Past entries:
–Iron Man
–The Incredible Hulk
–Iron Man 2
–Thor
–Captain America: The First Avenger
–The Avengers
–Iron Man 3
–Thor: The Dark World
–Captain America: The Winter Soldier
–Guardians of the Galaxy
–Avengers: Age of Ultron
–Ant-Man
–Captain America: Civil War
–Doctor Strange

          With the unexpected runaway success of the original Guardians of the Galaxy, coupled with the hints it dropped of a larger storyline, a sequel was inevitable. So, how does it compare with the original?

We open with a brief prologue on in 1980’s Missouri, where Peter Quill’s mother is being romanced by a mysterious, charming stranger who shows her the small, plant-like object he’s placed in the forest. Cut to thirty-four years later at ‘The Sovereign,’ where the adult Peter Quill leading the Guardians of the Galaxy in a battle against a giant, other-dimensional space squid. Despite their continued bickering and eccentricities, the Guardians handily defeat the monster and collect their bounty from the golden, eugenically-created, ultra-arrogant Sovereign. This includes Gamora’s belligerent adopted sister, Nebula, whom they intend to collect the bounty on.

Unfortunately, thanks to Rocket’s self-destructive bad attitude and kleptomania, they quickly offend the Sovereign, who mark them for death, leading to a massive space battle made worse by Quill and Rocket’s jockeying for position. They’re saved at the last moment by a mysterious ship that blows up the entire pursuing fleet in a single blast. After a crash landing, they meet the ship’s pilot, Ego and his assistant / pet, Mantis. Ego identifies himself as Quill’s father, and invites him back to his own world to receive answers about his past. The team splits up, with Rocket and baby Groot (the offspring of Groot, who sacrificed himself for the team at the end of the first film) staying behind to repair the ship and guard Nebula, while Quill, Gamora, and Drax accompany Ego. Meanwhile, the Sovereign continue hunting the Guardians, while Yondu, Quill’s pirate foster father, starts having his mistakes catch up with him.

So, I called the first Guardians a ‘lightning in a bottle’ film: one of those rare films that comes along every now and strikes a completely original tone. But what I didn’t mention was that there was a slight problem with that. Namely that such films tend not to be very sequel-friendly. Often the unique achieved in the first film can’t survive a second pass, and the results come across as forced, unbalanced, or faintly desperate, as if the filmmakers themselves weren’t sure just what the had done and were attempt to reverse-engineer a happy accident. For examples of what I mean, just take a look at, say, Ghostbusters 2, or the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels.

Guardians 2, alas, doesn’t escape this problem. It fails to quite capture that strange balance of comedy, drama, and eccentric charm that the first one had, and the tone is at times wildly off. But, on the positive side, and unlike the other examples mentioned, it is nevertheless a very good film in its own right.

The story, obviously, is a bit more convoluted this time around, though it’s easy enough to follow; we have three or four different factions, each with their own goals, though they all play into the storyline in a way that it makes sense they would be involved: the Sovereign want to kill the Guardians for insulting them, which is the catalyst for the conflict within the team, said conflict mirroring the conflict Yondu has with his crew and his fellow ‘Ravagers.’

It’s all strung together with the theme of family; fathers and sons, sisters, and whether the characters will put themselves or their ‘families’ first. This theme is remarkably consistent across the film; Rocket stealing the batteries without caring about how it might affect the team, Rocket and Quill risking everyone’s safety by bickering during the space chase, them splitting up (symbolizing their distance), the Ravagers mutinying over Yondu’s decisions, which seem to be motivated more by his own wishes than the good the crew, and so on and so forth. Even the Sovereign, with their hilarious self-centered perspective (pursuing the Guardians to the death for what was more or less an insult), fit into this pattern.

Of course, the biggest example is Ego himself, who, as his name implies, is absolutely self-centered, but we’ll get to him later.

The opening of the movie is excellent; quickly re-establishing the personalities of the whole team, the way they work together, and setting up a few new developments, such as Baby Groot and the fact that Drax has at last somewhat mastered the art of metaphor without its making him any less odd. The fact that the majority of the fight is shown in the background while the camera focuses on Baby Groot dancing to more ‘70s pop hits immediately recaptures the off-beat, light-hearted tone of the first film, while showing off the team (and the song, ‘Mr. Blue Sky,’ perfectly foreshadows some of the themes and events of the film).

Unfortunately, they can’t quite maintain it. The tone alternates between being goofier than the first film – e.g. the scene where they fly through 700 ‘jump points’ in a row resulting in cartoony distortions, or Baby Groot’s increasingly absurd efforts to steal a select object from the Ravager cabin – and being much harsher and more adult – e.g. a bit where the Ravagers visit a brothel, or seeing dozens of men being shot out into space while screaming and crying for help. Not to mention the disturbing situation with Ego (who, we learn, has killed hundreds of his own children), which culminates in Quill having to kill his own father, which is interspersed with the same absurdist jokes as before. Basically, the film feels a good deal more uncomfortable and unbalanced than the first one, and the tone doesn’t hit the right note as often. More of the humor falls flat – the ‘not ripe’ gag, for instance – and more of the crudity feels simply unpleasant.

But, beyond that, there are still a lot of strengths to be had. We get more development for the characters, particularly Rocket and Yondu (the latter’s backstory we learn a bit about), as well as more both of genuine heart and humor from Drax, along with setting up a great new character in Mantis. Mantis is able to sense and, to a degree, alter the emotions of those she touches, and there’s a good scene where she touches Drax while he’s thinking of his family and is overwhelmed by his grief.

Mantis’s empathic abilities are generally put to very good use in developing both her and the rest of the cast, like when she touches Quill and announces for everyone to hear that he’s in love with Gamora (Gamora’s reaction, which is startled, but not really displeased, is perfect). This is quickly followed by her trying to touch Gamora, who forcibly prevents her, which is at least as revealing as anything that might have been said.

Most important of all is the progression on Quill’s character as he process not only meeting his father, but learning that his father is a god (“Small ‘g’,” Ego clarifies. “At least on days when I’m feeling as humble as Drax”). His back-and-forth feels from fear, excitement, anger, and pride are very well conceived and realized. Not only that, but over the course of the film he’s also forced to come to terms with just what he was looking for in the first place in seeking his father, whether he ever wanted to know who his father was, and what he really values in the first place, all of which builds on his progression in the first film. This is worked into his relationships with the other characters, particularly Gamora. The film establishes early on that he’s in love with her, but the question is whether there could ever be anything between them, given their ostensibly very different characters, and (more subtly) whether Quill is in fact mature enough to even have that kind of relationship with anyone. Which, of course, raises the question of whether he can really lead the Guardians in the first place.

Gamora, meanwhile, gets her own story arc relative to her villainous sister, Nebula, both of whom spend most of the film snarling and threatening to kill each other, until a late-game revelation puts their relationship into a startlingly new context. What had seemed like a ruthless, psychotic monster is abruptly revealed as a tormented young girl starving for the least bit of love or comfort in a hellish existence. Recalling their time under Thanos’s tutelage, she screams at Gamora, “You’re the one who wanted to win, and I just wanted a sister!”

The pay off for this reconciliation is a warm, yet tragic moment where Nebula is preparing to go off on a desperate and almost certainly futile effort to kill Thanos, and Gamora pulls her into a hug. Nebula initially reacts defensively…then slowly hugs her back.

Again, family is the recurring theme of the film: family and betrayal and trying to do right by those you are connected to. Which brings us to Ego, who is a simply fantastic villain. He’s charming and relaxed, but even from the start there are hints that something’s not quite right about him. There’s a definite sense of self-centeredness and disinterest in the other characters as people (as when Quill successfully manipulates molecules and Ego’s reaction is less that of a proud father than an inventor who has suddenly made a breakthrough). Then when his evil plan is revealed it’s, well, perfectly fitting for someone named ‘Ego:’ consume the whole galaxy until he is all that is. Everything, to Ego, is, or ought to be, an extension of himself, fitting perfectly in his position as a deadbeat father who abandoned his wife and son to pursue his own interests, as well as fitting with his status as a living planet.

I also like how Ego lies. When he recounts his backstory, for instance, he doesn’t say anything actually false; he only leaves out some vital details. Likewise, when Quill confronts him about not being around and leaving his mother to die on Earth, Ego first tries to make it about himself (“you don’t know what it was like…”), then when Quill shuts him down (“I know exactly what it was like; I had to watch her die!”), he smoothly changes the subject. I also love how Ego describes his utter selfishness in grandiose, tragic terms, as though he were a great romantic hero suffering for a noble cause, as though he were the real victim in all of this.

Fittingly, this self-centeredness is what proves the flaw in Ego’s plan; he evidently doesn’t expect Quill to react to strongly to the news that he put the cancer in his mother’s brain (“Who…in the hell do you think you are?!”). Later he’s stunned when Quill is able to use his love for his friends to master molecular control in order to fight Ego on equal terms (during the battle Ego makes a giant statue of himself, while Quill counters with a giant Pac-Man, visualizing the difference between the self-centered nature of one and the playful nature of the other).

So, Ego is a great villain; one of the best so far, and the mirroring between him and Yondu and Quill’s too father figures is great. One biologically created Quill, but the other acted as a father to him by teaching him to be a man. The film hints that Quill’s talents, the skills that make him such a deceptively dangerous and confident fighter, all come from Yondu. Paraphrasing C.S. Lewis, one gave of his body to beget him; the other gave of his spirit to raise him. As Yondu himself neatly sums up, “He might have been your father, boy; but he weren’t your daddy.”

Though the film does make clear that Yondu himself wasn’t a particularly good father figure either; he beat Quill, threatened to eat him (“That was just being funny!”), introduced him to a criminal lifestyle, and so on. Yondu himself admits that he “didn’t do any of it right.” But at the end of the day, he’s shown to genuinely love Quill, and to care for him more than for himself, which is ultimately the most important point.

Now, all this is fine and good as far as it goes, emphasizing how a father and a family should behave (Nebula scoffs at the idea of the Guardians being friends, since “all you do is yell at each other!” To which Drax answers, “No, we’re family; no one gets left behind”). Any other time and place, I’d have no objections to the movie’s themes. However, in today’s day and age, with ‘family’ being increasingly re-defined into something chosen rather than given, and the plain facts of blood relation and natural responsibility being more and more denied, a film where a man ends up killing his biological father and vindicating his ‘chosen’ family instead cannot but be uncomfortable. Like many other contemporary films, it’s fine in itself, but in the present context it comes across as rather unpleasant.

On a more positive note, I like the limits placed on Ego’s power. For all his boasts of being a god, the film explicitly states that he can’t create life, or even permanently maintain his own avatar. Nor does he know where he himself came from, or possess any more knowledge (and less wisdom) than any other being of his age and experience.

Though exactly what he can and can’t do relative to his planet is not really made clear; when, at the end, he’s trying to stop the bomb that might kill him, I couldn’t help wondering why he couldn’t just make up new energy tendrils to grab it or something. It’s a minor point that I’m sure could be explained, but there it is.

But on that point, I have to praise the action scenes once again, which are even more energized and creative than in the first film. Early on there’s a great chase through space, including a trip through a ‘quantum asteroid field,’ which seems to be trying to one-up The Empire Strikes Back, with teleporting asteroids. The sequence is full of hilarious details, like how the Sovereign ships are flown by remote control, meaning that the pilots are basically running an arcade (complete with one bit where a group gathers around a particularly skilled ‘player’ to cheer him on…then immediately turn on him when he fails), or how Drax grabs a space suit from a rack saying they’re “only for emergencies,” with the words “or fun” scribbled underneath.

Later there’s a scene where Rocket takes on the whole Ravager crew single-handedly using his gadgets and agility (and in the process getting to act like a real raccoon). The finale, with the crew taking on a planet, plus the Sovereign fleet once more, is also great.

Though in between is a scene where Rocket and Yondu take out the mutineering Ravagers, which is another one of those bits where the film becomes more uncomfortable; seeing them gleefully slaughter dozens upon dozens of men while a jaunty pop tune plays (even if the men are horrible) feels tonally jarring, and not in a fun way.

Visually, the film is a step up on its predecessor, particularly with Ego’s planet, which looks like a cover of Amazing Stories brought to vivid and colorful life, with its fantastical plants and architecture, though, somewhat ominously, no animal life (I also like that the film includes the image that Ego’s planet has an ominous face on it). We also have the golden Sovereign, and the funeral sequence at the very end, with its fireworks and the dust becoming an arrow.

And, though the humor doesn’t all work as well as in the first film, we still have a lot of great jokes: Baby Groot (or, as Drax calls him, “dumber, smaller Groot”), Mantis’s innocent attempts to learn human interactions, which are not helped by Drax’s unfiltered advice (“I am learning that I am a pet, and that I am ugly”), Drax himself just being Drax (“This gross bug lady is my new friend”), and, of course, the whole team constantly bickering or getting side-tracked by irrelevant conversations, such as when Rocket translates Groot’s digression on why he doesn’t like hats, or when, during the final battle, Quill tries and fails to get a strip of tape for Rocket. I also really like Yondu’s second-in-command, Kraglin, and his terrified reaction to Nebula’s backstory and plans for revenge (“Yeah, I was thinking something more like a pretty necklace. Or maybe a nice hat…”).

And again, there is a good deal of the warmth and sweetness of the first film as well. There’s everyone’s care for Baby Groot, the would-be romance between Quill and Gamora, and the development with Rocket’s character and the way Yondu is able to see right through him “‘Cause you’re me!” (I am continually amazed at this franchise’s ability to get genuine character-based drama out of a talking raccoon).

So, in summary, Guardians 2 is kind of an odd film; it reaches further than its predecessor, and in some ways outdoes it, but it also fails more. So, overall I’d rank it below the first film, but some parts of this one are stronger than anything in the first one. It’s still a very good movie in its own right, with a good story, a great villain, some excellent visuals and action, and interesting, if not always positive themes, all wrapped up in the quirky, creative world of the Guardians.

Past entries:
–Iron Man
–The Incredible Hulk
–Iron Man 2
–Thor
–Captain America: The First Avenger
–The Avengers
–Iron Man 3
–Thor: The Dark World
–Captain America: The Winter Soldier
–Guardians of the Galaxy
–Avengers: Age of Ultron
–Ant-Man
–Captain America: Civil War

Following the game-changing gut-shot of Civil War, we refreshingly take a break for another origin story, and this one marks another sharp stylistic change, bringing magic and wizardry into the MCU.

We open with a group of magic-using zealots stealing a set of pages from a mysterious library, only to be pursued by the Ancient One, who kills several of them with mind-bending magical powers. From there we cut to the brilliant, arrogant Doctor Stephen Strange casually trading music trivia with his fellow doctors while performing brain surgery, then rushing into action to save a dying man with a bullet in his brain alongside his compassionate ex-girlfriend, Dr. Christine Palmer. This quickly establishes that Strange is extremely smart, has a vast store of knowledge, and is so skilled at precision techniques that he can dig a bullet out of a brain free-handed. It also establishes that his arrogant, self-centered, and more concerned with his own reputation than with saving lives: he brutally cuts down a fellow doctor for making a bad call on a complicated case and is reluctant to engage with the family of the man whose life he has just saved. Later, while reviewing possible cases (including a references to “a soldier whose spine was broken in some kind of experimental armor,” hinting that the prologue takes place about the time of Iron Man 2), he rejects the ones that are either not interesting or that he doesn’t think he’ll succeed at (“You want to ruin my perfect record?”).

Then, distracted by reviewing these cases, he loses control of his car and crashes, ruining the hands that are so crucial to his work. Desperate to get his old life back (and blaming everyone but himself), he spends his whole fortune on experimental medical techniques to no avail. In the process, however, he uncovers the story of a man who somehow healed a severed spinal cord. Tracking the man down, he learns of a place in Nepal called ‘Khamar Taj,’ where there are “deep secrets.” Strange spends his last dime to travel there, where he is introduced to the secrets of magic and spiritual power by the Ancient One and the steadfast Mordo, forcing him to open his mind to possibilities he had never imagined…while placing him at the heart of a magical war for the survival of the planet.

So, my first point will be a criticism; the prologue showing the villainous Kaecilius stealing the pages and evading the Ancient One should have been left out. It’s not needed, the violence sets a brutal tone that doesn’t fit with the rest of the film, and I think the story would have been stronger if we had discovered magic and seen its amazing effects along with Strange, rather than being shown it right off the bat (it also raises questions of just when all this took place; Strange’s recovery efforts and training obviously take several years at least, so were Kaecilius and his allies just working on those pages the whole time?). An unfortunate lapse right out of the gate.

On the other hand (and hands are a motif in this film), Strange’s introduction is just about perfect; we’re shown his brilliance, his love of knowledge – even useless trivia – and his arrogance in swift succession. His relationship with Palmer is expertly sketched, in that they were together once, but are so no more due to his self-centeredness (their dates mostly consisted of his speaking engagements). Both clearly still have feelings for each other, but she’s unwilling to be only another ornament to his greatness.

Strange immediately calls to mind Tony Stark as another arrogant genius needing to be taken down a notch, though Strange is much more emotionally stable; where Tony is erratic and ignores the needs of others, Strange is focused to the point that he blasts straight through other people, regarding them with contempt for not being as smart as he is. The film is about him learning to take his mind off of himself and use his gifts compassionately, rather than for his own glory. This theme is well-sketched throughout the film, especially in relation to Palmer, who is defined by her compassion, which Strange dismisses with contempt while informing her, in no uncertain terms, that he loves his work much more than he’ll ever love her. It’s probably his worst moment, coming at the low point of his desperation, and he is shown to deeply regret it, but it shows us what kind of man he really was; someone completely reliant on his material success, his pride, and his career for his identity, so that when those are stripped away what is left is a bitter, angry, even cruel man at the core.

The rest of the film is about that man leaving the world behind and discovering a reality beyond the material, and in the process becoming a better, more compassionate man; someone who actually cares more about others than himself.

I especially appreciate that Strange’s journey involves the explicit rejection of his materialism. “We are made of matter and nothing else,” he informs the Ancient One, calling humanity “Tiny, momentary specks in an indifferent universe.” She in turn calls him “a man looking at the world through a keyhole,” before forcibly opening his eyes to the nature of reality.

It’s also appropriate that his journey in the mystic arts sees Strange being humiliated again and again, from being forced to sit on Kamar Taj’s doorstep and beg to be taught for hours on end to being dumped on top of Mt. Everest and challenged to magic himself back before he dies. He even gets a check to his notions of his own charm when he runs up against Wong, the hilariously stoical librarian, who, when Strange laments that people used to find him funny, cynically asks whether those people worked for him. After the opening, most of the film is about breaking Strange down, humiliating him, and forcing him to come to grips with his true place in the universe – or multiverse, rather. He constantly gets humiliated, beaten up, embarrassed, and corrected, but he is learning all the while. The ultimate lesson being, as the Ancient One says in one of the film’s best scenes, “It’s not about you.”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that Strange is just pathetic and useless either. He progresses quickly, aided by both a photographic memory and a creative, exploratory approach to his subjects (both established early on with his vast store of useless trivia on top of his medical knowledge and his unorthodox approach during surgery). When he goes into battle, he generally starts by being overwhelmed by his more skilled opponents before analyzing the situation and improvising a strategy to his own advantage. Though, believably, his inexperience means that this sometimes backfires horribly, or else results in effects he didn’t anticipate (as when he accidentally kills a man because he doesn’t understand the implications of the battle).

Speaking of the fight scenes, this is one of the first films I’ve seen that truly takes full advantage of the idea that these are wizards fighting. They don’t just shoot beams or kinetic energy back and forth (as in, say, the Harry Potter films): they literally alter reality around themselves in mind-bending ways. There’s a bit where Strange is running from Kaecilius, who uses a spell to bend the ground beneath him so that he’s running in place, and then shifts gravity back and forth to throw him around. Strange has a fight with another man when they’re both in astral form, meaning that they can’t be seen by the rest of the world and have minimal, ghostly effects on their surroundings (e.g. when one of them goes flying through a lamp, it flickers slightly). The climax involves a battle between two groups of wizards while time is running backwards around them, so that instead of the usual super-powered destruction, everything is being put back together, with walls bricking themselves up, glass windows reforming, and dead civilians coming back to life.

Visually, Doctor Strange is one of the strongest and most creative films in the MCU, with space, time, and reality all bending around our characters. At one point, New York is turned into a four-dimensional labyrinth, before a surreal arena of flowering masonry is formed in the midst of infinite space. Strange’s introduction to the mystical world takes the form of a surreal trip across reality (including a glimpse at the Microverse from Ant-Man), full of bizarre and terrifying – and beautiful – imagery. Not to mention that the magical effects themselves, with glowing geometric shapes accompanied by intricate hand gestures, are just really cool to watch.

On that subject, there is a strong atmosphere of knowledge and learning in this film. Wizards are, of course, conceived as men with unique, arcane knowledge of the world, and that idea pervades this film; the thump and crackle of large, ancient books, the intricate geometric shapes and precise hand-gestures, the set design of eastern temples and old brownstone mansions (and a Medieval church in one scene), the ancient relics the heroes use in battle, the film is filled with the sense of learning, study, ancient knowledge, and complex concepts that can be grasped by a sufficiently strong mind. Strange literally has his mind opened to receive knowledge he had never imagined, which then uses to save the world.

This forms one of the three main motifs of the film: secrets and knowledge, hands (and with them skill and accomplishment), and time (and with it the fear of death), all of which play out again and again in an almost seamless whole, and all of which, of course, fit perfectly with the idea of Doctor Strange; the man of knowledge and magic.

I also like how Strange, arrogant and selfish though he has been, is shown to take his Hippocratic Oath seriously; when he inadvertently kills one of Kaecilius’s men, it’s a huge shock for him, even though the guy had been in the process of trying to murder him. He also takes steps, from then on, to defeat the bad guys without killing them as much as possible.

As noted, one of the best scenes features Strange and the Ancient One having a final heart to heart at the very moment of her death, which she is magically stretching out so that she can watch the snow fall one last time. It’s a quiet, somber, immensely human moment as they discuss death and the meaning of life. I’m not sure I care for her claim that “death gives life meaning,” though it can be taken in a good way. I do like her comment that “no one ever is [ready]. We don’t get to choose our time,” whether to die or to face up to a crisis. The way she simply vanishes off screen after letting go of Strange’s hand (hands again) is very tastefully and thoughtfully done.

The Ancient One herself is a great character (though the behind-the-scenes reasoning for the decision to make her a bald Celtic woman rather than an old Tibetan man – to appease the Chinese government – is frankly disgusting); as Mordo says, she is “steadfast, but unyielding; merciless, yet kind.” It’s a tricky balance, but she truly does fit the description. She has a great, half-amused, serenely self-confident attitude throughout, as though she is so assured of her own power and knowledge that she seems to regard Strange’s bluster and arrogance rather as though he were a precocious fifth-grader…which he probably seems like to her (I also like that the film manages to have Kaecilius kill her without putting undue stress on our credulity by resorting to the unexpectedly simple and ruthless technique of stabbing through one of his own men).

Mordo is cool too; a rigid, upright, steadfast hero who is more skilled than Strange, but less flexible whether in strategy or personality. His friendship and clashing views with Strange are pretty well realized, with both of them allowed to have their own consistent views and personalities, and his presence – especially his final scene – hint at things to come in future films. I also like that, though he is the rigid one, he’s not humorless or stiff; he makes jokes and chuckles at Strange’s mistakes. We get a bit of hint at his backstory, as he describes how he wanted “the power to defeat my enemies. You gave me the power to defeat my demons.” Though, as the Ancient One warns him, “we never conquer our demons: we only rise above them.” (which is actually a pretty good bit of moral advice; never assume you’ve conquered your sins, because they can always come back if you let your guard down.)

I also really like Palmer, the would-be love interest. She’s extremely likable as an all around good person showing compassion on a man who really doesn’t deserve it, but who walks out on him once he crosses the line. She gets a lot of very funny reactions once Strange comes back into her life after being made a sorcerer (“So, you joined a cult?” “No…well, not exactly”), as well as getting to play an important role during the action by keeping him alive. I also appreciate that, though Strange is contrite for his past behavior, the film recognizes that they can’t be together. There’s been too much damage done, and their respective vocations call them apart (nicely demonstrated in their final scene).

On that note, the film does maintain a delightfully self-aware tone of how crazy and absurd the events are, such as Strange commenting on how it doesn’t make much sense to put warnings of potential soul and mind-rending consequences *after* the spells, or Palmer’s terrified reactions to seeing some of Strange’s magic in action (By the way, that scene with the mop? That was apparently a happy accident and an unfeigned reaction by Miss McAdams). Just having Strange summarize the plot at one point makes for a pretty good joke: “Well, a powerful sorcerer who gave himself over to an ancient entity, can bend the very laws of physics, tried very hard to kill me. But I left him chained up in Greenwich Village, and the quickest way back there is through a dimensional gateway that I opened up in the mop closet,” to which Palmer answers, “Fine, don’t tell me.” It’s funny, not because the plot is stupid, but because it’s…well, strange and something no normal person would believe.

(The film also accounts for the Avengers – and their lack of presence here – by having Wong explain that the sorcerers operate on a different level, defending the Earth from more mystical attacks while the Avengers deal with physical threats. And, given the staging the battles, while whole action scenes take place between instants of time, or in hidden parallel dimensions, it’s clear that the Avengers wouldn’t be much help in this case anyway).

Then there’s the Cloak of Levitation, which is a character in itself. Rather like the magic carpet from Aladdin, it’s both a tool and an ally, with a little ‘personality’ of its own expressed solely through movement. Half the time it’s a more competent fighter than Strange himself, which leads to a lot of very funny moments (especially since Kaecilius is evidently as confused by the turn of events as Strange is).

Which, I suppose brings us to the villain. Alas, despite Mads Mikkleson’s best efforts, Kaecilius is yet another bad guy of the Maleketh / Ronan school, in that he’s really not that interesting. Just generally menacing and dangerous, with a plot to destroy the world. They do at least take the time to invest him with an actual philosophy, which he explains to Strange and which reflects Strange’s own previous views. We’re told that he lost everyone he cared about, but we don’t get to actually see it (or even have it described, as in Civil War). This probably would have been a better choice for a prologue than the one we have; they could have shown Kaecilius mourning, then him meeting the Ancient One, then we cut to Strange. The stage would have been set and the villain given some meat without revealing magic too soon or confusing us with just what was going on. They do give him a bit of personality, though, as in his reaction to the confusion over Strange’s name (“Mr. Doctor.” “It’s Strange.” “Maybe. Who am I to judge?”). For the most part, though, he’s just another bad guy.

What Kaecilius desires is “eternal life as part of the One,” the one being Dormammu, the evil god from the dark dimension. There are some interesting ideas that could be got out of that relative to real religion. It reminds me most of the pantheistic notion of being ‘reabsorbed’ into the deity, as a drop of water into the ocean. But, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, that’s the end of the drop. I also like that the magic of the heroic wizards is basically a “program,” as the Ancient One says; working with the ‘code’ of reality, while the bad guys are communing with an evil spirit, striking a bargain in exchange for power (though this is muddied somewhat by the revelation that the Ancient One has been doing something similar).

Speaking of which, the final confrontation with Dormammu is probably the best part of the film. It’s so cool that I’m not going to describe it, but it’s one of the most creative and clever ways of beating the bad guy I’ve seen in a superhero film; perfectly set up, logical, and unexpected at the same time, while showing that Strange has taken his lesson about humility and compassion to heart.

So, overall, Doctor Strange is a very strong film. The prologue is a problem, the villain is kind of dull, and there are a few other gaps (e.g. why didn’t Kaecillius just take the whole book? And what are the odds Strange would go straight for that book when visiting the restricted section of the library?), but it’s extremely creative, very entertaining, and anchored by a great lead character with a strong, consistent arc, and all leavened with some of the best visuals we’ve seen yet. A solid introduction to a new phase of the MCU.

Past entries:
–Iron Man
–The Incredible Hulk
–Iron Man 2
–Thor
–Captain America: The First Avenger
–The Avengers
–Iron Man 3
–Thor: The Dark World
–Captain America: The Winter Soldier
–Guardians of the Galaxy
–Avengers: Age of Ultron
–Ant-Man

It has been eight years worth of the MCU at this point. Amid the ups and downs, the good and the bad, what has stood out more than anything else are the characters, and chief among them Tony Stark and Steve Rogers; the two leaders of both the team and the franchise: Rogers the aspirational, noble hero who always tries to do the right thing, however difficult, and Stark the troubled, haunted hero trying to make up for past mistakes and balance his unstable character. There’s been friction between them from the start due to their opposing personalities and world-views, but also steadfast respect and friendship.

Meanwhile, it has been said of this franchise that nothing can ever seriously change, that the characters have to remain in status quo from film to film. This isn’t really true, for the most part, especially given the events of The Winter Soldier, but it could be argued.

But what happens if Steve Rogers is faced with a choice between doing what he sees as the right thing and remaining an Avenger? What happens if Tony’s always-tenuous self-control shatters? And, all the while, what if the consequences of their past adventures caught up to them?

Civil War opens with a prologue showing the Winter Soldier carrying out an assassination mission in the early nineties to recover several vials of blue liquid. From there we cut to the Avengers on a mission in Lagos, chasing down Rumlow AKA Crossbones: one of the Hydra agents in Winter Soldier who ended the film having a building dropped on him. They succeed in taking Rumlow down, but a final mistake on the part of Cap and Scarlet Witch leads to considerable collateral damage. This, along with the events in New York, Washington, and Sokovia prompts the UN to move for the Avengers to be put under their authority via the ‘Sokovia Accords.’

The team disputes the wisdom of this course, with Cap arguing that they shouldn’t put themselves under the command of people with agendas who might send them places they shouldn’t go or stop them doing what they should. Stark, fresh from a confrontation with a distraught mother who lost her son in Sokovia, argues that the Avengers need to accept responsibility for their actions, though Cap points out that accepting the Accords would absolve them of responsibility by passing the buck.

The issue of the Accords, however, turns out to be secondary when the UN conference to ratify them is bombed by what appears to be the Winter Soldier, killing the Wakandan king T’Chaka in the process. Steve takes it on himself to go after his old friend, but Bucky denies involvement. From there things escalate as Cap tries to find a way to clear Bucky’s name and stop what appears to be a plot to destroy the world, while Iron Man tries to bring him in in order to prevent anything worse happening to him, with the different Avengers each taking a side based on their own particular views and loyalties. All the while, a quiet, sinister figure named Zemo manipulates events for his own purposes.

A full description of the virtues of Civil War would easily outweigh the film’s original script. It’s simply a great film all around, and there is so much care put into the story, the characters, the dialogue (almost every word has meaning and purpose, often more than one. As a simple example, when taken into government custody, Cap quips “I’m going to want that shield back,” to which Sharon Carter says, “technically it’s not yours, it’s the government’s;” sentiments that are hauntingly echoed in the climax), the action, and everything else. We have the film smoothly picking up plot threads from both Winter Soldier and Age of Ultron, and even making something of the execrable Iron Man 3, while smoothly introducing two major new characters and, essentially, tearing apart everything we’ve seen being built up for the last eight years, not cynically, but tragically, based on personal flaws and perspectives well established in past films.

One of the most impressive aspects of this film is how well it juggles its massive cast. Joss Whedon managed something similar in the first Avengers, though was less successful with it in Age of Ultron (where he sometimes ended up shuffling characters off screen for flimsy reasons when he couldn’t use them), but the makers of Civil War carry it off even better with their even larger cast. Though Cap and Tony are the focus, the film makes time to develop, say, Wanda and Vision’s relationship with a few warm conversations discussing their respective oddities, to give another meaty role to Natasha as both the team’s ambassador to the UN and the one trying to keep the team together, and, again, to introduce both Black Panther and Spider-Man and have them each be vivid personalities (T’Challa in particular is actually far more vivid and well-developed here than he is in his own film…but we’ll get to that). It even gives time to tertiary characters like Sharon Carter and the long-absent General Ross (now somehow Secretary of State).

Most importantly, when the two teams square off, we know exactly why each one has chosen the side he has, and that it makes sense in light of their character. Vision wants to create peace both within and without the team; Wanda doesn’t want to be controlled by other people’s fear; Rhody has always been the law-and-order type; Falcon always sticks with his wingmen; Spider-Man and Ant-Man aren’t really invested in the issues, but want to help the people they admire.

Likewise, their reactions to the subsequent events are entirely in character; Tony losing his temper and blasting Falcon after Rhody is accidentally hit (foreshadowing a far greater loss of control later), then being shocked and ashamed to find out where they’ve been imprisoned; Natasha switching sides when it becomes clear Cap isn’t going to stop, hoping to keep all her friends as safe as possible; Tony discovering Cap was actually right and quickly moving to help him, because they are, in fact friends.

I also like how, after the fight on the tarmac, Bucky wonders whether he can be worth all this to Steve, who reminds him that what he’s done “wasn’t your fault.” “I know,” Bucky answers. “But I did it.” He also asks about what’s going to happen to their friends, and Steve says that whatever it is, “I’ll deal with it.” Steve’s focus is on doing the right thing, carrying out the immediate mission, and trusting that he can meet each challenge as it comes without compromising.

But the film shows that it is a struggle for him; Steve doesn’t just righteously refuse to compromise throughout. There are several scenes where he honestly considers going along with the accords, where he considers the possibility that Bucky might have to be taken in, and he faces them. Like when he wavers about signing the accords, suggesting that if there were safeguards…but then realizing that Wanda’s been locked up in Avengers HQ makes him recall what they would really mean.

The relationship between him and Tony is expertly shown; Tony’s simmering resentment of how much his father talked Cap up, blended with real respect and a sense of inferiority (“sometimes I’d like to punch you in your perfect teeth”), yet also genuine affection. I like how Steve is surprised and concerned to learn that Tony and Pepper have broken up (“we’re taking a break. It’s no one’s fault”), and how Tony is still going to bat for Steve after the chase through Bucharest.

Both Steve and Tony are shown to genuinely care for each other, and even though they’re fighting at the moment, they sincerely want what’s best for the other, so that when Tony is convinced that Cap was right (which, as Natasha points out, he really should have been earlier if his ego – and possibly his extreme stress over his guilt regarding Ultron and latent PTSD – hadn’t prevented it), he immediately throws in on his side and sets off to help him as much as he can. Which, of course, makes what ultimately happens that much more tragic.

Before we talk about that scene, let’s deal with a few other matters. First and foremost is the villain; Helmut Zemo, who is surely the most unexpected, insidious, and one of the most interesting bad guys in the MCU. He has no powers beyond special-forces training, no technology beyond an EMP bomb, and no army or henchmen, yet he inflicts deeper wounds and comes closer to destroying the Avengers altogether than any other bad guy before him (and topped by only one to come). Zemo is chillingly believable as a relatively ordinary many driven by obsession and grief into doing startlingly evil things to get his revenge; he doesn’t just want to kill his enemies, he wants to destroy them morally, to tear them down, turn the Avengers against each other and, in his mind, reveal them for what they truly are: not heroes, but murderers.

And the really scary thing is that he nearly succeeds.

But then when we finally learn just why he’s doing it, we completely understand. It’s still incredibly evil and misguided, but why he would go to such extremes makes a frightening amount of sense. Zemo is immensely pitiable in his grief, and all the more disturbing for it. We come to learn that, under his cold, heartless exterior is a man in the most extreme emotional agony.

What’s more, his plan, once we understand it, makes perfect sense. It’s intricate, but based on a clear understanding of the heroes and how they might be expected to react, and all his crimes are directly related to it, not just there to show how evil he is. He even expresses sincere regret for the death of T’Chaka, and tries to reason the Hydra officer out of senselessly sacrificing his life to keep his secrets (though he still kills him in cold blood).

In summary, Zemo is without a doubt one of the best villains of the franchise; a man who is almost hypnotically frightening precisely in how ordinary and even relatable he is.

Then there are the two newcomers. First is Peter Parker, a still young and green Spider-Man, who when invited to come to Berlin and fight alongside Iron Man protests that he has homework (“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Tony groans in answer). Having Spidey in the MCU was something fans never really expected to happen, given that the film rights were still owned by Sony, so having him present – one of the most important superheroes in all of fiction – is a big deal, and it helps that this is one of the best portrayals of him to date. He’s a smart, nerdy, friendly kid. He’s eager to help and generally just thrilled to be there among all these great heroes (and of all live action Spider-Mans, this one finally meets the expected level of quippage during the battle, hilariously prompting Falcon to tell him there’s usually not this much talking). But the film also sketches his motivation very well, with his disjointedly trying to explain to Stark that, “When you can do the things that I can, but you don’t, and then the bad things happen…they happened because of you.”

Which is just brilliant; it hints at the incident with Uncle Ben, while mirroring both Tony’s typical motives (to do all he possibly can to avoid disaster) and Captain America’s current motivations (that he can’t ignore a threat, whatever the cost). Spider-Man, thus, is hinted to be a potential successor to both Cap and Tony, though he obviously needs to get a bit of mileage under him first. But even as a greenhorn superhero, he shows himself a force to be reckoned with his extreme strength and agility allowing him to fairly dominate the battlefield (he even catches Winter Soldier’s metal arm…and then exclaims about how cool it is) and showcasing just what he could be when he comes into his own.

The other newcomer is even more impressive: T’Challa cuts an awesome figure, in and out of his Black Panther persona, as a sophisticated, intensely dignified young man with an underlying current of ferocity lurking below the surface. T’Challa has a calm, cool, hyper-focused and cultured personality that embodies the message, “I am a king. You will treat me as a king, or I will rip your throat out.”

He also is refreshingly convincing as a man with a distinctly non-western outlook, as seen in his affectionate, but deeply reverential interactions with his father (the film expertly invests their relationship with great emotional weight even though they have only one scene together before T’Chaka is killed), and his matter-of-fact promise to kill Bucky in vengeance. I also really like the scene where he describes his culture’s views on death to Black Widow, and when she says that it sounds lovely, he answers, “my father thought so.” Later, when he’s been arrested along with Steve, he calmly asks him, “as both warrior and king, how long do you think you can keep your friend safe from me?” He doesn’t make any effort to apologize, nor does he berate Cap for trying to protect Bucky; he simply informs him that he will never stop coming.

Yet, he’s not completely serious or stiff either; he has moments of levity, as when he quips that he really would like to see Black Widow and his female bodyguard take each other on, not to mention his practical assessments of bureaucracy (“Two people in a room can get more done than a hundred”). I also like his snarls of frustration when his quest for vengeance is foiled at the end of the airport battle, and how he is literally trying to grab on to the departing jet with his finger tips. He’s single-minded, stoic, and has a very different perspective on the world than the western characters, but he’s still entirely human.

Black Panther is one of the most striking and unique heroes to come out of the MCU thus far: regal, intelligent, and single-mindedly virtuous in his own idiom; sophistication blended with ferocity. He’s just bursting with awesome potential. We’ll…come back to that.

Of course, one of the chief appeals of the film is seeing the Avengers taking each other on, and the movie delivers with the spectacular airport battle which undoubtedly ranks as one of the best action sequences ever filmed, certainly for a superhero film. It builds and builds from the confrontation between Cap and Iron Man, through side-skirmishes involving Spider-Man against Bucky and Falcon, Ant-Man against Black Widow, Cap against Black Panther, and so on, until there’s the famous ‘face-off’ scene where the battle lines are drawn and they charge each other. The sequence is full of great moments, like Wanda throwing cars at Iron Man, or Cap complimenting Spider-Man on his heart and discovering that they’re fellow New Yorkers. Ant-Man in particular gets another chance to show just how dangerous he can be by, among other things, entering and partially disabling Tony’s suit (“Who’s speaking?” “This is your conscience. We don’t talk much these days.”) and, as a climactic move, revealing his new ability to become Giant-Man, temporarily taking on almost the whole opposing team single-handedly (prompting a frustrated Tony to ask, “Anyone on our side hiding any shocking and fantastic abilities they’d like to disclose, I’m open to suggestions”).

Best of all, on top of the glorious action, everyone remains in character throughout. Tony and his crew are there because they actually care about Cap and the others and don’t want to risk them being shot by trigger-happy special forces troops (Ross makes it clear he’s perfectly willing to use lethal force), while Cap and his crew are trying to prevent a potentially world-ending threat. Neither can back down because they both think they’re doing the right thing. Moreover, they make it clear that (with the exception of Black Panther trying to kill Bucky), none of them are really trying to hurt each other: they’re “pulling their punches,” as Wanda says. Natasha even pauses in her duel with Hawkeye to ask “we’re still friends, right?” to which he answers, grinning, “depends on how hard you hit me.”

Yet, equally realistically, with all this power and deadly skill flying around, they can’t keep everyone safe all the time. Spider-Man gets knocked out of the fight by an errant blow from Scott Lang, who earlier nearly incinerated three of the other side when he mistook a fuel truck for a water truck. Worst of all, an errant beam from Vision meant to ground Falcon ends up knocking Rhody out of the sky, breaking his back and leaving Tony even more emotionally charged than usual (as shown by his blasting an apologetic Sam in retaliation).

Then comes that scene; the final card, the real plan all along. Zemo expertly plays the Avengers off against each other over one issue or another, weakening their bonds of trust, and then, luring Cap, Winter Soldier, and Iron Man together, far from any help, he springs his trap; not seven super soldiers (“Did you really think I wanted more of you?” he sneers), but a video tape. A tape revealing that the people the Winter Soldier assassinated in the opening scene were Howard and Maria Stark.

It’s then that the gloves come off. Tony’s emotional instability, his complicated relationship with his parents (touched on in an early scene where he demonstrates a device meant to relive and work through painful memories, in his case the last time he saw his mother and father, and didn’t take the chance to reach out), his PTSD, his resentment against Cap for being the ideal he could never reach, all the issues that we’ve seen him struggling with and working against throughout the series come out on this revelation: that his best friend has been protecting the man who killed his parents, even though he knew what he had done (a mark of the film’s care is that this was actually revealed back in Winter Soldier, meaning that if we remembered a fleeting detail from that film, we could have guessed the ending of this one).

It’s the one thing that we’ve ever seen Cap compromise on; the one time he has ever been dishonest, trying to shield both his best friends from each other. And it is these flaws – Tony’s emotional baggage, Cap compromising to protect his friends – that give Zemo his opening (foreshadowed by his sarcastic comment, “How nice to find a flaw”).

The fight between Cap and Iron Man is truly heartbreaking; these two have been the core of the franchise since its beginning, and we’ve watched their friendship and their respect grow, despite their vastly different personalities, and now that’s being torn apart before our eyes. We’ve never seen Tony lose control like this, and it’s frightening, especially since it’s not clear what Cap is going to have to do to stop him.

That was Zemo’s plan: either Iron Man will murder Bucky and possibly Cap, or Cap will have to kill Tony. In either case, there would be no going back; such an act would destroy them. Once Tony came to his senses, he would realize that he was now a murderer, while Cap could never be the pillar of virtue that he is if he either had to kill one friend to save the other, or if he failed to stop the one from killing the other. Whatever happens, the Avengers and their two leaders would be utterly destroyed.

What this means is that, as Cap is fighting Iron Man, he’s actually fighting to save both his friends. He would not, I believe, ever actually kill Tony, so the question is whether he’ll be able to disable him long enough for him to come to his senses and stop him from murdering Bucky. Of course, even if he does that, their friendship is effectively over. This is a falling out that will take a long time to heal, if it heals at all.

The fight itself is excellent, paying full respect to the abilities of both combatants: Cap dominates hand-to-hand, but generally can’t deliver enough force to seriously injure the Iron Man suit, while Tony’s technology gives him a deadly advantage, enough to take both Cap and Bucky on at the same time. But of course, Cap’s main advantage is his strategic mind and his unbeatable determination (the line “I could do this all day” returns: Cap never abandons his friends), and his final gambit is brilliant in its simplicity.

(I can’t resist noting that, in all of this; storytelling logic, emotional impact, logical choreography, and respect to both characters, this fight is the polar opposite of the battle in the contemporary Batman v. Superman. The two films could easily form the subject of a ‘dos and don’ts’ demonstration of how to do a story like this).

Then, after all that, we get a glimmer of much-needed humor (courtesy of Stan Lee as a FedEx guy) and of hope, first through Rhody learning to use his new legs and accepting his condition, then from a letter of apology that Steve sends to Tony, along with a phone to call if he ever needs him. That is perfectly Cap: he bears no grudge, understands Tony’s pain, and lets him know that he is still his friend, but leaves it up to Tony to attempt the reconciliation when and if he is ready for it.

All this and there is so much else I could talk about: the subtle villainy of Ross. Black Panther’s own character arc of coming to understand the corrupting effects of vengeance. Steve finally making his move with Sharon Carter (prompting hilariously supportive nods from Sam and Bucky). Wanda’s arc of refusing to accept responsibility for what isn’t her fault, and on and on. We have great jokes, like Sam taking offense that his suit is itemized as “bird costume,” or Scott’s awestruck first encounter with Captain America, or Vision’s habit of entering rooms through the wall (“Yes, but the door was open, so I thought…”). And perceptive moments, like when Tony wishes they had the Hulk, Natasha rhetorically asks “You really think he’d be on our side?” or the honest debate they hold over the Accords, with everyone bringing up valid and character-appropriate points.

If I really wanted to pick out some flaws, I might say that, on subsequent viewings I noticed that a few of the combatants during the airport battle – notably Vision – seem to more or less disappear when they’re not needed, and that you could ask things like where Zemo got the EMP bomb (though there are many possibilities, given what we know of him, it just isn’t explained in the film).

Really though, that would be beside the point. I’m calling it: Civil War is the best film in the MCU, and one of the best superhero films of all time. The story, the characters, the dialogue, the action, everything works, and works spectacularly. You could spend weeks studying this plot and digging out just how well put-together it is and how much it manages to accomplish. This is more than a film to appreciate; this is a film to study, and it gets better every time I watch it.