Superhero films, as we all know, are now an ubiquitous and commonplace part of life across the world. Hollywood keeps churning them out because they tend to turn a massive profit. Considering how many superhero films we are subject to month after month and for purposes of providing a meaningful review, it’s useful to ask the following questions of each: how are you different? Are you trying to be different? Do you have any appeal for those who don’t run out and see every new comic book film? Wonder Woman 84, starring Gal Gadot, doesn’t offer an answer to any of these questions that stands out. An hour in I had yet to see anything that would distinguish it from other high budget/high production value comic book blockbusters. It all feels very same-y. It’s not criticism but rather a warning that if you are going into Wonder Woman 84 expecting something you havn’t seen before dozens of times, prepare to be disappointed. That the film feels rote and doesn’t add anything new to the superhero movie genre is a problem for me but it might not be a problem for you. The fight choreography is laughable by modern standards and feels like it comes from a movie ten years into the past. The acting and special effects are perfectly fine but if you didn’t catch on yet that’s not enough in the current movie environment to garner a recommendation. WW84 does conclude on a heavy-handed message of unity and peace that any sane human will be able to get behind. That was the most interesting part of the movie along with Pedro Pascal’s wannabe despot that is an obvious Trump allegory. This film is a disposable piece of superhero entertainment. The most notable aspect might be its status as the first ever true blockbuster to land on streaming platforms the same day and date as movie theaters.
Wonder Woman 84 receives a score of 6/10 for general audiences and a 6.5 if you can’t get enough of the superhero stuff. I found it a yawn-inducing pastiche of better superhero movies.
Is it cynical of me to acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of films, like all for-profit businesses, exist primarily to separate you and I from our hard-earned dollars? It’s the reason bad movies get made. All that’s needed is a financier convinced of enough demand to justify the production. As movie fans we hope and pray that said financiers care about the quality of the film as much as they do recouping their investment. One would think the two go hand-in-hand. There are some properties so popular, well-known and/or visually interesting that they’ll find a theater audience seemingly no matter what. Venom is such a property. 2018’s Venom is about as mediocre as it gets in all aspects other than VFX and it grossed almost a billion dollars on a budget of $116 million. It was the sixth-most profitable release of 2018. The movie is undoubtedly fun and as we all know the worst thing a film can be is boring, but no one walked out of Venom feeling like it was anything but a mish-mash of semi-interesting ideas and an off-the-charts cool protagonist. It’s the personification of “meh.” Few would doubt Tom Hardy's star power and ability to put butts in seats. That said, the Venom symbiote is the star here. It possesses a key movie-theater-gold quality: it’s perfectly suited for modern day trailers and marketing campaigns. Venom is the click bait thumbnail of comic book characters. It’s not necessarily criticism to point out that no one read the “Lethal Protector” Venom comics for the story. Similarly to the 1993 all art/little substance comic, the film feels vapid and vacant as if created with a Venn diagram of marketing data and little interest in telling a compelling story. Am I asking for too much? Probably. Every comic book movie can’t be Logan. I’m absolutely glad Venom did well and as a result we’ll get to see a live action Carnage in 2021. Just don’t make me lie to you about how Venom is essentially an extended VFX showcase with no heart and no intention of being anything more than a cash grab. There I go being cynical again.
Venom receives a 5/10 for general audiences and a 7 for people like me that will never pass on a Venom film.
I usually find unflappably heroic, chiseled jaw superheroes tiresome. Not so with Cap. Chris Evans, with a frame that looks almost computer generated in seeming perfection, is as likable as they come. This is not a case of the jingoistic reflex to praise the film because America is in the title. I consider Captain America to be the most interesting member of the core Avengers. A man out of time who awakens to a world that no longer buys in fully to his unceasingly idealistic manifesto. Let us not all forget that under the super soldier serum created surface, Steve Rogers is just a regular run-of-the-mill kid from Brooklyn. The movie is capably shot, well-acted, and jam-packed with compelling set pieces. The villain is weak as was the case across the MCU pre-Snappening (a deep cut but I’m taking the chance that if you’re reading this review you’re hip to it). Real Quick: This movie is the Batman Begins of the MCU. All anyone wants to talk about is the sequel.
There are 23 films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe at the time of this writing, each containing villains of varying effectiveness. Sebastian Stan’s Winter Soldier is the most compelling and threatening to appear in any of them by a country mile. Thanos will always seem a bit tepid in comparison if for no other reason than that washed out purple skin that looks great in the comics but distracting on screen. Apologies to purple people. The 2011 film is a mainstay at the top of “best of MCU” lists and for my money it is unquestionably the finest in a franchise full of excellent films. It is no spoiler at this point that the central conflict and “surprise” of Captain America: The Winter Soldier is Bucky Barnes’ resurrection as the titular shadow soviet assassin. Most of us geeks knew the plot twist going in. The movie still finds a way to build suspense around the ultimate reveal. The Winter Soldier himself crackles with dread and comes across as a clear and present threat in a series of films known to struggle with presenting compelling villainy. Fight choreography has the look and feel of what you would see in Extraction or John Wick. It’s that good. The film’s crowning achievement (along with The Crow, Logan, Joker, The Dark Knight) is standing up confidently as a competent and engaging piece of cinema, superhero genre or otherwise. It’s one of the only MCU movies I will re-watch yearly. I’ll never tire of the “best friend becomes most dangerous enemy” trope. The Cap/Bucky bromance continues.
Captain America: Civil War, the 3rd offering of the 2nd best comic book movie trilogy ever (fight me) deserves a lot of the same praise for action choreography rightfully heaped upon The Winter Soldier. There’s something about seeing Cap and Bucky go hand to hand, as allies or foes, that never gets old. Their hits hit different. Cap/Buck versus Iron Man was equal parts exhilarating and hard to watch. I’m firmly team Cap and knowingly outvoted in finding Downey’s Iron Man irritating but the film forces me to care for Tony more than I thought I could. No punches were pulled in the climactic triple threat of hero versus hero versus hero. We understand why. The action is persistent, serves the plot and would stand out even in the absence of that airport scene – truly remarkable for a film in the MCU. Marvel has to keep finding ways to outdo itself from an action set piece standpoint and this film ups the ante admirably. There are grumblings that Chris Evans may return triumphantly as Captain America. This comes as a surprise after the satisfying and infinitely meme-able conclusion to his arc in Avengers: Endgame. While I’m excited to see whether it is The Falcon or Bucky or take up the mantle, Evans owns this role and if he wants to return I will welcome him with open arms. Perhaps my cynicism is showing but it wouldn’t be a stretch for the fuss about an Evans return to be (brilliantly) shrewd marketing for the upcoming The Falcon and The Winter Soldier Disney+ show.
I'm not one to be drawn to tears during a film as my rational mind reconciles that what i'm seeing on screen isn't really happening. And I didn't cry at the end of Logan. But I wanted to. The movie is a tender, respectful and fitting send-off to a character and actor that has struggled, experienced great loss and endured ungodly amounts of pain and suffering across the 15+ years we've had the pleasure of viewing him. Hugh Jackman deserves special appreciation for going out of his way to treat Wolverine with the same respect and reverence as we do. Eventually they will re-cast another actor as Weapon X but just as we look upon RDJ and see the first and best Iron Man, Jackman will always be the person associated with the beloved Wolverine. Jackman, we salute you (and want you to come back just one more time to pass the torch). As a card-carrying comic book nerd who was reading funny books way before superhero movies regularly grossed half-a-billion dollars at the box office, it is life-affirming to see Logan rise above traditional tights-and-capes tropes into something bigger than the sum of its genre parts. Dafne Keen steals every scene. Give her an X-23 movie.
Logan receives a score of 9/10 for both general audiences and anyone who might enjoy an action-packed but grounded and deeply intimate send-off to one of the most recognizable characters in modern film history.
Joker and the 2012 Ridley Scott film Prometheus are essentially the same film. Stay with me. Both films are near unanimously celebrated for confident cinematography, genre bending creative ambition, strong leads, and an underlying narrative adding up to more than the individual parts. Both pass the eye test - you look at the screen and know it’s good. Very, very good. Phoenix is on screen for nearly all of the films 122-minute run time and his performance is just as transfixing in the final reel as minute one. That there are many who regard Phoenix’s Joker as anywhere near Ledger’s in The Dark Knight tells you all you need to know. With Ledger and Phoenix both receiving well-deserved Oscar nods, I feel for the next person to slather on the Joker war paint. Jared Leto’s Suicide Squad clown prince performance isn’t on the same artistic plane. In Leto’s defense, he’s clearly going for a less realistic and more off-the-comic-panel Joker rendition. Getting back to the relationship between Joker and Prometheus, both films pose and ponder existential questions about the human condition and how we assign meaning to our lives. Both do so in a captivating style that is interesting and compelling. But neither film answers the questions presented. Neither film cares about answers, only entertainment. They leave it up to us to interpret, debate and argue. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Rumor has it we are getting a Joker 2. I’ll show up for it but part of me wants Joker to exist as a standalone film. Once we get our answers, the debate stops.
Joker receives a score of 9/10 for general audiences and a 9.5/10 for fans of the most compelling and enduring comic book villain ever. The film is in some respects unnecessarily ambiguous, but that’s part of the allure.
“Deconstructing Batman” is the imaginary 101 course all nerds excitedly register for. He’s an easy target. A lunatic billionaire zipping around Gotham city rooftops in a mammal costume (yes, bats are mammals) trying to end crime by punching purse snatchers in the face. The problem with this method is you can’t “end” crime any more than you can end prejudice or injustice. They will persist as long as humans do. But each of us rightly feels an obligation to snuff these things out where and when we can. Batman has taken this notion to its unnatural conclusion singularly due to trauma none of us would wish on our worst enemy. The “character uses trauma as call to action” trope isn’t unique to Batman. With great wealth comes great responsibility. It is no great secret that Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins tries and succeeds in creating a plausible case for Batman existing in our own wacky and flawed world. Say what you want about Christian Bale and his oft-mocked stylistic choice for Bats’ voice but we believe him in the suit and his Bruce Wayne is distinct enough to convey the important narrative beat that is the duality of Billionaire Playboy/Caped Crusader. Real Quick: Batman Begins is underrated. You often hear how the film returned the character to legitimacy after the movie we shall not speak of. Begins should also be respected and appreciated as one of the earlier examples of a comic book movie standing on its own as a proper film, genre be damned.
Reviewing The Dark Knight in 2021 is passé . Not unlike T2 or Aliens (with regards to the action sci-fi genre), TDK is the comic book movie by which all top tier comic book movies are measured. Anyone reading this has surely enjoyed multiple viewings as well as YouTube video essays breaking down evidence Ledger’s Joker was ex-military and suffering from the very real-life condition of PTSD (for the record, I think it checks out). One would be be hard-pressed to make a convincing case that the film falls outside of the top five comic book movies of all time. It could be the very best. There are no adjectives left to express how perfectly Ledger inhabits the Joker. His anarchist take is unquestionably a seminal moment in cinema history and for many represents the definitive Joker characterization. We would feel that way even without the posthumous Oscar win. Ledger took the endlessly analyzed and some would say overused Joker character and created a timeless performance that stands high above all other depictions. Ledger and Nolan accomplished something special in legitimizing the comic book movie for general audiences. Nolan may not have created the grounded-in-reality comic book movie sub-genre but he most certainly refined it. It’s wonderful when a capital A Artist such as Nolan gets to wrap their creative mind around a comic book property to create something that transcends genre. The Dark Knight is a gift to those who enjoy the finer aspects of filmmaking and understand that comic book movies can take themselves seriously and still be seriously entertaining and fun. Progress. It’s a beautiful thing. Sometimes all it takes is a little push. I am willing to say it and potentially regret it later: no one will ever exceed Ledger’s Joker. Rest in Power.
The Dark Knight Trilogy is the best comic book movie trilogy of all time. For my taste the next best is the Captain America or Matrix series with the latter gaining my admiration for its lasting impact on pop culture and the VFX industry. Given The Dark Knight trilogy as the best or top three in terms of comic movie trilogies, why is it that The Dark Knight Rises is more known for its divisiveness (and Bane) rather than overall quality? Could it be its standing as the weakest of the three films in narrative structure with plot holes bigger than Bane’s biceps? A frail Bruce Wayne? Perhaps the culprit is that out of nowhere fireplace sex scene that felt more like something out of a Bond film? The answer is simpler than one might think. The Dark Knight Rises is the weakest film in the trilogy because it wilts under the pressure of minimal analysis. The Dark Knight is the best of the three and if you disagree with that we probably won’t agree philosophically on much, movies or otherwise. Batman Begins secures the number two spot within the trilogy because along with being criminally underrated, it restored shine to the Batman franchise after the neon lit dumpster fire that was/is Batman and Robin. Go back and watch Batman Begins. If you watch Batman films for Batman/Bruce Wayne and not villains like Joker or Catwoman, there is a strong case that Batman Begins is the best live action Batman film, start to finish. So that leaves The Dark Knight Rises as number three within the best trio ever. There are worse positions to be in. I’ll never forget where I was the moment we finally get to see Bane break the Bat – the associated comic book panel is one of the best ever.
Blade II, directed by the inimitable Guillermo Del Toro, is an exceedingly entertaining thrill-a-minute action romp with exceptional stunts, fantastic practical effects, occasionally dated CGI effects and a throwback WWE style final battle that is melodramatically re-watchable. The deliciously gnarly and perpetually hungry “upgrade” vampires, Reapers, are the antagonists of the film and represent the first real threat to vampire society outside of humans. Del Toro has gone on record that the Reapers of Blade II are proto-versions of the steeped-in-real-science vampires featured in his 2014-17 television show The Strain. Del Toro is nothing if not consistent. Nomak, leader of the Reapers and patient zero for the Reaper strain, stands out as the film’s seemingly unstoppable heavy. He is clearly the Bad Guy and does lots of Bad Things, but he’s also largely a victim – he becomes what he is out of no fault of his own. I love this type of antagonist. Nomak feels vindicated in taking up his crusade against vampires and you can’t really be mad at him once you understand his origin. The best moment of Blade II (spoiler alert for a 20 year old film) is Nomak’s final gasp. Already on the precipice of death, he takes his own life while lamenting the inherent sadness of a life stricken with perpetual physical and mental pain. A screenplay is doing something right when the viewer simultaneously understands why the villain has to die but feels very, very bad about it. Final thought: why would you hire Donnie Yen and not feature him? If Blade II has any missed opportunities, that would be it.
Blade II receives a 7/10 for general audiences and a 9/10 for fans of Blade and/or Guillermo Del Toro and the dark fantasy worlds he creates.