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The Marvels (2023)
No Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) movie has had a bigger trail of negative buzz than The Marvels, the supposed sequel to not just 2019’s Captain Marvel but also an extension of two Marvel television series from the Disney streaming service. The film has had its release delayed three times, rumors abound that heavy portions were re-shot, and its own director, Nia DeCosta (2021’s Candyman), had already moved on to starting her next project while her last movie was still being finished in post-production (to her defense, the movie was delayed three times). The opening weekend wasn’t kind, setting an all-time low for the MCU, and the critical and fan reception was rather dismal, with many calling the movie proof that Marvel was in trouble. There is a lot going against this movie, and yet when I actually sat and watched The Marvels, I found it a flawed but fun B-movie that doesn’t deserve its intense pile-on. Although, caution dear reader, as I’m also one of the seemingly few critics who enjoyed Black Widow and most of Eternals as well.
Carol Danvers a.k.a. Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) has been absent for most of the past 30 years, trying to do right by the universe’s many alien civilizations in need. The people of Earth also feel a little left behind, notably Monica Lambeau (Teyonah Parris), who knew Carol as a child in the 1990s and is now acclimating to her own light-based superpowers (see: WandaVision). A power-hungry Kree warrior, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton, Tom Hiddelston’s wife in real life), is seeking a way to restore a home world for her people. She finds one super-powerful weapon, a bangle she wears on her arm that opens interstellar portals. The other bangle happens to belong to a New Jersey teenager, Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani), a first generation Pakistani-American who also moonlights as the bangled-powered hero, Ms. Marvel (see: Ms. Marvel). Through strange circumstances, Kamala, Monica, and Carol are all linked by their powers, so if one of them uses said powers they happen to swap places in space, teleporting from three different points. It makes it really hard when you’re supposed to save the day and work together to defeat the bad guy.
The core dynamic of the movie is this trio of powerful women learning to work together, and while that might sound trite for the thirty-third movie in a colossal franchise, it’s a serviceable arc for a movie that only runs 100 minutes, the shortest in MCU history. The swift running time is both a help and a hindrance, but it allows the film not to overstay its welcome while juggling three lead characters and multiple space-time-hopping action set pieces. I wish Marvel could return to an era of telling smaller stories that don’t have to feel so grandiose, with personal stakes tied more to their characters than saving the planet yet again (2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming is a great example). Even though this too falls into the trap of world-destroying-energy-hole, it still feels lighter and breezier, and I think that is a result of its pacing and lowered ambitions. That’s not an insult to the filmmakers, more a recognition that The Marvels doesn’t have to compete with the likes of Endgame or the Guardians for emotional stakes. It can just be fun, and simply being a fun and well-paced action movie is fine. That’s what the MCU diet can use more of, especially considering the Ant-Man movies have transformed from palate cleansers to same-old bombast.
On the flip side, the speedy running time is also a very real indication of its troubled production and the attempt to salvage multiple versions into one acceptable blockbuster. There are signs of heavy editing and re-shoots throughout, from lots of ADR dialogue hiding actors visibly mouthing these patchwork lines, to world-building problems and solutions that can seem hazy. The rationale for why these three women become linked is so contrived that even Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) bemoans Carol not to touch a strange unknown space light because it’s shiny. The concept of the three heroes being linked by their powers offers plenty of fun moments, of which I’ll go into more detail soon, but the execution left me questioning. Which superpower use qualified and which did not? It seems a little arbitrary which powers using light trigger the switcheroo. I don’t think the movie even knows. There’s also a late solution that feels so obvious that characters could have been like, “Oh yeah, we could have tried that this whole time.” A reasonable excuse was right within reach, blaming the inability to attempt the solution on not having sufficient power before assembling both of the bangle MacGuffins. It also, curiously, allows the villain to win in spite of her vengeful indiscriminate killing, but don’t think too much about that or its possible real-world parallels as that will only make you feel dramatically uncomfortable.
There are remnants of what must have been a fuller movie of Marvels’ past, as each character has an intriguing element that goes relatively under-developed. Monica was gone thanks to Thanos while her mother died and is also trying to square her feelings of resentment for Carol, a woman she felt so close to as a child who flew away and didn’t return for decades. So we have attachment issues and issues of closure. Carol is likewise trying to rebuild her relationship with this little girl she let down, and she has to also consider the unintended consequences of being a superhero. The Kree worlds refer to Carol as “The Annihilator,” a powerful being that doomed their civilization. She’s become a culture’s nightmare. That re-framing of heroism and perspective, as well as the larger collateral damage of the innocents from defeating villains makes for an interesting psychological stew of guilt and doubt and moral indecision. Then there’s Kamala, who worships Captain Marvel as her personal hero and wants nothing more than to join the ranks of superheroes. Her rosy version of the duties of being a hero could be seriously challenged by the harsher reality, like when Carol has to determine that saving “some lives” is more important than losing all life to save more. She could become disillusioned with her heroes and re-examine her concepts of right and wrong. And there are elements of all these storylines with our trio but they’re only shading at best. There’s just not enough time to delve into this drama when the movie needs to keep moving.
However, the fun of the body-swapping concept leads to some of the more enjoyable and creative action sequences in the MCU. DeCosta really taps into the fun comedy but also the ingenuity of characters jumping places rapidly. It begins in a disorienting and goofy way, as characters jump in and out of different fights and have to adapt. It makes for a fun sequence where at any moment the action can be shaken up, as well as forcing there to be enough action going on for three people. This also leads to some interesting dangers, as Kamala gets zapped high above her neighborhood and plummets to the ground, as these are the dangers when your two other linked superheroes can fly. The use of the powers into the action feels well thought through, and the combination of the women working together and strategizing when and where to swap places makes for creatively satisfying resolutions. The action sequences are also very clearly staged and edited without the use of jarring and confusing edits. You can clearly see what is happening and what is important, and the choreography is imaginatively spry.
There are some asides to this movie that had me smiling and laughing and just plain happy. The Marvels visit a planet where the only way to communicate with the locals is through song, and it starts out like a big old school Hollywood musical with some Bollywood flourishes. I wish the movie had done even more with this wonderfully goofy rule, possibly even setting a fight sequence that also plays into the musical quality of the weird setting. Oh well, but it was pure fun and forced the characters outside of a comfort zone (though this too had some hazy rules application). There’s also a montage involving alien cats and a life-saving and space-saving solution that had me giggling like crazy (my extra appreciation for the ironic use of “Memory”). It’s because of these sequences, the delightful exuberance of Vellani, and the above-average action sequences that make it impossible for me to dismiss the movie as a waste.
The Marvels has problems, sure, with its lackluster villain, some hazy rule-setting and application, not to mention an overstuffed plot that feels a bit jumbled from the likes of twenty other stories trying to appear as one semi-unified whole. But it’s also fun, light, and entertaining in its best moments, and even the good moments outweigh the bad in my view. I would gladly re-watch this movie over the likes of Multiverse of Madness, Love and Thunder, and Quantumania. While it can seem initially overwhelming to approach, the movie does a workable job to catch up its audience on who the other Marvels happen to be just in case you didn’t watch 17 episodes of two different TV shows. It’s mid-tier Marvel but refreshingly comfortable as such, only aiming for popcorn antics and goofy humor with some colorful visuals. It all feels like a special event from a Saturday morning cartoon, which again might be faint praise to many. Blame it on my lowered expectations, blame it on my superhero fandom, or simply call me a contrarian lashing out against what seems a very ugly strain of vitriol for this movie to fail, but I found The Marvels to be a perfectly enjoyable 100 minutes of super team-up tomfoolery.
Nate’s Grade: B-
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Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One (2023)
I was a nominal fan of the Mission: Impossible series after three movies, and it seemed like the American public was feeling the same. After 15 years, it felt like the franchise was considering a soft reboot/shift with 2011’s Ghost Protocol, setting up Jeremy Renner as the heir apparent to Tom Cruise’s super spy, Ethan Hunt (weirdly, Renner was also set up to be another franchise replacement for Matt Damon’s Jason Bourne in 2012). Except what may have been initially planned as a franchise hand-off became a franchise renewal, with a delightfully twisty plot, fun teamwork as they scramble to adapt, and a show-stopping action set-piece that remains the franchise’s high-point, the scaling of the towering Burj Khalifa skyscraper. It also reminded us that not only does Cruise love to run but the man has a death wish when it comes to performing his own amazing stunts. With Cruise firmly back in place as lead, and Renner jettisoned (which also happened after 2012’s The Bourne Legacy), the franchise was further boosted by two of its best additions: actress Rebecca Ferguson and writer/director Christopher McQuarrie. The Oscar-winning Hollywood screenwriting staple was not known as much for his directing efforts, but he became a Cruise confidant after 2008’s Valkyrie, and he’s worked almost exclusively on Cruise projects ever since. He earned the man’s trust and proved a fantastic action director. 2018’s Mission: Impossible Fallout is just blockbuster filmmaking at its high-stakes finest. I was bouncing in my chair with excitement and simply luxuriating in action thriller nirvana.
This time Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his select team of trusted friends and colleagues are battling a villain terrifyingly relevant to our modern times, especially in light of the screenwriters’ strike – artificial intelligence. The big bad is an A.I. that can control the world’s security apparatus, and it’s become self-aware and resentful of its human overlords. It exists inside a computer console inside a Russian submarine at the bottom of the Arctic ocean under a wall of ice, and the A.I., known as “The Entity,” doesn’t want to ever be found (must be an introvert). If only it was that easy. The world is racing to be the first to claim this unparalleled prize, and the Impossible Missions team has to ensure they can find the location, which of course involves a MacGuffin, this time two interlocking keys to access the A.I. sub station. Can Ethan get there first and can he even trust his own government to do what’s best with access to this kind of power?
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One is a mouthful of a title. We got a colon, a dash, and a “part one,” a presumptuous gamble that after 160 minutes the audience is going to be ravenously hungry for a continuation in a series that has never had a two-parter before. In short, the movie is a lot, a lot of the same action and renowned stunt work we expect, and a lot of setup and extension that might have been better trimmed by focusing on one movie rather than setting up two. McQuarrie has done this before and been successful without the need of a direct two-parter. For all intents and purposes, Fallout is a direct sequel to 2015’s Rogue Nation, carrying over the same villain for the first time in the series and the ongoing relationship between Ethan and Ilsa Faust (Ferguson). Both of those movies feel complete and satisfying and well-designed in structure and development without needing one part to complete the other. With Dead Reckoning Part One, henceforth known as M:I 7 to spare me from writing this title every time, it feels like an overlong setup. By the end of the movie, our characters know where the A.I. is located but they still don’t know where the sub is or how to get there, which means the entire movie could have been collapsed into a more streamlined venture. Part of this may be the production troubles where they had to shut down and rejigger the plot multiple times from COVID outbreaks, as M:I 7 is the last of the big Hollywood movies to release that was shutdown in 2020 by the devastating pandemic. It all feels a bit overstretched and absent a satisfying conclusion.
The draw of the franchise, and chiefly its 2010s renewal back into the zeitgeist, is still the eye-popping stunts and set-pieces and Dead Reckoning still delivers. Most viewers will likely find the final action sequence aboard a speeding train to be the high-point, and it’s got some wow moments, my favorite is when the train is hanging over a blown bridge and Ethan has to leap from train car to train car before it plummets, oh and it’s all at an incline. It turns each car into a new obstacle to overcome utilizing its specific dynamics, like a dining car with a falling piano to a kitchen with vats of hot grease to avoid. The standout stunt involves Cruise driving a motorcycle off a mountain in a desperate effort to parachute onto this speeding train. However, this whole train sequence didn’t excite me too much, outside of its beginning stunt and the end. Watching men chase one another atop the speeding train, let alone wrestle and fight with knives, only serves to limit what can be done and it reminds me how fake the moment is for a franchise that has made its mark on its daredevil realism. That extended middle feels a bit too much like other Hollywood thrillers and action movies, and that’s what made it disappointing for a series I consider the current gold standard of franchise action.
A much less heralded sequence around the forty-five minute mark was my favorite, where Ethan is running around the Abu Dhabi airport while the following takes place: 1) Ethan trying to evade federal agents (the dependable Shea Whigham) looking to arrest him, 2) Ethan is trying to find the owner of one half of the MacGuffin keys who happens to be a pickpocket that keeps giving him the slip, 3) Ethan’s team, Luther (Ving Rhames, the only other actor who has appeared in every M:I film) and Benji (Simon Pegg) trying to find a nuclear bomb in a suitcase through the maze of baggage claim and disarm it, 4) the introduction of our villain Gabriel, well, our primary lackey to The Entity, who also happens to be a former IMF turncoat who killed Ethan’s girlfriend and essentially “made Ethan Hunt who he is” following Batman logic. This entire sequence is pure McQuarrie splendor, where it introduces the different characters, several at cross-purposes, lets them loose and then finds organic complications and specific turns that take advantage of the geography as well as the character’s emotional states. I loved it, and it made me hopeful that after a bit of a slow start that M:I 7 was now cooking and would be the prolonged deluge of near-perfect set-pieces that was Fallout. Not so much, but this sequence was indeed good fun.
Another issue I had was that our villain, again more like chief lackey, is so bland. I like Esai Morales (Ozark) as an actor, but the character of Gabriel is such a non-starter. Even giving him the personal history with Ethan feels like an admission that this bad guy has little to offer on his own. I think it’s part of how the character is written but I think it’s also a reflection that he’s the number two behind the all-powerful, scheming A.I., and then he too has a number two (number three?) played by Pom Klementieff (Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3), and she is so much more engaging as an antagonistic presence. She’s the one driving through cars and stonework throughout Rome to chase down Ethan. She’s the one who fights him in a narrow alleyway, a nicely claustrophobic change-of-pace action moment for a series that gorges on scale. If the true villain is going to be an A.I., why can’t Pom simply be its number two hench-person? Gabriel is redundant and boring and his fight sequences don’t feel believable against this crew.
There are a couple other storytelling choices that I wasn’t happy with, but I’ll save delving into those for the sake of spoilers. Suffice to say, I hope Dead Reckoning Part Two in 2024 course corrects and we have some welcomed returns. It’s kind of fun to see Kittridge (Henry Czerny, Ready or Not) make his first reappearance since the 1996 M:I and also get so much screen time. He’s essentially the face of the U.S. government infrastructure for the duration of the movie. His clenched-jaw consternation is a nice foil to the always rogue super spy.
Dead Reckoning – Part One is a good but not great Mission: Impossible movie, conceived as two parts and suffering some of the consequences of its over-extension. The thrills are still there, the sturdy production values, the emphasis on the spectacular stunts and fun action set pieces, so any fan of the franchise will find enough to enjoy over 160 minutes. The addition of Hayley Atwell (Avengers: Endgame) as the wily pickpocket who has stumbled into international espionage is great, though she cannot escape feeling like an Ilsa replacement while Ferguson is off-screen for too long. Cruise is still the movie star who delivers the most from film to film, and his high-wire efforts are appreciated. By the end of the movie, the sub is still at the bottom of the ocean, our characters are still in a race to find it, and I wondered why we couldn’t have ditched “Part One.” The answer, as much in Hollywood, is of course money, but I wish this Part One made me more psyched for Part Two.
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Meg 2:The Trench (2023)
It’s Jason Statham riding a Jet ski and literally jousting giant sharks, so the fault should be on me expecting something more from The Meg 2, right? I wished there was more of this kind of gonzo schlocky action, moments like Statham kicking a guy into the mouth of a killer shark and saying, “So long, chum.” Too much of this movie is setting up an ensemble of characters that are boring and not Jason Statham, including villainous turncoats that I kept forgetting who they were. There are also small-sized dinosaurs but other characters just chase them down to shoot them. I was mostly fine with the first Meg movie as dumb fun, and this one seems to be going for the vibe of a bigger-budget Asylum/Sci-Fi Channel schlockbuster, the kind of movie with a “Sharktopus” or “Mega Shark” in its outlandish title. Unfortunately, the movie doesn’t seem to accomplish even that aim. I wish the movie had been even more crazy but it feels like, for whatever misplaced idea of tone, that the filmmakers held back. Next time just have Statham psychically linked to the shark and fighting dinosaurs and own it.
Nate’s Grade: C
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Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 (2023)
It’s taken me longer to review the third, and reportedly final, installment of the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy because I didn’t think that I nor my family had the emotional bandwidth when the movie was originally released to herald the summer. I’ve been a big fan of writer/director James Gunn’s comic book escapade efforts with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), as well as his first DC entry, 2021’s The Suicide Squad, the best DC film of the new era, so I’ve been highly anticipating a third Gaurdians ever since the second ended six years ago. Of course all fans have had to wait a little longer after Disney fired Gunn in 2019 for offensive social media posts they already knew about before the first Guardians film in 2014, and then they came to their senses and re-hired one of the most unique voices working within their giant sandbox of superheroes. The reason I decided to wait even longer is because I had been warned by many of my critical colleagues about the heavy thematic nature of the third entry, namely the frequent sequences of animal abuse. My family had to put down their household dog of over ten years in late April, and having to re-open that wound by watching pretend animals get abused was not the best for any of our emotional states. And so I waited until it was available on digital and in the comfortable sanctity of my home, and I alone in my family watched Volume Three, partly as a harbinger of future warning over what scenes to skip over for them. It’s a fitting end to a strange and funky series of movies that taught us to feel real emotions over racoons and trees, and even though I’d rate this as last in its respective Guardians standing, it’s still a winner and a topical reminder that these big-budget blockbusters are only ever as good as when the passion is evident.
The Guardians are on a mission to save their friend, Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper). He’s been incapacitated and is sought after by his creator, The High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji), a maniacal man with a god complex who is trying to create a perfect life form. This forces the Guardians to learn more about Rocket’s tragic past as a cruel science experiment, and it brings back Gomorrah (Zoe Saldana), though she’s not the same woman who fell in love with Peter Quill (Christ Pratt), and he’s having a hard time reconciling the different green girls. They’ll have to work together to rescue Rocket and stop the High Evolutionary from further harm.
This is a movie built around the back-story and emotional connections of Rocket, a character that, prior to Gunn’s first film, had fewer than a dozen comic appearances but has had an outsized influence over the movies. If the first movie was about the formation of our team, and the second was deepening the supporting characters, as well as exploring Quill’s daddy issues, then the last movie is all about how we say goodbye to the ones we love. Volume Three is clearly structured like Gunn’s fond farewell for these characters rather than merely a pause in their contractually obligated appearances (whether Marvel overrules Gunn is another matter). It makes the interaction more meaningful and also more emotionally rich, not just because certain characters might perish, but because of the journey we’ve been privileged to hop along for, how far they’ve come and how much they matter to others, and by extension us, the audience.
Case in point: the emotional evolution of Rocket Racoon. He began as a surly visual joke, a teeny mammal with a big gun and a big attitude. It wasn’t until a drunken outburst in Volume One that you got a glimpse of the trauma and pain beneath that antisocial demeanor. With Volume Three, he gets sidelined pretty early, which means the majority of the time we spend with Rocket is through a series of flashbacks with baby Rocket and his cute pals, all ongoing science experiments (one needs only to recognize the absence of these childhood friends as grown-ups to anticipate where this is inevitably heading). In some ways, it is cheap and manipulative. It’s not hard to make an audience feel extreme emotions by introducing a slew of adorable animals as well as a villain who hurts them and sees them as expendable experiments undeserving of sympathy. I wish Gunn hadn’t gone so hard in this direction because it feels excessive in the ideas that the film bluntly communicates. Yes, a storyteller will need time to establish a baseline of relationships, conflicts, and looming change, but do we need six or seven flashbacks to settle the concept of animal testing and animal cruelty being a bad thing? I credit Gunn with making his thematic intent unambiguous; this is wrong, and you will feel it explicitly. However, sidelining Rocket for a majority of the movie and having characters project onto his unconscious body, while providing more insight through a system of excessive and heavy-handed flashbacks, might not be the best model for ensuring this character gets his due when it comes to this showcase. Quill keeps calling Rocket his “best friend” and I’m trying to remember when this happened. I re-watched Volume Two this summer, and now consider it the best of the trilogy, and I cannot recall the specific events that bonded these two bickering alphas into inter-species BFFs.
Another facet of Gunn’s relevant themes is personified in the romantic realizations of Quill. Not to get too complicated, the current Gomorrah is a past version of herself and not the one who joined the Guardians, fell in love with Quill, and died in Infinity War. She’s back, but from her perspective she never left, and this moon-eyed dolt keeps projecting his feelings onto her. I respect that Gunn doesn’t try and wave away this complication, nor does he mitigate the agency and importance of this Gomorrah not having to follow the same path as her predecessor. The easy thing would have been for Quill to wait and for this new/old Gamorrah to see the same qualities that made the old/dead Gomorrah fall in love. It would be like one of those soapy romances where a person suffers amnesia and gets to fall in love with their spouse all over again. Gunn doesn’t do that. These are different people, and despite the aching desire of Quill to rekindle what he had, it has been lost, and this needs to be acknowledged and accepted. “I bet we were fun,” she says, and it’s a bittersweet summation that extends beyond the Guardians.
There is still Gunn’s signature sense of style and humor while checking the boxes of a big-screen action blockbuster. There’s an infiltration set piece that plays like a goofier Mission: Impossible setup but in a squishy bio-mechanical facility that reminded me of the eccentric and schlocky sci-fi diversions personified in the Lexx movies and TV series. There’s an entire planet of animal-human hybrids that feels wasted as further proof of the High Evolutionary’s already established evil. The entire character of Adam Warlock (a beefed up Will Poulter) is a himbo that definitely feels lacking in larger purpose now that the Infinity Era is over. There is one signature action scene involving a protracted fight through a crowded hallway, and it’s exciting and fun. The jokes are mostly contained to sardonic banter, which can be hilarious depending upon the combination of characters, though it also can be grating when it feels forced, like Mantis (Pom Klementieff) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) butting heads. The celebrated dad rock soundtrack has moved onto 90s and early 2000s music, and as a 90s kid, it gave me a personal nostalgic lift watching scenes jamming to dreamy whoo-hoo alt-rock acts like Radiohead and Spacehog and The Flaming Lips.
This also might be the grossest MCU movie yet, and not just from the animal abuse but a face-peeling scene that will startle most. I had to pause the screen and drag my 12-year-old stepdaughter into the room with the promise, “Want to see the grossest thing ever in a Marvel movie?” She agreed that it was indeed that. It’s reassuring that no matter the budget, Gunn’s sensibilities that make him the unique storyteller he is, the same man who began with Troma, will be there. Though this point also concerns several of my friends wondering if Gunn can abandon these silly and schlocky tendencies to tell an earnest and tonally appropriate tale for his 2025 Superman reboot.
Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3 is the end of an era for Gunn and for the MCU. As the new head of the DC film and TV universe, it’s unlikely he’ll be lending his talents to Marvel any time soon, although the characters he made us fall in love with could carry on. Gunn clearly loves these characters, and especially identifies with Rocket, the angry malcontent lashing out in pain, so it’s fitting to give this character the big stage for a final outing, and if he can throw in some animal cruelty messaging along with silly humor and pathos, then so be it. This practically feels like Marvel is giving Gunn even more leeway as an apology for firing him. The Guardians trilogy stands out from the prolific MCU assembly because of how much Gunn has personalized these movies to make them special. They have permission to be weird, to be heartfelt, and to be reflections of their idiosyncratic creator, a much more benevolent force than the High Evolutionary. Perhaps there’s even a parallel to be drawn there, a filmmaker trying to endlessly tinker with their creation in the futile pursuit of perfecting it whereas the imperfections and rough edges are often the lasting appeal of a movie. I don’t know if the MCU will contain a series quite like this again, and that adds to the feeling of this serving as a farewell. It was a fun, messy, ridiculous ride, and it was all Gunn.
Nate’s Grade: B
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The Flash (2023)/ Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023)
Released within two weeks of one another, two big summer movies take the concept of a multiverse, now becoming the norm in comic book cinema, and explore the imaginative possibilities and wish-fulfillment that it proposes, but only one of them does it well. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the sequel to the Oscar-winning 2018 revolutionary animated film, and it’s a glorious and thrilling and visually sumptuous experience, whereas DC’s much-hyped and much-troubled movie The Flash feels like a deflated project running in place and coming apart. Let this be a lesson to any studio executive, that multiverses are harder than they look.
Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) has the ability to travel at fantastic speeds as his superhero alter ego, The Flash. He’s tired of being the Justice League’s errand boy and still fighting to prove his father is innocent of the crime of killing Barry’s mother. Then Barry discovers he can run fast enough to actually travel back in time, so he returns with the intention of trying to save his mother. Except now he’s an extra Flash and has to train his alternate self (also Miller) how to control his powers. In this different timeline, there is no Justice League to combat General Zod (Michael Shannon, so thoroughly bored) from destroying the planet for Kryptonians.
This is the first big screen solo outing for The Flash, and after none other than Tom Cruise, Stephen King, and James Gunn calling it one of the best superhero movies of all time, it’s hard to square how trifling and mediocre so much plays out as an example of a creative enterprise being pulled in too many directions. Miller was cast as the speedster almost ten years ago, and this tale has gone through so much tortured development, leaping through numerous filmmakers and writers, that its purpose has now gone from being a pillar of the expanding DC cinematic universe began with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel in 2013 to becoming the Snyderverse’s death knell. The premise of traveling back in time is meant for Barry to learn important lessons about grief and responsibility and the limits of his powers, but it’s also intended as the reboot option for the future of these cross-connected comic franchises. It allows Gunn, now the co-head of the new way forward for DC movies and TV, to keep what they want (presumably Margot Robbie and Jason Momoa) and ditch the rest (Henry Cavill, Ben Affleck, Black Adam, Shazam, and Zack Snyder’s overall creative influence). So reviewing The Flash as only a movie is inadequate; it’s also a larger ploy by its corporate overlords to reset their comic book universe. In that regard, the quality level of the movie is secondary to its mission of wiping the creative slate clean.
Where the movie works best is with its personal stakes and the strange but appealing chemistry between the two Millers. It’s an easy starting point to understand why Barry does what he does, to save his mother. This provides a sturdy foundation to build a character arc, with Barry coming to terms with accepting his grief rather than trying to eradicate it. That stuff works, and the final talk he has to wrap up this storyline has an emotional pull that none of the other DCU movies have exhibited. Who wouldn’t want one last conversation with a departed loved one, one last opportunity to say how you feel or to even tell them goodbye? This search for closure is a relatable and an effective vehicle for Barry to learn, and it’s through his tutelage of the other Barry that he gets to see beyond himself. The movie is at its best not with all its assorted cameos and goofy action (more on both later) but when it’s a buddy comedy between the two Barrys. The older Barry becomes a mentor to himself and has to teach this inexperienced version how to hone and control his powers as well as their limits. It puts the hyper-charged character into a teaching position where he has to deal with a student just like him (or just him). It serves as a soft re-education for the audience alongside the other Barry without being a full origin story. The impetuous young Barry wanting to have everything, and the elation he feels about his powers, can be fun, but it’s even more fun with the older Barry having to corral his pupil. It also allows the character an interactive checkpoint for his own maturity and mental growth. Miller’s exuberant performances are quite entertaining and never fail to hit the comedy beats.
The problem is that the movie puts so much emphasis on too many things outside of its titular hero. Much was made of bringing back Keaton to reprise his Batman after 30 years. I just wish he came back for a better reason and had legitimate things to add. His role is that of the retired gunslinger being called back into action, and there’s an innate understanding with Barry wanting to go back in time and save his family, but too much of this character’s inclusion feels like a stab at stoking audience nostalgia (the callback lines all made me groan). I highly enjoyed Keaton as Batman and appreciated how weird he could make the billionaire-turned-vigilante, but he’s no more formed here than a hologram. The same thing happens with the inclusion of Super Girl a.k.a. Kara Zor-El (Sasha Callie). In this universe, there is no Superman, so she’s our requisite super-powered alien that Zod is hunting to complete his plans for terraforming Earth. She’s an intriguing character as a tortured refugee who has lingering doubts about whether humanity is worth the sacrifice, but much of her usage is meant only to make us think about Superman. She’s not given material to make her own impression, so she simply becomes the imitation of the familiar, the shadow to the archetype already being left behind. But these character additions aren’t even the worst of the nostalgia nods, as the final climactic sequence involves a collision of worlds that harkens to just about every iteration of the famous DC heroes, resurrecting several with dodgy CGI and uncomfortable implications (spoilers… the inclusion of George Reeves, when he felt so typecast as TV’s Superman that he supposedly killed himself because he thought his acting career was over, can be galling).
The action of The Flash is mostly fine but with one exceptional example that boggles my mind. In the opening sequence, no less, Barry is trying to help clean up a crumbling hospital when it collapses and literally sends a reign of babies falling through the air. I was beside myself when this happened, horrified and then stupefied that this absurd action sequence was actually happening. Barry goes into super speed to save the day, which more or less reverts the world into super slow-mo, though he needs to power up first, so we get a quick edit of him stuffing food into his face to load up on calories. We go from Barry breaking into a falling vending machine, stuffing himself in the face with snacks, getting the green light from his suit which I guess measures his caloric intake, and then grab a baby and literally put it in a microwave to shield it from danger. Just describing this event makes me feel insane. I figure the filmmakers were going for an over-the-top approach that also provides light-hearted goofiness to separate the movie from the oppressively dark grist of Snyder’s movies. However, this goes so far into the direction of absurdity that it destroys its credibility. It’s hard for me to fathom many watching this misguided and horrifying CGI baby-juggling sequence and say, “Yes, more please,” rather than scoff and shake their head. It’s not like the rest of the movie keeps to this tone either, which makes the sequence all the more baffling. There are Flash rules that are inconsistently applied to the action; Barry’s caloric intake is never a worry again, and the effects of moving a person during super speed don’t ever seem to be a problem except for one spewing gross-out gag.
While not being an unmitigated disaster, it’s hard for me to see the movie that got so many figures in the entertainment industry raving. The Flash has some notable emotional stakes, some amusing buddy comedy, and some goofy special effects sequences that run the gamut from amusing to confounding, but it’s also quite a mess of a movie, and too many of its nods to the fandom feel like empty gestures of nostalgia compensating for imagination. For all it gets right, or at least keeps interesting, it seems like another cog in a multi-billion-dollar machine, a stopping point also intended to be a reset and starting point. It feels like the character wasn’t trusted enough by the studio to lead his own solo movie even after years of buildup with Miller, nine seasons of the popular TV series, and 80-plus years of prominent placement in DC comics.
Conversely, Across the Spider-Verse is a sequel that expands an already stuffed story but knows what stories and themes to elevate so they don’t get lost amidst the fast-paced lunacy. Taking place a year later, Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) has grown into his role as the new Spider-Man for his world. He strains to meet the expectations of his parents, and keep up his grades, while fulfilling the duties of a superhero jumping into danger. When Gwen Stacey (voiced by Hailee Steinfeld) reappears to discuss joining the multiverse police, Miles jumps at the chance, having genuinely missed his other Spider friends, especially Gwen. There are countless Spider people in countless worlds, even including a Spider-T. Rex and a Spider-Car (Peter Parked Car, I believe the name was). Miguel O’Hara (voiced by Oscar Isaac) is the Spider-Man tasked with keeping order across the many interconnected multiverses, and he insists that sacrifice is essential to maintain balance, one that hits too close to home for Miles to abide.
The 2018 original is a hard act to follow, and while Across the Spider-Verse doesn’t quite overrule its predecessor it is a more than worthy sequel that has everything fans loved about the first trip. The visual inventiveness has been taken even higher, with the mixture of even more different animation and art styles. I loved seeing each Spider person and how they fit into their unique art style of their world, like the living water colors of Gwen’s world and the punky paper collage style of Spider-Punk (voiced by Daniel Kaluuya). There’s a villain that comes from a paper universe, so he resembles a three-dimensional paper construction with hand-scribbled notes appearing around him like Da Vinci’s commentary. There is something to dazzle your senses in every second of this movie. The visuals are colorful, creative, and groundbreaking with the level of detail and development. There’s probably even too much to fully take in with just one viewing. I want to see the movie again not just because it’s outstanding but so I can catch the split-second vernacular asterisk boxes that pop up throughout the movie. Going further into living comic book aesthetics, new characters will be introduced with boxes citing their comics issue reference point, and certain names and vocab will get their own citations as well. These are split-second additions, nothing meant to distract from the larger narrative. Simply put, this is one of the most gorgeous looking movies of all time, animated or live action. It’s bursting, thrumming, nearly vibrating with life and love stuffed into every nook and cranny, and it’s exhilarating to just experience a vivid, thriving world with animators operating at peak talent.
However, the movie has an engrossing story to better position all those eye-popping visuals. The worry with any modern multiverse story is that the unlimited possibilities of variations and opportunities for characters to do just about anything will overwhelm a narrative, or like The Flash, become a checklist of overburdened and empty fan service. The screenplay by Phil Lord, Christopher Miller, and Dave Callaham is all about relationships. If Miles’ relationship with his stern police lieutenant father (voiced by Brian Tyree Henry) wasn’t such an important focal point, then the emotional stakes of the movie would be meaningless. We see a relatable struggle from both sides, the parents trying to connect with their growing child and give him enough space to find himself, and the child who clearly loves his parents but doesn’t fully appreciate or understand their concerns. They worry about Miles leaving them and whether others will love and support him like his parents. Miles has to experience a wider world of possibility, but these experiences make him appreciate what he has at home, and what could be permanently lost. I don’t mind saying there were more than a few moments that caused me to tear up. I found Gwen’s storyline equally compelling, and her turmoil over keeping her secret identity and then coming out to her father was rather moving. The family bond resurfacing will get me every time, and the simple action of a hug can be as heartwarming and fulfilling as any romantic ode. Across the Spider-Verse makes sure we care about the characters and their personal journeys.
At a towering 140 minutes, this is the longest (American) animated movie ever, and it’s still only one half of a larger story. I knew ahead of time this was only the first part so as soon as we entered Act Three I kept gearing up for the cliffhanger ending. Every five or so minutes I thought, “Okay, this is going to be the end,” and then it kept going, and I was relieved. Not just because I got to spend more time in this unique universe but each new moment added even more to raise the stakes, twist the intrigue, and make me excited for what could happen next. I was shaking in my seat at different points, from the excitement of different sequences to the emotional catharsis of other moments. I cannot wait to experience this same feeling when the story picks back up reportedly in March 2024, though I fear it will get delayed to late 2024.
Even with the unlimited possibility of jokes and silly mayhem, the filmmakers keenly understand that it doesn’t matter unless we care about the characters and their fates. I am shocked that a goofy character I thought was going to be a one-scene joke, The Spot (voiced by Jason Schwartzman), could end up becoming the ultimate destroyer of worlds. I think this reflection nicely summarizes the impeccable artistry of Across the Spider-Verse, where even the moments or characters misjudged as fleeting or inconsequential can be of great power. It’s a movie that is full of surprises and thrills and laughs, all in equal measure, and a blessed experience for a movie fan. In the crush of comic book multiverse madness, Across the Spider-Verse is a refreshing and rejuvenating creative enterprise, one that builds off the formidable talent of its predecessor and carries it even further into artistic excellence that reminds us how transporting movies can be. If you see one superhero multiverse movie this summer, the choice should be as obvious as an inter-dimensional spider bite.
Nate’s Grades:
The Flash: C
Across the Spider-Verse: A
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Creed III (2023)
Now three films into its own rebirth, and nine films into the Rocky cinematic universe Sylvester Stallone begat in 1976, the story of Adonis Creed (Michael B. Jordan) fees confidant enough to leave behind Stallone. It’s still a formula-laden yet rousing sports movie, one where every turn will likely be predicted, but because of the conviction of the production, you can still cheer along with the familiar. This time Adonis is at the end of his career when an old face resurfaces with Damian “Dame” Anderson (Jonathan Majors), a childhood friend young Adonis looked up to who took the rap for Adonis’ fighting. He landed in prison and watched the journey of Adonis to being a world-championship boxer, which was Dame’s dream that was deferred. Adonis feels immense guilt and questions whether he’s earned his lot, and this trial of confidence and personal reckoning naturally comes down to an extensive pugilist battle, as all personal conflicts must. I laughed that Bianca (Tessa Thompson) was trying to make a point that not all conflict has to be decided by getting punched in the face, and ultimately that’s exactly where we’re headed. The requisite buildup, betrayal, training montage, and reclamation will be expected, but where the Creed franchise has separated itself was with its non-punching-in-the-face moments. I appreciate the added dimension of the characters and the allowances that make them more complex than simply cartoonish villains of the latter Rocky movies. Creed II humanized Ivan Drago Jr. to the point that I didn’t want either fighter to lose. I liked all the breather moments, from Adonis trying to raise a daughter with hearing impairments, to him reflecting and reminiscing with his forgotten friend like it was old times again, to the looming tragedy of saying goodbye to an ailing loved one (that deathbed scene was tremendously moving), and two men warring over hurt feelings of a friendship that meant so much and is trying to get beyond the pain of abandonment and guilt. When you devote that kind of attention to ensure that the drama matters, the boxing takes on added excitement. This is Jordan’s directorial debut and he does a fine job of helping his actors and providing them the space they need. He also finds some visually dynamic ways to film the boxing scenes and give them extra oomph (reportedly he based his approach off of anime and it honestly shows). Creed III may be more of the same but when the franchise devotes due attention to the small things as well as the big things, it’s still an elevated entertainment experience.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania (2023)
Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has had a bumpy ride, coming after the significant climax of 2019’s Avengers Endgame and releases shifting thanks to COVID, with plenty of think pieces and pundits waiting to seize upon the possible decline of the MCU’s box-office and pop-culture dominance. This was still a phase with several enjoyable blockbusters with stars of old (Black Widow, Loki, Black Panther 2, Spider-Man No Way Home) and stars of new (Shang-Chi, Ms. Marvel), but it’s been defined by movies and series that have not engendered the same level of passion with fans and audiences, and left many questioning whether audiences are finally suffering from dreaded Marvel Fatigue. I cannot say, because even movies people were so-so on have generated tons of money, and it’s not like I even have to travel far in the past for a good-to-great Marvel movie with Wakanda Forever last November. However, after the muddled response to a third Ant-Man movie, as well as a bland Shazam sequel within weeks, then the old media narrative reignites the Marvel Fatigue question. I think the better question is aimed at the studio and whether we’re entering into Marvel Complacency.
Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is trying to live a normal life, at least for a superhero that helped save the world. His adult daughter Cassie (recast as Kathryn Newton) is a social activist and a burgeoning scientific genius, and with the help of her grandad, Hank (Michael Douglas), they’ve developed a way to communicate into the Quantum Realm, the metaphysical world of subspace where Janet (Michelle Pfeiffer) was lost for decades. The entire family gets sucked into the Quantum Realm and separated, fighting to make their way in a strange new land. Among all the unorthodox beings is Kang (Jonathan Chambers), a banished interdimensional conqueror. He’s looking to break free of his prison and thinks Scott can be persuaded to help under the right pressure.
Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania is blatantly weird and shapeless, which allows for some of the most silly character designs in the MCU yet, and it also adds up to so precious little. From a character standpoint, we get minimal forward progress, which is strange considering Scott was deprived of years from his daughter, missing out on her growing up into an adult. When you have a villain who can manipulate space and time, and this scenario, wouldn’t you think that the ultimate appeal would be to regain that lost time? Maybe Scott feels like this older Cassie is a version of his daughter he doesn’t recognize, and he misses the innocence of her younger self, and therefore he wishes to experience those moments he had missed. Mysteriously, this doesn’t factor in at all with Ant-Man 3. I suppose it’s referenced in vague terms, but you would think the thematic heft of this movie would revolve around lessons learned about thinking in the past, of trying to recapture what is gone, of moving onward and trying to be present for those we love, you know, something meaningful for the characters besides victory. Nope, as far as Cassie is concerned, she serves two story purposes: 1) being a plot device for how we got into this crazy world, and 2) being a damsel in distress. Kang’s threats to withhold Cassie or harm her are the motivating factor for him to collaborate with the villain. How truly underwhelming. I did enjoy a sequence where a plethora of Scotts across multiple timelines come to work together with a common goal, with every one of the many Scott’s love for Cassie being their top ambition.
As for the universe existing between space, the Quantum Verse of our title, it’s the highlight of the movie, so if the characters and their personal conflicts aren’t hitting for you, like me, then at least there’s some fun diversions to be had with every new locale and introduction. There’s an enjoyable sense of discovery like a new alien world where the possibilities seem endless. The strange quirks were my favorite. I adored the exuberant goo creature Veb (David Dastmalchian) fascinated by other creatures having orifices. There’s also a mind reader played by William Jackson Harper, who was comically brilliant on The Good Place, and just repeating the same lazy joke here about people’s minds being gross. There’s even Bill Freakin’ Murray as a lord. I enjoyed how many of the new characters, many of them strange aliens, had prior relationships with Janet, and her hand-waving it away explaining that over thirty years she had certain needs. This subplot itself could have been given more. time, with Janet having to deflect Hank’s sexual inadequacies in the face of so many virile lovers (“How can I compete with a guy with broccoli for a head?”). I think this reunited couple confronting their discomfort would be far more entertaining than yet another massive CGI face-off with thousands of soulless robots. There are interesting moments and characters in this strange new world, but they’re all so fleeting, meant to be a goofy supporting character or cameo or simply a one-off joke and not what matters.
Like Multiverse of Madness and Love and Thunder, this feels very much like a table-setting MCU movie, meant to move the pieces along and set up other movies, chiefly the next Thanos-level big bad with Kang, first portrayed in Loki’s season one finale in 2021. I found this character version underwhelming. Part of this is that Kang’s first appearance was so memorable, spirited, anarchic, but also subversive, going against the audience expectations of what the final confrontation with the puppetmaster was going to involve. With Ant-Man 3, this version of Kang is an overly serious, well-poised castoff in a secondary Shakespeare play, which would work if the screenplay gave the guy anything interesting or memorable or even really threatening to play. He’s just another authoritarian who speaks in grand speeches of their greatness and then proves not to live up to his much-hyped billing. I worry that the next few years of the MCU will feature a rotating set of Kangs to topple with every film, which will make the villain feel less overwhelming and powerful and more like a reoccurring Scooby Doo villain (“I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for you meddlin’ heroes, and YOUR ANTS!”). This isn’t to say that Majors (Creed III) gives a poor performance. It’s just so stubbornly stern and shouty and rather boring in comparison to He Who Remains from his Loki appearance. Note to Marvel: given the serious charges that have surfaced against Majors, if you do wish to recast the role, a character who is different in many universes should be a pretty easy explanation for any change.
Is Ant-Man and the Wasp in Quantumania the beginning of the end of the country’s love affair with the MCU? Well… probably not. Just three months later, Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 3 hit it big, so maybe it’s less fatigue with big screen superhero escapades and more fatigue with mediocre movies. Maybe the public won’t be so forgiving of less-than-stellar efforts, but at this point the MCU in a moving train and some movies seem to get caught in the churning wheels of “progress.” After thirty movies and counting, some of the novelty is gone, that means just delivering the same old won’t deliver the same old results. Too much of Ant-Man 3 feels like the characters are inhabiting a large and empty sound stage. The visuals are murky and gunky and less than inspiring, and while some of the special effects are occasionally dodgy, they aren’t the travesty that others have made them out to be (though MODOK is… something, I suppose). It’s such a dank-looking movie that it feels like somebody put the light settings on power saving. There were things I enjoyed but most of Quantumania left me indifferent, and that’s the feeling I got from the cast and crew as well. I dearly missed Michael Pena’s Luis, who should have gone along for the ride just for his commentary for all the weirdness. At this point, you’re along for the MCU ride or not, and this won’t deter your 15-year investment, but coasting on its laurels will also not satisfy anyone. Not every MCU entry will be great, but they can at least try harder.
Nate’s Grade: C+
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Avatar: The Way of Water (2022)
In the 13 ensuing years since James Cameron’s smash hit Avatar, we’ve debated whether or not the collective consciousness has simply moved on and forgotten what was, at one point, the highest-grossing movie of all time. What cultural dent had it made? Are there really still fans? Was it a fad of the new 3-D, itself already dissipated? Does anyone really want three or four sequels? Then Avatar: The Way of Water was released in late 2022 and it didn’t do as well as its mighty predecessor. Instead of being the highest-grossing movie ever, it’s only the third highest-grossing movie ever with a paltry $2.3 billion worldwide (how can the man even sleep at night?). It’s a lot of the same, both in its big feelings, awe-inducing visuals, and its resurrection of characters, scenarios, and conflicts of before, so you’ll likely find yourself reliving your own 2009 Avatar reaction.
Cameron’s long-awaited follow-up returns to the alien word of Pandora where our Marine-turned-Na’vi Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) has raised a large blended family with his Na’vi partner, Neytiri (Zoe Saldana, given little to do but cry this time). The first hour of this three-hour blockbuster is establishing the family dynamic with the different kids, including adopted daughter who is… somehow… the daughter of the deceased scientist Grace (both Sigourney Weaver) as well as the human child nicknamed Spider who is the biological son of Quaritch (Stephen Lang), our deceased villain. Nobody seems to stay dead in this series as Quaritch concocted his own backup plan in case of his untimely demise. He transferred his consciousness into a tank-born avatar, and this new Na’vi Quaritch has his own team of Marines in blue-skinned Na’vi bodies. They’re heading back to Pandora for some out-of-body vengeance, and thanks to their genetics, they seem to get a pass from the natural environment of Pandora mistaking them as native.
There’s a lot of set up here, and the second hour introduces us to the coastal community, and it becomes another formula of the outsiders learning the rules and culture of the new setting and integrating, turning enemies into friends, gaining honor, etc. It’s within this second hour that the big environmental message coalesces around whaling, with one Sully son bonding with an alien whale Free Willy-style. There’s a whole hunt sequence that poaches a mother and her calf that’s quite upsetting. The parallels are obvious but subtlety is not exactly one of the storytelling options in the Avatar universe. This is a broad canvas in the biggest sense, so every message will be spelled out very finely and underlined, with character voicing obvious themes and villains practically twirling space mustaches. And that’s okay. The final hour is an action-packed showdown bringing all the characters to account and forcing Jake to face off once again with his old commander.
The visual immersion is outstanding and the real reason to sit still during all three hours of Way of Water. The Oscar-winning visual effects are transcendent, and the extended sequences underwater really captivate and achieve the sense of natural awe Cameron aspires for. It is an exceedingly pretty movie to watch, and the level of high-definition detail is astounding. There’s a tangible realism here even when it’s entirely gangly CGI characters. At no point does it feel like an empty green screen stage or an over-exposed cartoon. The world of Pandora is still interesting and worth exploring, and the coastal aliens with their evolutionary differences makes me excited to explore other corners and communities of this alien world. The story works, and the payoffs work, and each of the Sully kids has a moment to shine, though I kept confusing the two older brothers (where did one of these kids learn to say “bro” every other word?). It’s a bit strange to see and hear Weaver in a preteen alien’s body, but that disconnect is part of the point, as the character feels like a foreigner searching for meaning. Considering the decade-plus delay, the huge scope, and setting up potentially three other movies, I’m impressed that Way of Water even works as well as it does as a sequel. I was able to re-acclimate pretty easily in that first hour.
It’s not revolutionary storytelling but not every movie need be. It follows a familiar formula but puts in the work to make the action meaningful and connected to character and for the emotional beats to resonate. I thought the upside-down sinking military vessel had some striking, terrifying Poseidon Adventure-esque visuals, and the sequence was rooted in the family trying to save one another. With so many moving pieces and characters, the plot can be overburdened and redundant at times (the Sully kids get kidnapped so often they might as well save time and tie themselves up early) but even at three hours it doesn’t feel slow or wasteful. There is a sense of repetition in bringing back so many of the same faces, like literally rehashing the same villains. I wish more consideration was given to the new Quaritch and his own existential journey of the self. Just because you have the brain of this dead evil guy, do you have to follow in his doomed path? That could have been a really intriguing and profound character journey, the cloned Marines bred to be weapons who decide their own identities. That could have sufficed as the entire movie for me. The messages are heavy-handed but effective, though Pandora already had a natural resource that Earth wanted to exploit so I didn’t think we needed a second natural resource that essentially functions as immortality juice. At this point, will the third movie introduce ANOTHER magical resource that cures cancer? Likewise, I hope the next movie doesn’t find us yet another Quaritch (a twin brother!) looking for further score-settling. The ending sets up a larger confrontation with Earth’s corporate elite that will come about with the ensuing sequels, though I would have thought since Way of Water makes a big leap forward in time that Earth’s powerful forces would have already marshaled their unhappy response to being kicked out in the original movie.
Cameron has an innate blockbuster sensibility and storytelling structure; the man just knows how to tell rousing big screen adventures like few others. I didn’t see Way of Water in theaters but I won’t make the same mistake with the many Avatar sequels that will dominates the 2020s. It’s a bit hokey though deeply sincere, and Cameron proves yet again that he should not be doubted on big stages of his own creation. It might take the domestic gross of a small country to make these sci-fi epics of his, but the man delivers like few in the rarefied field of dependable blockbuster artists. There’s going to be an Avatar sequel every two years, so this universe won’t go extinct anytime soon, and I’ll be there waiting too.
Nate’s Grade: B
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John Wick Chapter 4 (2023)
As many of you are well aware, I believe great action can be some of the highest cinematic highs one can experience through the transporting thrill of the movies. It’s the larger-than-life quality, the symbiosis of so many tactical teams working in harmony to pull off the breakneck stunts, rapidly escalating stakes, and organic story complications, that it all feels like the best kind of magic trick. For my money, Mad Max: Fury Road is closer to the pinnacle of the artform than a majority of self-serious Oscar bait drivel. In many ways, musicals are very similar to action movies, as fight choreography is nothing more than a rehearsed dance between professionals. Both must incorporate geography, spacing, and interaction to maximize their appeal. It is from this perspective that I approach the John Wick franchise, a series that I have enjoyed and has gotten more popular with every new entry. John Wick: Chapter 4 is about as action-packed as they come, running at nearly three hours long. I purposely waited and saw the movie with my father, a fellow lifelong lover of big screen action and particularly Fury Road. We both had a blast, and rather than write a review of exclamatory nonsense, I thought I’d look over some of my finer critical points with 2019’s John Wick 3 and analyze how 4 excels beyond.
John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is a legendary assassin in a world where I think half the population are secretly, or not so secretly, trained assassins. I have to think the union collective bargaining negotiations are brutal. Regardless, John has been on the run ever since he upset the High Table, the cloak-and-dagger authority over this clandestine universe. He’s had a bounty on his head getting larger and larger with every foiled assassination, and there have been hundreds at this point. To finally clear his name, John plans on challenging the Marquis (Bill Skarsgard), the new controlling High Table member who is un-sanctioning every international hotel that gives refuge to Wick. The old rules state that Wick can challenge the Marquis to a duel, but getting to the actual dueling site might be murder.
As I wrote in 2019: “Most other action movies have one or two moments that make you wince or make you shake your head in astonishment of something intense, gnarly, or self-evidently awesome. John Wick 3 is packed with these moments… For action fans, the John Wick series is a simplified adrenaline shot where the director and star are working in unison to compose goose bump-triggering action cinema for the masses.”
This compliment is still applicable because the lasting draw of the John Wick franchise has always been its highly polished and intense action sequences. Series director Chad Stahelski has an intimate understanding of his star’s physical capabilities, having served as Reeves stunt double for years, and he and his team stress the fidelity of visceral realism with their overtly preposterous movie. The action is displayed in long takes, wide shots, and gloriously accessible visual arrangements to allow the audience to truly enjoy the splendor of the moment. This philosophy stretches to car chases, like an exciting roundabout of the Arc de Triomphe making bodies fly through the air, and even horseback chases, like an opening evoking Lawrence of Arabia. There were several moments that made me giggle in giddiness, like a woman relentlessly stabbing a man she rode piggyback up the stairs, and a sustained high angle where Wick clears room after room of baddies with fiery canisters that turn each target into a burst of flames, and a fight ascending many flights of stairs that has echoes of Wile E. Coyote slapstick. If you are a lover of action, these movies will not disappoint in that department. The movie takes about 30-40 minutes to set up its stakes and goals, and from there it’s relentless. The best compliment I can give is that Chapter 4 did not feel like three hours because it just flew by for me.
This is where my small criticisms of 2019’s third entry began, and I’ll address them one-by-one: “Because the movie rarely catches its collective breath, it can also feel like a mindless video game, with each new location a new level and with innumerable, faceless cohorts rushing in to be battled. The violence can be brutal but also feel a bit programmed, lacking some of the visceral dynamic realism of The Raid movies, the closest equivalent action franchise.”
This was a concern I was beginning to notice with Chapter 3, that the movies were in danger of becoming repetitive as Wick clears room after room of opponents. In general, that is the plot of all four movies, so the emphasis needs to be on how each sequence differentiates itself. Chapter 4 does this very well by giving every sequence its own underlying identity. This can be through unique locations or even weapon preference. One sequence is entirely John battling with nunchucks. One sequence is John fighting through a rainy Berlin club that becomes an ax fight. There’s a fight that utilizes well-placed doorbells to cue a blind swordsman Caine (Donnie Yen). The change in locations also helps differentiate the action sequences, with trips to Osaka, Berlin, and finally Paris each adding their own style. It’s a lot more fun to change things up and make sure that the change in scenery, weapon preference, and character is incorporated into the fight.
Another undervalued aspect of the Wick franchise is how damn good looking these movies are. Stahelski can frame some beautifully lit sequences to make all the subsequent carnage and fisticuffs that much more pleasing. We’ve been settling for far less for far too long, folks. There’s no reason our grungy, dank, overly gray action movies cannot look as pristine and striking as the John Wick series.
I also wrote in 2019: “The further and further we get from the events of the original John Wick, the less emotional involvement the series seems to ingratiate, especially with its central baddies onscreen. Every dog-loving audience member was willing Wick to get his vengeance in the first movie. We wanted him to get the bad guy in the sequel. Now it’s basically wave after wave of hired guns that he has to defeat, and without a better connection to that opposing force, the movie franchise runs the risk of losing any long standing personal stakes. The bad guys are just interchangeable and only present to be dispatched. There’s no emotional victory or satisfaction for the audience if Bad Guy #12 gets toppled by the climax.”
I was beginning to worry that by the time of John Wick 12 he would have killed the entire world’s population and forgotten it all started because of one dog. It’s not that story is the preeminent feature of the Wick franchise but there is more thought and curiosity put into this world building and it would be a shame to ignore it simply for wall-to-wall violence. Fortunately, I think Chapter 4 does the best about introducing new and engaging characters. The John Wick series has introduced new faces but rarely do they seem like more than overly glorified NPCs meant to root for John or take stock of the current predicament (they’ve never found a meaningful use of Laurence Fishburne). With Chapter 4, the new characters actually matter, and they’re great. The best addition is Caine, made even more intriguing by being a blind assassin and made even more fantastic through the performance of Yen (Rogue One, Ip Man). He’s a friend to John and feels great guilt about trying to kill him (his daughter’s life is threatened as leverage). He’s a conflicted killer, the rueful warrior, and his disability makes every fight worthy of watching how exactly he’ll take down his next opponent. It’s enough that I could foresee a Caine spinoff if the fortunes of the universe demand even more Wick spinoffs (Ballerina, a spinoff starring Ana de Armas, is expected to be released summer 2024).
The other new characters are also strong. Skarsgard (It) makes a great hiss-able villain and he really eats up his French dandy accent. There’s also Mr. Nobody (Shamier Anderson) who spies from afar, biding his time until the bounty on Wick gets high enough. He has a dog too that is trained to attack men in a very vulnerable spot first. Then there’s Scott Adkins (Ip Man 3) in perhaps the performance of his career. He gets to slather on makeup, a fat suit, false teeth, and really becomes a broad character, a German crime lord but more a menacing fairy tale behemoth. The way Adkins relishes every syllable is a delight. The man isn’t known much for his acting, other than his finely honed martial arts skills, but he showcases plenty of potential if given a chance. It’s fun to watch all these martial arts experts cut loose, most in their middle age. Recording artist Rina Sawayama makes a killer acting debut as the concierge of the Osaka Continental hotel, and she wreaks havoc with a bow and arrow and some intense knife work.
Because of having more interesting characters meaningfully involved, including those who have a familial history with John Wick, it brings a new emotional stakes to the franchise because we don’t know what will happen to these new faces. I cared enough to be newly invested.
And lastly, in 2019, I concluded with: “I’ll happily continue watching further adventures of John Wick, though I’d be just as interested in an exploration of the world without its titular star. At some point it may be necessary to retire John Wick (Reeves seems to have lost a step, but he’s still like a hundred steps beyond most of us) and when they do, I hope this interesting and peculiar world is allowed to house further weird and exciting adventures.”
By the end of Chapter 4, you question whether this universe can exist beyond the bloodshed of Mr. Wick, and my answer would be yes. A Continental TV series is premiering in the fall on Peacock, taking place in the 1970s with younger versions of Winston (Ian McShane) and Charon (the late Lance Reddick). There’s at least one spinoff in the works I’ve mentioned earlier. It very much appears that Reeves and Stahelski intended for Chapter 4 to be the definite conclusion to their story they began in 2014. I doubt things will stay that way, especially with Chapter 4 becoming the biggest earner in the franchise. I would suspect the studio would be begging for a Chapter 5. Regardless, if this is the intended series finale, then Reeves and Stahelski have gone out on top. John Wick: Chapter 4 is action movie nirvana.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Scream 6 (2023)
When horror franchises dramatically shift their locations to somewhere new, like New York City, it’s usually a bad sign that the series is desperately looking for new creative life. Not every franchise can rebound like a Leprechaun in Space. Most of them just become another Jason Takes Manhattan, where now instead of Character Group A running and dying from the masked killer, it’s now Character Group B running and dying from the same masked killer. It’s more reminiscent of cartoons where the backgrounds might change but the on screen events are stuck in the same drab routines. The Scream franchise was rebooted with 2022’s satisfying fifth installment, so I hoped that a sixth Scream could at least exceed where so many others have failed. Those hopes were quickly fulfilled in what I consider to be one of the best sequels of the seminal slasher series with all of its air-quote irony.
There are more than a few entertaining new turns as the bloody hi-jinks head to the Big Apple. It feels bloodier and gorier than most of the Scream movies, but it also has well-developed suspense sequences that work extremely well at making you squirm. Every brutal burst of violence elicited a “oomph” exhalation from me, and I found myself tensing up as the initial scene constructions transformed. I was quite enjoying myself from set piece to set piece. Take for instance an escape that requires the characters to flee from one high-rise window to another across an alley via a rickety ladder. Or take a subway escape packed with masked Halloween revelers to make you paranoid who among the many Ghostfaces might be the potential killer (I enjoyed the other costumes of horror old and new – I saw you Midsommar May Queen). Even a hide and seek sequence inside a convenience store can be thrilling. All credit to returning Scream 5 directors Matt Bettinelli-Opin and Tyler Gillet, the same pair that delivered 2019’s wonderfully twisted Ready or Not. These gentlemen have proven that they know how to squeeze the most tension from any scenario no matter how bizarre. I loved that the opening kill (Ready or Night alum Samara Weaving) goes in a different direction, revealing the culprit right away, and then it goes in even another direction. There are still some new cool tricks to be had with the sixth installment in a 27-year-old horror series.
I was asked if you had to watch any of the prior Scream movies to enjoy Scream 6, and while it’s not necessary, you will be missing out on some of the larger connective tissue and themes. You should definitely have familiarity with Scream 5 since it’s a direct sequel and continuation of the core (four) characters. I was surprised how much more emotional resonance I found with the Carpenter sisters than any of the other characters, new or legacy, from the earlier movies. I think it was smart having Sam (Melissa Barrera) be the daughter of the first Ghostface as was her seeing visions of her late father, this time as an adult Skeet Ulrich, which might have been the wrong choice considering the character never lived to be this age (is her imagination doing one of those age approximations you see for runaway kids?). Our lead heroine is trying to navigate where her instincts are taking her, which might be a darker path that she feels trepidation about ignoring for only so long. Sam’s therapist balks when he discovers her actual parentage, which makes him maybe the worst therapist. Her relationship with her younger sister Tara (Jenna Ortega) is more complex than any of the close friendships of Sydney Bristow. Even with all the carnage and bloodshed, Scream 6 still finds breather moments to let the sisters react realistically to their dilemma and how it affects their own relationship. I’m glad these characters returned because they serve as the emotional focal point of an otherwise famously glib franchise.
The biggest drawback from Scream 6 is the tacit understanding that this will not be the final film in the franchise given its box-office success, the first film to cross the $100 million-dollar threshold since 1997’s Scream 2. This feels like a culminating climax as the characters now view their lives not as their own but as part of a “franchise,” which means the stories will keep going on beyond them and that nobody is safe, not even the “leads.” For a series entrenched in heavy meta-textual irony, it feels like it’s reaching the end of its genre self-awareness cycle when the movie acknowledges itself as its own IP. The scope of the movie is retrospective, not just reaching back and acknowledging the history of where things began for the legacy characters but for every movie. Each one of the former Ghostfaces is being collected and commented upon, with murder nerd Easter eggs left at each crime scene or in its contextual arrangement. It’s the kind of totality that I would expect from a movie franchise coming to an end, and nodding at its various twists and turns, finding places to even include elements from the lesser beloved Scream sequels. There’s even an unspoken satirical jab at the number of characters that miraculously survive, as if the film is throwing up its hands and saying why not, as if this is the last movie and the rules of who survives and who dies are inconsequential because we’re subverting expectations, as we’ve been explicitly told, so expect the unexpected.
The other aspect of this drawback involves some slight spoilers but I’ll try and tread lightly. After our genre-savvy movie geek explains the stakes of this new episode, the characters start to review one another as potential suspects, and the new supporting characters even cast an accusing eye on the returning characters saying they could have cracked from their trauma. There’s emphasis on the drive to subvert expectations and break away from the patterns of old.
And here is where I’ll venture into some light spoilers so if you want to skip ahead to the next paragraph, please do so, dear reader. There is an ongoing thread where an Internet subculture has re-framed the Carpenter sisters as the real villains of their own horrendous story, and it’s an intriguing element that brings the echo chambers and confirmation bias and novice sleuths-in-the-making of the Internet to further examination. It’s reminiscent of any bottom-feeding conspiracy that asks people to pick apart their reality for “the real story” magically hidden in plain sight. The Scream franchise is famous for its fun guessing game of who the real killers could be from our gallery of suspects, and Scream 6 is no exception. However, the subversion that could have really separated this Scream from its elders is by having the killers actually be… nobodies (the Rian Johnson twist). What if the mask comes off and it’s a brand new character? I’m sure many viewers would feel like they had been betrayed, but then the point emerges that it’s simply some conspiracy theorist who has gone full-tilt crazy into the cult and taken matters into their own hands, attempting to hold “the real killers” to account or to prove they were truly guilty. And the larger point is that the “fake news” has already won out. It doesn’t matter what happens from here, what news coverage should stamp out ignorance, because you can’t pull every cult member out of their self-inflicted cocoon of delusion, which means there will always be more to take their place. That’s the legacy of what has transpired, that there will never be a real escape any longer. I thought that would be such a jarring and thematically intriguing and summative ending.
For the many fans of the slasher series, I believe Scream 6 retains plenty of the same pleasures of its prior movies while stretching out into new and interesting directions. It helps that I cared about the central sisters, at least enough by the low bar of horror movie standards. It’s bloody, fun, twisty, and satisfying enough that it could have served as a capper for the entire franchise. But it won’t be. I look forward to this new creative team re-evaluating trilogies better than Scream 3 did. In the meantime, this is a bloody good time to be had for long-term fans and newcomers from the 2022 reboot alike.
Nate’s Grade: B
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