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.