The Marvels (2023)

 "Do you just add the word 'quantum' before everything?"

I don't usually watch films at the cinema because it's a faff finding a showing with subtitles... but I made an exception today, for this film. There seems to be a massive wave of negativity around The Marvels, not for any reason to do with its content, but because certain pathetic incels and male supremacist far right wankers are having a bit of a mardy. So I went to see it during the opening weekend just to throw my two fingers up at said little boys.

And you know what? I LOVED it. And not only because I'm a cat lover. Brie Larson, Teyonah Parris and especially Iman Vellani are superb, giving us a likeable and charismatic super team. Crucially, the writing is superb absolutely in the Marvel tradition, balancing humour, humanity and cinematic action.

Spoilers, in case it needs saying.

Zawe Ashton is also great as Dar-Benn, a typical Marvel baddie. Yet there's real heart behind the theatrics. We learn that Carol caused Hala to start to die as an eventual result of killing the Supreme Intelligence, and the reason she didn't come back to see Monica was, essentially, shame. Kamala Khan is the perfect Spider-Man type teenage superhero, and her relationship with her family is utterly wonderful. Then there's Nick Fury, and the fact that it's cats who essentially save everyone by eating them with tentacles. And yes, that's a sentence I rather enjoyed writing. Then we have all the little Marvel details- Quasar's Quantum Band; quantum entanglement, like Mar-Vell and Rick Jones in the comics; lots of harking back to Ms Marvel and WandaVision.

The end is quite something, with Monica (my generation's Captain Marvel!) stuck in a different reality after fixing a hole in the multiversal fabric. She's in the X-Mansion! We see Kelsey Grammer as the Beast! "Charles" is mentioned. And... her alternate mother is there, this reality's Captain Marvel, except this time in Carol's old comics guise of Binary. This is awesome. And that's before we even consider the fact that Kamala, echoing Nick Fury, is going around assembling a team of young superheroes, starting with Kate Bishop. 

This is good, proper, old-fashioned MCU fun, just solid superhero storytelling. This is one of the finest MCU films in recent years, right up there with the best.

Doctor Who: Into the Dalek

"Fantastic idea for a movie. Terrible idea for a proctologist."

Peter Capaldi's tenure can now claim two excellent episodes in a row; in hindsight this is both a far better story and a far better study of our new Doctor than was The Beast Below.

The plot is, obviously, Fantastic Voyage, but we also get a bit of Doctor/Dalek moral comparison that both evokes Dalek and gives us an interesting study of our new Doctor, who may not be a good man but is, perhaps, a "good Dalek"; he may be on the side of good, but that doesn't make him nice. Indeed, he says of Clara that "She cares so I don't have to." And yet... this new Doctor is not too alienating; he's witty, and just vulnerable enough. This is  The Twin Dilemma done right, and Capaldi simply shines. So does Moffat. He seems to have a far clearer idea of what he wants to do here than he did during Matt Smith's early stories. 

There's also some nice arc threads being laid down. This Doctor, even more than before, doesn't like soldiers... and Clara, the Doctor's moral compass and the person, clearly, whom he most respects, is obviously set up to begin a relationship with a former soldier, and one with a troubled military past. That'll be interesting.

Also, of course, we see Missy again. She seems to be collecting people in her "Heaven" who have died because of the Doctor. Interesting. She's obviously a big, mysterious part of this season. And Missy... Mistress? A female Master? Or just clever misdirection? We shall see. 

I have to praise the effects here, too, which were outstanding, and the performances in general. This is also the best Dalek story in ages, and the first in ages to actually be about them. They work best when treated as a dark mirror of the Doctor; mirrors of the Doctor seem, so far, to be something of a season motif. 

So, Robin Hood...