Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

The Low-Down: Sometimes, you build a cinematic universe by design (hopefully). Other times, you build it almost by accident. When The Fast And The Furious was released way back in 2001, no one could have foreseen it spawning a box-office-busting franchise that has since raked in more than $5 billion over eight films. Deciding to create this spin-off focusing on two of the franchise’s newest and most charismatic additions – the titular Hobbs and Shaw – must have been a no-brainer. Unfortunately, this film feels like a literal no-brainer too, its weak, cluttered script mostly failing to support its inexplicably talented cast.

The Story: If you’ve never watched a single Fast & Furious film (like this reviewer), you won’t be too lost. It’s fairly easy to pick up the threads of the spiky rivalry between American federal agent Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and British assassin-with-a-past Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham). Their mutual loathing takes a back-seat when both men end up on the same mission: chasing down a potentially world-destroying super-virus embedded in Deckard’s sister, MI6 agent Hattie Shaw (Vanessa Kirby). Hot on their heels is the cybernetically enhanced Brixton Lore (Idris Elba), who’s hellbent on securing the super-virus for his sinister employers.

The Good: When deployed effectively, Johnson and Statham are marvels of charisma and comic timing – well able to steal scenes, if not entire films, with snappy, snarky ease. On occasion, their electric charm and chemistry flare to life during Hobbs & Shaw, but it doesn’t happen often enough to save the film from its weak script and haphazard editing. That said, there’s some joy to be had in watching Hobbs & Shaw’s outrageously good supporting cast, which includes top-notch character actors like Helen Mirren and Eddie Marsan. Elba, for his part, acquits himself fairly well as a rampaging cyborg with a broken soul hidden somewhere beneath his menace and machinery.

The Not-So-Good: Unfortunately, the film never really lives up to the potential of its cast. The screenplay by Chris Morgan and Drew Pearce is frustratingly flabby. It’s the kind of script in which a strong female character is only as strong as the film needs her to be – Kirby tries her best, but is given next to nothing to flesh out the role of Hattie. Hobbs & Shaw also fails to help its titular double act move from the sidelines into the spotlight. Their incredibly juvenile playground bickering and bantering becomes wearisome after a while, making it harder to buy into the film’s attempts to delve into their histories and families. In grand Fast & Furious tradition, the action sequences are big and bonkers, bouncing from London to Moscow and even Samoa – but, shorn of effective character development, they also feel empty and soulless, strung together to pad out a running time that’s already far too long.

Lock It Down: If you’re familiar with Leitch’s recent filmography, you won’t be surprised by an extended cameo in Hobbs & Shaw that proves to be one of the film’s highlights. It’s the kind of blithely cheeky stuff that Leitch has proven he can pull off well – he juggled heart and humour to great effect in Deadpool 2. But Hobbs & Shaw never quite knows what it wants to be – silly or earnest, dumb or dark – and winds up being neither and nothing.

Recommended? Only if you’re a Fast & Furious devotee, or a diehard fan of Johnson and/or Statham. Otherwise, Hobbs & Shaw is a muddled mess that will sorely test your patience and tolerance for poorly-written, testosterone-fuelled shenanigans.

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

The Low-Down: There’s a lot riding on the slim, young shoulders of everyone’s friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. Far From Home is the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) since the recent double-whammy of Avengers movies changed the status quo forever. Where does the most successful superhero franchise in the world go after this? Can non-legacy superheroes – like Spider-Man, Black Panther, Captain Marvel etc – carry on where Iron Man left off? Is the MCU running out of steam? It’s a big burden for a relatively smaller film in the franchise to carry. But Far From Home does so very well by zeroing in on what has successfully fuelled the MCU thus far: prizing character development above all to tell a story that’s as emotional as it is entertaining.

The Story: Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is trying to find his bearings in an unsettled world. He, along with half his school-mates, has suddenly reappeared on Earth – unaged and not at all dead – five years after the Snap. His mentor, Tony Stark, haunts him in the form of video tributes and street art. There’s something strange going on between Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), Tony’s Head of Security. Amidst the uncertainty, all Peter wants is to get back to normal: to enjoy his school trip to Europe, and to let MJ (Zendaya) know how he really feels about her. But world-saving duties wait for no young man. Suddenly, Peter is roped in by Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to do battle alongside Quentin Beck a.k.a. Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal), taking down rogue Elementals that have already ravaged one world and are hellbent on destroying another.

The Good: At its best, Far From Home impressively blends the awkward comedy of a coming-of-age romantic drama with country-hopping superhero action thrills. It’s a delight to watch Peter use his superhuman skills as Spider-Man to navigate his way through hormonal messes of his own making – often in the same scene. This is as intriguing a narrative direction as the MCU has ever taken: using a lighter, more humorous lens to examine the aftermath of Endgame’s darker, considerably more mature themes. At the same time, Far From Home finds a rather ingenious way to quietly become one of the MCU’s most political films. (More on this later.) It’s worth noting, too, that, in a franchise filled with sublime casting coups, Holland continues to prove himself to be one of its very best. He dances nimbly through Peter’s high-school misadventures, while still tapping into the heartbroken, traumatised core of his character.

The Not-So-Good: With the action focused so squarely on Peter, his friends – especially his love interest – invariably suffer. Jacob Batalon is as goofily charming as ever as Ned, Peter’s best friend, but he might as well have the words ‘comic relief’ tattooed across his forehead. Zendaya’s sparky, sarcastic MJ – while still an interesting twist on a classic character – comes dangerously close to being a damsel in distress. And, while Jon Watts’ direction is more zippy and confident than it was on Homecoming, he doesn’t always land or weave narrative beats together very effectively. As a result, the film occasionally sags when it should soar.

One of Life’s Great Mysterios: What is Gyllenhaal – indie movie darling and theatre thespian – doing in an MCU movie? It might seem like one of life’s great mysteries… but all will soon come clear once you realise just what drew him to the part of Quentin Beck. Fans of the comics will know that there’s far more to the character than what we saw in the trailers, but nothing will prepare them for how brilliantly he’s been reinvented for the MCU. Essentially, this is a gift of a role for the prodigiously gifted Gyllenhaal – allowing him to play every shade of hero (including a few notes of uncanny similarity to Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark), while also indulging his more whimsical, theatrical side. In retrospect, it’s easy to see how Gyllenhaal must have been drawn to the grim relevance of Quentin’s storyline to the world in which we live today. Just as Black Panther examined race and Captain Marvel explored toxic masculinity, Far From Home asks audiences to think about the concepts of truth and reality – at a time when both are very much under threat.

Fan Fare: Marvel has trained us all well – never leave the theatre before the credits stop rolling, for fear of missing a funny moment or a narrative nugget that hints at future films and storylines. This reaches a new level of necessity with Far From Home. Each mindblowing scene – one midway through and one at the very end of the credits – is vital to knowing (or, at least, guessing) where the MCU is going next. Also, watch out for one of Tony Stark’s beloved A.I. acronyms: it will apply, in a subversively clever way, to more than one character in the film, drawing laughs in one instance, and eliciting a deep sense of foreboding in another.

Recommended? Absolutely. There might be a few growing pains here and there, but Marvel has hit another home run – grappling effectively and emotionally with its immediate past, while raising the storytelling stakes for the future.

X-Men: Dark Phoenix (2019)

The Low-Down: In the age of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the Avengers, it can be hard to forget that the X-Men were actually here first. The hyper-kinetic, gloriously operatic X-Men (2000) made blockbuster superhero movies cool again – plucking several of Marvel Comics’ best characters out of cult comic books and launching them into the mainstream. It’s a shame that such an iconic franchise is ending with a whimper rather than a bang. X-Men: Dark Phoenix is the final installment in the series – because it has to be, now that Fox is merging with Disney/Marvel. But the film does itself no favours in revisiting a storyline that was already told, albeit rather poorly, in The Last Stand (2006).

The Story: We’ve already met the ridiculously powerful cosmic force that is the Phoenix: it latched onto Famke Janssen’s Jean Grey over a decade ago, and decimated a bunch of fan-favourite characters in its fiery wake. This time around, the Phoenix finds a host in Sophie Turner’s younger Jean Grey, unlocking past trauma and present angst as it burns through the childhood defenses put in place in Jean’s mind by Professor Charles Xavier (James McAvoy). As Jean goes on the run, her former allies rush to find her – some set on protecting her, others on eliminating the threat she poses to their safety and loved ones. But can they save her from Vuk (Jessica Chastain), the ice-cold leader of an alien race hellbent on claiming the Phoenix’s power for herself?

The Good: There’s actually a decent amount of good seeded throughout Dark Phoenix. Most intriguing of all is the film’s darker take on Xavier – he’s usually portrayed as an unequivocally good (and therefore slightly boring) character, devoted to his young charges and leading the fight for a better, more unbiased world. Paired with a fascinating, almost petulant performance from McAvoy, Dark Phoenix reminds us that, sometimes, the road to Hell on Earth is paved with good intentions. Long-time X-Men writer Simon Kinberg makes his directorial debut, and proves more than equal to the task of whipping up fantastically thrilling action sequences. He peppers the film with plenty of lovely imagery and aesthetic touches: from Jean’s hair taking on a life of its own when she’s in Phoenix mode, to Quicksilver (Evan Peters) speed-climbing a whirlwind of debris.

The Not-So-Good: It’s hard to shake the feeling that there isn’t much reason for this film to exist, other than giving Kinberg the opportunity to take a second stab at the same story. (He co-wrote The Last Stand, to eternal fan derision.) Dark Phoenix edges closer to the classic Chris Claremont storyline in the comics, but it never quite fulfils its own potential. The Xavier subplot doesn’t get anywhere near the true depth or darkness it deserves. Chastain is brilliant casting, but for no real reason. If the screenplay had supported her better, Chastain could have transformed Vuk into a properly sympathetic antagonist; instead, she’s stuck in the key of one-dimensional supervillain. We get a peek at Genosha, a mutant safe haven under the governance of Erik Lensherr/Magneto (Michael Fassbender) – but we don’t linger there.

Phoenix Rising: Turner isn’t given much to do other than glower and fret, but she does it all well enough. The trouble is Jean Grey as a character. In all her incarnations, including in the comics, she gains immeasurable power, but loses all agency. She seems strong, but is actually a frustratingly passive protagonist. That’s compounded here by literally everyone around her constantly telling her what to do – from Charles, Erik and the annoyingly maternal Raven Darkholme (Jennifer Lawrence), to her well-meaning boyfriend, Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan), and the relentless Vuk. Is Jean supposed to master her emotions, to repress her powers, to stay quiet? Or is she supposed to unleash them, to revel in them, to metaphorically shout about her remarkable abilities? It’s a conundrum that exists in the source material – and this film makes a strong case for retiring Claremont’s Dark Phoenix for good.

Recommended? If you’ve ever loved the X-Men, you’ll probably want to say goodbye to this incarnation of these beloved characters before they’re resurrected in the MCU. But this is a decidedly middling installment in the franchise – not as dreadful as Apocalypse, but nowhere near the giddy heights of X-Men or Logan.

Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters (2019)

The Low-Down: With Marvel raking in the cash and plaudits after creating the world’s most epic cinematic universe, every studio that can thread movies together – however tenuously – is hopping on the bandwagon. And so we have Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters: the third installment in Legendary Pictures’ MonsterVerse, following Godzilla (2014) and Kong: Skull Island (2017). It’s easily the most ambitious film yet, uniting several classic critters straight out of Godzilla lore and finding pretty much any excuse to have them fight one another. The final result is both bold and bonkers – good and bad, often in the very same moment.

The Story: Monsters break stuff, including people. It’s a fact of life that the broken Russell family must deal with after Godzilla’s epic battle leaves downtown San Francisco in ruins. Grieving and newly sober, Mark (Kyle Chandler) stalks wolf packs in another part of the world. Emma (Vera Farmiga), his ex-wife, continues to work on the Orca, a machine they created together that can emit soundwaves capable of calming or infuriating Godzilla-scale monsters. Madison (Millie Bobby Brown), their precocious daughter, is caught in between – especially when Emma’s decision to use the Orca sets off a chain of monstrous events that could lead to the end of the world as we know it.

The Good: The concept at the heart of Godzilla II, quite frankly, is off-the-wall wacky – so bold and audacious and weird that you have to give director/co-screenwriter Michael Dougherty some credit for effort, even if his execution of it is somewhat lacklustre. This is no mere story of monsters raining mayhem down upon mankind. Instead, the film moves its mythology quite firmly into the realm of faith; Godzilla, the film suggests, is as much god as monster. It’s actually quite remarkable to see a mainstream blockbuster movie embrace – rather than shy away from – religious iconography, folding in theologies and environmental philosophies from Greek myth to Thanos. As such, Godzilla and his arch-nemesis, King Ghidorah (a three-headed Hydra-esque dragon beast), aren’t just having their version of a bar-room brawl – their earth-shaking clash is a battle for the survival of humanity.

The Not-So-Good: It’s a shame that the film as a whole can’t keep up with its high-concept ideas. The writing ranges from inspired to insipid, with character motivations dancing ridiculously back and forth – dictated mostly by the rather demented plot. As a director, Dougherty exhibited some skill with subversive comedy in cult horror flick Krampus, but very little of that is evident here. It’s not just about sacrificing soul for scale – Dougherty occasionally struggles with telling such a massive story in visual terms. Some of the film’s action sequences are so choppy as to be downright confusing. It doesn’t help that Dougherty’s preferred aesthetic tends towards the grey and grim, which makes it even harder to figure out just what is going on while monsters are duking it out in frustratingly murky lighting.

The Monster Mash: The first Godzilla film in the franchise suffered for shoving its titular monster into the background, having him play second fiddle to human characters who weren’t all that well-written to begin with. Godzilla II tries to rectify that, somewhat, by flinging so many monsters at the screen that you’d be almost glad to get back to the human drama after a while. Apart from Godzilla and Ghidorah, fans will be glad to see old-school Toho favourites like Mothra and Rodan in action too. (If they could actually see them, that is. Seriously – the monsters are beautifully rendered, but the bruise-toned lighting does them no favours.)

God(zilla)-Level Casting: If Dougherty learned one thing from his predecessor, Gareth Edwards, it’s the importance of casting a bunch of top-notch character actors in an otherwise barmy creature feature. Veteran performers like Oscar nominee Farmiga, West Wing alumnus Whitford and Charles Dance (that’s Tywin Lannister to you) reel off awkward exposition and pseudo-scientific claptrap (“bio-acoustics”, “the Oxygen Destroyer”) like it’s actual real human dialogue. It’s quite remarkable to see Friday Night Lights’ Coach Eric Taylor in action anti-hero mode, but Chandler – just as Bryan Cranston did in the 2014 film – brings an everyman weight to a character whose narrative arc is muddled, to say the least. The MVP here, though, is Brown. She brings to Madison the same soulful blend of toughness and tenderness that made her such a breakout star in Netflix’s Stranger Things.

Recommended? It depends. Godzilla II is a hot mess… but it’s a fascinating hot mess, and surprisingly fun to watch and even think about.

Aladdin (2019)

The Low-Down: For the past decade, Disney has been mining its treasure trove of animated classics for live-action remake fodder. Thus far, the results have been charming enough, though none of them has made a definitive case for or against telling the same story in a different medium. Aladdin has the rather dubious distinction of tilting the debate in favour of leaving well enough alone. Notwithstanding a few welcome sparks of colour and reinvention, this remake will struggle to convince anyone that it needed to exist. In fact, it provides concrete proof that – however good, however photo-real modern special effects have become – there are some things that just work better when animated.

The Story: You know the drill – Aladdin (Mena Massoud) is a street rat with a heart of gold, picking pockets to stay alive in the bustling markets of Agrabah. He’s recruited by Jafar (Marwan Kenzari) – nefarious, ambitious vizier to the Sultan (Navid Negahban) – to steal a magic lamp from the Cave of Wonders. Aladdin’s life takes a turn for the weird and wonderful when he rubs said lamp, freeing an all-powerful Genie (Will Smith) who grants him three wishes. With the Genie’s help, Aladdin makes his bid for the heart of Princess Jasmine (Naomi Scott). But romance falls by the wayside when Jafar sets his evil plans into motion.

The Good: There are some welcome efforts to update elements of Aladdin’s story to better reflect the world in which we live today. In the 1992 original, it was always frustrating that a princess with the intelligence and independent spirit of Jasmine had to find a husband to rule Agrabah. This remake doesn’t derail the romance, but it does make time to return Jasmine her agency – making clear that she’s the one in the relationship with all the (political) power. It’s a shame that Speechless, the new song she’s been given to explore her inner turmoil, feels so out-of-place in both the film and the score. The tune is disposable, presumably fished out of composer Alan Menken’s bottom drawer, with pop anthem lyrics by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul that are frustratingly generic. But hey – effort appreciated.

The Not-So-Good: Unfortunately, the rest of Aladdin never quite lives up to the spectacular  heights of the original film. It’s decently made, for the most part, and the action sequences are gratifying to watch. In live action, Aladdin is something of a parkour practitioner, the camera chasing after him on his gravity-defying sprints through the streets of Agrabah. But the magic is curiously gone, bled out of scenes that should crackle with joy and emotion, like Prince Ali and A Whole New World. Apart from a couple of goofy moments that feel charmingly improvised, you won’t be able to spot director Guy Ritchie’s chaotic comic streak in the film at all. Almost all of its best bits – specifically the friendship between Aladdin and the Genie – are lifted, beat for beat, from its predecessor.

I (Don’t Want To) Dream Of Genie: Robin Williams’ Genie is one of Disney’s towering achievements – his every motion, facial expression and quicksilver transformation like lighting captured in a bottle, literally and figuratively. It’s truly one of the most sublime marriages of actor and animation ever: Robin Williams is the Genie, and the Genie is Robin Williams. It’s actually unfair to expect anyone to fill Williams’ enormous shoes, even someone like Smith, who has bucketloads of natural charisma of his own. Here, he’s not only hamstrung by having to give a performance already perfected by someone else – he’s saddled with unfortunate character design (that gigantic, puffed-up torso) and occasionally ropey CGI. As a result, Smith’s Genie becomes the stuff of nightmares. It should come as no surprise that Smith is most effective in the scenes when he isn’t big and blue. The opposite can be said of Jafar, who was made all the more sinister by his distinctively arch appearance in the animated film – something Kenzari can’t possibly hope to approximate as a real human person. At least the film’s animal companions (Abu, Rajah and Iago) are wonderfully rendered, which gives one hope for Disney’s next live-action remake, The Lion King.

Recommended? Not particularly. Aladdin tries, quite hard, but doesn’t make a convincing argument for its own existence – and occasionally threatens to ruin your childhood.

Pokémon Detective Pikachu

The Low-Down: There really is no better time for Hollywood to release its first live-action Pokémon movie. Generations of children – who are now adults with spending power – have grown up dreaming of becoming Pokémon trainers. Since their creation in the mid-1990s, the (mostly) adorable creatures known as Pokémon (‘pocket monsters’) have captured hearts and imaginations all over the world – through video-games, animated television shows, movies and more. The advent of Pokémon Go in 2016 has taken the franchise into the global mainstream, boosting its name recognition even among those who couldn’t have differentiated between a Bulbasaur and a Charmander just a few years ago. Fortunately, Detective Pikachu doesn’t come across as just a cynical cash-grab – it will delight its devoted fan base, but is also smart and charming enough to appeal to a wider audience.

The Story: Tim Goodman (Justice Smith) has lived a life as far away from his childhood dream of becoming a Pokémon trainer as you can get. Working quietly in the insurance industry, he refuses to even choose a Pokémon as his companion. One day, he receives a fateful call that brings him to Ryme City: a metropolis created by brilliant industrialist Howard Clifford (Bill Nighy), where humans and Pokémon live and work in harmony. Tim’s estranged father has gone missing, and the only clue he has left behind is Detective Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) – whose clever insights and snarky observations can only be understood by Tim.

The Good: Detective Pikachu is a remarkably canny adaptation of Pokémon lore and legend. Fans will have a ton of fun (and might need multiple viewings) to spot all the Pokémon wandering in and out of frame – from dozing Slakoths to swooping Pidgeots, grieving Cubones and beyond. You might find yourself experiencing a sense of visceral joy at seeing these critters come to life, quite literally, and interact with actual human beings – not just on the page, or via pixels. Happily, though, the film doesn’t simply rely on fan service and affection to power through. There’s a welcome wit and warmth to much of its writing that’s impossible to resist, especially when it comes to the film’s titular electric-yellow hero – an adorable ball of energy that literally (and metaphorically) lights up the screen.

The Not-So-Good: If you’re a Pokémon neophyte, you might find yourself quite confused by audience reactions to Detective Pikachu, which don’t always match what’s happening on screen. You’ll still be able to follow the narrative fairly easily, but you’ll be lost when audience members freak out at the many Easter eggs and callbacks to decades of Pokémon canon. The film’s plotting also loses its footing towards the end, when the motivations of its main antagonist and the truth about Tim’s mysterious connection with Detective Pikachu become clear. At this point, it feels as if director Rob Letterman and his screenwriting team came up with the ending they wanted, and then reverse-engineered the rest of the film to make it work.

MVP (Most Valuable Pokémon): The answer is obviously Pikachu – a blend of brilliant character design and charismatic voice/facial-capture work by Reynolds. But one of the greatest joys of Detective Pikachu is that it doesn’t simply provide a showcase for Pikachu, already one of the most beloved of all Pokémon. Psyduck – a frazzled duck perpetually on the verge of combusting from stress – walks a fine line between hilarious and helpful. Even Mr. Mime, easily one of the weirdest and creepiest Pokémon ever created, gets a moment to shine – and in the kind of scene that’s so blissfully weird and silly that you can’t help but appreciate what the filmmakers are trying to do, even if they don’t always succeed.

Recommended? Yes. Detective Pikachu could have raked in the cash through brand loyalty alone. But the film is evidently the product of a great deal of love and care. Flawed as it is, this thoughtful re-imagining of the Pokémon franchise is fun, silly and charming in lots of the right ways.

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

The Low-Down: Statistically, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has achieved a great deal: over 11 years and 21 films, it has introduced dozens of relatively obscure characters into mainstream pop culture. More importantly, however, the franchise has proven that long-form storytelling can work in a cinematic context – as long as you balance plot with heart and humour, prizing character development over spectacle. That’s no small feat, and it’s even more remarkable that a movie with the gargantuan scale and ambition of Avengers: Endgame doesn’t fall apart beneath the weight of an unwieldy script or great expectations. In fact, this is the MCU’s crowning achievement: a heartfelt love letter to the Avengers, their stories, the actors who play them, and to the fans.

The Story: That damn Snap, eh? At the end of Avengers: Infinity War, Thanos wiped out half of the galaxy’s population with a snap of his Infinity-Stone-enhanced fingers. After bearing witness to teammates and loved ones vanishing in swirls of dust and ash, the remaining Avengers struggle to live with the crippling grief and guilt of surviving the Snap… and of failing to prevent it. Some characters spiral into darkness; others are frozen in place – a few even manage to move on. But hope is rekindled when Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) returns from the mysterious Quantum Realm, where the usual laws of physics, space and time do not apply…

The Great: Endgame is a storytelling triumph – not only does it bring together and pay off plots and ideas that were seeded over a decade ago, it builds solid, powerful, heartrendingly emotional narrative arcs for almost all of the original Avengers. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) must grapple with their pasts to figure out their futures, while Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) and Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner) find themselves literally fighting to save their families. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) might provide much of the film’s comic relief, but both characters are also gifted with grace notes, growth and moments of true peace.

The Super-Great: The ability to juggle and create space for multiple perspectives and storylines in one film has been honed to a fine art by directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely. But their narrative strategy feels virtuosic in Endgame, paired as it is with an ingenious plot device that allows the film to truly acknowledge the staggering depth and breadth of its own history. Suddenly, the emotional and narrative stakes are raised, as beloved characters are forced to re-examine their lives, stories and priorities. You might find yourself in tears and in stitches, frequently in the same scene, and this happens throughout the film – a testament to the Russo Brothers’ genius and their skills at anchoring even the most outlandish of storylines in humour and humanity.

The Not-So-Great: This is emphatically not a film for casual viewers – there is no entry point, no easing in, no exposition, to help you understand what the heck is going on if you haven’t watched most of the preceding films in the MCU. There are also a few logical fallacies and plotholes scattered throughout Endgame that will puzzle you the more you think about them – from the wobbly rules governing time travel to the fractured way in which the too-conveniently hyper-powered Carol Danvers (Brie Larson) pops in and out of the story.

Stan Service: This film, above all others in the MCU, feels like a heartfelt tribute to the very concept of Marvel itself, finding numerous ways to reward and delight true-blue fans. Naturally, it includes Stan Lee’s final appearance in the MCU, while folding in a host of other cameos and callbacks that reinforce the interconnectedness of the entire franchise – of all the stories that have been told before, especially the movie that started it all (Iron Man in 2008). There are even a couple of brilliant nods to comics lore, largely centred around the character of Captain America, that feel like the Russo Brothers are deliberately righting a few wrongs where some of Marvel Comics’ more controversial plot twists are concerned. (See: Nick Spencer’s run on Captain America: Steve Rogers.)

Cast-Iron MVP: Casting outside of the box has always been one of the MCU’s core strengths, with Oscar winners/nominees and character actors regularly popping up to play heroes and villains alike. That canny casting strategy pays off in spades in Endgame – especially when certain characters have relatively limited screen time but manage to make it count anyway. The undisputed stars of the movie, however, are the Avengers who started it all. Hemsworth continues to brilliantly dance along the knife-edge between comedy and pathos, while Ruffalo radiates charm and intelligence through ever-improving CGI as Banner and his not-so-mean, green alter ego: The Hulk. Johansson and Renner are given more to do in this film than ever before, and their combined efforts will shred your soul to pieces. Evans brings great warmth and strength to his stoic role, making it perfectly legitimate for you to weep and whoop for a man who’s – somewhat ridiculously – wrapped in an American flag. Above all, this double-whammy of Avengers films belongs, most fittingly, to Downey Jr. He still effortlessly injects Tony with snark and swagger, but also beautifully conveys every shade and layer of his character’s hard-won growth and maturity – giving us all the proof that we have never needed that Tony Stark has a heart.

Recommended? In every imaginable way. Endgame sets the bar as high as it can possibly go for superhero epics that balance enormous scale and jaw-dropping ambition with actual substance and genuine emotion. It’s the blockbuster movie event of our lifetimes, for very good reason – and it’s worth every minute you’ve invested in the MCU since 2008.

Hellboy (2019)

The Low-Down: Hellboy, a cult comic creation dreamt up by Mike Mignola, is a fascinating meditation on the eternal ‘nature vs. nurture’ debate: can a demon child rebel against the blood that flows through his veins and choose his own fate? The movie-going public was first introduced to the existential crisis that is Hellboy in 2004 by visionary director Guillermo del Toro, whose gothic sensibilities and love of the ugly misfit were a perfect fit for the source material. 15 years and a couple of jettisoned productions later, the third Hellboy film – a del-Toro-free reboot, rather than a sequel – is finally thundering into cinemas, and will have you wondering if it was worth all that time and effort.

The Story: Hellboy (David Harbour) – under the guidance of his adoptive father, Trevor (Ian McShane) – is hunting down monsters for the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense (BPRD) when destiny comes a-calling. Nimue (Milla Jovovich), a dastardly sorceress of world-destroying power, is set to break free from her several prisons so that she can turn the world of men into a haven for monsters. Accompanied by living ouija board Alice Monaghan (Sasha Lane) and grumpy BPRD agent Ben Daimio (Daniel Dae Kim), Hellboy must decide if he will help or hinder Nimue as she sets the apocalypse in motion.

The Good: This new incarnation of Hellboy is fierce and unapologetic in everything it does – from its shiveringly awful monsters to its explosive moments of mayhem and carnage. If that’s your kind of thing, you’ll enjoy what director Neil Marshall, best known for cult horror flicks like The Descent and Dog Soldiers, is going for here. He leans heavily into the ‘creature’ aspect of ‘creature feature’, particularly in nightmarish scenes featuring Nimue regaining her body (think Frankenstein, with an added cringe factor) and unholy mess of a witch Baba Yaga collapsing and contorting her way across the screen.

The Not-So-Good: Unfortunately, the film is a mess in pretty much every other way, teetering between brilliant, batshit and bad – often in the same moment. Part of that is due to the strangely uneven special effects and prosthetics, which range from eye-popping to laughable. But it’s in Andrew Cosby’s desperately plot-obsessed screenplay too, which contains some great, fun ideas but constantly undercuts itself with painfully banal dialogue and minimal character development. It’s a very peculiar experience to be simultaneously fascinated by and disappointed in a scene or character, and that keeps happening throughout Marshall’s film.

Safe Harbour? You’d never know it beneath the unwieldy prosthetics, but Hellboy is played – this time around – by one of the breakout stars of Netflix’s Stranger Things. It’s a shame that you can barely see what Harbour is bringing to the character and the performance; his hangdog charm and ability to emote is buried under layers of red make-up and a stubbornly fake chin. He looks great in still photographs, but often appears clunky and clumsy in motion. Script-wise, Harbour isn’t given much to do, beyond playing catch with the next plot point and battle sequence. As a result, his Hellboy winds up as the least interesting character in a film actually named after him.

Running The Good Race If nothing else, Hellboy has a lesson to teach Hollywood and casting agents the world over about whitewashing and the importance of representation. Ed Skrein was originally cast as Ben Daimio, but voluntarily withdrew from the project when he realised that the character was of Japanese origin. It’s still annoying that Asians from different countries are interchangeable in Hollywood terms – Kim is of Korean descent – but, hey, baby steps are better than nothing. At least Kim acquits himself quite well in a complex role, although his British accent is wobbly at best.

Recommended? It’s a toss-up. There are enough good ideas and visual flair for Hellboy to be worth a watch, but it’s also sorely missing the crucial ingredients that made del Toro’s films take flight: heart and soul.

 

Dumbo (2019)

The Low-Down: Dumbo is Disney’s latest (but far from its last) attempt to adapt its vast stable of animated classics into live-action films. On paper, the project seems promising – there’s a hallucinogenic quality to the 1941 film that sits right in the wheelhouse of visionary director Tim Burton, who has concocted a career for himself out of wild, creepy, romantic movies about misfits and the people who love them anyway. The film also tries to do its own thing and doesn’t slavishly imitate the original film (which featured next to no human characters and was just 64 minutes long.) What a shame, then, that the final product feels a lot like the other remakes Disney has produced – passable, on the whole, with a few inspired moments and ideas, while never really coming close to surpassing the charm or magic of the original films.

The Story: Holt Farrier (Colin Farrell) returns from the war, short of an arm and a wife, to the travelling circus that is still home to his children, Milly (Nico Parker) and Joe (Finley Hobbins). He’s given the job of elephant whisperer just as a new pachyderm is born: Dumbo, a baby with ridiculously out-sized ears. Holt’s children bond with Dumbo, and quickly discover that his ears lend him the magical ability to fly. Soon, Dumbo’s growing fame as a circus act attracts the ravenous attention of theme-park entrepreneur V.A. Vandevere (Michael Keaton).

The Good: Dumbo is precious – with his enormous ears and soulful puppy-dog eyes, he’s easily one of the most adorable, appealing CGI creations ever put on screen. His story is also the most affecting narrative thread woven into the film, as he is forcibly separated from his mother and yearns to find his way back to her. Dumbo’s heartbreak is simple, true and heartfelt, recalling the bittersweet way in which his animated counterpart sorely missed his mother. The baby elephant’s tireless bravery in the face of cruel laughter and mockery will make you wish that this film named after him didn’t spend so much time with other characters instead.

The Not-So-Good: Dumbo, as a film, makes for a rather puzzling viewing experience. Beyond some gorgeous, gothic visual sequences (specifically Nightmare Island in Vandevere’s Dreamland theme park), there’s barely a hint of Burton’s trademark whimsy to be found. Except when Dumbo is in the mix, Ehren Kruger’s screenplay is lifeless and, on occasion, logic-free – possibly a holdover from his similarly bland work on three of the Transformers franchise’s worst and most bloated films. It’s especially frustrating because the bare bones of a good story are all there – especially the fact that Millie and Joe are motherless children, just like Dumbo. But it’s largely squandered on paper-thin characters and a literally fiery climax that doesn’t make either narrative or emotional sense.

Balancing Act The cast Burton has assembled is actually very good – but none of them is given quite enough to do. As a result, Farrell’s charm is wasted on a character who never stops to listen while he constantly yells about his late wife being the one who could “talk to the children”. Keaton’s Vandevere winds up as little more than a one-note capitalist cautionary tale. At least there’s a little snap and crackle to DeVito’s harried circus owner, and Eva Green manages to suggest both darkness and light as Colette, an otherwise underwritten French trapeze artist we first meet on Vandevere’s arm.

Freak Show You’d imagine that Burton would take the purest delight in populating this travelling circus with freaks and oddities akin to the ones that have peopled his filmography over the years. But most of the characters in this travelling circus barely even register. If you’re a fan of cult British shows though, watch out for Sharon Rooney as Miss Atlantis: she was dazzling in My Mad Fat Diary, and will steal a laugh and wring a tear or two out of you here, especially when she sings Baby Mine – one of the loveliest songs in the entire Disney canon.

Recommended? Hard to say. It’s undemanding family-friendly fare, for the most part, and you’ll be rewarded with the cutest baby elephant ever put on screen. But the movie can be a bit of a slog to get through the rest of the time.

 

Captain Marvel (2019)

The Low-Down: It’s been a long, slightly ludicrous time in coming, but Marvel Studios’ first female-led superhero movie is finally blasting into cinemas. Unfortunately, Captain Marvel is trailing plenty of controversy in its wake, largely generated by the same toxic, sexist segments of ‘fandom’ who have been venting their rage online about ‘their’ franchises being taken over by women. (See: Ghostbusters, Star Wars etc.) It’s quite wonderful, then, that Captain Marvel is (literally and figuratively) the most powerful response to these haters yet – not only is it a ton of fun, this film is unapologetically, explicitly feminist in a way that’s never before been presented on screen in such a mainstream blockbuster.

The Story: We first meet Vers (Brie Larson) as a promising new cadet in Starforce, an elite military unit dedicated to protecting the Kree homeworld of Hala from the threat of Skrull invasion. For what she lacks in memories of her own life and story, she more than makes up for in wit, courage and pure power – an energy that her commander, Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), constantly counsels her to keep in check. When a Starforce mission goes wrong and she winds up on Earth, she starts putting together the puzzle pieces of her past as former Air Force fighter pilot Carol Danvers – and begins to reclaim what she has lost.

The Good: All told, Captain Marvel is an absolute blast to watch. Like its titular heroine, the film is fun, fearless and thoroughly feminist: celebrating Carol herself, as well as the women in her orbit who (she will soon discover) helped make her who she really is. The film’s genre-hopping – stacking psychological thriller on top of buddy comedy and spicing it all up with some space opera – doesn’t always work when taken as a whole. But each element of the film is delightful, especially when Carol meets and impresses Nick Fury (a CGI-de-aged Samuel L. Jackson, dialling the goofy charm up to 11) and they embark on a road trip that takes them all the way to the stars. It’s worth pointing out, too, that the film quite ingeniously deepens the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU)’s mythology, both backwards and forwards in time, while giving us the miracle that is Goose, a cat Flerken who will steal your heart and also strike fear into your soul – the way all the best cats Flerkens do.

The Not-So-Good: The first act of Captain Marvel is its weakest – it’s almost as if the film, like its title character, hasn’t quite figured out what it is or wants to be. That can make for a mildly puzzling first viewing experience, compounded by a script that makes no allowances for those who can’t keep up with the murkier politics of Kree-Skrull warfare. Due to the deliberately fractured narrative structure (mirroring Carol’s identity crisis), even Marvel aficionados, who can readily tell their Krees from their Skrulls and Marvell from Marvel, might find it challenging to follow the plot at first.

O Captain, Our Captain! Kudos are due to Larson for making all the disparate elements of the film and her character work. For one thing, she makes kicking inter-galactic butt look easy and effortless. But it’s in finding Carol’s heart and soul that Larson truly shines – a particularly impressive feat since she’s essentially playing a character who barely knows who she really is. Somehow, somewhere, in the midst of Carol’s snarky comebacks and fierce smackdowns, Larson promises us a real human being – one we’re excited to get to know better as the MCU continues to grow.

Nevertheless, She Persisted: One of Captain Marvel’s purest delights is its unabashedly feminist heart. In the film’s most emotionally affecting sequence, we see Carol getting up – over and over again, through the ages, over decades, all her life – when she’s told (particularly by the men around her) to stay down, to smile, to please others, to live a life that is nothing like the one she deserves to make for herself. It’s an electrifying moment that will resonate with women and girls everywhere, whose lived experiences are of a world that has them constantly questioning their worth and value. Carol’s true triumph isn’t against hordes of shape-shifting aliens or an imminent inter-galactic attack – it’s against the insidious horrors of toxic masculinity and gaslighting. What makes it all work doubly well is that the film also proudly celebrates the women in Carol’s orbit, from Annette Bening’s brilliant maverick scientist, Dr. Wendy Lawson; to Lashana Lynch’s fiercely competent fighter pilot/single mom, Maria Rambeau.

Fan Fare: Marvel fans, of both the film and comic-book variety, will find themselves very well-served by Captain Marvel. MCU devotees will be rewarded with origin stories for fan-favourite characters – not just Nick Fury, but also Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg), both of whom are decades away from their destinies with S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers. The script is canny enough to use and subvert fan expectations gleaned from decades of comic lore – testing our sympathies most notably in the form of charismatic Skrull leader Talos (Ben Mendelsohn). And be warned: this might well be the first movie ever that has you tearing up even before the opening credits, with Marvel having re-designed its production logo in honour of the late, great Stan Lee and the words he wrote that changed the world.

Recommended? Yes! Captain Marvel pulls off the rather incredible feat of being properly entertaining and enlightening. A film that will reward multiple viewings, it’s an essential addition to the canon of superhero movies.