Flavours of the Month: December 2016...

Next-Gen gaming, high definition bustin', keyboard tappity-tapping, Fight Club 2, and all things festive: some of what's been setting the tone of my December 2016...

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Captain America: Civil War - Marvel Goes DC?

What's it about?
Following on from the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, and Avengers: Age of Ultron, our gang of superheroes find themselves set against each other as 117 countries propose The Sokovia Accords to bring The Avengers under United Nations control as a result of civilian deaths and collateral damage in recent battles. Iron Man, riven with guilt, wants to sign up ... Captain America, suspicious of organised oversight in the wake of Hydra's infiltration of S.H.I.E.L.D., wants to remain free to protect and serve. Which side will the rest of them choose?
Who would I recognise in it?
Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr, Scarlett Johansson, Sebastian Stan, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Jeremy Renner, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Daniel Bruhl, Paul Rudd, Emily Vancamp, Tom Holland, Frank Grillo, William Hurt, and more.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been hugely successful with critics and audiences alike, coining in the cash with gleeful abandon. They're bright, sparky, immensely fun, and the ever-widening world in which they take place is ripe with stories to tell. However, for all their successes, the Marvel movies have sometimes hewn close to pantomime villains and playing it safe with key characters. The third Captain America film, though, takes the moral greys and millennial murkiness of The Winter Soldier to new depths...

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Flavours of the Month: August 2016...

West Country slackers, brooding heroes, a coven of witches, and a Gonzo journalist - just some of what has been setting the tone of my August 2016...

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Suicide Squad (David Ayer, 2016) - a level-headed review...

What's it about?
Following on from the events of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice, the government approves a plan to weaponise a rogues gallery of villains and meta-humans to provide a counterstrike to powerful potential enemies. Kept in-line by explosive implants injected into their necks, the ragtag bunch of bad guys take on the badder bad guys in David Ayer's (Fury, End of Watch) riposte to Guardians of the Galaxy and Marvel's propensity for goody-two-shoes.
Who would I recognise in it?
Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Jared Leto, Joel Kinnaman, Ben Affleck, Cara Delevingne, Jai Coutney, Jay Hernandez, Viola Davis, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ike Barinholtz, Scott Eastwood, and more.

Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Let's get something dealt with right off the bat, shall we? The backlash from professional critics (a loose term, so it seems, from a scan of Rotten Tomatoes) has been negative to the nth degree. Overblown would be one way to put it, asinine would be another, desperate for clicks and web traffic and attention would be yet another. Frankly, the whole charade - started with the film crit armageddon that faced Batman V Superman - draws film criticism into disrepute. Each snarky thumbs down seems to be trying to say something more preposterously over-the-top than what came before, rather than tackling the film in a fair and sensible manner. Some of the sheer and unbridled hatred that has been levelled at Suicide Squad is nothing short of downright silly, and completely clouds legitimate critiques (observations that might prove useful to Warner Bros, David Ayer, et al in the future) and makes the whole thing look like an utter farce...

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