Spider-Man Archives - Screen Wolf

Avengers Noir

Posted on December 3, 2022December 3, 2022 by fenrisfil

So while “Noirvember” may be over (Meaning November, the month I traditionally watch and review Film Noir I haven’t seen yet), throughout the month I’ve been feeding amusing prompts to Stable Diffusion (An AI art generator) and it seems appropriate to cap off the month by sharing these. This is basically The Avengers and related Marvel Superheroes re-imagined as if the films were being made around 1950 and done for some unknown reason as a hybrid style with Film Noir. Yes it makes no sense whatsoever, especially as most of these heroes weren’t created until the 1960’s or later, but I thought it was fun. So let’s have a look at the cast.

Humphrey Bogart as Iron Man

This is an obvious choice for me. The truth is Bogart is at 5’8”, actually a bit short for Tony Stark, but it doesn’t really matter since the kind of powerful, confident performances Humphrey put out there pretty much makes people just assume he was tall. Certainly I couldn’t pick anyone else for the role as the genius businessman and inventor turned Superhero alcoholic. Bogart of course is most famous for playing “Sam Spade” in the “Maltese Falcon” (1941) and “Rick Blaine” in “Casablanca” (1942), but appeared in many Noirs likely to be seen on top 10 and top 20 lists including “The Big Sleep” (1946), “Dark Passage” (1947) and “In a Lonely place” (1950). The man is a legend and one of the most famous actors of all time.

Glenn Ford as Captain America

Glenn Ford’s most famous Film Noir roles are “Gilda” (1946) and “The Big Heat” (1953). In both he played edgy determined characters that never gave up or backed down. Seems perfect for Captain America. Ford of course actually does have Superhero pedigree, having played Jonathan Kent in “Superman” (1978) and in that film became the man that gave Superman his moral foundation. Still not convinced? Well he also signed up for military service on three separate occasions, refused promotions offered (he thought) for his fame and not service and was frustrated at being kept out of combat.

Sterling Hayden as Thor

At an impressive 6’5” Sterling Hayden has the perfect frame to play the mighty Thor. His looks are just about right too. Hayden’s has strong Noir pedigree including: “The Asphalt Jungle” (1950) “Crime Wave” (1953), “The Come On” (1956) and most famously Stanley Kubrick’s “The Killing” (1956). Of those I have to admit to only having seen the first and the last, but I’ll get to the others soon enough! Sterling was also in the running for my Captain America, but I figured it wouldn’t make sense to cast someone as Cap in 1950 that had been a member of the Communist party (Albeit briefly).

Rita Hayworth as Black Widow

Naturally hair colour isn’t that obvious when it comes to black and white, but there are still a few actresses from the genre famous for their red hair and I wanted one of them for Black Widow. Lucille Ball dabbled in Film Noir with 1946’s “The Dark Corner” (1946), but as great as she is there really is only one actress that for the role, Gilda herself, Rita Hayworth. You can see the AI decided to give her red hair in one of the picture regardless of being in black and white and it looks great. Along with “Gilda” (1946) she was also in the Orson Welles’ classic “The Lady from Shanghai” (1947) and “Affair in Trinidad” (1952). If you don’t like the choice, put the blame on mame.

Edward G. Robinson as The Incredible Hulk

I wanted Edward G to factor in somewhere along the line and I thought it’d a fun choice for the Hulk so here we are. Although more famous for his gangster movies of the 1930’s (Especially “Little Caesar” (1931)), Robinson appeared in quite a few Film Noirs, including one of my personal favourites “Scarlett Street” (1945). He also appeared opposite Orson Welles in “The Stranger” (1956) and had a supporting role in one of the most famous Noirs of all time (Indeed number one on many lists), “Double Indemnity” (1944). Robinson often plays intelligent vulnerable men with a dark burden and aggressive angry men out to prove themselves. Works pretty well in the role for me

Dana Andrews as Hawkeye

Dana’s most famous Noir is “Laura” (1944), but he appeared in several including “Fallen Angel” (1945) and “Where the Sidewalk Ends” (1950). On top of that he was the protagonist in the Horror classic “Night of the Demon” (1957) and played Lt. Ted Stryker in the movie “Zero Hour!” (1957), a mostly forgotten movie outside the fact it was remade into a comedy in 1980, that comedy would be called “Airplane!”. Yes, he was the original Stryker. Andrews definitely deserves a spot on the team. Hawkeye is as good as any.

James Cagney as Nick Fury

Art AI’s can’t do eyepatches to save their uh… programming. But anyway when casting Nick Fury (The original Nick Fury, not the “Ultimate” version, who was basically always Sam Jackson even before the movies), I wanted a veteran that would be a bit older than the rest of the cast and play the elder statesman. Cagney is perfect. Not only is he one of the greatest on screen badasses in movie history he managed to find his way into a couple of Film Noirs late in his career. The fantastic “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” (1950) and the absolute classic “White Heat” (1949). It’s a shame the AI couldn’t do the picture any better, but you try getting one to draw an eye patch on someone!

Harry Belafonte as Falcon

The truth is there isn’t a huge amount of choice for black Film Noir stars, but there are a couple of really good ones . The first is Harry Belafonte, primarily a musician but also a pretty good actor. He starred in and produced the Film Noir classic “Odds Against Tomorrow” (1959) and the often overlooked post apocalyptic drama “The World, the Flesh and the Devil” (1959). Outside of his music and acting careers Belafonte was an important member of the civil rights movement, making him the perfect person for Falcon. I have no idea why the AI drew a rocket ship on that last picture, but I still like the picture.

Lauren Bacall as The Scarlet Witch

I decided not to go with a natural red head for Scarlet Witch as I really wanted to get a role for Lauren Bacall and I figured she’d look good dressed as Wanda. The AI generated pictures seem to agree so I feel it was a good move. Lauren of course is most famous for her work with Humphrey Bogart (So I should probably have cast her as Pepper Potts, but I needed a Wanda), including the classics “To Have and to Have Not” (1944), “The Big Sleep” (1946) and “Dark Passage” (1947).

Orson Welles as THANOS

Could it be anybody else? Orson Welles is perhaps the ultimate movie villain actor. This is why when casting the voice of “Unicron” in “Transformers the Movie” (1986) there was only ever one choice. But his villains in Film Noir include “Professor Charles Rankin” in “The Stranger” (1946), the legendary “Harry Lime” in “The Third Man” (1949) and “Captain Hank Quinlan” in “Touch of Evil” (1958). Three of the most memorable villains in the genre. So Naturally only he could be Thanos and it helps that he sort of has the right look for the character too. These pictures sort of show degrees of morph between Thanos and Welles but they all look cool.

Sidney Poitier as Black Panther

This is another obvious one. cis a legend whose most famous film is the neo-noir “In the Heat of the Night” from 1967. However, he was actually in a couple of proper Film Noirs (i.e. ones between 1940-1959) too, ” No Way Out” (1950) and “Edge of the City” (1957). While not the first black actor in Hollywood to lead a mainstream movie (That would be Sam Lucas way back in 1914) he was arguably the first to become a true movie star. For decades he was the symbol of what could be achieved by a talented and determined black actor and he inspired generations of actors that followed in his footsteps. Oh and he wasn’t just dealing with racial prejudice, in an era ruled by musicals he couldn’t sing due to being tone deaf.

Barbara Stanwyck as The Wasp

You can’t do Film Noir casting without having Barbara Stanwyck involved somewhere. I haven’t actually cast Ant Man (Maybe if I do a part two some time), but back in the 80’s when I was regularly reading Marvel comics I preferred The Wasp anyway. Barbara is most famous for being the most famous of all femme fatale in “Double Indemnity” (1944), but she has appeared in a large number of Film Noirs including: “The Strange Love of Martha Ivers” (1946), “The Two Mrs. Carrolls” (1947), “Sorry, Wrong Number” (1948), “The File on Thelma Jordon” (1949), “Clash by Night” (1952) and “Witness to Murder” (1954). If there is a Queen of Noir it is Barbara Stanwyck. I think part of what made her so great was her ability to play broken and flawed women and if you know the comics, you know that does somewhat resemble The Wasp.

Robert Mitchum as Doctor Strange

Another actor that I simply had to include is Robert Mitchum, but it helped that he actually looks perfect for the part of Doctor Strange. At 6’1” he is no Asgardian but tall enough to look imposing and Mitchum’s intense features and world weary eyes really make me thinks of the Sorcerer Supreme (Which will always be Doctor Strange as far as I’m concerned). Mitchum’s biggest Noir roles are “Out of the Past” (1947) and “Night of the Hunter” (1955), but he appeared in a huge number including: “Crossfire” (1947), The Big Steal (1949), Where Danger Lives (1950), The Racket (1951), Macao (1952) and Angel Face (1952). He also took on the mantle of Phillip Marlowe in the 1970’s with “Farwell My Lovely” (1975) and “The Big Sleep” (1978).

Peter Lorre as Loki

Peter Lorre is another legendary Film Noir actor and I couldn’t help but feel he would actually be perfect as Loki (At least if you ignore that he is 5’3”). If anyone was born to play a trickster god it is probably Lorre. The AI seemed to agree because it did a great job with him. Peter’s first villainous role of note was in a sort of Proto-Noir, the Fritz Lang masterpiece “M” (1931), but he went on to appear in what many consider the first official Noir “Stranger on the Third Floor” (1940) and followed that up with the “The Maltese Falcon” (1941) and “Casablanca” (1942) along with a several more Noirs over the next decade. On top of this, he is in one of my favourite comedies of all time “Arsenic and Old Lace” (1944).

Sydney Greenstreet as Odin

After I cast Peter Lorre as Loki really it was no decision at all to cast Sydney Greenstreet as Odin. Though I have to admit he also looks a bit like Prince Vultan from Flash Gordon here, but I’m happy with it. Sydney of course appeared alongside Humphrey Bogart and Peter Lorre in The Maltese Falcon and Casablanca. After the success of those movies the studio naturally tried to pair as many of them together again as possible and so Sydney went on to do “The Mask of Dimitrious” (1944) and “Three Strangers” (1946) with Lorre and “Conflict” (1945) with Bogart.

Robert Ryan as Red Skull.

Another Film Noir regular, though he played a mixture of protagonist and antagonist I thought he would make a good Red Skull. I’m not sure if these pictures are still recognisable as Ryan but they do look pretty cool. Ryan’s noirs include: Crossfire (1947), “The Set Up” (1949), Clash By Night (1952), and “Odds Against Tomorrow” (1959). His characters were often brash, bitter and aggressive. Not the perfect fit for Red Skull but it’ll do.

Richard Conte as The Kingpin

I really wanted to throw another villain into the mix and one that made a lot of sense to me is Richard Conte as The Kingpin. Conte has played several evil mob bosses over the years perhaps more famously in “The Godfather” (1972) as Don Corleone’s rival, Barzini. But he also played crime bosses in the Film Noir’s “Cry of the City” and “The Big Combo” (1955). All of which make him the perfect pick for this role. His other Noir’s include “Somewhere in the Night” (1946) and “The Sleeping City” (1950), “The Blue Gardenia” (1953), “The Big Tip off” (1955).

John Garfield as Spider-Man

Last but not least, I had to add a Spider-Man. Even though he is my favourite superhero, he wasn’t my focus for this little exercise in AI creativity. However I felt that John Garfield would be a good pick (especially given he shares a surname with an actual Spider-Man actor). Garfield was an actor famous for playing brooding, rebellious, working-class characters. Not that Spidey is really a brooder, but can be pretty rebellious and is definitely working-class. His roles in Film Noir include “The Postman Always Rings Twice” (1946), “Body and Soul” (1947), “Force of Evil” (1948) and “Jigsaw” (1949).

Marvel Noir movie poster, apparently for a new hero called “Marnorr”.

That’s All Folks

I hope this was an amusing bit of randomness for you. I figure whether you enjoy Film Noir, AI Art or Marvel Superheroes there is something here to amuse you. I didn’t originally intend to make this a post, but after generating so many imagines I thought it would be nice to share

Morbius (2022)

Posted on April 15, 2022April 29, 2022 by fenrisfil

For tonight’s feature I viewed Sony’s new release from their “Venomverse” universe, “Morbius” (2022). This marks Sony’s first addition to the Venomverse and as such the movie the finally turns that world from a playground for Symbiotes into a true shared universe. Not that this has any cross over material outside of a throw away line and an awkward post credit scene, but it is an important milestone for Sony and one you’d think would be important to them. Then again they made so much money off Spider-Man maybe they no longer care.

Blood, Sweat, Tears and more Blood.

The movie is helmed by director Daniel Espinosa, who obviously has some horror experience from making the Alien-esque “life” (2017) and I assume this is why he was picked for the movie. The movies writers, Matt Sazama and Burke Sharpless have a string of genre movies to their name but it’s worth noting their highest IMDB score is for Dracula Untold (A movie I did enjoy) which hits the heady heights of 6.2/10. The rest of their movies are in the fives and that probably explains a lot about this one.

Jared Leto stars as the eponymous Doctor Michael Morbius and is joined by Matt Smith’s Milo/Lucien, Adria Arjona as Martine Bancroft and Jared Harris as Dr. Emil Nicholas. There are also a number of minor roles that appear to have been reduced to bare bones in the edit room including Tyrese Gibson as a race swapped Simon Stroud, who in the comics is actually a superhero himself but apparently his entire arc was cut, reducing the role to just a chasing FBI agent that seems a little more competent than his colleagues. Apparently there were whole scenes featuring his cyborg arm, but neither those nor the arm itself made the theatrical release. Still, he has more presence than Michael Keaton’s Adrian Toomes who appears to have had his entire role reduced from something worthy of inclusion in the trailer, to just a confusing mid credits cameo.

Vampire Interrupted.

Speaking of Keaton, let’s address the elephant in the room. This movie was originally due to be released in July 2020, but with Covid delaying things both Sony and Disney shuffled their Marvel deck and this had a knock on effect to a lot of the movies and the continuity between them. There was also a new deal signed between Sony and Disney in relation to Spider-Man’s on screen presence. Through all this there ended up being a need for extensive reshoots and a key change to the movie that removed all references to anything MCU, until the mid credits. At this point I think Morbius ended up a gutted husk of the movie that Espinosa originally intended, though it is hard to tell. What is clear is that Keaton definitely had a bigger role as the scene from the first trailer is completely absent. Also absent is the Spider-Man “Murderer” graffiti that was present in the trailer. Apparently this was added by the studio without the directors knowledge.

Best of Enemies?

One can speculate on what was meant to be, but ultimately we can only deal with what is. So let’s dig into that. The first thing to note is this film feels very small. There are effectively only four characters with any importance to the story and Jared Harris is used sparsely. Adria Arjona has a bit more of a role but even that feels like it is missing some key character moments. The movie instead focuses on Smith and Leto. In itself that’s not a bad move but if you are going to focus so heavily on a pair of friends that become enemies there should really be more of an emotional connection between them. Instead while both actors do their best for their role ultimately every decision either character makes is entirely done to drive the plot. None of it feels particularly natural. There’s very little emotional ambivalence and when they inevitably face off it doesn’t really feel like two life long friends that have gone past the point of no return.

Living Vampire or Dying Franchise?

The plot is itself simple and largely predictable. There is no more to it than what you would read in a synopsis. I would say there is nothing more to the movie than you see in the trailer, but actually there is more in the trailer! This is a bare bones story that has promise and had they found an angle to focus on or expand it could actually have been good. But alas, there is no such angle. The movie just ploughs through a series of events from start to end with almost no character growth, world building or plot complexities (outside of some obvious “twists”).

Ultimately what is there is absolutely fine. The actors performances were solid, the action sequences mostly work, there are a few cool visuals and there are no overbearing politics or modern clichés that made me especially dislike it The problem is there just isn’t much to the film at all. One day maybe there will be an Espinosa cut or at least some kind of explanation about why the end result appears so different to what was promised in that first trailer. That should make for an interesting story, in the meantime though this movie does not.

2021 Year in Review – Part I : Fan Service

Posted on December 27, 2021August 24, 2023 by fenrisfil

2021 has been another difficult year both for people and for the movie industry. Studios weren’t really confident in their own movie’s ability to pull in an audience and many chose to send movies simultaneously to streaming. In this environment no one was really sure how to judge a movies success or failure. However by the end of the year we have had a clear indication thanks to Spider-Man that people will brave new Covid variants to see something that they are excited for. The trouble is there was a lot out this year that people clearly were not excited for. So what lessons have we learned this year? I think one of the big ones is the benefit of doing fan service in the right way. As we saw last year with “Sonic The Hedgehog” (2020), listening to fan criticism can result in a big win. This time around we have two big examples of doing things the right way.

Note, minor spoilers ahead for things you probably already know by now.

Getting the Band Back Together

The first is “Ghostbusters: Afterlife”, a cautious but heartfelt attempt to correct the many mistakes made by the 2016 franchise reboot and introduce a new generation to the concept of busting ghosts. The movie was made relatively cheaply which likely is why the setting is a small remote town instead of New York and the plot was kept simple, essentially being a rehash of the first movie. But what the movie did right was being a continuation of the classic movies, treating the original with respect (and a lot of love) and giving the surviving OG crew a meaningful reunion. But while doing that it also introduced new characters, provided diversity in the right way (naturally, balanced and without virtue signalling) and set up for the franchises future.

The movie wasn’t perfect, but it managed to leave fans of the original happy and win over new young fans. Despite this the damage done to the franchise by the previous movie meant the opening weekend wasn’t fantastic. However, the strong legs generated by word of mouth saw this film make a healthy profit in the end. One of the things to note here is the difference between how this movie referenced the originals and how the 2016 movie did that. here these elements are all worked directly into the plot and even the clunkiest of references (Stay Puffed) feels like it is actually part of the story. Meanwhile 2016 would pretty much stop the movie to show us an Easter egg and then throw it aside and move on.

Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner

But following on from that success was the biggest winner of the year: “Spider-Man: No Way Home”. A movie that delivered on many levels, not just in providing fan service but also in providing a great deal of redemption for all three branches of this franchise (past and present). The biggest success though is the phenomenal box office. At the time of writing this, in the movies second week it has crossed the billion dollar mark at the box office. Something many people thought was impossible in a pandemic year and it did it in the winter, with a new variant out and with many theatres having to cope with additional restrictions (or complete lock downs). The movie also currently doesn’t have a China release making it’s global haul even more impressive.

But the danger with this movie is that Hollywood learns the wrong lessons. It wasn’t simply having cameos that made it a success but in the way they were used. The old favourites were treated respectfully and had personalities consistent with their past appearances and their on screen character development in those movies. But at the same time they did not overshadow the movies actual star. That’s not to say the movie did all the cameos perfectly. Doctor Strange definitely got the short straw here, but this wasn’t a Doctor Strange movie and perhaps his own sequel due out next year will provide him some redemption.

The Right Way and the Wrong Way

There is a right and a wrong way to do cameos. Both these movies make for an obvious comparison with Disney’s Star Wars sequels. Those movies deliberately kept Han Solo, Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia apart and minimised their roles so as to not get in the way of the new characters. The movie gave them characters inconsistent with their previous appearances, whereas No Way Home presented past characters consistent with their own character development and provided them further development and redemption for past mistakes. But most importantly it brought them all together and this was a meeting we never even knew we wanted.

Meanwhile Afterlife brought together all the original team, gave them off screen character progression consistent with their established personalities and gave the fans the moment they’ve been looking forward to for decades. Neither of these movies overshadowed the new characters with the old, indeed Afterlife kept the original crew out of the majority of the movie. See you can give the audience want they want, be respectful and consistent with the original and still have your focus on the future.

A good example of a movie that didn’t get the right way to do fan service from 2021 would be Halloween Kills. The movie featured almost a who’s who of characters from the first movie and made endless references to both that movie and Halloween 2, which the previous movie had retconned out of existence. The trouble is none of these characters or references were really meaningful, they were just there and most of them got in the way of the story they were trying to tell. This reminded me a bit of the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot that really felt like they wrote their movie and then went through it and dropped cameos and references in randomly. Both movies felt detached the originals and insincere.

Final Thoughts

Two final thoughts about fan service: It is important to know the difference between what the majority of fans want and what is just a handful of people on social media. When you are talking about respecting the previous instalments and/or source material it is likely the majority. When you are looking at “Shipping” (i.e. romantic relationships between two characters that aren’t currently romantically involved or even hinted at having that kind of connection) or other demands for radical change away from the source material it is probably just a handful of people being very vocal and should be ignored. The Sonic complaints for instant were all about making the character looking more like he did in the games instead of the creepy looking thing that was first put forward. It was safe to assume that the majority of fans agreed.

Finally, you can still create something new while respecting the past, just look at Cobra Kai, that series has been running for a few years now, is radically different to the Karate Kid movies and yet has respectful and consistent portrayals of both the characters and the past events of the movies. They introduce new characters and they let everything evolve on screen. The key thing here is “Show, don’t tell”. Even though a long time had past between seeing Daniel and Johnny in the movies and seeing them in the show their off screen progression was entirely logical and linear from where they left off, but once on screen they were able to take things in new directions. The same is true of Spiderman: No Way Home and to a lesser extent Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but where major events had happened (the team splitting up, it formed really the core of the entire story and really they did the best they could considering they had to explain why no one had been busting ghosts for 30+ years.]

So that’s the end of part one. I hope you enjoyed reading. See you with part two when I look at more of the years hits and misses.

Venom: Let There Be Carnage (2021)

Posted on December 22, 2021April 29, 2022 by fenrisfil

The sequel to 2018’s “Venom”, starring Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock, a down and out journalist Eddie Brock that stumbles upon an alien Symbiote and together they become Marvel Comics anti-hero “Venom”. This instalment introduces Venom’s arch Nemesis (Well, other than Spider-Man) Cletus Kassady/Carnage, played here by Woody Harrelson. The movie also sees Hardy gain a writing credit and has a change in the directors seat with Andy Serkis replacing Ruben Fleischer.

Despite the changes the movie isn’t that different to the last one and much like that the plot and pacing is reminiscent of 90’s Superhero movies. The action mostly takes place in the final act and the plot is kept very simple. The comedy however is very much keeping with the MCU style (Very character based on focused around the hero) and of course humour is always very subjective so those jokes may not land for everyone. For me it was about 50/50. The other element that dates this as a modern movie instead of something from the 90’s is the dominant focus on themes over plot or characterisations. Everything here is driven by the themes of personal relationships but the focus on specific relationships actually undermines a number of the characters and elements of the plot.

Eddie are you okay?

The main relationship focus of course is Eddie and Venom, (which also provides the vast majority of the comedic elements) and this is really just an expansion of the first movie. A lot of this plays out like a buddy cop movie where two mismatched personalities have to learn to get on to bring in a serial killer. Venom is the loose canon, while Eddie is the by the book guy (Well, compared to Venom anyway). There are basically two issues on the surface for the pair. The first is that Venom basically wants to be a Superhero and as part of this wants to eat a few heads. Eddie on the other hand isn’t interested in that and doesn’t want Venom going around killing people.

This isn’t especially dissimilar to their conflict in the previous movie. What is new though is their relationship with Anne (Michelle Williams), or rather the lack of it since they have gone their separate ways since the previous movie. If you recall at the end of that movie Eddie decided to keep Venom’s survival a secret from her, but it seems sharing a body with an alien symbiote may have been too much of a distraction for him. Venom, having previously bonded with her for a while too is naturally fond of her and sees Eddie as a failure for letting her go. It’s worth noting Eddies relationship with Anne is quite underplayed in favour of focusing on his one with the symbiote.

Out of the Black into the… Red?

Then there is Cletus’ relationships with his Carnage symbiote, with Brock and his love interest Shriek. These relationships sadly feel a lot more superficial. But then as a psychopath it’s not a surprise that most of his relationships are based on what others can do for him. He first sees Eddie as a means to enhance his notoriety, but when that backfires he sees him as a rival and a target for vengeance. When he bonds with the Carnage symbiote it’s pretty obvious what he is getting out of it and while on the surface the pair seem on the same page they never really have any affection for each other. Both are intent on using the other.

A key element of the story is compatibility and how first impressions don’t determine who is compatible and who is not. So while Venom and Eddie seem at odds, they actually care about each other and underneath are actually compatible while the Cletus and Carnage are basically the opposite. The problem here is this feels artificial. It is an arc that fit better in the first film and which really wasn’t the case in the comics, so here they had to find a way to artificially drive the two agents of chaos apart and this wedge is Shriek, the aforementioned love interest and easily the weakest character in the movie.

Make some noise!

Now in the comics Shriek does become an ally of Carnage, but the love story is new for this movie and significantly changes Cletus’ personality making him significantly less scary and more human, which wouldn’t be so bad except this isn’t really reflected in the actors performances and Shriek especially has very little to do in practice other drive the plot forward. It’s worth noting that this is a character with literally nothing to her outside of story elements directly related to events in this film. Outside of her relationship with Cassidy the only thing that drives her is the need for vengeance against a completely random cop that happened to shoot her after she tried to kill him, of course this cop happens to be Detective Mulligan, the one cop that is also investigate Brock and Cassidy. Outside of this she has no past, no drive and no personality. Ironically as they randomly decided to race swap the character, that meant taking away her pale goth girl look, which while not a substitute for personality would have at least made her more memorable. They did a similar thing with Domino in Deadpool 2 but that character had enough on screen personality to make her interesting without her iconic look.

Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls.

The action when it finally happens is solid too and though I know some have said the CGI wasn’t good, it looked perfectly fine for me. The church location for the finale leads to a number of cool visuals and set pieces and the two symbiotes certainly go at it! There’s also a number of cool visuals prior to the confrontation. There is a mid and post credits scene as is the tradition for Marvel movies these days. One lays the groundwork for Venom 3, while the other will no doubt get viewers excited… until they find out it basically leads nowhere. This one is basically a Marvel One Shot in two parts split between mid-credits scenes in two movies. In itself it is fun, but it teases a lot more than it delivers. One last thing about the credits… damn that music is awful. Really awful. Made it hard to stick through the credits for those scenes.

Anyway, key thing I think in all regards here is that if you liked the first movie you will probably like this. The movie is definitely entertaining, but given the importance of Carnage to the Venom story in the comics and the excellent casting of Harrelson in that role, this does feel a bit of a waste.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

Posted on December 17, 2021April 29, 2022 by fenrisfil

This is a tricky movie to review without any kind of spoiler so I have decided that this review will avoid plot spoilers only, but WILL reveal who is actually in the movie because I don’t think this can be properly reviewed without this and I feel like the surprise (or disappointment) is something people would want to know about in advance and does not ruin the film. Plus it is easiest to do a review here that avoids plot spoilers by focusing on the characters as this is very much a character movie.

You have been warned! I won’t be revealing this off the bat however and I’ll give you plenty of warning before I make the reveal.

So first up let’s go over the basics. This is the third MCU Spider-Man movie, the sixth MCU movie with Spider-Man in, the Eighth live action Spider-Man movie in general and the eleventh live action superhero movie with the character. For those keeping track, Batman has only nine, ten if you include his cameo in Suicide Squad and Eleven if you also include the 60’s TV movie. Suffice to say Spider-Man has quite the on screen legacy and unlike Batman all those movies are within the last 20 years.

Say No Go.

All incarnations of Peter Parker have been successful on screen and have had their own uniqueness to them. Tom Holland’s version of the character is no exception and his movies tend to hit the billion dollar mark. Not a huge shock given that Spider-Man is the most popular hero globally (WIthin the US Batman probably still takes that honour, but not by much and the only other hero near either of them is Superman). He is also my favourite hero and probably the one I have read the most of in the comics. MCU Spider-Man does attract a lot of well deserved criticism however due to how different he has become from the comics. It doesn’t help that his supporting cast is almost unrecognisable, but probably the biggest issue is his origin and I don’t mean the spider bite, I mean Uncle Ben.

See the MCU’s Parker doesn’t have an Uncle Ben, or at least if he did the man died before Peter gained his powers. He also has a considerably younger and well protected Aunt May that he doesn’t have to spend time worrying about too much. Instead of this as motivation he was given an attachment to Tony Stark as a mentor and felt that loss strongly. It was good character advancement but it made this Peter considerably different. I bring this up because it is probably the number one criticism that MCU Spider-Man gets and it does get somewhat addressed in this movie. There is definitely an element of course correction here.

Can U Keep a Secret?

Jon Watts is at the reins again with this instalment showing that Marvel is clearly happy with what he brings to the table and I think most fans are too. It’s worth noting he is attached for the MCU’s Fantastic Four movie so maybe there is reason to be hopeful. Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers also return as writers. Tom Holland of course returns as does his regular supporting cast including the not-so-popular Flash Thompson interpretation played by Tony Revolori who is basically just there to be the butt of a few jokes and Angourie Rice’s Betty Brant that does actually get a nice nod to her comic book counterpart in her brief cameo. Jon Favreau has a cameo but is less involved than in “Far from Home”. Zendaya, Jacob Batalon and Marisa Tomei however all play major parts in the story.

Joining the regulars is Benedict Cumberbatch’s Doctor Strange who plays a pivotal role (as seen in the trailer, Peter wants him to make people forget his secret identity), but actually isn’t in that much of the movie. First thing to bring up here is that he is not as irresponsible about the whole thing as he appeared in the trailer. Which is good because the Sorcerer Supreme shouldn’t be a reckless fool. If he is indeed the Sorcerer Supreme, which is something that seems to be up for debate. At the end of this movie they show a trailer for Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness and I have to say I wasn’t sold on that. However he is treated fairly respectfully here and his interactions with Peter are actually really cool.

Ghetto Thang.

His interaction with Michelle Jones is not so good thanks to that annoying “Please” line from the trailer. But as I usually find with with these movies Zendaya was far better in the movie itself than the trailer. For some reason they always seem to pick her smuggest, snarkiest lines in the trailers instead of any of her human moments which is something that doesn’t help to sell the character to people (and given the whole “MJ” bit, they do need to sell her). On a side note here, they did awkwardly force into dialogue randomly that her full name is Michelle Jones-Watson… yeah they totally didn’t need to do that and it had no bearing on anything (so I don’t regard it a spoiler) but I guess someone, somewhere is celebrating. She is actually fine though.

Ned Leeds is a trickier one to judge since he is part of an annoying plot contrivance. But to be fair that contrivance allowed him to do something other than just comic relief (Which lets face it is totally redundant in an MCU Spider-Man film. However they even turn that into comic relief so it’s not great and they missed a chance to give Ned a not to his comic book counterpart. He’s not terrible though so it’s fine.

Me Myself and I.

So the most important thing here is Peter Parker. As I mentioned above there is a very clear course correction going on in this film. It’s not perfect, but you couldn’t do this correction perfectly in Peter’s sixth MCU appearance. He’s got too much history. But I feel like they did this as well as they possibly could and I don’t say that lightly. It feels like the writers and director and maybe Marvel/Sony producers took on board the criticism and tried to adjust for this and I have to say I am impressed by Marvel actually listening to fans for a change.

The way the course adjustment is done is entirely through the story and Peter’s character development in the story. Sam Raimi once said his approach to the Spider-Man films was “What can Peter learn in this movie” and this really felt like it was the approach to this. By the end of the film Peter has changed from being “Iron Boy Junior” to genuinely feeling like Spider-Man and I could not be happier about that. Of course they can still mess this up later but we will see.

Okay, minor character spoilers ahead for the villains (these are all in the trailer, so no surprises).

Potholes in My Lawn.

All the villains you see in the trailer are the actual villains from their respective Spider-Man universes. This is important because they all manage to retain consistent characterisations from those movies. They really feel like direct continuations of the same characters. Even more impressively most of them actually get character development! So perhaps unsurprisingly Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin/Norman Osborn are the stand outs and as perhaps the two favourite villains from past movies they do justice to their previous appearances and characters and add to those movies instead of detract from them which was always the danger.

Jamie Foxx’s electro gets some redemption here too. Sadly Amazing Spider-Man 2 will probably go down in history as the worst Spider-Man movie, but here he is improved and he gets almost as much focus as the other two. Sandman (Thomas Haden Church) too gets some redemption though his part in Spider-Man 3 was generally considered the best bit anyway. Sadly though while he starts off consistent to his personality from that movie they seem to forget about that a bit in the middle. He and Lizard were always going to be the minor players in this but he did okay. Lizard on the other hand gets very little screen time and doesn’t add that much to the movie. He doesn’t detract from it either so there is that at least

So before we hit the reveal there is one other major cameo I’m not going to reveal because it is just one scene early in the film and you can probably guess it anyway. Suffice to say it was satisfying. I will tell you one cameo you will almost certainly miss though: Nicholas Hammond, the original live action Spider-Man from the 70’s TV series is in this movie. I’m not going to tell you where though!

CHARACTER SPOILER TIME!!!!!!!

The magic number.

The music for the films end credits is itself a spoiler for those characters. It is “The Magic Number” by De La Soul (At least I think it was the De La Soul track, it may have been another version of it or the original material used for the samples). Yep, the rumours were true Tobey and Andrew are both in this movie.

So I’m not going to talk too much about how they are involved but I will say they are key parts of the entire third act and all get both character and action moments. Each one is consistent to their past characters, but developed past the end of their final movies. Andrew-Spidey was of course deeply impacted by the death of Gwen Stacy and went somewhat to a dark place after that. He’s still got the wisecracking though that made many people call him the best Spider-Man (though they usually pair that with “Worst Peter Parker”).

Tobey-Spidey however seems to have found a good element of balance and happiness to his life and though he doesn’t talk about it (so it’s not a spoiler) they really seem to hint that he may well be happily married to Mary Jane much like he was in the comics before the dreaded “One More Day” storyline messed that up. Tobey as the older Spider-Man is getting a little worn physically but he can still get the job done.

Buddy!

One of the best things here is the interaction between the three Peter’s. It’s respectful of each, though also acknowledges basically all the fan criticism. That in one place felt a bit like they were dumping on the AMS films but they restrained the mocking to things most people mocked and remained respectful of Andrew’s Spider-Man. They also talked about Tobey not needing web shooters, which turned into a fun moment. As far as Tom-Spidey goes they were careful not to diminish him too much by throwing in the other two (Especially with Tobey being such a fan favourite). They acknowledged Tom’s strengths and how his experience working with the Avengers makes him unique (Who have only worked solo, or briefly with one other)..

Perhaps the best bit though is that Tobey and Andrew both get on screen character development too and in ways that reference their own past and things that would have weighed on their consciences. This is the strength of this movie in general. All the main characters (The three Peters and three main villains) all get character arcs that really work for them. I also have to give Andrew dues for putting in a really good performance, giving him a lot of vindication for having to suffer through the bad writing on his solo outings.

3 Feet High and Rising.

Okay so while this movie is strong for character development, it actually isn’t especially outstanding on the action front. It’s not bad as such, but there isn’t really anything outstanding or ground breaking here, just lots of what you’ve seen before and in actual fact less impressive action than a lot of previous films. There are some great spectacles that no doubt make great screen shots (such as the one above), but it definitely suffers from the messy style of a lot of modern action where things are fast and hard to follow. To me though this didn’t really impact the film, this is a character movie with action and that is fine. What I will say is when you have all three Spider-Men involved in the action it can get a little confusing at times as to which is which.

Rating this movie is a tricky one. I don’t want to get too drawn in to nostalgia here, but as of right now I feel this is a solid 7.5. If you are a Spider-Man fan of ANY of the previous instalments, you will likely enjoy this movie. One final thought though: As I mentioned this movie has a lot of course corrections for the character, but I would just like to point out that if they hadn’t chosen to skip Peter’s origin story and the character development he has from that origin they wouldn’t have needed to spend three solo movies and three team movies to get Peter to a position he would have been in his first movie, had they shown that origin. So in future, maybe don’t be so fast to applaud skipping superhero origins. Remember it’s not important what made someone powerful, but it is important what made them a hero.