THE MARVELS Review

It’s been at least three years since Nia DaCosta (Little Woods, Candyman) was announced as the director of The Marvels and as a writer/director that means she has been thinking about this story for at least that long as well. I say this 1) because I doubt what is portrayed on screen here is all she had in mind (more on that later) and 2) because it’s important to remember the context of the Marvel Cinematic Universe into which films are released is not often the same context in which they were written or shot. DaCosta came on in the immediate aftermath of Endgame - prior to the release of either WandaVision or Ms. Marvel and most importantly - prior to COVID, likely eager to continue the story of this newly minted Avenger and the prospect of the first ever MCU lady league. Taking that into consideration, The Marvels obviously arrives at a very different point in the MCU trajectory than DaCosta likely expected as steam has been lost and arguably a fair amount of quality as well. I hate to be a doomsdayer, but the one-two punch of COVID’s impact on the release schedule and the tragic loss of Chadwick Boseman threw a wrench into the MCU’s plans and as a result the whole operation into recovery mode in more ways than one. Prior to Endgame, The Marvels would have nestled snuggly between Homecoming and Ant-Man in terms of quality and stakes and no one would have batted an eye as it is both a smaller scale team-up movie and a fun comic caper, but when the fate of the MCU is riding on something more equivalent to Ant-Man and the Wasp than Civil War, folks will both be disappointed and continue to declare the end of this once bulletproof franchise.

Teaser Trailer for MORBIUS Starring Jared Leto

The first trailer for Sony's second entry in their anti-hero universe, Morbius, has arrived and unfortunately it looks quite similar to Ruben Fleischer's Venom. Venom was an exercise in truly bizarre tone, acting, everything along with its weirdly nineties action aesthetic that sometimes felt more cheap than it did gritty which I have to assume is what they were going for. Luckily, with Morbius we are in much more reliable hands than Fleischer's one-hit wonder-ness as Morbius was directed by Daniel Espinosa, the man behind the likes of Safe House, Child 44 and Life. And while that sentence may be tinged with a certain amount of facetiousness I have liked each of those films to a certain degree and wouldn't label any of them as necessarily terrible. Safe House was a solid action/thriller as was Child 44 even if it had been hacked apart after sitting on the shelf for years and 2017’s Life was a fun little twist on a sci-fi, Alien-esque flick. So, it’s not really Espinosa that’s the cause for concern here, but more it is the writing team of Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless AKA the team behind such runaway hits as Gods of Egypt, The Last Witch Hunter and Dracula Untold (remember how that cinematic universe wound up?) and although a director can do a lot with an otherwise hackneyed script in terms of improving upon it with a certain stylistic approach and hiring actors that elevate the material-and say what you will about Jared Leto’s Joker, but the guy is a solid actor and puts in the time-what honestly feels most at the expense of the studio mentality here is whatever rich character history that comes along with this particular character from the comics. As someone who doesn’t read comics the only point of reference I have with the titular character prior to this is that of the animated Spider-Man series from the nineties, but Morbius was always an indelible presence in that series given he personified the horror genre to a kid who wasn’t allowed to watch horror movies yet. There’s certainly something Sony can tap into here, but only time will tell if Espinosa and crew dig beneath the surface or if they're simply covering the necessary bases. Of course, there is then the matter of that cameo at the end and what it means both for the future of the MCU and whatever Sony is trying to do here while raising serious interest in the details of the deal Kevin Feige and Avi Arad worked out, but whatever the case may be one thing is clear: Spider-Man: Senior Year is going to be nertz. Morbius also stars Adria Arjona, Jared Harris, Matt Smith, Michael Keaton, Tyrese Gibson, Charlie Shotwell, Corey Johnson, Archie Renaux, Abraham Popoola and opens in theater on July 31st, 2020.