An Engame that sets us up nicely for the future

Just under a year ago, reviewing Avengers: Infinity War, I described it as “over-hyped and flawed, but still an enjoyable romp”.

Having seen it again on TV, there’s no mind-changing going on here.

But 11 months on and Marvel/Disney have given us part two: Avengers: Endgame. And it’s fair to say that, while the hype has been even greater, the reality is streets ahead of its predecessor.

Rolling in at another whopping three hours, this picks up where Infinity War left off, with the remaining Avengers searching for a way to undo what Thanos had unleashed.

It’s giving away little to say that time travel is involved but, as the film explains, not like in any other movie you’ve seen – basically, even "Back to the Future’s a bunch of bullshit"!

You can make a case that the Russo brothers engage in about 30 minutes of indulgence in the later stages of this film, but they get away with it. Why? Because it’s the end of an era and that deserves respect and care. Yet Endgame never feels as though it drags in places, as its predecessor did. This is a more emotionally engaging movie.

There’s character development – even Steve Rogers/Captain America gets to show a spot of humour – while Mark Ruffalo has an absolute ball as Bruce Banner/Hulk. It is, indeed, the first time I’ve really felt engaged by the latter – and I’ve been watching that character from TV’s Lou Ferrigno on.

In the massive – and impressive – ensemble cast, Josh Brolin gets to deliver another creepy Thanos performance. Indeed, this quiet-spoken tyrant with a god complex gets one particularly skin-crawling speech.

Karen Gillan is superb as Nebula, Rene Russo gets a great brief turn as Frigga and Tessa Thompson as Valkyrie leaves you wanting to see her get the chance to develop the character further.

Then there are characters that, for me personally, I had not really noticed before, but did here and felt that they worked well: I see you, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye and Paul Rudd as Ant Man.

All of this is without mentioning the Marvel icon that is Iron Man, in the person of Robert Downey Jnr – a character that helped get me into Marvel superhero movies in the first place, precisely because he wasn't a boring, bland fart.

Endgame has plenty of moments that provide real surprises. The fight sequences work, without dominating everything else. It has humour aplenty – more than last year’s offering. 

In other words, it’s cracking entertainment.

There are loads of potential set ups for future, post-Avengers development – and given the money these films are raking in, it’s a safe assumption that there are plenty of things already in development.

Given the Sony-Marvel set up – plus Deadpool over at Fox –one can only muse on what it would be like if any one studio pulled all these threads together. 

I kid you not: I’m salivating at the thought.

Oh. And in case you are wondering, there is one (last?) Stan Lee cameo.

Deadpool's back – and this sassy sequel is the tops

The 2016 Marvel smash hit, Deadpool – $783.1m at the box office for a budget of $58m – always had the feeling that it might be a one-off. Could the Merc with the Mouth really pull it off again?

But the arrival of Deadpool 2 makes it clear that this was no blip: if anything, the new film is even better than the initial outing.

It says something about Marvel that, on the one hand, it can be producing the rather more ‘serious’ superhero films such as Avengers: Infinity War at the same time as having an anti-hero like Deadpool take the proverbial out of just that. In fact, it probably says most of why DC are struggling so much in the film stakes.

Personally, I can enjoy both sort of superhero outing, but this latest instalment of a character who was initially introduced to comics as a villain has something extra and David Leitch’s film develops that brilliantly.

Two years after Wade Wilson/Deadpool has become a mercenary, he just misses killing a drug dealer, who then murders his beloved Vanessa on the night of their anniversary, just after they’ve agreed to start a family.

Deadpool is distraught and tries to kill himself, but since his super power is regeneration/healing, this isn’t very effective.

Things take a new direction, though, when a mutant teenager at an orphanage, Russell ‘Firefist’ Collins, explodes with rage. Deadpool is drawn into the situation – just as cybernetic warrior Cable arrives from the future on a mission to kill the boy.

That’s it – no further spoilers.

Perhaps one of the most surprising things about the film, though, is that for all Deadpool’s wisecracking (and there’s plenty of that), it suddenly jolts to moments that are moving, in a story that has a philosophical and emotional complexity that belies the usual ‘comic book’ stereotype.

Of course, the shattered broken fourth wall, the gags about Marvel (and DC) and the self deprecation all help to give the audience a greater sense of human connection to Wade than it would to a brooding bat-type character, for instance. And that’s without mentioning the constant flow of references to other films, comics and much, much more.

The supporting cast has become stronger – Negasonic Teenage Warhead (Brianna Hildebrand) and Colossus (voiced by Stefan Kapicic) return, with a chance for some character development, while Domino (Zazie Beetz) and Josh Brolin as Cable add new energy from the sidelines.

Leslie Uggams and Karan Soni are also back as Deadpool’s elderly roommate Blind Al and the taxi driver, Dopinder, while Julian Dennison does a remarkable job as a Collins.

Ultimatel though, this is Deadpool’s film and Ryan Reynolds does not disappoint.

 It was suggested two years ago that this would be a career-defining role, and that becomes ever clearer. 

Sassy, sexy, arch, violent, rude – and enormous fun, it can only be hoped that this will not be the final outing for him and his developing family.

Dead funny, smart-ass fun as Deadpool comes to town

For sheer sassy, smart-assy fun, it’s hard to imagine that anything is going to beat Deadpool – this year at least.

The latest big-screen outing for a Marvel character, Deadpool originally appeared in comic form in 1991, starting out as a supervillain before morphing into an anti-hero.

His big-screen debut arrived in the 2009 film, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, when Ryan Reynolds wielded the katanas for the first time.

But the ‘Merc with a Mouth’ has now got his own movie, and it’s a cracking piece of entertainment.

After small-time and essentially good-hearted mercenary Wade Wilson is diagnosed with multiple cancers, he’s offered the chance of a cure – a cure that will also bestow on him incredible powers.

Unfortunately, there turns out to be a rather unexpected side effect and, after christening himself Deadpool, Wilson sets off to exact revenge on those who put him into that position.

There’s no shortage of violence – but unlike many comic book stories, the violence here has consequences.

In that sense, together with the humour, it’s reminiscent of Tarantino. But what we also get here is the breaking of the fourth wall, as Deadpool speaks directly to the audience throughout the film.

The character is amoral, bisexual, camp, gobby, violent and a Wham! fan, with a self-awareness and fuck-this attitude that reminds me of Hellboy.

Indeed, the Wham! thing brought to mind Hellboy and Abe Sapien’s drunken duet of Barry Manilow’s Can’t Smile Without You in Hellboy II.

The jokes come thick and fast – the excellent script from Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick never lets the pace drop – and the action sequences are top notch.

Returning as the eponymous antihero, Reynolds is superb, while Ed Skrein makes a strong – British, of course! – villain, Ajax.

However much you might expect this to be very much a bloke film, there’s a love story that could broaden the audience, and four very strong female characters in Morena Baccarin as Deadpool’s girlfriend Vanessa; Gina Carano as Angel, a superhuman, mutated member of Ajax’s team; Brianna Hildebrand as teenage X-Men trainee Negasonic Teenage Warhead, and Leslie Uggams as Blind Al, a sassy elderly woman with a penchant for cocaine who is Deadpool’s roommate.

And while he cannot actually claim the credit for creating the character of Deadpool, X-Men co-creator and Marvel’s answer to the All Father and the Godfather combined (if you were to believe his own hype), Stan Lee manages to shoehorn himself into a brief cameo.

If you’re looking for philosophy, then Deadpool is probably not going to be the movie for you – although I will point out that slavery in exchange for effective medical treatment could be viewed as a comment on a society where many workers cannot afford to dissent as it’s their boss who pays their medical insurance.

But hey, that’s really not the most important thing here.

First and foremost, this is a thoroughly entertaining romp that sees Marvel itself actually give the entire rather po-faced superhero genre a massive slap. Fab stuff.