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.

Venomously underwhelming, but just perhaps ...?

Marvel Studies can do little wrong these days, but while they make it look easy to produce big, brash and fun films, Venom is a reminder of just how cleverly they do it.

Intended as the first offering in a Sony Marvel universe, Marvel Studios were not involved in the film – although Stan Lee is credited as an executive producer and, almost inevitably, has one of his Hitchcockian cameos.

In many ways, this is a mess. Apparently, Tom Hardy stormed off the set at one point, furious with his dialogue. The first half of the film lacks pace as it sets up the basic premise of how Hardy’s investigative journalist Eddie Brock become host to alien lifeform Venom, which is on Earth courtesy of the Elon Musk-like Carlton Drake, a filthy-rich, techy entrepreneur with a messiah complex.

Brock has already pissed off Drake by challenging his ethics and, as a result, lost both his career and his fiancé Anne (Michelle Williams).

If not quite yawn-inducing, this set up does nothing to set the pulse racing. However – thank goodness! – when Venom and Brock become one, everything lifts. It could almost be a sexual union in terms of the energy it injects into the film.

This is not to say that everything is suddenly fab, but apart from anything else, it does create a sense of fun in the banter between Brock and Venom (the latter voiced by Hardy), which is as effective as a celluloid snort of cocaine.

Suddenly it become clear that, with more attention to the script, Venom could be more than a very, very very, very poor man’s Deadpool.

Some of the CGI is too fast – there’s a late fight scene, for instance that leaves you wondering what is actually happening on screen – but you make it to the end and find that, ultimately, it’s been measurably closer to being fun than to simply being a snore-a-thon.

Hardy grows into the role too, seeming uncomfortable early on, but developing as he gets to unite with Venom.

Williams is feisty and (like Brock) becomes less one-dimensional as the film develops.

Riz Ahmed turns in a nice performance as Drake, catching a really good tone of barking, amoral genius with far more subtlety than one might expect from a villain in the cinematic incarnation of a comic.

Hardy has signed to make two more Venom films: there was just enough here to suggest that this could be a good move. But this is far from a A-plus: Sony has some work to do.

A galaxy of fun with Groot and the gang

With Marvel now apparently able to pump out successful films at will, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 landed this spring to an expectant global audience that had made the first film such a massive – and unexpected – hit.

Set just a few months after the first instalment, this one sees our disparate bunch of heroes fighting off attacks by the genetically engineered Sovereign people, after Rocket steals from them for the sheer hell of it.

Hopelessly outnumbered, they bump into a godlike being who helps them escape – but what does he want in return?

In the meantime, the leader of the Sovereigns has hired Yondu to hunt them down, Gamora and Nebula are continuing their sibling rivalry and Baby Groot is slowly growing, but is confused about buttons on nuclear bombs.

It’s been suggested that this new film doesn’t feel as fresh as the first – well, there was never going to be quite the surprise factor – but it’s a rollicking good romp, with banter, action and laughs by the bucketload.

Chris Pratt as Star Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax, Bradley Cooper as Rocket, Vin Diesel as Groot, Michael Rooker as Yondu and Karen Gillan as Nebula all reprise their 2014 roles, while they’re joined here most noticeably by Kurt Russell as the celestial Ego and Sly Stallone as a Ravager leader.

And of course, Stan Lee gets to have his now expected cameo (except here, it serves to ensure that Stallone is not the poorest actor in the whole shebang).

It would be easy to assume that a film like this is easy money for Diesel, who only has one line to say as Groot – “I am Groot” – but he has to say it so many different ways and say it so slowly that it won’t be lost when it’s processed that he more than earns his corn.

The underlying theme of family works well and benefits from being handled lightly and never allowed to water down the rebellious nature of a bunch of characters who are accidental heroes with attitude rather than boring, sanctimonious super saints.

The whole looks great and the latest Awesome Mix Tape helps keep things going nicely.

So, it’s huge fun – do wait until the very, very end of the titles before leaving – and more than enough to make you glad that writer and director James Gunn has made it clear that there will be a third film.

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.