The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)

Director: Matt Shakman

Cast: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. I remain sort of ambivalent about the Tim Story-directed films of the mid-aughts, so any degree of comparison to this and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) is largely going to miss me.

Did I Like It: With Lora not going with me, I made the somewhat unusual decision to take in the film in 3D. But not only that, I opted for MX4D, one of these immersive experiences meant to up-charge/save theatrical exhibition and would have absolutely delighted William Castle, were he still with us. I’m not sure how I feel about the experience, getting shot with streaks of air having my chair occasionally punch me in the posterior certainly would keep me awake through most films. Scorsese once complained that the glut of superhero movies are less cinema than theme park rides. It’s entirely possible that this might be the way to take in the film.

As far as the film is concerned, I was bracing myself for an Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) or Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantummania (2023) situation, where I would have to sit patiently through a glut of exposition ahead of next year’s Avengers: Doomsday, but the film does a valiant effort of making the film focus on its own story. I would say there are only two shots specifically looking ahead, and one of them appears in one of the post-credit tags.

The retro-futuristic world on display is a delight. Everyone’s a sexy as the cast of Mad Men and nobody’s racist, and we can travel faster than light? Sign me up. I might want more of this feeling, but there are stray moments where the film delightfully feels like it was made in the 60s.

The cast is good, especially Moss-Bachrach, who never lets the illusion of Ben Grimm stand in the way of a charming performance, and Kirby, who is the beating heart of the film and never once content to “just be the girl on the team.”

The one thing I’m left feeling as the film ended, though, is that the whole affair felt slight, almost to the point of being withholding. Maybe word that the film was re-cut recently (and, indeed, lost an entire performance by John Malkovich in the process) sticks in my mind, but I could have used more time in this world and with these characters. We might complain about these cinematic confections being overloaded with plot and bombast, but it may take me a while to grow re-accustomed with a big-budget entertainment that is content to focus on its own story and telling it to us as fast as we’re able to comprehend.

Thunderbolts* (2025)

Director: Jake Schreier

Cast: Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Wyatt Russell, Olga Kurylenko

Have I Seen It Before: Nope! Honestly, I was going to take a pass on this one. I’ve already missed so much of the post-Avengers: Endgame (2019) films and series. I still haven’t seen Black Widow (2020), and the ads on this one were insisting I’d be lost without having an encyclopedic knowledge of the Multiverse Saga. After my favorite theater wasn’t going to run this one**—that being the main reason I caved and saw Captain America: Brave New World (2025)—that would probably be it.

And then the reviews came back. It isn’t bad? All of these people are going to show up for the forthcoming Avengers: Doomsday***? Ok, fine.

That’s the spirit to start the summer movie season, right?

Did I Like It: More than a little bit, I’m glad to report. Injecting an actual theme into the proceedings help. It may be a bit on the thin side—making the sordid past and healing from that past the fundamental fuel of whatever CGI kaleidoscope is to follow—but it is at least something. Name for me the theme of, say Brave New World****. I’ll wait.

Sure, there’s the kind of table-setting that can drag down even some of the earlier films, and the second act flies on autopilot to the point I did not fear a nap in the middle of the movie if it were to come for me. But, you want to know the most solid praise I can give this film.

After five years, I finally want to go watch Black Widow. Maybe there is hope for Marvel yet.

*This movie came directly for the Party Now, Apocalypse Later style guide, didn’t it?

**I’ve got more than a few things to say about Disney’s theatrical distribution model, but those will probably have to wait for some other blog post.

***A film I’m feeling obligated to see, if for no other reason than I need to bear witness to just what Robert Downey, Jr. is thinking—beyond, you know, money—coming back to the fold when he was right on the verge of re-inventing himself with Oppenheimer (2023).

****And no, “what happens when the President turns into a Hulk monster in the middle of a Rose Garden press conference” does not count as a theme.

Captain America: Brave New World (2025)

Director: Julius Onah

Cast: Anthony Mackie, Danny Ramirez, Carl Lumbly, Harrison Ford

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Somehow I’ve made it halfway into the month of February and this is my first film both released this year and seen in theaters.

Did I Like It: Giving it a moment’s thought, I’ll say this was a nice little action movie that will soon be forgotten and have a relatively benign place on any number of lists on Disney+. There is some action, a couple of dodgy special effects moments, and a tag scene that hardly seems worth it anymore. The film may truly be suffering from the moment it is unleashed and/or a pronounced deficit in the wow factor, as the money shot in this film of the President of the United States (Ford, still feeling like he’s awake for all of this, which is something) transformed into the Red Hulk and standing on top of a slightly demolished White House elicited a bigger laugh than anything I saw in Deadpool & Wolverine (2024).

It is weighed down by some of the same problems that would weigh down any series approaching its 40th—yes, you read that right—film. As a public service announcement, I’ll list here a couple of the touchstones this film hits and some feelings about how lost you, the viewer, might be if you missed them in the glut of material from the franchise:

1. I’m real glad I somehow bothered to watch The Falcon and the Winter Soldier or nearly every second of the first hour—and let’s not kid ourselves, pretty much the entire movie—would be desperately searching for some semblance of context. I might have just given up and accepted that Isaiah Bradley (Lumbly) is important to Wilson (Mackie), but just accepting that Wilson is now Captain America coming off the events of Avengers: Endgame (2019) is too much. The film would have had to have a cameo from Chris Evans to set us all right, and even with that context present, I think we still could have used him thematically. It’s not like he’s above still showing up for these films, right?

2. I’m also infinitely glad that I have both seen, mostly remember, and kind of liked that mostly forgotten entry in the series, The Incredible Hulk (2008). The film ultimately is a direct sequel to that entry, but a cameo (spoiler) by Liv Tyler at the end really doesn’t have the same hit it might because a) she isn’t reuniting with Harrison Ford, she just met him, and b) I’m now wondering more about how she might relate to Mark Ruffalo. Honestly, both of the actors she worked with in that film were recast for various reasons, did we have to have her back?

3. I’m apparently not at all bothered that I still haven’t seen Eternals (2021). It seems like it might be a charming film, but as long as I accept there’s a whole mess of adamantium in the Indian Ocean (and I do) the film remains on my watchlist.

But, ultimately, this is held together not by an idiot plot, where people aren’t communicating with each other in an effort to keep the story moving along, but instead populated by idiot elements, where things that simply don’t add up are injected into a film with confidence that the audience would not notice.

I noticed. Yes, they are mostly related to the Presidency and the politics of the whole situation.

Why is the Secret Service agent (Xosha Roquemore) also a close adviser of the President? That seems like an unwise conflict of interest.

Never mind that every single person on planet Earth and beyond—including and especially Secret Service agents—should probably know that shooting any particular Hulk isn’t going to do much. They probably shouldn’t be shooting the President anyway, even if the cabinet somehow has had time to invoke the 25th Amendment.

Finally, and most importantly: It’s established we are hovering around the end of Ross’ first 100 days in the White House, but when Bucky (Sebastian Stan) shows up for a cameo, he has to immediately leave for a campaign stop, because he apparently is running for Congress now. Really? You’ve both announced and are running a full-time campaign for a House seat less than six months since the last election? I don’t believe that, and neither should you. Had he tried to shake down Wilson for campaign funds, then maybe.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 3 (2023)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldaña, Dave Bautista, Karen Gillan

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like it: After somehow still missing Black Widow (2021), Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), and Eternals (2021), only to then sit through the middling experience that I wouldn’t have partaken in if I wasn’t trying to kill a few hours in the midst of an oil change that was Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania (2023), I could feel the urgency of the MCU beginning to melt away from me.

But I’m glad this one brought me back. Had it not come out on the weekend I wrapped up a semester, I might have chosen something else to try and relax after 16 weeks of endless discussion board posting, but that would have been a mistake.

I’m still ruminating on this one several days after taking it in, but it’s tempting to say this the best entry in the Guardians trilogy. That statement becomes only more amazing when I can also honestly say that the film is the least funny of the three. It is not a film at all interested in delivering laughs, though. It has far loftier ambitions to go straight for pathos and not let go. It also significantly helps matters that the movie is pointedly uninterested in being beholden to setting up future installments of the larger series. It has proven time and again to be a crucial flaw in some of the studio’s films, including Iron Man 2 (2010), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), and yes, just as recently as Quantummania, and Gunn’s final Marvel film manages to not only duck that problem, but make a strong case for the fact that Gunn had been forging a mini-cinematic universe within the larger MCU. And now Gunn can move on to bigger—and one could dare hope better—things.

Somehow a Marvel movie has made me even more hopeful for the future of DC movies, which is not an arrangement of words that make any sense in that order, but when delivered in context is a delight.

Now just release Batgirl, and we’ll be more than fine.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)

Director: Peyton Reed

Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Michelle Pfeiffer

Have I Seen it Before: Na.

Did I Like It: As a reframed high-pulp adventure with its protagonist and beating heart being a gender-swapped Obi-Wan Kenobi played by Michelle Pfeiffer, this third Ant-Man and thirty-first MCU film is exactly what I could want from two hours worth of diversion.

Sadly, though, this nearly perfect pitch for a movie only makes up at best half of the runtime presented. Even in those scenes where Pfeiffer reigns supreme, I don’t think I’ve yet to see a star more bored with the movie around him than Michael Douglas here. It’s to his credit that I couldn’t help but share in his boredom. Pfeiffer is game, but every utterance and gesture from Douglas screams “contractual obligation.”

Elsewhere, things don’t fare any better. Paul Rudd has never—even from his first appearance in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers (1995)—been anything other than a perfectly pleasant screen presence, and he has always brought the right amount of levity to Ant-Man. This is not a typical case of miscasting. But Ant-Man does feel like the wrong character to usher in this new era of Marvel movies. He is forced to look earnest as Kang (Majors) foreshadows things to come and kicks the shit out of him (anyone else really looking forward to Creed III, regardless of whether or not a Stallone-less Rocky movie feels like a shaky idea?). There are very few jokes. Certainly fewer than either of the two previous Ant-Man films. Luis is nowhere to be found. The filmmakers have explained that he didn’t fit into the story, and they are probably right. I think that says more about how much, again, this is the wrong story for Ant-Man.

But other films in the series have been weighed down by the burden of having to set up the larger story of that phase. Iron Man 2 (2010) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) immediately come to mind. And yet, here, I am underwhelmed. I’ve missed most of the movies released post-Avengers: Endgame (2019). I honestly wouldn’t have made a point to see this film if I didn’t have an oil change running and a couple of hours to kill. I even left the theater before any tag scene started*. These films aren’t surprisingly delightful anymore. Marvel will somehow have to get back that feeling if they are going to keep their dominance over the multiplexes.

*I had to pee. I checked wikipedia to see what the tag scenes were, and were more than fine missing them.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever (2022)

Director: Ryan Coogler

Cast: Letitia Wright, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Guria, Danai Guria, Angela Bassett

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. Feel weirdly guilty coming to it so late, but holiday movies are a weird feast or famine schedule for me.

Did I Like It: It’s astonishingly difficult to make a good movie.

Things don’t get any easier when you’re trying to make a movie in the studio system, to say nothing of the largest and still growing studio conglomerate on earth.

It’s even more bordering on the improbable that someone can make a good movie out of a sequel (to say nothing of the thirtieth entry in a larger franchise).

Can a person possibly make a good movie when all of those things are swirling around him, and the star of his franchise died?

Apparently Ryan Coogler can*. Filled with all-time great performance on top of all-time great performance, and held together with a plot which actually holds up under it’s run time (for the most part; I’ll get to that in a minute), and enough spectacle to make me somehow less interested in what Avatar: The Way of Water has to offer (and completely disinterested in anything Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, should that film ever see the light of day). I’m almost tempted to give the film a pass on my usual criticism of most films, in that every film needs more Lupita Nyong’o*. The amount of Nakia we do get in the film is still time well spent.

Is the film too long? Almost certainly, and that is the only problem I have with the whole thing. Honestly, find a different way to introduce a few (hardly load-bearing) pieces of exposition, and Martin Freeman lifts right out of the movie. Right along with him you can remove Julia Louis-Dreyfus, and for that matter (and it pains me to say so) Richard Schiff. All of those scenes seem unenthusiastically interested in setting up more of the Dark Avengers stuff that was started in Disney+’s series, Falcon and the Winter Soldier. I know, I know… A Marvel movie is weighed down by the strange need to set up other films. I was surprised, too.

*Sorry, J.J. Abrams. I’m sure you have many other fine qualities.

**Except Us (2019). That one has precisely the correct amount of Nyong’o. Just barely…

Thor: Love and Thunder (2022)

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Chris Hemsowrth, Christian Bale, Tessa Thompson, Natalie Portman

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: The film is certainly less enjoyable than the sublime Thor: Ragnarok (2017). There are any number of reasons why. I think the fundamental listlessness of the Marvel Cinematic Universe post Avengers: Endgame (2019) (give or take a Spider-Man or three) is weighing down everything coming from Feige and Co.

That gives us a sense of the mentality that might have led to this, but doesn’t explain the anatomy of the disappointment. Whereas Ragnarok delightfully contorted itself into a cosmic Midnight Run (1988), this is content to be a benign and pedestrian romantic comedy.

Even that could have worked in a limited sort of way, so the real question becomes: why does (even two weeks after seeing the film) it leave a bad taste in my mouth?

It’s not the performances. Hemsworth is still pretty great, and manages to wring every laugh out of the proceedings any mortal man could. It also helps that for several moments he’s placed next to Chris Pratt for several scenes who has gotten blander and blander as time goes on, where Hemsworth continues to show an apt comic presence. While he and Portman don’t quite have the chemistry they possessed in the original Thor (2011), I’ve seen screen couples with far less chemistry, and many of those have had the Marvel vanity card in front of them. Christian Bale proves—not unlike Michael Keaton did in Beetlejuice (1988)—that all of the best Batmen could have credibly played the Joker if they absolutely needed to. Clooneys, Kilmers, and certainly Afflecks need not apply.

The thing that really irks me about the movie is the sharp left turns the story feels the need to take with the character. Some complain that Thor’s weight gain in the most recent Avengers films has been derided by some as a simplistic display of depression and trauma, but it was certainly an attempt to depict some kind of emotional arc for a movie superhero. If you didn’t like that choice, don’t worry. Hemsworth sheds the pounds—and, presumably, the emotions surrounding them—in the film’s opening minutes.

One might think that another left turn in the film’s closing minutes would set things right, but this isn’t missing your exit on the highway. It’s an attempt to hint—perhaps threaten—that Thor 5* will be a repackaged Three Men and a Little Lady (1990).

*Given why this film is called Love and Thunder, the title should have really been held for a next film, should it ever come.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, Xochitl Gomez

Have I Seen it Before: Feels almost normal to be catching a film on opening weekend.

Did I Like It: The first Doctor Strange (2016) had enough, er, strangeness going for it that it elevated a character for which I had absolutely no feeling previously and made him one of my favorite Marvel characters (I’m still marching my way through the Masterworks volumes). When the title for this, his second solo-film* was announced, I thought it just might be one of the wildest titles ever dreamt up by anyone. When the imminently competent Scott Derrickson stepped aside from directing duties on the sequel, owing to the ubiquitous destructor that is “creative differences**”, only to be replaced by Sam Raimi, it seemed like this one was well on its way to being one of the all time greats in all the MCU.

And… it’s fine. It is (in frustrating fits and starts) more interested in table setting than being as weird as it could be. We get how the X-Men and the Fantastic Four might join the MCU after Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox, but that act isn’t really committed to. It’s not like we’re getting a post-credits scene of Avengers Tower being converted into the Baxter Building. As far as table-setting films in the MCU go, it probably fairs better than Iron Man 2 (2010) or Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), but the film is doomed to be less than the sum of its parts.

It rises above those other films, likely due to Raimi’s sure hand and singular style. There’s a reasonable argument to be made that this can probably double as the least satisfying Evil Dead film as well, so even Raimi isn’t really showing up to play, although I don’t get the feeling throughout that the man really wanted to get fired. I’m looking in your direction, Spider-Man 3 (2007).

*Has there been a character who has guest-starred in more Marvel movies? To my memory, I can’t come up with one.

** How many “could have beens” are there in the MCU? I’d attempt to list them, but after dwelling on just how great Edgar Wright’s Ant-Man (2015) might have been, I’d probably just get depressed and stop right there.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Director: Jon Watts

Cast: Tom Holland, Zendaya, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jon Favreau

Have I Seen it Before: No. Even that middle-credit scene was still a breath of fresh air.

Did I Like It: Yes.

I do wonder if some of this review is actually fueled by the theater-going experience. We tried the new Cinergy facility here in Tulsa. They’re Chuck-E-Cheese for grownups milieu might work for some people, and it is encouraging that they cannibalized the auditoriums of the late, great Village 8 for their screening purposes. However, their attempts to provide the same amenity-rich experience as the Warren falls flat with a limited menu and an awkward ordering process. Also, apparently they haven’t mastered the air conditioning of these facilities. To their credit, they were aware of the climate control issue and took it upon themselves to hand out gift cards like they were after dinner mints. If I had previously known I could make fifty bucks in fifteen minutes just by staring at Samuel L. Jackson while sweating most of my body mass away, I might have made different career choices. It was a perplexingly unique movie-going experience. They have pinball machines there, so I imagine I will be back if for that reason alone.

And the immediately difficult task ahead of me is to start comparing it to other films. Is it the greatest Spider-Man movie of all time? No. Is it even the greatest Spider-Man movie released in the last twelve months? No.

This movie is really running up against some rough competition coming so soon after the awe-inspiring, adrenaline-goosing Spider-Man: Enter the Spider-Verse (2018). It even tries to dabble in some multi-verse shenanigans, but mostly as a fake out for the true plot in play*. I can’t even say that this is the greatest movie featuring the character as assayed by Tom Holland. Spider-Man Homecoming (2017) is jauntier. It’s blending of teen movie and big budget spectacle is more seamless. 

And, of course, Homecoming had Michael Keaton in it. There were reports that he would appear in this film as well. I’d like to say I don’t dock any points away from a movie for not featuring the once and future Batman, but I think that I even remotely like a film that could have featured Michael Keaton and opted not to is something of a testament to the film’s resiliency.

And that’s where it becomes clear that the comparison to other Spider-men is unfair. Should we be griping that this film isn’t quite as good as some of the greatest recent entries, or should we marvel (I see what I did there, and I’m not all that thrilled with it) that it is arguably true that the three greatest films (in no particular order) in the series are the most recent ones.

Because there is quite a lot to love here. Tom Holland is never not believable as a teen who’s in just a little bit over his head. Jake Gyllenhaal brings a manic charm to his role as Beck/Mysterio and so thoroughly plays on Peter’s unspoken need to fill the void in his life left by certain other characters, that you can’t help but hate him even more in the third act when his petulant villainy is brought to bear. On that note, it’s fairly effective as the more life-affirming wake for Tony Stark, where Avengers: Endgame (2019) felt like a gut-punch of a funeral. Zendaya accomplishes a startling task, keeping all of the brittle fun of her MJ, while still rising to the romantic comedy around her and showing vulnerability when the scenes demand. Jon Favreau shifts from the grumpy put-upon schlub of Homecoming to be the understanding grown up Peter eventually finds. Apparently the love of Marisa Tomei is the magical fuel of this series.

It’s a very sweet movie, and absolutely worth watching. I just hope they keep this up. And Gods of Asgard, please keep Venom (as played by anyone) as far away from this series as possible.

Huh.

I’m just now wondering how long Talos has been covering for Fury… Huh. That makes me re-think a lot of things.

*Or is it? Are we 100% that the J. Jonah Jameson (J.K. Simmons, you read that right) who runs the the Info Wars-esque dailybugle.net isn’t the same J. Jonah Jameson that gave Tobey Maguire such grief? Mysterio’s cover story of coming form an alternate universe is just a bit too specific to not have any truth to it. Wouldn’t Mysterio be far more interested in injecting just a little bit of truth into the large lie. Is anyone wondering how Jameson got an exclusive on Spider-Man’s identity? One wonders.

Doctor Strange: The Sorcerer Supreme (2007)

Director: Patrick Archibald, Jay Oliva, Richard Sebast, Frank D. Paur

Cast: Bryce Johnson, Paul Nakauchi, Kevin Michael Richardson, Michael Yama

Have I Seen it Before: Never. Never really thought I would have the interest.

Did I Like It: I suddenly find myself scouring the earth for Doctor Strange material, so this is certainly satisfying the itch if for only a moment.

A funny thing happened during my most recent viewing of Doctor Strange (2016). I started really digging his vibe. Normally, I’m immune to the charms of stories about magic users, the occasional Harry Potter not withstanding. But there’s something about that Sorcerer Supreme that has lit the imagination of this magic-averse on fire.

Is it the psychedelic nature of Strange’s world? His easy desire to wield the tools of a trickster in service of the greater good? Partially, but I think it is far more as a result of his supremely (if you’ll forgive the unintentional pun) cerebral nature. 

His powers are not innate, nor are they as a result of some supernatural transformation. True, Iron Man and Batman owe a large amount of their power to their intellect, but Stark largely hides behind his improbable machines, and the Dark Knight has trained his body to perfection. Strange’s body has failed him, and literally all of his powers are learned. Maybe it is intellectual vanity on my part, but a superhero exclusively of the mind appeals to me.

But enough about that, how did this movie fair? In constructing Strange’s origins, this one falls a little short in relation to the live action movie. With a shorter run time, I would have wished the animated filmmakers got Strange to be far more strange far more quickly. It does effectively tap into the more mind-bending aspects of the source material, but it is well past the halfway point of the film before Strange dons his cloak of levitation. I’d like to see full-length movies where he is always his iconic image. Maybe I just need to be more patient for the forthcoming Doctor Strange 2.

Black Panther (2018)

Director: Ryan Coogler

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Michael B. Jordan, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira

Have I Seen it Before: Several times. Surprising given both the age of this film, and, for that matter, the age of this blog.

Did I Like It: If you don’t love this movie, you must have a reason. I’m beyond certain that reason is pretty dumb.

I could use this review to talk about everything everyone has already unpacked that makes this film great. The triumph of representation. The revolutionary depiction of people with agency with agency over their own lives who can still embrace their traditions and ancestors. The villain Erik Killmonger (Jordan) is lethal and ruthless, but kinda has a point (something some of the Marvel movies have struggled with).

I could talk about all of these things, but that would be falling short of the challenge Coogler has set for us by going three for three on making unlikely, astounding films that cannot be ignored. He has yet to fail to bring us something new, and I feel I must reach for something more.

Thus, I will dwell on the moment where the film threatens to collapse in on itself, but does not relent in being next level. I’m talking about the film’s first few minutes.

N’Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) tell his son, the future Killmonger about home. The movie opens with what amounts to a voice over narration. With characters—like Black Panther—that may have less cultural ubiquity, this may be a necessary evil. At the same time, it’s death on a cracker. Here, however, Coogler does what VO fails to do and embraces the visual medium he is beholden to. This sequence shows us so many things that N’Jobu doesn’t say about the world in which Black Panther exists. By the time the title of the film comes to find us, we are steeped in this world.

In lesser hands, this movie would have failed in the first few minutes. In Coogler’s hands, it never fails to compete for one of the Greatest Of All Time.

The point is this: Ryan Coogler is better than we deserve. If you’re not aware of this, you will be.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Director: Taika Waititi

Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Mark Ruffalo

Have I Seen it Before: Absolutely.

Did I Like It: Man, there’s not really a weak entry in Marvel’s fabled phase three, is there?

There was a sense, immediately from the first scenes of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek (2009) that Chris Hemsworth is a movie star. That it took this long for Hollywood to get the fact that he’s a big goofball is a shame. We could have gotten a lot more movies like this. There’s bits of it in the original Thor (2011) has a little bit of this sensibility, but tragically Thor: The Dark World (2013) is content to be as dour as possible.

Such is not the case with this third—and let us not hope final—entry in the Thor series, the weight has been lifted and Hemsworth is allowed to be his most true screen persona. It’s a buddy comedy movie. Not only that, it is a triple-threat buddy comedy movie as Hemsworth easily pairs with no fewer than three straight people in the forms of Loki (Hiddleston), Hulk/Banner (Ruffalo), and Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson). In more than a few of those cases, Hemsworth is able to switch gears and be the straight man himself in those pair offs.

It’s also a wildly imaginative Space Opera that feels fresh even when my intellect tells me there was a studio note to make the latest Thor movie more like those Guardians of the Galaxy movies. It may also be the most incisive documentary about the true nature of Jeff Goldblum that we’re likely to get.

One might be willing to complain that this doesn’t feel like the third part of Thor’s story as presented in the previous films. His romance with Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) is offered no more than a quick line of dialogue about how they broke up, but when the movie is this good, I’m relatively certain we shouldn’t care.

Odin is dead. Long live Thor. At least, I hope. After everything he’s been through, he deserves more breaks like this. Long live the Marvel movies, if they keep being this lively.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

Director: Jon Watts

Cast: Tom Holland, Michael Keaton, Robert Downey Jr., Zendaya

Have I Seen it Before: Absolutely.

Did I Like It: I think it’s pretty perfect.

And, no, that’s not just because Michael Keaton is actually in the movie.

It’s a little bit about that, but there are other things, too.

Let’s talk about basics. This film presents—or more accurately, continues from Captain America Civil War (2016)—the second cinematic reboot of the wall-crawler. As opposed to the tedious The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014), this new version of the character justifies his existence by being existing in a world different than what we might normally expect from the character. 

Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) is not an old bitty (not that there is anything inherently wrong with being an old bitty). MJ (Zendaya) isn’t really MJ, and in fact there may not be a real MJ. Also, we may never have to see some teen beat cover boy react as a spider bites his hand. We’ve seen it. We don’t need to see it again. For that matter, what we don’t know what the hell Uncle Ben looks like in this iteration, and that’s refreshing, too. I want to say Bradley Whitford, but I just want to keep putting cast members of The West Wing in everything (the only thing that the Garfield series got right, by the way). Comic book purists might have cause to complain, but they really need to lighten up. Variety is the spice of life, or at least the spice of summer tentpole movies.

Beyond that, it works in its own rights, completely divorced from either the large Spider-Man mythos or the large MCU. It’s one of the more engaging teen comedies produced in the last several years. Tom Holland channels the best parts of Matthew Broderick and Michael J. Fox to makes a character that may not always seem like a reel teen, but certainly seems like a character from a real teen movie a la the era of John Hughes prime. The idea that Toomes (Keaton) is both Parker’s arch-nemesis and his girlfriend’s dad is the right layer of conflict for one of these movies. It’s an amazing twist that feels organic and surprising, even after having seen it a couple of times.

I really can’t gush about this film more. Like the original Iron Man (2008), it’s a revelation when I was only expecting a diversion. It’s outstanding that my review of the film has gone this long without mentioning one more performance by Downey Jr. While I’ve been in light mourning for Tony Stark, I’m reminded by this film that there is probably plenty of life in the Marvel movies yet. Even if Gwyneth Paltrow receives far more credit (in this instance only) than she may fully deserve.

On one more strange note: Is it weird that this film is in the running for best Captain America film, and the last Captain America film also has a competitive play for best Spider-Man movie? What a time to be alive and watching movies in the summer.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Karen Gillan, Kurt Russell

Have I Seen it Before: Sure. And I’m only 50% sure that’s a comment on how this film is very much More Of The Same in relation to the original Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).

Did I Like It: It’s good, but I’m surprised to report that it hasn’t stuck with me like some of the other films in the MCU.

And to add a statement like that doesn’t feel fair. I can’t fault the film in any way. The movie is generally amiable and funny throughout, and it manages to avoid the occasion Part II curse of Marvel movies and is happily content to not need to set up much for future films. 

As a matter of fact, there are several elements of the film that are candidates for the Greatest Of All Time. The opening credits are a big ball of crowd-pleasing joy. It possesses far and above the greatest Stan Lee cameo in any film ever. Peter Quill (Pratt) exclaiming “I’m going to make some weird shit!” is as fine a creative mission statement as we’re ever going to get on film. 

One might think that the reliance on Baby Groot (Vin Diesel) for much of the action and plot would be cloying, but I’m of a mind to believe the market research dictating that idea was right on that money. Anyone who insists they aren’t entertained by Groot is hiding something. Maybe they aren’t charmed by the toddler tree, but if that much is true, they probably have a couple of bodies buried in their backyard.

I also appreciate that Quill’s walkman actually sounds as crappy as a walkman ought to sound in the instant before Ego (Russell) destroys it, but only because it resolves one of my nitpicks from the original film.

As I type all of this I begin to realize that maybe on this viewing the movie will stick with me more. It deserves to.

Doctor Strange (2016)

Director: Scott Derrickson

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch*, Chiwetel Ejiofor**, Rachel McAdams, Mads Mikkelsen

Have I Seen it Before: Yes, but oddly enough I did not make it in the first weeks of its theatrical release. Between this and Ant-Man (2015), I’m not entirely sure why I wasn’t in much of a hurry on some of these latter phase 2/early phase 3 MCU movies.

Did I Like It: Yes, but I wonder if the movie is holding back.

I suppose I have something of a conception of why this film didn’t initially rise to the top of my agenda, and that’s because I had next to no knowledge of the character up until the MCU tried to bring it into the mainstream***.

And from what I’ve seen of the movie, it is that jamming into the mainstream that weakens the whole endeavor. People love Strange because his exploits are like an acid trip in 64 colors. Here, the film is loopy at times, but not “last ten minutes of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), and more just loopy enough to make sure the film can have a strong opening weekend. Amid the cascading dimensions, there’s an unrequited love story and a pretty basic superhero origin tale at the core. It’s fine, but it’s not terribly revelatory.

So the movie succeeds, as it’s objectively an enjoyable time spent at the movies, and doubly succeeds because it makes me want to steep myself in the greater mythology of the Sorcerer Supreme. I want to be a fan of Strange, I just wish Marvel hadn’t held back.

And maybe they won’t from here on in. 

*Joking about his name has become pretty passé by the time I write this, but I’m as certain as I can be without actually checking the footage that his one of the alternate names for Gerry Dorsey, and I’m reasonably sure that we hadn’t heard of the actor before that time. What is he hiding?

**Why my spellcheck was bent out of shape about “Chiwetel” and not “Ejiofor” is beyond me. Why it’s only bent out of shape the second time I typed the last name, I’ll never know.

***Which would be a big part of the reason that the casting of Tilda Swinton as The Ancient One. It is whitewashing, sure, and that’s not great, but it also frees a character from the constrains of gender, which is better than not good. Interesting at least that the film could both fail and succeed to embrace diversity. And it certainly isn’t the most whitewashed film to star Cumberbatch.

Captain America Civil War (2016)

Director: Joe and Anthony Russo

Cast: Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr.*, Scarlett Johannson, Sebastian Stan

Have I Seen it Before: Even after the somewhat lackluster impact of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) and the incredibly frustrating Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) only months before, my appetite for superhero mega mashups had not abated.

Did I Like It: Yes…

But…

It’s worth trying to decide what the movie really is. Is it the trilogy capper of the tale of Steve Rogers (Evans) started in Captain America: The First Avenger (2011). Or is it Avengers 2.5? 

I may be in the minority, but I still tend to think of it in the prior aspect. And in that respect, it largely succeeds. Cap’s idealism that was thoroughly quashed in Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) makes a comeback here, stronger but changed. The friendship between Cap and Bucky Barnes (Stan) comes full circle, and by the end Cap feels as if he has fully joined the world around him, even if that world has changed significantly since he first set out to find his place in it.

And yet, it’s hard to ignore the trappings of this kind of story. It’s a big, sprawling international stories. It brings characters from other franchises into the festivities. It introduces new heroes—and iconic ones, at that—into the Marvel universe. It is also a makeshift entry into the Avengers franchise.

Robert Downey Jr. brings his skills to full bear here, and it would have been iffy to not give him as much to do as this film does. Also really expensive. Tom Holland enters as a full-on delight, simultaneously channeling the essence of prime 80s-era Michael J. Fox and instantly erasing the memory of Andrew Garfield. Given the maddeningly little amount of time that we spend with Vision (Paul Bettany) and Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), it’s nice to see a little more of their awkward courtship.

So, it actually works as an Avengers film as well. I think I’ve decided that it can be both Cap film and Avengers movie, especially because it works as both. If one really needs a cohesive version of this film, it is most likely the greatest dramatization (certainly in the context of a big-budget fare) of somebody trying to introduce and assimilate their old friends to their new friends. It’s always awkward.

But ultimately, Captain America here solidifies his reputation as the secret weapon of the first three phases of the MCU. Iron Man was the face and the heart, but even he had to contend with the average quality of Iron Man 2 (2010) and the debatable quality of Iron Man 3** (2013). Thor never reached his potential until Thor Ragnarok (2017). Cap had three solid films, and each are in a particularized genre. World War II epic, mid-70s conspiracy thriller, and now 2010s Superhero event. There’s something to be said for that.

*It took me a solid minute to decide who to put in the top billing there. The film credits Evans first, and I opted to go that route, although an argument can be made in the other direction.

**For the record, I am solidly #teamironmanthree

Ant-Man (2015)

Director: Peyton Reed

Cast: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Douglas

Have I Seen it Before: Oddly enough, this is the only Marvel movie so far that I somehow missed at the theater, although I have since caught in on DVD.

Did I Like It: Ok. So, here’s the thing.

It is ultimately unfair to judge a film through the prism of what it was during pre-production or its earliest development. David Lynch’s Return of the Jedi. Tim Burton’s Batman Forever. Patty Jenkins’ Thor: The Dark World*. And at the same time, it is hard to watch the final result and not think about the potential abdicated.

So, too is it with this movie. Edgar Wright had been attached to direct throughout pre-production, but eventually dropped out of the project, citing creative differences with Marvel. The resulting film directed by Peyton Reed is at the disadvantage. One wants to imagine what the film could have been under Wright, and determine that any flaws (like the protracted training sequence that plays like a cut scene from a video game tutorial) are a result of the studio interference.

It’s a lively comedy when judged within its own context, with just enough a caper feel to it to differentiate it from the rest of the Marvel oeuvre. It is largely buoyed by the undeniably engaging presence of Rudd in the lead role, and remnants of Wright’s influence on the film (he retains an Executive Producer and writing credit). Which I think is one of the better realities about our sometimes over-produced blockbuster system. So much of the work is done in the pre-production that the resulting film can never fully pull away from a vision about which the studio might have had second thoughts.

*Although, to be fair, had any of those auteurs actually made the films in question, it is reasonable to assume that the world wouldn’t have been that dark, Jedi might not quite return, and Batman would be finite in the temporal sense.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Director: Joss Whedon

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth

Have I Seen it Before: I’m having a hard time remembering the last time I wasn’t in a theater during the first weekend in May watching some kind of Marvel movie. I’m relatively sure it was 2001. Kids, ask your parents.

Did I like it: This has generally been considered one of the entries in the series that worked the least, and I can’t say I disagreed with that assessment at the time of release.

But here, with the Infinity Saga now complete, I wanted to believe that it had a Back to the Future Part II (1989) vibe, and would feel more satisfying when the setups that this film is filled with are more completely paid off.

And in some cases, it does work better. The vision Stark (Downey Jr.) has of the Chitauri’s return has much more resonance now that we have all seen the Endgame and where Stark would wind up.

In other cases, the movie isn’t working all that great. Thor’s sojourn into the cave doesn’t even really feel like a good set up for the beautiful confection that is Thor Ragnarok (2017), and most of the other characters visions at the hands of Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) don’t quite hit like one might hope. While the aforementioned Scarlett Witch and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) are interesting and watchable new characters, their introduction into the world will make a fuller exploration of the X-Men in this universe (now that Disney/Marvel has acquired 20th Century Fox and by extension, the entire Xavier brand) when that time comes.

Even the stuff that isn’t necessarily meant to set up other films fails to function completely. Nearly everything involving the Hulk (Ruffalo) and Black Widow (Johansson) never fails to connect. It’s a shame, as both actors have proved to be MVPs in other Marvel films. The less said about the sun down thing, the better. Future films were wise to drop those elements as quickly as they could.

But there are things that work by their own rights. James Spader as Robo-Alan Shore is a delight, and he deserves more credit. Vision (Paul Bettany) is a bizarre creation that gets better and better with every film in which he appears. Stark and Banner’s initial efforts to create Ultron (Spader) bring to mind the more thrilling creativity that Stark exhibited in the first Iron Man (2008). The party scene is low-key delightful. Robert Downey Jr., Robert Downey Jr., and finally Robert Downey Jr.

Ultimately, though, it is still a case of a film not quite successfully reaching for the ambitions it sets out for itself. It’s not an awful thing, but it can 

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Director: James Gunn

Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, Lee Pace

Have I Seen it Before: I’m not sure what insisted that I make it for the opening weekend of a movie featuring characters I had no prior awareness, but we all made it, and now Star-Lord and company are all a part of us… And many of us were not opposed to the idea of a (new) Howard the Duck movie as we thought we might have been beforehand.

The state of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was probably more precarious in 2014 than Disney and Company. The movies had yet to flounder at the box office, and The Avengers (2012) was one of the big box-office money makers of all time. But, as could clearly be seen now through the lens of hindsight, the characters we had all come to love (or, more accurately, the actors playing them) might not be cost effective for the bean counters anymore.

And so, Marvel would have to start dipping deeper into the catalog. It was a gamble on Marvel’s part, but they could afford to gamble a bit at this point in their output. But they did it in a smart way. They did it just a little bit, and they made sure the movie they branched out in was actually pretty good. And they managed to stumble upon the reality that Chris Pratt was a verifiable movie star*.

And so the movie plays out like an approximation of what it would be like if Quentin Tarantino made a high-action space opera**. Gunn may not quite be the mast craftsman that Tarantino is, but the dish is made with the right ingredients, and presents a pretty enjoyable feast, all things considered.

On one directly critical note: is it weird that I think the biggest suspension of disbelief in this movie is that I’m supposed to somehow believe that a cassette mix tape has crystal-clear audio quality nearly thirty years after it was originally mixed? When played through a walkman that was just as old? That the tape ever played that well? In a movie filled with hollowed-out god heads, tree men, and the blind faith that a superhero movie with no known superheroes could ever hope to be any kind of hit, the music presentation probably shouldn’t bother me, and yet, there are moments when I can’t quite push it out of my mind.

*Although I’ll admit that I might be wrong in this assessment. The end titles call the shot that the Guardians will return. I mean, I suppose they might have been able to guess that even if the movie underperformed, they would play a vital role in the quickly forming Infinity Saga but man… Especially in a movie with the aforementioned Howard, they should have allowed for the possibility that this might not work out quite as well as they might have hoped.

**Which—to be fair—he still may do.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

Director: Joe and Anthony Russo

Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johannson, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan

Have I Seen it Before: I saw it when it was released…

Did I Like It: …and I liked it so much that it almost, almost made Disney’s Marvel’s ABC’s Joss Whedon’s Agents of Shield(s) in its lurching first season. 

Marvel’s Phase Two is experimental at its core. It doesn’t experiment with form, necessarily. Every Marvel movie is exploring already well-trod territory. They are more accurately experimenting with a sustainable model for continuing making these movies. Iron Man Three (2013) would be the one exception to this idea, as it was potentially (and now clearly) the last in a series, and they could therefore afford to make a Shane Black movie masquerading as the annual May superhero tentpole. 

Thor: The Dark World (2013) and this particular film try to adopt a television model, bringing in reliable small screen directors to see if their journeymen skills can be brought to bear on a cinematically larger scale. In the case of Thor, frequent cable director Alan Taylor, and the results—while thankfully not embarrassing—do add up to a certain blandness. Here, the idea really starts to sing, as they have brought in the Russo Brothers to liven things up. At first blush, its a potentially counterintuitive idea, as they cut their teeth on multi-camera sitcoms like Arrested Development, and Happy Endings. To make the link between that work and big action movies is too much of a leap.

Except, the Russo Brothers also cut their teeth on Community. They were making big-budget spectacle at twenty-two minute stints for several years. That show was great training for this canvas, and it shows. Especially when you realize that they are the only directors from Phase II to come back and direct any more Marvel movies, Joss Whedon included.

And so, this second outing for The First Avenger operates like the bleak mix of The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), that both Cap’s story and the Marvel series (this film coming fairly close to the middle of what will eventually come to be called the Infinity Saga) as a whole needs, bringing the whole thing into stark, yet, dark relief, and still acting as a pretty passable political thriller in the process.

As the film largely works, I feel I would be remiss in my role as a critic here without bringing up a few nitpicks:

~Why is the Captain America exhibit housed in the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum? Like, the one time Cap notably took the helm of an aircraft, it didn’t exactly turn out so great for him. Why not the American History museum? I mean, that seems like a really easy fix.

~Shrimpy Steve Rogers—presented here in flashbacks—still doesn’t work beyond the scope of a better-than-average photoshop effort.

~I get that it serves some manner of an emotional through-line for Cap to go get his WWII uniform before the third act gets cooking, but am I honestly supposed to believe that in the middle of trying to hide from every government agency on the planet, he takes a break to enter a government facility to steal a museum piece from an exhibit that will pointedly, almost ridiculously be one of the first places the bad guys will look?