Author: Snugglecub

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33 – The Marvels

I liked this movie but I didn’t love it.  As a matter of fact I must confess, this might be my least favorite of the entire MCU franchise, though Thor: Love and Thunder comes in at a close second.  And I have a few very specific reasons why.  But while I usually say that out of ten, an eight is still an eight, I would probably put The Marvels at a seven, maybe even a six.  The movie was still enjoyable to watch, but those specific reasons make me roll my eyes hard.

So let me get my grievances out of the way as quickly as possible.  First, the singing planet was just stupid.  It was almost embarrassing to watch.  And the way that Prince Yan was bilingual because he could speak just made it dumber.  Auto-tune has taught us that all speaking is just singing without specific pitch.  If one forms words with the lips, teeth, and tongue, the pitch is irrelevant.  It was just a dumb concept.  Second is the whole sub-plot of the Flerken kittens.  I’ve said it a hundred times.  Cute for the sake of cute is never cute.  Never.  And that’s all that was.  This stupidity of this was emphasized to the n-th degree when they started to play the song Memory from the musical, Cats.  The song had nothing to do with the action taking place in the scene, except that it was the popular song from that Broadway show.  And to add insult to injury, they played the Barbara Streisand recording of the song instead of the Elain Paige version!  Ugh!

But even those two things were superficial.  The biggest and most egregious flaw in the movie was once again, the villain.  She was called Dar-Benn, played by Zawe Ashton.  She was terribly under-developed.  Her powers were never clearly defined, her back-story was barely mentioned, her motivations were there, but they were pretty weak.  Ever since Thanos, the MCU has a problem with giving us bad guys that matter, ones that have a snowball’s chance of winning against the heroes, ones that we have any sympathy for.  Because I didn’t know who Dar-Benn was, I didn’t hate her when she had her small victories, and I didn’t care when she died.  When I think of the movie, as a whole, she barely even registers in my thoughts.

But the three leads were awesome.  We knew who Carol Danvers was and what she was capable of.  If you watched the shows Wanda-Vision and Ms. Marvel on Disney-Plus, you knew who Monica Rambeau and Kamala Khan were, what they could do.  And we root for them because we know them.  It was like in the earlier movie in the MCU, The Eternals.  It was hard to care about them because we didn’t really get a chance to know who they were.  But the three leads, played by Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris, and Iman Vellani were great.  They had a good on-screen chemistry and I enjoyed watching them.  I have to give a special thumbs up to Iman Vellani.  The other two ladies were seasoned veterans and this wasn’t their first rodeo.  But Vellani was a young girl who was new to the action film genre, and I think she handled it well.  And I liked that they made a point of showing that Ms. Marvel was an inexperienced fighter.  And I loved her reaction the first time she saw a Flerken swallow someone.  “OH MY GOD!!!”  Because really, how else could you react to that?  And it was also believable that by the end, she was a little more competent in the use of her own powers.  And now she has both bangles, which will increase her power levels.  We’ll have to wait and see where that goes.  Nice mid-credit scene, too.  The Young Avengers are being recruited, starting with Hawkeye’s protégé Kate Bishop.

As always, the visual effects were top notch.  The action was exciting.  I really loved the characters and the cast.  You can never go wrong with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, and Gary Lewis as the Skrull Emperor, Drp’ge did a great job, too.  Like I said, the cast was very good.   I just wish they could have cut out, or somehow changed the singing planet and the forced cuteness of the kittens.  Unfortunately, these things stood out to me when watching the movie, and not in a good way.  I’m not saying the movie was terrible or unwatchable, but the movie might have been better if they had taken those things, and the evil Dar-Benn more seriously.

  Top 10 Favorite Parts

1. I loved the sequence where Captain Marvel, Monica Rambeau, and Ms. Marvel are switching places when they use their powers at the same time.  Kamala’s home is destroyed.
2. Monica flies for the first time and rescues Kamala as she falls from the sky.
3. The battle and evacuation of Tarnax.
4. The training montage where the three women learn to use their entangled powers together.
5. Dar-Benn arrives on Aladna, the battle, and the draining of the ocean.
6. Captain Marvel explains how everything is her fault because she destroyed the Supreme Intelligence.  This helps to tie it into the first Captain Marvel movie a little
7. Dar-Ben begins draining the sun.
8. Kamala’s family sends her off to battle.
9. The climactic scene where Dar-Benn destroys herself and opens a hole in space-time.
10. Monica Rambeau gets powered up and repairs the hole in space, actually becoming more like the character I know from the comic books.

2024 – Dune: Part Two

Dune Part Two, of course, is a science fiction movie that lends itself to fantastic visual effects, and it certainly didn’t disappoint.  There were flying space ships, explosive action sequences, dust storms, those really cool dragonfly flyers that we saw in the first Dune movie, and also returning, the gigantic Sand Worms.  Here, we see more of them, and we see men riding across the desert sands on their backs.  We saw more of those cool personal shields in action, and we saw more sword battles that utilized them.  But therein lay the problem.

Nearly every effect in Dune: Part Two was one that we saw in Dune: Part One.  They were done perfectly, without a doubt, but was there anything new?  And as I think about it, I’d say yes.  Yes, there was.  For example, the entire Birthday celebration scene was a pretty cool color effect, turning everything into a stark black and white vista that still had depth and life.  The effect actually helped tell the story in a unique way.

And to quote Sofia Atkins, writing for TopicRooms VFX, “The film’s standout visual effects sequences included the opening eclipse, the breathtaking sandworm-riding scenes, the harrowing attack on the spice harvester, and the epic battle of Arrakis. The VFX team also meticulously crafted Giedi Prime’s menacing aesthetic and achieved the distinctive blue eyes of the Fremen using advanced machine learning techniques.”  And to be sure, those things were all very impressive.  I especially liked the attack on the spice harvester, the battle that ended with a sand worm opening its maw beneath the harvester and swallowing it whole.  And yes, even the glowing blue eyes of the Fremen were very cool.  It was consistent, and was even a plot point for two of the characters.

But if we’ve seen all these things before, what earned it the Oscar?  Well, I’ve done a little research, and from what I can gather, it was that Director Denis Villeneuve used as little CGI as possible.  He filmed as much as he could in camera, opting to use practical effects whenever he could, and strategically enhancing them whenever necessary, to get the effects he wanted.  He filmed in a desert location in Jordan, making use of a real environment rather than digitally re-creating one.  This technique of blending the two resulted in a hyper-realism that was impressive on so many levels.  I hope it is a trend that continues. But really, it was the sand worms that we all came to see.  And in this second installment of the franchise, there were just more of them doing more things.  They looked as real as anything and were pretty terrifying in their scale and power.  And the fact that mere mortals were using them, if not taming them, was a pretty bad-ass part of the story.  So I’d say yes, Dune: Part Two deserved its Oscar win.

Wicked: Part 1

This movie was so fun to watch because the filmmakers understood the medium they were working with.  They looked at the Broadway show and figured out the magic that required a suspension of disbelief on the stage, and turned it into movie magic on the big screen.  And it was beautiful and thrilling to see it done right.  The movie was a nearly perfect adaptation of the first act of the stage show.

And the story is a fantasy that took place in OZ, a world full of magic and color, glitz and glamor.  A trend that I really like is one in which not everything is CGI.  What we see on the screen is a wonderful blend of practical, in-camera effects, and CG effects, used to enhance them.  For example, something I wouldn’t normally think of is the green color of Elphaba’s skin.  Yes, she was wearing green makeup, but the color was enhanced by computers, filling in places where makeup might be difficult, like where makeup might get onto a costume or inside the mouth.

Of course, there were all the talking animals like Dr. Dillamond and Dulcibear, among others.  CG artists have gotten pretty good at anthropomorphic animals, and these were pretty good, though from a design standpoint, when I see a goat drinking out of a teacup, I have to wonder how it is gripping the cup.  Well, the cup had a hoof-shaped fixture instead of a handle for the hoof to go into.  Never-mind the fact that a goat’s body is not structured for it to lift it to his mouth, nor is its mouth equipped to drink out of a cup without making a mess.  But I digress.

But that technology is getting pretty impressive.  For Dr. Dillamond, a puppet was used on set for the other actors to interact with.  Then they filmed Peter Dinklage, who voiced the character, and used his facial expressions to animate the fully CGI goat.  In that way, Dinklage was not just a voice actor, but an actual physical actor.

I was also pretty impressed by the flying monkeys.  First, they were blue, and we got to see the magical process where they grew their wings.  The flying feathers and painful contortions of the creatures was actually a little scary on the screen, but so well-done.  And speaking of flying, when Elphaba finally takes to the skies, the film did it in a way that cannot be done on a stage, they gave her speed and agility on her broom, though they still went out of their way to give us many of the signature shots and images that made the stage show so exciting.  I especially liked the Wizards giant steampunk metal head effect.  Again – Practical but enhanced with CGI.  Just like the Emerald City Express

Though, I have to mention two things that enhanced the fantasy of the movie, but were ultimately silly and unnecessary.  We could have done without the hummingbirds playing bells at Shiz, and the stupid-looking band at the Oz Dust Ballroom.  I’m sorry, but quick as the shots were, they just looked baaaaad.

Cast Photos

Character Posters

32 – Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 3

The first time I saw the third movie in the Guardians sub-franchise, it didn’t make that much of an impression on me.  I’ve always thought it was good, but not as good as the other Guardians movies.  But every time I have watched it, I have gained a greater appreciation for the fantastic emotional content of the story.  A lot of this installment focuses on Rocket’s backstory, and to be sure, it is a heartbreaking story.  The pain, suffering, and terrible loss that the character has endured is actually emotionally devastating, and this movie does a great job of taking us on that journey with him.

The ending also has a sense of closure as the core group we have come to know and love, which was fractured when Gamora died in Avengers Endgame, dissolves.  Several members leave the family, as they call themselves.  We lose Drax, Nebula, Mantis, and the variant version of Gamora, each of them going their separate ways.  We even lose Star Lord, though a post credit scene indicates that he might return at some point.  It feels like the ending of an era, though there is also the hope of a new beginning with a new roster.  At the end of the movie, Rocket and Swole Groot are still with the Guardians, and they are joined by Kraglin, Cosmo, Adam Warlock, his pet Blurp, and Phyla, some of whom we know next to nothing about.  Apparently Phyla is one of the children that was rescued from the main villain, but I have no idea what her abilities are, so it’s kind of hard to care who she is or how she will fit in to the future of the franchise.

Unfortunately, I think the biggest dropped ball in this movie was the character of Adam Warlock.  In the comic books, he is one of the most powerful characters in the universe, a being with intelligence and depth.  He has super strength, the power of flight, and can survive in the vacuum of space.  But this movie portrays him as mentally and emotionally simplistic, like a child.  He is used as comic relief, and little more.  And the even had a fantastic actor to portray him, Will Poulter.  He could have been so awesome, but he was actually pretty forgettable.

But at least they fixed one thing that the last Guardians movie did that always bothers me.  In Vol 2, they turned Drax into the comic relief.  He was nothing more than a moron who laughs at the dumbest things.  I though he was supposed to be a bad-ass who kicks butt with the best of them.  Well, here, we see him still being pretty dumb, but not as bad as before, and he proved that he is still a dangerous man.  They gave him his teeth back, and I liked it.

Of course we have to get a new bad guy, and I think they did a pretty good job with this one.  The High Evolutionary, played by Chukwudi Iwuji, was your basic mad scientist.  He had no moral compass, no scruples, no respect for sentient life, and a penchant for cruelly torturing animals in his attempts to genetically create evolved species of life.  I found it interesting to learn that it was he who was not only responsible for turning a baby raccoon into our beloved Rocket through years of painful torture and experimentation, but it was also he who created the race of the Sovereigns, who then created Adam Warlock.  The High Evolutionary was so evil and despicable that you just can’t wait for him to get his comeuppance. 

But really, the thing about this movie that stands out to me the most was the emotional content.  The flashback scenes that show Rocket and his gentle Frankenstein monster friends as they form their own little group, were beautifully done.  And then, when they are all murdered in front of him was just heart-wrenching.  Rocket is in tears, and I cried right along with him.  But there was also plenty of great action and the bright and colorful visual effects we have come to expect from a Guardians of the Galaxy movie.   It is a good movie that seems to get just a little better each time I watch it. 

Top 10 Favorite Parts

1. I actually really like the opening sequence that showed the Guardians in down-time.  It was interesting to see them in normal life, where the biggest crisis was Peter’s depression over the loss of Gamora.  Nebula and Rocket were particularly good as they cared for him.
2. The flashback scenes where Rocket meets Lylla, Teefs, and Floor.
3. The Guardians team up with the variant Gamora, who has become a Ravager, in order to infiltrate Orgocorp.
4. The Guardians arrive on Counter-Earth.
5. Baby Rocket mutilates the High Evolutionary and escapes after his friends are killed.
6. Star Lord and Groot confront the High Evolutionary and Groot pulls out the guns.
7. The destruction of Counter-Earth and the Guardians’ escape.
8. The phenomenal one-shot action sequence in the hallway where the Guardians attack the High Evolutionary’s ship to bring down the bad guy.  The action-packed, CGI-filled sequence was so cool!!
9. The climactic destruction of the High Evolutionary’s ship, and Adam Warlock rescuing Star Lord from space.  Cosmo was really cool in this sequence.
10. The departure scene where the Guardians split up.