CAPTAIN AMERICA : BRAVE NEW WORLD - Tuesday 18th February 2025.

I saw the M Rated 'CAPTAIN AMERICA : BRAVE NEW WORLD' earlier this week, and this American Superhero film is based on the Marvel Comics character Sam Wilson / Captain America, and is the fourth instalment in the 'Captain America' film series, a continuation of the TV miniseries 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier' and the 35th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). This film is Directed and Co-Written for the screen by Julius Onah in his fourth feature film Directing outing following 'The Girl Is in Trouble' in 2015, 'The Cloverfield Paradox' in 2018, and 'Luce' in 2019. The first three films in the 'Captain America' film franchise - 'Captain America : The First Avenger' in 2011, 'Captain America : The Winter Soldier' in 2014, and 'Captain America : Civil War' in 2016 grossed US$2,238B at the global Box Office from combined production budgets of US$560M, making this fourth offering a no brainer. That latter film ended the 'Captain America' trilogy starring Chris Evans as Steve Rogers, and Sam Wilson becomes the new Captain America in 'The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'. This film forms part of Phase Five of the MCU, was released here in Australia and the US last week, has so far grossed US$205M off the back of a US$180M production budget, and has generated mixed or average critical reviews.

The film opens on US Presidential Election night and a triumphant Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) takes the microphone to thank the American people for voting him in, and stating that they can achieve great things 'together'. We then fast track five months and Ross sends Sam Wilson/Captain America (Anthony Mackie) and Joaquin Torres/Falcon (Danny Ramirez) to Oaxaca, Mexico to thwart the illegal sale of classified items stolen by the Serpent Society, a rogue special-ops team led by Sidewinder (Giancarlo Esposito). The pair successfully recover the items, but Sidewinder escapes. Following the mission and back on home soil, Wilson and Torres both train with Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly), a super soldier who was imprisoned and experimented on by the US government for thirty years, and his existence kept a secret, even from the former Captain America.

Ross invites Wilson and Torres to a summit with world leaders at the White House, and Wilson accepts on the condition that Bradley is also invited. Ross asks Wilson to help him reform the Avengers. During the summit, Ross explains that a new metal, adamantium, has been discovered on 'Celestial Island', which was formed when the Celestial Tiamut partially emerged in the Indian Ocean, and was petrified by the Eternals. The recovered items were the first refined samples of the metal and were stolen from a Japanese mining operation. To avoid an arms race, Ross proposes a treaty to govern adamantium's mining and worldwide distribution. As he is talking, the 1959 song 'Mr. Blue' by The Fleetwoods, plays and causes several men, including Bradley, to begin shooting at Ross and other gathered dignitaries. Apprehended by Ross's Security Advisor and former Black Widow Ruth Bat-Seraph (Shira Haas), the men come to their senses and deny any knowledge of the attack.

While investigating, Wilson is ambushed by Sidewinder. Wilson over powers and captures him. Torres tracks a call on Sidewinder's phone to a hidden black site in West Virginia called Camp Echo One. Ross tries to keep the treaty alive, but the Prime Minister of Japan Ozaki (Takehiro Hira) blames him for the theft of their adamantium and the subsequent White House attack. Ross realises that the mastermind of these events is Dr. Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), who gained advanced intelligence after being exposed to Bruce Banner's blood during the Abomination's rampage through Harlem. Ross imprisoned Sterns at Camp Echo One, publicly blamed him for the Abomination's actions, and promised to release him if Sterns helped advance him to the presidency. Wilson and Torres find Sterns and learn how he uses technology and the song 'Mr. Blue' as a mind control tool. He escapes while they are fighting mind-controlled soldiers.

Bat-Seraph investigates Camp Echo One herself and helps Wilson and Torres. They meet with Wilson's military friend Dennis Dunphy (William Mark McCullough), who has Sidewinder in custody. Wilson learns enough from Sidewinder to deduce Sterns's plan to destroy Ross's reputation. Wilson, Torres, and Bat-Seraph go to Celestial Island where Ross and the Prime Minister Ozaki are racing to claim ownership of adamantium. 

Sterns controls the minds of two American pilots who attack the Japanese fleet. Wilson and Torres intercept the fighter jets and convince the Japanese to stand down. Torres is shot out of the air and plunges into the Indian Ocean, critically injured. Ross tells Wilson that he is dying of heart failure and had Sterns develop pills that have prolonged his life. Ross refused to release Sterns for fear that he would no longer make the pills, leading to Sterns seeking revenge.

Sterns kills Dunphy, preventing him from calling Wilson and explaining that the pills, taken one at a time three times a day, have been adding gamma radiation to Ross's body. At the hospital, where Wilson is watching on as surgeons restart Torres heart, he is consoled by his friend Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan). Sterns later surrenders himself to Wilson. During a press conference on the White House Rose Garden, Ross loses control of his emotions and transforms into a red Hulk, and destroys part of the White House. Wilson rushes to stop him. 

Unable to overpower Ross, Wilson attempts to calm him down by reminding him of visits to Washington, D.C.'s cherry blossom trees with his estranged daughter Betty, when she was much younger. The two fight until they can fight no more, and Ross reverts to his normal self. Later, Bradley is exonerated, Wilson invites a recovering Torres to join the Avengers, the treaty is ratified, and work has begun on repairing the damaged White House. Ross resigns and has himself incarcerated at the Raft (an underwater maximum security prison located in the Atlantic Ocean), where Wilson and Betty (Liv Tyler) visit him. 

'Captain America : Brave New World' is an OK entry into the MCU canon - it's not great but it's also not that bad either. Anthony Mackie/Sam Wilson is a more than acceptable replacement for Chris Evans/Steve Rogers even though he is a mere mortal and doesn't posses the super powers that the latter had, but he still has the wings, the suit, the shield and that gadgets that help him get by. Harrison Ford chews up the scenery, especially when he transforms into Red Hulk and looks as though he's having a blast, and there are some parallel's to be drawn here with the current presidential administration too. As for the two villains in the piece - Sidewinder and Sterns, they are largely under utilised and really serve as mere McGuffin's to move the story along. Whilst the action set pieces are well choreographed as we have come to expect from the MCU, the CGI at times leaves much to be desired, especially in the case of the cherry blossom scene in which Cap and Red Hulk go head to head and toe and toe in close quarter combat - so obviously computer generated that the techies must have been asleep at the wheel the day they programmed that sequence! 

'Captain America : Brave New World' merits three claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

DOCTOR SLEEP : Tuesday 12th November 2019.

'DOCTOR SLEEP' which I saw earlier this week at my local multiplex is an MA15+ Rated American horror film based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Stephen King, which is a sequel to King's 1977 novel 'The Shining'. The film, set several decades after the events of 'The Shining', combines elements of the 1977 novel and its 1980 film adaptation of the same name directed by Stanley Kubrick. 'Doctor Sleep' is Written, Directed, and Edited by Mike Flanagan whose previous credits take in such horror offerings as 2011's 'Absentia', 2013's 'Oculus', 2016's 'Hush', 'Before I Wake' and 'Ouija: Origin of Evil' and 2017's 'Gerald’s Game' again based on a Stephen King novel. Flanagan also created, Directed, Produced, Wrote, and Edited the Netflix supernatural horror series 'The Haunting of Hill House' in 2018, and he is currently developing a stand-alone second season, titled 'The Haunting of Bly Manor'. The film was released last week too in the US and Canada, cost about US$50M to make, has so far bought in US$37M and has garnered generally mixed or average Reviews with Critics praising the performances and the eerie atmospherics especially.

In 1980, a short time after the events unfolded horrifically at The Overlook Hotel in the remote Colorado Rockies young Danny Torrance (Roger Dale Floyd) and his mother Wendy (Alex Essoe) have relocated to sunny Florida, with the desire to never see snow again! Still reeling from those recent events, Danny continues to be haunted by the ghost of the rotting woman from Room 237 who now manifests herself in his new home bathroom. The ghost of Dick Hallorann (Carl Lumbly) who was the Head Chef at The Overlook Hotel and who also possessed the 'Shine' now mentors Danny and one day teaches the young lad to securely lock away such ghosts in imaginary boxes inside his mind. In the meantime, a small yet powerful group of un-dead semi-immortals known as 'The True Knot' led by Rose the Hat (Rebecca Ferguson) feed off the 'steam' expelled in the dying moments of those with the Shine, in order to prolong their lives by slowing down their ageing process.

We then fast forward to 2011, and Dan Torrance (Ewan McGregor) has climbed inside a bottle and become a down and out alcoholic in an attempt to subdue his memories from his traumatic childhood and his time at the Overlook Hotel. He moves to a small town and forms a strong bond with Billy Freeman (Cliff Curtis), who gets him a job and becomes his Alcoholics Anonymous sponsor. The AA group that Dan joins is headed up by Dr. John Dalton (Bruce Greenwood) who also gets Dan a job as an orderly working three nights a week at the local Hospice. Dan remains committed to his AA group and begins to rehabilitate. One night while on duty at the Hospice, Dan sees a white cat who goes to a patient who is near death - a sure sign that the end is nigh remarks the aged and frail patient. Dan uses his Shine abilities to comfort a number of dying patients over the years, who give him the nickname 'Doctor Sleep'.

At about the same time Dan begins receiving telepathic communications from a young girl named Abra Stone (Dakota Hickman), whose Shining capabilities are even more powerful than his own. Meanwhile, Rose recruits a fifteen year old teenager named 'Snakebite Andi' (Emily Alyn Lind) into her cult after observing her ability to telepathically control people, and on the pretext of immortal life.

We now fast forward to the present day and Dan has been 'dry' for eight years now. The True Knot clan are in starvation mode, and running short on the necessary steam to sustain themselves. Crow Daddy (Zahn McClarnon) who is Rose's lover, right hand man, and long term member of the group, is homing in on a young ten year old baseball protege who also possesses the Shine, Bradley Trevor (Jacob Tremblay). The group abduct Bradley and torture him so as to extract as much steam from him as they can, and then bury his corpse in a shallow grave in the grounds of a disused power plant. A now teenage Abra (Kyliegh Curran) senses Bradley's torture and death, and her distress alerts both Dan and Rose from afar.

Rose, having now sensed the extent of Abra's Shine, sets her sights on Abra, planning to extract her all powerful steam to sustain the cult. Realising that Rose is after her, Abra visits Dan, who insists that she stay away for her own safety sake, and avoid drawing attention to herself. Dan turns his back on Abra and feeling dejected she returns home after bunking off school for the day.

Later that night, Rose astral-projects into Abra's mind, but is out witted when the teenager manages to trap her and enter Rose's mind albeit briefly. With a severely wounded hand, badly shaken and emotionally stirred, Rose returns to her body and sends The True Knot to capture Abra, while Crow Daddy persuades Rose to hang back and recuperate, and gather back her strength. 

One night while on duty at the Hospice, the white cat leads Dan to an empty room where he has another visit from Hallorann, who instructs him to protect Abra. Abra tells Dan what happened with Rose and says she can track the cult if she can touch Bradley's baseball glove, knowing that one of The True Knot handled it. Dan confides to Billy about the Shining and asks him to suspend all disbelief and to have faith in what he is telling his friend as the truth. Billy agrees and they travel to the murder scene and exhume Bradley's body to retrieve his glove. They then go to Abra's house, where they recruit her initially disbelieving father Dave (Zackary Momoh) and devise a plan. Using an astral projection of Abra as bait, Dan and Billy lure the cult members out into a remote forest clearing and shoot most of them dead, although Snakebite Andi telepathically manipulates Billy into killing himself before she dies.

Rose has been able to sense the death of her fellow cult members and becomes increasingly distraught as one by one they are all popped off. In the meantime Crow Daddy who was not at the forest clearing shoot out, has abducted Abra, sedated her to render her Shine dormant, and killed her father Dave. Dan communicates with the drugged Abra, whose sedation is now wearing off, and allows him to possess her temporarily and force Crow Daddy to crash the van that they are travelling in into a tree at high speed. Not wearing a seat belt Crow Daddy is sent hurtling through the windscreen and lands in a heap in the headlights ten meters in front of the crash scene. He dies from his wounds, as Abra looks on, free once more. Dan and Abra reunite, while Rose consumes the cult's remaining stockpile of steam, so instantly giving her renewed strength, healing her wounds and vowing revenge for the deaths of her True Knot friends. 

Dan makes the decision to return to the abandoned Overlook Hotel, believing it will be as dangerous for Rose as it will be for him and Abra. Upon arrival late into the evening on the snow covered mountain, he breaks into the long time abandoned hotel and starts up the hotel's boiler and generators and promptly sets about exploring the building once again, 'awakening' it in the process.

Dan revisits the rooms where his father Jack, influenced by the ghostly and evil apparitions of the Overlook Hotel, attempted to murder him and Wendy all those years ago. At the bar in the hotels grand ballroom, Dan is offered a shot of Jack Daniels by 'Lloyd', a bartending ghost who looks a lot like his father. Dan refuses much to Lloyd's disgust. Just then Abra who has been sat in the car diligently waiting for signs of Rose's imminent arrival calls out to Dan that her cars headlights have been spotted on the approach to the hotel.

Upon arriving at the hotel, Dan and Abra confront Rose, by pulling her into an astral plane, in the shape of the Overlook's vast snow covered hedge maze. Dan attempts to trap her in one of the boxes inside his mind, but fails so releasing Rose from the astral plane. Dan instructs Abra to run before being overpowered by Rose, and incurring a severe axe wound to his femoral artery in his leg. As she drains his steam by applying pressure to his open wound, Dan releases the Overlook's ghosts from the boxes in his mind, who overcome and kill Rose.

However, when done, the ghosts turn on and possess Dan, who begins to hunt for Abra who seeks refuge in Room 237. Dan, wielding the fireman's axe, catches up with Abra who is able to momentarily free him. He tells her to flee the hotel. Struggling with possession, Dan returns to the boiler room which is now working to maximum capacity and becoming overloaded. It quickly becomes engulfed in flames as hot boiler oil spills all over the floor, and as Abra watches helplessly from outside as the hotel burns down, with Dan still inside. The blue and red lights of the fire trucks driving up the mountain side signify that help is at hand and that Abra will be rescued.

Allegedly Stephen King was none too impressed with Stanley Kubrick's 1980 big screen adaptation of 'The Shining' and by the changes he had made to the storyline. So much so that in 1997 Stephen King wrote a new Screenplay which was turned into a three part television mini-series which ended up picking up thirteen award wins and ten further nominations. Fast track to 2013 and King wrote the 'Doctor Sleep' novel and it was left to Writer and Director and long time horror film geek Mike Flanagan to combine the two novels and Kubrick's movie together in this 'Doctor Sleep' film. And I would have to say that I think that Mike Flanagan has by and large succeeded on that front by remaining faithful to that landmark 1977 novel and Kubrick's cult 1980 film. This films works as a stand alone movie where you can easily enough pick up the pieces from its predecessor while also serving as a strong companion piece that complements what went before, without seeming like a Hollywood cash grab for the sake of a late sequel. With strong performances from McGregor, Ferguson and Curran especially, an extended running time that does not linger, and enough emotion, suspense and scares to maintain the interest and please fans of Kubrick's 'The Shining' and King's source novels, this film is well worth the price of your cinema ticket. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

'Doctor Sleep' merits four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a potential five.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-