Movie review: "Avengers: Infinity War"

dir. by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
written by Chrisopher Markus and Stephen McFeely
I will confess to having a soft spot for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I enjoy the vast majority of the films in the series, and in particular I've highly praised every entry from the past two years, excepting Thor: Ragnarok, which I didn't review. But my praise tends to be focused on how these films find their own distinctive identities, with clear thematic concerns, strong character arcs, and to an extent even different styles. The upcoming Avengers film worried me, because I still remembered the last one, an enjoyable but rough, overstuffed, and somewhat predictable behemoth which was too massive for its own good.

Avengers: Infinity War is the culmination of 10 years of movies, and it certainly feels like a product designed to pay off such an expansive array of content. With its absurd bloat and deeply fragmented narrative, this at times doesn't even feel like a proper film, with its character arcs given zero space to breathe where they exist at all. And yet, Infinity War is at least satisfying on its own terms, as a series of comedic, dramatic, and action beats carefully designed to appeal to the series' immense fanbase. It's a brisk 2.5 hours, and there's an undeniable appeal in the margins, but with this one you will need to bring your investment in with you.

Movie review: "Black Panther"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir by Ryan Coolger
writ. by Ryan Coolger and Joe Robert Cole
It's widely acknowledged by now that the post-Iron Man superhero genre has been overwhelmingly dominated by stories about good super-powered white men defeating sinister villains and scary monsters. The current crop of Marvel movies so frequently rely on such traditional narratives that they've come under wide criticism for it, and while movies like Doctor Strange and Thor: Ragnarok added tweaks to the films' visual styles, they're nonetheless cut from the same template. It works, but it's been working for a full decade at this point, and understandably some people are starting to get tired of it. Black Panther could have been an unholy disaster, and it still would have stood out not only for swapping out the skin colour and cultural background of its cast, but also for making tweaks to these movies' expected plot structure.

However, what Marvel hasn't gotten quite enough credit for lately is how they've attempted to infuse many of their recent films with a greater degree of introspection. What they dub "Phase 3" started with the genuinely thoughtful Captain America: Civil War, a film in which the primary conflict didn't even have a proper villain, and which seemed surprisingly ambivalent about the fundamental tropes of its own genre. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 tied all of its characters back into a nuanced theme about finding one's family, and Spider-Man: Homecoming featured subtext about wealth and privilege in both the genre and in modern America. Black Panther, then, didn't come out of nowhere, but while it's more talky and heavy than much of Marvel's usually buoyant catalogue, it's also the studio's most dramatically compelling and thematically committed film to date, and generally its best since Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Movie review: "Spider-Man: Homecoming"

THROND'S CHOICE
dir. by Jon Watts
One day, the Marvel Cinematic Universe will consume us all, but for now, it's an astonishingly consistent and frequently delightful if overly serialized blockbuster series which has yet to produce a proper failure. Its third phase, in particular, has achieved a sublimely even quality across its four entries so far, all of which are compelling in their own way. At this point, the Marvel stamp is commonly viewed as a stamp of quality, and although none of these films are high art, they're entertaining and intelligent blockbusters which deliver light thrills just as well as character drama.

Spider-Man: Homecoming, despite its peculiar release arrangement with Sony, is not only on par with its phase 3 brethren, but rises up to be quite possibly the best of the lot. It's a simpler story than many of the studio's other offerings, but that's to its advantage, as it avoids the increasingly oppressive seriousness of the universe's most significant entries while retaining a sharp wit and a low-scale intimacy. It's fun like Marvel films always are, but it's also charming and fresh to a degree which is less common in this franchise.

Movie review: "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2"

BEST NEW FEATURE
dir. by James Gunn
Despite their acclaim, the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are fundamentally corporate products. They're expensive, rarely challenging, and formulaic, and their more unique entries are usually only weird by the franchise's own standards, as was the case with the first Guardians of the Galaxy in 2014. However, as it's become more and more reliably successful, the franchise has begun experimenting with its formula: Captain America: Civil War revolved its sprawling spectacle around a thoughtful storyline which bordered on autocritique, whereas Doctor Strange spruced up its familiar origin story with a pinch of psychedelia.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 doesn't have the first film's consistency of humour or momentum, but it retains much of what made its predecessor so charming, and adopts the strengths of both of its "phase 3" bretheren. If its character drama doesn't reach the heights of Civil War, it's still one of the thornier entries in the MCU, and its visuals even surpass the benchmark of Doctor Strange to set a new high point for the series. If sequels are expected to be bigger and bolder, Guardians 2 also takes the much more admirable route of being weirder.

Doctor Strange movie review

BEST NEW FEATURE
dir. by Scott Derrickson
(tl;dr? skip to the end for a few pros and cons)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is eight years old now, and it's expanded significantly since its debut in 2008 in just about every imaginable way. Films like Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War have become sprawling behemoths of a million subplots, the Sokovia Accords have heightened the franchise's thematic ambitions, and the MCU has even lept off the big screen into the realms of Netflix and broadcast television, with cable soon to come. By this point, these movies have developed a recognisable formula, but while Doctor Strange fits all the trappings, it also brings the solid humour, characters, and action which makes these films a hit, and taps into a fresh vein of the source material in the process.

Captain America: Civil War movie revew

BEST NEW FEATURE
dir. by Joe and Anthony Russo
In 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron, the sheer scale of property damage was upped to unprecedented levels for the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). At the time, it seemed like a shift away from the relative damage control that the original Avengers was retroactively praised for upon the release of 2013's Man of Steel, and worse, a dip into generic, pandering action movie tropes. Captain America: Civil War, the beginning of the third "phase" of the MCU, had not only the tough job of improving upon the widely-beloved Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but also the duty of restoring faith in this franchise after Age of Ultron proved so polarizing. While Civil War is unfortunately not as tight as The Winter Soldier, it provides a sprawling, introspective look at the Avengers and their place in the world that not only deepens the Marvel universe, but makes Age of Ultron better by extension, all while remaining gripping throughout.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode review: "Many Heads, One Tale"

Season 3 episode 8
Oh my god.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. recap/review: "Chaos Theory"

Season 3 episode 7
Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. continues its upwards trend with another of the best episodes this season.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode review: "Among Us Hide..."

Season 3 episode 6
Now THAT is more like it.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode review: "4,722 Hours"

Season 3 episode 5
A very different episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. provides a nice respite from the usual action but lacks much excitement or tension on its own.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode review: "Devils You Know"

Season 3 episode 4
Now THIS is more like it.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode review: "A Wanted (Inhu)man"

Season 3 episode 3
A less exciting episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. nonetheless ends with exciting developments.

Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode review: "Purpose in the Machine"

Season 3, episode 2

This week's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't quite as exciting as the premiere, but it has more than enough exciting plot developments to keep the story going.

Massive spoilers for Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. follow. 

Ant-Man movie review

dir. by Peyton Reed
distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
full cast at IMDB
The newest superhero origin story from Marvel Studios may not be the studio's best effort, but it's a thoroughly enjoyable watch all the same.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron movie review

The sequel to 2012's smash hit The Avengers was bound to be the biggest film of the year, and nothing seems poised to top it at the box office. Marvel Studios films are reliably high-quality action fare, and Age of Ultron is not the studio's first failure... but it also doesn't hold a candle to its predecessor and isn't one of the studio's strongest efforts.