Shazam! (2019)

Gentlemen, why use guns when we can handle this like real men? All 14-year-old Billy Batson’s (Asher Angel)has to do is shout out one word to transform into the adult superhero Shazam (Zachary Levi). Still a kid at heart, Shazam revels in the new version of himself by doing what any other teen would do – have fun while testing out his newfound powers even as he searches for his birth mother while living in a new foster home where he is befriended by Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer). But he’ll need to master those powers quickly before the evil Dr. Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) can get his hands on Shazam’s magical abilities because Sivana was rejected by Wizar Shazam (Djimon Hounsou) long before Billy entered superhero terrain... Heroes fly. And who doesn’t want people to think they’re a hero, right? But invisibility, no way. That’s pervy. Spying around on people who don’t even know you’re there. Sneaking around everywhere. It’s a total villain power, right? Signs that all is not altogether lost in the DC Universe following some Batman-related disappointment, with a family-oriented fantasy outing that has to wait until the conclusion to give our hero a name because in the klutzy nomenclature of caped crusaders he was originally called Captain Marvel. Oh yes. And yet that’s okay because this is all about finding your identity and this rites of passage origins tale is finally all about a superhero’s journey – to his mother and to himself. Relatively lo-fi it might be in comparison with some of the heavy hitters of its type but it has a kind of Saturday morning TV quality to it – likeable, easy on the eye, relatable (!) fun even if it seems in some scenes that Strong is in a different film. There’s a nice Rocky homage in a story basically straight from the Big playbook whose message is that your true family is not necessarily the one you’re born into. Written by Henry Gayden and Darren Lemke based on characters created by Bill Parker and C.C. Beck. Directed by David F. Sandberg.  You have been transformed to your full potential, Billy Batson. With your heart, unlock your greatest power MM#2550

Captain Marvel (2019)

You call me ‘young lady’ again, I’ll shove my foot up somewhere it’s not supposed to be. Captain Marvel aka Carol Danvers or Vers (Brie Larson) is an extraterrestrial Kree warrior who finds herself caught in the middle of an intergalactic battle between her people and the Skrulls. After crashing an experimental aircraft, Air Force pilot Carol Danvers was discovered by the Kree and trained as a member of the elite Starforce Military under the command of her mentor Yon-Rogg. Back on Earth in 1995, she keeps having recurring memories of another life as U.S. Air Force pilot Carol Danvers. With help from S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) Captain Marvel tries to uncover the secrets of her past while harnessing her special superpowers to end the war with the evil Skrulls… We have no idea what other intergalactic threats are out there. And our one woman security force had a prior commitment on the other side of the universe. S.H.I.E.L.D. alone can’t protect us. We need to find more. The first twenty minutes are wildly confusing – flashbacks? dreams? reality? WTF? Etc. Then when Vers hits 1995 we’re back in familiar earthbound territory – Blockbuster Video, slow bandwidth, familiar clothes, Laser Tag references, and aliens arriving to sort stuff out under cover of human identities. And a killer soundtrack of songs by mostly girl bands(Garbage, Elastica, TLC et al). So far, so expected. Digital de-ageing assists the older crew including Annette Bening (she’s not just Dr Wendy Lawson! she’s Supreme Intelligence, natch) but the colourless Brie Larson (well, she is named after a cheese) doesn’t contribute a whole lot to the otherwise tolerable female-oriented end of the action adventure. There is however a rather marvellous ginger cat called Goose happily reminding us of both Alien and Top Gun. Written and directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck. I have nothing to prove to you

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

We’re the Avengers not the Prevengers. Twenty-three days after Thanos (Josh Brolin) used the Infinity Gauntlet to disintegrate half of all life in the universe, Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) rescues Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) from deep space and returns them to Earth, where they reunite with the remaining Avengers – Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and James Rhodes/War Machine (Don Cheadle) – and Rocket (Bradley Cooper). Locating Thanos on an otherwise uninhabited planet, they plan to retake and use the Infinity Stones to reverse ‘the Snap” but Thanos reveals he destroyed the Stones to prevent their further use. Enraged, Thor decapitates Thanos. Five years later: Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) escapes from the quantum realm and at the Avengers compound, he explains to Romanoff and Rogers that he experienced only five hours while trapped, instead of years. Theorising that the quantum realm could allow time travel the three ask Stark to help them retrieve the Stones from the past to reverse Thanos’s actions in the present… He did what he said he would. Thanos wiped out 50% of all living creatures.  After the devastating events of Infinity War the Avengers reassemble to reverse Thanos’ actions and restore balance to the universe. With Thor drunk and disorderly doing a Lebowski among refugees in New Asgard, Tony Stark happily married to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and father to a daughter, Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) has to deal with the loss of his own family, Nebula has seen the light and turned to the bright side, the Guardians of the Galaxy crew are incorporated into the vast narrative, etc etc, the gang has moved on and grown up in varying states of development. Along with every single character from every Marvel franchise movie making an appearance there’s the first gay man (played by co-director Joe Russo) and Stan Lee’s final (and digitally ‘de-aged’) appearance, in a scene from the 1970 time heist sequence, as a cab driver in New Jersey. Some of the films have been too long, some of them have been a real blast but it’s finally over in a seriocosmic epic that justifies the hype in a thrilling blend of action, comedy, tragedy, daddy (and mommy) issues and pathos with loves lost and regained and noble sacrifices and sad leavetakings. It’s satisfying enough to fill that space-time continuum hole in the comics universe. Not only is resistance futile, it’s no longer necessary, at least for this viewer. The screenplay is by Christopher Markus & Stephen McFeely who are indebted to the 14 others who preceded them. Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. I am inevitable

Joker (2019)

Don’t you have to be funny to be a comedian?  Former psych hospital inmate, children’s party clown and wannabe standup Arthur ‘Happy’ Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix) lives with his sick mother Penny (Frances Conroy) and dreams of appearing on Murray Franklin’s (Robert De Niro) cheesy nightly TV show which they watch together. Gotham City is rife with crime and unemployment, leaving segments of the population disenfranchised and impoverished with billionaire Thomas Wayne (Brett Cullen) in the running for Mayor. Penny was a former employee in the Wayne household and repeatedly writes him letters asking for money. Arthur suffers from a disorder that causes him to laugh at inappropriate times, and depends on social services for medication and weekly meetings with a social worker. After a gang attacks him in an alley, Arthur’s co-worker, Randall (Glenn Fleshler) gives him a gun for self-defence. Arthur invites his neighbour, cynical single mother Sophie (Zazie Beetz), to his stand-up comedy show, and they begin dating. When he witnesses three Wall Street guys harassing a woman on the subway train he opens fire and kills them and the city is suddenly awash in a movement of men in clown masks that threatens violent disorder in copycat clown costumes  … I used to think that my life was a tragedy, but now I realise, it’s a comedy. A perverse DC origins story written by director Todd Phillips with Scott Silver, this owes much to its setting – 1981, a city on its haunches, with human filth and institutional grime, and cinematic influences: Martin Scorsese’s The King of Comedy and of course Taxi Driver (Paul Schrader’s real-life inspiration was Arthur Bremer) which is interesting in the light of the maestro’s recent (highly derogatory) comments on superhero movies. And there’s Travis Bickle/Rupert Pupkin himself, De Niro, as the Jerry Lewis-type prism for Arthur’s fantasies of celebrity. And it’s modelled on classic psychodrama, up to a point. It hedges its bets by flailing determinedly in all directions ticking the usual boxes – sociological, pathological, neurological, daddy issues, a mad mother, illegitimacy, until its second hour descends into predictable ultraviolence (after that first exhibition at 30 minutes) albeit with this raft of reasons the wind at his back, you can’t blame Arthur, which is of course the whole point of this graphic novel brought to life. He’s a product of everything around him as well as the noises in his head so there’s no mystery left unturned. That neurological condition that makes him laugh long and loud and inappropriately turns into an unwelcome noise in the audience’s collective head too because we can see as he cannot that his talent lies not in comedy but in killing. Gotham City is no longer a pretend New York because the first three victims of Arthur’s vigilanteism are Wall Street employees of his all-powerful putative father, which is how the Wayne story is woven into this tapestry of excuses as if someone had written an elaborate series of backstories and decided to use every single one of them:  Oedipus writ large in a realist portrait of Bernhard Goetz-era NYC. There is literally nothing left to chance or ponder about this ugly individual and as we all know, bastards always blame other people and seek revenge for their no-name status. In this amorality tale he murders his mother to attempt to get close to his alleged father. And we all know what happens to Thomas Wayne because the Batman universe is ours.  It’s difficult to fault Phoenix’s bravura performance but much hinges on his harelip and innate ugliness which he just accentuates into unpleasant anorectic thinness to manufacture an urban monster. This Joker isn’t funny any more. How bizarre that the wonderful River Phoenix died 26 years ago today and it’s his brother Leaf who’s making the headlines. I feel like I know you – I’ve been watching you forever

 

Under the Silver Lake (2018)

Everything you ever hoped for, everything you ever dreamed of being a part of, is a fabrication. Sam (Andrew Garfield) is a disenchanted 33-year-old who discovers a mysterious woman, Sarah (Riley Keough) frolicking in his apartment’s swimming pool.  He befriends her little bichon frisé dog Coca Cola. She has a drink with him and they watch How to Marry a Millionaire in the apartment she shares with two other women.  Her disappearance coincides with that of billionaire Jefferson Sevence (Chris Gann) whose body is eventually found with Sarah’s. Sam embarks on a surreal quest across Los Angeles to decode the secret behind her disappearance, leading him into the murkiest depths of mystery, scandal, and conspiracy as he descends to a labyrinth beneath the City of Angels while engaging with Comic Fan (Patrick Fischler) author of Under the Silver Lake a comic book about urban legends who he believes knows what’s behind a series of dog killings and other conspiracy theories who himself is murdered …… Something really big is going on. I know it. Written, produced and directed by David Robert Mitchell who made the modern horror masterpiece It Follows, this is another metatext in which strange portents and signs abound. Revelling in Hollywoodiana – Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Alfred Hitchcock and Janet Gaynor – and noir and death and the afterlife and the songs that dominate your life and who may or may not have written them, this seems to be an exploration of the obsessions of Gen X. It’s an interesting film to have come out in the same year as Tarantino’s Hollywood mythic valentine Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood and it covers some of the same tropes that have decorated that auteur’s past narratives with a postmodern approach that is summed up in one line: An entire generation of men obsessed with codes and video games and space aliens. The messages in the fetishised songs and cereal box toys and movies are all pointing to a massive conspiracy in communication diverting people from their own meaninglessness, symbolised in the disappearance of the billionaire which has to do with a different idea of the afterlife available only to the very rich. Sam’s quest (and it is a quest – he’s literally led by an Arthurian type of homeless guy – David Yow from the band The Jesus Lizard – straight out of The Fisher King) is a choose your own adventure affair where he gets led down some blind alleys including prostitution and chess games and even gets sprayed by a skunk which lends his character a very special aroma. The postmodern approach even extends to the sex he has – with Millicent Sevence’s (Callie Hernandez) death being a grotesque parody of the magazine cover that initiated him to masturbation. Sigh. Garfield holds the unfolding cartography together but that’s what actors do – they fill in the missing scenes:  it may not be everyone’s idea of fun to watch Spider Man having graphic sex scenes and doing things to himself but the audience is also being played.  If the objects are diffuse and the message too broad, well, you can make of it what you will. It means whatever you want it to mean (it’s not about burial, it’s about ascension), a spectral fever dream that at the end of the day is a highly sexual story about a guy who wants to make it with the woman across the court yard in his apartment building, no matter how many secret messages or subliminal warnings are in your breakfast or how many Monroe scenes are re-enacted, filmed, photographed or otherwise stored in the minutiae of our obsessive compulsive Nineties brains. So what do you think it all means?

 

Aquaman (2018)

He is living proof our peoples can co-exist. Once home to the most advanced civilisation on Earth, the city of Atlantis is now an underwater kingdom ruled by the power-hungry King Orm Marius/Ocean Master (Patrick Wilson). With a vast army at his disposal, Orm plans to conquer the remaining oceanic people – and then the surface world. Standing in his way is Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Orm’s half-human, half-Atlantean brother, the son of lighthouse keeper Tom Curry (Temura Morrison) and Atlanna Queen of Atlantis (Nicole Kidman) and the true heir to the kingdom’s throne. With help from royal counsellor Vulko (Willem Dafoe) who advises caution, and Princess Mera (Amber Heard), who urges him to take on his half-brother, Aquaman must retrieve the legendary Trident of Atlan and embrace his destiny as protector of the deep… I solve my problems with my anger and my fists. I’m a blunt instrument and I’m damn good at it. I’ve done nothing but get my ass kicked this whole trip. I’m no leader. Technically, the dog days of summer ended two weeks ago but it seems right now like they’ll never end. So, to matters nutty and comic book, a film that didn’t need to be made, a mashup of every action/superhero trope with ludicrously good visual effects, a plot contrived from many old and new stories and a big surly but charismatic guy obsessed with his mom. So far, so expected. Except that this works on a level that’s practically operatic while also plundering sympathies of Pisceans such as myself for creatures like seahorses, who have their own army, not to mention an octopus with a fondness for percussion. Got me right there. And then some – with frogman David Kane reinventing himself as supervillain Black Manta (Yahya Abdul Mateen II), pirates, messages in bottles, gladiatorial combat, wormholes, the centre of the earth … For those who care about this kinda stuff, Arthur/Aquaman first showed up in Batman Vs. Superman and then materialised in Justice League but here he’s part of a Freudian under the sea show that’s quite batty and compelling. Obviously Dolph Lundgren shows up, as King Nereus. Written by David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and Will Beall, from a story by Geoff Johns, director James Wann and Beall, adapting the Mort Weisinger and Paul Norris story/character. Directed with no-holds-barred gusto by Wan. A total hoot from start to finish about evolution, equality and what lies beneath. Crazy fish people, mostly.  Jules Verne once wrote: “Put two ships in the open sea, without wind or tide… they will come together”. That’s how my parents met: like two ships destined for each other

Venom (2018)

You know for a smart guy you really are a dumbass. TV investigative journalist Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) is trying to take down Carlton Drake (Riz Ahmed), the notorious and brilliant founder of the Life Foundation who is constantly announcing new supposedly life-enhancing initiatives.  Eddie opens up confidential files belonging to his district attorney fiancée Anne Weying (Michelle Williams) which causes her to lose her job and leave him. He is fired by his TV station for his impropriety. While investigating one of Drake’s experiments in symbiotes (aliens merging with humans), Eddie’s body merges with the alien Venom – leaving him with superhuman strength and power. Twisted, dark and fuelled by rage, Venom tries to control the new and dangerous abilities that Eddie finds so puzzling and yet so intoxicating but Drake sends out his team to ensnare him… Do you ever feel like your life is one monumental screwup? How bad is this? Perhaps it should have been called Contempt if that misnomer wasn’t already the title of a classic of French cinema. Dreadful acting (Hardy is no movie star, just a terrific actor prone to insane levels of idiot savant mugging way too early here, tipping us off about the high comedy to come), terrible writing, stupid plotting and lazy presumptions. It takes about forty minutes or so for this film to finally find its feet as a satirical fantasy by which time I had found myself wondering how many more superhero movies can deal with silly sloppy seconds, bizarre virtue signalling in diversity casting (this year’s Elon Musk avatar is played by a Pakistani) and dumb allusive socio-cultural commentary including a leading lady dressing like Britney circa Baby One More Time. However once Eddie is hilariously taken over by The Host I was moved to think about the magnificently bad Saoirse Ronan movie of that name; the fourth level of jihad (‘feast upon the infidel as would a parasite upon a host’) which of course is all about the Islamic takeover of the white world; and the edicts of mindfulness (proto-neo-liberal zealotry extolled by Google’s Jolly Good Fellow along with all other Big Tech surveillance monsters); and it was then that I realised that this is in fact an expertly crafted warning about all sorts of contemporary ills:  mass immigration, uncontrolled technology, globalisation, narcissism, unsupervised pharmaceutical experiments and endless superhero movies. Obviously it’s set in Northern California, the boomer and millennial nightmare running the world. It’s dark and Blade Runner-y, as if we needed reminding that Philip K. Dick was telling us all about fifty shades of surveillance for at least forty years in the last millennium. This, then, is what happens to the universe when you’re busy buying Starbucks coffee and checking your iPhone and doping yourself with anti-depressants that persuade you that totalitarianism is okay while disinhibiting your urge to protest, and scarfing medical marijuana which is the real cure for your paranoia about the internet, and, you know, there’s nothing wrong with anything, it’s your attitude to it that needs to be corrected because you’re pathological and everything Mark Zuckerberg does may not be ethical but by crikey it’s legal! Be afraid, suckers. Make the new the primary focus of your life. Jeff Pinker & Scott Rosenberg and Kelly Marcel adapted the Marvel characters created by Todd McFarlane and David Michelinie and it was directed by Ruben Fleischer, responsible for an outing called Gangster Squad, a production that was so hypnotically awful I forgot what it was about while I was watching it (mission accomplished) to the point that I lost the plot and practically lost the will to live. Is it me? Even Jesus Christ himself would say, Enough. Get it over with. Crucify me, guys. Instead we have expertly crafted lines like, God has abandoned us… I won’t. And the voice inside Eddie’s head that tells him, Your world is not so ugly after all.  And Anne finds that power is indeed a bit of a sneaky thrill: Oh  no! I just bit that guy’s head off!  Sheesh. Maybe this works after all, Spider-Man in reverse. Like civilisation, this is poisoned.

Flash Gordon (1980)

Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would’ve hidden from it in terror. NASA scientists are claiming the unexpected eclipse and strange ‘hot hail’ are nothing to worry about, Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol) knows better, and takes NY Jets quarterback star Flash Gordon (Sam Jones) and travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) on a flight into space with to rectify things. They land on planet Mongo, where the despotic Emperor Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow) is attacking Earth out of pure boredom. With the help of a race of Hawkmen, Flash and the gang struggle to save their home planet while Ming fancies Dale as his betrothed and Princess Aura (Ornella Muti)  thinks a footballer is just what she needs despite the attentions of Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton). How can they outwit this psycho’s powers? ... Don’t empty my mind! Please, I beg you! My mind is all I have! I’ve spent my whole life trying to fill it! You might only know this from the Ted movies wherein Sam Jones (largely dubbed here) is something of an obsession for Mark Wahlberg and the eponymous bear but for those of us who grew up in the late 70s/early 80s and watched Buster Crabbe on summer mornings on BBC this was catnip at the cinema. Michael Allin adapted the characters from the original comic strip by Alex Raymond and Lorenzo Semple Jr. (responsible for developing the classic TV Batman) wrote his customarily caustic and amusing screenplay, reuniting with producer Dino De Laurentiis after King Kong. The pulchritude – male and female – is just jaw-dropping and I’m not referring to Prince Vultan’s (Brian Blessed) thighs. Was there ever a more beautiful woman than Muti as the sexpot daughter of Ming? What a saucy minx she is! Watch those orgasmic gyrations when Ming puts Arden under his spell!! Or a handsomer man than Dalton?! Good grief! The production design and costumes by Danilo Donati are simply staggering. And what a witty score provided by Queen, with supplemental orchestrations by Howard Blake. And just to prove it’s not all fun and games, when Zarkov has his mind read it’s a montage that includes Hitler, which draws the comment, Now he showed promise! Whoever cast Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless was truly inspired. Fast-moving, funny and as camp as a caravan site, this is how superhero movies should always be. Believe it or not this was originally meant to be made by Fellini. And George Lucas. And Nic Roeg! In the end it was directed by Mike Hodges who also made Get Carter, Pulp and Croupier. Give that man a BAFTA! With supporting roles played by Peter Wyngarde, John Osborne, Richard O’Brien, Suzanne Danielle and Robbie Coltrane, this veritable rock opera has cult written all over it these days. Shot by the great Gilbert Taylor.  I knew you were up to something, though I’ll confess I hadn’t thought of necrophilia?

Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

If you two are finished comparing sizes… we need to figure a way to track down the lab.  Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) is grappling with the consequences of his choices as both a superhero and a father to Cassie (Abby Ryder Fortson) following his X-Men activities in X-Men:  Civil War, monitored constantly by the police. Approached by Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) and Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), he dons the Ant-Man suit again to fight alongside the Wasp (Evangeline Lilly) with assistance from Luis (Michael Peña) a former cellmate and member of the X-Con Security crew. The urgent mission leads to secret revelations from the past in the search for Pym’s wife and Hope’s mother Janet van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) who is lost in the quantum realm since 1987, shrinking to sub-atomic levels.  The dynamic duo finds itself in an epic battle against a powerful new enemy Ava Starr/Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) while low-level crim Sonny Burch (Walton Goggins) wants Pym’s technology for the black market….I still think about the night your mother and I had to leave you. A whip smart, lean and fun outing that is anchored by the charming performance of Rudd, a consistently underrated actor, who contributes to the screenplay by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari. He is matched by Lilly as the other half of his double act and also by Douglas, whose flashback scene with Pfeiffer shows what special effects can achieve (an improvement on the real old thing!). Laurence Fishburne turns up as Pym’s estranged former colleague Bill Foster despite having played Perry White elsewhere in the (now 20-strong) Marvel series. The dual father-daughter stories root the narrative in something close to human emotion, while the Fantastic Voyage element works nicely and the overall tone is light and optimistic – proving that size always matters.  And how nice is it to see a female villain?! Stan Lee shows up when his car is shrunk. Directed by Peyton Reed. I’m gonna call you ANT-onio Banderas!

Deadpool 2 (2018)

Every good family film starts with a vicious murder. After his beloved wife Vanessa (Morena Baccarin) is killed, wisecracking mercenary Wade Wilson aka Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) meets Russell Collins/Firefist (Julian Dennison) an angry overweight teenage mutant who lives at an orphanage run by nasty Headmaster (Eddie Marsan). When Russell becomes the target of timetravelling Cable (Josh Brolin)- a genetically enhanced soldier from the future – Deadpool figures out that he’ll need some help saving the boy from such a superior enemy. He soon joins forces with Bedlam (Terry Crews), Shatterstar (Lewis Tan), Domino (Zazie Beetz) and other allegedly powerful mutants to protect young Russell from Cable and his advanced weaponry and discovers that he and Cable have more in common than he realised …. Pain teaches us who we are.  I wasn’t convinced by the first film – the postmodern concoction of parody and pastiche, vast self-referentiality and mickey-taking seemed (like all the bimonthly Marvel products nowadays) specifically mixed with added built-in foul-mouthed snark to prevent any criticism whatsoever. This gets it slicker and less obnoxiously together with a particularly funny scene-sequence assembling the superhero family – and exhibiting them getting theirs in the full flow of their delusional (non-)powers. With very funny jabs at Annie, Yentl and Say Anything, among others, this is actually a good lesson in how important it is to laugh at yourself. And everybody else. Offending people is good!! Adapted by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick (and star Reynolds) from the comic book, this is the 11th X-Men movie. Sheesh. Directed by David Leitch. You’re so dark – are you sure you’re not from the DC universe?