Leith Skilling - Critic & Reviewer

August 24, 2021

“Spider-Man: No Way Home” 1st Trailer Review!

Considered by many the Holy Grail of long-awaited movie trailers, the first official teaser for Spider-Man: No Way Home finally dropped last night after several tiresome months of pleading from fans; and much like the Holy Grail itself (at least if Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade is to be believed), it’s maybe not the flashiest thing in the world. Not, in my opinion, deserving of all the drama that surrounded its release and its premature leak. But at this point, I honestly don’t think the content of the trailer mattered that much. This thing was going to be big no matter what, simply because of the hype that had been built up around it, and the potency of name recognition.

Now, as sacrilegious as it may be to write these words, Spider-Man: No Way Home is not one of my most-anticipated MCU movies; not even close. I’m excited for all the Multiverse stuff because that’s more my groove, but it’s the thought of everything in between involving the unrealized potential of Tom Holland’s Peter Parker that gives me pause. I’m happy for everyone who’s happy to see that version of the character again; I’m just more intrigued by the ~~possibility~~ certainty of Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield appearing as Variants of Peter Parker pulled from their own universes into the MCU timeline.

And this trailer gives me just enough of what I needed to hold my interest in No Way Home – Multiverse shenanigans involving all our favorite past iterations of iconic Spider-Man characters who have somehow never been reinvented for the MCU. Alfred Molina returns as the 2004 version of Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2, looking just as fabulous as always even though his mechanical tentacles are very obviously all CGI this time around, and we don’t really get a clear shot of them. We can hear Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin laugh for the first time since 2002’s Spider-Man, and he’s even still using his original pumpkin-bombs. There’s hints to Jamie Foxx’s Electro, Sandman, and a blurry shape that is possibly Lizard.

That’s a pretty awesome team of super-villains right there, just one member short of a true Sinister Six line-up. For Tom Holland’s sake, I hope one of his own villains completes the team; preferably Mysterio. It would be kind of awkward if in two whole solo movies he didn’t have a single villain worthy of making the cut. But that could be attributable to the fact that the MCU uses Spider-Man mostly for crossover events, and doesn’t put nearly as much effort into fleshing out his own corner of the universe. Even his solo movies have become crossover events, and Spider-Man: No Way Home is going to be the biggest one yet.

And unfortunately, Peter Parker had to go and rope Doctor Strange into his mess. The danger of crossover events is that directors and writers get to take a stab at characters they don’t usually direct or write, and it leads to…very weird inconsistencies. Like Doctor Strange apparently risking the stability of the cosmos for the sake of a teenager whom he vowed he would kill if it meant ensuring the stability of said cosmos just a few months before this film is set. And I genuinely cannot believe the number of people I’ve seen defend this plot point adamantly, claiming that it makes sense because Doctor Strange…texted while driving in his first movie. It’s funny, because I seem to remember that moment being the impetus for a whole lot of character development that pushed him to become the antithesis of everything he had been, but I guess that can all be ignored now?

On the flip-side, you can just have fun and make wild theories about how this Doctor Strange is possibly a Skrull shapeshifter, or Mysterio disguised by one of his illusions, or the evil Doctor Strange Variant whom we’re about to meet in What If…?, or even Mephisto (who at this point has become so widely-known, even among general audiences, that I think Marvel has to use him somewhere down the line). That’s what I plan on doing, because the thought of Doctor Strange actually having his entire personality rewritten to suit the plot of a Spider-Man movie is disheartening.

But I wouldn’t put it past Jon Watts to do that. His weak direction and lack of vision is consistently a major problem with the MCU’s Spider-Man franchise, and that’s what terrifies me about the future of the Fantastic Four under his guidance. I really liked Spider-Man: Far From Home when it came out, and I’m sure that somewhere on this blog you can still find a review where my younger self rambled on for hours about how it was the best MCU movie of all time, but…my thoughts on that film have changed somewhat in the intervening two years. I still think Tom Holland is very well-cast, but the writing he’s burdened with does him no favors.

And all that being said, I’m still excited to see him share the screen with Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, because he’s still Spider-Man. The thing about the Spider-Man brand is that no matter how many iterations of the character there may be (and there have been a lot), the iconic image of the webslinger is already too firmly etched into the public consciousness to be disrupted by even the worst film adaptation. We all have our own version of Spider-Man that comes closest to matching that timeless ideal – for me, it’s probably the version who cameoed randomly in old episodes of The Electric Company – and that’s a wonderful thing. So celebrate it, and enjoy the trailer.

Seriously, it’s got Doc Ock. If nothing else, celebrate that.

Trailer Rating: 7.5/10

August 23, 2021

“Nightmare Of The Wolf” Is A Dazzling 1st Witcher Spin-Off

With The Witcher franchise expanding exponentially across Netflix, I’m happy to report that the live-action series’ first spin-off is a resounding success. And as much as we all love Geralt of Rivia, the thrilling anime Nightmare Of The Wolf is sure to have fans baying for more adventures with Vesemir (voiced by Theo James), the charismatic monster-hunter who predates Geralt by almost a century – so it’s a good thing that season two of The Witcher, premiering later this year, will reunite audiences with Vesemir: albeit an older and wiser version of the character, portrayed in live-action by Kim Bodnia.

Or…well, it’s partly a good thing. Nightmare Of The Wolf is at its best when it’s doing its own thing and not trying too hard to connect back to the live-action series. Some crossover is inevitable because so many of the characters in this franchise are immortal, but Nightmare Of The Wolf tells such an interesting story, and with so many fascinating and complex characters, that at several points I totally forgot that it was a spin-off. The film stumbles a little in its final minutes when it starts feeling less like a stand-alone feature, and more like an extended prologue for The Witcher season two. I half-expected the words “Vesemir Will Return” to show up before the credits rolled.

But I do believe you could jump into Nightmare Of The Wolf without having watched The Witcher, and it would give you just enough worldbuilding to work with before starting the live-action series. Right up until those final minutes, the film is a wildly fun ride around The Continent that delivers on character development, action, and the kind of fantasy spectacle for which animation (and in this case, the high-quality anime of South Korea’s Studio Mir) is perfectly suited. Animation is simply capable of things that live-action isn’t, at least not on a limited CGI budget.

Take magic, for example. When The Witcher uses magic, it’s generally of the non-flashy variety – lots of wind-gusts, and conveniently invisible energy blasts and stuff. And it works, for the most part, in the grounded environment of the live-action series. But Nightmare Of The Wolf is straight-up fantasy, and the sky’s the limit when it comes to how much magic can be used, or how epic and visually stunning it can be. The anime shows off Witchers at the height of their ability, wielding magical spells and runes in battles with monsters who are capable of many of the same tricks, and mages who defy the very laws of physics. The third-act battle involving all three is a real treat.

And while The Witcher got a lot of criticism for not featuring all that many monsters in a show about monster-hunters, that’s not a complaint that can be had of Nightmare Of The Wolf. This film is chock-full of more demons, ghouls, werewolves, wraiths, and other beasts and creepy-crawlies in just an hour and a half than the live-action series could probably have afforded across eight episodes. Mind you, season two of The Witcher appears to have a great many monsters of its own, including a leshy like the one that Vesemir fights in the first few minutes of this film, so there’s no need to look down on the live-action series.

But of course, the real heart of this story is the human drama at play – because what are humans if not the worst monsters of them all, and the ones that Witchers are duty-bound to protect? That philosophical dilemma has always been the most interesting thing thematically about The Witcher franchise, but Nightmare Of The Wolf approaches the subject with more determination than the live-action series. At the time this prequel film takes place, Witchers and humans still interact regularly – and we can see the first rifts in that once-symbiotic relationship that by Geralt’s time have widened into a chasm of prejudice and distrust.

But while that’s all very interesting stuff, I feel that even Nightmare Of The Wolf cheats a little by retconning a pivotal moment in Vesemir’s backstory – the attack on the Witcher citadel of Kaer Morhen by an angry mob – to include monsters and mages. Perhaps it was meant to highlight the similarities between humans and monsters (and the ease with which they’ll side with their own enemies to gang up on somebody else), but it does draw the focus away from the conversation about humankind’s own capacity for monstrous acts of violence and hate.

On the flip-side, Nightmare Of The Wolf features one of the franchise’s most prominent human characters who is just that – all flesh and blood; no hidden superpowers. Her name is Lady Zerbst (voiced by Mary McDonnell), and she manages to steal the spotlight away from Vesemir in every one of her scenes. The spirit of kindness and generosity that’s motivated her for her entire life is like a breath of fresh air in the grimdark world of the Witchers where most people are driven by their worst instincts. She also has a really lovely romance, which is kind of a spoiler so I won’t give away anything except to say that it’s adorable.

Moving on from that, this film is built on plot twists. Installing powerful mages in every royal court across The Continent was always a great opportunity for political intrigue, and Nightmare Of The Wolf realizes some of that potential here, with an intricate tale of conspiracy and subterfuge. I can’t talk about any of that, however, so instead let’s discuss something that was revealed in the trailers: the return of Filavandrel (with Tom Canton reprising the role). The Elven king plays a larger role here than he did in The Witcher, and we get a new perspective on him and his motives that humanizes the enigmatic character a bit, but not so much that he loses any of his mystique.

And although this next point is technically a spoiler, it’s also so depressingly predictable that I felt I had to bring it up, because…seriously? The Witcher doesn’t have very many LGBTQ+ characters to begin with (and Ciri’s bisexuality has yet to be mentioned in the live-action series), so to introduce a cool new character, give them a few lines of dialogue confirming them as a queer Witcher (and if I’m not mistaken, the only queer male Witcher in the franchise), and then kill them off without even so much as a noble death in battle? That’s both cringeworthy and frustrating. We wanted bisexual Vesemir, Netflix; not a Bury Your Gays trope!

Things like that do hinder my enjoyment of Nightmare Of The Wolf, but the film is very well-made and serves as a great introduction to a character I think audiences will want to see much more of going forward. There’s plenty more story to tell through Vesemir’s eyes, and with The Witcher franchise already growing across multiple spin-offs, another anime film or miniseries couldn’t hurt, right? It’s so nice to meet a Witcher who actually…talks, and is emotionally honest, I’m not sure I’m ready to give him up just yet, or even trade him in for the broodier older version we’ll meet in live-action come December.

Rating: 8/10

August 19, 2021

Gods And Monsters Clash In “Eternals” 2nd – And Final – Trailer

There’s been some speculation for a while that, given the unyielding November release date for Eternals, Marvel might be positioning their grand epic of gods and monsters for an awards season run. They got all the way to a Best Picture nomination at the Oscars with Black Panther, and won three awards there in other categories, so we know it’s not impossible. But can Eternals match that film’s success in a field where Marvel has traditionally been excluded, or even improve on it?

If Marvel’s ultimate goal here is nominations or wins in any of the “Big Five” Oscar categories (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, and Best Actress), then they’ve already got a tried-and-true weapon in their arsenal: director Chloé Zhao, who plowed through the last awards season like a juggernaut, picking up a string of Golden Globes, BAFTAs, and Academy Awards for her introspective drama Nomadland. Her signature style and name is all over the second and final trailer for Eternals (somehow we skipped right from teaser to final trailer), which was released today at a time beneficial to the West Coast.

That signature style of Zhao’s relies heavily on her affinity for stark, unforgiving natural environments, and her sensitive use of natural light: so from the moment this trailer opens with Salma Hayek’s Ajak traveling by horse across a barren plain with cloud-speckled skies above her, you know Zhao is going to be bringing all of that to the unconventional source material. And this marriage of Marvel’s earth-shattering spectacle with Zhao’s indie filmmaking techniques and stripped-back sensibilities is perfect for the story of Eternals itself; of otherworldly beings accessing the hidden depths of their own humanity, and becoming one with the people of Earth whom they’ve loved from afar for seven-thousand years.

The Eternals, as it turns out, have one job and one job only on Earth – to eradicate a horde of demonic chimeras known as the Deviants. But it seems they may have been a little too good at that: because in the modern day, post-Endgame, the Deviants have been in hiding for millennia and the Eternals have been forced to wait around until they return. Since they’re not supposed to interfere with human affairs that don’t involve the Deviants, that’s forced some of them into an uncomfortable position where they can only watch from the sidelines as humans tear themselves to pieces. Some have already broken the rules entirely and gone to live among the human race, while others have retreated into themselves.

And then there’s Angelina Jolie’s Thena, who I think might secretly be the most important character in the movie. Her mission, as the greatest warrior among the Eternals, was always to lead the charge against the Deviants; but for her, there’s another layer to her internal conflict. While many of the Eternals fell in love with humans and abandoned their divine purpose, Thena is the only one who fell in love with a Deviant – and not just any Deviant, but their leader, a tentacled eldritch being named Kro. I wasn’t sure if this would be carried over from the comics, but the trailer shows Kro lifting Thena into a tender embrace and caressing her face in a way that is equal parts disturbing and…no, actually, it’s just straight-up disturbing. There’s a lot of tentacles going on.

Her teammates have done a bit better for themselves. The matter-manipulating sorceress Sersi is entangled in a love triangle between her Eternal husband Ikaris, from whom she’s now estranged, and Kit Harington’s Dane Whitman – who finally gets to talk in this trailer! We don’t get to see Phastos’ partner, but we know he’s supposed to be Marvel’s first openly gay character, and that he has a husband in the film. As for Kumail Nanjiani’s Kingo, he’s just living his best life as a Bollywood movie-star. Makkari, Marvel’s first deaf superhero and a speedster who travels by leaping, also seems pretty comfy on Earth, but we haven’t seen much of her lifestyle yet.

On the flip-side, we can see that Ajak mostly keeps to herself and avoids interactions with humans, while the brooding telepath Druig has started a cult in the woods where he mind-controls people – definitely a healthy way of channeling boredom into productivity. Sprite, who is permanently trapped in the body of a child, seems to have entered her gleefully nihilistic phase of wanting the world to be destroyed so that she can finally be released from her humanoid vessel. Even space-gods in the MCU need therapy, it turns out.

But Sprite might be close to getting her wish, since it seems that another group of divine beings known as the Celestials are on their way to Earth to review the Eternals’ accomplishments and pass judgment on the planet as a whole. The Celestials are the gods whom the Eternals serve, and in Marvel Comics lore they’re actually pretty important – but this trailer provides our first good look at them since a flashback in Guardians Of The Galaxy. They’re massive geometrical creatures rendered in vibrant jewel-tones, straight out of the pages of a Jack Kirby comic. I also have a hard time believing they can be killed by mere Eternals, so I suspect the resolution to that storyline will involve the Eternals pleading with the Celestials on behalf of the human race rather than fighting them in some big space-battle.

I can even think of a way to achieve that which would be comics-accurate and visually stunning. In the comics, the Eternals have the power to sync up their minds and become one being comprised of pure light, known as the Uni-Mind. The Uni-Mind embodies all of them at once, and as such would be the perfect vessel for an exploration of the interconnectedness of humanity.

And I’d be here for it, just saying. Based on everything we know about Eternals, it’s the kind of film where it wouldn’t feel jarring to have it end with a dramatized outpouring of raw emotion, as overly earnest as that might seem on paper. If anyone could pull it off, it would be Zhao, whose love for the planet and respect for ordinary people defines so much of her work. And it would certainly give the film that emotional punch it’ll need if it’s gonna be a serious contender during awards season.

Trailer Rating: 8.5/10

August 18, 2021

“What If…?” Episode 2 Is The Best Kind Of Marvel Storytelling

**SPOILERS FOR WHAT IF…? AHEAD!**

Come August 28th, it will have been a year since we mourned the sudden and shocking loss of Chadwick Boseman, the man behind the instantly-iconic character of Black Panther – and for many of us, the pain of that parting still feels raw and vulnerable. Boseman was so much more than an actor in some of our favorite movies: he made the most of every moment he had on this planet to inspire people around the world through his work and especially through Black Panther, and his full impact – particularly on the Black community – can’t be put into words by me.

But while today’s episode of What If…? obviously can’t fully accomplish that gargantuan task either in just thirty minutes, it does a beautiful job of bringing Boseman’s legacy of kindness to life onscreen, assisted by luscious animation and a brilliant performance from Boseman himself, who recorded all his lines for What If…? before his death. Focusing on the repercussions of a change to the Marvel timeline that turns his T’Challa into the character known as Star-Lord, this episode is just as much a microcosm of Boseman’s own impact on the real world as it is of T’Challa’s impact within the confines of the Marvel Multiverse – a glimpse into those areas where the actor and the character overlapped on some level.

And where the two overlap is where the magic happens, and Boseman slips into the character of T’Challa so effortlessly that it doesn’t matter if he’s wearing the mantle of a Star-Lord rather than the solemn duties of Wakanda’s king: it’s T’Challa, the man underneath all the trappings, that we love. And that’s why this episode is a perfect encapsulation of what can make What If…? so rewarding to fans, because these stand-alone stories are supposed to shine a spotlight on the characters themselves, removed of their iconic gear and cool nicknames, placed in a wholly different scenario, but still themselves at their core; still making the decisions we know that character would make.

That’s exactly what the first episode of What If…? got so terribly wrong, using Peggy Carter to tiredly hit all the same plot beats as Steve Rogers did in The First Avenger. That episode could have been about almost any character in the MCU being injected with the Super-Soldier Serum, and it really wouldn’t have mattered because the writing was entirely plot-driven, leaving no room for the bold character choices we need from a What If…? scenario. It ceased to be a story about how Peggy Carter wears the mantle of Captain Carter and what she brings to the job, and became a recap of Steve Rogers’ movie, starring interchangeable action figures whose individual personalities matter less than a shield.

That’s always been a criticism of MCU movies, and I hated that the studio – which is, in fact, moving away from that mentality overall – gave its own detractors ammunition like that. This episode of What If…?, on the other hand, takes the cornerstones that make up T’Challa’s character – such as his dignity, generosity, open-mindedness, and his desire to do good even when it requires him to upend the status quo – and uses those as the rock-solid basis for an original story that has similar vibes to Guardians Of The Galaxy, sure, but veers off in a completely different direction.

T’Challa being abducted from earth in place of Peter Quill (voiced by Brian T. Delaney) because the Ravagers were misled by Wakanda’s energy signature, him accidentally becoming the Star-Lord, and having a chance to share his kindness and pure spirit with the rest of the galaxy: that quite literally changes everything in the MCU – like, to the point where he doesn’t even form the Guardians Of The Galaxy in this timeline because he’s already averted most of the tragic events in each member’s backstories.

And the episode takes its time to reveal this, peeling back the layers so precisely that when the episode starts with T’Challa going about the exact same Power Stone heist that Peter Quill pulled off in the first Guardians Of The Galaxy movie, you might be wary that it’s a repeat of what happened with episode one. But the catch is that, while Peter Quill kicked off the events of Guardians Of The Galaxy by trying to sell the Power Stone on the black market, T’Challa plans to use it to solve an energy crisis in the Krylorian star-system.

We get to see the impacts of T’Challa’s actions everywhere he goes. For one thing, he and the Ravagers’ captain Yondu Udonta (Michael Rooker) are actually close – and while their father-son dynamic still comes with conflict, T’Challa’s maturity and wisdom helps him navigate those rough patches, and facilitates an earlier redemption for Yondu. In this timeline, Thanos (Josh Brolin) runs a bar and gardens in his spare time – having been convinced by T’Challa that his plan for randomized genocide on a universal scale as a means of resource reallocation isn’t efficient or ethical (although there’s something eerie to Thanos constantly repeating that his plan would have worked).

As for Thanos’ adopted children, we only meet this timeline’s version of Nebula (Karen Gillan) – who is still mostly humanoid, having never been hardened into a sentient killing machine for her father. Side-note: It’s very weird seeing Nebula with any hair, much less a full head of wavy platinum blonde locks like a 1940’s movie-star. She’s still not on good terms with Thanos, which I appreciate because she has legitimate reasons to be upset with him besides turning her into an android, but she’s also funny, fashionable, and even a bit flirty around T’Challa (whom she calls “Cha-Cha”), and Karen Gillan does a great job selling the whole performance.

Later it’s revealed that Drax (voiced by Fred Tatasciore, due to some kind of “miscommunication” behind the scenes) never experienced the crushing loss of his wife and daughter – which would have sent him down the dark path to vengeance – in this timeline. In a bizarre twist of fate, he’s now working at Thanos’ bar. Even Korath (Djimon Hounsou), a minor villain in Guardians Of The Galaxy, ends up joining the Ravagers team and abandoning the Kree zealot Ronan. And while some of these changes might seem over-the-top divorced from context, Boseman’s charisma makes it believable.

Now…that’s not to say everything in the universe is magically fixed by T’Challa’s presence. Thanos retires from his life of evil, but the power vacuum he leaves behind is quickly filled by another tyrant – Benicio Del Toro’s Collector. This twist makes a lot of sense, and retroactively helps to elevate this bizarre character as a legitimate threat, something he never got to be in the movies before getting killed off. In What If…?, with the help of the Black Order, the Collector has already done pretty well for himself – nabbing a whole bunch of new trinkets to add to his collection, including Mjolnir, Captain America’s shield, and – most horrifyingly, to me – Hela’s telekinetic helmet.

Along with the fancy weaponry comes an element of action that was completely missing from the character’s previous appearances, and perhaps feels a bit jarring here because of that. He’s still drowning under several pounds of snazzy bling when we meet him, but he quickly sheds his outer layers to reveal an impressive six-pack, and show off some martial arts moves. Del Toro seems to be having a great time voicing the character and doing weird stuff with his line-readings, which totally works for the Collector.

Oh, and can we just talk about Carina (Ophelia Lovibond) for a moment? One thing I love about the Multiverse is that even the most obscure characters can return and get payback for how the films did them dirty. And Carina, the Collector’s abused servant, has deserved a second chance ever since James Gunn used her to demonstrate the destructive abilities of the Power Stone in Guardians Of The Galaxy by having her get blown to smithereens. Just as Gunn has gotten better at writing women, so too has the MCU slowly improved.

In What If…?, Carina finally gets revenge on the Collector for all the evil things he did to her, smirking as she slips on the bracelet that allows her to control his minions and turn them against him. I love how there’s no attempt to moralize about her actions, and we don’t even get to see what happens – we just hear the Collector squealing the word “Karma!” before he’s buried under the weight of his own monstrous creations. It’s so dark, it’s so powerful, and I don’t think enough people are as obsessed with this scene as I am.

Contrast that scene with Peter Quill’s non-reaction to Carina’s death in Guardians Of The Galaxy, however, and you’ll notice that this whole episode is pretty damning for Quill – whose time as Star-Lord has resulted in a lot less peace and harmony, and a lot more apocalyptic catastrophe. His swagger, braggadocio, and self-absorbed attitude have always teetered between endearing and irritating (no thanks to Chris Pratt being the absolute worst), and his casual sexism in the Guardians franchise was never cute. It’s a real shame, because we absolutely deserve the messy, dramatic, canonically bisexual disaster that is Marvel Comics Quill, and we’re probably never gonna get it from Pratt.

And that’s why I’m so intrigued by the new version of Quill we met today in What If…?, who never got off-world – and is not voiced by Chris Pratt – but instead ended up working at a Dairy Queen in Missouri while T’Challa took his place among the stars. The episode concludes with Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell) donning human form and reuniting with Peter, juxtaposed with scenes of T’Challa returning to Wakanda and introducing his biological family to his found family from outer space. I really hope we reconnect with Quill and Ego at some point, because that’s too big a cliffhanger to leave like that.

Across the board, this is a massive improvement on the premiere episode. The writing is more sophisticated, the action is even cleaner, the voice-acting is stellar, and even Jeffrey Wright’s The Watcher – while still a background character – gets to engage with the material a bit more, just as I’d hoped he would. Most importantly, What If…? knows, or at least I hope it knows, that at its core it has to be character-driven to work…at the very least in episodes where the central conceit is a role-swap.

And that’s especially important with regards to characters like T’Challa, who mean so much to people because of the qualities that make them different from a lot of other superheroes, that can’t be treated as interchangeable or secondary to the plot. Hopefully, What If…? continues to keep that in mind going forward.

Rating: 10/10