Pokemon ventures into the live action realm that’s popular lately with Detective Pikachu. It’s loosely based on the 3DS title of the same name, though there are quite a few changes to the plot and characters. The film follows Tim Goodman who teams up with a talking Pikachu, voiced by Ryan Reynolds as a wisecracking PG Deadpool. They set out to solve the mystery of Tim’s father’s death but end up unraveling a larger conspiracy.
The general plot is pretty straight forward and predictable. There are very few real twists and none of them feel particularly shocking, even probably the biggest one that happens at the end. The trip though is pretty fun. There are quite a few funny jokes and moments, the Mr. Mime Sequence shown in the trailers is pretty great, and pretty dark in it’s humor, for example. There is a lot of “Loony Tunes” style humor, that is, jokes that are funny for kids and adults but for different reasons.
It’s visually well done. The live action Pokemon all are very recognizable, and look pretty good in their “flesh and blood” style. The little Easter egg moments and little bits of Pokemon doing things in the background that really make the world feel alive. The city where this movie is set is, by way of the plot, special. Special because it’s dedicated to helping Pokemon and people live together in harmony, so there isn’t any battling or people throwing Pokeballs around. Everyone has a “buddy” Pokemon and they all work together to do their jobs.
Pretty much all of the flaws land in the 3rd act, when the villain is revealed, and his motives are a little dodgy, which makes the whole thing feel kind of odd. It’s executed well, it just could have been better. It’s also not particularly groundbreaking in any meaningful way. It’s essentially Rodger Rabbit with Pokemon.
It’s a good movie, it’s not an amazing movie. It does a good job at what it sets out to be.
Additional Spoiler Thoughts BeyondBeyond This Point
In tradition of how I tend to do reviews, I’m going to add a few additional thoughts that contain spoilers below. Read at your own risk.
So, like I said, it’s a lot of “predictable” so most of this will be about the endgame bits of the movie. So, the main villain Twist. This was probably the one real surprising twist, though it’s been done before so it wasn’t really shocking. Also, he’s not a huge actor, but you don’t pick up Bill Nighy to waste him on a throw away character in a wheelchair. That said, why the hell did he want to merge everyone with their Pokemon, aside from being “crazy evil guy”? I get why he wanted to do himself, but forcing it on everyone felt a little random and out there.
Not to mention it felt underused in it’s execution. Basically, all the humans vanished and the Pokemon all just sort of stood around doing nothing. This would have been a prime opportunity to do a few gags about the Human/Pokemon not knowing how to act or what to do. Especially say, Yoshida and Lucy, whom we have watched throughout the movie and can relate to.
This plot point also made the second twist of Tim’s father being Pikachu extremely predictable as well. Actually using Ryan Reynolds was a nice touch. It kind of sucks that they can’t really make a sequel with Ryan Reynolds Pikachu though, not without retreading the same plot ground.
A few other thoughts, the Torterra scene felt really pointless. The Greninja could have injured Pikachu and moved the plot ahead in the same way. I mean it was kind of neat seeing the massive Pokemons, but they basically just stood up and laid back down into the scenery. I guess the writers decided they needed an action sequence for the film.
Speaking of the action sequences, the other two Action scenes were both pretty good. Pikachu vs Charizard was cool, though Pikachu didn’t really DO anything. the final Mewtwo vs Pikachi was good but the whole Evil Ditto bit was what really made that scene. Plus it was a nice way to push the twist with the Father instead of the Son being the villain. Since the Son actually did something useful in the fight.
Infinity War and
Endgame are, not surprisingly, coming out very close to each other. At least when compared to the previous
Avengers outings they are close to each other.
This is kind of understandable given how disruptive the end of Infinity
War was. Even Agents of SHIELD
essentially took a prolonged break to wait for things to be fixed. A couple of films have squeezed in between,
both featuring things that will likely show up prominently in Avengers End
Game. The first was Ant-Man and the
Wasp, which according to the post credits scene, effectively happens simultaneously
along side Avengers Infinity War.
Captain Marvel gets
around this problem by taking place in the past. Only the credits scene happens during
“present day”. This is kind of
a first for Marvel films which have always taken place “Present
day”. Captain America: The First
Avenger got around this by having it’s current day scene happen at the end of
the film after Steve wakes up from his long cold sleep.
The core of the film
is an origin story for Carol Danvers, aka Captain Marvel, aka Vers (pronounced
Veers). The majority of the film takes
place in the mid 90s with some flashbacks to Carol’s past life 6 years previous. It sort of mixes up the standard
“origin” concept this way since it doesn’t just start with “here
is how she got her powers” then “here is how she learns to be a
hero”, which is nice. Her original
also ties heavily into the plot itself.
The real show
stealers of this film are Samuel L. Jackson, who plays a CGIed younger version
of himself as Nick Fury, and Carol’s cat Goose.
Ben Mendelsohn also does a pretty good job as the Skrull leader Talos
throughout the film. There are some good
funny bits, mostly involving one or more of these three characters though it’s
not a constant joke like Guardians of the Galaxy.
So how is the
movie? It’s… alright. There has been some controversy with the film
getting brigaded with negative reviews on review sites. It’s not the best Marvel film by any stretch,
but it’s certainly not god awful like some of these “ratings”
suggest. It’s like a pretty solid 7/10
or so probably.
Synopsis and Spoilers
The film opens with
Carol, at this point known as Vers (Veers), living on the Kree home world and
training with Yon-Rogg to join an elite Kree Commando force known as the
Starforce. We get a brief look at how
she has no memory of her past but has dreams of it occasionally through a brief
dream sequence where she is injured on the ground along side Annette Benning’s
character and being attacked by a Skrull.
The Starforce and Kree are at war with the Skrulls. The Kree should be fairly familiar to anyone
following the MCU, they have showed up in a few movies and the Agents of SHIELD
show quite a bit. The Skrulls are new to
the MCU though. Basically, they are
tricky aliens who can shapeshift. It’s
not a plot element in the movie but Super Skrulls can also replicate the abilities
of super heroes.
Anyway, Vers gets
summoned to meet with the Supreme Intelligence, leader of the Kree, who takes
the form of “something important to each individual”. In the case of Vers, it takes the form of
Annette Benning. Vers is recruited into
Starforce and the little party of fighters head off on a mission to rescue
someone on a Skrull planet. They arrive,
we get to see the Starforce in action a bit when they are ambushed by Skrulls,
and Vers heads into a base alone to look for the hostage. It turns out it’s a trap and the hostage is a
Skrull, and Vers is taken captive.
We get a few flashes
of her past again, as the Skrulls scan her memory for information. They find a memory of Vers and Annette
Benning together on an airfield on Earth, after reviewing the memory several
times they discern the location of the airfield. Around this time Vers manages to break free
of the system and starts fighting her way out of the Skrull ship. She escapes as the ship explodes and crash
lands in a Blockbuster video on Earth.
This brings up my
first kind of problem here, we later find out she was out for a few hours, but
it’s not really explained when the Skrulls traveled to Earth from wherever they
were. I mean, obviously it happened, but
the way it was presented felt a little random and convenient.
After using the
Earth’s phone system and some Kree technology, Vers manages to contact Yon-Rogg
and sets out to find out why the Skrulls were looking for Annette Benning. Not before being confronted by SHIELD and Nick
Fury, with Agent Coulson in tow as a rookie agent. Fury doesn’t seem to quite believe Vers’
story about aliens and Skrulls and Kree.
They are interrupted by an attack by a Skrull whom Vers chases down on
foot with Fury and Coulson pursuing in a car.
Vers fights with the Skrull a bit on an elevated train as the SHIELD
agents follow on along behind. Fury gets
a call on the radio of his car from Coulson, who wonders where everyone went
from the Blockbuster, which alerts Fury that Coulson in the car isn’t who he
thinks it is. After a brief fight he
wrecks his car, killing the Skrull who reverts back to his normal form. Vers loses the Skrull she was following in a
crowd.
After changing to
some normal clothes from her fancy Kree suit, Carol takes to searching the
internet for clues about Annette Benning’s whereabouts. Coulson gets some information on the Skrull
body at the SHIELD base before, in classic Fury fashion, showing up randomly to
talk to Vers. Since he now believes her
story, they agree to team up to figure out what’s going on and head to a secret
base where Annette Benning was working.
In the base they find that the person they are looking for has been dead
for years. They also find a cat that
appeared previously in Vers’ memories and some information on the Light Speed
drive that had been worked on there.
Vers also discovers that she is in a photo of the test experimental test
plane.
Meanwhile, Fury has
contacted SHIELD to let them know where he was, only it turns out that his boss
has been replaced by a Kree. In a bit of
a clever bit, he discovers this when his boss calls him “Nick” instead
of “Fury”. He previously made
a huge point to Vers that no one calls him anything but Fury. No one.
He tricks the Skrull into splitting up by commenting “Just like in
Haiti”, which I only mention as it comes up again later.
Anyway, Fury
reunited with Vers, who is not happy at all about him alerting SHIELD to their
location. There is a brief battle before
they escape in a Quadjet, which looks a lot like a bulkier and older model
Quinjet. They discover that the cat
managed to stow away with them on board the jet. They set off to visit Maria Rambeau, who was
listed as the last person to see Vers alive in her past life.
It turns out Maria
was best friend to Vers in her past life.
They bond, we learn that Vers is from Earth (which we all kind of
expected given the flashbacks). We learn
that her name isn’t Vers, it’s Carol Danvers.
There is a half a dog tag that reads “Carol Dan” on it. Carol had a jacket that apparently Maria’s
daughter wears sometimes. Maria is a
little town since she is happy her friend is alive and a little irritated that
she was off on another planet.
This is all
interrupted by the arrival of Talos, the Skrull commander, now in his normal
Skrull form. He wants a truce, and to
talk, and to reveal… the plot twist. It
turns out that Annette Benning wasn’t human, but was a Kree scientist known as
Mar-Vell. He plays back a recording of
the crash Carol was involved in, the one that’s he had been dreaming about. Mar-Vell and Carol are piloting the
experimental craft and get shot down by some alien craft. Only instead of being attacked by Skrulls, it
turns out she had been attacked by Yon-Rogg.
The Kree were the ones after the Light Speed Drive all along, not the
Skrulls. During the confrontation,
Mar-Vell had revealed her secret to Carol.
Carol then fires a Kree weapon at the Light Speed drive, causing it to
explode. Somehow the energy is absorbed
into Carol’s body. Seeing this power,
Yon-Rogg abducts her, her memory is wiped, and she is recruited to
Starforce. We also see him pick up the
other half of the dog tag which reads only “vers”, which was the
missing half of “Carol Danvers” on the complete dog tag, and the
reason she is called “Vers” early on.
Carol is a little
pissed that she has been lied to of course.
This recording also
leads to the secret coordinates that aren’t on the Earth, but are actually in
orbit around Earth. The Skrulls modify
the Quadjet for spaceflight and they all (Carol, Fury, Talos, Maria, the Cat) head
into space. Once there they discover
Mar-Vell’s secret cloaked space station, which, surprise, contains a bunch of
Skrull refugees. Specifically, Talos’
family, who had been working with Mar-Vell.
It also contains the source of power that the Kree are after in the
Tesseract Cube. Carol gives the
Tesseract to Fury for safe keeping, or specifically, Goose the Cat eats is with
a bunch of tentacles that spew out of it’s mouth, because it’s not a cat it’s a
Flurgen.
The Starforce squad
shows up and use an implant in Carol’s head to force her to power down. Carol is then, once again, confronted by the
Supreme Intelligence. The Skrulls and Fury
and Maria are locked up. Carol confronts
the Supreme intelligence who kind of taunts her about how weak she is. This pretty much causes her to overcome the
implant and unleash her full power. She
wipes the floor with the Starforce Squad.
Meanwhile, Talos has disguised himself as a Starforce grunt, and alerts
Fury with a comment about Haiti, which is once again, kind of clever. They overpower their captors and escape with
the Skrulls to the Quadjet. Along the
way we get to see more of Goose’s true power as the Cat eats several of the
guard whole.
Carol and Yon-Rogg
blast out of the station in a shuttle, but not before Ronan arrives to cleanse
the Earth of it’s Skrull infestation.
His starships launch several missiles at the planet. Carol uses her newfound Super Saiyan powers
to fly into space, destroying the missiles along the way and easily dispatching
one of Ronan’s ship. Ronan turns tail
and exits the area to go off and get killed by the Guardians of the Galaxy
later.
Carol returns to the
surface to confront Yon-Rogg. Realizing
he is no match for her, he goads her into proving she can fight him with no
powers, but she blasts him anyway. Because
she is “the hero” she tosses him into the escape pod, programs it to
head back to the Kree home world and tells him to let the Kree know she is
coming for them.
She says her
goodbyes to Fury and Maria, leaving the Goose and the Tesseract with
SHIELD. She makes it her mission to help
the Skrulls find a new home world and to combat the Kree, and she leaves with
the Skrulls to parts unknown. Before
leaving she leaves Fury with the modified pager he can use to summon her in
case of emergency.
There are two end
credits scenes. One with the Avengers in
Avengers HQ, lamenting their loss at the hands of Thanos and pondering the
meaning of the Pager, which was activated by Fury at the end of Infinity War. The pager has mysteriously stopped sending a
signal and they don’t know why.
Suddenly, they turn and a very angry looking Carol is there, and asks
‘Where’s Fury”.
The second scene
shows Fury’s desk, Goose jumps up on the desk.
Anyone who has owned a cat can probably predict what happens next in the
context of the film, I know I did. I mean
cats like to eat things they shouldn’t like plants, or Tesseracts, but these
things don’t really flow through the digestive tract. Goose starts hacking and coughing before
ejecting the tesseract out onto the desk.
It’s pretty funny.
How it’s Connected
So, there’s a fair
amount of connected here, but the biggest and most obvious is the Tesseract
which first appeared in Captain America: TFA and later in the first Avengers
film. It also made a brief appearance in
Thor: Ragnarok, since after Avengers it was stored in Asgard, where it was
saved from Ragnaros by Loki. Then again
in the opening for Avengers: infinity War where it was taken by Thanos and
inserted into the Infinity Gauntlet as the Space Stone.
The Tesseract is
shown to be the source of power for the Light Speed drive that was being
developed by Mar-Velle which exploded and infused Carol with her super
powers. It makes sense that this would
be able to power a super powered space engine since it’s the Space Stone, which
has the ability to let the user travel across space.
Fury gets his eye
scratched out by the cat Goose, which is supposed to explain why he has an eye
patch in the future. It’s kind of cute
since it’s bad ass Nick Fury and you expect it to have happened by something more
than a cat. In this same line, it’s a
little lame, because you expected it to be more than a cat. Ok, technically Goose is a Flurgen or
whatever.
Near the end of the
film, the Kree general Ronan makes a brief appearance. His small fleet of ships shows up to destroy
Earth but are stopped by Captain Marvel when she goes Super Saiyan. Ronin, you may recall was the primary
antagonist of the first Guardians of the Galaxy. He isn’t the only character to show up in
Captain Marvel from GotG, Korath (“Star-Lord Man”; “Who?”)
shows up as well as a member of the Kree Star Force squad that Carol is a part
of.
Then of course there
is Agent Coulson, whom Fury refers to as “Rookie”. His roll isn’t very big but it’s nice to see
him show up again in the films and not just Agents of SHIELD.
There is also a
slightly cheesy brief bit at the end that implies Fury got the name for The
Avengers from Carol’s pilot nickname of “Avenger”.
Then of course the
credits scene, where Carol answers the call of her pager sent out by Fury at
the end of Infinity War, and shows up looking rather pissed.
One other note that
may or may not become relevant later, Carol’s friend has a daughter named
Monica Rambeau. She is like 10 maybe in
the film. She carried the Captain Marvel
mantle in the comics briefly, and even lead the Avengers briefly. I doubt she elevates to that level in the
MCU, but she may show up again “present day” as an adult. She is also a member of the slightly niche
with a cult following group Nextwave. I
would be pretty happy if they opted to make a Nextwave film.
Thoughts on what’s next
Captain Marvel will
show up again alongside the Avengers in the next film, Avengers: Endgame. Her massive power level will definitely be a
strong addition to whatever fight happens in that film. I look forward to seeing her go toe to toe
with Thanos. I also wonder how well she
will play with the rest of the characters.
In her own movie here, she comes off as pretty single track on her
goals. I can see her showing up,
discovering what has happened to Fury and everyone else, and jetting off to
beat the shit out of Thanos as soon as she discovers his location, despite
protests from anyone else (Steve Rodgers).
I can also see her
getting along with Thor in interesting ways.
Thor already outclasses all of the other Avengers in power level, which
became supremely clear in infinity War, but I feel like Carol may actually be stronger
than he is in a straight fight.
Final Notes
There isn’t a lot of
the larger picture that is advanced here, but it does introduce us to a new
hero which will add a new dynamic to things going forward. The film does a fairly decent job of sort of
explaining where Carol has been since her time in the 90s and the present day
time. So far, nothing has happened that
would have given Fury cause to summon her before either. The invasion of New York was handled by the
Avengers and Ultron was a problem, but not one that he really knew about until
last minute, and once again, the Avengers managed to keep it under
control. Ultimately, it’s a nice introduction,
but it’s kind of unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.
When this film was first announced, I have to say I was both kind of excited and a little worried. Excited because it looked pretty awesome, worried because, manga to live action adaptations tend to be kind of hit or miss. I also felt like even if it was good, it wouldn’t really have enough mainstream appeal to actually be successful.
While I really liked this movie, its not perfect. It has a lot of weird pacing issues and the ending left a bad taste but the visuals are amazing and the action sequences were all well done. The story is alright as well, though if anything it’s a little overly complex for the duration of the film. In preparation for the film I read through a lot of the original manga. The manga, is sort of a series of separate stories involving Alita, one event happens, then another happens, then another, and so on. The movie is sort of a remix of these stories where they are a bit more intertwined together. This Blending helps make things feel a little more like one big story, but it can make things a little harder to keep track of which characters are important to which storyline.
There are a lot of parts that are pretty faithful to the manga, and others that are toned down and others that seem to be new. For example, the first real story in the manga involves Alita and Ido tracking down a killer who is obsessed with eating people’s brains. The same killer shows up in the movies, but the brains part is removed and his role is expanded a bit so he shows up several times throughout the movie. There is a big set piece of Motorball, which is all in later story elements of the Manga, but in the movie, it’s introduced as a plot device earlier on, and we see less of Alita rising through the ranks of the sport, probably to save time. There are however plenty of other sequences that are lifted directly from the pages of the Manga.
As much as I like that they tried to make things more cohesive, it also kind of hurts the story a lot. Alita’s evolution from innocent little girl amnesiac to bad ass warrior is basically explained away by “mysterious past”. It feels a little unnatural. In the manga, she joins Motorball because she is mad at Ido and upset over a recent personal loss and essentially wants to forget her new past life. In the movie, she joins more “because it’s cool” and vaguely because the winner gets to go to Zalem. That personal loss moment doesn’t occur until the end of the film and she never really turns away from Ido. I found this a little disappointing since Ido and Alita competing against each other’s Motorball teams while pretending to be strangers was kind of a fun bit in the manga.
The next paragraph involves some spoilers for the film. There is also a lot of subplot involving Demi Moore’s character Rose, and the mysterious Nova. I really feel like the parts about Nova should have been seriously toned down or trimmed out, with more emphasis on Vector being the main villain of the film. The plot points for Nova literally go nowhere except to set up a sequel and the plot would have felt more contained without it. Demi Moore also has this weird tendency to just sort of show up a few times, to either be a snide bitch or to help out randomly. She exists to sort of give more backstory for Ido’s connection to Alita, but overall she just sort of feels uselessly tacked into everything.
This leads to my main disappointment with this film, which frankly, is only a disappointment if there is never a sequel. The movie just sort of… ends, with no real resolution. Things are set up for a sequel, but I worry it may not do well enough to get one, leaving the movie with a very meh ending. My one optimistic hope is that that the producer, James Cameron, best known for Avatar and Titanic, two of the largest films ever made, has such a huge hard on for the material that he’s been trying to make this movie for like 20 years. I feel like he may push a sequel out even if this first film is a flop.
One other thing I definitely want to address is the eyes. When the trailers first dropped for this, the one main topic of discussion were Alita’s large eyes. In the actual film, it’s really not an issue, at all for a few reasons. First, a lot of the cast has some sort of cyborg augmentation. Hell off the top of my head, I think there were only a few notable characters who didn’t have some level of cyborg going on. There are character with robot arms, characters with robot skulls, characters with robot legs, there are robot parts, everywhere. That’s part of the world of Iron City, where the film takes place. Also, during some flashbacks of Alita’s past, other characters with these same eyes are shown, which implies that it’s part of where she came from, and not just a gimmick to make her character look more “anime”.
Speaking if Iron City, it’s a really interesting setting for the story. I really like these sort of dystopian future cyberpunk settings, and Alita has a lot of great atmosphere to it. The story takes place in Iron City, which is basically a huge slummy junkyard that sits under the flying sky city of Zalem. Nothing is really shown of Zalem aside from it’s underside. Many of the characters have dreams of reaching this city, which is believed to be some sort of utopian paradise, and it’s a central plot element motivating several of the characters. The lower city is cluttered and crowded and full of cobbled together buildings, constructed from scraps dropped by the city of Zalem.
I also wanted to touch a bit on the violence as well, more for informational purposes than that I really have a problem with it. The movie itself is rated PG-13. There isn’t any sex or nudity, there isn’t a lot of swearing, but it’s fairly violent. The manga is extremely violent. It’s full of pretty detailed art of people getting their heads crushed or brains ripped out and eaten. The movie tones this down quite a bit, but there is still a ton of dismemberment. On one hand, it’s all cyborgs, so, they are “like robots”. Except as “cyborgs”, they ARE people, with robot bits. If a human has his head removed and put on a human body, just because it doesn’t have a bunch of blood, doesn’t mean it’s not a little graphic in nature.
Wrapping up, it’s a good cyberpunk film and manga adaptation. It’s more faithful of an adaptation than some other recent manga adaptations for sure (Ghost in the Shell). That said, it’s based on an old Manga, which means it’s not really going to be everyone’s cup of tea due to some of the cultural oddities that come along with that. It’s visually nice but it’s not nearly as accessible plotwise as say, a Marvel movie. Fans of Sci-Fi and cyberpunk should definitely enjoy it.
Sony is kind of in a weird place with it’s Spider-Man license. They are working on their third reboot of the series, which is not tied to the MCU which they don’t really own any stake in. So they have a pretty decent and successful Spider-Man series going now, but it’s technically part of a universe they can’t fully touch. Take the recent Venom movie, for example. Venom is pretty tied to Spider-Man, but this new movie itn’t part of the MCU, so that gets a little tricky.
Maybe they don’t really care a lot about continuity.
Maybe they also have just made a bold move that let’s the nor really care about continuity, with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-verse.
Into the Spider-Verse is a fantastically animated color fest that does a pretty good job of giving us an Origin story, while also giving us a developed world that lets everything sort of speed along without being yet another slow burn Spider-Man origin. In fact the movie repeatedly pokes fun at the idea of yet another Origin Story, and how everyone already knows the origin on Spider-Man. It’s an enjoyable film and I look forward to the eventual sequel and likely spin-offs.
Spoiler Free Thoughts
So, I had an idea of what to expect going into this movie, but I wasn’t super sure it would be that great. I honestly kind of skip most of the animated comics based stuff these days, more for lack of time than anything. I kind of worried this was joust going to feel like something that should have been a TV Special or straight to Blu-Ray sort of deal. Considering how few films I actually see in a theater, that I went at all says something I suppose.
The basic plot follows the origin story of Miles Morales becoming Spider-Man. It’s not quite the same as his comics origins but it shares some similarities. So, you might be wondering why there is a Black Spider-man named Miles, he is not new to the Marvel Universe for this film at all. This isn’t meant to be a detailed run down, but to sort of give you an idea.
Back in the early 2000s, Marvel created the Ultimate Universe. This was essentially a new Marvel continuity where everything was darker and grittier and the Avengers were known as The Ultimates. In 2011, Miles Morales was introduced as a new character who was also bitten by a radioactive spider. Shortly afterwards, Peter Parker of the Ultimate universe was killed and Miles Morales too up the Spider-Man mantel in the Ultimate Universe. Cut to more recent times, during Marvel’s Secret Wars event. Basically, Marvel wanted to combine all of it’s various continuities into one continuity to trim the fat off things a bit and simplify everything. So Secret Wars saw the Ultimate Universe crossing over with the main Earth-616 Continuity. They used this plot to kill off some versions of heroes, and revive others by replacing them with their dimensional counterparts and just in general slim things down. Miles Morales Spider-Man however, had become pretty popular, so he was spared and became part of the main Marvel continuity.
There is a lot more to it of course but I’m not really here to give a full history of Marvel Comics. The real fun of the movie comes from “The Spider-Verse”, and the overall fairly tongue in cheek way it handles itself. Early in the film, the plot is revealed involving Kingpin trying to open a gateway to other dimensions. This rift causes several other Spider-folks to cross over into Miles’ world. Miles being new to the job, gets some help and grief from these other Spider-people and of course, learns to be his own brand of Spider-Man. We also get a brief history of each of the various other Spideys through little cut away story sequences, though for the most part, three of them are a pretty throw away part of the story.
So, the three throw away Spideys consist of: Spider-Man Noir, a Spider-Man from a 30s world who is a detective and lives in a black and white world; Spider-Ham, a Looney Tunes style anthropomorphic pig complete with Subspace hammers and random anvils; and SP//DR, a futuristic Anime girl who pilots a Spider-Man sort of robot. These three pretty much exist as comic relief characters once they arrive. Of the 6 main Spiders, they are probably the most one off anyway.
Most of the story revolves around Miles Morales, Peter Parker, and Gwen Stacey, and mostly Miles Morales and Peter Parker, as Peter shows Miles the ropes of being Spider-Man. This particular Peter is a little washed up though, so Gwen gives a lot of later pointers and help to both. I should add, this isn’t really like some training montage of teaching, it’s much more of a trial by fire sort of deal, as Peter and Gwen must work to get control of the dimensional gateway to get back to their own respective universes.
There are a ton of references to all sort of Spidey things outside the actual Spideys. Nods to things like the Tobey Maguire movies, several Spider-Man Memes from the old 60s cartoon, the comics themselves make an several appearances as part of the plot. The whole thing feels very aware of itself while never really acknowledging itself. It makes for a lot of great jokes and moments.
It’s also really visually interesting. It feels like a comic in motion. Everything is very bright and colorful, and everything looks nice and smooth. It’s a really great effect that would have never worked in a live action film. I also like how the different Spideys are different styles as a not to their different universes. SP//DR looks like an anime cartoon, Spider-Ham looks like a Looney Tunes cartoon, even a brief shot of Spider-Woman in her own world has a differently styled background that more matches what the Spider-Gwen comic looks like.
Spoilery Thoughts
So moving on to a little more actual detail. I have to say, I really enjoyed the villains. Granted, they were fairly throw away in the case of Scorpion and Tombstone and Goblin, Prowler and Doc Ock were both pretty cool. I don’t know if lady Octavius appears in any comics, though I suspect she does, it was a twist I didn’t see coming since I wasn’t familiar with the source material. While we’re on the subject of twists, I also didn’t know about the Prowler thing, though when it was being set up, it felt really obvious. Prowler overall really shines and feels pretty menacing. I really liked all of his moments and it’s a shame he didn’t get more screen time.
Then there’s Kingpin. I, kind of hated Kingpin. I have just come off of wrapping up Daredevil on Netflix, I definitely never expected Kingpin to be Vincent D’Onofrio’s Kingpin, but this Kingpin was so outlandishly cartoonish, I found him a little hard to take seriously. Don’t get me wrong, every character in this is highly stylized, but Kingpin’s microscopic head and massive body is outlandish even by the stylization of this universe. His design felt more out of place than Penny Parker, who was literally designed like a 2D anime girl.
I also really enjoyed the contrasting Peter Parkers. Peter from Miles’ universe is basically peak Spider-Man. Getting to see him in action was also great, because he’s just full on Spider-Man. No dark angst or worry and conflict, just Spidey being Spidey. Then we get to meet Midlife Crisis Spider-Man, commonly called Fat Spider-Man. There is so much nuance going on here that work so well. He’s out of shape and doesn’t really care, but when it counts, he still just does what he does. He’s been in the game long enough that everything is second nature, but he also has been doing it long enough he’s kind of become jaded and apathetic.
Then there’s Spider-Woman who sort of contrasts between Miles and Peter (Fat Peter, amazing Peter dies early on). She is still kind of a rookie at being Spider-Woman, but she is driven and confident in her abilities. I also particularly liked how both Peter and Gwen basically just accepted everything, because they have already been through plenty.
This does bring up some bits that almost felt like they should have been addressed. Maybe a director’s cut could add them, and maybe they got dropped because the writer’s didn’t want to complicate things. Maybe it wasn’t addressed because it would be kind of creepy since Fat Peter is like 40 and Gwen Stacy is something like 15 or 16. Basically, Peter and Gwen never really acknowledge their relationships with their alternate selves. There is a sub plot involving Fat Spider-Man and the alternate Mary-Jane Watson too, so it’s not completely off the table. Gwen mentions that she couldn’t save her friend, spoiler, Spider Gwen basically killed her Peter while he was The Lizard, but doesn’t really seem weirded out by meeting an older version of her dead friend. Meanwhile we get no history from Peter and any Gwen Stacy he may have known. Gwen Stacy dying is kind of a big moment for some versions of Spider-Man.
Otherwise, I really have no real complaints about the movie. It does a great job of just rolling with everything and assuming we either already know or can figure it out. The crossover mix nature of the plot is great too because it keeps the origin story of Miles Morales from being being, because we get several experienced and capable Spideys to watch instead. I almost wish they would do a Spider-Gwen movie now, because I really enjoy that book and enjoyed her presence in the movie. There is a post credits scene that sets up more cross universe shenanigans so I’m sure the sequel will bring her back. Hopefully it will give us more Midlife Crisis Spider-Man too.
Chris Evans
Samuel L Jackson
Scarlett Johansson
Robert Redford
Sebastian Stan
Anthony Mackie
Cobie Smoulders
Frank Grillo
Spoiler Free thoughts and Notes
The second entry in the Captain America series comes in right on the heels of The Avengers, or “Phase 2” of the Marvel Cinematic universe. I want to take a moment here to comment on how the continuity of these movies have been handled up to this point, since this is the first “post crossover” movie. This applies to pretty much all of the Phase 2 movies, though it seems to be disregarded some starting in Phase 3 (Post Age of Ultron). For the most part, the major movie franchises that have been brought together for the Avengers, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man, work with or without the crossover film.
What I mean is, if you wanted to watch “Captain America” you could watch Cap 1 and Cap 2, and skip the avengers, and not really miss anything major in Captain America’s story. This applies to the two Thor movies as well and, for the most part, to the two Iron Man movies, though there is some reference to Tony Stark’s PTSD from his actions in The Avengers during Iron Man 3. It’s a plot point that could be written off as being related to other events however, if you were just coming in and watching the three Iron Man movies. It’s a pretty clever story telling trick that I really liked in Phase 2 as a whole that seems to have been disregarded in a post Age of Ultron world. Civil War is a direct product of the events in AoE, and it sounds like Thor 3 will have some relation to both AoE and Dr Strange.
It’s just a little side note I wanted to throw in, and something I kind of miss about the older MCU movies. On to Captain America 2: The Winter Solder.
The Winter Soldier is considered by many to be, the best movie so far in the MCU. As a whole, the Captain America movies tend to be the better films of the individual franchises, and The Winter Soldier is definitely the best of the three Cap movies. I feel like what makes Captain America work so well is that he’s a super hero, but he’s not really a SUPER hero. What I mean is, he doesn’t fly, he’s not invulnerable and gets worn out frequently. He isn’t using some mystical magic or lasers and missiles. His villains tend to be a bit more grounded and “real world”, he fights Nazis in the first movie and Hydra in the second movie. That isn’t to say that the other heroes don’t work, Cap is just a lot more relatable as a whole. Kind of a follow up to my remarks above, it’s something that felt lost a bit in his Phase 3 movie.
Synopsis and Spoiler Filled Thoughts
The movie opens with Steve Rodgers, Captain America infiltrating a hijacked ship and battling off a small group of hijackers. It’s a really great cold open event for the film, it gives Captain America a chance to show off how he operates in combat and his various skills at infiltration. We get reintroduced a bit to Natasha Romanoff, aka, Black Widow as well, who was previously introduced in Iron Man 2 and The Avengers. The whole sequence feels very throw away at first as well, though becomes relevant to the plot later on as things evolve. Basically, it works pretty well as a sort of showcase of “A day in the life of a SHIELD agent, something we haven to gotten to see a lot of out of these two since most of their action involved fighting Chitari aliens in The Avengers.
On a side note, at the time of this movie’s release, there has been plenty of opportunity to see regular SHIELD operations in the series Agents of SHIELD, which was early in it’s first season. Agents of SHIELD suffered a bit initially with a slow start as the first 7 or 8 episodes were basically filler waiting for the events of The Winter Soldier film to happen. After this movie, the show really picks up speed since the fall of SHIELD would certainly have heavy repercussions in a TV show entirely about SHIELD.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
During the mission Cap finds Widow doing some questionable secondary operations with the ships computer. Eventually Cap faces off against the leader of the Hijackers, a mercenary named Batroc. Another element of the MCU that really is fun is seeing these sort of 3rd tier characters show up and how they get “reimagined” to be more realistic. Batroc in the comics wears a suit that makes him look a lot like a Purple Wolverine, in the movie, he’s just a skilled soldier. Sure, it’s more boring, but grounding things more in reality like this is one of the more interesting aspects of the MCU in my opinion.
Cap questions the actions of Agent Romanoff to Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD and how he doesn’t care for the extra operations going on behind his back. We get some other scenes of Steve doing various activities around Washington DC where we get introduced to Sam Wilson, a retired soldier who becomes a friend to Steve.
Meanwhile Nick Fury gets attacked on the streets of DC by several men masquerading as police officers. This starts our second big action sequence of the film. We get a lot of cool action and car chasing in Fury’s tricked out SHIELD SUV before he ends up ambushed and wrecked by a mysterious masked mercenary, the one known as The Winter Soldier.
Fury escapes and ends up at Captain America’s apartment where he tells Steve that SHIELD is compromised before being shot by a sniper. Steve gives chase and discovered it’s the same mysterious soldier who has returned to finish the job of assassinating Nick Fury. The Winter Soldier escape and Cap meets up with Romanoff and Agent Hill (Fury’s 2nd for all real purposes of the MCU) at the hospital where Fury dies.
Steve confronts Alexander Pierce, a government figure who worked with fury at the top of SHIELD. Piece explains how the operation earlier in the movie involving the Hijackers on the ship had been orchestrated by Fury in order to steal SHIELD secrets. Cap is of course suspicious of everything going on around him after Fury’s warning, with good reason. Eventually on his way out of the building Cap is attacked in an elevator by a dozen or so SHIELD soldiers including Brock Rumlow, aka Crossbones, a reoccurring foil of this film.
It’s a pretty spectacular fight and escape sequence and really exemplifies why this film is so loved. The fight and action scenes are all very well done. Like I mentioned before, it helps that Captain America is a more down to Earth hero, he doesn’t come off as someone who is just going to “win” every time, and often barely makes it out of the situations he lands in.
Cap escapes and meets up with Romanoff again, they decode the data swiped earlier in the film which leads them to an underground bunker in Steve’s old army camp from WW2. They are greeted by Arman Zola, henchman to the Red Scull, who has managed to live on as a computer AI. He gives a plot dump of how Hydra has been part of SHIELD since the start and controls everything inside and how Hydra plans to launch some Heli-carriers soon to wipe out anyone believed to be a threat. The pair escapes a missile attack on the base and head back to the city to deal with the Hydra threat. Along the way they recruit Sam Wilson and his winged jetpack as The Falcon.
During their drive they get ambushed again by The Winter Soldier and some grunts. Once again, we get another pretty great street level fight between our three heroes and the villains. Eventually Cap ends up unmasking the mysterious Winter Soldier to discover that he is in fact Bucky, Steve’s old friend from back in the World War 2 days. The Winter Soldier escapes again and the heroes all end up taken into custody by Crossbones and is crew.
This brings up my one real complaint with this entire movie. Bucky’s deal is sort of explained… but not really. This is notable to some extent because it comes up again in the 3rd Captain America film but it’s never quite really explained super clearly. Basically, after Bucky “died” during WW2, Hydra collected him up, gave him a metal arm, trained him, probably super soldier syrum-ed him like Cap, and made him an agent of Hydra. His longevity and Winter Soldier name, comes because he gets his mind wiped and put in Cryo-stasis between operations.
So getting out of stasis on this review, Cap and crew get rescued by Maria Hill who takes them to a secret bunker where it’s revealed that Nick Fury is still alive and had faked his death. He’s still pretty beat up and down for the count but he’s alive. They regroup and make their final assault on SHIELD headquarters. The elaborate plan is to insert these hard drives into each of the three Heli-carriers, reprogramming them to fire at each other. Because you know, that’s how elaborate computer systems work. All of this amazing technology at SHIELD’s disposal and swapping a few drives out in a massive flying aircraft carrier is enough to confuse the targeting systems? Seems like it would be easier to recruit Iron Man and drop some C4 into each of the giant external engines but what do I know. I mean sure they are pressed for time but Tony is pretty fast.
Anyway, we get another massive action sequence against various Hydra soldiers, Cap faces off against Bucky and Falcon against Crossbones. Fury and Widow confront and deal with Alexander Pierce. In the end the Heli-carriers are destroyed and SHIELD with it. Bucky ends up turning good a bit, but not completely and runs off on his own after rescuing Cap.
It’s All Connected
The obvious connections here are to the first Captain America movie with Bucky and Captain America himself. There aren’t a whole ton of references to Thor or Iron Man going on, or even The Avengers movie that immediately precedes it. I didn’t mention Agent 13 at all. She is never referenced in this movie by name but she is Agent Carter’s niece, the same Agent Carter who was Captain America’s girlfriend in the first movie who shows up briefly in this movie as a now old woman.
What’s Next
The movie leaves off with a set up for Steve hunting down Bucky and redeeming him. SHIELD is “gone”, though that doesn’t seem to stick very well considering the continuing Agents of SHEILD show and the fact that Fury and SHIELD still show up in Age of Ultron and the later Civil War movie. There isn’t a whole lot here to set up any of the larger MCU. There isn’t any Infinity Stone or anything major for future plots or anything. It’s actually a fairly contained experience, which is another good plus for the movie, as much as I like the connected aspects of it all.
The Final Verdict
Captain America: The Winter Soldier has a well deserved reputation as one of if not the best movie in the MCU. It’s definitely a solid entry, though Doctor Strange and Ant-Man may give it a run for the money for best.
