Werewolf by Night (2022) directed by Michael Giacchino

 

A last minute entry to the October Horrors this year. I was able to watch this on a bus ride to the States and was very impressed with it overall. It has humour, gore, great makeup effects and just about everything one might want for a halloween special. Added to that, it was exceptionally made. It wasn't just in black and white but also used period Universal Studios classic horror titles and compositions. Apparently it was filmed digitally, then transferred to film and scanned back in to give it that old film look. The pain they took to make the details, no matter how obscure seem authentic really should praised. 

The story is short (one hour) and simple. A group of monster hunters are competing for "the bloodstone" and the right to lead the monsters hunters after the recent death of the current head of the group. I didn't recognize 90% of the characters and that is probably good since, well, they mostly don't last long. It's pretty gory for aMarvel and Disney Plus show but still had humour and characters you get familiar enough with to think you know more about then than you do. The transformation scene is amazing and the added bonus of "Man Thing" (both creatures mostly done by custom and makeup) really made this special. 

Morbius (2022) Directed by Daniel Espinosa

Based on the Marvel comic this is marvel's latest attempt to add supernatural characters into their marvel Superhero universe. The "living vampire' appeared in the 1998 film "Blade"  briefly and that film is on schedule for a new reboot. Having succeeded adding Dr Strange into their stable of heroes successfully this was the next step as they mull around the idea of adding "Werewolf by night", the aforementioned "Blade" and possible "Tomb of Dracula" in future. This film isn't as successful as Strtange and while it's not a bad film it isn't all that great either. 

The main issue is the all too cliché plot and characters. The actors are all fine in the roles but they are not given anything new or unusual to do. I actually predicted almost all the plot beats within 5 minutes of the film starting and was not wrong about any of them. The effects are very good and some of the visuals are pretty cool but they don't add anything to the story. 

This is an obvious movie made to set up their universe for other movies. It doesn't really even come to any sort of solid conclusion and so much is left unexplained it just feels unfinished and a tease by the end. A tease for what? I have to say I am not even slightly curious. 

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) directed by Sam Raimi

 

Even though Morbius the Living Vampire was touted as the the first Marvel Universe horror movie, this movie fits that description much better. Sam Raimi is very restrained in this sequel to Doctor Strange but not completely tied down. Like most marvel films, violence is limited but very much present in this film and the presence of a zombie, scary deathly creatures and the return of the Scarlet Witch (whose performance by Elizabeth Olsen is one of the highlights of the movie) got right into the occult with no looking back on "scientific" explanations for what is happening on screen. 

Like all films form this studio... great effects, cheeky dialogue and a million easter eggs from other films and the comics abound. Sadly, like many of the latest marvel outings this film does not have a self contained story to tell and doesn't even really end. It just keep on going into the post credit sequence and leaves you not waiting for a new adventure but hanging on the one you just saw. 

Oddly the multiverse angle seems more constrained than in the last Spiderman movie which might be a good tactic. There is only so much batshit crazy audiences can deal with. It does have a very jack Kirby inspired monster and the new character America Chavez holds her own with the returning cast members from previous films. Sadly, even her story gets no resolution. 

Fun, visually stunning but in my opinion it's hard t care about movies the don't actually begin or end over the runtime. 

The Eternals (2021) directed by Chloé Zhao

 

The Eternals is an odd property for Marvel to give the multi-million dollar treatment but they did it a few times before and often that risk makes for an entertaining film. I would say this is not exception, it' IS an entertaining film even if it is a bit of mess with plot and character motivation. Spanning thousands of years, the back stories of a group of... robots?... not clear what they are exactly but it is said they were programmed at one point so robots will suffice have been put on Earth to protect it from one threat - the monstrous deviants - and NOTHING else. These creatures have all been destroyed and the group separates waiting to be taken back home now that their work is done. More deviants appear and it is discovered that their purpose is more than they were led to believe. Follow that purpose and everything on earth dies or go against it at huge cost and only a small chance to succeed.

All the performances are good, the gang of super beings are all pretty unique and pretty fleshed out for a movie of this scale. It is a marvel film so the effects are top notch. The story is a little hard to follow or believe at points, it does ask you suspend your disbelief more than even other superhero movies do but the cast is endearing and pushes it along well enough that while you are watching you get caught up in the events on the screen and on't question it too much. I am not sure the ending makes much sense to be truthful and I did not like the "teaser" of a future reveal of one of the Eternals human lover being maybe more than that. Just tell us for once!  It was interesting enough to make me curious how they night fit into other marvel projects but it works as one off for me as well. 

Black Widow (2021) directed by Cate Shortland

 

The long awaited solo Black Widow finally arrives this past year and while it's a fun film to watch with some nice performances by Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh, it's sort of too little too late for it to make a big impression. 

The story takes place between other Marvel movies, obviously before Black Widow dies in Endgame and involves her finding her lost sister and reconnecting with the rest of her "family who were really just Russian agent from a shadowy secret group training girls from childhood to be "black widow" assassins. Shenanigans ensue and the characters are lively and fun to watch with nice action set pieces and some ridiculous scenarios... how long would a giant floating fortress take to fall to the ground? Hours apparently! None of that gets in the way enjoying the action and it move along fast and furious with Shortland's excellent direction. 

It's pretty good fro a project that was in development hell for so long but it does suffer from a little too much Marvel in universe referencing and doesn't set itself apart from a typical superhero movie except in one area. The main characters are not really all that super. The two woman leads are highly trained assassins and much of what happens is more like a Bond film than anything else plot wise and that was much appreciated. If this had been  released 10 years earlier it would have had a much larger impact and being released now takes that thunder away. It simply isn't needed and adds very little to the Marvel universe or what we need to know about Black Widow in the end. 

Enjoyable, yes. A much watch? Sadly,  no. 

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse (1918) directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman

Every once and long while a film comes up with something truly new and innovative and this movie is 100% in that category. The story of the Mile Morals version of Spiderman from the comic book series is integrated with several other versions of Spiderman in a truly engaging and exciting story filled with humour and a good share of drama. Spider dies at the start of the films, murdered by the Kingpin, which pretty shocking for an animated film but he is far from the only killing by the end of this story. 

Story really is front and centre in this production, but it also outshines pretty much any other modern animated project in the visuals. It is hard to describe the look of this movie except to say it's a comic book come to life. That doesn't nearly cover it though. The animation is far beyond just mimicking a comic book style... it's layered approach and combination of both CGI and 2D to achieve its unique presentation of the material is revolutionary and will change how you look at "cartoons" forever more. Every shot, the lighting the movement is stunning to look at and it's in total service to the top notch story telling and performances. 

Marvel knew the Miles Morals story needed to be told on the big screen and came up with a way to do that and not step on the toes of the I've action films. The movie literally references the comics it's drawing from as plot point, including the bizarre, Peter Porker - the amazing Spiderham. As wild and weird as it it is this film has real heart behind it and matches that with technical brilliance. 

Has the Marvel Cinematic Universe ruined the movies?

There is a lot of talk going around that the Marvel superhero universe has ruined the film industry and movies in general. The basics talking points seem to be that they have overtaken the industry with films that lack depth or artistry, have budgets so high they leave nothing left for smaller films, take over multiplexes and cinemas in general so no other films can be shown and cater to the lowest common denominator of film goer.

There are some good observations in there but I'm not sure they add up to Marvel Studios having "ruined" cinema as we know it any more than the sci-fi rush after Star Wars, any number of the horror eras we have survived or the big western fads of times past. There is also an argument to be made they are more a sign of the changing habits of the average movie goer, who now has other things vying for their attention like streaming services and the sudden rise in high quality TV shows.

We have been here before and survived but this time there is new technology and new ways to watch things that rival the arrival of television on the scene in the 50s. Marvel movies have a long, interconnected series of films now behind them which more to come. This is more like a TV model than a film model, which traditionally had sequels that did not have to follow a storyline throughout. (See the James Bond series, for example.) Marvel movies are forged in comic book fandom, a group of people notoriously hard to please and meticulous in their opinions of what is or isn't canon in a series. Most of the properties in the films have many decades of history behind them and any changes or mistakes are debated endlessly among fans. It limits what they can do with a story. On the streaming side of things,  services like Netflix offer very high end productions and no real limitations on the content they offer. In many ways they are much freer than the film world with its hierarchy, studio controls and rating system and they take full advantage of that.

Money for smaller independent directors has been moving to online platforms where they have money and more freedom while the cineplexes are selling spectacle and HUGE stories that would have impossible to pull off even 15 years ago. So independent and middle range films are without a doubt being squeezed out of the big venues and with many repertory theatres already closed for a decade now, streaming has started to scoop them up. This does rob us of seeing these projects in a communal setting on a large screen, but it has given us another way to see them at least. The average ticket price now is ridiculously high and while we cry and moan that Herzog's latest documentary can't get shown on the big screen, the truth is - not many of us would pay that price to see it larger than life anymore.

Marvel films overall are not bad films by any definition. In fact, many are fantastic, visually exciting with compelling characters even if the plots are complicated in some ways but pretty generic in many others. Even some of the worst of them are entertaining and the best are inspiring and affecting millions of viewers, except perhaps the strictly art house set. Many of the same things can be said about the Star Wars franchise, though those films seem to be in their own world, pun intended.

Are they a fad? Well a decade plus into it... maybe. But it's a long term fad and to Marvel's credit they are not just churning out sequels of the latest popular films like we used to get. Instead they are putting a large effort into each one, trying to make them as different in tone and scale to keep them for getting too repetitive even if they don't always succeed. The budgets are, however, the roof and there is something to be said abut making 100 smaller films less effects driven than one 600 million dollar Affinity War movie. It would be nice to see some of that cash go to ideas that don't need to break a billion to be a hit. There are still smaller films that manage to break out and rule the box office from time to time which shows the audience is there for new and more grounded (or totally off the wall) films to be shown.

I am sure a day will come when the public is tired of spectacle and goes into something else, something more personal and smaller. This sort of happened in the 70s when films were slower and more personal even as the trend started giving into the blockbuster phenomenon. Until then, the films we used look for are now on TV, computers and other devices in various forms, unhindered by time limits and getting bigger budgets than ever was allotted to them for the big screen. I say we can enjoy them both and be aware that the entertainment landscape has changed not because Marvel is an evil supervillain but because WE (the general filmgoing public, that is) have changed the terrain with our viewing habits and need for convenience over shared experience. Not sure where it will end up but we do have some say in where and how we spend out money. That might not be enough to beat market forces currently in play, but in some ways we gained some things while losing other things and blaming superhero movies for all of these changes seems simplistic and ignores everything else going on around them. I guess the moral is to support the films we love, wherever they are found.