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“Avengers: Endgame” Predictions!

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?

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“Unicorn Store” Movie Review!

Last night, I had the opportunity to watch the Netflix movie Unicorn Store, which stars Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, and Joan Cusack, as well as being Larson’s directorial debut. There’s a lot to say about it.

This movie’s trailers marketed it as a feel-good piece, and it is that – but not all the time. Unicorn Store seems, in fact, unable to decide what genre it wants to be, as it jumps from feel-good to drama to theater-of-the-absurd. It seems to always understand that its premise is wacky and bizarre, best-suited to a wacky and bizarre approach, but it never seems fully committed to being that abstract masterpiece that it wants to be. The tone, and thus the plot, shift awkwardly and uncertainly as the movie tries to be all three genres at once. When it’s absurd, you might have a lady walking around at night carrying a floor-lamp, talking about professional single women being murdered – when it tries to be dramatic, you’ve got emotional and very powerful dialogue between a mother and her daughter – then, when it wants to make you feel good, you’ve got Brie Larson’s character Kit doing an uplifting dance-number with her coworkers. But these shifts always feel peculiar. The delivery man who delivers a mysterious invitation to Kit in the first act seems like an enigmatic character himself – but then, we find out in the third act that he’s just misunderstood and looked down on, and, in fact, he likes to do crossword puzzles, and read. The film’s score takes the opposite journey, from a strangely ominous and eerie sound in the first act, to being light-hearted and cheerful in the third.

Brie Larson makes this movie shine, however, when she feels comfortable being absurd: when Samuel L. Jackson rides in on a scooter, or when Kit and her family sit down to a dinner of kale – these moments are the best, because they don’t try to be anything other than what they are, which is crazy good fun. The humor is brilliant: the troop-circle camping scene is my favorite part of the film, and features some incredible acting from Joan Cusack and Bradley Whitford, who plays Kit’s mother and father.

Cusack, in fact, is the stand-out performance in this movie, as she elevates every scene she appears in, and always has perfect comedic timing. Every time she wasn’t onscreen, I found myself wanting her to return. Unfortunately, she is used sparingly – as is, rather surprisingly, Samuel L. Jackson himself, who plays The Salesman, the man in charge of The Store. Jackson makes the movie crazier and wackier, but the script doesn’t seem to know what to do with him by the end.

This same problem is evident with many of the film’s subplots, of which there are far too many. There’s Kit’s boss, Gary (Hamish Linklater), who is both deadpan and cryptically creepy; there’s the Mystic Vacuums, which dominate so much of the film’s second act; there’s characters like Crystal and Sabrina (Martha MacIsaac), and the aforementioned delivery man, or Kevin, or the other kids on the Emotion Quest camping trip, all of whom look like they’re intended to be cartoonish caricatures, which would be fine and funny, until the movie suddenly decides it wants to do something with them – and then never does. Unicorn Store would definitely have worked a lot better without some of these subplots.

The only side character given enough screen-time is Virgil (Mamoudou Athie), the janitor at the hardware store who is at first suspicious of Kit, and begins to question her sanity. His journey with Kit is a good counterbalance to the craziness and bizarre stuff going on around them, as he tries to navigate the half-fantasy, half-reality environment in which he lives.

The fantasy elements of the movie, namely the Unicorn itself, are peculiar: mainly because the fantasy appears to be metaphorical at first, until it becomes apparent that, no, there really is a unicorn. The resolution to the Unicorn’s story is a spoiler, so I won’t go into detail save to say that it was something of a letdown for me. I can see where it made sense, but I was disappointed and wanted more. The whole reason that the Unicorn exists in the first place is never explained: we are told that Kit always wanted a Unicorn in her childhood, but we get just one montage of flashbacks in the opening scene, and it’s entirely focused on her art – not on Unicorns. And her art is another subplot that the movie drops along the way.

Overall, Unicorn Store manages to entertain, and is wickedly funny, when it feels comfortable being what it takes for granted that it already is. It’s worth watching for the humor, and for Larson and Cusack’s wonderful performances. But it’s odd that, for a movie ostensibly about accepting who you are, Unicorn Store somehow falls short of doing that, and instead tries to be too many genres, all at once.

Movie Rating: 6.5/10

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Star Wars Episode IX Teaser Trailer!

This is going to be something of an unusual review. I will admit why right up front.

The truth is, I haven’t watched the last few Star Wars movies. The original trilogy? The prequels? I’ve watched those, multiple times. But this new saga had never appealed to me until now, when, suddenly, I find myself standing dazed and confused wondering what on earth, or what on Tattooine, this trailer means. And that is very unfortunate, because this trailer looks pretty awesome, even though a good bit of its symbolism is probably lost on me.

We’ll discuss the big stuff first though, just because this is the stuff I do understand pretty much entirely. SPOILERS AHEAD, for those of you, who, like me, had never watched the last two Star Wars movies.

1: The Title. The film’s long-anticipated title has been revealed to be Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker, which is very cool – “Every Generation Has A Legend” is the movie’s slogan. I am aware that Luke Skywalker is dead, and I have no clue whether this title is supposed to refer to him returning, or something like that. We hear Luke’s voice in the first part of the trailer, as he tells Rey about her inner power, and how a thousand generations live within her.

2: Princess Leia! The late great Carrie Fisher is in the movie, as expected, and gets a beautiful and heart-warming moment in the trailer, tearfully embracing Rey (Daisy Ridley). Having not watched Star Wars: The Force Awakens or Star Wars: The Last Jedi, I can’t give any opinion on Rey herself, except that she looks like an incredible heroine: there’s a moment here, at the 1:08 mark, where she backflips onto a very fast moving spaceship that seems to be trying to mow her down. It’s a great shot.

3: THE EMPEROR IS BACK? I didn’t even realize what I was seeing, at the 1:39 mark, when we see Rey and her team looking out over a wide barren landscape, gazing towards some distant mass of broken metal: I probably should have realized immediately that this is the remains of the literal Death Star – and, at the very end of the trailer, we hear the ominous laughter of Emperor Palpatine: who I, at least, thought was dead. Was this common knowledge to people, that the Emperor is back? That the Death Star is still out there, somewhere in the universe? Though, to be fair, the Death Star looks pretty dead and lifeless at this point, but it looked only half-built in The Return of the Jedi and turned out to be fully functional, so I don’t trust that megalithic weapon, however broken it might look. There’s something really scary about the Death Star, honestly, that makes its appearance here really awe-inspiring.

Those are most of the big things, I think, that this trailer shows. One surprising reveal, at least for me, was the appearance of Billy Dee Williams reprising his role as Lando from the original trilogy. We see characters like Chewbacca and C-3P0 again, though, of course, there’s also appearances from the newer generation, such as Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), Poe (Oscar Isaac), and Finn (John Boyega). The backstories of these new characters are a total mystery to me, and I’m eager to fill this gap in my knowledge, because they all look pretty interesting. The droid BB-8, I could do without: I’ve seen this character pretty much everywhere for years now – like Olaf from Frozen, or Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy, these “mascot” characters always become really annoying to me, really quickly.

The trailer looks really awesome, and there’s no way I’m gonna miss seeing this in theaters: this is the end of an incredible and beloved era. I used to love the Star Wars movies, but lost my enthusiasm for them – now, as the story comes to an end, my passion for this brilliant universe has been renewed. Maybe I’ll even get around to watching The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi sometime in between now and December, when The Rise of Skywalker will come out.

Trailer Rating: 9.5/10

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“The Lion King” Trailer!

For one of the most highly-anticipated movies of 2019, the marketing for The Lion King has been virtually nonexistent up until today. One teaser back in November, and then just…nothing. Until today. And today, they made up for all that with this.

It starts off nice and slow, tingling with suspense: young Simba and Nala are scampering through the Outlands beyond Pride Rock. Hyenas dart around them in the shadows, and the two lion cubs cower as a voice narrates to them about how “life’s not fair” for those who “spend their lives in the dark, begging for scraps”. Then the hyenas approach, and with them comes their leader: Scar (voiced by Chiwetel Ejiofor). He looks terrifying: the way his tattered ear twitches as he advances on Simba; his ragged and disheveled coat of fur; his cold, malevolent voice. He’s perhaps lacking just a little something of the original, that almost exaggerated Shakespearean vibe to the character as voiced by Jeremy Irons, with his wild black mane and angular shape, but those are minor nitpicks – Scar looks absolutely awesome.

Then the trailer briefly turns into a nature-documentary: Mufasa brings Simba up onto Pride Rock, and in the voice of James Earl Jones tells us how the Pridelands exist in a “delicate balance”, while the music swells up, scenes flash by of Simba playing with other animals (including Zazu, voiced by John Oliver), and antelope prancing around. In this tranquil and idyllic corner of the world, we see Scar’s words made clear: Mufasa’s evil brother is bitterly jealous of this beautiful, bountiful kingdom – must be hard, when you live with a pack of ratty hyenas and your brother is living it up in this exquisitely-lit CGI paradise.

(I am aware of the fact that Mufasa and Scar apparently aren’t brothers, or are brothers, depending on which Disney executive you ask: I’m calling them brothers, for simplicity’s sake).

And, because Disney is evil, they even have the audacity to show us glimpses of a certain scene…hmm, is this a spoiler? Technically, I guess it is, so I won’t clarify exactly what this spoiler is, just that this scene in the trailer happens to involve a canyon, and a herd of stampeding water-buffalo. Yeah, they show us part of that scene.

In a throwback to the original animated feature, there’s a scene of Simba, Timon and Pumbaa walking, while the background behind them changes, and Simba grows older. I’m still left wondering how much of this film will literally just be a copy-and-paste of the original, but, hey, it looks beautiful.

We get our first good look at Nala, voiced by pop icon Beyoncé, and she looks…like a lioness. Not much more to say about her than that. She doesn’t sing, if that’s what you were expecting.

But, on that note, the trailer is not entirely without some lively song-and-dance: it closes, in fact, with Timon and Pumbaa skipping merrily along through the jungle, singing “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”, which is peculiarly hilarious.

It looks good. It looks really good, in fact. There’s an epic quality to all the scenes, or maybe that’s just the brilliant visual effects, but it has beauty and atmosphere. The tone is perfect. A better voice-cast could not have been assembled – though I still have some reservations about Donald Glover voicing Simba himself. The movie looks like it will be incredible – or, at the very least, it looks like it will look incredible.

Trailer Rating: 8/10