Movie Review: Deadpool 2

Our first outing following the adventures of the Merc with the Mouth, Wade Wilson AKA Deadpool, trailblazed the world of R-rated superhero films, proving you could do it bigger and better if you do it for adults. From the moment we start Deadpool 2, we are back for more of the same.

Settling down with his girlfriend Vanessa, Wade is living a life split between extreme violence and starting a family. Wade finds that something is lacking in his world, and begins to seek a change of pace, and when a trainee outing with the X-Men leads Wade to encounter an overweight kid with incredible mutant powers and a serious anger control issue, Wade embarks on a journey to discover what it is he's really missing.

It's violent, it's crass, it's bloody, but most importantly, Deadpool 2 is simply funnier than the first one.

The jokes hit harder, the deliveries are perfect, and every character has moments to shine. Wade's signature fourth wall breaking observations are better timed than ever, especially when sharing scenes with the perfectly straight faced Cable, and some well placed unexpected cameos are used to devastatingly hilarious effect.

Where Deadpool's first cinematic outing gave us a hard R rating in almost every way it could, Deadpool 2 takes a touch more subtle approach, believe it or not. There's still a huge amount of violence, but with a few notable exceptions, most of the damage is inflicted upon the indestructible titular merc himself.

Whereas the first Deadpool had heavy sub-genre elements of horror, Deadpool 2 orients itself around family. It's surprising, and it's actually pretty heartfelt at times. What makes the dramatic undercurrents really work is the balance board job that's been pulled off with the writing here. The comedy doesn't get in the way of the emotion, and vice versa. In many places they enhance each other unexpectedly.

One of the flaws in Deadpool's prior film was a near total lack of sub-plots, and a general feel of undeveloped side characters. Everyone took a second fiddle to Wade.
While Wade himself is bigger, more complex, and definitely as lovable as ever here, Deadpool 2 flourishes in the  notion of the team. Old favorites return, bigger and better, and a whole host of new faces make an appearance. There's a lot to love in the new cast, and if you're a fan of the comics, there's some deep cuts here for you that will be well received. X-Force really do get the movie treatment they've always rightfully deserved.

Cable is a character long absent from the big screen, and Brolin has fun with the steely-eyed foil to Wade's wisecracking, although his gun-toting action scenes don't quite hold up against Deadpool's martial arts intensity. With the deadpan delivery of most of the rest of the cast, it's also fun to have a character who speaks as fast and as sharply as Wade, and Zazie Beetz's intense Domino is a witty and immensely likable addition, as well as it being pleasantly surprisingly that she's not introduced as a love interest.

You could accuse Deadpool 2 of a similar pitfall of its predecessor, with no villains that really have the caliber to match that of the heroes. There's a few great confrontation set-pieces, but the bad guys just aren't as enjoyable as they could be.

The whole film has a frenetic pace, and keeps it up through most of the run time. Quicker on the draw and with a clearer act structure than its predecessor, the film travels fast, from a gritty maximum security mutant prison to high speed car chases, from Blind Al's living room to the X-Mansion, the world around Wade and his allies is fleshed out, lived in and lively.

There's more to Deadpool this time around, it's not just his story, it's a whole cast of characters playing their part. It's a lot of fun to enjoy, and it feels a little like we're not done with the story of Wade Wilson just yet.

Comic Review: Perlman's 'Gamora', Tamaki's 'Hulk'.

Women in comics have begun to see a Renaissance in the last few years, both on the page and behind the pen. Significant female characters like Captain Marvel, Thor, and Medusa are face figures and cover stars of many of the big name books on the shelves. What were once comedy one-shot personalities like Squirrel Girl have seen a massive boost in popularity, and brand new heroes like Ms Marvel are surprise international bestsellers. 

More female characters getting their own books shows some great changes to the shelves, especially considering there are some fantastic characters out there that have been done disservices in recent years, by either runs cancelled long before their time, or being relegated to the background in team books.

Two new books taking off this year deal with two such major characters, and furthermore, both books have female writers at the helm. 

Nicole Perlman writes Gamora, the solo book of the classic cosmic marvel warrior woman, more recently brought into the spotlight by her role in Guardians of the Galaxy. Gamora is a character who has suffered somewhat over the years from a lack of definition. Different writers take her in different directions, and as a result, the details of personality are tough to nail down. She was a sidekick to Adam Warlock, a love interest to Nova, and a group member in multiple incarnation of the Guardians, but never had a series of her own before. Perlman's run on Gamora, taking the character back to her years as a youth, aims to fix this problem by bringing the Most Dangerous Woman in the Galaxy to the center stage.

Under the watchful eye of her adoptive father Thanos, a teen aged Gamora learns the art of war alongside her troublesome sister Nebula. A star orphan, Gamora's entire race was wiped out by the Badoon empire, and the young woman is driven by a powerful urge to see the alien race punished for their genocide. When the last breeding female of the Badoon royal family is located on a dying planet, Gamora defies her tyrannical father and scheming sister to carry out her revenge. However the young women she finds, and indeed the inhabitants of the doomed planet Ubilex, are not what she expected. 

The new Gamora we find here is still the fearless, brutal fighting warrior we've known over the years, but this younger (and better dressed) incarnation shows more heart, and more in her head than we've seen before. She has a voice, beyond that of 'the serious one' role she was constantly relegated to in the pages of Guardians. The teenage Gamora is entertaining, inquisitive, and even fun. It will be great to see where the run takes the daughter of Thanos as it continues.

We come to the opposite end of the personality spectrum in Mariko Tamaki's new She-Hulk series. Simply called HULK, the story takes us through the daily existence of district attorney Jennifer Walters, the woman also known as the Savage She-Hulk. 

She-Hulk has been through a lot both on and off the page in times gone past. A character depicted as anywhere from a rampaging allegory for menses, to a fourth wall breaking pin-up model popping out of her underwear, the character remains misunderstood, and often the butt of jokes. Only recently have writers taken more to the intriguing side of the character and explored the life of a working lawyer. Unlike attorney at law Matt Murdock, unknown by his clients to be Daredevil, Jennifer Walters hasn't hidden her identity as She-Hulk, so everyone from her clients to her coworkers know.

In Tamaki's new run, a side of Jen is explored that we really haven't seen before. The side of a woman broken both mentally and emotionally by the rigors of battle. After losing her close friend and suffering a near death experience at the hands of Thanos, Jen does what she hasn't in years, and returns to her every day appearance, a slight brunette, shy and stressed, just trying to start over with her life. Beginning work at her new law form, Jen meets hordes of new clients, all the strange cases that only the She-Hulk can handle. Trying to make it through her days one moment at a time, Jen struggles with PTSD, and coming to terms with the slow lack of control she finds in her own powers.

This is a She-Hulk unlike any we've seen before, taking the playful, perpetually confidant woman and showing the deep troubles present when she isn't showing her brave face to everyone around her. The exhaustion of the constant facade she presents, and the endless struggle to maintain her composure and not 'Hulk-out'. She's a sweet character, lovable and identifiable. The mysteries of her newest case, a freakish shut-in young woman being unfairly evicted from her home, are just one among the struggles she faces, as she's mansplained by coworkers in a building she could quite literally smash to rubble if she loses her cool. 

Both these books, while wildly different, are great shows of new writers work, and great new looks into classic characters. There's so much to explore here, and I'm looking forward to continuing both these runs. 

Both Hulk and Gamora are on shelves now. 

Movie Review: Logan.

There is something about the X-Men, be it the stories, the villains, the mature concepts and themes, that holds a special place in the heart for my generation more than most any other pop culture property. The scrappy, rough and tumble anti-hero Wolverine is one of the most persistently popular comic book characters of all time.

He's the favorite of millions, and his movie portrayal is one of the most beloved of any comic book character ever brought to the screen. Hugh Jackman's seemingly constant joy at playing the character has come through as enjoyable time after time, even if the films he's featured in have gone from great, to bad, to worse and back again in the last 20 years. When last year's Deadpool took the comic book movie, made it R-Rated, and walked away with the highest R-Rated opening week of all time, it was only a matter of time before the comic book names we really know took notice.

Logan is different in many respects from it's predecessors, but not different enough that it doesn't fit.
This film is the epilogue. The standing final chapter in the years and years that have passed since the goofy good vs evil of the X-Men's first cinematic outing. Logan is what happens after the spandex comes off, when all the old villains have been defeated, and the heroes have to live out their days. It's a film with a powerful reminder of mortality. Everyone, even superheroes, will grow old, and inevitably, no matter your heroism, everyone goes back to the dirt in the end.

Logan is a broken man, his seemingly timeless body suddenly aging, and his regenerative mutant powers becoming weaker day by day. The once infamous Wolverine is slowly being poisoned to death by the very adamantium that makes him so indestructible, reduced to working as a limo driver near the immense, nationally guarded US/Mexico border. There have been no new mutants born in over two decades, a dying breed swiftly becoming extinct.

Every penny he gets, Logan returns south of the border to bring to his last surviving allies, the malformed Caliban, and the feeble-minded shell of the man that was once Charles Xavier. Charles is kept locked away by his friends in a storage tanker to protect the world from the seizures that wrack his addled mind, his once incredible psychic powers now a dangerous uncontrollable side effect of a degenerative brain disease. Scraping together enough to keep Charles in his medication, and saving for the day when one day they can escape and leave the western world behind, is all that consumes the life of old man Logan.

However, a glimmer of the past greatness of Professor X remains, and in his moments of lucidity, Charles hears the whispers of  a new generation, the echoes of young mutant minds somewhere out there, crying out in need. When Wolverine is approached by a mysterious woman desperately seeking aid, he realizes that it may be time once again to take up the unwanted mantle of the Wolverine, and be the hero this broken future needs one last time.

Logan is a believable, awfully close-to-home future dystopia. Set in the year 2029, it shows so many echoes of reality that it can be a touch disturbing at time. The excesses of the wealthy so close to extreme poverty, cultural oppression verging on genocide, deportation and the promise of a better world out beyond the border are all events we see the ancestors of in the news as we speak.

This dark and truly adult film shines brightest in the main characters, and there are some performances here that are an absolute joy to behold. The aging titular hero and his mentor form a duo here that is probably better played than ever before. Logan is an honest, lovable, yet tremendously flawed hero, nuanced and complex. Patrick Stewart returns to the series to play the absolutely gripping, heartbreaking side of Charles Xavier we never thought we'd see. New protagonist Laura, the fulcrum of the film's plot, is one of the best child performances I've seen in years, her unfortunate character equal parts fun, frightening, and very moving. New faces, like the albino mutant tracker Caliban, and the villainous G-man Donald Pierce, fade a little into the background in comparison to the brilliant main characters, but there are no bad performances to be found.

The film does not shy away from using it's R rating thoroughly, be warned. You're not taking your kids to watch Logan leap around in spandex fighting Magneto this time. Logan rips through people with a glorious, shockingly graphic abandon here. In my viewing the audience was audibly shocked to gasping during the first fight scene. It is brutal, it is bloody, and it does not hold back. The very concepts of the movie itself are also of a more mature tone than you'd normally find in superhero properties as well. Real world themes of discrimination, child abuse, and persecution of the underclasses are all dealt with here. Also getting to hear Professor X say 'fuck' is a moment we've all been waiting for without knowing it.

If there's anything Logan lacked, in my opinion, it was a strong villain. With a hero as grand as the Wolverine, you need someone for him to go up against that matches him for strength as well as personality, and the latter was severely lacking here. It's a new story, only tenuously connected to previous entries in the X-Men franchise, but the big part of me that was aware it's the last one, really wanted to see a final showdown between Wolverine and his timeless nemesis, Sabretooth.

Logan might not even really be considered a superhero movie. It's a dystopian road movie, closer to the likes of Mad Max or Book of Eli than to X-Men. It's dark, and might be unforgivably so for some viewers. Part of the charm of comic book heroes is, they stay the same heroic age forever. We don't want to see our heroes get old, it feels too real. Logan will take your previous impressions of the X-Men characters and take them places they have never been before, and if you can handle it, it's one of the best films the genre has ever produced.

Comic Review: The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl

If a series gets two first issues in the same year, you know it's got to be either really good, or a shameless cash in.
Thankfully, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #1 (Volume 2?), by Ryan North and Erica Henderson, is heaps of the former, coming out with a great first issue, for the second time this year.

With not much comedy on the shelves in modern day, it's good to see Marvel put out something both alternative, and actually really funny. The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is, in essence, a superhero sitcom, with our titular heroine attending college, making friends, and defeating villains on the side. This incarnation of Squirrel Girl is the most well formed of the character to date, with a distinct lovable personality, yet remaining grounded and not too looney to be unrealistic. For a character who talks to squirrels as her main superpower, she's remarkably identifiable, being an otherwise typically socially awkward young woman.
The dialogue is sharp and witty, falling somewhere between the humor of 'Communuty' and 'Spaced', with a cast of exceedingly likable new characters like Squirrel Girl's college roommate, the cat-obsessed computer science major Nancy, and the beginnings of Squirrel Girl's own adorable animal-themed supergroup: Chipmunk Hunk and Koi Boi (Who talks to fish and slowly grows to fit the size of his container)
It's sharp on the social commentary, in a not-so-subtle-in-your-damn-face kinda way, with all the main characters being modern college students, they talk like actual young people, and the whole thing is a nice breath of fresh air, both with the multi-racial characters and the openly feminist themes. Also returning is the mini commentary by the creators in tiny text at the bottom of every page, offering often hilarious insight. 

The downfall here is that Squirrel Girl's personality in other comics may seem derivative after reading The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, as her personality elsewhere just doesn't match up to her wit and intelligence here. She's a recent addition to the New Avengers team, and her appearance there (so far, at least) is occasional one panel comic relief.. With a passing joke about her new teleporter in The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, they blew away all the comedy in the New Avengers in one go. Squirrel Girl as a character is evolving because of this series, and it may take a while for other books to catch up to that.

The funniest thing about The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl may be her almost meta-awareness of her place in the Marvel Universe. She heads over to Tony Stark to borrow a Squirrel shaped Iron Man outfit, because she can! She's friends with Deadpool, because who wouldn't be? There's a brilliant throwaway gag as Squirrel Girl's mother explains exactly why technically (and legally) Squirrel Girl isn't a mutant. It's fun stuff, and the new series looks to be even better than the last. With writer Ryan North finding a continuous pace that keeps getting more enjoyable to read, and artist Erica Henderson giving a distinctive, expression heavy style to the characters that fits perfectly.

The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl is one of the best comedy books of the shelves at the moment, not because of obvious jokes, but because of charm and character. If the strength of the new first issue is any indication, it looks like Squirrel Girl has a lot of adventures ahead.

 

Comic Review: Rage of Ultron

Marvel thought they were clever with last year’s wildly disappointing bait and switch event Age of Ultron, a time travel story that featured almost none of the titular character, but will likely go on to disappoint plenty new comic fans seeking to get in on the new movie of the same name.

It was undoubtedly time for a story that went back to the basics of one of the best villains Marvel has ever created.

The Avengers, Earth’s mightiest (and most profitable) superhero team, only have one true arch-nemesis, and Ultron is a character that deserves great stories, not cash in crossovers. Marvel’s OGN print, a run of one-shot hardback format graphic novels, have just released the story that Age of Ultron should have been. 

A dark and futuristic action packed story, filled with the brooding intensity of the father-son struggle that makes Ultron so interesting, Rage of Ultron chronicles the events following a grand defeat of the titular villain in a climactic battle. After nearly leveling New York in the battle, the Avengers think they’ve seen the last of the cybernetic terror when he is rocketed into space trapped in a broken Quinjet.  Hank Pym, Ultron’s creator and father, has become self-loathing and depressed over his relationship with his son. He desperately wishes to find love and worth in that which he has created, but in Ultron he finds only anger and hate. In his distress, he finds himself driven to create a weapon that can nullify cybernetic brainwaves, snuffing out Artificial Intelligence in a genocidal instant. This in turn forces the whole team to consider the worth of artificial life as true, or disposable. The Vision, Ultron’s own creation and therefore Pym’s grandson, is distraught that Pym can take android life so casually, and tension rises between these two founding members. It brings into question the concept of just how powerful Pym is when dealing with artificial life. He can create it, and just as easily he has the power to snuff it out, and seems prepared to do so.

Far off on the moon of Titan, serial misogynist and satellite Avengers member Starfox is drinking with a horde of beauties when a Quinjet crashes into the surface of the moon, and begins burrowing towards the world’s hyper advanced technological core. In minutes, Titan’s finest are overcome by Ultron’s power, sending Starfox hurtling across the solar system to Earth In search of help. 

Still amidst the repercussions of their argument, the Avengers are threatened with the arrival of the most powerful incarnation of the robotic villain ever seen, an entire planet repurposed and possessed to suit his apocalyptic intentions. Planet Ultron looms down over Earth, ready to begin the systematic conversion of all life in the universe to become one with Ultron. 

As huge as the scale of the story is, Rage of Ultron is chiefly a character driven story. It explores the fascinating relationship between father and son that exists between Pym and Ultron, and the conflicting love and resentment the two bear one another. The tenuous relationship that both share with The Vision is touched upon, as Vision is forced to compare himself to both Pym and Ultron and find he can truly identify with neither.

Although a short story, it has some truly brilliant moments, and is more worth your time than the ten issue adventures of a time travelling Wolverine that Age of Ultron turned out to be. Pym’s descent into hatred is believable, and Ultron’s voice is as brilliantly malevolent and utterly condescending as ever. The reveal of planet Ultron is a damn fine panel, and the use of the new Avengers team over the classic we’re growing tired of is a nice touch. We see the hard headed female Thor throwing her weight around at the discussion table, and Captain America’s new identity as Sam Wilson, previously the Falcon, giving the orders as the incumbent leader of the team. In the tradition of Ultron only being able to be defeated by characters he’s never encountered before (with the notable exception of Scarlet Witch, whose power is by definition improbable), an interesting development occurs when Ultron is faced with an entirely new power, but I won’t spoil that surprise.

The finale is maybe less grand than it could have been, and we’re left with some glaring unanswered questions regarding the resolution, but the ending is emotional. It isn’t a triumph of good over evil, it’s about an entity who was born of anger and hate attempting to understand itself. Right from the beginning, as Pym reminds Ultron that regardless of all the atrocities Ultron has committed, that he still loves his son, is pretty powerful stuff.

Whether you’re looking to remind yourself who the real daddy is when it comes to Avengers villains, or if you’re wanting to get acquainted with him for the first time in anticipation of the film, Rage of Ultron is the book to pick up. Just try not to read all his dialogue in James Spader’s voice.