Aquaman: Spectacular world-building and a perfectly cast hero overcome clunky dialogue and wooden acting

The Aquaman comic book character that I grew up with (70’s comics and 60’s cartoon shows) looked and behaved quite differently from the version that evolved in the 90’s. He went from being a clean-cut do-gooder to a rather wild, edgy and unpredictable hero, with the arrogance of his royal lineage but with compassion born out of his time being raised among common surface dwellers. In the 2010s, he’s gone back to his clean cut look, but retained the edginess.

Aquaman through the years (left to right): 1) Clean-cut look of the 1960’s and 70’s.
2) sporting long hair and beard from 1994; soon after, he lost his hand and it was replaced by a harpoon hook.
3) the current “clean and mean” look of the 2010’s.

Warner Bros. made a good call to go with the 1990’s wild look and found the perfect casting in charismatic 39-year-old Hawaiian actor Jason Momoa, who is surely getting a ton of hits on his Instagram page this month as Aquaman opens to big box-office numbers in theatres around the world.

The cast is rounded out with a host of big names/great actors (not necessarily the same thing) like Nicole Kidman (playing Aquaman’s mother Atlanna), Temuera Morrison (as his human father, Thomas Curry), Patrick Wilson (as King Orm, Aquaman’s half brother), Amber Heard (as princess Mera), Dolph Lundgren (as her father, King Nereus), Willem Dafoe (king’s advisor Vulko) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (as mercenary/pirate Black Manta).

I will repeat what every other reviewer has said about the movie – the world building is pretty spectacular. We have become used to seeing alien worlds in sci-fi films and take for granted that with CGI, there is no limit to what can be rendered on screen in a live action film. I guess the novelty here is that the ‘alien’ world of Atlantis is situated in the deep oceans of our own planet. It is depicted in incredible detail…ancient ruins, modern high-tech cities, fantastical underwater creatures and the post-human evolutions of Atlanteans, including the Fishermen and the dreaded Trench! I had to constantly pan my eyes from one corner of the screen to the other to absorb all the detail. Watching it on a giant IMAX screen is the only way to see it! There are several action set-pieces and all of these are immensely entertaining, including the early submarine sequence, the chase in Sicily and the jaw-dropping final battle.

The only exception to the whole look and feel were the women’s costumes. Both Amber Heard and Nicole Kidman looked rather uncomfortable and ridiculous in their form fitting outfits; Jason Momoa on the other hand looked just fine, as he finally emerged in his signature gold and green outfit towards the end of the movie.

The problems begin when the action stops. That’s when people have to talk to each other and it starts feeling a bit like the Star Wars prequels directed by George Lucas in the 90’s; Oscar-nominated actors look ill-at-ease delivering their lines and even we in the audience are just waiting for them to stop talking and do something else! Case-in-point were the scenes involving Jason Momoa and Amber Heard, as I could see no chemistry between them whatsoever (in sharp contrast to say, Gal Gadot and Chris Pine in Wonder Woman or Henry Cavill and Amy Adams in Man of Steel and Superman v Batman). There were exceptions though – when Aquaman shares a drink with his father in a bar, or when Vulko is training young Arthur Curry to become Aquaman, there seems to be genuine warmth between the characters.

It’s a pity we no longer live in the era of memorable movie scores; I think lazy music directors find it too easy to splice in some pop or rock song into a key movie scene and this is the same thing with Aquaman as well. Songs like Pitbull’s Ocean to Ocean (which inexplicably samples Toto’s Africa, just because the scene is set in the Sahara desert) or Roy Orbison’s lovely She’s a Mystery to Me, just seem to stick out like a sore thumb.

Irrespective of these specific complaints, the overall movie is entertaining, mainly on the strength of Jason Momoa’s screen presence, the action sequences and of course, the incredible underwater world of Atlantis. In spite of mixed reviews from critics, Aquaman has already raked in big money since opening in China a couple of weeks ago and is expected to open big in North America this weekend. Warner Bros. must be relieved that their standalone superhero movies (Wonder Woman being the other one) are seeing better traction than their ensemble films like Suicide Squad and Justice League. Surely the way forward is to continue exploring the individual stories (and also ensuring that Zack Synder doesn’t direct any of them!). At the same time, I can well imagine Warner Bros. considering an on-going TV series that further explores the worlds, cultures and peoples of Atlantis, perhaps with just the supporting characters, just as Marvel has done with S.H.I.E.L.D. or Disney is about to do next year with The Mandalorian series set in the Star Wars universe.

David Ayer aims high but falls short with Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad has disappointed a number of critics as being less than the sum of its parts. After watching it, I tend to agree, particularly since director David Ayer had done two very entertaining ensemble movies prior to this – the well-received World War 2 film Fury and the critically massacred drug-enforcement-team-gone-bad action flick Sabotage – both of which I loved and wholeheartedly recommend. In fact, Sabotage had the kind of vibe that Suicide Squad should have had; it’s an R-rated film with gratuitous violence and unlikable characters – exactly what was missing from Suicide Squad. Not surprising…while Sabotage was an independent production, Suicide Squad is from a large corporation, namely Warner Bros. and I guess some studio execs didn’t have the courage to do with the movie what Fox did with Deadpool earlier this year., i.e. give it an R rating. Even though Deadpool is part of Fox’s X-Men universe, the studio had no trouble making an edgy, R-rated film for grown ups, being quite clear that the film was meant for a very different audience quadrant compared to the kid-friendly X-Men films.

Suicide Squad on the other hand, takes two steps forward and then retreats a step. Instead of portraying a team of hardened death-row criminals, who are in fact the biggest foes of the Justice League superheroes, we end up with a team of social misfits who all appear to have hidden hearts of gold.

Take Will Smith’s character for instance. He plays Floyd Lawton, aka Deadshot, the world’s deadliest marksman who never misses; an assassin for hire. The writers have picked one particular storyline from the comic books in which Deadshot has an estranged daughter who he cares for. In the movie, this daughter and his need to do right by her becomes a big part of his character. What could have been a really kick-ass anti-hero/ supervillain instead became Will Smith playing some misunderstood guy with a heart of gold. I can well imagine Will Smith or his reps insisting that his character be given these redeeming qualities in order to protect his future box office potential and public persona.

Another key character, the psychotic criminal Harley Quinn (played by Margot Robbie) starts off very convincingly as the former prison shrink who is the lover and accomplice of the Joker. In fact, Robbie has done an outstanding job with the character, but towards the end there is once again an attempt to give her a softer side and some emotional bond with the rest of the Squad, which really jars with her character traits upto that point.

Harley Quinn and Deadshot are inmates at the Belle Reve Penitentiary for supervillains. They along with a few others (Killer Croc, El Diablo, Captain Boomerang) are offered a partial amnesty by shadowy government operative Amanda Waller in return for joining a black ops team to combat possible metahuman attacks (her logic being that the next Superman need not be a good guy). In fact, as is so often the case with the US government, it is one of their own ‘creations’, the ancient witch named Enchantress, who goes rogue and ends up creating havoc across several city blocks. The squad is assembled under the leadership of an Army special forces officer named Rick Flagg and off they go. After many predictable action scenes, the squad members have a chance to escape but instead choose to ‘do the right thing’ and save the city.

In return for a job well done, they are put back into Belle Reve, with the only hope of getting out of solitary confinement being their willingness to volunteer for a future black ops mission.

The Joker, played by Jared Leto, had promised to make a big impact in the movie. Although he does have reasonable screen time and is chilling in an early scene with a gangster in a night club, the character soon becomes part of the background noise once the action begins.

I also had a problem with the soundtrack, which was filled wall to wall with many recognizable hits from the past. I know this approach was pulled off with great aplomb by James Gunn in Guardians of the Galaxy, but in general I don’t have much respect for this sort of ‘lazy composing’. I found it somewhat condescending, as if the dumb audience needs the song to understand the underlying theme/ tone/ message of a particular scene.

In spite of all the criticism, I actually found the movie reasonably entertaining. It was, as we Indians say, a typical ‘masala movie’, or in western parlance, a ‘popcorn flick’. Just laugh along at the slightly predictable jokes, sit through the fight scenes that blur into each other and every now and then, you are rewarded with a genuinely well choreographed sequence or smart punch line. In particular, I enjoyed the cameos from a couple of Justice League members.

Overall, a case of too many characters and too much ambition being squeezed into the confines of a two hour film.

Studios race to build cinematic universes

We’re all familiar with the Marvel Cinematic Universe which so far has given rise to several highly successful and mostly well-regarded movies, not just from Marvel’s parent company Disney but also from other studios like Fox and Sony which own the franchise rights for the X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man respectively.

The interconnectedness of their titles allows Marvel to launch movies based on new and sometimes little-known characters with the knowledge that they can reduce the financial risk by introducing the character in a related (and already successful) movie series. Some members of the Avengers like Hawkeye and Black Widow were introduced in the Iron Man films and Black Panther was recently introduced in Captain America: Civil War.

Rival comic book powerhouse DC Comics (which is owned by Warner Bros.), actually has the more iconic superheroes by far and has successfully brought both Superman and Batman to the big screen, but had previously been unable to use either film series to launch other characters from their staple. They finally put a roadmap together a few years ago to build a series of films around the Justice League (DC’s version of the Avengers). This started off with Man of Steel in 2013 and followed up with this year’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, both directed by Zack Snyder and both somewhat disappointing. In the past few months, a senior task force has been assembled to sort out scripting and creative issues. Today’s release of the first trailers for Wonder Woman and Justice League (both due in 2017) indicate that they may have got their act together. As a bonus, Suicide Squad, an R-rated anti-hero movie which was once considered a ‘side-show’ in the DC Cinematic Universe is now among the most anticipated releases of the year and may fuel public interest in the movies to come, possibly even forcing Warner Bros. to include Suicide Squad characters in the other films.

So it’s clear that studios are now looking not just to create franchises but cinematic universes. As per the Marvel formula, a universe can be created by starting with a series featuring one character (e.g. Iron Man) and then by launching new series featuring other lead characters, who were introduced in the original series. Another way to milk an established franchise is by creating spin-off films starring supporting characters or by going backwards or forwards in time within the franchise timeline to tell the story of an earlier or later generation of characters.

The latter approach is exactly what Warner Bros. is trying with the forthcoming release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This is the first in a new trilogy set nearly a hundred years before the events of the Harry Potter films. It narrates the adventures of ‘magizoologist’ Newt Scamander whose book on magical beasts was one of the required school textbooks at Hogwarts. Talk about inventive thinking! I’m sure the folks at Warner Bros. must be looking through all the Harry Potter stories to figure out how many other characters or references can be spun off to further expand the Potter Cinematic Universe.

Disney is employing a combination of both strategies to rejuvenate and extend the 40-year-old Star Wars franchise. Faced with the reality that the original cast are ageing, they introduced a new generation of  characters in last December’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens to whom the torch is passed to continue the good fight against the evil empire. But that’s not all. Disney is also doing a ‘Newt Scamander’ by creating a series of spin-off ‘anthology’ films, which expand on characters and situations from the original trilogy. The first of these is Rogue One: A Star Wars Story releasing at the end of this year. This will be followed two years later by an origin story for Han Solo.

A new universe in the making that I am very excited about is the one coming from Universal Studios. This one will bring together the classic horror monsters which brought the studio great success from the 1930s to the early ’50s. If all goes according to plan, we will get to see Count Dracula, Frankenstein’s creature, The Mummy, The Wolfman, The Invisible Man, The Gill-man (from 1954’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon) and Dr. Jekyll all occupy the same cinematic space over the next few years. The first movie in the series was a bit of a misfire – Dracula Untold from 2014. Presumably the studio already knew they had a dud on their hands and therefore refrained from publicly marketing this film as part of a future franchise. Instead, they will launch the franchise with a far surer bet – a new remake of The Mummy set in modern times, starring Tom Cruise scheduled for release in 2017. Russell Crowe will appear in the movie as Dr. Jekyll, perhaps testing waters for a stand-alone Jekyll & Hyde feature. Earlier this year, it was announced that Johnny Depp would star in The Invisible Man for a 2018 release.

Meanwhile, Warner Bros. with production partner Legendary Pictures is attempting to create a universe which brings together King Kong and Godzilla. The 2014 remake of Godzilla is being treated as the first film in the ‘giant super-species cinematic universe’ to be followed by Kong: Skull Island in 2017 and Godzilla 2 in 2018.The first trailer for the former was released yesterday and showcases the powerhouse cast of Tom Hiddleston, this year’s Oscar winner Brie Larson and veteran actors Samuel L. Jackson and John Goodman. As can be expected, the trailer gives only brief and incomplete glimpses of King Kong. The Godzilla reboot cast the giant reptile as mankind’s savior against two other monsters. Fanboys refer to these monsters by their Japanese appellation kaiju, but in the film they are referred to as MUTOs (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism). Obviously, we will see more MUTOs in Godzilla 2 in 2019, possibly from original rights holder Toho’s collection of baddies such as King Ghidorah, Mothra, and Rodan. And so, when Godzilla and Kong meet on-screen in 2020’s Godzilla vs. Kong, one can expect city-levelling mayhem that would put even Zack Snyder’s DC films to shame. An intriguing possibility is that Legendary Pictures may find a way to fuse this universe with Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim series which it also produces. This seems highly unlikely though it would be the ultimate kaiju wet dream!

For fans of epic/ big effects films, the next few years promises to be very exciting with superheroes, monsters, aliens and giant creatures invading our theaters. Just make sure you can keep track of how they are all related to each other!

B v S: A ‘paint by numbers’ movie product that fails to evoke a single emotion

I wonder how it is possible to get so many acclaimed actors on screen, surrounded by such awe-inspiring sets, props and special effects paid for with a budget in excess of $200 million and still fail to evoke a single emotion through two and a half hours of viewing. I didn’t feel a thing – neither awe nor joy nor suspense nor anticipation nor satisfaction nor grief. Nothing. The analogy that comes to mind is of watching windmills turn on a wind farm or oil rigs pumping away in the desert – amazing marvels of engineering, but with an entirely predictable sequence of events.

With both 300 and Sucker Punch, Zack Snyder was able to combine stunning visuals with interesting and quirky characters who we really cared for. He was unable to repeat that with Watchmen, but even in that flawed adaptation, there was a sense of wonder and discovery, plus some seriously emotionally damaged characters worth getting interested in.

Of course, the challenge with a Batman/ Superman movie is that these characters are too well known, with virtually nothing new that one can say or learn about them. It’s the same malaise that affected the recent Spider-Man films with Andrew Garfield. That’s one of the reasons why comic book films like Guardians of the Galaxy or Deadpool about lesser known characters are such big hits.

Here, the two titular superheroes are cardboard cutouts who seem unable to emote. The same Henry Cavill who was so perfectly cast in last summer’s The Man from UNCLE, looks like a plastic mannequin with his perfectly stuck-in-place hair and his impossibly bulging muscles. When he scrunches up his face during fight sequences, he looks so ridiculous I thought the villain would die of laughter. Ben Affleck is ok, but can’t do much more than glower as Bruce Wayne. We’ve seen all that Batman can do in the three Chris Nolan movies, so I thought it was a neat trick to give him a metal batsuit to combat Superman in this film. Somehow, even that was not too impressive. What did look pretty cool was the sequence in which he goes into the desert looking like a real vigilante with a big trenchcoat over his batsuit.

Among the supporting cast, Jeremy Irons is unable to bring any humanity or humour to the Alfred Pennyworth character. Laurence Fishburne has some blustery moments as Daily Planet editor Perry White. Amy Adams has decent screen time but mostly in action sequences and therefore no opportunity to bring any depth to Lois Lane’s character.

Israeli model-turned-actress Gal Gadot catches the eye in a series of interestingly cut evening gowns before kicking some serious ass when she turns up in Wonder Woman costume at the end. There is general consensus that she has set things up very well for her standalone movie coming out in June 2017. In particular scene, Bruce Wayne discovers a grainy picture of her dated 1918, which shows her and a group of fellow adventurers, including Chris Pine as her love interest Steve Trevor. I immediately pictured in my mind a fun, swashbuckling period movie in the manner of The Mummy or Captain America: The First Avenger. Will definitely be looking forward to this one.

My biggest issue of course is with the Lex Luthor character. For this, I cannot blame this particular set of filmmakers because over the years, none of the Superman films have got the casting right. From Gene Hackman and his ridiculous goons in the Christopher Reeve films to Kevin Spacey in Superman Returns (2006), we now have another actor Jesse Eisenberg hamming it up as Superman’s arch enemy. For a man drawn in the comic books as a sinister, super-intelligent industrialist, I don’t understand how every on-screen incarnation ends up behaving like a bad Hindi movie villain. Rather than pick someone who fits the looks and personality (say like Mark Strong), we have Jesse Eisenberg who seems to think that he is still playing Mark Zuckerberg in 2009’s The Social Network. With his strange facial and verbal tics, it is an unwatchable, unbearable, intensely irritating performance.

Lastly, I also found the music disappointing. On paper, it sounded like an interesting experiment to pair up Dutch music producer Junkie XL with veteran film composer Hans Zimmer. Instead, all that one gets is a combination of generic electronic music with generic bombastic orchestral music. No memorable hook or musical line that defines these characters, in the way that John Williams did for 1978’s Superman or even the way Henry Jackman has done for Magneto in the X-Men: First Class.

So, in conclusion, Warner Bros. and Zack Snyder have dialled in the most generic and uninspiring of comic book films, with a confused script, wooden acting, a joke of a villain and absolutely no emotional connect whatsoever. Not worth spending two and a half hours in a theater. For a real superhero showdown with high emotional stakes, let’s wait till early May for Captain America: Civil War.

Man of Steel flies high!

In the first act of Man of Steel, the actors wear the elaborate costumes of a Greek tragedy and enact a plot from a Shakespearean one. There is a military uprising, talk of treason, a blasphemous act and a Brutal slaying. (yes, there is a reason the ‘B’ is in caps). The actors delivering the stoic lines are certainly well chosen for it – Russell Crowe appears very stately as Jor-El and Israeli actress Ayelet Zurer (who had quite a good role in the 2008 thriller Vantage Point) who plays his wife Lara lives through the loss of child, husband and world with an impressive degree of forbearance. The actors who play the misguided Krypton council have been cast for their strong facial bone structure. And of course, there is the star of the show – Michael Shannon, playing General Zod, manages to impress as a villain in spite of his strong American accent (all the best villains usually have British or European accents, don’t they?). First of all, kudos to screenwriter David Goyer and producer Chris Nolan for having the smarts to take one of the most iconic villainous roles in the DC movie universe and insert it into the retelling of the origin story (I could not have put up with another helping of a cinematic Lex Luthor, after Gene Hackman and Kevin Spacey). Second, kudos to whoever picked Oscar-nominated character actor Michael Shannon to play Zod; I had never imagined that anyone could top Terrence Stamp’s performance in Superman II (1980). But Shannon is the real deal. The man has played some disturbing characters in the past 4 years including his breakout performance in Revolutionary Road in 2008. Michael Shannon brings a level of physicality and menace to the character of Zod that is truly frightening, all the more so because unlike Gen. Zod from Superman II who was just a megalomaniac, this Zod actually believes he is the true Son of Krypton and Superman is the traitor to the cause.

And ultimately, this movie is about each man (oh that’s right, they’re aliens) having to decide where his moral center lies.

But before we get to that point, there’s a whole lot of story to cover.

We get to see a beautifully visualized Krypton (with an interesting insectoid design sensibility), falling to its inevitable apocalypse while the spacecraft carrying Kal-El wormholes its way towards Earth. We then cut to the present day where a grown-up Clark Kent playing a strong/ silent worker on a fishing trawler finds himself part of a spectacular set-piece where he puts some of his powers into play.

Director Zack Snyder plays liberally with flashbacks and that’s where we are introduced to Diane Lane and Kevin Costner as Martha and Jonathan Kent respectively. I am a fan of both actors and very much enjoyed their grounded interpretation of these important roles. Costner has relatively little to play with, but there is a very memorable and poignant moment at the end of the tornado scene that will stay flash-frozen in my memory. Some of Clark Kent’s most ‘human’ moments came – not surprisingly – with his mother Martha Kent and these moments interspersed across the runtime of the film give it some much-needed breathing space. I think Russell Crowe, inclusive of his post-corporeal existence, eventually gets more screen time than Kevin Costner, but I don’t think there was really much chemistry in those scenes with his son (and why should there be, you may ask, when the son is talking to an image, projected by an Artificial Intelligence filtered through the consciousness of the father he never knew!).

Amy Adams is a pleasant surprise as Lois Lane. Margot Kidder was absolutely irritating in the Christopher Reeve films and Kate Bosworth didn’t even register in Superman Returns (2006). I was worried that Amy Adams would go the Margot Kidder way, as she eminently is capable of playing irritating and neurotic characters. But she was surprisingly ‘normal’ and sensible in this movie and I’m not sure if the credit for that goes to director Snyder or screenwriter David Goyer (neither of whom I would credit that degree of sensitivity) or to Amy Adams herself.

And so of course, we get to the 2^nd half of the movie which features some seriously impressive action on a scale that we have perhaps never seen in a superhero movie – and by that, I include even Marvel’s The Avengers from last year. At some point, I found myself wondering how Superman could really claim to be protecting the Earth when he was partly responsible for all that destruction. Because of the almost total absence of humor, this will never be as beloved a superhero film as the Iron Man films or The Avengers. But, it is certainly an entertaining and suitably contemporary reincarnation of one of the most often-told stories in comic book lore. It won’t take long before Warner Bros. greenlights the sequel and while Henry Cavill will never be the equal of Christopher Reeve in this role, I think he will grow into it quite well if given the chance over the course of a sequel or three.

Marvel line-up: 2013-2015

With the announcement yesterday of Fantastic Four getting the reboot treatment from Fox Studios, we have now probably got the full line-up of Marvel films for the next 3 years:-

2013

Next year, the action begins in early May with Disney’s release of Iron Man 3, this time directed by powerhouse screenwriter Shane Black, who made his name in the 1980’s and early ‘90s writing the screenplays for the Lethal Weapon series. Of course, he lost his way a bit in the mid-90s with duds like Last Action Hero and The Long Kiss Goodnight, but in 2005 he made a welcome return with the critically acclaimed crime caper Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. That film also featured welcome returns by a couple of ‘washed out’ actors, namely Robert Downey Jr. and Val Kilmer. So, there was a sense of symmetry when it was announced that Mr. Black would be reunited with Mr. Downey Jr. in the 3^rd solo adventure for the billionaire super-hero.

In July 2013, Fox extends its X-Men franchise with Hugh Jackman coming back after a 4-year gap to play the indestructible mutant Wolverine (not counting his cameo in X-Men: First Class last summer). Mr. Jackman soared to stardom 12 years ago playing Logan in the first X-Men movie, which can be considered as the launch pad for the vast and intricately linked Marvel movie universe of today. The new movie, titled The Wolverine is directed by James Mangold, who helmed the outstanding Sylvester Stallone crime drama Copland in 1997, helped Angelina Jolie and Reese Witherspoon win Oscars for Girl, Interrupted and Walk the Line respectively and directed the critically praised remake of 3:10 to Yuma in 2007. His only real misstep has been the Tom Cruise-Cameron Diaz ‘comedy’ Knight and Day and so he must be looking forward to getting back on to the critics’ love list with The Wolverine. Likewise, Jackman’s last outing in X-Men Origins: Wolverine is considered a bit of a mess, so he’ll be keen to get it right this time around. Expectations are high among fanboys because the storyline is based on the famous 1982 comic series set in Japan.

It’s rare to see a Marvel release outside of the summer blockbuster season; next November will see another Aussie hunk Chris Hemsworth reprise his role as the Norse god in Disney’s Thor: The Dark World, directed by Game of Thrones alumnus Alan Taylor. The choice of director clearly indicates that the story will stay primarily in the fantasy realm of the Nine Worlds. It will be interesting to see how this film fares commercially…no doubt Chris Hemsworth has a major fan following and the first Thor film collected nearly $200 million in the US, but Thor is the sort of character better suited to an ensemble piece like The Avengers and may have difficulty sustaining a solo career.

2014

Chris Evans gets things going early in with a spring release for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, also released by Disney. This is likely to be darker in tone that the first film, with the character of Bucky Barnes returning brainwashed as a Soviet assassin, code named Winter Soldier. Back in 1969, Marvel introduced the first ever African-American hero, The Falcon as a crime-fighting partner for Captain America and now we will get to see the superhero team-up featured on the big screen with Anthony Mackie playing the NYC-based birdman. I also see super-villain Crossbones listed in the movie credits, so one automatically thinks of the Civil War comic book storyline which features Crossbones assisting in the assassination of Captain America…I wonder if that’s how the movie is going to end. Of course, in the Marvel Universe, no one stays dead for very long and Cap will have to be back for the Avengers sequel.

A few weeks later, Andrew Garfield is back as Spider-Man with Marc Webb once again directing the sequel to this summer’s Sony Pictures reboot. This time around, it looks like we are going to have a love triangle with the introduction of Mary Jane Watson’s character to vie with Gwen Stacy for Peter Parker’s affections. The excitement peaked a few days ago with the announcement that Jamie Foxx will play super-villain Electro (as hinted in the post-credits sequence this summer) and Dane DeHaan selected to play Pete’s friend (and closet psychopath) Harry Osborn. DeHaan made quite a splash playing a super-powered psychopath in this year’s found-footage sleeper hit Chronicle and so I can see why the casting director has made this call, as Osborn eventually follows his father’s footsteps and becomes the Green Goblin.

Towards the end of the summer, we have a very exciting team-up arriving on the big screen with X-Men: Days of Future Past from Fox Studios. This is big for several reasons…Bryan Singer, who directed the first two X-Men films in 2000 and 2003, returns as director. This film is the sequel to X-Men: First Class (produced by Singer), which is one of the smartest and most fun films in the Marvel universe. Next year’s sequel features a powerhouse combo of the cast from the original X-Men movies (Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan) and the actors playing their younger selves from First Class (James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender). And last, but not least, the eponymous storyline is considered to be one of the most famous in X-Men comics canon, featuring time travel. I’m just hoping that audiences are not suffering from Marvel fatigue, with this being the 3^rd Marvel film in as many months.

Two weeks later, Disney launches a new franchise in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy. This is a real wild card for Marvel and I myself have never read any of these comic books. It is difficult to picture how this film will fit into the Marvel cinematic universe; one of the links will be the villain Thanos, who appeared in the post-credits sequence to this summer’s The Avengers. But, other than that, the film is unlikely to connect with any of the other Marvel characters or even set on Earth. You see, the Guardians are a 5-member team which includes an anthropomorphic raccoon (named Rocket Raccoon) and a plant monster named Groot. You get the picture…this is starting look more and more like a CGI-heavy space-adventure film that will appeal primarily to kids.

2015

The marvelous fun in 2015 begins with the just-announced reboot of Fantastic Four. It would be ten years since the first Fox film hit the screens in what was a reasonably enjoyable origin story, in spite of its low budget and lack of spectacular effects. In fact, that was the film that made current Captain America actor Chris Evans famous, playing the brash smart-mouthed Human Torch. Now Fox has brought on board young director Josh Trank to helm the reboot and casting news is sure to follow in the next few months. Trank is a fantastic (pun intended!) choice since he directed the critically and commercially successful found-footage movie Chronicle earlier this year, which featured 3 college kids who gain super-powers and then struggle to deal with the physical and emotional changes.

In May, Disney will release The Avengers 2, the much anticipated follow-up to this summer’s megahit. The entire gang is back – director Joss Whedon and all the actors – and the villain will be Thanos, who comes from an evolutionary offshoot of humans called The Eternals. We are likely to see large scale action once again, similar to the attack on NYC featured in the climax of The Avengers. The trick will be to maintain the inter-character dynamics and light banter which made this year’s film such a breakout hit beyond the hard core fans.

Finally, we have yet another rare November release, with the introduction of the long-gestating Ant-Man into the Marvel cinematic universe. British director Edgar Wright rose to fame with the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead and the cop comedy Hot Fuzz, so one wonders what the tone of Ant-Man will be. Mr. Wright has been working on this script for many years now, but it was only this year that the movie was officially announced, although casting has not yet been finalized. The script has been through several iterations and as I understand the latest version of the story will have both the original Ant-Man Dr. Henry Pym and his successor Scott Lang.

So that’s it; we can look forward to 10 films over the next 3 years. Broadly, the movies are now clustered at 3 studios –the X-Men and Fantastic Four characters are at Fox, Sony has the Spider-Man franchise and the Avengers characters are all at Disney, which owns Marvel. Plus, any new character that enters the big screen henceforth will be through Disney (Black Panther and Dr. Strange appear to be closest to making the jump). For the next 3 years, Joss Whedon is at Disney to ensure that the different Avengers universe films maintain internal consistency and continuity. All of this is overseen of course by Kevin Feige, the President of Production and Marvel Studios. Mark Millar, the award winning Scottish comic book writer has been hired by Fox to do a similar job over there with their movies…in fact, it will be interesting to see if Millar engineers any crossovers between the forthcoming X-Men and Fantastic Four films.

Overall, the Marvel universe is in a good place. Over at rival comic book owner DC Comics, they are trying to get their act together; their Batman franchise has ended, the Green Lantern movie was a disaster, but they are expecting a successful reboot of Superman next year with Man of Steel. The big question though is if they can put together a Justice League ensemble film and replicate the success of Marvel’s The Avengers. Current rumours suggest that DC and Warner Bros. are targeting a 2015 release date for just such a movie.

Barry Sonnenfeld on track to adapt DC Comics’ Metal Men?

Oh boy, this is the best news ever.

I just read on darkhorizons.com that Barry Sonnenfeld (director of the Men in Black franchise) is attached to bring DC Comics’ Metal Men to the big screen.

I first read a Metal Men comic when I was about 10 years old. I loved the group dynamics within the team and the whole idea of robots built from a specific metal, with the personalities and properties of said metal.

There was the leader Gold, the beautiful Platinum, super strong Iron, Mercury who could flow, Lead and Tin. They were created by the scientist Dr. Magnus.

I am hoping the movie is set in the kitschy ’60s like the original comic, sort of like a DC Comics version of the X-Men First Class movie.