‘The Marvels’
In theaters
Alexa Chipman
“The Marvels” is a glittering space adventure, celebrating women coming together as a team to defeat the villain using flashy light powers and unflagging compassion.
It is wonderful to have a group of superheroes taking the time to discuss righting past wrongs and working through their feelings, rather than simply punching “baddies” for two hours.
The moment where Monica (Teyonah Parris) breaks down over the loss of her mother is truly moving, leading to a heartwarming group hug with Ms. Marvel (Iman Vellani) and Captain Marvel (Brie Larson).
Don’t worry, there are plenty of explosions, combat sequences and space battles that we’ve come to expect from Marvel movies, but they aren’t the focus of this story, which is primarily about building relationships and repairing damaged ones.
As a long-time fan of the comics surrounding these characters, I was overjoyed to see Ms. Marvel take to the big screen along with her family.
Her mother, Muneeba Khan (Zenobia Shroff) is brilliant throughout, giving sassy commentary about everything from the aliens destroying her living room to the “cat” with tentacles following Captain Marvel around.
Their main adversary, Dar-Benn (Zawe Ashton) has a terrifying goal to strip key resources (like Earth’s sun) from other planets, in order to revive her own. Ashton brings an intriguing complexity to her performance where at times she seems entirely reasonable, which only makes the supervillain that much more dangerous.
“The Marvels” is an enjoyable romp, complete with musical numbers. The audience was cheering and laughing, especially at the antics of Chewie (as a comic book nerd, I refuse to call the cat-like Flerken “Goose.”)
Grab some popcorn or a glass of wine and stop by the cinema for a fun Autumn blockbuster.
[Suggested emoji: Thumbs Up]
‘The Killer’
Netflix
Katie Wigglesworth
David Fincher’s newest film ‘The Killer’ is a curious, complicated watch. Based on the graphic novels written by Matz and illustrated by Luc Jacamon, ‘The Killer’ follows a professional assassin (Michael Fassbender) who faces grim repercussions after botching a hit on a high profile target. Those repercussions that fall largely on his partner Magdala (Sophie Charlotte) who is hospitalized following an attack in their home, triggering ‘the killer’ to set out on a murderous rampage for revenge along a bloody breadcrumb trail to ruin.
Fassbender’s deftly subtle performance simmers, both in his physical presence and his prolific narration, which carries us through most of the movie without feeling tired or overly indulgent.
From a technical standpoint, Fincher’s ‘The Killer’ is a delicious display of craft and skill, making for an aesthetically impressive and fiendishly entrancing watch. Fincher’s penchant for stories that delve into the subterranean recesses of humanity’s darker natures makes him a natural fit to direct, and his particular style matches well with the original source material’s visuals. The sound design and cinematography tactfully alternate between the more typical third-person framing and brief inserts that mimic a first person view.
It’s an evocative and effective juxtaposition of how we, the audience of bystanders, see the ‘killer’ and how he sees the world. The tarnished hit man story is an aged, crumbling tome that Fincher mostly handles with methodical consideration and practiced ease, but there’s a fundamental dissonance between ‘the killer,’ as a character, and the story itself, which keeps the movie from fully developing or embracing its core conceit, falling short of tapping into something truly, viscerally resonant.
It also fumbles the chance to explore the relationship he has with Magdala, the person he feels so strongly for he breaks his own rules. It’s alluded to that there are real feelings between these two, that to some degree she knows what he does, and even under persistent torture refuses to reveal anything about him. It’s a level of connection clearly meant to underscore the facade of his repeated declarations of indifference and detachment, but we aren’t ever really given a glimpse of what it is that engenders such devotion between them.
Ultimately, the handling of their relationship feels like an afterthought, with Magdala’s role being little more box to check on the list of hit man tropes, someone for him to be angry over, to spur the revenge. We’re just along for the (admittedly thrilling) ride as the freshly blacklisted hit man neck-snaps his way up the cannibalistic food chain of his capitalism-dependent job market in a series of tense, well acted and beautifully choreographed sequences that muse on the killer’s hypocrisy without ever forcing him to confront it, making for a stylish and intriguing but ultimately nihilistic and hollow watch.
