Racks on racks, I don’t rap on tracks Without my A-game, so please don’t ask me about no pressure Bitch, with the grip of my fingertip I can hold this coast together
Ab-Soul goes hard on “ILLuminate,” but Kendrick Lamar is so so good. K-Dot isn’t a voracious social media user though so I feel like he drifts in and out of people’s minds. He came out with what I said was the album of the year in 2017 with “DAMN.” He followed that up in 2018 with the surprisingly excellent movie soundtrack to Black Panther. Movie soundtracks are usually flimsy albums with one hit song like Wild Wild West, but Kendrick took the job serious as all hell and put out a legit full fledged album. He’s been relatively quiet in the two years since so we’re stepping into the way back machine for this 2012 Ab-Soul track “ILLuminate” featuring Kendrick doing the damn thing.
11 years. It’s been more than a decade since Tony Stark “built this in a cave with a box of scraps.” Avengers: Endgame is officially in theaters and I’ve been hiding from Twitter for the past week, minus a few ribbings at the expense of Mr. John Tavares and the Toronto Chokealeafs. Endgame is the culmination of everything in the MCU, a definitive end for many of the characters we’ve been watching since the days of George W.
As a final installment of the The 300s Marvel Cinematic Rewind, we wanted to touch base on the films of Phase Three that we haven’t covered yet, which also now apparently ends with Spider-Man: Far From Home. (Make up your mind, Kevin Feige!) So let’s get into it.
Dr. Strange
Giorgio: To be honest, Dr. Strange did nothing for me. I love Cumberbatch, but this film to me just seemed too much of a Christopher Nolan knockoff. The film is almost a literal combination of Batman Begins and Inception. One of these was good enough for me. 5/10
Red: This movie was a trip and one I did not expect to enjoy. I punted on it for so long that I actually ended up watching it for the first time on Netflix. I have to admit though I really enjoyed it. As Kyle mentions above it pretty much is like someone threw the scripts of Batman Begins and Inception together, but I loved both of those movies so it was right up my alley. Cumberbatch is excellent as the smarmy Dr. Strange and a really solid addition to the Avengers. 7/10
Guardians of the Galaxy 2
Giorgio: I liked it, but wasn’t nearly as good as the original. It was also really depressing. I’ll take as much Rocket as possible though. Bradley Cooper is an actor’s actor. 7/10
Red: I know Kyle is a bigger Guardians fan than I am, but I just could not get into GOTG2. The music as always was excellent (like the opening scene featuring Mr. Blue Sky), Rocket steals just about every scene he’s in, but I hated the “Ego is a planet” storyline and I’m a big Kurt Russell guy. But with all the aforementioned factors propping it up, this is still an entertaining flick. 7/10
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Giorgio: This movie was incredible. First Spider-Man I’ve liked since probably the original with MTV Best Kiss Winner Tobey Maguire. Tom Holland is a perfect Peter Parker, and the film does a great job of not taking itself too seriously. Shoutout to Michael Keaton as Vulture, essentially playing Birdman twice within the span of a few years. 8/10. Also, Aunt May 10 out of 10.
Red: Kyle described it in the best way possible; Tom Holland is a perfect Peter Parker. Michael Keaton was a kickass villain in a truly surprising twist and a legitimately frightening Vulture. Oh and Aunt May is a rocket. 9/10
Thor: Ragnarok
Giorgio: Possibly my favorite film of Phase Three. After two boring as hell solo films, Ragnarok takes a completely new approach to a stale franchise and gives it new life. It was hilarious, weird, and charming all at the same time. Tessa Thompson is a pleasure to watch on screen. Oh, and Jeff Goldblum. Horniest/smoothest man in Hollywood. 9.5/10
Red: This was one of the best comic book movies ever because it not only had top notch popcorn flick action, but it also was very self aware in how ridiculous it was (i.e. the opening scene/rock montage). Ragnarok also managed to work in Hulk perfectly without Marvel having to go out on a limb on ANOTHER Hulk standalone movie, despite how many people wanted a true Planet Hulk movie. I’ve always been partial to Thor despite it not being the strongest MCU trilogy (neither is Iron Man), but Thor 3 kicks all the asses and sets us up nicely for Infinity War, which starts minutes after Ragnarok ends. 9/10
Black Panther
Giorgio: Had zero idea what to expect, but came out really enjoying it. Great cast, great story. Michael B. Jordan is one of the best actors currently working. Also made over a billion dollars, so no surprises how universally liked this movie is. 9/10
Red: Same as Kyle I had zero idea what to expect out of this movie. Chadwick Boseman was pretty badass in Civil War so I knew they had a shot, but Michael B. Jordan stole the goddamn show as, in my opinion, the best villain in the MCU. 8.5/10
Avengers: Infinity War
Giorgio: For a film that has about 50 main characters, they did a great job not making the plot stroke-inducing to follow. Thanos finally shows his ass after a decade of sending his minions to inevitably just do it himself. We get a great Peter Dinklage cameo, always a pleasure to see him. It was great to finally see the beginning of the end. 8/10
Red: Bravo! Bravo! One of the few movies I made sure to see opening weekend because you have about a day before Twitter eggs ruin the movie for you and about a week before Yahoo just straight up starts posting spoilers in the headlines. As Kyle said this movie did an incredible job balancing dozens and dozens of characters that you legitimately cared about as the world building of Kevin Feige really started to pay dividends. This movie could have been 4 hours long and I wouldn’t have moved an inch. 9/10
Ant-Man and the Wasp
Giorgio: Fuck this movie. 2/10
Red: Very forgettable. All I remember is the villain that can phase through walls, yet is slowly dying. Also, if we’re being honest I’ve always disliked Evangeline Lilly for how she cucked Jack on LOST, but I admit thats not exactly fair. Paul Rudd is a treat to watch per usual and the movie introduces the Quantum Realm which I think we all expect to be one of the keys to Endgame. So decent movie, but very forgettable. 6/10
Giorgio: I….never saw this movie. Guilty as charged. I’m sure it was swell though, right? Nothing like shoehorning in a last minute character a month before the grand finale. At least I heard there’s an orange cat in it named Goose. Rating N/A
Red: Unlike Kyle, I paid 14 of my hard earned Schrute Bucks to go see this last weekend because I didn’t want to be completely lost when a Deus Ex Machina write in comes out of nowhere to save the day in Endgame. While I was less than excited going into this move (I just got a very Green Lantern vibe with the fighter pilot turned super hero with bad CGI), it wasn’t bad. Nothing great, nothing terrible. A de-aged Samuel L. Jackson (good CGI) carries the movie, but Jude Law is a great character/foil in Capt. Marvel. Some hamhanded naming conventions (Mar-Vel? Really?) and the lazy explanation for where Poochie, er I mean Captan Marvel, has been for the past 20 years leads to an OK, but highly skippable cinema experience. 6.5/10
Now I just need to make it to Sunday afternoon without someone spoiling Endgame for me. Do what I did kids, mute anything and everything related to Avengers on Twitter and stay off the news sites. We’re in the endgame now…
Captain America: Civil War (2016) is one of my favorite Marvel movies and I think a lot of people agree with that sentiment. My worry going back and watching Cap 3 for the first time in years was that it would just be me remembering another OK movie through rose colored glasses because of the incredible airport scene. Fear not, despite yet another convoluted villain character, this movie still kicks ass all these years later. As it should, considering this movie really made up for the disappointing Avengers 2. They should have called this movie Avengers 2.5. It also has the distinction of giving Captain America hands down the best complete trilogy in all of the MCU. Iron Man 2 and 3 leave much to be desired. Thor 2 was not great, and Guardians 3 is TBD. Now lets get to it!
Oooooh I love cold opens.
It’s 1991 and Winter Solider is back. It seems like he’s being tortured by the Russians, but after a series of code words uttered wake him up you see he’s basically a brainwashed spy for the Russki’s. They send him out on a retrieval mission and he whacks someone driving a caddy and takes some blue goo from their trunk. Title card.
We cut to Scarlet Witch, Captain America, Black Widow, and Falcon scouting out a scene in Nigeria for a mission which quickly turns into an all out firefight
“Wanda, just like we practiced,” Cap says to Scarlet Witch, implying the training thats been taking place before this.
But, wait its not just some faceless mercs, it’s Crossbones who is already an established villain apparently, but someone I again had to look up to remember his story. For anyone thats forgot like me he played Brock Rumlow in Captain America 2 as a sleeper cell agent for HYDRA. Welp Crossbones tries to suicide bomb Cap, only to be temporarily stopped by Scarlet Witch, who in an effort to levitate him to safety accidentally blows up half a building.
And thats how you get the Sokovia Accords.
Holy christ they CGI’d Tony Stark’s de-aged face onto a teenager’s body.
Tony Stark gets confronted by a woman who blames Stark for her son’s death in….you guessed it, Sokovia.
And thats how you get the Sokovia Accords.
The Secretary of State drops in on Avengers HQ to lecture the team about all the collateral damage they’ve caused with literally no repercussions.
It raises an interesting question though, what gives the Avengers the right to operate with “unlimited power and no supervision,” as the Secretary puts it?
We are introduced to Helmut Zimo, who is another HYDRA agent on a mission. Zimo is torturing another old Russian general. When he asks how Zimo found him he directly references the gigantic Wiki Leaks dump Black Widow did at the end of Winter Soldier.
This is where the split between the team members of the Avengers begins. Tony Stark the rogue “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” immediately opts to surrender his rights and sign the Sokovia Accords. This basically gives the Avengers the United Nations for a boss, which military lifer Captain America is just unwilling to do. It’s quite the role reversal we see here and drives the wedge between the team when half of them sign and half of them don’t.
Sokovia Accords ceremony gets bombed to high hell and King T’Chaka, of one Wakanda, is killed in the blast, which we will learn later leads to the introduction of another hero.
But who would bomb the Sokovia Accords? Oh well the news immediately identifies the culprit as one Bucky Barnes. That took 5 minutes, but sure. We’re then introduced to the first incident with the Sokovia Accords exposing why it’s such a pain in the ass. By not signing the document, Captain America isn’t allowed to interfere so he and his crew are officially outlaws at this point.
Cap going to help his friend out turns into Cap aiding and abetting a wanted terrorist realll quick though. He nearly gets out of it unscathed too until a goddamn Black Panther drops out of the clouds to stop them. United Nations sanctioned War Machine joins the party and congratulates Cap for now being a criminal before all three are arrested. Oh and we learn that Black Panther is in fact King T’Chaka’s son, T’Challa.
“I’m not getting that shield back am I,” Cap asks.
“Technically it’s the government’s property,” Black Widow shoots back.
This movie has a lot of parallels to X-Men 3: The Last Stand. As bad as that movie was it’s how this storyline could very easily turn, with the world calling for the eradication of Mutants and the Mutants fighting back. Here we have Tony trying to stave off “something worse” than signing a document.
Hey look its Zimo who somehow works for the government and is the exact guy interrogating Bucky Barnes. K? Zimo uses an EMP to knock out all the power in the building so he can say the code words to turn Bucky back into the Russian spy he was back in 1991. But, before we get into that, maybe War Machine can explain what the hell happened with that EMP?
Bucky is in brainwashed mode yet again and nearly kills everyone before Cap is able to knock him out before he can escape. He snaps out of it and explains to Cap how he got his brain scrambled again and what these guys might be looking for exactly.
“Because I’m not the only Winter Soldier,” Bucky says as a flashback shows exactly what that Blue Goo was from the opening of the movie. A group of psychos Bucky refers to as the most elite death squad in Hydra history were also injected with that serum, but they all seem to be pretty unhinged.
Tony Stark is officially given an assignment to bring in the rogue Avengers, but without half their team, Hulk, and Thor to back them up it’s time to do a little recruiting.
We head to Queens to meet the best Peter Parker ever put on film, who Tony quickly takes a liking to and invites him to Germany for a little project. Cut to Hawkeye who’s come out of “retirement” to bust Scarlet Witch out of house arrest, which takes a little duel with Vision to do so. Black Widow recruits Black Panther and Cap hits up Agent Peggy’s niece (whom he also macks on) to get back his shield and Falcon’s suit. And to round out the crew we got a starstruck Ant-Man meeting Cap and the rest of the rogue Avengers.
Paul Rudd should be in every one of these movies from here on out.
Tony and his crew of War Machine, Black Widow, Black Panther, Spider-Man, and Vision show up to shut that shit down. Let the Battle Royale begin.
Most of it’s all fun and games with some cheeky one liners, ya know except for Rhodes getting paralyzed. Other than that though, it’s all a pretty good time before Cap and Bucky escape and head to Russia to figure out WTF is going on. HYDRA winter soldier death squad, sleeper cell evil scientists?
The rest of Cap’s crew is on lockdown in the “max security underwater super pokey” as Tony describes it. He seems to be realizing this whole Sakovia Accords thing may have been a bad idea.
Tony learns of Zemo and with a tip from Falcon heads to Berlin, which don’t ya know is exactly where Bucky and Cap are headed. Zemo finds the old HYDRA lab in Berlin and locates the other winter soldiers saved on ice.
In a change of heart Tony realizes what Cap has been trying to do this whole time and joins forces with him.
Now this is where this movie gets weird. We finally see those other winter soldiers, but Zemo has already killed them all? So this whole thing was all a ploy to get the Avengers here? Bombing the UN, framing Bucky Barnes, killing innocent people for what?
“An empire toppled by its enemies can be rebuilt, but one that crumbles from within, thats dead forever,” Zemo says.
Zemo plays the security cam footage of Tony Stark’s parents not actually dying in a car crash, but getting straight up murdered by Bucky Barnes all those years ago. And it turns out Captain America knew the whole time.
Welp, there goes Tony’s renewed alliance with Cap and Buck. Blind with rage Tony will stop at nothing to kill Bucky now, even if it means going through Cap. After some serious hand to hand combat, it seems like Iron Man is in some deep shit, but with a blast from his goddamn chest piece Tony blows off Bucky’s metal arm.
Turns out Zemo’s family was killed in the shitshow that was Sokovia. Knowing he couldn’t kill the Avengers himself, he plotted to have them destroy each other. Black Panther apprehends Zemo before he can kill himself meanwhile Cap and Ton continue to beat the hell out of each other. Cap gets the upperhand and Tony drops a real heart wrenching quote that forces him to leave his shield.
Captain America goes full rogue and busts his half of the Avengers out of super max prison and leaves Tony with a promise, and a flip phone, that if he ever needs him he’ll be there.
Mid credits scene: Cap and Bucky are in Wakanda as Bucky decides being frozen once again is the best thing for everyone until they can figure out whats up. Oh and these guys have quite the technology don’t they?
Post credits scene:
This movie absolutely holds up and is one of the best of the entire MCU. It doesn’t really advance the overall plot of the Infinity Stones or the impending threat from Thanos, but this is a popcorn flick to beat all popcorn flicks. Captain America: Civil War is like when you finally get to open all your presents on Christmas Day and play with all your toys at once.
At this time I would like anyone who enjoys Iron Man 3 to vacate the premises because this film makes me physically ill. I’ve been dreading this movie in my re-watch from day one and lo and behold it’s just as terrible as I remember. Iron Man 3 was the first film to drop after The Avengers finally came to life on the big screen after years of teasing in the MCU. Yet, if Iron Man 3‘s job was to set the tone on what was to come in Phase Two, boy oh boy did it miss the mark. Let’s dive in.
Here’s a brief summary because I just can’t be bothered to relive this madness.
Iron Man 3 worried the hell out of me when I got out of the theatre. After all the hype surrounding The Avengers and us finally getting the amazing team up film we were all promised, we were back to individual movies and solo adventures for all our heroes. This was a brutal start. I honestly fully expected the MCU to fall apart after this movie, solely based on the reintroduction to stand alone films. My big problem with much of Phase Two was that it all feels like filler. We know at this point that Thanos is coming, and that the infinity stones will surely play a part in things to come. The problem is we were being set up for some complete waste of time films like Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and yes, even Avengers: Age of Ultron (I honestly couldn’t tell you a single thing that happens in Thor 2, so i’ll let Red tackle that next week).
Iron Man 3’s biggest flaw is that it does almost nothing to advance the plot of the MCU. It takes everything the first two Iron Man films did and turns it on it’s head. Remember how it was a big deal Tony had an arc reactor in his chest to keep the shrapnel in his body from entering his heart and killing him? Ah forget it, let’s just have surgery to remove it. Not necessary anymore. Wait, so why was that impossible the first two times around, but now it’s completely feasible? And don’t even get me started on The Mandarin.
You take one of the most badass villains in the Iron Man universe and you turn him into an actor pretending to be terrorist just so we the audience can look and say “ooooh” “aaaah” “classic bait and switch!” It totally nullifies the tension in the beginning of the film where for a second I thought we were about to get something totally insane from an MCU where good villains are tough to come by. Finally, how about Pepper turning into the Human Torch for a grand total of five minutes just to bypass the fact that she fell to her death. Oh, and they fixed her off screen by the way. Back to normal Pepper!
Honestly, Phase Two is incredibly hit or miss for me. I just thank my lucky stars that Iron Man 3 is behind me. Could have derailed the whole thing. At this point in time I would like to officially declare it to be the worst movie of the MCU.
Final Rating: 2.0 out of 10
And not to leave on a completely downer of a note, I present to you the one scene I enjoy in the movie.
TMZ – Stan Lee, the man who co-created Marvel Comics, has died … Stan’s daughter tells TMZ. We’re told an ambulance rushed to Lee’s Hollywood Hills home early Monday morning and he was rushed to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. We’re told that’s where he died. Lee had suffered several illnesses over the last year or so — he had a bout of pneumonia and vision issues.
Stan started Marvel with Jack Kirby in 1961 with The Fantastic Four. He went on to create Spider-Man, Black Panther, The Incredible Hulk, X-Men, Iron Man and The Avengers. Stan made cameo appearances in all of the Marvel movies.
Wow, what a sad and sobering headline to write. He was 95-years-old so he lived a long and incredibly successful life, but still a sad thing to see. Stan Lee made comic books cool. Fact, not opinion. Sure Kevin Feige deserves a ton of credit for nailing the formula for making a good superhero movie, but it was all based on Stan Lee’s work. Even before all the blockbusters, there were the 90s cartoons like Spider-Man the Animated Series.
But just think about the creative juices you need to have in your brain to create Spider-Man, the Hulk, Black Panther, the Fantastic Four, Iron Man, and the freaking X-Men! The guy was a genius and a lot of his comics touched on some pretty sensitive subjects way ahead of their time. While the underlying message of X-Men has become abundantly clear over the past couple of films, at its core this was a story that tackled civil rights and how they were granted to some types of people, but not others. Whether that was mutants, gay people, transgender, African Americans etc. – it was a pretty radical thing to write about when the X-Men were first created in 1963.
So Stan Lee was a wildly successful guy who created some of the most iconic characters and intellectual property of all time. The only sad part is that Disney just bought FOX and all its Marvel character rights, which is why we’ve only recently started to see crossovers like Spider-Man finally joining the Avengers. So unfortunately Stan Lee won’t get to see all his kids playing on screen together. I’m not sure what Marvel will do to honor the godfather of comic books, but after having a cameo appearance in every single Marvel movie, I’m sure it’ll be something special.
CBS NEWS – There’s a new wrinkle in the LeBron-Jordan debate: Who will be the more beloved Tune Squad star? On Wednesday, James and his production company, SpringHill Entertainment, announced a sequel to 1996’s “Space Jam,” one that boasts an all-star team: Ryan Coogler of “Black Panther” is set to produce the film, James will star and Terence Nance of “Random Acts of Flyness” will serve as director.
It’s James’ first starring role in a film. The Lakers superstar had a well-liked part playing himself in “Trainwreck” opposite Amy Schumer. He told the Hollywood Reporter that he “loved [Coogler’s] vision” for “Black Panther” and believes the director will bring the same magic to “Space Jam.
The original Space Jam wasn’t nominated for any Academy Awards, but it is the highest grossing basketball film of all time. It was a solid kids movie and is fondly remembered by people who saw it when they were kids. I’ll stop to watch a few scenes whenever I see it pop up on cable, and I know I have the Space Jam soundtrack CD somewhere at my parents’ house. Even more than 20 years after its theatrical release, I still see Tune Squad jerseys at college basketball games from time to time.
With Ryan Coogler on board for the reboot, though, the next Space Jam will aspire to be more than just a commercially-viable kids basketball movie. Coogler is on fire right now, and although he’ll be producing rather than directing Space Jam, the last three films he directed were all huge critical successes. Fruitvale Station, Creed and Black Panther are all incredible movies.
Space Jam 2 will also feature LeBron James in his first starring role. James isn’t an actor or a singer, but he’s still one of the biggest stars in the world. He was really likable in Trainwreck and it’s hard to imagine anyone, outside of maybe a few Celtics fans, who will question that he’s the right person for this role. It’d be great to see Michael Jordan come back one way or another and settle the GOAT debate with James, even if just in jest, but there’s probably a better chance of Michael B. Jordan showing up.
It sounds like Space Jam 2 will follow a similar formula as the original, but don’t be surprised if it’s a little less slapstick and aimed at adults as much as it is at kids. At least as much as Bugs Bunny cartoon can be aimed at adults.
OMG OMG OMG it’s happening and I am having a gigantic nerdgasm. So a few months back Disney acquired FOX, which I blogged about back in December, and after some anti-trust concerns, Disney finalized the deal. Now its been confirmed that Kevin Feige will oversee the X-Men, which is huge news as he is the president of Marvel Studios. Feige is basically the architect, the godfather, the puppet master of the $17 billion dollar industry that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He got people to see TWENTY movies over more than a decade and care about characters like Iron Man and Thor, who were absolute D-List superheroes back in 2007. Feige essentially created shared universes in cinema as we know it today. Very few, if any, movies were combining IPs to tie into one gigantic story across different franchises like Marvel.
Marvel’s success has only made the failures of company like DC and Sony loom even worse. Sony had a decent run with the first two Tobey Maguire Spiderman movies, but the third one was trash, and then they rebooted it with Andrew Garfield, which was trash, only to have it saved once they rebooted it yet again with the help of Marvel for the current iteration of Spidey.
Now X-Men has been much more of a mixed bag in terms of quality. There have been excellent movies like Logan, Deadpool, and X-Men 2 as well as some truly garbage ones like X-Men 3: The Last Stand.
Most recently they’ve run into trouble as two very publicly announced movies have been pushed back time and time again to the point where I don’t know if we’ll ever even see them. There was the Sophie Turner Dark Phoenix movie and the Maisie Williams X-Men movie, The New Mutants. Both seem to be stuck in purgatory, which says volumes about the overall quality of them both. I mean New Mutants already had a trailer drop a year ago for christ’s sake.
I think the biggest problem with X-Men though has always been seeing the bigger picture. The movies always jumped around without any bigger map of where it was all heading. They never really know where they’re going with anything aside from the one movie they’re currently in. Thats how you end up killing off one of the biggest X-Men ever in Cyclops in the first 20 minutes of X3 (spoiler alert) only to have Days of Future Past completely retcon the whole thing and fix it with some tricky time traveling.
See? Not confusing at all.
Now, enter the GOAT of universe building in Kevin Feige and we’re cooking with gas.
And thats BEFORE we even mention the inevitable crossover events. After Avengers 4 comes out next summer, a movie in which most expect to be the final film for guys like Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, and Chris Hemsworth, Marvel will be banking on younger players like Black Panther and Spiderman to carry the studio. Just imagine the possibilites with all of the X-Men characters finally available on the roster? It’s going to be truly amazing to watch. Plus they might even be able to reboot Fantastic Four, which was an absolute disaster.
TWICE.
So this is awesome news for fans of comic books and blockbuster movies. Everybody wins. We can start imagining the movies we never thought possible due to bullshit exclusive contracts.
The only downside? It took too long. The greatest character in the 11 movie history of the X-Men universe is dead and retired in Wolverine himself, Hugh Jackman. Unless….
11 years. It’s been more than a decade since Tony Stark “built this in a cave with a box of scraps.” Avengers: Endgame is officially in theaters and I’ve been hiding from Twitter for the past week, minus a few ribbings at the expense of Mr. John Tavares and the Toronto Chokealeafs. Endgame is the culmination of everything in the MCU, a definitive end for many of the characters we’ve been watching since the days of George W.
The 300s 