By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
“Avengers: Endgame” is a three-hour, superhero team-up that concludes more than a decade of 22 intertwined Marvel movies featuring Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk and Thor, among others.
It begins after the “Infinity War” in which Thanos (Josh Brolin), who has the Infinity Stones, incinerates half the world’s population, including Spider-Man, Black Panther, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord.
The remaining Avengers — Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) — suffer survivor’s guilt.
“We should have covered Earth with a shield, but you were too worried about infringing on personal freedom,” Stark says to Cap. “We’re always fighting after the fact. We’re the Avengers, not the Pre-vengers, right?”
After soul-searching grief and the blame-game, abetted by Thanos’ daughter Nebula (Karen Gillian), Captain Marvel (Brie Larson) and Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) surface, as the cathartic action begins in earnest. Discovering who survives and who doesn’t is part of the fun — and I won’t ruin that for you.
Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely weave an enthralling time-travel heist, brought to life by directors Joe and Anthony Russo, who deftly juggle the complex storylines and surprise cameos, aided by cinematographer Trent Opaloch and Alan Silvestri’s score.
What’s now for the Marvel Cinematic Universe? “Spider-Man: Far From Home” opens later this year and “Guardians of the Galaxy 3” in 2022. Plus sequels for “Black Panther,” “Doctor Strange” and “Captain Marvel.”
And pivotal changes will commence with the Disney’s streaming service. Marvel is developing a TV series featuring established characters like Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Loki (Tom Hiddleston), Vision (Paul Bettany), Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen).
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Avengers: Endgame” is a nostalgic 9. It’s a long goodbye — with no sly post-credit teasers.
Based on the sensational real-life story about elderly widow Melita Norwood, who was arrested for being one of World War II’s top spies, “Red Joan” turns out to be a tepid tale that’s totally lacking in suspense.
Given the fictional name of Joan Stanley (Judi Dench), she lives in a small village, quietly spending her days painting and tending her garden. Until, one day, MI5 comes to arrest her. According to their files, she was the British physicist who taught the Russians how to build the atomic bomb.
As seen through flashbacks during her interrogation, accompanied by her incredulous son (Ben Miles), Joan recalls the dramatic events that caused her to reveal classified information.
A top physics student at Cambridge University in the late 1930s, young Joan (Sophie Cookson, who resembles a young Lauren Bacall) was befriended by glamorous Sonya (Czech actress Tereza Srbova), who introduced her to Communist Party meetings. That’s where she met and fell in love with radical Leo (Tom Hughes), a fanatic determined to “rebuild civilization in a totally new way.”
When Joan graduates, she’s welcomed into a secret government laboratory by Prof. Max Davis (Stephen Campbell Moore), who views the Soviet Union as England’s ally. Challenging entrenched sexism, Joan became his assistant and, later, his mistress, since his wife would not agree to a divorce.
When the British government set up a nuclear fission facility in Canada, Joan was part of Prof. Davis’s entourage, only to once again encounter Leo in Montreal. By then, he was working with the KGB.
Insisting, “I’m not a traitor!” idealistic Joan explained, “I wanted everyone to share the same knowledge … because only that way could the horror of another world war be averted. If you look back at history, you’ll see I was right.”
Based on Jennie Rooney’s best-seller, it’s weakly adapted by Lindsay Shapero and blandly directed by Trevor Nunn of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
On the Granger Gauge, “Red Joan” is a muted, meandering 5, missing every opportunity to be memorable.
The most recent entry in “The Conjuring” franchise, “The Curse of La Llorona,” evokes a Latin American folk tale, beginning in 17th century Mexico, where a jealous wife drowns her two children to punish her cheating husband. Immediately afterward, she commits suicide. Known as La Llorona, the weeping woman, she’s condemned to roam the earth as a ghost, searching for children to take their place.
Skip ahead to 1973 in Los Angeles, where Anna Tate-Garcia (Linda Cardinelli), a recently widowed single mom, works for Child Protective Services. As a caseworker, she rescues two young boys from their mother, Patricia Alvarez (Patricia Velasquez), who locked them in a closet in an apartment that’s filled with eerie charms and flickering candles.
Promising that they’re safe, Anna places the boys in a temporary shelter, just for the evening. But before dawn, they’re found dead, drowned in a nearby river. Now Spanish-speaking Patricia, who rages about La Llorona and supernatural threats, holds Anna responsible.
Far too conveniently, Anna has two children — Samantha (Jaynee-Lynne Kitchen) and Chris (Roman Christou) — about the same age as the deceased boys. Does crazed Patricia really believe that, if the yellow-eyed apparition known as La Llorona (Marisol Ramirez) snatches Anna’s offspring, her own will return?
Understandably slow to comprehend what may/may not be happening, Anna consults Father Perez (Tony Amendola, reprising his “Annabelle” role), who refers her to a former cleric-turned-shaman, Rafael Olvera (Raymond Cruz), whose exotic folk “methods are unorthodox.”
Working from a superficially simplistic script by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis (“Five Feet Apart”), first-time feature film director Michael Chaves — with cinematographer Michael Burgess — relies on obvious jump scares, creaking floorboards and shrieking noises.
According to Chaves, there’s a deleted scene that leaves La Llorona’s necklace with the late Connecticut-based ghost-hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga). It was cut because they felt it was heavy-handed to make more “Conjuring” connections.
On the Granger Gauge, “The Curse of La Llorona” conjures a creepy 4 — with “Annabelle Comes Home” scheduled later this year.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
