2014’s batch of Marvel-based films (which I reviewed
here) was quite an impressive line up, if you recall.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier was on par with the original
Iron Man as Marvel Studio’s best film yet,
X-Men: Days of Future Past knocked it out of the park in a way that will make hyped to see what comes next, and
Guardians of the Galaxy was thoroughly entertaining. Even the mediocre
The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise of Electro had traces of a great film in it, buried beneath a tangled web of too many subplots, the deletion of integral scenes and ruinous studio tampering.
While 2015’s comic book movies certainly had their moments, this year was a step down from last year’s line-up. Plenty of details ahead…
3. Fantastic Four
When it comes to expectations,
Fantastic Four has been an enigma for me in the years leading up to its release. When it was first announced with Josh Trank at the helm, I was excited to what Josh Trank would provide us with his vision of Marvel’s first family. Then I became a little on the fence once the set reports commenced and rumours began to tell of what was going on during shooting. But then I became excited for the film again, soon before the first trailer hit. After that, Fox didn’t quite know how to sell the film, so I had no idea what to expect. Where they going for an action packed blockbuster or a grounded, realistic film? But one thing that remained consistent was that I was rooting for this movie. I even had a feeling that this could be a huge sleeper hit like the surprisingly brilliant
X-Men: First Class. Sure enough, this movie was a big disappointment. Right off the bat, I’m going to say that reports of this film’s mediocrity are true. But before I get into what was bad about the film, I’m going to start off by mentioning what the film did correctly.
This mediocre film wasn’t bad all of the way through. For a while, it looked like this might be a good movie after all. The first thing I’ll address is the tone. I know a lot of people were complaining that the film was grim, dreary and boring, but that really isn’t the case. I could be wrong, but I don’t really think there was a problem with the film’s tone, so much as some people perhaps expecting a humourous, mindless popcorn blockbuster, only to be surprised at the final product.
While I’m not the biggest fan of child actors in films, the opening of the film thankfully didn’t drag on too long and lasted only long enough to make its point. The film quickly fast forwards and we are introduced to modern day Reed Richards and Ben Grimm, who soon meet Johnny and Susan Storm. I think all four of the actors did a great job with their performances. The film also does a good job with the interactions between the characters, who are brought closer together after their accident. Josh Trank understands that the Fantastic Four are a family and it shows. Trank also understands that the Fantastic Four are explorers before they are superheroes, which he also manages to translate into the film.
The film draws its influence from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original run of the
Fantastic Four and the more recent
Ultimate Fantastic Four. One of my complaints with the 2005
FF film was how the Four immediately become celebrity superheroes that love their abilities soon after they receive them. In the comics, the FF didn’t become the celebrity heroes that they are today until after years of continuity. Like in Stan Lee’s original stories, the FF see themselves as freaks who don’t immediately come to terms with their abilities. Reed Richards felt especially guilty for Ben Grimm’s transformation and was determined for find a cure. This is translated well from the page to the film, albeit with a modern edge. In the film, the characters are at first shocked at their new abilities. They see themselves as monsters. The first act of the film is the film’s strong point. The characters’ transformation had a great deal of weight and that part of the film was an emotional experience for the characters, as it should be. The belief that Victor
Domeshev Von Doom had died in the accident also added to the film.
The moment Doctor Doom shows up on screen is the moment where things go downhill for the film. Really, I thought the film was pretty good until Doctor Doom came into the picture. In most comic book movies, the heroes usually have one battle with the villain early on in the film, before having the final battle in the climax. When Doctor Doom started fighting the FF in this movie, that’s what I thought was happening…until Doom inexplicably died at the end of the battle. And then the FF name their team and the movie ends.
Really, Fox? YOU GAVE US HALF OF A MOVIE! There was no learning curve, no character or villain development or anything leading up to any sort of climax. What happens is the Fantastic Four meet each other, they get their powers, the villain shows up, then roll credits. It’s almost as if Fox got impatient and decided to release a movie that was only halfway done filming. If I watched this movie with no context at all, I would think that this is the first in a two part film, with
Fantastic Four Part 2 set to release in 2016. The movie ends before they even get their costumes, for bloody sake!
And to make matters worse, Doctor Doom was a joke. While this HALF of a movie is still unquestionably better than the 2005 film (somehow), I don’t know which version of Doctor Doom is worse. I’m not just saying that he’s bad because he’s an insult to the comic book character (which he is), but he’s also a stupid villain even on his own merits! He looks silly as hell, and is impossible to take seriously. His abilities are not properly explained at all; on the Negative Zone/N-Zone/Planet Zero/Whatever-you-want-to-call-it, he is apparently god; on Earth, he has…Deus Ex Machina powers. Pretty much, he can do whatever is most convenient. We are never explained what his motivation is, other than he has apparently merged with an N-Zone living green goo, which we never learn anything about (Is it the film version of Annihilus? Was it controlling Doom’s actions? Seriously, what’s the deal?). The film builds Victor Von Doom up has this creepy guy who needs to be locked away but he is never intimidating or as seemingly troubled as the film makes him out to be. The film never even explains what he did wrong to begin with. Did he assault Susan Storm? Did he strangle a college girl like his comic book counterpart in the
Books of Doom comic series? What happened?!
Doctor Doom is literally one of the greatest villains in all of comics, so what is so hard about adapting him?! Fox seems to have made it clear that they are never going to get the character right, even though they have proven that they have the ability to do a great villain with Magneto. And even if the rights went back to Marvel tomorrow, Doctor Doom would be more comic accurate but would still either be a cardboard villain (like Ronan The Accuser and Malekith The Accursed) or a Saturday morning cartoon baddie (like Red Skull and Yellow Jacket). We’re never going to get a proper Doctor Doom, are we?
I guess we have to sit back and see if Fox is going to move ahead with the sequel, or release another reboot five years from now. Honestly, I don’t care which they do at this point. All I know is that I’m only giving Fox one more chance with this franchise before I stop watching their
FF films altogether. If the next film isn’t
at least decent, I’m done with this franchise. Fox needs to figure out what they are doing right with the
X-Men films and apply that to the
Fantastic Four.
Rumour has it that Fox is considering replacing the
FF sequel that was announced with a
Deadpool sequel. While I would prefer a
Deadpool sequel over
the other half of a sequel to this film, I hope they don’t. INSTEAD, they should move ahead with that
Cable and the X-Force movie that was announced a while back but went nowhere. That movie was going to have Deadpool in it anyway, so it would be the next logical step.
Fox has proven that they can provide quality content and Josh Trank has revealed that he didn’t get to realise his vision for the franchise. I don’t think either one side is to blame. Rather, it was a conflict of vision that probably ruined this film. This series is still salvageable if Fox decides to move ahead with a sequel but that doesn’t change the fact that this is the third time in a row that they have failed the franchise.
But like I said, the film somehow manages to be lightyears ahead of the previous two films in quality. On the scale of bad comic book movies,
Fantastic Four is probably closer to
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and
Iron Man 3 than it is
Batman & Robin and
Elektra.
Verdict: 5/10
This half of a movie is not the X-Men: First Class-like sleeper hit that a lot of us were hoping for, and it may be lightyears ahead of the previous FF films, but that isn’t saying much. FANT4STIC swims in a pile of mediocrity that has a studio/director feud written all over it.
2. Ant-Man
Out of the three major comic book films of 2015, this was the film I was looking forward to the least. There was a time when I was hyped for
Ant-Man, back when Edgar Wright was attached to the project, and Paul Rudd and Patrick Wilson were first cast in starring roles. Yeah, the version of Ant-Man that Wright seemed to be going for didn’t seem like the best Ant-Man for the MCU, rather a version of the character that would work best on its own, but I still trusted this film because Edgar Wright clearly had a vision. My excitement for the film dropped significantly when Wright left the project. It managed to drop even further when Patrick Wilson exited as well. Since a new director was brought on board, it was only natural that Marvel would have the
Ant-Man script re-written. However, the decision not to delay the film due to Marvel’s Phase 3 slate lowered my expectations even further. So now they had to re-write the film, rush it through filming, then release into theatres. Great. The film’s awful promotional campaign did little to strengthen my non-existent hype, as the trailers and television spots tried way too hard to emphasise the humour and the campaign as a whole relied too much on other superheroes to sell the movie. Did this film manage to surpass my expectations? More or less.
While I was excited for Paul Rudd when he was originally cast, the trailers did well to destroy that excitement. The trailers and television spots sold Scott Lang as a re-skin of Chris Pratt’s Star Lord. Watch the
Ant-Man trailer and there literally is no difference between the two characters. After watching the film, I was pleasantly surprised. While Scott Lang has the same personality as Star Lord, there were a number of aspects that made Scott Lang’s character unique. Lang wasn’t quite as morally ambiguous as Star Lord. While Star Lord made a lot of his decisions merely to help himself, Lang seemed to be a good guy who just went about the wrong way of doing things, which often left him in prison. Lang didn’t rob corporations for his own profit, he did it because he felt that the corporations had stolen from the people. But I think the biggest thing that distinguishes Scott Lang from Star Lord is his relationship with his daughter. I’m not the biggest fan of child actors but the relationship itself sold me on Scott Lang’s character. I will say that Marvel is starting to become formulaic when it comes to introducing new superheroes. Ever since their success with Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, Marvel has made it a pattern to turn every lesser known hero they introduce into a charming Tony Stark-esque jack-@$$ and it is becoming painfully obvious. They did it with Iron Man, they did it with Star Lord, they did it with Ant-Man and they are probably going to do it with Doctor Strange.
When it comes to Hank Pym, I really disagree with the decision to start the MCU with Scott Lang. All of the best and most interesting
Ant-Man comic books involved Hank Pym and his relationship with Janet Van Dyne (who has been down-graded to a mere cameo in this film). I understand that Marvel Studios didn’t have much of a choice without canceling this film altogether but perhaps that would’ve been the best decision for the MCU, especially considering the film’s rushed final product. While it isn’t exactly a ruinous decision, it doesn’t help matters that Marvel gave the role of Ultron's creator to their poster boy. Regardless, Michael Douglass gives a great performance as Pym, which isn’t surprising considering his talent. Again, I take issue with them starting Pym off as retired but what can you do? Marvel handled Pym as well as they could, except for how he is written at times. The film says that he stopped being Ant-Man because the particles "took a toll on him" and that he shunned Darren Cross because "he saw too much of himself" in Cross but what did Pym do that was so bad? We know Pym never became Yellow Jacket in this universe, but the film doesn’t even begin to address how Pym supposedly went over the edge.
Speaking of Darren Cross, he is the film’s weakest point. In yet another continuing trend in the MCU, we’ve got another poorly handled villain. To be fair, Darren Cross isn’t a very good villain in the comics either and the film actually improved on the character by giving him the Yellow Jacket persona. I guess this character would be more forgivable had Corey Stoll not given us a poor performance and had we gotten a real motive for the character. The movie tries to tell us that he went insane from the Pym Particles but that is impossible considering he never puts on the suit until the film’s climax. And don’t even get me started on the ant death scene. Does Marvel really expect us to have an emotional connection with an ant?
I liked how Hope Van Dyne was handled in the film. The film plays with our expectations by making us think she’s headed down a villainous path like her comic book counterpart before revealing that she was working with Pym all along. She’s no Janet Van Dyne but it will be cool seeing her become the Wasp. My only complaint with this character is that the romance with Scott Lang was just a typical cliché and felt entirely unneeded, even if it made for a good joke at the end of the film.
When it comes to the film’s tone, the film doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be. The film fails to find a balance between being a heist film, a mindless and escapist comedy like
Guardians of the Galaxy, and being a conventional formulaic superhero film that pays homage to the comic book movies of the mid-2000s. It sometimes over compensates for a lack of quality with comedy. All of these tones just don’t run smoothly as a single film. And speaking of not running smoothly, every reference to the Avengers, and the outside MCU, seemed completely jarring and out of place. The fight between Ant-Man and the Falcon was especially gratuitous (considering that the next film in the MCU is
Civil War), not to mention unbelievable considering Falcon is an Avenger and Ant-Man is a noob. Marvel wanting to throw in excessive amounts of scenes and references related to other comic book movies is probably what ruined Edgar Wright’s original vision to begin with. Perhaps Marvel Studios didn’t see this film succeeding on its own merits or maybe Marvel was just obsessed with setting up Phase 3, even though
Age of Ultron did a fine job at that already (or both).
Verdict: 6/10
The formulaic Ant-Man isn’t a bad film by any means, but it isn’t a particularly good one either.
1. Avengers: Age of Ultron
Click
here for my review of the 2012 film,
Avengers Assemble.
Anyone who has read my review of the original
Avengers film knows that I had a few problems with it. Probably one of my biggest issues with the film was that the Avengers come together to take out a non-Avengers level threat. Loki was a lot weaker than he was supposed to be, and the alien invasion itself was ridiculously easy to beat. Tony Stark alone ended the invasion with a single missile, proving that the Avengers weren’t needed to begin with. It’s almost comical how later films talk about the invasion like it was this catastrophic event, when it just wasn’t. Joss Whedon begins to rectify that mistake in
Age of Ultron by providing a worthy adversary for the Avengers. Who better than Ultron? While Ultron wasn’t quite as powerful as he should’ve been (especially with a vibranium body), he was still a challenge and a threat to the heroes.
Ultron is not the villain that we were sold in the trailers. From the trailers, many such as myself were expecting possibly one of the greatest comic book movie villains in recent years. While Ultron doesn’t live up to that hype, he is easily one of the more memorable villains in the MCU. In the comics, Ultron inherited character traits from his maker, Hank Pym, because Pym used his own brain patterns in Ultron’s creation. While the film made it very clever that Ultron has Tony Stark’s personality, but I don’t exactly recall any mentioning of Tony Stark using his brain patterns. How did Ultron get Stark’s personality? Was it due to the simple fact that Stark built Ultron? If that’s the case, then that’s
Superman IV: The Quest For Peace logic right there. Regardless, Ultron is a fun villain to watch and there is a certain child-like quality to him.
While Marvel presents us with one of their more thought out villains to date, they also manage to ruin a major villain from the comics: Baron Von Strucker. Strucker isn’t the first character to have been ruined in the MCU for the sake of a joke and he probably won’t be the last. In the comics, Strucker is a major villain in the Marvel Universe and is one of Captain America’s biggest adversaries. The film is outright disrespectful to the character simply to generate laughs. The fact that he dies midway through the film just shows that Marvel only put him in the film so he could be killed by Ultron, so why didn’t they just use some D-list supervillain that nobody cares about? It’s sad when the MCU gives more dignity and respect to Batroc the Leaper than they do Baron Von Strucker. On a positive note, Andy Serkis’ performance as Ulysses Klaw was spot on.
That aside, the main cast shines once again, with more chemistry than ever. A highlight of the film is a scene in Avengers Tower where the Avengers are having a few beers and seeing who can lift Thor’s hammer. I could watch an entire movie just about what the Avengers do behind the scenes when they aren’t saving the world. As Marvel continues to mop up
Iron Man 3’s mess, this film thankfully ignores the fact that Stark inexplicably stopped being Iron Man at the end of
Iron Man 3. Hawkeye is given far more screen time in this film than he was in 2012’s
Avengers Assemble, which gives the character the opportunity for much needed development. On a bad note, the first film was clearly setting up a romance between Hawkeye and Black Widow, while this film backtracks by saying that Black Widow is just a close friend to Hawkeye and his family. Simularly, I didn’t like the idea of Black Widow having an out of nowhere romance with Bruce Banner when I saw the trailer, but the film sold me on the romance. While Mark Ruffalo still isn’t my favourite Hulk, this film took the character much more seriously than the previous installment did.
This film sees the introduction of a few new additions to Avengers roster, including Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch and the Vision. The Vision’s character was handled perfectly in the film, which captures the awe and wonder of the character’s inception. The scene where the Vision lifts Thor’s hammer is sheer gold. The film also does a great job with the relationship between Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. A lot of people took issue with their European accents, but that personally didn’t bother me. Aaron Taylor Johnson’s Quicksilver isn't quite as brilliant as his
X-Men: Days of Future Past counterpart (portrayed by Evan Peters), but we’re comparing apples to oranges. My biggest problem was Quicksilver’s unnecessary death scene and the fact that Quicksilver somehow couldn’t outrun the bullets or just move Hawkeye out of the way. Common sense will do you wonders, Mr Maximoff. Marvel did a pretty decent job in adapting Scarlet Witch’s
Marvel NOW! costume near the end of the film, though I felt that the Falcon’s suit needed more red.
Verdict: 7/10
Though flawed, Avengers AU is a definite improvement over the original.
2015 may not have been the best year for comic book movies, but you can’t win them all. In contrast, 2016 looks to be one of the greatest years for comic book movies ever, with the upcoming releases of
Deadpool,
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,
Captain America: Civil War,
X-Men: Apocalypse and even more! You can expect me to review the
Batman and
Spider-Man films sometime before the releases of
Batman v Superman and
Civil War, as well as my ranking of Marvel’s Phase 2 films (which will be written soon).