Category: Danai Gurira

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

By Marc S. Sanders

Avengers: Infinity War is a really FAT movie. Like ORCA FAT (thank you Keyser Soze), because it is chock full of so much to see. If this equated to gorging on junk food, after two hours and forty minutes, I would have a diabetic cardiac arrest immediately following the credits. Is this a film that is worth that handicap, however? You bet it is.

There is an ensemble of top Hollywood talent portraying a huge cast of characters, once again, and thus another installment has surfaced in the franchise that allows them to have various moments to shine. Producer Kevin Feige with all of Disney’s support, has mastered the formula to ensemble casting and production, as good as when George Clooney and company performed under Steven Soderbergh’s direction in the Ocean’s 11 remake. Thousands of special effects shots do not overpower the stage presence of the actors. The Marvel movies succeed because a story is always written first. Then witty dialogue comes thereafter, and then valid, convincing shock value. The special effects are the final ingredient. This is what the Transformers franchise and (yes, I’ll even own up to it) the Star Wars prequel trilogy (about ¾ of it) failed to achieve. This successful formula gives merit to the (at the time) biggest opening weekend ever, worldwide, and Avengers: Infinity War deserves the accolades.

How good is it? Well, reflecting back to May 1980, when sitting in a crowded theatre watching the ending to The Empire Strikes Back, by comparison I think audiences have finally been served up a cliffhanger (10 years in the making) that is just as effective. How is this all going to wrap up from here? How is this all going to be resolved? Reader, I don’t know if the next chapter will be satisfying. I don’t know if we will feel cheated like Annie Wilkes from Stephen King’s Misery. Presently, however, I’m turning an ending like this over in my mind; the same way I did with my pals in 1980 debating the survival ratio of Han Solo and if Darth Vader has told the truth, and if that was Vader’s brain or head that I saw, and who is this “another” that Yoda referred to….and that, my friends, is what makes a spectacular film. I don’t care if it gets watered down in the hype and McDonald’s promotions and toys. If you can mull over a movie long after it has ended, for days, even months and years, then a film like The Empire Strikes Back and Avengers: Infinity War has more than served its purpose.

Josh Brolin provides a villain with a justification to his madness. He’s not just twirling his mustache to be mischievous and sinister. He has a destiny to fulfill, and his portrayal of the mad titan Thanos does not compromise. This is a beast of a purple villain with size 52 boots and gold-plated armor with a chin that looks like it was clawed by Wolverine. Thanos cries, actually cries, while committing his crimes. He’s not just cackling. He flat out says that he executes his actions all so that he can relax and retire. Isn’t that what we are all trying to do, anyway? Nothing wrong with that. Guy sounds like a CEO to a large corporation. Maybe Thanos is updated to resemble an Elon Musk. 

All of the other actors from main staple Robert Downey Jr to Chris Pratt to Chadwick Boseman to Zoe Saldana and Chris Hemsworth, and so on, remain consistent to what we’ve seen of various prior installments. Their gimmicks continue to avoid becoming stale. Audience applause is cued by their appearances. These are well loved characters.

As an avid comic book reader of the silver age (1980s), Avengers: Infinity War presents itself as of one those annual limited series runs that were special because they were MAIN EVENTS!!!! My favorite back then was Marvel’s Secret Wars. Typically, a comic book from the 1980s would average about 18-22 pages with advertisements sprinkled in. Nearly every scene in this film equates to one issue of a limited run of a main event. That is a why a fat movie like this succeeds. The cast of characters are separated in various story lines. The scenes are given their time to flesh out and develop to move the subplots and overall story along. Each scene is like reading a new 18 page issue comic book. If I’m watching a comic book film, by golly, I want to see how a comic book is brought to life in a cinematic medium. Marvel’s films succeed greatly over DC’s films (produced by Warner Bros) because they rely on the source material. They know they got the goods. Cast it right, adapt it properly and go with that. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. A wealth of material (nearly 70 years) and Marvel/Disney uses it all. (How does DC/Warner Bros miss the mark so often?)

Of all of the Avengers films, Infinity War is definitely the best one. Ironically, I wasn’t expecting it to be. I was waiting for this stuff to get old and tiring. It just hasn’t faltered yet. It hasn’t gotten lazy yet. It all seems so fresh still. It’s a fantastic cinematic accomplishment. Sure, its main story is a guy chasing down six different colorful MacGuffins. So what! It’s simple. It allows the characters to stand out from there. An organized plotline like this doesn’t take much effort or time to explain its purpose. It states its conflict early on, and then the show stopping moments present themselves. One after the other after the other until a monster of an ending that is so jaw dropping, head shaking, thrilling and gasping, satisfyingly arrives. 

More importantly, the MacGuffin search drives the motivations and fleshes out the film’s main character, Thanos. This Marvel installment belongs to Josh Brolin as Thanos. Everyone else serves as his antagonists. What matters is that the bad guy wins this time, just like demonstrating that an Empire will strike back. Ironic that Spider-Man makes a humorous correlation to that celebrated franchise from almost forty years ago.

Avengers: Infinity War ended up in my top 10 list of 2018, and still holds as the best film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

BLACK PANTHER: WAKANDA FOREVER

By Marc S. Sanders

Marvel does it right.  DC doesn’t.  Black Panther: Wakanda Forever  is not a perfect film, but it’s not Black Adam.  The latest Marvel production offers sharp visual effects and action scenes, along with thought provoking moments that reflect on loss.  Black Adam offers a crusty, yellow lightning bolt on the chest of The Rock.

Director Ryan Coogler was faced with a terrible challenge to make the follow up to his smash hit, Black Panther.  The star at the center of the film, Chadwick Boseman, unexpectedly passed away from colon cancer.  A screenplay for the film’s sequel had to suddenly be rehashed.  A unified cast had to work with a hole in its structure.  Coogler opted not to recast the role of T’Challa, the King of the fictional African nation, Wakanda.  That was a smart choice.  Boseman’s portrayal was so embraced in that film, as well as three other Marvel chapters, that he was seemingly irreplaceable.  T’Challa was not just another James Bond or Batman.

I liked most of Wakanda Forever.  First and foremost, the primary cast is mostly female and Marvel’s early reputation with female characters left a lot to be desired when all they would do is flirt with the action star and scream for help.  As well, none of the women characters were very diverse.  The African influence of the Black Panther characters demonstrate that the Marvel universe is unlimited in appearance and style.  (Star Wars productions of late prove that as well.) 

The design of the picture is also gorgeous.  I still yearn for Wakanda to be a real locale that can be toured.  I’m sure Disney is already giving this some thought.  At times, it was hard to know what overhead locations were mere CGI and what was real.  The backdrops are seamless.  The whole movie is gorgeous. 

The sensitivity to the loss of Boseman is especially handled beautifully.  The opening sequence is a ceremony we have all been waiting for since the actor’s death two years prior to the release of the film.  Some of the customs and practices might be fictional, albeit inspired by what has been researched in other factual nations and observances, but it is also endearing.  The silence of the Marvel logo montage will especially grab you.

Wakanda Forever is carried primarily by Letitia Wright as Shuri, T’Challa’s sister.  The film takes place one year after T’Challa has passed away from a disease and she is not ready to burn the funeral garb she wore when his soul was sent off to the ancestors.  However, while Wakanda was once thought to be the sole resource of Vibranium, the most powerful element in the world, a new character is introduced from under the ocean.  Namor (Tenoch Huerta) is the mutant who leads a nation of underwater dwellers with their own source of Vibranium.  He proposes that his nation works in conjunction with Wakanda to protect what they possess from other nations (like the United States and France; though why must Marvel show these countries in a bad light?) who could potentially use this commodity for nefarious purposes. 

From this seed in the storyline, subplots are branched out.  They just don’t work, though.  Wakanda’s American ally, Agent Everett Ross (Martin Freeman), is brought back into the fold.  He only adds unnecessary running time to a very long film.  First, he provides a lead on to a new character, that’s expected to fill the hole left by Robert Downey Jr’s Iron Man.  A character named Riri Williams (Dominique Thorne) who I have learned becomes the super hero Iron Heart with a new Iron suit.  After that Ross is left to watch Anderson Cooper on CNN as we have already seen the plot unfolding for ourselves, and have conversations with a character named Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis Dreyfus, looking at her most uninteresting and boring).  I know. This character serves as teaser fodder for what the MCU promises in future installments, but why is it necessary?  I believe this is her third appearance between the films and Disney + shows.  All she does is drag the stories down.  Wakanda Forever is a 2 hour and 40-minute film, that could have saved thirty minutes without the characters from Freeman and Dreyfus, and likely Thorne as well.  Let’s just stick with the Wakandans and forget about advertising what’s coming next from the Marvel factory, please.

Another issue with the film is the delay of showing the new Black Panther.  That’s what we ultimately paid for.  The middle section of this long running time had me yearning for when I could see the new suit in action, and who was going to wear it.  When it finally arrives in the third act, I gotta say I was let down.  While there’s a newly inventive design, like each time there was with Iron Man, we don’t see much of what’s new in action and there’s hardly anything that’s novel about it.  Does this Black Panther suit offer any new tricks? 

What’s fortunate for the film is the cast.  Letitia Wright has a good balance of youth segueing into maturity as she toils with loss.  I love this angle in the same way I appreciated the cancer storyline written for Natalie Portman in Thor: Love And Thunder.  Superpowers do not shield us from what slowly dwindles our lives away.  Angela Basset remains a very strong actor after an over forty-year career as the surviving Queen of Wakanda.  She commands a powerful presence of authority.  Danai Gurira as the spear wielding acrobatic Wakandan warrior Okoye is absolutely cool in action scenes.  She also has well written scenes to perform with the other two leads, as her character’s commitment to country is tested. 

Ironically, the Namor character is one of the oldest Marvel characters in print, introduced long before Spider-Man or the Hulk came on the page.  I was never a fan of the character though.  He just didn’t have a cool enough costume for me as it was only a bathing suit and he had wings on his ankles.  Meh.  I feel the same way here.  The back story of the character is altered to fit the mold of the script, and that’s okay, but I didn’t feel for this antagonist’s plight.  In the prior film, I was more on the side Eric Killmonger’s (Michael B. Jordan) cause than I was on T’Challa’s.  In this film, Namor is just a guy to do battle with while he flies and swims.

Ryan Coogler is a detailed director.  When I’m in Wakanda, I want to explore every building and hop aboard each vehicle that hovers overhead.  He leaves no stone unturned.  I would have chosen for some of the action scenes to be shot in the daytime so I could get a better look at what goes on.  I feel that way about all action and adventure films.  However, a darkened action scene in nearly any Marvel film is much more articulated than any scene, daylight or otherwise, in Black Adam from DC.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is a good film, but not great, mostly due to its overstayed running time.  What should have been cut from the final reel is obvious.  Yet, good writing and acting allows for the film that many Marvel fans needed after one of their heroes left us.  Losing Chadwick Boseman likely equates to how we lost our Superman, Christopher Reeve.  It seemed so unfair that someone who offered such heroic optimism and joy could be taken from our reach so early in life.  At least, the loss of Boseman was thankfully not washed over with a replacement that could never fill his void.