Sister Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), father Alexei Shostakov (David Harbour), and mother Melina Vostokoff (Rachel Weisz) are there to provide the grounding for Natasha’s story. Pops Alexei is played mostly for comic effect as the Russian doppelganger of Steve Rogers, while sister and mother provide an emotional foundation.

The story involves a mad Russian named Drekov (Ray Winstone) and his plan to rule the world using brainwashed female sleeper agents. It is all gloriously devoid of common sense and makes for some absurdly fun escapist entertainment. Who doesn’t want to see ladies in snug apparel kick absolute butt and save the world at the same time?

Black Widow provides a great reason to get off the couch and make the effort to get back into a modern cinema. A place where the screen and sound are huge, the story ridiculously over the top, and the communal experience one that has been seriously missed. Give back a little to something that has given so much.

Rob Hudson
www.facebook.com/MarvelAUNZ

Natasha Romanoff aka Black Widow confronts the darker parts of her ledger when a dangerous conspiracy with ties to her past arises. Pursued by a force that will stop at nothing to bring her down, Natasha must deal with her history as a spy and the broken relationships left in her wake long before she became an Avenger.

Scarlett Johansson reprises her role as Natasha/Black Widow, Florence Pugh stars as Yelena, David Harbour portrays Alexei/The Red Guardian, and Rachel Weisz is Melina. “Black Widow” – the first film in Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe – is directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige.

www.facebook.com/MarvelAUNZ

Florence Pugh stars as Yelena, David Harbour as Alexei aka The Red Guardian and Rachel Weisz as Melina. Directed by Cate Shortland and produced by Kevin Feige.

“Black Widow” hits Australian cinemas on April 30, 2020.
www.facebook.com/MarvelAUNZ

The exhibition follows Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye and their allies and adversaries from comic book to cinema screen as it explores the interconnected films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

It features more than 500 artworks from Marvel’s archives and private collections, with iconic objects such as Thor’s hammer, Captain America’s shield and Iron Man’s armour. Alongside the original comic books which introduced the characters and influenced the films are dynamic works of concept and keyframe art, more than 60 original costumes, over 150 props, and never-before-seen set pieces from the upcoming film Thor: Ragnarok, including the majestic Asgardian throne room. The exhibition looks in detail at Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America and The Avengers as a team, while also delving into the realms of Ant‑Man, Doctor Strange and Guardians of the Galaxy.

Curated by QAGOMA, ‘Marvel: Creating the Cinematic Universe’ offers a glimpse into the work of production designers, storyboarding and pre‑visualisation artists, costume and prop designers, and visual effects artists. Interactive elements throughout the exhibition will let visitors delve even further into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Cinema
Throughout the exhibition, the Gallery’s Australian Cinémathèque will screen all the Marvel Cinematic Universe films, from the breakthrough Iron Man (2008) to this year’s Spider-Man: Homecoming.

Open Wednesday night
The exhibition will be open until 9.00pm Wednesday nights.

Up Late
Fridays 28 July – 1 September (5.30pm – 10.00pm), an intergalactic Up Late returns during ‘Marvel: Creating the Cinematic Universe’. Explore the exhibition after hours, be tempted by the food and drinks offerings, and enjoy a stellar line up of live music from Art vs Science, Black Cab, Habits, Olympia, Models and NO ZU. Each Up Late is a separate ticketed event.

Marvel: Creating the Cinematic Universe Exhibition
27 May 2017 – 3 September 2017
GOMA – Brisbane
www.qagoma.qld.gov.au

One of first film’s strongest points was the dynamics between the characters and how they riffed off each other. Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man was given some great lines and everyone else had to up their game just to keep up. The new script is mysteriously bereft of most of those moments and sticks to a pacing of mostly action scenes patched together with momentary bits of dialogue. When the action does arrive however, it is dazzling.

The film also relies a bit too heavily on the viewer’s knowledge of the Marvel Universe and for those new to the ways of colourful superheros, it’s not a bad idea to bring along a friend fluent in that world. For parents, it’s a great way to get schooled by their kids. Writer/director Joss Whedon has returned to the franchise for this installment but either through pressure to pack a bigger bang or too many outside influences, his usual bright charm is slightly dulled.

All is not lost though and while the film is a good representation of the spectacle that can be accomplished with zeros and ones, there is also enough of the character’s innate human charm available to keep things from becoming too much of a technical exercise. It is visually spectacular, almost overwhelming, story-wise less so.

Rob Hudson
www.marvel.com/avengers

Iron Man 2 is certainly bigger, with an obviously enlarged budget, the film is packed with more expensive looking special effects and even more gratuitous over the top action. The film’s final duke-out is magnified as well with the addition of a very large number of baddies and an overabundance of explosive effects. The story also gets ramped up as we meet Tony Stark’s father (in flashback home movies) and get some welcome insight into his childhood.

Some of the relationships from the first film are also developed slightly with Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury and the film’s director Jon Favreau as Tony’s chauffeur, Happy Hogan getting more screen time. There are also a number of new characters that are introduced including Scarlett Johansson with tight black leather and a secret identity and Mickey Rourke as the new nemesis, Ivan Vanko. The film is certainly not resting on its laurels with characterization.

The film tries its best with a back-story of military intervention, the budding romance between Stark and his personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and Iron Man having to face his own mortality. It’s just that with this mad rush into impressing audience members with its bigger is better attitude, it loses a lot of the charm and swarm that made the first edition so memorable.

Rob Hudson
www.ironmanmovie.marvel.com

Captain America is an old world hero transplanted into a modern age and this made for some fun exchanges in the context of The Avengers but can this be sustained in a film all his own? The result, The Winter Soldier is mixed bag of successes and well, not quite failures, but certainly non-successes.

The film features a well-written, intricate story with broad elements of Minority Report and Robocop and it’s nice to see how these components weave together through the course of the film. It’s unevenly paced, however, running at two speeds. There’s the balls-to-the-wall thrilling action sequences and then there’s our hero’s relatively quiet interludes of introspection as he wrangles with his fractured past. This duality existed of a kind in the first film, of course, but they seemed to co-exist harmoniously in that film. Here the two elements tend to collide. Perhaps it’s because we have a classic era personal story running alongside a modern era actioner. In the previous film, the personal story was matched with classic era ‘action adventure’.

Scarlett Johansson is as good as ever as Agent Romanoff but something has happened to her accent in this. It’s less refined, more nasal, more ‘Jewish mother-in-law’. It’s quite irritating actually. That aside, her other assets are in fine form.

It’s nice to see veteran actress, Jenny Agutter, in a more substantial role this time around (you can actually see it’s her!) and it’s always a pleasure to see prior Neighbours star (will he ever jettison that label?), Alan Dale, who is strangely uncredited.

Chris Evans is a solid hero, Samuel Jackson is Samuel Jackson (no bad thing) and Robert Redford is a pleasing inclusion as well.

Stuart Jamieson
www.marvel.com

Compared to that other great superhero ensemble flick (no, not Fantastic Four!), Bryan Singer’s X-Men, The Avengers is the kitschy one of the two but it is no less a film. Whedon shows that he knows how to do kitsch without descending into a tired, boring, groan-inducing cliché (like Fantastic Four). Of course Whedonphiles have known this for many years and now the rest of the world will know it.

The primary difficulty in an ensemble film such as this is making sure that each character within the film has enough space to develop. The Avengers has an advantage here in that Marvel have taken the time and expense to develop most of the characters externally in their own franchises but even so, Whedon has done exceptionally well in giving each hero a respectable amount of screen time so that no one (almost) is short changed. No one character is elevated above another, they are all equals. This principle has most importantly been applied to The Hulk.

As the least glamorous member of the team (he’s big, green, angry and barely talks), Whedon has smartly elevated Hulk to the biggest, baddest ass on the team. He’s the one that nobody has successfully controlled (with the exception, perhaps, of his alter ego, Bruce Banner); no force has subdued him; no weapon has destroyed him; everyone is shit scared of him. When faced with an angry Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), the demonstrably deadly Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) stands her ground but is clearly petrified of him. The Hulk is the trickiest character to handle and Whedon does so elegantly.

Likewise performances are good from the entire cast. Iron Man naturally gets all the best lines given Robert Downey Jr’s ability to deliver them with aplomb. Black Widow is given the most character development (appropriate since she has not had a movie of her own) and Johansson does well with the subtleties of her character as she wields her personal vulnerabilities like weapons. Samuel Jackson is just Samuel and we love him for it. Hawk Eye (Jeremy Renner) is short changed a little on character development but perhaps he’ll be fleshed out further in future installments. In any case, he’s not a major player in this plot line. Chris Evans will be pleased that hardly anyone will remember his role in Fantastic Four and his performance here will erase that memory completely.

The action is suitably spectacular but that’s par for the course these days. Nothing feels slow throughout the proceedings; the action, dialogue and plot snaps along nicely and the script feels like it has spent exactly the right time in development to iron out all the wrinkles, which is refreshing.

As good as this film is, however, it does represent yet another needless application of 3D technology. This seemingly endless tirade of 3D blockbusters has become positively tiresome. Like most before it, 3D adds very little to this film; if anything it’s a distraction. 3D films present completely differently to their 2D counterparts – and not usually in a good way. The 3D effect forces you to focus on very specific parts of the scene, specifically (and literally) the focus or subject of the image, to the exclusion of everything else. It induces a kind of tunnel vision in the viewer. Watching a 2D variant, more detail is apparent in the background, as we’re not being directly distracted by whatever is hovering in front of our noses – much like a magician’s trick. That we see more detail in a 2D image is contrary to our expectations of 3D, which is meant to be a heightened experience. This needn’t be a bad thing, however. Like any other cinematic device, it could be used to good effect (it could have useful applications in horror movies, for instance) but it shouldn’t be overdone, as is the case with this currently endless slew of 3D flicks. The best 3D movie in recent times is easily Hugo. Clearly Scorsese understands the tool and is smart enough to know how to use it effectively and appropriately.

That aside, The Avengers will do well at the box office and it deserves to, and Joss Whedon will get his long overdue just desserts into the bargain.

Stuart Jamieson
www.theavengers.com.au