Catching up with the MCU

For the last two months I've been working my way, slowly but steadily, through the films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in preparation for Avengers: Age of Ultron - I watched two movies a week starting with Iron Man (2008) and The Incredible Hulk (2008), and finishing up yesterday with Guardians of the Galaxy (2014).  All of these were second or third viewings, but many were the first viewing since the original film.

Here's what I learned.

1) Avengers: Age of Ultron better be pretty great, as I've spent a lot of time doing prep work to enjoy the film.  I'm aware my personal efforts in watching the movies are not the same as those who made, studied, cos-played or otherwise enjoyed the films - but still - ten movies?  I feel they better raise the bar a little.

2) 3D is pretty overrated. Of all the films, I saw the vast majority in 3D and re-watching them in old-fashioned 2D at home made the colours brighter (looking at you Winter Soldier) and the images much crisper - I think I'll be hunting for 2D showings from now on when possible (I do have to admit that Guardians of the Galaxy in 3D was a treat - but the colour palate of that film was very bright and largely in primary colours - so even dimmed-down a little it was still very effective).

3) How come we haven't had another Hulk movie yet? I found The Incredible Hulk to be a lot of fun, and with the massively positive response to the character in The Avengers (2012), I was honestly a little surprised that a Hulk sequel doesn't even show up on the proposed schedule to at least 2020.

In the end, the films were all well worth the watch and have me pretty excited for next week's follow up.

Movie Review: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

With friends and family we spent our Saturday afternoon checking out the most recent entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

First and most important point – I found the 3D to be pretty useless. The picture was very dim and hard to see in some points, and although the muted colours may have been intentional, I see no reason anyone should pay the extra couple of bucks to see the film that way.

Secondly – I really liked this movie! Although I suppose I could have done some reading into the original comics before going in, I tried to shy away from spoilers and see the film clean – not something I can do with a lot of comic book-based films as I’m pretty familiar with a lot of the stories, but with the heavier workload in Grad school for the last couple of months I was able to stay away, for the most part.

(A Quick Side-note – I am more than a little annoyed at the Marvel special “Marvel: Assembling a Universe” which aired in the regular timeslot of the TV series Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. last month – not only did it ruin the big spoil of the film, but it totally didn’t have to. Sometimes it’s nice to keep the mystery)

Trying to avoid spoilers, the film focuses on how S.H.I.E.L.D. has changed in a post-The Avengers world, a world where an alien invasion could literally come out of nowhere, and Captain America’s reaction to these changes. A huge part of what I love about the character is that his 1940’s era mindset doesn’t mean he’s naïve, it just means he looks at things a little differently.

The film didn’t quite measure up to the first one for me (Sorry, but the first film was my surprise favourite film of 2011), but I loved the 70s conspiracy movie feel and some of the fight scenes were pretty fantastic.

In the end, much of the movie rests on the character of Steve Rogers (Captain America, played by Chris Evans) and his ability to balance an incredibly jingoistic concept with a character you would really like as a friend, and in that way, as with the first film, the movie succeeds quite nicely.

Definitely worth seeing on the big screen, but again, stay away from the 3D unless you have no choice.