The Multiverse of Nonsense

“That’s not how quantum physics works” Tony Stark

Since Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) the multiverse seems to be the latest trend in sci-fi/fantasy.  Despite Avengers: Endgame telling us there was no such thing as the multiverse, it has become an important part of the MCU first on TV in Loki and What If…? But now on the big screen Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness, despite the fact the multiverse makes no sense, at least in the way depicted in this movie. 

As much a Sam Raimi movie as an MCU movie.  It has been suggested he was given more creative freedom than on the Spider-Man movies, and it shows.  While it fits within the franchise the tone is closer to Rami horror than his previous foray into superhero movies.  The idea of possession and reanimation are straight out of Evil Dead as is the Darkhold, that they may as well have called the Necronomicon.  To top it all off there is a great Bruce Campbell cameo.  The fulcrum on which Phase Four is placed, and probably the introduction to phase five as it opens the door for characters who weren’t previously available in the MCU due to complicated rights issues. 

The MCU is beginning to feel like a comic book, not just something based on a comic book.  It is common in comic books for larger stories to be told across multiple titles.  As well as Endgame and the previous Doctor Strange, this movie references Spider-Man: No Way Home, WandaVision and What If…?  The latter most significantly despite being the least seen.  At the centre of the film we have a new character America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez) a character with the ability to travel the multiverse.  A fun character that works well playing off Strange.  If they don’t find a way of using her, she could be reduced to a human MacGuffin a little like Ava Starr / Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) in Ant-Man and the Wasp.  This would be a shame.  Just to make those of us who have been with the MCU from the start feel old, Gomez is younger than the franchise.  Born in April 2006, the same month Jon Favreau was hired to direct Iron Man some months after the franchise was conceived. 

Ultimately as you can probably gather from what I have said, that I enjoyed the movie.  However, there is an issue, it makes absolutely no sense.  I am not talking about the fantastical side of the story, you have to suspend disbelief to what any movie, I am saying the multiverse as seen here doesn’t make sense.  There are far too many theories on how a Multiverse works, but within the MCU the suggestion seems to be that they are Quantum.  A quantum multiverse creates a new universe every time a diversion in events occurs.  This is similar to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.  In these theories the alternate universes are endless as each decision, each flap of a butterfly’s wings will create a new branch.  Therefore, in theory, it is possible that in some universes a character could have a doppelganger.  However, this could only happen if the changes that made the new branch happened after the character was conceived.  Given that on average, each time men ejaculate they release nearly 100 million sperm, and each sperm would result in a different person, or no pregnancy at all!

 If we concentrate on what they call Earth-838, we know that there are certain characters that exist (or existed) in both this universe and the MCU Earth-616 (did I get those the right way around?): Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch), Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen).  The first deviation we know happened is that Peggy Carter became The First Avenger, possibly in the way seen in What If…?.  This one would imagine would have a different outcome to the war and Hydra.  What we do know is that it appears that the creation of Shield didn’t happen.  The power in this world is The Illuminati. (Forget Dan Browns conspiracy fiction, there really was an Illuminati.  The Bavarian Illuminati, founded on 1 May 1776 in Bavaria.  An Enlightenment-era secret society, their goals were to oppose superstition, religious influence over public life, and abuses of state power) Given that this major diversion from the timeline happened somewhere around 1941it is likely that a lot of these characters would have been born.  That’s before we get to Wanda’s children.  How did a variant of Wanda have the same children as the ones created by Wanda in the fantasy in WandaVision? 

Shortly after Doctor Strange came another multiverse movie, Everything Everywhere All At Once.  Written and directed by Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert based on the Modal realism theory.  The title refers to the “villain” of the movie, who has the power to see and feel everything everywhere all at once.  This results in the belief that nothing really matters, in any universe and the plan to suck all of the multiverse into an infinite void of nothingness.  This is an interesting point, as it has often been a criticism of the use of time travel and multiverses within stories.  It reduces the stakes.  As is often said, No one stays dead except Uncle Ben. In this movie our hero (Michelle Yeoh) doesn’t exactly travel between universes, the way it is used is a little different to anything.  Receiving universal critical praise and doing exceptionally well at the box-office, it is a better and more fun movie than Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness

Around the same time as seeing these two movies I read a book The Midnight Library by Matt Haig.  This gives a more believable multiverse within its own fantasy.  The protagonist, Nora chooses to take her own life.  She wakes up in the library of the title, where she is given the choice to live a different life, the life she would be living had she made a different decision in the past.  As she steps into the different lives it becomes clear that the decisions she makes effect not just her, but all the people around her.  The promise, when she finds the life in which she’s the most content, she will remain and live out that that life.  There is no great surprise, the message and the outcome are clear from very early on.  If we are not to multiversed out by then, there will be a movie adaptation, StudioCanal and Blueprint Pictures optioned the film rights a week before the book was published in 2020. 

The presence of Reed Richards/ Mister Fantastic (John Krasinski) and Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart) suggest this is the door that will bring The Fantastic Four and The X-Men into the MCU.  But, it is a door they cannot close!  This is going to require some creative storytelling so we don’t end up with all MCU stories being multiverse movies, as much fun as they have been they could get very boring very quicky.  The more we explore it the less sense it will make, and lets not forget, we no longer have Tony Stark to tell us “That’s not how quantum physics works”. 

Advertisement

Read Full Post »

Black Widow – Too Late, or Worth the Wait?

Black Widow has a problem, a big problem, timing! The issue is twofold, firstly it has been hugely delayed due cinemas being largely closed throughout last year and the start of this year.  The second more serious problem is that it is set before the previous two movies removing any real jeopardy for the main character.  Whether it can overcome these hurdles depends on different factors, on a critical level, the film is good; financially, we may never know!  It has received the strongest opening numbers since the start of the pandemic, but this is still way down on other movies in the franchise.  It is also available as a premium offering on Disney+ that may help with the ultimate bottom line but not the published box-office.  I would normally advocate watching movies in the order they were made.  However, in this case, I would suggest if you are new to the MCU that you slot this one on in somewhere between Captain America: Civil War from and Avengers: Infinity War. 

Following a prologue set in 1995 the movie kicks off with Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) on the run from the authorities aka Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) for breaching The Sokovia Accords (see Captain America: Civil War).  A MacGuffin and an attempt on her life later she finds her way to the often mentioned Budapest and on the hunt for a ghost from her past in the shape of General Dreykov (Ray Winstone).

Before I star anything that resembles a review, I have to admit I was predisposed to like this movie.  I have always felt that Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow and Clint Barton / Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are the heart of the MCU, the franchises most interesting character, but they have never been given the screen time they deserve.  I am also a huge fan of a couple of Cate Shortland’s earlier movies. To add to this, the film most resembles, even echoes a lot of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, a film that is both one of my favourites in the franchise and also the film that prior to getting her own film gave Scarlett Johansson the most screen time in the MCU.  Interestingly the final act (the MCU’s Achilles heel) is similar to, and has the same issues as the winter soldier. 

There are three big and several small action set pieces. As you would expect for a Marvel movie the action is well shot, and well choreographed, but this isn’t the films greatest strength.  The titular Black Widow is surrounded by great characters in the shape of her “family”  Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh),  Alexei Shostakov aka Red Guardian (David Harbour), and Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz).  Both the performances and the dialogue are excellent.  The bickering and piss-taking all feels very real and natural as you only see with family or close friends.  Weisz has a level of calm and superiority that perfectly bounces off Harbour’s comic relief, but Pugh is comfortably the MVP.  She plays the part with a perfect combination of childlike sincerity and amazement with a certain grit and cynicism.  There have been suggestions that if this truly is Johansson’s Marvel swansong that Pugh will take on the mantle of Black Window within the Avengers.  While it would be a shame to lose Johansson, Pugh would make an excellent addition, it appears she has already been confirmed to reprise her role in the Hawkeye TV series due to hit Disney+ later this year. 

Like the aforementioned Winter Solider the villains are more grounded than many in other MCU movies, this isn’t a bad thing.  When a story is well told, personal tragedy and  grounded adversaries are just as significant as those that threaten worlds or universes! The plot is slim taking a central idea from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (although a different Bond movie is reverenced and another invoked!).  The accents drift in and out of Russian, often for no real reason.  But these and any other issues spring to mind after the film has finished, because while you watch it, you just go with it! This is testament to the taught direction and  great performances.  What could have been a paper thin narrative used to string together the action set pieces actually comes across as a fun hang-out movie.  The characters are so strong that you may want the action to stop so they could spend more time hanging out and arguing with each other, fortunately this never happens, because the bickering continues  during the big action scenes. 

Marvel have made 24 movies in a decade and half, a similar number to what James Bond Managed in nearly fifty years and around double the Star Wars output in around forty-five years. when you get to this point, you cannot just judge an MCU movie on how good it is, you have to look at in relation to the rest of the franchise, the greater world of comic book movies, and its competitors from the DCEU.  It’s far from the best MCU movie as it doesn’t move the narrative forward, it actually has little to no impact on the franchise as a whole, and you would not miss anything by skipping it, but that would be a shame, and a mistake.  It does something that a lot of the other movies in it stable cannot, it stands on its own.  You could watch and enjoy the movie without having seen any other MCU movie.  And for the record, it’s better than most of the output of the DCEU. Go see it support your local cinema and have some fun!

Read Full Post »

X-Men in he MCU?

Kevin Feige, Marvel Studios president has recently confirmed that Deadpool 3 is going to be part of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe).  The character as portrayed in the first two Deadpool movies exists in the same universe as the X-Men, but not the MCU.  This has been made possible by Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox.  It will be impossible to weave the existing X-Men into the MCU, the continuity would be impossible to reconcile.  Looking at the X-Men movies in their entirety, you may say what continuity! But as Deadpool exists on the fringe of the X universe rather than at its heart, this can still work.  But is does lead to the question, will the X-Men make their way into the MCU.  The answer is that they more than likely will. [WandaVision – SPOILER WARNING] For as moment it looked like it had already happened when it appeared that Evan Peters who portrayed Peter Maximoff/Quicksilver in three X-Men movies appeared in WandaVision as Pietro Maximoff.  It transpired that he wasn’t , in effect preventing the actor from future MCU appearances [end of spoilers].  

How will this happen?  There had been suggestions that the X-Men have existed in their own timeline, and will merge with the MCU via events in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022), the TV show Wandavision (2021), or even the time travel antics of Avengers Endgame (2019).  One of these has proved not to be the case so far.  Existing in their own timeline, then merging would explain why we haven’t seen them before in the MCU, and why they didn’t help out in the small matter of Thanos.  Let’s not forget “The Twins” Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch), and Pietro Maximoff (Quicksilver) gained their abilities from experiments with an infinity stone.  In the comic books, they are mutants, and furthermore, the children of Magneto (they first appeared in The X-Men #4 (March 1964)).  Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) both featured versions of Quicksilver.  The only other option would be to totally reboot them, and suggest that mutants have only just started gaining their abilities, again this would likely be connected to events in an existing property.  However they do it, some kind of reboot to the X-Men is inevitable.  With Logan (2017) marked the end of Hugh Jackman’s tenure as Wolverine, the other original X-Men had pretty much handed over to the new cast from First Class (2011), who in turn had fizzled out making two excellent films: First Class, and Days of Future Past (2014); followed by two terrible ones: Apocalypse (2016), and Dark Phoenix (2019).  The latter was the first movie in the franchise to be a fanatical failure, with Deadline Hollywood sighting it as the biggest box office bomb of 2019.

While the X-Men and the avengers don’t spend much time together on the page, they do exist in the same universe and do crossover from time to time.  Their first appearance came on The X-Men #1 (September 1963).  As with other properties, their histories, origins, and outcomes have changed as new writers come onboard, and storylines play out.  Sometimes there are huge contrivances to make the plot fit, then you have the comic book favourite, alternate universes, and just plain reboots and retcons.  Nothing is sacred, and even canon isn’t really canon!  

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby are credited with the invention of the X-Men.  Years later Lee explained he came up with the idea as an easy way of introducing an infinite number of powered characters with a variety of abilities: “I couldn’t have everybody bitten by a radioactive spider or exposed to a gamma ray explosion. And I took the cowardly way out. I said to myself, ‘Why don’t I just say they’re mutants? They were born that way.'”  There is one MCU character who has a significant crossover with the X-Men in the comic books.  Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel first appeared in Marvel Super-Heroes #13 (March 1968).  At this time she did not have her Kree powers and was a United States Air Force officer and colleague of the Kree superhero Mar-Vell aka Captain Marvel.  She was accidentally subjected some MacGuffin she mutated on a genetic level into a Human/Kree Hybrid superhuman going by the name of Ms. Marvel.  Rogue then permanently absorbed Danvers powers leaving her in a coma.  She eventually recovered , regained her powers and took the name Captain Marvel. 

This presents two opportunities.  So far in movies we have only seen Anna Paquin’s Rogue temporarily absorbing powers and crippled by the guilt of putting her first boyfriend in a coma. While a great performance, it lacks the fun, and attitude of the character from the comic books.  It isn’t clear if this was an artistic choice, or one made in a universe that didn’t include Danvers.  Whatever the reason, it would be fun to see a very different Rouge in future.  It is also worth remembering she started out as a villain in the comic books before joining the X-Men.  The second opportunity relates to Captain Marvel, like Superman, she is too powerful to be interesting.  This gives her the chance to sell an interesting story without having to find a advisory with similar power.

A final thought, if the X-Men can join the MCU, so can the Fantastic Four.  I’m sure it is due for another reboot, if not, from his Captain America duties, Chris Evans could return as Johnny Storm / Human Torch.  Unlikely, but worth it for the moment Wade Wilson mention’s how much he looks like Cap! 

Read Full Post »

MCU TVShows

As I’m sure you have heard, since the launch of Disney+ all Marvel TV shows on other networks are coming to an end.  This seems like a good time to have a quick look back at the TV shows based in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe).  It is worth noting that none of these shows had any impact on the MCU; Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, and Agent Carter has featured characters from the movies, but to the best of my knowledge, aside from a small appearance from James D’Arcy in Endgame (that has no impact on the plot), nobody has gone the other way.  Something that I understand is set to change.  In an interview with Bloomberg Marvel chief Kevin Feige said: “If you want to understand everything in future Marvel movies, he says, you’ll probably need a Disney+ subscription, because events from the new shows will factor into forthcoming films such as Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” I was always disappointed that none of the key characters from the TV shows made it into the movies, but am not sure this isn’t a step too far.  Below is a quick synopsis of the shows and what I thought of the ones I watched:

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D (2013 – 2020) – S.H.I.E.L.D recruit new agents, have personal problems, and save the world numerous times, all under the watch of Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) resurrected from the dead following the events of The Avengers. I watched this from the start.  The events of Captain America, The Winter Soldier threw them a real curveball that derailed the plot.  Surprisingly they recovered from this and the series improved.  They have also had some memorable antagonists; Kyle MacLachlan, Powers Boothe, and Bill Paxton.  It was also the first time I had seen the amazing Ruth Negga.  I gave up early in the sixth season.  I understand there will be a seventh and final season next year.

Agent Carter (2015-2016) – After the end of WWII, British Agent  Peggy Carter is working in America for Strategic Scientific Reserve (SSR), a forerunner to S.H.I.E.L.D.  She is mostly relegated to secretarial duties while the men in the office haplessly blunder around.  This series took forever to make it to the UK, I eventually saw it on Amazon, after it had been cancelled.  I watched both series, the pacing is a little up and down, but the period setting looks great and Hayley Atwell and James D’Arcy make likeable leads.

Daredevil (2015 -2018) – The first of the MCU shows made by Netflix.  Charlie Cox stars as Matt Murdock a blind lawyer who uses his superhuman senses to moonlight as the crime fighting masked vigilante Daredevil.  The first season was excellent, but lost its way in the second before returning for a fantastic third and final season.  I binged all three seasons as soon as they came out.

Jessica Jones (2015 – 2019) – The second Netfix show: Following a short stint as a superhero, with a tragic ending, Jessica Jones reinvents herself as a New York private detective with a drink problem.  Running for just 39 episodes over three seasons, this was my favourite  Marvel TV show.  Krysten Ritter was perfectly cast as the snarky, sarcastic lead, the supporting cast was also great.  The stories, particularly season one were amongst the strongest too.  As with Daredevil, I binged them all!

Luke Cage 2016 – 2018 – Having already been introduced in Jessica Jones, Luke Cage (Mike Colter) gets his own show.  Reluctant hero Cage is a former convict with superhuman strength and unbreakable skin.  Set in Harlem with a largely African American cast, the series made a refreshing change to the usual super hero shows and movies.  The villains are excellent, particularly Alfre Woodard, and a pre Oscar Mahershala Ali.  The supporting cast includes the always excellent Rosario Dawson, reprising her role from Daredevil.  It ran for 26 episodes over two seasons, I watched them all and largely enjoyed it.  The first season started really well but lost its way, the second season was up and down. 

Marvels Inhumans (2017) – I understand the plot goes something like this: After a military coup, the Inhuman Royal Family escape their home on the dark side of the moon, to Hawaii.  They must put aside personal differences to save the world!  The first two episodes were shot in IMAX and screened in cinemas.  I didn’t get around to seeing them, but understand they are terrible.  I didn’t bother with the series, and it seems no one else did either, it bombed and was swiftly cancelled, the eight completed episodes were retiled a mini-series

Iron Fist (2017 – 2018) – The weakest of the Netflix shows.  Finn Jones plays Danny Rand, A young man who returns to New York after being presumed dead for fifteen years following a plane crash. Rand has heightened martial arts abilities, and the ability to call upon the mystical power of the Iron Fist.  The character isn’t very well written, and the plots are less engaging than those  in the other series.  It is helped by a strong supporting cast most notably Jessica Henwick as Colleen Wing.  I watched all 23 episodes (across two seasons) but took longer over it than any other Netfix/MCU show.  As a side note Danny Rand appears as a supporting character in a few episodes of Luke Cake, and works better as a supporting character.

The Defenders 2017 –  Daredevil, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist, join forces to fight a common enemy, the Hand.  It was been suggested that it was the least-viewed Marvel Netflix following mixed reviews and word of mouth.  I enjoyed it and watched all eight episodes in quick succession.

The Punisher (2017 – 2019) – The final MCU/Netflix show.  Probably the most consistently excellent MCU show, and at its best it is as good as Jessica Jones, and Daredevil.   Jon Bernthal plays Frank Castle a former cop turned vigilante “the Punisher”, after the loss of his family.  First introduced in Daredevil, the first season goes back to tell the well trodden origin of the character.  The second season is actually better.  Another show that deserves more than the 26 episodes it got.

Marvel’s Runaways (2017 – 2020) The plot (copied from wikipedia):  “Six teenagers from different backgrounds unite against a common enemy – their criminal parents” sounds interesting.  There are twenty episodes to date, with a final season of ten due out later this month.  I haven’t seen any of them yet, but may get around to it.

Cloak & Dagger (2018 – 2019) The unsung hero of the MCU TV.  Two very different teenagers  with seemingly unconnected powers find they are more effective when working together.  An excellent show that combines all the tropes of a teen romance, with a superhero show.  Sadly cancelled in the Disney+ cull of competing Marvel properties, it deserves a third and final season.  It has been rumoured that stars, Olivia Holt and Aubrey Joseph are reprising their characters in the supporting cast of the final season of Runaways, another reason to catch up with it.

So what does Disney+ have planned for us to replace everything that has been cancelled?  The following shows have all been slated and are at various stages of production.

• The Falcon and the Winter Soldier (Filming – due: late 2020)
• WandaVision (Filming -Due: early 2021)
• Loki (Pre Production – Due 2021)
• What If…? (In Production (animated) – Due: 2021)
• Hawkeye (Ordered – Due: 2021/2022)
• Ms. Marvel (Ordered – Due: TBA)
• Moon Knight (Ordered – Due: TBA)
• She-Hulk (Ordered – Due: TBA)

The interesting thing, the first three are only set to have six episode first seasons.  Is this because they are so expensive, or are Disney spreading their properties too thinly?  Are they a toe in the water before a longer full season is ordered, or are has this just been misreported? Given the level of the MCU movies, I expect the new shows to be top quality.  I’m just not convinced cancelling excellent shows that still have millage in them the best way to do it.  Maybe there is truth to the rumour of a Disney+ reprieve for Jessica Jones and Daredevil! 

Read Full Post »

Stan Lee 1922 – 2018

We lost Stan Lee this week at the age of 95.  Many people first became aware of him from his cameo’s in Marvel movies, but his impact on popular culture goes far beyond that:  For better or worse, make your own mind up; without Stan Lee we probably wouldn’t be seeing all the comic book movies that are dominating cinema screens.  Like many people I first became aware of him from the animated shows of the 1980’s.  These animated show were the start of a push to develop Marvel properties into other media.  Initial results were mixed at best but eventually led to what we now know as the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe).

But it all started before that, growing up Lee born (Stanley Martin Lieber) loved swashbuckling movies, and dreamt of becoming a novelist.  One of his earliest jobs as a writer came writing obituaries before at the age of 17 a family connection got him a job as an assistant at Timely Comics, the precursor Marvel Comics was at the time a new division of a pulp magazine.

Lee’s first job actually writing in a comic book came with the text fillers for Captain America Comics #3 in 1941.  This was the first time he used the pseudonym Stan Lee, which later became his legal name.  Before long he moved from fillers to writing the backup feature, “‘Headline’ Hunter, Foreign Correspondent”.

His early creations Jack Frost, Father Time, and Destroyer may not be household names now, but things were about to change.  At the age of just 19 Lee was made interim editor, a position that quickly became permanent, one that he remained in for just over thirty years before becoming Publisher.  After the war, were Lee served in first the Signal Corps, and then the Training Film Division, he formed a partnership with artist Jack Kirby, together they created a few characters you may have heard of: the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk, Black Panther, Ant-Man, and the Fantastic Four.

He also created Daredevil with Bill Everett. And with Steve Ditko with, Doctor Strange and his (and Marvel’s most successful character) Spider-Man.

As significant as the characters they created, in 1963 gathered them together along with some older character, most notably Captain America to create the  Avengers, a rival to DC’s Justice League (originally Justice League of America). With various reboots, relaunches, spin-offs, alternate universes, and ever changing line-up, The Avengers have been a constant fixture within the comic book world.     

In 1981 Lee moved from New York to California in 1981 to develop Marvel’s movie and TV, while the live action of these were forgettable at best, the cartoons introduced a whole new generation to Marvel.  They also provided the springboard of what was to come.  The success of Blade for New Line Cinema, X-Men with Fox Studio’s and Sony’s Spider-Man movies proved there was a market for quality comic book movies that snowballed into the MCU, and who knows where that will take us? Excelsior!

Read Full Post »

Sequels Suck?

In a particularly meta moment in the oh so meta Scream 2, Randy (Jamie Kennedy) tells us “Sequels suck!” and “By definition alone, sequels are inferior films!”. Classmate Mickey (Timothy Olyphant) disagrees “It’s bullshit generalization. Many sequels have surpassed their originals.”  He suggests T-2, another classmate played by Joshua Jackson thinks “Aliens. Far better than the first.”  While I don’t totally agree, I prefer The Terminator to T-2, and love Alien and Aliens equally, there are however, some horror sequels and second films is series that I prefer to the first:

Bride of Frankenstein (1935): I love the original, but the sequel has the edge.  Together cinematographer John Mescall and art director Charles D. Hall, director James Whale created Expressionist masterpiece that isn’t just a horror movie, it’s also a social satire and a comedy.  The greatest of the Universal horrors. 

Dawn of the Dead (1978): George A. Romero’s masterpiece came a whole decade after the original film, Night Of The Living Dead. Tom Savini (who also appears in the film) provided the zombie makeup that makes the film so effective.  The allegory of modern consumer society is more and more relevant as time passes.  A film that manages to be both a truly gruesome horror and a clever satire. 

Evil Dead II (1987): Bruce Campbell returns as Ash in Sam Raimi’s sequel to The Evil Dead.  It is essentially more of the same from the first film but more polished, more gory and a hell of a lot funnier. 

Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966): Most fans will tell you the first Hammer Dracula, Horror of Dracula from 1958 is the best.  While a great film and one of the studio’s best, it is a retread of Bram Stoker ‘s original often told story.  Prince of Darkness is an original story, and a really effective one. It lacks  Peter Cushing as Van Helsing (except a prologue recap of the previous film) but Andrew Keir’s Father Sandor is a suitable substitute.  Famously, Christopher Lee doesn’t speak in this film (as the dialogue in the script was so bad), this makes his performance is more chilling.  A true horror that has a feeling of dread from start to finish. 

Blade II (2002): Wesley Snipes is perfectly cast as the half human, half vampire “daywalker” vampire hunter.  Predating the MCU, Blade (1998) proved what Marvel movies could be.  It works as both a horror, and an action movie, with suitable amounts of both gore and humour.  How could you make this better?  Hire Guillermo del Toro to direct it!  del Toro brings even more style, but also, as always  he plays with the idea of who the monsters are. 

The Devil’s Rejects (2005): Admittedly this one has something of low bar, 2003’s House of 1,000 Corpses wasn’t great, but this second instalment of the (mis)adventures of the Firefly family is a really solid grindhouse inspired gore-fest.  By far the best Rob Zombie directed movie, and the end is fantastic.  A third instalment 3 from Hell is in post production and due out in 2019. 

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016):  Totally different to the original, telling a very different story, and dropping the now tired found footage gimmick.  Most of the film is a claustrophobic three-hander; John Goodman is fantastic, Mary Elizabeth Winstead is even better. 

I have only included horror movies, there are plenty of examples from other genres, I have also stuck to examples where I think the sequel is better than the original movie, not merely good sequels.  

Read Full Post »

Avengers 2.0

The beginning of the end is near.  The next movie in the MCU, Avengers: Infinity War is less than a month away.  That will just leave Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel (a prequel to existing films rather than a continuation), and then an as yet untitled Avengers film, with it Phase Three will be over.  And with the end of Phase Three we will potentially see the end of some of the characters.  It has been reported that the following actors intend to hang-up their super hero costumes next year: Chris Evans (Steve Rogers aka Captain America), Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark aka Iron Man), Chris Hemsworth (Thor). 

This will leave just Tom Holland (Peter Parker aka Spider-Man), and Chadwick Boseman (T’Challa aka Black Panther) as the only remaining Avengers deemed significant enough to have their own films.  They will be joined by any surviving cast.  They can’t simply recast, this will be conspicuous at best, disastrous at worst.  There is another answer within the existing cast: Natalie Portman (Jane Foster), Sebastian Stan (Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier aka White Wolf), Don Cheadle (Lieutenant James Rhodes aka War Machine).

In the comic books on which the MCU is based, these characters have all taken on the part of other heroes: Bucky Barnes – Captain America, James Rhodes – Iron Man, Jane Foster – Thor. 

There have been many other incarnations of the comic books where existing characters have taken on the mantle of other heroes, they include Sam Wilson aka Falcon as Captain America and Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow as Thor. 

You may remember the scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron when the Avengers take it in turns to try and lift Mjolnir, all except  Black Widow, should this tell us something?

Having said all this, they could just introduce some new characters! 

Read Full Post »