The Departed There are almost as many films fighting in “The Departed” as there are guys slugging it out. First among those films is Martin Scorsese’s cubistic entertainment about men divided by power, loyalty and their own selves. Hovering above that film like a shadow is “Infernal Affairs,” the equally sleek Hong Kong assemblage on which it is based and which serves as one of its myriad doubles. And then there is the film conjured up by Jack, as in Jack Nicholson, who when not serving Mr. Scorsese’s interests with a monstrous leer all but subverts those interests with a greedy, devouring hunger. Each Scorsese film comes freighted with so many expectations, as well as the enormity of his own legend, that it’s a wonder the director can bear the weight. Compared with his last fictional outings, the period story “Gangs of New York” and the Howard Hughes portrait “The Aviator,” this new work feels as light as a feather, or as light as any divertissement from a major filmmaker who funnels his ambitions through genre. What helps make “The Departed” at once a success and a relief isn’t that the director of “Kundun,” Mr. Scorsese’s deeply felt film about the Dalai Lama, is back on the mean streets where he belongs; what’s at stake here is the film and the filmmaking, not the director’s epic importance. In “The Departed” the camera work and cutting feel faster, lower to the ground, more urgent than they have in his recent films. (Michael Ballhaus shot it; Thelma Schoonmaker edited.) The speed and Mr. Scorsese’s sureness of touch, particularly when it comes to carving up space with the camera, keep the plot’s hall of mirrors from becoming a distraction. There simply isn’t time to think about the story and whether any of it makes sense, including the astonishing coincidences involving its stealth doppelgängers: Matt Damon’s Colin Sullivan, a bad guy who goes undercover in Boston as a state police officer, and Leonardo DiCaprio’s Billy Costigan, a state cop who infiltrates the underworld. Strangers to each other, Colin and Billy are brothers of a kind when it comes to Frank Costello, the gangster played by Mr. Nicholson. The evil this man does and portends is laid out with precision timing in the hair-raising opening minutes. Photo
Jack Nicholson, left, and Matt Damon in "The Departed," directed by Martin Scorsese. Credit Andrew Cooper/Warner Brothers Pictures As the Rolling Stones wail on the soundtrack (“War, children, it’s just a shot away”), Frank moves through the shadows, his face almost entirely obscured. Dispensing Sun Tzu-like truths as if they were Pez candies, he sets his sights on little Colin Sullivan who, with eyes wide as plates, listens rapt. Frank buys the boy groceries, then leans into the girl behind the store counter, whispering something in her ear. (Her face says it’s something dirty.) Minutes later Colin (now played by Mr. Damon) has graduated from the police academy and is thanking Frank for his graduation gift. With a bag of food, the bad man has bought a soul. Mr. Damon enters the story about the same time that Mr. Nicholson exits the shadows. Too bad he doesn’t stay there until the final credits. This Janus-like actor has long presented two faces for the camera, the jester called Jack and the actor named Nicholson. He has worn both faces for some of his famous roles, but over time he has grown fond of the outsize persona called Jack, with his shades and master-of-ceremonies sneer, and it’s hard not to think that the man has become his mask. Mr. Nicholson has some choice moments in “The Departed”: he owns the thrilling opening minutes and is persuasively unnerving in his early scenes with
Billy, whom he only knows as a neighborhood loser ripe for the plucking. Continue reading the main story But as the story twists and twists some more, Mr. Nicholson begins to mix too much Jack into his characterization. In Alexander Payne’s “About Schmidt,” he plays a man whose tamped-down disappointment meant that he had to pull the performance from deep inside; he committed to the part without the help of his sidekick persona. In “The Departed” he’s playing bigger and badder than life with engines roaring. It’s a loud, showy performance. Frank even comes equipped with a trove of gaudy accouterments: a goatee like an arrow, a leopard-print robe, a bevy of babes, a severed hand and a ridiculous fake phallus. Another actor might wear these accessories; Mr. Nicholson upstages them. Mr. Scorsese, no wallflower himself, spends a lot of time vying for attention with his famous star. Mr. Damon and Mr. DiCaprio serve him better. Mr. Damon does some very good work as the buttoned-down gangster hiding a world of darkness behind a facade of normalcy; his boyish looks have rarely looked creepier than when Colin is eagerly doing Frank’s bidding. And Mr. DiCaprio’s own callow looks fit better with his role than they did in either “Gangs of New York” or “The Aviator.” He falls apart nicely, and in the scene in which he stands, anguished and wrung out, over the body of a fallen colleague, you see what Mr. Scorsese might have seen all along: a vulnerability that seems animal-like in its unknowing. Photo
Leonardo DiCaprio, above, plays a cop who goes undercover. Matt Damon plays a gangster who joins the police force. Credit Andrew Cooper/Warner Brothers Pictures The role generally works to Mr. DiCaprio’s strengths since he has to keep a lid on the character and his own tendency to go overly big; even his physical performance, the way his arms and legs jangle, is more controlled. Billy melts down, but he melts slowly, his panic leaking through the cracks opened up by his escalating fear. Terrified that Frank will discover his identity, he unloads on a police shrink (Vera Farmiga, working hard to make a nothing role count), who also happens to be Colin’s girlfriend. The plot thickens, then reaches full boil among further complications, dirty dealings, blood on the floor and excellent performances from Alec Baldwin and Mark Wahlberg (as detectives), who own their every scene. As do the rest of the actors, they prove that what really counts here, in the end, isn’t the film, but all its swaggering men. Fine as Mr. DiCaprio and Mr. Damon are, neither is strong enough to usurp memories of the actors who played the same roles in the original — Tony Leung as the good guy, Andy Lau as the bad — both of whom register with more adult assurance. That’s an observation, not an indictment.
Comparisons between “Infernal Affairs” and its redo are unavoidable given how closely the screenwriter William Monahan follows the first film’s beats and scenes. But as fans of “Infernal Affairs” (and its two sequels) know well, the Hong Kong film owes an enormous debt to Mr. Scorsese, whose imprint, along with that of Michael Mann, is all over the trilogy. The Hong Kong and Hollywood action films are themselves doppelgängers of a sort, and Mr. Scorsese, himself larger than life, is one of their biggest, baddest daddies. “The Departed” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). The language is dirty and the action bloody.
Netflix’s Oscar-winning Roma deserves the high praise Alfonso Cuarón’s latest film is an impressive, immersive work Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma, which opens with the deceptively effortless image of soapy water splashing across on a tile floor, builds like a symphony. The melody is a relatively simple one, following a domestic worker named Cleo (Yalitza Aparicio) and the family that employs her as they deal with the fallout of abandonment and pregnancy. The world isn’t ending, nor are there villains in the Hollywood sense of the word. Yet the stakes feel just as high, likely because the film draws from childhood memories. Cuarón dedicates his film, which debuted on Netflix in December and just won Best Foreign Film, Best Cinematography, and Best Director at the 2019 Oscars, to Liboria Rodríguez, who worked for his family for several decades. However, the director isn’t granting himself absolution for Rodríguez’s all-but-invisible labor, or the class-based inequality inherent in their circumstances. Instead, Roma grapples with their shared existence, as Cuarón draws each distinct note into a stunning, cohesive piece. In the Colonia Roma neighborhood of 1970s Mexico City, Cleo tends to the house, children, and adults in the home for which she serves as a live-in maid. The beginning of the film is devoted to the mundane, setting up Cleo’s work routine so that when life later fractures, the effect is felt as deeply as possible. There’s an order to her world, both literally (the family patriarch’s Ford Galaxie barely fits into the hallway allocated for it; the family dog’s poop constantly has to be picked up; there’s always laundry to do and dishes to be cleaned) and metaphorically (Cleo is told not to speak in her indigenous Mixtec language, while the frustrations the adults cause each other is transferred onto her, as is the responsibility for the children’s behavior and happiness). The subtle oppression built into Cleo’s job lends weight to Roma’s low-key drama. Cleaning the house is a duty that’s clearly delineated, but the invisible, emotional labor that Cleo must perform for the family is not. It’s beyond a
shadow of a doubt that she cares for them, but that doesn’t make that work any less of a burden. As the film progresses, events rupture the domestic mold — the film’s timeline spans the Corpus Christi Massacre, for instance — but never veer into melodrama. Rather, the increased tension magnifies the emotions of the characters experiencing them in a slow crescendo. It’s so subtly done that it’s tempting to describe Roma’s emotional climax as a sucker punch; it doesn’t come out of nowhere, it’s just that the scene crashes down in waves that feel so much grander than the film’s beginning. As is usual with Cuarón, there is an exact, beautiful precision to the way each shot is constructed. Shot in black and white, and set against a near-exact reconstruction of the home Cuarón grew up in, the film’s conveyance of scale and familiarity with the space (and time, and people) lends itself to intimacy and the same emotional hook as the slow burn pace. Though the camera moves freely, Cuarón is often just as content to let it remain static or move at a nearimperceptible crawl, staging scenes that feel not unlike plays or paintings. Adding to the immersive effect is the way Cuarón deploys sound, using it to surround his audience and further build a sense of space. At the heart of it all is Cleo. Aparicio, in her acting debut, is remarkable, remaining an unflinching core as Cuarón unravels his childhood memories, and the class and colonialist issues baked into them. The lack of a clear resolution — this is but a fraction of these characters’ lives — doesn’t lessen the film’s impact, particularly as Cuarón alternates between capturing Cleo’s point of view of the working world, and observing her life from the outside, and in dreamy retrospect. Even in scenes where Cleo is not the ostensible focus, Aparicio draws the eye; microscopic changes in her expression and posture speak volumes. Early on in the film, the mother and father (Marina de Tavira and Fernando Grediaga) share a tense exchange. Behind them, Cleo holds onto one of the children. It’s not anxiety or uncertainty that’s conveyed in the slant of her shoulders and her muted expression, but the acknowledgment of how these emotional waves of the moment will affect her, too. The focus shifts, in that moment, from the surface action and drama, to the deeper emotional story underneath. The sheer number of Netflix films is so overwhelming that the platform’s prestige pictures often end up at the bottom of the pile. Last year, Dee Rees’ Mudbound earned nominations in four Oscar categories, but failed to break into the Best Picture or Best Director race, and generally seemed to go underseen and underdiscussed. That Roma has broken that particular mold — picking up 10 Oscar nominations, winning three, and becoming the center of a storm of discussion as to how movies ought to be seen — speaks to its sheer power. Roma ebbs and flows, its quiet, episodic moments connected by near-epic images and themes, until the distinction becomes impossible (and unnecessary) to make. It’s a symphony — a cohesive piece, without a single note out of place. Roma is streaming on Netflix now.
WRITTEN BY SHADAY DIAZ
WHATS EATING GILBERT GRAPE
Among his concerns are The film, directed by Lasse his mother, who is so Hallstrรถm, takes the overweight that she can't amazingly written book and leave the house, and his turns it into a classical film mentally impaired younger filled with love and family. brother, Arnie (Leonardo The film is based on the DiCaprio), who has a talent book by Peter Hedges, for finding trouble. Grape is
ABOVE Actors: Johhny Depp, Leonardo Dicaprio,Juliette LewisA
"WONDERFULLY
settled into a job at a The film (based off the grocery store and an book), is about a small- ongoing affair with local town young man named woman Betty Carver, an Gilbert Grape (Johnny older widow. Gilbert finally Depp) who has a lot of has his life shaken up by the free-spirited Becky responsibility. (Juliette Lewis).
ORIGINAL" -JEANNE WOLF.
Film Review: ‘Incredibles 2’ Brad Bird's sequel to his superhero-family Pixar classic doesn't build on the first film so much as dutifully replay it. It's fun, but far from incredible.
By OWEN GLEIBERMAN Director: Brad Bird With: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener, Brad Bird, Bill Wise, Isabella Rossellini, Barry Bostwick. Release Date:
Jun 15, 2018 Official Site: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3606756/ We’ve been swimming in movie sequels for close to 40 years now. Yet for all the deluge of cinematic déjà vu, all the middling rehashes and (yes) the fun, rousing, and genuinely imaginative second, third, or fourth chapters, there is one category of Hollywood sequel that remains so elite — and so rare — that we hardly even think about it. And that’s the sequel to an unabashedly great movie. I don’t mean great in the fanboy sense of “Did you see [fill in the title of the last Marvel film] ? It was great!” I’m not even talking about beloved popcorn touchstones like “Die Hard” or “Scream” or “The Bourne Identity.” I’m talking about movies of singular and awesome artistry, like “The Godfather” or “Star Wars” or “Night of the Living Dead” or “Toy Story.” When a sequel gets made to one of those, it’s axiomatic that you want — and almost expect — it to be a great movie, too. For if that isn’t the standard, then what is? The movies listed above all got the sequels they deserved (“The Godfather Part II,” “The Empire Strikes Back,” “Dawn of the Dead,” “Toy Story 2”). In the case of each follow-up, the original film’s vision was sustained, enhanced, even enlarged. And I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that many viewers will be hanging that same desire for greatness on “Incredibles 2.” MORE REVIEWS TV Review: HBO's 'The Case Against Adnan Syed' Film Review: Brie Larson in 'Captain Marvel' That’s because “The Incredibles,” which came out 14 years ago, was an extraordinary movie — an instant Pixar classic, bedazzling and humane, a virtuoso act of computer-animated showmanship that spoke about things like work, family, ego, and the passion of ambition in ways that few Hollywood movies have before or since. Written and directed by Brad Bird, it was a superhero comedy of daffy corkscrew wit; the most poetically extravagant action caper since the James Bond ’60s; a portrait of middle-class American domestic life that took in its joys and its perils; and the most exquisitely designed animated feature since “Yellow Submarine.” That’s a lot to live up to, and I wish I could say that “Incredibles 2,” which Bird also wrote and directed, is the great sequel “The Incredibles” deserves. It is not. It’s got a touch of the first film’s let’s-try-it-on spirit, and it’s a perfectly snappy and chucklesome and heartfelt entertainment, with little retro felicities you latch onto, yet something is missing: the thrill of discovery — the crucial sensation that the movie is taking us someplace we haven’t been. “Incredibles 2” offers a puckishly high-spirited but slightly strenuous replay of the original film’s tale of a superhero family working to prove its relevance. Once again, the family’s members are on the cusp between humdrum domesticity and saving-the-world bravura. Yet what was organic, and even obsessive, in the first outing comes off as pat and elaborate
formula here. The new movie, energized as it is, too often feels like warmed-over sloppy seconds, with a what-do-we-do-now? riff that turns into an overly on-the-nose plot. A decade and a half ago, before the Marvel/DC juggernaut was fully upon us, Bob Parr (Craig T. Nelson), a.k.a. Mr. Incredible, the steel-muscled strongman with a face like an Atomic Age Picasso, was forced to hide out as a morose (and doughy!) insurance actuary, while Helen Parr (Holly Hunter), the rubber-limbed Elastigirl, played ’50s housewife with their superkids, Violet (Sarah Vowell) and Dash (Spencer Fox). All of them had to conceal their powers as if they were criminals, but by the end of “The Incredibles” they had proved that a family of superheroes could rock the world. “Incredibles 2” begins — literally — right after the end of the first “Incredibles,” with the family fighting a throwaway villain and his giant whirling destructo screw. Yet in the years since, the cult of the superhero has all but taken over the culture, which is one reason why “Incredibles 2” was likely greenlit. So it feels a little off-kilter to realize that superheroes, in “Incredibles 2,” are still illegal, and that the Parrs are living like refugees, holed up in the Safari Court Motel. As a concept, the reset never fully gels. It’s a convoluted way of rehashing the first film (with less pizzazz) instead of building something new on top of it. Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk), the smiley head of a telecommunications company, is a superhero fan who wants to help bring supers back. He calls forth Elastigirl to join him on his mission, enlisting her to commit public acts of crime-fighting — like stopping a runaway train — that he will then go out and publicize. This sticks Bob at home with the kids, where he discovers that playing Mr. Mom is more of a juggling act than he thought; it leaves him mirthless and sleep-deprived. Meanwhile, there’s a sinister cyber-villain on the loose called the Screenslaver, who uses computer screens and goggles to turn everyone — including the superheroes assembled by Winston — into obedient hypnotized drones. Each story point hits us with its overly calculated “relevance.” Bob’s awkwardness as a nurturer in the brave new world of dads-as-homemakers; Helen’s proud post-feminist advancement over her husband; the ominous threat of whatever comes through the computer screen — it’s all a bit too thought out, and maybe a tad behind the curve. In “The Incredibles,” the thriller plot was the vehicle through which the Parrs discovered the meaning of using their powers: of being themselves. In “Incredibles 2,” they save the day once more, but emotionally they’re just going through the motions. It’s true that the “Toy Story” films, all three of which are fantastic, did variations on the same theme of a toy’s obsolescence, but as movies they kept the emotions close to the surface. In “Incredibles 2,” we never get that rush of feeling. Yet Brad Bird, who once again voices Edna the sawed-off Teutonic fashionista, hasn’t lost his wizardly gift for orchestrating a sight gag. The Parrs’ youngest child, Jack-Jack (Eli Fucile), with his infant tuft of hair that’s like a single devil horn, revealed his superpower near the end of “The Incredibles” (when he caught fire and morphed into a purple ogre), and in “Incredibles 2” he’s got that and other
powers to spare, from levitation to laser vision. Is he the film’s reigning crowd-pleaser? You bet. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a movement to give him his own sequel. But that, even if it happened, would have very little to do with what made “The Incredibles” incredible. Film Review: 'Incredibles 2' Reviewed at Dolby 88, New York, June 5, 2018. MPAA Rating: PG. Running time: 118 MIN. PRODUCTION: A Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures release of a Walt Disney Pictures, Pixar Animation Studios production. Producers: John Walker, Nicole Paradis Grindle. Executive producer: John Lasseter. CREW: Director, screenplay: Brad Bird. Editor: Stephen Schaffer. Music: Michael Giacchino. WITH: Craig T. Nelson, Holly Hunter, Sarah Vowell, Huck Milner, Samuel L. Jackson, Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener, Brad Bird, Bill Wise, Isabella Rossellini, Barry Bostwick. https://variety.com/2018/film/reviews/incredibles-2-review-holly-hunter-1202837069/
CeeLo Green Lands Mothership: New Joint Venture With Sony Music 12/3/2015 by Gail Mitchell
Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Race to Erase MS
Jason Kempin/Getty Images for Race to Erase MS CeeLo Green performs onstage at the 21st annual Race to Erase MS at the Hyatt Regency Century Plaza on May 2, 2014 in Century City, California. Artist will discover, sign and develop R&B/soul talent CeeLo Green has entered into a label joint venture with Sony Music Entertainment. Green’s Mothership Entertainment Group will focus on discovering, signing and developing R&B/soul artists for the global music company. Under terms of the joint venture, fully funded by Sony Music, Green will open recording studios in both Atlanta and Las Vegas, where he will work directly with the new artists that he signs. In addition, Mothership will be able to sign any of these artists to any of the labels under the Sony Music umbrella.
In a press release announcing the joint venture, Sony Music Entertainment CEO Doug Morris said, “CeeLo Green is a tremendously successful songwriter, producer and artist who has proven himself to be a gifted and versatile talent. We look forward to developing great new artists and music through our new relationship.”
CeeLo Green on 'Heart Blanche': 'This Album is a Prequel to the Rest of the Music'
Dubbing himself “Soul Machine” in the same release, Green noted that label name Mothership was chosen in honor of his mother and grandmother. Both women, he added, left him “an inheritance of emotion, instinct, inner vision and industry. I am honored to stand beside, and in extension of Sony, with a keen sense of appreciation for this opportunity.”
Green’s career includes being a member of Goodie Mob and later of Gnarls Barkley with Danger Mouse. A Grammy winner for hit singles “Fool For You” featuring Melanie Fiona and “F**k You,” Green released his latest solo album, Heart Blanche, on Nov. 6.
Marvel Studios/Disney EXPLAINER The entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, recapped There was an idea ... By Susana Polo@NerdGerhl Apr 25, 2018, 1:29pm EDT SHARE We won’t mince words: Avengers: Infinity War is here, and a lot of things have happened in the Marvel Cinematic Universe — and they happened in a lot of movies over a lot of time. So you don’t want to watch 10 years of movies, but you do want to know what’s going on in the MCU before you see Avengers: Infinity War. Never fear: Give us a few minutes of your time, and we’ll give you the history of the entire MCU, movie by movie. Starting a long time ago, in a desert far, far away ... [Warning: This article contains spoilers for EVERY MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE MOVIE FROM IRON MAN THROUGH BLACK PANTHER. Duh.] Iron Man - Tony Stark holds his arms out as weapons explode behind him Iron Man (2008) Marvel Studios/Paramount Pictures THE SETUP Way back in World War II, a frail young man named Steve Rogers volunteered for a risky military science program and was transformed (Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011). Endowed with superhuman strength, agility and endurance, Rogers — known as Captain America — and his compatriots in the Allied Forces, including his childhood best friend, James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes, combated the forces of a powerful Nazi offshoot organization known as Hydra. Rogers stymied Hydra’s plans to use the power of an ancient artifact known as the Tesseract to cause untold destruction, and sent the German scientist and military commander the Red Skull plunging into a dangerous portal created by the Tesseract. But by the end of the war, both Rogers and Barnes had gone missing in combat and were presumed dead. Captain America: The First Avenger - soldier with stars and stripes on a shield Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) Marvel Studios/Paramount Pictures [Note: We are not going to cover the Tesseract and the rest of the Infinity Stones with great detail or specificity here. But if you’d like a quick refresher on their history and current locations, you can check our Infinity Stones explainer.] Captain America was the only “superhero” the world had ever known — until the late 2000s, when the genius, billionaire, philanthropist and playboy Tony Stark was abducted by the terrorist group known as the Ten Rings, which held him for ransom and attempted to force him to build weapons for them (Iron Man, 2008).
Instead, Stark built himself an automated suit of battle armor and escaped his captors. In another story, he might have stopped once he gained his freedom, but after discovering the extent to which the weapons manufacturing arms of his business were inflaming global conflict, Stark built more advanced suits of armor and began waging a one-man war on terrorism. His crusade culminated in the death of his business associate, who had been collaborating with the Ten Rings all along. At a press conference later that week, under questioning from reporters, Stark admitted that the mysterious armored figure — dubbed the Iron Man — who had seemingly been acting in his interests was, in fact, himself. With Stark’s proclamation, “I am Iron Man,” the modern age of superheroes had begun. Thor - close-up of Thor holding his hammer in the rain Thor (2011) Marvel Studios/Paramount Pictures NICK FURY’S BIG WEEK It never rains but it pours, and it was as if Stark’s presence had torn open a thundercloud. In a single week, four major events occurred that would shape the Marvel Cinematic Universe forever. In the Arctic, the shadowy government program known as SHIELD uncovered the resting place of Steve Rogers, who was alive, but had been locked in an ice-induced hibernation for 70 years (Captain America: The First Avenger, 2011). Rogers was revived into a world he barely recognized. In the royal halls of Asgard — a sister dimension to Earth’s, home to the Asgardians, whose technology inspired Norse legends — there was a crisis of succession (Thor, 2011). Odin, king of Asgard, stripped his son Thor of his powers and banished him to Earth for his destructive arrogance. Then Odin fell into the interminable Odinsleep, leaving his foster son Loki on the throne. In a scheme for Odin’s approval, Loki attempted to kill Thor and destroy the realm of Jotunheim, and the battle between the two brothers caused significant damage to the small New Mexico town in which Thor and his hammer Mjölnir had appeared. Eventually, Thor took the fight back to Asgard, where Loki seemingly committed suicide by jumping into the dimensional void. The Incredible Hulk (2008) - Hulk on a burning street The Incredible Hulk (2008) Marvel Studios/Universal Pictures At roughly the same time, General Thunderbolt Ross and his men caught up with Dr. Bruce Banner, who had been hiding while he attempted to find a cure for the condition that causes him to transform into an giant, unstoppable green monster when under stress (The Incredible Hulk, 2008). An experiment using some of Banner’s blood on one of Ross’ men created an equally
terrible creature who rampaged through Harlem before Banner, in his monstrous form as the Hulk, put a stop to him and, again, fled custody. Elsewhere, Tony Stark struggled with several problems (Iron Man 2, 2010). An irreplaceable metal in the magnetic energy source that kept shrapnel from impaling his heart — an injury sustained in his abduction by the Ten Rings — was also poisoning him. His attempts to keep his armor technology out of the hands of the U.S. government failed when his best friend, Air Force Lt. Col. James “Rhodey” Rhodes, stole one of his prototypes, becoming the hero known as War Machine. Col. Nicholas Fury of SHIELD approached Stark, giving him information about his father’s work that enabled him to find a replacement substance for his arc reactor, saving his life. In exchange, Fury said that he might call upon Stark as a consultant in the future. The Avengers (2012) - the Avengers looking up from a Manhattan street The Avengers (2012) Marvel Studios/Disney THE AVENGERS That future was not long off, and it arrived when the Asgardian Loki appeared in a high-security SHIELD facility and absconded with the Tesseract, recovered from the same Arctic location as Steve Rogers (The Avengers, 2012). With the power of the Tesseract — and an army of alien Chitauri — Loki hoped to conquer Earth and deliver it to his new master, a being known as the Other, and the Other’s master, a being known as Thanos. RELATED What are Marvel's Infinity Stones — and where are they? Nick Fury activated his Avengers Initiative, calling together several of the world’s known metahumans and geniuses. Steve Rogers, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner formed the core of the group, and were aided by SHIELD agents Natasha Romanoff — the Black Widow — and Clint Barton — Hawkeye — as well as the Asgardian prince, Thor, who came to Earth looking for his foster brother. Together, the six heroes defeated a massive Chitauri army in the heart of midtown Manhattan and captured Loki. Thor returned to Asgard with Loki and the Tesseract, but a bond was formed. Earth had its Avengers. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - Captain America holds up his shield to block a punch from the Winter Soldier Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Marvel Studios/Disney AFTER THE BATTLE OF NEW YORK RELATED
What are Marvel's Infinity Stones — and where are they? Loki was not in prison long, as Thor freed him in order to gain his help in defeating the Dark Elf Malekith (Thor: The Dark World, 2013), but Loki seemingly died in the course of their quest. Nevertheless, the Asgardians were able to wrest the powerful artifact known as the Aether from Malekith’s clutches before he destroyed the Nine Realms, and they delivered it into the hands of an alien being known as the Collector, because it was too dangerous to keep it near the Tesseract. Unbeknownst to anyone else, Loki had actually survived, and had usurped Odin’s place on Asgard’s throne. Meanwhile, on Earth, it was Tony Stark who felt the greatest fallout from the Battle of New York, as the experience — particularly of nearly dying in the cold depths of space — drove him to post-traumatic panic attacks (Iron Man 3, 2013). After nearly losing his close friend and confidant Happy Hogan, and after putting down a fake terrorist organization (led by a figure called the Mandarin) that was merely a cover for a secret takeover of the executive branch of the United States, Stark appeared to have left his life as Iron Man behind for good. But the bigger crisis for the government came when Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff discovered that the SHIELD agency had, since its very inception, been filled with sleeper agents for the fascistic Hydra organization (Captain America: The Winter Soldier, 2014). Moreover, Rogers discovered that one of Hydra’s most deadly agents was his fallen friend, Bucky Barnes, brainwashed and medically enhanced into a murderous super-assassin. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) - the Hydra logo Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) Marvel Studios/Disney Air Force pararescueman Sam Wilson, equipped with a cutting-edge mechanical wingsuit, joined Rogers as the hero known as the Falcon. Rogers, Wilson, Romanoff, Fury and SHIELD agent Maria Hill overthrew Hydra and defeated a plan to preemptively assassinate thousands of scientists, metahumans, and presumed-metahumans that Hydra perceived as a threat to its rule. In the end, Rogers even managed to free Barnes from his brainwashing, though his friend fled, disappearing without a trace. Remnants of Hydra’s organization remained, however, and had stolen many of SHIELD’s most powerful weapons. In particular, Hydra began to use an alien scepter — which Loki had used to bend mortal minds to his will — to awaken strange powers in twin siblings Pietro and Wanda Maximoff. Pietro developed the ability to move at superhuman speed, while Wanda learned to move objects to manipulate the minds of others using only her own thoughts. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) - Scarlet Witch using her powers on Tony Stark
Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Marvel Studios/Disney THE AGE OF ULTRON It was the Avengers’ recovery of that very scepter that sparked the next major phase in their evolution (Avengers: Age of Ultron, 2015). While raiding the Hydra base containing the scepter and the Maximoffs, Wanda — the Scarlet Witch — used her abilities to give Tony Stark a harrowing vision of a dark future in which the Avengers died and the Earth was left defenseless, all because he didn’t “do more.” After the mission, Tony enlisted Bruce Banner to help him use the scepter’s seemingly highly advanced alien technology to craft an artificial intelligence capable of controlling a global army of Iron Man suits. Instead, Tony and Bruce accidentally created Ultron, a hostile machine intelligence that immediately sought to destroy the human race. Dogging Ultron’s electronic steps, the Avengers stopped him from using the scepter’s secret source of power — the yellow gem hidden inside it — to create his own synthetic body. Still wedded to his idea of peace through artificial intelligence, Tony secretly uploaded his personal AI, JARVIS, into the synthetic body, just as Thor returned from a quest of his own. Avengers: Age of Ultron - Steve Rogers and the Vision Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) Marvel Studios/Disney The thunder god had been seeking confirmation of his own vision, and discovered that the scepter’s yellow gem was one of the six fabled Infinity Stones, which confer their bearers with powers over the building blocks of reality. Fulfilling his prophetic dream, Thor used his hammer and the power of the Mind Stone to awaken the synthetic body and its artificial mind, creating the android hero the Vision. Together with the Maximoffs, who defected from Ultron’s cause once they realized the enormity of it, the Avengers thwarted Ultron’s attempts to cause a global extinction event and destroyed his army of robotic physical forms. They saved the world, but were unable to safeguard the capital of the Eastern European country of Sokovia; many of its citizens, and Wanda’s own brother, Pietro — Quicksilver — were killed in the battle. RELATED What are Marvel's Infinity Stones — and where are they? Overwhelmed by the feeling that his barely controlled rampages would someday harm his friends, Bruce Banner used the Sokovia confusion to steal an Avengers quinjet and disappear. Thor, in the meantime, left Earth entirely to learn more about the Infinity Stones before they could do more harm. Captain America: Civil War (2016) - Captain America and Iron Man Captain America: Civil War (2016) Marvel Studios/Disney CIVIL WAR
The fallout from the events in Sokovia would have much farther-reaching consequences, when, following the massive destruction in that country, the governments of the world proposed an international agreement to place the autonomy of the Avengers under bureaucratic control (Captain America: Civil War, 2016). The Avengers themselves became bitterly divided on whether to accept or oppose the proposal, splitting into two camps: that of Steve Rogers — who feared being restricted or used — and Tony Stark, who feared that he would once again have no one standing between his optimistic ambitions and creating a horror like Ultron. Still, the group might have reached a peaceful agreement, had things not been muddied by the resurfacing of Rogers’ close friend, James “Bucky” Barnes, now infamously known as the assassin the Winter Soldier. Captain America: Civil War (2016) - Black Panther Captain America: Civil War (2016) Marvel Studios/Disney Barnes was framed for the death of the king of Wakanda, earning him the ire of the king’s son, Prince T’Challa, who served the Wakandan throne as the protector and enforcer known as the Black Panther. Rogers’ attempts to protect his friend drove a further divide between him and Stark, and the Avengers came to blows among themselves at an airport in Germany. Rogers and Barnes sought to apprehend the Sokovian national Helmut Zemo — who wanted to destroy the Avengers as vengeance for his family’s death — and enlisted several heroes to their aid, including Ant-Man, a Cold War-era spy identity revitalized by corporate whistleblower and cat burglar Scott Lang. Stark had brought his own team of allies loyal to his cause to apprehend Rogers and Barnes on governmental orders, including Spider-Man, a teenager named Peter Parker who had developed superhuman strength and agility after being bitten by a strange spider. But the relationship between Rogers and Stark wasn’t completely shattered until Zemo succeeded in his ultimate goal: uncovering evidence that the tragic deaths of Stark’s parents was not an accident. Rather, the Starks had been assassinated by Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier, under Hydra brainwashing. RELATED Here’s where every Avenger is when Infinity War starts Stark, Rogers and Barnes limped away from that final conflict, the bond between the Avengers fully broken. Rogers and Barnes were taken in by Prince T’Challa, who vowed to find a cure for Bucky’s brainwashing, and Rogers sent Stark a cellphone with a single number in its address book, so that in a time of great need he could still reach out to Captain America. Rogers and his allies were now wanted criminals. [Note: For a more specific look at where all of the Avengers are when Avengers: Infinity War begins, check out our explainer.]
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) - Gamora, Star-Lord, Drax, Rocket Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) Marvel Studios/Disney MEANWHILE, IN SPACE AND TIME Peter Quill, who calls himself Star-Lord, was born on Earth but was abducted shortly after the death of his mother, and was swept up into a strange world of alien bounty hunters, thieves and scavengers. As an adult, his attempt to recover and sell a mysterious and ancient artifact swept him up in something quite bigger: a conflict with the will of the interstellar warlord called Thanos. RELATED What are Marvel's Infinity Stones — and where are they? Quill found allies in a ragtag group of outlaws and assassins: Groot, a sentient plant; Rocket, seemingly a talking raccoon; Drax, a warrior seeking revenge on Thanos for the deaths of his family; Gamora, Thanos’ rebellious and deadly daughter; and, even later, Gamora’s foster sister, Nebula, and the strange psychic being Mantis. Together, they kept the purple Power Stone from Thanos’ grasp, leaving it in the charge of the Nova Corps on the planet Xandar (Guardians of the Galaxy, 2014). Later, they encountered and defeated Quill’s long-lost father: the maniacal Celestial known as Ego the Living Planet (Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, 2017). Closer to our home, a human surgeon turned to the mystic arts in desperation after losing the dexterity of his hands. Doctor Stephen Strange overcame his hubris to become Earth’s Sorcerer Supreme, wielding the green Time Stone against any magical dangers that would threaten the planet (Doctor Strange, 2016). It was in this faculty that he met Thor and Loki, who had arrived on Earth to look for their father, Odin (Thor: Ragnarok, 2017). Thor had returned home to Asgard after seeking information about the Infinity Stones and the mysterious Thanos across the Nine Realms, and had swiftly uncovered Loki’s takeover of the throne. Doctor Strange led the brothers to their father, who almost immediately died of whatever passes for natural causes among gods, but not before delivering a dire warning: Thor and Loki had a secret older sister, of immense power and malice, who would be released upon Asgard at the moment of Odin’s death. Hela, the goddess of death, stranded Thor and Loki on the planet of Sakaar and conquered Asgard. Luckily, Thor found an ally where he least expected him: After fleeing from the Avengers in the aftermath of Sokovia, Bruce Banner’s quinjet had been enveloped by a wormhole and deposited him on Sakaar, where time passed differently than in other places in the universe. Banner had been the Hulk for two years, and in that time the green rage monster had developed a bit of a personality. Thor: Ragnarok - Hulk, Thor, Valkyrie, Loki Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Marvel Studios/Disney Banner, Thor and Loki found allies in an eclectic group of gladiators and bounty hunters,
escaping Sakaar’s gladiatorial arenas. Unfortunately, the only way to defeat Hela and free the Asgardians was to destroy Asgard itself. Thor and his allies escaped the ruin of his home world, and he accepted his role as their new king. But even as they looked ahead to forging a new life for Asgard’s refugees, their ship was confronted by a mysterious, massive cruiser. RELATED Here’s where every Avenger is when Infinity War starts And finally — deep in the heart of the African continent, the nation of Wakanda had been keeping its highly advanced vibranium-based technology secret for thousands of years. But when King T’Challa’s rule was nearly ended by his secret, long-lost, American-raised cousin, the Black Panther made the controversial decision to end his people’s isolation (Black Panther, 2018). Wakanda announced it would join the world stage to aid other countries and elevate humanity with its knowledge. In the meantime, T’Challa’s sister Shuri, a technological genius, cured Bucky Barnes of his brainwashing — he is recuperating among the people of Wakanda, who have given him the nickname of “White Wolf.” Avengers: Infinity War - Black Panther, Captain America, Black Widow and Bucky Barnes leading the Dora Milaje Avengers: Infinity War (2018) Chuck Zlotnick/Marvel Studios AND THAT’S THE STORY OF THE ENTIRE MARVEL CINEMATIC UNIVERSE, SO FAR Now go watch Avengers: Infinity War. In this Storystream Avengers: Infinity War: review, end-credits scene and more What’s after Avengers: Infinity War? The entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, recapped Avengers: Infinity War review: An adventure 10 years in the making VIEW ALL 24 STORIES MARVEL Everything that’s happened to Agent Coulson since Avengers NEWS Front Mission spinoff Left Alive appears to have rough Japan launch NEWS Apex Legends leaked a year ago, but no one believed it Loading comments... Terms of Use Privacy Policy Cookie Policy GDPR Commitment Communications Preferences Contact Send Us a Tip Community Guidelines Masthead Editorial Ethics and Guidelines All Systems Operational Check out our status page for more details. Advertise with us Jobs @ Vox Media © 2019 Vox Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved