Tag: Captain Marvel

The 300s Marvel Cinematic Rewind Presents: Phase Three

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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…

The 300s Marvel Cinematic Rewind Presents: Guardians of the Galaxy

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Very rarely does something just appear out of the ethos the way Guardians of the Galaxy did back in 2014. Before the Marvel Cinematic Universe really took off, I had major doubts that Iron Man could work as a film. At the time, it felt like we were reaching too far into the barrel and pulling out heroes that didn’t warrant their own movie. I mean, before knowing what we know now, the casting of Robert Downey Jr. and seeing the finished product, who the hell out there was clamoring for an Iron Man movie? I never in a million years thought we’d get beyond that surface level of superheroes, i.e. Superman, Batman, Spider-Man. Fast forward six years to the release of Guardians, which in my opinion was the exact moment comic book movies showed us what they could be if given the time and space to flourish.

Please take a look below if you’d like a bit of a refresher on the brilliance that is Guardians of the Galaxy.

So now that you’re caught up, where do I begin?

It is so rare for a virtually unheard of IP to come out of nowhere and become such a hit in pop culture. Guardians of the Galaxy did exactly that in the summer of 2014. I remember reading online years before it was released that Marvel was planning on bringing some of their lesser known heroes to the big screen. When Guardians was announced, I did some research into it because frankly I had no clue what it was even about. I remember seeing things that said the ensemble featured a talking Raccoon, a gigantic tree that only said it’s own name, and a human by the name of Peter Quill. Needless to say, I thought this movie was going to tank. “There’s absolutely no way this thing could work!” “They are getting so unbelievably desperate.” For those keeping score at home, I was completely wrong once again.

Guardians of the Galaxy felt immediate. It’s the first movie set in space since probably Star Wars where the world felt lived in and already established. The roles were brilliantly cast. I never suspected Chris Pratt could be a leading man and yet here we are several years removed and he’s one of the biggest stars in Hollywood. Rocket Raccoon and Groot went from “sounds horrible on paper” to being plastered on every toy, action figure, and coffee mug inside your local Target. And how about that damn soundtrack? James Gunn took some of the best songs from the 70s and 80s and made them the backbone of a film set in a far off galaxy and they somehow all work perfectly. The soundtrack naturally shot to #1 on the Billboard charts for several weeks.

Guardians of the Galaxy was the first movie to come along in the MCU that made me completely forget about the MCU. I suddenly stopped caring about what The Avengers were up to and wanted to see the continuing adventures of Star-lord and Company. Don’t get me wrong, I love The Avengers, but Guardians showcased exactly what comic book movies could do if they tried something different. To this day it sits in my top three in the MCU.

Final rating: 9.5 out of 10

Spider-Man: Far From Home Trailer Just Dropped and Yes Spidey is Alive

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Okay first things first, this movie looks incredible, but it is such a bummer because it takes all of the suspense out of Avengers: Endgame. We all know what’s going to happen, but at least let us pretend to think differently. Having the actors for Black Panther, Spider-Man and others already signed on to do multiple sequels and then dropping the trailers for those movies while they’re still technically dead is a lame duck move. Kinda takes the venom (see what I did there?) out of this scene too.

But aside from all that, this movie looks awesome and Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio?

LETS GOO

Can Marvel do what Sony failed to do over and over again? Build a universe around the Sinister Six? I don’t know, but this is a hell of a start from the small sample size we’ve seen.

We also get some always welcomed Nick Fury in this movie, which I was not expecting.

Clearly this movie is going to have a much larger impact on the MCU as a whole, which makes sense since some key Avengers are definitely going to die in Endgame. We might be looking at Spidey taking on the mantle as one of the leaders of the Avengers moving forward and Nick Fury will help launch us into that next Phase of movies.

This spring and summer is going to be an adrenaline shot to the chest if you’re a fan of the MUC with Captain Marvel coming out on March 8th, then Avengers: Endgame on April 26th, and then followed up shortly thereafter with Spider-Man: Far From Home on July 5th. Buckle up.

The 300s Marvel Cinematic Rewind Presents: The Incredible Hulk

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The300s MCU

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Raise your hand if you completely forgot this film was a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Trust me, from time to time I forget it too. A month after Iron Man hit theaters in May 2008, The Incredible Hulk burst onto the scene to keep the Marvel momentum alive. To be fair to all those involved in making this movie, it’s not as a bad as most people remember. In fact, I think many forget this film’s ties to the MCU mainly because  Ed Norton (who is a great actor by the way) was almost immediately replaced with Mark Ruffalo. It once again had something to do with a contract dispute (Norton wanted more creative control over the finished product and it caused a lot of headaches behind the scenes) so Marvel went in a different direction to get Bruce Banner ready for his Avengers debut.

So recently I sat down and re-watched this forgotten gem just to see how well it held up. This was only my second viewing of the film as I had not seen it since it was playing in theaters. Still, we promised a Marvel Cinematic Rewind, which means watching even some of the more obscure entries in the universe.

To quickly summarize, The Incredible Hulk is the second entry in the MCU. It follows Bruce Banner, a brilliant scientist who’s experiment goes wrong, turning him into one of the most dangerous and fearsome players in comic book history. The movie starts with Banner on the run in Brazil, laying low chatting up online with a mysterious Mr. Blue, who is trying to help cure him. By day, Banner is helping out in a bottling plant (where they produce green soda!) and naturally some of his blood gets mixed in a shipment causing Stan Lee to get Gamma radiation poisoning, leading the government to track down his whereabouts. Still with me so far?  Banner barely gets away when the SWAT team kicks in his door and a chase ensues around the city. He narrowly escapes and decides to head back to America, hitchhiking and bumming it on foot from Brazil all the way back to Virginia, in a cool 16 days. You’re still with me right? The head SWAT guy, played by Tim Roth, doesn’t like this very much and winds up taking a dose of super soldier serum mixed with a little Banner blood and becomes Abomination. They do battle, Hulk wins, and Banner once again goes on the run.

The Incredible Hulk definitely sits near the bottom of my MCU rankings. The entire movie is essentially just a cat and mouse game with the government consistently trying to bring Banner in, only to finally utilize him to stop Abomination. While I normally like Ed Norton, his Banner is, well, boring. This is definitely the beginning of the lazy villain stereotype that has plagued Marvel films. Tim Roth brings little to the table as Abomination, who probably has a total of 10 minutes screen time. And while i’m not particularly drawn to any specific aspect of this film, it is at least what most would refer to as a good popcorn movie. Good action sequences, paced pretty well, and it keeps your attention. Hey, at least it’s not that god awful 2003 Hulk. I still have nightmares about that one. If this movie proved anything though, it’s that i’m completely content with just one standalone Hulk movie in the MCU.

Final Verdict: 5.0 out of 10

And while you’re here, enjoy this nonsense.

The 300s Marvel Cinematic Rewind

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There was an idea to bring together a group of remarkable bloggers, see if they could become something more. See if they could work together when we needed them to rewatch every move in the MCU and prepare the world for Avengers: Endgame.

Well thats what we’ve decided to do ladies and gentlemen. It’s cold, the sun sets at 3 o’clock and we all obsess over these movies anyways so The 300s staff will be tackling the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. We’ll be rewatching and blogging a refresher and a review of each movie all the way from Iron Man (2008) up to Captain Marvel (2019) ahead of Avengers 4, which drops on April 26th, 2019. We’ll be dropping one blog a week for every movie in the MCU and recording a podcast recapping each of the three Phase. By the end of it you’ll have either deleted my number from your phone or you’ll be salivating at the very thought of Avengers 4. We’re in the Endgame now…

Our first blog in The 300s Marvel Cinematic Rewind series drops tomorrow as Papa Giorgio reviews where this whole journey all began with Iron Man.

TWO NEW MARVEL TRAILERS DROPPING THIS WEEK – including Avengers 4!

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Marvel nerds like yours truly are in for a real treat this week, as it was announced we’ll get TWO brand-new trailers over the next couple of days – starting with the second teaser for Captain Marvel on Monday night!

Back in September, we brought you the first CM trailer and there was a lot to like from the brief footage we got. For a story and character who does not have much of a mainstream following at all, we’ll hopefully get a better glimpse into Carol Danvers’ background and how it connects to the MCU overall. We already know she’s a force to be reckoned with and that Nick Fury has a lot to do with her story, but that’s about it right now. I need more, Marvel! Especially considering I still have to wait a little over three months to see it.

As mentioned in the tweet above, the second Captain Marvel trailer is set to drop tonight on Monday Night Football.

But even more exciting is the news that we are also going to get what we’ve all been waiting for: the first look at the still untitled Avengers 4 film! The first-ever teaser trailer – or promotional material of any kind so far, really – for the much anticipated finale to last year’s Avengers: Infinity War is expected to be released on Wednesday morning, with many speculating it will air on ABC’s Good Morning America.

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Yes, FINALLY! I know! Took ’em long enough!

BUT, do be sure to temper your expectations a bit. We’re not going to find out what happened to our beloved heroes that turned to dust at the end of the last film (I’m not even gonna say SPOILER ALERT here, because…come on, seriously?). We’re also probably not going to find out wherever the hell Thanos was at the end of the movie (even though some tried and true Marvel fans out there think it might be a place called “Soulworld,” which I will fully admit I am certainly no expert on.)

Maybe, however, we will get some intimations about some of the other burning questions we all had after leaving the theater last summer. Is Gamora alive? Does Hawkeye decide to make one more comeback? What actually happened to Vision? And, last but not least, will Bruce finally get his shit together and learn how to control himself (and the Giant Green Guy) once again?

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What the hell’s going on with you, doc?

I guess we’re about to find out, and there’s always a chance we could get a quick 30-second cut of B.S. But either way, I’m super amped and just wanted to make sure all my fellow Marvel heads have their eyes peeled this week. Happy Monday indeed!

Marvel Drops First Captain Marvel Official Trailer!

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Before most people even fired up their first cup of coffee at the office this morning, Marvel released the first official teaser trailer for Captain Marvel, which is set to hit theaters next spring:

I’ll be honest in saying that I have never once read a Captain Marvel comic book, and I can probably tell you as much about Carol Danvers as I can about Carol Brady. Still, this trailer looked great, and I’m pretty excited!

First and foremost, I love the trailer starting off with a shot of what appears to be Danvers crashing out of the sky into a Blockbuster. This sets the tone that the movie is taking place in the past, supposedly the 1990s, which has been no secret to those who follow MCU news. This could lead to some really fun easter eggs and other nostalgic moments for all my fellow Millennials out there.

Samuel L. Jackson, aka Nick Fury, looks like he’s finally getting some shine in the MCU once again, as he will play a pivotal role in the film. Also, he still has both eyes, and I assume we’ll get to see how he ends up getting the patch! (I don’t know if that’s really all that exciting, but hey it’s something!)

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Also, Brie Larson is one of Hollywood’s rising stars, and just from that short clip she seems perfect for the role. And even with my very rudimentary knowledge of Captain Marvel’s powers and abilities, I know she’s gonna kick some serious ass, and I can’t freakin’ wait to see it!

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The MCU is banking a lot on this one, as Captain Marvel, Black Panther, and Spidey are likely going to be tasked with carrying the franchise into the future once the Avengers are done fighting crime on the big screen – which is happening sooner than you think. (If you’re interested, check out my brief analysis from a few weeks ago regarding the current state of the MCU and my slight fear regarding its future.) So far, I’m liking what I’m seeing, though, and maybe Marvel is going to be just fine.

Captain Marvel is set to hit theaters on March 8, 2019.