Marvel WARS: Civil to Infinity

That's kind of a big war stretch, isn't it? A Civil War to an Infinity War. Anyway, I got to thinking far too hard about this the other day, but while I dug Infinity War (2018) a lot, in addition to it rubbing away a bit of what THOR: Ragnarok (2017) was about, it certainly steamrolled a lot of the core ideas behind Captain America: CIVIL WAR (2016). Some spoilers I guess here for Infinity War, and those other movies, too. When do we reach a point where we no longer need a spoiler warning? Like ten years?

The best way to do this is to split all the characters up. I want to do an exercise in tracking the ideology of each character in CIVIL WAR and how they change up through Infinity War, which means we won't really bother with Thor or Hulk or Shuri. Let's explore the backgrounds and reasoning each character had for siding the way they did, then what caused them to switch, because everybody switched. Team by team is easiest.

TEAM STARK

Tony Stark

In many ways this whole exercise has been a long drawn out character study over the course of eight movies. Marvel doesn't get enough credit for that. Stark begins as a fiercely privatized individual, who uses government contracts to become wealthy but is moreover a fan of limited intrusion into private property. It's really not until his experience in The Avengers (2012) where he truly realizes that there is a bigger world (and universe) around him and he can't be a lone gunman jackass anymore.

This continues through Iron Man 3 (2013) and Age of Ultron (2015) where he's continually haunted by guilt over mistakes he made out of either assholerly or his own hubris. I've kind of gotten into this before. Somehow eight years ago. This keeps building until by CIVIL WAR he's fully into government supervision and supports the Sokovia Accords. As the original superhero in this world (at least release-date-wise), he's had enough adventures to understand that his actions have consequences. Here's the best essay on that.

As he moves through Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) he also gains this mentor role, and it's fitting that Infinity War separates him from just about everyone he was in contact with during CIVIL WAR. It puts him in this difficult position where he doesn't have too many friends back on earth, but he continues his mentorship of Spider-Man, which leads to some real heart-breaking moments as Parker crumbles into dust. At the same time, he may be the best equipped to come back and defeat Thanos, both intellectually and tactically. This would be the ultimate redemption from his years of guilt and could possibly put a button on all that CIVIL WAR bad blood.

Spider-Man

On the Peter Parker note, Spider-Man is on Tony's side not for any real political reason, but moreover because Stark recruited him, arguably without saying much about what they were even fighting about. This makes his role a little less interesting than the decisive nature of his flip-flopping and tide-turning in the comics, because Peter by his nature tends to be a street-level hero with big-time powers. That's part of what has made Spider-Man so appealing over the years.

His character on its own from what we see in Homecoming would likely more side with Cap if he was a little more mature and knew the stakes. It's clear he believes in his own independent, personal judgment and has issue taking orders from authority. There's a big gap in logic from the fact that Stark would ostensibly require him to sign the Accords, requiring him to submit to government authority while Stark continually tries to limit his involvement and abilities.

By Infinity War not much has changed, and it's notable that out of every character, Parker joins in the fray not because of any personal connection or mandated duty, but because he senses danger and knew it was the right thing to do. This is why we cry at the end, guys. In terms of ideology, he's largely undeveloped, and this makes him a nice character to cheer for.

War Machine

James Rhodes' desire to follow Stark here is a given - they're best buds, but it also makes a lot of sense with his character. He's always been duty-bound and loyal to his government. Perhaps more than any other character he represents the interests of the United States and already was that government agent that Stark refused to be in Iron Man 2 (2010). This...is actually the entire point of Iron Man 2. See how these movies build on each other? Shared universes are not just about throwing in Easter Eggs, it's about building a set of conflicting and interacting ideologies.

It's one of the biggest leaps, then, in Infinity War when Rhodes seems to abandon his duty to the Secretary of Defense Thaddeus Ross (when are we going to get a William Hurt-starring Red Hulk movie?). He does seem to side pretty quick with Cap, although that could be in part because his crippling injury in CIVIL WAR came from the friendly fire of Vision. It's possible that he became disillusioned with their petty strife and exhausted with their internal conflict. Generally the Marvel films are set in real time, which means they've had two years of being on the run. It's important to remember that he was a pretty core part of the team by Age of Ultron, and part of the new team by the end of the film. Considering that by Infinity War he's the only one left taking government orders, we can surmise his further disillusion.

I'd also hypothesize that since Vision's mind gem created the beam that crippled him, Rhodes knows firsthand the danger these stones possess. His sense of duty protecting others from having the same fat as him becomes a stronger motivation than his duty of taking government orders.

But anyway - one thing the MCU seems to run with is that an incredible amount of stuff happens in between these films that we don't see. We tend to land plop in the middle of adventures these characters have without much to fill us in in between. Infinity War clearly doesn't have time to jump into Rhodes' ideological shift, but it would be interesting to see a little more. He's also clearly bros with Falcon, and if you were hanging out with this man blonde white boys all day, I don't know how you couldn't be.

VISION

Speaking of not knowing what the hell is happening between films, what the hell, Vision? Him and Scarlet Witch shacking up together has always been a thing in the comics, but it comes off weird here, not only because Paul Bettany is 46 and Elizabeth Olsen is 29, but because we have hardly any indication at all in any previous movies that this was a thing. Also...android! Does he have a dick? Did Ultron build him a dick? Originally the body was built for Ultron to jump into - this means that Ultron built himself a dick. These are not good thoughts.

Vision's position comes from logic. He's always been about working together and ironically, even though he is a feeling-less android, his creation was very much a group effort by Jarvis, Tony, Bruce, Ultron, and Dr. Helen Cho. And Thor, I guess. He seems very deferential, and one who has no reason to doubt that a consortium of powers deciding the fate of the world would be worse than one man's judgment.

His defection between CIVIL WAR and Infinity War isn't really given a clear ideological background. I do think one thing is telling from the point I just made, however. The last shot of him in CIVIL WAR is him looking pensive, and playing with some chess pieces. Alone. Scarlet Witch is locked up. His side has mostly disbanded. He perhaps went through something similar to Rhodes, where he felt bad for his friends, especially with the guilt of his crippling his teammate. This may have landed a little harder if he had hurt, say Falcon or somebody, but it's clear that he did some android-soul searching and set out to find Wanda.

By Infinity War everyone seems to be turned around to Vision. Protecting him is Cap's number one priority and even when his crew defends him and Wanda from the Black Order in London, it's clear that they've been on the run together for a while. It seems as if personal stakes became more important than logical ideology, which again, makes perfect sense for a robot to have.

Black Widow

It's hard to remember that Black Widow actually pre-dates Thor and Captain America in the MCU. 2010, baby! She's been in six movies, somehow none of her own. While she debuted in an Iron Man film, she made her way more into the Captain America cadre. While her background as a shifty government spy who knows firsthand that institutions are not to be trusted, she surprises everyone by siding with Tony Stark. Even Tony is taken aback.

That clip has most of her rationale - but it comes from her background as a shifty, duplicitous spy whose main goal is survival. She sees this less in ideological terms than being realistic to their situation. To Natasha, this isn't a fight they can win and running from the government won't let them do anything. She's more trying to come out of this on top rather than directly siding with Tony's theories or guilt.

This is also why she defects at the end of the film. There's a slight indication that she may have been playing both sides the whole time or was a mole in Tony's side. She actually doesn't do all that much during the airport battle. She has a fun fight with Hawkeye here, is knocked around by Scarlet Witch, then doesn't show up again until she stops Black Panther here. This confirms with her natural renegade ideology, and by Infinity War, its clear she's been on the run with Team Cap since the end of CIVIL WAR.

Black Panther

T'Challa's motivation mostly comes from the fact that the Sokovia Accords helps him in the immediate aftermath of his father's assassination by who he thinks is Bucky Barnes. We'll get to Cap in a second, but as much as Cap is more personally motivated by protecting his friend, T'Challa is more personally motivated by capturing him.

That said, T'Challa is a government entity, being the King of Wakanda (technically at this stage still the Prince, since he didn't have any waterfall fights yet), and judging from Black Panther (2018), clearly relies on governmental systems to make the right decision. This of course also leads to one of the more difficult themes of Black Panther with Killmonger - where that system of tradition fails according to Wakanda's place in the world, when trust between the government and its people breaks down, and even questioning succession when the wrong King succeeds. T'Challa in CIVIL WAR is pre-all of this, and it makes a lot of sense he sides with Tony, even if it's more out of convenience than any personal affiliation.

By the end his personal vengeance subsides in part because he sees how much it had consumed Zemo, and how much it is currently consuming both Cap and Tony. His political ideology still aligns with Stark, but he extends an olive branch to other men that he sees have suffered. It's perhaps the biggest stretch that he takes in Bucky and Cap, more out of story convenience than anything else, because that tie is a vital link in Infinity War.

TEAM CAP

Captain America

As Tony basically switched from being pro-individual, he was drawn in to the government mostly because of his increased role as an influencer in this new age of superheros, Cap went in the other direction. It's important to note that most of the basis for his anti-government stance here comes from The Winter Soldier (2014), where it was revealed that the organization he had trusted and worked for, S.H.I.E.L.D., was in actuality covertly run by his greatest enemy, HYDRA. This makes him cautious to thrown down his independence and work for another organization again, even if it's the United Nations.

Could the United Nations secretly be a HYDRA organization? Well, this is comic books, so anything is possible. This core belief that his personal judgment is best, as arrogant as it might be (he's called out for this), is something that the film also ends up aligning with. In a cinematic sense, not only is this Cap's movie, but he's a guy we can use as a proxy for ourselves, meaning that we'd like to think that our own judgment in his situation would also be crystal clear. It's an ego movie on the part of the audience. It's what made me personally align with Cap, although there are many out there who aligned with Stark. It's clear that by Infinity War, most, if not every character has ideologically moved towards Cap's side (not like Stark went to get approval from the UN before engaging Ebony Maw and Cull Obsidian), and it seems like only Stark won't admit he was wrong for personal reasons, but everyone else seems tired of taking UN orders and defects.

It's notable that Cap isn't actually entirely unreasonable. He comes very close to signing the Accords until he learns that Wanda is basically being kept prisoner as a human weapon of mass destruction. This is the final straw, the line that he can't cross. By the film's end when Cap's team is captured because the law has now deemed them criminals, it's clear that the strain of an outside force arbitrarily deciding who the bad guys are has taken its toll, and may explain why most of Tony's side ends up defecting.

Bucky

Bucky is the crux of this film, and Cap's allegiance to him serves as a specific example of where the Accords fail. That it's an extremely personal reason for Cap only makes the story juicier. Bucky's position isn't based totally on ideology - he's almost more a MacGuffin, forced into this role from everyone else trying to capture him, used as a scapegoat for the Accords than anything else.

You've got to think that his personal ideology would align with his buddy Steve Rogers, though. He has every right to be distrustful of governments and agendas, as he was a popsicle tool for Moscow for the better part of seventy years. Even if he can't quite trust his own judgment yet, it's clear he'd be in favor of making his own decisions again.

This doesn't really change at all by the time Infinity War rolls around. He stands out as hanging out in Wakanda this whole time recuperating rather than parading around the world doing who knows what with Cap's team.

Falcon

Sam Wilson, like the other black friend, James Rhodes, is really just going along with his white buddy's side. Like Rhodes, he's an army guy who you'd think would have more trust in the government and support the Accords. He went through the same crap as the rest of the Cap gang in Winter Soldier, though, and grew that same distrust of authority figures with shady agendas.

Now, I say all that, but Black Widow was there for Winter Soldier, too. I think Sam above everything else is loyal to Cap and ends up having this partnership with Bucky as well. Anthony Mackie has said that it's more about Sam being a blue collar guy who admires Cap's worth ethic more than Tony's billions.

That is the more accurate thoroughfare to Cap's team - they tend to be the more down to earth, gritty street-level heroes without extravagant powers. They're blue collar guys who think they know best and don't want no government telling them what to do. By Infinity War the Falcon's attitude hasn't changed and he's happy to continue doing his part alongside the remnants of Cap's team.

Hawkeye

In that same article that quoted Anthony Mackie, Jeremy Renner said that Clint didn't really care and sided with Cap because he was the first to call and wanted to get home to his family quick. This doesn't really make any sense - Tony's side is clearly the safer side to be on and would have more family security. Tony even says so directly to Clint when he's behind bars at the end.

Instead, when Clint first sees the rest of the gang after rescuing Wanda from the compound, he implies that Cap is "doing him a favor," possibly meaning that he's sick of sitting on his ass watching is dumbass, bad-aiming kids grow up. He also says he owes a debt to Wanda, meaning he still wants to pay her back for her brother's sacrifice to save his life in Age of Ultron. Thus, secretly, Wanda is a crucial component for both Cap and Hawkeye's involvement in this fight.

Going back to the blue collar street tough part of the crew - Clint has always been on the edge, despite being a seemingly loyal S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. He's not really around much (like...in ALL OF Infinity War), but he's a character who's a little cutthroat but also loyal. We can learn the most about his stance as he chides Tony from a prison cell, angry that "the Futurist" acts like he knows what's best for everyone. It's clear Clint also trusts his personal independent judgment, especially for the sake of his family, and plays the spy game of mistrust and intrigue perhaps better than anyone.

Scarlet Witch

It actually took me until writing this to realize how pivotal a role Wanda has in this movie. She's far from just another solider. Her role stopping Crossbones' bomb from erupting on the street, but still detonating in the upper floors of a building sets the movie in motion, and perhaps more than any of the "street level" fighter heroes, her position as a being of immense power who is still learning how to use it, drives the Sokovia Accords. Her status as a dangerous immigrant also drives Hawkeye and Cap to distrust the government's interment of her. Finally, it's clear that by Infinity War she has also convinced Vision to give up a posh chess-playing compound life to tap dat ass.

Wanda's ideology, like Bucky, is therefore created more out of necessity than choice. She doesn't have the luxury to sit around and discuss what powerful government agencies will do with her. There's also a bit of hypocrisy in Vision when he basically says that the Avengers would act independently and protect her the same way Cap soon goes to protect Bucky. Her back is against the wall this whole movie.

In Infinity War she shines even more, proving herself in combat and characters even comment that she's underused. Like most of Cap's side, her ideology, especially as someone on the run and being hunted, is more drawn out rather than solved. But it's always hard to remember that she has power over the mind stone in part because she was created by the mind stone, being used by Baron Strucker in Age of Ultron. Damn that's an at-the-time unimportant footnote.

Ant-Man

Finally, Scott Lang. Here we need to recall that he was recruited based on the Falcon's recommendation to take down the Russian HYDRA super soldiers in Siberia, not actually to join in the fight. See, it's always tough to remember the actual supervillain plot going on in CIVIL WAR, in part because that whole plot is actually a ruse to enable the real plot - Cap and Iron Man duking it out. Lang doesn't really have a dog in this fight, you can tell from how awkward he is and how he is just meeting everyone for the first time.

Still, you definitely need to think he'd be anti-government supervision considering that he's a career criminal who would rather duck from authority than submit to it. He is the other Avengers family man, though, and like Hawkeye gets a convenient excuse to sit out Infinity War.

What do you think? Did I get most of these right? Do you think Infinity War paving over most of the conflict in CIVIL WAR is kind of malarkey? Also, re-watching CIVIL WAR, damn this movie is sweet. There are many many subtle beats in keeping track of each character that totally reward thoughtful viewings.

First Impressions: Infinity War

What'd I say? Raw emotional honesty? I'd like to push what this blog can do, but for now, let's just talk about Infinity War (2018).

Do I need to summarize the plot? You saw it, right? Actually, it's only sold about 50 million tickets so far, so chances are you didn't see it. Honestly, who is the person who went to the theater this weekend to catch Bad Samaritan (2018)? SPOILERS for this movie have been awfully precious and before I tell you that Dumbledore dies while gang-banging Drax and Carrie Fisher. I mean, what a Saturnalia.

Saturnalia was the first holiday I thought of for that joke.

We're definitely talking SPOILERS, though, because for this movie everything can be a spoiler, I know I wanted no details at all going into it, and I think I was rewarded, and after some careful thought, the only major theme here is Death and facing Death, so naturally the movie gets pretty ruined by any discussion of itself. We'll get into that more in a second, but let's start with some general cultural context:

Ahh - remember this fun scene

The great irony with crossover movies is that they're simultaneously sensational, but also very transparent in their effort to be sensational, which leaves the feeling kind of hokey. It's this idea, where you can tell the marketing is exasperated and fake. Where Infinity War succeeds, and I mean, really really succeeds is how little it cares about this. It wears its forced interactions and ultimate marketing ploy on its sleeve while moving so damn fast that we don't even have time to realize how hollow everything is.

Therein lies further irony. Is the art really hollow if it can disguise itself that well? Is that insidious or actually, frankly more difficult to pull off than a banal simple indie entry? I give this film a lot of credit for never once feeling its two-hour and thirty-six minute runtime. At the same time, however, this isn't actually even a movie anymore. It would make no sense without (most of) the previous 18 movies in this series. Infinity War does not and cannot exist in a vacuum. This is a brand. A cog. Perhaps just a piece of marketing. It requires incredible gumption to pull off, because it has an immense reliance on general populations being pretty familiar with all of the forty some-odd characters who make appearances here.

Could you see this without seeing anything else? I'm curious about our cultural osmosis. Even if you never saw any other film, do people know who Iron Man and Captain America are through just omnipresent commercials and billboards and Dr. Pepper cans? Do we get the general vibe? I kind of reflect on The Fast and the Furious movies. The first one I saw in theaters may have literally been Fast Five (2011), but in that ten years I had seen so many on TV, learned the general characters, heard from friends that I felt like I hadn't missed a beat.

Honestly, future filmmakers need to study this movie to understand peak efficiency. There is no bullshit here. There are a handful of moments that slow down and give some great character moments, but more than anything this movie knows how and when to move forward, when to care about development, when to trust the audience to put pieces together themselves, and when to cram an explainer line in somewhere. It has continued this idea of relying on the ridiculousness of its premise to just let other insane comic book elements pass by the wayside. Like, how does the Black Order keep showing up where the Stones are? Who cares, it doesn't matter. Isn't it nutty and fantastic for Iron Man to be on another planet, meeting and fighting weirdos? Let's quickly move on, we know the Guaridans. There's time for development, but then this movie wisely leans on the past ten years of development.

My first impression was that this film relies on plot over story. And there's so much plot. There are so many events that happen one after another without much in terms of an actual story, or at least a relatively simple actual story. In its own way, this is also what makes this movie work. There are so many characters off doing their own disconnected things, but they all actually tie into a remarkably simple idea - Thanos is acquiring the all-powerful MacGuffins from every other Marvel Movie, and the heroes need to stop him in a variety of ways. This structure shouldn't work, but it does. If your content is good, if it's distracting and iconic, it doesn't really matter what your structure is.

Some of this felt like checking off boxes on how these characters could run into each other, but it's all basically plausible. The Guardians check out a distress signal in Space - it's Asgard blowed up. Doc Strange seeks out Tony, Tony mentions Cap, Cap mentions Wakanda. It's a little forced, but the thrill of seeing all these disparate characters interact masks everything else. Seeing amazing team-ups of people we know would be friends, like Bucky and Rocket or Strange and Tony or Thor and Groot is fantastic. Besides its excess of plot, the best way to describe the feeling of watching this film is like watching your college friends meet your high school friends. Worlds are colliding! My favorite moment ever may be seeing Tony Stark left with Nebula at the end. That's the most amazing random team-up ever. I hope they hook up.

Instead of log-jamming the film, it wisely disperses all its characters all doing their own thing across the Universe, working towards one goal - stop Thanos. At that point we ought to chat Thanos, because he's the other element that unifies this film. He's the main character - the constant threat who is given plenty of his own moments, even if they somewhat come off as unearned, particularly his emotional connection with Gamora that's the crux of the film.

Thanos does a few important things. First, his goal drives the only major theme of the movie - death and how we deal with it. He also wins and therefore has a complete arc, which means that this is only a two-parter cliffhanger if you think he isn't the main character. He succeeds at his own goals, at great personal sacrifice.

Before we sink into that - because this film, as we noted before, cannot exist on its own merits and owes as much to its future as its past when examining it, let's quickly talk about Thanos' plan. He wants to balance out the Universe by killing half of it. In the comics this was to appease his crush on a personification Death itself. Here it's about overpopulation or some garbage It's kind of weak without the added insanity, but the Russos felt like adding personifications of eternal elements was one step they weren't ready for. I don't think you needed to actually have Lady Death as a purple-hooded Grim Reaper chick, but that general Death worship would have worked fine on its own instead of a kind of hokey and baseless reason for wiping out half the Universe.

We'll talk about stakes more in a second, but this film does do a wonderful job of setting up Thanos as the ultimate bad guy right at the beginning. It is actually kind of shitty that within the first thirty seconds Infinity War undoes the entire point of THOR: Ragnarok (2017) as Thanos obliterates the remnants of Asgard. All that "Asgard is a people, not a place" refugee message is wiped out. While this undermines his own movie, this does give Thor perhaps the most motivation to defeat Thanos, and it's fitting that he eventually comes the closest.

And that scene with Rocket is the best scene in any movie Thor has been in - or that Rocket's been in for that matter. You feel his loss so intensely. Ragnarok's tone never sat well with me for how deep and heavy its content was - Thor is still funnier here than he was in early Avengers films, but that tone is a little more relevant to how much he's lost in his life.

The intro is relatively simple. It's basically just The Worf Effect as Thanos quickly dispatches Hulk, who then remains scared for the rest of the film. I'd also be curious to see how this is rectified, but it's a nice convenient way to get Banner to shine in a way he often doesn't. What's more important is that this shows how brutal this movie is - there's no safety net. We might think that Hulk is the Avengers' ace that could at least go toe to toe with the big bad purple dude - Loki's "We have a Hulk" is a masterful callback, but then all expectations are subverted as he gets his ass kicked. We're immediately at a loss. It was crucial to get that fight out of the way and set up over two hours of realizing we're all boned.

It almost feels like a conspiracy theory that Marvel churned out dumb, disposable villains for ten years only so that Thanos can come in and be a really credible threat. His stakes are real, personal, and important on a Universal scale. It's as if there was this endless parade of doppelgangers and moustache-twirlers so Thanos looked better. Also I like the theory that Thanos made his move once the Ancient One, Odin, and Ego were dead.

Anyway - Death.

The big thing to note is that because of so much public outside knowledge we know that Death isn't permanent. Not only have characters continuously re-appeared in the MCU before (Bucky, Loki, Red Skull IN THIS VERY MOVIE - totally forced an unnecessary by the way), but we know there are Strange, Spidey, and Black Panther flicks coming down the pipeline. Like with most things, Film Crit Hulk sums this up the best when he says that as soon as we saw Black Panther turn to ash, we could call Marvel's bluff. That's the exact moment when we knew this was BS. We could buy most of these other characters dying, maybe permanently. If anyone is not going anywhere anytime soon, it's T'Challa, whose franchise by himself is the only one to make on its own money to nearly equal the Avengers crossover events.

There are plenty of ways around this - we have literal reality and time-controlling stones at play, along with plenty of theories, from the Ant-Man's quantum realm jumping in to the fray to the possibility that everyone's simply locked in the Soul Stone. That makes it feel like some earlier deaths like Heimdall, Loki, and Gamora could be permanent (unless of course that vision at the end is within the Soul Stone, where Gamora's soul is contained as well - at which point Guardians Vol. 3 (2020) comes out like Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) trying to find their main character's soul in purgatory.

When we look at this, it's then hard to really feel the emotion this movie wants us to. There's this sideways glance we give our screens like "Okay, guys, whatever." We expected at least Cap and Iron Man deaths - the old guys who have been here forever and want out. Iron Man even still had a huge role in this film, and his one on one with Thanos was amazing. His nano-tech tech summon ability was a little stretch, it reminded me of DC's Cyborg or Metallo (see - I like DC, too). Anyway, the point is, that's a fine place to die, but if we look at his arc, it required a little more.

Ever since Iron Man 3 (2013), everything he's done has been driven by guilt. He needs Doctor Strange to sacrifice the Time Stone for his life (more on that in a bit), and then more importantly, needs to see Peter Parker die in his arms to seal this five-year arc of failing to protect the people he loves despite how advanced his tech becomes. It's hubris drawn out across five movies past his own trilogy ended, mostly because they make money, but it should also make his ending sacrifice (presumably) in next year's sequel to be more potent. Or maybe instead he will find some catharsis. We'll see.

In this way, the stakes become less about character deaths than how other characters deal with loss. We know there's more Spider-Man movies. That doesn't take away from Peter Parker terrified face turning into ash in Tony's arms. For their whole relationship Tony has tried to put limits on him, but he's proven Tony wrong. Finally, it's too late and Tony can do nothing to save him. We see this with Cap and Bucky, Rocket and Groot as Rocket loses his best friend again, this time knowing he won't grow back from a twig.

I don't totally get the idea that with no threat of death there's no stakes. We don't watch movies this way. When we're watching Die Hard (1988), we know it's not suddenly going to feature Ghost John McClane. Stakes are about challenges - we pretty much know that our characters are going to live. When they don't we get like, R.I.P.D. (2013) or something. Or when a character is nigh invulnerable like Superman, or to go the Ryan Reynolds route again, Deadpool - it's about setting up personal challenges for that character to face that don't have to do with dying.

So with Infinity War, it's less of "Will they'll be back?" than "How will they come back?" How will the surviving heroes deal with the death of their friends, unthinkable odds, a severe blow to motivation. How can they still be heroes when their main opponent has both the power and motivation to indiscriminately murder half the universe? Another way of thinking of this is that even though we know these new core characters are coming back, the characters in the movie don't know that.

Now, this is obviously me defending the film a little bit and making excuses, but the other side is easy. Its "this sucks." And maybe it does, that's fair, but doesn't require much thinking about what these films actually mean. Also, it's somewhat important to remember that not every audience member has that cultural context or obsesses over release dates. The guy I saw it with didn't even recognize the Captain Marvel symbol at the end. It's continuously crazy for me to remember that I'm always the nerdiest guy in the theater. I'm the one who shouts out "Adam Warlock!" at the end of Guardians Vol 2 (2017). My curse. My blessing.

For kids, especially this is a traumatic moment. And uhh...we should kind of remember that these movies should probably be reserved for little kids. Angry, over-analyzing adult nerds ruin these for everyone. FOR EVERYONE.

However, we are truly at a point where culture and corporations collide. We know more that these characters are returning because it would be financially irresponsible for Disney to keep them dead than anything else. That's our MAIN reason for feeling emotionally cheated at the end of this film. That's totally insane in its own way.

Tony's gettin upset!

As for the other characters, it was great to see Gamora as a huge lynchpin for this movie. She has her own role in the Guardians films, but hasn't really been the star until now. The other Guardians are all spot-on doing their things, and I love that as soon as we here "Rubberband Man" we know they're coming up. It's pitch-perfect stuff. The Captain America crew gets less screentime than I thought they would, and even though much of the latter third or so is set in Wakanda, the Black Panther crew definitely feels along for the ride rather than dealing with the ramifications of an alien invasion on their home turf (c'mon - they didn't even want to share with the White Gorillas a few months ago).

Despite this, Cap sums up what might be the film's thesis - the concept of a trading lives. Even though he says they don't trade lives, that happens for literally every stone Thanos gets, except the Power Stone, which we don't see. Loki trades the Space Stone for Thor's life, even though he's killed immediately after. Peter Quill attempts to mercy kill Gamora after Thanos acquires the Reality Stone, but Thanos prevents him. Thanos then sacrifices Gamora to acquire the Soul Stone. Strange trades the Time Stone for Tony's life. Finally, Scarlet Witch attempts to destroy the Mind Stone (killing Vision in the process), but Thanos reverses time and takes it himself, killing Vision. Thus, every stone is actually a life trade.

It's fitting that goody two-shoes Captain America's ideology proves the best direct counter to Thanos' philosophy. Cap is always about finding another way, the irony being that of course he just fights, because war is actually all he knows. I'd be curious to see this develop a little more.

As a side note, one other thing I did really enjoy was how clever the stones were. Movies aren't really clever anymore. Thanos uses each stone once he gets them, fully expanding his powers. He tricks his enemies and it's important how sequentially he acquires everything. Power and Space facilitate everything else. Reality more helps him cover his own tracks, but the Time stone is crucial to him getting the Mind Stone. Some of this is surely contrived, but it's damned fun to watch, and that's also what this movie is all about. And despite being all about death, this movie is also actually really funny. It's wonderful.

There are problems here for sure, and it's hard to find something really true that Infinity War is saying beyond a giant corporate promotion, but it's also so good and fun that we ignore that. We're all sheep I guess. For all this studio's talk about finality, it's also very clear that that's just extended a year, and even at that point we're not seeing any finality ever.

Nice Guys, Bad Girls, Mean Birds - Weekend of Champions

I didn't say much in anticipation of Captain America: CIVIL WAR (2016) two weeks back, and unbelievably, I also kept my mouth shut during the premiere of The Darkness (2016) and Money Monster (2016) last week. Today, however, we have a trio of films that we need to discuss. As I've done in years past, we'll spend every Friday from now until forever discussing the critical, commercial, and cultural potential of each big summer film. It's a big beefy version of this.

There are three wide releases dropping this week, and although some of them are kind of similar, they make for a good block of programming. I'm not convinced any will do all that extremely well, but there's no reason to doubt we have some quality films on our hands. First up, Shane Black's The Nice Guys (2016).

Fightin' 'round the world!

The Nice Guys found its way on my most-anticipated list this year, and I'm still pretty excited. If anything it's a great excuse to talk about Shane Black, who I think gets a little bit of flack for writing the game changing Lethal Weapon (1987), then copying his own style for years and years until he literally had to parody himself in Last Action Hero (1993), which soured a lot of people on both his talents and Arnold Schwarzenegger (I, of course, personally disagree, although it was a bit ahead of its time). He actually had the gall to follow that one up with a Geena Davis / Sam Jackson buddy cop movie that no one has seen, then took a break for a while.

Shane Black really is the buddy cop expert. Literally every film he's written with the exception of The Monster Squad (1987, and that was mostly Fred Dekker) have featured some kind of buddy pairing, whether it be meta-commentary or not. He arguably peaked with Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005), which more blatantly used all of Last Action Hero's fourth-wall breaking along with serving as the first entry in Robert Downey Jr.'s comeback tour (and Val Kilmer's. And Black's himself). That film was able to fulfill all of Black's tropes while toning down the extreme, over-the-top masculinity of something like The Last Boy Scout (1991), which is super-insane. It tempers his wild energy with freshness and charm instead of shock value.

The other big entry is obviously Iron Man 3 (2013), which remains one of the better-constructed Marvel films, even if the third act gets wonky and there's suddenly a fuss over the lack of a female villain. This isn't even really anything to get mad about. I mean, getting mad at evil corporations for wanting to make money is like getting mad at a pig for eating shit. It's objectively a sexist move, but we ought to stop thinking of big movies as creative, progressive expressions of art.

So, what do you do when you make the 10th highest-grossing film of all time (5th at the time of release..)? Obviously you scrap together $50 million to make an original goofy period buddy movie starring Russel Crowe and Ryan Gosling. It's really telling to see what movies directors choose to make after they get carte blanche. Nolan made Inception (2010). Bay made Pain & Gain (2013). Raimi made Drag Me to Hell (2009). Verbinksi made Rango (2011). Look at James Cameron making fucking AVABAR (2009)! It also reminds me of the Coen Bros riding astounding critical acclaim and a Best Picture win after No Country for Old Men (2007) settling into Burn After Reading (2008) and A Serious Man (2009). Who does that?! We've gotten some really great, really weird films from directors trusted to do whatever they want, typically using their name alone to sell the film. I don't think Shane Black's there yet, since this is actually only his third feature as a director, but it's nice to see this getting made at all and squeezing in among the blockbusters that he helped helm three years back.

The ad campaign for this has been light, fun, and witty, and it feels like a total throwback film, which I think will appeal to a certain age group. It can capture that certain feeling of older audiences who want to move on from juvenile superhero films (although CIVIL WAR is decently mature), but still have a fun and fresh time at the movies. That seems like a narrow window, though. Ultimately I think this could have a decent cultural effect if it's good and warrants a lot of repeated viewership. There's no real reason to expect it wouldn't, if Black is trending more Kiss Kiss Bang Bang than The Long Kiss Goodnight. What's most fair, though, is that his career in general is about equal hits and misses, even if his misses are fucking spectacular.

They call the JV squad "The Joeys"

Up next we have Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising (2016) starring Seth Rogen, Rose Byrne, Zach Efron, and a whole gaggle of insane young actresses. The first Neighbors (2014) was a spectacular film and pretty close to the funniest film of 2014. Seth Rogen rarely misses when he makes a film where his Rogen-ness is fully on display. The Green Hornet (2011) and The Guilt Trip (2012) are clear blemishes on his record, but I can get behind just about anything else he's ever done. It's that great ability to write really funny and intelligent scenes while playing up his natural doofiness. More than that, he just seems like he strikes the zeitgeist really well, providing a sense of humour tailor-made for the current generation of feisty youths. Neighbors nailed this to a T, offering a classic generational conflict that succeeded in part because the Frat House feels extreme yet believable. If their Sorority spin is any indication, we should see a lot more of that.

I can picture this succeeding pretty well because it's a classic extension of the premise that worked so well last time. It's exactly as simple an idea as the first film with just as enticing a cast and an assurance of similar levels of silliness. The only thing that could bog it down is the simple fact that comedy sequels so rarely work. We've discussed this at length here at NMW, but namely, that initial surprise that first generates the funny is difficult to sustain.

My only trust at this point is that Seth Rogen is smart enough to put a spin on the typical sequel. We've actually had some decent ones recently, most notably 22 Jump Street (2014) and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013). Of course the latter is somewhat debatable (although I'd actually consider it superior), and the former is more the product of Phil Lord and Chris Miller who hide behind layers of meta and self-awareness to get past the groan-worthy hurdles of tired sequel tropes. I have similar faith in the Rogen / Evan Goldberg / Nick Stoller team. Of course, as a writer, Nicholas Stoller misses at least as often as he hits (for every The Muppets [2011], there's a Sex Tape [2014]). He also just gave us Zoolander No. 2 (2016), which doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Still, as a director, with Forgetting Sarah Marshall (2008), Get Him to the Greek (2010), The Five-Year Engagement (2012), and Neighbors under his belt, you have to be excited for the chances this has to succeed.

Comedy sequels are also difficult because it's rare that they'll actually add anything new to the mythos. Ghostbusters II (1989), Christmas Vacation (1989), and even Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay (2008) did this pretty successfully, mostly because each one took the well-received characters from the first installment and put them in completely different situations (Ghostbusters II may come the closest to leaving this promise unfulfilled, but Viggo is at least as iconic, if not more so than Gozer). Sorority Rising doesn't really look like it's elevating above the original's source material. Instead it will probably just rely on being the funniest film of the Summer. I'm not sure we will really adore this flick 10 years from now or just blur it together with Neighbors. That's the Horrible Bosses effect.

Lastly we have The Angry Birds Movie (2016). Now, there is objectively no reason for this to exist, but we've seen a lot of movies like this lately. The LEGO Movie (2014) comes to mind for sure. That film relished in existential inter-textuality, though, while maintaining a really sincere level of goofiness. I'd argue that The Angry Birds Movie seems capable of doing the same thing as long as it adds layer after layer of irreverence.

The critical difference here of course, is that LEGO is a well-known brand that's been around for decades and I don't think anyone really cares about Angry Birds anymore. It's also really a lot less substantial of a brand. It's not nearly as expansive as the LEGO empire. But this is sort of an unfair comparison. How much money will this thing make?

I have no idea what Angry Birds is actually about.
Is this in the app game?

It's an easy assumption that The Angry Birds Movie will win the weekend. It has the broadest appeal and kids haven't really had anything to see at the theater since Zootopia (2016). May seems a little early, though, because most of those brats are still in school. There's a reason why Pixar does so well when it drops its flicks in late June when little wiener kids can actually go see it. I also can't really understand if little kids would even be into this. Doesn't Angry Birds feel really really 2013? Sure it does, that's when they started putting together this movie.

Then again, what else could win this weekend? Based on Civil War's hold, it'll probably pull in $30-some million, so that's the mark to beat. Neighbors somehow made $49 million back in 2014 and The LEGO Movie pulled in $69 million in February 2014. I don't really think either can be a direct comparison to now, but it may actually be a good bet that Neighbors 2 wins by hitting that $40-50 million mark. It likely won't have to compete much with the Angry Birds audience.

The film does seem to shoe-horn in a lot of how the game is actually played. We call this the Battleship (2012) effect. If it comes off organic that's great, but it also makes you question whether any of this was really necessary at all. It's one of those great mysteries. Does this count as a video game movie? No, it's an app movie, right? Do you think we'll get a ton of app movies now? Tinder: The Movie (2021) coming soon. Don't worry, they preserved the experience.

Ultimately like with anything else, the legacy of Angry Birds depends on if the film is actually any good or not. Zootopia, Frozen (2013), and every non-Good Dinosaur (2015) and Cars Pixar film ever makes its bank on its critical success, which attracts parents willing to sit through this crap in addition to giving it to their unloved bastard children. And to be fair, despite Jason Sudeikis' decidedly non-presence, it looks like it has its decent share of jokes. In terms of its production pedigree, it's a product of Sony Imageworks, which is really just building its animation tradition. On one end of the spectrum is the vastly underrated Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs (2009, and its arguably better sequel). On the other end is the Hotel Transylvania series. If it leans more towards the former we could be in a for a decent experience. After my endless comparisons, this really should have just been directed by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, right?

So, what do you think? What are you seeing this weekend? I can see each of these films fulfilling their niche and making some bank, or they could just all cannibalize each other. Go see something!

First Impressions: Captain America: CIVIL WAR

It's a tough task but this is about the best follow-up to Marvel's best film, The Winter Soldier (2014) that we were going to get. It's not a superior film, although some moments come pretty damn close. It's also a fairly flawed film, which is almost as surprising as the fact that it smooths over its tonal issues and plotholes with such aplomb that it doesn't really detract from the enjoyment it stirred in me. Needless to say, SPOILERS FOREVER, so let's discuss this solid Avengers 2.5 entry into the Marvel canon.

Captain America is the one in blue.

This is far better than anything Ken Burns ever did. There is a lot going on in this film, with a solid amount of intertwining plots that are sometimes too convenient, but it sells itself on its characters and motivations so well you hardly notice. The core conceit is that after the Avengers have fucked up the world for a few years they're now paying the price and are about to be regulated by a third party, namely, the United Nations. Iron Man says this is necessary, a stance mostly fueled by his own guilt and PTSD over Age of Ultron (2015). Captain America calls this bullshit, mostly on his complex relationship with both his lost best friend-turned-brainwashed-Russian-Assassin (we've all been there), along with the S.H.I.E.L.D. nonsense in The Winter Soldier.

Everyone else trying to create a shared universe out there needs to understand this. These two factions are going to war after disagreeing over this new issue based on motivations and character growth informed by previous films' events. This simultaneously requires a deep investment from its audience, which Marvel has secured by now to a ridiculous degree. So let's talk about every possible aspect of this film. Starting with Stark.

One of the more impressive feats of the Marvel Cinematic Universe so far is the reversal of Stark's ideology. This came to a head in Iron Man 2 (2010) where he refused to let the Iron Man suit become government property and instead defended his right for privatization, claiming that he should be trusted to act as an independent agent. I even wrote an article about how much this contrasted with his comic book persona. Through the past three films though, we've seen this arc where Stark is actually positioned as the big bad of the Marvel Universe. Seeds of conflict between him and Cap were planted as early as The Avengers (2012), and by the end of Age of Ultron, Civil War was inevitable.

Civil War adds to this by giving its two Team Leaders heavy personal stakes to add to their personal tiff and ideological conflict. There are a lot of reasons for these two to fight. Almost too many. If anything it's a bit too perfectly constructed. Cap has his boy Bucky to defend, mostly because he's the only one who'll do it. Stark is feeling a lot of pangs for his dead parents, and by the end when these elements literally crash into each other, it's a lot of investment that explodes to the surface.

On that note, let's get into our first gripe - how much is there in this film to really show that Bucky and Cap are BFFs? I know they grew up together and we saw a bit of that in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011), but that was a long damn time ago, both in our history and the fictional history of their universe. I mean, that was like 70 years ago. There isn't a ton here to show that bond or even much of a personality left in Bucky. It makes Cap's defense of him to the end a little forced. The one thing that stands out actually is just how well they work together in a fight. They're nearly unstoppable, seeming to sense each other's moves and provide great support and combos. It's an impressive bit of fight choreography for sure.

As if all of this isn't enough, it's not a big reveal, but it's revealed that most of the reason this is happening is due to Zemo. Baron Zemo, as he's known in the comics is a weird dude who accidentally glued a Cobra Commander mask to his face. Seriously. I'm not sure this was really necessary, but it's a nice impetus for the Winter Soldier to emerge and kick some ass, which embitters both sides. Every part of this film is escalation, and he's a decent propulsive element to this. The fact that Zemo wasn't killed off is actually a strong indicator that he might return in a future installment, which I'd be for.

This contrasts with Frank Grillo's crossbones, whose explosive death in the opening scene sets the stage, echoes the impetus for the comic book version of Civil War, and falls in line nicely with Marvel's proclivity towards giving most of its non-Loki baddies the axe. I've found that I've grown to like the Captain America villains, because they're mostly just people. Winter Soldier works primarily as an action movie because it's basically just a couple dudes fighting the whole time. The same is largely true for Civil War, which even though it also features a floating density-shifting android who fires lasers out of a magic gem in his head, where the most important characters wail on each other in a test of Marvel Martial Arts.

Zemo's overall plot, though, is a a bit of a stretch. It's contingent on both Stark and Cap arriving at the secret underground Siberian bunker at the same time, which Stark only did once he started to believe that Bucky was innocent. I suppose Zemo figured Stark would track down Cap out of anger using the same high-degree sleuthing he used to somehow discover that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. It also doesn't make a ton of sense that Cap knew that Bucky killed Stark's parents, although it's been posited that he may have learned that from Armin Zola. In a film where everything else lines up so neatly, it's a little jarring, but as I said earlier, it's overshadowed by the immense personal stakes it pours on to get these guys to pound each other.

This whole plot is also essentially a fake-out that works really well because it's not about what the heroes think it's about. It's almost as if they're too used to being in these kinds of movies. Of course they figure that Zemo's looking to destabilize world governments with an army of super soldiers, but it's actually about breaking up the Avengers themselves. Zemo also knows what movie he's in and he's counting on the heroes to try to foil him, which on that note, it's important to remember that he's successful, even if Cap tries to reconcile at the end.

You damn well better respect the Falcon.

Speaking of that, there's no way that Captain America would be able to take a direct punch in the face from Iron Man's armour, right? I mean, regardless of Cap's stamina, Iron Man can punch through a brick wall. I love the conceit that Cap and Bucky are way better combat fighters, and again similar to the comics, Stark's only advantage is analyzing his moves and providing counter-measures technologically. As we're talking comics, I do love that they threw in the most iconic shot. Just as his defensive iconography contrasted with the Winter Soldier's offensive metal arm, it also provides a great weapon vs. shield imagery.

For the haters who say that every Marvel movie is the same (I've jumped on that bandwagon before), Civil War really proves that they know what they're doing. Looking back over the past two years, we have an extreme variety of films, from Winter Soldier to Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Age of Ultron and Ant-Man (2015). With varying degrees of quality of course, each of these is telling a very different story with wildly contrasting tones. After such an extensive build-up, Civil War burns down the universe almost completely. This seems in part to make room for the next couple films that will likely only tangentially touch on the core MCU / Avengers storyline such as Dr. Strange (2016). This may be the first Marvel film that ended without feeling like it was setting something else up, in the sense that there's no clear follow-up on the horizon to predict where the story goes. Presumably, Black Panther (2018) will carry on these theads to some extent. But this largely didn't feel like a set-up movie. It felt like a finale movie.

Having said that, let's talk about the characters a bit, because in addition to introducing Black Panther, which yes, is setting him up for his own movie, but he still feels like he belongs here, we've also got Spider-Man. There's no doubt that Spidey was a late addition because it feels really really natural to excise all of his parts and still end up with a cogent film. Still, about a third of the way through the film I realised that I had actually forgotten we were getting our third cinematic Peter Parker of the 21st-Century and started getting really excited. It would have been easy for Spider-Man to completely dominate the screen because  he's more popular than every other character in this movie, but he's handled well as this obnoxious rookie who's pretty inexperienced.

He gets an incredible introduction, though. As soon as Tony Stark says he knows someone, and the screen cuts to "QUEENS" I knew what was coming. It's a great into. Since her casting this has been discussed quite a bit, but the Marisa Tomei Aunt May thing is really really weird. This is mostly because she's pretty hot (acknowledged by Stark himself), but also because part of Spider-Man's deal is that he frets over his old feeble auntie who barely gets by. Not to denounce it completely, I'd be curious where they go with this in the awkwardly titled Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Spider-Man himself really steals the show in this movie, even if they seem to conspicuously avoid the use of the phrase "With great power comes great responsibility," yet come up with possibly the best way of saying it without actually saying it. They probably should have just said it. The phrase has lasted as long as it has for a reason. It's succinctness as a mantra is fantastic. He injects a ton of fun into the proceedings, and is totally realised on screen in both Parker and Spider-Man identities. It is a total shoe-horn, but it still gets me more amped for Homecoming than I was.

The other stand-out is again Paul Rudd's Ant-Man, who finally gets a showcase as Giant-Man, although his mini-moves disabling Tony's suit were pretty clever. This all coagulates when Spider-Man fights Giant-Man while referencing "that really old movie," The Empire Strikes Back (1980), in a great setpiece that's fun, action-packed, and exhilarating.

Naturally at this point, we ought to talk about the fact that Iron Man's side is so stacked. War Machine, Vision, and Spider-Man alone are a fearsome damn team, and to throw Black Widow and Black Panther into that mix is dirty. Team Cap (which by the way, I'm totally Team Cap, hardcore) tends to feature more gritty fighter-based heroes. Scarlet Witch is their biggest heavy, who seemed to help everyone all the time telekinetically throwing combatants off each other. She should have used some of that mind-control power from Age of Ultron.

The Winter Soldier may actually be the greatest ally on Team Cap because he's essentially been developed as the best fighter in the MCU. I don't think he's ever been beaten in a straight up fight, except of course when Iron Man blows his arm off here. The tiff between Black Widow and Hawkeye is amusing, and together they both continue to be the heart of this franchise. Jeremy Renner is again kind of worthless, but he's trending upwards in character growth, and his battle against Vision was pretty clever. He also seems to be gaining more ground towards his comic book counterpart in his sly witticisms and irreverence.

Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow continues to grow and tie everyone else together, though, and it's a perfect fit that she takes the role Spidey did in the comics by switching sides to Cap and helping turn to the tide. She's a powerful personality and struggles to find her place in a world where she doesn't even know where her loyalties are supposed to lie. I wasn't really on the "Black Widow should get her own movie!" bandwagon until now. I think we have a lot of backstory to cover.

At the same time, though, Marvel seems completely disinterested in backstories, which is fantastic. How did Crossbones get his armour and cronies? Who cares. Who the fuck is Black Panther? Fuck you, that's who. We never saw the spider bite this random teenager! GTFO that's Peter Parker, ya'll know me. It's an incredibly refreshing proposition. We all have Wikipedia. We'll look up shit we care about understanding.

You know, two black guys here, but you'd never know. THANKS.

It's to this film's amazing credit that every character is largely balanced and gets a little spot to shine, even if it feels like the Winter Soldier's film even more so than The Winter Soldier. To clean up the rest - it's been said elsewhere and I agree, that Don Cheadle somehow looks really really old. Black cracked. Did Miles Apart (2016) run him ragged? Also, did anyone out there not think that Sharon Carter was Peggy's daughter or niece or whatever? I thought that was always a known thing. Maybe i just assumed it, correctly. That little bro moment with Falcon and Bucky is spectacular. Speaking of which, I also love the inclusion of Redbird which was totally lol-worthy.

And if Sharon Carter is related to Peggy Carter, is Martin Freeman's Everett Ross related to General Thunderbolt Ross? Too coincidental. No, they're not in the comics, but it seemed weird to me. I'm curious how his role develops. I feel like Martin Freeman was up to some shady shit, although the basis of his character is largely benign.

I didn't speak too much about the ideologies presented or film techniques at work here, but they're largely up to par. It's great that a big film like this is willing to take the time to engage in thoughtful discussion between its principal characters; confident enough in its action showcases to not feel the need to have giant cities destroyed all the time.

It's telling that out of all the little pockets in the development team, this Captain America squad has been the one tapped to bring Infinity War (2018 & 2019) to the big screen. It offers a lot of reassurance that those big flicks won't suck. The big question is how these other weirder threads will continue to tie together, although the Russos seem to favor a stripped down story rather than an expansive one. Infinity War ought to never end, though, so who knows what's going on. By that time a lot of these actors will have aged out of their roles as well, too, so it's tough to say.

In the end, I feel like it's easy to dismiss the superhero genre until we actually get a film that's as good as this. In that airport fight, every single character has a reason to be there, which is a tough task to pull off as smooth as this film does. This and Deadpool (2016) could make a lot of year-end lists, which is an indication of them breaking down and destroying the genre as much as anything else. Marvel is undoubtedly trending upwards, and now it's up to Dr. Strange to work his magic. Ho-hoooo!

The Case of the Dueling Hero vs. Hero Blockbusters

I'm not sure why it never really dawned on me until now, but I find it really really weird that Marvel and DC's biggest 2016 flicks both feature their two biggest leads going after each other. Both of these films have also dominated non-Star Wars related news lately. In one corner we have the hotly anticipated but awkwardly titled Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). In the other we have Captain America: Civil War. In the wake of both of these flicks dropped some nasty trailers over the past week, let's take a closer look at what we have on our hands.

Marvel and DC have been running neck and neck for years, obviously, but this is the first time their films have seemed so similar, and if you recall, they were once slated to open the same day, which would have been perfect. In 2008 we saw dueling billionaires over the summer in the form of Iron Man and The Dark Knight, which both proved to be game changers for the industry. I also love the 2013 battle between the Man of Steel, the Man of Iron, and the Man of Adamantium between Man of Steel, Iron Man 3, and The Wolverine. Nothing has been like this year, though.

In every way, both these films are totally emblematic of where their parent companies are trying to push the superhero genre. Civil War is the culmination of a lot of movies. Twelve, in fact. This simultaneously extracts some of its novelty as it's just another entry in a never-ending series of repetitive films, while also signifying something a little more. On the opposite end of the cynical statement about cookie-cutter Marvel movies is the important opinion that every recent Marvel movie has been very different, usually resulting in them being pretty good. 2014 gave us The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, which were both incredibly fun films unlike much else that had come before. 2015 has been relatively forgettable, but Civil War as the capper to a conflict boiling between Captain America and Iron Man since their first meeting in The Avengers (2012) is an intriguing prospect.

Dawn of Justice is coming from the opposite angle. It has the benefit of heavy exposure to the heroes and characters, although it's only the second film in its explicitly shared universe. Instead of a collapsing friendship it moreover showcases the contentious first meeting between comic icons Batman and Superman. The relationship and conflict of ideologies there is backed more by shared cultural knowledge along with a slew of recent movies that has demonstrated the characters, even if they haven't necessarily bumped into each other yet.

With that bit of prep, check out each trailer:

First, Civil War



Now, Dawn of Justice



What do you notice?

They're pretty damn similar. Director Zack Snyder, as completely tone def he is as a storyteller, certainly has a knack for crafting visually enticing pictures, which rise above the look of Joe and Anthony Russo's Civil War. Justice teases something brainier and more steeped in character, but with each director's respective track record, is there any possible world where Snyder doesn't blow this? Let's jump down his throat for a second.

Based on the previous trailer and this, the entire plot of Dawn of Justice is easy to figure out. You could consider this spoiler-y, but this is all stuff I've gathered from the whopping six minutes of footage we've seen so far. The film will pick up at the end of Man of Steel, with Bruce Wayne witnessing what Supes and Zod can do. He'll freak out, and Luthor invites him and Clark to the same party where they chat about ideological differences. Things come to a head and they tussle, while Luthor, with the same concern as Bruce, reanimates Zod into Doomsday and sicks him on Supes and Bats, which causes them to unite and form an uneasy alliance that will balance the Justice League for the next twenty years or whatever.

It's time and time again Snyder just missing the damn point. The interesting part of this film is Batman fighting Superman and them overcoming whatever problems they have on their own. Obviously they can't kill each other, but they need to reach a level of respect for each other. This is hard to do, so there's a more blatant means of achieving that in a screenplay, which is their unification to battle a more powerful common foe.

Contrast this with Civil War, which is working from the reverse angle. The relationship built on mutual respect but not necessarily close friendship between Steve and Tony comes to a breaking point when Cap puts his buddy, Bucky over the interests of his duty as an Avenger and to his own government. There may be a Registration Act thing in there too at some point, and that would be cool, although it's not entirely necessary. It's hard to believe that like, the Scarlet Witch would give a shit about Bucky and fight for Cap, so that sort of makes more sense.

In the end, when watching the trailers back to back, I have to say I'm more impressed by the Civil War trailer. I don't mean to shit all over Dawn of Justice, because having those two icons clash together should be a huge captivating moment, putting the classic frenemy relationship on screen for the first time that's been developed over the past three quarters of a century in comic form. But you get way more feels from Civil War. Maybe that's because there's so much authenticity on screen with the proven relationships. It's kind of disturbing that it tends to highlight both Cap and Iron Man's predilection for black sidekicks, but with the addition of Black Panther, maybe that's mitigated?

Jeez, I just realized that Black Panther is the Wonder Woman of this film. They at least understand that the fight between heroes is enough, although there is supposed also Baron Zemo and Crossbones in the film. Maybe it will suck, after all.

What do you think? Am I reading far too much into these trailers? Has my nerdy film knowledge grown so large as to suck any enjoyment out of the barest of footages? Probably.

First Impressions: The Avengers: Age of Ultron

Call it a sick addiction, or perhaps merely the sad fate of a nominally self-aware and rigorous-minded cinema fan, but I somehow felt a strong desire to see The Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), not particularly for the spectacle but because I actually wanted to see what happened to these characters next. I'll fully admit to suckling the billion-dollar marketing teat of the corporations who want me to see this, because sitting down in the theater, I had a genuine interest in seeing where this grand story went to next.

Let the Metal Men Battle Commence

This is sort of flawed thinking, though, right? By its ending, Ultron feels like more a pitstop than a completed film, because that's exactly what serialized storytelling is all about. It doesn't totally matter what happens in this, or any other big studio franchise film anymore, because the next installment is going to be an even bigger, equally momentous event. This is nothing new, of course, even to movies, but there is a big change in expectation when that spectacle is thrown in - stakes in episodic television or the serials of old are understandably lesser than these earth-threatening escapades.

None of this matters because I still saw Ultron and I actually liked it a lot. This is also a feat that The Avengers (2012) achieved, though, which through a combination of pace, coherence, and cheekiness proves itself to be a great romp the first time around that depletes upon repeat viewings. If Ultron suffers from anything, though, it's actually that it's too short, at least in the sense that it doesn't get to develop some of the interesting characters or concepts it comes up with. Everything feels really rushed, even though it clocks in around 141 minutes and its big set-pieces tend to drag on, it could have used some more focus.

I suppose that is now left to our solo flicks - Iron Man 3 (2013) and Captain America: The Winter Solider (2014) had the luxury to delve into our main heroes, but Ultron can't be bothered to do such things. That's not a direct criticism of this film, because it tries pretty damn hard and deserves kudos for its focus on Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Hulk, who don't otherwise get much of an opportunity to shine. Everyone else, and by everyone I mean like fifteen other characters, float in and out sometimes randomly, and others operate more as balance instead of pushing any development. I ought to drop a SPOILER comment from here on out, folks.

It's not like a film like this needs all of his characters to develop or have arcs, though. Just by its team-up nature this would be virtually impossible. I'm more excited now for Captain America: Civil War (2016) because suddenly that's turning into a tighter focus on issues between Cap and Stark that subtly emerged in Winter Soldier and were brought into stronger light in Ultron. This is what true Shared Universe movies should be about - when there's not enough room in one film to develop an idea, relationship, or conflict, just mention it, table it, and spin it more in the next go-around. So now that we've fully discussed the macro of this film, let's take a bit of a deeper look.

One thing that worked, and this is really why most superhero sequels of the X2: X-Men United (2003), Spider-Man 2 (2004), and The Dark Knight (2008) variety work well, is that the film wasn't bogged down with its origin story, this time of course, being the Avengers Team origin story. Ultron starts in media res in the form of a snowy Eastern European Hydra fight and blows its wad early in a tracking shot reminiscent of that great team shot from The Avengers where everyone shows their stuff. It efficiently reminds the audience who everyone is and what everyone can do. It then aptly presents new challenges in the form of Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, while quickly deposing of Hydra dick Baron von Strucker, whose legacy haunts the movie far more than his actual character is present. I wonder if Thomas Krestchmann thought he had hit the jackpot here.

I'm not too worried about things like the complete lack of explanation for why Tony is still suiting up after "retiring" in Iron Man 3 or the inevitable fact that he ended this one with the exact same attitude as he did then. It's clear that this life has been wearing on him, which when combined with Banner's reluctance to go green, provides them ample reason to create AI to protect the earth when they won't be able to, or want to anymore.

Here's where the film got way more comic book-y than any other Marvel film so far, which have typically been more grounded in reality, or at least some kind of reasonable explanation. Thor's magic=science, Iron Man's suit, even the caveat of the various serums or radiation that give powers, that stuff is all hokey but you can wrap your head around it and get over the ridiculous quickly. I'm still struggling to understand how Ultron was born, or why he came out such an asshole right away.

This is actually really solid writing.
A humourous throwaway scene with really important
 payoff later on that quickly establishes character. Tasty.

So, the Mind Gem (or was it the casing around the Mind Gem?), that came from Outer Space allowed Tony to crack the code and create AI, which he spliced with JARVIS or something, and poof - evil robot. Okay, fine. I don't care. It doesn't matter how Ultron was created, what matters is that he was, and how the other Avengers deal with Stark afterwards, along with how Stark deals with himself. He didn't quite get the redemption he got in The Avengers, though, and he probably should have been the one to get the killshot on Ultron Prime instead of Scarlet Witch, even though that cements her transition from Avengers-hater to full-on team member.

Much of this same insanity can be applied to Vision, who is this weird Frankenstein made with equal effort from Banner, Stark, Ultron, and Thor. He's very literally a Frankenstein monster when Thor brings the hammer home giving him the electrical jump start, which is all he apparently required to rise and become awesome. His most important power is of course, creating clothing for himself, but other than that the film even blurs that a bit. Of course, Vision is most known for density control and shooting lasers, including his solar jewel, which is all pretty accurate in the film. I think I saw him give one of the Ultron droids an arm phase, which was rad. But the film neither totally absolves itself of scientific credibility like something more fun like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) would do, nor does it try to steep itself in hard science like Interstellar (2014). Alright, those are weird analogies, but Ultron seems like it miffs when it tries to have its ridiculous comic book cake and eat it, too. Just let it be nuts. This whole movie is nuts. Who cares.

I don't really want to talk about every single character, but it's worth it to pick out a few. I love that Hawkeye sort of becomes the heart and soul of this movie, even if the rest of the team doesn't really realize it, and he never does anything outside of an audience-surrogate position to earn that recognition. He certainly makes up for time lost when under mind-control for all of The Avengers, particularly when that plot thread affects almost everyone else on the team.

Ultron himself proves to be a pretty fun character, full of weird James Spader-isms like apologizing to Andy Serkis for sawing his arm off or halfheartedly asking Hulk to spare him before he's pummeled out of the Quinjet. The film doesn't do a great job with his characterization, though, and doesn't smooth over these sort of childish growing pains with his intellectual grandiosity and schemes. He is again reticent to relay his full plan, similar to how in The Avengers it was tough to figure out exactly what the hell direction Loki was headed in at any moment, but in the end it doesn't actually matter. We get that he's turned Sokovia into a meteor and plans on crashing it into the earth, destroying all humanity. What isn't clear is his motivation that's so clear in the comics, the simple fact that he finds humanity a danger to itself. The movie seems more focused on Ultron's fixation with The Avengers being the greatest threat to humanity, which is a fine plan in itself, but if that's the case, why the meteor? Is it all to merely capture their attention and kill them when they show up? None of it is really solid, which is unfortunate, because as Cap says, the criticism Ultron presents towards the Avengers is valid.

There is also an underdeveloped dynamic between Ultron and Stark, namely that Ultron has a lot of Stark in him that he resents, and that Stark also exhibits short-sighted Ultron-like qualities. Like I mentioned earlier, there just isn't any scene of Stark repelling these tendencies, and when Ultron goes from joking with Ulysses Klaue to cutting off his arm (so he'll become this dude! Finally at long last.) the tone stretches to goofy klutz instead of diabolical supervillain, which is just bizarre. If we really wanted to get into this junk, Ultron should just be in an Iron Man movie. Or even better, he could have been in a Hank Pym movie, because for some reason the lamest Avenger got the coolest nemesis.

I mentioned this in my preview post, too, but that brings up another point - with the introduction of Ultron, Scarlet Witch, and Vision it feels more and more like a real Avengers film, in the sense that the Avengers are terrible. When I think of the Avengers I really do think like, Vision, Hawkeye, and Scarlet Witch, all these junk characters that were pretty weird and lame and so far below the A-listers. Finally, that is on screen. I'm really appreciative for Whedon sticking pretty close to the comic script, honestly, in his treatment of many of these characters. After all, the Avengers did use Vision, who Ultron created, to first defeat Ultron. And there are nice creepy nods to him shacking up with Scarlet Witch. And damn, I love that B-Team of Vision, War Machine, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch at the end. Infinity War (2018) is gonna be rough. Hopefully some of the A-listers will stick around. Right?

On that note - we ought to talk about Captain America's dream sequence, and the dream sequences in general, because there a pretty interesting part of the film, which Whedon apparently fought to keep in. They're a look into every character's fears, which can either take the form of a tortured past she's trying to forget (Black Widow), or a horrific future they may cause (Iron Man). But Thor's and Cap's are kind of weird. Thor and his weird shirtless cave pool have already been somewhat up for debate, but nothing seems to have come from Cap's experience. Seriously, Black Widow is left shaken and crippled, Thor leaves the damn movie to find answers from Stellan Skarsgard, but Cap just chops wood. The answer actually likely likes in Civil War, which ought to provide our answer to Tony's lack of comeuppance for creating Ultron as well. See, that's better than any end-credits set-up teaser. The teaser is now the movie itself!

Now, I can't stress enough again that I did enjoy this movie a lot, and despite its darkness it keeps a blistering pace, a ton of fun, and its jokes land a little better than the first installment. The camaraderie is very well-developed both in action sequences (I kept seeing these combo moves, like Thor banging Cap's shield to make a shockwave to mess up Hydra's day) and in the interplay of personalities. That said, there are a ton of structural problems. I'm curious if the Hulkbuster scene was even necessary beyond a "Look! this is cool!" moment, because it really doesn't progress the story or characters along at all. Cut that and let's get more psychological development of Stark's Ultron machinations.

I didn't actually think all those Pinocchio (1940)
allusions were that accurate. Let's stick with Frankenstein (1931).

The ending is also remarkably similar to the first Avengers in the sense that they have to take on an overwhelming but ultimately fairly dispensable army. Really though, there's no other way to showcase a team like this fighting together. They can't really gang up on one baddie, and this gives lots of different characters lots to do. Speaking of that, did anyone else sense an overcompensation for the Man of Steel (2013) "Superman doesn't save people" criticism? The majority of every sequence is about half the team saving or evacuating civilians to the point of ridiculousness. That's a weird aspect to pivot against DC with but whatever. I suppose that's because the point of Man of Steel wasn't really about saving civilians, it was Supes' own struggle with the inevitability of Zod's destruction weighed against his own moral compass, one ultimately devolves into a no-win scenario. In a weird point of contrast, though, while DC heroes nominally vow to not kill anyone, there are a ton of henchman deaths in Ultron. Everyone kills humans beings all the time, and the only one who seems remorseful is Hulk. Oh well.

Should we talk about the Infinity Gems? Like it or not (and aware of it or not), the Gems have driven just about every Marvel film, crescendoing lately with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Thor: The Dark World (2013) explicitly using initially unnamed Gems as MacGuffins. And we have them laid out pretty well by now. But we're missing two. Where the hell are the Time and Soul gems? It would make perfect sense for the Soul Gem to show up in Dr. Strange (2016), and that pesky Time Gem could show up in any of the five films set to premiere before the first installment of Infinity War. I'm actually half-curious if those two culminating films will actually tell the same story, considering that there two other movies set to come out in between the two. Perhaps Part 1 (2018) will be more a "first round" that results in victory for only one side that then recoups for Part 2 (2019)? Who cares. By then we'll be burnt out. Right?

Right?

What did you think of Age of Ultron, and more importantly, the state of Blockbusters and Cinema in general? Did you see Ex Machina (2015) this weekend instead?