Karen Gillan

Avengers: Endgame

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Avengers: Endgame
  • IMDb: link

Avengers: Endgame movie review

More than the culmination of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that began back in 2008 with Iron Man, Avengers: Endgame is the coda to the series that climaxed in the last chapter and now offers an opportunity for one last hurrah, for heroes to take their final bow, and for Marvel to usher out one set of lead characters and set the stage anew.

For my money, the most successful films of the past 11 years have been The Avengers, Avengers: Infinity War, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Excluding Winter Soldier, a great standalone film which cares nothing at all about larger continuity (it basically wrecked Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. after all), both Avengers and Infinity War faced enormous obstacles in pulling together various threads of the MCU into a single story. And both succeeded brilliantly. Avengers: Endgame comes off like their less-successful younger brother. I’m not going to call Endgame the Frank Stallone of the Avengers franchise as it may outshine Avengers: The Age of Ultron, but it’s a messy final chapter that offers plenty of memorable moments while failing to live up to what has come before.

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Jumanji: Unwelcome is the Remake

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
  • IMDb: link

Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle movie review1995’s Jumanji isn’t a great adaptation of the award-winning children’s book about a game which brings jungle chaos to the real world, but it works well-enough as a family-friendly adventure. Fast-forward to 2017 and Jumanji is reinvented as a video game, a concept which gives the sequel/remake the ability to cast big name stars playing kids trapped in the game. While the concept is initially interesting, nothing about the plot makes sense in the structure of a video game as the script quickly devolves into a hot mess.

The film begins in Breakfast Club-style when four students, a nerd (Alex Wolff), jock (Ser’Darius Blain), popular girl (Madison Iseman), and freak (Morgan Turner), get thrown in detention by a stern principal. Finding an old video game in the school’s basement, the foursome are transported into the world of Jumanji as the avatars they chose: the hero (Dwayne “It’s Okay to Call Me The Rock Again” Johnson), his zoologist sidekick (Kevin Hart), a cartographer (Jack Black, basically doing Rob Schneider‘s shtick from The Hot Chick), and a dance-fighter (Karen Gillan). As in the original, the group will discover another player (Nick Jonas) trapped in the game.

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The Circle

/ / Home Video
  • Title: The Circle
  • IMDb: link

The Circle Blu-ray reviewThere’s an interesting premise to this adaptation of the Dave Eggers novel about a woman forced to redefine concepts like privacy and community after being hired by one of the world’s largest technology companies. The Circle (think Apple meets Facebook, but more cult-ish) provides Mae (Emma Watson) with all she’s every wanted, including healthcare for her ailing father (Bill Paxton). However, the level of intrusiveness the company not only engages in but celebrates opens the door to some big questions (which, unfortunately, the film doesn’t really do much to explore).

It would have been very easy for The Circle to be a thriller about the invasion of technology and destruction of privacy, an evil corporation out to do bad things with data, and a world seeming unaware at what they are giving up. The film, however, has bigger aspirations than that, bringing some intriguing questions to the forefront while constantly fighting off the tendency to fall into easy cliche.

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Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
  • IMDb: link

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 movie review

Less ambitious than the original film, the sequel to Guardians of the Galaxy attempts to focus a bit more on relationships and family while, of course, still leaving plenty of time for hijinks and misadventure. As he proved in Guardians of the Galaxy, writer/director James Gunn is right at home with the later, but if the sequel has a major weakness it’s that more subtle emotion isn’t his forte.

Not to take anything away from the sequel which proves to be an enjoyable summer romp, but Gunn struggles mightily during emotional beats which are hamfistedly repeated, underlined, bolded, recalled, and given at least three exclamation marks. While this works for the bawdier humor, exploring the relationships between Gamora (Zoe Saldana) and her sister Nebula (Karen Gillan) or Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) and relationships to both his long-lost father (Kurt Russell) and his surrogate father Yondu (Michael Rooker) in repetitive exposition leads to some awkward scenes that drag on far too long. And, because there’s not much to the script other than a focus on these relationships, it’s hard not to be at least a little disappointed in Vol. 2.

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Guardians of the Galaxy

/ / Movie Reviews
  • Title: Guardians of the Galaxy
  • IMDb: link

“What a bunch of a-holes.”

Guardians of the GalaxyChoosing to go where no Marvel film has gone before, Guardians of the Galaxy not only opens the door to the wider Marvel Universe among the stars but also introduces some of Marvel Studios most memorable characters. I’ve been a fan of the current team since they got together back in 2008, but I had serious doubts about how well Marvel could incorporate a group of space misfits who include thieves, killers, a genetically-enhanced raccoon, and talking tree into a mainstream sci-fi/action film.

I’ve been less impressed by James Gunn‘s body of work up until this point than most (sorry, I’m just not a fan of Slither), but the co-writer/director proves to be the right choice to juggle the various bizarre elements of the script while infusing it with an offbeat sense of humor which fits the characters and cast well. There are some groanworthy moments here or there, such as having Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) dance for the film’s baddie Ronan (Lee Pace), but thankfully they are few and far between as Gunn makes most of the right calls in dealing the team of oddball heroes.

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