Playing with Fire marks the last Marvel Rising entry. As far as I can tell, the series died with this one. It’s been years since the last one. But, against all odds, they managed to end with the best episode.
This review of X-Men ’97 has a caveat to it. This review is not intended for fans of the original series. I haven’t seen much of the original series, and it’s been a very long time since then. No, this review is for the people who are aware of the hype and want to watch X-Men ’97—but don’t know if they need the background context.
Operation Shuri is a fun idea for an episode, let down by the last few minutes. Up until a single baffling conversation, I was on board with the storyline. Wakanda being so far ahead of most places with their technology, culture, education, etc. is one of the reasons the Black Panther movies are so interesting.
Battle of the Bands is basically a standard cartoon episode. After the main antagonist left the planet in Heart of Iron, I suspected things would turn out like this. And, frankly, this is better. I like it a lot more.
Heart of Iron partially reverses the downward slide after the abysmal Chasing Ghosts. It’s not as good as Initiation, but at least the plot setups actually go somewhere. It doesn’t feel like scenes are wasting the viewer’s time.
I don’t know what to make of The Marvels. Oh, I watched it. I enjoyed it. And I even laughed at the scenes where I was supposed to laugh. But I can tell—even as my memory still holds—that this is a forgettable movie.
Marvel Rising: Chasing Ghosts is terrible. I don’t like being this negative, but wow, is this the worst of the Marvel Rising projects I’ve watched. As a follow-up to Initiation, it’s just baffling how poorly everything was handled.
Marvel Rising: Initiation is one of the short, like micro short, series that are set in the same universe as the Secret Warriors movie. Kamala and Squirrel Girl are there. Patriot is there.
Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors is a Marvel movie you’ve likely never heard of before. I hadn’t. It’s a movie about a superhero team with some very familiar names if you keep up to date with the greater MCU canon.
Float marks the last of the currently available SparkShorts that are solidly within the science fiction/fantasy genre. What I’ve seen of the other ones is excellent, though, and you should watch all of them.
Wind is even better than Smash and Grab, and that’s saying a lot. SparkShorts, it turns out, are some of the best short films I’ve ever seen. And they’re quite different from each other, with unique settings, characters, and stories.
Chicken Run: Dawn of the Nugget is inescapably a nostalgia grab of a movie, relying on people like me and our fond memories of the original film. If it weren’t for that history, I’m not sure it would’ve been that big of a deal for there to be a new kid’s movie about chickens attempting to escape being eaten.
