marvel

Movie: Thor Ragnarok, and why it lived up to its trailer

I love movies. I worked at a cinema for three and a bit years. I make short films. In high school, I spent my entire allowance going to the cinema on a Friday night. I. Love. Movies. But, in recent years I found going to the movies a more and more disappointing experience (mostly). Why? Because Hollywood has started consistently putting the only good/memorable bits of each film in its trailer. The trailer for Dark Tower looked pretty amazing and mysterious. The film itself, impressively meh (and it wasted Katheryn Winnick, which is a cardinal sin). The trailer for Atomic Blonde looked insanely kick-ass and amazing. The movie felt like the first film of a freshly graduated film student (and it wasted both James McAvoy AND Charlize Theron, two more sins). The trailer for Thor: Ragnarok looked funny, upbeat and beautiful…

And the film was funnier, more upbeat and more beautiful than the trailer. It was so good to have had a marketing campaign that was based on humour, and then to have the movie actually live up to it!

Having said that, I am aware that, as an Australian, I am smack bang in the middle of the target market, as director Taika Waititi said that a bunch of the humour in the movie was specifically targeted at Australian and New Zealander audiences. That must have at least been partially true because the cinema I went to see the film in roared with laughter for a good two-thirds of the film. It ended up being one of the most special experiences I’ve had in a cinema. It’s rare that I feel so connected to the rest of the audience, particularly as someone who is very self-conscious around their laugh.

The other thing that’s amazing about Thor Ragnarok is how well Waititi has built the humour into the foundations of the film. Marvel films throw out funny lines and have their superheroes quipping at one another, but it is often against a backdrop of a more serious nature; the destruction of a city or the middle of a dangerous chase. It can be somewhat disconcerting and dehumanising when they are seen in their full context, and it makes me feel, as an audience member, that they are only there to help sell the film as part of the trailer. Thor Ragnarok certainly has a couple of silly lines in serious situations, but they always make sense in the context and never detract from the gravity of the scene.

Not only that, Thor Ragnarok embraces the over the top nature of the comics in a way that rarely happens in superhero movies. It knowingly winks at the audiences, sharing with you that the whole situation is silly without making fun of it. This is a film that contains a creature made out of rock who ended up exiled from his home planet because he didn’t hand out enough pamphlets for his revolution and Jeff Goldblum in sparkly blue eyeliner. There’s really no way to play those things seriously, and yet it doesn’t come across as being dumb either, just wonderfully innocent and playful. There’s nothing in the movie that feels forced, or there purely for the sake of marketing (with the possible exception of the Doctor Strange scene).

In fact, Thor Ragnarok doesn’t feel like a film that was made to be marketed to anyone in particular. It feels like something that was made simply for the joy of it. There’s a freedom about it, which is unsurprising given that an estimated 80% of the dialogue was improvised. Even long-term MCU stars, such as Mark Ruffalo, were concerned that the cast was having too much freedom making this film, and that at some point there was going to be a call coming in to tell the production to reel it back or to start again. The call never came. And not making that call was probably one of the smartest things the marketing department at Marvel has ever done.

Giving Taika Waititi and his cast freedom to improvise and create something different for Thor Ragnarok has enabled them to make a fun, charming and exceptionally funny film, which has drawn audiences all over the world in with its quirky sense of humour. It’s kept all the promises made in its trailers which means people are more likely to watch it again, to tell friends positive things and ultimately be that little bit less sick of superhero films. It doesn’t just live up to its own trailer, it lives up to the promise of the fun, not too serious film that Marvel has been promising us for years and never fully delivering on until now. Let’s hope Marvel keeps taking risks and delivering at the same level into the future.

Television: Defenders, and why it makes its characters better

Pretty much as long as there have been Marvel movies, audiences awaited a team-up film in the form of the Avengers. When they started releasing Netflix shows, everyone held their breath for a new, darker team-up of heroes and now it’s here. The biggest difference between the Avengers and the Defenders (other than the massive tonal shift, different characters and different medium), is the big-budget MCU movies had a whole two films before they realised that there was going to be a meeting of heroes. Netflix knew about their super-team-up from day one, and as a result, Defenders feels like the final episode of a series made up of all the prior Marvel Netflix shows.

Defenders opens a couple of months after the events of each show, but Iron Fist is the most direct lead into it (and for that reason alone I’m glad I watched the show). The main antagonists are The Hand, who were the main villains Danny Rand struggled against throughout his series, as well as Daredevil’s focus for season two. As a result of not having come across them before, and being more focused in their heroic efforts (Jessica on killing Kilgrave and Luke on protecting Harlem) neither of the other two heroes are particularly interested in this fight at first. Neither is Matt Murdock, although to be fair after the traumatic events that we last saw him in at the end of Daredevil season 2, it isn’t surprising that he has bowed to pressure from his friends to stop being the red vigilante.

That leaves Danny. And boy, if you have had to sit through his whinging in Iron Fist, will this be the show for you. Danny spends a good eighty percent of the show telling people what they should do, assuming because he is the Iron Fist he is the natural leader. Unfortunately for him, Matt is the better leader, Jessica has no interest in noble causes (and constantly surprises him with both her strength and rudeness) and Luke takes him to town on white/rich privilege. In other words, Danny Rand’s main role in the series is to be the butt of every joke. As he is someone who’s idiocy never ended up biting him in the ass in his own show, it is an absolute pleasure to see the other heroes take him to task for his shoddy work.

The main person arguing with Danny is Luke, as they meet early in the series through their mutual connection with Claire Temple. Luke is uniquely positioned to talk about privilege, not only being the only black superhero on the team but having just returned from an unfair jail sentence. This experience has made Luke realise that it is much easier to be a hero from a position of privilege, and while he remains determined to help Harlem, he is much more aware of what getting involved might mean he has to sacrifice. This isn’t a world where superheroes hide behind masks after all, and Luke doesn’t want to go back to prison for his part taking down the Hand. This is a more cautious, more world-weary Luke Cage, with the only real light-heartedness coming from his interactions with his girlfriend, Claire and former love-interest Jessica.

I am a big fan of Jessica Jones, both the show and the character, and she continues to be my favourite part of this series. Despite this she probably has the smallest role of any of the protagonists, mainly being there for story exposition (her client is the catalyst for many of the events of the show). I wonder whether this is also because the showrunners aren’t fully sure what to do with her yet, considering she and Luke are often part of a package deal in Defenders comics and Luke currently has a girlfriend preventing that from happening. It’s sad to see Jessica develop least of all the characters though simply because she gets the least screen time.

On the other hand, we have Matt Murdoch probably getting the most screen time. After a couple of episodes, you could probably call Defenders “Daredevil series 2.5”, as Matt often feels like the main character with the other Defenders featuring heavily like Punisher and Elektra did in Daredevil season 2. If it had been set up in any other way, this might have felt disappointing but as Matt goes on the most emotional journey through the show it works perfectly. Not only does he struggle coming to terms with being the defacto leader of the Defenders, as he has the most hands-on experience fighting The Hand (pun intended), he also struggles with feelings of loss and grief throughout the show, due to the events of Daredevil season 2. He feels like the character with the most to overcome at the beginning, and by the end, it feels as if he’s completed the arc Daredevil has been on since the first episode of the Defenders, but the first episode of his show.

Ultimately Defenders was a good series. Although not managing the highs of Jessica Jones and Daredevil it was a solid show. Best of all it gave us insights into the characters that we might not have otherwise had the chance to see (and I’ve only mentioned the heroes in this blog). I hope that next time it’ll be a little more balanced showing us new character traits and power shifts (okay, let’s face it, I just want more Jessica), but that will probably be something that comes with time as more Marvel Netflix shows continue to come out and be bound together into more Defenders series. That’s the great thing about television, not only do we get to see the characters grow, we get to see the shows grow too, and I can’t wait to see what the next round of Marvel Netflix shows will grow into.

This is the final post of the Defenders series that I’ve run for the last five weeks. If you want to read the other entries they can be found here:

Television: Iron Fist, and why it’s the weakest Marvel show

I have to admit, despite all of the negative stuff surrounding Iron Fist, part of me was excited to see it. I didn’t know anything about the Iron Fist hero, but I liked Finn Jones who plays the titular role of Danny Rand. I was excited to see him in a more meaty role rather than just playing a side character. It was exciting too to see a martial arts based Marvel show, having had an, albeit brief, background in them myself.

What a letdown it was.

I wanted to like Iron Fist, I really did. It wasn’t even any of the controversial stuff that made it almost impossible to watch. It was that it was so, SO boring. The show moves along at snail’s pace for the first four episodes, covering in four episodes what Daredevil covered in one. Even when the pacing speeds up, the main storyline doesn’t become any more interesting, only more confusing.

On top of that, Danny Rand is one of the least charismatic lead characters in the Marvel Cinematic Universe in general. He veers between two moods, psychotically chipper and teen angst, and very rarely demonstrates anything else. He also consistently fails to recognise how stupidly privileged he is, and while that’s adorable at first, it quickly becomes cringe-worthy. Many people have also drawn attention to the fact that in a show about martial arts, the martial arts master (Danny) is kinda crap. I don’t think that’s fair, as Finn Jones had significantly less time training than any of his Defenders counterparts, stating that the choreography of some fights was taught to him in fifteen minutes flat. It does point to the main thing wrong with Iron Fist though; the whole thing feels rushed.

Iron Fist is ultimately a direct lead up to the story of the Defenders, and it feels like it. Defenders was already being hyped up as Luke Cage arrived on Netflix. It was the show everyone was waiting for, and very few people were excited for Iron Fist by comparison. As a result, it feels like a lot less effort was put into everything from the casting (sorry David Wenham, I love you, but I don’t buy you as a villain), to the stunts, to the writing. Particularly the writing.

The worst part of the whole thing is Iron Fist could have been a good show. Some of the characters are absolutely brilliant, particularly Danny’s first friend after his return to New York, Colleen Wing (Jessica Henwick). She’s complex. She’s strong. She’s an insanely talented martial artist. Ultimately she’d make a much better main character than Danny does. There’s also the additions of Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson) and Jeri “J-Dog” Hogarth (Carrie-Ann Moss) from previous Netflix Marvel series. We get to see the stronger side of Claire, actually being the person who knows what she’s doing while the superhero is an amateur, and a significantly softer side of Jeri, actually showing affection for once in her life.

If the creators (Scott Buck and M. Raven Metzner) had changed the focus of the show slightly or been able to spend more time on it, who knows, they could have had a success on their hands. As it is, Iron Fist fell flat and has been panned by critics. Ultimately I think its first series will only be remembered as a lead into Defenders. Hopefully, there’s something better planned for the second one.

Television: Luke Cage, and why it’s a show of two halves

Luke Cage was the first Marvel Netflix show I was unsure about watching. I loved Jessica Jones and Daredevil but almost immediately after Luke Cage came out I started hearing negative things. It didn’t have the complexity. It didn’t hold people’s interest. As a result, I didn’t watch it until Defenders was soon to be on air as I didn’t want to miss the developments leading up to it.
I wasn’t expecting much from Luke Cage when I started to watch it, just a way to pass the time, but as I started to watch it I was very, VERY pleasantly surprised. Luke Cage (Mike Coulter) doesn’t exist in the same type of dark world that Jessica Jones and Matt Murdock do, his world is more grounded, its troubles more real. It helps that it’s the first series to be set outside of Hell’s Kitchen, instead focusing on the historically black neighbourhood of Harlem. The show, its themes and setting are all intrinsically linked. The show’s about the everyday troubles and an everyday hero, who just happens to have supernatural abilities.
Before I continue talking about Luke Cage though, I feel it’s important to point out that I am neither black nor American. I come to this show entirely from an outsider’s’ perspective, so there is a limited amount of insight I have into how well it really shows Harlem or the many struggles that the neighbourhood has had. I assume that the show depicts them well, as it is well written and doesn’t shy away from issues such as police brutality and racism, but I have no way of knowing as that hasn’t been my experience of life.

I do feel qualified, however, to talk about the characters and the structure of the show. Mostly the fact that once again, we have excellent villains, two this time, in the form of cousins Mariah Dillard (Alfre Woodard) and Cornell “Cottonmouth” Stokes (Mahershala Ali). Both antagonists have grown up in Harlem at the table of crime boss Mama Mabel, who pushed Mariah into political aspirations and Cornell into criminal ones. Both cousins suffered growing up, but both have used their painful upbringing to become stronger or at least to appear to.
Cottonmouth, in particular, is an absolutely fascinating character as he encounters more and more complex issues. The series starts with a major weapons deal he arranged going wrong. Later as Luke gets involved, Cottonmouth’s business spirals further and further out of control and he begins to deal with things based on feelings rather than business sense. He shows true remorse and anger when one of his men shoots up Pop’s Barber Shop, killing the one man who created a safe space for the youth of Harlem, and even offers to pay for his funeral. He also never loses his wish to become a musician and is often seen playing his piano. He’s complex. He’s well-acted. And unfortunately, he’s only the villain of the first half of the series.
I would love it if Mariah then took his place, but she is relegated to “side villain” for the most part, with the new focus being on Diamondback (Erik LaRay Harvey), the mysterious supplier of Cottonmouth’s weapons. Every complexity Cottonmouth has, Diamondback doesn’t. He’s cartoonish with his level of crazy if he had moustache he’d twirl it before fighting with Luke. His ability to actually harm Luke gives us a nice insight into our hero’s background, and Luke’s origin story is indeed interesting, but it’s not enough to hold the story at the same standard the show has been until this point. Neither is the wonderful development of Claire Temple (Rosario Dawson), who has been present in all the Marvel Netflix shows, but not really come into her own until this one.
It’s such a pity that Diamondback isn’t more interesting because like every Marvel Netflix show, so much focus is poured onto the villain. The antagonist balances out the hero, makes the audience question them or brings our attention to their circumstances and behaviour, but Diamondback does not of these things. He’s a villain who wants to destroy Luke Cage because he does (or actually because he’s Luke’s half brother and daddy issues, but whatever, it’s kinda glossed over). It makes the part of the show where he’s the focus weak, less interesting and ultimately is probably what caused many people’s disappointment in the show.

For me at least though, the brilliant first half of the series and few good parts of the second are enough for Luke Cage to at least maintain the standards of the other Netflix shows. I wish the show was more consistent, but I’m still really happy with it. Also, it gives Claire a chance to shine, and I’m pretty much convinced that that can never be a bad thing. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Luke but hopefully with a more interesting adversary.

Television: Jessica Jones, and why it’s my favourite superhero show (spoilers)

Or favourite “person with superpowers from a comic book universe” show, as it should be.

Jessica (Krysten Ritter) is one of the most reluctant heroes I’ve seen in recent years, and she is all the more brilliant for it. Netflix has mostly (sorry Iron Fist) been brilliant at creating heroes who seem real for their Marvel miniseries, and no one was more real than Jessica Jones. She’s a (debatably) function alcoholic with PTSD who’s fully aware that she often makes the wrong choices and damages her relationships with the people around her. She’s unapologetic, screwed up, strong and undeniably real. I know people like Jessica (minus the superpowers). Sometimes I am a person like Jessica. And it’s not just Jessica who seems like a real person.

There’s a lot of debate, particularly at the moment, about the portrayal of women in media. As far as I’m concerned Jessica Jones is one of those shows that just gets it right! The female characters in the show are balanced, being portrayed as neither paragons of virtue or she-devils, neither hyper-sexualised nor without sexuality, neither weak nor strong but a mixture of both. They’re shown as important characters in a complex narrative, no less or more important than their male counterparts. That, at least to me, is what true equality is all about; realising that regardless of race, gender or sexuality we are all different but equal. It’s a rare show that manages it, and Jessica Jones despite its dark setting pulls it off with aplomb.

As if that wasn’t enough, this is a show that’s not afraid to deal with some very important-but-traumatic concepts; like the issue what constitutes sexual consent. The show’s main antagonist, Kilgrave (David Tennant), has the ability to totally control people’s actions by telling them what to do which, in turn, creates the unstoppable desire within them to follow his orders. Prior to the series, he uses this power to capture Jessica and force her to begin a sexual relationship with him, but she escapes after committing a terrible crime while under his control. This leads to a lot of highly symbolic discussions between Jessica and Kilgrave about whether what he did to her counts as rape (it definitely does). The show isn’t afraid to make obvious comparisons to real life, to women and men who weren’t believed after reporting crimes of all natures. It doesn’t pull any punches with how painful both Jessica and Kilgrave’s other victims’ experiences are, it simply shows the truth.

That’s not to say the show treats Kilgrave as a simplistic, “Mwahaha, I’m so evil” antagonist, which in many ways would defeat the point of the show. Like Daredevil before it, Jessica Jones has a complex villain. There isn’t the same amount of time invested into Kilgrave’s point of view of things; he’s quite clearly crazy and obsessive, but a traumatic backstory is revealed. As often seems to be the case with psychotic serial killers, his parents tortured him as a child, in this particular case performing multiple scientific experiments on him until his mind cracked, or at least that’s what he believes. When we later meet Kilgrave’s parents they claim the experiments were an attempt to control his powers and to keep him from hurting them. It’s never reveals who is right, instead leaving viewers thinking with Jeri Hogarth’s (Carrie-Ann Moss) excellent quote about the true story almost always being a mixture of different people’s point of view.

Ultimately, that’s the part of Jessica Jones I love the most. It doesn’t give you the answers but instead makes you ask yourself questions. It takes difficult things to talk about and brings them out in the open for us to discuss as a society. In my opinion, that’s what all great art (and particularly great science fiction and fantasy) does. It gives you the power to see all of a situation, to mirror reality, and then make up your own mind. There aren’t many shows that I would suggest as required watching, but because of just how well it’s written, because of its undeniably brilliant treatment of very complex themes and because it is ultimately about very important issues that affect society as a whole, Jessica Jones is a must see.

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues raised in this blog, here are some helpful numbers

Rape Crisis Centre (AUS) – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732)

Rape Crisis England and Wales – 0808 802 9999

National Sexual Assault Hotline (USA) – 800 765 HOPE (800 765 4673)

Television: Daredevil, and why Wilson Fisk is one of the best villains of all time

Daredevil is one of those shows it took me a while to get into, but once I was hooked I was totally addicted. Made as part of the Netflix Marvel series, which link subtly but directly into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Daredevil initially caught audiences with its visceral fight scenes, high production quality and troubled hero. Here was a superhero show that actually took the genre seriously, and to a certain extent, had more in common with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Night Trilogy than Joss Whedon’s brightly coloured Avengers movie. It showed a darker, deeper side to the MCU that had been sorely lacking, and provided it in a way only television could.

I love movies, but television and Netflix have always been my preferred medium to watch. There’s a wonderful quote that says something along the lines of, “You get to see the lives of movie characters through a window, television characters you invite into your home.” You get to see the ups and downs of characters on television, not just their heroic moments but their personal ones. You share every crisis of faith, every water cooler conversation and every in-joke, and Daredevil does this better than almost any other show. Why? Daredevil doesn’t just show you the ups and downs of its hero, it also shows you, in great detail, the life of its villain, Wilson Fisk.

At the beginning of the show, the villainous power of Fisk is demonstrated through his manipulations and right-hand man, James Wesley, but as more of the person is revealed through his interactions with Wesley and his love interest, Vanessa, a more complex picture is shown. The closer Matt Murdock gets to crossing the boundary from hero to villain, the more Fisk seems twistedly heroic. Here is someone who is genuinely convinced what he’s doing is not only right but is the only way to save his city. He doesn’t care what he has to do, or how many laws he has to break, as long as the city is ultimately made a safer, better place.

The absolute brilliance of the first season of Daredevil is showing how close villain and hero are to each other in terms of beliefs. This could have very easily been told from Fisk’s point of view showing Daredevil as the vigilante villain. The near-perfect execution of this symmetry is what makes Daredevil such compulsive viewing. I found myself caring more about the villain that I did the hero in many of the episodes, and that is a truly incredible feat.

But like any good show, the second series cannot repeat the same story as the first. Instead, Daredevil chooses to build on its already developing theme of the line between hero and villain, this time by introducing two more vigilantes to the show; the gun-toting Frank Castle and the mysterious Elektra Natchios. Both of these new faces have a very different approach to Matt Murdoch’s “no kill” policy, in fact, Castle spends the first four episodes gunning down every gang member and criminal he comes across. As Daredevil is confronted and challenged by these other vigilantes, he begins to ask himself the same two question the audience has been asking since series one: “Is Daredevil really a hero?” and “How far is too far to go in the protection of the greater good?”

While Elektra and Castle are both incredibly compelling characters, and the show is better for their existence, but it’s interesting that the questions they pose to Daredevil are ones Wilson Fisk spends the time before and during the first series asking both himself and his nemesis. He doesn’t need to fight on the rooftops, or infiltrate parties to bring justice, he simply orders people to do it for him, but he is still bringing a form of vigilante justice to Hell’s Kitchen.

It’s wonderful to have a show available that asks the questions that most superhero media (outside of comics) doesn’t ask. What actually makes a hero? What is the difference between them and the villain? Daredevil and Fisk’s relationship doesn’t provide the answer, really, but the question is out there for the audience to decide.