David R. Walker

Posts Tagged ‘Lashana Lynch’

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Elizabeth Olsen, Rachel McAdams, Chiwetel Ejifor, Benedict Wong, Xochitel Gomez, Michael Stuhlbarg, John Krasinki, Patrick Stewart, Hayley Atwell, Lashana Lynch, Anson Mount

Running Time: 2 hours and 6 minutes

Film Rating: 6 out of 10

Six years after the first Doctor Strange film was made in 2016, Oscar nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game, The Power of the Dog) reprises his role as the neurosurgeon turned warlock Doctor Steven Strange in director Sam Raimi’s utterly bizarre sequel Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness starring a new batch of stars while only Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong and Chiwetel Ejifor reprise their roles from the first film.

Director Sam Raimi best known for doing the original Spiderman trilogy with Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst but the director is far better known for helming some classic horror flicks including Drag Me to Hell in 2009 and The Evil Dead in 1981, takes this Doctor Strange sequel and turns the superhero genre on its head and transforms it into a ghoulish mixture of the bizarre with an extremely heavy dash of CGI thrown in. The storyline is incoherent and utterly weird.

This time Doctor Strange has to save a multiverse superhero called America Chavez played by Xochitel Gomez from the clutches of the Scarlett Witch also known as Wanda Maximoff wonderfully played with a demonic edge by Elizabeth Olsen (Avengers: Infinity War, Wind River) as she seeks to use America’s superpowers to open the elusive book of Ashanti. Elizabeth Olsen is by far the best actress in this film as she gives the Scarlett Witch a degree of emotional depth and conflicting maternal instinct, making her character a far more unlikely villain.

Plenty of witchcraft and dream walking abound through a multitude of crazy universes including a particularly bizarre scene whereby Doctor Strange faces the Illuminati made up of Baron Mondo played by Chiwetel Ejifor (12 Years a Slave, Dirty Pretty Things, Kinky Boots), Captain Carter played by Hayley Atwell and wait for it…. an X-Men Professor and one of the characters of The Fantastic Four. Clearly this is not the multiverse of reality one expects.

Here the film completely loses the plot and director Sam Raimi goes for an utter freak show of scary scenes involving ghosts and demons instead of rounding off the narrative in a tightly controlled script.

After watching Benedict Cumberbatch deliver such a brilliant performance in The Power of the Dog, he looked continually anguished throughout this film at having to do a Doctor Strange sequel and not even a good one at that.

Essentially, my question is that if Marvel is so desperate to control the cinematic universe why did they get a horror director to take charge of what is meant to be a superhero film?

After watching the success of Spiderman: No Way Home and the excellent origin film The Batman, I was quite disappointed with the visual mess that is Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness even despite some lavish special effects.

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness gets a film rating of 6 out of 10 and audiences should expect a superhero film which is way more scary than expected.

The 75th British Academy Film Awards, also known as the BAFAs, were held on 13 March 2022 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, honouring the best national and foreign films of 2021.

Best Film: The Power of the Dog

Best Director: Jane Campion – The Power of the Dog

Best Actor: Will Smith – King Richard

Best Actress: Joanna Scanlan – After Love

Best Supporting Actor: Troy Kotsur – CODA

Best Supporting Actress: Ariana de Bose – West Side Story

Best British Film: Belfast directed by Kenneth Branagh

Best Original Screenplay: Licorice Pizza – Paul Thomas Anderson

Best Adapted Screenplay: CODA

Best Costume Design: Jenny Beavan – Cruella

Best Foreign Language Film: Drive My Car directed by Ryûsuke Hamaguchi

Rising Star Award: Lashana Lynch

No Time to Die

Director: Cary Jojo Fukunaga

Cast: Daniel Craig, Lea Seydoux, Rami Malik, Lashana Lynch, Naomie Harris, Ralph Fiennes, Ana de Armas, Christoph Waltz, Jeffrey Wright, Rory Kinnear, Billy Magnussen, Ben Whishaw, David Dencik, Dali Benssalah

Film Rating: 8.5 out of 10

Running time: 2 hours and 43 minutes

In the highly anticipated 25^th Bond film which was delayed for 18 months due to the coronavirus pandemic, producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G. Wilson were determined to wait until they could screen No Time to Die on cinema screens and their wish was granted.

Finally with the release of No Time to Die, all the original cast from Spectre are back plus some new additions including Ana de Armas (Knives Out, Blade Runner 2049) as Paloma, Lashana Lynch (Captain Marvel) as Nomi and the excellent Rami Malek as the villain Lyutsifer Safin. The sophisticated French actress Lea Seydoux (Spectre, The Grand Budapest Hotel) reprises her role back as Dr Madeleine Swann.

Oscar winner Rami Malik (Bohemian Rhapsody) relishes the role of Bond villain echoing Dr No, a psychotic megalomaniac who is violent and will stop at nothing for world domination. Naturally Lyutsifer Safin has his own private island in the disputed waters between Japan and Russia, a nod to You Only Live Twice.

Daniel Craig is brilliant in his fifth and final outing as James Bond navigating a shifting cultural and social world, representing in essence the sassy and glorious character of Noni wonderfully played by Lashana Lynch as we first glimpse them interact in a nightclub in Jamaica.

Ralph Fiennes is back as M, Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw are also back as Moneypenny and Q respectively. Jeffrey Wright is back as CIA agent Felix Leiter. All the usual suspects appear.

Without revealing any of the complex and protracted plot, containing some massive surprises, No Time to Die is an impressive Bond film, slightly weighty in the middle but cinematically perfect with crisp production design by Mark Tildesley and gorgeous cinematorgraphy by Linus Sandgren.

As the action moves around the globe, from Italy to the tropical beaches of Jamaica to Norway and then to the Safin’s futuristic lair on a disputed island which is clearly inspired by Blade Runner 2049, No Time to Die will simultaneously keep Bond fans in awe and frustrate those that have been loyal to the franchise since its original inception back in 1962 with Dr No. So much has changed.

No Time To Die is a very long film, running at 2 hours and 43 minutes but it’s worth seeing for the glorious scenery, the unbelievable stunt sequences and the amazing plot twists while the screenwriters pay homage to many of the previous Bond films and even transcending the 007 franchise and updating the technology to the 2020’s.

What remains to be seen is where will the franchise go from here?

Beautifully directed by Cary Jojo Fukunaga, No Time to Die is a technically brilliant film with an amazing international cast which will keep audiences literally on the edge of their seat. No spoilers were revealed, so viewers just go and find out what all the fuss is about.

No Time to Die gets a film rating of 8.5 out of 10 and is highly recommended viewing.

Captain Marvel

Directors: Anna Boden & Ryan Fleck

Cast: Brie Larson, Samuel L. Jackson, Annette Bening, Jude Law, Ben Mendelsohn, Lashana Lynch, Lee Pace, Clark Gregg, Gemma Chan, Djimon Hounson, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Rune Temte

Just before Avengers: Endgame hits theatres, Marvel had to introduce one more superhero to the galaxy of stars. It’s the Retro intergalactic Captain Marvel wonderfully played by Oscar winner Brie Larson also known as Airforce Pilot Carol Danvers who gets whisked into space to become indoctrinated by the Kree Civilization, an advanced alien race headed up by the mysterious Supreme Being icily played by Annette Bening in her Marvel Comics debut.

Audiences can be forgiven for thinking that they had bought cinema tickets to a Star Trek reboot as the first twenty minutes of Captain Marvel is entirely set in space. Until Captain Marvel miraculously escapes an intergalactic feud between the Kree and the Skrull tribes and lands up in Los Angeles in 1995 in a blockbuster video store of all places, the film effortlessly shifts its location from outer space to a particular time and place.

In California, Captain Marvel teams up with a youthful Nick Fury wonderfully played by Samuel L. Jackson whose screen chemistry with Brie Larson is electrifying.   

Like all the other Marvel films and particularly those that loved Avengers: Infinity War, then Captain Marvel is a fun mixture of superhero and Guardians of the Galaxy and fits right in with the current trajectory the Marvel films are going. More significantly it is the first entirely female centred superhero film, with Brie Larson doing a sterling job, although admittedly the film does not quite match up to DC Comics’s brilliant Wonder Woman directed by Patty Jenkins.

There is sufficient plot twists, location changes as Captain Marvel and Nick Fury travel to Louisiana to discover her real human identity as Airforce Pilot Carol Danvers as they team up with fellow co-pilot Maria Rambeau played by rising British star Lashana Lynch.

Oscar nominee Jude Law (The Talented Mr Ripley) plays the arrogant Kree commander Yon Rogg who proves to be a worthy adversary to Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel is a fun filled retro intergalactic romp of a film engagingly written and populated with some witty one liners. Brie Larson pulls off the role of the latest female action superhero with credibility and nuance as she struggles to discover her real identity and where her role as Captain Marvel fits in to the larger Avengers scheme of things.

Flashy visual effects and some great onscreen chemistry save Captain Marvel from being just another superhero film and this gets a film rating of 7 out of 10.

Audiences should definitely see Captain Marvel before watching Avengers: Endgame. Recommended Viewing for Marvel fans only and regular attendees of Comicon.