Black Panther (2018): based on characters and concepts created by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee, Don McGregor, Billy Graham, and others; written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole; directed by Ryan Coogler; starring Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther/ T'Challa), Michael B. Jordan (Erik 'Killmonger' Stevenson), Lupita Nyong'o (Nakia), Danal Gurira (Okoye), Martin Freeman (Everett Ross), Daniel Kaluuya (W'Kabi), Letitia Wright (Shuri), Winston Duke (M'Baku), Angela Bassett (Ramonda), Forest Whitaker (Zuri), and Andy Serkis (Ulysses Klaue):
Marvel's epic about its first African superhero is obviously a crowd-pleaser, based on its stunning box-office success. It's an enjoyable piece of work. Ryan Coogler and company do about as well as one can in these things when it comes to superhero characterization, and some of the early fight sequences are nicely staged without too many quick edits, especially a battle in a Korean casino.
We also get a good look at the high-tech kingdom of Wakanda in all its utopian, Afro-futuristic glory. Much of the visual design for the capital of Wakanda is thoroughly grounded in the work of writer-artist Jack Kirby, who co-created the Black Panther with Stan Lee in the pages of the Fantastic Four in the 1960's. Given the success of Black Panther and the even-more-Kirbyesque Thor: Ragnarok, Kirby's art still has some power to awe and delight.
I have my usual quibbles, some of them anyway. The final battle goes on forever and occurs on too many fronts to be dramatically satisfying. And changing the last name of sound- and vibranium-obsessed villain Ulysses Klaw (a spirited Andy Serkis, probably glad to be out of the motion-capture suit for once) to 'Klaue' is a hilarious moment in micro-managing "verisimilitude" in superhero movies.
For a rare moment, Marvel has a movie villain whose motivations make psychological sense in a serious way in Michael B. Jordan's inspired turn as Erik "Killmonger." He's about one personality change away from being a hero, which is what makes him so involving (well, that and Jordan's charismatic performance). He's almost a tragic hero, to the extent that one roots for him to "turn good."
Chadwick Boseman is terrific in the difficult role of the mostly saintly Black Panther. An all-star cast of women does great work as Black Panther/T'Challa's female honour guard, his teen-genius sister, his ex (a fun and funny Lupita Nyong'o) , and his mother, a regal Angela Bassett. Coogler and company even manage to navigate the potentially offensive Black Panther character known as Man-Ape, in part by never mentioning him by that name and instead making he and his people something other than antagonists.
The tribal leader formerly known as Man-Ape (played by a solid Winston Duke) even gets some comic moments as he punctures the assumptions of Caucasian second-banana Bilbo, I mean, CIA agent Martin Freeman. Now that's good film-making! Highly recommended.
Chronicle (2012): written by Max Landis and Josh Trank; directed by Josh Trank; starring Dane DeHaan (Andrew Detmer), Alex Russell (Matt Garetty), Michael B. Jordan (Steve Montgomery), and Michael Kelly (Richard Detmer): Josh Trank and Max Landis' fine, found-footage superhero drama led to Trank's horrible Fantastic Four movie, which really seems like a case of Unintended Consequences.
Oddly, the means by which the three teenagers in Chronicle gain their telekinesis-based superpowers would have made for a good new origin for the Fantastic Four -- as indeed one character's descent into madness would have made for a reasonable take on Doctor Doom. So it goes.
The found-footage premise works organically through much of the movie, especially once the characters can telekinetically fly the camera around on its own. Dane DeHaan, Alex Russell, and Michael B. Jordan do fine, nuanced work as our three super-powered teenagers. And Chronicle, despite its (relatively) low budget, does a nice job of showing the wonders and terrors such powers would visit upon people while also creating actual, sympathetic, flawed characters.
All this actual storytelling means that a concluding super-hero battle actually possesses the ability to shock and disturb. Easily one of the ten greatest superhero movies ever made because it's actually a movie and not an Ad for American Exceptionalism, Toys, and Fast Food. Highly recommended.
Spotlight (2015): based on true events and written by Josh Singer and Tom McCarthy; directed by Tom McCarthy; starring Mark Ruffalo (Mike Rezendes), Michael Keaton ('Robby' Robinson), Rachel McAdams (Sacha Pfeiffer), Liev Schreiber (Marty Baron), John Slattery (Ben Bradlee, Jr.), and Stanley Tucci (Mitchell Garabedian): Excellent, old-school movie which turns true-life events into the stuff of an intellectual thriller without sacrificing verisimilitude.
A top-notch cast takes us through the investigation of child abuse in the Roman Catholic Church in and around Boston back in 2001-2002. The reporters of the Boston Globe's in-depth investigative unit (a unit named Spotlight, hence the title) eventually find not only widespread abuse but a cover-up that really does seem to go all the way to the top. It's a nicely modulated movie about why reporting matters, and how the most terrible crimes can be covered up by seemingly decent people for 'the greater good.' A deserved Best Picture Oscar Winner for 2015. Highly recommended.
Everest: based on a true story and written by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy; directed by Baltasar Kormakur; starring Jason Clarke (Rob Hall), John Hawkes (Doug Hansen), Michael Kelly (Jon Krakauer), Emily Watson (Helen Wilton), Keira Knightley (Jan Arnold), Josh Brolin (Beck Weathers), Robin Wright (Peach Weathers), and Jake Gyllenhaal (Scott Fischer) (2015): Enjoyable movie based on the true story of a disastrous couple of days on Mount Everest in May of 1996. Journalist Jon Krakauer's terrific Into Thin Air (1997) documented the affair, and while the movie isn't based on that book, Krakauer does appear as one of the characters. The movie holds up well on the small screen, though one focuses more on the characters when one isn't being threatened with visions of the Sublime every five minutes. Highly recommended.
Fantastic Four (2015): based on the comic book created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee; written by Jeremy Slater, Simon Kinberg, and Josh Trank; directed by Josh Trank; starring Miles Teller (Reed Richards/ Mr. Fantastic), Michael B. Jordan (Johnny Storm/ Human Torch), Kate Mara (Sue Storm/ Invisible Girl), Jamie Bell (Ben Grimm/ The Thing), Toby Kebbell (Victor Von Doom/ Doctor Doom), and Reg E. Cathey (Franklin Storm):
A truly misguided effort sucks all the fun out of Marvel's first family of superheroes. Writer-director Josh Trank got this gig on the basis of Chronicle, his found-footage film about teen-agers with super-powers gone horribly wrong. And there are moments in Fantastic Four that would make for a great superhero movie just so long as it wasn't about the Fantastic Four. Our heroes were some of the first whose origins were presented straightforwardly by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee as moments of Body Horror. Some of that remains here, and it's the best thing about the movie.
Unfortunately, the movie is slow, ponderous, and weighed down with characters who seem to have been written to be as annoying as possible. Following the lead of Marvel's revisionist Ultimate Fantastic Four comic book (not by Lee and Kirby), our heroes are all teen-agers now, while Doctor Doom is only a few years older. None of this helps. The actors, especially Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, do their best with the awful material. This isn't their fault.
The movie pretty much throws away everything that made the original FF awesome, from the bickering, nearly soap-operatic melodrama to the low-comedy hi-jinks of The Thing and The Human Torch to the looming menace of Doctor Doom, here reduced to an angry crash-test dummy with ill-defined super-powers. The FF no longer get their powers by being heroic in a very early 1960's way (they want to beat the Soviets into manned orbit). Now they get drunk and take their goofy-ass transdimensional Stargate out for an ill-advised test drive. What larks, Pip!
It's all really pretty terrible, and as boring as Hell for long stretches. I think Josh Trank could do a great job on certain revisionist superhero properties -- or preferably on his own creations. This movie made me long for the goofy mediocrity of the early oughts FF movies. And I had to read 200 pages of classic Kirby/Lee Fantastic Four to get this movie out of my head. Also, whoever thought taking away The Thing's blue shorts was a good idea should be fired. Now. Forever. Not recommended.
