Film Shapes

Well, well, well. This thing has done some business. It's currently SIXTH in all time worldwide receipts, with Titanic in its sights. But, of course, it's problematic to rely on public opinion as a judge of quality. Or maybe that's just me. Because I found this new Spider-Man film to be just slightly above average. They are quite a few positives to take from it. Tom Holland has a winning presence, the omnipotent Zendaya is his equal (they have some nice moments together), and the cameos are fun - Mark Ruffalo's Hulk, Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova, and John Bernthal's Punisher big screen debut. Aside from the performances, the city of New York is almost another character, and it's portrayed lovingly here. The jumpy, swingy scenes feel more realistic than previous films, and there's a dark edge to the story as well, to do with change and maturity. The first grown-up Spider-Man? On that note, I read his situation as a late arrival at puberty. Bear with me...

A few years ago, we hit the S.S.P. (Superhero Saturation Point). And the best way for studios to arrest, or even maybe reverse, the law of diminishing returns is to JUST GIVE IT A FUCKING REST. There's enough residual goodwill in the fan base to guarantee profits....for now. But, as Malcolm Gladwell said, there must be a tipping point. So into this cinematic avalanche slips The Fantastic Four: First Steps , the first film of Phase Six and the thirty seventh overall! It's quite dull for the first 30 minutes, setting up the characters, ensuring the audience understands we're on a slightly different Earth (828), and a different time as well. It only gets going when the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) appears and promises everyone death by devouring. She's not going to eat them, she works for a massive space turd called Galactus, played by Finchy himself, Ralph Ineson. He'll do the devouring. Here's the thing - this film is a perfectly serviceable entry, not brilliant,...

Well, it looks like I'm on the wrong side of recent film history with this one. Quite a few early signs are that this iteration of Superman isn't finding favour with the critics. I have to say, I thought it was a lot of fun. Not a world beater but certainly an improvement over the previous Snyder editions ( Man of Steel , Justice League , etc). One highlight is the editing, by Craig Halpert and William Hoy. It's snappy and witty, and some of the transitions are fantastic - Hawkgirl dropping a wrong'un cuts to a soluble tablet dropping into a glass of water, for example. The fight sequences aren't too ' Transformer -ised' either, that is, it's possible to tell what's going on. Writer/director James Gunn imbues the film with a lightness of touch and the humour, mostly from Nathan Fillion's Green Lantern, works most of the time. The casting is pretty spot on, too. In David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan, it's almost as though Gunn scoured the C...

This is the sixth and final film in phase five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and by my reckoning, it's the second best of the phase (after the third Guardians film). It's certainly an improvement on the flaccid Captain America: Brave New World from a few months back. Kevin Feige has done a good bit of business getting the right team together here, not unlike the film itself. The reasonably unknown crew includes director Jacob Schreier, writers Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, and cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo. Schreier hasn't actually directed a feature for ten years (he's been involved in TV) but they all have some interesting credits to their names. The film picks up the story of Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), adopted sister of Black Widow. She's taking jobs for Valentina de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), mostly illegal cleanup gigs with high body counts, but is becoming disenchanted with all the drudgery. She's in a murderous malaise. A fatality funk...

This is very much a soft launch for phase 5 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It's not terrible, just kind of a facsimile of earlier, better films, specifically Captain America: The Winter Soldier , which was a throwback to 1970s political paranoia films. There are also echoes of films like Telefon , The Ipcress File , The Manchurian Candidate  and Three Days of the Condor . And there are clear parallels with the skip fire that is the USA these days. Harrison Ford's character, Thaddeus Ross, is the newly minted president and is presented as a blend of Biden (old and doddery) and Trumpington (a literal monster in the White House). I imagine it took a mountain of cash to persuade Ford to take up the reins after William Hurt (who played Ross in five MCU films) died a couple of years ago. The presence of Ford is actually one of the best things going for this, he still has that 'old film star' charisma.  Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, the old Falcon but new Captain America, d...

So, after years of teasing punters, Huge Action said yes to appearing alongside Deadpool, the result being this uneven, snarky bloodbath. It's very funny in parts, slow in others but it seems to have washed its face already, bringing in over $600 million worldwide to the evil Disney coffers. This is the third film in the Deadpool series, but the first since Marvel/Disney acquired FOX studios, a Hollywood business deal referred to way too often in this film - once or twice would be enough but I reckon most of the audience don't find these Pool asides as funny as the writers do. Speaking of writers, there's a veritable stable of them credited here - Ryan Reynolds himself; Rhett Reese & Paul Wernick from the first two Deadpool films; Zeb Wells; and director, Shawn Levy; not to mention the comic creators, Rob Liefeld and Fabian Nicieza. Many cooks, lots of broth. Plot-wise, there's a lot to get into here but I'm not sure that's really of concern - the 'sto...

There's an intriguing correlation that seems to be occurring in pyjama films these days. Once the undisputed master of the genre, the MCU has dipped of late (though the recent Guardians film was a peach), whereas the erstwhile shite DCEU has lifted its game. Their latest entry is The Flash , written by Christina Hodson and Joby Harold, and directed by Andy Muschietti, and to my surprise, it's a bit of a banger. It concerns the fast one in the Justice League, Barry Allen (AKA The Flash) and his awkward attempts to fit in to society. A possible reason for his gormlessness is the fact that he lost his mother when he was a child, so when he realises he can run fast enough to, stay with me here, crack the space time continuum (!), he decides to go back and prevent his mother's death. What could go wrong? Well, shit, obviously a lot, and so, wrong it goes. Even though Batman warns him off it, Flash can't resist and is on his way back to his past when he's knocked out of ...

Had a look at Avengers: Age of Ultron a few days ago. Seems to be doing good business at the worldwide box office - around 1.4 billion at the mo but two thirds of that is from outside the US. Maybe this is why most of the action ISN'T set in the US (Eastern Europe, Southern Africa, South Korea - incidentally, Sokovia and Wakanda BUT New York and South Korea??). I like the fact that the leads are saving 'people' not just 'Americans' as is usually the case in Hollywood moolah spunk-fests. A couple of new characters - Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver - slotted into the film well enough, though their back story differed from the X-Men one. Here they're referred to as 'enhanced', not mutants. This has something to do with legal wranglings between Marvel and Fox. Not sure about their casting, especially Taylor-Johnson as the fast one. He's super bland. In contrast to Paul Bettany as The Vision. His entrance, including the hammer pay-off, is probably...

This Japanese poster seems to suggest this will be the last outing for the titular Iron Man/Tony Stark character (さらば　- 　アイアンマン。= Farewell Iron Man) but as long as the box office continues to ching-ching, I'd say that's a premature assumption. Certainly, he'll reappear in the next Avengers movie at least. And I kind of hope he doesn't disappear. He's one of the most likeable 'superheroes' I've seen - a flawed smart-arse who runs like a 'suit' avoiding the rain and reacts to surprises with either a cocked eyebrow or a look of exasperated acceptance. All credit must go to Downey Jr. for this - he's good in other films but this is his Harry Potter or Alan Partridge, he may never be able to shake this role. But the film itself? I'd have to say it's better than it's immediate predecessor but not quite as good as the original. Kind of what you'd expect from a third installment. The script has some gems but at the same time...