‘Spider-Man: Far From Home’ Refuses to Reckon With the Past Failures of the Marvel Cinematic Universe Posted on Tuesday, July 9th, 2019 by Siddhant Adlakha (Welcome to Road to Endgame, where we revisit the movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and ask, “How did we get here?” In this epilogue, we explore how Spider-Man: Far From Home continues the MCU following the events of Endgame.) This post contains major spoilers for Spider-Man: Far From Home. In the first few breezy minutes of Marvel’s latest entry, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) and his classmates deal, at least nominally, with the effects of “The Blip” — a more palatable term than “The Decimation” — which saw half the world return from dust after a five-year interval. As luck would have it, the main cast from Spider-Man: Homecoming remains largely intact, since they were all wiped away. Now joined by new addition Brad (Remy Hii), a teenage hunk who was only a skinny tween when Parker last saw him, the kids all take a trip to Europe and mayhem ensues. Though besides Brad’s presence, only a brief mention of Queens’ homelessness problem and a tongue-in-cheek ‘In Memoriam’ slideshow make Spider-Man: Far From Home feel like it exists in the aftermath of an apocalyptic time-slip. The trauma of dying during “The Blip” was handwaved in Avengers: Endgame — Parker, upon his resurrection, assumes he “must have passed out” — and why harp on the macabre here, in a teen comedy, anyway? Although, while Far From Home takes a wry approach to global catastrophe, it also rightly condenses the associated grief by grounding it in a single relationship: that of Peter Parker and his Uncle Ben in this series, the late Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). Though in making Stark a centerpiece once more, the Marvel series arrives at a vital crossroads: how will these films memorialize their own legacy? Read More »

Road to Endgame: ‘Avengers: Endgame’ is a Bold New Beginning (and Look Back) for the Marvel Cinematic Universe Posted on Thursday, May 2nd, 2019 by Siddhant Adlakha (Welcome to Road to Endgame, where we revisit the first 22 movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and ask, “How did we get here?” In part 1 of our look at Avengers: Endgame: how the film sets up its breathtaking finale.) It’s never too late for course-correction. As Marvel has steamrolled its way through popular culture, its failings seem to matter less and less. For every middling entry like Thor: The Dark World, there’s a riotous follow-up like Thor: Ragnarok, which lampshades its series’ tropes, remixes its themes and kills-off existing characters it doesn’t know what to do with, effectively removing the former from canon. To borrow the parlance of sister-franchise Star Wars, “Let the past die. Kill it if you have to.” Though, what Star Wars: The Last Jedi understood about this approach (spoken and acted upon by the villain Kylo Ren) was, ironically, something Ragnarok understood as well, despite sweeping its predecessor under the rug: that failure undealt with can come back to haunt you, and that real growth and catharsis means learning from the past before moving on. Spoilers for Avengers: Endgame begin here. Read More »

Road to Endgame: ‘Black Panther’ is Afrofuturist Fantasy That Reveals the Best and Worst of America Posted on Wednesday, April 17th, 2019 by Siddhant Adlakha (Welcome to Road to Endgame, where we revisit the first 22 movies of the Marvel Cinematic Universe and ask, “How did we get here?” In this edition: Black Panther, a Marvel film that finally tries to be honest about American politics) Black Panther is a sprawling superhero epic, the likes of which American cinema has never seen — or heard, for that matter, given the prominence of its African accents, treated anywhere from average to heroic; a far cry from the usual villainous or derisive framing of non-western voices in Hollywood. The film is one of the most important pieces of the Marvel puzzle, not necessarily in terms of long-term narrative (it’s relatively isolated from its 17 predecessors) but rather, as a potentially landscape-shifting benchmark for mainstream filmmaking. It was also the first superhero movie nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. It’s hard to measure the full scope of film’s legacy just a year after its release. However, it’s safe to say that no American film since Marvel’s own The Avengers has had this seismic an impact. Black Panther flew past all critical and financial expectations, shattering the long-held Hollywood myth that Black stars couldn’t open films internationally. It also completed Marvel Studios’ third act turn of stepping outside the norms of Western storytelling — as seen in Doctor Strange, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 and Thor: Ragnarok — albeit more substantially. Though, like several other Marvel films, its framing of American power is occasionally questionable. Black Panther is pop filmmaking at its finest, but its success is owed, in large part, to the creative lens through which it’s told. Read More »