Welcome
back to Rhode Island Movie Corner’s end-of-the-year countdown of my Top 12
Favorite Films of 2015. This is Part 2 of 4 and today I’ll be listing my #9,
#8, and #7 picks. If you missed Part 1 of the list, where I listed Films
#12-10, you can check out that post via the link provided below. But now let’s
get back to the list…
Of course I’ve made
it very clear how big a fan I am of the MCU and as some of you have probably
guessed by now, both of Marvel Studios’ 2015 releases will be on this list.
Taking the #9 spot is the one that many didn’t have much faith in once a major
change was made in regards to the film’s direction. Thankfully it ended up
proving a lot of its biggest skeptics wrong (sort of).
9. ANT-MAN
It’s hard to believe that anyone would doubt Marvel Studios
at this point in their run given all of the critical and commercial success
they’ve had in establishing their Cinematic Universe. And yet that’s exactly
what happened with the final film of ‘Phase Two’, ‘Ant-Man’. For you see, this
film was actually one of the very first projects that was being developed by
the studio all the way back in 2006 when they were first starting out. Although
a considerable amount of time was spent reworking it in order to fit it into
the timeline of the MCU, it seemed like everything would go smoothly once
production on the film officially began. But then in May 2014, everything
changed when the film’s original director left the project as a result of
‘creative differences’ with Marvel. Now it’s not uncommon for a director to
leave a project in this manner; in fact, this isn’t even the first time that
this has happened in the MCU. ‘Thor the Dark World’ was originally going to be
directed by Patty Jenkins (who ironically is now working on DC’s ‘Wonder
Woman’) but she left the project due to, of course, ‘creative differences’. But
in the case of ‘Ant-Man’, the leaving director happened to be film buff fan
favorite Edgar Wright, the genius behind some of the best comedies in recent
years, namely the Cornetto trilogy. As soon as he dropped out, the public
perception towards the film took a total nosedive as many started to predict
that the film would be Marvel’s first ‘failure’, even though the studio did
manage to rebound from the departure fairly quickly, hiring Peyton Reed to take
over as director and having Adam McKay and lead Paul Rudd come in to buff up
the script.
So ultimately I guess you could say that I was very happy to
see this film manage to prove a good chunk of its biggest critics wrong when it
finally got released and become yet another critical/commercial success for
Marvel. Granted there were still some people who felt that the film was too
minor of a story to tell at this point in the MCU’s run, especially after the
events of its fellow 2015 MCU release; ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’. However, I’d
argue that, as smaller-scaled as ‘Ant-Man’ may be compared to that film, this
actually turns out to be a good thing because it helps the film serve as a nice
change of pace after the grand-scale affairs of ‘Age of Ultron’. I’ve talked
before about how solo superhero films are still important even in the wake of
the first ‘Avengers’ film because not every superhero film has to be an
‘Avengers’-level film. As cool as it would be to have every superhero film be
that way, that would get exhausting after a while so it’s nice that we still
have films like ‘Ant-Man’ that only focus on one superhero and yet are just as
entertaining as a superhero ensemble film like ‘The Avengers’. Plus, in a time
where some are beginning to argue that all of these superhero films are
starting to do the same thing over and over again, ‘Ant-Man’ is one of those
films that proves that this argument isn’t entirely true, especially in regards
to the MCU. Marvel Studios has been doing a really nice job in spinning their
stories into various film genres. ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ was a
70’s inspired political thriller. ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ was a sci-fi epic
mix of ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Firefly’. And as for ‘Ant-Man’, it’s a heist film a la
‘Ocean’s Eleven’.
Centering on one of Marvel’s weirder characters, Ant-Man,
his ability of shrinking down to the size of an ant produces plenty of crazy
visuals and awesome action sequences, like the scene where he and Yellowjacket
are fighting in the latter’s suitcase and the song ‘Disintegration’ by The Cure
starts playing on an iPhone when Ant-Man ends up activating Siri and
Yellowjacket proclaims “I’m going to disintegrate you!”, which Siri translates
as “Playing ‘Disintegration’ by The Cure”. Ant-Man even ends up fighting one of
the Avengers at one point when he goes to ‘borrow’ a piece of equipment from
the Avengers’ new headquarters that was first seen at the end of ‘Age of
Ultron’. This results in him getting into a pretty cool fight with Falcon,
where he defeats him by sabotaging his winged jet pack and takes the item that
he needed from the facility. The scene ends on a hilarious note with Falcon
telling whoever he’s talking to on the com radio that “It’s really important
that Cap doesn’t find out about this.” And then of course there’s the big final
battle between Ant-Man and Yellowjacket and unlike other superhero films where
the climax usually takes place in the middle of a city, this entire climax
takes place within in the confines of Scott Lang’s daughter Cassie’s room. As a
result, the two combatants use all sorts of objects to fight each other,
including a Thomas the Tank Engine toy train that at one point runs
Yellowjacket over but the event is then of course shown from a regular-sized
perspective to show how small of an impact it really was. And then it’s blown
up to gigantic size by one of Hank Pym’s special growth discs and crashes
through the house and into the street. So yeah this was a pretty weird finale
for a superhero film… and it was totally awesome!
Sort of similar to Peter Quill in ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’,
Scott Lang doesn’t possess superpowers like Captain America or Thor. He’s just
a regular guy who’s trying to get his life back in order after he’s released
from prison (as a result of him being arrested for stealing from his former
employers) so that he can provide child support for his daughter Cassie after
his wife Maggie divorced him and re-married, both unfortunately and ironically
in Scott’s case, to a police officer. That is what drives him throughout the
entire film and while Cassie actually isn’t the film that much, it’s one of the
main reasons why Scott’s arc of redemption in this film is so great. We do root
for Scott from beginning to end and Paul Rudd does an excellent job at giving
the character a ton of charisma. Scott’s not a bad guy; he just hit a major
rough patch that he now has to overcome. He’s backed by a highly memorable trio
of fellow thieves that end up joining him and his new allies on the big heist
on Pym Tech; getaway driver Dave (T.I.), identity theft specialist Kurt (David
Dastmalchian), and of course the biggest standout of the entire film; Michael
Pena as Scott’s former cellmate Luis. Pena steals every scene he’s in as the
happy-go-lucky thief that once stole a smoothie machine (“Two smoothie
machines!” Sorry, my mistake). There have been some who have complained that
Luis is a stereotype but I don’t see how that is if Pena based the character
off of an old friend named Pablo who acted the exact same way. If I had to
choose my favorite moment in the film involving him, it’s the two instances
where he goes through stories of how he came across a major tip as the result
of a series of conversations between a whole bunch of side characters who then
proceeded to tell one of his cousins who then told Luis all about it. And
because the whole story is told by Luis, all of the characters featured in that
story speak in his voice (including good ol’ Stan Lee in his trademark cameo).
(P.S. My runner-up
pick is this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3cHchLRsAQ)
As for Evangeline Lilly as Hope Van Dyne, admittedly she
doesn’t get much to do action-wise (though the scene where she is training
Scott and punches him in the fact is a classic moment), which I’m aware that
some people viewed as a problem of the film. However, I’d argue that she’s much
more important to the story than what some may claim. It is established pretty early
on that Hope is clearly capable of being able to handle the Ant-Man suit.
However, much to her frustration, her father Hank (Michael Douglas is of course
excellent in the role of Hank Pym; sure his role mostly consists of him spewing
exposition but he does get some very funny lines here and there) forbids her
from taking on the mantle of Ant-Man. It isn’t until later in the film when
Hank finally reveals to Hope that he doesn’t want to lose her just like he did
his wife, Hope’s mother Janet AKA ‘The Wasp’. During a mission where he and
Janet were trying to disable a Soviet warhead, she ‘sacrificed’ herself by
shrinking down even further to the subatomic level in order to stop it. But
don’t worry Wasp fans, this doesn’t officially mean that we won’t be seeing
Janet in future MCU films. During the final battle, Scott ends up shrinking to
the subatomic level as well in order to sabotage Yellowjacket’s suit and defeat
him. But instead of getting stuck there forever, he does manage to return to
normal size, leaving Hank to wonder if Janet’s still alive. Not only that, but
apparently there was a brief glimpse of her shadow during that scene. As for
Hope, her father finally relents by the end of the film and gives her a Wasp
suit of her own in the film’s mid-credits sequence. So while Hope isn’t going
to be in ‘Civil War’, namely due to the fact that almost everyone else in the
MCU is in it, she’ll most certainly get more involved in the action in 2018’s
‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’.
Now let’s move onto the villain, Yellowjacket. If you’ve
been following this blog for a while, you’ll know that I’ve defended the
majority of the MCU villains not named Loki because I don’t follow the same
high standards that the internet has established towards them after Loki’s
admittedly still #1 best villainous turn in the first ‘Avengers’. However, in
the case of Yellowjacket, I’ll admit that this is one case where I do lean more
towards the general consensus in that he is a rather lackluster villain. But
even with that said, I still don’t think that he’s a ‘terrible’ villain.
Because at the very least, Corey Stoll is clearly having a lot of fun relishing
in the role of Hank’s former protégé Darren Cross, who has been on the verge of
replicating his shrinking technology. The main flaw with the character, though,
is not that he’s ‘another generic businessman-type villain’, which to be honest
there’s only been like 2-3 other villains like that in the other MCU films. The
real issue with Cross is that he’s generally ignored during the middle half of
the film. This is the part where Scott is training with Hope and Hank to be
Ant-Man and aside from one or two brief appearances, he doesn’t really show up
again until the big heist, which is disappointing because clearly there’s quite
a connection that he has with Hank being his former protégé who never got the
chance to learn the secret behind the Ant-Man technology as well as having perhaps
a bit of sexual tension between him and Hope. Thankfully he does get more to do
in the finale once he puts on the Yellowjacket suit but even then, it doesn’t
fully make up for his lack of screen-time during the second act.
So let me just be blunt here. Yes, it sucks that Edgar
Wright had to step down from directing this film, a project that he had
legitimately been working on for nearly a decade. Who knows what kind of film
we would’ve gotten had he stayed on? But you want to know the crazy thing about
all of this? Even though the film did end up doing really well both critically
and commercially when it was in theaters and is now on Blu-Ray/DVD, I am still
seeing, no joke, some people online who are still bitter about the whole
controversy surrounding Edgar Wright’s departure. Seriously people, LET IT GO! Because
clearly both Wright and Marvel were able to move on after all of this. Wright’s
currently working on his next film, ‘Baby Driver’, and Marvel fairly quickly
managed to rebound and find a replacement director in Peyton Reed. And despite
all of the flak that he got for not having a directorial resume as great as
Wright’s, Reed did a fine job in Wright’s place, once again proving that Marvel
Studios has had a lot of success when it comes to hiring directors primarily
known for comedies like the Russo brothers and James Gunn. And at the end of
the day, ‘Ant-Man’ is yet another highly entertaining installment of the MCU. I
mean, if I had to rank it with the other films, it just misses being in my Top
5. But once again Marvel managed to prove its biggest critics wrong and
reaffirming their status as the kings of the superhero film genre.
Another one of
cinema’s most legendary franchises saw a new release this year but I fear that
the high expectations that mostly came from the amazing previous installment
had a severely negative impact on this film. As a result, it’s quickly become
one of the series’ most underrated installments. So here’s my two cents on why
it shouldn’t be…
8. SPECTRE
You want to know the one thing that bugs me the most about
the general reception towards ‘Spectre’? It’s the fact that some actually think
that Daniel Craig’s second Bond film, ‘Quantum of Solace’, is a better film.
Yes, that’s right folks, there are those who believe that ‘Quantum of Solace’,
one of the most poorly directed Bond films of all-time and quite frankly one of
the worst action films in recent years, is better than the much
classier-directed ‘Spectre’. That’s like saying that any of Michael Bay’s films
are better than ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’, and keep in mind that this is coming from
someone who both A.) likes most of Bay’s films and B.) wasn’t too big on ‘Fury
Road’ but even then I wouldn’t dare go as far as to compare it negatively to
something like ‘Transformers’. I’m just going to be perfectly blunt here… this
film primarily got screwed over by U.S.-based critics. When the film first premiered
in the UK, it was getting solid reviews. They weren’t necessarily as good as
‘Skyfall’ but still solid enough to warrant an RT score somewhere in the high
70’s. But then when the film debuted in the US, that RT score fell and fell and
fell until now where it currently has only a 64% on RT. By comparison, ‘Quantum
of Solace’ has a 65% rating. And for the record I know that RT ratings don’t
matter anyway (seriously if they did then almost none of these films would be
on this list) but seriously, what the f***?
I have the feeling that this is primarily due to one reason;
the overly high expectations that were set by the last Bond film, ‘Skyfall’.
And yes, ‘Skyfall’ was a masterpiece and I’ve made it clear that it’s my
favorite Bond film to date. But even with that in mind, that doesn’t mean that
I was going to try and compare ‘Spectre’ to ‘Skyfall’. Because I believe that
every Bond film should be viewed as its own separate entity and not like a
‘sequel’ to the previous film. Now with that said, after I wrote my review for
the film, I realized that I overlooked the fact that, yes, ‘Spectre’ actually
is a sequel. The film establishes that the criminal organization known as
SPECTRE was involved with all of the villains from Craig’s previous Bond films.
Still, that didn’t change the fact that I wasn’t going to negatively compare it
to ‘Skyfall’. As a matter of fact, I actually really liked the idea that
everything that Craig’s Bond has gone through over the past three films was all
connected back to Spectre. I mean seriously, who gives a crap about Quantum
anyway? That organization was forgotten about as soon as ‘Quantum of Solace’
ended. I was actually surprised to see how important the past three films were
to this film’s plot, as evident from the glimpses of Bond’s former allies and
foes in the opening credits, Christoph Waltz’s character (more on him later)
referencing Vesper Lynd when Bond and Madeline Swann are together, and a very haunting
scene during the finale when Bond traverses through the soon-to-be-demolished
MI6 building and goes through a room full of pictures of Vesper, Silva, M, and
so on.
But maybe one of the other reasons for this film’s lesser
reception is the fact that the film’s plot is admittedly a bit more standard
compared to ‘Skyfall’. And while it’s true that ‘Skyfall’ had a much more
substantial plot that showcased 007 dealing with the possibility of him being
obsolete in the modern world of espionage, I feel that ‘Spectre’ did a perfect
job at paying homage to the Bond films of old, similar to how ‘Kingsman’ paid
tribute to the cornier plots of those old spy films earlier this year. Sure the
whole subplot of a global surveillance system to ‘replace’ the ‘00’ section had
me immediately thinking of ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ and it also
pretty much gave away the fact that Andrew Scott’s character C was one of the
villains but it was only a minor hindrance to the plot in my opinion. This
film’s screenplay is full of great one-liners from Bond (which I feel is a
really nice thing because it allows Daniel Craig to have more opportunity to convey
Bond’s trademark wit, something that he didn’t really get to do in his first
two Bond films) and some of the other characters and as noted before it also
does a really nice job at connecting Craig’s Bond films together under one
common thread; Spectre, who haven’t been seen in Bond since the Connery era. Of
course, Sam Mendes’ direction is superb and the action sequences are amazing.
Particularly stand-out moments include the pre-credits sequence set in Mexico
City during the ‘Day of the Dead’ festival, the car chase between Bond and Mr.
Hinx (Dave Bautista isn’t in the film that much but very much steals the
spotlight whenever he appears as the primarily silent henchman), their fight on
a train, and Bond and Madeline’s escape from the SPECTRE base, which included a
world record setting massive explosion that would make even Michael Bay blush.
Now let’s talk about Christoph Waltz. In the months leading
up to the film’s release, there was much speculation that Waltz was going to be
playing SPECTRE head Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Waltz frequently denied this in
interviews but guess what… he is Blofeld. And like with the whole ‘Star Trek
Into Darkness’/Khan debacle, I have the feeling that this was part of the backlash
towards the film as well. And quite frankly, I believe that that argument
should be directed towards the marketing than it should be in terms of the film
itself as I feel that Waltz was a perfect choice for the role. I didn’t even
mind the fact that they made Bond and Blofeld half-brothers in this one.
Admittedly, he isn’t the film as much to stand out like Javier Bardem did as
Silva in ‘Skyfall’ but whenever he is on screen, he is outstanding. Probably
the best scenes that he’s in include the scene where he has Bond and Madeline
captive at SPECTRE’s base and a moment during the finale when Bond confronts
him within the ruins of the MI6 building, after Blofeld has already acquired
the same facial scarring that Donald Pleasance’s Blofeld had in ‘You Only Live
Twice’. And the fact that Blofeld is only arrested at the end of the film and
not killed shows that he could potentially return in future installments. Speaking
of standouts, Lea Seydoux is easily one of the series’ finest Bond girls as
Madeleine Swann; in fact, she even outshines Craig in this film, who of course
is great as always as Bond. She may not be a spy like Bond but her headstrong
personality harkens back to classic Bond girls like Natalya from ‘GoldenEye’
and Tracy Bond from ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’. Though I must say that
before seeing the film, I was theorizing that she would end up like the latter;
dead at the hands of Blofeld. But that ultimately isn’t the case as she drives
away with Bond at the end of the film; does that mean that she’ll also be
returning in a future film?
This film just couldn’t catch a break if you ask me. The
original screenplay ended up getting leaked as a result of the Sony hack, the
film got a lot of attention for having one of the biggest budgets in film
history and upon release, almost every major aspect of the film got negatively
compared to ‘Skyfall’, including the theme song ‘Writing’s on the Wall’ by Sam
Smith. But you know what? After listening to the song multiple times, I
actually really like it and it’s become one of my Top 10 favorite Bond themes
of all-time. It was just revealed that Radiohead had done a song that was
rejected in favor of Smith’s song but quite frankly I don’t see how that song
is supposed to be better. And if I were to rank ‘Spectre’ with the other 23 EON
Bond films, I’d place it at #6. It may not crack the Top 5 but it’s still an
excellent entry in the series. But perhaps more importantly, it’s a
particularly underrated installment of the series that isn’t even a year old yet.
In short, ‘Quantum of Solace’ this is not… most Bond films are better than
‘Quantum of Solace’. Hell, even ‘Moonraker’ is better than ‘Quantum of Solace’
(yeah that’s right Bond fans, I said it). I’ll never understand some of the
criticisms towards this film. But at the end of the day, this is simply just
another case of overt expectations ruining perfectly good films. ‘Spectre’; the
new candidate for most underrated Bond film of all-time? At this rate,
unfortunately, it’s very much fitting of that title.
Got another rather
underrated film in my #7 spot… another one that I fear got hindered by overtly
high expectations. Going back to the MCU for this one…
7. AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON
I’m just going to start out by getting straight to the
point… no I do not think that this film is better than the first ‘Avengers’.
But at the same time, that doesn’t mean that I’m holding that against ‘Age of
Ultron’. And you know something? I fear that part of the more polarizing
responses to the film came as a result of the recent backlash against the
superhero genre. It’s hard to think that the genre would be getting a lot of
negative attention after 2014 saw the release of three of the greatest
superhero films in recent years; ‘X-Men: Days of Future Past’, ‘Captain America:
The Winter Soldier’, and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’. But ever since this year
first started, there has an increasing amount of flak directed towards the
genre, mostly due to the fact that A.) these films tend to get the most
attention from a commercial standpoint and B.) there are a lot more of them
coming in the next few years and there have been plenty of people who have made
the ‘the superhero bubble is going to burst’ argument. Now I can go on a whole
diatribe about why I feel that this whole backlash is stupid but that’s a rant
for another time. Instead, I’ll just say this. I’m not stupid; I know the genre
is going to hit some sort of wall sometime in the future. Really, my problem
with this backlash is the fact that there’s even a backlash in the first place
to the point where I’d swear there are actually some people out there that want
the superhero genre to fail. So what if superhero films get more attention than
other films? If you ask me, that’s because the majority of the superhero films
released since 2008 have been really, really good, especially from the MCU.
One of the big arguments against ‘Age of Ultron’ is that the
film is ‘overstuffed’. And while it’s true that there are a lot of characters
in this film and a lot of storylines to cover in the span of around two and a
half hours, I don’t see that as a problem at all. I mean really the only
problem that I have with the film is that it does feel a bit overlong.
Originally I thought that the sequence where the Avengers retrieve Vision’s
body from Ultron in Seoul was going to be part of the finale. But no, at that
point they still hadn’t gotten to the big finale in Sokovia where the whole
city is lifted up into the air by Ultron. I mean I guess you could argue that
if the Seoul chase immediately led into the finale then there wouldn’t be
enough time to introduce Vision. Whatever the case may be, I don’t see the
film’s overly large roster of characters as a ‘problem’. Because as we all
know, the MCU has done a fantastic job in setting up all of its main characters
in solo films before the big ‘Avengers’ films. And while that still means that
some characters ultimately don’t get much to do in this film compared to
others, each character at least has their own unique moments to shine. The
biggest example of this is Hawkeye AKA the one character that most people
forgot about in the first ‘Avengers’ because he spent most of that film under
Loki’s control. Thankfully he gets more to do this time around, has quite a few
great lines (my favorite being the one where he avoids getting hypnotized by
Scarlet Witch, remarking that he’s “already tried the mind control thing… not a
fan.”), and we’re even introduced to his family. That’s one of the things that
I really like about the MCU. Through their shows like ‘Agents of SHIELD’ and
‘Agent Carter’ and through moments in the films like the scenes in this film
with Hawkeye’s family, the studio has done a great job in spending time
focusing on the little people and showing that they matter just as much as the
super people.
‘Age of Ultron’ maintains a lot of the great aspects of the
first ‘Avengers’ film thanks once again to the excellent direction of Joss
Whedon. The action sequences are epic (I’m surprised to find that some people
actually thought that they were ‘unmemorable’. Were those people watching a
different film because this film was full to the brim with epic fangasm moments),
the cast is terrific from top to bottom, and the screenplay is full of great
and hilarious dialogue as one can always expect from Whedon’s writing. Just
like the first ‘Avengers’ and ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’, I could make a whole
list of all of the great funny moments in the film, which I actually did in my
Spoiler Post for the film. Cap continuously getting flak from the rest of the
team for saying ‘Language!’ during the opening scene when Tony exclaims ‘S***!’
after crashing into a shield barrier. The classic moment where the gang tries
to lift Thor’s hammer, obviously to no avail until later in the film when Vision
manages to do it. The scene where Iron Man and Hulk are fighting in South Africa
(Iron Man in the Hulkbuster) and Iron Man punches Hulk in the face so hard that
he spits a tooth out, to which we then see Tony with a completely guilty look
say, ‘I’m sorry’. I could go on and on but obviously if I did, we’d be here all
day. And as always, the main cast of returning MCU players are once again
superb in their roles; Downey, Evans, Hemsworth, Johansson, Ruffalo, Renner,
Jackson etc. Each of them have been in their respective roles for at least
three films and at this point they are all fully comfortable in taking on these
iconic characters.
As for the new additions to the cast, the two major
newcomers, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, admittedly spent a good chunk of the
film aligned with Ultron but like Hawkeye in the first film, they eventually
end up joining the Avengers and both Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson
do solid jobs in their respective roles. In regards to Quicksilver, I made the
decision to not make any comparisons between this Quicksilver and the
Quicksilver featured in ‘Days of Future Past’ played by Evan Peters because
they’re both different takes on the character of Pietro Maximoff (or Peter as
he’s called in ‘DOFP’). Peters’ Quicksilver is cocky and impatient which of
course connects perfectly with the character’s super-speed. Johnson’s
Quicksilver also has the cocky attitude, primarily exemplified by his rivalry
with Hawkeye (“You didn’t see that coming?”), but he’s more bitter and vengeful
due to the fact that he and Wanda barely survived when their house was
destroyed by a mortar shell developed by, who else, Stark Industries. Remember
in the first ‘Iron Man’ film when Tony finally realized that the weapons that
his company was making were being used against innocent people? Yeah well now
here come two survivors to remind him about that. As for the whole part about
Quicksilver’s death in the film, I think it was handled pretty well. He makes a
heroic sacrifice by protecting Hawkeye and a kid that the latter was trying to
save from a barrage of gunfire. And as a way to honor him, Hawkeye and his wife
Laura name their new son after him.
But easily the best new addition to the Avengers roster is
the character Vision. He doesn’t appear onscreen until more than two-thirds
into the film but when he does, oh boy does he immediately establish himself as
an awesome character. How awesome is he? Not only is he powered by one of the
Infinity Stones (the Mind Stone that came from Loki’s scepter from the first
‘Avengers’), but he’s the only one capable of lifting Thor’s hammer. And admit
it folks, when that scene happened, it most definitely elicited some form of an
audible response from the audience. And of course that ability to carry Mjolnir
comes into play later on during the finale. During a moment where Thor is
fighting Ultron and he starts to distract him with a speech, Vision swoops in
and bashes Ultron with Mjolnir, which then results in Vision remarking to Thor
that it’s ‘terribly well-balanced’. Because Tony implements Jarvis into the
body of Vision, Paul Bettany has now been given a more substantial role in the
MCU. Bettany of course has been involved with the MCU since the beginning as
the voice of Tony’s A.I. assistant. As he’s put it, before this film his role
in the franchise entirely consisted of him coming in near the end of production
(in this case for the ‘Iron Man’ films and the first ‘Avengers’ film) and
recording all of his dialogue usually in the span of a single day. But now he’s
been given the chance to join the rest of the cast properly and luckily for us
we’ll be seeing more of the badass synth in ‘Captain America: Civil War’.
But now it’s time for me to tackle one of the more
controversial elements of the film. No it’s not the lack of Black Widow
merchandising that occurred during the film’s release but what I’m talking
about does involve Black Widow and that is her developing romance with Bruce
Banner. This element of the film, and in particular the moment where she’s
tells Bruce that he’s ‘not the only monster on the team’ due to her inability
to have children as a result of her training in the Black Widow program, has
attracted quite a lot of controversy amongst certain fans and Whedon, who has
always been known for his feminist views, has been accused of being a hypocrite
by those same people. And I’m just going to be blunt here… that’s a load of
bulls***. First off, in response to the argument that the romance ‘comes out of
nowhere’, there actually was some set-up to it in the first film. After all, it
was Natasha who first approached Bruce to recruit him to the team and it was
her that was with him when he first transformed into the Hulk in that film. And
second, what’s so bad about Black Widow yearning for a normal life, away from
all of the spy/superhero action? This actually gives us a legit reason as to
why she’s siding with Iron Man in ‘Captain America: Civil War’ and not Cap as
she had done in ‘Winter Soldier’. Clearly she’s starting to feel guilty about
her actions in the past and she’s trying to take responsibility for all that
she’s done; the ‘red on her ledger’ as she described it in the first
‘Avengers’. And I’m just going to lay this out there… not every major female
action hero has to be like Furiosa from ‘Fury Road’. So to paraphrase two
separate articles about this topic from The Daily Beast, no this film did not
‘slut-shame’ Black Widow into being nothing more than a ‘baby-obsessed flirt’…
get a grip, internet!
Now let’s talk about the big baddie of the film; Ultron.
Once again, we’re delving into yet another polarizing MCU villain. In this
case, this is due to how the marketing built up his role in the film. Backed by
the terrific sinister use of the classic Disney song ‘I’ve Got No Strings’ from
‘Pinocchio’, Ultron was built up to be a truly imposing adversary for the
Avengers. However, it seems like most people were disappointed to learn that
this wasn’t really the case in the film itself. Instead, Ultron was a more
humorous villain that was still hell-bent on annihilating all of humanity but
was also immature and self-absorbed. But even if Ultron didn’t end up being the
menacing villain that most people were expecting, I personally didn’t mind the
more humorous take on the character. I thought that he was a really funny
villain that benefitted from some great bits of dialogue courtesy of Whedon.
Probably the best example of this is the scene where Ultron is negotiating with
Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis in a cameo role, who may return for a larger role in
‘Black Panther’ seeing how the character is Black Panther’s primary adversary
in the comics). When Klaue recognizes a quote said by Ultron as the same quote
that Tony Stark once told him, he accuses him of being one of Stark’s minions.
Ultron is offended by the comparison, chops off Klaue’s hand (another connection
to the character in the comics), and immediately apologizes for it, suggesting
that ‘it will grow back’. James Spader does a fantastic job in the role of
Ultron, especially in regards to giving the character his unexpected sense of
dark humor.
I guess you can say that the less positive response towards
‘Age of Ultron’ compared to the first ‘Avengers’ was primarily due to
heightened expectations that basically come with every major blockbuster
sequel. But like I said in the intro for this piece, I also feel that part of
the reason has been due to the increasingly harsh backlash towards the
superhero genre, which is unfortunate. I’m going to have to see this film a few
more times to see if I end up liking it more than ‘The Avengers’, even though
it’s admittedly more layered in terms of plot and characters compared to the
first film. But at the end of the day one thing’s for certain; ‘Age of Ultron’
is yet another highly entertaining installment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe
that maintains almost all of the qualities that made the first ‘Avengers’ such
a landmark of the genre; Whedon’s great direction, his sharp and witty
screenplay, the superb camaraderie of the cast, a memorable villain, and epic
moments/action sequences. I’ll admit that the MCU films may very well fall
victim one day to being too ‘overstuffed’, as some have argued as being an
issue with this film in particular, considering how vast the MCU has gotten at
this point with all of the films and TV shows that the studio has produced
since its inception. But at the same time, Marvel still deserves a lot of
credit for taking their time in establishing this universe and not just making
every film an ‘Avengers’-scale production. That is why I don’t agree with the
‘overstuffed’ argument just yet. And now that the creative committee that has
clearly been involved with the controversial creative conflicts with quite a
few of the MCU’s directors over the years as well as the aforementioned Edgar
Wright ‘Ant-Man’ debacle has now been disbanded, I’m confident that Phase Three
will be the studio’s most epic run yet.
#MCUFanforLife
And that’s the end of
Part 2 of my Top 12 Favorite Films of 2015 list. Check back tomorrow for Part 3
where I’ll be listing Films #6-4.
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