Superheroes

Captain America: Civil War—Dissension in the Superhero Ranks

Jeremy BeckReviews
A host of heroes charges the field in "Captain America: Civil War"

Early in Captain America: Civil War, a character called Vision (Paul Bettany) muses on his brethren’s tendency to antagonize. “Conflict breeds catastrophe,” he gloomily intones. Maybe so. But at the movies, conflict is the engine of drama. Yet while the Marvel Cinematic Universe comprises films that feature plenty of fighting, they’re largely lacking in genuine excitement. The Avengers sequel had its Whedonesque charms, but it ultimately amounted to a bunch of costumed warriors trading blows with an army of faceless flying robots. Ditto for Iron Man 3, except there, the robots were the good guys. Ant-Man was fitfully funny, but it was still an absurd movie about a dude who talked to bugs. Thor? Please.

The recent exception to this institutional lethargy—setting aside the terrific Guardians of the Galaxy, which was literally a universe removed from the rest of the MCU—was Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, it was less a superhero movie than a paranoid thriller, and its stripped-down quality lent it a rare spark of intrigue. Now the Russos are back with Civil War, a far more unwieldy but no less thoughtful superhero extravaganza. Like all Marvel movies, it’s large and loud, with special effects and action sequences galore, but it nonetheless feels rooted in its characters rather than its gee-whiz battle scenes. Every comic-book film has combat; Civil War has actual conflict. Read More

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: A Tale of Two Brooders

Jeremy BeckReviews
Henry Cavill as Superman, Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, and Ben Affleck as Batman in "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice"

“Nobody cares about Clark Kent taking on the Batman,” Perry White scoffs midway through Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, the long, lumbering, sporadically pleasing genre behemoth from Warner Brothers. Perry (Laurence Fishburne) is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Planet, but while he may be a decent newsman, he’d make a lousy studio executive. The honchos at Warner Bros. are quite confident that everyone—or, at least, a sizeable percentage of the ticket-buying populace—is intrigued by a faceoff between a bespectacled reporter and a caped vigilante, so much so that they’re banking on this $250 million seedling to flower into the Justice League, a confederation designed to rival Marvel’s unstoppable Avengers franchise. As with most modern superhero movies, this one feels less created than engineered, and you can see its readymade headline from space: Batman fights Superman, while Wonder Woman looks on in a skimpy outfit. Perry White just sold out three printings.

Now, I do not begrudge a business for trying to make money. To accuse Warner Bros. of profiting off the quenchless thirst of Batman and Superman’s fanboys is to chastise a lion for mauling a gazelle. But while the studio will view this film primarily as a savior to its balance sheet, the question remains just what kind of movie it is. And the answer, ironically enough, appears right there on the campaign’s promotional materials: It’s a movie directed by Zack Snyder. Read More

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Deadpool: A Wisecracking Superhero Takes Aim at Bad Guys, and a Genre

Jeremy BeckReviews
Ryan Reynolds as a smartass superhero in "Deadpool"

There’s truth in advertising, and then there are the opening credits to Deadpool. Soundtracked to Juice Newton’s ’80s ballad “Angel of the Morning”, the camera pans and pulls slowly through a frozen still of interrupted carnage, and amid the suspended bullets and geysers of spurting blood, there peeks out a People Magazine cover. In that 2010 issue, People named Ryan Reynolds the sexiest man alive, so this would seem to be an opportune time for the title sequence to announce Reynolds’s presence in this madcap meta movie. Instead, the credits read, “Starring: God’s Perfect Idiot,” followed by other trivializing labels that summarize the remaining cast members: “a hot chick,” “a British villain,” “the comic relief,” “a CGI character.” The sequence concludes by informing us that Deadpool was produced by “asshats”, written by “the real heroes here”, and directed by “an overpaid tool”.

Is this anarchically funny or pitifully defensive? Who says it can’t be both? An ultraviolent superhero origin story filtered through the self-aware parody of send-ups like 21 Jump Street, Deadpool seeks to eviscerate the formula that pervades the Marvel Cinematic Universe while simultaneously hewing to that very template. (For the record, Deadpool is a Marvel production but is not formally associated with the MCU.) This means that it comes wrapped in a shield of protective irony that makes it virtually impervious to criticism. That is, how do you judge a pointless comic-book movie that so clearly knows it’s a pointless comic-book movie? Many MCU pictures are like schoolyard bullies, browbeating their mass audiences into submission through brute force. Deadpool is more like the class clown; accuse it of being stupid, and it’s likely to retort, “I know you are, but what am I?” Read More

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Ant-Man: For This Superhero, It’s Go Small or Go Home

Jeremy BeckReviews
Paul Rudd brings his bemused charm to "Ant-Man"

Given that it’s a movie about a man who turns into a bug, it’s only fitting that Ant-Man feels small. That is part criticism, part compliment. Ant-Man is not especially memorable; it does not dazzle like The Avengers, nor does it charm like Guardians of the Galaxy. But in an age where bloated superhero franchises buckle under the weight of obligation and fan service, it’s almost refreshing that Ant-Man—the concluding chapter in Phase Two of the scrupulously planned Marvel Cinematic Universe—feels so cheerfully trivial. Sure, Tony Stark’s dad shows up in the prologue, and the post-credits stinger ties it in with next year’s Captain America offering, but for the most part, this is a minor movie about a down-on-his-luck dad trying to get a job so he can pay child support and see his daughter. It is not exactly the stuff of legends, but there is valor in its modesty.

And in its lightness. Ant-Man benefits from a relaxed, nonthreatening tone that makes it feel less like a superhero adventure than a hangout flick. That begins with its casting of Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, a reformed thief trying to make it on the straight-and-narrow. Rudd has never displayed great range as an actor, but he’s developed into a quasi-superstar through sheer affability, not to mention a gift for bemused reaction shots. His presence lends the film a laidback vibe that it mostly embraces, which helps deflect the absurdity of its plot and the stupidity of its pseudo-science. Read More

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Avengers: Age of Ultron—Heroes Assemble, then Cower, then Fight

Jeremy BeckReviews
Your Avengers, from left: Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, and the Hulk

It seems ludicrous that I should pity Joss Whedon. A visionary so accustomed to having his magical creations snuffed out by the pitiless forces of commerce and TV ratings, he has finally ascended to the summit, piloting the most unstoppable comic-book franchise in cinematic history. Yet after watching Avengers: Age of Ultron, which Whedon both wrote and directed, I cannot escape the feeling that he is exhausted, browbeaten, defeated. He has acquired an unlimited budget and a top-notch cast, not to mention the adoration of legions of fans. But in his feverish efforts to satisfy those fans, he has made not so much a movie as a bloated, hulking anthology, a cluttered collection that dutifully affords screen time and subplots to each of its many, many heroes. There are few films where more happens, but in this movie, more is somehow less.

This is not to say that Age of Ultron is entirely lacking in personality. Whedon’s dialogue still sings, and his gift for witty, easygoing banter remains evident. There are numerous character-driven scenes in which the film’s noisy, explosive bedlam surrenders to pensive, welcome quiet. The problem is that rather than forming the fulcrum of the movie, these human moments feel shoehorned into the larger narrative, stolen respites wedged between the obligatory scenes of violence and spectacle. I am not suggesting that Age of Ultron should have been entirely bereft of action. I simply wish that its action served a greater purpose beyond sating hungry viewers’ appetites with such rote sound and fury. Read More

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