With the launch (at long last!) of Disney+ in South Africa, Marvel fans in this country finally have streaming access not just to the entirety of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, from Iron Man through Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – as well as the films and series released by 20th Century Fox, including all the X-Men and Fantastic Four films – but to the series developed specifically for the streaming platform that is an integral part of the MCU's still-developing Phase 4.
These series may vary in quality, arguably quite a bit more than the MCU films themselves, but they have already proven to have a major impact on the latest cinematic outings from Marvel. In particular (as I mentioned in my review of the film), Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness makes some use of characters from the animated series What If but, most importantly, proved itself to be more of a follow up to Wandavision than to any of the previous films. That was good news for anyone who found a way (legal or otherwise) to catch Wandavision; not such great news for everyone else.
Needless to say, you should absolutely check out the entirety of Wandavision before watching or rewatching Doc Strange 2, and completists will obviously want - no, need – to watch all of the Disney+ series to date, but what about casual viewers? With so much available to watch at launch on Disney+ (not least lots and lots of Star Wars), just how much should non-Marvel-diehards prioritise what is already half a dozen series of Marvel television?
A review of the recently completed Moon Knight is on its way, but for now, a brief(ish) overview of Marvel's other Disney+ series, in order of release.
OUR RATING: 5/5 Stars
Originally intended to air after the next series in our list, Wandavision instead proved to be a truly audacious and unexpected way to open the latest chapter in Marvel's ever-expanding universe. Like all of Marvel's Disney+ series, Wandavision was released weekly, but with a double-helping to start things off. Coming hot on the heels of the massive spectacle of Avengers: Endgame, the first two episodes of Wandavision could not have been a more radical change of pace.
Formatted, filmed, performed, and written to look and sound like sitcoms from the '50s and '60s, respectively, both episodes found Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff and her previously very dead android lover, The Vision (Paul Bettany), living out a life as a married couple with kids in the sort of cosy suburbia that only ever truly existed in shows like I Love Lucy. The illusion is only shattered a couple of times in these episodes, but it quickly becomes clear that something is deeply wrong here.
To say much more would spoil how the series develops (even if you know broadly what happens) but suffice it to say, as each of the next few episodes progress through different eras of classic sitcoms and the reality of what's going on starts to break through, we have what is by far the most thorough and impressive characters study – and thematic exploration – in the MCU to date.
Elizabeth Olsen is an exceptional actor, and she was always under-served by the MCU films in which she appeared, so it's particularly gratifying for her to come out of Wandavision with the most complex, intriguing and morally ambiguous character in the entire cinematic universe. Wandavision is a beautifully handled, highly creative exploration of grief and madness, featuring the single best performance in the history of the MCU – as well as some unforgettable (in another show, scene-stealing) supporting turns from Bettany, Teyyonah Paris and, most significantly, the brilliant Katherine Hahn, and the welcome returns of Kat Dennings and Randall Park to the fold too. It does, admittedly, turn a tad more conventional in its finale with a more straightforward superhero showdown, but by that point, the show has more than earned the right to rest on its laurels a bit.
Even if you don't care a jot about Marvel, this is peak, must-see TV.
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
THE FALCON AND THE WINTER SOLDIER
OUR RATING: 2.5/5 Stars
It's a good thing that Wandavision was the first MCU Disney+ show released because the one that was supposed to launch Marvel's more integrated Disney+ presence turned out to be one of the weaker MCU entries. This in the midst of a year when Marvel's seemingly unbroken run of top-quality blockbusters was seriously challenged by Black Widow - the long-awaited solo film for the original female Avenger that proved to be enjoyable but just a bit too little, too late - and Eternals, which never matched its ambitions and impressive visuals with strong character work and a compelling story.
Now, because I'm reasonably sure that Marvel Studios mastermind, Kevin Feige, seems incapable of releasing a truly bad Marvel screening outing, the Falcon and the Winter Soldier is hardly awful. Certainly, it has plenty to recommend it; not least its charismatic titular duo of Sam (Anthony Mackie) and Bucky (Sebastian Stan) and their enjoyable "frenemy" chemistry, as the two characters tackle what it means to follow in the footsteps of the now-retired (and quite old) Captain America. Though, admittedly, there's a clear reason why The Falcon comes first in the credits, as this is much more about him than the already basically reformed Winter Soldier.
Though Avengers: Endgame certainly made it seem like the passing of the torch from Steve Rogers to Sam Wilson was pretty much a done deal, with Bucky clearly agreeing with Steve's choice, a large part of this miniseries deals with Sam's reluctance to pick up the shield and represent the ideals of a country that has often done a less than sterling job by people with his skin pigmentation. This becomes especially poignant when Sam is introduced to Isiah Bradley, a black man who served as an interim Captain America after Steve Rogers' original disappearance but who was treated rather less well than his predecessor by his government.
Despite the racial content feeling a bit too well-trodden at this point – and despite the fact that Steve Rogers clearly demonstrated that Captain America has always been about the American ideal, not about its gritty reality, and certainly not about any one government – this part of the series actually works rather well. In no small part because of the fine work done by the actors involved (Carl Lumbly as Isiah is an especially welcome addition), but, like Wandavision, it's just great to delve more into two characters that were mostly part of the films in supporting – if crucial – roles.
The problem, though, is that this is only a subplot in the overall series, with much of the rest of it dealing with an over-arching plot about a group of terrorists fighting to redress the imbalance of having half the world's population suddenly return to life after five years (see the events of the two-part Avengers epic, Infinity War and Endgame). Oh, and Sharon Carter (Emily VanCamp) is part of it as well... though, after this, she will need her own mini to redeem what they did with her.
This part of the series doesn't work. At all. The real-world parallels don't really convince. Its main baddie, a disgruntled young woman, named Karli (Erin Kellyman), is the MCU's worst villain to date, and she is never as interesting or as flawed as she needs to be for her arc to land. And, really, aside for the super fun (if superfluous) return of Daniel Bruhl's now much more camp, Baron Zemo, it's all extremely boring and woefully misjudged.
This show will probably be referenced in the next Captain America movie, so you probably need to watch it to keep up with Marvel's wonderful and rapidly expanding world. Other than that, though, you're not missing much by skipping it.
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
OUR RATING: 4/5 Stars
Fortunately, after the thoroughly disappointing Falcon and the Winter Soldier and the very spotty animated series What If?, things get back on track nicely with the return of Tom Hiddleston as fan-favourite trickster god Loki, in his very own series. And this is a series – while the other Disney+ shows are, as it stands, self-contained miniseries, this is only the first season of Loki, with season two already in active development.
We pick up, once again, from events in Avengers: Endgame, as a younger Loki (from the original Avengers film, to be specific) escapes both the Avengers and death at the hands of Thanos by using the Tesseract to jump head-first into the time stream. Loki, the show, however, proves to be just as tricky as its titular character, and before Loki can kick off his latest adventure with one of the most powerful artefacts in the galaxy, he is promptly captured by the Time Variance Authority – an organisation dedicated to maintaining the "true" timeline from "variants" like him, who are every bit as bureaucratic as their name suggests.
Drawing heavily from Terry Gilliam's ingenious cult classic, Brazil, the opening episode of Loki pulls much of its many delights from having this god of chaos having to deal with the most maddeningly ordered of bureaucracies – represented by Owen Wilson's ultimate company man, Mobius M. Mobius (yes, really). Its mix of nightmarish mundanity and dark comedy would do Gilliam proud, and it's driven along nicely by the interplay between Wilson and Hiddleston (and Wilson and his similarly fantastically-named superior, Ravonna Renslayer (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), as well) that allows the former to add an undercurrent of menace to his usual goofy, laid-back persona.
That's just the first episode, though, and what follows is definitely not more of the same. Like its amorphous anti-hero (let's just say not all variants of Loki look like Tom Hiddleston), there's a restlessness and lack of focus to Loki that can occasionally be frustrating – the episodes vary quite a bit in quality, but it also very much depends on what you're looking for from the show: individual rankings of the episodes tend to fall all over the place – but it's also a large part of its charm.
The season does have an endpoint that it works towards throughout (one that will presumably be important for the future of the MCU, what with variants and multiverse going very much hand in hand, but surprisingly wasn't even referenced in either of Marvel's recent multiverse films) but it never gets there in anything even remotely resembling a straight line. Even tonally, even in terms of what genre it actually is, it shifts drastically from episode to episode. Is it a buddy comedy? A tragic character-study? An epic fantasy? A satire? An unlikely love story? Yes. And that's the fun of it.
Also, if you need any more reason to watch it – and Hiddleston alone should be more than enough – I'll just leave this here: Richard E. Bloody Grant as Old Man Loki. Oh, yes.
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
OUR RATING: 4.5/5 Stars
It's hard to believe that there are a great many people who would rate Jeremy Renner's Hawkeye (aka. Clint Barton) as their favourite Avenger – certainly not fans of the comics, where the character is very different and, frankly, much more engaging – so it's a particularly cheeky move to kick the entire plot of the six-episode series off with a flashback to the first Avengers film where we see a young girl developing an instant and incurable case of hero worship for this regular dude with a bow and arrow standing side by side with gods, super-soldiers, and Hulks to fend off an alien invasion. Her father's death in the middle of the attack only further cements her decision: when she grows up, she will be Hawkeye.
That girl is Kate Bishop, and when we next meet her in the present day (as played by the always delightful Hailee Steinfeld) she quickly proves that she has the skills to pull it off but with a reckless, naively optimistic spirit that makes her the polar opposite of Clint Barton. When Kate and Clint do finally meet after a major kerfuffle involving the retrieval of Clint's Ronin costume (see, once again, Avengers: Endgame), the latter is, inevitably, less than impressed by his wannabe sidekick, especially when he is forced to join her on the run from an organised crime organisation whose leader has a real bloodlust for Ronin, when all he really wants to do is get back to his family in time for Christmas. She might be just what he needs, however, as he tries to come to terms with his murderous past.
There are some surprises along the way, including a scene-stealing guest spot for a character from one of Marvel's more recent films and the MCU debut of one of Marvel's biggest bad guys, and there is an undeniable darkness to Clint Barton, but Hawkeye is pure comfort food from beginning to end. It's not for nothing that it was originally released in the lead up to Christmas, after all – I can easily see this becoming a perennial holiday fave (even for us non-Christians), and at just six episodes long, it's not too much of an ask for multiple replays.
Unsurprisingly, a lot of this comes from Steinfeld as the frankly pretty adorable Kate Bishop (and the character could so easily be super boring) and her killer (strictly platonic) chemistry with Renner's Clint Barton, but by borrowing heavily from the stellar comic books by writer Matt Fraction, and artists David Aja and Annie Wu, every aspect of the show is so likeable and so much damn fun, that you can excuse its slightly lacklustre villainous plot. Most impressively, after these six episodes, Hawkeye will no doubt be a great many people's new favourite Avenger – or at least in their top 5. And that's no small task.
WATCH THE TRAILER HERE:
ROUNDING THINGS OFF
Admittedly, I'm still working through What If, so I can't give it a proper review, but as it stands, it's mostly a missed opportunity. The fun of What If in the comics is that, like DC's Elseworlds line, it allows creators the freedom to go nuts with established characters, but that sense of creative freedom has been sorely lacking in the episodes I've seen. Frankly, far too many of these episodes revolve around having one character taking the place of another. Unless it really picks up at the end, it definitely joins Falcon and the Winter Soldier at the very bottom of the pile.
No matter, we are still left with three excellent shows that add greatly to the tapestry of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and that can be enjoyed tremendously all on their own. Best of all, though all three are great, Wandavision, Loki and Hawkeye could not be more different from one another, each offering an entirely different viewing experience. Bring on Moon Knight and, most especially, Ms Marvel and She Hulk!