Slightly Off the Mark

 One danger of watching "Deadpool and Wolverine" in the theaters is that you never know what was spilled on that floor you're rolling around on.

And I don't mean you'll be making out with someone because the movie's boring, either. No, "Deadpool and Wolverine" is exactly what it's advertised to be: Profane, fast-paced, irreverent, hilarious, and ... oh, yeah. Emotional.

That's the trick Ryan Reynolds and company manage to pull off. Deadpool speaks directly to the audience, talks about being in a movie, makes fun of Marvel and Disney, and just generally breaks all the rules. Then he grabs you by the feels and pulls you in until you actually care about this guy, despite the fact that you both know he's only a character.

Wade Wilson has left his super anti-hero days behind him and sells cars, badly, after a failed attempt to join the Avengers. But he's pulled back into his old life when he discovers his entire universe is going to end because of the loss of its anchor hero, Wolverine, who died during the events of "Logan". (Hey, it been out way too long for that to be a spoiler.)

That sends Wade on a multiverse-spanning search for another Logan to bring back, an attempt that treats us to several different Wolverines until Wade finds one that may work. Unfortunately, it's the worst Wolverine in all the universes. Together they set out on a blood splattered journey across timelines, encountering familiar help and villains along the way.

Yes, it has a plot. But just putting Reynolds and Hugh Jackman in a room together would generate plenty of fun for two hours, all by itself. They're clearly having a blast here, and yet, as mentioned earlier, they also generate plenty of pathos and suspense. After all, there are millions of universes, and Deadpool's isn't even the main Marvel one. There's nothing to say it will survive the fight.

I'm not sure there's any way to communicate just how much fun "Deadpool and Wolverine" is. It helps to know something of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (especially the TV series Loki). It also helps to be a fan of the comics, although its not necessary. Most of the main points we hit along the way are familiar to even those with only a passing knowledge of the MCU, for the same reason someone who's never seen Star Wars can spout off a dozen catchphrases and the basic plot.

Just the same, the sheer number of cameos, references, and background clues will bring squeals of glee from comic fans, even as non-comic fans enjoy the fast pace and no holds barred banter. Oh, and the stabbing. Lots and lots of stabbing. Did I mentioned the movie's rated R? Do NOT take your kids to see it.

But take yourself to see it. If you have half as much fun as Reynolds and Jackman clearly did, it'll be a good day.

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Remember: Books can be just as much fun as Deadpool, without having to clean up the blood.

 This is going to be a short one, because I don't like to put spoilers in my reviews--and "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is about as chock full of spoilers as any movie could be. Still, I should get something out of almost getting killed on the way home from the theater, so here goes.

At the close of "Spider Man: Far From Home" the duel lives of Peter Parker (Tom Holland, still my favorite Spider-Man) are revealed, and all the world knows he's a superhero. It doesn't go well. But then, nothing is ever easy for Peter. Casting around for a solution, Peter thinks: "Hey--casting. I'll talk to Doctor Strange!" (See what I did there?)

Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) feels grateful for Peter helping with that whole Thanos thing, so despite dire warnings he agrees to cast a spell that will make everyone forget Peter and Spidey are one in the same. But--again--things go horribly wrong, when Peter keeps wanting to make exceptions during the spell casting. Soon other realities are opening, forcing Strange, Peter, and his friends to fight a multitude of new challenges to keep the entire universe from unraveling.

Nothing like high stakes.

Now, chances are good that if you're interested in this movie, you're already aware of major reveals and surprise characters that pop up here. Just the same, I don't want to ruin the fun, so I'll just say "Spider-Man: No Way Home" is ... well, fun. I expected that.

What I didn't expect was the depth of characters, and the truly heart-rending moments that people who don't watch "comic book movies" would be surprised about. (Marvel fans know that, of course, having shed more than a tear or two over character deaths and other tragedies. Jeeze, Thanos, who didn't you just ask for twice the resources?)

Marvel has an uncanny ability to fit in a proverbial cast of thousands, and still have a coherent plot and great character moments. Here that makes for the best of the Spider-Man movies, and one of the better MCU flicks. I should have seen that coming, since Spidey always has a lot of heart--that's his real attraction.

My only caveat: To fully appreciate this movie, you really need to go back and watch all the previous Spider-Man movies--even though technically most weren't set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I've missed one, although I didn't have trouble keeping up, but it's a lot more fun if you see what's come before.

My score:

Entertainment Value: 5 out of 4 M&Ms. Because it's my rating system, and I can. It was totally worth holding my bladder, and then almost dying in a snowstorm.

Oscar Potential: 3 out of 4 M&Ms. In addition to the usual--effects and such--several of the performances here are at the Academy level, although I can't mention most of them because--spoilers. But the Academy will, of course, nominate movies they love: Slow and downbeat.

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At  last, a superhero movie starring a woman! Again.

I've mentioned before that I'm not a fan of politics in movies, including gender politics. I liked 1992's Buffy the Vampire Slayer despite its imperfections; I didn't like 1984's Supergirl despite loving the character. Still, you have to consider that the actual first female superhero movie, Supergirl, was a box office bomb. Could it be male fans just couldn't handle it back then? Maybe.

Just the same, my criteria for a great movie includes only: Do I love it? That's it.

From that standpoint, Captain Marvel is a great movie. 

Yes, if you're looking for female empowerment it's there in spades, but mostly in a below the surface iceberg kind of way that doesn't interfere with the fun. Brie Larson plays Vers, who's fighting on the side of an alien race called the Kree against the aggressive, awful, and certainly evil looking Skrulls. When a mission goes badly Vers finds herself stranded on the backward planet C-53, otherwise known as Earth in the 90s. There, while trying to hunt down the Skrulls, Vers stumbles across a young SHIELD bureaucrat named Nick Fury. 

They're working undercover; Fury even took his eye patch off.

From here on, Captain Marvel is at its best as a buddy comedy/adventure, with Vers and Fury working together to identify the Skrulls, who can shape-shifting into anyone. There are twists--one of them huge--and callouts to the comics and other movies along the way, while the amnesiac Vers also begins to uncover facts about her previous life.

There was some concern about Larson's ability to play Captain Marvel (she never goes by that name in the film), due largely to her youth, especially when we find out she's been a warrior for many years. It's baseless: Larson does a fine job, even holding her own against Samuel L. Jackson's Nick Fury. Jackson gets de-aged thanks to movie magic, which makes me wonder if I shouldn't get into acting now that I can be thirty again. 

See, you know the Skrulls are the bad guys, 'cause they're ugly, and green, and have pointed ears. Like Vulcans.

The other actors also do a fine job, including Jude Law as the leader of the Kree battle force, Annette Bening as Dr. Wendy Lawson, and Lashana Lynch as a former fighter pilot--the latter two figure into Vers' past. It was great seeing Clark Gregg again as Agent Coulson, this time as a green young agent in a sadly small part. Then there's the cat. Don't miss the cat.

Captain Marvel has the usual great special effects and action sequences, and it's fun to look back to 1995 and see what's changed since then. Although for me the opening sequences labored to grab my attention, the movie more than made up for it as it went along.

My rating:

Entertainment value: 4 out of 4 M&Ms. I enjoyed it even more than most Marvel movies, and that's going some. You can't beat a superhero movie that takes its world seriously while applying a nice layer of humor.

Oscar Potential: 2 out of 2 M&Ms. There's nothing wrong with Captain Marvel from a quality standpoint, but it's a superhero movie. You're not likely to see much Oscar attention for those now that Black Panther's done. Unless they do a Black Panther/Captain Marvel crossover, of course.

I'd watch that.

"After surviving a near fatal bovine attack, a disfigured cafeteria chef (Wade Wilson) struggles to fulfill his dream of becoming Mayberry's hottest bartender while also learning to cope with his lost sense of taste." -- Twentieth Century Fox

And there you have it. And, just in case you don't already know you're diving into a comic book movie turned surreal and sideways, in the opening scene the main character complains about the main character of an entirely different comic book movie stealing the idea of the original Deadpool's R rating. While showing a model of a dramatic scene from the other movie.

Deadpool: Tell me they got that in slow-motion...

At the opening of Deadpool 2 our hero (Ryan Reynolds) has everything: A loving girlfriend, a  successful life as a freelance crime fighter/assassin/wiseguy, and the ability to heal from the most severe of injuries. Obviously he'll fall hard, and in short order superhero Colossus rescues him from the debris of his life (literally and figuratively) and tries to make Deadpool an X-Men trainee.

It doesn't work. What pulls Deadpool out of his funk is a foul-mouthed teenage mutant hunted by the time traveling killer Cable (played by Josh Brolin, who was also Avengers villain Thanos.) To protect the flame-throwing kid from Cable, Deadpool assembles his own team of superheroes, who he nicknames X-Force.

Cable: Who are you? Deadpool: I'm Batman.

It's all very regular superhero-ish. Or it would be, except this is the Deadpool word, where everything goes sideways with hilarious results. To some extent the Deadpool films can be compared to Mel Brooks movies: crude, politically incorrect, and always winking at the audience--sometimes literally. No one-liner is out of bounds, no sight gag too vulgar, no convention above being poked fun at. At one point I quite literally fell out of my chair.

Oddly enough, there were also a few scenes that hit you in the feels, which may be the most unexpected thing about Deadpool 2. There's an actual story there, with personal tragedy on more than one side, and once or twice it's even treated seriously. Not by Deadpool himself, of course. There are also huge chunks of graphic violence, again sometimes literally chunks, cursing, and general hard R-ratedness of the type that would have brought an X when I was a kid. It's not for the little ones.

The new breakout character could be Zazie Beetz's Domino, whose mutant superpower is ... luck. This leads to a funny sequence in which Deadpool insists luck is neither a power nor cinematic, while Domino proves him very wrong on both parts. I also liked the introduction of Yukio (Shioli Kutsuna), who's relentlessly friendly and cheerful, but also more than she seems.

Deadpool: Luck isn't a superpower. And it isn't cinematic! Domino: Yes, it is. Deadpool: I'm gonna meet you in the middle and say no.

My rating:

Entertainment value: 4 M&Ms, the good green ones. This kind of funny is not for everyone, for sure--but it made me giggle helplessly and roll around in my chair.

Oscar Potential: 1 M&M. Yeah, the Academy isn't going to touch this one.

I almost skipped "Black Panther" when I started hearing the initial reviews. "social awareness"; "responsibilities of a nation"; "the superhero film we need now"; "politically aware".

Gah.

As an information junkie, I'm overwhelmingly aware of news, politics, issues, and both the best and worst of human nature. My wife is constantly telling me to let it go and do something relaxing, which is darned good advice. I go to superhero movies for relaxation. Not necessarily mindless, but fun, funny, action-oriented entertainment where the good guys are mostly good and the bad guys are mostly bad

If you're a comic book fan you're already protesting, but hold that thought.

Granted that the Marvel Cinematic Universe has never shied away from serious issues, but they're usually good at mixing them with, you know, entertainment. Would "Black Panther" sacrifice being a good movie in favor of an agenda?

No. No, it wouldn't, and I would be very happy indeed to go see it again tomorrow. So relax ... besides, it's not like there aren't some people who could stand to up their awareness levels.

If it seems like I'm spending half my review addressing the political and social issues, hey--so do most of the other reviews. But I'm a casual moviegoer, so let's get on with the entertainment part.

The entertainment part is awesome.

You might remember that during "Captain America: Civil War", the king of the small African country of Wakanda was killed, leading to the reveal of his son, the legendary Black Panther. Say, that must be where the movie's name came from! In "Black Panther" T'Challa (Chadwick Bosemen, fantastic) returns to Wakanda to be crowned the new king, to replace his dead father.

Things don't go as planned.

T'Challa faces challenges from within his own family, and from a previously seen outside villain who's out to get his hands on the rare metal that makes Wakanda rich and technologically advanced. Wakanda has hidden those riches from the rest of the world, which brings out a major question when a ghost from the previous king's past returns: should Wakanda continue to protect itself, or use its advancements to help the rest of the world?

Which brings me back to where I started, because you really can't tell that story without addressing today's world problems. And that's okay, because despite what I said above, comics and superhero movies have been addressing social issues almost from the beginning. My fear that "Black Panther" would tilt too far in the other direction was unfounded: We still have a well made, entertaining, action packed, and occasionally humorous movie, just as we've come to expect from Marvel.

There were occasions when the digital effects were a little obvious, but overall "Black Panther" is beautiful to watch, with a gripping story. There are fewer than usual shout-outs to the Marvel universe:. Andy Serkis returns as the villainous Ulysses Klaue, and Martin Freeman reprises his CIA agent Everett K. Ross. There are two other cameos (come on, you know who one of them is), including one at the end of the credits.

Michael B. Jordan almost steals the movie as Erik Killmonger. In the tradition of great Marvel villains he's over the top, vicious, and ... has a point, just like another Marvel Erik, from the mutant side.

The rest of the cast is awesome and perfectly cast, especially Danai Gurira as the general of the Wakanda army, Angela Bassett as T'Challa's still grieving mother, and Letitia Wright as T'Challa's sister Shuri, who's the Q to Black Panther's James Bond.

My score:

Entertainment Value: 4 M&M's. No, it's not the best Marvel superhero movie I've ever seen; but it's one of the best.

Oscar Potential: 3 M&M's. The Academy loves to ignore superhero movies ... but they're going to have a hard time ignoring this one.

We saw a movie in 3-D today, by accident.

I can take or leave 3-D, and since it costs more I usually leave it. But we’d misread the schedule, and rather than wait around another half hour we chose to watch Ant-Man in three dimensions. It was in a theater which just replaced its seats with power recliners, which makes it a far cry from the movie-going experiences of my youth. I can take or leave the recliners, too. It’s nice to not worry about a tall guy sitting in front of you, though.

Happily, in this case the movie uses 3-D without relying on it. Sometimes moviemakers overthink the format, throwing everything from arrows to crashing vehicles at the viewer in the hopes of setting a new audience jump record. I wonder if the same thing happened with the first talkies, or the color films? Probably early movies in those formats threw their newfangled tricks at viewers, just as the early 3-D movies did.

But the day will come when 3-D will be just another part of every movie experience, regardless of how much some hate it now. Having things jump off the screen at you will be no more remarkable than hearing Johnny Depp’s newest accent, or seeing the primary colors of a superhero’s costume. I’ll probably choose 2-D for some time to come … just as people chose the less garish black and white movies decades ago. But I can go either way.

As for the movie itself? Ant-Man was great fun, and I highly recommend it in the dimension of your choice.

            Am I so much of a geek that I care when actors from some of my favorite shows come together in one movie?

            Yes. Still, this movie doesn’t need the help.

The consensus was that Guardians of the Galaxy, based on a comic book that most people who don’t read comics have never heard of, would be blockbuster or complete bust. Chris Pratt, the guy from “Parks and Recreation”, as a leading man action hero? Marvel going into space? A raccoon with a gun? Disaster looms.

            But this is Marvel. And yes, Marvel is bound to have another huge dud sooner or later … but not this time.

            Despite being known for its humor, the movie actually starts out with a tear jerking scene in which a little boy named Peter Quill sees his mother die of cancer—then, immediately after, he’s abducted by a UFO. Fast forward 26 years, and we find the adult Quill dancing—literally—into what looks like an Indiana Jones set on an alien planet.

            There Quill finds a strange orb that you just know everybody’s going to want. He’s ambushed by a bad guy who also wants the orb, and from then on it’s a slam-bang series of fights and flights as just about everyone in the galaxy battles for the power that resides inside the artifact.

            One of the most fun fights is also where most of the fellow guardians gather for the first time, all intent on taking the orb. Zoe Saldana’s performance as Gamora is killer—literally. But even she loses the screen when Rocket and Groot—an engineered Raccoon and a walking, talking (a little) tree—show up.

            Rocket Raccoon should have been ridiculous. Instead, the sarcastic rodent, voiced by Bradley Cooper, makes everyone else step up their game just to keep up. Later we meet the last member, Drax, played by a pro wrestler—apparently wrestling really is fake, ‘cause the guy can act.

            All the GotG members are damaged anti-heroes, who reluctantly decide to protect the orb from various bad guys. (Their motivation? For one thing, they do live in the galaxy, after all.) You have to pay attention as characters come and go, motivations are revealed, and wises are cracked. Luckily, paying attention is fun.

            Guardians is certainly the best I’ve seen this year, and I’ve seen some pretty darned good movies. Why? It’s a good story, and funny, and naturally the special effects are amazing. I’m fairly convinced at this point that they really did find an intelligent, if mean, raccoon and a slightly less intelligent moving tree to play Rocket and Groot.

But in the end it’s the cast that makes the movie. Chris Pratt is a revelation as Quill, fighting and cracking wise with equal skill. Saldana is amazing, and we get great performances from actors such as John C. Riley and Glenn Close, among others. I take it Close thought she was slumming for this roll, but she gives it her skill and it shows.

On a note relating to my earlier comments, it was great fun seeing Michael Rooker, playing an intergalactic version of his redneck bad boy character from “The Walking Dead”, and Karen Gillan, playing someone just as tough but way more evil than her “Doctor Who” role.

Oh, two more things: First, Peter Quill’s oddly timed abduction as a child does make sense. Second, there is indeed an extra scene at the end of the credits, which I suspect will leave many younger movie goers scratching their heads.

            Entertainment Value: 5 out of 4 M&M’s. My review, my rules.

            Oscar Potential: 3 out of 4 M&M’s. Hollywood muckity-mucks hate SF, especially funny SF, although they don’t hesitate to take the money. Just the same, it would be a shame if Guardians of the Galaxy doesn’t get nominated for something, even if it’s a technical Oscar.

            Side Note:  If Guardians is sold out, check out Lucy or Planes: Fire and Rescue. One is thrilling and mind blowing, the other truly fun family fare. On a personal note, whoever scripted the Planes movie took the time to research firefighting, which I appreciate.

They look a little different in the movie ...