Spider-Man: Far from Home (2019) | Jon Watts

Jake Gyllenhaal gets to don the “fishbowl” as Quentin Beck, the interdimensional savior of Venice when a giant water monster surfaces to try to destroy the city.  Peter Parker (Tom Holland) happens to be there at the time, as he has traveled to Europe for a week-long class trip. Peter, of course, is gifted with superhero powers, but doesn’t have the “great responsibility of other incarnations of the character, and would rather just be a teenager and do teenage things, like trying to find a way to express his feelings to his major crush, MJ (Zendaya), doing it atop the Eiffel Tower..  With the Avengers in a sort of disarray, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) assembles Beck, dubbed in the press as Mysterio, with Spider-Man who sees the new hero as a surrogate mentor to live up to in the wake of Tony Stark’s demise,  in order to stop future scary elementals from coming out of the woodworks again to destroy a major city. Jon Watts directs this MCU release.

Avengers: Endgame (2019) | Joe & Anthony Russo

Endgame starts in a world following “the snap” delivered by Thanos that extinguished half of all life within the galaxy in an instant, without a trace, in his effort to bring what he feels is a much-needed balance and tranquility caused by overcrowding interests.  After a brief intro, we fast forward five years to find a world that has had trouble moving on from the loss of their many loved ones, especially the surviving Avengers (conveniently, all the characters that comprised of the first core team are among them), who feel a particular sense of guilt for not being able to save the billions they were sworn to protect.  However, a new idea develops to find a way to reverse the situation through a risky and highly improbable gambit in which they must try to traverse time and space to re-connect all of the Infinity Stones and bring back all of those who vanished without losing the good things that have happened since that fateful day. Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, and Jeremy Renner, and many, many, many, MANY more appear in this massive crossover event.

Captain Marvel (2019) | Anna Boden & Ryan FLeck

Brie Larson stars as Carol Danvers, aka Vers, aka Captain Marvel, an ultra-powerful warrior for an alien race called the Kree, from the capital planet Hala, part of an elite group of warriors called Starforce, who are doing battle with the fearsome, shape-shifting Skrulls, who have the power to impersonate other living beings, with a notable limitation in memories. She is haunted by her own memories of a strange time and place, when she was a pilot in the United States Air Force, which she ends up learning more about when she ends up jettisoned on Earth in 1995. After an explosive skirmish and her high-powered suit catches the interest of the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., she meets the initially skeptical Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), and begins her search for the light-speed engine, another object in Vers’s memories, that both civilizations want to get their hands on first.  It is on Earth that she begins to put the pieces of her memory and former life there back together, reuniting with old friends in her old stomping grounds.  She also begins to discover more about her mission, what is being fought for, and the nature of the vicious Kree-Skrull war that she never knew about.  Unfortunately, the Skrulls, led by Talos, are in hot pursuit on a planet completely unaware and unprepared for the arrival of such high-powered beings.

Ant-Man and the Wasp – A Podcast Film Review

Ant-Man’s second foray in his own Marvel Cinematic Universe film isn’t quite a solo adventure, as now he has a partner in Hope, who dons a high-powered suit as The Wasp.  They’re out to save her mother from the Quantum Realm, where she’s been presumed missing for the last thirty years.  Unfortunately, Scott Lang, aka Ant-Man, is under house arrest and not quite able to get out and join in on the quest easily.  Meanwhile, a bevy of parties are out to steal the hi-tech suits before they can come into play.  Peyton Reed returns to direct Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly and Michael Douglas, along with newcomers in Laurence Fishburne and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017) – Marvel Cinematic Universe Review

Taika Waititi takes over the reins of the Thor segment of the MCU and employs lots of his trademark humor, resulting in perhaps the funniest of the Marvel films to date. Thor, Hulk, and lots of surprises add up to a wild and funny ride.