#age of ultron has been my favourite marvel movie since like forever

[astro-can]

[nathanneedsausername]

The MCU (So Far) Ranked

With Avengers: Endgame right around the corner now feels like a good time to talk about all 21 films that brought us to this moment.

#21 -  Thor: The Dark World (Alan Taylor) 

Rating - 3/10

Look, there always has to be one.

Thor: The Dark World suffers from the same problem that most bad comic book movies do it is simply forgettable, this is the worst type of film to write about because I have noting to say. Far from being insultingly bad but also far from being any good. Honestly if you ever plan on cramming these films again do yourself a favour and skip this one.

#20 -  The Incredible Hulk (Louis Leterrier)

Rating - 4/10

You can skip this one too. 

The Incredible Hulk is a product of its time, in the late ‘00s this was about as good as action movies not called The Dark Knight got. This one isn’t unwatchable and the bit were The Hulk kicks Tim Roth into a tree is pretty cool but given how little this film has effected the franchise going forward you really wont miss anything by skipping it.

#19 - Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau)

Rating - 4/10

I get why they made this movie, but I’d rather they hadn’t.

Iron Man 2 is basically just a teaser trailer for the better movies that were about to come out. This movie consists of boring conversations between Tony Stark and Nick Fury and even more boring scenes with the villains that really kicked of the cliché that these movies have boring villains. The suitcase Iron Man suit is really dope though.

#18 - Ant-Man and the Wasp (Peyton Reed)

Rating - 6/10

Meh.

Ant-Man and the Wasp is actually pretty good. Paul Rudd is allowed to fully explore his comedic talent making this a very watchable film however the script lacks any focus and it is ultimately difficult to stay invested in anything happening on screen. It’s a mixed bag but it’s pretty fun.

#17 - Thor (Kenneth Branagh)

Rating - 6/10

Kenneth Branagh made a super-hero movie, this is about as good as that idea could ever have been.

Thor is a surprisingly small movie, revisiting this film now feels slightly strange given what we have since seen of the character. Branagh was always the wrong choice to direct a Marvel movie especially during a time were the studio had far more say than any of their filmmakers. It’s worth revising this film to set up the Avengers but other than that it isn’t anything special.

#16 - Avengers: Age of Ultron (Joss Whedon)

Rating - 6/10

It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that this movie is just ok.

Avengers: Age of Ultron should be so much better than it is but it ended up being the poster child for when a studio gets cold feet and tries to take over on directors vision. Joss Whedon is an excellent story teller but this does not so off his talents at all. Once again this certainly isn’t a bad film it just isn’t great, there is some good dialogue and the introduction of both Scarlet Witch and Vision is worth seeing.

#15 - Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston)

Rating - 7/10

Way more camp than I remember .

Captain America: The First Avenger feels as though it has taken the framework of a more conventional war drama and just thrown in some superhero stuff and I don’t necessarily think that is a bad thing. When this film embraces its campness it can be very entertaining. Chris Evans was a prefect casting choice for Steve Rodgers and this film does go in an unexpected direction by making Captain America basically just a mascot but once again the villain is weak and large sections of the plot are forgettable. Overall worth re-watching it is probably better than you remember. 

#14 -  Captain Marvel (Ryan Fleck, Anna Boden)

Rating - 7/10

I’m sorry, I like this one.

Captain Marvel might be the most controversial film in the whole franchise. I have some grievances with this one, namely lack of any style or originality in the writing or direction but the chemistry between Brie Larson and Samuel L Jackson helps to make this an enjoyable watch. I know you probably don’t agree with me but this is my list and I like this movie, so there!

#13 - Iron Man (Jon Favreau)

Rating - 7/10

Not as great as I remember but still pretty good.

Iron Man will forever be remembered as a film that changed cinema witch is so weird to me having re-watched it recently. This is a rather slow and somewhat  cliché 2000s action flick with a paper-thin plot. Robert Downey Jr. and Jeff Bridges both give it their all and I have nothing but respect for Jon Favreau for turning RDJ’s mad ramblings into a coherent film.

#12 - Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (James Gunn)

Rating - 7/10

I’m still not sure how to take this.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 is the most visually stunning film in the MCU, almost every shot could be used as a laptop wallpaper. This also has quite possibly the strongest theming as its story about fatherhood and toxic relationships can bring a tear to your eye if you let it. So it is such a shame that this film is full of jokes that just do not land and weird side plots that feel like set-ups for movies that Marvel would probably never let James Gunn make. I kinda love this movie but this is as high as I can put it on this list.

#11 -  Captain America: Civil War (Anthony Russo, Joe Russo)

Rating - 8/10

The fight scene though!

Captain America: Civil War is one great fight scene that is all anyone ever wants to talk about. I think the rest of the movie is also pretty good, this was our first look at how the Russo brothers would handle a larger ensemble cast and every character gets the screen time they deserve. Really though the airport fight is amazing!

#10 - Doctor Strange (Scott Derrickson)

Rating - 8/10

The word Strange is in the title.

Doctor Strange has a remarkably safe plot given the source materiel, although that can all be forgiven given how amazing the visual effects are. This is a very entertaining film mainly for the creative and ingenious uses of special effects. This film can drag a bit but it is worth it to see something that gives the end of 2001 a run for its money.

#9 - Iron Man 3 (Shane Black)

Rating - 8/10

And you thought my views on Captain Marvel were controversial!

Iron Man 3 is great and I will not change my mind on that. This was the first team up between Robert Downey Jr. and screenwriter/director Shane Black since 2005′s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and it was worth the wait. The dialogue is sharp and the plot with Tony Stark dealing with P.T.S.D. after the events of The Avengers makes for a great character study. 

I am aware that the general consensus is that the plot twist sucks but with Ben Kingsley’s fantastic performance and the wonderfully absurd way that it is reveled I can’t help but love it. In all honesty I just to big a Shane Black fan to hate this (the same logic does not apply to The Predator).

#8 - Ant-Man (Peyton Reed)

Rating - 8/10

I can only image how great the Edgar Wright version of this would have been.

Ant-Man is so much better than people give it credit for. The dialogue is constantly funny and the screenplay is paced perfectly so that the film never has a dull moment even in the quieter character scenes. Moments like the train-set fight and the first time Scott Lang uses the Ant-Man suit are among the best scenes in the whole franchise. Like most people I have to believe that the Edgar Wright version would have been better but I must say that Peyton Reed did a pretty great job piecing what he had together.  

#7 - Black Panther (Ryan Coogler)

Rating - 8/10

Marvel’s little awards season darling.

Black Panther is somehow one of the most important and talked about films of the decade and in all honesty it sort of deserves it. Coogler does what other MCU filmmakers would never do and dives head first into real world political issue, ending his film with a poignant note about free trade and open borders. Michael B. Jordan as Killmonger adds a nuance that is missing in most comic book movies. Overall Black Panther is a breath of fresh air in an over-saturated genre. 

P.S that soundtrack is awesome!

#6 - Thor: Ragnarok (Taika Waititi)

Rating - 8/10

How did this happen?

Thor: Ragnarok is everything I wanted it to be. Taika Waititi is one of the most interesting filmmakers working today and it is great to see a major studio allow such a unique voice to make the exact film that they wanted to without sacrificing their creativity. This is not only one of the best Marvel films but one of the best straight comedies of the decade. I cannot wait to see what Waititi has in store in the future.

#5 - Spider-Man: Homecoming (Jon Watts)

Rating - 8/10

Things are looking up for Spider-Man.

Spider-Man: Homecoming was my favourite Spider-Man movie up until very recently. This genuinely feels like watching an 80s John Hughes film in the 2010s that also happens to action sequences in it. The scene where Peter Parker and Adrian Toomes are in the car together is brilliantly tense and shows of the dramatic range of both Tom Holland and Michael Keaton. The characters feel real and fleshed out and the breezy feel of the editing brings the world to life through the naive eyes of a young Peter Parker. I honestly can’t believe how good this ended up being.

#4 - Avengers: Infinity War (Joe Russo, Anthony Russo)

Rating - 9/10

This simply should not have worked.

Avengers: Infinity War is one of the most ambitious films in cinema history. I have so much respect for the Russo brothers for managing to make a film with this many characters and this many plot points feels cohesive and endlessly entertaining. I think the real triumph of Infinity War is how watchable and fun this movie is despite being 2 1/2 hours long, full of characters and constantly hitting you in the face with really depressing stuff. Let’s hope that the Russo brothers can pull of the same trick twice. 

#3 - The Avengers (Joss Whedon)

Rating - 9/10

This movie isn’t given enough credit anyone.

The Avengers was a huge gamble back in 2012 and although it may now feel quaint given the achievement that was last year’s Infinity War Joss Whedon was able change the landscape of blockbuster cinema and make this whole thing possible. Almost every plot point in this film has since become cliché, Whedon and Feige laid out a blueprint for success that no one else has been able to copy since. The Joss Whedon humour and snarky dialogue  helped to pave the way that these characters would interact in the future and his unique approach to  utilizing an ensemble cast makes this film worth revisiting over and over again.  

#2 -  Guardians of the Galaxy (James Gunn)

Rating - 9/10

James Gunn hit the mainstream with a movie about a talking raccoon, I can never complain about the Hollywood system ever again.

Guardians of the Galaxy should not work on most levels but Gunn was just crazy enough to pull it off. The character interactions here rival the Wheadon penned interactions in The Avengers and the Gunn’s direction brings the strange worlds he has created to live in striking ways. Gunn was given a chance to showcase his humour and he ran with it, Guardians goes from dark and meandering to fun and rapidly paced within seconds and it is a complete joy to watch no matter how many times you have seen it.

#1 - Captain America: The Winter Soldier (Joe Russo, Anthony Russo)

Rating - 9/10

The Russo brothers came out swinging.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is an entertaining, tightly directed, brilliantly acted, fast paced and well edited action film that just so happens to be a squeal to the First Avenger. Many of the best moments in the franchise are in this film including the elevator scene and the fight on the bridge, this film also has great character interactions especially with Steve Rodgers and Nick Fury. This feels like an update on classic James Bond stories with a modern edge, this is everything that a comic book movie could be and I highly recommend checking it out again if you haven’t seen it in a while. There is no question that The Winter Soldier is the best of the MCU.

Franchise Rating - 7.1/10

Nathan Needs A Username’s Must See Movies: https://letterboxd.com/nathan_r_l/list/nathan-needs-a-usernames-must-see-movies/

Nathan Needs A Username’s Avoid At All Cost Movies: https://letterboxd.com/nathan_r_l/list/nathan-needs-a-usernames-avoid-at-all-cost/

[imjustaweirdo93]

SPOILERS AHEAD PEOPLE, SO WATCH OUT  oh and it’s loong

As my first post here I want to talk about the awesomeness that is Avengers: Endgame, because I had couple of days to fully absorbe it and get out of the depression, so I need to write down my thoughts.

First of all … don’t really look much deep into it. Everyone is talking about loopholes and silly aspects of the film, but really…time travel isn’t real (well not yet) so there is no scientific proof of how it should work. Stop questioning it, just enjoy the movie and accept the explanation we got from Banner. For me it was really easy to understand.

Now, I want to really give the biggest credit to the rat, you know which rat. Without it Ant-man would be probably stuck in the quantum realm forever and there will be no one to think about time travel, so yaaay, hero was born (maybe give it a movie marvel?)

So one of the thing that I really liked about the movie and was probably the biggest surprise for me, was Thor. Yeah, didn’t see that one coming and oooh it was sooo good. Not that I enjoy depressed superheroes, but it was interesting change to the character, like….we know him as this unstoppable strong god who already lost so much, but still didn’t break and kept going and now…now he did break, he was a broken man and was going through it like we normal humans do. I don’t really get the hate, plus it was insanely hilarious.

Another thing I loved was Professor Hulk. Him, Rhodey, Ant-man and Thor were the funny core of this film and I didn’t expect that at all. It was interesting to see him as this peaceful, calm, funny being giving his previous struggle with Hulk. Who knew huh.

Ooooh and the best scene of course - Avengers Assemble. That was just pure orgasm guys. That was the reason we all watched all those movies right? To get moment like this and it was totally worth it. 

Let’s talk about endings….

NATASHA

For her I never really had some emotional bond, but in Endgame they finally give her some space to really show her true colors, to shine and when she died I was heartbroken. As soon as they reveal that she and Clint were going for the soul stone everyone must have known what will happen. Clint wanted his family back and she wanted to save everyone. It was her purpose and it kind of makes me happy in the end. Not the fact she died, but the reason behind all of it. Also the whole scene between them, who will die and who will live, was great. There was no romantic love between them but it felt more real and raw than some romance. I wasn’t hyped for the Black Widow movie, but after this I am.

CLINT

The reason why I like him is because he’s one of the few parental figures in marvel movies. Someone here wrote something about people not caring for Hawkeye’s family, which is not true, I cared. The first scene hit me hard and I was thinking to myself “they want to torment us from the start?!” and yeah, I already felt terrible. Also, people saying Clint should have been the one to die and not Natasha, because what he did in those 5 years?? They both did bad things, that’s life, but each of them had different purpose in life, so I’m glad there weren’t more children without father in the end.

STEVE ROGERS

I really never was a big fan of Cap. I respect him, he is THE MAN, great leader and role model, I also love Chris Evans, but other than that I always found him a little boring. That changed during the Infinity war (yeah, the beard helped) and in Endgame I just enjoyed every minute of him. Maybe it is because he is no longer some naive boy, we-have-to-do-it-right boy. He has grown a lot and been through a lot, he knows better now. Also he apparently swears now and that gives me life. Anyway, since Age of Ultron I just knew that one of the great trio will die eventually, but for some reason I never thought they will rid of Thor, which left Tony and Steve. I was really really sure they will kill Steve, because it just felt there is nothing for him in the future unlike Tony who wanted to start a family and till the end of the movie I really thought they will go with the reasonable choice, not the most heartbreaking. Boy was I wrong. A lot of people said they ruined Cap’s character, that he wouldn’t just go live with the love of his life into the past, that he wouldn’t just stop fighting. But that was all he had, he never had a chance with Peggy and as I see it? He wanted to honor Tony and Natasha and live a life that they couldn’t anymore…he wanted to rest too and that makes me happy. He deserves it. 

THOR

I bet a lot of people thought that in the end, he will be the great king he was supposed to be from the start, but like from the first Thor movie it was clear that it wasn’t what he wants anyway and I never really saw him as a king, so him going into the space with Guardians, trying to find his place in the universe is in my opinion great ending for our beloved God of Thunder. Maybe people think they ruined all his character developement, but just remember Thor at the start of this epic journey. He went from his worst to his best and then to his lowest and I really hope that means Thor will stick around for a little while longer as Chris Hemsworth expressed interest in playing Thor again in the future. Maybe he will join Guardians and that would be totally awesome, right??!!

TONY

Ugh….this one still hurts. Let me tell you this, I have a Top 5 favourite list of superheroes which are Spiderman, Daredevil, Batman, Guardians of the Galaxy (yes, I take them as one, because I just love all of those assholes to death!) AND Iron Man, so….yeah. When I was watching the movie I was so focused on the moment when they’ll kill off Captain America (mainly because I read some fake spoiler about him dying) that this shit hit me out of nowhere. Once I saw him holding all those stones I knew it’s over for him and from that moment I tried really hard not to sob for the rest of the movie. Ooh and when the dying scene came up I couldn’t look, it broke me. I was Thor-level broken. When we were leaving the theatre I remembered the moment between Tony and Strange, where he show him just one finger, one possibility and that broke me again, because in that moment Tony realized what he must do and why Stranger wanted Thanos to spare his life, so he can save all of them. He knew there was no other way than sacrificing himself. Geeez I thought I got over it, but I’m still too emotional. Anyway his end was epic, heroic, selfless and the last goodbye was beautiful. Thank you Tony, yes, you are Iron Man.

GUARDIANS

Gosh I was so happy they showed us Guardians at the end, ready for next adventure like the last five years didn’t happen. I think I like them more than Avengers. The biggest and maybe my only issue with this film was not bringing original Gamora to life. I was hoping the whole year thay they’ll find a way to bring her back and in a way they did, but still, it hurts me that the real Gamora, with all the memories and love for Peter is gone forever. At least Quill was searching for her in the end, so let’s hope it was foreshadowing of the Guardians of the galaxy 3, where they’ll find the past Gamora and make her part of the team once again (and fell in love with Peter again, because they’re like my all time favourite MCU couple).

Well, for me it was really amazing experience. I had no expectations, I just wanted to see anything they got for us and I wasn’t disappointed. There was everything. Fun, love, sadness, hope, happiness, action, drama and I’m really sad that I can’t see it for the first time one more time. So thank you Marvel, thank you Stan Lee and thank you Robert Downey Jr.

Love you all three thousand 

[grigori77]

2018 in Movies - My Top 30 Fave Movies (Part 3)

10.  BLACK PANTHER – remember back in 1998, when Marvel had their first real cinematic success with Blade?  It was a big deal on two fronts, not just because they’d finally made a (sort of) superhero movie to be proud of, but also because it was, technically, the first ever truly successful superhero movie starring a black protagonist (the less said about the atrocious Steel movie the better, I say).  I find it telling that it took them almost twenty years to repeat the exercise – there have been plenty of great black superheroes on-screen since Wesley Snipes rocked the fangs and black leather, especially in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but they’ve always been in supporting roles to the main (so far universally WHITE) stars (the now-cancelled Luke Cage was a notable exception, but that’s on-demand TV on Netflix). All of this makes the latest feature to glide smoothly out of the MCU mould so significant – the standalone star vehicle for Civil War’s OTHER major new success story (after 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming), Prince T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman) of Wakanda, finally redresses the balance … and then some. Picking up pretty much RIGHT where the third Captain America film left off, we see T’Challa return to the secretive, highly-advanced African kingdom of Wakanda to officially take up his new role as king and fully accept the mantle of protector of his people that his role as the Black Panther entails. Needless to say, just as he’s finally brought peace and unity to his homeland, an old threat reappears in the form of thuggish arms dealer and fugitive-from-Wakandan-justice Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, gleefully returning to his blissful scenery-chewing Avengers: Age of Ultron role), leading T’Challa to travel to Busan, South Korea to bring him back for judgement, but this is merely a precursor to the arrival of the TRUE threat, Erik “Killmonger” Stevens (Michael B. Jordan), a mysterious former Special Forces assassin with a deeply personal agenda that threatens Wakanda’s future.  This marks the first major blockbuster feature for writer/director Ryan Coogler (co-penning the script with The People V. O.J. Simpson writer Joe Robert Cole), who won massive acclaim for his feature debut Fruitvale Station, but also has good form after sneaky little sleeper hit Rocky-saga spinoff Creed, so this progression ultimately just proves to be another one of those characteristic smart moves Marvel keeps making these days. Coogler’s command of the big budget, heavy-expectation material is certainly impressive, displaying impressive talent for spectacular action sequences (the Busan car chase is MAGNIFICENT, while the punishing fight sequences are as impressively staged and executed as anything we saw in the Captain America movies), wrangling the demanding visual effects work and getting the very best out of a top-notch ensemble cast of some of the finest black acting talent around.  Boseman brings more of that peerless class and charisma he showed in Civil War, but adds a humanising dose of self-doubt and vulnerability to the mix, making it even easier for us to invest in him, while Coogler’s regular collaborator, Jordan, is absolutely spell-binding, his ferociously focused, far-beyond-driven Killmonger proving to be one of the MCU’s most impressive villains to date, as well as its most sympathetic; Oscar darling Lupita Nyong’o is far more than a simple love interest as tough and resourceful Wakandan intelligence agent Nakia, The Walking Dead’s Danai Gurira is a veritable force of nature as Okoye, the head of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda’s elite all-female Special Forces, Get Out’s Daniel Kaluuya muddies the waters as T’Challa’s straight-talking best friend W’Kabi, and powerhouse veteran actors Angela Bassett, Forest Whitaker and John Kani provide integrity and gravitas as, respectively, T’Challa’s mother Ramonda, Wakandan religious leader Zuri and T’Challa’s late father T’Chaka.  Martin Freeman and Andy Serkis have joked that they’re essentially the “Tolkien white guys” of the cast, but their presence is far from cosmetic – Freeman’s return as Civil War’s bureaucratic CIA agent Everett Ross is integral to the plot and also helps provide the audience with an accessible outsider’s POV into the unique and stunning land of Wakanda, while Serkis is clearly having the time of his life … and then there are the film’s TRUE scene-stealers – Letitia Wright is a brilliant bright ray of sunlight as T’Challa’s little sister Shuri, the curator of Wakanda’s massively advanced technology and OFFICIALLY the most intelligent person in the MCU, whose towering intellect is tempered by her cheeky sense of humour and sheer adorability, while Winston Duke is a towering presence throughout the film as M’Baku, the mighty chief of the reclusive Jabari mountain tribe, despite his relatively brief screen time, his larger-than-life performance making every appearance a joy.  This has been lauded as a true landmark film for its positive depiction of African culture and presentation of a whole raft of strong black role models, and it certainly feels like a major step forward both culturally and creatively – it’s so rewarding to see a positively-charged black intellectual property enjoying the almost ridiculous amount of success this film has so far enjoyed, both critically and financially, and it’s something I hope we see far more of in the future.  Like its predecessors, this is a fantastic superhero movie, but under the surface there are some very serious, challenging questions being asked and inherently powerful themes being addressed, making for a deeper, more intellectual film than we usually receive even from a big studio that’s grown so sophisticated as Marvel. That said, this IS another major hit for the MCU, and a further example of how consistently reliable they’ve become at delivering great cinema.  Very nearly the best of the Phase 3 standalone films (that honour still belongs to Captain America: Civil War), and it was certainly a spectacular kickoff for the year’s blockbusters.

9.  BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY – I’ve been waiting for this movie for YEARS.  Even before I knew this was actually going to happen I’d been hoping it would someday – Queen were my introduction to rock music, way back when I was wee, so they’ve been one of my very favourite bands FOREVER, and Freddie Mercury is one of my idols, the definition of sheer awesomeness and pure talent in music and an inspiration in life.  Needless to say I was RIDICULOUSLY excited once this finally lurched into view, and I’m so unbelievably happy it turned out to be a proper corker of a film, I could even tentatively consider it to be my new favourite musical biopic. Sure, it plays fast-and-loose with the historical facts, but remains true to the SPIRIT of the story, and you know what they say about biographical movies and their ilk: “if it’s a choice between the truth and the legend, print the legend.”  That’s a pretty good word to describe the man at the centre of this story – Queen frontman Freddie Mercury truly was a legend in his own lifetime, and watching the tale of his rise to fame alongside fellow musical geniuses Brian May, Roger Taylor and John Deacon is a fascinating, intoxicating and deeply affecting experience, truthful or not, making the film an emotional rollercoaster from the humble beginnings with the formation of the band, through the trials and tribulations of life on the road and in the studio, the controversies of Mercury’s personal life and the volatile personal dynamics between the group themselves, to the astonishing, show-stopping climax of their near-mythic twenty-minute performance slot at 1985’s Live Aid charity concert at Wembley Stadium.  Needless to say it takes a truly astounding performance to capture the man that I consider to be the greatest singer, showman and stage-performer of all time, but Mr Robot­ star Rami Malek was equal to the task, not so much embodying the role as genuinely channelling Mercury’s spirit, perfectly recreating his every movement, quirk and mannerism to perfection, right down to his famously precise, deliberate diction, and he even LOOKS a hell of a lot like Mercury.  Sure, he’s come under fire for merely lip-syncing when it comes to the music, but seriously, there’s no other way he could have done it – Freddie had the greatest singing voice of all time, there’s NO WAY anyone could possibly recreate it, so better he didn’t even try.  (Honestly, if he doesn’t get an Oscar for this there’s no justice in the world.)  Malek’s not the only master-mimic in the cast, either – the rest of the band are perfectly portrayed, too, by Gwilym Lee as May, X-Men: Apocalypse’s Ben Hardy as Taylor and Joe Mazzello (yup, that kid from Jurassic Park, now all grown up) as Deacon, while there are equally strong supporting turns from Sing Street’s Lucy Boynton as Mercury’s lover and lifelong friend Mary Austin, Aiden Gillen as the band’s first manager John Reid, Tom Hollander as their lawyer and eventual manager Jim “Miami” Beach, Allen Leech as the Freddie’s scheming, toxic personal manager Paul Prenter, and New Street Law star Ace Bhatti as his stoic but proud father, Bomi Bulsara.  This is an enthralling film from start to finish, and while those new to Queen will find plenty fo enjoy and entertain, this is an absolute JOY for fans and geeks who actually know their stuff, factual niggles notwithstanding; it’s also frequently laugh-out-loud HILARIOUS, the sparky, quick-fire script from The Theory of Everything and Darkest Hour writer Anthony McCarten brimming with slick one-liners, splendid put-downs and precision-crafted character observation which perfectly captures the real life banter the band were famous for.  The film had a troubled production (original director Bryan Singer was replaced late in the shoot by Dexter Fletcher after clashes of personality and other difficulties) and has come in for plenty of stick, receiving mixed reviews from some quarters, but for me this is pretty close to a perfect film, chock-full of heart, emotional heft, laughter, fun and what was, for me, the best soundtrack of 2018, positively overflowing with some of the band’s very best material, making this one of the very best times I had at the cinema all year.  They were, indeed, the champions …

8.  MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - FALLOUT – while Bond may remain king of the spy movie, and Jason Bourne still casts a long shadow from the darker post 9-11 age of harder, grittier espionage shenanigans, I’ve always been a BIG fan of the Mission: Impossible movies.  This love became strong indeed when JJ Abrams established a kind of unifying blueprint with the third film, and the series has gone from strength to strength since, reaching new, thrilling heights when Jack Reacher writer-director Christopher McQuarrie crafted the pretty much PERFECT Rogue Nation.  He’s the first filmmaker to return for a second gig in the big chair, but he’s a good fit – he and star Tom Cruise have already proven they work EXTREMELY well together, and McQuarrie really is one of the very best screenwriters working in Hollywood today (well respected across the board since his early days co-writing The Usual Suspects), an undeniable MASTER at both crafting consistently surprising, thoroughly involving and razor-sharp thriller plots and engineering truly JAW-DROPPING action sequences (adrenaline-fuelled chases, bruising fight scenes, intense shootouts and a breathless dash across the rooftops of London all culminate in this film’s standout sequence, a death-defying helicopter dogfight that took the prize as the year’s BEST action beat), as well as penning some wonderful, wry dialogue.  Anything beyond the very simplest synopsis would drop some criminal spoilers – I’ll simply say that Ethan Hunt is faced with his deadliest mission to date after a botched op leaves three plutonium cores in the hands of some very bad people, leading CIA honcho Erica Sloane (a typically sophisticated turn from Angela Bassett) to attach her pet assassin, August Walker (current big-screen Superman Henry Cavill), to the team to make sure it all runs smoothly – a prospect made trickier by the resurfacing of Rogue Nation’s cracking villain Solomon Lane (Sean Harris).  Tom Cruise is, of course an old hand at this sort of thing by now, but even so I don’t think he’s EVER been more impressive at the physical stuff, and he delivers equally well in the more dramatic moments, taking superspy Ethan Hunt to darker, more desperate extremes than ever before.  Cavill similarly impresses in what’s easily his meatiest role to date, initially coming across as a rough, brutal thug but revealing deeper layers of complexity and sophistication as the film progresses, while Rebecca Ferguson makes a welcome return from RN as slippery, sexy and very complex former MI6 agent Ilsa Faust, and it’s great to see Ving Rhames and Simon Pegg back as series keystones Luther Stickell and Benji Dunn, who both get stuck into the action far more than in previous outings (Benji FINALLY gets to wear a mask!); Jeremy Renner’s absence this time could disappoint, but the balance is maintained because the effortlessly suave Alec Baldwin’s new IMF Secretary Alan Hunley gets a far more substantial role this time round, while Sean Harris tears things up with brutal relish as he expands on one of the series’ strongest villains – Lane is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, a monstrous zealot with a deeply twisted but strangely relatable agenda, and method man Harris mesmerises in every scene.  McQuarrie has cut another gem here, definitely his best film to date and likewise the best in the franchise so far, and strong arguments could be made for him staying on for a third stint – this is the best shape Mission: Impossible has been in for some time, an essentially PERFECT textbook example of an action-packed spy thriller that constantly surprises and never disappoints, from the atmospheric opening to the unbearably tense climax, and if ever there was a film to threaten the supremacy of Bond, it’s this one.

7.  THE SHAPE OF WATER – one of the most important things you have to remember about my own personal mythology (by which I mean the mishmash of 40 years of influences, genre-love and pure and simple COOL SHIT that’s informed and moulded the geek I am today) is that when it comes to my fictional heroes, I have a tendency to fall in love with the monsters.  It’s a philosophy shared by one of my very favourite directors, Guillermo Del Toro, whose own love affair with the weird, the freakish and the outcast has informed so much of his spectacular work, particularly the Hellboy movies – the monster as a tragic hero, and also the women who love them despite their appearance or origins.  Del Toro’s latest feature returns to this fascinating and compelling trope in magnificent style, and the end result is his best work since what remains his VERY BEST film, 2007’s exquisite grown-up fairytale Pan’s Labyrinth.  Comparisons with that masterpiece are not only welcome but also fitting – TSOW is definitely cut from the same cloth, a frequently dream-like cinematic allegory that takes place in something resembling the real world, but is never quite part of it.  It’s a beautiful, lyrical, sensual and deeply seductive film, but there’s brooding darkness and bitter tragedy that counters the sweet, Del Toro’s rich and exotic script – co-authored with Hope Springs writer Vanessa Taylor – mining precious ore from the fairytale ideas but also deeply invested with his own overwhelming love for the Golden Age of cinema itself.  This makes for what must be his most deeply personal film to date, so it’s fitting that it finally won him his first, LONG OVERDUE Best Director Oscar. Happy Go-Lucky’s Sally Hawkins thoroughly deserves her Oscar nomination for her turn as Elisa Esposito, a mute cleaning woman working in a top secret aerospace laboratory in Baltimore at the height of the Cold War, a sweet-natured dreamer who likes movies, music and her closeted artist neighbour Giles (the incomparable Richard Jenkins, delivering a performance of real sweetness and integrity). One night she discovers a new project in the facility, a strange, almost mythic amphibious humanoid (Del Toro regular Doug Jones) who has been captured for study and eventual vivisection to help create a means for men to survive in space.  In spite of his monstrous appearance and seemingly feral nature, Elisa feels a kinship to the creature, and as she begins to earn his trust she develops stronger feeling for him – feelings which are reciprocated.  So she hatches a plan to break him out and return him to the sea, enlisting the help of Giles, her only other real friend, fellow cleaner Zelda (The Help and Hidden Figures’ Octavia Spencer, as lovably prickly and sassy as ever), and sympathetic scientist (and secret Soviet agent) Dr. Robert Hoffstetler (a typically excellent and deeply complex performance from Boardwalk Empire’s Michael Stuhlbarg) to effect a desperate escape.  The biggest obstacle in their path, however, is Colonel Richard Strickland (Michael Shannon), the man in charge of security on the project – the rest of the cast are uniformly excellent, but the true, unstoppable scene-stealer here is Shannon, giving us 2018’s BEST screen villain in a man so amorally repellent, brutally focused and downright TERRIFYING it’s absolutely impossible to take your eyes off him – who has a personal hatred for the creature and would love nothing more than to kill it himself. He’s the TRUE monster of the film, Jones’ creature proving to be a noble being who, despite his (admittedly rather bloody) animal instincts, has a kind and gentle soul that mirrors Elisa’s own, which makes the seemingly bizarre love story that unfolds so easy to accept and fulfilling to witness.  This is a film of aching beauty and immense emotional power, the bittersweet and ultimately tragic romance sweeping you up in its warm embrace, resulting in the year’s most powerful and compelling fantasy, very nearly the finest work of a writer/director at the height of his considerable powers, and EASILY justifying its much-deserved Best Picture Oscar.  Love the monster? Yes indeed …

6.  DEADPOOL 2 – just as his first standalone finally banished the memory of his shameful treatment in the first X-Men Origins film, Marvel’s Merc With a Mouth had a new frustration to contend with – Wolverine riding his coattails into the R-rated superhero scene and outdoing his newfound success with the critically acclaimed and, frankly, f£$%ing AWESOME Logan.  It’s a fresh balance for him to redress, and bless him, he’s done it within the first five minutes of his own very first sequel … then again, Deadpool’s always at his best when dealing with adversity.  There’s plenty of that here – 2016’s original was a spectacular film, a true game-changer for both Marvel and the genre itself, unleashing a genuinely bankable non-PC superhero on the unsuspecting masses (and, of course, all us proper loyal fans) and earning one of their biggest hits in the process.  A sequel was inevitable, but the first film was a VERY tough act to follow – thankfully everyone involved proved equal to the task, not least the star, Ryan Reynolds, who was BORN to play former special forces operative-turned invulnerable but hideously scarred mutant antihero Wade Wilson, returning with even greater enthusiasm for the material and sheer determination to do things JUST RIGHT.  Working with returning co-writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, he’s suitably upped the ante while staying true to the source and doing right by the fans – the script’s another blinder, a side-splitting rib-tickler liberally peppered with copious swearing, rampant sexual and toilet humour, genuinely inspired bizarreness (a grown man with baby balls!) and an unapologetically irreverent tone nonetheless complimented by a f£$%load of heart. Original director Tim Miller jumped ship early in development, but the perfect replacement was found in the form of David Leitch, co-director of the first John Wick movie, who preceded this with a truly magnificent solo debut on summer 2017’s standout actioner Atomic Blonde.  Leitch is a perfect fit, a former stuntman with innate flair for top-notch action who also has plenty of stylistic flair and strong talents for engaging storytelling and handling a cast of strong personalities.  Reynolds is certainly one of those, again letting rip with gleeful comic abandon as Deadpool fights to overcome personal tragedy by trying to become a bona fide X-Man, at which he of course fails SPECTACULARLY, winding up in a special prison for super-powered individuals and becoming the unlikely and definitely unwilling protector of teenage mutant Russell Collins, aka Firefist (Hunt for the Wilderpeople’s Julian Dennison), who’s been targeted for assassination by time-travelling future warrior Cable (Josh Brolin) because he’s destined to become a monstrous supervillain when he grows up.  Deciding to listen to his “better” angel, Wade puts together his own superhero team in order to defeat Cable and start his own future franchise … yup, this is as much a platform to set up X-Force, the Marvel X-Verse’s next big money-maker, as it is a Deadpool sequel, but the film plays along to full comic effect, and the results are funny, explosive, blood-soaked and a magnificently anarchic joy.  Brolin is every inch the Cable we deserve, a world-weary, battered and utterly single-minded force of nature, entirely lacking a sense of humour but still managing to drive some of the film’s most side-splitting moments, while Atlanta star Zazie Beets, originally something of an outsider choice, proves similarly perfect for the role of fan favourite Domino, a wise-cracking mutant arse-kicker whose ability to manipulate luck in order to get the better of any situation makes her a kind of super-ninja; Dennison, meanwhile, is just as impressive as he was in HFTWP, turning in a performance of such irreverent charm he frequently steals the film, and the return of Stefan Kapicic and Briana Hildebrand as stoic metal-man Colossus and the world’s moodiest teen superhero, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, mean that the original X-Men get another loving (if also slightly middle-fingery) nod too.  But once again, this really is Reynolds’ movie, and he’s clearly having just as much fun as before, helping to make this the same kind of gut-busting riot the first was with his trademark twinkle, self-deprecating charm and shit-eating grin.  He’s the heart and soul of another great big fist up the backside of superhero cinema, blasting tropes with scattergun abandon but hitting every target lined up against him, and like everything else he helps make this some of the most fun I had at the pictures all year.  I honestly couldn’t think of ANYTHING that could make me piss myself laughing more than this … the future of the franchise may be up in the air until the first X-Force movie gets its time in the spotlight, but Reynolds, Leitch, Reese and Wernick are all game to return, so there’s plenty of life in the un-killable old lady yet ...

5.  BAD TIMES AT THE EL ROYALE – my Number One thriller of 2018 is a cult classic in the making and the best work yet from Drew Goddard, co-writer/director (with Joss Whedon) of Cabin in the Woods (one of the best horror movies ever made, in my opinion) and screenwriter of Cloverfield and The Martian.  It’s an intoxicating, engrossing and somewhat unsettling experience (but in a very good way indeed), a gripping, slippery and absolutely FIENDISH suspense thriller to rival the heady best of Hitchcock or Kubrick, and, as his first completely original, personal creation, Goddard’s best opportunity to show us JUST what he’s truly capable of.  Wrapped up in multi-layered mystery and deftly paying with timelines and perspective, it artfully unveils the stories of four disparate strangers who book a night’s stay at the El Royale, a “bi-state” hotel (located on the California/Nevada border) that was once grand but, by the film’s setting of 1969, has fallen on hard times.  Each has a secret, some of which are genuinely deadly, and before the night’s through they’ll all come to light as a fateful chain of events brings them all crashing together.  Giving away any more is to invite criminal spoilers – suffice to say that it’s an unforgettable film, fully-laden with ingenious twists and consistently wrong-footing the viewer right up to the stirring, thought-provoking ending.  The small but potent ensemble cast are, to a man, absolutely perfect – Jeff Bridges delivers one of the best performances of his already illustrious career as seemingly harmless Catholic priest Father Daniel Flynn, Widows’ Cynthia Erivo makes a truly stunning impression as down-on-her-luck soul singer Darlene Sweet, John Hamm is garrulously sleazy as shifty travelling salesman Seymour Sullivan, Dakota Johnson is surly but also VERY sexy (certainly MUCH MORE than she EVER was in the 50 Shades movies) as “dirty hippy” Emily, Lewis Pullman (set to explode as the co-star of the incoming Top Gun sequel) is fantastically twitchy as the hotel’s troubled concierge Miles, and Cailee Spaeny (Pacific Rim: Uprising) delivers a creepy, haunting turn as Emily’s fundamentally broken runaway sister Rose.  The film is thoroughly and entirely stolen, however, by the arrival in the second half of Goddard’s Cabin leading man Chris Hemsworth as earthy, charismatic and darkly, dangerously seductive Charles Manson-esque cult leader Billy Lee, Thor himself thoroughly mesmerising as he swaggers into the heart of the story (particularly in a masterful moment where he cavorts, snake-hipped, to the strains of Deep Purple’s Rush in the lead-up to a brutal execution).  This is thriller-cinema at its most inspired and insidious, a flawless genre gem that’s sure to be held in high regard by connoisseurs for years to come, and an ELECTRIFYING statement of intent by one of the best creative minds working in Hollywood today.  One of 2018’s biggest and best surprises, it’s a bona fide MUST-SEE …

4.  AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR – is it possible there might be TOO MUCH coming out all at once in the Marvel Cinematic Universe right now?  What with THREE movies a year now becoming the norm, not to mention the ongoing saga of Agents of SHIELD and various other affiliated TV shows (it seems that Netflix are culling their Marvel shows but there’s still the likes of Runaways and the incoming Cloak & Dagger on other services, along with fresh, in-development stuff), could we be reaching saturation?  My head says … mmmmm … maybe … but my heart says HELL NO!  Not when those guys at Marvel have gotten so good at this job they could PROBABLY do it with their eyes closed.  That said, there were times in the run-up to this particular release that I couldn’t help wondering if, just maybe, they might have bitten off more than they could chew … thankfully, fraternal directing double act Antony and Joe Russo, putting in their THIRD MCU-helming gig after their enormous success on the second and third Captain America films, have pulled off one hell of a cinematic hat trick, presenting us with a third Avengers film that’s MORE than the equal of Joss Whedon’s offerings.  It’s also a painfully tricky film to properly review – the potential for spoilers is SO heavy I can’t say much of ANYTHING about the plot without giving away some MAJOR twists and turns (even if there’s surely hardly ANYONE who hasn’t already seen the film by now) – but I’ll try my best.  This is the film every die-hard fan has been waiting for, because the MCU’s Biggest Bad EVER, Thanos the Mad Titan (Josh Brolin), has finally come looking for those pesky Infinity Stones so he can Balance The Universe by killing half of its population and enslaving the rest, and the only ones standing in his way are the Avengers (both old and new) and the Guardians of the Galaxy, finally brought together after a decade and 18 movies.  Needless to say this is another precision-engineered product refined to near perfection, delivering on all the expected fronts – breathtaking visuals and environments, thrilling action, the now pre-requisite snarky, sassy sense of humour and TONS OF FEELS – but given the truly galactic scale of the adventure on offer this time the stakes have been raised to truly EPIC heights, so the rewards are as great as the potential pitfalls.  It’s not perfect – given the sheer size of the cast and the fact that there are THREE main storylines going on at once, it was INEVITABLE that some of our favourite characters would be handed frustratingly short shrift (or, in two notable cases, simply written out of the film altogether), while there are times when the mechanics of fate do seem to be getting stretched a little TOO far for credibility – but the niggles are largely overshadowed by the rich rewards of yet another MCU film done very well indeed. The cast (even those who drew the short straw on screen time) are all, as we’ve come to expect, excellent, the veterans – particularly Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man/Tony Stark), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner/the Hulk), Chris Evans (Steve Rogers/Captain America), Benedict Cumberbatch (Doctor Stephen Strange), Chris Pratt (Peter Quill/Star Lord), Zoe Saldana (Gamora), Bradley Cooper (Rocket Racoon), and, of course, Tom Holland (Peter Parker/Spider-Man) – all falling back into their well-established roles and universally winning our hearts all over again, while two characters in particular, who have always been reduced to supporting duties until now, finally get to REALLY shine – Paul Bettany and Elizabeth Olsen, as the Vision and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, finally get to explore that comic-canon romance that was so prevalently teased in Civil War, with events lending their mutual character arcs particularly tragic resonance as the story progresses … and then there’s the new characters, interestingly this time ALL bad guys. The Children of Thanos (Gamora and Nebula’s adopted siblings, basically) are showcased throughout the action, although only two really make an impression here – Tom Vaughan-Lawlor is magnificently creepy as Ebony Maw, while Carrie Coon (and stuntwoman Monique Ganderton) is darkly sensual as Proxima Midnight … but of course the REAL new star here is Brolin, thoroughly inhabiting his motion capture role so Thanos GENUINELY lives up to his title as the greatest villain of the MCU, an unstoppable megalomaniac who’s nonetheless doing these monstrous things for what he perceives to be genuinely right and moral reasons, although he’s not above taking some deeply perverse pleasure from his most despicable actions. Finishing up with a painfully powerful climax that’s as shocking as it is audacious, this sets things up for an even more epic conclusion in 2019’s closer, and has already left even the most jaded viewers shell-shocked and baying for more, while the post-credits sting in particular had me drooling in anticipation for the long-awaited arrival of my own favourite Avenger, but in the meantime this is an immensely rewarding, massively entertaining and thoroughly exhausting cinematic adventure. Summer can’t come fast enough …

3.  UPGRADE – in a summer packed with sequels (many of them pretty damn awesome even so), it was a great pleasure my VERY FAVOURITE movie was something wholly original, an unaffiliated standalone that had nothing to follow or measure up to.  But Blumhouse’s best film of 2018 still had a lot riding on it – they’re a studio best known for creating bare-bones but effectively primal horror (even The Purge series is really more survival horror than dystopian thriller), so they’re not really known for branching out into science-fiction.  Going with one of their most trusted creative talents, then, was the kind of savvy move we’d expect from Jason Blum and co – Leigh Whannell is best known as the writer of the first three Saw movies (a fully-developed trilogy which I, along with several others, consider to be the series’ TRUE canon), the film phenomenon that truly kicked off the whole “torture porn” sub-genre, but he’s become one of Blumhouse’s most well-regarded writers thanks to his creation of Insidious, still one of their biggest earners.  Once again he wrote (and co-starred in) the first three films, even making his directorial debut on the third – admittedly that film wasn’t particularly spectacular, but there was nonetheless something about it, a real X-factor that definitely showed Whannell could do more than just write (and, act, of course).  Second time out he’s definitely made good on that potential promise – this is a proper f£$%ing masterpiece, not just the best thing I saw all summer but one of THE TOP movies of my cinematic year.  It’s also an interesting throwback to a once popular sci-fi trope that’s been overdue for a makeover – body horror, originally made popular by the cult-friendly likes of David Cronenberg and Paul Verhoeven, and the biggest influence on this film must to be the original Robocop.  Prometheus’ Logan Marshall-Green is an actor I’ve long considered to be criminally overlooked and underused, so I’m thrilled he finally found a role worthy of his underappreciated talents - Grey Trace, an unapologetically analogue blue-collar Joe living in an increasingly digital near future, a mechanic making his living restoring vintage muscle cars who doesn’t trust automated technology to run ANYTHING, so his life takes a particularly ironic turn when a tragic chain of events leads to his wife’s brutal murder while he’s left paralysed from the neck down.  Faced with a future dependent on computerised care-robots, he jumps at the chance offered by technological pioneer Eron Keen (Need For Speed’s Harrison Gilbertson), creator of a revolutionary biochip called STEM that, once implanted into his central nervous system, can help him regain COMPLETE control of his body, but in true body horror style things quickly take a dark and decidedly twisted turn.  STEM has a mind of its own (and a voice that only Trace can hear), and an agenda, convincing him to use newfound superhuman abilities to hunt down his wife’s killers and exact terrible, brutal vengeance upon them. There are really strong performances from the supporting cast – Gilbertson is great as a twitchy, socially awkward genius only capable of finding real connection with his technology, Get Out’s Bettie Gabriel is subtly brilliant as Detective Cortez, the cop doggedly pursuing Trace’s case and, eventually, him too, and there’s a cracking villainous turn from relative unknown Benedict Hardie as sadistic but charismatic cybernetically-enhanced contract killer Fisk – but this is very much Marhall-Green’s film; he’s an absolute revelation here, his effortlessly sympathetic hangdog demeanour dominating a fantastically nuanced and impressively physical performance that displays truly exceptional dramatic AND comedic talent.  Indeed, while it’s a VERY dark film, there’s a big streak of jet black humour shot right through it, Whannell amusing us in particularly uncomfortable ways whenever STEM takes control and wreaks appropriately inhuman havoc (it helps no end that voice-actor Simon Malden has basically turned STEM into a kind of sociopathic version of Big Hero 6’s Baymax, which is as hilariously twisted as it sounds), and he delivers in spades on the action front too, crafting the year’s most wince-inducing, downright SAVAGE fight sequences and a very exciting car chase. Altogether this is a simply astonishing achievement – at times weirdly beautiful in a scuzzy, decrepit kind of way, it’s visually arresting and fiendishly intelligent, but also, much as we’d expect from the creator of Saw and Hollywood’s PREMIER horror studio, dark, edgy and, at times, weirdly disturbing – in other words, it’s CLASSIC body horror.  Whannell is a talent I’ve been watching for a while now, and it’s SO GOOD to finally see him deliver on all that wonderful promise. Needless to say it was another runaway hit for Blumhouse, so there are already plans for a sequel, but for now I’m just happy to revel in the wonderful originality of what was the very peak of my cinematic summer …

2.  SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE – oh man, if ever there was a contender that could have ousted this year’s Number One, it’s this, it was SUCH a close-run thing.  Sure, with THREE major incarnations of Marvel’s most iconic superhero already hitting the big screen since the Millennium, we could AGAIN ask if we really need another Spider-Man “reboot”, but I must say his first ever blockbuster animated appearance leaves virtually all other versions in the dust – only Sam Raimi’s masterpiece second Spider-feature remains unbeaten, but I’ve certainly never seen another film that just totally GETS Stan Lee’s original web-slinger better than this one.  It’s directed by the motley but perfectly synced trio of Bob Perischetti (a veteran digital artist making his directorial debut here), Peter Ramsay (Rise of the Guardians) and Rodney Rothman (writer on 22 Jump Street), but the influence of producers Christopher Miller and Phil Lord (creators of The Lego Movie) is writ large across the entire film (then again, Lord did co-write the script with Rothman) – it’s a magnificent, majestic feast for the eyes, ears and soul, visually arresting and overflowing with effervescent, geeky charm and a deep, fundamental LOVE for the source material in all its varied guises.  Taking its lead from the recent Marvel comics crossover event from which the film gets its name, it revolves around an unprecedented collision of various incarnations of Spider-Man from across the varying alternate versions of Earth across the Marvel Multiverse, brought together though the dastardly machinations of criminal mastermind Wilson Fisk, aka Kingpin (a typically excellent vocal turn from Liev Schreiber) and his secret supercollider.  There are two, equally brilliant, “old school” takes on the original web-slinger Peter Parker on offer here – Chris Pine impresses in his early scenes as the “perfect” version, youthful, dashing and thoroughly brilliant but never ruining it by being smug or full of himself, but the story is dominated by New Girl’s Jake Johnson as a more world-weary and self-deprecating blue-collar version, who can still do the job just as well but has never really been as comfortable a fit, and he’s all the more endearing because he’s SUCH a lovable slacker underdog.  The main “hero” of the film, however, is Dope’s Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, a teenager who’s literally JUST acquired his powers but must learn FAST if he’s to become this universe’s new Spider-Man, and he’s a perfect lead for the film, unsure of himself and struggling to bring his newfound abilities to bear, but determined to find his footing all the same.  There are other brilliant takes on the core character here – Nicolas Cage’s wonderfully overblown monochrome Spider-Man Noir is an absolute hoot, as is anthropomorphised fan-favourite Spider-Ham (voiced by popular stand-up comic John Mulaney) – and a variety of interesting, skewed twists on classic Spider-Man villains (particularly Liv, a gender-bent take on Doctor Octopus played by Bad Moms’ Kathryn Hahn), but my favourite character in this is, tellingly, also my very favourite Marvel web-slinger PERIOD – Earth-65’s Spider-Woman, aka Gwen Stacy (more commonly known as Spider Gwen), an alternative version where SHE got bit by the radioactive arachnid instead of Peter, very faithfully brought to life by a perfectly cast Hailee Steinfeld.  It may sound overblown but this is about as close to perfect as a superhero movie can get – the script is an ASTONISHING piece of work, tight as a drum with everything lined up with clockwork precision, and instead of getting bogged down in exposition it turns the whole origin story trope into a brilliant running joke that keeps getting funnier each time a new character gets introduced; it’s also INSANELY inventive and a completely unique visual experience, specifically designed to look like old school comic book art brought to vivid but intriguingly stylised life, right down to the ingenious use of word-bubbles and textured printing dots that add to the pop art feel.  This is a truly SPECTACULAR film, a gloriously appointed thrill-ride with all the adventure, excitement, humour and bountiful, powerful, heartbreaking emotional heft you could ever want from a superhero movie – this is (sorry MCU) the VERY BEST film Marvel made in 2018, and maybe one of their very best EVER.  There’s already sequel talk in the air (no surprise there, of course), and I can’t wait to see where it goes.  PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give me a Spider Gwen spinoff.  I’ll be good, I swear …

1.  A QUIET PLACE – the most unique and original film of 2018 was a true masterpiece of horror cinema and, for me, one of the best scary movies I’ve seen in A VERY LONG TIME INDEED. It’s a deceptively simply high-concept thriller built around a dynamite idea, one that writer/director/star John Krasinski (co-writing with up-and-coming creative duo Bryan Woods and Scott Beck) has mined for maximum effect … Krasinski (still probably best known for the US version of The Office but now also gaining fresh traction for killer Amazon Original series Jack Ryan) and his real life wife Emily Blunt are Lee and Evelyn Abbott, a mother and father who must protect their children and find a way to survive on an isolated farm in a world which has been decimated by an inexplicable invasion/infestation/whatever of mysterious and thoroughly lethal creatures that, while blind, use their incredibly sensitive hearing to hunt and kill ANYTHING that makes a sound.  As a result, the Abbotts have had to develop an intricately ordered lifestyle in order to gather, scavenge and rebuild while remaining completely silent, a discipline soon to be threatened by Evelyn’s very advanced pregnancy … there’s a truly fiendish level of genius to the way this film has been planned out and executed, the exquisitely thought-out mechanics of the Abbotts’ daily routines, survival methods and emergency procedures proving to be works of pure, unfettered genius – from communication through sign language and slow-dancing to music on shared headphones to walking on pathways created with heaped sand and painted spots to mark floorboards that don’t squeak, playing board games with soft fruit instead of plastic pieces and signalling danger with coloured light-bulbs – while the near total absence of spoken dialogue makes the use of sound and music essential and, here, almost revolutionary, with supervising sound editors Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn becoming as important as the director himself, while composer Marco Beltrami delivers some of his finest work to date with a score of insidious subtlety and brazen power in equal measure.  The small but potent cast are all excellent – Blunt has rarely been better in a performance of impressive honesty and a lack of vanity comparable to her work on The Girl On the Train, affecting and compelling as a fierce lioness of a mother, while Krasinski radiates both strength and vulnerability as he fights tooth and nail to keep his family alive, regardless of his own survival, and their real-life chemistry is a genuine boon to their performances, bringing a winning warmth to their relationship; elsewhere, deaf actress Millicent Simmonds (Wonderstruck) effortlessly captures our hearts as troubled, rebellious daughter Regan, delivering a performance of raw, heartbreaking honesty, while Suberbicon’s Noah Jupe impresses as awkward son Marcus, cripplingly unsure of himself and awfully scared of having to grow up in this terrifying new world.  There’s great power and heart in the family dynamic, which makes us even more invested in their survival as the screws tighten in what is a SERIOUSLY scary film, an exquisitely crafted exercise in sustained tension that deserves to be remembered alongside the true greats of horror cinema.  Krasinski displays a rare level of skill as a director, his grasp of atmosphere, pace and performance hinting at great things to come in the future, definitely making him one to watch – this is an astonishing film, a true gem I’m going to cherish for a long time to come.

[minaminokyoko]

Favourite avengers movies scenes?

How on earth do you expect me to ever narrow down enough to not list the entire trilogy in general? Holy hell. I am a big fat Marvel fangirl and I could write a fucking dissertation on scenes complete with charts and graphs. For the sake of argument, let me see if I can at the very least just highlight the tippy top favorite moments from the first three Avengers films. Keep in mind, I fucking love all three of them to death and could rave about them for days at a time.

The Avengers

-Loki’s confrontation with Nick Fury. This scene sets the tone for the rest of the film so fucking well, man. It’s just brilliantly done to see that whatever humanity that we saw in Loki in Thor has pretty much flown out the window and he’s here to wreak havoc and start a war, and he doesn’t care how many people he destroys in the process. I also like that it shows the vast gap in power and experience between the SHIELD agents and an Asgardian. Loki all but flattens everyone in a matter of seconds. Seeing him among other Asgardians can kind of make you forget he’s literally a thousand year old god and is tough as nails. He’s also low down and ruthless and that’s the kind of thing that is scary as hell when you realize that’s what they’re all up against.

-Nat’s “interrogation” with the Russians. I actually love every single Avenger’s introduction scene, but this one is so delightful in that Nat shows us just why she is an Avenger even though she has no enhanced abilities: deception, manipulation, and just being an incredibly agile combat expert. I am most delighted with her scene because before Avengers, I had no regard for Nat at all and thought she was just fanservice, but here, she completely proved her worth as a character and to the team, and I got on board as a fan of her just from her opening scene wiping the floor with these idiot Russian dudes.

-Tony and Bruce getting to know each other in the lab. From a character standpoint, this is an outstanding scene. Tony is trying to draw Bruce out of his shell, and the sympathy and empathy he has for him is so palpable that it’s why we all dubbed them the Science Bros and why it’s one of the best friendships in the Avengers. Tony is so awesome for joking with Bruce and treating him like a normal person and reminding him that there is at least one person aboard that helicarrier who doesn’t see him as some terrifying monster and knows just from reading up on him that he’s not a bad person. It’s so charming and wonderful.

-Stuttgart. Man. Man, oh man, this is a well done scene. The build up to Loki’s horrifying actions is so great and so is this freaking diva’s grandstanding once he demands the poor, confused Germans kneel before him. It’s fascinating to me because Loki has an almost childlike need for attention, as if his frustrations with his failure to take over Asgard as king has manifested itself into this very basic need to be acknowledged as being a powerful threat. Loki could kill an average human being with a flick of his wrist. His comparison of “an ant has no quarrel with a boot” while cruel is accurate, but here’s the thing, Loki: if you fuck with enough fucking ants, you can get your ass into a lot of trouble, and we’re fireants, not sugar ants, buddy. And ants who band together get shit done. The old man who stood up to him, in my book, is a fucking hero all on his own and I think it’s one of the most well crafted pieces of dialogue in the entire MCU. “There are no men like me.” “There are always men like you.” Oh, standing ovation for that piece of dialogue. Give it an Oscar. Then Cap swinging in to kick ass and Tony swooping in beside him with an equally over the top entrance to Loki’s was the icing on the fucking cake.

-Thor retrieving Loki. Hnnnnnnngh, okay, so here’s the thing: I fucking love Thor and Loki’s relationship even before Ragnarok came out and upgraded it. Thor is and always has been since his first movie a man with very deep emotions who loves and loves deeply with all his heart, and his confrontation with Loki just wounds me so much. How Thor throws Loki to the ground and yet yanks him to his feet and just holds him there, his hand on his face, looking so torn between agony and relief that his brother is alive. “I thought you dead.” “Did you mourn?” Fuck me, this scene is absolutely brutal to my feels. Thor and Loki’s debate was nothing short of excellent as Thor tries to bring Loki around, and the thing is, he means it. He means every fucking word, that he would take the Tesseract and bring his brother home, and he doesn’t care about facing the music, he just wants his goddamn brother back even after all Loki has done so far in the story. Y’all better stop sleeping on Thor, man. His heart is by far the best thing about him, forget all the delicious muscles and that perfect teddy bear smile. Thor has miles and miles of heart, and that’s why I love this scene so much. 

-Nat tricking Loki into revealing his plan. This scene is so good I based an entire goddamn fanfic around its premise. Dude. Nat fucking Romanov, y’all. I love how this scene is staged and executed. I love Loki starting out almost gentle and conversational, as if for once he’s going to just be an actual person and not a monster, and then he slips back into that nasty egotistical megalomaniac when he thinks he has one over on Nat. And then Nat fucking schools him. It’s why I have a personal headcanon that he developed a hatecrush on her after she, a mere mortal, tricked the goddamn God of Mischief. It solidified Nat as one of my favorite female heroes forever. I loved seeing her use that feminine “weakness” to let him run his mouth. I also love that his cruel words did in fact affect her and motivated her even more to both save Clint and to go to war with Loki at the end.

-The whole ass helicarrier attack sequence. I mean, I don’t even need to go into detail. You already know. 

-Tony confronting Loki. This is the scene that assured us that what followed would be one of the greatest fight sequences in cinematic history. I pretty much have most of Tony’s dialogue memorized because it had such an effective impact on me from a storytelling standpoint. Tony standing up to Loki as a mortal man with no suit, candidly threatening him with barely suppressed rage that Loki murdered Coulson, a comrade, in cold blood, is downright amazing.

-The battle of New York. Boom. Again, no words necessary. Perfect fucking sequence from start to finish.

-Thor trying one last damn time to bring Loki around. Oh, my heart. My poor fucking heart. Thor really loves his brother and he would do anything to have him back. Is it naive? Yes. But it’s also a beautiful statement of what family truly means to Thor and it breaks my heart. The fact that a tear slides down Loki’s face when he stabs Thor and mutters, “Sentiment” is so not cool. As much as Loki pretends to be the Big Bad Wolf, there is something still young and human inside of him even though he pretends it isn’t there. All my creys.

-Hulk trouncing Loki. I went and saw The Avengers three times in theaters, and two out of the three times, everyone cheered so loud I didn’t hear the Hulk say “puny god” over all the noise. It was that satisfying a scene.

Age of Ultron

-The entire beginning sequence. Fucking loved it. What masterful ass-kicking and showcasing of the team dynamic. It made me want a longer lead in to how they all got reunited because it was so enjoyable. “Language!” Oh, Cap.

-Jarvis and Ultron’s first scene together. Dude. James fuckin’ Spader, man. I never knew I could be so intimidated by a man’s voice. It was so unsettling for so many reasons, the resentment, irrationality, and anger from his unusual birth and creation. It was all the more frightening when he turned on Jarvis, and at the time, we didn’t know he hadn’t killed our beloved butler. 

-Picking up Mjolnir. This scene needs no elaboration. It’s just perfection. Even people who complain about Age of Ultron admit this scene is just flawless.

-The team confronting Tony over creating Ultron. Cap’s line, which we now know goes even further after the events of Infinity War, just make me want to die. “We’ll lose.” “Then we’ll do that together, too.” Tony’s face, realizing that Cap doesn’t care that he fucked up–he cares that Tony couldn’t trust the team enough to let them in on what he was dealing with–is soul-crushing. Tony realizes he was wrong to assume instead of being honest with them. 

-The confrontation in Wakanda. Everything about it was badass and it hits you right where you live seeing the Avengers having to face their biggest regrets and most painful moments of their pasts. Especially Steve’s. The image of him and Peggy finally getting their dance was so not okay. Special props to Tony in the Hulkbuster armor. That was one hell of a fucking brawl.

-The Sokovia final battle. There are just so many awesome points in the final battle sequence, man. Everyone is out there just kicking ass and doing what they do best. Special props to Hawkeye getting through to Wanda, and Hawkeye’s “nobody would know…nobody” moment with Pietro. 

Infinity War

Disclaimer: I have no idea how to isolate moments in a movie that is by far one of the most well written comic book movies since The Dark Knight, but I guess since you asked, I have to try anyway. Hoo boy. Strap in. 

-Loki’s death. Let me explain something to you: I went entire years without caring about Loki, and then around the time The Dark World came out, I slowly became converted to both a Tom Hiddleston and a Loki fan, and then after Ragnarok, he finally just seduced me completely to being smitten with his stupid trashy self. It is important that you realize that I recognize that Loki is a selfish, inferiority complex-having, murdering bastard and I do not excuse a goddamn thing he does because of his fucking Daddy issues. That being said, in spite of how much of a flaming trashbag he is, I love him anyway, and I tried for months to tell myself that I knew as a fellow writer that Loki was going to die in Infinity War. It was assured not only from the trailer, but from me knowing that his character arc was always going to end with his death. What hurt most of all is that, as I predicted, Loki died trying to save Thor. I cried my eyes out. Hell, once Thanos closed his hand around Loki’s neck, I covered my eyes because I just didn’t have it in me to see it end this way for him and for Thor. Thor being helpless to stop it is truly what made it worse. There is nothing on heaven or earth Thor wouldn’t do for Loki, even knowing how wicked Loki is. And the fact that Loki couldn’t let Thanos kill Thor after all these two have been through was like an icepick through my heart. Loki wouldn’t have died protecting Thor if Thor had not loved him unconditionally this entire time we’ve watched their story. Thor’s love did have an effect on Loki throughout these films, and that’s why I literally burst into sobs and couldn’t bear to see him die that way. It is one of the most gut wrenching things ever put to film, and certainly in the MCU. I’ve only had the stomach to watch that scene twice because it hurts me so much, and neither time was I strong enough to actually watch Loki’s final moments. Goddamn, it’s just so painful. Capped off with Thor slowly crawling over to his brother to be with him one last time before the ship explodes and just laying his head on his chest in the kind of grief that honestly should get Hemsworth a fucking Oscar. Bravo. 

-Cap, Widow, and Falcon reuniting with Vision and Wanda. Holy shit, yes. This fight was gorgeous, gripping, and fucking awesome. Special props to Cap and Widow being the ride or die Avengers Mom and Dad team. We can infer from their actions that the two of them have been together since the end of Civil War possibly, so you can not tell me Cap and Widow are not a thing on some level. Captasha all day, err day. They perfectly compliment each other and I headcanon that they’re together and no one will convince me otherwise.

-”We’ll fight you too.”/”We don’t trade lives.” That sound you hear is me screeching. Some people have said Cap wasn’t given a ton to do this time around, and I emphatically protest it simply because, yes, he has less screentime, but man, he does so much work in this role that reminds us of why we all love Captain America. His values mean so much. Cap will lay down his life in the blink of an eye for someone who needs it. He cares so deeply. He is the pinnacle of selflessness and it’s so important to see in this film.

-Thor meeting the Guardians. Perfection. Just…perfection.

-Irondad and Spiderson aboard the Space Donut. Jesus fucking Christ, I am so on board for Irondad and Spiderson that it’s insane. I love that entire fucking interaction from start to finish. I love Tony’s strict, fatherly anger and exasperation because he just wants his baby boy to be safe on earth while he’s on another suicide mission, but the baby boy wants to help his dad out and baby boy also doesn’t quite realize the consequences because he’s too young. Extra points for Tony’s death-glare after Parker says, “It’s kind of your fault I’m here” and the fact that even the fucking cloak did a double take at Parker when he said it. Oh, it’s so perfect.

-Gamora making Peter promise to kill her if Thanos gets to her. I just…I want to die. This was so beautifully done, and so in character for both of them, and Peter and Gamora are just so soft and sweet and in love that it’s so overwhelming. At the very least, I take a small comfort in knowing that they were a happy family for four years before this shit happened to them.

-Gamora “killing” Thanos. Again, can we just award Oscars to like half the fucking cast in this movie? Jesus Christ, I cried at this scene too because the fact that she’s just completely unraveled as she finally thinks she’s killed her goddamn abuser is so deeply tragic. Gamora is my favorite Guardian. Hands down. She is so three dimensional. She tries so hard and she is so much more than the deadliest woman in the galaxy. She is so complex and it is the worst pain ever to know that Peter actually kept his promise and tried to kill her to prevent her from being in the hands of her abuser again and Thanos foiled their plan, and had the fucking nerve to say, “I like him” before he took her again. 

-”It’ll kill you.” “Only if I die.” “…yes, that’s what killing you means.” 

-The battle of Wakanda. Motherfucker. This is some A+++ motherfucking good shit hurr. What always gets me hype as hell is Cap and T’Challa sprinting down the goddamn hill at 80 mph and I just can’t even handle that shit because it was so good and satisfying. Everything about this battle was incredible.

-The battle on Titan. Same thing. It’s so creative and well crafted and amazing. You feel every blow. You flinch. You want them to beat that son of a bitch but he’s just so fucking strong. It is an incredibly engaging fight, man. Hoo boy. 

-Thor’s entrance to the battle of Wakanda. I distinctly remember the entire audience going absolutely apeshit during this scene the night Infinity War premiered. Like the first Avengers, I saw it three times in theaters, and two out of the three times, the crowd went fucking wild. That was so fucking satisfying, man, as are the neat little scenes of levity with Cap introducing himself to Groot and Cap and Thor remarking on each other’s changes in appearance. It was so pure and good and perfect.      

-Cap squaring up with Thanos. I. Can’t. Breathe. It was so powerful. Like the above scene of “we don’t trade lives,” this is why we love Captain America. Why we love Steve Rogers. This man, this mortal human man, took one goddamn fucking look at that twelve foot all powerful alien giant and said, “Not today, bitch.” Steve fucking Rogers stood there and took it. He put his life on the goddamn line for Wanda, and for Vision, and for the rest of the universe, and he actually held that goddamn line for a moment. The incredulous look on Thanos’ face is what seals it. He is utterly confused that this little man is actually holding him back, that this mere mortal doesn’t give a fuck that he can’t overpower him, but he is giving it his all because that is who he is. Steve will not quit. Steve will not falter. Steve will die doing what’s right and that is one of the most moving things in the whole MCU, imo. He just planted his feet and said, “No, you move.” I know we saw that scene in the trailer, but it was so unbelievable to see it in context that Cap gave it everything he had trying to protect Wanda and the rest of the universe, and I still get choked up just thinking about that shit. 

Welp, you asked for it and now you have it. I told you I was gonna rave, man. God bless anyone who actually read this nonsense. Marvel had me at hello with these characters and they have way too much sway over my emotions, as you can see above. Ten years, man. Ten years. 

[arcadiaoblivion]

My Thoughts on Who I Think Will (and Won’t) Die in Infinity War

Let’s face it, we all know at least SOMEONE is going to be killed off in Infinity War and/or its sequel.

It’ll be the tenth anniversary of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and as epic as the movie will already be (I mean, the Avengers AND the Guardians of the Galaxy TOGETHER!), the people at Marvel need to do something to keep things fresh and give us, the audience, a shock. We also know that some of the actors’ contracts are pretty much done, so that gives us some good hints as to who may be the one(s) to kick the bucket.

A lot of people think Iron Man and Captain America will be the ones to go (or at least one of them). I agree with that, and I will discuss them. I also want to talk about some other people who I think may be killed off, as well as the characters I don’t think we have to worry about.

WARNING: this post contains spoilers for several films in the MCU. It’s also really freaking longwinded (sorry).

Who I Think is at Risk:

Right away, I thought of Nebula, one of the characters in the Guardians of the Galaxy series. A big part of her story arc is the fact that she was always treated like second best because her sister, Gamora, would always beat her in combat training. Their adoptive father, Thanos, replaced several parts of her body with robotic parts because she kept losing to her sister. Because of this, she resented Gamora and has a grudge against Thanos as well. As of the end of Guardians 2, she has reconciled with her sister and has set out to find and kill Thanos. With all this information in mind, I predict that Nebula will help the Guardians and the Avengers fight Thanos. I think she will either confront him about how he treated her in the past and get killed, or sacrifice herself in some way in order to protect Gamora.

Next is Vision. Vision has one of the Infinity Stones (the Mind Stone) on his freaking forehead. This immediately would make him a target for Thanos. Plus, he is pure of heart (I mean, he’s worthy enough to lift Thor’s hammer, for God’s sake,) so I think he would be willing to sacrifice himself or put himself in harm’s way if he believed it would protect the people he cares about *COUGH COUGH Wanda COUGH* or help defeat Thanos. Also, Paul Bettany has been acting in the MCU since the first Iron Man (for those who don’t know, he was the voice of JARVIS before playing Vision), so his contract is probably coming close to an end. Therefore, I think it’s likely that Vision could die in the infinity war.

Pretty much any of the core Avengers could be in danger. In Tony’s vision in Age of Ultron, he sees all of them lying on the ground, actively dying. This means it’s a possibility that any one of them could die. No one is safe. However, I really doubt all of them will be killed off, probably only a couple will be.

I think it’s pretty likely that Captain America is going to die in Infinity War. Chris Evans has said that once he’s done with Marvel, he’s thinking of stepping away from acting, and he’s stated in the past that he thinks he will be done being Captain America soon. Plus, having Steve Rogers die would have a HUGE impact. Captain America was the first Avenger. Without him, the Avengers might not even exist. His death would send shockwaves through the team, hell, through the world. Plus, his relationships with Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, and (despite how rocky things were in Civil War) Tony Stark would make it so much more emotional and hard-hitting. Bucky would be devastated. His best friend, the only thing he has left of his old life before everything went to hell, would be gone. He would be alone. Sam would be heartbroken, his close friend and coworker killed in action. And Tony would shut down. He and Cap have been through so much together. They have been through hell and back, and despite the shit that went down in the fight over the Sokovia Accords (and the fact that Steve knew Bucky had killed Tony’s parents and didn’t tell him), they still care about each other. Cap’s death might be the final nail in the coffin, giving the Avengers and the Guardians the strength needed to kill Thanos. I think it would be the right way for the First Avenger to go out.

Finally, we have Iron Man. The first Iron Man film was the very first instalment in the MCU. Without the success of Iron Man, we wouldn’t have the great film franchise we have today. We owe it all to this guy. However, Robert Downey Jr.’s contract is probably pretty much up, and he might not want to keep doing the same thing he’s been doing for ten years. He’s not getting any younger, either - he’s in his early fifties, so it’s not like he can keep being Iron Man forever. This would probably be the best possible time for him to go out of the MCU. Plus, much like the possible death of Captain America would, the death of Tony Stark would change EVERYTHING for the other members of the Avengers. Rhodey would lose his close friend, heck, the guy who helped him walk again. Steve would lose the friend that he cares about deeply despite differences they’ve had in the past. Bruce would lose the guy he loved talking about science and working in the lab with. Peter Parker would lose his mentor, the guy he looked up to the most. The death of Tony Stark would be both the end of an era and a new beginning for everyone, and I think that’s the direction that Marvel Studios will take.

People Who I Think Might Die, But Probably Won’t

Another theory I have is that maybe someone at SHIELD will die. Either Nick Fury or Maria Hill, I’m not sure which. (Then again, maybe Marvel wouldn’t go down this route because it would take away too much from the main plot, or it would make it so too many people were dying.) Still, it would be a heavy blow to the Avengers, like Phil Coulson’s death in the first Avengers film was, and it would help show just the gravity of what they’re dealing with.

Another Guardian who could die is Rocket. I don’t think he actually will, in fact I doubt it heavily. However, if he did, I imagine him dying trying to protect Groot. In the first Guardians film, Groot sacrificed himself to save his friends, which was a very emotional and impactful scene, especially for Rocket. Of course, Groot came back as Baby Groot  (now Teen Groot in Infinity War) and Rocket became a kind of father figure to him. Again, I don’t actually think Rocket will meet his end in Infinity War, but theoretically, if he did, I think it would be trying to save Groot from a blast or something. I think he would tell Groot something sweet or inspirational (and slightly sarcastic, knowing Rocket) before dying that would give Groot the strength to continue fighting without him. This probably won’t happen, but maybe they’ll do a fake-out similar to this. Who knows!

People I Don’t Think We Need to Worry About

 Spiderman. Peter Parker is the newest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and he seems to be a fan favourite from the get-go. Tom Holland is signed on to do several more movies, so I really don’t think we have to worry about our friendly neighbourhood Spiderman getting killed.  Plus, I think Tony would be careful about protecting Peter from harm and making sure nothing happens to him. That being said, that doesn’t mean he’s safe from being injured in some way, and IF THANOS LAYS A SINGLE PURPLE SAUSAGE FINGER ON MY LIL CINNAMON ROLL I’M GONNA-

I said earlier that any of the core Avengers could be at risk. However, I don’t really know if Black Widow, Hawkeye, Thor, or the Hulk will die. I’m kind of on the fence about them. I don’t think we know these characters well enough that their deaths would hit us as hard as if, say, Captain America died, so I don’t know if Marvel is going to go in that direction. Plus, Thor is literally a god. And Clint has a wife and three kids, come on, they can’t be heartless enough to let anything happen to him!

Scarlet Witch, the Falcon, and War Machine. Aka the New Avengers. These guys are still relatively new, so I kind of doubt that anything will happen to them. Besides, if some of the - shall we say- bigger Avengers die, we’re going to need these three to help keep things going in the future. I don’t think we need to worry about them dying.

The Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s still a Guardians 3 in the works, so odds are they’re going to be fine (except for possibly Rocket, but again, I don’t personally believe that will actually happen.)

Ant-Man. Production has just begun for Ant-Man and the Wasp, set to come out in July 2018, so if Ant-Man has a new movie coming out after Infinity War, he’s obviously gonna be fine.

Doctor Strange. Like Spiderman, Stephen Strange is a relatively new addition to the MCU, and Benedict Cumberbatch is signed on to do at least one more solo film, so I don’t think we have to worry about him.

...And that’s about it! What are your opinions on the subject? Feel free to message me or send me an ask if you want to talk about it or if I made a mistake in my post or something.

[the-kool-kyle]

Avengers Infinity War Review

It's been ten long years since Iron Man first began the Marvel Cinematic Universe....where it spent all it's time bringing in all of the best known Avengers from the comics and giving them live action movies to build up this beloved cinematic universe that has created billions of fans world wide. Marvel fans feel awesome since their favourite heroes and villains were being brought to life on the silver screen. But now let's talk about the one thing they've been building to since day one..........The Infinity War as based on the comic with the same name. Infinity War is about the most powerful being in the universe, Thanos, trying to recover all six of the Infinity Stones we've seen in other MCU movies and trying to use their power to destroy and/or control the universe itself. All of the heroes we've be given over the years: Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk and many, many more to stop him. Nothing could have described the hype when the first trailer dropped and the number of people who went full on fan boy/girl after watching.......But was it really worth it?

After watching this movie I was left completely speechless and shocked by how it turned out. To put it simply, it turned out completely different than the one me and so many other people made up in our heads, leaving us wondering “Did we like it?”. This film was full of many twists and turns none of us saw coming that completely ambushed us and took us by surprise. But then again it was good to see that this time Marvel had the upper hand and gave us a movie no could have predicted that had to be seen in theatres to fully appreciate. You had to have seen literally every single other MCU film to fully understand, and it helped if you'd read certain issues of comics as well. I think true MCU fans will understand what this movie is saying, and especially what is going to happen next in the timeline of the universe.

One thing that really made this film so popular is the amount of characters from the previous MCU movies. While it isn't all of them as we know, there are still a lot of the colourful and lovable character we've all fallen in love with: Iron Man, Thor, Captain America and Hulk but they also brought in Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, The Guardians of the Galaxy and the Black Panther. As always the actors do an excellent job in bringing their characters to life on the silver screen, and while some are better than others, there has been a lot of debate on weather bringing them all together at this time was the right move. I can honestly say that even though it may seem like there were too many cooks in the kitchen, it did a great job in providing an even amount of screen time for each “team”. However, it still raises some problems. While it was awesome all these characters were in this movie, there was a lot of different story lines going on at once, which left many people forgetting parts of the film, because they found some parts hard to remember because it was either too fast are hard to follow. But if you see the film at least more than once then you’ll start to better understand what's going on.

Now the one thing that has made this film so controversial is all the moments that makes us really “feel”. I'm not giving away spoilers but there are quiet a few moments where people get really emotional from what happened leaving them scarred for life as these things can't be unseen. However this film does still provide tons of action scenes that this time they've really knocked out of the park which may be some of the best marvel action and fight sequences to date. They are fast paced, brilliantly shot, perfectly edited, and well acted, which left audiences completely amazed.

Of course this movie was packed full of funny moments which has become something Marvel movies need to put in, which I honestly think is a little too much. I have to be honest some of the humour in these are good but most of the time it just feels completely forced and unnecessary turning these comic book movies into more comedy movies which may completely change the appearance of these films if they add too much. I have to say that Marvel needs to tone down a little of the humour and only use it in moments that suit what's happening on screen.

But nothing made the viewers go full-on-fanboy more than the awesome portrayal of Thanos. Josh Brolin does a excellent job in playing one of Marvel's most powerful super villains, the evil Mad Titan who seeks the Infinity Stones and has been since the post credit scene at the end of the first Avengers. Age of Ultron showed us that he obtained the Infinity Gauntlet which (with all six stones attached) will give him control of the universe as it has been said in the comics. I can say without a doubt that Thanos will take his place among Loki, Ultron, Hela, Eric Killmonger, Vulture and The Winter Soldier as one of the MCU's best super villains which is good cause most of the time we get disposable forgettable villains who only last one movie and never hear from again so this a major milestone.

So to make it clear......Infinity War is hard to fully define and may be one of the most controversial movies ever made that left many people and the MCU it's self changed forever and raises many questions and theories. But this is only Part 1 and with Part 2 still a year away we have plenty of time to debate on whether part 2 is truly worth what this one has put us through. There's a lot more to be said about Infinity War but that gives out major spoilers something I've sworn to never given out on my reviews so go and see it yourself and find out why this film has made a billion dollars in a week after it’s release.

Final Verdict 8.5/10