Right up front, let me inform you that I am not part of the sprawling fandom devoted to the card, tabletop and digital Magic: The Gathering games. For those of you who are, you will be pleased to know that the upcoming Netflix adaptation of the games will be directed by devout fans – none other than Joe and Anthony Russo. Maybe their names aren’t familiar to you? They’ve directed a couple of films – Captain America: WinterSoldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame. Nothing too big.
Turns out the Russo Brothers aren’t just Marvel fans, though: apparently, they’ve been playing the game for “as long as it has been around” – in other words, since 1993. And since pretty much anything that the Russos touch turns to pure cinematic gold – and box-office gold, too – that’s enough to pique my interest in this show. The adaptation will be an animated series, and will be produced in collaboration with game-makers Wizards of the Coast and Hasbro. Never having played the game in question, I really can’t say for certain what I expect to see in the series (um, magic, I’m guessing?), but I bet it’s a pretty great game, if it comes from Wizards of the Coast – who also created one of my own personal favorite tabletop games, Axis & Allies.
If the idea of “animation” conjures up disturbing visions of two-dimensional cartoons, rest assured that the show will combine cutting-edge animation techniques with multi-genre storytelling including suspense, horror and drama. Sounds pretty good, right? The drawbacks, of course, are obvious: Magic: The Gathering is a game, and game adaptations aren’t exactly notable for being faithful to the source-material, or even very entertaining on their own merits. And this one is more convoluted and complex than most: there’s a huge cast of characters (sorry, “Planeswalkers”) involved in the Magic: The Gathering game franchise, and an inordinately large number of fantasy worlds and dimensions to bring to the screen. But if anybody can do this, it’s the Russo Brothers, who were able to satisfy both long-time Marvel comic fans as well as general audiences during their four-film tenure in the MCU – and, as previously noted, they’ve raked in a lot of cash with just those four films.
Avengers: Endgame is still in theaters if you want to get a taste of what a Magic: The Gathering adaptation might look like in the Russo Brothers’ hands.
The Avengers: Endgame spoiler ban imposed by directors Joe and Anthony Russo lifted today with this trailer for the next installment in the Spider-man franchise, but it’s your choice whether you want to read on. Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame lie ahead!
You’ve been warned.
Spider-man: Far From Home looks like it will pick up right where Endgame left off, with Peter Parker returning to school and trying to rebuild his life after having been snapped out of existence for five years. Needless to say, it won’t be easy. The new Far From Home trailer unveils some huge new concepts that are clearly to impact Phase 4 of the MCU – just as the first Avengers movie introduced us to Thanos and Infinity Stones, Spider-man is paving the way for a Marvel Multiverse.
In other words, anything can happen, from this point on. The Multiverse is a mind-boggling concept that, in hindsight, seems to have been set up in Endgame: there, in order to defeat Thanos, the Avengers were forced to travel back in time and open up branch-realities – realities in which Loki escaped with the Tesseract during the Battle of New York, or Gamora never met the Guardians of the Galaxy, for instance. At the end of Endgame, Captain America was sent back in time to shut down these alternate realities and prevent them from impacting our timeline – but it seems he might have missed a few.
Something big is happening in Far From Home. Elemental demons, seemingly a product of all this reality-bending, time-traveling stuff, are attacking the earth, coming through a “hole in our dimension” as Nick Fury calls it – and the only thing that stands in their way is Spider-man, who will now probably have to do some reality-bending of his own to stop them. The Multiverse has apparently been opened, which means we could see all sorts of weird things from now on: alternate versions of characters, for instance. I doubt that Spidey will be able to stop this, and I also doubt he’ll want to. Throughout the trailer, we see him mourning the death of his mentor and father-figure, Tony Stark (told you this contained spoilers). The Multiverse could easily bring back Tony, or an alternate version of Tony: in fact, the Multiverse makes any number of things possible. That Black Widow movie that’s coming up, even though Black Widow is currently dead? Well, maybe this is alternate Black Widow. The Scarlet Witch streaming show that will be set in the 1950’s, before Scarlet Witch was born? Time travel shenanigans and pocket-dimensions could explain that too.
The Multiverse can make pretty much anything – and everything – a reality. The MCU just got a whole lot bigger, and a whole lot more complicated.
So let’s bring our focus back down to earth: obviously, this trailer is going to be talked about in the coming days and weeks for the Multiverse reveal, but there’s a lot of other stuff happening here that’s also worth mentioning. Nick Fury and Maria Hill are back, as we expected, and Fury has recruited Peter Parker for this mission because apparently every other superhero is currently occupied (that seems…implausible, to say the least, but we’ll roll with it). Another big surprise is seeing Jake Gyllenhaal’s character Mysterio working for Fury – in fact, he seems to be the head of this operation to shut down the Multiverse: which seems a little dangerous, since Mysterio is a Spider-man villain in the comics.
Peter himself is still cheerful and innocent, and seems a little nervous about going into the Multiverse, following in the footsteps of Miles Morales in last year’s animated (and completely unrelated) Spider-man: Into The Spider-Verse. He wears a variety of cool new outfits, but he is obviously still adjusting to his new role as one of Earth’s mightiest heroes – he stills thinks of himself as the friendly neighborhood Spider-man. He has some romantic tension with MJ, but he’s being removed from his friends, pulled away from them by his duties even as he tries to enjoy a European vacation.
The real star here is clearly supposed to be Mysterio, who is shown wearing his iconic fish-bowl helmet and using magic. But there’s another character whose absence is already like a gaping hole in the dimension, and that’s Tony Stark. There’s graffiti of him on walls, and shrines dedicated to him in street-corners: while bringing Tony back might be cheating, it’s at least a possibility now with the introduction of the Multiverse.
My most-anticipated movie of 2019 is just around the corner – literally, it comes out next week. I feel, therefore, that now is the time to make some predictions before we enter the endgame. Specifically about the very type of prediction that no one wants to talk discuss: namely – who’s gonna bite the dust?
Cheerful! Let’s get into it, shall we?
Tony Stark (Iron Man): High Chance of Death. Tony started this entire ten-year journey, and it would be fitting if Tony ended it by going out in an act of sacrifice, to prevent the horrible premonition he had in Avengers: Age of Ultron, the one where he saw all his friends lying dead around him, victims to some horrific massacre. Since The Avengers, Tony has known that it will be his fate to go up against an enemy of cosmic proportions, and that enemy has been revealed to be Thanos. Their first fight, in Avengers: Infinity Wars, didn’t go so well for Tony, and it kind of resulted in him being lost in space with no food, slowly running out of oxygen. Assuming he survives that, we’ll see him return in Endgame with new purpose and determination. However, it’s also worth noting that if Tony didn’t die, he could get married to Pepper (something that’s also been foreshadowed), and retire from the spotlight, passing on the torch to a new generation of Marvel heroes without having to die.
Steve Rogers (Captain America): High Chance of Death. The thing about Steve is that he’s basically been warning us since Captain America: The First Avenger that he is prepared to give his own life to save those he loves. And he’s made no secret of the fact that he wishes he could be with Peggy Carter, who died in Captain America: Civil War. Another possibility is that he might go back in time to the 1940s and live out the rest of his life then, though that would massively damage the existing timeline. It’s more likely he dies to bring back all those who were dusted in Infinity Wars, and there are already hints of that: his sidekicks, Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson, will be getting their own Disney Plus streaming show soon, and actor Chris Evans has said multiple times now that he wants to move on from the MCU.
Nebula: Dead. No doubt about it, the murderous blue android will not make it out of the endgame alive. She will also, I believe, be the one to kill Thanos. Her entire character arc has been leading up to this confrontation (though, as with Tony, the first time around didn’t go so well), and she desperately wants to murder her genocide-obsessed father: you know, after he pitted her in cage-fights against her own sister, and replaced her body-parts with metal every time she lost. There has to be a reason she’s still here, and more notable Guardians of the Galaxy like Star-Lord or Drax are not. She’s going to kill Thanos, and she will die in so doing.
James Rhodes (War Machine): Dead. I don’t see Rhodey having much of a purpose in Phase 4 of the MCU, and I assume there’s a good reason they left him alive in Infinity Wars, so he could die in Endgame, valiantly. Hopefully he goes down in an appropriately epic way.
Bruce Banner (Hulk): Moderate Chance of Death. I think this one is a definite possibility. Bruce is a sweet, innocent guy who really doesn’t stand a chance against the Mad Titan if he can’t transform into Hulk. I’m expecting Endgame to deliver quite a few surprises, but I don’t think all of them will necessarily be good: if Thanos kills Bruce before the mild-mannered scientist can turn into Hulk, that will enrage us all – we’ll want Thanos to die. And the thing is: Bruce doesn’t have to be fully dead. We know Professor Hulk could be happening in Endgame: that being the combination of Bruce Banner and Hulk into one creature, a hybrid of Bruce’s intellect and personality with the Hulk’s body. What better way to make this happen then to have Bruce’s body be killed, but his mind is transferred into the Hulk as he dies? I’m sure they could find some pseudo-scientific cause for that. Besides, Professor Hulk will allow Mark Ruffalo to stay in the role as a voice-actor, so it’s not like we’d be losing him entirely.
Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow): Moderate Chance of Death. We know already that a Black Widow solo movie is in the works, so it shouldn’t seem likely that the rogue KGB agent will be meeting an untimely fate in Endgame, but it is worth noting that the Black Widow solo movie is rumored to be a prequel. What if Black Widow explores Nat’s past after she’s dead, as some sort of nostalgia trip for the audience? That would be weird. I’m not discounting the possibility that Black Widow will use Nat’s death in Endgame as some sort of framing device, but I’m gonna bet that she survives.
Clint Barton (Hawkeye): Low Chance of Death. I really should put him higher up on the list, but I don’t honestly think he will die, despite all the hints in the trailers that he’s some sort of bitter vigilante going up against Thanos to avenge his family (who, let’s face it, are almost definitely dusted). And the very reason I don’t think he’ll die is just that: his family. It would be way too cruel if his family were to come back to life only to find that Clint had died. Besides, the rumor is that he’s also getting a Disney Plus show, where he’ll be training the next Hawkeye, Kate Bishop – I think he’s safe.
Carol Danvers (Captain Marvel): Alive. She’s not gonna die. She just got her first solo film and it turned out to be a billion-dollar success…hmm, wait, why does that sound familiar? Oh yeah, that’s what we said about Black Panther before Infinity Wars, and look what happened to him. But, frankly, I don’t see the same fate awaiting Captain Marvel: she will have to come out of Endgame looking like the face of the MCU moving forward. Carol, in my opinion, will also stick around on earth for a while after Endgame, so we have a chance to get more accustomed to her.
Rocket Raccoon: Alive. Somebody’s got to stick around for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, am I right? At the moment, Rocket doesn’t even seem to have much of a purpose for still being alive, so I can’t really see a purpose for killing him.
Scott Lang (Ant-Man): Alive. He’ll live. He may not be getting a third solo film (or, at least, one hasn’t been announced), but he’ll live. He appears to be crucial to the Avengers’ entire plan, since the Quantum Realm, where he’s been trapped since Ant-Man and The Wasp, looks to be a major part of the story. I actually just rewatched that very film, and I must admit that I would be down for another Ant-Man film, if only for the incredibly fun action-sequences. So I hope he lives.
There are my predictions for who will die in Avengers: Endgame. Write your own thoughts in the comments: do you agree with my ratings?
After all the negativity, the backlash and controversy surrounding this film – and lead actress Brie Larson – it is something of a triumph to see how marvelous this film actually is. Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck have created something very, very special. Not only does it equal the cinematic masterpiece that is Wonder Woman, but in some places it even manages to surpass it. It is a better origin film than any other in the MCU thus far, including Black Panther. Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers is one of the most likable protagonists to come from Marvel – it’s not just her wit and sass that make her so much fun to watch: it’s seeing how she was before the event that changed her life, and seeing her try to rebuild the relationships she had with friends and loved ones on Earth. There is something bittersweet about the movie, something very sad about every scene where Carol reminisces on her past life, or has a sudden memory of something she cannot fully understand. Seeing her struggling with this trauma is moving, and is one of the finest aspects of the film.
Of course, it is made so only by the fact that Brie Larson is an incredible actress, and even when she is an amnesiac on the planet Hala she still manages to take very difficult material and run with it – fly with it, in fact. When the film opens, she is a soldier living on Hala, the homeworld of an alien race of “noble warrior heroes” – the Kree. But she has memories of something else, a different world, a different life: it’s a classic storyline, but there are so many interesting and unique elements, so many unexpected twists, that it feels fresh and exciting: and poignant – and also, it has Brie Larson, and she carries the whole story with ease. She has moments of intense drama and laugh-out-loud humor, and she blends the two in a way that no other Marvel hero has done with such skill. She is, without a doubt, the definitive reason to go see this film: I, for instance, went into the movie as a Thor fanboy – but when I left, Carol Danvers was my favorite Marvel superhero, and one of the best heroines ever brought to the big screen.
The aforementioned storyline of Carol Danvers, however, is the second reason to see the film – if you like a story that is twisty, complex, and as deeply layered as Captain America: Winter Soldier, or Captain America: Civil War. Admittedly, when the film begins it is hard to follow. There are dream sequences and vague hints, and things that happen very fast and very chaotically – but even Carol doesn’t know what’s going on, which is both a help and a hindrance: on the one hand, it gives us the opportunity to relate to Carol as we see things through her eyes and learn with her, but on the other hand…her confusion rubs off a bit on the audience, leaving us a bit perplexed in the first fifteen to twenty minutes. But then, just as we are wondering what is going on, clues start falling in place, things happen that set off a chain reaction of other things happening, and we suddenly realize that things are not as they seem. The major problem, I think, with the flashbacks that are used frequently in the movie is that, while some of them are relevant, there are others that are not – though they appear to be – and they are interspersed with the relevant flashbacks in a way that can be confusing. Thankfully, this problem goes away early on in the film, and after that it’s smooth flying – well, aside from one spot of space turbulence.
gizmodo.co.uk
The space aspect, actually, is one of the most interesting things in the film: we are brought to a total of three different worlds in the film – the Kree homeworld of Hala, the Kree border-world of Torfa, and Earth. Hala is the most interesting of the three worlds – since Torfa is mostly irrelevant. Hala is a fantastic place, brilliantly lit, and is inhabited by a race of blue alien warriors – or rather, mostly blue warriors: Jude Law’s character is, for some reason, not blue. This race, the Kree, are for the most part background characters: Jude Law portrays the Commander of Starforce, a team that consists of “Vers” (Brie Larson), Minn-Erva (Gemma Chan), Korath (Djimon Hounsou), Att-Lass (Algenis Perez Soto), and Bron-Char (Rune Temte). Aside from Law and Larson, the rest get very little screentime – though not as little as Lee Pace’s Ronan the Accuser, a character that will no doubt be familiar to fans of Guardians of the Galaxy.
Besides Ronan, there are many other tie-ins to various Marvel movies – and the most notable is the appearance of Nick Fury, once again portrayed by the great Samuel L. Jackson (though here, Fury is much younger and more naive, and has both of his eyes: his apparent youth is achieved by incredible de-aging techniques that are so seamless you will actually believe you’ve been transported back in time to 1995, which is when this movie takes place). S.H.I.E.L.D agent Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) also shows up – also de-aged – though very briefly. There are some terrific nods to the first Avengers, one of which will make fans gasp in surprise, and one of which will fill in some blanks. The mid-credits scene is also…shocking.
Speaking of shocks, there are twists in this movie, twists that you will never see coming. And obviously, because this review is Spoiler-Free, we will leave it at that.
However, I can say this: the film takes place during the war between the Kree and their mortal enemies, the shape-shifting Skrulls – and Ben Mendelsohn portrays the leader of the Skrulls, Talos. I went in expecting a two-dimensional villain: I was very surprised at how much depth this villain had, though, so much so that by the end of the film he was one of my favorite characters. I can’t say any more, but there’s a lot to say about Talos.
No review of this film would be complete without mentioning three stand-out performances: Lashana Lynch, who plays USAF pilot Maria Rambeau, Annette Bening, who plays…well, somebody whose name should not be revealed in the Spoiler-Free review, and Goose the Cat. Lynch is incredible, and the first scene that she appears is one that left me in tears: the sheer force and range of her acting was extraordinary, and entirely unexpected. As for Bening – well, she is surprising. That’s all I’ll say about her. She has one very interesting action sequence, though, that had me at the edge of my seat. And Goose? He’s adorable, and is a great mascot for the film, just like Groot is for Guardians of the Galaxy.
What about the action – and especially, the third act battle? Third act battles have become synonymous with “meh” in comic book movies, with even great ones like Black Panther and Wonder Woman failing to stick the landing. So how does this one hold up?
syfy.com
Very well, almost perfectly. There are only two fights in the film that are somewhat flat – a fight on Torfa, which actually does get more interesting after a minute, and the fight sequence on the subway train that we’ve seen in basically every trailer for the movie: more interesting to me was the car chase that was happening at the same time as the train fight – and there was one particularly shocking moment in the sequence that does elevate the stakes a lot. As for the third act battle: perfect. The crown jewel of the film, in fact. Again, it’s too spoilery to say much about, but it has a lot of layers, and all of them are very well-done: and there is one very special moment that seems to tease something that I really hope we get in a future Captain Marvel movie.
So to sum it all up: don’t miss out on Captain Marvel. You need to see her to believe her, really – her powers are incredible, and she could very well become your new favorite Marvel superhero. The movie has a great cast, great acting, a great storyline, and sets up neatly for Phase 4 of the MCU. Also, there is a very touching tribute to the late Stan Lee, that will have you in tears before the movie even begins. This movie is a great tribute to the power of women, and to the power of all individuals to choose for themselves who they want to be.
