Top 5 Marvel Cinematic Universe Villains- Part 1of 4

It took me a few minutes to make completely sure this wasn’t just photoshopped Tea Party propaganda.

A couple of days ago, I had the immense pleasure to watch the newest installment in Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, Guardians of the Galaxy. I don’t want to get too much into it, as I plan on writing a formal review after I watch it once more, because holy crap was that movie awesome, but I will say that one of the very few shortcomings of the movie was the unspectacular villain, Ronan the Accuser. The so-so baddie ended up working well with the movie, and I’ll get into why some other time, but it got me thinking about the different villains in the MCU, and I realized that aside from Loki, there aren’t many that get a ton of love. It’s not usually through any fault of their own…

Though there are exceptions.

… I just find that maybe the moviegoing public doesn’t find them quite as interesting as, say, Heath Ledger’s Joker, Jack Nicholson’s Joker or Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor. Hell, even Mr. Freeze from Batman & Robin is remembered for all the  more than, say, Obadiah Stane from Iron Man, albeit for all the wrong reasons. So, in order to both celebrate the new movie, and to throw Marvel Studios a bone (To go along with billions of dollars in worldwide gross), I decided to count down my top 5 favourite MCU villains.

First of all though, I limited myself to only villains who were the main antagonist in one of their film appearances. Therefor, villains like the Abomination, the Mandarin and Nebula, who were being created or controlled by a “puppet master” for lack of a better term, are not included. All clear? Good. Let’s start with 5 and 4 on our list.

Also, I may possibly go into spoiler territory, so be aware of that.

5. Aldrich Killian

Winner of “Most Punchable Face” at the 2014 Academy Awards.

Appearance: Iron Man 3

Portrayed by: Guy Pearce

The founder of A.I.M. (Advanced Idea Mechanics), Aldrich Killian had the misfortune to be diagnosed with a debilitating disability. To overcome his handicap, he injects himself with a virus of his own creation, Extremis, which not only cures his disability, but ends up giving him heat-based superpowers. Instead of doing something awesome with that power…

Seen here: Doing something awesome with that power.

…Killian uses his high intellect to manipulate the Vice-president into doing… Well, something. I don’t remember shit about the whole conspiracy, and all I really remember from the movie was that there was  less to the Mandarin than you thought, Pepper Potts still sucks, and Shane Black has still got it.

Also, Robert Downey, Jr. called a young boy a pussy, so you know, that’s pretty awesome.

In all honesty, it was kind of a crapshoot for the number five spot between Thunderbolt Ross and Aldrich Killian for the fifth spot, but I finally went with Killian because of the reveal of just exactly how diabolical and complicated his power-grab was (I Google’d it between paragraphs). The problem is that he didn’t really do much to distinguish himself, even with his badass skill set, and, for fucks sake, he let Pepper Potts kill him. So, yeah, he barely gets on this list ahead of Thunderbolt Ross (Whom I barely remember) and Ronan (Who I’ll get into later).

To be continued…

 

Thor: The Dark World (Movie Review)

I was going to review Wes Anderson’s new movie, The Grand Budapest Hotel, for you guys, but apparently, the good people of Edmonton Alberta decided that today, of all days, was the perfect day, two weeks after the movies’ opening day, to wander over to Cineplex Odeon and fill up the goddamn theater to partake in the whimsical delight that is Wes Anderson (I assume. I’ve never actually seen a Wes Anderson movie before).

Which means I’m missing out on way more Bill Murray than is acceptable.

Anyways, since iTunes and credit cards are things that exist, I decided to catch up with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with the next Captain America movie and Guardians of the Galaxy coming up. Time to bring the hammer down on Thor: The Dark World!

…

Get  it? ‘Cause he uses a hammer?

Ah, fuck it.

 Thor: The Dark World

  Directed by: Alan Taylor

  Produced by: Kevin Feige

  Written by: Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus,  Stephen      McFeely (Story by Don Payne and Robert Rodat)

  Based on: Thor by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Larry Lieber

Genres: Superhero, Fantasy

Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Stellan Skarsgård, Idris Elba, Christopher Eccleston. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Kat Dennings, Ray Stevenson, Zachary Levi, Tadanobu Asano, Jaimie Alexander, Rene Russo

Plot: Taking place two years after the events of Thor, and the title character (Hemsworth), accompanied by the Warriors Three (Stevenson, Levi and Asano) and Sif (Alexander) have just completed a campaign to pacify the nine realms of Asgard after they were destabilized following the destruction of Bifrost and the attempted alien invasion of New York, led by Thor’s step-brother, Loki (Hiddleston) in The Avengers. Loki has since been imprisoned by his adoptive father (And Thor’s biological father) Odin (Hopkins), the Allfather.

Meanwhile, on Earth, Dr. Jane Foster (Portman), Thor’s ex-flame, and her intern/best friend/effective comic relief, Darcy Lewis (Dennings) are in London, looking for their colleague, Dr. Erik Selvig (Skarsgård), who has been driven crazy by the experience of being possessed by Loki during The Avengers. While adventuring around London, they find an abandoned warehouse that houses several inter-dimensional portals. One such portal transports Jane to another world, where she is infected by the Aether, which is essentially a weapon of mass destruction in creepy liquid form. Her infection attracts the attention of Malekith the Accursed (Eccleston), a dark elf and ancient enemy of the Asgardians who aims to plunge the universe into darkness.

The plot sounds simple enough, but the reality is that it’s told in a way that had me kind of lost midway through. When the whole selling point of your movie is “Chris Hemsworth dresses up like a viking and beats the shit out of mythical creatures”, you don’t need to add a bunch of convoluted crap about the alignment of the realms, and then explain it in a way that bores and confuses me, to get me to watch your movie. But, as I just mentioned, this is not the case, and as a result, some parts (Cough cough, the climax) feel muddled and anti-climactic. It doesn’t help that a large part of the plot is built around a rather uninteresting villain in Malekith the Accursed.

Another plot problem is that the movie, at the beginning, tries to establish sort of a love triangle between Thor, Jane and Sif. The filmmakers went to the trouble of foreshadowing some sort of sexual tension, but we never hear about it again. What the hell was that all about?

While the cast does a great job, the one weak link among the whole bunch is Christopher Eccleston as Malekith. I’ve never seen an episode of Doctor Who in my life, but he didn’t exactly make a compelling case for my dropping Sword Art Online anytime soon.

Aside from Fullmetal Alchemist and Pokemon, it’s the only anime I’ve ever seen that doesn’t give off a rape-y vibe. Mostly.

Of course, it doesn’t help that his makeup looked like total shit.

Thankfully, the rest of the special effects are beyond phenomenal, especially the visuals of the city of Asgard. How this movie was excluded from the Oscar ballot in lieu of the Lone fucking Ranger  blows my goddamn mind.

Acting: Aside from Eccleston, the cast does a great job. Tom Hiddleston steals the show as Loki, who may be the best-written super-villain since Heath Ledger’s Joker. Chris Hemsworth is charismatic and fits the role of Thor like a giant, blond, muscular glove, and Natalie Portman has come another step closer towards erasing the memory of her role in the Star Wars prequels.

As much as one can try to forget, anyways.

What really made the characters shine is the dialogue, though. While the writers may have ignored minor details, such as a halfway understandable plot, but they nail the interactions between all the characters (Though, again, it helps that the actors did great jobs). the movie never really had a problem with tone, and managed to be sad, funny or tense whenever it needed to be, even avoiding the typical amounts of superhero cheese that comes with the territory of a movie like this.

Conclusion: I’d need to watch the first one again to decide whether I liked this one better or not, but what it lacks in terms of a coherent plot, it makes up for with its’ cast, dialogue, action scenes and especially the visual effects, and it all adds up to a very entertaining superhero flick.

Overall Rating: 7.5/10