CGI baby was awful to watch. And that's all I have to say about that.

Thunderbolts (2025)

Score: 3.5 / 5

The MCU seems to be really struggling to continue moving forward, yet this year's Thunderbolts offers some promising signs about the franchise's direction. I won't recount the plot here because a) you've probably already seen it if you're interested, and b) as with most superhero films, the plot doesn't really matter. What does matter here is visual design, thematic conceit, manageable stakes, and a curiously weak introduction that almost fails before, impossibly, climbing up to a climax and denouement that feel significant and -- most importantly -- earned.

Taking as its cue a certain dim and bleak visual dynamic riddling recent MCU films, the film starts almost drained of warmth in its color palette. We are reunited with Yelena (Florence Pugh), emotionally numbed while grieving her sister (back in Endgame, if you can believe the timeline has gotten so wildly widespread yet gone almost nowhere linerar-ly since 2019) and contemplating suicide in a somewhat family-friendly way. Working as a sort of black-ops private agent for CIA Director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), Yelena is sent on a couple clean-up missions for her boss, who is under Congressional investigation, only to discover that she herself may be on the slate for deletion. Yelena teams up with others in similar shoes, and their secret collective is formed as a rogue faction of third-rate outcasts masquerading as antiheroes.

The union of Yelena with US Agent (John Walker, played by Wyatt Russell), Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen), and Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) is well-written and shot here, fighting each other as they slowly realize that they are all pawns in Valentina's game. They are disposable in their world and in ours, as the sad, hard truth is that if you haven't been keeping up with the MCU series streaming exclusively on Disney+, you simply won't know or care about these characters. Heck, I've been keeping up, and I still need to scour the internet to remember who has done what and showed up where in alliance with whomever in what series titles. It's a nightmare. Thankfully, you don't necessarily need to know much about these characters beyond what Thunderbolts provides about them.

This allows the actors a lot of room to play and express themselves as discontented and dispassionate soldiers. Remember how the first Avengers were light-hearted white men slapping each other on the back while joking about cussing? This is a far cry from that, with each character dealing with crushing disappointment, shame, guilt, and self-doubt and allowing it to lash out at each other with snide, sneering humor and the uniquely aggravated impatience of boredom. They are, quite literally, heroes stuck in the shadow of their more famous counterparts, yet those counterparts have all but abandoned a world in need. Pugh is clearly the protagonist of the film despite its ensemble cast; she perhaps most clearly is struggling with the crushing void (read: depression) and goes through the best arc of the film, literally sacrificing herself while acting on full throttle. David Harbour's Red Guardian and Sebastian Stan's Winter Soldier join the team as well, rounding out the angsty mercs with macho gusto. 

The motif of shadows becomes literalized not just in the shadowy nature of Valentina's black ops mercenaries, as they start the film being, but also in its secondary antagonist, Bob. Lewis Pullman's awkward, anxious little man who had been subjected to human experimentation in Valentina's secret trials to create superhumans known as Sentries. He unexpectedly survived and was cared for by Yelena before being recaptured and brainwashed by Valentina, who effectively convinces him he's a god. Trying to kill him fails, and Bob becomes the Void, his destructive shadow-self who begins trapping all of New York City and its citizens in darkness and nightmarish dreams of their personal traumatic memories. This motif is showcased throughout the film, in pointed dialogue about depression, trauma, guilt, shame, and suicide, and in visual elements, including color desaturation, the opening Marvel logo, and the pretty cool special effects of the Void and his assault on civilians. Cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo (You're Next, A Ghost Story, The Green Knight) really nails it here.

As with any superhero flick, there are unnecessary action flourishes and sequences that don't do much other than keep us locked into familiar narrative beats. Schreier doesn't always seem to know what to do with action scenes, so the fighting is often unclear and muddled, perhaps intentionally (as these are not the best or most polished Avengers ever) but also formally through editing cuts that don't always follow or flow. Thankfully, the action isn't really the focus of this film, so these issues are minimal. Thankfully, too, Schreier knows that the success of this film is in its characters and their emotional appeal, so he focuses mostly on Pugh, who plies her typically A-lister craft on a character that desperately needs to have real life breathed into her. She does with aplomb, making Yelena one of the most interesting, consequential, and worthwhile characters in the entire franchise.

As the end of MCU's Phase Five, Thunderbolts may not be the Avengers movie anybody wanted or asked for, but it might be what we need at this point. Instead of a climax relentlessly shoving debris-clouded CGI at us as entire planets collapse and aliens descend on war-torn cityscapes, this one features mostly plays of light and shadow, interspersed with equally visually dynamic dream sequences. With these smaller stakes -- visually, if not necessarily thematically -- we can connect better with the unique aspects of these characters and how they might change the general sensation of superhero movies in this series moving forward into Phase Six. One can only hope, anyway.

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

Score: 2 / 5

When you have to introduce a film as the fourth in its series, the fifth in its phase, the thirty-fifth in its franchise, the continuation of a miniseries, and how even with all that you need additional info (on casting, primarily) to properly understand the newest installment, it's time to rethink your material.

As an avowed fan of the MCU, I confess that in the last two years I've fumbled several titles, mostly those airing exclusively on streaming services I'm not presently paying for. At some point, maybe this summer, I'll get caught up on all this stuff. It's just too much right now. But to say you can walk into Brave New World, the latest Captain America-led sci-fi action thriller, without significant prior knowledge is false. Even a longtime fan who actually remembers Liv Tyler and Tim Blake Nelson in The Incredible Hulk in cinemas won't be satisfied by their resurfacing here because, crucially, this film is not for such viewers. The producers are so consciously intent on looping everything together that familiar faces popping in and out feel like fan service for their "multiverse" shtick going on, when in reality, those faces aren't attached to characters who mean anything anymore.

Instead, this film is trying to establish its protagonist as a leader of his own story, and while the magnificent Anthony Mackie is still doing us right by his Sam Wilson, I suddenly have doubts about the writing committee (five fucking writers on this crap, y'all, is crazy) and their (in)ability to tap into the strongest ethos of his character. Though he was cap-tapped -- which I'm trademarking -- by Steve Rogers at the end of Endgame, Wilson victoriously endured his own trials in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, the second and personal favorite of the MCU miniseries. So he's already effectively "Captain America" before the start of this film, but he's plagued with uncertainty. After all, he doesn't have any superhuman powers. Just his brain, his heart, and a fancy suit. Really not much different than some other heroes we know.

So when President Thaddeus Ross sends Wilson to stop mercenary Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito) and his gang of Serpents from selling classified items in Mexico, Wilson dutifully accepts but remains concerned about his new sidekick Falcon, sweet and mostly untested Joaquin Torres. After their return, they begin training with Isaiah Bradley, an older Black man who had been injected with the super soldier serum and imprisoned and experimented upon by the US government. I was so ready for all of this in a film, so let's break it down. First, that Ross becomes president isn't something I remember from any comics, so that's noteworthy: in our current era of politicians who have not served in war trying to start wars, it's kind of cool to see a fictional president who is a self-proclaimed war hawk trying to stop international war. It helps that, due to William Hurt's passing, Harrison Ford steps in to play the role; he's really a highlight here. Second, making a parallel between Ross and Bradley as mentors for Wilson is a smart move, one that emphasizes a dual approach -- a double consciousness, if you will -- that Wilson must undertake to understand his own positionality in this problematic position of vulnerable errand boy for a dangerous president and a country shredded by racialized trauma.

But Brave New World isn't brave enough to actually account for much of that inherent intrigue. Rather, it constantly suggests that it's going to do something meaningful or insightful regarding historical government experiments on Black men, or even about current racial injustices being perpetrated by real-life government agents. It just never gets there. Why would an accomplished, heroic Black man even want to protect, defend, and represent a country that has so rarely treated people who look like him with dignity, let alone adequate support or defense? Is representation a good enough solution for short-term political change? With two players like Ford and Carl Lumbly playing Ross and Bradley, respectively, the film should have leaned farther into an exploration of racialized masculinity at odds with jingoism and patriotic brainwashing.

Unfortunately, the film is mostly just interested in the brainwashing itself. Eschewing political intrigue or historical reckoning, Brave New World pivots to a forced, artificial confrontation between national powers (the US and Japan, among others) rushing to a naval standoff in the Indian Ocean around the petrified corpse (?) of the Celestial that emerged there in Eternals. In a clear signal of where the MCU is next headed (and by "next," I mean yet to come in several more years, of course), much dialogue is bandied about a new supermetal discovered on this "Celestial Island" that will become the world's most valuable product: adamantium. Note that there is no reference to the actual next film, Thunderbolts, with its name theoretically taken from Ross himself, which would have been a reasonable franchise-related concession. After that bombshell lands with a thunk, the film pivots again and relies heavily on a plot stolen from The Manchurian Candidate to tell a bizarre story about sleeper agents, hypnotic brainwashing, and a loose cannon of a man in the Oval Office.

I say all this, focusing merely on its premise and presentation, because that's essentially what the MCU has become: each new installment is less interested in artistic integrity or even having a unique purpose or message to share, as comics usually do, and seems more interested in simply building itself up on references and imagery to perpetuate its own worth. The more "cool" items or looks or places it can feature, the more tickets and merch and future projects it will sell. The MCU has become a soap opera -- albeit a rare, fun one -- that doesn't know how to keep moving forward. Instead of making urgent, timely commentary on our current reality (remember Winter Soldier and how riveting and terrifying it was politically?) or even trying to say something about the human condition in general (Doctor Strange, for instance), films in this franchise are becoming watered down, afraid to make any kind of serious address in an increasingly polarized culture and toxic online fandoms. When a miniseries can talk about the Tuskegee experiments and our prison industrial complex but the film following it prefers a giant Red Hulk smashing cherry blossoms in Washington after "Mr. Blue" plays on the soundtrack, we've taken a few big steps backward.

Some might argue that the film is subtly advocating for peace, recognizing evil "on both sides" of a given conflict, as our current president once stated in a very different context. Perhaps the way forward is to let things settle into a holding pattern, to play nice with powers that are rather than challenging anyone or anything to improve. I disagree, and we can take a look at our 46th presidential administration for relevant proof (though that team was responsible for uniting Europe against Russia's invasion of Ukraine and stopping WWIII, so maybe the "do nothing" Democrats were actually on to something in international relations). Worse, after Bradley is imprisoned anew, Wilson doesn't doubt the regime and its scapegoating but works overtime to help Ross, whose only reason for pursuing peace is his own aging. Ross hopes that doing something honorable, like suing for global peace, will bring back his estranged daughter Betty. Of course, the real villain of this film isn't about to let that happen, though frankly Samuel Sterns is as much an effective villain as a mildewed rag you forgot about in the cupboard under your kitchen sink.

This might be the first time I've been brave enough to not enjoy an MCU film, and that's not a pleasant thing for me to say. It's easy to enjoy something in a familiar IP of which you've been a longtime fan. It's easy to enjoy the flood of CGI, the sleek production design, the star-studded cast, some rousing action, a few witty quips, and the feel-good victory of good over evil. It's harder to criticize a film you so desperately want to love, one that builds on some of your favorite entries in the franchise; one that features a Black man who has already earned his place in our hearts; one that puts Harrison Ford (now 82 years old) in a complex, dynamic role. It's as if the film is wholly out of time, out of touch with the politicized reality into which it dropped; hinting at a post-racial dream even as it primps itself by obscuring and eliding the dark and twisted factors that undermine our understanding of that dream. 

And that's not even the whole thing. I've barely mentioned Sterns, Sidewinder, and the Serpents, and haven't even mentioned Ruth Bat-Seraph, an Israeli former Black Widow, who serves as Ross's chief of security, played by Shira Haas, a confusing and complex character who needed more time to breathe in this onslaught of material. I've not mentioned the cinematography, which features moments of almost-inspired beauty (the shadow play and sound design of the opening sequence in Oaxaca is all really lovely and neo-noir) followed by lengthy sequences of garish lighting, frenetic editing, and seriously silly fight choreography. Even the climax, bursting with obvious symbolism in a demolished White House and the danger of policing the world, feels like a desperate last-ditch attempt to feel important despite it doing nothing to earn that distinction.

The only thing that might have saved this film as it is would be a post-credits scene of Mackie as Wilson dressing up in Captain America drag and soft-shoeing his way onstage with a cadre of Rockettes. When Rogers did that so many years ago, it felt like a shot at propaganda and the dangers of getting into bed with the government. So why is Wilson doing it "conscientiously" now? It just makes no sense, and the filmmakers are no better than the fictional government they've created, having their Magical Negro hero behave himself, choose the side of warmongering feds, and basically perform a minstrel show for the American populace. 

Deadpool & Wolverine (2024)

Score: 4.5 / 5

I even went into this expecting to be annoyed.

Deadpool, fun and irreverent as it is, has never been my favorite superhero series; partly due to its cheapening of the X-Men (my favorite), and partly due to its loud and crass fanbase, I've appreciated it from a safe distance. It didn't help, either, that the previous two films were nowhere near as subversive or clever as they were touted as being. For being what he is, the films never broke the mold -- or even pushed the mold -- of what superhero films can be, relying on tired tropes in each film's final act to remind us of the feel-good victories of a bad guy with a heart of gold. It's fun for some, and that's fine. It's just not for me.

So for this character and his filmmaking team to now assimilate into Disney's MCU was promising to be, pardon, a hot fucking mess. At a time when the MCU still can't figure out where it's going, how to get there, or why -- look at their recent announcement that all but rewrites what was to be Kang as the next Big Bad -- to add such a beloved character and make it fit in the chaos of multiverses had to have been a nightmare in the writers' room. Further, to add -- like Cable before him -- an iconic X-Man was easily the most dangerous thing they could have done. Even further, for it to be the one that was surely -- surely -- finally retired from the genre, and whose character is finally, certainly, dead, was almost too much to bear.

Some of my fears indeed came true. Jumping between universes and timelines happens via the Time Variance Authority, introduced in the bizarre series Loki, and the conceptual rewriting continues to teeter on the brink of pure nonsense. Characters are "brought back" and "reintroduced" ad nauseam, reinforcing the problem of the entertainment hamster wheel: when anyone and everyone can be repeatedly resurrected, there are no stakes in the story or in the real-life productions. Nothing matters anymore. Style succeeds over substance, most easily recognizable in an overwrought soundtrack that plays, obviously and often blandly, more like a three-dimensional character than any of the actual people being dramatized. Deadpool indeed starts the film without a girlfriend (Morena Baccarin), which makes no sense after the events of the previous film, and despite continual queerbaiting "humor" Ryan Reynolds never manages to actually queer the character. The villain (Casssandra, sister of Xavier, played by Emma Corrin) is rote and dull, stretching credibility even as her aims feel nonsensical; that's a lot to say in a film filled with the nonsensical, as a rule. And the endless parade of flagged references could fill a dissertation; one hopes that the film's home release will include on-screen footnotes so we know why certain characters and phrases are apparently important to the franchise as a whole.

All that is true, and I found my spirit tiring as I tried to keep up with the material while keeping my beer down.

And yet -- 

Deadpool & Wolverine is the most delightfully entertaining movie of the summer. At least it was for me. Not since The Fall Guy have I laughed so much in a packed auditorium. Even the Void and its bland villain couldn't relax my grin as Deadpool is introduced to countless variations of himself, including a female version (Blake Lively) and a cowboy version (Matthew McConaughey). More importantly, much like the most recent Spider-Man film (or The Flash, etc.), this one effectively ties together previous branches of Marvel properties and honors them. While we can certainly hope it's the last we'll see of some of them, it is really cool to see Jennifer Garner again as Elektra, Wesley Snipes as Blade (though his apparent shade at being recast is a glaring sour note here), and even Chris Evans as Human Torch. The return of Tyler Mane as Sabretooth was a fabulous touch, too, and the inclusion of Channing Tatum as Gambit had me in actual tears (of joy, of humor, of what I've always wanted from the franchise).

All that takes backseat, naturally, to the return of Hugh Jackman as a title character. When too many Marvel properties are being tied in and referenced, he manages to keep things locked down and grounded, along with his horny partner. The entourage of Marvel cast-offs get their heyday, and it makes more sense because this Wolverine is, in fact, a variation of the one we've loved for the past two decades. This one is surlier, and of course he's wearing the famous yellow costume. The film even provides more variants for him in a singular sequence that had our audience in stitches until one Henry Cavill materialized on screen and the room exploded. His character works really well in the Mad Max-inspired world that sets the bulk of this movie, and I'd have liked more pared-down material so we could really see these characterizations shine through the otherwise messy story.

It's all very amusing, and while that's not the most ringing endorsement, I appreciate the heart and joy that goes into a movie like this. The gimmicky stakes didn't work for me, and I wish the MCU would go back to smaller-scale battles for its heroes, but that's not the point of this story or production. Indeed, I'd rather have seen a super simplified and deeply silly story here: If Deadpool got this ugly/cute dog and it got abducted or sucked into a wormhole or something and he had to find it, enlisting the help of a reluctant Wolverine variant who thinks it's a cosmos-saving scheme, and it turns out to just be saving Deadpool's ugly dog. Think John Wick style, but funny, and David Leitch has been in this series, so the connection would make sense. Silly characters doing silly things require one thing these days: lowering the stakes. Stop making it about saving the multiverse! But if we're going to go there, and clearly that's what Disney is all about these days, I can't really be mad at it. It's a hell of a good time, and all the more rewarding if you've been a longtime fan of anything Marvel-related. At this point -- and I will absolutely regret saying this -- it's almost as if caring about good storytelling and the art of filmmaking is obsolete when fan service is this heartfelt and this effective.

The Marvels (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

Much will be made of CGI overload, of confused plotting and endless sequels, of franchise and superhero fatigue. Some might bleed into my thoughts here. But, generally speaking, few people are considering The Marvels on its own terms as a film. Maybe that's deserved, being the thirty-third feature film in the MCU, where nothing is really standalone anymore and everything leads to yet more projects in an ever-expanding multiverse of characters, stories, themes, and media. Public interest in the juggernaut of IP is waning -- if not collapsing -- but that doesn't discredit the films, franchise, or genre as a whole. When people bellyache and despair of Disney and Marvel and superheroes, they're saying far more about themselves than about the art.

So for this, I'll just list my ruminations on each key element of storytelling here, because I have no coherent observations or arguments for the purpose of lionizing or decrying this film. For me, The Marvels is one of the least satisfying and most confusing MCU films, but it's a lot of fun in its breezy (and mercifully brief) running time.

The plot? A mess. This film seems meant to be the lynchpin of several disparate storylines, something the MCU will need to continue doing to tie together the multitudinous tapestry it's created. The problem for me is that I can hardly remember where all these characters originated or why they're all significant. Principally, the film is meant to be the sequel to Captain Marvel -- and frankly I barely remember that film -- continuing Carol Danvers's (Brie Larson) vague intergalactic antics with the Kree and the Skrull. I can scarcely remember who they are, except that Lee Pace played an evil Kree in the second Thor film and Ben Mendelsohn played a good Skrull at some point, unless I've mixed them up as well. Essentially, and I do mean bare basics here, Danvers had destroyed the AI ("the Supreme Intelligence") that ruled the Kree homeworld of Hala, unwittingly leading the Kree into civil war and planetary desolation. So their new leader, a revolutionary warrior named Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton), seeks magical "quantum bands" to restore Hala and save her people by siphoning resources from other planets. Earth is on the list.

The characters? Mostly disappointing. The leading actresses are mostly wonderful. Larson continues her cool, prickly leading streak. Teyonah Parris remains one of the most compelling and delightful additions to the entire franchise as Monica Rambeau, though her lack of a codename is still frustrating after her introduction in WandaVision; thankfully, this film recaps enough of her story via flashbacks that you don't need to have seen it to understand her, but you do need to have seen Captain Marvel. Iman Vellani is just as cute and energetic and slightly irritating as she was as Kamala Khan in Ms. Marvel (which I saw but also don't remember well), and I was able to follow her arc here without recalling previous information. With their varied personalities and styles, I was excited to see them team up, become quantum-ly entangled, and kick ass. And while they are richly realized on screen, they are pitted against one of the most bland and forgettable villains yet, despite Ashton's clear desperation to make something exciting out of a flat, nondescript character.

The writing and direction? I'd compare the storytelling efforts here to a juggling act with smoke and mirrors for flair. Director Nia DaCosta (Candyman, Little Woods) also co-wrote, and I was so excited for her voice, especially with a team of females fighting a female villain in a franchise dominated by men. Unfortunately, we don't get much of her voice because she's too busy trying to recreate and continue the distinct flavors of the other characters. Scenes with Khan are frenetic and cutesy, loaded with Gen Z-isms and dynamic special effects; scenes with Rambeau are more stately and dignified, mirroring her wisdom and warmth; moments featuring Danvers tend to be a bit sassy and wry, as she is clearly the most powerful superhero in the MCU but also just a badass woman. The screenplay is a mess, too, co-written by committee (writers from WandaVision and Loki penned this mess) attempting to mash up these characters for the first time while sharing enough backstory to get by and also ham-fisting exposition into almost every scene.We get enough breaks with frenzied, kinetic action that it doesn't feel to forced, but a second viewing reveals a sort of tripping skip in terms of pace.

Oh, and I haven't even mentioned that you also need to have seen the miniseries Secret Invasion to know what Nick Fury has been up to in space for the last few years, and even with that knowledge now (I hadn't seen it before seeing The Marvels) I am very confused as to his doings with the Skrull and Kree as well as Samuel L. Jackson's characterization, which is much different here. Here he does basically nothing except offer snarky commentary, and I am none the wiser as to what he's doing, why the whole tentacled-cats thing keeps happening, and how it ties in with anything else in the larger franchise.

The visuals? My opinion here is firmly my own, but I don't understand why people hate on CGI so much. Don't get me wrong: superhero movies tend to overuse it, and I don't think it's always necessary or effective in terms of storytelling. But the number of people who call certain CGI elements "bad" or "cheap" clearly don't know how much work and money go into these shots. Let's work toward avoiding these words and start talking about what's actually on screen, because there's so much nuance to unpack. In this movie particularly, I had trouble understanding what, exactly, the womens' powers were, despite lots of talk about harnessing light energy, because it all just sort of looked like rainbow-colored light that comes out of their hands and eyes. When Dar-Benn rips holes in space and pirate resources from other planets, we're presented with now obnoxiously familiar images of black holes and global destruction, and it's not as awe-inspiring as it used to be.

You'd never know that master cinematographer Sean Bobbitt was behind the cinematography, as choppily edited and fast-paced as the film is. Further, even primarily dramatic scenes without lots of CGI are flatly lit and so packed with unnecessary set pieces and props that the emotional energy gets lost in the mix. When the chaos starts -- Dar-Benn claims one of the quantum "bangles" which somehow then entangles the three heroes -- we flip around between the Marvels with an apparent disdain for continuity and rules. They keep telling each other not to use any powers to avoid swapping places, but they all keep doing it; worse, they apparently only change places sometimes while using their powers, which makes the whole thing feel like a half-baked gimmick.

In the end, there's also not really an end. SPOILER ALERT. Monica's sacrifice sends her off into another dimension (or something, because nothing is sacred anymore and who knows what's coming next) in which her mother is alive but also not her mother, and in which she meets Kelsey Grammer's Hank McCoy "Beast." I'm excited for the X-Men to join the MCU, and it makes sense with the multiverse crap, but I wish for less buildup and more cohesion. Meanwhile, the short-lived team of women leads Kamala to go off on her own, locate Kate Bishop (seen in Hawkeye, because why not throw in yet another miniseries we need to have seen to make sense of this?), and suggest they start a new team of young Avengers. Oh, and Carol casually flies through Hala's sun to repower it and help restore Hala for the Kree. Because she can apparently just do anything. It's all fun until it's eye-rollingly irritating. Getting an actual conclusion for literally any of these multiplying characters and plots would be great, and relying on audiences to have seen literally every MCU production to make sense of ongoing films is not great.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Apart from his real-life persona, you do have to admire James Gunn for being one of the few massive-budget major-studio filmmakers whose unique aesthetic and style have never wavered. It's not easy, especially these days, especially the way whole committees of producers work under mega corporations like Disney or DC. Admittedly, Gunn's work isn't generally my preferred aesthetic, though I do enjoy his movies in these franchises; here, in his much-anticipated finale to the Guardians of the Galaxy series, he lets out all the stops to deliver a rambunctious, eye-popping, and heartrending story that feels more grounded and emotionally honest than maybe anything he's ever done. 

That's not to say it doesn't still feel very much like an MCU movie, complete with the usual hang-ups that are increasingly decried by audiences: marathon running time, overwhelming reliance on CGI, tag scenes to set up yet more movies, so many characters and plot points that you need special Wikipedia fan pages to guide you through the mess. These are all here, to be sure, but Gunn offers a distinctive flair for knowing that's what the audience will expect, so he leans heavily into manipulating how we feel rather than just what we see. His control over tone -- from the actors, from the soundtrack, from the pacing and screenplay -- exerts a certain magnetism for our experience of the stories he tells, and this one is a doozy.

Vol. 3 is solidly Rocket Racoon's story, and it was a long time coming. Bradley Cooper's beloved tinker and berserker character has had his past darkly hinted at before, but this film opens with him listening to Radiohead's "Creep" from Star Lord's prized Walkman. Indeed, the horrors of his past are thickly dramatized in this film, running parallel with the primary plot, and Rocket will learn that while he might indeed be a weirdo, he's also so very special. Trigger warning for anyone who doesn't like graphic harm done to animals, because there are some scenes in this movie I could hardly watch myself, and I wouldn't have said that was a particularly sensitive spot for me; at least not more sensitive than, you know, humans being brutalized, which tends to be less shocking after thirty-something movies in a violent franchise. Rocket, you see, was "created" as he is by a villain called the High Evolutionary (a stunningly scary Chukwudi Iwuji), a cruel scientist with a god complex who seeks to found a utopia of human-animal-machine creatures called Counter-Earth.

Interestingly, Rocket plays little part in the central plot of this film. Early, he is attacked by Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), sent from his Sovereign mother for revenge on the Guardians after the events of Vol. 2, and spends most of the film unconscious and near death. That gives him time to "tell" us his own story of torture and imprisonment by the High Evolutionary. The parallel (main) plot is of the other Guardians desperately trying to save him by traveling to the headquarters of Orgocorp, the High Evolutionary's company, to deactivate the "kill switch" that hinders their healing efforts. But the beloved team of misfits all have their own issues to handle as well, even apart from the constant threats of Adam Warlock and others. And yes, Sylvester Stallone cameos in this movie, too.

Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is still devastated by Gamora's (Zoe Saldaña) death, and can't quite handle the new, alternate timeline version of her who leads the Ravagers and joins the race to infiltrate Orgocorp. She can't stand his simpering self-pity, nor his hopeless attempts to woo her, and while these make for interesting interactions between them (and some refreshingly sincere acting from Pratt), the would-be-romance doesn't drive the plot, which is refreshing even as it stings. It does teach Peter some valuable lessons, though, which land satisfyingly well by film's end. Drax, Nebula, Mantis, and Groot (Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan, Pom Klementieff, and Vin Diesel, respectively) are all present, and have some shining moments, but don't really have much to do except shoot off sassy or silly one-liners and help in the battles. Then add in all the cameos, the other characters -- I mean what about Cosmo the Spacedog, voiced by Maria Bakalova, or Lylla the otter, voiced to heartbreaking perfection by Linda Cardellini? -- and this movie feels like an entire miniseries crammed into two and a half hours.

The parallel plots do occasionally throw off the film's momentum, and I felt more than a little jarred when we'd go from relatively quiet, painful scenes in Rocket's past to bizarre locations and manic fighting scenes in the present. Thankfully, there are some really great practical effects and sets, the bread and butter of Gunn's demented charms, and some really freaky creatures out of his darkest imaginings, though the finale goes boom in big ways that only the MCU has really trademarked successfully. But generally speaking, this is one of the strongest MCU products we've seen in a long time. Its smart villain is one to remember, perhaps mostly because of the weird existential dilemma he signifies: his relationship with Rocket is as a jealous parent or jealous god who resents and fears the intelligence and goodness of his creation. No wonder this movie reads so much like Gunn's manifesto, as he always seems to want his movies to succeed beyond his legacy. And if you doubt me, check out the film's closing sequence, mostly a dance party to Florence and the Machine's "Dog Days are Over," which had me weeping for the rest of the day.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Score: 3 / 5

In the time since Endgame, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) and Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) have developed a happy little life together, and his memoir is modestly successful. Scott's teenage daughter Cassie (now played by Kathryn Newton) has become a political activist, which occasionally causes tension with her former thief of a father. She's been working secretly on a project to establish contact with the Quantum Realm, a place of noted existential danger in the previous films where the original Wasp, Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer), had been trapped for many years. Janet tries to shut it down, but too late: the intergenerational family is pulled into the Quantum Realm and, as you may have guessed from the title, mayhem ensues.

The Ant-Man series has always held an odd place in the MCU; few people would say these are their favorites or even that the heroes themselves rank among their favorites, but Peyton Reed's offbeat and endlessly clever humor, tied with the immense likability of the cast, certainly make them lovely and unique entries in the franchise. Unfortunately, I think those qualities have just about exhausted themselves. Quantumania is, by comparison, a hot mess of CGI and annoyingly forced plot points meant to spark interest in yet another new phase of MCU storytelling. Though it's almost funny that this film puts Ant-Man and his compatriots into the smallest size they've ever been, it's easily the most eye-popping, sprawling, and surely expensive of his movies to date. It's also the least funny of them, which makes it all ring a bit too hollow for my taste.

What it lacks in humor and originality, Quantumania more than makes up for in visual flair. Reed and his team turn the Quantum Realm, which we've briefly explored in kaleidoscopic montages before, into a wholly fanciful universe unto itself. Psychedelic colors and shapes and patterns dazzle our eyes constantly in this film, and more than once I found myself gazing into the background art rather than tending to the characters and plot. It's like the creators dropped acid before designing the world, using Avatar's Pandora and Disney's Fantasia as references. While I could attempt to recall specifics of plot, I'd rather leave those bits to you to experience, because ultimately I doubt they matter much anyway, at least not yet.

Instead, I'll just trill on about other things, starting with the characters. The ones we already know and love are fine doing what they do, although Pfeiffer finally gets some solid screen time and a few scenes to really chew, while Michael Douglas all but twiddles his thumbs in a film where he's clearly utterly lost. Lilly is all but wasted, though Newton stakes a bold claim for her iteration of Cassie. A host of new characters is revealed in the Quantum Realm, although we're barely given enough time to appreciate -- much less remember -- them. There's a pink gelatinous creature who wishes more than anything to possess orifices like humans, a telepath who always hears the wacky, naughty thoughts of others, and even Bill Murray as a buffoonish local governor with a salacious history with Janet. It's all cute but ephemeral, only really existing to serve the weirdness of this new environment and the impending threat of a new Big Bad.

Enter Kang, ruler of the Quantum Realm, who apparently rose to power after Janet left previously. The film has to work overtime to explain their history together and why Janet never mentioned him before. He's a bit of a genocidal madman, hoping to conquer and destroy other timelines and alternate parts of the multiverse. He's also apparently one of many variants, and the one depicted in this film had been exiled by the others for mysterious reasons. Thankfully, all are played by Jonathan Majors, who is always excellent, though I hope future entries featuring Kang give him meatier material; here, he's broadly written and vaguely dangerous. More specificity -- like the kind Majors gives -- will help Kang feel like a real character and less of an idea. His greatest threat is as much a cliche as anything in this film: he threatens to murder Cassie and make Scott experience it infinitely if Scott doesn't successfully steal a certain power core (which inherently means nothing more than being the MacGuffin of this movie). It's not a great start for a character meant to lord over an entire phase of what is now a multimedia series.

Much as Ant-Man himself, his movies tend to not quite take themselves super seriously. Which is fine until it isn't, and this time it's hard to really care much about Kang or anything else because it's just not the kind of movie, tonally, to take any emotional or thematic risks. He's a second-tier superhero, and while this movie looks like a Marvel fever dream on drugs, thanks to cinematographer Bill Pope of The Matrix, several Sam Raimi and Edgar Wright movies, and Shang-Chi, and the visual artists, I couldn't quite shake the feeling that Pope seemed determined to disguise his own input. After all, how could a movie like this really be said to have a cinematographer of artistic integrity when every shot is so clearly pre-visualized to death by the effects artists and producers? I earnestly hope this isn't indicative of the aesthetic direction of the MCU's newest phase.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Wakanda forever! The much-anticipated and long-awaited sequel to Black Panther is bigger in almost every way, and some may find that a fault. It's long and thoroughly exhausting in its epic scope, expansive narrative, and heavy themes. The film opens with the death of King T'Challa (the late Chadwick Boseman, who is seen often in still images but thankfully not recreated digitally), who had an illness his sister Shuri (Letitia Wright) believed could have been cured by a special herb previously burned by Erik Killmonger. It's perhaps the best way to honor both Boseman and the characters (including Killmonger) given what was surely an extensive rewriting process after Boseman's untimely and unexpected death. The funeral sequence features perhaps the best display of costuming and editing yet in the franchise, as Shuri and Queen Ramonda (Angela Bassett), dressed in stark white, follow the coffin as Wakandan dancers and singers mourn and celebrate in slow-motion. My eyes were leaking so much at this point it was difficult to accept that, after the MCU logo appeared, we skipped ahead a full year.

Wakanda has had to become a defender of its valuable resource of vibranium from other world powers, to the point of almost closing itself off from the outside world again. When the US develops a vibranium-detecting machine and searches the oceans with it, the expedition is attacked and killed while suspicion immediately falling on the Wakandans. But this film doesn't really show too much of the geopolitics going on (because, you know, superhero movies generally don't go there), adding instead a new villain to the mix. Enter Namor (a hunky Tenoch Huerta Mejia), who rises from the waters of Wakanda to confront Queen Ramonda and Shuri in a private meeting. He has bypassed the extensive security of the kingdom, apparently breathes underwater, and sports wings on his ankles. Whereas comics originally featured the character as an Atlantean prince, here he is K'uk'ulkan, king of Talokan, an underwater realm of what used to be Mayans.

Clearly there are a lot of ideas in this film, very few of which would seem (at face value) to hearken back to the first magnificent Black Panther. A new secret kingdom? More extraordinary warriors and tech? Brown people fighting Black people over material resources hunted by white Westerners? But in the eminently capable and sensitive hands of Ryan Coogler and co-writer Joe Robert Cole (American Crime Story: The People v. OJ Simpson), these new and potentially disparate elements coalesce into a complex and fascinating knot of plot points. I mean that in the best way, because they also carry us through some of the most dynamic character development in any MCU theatrical releases to date. Shuri is taken to Talokan to learn from Namor the reality of that kingdom's existence and the crucial matter of its secret vibranium cache. He wants to forge an alliance with Wakanda to protect the resource and their kingdoms from the rest of the world, but he threatens to destroy Wakanda if they do not agree.

White colonists are definitely the cause for conflict in this film, but they aren't the villains. Namor, as the antagonist, comes close to being villainous, but much like with Killmonger, it doesn't feel right to call him that, even when he kills a certain someone (and I'll never forgive him for it). Similarly, while the Talokan warriors are pretty unnerving to behold with their blue skin, they aren't cruel or malicious either. If anything, it's the demand for such a precious resource that is the real villain of the film. It makes everyone do crazy things, even if they seem rational in the moment. Coogler is exceptionally good at making each character's motivations clear and reasonable, and he empowers his actors to give the best of themselves in every frame.

That's not to say the movie isn't a little over-stuffed, much like many complained about Wonder Woman 1984 or some of the Avengers and Spider-Man movies. It's got a huge cast of characters, including a hilarious and eye-opening subplot with Martin Freeman's CIA agent Everett Ross and Julia Louis-Dreyfus's new CIA boss and woman of mystery Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who are revealed to be ex-spouses. It sets up Dominique Thorne as Riri Williams, an MIT student who invented the vibranium detector, who has built herself a unique Iron Man-type suit; we know she will be starring in the upcoming series Ironheart. It locates a new Black Panther, and without spoiling too much, Shuri is a pretty excellent choice. Do I wish Ramonda had taken up the mantle? Sure, who doesn't, but Shuri's journey -- especially by the climax when she revives a heart-shaped herb and travels to the ancestral astral plane to meet with a certain ancestor who made me jump with excitement -- is more than well-earned. But the numerous plots and characters is certainly daunting, even for tried-and-true fans.

Thankfully, Coogler is up to more than just franchise fan service. Apart from tying strands of this story to the MCU generally, he establishes (like Taika Waititi has done in this series) a unique tone to Wakanda Forever, setting it apart as one of the few movies period to embrace the theme of righteous anger and outrage, specifically for people of color. Bassett, in one of her first scenes, chastises the UN for their entitled expectations regarding her resources, and she's glorious in every breath. Shuri, Ramonda, and Namor each try to navigate stages of grief, and in that way the film also embraces their sorrows. It's really tricky to pull off such emotionally wrought characters in any film, but to do it with so many in a franchise film is astonishing. I wish there weren't quite so much happening so the film could breathe a bit more and let us sit with the weighty themes. Then again, taking anything out of this film would do it a cruel disservice. Plus, it gave us Lupita Nyong'o again and Danai Gurira in all their respective glory, and I will never be mad about that.

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Score: 4 / 5

Thank the gods that Taika Waititi turned to big-budget filmmaking when he did. His Thor: Ragnarok is easily in my top five of the franchise, and while Love and Thunder doesn't quite harness the same magic for me, it is essentially just more of the same, and I love that. Its funky rock vibes are essentially what might happen if James Gunn was more kid-friendly and jumped into Norse mythology; vibrant colors and kinetic energy arrest everyone in the cinema immediately and then the good humor and raucous action come into play. Waititi also knows how to make a good villain in these films, and this time he thoroughly surprised me with the baddie as much as he did with some of the goodies.

The lovable and hilarious Korg (Waititi) gets the film going this time in partial voiceover, relating to the young New Asgardians the tale of how Thor went "from dad bod to god bod" after his meme-creating time with a beer belly. Thanks to his friends the Guardians (it's a cute cameo/crossover montage), he's back in fighting form with his axe Stormbreaker, even if his love life is a bit on the sorry side. What's a hunky Norse god to do? He starts by returning to his new home and consulting with King Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson), who has made New Asgard fabulous for the remnants of their population as well as for the booming tourism of their town. Suddenly another person in Thor's traditional garb appears as he fights off shadowy monsters. Who could it be?

Someone behind the MCU has been listening to our prayers because it's Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), a character and actor who has deserved more time in this franchise. Somberly, the film early on reintroduces her as suddenly having stage four cancer. She seeks out Norse myth to fight it, leading her to the broken pieces of Mjolnir, which we learn Thor had magically bonded to Jane previously. Jane, even as the new Thor, is not a god, and each time she uses the hammer, her life force drains. It's a dire situation, but the former lovers don't have much time to really delve into their history or problems yet. First, they need to dispatch these shadow monsters and confront their ringleader.

Enter Gorr the God Butcher (Christian Bale), a desiccated wraith of a man who is utterly terrifying each time he appears. Chalky and pale, robed in a white tunic, he was a devout man of faith until his daughter died unceremoniously. A powerful weapon called the Necrosword seemingly summons him and seduces him, enabling him to kill his god before launching Gorr on a quest to kill all gods. It's not always the most inspired choice of role -- something rudely between Voldemort and Rasputin with a dash of Pennywise -- but seeing Bale in this kind of balls-out performance is delicious. Humble as usual, he lets it all out when Gorr teeters on the brink of sanity, allowing his voice to sprint from whispering high points to growling low points. Unfortunately, he's not really given a lot to do, per se: yes, his tragic backstory is the first sequence of this film, but he generally doesn't do a whole lot of actual god-butchering during the movie. Instead, the main plot involves his abduction of New Asgard's children to lure Thor out; he's terrifying in his interactions with the kids, but it's mostly unstable monologuing and shadow monsters.

Thor's adventure takes him, notably, to a vaguely Greek or Roman forum -- a la Clash of the Titans -- were a veritable Star Wars senate session is in full swing as deities from all kinds of religions gather to discuss godly things. Namely, details for their next orgy as they remain in hiding from Gorr. It's a hilarious and fascinating sequence, including Quetzalcoatl and various godly characters, one that would require lots of pausing and zooming to really study the sheer abundance of creativity. Then enter Russell Crowe as Zeus -- yes, that Zeus -- and it's just about as absurdist and joyous as you could imagine. It's also one of those moments in the MCU, generally, that smacks of manipulation as we realize it's setting up potential future stories to be told in this series and franchise (peep at the mid-credits sequence involving Hercules, and you'll know exactly what I mean; it's a lot like what they didn't do with Mordo in the Doctor Strange sequel).

I confess myself annoyed at the screenplay's misuse of Valkyrie, who was so badass previously and deserved more swashbuckling action in this film as the king. Specifically, the endless queerbaiting of this character -- that, given her new role as king in a new place and with a title like this movie has -- has culminated in promises that she will find a partner, and all we got in this film was an almost passing reference to her deceased former female partner. And while the reunion between Thor and Jane was lovely, it did ring a bit hollow for me (no spoilers, but it's just bittersweet), as it was maybe just too little too late. Waititi's direction is never disappointing, and apart from the generally gorgeous visuals of this film -- the golden ichor of the gods and their guards -- Waititi really pulls out the stops during a magnificent fight between Thor and Gorr on a black-and-white shadow planet. It's brilliant moments like this that make some of the grander, big-budget sequences feel uninspired, but thankfully the creative team here knows where to put their money as well as their talent.

Oh, and the continued gag with the Asgardian actors is utterly priceless.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Score: 3.5 / 5

This is getting a little ridiculous. I'm just not sure I'm here for all the back-and-forth, media-spanning new directions of the MCU, and movies like this are, frankly, why.

Feeling like it was written by committee and produced by a room of execs instead of artists, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is about as confused and jumbled as you might expect. It's nominally a sequel to Doctor Strange, though the only points on which it follows that film is with its inclusion of Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), who is getting married to another man, and its incredibly awkward inclusion of Mordo (Chiwetel Ejoifor) who is actually playing an alternate version of the character rather than the one set up as a villain in the previous film. This film makes almost no sense, though, unless you've seen the Infinity War and Endgame Avengers films as well as Spider-Man: No Way Home, which it also directly follows. And yet it is most accurately a sequel to WandaVision, and that's just one project too many for me to include here. It's all an unholy Frankenstein's monster of a movie, one that picks up many threads from different places and strings them together -- I haven't even mentioned the incredible importance of Loki and What If...? to understanding this film -- in an insane two-hour fever dream of chaos. This film does not -- cannot -- exist on its own, and it never develops its own sense of identity as a result; more or less a lynchpin in the franchise, we can only hope things calm down a bit for the studio after the dust settles. I have doubts.

Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), at the wedding of Christine to another man, has to leave when the street outside is attacked by an invisible massive one-eyed octopus thing (that looks suspiciously like the villain in The Suicide Squad). While fighting it, he meets America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), a queer young woman of color who has the unique ability to create star-shaped portals to alternate universes, though she's having some trouble controlling it. After dispatching the demonic monster, America reveals that she's been fleeing similar demons across the multiverse and that someone seems to be after her. Strange suspects witchcraft, and goes to consult with Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen), who is still grieving the loss of her children and the fracturing of her mind. Wanda is willing to do whatever it takes to live a life with her children (not Vision, curiously), and as such the Darkhold (an evil book she got at the end of WandaVision that appears to be somewhat sentient and has her in its grip) offers a possible means to that end.

The Darkhold is one of those hot items that requires more knowledge than this film is willing to give, but it's the kind of obvious reference to director Sam Raimi's work that makes this film such an aesthetic oddity. It looks like Raimi's Necronomicon, and later events in the film -- yes, including a crucial plot point involving the possession of dead bodies -- remind us a bit heavy-handedly that this is a Raimi picture. It's got all his visual gusto and mind-boggling aggressive weirdness that we expect, but unfortunately it's not the kind of Raimi I personally like. There are some genuine scares here, and it's really primarily a horror movie, even if it's also fantasy and sci-fi and superhero. I'd have much preferred to see what original director Scott Derrickson and his team would have done with this material, and I expect I'd have liked that better. This film isn't The Evil Dead so much as it is its sequels (which I abjectly detest). There's a sequence early on when America and Stephen launch themselves through the multiverse, including prehistoric, cartoon, and even paint realms. It's just bonkers stuff, and frankly I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Thankfully, the studio anchors him a bit and the story in our universe (labeled number 616, if memory serves) proceeds apace.

Unfortunately, that same studio seems intent on including as much of its established material as possible, including locations and people and events from all across the shared universe, even obscure ones, shoehorned plot points that felt far too forced and fast rather than organic or earned, and an enormous cast of cameos. This last point reaches its incredible climax when, in one universe after meeting an alternate Mordo, Stephen is brought before a group they call the Illuminati, including Agent Carter (Hayley Atwell, What If...?), Black Bolt (Anson Mount, Inhumans), Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) as Captain Marvel, the Fantastic Four's Reed Richards (John Krasinski, as hopefully more than fan service), and even Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) in his yellow wheelchair. It's amazing, and the crowd cheered much as it did for the villains and alternate heroes in No Way Home. But to have this happen twice now in similar films is starting to feel a bit overwhelmingly banal.

More important than the film's overwrought plot and desperate attempts at unifying the franchise despite its obvious unraveling is its emotional core. It begins with Stephen's unrequited love for Christine, which we've seen before and this adds nothing new. Then it concerns America and her self-control and doubt issues, adding again nothing new to the stories of multiple other heroes. Ultimately, this film seems most concerned with Wanda and her grief, and it is here that things get pretty hairy. Obviously -- and it's revealed very early on -- Wanda is the "villain" of this film, and while seeing her embrace her inner witch is utterly delicious, it rings hollow after the intense emotional insight we got for her out of the Disney+ miniseries. While grief can certainly turn people into monsters, it's an interesting choice for the MCU to about-face on this fan-favorite character so quickly. Moreover, the film's characterization of Wanda might have been more interesting and satisfying if it didn't take so much pleasure in turning her into a vindictive, bloodthirsty monster so quickly. I was fine with her embracing her greed and pain and becoming evil, really, until in her second or third scene she shows up and outright slaughters half the sorcerers at Kamar-Taj. It's a brutal and vicious sequence that sets up the horrors to come effectively, even as it divorces us from our love of the raw work Olsen has done with the character before now.

While this movie is clearly crucial for the MCU -- the parts that led us here and wherever we go next -- it's also the most solid proof we've yet received of the oft-repeated criticism that this franchise exists primarily to keep people coming and paying for it, rather than to tell any story with integrity. I loved it, I hated it (I haven't even talked about how absurdly, unabashedly awful the editing is!), and now we're just waiting for another installment because that's what this film forces us to do. I'm hopeful this isn't the last we've seen of Olsen, because really she is one of the most interesting characters in the franchise, but as the multiverse keeps expanding and new properties are introduced, the MCU is going to have to simplify and ground themselves, or they'll lose the reins on this series and everything they hold dear. Kind of like Wanda. 

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5

One of the most exciting entries in the MCU -- amidst an unpredictable slew of new titles, too -- No Way Home is a triumphant third Spider-Man movie. That's a phrase we've never heard before. Jon Watts and his team have crafted what amounts to a DCEU Arrowverse major crossover event, a playful and endlessly entertaining mashup of heroes and villains who react to their circumstances in unpredictable ways. What could have been a logistical nightmare, with so many big names, big titles, and big expectations, is instead energetic, creative, and utterly joyous. That's all thanks to a brilliant screenplay and confident directing, although frankly, I found the editing in this movie bewildering more than once (and that's the only reason it's not scored 5). Until, that is, the final act, which is shockingly emotional.

Beginning immediately after the end of Far From Home, the story launches Peter Parker (Tom Holland) into the public sphere. People on the street know who he is now, and so does the government. Peter, his girlfriend MJ (Zendaya), his best friend Ned (Jacob Batalon), and Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), are brought in for questioning before their charges are dropped, thanks to some quick work by their lawyer. And this, within the first ten minutes of the film, is when I started crying, because lo and behold: Charlie Cox reprises his role as Matt Murdock. Thanks to this applause-generating cameo -- and the presence of Vincent D'Onofrio's Wilson Fisk in the Hawkeye miniseries -- it seems the MCU has reclaimed the rights to their characters from the Netflix shows.

Then there's some basic dramatic hoopla about the kids applying for university and getting denied from all (even MIT!) due to their notoriety. The story in earnest begins after Peter asks Dr. Strange to cast a spell and make the world forget that he is our friendly neighborhood webslinger. Interrupting the wizard's work, Peter fractures the spell by requesting exceptions for MJ, Ned, and Aunt May. It's more than a little annoying to me that Ned is such a central character in these movies, because I find him almost unbearable, but MJ and Aunt May each finally get some really golden scenes in this movie. Not long after the spell, we learn that his meddling somehow caused a rift in the multiverse, allowing other individuals who know Peter's secret identity to access this universe. Thus enters characters from previous iterations of Spider-Man in some of the best-handled retconning I've ever seen.

In what we all feared would simply be a casting gimmick, a huge cast of fan favorites appears spontaneously, wreaking havoc in their search for Spider-Man. The Lizard (Rhys Ifans) and Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) are quickly contained by Dr. Strange, and Peter confronts Doc Ock (Alfred Molina) and Electro (Jamie Foxx). Norman Osborn (Willem Dafoe), still wrestling with his split personality of the Green Goblin, makes friends with Aunt May, and works with Peter to rehabilitate the villains. They aim to help these characters rather than simply send them back to the moments of their deaths. It makes for several surprisingly funny sequences of the characters bantering and discussing how to be "fixed." It's not an overcrowding mess, but in fact buttresses this "Home" trilogy's central themes of belonging and integrity and comfort. It's also an effective way of finally allowing Holland's version of Spidey to mature and really grapple with his mantra, "with great power comes great responsibility."

And with the weight of these heroic decisions comes dire consequences. The filmmakers here know this, as they strive valiantly to honor the legacies of previous Spider-Men franchises while more or less correcting our cultural narrative around the intellectual property. Enter, as they do near the halfway point, two other Spider-Men in the form of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. What I thought would be cameo appearances are actually crucial plot and character points that carry through the end of the film. Their scenes are laugh-out-loud funny, often tear-jerking, and irresistibly welcome, and the writers clearly wanted to honor rather than rewrite their characters, especially in Garfield's case, who was unable to make a third outing as Spidey. One wonders, now, if Sony will attempt to capitalize on his re-entry for their growing efforts to continue pumping out darker Marvel titles. It helps that Venom will apparently now become a shared property, as told by the credits scenes in Venom: Let There Be Carnage and in this film.

Eternals (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5    ***updated

It can't be easy to step into the most fanbase-established, well-financed, studio-overseen cinematic franchise of all time and make something that feels fresh. The standard of superhero movies has been long set, and while every year threatens to end the hype, somehow the MCU (and, in my unpopular opinion, Warner Brothers' DCEU) manages to keep things interesting and moving forward. But as some of the more popular parts in Marvel's roster age out -- or die out -- I've been wondering how newer and more obscure characters will be popularly appreciated and welcomed. I certainly didn't know anything about Shang-Chi going into his first feature, and I was blown away by it. Something similar happened recently to me in a screening of Eternals, about whom I knew only the barest of details.

Basically -- and I mean very -- the Eternals are the ten children of a Celestial named Arishem sent to Earth in 5000 BC to destroy the Deviants, invasive monsters who kill apex predators. They succeeded and lived as gods (literally) in ancient cultures before spreading out and trying to lead normal lives, helping in small ways as they are able. In the present, the Deviants reawakened after the Blip, and so the Eternals band together to learn why; unfortunately, the truth is much darker and more frightening than they could have imagined. It doesn't help that the Eternals, much like any family, harbor feelings of resentment, joy, love, and loss between them, which makes their reunion rife with drama. It all leads to a fun but underwhelming climax that feels about as fresh as last week's cake. Its visuals feel ripped from any number of apocalyptic movies, and the action is almost laughable. But by this point, you do care quite a bit about the characters, which carries you through to the end. That's not nothing, but it showcases what Zhao could have used more help doing.

I confess myself a little underwhelmed too by the mythology of this movie. While you can certainly watch it with enough basic information to go on, I could not help wishing for more. Which is a bit absurd, when you account for its two-and-a-half-hour runtime. For its huge cast of brand-new characters, its extensive world-building, and more veiled references to less-popular Marvel titles, it almost feels not long enough; I couldn't tell you a whole lot more about the "significance" of any of these characters within the franchise even after seeing the movie. It's more of a standalone flick than any other in the MCU, which I guess is a good thing until the ending and post-credits scenes had me scratching my head. In fact, apart from a couple references to Thanos and everyone returning after the Blip, this movie was uniquely self-sufficient until the last few scenes (and, I have to note, the end of this movie teases Blade, which provoked me to let out a loud, excited squeal in a packed, silent auditorium).

Director Chloé Zhao (Songs My Brothers Taught Me, The Rider, Nomadland) is a surprising and odd choice for this movie, based on her previous work. You can certainly see how she humanizes these characters and connects them to far-flung but very specific global and cultural locations; that's just something she's uncannily good at doing. That, along with finding perfect magic hour lighting in her landscape shots. Thankfully -- and I say this as someone who respects her eye and tone but generally dislikes her movies so far -- here her vision soars due to its intense, plot-driven structure. The credits indicate she helped with the screenplay, but I suspect it was others, largely, who brought franchise knowledge of the characters and plots as well as a sense of urgency and motivation. Many scenes are clear-cut with Zhao's easily recognizable eye for cool palettes, natural lighting, and relative stillness centered on a horizon; these are hugely important in introducing and establishing the enormous cast of characters in ways any screenplay would struggle to accommodate. On the other hand, when things do get expository, and messy plotwise, you can feel the pull of other artistic voices to "do the genre thing" and have more action, more cuts, brighter colors, louder sounds. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and the film is pretty darn coherent for all it's trying to do.

But it does make me wonder what would have happened if directors had swapped so that Eternals had the spectacle-oriented director Cate Shortland, and if Zhao had in turn directed Black Widow. I imagine a more character-driven focus with the latter, one rooted in time and place in a way that film, frankly, squandered in favor of admittedly brilliant action sequences. The former, however, would have embraced a bit more of the "wow" factor, turning the Eternals into full-on gods with all their magic on spectacular display, while sacrificing the existing film's determination to make the characters real people with a sense of age and belonging. Fruitless considerations, perhaps, but an interesting way to rethink how these iconic characters materialize in the public consciousness and how easily things might have been different.

I guess, in the broadest terms, I most liked the cast of this movie and the casting. Easily the most diverse group of performers yet in the MCU, they also play diversity in a way that does not feel forced or contrived. Salma Hayek plays the leader Ajak, Gemma Chan's Sersi is the protagonist of sorts, Lauren Ridloff plays the Deaf superhero Makkari, and Brian Tyree Henry's gay hero Phastos has a husband and son. Who else? Well, there's the hunky Richard Madden's Ikaris and equally hunky Kumail Nanjiani's Kingo, there's Lia McHugh as the androgynous and youthful Sprite, Don Lee as the strongest of them named Gilgamesh, and Barry Keoghan as the funny but creepy Druig (which totally checks out for him). Perhaps most interesting for me was Angelina Jolie as the warrior Thena; the way the film sensitively handles her mental illness is wonderfully refreshing. More surprising still, this marks what I think might be the first sex scene in a franchise literally built upon muscular models in tight outfits (I don't count Tony Stark falling off the bed with a reporter in Iron Man). It's nice to finally see some superheroes acting like real adults for a change, rather than just flirting or posing suggestively, and it adds a nice level of complexity to these characters in particular, due to their immortality and experience.

*** Upon a second viewing, I'm inclined to increase my rating for this movie. My concerns about the adaptation process and undercooked contextualization still hold, but this time I just wanted the movie to take me on an adventure. And I left the cinema this time with a profound sense of awe and warmth. This is, by far, the most theologically complex film in the MCU and possibly of 2021. Its entire premise questions humanity's relationship with the divine on a global scale rather than in culturally or religiously specific terms. The Eternals poke reverent fun at each other for being gods, historically, in the eyes of humans, and it's fascinating to see the way they (mostly) humbly shrug those titles off as cultures evolve. But then, right around the halfway point of the film, when the true stakes are revealed and apocalypse draws near, they band together to (SPOILER ALERT) stop a newborn Celestial. Essentially, they aim to kill a god, and it's viewed by the film as not only a good thing but as an imperative. It's fascinating and shocking -- less so due to a screenplay determined to not use the phrase "kill god" and by Zhao's wonderfully calm tone and pace -- and will surely lead to quality post-screening discussions.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

Score: 4.5 / 5

Shaun seems happy enough, working as a valet on the famous hills of San Francisco. He clearly takes care of himself physically, and he has cultivated a strong social life with his best friend and co-worker Katy. So when they are attacked on the bus by martial art henchmen, it feels as shocking and violent as it might in real life. An extended sequence follows, much longer than I expected, in which Shaun heroically fights back as if he's been trained as a ninja; the sequence has some of the most eye-popping and beautifully choreographed fighting in any MCU movie. It's also bubbling with humor, gliding past the nihilistic violence of other, similar movies in the genre. By the time it ends, we have a burgeoning hero casting off his urban alter-ego, his friend eager to join him on a globe-trotting adventure, and the threat of an emotionally complex big bad. All the makings of a proper installment in the franchise.

Simu Liu plays the newest hero in the MCU with panache and heart, proving himself an action star who can also navigate the conflicts of his inner life. A cursory summary of his character -- even the film itself -- reveals little of note, because it's about as standard an origin story as Iron Man. But Liu is no Stark, and his own daddy issues prove to be the beating heart here. His father Wenwu (Tony Leung) is a power-mad warlord who has toppled armies and kingdoms for a thousand years, with the help of ten magical "rings" he wears as bracelets. His own force, called the Ten Rings, we might remember from that first MCU movie as the terrorists who attack and abduct Stark in Afghanistan. He once fell in love with a mystical woman and raised a family with her, but after she is killed, a grieving Wenwu forces his children to become killers before the family breaks apart.

The film, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy, Short Term 12, The Glass Castle), knowingly jumps across space and time to give us the story we need to get to know Shaun better from the inside. We are organically shown flashbacks that flesh out darker parts of their family history as we need them, avoiding pitfalls of chronological doldrums. And it helps that the excellent cast are able to economically utilize acting shorthand to jump right in and show us the history -- often non-verbally -- without lots of expository ado. This is the rare MCU flick that manages to wow us into silence from the action, and then let us sit in the silence for a while as the characters come to term with emotionally shattering revelations. Nowhere is this more clear than near the end, as Wenwu single-mindedly launches an attack on his late wife's homeland in a desperate attempt to get her back. As the news settles in, Shaun (now embracing his real name of Shang-Chi) sits by a lake with Katy and the two are comfortably, if sadly, silent.

And then the film shifts into high fantasy, not unlike the Thor movies but still fresh, particularly in style. Wenwu's goal is the dark side of Ta Lo, a magical land that holds a dark secret in its mountain; Wenwu thinks his late wife has been hidden there, but everyone else knows that a giant soul-sucking demon has been imprisoned there. As Wenwu and his army break it open, tentacled spawn emerge and turn the tide of battle. The intentionally excessive climax leads into even greater giddy energy when a dragon magically explodes from the lake to aid our heroes. While it's a little hard not to think of this water-dragon in terms of Raya and the Last Dragon, and it's certainly an unexpected move from the filmmakers, Cretton's direction and an emotionally gripping screenplay keep you rooting for more. It doesn't even entirely feel like an MCU movie at this point, and that's actually a good thing.

In what is otherwise a novel and delightful film, I find myself returning to one annoyingly sticky spot time and again. Shang-Chi's sister, Xialing, is a really interesting character who gets disappointingly little screen time. In flashbacks, we see her training herself to be as good  -- no, better, I think is the word she uses -- a fighter as anyone else in the Ten Rings. Though Wenwu seems determined to destroy the world because he can't move on from his wife's death, his children seemed content enough to simply disappear into other worlds. Xialing's criminal enterprising has led her to a place of power and secrecy, and while she puts it on hold to help stop her father's death march, the movie leaves her in a shocking and fascinating place. If only we had more time to appreciate her growth and experiences before the film reminds us that a sequel will surely be on its way.

But, then, why deny the far more numerous pleasures of this movie? Michelle Yeoh plays Shang-Chi's aunt and a guardian of Ta Lo with her usual grace and beauty. Benedict Wong pops in a few times as what will hopefully become the new Agent Coulson-type comic relief in the franchise. Ben Kingsley utterly steals the movie from under everyone's feet as soon as we hear his first off-screen dialogue as Trevor Slattery, the intoxicated actor hired by the Ten Rings to act as the terrorist "the Mandarin," who is now clean and excited at the opportunity to not be Wenwu's court jester. And what review or discussion of this movie would be complete without a single mention of the awesome skyscraper melee on scaffolds above a Macao nightscape? As the MCU works to rebrand itself after Endgame, Shang-Chi offers refreshing new visions of a cinematic future. We can hope this helps to curtail the onslaught of shows and miniseries on a streaming service, but let's take things one punch at a time.