The Falcon And The Winter Soldier

More Tease, Falcon

The Falcon And
The Winter Soldier
Air Date: March 19th - April 23rd 2021
Nine Episodes

Warning: This one has all the relevant
spoilers... you have been cautioned.

Okay, so the second of the post-Avengers: Endgame internet shows, following on from the very interesting WandaVision (reviewed here), is The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. Now, this is going to turn out to be a very short review, I think because... well, a) I mostly had no huge problems with it overall and b) it’s a very simple story with a little bit of character development in it but also a heck of a lot of action. So it would be fair to say, I think, that nothing much happens in this one.

It was pretty obvious from the announcement of the show that the intention of this series was pretty obvious. One, they needed to have the previously ‘at each others throats for the most part’ pairing of Sam Wilson (aka The Falcon) and Bucky Barnes (aka The Winter Soldier) go through a healing process and get some bonding there so the characters could be friends by the end of the last episode. And, yes, that indeed happened. The second thing which I thought was an obvious thing was, they would need to set up the events which happened in the comics for a while (and which I already thought had more than enough set up at the end of the aforementioned Avengers Endgame to require anything further but... here we are). Namely, they had to have The Falcon taking over the mantle of Captain America. And they tried to be oblique about it by having Wyatt Russell (son of Kurt) in there as the new Captain America but, yeah, pretty much everyone knew he was going to become U.S. Agent by the end of the show, right? The truth is, when Bucky brought Sam a new set of wings from Wakanda in the fifth episode, it was pretty obvious that when Sam did eventually open up the suitcase, that he’d find a new suit which is basically The Falcon painted up as the new Captain America.

So, yeah, no surprises in this but the writing is good and, it turns out, Anthony Mackie (The Falcon) and Sebastian Stan (The Winter Soldier), both reprising their roles from various Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, actually have good chemistry and it’s quite fun to watch the cynical ‘partnership’ evolve over the course of the six episodes. The story features both cameos and more substantial roles from regular characters/actors in the movies, such as Don Cheadle as War Machine, Daniel Brühl as Baron Zemo and Emily VanCamp as Sharon Carter (niece of Agent Peggy Carter). There’s also a few of the female warrior women from Wakanda in the mix, in one of the few surprising moments in the show.

And it’s straight forward action fodder for sure but, it works really well, is pacey and often feels like there’s more at stake than there probably actually is. One bizarre change, however, is the transformation of the comic book character Karl Morgenthau, aka Flag Smasher, into a woman... Karli Morgenthau, played by the wonderful Erin Kellyman (who played the young girl who started the rebellion against the Empire in Star Wars - Solo... reviewed here), who leads a group of terrorists known as the ‘flag smashers’. Her presence brings one of the few attempts at tonal colour in the show as The Falcon wrestles with the idea of bringing down and stopping a perceived ‘terrorist’ whose ideals he believes in, while obviously not approving of her ‘murder everyone’ methods.

Actually, if there’s one criticism I could level at the show, if I really felt the need, it might be that it was just too much emphasis on action throughout and not enough talk but, honestly, Marvel does this stuff so well at the moment that I honestly didn’t mind it. One of the things which did make me concerned was the idea that Sharon Carter is ‘the powerbroker’ and, at the end when she is welcomed back to the US government, it’s made quite clear in a post credit scene that she’s definitely the villain of the piece, ready to sell the secrets of the US Government to the highest bidder. Which is a bit of a turnaround for the character, I believe... unless of course, she’s a Skrull version of her character. That’s something which is an alley the writers could definitely go down after the scenes pertinent to that little subplot in Spider-Man Far From Home (reviewed here) and WandaVision.

One of the things which is a shame is the inclusion of Julia Louis-Dreyfus as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. Her character has a very strong, ‘non-introduction’ in this when she first contacts the person she will recreate as U.S. Agent. There’s not much information given to the audience (nor the other characters) about who she is and the reason is, I believe... coronavirus. Yep. Turns out, from what I can understand, this character was supposed to be a call back to her first appearance in the new Black Widow movie (out soon at cinemas, maybe) but, of course, because of the pandemic, the release of the movie was severely delayed so it turns out this is our ‘by proxy’ introduction to her character. So, yeah, I guess that character doesn’t die in the upcoming movie then.

Another grumble might be why, with the subplot of the first black Super Soldier from the Second World War, that they didn’t get Chris Evans back to do a cameo in the last episode but, well, I guess that would have put a lot more strain on the budget. As it is, in The Falcon And The Winter Soldier... well... all I will say is that Baron Zemo has all the best scenes here. I also liked composer Henry Jackman revisiting thematic elements from his score to Captain America - The Winter Soldier (reviewed here) for some of these sequences involving characters from that movie.

And that’s that for The Falcon And The Winter Soldier. Like I said, a short review for a short series which did the job it needed to do and, yeah, we’re already hearing that there will be a fourth Captain America movie headed up by Anthony Mackie as Cap (please change his costume... the new one doesn’t work guys... it just looks clunky) and Sebastian Stan as The Winter Soldier. Yeah, that could probably work well but... I think having a Captain America who doesn’t have the benefit of the Super Soldier serum is a bit of a stretch of the imagination, even for Marvel comics fans, to be honest. We shall see, I guess.

The Cloverfield Paradox

Mostly Armless

The Cloverfield Paradox
USA 2018 Directed by Julius Onah
Paramount Pictures

Warning: Yeah... this one’s going to go right into
spoiler territory very quickly. You have been warned.

Okay, so... originally entitled God Particle, The Cloverfield Paradox is another ‘Clovered up’ movie which fits around the previous two Cloverfield pieces to give us a tale which actually, in some ways, goes a good deal of the way to explaining the cause of the events in them... and probably any others that come after it too. Although, with the information gleaned from this one, there probably doesn't need to be any further movies made in the cycle, to be honest as, well... this one seems to wrap it all up.

The film stars Gugu Mbatha-Raw (so brilliant in Miss Sloane, reviewed here) as Hamilton, a physicist who specialises in all that large Hadron Collider stuff you hear about from CERN. The film starts off in the not too far future with her making the decision to leave her husband on Earth, for what they hope will only be 6 months, in order to conduct experiments in smashing particles together on a space station orbiting the planet, where that is perceived as being less dangerous for everyone else. This is hastily undertaken with the object of creating a new energy source as various countries are in ‘oil wars’ with each other to take ownership of this rapidly diminishing resource.

So, yeah, from there we jump via the opening credits, ushering in Bear McCreary’s cool new score and with a similar typographic design to 10 Cloverfield Lane, to two years later when Hamilton and her fellow astronauts, played by a cast which includes such luminaries as Daniel Brühl, Chris O'Dowd and Ziyi Zhang, are still up in space trying to end the world’s escalating problems. And then, of course, everyone's worst nightmare is realised when the thing that they've has been trying to get right for the previous couple of years actually works. Particles collide and the Cloverfield space station is victim to what a pop culture scientist scaremonger on Earth has been referring to as The Cloverfield Paradox... not that there actually seems to be much of a paradox in this move but, you know, you can’t have everything.

From here on out the film starts getting both interesting and plain B-movie cream crackers, depending on whether you find yourself buying into the suspense of the situation or laughing uncontrollably at some of the 'bug nuts craziness' on show here. Or possibly, you know, a mixture of the two... which is how I reacted.

Okay so, for example, a scene where a hitherto unknown character just materialises inside the walls and wiring of the space station and has to be cut free of the all the various wires and pipes that are penetrating her body is pretty cool. Especially when we find out that she knows the crew but they don’t know her.

On the other hand, a wall metamorphosing itself and trying to pull Chris O’Dowd into it and then slicing off his arm perfectly, with absolutely no pain, no blood and no need for cauterising... that was pretty unique and just the silly side of funny, I have to confess. Especially when the crew later capture the arm wandering around on its own, put it in a box, realise it’s trying to communicate with them and then throw it a pen so it can write them a note. Yes, this happens, I’m not making it up... you aren’t in a 1930s Hollywood B-movie here... this is bang up-to-date movie making on display, not The Beast With Five Fingers, apparently. What’s even better is that it writes that they should cut open one of their fellow crew members. That’s okay because, when all the worms from the lab went missing, they took over the body of one of the team somehow and then exploded out from him in a little homage, in some ways, to the original ALIEN movie. So... hmm, yeah. Luckily for them, their essential missing giro which helped run their particle collider happens to have somehow materialised inside this guy’s body too... so, good for them.

Yeah, okay the film is quite ludicrous and you will probably point and ridicule it at some point in your viewing experience but it’s never boring and it did keep me guessing/entertained for a while. There are a fair few problems with it though...

One of these is with the fact that none of these shenanigans where the crew are getting attacked by their own ship in various ways make a lick of sense, even when you throw the Large Hadron Collider into the equation. How did Chris O’ Dowd’s arm know what to write, for instance. This is probably my biggest obstacle within the film, to be honest.

The other big problem is that this is set in the Earth’s future, whereas it’s implied that the previous movies weren’t in that time shift at all. That being said, though, it is kinda implied that the particle experimentation also effects time as well as various multiversal dimensions and so it’s conceivable (and highly probable, I suspect) that this event set up a similar set of various parallel worlds, one of which is our Earth as it was in the past, allowing ‘things’ that go slither in the night to touch down on our increasingly unstable planet... one of which is presumably our world as it was in the time of the first two movies.

So yeah, in those terms at least, the film finally answers the questions, albeit in no real detail (but who needs that?) as to where the monsters from Cloverfield (reviewed here) and 10 Cloverfield Lane (reviewed here) came from (or rather, how they came to be here in the first place). Which is good enough from me.

Amid all this cheesiness, though, we have some genuinely nice performances, some interesting shot set ups, nicely choreographed sequences and it’s all held together quite well by McCreary’s intense and never knowingly winking score, adding a much needed sense of gravitas (and indeed, gravity) to the film to stop it becoming too comedic when the script really is not doing itself any favours. Probably the least effective of the Cloverfield series of movies but certainly not without relevance and definitely something which, mostly, doesn’t let the side down. Probably only watch this one if you’ve seen the previous two, though. Or you might not want to watch the others.

Rush

No Good Speed Goes Unpunished

Rush
2013 UK/Germany
Directed by Ron Howard
Studio Canal   Blu Ray Zone B 

You know, I really never expected to be reviewing a movie like Rush for this blog. It’s not that I don’t like Ron Howard because, even with the spectre of Richie Cunningham from Happy Days hanging over him, I actually think he’s a pretty great director. He makes popular films for Hollywood (although this one is actually a British/German co-production, I was surprised to learn) in a very professional and competent way. Films which always have a sense of emotional engagement inherent within them. In fact, when you take my favourite of his movies, Angels and Demons, the sequel to his adaptation of The Da Vinci Code (and which you can find reviewed here), I have to give him credit for taking what is basically a not too subtly dressed up version of the tired old “run the policeman around key points in a city looking for the bomb before it goes off” plot and turning it into a thoroughly entertaining spectacle.

The reason I am surprised to find myself reviewing this particular movie is because, my fondness for John Frankenheimer’s movie Grand Prix aside, I have no real interest in either motor sports or, really, cars in general unless they happen to be associated with a film or TV series. I remember having a small Corgi or Dinky toy of Emmerson Fitipaldi’s black John Player Special when I was a kid and a basic Scalextric track but... that’s where the interest started and ended I’m afraid.

My dad, however, is a different kettle of fish. Over the years, especially the last decade or so, it’s become very clear to me that the man loves watching motor racing and follows it with a kind of “passion hidden behind a veneer of indifference” which I’d never really noticed before that period. So, when it came time for the bizarrely conceived, commercial celebration known as Father’s Day, I slipped a copy of Rush, a film I knew he’d not seen (neither had I), in with his ritual bottle of Port. And, of course, since it was Father’s Day... well... I had to watch it with him, didn’t I?

The film deals with the rivalry between two racing drivers, James Hunt (played by The Mighty Thor... um... I mean Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (played by Daniel Brühl, who was so good in Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds) in the six years prior to and culminating in the 1976 Grand Prix. Now I kinda remember Hunt and Lauda after the fact, but only as names looking back from this end of the historical telescope... although I think Hunt may have appeared on television shows during my childhood. The thing is, when Niki Lauda had his famous “near death” crash in 1976, I was dealing with a car crash problem of my own. I was eight years old and I had been standing with my mum, talking to some friends on the pavement at a crossroads in Edmonton (firmly off the road and far back from the kerb, I’ll have you know) when two cars from the opposite sides of the crossroads hit each other at speed and both ploughed up the pavement and into us all. I probably had the most serious injury out of everyone involved in that my jaw got broken (I was wearing a thick duffle coat with a hood up and it would have been my head rolling if I hadn’t been wearing that, the doctors told me) and because it was broken in such a way that the doctors couldn’t wire it, I had to spend a couple of years off of school. Unlike Lauda I wasn’t permanently scarred, at least not in any way which is visible to the naked eye, but obviously James Hunt and Niki Lauda were the furthest people from my mind at the time... which means I knew relatively little about what qualifies as story content in this film before going in full throttle and watching it.

Howard’s film is something of a more intimate look at the characters in play in this real life drama. It  feels epic because, compressing the six years into a couple of hours means you have to make a lot of broad strokes and then skip to the next important thing... but the film really gives you a sense of who these people were (Niki Lauda claims the film is totally accurate, although insists people used to make more of the rivalry between the two than was actually there... which figures, knowing the way the press and publicity machine works) in a more up close and personal way than you might expect from a film looking as slick and Hollywoodified as this. So the characters and the relationships they make with other people is the focus of the movie and a camaraderie between the two main characters is often felt lurking behind their words. The director and the two lead actors do really well to capture this quality in the performance. Both are likeable characters and, even though it’s played up that nobody really liked Lauda, you can feel where each of the protagonists is coming from in their quest to win the world championship and I felt really pulled into the movie.

The racing scenes are another matter in that, for a film with a back drop of Formula One motor racing, they are few and far between and over very quickly. They’re good... don’t get me wrong. Shot and edited in a way that both conveys the speed and danger while giving you a feeling of excitement and anticipation, thanks in part to Hans Zimmer’s appropriately propulsive scoring. They’re no match for graphic designer Saul Bass’ wonderful racing montage sequences in the aforementioned Grand Prix (sorry, I can’t help but compare the two here) but they are great pieces of “speed on film” machismo... however, they just don’t go on for long enough and there’s not enough of them... at least that’s the impression I got.

Now I’m not saying this is wrong for the film, far from it. It may be that editing in longer race sequences would have harmed the drama and the flow of the film and Howard has probably made a shrewd decision here... but just go onto this one forewarned not to expect too much of the “vroom, vroom” in this movie. I read recently that the original draft of the script had been written without being commissioned and, because the writer assumed that anybody picking it up would not have much budget at their disposal, deliberately excluded any racing scenes throughout the whole of that first draft. Of course, when you get someone like Ron Howard on board, you’re going to get a hefty budget, I should think. It might have been that the insertion of racing scenes was a bit of a tightrope walk for balance with the dramatic writing so I’m guessing not a whole heap was done to change that in later drafts... relatively speaking.

And anyone who thinks Howard is going to take a big huggy feely approach to all the aspects of the story can think again. The scenes where the burnt beyond recognition Niki Lauda, barely surviving the human inferno he became for over sixty seconds, is having his lungs repeatedly vacuumed out in intensive care, really gives you a sense of the downside of the risk involved in this kind of “profession” and, also, the quite nasty way in which James Hunt beats up a reporter for his verbal attack on the post-crash Lauda after a press conference is also quite brutal in its intensity. Howard of course, being that he’s Howard, still manages to make these sequences also look really nice but... not to the point where they are too glossed over.

I was really taken with Rush and, by the end of it, felt that the two main protagonists were both honourable and likeable people who had both been dealt slightly unfortunate blows by life. I was educated a little by the dramatised “on screen history lesson” of the film but, more than that, entertained and enthralled by a picture about a subject I’m not much interested in... aka, all and any sports (except for maybe Rollerball, that’s a cool sport). If you’re into motor racing you’ll probably really like this movie and, if like me it’s not your thing, well... I reckon this movie is still worth some of your time. Sail on past that chequered flag as a fan of movies rather than anything else and I reckon this film will end up qualifying for you for sure. One to watch.