Cranky T-Rex's Blog

Hey look, another Marvel movie!  Man they are just cranking these things out lately. It's going to be weird to have to wait until next March to get the next one considering we've had one roughly every three months since Thor: Ragnarok.   This time it's Ant-Man and the Wasp , which believe it or not marks the 20th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. When this whole thing started out, who would've ever believed Ant-Man would get one movie let alone two? After all, they effectively booted him out of the original roster for the Avengers when they started the cinematic universe explicitly because the concept seemed too goofy even for the MCU. I guess once you make Guardians of the Galaxy work, everything is on the table. In any case, the first Ant-Man was a surprisingly fun little film that somehow managed to do the concept justice without getting too ridiculous for words.  Now its sequel has the unenviable task of both following up on the original...

Well here it is folks. Marvel's finally getting Thanos off his ass and putting him to work for perhaps the most ambitious movie of all time.  That's right, it's Avengers: Infinity War . Look what can you say about Marvel's movies by now?  Even the total stinkers are at least entertaining enough to get you through a couple hours at the theater, and the ones that are really good, are really, really good .  I guess the only question about Infinity War is "how the hell is this going to live up to all the hype?" I just couldn't imagine how you'd put THIS many characters in one movie and not have it turn into a complete debacle.  Plus Marvel's track record for villains is extremely hit or miss.  You're going to spend almost a decade hyping up this one bad guy and he's supposed to deliver?  It all just seemed impossible to pull off. And yet, they did it.  Now I have to try and explain how without spoiling the movie for those few of you who ...

Well it's here at last, the first black superhero movie ever to be released in February of 2018, Marvel's Black Panther .  Snark about the stupid amount of hype thanks to the politics surrounding this movie aside, my expectations for Black Panther were pretty much the same as I have for every Marvel movie, even though I wasn't especially sold on the trailers. Marvel's track record is making entertaining superhero romps, and even when they're rather mediocre, usually they're at least a good time at the theater. So that's basically what I expected here too. It's kind of what separates Marvel from its competitors, who tend towards either hitting a homerun like Deadpool or striking out so profoundly with something like Batman v Superman or Fant4stic that you want to find the nearest studio executive and drown them in their own blood.  Marvel on the other hand doesn't run from their comic book characters; they embrace the things that make them fun s...

The Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps chugging along, this time with the release of Thor's third movie, Thor: Ragnarok . Since the first two Thor movies are widely considered some of Marvel's weakest offerings (an opinion I share), there wasn't much in the way of excitement for another solo Thor outing when it was announced. Then the trailer came out, and boy did that change.  Instead of Shakespeare in the Park, suddenly Thor was like some crazy 80s-inspired sci-fi/fantasy/comedy mashup.  Plus the Hulk showed up in one of the most hilarious reveals we've ever gotten in a trailer. After that, I, like many other people, was pretty excited to see Thor: Ragnarok . It looked like it would be a ridiculously fun watch, which is saying something since this whole MCU universe only works because Marvel keeps finding ways to make the movies entertaining even if they aren't that great. For once, looks were not deceiving. Ragnarok is indeed ridiculously fun, and I had a gre...

Well  Spider-Man: Homecoming  was certainly one of my most anticipated movies of the year. Sony finally returned Spider-Man to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for an epic cameo in Civil War , and now we were going to get a full on standalone story for this new Tom Holland version of the wall crawler done MCU-style.  Add in Michael Keaton playing the villain, and you've got plenty of reasons to be hyped. That of course made me super nervous going in.  I wanted this to be an Independence Day -level movie, the kind that I'd want to turn around and walk right back in for another viewing, and it's tough for a movie to live up to that kind of hype.  Not to mention it had to follow the few fantastic comic book movies we've already had this year and there have been serious concerns that the trailers may have spoiled the entire movie. Alas Independence Day it was not, but as I've said before, even the less than stellar Marvel movies tend to be worth the price of admis...

I am Groot.  I...am Groot. I AM Groot. I am...Groot. I aaaaam Groooooot. Or in human speak: at last, the Guardians of the Galaxy sequel has arrived.  Like most people I was skeptical of the first one when Marvel announced it and then pleasantly surprised at how good it was when I got to see it, though it wasn't without a few issues . Then, again like most people, when the sequel was announced I wondered if they were going to be able to recreate whatever dark magic allows them to make a movie featuring a talking raccoon and a tree that can only says his own name and not have it turn into complete garbage. Of course this is one of those movies where what I have to say about it really isn't going to matter. Everyone loved that first one so much there's no way anyone was missing out on this even if the reviews were Batman v Superman -level bad, but for what it's worth, I can confirm that Marvel does in fact keep dark wizards chained up in the basement...

Take one relatively unknown Marvel character, add some trippy visuals, sprinkle in some Benedict Cumberbatch, and stir it up with actual magic instead of the usual pseudo science and you get the latest entry in the Marvel movie juggernaut called Doctor Strange . Everyone thought  Guardians of the Galaxy might just be the bridge too far for Marvel's comic book movie universe what with a talking tree and raccoon in it, but it was still a smash hit.  Then they gave us Ant-Man , which just straight up sounds ridiculous, and even that movie was a fun ride that raked in box office cash.  Now they've taken a turn for the outright mystical with Doctor Strange and the only real question is: has Marvel finally jumped the shark?  Or have they hit another one out of the park?  Here's what I thought:

IGN put up their list ranking the 12 Marvel Cinematic Universe films to date, and needless to say, I have to disagree with quite a bit of their list. So, I figured I might as well write up my own ranking and reasoning for your (and my) enjoyment.

I'm high on believin' that you're in love with me. Of all the trailers I've seen this year, the one for Guardians of the Galaxy was by far the most intriguing. It had an incredibly irreverent tone that’s sorely lacking around Hollywood lately and used a clever bit of self-deprecation to introduce a group of Marvel characters about which I knew very little. I couldn't help but wonder whether or not the entire movie would be as amusing as the trailer or if that was just a really great bit of marketing. I was pleased to discover that irreverence permeates the entire movie, and it’s the comedic flair that saves it from being another Green Lantern . Like that film, Guardians seeks to establish too much too quickly, and so it’s stuffed to the gills with exposition, much of which is incredibly redundant. I don’t think I heard the name "Gamora" come up without a reminder that she is the “adopted daughter” of Thanos, for example. It also changes location...

"What? I'd rather be in The Avengers too." The Amazing Spider-Man could best be summed up with the word “unnecessary.” It was a reboot made to keep the rights to everyone’s favorite wall crawler from going back to Marvel, and nothing about it was the least bit remarkable. It could’ve been a passable superhero flick on its own, but it’s a bad case of déjà vu when held against the previous Spider-Man installment made by Sam Raimi. Now we’ve got the sequel to the reboot…just typing that phrase I feel a disturbance in the Force. In fact, any time Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman write a script, a shiver goes down my spine as though…well you know how it goes. I didn’t realize they had written this one going in, but as soon as their names appeared in the credits, I said “well, that explains everything.” They’re the genius pair who gave us such exceptionally written films like Transformers and the Star Trek reboot. That is to say, they’re exceptionally full of ridiculo...

"Let SHIELD go!" - Elsa auditioning for Avengers 2 It occurs to me I never reviewed Captain America:  The First Avenger despite the scathing rebuke I had written  about the director's plans for the character.  Suffice it to say, his first outing was actually a pleasant surprise that I rather enjoyed. Now we’re into Phase 2 of Marvel’s plan for their movie world, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier continues the story of WW2 super soldier Steve Rogers following The Avengers ( which was pretty awesome. )  It seems a common notion that The Winter Soldier has dethroned that movie as the best thing Marvel has done to date, and those folks do have a convincing argument. While Iron Man is Marvel’s most consistently good movie (and my favorite) and The Avengers is the most fun ride, The Winter Soldier is the best story they’ve told.  Instead of your standard Guy Becomes Hero/Supervillain Needs Stopping movie, we have a man trying to hold on to t...