Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021)

After watching about a dozen superhero films in the early 2000s, I called it quits. The oversaturation was too much and the stories weren’t that distinctive to waste my time on them. Every so often I’ll check out an origin story hoping to see something different and I almost always continue to be disappointed. Being a Kim’s Convenience fan, I was interested to see Simu Liu in an American blockbuster film. Watching the film, I was also excited to see Tony Leung and Michelle Yeoh are also in the film. Having a typical convoluted superhero plot, Leung was a bad guy many eons ago, stopped being a bad guy when he fell in love with Fala Chen, became a bad guy again when his wife is murdered, and kidnaps Liu and his sister Meng’er Zhang in a misguided attempt to save his wife. There’s plenty of action and an incredible amount of CGI and it’s way too long. Maybe I would have liked it better if there weren’t already dozens of films similar to it. I’m sure there will be a sequel, but that film is destined to be more entwined with the other hundreds of Marvel films, television series, and whatnot that I haven’t seen, my experience here wouldn’t make me want to slog through another.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Visual Effects