What The Reviews Are Saying About “Independence Day: Resurgence”
We’re entering an era of long-delayed “sequels,” with Independence Day: Resurgence (a follow up to 1996’s Independence Day) arriving in theaters hot on the heels of Finding Dory (a sequel to 2003’s Finding Nemo).
While Finding Dory premiered to good, if not great reviews, Independence Day: Resurgence is having a rough time with critics — here’s what the reviews have to say:
‘Resurgence’ Gives Blockbuster Fans Exactly What They Want And Expect
Independence Day: Resurgence” delivers swiftly and generously when it comes to the goods most viewers will have come for – the time-honored joys of blowing stuff up, in set pieces that escalate dizzyingly in size and context. “Independence Day: Resurgence” delivers swiftly and generously when it comes to the goods most viewers will have come for – the time-honored joys of blowing stuff up, in set pieces that escalate dizzyingly in size and context.
Independence Day: Resurgence is packed so full of cheese, explosions and too-convenient plot-twists it could sink a ship; yet it all adds up to a fun, old-fashioned disaster pic
[IGN]
Ticks all the right boxes in terms of character, spectacle and alien ass-kicking action.
[WOW 24/7]
But, Sadly, The Film Has Little Else To Offer
The “so bad it’s good” factor occasionally kicks in. But even with those ascents from base camp to high camp, this noisy, assaultive, stunt-oriented film leaves us clawing for the oxygen of human and dramatic interest.
The Writing Isn’t Very Good
A reboot quite without the first film’s audacity and fun. The plot’s potentially interesting dependence on the idea that there are aliens who are allies as well as enemies is lost in a tiresomely written muddle – an all-but-plotless melee of boring digital carnage.
And It Banks On Us Remembering A Lot Of The Original
Whether our collective memory of “Independence Day” is quite as treasured and detailed as “Resurgence” imagines it to be is another question. Its rather scattered screenplay — written by five hands, where the 1996 film managed with two — forges a dense network of callbacks to established events and characters, in certain cases via next-generation newbies.
[Variety]
Frankly, It’s Just All Over The Place
The plotlines and characters are too numerous and disorganised; the action feels diffuse, and we can never be certain what is happening in which part of the world, or how Group A got to Location D so speedily when they seemed to be many hundreds of miles away and all the intervening roads were destroyed in an alien attack.
It’s all too much too fast, and the cumulative effect is like watching a two-hour trailer – more dizzying than thrilling.
[Timeout]
But While There’s No Will Smith (!), Jeff Goldblum Does His Best To Hold Things Down
Goldblum, more than anyone here, is essential. While the VFX tornado swirls around us, he brings things (if you’ll excuse the phrase) down to earth, allowing us to revel in the sheer giddy movieness of it all, and thereby forgive the majority of its shortcomings.
What The Reviews Are Saying About “Independence Day: Resurgence”
Box Office: ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ No Match for ‘Finding Dory’
Twenty years ago audiences turned out in movie theaters in droves to see aliens torch several national landmarks. Powered by a series of catchy ads and posters that showed the White House engulfed in flames as a spaceship hovered overhead, “Independence Day” was the film to see in the summer of 1996. It blew past other hits such as “Twister” and “Mission: Impossible” to become the year’s highest-grossing film, established Roland Emmerich as his era’s “Master of Disaster,” and made Will Smith a star.
Now, the aliens are back in “Independence Day: Resurgence.” For many moviegoers the first film remains the embodiment of blockbuster entertainment, but there’s no denying the fact that in the years since we first made contact, tastes have changed. Superhero movies are now the driving force at the box office. The question is, will moviegoers still show up in force for a movie without a costumed hero?
Right now, Fox, the studio orchestrating the invasion, is banking on an opening of $50 million when it hits theaters on Friday. It’s a solid start, but it won’t be enough to displace “Finding Dory” from the top of the box office heap. The Disney smash is looking at a second weekend of roughly $70 million after it shattered records for an animated film debut, opening at $135.1 million.
Fox spent a hefty $165 million to get the flying saucers out of dry dock and will launch the picture across 4,067 locations. Smith did not return for the sequel, but Emmerich is once again in the directing chair. He brought back original cast members such as Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman, and added newcomers such as Liam Hemsworth and Jessie Usher to the mix. The monuments getting atomized have also changed. This time Big Ben gets the White House treatment.
It’s shaping up to be a crowded weekend at the multiplexes, with four new wide releases entering the fray. “Free State of Jones” will try to bolster mainstream cinema’s IQ level a few points when it debuts on Friday at 2,815 locations. The historical drama about a Southern farmer (Matthew McConaughey) who leads an armed rebellion against the Confederacy is a big bet by STX Entertainment, a newly launched studio that hopes to make the kind of mid-budget films that major studios have largely abandoned in favor of comic book movies. It cost $50 million to make and will try to prove that there’s an audience for dramas in the height of popcorn season. The studio did defray some of its risk on the film, bringing in a number financial partners, including IM Global, which will handle international rights for the picture. “Free State of Jones” should bow to roughly $12 million domestically.
Sony will counter with “The Shallows.” Just as “Independence Day: Resurgence” seems like a throwback to the days of Irwin Allen, the film, which pits Blake Lively against a shark, calls to mind another ’70s era hit, “Jaws.” “The Shallows” is a much smaller gamble, however, with the potential for more modest rewards. It carries a $17 million price tag and is looking at an opening of $7 million when it debuts on roughly 2,800 screens. The film is one of the first greenlit under Tom Rothman, Sony’s new film chief, after he took over the studio in 2015.
Lastly, Amazon Studios will offer up “The Neon Demon,” Nicolas Winding Refn’s blood-splattered look at the world of fashion. The horror film debuted to mixed notices in Cannes, with some critics digging the fever dream atmosphere, and other reviewers finding it to be a forgettable strut down the runway. Broad Green will handle the theatrical rollout. “The Neon Demon” should debut to between $2 million to $3 million in more than 700 theaters.
Box Office: ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’ No Match for ‘Finding Dory’
The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
Scenes in movies are deleted for a variety of reasons. Sometimes they don’t fit structurally, sometimes the movie’s runtime is already too long, but normally these cuts are small and don’t have an overwhelming effect on the plot. Occasionally, however, large, expensive chunks of a movie are gutted entirely and not only alter the movie, but wholly change the storyline.
The deleted scenes listed here fit into the latter category. Not only do the sections removed do away with entire plots, subplots, and actors, but they cost a boat-ton of money, resulting in millions and millions of dollars being virtually thrown away. Often, these lost treasures are relegated to the bonus-features section of a DVD, but on occasion they are lost to the ages with the creators unwilling to acknowledge their existence.
Here are The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed.
***All figures adjusted for inflation***
11. The Goonies – The Octopus Scene
For years people debated the existence of footage of an Ed Wood-esque monster attacking the children. When The Goonies was released on home video, it did not include this scene. However, when the television rights to the movie were eventually sold, distributors demanded that some of the more “adult” material be removed from the story, which resulted in a lack of footage. Their solution was to re-edit in the lost footage of the octopus attacking the kids back into the third act.
However, the octopus is still mentioned in the theatrical cut of the movie by Data, in the final scene, where he states “The Octopus was very scary.” Little information about the actual cost of the octopus footage exists, but with principle photography lasting 5 months, it is assumed that it took at least two days to capture the footage with the underwater unit, which would have cost the production $550,319.32 when adjusted for inflation.
10. The Wizard of Oz – The Jitterbug Dance
Deleted Scenes Wizard of Oz The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
Immediately prior to the monkeys capturing Dorothy, there was supposed to be a scene featuring The Wicked Witch unleashing her “Jitterbug” upon them. This creature was to be a blue and pink mosquito-like creature that, after stinging them, made them break out into a six minute long song and dance number that took 5 weeks to rehearse and film. This was one of the first major pieces cut in the editing room due to the length of the picture.
Although the music to the song exists, and was subsequently released in 1995, no known footage exists other than a cheaply shot home movie by Harold Arlen, the composer of the movie. It has been reported that this scene set production back $1,013,678.57 when adjusted for inflation.
9. Dr. Strangelove – The Pie Fight
Deleted Scenes Dr. Strangelove The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
The final scene in the movie was supposed to have the world leaders’ conversation break down, resulting in the greatest pie fight ever recorded on film. Although studio executives were not a fan of this, and insisted that Kubrick shoot it in one day, crew members place the actual filming time between one to two weeks. Each day, at least 2,000 Fortnum & Mason pies were brought to the stage, and were subsequently thrown, smashed, and made into sand castles. The footage was dropped after JFK’s assassination due to the dialogue, which included the line “…our President has been struck down by a pie in the prime of his life.”
Many sources incorrectly claim that this footage has been destroyed. Though it has never been screened for the public, Production Designer Ken Adams speaks about watching the footage at the BFI several years prior to his death. This scene took 1-2 weeks to film, so with principle photography taking 3 months, we estimate it set the production back $2,108,153.54 when adjusted for inflation.
8. Gangster Squad – Theater Shooting Scene
Deleted Scenes Gangster Squad The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
On July 20th, 2012 a horrendous tragedy occurred in Aurora, Colorado when a man brought a gun into a screening of The Dark Knight Rises, killing 12 people and hurting 70 others. Prior to this, an almost finished version of Gangster Squad featured a crucial scene that took place in Grauman’s Chinese Theater, where gangsters attacked the audience with tommy guns. Ruben Fleischer and company agreed that this was no longer in good taste after the shootings in Aurora and pushed the film’s release back four months to make time for reshoots. Glimpses of the footage still exist on the internet in the form of the first released trailer.
This costly move set Warner Bros. back “several million” and forced a large section of the film to be completely retooled at the last second. With inflation, this set production back at least $2,060,313.32.
7. Back to the Future – Eric Stoltz Scenes
Deleted Scenes Back To The Future The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
It’s not often that a main actor gets replaced once production on a movie has begun, let alone 5 weeks into it, but that was the case with Eric Stoltz as Marty McFly in Back to the Future. From the beginning, creators Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale had insisted that Michael J. Fox should star in the role, but the head of the Universal, Sid Sheinberg disagreed to such a degree he proclaimed that if he was wrong, he would let them reshoot all his scenes… and that’s exactly what happened after Sheinberg watched the dailies.
Very small bits of this footage can be viewed in bonus content on recent Blu-ray releases. This reportedly cost the studio $4 million at the time, which is now worth $8,984,805.31 when adjusted for inflation.
6. Little Shop of Horrors – The Alternative Ending
Deleted Scenes Little Shop of Horrors The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
When filmmakers screen their movies for test audiences, they fully expect that they may have to re-edit a scene here or there. Occasionally, they may even have to shoot a pickup shot to replace one that’s not well received. Unfortunately for director Frank Oz, two test audiences loved his movie, but despised the original ending, in which a plant not only ate the main character and his girlfriend, but took over the world.
In the end, a fifth of the budget, the work of 50-70 puppeteers, a year of visual effects work, five weeks of shooting, and 12 minutes of footage were relegated to the bonus features section of a Blu-ray that came out in 2012.
5. Superman Returns – Alternate Intro
Superman Intro Deleted Scenes The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
Another case in which a film lost an entire bookend to the cutting room floor. In this film, however, the footage explains to the audience why Superman’s ship is crashing into Ma and Pa Kent’s farm, again, telling audience the same story they’ve heard many times before. Though the piece is gorgeous, it’s nearly 6 minutes in length and contains no dialogue, something studio execs generally frown upon.
Though the Blu-ray was released in 2006, this footage wouldn’t see the light of day until the Superman Anthology set was released in 2011, essentially turning this into a $12,018,546.74 bonus feature.
4. The Man Who Killed Don Quixote – The Entire Film
4 don The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
In 2000, Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp, Jean Rochefort, and an entire cast and crew traveled to an area just north of Madrid, Spain to film their latest project. The first of many problems was that this area was also the site of a major military base, making it nearly impossible to record sound. Soon afterward, there was a major flood that not only washed away much of their equipment, but wholly changed the color of the landscape. Lastly, after noticing Rochefort wincing each time he was on the horse, it was discovered that he was suffering from a double herniated disc.
It’s not all a loss though. The footage was later retooled and combined with narration from Jeff Bridges and making-of video in the excellent documentary Lost In La Mancha, chronicling the failure of the film. After a lawsuit, the investors were awarded $15 million from the company that insured the film. Gilliam has since claimed he is still making the project.
3. X-Men: Days of Future Past – Rogue’s Scenes
3 rogues The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
Most of Anna Paquin’s scenes were removed from the theatrical cut of X-Men: Days of Future Past, but don’t feel too bad for her. Not only was she paid a reported $2.8 million for filming, her role was eventually reinserted into her own version of the movie appropriately titled, “The Rogue Cut.” With the standard version of the movie coming in at 2 hours and 12 minutes and the longer cut coming in at 2 hours and 29 minutes, one has to think that it wasn’t only a runtime issue.
In a movie that took place over two separate timelines with dozens of characters from two casts, the standard movie viewer already has a lot to absorb without the addition of yet another subplot.
This exorcism of footage not only cost the movie her $2.8 million , but also sent the film into 2 weeks of reshoots. When you factor in a reported $200 million dollar budget on an initial four month shoot schedule that brings the estimated cost of this deleted scene to $22,580,645.
2. World War Z – Entire Third Act
Deleted Scenes World War Z The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
This movie’s original ending was dark. Like, dark dark. It contained Brad Pitt’s plane landing in Russia, where he was drafted into their anti-zombie army and his wife was forced into a relationship where she was trading sex in return for room and board for her and her daughters. It’s surprising that any executives actually greenlit such a dark ending for a summer blockbuster, but it’s not very surprising that they also decided to scrap it. Thus, Damon Lindelof and Drew Goddard were brought in to write an entire new ending.
According to reports, it cost a whopping $25 million to retool and reshoot the third act, making it the single most expensive piece of deleted material to never see a screen.
1. Cleopatra – 1/3rd of Entire Movie
Deleted Scenes Cleopatra The 11 Most Expensive Deleted Scenes Ever Filmed
After Cleopatra debuted, it became the biggest box office success in 1963. Despite that, it never made its enormous budget back. One of the most notoriously rocky movie shoots ever, Cleopatra was plagued by bad luck. The enormous sets were built in their entirety in London, and then again in Rome after production was forced to relocate. Elizabeth Taylor nearly died once on set before receiving a life-saving tracheotomy, of which the scar can be seen in some shots.
The original cut of the film was over 6 hours long, but Fox pressured director Joseph L. Mankiewicz to cut it down to its 3 hour theatrical cut. Eventually, a 4 hour cut was released on home video, and efforts are underway to reconstruct the 6 hour version so that we might see it one day.
Marvel Games’ new mandate is ‘Make epic games,’ and Spider-Man is just the beginning
Last night, Sony and Marvel dropped a huge surprise: Ratchet & Clank developer Insomniac Games is making a new Spider-Man video game exclusively for PlayStation 4.
According to Jay Ong, Marvel’s vice president of games, Insomniac’s Spider-Man game is just the beginning for Marvel’s ambitious plan to bring its superheroes to consoles.
“When I joined Marvel two years ago, I came in with a mandate to usher in a new era for Marvel Games,” Ong told Polygon in an interview. “We have a treasure trove of the best superhero characters on earth. What can we do with this to create truly epic games?
“Is [Spider-Man] a signal of things to come? Oh, yes. Absolutely. And we can’t wait to tell the world about it.”
Over the past few years, Marvel Games’ output has been primarily on mobile (Avengers Academy, Contest of Champions, Future Fight), on PC (Marvel Heroes) and for Disney Infinity and Lego games. Marvel fans haven’t had their own Batman: Arkham equivalent. But with multiple Marvel console games in development, it sounds like that’s changing.
Ong said there was a lot about Marvel Games’ plans for consoles that he couldn’t talk about. There are existing partnerships with Telltale Games, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Warner Bros.’ TT Games to make titles based on Marvel’s properties, but he indicated there’s a lot more in the works, some of which we’ll hear more about later this year.
Marvel wants to work with the best game developers in the business, Ong said, teams that share the company’s passion for its heroes and villains. But it’s being choosy about who it works with, and which teams work on which properties.
“One of the things we really focus on in terms of our new strategy is that we all believe that great games drive the brand and great games are what our fans really deserve,” Ong said. “The question is, ‘How we can get there?’ The thing we landed on is to be really selective with who we partner with. Extremely selective. Right now I would say that out of every 10 opportunities we look at, we maybe do one.”
Ong said Marvel Games has a set of criteria as it looks to work with publishers and developers.
“What we look at first and foremost is the talent level of partner,” he said. “Are they world class in building the games we’re talking about? They have to have world-class talent. They have to be able to invest the resources to make that talent sing. Equally important is, do they have passion for the IP they’re working on? Do they share the same ambition? Do they love the character? We look for passion, that comes through in the first 30 seconds.
“One of our mantras is authenticity; it’s easy to make a game with Spider-Man on the label, but it’s much harder to make it truly authentic in a way that reflects Peter Parker, the character.” Insomniac Games and Spider-Man creative director Bryan Intihar, Ong said, embody that mantra.
When publisher Activision was in charge of developing and publishing Spider-Man games, those titles were often tied to the release of movies or annual publishing schedules. The quality of those games varied, and while they were often successful commercially, Ong indicated that Marvel Games doesn’t want to push games to market just to coincide with a theatrical release. (The upcoming Spider-Man game is “wholly original” and unrelated to 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming, the next Marvel feature film starring the web-slinger.)
“We are absolutely obsessed about [quality],” Ong said. “That is our North Star. We always say ‘Great is not good enough. We’re going for truly epic.'”
Ong said that if a future Marvel Games title lines up with the release of a Marvel Studios movie, great, but “in this modern day and age, that model doesn’t work anymore.”
“Things like [games] you cannot under-resource,” he said. “You can’t not give the development time … to do justice to the game. We think, ‘How do we make the game better? How do we help our partners make the game better?'”
It’s not yet clear when Marvel, Sony and Insomniac’s Spider-Man game — or Telltale’s unnamed Marvel game, which Ong says will delight fans — will be released. But those titles represent a new course for Marvel Games.
“Building these franchises, and building these characters [at Marvel Games], this is that first big milestone from this team,” Ong said. “This is a huge ambitious project.”
Marvel Games’ new mandate is ‘Make epic games,’ and Spider-Man is just the beginning
Will Marvel Have More Than One Spider-Man in the MCU?
It was announced recently by Deadline that Community star Donald Glover is joinging the first Spider-Man movie that will be part of the MCU in an unspecified role. Though, any Marvel fan worth their salt has a damn good idea who he may be playing. Yes, speculation is already running rampant that Glover will be playing the Ultimate Universe version of Spider-Man, Miles Morales. If that turns out to be true, that would mean that at some point, there will be more than one Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But how likely is it? Well, let’s take a look at the possible evidence.
Glover has been circling Spider-Man for ages now. There was a massive fan campaign to get him to play the character back when Sony was in the process of doing their Amazing Spider-Man reboot. Glover was way behind the idea but ultimately it went to Andrew Garfield. In addition, he has been providing the voice for Miles Morales in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated TV series, so he already has a strong familiarity with the character.
For those who may not know, Miles Morales took up the Spider-Man mantle in the Ultimate Marvel Universe (which takes place outside of the main Marvel Comics Universe) following the death of Peter Parker. He is a young kid of African American and Hispanic descent and has powers similar to Parker’s Spider-Man, but with some differences. The character first appeared in 2011 and quickly became a huge hit with fans and there has been demand to see him on the big screen pretty much from the get go.
Glover being cast is surely raising some flags in favor of Morales finally coming to the big screen, and his casting seems to really fit what Marvel seems to be doing with Spider-Man: Homecoming. So far, it seems to be a pretty diverse cast of both young and old and it looks like it won’t be just a bunch of white people running around in Queens, New York. However, given Glover’s history with the character of Mile Morales, it seems very unlikely that Marvel would ignore that entirely. They are smart.
Parker and Morales have met in the comics, so there is definitely precedent for the characters sharing some time fighting crime. Plus, Kevin Feige and Co. really need to find a way to make Homecoming and Spidey in general different enough to have us not feel fatigue from the various reboots the property has gone through in a relatively short period of time. Adding a second Spider-Man to the mix would be a way to do that and fans would be likely very excited about Morales joining up with The Avengers.
Lastly, if we are grasping at straws for evidence here, in the first season of Daredevil on Netflix, Foggy Nelson did make a reference to a “Morales” who worked at the law firm he and Matt Murdock worked at. There is almost no way that was a complete coincidence. The only glaring problem is that Glover is 32 and the character of Miles Morales is much younger, at least in the comic books. Perhaps Glover will be Miles’ dad? Uncle? Both of whom play a role in the comics.
It seems like Miles Morales is an eventuality for the MCU, but we just don’t know if he will ever share the screen with Peter Parker. Rumors are circulating that the 2018 Sony animated Spider-Man movie will feature Morales, but that has yet to be confirmed. If Marvel is building to a Sinister Six movie down the line, which evidence suggests they may be, than planting the seeds to have Parker and Morales take on Doc Ock and the gang together could be a really cool way to go with. We will have to wait and see when Spider-Man: Homecoming drops on July 7, 2017.
Super Mario theme comes to Minecraft for Nintendo Wii U
Minecraft was released for the Wii U back in December 2015 via the Nintendo E-Shop and made a perfect fit for the Wii U, probably more so than any other video game console available today.
Compared to the likes of the Windows 10 version and Xbox version, the game is mostly the same but Nintendo wants to change that with a recently released Super Mario theme pack for the Wii U version. This is no doubt going to become very popular, and will be the envy of Minecraft players on other platforms.
The new content is set to launch on May 17, 2016, bringing with it a Super Mario themed world. Furthermore, 15 pieces of Mario-related music and 40 themes to spice up your Minecraft world are also included. This is definitely the best Minecraft theme packs we have ever seen, but unfortunately, it is only available on the Nintendo Wii U — a console on its way to the graveyard. Still, we’ve already seen several individuals claiming they are prepared to purchase a Nintendo Wii U just for this version of Minecraft, and why not? It’s the type of experience that can’t be found anywhere else.
The Super Mario theme pack is freely available via the E-Shop. Furthermore, those who purchase Minecraft for the Nintendo Wii U come May 17 on disk for $29.99 can also get it from the disk itself, so there’ll be no need to download it. If you’re interested in grabbing the digital version of Minecraft for the Nintendo Wii U, then jump to the E-Shop right here and pick it up.
Minecraft recently celebrated its 4th birthday on the Xbox. To celebrate, Microsoft made sure to gift players with several theme packs to help spice up their world. The packs are available for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One video game consoles only. You can also grab the Minecraft Xbox One Edition Favorites Pack come June 7 from the Xbox Store. As the name suggests, this will not be available on the Xbox 360.
Crown and Council brings the geopolitical drama to Windows 10
If you like empire-building games, then this piece of news will catch your interest: Crown and Council has landed on Windows 10 PCs. Expand your luxurious kingdom, divide and conquer all your enemies and if they refuse, crush them all with no mercy.
Wrench havoc in all 75 available maps and show everybody who the leader is. This is a fast-paced strategy game, there is no time for rest when it comes to conquering land and obliterating rival monarchs. If you are not fast enough, others may get there before you.
The strategy is simple: click adjacent land tiles to subdue them with your army, then pile their gold to fund further expeditions, defensive forts, naval attacks, build universities and other essential structures. Alliances are not tolerated in a worlds where there can be only one ruler.
It’s simple to play, but it’s not so easy to win. Pay attention to the depletion of your resources, if you spend all your money on universities, your army won’t be strong enough to subdue your enemies. Don’t attack too quickly either, hoping to put enough boots on the ground to give you an irreversible early advantage. Recovering after a defeat can be more difficult than expected.
As much fun as this game may appear, players have already encountered issues:
Surprisingly good, casual, easy to learn, free game which gets harder and more satisfying as you progress with new units and ways to increase turns. At this point, there are many problems with the interface: click area not responding, window sizing, minor Engllish errors, but hopefully Mojang will fix these in an upcoming patch. Though the game saves progress and continues at the highest level you’ve completed, I don’t see a way to reset progress or any interface options to adjust sound or screen size. The only serious drawback is the random level creation which makes some levels either impossibly difficult or incredibly easy.
There’s no reason to not try this or give it a bad rating since it’s free and delivers what it promises.
And another player adds:
There is a list of things wrong with it however: Window is not resizable, controls are somewhat obfuscated, they’re only really relayed by the loading screens between games, and the game has no real menus, including no start menus.
Maybe all these issues will be fixed in the future, but for the time being, Crown and Council is an excellent game to kill time on your commute way back home after a day’s work.
Crown and Council brings the geopolitical drama to Windows 10
The 12 worst video game movies of all time
Take any popular and addictively playable game franchise and, chances are, there’s a nearly unwatchable film adaptation. Movie studios regularly mine comic books for their built in audiences, merchandise tie-ins, and action-friendly storylines. They’ve routinely turned to games for the same opportunity. There’s just one problem. Many of them are terrible. Uniformly terrible.
Players, critics, and audiences are all routinely disappointed by video game movies. With the latest addition to the genre, “Warcraft,” in theaters this weekend, we’ve looked through the worst of the worst video game adaptations.
Was your favorite game dragged to the big screen for an unwelcome adaptation? Check out our list and see.
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10. “Lara Croft: Tomb Raider” (2001)
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 19%
Lara Croft is a gaming icon. A wealthy heiress fulfilling her daredevil dreams of exploring the world, both the game and film are generalized as starring a “female Indiana Jones.” Really nothing in the movies work against that except for the gratuitous shots of Angelina Jolie breathless and gasping directly into the camera. The games were updated with a more feminist, humanizing perspective for Lara and a rebooted adaptation, presumably with the same perspective, was announced starring Oscar winner Alicia Vikander.
From USA Today’s review: “This film, directed by Simon West (Con Air), is like watching a novice (like me) fumble about while playing a video game. There are quick bursts of frantic activity followed by long, enervating lulls. The digital effects sometimes impress, such as the massive stone monkeys that come to life and a spinning gizmo made of huge rotating spheres. But the look of the movie is unduly muddy.”
9. “Doom” (2005)
Universal Pictures
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 19%
The “Doom” series, just recently revitalized with its latest entry, is one of the most well-known horror-shooters and stars marines taking on hordes of violent, brain-dead monsters. The movie, starring The Rock, is such a monster. The explicit gore and violence tries to trick audiences into forgetting there isn’t any discernible storyline. But neither fans of the games nor uninitiated movie audiences cared. The film tanked and, thankfully, The Rock’s career escaped unscathed.
From the Orlando Sentinel review: “The movie based on that best-selling body-count game is ugly, stupefyingly stupid and gross. It has a back story ripped off from a half-dozen sci-fi movies, a Z-list cast that exists only so we can see them impaled, decapitated and worse. It has zombies beheaded by bullets, gratuitous autopsies and the Rock. And that last bit is the saddest note of all.”
8. “Super Mario Bros.” (1993)
Buena Vista
Rotten Tomatoes: 15%
Probably the most popular gaming characters of all time, the “Mario” games revolutionized the medium and gave Nintendo its esteemed position as the major innovators of the gaming world. The movie, however, was blasted as everything the games are not: generic, predictable, visually disappointing, and boring.
From the Philly.com review: “So much like a theme-park ride that you wonder where the security bar is, Super Mario Bros. is a movie whose idea of a peak experience is to be on a derailed train as it falls off a trestle. Scenery rushes by, noise blares, characters pop up wearing new costumes that they couldn’t possibly have had time to change into as they eluded their adversaries.”
7. “Street Fighter” (1994)
Universal Pictures
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 12%
“Street Fighter” is a legendary fighting game series with a highly enviable pedigree. Nearly 30 years after its original release, the game is a tournament mainstay and considered among the very “top tier” of fighting games. The movie adaptation starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Guile is considered an unfortunate “we don’t really talk about that” misstep in its past.
From Variety’s review: “Electronic videogames, with their built-in audiences, present an alluring challenge for filmmakers, though they are obviously not easy to translate into exciting feature-length presentations. In fact, “Street Fighter” suffers from the same problems that impaired “Super Mario Bros.”: It is noisy, overblown and effects-laden and lacks sustained action or engaging characters. Like the 1993 picture, “Street Fighter” is too disjointed and far less captivating than the videogame that inspired it.”
[TIED] 5. “Hitman: Agent 47” (2015)
20th Century Fox
Rotten Tomatoes: 8%
The “Hitman” series is an action franchise where players are almost always given the same goal (assassinate a target) but with dozens of ways to do it: steal a guard’s uniform and sneak into their mansion, pretend to be a waiter and poison their champagne, make pleasant conversation and overhear a lethal food allergy. Or you can storm in guns blazing and kill everyone in sight. The movie, starring well regarded English actor, Rupert Friend, is visually appealing and sleek but never bothers with a plot and doesn’t deliver on the reason people love the franchise: the macabre thrill of cat-and-mouse and choosing how to kill someone.
From the New York Times: “No amount of killer good looks can save a project with only an echo chamber of destruction where a story ought to be. A grab bag of random notions lifted primarily from the “Terminator” and “Matrix” universes, “Hitman” is a sexless, virtually bloodless chain of preposterous battles rendered in a two-dimensional gloss.”
[TIED] 5. “Double Dragon” (1994)
Gramercy pictures
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 8%
The “Double Dragon” arcade games were a series of two-player side-scrolling action games. You could either play with skill and patience, memorizing enemy attack patterns and honing your reflexes, or you could “button mash,” gracefully slamming attack buttons and hoping to finish teh level. Looks like the film adaptation chose the latter, throwing overwrought, boring and unexplained action scenes at the audience. Alyssa Milano shows up as well, as the damsel in distress.
Taken from the New York Times: “The director James Yukich, who comes from the world of music video, has given the film a jumpy nonstop energy that overrides the script’s incongruities and the amateurish performances by the two leading actors. Every once in a while, the film pointedly reminds the viewer of its source by momentarily turning into a video game. If “Double Dragon” doesn’t look or feel as if it were set in Los Angeles, despite its use of scale-model Hollywood landmarks, that’s because it wasn’t filmed there. It was made in Cleveland.”
4. “Silent Hill: Revelation” (2012)
Open Road Films
Rotten Tomatoes score: 5%
“Game of Thrones” actor Kit Harington co-starred in this adaptation of the third “Silent Hill” game. The “Silent Hill” horror games are brooding, atmospheric, and as psychologically probing as they are scary. But the film adaptations rely on boring, predictable jump scares and spend way too much time trying to decipher the games’ cryptic mythology. Acclaimed actors Carrie-Anne Moss, Sean Bean, and Malcolm McDowell all puzzlingly find themselves trapped in the murky, boring film, but critics and audiences both thought it was beyond saving.
From Entertainment Weekly’s review: “As it stands, there’s plenty of exposition, but not much explanation. The dialogue is clunkier than Pyramid Head’s enormous polygonal noggin, and the frights don’t ever get more complex than the fake-out snake-in-a-peanut-canister variety. (In one scene, pop-tarts explode out of a toaster like a car backfiring.) Bean and Malcolm McDowell slum it enjoyably in their brief roles, although they spend most of their scenes in chains, which makes it seem as if they were forced into the movie against their will.”
3. “BloodRayne” (2006)
Boll KG Productions/YouTube
Rotten Tomatoes score: 4%
The “BloodRayne” series follows Rayne, a half-human, half-vampire assassin who kills vampire nazis in World War II. The games were known for their bloody action, and Rayne usually wore some implausible black-leather dominatrix style getup. As the design of female characters became a more and more contentious part of the video game conversation, Rayne’s character design quickly became outdated. There’s nothing even resembling a similar stance on depictions of sex or violence in the movie and critics trashed it for the over-the-top objectification of Rayne, not to mention the nonsense plot.
From the Variety review: “Gamers, girl watchers and gore hounds are the target auds for “BloodRayne,” yet another vidgame filmization by the frightfully prolific Uwe Boll (“House of the Dead,” “Alone in the Dark”). But it’s doubtful that even the least discriminating genre fans will storm into megaplexes before this anemic action-fantasy fast-forwards to homevid.”
2. “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” (1997)
New Line Cinema
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 3%
“Mortal Kombat” is a fighting game series that debuted in 1992 to immediate controversy. Few games at the time were that bloody and video games were still largely considered a toy. As the graphics improved over the years, the game’s explicit violence made it a large part of the “do video games cause violence?” conversation of the late ’90s and early ’00s. The series remains popular, however, and fans regularly cosplay as the characters and upload elaborate fan films. The movie adaptations have become a running joke among fans and the games themselves occasionally toss in well hidden references to the films.
From the Entertainment Weekly review: “There are lots of special effects — in fact, there are way too many of them. The clawed monsters, liquid fireballs, and gelatinous purploid skies ooze by in a visually synthetic sludge. Fragmented and monotonous, without a semblance of the gymnastic cleverness that at least made the first Mortal Kombat film into watchable trash, Mortal Kombat Annihilation is as debased as movies come.”
1. “Alone in the Dark” (2005)
Gramercy Pictures
Rotten Tomatoes score: 1%
Unlike most action-horror fare, the “Alone in the Dark” entries were slower paced, puzzle and plot heavy games that focused on solving paranormal mysteries. The only thing the film keeps from this template is its protagonist Edward Carnby. Heavy handed, exceedingly violent, and barely coherent, the movie adaptation of “Alone in the Dark” is the worst video game movie. Christian Slater, experiencing a career revival with “Mr. Robot,” gets a nod from critics for trying to do what he can, but overall they agree: this is the worst video game to movie adaptation of all time.
From the Variety review: “…helmer Uwe Boll should put down his joystick — quickly, before anyone else gets hurt. Derivative bloodbath jettisons the games’ atmospheric suspense and Lovecraftian sense of the macabre in favor of slasher movie mayhem, wit-free dialogue and endlessly protracted and gory shootouts. Fans of the source material probably won’t be switching platforms to catch this bizarre Lions Gate pickup, and non-fans definitely won’t.”
‘The Conjuring 2’ levels disappointing ‘Warcraft’ at the box office
The good news for the movie business this weekend was that a sequel did better than projected at the box office after weeks of them earning less than the originals (“Alice Through The Looking Glass,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows”).
The bad news: The $160 million “Warcraft” crashed and burned.
“The Conjuring 2” took in an estimated $40.3 million to win the weekend at the domestic box office, according to Exhibitor Relations. Coming in second was “Warcraft” with a dismal $24 million on 3,400 screens.
The summer blockbusters are struggling at the box office this year and “Warcraft,” based on the popular video game, is the latest example. However, the movie has earned over $280 million already overseas, showing that audiences abroad who are fans of the game came out in droves.
However, “The Conjuring 2” proved that sequels are not completely being ignored this summer. The beefy opening (for a horror) is just below the $41.8 million the original had its opening weekend in 2013 (the second largest all-time opening weekend for a horror).
In third was “Now You See Me 2” with around $23 million, which didn’t slip much from the illusion-heavy original that opened with $29.3 million in 2013.
So talk of audiences being burnt out from sequels might have been a little premature.
Another sequel will definitely take the box office next weekend, as the much-anticipated Pixar movie “Finding Dory” opens and is projected to earn some major coin.
‘The Conjuring 2’ levels disappointing ‘Warcraft’ at the box office
LEGO releases new Marvel and DC Super Heroes sets
LEGO releases new Marvel and DC Super Heroes sets
The LEGO Group has released a selection of new products from its Marvel Super Heroes and DC Super Heroes lines, featuring three Spidey-centric Marvel sets, and two Classic Batman Villain sets; check them out here…
76057 LEGO MARVEL Super Heroes, Spider-Man: Web Warriors Ultimate Bridge Battle (RRP: £89.99)
Swing into a bridge battle zone and team up with Spider-Man, Spider-Girl and Scarlet Spider to defeat Green Protect Aunt May from Green Goblin, who has a flaming pumpkin bomb and a Goblin Glider with stud shooters, along with Kraven the Hunter and Scorpion’s venomous tail! Press the bridge’s flag to launch a net to trap the villains, or launch a Super Hero from the side of the bridge and swing into action to save the day! The set includes a bridge section, trap door, web prison, Goblin Glider, taxi, police ATV and a Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, Scarlet Spider, Aunt May, Scorpion, Kraven the Hunter and a Green Goblin Minifigure.
76058 LEGO MARVEL Super Heroes, Spider-Man: Ghost Rider Team-up (RRP: £19.99)
Stage a street battle scene as Spider-Man and Ghost Rider join forces against Hobgoblin. Dodge the Goblin Glider’s missiles and flaming pumpkin bomb, and use Ghost Rider’s fire chain to catch the evil demon. Knock Hobgoblin off his Goblin Glider or the top of the traffic light with Spider-Man’s Super Jumper! The set includes a Ghost Rider Bike, Goblin Glider, traffic light model and a Spider-Man, Hobgoblin and Ghost Rider Minifigure.
76059 LEGO MARVEL Super Heroes, Spider-Man: Doc Ock’s Tentacle Trap (RRP: £44.99)
Rescue White Tiger from the Octo-Bot’s slippery tentacles! Doc Ock is wading through the water in his weaponized Octo-Bot and has taken White Tiger prisoner in one of the tentacles! Steer Captain Stacy’s speedboat with Spider-Man surfing in on his web surfboard tow and rescue her! Watch out for Vulture nosediving through the air and fend off his attacking claws. The set comes complete with Doc Ock’s Octo-Bot, police speedboat and a Spider-Man, Doc Ock, Vulture, White Tiger and a Captain Stacy Minifigure.
76055 Batman™: Killer Croc™ Sewer Smash (RRP: £69.99)
Help Red Hood™ and Katana™ stop the monstrous Killer Croc™ and evil Captain Boomerang™ from destroying Gotham City. Roll the Bat-Tank into action and fire the 6-stud shooter against Killer Croc’s Battle Chomper. Drop bombs from the tank or deploy the ram weapon to crush Batman’s enemies. Manoeuvre the motorbike out of reach of the Battle Chomper’s movable tail and chomping teeth, and dodge the vehicle’s flying boomerangs.
The set includes Batman’s Bat-Tank, Killer Croc’s Battle Chomper, Red Hood’s motorbike and a Batman™, Red Hood™, Captain Boomerang™ and a Katana™ minifigure plus a Killer Croc™ big figure.
76054 Batman™: Scarecrow™ Harvest of Fear (RRP: £59.99)
Stop Scarecrow™ and Killer Moth™ spreading fear on the outskirts of Gotham City with Gas Mask Batman’s Batcopter, featuring an opening minifigure cockpit, four pop-out stud shooters and a six-blade spinning rotor. Team up with Blue Beetle™ in an aerial battle to protect the frightened farmer. Evade the harvester’s rotating cutters and detachable fear gas stud shooter, and prevent the villains capturing the farmer in its fear gas tank.
The set comes complete with Batman’s Batcopter, Scarecrow’s harvester, tractor and a Gas Mask Batman™, Blue Beetle™, Scarecrow™, Killer Moth™ and farmer minifigure.
NEW MARVEL COMICS AVAILABLE JUNE 8: SPIDER-MAN & DOCTOR STRANGE
Amazing Spider-Man in Civil War II, ‘Timely Comics: Doctor Strange,’ and a full list from Marvel Comics.
Marvel Comics released twenty-two comics on June 8 (including 3 Timely Comics one-shot reprints) and nine trade paperbacks. Two new Civil War II titles debuted today, including Amazing Spider-Man and Gods of War. Comics released today with characters currently in theMCU included Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Daredevil and Guardians of the Galaxy, among others.
While X-Men: Apocalypse is still in theaters, magazines being published by Marvel on June 8 with characters tangentially-related to the X-Men movie franchise include All-New X-Men #10 and multiple Deadpool titles, including two comics and two TPs. Two Star Wars titles were published by Marvel today, including Star Wars: Poe Dameron #3 and Darth Vader #21.
Below are quick recaps and reviews of two June 8 releases, followed by a complete list of Marvel Comics releases for Wednesday. Comics reviewed includeCivil War II: The Amazing Spider-Man (#1 of 4) and Timely Comics: Doctor Strange(a one-shot reprint of Doctor Strange #1-3).
Civil War II: The Amazing Spider-Man #1
Rated: T+
Spider-Man has returned to New York City as the Inhumans are bringing Ulysses (a young Inhuman with the ability to predict the future) to apply for an internship at Parker Industries. Ulysses is young (not yet old enough to have graduated college) and still needs to be trained to fight. He helps Spider-Man prevent a double homicide and take down four Vulturions (a wink to Web of Spider-Man #1, circa 1985, when they first appeared in Marvel Comics). As Spidey and Ulysses discuss the possibility of the young Inhuman joining S.H.I.E.L.D. some day to help predict the outcome of experimental weapons and medicines, Ulysses lets him know that one of the current Parker Industries employees (Clayton Cole, formerly Clash) would soon be turning on Spider-Man. Readers also get a glimpse of a flying car that Peter’s company is developing, as well as a reminder that the Green Goblin has been reformed at Parker Industries. If you were a fan of Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War, don’t expect the Spider-Man of the Civil War II comics to bare any sort of resemblance.
Timely Comics: Doctor Strange #1
Rated: T+
As someone who got into comics after getting into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, this one-shot reprint of Doctor Strange #1-3 (2015) served as a great way to familiarize myself with the eponymous character of the next MCU movie. For the uninitiated, Dr. Stephen Strange is a former-surgeon-turned-sorcerer whose specialty involves battling the evil forces of the netherworld. It’s a touch of the fantastical that makes Doctor Strange feel closer to Thor than Captain America or Iron Man. It’s hard to beat a 3-in-1 magazine for $3.
New releases from Marvel Comics for June 8:
- Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. #6
- All-New X-Men #10
- Black Knight: The Fall Of Dane Whitman TP
- Captain Marvel: Earth’s Mightiest Hero, Volume 1 TP
- Civil War II: Amazing Spider-Man #1 (Of 4)
- Civil War II: Gods Of War #1 (Of 4)
- Color Your Own Young Marvel (By Skottie Young) TP
- Daredevil #8
- Dark Tower: The Drawing Of The Three – Bitter Medicine #3 (Of 5)
- Darth Vader #21
- Deadpool #9
- Deadpool And The Mercs For Money #5 (Of 5)
- Deadpool Classic, Volume 16: Killogy TP
- Deadpool: World’s Greatest, Volume 2: End Of Error TP
- Empress #3 (Of 7)
- Guardians Of The Galaxy #9
- Hercules, Volume 1: Still Going Strong TP
- Howard The Duck #8
- Incredible Hulk: Epic Collection, Volume 1: Man Or Monster TP
- Infinity Watch, Volume 2 TP
- Marvel Universe: Guardians Of The Galaxy #9
- Moon Knight #2
- New Avengers #12
- Nova The Human Rocket, Volume 1: Burn Out TP
- Star Wars: Poe Dameron #3
- Thunderbolts #2
- Timely Comics: Daredevil #1
- Timely Comics: Doctor Strange #1
- Timely Comics: Drax #1
- Venom: Space Knight #8
- Vision #8
NEW MARVEL COMICS AVAILABLE JUNE 8: SPIDER-MAN & DOCTOR STRANGE
What’re You Playing This Weekend?
Overwatch is great and all, but I’ve got Trails of Cold Steel to catch up on.
See, I’m only up to Chapter 4 of Falcom’s excellent (but slow-paced) JRPG, and I’ve gotta crank through the rest of the game in time for E3. There’s apparently a big twist at the end, and there’s no way to avoid being spoiled if I want to play the demo of Cold Steel 2 at the convention. That gives me about two weeks to get it done, which seems doable.
I’ll also be playing Final Fantasy XIV, poking around in Wild Arms 3, and continuing my quest to win MVP in NBA 2K16.
And, OK, fine, I’ll probably slip in some Overwatch too. What about you guys?
It’s Official: No Man’s Sky Delayed To August
Publisher Sony confirmed tonight that, as Kotaku reported earlier this week, No Man’s Sky is delayed out of June. The ambitious space game will now be out on August 9.
“As we approached our final deadlines, we realized that some key moments needed extra polish to bring them up to our standards,” director Sean Murray wrote on the PlayStation Blog this evening. “I have had to make the tough choice to delay the game for a few weeks to allow us to deliver something special.”
It’s been a wild past few days in the No Man’s Sky community, filled with everything from nonsensical speculation to social media witch hunts to death threats sent my way for reporting on the delay. Now it’s finally official.
The Warcraft Movie Is Not Good
Some people had hoped, after months of hype and the pedigree of director Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code), that Warcraft might break the long and storied Curse Of Bad Video Game Movies. I have some sad news for those people. Maybe video game adaptations were just never meant to be.
Warcraft, which comes out June 10, is a whirlwind of CGI effects and snazzy costumes that never quite coalesces into a watchable film. Longtime fans of the series might get a kick out of seeing the likes of Medivh (Ben Foster) and Durotan (Toby Kebbell) played by Hollywood actors, but it’s tough to get invested in a movie that feels so soulless. Warcraft has very few redeeming qualities. The performances are mediocre, the writing is full of cliches, and the editing is confusing when it’s trying to be clever. (Both the orcs and humans speak real-life English, but the movie attempts to persuade us, by means of a clumsy transition halfway through the film, that the orcs are actually speaking their own language. It’s not very good.)
The fundamental flaw in Warcraft is the same flaw we find in most video game movies: It takes itself too seriously. These games are set in a world full of in-jokes and surreal humor, one that’s inhabited by a race of giant panda bears because the developers at Blizzard really liked one of their own April Fool’s jokes. Even when the Warcraft games get dark, and they do get dark, they’ve always been adept at having fun with their players. The film does no such thing. If only this movie had the charm of a Warcraft unit who’s been clicked too many times.
In case you’re curious: I’ve played through all three main Warcraft games and went on a WoW kick back in 2005. I was the guy at the screening who knew who Thrall was and who most certainly recognized that the creature who popped up for a second in that one swamp was a murloc. I could tell you the difference between a Death Knight and a Lich King and I have many fond memories of destroying fools with my Night Elf army. So I should be the ideal target audience for a movie like Warcraft, one that tries to turn the story of the First War between orcs and humans into a summer blockbuster.
Yet I just couldn’t buy in. Maybe the premise was flawed from the start. Warcraft opens with a shot of the vicious orc Horde, all teeth and screams, as it introduces us to Durotan and his pregnant wife. In just a few minutes we’re zipping through so many cities—Ironforge, Stormwind, Dalaran—that even for a Warcraft buff it might be tough to keep things straight. Rather than give some breathing room to Durotan and his human counterpart, Anduin Lothar (Travis Fimmel), Warcraft insists on introducing character after character, none of them pleasant. There’s Callan (Burkely Duffield), Lothar’s plot device of a son. There’s the bumbling mage Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer), who is far more interesting in the games. There’s the Guardian Medivh, whose motives and actions are never quite clear. There’s a king, a queen, some knights. There are a bunch of orcs who get a lot of screen time that could’ve gone toward actual character development. There are too many characters, too many subplots, and not nearly enough reasons to care about them all.
And then there’s Garona (Paula Patton), whose fangs are so utterly silly that they often distract from her performance, which is just as ridiculous. Warcraft devotes many minutes to Garona: her enslavement at the hands of her own people; her snarling threats; her unconvincing romantic trist with the main character. Her character, a half-orc, half-human* warrior who seems destined to bring peace to the two races, is poorly crafted and kind of a drag to watch. A stronger actress could have helped made Garona more compelling, but with so many factors working against her, even that might not have worked. She is unabashedly dull.
Even the nasty warlock Gul’dan (Daniel Wu), easily the most compelling character in the film, never quite lives up to his video game pedigree. He spends most of his time draining the souls out of his prisoners’ bodies, which is fun to watch, but he never feels threatening. The stakes are never really there. Warcraft spends very little time trying to convince the audience why anyone should care that Gul’dan and his orcs are invading the world of humans, or why it even matters.
Rather than tapping into the goofy core that makes a game like World of Warcraft interesting, the Warcraft movie aims for grittiness, missing the mark quite a bit. It just doesn’t work. The lore is too campy. This is a world where a mage’s most popular spell transforms his enemies into sheep, yet Warcraft acts as if it’s a green-screen version of Game of Thrones. At my theater, the biggest laughs came not from the occasional bouts of slapstick comedy but from the miserable archmages of Dalaran, whose CGI-enhanced eyes look especially absurd when you’re supposed to take them seriously.
I had hoped Warcraft would at a minimum be entertaining, but really, I’ve had more enjoyable two-hour sessions wiping on Molten Core. At least the armor looks good.
Box Office: ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Scores Troubling $26.4M Friday
There was a time when the X-Men franchise was one of the biggest around. The original X-Men opened with the fifth-biggest opening weekend of all time back in 2000 ($54 million) and the biggest non-sequel debut ever back in the day. When X2: X-Men United opened with $85m back in May of 2003, it was the fourth-biggest opening weekend of all time. When X-Men: The Last Stand debuted on this weekend back in 2006, it snagged the second-biggest single day of all time with a $45m Friday and ended up with just the fifth $100m debut ever and the fourth-top Fri-Sun opening weekend of all time.
So if I seem overly harsh on what could be a $75-$85 million Fri-Mon debut, it’s because the franchise was once a god among insects. X-Men: Apocalypse had the fourth-lowest opening day out of nine X-Men films. Opening on the same weekend as two of the biggest entries, the ninth X-Men movie (and the sixth team-up X-Men movie) earned $26.4 million on Friday, including $8.2m in Thursday previews.
That means it did 31% of its Friday business on Thursday night, compared to Days of Future Past ($8.1 million Thursday/$35.5m Friday) which made 22% of its opening day business in previews.
Even with inflation and a 3D bump factored in, it had a smaller Friday than X2 ($31m), X-Men: The Last Stand ($45m), X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($34m), X-Men: Days of Future Past ($35m), and Deadpool ($47m). When you factor in the 3D bump, it arguably didn’t sell that many more tickets than X-Men: First Class ($21m back in 2011 in 2D).
We should acknowledge that Fox and Walt Disney chose to inexplicably go head-to-head this weekend, with Alice Through the Looking Glass opening yesterday as well. But X-Men: Days of Future Past had to contend with the second $38 million Fri-Mon weekend of Godzilla, which arguably played to the same demos, back in 2014. So that’s not in itself an excuse.
We should also note that this Bryan Singer trilogy capper received some miserable reviews and that it will be arguably the only comic book superhero movie this year that really wasn’t offering anything audiences hadn’t seen before. The last installment offered a superb gimmick: an adaptation of a fan-favorite time travel story that combined the First Class cast with the original trilogy participants.
This one was merely another sequel with the less popular newbies. Yes, they had Jennifer Lawrence as a proverbial action lead. They had Oscar Isaac fresh off The Force Awakens as the title baddie. They even had Olivia Munn as fan-favorite Psylocke. But, along with Alexandra Shipp as a younger Storm, these would-be “incentives” were mostly wasted in order to yet again focus on Michael Fassbender’s Magneto.
The reviews made this very clear, and if we make an argument that reviews matter for movies like this it’s when they affirm or deny that a given film offers the stuff you wanted to see. Or maybe the popularity of the X-Men franchise really is tied into how much Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine shows up with the team. That’s a scary thought, especially if Hugh Jackman really does choose to hang up the claws.
I will be honest, two years ago I expected a bigger debut for X-Men: Days of Future Past. The well-reviewed “Franchise All Stars to the Rescue” installment had ten years of inflation and a 3D bump on X-Men: The Last Stand. I also knew that the X-Men films have famously terrible legs, so I figured that it had to make the majority of whatever it was going to make on its opening weekend.
But while Days of Future Past did make less on its debut weekend than The Last Stand ($110.5 million vs. $122.8m), it was a slightly leggier blockbuster getting awfully close to the Brett Ratner film’s $234m domestic total. Moreover, that ten-year span and 3D bump paid off overseas, when the Bryan Singer film made an eye-popping $513m overseas for a $747m worldwide cume.
This from a franchise whose previous high was $457 million global. So when we look at that $26m opening day and some potentially grim domestic forecasts, there is a likely silver lining. First and foremost, Fox brought this latest installment in for around $178 million, which was a lot less than the $220 million-ish Days of Future Past. Second of all, the film could stand to make a lot less than the last installment in America if it continues to crush it overseas.
If the film plays like Days of Future Past over the weekend, we’re looking at a $68 million Fri-Sun/$83m Fri-Mon opening weekend. And then if it has the legs of that last movie domestically, it ends up with $173m domestic. As long as it still plays well overseas (it had $130m going into the weekend), no harm, no foul. But if it plays like The Last Stand, this could get ugly. It’ll be a $60m/$72m weekend and will end its domestic run with $137m.
Now we could mix-and-match those potential outcomes ($73 million weekend and a $151m U.S. total or an $83m weekend and a $156m domestic cume. Of course, if it makes another $400-$500m overseas this is almost trivia. But this will likely be a severe domestic downturn for a somewhat vital “Can the franchise thrive without Wolverine?” installment. We’ll know more tomorrow, but for the record it should be noted that Fox sold the heck out of this thing.
Box Office: ‘X-Men: Apocalypse’ Scores Troubling $26.4M Friday
The Indistinguishable X-Men: the narrowing range of superhero emotions
The Indistinguishable X-Men: the narrowing range of superhero emotions
There’s more to hero life than ‘scared’ and ‘angry’
Critics agree that X-Men: Apocalypse is a troubled film. They just don’t entirely agree on the core issue. The Week says it has a villain problem. Indiewire says it has an apocalypse problem. The Hollywood Reporter says it has “severe traffic control problems.” All these things are true — it’s overcrowded, the villain is generic and forgettable, and his plan to Destroy Everything Because Reasons has turned up in far too many recent superhero films.
But none of this would entirely matter if Apocalypse’s heroes were personable, believable people who made the film’s stakes feel meaningful and specific. They certainly should be: They’re X-Men, some of the most pointedly diverse, backstory-rich heroes in the comic-book landscape. They come from different countries, cultures, and circumstances. They cover a wide variety of ages, interests, and educational levels. They should be a fractious group of distinctive individuals, struggling to come together to face a common threat.
Instead, in Apocalypse, the X-Men and the villains they face are all cut from the exact same emotional cloth. They deliver dead-eyed, monotonal speeches about their traumas and their plans for the future. They stand around in poster-ready formation, glowering with their best catwalk-fierce supermodel expressions. And even when some of them are blue and one is bald and one is black and one is blindfolded, they all end up looking pretty much the same.
Lack of emotional range has been a problem in superhero movies for the past decade, and 2016 seems like a watershed year. It started with the grimmest and grittiest comic-book movie of the decade (Batman v Superman) facing off against the silliest one (Deadpool), and then Captain America: Civil War took the normally emotionally rich Marvel Cinematic Universe to a particularly dark and deadened place. Even the MCU’s most complicated heroes, developed over the course of half a dozen films, become raging, silent punch-bots by the end of Civil War. That’s a meaningful emotional tragedy within the isolated context of the film itself. But watching all these movies together, it’s easy to wonder: don’t heroes ever get to feel joy anymore?
X-Men: Apocalypse
If Batman Begins really is ground zero for our heroes being replaced by grimaces, it’s possible to lay some of the blame there. Batman is defined by his barely varying rage — there’s a funny little fan-art concept about that floating around the internet in a wide variety of iterations — and Batman Begins established a particularly grave, ponderous tone. But even before that film, there was Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine in the X-movies, setting a standard for superheroes in 2000’s X-Men with his peacetime glower and his wartime snarl. Superman Returns emphasized Superman’s alienness and his remove from human feeling. Ang Lee’s Hulk marinated in the big green guy’s angst and anger without finding any of the childish glee in Hulk smashing things. Or maybe it all goes back even further, to 1994’s The Crow, and the way it turned superheroism into one long session of goth seething and brooding. Part of the appeal of MCU films like Iron Man and Guardians Of The Galaxy was that they felt like a corrective to years of hero movies that took all the fun out of heroing. They let their protagonists escape the long national funk that’s become as standard-issue for heroes as leather costumes and big explosions.
It’s certainly understandable that our cultural mandate has gravitated toward gravity. Endless thinkpieces have been written about how the current superhero-movie boom comes from America’s attempt to process the September 11th, 2001 attacks, visually and emotionally, and to simplify them into something that can be punched in the face. It took a while for movies to catch up with the grim-n-gritty trend that took over superhero comics in the 1980s, but now they seem to be trying to out-dark the comics that spawned them. So many comics-movie protagonists have taken on an edge of weary desperation, as if they’re trying to reflect the way the viewers feel about living in an age of government surveillance, endless foreign conflict, and seemingly insoluble problems.
“Don’t heroes get to feel joy anymore?”
But taking a subject seriously isn’t the same thing as taking it without a hint of emotion. The problem isn’t characters defined by anger or frustration, the problem is when they don’t seem to feel anything else. In X-Men: Apocalypse, virtually everyone in the cast is emotionally shattered by traumas on-screen and off, from deaths in the family to the overall state of mutant rights. Nightcrawler, Mystique, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Magneto all walk through the movie in various states of terror and leaden despair, carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders. Other characters,like Angel, Storm, and especially Psylocke, are so busy scowling that they barely get to talk.
X-Men: Apocalypse
This is a problem for the fans. The entire point of a character like Angel / Archangel is the arc between who he was at the beginning and what he became, and when he’s a gloomy, almost wordless thug throughout the entire process, he becomes an empty special effect, without any narrative power. The homogeneity is also a problem for the storytelling: characters who start a story at an emotional dead end, already furious or numb with shock, have nowhere to go as the filmmakers attempt to ramp up the dramatic stakes. And it’s a problem for the audience. If superheroes are meant to represent our best selves, our most brave and altruistic impulses, what does it say about us if we expect our best selves to be grimly emotionless robots?
There’s a clear feeling in modern superhero films that showing too much “soft” emotion somehow weakens a character. The Batman of DC Comics is sometimes capable of laughter — remember the final page of The Killing Joke? — but the recent on-screen versions can barely crack a sardonic smirk, even in Bruce Wayne mode. Henry Cavill’s version of Superman looks perpetually pinched with some sort of deep inner strain. The X-movies have almost universally been dour, sometimes to operatic ends, and sometimes just to depressing ones. Even quip-happy, smart-ass Tony Stark loses his ability to banter by the end of Civil War, and openly sets out to kill two men in a wave of blank-faced hatred.
“Characters who start at an emotional dead end have nowhere to go”
There are so many signs that the “bigger, meaner, darker, angrier” trend isn’t actually what audiences want. Every big superhero-movie-defining callout moment from the past several years has come when the script set aside emotional deadness for a moment. Audiences seem to celebrate any hint that their heroes are human. Quicksilver glorying in his powers in his high-speed action scene in X-Men: Days Of Future Past, Star-Lord’s swaggering little dance to “Come And Get Your Love” at the beginning of Guardians Of The Galaxy, Wade and Vanessa’s lusty sex montage in Deadpool, Ant-Man thrilling to his own sudden power as a giant in Civil War, Spider-Man’s entire Civil War character — these are the moments that become fan memes and critical reference points, because they show the cracks in the heroes’ dull armor.
And that’s because heroes aren’t just escapist, and aren’t just exciting. They’re aspirational. We’re meant to identify with them, and to root for them, and to care about them. We’re meant to want to be them. But it’s hard to identify with a mirthless, expressionless chunk of granite. So many grimdark modern superheroes offer a fantasy of being tough enough to survive any trauma, not just physically, but emotionally. To people who feel battered by the world, for whatever reason, that Wolverine glare that says “I can beat whatever you can throw at me” can be inspiring and relieving. It’s a fantasy not just of competence, but of indestructibility. As we collectively continue trying to process the constant political, social, and technological changes in the world, and the feelings of frustration and helplessness that sometimes comes with them, it’s comforting to retreat to a fantasy of being able to deal with whatever comes.
But it’s also comforting to imagine being indestructible, and still getting to share in the full range of human experience — lust and love, delight and wonder, joy and amusement, and all the other things lacking in Apocalypse and so many other superhero movies. Our collective fantasies define superheroes, and we collectively fantasize about more than one thing. By shutting out so much of the range of human life, hero movies are making superhumans considerably less than human. It makes their characters duller. It turns their movies into unvarying slogs. It limits the ways in which these films can speak to us, and engage us. It’s true that too many superhero films are setting out to crowd in more action, and bigger stakes, at the expense of any kind of variety or creativity. But the small emotional apocalypse feels more disastrous than the big CGI ones. It’s important that our heroes come along to save the day. It’s just as important that they preserve their humanity in the process.
The Indistinguishable X-Men: the narrowing range of superhero emotions
Has ‘Apocalypse’ messed up the first ‘X-Men’ movie? Yes and no
It’s the end of the world as we know it in “X-Men: Apocalypse”, starring younger versions of characters we first met in the movie “X-Men” way back in 2000.
Timeline-wise, the current run of prequels is getting close to meeting in the middle with the older films. So (with spoilers) let’s see if the events of “Apocalypse” manage to tie together with what has gone before — or has the new flick messed up the continuity?
As a reminder, here’s the chronology:
- 1962: “X-Men: First Class” (2011)
- 1972: “X-Men: Days of Future Past” (2014)
- 1983: “X-Men: Apocalypse” (2016)
- The not too distant future: “X-Men” (2000)
- The not too distant future: “X2” (2003)
- The not too distant future: “X-Men: The Last Stand” (2006)
If there are discrepancies between new and old films, it could be explained away by the new timeline created in the time-traveling “Days of Future Past”, but I hate it when they do that — I’m looking at you, J.J. Abrams and your “Star Trek” reboot. So leaving aside any timey-wimey nonsense, do the films still tie together?
The answer is yes…and no.
Yes…
In “Apocalypse”, some of the young X-Men encounter Wolverine and free him from the Weapon X project where he has been turned into a living weapon. Hang on — I thought, as I was watching — don’t they meet for the first time in “X-Men”?
20th Century-Fox/Getty Images
It seemed that way at the time, but watching “X-Men” again, there’s actually some ambiguity. In the 2000 movie, Wolverine, who has no memory of his past, is introduced to Jean Grey and Cyclops apparently for the first time. But they never actually ask him his name or seek any information from him. Wolverine doesn’t remember them — “What do they call you? Wheels?” — but they never show any sign that they don’t know him. At the time we assumed this was because Professor Xavier and Jean could read his mind, but it could easily be because they had already crossed paths years before.
Then in “X2”, a conversation between Magneto and Professor Xavier implies that both of them know more about Wolverine’s past than they’re telling him. That matches up with “Apocalypse” too.
Also in “X2”, Stryker meets Wolverine for the first time in what he says is about “15 years”. Given that “X-Men” was set in the “not too distant future”, “X2” is probably more like 20-25 years after Wolverine escaped Stryker’s Weapon X project in 1983. Eh, close enough — Stryker may have got his dates wrong in the heat of the moment, or, more likely, this reference will retroactively make sense if the two encounter each other in the next X-Men movie, which will be set in the ’90s.
Maybe we’ll also see Stryker’s son Jason in that forthcoming film. Incidentally, the actor playing Jason in “X2”, Michael Reid MacKay, was 50 years old at the time, which definitely doesn’t fit the timeline — leading us into the ways that the films contradict each other.
…and no
According to “Apocalypse”, Jean, Cyclops and Mystique have been to Alkali Lake, the home of the Weapon X project. That seems to contradict “X2”, in which they don’t recognise the location of the base.
More significantly, in “Apocalypse”, the mutant Nightcrawler fights alongside Jean Grey, Cyclops and Mystique. That directly contradicts “X2”, in which the X-Men very differently meet Nightcrawler for the first time.
Alan Markfield
There’s no ambiguity, as there is with Wolverine: Storm and Cyclops straight-out ask Nightcrawler his name, and Nightcrawler asks them about the school, with no recognition on either side.
And finally…
So what about “X-Men: The Last Stand”? The third “X-Men” movie, released in 2006, shows Xavier and Magneto as friends, meeting a young Jean Grey just 20 years ago, which is way off the chronology established in more recent films. It also features a winged mutant and a man called Trask, but technically they could be different people than the winged mutant in “Apocalypse” and the character Bolivar Trask played by Peter Dinklage in “Days of Future Past”.
Still, we can probably go ahead and forget about “The Last Stand” anyway, since “Days of Future Past” seems to write it off — and “Apocalypse” makes director Brian Singer’s feelings about the third film pretty clear…
Has ‘Apocalypse’ messed up the first ‘X-Men’ movie? Yes and no
How movie characters should look according to the comics
It looks like 2016 is set to be the year that movies based on comic books really embrace costume accuracy. The amazingly accurate outfit featured in Deadpool set the standard, and both Black Panther and Spider-Man’s duds in Captain America: Civil War look fantastic. But as excited as these comic-accurate looks have fans feeling, there are lots of page-to-screen adaptations that are just wrong. Sometimes ignoring characters’ original designs is a pretty smart decision, while other times it’s hard not to be bummed about the changes filmmakers make for the sake of “realism.” Watch our video above to see some of the most off-kilter attempts to put super-suits on the big screen from the past, present, and future. And don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel for more sweet, sweet vids.
Wolverine
Back when Hugh Jackman first took the role of Wolverine in 2000’s X-Men, it was impressive enough that he managed to accurately capture the essence of everyone’s favorite clawed psychopath. It didn’t much matter that, at 6’2″, Jackman stands a full 11 inches taller than his diminutive comic book counterpart. But despite the fact that fans have loved the movie version of Wolverine for over a decade, he’s still never appeared on-screen in his comic-accurate costume. C’mon, can’t we even get the mask on his face? Just once?
Vibe
We can’t really blame the producers of the CW’s The Flash for not going so comic book accurate with this one. For one thing, Cisco Ramon, aka Vibe, is still discovering his powers on the show, and hasn’t gone out to fight crime as a full-on superhero. Moreover, until a recent redesign, Vibe’s comic book suit was pretty embarrassing, with its red handkerchief and V-neck collar that goes all the way down. Still, if the show keeps looking to score points for comic book accuracy, we have to point out that it’s missed this one—even when it makes the smart choice by actually avoiding said accuracy.
Hawkeye
This is another instance where the filmmakers behind Hawkeye’s big screen look made the right move—by moving away from the comics. Sure, Hawkeye’s all-purple archery suit looks cool on the page, it’d be hard not to make it look ridiculous at the movie theater.
Superman
Lots of Superman haters have pointed to his costume as something in need of “fixing.” With the yellow belt that holds nothing up, the red underpants on the outside, and the simple blue spandex, it’s definitely a simple outfit, and one that hasn’t changed much over the past century. But Christopher Reeve managed to make it look awesome in 1978’s Superman, and all three of the sequels. That was proof enough that Superman’s costume wasn’t actually broken at all. Yet, for some reason, Zack Snyder insisted on making Superman’s belt even weirder—and cover him in fish-scales?—for 2013’s Man of Steel. Bring the underpants back, man.
Deadpool
Much ink has been spilled about how badly X-Men Origins: Wolverine’s producers screwed up Deadpool: they take him out of his iconic costume, sew his mouth shut, and give him all the mutant powers they could stuff into one person. The good news, of course, is that it paved the way for 2016’s Deadpool, which has broken new ground for faithful comic book adaptations (and for creative use of a unicorn doll in an R-rated movie).
Punisher
While it’s not going to win any awards for being clever, the Punisher’s costume is pretty memorable for exactly one reason: it has a gigantic white skull on it. So when the Dolph Lundgren-starring Punisher movie came out in 1989, what’s the one thing the filmmakers decided to omit from the character’s look? The gigantic white skull.
Mystique
As we’ve discussed, the producers of 2000’s X-Men made some important choices to ensure that their team of mutants would look realistic on film. That meant cutting brightly-colored superhero costumes in favor of black leather. Whether or not that was a more believable costume choice is debatable. But there’s no question that director Bryan Singer’s move to change the look of Mystique is one of the more baffling adaptations in superhero movie history. For some reason, Singer insisted that the villain be covered in lizard scales and walk around naked all day long, despite there being no such corresponding look in the comics. Stranger still, the scales have stuck around from movie to movie and actress to actress, even though it looks truly bizarre and has no real reason to still be, like, a thing.
Read More: http://www.looper.com/11608/movie-characters-should-look-according-comics/?utm_campaign=clip
Vin Diesel Might As Well Just Come Right Out and Say He’s in Marvel’s ‘The Inhumans’
If you’ve murdered someone or have a treasure hidden somewhere, the last person you probably want to tell is Vin Diesel. The actor just can’t seem to keep many secrets to himself, especially when it comes to future projects that he may be doing at Marvel Studios.
For the past year, Diesel has been doing a little more than teasing that in addition to his voice role as Groot in Guardians of the Galaxy, he might have something to do with the forthcoming film The Inhumans. The project was recently rumored to be in danger of getting axed, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, especially if we continue to believe Diesel’s pretty obvious hints.
Speaking with io9, after revealing who will be directing xXx 3, Diesel said that there is still the opportunity to do something more with Marvel Studios. And while he didn’t mention a specific title or character name, he did seem to back up certain rumors about which character he might play:
I can totally be something [else] with Marvel. I think playing [Groot] only makes Marvel that much more excited and me having my experience with Marvel, seeing how great they were, makes me more excited.
We’ve heard a lot of talk about Marvel wanting to have me play a character that doesn’t have my voice. So my voice is used for Groot and my presence is used for the other character.
You may remember that we’ve heard rumblings that Diesel could be playing Black Bolt (aka Blackagar Boltagon), the leader of the Inhumans. Diesel hasn’t mentioned this character specifically, but his mention of using only his presence for this other character makes sense for Black Bolt. The character has a voice that unleashes immense destructive power when he speaks, making him a mostly silent leader of the pseudo-mutants.
However, at this point we’re unsure as to when The Inhumans will get off the ground. The film is still set for release on July 12th, 2019. But just as Marvel recently messed with the release dates for Black Panther and Captain Marvel while adding Ant-Man and The Wasp, the sequel to this past summer’s Phase Two title, there’s a chance The Inhumans could get delayed at some point. Whenever the project gets in front of cameras, though, seeing Vin Diesel in Inhumans seems like a forgone conclusion.
Again, the rumors that The Inhumans was going to be canceled due to a clash between the film and television side of Marvel Studios, specifically with regards to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., have been grossly exaggerated. There are actually some rules in place that leave certain elements of the Inhumans mythology off-limits to the TV series, so everything should work out in the end. Stay tuned for anymore updates.
Vin Diesel Might As Well Just Come Right Out and Say He’s in Marvel’s ‘The Inhumans’
What Marvel Got Right About Spider-Man That His Solo Movies Got Wrong Read More: What Marvel Got Right About Spider-Man (That His Solo Movies Got Wrong)
The following post contains minor spoilers for Captain America: Civil War.
Oh what a difference 18 months makes. A year ago last fall, Spider-Man fans were facing an entire universe of Spidey movies they didn’t particularly want: A third Amazing Spider-Man about the continuing and not-particularly-exciting adventures of Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker, plus spinoff movies for Venom and the Sinister Six. Things got so bad for Spider-Man that when ludicrous rumors began circulating that Sony was considering an Aunt May movie, the studio had to publicly dismiss that talk as “silly” with “no validity whatsoever” because after the Amazing Spider-Man 2 trainwreck, no idea, no matter how obviously terrible, seemed implausible.
A year and a half later, everything has changed. The Amazing franchise is dead and gone, the spinoffs are in limbo, and a revamped Spider-Man has emerged. Sony will continue to release his solo films (the first, Spider-Man: Homecoming, opens in theaters next summer) but this new hero, played by Tom Holland, is officially back in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, starting with a small but terrific role in this week’s Captain America: Civil War.
This new Spidey hasn’t had much screen time yet, but he’s got a real shot at being the greatest movie Spider-Man of all time. In some ways (like the seven below) he already is.
1. He’s looks (and acts!) like a teenager.
Tobey Maguire was 27 when Spider-Man hit theaters in 2002; Andrew Garfield was a few months shy of 30 in 2013 as The Amazing Spider-Man made its premiere. I know he’s called Spider-Man, but c’mon; that was ridiculous. Maguire and Garfield were and are great actors, but high school kids? Peter Parker’s supposed to be a science genius. Both Maguire and Garfield’s Peters look like they were left back. A lot.
As great as the previous iterations of Spider-Man were at times, both were afflicted with what could be called “Beverly Hills, 90210 disease” — an acute affliction of the facial area that make pop culture adolescents appear much more physically mature than they should. New Spider-Man Tom Holland is just 19, and he looks a decade younger than either of his predecessors. Even better, his Peter doesn’t act like a cool, calm, and collected superhero; he’s a dork with incredible powers. With his high and reedy voice Holland is the first movie Spidey who can pass for a legitimately awkward pubescent kid, nailing one of the most appealing (but least explored, at least onscreen) parts of the character.
2. No origin story.
Hey did you know that Spider-Man’s uncle was killed by a burglar and he could have stopped him but didn’t and on that day he learned that with great power comes great responsibility?
Yes of course you did because everyone in the universe knows this.
It’s one thing to retell the origin of Ant-Man or Doctor Strange, characters whose histories and backstories might not be that well known by the public at large (or which are getting tweaked slightly for the silver screen). It’s another thing to tell the origin of Spider-Man, one of the most iconic fictional characters of the last century. In 2016, after two different franchises with two different origins, there’s just no need for another spider bite and robbery gone wrong and tearful vow to avenge injustice.
Where so many comic book movies keep wasting time rehashing the same origin stories (*fakecoughBatmanvSupermanfakecough*), Captain America: Civil War tells you all you need to know about this new Spidey with a few simple lines and then gets down to what we really want to see, which is the new Web-Head in action. Speaking of which…
3. Better action.
Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man deserves a huge amount of credit for creating a visual language for the Friendly Neighborhood Wall-Crawler; translating the imagery of comics to the big screen in a way that has remained basically unchanged to this day. Still, for all his innovation, Raimi never quite delivered an unforgettable super-powered brawl. His Spidey’s best moments were always when he was swinging around Manhattan, dodging debris, and rescuing women as they fell from great heights, not so much going toe-to-toe with the bad guys.
Spider-Man’s role in Captain America: Civil War is a modest one, but this Spidey has already given us the coolest fight scene of the character’s movie career. Part of that is the context; Holland has the benefit of taking part in an enormous Avengers battle royal, giving him tons of different heroes to interact and fight with. That said, if directors Anthony and Joe Russo and their stunt and effects teams hadn’t found inventive ways to use Spider-Man’s powers, no one would care if he fought the entire contents of The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. The TV spot below gives you a tiny taste of this new Spider-Man in action, and leads us right into our next point.
4. He’s the funniest Spider-Man to date.
Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parkers were very different men, but they shared a similarly muted sense of humor. Maguire excelled at Peter’s melodramatic side; he was always most comfortable digging into the ups and downs of his love life and career, and the struggle to carry the full emotional burden of his decisions. But Maguire struggled with the character’s sillier side. His wisecracks and quips as Spidey — a staple of the hero’s comic-book adventures since his earliest days — often felt forced. His Spider-Man was weirdly silent an action; this battle with Doctor Octopus from Spider-Man 2 is about as jokey as he got, and he delivers just two mildly amusing lines during this four-minute fight.
Garfield had his own issues with the character’s wisecracks. When he tried it, he mostly came across like a smug jerk.
Garfield did fare a little better in Amazing Spider-Man 2. His one-liners during the opening bank heist and car chase were as close as cinematic Spidey came to the lighthearted joke machine of the comics — at least until Civil War’s Spider-Man, which is far and away the funniest screen Spidey to date, and the one to best use the character’s humor the way the comics do, as a defense mechanism a shy and nervous kid deploys to cope with his anxiety during overwhelming situations. Spider-Man doesn’t run his mouth because he’s cool or arrogant; he does it because he’s a scared 15-year-old in insane situations. Holland’s the first guy to capture that, and to find a way to make Spidey’s motormouth both annoying and endearing in equal measure.
5. The best Spider-Man costume to date.
Spider-Man’s costume has often been a strength of the various Sony franchises. Maguire’s uniform from the first Spider-Man (designed by James Acheson) was probably the best superhero costume to that time, and while the first Amazing Spider-Man’s red-and-blues were sort of a mess, the second film was probably the most realistic version of Spidey’s outfit in any of these movies.
Still, of all the Spider-Men onscreen in the last 15 years, Captain America: Civil War’s is the best dressed of the bunch. He’s also got the best explanation for a dweeby teenager winding up in a suave and high-tech one-piece jumpsuit (which I won’t spoil). Holland’s Spider-suit combines the best of Steve Ditko and John Romita’s Wall-Crawler with great 2016 design touches.
Best of all: Eyes that change sizes.
There’s a justification for those narrowing eyes in the film and that’s cool, but it’s ultimately more of a clever means to a crucial end: A Spider-Man who’s even more expressive in battle than ever before.
6. A new and different Aunt May.
There will always be a special place in my heart for Rosemary Harris, who was perfect as the maternal Aunt May in Sam Raimi’s movies. It would be tough to improve on her version of the character, so why try? Better to do something new and different with May Parker.
Sally Field could have done that, but by her own admission she didn’t enjoy playing the part and didn’t put a great deal of thought into her performance. Instead, it’s Marisa Tomei who got to reinvigorate the role of Aunt May. Rather than the frail, overly protective, and naive woman who’s been typical of Aunt May for half a century, Tomei’s May is young, hip, and energetic. The fact that Tony Stark couldn’t stop hitting on her in their brief scene together suggests all kinds of potential for dramatic tension between this May and Peter. Tomei’s presence provides something that’s all-too-rare in superhero movies: A sense of unpredictability.
7. He’s a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Last but certainly not least, Marvel’s is the superior Spider-Man because he’s finally back where he belongs, shoulder to shoulder with the other giants of the MCU. Spider-Man is a rich enough character to carry a movie on his own, and he’s fine in a vacuum, but he’s even better in a group setting because his inexperience and youth play well off older, more mature heroes who can play straight men to his nonstop barrage of punchlines.
Sony spent most of Amazing Spider-Man 2 trying to cobble together a cinematic universe for the character to live in, when a perfectly good one — the one where Spidey always belonged — already existed. This really is a perfect homecoming. Here’s hoping this new and improved Spider-Man sticks around for a good long while.