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.

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.

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.

 

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Over the past decade, Marvel has earned itself the benefit of the doubt. The studio has consistently delivered smart, funny, brave films that both embrace and transcend their comic-book origins. The 18 blockbuster movies produced since Iron Man first blasted off into the stratosphere in 2008 have not only reinvented superhero films as a genre – they’ve helped to legitimise it. Indeed, Marvel’s two most recent films – Thor: Ragnarok and Black Panther – have received the kind of accolades usually reserved for edgy arthouse flicks.

And yet, it’s perfectly reasonable to be apprehensive about Avengers: Infinity War. This is a blockbuster film that’s been ten years in the making, its plot hinted at and scattered throughout 18 other movies. It features 30 or so characters, each with their own complex backstories and motivations. And all of them are coming together in a bid to stop a giant purple alien dude from destroying the universe. It sounds ridiculous, and feels impossible.

But that’s precisely what makes the final product such a monumental achievement. Masterfully directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, Infinity War is bold, brainy filmmaking at its very best: the kind that will lift your spirits, blow your mind and shatter your soul – occasionally in the same scene. It demonstrates on an epic scale what Marvel has known all along: that special effects and tightly choreographed action are there to serve the story. For all its blockbuster spectacle (and there’s almost too much of that), the film is anchored by the heart, humour and humanity of its characters.

The film’s basic plot is simple: Thanos (played via motion-capture by Josh Brolin), intergalactic purveyor of death and destruction, has long been on the hunt for the six Infinity Stones that will give him complete control over the elemental building blocks of the universe. He dispatches his acolytes to Earth to retrieve the Time Stone, currently in the possession of Dr. Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and carve the Mind Stone out of the forehead of Vision (Paul Bettany). It’s a literal existential threat so terrifying that all the heroes we’ve come to know and love – from the Avengers to the Guardians of the Galaxy – must put aside their differences and unite against a common foe.

From the outset, it’s immediately clear that neither the film’s directors nor screenwriters (Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely) are interested in playing it safe. Most other superhero films are bled of high stakes – the hero in the title might suffer untold trauma, but it’s a super-safe bet that he or she will make it to the end alive. There’s no such guarantee here. Within the first ten minutes, we are confronted with the dark, twisted depths to which Thanos and his acolytes in the Black Order will sink in order to achieve their goals. Death, as well as genuine loss and sacrifice, is intrinsic to the narrative drumbeat that drives Infinity War ever forward, and the film is all the better for it.

That’s not to say the movie is a morbid and depressing experience. What’s so impressive about Infinity War is how it expertly juggles its constantly shifting tones and moods. When it’s funny (and it very often is), it’s deeply, truly funny. The film finds maximum joy in flinging characters together with merry abandon, mixing and matching ones you’d never have expected to share scenes or trade banter. Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is floored by Thor’s (Chris Hemsworth) godly muscles. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) is charmed by the wit and intelligence of Shuri (Letitia Wright). And it’d be impossible to not be utterly delighted by Peter Dinklage’s inspired cameo. It’s a blithely tongue-in-cheek sensibility shared by Marvel’s best comic books, which understand that humour can make you care when it really counts.

And, boy, does Infinity War make it count. There are many heartbreakingly human moments threaded throughout the film: from the charming surrogate father-son dynamic shared by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr) and Peter Parker (Tom Holland), to the undeniable love that ties Vision and Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) together. In many ways, the film stands as a testament to the human capacity not just to love, but to love fiercely and beyond all logic. It’s right there when the unfailingly noble Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) declares, “We don’t trade lives”, even when giving up one could save billions.

There’s even a chilling echo of it in Thanos himself. A lesser film would have turned Thanos into a one-dimensional villain, much the way he’s all monster and maniac in the comic books. In Infinity War, however, Thanos’ end goal is surprisingly relevant when it comes to thinking and talking about the staggeringly overpopulated world in which we live today. There is, as it turns out, method to Thanos’ madness. It makes the tragic twists and turns in his relationships with his estranged adopted daughters, Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and Nebula (Karen Gillan), all the more unsettling.

For the most part, Infinity War does justice, too, to the many heroes who have been assembled for the film. The Russo brothers displayed great skill at interweaving multiple perspectives and character trajectories in Captain America: Civil War, and they do so again here, with twice as many characters. Even the most minor of supporting players, like Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes/War Machine, are given story beats that land. It helps that Marvel has always taken care to cast genuinely good actors in roles that might otherwise come off as silly and slight.

Even so, there are a few standouts amongst this enormous and enormously talented cast. Emotionally speaking, this is Downey’s film. He plays every note of Tony’s reluctant courage and bone-deep trauma, as he embarks on what he’s convinced is a suicide mission. He’s ably matched by Cumberbatch, who finds vulnerability even in his character’s most cunning and calculative move. Hemsworth, meanwhile, is given free rein to import the big-hearted comedic swagger of Thor: Ragnarok into this film – while also layering it with a deeply-felt, jagged grief for the losses he has suffered at the hands of Thanos and the universe.

In a film with so many moving parts, some elements don’t work quite as well. A couple of characters that you might have expected to be right at the forefront – including an original Avenger or two – fade into the background. The film tumbles from dizzying fight scene to dizzying fight scene, and while most of them are fantastically choreographed, there are some purely dumb moments that literally revolve around attempts to prevent Thanos from clenching his fist. In effect, this is a superhero mêlée that’s part over-the-top and part overkill, and might prove too much for those who don’t already care for this franchise and the characters in it.

Minor quibbles aside, though, Infinity War is yet another step in the right direction for Marvel. It continues the studio’s tradition of placing a premium on rich, complex storytelling that respects both its characters and its audiences. But it also refuses to make things easy for itself. The film ends even more bravely than it began, with a final ten minutes that will haunt and horrify you in equal measure. It’s a stroke of bold, brilliant genius – a narrative risk so audacious that you’ll want to follow Marvel wherever it goes next.

Basically: This movie will blow your mind and break your heart – and make you desperate to go back for more. Brave, brilliant and better than it has any right to be.

 

Black Panther (2018)

Superhero movies never get a fair shake. There’s always been an invisible – but undeniable – whiff of critical disdain attached to films revolving around people with superhuman abilities. More often than not, these films are viewed (and assessed) as popcorn entertainment: good fun, but not objectively good. Even the best examples of the genre are rarely, if ever, taken seriously by critics or award shows. But all that is set to change with Black Panther – a bold, brilliant blockbuster teeming with ideas, characters and messages that will make your soul take flight. For once, it’s no exaggeration to say that you’ve never seen or experienced anything like this before.

The film gets off to a somewhat sedate start, as we’re re-introduced to T’Challa (Chadwick Boseman), the freshly crowned King of Wakanda who is also infused with the ancestral powers of his nation’s panther god. Writer-director Ryan Coogler takes his time in introducing us to all the key players in the film’s first act, from the most important members of T’Challa’s royal court to the rites, rituals and rigidity of Wakanda itself.

It’s never boring, but Black Panther does linger in a minor key for a while. You might find yourself wondering just where the film is going, as T’Challa deals with a challenge to his authority from within Wakanda’s five tribes. It can be hard to imagine, too, just what the film wants to say when T’Challa – who could easily delegate the responsibility – takes it upon himself to personally hunt down dastardly arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) in order to retrieve a stolen artifact made of Wakanda’s most precious natural resource, vibranium.

But put your trust in Coogler – he’s certainly earned it with his masterful blending of tension, character and story in his previous two films, Fruitvale Station and Creed. As Black Panther unfolds, everything starts to make a whole lot of sense, in dramatic, emotional and narrative terms. Suddenly, we’re not just witnessing the growing pains of a new king. As it turns out, Black Panther is, for its titular character, an existential odyssey: as he fights for his nation’s survival, T’Challa must also grapple with the choices (and sins) of his ancestors, deciding whether to embrace or reject them.

Most significantly, Black Panther uses its blockbuster platform to examine complex issues such as racism and colonialism in thoughtful, intimate ways. The fiction of Wakanda – a hyper-evolved African nation that has kept its technological advances a secret from the rest of the world for centuries – allows Coogler to hold up a mirror to the facts of the world in which we live. In quite unprecedented fashion, we are presented with a host of proud, brave, indomitable African warriors who have lived their lives free of the horrors of slavery and institutionalised racism. Just as Wonder Woman gave little girls the world over a hero in their own image, Black Panther will do the same for generations of black children who have never before seen themselves represented on screen.

If that sounds impossibly weighty and grim, don’t worry. Coogler’s script, co-written with Joe Robert Cole, is far from preachy. There may be a hint or two of hand-wringing melodrama to T’Challa’s central dilemma – should Wakanda venture out into the world and lead by example? – but it’s cleverly off-set by the depths of darkness and despair written into T’Challa’s nemesis: Erik ‘Killmonger’ Stevens (Michael B. Jordan). Shaped by the very different circumstances of their lives, one man turns towards the light, and the other away from it – and yet, neither man falls simply into the black-and-white categories of ‘hero’ or ‘villain’. Somehow, Coogler shades centuries of history and hope into the conflict at the heart of their troubled relationship.

Black Panther is no slouch, either, when it comes to turning up the heat in terms of action and spectacle. There’s a jaw-dropping car chase through the neon-washed streets of Busan that’s easily one of the most exhilarating scenes you’ll see all year. Fight scenes are pulled off with remarkable flair, particularly when it comes to the swift military precision of the Dora Milaje – an incredibly cool, all-female special forces unit devoted to the protection of Wakanda’s monarch. Wakanda itself is an eye-popping fantasy scape: a heady blend of futuristic elements and African traditons, colours and music.

Leading the film’s top-notch ensemble, Boseman is the film’s quiet backbone: an invaluable presence and the reason everything holds together at all. He shares an electric chemistry with Jordan, who blends swagger, menace and pathos in creating the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most complex, nuanced and sympathetic antagonist to date.

Fantastic as the two leading men, however, they’re not the breakout stars of the film. That honour belongs to a trio of female characters – each one given depth, layers and a fierce, real on-screen presence that’s still rare enough that they shouldn’t be taken for granted. Lupita Nyong’o injects strength and steel into her portrayal of Nakia – a former and future love interest for T’Challa who manages to be interesting in her own right. The Walking Dead’s Danai Gurira is a force to be reckoned with as Okoye, the righteous leader of the Dora Milaje; while Letitia Wright’s Shuri – T’Challa’s younger sister who also happens to be Wakanda’s premier scientist – waltzes away with every scene in which she appears.

It may come as a surprise to some that Marvel’s latest superhero blockbuster tackles issues of race, representation and discrimination in so bold and unflinching a manner. And yet, fans of the comic books that have inspired Marvel’s entire slate of films would say: it’s about time. In the way it embraces its story and heritage, in the way its heroes are presented, and in the way its message will inspire and empower generations to come, Black Panther matters. And it cannot – and will not – be ignored.

Basically: This may be Marvel’s 18th film, but it feels like the studio is just getting started. Brave and brilliant, this superhero movie is like nothing you’ve ever seen before.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

In some alternate reality, a movie bearing the title of Thor: Ragnarok has taken itself very seriously indeed: full of literal doom and gloom, it’s an apocalyptic drama about the End of Days, as prophesied by Norse mythology. Since that pretty much describes the world in which we currently live, it’s actually rather fitting that Marvel’s 17th studio film is something else entirely. In our reality, Thor: Ragnarok is a wild, wacky and very welcome blast of pure joy – a raucous comedy that fuses an intergalactic road trip with buddy comedy, brotherly rivalry and battle domes. Thank Thor (and director Taika Waititi) for that!

We reunite with Thor (Chris Hemsworth) – still free of new Infinity Stones, freshly confident that he’s once again warded off the fabled Ragnarok – just as he discovers that something is rotten in the state of Asgard. As teased at the end of Thor: The Dark World, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), his shape-shifting trickster brother, has been impersonating their ailing dad, Odin (Anthony Hopkins). When Odin’s strength finally fails, the dark secret he’s been keeping at bay storms into the lives of his sons: Hela (Cate Blanchett), their bloodthirsty older sister, is back to claim the throne she believes is rightfully hers.

For (largely) better or (occasionally) worse, Thor: Ragnarok doesn’t dwell as much on the royal family drama as its predecessors did. Instead, its second act plays out on the candy-coated, death-dealing planet of Sakaar. Ruled by the whims and fancies of the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum, dialled to 11), Sakaar’s people are relentlessly entertained in their very own battle dome. (Think the gladiatorial contests of ancient Rome, with holographic screens and super-powered alien beings.) Following an initial devastating confrontation with Hela, Thor is stranded on Sakaar, and brought in by the mercenary Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) to stand against the raging primal force of the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) – not quite the “friend from work” Thor remembers.

If that all sounds like serious business, rest assured it’s very much not. There’s a gentle wit threaded through every frame of this film – a glorious, big-hearted (and largely improvised) silliness that fans of Taika Waititi will remember (and treasure) from such indie comedy gems as What We Did In The Shadows and Hunt For The Wilderpeople. Miraculously, Waititi has managed to infuse this gargantuan, green-screened epic with his trademark offbeat vibe, best exemplified in the way key plot points are revealed (via sardonic monologue or ironic stage play) and the character he plays (Korg, a chirpy rock monster who befriends Thor before our hero heads into the arena).

Waititi’s involvement is a blessing for pretty much everyone involved in the film, but especially for Hemsworth. It’s not that he hasn’t been good in his previous appearances as the God of Thunder throughout the franchise – he was suavely charming in Thor and resolutely grim in The Dark World. But he’s so remarkably good here, switching effortlessly between bright-eyed puppy and care-worn leader, that it feels like he’s finally come home. Hemsworth’s performance in this film is a fantastic balance of sunshine, silliness and subversiveness, and it’s a joy to behold.

It’s clear, too, that everyone in the cast – including respected veterans like Hopkins and Blanchett – were delighted to partake in the film’s mirth and mayhem. Ruffalo continues to play the dual aspects of Bruce Banner – looming brute and mild-mannered professor – with so much winning charm that you want him to get his own Hulk movie, stat. Hiddleston is totally game for playing up the odd-couple comedy of Loki’s rivalry with Thor, while shading unexpected complexity into his character’s machinations. Thompson swaggers off with practically every scene she’s in, finding the heart, humour and heroism in an Asgardian warrior who’s lost her way.

Perhaps more impressively, Waititi handles every Marvel blockbuster’s requisite action scenes with more clarity and flair than you’d expect from an indie director. He manages to find character and comedy beats even in swooping spaceship chases and bruising hand-to-hand combat. There’s a thrilling fluidity to the action sequences – whether it’s Thor soaring towards his enemies like lightning made flesh, or Hela unleashing her multiple projectiles of death with a dark, graceful beauty.

That’s not to say Thor: Ragnarok is perfect. As it turns out, the film’s greatest strength – apocalypse as afterthought – is also its biggest flaw. Waititi just about manages to find the emotional weight in Thor coming to terms with his power and leadership (a driving theme for this character), but it does get a little lost in all the knockabout comedy. Thanks to Blanchett, Hela is never less than terrifying: she oozes gleeful malevolence in her wake, forcing Thor to confront his own gold-tinted ideas of himself, his family and his history. Alas, she’s also one of that peculiar breed of antagonist who’s immeasurably powerful and strangely ineffective, all at the same time.

For years, Marvel has been making brave choices in terms of the directors to whom it has entrusted its stories and characters. This strategy has yielded films that are, for the most part, creatively diverse, ranging in quality from decent to excellent. Even so, handing the reins of the Thor franchise to a director with such a unique voice as Waititi might have been its biggest gamble yet. Fortunately, it pays off in spades. Smart, silly and self-aware, Thor: Ragnarok is a blockbuster that feels like it snuck into cinemas by way of the arthouse. It’s also that rare threequel which isn’t just as good as its predecessors – it’s easily the best of the lot.

Basically: Get ready to Ragnarok & Roll – this film is the most fun you’ll have in a cinema all year!

Ant-Man (2015)

For a few brief moments, the unstoppable juggernaut that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) looked like it was about to grind to a halt with Ant-Man. Unlike most other films under the Marvel Studios umbrella, this production has been haunted by doubt and dissension. Fans were nervous about the narrative decisions to relegate Hank Pym – the original Ant-Man in the comic books – to the sidelines, while killing off his wife Janet Van Dyne (who, as the Wasp, is one of the founding members of the Avengers). Then came that hugely publicised parting of the ways between Marvel and original director Edgar Wright, who oozes so much geek cred that people understandably mourned his departure from the project after years of development. And yet, the final product – Peyton Reed’s Ant-Man – is a fun, frothy delight, one that proves once and for all that Marvel knows precisely what it’s doing and where it’s going with the most crazily interconnected movie-and-television franchise of all time.

After serving his jail sentence, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) just wants to reunite with his daughter Cassie and get his life back on track. But he soon discovers that people in the outside world – including his ex-wife Maggie (Judy Greer) and her new cop boyfriend Paxton (Bobby Cannavale) – aren’t particularly kind to former convicts. Beaten down by circumstances, he agrees to pull off one last heist with his eternally optimistic buddy Luis (Michael Pena). It’s a crime that places him squarely in the path of Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a retired, semi-reclusive scientist who decides to enlist Scott in his life-long mission of preventing the Pym Particle – a technological breakthrough that allows him to become the super-small, super-strong Ant-Man – from falling into the wrong hands.

Truth be told, Ant-Man gets off to a somewhat shaky start. The tale of an honourable rogue who’s looking for a shot at redemption is a well-worn storytelling trope, one that the film initially seems to embrace rather too eagerly. As we watch Scott soldier through a host of tiny indignities, the dialogue – still credited to Wright and his co-writer Joe Cornish, with rewrites by Rudd and Adam McKay – is uninspired, and oftentimes uncomfortably on-the-nose. There’s no subtlety here, and the sense of fun that accompanies Scott’s attempt to hold down a job in Baskin Robbins feels a wee bit forced.

But the film kicks into higher gear, and stays there, once Scott stumbles onto or, more accurately, steals his second chance. His discovery of the Ant-Man suit and all that entails – working with Hank, meeting Hank’s aloof but eminently capable daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly), training to prevent Hank’s former protégé Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from replicating the Pym Particle for sale to the highest bidder – give the story the shot of adrenaline it needs. In the blink of an eye, this superhero heist flick finds its feet, and transforms into a whirlwind of action, humour and heart. Reed’s camera zigs merrily from Luis’ unique method of exposition (brilliant) to Scott’s attempts to survive Hope’s training (bruisingly hilarious), before zagging into the dark, trembling heart of Hank’s troubled relationship with his daughter.

Indeed, what makes Ant-Man work so well is its insistence on respecting its characters and taking their concerns and relationships seriously. This provides the film with an emotional anchor amidst all the madcap chaos and gleeful irreverence. Scott’s overpowering love for his young daughter runs parallel to Hank’s own concern for Hope, and even Paxton – initially caricaturised as the stereotypical brutish new boyfriend – is given layers and depth beyond what might be expected of a film that seems so silly on the surface. This culminates in the film’s best action sequence: one that manages to be utterly ridiculous, as the camera cheekily zooms in and out of a conflict that’s entirely proportional to the size of its participants; but also deeply heartfelt, when Scott makes a split-second decision between life and probable death.

For anyone concerned about Ant-Man subsisting in its own little bubble within the MCU, rest assured that there’s plenty on display here to please even the most diehard of fans. The film features not only a welcome cameo from a very popular agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but also ties Scott firmly into MCU continuity with a hugely pleasing direct reference to Avengers: Age Of Ultron. The subsequent semi-aerial battle that takes place between Ant-Man and a certain Avenger – whose identity has since been revealed in television ads – proves that this miniscule hero has what it takes to stand proud alongside the world’s mightiest champions. (Stay through the credits, by the way, for two incredibly exciting hints at what’s to come for the MCU in the future.)

As with all the other films and television shows in Marvel’s burgeoning media empire, the cast of Ant-Man is pitch-perfect. Rudd puts his goofy and amiably sexy charisma to excellent use as Scott, allowing us to believe that this one man can be as silly as he is strong, and as serious as he is funny. Lilly gets the big-screen role she richly deserves in Hope, who’s acknowledged at every point in the film as being better, stronger, and more capable than the men around her think she is. Douglas plays a far more palatable version of Dr. Pym (who can be tough to swallow in the comics), and does so with his trademark charm and magnetism, while Stoll gives good psychopath as the increasingly unhinged, patently cruel Cross.

Ant-Man may not edge out the other films that make up Phase Two of the MCU in a straw poll – it does, after all, face some pretty serious competition in what has been an unbroken run of truly excellent superhero films. But it’s an incredibly solid effort: smart, rich, deep and funny, teeming with ideas, genres and the potential for so much more. Now if that doesn’t make for a great superhero movie, what does?

Basically: It’s f-ant-astic.

Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014)

You might expect a movie studio at the top of its game to play it safe – to stick to the tried-and-tested rather than to strike out in new, odd, bizarre directions. Certainly, it’s hard to imagine any other studio giving the greenlight to Guardians Of The Galaxy – a huge, clearly expensive blockbuster movie based on a title unfamiliar to anyone who isn’t a comics aficionado, starring a relatively unknown actor playing a character most people have never heard of. And yet, Marvel scores big once again with its willingness to head off the beaten track. Guardians is a fun, fizzy delight, even as it mines some surprising depths of emotion from its ragtag group of anti-heroes – all of whom really belong more in a jail than in civil society.

Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) – a human abducted from Earth as a child – has grown up into an intergalactic thief who has no idea what he’s getting into when he takes possession of a mysterious Orb. All he wants to do is to sell it to the highest bidder. Little does he know that Ronan (Lee Pace) – a ruthless, genocidal Kree radical – will do just about anything to get his hands on said Orb, including sending genetically-modified alien assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana) after it. Gamora, as it turns out, has an agenda of her own. Trapped in an intergalactic prison (long story), Peter and Gamora are forced into an uneasy alliance with three other misfits: a brainy, sarcastic raccoon-like creature named Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper), a giant tree by the name of Groot (Vin Diesel), and the solely vengeance-minded Drax The Destroyer (Dave Bautista).

The truth is that there’s almost too much going on in Guardians. Not only do we meet a host of characters we’ve never met before, on a raft of new planets teeming with brightly coloured life and detail, we’re also introduced to several plotlines all stuffed somewhat awkwardly into the film. We have Ronan’s planet-destroying aspirations, which are somehow bound up with the evil plans of Thanos – that creepy purple-skinned dude who popped up at the end of The Avengers. Peter’s kidnappers turned surrogate ‘family’, led by blue-skinned bandit Yondu (Michael Rooker), are also on the trail of the Orb, turning up at moments both enormously convenient and inconvenient to the plot. It all makes sense in the end, more or less, but until it all clicks into place, it can make for a rushed, unsettling experience.

But there’s so much to enjoy in Guardians that it’s easy to forgive the film its occasionally unwieldy script. This is, by far, the most visually inventive and ambitious film Marvel has produced to date: it swoops from the homey interior of Peter’s rickety spaceship, equipped with an old-fashioned tape deck that ties him to his past, into the rocky alien vista of a discarded world, or the bustling streets of an outer-space hyper-market. The CGI – used to render gigantic mid-air battles, spectacular chase sequences in space, as well as turn Rocket and Groot photo-real – is beautifully done, adding to the bright, kitschy polish that characterises the film’s aesthetic.

Beyond the sheer look of it, Guardians triumphs because of the gang of scruffy losers (a term that will take on a different, more heartfelt meaning during the film) at its heart. Director James Gunn, who co-wrote the script, clearly feels a strong affinity for each one of these outcasts, all of whom are easily outlaws in some (if not all) parts of the solar system, each one battling – at least initially – to save his or her own skin rather than to save the world. It’s fascinating to watch the five members of this unusual, unlikely group trade disdain for respect as they slowly banter, bicker and batter their way into becoming a team.

Most joyfully of all, Gunn never loses sight of the prickly, selfish side of his characters.  He gives them plenty of rich, emotional moments – whether it’s Peter and Gamora bonding over the loss of their parents, or the fact that Rocket can read a whole range of meaning into Groot’s extremely limited vocabulary (‘I am Groot’) – but is always ready with a quip and a wink to keep the film from descending into dangerously sentimental territory.

In fact, Gunn pumps up proceedings with a healthy, hearty dose of humour. Films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) have always been more tongue-in-cheek than the likes of the considerably more dour Dark Knight franchise, but Guardians is a heady trip of a different order. It practically delights in bursts of odd, subversive comedy, and actually dares to punctuate its most epic face-off with a sly homage to, of all things, Footloose.

Pratt – so winning a comedian in TV’s Parks And Recreation – holds the emotional and (slightly a)moral core of the film together. He exudes an easy, rakish charm that makes Peter both dashingly arrogant and achingly vulnerable. He’s matched very well by Saldana, who is clearly delighting in the opportunity to play the world-weary, no-nonsense Gamora – bred into a killer, born a fighter. The rest of the cast does justice, too, to the film’s cheerful swing from drama to comedy and back again: Bautista brings unexpected pathos to Drax’s occasionally comical determination to avenge his family against Ronan, while Cooper sounds completely unlike himself – in a very good way – as a creature who hides a world of hurt beneath his mouthy exterior. Even Diesel manages to find a great deal of depth in a CGI character who only speaks in the same languid burst of three words.

If anything, Guardians is let down by a trio of not particularly threatening villains. Pace snarls and spits in heavy make-up, but can’t quite rustle up much in the way of nuance or genuine menace. Ronan is a one-note madman, with so little in the way of backstory that he automatically becomes less interesting. Thanos, too, now voiced and performed in motion-capture by Josh Brolin, doesn’t get a whole lot to do beyond lounge on his space throne. Only Karen Gillan’s blue-hued cyborg Nebula manages a smidgen of complexity; even then, she struggles to be half as fascinating as her conflicted “sister”, Gamora.

Before the film was even released in cinemas, Marvel announced that a sequel would be coming in 2017. It’s a no-brainer as to why. The film is smart, funny and quite wonderful on its own merits. But, even more crucially, Guardians is a gamble that pays off handsomely for Marvel. It opens up the MCU in, quite literally, all directions. Don’t be surprised if you see our more earth-bound heroes heading into the deepest, darkest reaches of space, sooner rather than later. Not only that, the film adds a new cast of wacky, loveable rogues to the MCU’s roster of characters: a gang who, one might say, are actually all the more heroic for being people who would ordinarily be running in the opposite direction from any galaxy-guarding duties. Frankly, we can’t wait to see what they get up to next.

Basically: Bold, brave and beautifully weird.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

There’s no denying that Marvel Studios is – by most industry standards – almost ridiculously brave. Its president, Kevin Feige, has given the green light to any number of projects, decisions and personnel that would make most studio executives faint from horror. He resurrected Robert Downey Jr.’s career (it’s hard to remember, sometimes, that recovering alcoholic Downey was down and almost completely out when he became Iron Man), and trusted out-of-left-field directors like Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon and Kenneth Branagh to helm his studio’s riskiest and most expensive projects. And here comes Captain America: The Winter Soldier – one of the bravest decisions of them all, if not an entirely successful one.

After fending off the Chitauri invasion of New York, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) again tries to settle down to life in a country – and century – he no longer knows. The young man with the old-school values starts working for Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) in S.H.I.E.L.D., an agency meant to protect ordinary people from external threats, but finds himself asking a lot of worrying questions about the way things are being done. “You’re holding a gun to everyone on Earth,” he frets manfully at Fury, “and calling it protection.”

When it becomes clear that the methods and machines of S.H.I.E.L.D. have been badly compromised, Steve teams up with the two people he’s decided he can trust – results-oriented Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) a.k.a. Black Widow and war vet Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) a.k.a. The Falcon – to get to the bottom of a nefarious conspiracy that threatens to destroy Earth as he has come to know it. Oh, and he’s also being chased by another genetically-engineered super-soldier: the titular Winter Soldier, who might possess a secret or two of his own.

There’s an enormous amount to love about Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It is, truthfully, the boldest entry in Marvel’s canon yet, and not simply because it dares to bring superheroes into the gritty, twisty world of spy thrillers. That, by the way, is a great touch, particularly in a really quite spectacular car chase through the streets of Washington D.C., one that culminates in a literally heart-stopping encounter in Steve’s shadow-lit apartment.

What the film really dares to do is shake up the mythos of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. Across several films now, Nick Fury has emerged as the sardonic but unquestionable defender of what’s good in the world. It’s somehow fitting that the most red-blue-and-white of superheroes should be the one who uncovers all the shades of grey. It’s a storyline that upsets the comfortable narrative of S.H.I.E.L.D. and its enforcers to date – including Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill, making a welcome return to the franchise – but also disrupts the way ahead (including, intriguingly enough, for Marvel’s companion television series, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.).

Directors Anthony and Joe Russo – best known for their work on cult TV sitcom Community – demonstrate a great flair for character development. This is a talky and occasionally silly picture, its plot getting more outlandish as it unravels, but the Russos make up for the occasional deficits in logic with a lot of heart and depth. Steve’s attempts to battle his survivor guilt allow him to connect with both Natasha and Sam, and there are some quietly effective moments when it becomes evident how much Natasha has come to care for Fury. Steve also gets the chance to re-connect with a couple of familiar faces from his long-buried past, which allows him to come somewhat painfully to terms with his strange, new-found life.

The film fares less well in terms of its unwieldy script, which marshals its unlikely elements together quite effectively but is – at the end of the day – formulaic and a tough sell. The big conspiracy lying at the broken heart of S.H.I.E.L.D. manages to be both predictable and ridiculous. It’s a narrative twist that feels a few decades too old, like Captain Rogers himself: a relic of a certain type of Cold War thriller on which this film is clearly modelled (think All The President’s Men), rather than an idea that better captures the nebulous shifts of the world’s current political climate.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier also frequently begs the question – more so than Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World did – ‘Where the heck are the rest of the Avengers?’ It beggars belief that only Steve and Natasha are reacting to the events of this film, which are catastrophic and earth-shaking enough to suggest that their old team-mates should really have popped in at some point. Surely Tony Stark would have something to say about the use of his doomsday technology in any scenario, much less this one!

The cast goes a long way towards making up for the hokier parts of the script. On paper, Steve is a rather one-note good guy, fighting for old-fashioned ideals in an unrecognisably debauched world. But Evans gives him heart and creates a huge amount of sympathy for the shield-wielding Captain America, particularly in a surprisingly emotional last-act confrontation with the Winter Soldier. This film also gives both Johansson and Jackson more to do than in any other Marvel movie to date, and they’re both so electrifying that you’ll continue to wonder why they haven’t yet received their own flagship movies.

The decision to cast Robert Redford – still hopelessly debonair at 77 years of age – as Alexander Pierce, Fury’s commanding officer and confidant, is a canny one. It’s a nice callback to the 1970s thrillers that made Redford’s name and no doubt inspired the grit and feel of Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Redford delights in the role, and helps make it appear more complex than it really is.

When it comes down to it, Captain America: The Winter Soldier can leave a little something to be desired when taken on its own merits. Frequently, its grand ambitions outstrip the logic and power of its script. As an extension of what has become the world’s biggest franchise of blockbuster films, however, it’s an unmitigated success. It’s brainy, dark, and boldly rips apart the entire underlying narrative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In that sense, at least, there’s no doubt that this is one of the finest blockbusters you’ll see this year.

Basically: A fine, bold entry in the Marvel canon, if not an entirely successful one.

Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Truth be told, Marvel could have slapped together a series of mediocre follow-up movies in the wake of The Avengers, and it wouldn’t have mattered. Nerds would have turned out no matter what, and a billion dollars’ worth of average movie-goer would be curious and interested enough to check out future installments in the franchise regardless of their quality. But, reflecting the studio’s canny business sense and genuine enthusiasm for its subject matter, Phase Two – in Marvel’s own lingo – has been excellent thus far. Iron Man 3 was arguably the finest of Tony Stark’s standalone adventures, and the gritty, witty Thor: The Dark World stands proudly as proof that there’s still depth and humour to be mined from the ongoing (mis)adventures of a Norse god and his trickster brother.

After the cataclysmic battle of New York, Thor (Chris Hemsworth) has returned to Asgard, leaving his human sweetheart Jane Foster (Natalie Portman) quite unaware of his whereabouts. It’s crunch-time for the Asgardians: their world and the nine realms associated with it, including Earth (Midgard to you comic book purists), are being threatened by the return of the Dark Elves, who – as their cheery name suggests – are hellbent on exchanging the light of the universe for primordial darkness. With Jane and his family drawn inexorably into the ensuing mêlée, Thor must seek help from the most unlikely of sources: his disgraced brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston).

Anyone who complained that Thor has hitherto been rather too earth-bound for a Norse god from outer space should be satisfied by The Dark World. It’s packed to the brim with sci-fi elements, ranging across a greyer, battered Asgard and the stark, sand-beaten alien vista of the Dark Elves’ homeworld. The ideas are huge, the battles written in cosmically personal terms: Thor’s battle to safeguard the people he loves is synonymous with his responsibility to Asgard and the worlds beyond it. Director Alan Taylor – fresh off the ground-breaking television series Game Of Thrones – proves a good choice to take the reins from Kenneth Branagh: he brings a dark, sombre realism to proceedings that feels apt for a film of this scale and ambition.

Never fear though – there’s a rich, welcome vein of humour that runs cheerfully throughout the film as well, a light-hearted touch that films set in the D.C. comic book universe would be well-advised to take on board. Dark, angst-ridden broodiness worked for the Dark Knight trilogy, more or less, but Man Of Steel suffered from its own unmitigated earnestness. There’s no such problem in The Dark World, which takes a while to dig itself out of the gravity of its situation, but pretty much gets there once the enormously appealing Loki becomes more firmly a part of the film’s narrative trajectory.

It’s no wonder, by the way, why Hiddleston has become a worldwide sensation for his utterly winning performance as Loki. Loki is, in effect, the personification of that problem many of us have with family members whom we have no choice but to love even if they make things difficult for us (or, you know, become supervillains). He exudes so much charm, vulnerability and complexity that the comparatively well-adjusted Thor is sometimes sidelined in his own movie. Loki’s machinations in this film, covering his usual gamut of vengeance, deception and trickery, add fire and heart to Thor’s story.

Everyone else is in fine, if varyingly overshadowed, form. Thor’s story is broadly the same as in the first film – his goal then was to prove himself worthy of kingship; here, he must prove himself worthy of being a leader (and recognising that this does not necessarily equate to sovereign power). Hemsworth sells that emotional arc very well. Portman could easily have been rendered a damsel in distress, but is actually given a little more to do as Jane, which allows her to encounter her potential parents-in-law to amusing and emotional effect. Hopkins, as always, is reliably great and Christopher Eccleston – buried beneath several layers of make-up – makes for a suitably sinister villain as Malekith, leader of the Dark Elves.

On a few occasions, The Dark World threatens to strain the credulity or patience of its viewers – the first half is slow-moving, and the final action-packed face-off in Greenwich charges ahead with more energy than logic. Nevertheless, Taylor’s film is a worthy addition to Marvel’s canon. It’s laced through with a deep, genuine affection for its other-worldly protagonists, and knows just when to take itself less seriously and when to reward its fanbase. (There’s a cameo in the middle of the film that’s worth the price of admission, and two credits stings – one in the middle and one at the end – that audiences should definitely stick around for.) Plus, it’s enormously entertaining. What more could anyone want?

Basically: Thor: The Dark World continues Marvel’s winning streak. Take notes, Zack Snyder.