Wanders from MCU standards without completely losing the trail, and every strange cranny it finds proves enlivening.
Category: action
It’s a movie from a filmmaker who’s sat with herself for much longer, sorted some things out, and is working in a culture that’s just beginning to catch up to her.
No, the myth that superhero movies have to choose between being bombastic, money-making productions or contemplative allegories is just that, a myth, and Zhao had the potential to bring the false dichotomy crashing down. Unfortunately, the picture she’s made may just reinforce it.
Smaller in scale than recent outings and less afraid of its characters’ emotions, it introduces the wayward but destined for greatness Shang-Chi with plenty of the tricks the MCU used to create its box office supremacy while finally pushing the series in a mildly different direction.
Jungle Cruise is not the artistically devoid offering you may have feared, but it’s not stretching itself to be anything too great, either. Instead, it settles for being a lark, and its winning cast nails the frivolous good time it aims to be.
That Black Widow doesn’t find the right way to tell one of [the MCU’s] most serious stories to date is frustrating, especially considering it comes off as a mere tepid misfire.
Emily Wheeler Movie Ops 