Inside Man

This was a movie that I have been interested in seeing for a long time. It has a lot of things going for it: the cast, the director, the setting of being about a bank robbery. There are just a lot of things about this movie that got me very excited.

Inside Man gets right into the action almost immediately as we are introduced to Dalton Russell (played by Clive Owen). From the get go he says he's going to pull off the perfect robbery in a very cryptic opening. And then the heist begins. Russell and his team occupy the bank and take the patrons and the staff hostage. The police are quickly notified and they assign Detective Keith Frazier (played by Denzel Washington) a cocky hostage negotiator who is as witty as he is intelligent.

On face value, Inside Man is just a crime thriller of cops versus robbers. But the reality is that the movie is actually a psychological thriller where Detective Fraizer is trying to solve the riddles that are laid out in front of him by Russell.

All the while you have Jodi Foster playing a power broker named Madeline White who is hired to meddle in the game between Frazier and Russell by Arthur Case (played by Christopher Plummer) who along with owning the bank in question, also has an incredible vested interest in the contents of the bank.

I'll talk about the good things first because putting my opinion out front, this is a really fun movie.

I'd say the best comparison of what this movie has to offer is the crime thriller feeling provided in Heat, with the psychological thriller feeling of a movie like Gone Girl where you're always asking questioning the puzzle and trying to figure out every individual piece.

The first thing worth talking about is the cast.

This movie came out at a time where Clive Owen was in everything. 2005 and 2006 were the years of Clive Owen and I've seen a lot of those movies. The difference is, Clive Owen is actually a lot of fun in this movie. Usually he's all monotone and British that he's not really that interesting of a character.

In this movie, he's intriguing, you're listening to every word he's saying and he's probably the best part of the puzzle that is this movie. You're always kind of wondering why he's pulling off this heist, and what lengths he is willing to go to make this heist a success.

What's more is that you never really feel like Russell's motivations or even his entire plan until the very end of the movie and they do a very good job at hiding it. Throughout the entire movie, Russell is the puppet master and its just fascinating figuring out his plan.

And the vehicles to figuring out the mystery behind Russell is Detective Frazier (and his partner Bill Mitchell (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor)). While Denzel is the main character in this movie, of course Chiwetel Ejiofor gives a performance that is pretty underrated like a lot of his performances were until recently.

Frazier is a good vehicle for the audience to solve the mystery, but he's his own shade of character that creates a great unhinged loose canon to juxtapose Owen's cool and calculated Russell.

The weird part about Frazier's character is that he is painted from the start as this by the book cop who is very good at his job, but at the same time there is a crooked edge about him that really colors the character and makes him interesting.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is honestly the sidekick in this film and he's just there to give Denzel a partner. But like most performances from Ejiofor, I really enjoy him.

Another part of the police end of things is Willem Dafoe. Dafoe plays the tactical lead of the police at the hostage situation. He's a pretty typical character you've seen before. He's the guy who is more prone to action rather than talking situations through. He's not the best part of the movie, but its Willem Dafoe. You really can't go wrong with Dafoe.

And then there is Jodi Foster’s character Madeline White. Now her character sometimes seems a bit out of place and in the grand scheme of things probably could have been played by anybody because she’s not actually as important to the movie as much as you would think. However, Jodi Foster gives a performance in this movie that I really enjoyed.

Most performances I’ve seen from Jodi Foster have been pretty bland and calculated. She’s very much like Clive Owen in that she is very good at portraying someone who is very closed off and quiet. However, like Owen, Foster gives a performance in this movie that is a lot different than anything I’ve seen her in. She’s confidence, she’s cocky, and, dare I say it, there’s a little bit of sexiness in her performance. While I was a little bit annoyed with her character at times, especially when she would only show up for a scene or two and then disappear until she was needed, I liked what Foster was doing with the character and I liked how different it was from anything I’ve seen from her. This is all with the caveat that I can’t say I’ve seen a lot of Jodi Foster’s filmography. The point however is that I liked what I saw and it was different.

The last performance worth mentioning is Christopher Plummer. I don’t think I’ve seen too many things that Plummer has been in that I didn’t like and this is no different… there’s not much else to say, I enjoyed him.

The characters really drive the story because the truth is, the story is pretty simple. Again, on face value, this is just a procedural episode that could usually be resolved in an hour run time. But the psychological elements and the complexity of the plot makes its something that needed to be a feature length film, especially in 2006.

Bank Heists are always appealing topics to portray on film and while the movie is more about the psychological battle between Frazier and Russell, a lot of the story is supported by its structure and the directing of Spike Lee. I really can’t say I’ve seen a lot of his movies, but if they are anything like this film, I think I have to check out Spike Lee in the future.

Now that is not to say that the directing in this movie is perfect. There are a lot of uneven parts of this movie both in the cinematography and the story. I mentioned before the limited exposure we really have of Jodi Foster in this movie when I think she should have been in more of the film. I also think the movie may have suffered a little bit by writing Russell as too much of a mastermind and not so much as a character. Not only do you have trouble totally understanding his motives, even at the end, there are a lot of moments where he’s so in control that you kind of wonder if Frazier is even an intellectual match and if there’s even really an intellectual battle going or if its just Russell pulling strings the entire time that there’s no point for anyone to counter him.

The other thing worth mentioning is that there are a couple of moments where I think Spike Lee or the cinematographer wanted to get creative with the cinematography and it didn’t always fit with the tone the movie had already set up. Its not that these shots were bad or not well done, they just felt out of place. I think I would have preferred there to either be a lot more artsy shots to give the movie a different kind of feel, or leave those out and give us a straight forward action flick with action cinematography.

Overall, there was a slight unevenness about the movie that was noticeable. It didn’t make me dislike the movie, I just think it could have been cleaned up to make me enjoy it even more than I already did.

That’s really the majority of my thoughts on Inside Man. If you have Netflix or have been eyeing this movie for a while on Redbox, do give it a watch. I can’t believe its already 10 years old because it definitely feels like a movie that would come out now. I think anybody can go into this movie and come out having a pretty good time.

But what do you think? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me requests for movies I should watch in the future. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. The first thing that made me think this movie was different was the opening song. When I heard this song, I knew this movie wasn't totally what I expected. Enjoy!

The Mummy

There's a couple of things about this movie that made it so I never actually saw it. The first reason was this movie is marketed as a little bit of a scary movie. Its not, but there are a couple of times in this movie where I thought the genre changed from an action adventure movie, to a horror movie. Since this movie has come out, the visual effects look pretty out of date, but back in the day these effects were state of the art and it was some kind of scary imagery, especially when I was young.

The other reason is Brendan Fraser.

Brendan Fraser is an actor who I only saw in one movie when I was younger and that was George of the Jungle. George of the Jungle is a movie that I definitely enjoyed as a kid but it kind of ruined Brendan Fraser for me.

Forever, I will always know Brendan Fraser as the guy who played George of the Jungle, and I have a really hard time imagining him as anything else.

So when he was cast in the Mummy, a movie that many could compare to a 90s version of Indiana Jones, it was very difficult for me to really see him as anything else than George of the Jungle and The Mummy didn't really seem that appealing.

Now, since I have seen Fraser in other things and I have since actually seen The Mummy and I actually am interested in seeing Brendan Fraser in more things. But at the time, I just wasn't interested in this movie because all I saw was George from George of the Jungle. Maybe its not a fair thing to think about as this guy has done more than those two movies, but I still will always see him as that role, and it takes me a while to think of anything else.

So now that I've seen The Mummy, what is it about?

The Mummy starts sharing the story of an ancient Egyptian priest (played by Arnold Vosloo) who falls in love with the mistress of the Pharoah.

The two plot an assassination attempt on the Pharoah but eventually his lover his killed and he is mummified and killed slowly. He is put under a curse and is eaten alive in his coffin.

The weird part is the curse that they put him on almost intends for him to be resurrected. They say that its this horrible curse that they would never wish on any man because of the incredible pain he experiences, but they say because of this curse, if he is ever resurrected he’ll be invincible. I mean I can understand that they really wanted him to suffer, but why put the curse on him if there is such a danger on him getting out?

And of course, you know he does.

We are then introduced to Rick O’Connell (played by Brendan Fraser). He’s a… well honestly I’m not totally sure what he is. I guess he’s some kind of treasure hunter or a mercenary. He only seems to have information on the mummy and his hidden tomb with a trove of treasure because he stumbles upon it in the beginning.

He teams up with a clumsy archeologist Evelyn (played by Rachael Weitz) and her comic relief brother (played by John Hannah). Evelyn is studying ancient Egyptian runes and they find a map and a key to an ancient Egyptian Tomb. The tomb in the city O’Connell just happens to have stumbled upon 3 years earlier.

The first 30 minutes of this movie could have been a movie in itself because it’s basically a short Indiana Jones movie. They’re making their way to the ancient city; they’re attacked by mysterious

organizations trying to protect the secrets of the city. There are a lot of elements that I had a lot of fun with in the beginning of this movie. That’s not to say the rest of the movie is bad, I just enjoyed the adventure and Indiana Jones-like parts in this movie more than the rest of it.

They make it to the ancient city, competing against a group of Americans trying to get to the treasure first, and then things get a little weird.

Like I said before, it’s pretty obvious that Imhotep, that Egyptian priest from the beginning is going to get woken up and he is, The Mummy. And even leading up to his resurrection, there’s a lot of fun Indiana Jones adventure that goes on in between. But I remember very clearly the moment when this movie suddenly turned into a horror film. Mystical things start to happen and it just had a distinct feeling of a horror film instead of an adventure film.

The other part about this shift in tone is that this movie came out in the 90’s when studios started utilizing CGI more and more. The Mummy had to have been a movie that took a lot of risks at the time to create some scary imagery with CGI. But the further and further away from the 90s we get, the more and more the CGI effects just look cheap and silly.

The problem is, it’s a little bit obvious that a little bit more effort was put into scary shots and horror-like ambiance rather than setting up the adventure feeling like you would see in an Indiana Jones movie.

Now I don’t want to say that this movie should have just copied Indiana Jones, all I’m saying is that this movie was doing a good job at the beginning being a straight up adventure film and there’s a specific point in the movie where its no longer an adventure and instead turned into a game of cat and mouse with certain characters just getting picked off one by one by the Mummy. It was kind of distracting the drastic shift, that when the movie tried to go back to the adventure it was kind of too little too late.

So the first note that I would make for this movie is that they should have stuck with the adventure feel and dropped the horror cat and mouse game. We’re in ancient Egypt with an archeologist and a gun wielding mercenary, we might as well use them.

Speaking of the characters, how is Brendan Fraser?

He’s good. I’m gonna be honest he’s got a really dumb face that yes, I can’t separate from George of the Jungle. However, he does do a good job at creating your pretty typical cocky swashbuckling hero. He’s likable and despite my better judgment, he does a pretty good job. I had a lot of fun with him as the hero and I wanted him to succeed.

The same can be said Rachael Weitz as Evelyn. You have to remember that it’s the 90s and female characters are not exactly written that well. She’s very clumsy and very fallable as a protagonist. While she has her moments where she is a competent hero, there are just too many conventions that she falls into as the damsel in distress, and at a certain point, that’s really all she becomes. Now I’m not saying that she should have grabbed a shotgun and started blasting mummies like Egyptian Ripley, that wouldn’t have lined up with her character. I’m just saying there are parts where she’s just useless when she has proven to be very competent in earlier situations. She devolves into arm candy and that’s a shame because she’s a funny and likeable character.

And that leads me to her relationship with O’Connell. I don’t know if they fix this in the sequels but the only real romantic chemistry these two have is in their weird “do me” stares that they give each other throughout the movie when they’re not being chased by zombies. Their romance is really not written that well and there doesn’t seem to be too much the two of them have in common besides the part where they share a kiss at the beginning. Its your typical mismatch where she’s very primp and proper and British and he’s your handsome, cocky, American rogue. Of course they could never end up together until they do. That trope had been used so many times before this movie and its been used plenty of times since that it’s a little tiring. If you’re looking for a recent comparison, think Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard in Jurassic World. While I didn’t hate that couple as much as a lot of people did when Jurassic World came out, its pretty much the same set up. He’s the rugged rogue, she’s the business woman who’s very organized. You get the picture.

The other characters are fun in their own way but if they’re not the expendable people who are just fodder for the mummy, they’re not exactly the most necessary characters. Evelyn’s brother for example. He’s funny and he’s a good addition to the movie but I don’t think he necessarily needed to be in the film for a particular reason. And that could not be very more true with the character of Ardeth Bay (played by Oded Fehr). (I actually had to look up what that guys name actually was,

that's how in significant of a character he was. The funny thing about this character is that he starts out as an antagonist as he is part of the organization tasked to guard Imhotep. However, they really don’t do a good job and when Imhotep is resurrected, he just kind of joins them and everything in the beginning kind of becomes of little consequence. I mean I know the reason he was brought in and that was to get a cool character who looks awesome with a machine gun (even though that part didn’t make any sense because he wasn’t feeding that machine gun any rounds and would have spent what was in that can very, very quickly.

And then of course you need to talk about Arnold Vasloo as The Mummy Imhotep. And he’s good. If you’ve seen Vasloo in anything, you’ll know that he’s not exactly a Shakesperian actor. His main purpose in this movie was to provide an intimidating figure who looked Egyptian. And he does a good job. He honestly doesn’t have too many lines and even fewer are actually in English. But with the special effects, he’s not really brought in for his acting.

The Mummy is a fun movie and I’m really looking forward to watching the sequels because while the first film got muddled with a horror tone, I get the feeling that it will focus more on the adventuring in the future due to the strength of those scenes. But an overall review of this film is that it’s a fun adventure that got muddled with some horror tropes and dated CGI effects. The characters are fun if not a little bit predictable and stereotypes. I’m looking forward to moving forward in The Mummy franchise.

But what do you think of The Mummy? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as send me your requests for films I should review in the future. If you follow me you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

I'll leave you with this. So... they made a Mummy cartoon series... Not totally sure why but here's the intro to that. Enjoy!

The Jungle Book

The Jungle Book was not my favorite animated Disney movie when I was a kid. Sure I enjoyed it like I enjoyed almost every animated Disney movie when I was a kid, but it just didn’t go down in my absolute favorites like so many of the other animated films did. So when I heard that they were making a live action Jungle Book, my reaction was a shrug.

Sure I’m interested in almost anything Disney puts out because they’ve proven themselves to be a solid company that knows how to put out quality movies. But I wasn’t jumping out to my car to see this movie.

And then I started hearing news of the production of this movie. Trailers came out and I became more and more interested. I don’t think I ever got to the point where I was first in line to see this movie on opening day, but I saw this movie as a movie I was interested in seeing in 2016.

And then yesterday I told myself that if I didn’t see it on my day off, I wasn’t going to end up seeing it.

The Jungle Book follows the story of a young boy named Mowgli (played by Neel Sethi). Mowgli grew up in the jungle, raised by Wolves and watched over by a Panther named Bagherra (voiced by Ben Kingsley) who was the one who found him when he was younger alone in the jungle.

During the dry season, a truce is called among all the animals in order for all the animals to have access to water and Mowgli and the wolves go to this truce. However, when they get there, a Tiger named Shere Khan (voiced by Idris Elba) shows up and says, “I want that kid dead!”. And as you eventually figure out, Shere Khan is really the most intimidating antagonist I have seen in a long time. When he says he wants a kid dead, you obviously don't want Mowgli dead, but you know things are not going to be good when Shere Khan doesn't get his way. 

This forces Mogli to leave his wolf family (main ones voiced by Giancarlo Esposito and Lupita Nyongo) with Bagherra and the Panther will bring him back to the man village where he will be safe. The rest of the movie is the journey to the man village where Mogli meets a whole cast of familiar characters and animals like Elephants, the seductive Boa Constrictor Kaa (voiced by Scarlett Johanasson), the giant monkey King Louie (voiced by Christopher Walken), and of course a bear named Baloo (voiced by Bill Murray) who becomes Mowgli’s best friend.

The funny part about watching this movie is the nostalgic recall I had towards the original animated film. The fact of the matter is, The Jungle Book animated movie was not really a cohesive story as much as it was a bunch of episodes of different animals Mowgli finds himself in. I believe that’s basically what the original book is anyway, so creating a linear narrative is a little bit difficult. The Jungle Book itself is more of an Odyssey story where its not about Mowgli getting to the village that is the important part, its more about the journey.

And it’s a fun journey.

Right up front, the obvious praise this movie is going to get is that this movie is just down right gorgeous. The thing to remember with this movie is that everything, and I mean everything, with the exception of the boy who plays Mowgli, is CGI. The environment, every single animal, everything is CGI.

And if you didn’t know that going into the movie, that may shock you because it looks really down right fantastic. Even the animals have moments where it’s a little bit difficult to believe that they aren’t real. And if you did know that before you went into the film, its becomes a really fun experience watching it knowing that it was all filmed on a green screen stage in California.

But the visuals in my mind were going to look amazing no matter what. You don’t have to watch the movie to enjoy the visual, there is really enough of it in the trailers.

How are the characters? They’re pretty good.

First off, the kid who plays Mowgli I have to give a lot of credit. He’s a young kid imagining everything around him and while some of his lines were delivered in a way that you would expect a kid his age to deliver them, I never felt like he wasn’t in the moment and it never felt like he wasn’t out there in the jungle with the animals. I really hope this kid gets work in the future because he did a pretty good job and I’d like to see how his career develops after this movie.

But what's better is that this Mowgli is a smart character. He's not just the protagonist, he's smart and while he was born in the jungle, you can tell he's utilizing his brains to solve his problems. The animated movie painted Mowgli as just this annoying kid. I believe that this Mowgli could actually survive in the jungle based on how smart he is. 

The voice acting in this movie is really well done and really well casted. Originally when I saw the voice cast for this movie I thought Ben Kingsley was going to play Shere Khan and I thought that sounded awesome. And then when it turned out that he was playing Bagherra and Idris Elba was playing Sher Khan, I got even more excited because both those castings just sounded perfect and they really were. Shere Khan as both a voice and a presence was just down right terrifying and imposing.

If you’ve read this blog before you’ll know that I’m not the biggest fan of Bill Murray, but when I heard he was cast as Baloo I said, “That is perfect”. And once again, it was. Like I said, each voice cast just fit perfectly with their character and the animal design.

The only slight exception I think might be Christopher Walken as King Louie. I didn’t necessarily dislike the casting or the performance, I just think it was a little more apparent that it was Walken just being Walken. I hadn’t heard King Louie talk until the movie and I just heard Christopher Walken more than I heard a huge ape. He didn’t do a bad job, he just was my least favorite.

This might be a pretty short review because honestly The Jungle Book is a pretty simple film and it doesn’t need a lot of analysis or critique. The movie did a pretty good job at creating its own narrative and didn’t necessarily bank too heavily on the nostalgia. That being said, there was a lot of nostalgia I had for this movie and it was fun to see it come to a (semi) live action adaptation. There’s no cliff hanger ending at the end of this film but it has a pretty open ending and it could open up to a sequel, something that I would definitely see.

Am I raving about this movie? No. I think it’s a movie a lot of people will enjoy because it’s a fun journey and enjoyable for kids and adults. I don’t think it’ll go down as one of my favorite movies of the year but it was fun. That’s the best description. Fun.

Disney has a pretty long list of movies they’re going to be making in the future that are live action adaptations of their animated films. The Jungle Book is a good sign of the direction they’re headed. I really liked their adaptation of Cinderella and I’m over the mood excited for Beauty and the Beast down the road. As long as they do more movies like this and Cinderella and stay away from films like the Alice and Wonderland films, I think the future of these films is pretty bright.

But what did you think of The Jungle Book? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @MovieSymposiumas well as give me your requests for future reviews. If you follow me you can get updates on future movie news and reviews coming out of this blog.

Thanks for reading!

What's up with Marvel these days?

So I've kind of been slacking on this blog in general, but I feel like I've really been slacking when its come to talking about upcoming Marvel movies. There's been a lot of Marvel news and I really haven't said too much about it.

Now there are a couple reasons for this.

1. Marvel is doing okay right now. I swear, this is a company that can really do no wrong. I don't remember Ant-man that much to be honest, but I do remember it being a hit film, despite the fact that it was a movie starring Paul Rudd as a guy who could shrink down to the size of an ant. I mean how do you make that successful.

I really think that Marvel could put out anything they wanted right now and people would still go and see it if it connected into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

2. There's a lot of stuff I don't usually talk about on this blog that came out. Something that I have found in writing this blog is that I cannot stay on top of everything. I want to write stuff that is going to be though provoking or just get you excited about what is happening in the world of movies, and if I don't feel like Ic an do that, I will usually not write something. So when news came out that the title for the new Spider-man movie is Spider-man: Homecoming, I did not write anything about that. I can do that on Twitter, or Facebook... or in my mind. Even though I think that is a dumb title for a movie, that doesn't tell me anything about the film. I haven't seen anything from the film, so what is there to talk about?

3. There is so much coming out. Captain America Civil War is a great example of a movie that has released so much stuff on it that its hard to really write anything productive on each and every thing. And it kind of ties into my first point in that Marvel seems to be doing everything right that its hard for me to put anything that is going to be very constructive. I think the reason I stopped doing a lot of fan theories about Batman v Superman was because I was sure the movie was going to be good no matter what came out. I just wanted to sit back and watch what I thought would be brilliance at the time unfold. A similar idea is happening with Captain America Civil War. Everything looks great from that movie that the only reason I would write something is to say, that looks awesome. I don't need to theorize because I'm pretty certain the movie is going to be awesome.

But all those reasons aside, I do feel like I haven't given the MCU enough typed words lately so I thought I'd do one big post to catch up on what I haven't been commenting on in the past few weeks. This all comes a few weeks before Captain America: Civil War, a movie I am looking forward to incredibly. So we might as well start with that.

Captain America Civil War: Right off the bat, everything I have seen from Captain America Civil War has been pure gold.

Yes, I will get to Spider-man, hold your horses.

One of the things about this trailer that makes me wish I had written an individual post when it first came out, was the fact that this is just a great trailer, even without Spider-man. I don't mind that they showed him, but if I was an executive with Marvel, I'd say, "No, let's keep Spider-man secret, let's have people enjoy him when he gets there.

But anyways, the trailer itself is just really well done. It paints a picture of a struggle between Captain America and Iron Man that is just down right awesome. I heard some people who were worried about this movie (the few that there are) who were concerned that this was just going to be a quick disagreement between these two and that all the fighting would be tongue and cheek.

But we see in this trailer that, in the words of Iron Man, this has started a war. And someone is going to die. I don't know if its going to be Rhodey (even though I kind of had that theory a while ago) I don't know who its going to be, but someone (if not multiple people) is not making it out of Captain America: Civil War alive.

The unfortunate part is that, if you're on top of the movie universe like I am when it comes to news, you know that Infinity War is coming up, you know a Black Panther movie is coming soon, you know certain people need to be in future movies and therefore they cannot die. Black Panther is one of them, Ant-man is another. Spider-man is another.

Now there are theories rolling around that Captain America might actually bite it in this film. I go back and forth with whether or not I think he will.

On one hand, Crossbones is being brought in and Crossbones killed Captain America in the past. (If I'm not correct on that, please let me know, I'm not 100% on that one) But on the other hand, when has continuity with the comics ever really mattered. On the other hand, it would be an insanely impactful blow to the franchise is Captain America died. On the other hand, Chris Evans has been known to be filming for Infinity War. On the other hand, they could bring him back. But on the other hand it kind of continues Marvel's record of Bullshit when it comes to characters dying.

So it really is up in the air at this point.

If you asked me to make my best guess, I will say neither Captain America or Tony Stark are going to die in this movie. But I will not be surprised if they die and are brought back in a later film.

But what is Civil War going to be about. Here are the things I know.

Bucky is coming back to the forefront and the government wants to bring him in. Furthermore, the government wants to curtail the activities of the Avengers, I'm assuming after the bombing of some sort of delegation for the Sokovia Accords on top of the attacks that have happened in the past, (New York, DC, and Sokovia). My theory is that Black Panther's father is killed in that bombing and since its blamed on The Winter Soldier, Black Panther is out to go get Bucky. Since the government's plans are in line with his, he aligns himself with Tony Stark to avenge his father.

Along the way, Captain America goes outside the wire to help clear Bucky's name, recruiting some of his fellow compatriots. However, lines are drawn and eventually it will lead to a fight of ideals where people are going to die. Maybe its Rhodes, maybe its someone else, but someone is going down.

Oh... and Spider-man will show up and fight for Tony Stark...

I'll be honest I have no idea where Spider-man fits into all of this.

The point is, this does not feel like a friendly brawl. This feels like it is going to have consequences and it is not going to have a happy ending. The Civil War does not stop with Captain America mentioning his mother's name is Martha, it goes on past this movie and will probably resolve only when they have a common enemy in Thanos. And this is exactly how we should want it to be.

The more I think about Batman v Superman, the more parts I like about it, but one of the biggest issues I had was that the fight between those two wasn't started because their ideals finally clashed violently. It was because Lex Luthor had Superman's mother and said either kill Batman or Martha dies. That defeated the entire purpose of all the questions that were brought up throughout the movie, it defeated the entire plot of Clark being frustrated he's not getting stories about Batman, it just wasn't that great.

The thing about Civil War is that there has already been so many great lines like Tony saying, "So was I," to Captain America after he justifies this fight by saying Bucky is his friend. Or the look on Tony's face when Bucky literally almost shoots his face off and is only stopped by Iron Man's iron glove or whatever the hell it is, or when Tony just sucker punches Captain America and says, "You just started a war".

There are more moments in the trailers I have seen that have just been down right good that it makes me believe they're doing this struggle correctly. They are giving both sides the right side and giving us, as the audience the ability to decide who they side with.

The point is this movie is unfolding to look better and better with each trailer. I don't think that they'll do any more, which I'm happy about. I'm ready for the full movie, and IT'S COMING SOON.

Just for one last taste of Civil War, Enjoy this!

Spider-man: And then there's the who news about Spider-man. Yes he was in the trailer for Civil War. Yes he looks a little bit different than Spider-man has looked in the past and what do I think about him?

He looks pretty awesome. He's got this rubbery looking suit but its definitely a suit that Tony Stark has helped him with because of the eyes and how they squint.

Now I'm a little bit cautious. I have written a post stating the reasons why Spider-man might still fail at Marvel. 

But the way I see it is, Spider-man is probably going to be utilized well in this movie and while his reception in this movie might help fuel people going to the movies that are coming out of Sony, I'm still hesitant to say that Spider-man is going to be good in the long run.

But the trailer confirmed exactly what we all knew what was going to happen, it confirmed all the news saying that Spider-man was going to be in Civil War, and I for one am very excited about it.

And I loved the way that they brought him in. Marvel has always had their moments of being tongue and cheek and its always kind of fun when they can give a wink to the audience and this was one big old wink to the audience.

When he says, "Hey Everyone." He's basically saying, Hey Everyone... Yeah... I'm in this movie. Just like you expected.

I still have no idea how he's going to be utilized but I am incredibly excited to see how they weave Spider-man into Captain America: Civil War.

I'm sure there are more things I can talk about when it comes to Civil War but the truth is, I'm just excited for this movie. I have really no doubt that its going to be good and I could theorize all day about it but at the end of the day, I have faith that its going to be pretty darn good.

Doctor Strange: Onto something totally different, Doctor Strange is a property that I can't say I've been overly excited for. Its not like I don't like the cast or the chance for Marvel to enter the realm of Magic for the first time, I just don't know Doctor Strange that well as a property and its not really the highest on my list of Superhero movies that are coming out this year.

Now the trailer does interest me. I think for a long time, I was hearing rumors that Doctor Strange was going to delve into the horror aspect more than other comic books have in the past. But after watching this, it looks more and more like Doctor Strange is going to be the Inception of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Now I might be saying that just because they have a similar shot of a city coming from different angles like inception did, but there are just other possible ideas that they could throw with Doctor Strange that could be really interesting.

The only thing I know about Doctor Strange is that Steven Strange was a surgeon who, after a horrible accident loses use of his hands. This is something that kind of confuses me because it makes it sound like he loses his hands but you can definitely see he can use his hands so he hasn't lost the ability to use his hands. But anyways, he eventually finds teachings in a group of "sorcerers"? and they teach him to be Sorcerer Supreme.

All the photos from this movie have looked awesome, as well as the images the trailer provides.

I guess my question is, how does Doctor Strange fit into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe?

Doctor Strange is the MCU's change to delve into a totally different arena than they've gotten into before.

Iron Man and the Hulk are your pretty standard superheroes and its a good place to start the local superhero realm. Captain America is in that vein as well but he brought a historical element to the universe. Not only are superheroes a thing in the modern time but they cross time. Furthermore, Captain America has delved into the spy espionage genre as well as being a standard hero. Thor and Guardians of the Galaxy introduced the MCU to the cosmic elements of the Marvel universe, letting us know that there are aliens and other cosmic realms alongside Iron Man and everyone else on Earth.

Doctor Strange brings us into uncharted territory because Stephen Strange ends up using the realm of the mystic. It was introduced a little bit in Ant-man, but you start going into quantum realms, and now Doctor Strange is going to introduce magic. This is where things are going to get really really cool. If its done correctly.

Of course, Marvel is pretty much batting 1000 when it comes to profitable movies so I don't see this movie being bad. I just hope that it is actually good and not Marvel good.

What is the difference you might ask?

Marvel has been very good at knocking down a formula for a profitable movie. Create a likeable hero, give him a challenge and a journey, throw in a splash of humor for good measure, throw in some franchise creating easter eggs.

Yes there are variations to that formula and I think Marvel knows that they have to switch things up here soon or their formula is going to be noticed and it will no longer be profitable, but right now its working for them even if the movie isn’t that great.

Its been a while since I’ve seen Ant-man but as much as I like Paul Rudd in that role, I really don’t see that as a very memorable movie and I just have the feeling that if I went back to it, I’m not totally sure if its as great of a movie as I don’t remember it was. (I’m going to try and do a rewind review on Ant-man soon just to get that cleared up once and for all.

My point is, I’d like to see them branch off and try something different with Doctor Strange. Give us a compelling story for Stephen Strange but at the same time, develop Baron Mordoo (if he is even the villain). Give us a villain we can enjoy just as much as we’ve enjoyed Loki and the villains from the Netflix series.

The director of this movie is a pretty well known horror movie director, so give us something very different like the Russo brothers did with The Winter Soldier. 2016 is still turning out to be one of the best years for Superhero films so give us something insane and just a lot of fun. I don’t want Doctor Strange to just be a repeat of Ant-man as they set up just another character who is going to show up in a later film.

Don’t get me wrong, I want Doctor Strange to show up in a later film, I just want this movie to stand on its own and be great.

But how will he fit in? Well there’s a couple places he could fit in. I don’t know the lore of Doctor Strange and it doesn’t sound like a lot of people do. So use that and use him  in a place where we wouldn’t expect him.

Pit Doctor Strange up against Loki. Team him up with Hawkeye, I don’t care. Just find something fun to use him.

Overall, I’m excited for Doctor Strange.

Everything else: Everything else on this post will be smaller news and how they fit into the future of Phase 3 and the larger MCU.

There was news a while back that Thor: Ragnorak is going to feature Hulk and might be loosely based off Planet Hulk along with the Ragnorak storyline where Asgard and all the Gods die.

This is a movie that not a lot of people are talking about as much as I think people are going to when the movie comes out. Thor movies always seem to surprise people (myself included) so while we’re not talking about it, Thor Ragnorak could be a really great film.

Its obvious that Hulk is going to end up in space after the events of Age of Ultron and be romping around with Thor. I think this is going to fall into the plan of Thanos to get Hulk off of Earth when he finally comes to destroy the Avengers. Furthermore, Cate Blanchett was cast as Hella and I don’t know if Hella is or is connected to the character of Death, the ultimate courting goal of Thanos.

This is down the road a little bit, but the more I’m hearing about Thor: Ragnorak, the more I’m wondering if Thor is going to make it out of that movie alive.

I have no doubt that if Thor bites it in Ragnorak that he’ll be back in Infinity Wars, but I’ve heard theories that he’ll be resurrected as a female, or it’ll be the clone of Thor (Beta-Ray Bill?). While I don’t think they’re going to switch genders on us, I could be interested in either storylines.

But it really underlines what Infinity War is going to mean.

First off, like I’ve said before, the Civil War will not end with this upcoming Captain America film. Its going to carry on until a larger threat comes.

Now the obvious threat we think it will be is Thanos. But I’m wondering if it is actually Hulk being manipulated by Thanos into thinking humanity screwed him over (which they probably did). Infinity War Part 1 could be a World War Hulk vehicle. Something I am totally down for.

I’ve talked pretty extensively about who I think is going to die in the future films so I won’t beleaguer that point until I know more.

The last Marvel movie we saw was Ant-man. We are now officially in Phase 3 and its time for Marvel to raise the bar once again. I’m of the belief that Ant-man was the last time that formula will work. Luckily, I think this is the time Marvel has been waiting for to finally let loose. God knows they have had the time to build up to this moment, let’s see something different and bold with Civil War!

But what do you think? Where do you think the MCU is headed? Who do you think is going to die? What did you think of the trailers from the past few months? What did you think of Spider-man in the Civil War trailer and are you looking forward to Spider-man: Homecoming? Comment and Discuss below! You can also send me your thoughts on Twitter @cmhaugen24 as well as your requests for movies I should review in the future or things I should discuss on this blog. If you follow me on Twitter you can get updates on future movie news and reviews. 

I'll leave you with this. Here is pretty much a guide for dummies on Doctor Strange as he is the next movie after Civil War. Enjoy!