Marvel Movie News Roundup!

Our First Look at the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Cast of the Fantastic Four Reboot!

Well as it seems to prove, when it rains movie news, it pours. Wednesday saw the release of the first trailer for Marvel studios’ Guardians of the Galaxy. Numerous sites have posted reports from the set of X-Men Days of Future Past and just this morning the cast of Fox’s other Marvel property The Fantastic Four was announced. A lot of opinions have flooded the internet about all of these properties which is to be expected. Before I climb up on my soapbox though I’d like to say just how cool it is to live in a time when so many comics are making it to film at all. It really seems like no property is off limits and has a shot at the big screen. Okay enough with this dreadful sentimentality and onto the cheering and whining.

Media for X-Men Days of Future Past has been hitting the net hard this week. In an interview I read on Comingsoon.net, Bryan Singer talked about the extreme lengths he’s gone through to make not only a great X-Men film but a great time travel film as well. This included a chat with Terminator writer/director James Cameron. It also sounds like Kitty Pryde (Ellen Page) will have a direct role in how Wolverine travels through time. We’ve seen a lot of new stills of the cast in recent days but what I think everyone is really itching for is some new footage. Give us something here Bryan! We need some action to reaffirm us after seeing Quicksilver’s silly appearance. Speaking of new footage…;

So after months and months of waiting we finally get a trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy which is coming out this August. It was a pretty standard teaser trailer as all it really did was introduce us to the cast and tell us that space shenanigans will ensue. Chris Pratt’s Peter Quill took the stage front and center to really show audiences right off the bat that this isn’t going to be your typical superhero film.  Chris Pratt could really blow up after this movie; already a hero to anyone who watches Parks and Recs, the actor is becoming a hot commodity. He stars in The Lego Movie out now and is set to take the lead in the next Jurassic Park film. My first impression of Pratt’s Quill is that he’ll be a composite of Indiana Jones, Malcolm Reynolds, and well… Andy Dwyer.

The trailer highlighted the film’s sense of humor showing that this film if nothing else will be really fun. I stand by my idea that they really want GOTG to be the firefly of the Marvel universe, meaning we’re getting a group of ragtag heroes in space that find themselves on both sides of the law. We got a good look and a description of the rest of the team including the now green Zoe Saldana and Bautista. No real mention of the film’s villain Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace).  The Collector (Benicio Del Toro) gets a blink and you’ll miss it appearance and Karen Gillan shows off her now blue bald head as Nebula. Nova Corps member  John C Reilly gets the largest amount of dialogue while heroes Groot and Rocket Racoon both get none as they are probably still recording Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper’s performances. I’m definitely sold on seeing Guardians but I’d like one more trailer with some more plot before I can judge if it will have any substance to it.

The reboot of Fantastic Four has been rolling around at Fox for a while. Numerous rumors have been hitting the net about possible story ideas and villains. Casting has been the largest source of news with what felt like every name under the sun of actors in their twenties being thrown out as candidates. It seems though now that the competition is over as Kate Mara, Miles Teller, Michael B Jordan, and Jamie Bell have been cast as quartet of heroes. Judging by the ages of these actors it’s pretty clear that Marvel is leaning more towards the Ultimate incarnation of the team which I’m fine with. I prefer the origin story presented in the Ultimate series over the regular 616 one. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the FF have one of the dumbest origins in comics. Brilliant scientist, Reed Richards, goes into space on a dangerous mission with his ace pilot and best friend Ben Grim and for reasons known to no one they take  Reed’s girlfriend and her kid brother. It’s a pretty baller move on Reed’s part I suppose in dating Sue. Not every guy can take you to space and give you accidental super powers but what if it had backfired and Sue comes home a rock monster? Eh back to EHarmony for you Miss Storm, you’ve been friend zoned.

As far as the cast goes…I’m a little all over the place with this. Kara Mara I have little to no knowledge of outside of a few minor movie appearances but I hear she’s excellent on the Netflix series House of Cards. Miles Teller is a name that’s been popping up a lot for Reed in the last month or two and I can kind of see him as a nerdy scientist but superhero is going to take some work. Luckily he’s playing one that doesn’t need to be chiseled or square jawed. He wouldn’t have been my first choice but the FF have always been hard to envision in my head because of the age differences. Sometimes Reed appears more as a 50 year old professor and other times he’s more of thirty something plucky inventor. I like Jaime Bell, he’s a talented actor but the real question of his performance as The Thing will come out of how they bring the character to the screen. Michael Chiklis was a great choice but the suit never worked as well as it could have. If they go digital, Bell has experience from his time on TinTin. Ben Grim doesn’t nessesarily need to be a man built like a tank as much as his personality needs to be larger then life to get through his rocky exterior.

Michael B Jordon has basically had the part of The Human Torch in the bag for months now. Re-teaming with his Chronicle director Josh Trank, Jordon has everything you could want in a Johnny Storm, he can play charismatic, handsome, hot headed, and in love with himself. However… as many MANY people will point out, he does differ in one obvious way from the comic book version. I’m fine with race swapping when it comes to making sure you have the absolute best person for the part. I really think Michael Clarke Duncan was the best choice for the Kingpin even if Daredevil wasn’t a successful film. Lawrence Fishborn made a great Perry White in Man Of Steel and no one cared at all about Kerry Washington playing Alicia Masters in the original FF movie. My concern comes more with the fact that they are going to have to probably change the nature of the relationship between Sue and Johnny.

If they had cast two African American actors for the part I wouldn’t have batted an eye but as of right now most people are throwing the word adoption around as the explanation for the characters being two different races. That idea bothers me just because it’s a pointless addition to their back-story, we don’t want to suddenly have Alfred be Bruce Wayne’s uncle, or Peter Parker to have been raised by his grand parents. These are tiny changes that don’t really change much but if this is the case… why do it? It’s very possible that the Storms will just become an interracial family which if fine, we live in an age where this is not uncommon but I don’t like the idea of changing a character’s origin just to accommodate the selection of an actor. The story comes first, the actor should be molded to fit the part not the other way around. In short I just want them to blood related no matter their race.

I do wonder what the comic publishers think when changes like this occur. If this reboot is a monster hit you’ll have hopefully a slew of new FF fans picking up a comic and wondering who half these people are. Marvel has gone to ridiculous (and terrible) story telling methods to include a Nick Fury that lines up with Samuel L Jackson’s performance but I don’t see this happening with high profile characters like Sue and Johnny. Nothings out of the realm of possibility though, I picture Reed building some invention that yet again unintended consequences and “drastically changes the future of the Fantastic Four”! I have little doubt that if the Fantastic Four were created in the last 10 to 15 years we would have seen a more diverse team but this is who they are.

Okay my soap box is going back into the closet till the next round of casting. No matter what, at the end of the day we’ll just have to wait and see what Trank and company are going to produce. Right now people have lived with a mediocre Dr. Doom and a Galactus cloud, so expectations are pretty low.

TOO BIG TO FAIL? Is Marvel Studios Getting Cocky?

For not being November, Marvel Studios sure does have a lot to be thankful for. They took the ultimate gamble by attempting to link all of their film franchises and it paid off… in spades. The grand experiment worked, they have turned out hit after hit because fans not only want to see where these individual heroes are going but the world they live in as well. They have every reason to put their feet up on their desk and just watch the royalties roll in but instead they want more. They’ve moved into television with Agents of SHIELD on ABC (love it or hate it) and have even jumped on the Netflix bandwagon for a multi-series deal. That’s right they’ve already become too cool for network television! They’ve begun casting distinguished actors like Robert Redford, Glen Close, and Michael Douglas. They’re making short films just to feature as Blu-ray extras and of course they’re those sequels to make.

I can only imagine that the meetings at Marvel Studios are becoming something like out of The Wolf of Wallstreet with producer Kevin Fiege yelling into a microphone to the troops who are all sporting Hulk hands, Iron Man helmets made of real gold, or life sized mjnoiners. The interns are all referred to as Bucky and they have hired actor Paul Bettany to sit around and answer questions as JARVIS. In other words it’s not a bad time to be connected to anything the studio is producing but the question is how big can the Marvel bubble get before it bursts?

Agents of SHIELD has been received with mixed reviews at best amongst critics and the fans. It’s not necessarily bad but it’s far from compelling. The characters are wooden and feel like stale knock offs of characters we’ve seen in better Whedon shows. The most compelling aspect to the series thus far has been the continuation of actor Greg Clark’s Agent Coulson character but that can only carry so much dead weight. It also seems as if the show is working too hard to sound witty. They throw in a lot funny dialogue but most often it doesn’t land because the characters are so flat. This over reliance on humor is becoming a reoccurrence I’ve noticed in all of Marvel’s latest works. Now it’s early and lots of shows need a year to get their feet under them but it has been disheartening to see something with so much potential arrive with such a thud.

In the area of the Marvel films the studio is still churning out hits with phase 2’s Iron Man 3 being the highest grossing film of 2013 and Thor: The Dark World earning a killing as well. It seems to me though that Marvel’s success has begun to reflect in their films with an odd tonal shift. Iron Man 3 has fans decidedly split on whether or not the film is actually any good. Some say it’s the one of the best superhero films ever made while others see it as a bloated failure. My reaction lands somewhere in the middle, there is a lot to like about Iron Man 3 but I still found it disappointing. Now the main reason fans dislike Iron Man 3 is because of what I call the Mandarin bait and switch but this plot trick doesn’t bother me as much as what it represented. That tonal shift I mentioned earlier this was a big indicator of what I’m talking about. There is a really forced sense of comedy that seems to be growing in Marvel Studios productions.

Iron Man 3 plays out like a comedy in most areas, I never felt like the situation in the film was that dire because no one in the film did either. Tony Stark is witty and sarcastic but he was down right obnoxious in this latest sequel. Every scene was played for a laugh and the film was funny but should it have been? Now before the Nolan haters jump down my throat, I do not think all superhero films need to be grim and dark. The Marvel universe is full of colorful and fun heroes and overall these films are about larger then life characters having adventures so they should be fun rides. HOWEVER, there is a fine line between fun/whimsical and over the top and ridiculous. Iron Man 3 mocks its own series by losing sense of any of the growth the character had achieved. In short Tony Stark didn’t show up on set, Robert Downy Jr. did and it reflects in the film. I don’t need every villain to be hyper aware of how silly it is to be a bad guy in a superhero movie. I don’t need Tony Stark to have a mumble filled rant of a one-liner for every other line of dialogue. The fact that the Mandarin turned out to be the largest laugh of the film only cemented how much we weren’t supposed to care about the story of Iron Man 3. They concocted some malarkey about Guy Pierce being a mastermind of evil with the oddest of motivations I’ve ever heard of, he died and audiences got to say Iron Man won but really the audiences lost.

Now while I found Thor: The Dark World immensely more entertaining then Iron Man 3 I could still see signs of this comedic tonal shift. Which is odd because the movie overall took a far more realistic approach then the previous one. Director Alan Taylor crafted a much more grounded looking world. At the Same time Kat Dennings’ character was given way too much to do in this film just for the sake of laughs. I appreciate that she was brought back but overall I don’t think audiences cared if she returned. There are several moments in the film that delivered laughs but kind of took me out of the film for a minute. In particular I’m talking about Thor’s subway trip, funny but pretty silly. Natalie Portman’s character provided a lot of laughs with her “fish out of water” trip to Asgard but at the same time it would have been nice to see her do more than be starry eyed at Thor for most of the movie. We’re in an era where the damsel in distress is a cliché and it needs to be retired. People get saved in superhero films but it doesn’t always need to be the girlfriend, that’s one of the problems I had with Mary Jane by the time Spider-Man 3 came around. She was just a girl to be captured and saved.

Tom Hiddleston’s portrayal of Loki has been one of the biggest success stories of the Marvel films; he’s the primary reason why a Thor sequel was made and he was the perfect villain in The Avengers. So you can see why he’s been basically given carte blanche to do whatever he sees fit in his latest appearances. He’s a villain but his main job is to now be as entertaining as possible while on screen. This means he makes us laugh, he makes us cry, and we want to see him get his lights punched out. It’s a tough part to tango with and you can tell Hiddleston has a great time doing it but Marvel has to be careful. Loki as a character could get burned out really quickly and anyone who thinks he should appear in Avengers: Age of Ultron, I’m sorry but you’re wrong. It’s time to start conserving Loki like a precious commodity.

The real question is if this sense of humor will carry over into Marvel’s next release, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The trailers are portraying a more serious, almost political thriller look but the tone in the trailers for Thor 2 and Iron Man 3 weren’t any less serious looking either. Marvel’s next two releases are by far the riskiest in the form of Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man. Guardians of the Galaxy is just inherently silly, one of the main characters is a talking raccoon so you know what you’re in for. This doesn’t mean the film will be bad; it’s just going to be a far different take on audience’s expectations from Marvel. I expect a high dosage of humor to be in this one, audiences probably won’t be ready to take Guardians seriously so the film will probably keep it light and laugh at itself from time to time.

Ant-Man is a whole other story and I think it has the potential to be the most original of all the Marvel films. Director Edgar Wright (The World’s End, Scott Pilgrim) is a really talented writer/director who has a great ability to take traditional films and break their mold. He is already turning heads with the direction he’s taking Ant-Man by having it star Paul Rudd as the diminutive hero but hold on he’s not Hank Pym, he’s Scott Lang. Hank Pym will be played by Michael Douglas, a choice I’m not sure anyone saw coming. Ant-Man will be far from your typical superhero movie as it will involve a heist, the passing of the mantle of a hero, and I’m guessing a lot of humor. You don’t hire Paul Rudd without expecting him to get some laughs. I have no idea what this film means to the Marvel cinematic universe as a whole, will Paul Rudd suit up next to Cap and Thor, will we still get to meet the Wasp? Only time will tell.

Marvel is taking chances, risky ones and overall this is good but I want them to take a moment. They seem to of developed Tony Stark’s swagger as they accept audiences to blindly eat up anything they want to feed us (and let’s face it we often do) but fans can get fickle really quickly. We want to see quality films not just a high quantity of them so perhaps it’s time to stop with the large amount of yuks. Avengers worked because the villain’s threat was great enough to need some jokes around it. Iron Man 3 didn’t have this, and no one cared who the villain was in Thor: The Dark World as long as Loki did anything. It’s a great age to be comic book fan, every day we should be thankful to have so many films to see and fight about but at the same time I don’t want Marvel to rest on their laurels, the experiment is a never ending battle and they should always have something to prove.

A Look A Head: Movies

It’s a new year, time for making resolutions, time to lose that spare tire around your waist, time to call old friends, read more books, and pay all your bills on time… well that sucked let’s go to the movies. This is officially the year of the Marvel superhero movie. Between three separate studios four films starring Marvel heroes are coming to theaters, and as always they will only lead to more. We’ll also see the return of several familiar faces coming to screens. Godzilla, Robocop, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are all trying to get back in the franchise game.

Here’s just a small look at some the flicks coming down the pipe this year.

  Captain America: The Winter Soldier: April 4th  The big Marvel movie of the year luckily comes to us two whole months before the summer starts. Chris Evans dons the shield again as he and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow take on The Winter Soldier while learning that their may be something sinister growing within SHIELD. Look for the first appearance of Cap’s long time partner The Falcon as well as the villain Crossbones. This film is heavily based on popular comic writer Ed Brubaker’s esteemed run on Captain America which has fan’s expectations at an all time high. I’m hoping for a great political action thriller that really introduces Cap to the modern world.

X-Men: Days of Future Past: May 23^rd  The biggest Marvel Movie of the year isn’t coming from Marvel studios but 20^th Century Fox as director Bryan Singer reunites with the franchise he launched in the year 2000. This is Fox’s most ambitious X-Men film yet as it attempts to combine the story-lines, characters, and actors of several of the previous films into one. In this latest outing Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine travels back in time to help an emotionally and physically damaged Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) find his way and prevent a devastating future. The only thing standing in his way is Magneto (Michael Fassbender) who is preparing to strike at humanity again in the name of Mutant rights. Make no mistake this is Fox’s answer to The Avengers and they seem to be pulling out all the stops. If this film is a success, look for multiple X-films to get rolling. A sequel X-Men Apocalypse has already been green lit and there is serious talk of an X-Force film coming. Days of Future Past has an all star cast and is based off one of X-Men’s most popular story arcs. Hopefully Singer’s return will usher the mutant heroes back to first class status in Hollywood

Guardians of the Galaxy: August 1^st  Marvel Studio’s is feeling pretty cocky and you can’t really blame them. They’ve been churning out hit after hit for years now so why not gamble a little bit? Guardians of the Galaxy is the studio’s first foray into the world of the space opera. It centers on a rag tag group of heroes that includes a talking raccoon and sentient tree man who have taken it upon themselves to protect the cosmos from the likes of villains such as Thanos and Ronan the Accuser. Now if you find yourself scratching your head at the names of these characters don’t feel bad. The Guardians were pretty much cult characters at Marvel until recently. The film has a great cast that includes Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Benicio Del Toro (who we met in the Thor post credit scene), and Meryl Dixon himself Michael Rooker. Also keep an ear open for the voices of Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel as heroes Rocket Raccoon and Groot. This movie is looking more and more like Marvel’s answer to Firefly with a really fun tone and a great visual style thanks to director James Gunn. Marvel is putting a lot of faith in this one, in August we’ll find out if it’ll pay off.

How to Train Your Dragon 2: June 13th Five years ago Dreamworks introduced audiences to the character Hiccup and his Viking village of Burk. The first film was a lighthearted and incredibly fun adventure that saw Hiccup befriending an injured dragon and saving his village, this time out the young hero will discover more about his own family and how it connects to world of dragons. The previous film was a real crowd pleaser that appealed to all ages; hopefully this long gestating sequel will have been worth the wait.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: May 2nd Read any rumors about this movie lately? Spider-Man is back this is year in a big way as director Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield return with their sights set on making the web head a house hold name again. This time out Peter may have webbed more then he can handle as a slew of new villains are coming onto the scene. The main threats of this film appear to be Jamie Foxx as Electro and Paul Giamatti as the Rhino but look for appearances or at least the set up for The Green Goblin, Dr. Octopus, Vulture, Venom and maybe more. Sony has decided they want to get into the expanded universe game and have green lit both a Venom and a Sinister Six film. I have no idea what to expect from either of these movies but this puts a fair amount of pressure on the Spidey sequel. So far the response to this pressure is for the movie to go big, really big. Chris Cooper and Dan Dehann have joined the cast as Norman and Harry Osborn and it looks like the seeds for the arrival of Mary Jane Watson are being planted as well.  I really believe Webb has a great vision for the franchise and has worked out the kinks from the previous film (which I also enjoyed)

Interstellar: November 7^th They’re not a lot of movies that can get hype just from the name of their director alone but no one has told director Christopher Nolan that. Not a lot is known about this film other then it centers on a group of explorers who use a wormhole to travel to deep space. It stars Matthew McConaughey, Ann Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Wes Bentley and of course Michael Caine. Most of these actors have been on creative tear for the last few years so seeing them connect or reconnect with Nolan is a great sign for this movie. The first trailer has been released but it doesn’t give you much to see but Nolan has always been the guy who puts his all into creating a groundbreaking and original film about every other year. Forgetting the awesome Dark Knight franchise for a moment, I’m just as excited to see the next movie from the creator of Inception and Memento.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Aug 8th: They’re fearsome, fighting, rebooted teens! Okay so to say this movie has faced some controversy is putting it mildly. Early rumors had the turtles being aliens and not mutants. Then they shortened the name and cast Megan Fox as April O’Neil. The turtles are all being motion captured by various nobody interesting actors and Shredder is white guy. So yeah this seems like a recipe for disaster. Attaching Michael Bay’s name to any fan-boy related property is cause for some concern these days  but it’s important to remember that Bay isn’t directing this flick. He’s just using his influence and sacks of cash to make it happen. I’ve been a turtles fan for years and yes I have reservations but its still the turtles and if anything this movie should look really cool.

Robocop Feb 12th: This is one of those flicks that could go either way. It sounds like a bad idea, and has been plagued by bad press and the release date has been moved at least once. However, after looking at the approach the film has taken I feel more confidant then I did a year ago. It’s more of a reboot then a remake, the names and premise are the same but they’ve done their best to modernize the story. The original film satires 80’s media, the presentation of violence, and advancement of technology. All of these themes are still relevant today but they have also included our war on terror. They’ve also made Alex Murphy’s (Joel Kinnaman) family more important in this version. The film also features Michael Keaton, Samuel L. Jackson, and Gary Oldman who always add to the movies they’re in. While I still miss the silver finish, I’ll still by a Robocop ticket for a dollar.

Godzilla May 16th: Big monsters attacking cities are always popular except when they aren’t which is what Pacific Rim taught us last summer. The real question is how do you make a Godzilla that isn’t like the 1998 bomb. So far they have a lot in common, scientists, the military, and well a Godzilla. Not much is known about this movie other than the cast which includes Bryan Cranston, Aaron Taylor -Johnson, and Elizabeth Olsen. The first trailer showed a lot of military action and very little of the famous monster. Director Gareth Edwards seems to have gone out of his way to give the big lizard a proper introduction to the modern cinema with a great new look. If audiences aren’t burned out on giant monsters destroying cities this could be a big hit.

MOVIES PEOPLE CARE ABOUT THAT I’M JUST NOT THAT INTO

Let me be clear that I’m in no way saying that these movies look bad or that I’m assuming they will be bad. These are just some of the big movies from this year that I think could go either way. They are a hard sell for me.

Transformers 4 Age of Extinction June 27th: Michael Bay’s actual 80’s cartoon movie for the year. This flick will be either the the final nail in a coffin that’s more than meets the eye or just the relaunch that was needed. Gone is Shia Laboff, his annoying parents, and several of the familiar bots. This time we get Mark Walberg, Stanley Tucci, Kelsey Grammer, some random hot girl, AND DINOBOTS! FIST PUMP HERE! That’s right the word extinction doesn’t just sound cool, the movie involves dinosaurs so it makes total sense! Right?… Anyway Bay is trying to scrap together a new way to show Transformers blow things up and move in slow motion and hey maybe he will. (no he wont)

300: Rise of an Empire March 7th: The sequel I’m not sure anybody was asking for. I love 300 but wasn’t the story over? The whole point of the film was that 300 Spartans died and inspired a war against a tyrant king. Did we need to come back for the war with cookie cutter characters because they all died in the first one? This doesn’t feel so much like a sequel as it does a movie trying to look and feel like 300 but it benefits from the ability to have 300 in the title and Lena Headey. It doesn’t look anymore interesting then The Immortals, 47 Ronin, or the new Legends of Hercules. The film also stars Eva Green and Rodrigo Santoro returns to play Xerxes which might mean you get you’ll get to see him die this time. I could be wrong but it seems like the subtitle for this movie should of been waste of time.

Expendables 3 Aug 15th: I liked the second Expendables better then the original but I feel like we’re beginning to beat a dead gimmick here. They’re really starting to scrape the bottom of the barrel looking for new old action heroes to put in these movies and why is Harrison Ford in this movie!? He never snapped a neck or stabbed a guy while saying a hilariously dry pun. This time around we also get Antonio Bandaras who will hopefully shoot a guy with a guitar or just recite Puss N Boots lines. Also don’t forget Wesley Snipes, you know Blade… he went to jail…their we addressed the elephant in the room. Also Mel Gibson who everybody is still comfortable with… I’m fine with Stallone and company making the most of their rekindled fame but maybe they should work on making different movies instead of the same one with a roatating cast.

Divergent March 21st: This could be a great film but I wouldn’t know because when I watch the trailer I just keep yelling HUNGER GAMES, HUNGER GAMES, THIS MOVIE LOOKS LIKE HUNGER GAMES! Female heroine, dystopian future, a plot to take down a government that has implemented a ridiculous organizational system. Like I said it just sounds familiar, but it does look more interesting then Beautiful Creatures, The Host, and The Mortal Instruments but that doesn’t really mean that this will be hit. I just need this series to find a way to separate itself from the pack in a big way.