Black Panther - Wakanda Forever [dir. Ryan Coogler]

While watching the new Black Panther film Wakanda Forever (WF) I could not help but think back to the 2018 predecessor. At the time this is what I had thought of it:

"Black Panther is another fun action-packed superhero movie that holds its own, managing to mostly avoid the cookie cutter feel of other Marvel adaptations. The first half feels more like a James Bond adventure (if Bond had access to a Crysis-style exosuit). Second half has family intrigue and some standard Chosen One yarn, but done efficiently enough to not be boring. In fact, this is one movie that went by without my feeling any urge to check the time. The depiction of the fictional Wakanda with its mixture of African art and fashion motifs with futuristic design makes for a production and costume designer's wet dream. Chadwick Boseman delivers charisma and substance for the title part, and all the women are badass and sassy. Definitely recommended for superhero action movie fans."

Fans of Black Panther will of course be aware that work on the sequel had been brought to a halt by the tragic early death of lead star Chadwick Boseman from cancer. Undoubtedly a hard act to pull off after the sudden death of its mascot, the sequel is a thoughtful expansion of the narrative, very respectful of the actor's impact with the character of King T'Challa / Black Panther. Instead of recasting T'Challa, the story passes on the role to his sister Shuri (Letetia Wright - this is not a spoiler because the trailer itself shows Shuri in the Panther suit).

But WF takes a long while to get there. Beginning with the funeral of T'Challa, it soaks in the grief of the characters, mirroring the real-world tragedy of Boseman's passing. Queen Ramonda (a commanding Angela Bassett) holds the throne while Shuri is still struggling with T'Challa's death and her conflicts with Wakanda's beliefs (she considers the Panther an outdated relic). But tragedy or not, the struggle for power is an unceasing one. After rebuffing attempts by real-world countries like France and the US to steal their Vibranium, Wakanda must now face the threat from the undersea nation of Talokan.

Talokan is a Mesoamerican culture inspired civilization occupying the ocean depths. They are a mirror to the Wakandan way of life, having their own vibranium resources, as well as a herb that gives superhuman strength to its users. The Talokans are led by Namor (Tenoch Huerta), a mutant with pointed ears and wings on his ankles which give him flight. Namor wants Wakanda to join with Talokan against the other nations, who have in the past been oppressive colonizers. Initially, it seems like an alliance to protect their combined vibranium resources from the rest of the world, and there is the difficult moral choice of whether or not to kill a teenage prodigy (Dominique Thorne) that has built a device to locate vibranium ores. But soon Namor shifts to a vengeful "I wanna burn the world" mode and issues Wakanda with a "You're either with us or against us" ultimatum.

Whether Wakanda is able to overcome this threat, and whether Shuri is able to get over her grief and take on the responsibility of Wakanda's protector forms the rest of the film.

There are somber threads of loss and grief running through WF, always in a moving and dignified manner. The interaction between Wright, Bassett, Danai Gurira and Luptia Nyong'o makes for some of the film's best moments. But this is also where its spirit clashes with the Marvel Movie Template - the number of jokes may be a fraction of those thrown at us in the last Spider-man movie, but each time they land they jar with the tone of the film.

Namor is an interesting character and the film has a gorgeous, even when indulgent, flashback detailing his backstory. But he is soon converted to a boilerplate villain with his plans of global destruction. Shuri's wearing the Black Panther mantle also comes too easy. T'Challa was trained as a warrior, and his taking of the herb and suit only enhanced his innate combat abilities (as that of rival Killmonger). Shuri is primarily a tech genius. Having her fight her way out of peril as easily as him makes the transformation a cheap gag.

WF's biggest achievement is in how it embraces the death of the franchise star and moves forward while paying tribute to his contributions. I didn't have a huge problem with the 161 min running time, and the film was certainly more interesting than the last couple of Avengers movies for me, but it undercuts its own potential for a richer narrative and leaves one dissatisfied at the conclusion.

As could be expected, the production design has a ball, showing new sides of Wakandan life (with detours to Haiti) and exploring the Talokan's submerged realm. Ludwig Göransson, who scored the first film, continues with a distinctive blending of tribal and synth rhythms identified with the Black Panther films. At the cinemas, least in 3D a large part of the film is quite dark, so I would suggest either trying for a 2D screening or going to the best 3D venue you can find (where they don't skimp on the projector brightness). The 3D is decent in most part, although in mid and long shots it doesn't escape the "cutouts in a diorama effect".

Official trailer below:

The Batman [dir. Matt Reeves]

People have asked me, but I am as of now loath to do a full review of this new version of The Batman. The reason is, this movie tries to be something other than be a cliche costumed hero reboot story, and revealing too many plot elements would spoil the fun. But these are my salient impressions:

• In terms of characterization, The Batman is definitely most inspired by the tone of the preceding Christopher Nolan series, but doesn't try to beat you as much over the head with turgid grandiosity. There are a couple of emocore scenes, but they only occupy a small portion of a 3-hour narrative that flows surprisingly smooth most of the time.
• Full marks for not being another origin story. In this movie the Batman already exists as a young crimefighter, he has got his gadgets, and he has an ongoing liaison with James Gordon in the police force. No tedious exposition about who's who and what's what...and no fakking flashback recreation of when mommy and daddy were killed, hurrah for that.
• Most of the movie is a cop mystery-action drama like L.A. Confidential, except where one of the cops dresses in a bat-suit.
• They don't fetishize the bat-gear. Batman uses his stuff - batmobile, batarang and the other shit - but they're not haloed in a special spotlight for the fanboys to slaver over. During a large part of its introduction scene, the Batmobile is mainly seen as a pair of headlights coming up from the rear, and the sole 'hero' moment when it bursts through an explosion feels well-earned. One thing I felt they should have done is be even bolder in the costume department and remove Batman's cape - it serves zero purpose other than looking cool when he stands atop windy skyscrapers. Better still, they could have had a stiff kevlar-type folded structure that serves as backside armor and unfolds into a bat-wing glider when he leaps off buildings.
• The action, when it happens, is furious and grounded. The scope is not overblown and it's executed with panache. The lighting of some of the set-pieces (Greg Fraiser) is stunning, but not in that self-adoring manner of Zack Snyder movies. Trust me, it's not a movie where the only exciting bits are in the trailer.
• Catwoman is hot, she has a proper place in the story, and a relationship with Batman that's not just their common taste in S&M leather fetish. Heck, in this movie she seems a lot more confident in her skin than Batman does. She is played by Zoë Kravitz, who with this movie and Kimi seems to be the "it" girl for 2022.
• On the other hand, it's not quite cinematic genius. People have compared it to David Fincher's Se7en, and I can see strands of similarity in the narrative, but really, that's like comparing the work of Frank Miller and Alan Moore. One of them manages only a superficial imitation of the other. But the best examples of that imitation are actually fun, and so is this movie.
• Nirvana - Something in the way...this one was definitely a Zack Snyder grade eww moment.
• Robert Pattinson's cool enough as the bat-eared hero. His Bruce Wayne is still iffy - that all-too obviously prepared goth chic hairdo makes him look less like a character and more like a sweater model.
• Alfred (Andy Serkis, not playing a monkey this time, but wearing a monkey suit) is still the most useless valet in the world. I can only surmise that he and Thomas Wayne were lovers and he has incriminating photographs, the sole reason he's still keeping his job.
• Without spoilers, the Riddler's grand scheme of villainy is really dumb. It is almost as dumb as whatsisname's from Skyfall, but it doesn't derail the film because the script is a lot more nimble and not striving as blatantly for symmetry and portent.

So for me, this was a good bit of entertainment, certainly more so than Batman Begins. I just hope that the cameo character that comes in at the end is not going to be the focus of the next picture when there are so many more interesting possibilities to take.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse [dirs. Bob Persichetti - Peter Ramsey - Rodney Rothman]

The last movie I watched was Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, to be referred henceforth only as 'Verse.

'Verse arose from the curious situation of divided rights between Sony and Marvel for Spider-Man. Apparently Sony retains the TV and digital rights for any Spidey adaptations, and can make solo Spidey films with approval from Marvel. In return, Marvel gets to use Spidey as part of their cash generating MCU juggernaut. After a truncated non-Amazing Spider-Man series 5 years ago, Sony recently mounted Spidey onto cinema again, this time with the help of comedy / animation wunderkids Phil Lord and Chris Miller (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, The Lego Movie).

Unlike every previous Spider-Man feature film adaptation which goes with the best-known "Peter Parker is Spider-Man" timeline, 'Verse gives us Miles Morales (originally introduced in comics in 2011), an awkward school-going Afro-Latino lad who gets the bite. But wait, Peter Parker is here too...more than one...and a host of other Spider-people...including a pig (now that's going the whole hog). You see, the movie's premise involves the opening of a multi-universe portal by Spider-Man nemesis Kingpin which, after the original Parker is smashed into by a gargantuan Green Goblin, flashes in Spider-characters from a whole bunch of alternate planes. Their existence is however ephemeral unless they return to their own planes and the collider is destroyed, all of which needs to be done by Miles...once he gets a hang of how to control his new powers, that is.

So yes, the narrative is a wee bit over-packed, and doesn't have the space to explore its full multi-universe potential, but it works well most of the time, and the banter between Miles and another universe's Peter B. Parker forms a linchpin of companionship and character-building upon which the rest of the film rests.

Visually, 'Verse is an amazing trip that uses almost every color in the known spectrum. The animation is also unique, often resorting to a halved frame-rate to give the image a crisp still quality that looks like pages from a comic book. Supplementing this is the use of onomatopoeic verbiage, including thought bubbles and on-screen representation of a multitude of sound effects a la the Adam West Batman series. According to the makers the attempt was to make every freeze-frame look like a comic page or a work of art, and it works. For sheer eyeball-melting eye-candy, this tops most superhero films you know. With all their limitations of access to the character, Sony put out possibly the best Spider-Man feature film made thus far.

While I'm sure people with access to 4K and HDR will have an even better experience, the 1080p blu-ray also gives a topnotch presentation, incredibly colorful and texturally rich. 'Verse is a film that can be re-visited several times purely to admire the wizardry of the artists involved in the making. The 5.1 audio track sounds bombastic on my home surround, a heck lot better than some of the under-powered MCU blus (looking at you, Thor: Ragnarok). Of the extras, I watched all the featurettes, and they are decent though not significantly in-depth (I think they auto-play after the main feature). There is also an audio commentary and an extended version playback of the film, which inserts or discusses differently conceived scenarios and concept art elements.

Adventures of Captain Marvel [dirs. William Whitney & John English]

Of course when I should have been working I binge-watched through the remaining episodes of the 1941 movie serial Adventures of Captain Marvel (AoCM). Still considering that apart from the pilot, all episodes are 15min each, that's only a couple hours lost. Plus the time to write this up :p 

I can definitely see why DC lost their shit and sued over the original Captain Marvel comic book character. Apart from a magical origin (when the Tintin-like Billy Batson is given a boon to turn into CM by uttering the word "Shazam!"), the Superman parallels are unmistakable - the Capt has super-strength, is invulnerable to bullets and can fly. The movie serial also has its Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen characters in Batson's colleagues Betty Wallace and Whitey Murphy.

The serial follows an archaeological expedition into a Valley of Tombs in Siam (although it could have as well been Egypt, considering how vague the setting is). The very doings that give Batson his CM power also reveal a Golden Scorpion with a half-dozen lenses which when combines make a ray that vaporises living beings and turns base metals to gold, so yep every megalomaniac's dream. The megalomaniac here is one Scorpion who hides behind a most cumbersome robe and mask. The expedition members decide to split the lenses among themselves for safekeeping but the Scorpion is determined to track and hunt them down. Every episode till the finale ends on a cliffhanger note.

Unlike the ethical codes followed by more modern heroes (the non R-rated ones, at least), CM has no qualms about gunning down unarmed men or throwing them off the tops of cliffs and buildings. Separate actors play the parts of Billy Batson (Frank Coghlan Jr.) and Captain Marvel (Weightlifter-turned-actor Tom Tyler, whose buff looks make him quite convincing and he gets to lift and throw a lot of folks or their dummies). The visual effects are pretty good for the time and budget. Even when the technique is obvious, like the use of a full-size dummy along a pulley system, there's a special thrill to the flying sequences.

AoCM is a nice harkback to the simpler goofier kind of superhero adventure, recommended mainly for the Golden Age nostalgics.

Bat Lash

Spotted this as one of the DC Showcases available on Flipkart, and since the price was significantly lower than the standard ones, I did a recce on it. Turned out the price was low since the Showcase itself was significantly smaller - Bat Lash was a character with a very short run. I did some reading up which made these comics seem my sort, so I took the gamble.

Bat Lash is a Western hero come up with by Sergio Aragones (MAD magazine, Groo) and Dennis O' Neil (lots of my fav Batman era comics). When I saw that line-up I knew I had to check it out. Having read through the entire volume in a couple sittings, I can say I didn't regret it. Lash is in most of his outings the old-skool happy go lucky type, attracted to the ladies and while (very unsuccessfully) not looking for a fight, doesn't flinch away from one that comes to him...and one always does. The character is very similar to Terence Hill's Trinity and to a smaller extent, Bruce Campbell's Brisco County Jr. (a major difference being that Brisco is on the side of the law). Most episodes are self-contained and feature Lash getting into and out of a scrape, and kissing a pretty girl at some point. Towards the latter part of the series, Bat Lash's origin is revealed: His family was a duped by a land grabber and apathy from the law drove him to become a murderer and fugitive. The episodes dealing with the origin have a darker tone than the other stories. On the whole this is decent light reading if you like that sort of thing.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

While I haven't finished the game (yes, it's not a comic book, but read on even if you're not a hardcore gamer) as yet, I've played a fair deal of it and these are my impressions of it thus far. To put it in a nutshell, Batman: Arkham Asylum is not a great action game, great platformer or great adventure game; what it does however is to borrow enough good elements from all of these genres to make a great Batman game. As the title suggests, the setting is Arkham asylum where Batman's most memorable enemies (perhaps all of them, even) end up. The story begins with Batman wheeling the Joker in for an extended stay; only there's something fishy about the homicidal prankster's easy surrender. It's not long before Batman realizes it's a setup. Joker and his muscle-bound goons take over the asylum, and ol' Bats must catch the clown prince of evil before he unleashes his dastardly scheme of...you find out, suffice to say it involves a few other Batman villains.

The best thing about BAA is how accessible it is to the non-hardcore player. Considering the sort of acrobatic moves people would expect Batman to perform, this could have well been one of those keyboard murdering nightmares only staunch fighting game fans would go for. As it turns out, the makers at Rocksteady studios have designed the Batman character to perform his trademark ownage maneuvers with very simple inputs from the player. It's a game for Batman fans, not just gamers that happen to like Batman. The scraps with Joker's henchmen at the beginning of the game can be won by mere random button-mashing (what I did), and the game is very ready with hints and suggestions if you're downed in a fight.

It's later on when you go up against a dozen or more thugs at a time that you begin to appreciate the range of Batman's acrobatic moves and apply them to your advantage in combat. But even in these cases you never have to press any impossible combination of keys, it's more about getting into the flow of the combat. Again the game is very helpful, with onscreen displays of which attacker is likely to strike and which keys to press for instant takedowns. In a laudatory move, the game is also very forgiving in the platforming aspect. A single key-press has Batman sending out a grappling hook and swinging himself on top of an edifice, and so long as there's ground beneath you, the game never causes you to die of even huge drops. Tomb Raider and Prince of Persia fans may scoff at all this hand-holding but better this than have Batman fans fear to undertake the very moves they see their hero performing.

There are several memorable setpieces in the game: Batman's refusal to pick up a gun is a design conceit that works brilliantly in the game's context making every encounter with machine-gun toting goons a delightful cat-and-mouse experience. The intelligence level of Batman's enemies is low but that works fine here too, because it means you can predict how the poltroons are going to react to whatever cockamamie scheme you're planning to take them down. Setting up a non-lethal explosive gel trap and luring enemies to it using one of their downed colleagues or a sonic batarang is a gas. One of my favorite set-pieces is when Batman faces off against a small battalion of electric prod-wielding thugs on a series of platforms which are randomly electrified by Harley Quinn  - leaping from platform to platform to avoid getting shocked, all the while laying down barrels of trademark Bat-whoop-ass upon the bad guys was a thrill I thoroughly relished.

BAA also incorporates some light detective work for the Darknight Detective with a player-activated objective mode in which Batman tracks down clues like cigar ash or fingerprints or even DNA traces (no deduction here, it's a follow the arrow mechanic). Objective mode also improbably allows Batman to have X-ray vision in which he can see enemies through walls and gauge how many are carrying firearms. It's a nice addition, but my only gripe is that it should come with some penalty on Batman's reflexes to restrict the player being permanently in X-ray vision mode. As of now the eye-strain of this mode is the only deterrent from keeping it always on. Apart from the aforementioned grappling hook, Batman gets a score of other useful devices including the trusty batarang, explosive gel aerosol, electronic lock decrypter etc.

The plotline isn't all that (Joker's scheme, at least so far as I have got, is disappointingly mundane), but the writing by Bruce Timm (who helmed the much-loved animated series) superbly evokes the Batman comics I loved as a kid (late 70's stuff) - y'know, serious but not mopey/psychotic. Even the obligatory “Batman relives the episode where his parents got killed” bit is handled with finesse. Throw in voice acting from series regulars Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker and you have major league goodness happening.

BAA also succeeds in being restrained in the use of Batman villains. The Scarecrow I have so far encountered only in dream levels where the game beautifully transforms itself into a side-scrolling stealth platformer where Batman must make his way over an obstacle course, avoiding the gaze of a giant Scarecrow till he reaches and manipulates the Bat-signal to dissolve the fearful phantasm. The Riddler from what I know is not actually seen in the game but his presence is conveyed in the form of riddles and collectible artifacts spread throughout the Arkham premises. Solving these little puzzles gives Batman experience points which he can use to upgrade his abilities or gadgets None of this is ground-breaking, but the implementation is impeccable and adds greatly to the fun of the game.

So if you're a Batman fan and own a reasonably recent computer with a decent video card you owe it to yourself to try this game out. The sequel Arkham City has already been announced and features Hugo Strange (mmmmm...). My wishlist for the sequel would include a little time for Bruce Wayne. Wayne himself was a bit of a badass as written in the Julius Schwartz era and the limitation of not being able to use all of Batman's tricks would add some spice. And yeah, tone down X-ray mode a bit.