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Dune: Part Two (2024)
I wasn’t fully taken with the first Dune movie when it arrived in 2021. It was visually sweeping, with dense world building and careful development of characters and themes, but then it just hit the pause button without any certainty there would be a conclusion. Thankfully, director Denis Villanueuve was able to complete his vision, and what a spectacular science fiction landscape this man has fashioned, visually resplendent but also with a story that deepens and improves on all the promise and setup from 2021. The triumphant of Paul (Timothee Chalamet) becoming a hero and avenging his father from their betrayers is tempered by the tragedy of Paul, becoming the false messiah that will bring about mass genocide. The movie doesn’t hold back in its criticisms of its hero while also providing complexity that makes us root for him but uneasily dread what might become. The narrative structure is easy to follow with Paul ingratiating himself with the native culture, rising to power and influence, and organizing a resistance against the well-funded imperial overlords of Arakis. This is the kind of sumptuous, big screen spectacle with intelligence that is so rare in the Hollywood system, and Villaneuve once again shows his ability to perform artful blockbusters that put him in a rarefied class with hew others. After the first Dune, I was hopeful but a little wary. After the second Dune, I feel like all of my concerns were wiped away.
Nate’s Grade: A-
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Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver (2024)
Back in December, Zack Snyder offered his very Snyder-y holiday take on big-budget space operas with Rebel Moon, a project that began as his Star Wars pitch that was turned down. It was what you would expect from a Snyder movie: big, loud, silly yet played completely serious, and drained of all vibrant color. Rebel Moon Part One was on my worst of 2023 list and I felt was a waste of two hours. I was not looking forward to the concluding Part Two. I was worried it would be two more hours of the same, and now having seen Part Two, a.k.a. The Scargiver, the edgy nickname of our lead rebel Kora (Sofia Boutella) fighting the good fight against the Evil Empire, I can now say that the Rebel Moon duology is now a dreary waste of four of your waking hours.
Saying Scargiver might be minimally better than Child of Fire (did you remember that was the subtitle for Part One? Don’t lie to me, dear reader, you know you didn’t) is a nominal victory. There’s more action and a clearer sense of climax, with our underdogs planning their guerrilla war against the overpowering forces approaching (we’re basically watching the training of a Vietcong-like insurgency) and then pulling off their unexpected victory. The problem is that we’re still stuck with all the same characters from Part One, few of which will prove to be emotionally engaging or intriguing. We’ve assembled our fighting force thanks to the events of Part One, but far too many of them are interchangeable and punishingly free of personality besides the default character creation setting of “stoic badass.” There’s one lady who has laser swords so at least that sets her apart. When it comes to attitude, personality, perspective, and even skill level, these characters are awash, which makes the action falter when it comes to any sort of meaningful emotional involvement. The bare bones story is so plain with broadly drawn good versus evil characters from its obvious cultural influences. The fact that it’s derivative is not itself a major fault, it’s the fact that it does so little with these familiar pieces that the movie feels like it’s trying to skate by on your familiarity. After four hours, it’s clear to me that Snyder and his co-writers composed this not as a living, breathing universe with its own lore and history and intrigue, but as a story where he could have used the Star Wars universe to fill in the gaps.
Snyder can be a first-class visual stylist but his sense of fluid and engaging action stops at “cool images,” like living splash pages from comic books. Like Part One, there is no sense of weight to these action sequences. Things are just happening, and then in the next shot things are just happening. Occasionally there will be a sliver of relation, but whether it’s 60 minutes or 6 minutes, the effect is still the same. The action feels like it’s all happening in a vacuum, and the momentum we feel the upstarts are gaining is hampered. We went through the trouble of explaining their counter-offensives, so why does so much of it feel like it’s just watching a jumbled, ashen group of characters fire guns? This is best epitomized by Jimmy the robot (voiced by Anthony Hopkins) who has gone rogue from his programming and sits out much of the action for reasons entirely unknown. Then he arrives, takes down a few evil tanks, and I guess decides to sit back out. If this is our fighting force, what exactly has it amounted to? This makes the entire movie, and its predecessor, a frustrating viewing even for forgiving action fans. Things blow up good, and there are a few impressive visual orchestrations, but it’s so fleeting and slim.
Over the course of two two-hour movies, totaling four hours, with the promise (threat?) of more, it’s clear that what we really had here was perhaps one underdeveloped movie at best that has been unfortunately spread out over two (and counting) movies of time. Part One was entirely about assembling the team of rugged defenders, and this could have served as the first 45 minutes of the overall movie, with the events of Part Two filling in the rest. With Scargiver, the defenders don’t even start training the villagers until 40 minutes into the movie and the big battle doesn’t kick in until a full hour. Structurally, this doesn’t feel like we’re using our time wisely, and this is best evidenced by the fact that after AN ENTIRE MOVIE of character back-story, Snyder still stops the action to have his characters sit around and share their sad back-stories. Did these characters just not talk at all to each other after initially gathering person-by-person? Tarak (Staz Nair) still hasn’t put a shirt on. I felt like yelling at my TV as the character took turns, and another 15 minutes, for each member to share their tortured back-story again but with different visuals. I was almost worried that right before the battle another character would say, “Wait, before it all really goes down, I need to share, yet again, more of my back-story.” It’s not like these extra glimpses give us new understanding or even meaningfully differentiate their characters; they’re all just victims of an abusive space government that imposes its terrible will most forcefully.
There is one tragic back-story that does separate itself from the pack, notably because it literally separates itself from the pack and is told well before our group share. Kora explains her part in the assassination of the royal family, securing the military coup that left the Evil Empire extra evil, and I guess the guy named Balisarius as supreme leader (oh how this man must have been teased for his name as a schoolchild, which might be his own tragic back-story that we’ll get three helpings of with an eventual Part Three). This betrayal is personal and stands out, with Kora being the one to shoot the little princess, a girl who, in her dying breath, says she forgives Kora. That’s rough. This is actually a good sequence from a character standpoint as it establishes Kora’s accountability and guilt convincingly. However, Snyder makes some baffling creative choices that blunt the impact of this sequence. During the assassination, the musical score favors a string quartet, which is an emotionally plaintive choice. However, the music is actually diegetic to the scene, meaning it’s coming live from the room. There is literally a string quartet of musicians playing in the room while the royal family is betrayed and slaughtered. These guys are really dedicated to their art to keep playing throughout, and I assume they must also be part of the conspiracy or else big bad Balisarus (snicker) would kill them too. You might as well have them also start stabbing the royal family with their bows. It’s details like this that trip up Snyder, a man beholden to images and ideas but lacking the finesse to make them work.
An issue I had with this conflict was the disparity in scale between the forces, mainly my nagging question of why put together a ragtag group of space adventurers to defend this town if the Evil Empire could just nuke the planet from space? Well Snyder attempts to answer this early with Part Two, and the answer appears to be… grain. This community theorizes that the empire needs their grain yield so badly that they wouldn’t do anything to damage it, so their plan is to harvest all their wheat, turn it into grain, and then use the grain like human shields, hiding behind the valuable resource as cover and distributing it across the village. This is beyond silly. First, this isn’t like an entire planet harvesting grain, it’s one little village on the outskirts. It’s not like we’ve seen a giant warehouse that goes for miles and miles stockpiled with thousands if not millions of deposits of this food. Also, we’re talking grain here (stay tuned for my exclusive Rebel Moon-related podcast called “Talkin’ Grain”). It’s not like we’re talking about some super rare mineral or substance that is only found on this one planet, something linked toward like the power source for an ultimate weapon or space travel. We’re talking about grain here. Grain. You think this Evil Empire won’t nuke the planet because they’re worried they won’t get enough grain, the same crop that can be harvested on multitudes of other planets? How about they just kill everyone and then repopulate the planet with robots to harvest the precious grain? Or how about this simple village make some upgrades as we’re in a future world with space travel and artificial intelligence but people are still harvesting wheat by hand like they’re the Amish. Regardless, I hope you love slow-mo montages of grain harvesting because that’s what you’re getting for the first 40 minutes, as if Snyder is rubbing your face in his silly non-answer.
In the conclusion to Rebel Moon Part Two, once the dust has settled, and long since that grain has been harvested, the last five minutes sets up a would-be Part Three, informing us that an unresolved storyline is next up on the docket. The characters gang up for their next adventure, and you’re expected to be chomping at the bit for this continuation. I openly sighed. Every movie feels like a tease for the next adventure, and it seems to promise that this one will be the real one you’ve been waiting for, but it feels like franchise bait-and-switch. It’s more than incomplete or lazy storytelling, it’s a scheme to leverage interest in a world and series that deserves little. The universe of Rebel Moon is not interesting. The characters of Rebel Moon are not interesting. The visuals of Rebel Moon are fine, though some of the costume choices again can rip you right out of the reality of this universe (a guy fighting in blue jean overalls?!). In short, not enough has been established, developed, or even paid off to make Rebel Moon an interesting and satisfying movie, let alone two, let alone three, let alone however many Snyder wants to leech out of Netflix. I would say Part Two is better because at least it provides an ending but it doesn’t even do that, merely an intentional passing of the baton to the next movie, and round and round we go. Rebel Moon is a living poster stretched to its breaking point. Leave this shallow universe behind.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024)
In 2021, the Monsterverse series, begat from 2014’s Godzilla franchise kickstart, finally matched up its two chief prizefighters by pitting King Kong against the mighty Godzilla. It was also by far the most successful movie in the fledgling kaiju franchise, and Warner Brothers was eager to keep the good times running. Now it’s three years later, but Kong is older and weary, living in the Hollow Earth realm below our feet but feeling very alone, the last of the giant apes. Suddenly, he discovers a new world beneath his feet, another level where there are other apes like him. However, they’re ruled in fear from the vicious Scar King, and so Kong needs to call upon his former rival and now tentative ally Godzilla for the ultimate homecoming smack-down.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire finds a comfortable resting place as solid disposable fun, a work that knows its real appeal and doesn’t get in the way of it, so why does this movie work for me whereas I had trouble really celebrating the 2021 predecessor? I think it comes down to streamlining and limiting the “dumb fun” to a more manageable quotient. There is still plenty of junk science and goofy moments that will likely inspire their share of guffaws, but I was more pleased this time than overwhelmed in 2021. I had plenty of friends that absolutely loved the 2021 showdown, and I’ll admit the big bouts of monster action were well developed and staged, but for me the dumb was more present than my “dumb fun” threshold could bear. Again, that’s not to say that this newest adventure doesn’t evoke similar eye-rolling. The very revelation of ANOTHER subterranean world and hidden civilization just under the feet of the other subterranean hidden world makes me wonder if every successive sequel will just keep digging downwards, discovering yet another undiscovered world, until they reach the molten core.
This movie is broken into three storylines and only one of them has the human characters; the core of the movie is Kong’s exploration of the new subterranean world and this is told wordlessly and effectively. The 2021 movie had to juggle multiple human enclaves all having their own adventures and discovering components of our story that would ultimately prove helpful. There was the Godzilla Team and the Kong Team, but did you know that the 2021 movie included all these human characters: our unexpected lead of the Monsterverse now in Hall, the returning new characters from 2021 by Rebecca Hall, Brian Tyree Henry, and Kaylee Hottle, Alexander Skarsgard, Eiza Gonzalez, Julian Dennison, Demian Bichir, Lance Reddick, and the returning characters from 2019 by Millie Bobby Brown, Kyle Chandler, and the son of Ken Wantanabe’s deceased scientist. Top it off with the starring title bout of Kong v Godzilla, and that’s a lot of speaking roles to have to juggle over two hours of monster mash. Having only one human group and only one new significant character (Dan Stevens as a hip veterinarian) helps keep things moving and puts more emphasis on the real big star, Mr. Kong.
Godzilla is sidelined for the second movie in a row to give way for Kong, and it’s the right call as the giant ape is more of a wounded warrior, and his loneliness and desire for community is an easier emotional state to convey than anything from the large enigmatic lizard. Godzilla spends almost the whole movie, leading up to the climax, on a mission where he’s powering up, like it’s a filler Dragon Ball Z episode. It does build a sense of anticipation for his eventual return in the big arena, but it’s clear that Godzilla’s name should be second in the title. He’s presented almost like an angry cat, settling into the Colosseum as an impromptu nap den. With Kong, the emotional arc of a lonely creature seeking kinship is universal and easy to understand even without words. He believes he’s the last of his kind and then to discover a community of those like him, and adjust as an outsider, and then upset the power structure of a bully wrecking havoc. There’s even a budding stepfather-like relationship with a little ape who begins as quite an annoying little stinker and then warms up to this better paternal figure. It’s a simple story of discovery and reunification, as well as overthrowing a corrupt leader, but it’s enough to get you emotionally invested in this giant CGI monster and his giant sense of encroaching ennui.
The biggest appeal of any monster movie is its destructive action, and Godzilla x Kong delivers in this regard while keeping things fluid and fun. Returning director Adam Wingard (You’re Next) makes sure the big brawls are easy to follow with minimal edits to better orient the viewer. The big hits feel like they matter, and the rules of the different fights and fighters and the varying geography matter. There’s a climactic fight in the Hollow Earth where gravity becomes a second thought, and it’s a tremendous visual spectacle as well as rousing sequence of excitement to watch these giants suddenly weightless and zooming through the air in combat. Wingard also knows when to give his characters their big hero moments, and the team-up between Kong and Godzilla has the same rousing satisfaction as you would wish for two titans of mayhem. I enjoyed the new orangutan villain, the Scar King, a fearsome beast that cannot match Kong for sheer brutal strength but makes up for it in speed and agility, and a whip-like weapon that controls a frost-breathing kaiju through fear and pain. It’s an interesting character at least in design and contrast from our hero kaiju, so it’s not just more of the same but with a horn or something. I have to think anyone coming for some top-tier monster wrestling will leave the movie happy.
As for the human drama, it’s mostly kept along the fringes and there to introduce necessary plot elements that a grunting ape couldn’t more adequately convey. Hall has to worry about possibly losing her adoptive mute daughter who is herself the last of an older civilization. It’s pretty simplistic but acceptable as a parallel about finding one’s place in the world from feeling alone.
Godzilla x Kong is silly and stupid and stupidly fun, appealing to any kaiju fan’s inner child, working that same primordial wonder of monsters and destructive spectacle. For my money, it’s a step above the 2021 initial brawl thanks to scaling down its many assorted plotlines dealing with too many forgettable human characters. The action is rip-roaring and proof that even more can be ceded to Kong and a lack of dialogue to tell this story in a meaningful manner. Wingard still has a natural feel for elevated B-movie material, and clearly this movie is going in a very different route than 2023’s now Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, a shockingly affecting post-war human drama that just so happened to have Godzilla in it. It’s a perfect blockbuster to chow down popcorn and hoot and holler along with our giant avatars of childhood glee.
Nate’s Grade: B
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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)
I held off watching Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny for almost half a year as I feared that this even longer-in-the-tooth Doctor Henry “Indy” Jones (Harrison Ford) would make me reassess the 2008 Kingdom of the Crystal Skull more favorably. Having re-watched the original trilogy, I can say that Dial of Destiny has made me reassess the much-maligned 2008 sequel. It’s still not good, and has many wide misses, but it’s also a more interesting movie to watch even in its myriad ways of disappointment. Maybe that’s the Steven Spielberg difference, a filmmaker so talented that even his rare cinematic follies have their own dynamic appeal. Dial of Destiny is a nostalgia slog, including the opening action caper with a de-aged Indy set in 1944 battling Nazis, just like we like. The action sequences lack the whimsy and satisfying scope and scale of the past, but everything here just feels on autopilot, including a gruff Ford as an Indy well past his prime in a world that has only gotten more complex. He’s given two lackluster sidekicks, neither of which are well integrated, and an old former Nazi (Mads Milkkelsen) who literally wants to find the ancient time travel device to go back to WWII and give Hitler notes. It all feels so deflated and absent the spirit and fun of the original movies, and it’s disappointing in a manner that is more bland and predictable than crazy and outlandish (nuking the fridge, killer ants, Tarzan swings, etc.). There’s an interesting kernel of a concept here, an archeologist possibly finding a skeleton in an ancient excavation that belongs to himself, and an ending that could have been ballsy and poetically fitting for the adventurer to become literally part of history. Alas, the one really exciting aspect of Dial of Destiny wimps out, settling for an ending that feels like another weak feint to the franchise’s storied past. I was so thoroughly disengaged by this movie throughout its 154 minutes. It is bereft of lasting charm and imagination and fun. At this point, with an 81-year-old Ford, I think it’s time to leave the character in a museum.
Nate’s Grade: C-
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Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023)
Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom is he last of the Zack Snyder-then-not-Snyder-verse DCU movies, and with that the ten years of mostly middling super hero heroics comes to an end not with a bang but with a whimper. I was a fan of 2018’s original Aquaman thanks to the self-aware craziness and visual decadence from its wily director, James Wan (Malignant). This is still the major appeal of the franchise, a universe that feels pulled from a child’s imagination and recreated in loving splendor on the big screen. The problem with this tone is that it’s a delicate balance between silly fun and silly nonsense. The goofy charm of these movies is still alive and well as they open up an even bigger undersea world of lore (Martin Short as a fish lord!), but this time it feels like a movie that is making it up as it goes, and all that “and this happens next” storytelling begins to feel like a monstrous CGI mess needing to be tamed. This might have something to do with the fact that Wan finished filming the movie over two years ago and it’s endured several re-shoots, including featuring two different Batman actor cameos at different points, to now bring to a close a decade of interconnected movies that are going to be blinked out of larger continuity in 2025 (excluding Margot Robbie’s Harley Quinn, I guess). Lost Kingdom has plenty of enjoyably weird undersea nightmare creatures, a specialty of Wan given his horror roots, but the ultimate villain spends most of his time sitting on a throne in wait and is laughably dismissed so easily in the climax. The whole evil magic trident that corrupts from its evil influence has a very Lord Sauron ring to it. I give the movie points for transforming into a buddy movie between Arthur Curry (Jason Momoa) and his brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) halfway through. The jail break sequence is fun and different, and their bickering dynamic makes for winning comedy. However, the drama feels too overworked, with holdovers from the first film (Black Manta, Amber Heard’s unremarkable love interest) repeating their same beats with robotic dedication. The opening reveal of Arthur being a new dad and it cramping his macho-cool style made he fear we were headed for Shrek 4 territory, where the new dad needs one more adventure to realize the importance of family, etc. Because even when you’re riding a mechanical shark, fighting alongside the crab people, and tunneling through worm prisons, it’s all about recognizing the importance of family, kids (the real undersea treasure after all). I defy anyone not to laugh at the literal concluding speech and its enigmatic “sure, fine, whatever”-energy. As a mere movie, Lost Kingdom is silly escapist entertainment that could enchant a few with lowered expectations, and as the final entry point in a universe of super heroes, it’s a fitting nonsensical end.
Nate’s Grade: C
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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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