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    ‘Thunderbolts*’ Review: Florence Pugh and Pals Kick Some Asterisk

    The actress is the main attraction in Marvel’s latest, about a group of ragtag super-types who join forces to (spoiler alert!) save the world.For “Thunderbolts*,” Marvel has thrown so much stuff into its new branding event — an enigmatic asterisk, a guinea pig, a comic villain, a depressed superhero, nepo babies, veterans of David Simon’s “The Wire” — that some of it was bound to stick. The results are fitfully amusing, sometimes touching and resolutely formulaic. The story zigs and zags between firing guns and dropping bodies, and its tone zips all over the place. What holds it more or less together is a cast that includes Florence Pugh getting her Tom Cruise on, David Harbour playing a boisterous Russian clown and Sebastian Stan winking at Donald J. Trump.Stan, whose last splashy turn was as the young Trump in the biopic “The Apprentice,” is back as Bucky Barnes, who you may know as the Winter Soldier. This movie’s resident cool dude, Bucky is a soulful warrior with a prosthetic metal arm who looks good on a motorcycle and is mostly here to provide franchise continuity. Now in Congress, Bucky is working with Wendell Pierce’s Congressman Gary, to bring down the head of the C.I.A., Valentina Allegra de Fontaine (Julia Louis-Drefyus, another Marvel returnee). She’s been overseeing a secret program out of a mountain lair worthy of a Bond villain, so, yep, she’s bad news.If you’re not a comic-book devotee and have never heard of the Thunderbolts before they were exhumed for screen service, you aren’t alone. First introduced on the page in 1997, the group has been re-suited up here to be testy, quarrelsome and finally likable antiheroes, redeemable rogues with hard-luck stories and blood-slicked hands. (The body count is high; the gore sanitized.) The most reliably entertaining are the dryly sardonic Yelena Belova (Pugh) and the excitable, histrionic Alexei Shostakov/Red Guardian (a showily outsized Harbour). The sister and father of Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, they are Soviet-trained toughs so powerful they upstaged that superhero in her titular 2021 flick.There’s always a lot going on in Marvel movies, and the filmmakers here — the screenwriters are Eric Pearson and Joanna Calo, the director is Jack Schreier — pile on twisty plot turns, blowouts, intimate chats and yet more characters. Chris Bauer, a familiar face from “The Wire,” plays a security type, Holt, while Lewis Pullman plays a mysterious newbie, Bob, an addition who isn’t interesting enough for all the screen time he’s given. (His father is the actor Bill Pullman.) Other returning faces include Wyatt Russell (his folks are Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell), who has some notably bleak moments as John Walker. Like Hannah John-Kamen’s Ava Starr/Ghost and the rest, he mostly plays backup for Pugh.This is Pugh’s movie from the start, and that’s a good thing. She’s a vibrantly alive presence, which is useful given that death is so pervasive in Marvel movieland, where heroes, villains and a seemingly infinite number of nameless civilians die — though some irrepressibly, near-miraculously rise again — amid the high jinks and wisecracks. Here, death enters early with Yelena having what seems like a to-be-or-not crisis atop a skyscraper. Speaking in weary, Russian-accented English, her face slightly pinched and the corners of her lips turned down, Yelena is in rough shape. “There’s something wrong with me, an emptiness,” she says as she steps off the ledge and plunges into the void, adding: “Or maybe I’m just bored.”Pugh’s deadpan delivery is disarming, as is the revelation that she did the stunt herself, which involved stepping off the top of the second-tallest building in the world before her character deploys a parachute. There’s no way to tell it’s Pugh from the way the filmmakers handle the scene because, after Yelena steps off, there’s a cut to a long shot of a tiny figure falling next to the tower. I assumed the whole thing was done with CGI and a stunt double. When Tom Cruise scrambled atop the world’s tallest building in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” (2011), you knew it was him from the attentive way the scene was staged and shot, which created a visceral sense of peril and further burnished his stardom. If actors risk their lives in a movie as Pugh did, viewers should know it; I only do because of a behind-the-scenes video.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Charlie Cox Thought He Missed His Superhero Shot. Then Came ‘Daredevil.’

    “I’m still pinching myself if I’m honest,” the actor said, before extolling the virtues of cold plunges, TSA PreCheck and avoiding social media.As Charlie Cox approached 30, he watched his friends become superheroes — Andrew Garfield was Spider-Man, Henry Cavill was Superman, and Tom Hiddleston was Loki — and made peace with his fate.“I just assumed that the Marvel call was not coming unless maybe for a villain in another 20 years,” he said.Then something crazy happened. The role of the blind vigilante Daredevil became available in a Netflix series in 2015, and Cox was the right age for it. But three seasons later, the show was canceled, and that was that. Or so he thought.Now Cox, 42, is back, this time on Disney+ in “Daredevil: Born Again,” a sort of reboot that finds the crime fighter at war over New York City with his nemesis, the gangster Wilson Fisk, played by Vincent D’Onofrio.“I’m still pinching myself if I’m honest,” Cox said of his return — and hoping for an extended run with the announcement of a new comic in which Daredevil is 60.“That’s excellent; it means I’ve got another 20 years of this, or as long as they’ll have me,” Cox said before elaborating on the virtues of Russian baths and cold plunges, TSA PreCheck and mastering the art of plowing snow.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    How Spider-Man Has Evolved on Animated TV Shows

    When “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” hit theaters in 2018, it served as a delicacy for longtime fans, who found in the film clever allusions to the vast history of Spider-Man comics and animated series. “Into the Spider-Verse” and its sequel, “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” was full of Easter eggs plucked from several eras of Spidey shows, many of which have been revered (and some maligned) over the years.The new Disney+ series “Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man,” which takes place in an alternate reality where our hero is discovered and mentored by Norman Osborn (alter ego of the Green Goblin), is just the latest animated TV offering about the web-slinger. Spider-Man has been swinging across the small screen for decades, with every new series showing a fresh take on the hero and his world, both narratively and stylistically.Spider-Man (1967-1970)The OriginalVideo by ABCWhether or not you’ve watched the original “Spider-Man” TV show, you’ll surely recognize it from its famous opening theme (“Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can”) or the omnipresent pointing meme, from the Episode 19 story “Double Identity.”The animation is, of course, very much of its time: blocky outlines, jerky character movements and flat, untextured backgrounds. As Spidey swings through the cityscape, the buildings around him are big, mostly solid blocks of pastel colors, with the occasional window and brick detail. And Spider-Man himself has a simplified costume design: The webbing pattern on his mask doesn’t extend down to his torso as in later incarnations; the physical build of the hero (and all the characters, for that matter) is just as nondescript.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    ‘Daredevil: Born Again’ Review: Can You Fight City Hall?

    The sort-of-rebooted series from Marvel and Disney+ pits the blind vigilante against a chaos-inducing, revenge-minded office holder.In the new Marvel series “Daredevil: Born Again,” the gangster Wilson Fisk — a felon preoccupied with status, profit and revenge — embarks on a dark-horse, fear-mongering election campaign. It is for mayor of New York, not president of the United States, but the real-life resonance is hard to miss.And as the season, which premieres Tuesday on Disney+, proceeds through its nine episodes, the sense of familiarity only grows. The spuriously-populist Mayor Fisk rules by executive fiat, sidelines anyone who tries to rein him in and cultivates an atmosphere of violent chaos.Yes, Fisk, also known as the Kingpin, first became mayor of New York in the “Daredevil” comic books on which the series is based, and nothing in “Born Again” is at odds with his previous portrayals. But this is not a coincidence of character or timing. Long before the blind crime-fighting vigilante Daredevil intones, “This is our city, not his, and we can take it back,” it is clear that “Born Again” is summoning the specter of Donald Trump — perhaps as a statement of resistance, perhaps as a dramatic convenience, probably both.The problem is that in this case, real life has become stranger than fiction. “Born Again” is a deluxe comic-book adaptation, meticulously produced and filmed, and on that level it will delight a lot of people. But while it tries to get at something meaningful about social tumult, it does not rise above conventional comic-book ideas or emotions. It doesn’t carry the shock of the real.Within the multiverse of Marvel TV series, “Born Again” has a complicated provenance. “Daredevil” was one of the six shows made for Netflix, beginning a decade ago; it ran for three seasons and ended in 2018. After Marvel began making series for Disney+, the stars of the old show — Charlie Cox as Daredevil (real name Matt Murdock), and Vincent D’Onofrio as Fisk — popped up as supporting players in “Hawkeye” and “Echo,” biding their time.Now their new show is here, sort of a reboot and sort of a new season, with story lines that more or less track. If you haven’t checked in since the original “Daredevil” and certain things puzzle you, such as why Fisk is not in jail, then you may want to watch “Hawkeye” and “Echo.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    My Red Carpet Quest: A Two-Year Search for Steve

    Times Insider explains who we are and what we do and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.Steve Olive was my white whale.I had been trying for two years to write a profile of Mr. Olive, the co-founder of Event Carpet Pros, the California-based company responsible for custom-making the colorful, though not always red, carpets for thousands of movie premieres, the Golden Globes, the Grammy Awards, the Super Bowl and, since 1997, the Academy Awards.I learned about Mr. Olive in 2023, while reporting an article about why the organizers of the Oscars were rolling out a champagne-colored carpet that year. My editor, Katie Van Syckle, and I had found the Event Carpet Pros website and we took turns calling the listed number in an effort to reach someone. Finally, Katie connected with Mr. Olive, and briefly interviewed him.But this mysterious, matter-of-fact, low-key man at the heart of the glitz and glamour of awards season stuck in my mind. I wanted to know more about him. How does one become a rug guy? What had he wanted to be when he grew up? Had he ever attended an award show himself?Last year, when the Oscars returned to a classic red carpet, Katie and I again agreed that I should pursue a story on Mr. Olive, but he was hesitant. But this year, with the encouragement of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, he agreed. It was three weeks before the ceremony.Mission: Steve, as I termed it, had officially begun.I sent a barrage of frantic texts and placed several calls to Brooke Blumberg, a publicist for the academy, trying to nail down when the carpet, which was manufactured at a mill in Dalton, Ga., would arrive at the company’s warehouse in La Mirada, Calif., a city in Los Angeles County.My goal was to be there when the approximately 30 rolls, each weighing 630 pounds, were unloaded in the Event Carpet Pros parking lot, from a truck that had been driven about 35 hours, from Dalton. The scene, I imagined, would be akin to the arrival of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree in New York City.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Who Makes the Red Carpet? Steve.

    On a recent weekday morning in La Mirada, a suburb outside Los Angeles, Steve Olive, 58, walked among hundreds of carpet rolls in red, green and lavender in a white, sun-drenched, 36,000-square-foot warehouse.Laid out on the floor was a 150-foot stretch of rug, delivered by truck from Georgia a few days before, in the custom shade of Academy Red that is only available for the Oscars.Mr. Olive himself may not be famous, but celebrities have strolled the plush craftsmanship of his carpet for nearly three decades.His company, Event Carpet Pros, has supplied carpets for the Oscars, Golden Globes, Grammys and Emmys, as well as for Disney, Marvel and Warner Bros. movie premieres and the Super Bowl.And, at a moment when carpets have moved beyond the classic red and become splashier and more intricate, his handiwork has become more prominent. He has crafted custom designs like a shimmering, sunlit pool carpet for the 2023 “Barbie” world premiere and a green-and-black ectoplasm drip carpet for the “Ghostbusters” world premiere in 2016 that took a month to create.“I haven’t come across anything that we couldn’t do,” Mr. Olive, who founded the company with his brother-in-law, Walter Clyne, in 1992, said in an interview.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    The New ‘Captain America’ Movie Isn’t Great. But Don’t Call Him a D.E.I. Hire.

    Anthony Mackie picks up the shield at a potentially awkward time. But there’s one way Disney can do right by him and the next generation of Marvel stars.“Captain America: Brave New World” is a mediocre-at-best movie, a roughly cobbled together film that pales in comparison to the early days of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It’s still better than the franchise’s most recent run of disasters, and its strong opening weekend at the box office seems to have restored some momentum to the M.C.U. But the most remarkable part of this film is the irony of how it lands in the political moment: “Brave New World” features a Black iteration of the quintessential American superhero a month into an administration that has made eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion one of its first priorities.In a way, Disney’s timing regarding diversity was always going to be off. For most of the run of one of the highest-grossing media franchises of all time, diversity was an afterthought. For the first decade of the M.C.U., over the course of more than a dozen films, the heroes carrying the franchise — the central protagonists — were exclusively white men, until Chadwick Boseman led “Black Panther” in 2018.So, yeah, Disney started out a little behind.But when it came down to the handoff of the star-spangled shield from the blond-haired and blue-eyed Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans) to Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie), Disney actually built a steady platform for the M.C.U.’s first Black Captain America to lead his own film.The 2021 Marvel TV series “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” provided the space for Sam to develop into Captain America in earnest, not just as a kind of M.C.U. diversity hire.Sam’s transformation into the Captain could have easily been the M.C.U.’s version of “The Blind Side,” a tale of a Black man’s triumph under the tutelage of the true, original white hero. He also could have been the Uncle Tom Captain, a servile Black man unquestioningly putting his life on the line.But “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” explored Sam’s reticence in taking on the mantle of Captain America, given how his Blackness so often marginalized him, made him a target or turned him into a stereotype in the eyes of some of his fellow citizens. The show also introduced a Black super soldier named Isaiah Bradley, who received the super serum like Steve Rogers. But Isaiah never became the lauded hero Steve did; he was made a prisoner and a science project, jailed and experimented on for 30 years. He’s a reminder to Sam of what can happen as a Black man in American, no matter his standing, his strength or his title.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Marvel’s New ‘Captain America’ Is No. 1, Despite a Backlash and Poor Reviews

    “Captain America: Brave New World” was expected to take in $100 million from Thursday through Monday in North America.At the height of the superhero boom a few years ago, Disney pushed its Marvel assembly lines to run faster and faster. After awhile, quality suffered and ticket sales declined.So Disney slowed the pace. Last year, Marvel released one movie (the megasuccessful “Deadpool & Wolverine”) and two Disney+ series. To compare, in 2021 Marvel churned out four movies (with mixed results) and five Disney+ series.Factory problem fixed?Maybe: Marvel’s “Captain America: Brave New World” was a runaway No. 1 at the global box office over the weekend. The movie, which cost at least $300 million to make and market worldwide, was on pace to sell roughly $100 million in tickets from Thursday through Monday in the United States and Canada, according to Comscore, which compiles box office data. Moviegoers overseas were poised to chip in another $92 million or so.Maybe not: “Brave New World” received the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s lowest-ever grade (B-minus) from ticket buyers in CinemaScore exit polls. Reviews were only 50 percent positive, according to Rotten Tomatoes, which resulted in a “rotten” rating from the site. Just two Marvel movies rank lower on the Rotten Tomatoes meter, and both quickly ran out of box office steam after No. 1 starts that were driven by die-hard fans and marketing bombast.“Brave New World” outperformed analyst expectations amid a racist backlash from some internet users and right-wing pundits, who criticized Marvel’s decision to refresh the “Captain America” franchise by giving the title role to a Black actor. (A “D.E.I. hire,” they maintained in numerous X posts, a reference to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.) Anthony Mackie, who took over the character from Chris Evans, also came under attack as “anti-American” for a comment he made while promoting the film overseas.“Captain America represents a lot of different things and I don’t think the term, you know, ‘America’ should be one of those representations,” Mr. Mackie said. “It’s about a man who keeps his word, who has honor, dignity and integrity. Someone who is trustworthy and dependable.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More