Mötley Crüe will come out of retirement for a 2020 tour coming to Arlington on July 14.
Motley Crue/Facebook
Four iconic rock bands that made their name in the '80s — Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Poison, and Joan Jett & The Blackhearts — will join forces for a 2020 stadium tour, which will include a stop at the new Globe Life Field in Arlington on July 14.
The tour, which starts on July 7 in Miami, will go to 22 cities over two months, including Houston's Minute Maid Park on July 15. Thankfully, both the Arlington and Houston dates will be in air-conditioned facilities to avoid the mid-summer heat.
The tour comes six years after Mötley Crüe supposedly retired from touring, a decision that was rendered moot by the success of their Netflix biopic, The Dirt, which has renewed interest in the band. 2019 marks the 30th anniversary of their most popular album, Dr. Feelgood, which will likely be heavily featured on the tour.
Each of the other bands continues to draw interest despite not releasing any new music since 2015. Def Leppard was just inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2019 and continues to tour around the world. While Poison hasn't put out any new music since 2007, fans will be enticed to see the all-original lineup of Bret Michaels, C.C. DeVille, Bobby Dall, and Rikki Rockett. And Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Joan Jett & The Blackhearts will balance out the male-heavy lineup with a firepower that has seen them tour with The Who, Green Day, and the Foo Fighters in recent years.
Anthony Mackie in Captain America: Brave New World.
If it feels like it’s been a long time since the last Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, that’s because it has. Deadpool & Wolverine technically counts, but it was really its own thing that was mostly disconnected from the larger story the MCU is trying to tell. And two out of the three MCU movies in 2023 were underwhelming, so Marvel remains far from the highs of its Avengers days.
They’re trying to get things going again with Captain America: Brave New World, the first glimpse of Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) - formerly known as the Falcon - as the new Captain America. The film thrusts the audience right into the action, with Wilson on a mission to retrieve a MacGuffin stolen package for the U.S. government at the behest of President Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford). The two men continue to have a symbiotic relationship for the majority of the movie, with each needing the other and hating the fact that they do.
The main story of the film improbably (unwisely?) brings together two of the MCU’s least well-received films, 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and 2021’s The Eternals. Dr. Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson), apparently holding a longtime grudge since the events of The Incredible Hulk, plays a big part, as does the Celestial Island, which was last seen at the end of The Eternals and not mentioned in any property since that time.
Directed by Julius Onah and written by Onah and four other screenwriters, the best that can be said for this return of the MCU is that Mackie makes for a compelling presence. The combining of the Captain America elements with his Falcon persona makes for some pretty good action, with the character showing off some unique moves. On the downside, though, he’s mostly facing off against anonymous henchmen, so most of his fight scenes feel repetitive and uninspired.
The story itself is a mishmash of characters that only hardcore Marvel/MCU fans will know, with barely any attempt at reintroducing them to a broad audience. Sidekick Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez) and wronged super soldier Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) return from the Disney+ show The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, providing some levity and gravity, respectively. Having Sterns back in the mix is never explained properly, nor is how he is able to wield influence over a large number of people.
If there’s to be any lasting memory from this film, it’s the introduction of the (fictional) indestructible material adamantium into the MCU. Previously known from the X-Men universe as what was used to strengthen Wolverine’s skeleton and give him his claws, adamantium is now a prized discovery found in the Celestial Island that, like any valuable material, causes normally level-headed people to get into fights over it.
Mackie brings enough charm to his acting that he can ably act as the lead, something he hadn’t previously been asked to do in the MCU. Ford is fine; his years of experience make him a natural for playing another president, although the transformation his character undergoes is goofier than it needed to be. Nelson has to act from behind some truly hideous makeup and he feels one-note most of the time.
For the MCU to make it back to their previous standing atop the blockbuster landscape, they’re going to have to deliver much more interesting characters and stories than are present in Captain America: Brave New World. It might be time to consider stand-alone stories instead of ones that rely on information that many moviegoers have long since forgotten.
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Captain America: Brave New World opens in theaters on February 14.