Review by C.J. Bunce
As with the first three books in Abrams’ Cinemagic book series, The Moviemaking Magic of Marvel Studios’ Spider-Man blends filmmaking techniques with its key franchise star. Author Eleni Roussos combines a quickstart education in filmmaking, applied to Spider-Man’s MCU movies as the latest Spidey sequel, Spider-Man: No Way Home, is released internationally. If you love concept art, props and costumes, and all things Spider-Man, you won’t want to miss this.
Review by C.J. Bunce
With Avengers: Endgame still in theaters, another adaptation of the same source material that inspired that movie and Avengers: Infinity War is now available. It’s James A. Moore′s Infinity, a novelized adaptation of the Infinity comic book event from 2013. Moore adapts the key story details from Jonathan Hickman and Nick Spencer’s story across an array of comic book titles, drawn by several artists. In most ways Infinity will seem completely foreign to fans who are only aware of the movies. When people speak of the cosmic side of the Marvel universe they’re referring to the kinds of elements that form the backbone of this story. The Inhumans, known many by the short-lived television series, are a major component of the story. Like the graphic novel, the novel follows the Avengers and other superheroes of Earth trying to fight off ancient creators called the Builders, who believe that Earth would be better terraformed–leveled, destroyed, and rebuilt–than left as it is. At the same time Thanos is looking for his son. One of his loyal Children of Thanos (the Black Order in the novel), which consists of the same henchmen in the films plus a few others, ultimately finds him–his son, Thane–on Earth.
Fans of 1980s brief New Universe will recognize Star Brand and Nighthawk as major characters in this story. Missing characters seen in the graphic novel that don’t end up here are Luke Cage, Power Man, She-Hulk, Silver Surfer, Wasp, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Hank Pym, S.H.I.E.L.D., and Falcon. New characters for movie audiences include Manifold, Captain Universe, and the Atlantean Namor, the Sub-Mariner. Black Panther and Doctor Strange are still key to the story, but in different ways. Alien races include the Kree and the Skrulls, with Ronan the Accuser as a major player. The novel adaptation is spread thinly across universes as was the comics version. Keeping track of the characters without the benefit of seeing their unique costumes may be difficult for anyone not familiar with all the comics.
If you’re bothered by corporate guru Tony Stark as always the smartest guy in the room, which seems to be the thing in more recent years, especially with the popularity of the character from the movies, you’ll find some relief here. Fortunately Moore also uses Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards, Hulk Bruce Banner, and X-Men’s Hank McCoy aka The Beast–the three actual smartest legacy superhero characters–to work the moving parts of the problem. Ultimately what the reader brings to the book will determine the level of enjoyment. For anyone new to hundreds of tangent characters of the Marvel Comics, keeping track of Who’s Who is nearly impossible. Moore takes strides to bring background characters to the fore, including a romantic sub-plot, but who they are and why they should be important isn’t tapped into enough.
Review by C.J. Bunce
After 21 movies and a decade of superheroics, the end arrived this weekend with Marvel Studios′ Avengers: Endgame, already setting new box office records. Nearly every seat at multiple screenings at my local theater was sold out this weekend, as was the case across the country. Which means many have seen it, but even more haven’t. You can’t review a film without some details, so if you haven’t seen it yet, do yourself a favor: bookmark this and come back later. The short version: If you’re a superhero fan and you’ve followed the previous entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, you won’t want to miss it. But re-watch both Avengers: Infinity War and Captain Marvel first. I’ve no idea how anyone will follow the events in the film without first seeing at least these two films. Endgame is a good wrap-up to the first major story arc in the franchise and a fine segue into the future of the films. But it’s not perfect (what ever is?) and I’m going to walk through some goods and bads from the film.
That means “there be spoilers ahead” so consider yourself forewarned if you continue.
Note to email subscribers: Clicking on the link will take you into the full review.
Review by C.J. Bunce
Writer Stuart Moore returns this month with a solid follow-up to his multiple superhero-spanning novel Civil War, reviewed here at borg. Titan Books has released the tenth book in its Marvel Comics-based series of prose paperback novels, Moore’s Thanos: Death Sentence. Originally published in 2017, this is its first paperback release. If you’re after a story about Thanos, if you love the character and want to know what makes him tick, and the circumstances around wielding that kind of power during the events of Avengers: Infinity War, then Thanos: Death Sentence is for you. Those familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Avengers: Infinity War will find no spoilers for the film in this story, and it may just get you excited for the release of Avengers: Endgame in theaters next week.
It’s probably better knowing something about this story before jumping into the dense 336-page novel. Exciting, brilliant detailed superhero crossover events highlight the novel’s first 100 pages. In a parallel but different take on Infinity War, readers see Thanos kill off nearly every major superhero in the Marvel universe. It’s quite fun to read how Moore has Thanos do it, not with a single snap and turn to dust for everyone, but a specific, tailored death sentence for each hero. Wielding the Soul Stone Spider-Man gets relegated to re-live the death of his uncle through his own inaction, for infinity. Ben Grimm gets separated into his component stones and dispersed throughout the cosmos. With the Space Stone Thanos strands Captain Marvel beyond the solar system. The Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, Vision, Prince Namor, Black Panther, all snuffed out. And then it’s all undone. And that’s only where this story begins. The method of the undoing is not something that seems remotely possible for the movies–with far more characters introduced than we’re met on the big screen (since the entirety of the films were made before the merger with Fox to wrap in the rest of the Marvel characters).
Once the deaths are undone, Thanos the Mad Titan is forced to fight his way back to power by Mistress Death using the Infinity Wardrobe, pressed into the bodies of tangent characters in the lives of the famed Children of Thanos–his minions seen in Avengers: Infinity War: Proxima Midnight, Ebony Maw, Corvus Glaive, plus his adopted daughter Gamora.
When we created last year’s preview of 2018 movies we were pretty sure we were going to have some great movies this year, but we were surprised by what ended up being the best. All year we tried to keep up with what Hollywood had to offer and honed in on the genre content we thought was worth examining. We went back and looked at it all and pulled together our picks for our annual Best Movies of 2018.
Genredom. As always, we’re after the best genre content of the year–with our top categories from the Best in Movies. There are thousands of other places that cover plain vanilla dramas and the rest of the film world, but here we’re looking for movies we want to watch. What do all of this year’s selections have in common? In addition to those elements that define each part of genredom, each has a good story. Special effects without a good story is not good entertainment, and we saw plenty of films this year that missed that crucial element.
Come back later this month for our TV and print media picks, and our annual borg Hall of Fame inductees. Wait no further, here are our movie picks for 2018:
Best Film, Best Drama – Bohemian Rhapsody (20th Century Fox). For the epic historical costume drama category, this biopic was something fresh and new, even among dozens of movies about bands that came before it. Gary Busey played a great Buddy Holly and Val Kilmer a perfect Jim Morrison, and we can add Rami Malek and Gwilym Lee’s work as Freddie Mercury and Brian May to the same rare league. But it wasn’t only the actors that made it work. Incredible cinematography, costume and set recreations, and an inspiring story spoke to legions of moviegoers. This wasn’t just another biopic, but an engaging drama about misfits that came out on top. Honorable mention: Black Panther (Disney/Marvel).
Best Sci-fi Movie, Best Retro Fix, Best Easter Eggs – Solo: A Star Wars Story (Disney/Lucasfilm). Put aside the noise surrounding the mid-year release of Solo before fans had recovered yet from The Last Jedi, and the resulting film was the best sequel (or prequel) in the franchise since the original trilogy (we rate it right after The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars as #3 overall). All the scenes with Han and Chewbacca were faithful to George Lucas’s original vision, and the new characters were as cool and exciting, and played by exceptional talent, as found in the originals, including sets that looked like they were created in the 1970s of the original trilogy. The Easter Eggs scattered all over provided dozens of callbacks to earlier films. This was an easy choice: no other science fiction film came close to the rip-roaring rollercoaster of this film, and special effects and space battles to match. Honorable mention for Best Sci-Fi Movie: Orbiter 9 (Netflix).
Best Superhero Movie, Best Crossover, Best Re-Imagining on Film – Avengers: Infinity War (Disney/Marvel). For all its faults, and there were many, the culmination of ten years of careful planning and tens of thousands of creative inputs delivered something no fan of comics has ever seen before: multiple, fleshed out superheroes played by A-list actors with intertwined stories with a plot that wasn’t all that convoluted. Is it the best superhero move ever? To many fans, yes. But even if it isn’t the best, its scope was as great as any envisioned before it, and the movie was filled with more great sequences than can be found in several other superhero movies of the past few years combined. But teaming up Thor with Rocket? And Spider-Man with Doctor Strange and Iron Man? That beat all the prior Avengers team-ups that came before (and anything offered up from the other studios). It’s easy to brush off any given film with so many superhero movies arriving these days, but this one was the biggest, grandest, and greatest made yet and deserves all the recognition. Honorable mention: Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (Sony Pictures Animation), Black Panther (Disney/Marvel).
Best Fantasy Movie, Best Comedy Movie – Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (Columbia Pictures). No movie provided more laugh-out-loud moments this year than last winter’s surprise hit, a sequel that didn’t need to be a sequel, and a video game tie-in for a fake video game. A funny script and four super leads made this an easy pick in the humor category, but the Raiders of the Lost Ark-inspired adventure ride made for a great fantasy film, too. Honorable mention for Best Fantasy Movie: Black Panther (Disney/Marvel), Ready Player One (Warner Bros./Amblin).
Best Movie Borg, Best Borg Film – Josh Brolin’s Cable, Deadpool 2 (20th Century Fox). Brolin’s take on Cable ended up as one of those great borgs on par with the Terminator from the standpoint of “coolness” factor. But the trick that he wasn’t really the villain of the movie made him that much more compelling in the film’s final moments. Ryan Reynolds was back and equal to his last Deadpool film, and his Magnificent Seven/Samurai Seven round-up of a team was great fun. If not for all that unwinding of what happened in the movie in the coda, this might have made the top superhero movie spot. But Deadpool 2 was a good reminder there is something other than Disney’s MCU to make good superhero flicks.
It’s time for borg′s annual look at the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines in film and television. This year we selected 25 characters that rose to the top. Again the studios gave us more to cheer about than ever. We’re highlighting the very best from a slate of fantastic heroines, with characteristics to learn from and cheer on. Determined, decisive, loyal, brave, smart, fierce, strong (and, okay, sometimes evil), you’ll find no one here timid or weepy, but all rely on their individual skills to beat the odds and overcome any obstacle that comes their way. Over the years we have expanded the list to include any tough, savvy, gritty character played by a woman, so villains are welcome here, too. Some may be frazzled, put-upon, war-weary, or human, but all have fought, some against difficult circumstances, others against personal demons (literally, figuratively, or both), and some against gun and laser fire. And they all showed what a tough, kick-ass character is about.
In 2018 these characters broke new ground, and unlike last year’s great list, this year’s selections would not have worked as well had the characters been swapped for males. We had a former MI-5 agent, bounty hunters, assassins, doctors, defenders, advanced superhumans, superheroines, warriors, witches, and even a few cyborgs–with a roster evenly split between television and movie characters.
Better yet, here’s something we haven’t said before. Several of our selections this year were played by women over 50.
These are the Best Kick-Ass Genre Heroines of 2018:
Enfys Nest (Solo: A Star Wars Story). For the first half of Solo: A Star Wars Story, Enfys Nest was the leader of a band of pirates, a character as cool and ruthless as anyone Han Solo ever faced. But once she took off her mask, it became clear how important she was, how significant her mission was–even more so than Han Solo’s own pursuit of mere wealth. She foreshadowed what Han would later find with Leia, an early glimpse at a rogue and scoundrel who actually had some good in him. When they joined forces, it made their characters even better. And she became one of the best warriors in the Star Wars universe since the original trilogy. (Disney/Lucasfilm)
Okoye (Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War). Is there any woman warrior as powerful and impressive in a fantasy movie this year as Danai Gurira’s Okoye? We can’t think of any. A smart commander, a brave soldier, a loyal ally. Stalwart, devoted, steadfast, strong physically, intimidating and wise, with a keen unwavering ferocity, she represented the best of Wakanda, and fought bravely to defend the world at the last stand against Thanos. (Disney/Marvel)
Higgins (Magnum PI). Few television characters are as beloved as Jonathan Higgins in the original Magnum, p.i. So it was going to be risky having any actor step into the role John Hillerman made famous. So when the show honored the original character and late actor with such a finely tuned, updated character and actor, we took notice. Perdita Weeks’s Juliet Higgins is everything Robin Masters was–the character we all thought Higgins was in secret. We don’t know whether we’ll learn the truth this time around and what that truth will be, but as an ex-British secret service agent, she’s a James Bond for Thomas Magnum to partner with–literally running alongside the show’s star and fighting and shooting her way as an equal. And the result? Every episode of the first season was full of great action and fun. (CBS)
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Marvel Studios just released the second trailer for Captain Marvel, the final solo film before the Marvel Cinematic Universe formally winds up its first decade of films based on the Marvel Comics superheroes (called Phase III) with its second part of the Avengers: Infinity War storyline coming in May 2019. The new trailer arrives with a new movie poster featuring star Brie Larson (below).
Not many comic book events topped Infinity War discussions in 2018, with audiences left asking, “Wait–where did everyone go?” and “Are they coming back?” Before we learn the answers to those questions, for those who stayed after the credits, you’ll recall Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury sent a last-minute pager message to someone with a strange new symbol, right before he disappeared into dust. That was the symbol for Marvel’s Captain Marvel.
A big roster of acting talent will appear in this movie–Jackson joins Brie, and in this trailer we first see Annette Bening educating Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel, on her past. The film also stars Lee Pace as Ronan, Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson, and Djimon Hounsou as Korath, with Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) as Talos, Gemma Chan (Humans) as Minn-Erva, and Jude Law (Gattaca, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows).
Check out the new trailer:
In addition to Doctor Who’s new “woman who fell from the sky,” there’s another new heroine arriving soon the same way…
Not many pop culture events topped Infinity War discussions in 2018. It’s probably more fun to talk about the end of Marvel’s Avengers: Infinity War with passing fans than regular comic book readers. “Wait–where did everyone go?” and “Are they coming back?” Before we learn the answers to those questions, recall that, for those who stayed after the credits (and we know many of you walked out before that, despite the warnings, you know who you are), Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury sent a last-minute pager message to someone with a strange new symbol, right before he disappeared into dust. That was the symbol we see for the next new character of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the next movie in the franchise, Captain Marvel. (For the passing fan, that’s the Marvel Comics Captain Marvel, played in the new movie by 2015 best actress Oscar winner Brie Larson, not the DC Comics Captain Marvel played by Zachary Levi in the new Shazam movie).
Wait, why does Alison Brie look so different here? No, that’s Alison Brie from Community and GLOW, not Brie Larson, who was in an episode of Community, but you probably saw her in Kong: Skull Island or 21 Jump Street, or lots of other things. Keep up!
A big roster of acting talent will appear in this movie–Jackson joins Brie, with the return of Lee Pace as Ronan, Clark Gregg as Agent Coulson, and Djimon Hounsou as Korath, with Ben Mendelsohn (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) as Talos, Gemma Chan (Humans) as Minn-Erva, and we get to see more of everyone’s second favorite British actor, Jude Law (Gattaca, Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows).
Marvel released the first trailer for Captain Marvel today–Check it out:
As part of the continuing celebration of 10 years of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that kickstarted filmdom’s modern superhero blockbuster chapter, AMC Theaters are getting the entire team back together for an eight-day movie marathon nationwide beginning Thursday, August 30. Get ready for the Marvel Studios 10th Anniversary Film Festival. Marvel has converted three early films in the series to IMAX for the first time: Iron Man, Captain America: The First Avenger, and The Incredible Hulk. So the entire 20 film series will be screened in IMAX, plus many of the films will also be screened in 3D.
The announcement arrives with the home video release of Avengers: Infinity War, now available on Blu-ray and Digital HD, 4K, and DVD. If you missed Infinity War, check out our review here (and catch all our Marvel Cinematic Universe reviews below). This is your chance to catch up any or all of the films you might have missed in the theater, including the three 2018 releases Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Ant-Man and The Wasp. And it will give many younger viewers the opportunity to see some great superhero movies from the early days of the MCU on the big screen for the first time.
The big day of the festival appears to be September 3, with a great single-day line-up: Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, and Ant-Man and The Wasp. The series will run over Labor Day weekend, with four films per day from August 30 through September 5. On September 6, AMC will screen two fan-favorite films, to be selected by a fan vote. See the Marvel Studios 10th Anniversary Film Festival website for more details. It also seems likely based on past screenings that AMC may offer some kind of bundled purchase price for multiple shows. Check back to the website as the end of August nears for any additional promotions.
Good news for fans of Avengers: Infinity War (and who isn’t?):The movie will be available on digital, Movies Anywhere/Vudu, and 4K UHD on July 31, with the Blu-ray release arriving two weeks later on August 14. Marvel announced yesterday that digital copies will include a bonus feature, a 30-minute discussion with Marvel Cinematic Universe directors Anthony Russo and Joe Russo, Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, James Gunn, Ryan Coogler, Peyton Reed, and Taika Waititi. Amazon is now taking pre-orders for the HD and 4K/UHD streaming editions, as is Vudu. Vudu is also releasing a bundle with the first Avengers film and Age of Ultron. (Am I the only one who sees Captain America: Civil War as a key missing piece to this set?)
And just in case you missed them, Marvel Studios celebrated the 10th anniversary with a release of 33 character posters. You can probably expect that if the superhero isn’t in this line-up they won’t be key to the sequel next year–except for the lead superheroine of the one movie yet to be released, Captain Marvel, coming March 8, 2019. Check out all the posters below. The 32 characters include both those who lived and some who died under Thanos’s power, plus others who didn’t make it into Infinity War at all, like Valkyrie, Korg, Wong, and Hawkeye–really all but the Avengers support team members Happy and Agents Hill and Coulson. Marvel seems to recognize that fans still want to see more of the characters that made the posters.
Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman posted this trailer advertising the home release yesterday, and all the details known so far follow:
