Avengers: Endgame (second-pass / 2D / SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 181 mins / Dir. Joe Russo & Anthony Russo / Trailer
Well, this isn't the review I expected to be writing about the second-most anticipated movie of 2019. My first-pass of Endgame is here. My thoughts on the film haven't changed since then, I absolutely adore it. Every single frame. Even if the already-gargantuan runtime still isn't enough to properly accommodate the number of characters involved. Even if the film's approach to time-travel is elastic, self-contradictory yet absolutely textbook all at the same time. Even if the God of Thunder is effectively reduced to a fat-joke for two and half hours because the screenplay doesn't want to close his character arc just yet but doesn't have anything for him to actually do.
BLOWN I love Avengers: Endgame. It's just that…
…why am I not blown away by Avengers: Endgame? I left the cinema satisfied from character (okay mostly), narrative, script and visuals points of view. But I didn't have that buzz. That 'shit, I'm so excited I need to see this film again as soon as possible'. That feeling of utter childlike joy I had after Spider-Man: Homecoming, after Guardians Of The Galaxy, after Iron Man 3.
Ant-Man & The Wasp is the (relatively) low stakes palate-cleanser following the literal genocide of Infinity War. Likewise, Captain Marvel is a retro lead-in, but was never going to attempt to match the absolute fucking armageddon required to close this chapter. Both enormous fun, but deliberately light on dramatic gravity.
Yet with Endgame I was more 'that was utterly fantastic, now let me see if I've got everything straight here, let me just refer to my spreadsheet'. Because a lot of this movie is admin. Great admin, important admin, but still*1. That's only to be expected when you're wrapping things up, twenty two chapters into a continuous flow. And hey, my day-job is in Quality Assurance, I fucking love admin (and spreadsheets). But a fair amount of time here spent is ticking off names and ensuring the audience is reminded of secondary characters from earlier movies.
RANGON Maybe it's just because I've been waving the flag for the Marvel Cinematic Universe since 2008*2, and my many years spent immersed in Star Wars continuity means that by this point I'm slightly less caught up in the emotional swell, and more preconditioned to connecting story-dots as we go? That's certainly true of the first time I watch an MCU flick (as well as any/all Star Wars, obviously), and I'd wanted a close second-pass to take in all the plot details I'd missed the first time round. But there turned out to be surprisingly few of those - a testament to how well written the screenplay is.
It's not that I wasn't thoroughly engaged for every single frame of Endgame, and it's certainly not that the film doesn't have its fair share of goosebumps-moments. But most of these are things which I'd been either hoping for or flat-out anticipating for some time, not things that I couldn't believe had just happened. While the Russo brothers are spinning many plates here, there are few actual surprises. But again, if this were the 22nd level of a tower block, no matter how accomplished it was it would still have to conform to the rules laid out in the floors below it*3.
ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICON
Perhaps I'm not overwhelmed because I know this isn't the end of the line for the franchise? The title itself seems to have led to several people (in the actual, offline world) referring to this as "the last Avengers movie". Which it very much isn't. The fact that Spider-Man, Black Panther and Doctor Strange all have officially announced sequels in the pipeline did remove some of Infinity War's punch, somewhat. And if there are more individual hero-films on the way, you can bet your bottom Disney-token that there will be future Avengers team-ups, too. The supergroup hasn't ended, it's just shifted membership. Not unlike The Drifters or the Sugababes, you can't just kill them off, apparently*4.
But, anyway. To clarify, because this reads back like a really negative appraisal, I absolutely love Avengers: Endgame, I'm not finished with it by a long shot and think it's very almost the best film it could be. But that best film was probably never going to surprise me.
And I don't mind that. Even if it sounds like I do...
*1 Although mentioning the film casually to a colleague at work, he referred to another colleague (not present at the time) who'd said that the three hours wasn't a problem as there were plenty of opportunities to nip out to the toilet because not that much was happening. Still, it's nice to know that the notional idiots who we imagine only turn up for the explosions and the LOLZ really do exist. [ BACK ]
*2 This sounds like bragging or gatekeeping - it's not, I assure you. Besides, everybody knows I can't really get into a franchise unless I'm there at ground-level. I get the fan-version of impostor syndrome if I try. [ BACK ]
*3 Seriously kids, when you're in Quality Assurance that shit is for life. [ BACK ]
*4 And on a side-note, I've long maintained that Marvel is terrified of actually killing its heroes. Think of the roll-call of good guys in Endgame. Now think of how many of those are gone by the end credits. The goodbyes we say in this movie are significant, but not particularly numerous.
There is a separate issue surrounding the exit of Black Widow and whether she was 'fridged'. It's covered very well in this article here, although I'd point out that at least Natasha's death meant something. Had Clint won the race to the bottom of the cliff, his exit would have been as shrug-inducing as the rest of the poor bastard's characterisation, frankly… [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Captain Marvel (third-pass / 2D / SPOILERS)
Cert: 12A / 124 mins / Dir. Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck / Trailer
Apologies for the lateness of this review, writing time is competing for top billing at Blackout Towers. First review way back here, second (micro) review here.
CAMEO So, this was the third time of watching Captain Marvel, and the third time that the opening ident featuring Stan Lee brought me to tears. Ditto with his cameo in the train-scene. What I absolutely adore about this is that because the movie is set in 1995 and Kevin Smith's Mallrats was released in that same year, the Stan we see on the train is rehearsing the lines for his appearance in that film. It's the scene with Brody in which he plays himself after an appearance at a comic book store. So for this Marvel Cinematic Universe cameo, Stan Lee doesn't play Man At Window or Guy Opening Fridge; Stan Lee plays Stan Lee. An amazing tribute to a unique man which is fucking beautiful, frankly.
But I digress. What becomes clearer watching the movie after a break is that the amount of exposition mixed with call-forwards in the first act means that the viewer is bombarded with way too much information. Ironically, this isn't as noticeable on a first-pass when you're just gawping at everything anyway, but the more you understand what's going on, the more jumbled its beginning becomes. Anything before Vers lands in the Blockbuster feels needlessly cluttered.
GUN On a more positive note (because I do love this, remember), the feeling grows that there's nothing in the actual story itself which dictates that Carol Danvers needs to be a female character. It could as well be Carl Danvers. That she's a woman is just a bonus (albeit a long overdue one). And whereas DC's Wonder Woman did a great job of ramping up its girl-power while retaining credibility, Captain Marvel is altogether less showy about it - although no less important. And that's either the mark of true narrative equality from Marvel, or a damning indictment of the homogenisation of superhero cinema. Definitely one of the two.
It's slightly odd to think that Danvers ends up being the one who inadvertently names The Avengers. As above, it's cool that there's a female touch to these proceedings, but way back in the supergroup's debut comic it was The Wasp who came up with the moniker. It's bad enough that she was recently reduced to being a sidekick in a movie where she should have co-headlined, but now this? I expect Hope Van Dyne to have her own kick-ass movie in short order by way of recompense.
It also occurred to me watching this again that Maria's daughter Monica is around 11 in 1995, which would put her in the mid-30s by the time of Endgame. Might we see the budding pilot teaming up with Carol Danvers in the future when she takes the fight to Thanos? Well, that movie's out by the time of posting this review, and that question has been answered…
Tonally, the other character-chapters in the MCU.
It is.
It is.
The jury's still out on that one.
That's possible.
Nope, I thought there was in the scene where Goose gets hungry for the first time, but I didn't hear it the next time round.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Oh, ITV called. They said their Sunday night schedules are full for the foreseeable wondered if you might like to try the cinemas instead? Besides, they're probably going to need something to show over a week on the single screen that isn't running back-to-back Avengers…
ARRESTED So we open circa 2000, with the slightly curmudgeonly Joan (Judi Dench) being arrested on historical spying charges following revelations arising after the death of a government minister. As Joan is interviewed, we see her past as a wartime communist sympathiser unfurl in a series of lengthy flashbacks at Cambridge University and the Ministry of Defence, in which she's played by Sophie Cookson.
Now, since this is all based on a novel which is in turn inspired by an actual case, the immediate pitfall is one of maintaining dramatic tension when the audience could know how it plays out. Joan maintains her innocence throughout, on a moral level at least. But the problem is that the film is called "Red Joan", so we know she did it. To make matters worse the first act tells us how and even why she did it. All that's left for the following hour is a checklist of events which have been telegraphed from the word go.
I know little to nothing of the actual political machinery around and following the Second World War, and even I found this to be simplistic and heavy-handed.
PERSONAL Dame Judi does quite well for a performance which is essentially a series of very short monologues with people watching. But perhaps crucially, Old Red Joan never actually narrates or even presents the Young Red Joan segements - these are sparked in her memory by facts read to her by the police. As a result, the other half of her performance is essentially reaction shots.
Cookson has more to work with and comes out of the whole thing better, but it's an inescapable fact that she doesn't look like a young Judi Dench (even though her vocal mannerisms are spot on). It's not just a matter of the latter's outstanding career history, she's long since passed the line where she can disappear into a character. No matter how good Judi Dench is, you never forget you're watching Judi Dench™.
What's more odd is that Sophie Cookson often carries an air of Keira Knightley in her more animated performances. Not that there's much potential for character flashbacks there, of course.
THIRD-STAGE DISCIPLINARY HEARING With a theatrical name like Trevor Nunn helming proceedings, I'd been woried this would be quite a stagey affair. And while that definitely comes through with Dench's present-day (or as close as) scenes, the past-narrative is almost completely televisual. And not great, dynamic, better-than-its-ever-been television, just very ordinary Sunday night fare.
The story as it stands is now two decades old, and this telling doesn't seem to take any risks or challenge its audience in any way. You have to wonder who Red Joan was really made for, other than being a shelf-warmer in the £3 section of Asda's entertainment section.
Stream it, tops. Or wait for it to be on telly since that's clearly where it belongs.
It is not.
That's possible.
There isn't.
Level 2: Sophie Cookson was in that Kingsman film, with Mark 'Skywalker' Hamill, Sam 'Windu' Jackson, Ralph 'Garmuth' Ineson and even Geoff 'Frobb' Bell.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
If anything, I find it surprising that a politically-framed film so intent on recycling its joke about focus-grouping appears to have landed in cinemas without undergoing any test screenings itself. Or perhaps it did and what we saw tonight was a last-ditch attempt to fashion a hybrid which satisfies everyone before sacking the whole thing off and going to the pub, deadlines-be-damned. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
The phrase "all over the place" has become an easy go-to in recent times, round this parish as surely as any other. It can feel overused, in lieu of deconstructing the internal combative forces jostling for position within a movie, and when further analysis seems futile or overwhelming. But occasionally a title really steps up to the bar to claim full and rightful ownership of that sobriquet.
Long Shot really is all over the fucking place.
SECRETARY
So, Charlize Theron plays Charlotte Field, Secretary of State for the US government, ridiculously capable in her job but finding it increasingly difficult in a world which won't take female politicians seriously - especially if they're attractive. As she runs for President, this becomes a major problem. Seth Rogen plays Fred Flarsky, a recently-resigned investigative journalist who writes great copy, but has no social filters. The former used to babysit for the latter when they were younger. Work throws them together, a faltering, odd couple romance blossoms, the powers-that-be disapprove, politics gets in the way, some things explode, there's some crying, and Seth's character is shown jerking off into his own beard. Yeah, they didn't put that in the trailer.
Which leads us to the crux of the problem. That trailer isn't sure what kind of film it's trying to sell. A sassy romantic comedy? A political satire? A light action-movie? Who knows. It's reflective of the finished movie at any rate. It spins far too many plates in a bid to show how clever it is, coming off as an unfocused mess as a result. At its core, this is a comedy - and there are plenty of laugh-out-loud funny moments in there. They just feel like sketches which were assembled after the fact.
The political element is particularly worrisome. While Field's denomination is never openly addressed, the sitting President Chambers (Bob Odenkirk) is depicted as a terminally stupid TV star who's fumbled his way into the top job and is now bored half way through his first term and is looking to make the shift into movies. He's manipulated at every turn by the white-haired right-wing media mogul Parker Wembley (Andy Serkis), the owner of newspapers and TV channels who enjoys a direct line to the Oval Office and wants to keep things that way.
In terms of satire, Long Shot isn't so much delivered with a scalpel as a cricket bat.
CRASH Seth Rogen is great, although Seth Rogen very usually is. Anyone likely to struggle with that aspect shouldn't bother at all, frankly. His bewildered everyman persona (if 'every man' just wants to get wasted and forget about how complicated the world is) is a constant thread throughout the haphazard fabric of the film. Similarly, Theron gives it her very best as the straight-man archetype to Rogen's clown. Viewers of Arrested Development already know Charlize has a natural talent for deadpan humour, and she displays it with perfection here. But that comedic performance requires building a wall between the character and the audience, a separate aloofness, a barrier to sympathy. And that becomes a bit of a problem when the character turns into a slightly repressed one-note gag.
And so we limp along as screenwriters Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah frantically try to find an appropriate gear, one step away from going full SNL, the early-90s nostalgia employing two full scenes soundtracked by the same Roxette song - as if overtly referencing a classic movie is the same as writing one. By the time we get to the third act, Long Shot actually has the audacity to lecture its audience on open political dialoguing and the crossing of social barriers. Almost as if it forgets that up until five minutes earlier it was quite content being a Liberal Hollywood™ wank-fantasy. Literally. All that's left is realisation, a heartfelt stick-it-to-the-man speech (complete with an actual mic-drop, naturally) and the race-across-town for this to be every piece of shit rom-com from the last thirty years.
The film has long since stopped trying and doesn't care when you noticed.
KEYS TO TULSA Twenty years ago, Long Shot would have starred Adam Sandler and been absolutely dreadful. Going back ten, Jason Segel would have landed the role in a production which felt horribly misguided. The weird thing is, the Seth Rogen version of this film is probably the best that can be made. And it's still not good enough. It wants to be Forgetting Sarah Marshall meets Vice, but has the insight and commitment of neither.
Long Shot is so busy trying to be all things to all audiences in a desperate play for relevance that nobody involved seems to have realised there's no actual message at the core of it all. How very 2019.
Do you remember how scattershot and unfocused Gringo was? Well, that..
It is not.
Stream it, but if you give up after half an hour I'll completely understand.
For the cast? Fuck no.
For director Jonathan Levine? Still fucking no.
That said, Boyz II Men cameo as themselves here, which will leave you wishing for the hardest first-act nuclear strike since UB40 rocked up in Speed 2…
I'd say that's likely.
I thought there was at one point, but let's go with no.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Greta Cert: 15 / 99 mins / Dir. Neil Jordan / Trailer
Based on one of those timeless hypothetical questions like 'but if you saw an unattended bag on the Tube and didn't just leave it because that looks like some obvious form of entrapment, what are the reasons you wouldn't immediately hand it in to station staff?, Neil Jordan makes a baffling directorial return to our cinemas with Greta.
Baffling as in '…you came back for this, Neil?'.
We follow Frances (Chloë Grace Moretz) as she takes the bait noted above, realising all-too-late that she's been the good samaritan to an absolute sociopath, Greta (Isabelle Huppert, proving to be both the blessing and curse of set-dressers as she chews through the scenery before the director has called cut). Things get out of hand in the first act, although with Frances being the kind of character who rides a bicycle around her flat and is shown having conversations in a cinema during a movie, she deserves everything that comes her way, frankly.
CUE The screenplay doesn't tease out the plot, with its twists and turns arriving promptly and on-cue. Although Greta is set in the present day, there's a very mid-90s feel to the narrative itself. Too sharp to be classed as Hitchcockian, but way too naive in its execution for 2019. Jordan may not be doing anything new here, but he knows when to push the right dramatic buttons and fire up a fraught string-section.
Greta is one of those movies where the industrial levels of foreshadowing mean that it probably works better if you haven't seen the trailer. Yet at the same time, the film has been so undermarketed that without a promo-reel you'd be unlikely to come across it at all. It's not demonstrably awful, but runs like clockwork and is ultimately very forgettable. Which is probably just as well.
BOBBY Despite a delightfully batshit-crazy turn from Huppert*1, the ultimate antagonist here is human nature. And while that's a constant of storytelling across the ages, I'm just not sure that Greta has a lot to say. Although I'm now more determined than ever to get a job Photoshopping together the glimpsed family snaps for characters' background stories in movies. Because apparently you can still turn in any old shite and they'll use it on-set.
I'm also impressed that someone at the marketing agency has said to their boss 'Well this hysterical urban pantomime sounds pretty much identical to Pedro Almodóvar's introspective, generation-spanning Spanish-language film, Julieta. I'll just do the poster I did for that one, yeah..?
Yeah whatever mate, no one's watching.
Greta is so much like Single White Female meets The People Under The Stairs that I'd be amazed if this screenplay hadn't been lying on a shelf since 1995. As throwbacks go, it's more fun than Unforgettable, at any rate.
Not really.
Stream it out of curiosity. You will never watch this again so there's no need for it to take up shelf-space.
Moretz is solid as always, but why cast Maika Monroe then give her a supporting role in a movie which feels custom made for her usual trashy appearance-choices?
That's entirely possible.
There is not.
Level 2: Stephen Rea's in this, and he was in V for Vendetta with Natalie 'Amidala' Portman.
*1 Everyone in the movie talks about "the French woman" but I swear to god Huppert is doing a German accent. I know the actress is French but is that how she sounds normally? I can't remember the last thing I watched her in. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
