Movie Scum

I kid. She was great in Black Swan . Jane Foster will not be sticking around in Marvel’s sandbox. This isn’t really news considering production on Thor: Ragnorak began last month with no word of Jane’s return. Now, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Natalie Portman has declared her doneness, once and for all: “As far as I know, I’m done,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know if maybe one day they’ll ask for an Avengers 7, or whatever.” She continued by saying that Thor “was a great thing to be a part of.” Okay, maybe so it’s not ironclad but Portman doesn’t appear to be hanging her hopes on playing the straight-man to Chris Hemsworth’s Thor. To be fair, Jane really never did much else besides spout scientific exposition and be in danger when the story called for it. Fingers crossed though this means Kat Dennings’ Darcy is still around though.

How many times can this dejected comic book series be adapted? I do not read comic books but I can dig comic book films, provided they don’t look like complete failures. So far, the Marvel comic series Fantastic Four has produced three films and not a single one has even hinted at something I’d be interested in seeing. But after last summer’s shit-show of Fant4stic , which not only managed to piss a bunch of fans off even more but also lose the studio a lot of movie, producer Simon Kinberg wants another bite at this festering apple of a series. Telling Den of Geek! that the much maligned property is still in play at Fox, Kinberg offers a bit of a mea culpa and a desire to continue with the present cast: “I think we made many mistakes when we made that movie - mistakes that we learned from and we wouldn’t repeat. I think we tried to make a darker Fantastic Four movie, which seemed like a radical idea but we were kind of messing with the DNA of the actual comic instead o...

Much like when Guardians of the Galaxy was announced, I was entirely disinterested in Marvel’s announcement of Ant-Man . Granted, Marvel has a stellar record with their in-house films and the impossibly cheesy sounding Guardians turned out to be among their top tier. But still. A superhero who controls insects and whose main superpower is shrinking. Boo! Give me more Captain America.

Films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe are quite fun and generally well-regarded. And then there’s the duo of Thor movies which, while not bad, are nowhere near as endearing or entertaining as the original Iron Man or Captain America: The Winter Soldier . But the Hulk may be just the perfect plan to give Thor his own breakout movie. News that Mark Ruffalo would be joining Thor’s third solo adventure, Thor: Ragnorak was greeting with cheers amongst the internet as the duo’s playful bantering, and hitting, was among the high points of The Avengers films. Ruffalo sums up the new film as such: “I don’t really know that much about it, but I think it’s going to be a buddy picture with Thor and Bruce Banner,” Ruffalo said. “I think they’ll probably fight. There’s no doubt, everyone wants us to fight at one point.” As drab and ultimately forgettable as the previous Thor films were, this seems like a sure-fire way to make this one stand out. Everyone loves a fight between a god ...

Iron Man 2 (2010) Even with the addition of Sam Rockwell and the introduction of Black Widow, Iron Man 2 feels less like a complete film and more of just a teaser that just happens to star Robert Downey, Jr. Thor: The Dark World (2013) I swear I saw this film and for the life of me cannot remember anything plot-wise about it. I do know Idris Elba gets more to do and Rene Russo gets ... well less. Another filler movie in the MCU. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Granted, without the First Avenger, Captain America’s arc from a bullied kid from Brooklyn to the figurehead of the most powerful country of the world and his sacrifice means nothing. But this was still an odd movie, both in scope, in cannon with the rest of the films, and in the wonky plot structure. The Incredible Hulk (2008) Even though Edward Norton was recast for The Avengers, his Bruce Banner carried a low-lying intensity with a human touch that comes in handy when the Green Giant with purple sho...

Avengers: Age of Ultron : Opening May 1 The Good : Have you seen The Avenger s ? Considering that it made about $1 and a half billion worldwide, I’d guess it’s a safe assumption that you have. And don’t you remember? It was awesome. Everyone, myself included, was quite skeptical about how Marvel and director Joss Whedon would pull together five movies worth of backstory and characterizations for our titular heroes in any sort of coherent sense that was not just 150 minutes of explosions. But Whedon managed not only to make a coherent movie of a Norse god, an unfrozen man from the ‘40s, and a playboy but make it fun and immensely enjoyable. Since then, Marvel’s “Phase 2” pictures have been pretty solid, especially last years Captain America: The Winter Soldier . And of course, in my opinion, Marvel has never made a bad movie so the main question would really just be: will Avengers: Age of Ultron be great or be better than its predecessor. Not to mention that all of the advan...

Among the chief concerns by many when it was announced that Spider-Man was officially joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe was worry that we'd be subjected to yet another G-D origin story. But Marvel head honcho Kevin Feige says nope! Crave Online reported the quote from Feige who seems to be just as weary of Spider-Man Begins as the rest of us. "There is a young kid [already] running around New York City in a homemade version of the Spider-Man costume in the MCU, you just don't know it yet," So fear not, fellow interwebbers. We will not be subjected to yet another tale of a young nerd named Peter Parker who gets bitten by a mutated spider and yada yada yada. So, at the very least this seems to mean that Marvel won't be as tone-deaf as Sony when it comes to what needs to go in a Spider-Man film.

The general consensus was that The Avengers could not work as intended. Granted, Marvel Studios did their best in establishing the four main members of the group with their own films that were mostly pretty solid in their own right, but how can one film fit so much backstory, sarcastic quips, and charisma from the assembled team without it being six hours long? Enter Joss Whedon to write and direct it, complete with his own built-in cult of crazed fans even though his output has never included anything of this size or scope before. I can't say I am a rabid fan of Whedon, only because there are many gaps in his resume that I have not seen. Nonetheless, he seemed like a perfect choice just from the goodwill the internet has for him as well as the properties of his I have seen (like the completely awesome Cabin in the Woods).

Marvel has had a pretty good batting average since taking their films in-house a few years ago beginning with the lauded Iron Man . Even though their latest films have not lived up to that high standard (in fairness, that's not an easy task), their output has been consistently on the good side with Thor and the latest Hulk movie both being quite enjoyable. Of course, the big draw is next year's Avengers , the super-superhero movie which will hopefully find a way to congeal all of these wildly different comic book protagonists in a cohesive sense. The last stop before Avengers though is the first Avenger: Captain America . I should not need to preface this review by saying I know squat about the comic series; this should be assumed by now. Captain America was created in the early 1940s but rose in popularity during World War II for obvious reasons. The comic, as well as the film center around Steve Rogers ( Chris Evans ), a scrawny kid from Brooklyn, who desperately wants ...

Three years ago, a guy like me would have never had a concept of, nor would have cared about, a B-series comic book hero like Iron Man. Sure, he is a superhero featured in a barrage of comic books but Iron Man did not have the household appeal of the other more well-known comic book superheroes. With 2008’s feature Iron Man , that all changed as the wealthy son of an intellectual rose to stand along side the The Dark Knight and the Man of Steel . Picking up where the previous film left off, Tony Stark has outed himself as Iron Man and is subsequently dealing with the consequences of the injury that birthed his suited armor and the power it entails. However, as a man who has “privatized world peace,” Stark enjoys his adventures fighting the big baddies as much as his detractors like to point out the danger in his technology’s existence. When the son of his father’s former collaborator creates a powerful suit of his own, Stark is busy fending off other corporate slimeballs, frenemi...