‘Venom: Let There Be Carnage’ Should Have Cut the Carnage
Little did the filmmakers behind Ruben Fleischer’s Venom know that Carnage would become a poisonous burden to Andy Serkis’ sequel, Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
comic book films
The New Mutants’ Cursed Journey to Theaters: A Horror Story
The New Mutants had a long, circuitous journey to the big screen as the final Marvel Comics film produced by 20th Century Fox before its merger with Disney.
Zack Snyder, Matthew Arnold, and Ancient Stories in Comic Book Films
Does it make sense for contemporary Superman to stand beside ancient Zeus in comic book films? Filmmaker Zack Snyder and 19th century poet and critic Matthew Arnold think so.
‘Captain America: Civil War’ Mirrors Another Kind of American Civil War
In the Russo Brothers' Captain America: Civil War, friend turns on friend, and no easy resolution is reached. It's rather like the toxic online fan culture that followed the film's release.
Beautiful Lies and False Gods in ‘Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice’
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice ‘interrogates two primal drives in American culture: fear and its trauma (Batman) and naked power and its ambiguities (Superman).
‘X-Men: Dark Phoenix’ Will Never Rise from the Ashes
Simon Kinberg’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix might be the most bumbling, mishandled Marvel Film ever produced.
‘Captain Marvel’ Sends a Powerful Message to Audiences and Filmmakers
The first female-centric film in the MCU, Captain Marvel, bakes the female experience into every aspect, making a potentially familiar story fresh and exciting.
‘Avengers: Endgame’ Faces the Other Side of Loss
Whereas the heroes in Avengers: Endgame stew for five years, our pandemic grief has barely taken us to the after-credit sequence. Someone page Captain Marvel, please.
Ruben Fleischer’s ‘Venom’ Has No Bite
Ruben Fleischer's toothless antihero film, Venom is like a blockbuster from 15 years earlier: one-dimensional, loose plot, inconsistent tone, and packaged in the least-offensive, most mass appeal way possible. Sigh.
The Obstacles in ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp’ Are Not Typical of MCU
Peyton Reed's "Disney-fied" Ant-Man and the Wasp is unchallenging in all the best ways.
The Highs Are Higher, the Lows Lower in ‘Deadpool 2’
The first half of Deadpool 2, in which Vanessa is murdered and Wade becomes purposeless and suicidal, is a slog. The second half, where Wade commits to defending an angry teenage mutant, positively soars with fantastic action and some of the funniest superhero film moments in years.
The Action in ‘Avengers: Infinity War’ Is Relentless
The focus on Thanos single-handedly saves Avengers: Infinity War from becoming the overstuffed mess many feared and lends the film a relentless action pace more akin to Mad Max: Fury Road than a superhero blockbuster.