WandaVision (an MCU phase four review)

 

There will be spoilers.

WandaVision is as good a place as any to start on MCU Phase Four. It picks up, basically, as soon as The Blip occurred. Wanda returns to find Vision's body gone and goes in search of him, and Monica Rambeau returns to find that her mother died while she was not existing. All of the action happens prior to Spider-Man: Far From Home.

I loved WandaVision when it was first released. From the first episode. Doing the series in the styles of different eras of sitcoms was a lot of fun. But, then, I grew up watching all of those old black & white television shows, so I can also understand younger generations who did not do that not feeling like they were in on the joke. That said, there is enough context provided within the show itself so that anyone watching should be able to at least get that there is a joke and not feel like they were being excluded.

[Yes, I'm talking about all the people (mostly young dudes) who complained that the first few episodes were stupid. They were objectively not stupid, so stop being pissy about not everything being tailored just for you. You are not the only audience.]

It was even better the second time.

It's the kind of series, because of the way it unfolds, where you miss things the first time through. You don't understand the significance. Like The Sixth Sense. If you think you caught everything the first time, I'm just gonna say that you're wrong.

Things that stood out for me on the second viewing:
Jimmy Woo and his magic tricks. Almost as soon as we see Woo, he pulls a business card out of thin air for Monica Rambeau. This picks up from Ant-Man and the Wasp and may be my favorite single moment from the series. It made me laugh hard. It made me re-appreciate having just re-watched all of the MCU movies.

Evan Peters showing up as Pietro. Now, I liked this the first time. Peters performance of Quicksilver is one of the highlights of Fox's X-Men movies, so it was a lot of fun to have him in WandaVision. On the second viewing, though, having now seen Spider-Man: No Way Home and knowing vaguely what's coming in Doctor Strange, I find this move by Marvel rather brilliant. And the mutants are coming to the MCU, too, so... yeah... Loved Peters in this even more the second time.

Kathryn Hahn as Agnes/Ag(atha Hark)ness (get the name?). First, Kathryn Hahn is great. She's amazing and completely underrated. She should have more and bigger roles. It changes your perspective once you know she's the bad guy, like watching Sixth Sense knowing that Willis' character is dead.

Also, I think Paul Bettany is completely underrated among the MCU actors. He has had to be way more versatile than anyone else, starting out as just a voice, being an unemotional machine, being human; it's a lot. His performances have helped the other actors to stand out. He's impressive.

Having said all of that, the real power of WandaVision is that it's a story about grief. And not just Wanda's grief, lest we forget that Monica is also going through her own grief that is just as fresh as Wanda's. It's two different perspectives, but Wanda has been touched by so much trauma, not the least of which is discovering that S.W.O.R.D. has confiscated her "husband's" body and won't give it back, that it's understandable why she would try to retreat into what was the happiest moments of her life. She can't face going forward. The story, while filled with action and a spectacular "boss battle," is heart wrenching and touching. Powerful. Especially considering what Wanda has to give up to set things right. No better encapsulation exists than Vision's words to Wanda to help her to realize that it is, actually, all okay: But what is grief if not love persevering?

We have a societal view that grief is one of those bad emotions. It makes people uncomfortable. But, you know what, it's okay to be sad. We don't need to try to hide it or pretend that we're over it or any of a number of other ways that society says that we should move along. But how much grief is too much? Who can say? That's for the individual to decide. Maybe if we did better at letting people grieve and be sad or any of a number of other "bad" emotions, people wouldn't get so messed up by trying to suppress them.
Just sayin'.

So, yeah, WandaVision is a great show, and, honestly, I'm more than a little impressed that Marvel/Disney took on such a heavy subject. It's not often we see these kinds of topics dealt with in popular media.

MCU Phase Four

I suppose this is where it all gets interesting. Not that it hasn't been interesting. I'm using the word a bit more loosely. Up to the end of Phase Three, all of the MCU was contained within the movies and could be followed linearly, pretty much. This is no longer true. Following Phase Four is going to be a more convoluted experience.

For instance, Black Widow takes place both before Infinity War and after Endgame, but it is essentially a Phase Four story. Well, sort of a prelude to Phase Four with the introduction of Yelena as a character. The new Black Widow? I suppose we'll see.

Then there is the fact that WandaVision actually takes place, in the timeline, before Spider-Man: Far From Home, possibly The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, too.

Then there's Loki... I suppose that one starts within the action of Endgame, but it's outside of time, so it... doesn't count? I don't know. I do know, though, that I love the introduction of the TVA. [I have their first appearance.]

So... like I said, interesting. And possibly challenging to keep up with? I don't know. I'm sure it will not make that big a difference overall, not if you're taking each story as its own story.

I'm looking at reviewing Phase Four as its own separate thing and leaving my other MCU ranking list as it is. Or, maybe, I'll work only the movies onto the ranking list. I don't know. We'll have to see how it goes. I am, right now, working my way back through WandaVision and should have a review of that up soon.

One personal note about Phase Four: I have no idea what Marvel is doing in regards to the overall plot arc. This is interesting to me because I knew almost right away what the first big arc was leading to. I loved being able to pick up the clues as they went along. There's some speculation that the new arc is going to have to do with the Beyonder and Secret Wars and, I suppose, that makes some sense, but I haven't seen what I would take as actual evidence of that yet. At any rate, I'm not out scouring the interwebs trying to figure it out. I'm okay just going along for the ride and finding out as I go.

Also on a personal note: I love that they're bringing in Black Knight and Moon Knight. Those were two of my favorite characters back in the 80s. I can't wait to see what they're going to do with them.

All of this to say to be on the lookout for reviews of the various Disney+ series. But not the Netflix shows, which I suppose are being incorporated as canon now that Disney+ is airing them. Of course, we've already seen Matt Murdock and Kingpin in canon shows, so that all makes sense, too.

I'm excited to see where Phase Four is going.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (a movie review post)

 

MCU #23

Looking back now, I think Marvel carrying Mysterio into the MCU is one of the bravest things they've done. Of Marvel characters, Mysterio is probably the most made fun of, at least among... I don't know how to differentiate this exactly. There are some legitimately ridiculous characters in the Marvel Universe, but you haven't heard of them. They don't get made fun of because they were so "what the fuck were you thinking" that they haven't been around enough to be made fun of. Mysterio is kind of "main stream," though. He goes back to 1964 and was one of the original Sinister Six. You have to suspend a lot of disbelief to take him as a legitimate threat. The comic book version, I mean. It's really rather impressive that they took this character and made him viable in the MCU.
Really impressive.
Why do it? I have no idea, but they did, and it really worked.

Total aside: As my family and I have been re-watching the MCU movies, we have been vaguely keeping track of how many of the villains in the MCU are a direct result of Tony Stark. Mysterio and his crew blew our count totally out of the water. Though I do have to say that at least a couple of these are not really Tony's fault but Stane's. Still, Tony is responsible for more than his fair share of super villain origins.

From a story perspective, the only real problem I have with Far From Home is the European school science trip. Sure, yeah, I suppose it's supposed to be a bunch of kids from rich families or something and Peter must be there on scholarship, but they never explicitly state that so the whole thing just feels kind of weird to me. When I was in middle school, we took an overnight trip to south Louisiana and that was a big deal, and that was in the same state. I can't imagine getting to go out of the country on a field trip. I suppose they wanted to destroy some other places other than New York. And DC. I get it. That's my personal point of disbelief suspension for this movie, though.

As I stated in my previous review, the real conflict in Far From Home is not man vs. man but man vs. himself as Peter struggles with the death of Tony and his new role as some kind of replacement. Which is not to take away from the threat that Mysterio poses, but Mysterio wouldn't quite have been the threat he was if Peter wasn't struggling with his perception that he was supposed to become the next Iron Man. All he really wants to do is pretend to be a normal teenager and woo the girl.

Speaking of, I really appreciated the brief romance between Ned and Betty. It was a nice acknowledgement to the fact that they were married in the comics.
I also appreciated everything to do with "Nick Fury" in this movie. After Captain Marvel, it's so good.
I love Martin Starr.

Spider-Man: Far From Home serves as the epilogue to phase 3 of the MCU and begins the shift to phase 4, in that it directly leads into the next Spider-Man movie which is part of what kicks off phase 4, at least as far as the movies go. I find it interesting that Marvel chose Spider-Man as their transition character. No, I can't tell you why; I just  do.

That said, this will be the last of my MCU reviews for a while. My family isn't ready to re-watch the latest few of the MCU movies since they feel that we just watched them. I suppose we did, but I haven't seen any of those more than once, at this point, and I'm really wanting to see No Way Home again. Oh, well...
However, it's quite possible that I will be reviewing some of the Disney+ phase 4 TV series. We're going to begin re-exploring those, especially since the first one, WandaVision, leads directly into the new Dr. Strange movie.
Which I suppose brings us to the last ranking, at least for a while. Yeah, I know, but you'll have to find another way to hate on Edward Norton for a little while, though I am looking forward to She-Hulk; there should be plenty of opportunity with that one!

The rankings!

1. Avengers: Endgame

2. Captain America: Civil War

3. The Avengers
4. Captain America: The First Avenger

5. Avengers: Infinity War

6. Spider-Man: Homecoming
7. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
8. Iron Man

9. Captain Marvel

10. Black Panther

11. Doctor Strange

12. Spider-Man: Far From Home

13. Ant-Man

14. Thor: Ragnarok
15. Thor: The Dark World
16. Thor

17. Guardians of the Galaxy

18. Ant-Man and the Wasp

19. Avengers: Age of Ultron

20. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
21. Iron Man 3
22. Iron Man 2
23. Incredible Hulk (Edward Norton believes EDITH was meant for him, not because he's the next Iron Man but because he's always the hero.)

Avengers: Infinity War (a movie review post)

 MCU #19

I think it's fair to say that Avengers has been the most ambitious movie franchise of all time. The Avengers, itself, was possibly the most ambitious movie ever made but, then, Infinity War goes way beyond that. The culmination of 18 other movies, with clues about it going back to... what? the first Captain America movie? I don't remember if there was any hint about the infinity stones before that or not. That's a lot of movies to build one story on, and Marvel pulled it off. Magnificently.

And, then, killed half their characters.
That's a bold move.
Seriously bold.
I was reading back through my previous reviews for this movie (yes, reviews; it was so big, I had to do two) and was reminded at the furor it caused and how upset people were. It's amazing to me in retrospect. Actually, it was amazing to me in "spect." I mean, the first time.

Not even to get to how the movie ends, but it opens with Thanos slaughtering refugees. How much more harsh can you get? These people just had their homeland destroyed and in walks Thanos killing them wholesale. Along with Loki! Possibly the most popular of all of the MCU characters, and Thanos mostly casually snaps his neck and tosses his body aside.

The only drawback to Infinity War is that it is really the first of the Marvel movies that you really can't watch unless you've seen a good number of the other MCU movies. Probably not all of them, but I can't see Infinity War as making much sense to anyone who hasn't been following the story at least somewhat. However, it's also unfair to call that "requirement" a "drawback" since that, really, is the point of the film. No one would expect that you should be able to sit down and watch (or read) Return of the King without consuming the first two parts of Lord of the Rings.

Here's the thing: I've been immersed in Marvel since I was... four? three? Since I first discovered Spider-Man. I read Infinity Gauntlet when it first came out. I know how comics work, and I knew, generally, how this pair of movies was going to end. Knowing all of that, when it got to the part where Peter is "dusted," it still brought me to the brink of tears. And that was watching it this time. I don't remember crying when I saw this the first time, but I know I teared up. That scene was heartbreaking.

And that is saying a lot.

I don't know... Thinking about all this... This movie has a lot of characters in it. A lot. And, yet, Marvel manages to pull that off. It did take them 18 movies to form the foundation for it, but they did it. And, then, I think about -- look, it's not that I want to think about DC, but I can't help making the comparison -- DC and how they seem to think that throwing in more and more characters is how you make a great movie. Or, maybe, they're just using their characters like spaghetti and throwing them at the audience to see what sticks. The characters and the actors. How many different Batmans and Supermans have we had? What I'm saying is that the movie could have gotten bogged down with so many characters, but it didn't. It's a long movie, but you don't feel it. It moves along without having to deal with a bunch of exposition to keep people from getting confused. It's... masterful.

Look, as a writer, I'm telling you this is some good storytelling. That's my expert opinion.

Oh, also, Doctor Strange works out the plan by using the the Time Stone totally knowing he's going to get dusted and goes through with it anyway. That takes some real... I don't know... Courage doesn't cover it. Look at Quill. He knew the stakes and, yet, when they have almost gotten the glove from Thanos, Quill gives into his rage and hands Thanos the victory. Strange stared it all down and hands Thanos the Time Stone, anyway. Man...

And, if you want (almost) all of your favorite MCU characters in one movie, this is the place to see it.

The real test? I just watched this but would not protest watching it again right now. It's that good. Which is true of most of the MCU. Not all, but most. There are a few I feel like I don't need to ever see again, one in  particular (you hear that Norton? (yeah, this is my Norton dig for this post)) but, for most of them, even after just watching them, I would happily watch them again.
So let's get this one ranked!

The infinite ranking:

1. Captain America: Civil War

2. The Avengers
3. Captain America: The First Avenger

4. Avengers: Infinity War

5. Spider-Man: Homecoming
6. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
7. Iron Man

8. Black Panther

9. Doctor Strange

10. Ant-Man

11. Thor: Ragnarok
12. Thor: The Dark World
13. Thor

14. Guardians of the Galaxy

15. Avengers: Age of Ultron

16. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
17. Iron Man 3
18. Iron Man 2
19. Incredible Hulk

(I discussed with my family what they thought about the placement of A:IW on the list, and I have gone against popular opinion. Well, their popular opinion, anyway, although it seems that a lot of popular opinion has A:IW in the top two of MCU movies. I have my reasons, though, for the placement, most of which have to do with tightness of story. But, man, it was difficult for me for it to fall between Cap and Spidey after the two of those were tied for a while.)

Spider-Man: Homecoming (a movie review post)

 

MCU #16

Should I mention again that Spider-Man is my favorite super hero of all time? Yeah, I probably should. I say that for this reason: My standards for any kind of Spider-Man adaptation are really high. I mean, I may think pretty much all of the Batman movies to date are pretty dumb, but I am also not invested in Batman so, you know, who cares? Don't get me wrong, Batman is... Well, he used to be fine as character: I don't know anymore. I have the feeling that Batman is no longer also "the detective," he's certainly not in the movies, which takes away a lot from the character. Look, what I'm saying is that they can screw Batman up as much as they want to (which they seem intent on doing), and it's no big deal. Spider-Man is a different story.

That said, so far, Spider-Man has been handled wonderfully.  Across the board, not just in the MCU.

But let's talk about Homecoming...

I think Marvel did a brilliant job with Homecoming. Spider-Man presented some problems considering that there had already been five Spider-Man movies, two of which were origin stories. Of course, none of those versions were MCU, so... what? Do you do another origin story, one specifically for the MCU?

Obviously, they chose not to. As I noted in my last review of Homecoming, summing it up with "I got bit by a radioactive spider" was a great way of bypassing the whole thing.

And so as not to rehash my previous review, the cast were all great. Holland is perfect, completely relatable as a nervous teenager. Which is the origin of Spidey's patter, by the way, nervous chatter.

I think the thing I would most say about Homecoming is that it is actually a different take on Spider-Man, not just from the previous movies but from the comics as well. It's a different take while actually remaining true to the character and to the personality of the character. Spider-Man as Iron Man's protégé is, actually, an interesting way to approach the story and fits well into the MCU. And it allows for it to be believable that Peter is still in high school. And high school Spider-Man is a very interesting Spider-Man and not one that has ever had much focus. Even in the comics, Peter moves on to college pretty quickly.

Plus there are all the ramifications of Tony Stark taking a high school student out of the country to help capture Captain America, putting him in incredible danger, that I have never bothered to talk about before.

And which I am going to continue to not talk about other than to say that this is part of what causes the tension in this movie. Tony dragged Peter off to... wherever... and Peter got hurt and it freaked Tony out, as it should have. So Tony clamps down on Peter, giving him "training wheels," and Peter bristles under what he feels like is being treated like a child. Which is valid. And it takes Ned to point out to Peter that he is, actually, just a kid. Not that either of them pay any attention to that in the end.

I suppose all I can really say is that I love this movie. It's not even mostly the Spider-Man bias. They really handled all of this so well. Giving Peter a father figure in Tony Stark was amazing (yeah, I did it), and it works. It works because Peter becomes the son Tony never had. There is a lot of emotion wrapped up in the relationship, and the scene at the ferry when Peter yells something like, "Well, if you were really here...!" at the Iron Man armor and, then, Tony steps out of it, are the kinds of things that make this movie not just work but rise to the top.
And now I want to watch it again! And I just watched it!

I just have one question... When is Donald Glover going to finally become The Prowler?!?!

Okay, let's get this stuff ranked:

1. Captain America: Civil War

2. The Avengers
3. Captain America: The First Avenger

3. Spider-Man: Homecoming
5. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
6. Iron Man

7. Doctor Strange

8. Ant-Man
9. Thor: The Dark World
10. Thor

11. Guardians of the Galaxy

12. Avengers: Age of Ultron

13. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
14. Iron Man 3
15. Iron Man 2
16. Incredible Hulk (Spider-Man once knocked out the Hulk but not even Hulk could knock out Norton's ego)

Note: I'm listing this as a tie with Cap, but I may change my mind later. I'm stuck between which one I think is the better movie and which one I just like more. Because, you know, Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (a movie review post)

I'm not going to say that this is the best Spider-Man movie ever, but I can understand why people are saying it. If you're Spider-Man fan, No Way Home has it all. And it does it extremely well, pulling all these threads together and making a cohesive movie out of it. Well, that's a bit of an understatement. It was more than cohesive. It's a very excellent movie, and I would love to go see it again.

However, as an aside, I will probably not go back and see it again the theater. I'm still not really comfortable with movie theaters, especially with omicron out there doing its thing, and probably wouldn't actually have gone to see this except for my daughter is in town for Christmas and she really wanted to go to opening night. Spider-Man was actually pretty packed, much more so than Eternals.

It's really amazing to me that Marvel/Sony were able to get all of these actors back to reprise their roles from the earlier movies. And they seem to have stepped back into them so seamlessly. Even so, Alfred Molina really stood out to me in this one. He was perfectly sympathetic while still being completely villainous. And Willem Dafoe still crazy creepy/scary as the Green Goblin. And I'm not going to say more than that, at this point, because I don't want to be spoilery. I'll be spoilery when I get back to this movie on my MCU re-watch project.

More generally, it's even more clear that Doctor Strange and the multiverse are going to be big parts of what's coming up in the next big build up to... what? The next Avengers movie? The Avengers must be coming back as a team, but I haven't been hearing or seeing anything about a new Avengers movie. Maybe there won't be one this go around. What I have seen coming up (though very secretly) is Fantastic Four movie, and the multiverse has always been much more the playground of Reed Richards than it has been for the Avengers. I don't know... none of this has anything specifically to do with No Way Home other than the shenanigans of Doctor Strange. Speaking of whom, Cumberbatch was excellent. I become more and more impressed with him as an actor as time goes on. He's much more versatile than he seems that he would be, especially after his turn as Sherlock Holmes.

Okay, still trying to avoid being spoilery, but one of the things about Spider-Man in the comic books is that he has always been, pretty much, a solo act. Sure, he's participated in team things and done team-ups, but he's really a one-spider show. In the MCU, he was really brought in as part of the Avengers. I feel like the goal of this movie was extricate Spidey from his Avengers ties and return him to being just Spider-Man. There is a melancholy about the ending that also seems very appropriate for the character.

I suppose the thing that I can say most clearly about the movie is that there are no bad moments. There are no bumps. No "but why?s" Even for newcomers who may have little to no background in the MCU, I think this movie sets everything up well enough to be understandable. Sure, having a broader background is nice, but it's really unnecessary. Actually, almost no knowledge of the MCU is necessary other than that it might feel more comfortable to know who Doctor Strange is, but they cover that part pretty well in the movie, too.

Having said that, if you're Spider-Man fan and are familiar with all of the other Spider-Man movies (the non-MCU ones), the movie is so much richer. It was really a lot of fun. A lot. So, then, is it the best Spider-Man movie ever? I'm still going to go with Spider-Man. That's still one of the best origin stories for a super hero ever done, and it has a certain quality to it that I don't know can be replicated. Maybe one day. I mean, the Captain America movies did get better as they went despite having one of the other top origin stories ever. And maybe I'll change my mind. I haven't seen the original Raimi Spider-Man in ages; maybe I should go back and watch that again and see what I think of it now. But, for the moment, I'm going to say that No Way Home is... you got it, amazing but not the best. It is right up there, though.

Ant-Man (a movie review post)

 

MCU #12

You can go back and see my original review here.

My original review of Ant-Man covered most of the points I would make here, so let me do a slight re-cap and see what else I can dig into.

Corey Stoll. Still not a fan. When it comes down to it, I think it's because he comes off as nothing more than a petulant child, and it's really difficult to take that seriously. He's like the angry five-year-old who has found a gun but doesn't really know what he's doing with it when he starts shooting rather than stomping his feet. Of course, now I'm thinking of Republicans and their constant foot stomping and waving around of guns. Well, from that perspective, maybe Stoll wasn't too far off in his presentation. It's difficult to take those people seriously, but they're causing real harm.

Still love Michael Pena. He's so great.
Still love the scene with the Falcon. If I'm choosing specific scenes from Marvel movies, this is probably one of my top three (along with the elevator scene from Winter Soldier and the Mjolnir scene from Ultron).

I remember being very annoyed with the character of Paxton when the movie came out, but I've softened on that and think the character works. Bobby Cannavale is really great.

From my current standpoint, that Hank Pym arranged for Scott Lang to break into his house has got to be one of the best plot ideas in any of the Marvel movies. Pym and his sitting in front of his bank of monitors is very spider-like, and the whole thing demonstrates how brilliant Pym is supposed to be. Not even daddy-Stark could replicate his formula, after all.

At the moment, the Ant-Man movies are a little on the outer rim of the MCU, kind of like Spider-Man. He's a character moving in and out of what's going on but, mostly, doing his own thing. So far. I think we're going to see some changes to that with the next movie, but that's just speculation on my part.

Oh, the usage of the ants is quite extraordinary. 
Also, for those who don't know, Ant-Man (and Wasp) were part of the original Avengers in the comics (Captain America was NOT). My understanding is that Ant-Man was being worked on as part of phase one of the MCU originally, but they decided to shelve him because they didn't think audiences were quite ready for it. They decided to focus on Cap, Thor, and Iron Man. I think this was a good call. I suppose it's also how we end up with Lang as Ant-Man rather than Pym. It's a good change. I like what they've done. Ant-Man is a strong movie. So let's look at the rankings.

The rankings!

1. The Avengers
2. Captain America: The First Avenger
3. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
4. Iron Man

5. Ant-Man
6. Thor: The Dark World
7. Thor

8. Guardians of the Galaxy

9. Avengers: Age of Ultron
10. Iron Man 3
11. Iron Man 2
12. Incredible Hulk (Norton caused Hulk to be beat by an ant.)

Spider-Man: Far From Home (a movie review post)

I'm sure I've said it before, but Spider-Man is and always has been my favorite superhero. For as long as I've had a favorite superhero, that is, which is a long time, at least since I was four. I know I was four because I had this Spider-Man toy that I loved, and I remember playing with it at the house we lived in when I was four. It included a tube of stuff you could use to make spiderwebs, and I got in trouble pretty frequently for making webs between the spindles on the backs of our chairs.

Mysterio, on the other hand, has never been one of my favorite characters in the Spider-verse. And this bit may sound spoilery, but I'm not being spoilery because Marvel has done such an excellent job of setting up the MCU as its own place, and you can't take anything from the comics as being binding for the MCU. As far as villains go, Kraven was always my favorite when I was a kid then, later, it was Hobgoblin. Mysterio just wasn't that interesting but, man, has he been around for a long time, so it's cool to see Marvel pull him into the MCU in a way that makes much more sense than his comics origins. And Jake Gyllenhaal was great in the role. He really made it work.

He makes it work because the real crisis in the movie is Peter dealing with the death of Tony Stark. Both with his personal loss -- And, remember, for Peter, it hasn't actually been all that long since his Uncle Ben died. Tony is the second father figure for Peter to lose since he's been in high school. -- and the pressure from those around him to step up and be, basically, the Iron Spider. It's a lot to deal with and Quentin (Mysterio) is the only one around Peter offering him any support. Being fatherly.

And that's all I'll say about that.

The movie is a lot of fun, much of it dealing with Peter trying to work up the courage to tell MJ how he feels about her, something which is probably a "welcome" distraction for him rather than dealing with the pressure from all of the adults around him and the constant reminders that Start is dead. Yeah, I did say that the teenage romantic angst was something welcome for Peter, and he tries his best to avoid being Spider-Man just so that he can deal with what he sees as the romantic tension between the two of them.

I suppose the real question is, "Is it as good as Homecoming?" I'd have to say that it's not but, also, that it's not far off. It's definitely setting the stage for things that are to come, both for the next Spider-Man movie and the MCU in general, while dealing with Peter's personal issues and conflicts. If you're an MCU fan or a Spider-Man fan, it's certainly not to be missed.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse (a movie review post)

It's been a long time since I was actively collecting and reading comics -- the 90s, in fact -- so I missed out on Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen and all of that. I keep up enough with the comics world to have a vague idea of what's going on, so I knew of their existence, but I've never read any of their comics. Spider-Ham, on the other hand... Well, I'm sure I have some Spider-Ham issues around somewhere. All of that to say that I really had no special knowledge going into this movie. All you need is the basic Spider-Man origin of a teenager being bitten by a radioactive spider (and the movie will fill you in on that much) to be able to sit down and enjoy this movie.

And there's no good reason for you not to enjoy this movie. It's full of humor and warmth and action and danger and humor. It will touch your heart. Unless your heart is full of gristle and is three sizes too small.

This includes those of you out there saying, "Not another Spider-Man movie!" because this is not just another Spider-Man movie. Sure, "Spider-Man" is in this movie, but the movie is about Mile Morales, not just another Spider-Man. Which is not to say that Miles is not a Spider-Man, because he is, but this isn't just another movie about Peter Parker, though it's that, too.

The thing I find most curious about Spider-verse is the choice of the Kingpin as the main villain. He's not a character you see much around Spider-Man anymore, despite his origin in The Amazing Spider-Man #50. Well, okay, as I already said, I don't read comics much anymore, so what do I know? Well, what I know is that Kingpin made a major shift over to Daredevil in the late 80s/early 90s and has supposedly been tormenting Murdock since then. And maybe the Punisher.

None of which is to say that Kingpin is a bad choice. He works well as the villain here, for reasons I won't say because they're a bit spoilery.

In fact, the whole movie works well, so much so that I want to see it again. And so do my kids, so that was a triple win.

There are a lot of... I suppose people would call them Easter eggs, but I think they're more like "in-jokes." Whatever you call them, I did notice that there were things that I laughed at that my kids didn't because they don't have the Spider-history that I have. Also, they didn't notice that they missed anything, so it's not impactful on the movie watching experience if you don't know anything about Spider-Man.

All of which is to say that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse is a great film and a must-see for any Spider-Man fan. And, if you're not a Spider-Man fan, you should probably see it anyway, because it really is a very good movie. Touching and heartwarming and all of that.

Venom (a movie review post)

Where do I even start with this? I mean, a Venom movie without Spider-Man? How do you even? Just the idea sounds insane. And with Tom Hardy... I'm sure I've mentioned how not a fan of Tom Hardy I am.

But it's Venom, so I went to see it. Which is not to say that I'm some huge Venom fan, at least not of what he grew into, but, back when he was first introduced, he was a pretty cool and innovative character.

So let's start there, at the beginning. Which is to say that Venom has a very... problematic... origin.

An origin that I'm not going to get into, right now, because it has nothing to do with the movie. I only bring it up because when Venom was first introduced as a character outside of the comics (back in one of the animated Spider-Man shows from the 90s), they needed a non-Secret Wars origin for the symbiote, so they chose to have it be from outer space. Which you can't really argue, anyway, because when the "suit" was first introduced, no one knew it where it came from other than that it was on the Beyonder's war planet.

All of that to say that the origin in the movie is derived less from the comic books and more from a previously established pop culture origin story that more people are probably familiar with than the number of people who know that actual origin of the alien symbiote. That part of it, I can give a pass.

I'm less comfortable with the part of it where Venom is part of an alien invasion force. That coupled with the human names for the symbiotes (oh, yes, there are more than one!) gave that aspect of the movie a bit of a Transformers feel.

And I miss the spider on Venom. That feels to me as if it is part of the character and leaving it off (because in this origin without the involvement of Spider-Man, why would there be a spider?) takes away somewhat from the character.

Overall, though, they did a fine and decent job with coming up with an origin for the character, and I do hope Venom and Spider-Man end up in a movie together... Well, this Venom and the current Spider-Man under Marvel's control, because I think that would turn out to be... great? Yeah, probably great.

Which brings me to Tom Hardy. He was surprisingly good. They made the Eddie Brock character a bit more... I don't know. In the comics, Brock was a loser. Just a loser. A wannabe. He had a beef with Parker because Parker wouldn't work with him, which was because Brock was a no-talent loser. This iteration of Brock starts him out at the top, not just competent but exceptional, then they bring him down and make him a loser. Washed up. Hardy played both ends of that spectrum believably, so I have to give him kudos for that. And he pulled off playing against a disembodied voice, so I have to give him credit for that, too. Maybe Hardy just needs to quit working with Nolan, because Nolan seems intent on making Hardy into nothing more than a mumbling pair of lips.

Then there's Michelle Williams who is a bowl of boiled noodles. Just the noodles with nothing on them. Not even butter. I suppose there are some people out there who like plain noodles, but they don't taste like much and have no flavor or character. Neither does Williams. She's good at delivering her lines, but there's nothing much to her. She's always the same, and she felt more like a placeholder here than anything else.

It was, however, nice to see Jenny Slate, who was so... normal in this role that I kept questioning whether it was really her.

My final analysis is that this movie is better than every single DC movie that has come out. Hands down. In fact, the DC movies don't even get close. No, it's not as good as the Marvel Studios movies, though I'd say it holds its own against Fox's X-Men films, but the only DC movie that's even on the same playing field is Wonder Woman. So, yeah, I'd go see another Venom movie -- and they teased one in the clip in the credits -- though it's unclear whether it will get a second one since it seems to be under performing a bit. Well, you know, you leave out Spider-Man and it loses a lot of its draw. Tom Hardy isn't a big enough name to get people into the theaters on his own, and most people's only experience with Venom is Spider-Man 3.

All of which is to say that you're not going to be missing out if you don't watch this. Unfortunately. It's a pretty standard superhero kind of movie even if this particular "hero" does have a taste for eating brains. But it doesn't tie into anything else, not at the moment, anyway. I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens with Sony's non-Spider-Man Spiderverse to know if this is a critical movie or not.

eBay and what I'm selling this week (6/25)

Refer back to this post for the background.

Here's what I have going this week:

Yes, that's the first appearance of Deadpool. I know you want it. You can find it here.

Are you guilty? Find it here.

Or do you have fear?

Or have you gone COSMIC?

All that plus GI Joe comics, more of all those comics above, plus Mage Knight, and Lord of the Rings figures!

Go get some stuff!

Das Rheingold (an opera review post)

Let's start out be stealing a quote from a completely unrelated story:
"...this, like any other story worth telling, is all about a girl."
Or, in this case, three girls.
At least, that's where it starts.

Das Rheingold is interesting in that it was the last part of the story Wagner conceived. Actually, he worked his way backwards, having first thought of the arc's ultimate climax, then filling in the required backstory as he wrote. Das Rheingold is considered a prologue, so it's not entirely necessary to the rest of the arc, but it does provide some pretty interesting background.

The opera opens with the three Rhine maidens cavorting in a river, which, I suppose, is what Rhine maidens do. Their actual task is to guard the Rhine gold, but that seems to be a rather boring and thankless task, so they spend their time playing games in the water. This is what Alberich finds them doing when he stumbles upon them.

This is a recipe for conflict from the very beginning. See, Alberich is a dwarf from Nibelung, which is to say that Alberich is not handsome. That doesn't stop him from being smitten by the scantily clad water sprites playing in the river, and he decides he's going to catch one and make her his own. To say this is in direct conflict with the desires of the maidens is an understatement. Not only do they not wish to "be caught" by him but, upon noticing him and how ugly he is, they decide to have some "fun" with him, which is to say that they decide to torment him with their beauty.

There's a good analogy here for today's incel movement. Putting aside the fact that the maidens are deliberating torturing him through their flirtatious ways, Alberich has already decided that he deserves to have them. Or at least one of them. How they feel about it doesn't matter to him; he feels that he has been denied something his by right because none of the three want him.

But that would have been the end of it except for the Rhine gold.

The Rhine gold is not like normal gold. It has magical properties that can allow the possessor of the gold to forge a magic ring that will give him absolute power. The only catch is that, to forge the ring, the smith must curse love and forsake it forever. After his treatment at the hands of the maidens -- or his lack of treatment at their hands, if you know what I mean -- Alberich decides that's not such a bad deal, curses love, and steals the gold. Besides, once he's become king of the world, he can compel them to have sex with him, no love required.

This, also, sounds like the men of the incel movement. And here's where I point out that Alberich is the villain in this story. Or, at least, a villain. These guys are not heroes, no matter how wronged they feel they've been.

All of that is just the beginning, maybe the first 25 minutes or so, which is way more synopsis than I usually like to give, but I wanted to make a point. Needless to say, much of the rest of the action revolves around the Ring that Alberich forges.

This particular production was great, even better than the one I mentioned that we watched on dvd. The staging was better. The actors were better. The sets were better. In particular, the character of Loge (Loki) was better. I'm sure, at least in part, this was due to the actor, Stefan Margita, who is wonderful, but it's also choices of presentation of the character by the director, Francesca Zambello. Loge is definitely my favorite character in Das Rheingold. Greer Grimsley, as Wotan (Odin), is also a step up from the other production and is pretty amazing.

But, then, the San Francisco Opera can generally be counted on for delivering great performances.

Cleaning My Garage and What I'm Selling

I may have mentioned at some point that I'm working on cleaning out my garage. That's not a process that's as easy as it sounds as my garage is full of comics, action figures, gaming supplies (including a multitude of Magic cards), and other collectibles. It's not like I can just throw everything away. Okay, well, I could, but that would be rather foolish. At any rate, for the last six months or so, I've been selling stuff off on ebay. It's a slow process.

Mostly, I'm fine with that.
Mostly.

BUT!

I realized that I don't really know who all comes across my blog and that it's a wasted opportunity not to promote here what I'm selling at any given moment.

So...

This is not an all inclusive list (by far) of what I have on ebay at the moment, but it's a good example. If you're interested, you can click through and look through the complete current auction list. Also, feel free to inquire if you have specific things you're looking for, especially comics or Magic cards (which is not to say that I will have specific things immediately on hand, but it will at least let me know what to be looking for as move through my stuff (maybe I'll post some pics of the disaster area that is my garage at some point)).

Since Darth Maul is back, let's start there! The picture is above.
Darth Maul action figure

Spectacular Spider-Man #1 is not currently on auction, but I do have it for sale. You can follow this link to issue #64, the first appearance of Cloak & Dagger! Their new series airs this month, I believe.

Like Lord of the Rings?
Well, I have a nice selection of figures available, right now.

Pop over to this link of the Aragorn figure and check them out. Remember, you can check out all of the auctions I have up through the link on ebay.

There's a bunch of Mage Knight and other things available, too!
These auctions are mostly scheduled to end tomorrow, so get your bids in now!
Or contact me directly.

Also, my books are always for sale! Hop over to my Amazon page and pick up something today!

To Infinity (War) and Beyond! (more thoughts)

Okay, actually, not beyond. We're gonna stop right here and talk some more about this movie.

Or, more precisely, we're going to talk about stupid things people keep saying.
And, yes, I'm not going to be wary of spoilers, so you've had all the warning you're going to get.

Look, I understand if you're upset by all the deaths.You should be upset by all the deaths. Death is upsetting. BUT!
1. They're fictional characters.
2. There's another movie coming. Oh, wait, you didn't realize this was just the first part of two movies? Well...

• A. Where have you been?
• B. This is just the first movie of two.
• C. Even if you didn't know that, the end-credit scene should have clued you in that something was going on.
• D. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

In regards to all the death and the general bleakness of the ending, I have seen people protesting that it's a violation of the genre.

Wait... What?

What genre? The super hero genre? Because if that's what you're saying, you're obviously not very familiar with the actual super hero genre and only know about super heroes from movies. Comics have dark endings (and dark stories) all the time. ALL THE TIME! This movie doesn't stand out as an exception in that respect. Now, if you're saying it doesn't have the typical happy Hollywood ending, well, that's true. But, then, Marvel hasn't been doing anything the typical Hollywood way from the beginning. If they had been, we would never have arrived at this movie juncture. In fact, we would never have had Iron Man, either. Or Thor. And certainly not Ant-Man. Hollywood wisdom also said Black Panther was a movie that would never succeed. There's been a push for a Black Panther movie since the 90s and, even now, with all of the other Marvel successes, "Hollywood" believed the movie wouldn't succeed.

But as for genres, make sure you know what you're talking about before you open your mouth.

Speaking of genres, though, can we even call "super heroes" a genre anymore? Like sci-fi, I think it has to be more like a broad category in which you can write other genres of stories. Marvel's movies alone should show that. Hulk is a monster movie. Ant-Man is a heist flick. Captain America is World War II movie. None of them are really what you would call "super hero" films; they just happen to have super heroes in them. It's like Asimov said about sci-fi: It's just a framework to allow you to tell whatever kind of story you want to tell, whatever kind of genre you want to use.

So, no, Infinity War is no violation of genre.

But, yes, it has a sad, even depressing, ending. Heroes die. Because, you know what? The good guys don't always win. Our current political situation, with a wannabe dictator as president, should show you that evil sometimes, even frequently, wins. So, yeah, the bad guy wins. Thanos wins. And the movie ends with him enjoying his victory. You think Trump (#fakepresident) didn't enjoy his victory? You think he didn't go around pissing (figuratively, I hope, though with him it's hard to tell) in every corner of the White House?

I do understand that people are not used to movies where the antagonist wins and we haven't had a movie like this since, probably, The Empire Strikes Back, but people are acting as if this is it. The end of the story. The end of the franchise. No more movies from Marvel. BAM! All your heroes are dead, Suckers! So suck on that! It's the fucking end of the world!

Really?

I mean, really?

Haven't you learned from watching the... how many Marvel movies are there now? 18? Haven't you learned that they're all connected and that there are more movies coming? Wait and see what happens. IT'S NOT THE END OF THE STORY!

geez

And speaking of Thanos, I've heard people complain about the attempt to make Thanos a sympathetic character... What the fuck? What attempt to make Thanos a sympathetic character? Because he cried when he killed Gamora? That makes him sympathetic? Because he cried?

No! It makes him an asshole.

Let's look at this a moment:

Thanos lives on Titan, and Titan is on the verge of environmental collapse. Thanos tries warning everyone and even has a solution: put half of the population to death. Needless to say, the population doesn't like that idea and, evidently, they never figure out anything better. The planet ends up a lifeless husk with Thanos as its only survivor with a, "Well, I told you so," attitude about it. That's as constructive as he gets over the situation.
Except for then deciding that he'll put his "extinguish half the population" plan into effect on the entire universe.
NONE of this makes Thanos a sympathetic character. It makes him a conceited, small-minded asshole who can't think outside of his own box for other, more workable, solutions.

Then!
To get the Soul Gem, he has to sacrifice the thing he loves, which he happened to have with him: Gamora. The one thing Thanos loves. So he has an option, the Soul Gem or Gamora. Let's put this another way:
He can choose the good of himself by throwing Gamora in the pit and taking the Gem, or he can choose the good of Gamora by letting her live. That would be actual love, by the way, choosing the good of someone else over yourself. But what Thanos shows is that what he really loves above all is himself, so he throws Gamora in the pit. Asshole. There's nothing sympathetic in that action, either. And I just have to say, if that scene causes you to feel sympathy for Thanos, you need to do some soul-searching of your own.

There is nothing in this movie to make Thanos any kind of sympathetic character. He shows that he himself has no empathy or sympathy for anyone else, and I'm not really sure how anyone could arrive at the conclusion that anything shown about him was meant to do anything other than show just what a monster he is.

All of that said, I don't care whether you liked the movie or not, just have a valid reason for it, even if that valid reason is your emotional reaction to, say, Spider-Man dying and blowing away in the end (man, that one hurt, especially since there were little piece of Peter-ash all over Tony afterward). What you should not do is try to rationalize your reason by making shit up. It's fine for you to say, "I didn't like it. They killed everyone." And it's also fine for the rest of us to tell you you're crazy.

This Means (Infinity) War!

Discussion ahead. I'm not going to avoid spoilers.
You've been warned.

Other than Lord of the Rings (which is arguably one 10-hour+ movie rather than the three movies released in theaters), this is probably the "biggest" movie ever made. It, too, was too big to be one movie, not to mention that Marvel Studios spent a decade building up to this. That has never been done before (and is a good illustration of why, despite making decent money at the box office, DC movies continue to fail (you can't set up for an "epic" Justice League battle by having Batman say "something's coming" and allowing that to be your entire setup)).

Now, let's just get it out of the way that I thought the movie was Incredible, Amazing, Spectacular, Fantastic (even though they're not in it), Invincible, Mighty... um... there's probably more of those superlatives that I'm forgetting, but those are the one's off the top of my head. Oh, it's also Uncanny.

But I also understand why some people are freaking out, though I do find the number of people responding to it with, "The ending sucked! I'm never seeing another Marvel movie ever again!" more than a little amusing. To go with the most prevalent comparison, I don't remember anyone saying that about Star Wars after Empire came out.

Maybe this is one of those movies where it really does help if you've read the source material. One of the things that Marvel has excelled at is making their movies accessible to people who have never read comic books. They've taken these outlandish (sometimes literally (Thor/Guardians)) ideas and characters and made them believable in a modern world and taken away the need to have a comic book background to be able to understand and appreciate what's going on (again, as opposed to DC and Warner Brothers who continue to take shortcuts by assuming their audience knows the background for their characters and dispenses with giving anything any amount of credibility). And you don't need the comic books for this one, either, but maybe people wouldn't be freaking out so much if they'd read The Infinity Gauntlet. Not that I believe everything's going to be "okay" at then end of this. The MCU, after all, is not the same as the Marvel Universe in the comic books. In comic books, you can depend on characters not really ever dying and things mostly going back to the way they were. Consequences in the MCU tend to be a lot more permanent. That said, having read Infinity Gauntlet, I know how everything's supposed to shake out at the end, so I'm not freaking out about all the deaths. I expected it. Some of them still almost brought me to tears.

The only weakness of the movie, if you can call it that, is the motivation of Thanos. Maybe it's only a weakness because that is the one thing they really provided no background for. That and you can't really make a case that killing half of the souls in the universe brings any kind of balance. However, Thanos is called "the mad Titan" (in the comic books) for a reason. There doesn't have to be any kind of logic involved. Especially since he seems to think that people will come to love and worship him for his actions.

To be clear, bringing balance to the universe is not his motivation in the comic series. No, in the comics, he does it all for love, which, still, is a thought that amuses me. It amuses me because it's so true. See, in the comics, Thanos is in love with Death (not death, Death), she who embodies the ideal of death. He's in love with her, but she won't give him the time of day. He decides that if he can bring her an offering of half the souls in the universe that that ought to make her love him. heh
I'm not going to tell you how that works out.

Which brings us to Adam Warlock...
Except not, since he's not in the MCU, at least not at this point. It's Adam Warlock who puts things right again at the end of Gauntlet, not that someone else can't serve that function, and I was hoping he would show up. Maybe he can't though, since he may be a part of the Fantastic Four branch of the Marvel Universe (like the Silver Surfer) and currently under the control of Fox. Yes, I'm sure I could look that up; I'm just not going to. But I digress...

What I'm sure of, absolutely sure of, is that the next Avengers movie, the one that is the sequel to Infinity War, will be a permanent restructuring of the MCU. While some of what happened will be fixed, there will be some things that are permanent in a way they never are in comic books. Chris Evans is not renewing his contract as Captain America. Chris Hemsworth is almost certainly not renewing his contract as Thor. Robert Downey, Jr., though he's stated that he's willing to continue being Tony Stark, has also stated that he no longer wants to play Iron Man, and his contract is also about to be up. None of which is to mention that if the deal goes through with Disney buying Fox, whole new areas -- X-Men and the Fantastic Four -- will suddenly be open to the MCU. Will I be sad to see the permanent departure of some of these specific characters from the MCU? Sure. But I'm also looking forward to the idea that characters may die permanently. For good. Forever. It makes these kinds of stories much more... satisfying, if that's a word that can be used for this. It makes the stakes real, and, thus, it makes the victory, even if it's Pyrrhic, real, too.
Even if it is fiction.

Oh! And all of the performances are as awesome as can be expected.

Rebels: "Legacy" (Ep. 2.11)

"Stay in the moment. Be in this place at this time."

Ezra has had a vision of his parents. His missing parents, taken away by the Empire when he was a kid. Did I mention that before? Anyway...

Everyone has mostly been operating under the assumption that they're dead because what else can you do? But Ezra has had a vision...

Hold on a moment...

Maybe I've mentioned this before, but why does every young hero have to be an orphan? Seriously, why?

Ezra

Luke

Harry Potter

Garion

Peter Parker

Clark Kent

Bruce Wayne

The list on wikipedia for orphaned heroes is pretty extensive.

Anyway, just a thought. Visions of parents brings up this question for me.

Other than the vision, this was a pretty typical type of episode. There's a trap. There's an escape. There are tractor beams and there are Inquisitors. It's a fine episode within the sequence of things, just nothing special to make it noteworthy.

"You've grown powerful if you can track down a lothcat with the Force."

"The Force? I planted a tracker on it."

Turandot (an opera review post)

The 2017 opera season is underway. This is a short season, only five operas which will all be presented this year, but that's because the San Francisco Opera is presenting Wagner's Ring Cycle next summer! I can't wait. This is such a big deal that we had to purchase the tickets for it LAST YEAR. I have almost an equivalent anticipation for this as I did for The Phantom Menace or Raimi's Spider-Man. But none of that has to do with this opera, so let's get to that.

Turnadot was Puccini's last opera; in fact, he died before it was finished. That he died is just part of what makes this particular opera problematic and, often, controversial. The ending most often performed is by Franco Alfano and was written from Puccini's notes; however, that did not keep it from feeling inauthentic to me, not least of which was because the ending is happy. I'm not saying the ending wasn't good, and Puccini may have intended a happy ending for this one, but it didn't feel quite right to me. It's not really what he's known for.

That said, the opera was amazing. Turandot contains one of the most famous arias in all of opera: "Nessun dorma" or "None Shall Sleep." In the role of Calaf, Brian Jagde (seemingly becoming the SF Opera's tenor De Niro) performed it admirably.

The other big issue with this opera -- skipping over the issue of the name and the disagreement about how it should be pronounced -- is the... Well, I don't know if it's accurate to call it racism, but it certainly caricaturizes the Chinese. In fact, the opera was banned in China for a while because of it. But, then, the opera is kind of a cultural muddle, for which there are reasons of a sort, but you can look up the origins of the story on your own if you want to know about them.

At any rate, seeing that we are much more culturally sensitive these days than people were in the 1920s, and rightfully so, the San Francisco Opera staged it as a fairy tale. Of sorts. Which has a basis in the original story, so it all works out.

With that in mind, the sets were amazing! I mean, they were seriously amazing. I've commented previously about how great some of the sets have been at the SF Opera, but I think Turandot has had the best set design of any opera I've seen. By far. It was almost like watching a dream. Especially the scene during which "Nessun dorma" is performed. It was like a fairy forest with a bridge... Well, it was really great.

And the costumes were also really good, especially Turandot's. Actually, a couple of her gowns rivaled the sets.

The only possible negative I have about this presentation is that there was actually a lot of that whole standing and singing thing. However, possibly due somewhat to the richness of the sets and that, often, there were background chorus people milling around, it didn't often feel that way, and, when it did, it felt more natural.

This production of Turandot is definitely one of the best operas I've seen so far.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (a movie review post)

I don't think I've made a secret of my longtime love of Spider-Man. Spider-Man goes back before Star Wars for me, back to at least when I was four. As such, I waited a long time for a Spider-Man movie. When that movie finally came in 2002 -- the Sam Raimi/Toby Maguire feature -- it was pretty perfect. Toby Maguire really captured Peter Parker, and I couldn't have been happier.

I was less happy when Sony decided to reboot the series. It's not that Andrew Garfield didn't do a fine job -- he wasn't as good as Maguire, but he was fine -- but a reboot just wasn't needed. Sure, change the actors, but keep the continuity of the series going.

Needless to say, I was a little unsure of how I felt about another reboot of the series. On the one hand, Marvel Studios was taking a hand in it, and Marvel has proven themselves a master at handling their own characters. [Unlike Warner Brothers, who continually show they don't know crap about how to make a super hero movie. For their one real success so far (Wonder Woman), they had to steal the plot of Captain America: The First Avenger to make it work.] On the other hand, it was going to be another reboot.

But Marvel, evidently, felt the same way I do about the idea of doing another reboot and went around it by not doing another origin story. It was pretty brilliant, actually. They summed it all up with one line, "I was bit by a spider." It was great.

And Tom Holland was... Okay, I'm going to skip the "amazing" joke. Tom Holland was incredible. Better than Toby Maguire, which I didn't think was actually possible. Of course, I thought that might be the case after Civil War, but I wasn't certain. Homecoming dismissed any doubt within the first few minutes. Seriously spectacular. [Sorry, I had to slip something in.] It's not that he's a wisecracking super hero; he's a nervous teenager. I'm looking forward to more from him.

All of the cast was great, though I wish Donald Glover had had a bigger part. I hope he becomes a recurring character. However, summing up everyone with "great" is probably devaluing Michael Keaton, and I wouldn't want to do that. Keaton was a better Adrian Toomes than Toomes ever was in the comics. Yeah, I was never much of a Vulture fan. But Keaton was wonderful and believable. And more than a little frightening. And I'm not going to say more than that because of spoilers (but my son was in full suspense mode as we watched, so I know it was working; he's a tough audience, even tougher than me).

I also really liked Bokeem Woodbine as The Shocker.

Oh, and Damage Control. That they introduced them was pretty great. I have the original limited series from 1989. Not that it seems it's done anything for the prices of the issues. It's still fun.

My daughter came out of the movie saying it's her favorite Marvel movie ever. I think Homecoming probably lands in my top three super hero movies. I'm not sure what that order is, actually. The top five, at this point, are all pretty great movies, and it's very difficult to tell which is better than another. It might be somewhat flexible depending upon how I'm feeling at the time. Right now, I just want to go see Homecoming again. Seriously great movie. And you don't really need to have seen any of the other Marvel movies to "get it," so don't let that get in the way if you haven't seen the other movies or aren't up to date on them. Just take the Tony Stark bits in stride and enjoy the movie.

Oh, and the Steve Rogers cameos are brilliant. Especially the one at the end.

Logan (a movie review post)

Relatively speaking, I was an early adopter when it comes to Wolverine. I was already following him as a character when his original limited series came out in 1982, and I would be lying to say that he was not one of my main reasons for following the X-Men through the 80s. Well, Wolverine along with the writing of Chris Claremont, unarguably one of the best comic book writers ever. Ironically, Claremont didn't care for Wolverine as a character and almost dropped him completely from the X-Men lineup in the late 70s. It was John Byrne who saved the character out of a fondness for a fellow Canadian.

That said, it's been 15 years since the last time I read any Wolverine (or any comics at all, really, other than a few here or there that one or more of my kids might have had lying around), that being Origin,

a story I didn't much care for overall. It suffers from many of the same problems as Logan, those being trying to fill in details around a character to achieve a particular goal even when those details don't really fit with the character that has been created.

Mostly, though, what Logan proves is that Fox is no more capable of creating a cohesive continuity for their super hero films than Warner Brothers. It's sort of like having your tea bag break in your cup of tea. If you're careful and drink slowly, you can manage to mostly keep the tea leaves out of your mouth... until you get to that point where you have to throw the last quarter of it out because the leaves are too dense. Until that point, though, the tea is enjoyable as long as you keep it to small doses.

So, yes, Logan is a mostly enjoyable film. It accomplishes the one thing I'm sure all Wolverine fans have been waiting to see: Wolverine really cutting loose with his claws without the need of keeping the bloodshed to a PG-13 rating. And cut loose he does: arms, legs, and heads. That alone is probably worth the movie for the true fans.

The aspect of the movie I found most interesting was the question raised about mutants and their powers when they get old. Of course, the movie only works around the question without ever really addressing it, but we do get to see some of the effects in the aged Charles Xavier as he struggles to maintain control over his mental abilities.

Stephen Merchant as Caliban was a pleasant surprise. I like Merchant, and he was perfect in this role. Dafne Keen was also great. She has a brooding stare which is easily the match of Jackman's.

However, the movie is utterly predictable, wasting a perfect opportunity to do something above and beyond that was afforded it by  the success of Deadpool, probably the only super hero movie Fox has nailed since X-Men 2 in 2003. That said, considering that Jackman is not returning to the claws again after this movie (unless Ryan Reynolds does somehow convince Jackman to do that Deadpool/Wolverine team-up movie), Logan is a good send off. Good enough, at any rate.

But it could it have been better if only Marvel had done it, which is the thought I have after every one of the X-Men movies since the advent of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) with Iron Man back in 2008. Sony wised up and went to Marvel to get Spider-Man on the right track; maybe there's hope that Fox will do the same.

Apocalypse: An Exercise in Bloat (a movie review post)

With each new X-Men Universe offering from Fox, I find myself more and more longing for the day when Marvel will refuse to renew the license to Fox and re-make the X-Men in the same style as they've done with the Marvel Universe movies from their own production company (the only recent exception being Deadpool). It seems that big studios cannot wrap their collective heads around the concept of building up the world, first, before deluging it with characters and blowing it up (yes, I'm looking at you, too, Warner Brothers). I mean, seriously, it doesn't have to be world-threatening every time.

This one, in particular, got off to a bad start with me. We open some 5000 years ago in Egypt during a ceremony in which En Sabah Nur, later to be known as Apocalypse, is transferring his consciousness into a new host so that he can take the man's mutant power. The ceremony is being held inside a great pyramid. A pyramid which has been built with a... Look, I'm having trouble even saying this, but it's been built with a self destruct mechanism. One of the great pyramids in Egypt with a, yes, self-destruct device. Seriously.

Then, when it's activated, not only does the pyramid collapse in on itself... The solid stone pyramid collapses in on itself. What? Anyway... Once it had done that, it proceeds to collapse right on down into the ground, becoming completely submerged and blocking it from the sun.

There is none of that that makes any actual sense. Sure, you go right ahead and try to win yourself a No Prize by coming up with an explanation that works, but there is none of it that will actually make any rational sense, especially the part where the pyramid is swallowed by the earth.

We're less than 10 minutes into the movie at that point (okay, maybe 15), and I'm already struggling.

The next major issue with the movie is characters. There are too many and too many of them with no introduction. There's been demand since the X-Movies started for everyone's favorite character, whomever that may be, but Fox has gotten into the habit of just tossing them in without bothering to tell the audience who they are, basically relying on audience knowledge. This is fine under two conditions:
1. The character takes no part in the story, as with Jubilee in Apocalypse. Or any of the background students at Xavier's school.
2. The audience is only made up of fans of the comics who already know all of the background information they need to have.
It's alienating to non-comics fans when there are a bunch of characters running around without any information provided as to whom they are.

That's one of the things Marvel Studios has done exceedingly well, especially since many of their movies have dealt with little-known characters outside of the world of comics fans and conventions, is to introduce characters in a plausible and meaningful way. Even with Spider-Man, probably the character with the least information given about him within the context of a movie, in Captain America: Civil War, there was an appropriate amount of background given to give the character context for the movie.

Fox failed to do that with pretty much every character they brought into Apocalypse, including characters who have previously been in X-Men movies. The introductions of Nightcrawler and Angel were flimsy at best. Storm, given the fact that they've never really revealed any of her background prior, was hardly better. And Caliban and Psylocke were abysmal. And, I have to say, Psylocke psi-blade is not a lightsaber; it's a psychic knife that doesn't have any physical manifestation. (Unless they changed that sometime since I quit reading comics?)

The story is plenty bloated, too. The whole capture by Stryker is completely superfluous to the actual story and is only there so that they can work Wolverine into the movie in a completely gratuitous killfest. That was at least half an hour of the movie that could have been used to further the elements of the actual story. Or cut out completely.

The Magneto plot line is also -- I don't know what to call it -- unnecessary. It provides the only moment of the film with any real emotional content, but, considering where things are left at the end of Days of Future Past, it felt contrived. That would be because it was.

All of that said, it might sound like I didn't like the movie, which is not precisely true. I didn't like it, but I also didn't not like it. It wasn't horrible; it just wasn't all that good. Still, I'd watch it again before Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice any day of the week.

I'm not a fan of the whole re-booting thing, but the X-Men is a franchise that needs to be re-booted and, this time, it needs to start with a plan, lay a foundation, and grow from there. It's too big a universe to keep throwing pieces of it in without laying the groundwork for them.