Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

 

Let me explain how good a movie Spider-Man: No Way Home is: as soon as it was done, I wanted to watch it again. As I sit here typing this, I am wondering how soon I can see it again. It is, to put it simply, quite possibly the best Spider-Man film ever. 

Strangely enough, it shouldn't be. It shouldn't even work. As a rule, comic book movies with multiple villains almost never work. And even when they do more or less work (The Dark Knight), they still don't work quite as well as the ones that concentrate on a single villain.

Sidebar: For those who take exception to what I just said in relation to The Dark Knight, while it is a very good Batman movie, there are about four or five points in the movie where you think it's over and it's not. And Two Face does seem kinda shoehorned in. The movie would have worked much better with just The Joker as the villain and Two Face getting his own movie.

The Spider-Man series is especially notorious for movies with multiple villains not working. Spider-Man 3 and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 both make the same mistakes even: Peter spending an awful lot of the movie crying and having 3 villains each, with at least one of the villains being completely unnecessary. In the case of The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I'll even argue that two of the villains are completely unnecessary. That entry did not need either The Green Goblin or The Rhino.

So yes, a movie with no less than 5 villains in it should really not work. It should be a dissatisfying mess and a candidate for worst movie of all time. However, this is an MCU movie and one thing that Marvel has taught us over the last 13 years is that they know how to tell a story. As a result, not only is this movie completely satisfying, it's a candidate for being one of the very best comic book movies ever. We're talking Avengers: Endgame or Superman: The Movie levels of greatness. We're talking about two and half hours of pure movie magic. 

The film picks up where Spider-Man: Far From Home left off. Mysterio has revealed to the world that Peter Parker is Spider-Man, an act that turns the hapless teenager's life upside down. Half the world hates him, the paparazzi won't go away, and he and his friends Ned and MJ can't get into college. So Peter goes to Dr. Strange and asks for a spell that will make the world forget he's Spider-Man. The spell goes sideways, which opens a portal to the multiverse and lets in the primary villains from the first five Spider-Man movies: The Green Goblin (the real one IMO), Doctor Octopus, Sandman, The Lizard and Electro. Spidey has to contain them, but when he finds out they're all going to die upon returning to their worlds, he decides to try to help them instead. That's the type of hero Spider-Man is.

If you've stayed away from spoilers as I always try to, you're in for quite a ride. Even if you know or think you know some of what's going to happen, I promise you there's things in this movie you'll never see coming. It's a complete delight, alternately funny and heartbreaking.

The cast is fantastic. I've liked Tom Holland's Spidey since his first appearance in Captain America: Civil War. He really is the comic book Spidey come to life. Marissa Tomei remains the best Aunt May ever. Zendaya and Jacob Batalon give their usual strong performances as MJ and Ned. Ditto Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange. As far as the villains go, it's a delight to see Willem Dafoe's Green Goblin and Alfred Molina's Doc Ock again. Those two prove again that they are among the best screen villains in history. Not only that, but Jamie Foxx, Rhys Ifans, and Thomas Haden Church get another shot to get their villains right.

Sidebar: The biggest problem with Spider-Man 3 is Venom, who is completely superfluous. Haden Church did a fine job as Sandman and the film should have just been about him. Similarly, Foxx was cheated out of making Electro into a really great villain with the introduction of The (fake) Green Goblin in Amazing Spider-Man 2. In fact, it can be argued that Haden Church, Foxx, and Ifans were all done a disservice by the scripts. For that matter, so was Andrew Garfield, who was a perfectly good Spider-Man stuck with lackluster scripts. I'd argue that he's the Pierce Brosnan or Peter Capaldi (for you Doctor Who fans) of the Spider-Man films.

I've been a Spider-Man film since I was a little kid. Hell, I wanted to be Spider-Man when I was a little kid (I almost kinda still do). This is the Spider-Man movie I've waited for since I was about six years old. A complete geek-out fest of a film and one I personally can't wait to revisit.

Deadpool (2016)

Deadpool is not your grandfather's comic book movie. For that matter, it's not your father's comic book movie. In fact, I'm not entirely sure who's comic book movie this is. It's raunchy, gorey, hyper-violent, foul-mouthed,outrageous, hilarious and quite possibly the most fun comic book movie since the 1966 Batman! It is quite possibly the most R-Rated movie I've watched since Pulp Fiction. In short, I loved every bawdy, over the top moment of it. I will warn, the rest of this review may not exactly be Safe For Work.

You know you're in for something different when the opening credits read "some douchebag's film", "produced by asshats", and "directed by an overpaid tool". The movie concerns Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds, "God's Perfect Idiot"), an ex-Special Forces operative turned mercenary. He meets and falls for a hooker named Vanessa (Morena Baccarin, "a hot chick"). When he finds out he's dying of cancer, Ajax (Ed Skrein, "a British Villain") offers him a chance to be part of an experiment that will cure his cancer. The experiment, in a vile and disgusting secret base, ends up giving him regenerative powers but makes him look like "an avocado had sex with an older, disgusting avocado". Wilson takes on the moniker of Deadpool and goes out for bloody revenge. Along the way Colossus (Stefan Kapicic, "A CGI Character") tries to make him give up his murderous ways and join the X-Men, something Deadpool consistently flips off.

Ryan Reynolds played Wilson for the first time in 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine. That movie is mostly okay, but the character of Deadpool was completely wasted. Especially since they decided to sew his mouth shut, eliminating one of the character's biggest traits, his non-stop wisecracking. Reynolds loved the character enough to keep pushing to get his own movie. Reynolds is hysterically funny in this, cracking wise, drawing childish pictures of the villain, and generally breaking the fourth wall again and again. Actually, this movie doesn't so much as break the fourth wall as it burns it down, scatters the ashes all over the place and farts in it's general direction for good measure. There is literally a fourth wall break inside a fourth wall break in this movie, something not even Groucho Marx ever did.

The rest of the cast somehow manages to keep up Reynolds. I'm not sure how they do it, but they do it. While Baccarin is ultimately reduced to Damsel in Distress, her early scenes with Reynolds are touching and funny, as is the scene where she unmasks him at the end. Skrein's Ajax, real name Francis (a fact Deadpool loves reminding him of) is appropriately nasty. His henchwoman Angel Dust (Gina Carano) as is gorgeous as she is deadly. She gives Colossus a good run for his money in the fight department at the end. Brianna Hildebrand as Negasonic Teenage Warhead is the one character, however, most equipped to meet Deadpool on equal terms. Their back and forth is an absolute highlight of the film.

I would say that this tops the earlier Wolverine movie, but there's really no comparison. They're two movies on completely different levels of filmmaking, which is weird since they sort of inhabit the same shared universe. Deadpool is clearly supposed to be part of Fox's X-Men Universe. Besides Colossus, there are several scene at Professor Xavier's School. Mercifully, you don't need to have seen any of the other movies to enjoy this one nor do you need to see this one to enjoy the other movies. It stands on its own gloriously and wonderfully. And at under 2 hours, it isn't as bloated as other superhero movies so it doesn't overstay it's welcome.

Good thing, too. Although if you did need to see X-Men to enjoy this or vice versa, there would be a lot of disappointed children since there is no way any child should see this. There were reports of parents taking their children to see this and being outraged by the content. To them I say: "Hi. There's this little thing known as the internet. Maybe you heard of it? Lets you check out the content of movies before seeing them? Yeah, maybe you should look into that in the future." For the rest of us, however, this is one wild trip.

Thor: The Dark World

When Thor came out in 2011, my interest in seeing it was only slightly more than my interest in seeing a torture horror movie, which is to say practically non-existent. However, I had heard some good things about it and when it hit Redbox, I plunked down a dollar to rent it. After watching it, I immediately felt stupid for having not seen it in the theater. A wonderful mix of superhero goofiness and Shakespearean intrigue, Thor worked far better than I expected. So naturally I determined early on not to let it's sequel get away from me.

While most sequels fail to live up to their predecessors, Thor: The Dark World comes from the rare breed of sequel that is actually better than it's first entry. This is especially surprising when you consider that, outside of The Avengers 2, known of the Phase One directors are coming back to direct Phase Two movies. What this means for the second entry in the Thor series is that Kenneth Branagh isn't guiding this one. That actually translates to less Palace Intrigue and more Big Fights, but surprisingly, this doesn't work against the movie like it should.

The film opens, as it's predecessor did, with the Asgardians defeating a powerful enemy, this time the Dark Elves, led by Malaketh. Doctor Who fans will take glee in seeing Ninth Doctor Christopher Eccleston as Malaketh, who aspires to send the Nine Realms back into darkness using a weapon called the Aether. Malaketh escapes from Odin's father and the Aether is hidden from him by the Asgardians. Eventually, the Aether is found by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) and Malaketh and his minions rise up to reclaim it and finish the job of sending the Nine Realms back into darkness. Naturally, it is up to Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to put an end to all of this.

I realized as I wrote the above summary that some of this sounds an awful lot like Lord of the Rings and maybe it does. Despite that, it's not something you think about as you actually watch the movie. Thor: The Dark World moves at a pretty good clip and is filled with some great one-liners. It brings back all of the major players of the first film, from Anthony Hopkins and Renee Russo as Thor's parents Odin and Frigia to Stellan Skaarsgard and Kat Dennings as Portman's sorta scientific colleagues Dr. Erik Selvig and Darcy, all of whom put in exactly the type of performance one would except of these actors. In fact, the only major player from the first film not in this is Clark Gregg's Agent Coulson, and that's because he's on TV right now. Though I would love to see him and the Agents of SHIELD team pop up in one of these films.

And then there's Loki.

Tom Hiddleston's Loki was the high point of the first film and, in many ways, of The Avengers as well. Point in fact, he's the best villain in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and probably a top ten--maybe even top five--movie villain period. This time Hiddleston gets to put a little more depth to Loki, playing him as more of a shade of grey than previously. Throughout the movie, the audience is never fully sure who's side Loki is on, and it makes for fascinating viewing. It also helps that he gets many of the best lines, too. The scene where he disguises himself as Captain America is a riot. No one in the movie can match him--not Eccleston, not Hemsworth, not Portman, not even Hopkins. How often can you say that? Hiddleston completely walks away with the movie, leaving the audience wanting more.

It is a given that The Avengers is the best movie in the MCU. Hower, Thor: The Dark World, while not quite as good, is not far behind. I admit to being concerned that the Phase Two movies would be major letdowns after what came before them, but so far, I'm loving what I'm seeing. Iron Man 3 had only a couple of minor missteps while this particular film does everything right. I'm looking forward to Captain America: The Winter Soldier now. My only regret was not seeing this in 3D last night, but that was on the theater. I'll gladly see Thor: The Dark World a second time. It's a movie well worth seeing, especially on the big screen.