Praise4Media #66 - Avengers: Endgame

We finally come to the payoff to 12 years of Marvel films with Avengers: Endgame

Avengers Infinity War was a massive hit for Marvel, breaking the $2bn mark for the first time, Endgame would surpass it to become the highest grossing film ever, beating out Avatar (though still didn’t beat The Force Awakens in the US) and thank god that era’s over. It was a hell of an investment for Disney but one that paid off nicely, showing how far Superhero movies have come in the last 20 years.

And much with the rest of Marvel films, it was critically successful, 94% on Rotten Tomatoes with 8.42/10 average.

OK, this film is just over 3 hours long, the longest film I’ve done up to now is Batman v Superman’s extended cut and I don’t really desire to do a frame-by-frame plot dump for the opening hour. I’m gonna use this particular film to try something a little new. So, whilst this review may end up being on the shorter side because of this, I am looking to see if this is a worthwhile change because with all the changes going on at the moment, it’s getting tougher to motivate myself to do these anymore.

RageLite review: Captain Marvel

We’ve got one more MCU film to look at before we get to the big one and that’s Captain Marvel.

We got a teaser for her at the End of Infinity War and people were anticipating her solo outing that would follow up on this. But then Brie Larson had some feminist opinions and the idiots of the internet started spreading fallacies and garbage about her, and if you are one of those people, please stop reading now. I could spread more colourful insults, but you’re not worth the effort.

For those of you who are still reading, you’ll be pleased to know this didn’t affect the bottom line, the film made over $1bn at the box office, being the first female-led superhero film to do so. Yes, it beat out Wonder Woman. It got a reasonable critical reception, a 78% rating with an average 6.8/10 score. I’m not gonna bother with the audience score because of everything I just said in the last paragraph.

The film has 5 writers, which is not usually a good sign. They include Meg LaFauve, who had been involved writing Inside Out and Good Dinosaur for Pixar, Nicola Perlman who was a writing consultant on Thor and co-wrote Guardians of the Galaxy, Geneva Robertson-Dworet, who wrote the Tomb Raider reboot film, she also wrote the screenplay with the directing duo Anna Bolden and Ryan Flek, who and written and directed several smaller films prior to this. Does this approach pay off? Here are my thoughts:

Redux Month - Daredevil

“How do you kill a man without fear?”

What kind of dumb question is that? Being unafraid doesn’t make you bulletproof, immune to knives or poison or fire, it doesn’t make you able to breathe underwater, or be incapable of succumbing to injuries. You kill him the same way you kill anyone else.

Next up for redux month, we’re talking about Daredevil and I’ve got a confession to make, when I did my original Daredevil review, I’d never read a Daredevil comic, and it would be another 6 months before the Netflix show would come out and redefine Daredevil in my eyes (along with a lot of people’s). The purpose of the review was to defend the casting of Ben Affleck as Batman in the then upcoming Batman v Superman movie… which as you all worked out so well, our latest Batman is Edward Cullen from Twilight. I kid, Robert Pattinson’s a decent actor.

So what’s my new take on Daredevil. Oh boy is it bad, but it’s still not as bad as Elektra. I know, I’m full of hot takes here.

Netflix Retrospective - Iron Fist Season 2 Episodes 9-10 - War Without End/A Duel of Iron

We are back for one last time with Iron Fist

Netflix Retrospective: Iron Fist Season 2 episodes 7-8 - Morning of the Mindstorm/Citadel on the Edge of Vengeance

We're returning to Iron Fist after Danny suffered yet another blow in his attempt to regain the Iron Fist Power, Davos broke his leg in the fight.

Netflix Retrospective - Iron Fist Season 2 Episodes 5-6 - Heart of the Dragon/The Dragon Dies at Dawn

We continue our look at the second season of Netflix's Iron Fist and things have stepped up as Davos has transferred the power to himself and injured Danny in the process, what will happen next, let's take a look

Netflix Retrospective - Iron Fist Season 2 Episodes 3-4 - This Deadly Secret/Target: Iron Fist

We continue our look at Netflix's Marvel's Iron Fist with the next 2 episodes

Netflix Retrospective - Iron Fist Season 2 Episodes 1-2 - The Fury of the Iron Fist/This City's Not for Burning

A lot of changes happened behind the scenes with Iron Fist after the poor reception of series 1. Scott Buck was replaced as showrunner by M Raven Metzer, who’s filmography includes Heroes: Reborn and Elektra… see we’re off to a great start. The episode number was cut from 13 to 10 which if you’ve read any of my reviews of Netflix Marvel shows you’d know I think is a great move considering the pacing has always been a weaker element of these shows. Clayton Barber is the new fight co-ordinator, and with Black Panther a recent addition to his arsenal it’s a good choice, especially since the fights in the first season were rather weak.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to save the show as it had a low critical rating and it was among the first of the Netflix Marvel shows to face cancellation.

Unlike the first season, episodes are named after stories from the comics rather than martial arts moves. The names will hence will feel a little more relevant to what’s going on.

RageLite review - Deadpool 2

Deadpool was a massive success for Fox so naturally a sequel was greenlit, and given how successful it was, the sequel was gifted a larger budget of $110m. But does bigger equal better?

Well, critically it managed an impressive 83% Rotten Tomatoes rating with an average 7.05/10 and an audience score of 85% with an average 4.08/5. Including its re-releases, it managed to make $785m at the box office. I am only talking about the original theatrical version for this review. Once Upon a Deadpool never interested me and it didn’t get a 12A (the PG-13 equivalent) rating in the UK anyway.

Netflix Retrospective - Luke Cage Season 2 Episodes 11-13 review

It’s December, so here are the final 3 episodes of season 2 of Luke Cage, and of Luke Cage in general, spoilers to follow (obviously)

Netflix Retrospective - Luke Cage Season 2 Episodes 9-10 - For Pete's Sake/The Main Ingredient

We’re back with more Luke Cage, and things are beginning to pick up. In the last set of episodes, Bushmaster stole all of Mariah’s money and the club, leaving her on the run without a lawyer as he prepares to finish the job. Misty’s head of police but with the station compromised, her only option is to call in a favour from Danny.

Netflix Retrospective - Luke Cage Season 2 episodes 7-8 - On and On/If it ain't rough it ain't right

Well, the last episodes of Luke Cage were interesting, Mariah’s got it coming on from all sides. Luke wants to use Piranha to get the cops involved, Bushmaster wants him to steal her fortune, and Comanche is trying to convince Shades his involvement with her is a bad idea, we ended with Bushmaster cheating in a fight and Luke drowning.

Netflix Retrospective - Luke Cage Season 2 Episodes 5-6 - All Souled Out/The Basement

So, in the last batch of Luke Cage episodes, not a lot happened. I mean a few things happened. Claire left, Misty got over her funk, Luke’s ego has lead him to being served a lawsuit and Bushmaster kicked his ass, but this was nearly 2 hours. I guess Mariah is up to some things too but nothing important, yet.

Netflix Retrospective - Luke Cage Season 2 Episodes 1-2 - Soul Brother #1/Straighten it out

OK, time to look at the next series along the line with Netflix’s Marvel shows, which has now come to a close. I can’t say I’m disappointed or even surprised about this, but I will say that Luke Cage is the series I dreaded to watch the most. Luke Cage is a problematic character to write, he’s invulnerable to conventional ammunition, and super-strong to boot so harming him by conventional means is impossible. So season 1 took the liberty of creating super-bullets to harm him and having them start to show up everywhere, rather undermining the point. Season 2 also suffered from a weak villain as the show’s biggest asset was tossed aside too early. Still, it’s the show that introduced us to Misty Knight, the NMU’s biggest asset so it can’t all be bad, right? Well, let’s dig into Luke Cage s2 and take a look.

RageLite review - Ant-man and the Wasp

Ant-man was one of Marvel’s more modest hits when it was released back in 2015, making around $520m on around $120m budget. A sequel was ultimately inevitable and Marvel did increase the budget for it, putting it around $190m. Peyton Reed is back directing but we have an all knew writing team including Chris McKenna, who wrote the Lego Batman movie and Spider-man: Homecoming, Erik Summers, who also worked on Homecoming and the previously reviewed Jumanji sequel, Andrew Barrer, who’s last work was on the 2014 film Haunt, Gabriel Ferrari, who was producer of Haunt, and Paul Rudd himself, who had helped write the screenplay for the original Ant-man.

The film had the blessing/curse of being released between Infinity War and Endgame, anticipation was high, and turnout was OK, it made around $620m, again a modest success for Marvel. Critically it did well, an 88% Rotten Tomatoes rating but with an average of only 6.97/10, Audiences gave it a 76% rating with an average 3.76/5. How did I find it? Let’s take a look

Praise4Media #57 - Avengers: Infinity War

It’s time, after a decade’s worth of buildup we begin the most ambitious crossover Marvel has ever put into film with Avengers: Infinity War

Infinity War is a movie adaptation of an event comic, not exactly the one it's named after but the concept in general. And not a personal, small story like Heroes in Crisis (come back next week for that) but a grand scale epic saga that brings together characters from across the universe. And it’s been building for a while, with the idea of infinity stones introduced properly in Thor: The Dark World (I know the tesseract predates, but this was the film where they were officially referred to as infinity stones) referenced in Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange and expanded on in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Thanos was introduced as early as the Avengers, making his official debut in Guardians of the Galaxy, where his two ‘daughters’ had become prominent characters. There’s usually build-up to event comics too. Infinite Crisis built off Identity Crisis, Day of Vengeance, The Omac Project, Villains United, pages of Justice League, Superman and Teen Titans and the Rann/Thanagar War. Secret Empire built off a crossover called Pleasant Hill, and the events of Captain America

The Infinity duo of films will draw off just about every film in the MCU but here are some important things you could do with knowing before jumping in.

The Time Stone is part of Doctor Strange’s Eye of Agamotto

The Space Stone/Tesseract was supposedly on Asgard when it was destroyed, we see Loki gaze upon it briefly when he was enacting the plan, and it's safe to assume he took it.

The Power Stone is on the Nova Corps home world of Xandar

The reality stone/Aether is with the Collector on N.O.W.H.E.R.E.

The Mind stone is currently in the head of the vision, he laments that he still doesn’t know what that is

During the events of Civil War, Thor and the Hulk were absent as Tony Stark, Rhodey, Vision and Spider-man fought against Captain America, the Scarlett Witch, Black Widow, Ant-man and Hawkeye, the latter half are now wanted fugitives, with Cap giving up his shield after his fight with Iron Man.

Black Panther had a role in Civil War but uncovered the manipulations and ultimately agreed to help Cap with Bucky Barnes. With help from his sister, Shuri, Bucky has recovered from his mental conditioning and is now living in Wakanda

With the people of Asgard having escaped the destruction of their home and heading to Earth, Thanos’ ship shows up right behind them.

With the departure of Joss Whedon after the hell that was working on Age of Ultron (I imagine working on Justice League was just as pleasant) the Russo Brothers have stepped up as director. They directed both Winter Soldier and Civil War, showing they have a good grasp of believable action and can handle a large cast with multiple plotlines.

Christopher Marcus and Stephen McFreely are writing the screenplay. They also have done a number of Marvel projects including all the Captain America films and Thor: The Dark World. Some of the best and worst of Marvel then.  But here it’s do or die time, so let’s take a look at Avengers: Infinity War.

Netflix Retrospective - Jessica Jones Season 2 Episodes 10-13

Netflix Retrospective - Jessica Jones Season 2 Episodes 9-10

Netflix Retrospective - Jessica Jones Season 2 Episodes 7-8

OK, we finally have some payoff of the build-up from the previous 6 episodes, we know the killer is Jessica’s mother and that opens a can of worms that will likely last the rest of the season. Will it be good? Well let’s take a look.

RageLite review: Black Panther

Black Panther, in some form or another was in development in Marvel since the early 1990s, with Wesley Snipes originally set to play the title character. Unfortunately, a myriad of bad scripts, financial issues, and the fact that Snipes eventually played Blade instead lead to this project being on hold for a number of years.

Things changed when the MCU began, with Black Panther on the list of 10 films Paramount was to distribute. It ultimately ended up on the shelf until the casting of Chadwick Boseman as the titular character was announced in 2014. The film was passed by various directors, until it landed with Ryan Coogler, who had recently written and directed Creed.

Coogler also co-wrote the script with Joe Robert Cole, who had previously pitched stories for a War Machine and Inhumans which weren’t picked up for various reasons. He’d recently written and produced The People vs O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story

Made on a $200m budget, the movie surpassed all expectations delivering a $1.35bn box office, over $700m from the US. It’s also one of the best rated Marvel movies with a 97% rating with an average score of 8.26/10, though audiences were slightly harsher with a 79% although with a similar average score of 4.1/5

Black Panther won many accolades, being nominated for 7 academy awards, including best picture, and ended up winning for its original soundtrack, costumes and production design. It probably would’ve been a better win than Green Book.