Month: July 2024

Released: July 2024

Director: Shawn Levy

Rated R

Run Time: 127 Minutes

Distributor: Marvel/Disney

Genre: Action/Comedy

Cast:
Ryan Reynolds: Wade Wilson/Deadpool
Hugh Jackman: James “Logan” Howlett/Wolverine
Emma Corrin: Cassandra Nova
Matthew Macfadyen: Mr. Paradox
Dafne Keen: Laura/X-23
Morena Baccarin: Vanessa
Leslie Uggams: Blind Al

It’s been quite a while since I actually went to an MCU movie.  The last one that I saw in theaters was Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.  But it was Thor: Love And Thunder that made me decide to jump off the MCU train.  It wasn’t just a bad MCU, it was a bad movie.  It was poorly written and executed.  It irritated me more than anything.  To be fair, a number of Marvel’s movies since Avengers: Endgame have been hit or miss.  When Marvel announced The Multiverse Saga, I feared for the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and I was right, along with many other people.  The multiverse was used as an excuse to toss in fan favorite characters, resurrect dead ones, or just do crazy shenanigans that ended up not having an impact within the entire MCU.  Some of the TV shows ended up being required viewing for some of these movies and that was absolutely a step too far.  When it was announced that Deadpool 3 would end up in the MCU, I was worried that Disney would give the movie a PG-13 rating, despite the other films being hard R-rated movies.  With the official title of Deadpool & Wolverine, Kevin Feige and Disney announced the movie was going to be R-rated as befitting the character of Deadpool.  Well…let me tell you: HOLY SHIT.  The movie MORE than earns its R-rating.  But is that all there is to the movie?

The story follows former mercenary Wade Wilson as he struggles to land an ordinary job.  He’s broken up with his girlfriend, and has no real direction in life anymore.  After failing to get a job with the Avengers, he’s eventually abducted by the TVA(Time Variance Agency), a clandestine organization that polices the multiverse.  After learning that his world is on the verge of total annihilation, Wade goes in search of the one person that could help him: The Wolverine.  The problem? The Wolverine he finds is responsible for his own world’s destruction, which puts both of them in a bit of a pickle, especially when the TVA decide to exile the two of them to the Void, a vast wasteland where undesirables from the multiverse are sent, with one mutant ruling over them all, Cassandra Nova.   One could argue that the story in this film is just a gimmick to get Deadpool and Wolverine together.  In that regard, it succeeds, but the overall plotline isn’t particularly special.  But I’ve always maintained that any lapses in narrative decorum can be forgiven if everything else works.  Well, everything else works.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman.  These two actors have had the most unusual and entertaining online presence since 2008.  They’re always ribbing each other and making fun at one another’s expense.  It’s one of the great friendships that you rarely see these days.  This online “rivalry” these two have translates incredibly well on screen.  Everybody knows that Reynolds is a big-time joker, but the amount of humor in the film surprisingly comes from Hugh Jackman.  But aside from the jokes, these two characters also get some of the biggest dramatic moments in the film, especially when Wolverine talks to Laura/X-23.  These relationships are outstanding.  There are a huge number of “cameos” in the film that don’t feel like they’re wasted.  I won’t name anyone outside of X-23, but there are some real surprises here, and they’re fantastic.  The film’s main villain is incredibly fun.  Cassandra Nova is the evil twin sister of Professor Charles Xavier.  Emma Corrin, who plays Nova, chews the scenery like it’s nobody’s business and she’s clearly having fun, but even her character gets a surprising heartfelt moment.

One of the things that really helped the Deadpool movies work was the action and the level of violence.  Oh, my god.  Deadpool & Wolverine is probably the bloodiest and most violent of the three, and most its played for laughs, especially the opening scene which is also set to N’Sync’s Bye Bye Bye.  For the most part the action is well-staged and shot.  The only real exception is at Nova’s base towards the end of the movie.  It gets a little too chaotic, and it’s hard to see some of the action.  But the visual effects in the film are top-notch as befitting an MCU movie, and the gore is plentiful, so gore-hounds should be pleased.  The pacing is also incredibly solid with the movie going at a break-neck pace, never overstaying its welcome.  As far as the humor goes, there are some jokes that don’t quite land and feel incredibly awkward, but the tone is consistent.  It’s an incredibly self-aware movie that pokes fun at the MCU in ways that I didn’t even expect.  I’m surprised at all the stuff that Disney allowed Shawn Levy and Ryan Reynolds to get away with.

Deadpool & Wolverine was one of my most anticipated movies this year, and it more than lived up to it.  The fact that this is the only Marvel movie coming out this year, speaks volumes about how Marvel is rethinking their strategy for the next few years.  That said, is this movie going to make me want to come to the MCU, that all is forgiven?  No.  With the announcement yesterday about the new Avengers movies and Robert Downey, Jr’s return to the MCU as Doctor Doom, I’m even less optimistic about the future of the MCU at this juncture.  But I’m willing to give credit where it’s due: The MCU has delivered a hell of a movie in Deadpool & Wolverine, delivering not only the best Wolverine action we’ve ever seen, but a surprisingly emotional conclusion to a series of films that really had no business being as good as they are.  This is most likely going to be the last Deadpool movie.  The character is now a part of the MCU and is likely to show up in movies from time to time.  But I don’t believe there will be anymore standalone movies, and that’s ok.  This also allows me to step off the MCU train on a positive note.  I know people are going to be excited with what’s coming in the next few years, and that’s great.  It’s just not going to be for me anymore.

As someone who has been a huge fan of Marvel’s Cinematic Universe for nearly 20 years, the last few years have been real dicey.  Why?  Disney/Marvel had been releasing a lot of Marvel movies and TV shows.  The problem is that because there was so much being released, the quality of those projects was all over the place.  The movies were hit and miss, and the TV shows were mostly forgettable.  Now, one could make the argument that Bob Chapek decided it was better to pump out multiple projects a year to see if something worked, and a lot of the time it didn’t.  While I enjoyed The Eternals, Shang-Chi, Doctor Strange 2, and Black Panther Wakanda Forever, everything else was sloppy.  After Thor: Love and Thunder, I decided it was time to jump off the MCU train.  Now, Deadpool and Wolverine was released this weekend and is set to be one of the highest-grossing movies of the year, but what also was happening this year was San Diego Comic-Con.  This was a huge convention in which a lot of projects from various studios would be announced.

Well, Marvel is having their day in Hall H.  One of the announcements was the new title for one of the two Avengers movies coming out in a couple of years.  Everybody knows about Secret Wars, but the one that’s supposed to come out before that was originally titled Kang’s Dynasty.  However, legal issues with star Jonathan Majors, who portrayed the supervillain Kang in the Loki show and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania, forced Disney to fire the actor and scrap any future plans with Kang.  With the announcement of the new Fantastic Four movie’s main cast, including Ralph Ineson as the planet-eating Galactus, it seemed that Marvel was doing alright.  Well, the title of the 5th Avengers movie is Doomsday.  Which means the main villain of these new movies is going to be none other than Doctor Doom, one of the most popular comic book bad guys.  I’ve got…issues, here.  First: Nobody has been able to get Doom right.  At all.  Not Roger Corman, not Tim Story, and certainly not Josh Trank.  Anybody who knows the comic book character, knows that Doom’s real name is Victor von Doom, the leader of the fictional country of Latveria.  He’s a super-intelligent scientist that developed the iconic armor that you see him in all the time.

Now, the title of this article is Marvel’s Getting Desperate.  Here’s why?  As you can see in the picture I posted, Doom is going to be played by none other than Robert Downey, Jr.  Yes, the same actor that played Tony Stark/Iron Man.  Which means that this particular version of Doom is not going to be Victor von Doom, but rather an evil version of Tony Stark, playing into the whole Multiverse bullshit that they should’ve abandoned long ago.  I think RDJ is a fantastic actor.  The role of Iron Man basically gave him a second shot at life and the rest is history.  However, when he’s not playing Iron Man, the movie’s that he’s been in haven’t exactly been blockbusters.  Also, the directors of the last two Avengers movies and Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Civil War are now attached to direct.  Joe and Anthony Russo have tried their hand at making non-Marvel movies and failed.   I’m not particularly excited about this.  It reeks of desperation.  The other projects include the new Thunderbolts movie and Captain America: Brave New World.  Whatever.  Now, this might be because I’m all Marvel’d out.  After Thor: Love and Thunder turned out to be utter dogshit, I’ve question Disney/Marvel’s ability to get back on the rails.  I’m going to go see Deadpool & Wolverine this weekend, but beyond that?  I had hoped that after Chapek got fired and Bob Iger was brought back to get things fixed, I would get more excited about what Marvel’s got planned.  I’m not.  Brave New World looks incredibly generic, and Thunderbolts sounds like an attempt to replicate James Gunn’s success with Guardians of the Galaxy.  I’m more interested in what James Gunn and Peter Safran are cooking up over at Warner Bros/DC.  Marvel just completely lost me.  Maybe that’s for the best.

It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these.  Director Fede Alvarez is set to unleash Alien: Romulus on audiences on August 16.  You can bet your bottom dollar that I’ll be there day one.  But that’s not the only good news surrounding the Alien franchise.  Showrunner Noah Hawley is getting ready to terrify television audiences next year with a show tentatively called Alien: Earth.  The show just wrapped filming and is set to go into post-production soon with a grand total of 8 episodes for the show.  Not much is known about the story except that it seems to be set on Earth.  Again, as a huge fan of Alien, I’m actually excited for this.  The franchise has taken a few hits over the last 30 years.  But, I think the franchise is as strong as it has ever been with comics, books, video games like Alien: Isolation, which is one of the scariest games I’ve ever played.  But we’re not here to talk about that.  Because of the new film and show coming out, I want to rank from best to worst all the movies that have been released thus far.  So, let’s shine a light into that dark corner of the universe.

Alien/Aliens

I think most sci-fi fanatics can agree that Ridley Scott’s original Alien is a sci-fi horror classic in every way.  What they can also agree on is that James Cameron’s 1986 follow-up, Aliens, is one of the greatest sci-fi action movies ever made.  Depending on who you ask which movie is better, you’re going to find a lot of people saying that Alien is the better movie or that Aliens is the better movie, and neither camp would be wrong.  For me, personally, I would put these first two movies on equal footing.  They’re different kinds of movies, but they are equally compelling featuring, even though the first movie introduced us to the monstrous Xenomorph, one of the most iconic movie monsters of all time.  Where the first movie was a haunted house in space, Aliens is essentially a war movie.  Both movies are brilliant in their own way, and both deserve to be heralded as some of the greatest examples of their respective genre.

Alien 3

And this movie is where the divisions begin, and rightfully so.  Alien 3 is what I would personally call both a missed opportunity and a misunderstood masterpiece.  People were pissed because after Aliens, audiences had the expectation that Ripley would form kind of a family unit with Hicks and Newt.  Instead, Hicks and Newt were killed off screen, leaving Ripley alone, yet again.  She’s trapped on a backwater prison planet with a bunch of convicts.  It’s a pretty bleak movie, and people really didn’t like it.  The movie also suffered from major studio interference, not letting David Fincher make the movie that he wanted to make.  He would end up leaving the project and has no real kind words to say about the movie.  From a visual standpoint, it’s a very interesting movie to look at, plus it’s got great performances from everyone involved including Charles Dance and Charles S. Dutton.  I’m amazed the movie turned out as well as it did, considering the issues behind the scenes.  Personally, I love this movie, especially the extended cut.  Believe it or not, I’ve encountered people in my X/Twitter feeds saying that Alien 3 is their personal favorite of the franchise.  Who am I to argue?

Alien Vs. Predator

Alien Vs. Predator is the first crossover between the Alien and Predator franchises, obviously.  But the idea that these two different species existed in the same universe not only came from the comics, but the film Predator 2, in which Danny Glover’s character discovers a wall of trophies collected by the Predators.  One of the skulls was a Xenomorph skull.  So you can imagine the excitement from audiences when they saw that little easter egg.  It would be about 12 years before the movie would actually get made, but it did.  The reception wasn’t that great, but the movie absolutely delivered on its promise of Xenos vs. Predators.  It was iconic.  For a lot of people, myself included, it wasn’t as gory is it probably needed to be.  It couldn’t be because it was PG-13, but ultimately it was a lot of fun.  That’s more than I can say for the sequel, which I’ll get to later.

Alien: Covenant

When Ridley Scott decided to revisit the Alien universe, he made Prometheus, which came out in 2012.  The initial plan was to create a legitimate Alien prequel that would explain the origin of the Xenomorph.  But as happens in Hollywood, scripts change, and while Prometheus would end up taking place in the same universe in Alien, it really wasn’t an Alien movie.  It was a different kind of science fiction film that tried to explore the origins of mankind.  While I loved the movie, a lot of people didn’t, so Alien: Covenant was made.  Again, Covenant is a prequel, but it does explore one potential origin of the Xenomorph.  As happens, people didn’t like that, either.  This absolutely was an Alien film, but the mystique of the creature was lost.  Still, Michael Fassbender’s performance and the brutal and gory violence made this a fun movie to watch.

Alien Resurrection

Of the Sigourney Weaver-led Alien films, THIS is the one that feels completely out of place.  The tone is nowhere near as dark or as serious as the original three.  In fact, the B-movie feel of this movie is completely off the charts, with over-the-top acting, visual effects and a really bizarre yellow color scheme.  To me, this has more of a fan-fiction feel to everything.  The story takes place 200 years after Alien 3 and involves cloning Ripley to get the Xenomorph queen.  That said, the movie isn’t boring at all, and it moves really quickly.  The visual effects and creature design are actually pretty top-notch.  While I don’t think Jean-Pierre Jeunet was the right director for the job, he gave us something pretty interesting.

Prometheus

When it was announced that Ridley Scott would be returning to the franchise that put his name on the map, Alien, people got excited.  This was the guy that gave us the best sci-fi horror film ever made.  But like I said with Alien: Covenant, scripts and ideas change.  So, the idea for an Alien prequel became something very different.  Instead, Scott wanted to explore the idea of mankind being created by something other than God.  The ancient pilot from the original Alien was a bit of a springboard for this movie.  While I absolutely loved what Scott was going for with this movie, taking things in a different direction, a lot of people didn’t.  The amount of vitriol that Scott received for Prometheus may have led to him to course correct with Covenant.  I really wish he didn’t listen to the fans, because what we have here now, is a completely anomaly that really has no place in the greater Alien universe.  Unless Romulus explains some of that away, and I don’t think it will, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant will be completely isolated from the rest of the series.

Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem

And here we are at the worst Alien film on this list.  I’m not going to lie.  There’s stuff in this movie that I absolutely love.  I honestly love the fact that the movie is so mean-spirited.  NOBODY’S safe here, not even kids.  The violence and gore are top-notch…when you can see them, and that brings me to the hugest problem this movie’s got: The lighting.  I don’t mind that the tone is dark, but the cinematography is dog-shit.  You can barely make anything out in the darker scenes.  That’s not good film-making.  Aside from that, the characters and the writing are atrocious.  There’s not a character in this movie that I thought needed to survive.  The ONLY reason to watch this movie is for the carnage, provided that you turn up the brightness on your screen.  I don’t flat out hate it, but AVP: R is, without a doubt, the worst Alien film in the franchise.

To tell you the God’s honest truth, I don’t think there’s a dreadful film in this franchise, but the quality is all over the place.  I can’t say for sure that Alien: Romulus is going to be a great movie, but considering that Fede Alvarez is directing, it could be.  Like the Predator franchise, Alien is in desperate need of an adrenaline shot, and I think Romulus is the film that’ll do it.  That and next year’s Alien: Earth. Some people think that the franchise has run its course.  I don’t think so.  Granted, there’s only so much you can do with the Xenomorph that’s fresh and exciting, but depending on who is writing and directing, the possibilities are endless.  You’ve got to be creative enough.  Anyway, that’s my ranking of the Alien films from best to worst.  What do you think?  Should certain movies be in another spot, or am I complete nutjob?