Shazam! Fury Of The Gods

Nicked Fury

Shazam! Fury Of The Gods
USA 2023 Directed by David F. Sandberg
Warner Bros
UK cinema release print

Warning: Very minor spoilers but there’s no way I’m giving away the ending or the really important cameo in this review.

Wow. This film is awesome. And if you want to take that as my final, less detailed verdict of the film so you don’t feel like you need to read to the end, please do so.

And it’s not just the awesome cameo towards the end of the movie where an amazing character restores a semblance of the status quo to things here... although that scene was so brilliant it had me crying by the finish. Nope... the whole film is a great, fun and respectful sequel to the first movie, which was a little better than this but... this being only slightly less better than absolutely brilliant is still pretty good, I reckon.

Okay, there are a few negative criticisms I have to make about this one and I’ll get those out of the way first because, yeah, they don’t even begin to make a negative dent in the movie and I can’t wait to get this thing on Blu Ray (partially because I saw this at Cineworld and I’m guessing the physical copy will be more in focus than how they projected it there).

So, okay, I was disappointed that the big dramatic beat from the first one of Mary Bromfield (still not yet revealed in this iteration as really being Mary Batson, Billy’s sister he didn’t even know he had) getting into college is sidelined to a throwaway scene explaining why she didn’t go. I thought the emotional investment in this character set up in the first film wasn’t given it’s due, to be honest.

Another negative thing was... I didn’t quite understand the physics of the big dome utilised by the villains in this one. It has certain physical properties in one scene which are completely forgotten about in a later scene but, yeah, I guess anything is possible when you’re dealing with magic.

Thirdly, but not so much of a big deal... one of the best lines in the trailers for the movie, about throwing a truck at a dragon, didn’t make final cut... which is a shame. However, the pacing of the scene in question is such that it would have slowed things down unnecessarily and been less credible so I suspect it was better out than in, in this instance.

That’s it. Those are my only negative things about the film. The rest is absolutely brilliant and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie. The cast from the original film, including stand up performances by Asher Angel as Billy Batson, Zachary Levi as Captain Marvel (because, two fingers up at Marvel who ‘legally acquired the name for one of their own characters... luckily, many audience members past a certain age can still remember what the name of the Worlds Mightiest Mortal is), Jack Dylan Grazer as Freddy Freeman (like the first movie, he’s basically the lead kid in this film), Grace Caroline Currey as Mary Bromfield (and Mary Marvel... again, lets call her by her real character name for the purposes of this review) and a load of other returners are all great here. And, by golly they sure fooled me in the first film because, apparently, this is Grace Caroline Currey’s first time playing her super hero alter ego. The girl they had in the first film (which I reviewed here) looked so much like her I just assumed it was the same actress playing both roles in that one so... yeah, don’t know why they bothered with someone else in the original.

And this lot are joined by some nice additions including a couple of super villains played by Dame Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu and, also, a nice turn from Rachel Zegler (in her second film, after playing Maria in Spielberg’s quite good remake of West Side Story). Plus a couple of cameos but, seriously, that one towards the end of the picture... absolutely gave me a huge rush of emotion (while simultaneously keeping me angry at James Gunn... more on that anger in a little while). One thing I did miss was the sequel set up from the post credits of the previous movie but... the final post credits scenes here (there are two of them) is very much a sequel to the post credits of the first. So, yeah, if the direction of DC hadn’t suddenly changed then that talking earth worm ‘Mr. Mind and the Society Of Evil’ adaptation story may well have been coming along at some point.

I’m not covering the plot here but the film is full of great little references both to other comic book characters (including little digs at rival company Marvel) and also some great pop culture references in general. Such as the ‘pediatrician’ scene from the trailer... I’d already spotted the haunted doll from The Conjuring movies in the shot in the previews but I’m happy to say Annabelle remains in the finished movie here. And a nice moment where a guy on the street calls the main character Captain Marvel... and he’s not only played by Michael Gray, who used to play Billy Batson in the Shazam TV series in the 1970s but he’s even wearing the same t-shirt costume he wore in it. And, wow, I love the symmetry of having a character originally co-created for Fawcett Comics (before DC bought the rights years later) by C. C. Beck, get a score by composer Christophe Beck. I mean, I doubt they’re related but, even so.

Oh... and I’m not even going to say anything about the wonderful Unicorns or the fact that the makers of Skittles must have paid a fair amount of money for their quite prominent plot point of a product placement... but I don’t care because, even if it will date the movie some years from now, it was just delightfully done.

And, well, it’s such a good movie with a brilliant, post bad gal defeat denouement scene that, in light of the first of the post-credits scenes here, you just have to hate James Gunn’s new DCU ending policy even more. After Blue Beetle, The Flash and the second Aquaman movie have played out in cinemas later this year, the decision has been made to pull the plug on the current movie DC universe with even their most highly anticipated movie originally on the slate, Wonder Woman 3, completely cancelled. So no more Henry Cavill as Superman (as set up at the end of Black Adam) and no more Justice Society (not to mention the Justice League). The whole thing sucks but these movies are teasing and building towards a series of event movies that will now, unless DC does an about turn sometime very soon, won’t happen. So yeah, while I’d like to see another Wonder Woman and a Justice League/Justice Society team up movie where they take on Black Adam before becoming his ally to ward off some greater evil... it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen now. Which is a huge pity, especially after DC have finally seemed to have been gaining traction after their earlier cinematic efforts didn’t quite get things right, it all seems to have been scuppered... unnecessarily, it seems to me.

But don’t let that sourness put you off going to see what is probably the best superhero movie that’s going to be in cinemas this year. I suspect Shazam! Fury Of The Gods might well make my top ten movies of 2023, by the end of it... time will tell, I guess.

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

Modok She Wrote

Ant-Man and
the Wasp: Quantumania
USA 2023 Directed by Peyton  Reed
Marvel/Disney
UK cinema release print

This is going to be a very quick shout out to the new Ant-Man/Wasp movie because, well, it’s basically fine and not the train wreck I had been led to believe by many critics, it has to be said. Ant-Man And The Wasp - Quantumania is actually one of the stronger of the recent Marvel films as far as I’m concerned, easily beating out the likes of Black Panther - Wakanda Forever (reviewed here) and Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (reviewed here)... but, you know, I loved Eternals (reviewed here) so, don’t take my word for it.

Once again we have Paul Rudd playing the Scott Lang incarnation of Ant-Man, Evangeline Lily playing the Hope Van Dyne incarnation of The Wasp, Michael Douglas as Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man) and Michelle Pfeiffer as Janet Van Dyne (the original Wasp) but, we also have yet another new actress playing the grown up version of Ant-Man’s daughter Cassie (the always watchable Kathryn Newton and... none of the other much loved characters from the previous, stand alone Ant-Man films. There is, however, one returning actor from the first one who is basically a henchman to this movie’s main villain Kang The Conqueror (played by Jonathan Majors). I’m not going to say who the character is but, he’s been refashioned into a version of one of Marvel’s more ridiculous looking villains from the comics and, well, he wasn’t supposed to be the character he was playing in the first movie, truth be told (it’s complicated)... but I won’t say any more of that because, you know, spoilers.

This one is a lot different from the majority of previous movies which had Ant-Man as a character in them. Yes, it’s a superhero movie and features many people doing fantastic, superpowered fighty things but... it has to be said that this one more resembles a Star Wars movie than most anything else and, yeah, it’s certainly not the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) to jump into a more space opera style yarn (although, technically, nobody is in space... it’s just the quantum realm). And I’m not knocking it... if anyone is staying true to their comic book roots by going down this road, then certainly Marvel probably have the most right to (and possibly DC but, let’s not make this review a comparison war).

And it’s also fairly well done and, as I said, basically fine. Even cleverly handled in terms of the origins of one of the big deus ex machina moments in the movie, for sure. It’s fairly entertaining and has a lot of humour, as you’d expect from an Ant-Man movie. One thing which did bug me, if you’ll pardon the expression, is that Marvel no longer have the rights to The Micronauts toys and the characters in the comics they wrote about them in the 1970s and 80s. I used to love those (both the comics and the toys) and, certainly, the quantum realm which has already become so essential to the way the MCU goes forward, pretty much started off life as the Microverse as far as I’m concerned. I mean, the spirit of those comics is certainly here in the way it’s been put together but, how great would it have been if Baron Karza and Arcturus Rann were facing off against each other in this one?

Oh, one of the big criticisms I heard levelled at this movie was that some people had difficulty understanding it. I was expecting to be in the same boat but, no, this is not a complicated movie and I am baffled as to what people think needs explaining here. It seems pretty clear to me... just remember the other 30 plus MCU films which came out before this and you should have no trouble following it.

The other complaint I’ve seen about this is that it deals with the Multiverse and therefore nothing has any consequence. Well... again I’m left thinking I saw a different cut of the movie somehow. This film does touch on the multiverse but, so very little of it, maybe a minute or two of post credits scenes, actually takes place in another facet of the multiverse. This movie really isn’t about the multiverse at all.... which we’ve all seen before in at least two Marvel movies and once TV show so, it would be nothing new if it was (even DC are getting into the multiverse act later this year and, again, that’s fine, they’ve earned the right to do that from their comics over the years... the two companies have pretty much different versions of everything the other does anyway). But, no, this one’s firmly set in the quantum realm and although the multiverse is mentioned a lot... it doesn’t really feature too much in the story, for sure... apart from a scene where it’s used to explain the idea of ‘possible alternate versions of oneself in a fairly blatant, visual way.

And that’s me done on this one. Ant-Man And The Wasp - Quantumania is basically an entertaining evening at the cinema, has some great actors, moves at a fairly good pace and has some nice musical glue by the series’ regular composer Christophe Beck (which, once again alas, has not been released on a proper CD at time of writing this). But, yeah, it’s a nice looking movie and I certainly didn’t mind it at all... make of that what you will.

Ant-Man and the Wasp

Anty Hero

Ant-Man and the Wasp
2018 USA Directed by Peyton Reed
UK cinema release print.

So... hot on the heels of Avengers - Infinity War (reviewed here) we have the new Ant-Man movie kinda filling in on what was happening to this character just before the events depicted therein (for most of the movie... aside from two post-credits scenes here).
 
Ant-Man And The Wasp reunites Paul Rudd as the Scott Lang version of Ant-Man/Giant Man with Evangeline Lily as the Hope Van Dyne version of The Wasp. We also continue to catch up with both the original Hank Pym incarnation of Ant-Man, played once again by Michael Douglas... and the three ‘crooks turned honest businessmen’ friends of Scott, highlighting Michael Peña’s character Luis front and centre.

We also get a few new villains played by Walton Goggins as a business tycoon who was a character from the Iron Man comics and also, another character from Iron Man, The Ghost, is the main super powered problem for our intrepid hero’s here... although curiously, the character has had a sex change and is played by Hannah John-Kamen. That being said, she’s one of the most compelling and interesting characters in the movie so I had a good time with her here. Two other old school Marvel superheroes also, technically, make their first and second cinematic appearances...

First up we have Lawrence Fishburne playing the original Black Goliath, although he’s never referred to that on screen, only by his secret identity. Secondly, we have Michelle Pfeiffer playing the original Janet Van Dyme version of The Wasp. It has to be said she looks nothing like the original character (although, strangely, Evangeline Lily really does) but she does a really good job with the small amounts of screen time she has in this and brings a much needed gravitas to certain sections of the film.

Okay, so I didn’t enjoy the first movie all that much the first time around... although it kinda grew on me a little later. I did, however, enjoy Scott Lang’s appearance in Captain America - Civil War (although I liked that movie less than many of the others... my review here) and it’s the events of that film which lead to the set up in this one. After the ‘happy ending’ of Ant-Man (reviewed here), Scott Lang is no longer on speaking terms with Hope and Hank. Sure, he’s just about to end his two year house arrest and is not allowed to be speaking to them anyway, as they are wanted fugitives since Scott used the Ant-Man costume to help ‘Team Cap’ in Civil War. However, due to those events, they have fallen out anyway but, luckily, a certain incident from the first movie, where Scott visited the Microverse (sadly without finding any of the Micronauts), means they actually need certain information inside Scott’s head so they abduct him to help while an ‘ant’ covers for him wearing the security tag the FBI have put on him.

And then things escalate really quickly as the various characters I mentioned above start to appear and... well never mind quantum entanglement... everybody is getting tangled up in this adventure which has a fast pace and is hugely entertaining. In keeping with the characters, the film focuses a little more on the humour in various situations than the majority of the Marvel movies of late and when you inject that into some quite well choreographed action sequences where various vehicles, people and everyday household objects are shrunk or grown to giant size at the flick of a switch, the film just keeps buzzing along without ever really getting dull or outstaying its welcome.

Pretty much all the performances are fantastic and we also have Christophe Beck returning to composing duties although, and this is a really bad move again from Marvel, you can only get this thing as an electronic download rather than on a proper CD with a high quality recording (so they’ve lost this soundtrack buying customer with this poor decision).

Now when it comes to the ‘shrunken houses’ which Hank and Hope lug around with them... well first of all I will say that if you look around at various little characteristics of this, you’ll realise that it’s an expanded model rather than a shrunken building. This doesn’t, however, explain why you can just cart it around with you wherever you go without having the plumbing fixed up and electricity working. Nice idea but credibility is out the window here (as much as it could be when we have characters who can survive being shrunk and expanded at a fast rate without any lasting physical side effects to their well being).

Now, one thing I was disappointed with is in the differences between the trailers and the final presentation of the film. At least three of my favourite trailer moments never made it into the final cut of the movie and this is somewhat unfortunate. Maybe film companies should hold up on constantly promoting upcoming releases so early and instead wait around a few more months until they know roughly what footage from the final movie they have to play around with. I was waiting for lines and scenes which didn’t drop and this can be frustrating when you’re viewing a film for the first time.

The other thing is there are no great revelations in this one. My cousin in Australia saw this a few weeks ago and I pretty much described to him my predictions for the mid/end credits scene because it just seemed so obvious to me what was going to happen. Sure enough, the one thing you are expecting to happen here, if you’ve been keeping up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, does. However, even the obvious ending (which I won’t spoil here for you but I suspect most of you will have figured it out long before you sit down to watch this one) is tempered with a certain amount of tension because, ‘the thing that happens” comes at the actual worst time it could for these characters and gives a little more of a cliff hanger than the audience might have been expecting here (or at least, it did for this audience member).

The really nice thing about this movie, though, is that the main problem of the story is not conquered by opposition but by the spirit of camaraderie and kindness. Apart from Walton Goggins, all the other characters who take the darker route in this film are never portrayed as anything other than complex shades of grey and the denouement of certain situations, before the two post credit scenes, is pretty well put together and went exactly where I was hoping they would go. I think between The Ghost, Thanos and another character from this I won’t mention, Marvel are getting much more out of their villains than pretty much anyone else and they are not there purely to be just another antagonistic force anymore. So well done to Marvel for making this work.

And that’s me done on this one. Not much else to say here. A sequel which is certainly respectful to the first film in the franchise and I sincerely hope a third installment is on the cards. One of the post credits scenes gets a bit like a certain end scene in the 1980’s Flash Gordon movie and this tries to, by way of homage (I suspect), cast doubts on whether there will be another chapter in the saga. I’m pretty sure we’ll be seeing more of this crew in the next Avengers movie, to be fair. One last thing though... very well done to the writers/director etc for the very last, post credits scene. Here, we have a potentially hilarious scene showing something quite fun but, because of events witnessed and a chilling message on a TV screen, the whole last moments of the film are a truly interesting juxtaposition of humour and post-apocalyptic terror, so to speak (you’ll know what I’m talking about once you’ve seen the film... if there’s anyone left still to see it after it got a, bizarrely, very delayed release in the UK). Kinda looking forward to seeing how the next year of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is handled because... well, I think it will be an interesting one, whether the films work tonally or not. As for Ant-Man And The Wasp... a huge slice of fun. Go see it.