Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

 "Gods don't have to choose. We take."

SPOILERS.

I've been waiting to see this film for a while, and it's a relief to have finally seen it. It is, after all, clearly quite big in being the first film (although Loki got there first, I believe) to establish ther multiverse. And it's bloody good.

For a film that literally links all the Sony Spider-Men and baddies to the MCU, quite an undertaking, this is a deeply witty and enjoyable film, chock full of actors, although they may have aged a bit. Alfred Molina has aged somewhat, but that's mitigated by the reaction of Peter, MJ and Ned to the name "Otto Octavius". Yet Jamie Foxx and Willem Defoe are awesome in their own right.

Tobey Maguire, though, and Andrew Garfield, deserve as much praise as Tom Holland and- indeed- Benedict Cumberbatch, who has conceded the title of Sorcerer Supreme to Wong by means of being dead for five years. That'll do it.

Despite the multiversal shenanigans, though, this is all about the characters. Spidey's reaction to May's death is heartbreaking, but not as heartbreaking as the fact that the conclusion has to revolve around everyone- including MJ- forgetting Peter. Ouch.

Yet, alongside the tragedy, and the blealk ending of everyone forgetting who Peter ids, threre's humour, which is very Spider-Man. And, while the late Aunt May is much nicer and much more relatable than in the comics, there's also J. Jonah Jameson, played superbly by J.K. Simmons, being a total ***. He's the real villain.

Yes, this probably won't stand up well to repeated viewings. But I love it.

All this and Matt Murdoch. So all them series are canon?

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

 "Um, did your traffic jam have something to do with the Russian mob?"

Ouch. This is a rubbish film, isn't it? I mean, Andrew Garfield is great. Emma Stone, too. Jamie Foxx is superb in a very different take on Electro, although Dane DeHaan misses the mark as Harry Osborn. Still, the cast is pretty good, although Paul Giamatti is absolutely slumming it in a part like this. So why is the film such utter pants? After all, nobody wants to make a bad film.

For a fair chunk of the running time I was expecting to be expressing the opinion that this was a good script ruined by bad direction. Marc Webb was ok in the film's predecessor but this instalment is shot much more obviously like a music video, and is frankly annoying with all that jiggery pokery with the POV of the camera. I don't mind creative camerawork, in fact I admire it. But when it draws attention to the artifice, as it does here, it fails.

But it's not just the camerawork. This film has Electro, a half-hearted Green Goblin with a rushed backstory, and an even more half-hearted Rhino. Electro is sidelined tooo much to be effective as a villain,whereas the whole attempt to replicate Gerry Conway's classic 1970s comics tale of the Green Goblin and the tragic death of Gwen Stacy is frankly an insult in how rushed it is. The entire conceit of Gwen's graduation speech, and how it seems to impart extra maning after her death, is the ultimate in faux profundity. It really is a pathetic waste of a storyline that could have been devastatingly good. 

I seem to be on a run of bad Marvel films. Can we have a good one, please?

Django Unchained (2012)

"Kill white people and get paid for it? What's not to like?"

This is, to date, the only film by Quentin Tarantino that I've seen since Kill Bill. It is, like all his films since then, removed from his particular strong point of witty, pop culture-peppered dialogue by being set in the past. It's as though Tarantino likes to challenge himself, but then that's what he does. He's doing a Western this time- well, a Southern- complete with classic style opening and Ennio Morricone opening tune.

He may deny himself the indulgence of cool dialogue here, but he delivers a hugely entertaining, gory and beautifully shot film as he always does, giving us the full graphic detail of slavery in the antebellum south. This is a refreshing antidote, brutal though it can be to watch, to the whitewashed Gone with the Wind version of the south. Before 1865 the place was backwards, feudal, pre-capitalist, savage. And it wasn't even that long ago.

Jamie Foxx is great as Django, a freed slave with a mission to save his wife who grows throughout the film from enslaved beginnings to the assertive badass hero he was destined to be. Leonardo Di Caprio is superb as the slaveowning baddie, the kind of part he should play more often. Samuel L. Jackson is deeply disturbing as the collaborator, Stephen. But it is Christoph Waltz, as Dr Schultz, the educated, witty German bounty hunter and the only civilised white person in the film, who steals the show, oozing coolness at all times.

Tarantino seems incapable of anything short of brilliance. This film is so good we can even forgive his brave attempt at an Aussie accent...