SHIELD and the Winter Soldier

The title of this is correct and a correction for part of what Marvel Studios did wrong, this was much bigger than just a Captain America film, it took in so much more of Fury, SHIELD and beyond.

This is where they should have already begun the television series, Agents of SHIELD, so that it could tie directly into this film and the rest of the MCU.

The film begins with Steve Rogers, literally running circles around Sam Wilson (The Falcon) at the Capitol Plaza in DC.  Each time Steve passes Sam he says, "on your left", which remains an ongoing line between the two to the end of Endgame.  It begins a bond that doesn't begin to touch the one they had in the comics, and should have already happened and been expanded, but I digress...

Widow picks up Cap for a mission, rescuing hostages onboard a ship that isn't where it should be, with Batroc the Leaper as the primary villain in the ships capture, a formidable matchup with Cap and they have a great fight scene.  Meanwhile Widow has her own mission, obtaining data the ship was carrying and we start to get hints that all isn't well in SHIELD.  

If you've followed the MCU and Agents of SHIELD, you know where this goes, Cap, Widow, Fury & Falcon take down most of Hydra and SHIELD as well, but Coulson and others carry on SHIELD's fight in the series.

One of the most interesting parts of the film is when Doctor Zola (Toby Jones) reappears as a living computer, who tells Cap & Widow how Hydra survived and grew inside SHIELD.  With the way computers can transfer data, we have to wonder if Zola is really gone, or will he pop up on another computer screen someday?

Of course the great spin/twist in this one is that Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) is still alive and going by The Winter Soldier for the last 30-sum years as an assassin for hire, only the most important of targets.  He does an excellent job setting up and showing us who the character has become, the reprogramming scene is pretty intense, even one of the worst of the Hydra guys seems to almost feel sorry for him.

Nick Fury is killed, sorta, then comes back, and it must have been right after this that he went off world and was replaced by a skrull, went out for some intergalactic R&R I suppose, he'd earned it.

Like a lot of films that hit this order of an ongoing story, one has to ask, where was Iron Man and the others?  When all hell breaks loose in the nations capital, why don't other heroes come running?

Overall it's a pretty good film and finally brings Falcon into the MCU, but it was still to use this as a Captain America film.  Chris Evans needs to just accept his fate, he IS Captain America and should be willing to come back for whatever the MCU needs.

There is a lot more to this story, parts of it mirror real life, with a twist, but the writing is pretty obvious about it, I'll talk about it somewhere else, but not this page.

.... on your left! 😉

 

Thor, the dark world and the lousy story

One of the films regarded as the worst of the MCU and rightly so, it's pretty damn bad, for everyone, but Loki, although we do get a bit more of Thor's friends in Asgard like Sif and the Warriors Three.

The writers could have found a better way to address Thor's love and the transfer of the reality "stone".

Kenneth Branagh should have been left in charge of the world of Thor, he just understands the classics.

This film just feels uncomfortable from moment one to the end.  The over use of humor is really obvious and just makes it worse.  There is no real focus to the film at all, it's just handling a few points to move them on for the rest of the MCU.

Then there is the subtitling for the elves speech is just annoying for this kind of film, it's not a historical epic, it's a super hero film.  I'm guessing that Branagh left because he wanted to bring the script back to something more sane.

With a weak villain and a very weak script, the forced humor only adds to how bad it all is, and Marvel would foolishly up the "humor" in Thor's other adventures, taking away from the core of the character.

One of the better parts of the film, is the connection between Thor's mother Frigga, and Jane Foster, we should have gotten more of them together, but she gives her life to protect Foster.  Killing off Frigga was a huge mistake for all of it, especially for such and insanely weak story.  The short interactions between Russo and Hopkins were very good.  "It's only because I worry over you, that you have survived this long." great stuff.

Thor enlists the aid of his half-brother Loki to help him against the dark elves and Loki sacrifices himself in the battle (or so we think), and in the end Thor tells his father of Loki's sacrifice, only for us to find out that Loki is alive and has replaced Odin.  If this story had been told from the perspective of Loki, it would have been far better.

I consider, Howard The Duck, to be of greater value to the overall Marvel Universe than I do this sad film, Iron Man 3 might have been bad, but it's still worlds above this one.  Sad that I had to review two of the worst in a row, but that's how Marvel set the timeline. 

Next up : SHIELD and the Winter Soldier ... yes, you read that correctly... 

 

Spider Man and his Amazing Friends

When we last left Spider Man, he was swinging off to reboot his life, with a new home made costume and return to a more classic, Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man.

This opens up the opportunity for something fans have wanted for quite a while, but it's only now, with the merger of companies that it's finally possible.

The post credit scene I wanted for this Spider Man was meeting two fellow young people, Bobby Drake & Angelica Jones with her little friend Miss Lion, just into the world, but also with special abilities, and a team up seems like just what they'd all need for their next journey in life, Spider Man and his Amazing Friends.

Spidey is looking for a new beginning, about to start college and looking for some new friends, it only seems appropriate as many other parts of the MCU reset after the events of Endgame and the world has forgotten Peter Parker, it's a great new start all around for him.

This  is also a perfect way to introduce mutants into the MCU, explaining that they've been around for a long time.  No need for some dramatic and possibly ridiculous storyline to force them suddenly into this universe.  Let it just be that they have been a closely guarded secret.  This can also help explain he line Nick Fury had in the Avengers, "the world is filling up with people who just can't be matched." and part of that, could be the X-Men and other mutants.  At some point, when they meet, Professor Xavier should thank Peter for his "great sacrifice", without going into any explanation for the statement.

It would seem that several of the Spider Man villains of old won't be part of this Spideyverse, Doctor Octopus probably won't pop up, and Norman Osbourne said, "someone's living in my house and there is on OsCorp", seems doubtful that Sandman will be here again either.  That still leaves a great host of awesome villains like Hobgoblin and Kraven can come along.  We've already seen Vulture, King Pin and Shocker (who was a great villain in the comics) plus we don't necessarily know that Mysterio is dead, he could always come back.

To me, the characters Morbius and Venom are too dark for this version of the Spiderverse, they would be much better suited to the Andrew Garfield universe, even though they are trying to set them up for this universe, it just doesn't fit.

Spider Man & His Amazing Friends is a much smarter and lucrative way to go for Feige and the Disney/Sony version of the Spider Man storyline.

I know this is absolutely insane, three Spider-verses going on at once, but it could be a success storm for Marvel, Disney and Sony if they can pull it off, and I believe they can.  We've seen other film franchises ruined by taking a brighter world and forcing it into dark places, and vice-versa, so why not let them each have their own?  There are multiple publishings of Spider Man in comic form, why not in films?

THIS is the next daring step that Kevin Feige needs to take for Spider Man.

Spider Friends.... GO FOR IT!!!

 

Andrew and the arrival of Madame Web

Seeing the two former Spider Men in the new film was a truly great moment, but it also allowed us to see deeper into each of them and see their differences.

What we saw from Andrew Garfield's version, is that he's the tragic Spidey, the lonely one, the lost one.  He lost his parents, lost his Gwen and has yet to find his Mary Jane.

Garfield did a great job, as he had done in his films, but seeing him with these other two made you wonder what happened to him, in his universe after he was returned.

In this version of Spider Man I see the opportunity to introduce one of the characters from the Spider-verse that crosses over them all, something that this Spider Man could really use in his journey, a guide, Madame Web.

McGuire's version seems a bit old for this to be introduced on him now, Holland's version is looking for a whole new way in the world but Garfield's version is the one who needs Madame Web the most.

She not only could help guide him on his journey as Spider Man but also on his personal journey to find out the mystery of his parents.

Garfield's personality and look seem to be good for a more mystical Spider Man and a bit darker New York.

After a couple of very rough nights, both in which he wasn't in time to save everyone from tragedies, Parker is wondering if it's all worth it, even with what he learned from the other Spidey's, he's really not sure of himself.

As he swings into a dark alley to retrieve his clothes and head home, the dark alley turns into a very deep hole in space, as he finally lands and dark bluish/purple light comes up and there sits Madame Web. 

Web tells Peter that Spider-Man is a very crucial thread throughout the multiverse, a part that even Stephen Strange doesn't yet understand, and that's why there are so many of them, his core is special to the web of existence.   The mantra of Spider Man, "With great power comes great responsibility" is part of Peter's core being in each universe.   She explains that Peter Parker is one of the few beings in the multiverse who doesn't have a "dark side" in some other realm, that he is a beacon of Good.

As far as his love interest, this would be the perfect universe to introduce, The Black Cat, Felecia Hardy and her style and history seems to fit here.  Hardy comes from a very rich family, Peter would be a fish out of water in that aristocratic world, could make for the humorous parts of the films.  The Tobey-verse has, in my opinion, the bast Mary Jane Watson, and the Holland-verse is rebooting, open for many possibilities, but The Cat just seems to fit here,

It's this that sets up his confrontation with Morbius.  Yes, I know there are scenes that set him up for the Holland-verse but I think this is the one that the Venom and Morbius characters need to be centered in, it just seems to feel like a more perfect fit than the Tom Holland universe.  I'm very excited for the Morbius film but it just all seems far too dark for the MCU of today, but would work in the Andrew-verse perfectly.

In one of the post film scenes of, No Way Home, we see Eddie Brock (why he was brought to that universe is unknown, he had no idea who Peter Parker or Spider Man even were at all), this should set up them coming to NYC.

Like Morbius, the Venom storyline is pretty dark, and a lot more violent than the Holland films have seen so far, why mess up that formula when it works better here?

This, to me, would fix that mistake of Brock in the Holland-verse, and yes I think it was a major mistake.  Let Holland's version find Venom the way the character did in the original story, during Secret Wars.

With the introduction of Madame Web we could also see the different Spider Men come together again in some kind of convergence like we saw in the 90's animated series, allowing some characters to jump from one universe to another.

 

Spider Man : Rebooting the Tobey-verse

Going into Spider Man No Way Home, I had some specific ideas on what I would like to see in the upcoming life of Spider Man (Tom Holland), but came out with some completely different ones.

The film was VERY GOOD, bordering on great, but left out some things that should have been in, and was a bit disappointing in other ways, I'll get into details later when more have had a chance to see it.

But, it did also make me completely relook at the McGuire and Garfield versions of the character and see that there are some genuine possibilities for more films on both of those parts of the Spidey-verse.

Given that McGuire and Dunst have more dramatic acting experience, I thought that this could be the more dramatic version of the character.  Plenty of web-action but with much deeper and emotional tones to the stories.

In my opinion there should be two constants in the multiple Spider Man universes, JK Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson and, the yet to be introduced, Madame Web, hopefully they find the right actress who can portray the part across them all.

Speaking of J Jonah Jamison there was one line he had in the second Spider-Man movie where he was trying to name "Dr. Octopus" for a headline and came up with a name "Doctor Strange" but acknowledged that the name was already taken, who was he talking about?  Does this mean the sorcerer supreme already existed in this existence of Spider-Man?  If he does exist in that thread of the multiverse, who else might be there?

Back to the subject at hand, Mark Of The Man Wolf, would be a pretty deep and dramatic way to go for McGuire's version of the character.

This is one of the most memorable and well known of the classic Spider Man stories, thanks a lot to it's radio-style dramatization to a record-storybook set from the 1970's.

I had the original comic and story record as a kid and went years before I even tried to listen to it with the lights out 😆, looking back I'm amazed they made that story into a record for little kids.  Given the popularity for werewolf stories is still high, this could draw in new Spider Man fans.

This is a really intense story and changed J Jonah Jameson, until they changed him back, but I'd suggest this JJJ gets taken down a notch or two with this story, it could even be a two part film set.

Another reason to save, and extend, the Tobey-verse is that they have, Alfred Molina as Doctor Otto Octavious, aka, Doc Ock.  At the end of, No Way Home, he was still in possession of his extra arms and had the chip putting him back in control not only repaired, but highly upgraded.  One can really hope that he survived when he returned to his world and was able to help save the city.  This would make for a unique version of the Spidey-verse where Otto is not only still alive and attached but also a possible ally for the future.  This actor/character pairing is just too good and too popular to let go.

Bottom line is, there are still viable possibilities for the Tobey McGuire version of the Spider-verse, if he and Dunst are willing to make a go of it.


 

The Missing Spider Man, Nicholas Hammond

It's not really a spoiler if I tell you about something that's NOT in the new Spider Man, is it?  Oh well, if you saw the title of this, you know already, might as well read on... 

It's probably out now that all three of the cinematic Spider Men make an appearance in, No Way Home, but should there have been a fourth?  I say yes, there should have, in the person of, Nicholas Hammond who played Spider Man on television from September 14th 1977 to July 6th 1979.  Despite the fact that Marvel monarch Stan Lee didn't like the show, a whole lot of us kids back then LOVED it.  It's that connection through the ages that should have put Hammond in the new film, if only briefly.

To me, the best way to have done it was during the scene with all of them at Ned's home, while they are standing around and talking...

A knock at the front door, the Peters convince Ned to open it because, "super villains don't knock", but the three Spider Men get ready for anything as Ned approaches the door.  When he opens it, an older gentlemen is standing there with a kind, somewhat grandfatherly look on his face, "Hi, I'm Peter Parker, I have a feeling I belong here, right now." he says calmly.  Ned, stuttering and even more lost than ever opens the door and invites the older man in.

As he walks into the living/dining room, he looks over the three young men, smiling almost with pride, his eyes misting up a bit.  "It's nice to see the legacy carried on from so many different places." the older man says.  The three just look confused.  The old man reintroduces himself, "I'm Peter Parker, and I became Spider Man in my world back in 1977."  The three are now starry eyed but still confused, the older man looks as if a lightbulb just went off in his head, "oh, none of you have met her yet, makes sense now."  Even more confusion with the three.  "Don't worry about what you have to do, Spider Man has a purpose, no matter which world you come from, it won't be easy, far from it, but seeing you gathered here, I doubt there isn't anything you three can't do if you work together."  "Are you hear to help us?" says Holland, "No, my web-swinging days are over, I just wanted to let you know that more than one world is counting on you, someday, you'll all understand more."  With that, the older man simply leaves.

It's an ultimate teaser for, Madame Web and many will understand the implication of how the universes are connected, and is another teaser for how these worlds could come together again.

The television show was a great thing when we were kids and this would not just help connect the generations in the film but in fans as well, not to mention some bonus action figures of the classic TV Spider Man 😉 $$$ and a great way to celebrate the release of the original series on DVD/Blu-Ray, with Hammond doing some PR for it all.

 

Iron Man 3 - One for the Junk Pile

Arguably the worst of the MCU films, Iron Man 3 (although I find it more watchable than, Spider Man Far From Home) left a lot to be desired, and as we got the "twist" in the film, it wasn't a thrill, it was a direct shot to the unarmored iron balls.

When it was announced that Ben Kingsley had been cast and it appeared that he was playing the Mandarin, I was thrilled, this is one of the greatest actors of the last century.  Then I saw the movie and felt like chucking my large Sprite at the screen.

For the longest time, the Mandarin has been one of Stark's greatest enemies, now it seemed that they were dialing it up to 11 by making him a terrorist leader as well as everything else he's supposed to be, but just another angry CEO... didn't we do that with Obie and Hammer?  This was the opportunity of a real hardcore Ironman villain, and Marvel failed big time.

The one good thing I'll say about the film is that it was still a lot of the nuts & bolts Ironman and not that nanotech nonsense they would later use to screw up the character more.

It started off great, the video threats from the supposed Mandarin, matching up with a lot of the way terrorists like to operate, it was a change for him, but it was okay, kinda matched up with reality a bit more, I could live with that.  Using human bombs that could go off and walk away, VERY COOL, could leave those investigating it fooled for who knows how long, no evidence.  

Stark meets this really cool kid in Tennessee, a kid with some of the same talents as Stark, nice appeal to younger audiences but not to over-cutsie as Disney products tend to overdue it, it was working so far.

This could have let up to an even better Shang-Chi if the real 10 Rings had been in play, like the Mandarin used in the comic.  At Mandarins defeat the rings could have gone to Shang-Chi's father, and we could have seen that unfold in their film.

But the moment we learned that the Kingsley character not only wasn't the Mandarin but just an actor, the film died, right then, it was over and not worth another kernal of popcorn, and it was such a bad choice it took credibility from the entire MCU.  If they were willing to make a decision this bad on an Iron Man movie, what else might they severely screw up?!?

I'm not a fan of Guy Pearce anyway, I'm not impressed with his acting and can't understand how anyone is, he comes off as slimey from the first second, even when he's not trying to.

Let's hope that Shane Black just goes away and doesn't return to the MCU anytime ... at all, the writing was terrible and the direction was abysmal.  Let him go make B-level action flicks with Z-list actors where he belongs.

In the end, this was just a really bad addition to the MCU and probably shouldn't have been done if they weren't going to do it right.

Overall this film gets half a star, but for a single film, it gets none, it was just a mistake, plain and simple.

This film will forever be in the ranks of Indiana Jones 4 and the Star Wars sequels of, WHAT THE HELL WERE THEY THINKING!?!

 

MRM: The band is finally together, The Avengers

The buildup of the MCU Phase 1 came to a head in this groundbreaking film, that brought these heroes together to fight against the invading army of ... Loki, well sort of.

In the very first scene we learn that the villain isn't really the main villain, just someone doing his bidding.

Nick Fury shows up at SHIELD HQ to find the teseract has been "misbehaving" as we're reintroduced to Dr Selvig (from Thor) and Hawkeye  who points out that the teseract is a door and that doors open from both directions, which it quickly does, and Loki starts blowing things up, as well as taking Selvig and Hawkeye as his "personal flying monkeys"... no worries, Cap gets the reference.... or does later... 

One of the more important scenes that a lot of people might overlook is when Nick is speaking to the "shodowy committee" and we see that they are just bureaucrats and don't really get what should/needs to be done, but still people in a position of power that can cause problems.

The recruitment scenes are good, get the job done, but (other than Nat & Banner) really don't have a lot of emotion.  Bringing Cap & Banner onto the Carrier is good stuff, seeing Cap have to pay off his $10 bet with Fury is great bit between "old soldiers".

Thor is drawn in just in his search for Loki, but they make up for that in an really well written scene between Thor and Coulson on the Helicarrier.  Helmsworth should have been on an episode or two of, Agents of SHIELD, maybe a two parter with he and Coulson working, just the two of them, good matchup of characters.

Arguably the best scene in the film is the confrontation scene in the Helicarriers lab, when Loki's influence is affecting all of them, and stirring the pot.

"The world is filling up with people who can't be matched." is one of the phrases that Nick uses to justify more movies about hero's that are already there before The Avengers.  Who else is Nick talking about?  This is probably the biggest hole that they never really address.

This is also when we get that great scene between Cap & Stark when Cap challenges, "Big man in a suit of armor, take that off, what are you?"  But also in that scene, Stark shows his latent hate for Cap by calling him "you're a laboratory experiment Rogers, everything special about you came out of a bottle." which anyone knows, that's really the least of Cap, but they put it in to pump up the Star character and tone down Cap.  The scene didn't achieve what it should but did some of what they wanted, even if it was bad for the story.

The scene is interrupted by Hawkeye's attack on the Helicarrier.  Banner and Romanov fall to a lower level where Banner does his "party trick" and the Hulk is loose on the carrier, just as Loki wanted.  The ensuing battle on board splits the team up with Hulk and Thor knocked off but Hawkeye is brought back with a little smack to the coconut.

This also leads to the tragic loss of Agent Phil Coulson (yeah, I know 😉) as Loki stabs him in the back.  Fury uses the incident to motivate the team, and while in deep thought over what happened, Stark gets a revelation... "son of a b*tch", and he knows where Loki is heading.

Another great scene is the dialogue between Loki & Stark, sorry Tony, the threatening... it's a scene where we see Stark playing with Loki's emotions about Thor and then a final line about Coulson.  But in here we also get to see the real Iron Man, the nuts & bolts Iron Man instead of that nanotech nonsense.

The battle in New York is outrageous and a great climax for this phase of the MCU, but we see another issue when Cap lands on a police car and tells some police what he needs, the officer looks at him and says, "why should I take orders from you?".... IT'S CAPTAIN FREAKIN' AMERICA... so we have to see him smash some aliens for one minor laugh in the script, not a cool thing.

During the battle, here comes the shadowy committee again, bureaucrats making fool decisions for a fight they aren't part of and don't get, and Nick trying to tell them how foolish they are.  We see them again at the end of the film, where Nick pretty much brushes them off, too bad he couldn't do that earlier.  We get hints at this committee but overall in the MCU, they really never make a difference either way from here out.  One has to wonder, how many were on our side and how many were Hydra.  Looking back now, that committee seems like it was pretty useless in the MCU.

An end credit scene finally shows us Thanos, which was pretty cool but it was a bit obvious to begin with, studios let too much slip out before films are released, or many put the whole story into their trailers, not great filmmaking. 

In the end, Nick's plan worked, but was it by design or did he get lucky with the Avengers?  Did they get along because they could or because they had to?  We see some of that answer in a great, and simple, post credit scene of the crew having schwarma (I don't know what it is, but I wanna try it).

The film gets 🌟🌟🌟 and a half stars out of five, it was great to see the team together, the fight is good, but overall the film doesn't hit as hard as it could have.

 

MRM : The Incredible Hulk - The MCU’s split personality

Next up is the one part of Phase 1 that really kinda feels out of place, in more ways than one.

First of all, it's not the Bruce we know now, it's a different guy, Edward Norton is playing Banner in this one and the Hulk is full CGI with none of Norton in the characters face.

One of the things that follows and haunts this film are all the stories of how difficult Norton was to work with on set, it's stuck to this film and that's not good press for the MCU.

The one thing I will give them is all the Hulk history they toss in, Ferigno (who also voices The Hulk in this film) and Bixby appear in the film and we even get some bars of, The Lonely Man song from the original series, all of that is awesome and appreciated.  Although, as Bruce left the computer lab, I'd have had Ferigno say, "hope you found what you're looking for, Dr Banner."  And Bruce just smile at him with a nod of thanks.  The film had really good 2nd string and even 3rd string characters, they should have done just a bit more with it.  Stanley and his pizza place was awesome.

Doctor Bruce Banner is still on the run from General Thunderbolt Ross (and his yet unnamed, Hulkbuster squad), and currently hiding out in South America working at a soda pop factory.  Ross sends in his stealth-like troops (like bulls in a china shop) and the Hulk erupts once more.  After recovering, Banner somehow makes it from Central America to Virginia in less than 30 days with no money and no transportation, that seems a bit of a stretch, I'd have made it 60 days, roughly.

One of the parts of this that is out of place is the conversation between Ross and Blonski, when they talk about the bio-enhancement division of WWII, the Super Soldier program and Ross tries to really downplay and makes sure not to mention Steve Rogers or Cap, that was off.

Ross decides to ramp Bronski up with what's left of some form of the super soldier serum, they never explain what it is and where it came from.  If they had this, what where they working on?  Seriously.

Bruce's reunion with Betty Ross is good, the chemistry between the two is good, they play up the tension well, scientists afraid to let "the thing" loose.  But Betty's new beau calls the government over Banner, they never said why or played into the reasons around it, was he a plant?  Designed to get near Betty?  Lots of holes around this part.  The character is credited as Doc Samson but I can't see this guy becoming the Marvel hero of the same name at all, Ty Burrell is a good actor, but poor job in this, but I'd like to see Doc Samson in a future film or part of the upcoming She-Hulk series.

The campus battle is a good one, excellent action, as well as college reporter "Jack McGhee" and his friend "Jim Wilson" getting footage of parts on his cellphone, another nice nod to the original show, but could have been better.  Wilson is a character from Hulk's past in the comics and was one of his good friends/allies in the animated series of the 80's.

Watching this film today, really makes one wonder how General Ross made it to Secretary of Defense, or might be an intentional mockery of how the incompetent rise to the top through lies and political favor.

Banner finally hooks up with "Mr Blue" aka Dr Samuel Sterns (The Leader) and he tries to use an infusion process to clear Banners gamma poisoning, and appears to work.  Bronski wants the reverse, he wants the raw power of the Hulk in him, Sterns goes through with it, creating the Abomination.  In the fury, parts of the gamma serum drip down onto Sterns head and we see him begin his own transformation but never have seen the result so far.

The battle between Hulk and the Abomination is the fight that Roffalo's Banner references to in The Avengers when he says, "I broke Harlem", showing that he still blames himself for something he was actually trying to clean up.

The end credit scene between Ross and Stark felt very forced, like it wasn't part of the original plan.  Especially given the end of, Iron Man 2, where Stark was told that he was rejected from the group, so why did he approach Ross instead of Fury... for the joke about the "nice suits"?  

Bottom line, this was just made as an Incredible Hulk film, not sure it was seriously ever thought that it would be a master part of the MCU and not sure why they decided to keep it, almost none of this films plots ran through to later films and we never have seen Betty Ross again.  Although we do finally see the Abomination pop up in Shang-Chi, hmm… I wonder how he escaped captivity...

Overall, the film gets 🌟🌟 and a half out of five, and a HUGE part of that is in the respect they show for the original television show, although I'd cast Liv Tyler as Betty Ross again.  As far as an MCU film it gets only half a star because so much of what they started in this film has yet to make it into the current MCU.

There is a lot that I'd have done different and I'll get more into it in my blog on, My MCU Universe that I'll release on New Years Day 2022.

 

MRM : Iron Man 2 aka, Tony's Ego part 2

Marvel doubled down with the 2nd installment of the MCU as Iron Man 2 took to the screen.  Looking back from today, we realize that the MCU isn't what we thought it was back then, so much centers around or leads back to, Tony Stark.

We start the film with Tonys tribute to Tonys ego, his resurrection of the Stark Expo, a whole year of it, or it was supposed to have gone on for a year... we never found out if they tried to finish it or not.

On his way out, a cameo by the always hot, Kate Mara, who serves Tony with an order to appear before the senate armed services committee hearing, which turns into a fun scene of Tony (Robert Downey Jr) making complete fools out of Senator Stern (Garry Shandling, who later turns out to be part of Hydra) and a political committee attempting to forcibly take the "Iron Man weapon" from him.  He also makes a fool out of fellow billionaire/designer (not really hard to do with this guy) Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell).

Another film where the Stark family history comes back biting, this time in the form of the son of a man who helped Howard Stark (John Slattery) design the arc reactor and then was shuffled off to Siberia to keep him from the world, never sharing a penny for his work and creations.

Ivan Vanko, the supervillain known as, Whiplash (Mickey Rourke, who should have won the Oscar for, The Wrestler) is the son of Starks former scientist and is out to avenge what was done to him, in a vodka fueled rage.

Back in his hotrod workshop, we find out that Stark is being poisoned by the cell in his chest that is keeping him alive and that the use of the Iron Man suit only makes it worse, but he does everything to keep it to himself, and he turns control of Stark Industries over to Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).

This film introduces Natasha Romanoff, aka The Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) as part of Stark Industries staff, he first scene in a funny bit with the films director, Jon Favreau, in his role as, Happy Hogan.

Tony, Pepper, Happy and Natasha travel to Monaco, where Elon Musk makes a cameo, Tony then subs himself in for his own Formula 1 driver, but the race is interrupted by Whiplash.  In another of the moments that is the way Iron Man should be, we see Tony change into the suit via a special briefcase, again the nuts & bolts of the suit being far better than the weak and lazy writing with "nanotech".

It's here that the MCU touches, ever so briefly, on one of the biggest parts of Tony's past, his alcoholism, as was featured in the comics in the 1970s, but came to help define and humble the character, this version could use some humility, they didn’t take this part seriously enough at all.

During one of Starks benders, he throws a massive party as his mansion and uses the Iron Man armor to blow up water melons.  James "Roadie" Rhodes (Don Cheadle) steps in and takes one of Tony's Iron Man suits.

Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) and Black Widow stage an intervention in a donut shop, where Widow sticks Tony with a sirum that helps to curb the effects of the paldium poisoning, for now.

Agent of SHIELD, Phil Coulson is assigned to babysit Stark as he's locked in his mansion to review a bunch of his dad's old work and movies from his version of the Stark Expo.  It's in these films that we hear Howard Stark's comment, "all things are possible through technology", and Marvel seems to want that to be their new motto over the classic, With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility, because hey, who should be or needs to be when your a, playboy-billionaire-philanthorpist... right?

Coulson leaves to "take care of something more important in the southwest (the discovery of Thor's hammer), Tony takes off to tell Pepper happy birthday and apologize.  While in his old office he gets a revelation while looking at the old scale model of his dad's Stark Expo.

To cure himself and to defeat Danko, Tony must fulfil his fathers dream, that he didn't have the technology back in his day.

Justin Hammer frees Danko and gets him to work on his own line of iron men, but Danko has a different plan.  The final battle is a pretty good one, although Whiplash being regulated to just another battle suit seems to be a slap to the classic villain.

Overall, the movie is really a lot about Tony's ego and little to do with the Avengers and/or the MCU, except to introduce Black Widow (which they could have done with her own movie) and War Machine... oh, and we also see Tony save a young Peter Parker at the Stark Expo (which the kids identity was thrown in LONG after the films release).  As far as an Iron Man adventure, it was too much Stark and not enough Iron Man, they could have done better.  It gets 🌟 and a half stars out of five, just because Scarlett Johansson looked so good in that suit.  The film is mainly about pushing the, "all things are possible through technology" 💩 than anything else... but the third film is even worse, but we'll get to that...

 

Throwback Thursday : Wolverine

Once upon a time, Wolverine was even cooler than he is now, he was 5'2" of adamantium & mutant fury, could go toe-to-toe with the Hulk and was the most popular character in the Marvel Universe.

Then one day, some goof decided to make him more "normal", whatever the hell that is, but it really did a lot of damage to the character and caused a cascade that dropped Marvel's sales for years.

There were several attempts to make the character part of some animated shows but they never pulled it off.

To me, the best think about Logan was the complete lack of an origin, it was guesswork, hints, teases, and a lot of crazy rumors.  There were stories about him in a photo during the War Between the States and his flashbacks to something resembling Feudal Japan, then there are the connections he has around the world that couldn't possibly be made in a regular human lifetime.

The origin they gave him was, and still is, absolutely terrible, in fact, putting it into movie form only showed how bad it is, let's hope that Kevin Feige goes back to the classic Wolverine that made "the little guy" the biggest in the Marvel Universe.

With Wolverine, the only thing you knew, was that you never knew, and that was what made his stories so damn good.  In ways, he was like the Batman, he would pull off stunts against the Hellfire Club and miraculous returns from the dead or four... 

Why "fix" something that wasn't broken?  Not sure why Marvel ever went for it, it made zero sense, and today makes even less.  It's the most outrageous parts of the MCU that are the best, and the best has yet to come, we hope.... 

Coming up, January 1st 2022, my ULTIMATE MCU list....

 

Deadpool Meets The Mask

 It’s not just the movie we NEED it’s the movie we DESERVE! 

A whacked out Wednesday with a film idea that just can't be passed up or ignored....

With a title out of a 50’s drive-in monster flick, the meeting of Deadpool and The Mask would be unbelievable and, if done right, could gross more $$$ than any other EVER!

Getting Ryan Reynolds as the worlds favorite Merc and Jim Carrey as the comic book like Mask would be an absolute riot, in more ways than one.

As the Marvel Multiverse starts to overlap, Wade has been hunting bad guys in Russia and has just walked out of a convenience store with an arm full of chimichangas just outside of Chernobyl.  After downing them far too fast he feels himself being ripped through the multiverse, but something goes wrong, as the nuclear snack foods have a bad reaction with him being a mutant, a thunderous fart blasts him off course and into the world of Stanly Ipkiss and, The Mask.

Even if it's just an extended weekend of these two anti-heroes going through the universe of The Mask, having to deal with a regular assortment of criminals and Stanly's landlady, Mrs Peenman, it would be an absolute scream for audiences as these two comedy masters whip out improv lines that the FX department has to keep up with, that might even be one of the jokes in the film (come on guys, try to keep up).

And then there is the post credit scene of Wade in the Marvel Universe.... 

X-Men : the movie 2000

The mutants were finally coming to the big screen but it didn't take long for a lot of fans, myself included, to realize that Bryan Singer should have never been allowed near an established franchise.

Today, we're pampered, we're spoiled by how organized the MCU is, and looking back, we realize what a sad cluster**** this film was, in so many ways.

Parts of it were perfect, Patrick Stewart as Charles Xavier was about as great as it gets for an older Professor X, he fit the bill perfectly.  Rebecca Romijn as Mystique was another excellent casting, that's lasted beyond many of the others, and she still looks amazing in body paint.

Hugh Jackman has portrayed Wolverine ever since, and although a lot of people rave about him, I have never been that impressed.  It also ruined the character when we saw Wolverine hosting the Tony Awards.  I was a lifelong fan of Wolverine, the real one, the original, but this was based on the new rendition of the character, a watered down version.  The classic Wolverine was so much better.

It was cool to see the characters come to life, especially when I knew one of them from his days in professional wrestling, Tyler Mane as Sabertooth, but the story was sophomoric at best, with a soft plot and poor dialogue and worse character interaction.

As a stand alone film, it gets 🌟 and a half out of five but as part of the MCU it's only half a star for the casting of Xavier, Rebecca Romijn in blue body paint and simply getting the characters to the screen.

 

MRM : Captain Marvel (2019)

Monday Marvel Movie Review:

Captain Marvel, 2019, taking place in 1984 & 1989 on earth, chronologically the next events of the Marvel Universe after Captain America.

Never saw this one in the theaters due to Brie Larson's comments about who she did and didn't want to come seeing her film, an act which should have garnered far more and extreme scrutiny by fans and Marvel Cinema officials, but most seemed to just blow it off.

The film is a lot better than I expected, it's good, bordering on very good but not great, like a lot of the MCU it has a lot of holes and questions.

We open with Vers (pronounced, veers) who is an operative for the Kree Empire, and her training with her supervisor/commander Yon-Rogg (Jude Law) and being told about her "true potential", which they refer to enough that it should have raised your eyebrow.  The Kree's war with the Skrulls is hot and heavy, in a mission to rescue an informant, Veers is captured and promptly escapes with help from her plasma blasts from her hands.

Ending up on earth, after crashing through the roof of a Blockbuster Video, Veers encounters a two-eyed Nick Fury (Samuel L Jackson) and his rookie partner, Coulson (Clark Gregg), who pursue Veers as a potential enemy as she battles skrulls across Los Angeles.  We also see the early signs of Coulson's diehard like loyalty to Fury begin to come out.

The action and story really move well, the swerves are pretty well done, obvious but still well done, but we eventually realize, along with Veers, that her real name is Carol Danvers and she's not Kree but from Earth.

The new story behind her powers is really good and makes the film, as does her finally realizing her true potential.  You should bet a bit excited when she finally lets loose, it's a great scene.

In this film, we also learn how Fury lost his eye... really Nick?!?  Not to mention, some of the stuff that Fury pulls in this one, it's a wonder he was eventually given command of SHIELD. 😆  And also how a certain team he would later get together got its name.

Pulling at some sympathetic heartstrings along the way really helped this film, without them, it wouldn't be half the film it is, forget the power, the backstory and secondary characters make the movie.  It's not until the end that you really feel the size and scope of the war between the Kree & Skrulls, they should have put that weight on us far earlier.  Once you see one particular person, you know who are the bad guys in this one.

Sad that Cap and her is all that the world gets before the 2000's, the MCU could have/should have been given more.  Again, I've got my take on what the MCU timeline should have looked like coming up on January 1st 2022. 😉

The film gets 🌟🌟 and a half out of five ... and watch out for that damn cat ... SERIOUSLY... whatever happened to that thing??? 😺💥

 

MRM : Captain America The First Avenger

It's #MovieReviewMonday and time to review one of the MCU's best, Captain America : The First Avenger, as we begin our weekly series to review all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with who knows what else, thrown into the mix on other days... 

Like I said, I think this is one of the best of the MCU films, it is true to the character but still has a flood of holes and mistakes in respect to the characters and their history.

Marvel decided to begin the MCU with Iron Man instead of Captain America, which I think was the first mistake.  This was to push the silly notion mentioned in "Iron Man" made by Howard Stark, "All things are possible through technology" and pushing the agenda that tech is the only savior of mankind 😵.  Now don't worry, I'm not going to get biblical on you, that's not my point at all, it's about Heart.

Like too many super hero films in the past, they tried to force far too much into the first movie, there is so much more to Caps story, the 1990 film (poster at right) being a great example. Second mistake, too much in one movie.

The Howling Commandoes, The Invaders, even the legendary character of the Red Skull deserved more than just one movie, despite his later appearances to lead souls in their search for the soul stone.  It just wasn't right given the history of the character of the Red Skull.  So their third mistake was just one film taking place in World War Two.

Personally, I'd have ended this film after Cap has rescued Bucky & the rest of the 107th, and quitting his duty as a chorus girl.  "Let's hear it for, Captain America!" should have been the final line of the film before going to credits.

Throughout the history of the character, numerous villains have admitted that Captain America is the "most dangerous" Avenger because of his leadership and inspiration of others, that should have been the focal part of the film, like the scene at the flagpole or the scene with the grenade, Heart.

In the end of the original film, when Rogers wakes up in modern times, they are playing a replay of a baseball game, we should have already heard part of it, by them doing a scene of Rogers and Barnes at the game together, showing more of their friendship, so not just Cap is alerted when we hear the game playing later.

The cast was terrific, Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Dr Abraham (Stanly Tucci), The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), Col Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones), Dum Dum Dugan (Neal McDonough were all amazing and it's too bad that most were wasted on one movie.

The story of the Howling Commandoes and The Invaders could have also teased at later films and characters involvement in the MCU, as well as introducing Baron Zeom Sr (another reason for his son to hate Captain America and the Avengers) who could have been the key villain for the 2nd or 3rd film.  Now I know what you're thinking... "third film, when does he go in the ice?", in my plan, not until the 4th film, but I'll go through all that in my, Ultimate MCU post on January 1st 2022 😉.

There is just so much lost on today's fans by only doing one Captain America film during WWII, the importance of war correspondents, morale at home and Patriotism for, not just America, but the world to win that one.  People need to understand what Rogers and others went through and why those experiences changed so much.

One of the mistakes the studio made was not making an official poster that remade the classic Uncle Sam recruiting poster of Cap pointing forward, it seems to be like a simple given to me and many people that I've talked to, but for some reason they didn't put those out, it would have made a great teaser.  

Here we see a fan made poster about War Bonds from his showtime and work as a US Army "chorus girl" as Col Phillips called him.  The marketing for this movie was pretty disappointing, but today's Hollywood isn't much into American Patriotism, one of their major downfalls.

Compared to the rest  of the MCU, this film gets a decent score of 🌟🌟🌟 out of five, but as a stand alone film, I'm afraid it only gets 🌟🌟 out of five.  They dropped, tripped over or just plain ignored all kinds of opportunities with this one.

 

Peggy Carter : The Power Broker

 

Being sick at home 🤧 and watching movie marathons does have one good thing about it, you come up with some really great, if not slightly crazy, ideas for those characters and film franchises. 😵‍💫

Since Steve Rogers went back in time, to return the stones in Endgame, he decided to live out his life with the love of his life, but what else happened?  What if this part of life is what would create the opportunity for Peggy Carter’s niece to become, The Power Broker, in the MCU we know?

After a bit of a “honeymoon period” Steve and Peggy decide to get back to fighting the evil in the world and, in secret form, The Invaders, with Namor, the original Human Torch (no sidekick), the Whizzer, Union Jack and even having Peggy occasionally suit up as a female, Union Jack.

Doing all this completely under the radar would expand Carters connections and end up giving those connections to her niece, who uses it a bit different than her aunt.  

This makes the younger Carter being “The Power Broker” a lot more believable than just another agent who just happens to gain all this… 

This kind of project is what could fulfill the rumors and lure Chris Evans back to his star spangled role, more adventures as a younger Cap in WWII, which would be awesome.  This would allow seeds to be planted for things that are or will pop up in the current MCU.

After Marvel gets things worked out over Fox and the X-Men we could see Captain America’s adventure in Madripoor with Wolverine from back in the day.

Not having The Invaders and officially having, The Howling Commando’s in the MCU was a big mistake and could make for some great movies and build the Captain America legacy that it deserves.

Super Sunday: Roller Disco & Magic, MCU in 1970s Vegas

 

At first the Marvel Cinematic Universe acted as if super hero’s were a “new” thing, but still hinted that they’d been around for a while.

Then we got, Captain America in World War II and Captain Marvel in the 80s, so it really wasn’t new, but who else could have been out there?  So why not give the 70s some space in the MCU?

We know in the mutant part of the MCU that Wolverine has been around for a long time, we just don’t know how they will address that when they shift the mutants from 20th Century Fox to Disney.

Let’s go back to Las Vegas in the 1970s and the possibility of two other great Marvel characters could have already been influencing the world; now don’t go all Austin Powers or Xanadu on me, but Roller Disco was a HUGE thing at one point, and I’m sure the parts of Vegas that got into it, got into it big, so why not introduce part of the mutant-verse into this, The Dazzler, Vegas’s queen of Roller Disco & super hero, for the era, she would have been perfect.  No camp, no over the top comedy, a straight period piece for Super Hero’s in Las Vegas of the 1970s. 

Cool as she was, a stand alone movie might be a bit much, so why not take the opportunity to add a lesser known Marvel hero, but one that fits perfectly into the world of Las Vegas, the Jack of Hearts?  One of my all time favorites he could be billed as Vegas’ premier magician during showtimes but a full blown super hero in the off time.  

Even though their comic book pasts don't give them much in common I think that the era and location turn them into a perfect pairing.

Perhaps the introduction of a villain from the X-Men world would be a nice foe for them, like Mojo, looking for fresh entertainment for his enslaved world goes after these two, only to have him discover the plethora of incredible entertainment from this earth era, who not only have to save themselves but also all of Vegas/Hollywood from Mojo’s mad desire to take both over to keep his power.

Part of the film could touch on the back stories of the characters, in flashbacks or just the character telling the story to the other, but I think it would help build them up.  Jack Hart could recall the days when he had to construct his containment suit to control his powers.  Hart could also reveal that he is part alien.

It would also be great if Jack was using Vegas as a cover to aid and teach meta-humans (and mutants), it's the perfect city for it, easy to hide the fantastic in a city of over the top entertainment.

Many aren't aware that The Dazzler, once simply called, The Disco Queen wasn't originated by Marvel, but commissioned by, Casablanca Records (we need to work that legendary label in somewhere).  This could give the film several tie-ins with 70s On 7 with Sirius XM.

It would also be cool to put in some cameo's, but do so without the camp, of stars from the age, Elvis Presley or Frank Sinatra's Rat Pack, or someone from the genre like, The Bee Gee's, as if they don't have enough film credits. 😆

This also provides two, well experience, supers for cameo’s in movies and streaming shows.