Retro Duo: 50 First Dates (2004); Kick-Ass (2010)

Though no great Sandler fan, I found this
"oldie" of his fairly charming.

50 First Dates (2004)

Director: Peter Segal

A pretty decent rom-com, and one that serves to further remind us of Adam Sandler's oft-abandoned potential.

Set in Hawai'i, Sandler plays animal veterinarian and womanizer Dr. Henry Roth. Roth's modus operandi is to lie about his identity in fantastic ways in order to bed vacationing single women, which allows him to make no serious relationship commitments. This changes when Henry comes across Lucy (Drew Barrymore). At first, Henry sees Lucy as another potential conquest. That is, until he is made aware that Lucy suffers from short-term memory loss, which causes her to forget everything she has experienced that day once she goes to sleep that night. Despite her condition, Henry quickly falls in love with her, going to great lengths to re-introduce himself to Lucy each day, despite the fact that she never remembers him once the day is over.

Like many people, my history with Adam Sandler has been very mixed, and I have almost completely avoided the dreck comedies that he's been putting out for many years now. Still, I loved a few of his earlier comedies, especially Happy Gilmore, and I found him especially effective in the against-type dramatic role he played in Punch-Drunk Love. 50 First Dates was his second teaming with Drew Barrymore, after the also-entertaining The Wedding Singer in 1998, and it is arguably a deeper, more touching movie than that earlier pairing.

The general appeal of Adam Sandler has always been the comedy of his Jekyl/Hyde "lovable dope/furious buffoon" balancing act. In 50 First Dates, he drops the rage monster persona and swaps it out for the part of a womanizer - a move that was a refreshing change of pace and allowed the more charismatic aspects of his on-screen persona to shine through. He and the also-sweet Drew Berrymore have a very strong chemistry, which is no doubt why they've done several rom-coms together spanning two decades. This was still very much the case in this movie, in which the love story is spun out nicely, with some fun, light-hearted comic contrivances. It was actually effective enough to pull one's attention away from the moronic character Ula, played by the always over-the-top Rob Schneider (one of several Sandler buddies who show up and add plenty of ham to nearly all of his movies).

While the movie isn't to be taken too seriously, the romance elements are endearing enough. It's one that I could see myself going back to at some point, as it's one that my wife quite enjoys. We can both share some good laughs while I don't feel my intelligence is being completely insulted. That's really about all I need from a romantic comedy, and 50 First Dates provides that in the beautifully lush setting of Hawai'i.

Kick-Ass (2010)

Director: Matthew Vaughn

How on earth I - a fairly devoted fan of comic book superhero movies - had never seen this movie is a bit of a mystery. It received a fair amount of buzz and was a solid commercial success when it was released back in 2010. Still, I somehow completely missed it. And even when I watched and thoroughly enjoyed Kingsmen: The Secret Service, by the same writer and director, and saw that he was also responsible for Kick-Ass, I still went a few more years without seeing it. Well, that is now remedied.

The movie is merely alright, which was a bit of a surprise, given its reputation.

The movie follows Dave Lizewski, a run-of-the-mill high school senior deeply enamored of costumed, comic book superheroes. So enamored, in fact, that he decides to become one after witnessing more than a few brutal crimes in his neighborhood. While not having any supernatural abilities (nobody does, in this film's world), Lizewski trains to fight, dubs himself "Kick-Ass," and even manages to be just successful enough to start building something of a fan following. It also captures the attention of a powerful local crime boss and a father-daughter costumed vigilante duo in the area. Things grow ever more treacherous for Lizewski as the stakes get higher for him and his crime-fighting alter ego.

Given the context of its time, I can guess that I would have loved this movie far more had I seen it back in 2010 or even within a year or two of its release. It's harder to recall now, but back then, the big-budget, comic book superhero movie trend was only just beginning to get into full swing. Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins and The Dark Knight had come out a few years before, sure. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe was still barely nascent. What is now a 23-movies-and-counting global movie juggernaut was then only a two-movie dream, with Iron Man and the relatively forgotten The Incredible Hulk being the only movies released up to then. And the X-Men movie franchise was in a bit of a rut, having released the laughably messy X-Men Origins: Wolverine the year before. In the face of these rather straightforward superhero tales came Kick-Ass, an R-rated, darkly funny and extremely violent costumed hero story of a very different ilk. It must have felt like a real treat to watch something that turned the cinematic genre on its ear a little bit.

Seeing it for the first time in 2019, though? It just doesn't pack as much of a punch. By now, comic book superhero movies and (now) TV shows have gotten at least as funny, dark, and quirky as Kick-Ass was nearly a decade ago. It's still entertaining enough, but if you're looking for smart, mature "super-hero" stories, there are just too many better options on TV and film now. 

New Release! Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019)

No Spoilers, sort of (there are some big ones from Avengers: Endgame, for the seven Earthlings who haven't seen that movie yet)

Director: Jon Watts

The Marvel Cinematic Universe just keeps the hits coming, much to the delight of fans like me and the deep chagrin of those who see superhero movies as a blight on the cinematic landscape. Far from Home only solidifies Disney and Marvel's death grip on the blockbuster scene, as it offers yet another blast of a fantasy/action film that points the massive MCU towards its future after the landscape-altering mammoth movie Avengers: Endgame from two months prior. And while it certainly relies on several previous MCU films to convey its fullest effects, it is also a genuinely fun film on its many smaller, more intimate levels.

Picking up roughly eight months after half of the galaxy's living beings have been returned from the "Death Snap" of Thanos, as chronicled in Endgame, Peter Parker and several of his classmates are finishing up their five-year-delayed junior year of high school with a trip to Europe. Unbeknownst to nearly any of his friends, Peter is also dealing with the weight of the loss of his mentor, Tony "Iron Man" Stark. As he is dealing with the pull between the looming responsibilities that Stark bestowed upon him and his desire to live a normal teenager's life, a strange new threat arises in the form of massive elemental creatures attacking various cities around the globe. Attempting to deal with this threat is a newcomer to the superhero game - Quentin Beck, a man who explains that he is from an alternate, parallel universe which was destroyed by the same elemental monsters which threaten to do the same to Peter's earth.

Far from Home was wonderfully entertaining. Maintaining the vibe and buoyancy of the first film, Homecoming, this is definitely one of the most touching, down-to-earth films in the MCU. It's much more in tune with the small-scale charm of Ant-Man than the rollicking, ensemble-cast smash-ups of Avengers: Age of Ultron or even the Guardians of the Galaxy films. I find Tom Holland to be the best Peter Parker yet, no disrespect to Toby McGuire or Andrew Garfield, who did well in their turns as the web-slinger. But Holland brings all of the sweetness, awkwardness, and acrobatics to the role that one could ask. It also helps that the film once again offers a fantastic supporting cast. From Samuel L. Jackson to Jake Gyllenhaal, to the many lesser-known but highly capable talents like Jacob Batalon as best friend Nick or Zandaya as clever love interest MJ, there's not one character who feels out of place or doesn't bring some good laughs.

The story itself is another strong one - maybe one of the better ones in the MCU, in terms of taking some fun turns and offering a few new directions for the Parker character. If one is familiar with the comic books (I was a massive Spider-Man fan when I was younger) or recent cartoons, then certain revelations in the plot will be far less surprising. But even for someone like me, who could mostly see them coming, it is impressive to see how the writers pulled it off. The visual effects, like all MCU movies, are top-notch. More importantly, they are actually used to great effect in two particular sequences, the details of which I will refrain from offering, just to keep from spoiling anything.

Nick Fury's presence highlights the double-edged sword of
a shared film universe: you can bring back great characters
and tell longer and more complex stories, but it stunts
each individual movie's ability to be its own story.

The one criticism I can level at Far from Home is essentially the same one that we can level at every MCU movie, to varying degrees, since the films started building their "shared universe" in earnest, way back in Iron Man 2 in 2010. One cannot fully enjoy this movie without having seen several of the earlier movies in the MCU. If you haven't, then several characters, important and minor, will feel bafflingly enigmatic. If you don't know the full story of Happy Hogan from the Iron Man films or Nick Fury and Maria Hill from a good half-dozen MCU movies, then you'll certainly have a "late to the party" feeling. And no really good movie should do that to its viewers. Devoted fans like me love the inter-connectedness of the MCU, but it ultimately kills the chances that they will ever be able to do a truly stand-alone movie again.

This movie will definitely please fans of the MCU, just as it will please fans of Spider-Man who aren't as dedicated to the 23-films-and-counting sprawl of the MCU. Much more casual fans will likely be entertained by the spectacle and the humor of the movie, but they should expect to be confused by characters and plot threads that have been developed in earlier movies. 

New Release with No Spoilers: Avengers: Endgame (2019)

No Spoilers Here - Read Away!

Directors: Anthony and Joe Russo

What a titanic piece of work, and one that takes more than a few risks. That is why it is a highly impressive follow-up to last year's Infinity War, and a wonderfully fitting final chapter to the Marvel Cinematic Universe's (MCU) first decade of blockbuster movie domination.

Before getting into my general thoughts, I should point out that Endgame, like its predecessor Infinity War, is not a friendly film for those unfamiliar with the seminal films of the MCU. For the last few years, the MCU has been better described as a large-scale film series rather than a group of individual films which take place in the same "universe". While a viewer certainly doesn't need to have seen all 21 of the previous MCU films, seeing at least a half dozen specific ones will provide far greater context for the events in Endgame. My personal recommendations for the highly recommended "homework" films would be:

Iron Man
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Avengers
Thor: The Dark World
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Guardians of the Galaxy
Captain America: Civil War
The Avengers: Infinity War
Ant-Man and The Wasp

There are a few other films that one could watch in order to fully understand some of the lesser plot points and gags in Endgame, but the nine listed above will give one a very solid foundation upon which to enjoy the new movie without feeling lost.

This being the "no spoiler" section, I cannot dive into the plot points except to state that Endgame spends a fair bit of time dealing with the fallout of Thanos's "snap" from Infinity War, with which he used the Infinity Gauntlet to literally annihilate half of the population of the known universe at the end of the previous film. The surviving superheroes grapple with the unfathomable loss just like everyone else - with varying degrees of success and failure. Some eventually move on. Others wallow in sad states of guilt and loss. Eventually, a possible and highly risky form of salvation is presented and those heroes left behind pull themselves together to try and enact it in an effort to bring back the countless numbers of people lost.

One of the movie's many strengths is seeing who among the
survivors ends up teaming together in the name of the new
mission laid out by Endgame.

Perhaps the thing that stands out to me about Endgame is just how different the pace and tone are, compared to Infinity War. That previous movie had an extremely brisk pace and plenty of action, right from the jump. Endgame takes a much different approach, using nearly all of the first act (which clocks in at nearly an hour) in a somber mood, looking at the familiar characters dealing with their grief and some still searching for solutions. It's not without humor, to be sure, but the moments of levity are fewer and further between than any MCU film I can recall. For a dedicated fan of the MCU like myself, however, this was a very welcome and all-but-necessary shift, coming on the heels of such a wild and devastating end to Infinity War. Viewers not familiar with the main characters' backstories are likely to be bored by the slower pace, but such is always the case when one picks up a series in its final chapter. Once the second act begins, though, things pick up quite briskly.

The second act of the movie was a very fun one, despite being the most obvious form of fan service in the entire 22-film MCU. This is not to say that it felt contrived or pandering. It actually does make complete sense within the plot of the movie, all while offering real fanboys and fangirls tons of "wink wink, nudge nudge" moments for about an hour, as we recall the many, many details from earlier movies referenced in this part of the epic film. It all culminates in scenes teased, suggested, and hoped for based on Infinity War - a third-act battle sequence of huge proportions and featuring just about every major and secondary character from the 21 previous MCU movies. And as they've done with their three previous MCU movies, the Russos show that they know how to do immensely entertaining, large-scale action.

I don't think it's giving anything away to mention that time travel plays more than a small role in this movie (how else did we think the surviving Avengers might seek to undo Thanos's galactic genocide?). As with any story that uses time travel as a device, the plot can get messy and confusing if one thinks too much about it. Endgame doesn't get too bogged down in the weeds on this, which is probably for the best, but it does raise certain questions that I'm yet to come up with answers to, despite mulling them over for a good 48 hours after watching the movie. There are also a few other unresolved plot threads that may give you an un-scratchable itch, but there's nothing that torpedoes the main thrust of the story.

The other aspect at the heart of this film is the characters. Like the narrative, the Russos throw us more than a couple of curve balls here, presenting some heroes as totally shattered emotionally (and not always the ones you expect) while others remain staunchly dedicated to the seemingly futile search for a way to bring everyone back. It is during these inner struggles that it helps to know about the characters since knowing about their past motivations and relationships with each other adds greatly to the emotional impact of the entire movie, especially the first and second acts. And for fans who have enjoyed the emotional heart of this series going back to the earliest seminal movies Iron Man and Captain America: The First Avenger, the ending should be immensely satisfying.

***Since writing the above, I've seen the film an additional two times and thoroughly enjoyed its full length all three times. Of course, I'm a tremendous fan of this series, but it speaks very highly of such a long film that even a dedicated fan can gain so much enjoyment from it.

Spoiler Section - Beware!!!

So let's get into this thing a little more. I could probably write a 20,000-word rabbit hole piece about so many specific details and how I loved or disliked them, but I'll stick to a few of the larger points.

The time travel. Let's get this out of the way. As a plot device to resolve the devastation unleashed in Infinity War, it was a necessary evil. But evil it still was. Yes, it provides a great reason for our heroes to go back and revisit moments chronicled in several earlier films in the series, and do so in some wonderfully entertaining ways. But still, when one thinks about it all for more than a few moments, it all falls apart rather quickly. If 2014 Thanos, along with his army and Gamorah and Nebula, jumps ahead to 2023 to confront the Avengers and gets annihilated, then you've now obliterated all of the things that Thanos (and his army and daughters) did up to and after Guardians of the Galaxy. That has a lot of massive impacts, the most obvious of which is that Thanos is now no longer around to kick of the Infinity War story. On a smaller scale, Steve Rogers going back and staying in the 1940s to live out his life with Peggy Carter (a wonderfully satisfying moment of closure) leaves a ton of unanswerable questions about their relationship, such as why Peggy doesn't ackowledge him as her husband back in The Winter Soldier. And on and on the questions go, leading to a completely shattered continuity. That's by far my biggest issue with this movie. Again, though, it was probably a necessary evil, given exactly what had happened previously.

My other gripes are much smaller and easily shrugged off. The final battle is highly enjoyable, though I could have done without the high amount of posing and the cringe-worthy "She'll have help," up-with-women moment towards the end. Don't get me wrong - I love the women characters in the MCU, and I love seeing them kick ass, whether individually or together. But that moment felt so contrived that it broke my enjoyment of the battle. Oh, and why does anyone, including Peter Parker or anyone else, think that Captain Marvel needs any help to get through a few score foot soldiers? Did they not just see her single-handedly bring down Thanos's immense warship by flying through it in about 10 seconds flat? Those and a few other things had me rolling my eyes a bit, but again - easily shrugged off.

What impressed me the most is how the plot defied my expectations. As I do with all blockbuster movies which I'm eager to see, I completely blocked out any trailers or other information about the movie. That way, it could reveal itself to me upon my first viewing. Endgame rewarded that approach. Having a handful of the remaining Avengers rather quickly track down Thanos and execute him was not something I saw coming, nor was the five year jump in the narrative. And then there was fat Thor, Black Widow's sacrifice, and Steve Rogers electing to go back and reclaim the life he lost in 1945. I really do feel like the writers took some real risks with this story. They could very well have done a full two-and-a-half hour "let's go get Thanos" story, but they elected to focus more on dealing with loss and fighting to undo a horrendous tragedy rather than focus more on a revenge tale. I think this made the movie a great counter-balance and follow-up to Infinity War, which was a very fast-paced film heavily emphasizing action/adventure elements over emotional touchstones.

The curious thing now is the question of where the MCU goes from this point. It was a bold stroke to move the entire universe five years into the future, which threatens to really jerk with the continuity that many of us MCU nerds cherish. The threat of dangling time threads aside, I'm still completely on board with what may come. Right now, there are only a few "known" movies planned, but details are extremely slim. I do hope to see at least one more movie featuring the "Asguardians of the Galaxy," as Portly Thor referred to them. That team-up has a dizzying amount of entertainment potential. 

New Release, with Spoiler-Free first section! Captain Marvel (2019)

Spoiler-Free Section. Read Away!

Directors: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck

A somewhat flawed but enjoyable entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), for those of us who have been enjoying the fantasy action/adventure provided by the Marvel Studios juggernaut franchise.

Since this is the spoiler-free section of my review, I'll stick to only the broad narrative strokes. During the mid-1990s by Earth reckoning and on a distant planet, a young woman known as Vers (pronounced "Veerz," and played by Brie Larson) is completing her training as a rescue force for the local Kree, a humanoid race of aliens who are at war with the shape-shifting Skrulls. Vers is sent with her small platoon to rescue a prominent Kree from the clutches of the Skrulls on a remote planet. The mission goes sideways, and Vers finds soon herself crashed on Earth, followed by several Skrulls. As Vers seeks to complete her now-altered mission, serious questions about her own identity begin to emerge, including several possible connections to the planet on which she now finds herself.

Captain Marvel is the twenty-first film in the MCU, the blockbuster movie juggernaut franchise which shows no signs of slowing down. While it is the first movie released since last spring's immense, cliff-hanging Avengers: Infinity War, this film does not seek to continue that movie's rather shocking ending. Rather, it goes backwards into the MCU timeline roughly 25 years, in order to introduce a new character into the film world's mythos. It's a peculiar tactic, and one that smacks a bit of a reaction to the tremendous success of the wildly successful, girl-powered smash hit Wonder Woman from two years ago. Regardless, Captain Marvel tells its own rather unique tale, and has plenty of fun doing it.

The film has a few clear strengths. One is how the overall story takes a few worthy plot twists unlike any that I'd seen in an MCU flick to this point. One in particular sets it apart from its MCU brethren, imbuing the tale with a certain depth and heart that one might not see coming. I also found the humor to be solid. Tapping into some Guardians of the Galaxy-style comedy, as well as the incomparable skills of Samuel L. Jackson and Ben Mendelsohn, I found myself laughing out loud plenty of times, mostly at quick one-liners or comic situations. The other strength I found was that the movie offered a satisfying, smash-bang ending to the third act - something which I wasn't sure was coming or not. All of these added up to a movie which was satisfying, if not quite among the very best MCU movies.

So what keeps it back? One is that the pace of the narrative is often a tad too brisk. The location-jumping keeps the story moving, to be sure, but it also makes it very difficult to settle in and get much of a sense of place. Related to this is that, due to the structure of the narrative, we only get to know Vers so well. There are some interesting revelations about her and her background, but much of it is given in rapid-fire, five-second flashbacks, leaving us with only a rough grip on who she truly is as a person. There seems to be a lot of potential to have more fun with her, and I hope she gets a follow-up movie to prove it, but in somewhat breaking the mold on the "superhero origin movie," we don't have as complete a sense of the protagonist's entire mental makeup. On top of these elements, there are more than a few unanswered questions (sometimes read "plot holes") raised by the planet-jumping tale. Some of them are small-scale and easily brushed aside, while others are larger ones with greater implications for the MCU as a whole.

Because I'm a bit of an MCU junkie, I'll almost certainly go out and see this movie on the big screen again within the next few weeks, as part of my buildup to the release of Avengers: Endgame in late April. Fans of the MCU will hardly be disappointed by this one, even if, like me, they don't put it among the very best that Marvel has offered. Those who are not fans of the MCU are not likely to be won over by Captain Marvel, but they will probably find at least a bit of entertainment to go with a few pleasant surprises.

For the most part, the presence of a young Nick
Fury is a major asset to the film. It does, however,
raise a few not-so-easy to answer questions.

Spoiler Section - You've Been Warned

A few specific dislikes and likes about the movie:

While I loved seeing a young Nick Fury in action, I simply can't shake off the serious questions that his experiences in Captain Marvel raise. If the man had literally come face-to-face with hostile (and not-so-hostile) aliens, why does Fury act like Thor's arrival in the Norse prince's eponymous 2010 film is the thing that spurs him to action, as chronicled in The Avengers? And if Captain Marvel is only meant to be called in case of "emergency," why the hell didn't Fury hit that pager button when Loki attacked New York in 2012? Or when Ultron tried to drop a meteor on the planet in 2015? If those aren't emergency situations, then what is?! These and other, smaller, questions of continuity irk my brain a little bit, even if they aren't deal breakers.

To build on my earlier thoughts on the lack of solid character development with Carol Danvers, I really wish we had been able to get a few more extended looks into her life as an Air Force pilot before being abducted by Yon-Rogg. I certainly understood what the filmmakers were going for, first giving us glimpses of Danvers's past failures in life, followed later by the moments in which she "got up" from those failures. But I feel as if her story would have been deepened with even one or two longer sequences in which we viewers could sink our teeth, seeing exactly how she conducted herself when confronted with her own failure or even the glass ceiling of male chauvinism and bald-faced misogyny.

On to things that I enjoyed.

I absolutely loved how much fun Nick Fury was in this movie. Thanks to both good comic writing and Jackson's penchant for knowing exactly how to deliver lines, I laughed more at his scenes and dialog than any character in the movie. He wasn't alone, as Brie Larson and the brilliant Ben Mendelsohn add some good laughs as well, but Jackson was solid gold in this picture. It was well past time that he and the Fury character got more screen time in a single picture, having always playing support roles in the past, and Captain Marvel did not fumble the ball here.

This is Goose. Goose provides more than a little humor in 
Captain Marvel, and actually has more than one moment that
winds up being significant to MCU continuity.

The twist with the Skrulls was great. It wasn't a massive, world-changing twist, but it was nice to see a Marvel movie actually go with some slight-of-hand. In fact, this was the best twist since the "Mandarin" twist back in Iron Man 3 (I know some people hated that plot point, but I loved it). The overwhelming majority of MCU movies have laid out the villain very early and set up a very clear "good vs. evil," straight-line confrontation from which the plot doesn't deviate. Captain Marvel goes another direction, and is better for it.

Watching a fully powered-up Captain Marvel wreck shop at the end of the movie was pretty damn fun. If an action movie is going to focus on an immensely powerful character, it had better do some entertaining things involving that character putting on an awesome display of might. Watching Marvel single-handedly take down Kree warships and stare down Ronan the Accuser ranks among some of the more badass moments in the MCU, along with Thor going lightning mode in Ragnarok, The Hulk going berserk in The Avengers, and similar moments that had me thinking, "Oh, hell yeah!"

It looks like the Captain will be a virtual deus ex machina in the forthcoming Avengers: Endgame, and will seemingly be Earth's serious heavy hitter for the foreseeable future, as her powers seem to put her on par with the likes of Thor and other insanely powerful alien beings. We'll see just how they handle her in the future, but I'm on board. 

Idiot Boxing, MCU on Netflix: Daredevil, season 3 (2018); The Punisher, season 2 (2019)

In season 3, we see Matt ditch the red suit for a while and go
back to the original, "blind, black-clad ninja" getup. It's
still one of the coolest alternative superhero costumes.

Daredevil, season 3 (2019)

Another Netflix MCU series that has some clear strengths, but suffers from the same flaws that every Netflix MCU show has shown, to varying degrees.

Last we saw Matt Murdock, he was miraculously found alive in a mysterious location, following his apparent death at the end of The Defenders series. There, he had fought against and with his lady-love, psychotic ninja assassin Elektra Natchios, until they were seemingly buried under tons of rubble.

But Murdock was dragged free. He was taken to his neighborhood Catholic church and nursed back to health, but he has now lost his purpose in life, both as a criminal defense lawyer and as a vigilante neighborhood protector. Not only that, but his supernaturally-heightened senses seem to be horribly dulled. As he works his way through his lack of powers and personal focus, Wilson "The Kingpin" Fisk uses nefarious machinations and intimidation to secure his release from prison. He then launches an all-out assault on the reputations of the people who put him in prison in the first place - Matt Murdock, Karen Paige, and Foggy Nelson. One of Fisk's key chess pieces is Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter, a homicidal FBI special forces operative with supernatural hand-eye coordination. His skills make him lethal with any sort of projectile weapon or firearm. The psychologically fragile Poindexter is cunningly recruited by Fisk to masquerade as Daredevil, sullying the name of Murdock's alter ego as he slaughters anyone whom Fisk sees as a threat.

The broad strokes of this season were pretty good, and the connection between Fisk and Poindexter was an interesting one. Probably the most entertaining aspect of the season was how Poindexter was handled in the action scenes. His character, known as "Bullseye" in the source comic books, was always a fascinating counter-point villain to Daredevil. Although not possessed of classic "super powers," his heightened abilities to aim and kill with any object made for interesting parallels with Murdock's abilities. And the writers of this season put together a feasible backstory for Poindexter, making him compelling and terrifying in appropriate balance.

The other solid story component was the tale of compromised FBI agent Ray Nadeem, whose internal struggle as to how to cross the tightrope along which he walks gives the overall narrative a decent grounding at times. Although this story element isn't as consistently compelling as it probably could have been, it was an original enough addition to the Daredevil TV mythology to feel somewhat fresh.

Unfortunately, I found most of the other elements of the season to be rather mediocre. The most obvious is the still-tepid handling of Daredevil's primary nemesis, The Kingpin. The writers have, from the first season of the show back in 2015, seemed hell-bent on digging deep into the psyche of Wilson Fisk. This has led them to offer several flashbacks into his childhood, and give us many slow, ponderous scenes between him and his love, Vanessa. The problem is that the "romance" between Fisk and Vanessa never once feels fully formed or developed. I've always had the sense that the writers spend too much time subtly hinting at some deeper connection between the two, without adequately explaining it. All we have really gotten is that Vanessa likes a strong, powerful man, and Fisk loves her for not judging him. But the way their scenes are labored and drawn out, you would think that they were the MacBeths. But never does the writing get anywhere near the depth or subtlety that it seems to hint at. There is very much a "hint and suggest endlessly, but don't show or tell" coyness about it, but I never felt as if the substance was there to back it up.

Don't let the red suit fool you here. Under the Daredevil suit
is Benjamin "Dex" Poindexter, a psychotic killer whose hyper
OCD grants him freakish hand-eye coordination, which in
turn makes any simple object lethal in his hands.

I also found the story arcs involving Foggy and Karen rather forgettable. In fact, there's an entire episode dedicated to Karen's backstory thrust right in towards the end of the season (episode 10 out of 13). Sure, it helps us get into some of Karen's motivation, but it really gut-punched a lot of the momentum that the story had been building to that point. And the takeaway was something that could probably have been done in half the time.

And these last points illustrate yet again one of the greatest flaws of the entire Netflix MCU - the writers have still not figured out how to write a full 13 episodes of compelling, focused story. Between all of its shows, going back to 2015, there have now been eleven different seasons, with nine of them being comprised of 13 episodes (only Iron Fist's second season and the lone season of The Defenders were shorter). And not one of them has felt like it merited that many episodes. The closest any seasons have gotten were the first seasons of both Daredevil and Jessica Jones, but even those felt a tad bloated. What took them 13 episodes probably could have been done in 11 or even as few as nine or ten. Other seasons and other shows were even more notably thin, with some seasons having only 6 or 7 episodes of quality material stretched over far too many chapters. Season three of Daredevil continues this unfortunate trend, feeling as if at least two or three episodes could  have been trimmed away, leaving a tighter, more focused season.

All that said, I mostly enjoyed it. There was a satisfying amount of action, which was often well done. The show even swung for the fences on the now-established "long shot" that each season has done. In this season, we are given an amazingly long, continuous shot that begins with Matt going into the prison where Fisk had been held, then seeing things gradually devolve into an all-out brawl in which Murdock has to fight his way out. It's an impressive sequence, and one of many that keep the tension in the show at appropriate levels.

As I write this, the fate of Daredevil and all the Netflix MCU shows is known - they have all been officially cancelled. However, I doubt that this will be the last we see of some of its better entries, which includes "The Man Without Fear." My hope is that if it gets picked up elsewhere, that network sees fit to make the necessary changes to elevate this and the other MCU shows to greater heights - something which has often seemed tantalizingly possible yet has never been fully realized.


The Punisher, season 2 (2019)

I found this season to be quite solid, if not as consistent as the first season.

Frank "The Punisher" Castle gets back to the bloody work of
avenging those whom he sees as needing it. That, and of
scratching the itch of his own unquenchable bloodlust.

Although it wasn't official, the second season of The Punisher was all but a dead man walking before it even aired. Prior to its January release, three of its Netflix MCU brethren series, including the popular Daredevil, had officially been cancelled. Still, I was excited for this season, as I found the first season to be among the very best of the Netflix MCU seasons, only behind the first seasons of Daredevil and Jessica Jones. At the end of that season, Frank "The Punisher" Castle had exacted his revenge on those responsible for the brutal murders of his wife and two children, leaving only his former friend-turned-enemy Billy Russo alive. Russo was left with a destroyed criminal network and a face ravaged by broken glass. Castle himself was given a clean slate by the U.S. government and set free under the promise that he never surface under his own name again.

Fast forward several months, and Frank, going by the alias Pete Castiglioni, is drifting through the country, minding his own business. But when he steps in to help a young woman, Amy, in distress in a bar in rural Michigan, he gets sucked into a violent struggle between some powerful forces. Frank;s attempt to keep Amy out of harm's way soon takes him back to New York City, where his ultimate nemesis and former best friend Billy Russo escapes the hospital where he has been recovering from severe facial trauma and amnesia. As Billy returns to his violent ways, he and Frank begin another bloody dance towards each other, as other outside forces hone in on all of them.

While I understand some viewers' and critics' issues with season 2, I thought that it did far more correctly than it did incorrectly.

The Punisher character was introduced back in the mid-1970s, in the comic "The Amazing Spider-Man." Right from his creation, Frank Castle was one of the darkest, most troubling characters in the Marvel Universe. In the mold of "Dirty" Harry Callahan, he was essentially a murderer who had some semblance of a code, executing people who most of us would agree were as close to pure evil as a person could be. This still never changes the facts that such characters are, still, murderers who only seem capable of dealing with violent people in even more violent ways. Handling such a character can be tricky, as trying to make them more palatable to a broader audience takes away exactly what makes them compelling. Conversely, some writers can swing too far the other way, making the characters ultra-violent and the stories B-grade, grindhouse fare. This is how we end up with adaptations like Punisher: War Zone.

One of the many, many thugs who comes at Castle, only to
end up on the losing end. And with the preternaturally skilled
killer, that only ends one way.

As with the first season, the show-runners for the Netflix version have done excellent work looking at Frank Castle as a very believable, and very disturbing person. The second season digs deeper into the fact that Frank is, and has always been, a violent killing machine. Just as his arch-nemesis and former friend Billy Russo has been, and just as newcomer John Pilgrim seemingly has always been. These three characters are soaked in blood, which they all seem to realize is their natural place. The season does a solid, if slightly incomplete, job of juxtaposing the three men as the narrative progresses, illustrating that Frank is only slightly less terrifying than the other two. It is rather compelling to note how each man's bloodthirsty nature is often subsumed by other aspects of their character. With Pilgrim, it is his religion. With Russo, it is his narcissism and materialism. And with Frank, it is his code and notion that he is protecting or avenging innocent people.

A show about such dark and violent people must, of course, offer grisly action, and The Punisher delivers again. I found many of the sequences very well done, having the grit, ferocity, and intensity that one would hope for. While there aren't quite as many creatively-choreographed scenarios as the first season, there are still more than a few clever set-ups, fist fights, and shootouts. The season finale actually features a few of the best of the entire season, which is what one would hope for.

This season was not without its weaknesses, though. The initial setup is, inexplicably, completely random. Even with dozens of reasons that dangerous people might be looking for Frank Castle, it's sheer chance that puts him in contact with Amy, kicking off the entire season story. And there is the inevitable lull in the middle episodes, where the pace languishes for about 4 episodes. On an aesthetic front, the makeup job which turns the previously-handsome Bill Russo into "Jigsaw" is laughably lame. In the comics, the character is horrifically scarred, but in this TV show, it looks like something you could do with a $25 Halloween makeup kit. And the twisted romance between Russo and his psychiatrist Floriana Lima always feels awkwardly contrived. While it was nice of the writers not to lean on strong characters from the past, I was hoping to see Micro for much of the season, to no avail.

Fortunately, the weaknesses mostly emerge in the middle of the season, and the show comes to a strong finish in its final four or five episodes. Marvel was smart to allow show-runner Steve Lightfoot plenty of freedom to make Frank Castle as dark and disturbing as he should be. In many ways, the character is a dark reflection of the violent impulses that course through the veins of American culture and society, and it's worth considering his troubling appeal not unlike the way we should do with the many "Dirty" Harry Callahan characters which have been popular over the years. 

New Release! Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (2018)

Directors: Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman

A visually stunning, highly imaginative and entertaining take on the well-worn paths of the Spider-Man mythos.

Anyone who knows Marvel's Spider-Man character knows the basics of his origin - a young man, Peter Parker, is bitten by an irradiated spider, and Parker then acquires certain spider-like abilities. He can walk on walls, has proportional strength which allows him to bench press buses, and gains a "spider sense" which warns him of imminent physical danger. Not long after acquiring these abilities, Peter's arrogance and selfishness lead him to allow a criminal to escape - a criminal who soon after kills his beloved Uncle Ben. The lesson Parker takes from this is that "With great power comes great responsibility."

This tale has been told and paraphrased plenty of times over the years, including two separate but equally detailed film renditions, one in 2002 and the next in 2012. In fact, the story was so overly familiar that when Marvel added yet a newer version of the famous web-slinger in the 2017 film, Spider-Man: Homecoming, they made a virtual joke out of not rehashing Peter Parker's origin story. They just jumped right into what Parker was doing after his spider mishap.

So how does Into the Spider-verse fit into all of this? By going extra-dimensional, and having a creative blast doing it.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse initially introduces us to a Spider-Man who is familiar but not exactly the Spider-Man most of us have known for decades. His name is Peter Parker, but there are a few tweaks to his look and life. More strangely, we are not initially seeing his story from his perspective, but rather that of a neighborhood kid, Miles Morales. Morales eventually is bitten by a radioactive spider himself, but not in a lab, as was the original Spider-Man, but rather in an underground sewage area where he and his uncle practice graffiti. Before long, Morales finds that he exhibits the same extraordinary abilities of the famous New York superhero in red and blue tights. Not only that, but he finds himself in the middle of a battle that sees the arch-nemesis Kingpin kill Peter Parker during a struggle surrounding a device that will open portals to other dimensions. And what ends up spilling into Miles's world? Other Spider-People from those other dimensions. Things get, shall we say, complicated.

Morales gradually meets the various Spider-Beings - another Parker Spider-Man, Spider-Gwen, and even Spider-Ham and a few other even lesser-known iterations of the classic hero - and they seek to thwart Kingpin's nefarious schemes.

Miles Morales, the likable kid who has the mantle of
"Spider-Man" thrust onto his shoulders unexpectedly. He's a
great character, adding his own welcome insecurities and quirks.

This is obviously not your grandfather's Spider-Man story. There's a lot going on in this movie, but it somehow never gets too crazy to handle. With the focus remaining on the ever-lovable Miles Morales, the tale is easier to digest, as he is initially just as confused as we viewers probably are. It also helps that the narrative itself makes fun of its own insanity more than a few times. But what makes the story most satisfying is the primary arc about Morales's growth as a young man who learns how to be a hero.

Beyond the creative story, the most obvious strength of this movie is the dazzling visuals. Frankly, I've never seen anything like it. Making full use of the miracles of modern digital animation, Into the Spider-Verse combines a plethora of styles and techniques taken from graphic art, cinema, and other visual arts to dazzle us for the entire story's length. My wife, not particularly a fan of comics or the movies based on them, was impressed enough to admit that she would gladly go back and watch the movie again, just for the visuals.

More than a few fans and well-respected critics have rated Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse as their favorite superhero flick of 2018. And that's saying something, in a year that featured Avengers: Infinity War and the Oscar-nominated Black Panther. I can't argue with them either. For sheer creativity and entertainment, Into the Spiderverse has taken a place among the very best of fantasy action movies, animated or otherwise. 

New-ish Releases, Spoiler-Free Reviews: Justice League (2017); It (2017)

Justice League (2017)

No Spoilers!

Director: Zack Snyder

This one was OK, which actually qualifies as a pleasant surprise to me.

Justice League was the fifth film in the "DC Extended Universe" (DCEU). After paying to see the underwhelming Man of Steel in 2013 and then the utter mess that was Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice a couple of years ago, I swore off paying theater prices to see any of the DCEU flicks. While I broke that vow to see Wonder Woman, after all of that movie's mostly-deserved high praise, that initial boycotting paid off by my avoiding the sloppy Suicide Squad. While I am glad that I didn't shell out theater price for Justice League, I have to say that it was a reasonably satisfying at-home rental.

The story picks up several of the ostentatiously dangling and flapping threads left over from Batman v. Superman. With Clark Kent/Superman's apparent death at the hands of the Doomsday monster, the alien conqueror Steppenwolf sees his chance to lead an assault on Earth and take over the planet. It's an attempt which he had made in the past, only to be rebuffed by the collective forces of several of earth's mythically powerful races. Now that Steppenwolf is back with a massive army of fear-feasting insectoids, Batman recruits one known ally, Diana Prince/Wonder Woman, to enlist the aid of other people with apparent superpowers. These lead them to band together a group that includes Barry "The Flash" Allen, Arthur "Aquaman" Curry, and Victor "Cyborg" Stone.

In most ways, the movie is fairly paint-by-numbers. I will admit that I suspect Joss Whedon, who was brought in to take over as writer/director after Snyder had a family tragedy to deal with, probably was responsible for some of the more intriguing and clever narrative ties in the film. I also wouldn't be surprised if he had a hand in writing some of the more engaging fight sequences. The one which I found most entertaining seemed very much like something we would have seen in The Avengers. Whether it was Whedon or co-writer Chris Terrio, this movie definitely had the lighter tone and funnier gags that Batman v. Superman was painfully lacking. It still wasn't nearly on par with the best MCU or even X-Men flicks, but it was a clear improvement.

Jason Momoa certainly cuts a striking figure as Aquaman, but
the outline and dialogue never came together for me. Most of
the other characters were handled more deftly.

The core characters are a mixed bag. The villain Steppenwolf is dull - a typically one-dimensional warmonger who wants to crush everything in his path. The voice acting by Northern Irish acting veteran Ciaran Hinds is powerful, though. In terms of "The League," I found it hit-and-miss. I've personally never had a problem with Ben Affleck as Batman, and he continues to be fine here. Gal Gadot continues to be great as Wonder Woman, as well. Ezra Miller was rightfully hailed as maybe the biggest revelation in this one, as he plays the iconic Flash exceptionally well, lightening things up nicely. Cyborg, however, I found extremely dull, and this particular vision of Aquaman felt completely off to me. As a group, though, the good outweighed the bad, and the dynamics work well enough.

I can't say that Justice League won me back over to the DCEU, but it did give me an enjoyable two hours. Looking ahead, the film franchise's next movie is Aquaman, headed up by James Wan, known for recent "Fast...Furious" films and the recent Star Trek Beyond. Given my feelings for how Aquaman was handled in Justice League, and my apathy towards the Fast and Furious movies, I don't anticipate that I'll be seeing that one. I do hope that the powers behind the DCEU take some note of what worked in Justice League, though, as they really are sitting on a wealth of great fantasy characters whom they could use to make some wildly entertaining movies.

Spoilers!! You've Been Warned!

Great intro sequences with Wonder Woman. While her solo movie last year had some solid action scenes, her rescue at the bank was top-notch. And the sequence with the Amazons trying to defend the Mother Box from Steppenwolf's attack has some really fun visuals, too.

It was a brief moment, but I absolutely loved the moment when the Flash is running up on a still-deranged Superman, thinking his he has the jump on him, only to have the Man of Steel's eyes turn directly towards him, well aware of the Scarlet Speedster's approach. I have to think that that was a Joss Whedon addition, as it seems like just the type of subtle-but-awesome moment that Whedon has a knack for.

Speaking of Superman, it was probably the least surprising "twist" to bring him back in this one. It was handled fine, if not exactly in a compelling or creative way. The iconic superhero does serve as a half-decent deus ex machina, but he does raise the eternal concern with such a powerful character - how do you find a villain strong enough and interesting enough to contend with him, let alone him and his super-powered buddies?

It (2017)

Director: Andy Muschietti

A solid horror movie, if one that is drawing from several wells that have been heavily tapped by earlier scare flicks.

Based on the hit 1986 novel by popular horror master Stephen King, It follows a group of young kids in their pre- and early teens in the fictional town of Derry, Maine, a seemingly quaint little area that has a history of disturbingly high rate of missing children and horrific disasters. This tale begins in the summer of 1988, when a little boy, Georgie, is apparently sucked into a drainage opening by a monster masquerading as a circus clown. We fast forward a year, with Georgie's older brother, Bill, and his friends wrapping up the school year and looking forward to a summer of freedom. Soon, however, other children start to disappear, and Bill and his friends start to have terrifying hallucinations embodying their worst fears. Wrapped up with these fears isthe same clown, which calls itself Pennywise, that took Bill's kid brother Georgie. Sure that Pennywise means to take and devour them all, Bill and his friends must decide what to do in order to survive and possibly find any of the other children whom Pennywise has already taken.

The movie is a very solid horror movie that I put in the same box as recent horror hits like The Conjuring - it's not really doing anything new, but it uses tried-and-true horror movie techniques extremely well. You get the creepy piano music, a scary clown, creaky doors, dark basements, a spooky and dilapidated house, and almost every other trope you can imagine from such films from the past. Fortunately, director Andy Muschietti executes everything effectively, and he does implement some creative visual scares with sharp editing and a few truly startling moments. On the whole, though, I wasn't dazzled by any wealth of novelty here.

Although this movie is based on a much earlier novel, which had previously been adapted for TV in 1990, it's almost impossible to ignore its similarities with recent nostalgia-laden smash hit TV show Stranger Things, which itself is a bit of a love letter to fiction creators like Stephen King. If the 1980s setting, small town, and gang of 12- and 13-year old misfits isn't enough to make the comparison clear, It even features Finn Wolfhard, one of the young stars of Stranger Things. It doesn't do quite as good a job as the Netflix TV show of invoking the sense of fun and camaraderie, but the bond between the young kids - who dub themselves "The Losers' Club" - is effective enough.

Dank, shadowy sewers are only one of many well-known horror
tropes here. We also get eerie old houses, creaky doors, and
more, to go right along with the scary clown at the center.

The movie isn't one for subtlety, beyond even the standard horror elements already covered. The secondary characters leave no scrap of doubt as to their roles. The bullies are sneering, cackling, jackal-like predators whose every actions are despicable. The single, sleazy father of female Loser's Club member Emily simply oozes lecherousness. The shut-in mom of hypochondriac Eddie seems to have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. And on it goes, with anyone who is not a Loser's Club member being no more than two-dimensional, and basically of no help to the kids. This is an overly convenient narrative device, as it is about the only way that the kids are left to fend for themselves. It's not a fatal flaw, as the movie does need to keep its focus on the kids themselves, but I would have appreciated seeing one or two adults who actually seemed to care about their kids suffering through hellacious trauma.

Though It didn't stun me with anything exceptionally novel, it was a decent enough horror flick. It was always meant as the first of a two-part film series, with the sequel It: Chapter 2 set for a September 2019 release. I doubt that I'll bother seeing it in theaters, but I'll check it out eventually. The concept of a horror movie flashing forward 27 years to see the adult versions of the first movie's children protagonists deal with the returning horror is an interesting concept. 

New Release! Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) [Spoiler-Free Review]

I feel that it's highly appropriate that this
poster has Hope "The Wasp" van Dyne
front and center. In many ways, she owns
parts of this movie as much, or more, than
the Scott Lang character.

No Spoilers! Read On!!

Director: Peyton Reed

A light and entertaining follow-up to the original Ant-Man, and a drastically peppy apertif to the massively epic and ultimately grim Avengers: Infinity War from just a couple of months prior.

In the grand-scale Infinity War movie from this spring, which included nearly every single hero and villain from the ever-expanding, 18-film Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), there were only a couple of conspicuous absences. One of them was Scott Lang, a.k.a. "Ant-Man," (Paul Rudd) the cat burglar-turned-techno-hero who had last been seen in a massive underwater prison towards the end of 2016's Captain America: Civil War. At the start of this movie, we get the full explanation of where Lang has been for the last couple of years, right up to a few days before the events of Infinity War.

In short, Lang's now rather quiet life is interrupted by a strange experience which puts him back in contact with Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) and his daughter, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly). Hank and Hope have been hiding from the law, secretly pursuing a lead to Hank's wife, the long-presumed dead Janet Van Dyne, a.k.a. "The Wasp." In their quest to see if Janet is still, indeed, alive they must dodge not only the federal authorities, but also contend with a mysterious figure known as "Ghost," (Hannah John-Kamen) as well as the greedy, amoral capitalist Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins).

This movie was very much in keeping with the original. It's light and fun, with more than a few really entertaining uses of movie magic to illustrate the shrinking and growing powers of Dr. Pym's astonishing technologies. Since the first movie was originally under the helm of Edgar Wright, I was never how much of the original I enjoyed because of Wright's ideas, rather than Peyton Reed, who was brought into oversee the actual film once Wright stepped away. I was pleased to see that, in this sequel, the humor and more personal scale are all still very much alive. This second film actually offers a little more of the fun back-and-forth between the smart-ass Lang and the cantankerous Hank. With Paul Rudd's instinct for comic timing paired with Michael Douglass's overall acting chops, it works like magic.

Blessedly, Luis is back. Even more blessedly, the writers
avoided the pitfall of overdoing a good thing. They used the
hilarious supporting character in just the right doses.

This is a good place to mention just how much I've grown to love Evangeline Lilly in these movies. Her portrayal of Hope Van Dyne was a real highlight of the first film for me, even though she was relegated to a support role who never got to show off her real fighting skills. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, though, she all but completely takes over. Her proficiency with the Pym particle technology, merely hinted at in the first movie, is now on full display. In short, she kicks serious ass. And unlike one or two of the other women who have been cast in MCU hero or villain roles, I completely buy Lilly as a tough-as-nails fighter.

All the other enjoyable elements of the first film are there. Fun supporting characters like the ever-affable Luis and others are used to good effect, without ever being overused. The plot moves along at a good pace, and the action never grows dull. The litmus test here is my wife, who tends to grow bored quickly with most movie action, but admitted that she actually found most of the action in this movie engaging and enjoyable. This was a testament to the creativity of the visual artists behind the movie.

Like the first Ant-Man, this is not a superhero movie that is going to redefine the genre or maybe even win over anyone who is categorically opposed to such films. It is, however, a fun popcorn movie that is blessedly self-contained. Even those who haven't seen most of the other MCU movies can jump right in and enjoy it, with only the first film being a suggested prerequisite. 

New Release! Deadpool 2 (2018) [Spoiler-Free First Section]

Spoiler-Free Section

Director: David Leitch

Good, bloody, foul-mouthed fun, if perhaps not quite as good or fresh as the first Deadpool.

The first film was highly entertaining, offering a adaptation of the popular comic anti-hero/anti-villain that aimed to offer plenty of fun while roasting nearly everything about the world of now-ubiquitous comic book superhero movies. Deadpool found a great balance between providing a solid enough story and offering rousing action, while also consistently making fun of the tropes associated with the superhero genre. Amid all of this, it also managed to include just the right amount of appropriate heart, focusing on the twisted but touching relationship between assassin-for-hire Wade "Deadpool" Wilson and his ex-stripper girlfriend Vanessa.

In this sequel, the wildly irreverent tone and non-stop gags continue, mostly to good effect. Without giving anything important away, Deadpool finds himself wrapped up in a surprising bid to save the life of a young and very angry mutant, Russell (Julian Dennison). This all becomes much more difficult when a grim, highly powerful mutant from the future, Cable (Josh Brolin) becomes involved. Unable to deal with everything on his own, Deadpool enlists the aid of a few other mutants who may be familiar to readers of the 1990s and 2000s X-Force comics.

I was probably most impressed at how Deadpool 2 avoids most of the pitfalls of comedy sequels (and really, Deadpool was much more a comedy than anything else). Namely, leaning too heavily on the most well-received jokes from the first movie. Yes, the sequel does call back to a few of the best gags from the first one, but it mostly relies on coming up with new material. I do feel that one marginal but memorable character from the original movie is overused in the follow-up, but it's hardly a deal-breaker. The other problem many sequels can have, comedy and action alike, is retreading plots and ideas from a successful first film. Deadpool 2 does well with this, offering a story that is quite different from the first movie. I can't say that it provides any more depth than the first film, but the theme does give something different from the straightforward revenge/rescue tale of Deadpool.

Zazie Beets and Josh Brolin bring plenty to the table in their
performances as Domino and Cable.

I've already seen one or two comments on social media expressing the view that the humor in Deadpool 2 is "trying too hard." I understand the sentiment, but I disagree. The Deadpool character of the comics was always a motor-mouthed wise-cracker. Wade Wilson never shuts up, and the movie writers and Ryan Reynolds have always loved and respected this. As such, both movies have given us an endless barrage of verbal jabs from "The Merc with a Mouth." Given the sheer volume of jokes, it's always stood to reason to me that not every one of them will be a great joke, and sometimes not even good one. But for me, about half of them land pretty well. Since the frequency of wisecracks was so very high, I found myself with a smile on my face for most of the movie, even laughing out loud several times. This sequel does go a bit heavier on the "meta," fourth-wall-breaking commentary, which I think works better in lighter doses, as in the first film. It hardly spoils the soup that is the sequel, though.

The action in the movie is also entertaining enough, if not exactly standout. Like the overall plot, the filmmakers didn't rest on the laurels of the first film, and instead offer us newer and grander action sequences here. As with any superhero movie, we viewers want to see dazzling displays of the characters' fantastic abilities, and Deadpool 2 does a fine job of it, despite there only being a handful of truly stunning and exciting moments.

It's pretty simple: your feelings about the first Deadpool can tell you whether you'll enjoy the second. Though the plot and primary theme are different, the tone, irreverent attitude, and loving embrace of filthy language and cartoon-like gore are all there to attract or revolt just as much as the original.

Spoiler Section!!

A few thoughts on specific details:

I know better than to overthink any story which uses time travel as a device, especially in a silly movie like Deadpool 2, but I'm surprised that the hyper-aware, fourth-wall breaking Wilson didn't at least comment on the fact that Cable's altering the future by not killing Russell would result in Cable's never having been there in the first place. But again, thinking about time loops is an exercise in futility. I won't lose any sleep over it.

I actually liked the decision to kill Vanessa early, as I really didn't see it coming. Kind of a shame that they just went ahead and undid it all at the end, using Cable's aforementioned, plot-breaking time travel gadget.

Deadpool and the newly recruited "X-Force." This plot line
didn't go quite where I expected, for the better.

The assembly and rapid demise of "X-Force" was hilarious. The movie actually got me on this one, as I genuinely thought that this would be a team that would carry through the rest of the film. Having nearly all of them, including mainstay characters from the comics such as Shatterstar, meet grisly deaths not ten minutes after their introductions, was a high-point idea to me.

Also from the X-Force mini-plotline, Zazie Beets was great as Domino. I only recently became aware of Beetz from her role as Van in the brilliant TV show Atlanta, but her portrayal of the luck-imbued mutant in Deadpool 2 was a blast.

I thought the inclusion of Dopinder was unnecessary and mostly not very funny. This was the one clear case of a sequel taking a fun little bit from the first film and running it well into the ground by asking way too much of it.

This was, by far, the best rendering of The Juggernaut that we've seen. I know that this isn't saying much, as really the only previous one was the laughable presentation in X-Men 3: X-Men United - the one which gave us the oft-lambasted Vinnie Jones line "I'm the Juggernaut, bitch!" While this new one is a purely CGI-job, we did at least get the sense of the character's real presence as an unstoppable physical force of unbridled, violent destruction. It also gave us the hilariously operatic theme music, featuring lyrics like "You can't stop this motherf****r!!" along with the background chorus of "Holy! S**tballs!!" on repeat. I can't recall a movie where the over-the-top, epic soundtrack was included in the gag.

Josh Brolin was great as Cable. The writers did a pretty decent job of using his overly grim demeanor as a foil for Deadpool's utter lack of seriousness, though I do feel a few jokes might have been left on the table with this dynamic.

The mid-credit sequence of Deadpool jumping back in time to right the wrongs of the past was outstanding. One has to admire just how self-deprecating Reynolds can be. He clearly has no problem highlighting past failings, if it might get a laugh. 

New Release! Avengers: Infinity War (2018) [Spoiler-Free 1st Section]

Spoiler-Free Section - Have No Fear!

Directors: Joe and Anthony Russo

Fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) will almost definitely love, or at least highly enjoy, Infinity War. Those who are apathetic or even averse to the ever-sprawling juggernaut of superhero films will hardly be won over. In fact, the latter group may very well despise this movie.

Tying together many tiny threads that have been laced throughout the previous 18 MCU films, Infinity War follows Thanos, the "Mad Titan" from the so-named moon, whose grand ambition is to gather all six of the immensely powerful Infinity Stones, gems that allow dominion over aspects of existence such as mind, space, time, and others. Most of the stones have been intermittently introduced in previous MCU films: the Space Stone back in Captain America: The First Avenger; the Mind Stone in The Avengers, and so on. Thanos is an incredibly powerful alien who has long waged a campaign to basically "thin the herd" of populations which have grown too unwieldy to manage themselves. When he determines that a planet has reached such a point, he brings in his armies to kill half the population, at random, leaving the remaining half more than enough resources to flourish. Thanos's ultimate scheme now is to gather and control the six Infinity Stones, granting him the power to eliminate half of the population of the entire universe with no more than the snap of his fingers. To stop him, the many heroic characters from the previous films must use every resource at their disposal.

Right off, I'll admit that Infinity War isn't the best MCU movie. The scale is so epic, and the number of balls needing to be juggled is so large, that there was no way that a single film could provide satisfaction on every possible cinematic and storytelling level. In this movie's case, what gets sacrificed is real emotional depth and notable character development. The movie does actually provide a bit of depth to the imposing Thanos, a character who has only been shown in brief glimpses a handful of times in the previous six years. And there is a sense of loss concerning a couple of key characters. Also, for those who have followed and enjoyed any of the individual characters from previous MCU film series, the third act is bound to have some impact for you. On the whole, though, this is as purely plot-driven a film as the MCU has offered us to date. Anyone who has preferred the smaller-scale MCU flicks like Ant-Man or Spider-Man: Homecoming, thanks to those films' greater focus on a few people and their relationships, may find the flashy, rip-roaring pace of Infinity War too dizzying and shallow.

Yep - that is indeed Spider-Man and Iron Man grouped up
with a few members of Guardians of the Galaxy. Such cross-
over teamings are part of the fun of Infinity War.

For my part, I greatly enjoyed the movie. The directing duo Russo brothers had a lot of moving parts to rein into a single narrative, and they actually did an admirable job of it. This movie is bringing together no less than twenty different characters from well over a half dozen different movie "franchises," and having them band together to try and save quite literally half the universe. The main appeal of such an enterprise boils down to two things: what will the dynamics be when different characters interact, and how exactly will they stop an immensely powerful and determined force like Thanos? Well, the tale does an excellent job of entertaining us through these aspects of the film. Within the first few scenes, we get Spider-Man and Iron Man meeting up with Doctor Strange, and before long Quill and the Guardians of the Galaxy run into a very familiar Asgardian. As the disparate characters begin to coalesce into various teams and fill each other in on exactly who Thanos is and what he wants, the tale comes together in a rather satisfying way. As the heroes attempt to rebuff the initial attacks by Thanos's underlings, their powers, creativity, and mettle are tested in ways that make for some fun viewing.

The ending of this film is already causing some mixed reactions among movie-goers. Though one can assume that certain developments will be undone (the Infinity Stones are virtual game-breakers), there were certainly a few heroes who seem to have truly met their ultimate end. This was bound to upset fans of those particular characters. And while I was expecting a slightly more self-contained movie, I found the ending fine for what it is. The MCU overlords have always billed this movie as the first of what is basically a two-part story, with the second, still-unnamed, chapter set for release in May of 2019. It will feel like a rather long wait for the follow-up, but I believe that it is set up to actually be the stronger of the two films. Much of Infinity War had to be given over to set-up and Thanos's blitzkrieg attack, and when it is all said and done, it will likely feel more like acts one and two of the greater whole.

Infinity War is a success, for what it is. It's what DC films like Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman were trying to be in many ways but mostly failed to be. Short of making a TV-style, five or six-hour mini-series, this movie was never going to have enough time to please everyone across the movie-viewing spectrum. I think the Russo's trimmed away what they needed in order to create a cohesive movie. It's far from the most heart-felt or ponderous MCU flick, but it's strong popcorn entertainment for those looking for fantasy action/adventure of the superhero variety.

Fun fact - this exact scene never actually happens in the film,
but scenes very similar to it do unfold. Good to see Okoye get
a few good moments and one-liners in there, too.

Spoiler Section!! Beware!!!

Here is where I get into a few of the details that I enjoyed or didn't, and nearly all of them could potentially ruin some of the fun for you, if you haven't seen the movie yet.

As covered generally above, the greatest weakness of this movie is simply that there just isn't enough time for any character, or even group of characters, to particularly shine. One thing I've loved about my favorite among the MCU movies is that several of the characters have developed clear personalities, which themselves can carry a movie. Tony Stark and Steve Rogers are the two most obvious, but even less prominent characters like Doctor Strange or Bucky Barnes/The Winter Soldier have compelling enough backgrounds to make them engaging. Due to the reality of time constraints, however, no character is given much more than fifteen minutes of total screen time, and much of that is action. Amazingly, the writers did work in several solid dialogue exchanges that included some solid humor, but the scope of the film and its plot demands were such that one was bound to be disappointed by how little exposure their favorite characters would get. Ant-Man and Hawkeye aren't even in the film at all, despite the former having one film on the shelf and a sequel coming in a mere two months.

Another unfortunate result of the massive scale of the movie is that the losses don't have the emotional impact that one would hope for. Part of this is because of the limited dedication to emotional depth. Again, if one has fallen in love with certain characters, then the impact will be there, but that will have to have come from your previous viewing(s) of those characters' own movies. The deepest emotional tale in the movie involved Gamora and Thanos, but Gamora's death will only have resonance if one has enjoyed the two Guardians of the Galaxy movies (and for my part, I never found the connection between her and Quill terribly organic). And the demise of a character like Loki, one of the cornerstone villains of the MCU, lacks the power that it could have had in another stand-alone "Thor" movie. This is all to say nothing of the fact that the mere existence of the Infinity Stones tells us that whatever happens can be changed or undone, which is what I fully expect will happen in next year's follow-up film, though not everyone will be resurrected.

Oh, and we never get to see the Hulk really "smash," which is something I've greatly enjoyed in the previous two Avengers movies and Ragnarok. It is pretty cool that Thanos's raw physical strength is made clear by his almost dismissive thrashing of the jade giant early in the picture, but it would have been nice to see him leaping around and pounding a few platoons of alien invaders into Wakandan rhino meat. I have to assume that this is all a setup for Banner's Hulk persona to make a big splash in the sequel.

Those are my "superhero fanboy" gripes, and they are what keeps Infinity War from being among my absolute favorite MCU movies. When I set aside my fandom and just look at it as an objective cinephile, the movie fares worse, for reasons I mostly cover in the first section of this review. But I am a massive fan of these films, so it is in this vein that I describe what I enjoyed.

The movie does a decent job of elevating Thanos above being
a mere mindless, power-mad force of destruction. This has
been a severe weakness in many of the MCU films.

As stated, I think the actual plot is extremely well-managed. While Thanos's motivation is rather simplistic, I can justify that when I consider that most massive-scale zealots become that way by oversimplifying complex dilemmas. Rather than try to use creativity or imagination to solve large-scale population problems, Thanos falls back on brutal genocide and justifies it by telling himself that he is doing an honorable and difficult task which only he has the strength and will to carry out. I'm glad that the writers did find a way to add a couple of extra layers to the giant purple killing machine in the way of his backstory and his connection to Gamora. They weren't exactly high emotional drama, but they worked well enough.

And the many heroes' planet-jumping dash to find and stop the Mad Titan is spun very well. Especially if one has followed the various characters in the previous films, there is a very logical progression as to how they seek each other out and ultimately muster for their grand defense in Wakanda. Speaking of, I actually rather enjoyed the movie's use of the fictional African country as the staging ground for much of the ultimate battle. Even though I had just rewatched Black Panther the weekend before seeing Infinity War, I was far from tired of the setting.

With where things stand in the MCU currently - with literally half of the population obliterated, including half of our beloved heroes - this should be a great moment for the MCU to "clean things up," so to speak. I think if Infinity War shows us anything, it's that there is a breaking point for just how many "superhero" characters one put in a a movie and still have that movie provide depth as well as rousing action. Captain America: Civil War was just barely on the right side of that line, while I think Infinity War crossed over to the wrong side of it a bit, watering down what is in many ways a fun flick. Now, however, if MCU president Kevin Feige and his creative team play their cards right, they can pare things back a bit. Once Thanos is dealt with and much of his damage undone (I presume the Time Stone will play a fairly big part in this), the universe can probably be reworked a bit, allowing the future films' creators to go in directions different from what we've yet seen. I'm still well on board, even these ten years later.

Re-Watch Report (Still Spoilers...)

I enjoyed the movie enough to go take it in, IMAX 3-D style, ten days after the first viewing. I'm pleased to say that I enjoyed it even a little more upon a second viewing, even if it doesn't change a few of the purely, objective "story" weaknesses that it will never escape. To whit, full enjoyment of this film simply requires that the viewer has seen at least eight of the previous 18 MCU films. Without that familiarity with the characters' backstories, most or all of the emotional weight is simply not there.

For one like me, on the other hand, who is a big enough fan to have watched every single previous MCU film multiple times, this movie does hold up exceptionally well. As with most movies, the first viewing was all about seeing the plot unfold. With that out of the way, I was able to focus more on the pacing, visuals, intricacies of the narrative, and even the action choreography. Somewhat surprisingly, all of these aspects hold up extemely well under closer scrutiny.

As far as the action, thanks to seeing it on an IMAX screen, I was once again reminded of just how good the Russo brothers are at fight scene design and pacing. I'm generally not a particular fan of action films, but I do greatly appreciate very well-done action sequences that are neither too fast (I'm looking at you Paul Greengrass and the Bourne movies) nor addicted to slow-motion (looking even harder at you, Michael Bay). As they did with their two previous Captain America films, the Russos do brilliantly with Infinity War, which is on a much larger, literally interplanetary scale. It would have been really easy for them to lean too heavily on the CGI and simply send a bunch of digital garbage flying across the screen at all moments. Instead, they actually offer more than a few wide shots, use negative space, and give certain sequences enough room to breath a bit. This all greatly enhances the scope and scale of the larger moments, both those involving action and those which are more meditative.

The other strength that emerges is the larger theme of sacrifice and its connection to one's soul. The running question through Infinity War is: is a single life worth sacrificing, if it is likely to guarantee the safety of many, perhaps millions or more, other lives? From the opening sequences right through to the end, this question is faced by several different characters, with different choices being made. Heimdall decides that his own life is worth losing to give the universe a chance to fend of Thanos. Loki makes as if he's willing to give up Thor's life to save his own, only to turn the tables and lose his own life. Quill faces the choice of having to kill Gamora, at her behest, in order to prevent Thanos from being able to use her. And on it goes. It's not shocking that Thanos is willing to sacrifice the daughter he loves to his greater cause. Much more curiously, though, is that not every "hero" makes the choice to value the single life of a loved one over the many other lives at stake. Quill actually pulls the trigger on Gamora, and Wanda makes the move to destroy the Mind Stone, in effect killing her beloved Vision. The ultimate emotional fallout from these decisions will hopefully be explored in next year's Avengers film, but it all serves as a clear running theme that draws a fairly clear line between Thanos and those who seek to stop his mad scheme.

For anyone still considering it, I would suggest seeing the movie in IMAX. Much of the movie was actually filmed with IMAX cameras, so it fits the screens perfectly, and it really brings out the epic scale of everything. The 3-D is also well-done, so it's worth it, if that's your thing. More importantly is that the movie really is a great one for MCU fans. Few things prove that more than when one enjoys it even more upon a second viewing, as I did.