AVENGERS: The Never-Ending Game

Opening tonight at a multi-plex near us all:

AVENGERS: ENDGAME

(Dirs. Anthony Russo & Joe Russo)

We’re now 22 films, and three phases into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which began in 2008 with IRON MAN.

Apparently all three phrases are now known as “the Infinity Saga” since they largely concern the McGuffin of those glowing multi-colored Infinity Stones that major villain Thanos has been after since early in the franchise. So this is a specific storyline that’s gone through most of a series that's well into the double digits. Talk about never-ending, huh?

But to many casual movie-goers, that background matters less than if this blockbuster behemoth starring every Marvel character ever (well, close to it anyway) is worth its bloated three hour running time as the mega movie event of 2019 (at least until STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER comes along).

Well, I believe both hardcore and casual fans will be satisfied by ENDGAME. It often plays as a greatest hits of the series, and gives every Avenger and guest star their moment to shine. And that’s a lot of moments as there are lots and lots of characters to cover.

In the last entry, INFINITY WAR, Thanos (a CGI-ed Josh Brolin), having finally gathered all the stones, snapped his fingers, and made half the universe, including half of the Avengers, crumble into red dust.

Five years later, the characters that survived the snap including Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans), Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Thor (Chris Hemsworth) – who luckily are the leads, plot to attempt time travel in order to retrieve the Infinity Stones so that they can undo what Thanos has done.

Despite Ant-Man saying that “BACK TO THE FUTURE is a bunch of bullshit,” our superheroes run around through scenes from previous movies, most notably the capturing of Loki (Tom Hiddleston) in the first Avengers, in a manner that heavily recalls BACK TO THE FUTURE 2. These sequences are a lot of fun, and touching at times like when Downey Jr.’s Tony running into his father Howard Stark (John Slattery) in 1970.

After all of these time hopping shenanigans which, aside from BTTF also draw from many other movies that draw on the device (at one point, Don Cheadle’s James Rhodes/War Machine even reels off a list of time travel films including TIME COP!), we come to the big ass battle finale which, to me, apes the finale of yet another time travel movie, TIME BANDITS, but I won’t tell you how here.

Shit gets real as a couple of major players are killed off, and the somber finality of it all is plenty palpable. I mean, sure they can always reboot these characters later, but it’ll be with different actors/actresses and it just won’t be the same.

Yes, ENDGAME is way too long, but I guess it had to be to fit in all of these people and their individual storylines. But why have so much of Bradley Cooper’s Rocket Raccoon, when he never says anything that’s particularly funny? Much better is Rudd, whose comic charm goes a long way, and Ruffalo who spends pretty much the whole flick inCGI-ed Hulk mode, because he finally found a way to work with his green alter ego.

There are so many characters that the epilogues for many of them just go on and on in the last half. That goes for much the chaotic climax too.

CAPTAIN MARVEL is still playing in many theaters, but Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers is prominently featured here, maybe because she’s pointing the way towards phase four since all these old-timers are fading.

While I may consider it extremely overstuffed, I bet most audiences will find AVENGERS: ENDGAME to be a satisfying three course meal. Once again, the MCU has served up an impressive, blindingly shiny platter of their choice concoctions which scores of fans will be feasting on until, well, again, the next STAR WARS.

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AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR: The Best And Worst Of Marvel Movie Motifs All In One Place

Now playing at every multiplex in the MCU:

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR

(Dirs. Anthony Russo & Joe Russo, 2018) 

This highly anticipated superhero epic begins with the familiar montage of imagery of iconic characters quickly blending into the logo for Marvel Studios. The “I” and “O” in the capital letters though are highlighted this time as a “10,” which seems to shout “10 years of kicking every other franchise’s ass!”

And it’s true, since IRON MAN came out in 2008, the studio, under the wing of Disney, has put out an interlocking series of nearly 20 blockbusters that have formed a business model that every other movie series, from DC to STAR WARS and beyond, has been trying to emulate. I.e. everybody wants to have a Cinematic Universe just like Marvel’s.

AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR has been teased throughout Marvel’s movies mostly in after credits stingers which have featured a big bad ass villain named Thanos (a CGI-ed Josh Brolin, who wonderfully chews through CGI setpiece after CGI setpiece), and the ongoing MacGuffin of the infinity stones – six powerful highly sought after different colored gems that can be used to destroy planets and conquer the universe.

So the Avengers join forces with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Dr. Strange, and Black Panther, among others, to stop Thanos from getting the Infinity Stones through another round of over-the-top battles that really wore me out in its crammed packed last third.

But large chunks of the movie are a lot of fun. Robert Downey Jr., whose ninth time this is in the role of Tony Stark/Iron Man, is again an enjoyably funny presence as he continues his mentorship to Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland), and snarkily sparring off with Benedict Cumberbatch as Dr. Strange, and an equally amusing Chris Pratt as Peter Quill/Starlord.

The Guardians of the Galaxy, who hit the screen to the Spinner’s “Rubberband Man” (an obvious nod to their ‘70s mixtape soundtrack trope), are granted with a lot of screen-time as Gamora (Zoe Saldana) is Thano’s daughter, something that I guess was revealed in a previous movie but I didn’t remember it, and Rocket (Bradley Cooper) and a now teengage Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) split with the others including Mantis (Pom Klementieff), and Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) to accompany Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to some other realm to get some weapon to take Thanos down with.

The audience I was in cheered when the movie cut to the lavish, and, of course, fictional African nation of Wakanda, ruled by T’Challa/Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), obviously because his film, BLACK PANTHER, which just came out a few months ago was one of the biggest hits of the MCU (and of all-time), and considered a game changer for the franchise. Boseman’s T’Challa brings the goods, but his part despite that Thano’s army of crazy four-armed alien creatures invades Wakanda, is essentially a glorified cameo.

Same goes for Chris Evans returning as Steve Rogers, the retired Captain America, which is maybe because his last movie was basically an AVENGERS entry that he was the star of. Also on the side is Rogers’ buddy Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), along with Paul Bettany as Vision, and Elizabeth Olsen as Wanda Maximoff /Scarlet Witch, who figure in because Vision has one of the Infinity Stones embedded in his head, but, as committed as Bettany and Vision are in their parts, the characters have never really resonated for me.

What also didn’t do much for me was a lot of strained quasi-Shakespearean exposition between or during action sequences that came off like with the actors over emoting about gods, the cosmos, the universe and everything in order to elevate the proceedings (even Peter Dinklage, in his appearance as Eitri the Dwarf King, lays it on a bit thick). Like everything else in the last 45 minutes or so, this was a bit much.

I preferred the comical elements such as Mark Ruffalo’s exasperating and failing struggle to Hulk out throughout the film, the multitude of one-liners like Quill telling Stark, “Let’s talk about this plan of yours - I think it’s good, except it sucks, so let me do the plan, and that way, it might be really good,” and, no surprise here, the Stan Lee cameo.

So AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR is the best and worst of all of the Marvel movie motifs all in one place. It’s overstuffed, overlong, and at times overwrought, but a lot of it is immensely entertaining, and often hilarious. Most fans will love it – or most of it – while non fans will dismiss it as a bunch of nonsensical bombast. You know, like every other Marvel movie.

James Cameron, who has multiple AVATAR sequels in the works, was recently quoted as saying that he hopes “we’ll start getting AVENGER fatigue here pretty soon.” Well, fatigue has set in before in the franchise (see IRON MAN 2, the first two THORs, DR. STRANGE, etc.), and did indeed set in towards the end of this, but its satisfyingly dark cliffhanger of a conclusion made my second (or third?) wind kick in. That helped to get me through the thousands of names of SFX Technicians, and Digital Artists to get to the post credits scene, which is something you’ll want to wait for too.

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Branagh's Misguided MURDER & More THOR

And now, catching up with a couple of movies currently playing at every multiplex:

MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

(Dir. Kenneth Branagh, 2017)

Kenneth Branagh takes on the directing duties, and the starring role of Detective Hercule Poirot in this fourth adaptation of Agatha Christie’s 1934 bestselling novel, which never leaves the shadow of Sydney Lumet’s 1974 version.

In that first adaptation, Albert Finney is initially unrecognizable as Poirot with his slicked-back black hair, outrageous mustache, and stodgy demeanor, but the blond Branagh just looks like himself, only with similarly exaggerated facial hair. His accent, an attempt at a thick Belgian brogue, even disappears a number of times.

Branagh’s Poirot fronts a cast comprised of A-listers Johnny Depp, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe, Penélope Cruz, and Judi Dench, alongside lesser known names such as Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr., Olivia Colman, Lucy Boynton, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, and Tom Bateman.

Yeah, it’s a big ensemble, so, as can be guessed, most of these players gets a limited amount of screen-time so if you’re a Depp fan, be warned that his role is a glorified cameo at best.

Especially since Depp, as rich businessman Samuel Ratchett, is the murder victim so he’s a corpse throughout the bulk of the picture. As the well worn mystery trope goes, the rest of the cast all have dark connections to Rachett, which means tons of motives, and Poirot interrogates the suspects one by one for his investigation.

This all takes place while the train has been stranded on its route by an avalanche and they have to wait for help to arrive. Unlike MURDER ’74, Branagh takes the passengers off of the train for a lot of the second half, and even stages the big reveal in the exterior of the tunnel the train has been stalled in front of.

This movie is full of such visual choices – the camera swoops over snowy mountaintops, cranes from the bottom to the top of the frame while its subjects stay in the middle of the show, and, most annoyingly, films two entire scenes from directly overhead. As gorgeous as much of the scenery shot by cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos is, these show-off moves distract from the story and make what could’ve been a tense gritty remake into something that looks like a glossy magazine spread.

But the most frustrating thing about Branagh’s take on the 83-year old story is how he botches the conclusion so that it has precious little impact. The construction of the big reveal is as rickety as the CGI bridge the train is trapped on. Branagh, working from a screenplay by Michael Green (BLADE RUNNER 2049, LOGAN), has fashioned a self indulgent, yet pretty looking muddle out of Christie’s most famous whodunit.

It just doesn’t hold a candle to what Lumet did with this material in ’74. Consider the superiority of that film’s all-star cast – Finney’s Poirot is joined by Lauren Bacall, Anthony Perkins, Sean Connery, Ingrid Bergman, Vanessa Redgrave, Michael York, John Gielgud, and Jacqueline Bisset (if you younger readers don’t know these names - spend some time with movies made before STAR WARS) - the infinitely sharper script by Oscar winning screenwriter Paul Dehn, and its suitably claustrophobic interiors which are free of any visual trickery.

So obviously, my recommendation is to skip Branagh’s misguided MURDER ‘17, and seek out Lumet’s much classier ’74 version. I bet it’ll make for a more satisfying experience, and you will be spared about how this new one so cynically sets up a sequel - Poirot gets a message at the end from Egypt about being needed to investigate a death on the Nile (get it?).

THOR: RAGNARAK
(Dir. Taika Waititi, 2017)

We’re now halfway through Phrase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movie franchise, so here’s the third installment of the THOR adventures, currently # 1 at the box office, which I enjoyed a lot more than the first two (the first one was directed by Branagh incidentally).

SPOTLIGHT: A Journalism Procedural That Really Crushes It

Now playing at both multiplexes and indie art houses:

SPOTLIGHT (Dir. Tom McCarthy, 2015)

Tom McCarthy’s SPOTLIGHT is everything that James Vanderbilt’s Rathergate drama TRUTH wanted to be – a vital journalism procedural that actually has the facts to back up its case.

The film focuses on the 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation by the Boston Globe’s “Spotlight” team into the scandal of child molestation and systematic cover-up within the Catholic Church.

The investigation is spearheaded by editor Martin Baron (Liev Schreiber), who has just joined the paper after a buyout. Baron tasks the team – made up of editor Walter “Robby” Robinson (Michael Keaton), and reporters Mike Rezendes (Mark Ruffalo), Sacha Pfeiffer (Rachel McAdams) and Matt Carroll (Brian d'Arcy James) – to dig into the case against Father John Geoghan, a Catholic priest charged with sexual abuse of over 80 children.

The staff reports to assistant managing editor Ben Bradlee Jr., son of legendary Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee of Watergate fame (see ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN) sharply played by John Slattery of Mad Men fame.

To prove that Cardinal Law found out about Geoghan 15 years earlier and did nothing, the Globe sues the church to obtain access to incriminating documents, something that may alienate the paper’s readership, 53% of which are Catholic.

With the help of lawyers Mitchell Garabedian (Stanley Tucci), and Eric MacLeish (Billy Crudup), it doesn’t take long for the team to uncover that close to 90 priests in the Boston area have been accused of sexual misconduct.

McCarthy certainly atones for his previous film, the atrocious Adam Sandler vehicle THE COBBLER, with his passionately meticulous work here. The camerawork, shot by cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi, is straightforward as is the editing, as no flashiness is required to enhance the swift, compelling storytelling on display.

Many films have great casts, but SPOTLIGHT is my vote for best ensemble of 2015. Keaton, who was wrongly passed over by the academy for his performance in BIRDMAN last year, could be back in the Oscar race for his stellar turn here. Ruffalo, whose reaction to the enormity of the scandal is the most emotional, also stands out, and McAdams puts in her second solid performance of the year (SOUTHPAW was the first one). Schreiber, Slattery, James, Tucci, and Crudup crush it as well – man, this film is really a boy’s club! – and a few non-names such as Neal Huff and Michael Cyril Creighton shine in roles as outspoken victims.

I bet that, much like its classic newspaper drama predecessors ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN and ZODIAC, this is a film that will reward repeat viewings. Its pace and construction is tightly wound, but still takes time for some interesting moments in-between the unveiling of events – i.e. a shot of Scrieber looking for the publisher’s office, a beautifully framed shot of Ruffalo, James, and McAdams working at their desks with Keaton in his office behind them (see above).

SPOTLIGHT will definitely make my top 10 films of 2015 list, and I’ll be pulling for it come Oscar time. The acting, screenplay, editing, direction, Howard Shore’s stirring score, etc. should all be acknowledged in the upcoming awards season.

More importantly, it should be seen. It has a lot of competition and isn’t playing on a huge amount of screens so folks should really seek it out. Too many great films slip through the cracks and are largely overlooked. Don’t let that happen to the brilliant, intelligent, and über insightful SPOTLIGHT.

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AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON: Satisfyingly More Of The Same

Now playing at every multiplex in the galaxy and beyond:

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

(Dir. Joss Whedon, 2015)

If you live on planet Earth, you’re aware that today the Marvel machine is rolling out the biggest super hero movie of the year - sorry, ANT-MAN, but, c’mon!

AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON (from this point on, A:AOU), the sequel to the biggest superhero movie of 2012, THE AVENGERS, and the 11th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe franchise that began with the first IRON MAN back in 2008, is here to officially kick off the summer 2015 movie season - sorry, FURIOUS 7.

But if you’re reading this, you most likely know all that, and just want to know if this highly anticipated, star-studded, and CGI-saturated production lives up to its huge hype.

I’ll say - yeah, it does. I had a tremendous amount of fun watching the reunited team - Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), Captain America/Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), and Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) – working together with lots of wit and energy to defeat the powerful robotic villain Ultron (voiced by James Spader).

This adventure begins with an already-in-progress action sequence, involving the comic book crew storming the castle of Hydra leader Baron von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) in the icy terrain of the fictional European nation of Sokovia.

Amid the standard chaos and wisecracks (most of which are pretty funny) we are introduced to a couple of new characters, brother and sister duo Pietro/Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen). “He’s fast, she’s weird,” is what SHIELD’s Maria Hill (the also returning Cobie Smulders) says of their powers, which means that Pietro can move at supersonic speeds, while Wanda can manipulate minds with magic.

The Avengers rescue Loki’s scepter, one of the McGuffins of the series, and return to their headquarters at the Stark Tower Complex in Manhattan, where we actually get to hang out with the guys as they party, and engage in a game of taking turns trying to lift Thor’s hammer. Meanwhile, Stark’s Ultron project, which is supposed to be a global peacekeeping program, is co-opted by the scepter and becomes sentient.

That means Spader, who in addition to providing the voice, performed on set in a motion-capture suit, takes over as the movie’s major villain, and sets out to wipe out humanity (“There is only one path to peace... your extinction”).

As if he thinks we don’t have enough characters to keep up with, Whedon keeps piling them on. We meet Barton’s (Renner, in case you forgot) wife (Linda Cardellini of Freaks and Geeks and Mad Men fame) and kids living at a “safe house” farm where the Avengers lay low between battles, geneticist Helen Cho (Claudia Kim) who gets co-opted by Ultron, arms dealer Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis, a motion capture master himself), and the re-occuring role of Stark’s A.I. companion J.A.R.V.I.S. (voiced by Paul Betttany) is expanded via a red and green android body (Bettany in the flesh).

There’s also the many cameos from the MCU including Don Cheadle getting in a few good one-liners again as as James “Rhodey” Rhodes/War Machine and Anthony Mackie getting in a few glaring grins as Sam Wilson/Falcon, along with appearances by Hayley Atwell as Peggy Carter, Idris Elba as Heimdall, and of course, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, who no Marvel movie should be without. And yes, there’s a Stan Lee cameo, but, c'mon, you knew there would be.

Yes, A:AOU covers every single fan-pleasing base it can in its 2 hour and 21 minute running time and is a pretty bloated affair because of it, but it swiftly juggles all these strands until they collide in the big climax set on a ginourmous hunk of a Sokovian city land mass that Ultron has lifted from the earth and is planning on crashing down. The Avengers try to save the city's people while warring with the armies of robots that are all forms of Ultron (in a MATRIX sort of way I guess).

The special effects, of course put together by thousands of digital artists, are flawlessly top notch, but it’s the human moments that give a lot of heart, soul, and humor to this enterprise. A romance blooming between Ruffalo’s Banner (another invested portrayal - where's this guy's Hulk movie?) and Johansson’s Romanoff adds a thoughtful touch, and while Downey Jr.’s Stark is still full of snark, there’s an unmistakable conscience behind it. The rest of the gang also have their moments, but Hemsworth's Thor is still my least favorite Avenger.

Spader, even with only a mechanical presence, makes for a powerfully worthy foe, one who gets his share of well delivered quips and takes delight in destruction.

If this is Whedon’s final fling with the super hero franchise, he went out with a multitude of big bangs. Maybe they’re all riffs on the familiar formulaic tropes of the genre we’re all used to, but that doesn’t make them any less effective. 

A:AOU is winningly and satisfyingly more of the same; it’s everything a superhero superfan would want out of a Marvel movie. Non fans who haven’t been won over by any of the movies in the series before won’t be converted by it, but I seriously doubt many of them will have read this far into this review anyway.

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FOXCATCHER: Effectively Moody But Unengaging

FOXCATCHER (Dir. Bennett Miller, 2014)

Channing Tatum’s performance as real life wrestler Mark Schultz in FOXCATCHER, opening today at an indie art theater near me, is so stoical and withdrawn that it made me forget how funny he was in the 21 JUMP STREET movies or how charming he was in MAGIC MIKE. It’s that intense.

So is the film, based on the events leading up to the murder of Mark’s older brother the gold medal winning Olympic wrestler Dave Schultz by the very eccentric, or just plain odd, multimillionaire John du Pont, roles respectively portrayed by Mark Ruffalo and Steve Carell.

Ruffalo, with his close-cropped beard and receding hairline, and Carell, sporting gray hair (also receding) and a large beak-like nose prosthetic are both almost unrecognizable, and their mannerisms sure won’t be familiar to Marvel or Michael Scott fans either.

But it’s Tatum who carries the film, as he walks us through the motions of a wrestler, who despite having won a gold medal himself, is wrestling (sorry) with the inner torment of being in his brother’s shadow and not knowing what his next move should be.

Out of the blue, Tatum’s Mark gets a call from an assistant (Anthony Michael Hall, who I also didn’t recognize at first) to John du Pont, inviting him to Foxcatcher Farm, the du Pont estate in Pennsylvania.

At a beyond creepy first meeting, du Pont invites Mark to live and train for the World Championships and 1988 Olympics at a facility he's built on his family’s estate and Mark accepts. Du Pont also wants his brother to join them, but Dave declines the offer as he doesn’t want to uproot his family.

With his snobby, disapproving mother (Vanessa Redgrave), and obsessions with birds and Civil War guns, we get a sense of how du Pont’s isolated strangeness came to be, but there’s little depth in the drawn-out scenes illustrating the strained relationship between he and Mark.

When Dave finally relents – presumably because du Pont makes him an offer he can’t refuse – and moves his family to Foxcatcher, he becomes reasonably concerned about the sway the wealthy sponsor has over his brother.

The film is impeccably made and effectively moody with compellingly edited wrestling scenes, Grieg Fraser’s moody cinematography, and production designer Jess Gonchor and set designer Kathy Lucas’ impressive recreation of the Foxcatcher estate, yet I could never fully engage with the material.

The viewpoints of each character can be summed up in their spare lines such as when Redgrave as du Pont’s mother says that wrestling is a “low sport,” and du Pont later says of her show ponies: “horses are stupid.” There’s really not much insight beyond that.

Tatum does an admirable job inhabiting the skin of a real person who appears to never stop beating himself up inside, and Carell's work here is certainly on another level than his customary turns in broad comedies, but I doubt they'll really connect with audiences - i.e. I'm not seeing a lot award season action in their future, especially with this year's competition.

Miller’s previous work, from the feisty 1998 documentary THE CRUISE through his justly acclaimed dramas CAPOTE and MONEYBALL, have successfully told layered true stories, and on the surface FOXCATCHER joins them as a handsome prestige picture with strong performances, but I really was hoping for more of a storytelling oomph. 

There’s an icy distance to this depiction, which was scripted by Dan Futterman (CAPOTE) and E. Max Frye, that made me feel like I was watching these people through a window; I never felt like I was in the room or in the moment with them.

Not that I’d really want to be in the room with either of these versions of Carell or Tatum, and even Ruffalo doesn’t seem here like much of a fun guy, but there’s a spark needed to ignite this sad story into something vital and necessary. As it stands, I’m really not sure why Miller thought this was a tale that cinematically had to be told.

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THE AVENGERS Starts The Summer Movie Season Off Right

THE AVENGERS (Dir. Joss Whedon, 2012)

After years of baiting fans with cameos, visual nods, and Easter Eggs embedded in their movies, Marvel Studios puts them all together in this masterful smash-up/mash-up assemblage of their major comic book characters, which starts the summer movie season off right.

Joss Whedon's snappy screenplay and energetic direction really delivers the goods, with a cast and special effects crew that never stops trying to entertain, right up to the after-credits bonus material.

For those who haven't been paying attention, we've got returning champ Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), along with Captain America/Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth); both fresh from their summer hero hits last year, Clint Barton/Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and The Hulk/Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo; the only actor here who hasn't previously played their character).

Samuel L. Jackson as S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury, and Scarlett Johansson as Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow are also on hand to provide extra fire-power against the film’s villain Loki (Tom Hiddleston), who was also the antagonist in THOR (maybe my least favorite of the Marvel movies), as he’s Thor’s adoptive brother and rival.

Loki, with the help of something called a Tesseract and an alien army, is trying to take over the world (of course), but those pesky Avengers keep getting in the way.

You know the plot isn’t what folks are coming to see here, but this movie’s not just about breathtaking bombast, furious fight-scenes, and spectacular sequences stuffed with eye-popping CGI – although there’s lots of that.

What elevates it is that the film actually cares about how its characters interact and clash with one another. Evan’s Captain America is rubbed wrong by Downey Jr.’s snarky arrogance (Whedon gives Downey Jr. the sharpest funniest lines, as expected), and everyone is on edge about just what Ruffalo’s Hulk will do when his rage famously takes hold.

Ruffalo’s take on Banner is one of many strong elements on display in “The Avengers.” It’s a more nuanced and edgy performance than what Eric Bana and Ed Norton brought in their respective portrayals. Now I’m looking forward to seeing Ruffalo own his own Hulk movie.

Clark Gregg, as S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Coulson, finally gets a more substantial role after his glorified cameos in the previous Marvel movies, and he makes the most of it. A surprising yet fitting addition to the ever expanding universe is Cobie Smulders (Robin on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother) as another Avengers ally, Maria Hill. Smulders gets a considerable amount of screen-time, and like everybody else here, she doesn’t waste it.

The New York City battle finale outdoes the fun destruction of just about every other super hero movie ever (take that Superman, Spiderman, X-Men, etc.!), and it's hilarious to boot.

Whedon does a fantastic job juggling this vast array of characters while arranging mighty action set-pieces (particularly the sequence aboard the ginormous S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarrier).

So there you have it - the must-see super hero movie event of the summer. That is, until THE DARK KNIGHT RISES comes out.

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THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT: The Film Babble Blog Review

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT (Dir. Lisa Cholodenko, 2010)



It’s fun to see Annette Bening and Julianne Moore as a long time Los Angeles lesbian couple laugh it up sitting together clutching wine glasses in this much buzzed about indie. Their laughter is infectious, their dialogue is witty, and their movie’s premise plays out nicely. 


Bening and Moore, from the same anonymous sperm donor, have teenage kids – a son (Josh Hutcherson) and a daughter (Mia Waskikowka). On the daughter’s 18th birthday, she and her brother contact the sperm bank with the hopes of meeting their biological father. That turns out to be Mark Ruffalo as an easy going motorcycle-riding organic restaurant owner. Ruffalo is smilingly open to the prospect of having a new family to get to know.


Perhaps too open as (Spoiler Alert!) Moore and Ruffalo succumb to animal desires in a weak moment. Rarely without a glass of red wine in her hand, Bening voices cynical concern over Ruffalo’s presence and influence in their family. Bening spouts out to Moore: “He’s not a father, he’s our sperm donor!” Their believable couple chemistry makes their one on one scenes stand out. 


Ruffalo charms everyone in sight, Moore searches for a clue about what her next move should be, Bening has more wine, the kids seem able to cope with change (hence the film’s title), and every one has sharp quips – most thankfully not of the snarky “Juno” variety. 


Director Cholodenko (HIGH ART, LAUREL CANYON), who co-wrote with Stuart Blumberg, has made a endearing funny film that though maybe stilted by predictable conventions, and some of the same schematics employed on episodic television (Cholodenko has directed episodes of Six Feet Under, The L Word, and Homicide), I genuinely laughed enough throughout that such things could be overlooked. 

THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT is an art house crowd pleaser if there ever was one, and in a sea of cloying comic indies (see CITY ISLAND for instance) it’s a likable, if not lovable keeper.

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SHUTTER ISLAND: The Film Babble Blog Review

SHUTTER ISLAND (Dir. Martin Scorsese, 2010)

"You act like insanity is catching", federal Marshall Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) quips to the Deputy Warden (John Carroll Lynch) while being shown the grounds of Shutter Island, the contained electronically secure mental hospital for the criminally insane.


It's a welcome one-liner as the introductory build-up to DiCaprio and his new partner Mark Ruffalo's entry is one of the most overwrought openers in Martin Scorsese's career. The score pounds in an over the top progression of fearful crescendos as the men enter the complex.


Once the uber-melodramatic music eases off we are led inside to meet and greet Dr. Cawley (the always ominous Ben Kingsley) and the premise: a female patient has gone missing and the facility is on lock-down. Kingsley cryptically explains: "We don't know how she got out of her room. It's as if she evaporated, straight through the walls."


With a stern look that keeps his worry brow constantly a-worryin', DiCaprio, still using his Boston accent from THE DEPARTED, has another agenda. 2 years ago his wife (Michelle Williams) died in a house fire and he believes the pyro-culprit is a patient hidden somewhere at the hospital. A World War II vet (the year is 1954), DiCaprio is also full of conspiracy theories about secret experiments and mind torture going down at the hospital - the presence of a German doctor played by Max von Sydow particularly sets him off - as hallucinatory visions of his wife and the horrors he experienced at war haunt him around the clock.


Based on Dennis Lahane's bestselling 2003 novel, SHUTTER ISLAND has a supremely effective first half. The second half falters because I believe many folks will see the end coming from miles away - I actually had an inkling of the conclusion when seeing the trailer months ago. The reveal is wrapped in exposition and once DiCaprio and the audience figures it all out, the film lingers too long.


However this doesn't completely ruin the movie. The dream/flashback/whatever sequences are beautifully shot recalling David Lynch's surreal palette.


DiCaprio's visions always have something falling and floating in the air around him. File papers, snow, and ashes fill the screen along with DiCaprio's angst. It's not the best film that DiCaprio and Scorsese have made together in their decade long collaboration (that would be THE DEPARTED), but it has a lot of strong searing imagery going for it, even if the narrative isn't as layered as it would like to be.


Acting-wise, it's Leo's show. Despite the solid supporting cast (including Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Hayley, and Ted Levine), Dicaprio carries the movie spending considerable chunks of the film alone with his demons. By this point, his 4th film under Scorsese's direction, he's not just an actor going through the motions; he's an embedded yet impassioned piece of the scenery.


By comparison Ruffalo comes off like he's playing a gumshoe in a Saturday Night Live sketch. So it's half a great movie - half is an absorbingly creepy character study, half a formula thriller frightening close to well trodden M. Night Shyamalan territory.


But half a great Scorsese movie is still a vital movie-going experience, you understand?


When speaking of Scorsese in an interview a few years ago, Quentin Tarantino said: "I'm in my church, praying to my god and he's in his church, praying to his. There was a time when we were in the same church - I miss that. I don't want to do that church."


In one of SHUTTER ISLAND's most powerful shots, Scorsese mounts a DiCaprio Dachau death camp recollection that blows everything in INGLORIOUS BASTERDS away. Sorry Quentin, but Marty's is the church I want to attend. 


More later...

Despite The Cloying Quirks, THE BROTHERS BLOOM Works

THE BROTHERS BLOOM (Dir. Rian Johnson, 2009)


The opening set-up montage featuring the title's namesakes as kids is narrated by the voice of the actor, writer, and smooth magician Ricky Jay. 

Jay did the same duties for the striking beginning of MAGNOLIA 10 years ago so he lends an air of familiarity immediately to the punchy proceedings.

Likewise, straight out of the Wes Anderson playbook, comes another montage in which Rachel Weisz displays how she "collects hobbies." These devices recall the notion of a sea of quirk that Michael Hirschorn of the Atlantic envisioned a few years back ("Quirked Around" Sept. 2007). 

Hirschorn wrote that due to the likes of the Andersons (both Wes and Paul Thomas) and their peers, there was a threat that indie cinema could drown in quirk. It's an empty threat though; quirky characters in strained, possibly life endangering situations - the 'cinema of cringing' it could be called - have been the norm since the dawn of movie history. 

THE BROTHERS BLOOM, about con-artist brothers (Adrian Brody and Mark Ruffalo), has many bits that feel like re-fried quirk from other flicks, yet it still works, gloriously too at times. For some reason Brody is called Bloom while Ruffalo goes by Stephen so the title I don't get, but whatever. Brody, tired of an endless series of cons, decides he wants the "unwritten life" but Ruffalo gets him to go on one last big score. 

Of course, a woman (Weisz) fouls things up and twists them around and around in their little art smuggling scam. Brody says of his brother's cons that they are like the narratives of some Russian novelist, containing “thematic arcs and shit.” We're swept through scene after scene of double crossing with some predictable turns, yet just like the quirks they can be forgiven with such a capable cast and a not too clever for its own good tone. 

Brody and Ruffalo carry THE BROTHERS BLOOM and play off each other with the believable edge of siblings. Wiesz gels well with them too even with her sitcom girlfriend vibe going strong. The film shows director Johnson getting comfy with comedy, though it must be said that it isn't quite on the level of his previous dramatic work - the brilliant BRICK. 

Without a doubt, the stale "style over substance" complaint will be used in many reviews but many moviegoers will enjoy swimming in this particular sea of quirks.

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ZODIAC: A New Film Babble Blog Favorite

“No good movie is too long and no bad movie is short enough.” - Roger Ebert 

I fully agree with Mr. Ebert. Many are grumbling about the length and density of the movie in question below but you won't find any grumbling here:

ZODIAC (Dir. David Fincher, 2007) 

A murderer clothed in darkness exterminating make-out parking or picnicking young couples, police and press continuously taunted by letters and cards sent by a serial killer at large, and an obsession with solving a perplexing nightmare of a mystery that derails the lives and careers of investigators and reporters and alienates the ones closest to them, these are all thriller genre elements that have arguably been done to death before, sure. 

But David Fincher’s sixth film ZODIAC, beautifully builds upon those frameworks with excruciating attention to detail and a sense of personal purpose that can be felt long after the film is over. The film is based upon the infamous string of Northern Californian murders in the late '60s and early '70s by a man who identified himself as Zodiac and who was never caught.

Our protagonist and guide through this is Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhall) a ex-Eagle Scout turned San Fransisco Chronicle editorial cartoonist who while not assigned to the story immerses himself in the chilling codes and cryptic pronouncements that his paper and the authorities receive from the Zodiac. 

The Inspectors on the case David Toshi (Mark Ruffalo) and William Armstrong (Anthony Edwards) follow every possible lead, dissect every single angle, and interview every single suspect but still come up severely short on the crucial conclusive evidence needed. As time goes on with a long silence by the Zodiac – the trail grows cold leaving our heroes spiritually stumped and forever floored by the lack of closure. 

With few of the stylistic flashy touches of Fincher’s previous work (SE7EN, THE GAME, FIGHT CLUB, PANIC ROOM) ZODIAC is a meticulously mesmerizing masterpiece. Despite it’s over 2 and half hour running time not a scene is wasted and it’s admirable that '70s period piece cliches aren’t exploited, they're convincingly inhabited. 

Couldn’t be any better cast as joining the principles are Robert Downey Jr, Brian Cox, Chloë Sevigny, Phillip Baker Hall, Dermot Mulroney, and John Carroll Lynch, all playing the right notes with even incidental characters given sharp memorable turns by reliable bit-players (Donal Logue, Charles Fleisher, Ione Skye *, John Ennis, Adam Goldberg). 

Eerily effective and extremely absorbing with its “histories of ages past” and “unenlightened shadows cast” as Donovan's * "Hurdy Gurdy Man" (the song that book-ends the film) playfully but darkly suggests, ZODIAC deserves the oft quoted critic line this season never lives without: it’s truly the first great movie of the year. 

* Donovan has both a song and a daughter in this film. Good for him.

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