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MCU Primer: Phase Two
Hmm… You’ve gotten a little paler since Phase 1. Oh, and the night sweats are persisting?
I’m sorry to say this, but it seems as if you’re still in the grips of that ignominious illness known as superhero fever. Have no fear, though. You’re really going to enjoy it when Iron Man faces off against Captain America and...OH MY GOD, SPIDER-MAN’S THERE, TOO!!!!!!!
Whoa, got a little carried away there with spoilers. In celebration of Captain America: Civil War, I present the second of the two-part MCU Primer. Yep, it’s time to move on to Phase Two with...
Iron Man 3 (2013)
…your favorite billionaire playboy. Well, not so much a playboy this go-round. In Iron Man 3, Tony finds himself committed solely to the one and only Pepper Potts. But monogamy isn’t the only thing on Tony’s docket. He finds himself up against terrorists, severe panic attacks, and the holiday blues. Yep, that’s right. Iron Man 3 has the distinction of being the sole Christmas film of the MCU franchise...the On Her Majesty’s Secret Service of the Marvel canon, if you will.
With the addition of jingle bells comes Shane Black of Lethal Weapon fame to helm the darkest chapter in Tony Stark’s history. While the humor is still present, Black does an excellent job instilling a sense of real danger throughout. OG director Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan is maimed, Tony’s Malibu mansion is destroyed, and the Extremis-infused villains are nigh indestructible.
After his Fortress of Solitude is destroyed, Tony finds himself wandering Appalachia searching for answers. This proves to be a hugely entertaining detour not only because Tony relies solely on his wits outside of his element, but he meets a precocious kid (Ty Simpkins) who happens to be a thinly-veiled version of himself.
A slew of memorable set pieces make Iron Man 3 stand out in the MCU lineup. Tony’s house falling in the ocean, an inconceivably difficult game of Barrel of Monkeys, and a delirious finale on an oil rig are only isolated pieces that make up a fantastic whole. It also helps that the villains this time are more complex than “Iron Man in a bigger suit”.
HEY, IT’S THAT RANDOM COMEDIAN: Adam Pally as a Tony Stark-obsessed cameraman. You’ll know him from either Happy Endings or The Mindy Project, hopefully not from the horrific Stark goatee he sports in this film.
MCU VERDICT: Tony proves he’s more fa-la-la-la-flawed than ever. A-.
Thor: The Dark World (2013)
Thor: The Dark World isn’t bad, per se, it’s just an odd misstep sandwiched between two incredible MCU entries. Now that audiences know the heights the franchise can reach, it feels strange when stakes are lowered from a character’s previous outings.
The plot doesn’t really matter. All you really need to know is that the seven realms are lining up (apparently a big deal) and a new Infinity Stone is introduced.
What makes Dark World most problematic is that it feels distinctly different from the original. The script loses the Shakespearean wit that made Thor unique. Not even Anthony Hopkins can make the line, “You must think I am a piece of bread that needs to be buttered so heavily,” sound clever. The direction by Alan Taylor isn’t as bold (you’ll find no Dutch angles here) and the visuals seem generic. A spacecraft attack on Asgard is right out of Star Wars (not in a good way).
Also, there’s a moment in the first act that shows a news clip of a scientist running naked through Stonehenge, deranged. Later in the film, a character watches the same clip on TV, finally discovering where the missing Dr. Erik Selvig went. It’s awkward writing, editing, and plotting and clearly doesn’t belong in the movie. In fact, it’s representative of Dark World’s “What Do We Do With Our Human Characters?” problem. No Earthling really has a place in the story, a difficulty that the original movie’s fish out of water premise solved.
Credit where credit’s due, there’s a cool interdimensional teleportation fight at the end (yeah, it’s as fun as it sounds). It’s the movie’s sole saving grace so, if you do decide to watch, you’ll probably thank yourself for skipping to the climax.
HEY, IT’S THAT RANDOM COMEDIAN: Chris O’Dowd as Jane Foster’s perfectly decent date. As a matter of fact, after abandoning Jane for two years, Thor’s a pretty awful boyfriend. Go with Chris, Jane. You’ll be rolling in Bridesmaids residuals for years.
MCU VERDICT: Something’s rotten in the state of Asgard. C.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Whoa, Momma. This is the big one.
There’s a lot of contributing factors to admire when considering the crème de la crème of Phase Two. Winter Soldier is the Marvel debut of Anthony and Joe Russo as directors, collectively known as the Russo brothers. Cap has a cool new suit and gets to hang out with Nick Fury and Black Widow. There’s a guy that’s literally named Falcon who flies around with a pair of metallic wings. Danny Pudi’s hanging around. The main thing to like about Winter Soldier, though, is that it’s a fascinating, logical continuation of the Steve Rogers character from First Avenger.
As a black and white warrior thrust into a world filled to capacity with gray, Steve learns there’s a diminishing number of people he can trust. As the movie opens, he’s fighting for SHIELD, a bastion of well-intentioned morality. SHIELD assembled the Avengers so it has to be on the side of the angels, right?
Right?
As the plot unfolds, the absolutes Steve believes in start to crumble. It becomes a dark, adult story of paranoia, betrayal, and deception. Not exactly the Star Spangled Man of First Avenger.
The icing on the cake of a fantastic story are the action sequences, expertly directed by the Russo brothers. There’s not a bad set piece in the lot, the highlights being: Cap’s raid on the Lumerian Star, the vehicular attack on Fury, the near-perfect elevator scene, the intense freeway standoff, and the Triskelion climax.
HEY, IT’S THAT RANDOM COMEDIAN: D.C. Pierson as an Apple store employee. Probably the comedian that jams the most funny into the briefest appearance.
MCU FINAL VERDICT: Welcome back, Cap. A+.
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)
If you had to explain Guardians to a friend, you’d probably sum it up as “Star Wars with golden oldies”. You wouldn’t technically be wrong, but there’s so much to enjoy about the movie, it’s almost impossible to sum up in a brief sentence. So I’ll try a list.
In no particular order:
- Chris Pratt
- Chris Pratt’s abs.
- A talking raccoon.
- A gentle tree creature with a limited vocabulary.
- Bautista.
- Neytiri from Avatar in a different shade.
- Benicio Del Toro coming out of his underground cloud dwelling to assume the role he was born to play, The Collector.
- Cruella being nice.
- All your Dad’s favorite songs.
- James “Colt 45” Gunn directing (I made that up, no one calls him that).
- Almost no connection to the larger MCU so it’s kinda refreshing (“But Thanos is in it…” “SHUT UP!”).
- A mini-Avengers team-up. There’s less character build-up and waaaaaaay more dysfunction.
In short, see it. It’s awesome, it’s funny, and it’s easily Marvel’s breeziest outing so far.
HEY, IT’S THAT RANDOM COMEDIAN: Peter Serafinowicz as a Nova Corps officer who goes down with his ship. Fun fact: he also played Lord Edgar Covington on Parks and Recreation, a British lord who hires Chris Pratt’s character to run a charity in England. The job took Chris Pratt’s character off the show long enough to film Guardians, so I guess we should all thank Serafinowicz for this movie..
MCU FINAL VERDICT: Hopefully, your reflexes are as fast and Guardians’ excellence doesn’t fly over your head. A.
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)
And now we come to the most problematic film in the series so far. After giving fans everything they could possibly want, how could Joss Whedon possibly follow up Avengers? The answer: make James Spader a homicidal robot. The real answer: upping the ante for a well-received blockbuster is hard and sometimes even your heroes falter.
Take for instance Tony Stark, a man who knows the Avengers aren’t going to be around forever. He teams up with Bruce Banner to find a solution for the innumerable threats that could pour out of a wormhole at any given moment. Their efforts to create a “suit of armor around the world” result in a failure of Frankensteinian proportions, an all-knowing, omnipresent artificial intelligence known as Ultron.
James Spader as Ultron accomplishes what the script set out to do, but something about his character feels out of place. In fact, it’s difficult to pinpoint negativity on specifics in this film. The Whedon wit, within the writing and directing, is perfectly intact, but Ultron seems to lose the elegance that made the original so enjoyable.
There’s no scene in Ultron comparable to Tony Stark’s slick tête-à-tête with Loki before the Battle of New York: “‘Cause if we can’t protect the Earth you can be damn well sure we’ll avenge it.” In fact, a good portion of the movie takes place in a bleak, fictional Eastern European country called Sokovia. The rich settings of Avengers (a black tie affair in Germany, a cool SHIELD Helicarrier, the majority of Manhattan in its go-for-broke finale) are swapped for bland international locales (Sokovian Hydra castle, Wakandan mines, Sokovian church, South Korean highways, Sokovian snow forest, Sokovian police station, Sokovian coffee shop, TOO MUCH SOKOVIA).
However, the fact that the majority of the third act involves superheroes saving people will forever place the MCU leagues ahead of that other comic book movie universe. Also, a section in the middle of the movie makes you wish there were more “let’s all go to an idyllic farmhouse” moments in blockbusters.
HEY, IT’S THAT RANDOM COMEDIAN: Linda Cardellini from Freaks and Geeks shows up as an important figure in Hawkeye’s life. She brings a much-needed warmth to the narrative and seals her place as Most Welcome Guest Star in movies and TV.
MCU FINAL VERDICT: Needed some more assembly. B-.
Ant-Man (2015)
Paul Rudd’s entrée into superhero stardom now seems inevitable. He’s a good-looking guy with a knack for delivering one-liners. All he needed was a couple months in the gym, a wise-cracking sidekick, and a suit that gives him the ability to shrink to the size of a postage stamp. Wait, what was that last one?
With a seemingly impossible premise (a guy fights crime when he’s the size of a tulip pistil), the writers make a smart move by centering the story around a heist. That way, reformed criminal Scott Lang (Rudd) can team up with retired superhero Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) in a genre the audience has familiarity with (if they’ve ever seen an Ocean’s movie).
The visual effects of the film, mixed with a healthy amount of macro photography, gives Ant-Man a feel unlike any other MCU entry. The central heist leads to a brilliantly choreographed finale that takes place entirely in a little girl’s bedroom, a refreshingly low-key climax after Ultron’s continent-displacing ending.
With a viewing of Ant-Man comes the inevitable question, “What if?” Edgar Wright is credited as co-writer on the project, but he was supposed to direct. After a highly-publicized departure where Wright cited creative differences, Peyton Reed took over as director. He and Adam McKay took another shot at the script and it’s impossible to say which version of the movie would’ve been better. My brain knows it’ll never happen but my heart really wants an Ant-Man where Simon Pegg and Nick Frost show up as part of Scott’s heist gang.
The ideas in the movie are intelligent, even if the script is clumsy and obvious in parts. Reed’s direction, aided by stellar visual effects, can be immensely clever, but the editing is noticeably underwhelming. The training montages don’t pack the punch they ought to and the length of the last shot is nothing short of bewildering.
But come on, don’t be a Pissant-Man. You’ve got a guy who can shrink to the size of a curd of cottage cheese. It’s fun!
HEY, IT’S THAT RANDOM COMEDIAN: 21 Jump Street’s Johnny Pemberton as the worst Baskin-Robbins customer in the world. Some might say his performance is a little broad, but anyone who’s worked a customer service job before knows how spot-on he is.
MCU FINAL VERDICT: He can shrink down to the size of a..hmmm...I think I’m out of funny small things. Oh wait...a garbanzo bean. Yeah, a garbanzo bean. B.
And that wraps up your two-part MCU Primer. Hope it’s been moderately helpful. Enjoy Civil War, peeps, and call your mother. It’s the least you can do.
Excelsior!
This post by the always fantastic - Brian Bolt who doesn't discriminate between superhero universes....Check out his Cool Cat interview and Phase One of the MCU Primer.
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