Wish (2023)

 “It didn’t work. When does the magic happen?”

It’s the Chrimbo Limbo, it’s raining all day, time for a spontaneous cinema visit with Little Miss Llamastrangler. And… well, she enjoyed it. So did I, to be fair. The film is fine. It’s just… well, generic Disney.

Of course, the animation is superb, in a style that is at once classic and modern. The voice acting and facial animation are excellent. It’s just that the plot and the characters are… just ok. Next to other modern Disney animations, your Frozens, your Tangleds, it falls short. It’s a very linear plot, with characters that aren’t going to stand out next to previous Disney protagonists. And for a film meant to commemorate Disney’s centenary… well, that’s a problem.

Still, as I say, it’s fine. Little Miss Llamastrangler liked it. It’s perfectly serviceable and technically excellent. Chris Pine is a great baddie, and he gets the best song. This isn’t a dud. But it’s no classic, either.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

 “She’s not your little girl any more.” 

It's always instructive where a movie that has a lot seemingly going for it, like this one,turns out to be mildly disappointing. Not that it's terrible, but there's no denying that it fails to translate the excellent of Christ Claremont and John Byrne's source material, nor that the promising first half hour with lots of interesting character development and subtext yields to a load of dull fighting against a bland alien threat. Beyond the fact that we can by now be sure, I think, that Simon Kinberg isn't the person who should have been in charge of these films. But what went wrong?

There's a lot of good stuff in the early part of the film. All the characters feel real and well-rounded, even relatively minor ones like Quicksilver and Nightcrawler. There's some interesting questioning of Charles' habit of manipulating people's minds for their "own good". There's also a nice point made of Charles pushing the X-Men, at great danger, to be superheroes and to be popular, as the alternative is to be hated and feared: it's effective to see how quickly Jean's antics have the X-Men change overnight from popular celebrities to feared outcasts. It's unexpected, and effective, to have Raven die at the hands of Jean.

And yet, James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender aside, the main cast are all a bit bland, despite a splendidly charismatic performance by Evan Peters as Quicksilver, for the last time in this continuity. And then there's the vague nature of where the Phoenix force comes from and the equally vague aliens looking for it. There's a lot of good ideas here, but no real way of resenting them once the plot gets moving. A sad ending for the Fox X-Men movies. Let's hope we see them again under happier circumstances.

WandaVision: The Series Finale

 "Your power exceeds that of the Sorcerer Supreme. It is your destiny to destroy the world."

Now that's how you do a series finale. Satisfying, action-packed, eventful, and full of several little geeky Easter Eggs.

The main A plot is, of course, the battle between Wanda and Agatha, which is epic, cool and full of revelations. The Darkhold makes its MCU debut, and Agatha claims that the Scarlet Witch has her own chapter... and gives the above quote. Ominoud. As is the fact that we end up with a maturer Wanda, having accepted what she's done and the people she's hurt (the scene where the citizens of Westview literally beg Wanda is both powerful and necessary), flying away to explore the full extent of her magical nature. Agatha's fate is an act of almost fairytale cruelty, forced to live indefinitely as her sitcom character.

Then there's the white Vision. Those of us who remember John Byrne's run on West Coast Avengers at the end of the '80s are well aware we need to be alarmed. But in the end we get a fight between Visions which is both cool and satisfyingly resolved.

It's a busy episode, perhaps. Darcy skewers naughty old Hayward but that brief moment is pretty much all that we see of her. Woo gets to look cool in the end, and Monica (still not Captain Marvel- yet) gets a nice little post-credits sequence with a Skrull. But it is, in the MCU way, perfectly balanced between story beats, action and character. 

It's true that Wanda (and Vizh) seem to get over the twins not being real a little too easily. But overall this is a superb ending to a magnificent series.

WandaVision: All-New Halloween Spooktacular

 "Don't go past Ellis Avenue!"

It's clear by now that this is a phenomenal series, based around a superb central concept and oozing all the dramatic goodness out of each angle week by week so that each episode is better than the last. But never mind that: it's Halloween, so Vizh, Wanda and Pietro, for one week only, get to dress up in their proper costumes as Vizh, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Hooray!

Also, Pietro is quickly becoming my favourite laddish waster in television, in a very Nick Frost version of the character. And, if Tommy has his powers, does this mean Billy will be casting hexes?

But the plot continues to move in fascinating ways. Vizh has noticed that, in the fringes of town, people are ill-defined and can move less and less- and he sees one poor woman repetitiely performing the same action, Sisyphus-like, as a tear rolls down her cheek. It's a poignant contrast to Pietro's bro-like approval of his sister's handiwork in their heart to heart. And Vizh is spurred on to escape, especially as he comes across Agnes as, in a scene to give one the shivers, he frees her mind as he dis last episode with Norm- to be told that he's an Avenger, he's dead, and "No one leaves. Wanda won't even let us think about it."

Meanwhile, outside the literal Westview bubble, Director Hayward is proving to be such a dick that Monica, Jimmy Woo and Darcy are forced to leave and start their own gang- following which, interestingly, Darcy tells Monica that going through the barrier twice has altered her molecular chemistry. Please tell me she's going to get her Captain Marvel superpowers?

But the end is magnificent, as the Vision attempts to escape the bubbe despite the fact it means his death- of course, he explicitly said he never wanted to be resurrected in the first place. But Wanda expands the bubble to grab all of SWORD and turn them into a circus (ha!)- including a handcuffed Darcy, but not Monica, Jimmy or a Hayward who flees like a rat. Wow. I'm loving this.

WandaVision: On a Very Special Episode...

 "Just make her stop!"

Just when it seems WandaVision has peaked, it becomes clear it hasn't. After last episode departed from the format to give us an explanation, sort of, we now get another sitcom episode (it's the late '80s, with yet another theme tune), but with scenes of Monica, Darcy and Agent Woo outside of Westview. And, interestingly, the Vision is starting to notice the flimsiness of the fourth wall.

Outside of Westview we are gratdually seeing how Monica and Darcy make an awesome double act, and that Hayward may well just be a bit of a dick. But inside Westview the twins are growing up fast, and Vizh is beginning to notice things like the lack of other kids in Westview , how Agnes always seems to turn up with a solution at odd moments, how inconsistently time passes- and that the neighbours are all brainwashed, and suffering. We begin to see a rift developing between the supposed spouses. It feels like a pivotal episode, and it's utterly riveting.

And that's before we get to the final scene: Pietro is alive and well, and back! And they've recast him... with Evan Peters, who played the character in the X-Men movies. It's the perfect type of fourth wall-breaking way to cross over. This is simply inspired.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

“Well, at least we can all agree the third one's always the worst...!

 Yet again an X-Men film that isn't supposed to be all that great turns out to be pretty damn good viewing. Oh, I know that the continuity has been pretty dodgy anyway and at this point they just give up and blatantly contradict stuff about all kinds of characters. It's also awkward having two alternate casts, the less expensive of which we see here. But it's nice to get an X-Men film where Scott gets to be a likeable hero for once. It's also nice tht Wolverine, rather than hogging the limelight as usual, only gets a Weapon X cameo.

Apocalypse is a solid villain, with  suitably epic backstory and oodles of power. The film has metatextual fun with its 1983 setting, hence the line above, ostensibly about Return of the Jedi but, well, you know. It’s also fun utilising the freedom to make characters like Angel (him off EastEnders), Psylocke and even Storm be baddies for a bit. There’s the obligatory “how Charles lost his hair” bit. Of course there is. There are the obligatory philosophical scenes with Charles, Eric and Raven, but not too much. But most of the time it’s what we want to see: cool set pieces. And few are cooler than Quicksilver, even if he is dead in Marvel’s other celluloid universe. This film is quite simply just fun to watch. The timeline  and cobrinuity may be utterly broken but the film makes the right decision to ignore all that and just go with it. Quite right too.

Is it just me, though, or are we all fed up of Colonel William bloody Stryker...?