Tag: Marvel Comics

Movie Review: VENOM – other than Tom Hardy’s enjoyable turn as Eddie Brock, this movie flatlines everywhere else.

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Two Spider-Man related movies in two weeks (for me), and the hands-down winner is Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse, a movie that just about succeeds in every department.  In contrast, Venom, the second live action appearance of this character from Marvel Comics (the first being 2007’s misbegotten Spider-Man 3), falls flat just about everywhere, with only the character of Eddie Brock saving the movie from being a complete bore.  A lot better than being a disastrous piece of crap like Bird Box and Holmes and Watson, but still nothing to get even mildly enthusiastic about.

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Movie Review: SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDERVERSE – fantastic animation and art design + a smart script + well defined characters = best Spider Man movie yet

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If you’ve been following my reviews, you know I trend toward genre movies, and as someone who has written for Marvel Comics, I’m predisposed to seek out superhero movies, even if I don’t think they’ll be that great.  Hey, I’m a nerd, what can I say?  I don’t remember hearing about Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse until about a month before it dropped – the fourth quarter of 2018 was a busy one for me – and at that time I hadn’t seen Venom, so I missed out on the post-credits preview too, but I finally saw it just after Christmas, and I have to say it’s my favourite Spider-Man movie to date.

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Movie Review: AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR – a technically impressive achievement, but I didn’t quite love it.

On By ANDREW HOPEIn Movie Reviews1 Comment

So the headline describes this movie perfectly for me.  Marvel’s 19th movie in its cinematic franchise is a hugely impressive piece of movie making, given the sheer scope.  I’m not just referring to the visuals, since this is generally the part of a CGI fest I find the least impressive.  No, the technical aspect I’m talking about are all the behind-the camera stuff, from script to production and everything in between (the legal department must have worked overtime for weeks on just the contracts).  Avengers: Infinity War is finally the main event that the franchise has been building toward since 2012’s Avengers, arguably 2011’s Captain America.

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Movie Review: DOCTOR STRANGE – Marvel’s latest sticks to the format, but Cumberbatch is typically great and the visuals are nice.

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dr-strange

As well as having written for Marvel Comics in the recent past, I’ve been a Marvel Comics fan for as long as I can remember.  My interest in their comic books has waned dramatically over the last couple of years, but I still have a soft spot for the company.  One of my first memories of reading any kind of material was the first issue of Spider Man from Marvel UK in 1973.  I was hooked, and the characters and stories became a huge part of my life for decades to come.  This isn’t going to be a giant retrospective about Marvel Comics, but I couldn’t really start a review of Doctor Strange without a self-indulgent opening, right?

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Movie Review: CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

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Civil War

Captain America: Civil War bears almost no resemblance to the comic book by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven from about 10 years ago, and when I heard about a cinematic attempt to do even a light adaptation of the book, I was dubious. On one hand, the Russos did tremendous work with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and that movie had almost nothing to do with any of those arcs either, but then I heard the increasing cast count for this one, and got more than just a little wary. The sign that a superhero movie like this is going to hit the skids is when the cast begins to overwhelm the archplot – but when you are ostensibly making even a light adaptation of a character-dense, universe-changing plot like Civil War, you can’t avoid a giant cast. Continue reading “Movie Review: CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR” →