“Marvel One-Shot: All Hail The King” – Review

Marvel Studios has so far done a wonderful job with its movie properties, but some may not be aware of the “One Shot” series Marvel puts on DVD releases. Probably the more memorable One Shot was on the Iron Man 3 DVD, Agent Carter. This time around on the Thor: The Dark World DVD, we have the Marvel One-Shot: All Hail The King. Hit the jump to find out what I thought of this. A word of warning: here be some slight spoilers.

All Hail The King catches up with Trevor Slattery after the events of Iron Man 3 while he does time in Seagate Prison. Trevor is being interviewed by a documentary filmmaker in the aftermath of his being The Mandarin. The entirety of this short film takes place inside of said prison.

There are some great lines here. Trevor says things like “I’m not your meat puppet”, or his famous Mandarin line “You’ll never see… me… coming”. Or, the funny “Trevor Slattery, it’s a brand”. There are some great moments by the wonderful Sir Ben Kingsley. Sure, he’s hamming it up, but it’s just fantastic to watch. We even see Trevor’s theory on how an actor does research. Through all this, the loveable idiot Kingsley play has no clue what’s really going on.

The small vignette about Trevor’s failed CBS series titled Caged Heat is absolutely brilliant. There are so many gags here; from the note-for-note Magnum P.I. references to the 80’s aesthetic to the Mike Post music. It’s such a great little moment that just fits the overall funny atmosphere. If you look close, you’ll see a poster of Kingsley as King Lear in the background and the rather evenly stacked fan and hate mail boxes.

The thing is, Marvel packs so much into these short videos. All Hail The King is not much more than 11 minutes of actual runtime, but we get a nice beginning and ending. The plot device of Trevor being interviewed is a perfect fit for what takes place as the interview comes to a close. This might be worth the price of Thor: The Dark World alone. I sure do hope we see more of the character Trevor Slattery somewhere down the line. Perhaps in the next Avengers movie.

I won’t give anything away, but you’ll also get to see Sam Rockwell hilariously reprise his role as Justin Hammer. It seems clear he’s ad-libbing all the way, and the stuff is just great. You’ll also see some other inside references that feel like they might be taken up elsewhere in the Marvel Universe.

There are some small gripes I have about how freely a journalist might get a gun into any sort of prison, or how a gun without a silencer sounds like a gun with a silencer. But, those are small beans. This is fun. You’ll also want to know, “Who is Trevor Slattery?”

4/5

Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King is directed by Drew Pearce and stars Sir Ben Kingsley, Scoot McNairy, and Sam Rockwell. This short film is included as a special feature on the Thor: The Dark World DVD release, due February 25, 2014.