Canon-Strike VI: Marvel Cinematic Universe

[Neon Ignition]

It's been a year and a half -which is insane - but it's also time then to look back at the closing chapter of the Infinity War saga and the third phase:

Movie 23 - Spider-Man: Far From Home
Opening in the wake of the events of Endgame, Far From Home begins with Peter in mourning of Tony Stark. His mentor, giver of abilities and largely reason for being (in the MCU incarnation - sigh) is despondent at the loss but this period of sadness is broken when his school group goes on a Eurotrip at the same time as a potential new mentor starts popping up. Before long Peter has a new foe and some dating hijinks.




Was Far From Home a fitting epilogue to the saga that came before it?

[Asura]

Was Far From Home a fitting epilogue to the saga that came before it?

Funny this came around just now, as we only watched this last week (it came to Disney+ - or Netflix? One of them anyway).

I think all Spider-man movies are up against the tremendous barrier of being compared to Into the Spider-verse, but still...

I enjoyed a great deal of it. I thought the central conceit, that they pitched Parker's attitude as a "friendly neighbourhood hero" against the world which seemed to be pressuring him to become the next Iron Man, was pretty good, on a conceptual level.

I also really liked the villain! Thought the concept was cool, and he was executed well.

->Open Spoiler<-

However, while the film needed it to happen, I thought Parker was a bit too eager to give Mysterio supreme power over Stark's gifts to him. Though I don't know if that could have gone better.

I would also say...

->Open Spoiler<-

Brave move from them on the post-credits scene.

I'm not an expert on Spider-man comics, but my perception from the sidelines is that while heroes like Stark etc. might get "outed" in various comics, and honestly, most heroes deal with this at some point, that Peter Parker's identity usually remains secret, no matter what - or if it gets found out, it's usually amid some time-travel shennanigans and gets "forgotten" just after.

Interested to see where they take this.

[Neon Ignition]

I think all Spider-man movies are up against the tremendous barrier of being compared to Spider-Man 2, but still...

Fixed that for you

The film was a okay but a bit of a swing and miss for me. MCU Spider-Man still remains a pretty weak one in my eyes and the trouble with the whole Peter being pushed into being Starks replacement angle is he's nowhere near the prominence of other heroes so is a weird one to be pushing for especially when he's been dusted for half a decade too. The film in general is pretty meh too, I liked Mysterio generally and the bit where they have the illusions was good too but the films still feel like they're merely passable and lacking a voice of their own. The Raimi films still feel more MCU than the MCU entries do - ironic potentially soon. The ending is the most interesting element though it'll be interesting to see if it's delivered on given what looks to be the focus in the new film.

Ultimately the film felt for me too much like a tag on rather than something fitting the aftermath. Still defined more by what's wrong or lacking than what they get right.

[Cassius_Smoke]

I watched the for the first time on the weekend.
I quite liked it. I actually preferred it to the first. Felt a bit more 'Spiderman'.
The plot is all over the place but I enjoyed it. Completely forgettable though.

[Dogg Thang]

I'm not a big fan of this one. With so many Marvel movies and all the Avengers stuff and Iron Man's constant presence, I feel like Spider-Man had a real opportunity for something different and the first one was, even though it had loads of Stark. That smaller scale catching criminals vibe made it different. And then free from Stark for the sequel, it could have really leaned into that.

Instead, the presence of Stark was more all over this than the first. And by moving it away from his home, it lost some of the feel that I loved from the first.

But the biggest thing for me was in the rug pull in the story. It basically presents you with a story before revealing that the reality is far more mundane and then most of the rest of the movie is fighting drones and boring stuff. I feel like movies should get more interesting as they go on but this took the opposite approach and I really wasn't invested in it by the end. I feel it's one of the weaker Marvel movies.

[Asura]

But the biggest thing for me was in the rug pull in the story. It basically presents you with a story before revealing that the reality is far more mundane and then most of the rest of the movie is fighting drones and boring stuff. I feel like movies should get more interesting as they go on but this took the opposite approach and I really wasn't invested in it by the end. I feel it's one of the weaker Marvel movies.

This might be one area where it being an adaptation affects people's expectations.

->Open Spoiler<-

Like, I went into it knowing that Mysterio is effectively a stage magician who uses technology to give off the image of having super powers.

I couldn't "un-know" that going in, so it's hard for me to know whether I would've liked the movie less had I not known.

[Dogg Thang]

I kind of figured it would go that way too, just from what little I knew about the character but the result was still something interesting turning into something not remotely interesting.

Not sure how the writers could have solved that with the character but I think that combined with the Iron Man influence led to a second half that I just found dull.

[prinnysquad]

Watched it last week. A solid entry.

I personally found that the character/entry does have a voice:

1) The teen movie vibe is still firmly in place. We have a youngster who on the one hand is desperate to help people, but only on a small scale, in his own time. He wants to be a teenager first, and a hero second. The conflict is the heart of the film, alongside:
2) The concept of legacy, which continues from the first film. He was chosen by an Avenger to be an Avenger. Yet, he saw first hand the cost of the responsibility. Stark bailed him out before, but there’s no one to bail him out this time. His mentor has gone, and he knows he doesn’t have the mental fortitude to shoulder everything alone. It leads him cyclically to revert to point one - the desperate desire to be a small fry hero on his own terms. Fury tries to ‘bully’ him into the opposite, but he has no real commitment to it, which is why the glasses giveaway is so easy for him. Note the way Gyllenhal’s hair and make up look Stark-esque in that bar sequence.

No other character in the MCU (bar Banner, for different reasons) has such a reluctance. For me, this is why the two films - and particularly this one - has a fresh angle.

Iron Man 3 dealt with PTSD. FFH also deals with it. The turmoil of the student reflects the previous turmoil of his mentor. It’s also a film about superhero fatigue. It’s a rather neat and knowing reflection of its audience, asking whether or not we all want and need any more films after the epic Infinity Cycle. Marvel knows that to start a new ‘season’ after such a commitment may lead to some lacking enthusiasm, and here we have a
character feeling the same, for various in-story reasons.

It’s pretty neat.

[Neon Ignition]

Revive me do!
So, we're several more films into the canon now (series too but we'll leave those aside) and also wading through Phase 4 of the MCU canon. The number of new films is beginning to ramp up from both Marvel and Sony's stables and we're arguably on the verge of seeing the release of this phases biggest release so far. As we build up to its release it's time to continue our journey and also round in that other curious development in the MCU... the retroactive inclusion of existing films into its canon via the Multi-verse.

Movie 24 - Black Widow
As yet the films have steered away from referencing the multi-verse, largely leaving it to the TV content to lay the ideas. With this first film of the phase we instead received a very belated film dedicated to Black Widow, a narrative concept held largely by the boldness of waiting to do it until the character is already dead. Taking place in the window after Civil War (a lightning rod in the timeline for events just like Far From Home), we follow Black Widow as she is reunited with her family and faces the demons of her past.




Was Black Widow a worthwhile expansion of the characters arc or too little too late?

[randombs]

I liked the Black Widow film but BW herself just wasn't that interesting.

Her sister Elisa was an absolute hoot(cussing BW's landing pose), Red Guardian was a joy, Melina was cool as heck.

I enjoyed BW's interactions with other Avengers in those films - Hawkeye in particular - but this felt more like a jump-off for the brilliant supporting characters than a solo film with room to explore the main character.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, Florence Pugh stole the movie and she was a huge part of my enjoyment of this movie. Overall, I thought it was okay. Maybe even better that expected but, honestly, since the early days of the MCU I have been saying that a Black Widow or Nick Fury movie would be a bit of a struggle for me. Because it would just be secret agent type stuff. And when it finally happened, I felt the timing was poor for obvious character reasons.

Still, I enjoyed it. It moved along at a good pace. Winstone was hilarious and woefully miscast but I enjoyed him. I didn't feel the ending really delivered much and so the likes of Taskmaster peaked on first introduction and, while the guy from Stranger Things was good, I didn't think he got enough to do in the end. So yeah, I liked it. Not sure it totally delivered. Pugh was brilliant and overall it entertained me and that's all it really had to do.

[Asura]

I enjoyed it overall, but I went in knowing nothing about it, and I had kinda hoped it would be more like Atomic Blonde, i.e. a more grounded spy movie. Instead it was very MCU in style and tone, which I guess it was always going to be.

[Neon Ignition]

It probably says everything that Pugh stole the film from Johansson. Pugh's in abotu 2/3's of the film at best and in that time endears herself to the viewer more than Widow has across a decade of output. That's the trouble here, Marvel had a history of avoiding female leads but that shortage meant Widow became a film leader almost by default when really there's not enough here to justify the film. I enjoyed it, more than I expected, but it adds nothing. Arguably, the budget would have been better spent on either another hero's origin story or just jumping straight into Pugh being on a revenge mission for her sisters death and leading into her taking on the mantle.

[randombs]

I really liked the scene in the helicopter where they’re talking through the headsets. Usually characters in helicopters just shout at each other so that was a nice touch.

[Neon Ignition]

Movie 25 - Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
Once again the MCU launches a film that takes place just after the events of Far From Home, conveniently keeping the canon circling 2023 as we slowly but surely catch up with it in the real world so that the films will all take place in present day again. Shang-Chi is in effect disconnected from the prior films, an origin story with very little follow up on the events of Infinity War and Endgame but instead expanding on strands left by Iron Man 3 so many years before. A superhero family drama, the film sets up a hero who seems destined to be one of the central roles in the next generation of Avengers.




Marvel has delivered quite a few origin stories by this point, does Shang-Chi offer anything new or a sense that the MCU is headed to fresh territory?