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For younger fans of Marvel movies, it may be hard to remember anything that came before the advent of the MCU. For decades, however, studios had been trying to strike gold with Marvel properties in ways to rival the success experienced by Warner B...

Was it only six years ago that every Marvel movie was greeted with unbridled anticipation and around-the-clock showings that delivered box office records? Although Disney executives have been quick to blame the pandemic for the decline of the MCU,...

Spoiler Alert! Nothing overt but I hint at some plot developments that some readers may not want to know about until after they’ve seen the movie. Depends on your concerns about a “virgin movie-going experience.” Despite the name...

It's fair to say that superhero saturation has set in. Not many years ago, every cinematic version of a comic book protagonist's adventures was awaited with baited breath. Now, because of an unceasing and sometimes careless flood of such titles, ma...

Captain America: The Winter Soldier represents the first film from Marvel Studios since The Avengers to capture the true superhero spirit: plenty of derring-do, action, adventure, and an ending that doesn't fall apart. A sequel to 2011's Captain Am...

The scenario presented in Captive State would almost certainly have worked better in a mini-series format. The filmmakers’ low-budget approach of minimizing special effects might have allowed for an expansion of the narrative over a six or ei...

The Change-Up has designs of being the next big raunchy comedy of the Summer of 2011, following on the heels of Bridesmaids, The Hangover Part II, Bad Teacher, and Horrible Bosses. However, while there's sufficient profanity, sex, nudity, and excre...

Chasing Mavericks feels like two completely different movies that have been mashed together. The first, a derivative and unsatisfying coming-of-age story about a Santa Cruz boy and his adopted father figure, seems uncharacteristically weak for the ...

Christmas movies and dysfunctional families go together like hands and gloves. Whether a comedy or a drama, from the absurd to the sublime, Christmas trees are often coupled with family divisions. While films like National Lampoon's Christmas Vaca...

Colossal might look like a monster movie. Indeed, it may feature a Godzilla-like giant lizard leveling a major city in the Far East but, in many ways, that’s just window dressing. Allegorical in the extreme, Colossal is really a drama about...