The Avengers: Endgame

The Infinity Stones have wreaked tremendous devastation across the universe, leaving the survivors reeling. The remaining Avengers and their allies from across the cosmos gather together on Earth for one last, possible plan to stop what has happened, at the risk of losing everything that survived.

Fifteen years ago, we experienced a genuine cinematic Moment when Peter Jackson delivered the thunderous conclusion to his Lord of the Rings movie trilogy. He wrapped up an emotional, impactful and epic story in a manner that was (mostly) successful and resulted in huge numbers of people visiting the cinema multiple times to see the conclusion to an entire multi-movie arc. I doubted we would see anything like it again, but a decade and a half later we are here with Endgame, a movie that tries something even more stupendous: paying off not just three but twenty-two movies that have been building things up and leading to this moment. The hype is crazy and if anything greater than that for The Return of the King (where you could go and read the story summary online from the book any time you wanted).

Endgame, surprisingly, delivers a nuanced and tight finale to the story that began in last year's Infinity War. Infinity War was epic and impressive, a stunning sequence of epic battles and quieter character moments that came together in several confrontations with Thanos, which Thanos won (although not without cost). Endgame picks up on the aftermath of that event with the surviving heroes regrouping, but they are caught up in grief and loss. Returning heroes Scott Lang and Hawkeye rejoin the team, whilst Rocket, Nebula and Captain Marvel join the Avengers to help resolve the crisis, but their early efforts have mixed results.

Endgame's generous three-hour running time allows directors the Russo Brothers (who can now write their own meal ticket and direct whatever film they want, ever) and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely to have their cake and eat it, with huge, thunderous battle sequences and lots of quieter character beats. In fact, much of the first third of the film is taken up by people processing the events of the end of Infinity War, and how you move on when half of the people you've ever met are gone. The rest of the film is taken up by our heroes embarking on A Plan to save everyone, which near-instantly goes horrendously wrong and results in lots of the action, comedy and dramatic beats that you've come to expect from a Marvel movie, but more surprising is the amount of emotion on display. Character after character has to face up to their growth and what they've gone through to reach this point, and how they handle key moments that lead to victory, or in a few cases, their death.

Events culminate in a finale that is jaw-dropping in its scale and features some of the best, punch-the-air moments you've ever seen in a superhero movie, as well as moments of real reversals and pain. The directors walk a tightrope between being self-indulgent (the film may rival Return of the King for the number of endings it has, although I think it sells it much better) and too dark, and manages to chart a difficult course through that. It even manages to use Captain Marvel well, acknowledging her sheer power and her use as an asset against Thanos but not allowing her to dominate proceedings to the detriment of the characters we've spent eleven years with.

There's a lot of movie here and it's almost entirely brilliantly-handled. What's more surprising is the sheer degree of payoff we get in this film, and how many near-obscure characters from older movies suddenly and unexpectedly show up and play vital roles (bar one case where rather obviously the actor involved didn't want to return and they had to film around it using older footage, although it kind of works). Fans of the Marvel TV shows will also get one genuine moment of delight in a scene which seemingly officially canonises at least one of the Marvel TV shows as taking place in the Marvel cinematic universe after all. There's also the film's possibly most epic shot which was foreshadowed by a single moment (not even a scene) in an earlier movie from years ago which you could have missed by just looking at your phone for a second. Another major plot revelation hinges on a line of dialogue from another, even earlier movie which makes you suspect the Russo Brothers and Kevin Feige are genuine, outright geniuses.

Problems are mostly non-existent. This is a movie which, as I think everyone has guessed, does lean into a bit of time travel and as a result viewers can have exciting conversations over whether the story completely makes sense as a result (which Ant-Man and War Machine themselves get into a knot over at one point, trying to work out if the plot of the Back to the Future trilogy makes sense whilst Banner gets frustrated at them talking about movies rather than the science). Beyond that, for the first time, a Marvel movie hits every single beat it means to, with a fantastic villain, excellent characterisation and some titanic character payoffs, some you've been waiting a decade for. The only other criticism that could be made is that the film doesn't even remotely stand alone, at all, but then that's kind of the point of it. This is an ending to a very long chapter, and I can't even work out what happens next.

The Avengers: Endgame (*****) is long, but feels short when you watch it. Every character gets their moment in the sun, and the creators somehow make 21 previous movies worth of foreshadowing and backstory pay off in a real, meaningful way through a story that is by turns tragic, epic, moving, funny and action-packed.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Summing Up

Having rewatched all of the Marvel films in the past couple of months in preparation for Endgame, I thought it'd be useful to list the reviews and do some summing up here.

Broadly speaking, I enjoyed revisiting the series. I've never been a massive superhero comics fan, appreciating those films and comics that were really good but certainly not religiously following the medium. My favourite comics and related movies have generally been those that poked fun at or deconstructed the genre, or dealt in areas other than superheroes: Sandman, Watchmen, Scott Pilgrim, Mystery Men and so on.

That said, there was certainly a change around the turn of the millennium when the quality of comic book movies did improve significantly: X-Men 1 and 2, Spider-Man 1 and 2, Batman Begins, Hellboy and a few others.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe follows in this train and has, remarkably, produced no less than twenty-one movies in eleven years that have, between them, never turned out a film that I would consider to be a complete failure, at least nothing to rival the jaw-dropping ineptitude of, say, Man of Steel or X-Men: The Last Stand. The weakest films in the series, the likes of The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World, still have strongly-directed action scenes, good character beats and some amusing dialogue.

The reverse of this is also true: the MCU has also, to my mind, not yet produced a stand-out, solid-gold, five-star classic. It's come close a few times, but never quite stuck the landing. Perhaps Endgame will be the first film in the series to achieve that.

What was fun, rewatching the series, was seeing how diverse the films can be in terms of tone, veering from the extreme comedy of Ant-Man, its sequel and Thor: Ragnarok to the Shakespearean grandeur of the original Thor to the technicolor space panorama of the Guardians of the Galaxy series, to the more grounded, gritty vibe of The Winter Soldier. In terms of structure, the MCU definitely has a set template which can get occasionally wearying, but in terms of tone and vibe, the films definitely switch things around a lot, which is useful in maintaining interest over such a long period of time.

What was interesting is seeing how this film series has managed to build up continuity links between the films like no other in history. You certainly don't need to have watched all of the films in order to enjoy any of the others (excepting possibly Infinity War and Endgame), but if you do there's a whole range of small subplots and characters beats that keep coming up which is fun to revisit, from minor stuff like Tony's relationship status with Pepper and Happy Hogan's slow career progression to larger elements, like Thanos's rumblings in the deep background and Loki's journey of (at least somewhat) self-realisation. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a film series which has tapped into the box set, bingeing culture of Netflix, rewarding careful, close viewings of the films in order.

This kind of close rewatching also identifies some key weaknesses in the series. There's a tremendous vagueness to how tough characters are or how much in danger they are in battle scenes. Thor, as far as I can tell, is almost outright indestructible, as is Hulk (at least in Hulk mode). The power levels of the other characters seems more vague, particularly characters like Black Widow who have no supernatural or technological powers at all but can hold their own against enemies who otherwise are real threats to the real hyper-powered characters. This is of course a familiar issue from the comics, where the toughness of the characters will often vary on the needs of the plot.

Another weakness is arguably the most famous one: a serious case of weak villains. The reason the MCU has gone in for Loki and Thanos in such a big way is that their strongest villains are otherwise in the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man franchises, the film rights to which until recently were owned by other studios. For the most part the villains in the MCU are forgettable and disposable, with a few honourable exceptions such as Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger (from Black Panther) and Hugo Weaving's Red Skull (from Captain America: The First Avenger). The good news is that the other franchises are now under the Disney banner, so we may see better villains (such as Doctor Doom, Doc Octopus or Galactus) showing up in future films, and indeed we've already seen the first sign of that with Michael Keaton turning in a splendid performance as Vulture (in Spider-Man: Homecoming).

I'll need to see Endgame (tomorrow) and perhaps Spider-Man: Far From Home to get a better sense of where the MCU is going in the future, but for now I'll say that this ridiculously huge list of movies is thoroughly entertaining, although rarely really surprising, and fascinating in its scale and scope.


The Great Marvel Rewatch (in order of release):

1. Iron Man (2008)
2. The Incredible Hulk (2008)
3. Iron Man 2 (2010)
4. Thor (2011)
5. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)
6. The Avengers (2012)
7. Iron Man 3 (2013)
8. Thor: The Dark World (2013)
9. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
10. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
11. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
12. Ant-Man (2015)
13. Captain America: Civil War (2016)
14. Doctor Strange (2016)
15. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (2017)
16. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
17. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
18. Black Panther (2018)
19. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
20. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)
21. Captain Marvel (2019)
22. Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe Gratuitous List (so far):

1. Avengers: Endgame
2. Captain America: The Winter Soldier
3. Guardians of the Galaxy
4. The Avengers
5. Captain America: Civil War
6. Black Panther
7. Avengers: Infinity War
8. Spider-Man: Homecoming
9. Captain Marvel
10. Captain America: The First Avenger
11. Ant-Man and the Wasp
12. Thor: Ragnarok
13. Iron Man
14. Doctor Strange
15. Ant-Man
16. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2
17. Iron Man 3
18. Thor
19. Avengers: Age of Ultron
20. Thor: The Dark World
21. Iron Man 2
22. The Incredible Hulk

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Scott Lang is under house arrest for violating the Sokovia Accords and helping Captain America out in his struggle with Iron Man (in Captain America: Civil War). With only three days left before freedom, the last thing Scott needs is to be roped back into the machinations of Hank Pym. Which of course is exactly what happens. Hank and his daughter Hope are on the verge of locating Hope's mother Janet, lost thirty years ago in the Quantum Realm, but they need Scott's help to complete the mission.

The original Ant-Man was a solid movie let down by an underwhelming villain (a perennial Marvel problem) and the fact that it had too many hands involved in its creation, resulting in the story losing focus. Long-term Marvel fans were also not keen on the relatively minor character of Ant-Man being elevated above the more traditional Avengers member of the Wasp in story importance. The sequel sets out to rectify these problems and (mostly) succeeds, resulting in a stronger, more assured picture.

The film is less dependent on Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, although he continues to provide an excellent performance balancing comedy and pathos. Evangeline Lilly has a lot more to do as Hope van Dyne, now officially the Wasp with her own costume and plenty of stunts and fight scenes. Michael Douglas also seems to be having a great time as the irascible Hank Pym, with more of an irritated comedic aspect visible in his dealings with Lang, but also genuine emotion as he struggles to find his missing wife (a brief but effective appearance by Michelle Pfeiffer, complete with some de-ageing CGI to scenes set in the 1980s).

The incongruous "evil mad villain who kills people" aspect of Ant-Man is something that we desperately didn't need to revisit, so pleasingly the antagonists of the sequel are either more comedic bumblers or, in the case of Ghost (Killjoys' Hannah John-Kamen), a more multi-faceted and complex antagonist whose motivations are pretty easy to relate to but difficult to fully reason with. It's also good to see Laurence Fishburne show up in the MCU. The movie also features a real Marvel Comics deep dive by bringing in FBI Agent Jimmy Wood (a light-hearted performance by Randall Park), who appeared in comics in the 1950s before the modern Marvel as we know it was even founded.

As the movie that followed up the extremely intense Infinity War in the MCU timeline, Ant-Man and the Wasp is mostly here to have a good time, so the darker elements of its forebears are dropped. The result is, perhaps moreso even than Thor: Ragnarok (which did have some real darkness to balance the technicolor laughs), the film that comes closest in the series to being an outright comedy movie. This works quite well, with excellent sight gags and more ways to wring humour out of making things very big or very small than you'd think is remotely possible.

Ant-Man and the Wasp (****) is a fun, not-taking-itself too seriously film which reunites the cast of the original film, gives them more to do and doe some light setting-up for future movies without ever getting too bloated. It's not the weightiest or most memorable film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it does improve on its forebear to become a more interesting film.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: The Avengers - Infinity War

The Titan Thanos has begun his plan to unite the Infinity Stones and wipe out half of the life the universe. His plan involves seizing the Stones from remote planets, the Collector of Knowhere and from Xandar, and the several Stones that have come to rest on Earth. In deep space the Guardians of the Galaxy join forces with Thor to defeat Thanos, whilst on Earth the fractured Avengers have to overcome their differences and unite again to fight against his armies.

It's entirely possible that no movie in history has had a build-up like Infinity War. Almost every one of the eighteen preceding movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been laying pipe and groundwork for this film, from introducing the Infinity Stones one-by-one to brief appearances by Thanos to the introduction of both the extravagant space opera and mystical sides of the universe through Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange. Marvel and Disney have shown tremendous restraint and forbearance in not pulling the triggers on those stories too early and making sure they have their ducks lined up in just the right row before finally committing.

Infinity War is an insanely massive movie. Starting as it means to go on - with a massacre which leaves several established characters dead and one MIA (which weirdly goes unmentioned for the whole movie) - the film barely lets up. Characters big and small going right back to the start of the MCU ten years earlier (including some you thought you'd never see again) show up, some with large roles to play, some for an extended cameo. Despite the weight of the massive cast, directors Anthony and Joe Russo and writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely somehow create a very coherent film with four distinct acts and the kind of tension filled, multi-pronged final battle on two separate fronts that we haven't seen since Return of the Jedi.

It also helps that although the movie is filled to the brim with heroes and big personalities, the film keeps its focus firmly on a central quintet. Thanos himself dominates proceedings, Josh Brolin (somehow) investing this big purple dude with some real pathos in scenes where we learn more about his backstory, his family and his homeworld. Gamora (Zoe Saldana) also has a major role to play, her family issues with both Thanos and Nebula proving a key emotional motivation for the film. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) also has a lot of screentime, clearly having feeling annoyed after the events of Thor: Ragnarok and determined to kick someone's backside. Scenes pairing him and Bradley Cooper's Rocket Raccoon (or "Rabbit" as Thor insists) are excellent, and then get better when they join forces with a giant space dwarf played by Peter Dinklage. Dinklage's screentime is limited but extraordinarily effective (he also gets arguably the best line of the movie, but it's a really tough choice). Rounding off the central focus is Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), two extremely different people who prove to be an effective team.

Lots of other characters get their moments in the sun (although Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner seems to be reduced to a harbinger of doom whilst he's dealing with, er, "performance" problems as Hulk), although the role of Captain America (Chris Evans) in the movie is surprisingly small. The directors know how to deliver a great superhero arrival scene just as all hope seems lost and also how to frame an action sequence. There's a lot of explosions, CG people being flung around and strange creatures and it all flows mostly well, with only a couple of moments where CG fatigue threatens to set in. Infinity War is not a movie any sane person can call restrained, but it's a movie that knows when and where to deploy its monstrous resources (adjusted for inflation, Infinity War is the most expensive movie ever made) to maximum effect.

It's also a surprisingly emotional movie. The weakness of films - and the reason we've seen television explode in comparison recently - is that it's very hard to introduce characters, establish motivation, emotionally invest the audience and then deliver a payoff whilst telling a good story in under two hours. Infinity War is instead able to draw on almost forty hours of previous character development in the MCU, so even when a fairly minor character bites the dust it hurts a little. When more major characters bite it, things get real (and it appears that at least some of these characters aren't coming back).

When the movie runs aground is in its ending, which is impossible to talk about without major spoilers. Suffice to say that the Chekhov's Gun maxim is employed by full force in the film and when you walk out of the cinema - especially if you know the significance of the post-credit sequence and what movie will immediately precede Endgame next year - you'll probably be able to immediately pen a fairly close outline of what happens. I mean, if they completely wrong-foot us, fair enough, but some of the choices made in the ending are completely nonsensical if you have any knowledge of what's coming and what's not coming down the Marvel production pipe later on.

Another major weakness is that the film undersells its new team of villains, the Black Order (servants of Thanos). Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Ebony Maw and Carrie Coon as Proxima Midnight are particularly excellent, but both get limited screen time (especially Carrie Coon, one of the best actresses on TV, who is almost unrecognisable).

Finally, Marvel has gone to some lengths to say that Infinity War is a stand-alone movie and Endgame is a movie in its own right and not just the second half of one bigger story. That's quite frankly untrue, and a lot of the more dramatic and emotional moments from Infinity War will live or die depending on what happens in the sequel.

If you can step out of all the meta-knowledge, The Avengers: Infinity War (****½) is a very effective action movie with lots of solid action scenes, some real dramatic moments of power and a refreshingly ruthless attitude to its cast of massive stars. It lacks the pacing, focus and character interplay of, say, Guardians of the Galaxy or Black Panther (or even the first Avengers), but's in the upper tier of Marvel Cinematic Universe films and in balancing an unprecedentedly vast cast with solid storytelling, it's almost achieves the impossible.

Note: the original version of this review was published in 2018.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Black Panther

Aeons ago, a vast meteorite crashed into central Africa, leaving behind a mountain of vibranium, the hardest and most versatile metal on the planet. The nation of Wakanda has grown up around it, developing into the most technologically-advanced nation on Earth whilst keeping its capabilities secret to avoid drawing the eye of invaders. When a shipment of vibranium is stolen by noted arms dealer Ulysses Klaue, the newly-crowned King T'Challa - the Black Panther of Wakanda - sets out to capture Klaue and avenge a great crime he committed against the country years earlier.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is a smoothly-operating machine at this point, having hit a stride where it has consistently churned out well-produced movies for several years now without missing a beat. The strength of the MCU is both its over-arcing storyline extending across multiple movies (and set to culminate in this year's Avengers: Endgame) and also its growing willingness to let talented, slightly offbeat directors helm individual movies and bring a sense of individuality to them. This could be seen in the Russo Brothers' Winter Soldier (influenced by 1970s spy movies), James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy (influenced by 1970s space opera) and Taika Waititi's Thor: Ragnarok (influenced by glam rock and the 1980s Flash Gordon). And it certainly can be seen in Ryan Coogler's Black Panther.

This film hits all the checkboxes you expect of a Marvel movie: it's colourful, it's fun, it has a slightly knowing sense of humour and it has enough of a broad appeal to keep adults and kids entertained alike. However, it also provides what arguably no Marvel movie has since The Avengers (an honourable nod at Michael Keaton's Vulture aside): a palpable sense of menace in a villain who is extremely effective. For the first part of the movie that villain is Andy Serkis's Klaue, who is dynamic and convincingly wide-eyed insane. Later on, Michael B. Jordan's Killmonger rises to the fore and Jordan plays the character with a nonchalant confidence that boils over into simmering rage. It's a powerful performance. Jordan has been on a lot of people's radars ever since his memorable turn as the tragic Wallace in the first season of The Wire, but this film takes him to another level. Most impressively, Killmonger becomes a villain who is clearly in the wrong, but whose motives are clearly understandable and who has human moments of weakness and doubt that make him a more interesting enemy.

In terms of performances, the film overflows with great ones. Lupita Nyong'yo and The Walking Dead's Danai Gurira are both outstanding as warriors defending Wakanda (one from behind the scenes and one with a massive spear), with Letitia Wright stealing every scene she's in as bonkers Wakandan inventor Shuri (think of Tony Stark, but young, female and less prone to tedious angst). Winston Duke has a small but highly memorable role as M'Baku, the leader of a tribe less than happy with T'Challa's ascension, and he gets the lion's share of the film's best lines. Get Out's Daniel Kaluuya is also excellent, using his thoughtful thousand-yard stare to great effect as W'Kabi, one of T'Challa's friends and allies. Angela Bassett also has a strong, elder stateswoman presence as T'Challa's mother. Martin Freeman returns from earlier Marvel films and has a surprisingly important role to play, which he lives up to nicely (and gets an intense conversation with Serkis wherein the director restrains himself from any Hobbit references).

It would be wrong to call his performance disappointing, but Chadwick Boseman gets a little lost in the mix at times, surrounded by far more interesting characters with senses of humour, or righteous honour, or dread-inspiring menace. Boseman's T'Challa gets to be a stoic straight man to most of the rest of the cast, which is fine but does leave Black Panther feeling like one of the less-interesting things about a film called Black Panther. However, he does rally in the film's final act when he discovers the heinous mistake his father made which risks shaming the entire nation, and has to fight to regain his family honour. Forest Whitaker also has a great performance, but only shows up for about ten minutes, making me wonder if he has some contract with Disney where gets to appear for short bursts in each one of their franchises in return for a lot of bank (see also: Rogue One).

Structurally, the film is sound and keeps things ticking over with frequent changes of location and pace, and the subtle use of flashbacks throughout the film to establish character motivations. Some Marvel films trip over having too large a cast or not having enough story to fill their two hours, but Black Panther expertly juggles characters, drama, action, effects, comedic beats (of which there is a fair but, but mostly low-key which is a relief after Thor: Ragnarok) and thematic elements. The movie raises interesting questions about colonialism, imperialism and whether vengeance is better than forgiveness, but does in a restrained manner. Coogler knows this is Hollywood popcorn entertainment, not a treatise on the history of Africa and slavery, but that makes what he does do - subtly weaving these themes throughout the film without slamming the audience over the head with them - more impressive.

The film ends in a big flashy fight and the usual overreliance on CGI, although at least this time the geography of the fighting and the use of the effects is understandable. The final battle is also kept fairly breezy as these things go (learning from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2's interminably never-ending effects overload, perhaps) and there's some nice foreshadowing of the stakes in the final fight earlier in the movie. Also as usual, we get some mid-credit "secret" scenes. There's only two and both are fairly disposable, although the second at least nods at the wider MCU we know Wakanda is going to collide with in Infinity War.

Black Panther (****½) is one of the stronger entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It adheres to the Marvel formula, but it does so in a much more successful manner than most of the movies in the franchise, as well as a more serious one than some of the more recent films. It's a film that's unrelentingly entertaining, action-packed and layers its story of vengeance, family betrayal, politics and blood like an Afrofuturist take on Game of Thrones. It's fun and finds time between the explosions to say some interesting things.

Note: the original version of this review was published in 2018.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Thor - Ragnarok

Thor, God of Thunder, returns home to Asgard with a mighty artefact and discovers that things are...amiss. Soon he finds himself imprisoned on the remote planet Sakaar along with his redoubtable half-brother Loki, pitched into fighting in a gladiatorial arena for the amusement of millions. Back on Asgard, the realm (and its eight fellows) stand in mortal peril due to the return of Hela, Goddess of Death. Thor must find a way of escaping Sakaar, returning home and averting Ragnarok, the end of everything.

By 2017 the Marvel Cinematic Universe had become a smooth conveyor belt churning out superhero action blockbusters, now up to three a year, reliable as clockwork. If it's a tribute to the powers behind this multi-billion dollar mega-franchise that they've never produced a truly awful movie (even Iron Man 2 and Thor: The Dark World are watchable, if mediocre), it's also damning with faint praise to realise they've never produced a single stone-cold for-the-ages classic either. After seventeen movies up to this point you'd expect at least one of them to be a genuine stand-out, but nope (The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 come close but ultimately no cigar). There is a Disney-Marvel formula and whenever they've hired a director who seemed in danger of putting too much of their own spin on things or adopting a more experimental approach, that director has gotten with the programme or been fired (such as the fate of Edgar Wright on Ant-Man).

From that perspective, Marvel's decision to hire New Zealand director Taika Waititi for the third Thor movie seemed a bit crazy. Waititi is a free-wheeling comic genius, the director of movies such as Boy, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and, most hilariously, What We Do in the Shadows, a crowd-funded Spinal Tap with vampires. His approach to his films relies heavily on actor improvisation and experimenting with different ideas on set, ideas which seem antithetical to a $180 million CGI action fest where every scene is storyboarded to within an inch of its life a year before shooting starts. Indeed, when Phil Lord and Christopher Miller adopted the same approach to the Han Solo Star Wars prequel movie, they were fired. Watching Thor: Ragnarok, it's clear that Marvel stuck with Waititi for the simple reason that, as much as Waititi had made his mark on this film, Marvel had also made its mark on Waititi: this is very much a Standard Marvel Movie with the same basic structure and story beats that we've seen sixteen times before, just with a couple more genital jokes than usual that get thrown into the mix.

Structurally, the film is a bit of a mess. Typically, a film's opening will establish the premise and backstory of what's going on, either by itself or through entertaining plot action. Ragnarok's opening takes in a planet that looks like Hell with scenes set in Norway, New York and on Asgard and a completely pointless Doctor Strange cameo before the story really even kicks in. Once it does, we follow two plot strands, one with Team Thor on the planet Sakaar trying to escape from the Grandmaster, and another on Asgard as it comes under attack from Hela and the established B-cast from the previous movie (led by Idris Elba's Heimdall) try to hold her off until Thor gets his act together. This would be fine, except that the Sakaar interlude goes on way too long, leaving the resolution on Asgard to take place with almost indecent haste.

There are, however, some strong benefits to this approach, most notably that the ending is fast-paced, punchy and wrapped up with a minimum of fuss, which is a bit of a relief from way too many recent big movies with huge, CG-drenched endings that go on forever (hi, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2). The downside is that the Sakaar sequence is a bit interminable. Jeff Goldblum's Grandmaster is funny, but he's never really a serious threat, and the apparently "serious" character stuff as Hulk undergoes some much-needed character evolution (if you're wondering why and how he can talk rather than just being an irrational force of destruction, that gets explained) could have been wrapped up much more quickly than is the case. As usual Tom Hiddleston steals the show as Loki and Tessa Thompson makes for a compelling new protagonist as the hard-drinking Valkyrie who, refreshingly, doesn't end up as anyone's love interest.

The scenes set on Asgard are briefer, but they do feature a surprisingly excellent subplot focusing on Karl Urban as Skurge. Skurge's character arc is relatively brief and straightforward, but Urban does outstanding work with very little material, confirming his position as the single greatest supporting actor on Planet Earth at this time (get this man back as Judge Dredd, stat!). Of course, it goes without saying that Cate Blanchett relishes her performance as the evil Hela, chewing scenery and unleashing villainous dialogue with absolute conviction.

The film has developed a reputation as a comedy, even the first outright comedy in the Marvel Cinematic Universe which is a bit of an exaggeration. There's a lot of funny lines and some characters like Korg (a CG rock monster voiced by Waititi himself) are pure comic relief, but there's also quite a lot of death and destruction (the film is called Ragnarok, after all) and a few grim moments. The comedy stuff is fine and there's a few belly laughs here and there, but the trailers definitely give away almost all of the funniest moments which is a bit of a disappointment.

One of the biggest successes in the movie is how Waititi handles effects. He's never handled a CG extravaganza on this scale before and his grasp of visual imagery is striking. Some of the scenes, particularly a flashback to a charge of horse-mounted Valkyrie warriors, are beautifully composed. There's a hell of a lot of moments in the film which would make for great paintings or desktop wallpapers.

Ultimately, Thor: Ragnarok (****) emerges as the best Thor movie to date and the funniest film in the MCU, but it's also dramatically challenged, coming perilously close on occasion to reducing Thor to pure comic relief. Although Thor has an comical side to him, it should never be allowed to overwhelm the grandiose, Shakespearean aspects of his character. Waititi does skirt that at times, but just about manages to hold it together so Thor emerges as the mighty hero he's always been teased as in the previous movies. Thor: Ragnarok is fun, funny, well-acted and has some breathtaking visual moments, but its pacing and structure feels a bit off: the film has a messy opening and saggy middle before it pulls things together for a strong, brisk finale that sets up The Avengers: Infinity War.

Note: the original version of this review was published in 2017.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Spider-Man - Homecoming

Peter Parker is a New York school kid who has been bitten by a radioactive spider, developed powers and been recruited by Tony Stark to help out the Avengers with an internal dispute. Promised big things by Stark, Parker is soon dumped back in Queens with a badass spider suit but not much clue about what to do. Investigating an ATM robbery gone wrong, Parker uncovers evidence of a criminal gang selling weapons on the black market. With Stark busy with other projects, it falls to Parker - and Spider-Man - to tackle this threat on the streets of the city.

On release, it was easy to be wary of Homecoming. Oh yay, a new Spider-Man movie. We'd had six Spider-Man movies in fifteen years - and sixteen Marvel movies in nine years - and this was the third Spider-Man reboot in that time, which felt a bit extreme. If there was ever a superhero movie which seemed utterly redundant before it even launched, it was this one.

Perhaps perversely, the film refuses to follow expectations and fall flat on its face. Instead, Spider-Man: Homecoming was, on release, comfortably the best Spider-Man movie ever made (a title which came into dispute more quickly than expected) and is one of the better Marvel movies. A mixture of the impressive quality of the films that came after it and the high quality of Into the Spider-Verse means that Homecoming has gotten lost a little in the mix, but on a review it reasserts itself as a very strong superhero movie.

Spider-Man: Homecoming is made with a surprisingly light touch, it blends genuine laughs with a superbly-executed plot twist and, in Tom Holland, it finally finds an actor who can play both Spider-Man and Peter Parker excellently: Tobey Maguire was a fine Peter Parker but a subdued Spider-Man, whilst Andrew Garfield was a great Spider-Man but a firmly unconvincing (and way too old) Parker. Holland straddles both worlds, giving us the wise-cracking Spider-Man that cinema has been looking for but also playing the awkward, shy, teenage Parker to the hilt.

The film also gives us - in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, for the first time since Tom Hiddleston's Loki - a genuinely outstanding villain. Michael Keaton plays Adrian Toomes as an ordinary hard worker who snaps for a pretty damn good reason: being driven out of business as the head of a clean-up crew picking up the debris of the Avengers' big fight scenes after Tony Stark muscles in (and thus getting paid to clean up the mess he himself is responsible for). Toomes becomes an arms dealer, selling alien equipment (or left-over bits of Ultron) for profit, but it takes quite a while for himself to cross the line into more overt, lethal villainy and become the Vulture, one of Spider-Man's more familiar enemies. Keaton also gets the best scene in the film, a conversation in a car in which he very gradually pieces together clues to uncover Spider-Man's true identity, and it's a masterclass of acting and writing.

Some reviewers have drawn comparisons between the movie and the work of John Hughes, which is a bit of an exaggeration: the move nods to high school/teenage issues but doesn't spend huge amounts of time in that milieu. Instead, Parker's struggles to impress Stark and the Avengers, and vindicate himself as a hero (at one point near-breaking down as he claims - somewhat histrionically - that he has nothing else going on in his life), take centre stage, with nods at his love life, which is more hypothetical than real. However, the high school scenes are quite funny and there's some nice inversion of tropes. An attempt by classmate Flash Thompson to embarrass and bully Parker falls flat because Parker simply doesn't give him the time of day, whilst Ned (a memorable debut performance by Jacob Batalon), Parker's best friend, is quite funny in his quest to be Parker's "chair man" who helps him out from behind the scenes.

The biggest weakness is the typical Marvel one: a slightly muddled concluding fight sequence that is overly reliant on CGI and also a lot of CG stunts and moves which feel out of keeping with the more grounded, realistic feeling the movie is going for elsewhere. This is particularly notable as the film avoids replicating the soaring but obviously fake CG NYC transition scenes from the Sam Raimi movies (highlighting that Parker isn't there yet in his skill set), but in the finale has no trouble suddenly throwing the character around a ludicrously fake CG situation that should have kill him five times over.

If you can overlook that brief dip in form, Spider-Man: Homecoming (****½) emerges as a terrific slice of entertaining, being funny, emotional and well-judged on just about every level.

Note: the original version of this review was published in 2017.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

Some months after their triumph over the renegade Kree warlord Ronan, the Guardians of the Galaxy have been hired by the Sovereign to defend their homeworld from a ravaging interdimensional monster. Unfortunately, Rocket manages to offend the Sovereign, leading to a sequence of improbable events culminating in Peter Quill finally meeting his father. Meanwhile, the Ravager faction led by Yondu has been outcast by their fellows for Yondu's dishonourable actions and he seeks to regain his honour in their eyes...which means tracking down and defeating the Guardians.

Guardians of the Galaxy is one of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's more laidback and fun movies. Free of the weighty continuity built up by the Earth-bound movies, it felt fresh and inventive. With a top soundtrack, some excellent humour and some great performances, it emerged as perhaps not the most dramatically satisfying Marvel movie, but certainly the most fun.

The second movie sees returning director James Gunn attempt a tricky balancing act of giving the audience more of the same - comedy, action, space battles, quips - and also doing something new that keeps the freshness of the first movie going. It can't quite stretch to do all of these things well and it stumbles a little more than its forebear, but it's still a brave attempt to do something more interesting than a by-the-numbers sequel.

The movie is certainly funnier. Baby Groot gets some great moments but it's Drax and new character Mantis, by themselves and as an unlikely double-act, who emerge with the best material. Yondu's Ravagers also get a bit more definition and the "tough"-sounding name of one of their number becomes a recurring gag throughout the movie. Chris Pratt employs his considerable comic talents better as well, such as his ongoing attempts to explain the dubious premises of mid-1980s action TV shows to his baffled compatriots.

More importantly, the film explores character better than the first movie. We find out why Peter doesn't just go home to Earth, more of what makes Gamora and Nebula tick, and more of what drives Yondu, who emerges as a more complex figure in this movie than the previous one. The film doesn't break new ground - the idea that the Guardians are a family and that's why they hang out even when they argue is hardly revelatory - but it does offer more food for thought about these people in the calm breaks between explosions.

The film does have a fair few explosions, and if the movie does have a weakness it is the protracted climax. The first movie had a long final battle, but that battle was divided into several strands with the goals, plans and motivations of everyone involved clear. The second movie's climax goes on too long, gets a little silly in places and risks being lost in concussive CGI overload. It's nowhere near as bad as, say, a Michael Bay Transformers film, but it does risk losing the audience's interest. Fortunately the climactic moment of the battle may also be the film's funniest moment, and the movie's actual ending is actually quite decent, if perhaps drawing a bit too deep on sentiment.

Remarkably, Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 does roll back a little on the scale from the first film. There's no Thanos, no Infinity Stones (although both rate mentions) and far fewer tie-ins with the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe than the original movie. Instead, Vol. 2 is more interested in setting up the rest of the Marvel Cosmic Universe. The first movie teased it, but the second film opens up on the wider SF stylings of the setting, with more character cameos from obscure 1970s Marvel Comics then you can shake a stick at. One revelatory moment will have old-skool Marvel fans grinning from ear to ear, especially if it leads into the spin-off movie Marvel reportedly are very interested in making, whilst the apparent revelation of the villain for Vol. 3 will have fans nodding in approval.

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2 (****) is a worthy successor to the original film. In trying to do more of the same and be different it perhaps bites off a little more than it can chew and the prolonged climax is messier and less interesting than the first movie's, but it wins those points back with more interesting character work, better laughs, yet more quotable dialogue, some great performances and another solid soundtrack (and the well-judged decision to do something different with setting up Vol. 3's). Oh, and it has maybe the most amusing credits Marvel has ever done (I mean the actual credits, not the mandatory during and post-credits sequences, which this movie goes overboard on).

Note: I originally reviewed this film in 2017.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Doctor Strange

Stephen Strange is one of the best neurosurgeons in the world, until a car accident sees his hands crushed. Strange tries everything to heal his injury and eventually, broke and desperate, he travels to Kathmandu. In a sanctum called Kamar-Taj he meets the Ancient One, a sorcerer who defends Earth from mystical and spiritual threats. Extremely reluctantly, she agrees to take on Strange as a student. He proves a quick servant, but his hunger for knowledge raises awkward memories of a previous student, Kaecilius, who turned to evil. When Kaecilius mounts a surprise attack, it is left to the inexperienced Strange to face him.

Doctor Strange is the fourteenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and has one of the less-enviable tasks in the canon: it has to introduce the entire mystical, spiritual and magical side of the Marvel Comics universe to the movies, which have so far explained everything through hyper-advanced science. But by this point the MCU is absolutely over-brimming with confidence and Doctor Strange struts onto screen with almost as much swagger as the title character when he is introduced performing brain surgery to 1970s pop music (because that's just how rad he is).

In fact, Doctor Strange is a near-pitch-perfect popcorn movie. It knows it's not an Avengers, Civil War or even a Guardians of the Galaxy which is going to drag in massive crowds through bombast and slick team banter, and, like last year's similarly fun and chilled Ant-Man, it sets out to have a good time (although not quite as disposably, as this film has a lot more impact on the wider MCU). It establishes Strange - played with the requisite charisma and arrogance by Benedict Cumberbatch - as brilliant but consumed by hubris. It has fun casting him down to his lowest ebb, getting him to Nepal and into a series of training montages with Tilda Swinton and Chiwetel Ejiofor before he is ready to go fight villain Mads Mikkelsen in a mind-bending series of fights in alternate realities that out-Inception Inception about twenty times over.

For a movie dealing in the strange and mystical, the plot is surprisingly light and straightforward, the fight sequences are well-staged and the presentation of magic as a tangible force of nature is both different and well-done (and is actually slightly reminiscent of how it was handled in the WarCraft movie). At under two hours the film doesn't outstay its welcome and it handles its cliches with charm. The effects are also splendid: the Inception-aping scenes of New York folding in on itself are amazing, but there's also a brilliant homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey and the film's crown jewel, a fight sequence in a street where time is flowing backwards, with people un-dying and things un-exploding all around the characters. It's a brilliant, clever and original visual effect.

The film also holds back the best for the ending. If the Marvel movies have had a key weakness, it's been that they always get resolved in a morass of punching, explosions and CGI of varying quality. That's fine, but after thirteen previous movies that was starting to get a bit old. Doctor Strange wrong-foots the audience by presenting them with all the set-up for one hell of a massive battle, but then throws things for a loop and resolves the story in a completely different way. I wanted to stand up and applaud Marvel for finally having the courage to end one of their movies in a clever and cunning way that avoids lunatic ultraviolence and massive civilian casualties.

There are some drawbacks. There's perhaps a bit too much of Inception in the CG sequences, which start to get a little wearying towards the end of the film, and Mads Mikkelsen's villain is never really developed in an interesting manner (the perennial weakness of most of the Marvel movies to date), although Mikkelsen himself gives a typically charismatic performance.

But overall Doctor Strange (****) is a very solid slice of confident, popcorn entertainment, but which also has the confidence to try and do things a bit differently to the Marvel norm, and sets things up well for later movies in the series.

Note: this review originally appeared in 2016.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Captain America - Civil War

In the aftermath of the fall of SHIELD and the battle against Ultron, which destroyed a large chunk of the nation of Sokovia, trust in superheroes is at an all-time low. The final straw is a battle against Hydra agents in Lagos, in which Scarlet Witch accidentally destroys an office building (whilst trying to prevent a much larger bloodbath). The United Nations sign the Sokovia Accords, placing superheroes under severe restrictions in how they can be deployed and when. Iron Man and Captain America find themselves on different sides of the resulting argument. When Steve Rogers' old comrade (and former brainwashed Hydra agent) Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, is implicated in a fresh atrocity, the Avengers find themselves split and at war among themselves.

Civil War is marketed as a Captain America movie, following on from The First Avenger and The Winter Soldier, but in reality it's more like The Avengers 2.5, picking up on important plot threads from Age of Ultron and setting the scene for Infinity War. As such it's one of the more continuity-heavy movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and one of the (surprising) few where an intimate knowledge of the previous movies in the MCU is a definite asset.

Civil War is very much two movies. On the one hand, it's an all-action, effects-heavy extravaganza with lots of explosions, fights and chases. On the other, it's a surprisingly effective study of the law versus free will, of security versus liberty and of responsibility and consequence. That the same team made The Winter Soldier, possibly the best MCU movie for likewise tackling slightly more serious material than some of the other films, is unsurprising and it's good to see a lot of plot points from that movie picked up and advanced. In particular, the Winter Soldier storyline is arguably more central to Civil War than it was to The Winter Soldier itself.

It was around this point in time that the MCU transformed itself into a well-oiled, purring machine, pumping out reliably entertaining blockbusters three times a year. The Russo Brothers walk a tightrope with this movie, combining crowd-pleasing superhero antics with the opportunity to study the ideas of liberty and responsibility. The problem is that they can't quite explore this theme in as much depth as they want, due to the movie having a lot of other business it needs to get done. This includes introducing both Spider-Man and Black Panther ahead of their respective first solo movies, bringing Ant-Man into the fold of the other characters and resolving the long-standing mystery of the fate of Tony Stark's parents.

Still, if the film can't fully engage with the theme, it at least pays it more than bare lip service, with the disagreement between the two sides being so fundamental that it can't be overcome with a nice chat. In one of the MCU's finest twists, Tony and Steve do eventually come to an understanding, only for a fresh revelation to drop a hand grenade on the situation. In this sense the film doesn't pull its punches, which would have been an easy cop out.

The actors are all on fine form, with Tom Holland particularly impressing as the latest incarnation of Peter Parker, and we even get a good antagonist! Daniel Bruhl is a phenomenally talented actor, and it helps that his character is perhaps less of a standard villain than a catalyst for the already-existing tensions in the Avengers to explode.

Captain America: Civil War (****) is a little bit too overstuffed to be the finest movie in the MCU, but it is up there as one of the stronger entries in the franchise. It's an effective ensemble piece with a twisting, unpredictable storyline, some great set pieces and a surprisingly downbeat ending.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Ant-Man

Scott Lang is a petty burglar who prides himself on his skills at infiltration and stealing. Hank Pym is a genius scientist who has spent decades perfecting the technology needed to miniaturise living beings. When Pym's former business associate unlocks the secrets of Pym's researching in an attempt to create devastating weapons, he calls in Lang to take up the mantle of the Ant-Man.

Ant-Man has a very interesting history. Back when British director Edgar Wright started making a name in Hollywood, after the success of Shaun of the Dead in 2004, he was tapped by Marvel to work for them on one of their properties. He chose the relatively obscure character of Ant-Man to build a movie around, perhaps figuring that his somewhat unorthodox filming style would get more leeway with a minor Marvel character than a big-hitter like the Hulk or Thor. When the Marvel Cinematic Universe took off, Wright's plan was put into motion and he and fellow Brit Joe Cornish were brought in to write the script, with Wright (whose cachet had increased in the meantime with Hot Fuzz and the multi-Marvel-actor-starring Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) to direct.

For whatever reason, Marvel got cold feet at the last minute and decided to switch the film to a safer pair of hands, the up-and-comer Peyton Reed (why they didn't suggest Cornish, who'd become a hit director in the meantime himself with Attack the Block, remains unclear). It was a controversial decision and one that remains so, as the decision was made so late that Reed actually ended up still using Wright and Cornish's script. The result is a movie that has many of the hallmarks of an Edgar Wright movie, such as fast-moving action, kinetic dialogue and a fusion of humour and emotion, but lacks Wright's fantastic skills in editing and camera movement.

Which isn't to say that Ant-Man is a bad movie at all. It's very solid, with a charming lead performance by the ever-reliable (and near-ageless) Paul Rudd as Scott Lang and effective support from Michael Douglas as Hank Pym, playing two different incarnations of Ant-Man. Evangeline Lilly also gives a great supporting performance as Hope van Dyne, Hank's semi-estranged daughter, although long-term Marvel fans may bristle at her more prominent Marvel character (aka the Wasp), one of the Avengers, being side-lined in favour of Ant-Man. Michael Pena also provides able comic back-up. The film moves really quickly and it eschews the Marvel tendency for insane scale by dialling things down to a more relatable level (the film's climactic battle takes place on a Thomas the Tank Engine toy railway track).

The problems stem from the meta-knowledge that Wright would have probably made a crazier and more interesting film, and the actual film issue that it's villain is really poor. Corey Stoll is a very solid actor, but he is much better as the tortured protagonist or supporting good guy. As a villain he doesn't work at all, and his character has absolutely no layers. He starts off as a petty, evil, money-grabbing imbecile and remains that way through the film. There's no sense of the good guy he was once was when Pym made him his sidekick, and this hurts the film's arc.

The secondary and tertiary cast also suffers from not having much to do. There's some absolutely fantastic actors here, like Judy Greer (Archer) and Wood Harris (The Wire) and they have such little material to work with they might as well be extras. I mean, why hire Avon Barksdale, even casting him against type as a cop, and then have him just standing around making surprised faces for every scene he's in?

Ant-Man (***½) is a solid, fun, breezy flick. It's enjoyable and passes the time, but it's also a little forgettable. It's certainly not the worst film in the Marvel staple, but it does verge on being the most disposable. Ultimately it is worthwhile, for Rudd's charming lead performance, some good laughs, the relatively low scale of the action and the set-up work it does for Ant-Man's later appearances.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: The Avengers - Age of Ultron

The Avengers have brought down and destroyed the last HYDRA cells which survived the collapse of SHIELD. However, Tony Stark is concerned that the focus on HYDRA has made the Avengers - and the world - forget about the threat from alien forces that resulted in the Battle of New York. His new plan is to create a powerful AI and an automated army of soldiers capable of destroying any threat before it gets close to Earth. Things go wrong when Stark puts his plan into operation, and soon the Avengers have to take on a new threat...one of their own making.

Age of Ultron is the second Avengers movie and the eleventh film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, making it also (at this time of writing) the film that marks the halfway point of the MCU. On release the film was a huge commercial hit (but not as big as The Avengers) but garnered a mixed critical reception.

The reasons for this are clear. Age of Ultron is a tentpole Avengers movie with all the previously-established heroes (Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, the Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow, as well as War Machine and Falcon) back to kick butt again. This second film also introduces several new characters, most notably Vision, Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, as well as the titular Ultron. This kind of integration of old and new characters is something the MCU is quite good at these days, but way back when Age of Ultron was made (er, four years ago), it wasn't quite as sleek and efficient as it is now. The result is a movie with rocky pacing which sometimes loses focus on what story it's supposed to be telling.

We know now, thanks to director Joss Whedon's candour, that the movie had a lot of behind-the-scenes interference from the studio. In particular, the studio wanted more action and all but demanded that Whedon cut out character-based scenes (such as the sojourn at Hawkeye's farm), whilst they also insisted on shoehorning in more scenes teasing upcoming films rather than retaining focus on the movie at hand. Whedon was also unhappy with the introduction of the "new Avengers" at the end of the film, thinking they lacked bite, and wanted to add Captain Marvel and Spider-Man to the roster at the end of the film. The latter plan was shot down as Captain Marvel hadn't been cast (and her solo movie ended up being delayed by a couple more years) and the Marvel/Sony legal team-up hadn't yet been completed, meaning that Spider-Man was off the menu.

These issues become apparent in the finished film, where there's a lot going on but most of it feels inconsequential. Whedon is also less adept at juggling the large cast this time around, and in fact seemingly checks out of trying to service the cast: War Machine and Falcon get almost no material of consequence, and it feels like Maria Hill and Nick Fury show up only out of a contractual obligation to the actors. Vision is splendidly played by Paul Bettany (who'd already been playing the voice of JARVIS since the original Iron Man) but again it feels like there's barely any room for him, so his importance to the plot feels a bit murky beyond his tie-in with the Infinity Stones.

Also, the Underwhelming Marvel Villain problem strikes again. Ultron is given a great vocal performance by James Spader and has some good lines, but mostly he feels like a generic robot bad guy with a very forgettable look (somewhere between a knock-off Terminator and a lesser Michael Bay Transformer). Ultron's plan to destroy the world at the end of the movie also feels bizarrely random.

Still, there's a fair amount to praise. The actors all bring their A-game and it's fun to see them doing their thing. There's a nice feeling of continuity with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with the Avengers joining forces to spend a year non-stop wiping out HYDRA after the events of that movie. The new additions to the cast are mostly great and there's some good, fun action scenes and set pieces.

The biggest problem with The Avengers: Age of Ultron (***½) is how incidental the whole thing feels. This is supposed to be the Avengers, up against the biggest bad guys in the universe, not taking on yet another take on "evil AI" in a battle that never feels as high-stakes as it is supposed to be. The end result is a movie that's certainly watchable and at times fun, but also feels kind of unnecessary, especially given the much higher quality of the movies that came out around it (The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy just before and Ant-Man and Civil War just after).

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Guardians of the Galaxy

In 1988, young Peter Quill is abducted by aliens and carried off into deep space to be raised as a mercenary. Twenty-six years later, Quill steals a valuable orb coveted by both the renegade Kree warlord Ronan and Quill's own former boss (and abductor) Yondu. The orb rapidly draws the attention of many factions and Quill is reluctantly forced to ally with Gamora (a former ally of Ronan's), Rocket (a genetically-engineered raccoon-like creature), Groot (an ambulatory tree) and Drax (an overly literal, vengeance-fuelled warrior) in order to recover the orb and save the galaxy.

On release, Guardians of the Galaxy was arguably Marvel's biggest gamble in the establishment of its own cinematic universe. Whilst previous movies focused on fairly well-known characters or groups who were at least passingly familiar to a general audience, the Guardians source material was relatively obscure. Guardians was a testbed of how far into its decades of source material Marvel could really reach before losing its audience. Its immense success meant that Marvel could be more confident about going forwards and bringing in more obscure characters from the comics and the audience would stay with them. In that sense, Guardians of the Galaxy is the most important film in the series, paving the way for Doctor Strange, Black Panther and Captain Marvel (not to mention, even further down the line, The Eternals).

Guardians is a fun but flawed movie. It's comfortably superior to any of the Iron Man or Thor flicks, but the (relatively) grounded realism of Captain America: The Winter Soldier worked much better. Guardians's pacing also suffers a little as it struggles to provide backstory and motivation for multiple heroes and villains as well as a cohesive storyline. In fact, the storyline suffers somewhat from fairly risible "the team learning the art of friendship" scenes fitted in amongst discussions of magical maguffins and action beats of varying competence. But the movie overcomes this with zippy pacing and a bright and breezy atmosphere which lifts the whole film and makes it much more rewatchable. The production value is also excellent, especially the 1970s spaceship designs which feel like a melding of Marvel Comics of that era with SF illustrators like Chris Foss and Peter Elson.

What also holds the picture together and makes it work is the offbeat script and direction from James Gunn, the excellent 1980s soundtrack and a formidable cast. Chris Pratt brings the requisite levels of arrogance and overconfidence to Quill, whilst Zoe Saldana is excellent as Gamora. The real revelations come from former wrestler Dave Bautista as Drax (who channels a surprising degree of pathos into his performance) and Karen Gillan as Nebula, who leaves her Doctor Who role of Amy Pond far behind in a vicious and at terms unnerving role. Lee Pace as Ronan is less successful, his camp villainy feeling redundant. A bigger disappointment is that the movie deploys actors and comedians of the calibre of Peter Serafinowicz, John C. Reilly, Glenn Close, Djimon Hounsou and Benicio del Toro and does very little with them. It is good to see Michael Rooker building on his Walking Dead success with a more meaty role as Yondu. His smile of delight when he realises he has been betrayed, thus justifying vengeance later on, is one of the film's more enjoyable, quiet moments.

The film is witty, with some great one-liners and narrative zingers flying around, and the actors are certainly up to the challenge. However, the film does struggle with its CGI. After several movies - most notably The Winter Soldier - where Marvel seemed to be dialling back the use of sensory overload CGI (where stuff happens so fast and blurred that you don't know what's going on), it returns with a vengeance in Guardians of the Galaxy. Some dogfights and battle sequences are almost impossible to follow and intercut so rapidly it makes it hard to appreciate the strong production design. Rewatching does improve this issue, however.

Another area where the film succeeds is in how it is bringing together the different narrative strands established in earlier films. The backstory of the Tesseract (Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers) and the Aether (Thor: The Dark World) is explored and we find out more about Thanos, the big bad behind the events of The Avengers. The Collector also returns from Thor: The Dark World. There's a growing sense of a masterplan which will extend through several more movies to come. Gunn even trolls the fans with a post-credit sequence that is nowhere as revelatory and momentous as previous ones, instead going for laughs.

Guardians of the Galaxy (****½) is loud, brash and almost ridiculously goofy, but it's also fun, funny and gains some surprising dramatic weight from its inclusion of larger Marvel Universe elements such as the Infinity Stones (which here get their origins explained). Some good laughs, an excellent cast and some much-needed tying together of the wider Marvel universe storyline overcome some confusing CGI and so-so villains to deliver a solid, undemanding blockbuster.

Note: my original review of the movie from 2014 can be found here.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Captain America - The Winter Soldier

Two years have passed since the Battle for New York and the Avengers have scattered back to their own lives. The exception is Captain Steve Rogers, who remains working for the intelligence and security agency SHIELD. Rogers is uneasy with the murky world of espionage and counter-terrorism, preferring the old days of fighting Nazis and HYDRA agents. When a mysterious assassin known as the Winter Soldier tries to kill Fury and SHIELD itself looks like having been compromised, Captain America is forced to go on the run and unearth secrets stretching all the way back to WWII.

The Winter Soldier is the ninth movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the second to focus on the character of Captain America. It's also the first since The Avengers to focus on SHIELD, Nick Fury and the bigger plot of what's going on in the world now that the existence of aliens, superheroes and other threats is widely known.

It also takes a different tack to previous MCU films. A formula of sorts has appeared with these films, with a lot of set-up (usually accompanied by humourous dialogue) culminating in a big CGI slug-fest, usually with a couple of fan-pleasing cameos and movie cross-references. The Winter Soldier doesn't have much truck with this formula, instead creating an atmosphere of mistrust and paranoia throughout the opening of the film as Rogers realises he doesn't know who he can trust. Even the motivations of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) appear suspect. Much has been made of the film's nods to 1970s thrillers and its preference for real stunts over CGI, and these do add a lot of weight to the film. It's interesting that one of the most impressive action sequences involves a car chase featuring Nick Fury which relies on real effects and stunt-driving with only marginal use of CGI.

The film builds up an atmosphere of murky paranoia and, impressively, shows that whilst Captain America is uncomfortable in this world he is still capable of handling it. A sequence where he, without dialogue, gradually becomes aware of undercover enemies gathering around him is particularly well-handled and gives rise to one of the film's best action beats. The characterisation for Rogers is nicely-handled by the writers and played with charisma by Chris Evans, improving on his straightforward performances in the first Captain America and The Avengers. Scarlett Johansson and, in his biggest role in the MCU movies to date, Samuel L. Jackson also impress. There's also a strong turn from Robert Redford as one of the men in charge of SHIELD's existence. As a veteran of 1970s thrillers, Redford adds gravitas to proceedings.

The story is fairly engrossing, benefiting from being (relatively) based around themes of espionage, technology and surveillance. The "big threat" in the film is fairly straightforward, even mundane, and perfectly understandable (no glowing mystic cubes from beyond time here). There are a few plot twists and surprises that are either predictable or implausible, but for the most part the film stays relatively grounded. There's also a nice line in the bad guys not underestimating Captain America, bringing almost ludicrous amounts of firepower to every attempt to kill him and not believing for a second that he's dead until they see his body. The bad guys are - relatively - fairly smart and more sinister a threat because of that.

The film falters a little bit in several areas. First of all, the "Winter Soldier" storyline is, despite the name of the film, more of a subplot and more of a setup for follow-up movies (such as Civil War and Infinity War) than a strongly-defined storyline in this film itself. Several times it feels incongruous in terms of the narrative. There's also the fact that the movie's final act involves a massive aerial battle involving helicarriers, fighter jets, guys in winged suits (an ordinary soldier puts one on and turns into a superhero almost instantly) and huge explosions, where the CGI overload missing from the rest of the movie comes back with a vengeance. The directors hold it together reasonably well, but it does feel like, after a more twisting and interesting narrative, the ending is much more "standard Marvel" than it could have been.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (****½) is the least Marvel-like of the MCU films and is all the better for it, touching on real-life themes and trying to stay more grounded in (or at least in vague touch with) reality. It's also (arguably, still) the best of the Marvel films to date, and even played a key role in helping the Marvel TV show Agents of SHIELD develop into something more interesting in the last few episodes of its first season. In retrospect, this films marks a major turning point in the MCU as the Russo Brothers turned out to be the collaborators Kevin Feige needed to make his "Infinity Saga" really work, and lifted the quality of the entire series up a notch.

Note: The original version of this review was posted in 2014.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Thor - The Dark World

Aeons ago, the Asgardians defeated the Dark Elves and banished the source of their power, a malevolent energy known as the Aether. Five thousand years later, at the time of the Convergence, when the Nine Realms align, the Aether has found a way of escaping its exile and summoning the remaining Dark Elves to its service. Thor, Prince of Asgard, once again takes up his hammer to defend the cosmos.

The second film in the Thor trilogy (at least, trilogy so far) is also the weakest, lacking both the operatic grandeur of Kenneth Brannagh's first film and the crazy technicolour pomp of Taika Waititi's third movie. Fan consensus also seems to rate the sophomore entry in the God of Thunder's solo series as one of the poorest Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

The problems with the film are legion. It stars highly accomplished actors Christopher Eccleston and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as villains Malekith and Algrim, and promptly buries them under so many prosthetics that both their faces and voices are unrecognisable. They might as well have been pure CGI creations or played by extras. It doesn't help that the Dark Elves' motives are non-existent beyond "being bad for the sake of it" and their plan is somewhat vague. Many, if not most, of the Marvel films suffer from the "weak villains syndrome" (a by-product of the best Marvel villains being in th Spider-Man, Fantastic Four and X-Men series, which are, or were, owned by other studios), but this one arguably suffers from it the most.

The film also suffers from some of the usual post-Avengers issues of why at least SHIELD aren't involved in the crisis (the TV series Agents of SHIELD, which has a tie-in with this movie in its first season, raises this question further). Beyond that, there really isn't much for the regular Thor supporting cast (particularly Natalie Portman as Jane, Kat Dennings as Darcy and Stellan Skarsgard as Eric, but also the Warriors Three) to do.

All of that said, the film has some redeeming features. The cast who do have something to do are excellent as always, particularly Chris Hemsworth as a more-serious-than-normal Thor and Tom Hiddelston as Loki, even though this is probably his lowest-key performance. The effects are pretty good and the Lord of the Rings-esque vibe with the Dark Elves is effective. The climactic final battle taking place in London rather than New York or Los Angeles is a nice change of pace. As the joint-shortest MCU (just over an hour and a half in length), the movie doesn't outstay its welcome either. The pacing is also decent, with a nice shift of locales between Earth, Asgard and the titular Dark World, and Heimdall has a decent amount of material, including providing the epic sight of Idris Elba beating up a spaceship single-handedly.

So, the weakest Marvel film? Probably not. Thor: The Dark World (***½) is better than The Incredible Hulk and less weirdly introspective than Iron Man 2 or 3. With very limited tie-ins with the rest of the franchise (the post-credits tie-in with Guardians of the Galaxy and a final bit of set-up for Thor: Ragnarok aside), it may be the most disposable film in the series though, and the most skippable on a re-watch.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: Iron Man 3

Following the Battle of New York and his resulting near-death experience, Tony Stark is suffering from PTSD. He buries himself in his work to try to recover, but this merely cuts him off from his friends and those who can help. When a new enemy emerges, a terrorist mastermind known as the Mandarin, Stark reluctantly returns to duty.

Iron Man 3 is arguably the most divisive film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, some hailing it as the very best film in the franchise and others as one of the worst. It's certainly one of the more interesting films, taking as its starting point the idea that the idea of saving the world, fighting alien monsters and being aware that the universe is a much bigger and weirder place than most realise, is quite stressful. For Tony Stark, whose arrogance, womanising and boasting has already been established as hiding a less confident and more self-doubting character, it's clear that such revelations might push him and his established issues (including borderline obsessive-compulsive behaviour) to the breaking point.

Of course, whilst these elements add depth and character development, it's also the case that we've already followed Stark's journey of self-reflection through three previous movies and piling yet more stuff on him might make the film feel self-indulgent, and it has to be said it does, at times. A lengthy side-sojourn as Stark meets up with a young kid who helps him reconnect and overcome his newfound anxiety issues feels decidedly random (cute kids being a trope most modern superhero movies avoid, and its intrusion here makes us appreciate why), and the film puts most of the regular cast (and even the iconic armour) on ice for half the film as Stark goes on a road trip through Tennessee and Florida.

As usual, it's Robert Downey Jr.'s charismatic performance that keeps the interest going whenever the pacing dips. There is a much stronger-than-normal cast on the antagonist/guest star side of things, with great performances by Rebecca Hall, Guy Pearce and Sir Ben Kingsley, although they all suffer from the early MCU villain problem of not being given enough time for real character development. Peace in particular, a canny and subtle performer, is reduced to lunatic villainous ranting, which is disappointing. Hall has very little to do, apparently the result of a last-minute rewrite that saw her role reduced from the main antagonist because focus groups revealed her toy wouldn't sell!

The film also suffers a little from the traditional post-Avengers issue of there being a big threat going on, but for some reason only one of the team is involved. The film certainly doesn't address why Captain America and SHIELD completely sit out the crisis, when it feels very much in their area of interest.

Still, the film does remember it's as superhero action movie in time for some impressive set pieces at the end, including an impressive airplane rescue and a concluding dockyard battle. As spectacle, Iron Man 3 is reasonably successful and its decision to deep dive into Tony Stark's psyche is a laudable attempt at characterisation but one that feels a bit redundant at this stage. As such, Iron Man 3 (***½) is watchable, entertaining, but can't quite deliver on its ambitions to deliver a deeper-than-normal superhero experience, and has to settle for just being fun, if a little forgettable.

The Great Marvel Rewatch: The Avengers

A powerful device called the Tesseract has been studied by the American intelligence organisation SHIELD for the past few decades, who believe it can be used to unlock the secret of creating infinitely renewable energy sources. Loki, a powerful entity from the world of Asgard, steals the cube and plans to use it to open a dimensional portal to allow an alien race to invade the planet. SHIELD calls in its top agents (including Clint "Hawkeye" Barton and Natasha '"Black Widow" Romanoff) and most powerful allies to answer the threat. Leading the fight are the recently-revived Steve Rogers (Captain America), the billionaire industrialist Tony Stark (Iron Man) and the mild-mannered Bruce Banner (the Hulk). The Asgardians, aware of the extent of Loki's threat, also dispatch Thor to aid in his containment. The result is mayhem as the two sides clash in the streets of New York City, with the fate of the Earth (and potentially many other worlds) at stake.

The Avengers was the culmination of Marvel's first five-year cinematic masterplan. Scenes establishing SHIELD and the Avengers Initiative were seeded into its earlier movies - The Incredible Hulk, Captain America and Thor, as well as the two Iron Man movies - in preparation for this film, where all the different superheroes get together to fight a massive threat. Aware it would take one heck of a director to keep all the actors, egos and storylines from spiralling out of control, Marvel called in Joss Whedon. Whedon may not have been the most bankable choice - his previous movie, Serenity, barely broke even and he had several failed TV projects in succession by that point - but he was by far the most logical one. With critically-acclaimed runs on several Marvel comics and dialogue work on the original X-Men movie under his belt, not to mention form with handling large, disparate casts from his TV projects Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly and Dollhouse, Whedon proved a good choice.

With only two hours to play with and a dozen notable characters to do justice to, Whedon gets to the point straight away. The action-packed opening few minutes establish the premise (Tom Hiddleston returning as Loki and making even more of an impact than in Thor, though he does get a little lost in the mix later on) and we immediately get to the "getting the team together" sequence. Mark Ruffalo has the hardest task here, as he has to step into the well-worn shoes of the Hulk (replacing Edward Norton who in turn had replaced Eric Bana) and sell a difficult character to the audience. He immediately succeeds, bringing a combination of cynicism, brilliance and humanity to the role of Banner, which is the stand-out performance of the film. The rest of the team is assembled pretty quickly, apart from Thor who is unreachable (thanks to the events of his own film). Needless to say, he gets over that complication fairly quickly (and possibly way too easily) to join in with the mayhem. Unfortunately, he seems to have lost a little of the fun and wit that he displayed in his own movie, but given his personal stake in the action (Loki being his brother, well, adopted) that's unsurprising. Whedon employs his ability to get lots of different characters into a room and spark off one another to the full, with Robert Downey Jnr's Tony Stark running off with many of the best lines. Chris Evans's Captain America is a little passive in the early stages, but his clear-headedness and ability to take command of the situation eventually wins through and earns him the respect of the rest of the team.

More impressive is that Whedon doesn't neglect the large battery of secondary characters. In particular, he promotes Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow and Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye to equal billing as the "big four", giving them plenty to do. Johansson walks off with the best scene in the movie (a great confrontation between her and Loki which twists and turns through various tones and different head-games) and is much better-served than many of the female roles in the other Marvel movies (Gwyneth Paltrow has sod all to do, but does get some good lines in her brief appearance as Pepper). Samuel L. Jackson gets more to do as Nick Fury rather than just handing out mission briefings, whilst Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson also gets an amusing subplot where he turns out to be a Captain America fanboy.

However, what makes The Avengers really work is that it's a comic book movie which remembers that it's a comic book movie, featuring guys in ridiculous costumers unleashing ludicrous amounts of violence against CGI monsters, and having fun with that idea. There are genuine comic book moments of awesome throughout the picture, most notably the revelation of the SHIELD Helicarrier. It may be ridiculously impractical as a mode of transport (as rapidly proven in the film) but it's an impressive design. Most of the action sequences are excellent, and Whedon does his best to keep the CGI under control and investing us in the characters and their actions. This falters during the concluding action sequence in New York City, which occasionally teeters on the edge of a Michael Bay-shaped abyss of confusing explosions, but Whedon just about manages to stop it slipping into total anarchy. The characters get moments to show off their heroism and Whedon's typical humour grounds things nicely (a moment between Thor and Loki during the final battle getting the movie's biggest laugh).

The biggest casualty of the film is that the bad guys suffer a little. Their motives for invading Earth are never really explained and it's unclear how exactly Loki was able to win them over (though the post-credits sequence does give a clue). Using the Cosmic Cube/Tesseract as the movie's maguffin is a good idea (since it's been well-established in several previous pictures) although we still don't get any explanation of its origin or purpose...yet.

On almost every other level, Whedon pulled it off. The film has massive action set pieces but also moments of humour, characterisation and humanity. It does a good job handling the major heroes but it doesn't neglect the side-players. The effects are impressive but don't overwhelm the picture (though coming close on occasion). Most notably, he managed to combine these crazy characters and their different realities and tones into one story successfully.

The Avengers (****½) is, simply put, a ridiculously entertaining and fun movie.

Note: the original version of this review was posted in 2012.