Review #1,460: 'Captain Marvel' (2019)

It says a lot about the mammoth universe built by Kevin Feige and the folks at Marvel over the past 11 years that merely the glimpse of a modified pager displaying the colours of their costume is enough to generate a huge amount of buzz around the arrival of a new superhero. Captain Marvel's introduction was teased during the traditional post-credits stinger of last year's Avengers: Infinity War, and now, just under a year later, Brie Larson's Carol Danvers finally makes her bow. Black Panther became a cultural phenomenon, and Infinity War delivered and then some on its promise to bring this breathtaking (first) saga closer to an end, so the small-scale and light-hearted Ant-Man and the Wasp was a welcome, if underwhelming palette cleanser. Captain Marvel is the studio's first female-led superhero film, so there's a weight of expectation behind Marvel once again.

There has been a wave of ugliness online in protest against the idea of female empowerment and Brie Larson's pro-feminist comments before the film even premiered, but an opening weekend of north of $500 million has silenced the haters and, with any hope, brought us closer to a future when a hero's gender or sexuality is irrelevant to a film's success. Captain Marvel is far from perfect. In fact, it relies heavily on Marvel's tried-and-tested origin story formula we saw a lot of when this universe was still in its first phase, although directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck toy around with the structure enough to keep things slightly less familiar. Anyone who was keen to write Captain Marvel off as an example of forced diversity should take the time to actually watch it. Don't get me wrong, the film takes a strong pro-feminist stance and tackles issues plaguing our modern world, but it does so with subtlety. Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel is strong, confident, even arrogant at times, but just like Tony Stark or Dr. Strange, she is also flawed, troubled and - despite the mystery surrounding her ancestry - recognisably human.

The warrior known as Vers (Larson) is a member of Starforce, an elite band of soldiers operating within the Kree Empire tasked with infiltrating the Skrulls, a race of shape-shifting aliens they have been at war with since before they can remember. Vers is troubled by dreams that feel like memories she does not remember, but her commander Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) trains her to put aside her emotion to focus on the enemy. During a mission to rescue one Starforce's own, Vera is captured by Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), who proceeds to dissect her memories before they all crash down on a strange, primitive planet. That planet is Earth, and the year is 1995. It isn't long before an eager, two-eyed agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. called Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is drawn to this mysterious stranger and is caught up in her desire to uncover the secrets of her past, along with learning of an intergalactic war that may one day threaten his home. With the help of old friend Maria Rambeau (Lashana Lynch) and a cat named Goose, Vers discovers that she was born Carol Danvers, and that everything she has been taught about who she is and what she's fighting for may actually be a lie.

Although Marvel have done period before with Captain America: The First Avenger back in 2011, Boden and Fleck were clearly having fun revelling in some 90's nostalgia. Although some of the music choices are a little on-the-nose, the appearance of a Blockbuster store and the sound of a dial-up internet connection will delight those, like me, who grew up in the decade. The big joke is that while Carol embarks on galaxy-hopping adventures with the Kree, down here on Earth everything takes an age to load. Captain Marvel switches seamlessly between these two extremes with good humour, and for a character that is destined to become the franchise's next cosmic powerhouse, the low-key approach to her origin actually works in the film's favour. It also allows time for Larson to develop the character, whether it be bouncing off Jackson's one-liners or discovering her old self with her best friend. Larson is great: strong but not over-powered, cocky but endearing. Despite Mendelsohn's scene-stealing, Larson ensures that it'll be Captain Marvel's appearance you'll be eagerly awaiting in the upcoming Avengers: Endgame. Formulaic? Certainly, but Marvel knows how to entertain, and they can't exactly re-define the genre with every film.


Directed by: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck
Starring: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Mendelsohn, Jude Law, Annette Bening, Lashana Lynch, Clark Gregg, Gemma Chan, Rune Temte, Djimon Hounsou
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,243: 'King Arthur: Legend of the Sword' (2017)

Guy Ritchie may just one of the luckiest film directors in history. After making his name with Cockney gangster movies Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, he released a double-bill of stinkers so bad that even the utterance of their titles provokes sniggers. Swept Away and Revolver almost killed the career of the Brit before it truly took off, with his highly publicised relationship to Madonna proving far more interesting to the tabloids than any of his desperate output. He returned to his roots with RocknRolla, a motor-mouthed crime comedy which, although sitting well within his comfort zone, was good enough to remind us of why we liked him in the first place. Since then, he's found big-budget success with the Sherlock Holmes films and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (although the latter tanked at the box-office, it was generally warmly received by those who saw it), and has been handed the keys to his very own franchise, the eternally rebootable story of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table.

It's unclear just how much more input Ritchie will have on this new take on Arthurian legend, as he has just started production on Disney's live-action remake of Aladdin, starring Will Smith as the genie. That, combined with the box-office failure of King Arthur: Legend of the Sword, would surely suggest that this series was dead on arrival, or at least will see it taken in a new direction by Warner Bros., who had been trying to get something off the ground ever since the more grounded 2004 version starring Clive Owen. If this is true, then thank the cinema gods, as this annoying, sickly and exposition-heavy turkey was never going to interest a new generation of cinema-goers in a legend that has fascinated many for years. It trips up during its very first moments, as giant, CGI elephants knock down CGI buildings and send CGI people to their death, removing all the elements that make this old-fashioned myth so endearing by employing a contemporary attitude. Haircuts, fashion and dialogue all fit Ritchie's lad's mag aesthetic.

Everything needs to be big and shiny, and King Arthur opens with a set-piece most movies would choose to climax with. King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana) is locked in a war with warlock Mordred and an army of mages, with the kingdom of Camelot under threat from their magic. Assisted by his magical sword Excalibur, the King triumphs, only to be betrayed by his evil, pampered brother Vortigern (Jude Law), who arranges a coup to usurp the throne. Only Uther's son Arthur escapes with his life, pushed down a river to be raised by prostitutes in, as you would guess from a Ritchie film, Londinium. He grows up to look like Charlie Hunnam and practises hand-to-hand combat. He also dabbles in petty theft with a small gang of cheeky chappies while unaware of his true heritage. When Uther's sword reappears stuck in a rock near the castle's ground, Vortigern rounds up all the men in the nearby areas to attempt to pull it free. He who succeeds is the true heir to the throne, and therefore destined for the chopping block.

This all sounds like a classic hero's journey set within the medieval fantasy genre, but Ritchie is so intent of shoving modern-day sensibilities down your throat that it's easy to quickly forget the true essence of the story. There are endless visual gags involving a story narrated in the present while we flash back to the actual event, a gimmick employed by Ritchie many times before (but was done far better in Ant-Man), and an abundance of camera-swirling action scenes that resemble a video game cutaway scene. At times, it is the cinematic equivalent of that G-force ride at the fairground, in that you cling to whatever you can and hope it ends before you vomit. At the centre of it all is Hunnam, who follows his turn in Pacific Rim with another charisma-free performance. He is drawn as a tough- working-class hero who would be more comfortable in a pub brawl than ruling a country, but comes across as the kind of meat head seen on a night out starting fights while others insist he's a good guy really. A dick head with a magical sword and royal blood is still a dick head. Many of its flaws could be forgiven were it not such a massive bore. Instead, this will likely induce a headache more than any sense of wonder.


Directed by: Guy Ritchie
Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey, Jude Law, Djimon Hounsou, Eric Bana, Aidan Gillen, Neil Maskell, Annabelle Wallis
Country: USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #1,148: 'The Legend of Tarzan' (2016)

As one of the great iconic characters of cinema, it seems like Tarzan, Lord of Greystoke has been absent from our cinema screens for an incredibly long time. While the character may have seen his fair share of ups and downs over the last few decades - even Disney's 1999 effort is one of their least fondly-remembered films in what was a prosperous and defining era for the House of Mouse - the famous tale of the vine-swinging white man raised by apes in Africa seemed ripe for a re-imagining in our anything-is-possible times. It took 17 years for the Lord of the Apes to re-appear, but is the character still relevant? And is it possible to deliver a fresh, original take on such a familiar and old-fashioned story?

For the first 20 minutes of David Yates' film, it would seem yes. Wisely opting to begin with Tarzan - here played stoically by Alexander Skarsgard - already back in England and going by his birth name John Clayton, the film avoids having to repeat the old "me Tarzan, you Jane" shtick well all know so well. He's a bit of a legendary figure, famous for his huge hands that have been gradually restructured after so many years running on all limbs. He is also married to Jane (Margot Robbie), the fiery woman he fell in love with back in the jungle. Eager to leave the past behind him. Tarzan finds himself heading back to the Congo when the Prime Minister (Jim Broadbent) requests that he travel there to report on the actions of Belgium's King Leopold. After initially declining, he agrees when American envoy George Washington Williams (Samuel L. Jackson) voices his beliefs that the Belgians are in fact slaving the Congolese natives.

It's an interesting, topical start, and one that, at first at least, seems to be addressing the issue of how the tale of a white man swinging in to the save the day for his African friends would go down in our politically correct times. It's just a terrible shame that the movie becomes so incredibly dull and rather uncomfortable to watch after such a promising start. Scriptwriters Adam Cozad and Craig Brewer seem convinced that simply acknowledging the issues of race and the stereotypical, one-dimensional role of its female lead means that they can get away with it. Jane literally states that she's not some damsel-in-distress before being carried away in much distress. While The Legend of Tarzan can be commended for being brave enough to tackle the topic of slavery, entwining images of shackled, beaten black men with CGI-laden high jinks is just plain insensitive.

Still, the movie's main issue is that it's just so incredibly lifeless and uninspiring. After Tarzan arrives in Africa, Jane is kidnapped by Belgian envoy Leon Rom (Christoph Waltz), and the remainder of the plot revolves around rescuing her, with some animals in between. The fact that Jane spends most of her time trapped on a steamboat gives a decent impression of the film's pace. Perhaps we have been spoiled by the CGI mastery of Disney's The Jungle Book, but the special effects, especially involving the apes, simply aren't up to scratch, and even pale in comparison to 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. One thing that certainly is real however, is Skarsgard's torso. Fair play to the guy, he's truly gone the whole nine yards, and does his best with a role that requires little other than physicality. I've enjoyed his work ever since I saw him in True Blood and later on Generation Kill, but if he is ever to become a star and allow his true charisma to shine through, he'll need better material than this.


Directed by: David Yates
Starring: Alexander Skarsgård, Margot Robbie, Samuel L. Jackson, Christoph Waltz, Djimon Hounsou, Jim Broadbent
Country: UK/Canada/USA

Rating: **

Tom Gillespie

Review #801: 'How to Train Your Dragon 2' (2014)

The Hollywood sequel is a fearsome thing. Most notably in recent years, we have seen an endless supply of re-hashes and cash-in's based on it's predecessor's success, commonly to disastrous effect. Animation especially - or even more so, Dreamworks animation - have churned out drivel with no heart; their only intentions being to offer something to parents that will keep their children busy for 90 minutes and to fill their own wallets. Take a bow, then, How To Train Your Dragon 2, which not only capitalises on the first film's charm, off-beat humour and dazzling dragon battles, but deepens it's mythology and expands it's world, while at the same time offering a visual spectacle to delight the kids and pose some extremely grown-up questions to the adults in the audience.

Five years after the townsfolk of Berk were given a lesson in allegiance and acceptance by unlikely hero Hiccup (Jay Baruchel), the Viking village thrives with domesticated dragons. It's chieftain, Stoick (Gerard Butler), has named Hiccup his heir, but the one-legged adventurer is not ready for the responsibility and would much rather be exploring the surrounding areas on the back of his dragon, the Night Fury Toothless. His relationship with the feisty Astrid (America Ferrera) has developed into a romance, and his friends fight over the attention of Ruffnut (Kristen Wiig). While exploring one day, he comes across an island decorating in strange ice formations, and is attacked by dragon-catcher Eret (Game of Thrones' Kit Harington).

Eret tells them about the warlord Drago (Djimon Honsou), who is amassing a dragon army after learning how to bend the creatures to his will using violence and intimidation. Hiccup and Astrid escape and ride back to Berk to warn the others, and learn that Stoick knows Drago and that he is a madman not be reasoned with. Hiccup, however, feels different and rides off on Toothless to treat with Drago but instead comes upon another hidden island, where dragons live in harmony under the influence of a colossal Alpha dragon known as a bewilderbeast. Also living on the island is environmentalist Valka (Cate Blanchett), Hiccup's long-lost mother.

Cleverly written without heavy lessons on morality and impeccably voiced by a star cast, How To Train Your Dragon 2 stresses the importance of finding your own place in the world. The film could easily have been some kind of eco-crusade, but instead questions whether the human race reserves the right to bend it nature to our will, or if we are a mere significance who have a duty to preserve it, or even if nature is a tool which we can use to serve the greater good. This is startlingly darker than it's predecessor - humans and dragons die - and even questions whether war can be just. Drago is a psychopathic tyrant - can these men be bargained with, or should they simply be wiped out? Thrilling, emotional and extremely thoughtful, this beautiful-looking sequel is the possibly the biggest surprise of the year.


Directed by: Dean DeBlois
Voices: Jay Baruchel, Cate Blanchett, Gerard Butler, Craig Ferguson, America Ferrera, Kit Harington, Djimon Hounsou, Jonah Hill, Kristen Wiig
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #778: 'Guardians of the Galaxy' (2014)

With the rights to Marvel's other vast array of T-shirt adorned superheroes, such as Spider-Man and the X-Men, firmly in the clutches of other studios (who are reaping in the gazillions), Marvel - now combined with the surprisingly un-meddling might of the House of Mouse - are finding themselves having to turn to some of their more left-field, obscure creations. They don't come as unfamiliar as the Guardians of the Galaxy, a group of rag-tag criminals and rogues who operate millions of miles away from Earth and the Avengers, a gang no doubt familiar to hardcore comic-book fans, but little more than a collection of strange looking aliens and one human to the rest of us.

It's a massive surprise, then, that Guardians of the Galaxy may be Marvel's best movie to date, eclipsing the unexpected charm of Iron Man (2008), the easy-going chemistry of The Avengers (2012) and the formula-flipping breath of fresh air that was Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014). Director James Gunn, the man responsible for the fun Slither (2006) and the twisted Super (2010), knows that you probably don't know these people, but he makes sure you'll remember them. A combination of risky, but spot-on casting, a well-structured, incredibly witty script by Gunn and Nicole Perlman, and feast-for-your-eyes cinematography by Ben Davis, makes this the most fun to be had all year, perhaps even the decade.

After being abducted as a child shortly after watching his mother die, Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) now operates as a space bounty hunter, working for space-hillbilly Yondu (Michael Rooker) and trying to go by the name of Star-Lord. When he steals a mysterious orb and almost getting killed in the process, he betrays Yondu and tries to rake in the bounty for himself. This draws the attention of Gamora (Zoe Saldana), the green-skinned adopted daughter of space tyrant Thanos (glimpsed in the credits of The Avengers, and here played by Josh Brolin), who attempts to steal the orb for herself.

Also in the vicinity and hoping to capture Quill for the reward money, are Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a foul-mouthed, gun-wielding raccoon, and his companion Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a self regenerating tree. The four get into a scuffle and find themselves imprisoned by Nova Corps, where they come across tattooed man-mountain Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), a man with a serious grudge against Gamora's boss Ronan (Lee Pace), who killed his wife and children. Though the group clash due to ego-fuelled personalities, grudges and personal demons, they may be the only thing standing between Ronan and the orb, the latter of which holds almost infinite power which Ronan plans to use to fuel his own genocidal tendencies.

The orb just may be the most obvious MacGuffin in cinema history (Quill even references The Maltese Falcon (1941), one of the most famous examples), and the plot sometimes whizzes by without giving you time to reflect or allow it all to sink in, but it's really hard to care when all you really want is to see these five characters in a room together, and if they happen to blow a lot of shit up at the same time, then all the better for it. The real success is the casting. Han Solo comparisons are obvious, but to lump Chris Pratt's star-making performance into the same bubble as Harrison Ford's iconic space cowboy is lazy and unfair. Quill is a loveable idiot, tough enough to face up to a fight, intelligent enough to always carry tricks up his sleeve, and flawed enough to make us care.

Racoon and Groot, one of the most adorable and effortlessly hilarious couplings in recent memory, will no doubt be the ones that the kids take away from the film, but it's Bautista, a WWE wrestler in his first major role, who truly stands out. He serves as the real emotional core in the film, initially fuelled by hatred and rage, but gradually learning the importance of friendship and camaraderie. Drax's failure to grasp sarcasm and metaphors also shows a deft comic timing, made even funnier by the man's imposing stature and gift of the scowl.

The film trips up on Marvel's usual struggle to deliver a climatic action scene that truly thrills or even offer anything original, but it's the first time I found myself genuinely concerned about a superhero's fate, all five of them in fact. It's a thrilling, beautiful, hilarious, and just plain weird movie, all scored to some great funky tunes from the 1970's (usually blasted through Quill's 'Awesome Mix Tape #1', which he listens to on his retro walkman, one of the few things he has left from Earth). The two hour running-time will feel like barely half the film has gone by by the time the credits begin to roll, and the inevitable sequel (the film is now the highest-grossing of a summer that involved the fourth entry into Michael Bay's CGI-ejaculation Transformers franchise) can't come soon enough.


Directed by: James Gunn
Starring: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel, Lee Pace, Michael Rooker, Karen Gillan, Djimon Hounsou, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close
Country: USA/UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie