So, before I get into it, if you have ever liked Star
Wars – or even if you don’t – you need to watch Andor Season 1. Hard
stop. It’s by far the best Star Wars show on Disney+ and it stands as an
excellent companion piece to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which is
widely regarded as the best Star Wars film Disney has produced since acquiring
Lucasfilm in 2012. So yeah, expectations are high.
More than two years after its outstanding first season, Andor
is back April 22 – now called Andor: A Star Wars Story – and its new
trailer kicked us in the teeth just a few hours ago as of this writing. Like
its first season, it looks raw, it looks emotional, and it looks, dare I say it
… rebellious. And the modern-day music in the trailer that accompanies the bold
visuals just feels right.
But don’t just take my word for it. Check out the Andor
Season 2 trailer below!
Following widely publicized production
woes and extensive reshoots, Marvel Studios’ Captain America: Brave New World has arrived, and
although it’s not as disappointing as social media or Rotten Tomatoes might
have you believe, it’s a shaky flight for the winged Avenger.
Featuring Anthony Mackie’s Sam Wilson, having taken up the
Cap mantle from Steve Rogers at the conclusion of Avengers: Endgame and solidifying
himself as the star-spangled hero in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter
Soldier, this film unfortunately only feels like a Captain America sequel
sometimes. Mostly, it’s a follow-up to 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, with
many plotlines and characters carried over from that film 17 years later. It’s
also a follow-up to notorious Marvel miss The Eternals, finally addressing
the massive dead Celestial in the Indian Ocean that one would think would play
into the MCU over the past 4 years. I give the film credit for picking up the
pieces and pulling these elements back into continuity, but it all starts to
feel more like housekeeping than storytelling – especially when these elements pull
us away from Sam.
The pacing is a bit rough as well, and the two-hour film
feels longer than that. The action scenes are fun when they aren’t generic, choppy fistfights – especially an aerial dogfight
and the thrilling-but-brief battle between Cap and Red Hulk – but the rest of the film is
mostly exposition-heavy and feels more procedural than powerful. It seems like Julius Onah is trying to replicate the political intrigue of the Russo
brothers’ Captain America: The Winter Soldier, but it often feels like a
serviceable episode of Law & Order instead.
Despite feeling flat and disjointed overall, there were some good performances. Mackie brings a lot of charm to Sam’s Captain America, while
Harrison Ford – stepping into the role of “Thunderbolt” Ross following William
Hurt’s death – brings new vulnerability and urgency to the character,
especially when he finally “Hulks out” in the third act. Danny Ramirez provides
warmth and humor to the role of Joaquin Torres/Falcon, and Giancarlo Esposito oozes
his trademark measured menace as Sidewinder, the leader of the villainous
Serpent Society, even though it often feels like he’s in a different movie altogether. Everyone else does fine enough with what they’re given,
although one returning character from The Incredible Hulk who winds up being
the film’s primary antagonist elicited a lot of unintended laughs from my
screening due to sheer goofiness.
All that said, I wouldn’t say Captain America: Brave New
World is among Marvel Studios’ worst outings, but it’s solidly middle-of-the-road.
It hints at big things for The Avengers and the MCU as a whole, but to me felt
like a hollow, brief, occasionally enjoyable experience in and of itself. I
should note, however, that this film has one of the worst post-credit sequences
in the history of the MCU. If you need to race to the bathroom as soon as the
credits start, it’s not worth the wait.
We all assumed we would be getting trailers for Marvel
Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Universal Pictures’ during Super Bowl LIX this Sunday, but both franchises kicked
things off a bit early, giving fans of summer blockbusters a lot to discuss and
dissect this week. But which trailer packs the most punch? Has the bigger bite?
Scarletts the most Johanssons? OK, that last one is pretty obvious.
Let’s see how they match up.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
Let’s be honest: There has never been a good Fantastic
Four movie. There are some fun moments in the 2005 Tim Story film, but from
the 1994 Roger Corman schlock flick to the 2015 reboot misfire, the silver
screen has been unkind to Marvel’s First Family. But the debut Marvel Studios
film for Mr. Fantastic, The Invisible Woman, The Human Torch and The Thing
shows promise, placing the characters against a reimagined 1960s backdrop that’s
separate from the established Marvel Cinematic Universe. Directed by Matt
Shakman and starring Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon
Moss-Bachrach, The Fantastic Four: First Steps also features John
Malkovich and Natasha Lyonne in its star-studded cast, with Ralph Ineson
voicing The Devourer of Worlds himself, Galactus. The retro-futuristic
aesthetic in this is a lot of fun, and the visual effects bringing The Thing to
orange, rocky life are exceptional. If the MCU is “at a bit of a low point” –
as stated by Deadpool in a certain billion-dollar team-up flick earlier this
year – this might be the splash of freshness and color the nearly 20-year-old movie
universe needs.
Jurassic World: Rebirth
Jurassic World Dominion wasn’t great. In fact, it wasn’t
even good. Overstuffed with characters and lacking any of the awe factor that
made Jurassic Park a classic, Dominion felt like an extinction
point for the prehistoric franchise. I remember hearing that the next film in
the series would be a soft reboot, and it seems like that comes by way of a new
human cast, ramped-up horror elements and the emergence of a new mutant dinosaur
threat. It’s also directed by Gareth Edwards (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story)
and written by Jurassic Park co-writer David Koepp so, yeah, I’m in.
The Rebirth trailer features Scarlett Johansson’s Zora
Bennett joining Jonathan Bailey’s Dr. Henry Loomis and Mahershala Ali’s Duncan
Kincaid on a dangerous expedition to extract dino DNA from several dinosaurs at
Jurassic Park’s original research laboratory so it can be used to create a
miracle drug. Things obviously go wrong, and the group is attacked by Velociraptors,
Spinosauri, at least one Tyrannosaurus Rex and a hideous mutant dinosaur that
will likely be a pretty cool toy.
The plot doesn’t veer too far away from the working formula
for all things Jurassic – put humans and dinosaurs together and see what happen
– but Rebirth looks like a massive stomp in the right direction after the
underwhelming Dominion. Let’s hope there are no giant locusts this time.
The Verdict?
It’s close, but when it comes to The Thing taking vs. The
Rex, “It’s Clobberin’ Time!” Fantastic Four: The First Steps wins in a
battle of fresh vs. familiar. Jurassic World: Rebirth’s trailer seems to
tread familiar ground to bring the series back to basics, while First Steps aptly
showcases what sets these characters apart from the 30+ prior Marvel Studios
films.
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