On Marvel’s first Disney+ miniseries, Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany look liberated in their sitcom prison.
The benchwarming Avengers were crucial plot points for three of the biggest films ever made.
A shared comics history offers weird-as-hell adaptation possibilities, and Bettany and Olsen are appealing performers.
Credit: Marvel Studios
All of which makes the miraculous season premiere ofWandaVisiona real feat of chaos magic.
The first two episodes of the nine-part miniseries launch Friday on Disney+.
At the beginning, the familiar Marvel Studios logo fades to black and white.
The town’s a ’50s retroscape lousy with nosy neighbors and gruff bosses.
Vision worries the fellas at the office will find out he’s not quite human.
“I’m a regular carbon-based employee!”
he sputters, while the studio audience cackles.
Any resemblance to theDonna ReedorDick Van Dykeshows is very much intentional.
And something is obviously wrong.
Today’s date is marked on the kitchen calendar, and neither Wanda nor Vision can’t remember why.
There’s a lot they don’t remember.
In the three episodes I’ve seen, nobody mentions that time Vision died inInfinity War.
Strange sounds rumble outside.
Curious color intrudes on the monochrome world: a beeping red light, a drop of blood.
WandaVisioncasts a spell with its rigid dedication to the throwback conceit.
The first episode focuses on an old-fashioned misunderstanding: Guess who’s coming to dinner!
As chatterbox-next-door Agnes,Kathryn Hahnkeeps pouring herself into the house.
Somehow, the artifice sets the lead actors free.
There are wheels turning within wheels behind Wanda’s domestic pirouetting.
Meanwhile, Bettany dials up his English as a desperate-to-hey goofball husband.
AndWandaVisioncleverly keeps shifting the landscape under their feet.
Clothes, furniture, and even camerawork evolve forward a decade per episode.
By episode 3, the opening title sequence advertises “WandaVision in Color!”
and Vision’s got sideburns.
Along the way, Wanda befriends another Westview newcomer supposedly named Geraldine, played byTeyonah Parris.
(Her actual identity is a matter of record.)
There are more urgent concerns, maybe.
How did the superheroes get here?
The neighbors start whispering.
A voice calls out in the darkness.
Is this cheerful suburban domesticity some sort of prison?
Yes, duh: That’s the point of every novel ever written about American suburbia.
And getting trapped on a TV sitcom is nothing new.
“WandaVisionadds opulent visual gloss and the patience of a megafranchise on a victory lap.
A good assumption, andWandaVisionis already the best original series on Disney+.
(A good example: Wanda’s accent, which really did have to go.)
Free of any obvious plot requirements, Bettany and Olsen get to fire up some real chemistry.
Their beautiful light twisted fantasy wavers between sweetness and sorrow.
You start to worry what secrets their laugh track is hiding.
“Is this really happening?”
Wanda asks her husband.
“Yes, my love,” he promises, “It’s really happening.”
Is it, though?
There’s a small problem in these opening episodes.
ConsiderWandaVisionan unusual first step for this new Marvel phase.
The best parts lovingly conjure the mood of very old television shows.
The worst parts feel like just another movie.B+
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