The Prestige (2006)

"You don't really want to work it out. You want to be fooled."

I've seen this film before, a few years before this blog was ever envisioned. I haven't read the original novel be Christopher Priest, but I understand there are a few differences; I won't look them up, as I have a vague intention to read the novel someday- although the ever-moving onset of middle age is making me aware that I have a finite number of decades left in order to consume all the culture I would like to consume.

I don't intend to simply rercount the intricate and clever plot, but, obviously, SPOILERS.

This filom, as one would expect from Christopher Nolan, is supremely entertaining and bloody clever. Let's get the evaluation out of the way now: it's superb. The whole plot is constructed and layered like a magic trick, ending with not one but two prestiges: the revelation that Borden is in fact two twin brothers, and that Angier goes to such lengths for revenge on Borden, potentially dying every night: the latter of these is positively existential. Yet the final prestige is that yes, Borden is judicially murdered, but his daughter still has her father. For Borden, there is hope. For spoilt rich boy Angier, there is only empty death.

It's even cleverer than it seems, with the structure of the whole thing and the foreshadowing- early on there is a trick with a bird being made to disappear, and the small boy realises that the way it's done is for one brother to die and be replaced by the other. Quite.

It's an entertaining film behind the cleverness, with a first rate main cast and a delightful supporting role from David Bowie himself. It is, naturally, exquisitely shot and written. The score by Thom Yorke is exquisite. And the film has understated but very real heart too. A triumph.

Black Widow (2021)

 “Such a poser…”

It’s a little weird seeing Black Widow get her own flashback movie at a point after she’s been seen to die on screen, but in the end this is a highly enjoyable film. It won’t be quite up there with Marvel’s best, but their movies never fall below a certain standard, and this is no exception.

This is a film all about Natasha’s complex origins as the “daughter” of Russian sleeper agents in Ohio, and about a secret Russian troupe of mind controlled female assassins scattered worldwide. It is, essentially, a Bond film. There are many glamorous international locations; Ray Winstone is a suitable over-the-top villain; there are cool car chases and other action set pieces. Even better, there’s a denouement that is at once devilishly clever and easy to follow, a sign of good writing and direction.

Yet this is also a film about families, by blood or not. Natasha’s “parents” Rachel Weisz and the superb David Harbour as the hilarious Red Guardian (love the customs…) have nuanced and interesting roles with a lot of heart, but Florence Pugh really steals the show as Natasha’s “sister”, Yelena. The CGI may have been a little rubbish at times, but I really enjoyed this film- and the post-credit sequence was at once heartbreaking and intriguing in how it ties into TV rather than film.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

“Congratulations, cap. You're a criminal."

I saw this film at the cinema in 2016, at the Silverlink up near Newcastle, with Mrs Llamastrangler. It was years ago, yes, but I hadn't blogged the prequels and wanted to do them all in order, so it hasn't been until this rewatching of the film that I've blogged it. Technicaliies and that.

Anyway, this is a film that is awesome in all the usual Marvel ways. We have top notch exciting action scenes. We somehow have a large cast where every character is well characterised and the dialogue is awesome. We have loads of nods to the fans, hence Crossbones and Zeno, even if the character is a little wasted here.

But at the heart of the film is a massive ideological fault line that divides all the heroes- and it’s easy for me, as a liberal and a Liberal, to emphasise with both sides. My civil libertarian instincts make me want to side with Cap, especially as the argument that heroes are to be castigated for those sad in innocent deaths that occur while they are saving many more lives, as in Sokovia. This is a silly argument. And yet... should not those with power be held to account, as we should do for those we allow to wield political power? Is it not important that potential tyrants not be allowed free rein? Even here, where the Sokovia Accords have the appearance of a bad compromise, I’d hesitate to disagree with Tony Stark here, even if many of his actual arguments are bad ones.

This film has depth. It has comedy- and not all of it with Ant-Man. It has drama. It has tragedy. It has the introduction of both a charismatic Black Panther and a new, young Spider-Man with a hot Aunt May. Marvel films are generally awesome, but this is one of the very finest.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

“Go to sleep or I’ll sell all your toys!

I don’t care if I’m skipping a couple of recent films for this one; I’ve never been strictly chronological with the Marvel films in a pinch and I won’t start now. The months of spoiler-dodging stop now.

So... wow. A big, blockbuster geeky film that’s three hours long yet doesn’t feature a single Hobbit. And it had me in equal measures gripped, laughing and trying not to cry. This film is indeed as good as everyone says it is.

It also subverts expectations in an awfully clever way. In showing us the true horror of Thanos’ click via Hawkeye and his vanished family, it shows us a Thanos who has forever destroyed all the Infinity Stones and retired- so the Avengers visit him and Thor kills him in a massive anticlimax. Fast forward five years. That certainly wasn’t the obvious thing to do.

Cue the return of Ant-Man eventually prompting Tony Stark, now a husband and father, to invent time travel, and lots of highly entertaining dialogue about how the butterfly effect, and hence every time trace movie ever, doesn’t imply in the Marvel Universe. Time travel doesn’t work as in Back to the Future, says the now-smart Hulk, yet the solution to Thanos’ click is to travel back into the recent past and do a Back to the Future II, which is both clever and hilarious.

And so we get a coda where the Hulk’s click brings the dead back- but the Thanos of 2014 has found out the truth from the future Nebula and has time travelled back to kill them all. It’s good to see Karen Gillan with such a prominent role here, but her story is so very timey-wimey. And it seems to explain why Thanos originally had Nebula tied up, yet history is changed here and the 2014 Thanos has events play out differently. The dynamic between the two very different Nebulas, and Gamora, is wonderful, but this film doesn’t let its big, epic nature get in the way of character, pathos or humour. So Black Widow’s death has meaning. Tony Stark’s final, fatal click, saying “I am Iron Man”, May save the army if goodies from Thanos but gives him a meaningful death, dwelt on properly as it should be; if any character can be said to be the main star of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s him.

Cap, too, gets a suitable exit, spending the rest of his days with Peggy in a beautiful coda.

There’s so much more, though. Fat Thor. Tony Stark meeting his dad in 1970, with a cameo from Jarvis whom we’ve only seen in Agent Carter- at least one of the MCU TV series is sort of recognised as canon. There’s “Scott, I get emails from a raccoon”. Thor getting a pep talk from his mother. It’s wonderful that the film has so much heart, and all its characters are properly used.

A wonderful film, and a fitting end to an age. Let’s hope the future is just as bright.

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

“There’s an Ant-Man and a Spider-Man?”

At last I can stop dodging spoilers. I’ve seen it, at last. And it was bloody good. SPOILERS, mind.

Big, epic films are usually rubbish. Going epic tends to mean you can’t avoid being a bit po-faced and pretentious. This avoids that triumphantly by peppering the film with both humour and poignant character moments- so Thor gets to open up to, er, Rocket Raccoon about all the people he’s lost recently and, hilariously, Tony Stark and Doctor Strange spend the entire film in a willy waving contest while Bruce Banner spends the whole film dealing with what Mrs Llamastrangler described as “symbolic erectile dysfunction”. Peter Quill and Thor are also hilarious together.

The whole thing is structured, shot and acted superbly by the usual suspects, and it’s extraordinary how so many characters can be given meaty stuff to do in a little under two hours, although perhaps Captain America could have had some more screen time. I notice, of course, that Hawkeye and Ant-Man are described as inactive in dialogue. Of the few new faces, Joan Brolin is superb as a faithfully rendered Thanos while Peter Dinklage also turns in a good performance and, indeed, accent, as a dwarf who forged great weapons out of stars- I like how the film is very cosmic but how it all has a fantasy flavour, cut from the same cloth as Asgard. The film is superb, and the only reason some other Marvel films probably better is because they don’t have so many narrative jobs to do.

But the deaths, ah, the deaths! I somehow suspect that the half of the universe who died at the end won’t stay dead but, alas, I fear that may not be true for Loki, Gamora or the Vision...

Iron Man 2 (2010)

"If there's one thing I've proven, it's that you can count on me to pleasure myself."

I loved the first film. I love this one too. Not as much as the first film, but a lot.

Yes, the plot may meander a bit, and contain a predictable bit where the hero hits rock bottom, but it works. Robert Downey Jr is still born to play Tony Stark. Gwyneth Paltrow is a fine Pepper, yet again, and still has great charisma with Downey. And Don Cheadle is much better as Rhodey. We also get loads and loads and loads of Tony being charismatic and Iron Man action sequences. That gets us halfway there already. And then there’s the Elon Musk cameo...

The conceit works- Tony is dying from the very thing that keeps him alive, and so needs to develop things from his father’s past while Justin Hammer acts as antagonist and this time the baddie is a rather different variation on Whiplash. Plus we get a splendid big set piece at the Monaco Grand Prix, and a lot of world building; there’s a lot about Nick Fury’s Avengers Initiative, we meet Black Widow and discover a familiar-looking old shield. And the post-credits points it all toward to Thor. It’s positively nostalgic seeing all these early MCU films. But the film works on its own terms, carried along by strong characters and a superb cast even if the plot, while perfectly decent, doesn’t quite have the narrative flow if the first film. Three films in and the MCU is going strong.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

"This isn't freedom.This is fear."

HERE BE SPOILERS

This was an extraordinary film when I first saw it at the cinema on my honeymoon and, even with the main twist spoiled, it's an extraordinary film today. The Russo brothers have done a superb job with what is effectively the spy genre of the Marvel superhero films, but Chris Evans is extraordinary too as a World War II Roosevelt New Dealer out of time, struggling to adapt to a time where nobody cares about civil liberties and the military-industrial complex has grown to monstrous proportions.

We begin as Cap bonds with Sam Wilson, another military veteran with similarly invisible scars, and we get a glimpse of Cap's notepad filled with things he needs to catch up on such phenomena as Star Wars, Nirvana (yay!) and the Berlin Wall, "up and down". It isn't long until his first exciting mission, a hostage crisis perpetrated by Cap's old for from the comics, - moustache-free George Batroc. But cracks begin to show between our SHIELD comrades as Cap and Black Widow are given markedly different mission objectives. Cap's complaint to Nick Fury leads to his being shown Operation Insight-a massive and, in Cap's view, disproportionate armoury. How can this be synonymous with freedom?

It can't, or so it seems, as there is a cancer within SHIELD, one that disdains Cap as much as it disdains liberty: HYDRA. And the revelation of this, and that Cap is suddenly hunted prey, is the most shocking and exciting part of the film.

There's so much more, though; Cap's heartbreaking meeting with the elderly Peggy, the nice bit of exposition in the bunker as Arnim Zola spends his last moments as an uploaded AI life form expositing on how HYDRA's takeover of SHIELD came to be, Natasha's general awesomeness, capped by a kick-ass session at a Senate hearing, the whole sequence with Nick Fury under pursuit in the car that leads him to fake his death. But the film is ultimately about the Winter Soldier; Bucky, Cap's oldest friend. Behind the explosions and the awesomeness the film always has a heart.

There's a lot of Marvel life here- HYDRA's targets include "Bruce Banner, Stephen Strange"- but the film is about two things: civil liberties vs. security and friendship. Hence Cap's new yet strong friendship with the Falcon. Hence Bucky being unable, when the moment comes, to kill Cap. It's an incredible film, but it ends with Bucky still at large...

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

"They're breeding like Catholic rabbits."

Because Samuel L Jackson always gets the best lines. It's the law.

Obviously, I enjoyed this muchly, and I'm not just saying that because it was both a nice birthday treat and the first time I've been able to go out with Mrs Llamastrangler to spend some time alone together since we had our beautiful baby- thanks to my lovely mother-in-law for babysitting! We just about managed to survive a few hours away from our little girl, and enjoyed ourselves.

The film is superb. Joss Whedon writes and directs. Those are two different ways of writing the same thing. We should appreciate how narratively difficult it must be to come up with a script which both works and gives substantial parts to (deep breath) Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hulk, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, Scarlet Witch and the Vision, with substantial cameos from War Machine and (new Avenger!) the Falcon. Joss Whedon accomplishes that, along with giving us thrills, spectacle, emotion, and the best Stan Lee cameo yet. I can't stress how much of an achievement it is to serve all these characters well script-wise. Whoever follows on from Whedon has big boots to fill, and I can't wait to see what he does next.

There are a couple of downsides, however. The death of a certain character comes as a surprise, which I suppose is the point, but also comes across as a pointless waste. And, as most of the Internet correctly points out, this, like all Marvel films, serves female characters rather poorly. Black Widow, up till now the only kick-ass female character alongside all the boys, spends much of her time pining after Bruce Banner. This is not a film which comes close, I suspect, to passing the Bechdel test. I'm not going to give Whedon a hard time over this- his feminist credentials are as good as anyone with a Y chromosome's- but Marvel needs to find a better gender balance, at least. Still, Scarlet Witch now gives us a second female Avenger.

Oh, and I love the fact we get to see Scarlet Witch, and the Vision (budding romance ahead?). And Ulysses Klaw, no doubt to return in Black Panther. And am I reading too much into Tony Stark's guilt at creating Ultron, what with seeing signs of a future storyline based on Armour Wars? Be that as it may, I'm liking the conflict of values between Stark and Steve Rogets from film to film. 

Essentially, this is a bloody good film. Go and see it. Now.

The Avengers (2012)

"Dr. Banner, your work on anti-electron collisions is unparalleled. And I’m a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage monster."

Yes, I know. I'm currently in the midst of reviewing two telly series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, both of which are the brainchild of Joss Whedon. Less than a fortnight ago I watched and reviewed The Cabin in the Woods, another brainchild of Joss Whedon. And now I'm reviewing The Avengers, which is so Joss Whedon that it's officially branded as "A Joss Whedon Film" in the credit. It would be easy for the casual bystander (and that would be you, my dear reader) to accuse me of overdoing the Whedon thing.

On the other hand, I've only reviewed one Marvel superhero film previously for this blog, and that was Howard the Duck. I reckon that trumps any accusation of over-Whedonning the pudding. Be warned, though: this review will probably be rubbish. The Avengers is brilliant, but its brilliance lies mainly in bang and spectacle and really cool dialogue. Let's not pretend there's reams of subtext to say clever things about, cos there ain't.

What there is, though, is a triumph of screenwriting. I can't think of a script that had so many boxes to tick as this one, frankly. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor and the Hulk all need to be given prominent roles, they need to interact, fight each other, fight alongside each other, and individually look cool. Oh, and Nick Fury needs to look really cool as well, because he's being played by Samuel L. Jackson, for whom coolness is compulsory. The film makes this look easy, which is no mean feat, although it doesn't quite manage to hide the awkward fact that Cap, Black Widow and Hawkeye (or just plain Clint Barton as he is here) are significantly less powerful than the others. Also, there's a subtle but noticeable pecking order, with Iron Man getting a slightly bigger role, as befitting the greater success of the character's film and the greater star wattage of Robert Downey Jr. But, such things being accepted, the balance is right. Also, Downey Jr. is brilliant, funny, and supremely charismatic as always. He's easily the best leading man in Hollywood today.

Mark Ruffalo, incidentally, is probably the best Bruce Banner ever, and it's so very cool that CGI (of which I'm generally lukewarm) also allows him to play the Hulk.

That's about all that can be said. Not that there are any problems with the plot, but it's all about the set-pieces here, and the set-pieces rock. The film is long, much longer than I can usually take without whingeing, but the whole thing is so much fun that you never want it to end. If you haven't done so already, go and see it. Now.