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Deadpool (2016) a (mildly) belated review

I know little about the Marvel Comics character Deadpool.  In fact, as big a comic book fan as I am, I doubt I’ve read even a single issue or story involving this character though the various illustrated pieces (covers mostly) I’ve seen suggest a tongue-in-cheek take on “badass” superheros like The Punisher or Wolverine.

Based on the movie version, looks like I nailed it on the proverbial head.

The movie version of Deadpool was released earlier this year following some very clever marketing such as this, which suggested (too well!) the film was some kind of romantic tearjerker…

And this one, which backed that up a little and hinted more at what to expect:

I’ll include the following red band (beware NSFW language and some sexual content) trailer (can’t believe I’m showing three trailers to one film!) which gives a better indication of the film’s actual tone:

Now, I’m a fan of “crude” humor.  Some of my favorite comedies are those that push the limits and, here and there, Deadpool does just that.  There are parts of the film that had me laughing out loud but there were other parts of the film that…didn’t.

The movie’s plot goes like this: A merc-for-hire named Wade (Ryan Reynolds, clearly not afraid to make fun of everything, including himself) is introduced via a mission involving a stalker.  Nothing big, just one of those things intended to get audiences to see he’s one of those guys with good intentions despite the fact that he has no problem killing people in the most gory of ways (this we’ll see plenty of).

At his bar/hangout he meets Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), a hooker who it turns out has a glib attitude very similar to Wade’s.  He “hires” her, takes her out (he, like she, has a heart of gold so therefore Wade doesn’t just hit the sack with her) and of course they fall deeply, madly in love.

Then, tragedy.  Wade finds his body is riddled with cancer and, out of desperation, agrees to a nebulous procedure conducted by an equally nebulous group to cure himself.  Of course, the people behind the procedure, Ajax (Ed Skrein) and Angel Dust (Gina Carano) are eeeeevvvviiiilllll villains interested in bringing out people’s mutations to then do something or another with them.  Seriously, I don’t even know the why here.

So they torture Wade until his mutation appears and it winds up being something along the line of Wolverine-type healing.  The experimental procedure, however, is so brutal it takes away Wade’s good looks and leaves him resembling a burn victim (much knee slapping fun is to be had with this).  While his cancer is gone and his ugly new looks keep him from going back to the love of his life, Wade hides his identity behind a costume and -voila!- Deadpool roams the streets of the city hunting down the evil scum that made him while pining for his lost love.

His bloody actions, however, catch the attention of X-Men members Colossus (a really well done totally digital creation voiced by Stefan Kapicic) and Negasonic Teenage Warhead (a delightfully sullen Brianna Hildebrand) and they try to get Deadpool to renounce his bloody ways and become a “true” superhero.

As I said above, there are parts -many parts actually- of the film that were funny and enjoyable.  Unfortunately, there were other parts of the film that were, IMHO, childish and stupid and featured, again IMHO, far too much gore.

Mind you, I’m not squeamish and I’ve loved me some very hardcore features in the past, but the bloody violence presented here felt at odds with the silly tone of the film.  For me it came down to this: If you’re going to make a cartoon, why not go all out and feature cartoonish violence rather than more realistic and bloody gore?

Further, when all is said and done one comes away realizing this film has a surprisingly dull story to tell.  The main villain, like far too many of them of late in movies, is given very little motivation beyond being bad for the sake of being bad.  Worse, he’s upstaged, in my opinion, by Gina Carano’s Angel Dust, a character who barely has any dialogue.

Now that I mention that character, it occurs to me the movie’s side characters, and especially the female side characters wound up being the ones I liked the most, from Angel Dust to Negasonic Teenage Warhead (love the name and the character’s attitude…like Angel Dust she barely says anything and yet she’s more interesting than most people around her!), to Blind Al (Leslie Uggams), Deadpool’s weird roommate.

What does it say when you come away from a film like this and the three leads, Deadpool, Vanessa, and Ajax, aren’t necessarily the ones you care about or want to see the most of?

Despite all the complaints mentioned, I nonetheless recommend the film.  As I also said above, while there were parts of the film that didn’t work for me there were others that were quite hilarious.  In its own bizarre way Deadpool tries to stretch the borders of the superhero film and for the most part manages to do so well.

Recommended.

*******

POSTSCRIPT:  As I wrote the above review I had to bite my tongue.  I really, really don’t want to flog a dead horse but now that the review is “over”, I just need to get this out of my system:

Why are people so negative about the so-called “murderverse” of Zach Snyder and the dark tone of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice yet give a film like Deadpool a complete pass?

As “brutal” as Batman was in BvS, there was a reason given for that (his view that Superman was a threat to all humanity).  However brutal as Batman was in the film, he never did anything approaching what Deadpool does in his film yet because its “tongue in cheek” we can accept his multiple, bloody murders, including the very brutal way he eventually takes out Ajax?!

Weird.

Movies

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) a second look

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It is rare I get a chance to see a film in theaters and even rarer -bordering on the unheard of- for me to see a film twice while it is in theaters yet that is what happened yesterday with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (BvS from now on).

Since the film’s release only a few short weeks ago, a curious thing’s happened: There are many who appear to be taking this movie mighty personally.

When the movie neared release, I saw plenty of people already gearing up toward disliking the film.  As I mentioned before, many had good reason: They looked at director Zach Snyder’s track record of films (including Man of Steel, the film BvS is a sequel to), and didn’t like his work and therefore were sure or at least suspected strongly this work wouldn’t do it for them.  When the film was released, the critical reaction was incredibly negative and the Rottentomatoes.com rating remains at a genuinely terrible 28% favorable among critics.

And yet…

The film is a box office hit (not that this was ever an indicator of movie greatness) and I suspect there were many like me who went to see the film, looked at those reviews and the very negative statements coming from others, and couldn’t help but scratch our heads and wonder if these negative reactions were exaggerated.

Of late, these negative views have moved from trashing the movie to finding any way at all of dismissing it…including attacking its massive box office numbers.

Take for instance the headline on this article presented in Inquisitr which was posted approximately 13 hours ago (4/17/16):

Batman V Superman Just Missed Another Embarrassing Target

The focus of the article is that Deadpool, another superhero film, may wind up beating BvS in terms of domestic box office take.  The author of the piece, Aric Mitchell, sounds positively giddy in reporting on the film’s “disappointing” and “embarrassing” U.S. box office.  This is true yet the bottom line is that BvS’ global take is higher than Deapool’s by (as of this writing) nearly 50 million dollars.  Is there anything positive for the author to state?  Well, midway through the article he notes:

All that said, however, the film (BvS) is unlikely to lose money.

O…kay?  I mean, both Deadpool and BvS are big box office hits and both are making obscene amounts of money.  Yet because BvS may not quite make as much domestically as Deadpool this counts as an “embarrassment”?!  By this logic I suppose  the makers of Citizen Kane should be embarrassed by the fact that all these damn superhero movies are drawing more than it did in its day.

Elsewhere, on a webpage devoted to one of the bigger names in the comic book industry, someone (I’ll keep their name anonymous as I’m more interested in the message presented) posted the following regarding BvS:

The supporters of this movie must have biceps like watermelons for all the water they choose to carry for it.

Really?  Because someone likes a film another doesn’t, it somehow reflects badly on the one who liked it?  Am I therefore some kind of phony and am simply defending the indefensible?  Or could it be that I happened to find enjoyment in something which some others did not and we have a simple difference of opinions?  Is that so unheard of?

As I said above, I get the feeling this difference in opinions has become personal.

When I originally saw BvS a few weeks back (you can read my original review here), I was hoping for the best but, based on those early reviews, expecting the worst.

What I found was a surprisingly ambitious film that juggled many concepts and ideas at once.  While it faltered at times, I found BvS, overall, a terrific product.  Mind you, it is a superhero film devoted to mature audiences (this is probably one source of the gnashing of so many teeth as there are many who wanted an “all ages” film) and I suspect the upcoming Director’s Cut of it, rumored to be a little over three hours long vs. the theatrical version’s 2 and 1/2 hours, will wind up being better overall.

Still, having now seen the film a second time (This time in 3D), I still can’t understand where all the hatred comes from.

First thing’s first, however: Was it worth seeing the film in 3D versus the original 2D I saw it in?  Not really.  The 3D effects were interesting but hardly earth shattering.  Seeing the film “flat” is fine.

Now, to the film itself: As I said, I still think its terrific, though I will acknowledge a few issues.

To begin, I’m still unclear about the whole Superman attack on the terrorist camp bit.  As presented in the theatrical cut of the film, Lex Luthor’s henchmen use special bullets to kill the villagers/terrorists and one of the bullets gets lodged in Lois Lane’s notebook.

The villagers’ deaths are blamed on Superman and this somehow was because of these special bullets but, as I just stated, I’m not quite getting why this is the case.

Perhaps in the Director’s Cut this is explained a little better but all I can do is suspect and theorize the bullets disintegrated when they hit human flesh (they are super-sophisticated bullets) and the kill wounds therefore looked like they came from Superman’s heat vision.  This is why Lois Lane winds up with the only bullet from this massacre as it didn’t hit anyone before getting stuck in her notebook.

This, admittedly, is pure guesswork on my part and the film obviously should not have the audience guessing the significance of this.  The theatrical cut of the film simply doesn’t explain this very well and my hope is the Director’s Cut clarifies this issue.  Regardless, it wasn’t a “make or break” type thing for me.

Later Batman has his “Apocalypse”-type dream and, at least in this theatrical cut of the film, I felt it was ultimately unnecessary and probably should have been left out.  I suspect it was left in because it was a well done bit and hinted strongly at Darkseid’s coming, which is one of the major subtexts of this film.

Finally, there were those who found the whole “Lois Lane dumps the spear then goes back to get it” kinda silly but on second view I realized this sequence evoked a very similar sequence found in the climax of the film Excalibur (you think the marquee boasting the coming of Excalibur at the beginning of the film and during the Batman origin re-telling was purely there “just because”?!).  The sequence also played out as a nod to Richard Donner’s Superman film as well.  So while it was odd to me when I first saw the film it didn’t bother me quite as much on second viewing.

Anyway, those three issues were minor compared to the things I really liked about the film:

Superman’s ambivalence about his place in this world and the fact that some view him as a savior while others view him as a destroyer.  He is genuinely torn because at heart he’s a good person who tries to do good but realizes sometimes doing good has unintended consequences (this is obviously a shout-back to what occurred at the end of Man of Steel).

After all these years and after all the different incarnations, it was a surprise and delight the way the filmmakers dealt with the character of Batman/Bruce Wayne.  This was an original take on the character even as it used -and did not ignore- his previous history.  Here we have someone whose world-view has radically changed.  His anger and sense of outrage were inflamed by the events of Man of Steel (we witness that film’s conclusion through the eyes of Bruce Wayne in one of the film’s standout sequences) and this has changed him for the worse.  Batman is singularly focused on destroying Superman, who he views as a danger to mankind, and this singularity in focus makes him fall prey to being used by others…

…which brings us to Lex Luthor.  Many didn’t like the character as portrayed by Jesse Eisenberg but I liked it.  Behind the character’s oddity is a darkness and, like Batman, a singularity of purpose as well.  Only Lex Luthor is revealed to be smarter than Batman/Bruce Wayne as he is able to finesse situations around him to get the two to fight.  At the end of the film, when he hints at the coming of Darkseid, it was a chilling and sobering scene.

Wonder Woman’s appearances were delightful and just long enough to add that little extra something to the film.  If they had devoted more time to her it might have detracted from the story being told.

So, overall, I still like BvS.  The film was ambitious, surprisingly deep, and hardly the flop so many seem to want to make it to be.  I remain interested in seeing the Director’s Cut.

Movies

The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and Tomorrowland (2015) a (mildly) belated double-header review

What do The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (MFU from now on) and Tomorrowland have in common other than the fact they were both released last year?

For one, they were both directed and co-written by well known and accomplished men in this field with several hits to their names.  In the case of MFU, you had Guy Richie (Snatch, the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Holmes) and for Tomorrowland you had Brad Bird (Iron Giant, Incredibles, Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol).  Both films were also given large budgets by their respective studios and featured big name actors.

And in both cases, the films weren’t box office hits.

MFU had a budget of $75 million according to IMDB but made only $45.5 in the American box office.  Tomorrowland, again according to IMDB, had a budget of $190 million and made back approximately $93.5 of this in American markets.

Despite their weak box office, both films had at least decent critical ratings.  MFU, according to rottentomatoes.com, scored a healthy 68% positive among critics and a 74% positive among audiences.  Tomorrowland, on the other hand, scored a mediocre 50% with both audiences and critics though it did better, overall, at the box office.

I saw both films over the past couple of days and found them to be enjoyable enough to recommend but, on the other hand, I could see (with that wonderful 20/20 rearview vision) why both films failed to connect with audiences.

TMU is based on the 1960’s TV series of the same name.  In that series which aired during the heights of the first wave of James Bondian hysteria, you had an American and Soviet agent played by Robert Vaughn and David McCallum work together for global peace, something rather forward thinking considering we were at the heights of the cold war.  An interesting bit of trivia, the premiere season of the show, presented in 1964 featured an episode wherein the future Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, would act together on screen as guest stars for the very first time and two years before reuniting for Star Trek…

Anyway, Guy Richie’s goal, it appeared, in making MFU was to create a modernisic take on the supersaturated, supercolorful spy films of the 1960’s.  His direction, editing, and dialogue were, to those familiar with these particular films, spot on.  Though the film was clearly a modern artifact, there is love for the genre in almost every frame of the film, as can be seen in its trailer…

However for whatever reason Mr. Richie decided to subvert his action scenes and this, IMHO, was one of the film’s greatest sins for spy films, if anything, should be exciting.  Other than the opening act, the action sequences in MFU are generally played for laughs (witness in particular the sequence involving a boat chase in a closed off harbor…we witness most of the “action” in the in the background while in the foreground and front and center we watch as one of our protagonists eats a sandwich and drinks wine!).

Worse, the villain of the piece is stated to be a “fanatic” and a very ingenious and dangerous woman.  However, as presented you don’t feel she’s either particularly smart or dangerous.  When she eventually meets her just desserts, there’s no “oh yeah!” excitement to her comeuppance.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: A good action film needs not just a good hero to root for, but a good villain to root against and in MFU’s case such a character was simply never there.

Incredibly, this same problem (one of the movie’s problems, anyways) can be found in the ambitious Tomorrowland.  Based on the Disney theme park’s futuristic section, Tomorrowland opens at the 1964 World’s Fair.  It was in this fair, in real life, the “It’s a Small World” ride was introduced to the world.  In the movie, a young boy named Frank Walker (in this section played by Thomas Robinson and later played by George Clooney as an adult) brings his experimental jetpack to be judged in a scientific competition.  The jetpack is judged by the stern Nix (Hugh Laurie).  While Nix is unimpressed with the young kid’s work, a young girl named Athena (Raffey Cassidy) is impressed by this invention and she gives him a pin and tells him to, from a distance, follow their group on to the “It’s A Small World” ride.

The pin is scanned by a computer while in the ride and Frank Walker is diverted and winds up in the magical Tomorrowland, a futuristic alternate world and all appears great…

We fast forward to the present and are introduced to Casey Newton (Britt Robertson) a young child prodigy who “knows how things work”.  We find that Athena is around and she hasn’t aged at all since 1964.  Athena manages to place one of those pins upon Casey without her knowing and, after she’s sent to jail for trespassing on NASA property she realizes she has it.  When Casey touches the pin, she has visions of Tomorrowland and wants to get there.

Eventually we find that things aren’t quite as bright as we thought and when Casey meets the elderly Frank Walker, he realizes she might be Earth’s only hope for survival.

When the first Tomorrowland trailers appeared I was struck by how difficult it was to get a handle on the film’s plot from them.

I suspected -and the suspicion was confirmed when the movie was released and the reviews came out- that the film featured an elaborate, perhaps too elaborate, plot that defied easy explanation.

This is true, even as the movie’s first half simply involves explaining to us what Tomorrowland is, setting up the characters, and giving us an extended “chase” sequence.  When the action moves to Tomorrowland itself in the later half, unfortunately, the film goes south.  We are too quickly shown and expected to accept Nix as “evil” and the solution to world wide catastrophe -a complicated series of events, one would think!- winds up being to simply blow something up real good…a rather sad -and ironically way too primitive!- solution presented in a movie that allegedly celebrates creativity, ingenuity, and intellect.

And yet, like MFU, the film has its charms and isn’t “bad” by any stretch of the (ahem) imagination.  The leads are charismatic and interesting even if the ending resorted to more standard movie tropes.

So there you have it, two flawed films from directors who took a chance and tried to do something outside their wheelhouses and, in both cases, delivered good if not great entertainment.  I can see why both films didn’t quite light the box-office on fire but I’ll be damned if these two individuals shouldn’t be congratulated for at least trying to give moviegoers something different.

Movies

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) a (right on time for once!) review

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There are times a film appears to hit a buzzsaw of emotions and reactions and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (BvS from here on) has certainly done so.

Like many, when I first heard of the film being made I was excited.  When the first images were released a year or so ago showing an armored Batman on a rooftop and a dark, shadowy Superman floating above him, I was giddy with excitement.

The film’s release was highly anticipated because both Superman and Batman -not to mention Wonder Woman!- are characters who are by now so ingrained in our society and so beloved (for the most part) that its difficult to find someone who a) doesn’t know who the characters are or b) isn’t at least a tiny bit interested in seeing movies featuring them.

As the movie’s release approached, however, it appeared audiences had already taken sides as to how the film was going to be.  There is -and remains- a very vocal group who gave up on the film when they heard Zach Snyder was back in the director’s seat.  Let’s be clear: I can understand those who have sampled Mr. Snyder’s work and don’t like it being suspicious as to whether he can pull off this -or any- film.  If what he’s done before hasn’t appealed to you, its understandable you view any new work with suspicion.

Those who were most vocal in that suspicion -if not were outright hostile- to BvS were also those who didn’t like the film this is a sequel to, 2013’s Zach Snyder directed Man of Steel.

The reaction to Man of Steel was split, to be polite.  Some hated the film outright while others loved it.  Still others liked parts of the film yet one commonality seemed to appear: People were turned off by the amount of destruction presented in that film’s climax.

It was this climax and its apparent cavalier way of showing a large city reduced to rubble that for many was simply too much.  With that much destruction, the loss of human life had to great, and Superman and the characters around him appeared obvious to this loss in the movie’s closing minutes.

To the makers of BvS’ credit, they acknowledged the strong reactions and, in my mind very cleverly, decided to face this head on with this movie.  In fact, not only was their focus on this, but so too were the makers of the upcoming Captain America: Civil War, which to my eyes (now that I’ve seen BvS), appears to be their take on the exact same thing…

So last week BvS was finally released and the critical reaction was -there is no way to sugar coat this- terrible.  Over at rottentomatoes.com, the film opened with a dismal 11% approval rating before climbing to 41% and then settling down (as of today) to a 29% approval among critics.  Audiences, however, give the film a far better 73% approval.

I have to admit, the wave of hostility toward the film and the critical reaction worried me.  With this many critics panning the film, would it turn out to be a bust?

Still, I was eager to see it.  The film’s trailers, for the most part, were enjoyable and I loved the visuals presented.  Like so many others I love the characters of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman and seeing them together in a movie, even if the movie turns out not to be very good, was something I had to do.

Yesterday, at the very earliest showing (9:30 AM!) I did just that.  To my surprise, I wasn’t alone.  Despite the very early hour, the theater was easily 1/2 to 3/4s full.  I sat back and forced my mind into neutral.  I wanted/hoped this film was good even as I feared the critics were right and it would prove to be a big disappointment.

I won’t keep you in suspense any longer: In my opinion, this is a damn good film.

No, BvS isn’t “perfect.”  There is some choppiness to the storytelling which, I suspect, might have to do with the fact this version of the film, which runs a very long two and a half hours, was nonetheless cut down from a 3 plus hour “director’s cut.”  (That version is scheduled for release to home video on July 16 and I for one am eager to see it)

Still, I stand by what I said:  I liked the film quite a bit and can’t help but dispute some of the critics and their negatives.

For instance, BvS opens with a retelling of the Batman “origin” story.  You know the drill, after leaving a movie, Thomas and Martha Wayne, along with a very young Bruce Wayne, are confronted by a mugger.  Thomas and Martha Wayne are killed and young Bruce Wayne is traumatized and this is what “makes” him Batman.

While I can see why people bemoan the retelling of this story, I think they missed why it was retold.  To begin, the retelling is quick, but secondly, and more importantly, it lays down the Batman we know before giving him his second origin story.

For the Batman presented in BvS is very cleverly, very subtlety, not the Batman we are familiar with to this point.

This is a Batman who witnesses and is traumatized by the destruction of Metropolis as presented in Man of Steel.  He personally sees the destruction and the deaths of so many people (many he knows) and this rattles Batman/Bruce Wayne to the point where he becomes, as Alfred (a spot on, absolutely delightful Jeremy Irons) states, “cruel”.

Understand, the Batman we see here is in a fever state.  He’s off his game and very flawed, locked in on the goal of ridding the world of the danger he feels Superman represents.  The more rational Batman we are accustomed to would have realized certain things were occurring and manipulations were being made but because of his rage, this Batman misses them…until it’s almost too late.

I realize I’m talking about subtlety in a film that prides itself in showing “big booms” but its there.

Superman, likewise, is also presented as being in a state of flux.  He is new to this game and also grappling with the destruction caused at the end of Man of Steel.  He knows he saved humanity, but at his core he also realizes salvation came with a steep price.  As much good as he tries to do, will humanity ever fully embrace him and will he always be presented with unintended consequences resulting from his actions?

There has been much scorn heaped upon Jessie Eisenberg’s portrayal of Lex Luthor and, once again, my feelings lie opposite to those who criticize his portrayal.  Then again, I’m one of those weirdos who loved Gene Hackman’s version of Lex Luthor in the first Superman film.  Mr. Hackman presented a man who at times appears to be a buffoon but when all that superficiality is stripped from him he’s revealed to be a deadly beast with very sharp teeth.

This appears to be the philosophy behind Mr. Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor.  While outwardly geeky and, perhaps, a little “out there” at his core this Lex Luthor is a much, much darker version of Bruce Wayne.  Unlike Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent, Lex Luthor is not an orphan.  In fact, he speaks of his father and notes the man was a “monster”.  It is a combination of his father’s cruelty and, if one reads between the lines, the same destruction witnessed at the end of Man of Steel that has driven him very much over the edge.  Like Bruce Wayne, he too is locked in on the idea of destroying Superman for the good of mankind.  Unlike Bruce Wayne, he was always a cruel individual and this has only given him a focus for his evil.

Thus, the set up is there.  Superman is the target and Lex Luthor is the ultimate manipulator, moving pieces/people into place to create a confrontation between Superman and Batman.  And if Batman can’t do the job, Luthor has a backup plan in place…

I’ll stop there and not spoil any more of the film.  However, before I go, let me add one last thing: I loved Gal Gidot’s Wonder Woman.  Though her role within this feature amounted to an extended cameo, her take on the character made me really eager to see her further exploits.  She was cool and mysterious and powerful and, like the best versions of Wonder Woman, absolutely did not shy away from battle.

Though I’m skeptical of this version of the Flash (I love the TV show), I’ll end it with this:

Bring on the Justice League!

Movies

Ant-Man (2015) a (mildly) belated movie review

Marvel films have performed incredibly well with both critics and audiences and, most importantly, the box-office.  Their success is such one can’t help but wonder if the studio’s gotten courageous and is willing to gamble on making films featuring lesser known characters.

Guardians of the Galaxy, for example, starred relatively obscure (at least before the movie’s release, natch) characters yet was a HUGE box office hit (I really didn’t like the film so don’t look for explanations from me as to why it clicked so well with audiences).

Following Guardians of the Galaxy came word Disney/Marvel were, along with writer/director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs The World) working on a movie version of Ant-Man.  This character was another decidedly (ahem) small-time Marvel superhero yet the presence of Mr. Wright, a man who built a great reputation for creating clever and at times manic comedies, gave reason for optimism.

Then the roof fell in.

Creative differences resulted in Mr. Wright leaving the project and Peyton Reed taking over.  Fans of Marvel films were concerned.  Because of these behind-the-scenes problems, could this be Marvel’s first outright failure?

As it turned out, there was little reason to worry.

While Ant-Man may not reach the high bar set by Captain America: Winter Soldier (my personal favorite Marvel superhero film), it is a solid, entertaining feature and another win for Marvel.

The movie starts in the distant (cough, wheeze) past of 1989 where Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) confronts his fellow scientific whiz-kids about his experiments.  They want him to share his reduction technology but Dr. Pym fears it will be militarized and angrily leaves the company he founded.  Though he is gone, it is clear his ex-workers (including Howard Stark) will continue pursuing his work.

Fast forward to the present where Scott Land (Paul Rudd), electrical whiz and, more importantly, master thief, is released from jail.  He is a very likable guy (hey, he’s played by Paul Rudd, how could he not be?!) and is determined to straighten out his life.  He wants to re-connect with his daughter but his ex-wife is now dating a police officer who doesn’t care for or trust this ex-con.

Meanwhile, Dr. Pym’s successor, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) continues to work on the reduction formulas Dr. Pym claims he failed to create.  Under the watchful eye of Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), Dr. Pym’s supposedly estranged daughter but actually secret mole, the two realize Darren Cross is getting too close to replicating this formula and fear he will sell it to the highest military bidder.

They are running out of time and have to stop Cross and destroy his work.  How to do so?

Why, by using the reduction formula and breaking into the heavily secured laboratories.

Naturally, this leads to Dr. Pym recruiting the reluctant Scott Lang to do this skullduggery and things move from there.

Without getting into spoilers, suffice to say we’re soon following along as Scott Lang tries his best to master the reduction technology while planning and, eventually, breaking into the top-secret laboratory.

To my eyes, Ant-Man retains much of Edgar Wright’s DNA (the screenplay is still credited to him) within and, as a result, is a cool and breezy ride.  The movie is never too terribly serious or dark, instead giving us a more lighthearted affair that doesn’t place too many demands on its audiences.

To me, the movie’s biggest fault is that Darren Cross is never a terribly well defined villain.  As a result he never elicits the fear we probably should have regarding the possibility of succeeding.

Still, Ant-Man is a fun ride that even those who know or care very little of Marvel superhero movies should find entertaining. Recommended.

Movies

Spectre (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Oh….my.

When word came the latest James Bond film, Spectre, was about to be released, I made it a point to clear up free time to see it while it was still in theaters.  When the movie was first released in England, the reviews were kind and I got doubly excited to see it.  When the movie was given its world-wide release shortly afterwards, those initial wildly enthusiastic reviews from England were met with far less enthusiastic reviews elsewhere. (The movie has a 64% positive rating from critics and a 63% positive rating from audiences over at rottentomatoes.com)

Unfortunately, I read a few of the reviews at that time and my desire to see the film cooled considerably.  I finally gave up on seeing it in theaters after reading one particular review which SPOILED the relationship between Bond and the villain of this piece.  (You can read my original post regarding this here.  And a more in depth, SPOILERY post here)

Despite my negative reaction to the reviews, there was never a doubt I’d see Spectre eventually.  Good, bad, or indifferent, I’ve seen all the James Bond films, sometimes many multiple times.  As good as some of the great ones are (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, The Spy Who Loved Me, For Your Eyes Only, The Living Daylights, Goldeneye, Casino Royale), there are also some really bad ones (You Only Live Twice, The Man With the Golden Gun, Moonraker, A View To A Kill, License to Kill, the other Pierce Brosnan Bond films).

With all due respect to the ratings over at rottentomatoes, Spectre for me falls deep into the “bad” category.  In fact, I’d rank it among the very worst of the James Bond films.  And you know what the most amazing thing about that is?  What irked me so much about the film before seeing it and what kept me from seeing it upon its initial release, ie the stupid, unnecessary relationship between Bond and the villain, turned out to be one of the film’s lesser sins.

Seriously.

So much was wrong with Spectre that by the time we got to the “big reveal” of Bond and the villain’s relationship I was numb.

But as bad as it got, Spectre nonetheless starts off quite well.  The opening action montage, set in Mexico during their annual Day of the Dead festival, is exciting and visually appealing.  After this opening act the film manages to keep up its interest but only because of the momentum provided in that opening.  As soon as that momentum is gone the film sputters and dies.

Yet like the living dead, it goes on… and on…. and on……. and………. on……….

At the 1 hour and 30 minute mark I had to pause the film for a bathroom break.  On the TV screen was displayed how much of the movie we’d seen and how much was left.  We still had an hour of Spectre to go.  Yes sir, ladies and gentlemen…not only is the film not good, there’s plenty of it.  It runs an astonishing 2 hours and 28 minutes.

Let me offer an example of how unexciting Spectre was.  During what was envisioned as one of the movie’s big action set pieces, a car chase through the streets of Rome, James Bond (a really bored and surly looking Daniel Craig) is being chased by Hinx (Dave Bautista).  They are both driving high powered sport super cars and, you would think, these scenes, in the right director’s hands, would be brimming with excitement.

Not so.

The “action” is apparently so non-threatening to James Bond that, DURING THE ACTUAL CAR CHASE he places a phone call to Ms. Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) to get her to look in on some information.

I repeat:  James Bond makes a phone call DURING THE CAR CHASE SCENE to get someone else to look into something…and his call is never frantic or interrupted to any great degree.  There’s no yelling or cursing or, you know, anything else one would think might be involved in racing at breakneck speeds in super sophisticated sports cars while trying not to kill yourself/be killed.  In fact, I doubt Ms. Moneypenny even realized Bond was in any danger.

As Moneypenny goes, so did I.  How could I feel Bond was in danger when he himself didn’t seem to feel he was?

But there’s more.  Boy howdy there’s more.

The plot of Spectre also proves surprisingly unengaging and, frankly, piecemeal.  I noted how the previous Bond film, Skyfall, was an odd bird of a film that had you on the edge of your seat while it played out but afterwards you couldn’t help but realize how the plot made absolutely no sense at all.

What saved Skyfall was the breakneck pacing that didn’t allow you to think about how stupid the plot was.  The glacier pacing of Spectre, alas, does the exact opposite: It gives you too much time to think about what a pointless story we’re dealing with.

That story, as it is, goes something like this: Over video, James Bond is given one last task by the previous M (Judi Dench in a cameo appearance as her character -SPOILERS!- met her end in Skyfall):  To kill a person and then attend his funeral and see who shows up there.

Not all that much, eh?

The person Bond was to kill is the man he takes out in the film’s opening minutes.  So, Bond subsequently goes to the funeral and senses he’s getting close to a mysterious and powerful organization.  The dead man’s wife, Lucia (Monica Bellucci in what amounts to a very small cameo) points him toward a get-together and, from there, Bond essentially follows a series of breadcrumbs which eventually lead him to Spectre, the evil organization which the Sean Connery Bond had to deal with for most of his run.

In the meantime, we have a secondary story involving the possible disbanding of the 00 spy network as a newcomer seeks to upgrade British Intel with powerful new computer surveillance equipment.  Of course, both stories eventually intersect.

Returning Skyfall director Sam Mendes gets precious little out of his actors this time around.  As mentioned, Daniel Craig appears both surly and bored in this feature.  Bond “girl” Madeline (Lea Seydoux) is never much more than a pretty face and a damsel in distress.  Blofeld (Christoph Waltz) is surprisingly unthreatening as the lead villain.  Even Hinx, the movie’s big, supposedly scary henchman, is surprisingly dull.

But the worst thing about Spectre remains that nonsensical piecemeal story.  Even as the film plays out audiences are left with so many unanswered questions and silly frustrations.  There is not one, but TWO separate occasions in this film where Bond has incapacitated his enemies (in both cases they’re unconscious and helpless) and Bond stands only a few feet away from either of them.  Rather than take a few seconds to check to make sure they’re dead (and if they’re not, put a bullet in their heads), he just walks away which allows them to come back and annoy him some more.

There’s also a scene later in the film where Hinx and Bond go mano-a-mano in a train (a clear homage to train fights presented in Bond films dating back to From Russia With Love).  Hinx is clearly trying his best to kill Bond yet, immediately afterwards when Bond meets up with Blofeld, it is equally clear our main villain wanted Bond to get to his lair so he could personally kill him.

Was Blofeld’s henchman acting on his own?  I mean, seriously…are employer/employee on different pages?

Later still and in the movie’s climax, Madeline leaves Bond and, inexplicably, walks away alone down a dark London street.  Everyone knows there’s danger all around them and yet Bond simply lets the “love of his life” walk away alone and unguarded into the night?!?  I’ll give you a single guess as to what happens to her.

I could go on and on (seriously) but all I’m accomplishing is raising my blood pressure.

Spectre, in the end, is Bond at its absolute worst.  A too long “action” film with little action and a un-engaing -and nonsensical- plot.  Sure, there are some nice scenes here and there and the movie clearly had a large budget and was filled with actors who normally do pretty good work but the end result, alas, is a dud.

Too bad.

Movies

The Martian (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Now that I’ve seen The Martian, I’ve doubled the number of Oscar nominated Best Pictures for 2015 I’ve seen.  I’ve gone from one to…two.

Woo…hoo?

Directed by the legendary Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Alien) and based on the hit novel of the same name by Andy Weir, the movie concerns the travails of astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon, charismatic and pleasant as the protagonist) who is part of a group of American astronauts (included in the mix are familiar faces such as Jessica Chastain, Kate Mara, and Michael Pena) who have landed on and are exploring Mars.

When a sudden storm hits, Watney is slammed by a radar dish and flung away.  Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain), the commander of the mission, tries to find Watney but the storm is so severe it threatens to knock the crew’s evac ship over.  The remaining astronauts are forced to give up on Watney (whom by this point they believe is dead) and blast off back to their mothership and, from there, head back to Earth.

After the storm is over, we find that Watney has somehow survived.  (Aside: While the movie tries to be “scientifically accurate”, this scene presented one of my biggest movie pet peeves: A character being knocked “unconscious” and awakening much later to no ill effect.  In Watney’s case, he awakens after the storm is over.  Had he been unconscious that long, he would probably be suffering severe head trauma).

Watney’s suit was punctured and it fritzed-out his life-readings which explains why the others thought him dead.  Alive but alone, Watney realizes he will need to survive another four years before another ship reaches Mars.  The big problem?  He has supplies to last only a few more months.

The premise of The Martian is intriguing as well as unique and I can most certainly see why movie studios and book readers ate up Andrew Weir’s concept.  The idea of a lone man trying to survive against all odds on an inhospitable planet while using real world (or at least plausible) science is an easy concoction to take down.

And as I watched the film I was most certainly entertained.

…but…

Ok, I don’t want to sound like a killjoy here and I would hastily add that I recommend the film and would give it a very solid three stars out of four…

…But…

As the movie played out I was bothered by the almost aggressive “niceness” it presents in all the characters.  Every one of them, even Jeff Daniels’ Teddy Sanders, head of NASA, who engages in actions that draw him closest to being an almost-but-never-close to being labeled a “bad guy”, are so resolutely nice and pleasant and are all working so damn hard to get their man back and its rare any word is crossed and…

….argghh!…

I truly don’t want to get into specifics as I don’t want to give away the movie’s plot but it felt to me everyone was just too damn nice and too damn caring to the point where they didn’t “feel” like real people  (It didn’t help that some familiar faces, such as Kristen Wiig, pop up and ultimately don’t do all that much).  Never once did the film present us with a genuine, heated argument about the incredible logistics needed to be overcome to save Watney.  Even the movie’s climax, which involved (while I don’t want to get into SPOILERS, I’ll have to here) a mutiny, was treated and resolved as if nothing big.

Bear in mind, the movie not only deals with Watney’s personal survival but the potential agony of those on Earth who alternately want so very badly to save the man but also must realize this involves a great deal of money, a lack of time (he only has to much), and the politics and personal risk involved in both failure and success…all to ultimately save ONE person.

While it is a great human interest story and the movie presented Watney’s point of view well, I can’t help but think it whiffed on presenting what could have been a more complex and emotional story regarding the agony of making the decisions which may, or may not, save this one stranded man.

Considering the film clocks in at 2:20 and it didn’t feel like it was padded in any significant way, I guess what I’m suggesting is that this story could have benefited from a longer run time.  Perhaps it would have worked better as a cable mini-series?

Despite my criticisms, I stand by what I said above.  The Martian is an entertaining, if somewhat incomplete, work that is easy to recommend.

Movies

Mean Guns (1997) a (very) belated review

Found this movie on cable last night, watched the opening minutes and, next thing I knew, I was in for the whole ride.  And an interesting one it was!

Vincent Moon (Ice-T) summons a very large group of criminals, killers, and general no-good-nicks to a just built -but until these criminals arrive deserted- prison on the verge of being opened and tells them the place has been locked down and, before the day is done, they must fight their way through each other until only 3 are left.  The prize for survival?  10 million dollars.

Following telling the group this, boxes filled with all manner of guns/weapons are thrown at the group’s feet.  Then, boxes full of bullets.

Let the games…begin!

Mean Guns proved a fascinating watch.  Pre-dating the film version of Battle Royale (a film which, in turn, one could argue “inspired” The Hunger Games) by three years, it is a stylish (!) “B” action film.  There is plenty of death but nothing I would consider terribly graphic.  There’s also great use of music and clever direction, along with at times very humorous dialogue, which keeps you into the film despite its obvious low budget.

What I also liked is the film doesn’t really have a single “protagonist”.  For much of the film we’re essentially following two groups of combatants.  The first, primary group, consists of -eventually- four people, two men and two women, led by Christopher Lambert’s on the edge Lou.  Mr. Lambert, as usual, brings it to the table.  He’s one of those actors who, even in terrible films, is always worth watching.  While his presence may suggest he’s the “hero” of the piece, the filmmakers wisely keep his motivations closely guarded until the end.

Within that group is also Cam (Deborah Van Valkenburgh), the one woman who doesn’t appear to fit into the scenario at all.  She isn’t a killer and, it would also appear, isn’t much of a criminal either.

The secondary group we follow consists of two hitmen whose banter is quite humorous and who, in time, link up to a female criminal…one who is very wily even if she spends most of the film without a weapon.

I don’t want to give away too much more but I will say this much: The film’s conclusion provides a good reason for why this whole exercise was initiated by the seemingly deranged Vincent Moon and, further, gives us an ending that makes a twisted kind of sense.

Unlike Battle Royale or The Hunger Games, these group of “contestants” are far from an innocent bunch so we are not shocked or horrified when they fall…and yet there is no denying we also -perversely- root for one or the other’s “success” even if we know they are ultimately almost all very, very bad people.

Considering this is an almost forgotten film, I was surprised by Mean Guns.  It ain’t Citizen Kane but it is an enjoyable action flick.

Recommended.

Movies

Sicario (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Stop me if you heard this before: I found out about Sicario shortly before its release and was eager to see it in theaters but couldn’t find the time until–

What’s that?

Oh.  Ok, moving right along…

So I finally got to see Sicario via the magic of home video.  I was very eager to do so and heard plenty of good things about the film.  In fact, as of this writing it has an astonishing 93% positive among critics and an equally impressive 86% positive among audiences according to Rotten Tomatoes.

While watching the film, I was impressed with many things, from Emily Blunt’s Kate Macer (the film’s protagonist), Benecio Del Toro’s mysterious -and deadly- Alejandro, and Josh Brolin’s Matt Graver, a good ol’ boy spook.

I was engaged with the film but as it played out and, especially when it reached the end, I found myself curiously unimpressed with the totality of the venture despite so many reasons to recommend it.

To begin there are at least four action/suspense set pieces within Sicario that are nothing short of terrific.  One occurs at the beginning of the movie (and quite a bit of it can be seen in the trailer below), a second at a border crossing, a third involving a tunnel chase eventually leading to a high level drug lord, and the fourth at the movie’s end.

Really great stuff.  And yet…

As good as those elements were and as I said above, when all was said and done I felt the movie could have been so much better.

So I wondered what was it that made the film not quite work for me.

I think a part of the problem was the use of such familiar and well-established actors in so many roles.  In some ways their appearances (and I’m not even mentioning the likes of Jeffrey Donovan, Victor Garber, and Jon Bernthal) proved somewhat distracting and took me away from viewing this film as “real”.  The established actors in the lead roles, too, had me anticipating the film would never get too terribly “dark”.  Sometimes established actors are loathe to go too far out of a certain comfort zone.

Perhaps I’m not explaining myself very clearly so I’ll use the following example:

A number of years ago I saw the Swedish film Insomnia (originally released in 1997).  At the time I didn’t recognize any of the actors, though since the movie’s release Stellan Skarsgard has made inroads in American films and is now a more familiar face.

The film, which involved a corrupt police officer that either accidentally or very much on purpose killed his partner while lost in a fog and on the hunt for a serial killer.  Our protagonist’s partner’s death was not insignificant: The partner, it was revealed, was about to turn our protagonist in to the Police Internal Review Board because of the many shady and illegal things he had done.  After his partner’s killing, the film follows our could be/might be evil cop as he continues his hunt for the serial killer.  He does this while facing the inevitable Internal Review Board hammer that’s about to come down, the serial killer whose victims keep popping up, and the Northern town they’re in.  In that town and during this time of the year a day lasts weeks and the sun shines near constantly and our increasingly fragile lead cannot get any sleep.

As I watched Insomnia, I didn’t know where it was going or whether our protagonist was truly evil or regretted his action(s) or some wild combination of the two.  This great unknowing added to the movie’s tension and made us wonder just where we were going.

Five years later and in 2002 director Christopher Nolan remade Insomnia.  In the remake, he cast Al Pacino as the protagonist and Robin Williams as the serial killer.  Though all the elements of the originally movie were used and the American film version was an almost scene for scene remake, lost in the translation was all that delightful tension of not knowing what our protagonist was up to.

Because we had Al Pacino in the lead, I somehow knew he would eventually be shown as rising above and, if not excusing, at least making amends for his many sins.  I knew this almost instinctually from the very moment we first saw Al Pacino on the screen and therefore much of the original film’s tension was effectively gone.

With Sicario’s use of familiar, established actors, I kinda/sorta knew the film would not get too dark and, sure enough, it never did. Had the film used less well known/established actors, I suspect we would have a different dynamic and audiences would wonder what would happen when Alejandro and Kate finally confronted each other…instead of knowing there was simply no chance the director and actors involved would stray too far down a very dark hole.

I know it sounds like I’m blaming the actors for the film’s failing to totally turn me on and, further, it comes across as a disservice considering they played their roles quite well.  Emily Blunt was very good in the role of an innocent who faces ultimate evil.  Benecio Del Toro was equally great as a wolf in sheep’s clothing (loved the fact that he was in a white suit at the very start of the film, then in a later scene is shown removing it and revealing the black clothing below).

But facts are facts and, as I said, I simply could not see these well established actors veering wildly off the path and into a potentially pitch black conclusion.

So in the end, despite some very good scenes and overall good work by all involved, I can only give Sicaro a mild recommendation.  You most certainly will not walk away hating the film, but you might, like me, wish it could have been more.

Movies

American Ultra (2015) a (mildly) belated review

Neither fish nor fowl…

The above expression was exactly what I thought of when I finished watching the 2015 box-office flop American Ultra.  Did the film deserve such a cruel fate?  Was it as good as its trailer (at least to me) suggested it could be?

The answer to the above questions isn’t quite as black and white as one would think.

To begin, the above trailer does a good job telling you American Ultra’s basic plot.  You have a stoner named Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg, pretty good in the role) and his girlfriend Phoebe Larson (Kristen Stewart, also quite good) who live in a small, dead-end town and smoke pot and work in their dead end jobs.  When we first meet them, Mike wants to take Phoebe to Hawaii and surprise her with a marriage proposal.  But at the airport he has a panic attack and is unable to leave the town.  It turns out he’s had many of these panic attacks before and they keep him in this town.

Meanwhile, over in Washington D.C., an agent named Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton, yet another actor doing good work) is tipped off that her subject, Mike Howell (natch) and the entire operation he was a part of is about to be shut down.  And by shut down we mean “killed”.

Lasseter confronts a fellow agent, the young and obnoxious Adrian Yates (Topher Grace, providing another great acting turn), and he admits he has initiated the shut down of Lasseter’s old project and that Mike Howell will be dead before the day is out.  Lasseter, however, does an end around the obnoxious agent and shows up at Howell’s small town and, shown partially in the clip above, tries to “active” him so that he will be able to defend himself.

What follows is plenty of action, blood, and, especially with Mike Howell’s character, confusion as this mellow stoner finds he is suddenly a killing machine.  The body count rises as Yates seals the town off, intent on killing not only Howell but also Lasseter, whom he instantly knows has activated this agent.

Sounds good, right?

Well…

Ok, I started this review by posting the “neither fish nor fowl” quote.  The quote refers to something that either isn’t easily categorized or something that does not rightly belong or fit well in a given group or situation.

That later definition, in a nutshell, is what keeps American Ultra from rising up from a “good” film to being a truly “great” film.

Mind you, I like the four main actors.  I like the situation/story created by screenwriter Max Landis.  Further, I can understand his twitter expressed frustration when the film was released and didn’t make much money at the box office.  Clearly there was great thought placed in this screenplay and, frankly, the movie should have done better than it did and one hopes it can do so in the video market.

Having said that, the film unfortunately does have flaws.  To begin, there are plot elements that make you scratch your head.  I don’t want to give away SPOILERS, so I’ll leave some of those elements from this discussion, but suffice to say when you learn of certain characters’ identities you think maybe there was an easier way of giving Howell a head’s up and/or sprinting him to safety.  Also, agent Lasseter makes it to Howell’s town in record time, no?

Worse, unfortunately, is that as humorous as the film is at times, it is never really a “laugh out loud” funny-type work.  It felt as thought the movie’s creators were trying hard to clean things up and they did this a little too well.  These stoners -and their friends- are never as grubby as they could have been (see Cheech and Chong).  Also, the action/killings presented are never as graphic as they could have been.  Rather than bouncing between extremes -laughs versus gore- the film tries to create an even keel and sometimes being middle of the road is not where you want to be with comedy or action.

Having said all that, American Ultra is, nonetheless, an at times clever and humorous film with good to great acting, sympathetic leads and hissable villains.  Perhaps its box office problems were more a result of when it was released, the competition it faced, and how it was marketed more than anything else.

In the end, I would recommend the film but note that while a decent bit of entertainment, I left feeling it could -and should- have been even better.

*****

POSTSCRIPT: Getting back to screenwriter Max Landis, he also received quite a bit of negative attention, again because of his twitter writings, regarding his view that the character of Rey in Star Wars: The Force Awakens was a “Mary Sue”.

Not having seen The Force Awakens, I can’t comment on that particular opinion, but I will say this: Mr. Landis created a very interesting character in Phoebe Larson (the Kristen Stewart character) in American Ultra but then he just went and made her a typical “damsel in distress” with the movie’s climax.

Mr. Landis: You may well be right regarding the character of Rey in The Force Awakens, and it appears to me you have passion regarding storytelling and an awareness of cliches.  Unfortunately, you fell for one here and, in a movie that could have been better in many ways, the damsel in distress role the character of Phoebe eventually takes is one of the film’s most egregious errors.

Had you recognized that cliche, I’m certain you could have turned it on its ear and made something more with her.

Hell, not only could you have, you should have!