Hello and welcome to the Geeky Brummie Film Roundup – running you through the week’s biggest new cinema releases and why you should be excited for them. This week is dominated by the Avengers* Suicide Squad* Thunderbolts*…
Usual disclaimer: unless otherwise stated, I haven’t seen these movies yet so all of my opinions are based on trailers, early reviews and other rumours and buzz.
Thunderbolts*
Thunderbolts* (yes the asterisk is part of it, no I don’t know why yet) is the latest blockbuster from Marvel, teaming up some of the villains and B-characters from a range of other MCU movies and shows to face off against a deadly threat. There’s Florence Pugh’s Yelena Belova, David Harbour’s Red Guardian and Olga Kurylenko’s Taskmaster from the Black Widow movie, Wyatt Russell’s John Walker from The Falcon And The Winter Soldier (who briefly held the mantle of Captain America), Hannah John-Kamen’s Ghost from Ant-Man And The Wasp, and Avengers stalwart Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan, marking his 11th appearance in the role). Joining the roster is Lewis Pullman’s ‘Bob’, who is probably more than he seems. And finally, bringing them all together is Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, who has popped up in a number of cameos and credit scenes to help set the scene for this movie, much in the same way as Samuel L Jackson did in Phase 1’s run-up to the Avengers.
It’s an excellent lineup. Florence Pugh and David Harbour in particular are always a sign of something good – they’re naturally likeable people capable of injecting some real heart into what could otherwise be a very silly or moody role. They were the standouts in Black Widow and I’m looking forward to seeing their relationship develop. Wyatt Russell has also inherited his father’s natural charm. His John Walker (aka US Agent) was a surprisingly tragic element of TFATWS, where the pressure of being Captain America shattered his golden boy image and took him down a dark path. Ghost and Taskmaster were both classic examples of Marvel not really knowing what to do with their movie villains, although Hannah John-Kamen especially managed to humanise her a lot more than we’ve seen elsewhere (looking at you, Malekith…). Hopefully she’ll get a little bit more well-deserved attention here. Taskmaster’s ability to instantly learn and imitate the fighting style of any other hero is one of the more cinematically interesting powers in the MCU and felt quite underserved in Black Widow, so it will be good to see more of that. And the recently Oscar-nominated Sebastian Stan has been going from strength to strength since his character was introduced way back in Captain America: The First Avenger – he knows the Winter Soldier like the back of his cybernetic hand by now.
One of the problems Marvel has is that it’s a behemoth of a studio drawing from a well-known and beloved back-catalogue of stories, so all their releases are subject to so much hype and scrutiny that it’s incredibly difficult for them to keep anything completely under wraps. From the second the teaser was released, comic fans wasted no time theorising about who Bob might be and what that might mean for the plot, even though Marvel were clearly trying to keep that out of the trailer. There is also the issue of the cast reveal for the upcoming team-up movie Avengers: Doomsday, which included several (but not all) of the Thunderbolts* team and may have spoiled who is likely to survive (or not). I won’t repeat the detail of that here because, if you have managed to avoid it so far, you deserve to go to the cinema blind and enjoy whatever surprises might be in store.
What I will do though is point out to anyone who thinks they know who will be alive at the end of the film because they saw a name on a chair – there are all sorts of ways that those actors could appear in Doomsday. They could show up in flashbacks, they could be alternate universe versions of their characters (Marvel have been setting up the Multiverse for so long now, they might as well make use of it), or they could be a different character altogether – just look at former Iron Man Robert Downey Jr, who is now going to be playing Doctor Doom. Marvel may have revealed their names specifically to make you think they’ll survive, just to add to the shock when they don’t. And the absence of a name doesn’t necessarily mean anything either – they still have more cast members to announce, as the remaining contracts are written up and signed. Basically, you know nothing, Jon Snow. The more you try and put what you think you know out of your head, the better a time you’ll have.
The early reviews have largely been positive, albeit not quite the excited ravings that a lot of us were hoping for. It currently has 89% on Rotten Tomatoes, with the critics’ consensus largely being that it’s moodier and more introspective than they were expecting, but once they accepted that it was a better film for it. These are, after all, some morally questionable characters who have all done some bad things in their past and are now trying to be heroes. Trying to reconcile those two opposing sides of themselves is difficult and it’s right that it should struggle with it. But at the same time, this isn’t Suicide Squad – Marvel know how to lighten the mood when they need to, and there are plenty of examples in the trailer of the usual gags and quips (mostly courtesy of Red Guardian – David Harbour is clearly having a whale of a time here).
If you’re a fan of Marvel movies then this is a no-brainer – this feels like classic Marvel, and should have plenty of call-backs and Easter eggs as well as hints of what to expect when Doomsday rolls around. If you’re not into Marvel movies, the cast alone should still make this entertaining – do you want to see Amy from Little Women team up with Donald Trump from The Apprentice and Selina Meyer from Veep? Of course you do.
- Thunderbolts* on IMDB
- Thunderbolts* on Rotten Tomatoes
Parthenope
Parthenope (Celeste Dalla Porta) is a beautiful young woman living near Naples. The film follows her as she looks for happiness and falls in love with the city and its people. This is an A24 film by BAFTA winning director Paolo Sorrentino, also starring Gary Oldman as a British expat and Stefania Sandrelli as an older Parthenope looking back on her life.
A24 is always a reliable name, although this has had slightly mixed reviews for looking pretty but not having much depth. It does look very pretty though – the cinematography really captures the saturated colour and beauty of an Italian summer. As far as I can tell from the trailer, the plot doesn’t have much more to it than Parthenope being beautiful and all the men she meets falling in love with her, so I can see why some reviewers are saying it’s a little shallow, but if all she has to do is look good then Porta certainly plays that role well. There has been a fair bit of praise for her performance too, and it sounds like she owns the proverbial stage in the way this sort of character should.
This promises to be a much more relaxed affair than Thunderbolts*, and feels like the perfect accompaniment to this week’s heat wave. Bring an ice cream.
- Parthenope on IMDB
- Parthenope on Rotten Tomatoes
If you only see one film this week…
Marvel’s latest blockbuster promises action, laughs and depth – the Film of the Week this week is Thunderbolts*.
Still in cinemas and worth a watch
- Sinners
- Until Dawn – Not the scariest of horrors, and the mystery element is not as engaging as you’d like, but there are some fun ideas underlining it all and the range of nightmarish nasties adds a bit of excitement.
- The Accountant 2
Trailer of the week
Weapons is the intriguing new horror film from Barbarian writer-director Zach Cregger. The trailer doesn’t give too much away, except that a group of children all independently get out of bed in the dead of night, walk out of the house and are never seen again. The only thing that connects them is that they were all in the same class at school, taught by Julia Garner’s Mrs Gandy, who is instantly singled out by the terrified parents as somehow involved and responsible. It’s a horrifying concept for anyone with children, made all the more horrifying by the rapid descent into panic and madness.
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