(film review) - Captain Marvel

We are at a stage in our lives and in Marvel's franchise that an origin movie may now be out of place.  I mean our lord savour, Kevin Feige has mentioned no more origin movies, yet this one is a semi origin movie with a twist and ultimately, Marvel has stumbled with this one.  It's sad to say, but they have and although I will review the film, I won't go into all the details and spoil anything, but reasons as to why they stumbled but didn't fall.
Marvel have stumbled with many films.  Their way of doing something different and/or when they first started out, they were slowly piecing together what they wanted to do with the franchise.  The Incredible Hulk is good, Ironman 2 is good, Thor: The Dark World is good and Ironman 3 is Goodish (not one of my favourites at all), but Marvel have had greater and many more hits than misses and have made small ret-cons here and there.  One of the major ones of recent, by no fault of their own I guess, was with the Spider-Man: Homecoming movie, regarding the year.  But that came down to communication and "admin" error? However, this is something that has  been more forgiving by fans and helps with the integrating of such character into a grander story.  If the new and upcoming Avengers: Endgame grosses around 3 billion worldwide, we are looking at a 10 Billion Dollar Franchise.  10 Billion.  That's 9 zeroes.
But how does Captain Marvel's story fit into this? Well, any way Marvel can squeeze it in...for the women of the world!?

Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) is a Kree operative for Starforce who goes by the name of Vers.  She is a confident, upbeat, determined, yet hard-headed woman who get's the job done at any cost.  She has a good moral compass but is plagued by dreams and visions of what seems to be another life.  On a mission to eradicate the Kree's sworn enemies, The Skrulls, the mission goes wrong and from that point, Carol aka Vers spends the rest of the movie trying to figure out the mysteries of her dreams and visions, who she really is and what and whom she is ultimately fighting for.

It sounds great on paper, but I personally feel that this movie could have been executed in a better way.  This is where I feel they stumbled, and not fell.  I felt that it was not fully fleshed out and that some of the characters could have had more depth as well as maybe, the film being a psychological thriller, a bit like how 'The Winter Soldier' was a 70's political thriller.  With the themes in the movie, this film could have touched on that in a big way.  What is real and what isn't.  Who am I?  Total Recall did that.  And for the most part, that movie is a classic for many reasons.  But they would still need to cater to the young ladies of the world to aspire to be Captain Marvel.

I didn't hate the film as I quite enjoyed it.  Brie is not miscast at all and their are some great visuals and some really quiet moments that allow particular characters to shine.  Lashana Lynch is great as well as Samuel L. Jackson.  But as I said earlier, some character development with some other characters would have made the story a bit meatier.  There are some decent visual gags as well as the many mid-nighties references.  With many easter eggs and visual references of movies from that era, this movie hits it out of the park, but ultimately felt like a Phase 1 Movie in a Phase 3 world.  Doctor Strange is a origin movie, even Black Panther, yet these movies feel like they pack more of a punch, especially with Black Panther...and this woman has glowing fists!  I felt that it was shoehorned into the MCU because DC made a Wonder Woman movie which was very good.  And these two giants are in deep competition with each other, so there is always a company trying to out-do the other and this is possibly another reason why Marvel stumbles.

A lot of people are saying Carol is over powered and personally, although that is somewhat true, I feel we should have more powerful characters in the MCU, because this is how we will separate the many different tiers of these heroes and be able to tell a variety and multitude of different stories.  Phase 4 is looking to be great and varied, especially with the conclusion of the Fox Deal, I'm very interested in seeing what Carol will be doing in Avengers: Endgame and after.  A sequel and the many prospects it has is great fore the future of the MCU as well as the many women and little girls who will feel empowered by Captain Marvel.

(film review) - Alita: Battle Angel

This film seemed to be going through all types of hell in order to be put onto screen.  James Cameron wanted a specific look to this movie and to also enforce a “gimmick” with the help of Robert Rodriguez to tell the story of Battle Angel: Alita, I mean, Alita: Battle Angel, and with their sensibilities together, produced and directed a film that I, actually, well…really enjoyed!

After a major war known as “The Fall”, society is split with those who live at the top in the City of Zalem and those who live at the bottom in what is known as the Iron City, a junkyard dumping ground.  Dr. Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz), whilst in a junkyard, finds a disembodied female Cyborg and decides to put her together and name her Alita (Rosa Salazar).  Now discovering a whole new world, the people in it and the life or death competitive sport of Motorball, Alita stumbles across the person responsible for the murders of innocent women and instinctively engages into a fight which allows her to remember old memories of a previous life she had and rediscover her unique fighting style.
With a passion for fighting and feeling invincible, Alita decides to join the hunter warriors and enters the brutal game of Motorball to help send her friend, Hugo (Keean Johnson) up to the City of Zalem, but when Grewishka (Jackie Earle Haley), a huge cyborg is out to kill her, requested by Nova by way of Vector (Mahershala Ali), and now that there is a bounty on Hugo’s head, set by an assassin named Zapan (Ed Skrein), it is up to Alita to go toe-to-toe with those out to kill her and her friend whilst trying to unlock the secrets of her hidden past.

I enjoyed this movie as I went in with zero expectations having seen possibly only 2 trailers and I just wanted to see it as it looked cool.  One of my thoughts whilst watching the movies was “When are they doing Akira?” As Akira is one of my favourite Manga movies from back in the day and I would love to see it.

I don’t have any complaints about this movie as I knew what I was getting when I was going in, in regards to the big eyes, which actually wasn’t THAT bad.  Maybe if the eyes were even bigger, then it would have been more distracting than it already was, so it wasn't that bad.  And although the story of a person with missing memories and hidden talents is done to death and old, it was great to see in this movie, as it also reminded me of the old Geena Davis movie, ‘A Long Kis Goodnight” (I love that film).  The film also had similarities to Elysium.
At one stage, I kept asking myself, why does everyone have a missing arm? But then I started to see more cyborgs and when it came to the Motorball sport, I was introduced to even more cyborgs which broadened the world even more than it already was.  I can’t go into too much of the story without giving away plot points or parts of the story, but we only see a small part of Alita’s story with what is obviously set up for even more movies, because everyone wants to do a Franchise! With that said though, this is something I would love to see how deep and far they will go into the world of Alita as what I saw, I really enjoyed and I never watched the manga or read the comics

The acting was great and the CGI and special effects were quite phenomenal. You can’t really expect anything less from James Cameron, you know.  I even saw this in 3D and sometimes 3D can be off-putting or distracting...it wasn't this time around.  But I’d suggest that if you want to see more films like this, then this film will need to get supported or films like Akira, Attack on Titan and other Anime/Manga, just won’t get done….especially with their worlds being soo vast and great.  I think Robert and James did a good one with this one and I definitely want more.

(film review) - Glass

The combination of two movies!  For those of you old enough to remember a little movie called Unbreakable in the year 2000, this movie came out in a year where superhero movies were minimal and few and far between.  In actual fact, this was an era and essentially the very start of this, now phenomenal genre where comic book movies have now evolved from your essentially, “smack” “bamm” comic book movies with cheesy dialogue and one-liners, to something a bit more fantastical/Comic-booky but somewhat grounded in the reality of the world we live in now.  Even back then, comic book movies are nowhere near to what they are now.

We had Marvel’s Blade starring Wesley Snipes in 1998, in which you could make an argument, was the start of them all because two years later, we had X-Men and for the fact that it was actually a great and still is a great and Marvel-lous movie, but when the brand Marvel sold their properties off and Fox gave us X-Men, everything changed.  We currently have the colossal giants, Marvel & Detective Comics battling it out against each other, but a movie like Glass continues a story from a movie named Unbreakable which got lost in the shuffle with the new superhero movies and the fact that nobody knew what this movie was actually about, to now becoming a cult hit spawning two sequels.  Split along with Unbreakable, not being like the traditional comic book movies, broke away from the “stereotypes” of the comic book genre which has allowed them to become cult classics from M. Night Shyamalan.

Glass picks up where Split left off, Kevin Wendell Crumb (James McAvoy) a man suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder, is continuing his spree but has caught the attention of David Dunn (Bruce Willis) and his son Joseph who have set up a “Business” of saving people through the powers David has by touching people.  Upon investigating the individual known as The Horde, David meets up with The Beast.  A fight ensues until they are caught by the police and detained for their crimes and placed into a Mental Institute with Mr. Glass, a comic book enthusiast and terrorist who has Type I Osteogenesis.  Whilst in the Asylum, Dr. Ellie Staple, the head doctor of the mental institute decides to work with these three patients who claim to have special powers - The Overseer, The Hoard and Mr Glass to hopefully cure them of their “illness” and delusions of grandeur.

Without going into too much and giving away the entire film, it is best to go into this movie with an open mind and not expect a twist like M. Night’s other movies.  I really enjoyed this movie due to the way the story was told over the entire Trilogy.  This film as a stand-alone movie is good, but I felt that the direction was akin to Split than Unbreakable, but not as dark and chilling.
I felt that the story as a whole is great and somewhat alludes to an even grander picture/world, however it is interesting to know if M. Night will continue the stories or characters in this universe.
The acting is excellent.  Both McAvoy and Jackson are absolutely, amazing.  It’s simply ‘light work’ for them.  I mean, I was thinking Professor X and Nick Fury.  However, Willis, although good, I feel he should have had a bit more to do in a role he played in 19 years ago.  Maybe more scenes with him and him doing more things so we could see the full extent of his powers maybe.
This film was funny, it was sinister and thrilling as you aren’t really sure what is going to happen, even though from the very beginning, I could gauge what the movie is going to do, up until a certain point, until they pull the rug from under you with it's very small reveal, than a twist.  Unfortunately, you only lose balance than fall to the ground.
I’d recommend watching this film as it is shot well and to see and understand the world that M. Night has created and that it is actually a decent film, but I’d assume it will rub some people up the wrong way because the film in itself is definitely, NOT spectacular.  A good popcorn flick, have a gander.  Maybe it could be entered into one of the best Trilogies of all time!?! Well apart of the discussion, I'm sure.