Marvel

News, Reviews & Features

More Sony franchises that need Iron Man to rescue them

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 11th July 2017

Critics can't fawn over Spider-Man: Homecoming enough: hooray for a competent Spider-Man movie! There's no doubt that Marvel have to take some of the credit for Homecoming's success - Kevin Feige was parachuted into Sony HQ to save the franchise, and he did so by basically letting them have a go on Iron Man for a bit. Is it really that simple? Does adding Iron Man always improve a franchise? Sony aren't waiting around to find out: they've already green-lit the following new sequels to their existing franchises. Now to contact Robert Downey Jr and assume he's available!

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An oral history of superhero actors complaining about going to the toilet

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 6th July 2017

There's a strange, unspoken relationship between a journalist and a film star that absolutely nothing personal must be discussed during an interview. Except, that is, when that film star is playing a superhero, in which case it's absolutely on message to ask them exactly how they pissed and/or shat while wearing their super-suit. The weirdest thing is just how willing the actors are to share.

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Spider-Man: Homecoming

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 30th June 2017

Following his glorified cameo in Captain America: Civil War, everyone has been wondering exactly how how Marvel will reboot the character in his own solo outing. No one wants to see another bitey radioactive spider, but how do you tell an origin story without actually telling the origin story? Is he definitely part of the ongoing Marvel timeline forever more? Can he suddenly slot into the meticulously planned MCU? Basically, is the title correct? Is Spider-Man really coming home?

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Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2

Movie Review | Matt Looker | 1st May 2017

While fans continue to squabble over the correct, surely-soon-to-be-official 'Ultimate Ranking of MCU films' (nearly there, guys! Seriously, you're doing great work), it's easy to overlook the fact that, at this stage, the Marvel movie-making model looks unlikely to ever produce a truly bad film. Sure, there have been Dark Elvish messes and Mickey Rourke-sized hiccups, but Marvel really has its mathematically-safe, formulaic shit together now and, as a result, always delivers an agreeable level of fun and action albeit without taking any real risks. That is, except for Guardians Of The Galaxy, the only property in the Universe that still feels like a gamble, sitting apart from the homogenised Avenger adventures to follow its own completely different set of rules. Which is why it's a shame that this sequel follows them too.

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Doctor Strange

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 3rd November 2016

Considering the X-Men movies can't even stay consistent one movie to the next, it's a minor miracle the Marvel Cinematic Universe remains a cohesive whole, 8 years and 14 movies after Nick Fury first asked Tony Stark to join his professional LinkedIn network. We've had men of technology, beasts of rage, Gods from other realms and soldiers forged in war, all now reading from the same script. The latest recruit to the MCU is Doctor Strange, who heralds the arrival of the world of magic, but - like Arrested Development's Gob Bluth and his Alliance of Magicians - demands to be taken seriously. Disbelief is being suspended at a comfortable level by now: if you're cool with purple space tyrants and talking raccoons, chances are the addition of sorcerers, supreme or otherwise, isn't going to upset the apple cart.

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X-Men: Apocalypse

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 19th May 2016

Forgive me for sounding like I'm on the company payroll, but have Marvel movies ruined superhero movies for everyone else? I fear they have. The Marvel Cinematic Universe made its own space in the superhero sphere; it owns the area marked 'fun'. DC, as a countermeasure to all the lousy fun everyone was enjoying, staked their claim on the 'serious' space; heroes with grim faces carved out of rock, pre-tantrum lip-wobble expressions lashed with rain. Where does this leave the X-Men? I'm sure I don't know anymore, because X-Men: Apocalypse attempts to be all things to all people and ends up being neither overtly fun or remotely serious, just entirely ridiculous. It feels like a superhero movie back from when no one really knew what that was supposed to mean, or, as a friend of mine put it so perfectly: "It's like a shit superhero movie from the nineties".

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Captain America: Civil War

Movie Review | Ali Gray | 5th May 2016

"So what is Vision?" I'm at the pub, still digesting Captain America: Civil War, and I've been caught off guard. "Well, he's... um...he's a, er... so Thor had this sort of bath, then Ultron, erm... You know the Mind Gem, th-..." Christ, I'm racking my brains and his first movie only came out a year ago. Marvel movies move pretty fast; if you don't re-watch regularly, or God forbid miss a movie, your pub trivia game will suffer. (My best guess: Vision is a space ghost fruit roll-up robot butler dressed by George at Asda). Civil War is the 13th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and if you haven't been paying attention over the last eight years, you're going to find it really, really hard to keep up. The MCU doesn't slow down, doesn't pull its punches and doesn't really do 'Previously, on the Marvel Cinematic Universe..." It has unapologetically and unreservedly been constructed from the ground up for fans - and those fans are going to go bend-over-backwards apeshit crazy for Civil War, arguably the movie that the previous 12 have all been working towards.

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Man who saw Civil War to share definitive MCU rankings

Movie Feature | Matt Looker | 3rd May 2016

"Just seen Captain America: Civil War. Need to revise my MCU rankings!!" a man promised his legions of Facebook friends this weekend and now the Internet has halted to a standstill awaiting what will surely be the definitive list of Marvel Cinematic Universe films, ordered by quality.

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PLACEHOLDER: 5-star Civil War review [pending Marvel payment] ***DO NOT PUBLISH***

Movie Feature | Ali Gray | 18th April 2016

Hi guys, just to let you know, the marketing arm of Marvel have been in contact with me as they have with all of the UK press to offer The Shiznit payment for giving Captain America: Civil War a positive review. I'm sure you remember that they already paid us the first £5,000 for giving Batman V Superman a negative review, but they've confirmed that the rest of the bribe will be delivered upon publication of our Civil War review, which I'm seeing tomorrow. Not that it matters.

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Finding five nerd rage moments in the new Civil War trailer

Movie Feature | Matt Looker | 11th March 2016

Marvel have released a new trailer for Captain America: Civil War and it showcases thrilling action, real investment in emotional plot beats and an awesome first look at our brand new Spider-Man. The problem is, it has been met with overwhelming excitement and positivity. Don't they know that the Internet wasn't built to sustain such a thing?

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