A look at all live action the films and MCU shows before Eternals hits theatres on November 5 (except what-if).
SPIDERMAN FAR FROM HOME
The sequel follows Peter’s life after the events of Endgame. Grief stricken by the death of Tony Stark and the whole Avenger’s experience Peter decides to go on a class trip, a big European trip.
It must be a pretty rich high school. The film also shows the aftermath of Endgame, people who passed away in the Thanos snap have returned and the world seems to be dealing with this limbo like situation slowly coming to terms with it. Now the centre piece of this story is a love story between Peter and MJ.
Peter seems to have been developing some affection towards MJ. God knows why! It’s not like they had great chemistry in Homecoming or something, their conversations had ranged from short to very short and meaningless.
But anyways that is one of the main plot points for this sequel. So we go Far From Home to exotic European locations with Peter wanting to get closer to MJ all while having to deal with Brad a third wheel guy in their romance and also Ned gets Betty Brant as his girlfriend for the film.
And all while this is going on Quintin Beck aka Mysterio shows up to fight a water monster called an elemental and wouldn’t you know it so does Nick Fury and Maria Hill, thus Peter Parker must step up to be a hero even on vacation.
The performances are mostly spot on. Tom Holland and Jacob Batalon still have a great brotherly chemistry and can carry an entire film on their own. Jake Gyllenhall is spot on as Mysterio and is the best actor and the best part of the whole film.
Tony Revolori as Flash , Angourie Rice as Betty Brant, Sam Jackson, Marisa Tomei and Jon Favreau all reign in and give great performances.
Zendaya as MJ has more to do but its not like you really care much for her character, there isn’t anything meaningful going on for her except she is the person of interest for Peter. Once again Peter Parker is the best character and Tom Holland is a great choice for him.
Like any teenager Peter is looking for an adult who can tell him that things will be okay especially after losing another father figure in Tony Stark.
He is unsure about life, himself, the Avengers, the world, his emotions always swirl up, he feels the weight of responsibilty in the absence of Stark, he feels inadequate and is scared of unknown dangers and the sacrifices he may have to make.
Initially reluctant but by the end a hero once again is the story of FAR FROM HOME proving again that likeable, flawed and humanized characters are what we the audience can connect to and relate to, a lesson which most blockbusters tend to forget.
The visual effects are creative and amazing throwing one twist after another and everytime something new props and you just stare at amusement. However the film does lack a sense of threat and a sense of emotional risk and weight. It feels like even though the stakes are higher yet they are not.
Even if the film uses some contrived explanations for things to happen a certain way it still manages to entertain and the charm and charisma of Tom Holland and the rest of the cast carry it way over the line to deliver at the very least an entertaining popcorn blockbuster .
WANDAVISION
Fresh off the huge success of Avengers Endgame and Far From Home, Wandavision was the first MCU tv show to hit Disney+ , the new streaming service for all the Marvel shows and Disney material. It had the massive pressure of being the immediate succesor of one of the biggest Marvel hits in Far From Home.
Led by Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany Wandavison follows the everyday life of Wanda Maximoff and Vision in their suburban town as they deal with neighbours, jobs, everyday life and juggling their romance with it all……or so it seems. Strange occurences happen to Wanda during the course which raises some mysterious questions. The answers to which she may or may not want to know about or perhaps is purposefully keeping things a secret?
The show starts out pretty promising and it cleverly gives you hints and clues however never the full picture, until around episode 4 you really get to see behind the scenes stuff which offer some explanations for all the events and some clarity over the entire situation.
Elizabeth Olsen shines as Wanda Maximoff, she easily switches from everyday housewife of the sitcoms from Full House to Modern Family which this show gives nods to, to a grief stricken, miserable, trauma induced, superherione, who frankly from the looks of it looks like is done being a hero and perhaps being an Antihero could very well be on the cards.
Paul Bettany and his scenes with Elizabeth Olsen are the best moments of the show . However the other cast memebers are not that compelling. The actors themselves are fine but I don’t think anyone wants to see any more of their characters to reappear. Monica Rambo comes in, the little daughter of Captain Marvel’s best friend and she is “A STRONG FEMALE CHARACTER!”. Pretty annoying and an entitled spoilt teen is what her character reeks of, but I guess this is what Hollywood considers STRONG!
Darcy Lewis (Kat Dennings) from the Thor movies is here and she is just about fine accompanied by a few others and very forgettable generic bad guy.
Kathryn Hahn’s performance as Agatha is another memorable aspect of the show .
Perhaps the most underwhelming point was the finale, which seemed rushed and just about gave the answers which the show had raised in the beginning. However when it came to facing the consequences for her actions Wanda isn’t given any. Which is quite bizzare considering what she had actually done just to cope with her personal tragedies and plus our new Hero Monica Rambo joins in on this charade with her.
Is this what the show teaches everyone? No matter what you do even if it means harming other people, it’s fine as long as we are sad about our own tragedies???
The show does hits some beats properly when it can, we learn Wanda’s full backstory and thanks to Olsen’s brilliant performance we grow to care about her deeply as we see how much hardship she has endured and has been pushed to the brink of a breakdown, Paul Bettany as vision is compelling as ever and Kathryn Hahn is delightful as Agatha.
At the end of it all Wandavison is a show that does the proper setup and buildup but messes it all up by the finale, juggling too many ideas all at one time. Be it grief born out of the personal losses we endure, getting depressed and in turn distracting ourseleves with lies and the comforting augmented realities of the world, faking smiles to hide our vulnerabilities instead of just crying our hearts out and for once just dealing with our miserable feelings properly.
Overall resulting in two thirds of TV show which is decent and which does introduce some new concepts and tones for The MCU which could lead to interesting new stories.
BLACK WIDOW
Black Widow is a terribly made, utterly ridiculous, pointless, CGI fest with occasionally some good moments in it.
The film has a promising and a tense opening finally giving us an insight into Natasha’s past and her background and then it opens again with some credits and music and takes another 10-15 minutes to actually kickstart it’s story and plot.
The screenwriters never really settle on a particular thread and keep juggling different ideas and story beats resulting in a mess of a film. The action is cartoonish and inconsequential . Natasha a spy, a normal human falls off a three storey bulding and hits her head twice on some pipes and gets back up immediately without a scratch.
The actors do their part but the script is haywire and there seems to be a lack of creativity from the people who helmed it , everything just comes across as mundane and flat.
The villain, well……. Taskmaster shows up occasionally. The film tries to tie Natasha and the villain’s stories together but it is done in such an odd haphazard way that ultimately it leaves you feeling frustrated instead of emotionally capturing you.
The movie is genuinely uninteresting and is an abysmal send off for one of the most beloved MCU characters and actors of the MCU. The cinematography is bland, the music is forgettable, the editing is lazy and the pacing is rushed as well..
David Harbour and Florence Pugh may be the only positives in this film along with Scarlett’s presence, all three of them have a genuinely good chemistry which does bring a few laughs and emotions from our side.
This film just like Wandavision carries a sense of twisted morality where people who have done genuinely horrible things are forgiven because…… well I guess we need to make their spinoffs.
This movie is another cookie cutter,conveyor belt, safe bet that somehow isn’t even worth sitting through , not even once.
Not a good entry for the phase 4.
LOKI
Loki starts out pretty promising with Tom Hiddleston and Owen Wilson leading the show, their chemistry and banter is what keeps us hooked and engaged for the first 2 episodes. The small and big revelations set up interesting plotlines and adventures.
And then well……………………Someone comes along and reminds us that “This isn’t about Loki”!!!
Yeah! Someone in the writers room thought this was a great idea……as episode three rolls on you start to realize the shift in perspective and focus which isn’t great to experience and you also start to think the very important character building scenes for Loki which play a really big part in his decisions in episode 2 were rushed because ……..well this isn’t about LOKI. Ugh! Really ? Who was in the trailer for this show? Why do you think millions of marvel fans are watching this show????
As episode 4 5 and 6 come along it gets increasingly pedestrian and vehemently boring as the pacing comes to a screeching halt, show don’t tell! More like always talk talk talk talk and talk and barely show anything.
Richard E Grant comes along and provides some respite but it doesnt last long, by the end startling revelations happen which will be either great or detrimental for the MCU, but our Hero/Villain is reduced to a sappy, idiotic , whiny , incompetent fool,an insecure whiny chid whose whole purpose of existence was attention and nothing more! We never get to see him use his wits , smartness , shrewdness or villainy instead we get someone else who is vastly better at everything he is supposed to be.
The show trods along and gets increasingly muddled in its concepts and ideas , all the while slowly forcing another character to become likeable even if we didn’t ask for it.
Loki is another show with great potential, promising actors, great aesthetic , great score, visuals and a good budget. Sadly when your whole focus is to bait and switch your talent for storytelling goes down the drain.
Another bang average Marvel show , it seems clear that Marvel isn’t taking any risks and they are just doing variations on the same formula that had worked so well for years but now seems to be losing its charm.There also seems to be a push for more female characters, which is great but it seems to be coming at the expense of the male characters and no solid groundwork of their own.
The die hard fans can stay in denial but those smart enough know that perhaps the glory days might be over for this once juggernaut of a universe.
FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier, is about one man’s apprehensions over the future, and the other’s struggle to make peace with the past. But, Marvel Studios, as has been the case for a while, is not content with sticking to the regular superhero mould.
The scale of the ambition first presents itself during the unravelling of the villains. Like Thanos from Avengers: Endgame, the antagonists here – a group of teens by the name of Flag Smashers – belong to the crop of villains whose causes are noble and yet qualify as evil because of the means they adopt to achieve this. Robin Hoods you may say!
But, by now, this too has come to pass as a standard motif in the superhero template, only serving to make the story more palatable. The show, then, makes its biggest stride with the questions it raises at the American society – whether it is ready to forego the traits of blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin and make way for a Black man to take up the mantle of Captain America; if a Black man should, after all, fight for a country that has largely been unfair to him all along.
Truly exciting stuff smashed in a Superhero Disney Marvel Comic Book Show!!!!
This isn’t mere tokenism and the commitment clearly comes through, for characters, incidents and backstories have been set aside in this regard. There is even a newly anointed Captain America (played by Wyatt Russel) that follows closely in the footsteps of Chris Evans’ original version, helping to bring out the contrast with Anthony Mackie’s Falcon.
He is headstrong and competent, fully decorated as an army official, willing to ask for help from our two heroes, yet he is treated like a villain. Why? Because he wants to live upto the pre-established expectations of being the greatest hero the country’s ever seen, served in the military long enough, willing to abide by rules and regulations, hoping to bring the people who wronged his friend justice, enforcing laws of the land on the Wakandans when they are clearly in breach of it?????????
Then there are veterans from the previous Captain American movies making a comeback. However, among the many members of the supporting cast, it is Daniel Brühl’s Zemo who is absolutely ruined and is made into a dancing jerk, can’t take him serously no more.
The show does shine when Falcon and Bucky go on undercover missions on their own. Their banter, their chemistry together, the humour does help and make things interesting. Emily VanCamp’s Sharon Carter also makes an appearance, and could play an important role in the MCU ahead (here’s hoping we get no more). But, for the show to weave all these into the narrative, more room has to be made and consequently, Sebastian Stan’s Barnes is sidelined often and Falcon’s battles are reduced to one among the many.
At the end when speeches are made and conclusions are drawn out, it all feels irrelevant, as the show ends seems as it just ended at the beginning as if nothing ever happened, the show never offers any meaningful solutions to the problems it presented just a bunch of speeches classifying things into bad and good even though there are grey areas to be addressed.
If one does carefully sit down and compress the show one can see that a lot of things don’t make sense. Not plotwise, but the messaging, why is the new cap being displayed as bad? Even though he does what anyone in his position would do ? Why are the Wakandan Women given a free pass over law? Because they are women? Captain America didn’t help falcon’s family enough……..He was fighting the almighty Thanos(I guess its an excuse!!!!).
Worse… people seem to not think much but just react to wherever the camera points without thinking about the context of the scenes and hence the audience has reacted to it fairly well without examining the lofty ideas and ambitions of the show and whether they were even right to begin with.
You Gotta do better Senator!!!!!
The MCU continues to shy away from hard hitting emotional intense scenes which this how clearly demands and perhaps a few more episodes! The constant degrading of past heroes(Captain America),the forced narratives shoving preachy political messages into a superhero show unorganically as possible, is all tiring and contrived.
The Falcon and The Winter Soldier has too much to grapple with and brims with ambition initially, but fizzles in execution completely.
SHANG CHI AND THE LEGEND OF THE TEN RINGS
At last we come to Shang Chi and it ain’t looking great for the MCU. So far its been bang average with stories that have just served as platforms for political messages and preaching, and its not like they are able to do it organically like weaving it into the story.Nope its been the other way around
Perhaps the best Marvel stories are told and if they aren’t going to take any risks these new cookie cutters, conveyor belt, factory made, films are not going to cut it. Slowly but surely the fandom will realize it.
Also Marvel movies: they are a victim of their own success. “Shang-Chi” had to follow up a decade and a half of (mostly) quality MCU movies, so the same movie that would’ve been a smash 10 years ago isn’t viewed quite the same today. The movie was average, as it failed to separate itself.
The kung fu badass is what Shang Chi is supposed to be however, apparently his sister learnt kung fu all by herself and got better at it by herself. Katy(Awkwafina) learns to shoot arrows better than an olympic medallist within half a day. The same contrived lazy plot devices from Wandavision are at work. Why not give the women their own solid well thought out arcs and stories? I guess thats too much work.
It all ends in an grand CGI fest as usual, the introduction of demons to the movie did offer some excitement. It upped the stakes of everyone involved and thrust our Marvel characters into the role of saving the world.
There are themes of the broken father son relationship, the estranged siblings, romcom settings, MCU cameos, mother son relationship, inheriting the best of your past while accepting the worst that might come with it, growing up and taking your place as the rightful one.
All of its ideas are great and poorly executed with a half decent script that even the actors aren’t able to carry it through. Another bang average to the bone, plastic, conveyor film from the big MCU. This tiring, lazy, plastic and contrived Marvel wit and humour has absolutely dried up, demanding something more from the franchise.
After all this we still have the Eternals to go through, as the marketing suggests DIVERSITY is the name of it all.
With money already poured in by the investors the MCU needs big hits and not just semi-hits. The wheel is spinning but for it to keep spinning it needs something more …… perhaps Spiderman?
Hawkeye, Multiverse of Madness, Guardians 3, Thor 4, there are some big hitters to come through but will they conform to the phase 4 ideology ? Then thats trouble because people will eventually get tired of it and seek for something new.
The Eternals already has a bad critics score, with some suggesting that its more of the same from MCU others that its very different from its other companions, but we shall see on November 5.
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