Black Widow

MOORDER

Black Widow
USA  2021
Directed by Cate Shortland
UK cinema release print.

Okay... here we go.

I have two enduring childhood memories of the Black Widow character, aka Natasha Romanoff, which have always stayed with me. One is of the sticker I used to gaze at on the cupboard opposite my bed in the early 1970s. Along with dozens of other Marvel stickers which I wish I’d kept and never removed from their backing when I was a youngster, this one depicted Black Widow in a heroic pose and with a comic book bubble coming out of her mouth saying, “I’m Natasha, fly me to Miami!” The other thing I remember her most  from is the grim and depressing tale “And To All A Good Night...” which was reprinted in the 1974 inaugural edition of Marvel’s Giant Super Hero Holiday Grab Bag (which is where I originally read it and which I reviewed here). It showed a tragic figure who was unable to successfully save the life of the innocent teenager who came to warn her of an attack on her. It was a grim tale to include in a Christmas special and it really helped set the cold war tone of the character.

Of course, when the Marvel Cinematic Universe reworked the character for her debut in Iron Man 2 (reviewed here), as played by Scarlett Johansson (as she is in this one), a lot of the darkness and cold war was taken out of the character. Some of it was briefly touched upon in both Captain America - The Winter Soldier (reviewed here) and Avengers - Age Of Ultron (reviewed here) but, like pretty much all of the characters in their cinematic incarnation of the Marvel universe, she was a severely compromised character.

In this one, she is even more ‘altered’ from her comic book origins in that David Harbour, who plays the Russian super soldier Red Guardian, has been ‘re-cast’ as a father(ish) figure to her, whereas in the comics he was her husband. So, yeah, while it’s true that no card carrying member of the MMMS* would probably be all that happy with this and the former films in the series, I’m kinda getting over the fact that they have compromised the characters so much and am able to just enjoy the films as an entity unto themselves. Which is good because, as it happens and, certainly against my expectations, Black Widow is one of the much better entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It’s a fun and deadly romp which is kind of a supercharged, adrenalised version of the fisticuffs heavy espionage that Marvel does so well and, I had very few problems with it. It also stars Florence Pugh as Natasha’s sister(ish), Rachel Weisz as her mother(ish) and Ray Winstone as the evil Russian bad guy who mind controls agents out of the sinister Red Room. In addition we have William Hurt returning to the franchise as Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross and also actress Olga Kurylenko in a slight twist of a role which... I won’t reveal here.

And it’s business as usual in terms of the Marvel action and I had a really good time with this one. The action comes hard and fast and not always when you are expecting it, so that’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. And it kinda links into the Marvel movies which are set both before and after it. It’s also got a nice score by Lorne Balfe which I would have liked to have bought but which, sadly, continues the trend of a studio not releasing a real CD soundtrack of the thing so we can hear the music properly... instead it’s locked up in the dungeon and only a low quality digital approximation has been released in the form of the dreaded ‘electronic download’, which is an absolutely awful thing to do to music, people!

I do have a few issues with it though. The first of which is... why should I care? The time setting for the film is somewhere between the end of Captain America -Civil War (reviewed here) and Avengers - Infinity War (reviewed here). We already know Black Widow sacrifices herself for humanity in Avengers Endgame (reviewed here). Marvel fridged** her already so I a) know she is in no real danger at all in this movie and b) know that she’s effectively dead in the current films so, honestly, nothing is really at stake in this movie. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it a lot but, sadly, that character is already dead to me and it looks like she’ll never be coming back.

Secondly, Natasha does something really cool which allows her to overcome some mental re-programming near the end of the picture. I’m not saying what it is but, honestly, I’m not sure the human brain’s survival mechanisms would actually allow a person to do that. I’m not sure, mind you, but... well, it makes for a great little moment in the movie so, what do I care?

Thirdly, there’s a scene near to the end where Natasha is about to have a meeting with Ross and then we cut to a couple of weeks later. The following scene sets up where the jet plane Captain America is using at the start of Infinity War came from but, surely makes absolutely no sense as a credible follow on from the previous scene. They did what now? Again, I’m not spoiling it here but you’ll surely know what I’m talking about when you get there.

Other than this though... good job Marvel. You’ve made another great film and, as I said earlier, one of the better entires in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which also manages to usher in another important character for future MCU movies. Most fans of the series will know enough to stay put in their seats while the end titles run because, as usual, there’s a post credits scene. The scene brings back another character and, without saying who that is, if this film had been released when it was supposed to have been (rather than being delayed by the pandemic) then I’m sure we would all have been a lot more wary of that person when they turned up in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier TV show (reviewed here). Still, I’m amazed Black Widow hit cinemas at all... although I’m glad it did because, with the coronavirus restrictions due to be lifted in a week, I wouldn’t have braved a cinema to see it after then (although, even before I managed to see it, it’s freely available in HD on a load of sites on the internet... this is the world we live in now, I guess). So, yeah, great film in the series and happy I got to see it in 3D on a large screen. Definitely worth a look.

*The Merry Marvel Marching Society, a Marvel fan club started in
the 1960s which was a forerunner of FOOM (Friends Of Ol’ Marvel).

**A term named after a 1994 Green Lantern comic where the main character’s girlfriend is killed
and left stuffed in his fridge, thus empowering him in his rage and motivating the rest of his story arc.

Captain America - Civil War

The Stark Knight Rises

Captain America - Civil War
2016 USA Directed by Anthony & Joe Russo.
UK cinema release print.

Okay... trying to make this one spoiler free is hard because I can’t talk about specific things which are significant firsts in the cinematic iteration of the Marvel Universe but... I’ll give it a go.

First up, though, I’d like to throw up the familiar caveat on this one that I’ve never read the Civil War storyline in the comics. I think that’s only about ten years old and, frankly, most of the Marvel comics I’ve read date from the very late 1930s (October 1939) through to the 1980s. That being said, my understanding is that this movie is not exactly an adaptation of that storyline anyway. It would need a heck of a lot more characters from the Marvel Universe in it, for example, and the company producing this film doesn’t have the rights to use all of them. So any fans of the comic book which this is ‘inspired by’ may well be a bit angry at the way it’s been approached, is my understanding.

I’m feeling a little conflicted in reviewing this one, to be honest, because my recent reviews of Avengers - Age of Ultron (reviewed by me here) and Ant Man (reviewed by me here) were not all that enthusiastic about the product but I did find that on subsequent viewings I enjoyed them a heck of a lot more and I think, maybe, my brain needs more than one showing to process what’s going on in these and be able to appreciate the finer points of them. So, although I don’t exactly feel like going back for a repeat viewing of this one right now, I won’t be too hard on it here. Although I wasn’t exactly blown away by it, I can tell you that much.

That being said, Captain America - Civil War is far from being a terrible movie and, to be honest, any problems I have with it probably stem from the fact that I was expecting a really great movie and... it really isn’t. What it is, however, is a very good superhero movie which takes the subject seriously, possibly a little too seriously at some points, and therefore doesn’t let the side down when it comes to both credibility in its approach to the sci-fi/fantasy elements and it support and progression of the overall story arc that is unfolding in what has now become known, it seems, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe (or MCU) in terms of the Phase One, Phase Two and Phase Three movies.

This film deals with a serious issue which is the United Nations trying to put a stop to the vigilante attitude of the super beings who have made themselves the unofficial police of the world, and the thin line between saving as many lives as possible or waiting for a committee to make decisions before you go out and do that... more often than not, a decision which is going to be made way too late to save the lives that needed it. So it’s about Law Vs Justice/doing the right thing with Iron Man, The Vision, Black Widow, Black Panther, War Machine and Spider-Man being hastily recruited to stand for the Law... while Captain America, The Falcon, Scarlet Witch, Hawkeye, Ant-Man and, by default, The Winter Soldier... are on the side of the latter. I’d have to say my personal choice would be for doing the right thing over the Law any day but I can appreciate that some strange individuals might not see it the same way. I think the film kinda takes that tack too, actually, because the issue is quickly ignored by Iron Man when the true villain of the movie is revealed (or one of them... I think they’re holding back on revealing the motivations of a couple of characters who are in this movie, as yet).

Actually, the main issue which is the heart of the film, the ‘vigilante mentality’, is something I’ve only personally experienced in comics from DC, in Watchmen (which had a pretty sound movie version) and The Dark Knight Returns (maybe one day somebody will be brave enough to greenlight a movie version of that) so I was surprised that the dialogue and emotional beats of this movie were so well done in the Marvel Universe. And its these quieter scenes which are the best ones of this movie. A lot is revealed in the sub-plot which is actually behind the scenes on the big issue in this film... although I was surprised that it wasn’t spelled out here (maybe they’re waiting for a twist revelation later on down the line). However, we see certain life defining events from the history of one of the Marvel movies’ best loved characters and how it all impacts on modern day events. We also have a nice little scene with a CGI recreation (presumably) of a young version of one of the actors as he shares screen time with his parents... which was a nice touch.

Other nice continuity things are the second appearance of William Hurt as Thaddeus Ross, after his original appearance in The Incredible Hulk. I think he might well be set up as a super villain at some point in these films... and maybe they’ll go with the comics and he’ll eventually become Red Hulk, who knows? This, along with numerous references and a certain kind of closure on one of the characters make for some compelling viewing.

However, it’ the action scenes which, in some cases (not all), suffer quite a bit. There’s lots of hand held, in your face stuff with a quite aggressive editing style but, in certain scenes, there was way too much to take in and the editing was such that, at some points, I was completely unsure of what was going on and what I was looking at. Which is a shame because I think the action scenes on these films are often big draws. And, also, although there was a fair amount of humour in the movie, I felt that it was just a little too sobering and somber as a whole. Granted, the issues being explored in both the converging plots don’t exactly allow for a lot of laughs but I think the scripting for this was... well... it wasn’t having a lot of fun, put it that way.

Black Panther was a lot more successful as a character than I thought he would be, although I did struggle to understand him a lot of the time... the accent was just getting in the way too much for me, I found. That being said, although I’m not particularly looking forward to it, I suspect the idea of giving him a stand alone movie may not be doomed to failure, as I at first thought, so we’ll just have to wait and see what happens on that one.

Spider-Man, on the other hand, left me quite torn. All the cast regulars on this... Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr and all the rest of them, are all absolutely brilliant in their roles, as you would expect, As is Daniel Brühl as, a version, of Baron Zemo. He’s always good to watch. Martin Freeman seems completely underused and has a ridiculous American accent but... I think his role hints at more to follow so... maybe this is just a set up. And Tom Holland’s new version of Peter Parker/Spider-Man is equally at home in the mix, displaying great chemistry with the other actors and working well in the situations he finds himself in. He’s great in the role but unfortunately, to my mind at least, that role is not The Amazing Spider-Man.

That is to say, the way this new version is written seems a little too at odds with the character as it was in the early 1960s and, for some reason, the writers seemed to have replaced humourous wise cracks with inquisitive geekiness. Also, as great as Tom Holland is in this, he’s the first version of Peter Parker in cinema that, really, doesn’t look like any of the comic book versions of Peter Parker that I’ve known through the years. Still, hopefully they’re still finding their feet with the character and the writing will evolve a little in his next cinematic outing. That being said, they do introduce a concept in one scene which is something which was very much used in those early days of the comic book and which, I believe, is the first time it’s been used in a cinema version of the character... I won’t say too much about that but, stick around for the post credits scene folks. There are two again on this movie... one in the middle of the end credits and one right at the end.

My other main complaint on this one was Henry Jackman’s score. It’s fine and does what it needs to do and... it’s probably a good stand alone listen too. However, it also highlights one of the continuing failures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe... that of a cohesive musical support via leitmotif. Yeah, I know, different artists and different people doing the inking might be a nice comic book analogy you could use to justify the use of music in these but, honestly, that really doesn’t cut it with me. I thought the last few Brian Tyler scores for the series had some nice work in trying to bring everything under one banner, especially his score with Danny Elfman for Avengers - Age Of Ultron, which I thought really did a lot to weave some of the recent movie’s musical identities together. In this one though, unless I missed, it, there are no straight quotes of the Avengers or Iron Man sub themes and I felt this movie really needed it. As the film progressed, I was more and more missing the familiar musical glue which would have brought me closer to the characters emotionally through the emphasis of their themes but... unless it was buried under the sound mix (and that’s entirely possible), I wasn’t aware of anything that relevant happening with the scoring on this one. And that’s a great shame... it’s a bit of a step backwards, for Marvel, I think. The music to these (and all) movies is pretty important and I wish the producers at Marvel would finally start to take the musical contribution a little more seriously.

Other than all that, though, it’s a fine film. Not great but, as I said, one which will probably get better and have more resonance on subsequent viewings, especially by the time the Avengers Infinity Wars films have both hit the screens. Not quite a classic Marvel movie and not in my top five of this series but, still, a nice time at the cinema. If you’re already into Marvel films then you’ll know you won’t want to miss this one anyway but, to be honest, if you’re not into these films and the way they interlock, you might find yourself having a harder task jumping into them blindly without having seen the previous films, at this stage in the game. Still, looking forward to the next one in the series, Doctor Strange, which should be out in cinemas in the Autumn. That should bring in a whole new element to these films, that’s for sure.

Captain America - The Winter Soldier

Signed, Shield & Delivered

Captain America - The Winter Soldier
2014 USA
Directed by Anthony Russo, Joe Russo, Joss Whedon
Playing at UK cinemas now.

Warning: Yeah, this one’s going to have some pretty big spoilers because of the things I want to discuss, I’m afraid. If you want to be in the dark when you see this movie... don’t read this.

So here we are back in the Marvel Universe produced version of, um, the Marvel Universe (as opposed to non-Marvel Marvel Universe franchises like Spider-Man and the X-Men). I have to say, this second outing for Captain America is a pretty good movie in the sequence. Probably my fourth favourite of the collected series which dovetails into the Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and The Avengers arc.

The film does the usual thing of not keeping closely to some of the things in the Marvel series of comics on which these stories are, well, let’s call it “inspired by” shall we? However, this one doesn’t really stretch things too far (apart form maybe with a certain aspect of The Falcon... but I’ll get to that soon) and while it’s not nearly as bleak and pessimistic as some people have seemed to have made out, this is not the gung-ho burst of US patriotic bomb blast you might have been expecting from a super soldier named after his country. Overall, I liked the consistent tone of cold war betrayal going on with the plot line (something which began in The Avengers aka Marvel Avengers Assemble) and felt it a more interesting movie than, say, Captain America: The First Avenger (reviewed here)... although I still wish they hadn’t rushed Cap out of the 1940s and kept him in that time period for a few more movies (yes, I do want a 1940s set film version of The Invaders please!).

Now I’m not all that familiar with the storyline of the original comic book version of The Winter Soldier but I remember a friend filling me in on the basic plot line about 8 years or so ago. Marvel haven’t exactly been keeping the identity of The Winter Soldier a secret, with even the IMDB revealing who the character actually is, and it’s fair enough actually... after all, the comics were published a long time ago now. So, this movie sees the return of Sebastian Stan as the brainwashed and “returned to life” Bucky Barnes, reprising his role from the first Captain America movie ( although I still wish they’d have put Bucky in his original costume for that first outing). He plays the role of The Winter Soldier much better than he did the 1940s version of Bucky, in my opinion, but that’s because he didn’t play Bucky as the Marvel Universe equivalent of Robin, The Boy Wonder, as he was obviously modelled after. If you’re unfamiliar with the history of the character, however, the combat scene where his identity is revealed to the audience in Captain America: The Winter Soldier probably made a nice surprise.

The film ditches and rewrites parts of his history of course, as it does with all the characters in the movies to fit them into a strong, unifying Marvel brand (which is about to be shot to pieces with the new X-Men movie, actually, but I’ll get to that later). So, when a scene where Steve Rogers is revisiting his past at an exhibit at the Smithsonian, this film compounds the lack of Nick Fury during World War 2 and so... much more officially in this version... Sgt. Fury And His Howling Commandos becomes Captain America And His Howling Commandos. Similarly, the character of The Falcon, who started out life in a 1969 issue of Captain America, is not wearing his traditional spandex red and white costume with accompanying mask, which infuriates me a little... but, at least, it’s replaced with a practical piece of technology which doesn’t look as out of place within the overall tone of this movie. Plus, well done to actor Anthony Mackie (who I really liked in The Adjustment Bureau, as I pointed out here), for turning in a really solid and likeable performance as one of the beloved heros of 1970s comics.

Chris Evans just gets better and better every time I see him in something and his portrayal of Captain America, is actually pretty competently delivered, considering the character is so righteous and star spangly that he could easily dip into boredom at any second. Evans manages to make him both believable as an actual person and to also deliver a no nonsense confidence within the prison of the character... so that’s pretty good. The film even includes the scenes deleted from The Avengers movie, with Steve Rogers visiting the aged Peggy Carter, his love interest from the first movie, and we see the pain of responsibility in Captain America’s life as his former flame slips into dementia. It was a shame they didn’t feel they could bring this character back, frozen in time like her star spangled boyfriend, but the whole thing works dramatically much better as an anchor in the title character’s life, I guess... so that was pretty good.

And then we have Scarlet Johansson’s take on Black Widow, who is finally beginning to look more and more like the comic book character she is based on. Granted, she doesn’t seem as troubled and tortured by her past as much as she needs to be just yet, and her former love affair with The Winter Soldier seems to have been completely bypassed for the sake of brevity in this movie, but she’s always good to watch and I feel that, if the writers and directors of these movies don’t cop out on us, they’re definitely moving the character in the right direction now.

The film is a heady blend of action and “spy hard” theatrics and the brilliant action sequences, when Captain America throws his mighty shield, are not edited too badly (only gets a little confusing in a few places) and, without a doubt, it has to be said, all those who choose to oppose his shield, must yield.  Samuel L. Jackson’s usual turn as Nick Fury is pretty cool too, although it’s really strange that the writers of this movie really expected us to think that they had killed the character off. Frankly, we know a faked death when we see it and there’s a lot of reasons why it just makes no sense to eliminate this character, just yet, from the franchise. So, yeah, I did feel like my intelligence was being way too insulted by that point.

The return of Toby Jones as Dr. Arnim Zola was expected, to be sure, but not in the way they’ve brought him back (which kind of pre-empts a Johnny Depp movie coming out soon, it seems) and I’m glad he returned for this one, if just for Natasha Romanoff’s throwaway reference to the computer hacker movie War Games. Would’ve been nicer to see him in the flesh, maybe, but at least he got a look in.

Emily VanCamp, as Agent 13, is also absolutely brilliant in this, and held my attention for all the scenes she’s in. I’m assuming/hoping that she’ll be a regular in the film series as it develops but, well, let’s see where they go with that. Which leads me to the next big question...

How can we have an Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D TV show when S.H.I.E.L.D has been historically infiltrated by Hydra and all but destroyed, now, by the main protagonists of this movie? Why am I even watching that show, to be honest? It needs to get better really soon now... I’m the only one in my house still bothering to watch it. Maybe this is the way they kill off the show before, hopefully, moving some of the TV characters back into the main movie franchise?

Like all the Marvel Universe Phase One and Phase Two movies, the film has a post end credits scene and also, like Thor: The Dark World, a mid end credits scene and, this sequence, throws up the little rant I was going to get around to having when the new X-Men movie came out... but now I can do it here too. The original comic book characters of the brother and sister twins who were Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver started off, if my hazy memory serves me correctly, as villains... part of Magneto’s mutant army in the early 1960s X-Men comics, before they switched sides and became part of the superhero team known as The Avengers. So it makes sense for them to appear in continuity here... with an origin which seems to be involving some new villainous society. However, and here’s the problem, 20th Century Fox also have rights to the characters and they are using them in their upcoming movie X-Men: Days Of Future Past... played by different actors and, presumably, with a different movie origin story which doesn’t dovetail into this franchise. This is a bad idea all around, people. It’s surely going to confuse the heck out of audiences who a) don’t know the origin of the characters and b) who don’t realise the Marvel Universe has been strangely split between multiple studios. It’s basically like having two different Spider-Man movies out there starring different actors at the same time. It makes no sense but, lets reserve judgement until we’ve seen both X-Men: Days Of Future Past and The Avengers: Age Of Ultron first, I guess. Maybe the X-Men timeline will wipe them out of existence by the end of that movie.

And that’s about it, for this review, I guess. I used to have a Captain America action figure as a kid with a special toggle on the back which used to make his arms punch if you pulled the joint out of his socket (yeah, that was a deliberate thing you were supposed to do, people... I didn’t usually used to pull my action figures’ limbs out for fun) and it’s nice to see the character now knocking around on film in a credible manner (as opposed to the theatrical serial Captain America from 1944 and the various TV movie incarnations of the character over the years). And the film does have one last special trick up it’s sleeve if you really want to get pulled into your local cinema to see this movie... and it’s this...

 Jenny Agutter reprises her brief role from The Avengers (aka Marvel Avengers Assemble and reviewed here) and takes out a roomful of bad guys with her kung fu kickassery (plus some extra help from those quick action edits). There’s a little extra twist to this sequence, shown moments later, but... seriously... go see Captain America: The Winter Soldier and you will get to see Jenny Agutter stand up to Robert Redford’s goons and kick some Hydra butt. Which is as good a proposition as I’ll ever need to get me into cinemas, to be honest.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a fun movie in a franchise which knows how to keep a serious level of gravitas and credibility to characters who are, by definition, the very antithesis of credible, while still remembering to keep the writing dialled up to “full on fun”... not the best entry in the Marvel franchise... but certainly a very good one.

The Avengers

Some Assembly Required

The Avengers 

aka Marvel Avengers Assemble

(aka Iron Man 4, The Incredible Hulk 2, 

Thor 2, Captain America 2)

US  2012

Directed by Joss Whedon

Playing at UK cinemas now

Warning: There are going to be some pretty strong spoilers 

assembling themselves in this review... don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Hmmm... Maybe I was setting myself up for something of a fall but when the good word of mouth buzz about the new movie of “Earths Mightiest Superheroes” (as the tag line on the comics always used to read back when I were a lad and directly quoted by Rob Downey Jr in this movie) hit the internet, I was really expecting to like this film a lot more than I actually did. Don’t get me wrong... it’s not a terrible movie by any means and it’s an incredible task to be able to keep this many balls in the air in terms of plot points and multiple characters who all have to be major factors in this kind of film... it just fell a little short of my expectations and disappointed me a fair bit. This is usually something I try not to let happen... have expectations that a film will actually be quite good, that is. I always try to keep my expectations as low as possible to avoid this kind of disappointment but I guess the long slow tease over the last 4 years where The Avengers has been less than covertly promoted in various "slot in" sequences in 5 other films has artificially built up my expectations somewhat. This is, after all, a film which is a sequel to 4 other superhero franchises, where four of this particular team come from.

Maybe that’s my problem with it. All of those four characters - The Invincible Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, The Mighty Thor and... The... um... and Captain America -  have to have some serious screen time to keep their respective fans happy and, of course, other members of the team (Black Widow who debuted in Iron Man 2 and Hawkeye who made his first on screen appearance in Thor) also need equal amounts of screen time... not to mention Loki and the other regular characters who are returning from some of the previous films... Nick Fury, Agent Coulson, Doctor Selvig and Pepper Potts (regrettably, Natalie Portman’s character is referred to only in the context of a holographic photo). It’s an almost impossible task to cram all those characters into a movie that really, in my opinion, could have done with about three quarters of a hour of judicious editing down, and still have everything flowing the way a good story does... if story is what you’re after.

Truth be told, because of some of this, it’s a movie which does, in places, become a little dull and jaded around the edges without concentrating on any one thing for too long. It’s certainly weatherable because, in spite of all of this, there are some really great, kick ass moments in this movie, but I did find myself clock watching a little before the end of the movie, which is a little unfortunate.

Also, I thought there was a certain inequality in terms of character arc on this one. Thor, for example, appeared almost from nowhere and I still don’t know how he managed to get back to earth after the end of the last movie, when the rainbow bridge from Asgard to Earth was destroyed. Did I miss the explanation somehow through all the visual noise in this movie? Maybe so. 

I thought Captain America, Nick Fury and Hawkeye had a little less progression of character in this one too. Apparently the original three hour cut of this had a lot more of Captain America in it, including one sequence I would have really liked to have seen and which I would have expected to give the character a little more depth. His reunion with his 40s sweetheart from the previous movie (presumably as a very old woman now) was sadly left on the cutting room floor for the theatrical release but I suspect they’ll stick it out on BluRay when the time comes (not that I’m going to be bullied into buying a BluRay player just for this release!).

And to be fair to the Cap, he did get the best line in the movie. Two words when he was giving orders to his superhero army at the final battle of the movie. Just a quick order to a certain green-skinned goliath who more than fulfils this order... “Hulk... Smash!”

On the other hand... some of the main protagonists in the movie did get a much better character arc and sense of progression and, to be fair to the movie, were handled much better...

Black Widow is introduced in what amounts to a remake of the “tied-to-a-chair-fight” in the first Charlie’s Angels movie. Despite all this, the character manages to demonstrate her techniques of prizing the truth from people not once, but twice, over the course of the movie and her back story is fleshed out as something more like the Black Widow I used to know as a lad growing up in the early seventies as opposed to the travesty of the character as she appeared to be in Iron Man 2. As usual, however, Scarlett Johanssen does a pretty good job in the role.

Agent Coulson, although not exactly a major player but certainly a big series regular, is fleshed out a little more and makes the ultimate sacrifice in this movie by dying at the hand of Loki as he fights back (well, hey, look... when I say there are going to be spoilers in a review there’s going to be spoilers... you were duly warned). Perhaps not a major character for some but certainly he has a lot more screen presence than Loki, who is as dull and flat and useless as he was in Thor. Honestly, I don’t understand why people like this character so much because the guy playing him seems to have virtually zero screen presence... what’s up with that?

Tony Stark was pretty great in this. Not only coming up with ways to save the world and also a new way to put his suit on (as you just knew he would) but also, finally answering the big question which has kinda plagued the character since his inception as a guy wearing armour... is he really a hero? Captain America questions Stark’s ability to make a sacrifice for a cause and cites this quality as a true mark of a hero. In the final battle sequence Stark sacrifices himself for the planet and proves himself a hero (and in this sense, man of the match) but, of course, ends up surviving that sacrifice... since we already know Iron Man 3 (aka Iron Man 5 in my book) is due up for shooting soon. Plus we all knew by this point that we hadn’t seen the shot of Hulk catching him yet from the trailer.

And I’m saving the best character for last because, without him, this movie would not have got anything but a big thumbs down from me...

Bruce Banner/The Incredible Hulk, as played by Mark Ruffalo (I guess nobody wanted to work with Ed Norton again... I hear he’s difficult on set?) really comes through and finally does the character some justice in this movie. I’ve always liked Mark Ruffalo as an actor anyway (seriously check him out in My Life Without Me and In The Cut) but a combination of his acting with some “not half bad” dialogue writing for the character (the original TV Hulk Lou Ferringo does the voice for Hulk on this one but Ruffalo did all the motion capture himself and the CGI Hulk’s features are obviously modelled after Ruffalo) really works wonders and the character positively shines in this one. He plays Banner as a much more confident, in control, kind of person... one who has come to terms with his lot in life and who is at peace with what is obviously a constant raging anger within him (he lets slip near the end that his secret is to be constantly angry all the time, which helps him tame the beast I guess). 

When he’s the Hulk, too, he gets three of the most attention grabbing and “physically” witty scenes in the entire movie. The first is when he and Thor (who he kinda dislikes after a fight with him earlier in the film) take out a load of aliens and they both stand triumphant... there’s some brilliant CGI comic timing as the Hulk does a little side punch into Thor’s head which sends him flying off screen. It’s a bit like a Ren & Stimpy cartoon.

The second standout Hulk moment is where the “evil” Loki starts “monologuing” in front of him about how humans are pathetic and they should all neal to him because he’s a God. Right in the middle of his speech he is interrupted by the Hulk picking him up and battering him all over the place like he’s a limp rag doll. I couldn’t hear Hulk's words to him as he walked off and left him smashed on the ground because the audience was laughing so hard.

The third wicked Hulkout moment is the bit where Iron Man is unconscious, presumed dead. Everyone is all sad and weeping and then Hulk just lets out a big roar right by his face and he wakes up! This was pretty funny.

I really wanted this movie to be more than the sum of it’s parts, especially as some of those parts were really shiny. Alas, I feel The Avengers is less the movie it possibly could have been. That being said... there’s plenty for both comic book afficionados and superhero fans to get their teeth into in this one. Lots of geeky references to old comics but I don’t want to give away too many of them (and I’m still trying to process them all) but I could almost swear there were even a few panels from the legendary four issue mini series Marvels recreated in this one. It’s been over a decade since I read that and the issues aren’t anywhere I could easily get ahold of them for this review (boxes behind boxes behind boxes) but it would be great if somebody reading this could tell me if the waitress looking at the battle from the diner window and her subsequent TV interview footage were taken from this tome. There’s a even an ALIEN reference when Banner is greeted by veteran character actor Harry Dean Stanton (wearing his trademark hat from ALIEN and Paris, Texas) and they get into a conversation about... well... aliens. That was pretty good to see. I would say, however, that the inevitable Stan Lee cameo, which I was waiting for all the film and which didn’t surface until a few minutes before the end, was a little lacking in originality in this one. Probably his worst cameo to date.

Okay so, as you can tell right now, I didn’t love The Avengers but neither did I hate it. Of the six Marvel movies actually made by Marvel Studios themselves so far, I’d say it was my third favourite... far behind the first Iron Man movie and the Thor movie in terms of both quality and entertainment value and into the okay but not so hot status of the other three Marvel Studios movie... Iron Man 2, The Incredible Hulk and Captain America: The First Avenger. However, like I said before, if you’re into comics and/or superhero movies, you’re really not going to want to miss this one... and if you’re a fan of The Hulk, well this is his best movie. Have a good time with it if you can.

Any Old Iron

Iron Man 2 2010 US

Directed by Jon Favreau

Screening at Cinemas now

Well that’s a shame. I remember a couple of years back, going to my local cinema with a friend to see the first Iron Man movie and really not expecting much from it. What was nice on that occasion is that I was blown away by it. Not because of the action scenes, which seemed a little unevenly handled to me, but because the script was just so darned good. The dialogue in the first Iron Man film is basically straight out of a 1930s screwball comedy in both tone and pacing. And to up the ante you had some first class actors like Rob Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow and Jeff Bridges to deliver these brilliant, slickly written, witty two handers. Really quality.

Cut to last Thursday. Went to see the new Iron Man sequel expecting great things from it. The end result... a movie which neither blew me away or left me feeling that satisfied.

There’s nothing really terribly wrong with it. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not one of these regular sequels we seem to be getting these days that actually let down the memory of the first film like, say, The Descent Part 2 or Transformers 2. There’s a lot to like in this new movie and some nice ideas... it’s just not a great movie by any means... whereas the first one was, pretty much, “a great movie.”

So what’s wrong with it and what’s right with it? In... you know... my humble opinion.

Okay... on the good side there’s only three real action sequence set pieces. Looks like certain little corners of Hollywood are beginning to relearn that if you want an action piece to stand out and feel spectacular and exhilarating... you don’t surround it with yet more action that dulls everything down in comparison. You surround these sequences with everything but action and I have enough respect for the director/actor Jon Favreau to know he’d take this kind of approach. And putting the first real action scene straight in the middle of the track at the Monaco Grand Prix and wasting as many cars as they did gives this film a very nice, James Bond international feel.

Another good thing was Jon Favreau himself. As a director he only gave himself a few scenes as Tony Stark’s bodyguard in the first film but in this film he lets loose and gives himself a much larger role... and a brilliant fist fight intercut with a Black Widow beat-em-up fest and a nice comic pay off towards the end of the movie.

Sam Jackson is back from the last movie reprising the modern incarnation of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D (probably better than David Hasselhoff’s version of the character from the Nick Fury movie some years back) and there are also a few other references to the Marvel universe. There are two guest “props” which make an appearance which will be seen again in two up and coming Marvel movies of the next year and which will all, ultimately, lead up to the new Avengers movie in a few years time. If you are a fan of Marvel comics characters then you will recognise them when you see them but... be warned... you will need to wait until all the end credits are played out at the end of the movie to catch a site of one of them... a reference to an upcoming Kenneth Branagh movie, no less ;-)

Right then... onto the bad.

The dialogue is not terrible... but this movie just doesn’t have the sparkling, witty dialogue which the first movie had in spades. It tries to rise above that of most other movies playing today... and in a few scenes it’s certainly elevated to something better than most... it’s just not nearly as good and so consequently falls flat.

Point 2: There’s not enough Pepper Potts in this movie. She’s barely in it compared to the first one. Perhaps that’s why the dialogue is not sparking up where it should do.

Point 3. I adore Scarlett Johanssen... in films like The Girl With A Pearl Earring, Ghost World and Vicky Christina Barcelona she rules... but she’s no Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow)... and that’s the character they’ve got her playing here. It’s not so much that she’s playing the character they’ve written here badly... it’s just that the character as written here is so much different from the character as I remember her. Plus her hair looks fake. Now it’s been some time since I read a Black Widow comic... probably not since the early to mid-seventies, but I do remember she was a very emotional, bleak, depressed and ultimately tragic character... certainly not the frigid, calculating character on show in this movie. And what’s with her “Widow’s Bites”? They can clearly be seen in some shots around her wrists where they should be but I don’t recall seeing her use them once... which might be because...

Point 4. This film is yet another casualty of modern MTV editing. The action scenes are cut so frenetically and haphazardly that you really can’t see what’s going on here... it’s just confusing. There seems to be a popular convention going on that in order for a big action scene to work it needs to be cut at a frenetic pace with no shot lasting for more than about a second and a half. That’s rubbish. Big films like the second and third movies in the modern Bourne trilogy and Quantum of Solace all seem to suffer from this... and it’s just plain confusing and in no way a substitute for a well edited action sequence. Cut it out guys!

Ok... that’s about all I have to say. If you don’t recognise the character of Rhodey in this second film, and he’s quite a major character in these films, that’s because they fired the actor from the first film because he wanted more money and replaced him with the more up-market Don Cheadle. Great actor... but wasted because he’s trying to play the character like the last guy played him... and it doesn’t quite work.

Iron Man 2 is an okayish entertainment to while away two hours of your life with... just don’t go expecting great things.