Avengers: Endgame brings the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s (MCU) third phase to a close in splendid fashion, designating much of its three-hour runtime to character arcs and the wider narrative, versus intergalactic fireworks and fisticuffs. In fact, Anthony and Joe Russo’s finale is an intelligent film, introducing novel MCU concepts, “hard” science and a supervillain worthy…
The special forces sub-genre combines elements of the cop, spy and soldier film, and is characterized by jargon, hardware, institutionalized yet independent characters and almost-but-not-quite overwhelming odds. Notable examples include “Tears of the Sun,” “Zero Dark Thirty,” “Triple Frontier” and “The Expendables” franchise. Given their practice of taking established generic traditions and infusing them with…
The title Spider-Man: Far From Home may be lacking, but at least we know Spider-Man is alive and well following his disintegration in “Avengers: Infinity War” (and subsequently, “Avengers: Endgame”). Here Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is quite clearly making a concerted effort to reintegrate himself into teenage life, going so far as to leave his…
Somber is the mood in the first trailer for Avengers: Endgame and rightfully it should be. As you should recall, Thanos — after piecing together the Infinity Gauntlet — has eliminated half the population of Earth and decimated the ranks of the superhero team at the end of “Avengers: Infinity War.” The remaining Avengers and…
Skrulls. Kree. Oh my! Earth being stuck in the middle of two alien races doing battle is bad, but adding Ronan the Destroyer (remember him from “Guardians of the Galaxy”?) into the mix makes the situation even worse. Luckily, we have Captain Marvel around to keep the fray from causing our untimely destruction. The film,…
It is a cliché to say that less is more. In the case of Ant-Man and the Wasp, Marvel excels in delivering the delights of smaller scales, both in the physical and emotional sense. After the weighty politics of “Black Panther” and the epic scale of “Avengers: Infinity War,” the latest entry in the Marvel…
Over the past decade, Marvel Studios have proved time and again their mastery of the superhero genre. Central to this success is the combination of superhero tropes with other genres: World War II film with “Captain America: The First Avenger,” conspiracy thriller with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” heist movie with “Ant-Man,” high school comedy…
