BLACK WIDOW: Too Dark And Dull To Pop

Tonight, the first Marvel movie in two years hits the big screen, and Disney Plus:

BLACK WIDOW (Dir. Cate Shortland, 2021)

Since she was first introduced into the Marvelverse in IRON MAN 2 in 2010, Scarlett Johansson has portrayed the character of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow seven times. This includes extended cameos in all of the AVENGERS films, the two CAPTAIN AMERICA movies, and an appearance in CAPTAIN MARVEL. So it seems fitting for her eighth time in the role in the 24th entry in the franchise be a feature-length showcase for Johansson’s interpretation of a killer comic character that dates back to 1964.

The movie starts off as an origin story, with the young Natasha, played by a blue-haired 13-year old Ever Anderson, living what looks like a conventional family existence in Ohio. But her sister, Yelena Belova (10-year old Violet McGraw), and their parents Alexei (Stranger Things’ David Harbour), and Melina (Rachel Weisz), have to abruptly leave their home because it turns out that they’re Russian spies, you know, like that FX show, The Americans.

As they make their getaway, Yelena requests that her favorite song, Don McLean’s “American Pie,” be played on the car stereo. Usually when a particular song that is significant to a character is played early in a movie, that means it will come up again in a meaningful way later.

So the unrelated family make their escape via a getaway plane with Harbour’s Alexei hanging on the wing amid gunfire. There’s some excitement here, but overall due to its strong familiarity this opening sequence is underwhelming. But just you wait because this film isn’t finished serving up underwhelming sequences!

Natasha and Yelana get sent to some scary dark facility, called the Red Room Academy where they are groomed to be assassins (I think so - like I said it was dark). 21 years later, as a title tells us, Natasha has now grown into Johansson, who we can see is a troublemaker who is again on the run, but this time it’s the FBI headed by General Thaddeus Ross (a digitally de-aged for some reason William Hurt).

Yelana, now grown up to be Florence Pugh, is a fast-acting trained killer like Natasha, who, after a fight on a bridge with an thickly-armed mystery figure named Taskmaster, tracks her sister in Budapest, and they immediately get into another of the film’s savage yet unengaging fight scenes.

Then there’s a motorcycle chase through the streets where the sisters are pursued by black-clad attackers, and Taskmaster pops up again in a tank. Following that MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE-style activity, Natasha and Yelana break their super soldier Dad (actually fake Dad), now sporting an exaggerated Russian accent, out of a Siberian Prison in one of the movie’s better sequences as involves a riot, helicopter acrobatics, and best of all, an avalanche.

Unfortunately, that’s followed by a drawn out family (actually fake family) reunion on fake mother Melina’s Russian pig farm. An attempt to explore the complex dynamic of these peoples’ relationships, this talky drama section lasts over 20 minutes long and is tediously dull. It maybe the most boring bit in the entire Marvel movie canon.

The finale concerns the faux family bonding together (or trying to) to take down the film’s real villain, Dreykov (Ray Winstone, also with a questionable accent), and destroy the Red Room program which has transformed scores of young girls into brainwashed Black Widows. This is where we get screen-filling explosions, more hand-to-hand combat, paratroopers firing machine guns in the sky, and plenty of strained superheroics.

Problem is not much of BLACK WIDOW worked for me. Perhaps I’m burned out on the whole Marvel franchise, but the formula fell flat, and while I appreciated that the filmmakers, including Director Cate Shortland, and screenwriter Eric Pearson, set out to make a gritty Marvel film, with little of the flashiness of the other entries, the way too dark picture just doesn’t pop.

I have loved many of Johansson’s performances, but there’s not much of a character here. She mainly comes off as cold and humorless, which could be said of the movie in general. Despite that Pugh, who was solid in MIDSOMMAR, has some good wisecracks, and enjoyably makes fun of Johansson’s fight pose established in her previous turns in the roles; and O-T Fagbenle (Elizabeth Moss’s husband in The Handmaid’s Tale Hulu series) has some amusing moments as a guy smitten with Johansson, there’s precious little humor here. This is the Marvel movie, I bet more than what's on the horizon, that will suffer the most from not being able to have a funny Stan Lee cameo.

Marvel fanatics will probably like BLACK WIDOW a lot more than me as it has a fair share of action (except for the extended dysfunctional fake family segment), and fills in some gaps in the franchise’s continuity. But I was largely bored with the 24th entry in the never-ending Marvel saga, and think I really need a break from these movies.

For those of you that are going to it no matter what, don’t forget to stay for the after credits bonus scene. Of course, if you’re one of those that are set on seeing this movie, you already know that drill.

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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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CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR: A Super-Sized Superhero Mash-Up

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR

(Dirs. Anthony & Joe Russo, 2016)

Eight years ago this week, the first IRON MAN movie was released and so began the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). Since then we’ve gotten two more IRON MANs, two CAPTAIN AMERICAs, two THORs, a stand-alone HULK entry, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, ANT-MAN, and two AVENGERS films. 

Now here’s the third CAPTAIN AMERICA movie, which is so packed with Marvel superheroes that it could easily be mistaken for the third AVENGERS movie. 

For Chris Evans, once again donning the red, white, and blue uniform and shield as the title character, is joined by Robert Downey Jr. reprising his iconic role as Iron Man/Tony Stark for the seventh time, Scarlett Johansson for her fifth go around as Natasha Romanoff / Black Widow, Anthony Mackie for the fourth time as Sam Wilson/Falcon, Don Cheadle, also four timing it, as James “Rhodey” Rhodes /War Machine; Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye (another four timer), Elizabeth Olsen for her second appearance as Wanda Maximoff /Scarlet Witch, Paul Bettany as Vision (likewise), and Paul Rudd, also back for seconds, as Scott Lang/Ant-Man.

And that’s only half the cast because Sebastian Stan is back again as Bucky Barnes aka Winter Soldier from the CAPTAIN AMERICA sequel of the same name, Chadwick Boseman is on hand to introduce the character of T’Challa /Black Panther to the MCU, Daniel Brühl does a slimy turn as Slovakian terrorist Helmut Zemo, Frank Grillo (also from the CAPTAIN AMERICA sequel) puts in some more tough guy time as Brock Rumlow/Crossbones, William Hurt is back from the THE INCREDIBLE HULK (though the Hulk isn’t) as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, and Captain America’s returning love interest Sharon Carter /Agent 13 again played by Emily VanCamp.

Whew! I knew I’d spend half the review just listing who’s in this movie, and I haven’t even gotten to what’s probably the most hyped factor: the introduction of the brand new Spider-Man to the MCU, now played by Tom Holland in a warm up for SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING, due for summer 2017. 

CIVIL WAR involves the Avengers being divided over signing the Sokovia Accords, a 117-country treaty that would give the United Nations jurisdiction over the superhero team because of the massive death and destruction that went down in AGE OF ULTRON. Iron Man is for signing the agreement, feeling that the Avengers should be kept in check, but Captain America disagrees, feeling that the regulations will run them the risk of being used as weapons by corrupt forces in the government.

Captain America’s discord with the Accords has to do with his protection of the Winter Soldier from Iron Man, as the brainwashed Bucky Barnes was responsible for the automobile accident that killed Stark’s parents.

While the film is obviously all about a big showdown between Team Captain America, who has Falcon, Winter Soldier, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Ant-Man on his side; and Team Iron Man, who has Vision, Black Panther, WarMachine, and Spider-Man on his side, there is a framework of dramatic scenes interwoven with action set pieces leading up to it that make the film a lot more than one big blow-out battle.

Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who wrote the previous Captain America films, expertly weave together all these characters and story elements into a ensemble epic that’s one of the strongest, richest, and rewarding of the Marvel movies. There’s not a wasted moment or misstep in the film breezy 146 minute running time. 

The Russo brothers have topped their previous CAPTAIN AMERICA entries and Joss Whedon’s last AVENGERS film by maximizing on the human approach to these characters. We’re not watching unrelatable dark dull demigods fighting it out like in the disastrous BATMAN Vs. SUPERMAN, we’re engaged with flawed, funny friends with opposing principles putting their powers on the line. The powers that be at DC really ought to be taking notes.

CIVIL WAR’s climax, the aforementioned Avengers on Avengers battle at Leipzig/Halle Airport in Germany doesn’t disappoint. It’s a rousingly exciting and wholeheartedly hilarious sequence of spectacle that’s as packed with thrills as it is one-liners. Every Avenger gets a chance to shine, but Rudd’s Ant-Man, who enlarges himself to be a towering giant at a crucial moment, steals the sequence – or at least, scores the most laughs.

Another Avenger who steals their screen-time is Johansson with her impeccably choreographed hand-to-hand fight scenes being the best I’ve seen since THE RAID 2. As much as I enjoyed Holland’s fresh, frisky take on Spider-Man, Johansson’s moments made more of an impression on me. Where’s her stand-alone movie?

But everybody here is at the top of their game. Evans is the best he's ever been as Cap, Downey Jr. acts again like he was born to play Iron Man/Stark, and there's not a dud to be found in the vast cast.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR is a stupendous success of a super-sized superhero mash-up; a well-oiled machine of a crowd-pleasing blockbuster that fan boys won’t be able to get enough of. As somebody who’s been more satisfied than disappointed by the offerings of the MCU, consider me among them.

Oh, and as always - stay for the post credits stingers.

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Jon Favreau's THE JUNGLE BOOK: Charms & Visual Delights A-Plenty

Now playing at a multiplex near you:

THE JUNGLE BOOK (Dir. Jon Favreau, 2016)

Okay, so I was cynical walking in to this live-action/CGI adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s 1894 classic “The Jungle Book,” as it’s another big ass Disney re-imagining of an established property, but its charms as well as its visual delights are plentiful. I really should have had more faith in Favreau.

Apparently it did the director a lot of good to get back to his indie roots with his 2014 hit CHEF, as there’s spirit and soul here that was in short supply in Favreau’s previous bid for blockbuster success, 2011’s COWBOYS AND ALIENS (not to mention 2010’s IRON MAN 2).

Favreau, aided by stellar cinematography by Bill Pope (THE MATRIX trilogy), brings a grand sweep to the story of Mowgli, a young orphaned boy raised by wolves in the jungles of India played with wide-eyed gusto by newcomer Neel Sethi.

Mowgli was brought to the wolves as a baby by Bagheera, a black panther voiced by Ben Kingsley. When Mowgli life is threatened (as are the lives of his adoptive parents voiced by Lupita Nyong'o and Giancarlo Esposito) by the sinister Shere Khan (Idris Elba), a Bengal tiger who strongly distrusts humans; he leaves the pack to journey to the nearby man village guided by Bagheera.

From there, Mowgli has a series of adventures involving almost getting squeezed to death by the sultry-voiced python Kaa (Scarlett Johansson), stealing honey from a dangerous cliff location for a sloth bear named Baloo (a wonderfully droll Bill Murray), and being kidnapped by monkeys who take him to the lair of the towering King Louie (a cunning Christopher Walken), a Bornean orangutan who, like Kaa did before him, wants Mowgli to provide him with the secret of man’s “red flower”aka fire.

Despite being shot entirely on a green screen soundstage in LA, THE JUNGLE BOOK’s CGI-ed environs are astoundingly convincing. The photorealism pops in every shot, and coupled with how intricately animated the animals are, there’s barely a moment in which the viewer isn’t immaculately immersed in what’s on screen.

Favreau, who co-wrote the screenplay with Justin Marks, whose only previous feature length writing credit is STREET FIGHTER: THE LEGEND OF CHUN-LI, has a warm feel for this material which helps transcend it from what could’ve been a routine run through familiar set-pieces.

While Sethi and Murray, who have the best chemistry together bonding as boy and bear, get to duet for a brief bit on the Disney standard “The Bare Necessities,” the decision for the film to not be a musical seems to have been made, but if you stay through to the bitter end there are several excerpts of songs sung by Johansson, Walken, et al, during the closing credits.

Otherwise, the score by John Debney, a frequent Favreau collaborator, overworks the drama at times, but mostly keeps its movements admirably in line with the action.

As overwhelmed as the character is with his surroundings and iconic co-stars, Sethi puts in a solid everykid performance as Mowgli. The scenery and spectacle wouldn’t have as much weight to it if there wasn’t a kid to care about in the middle of it all.

Both by box office (it’s #1) and critical acclaim (it’s at 94% on Rotten Tomatoes) Favreau and co. have a huge hit in THE JUNGLE BOOK, with a sequel already in the works. It’s an understandable gut reaction to react with cynicism to all the remakes, re-imaginings, sequels, etc. that clog up the multiplexes, but films like this show that there are inspired creative forces, who while faithful to the original source, can produce new worthwhile versions of beloved properties.

So it’s best to leave your skepticism at the door, and go in as wide-eyed as Mowgli.

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HAIL, CAESAR!: Not Top Tier Coen Brothers, But At Times It Comes Close

Opening today at both multiplexes and art houses (but mainly multiplexes):

HAIL, CAESAR! (Dirs. Joel & Ethan Coen, 2016)

“This motion picture contains no visual depiction of the godhead.” – End Credits Disclaimer

After the bleak, gray-toned terrain of their last few pictures, 2010’s TRUE GRIT and 2013’s INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS, the Coen brothers mix it up with this colorful, star-studded satire of ‘50s Hollywood.

In his third film for the master filmmaking siblings, Josh Brolin heads the cast as Eddie Mannix, the head production chief for the fictional Capital Studios, who mainly works as a “fixer” (somebody who keeps actors’ scandals out of the press). We first meet Mannix in a confessional, where the man cries over the sin of sneaking cigarettes and lying to his wife (Alison Pill) about it.

From there, we learn about the troubled production of a big expensive Roman-Biblical epic (a film-within-the-film also titled “Hail, Caesar”), which stars Baird Whitlock, an idiot of a matinee idol played by another Coen bros. veteran, George Clooney. On the set, Clooney gets drugged by a couple of extras (Wayne Knight and Jeff Lewis), and gets taken to a Malibu beach mansion where he is held for ransom by an organization of communist screenwriters who call themselves “The Future.” That’s right, it’s another Coen brothers’ kidnap caper!

Intertwined are the tales of a few of Mannix’s other clients: Hobie Doyle (stand-out newcomer Alden Ehrenreich), a B-movie cowboy star actor who, while working on a western, is told that the studio wants to change his image, and DeeAnna Moran (Scarlett Johansson in her second Coen brothers film after THE MAN WHO WASN'T THERE), obviously modeled on MGM’s swimming superstar Esther Williams, whose pregnancy threatens to ruin another production (another film-within-the-film). Johansson, who speaks in a New Yawk accent that will be familiar to SNL fans, has a juicy albeit brief part, involving an even briefer Jonah Hill cameo.

Then there’s Tilda Swinton, also making her second appearance in the Coen canon, hamming it up in a dual role as Thora and Thessaly Thacker, twin sister gossip columnists who confront Mannix (separately, but one right after the other) for a scoop every time he leaves his office.

In a extremely well choreographed production number from yet another film-within-this-film, Coen brothers first-timer Channing Tatum steals the movie in a sailor suit in a helplessly homoerotic song and dance routine to a tune called “No Dames.” Tatum, and his fellow seamen, athletically tap dance up a storm around a saloon set on top of the bar, stools, and tables, while Tatum puts in some surprisingly smooth singing on top of it. It’s a smile-inducing highlight.

The more I think about it, the more I like HAIL, CAESAR! It’s not top tier Coen brothers, but at times it comes awfully close. Such times include an early scene in which Brolin’s Mannix assembles a group of religious leaders from different faiths to make sure that the “theological elements are up to snuff” in “Hail, Caesar!,” which humorously recalls the spirituality spoofing of A SERIOUS MAN.

The sitting room scenes involving “The Future,” with its wonderfully cast members including Max Baker, David Krumholtz, Patrick Fischler, Fisher Stevens, and Fred Melamed, who happened to be in A SERIOUS MAN, also share that period piece’s vibe, as well as more of a palpable sense of McCarthy-era paranoia than TRUMBO could muster.

Also up there, or at least one that I laughed out loud at, is a bit where Ralph Fiennes as a stuffy director (named Laurence Laurentz, because of course he is) of stuffy drawing room dramas is saddled with Ehrenreich’s Doyle and can’t get him to satisfactorily deliver one particular line (“Would that it were true” being the line that gets repeatedly massacred).

With its A-list ensemble running around in silly scenarios, I expected something more screwball, a lark a la BURN AFTER READING, but the lighter, restrained wackiness of HAIL, CAESAR masks layers of meaning underneath that I predict us critic folk will be trying to decipher for ages.

After saying that BURN was the last time he’d play an idiot for the Coens, I’m glad Clooney reconsidered and came back for what Joel Coen has jokingly referred to as “the fourth installment of the George Clooney numbskull trilogy.” 

But as apt as Clooney is as a movie star dolt, it’s Brolin’s show, and it’s his best work for the Coen brothers - his jaded stoicism is the film’s rock. The character is the only one in the film that’s directly based on a real person of the same name (the real Eddie Mannix was a studio fixer for MGM), and Brolin puts in a weighty performance that would’ve fit right into serious-minded movies set in the same era like L.A. CONFIDENTIAL.

It doesn’t all flow seamlessly – there’s some HUDSUCKER PROXY-ish clunkiness, and some bits that flatline - but the film achieves BARTON FINK-style brilliancy more than a few times (it’s no coincidence that Capital Pictures is the studio in both films).

It’s too early to see how HAIL, CAESAR! ranks among the rest of the Coen brothers’ filmography, but I can already say that its miles above their lesser efforts (THE LADYKILLERS and INTOLERABLE CRUELTY). 

The fun of its fake movie production numbers, its authentic Technicolor look (shot on film by longtime Coen brothers collaborator, cinematographer Roger Deakins), and, of course, its more than capable cast, make it a film that you don’t have to be a film buff to appreciate. But it sure does help.

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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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Luc Besson’s LUCY: Over-The-Top Yet Still Underwhelming

Opening today at a multiplex near you...

LUCY (Dir.Luc Besson, 2014)

It’s too bad that Scarlett Johansson’s Marvel Universe co-star Samuel L. Jackson isn’t here to exclaim “check out the big brain on Lucy!” PULP FICTION-style, because Luc Besson’s new sci-fi thriller keeps asking us to do just that.

Johansson’s Lucy is an American student in Taipei, Taiwan, who gets forced into being a drug mule for an evil Korean crime lord (Choi Min-sik). But the colossal catch is that the drug the bad guys implant in our protagonist is a powerful synthetic called CPH4 (which looks a lot like the bright blue crystal meth from Breaking Bad), which increases one’s control over their mind rapidly bit by bit until it reaches 100% brain capacity.

This gives Johansson hyper-intelligence, superhuman strength, and the ability to change her metabolism, but this alteration in her body’s chemistry means she’ll need more of the drug within 24 hours or she’ll start decomposing. So Johannson travels to Paris to track down the other drug mules and confiscate their CPH4 with the help of Amr Waked as a grizzled French cop.

Morgan Freeman is on hand as a neuroscientist who first appears in cutaways from the main action lecturing a college classroom his theories about the brain’s untapped potential. These bits capture Freeman in narrator mode (when is he not in narrator mode?), and, mashed with cuts to nature footage, and time lapse cinematography, serve to visually sucker punch us with heady imagery and lofty conceptual themes.

This makes for some watchable eye candy especially when it comes to the fun of seeing Johansson kick lots of ass with her mind, but all the pseudo intellectual posturing that all the collective conscience of all humanity contains the entire history of the universe and ‘wow, what if we could tap into that?’ seems purposely aimed to shoot way over the heads of most movie-goers so they’ll think the movie is way smarter than it is.

Johansson beautifully builds upon the emotionless alien persona she exhibited in Jonathan Glaser’s UNDER THE SKIN earlier this year largely because we get to witness her invested transformation from college party girl to atomic super-heroine. Unfortunately as the climax approaches, Johansson literally gets absorbed into the surreal set pieces – i.e. she morphs into a black tentacle mass of squid’s limbs taking over a computer lab – as her presence becomes less and less interesting.

LUCY takes the “Flowers for Algernon”/CHARLY – i.e. everyman takes drug and gets super smarts - scenario, also recently utilized in the Bradley Cooper vehicle LIMITLESS and filters it through the ‘to understand how we live now, let’s begin at the very beginning’ thesis of Terrence Malick’s THE TREE OF LIFE, which means, yep, there are dinosaurs. There's also a bit of Danny Boyle's time lapsing intros/outros from 127 HOURS happening too. I guess it’s all part of life’s rich pageant as Inspector Clouseau would say.

But for all these influences and/or pretensions, there’s little that’s actually thought provoking about the over-the-top yet still underwhelming LUCY. It tries so hard to be mind blowing, but it keeps coming up short. 

That said, Besson’s film is a vast improvement over THE FAMILY, his misguided mob family comedy last year, and it appealingly harkens back to his late ‘90s cult classic THE FIFTH ELEMENT. I also appreciate that it’s a summer blockbuster wannabe that isn’t a franchise entry, and isn’t in 3D.

However, no matter how much its stylish energy tries to obscure it, LUCY is a silly popcorn picture matinee masquerading as egghead cinema.

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Blu Ray/DVD Review: The Weird Scarlett Johansson Flick UNDER THE SKIN

UNDER THE SKIN

(Dir. Jonathan Glazer, 2013)

This is for sure the weirdest film I’ve seen so far this year. That’s not necessarily a bad thing as this moody British produced sci-fi thriller, out today on Blu ray and DVD, certainly has its mesmerizing moments.

See if you can follow this – Scarlett Johansson portrays an extraterrestrial who has taken human form to drive around Scotland in a white van trying to pick up young men. Actually she’s abducting them in a most peculiar and exceedingly surreal manner.

Johansson leads them into a pitch black room, where she walks into the infinite darkness discarding her clothing, while her prey does the same (yes, there’s full frontal). The excited victims completely sink into the shiny black floor as they walk towards her, then she walks back over the surface picking up her individual garments.

Outside of that ritual, our alien protagonist kills a man with a rock to the head at the beach, which leaves behind a baby to crawl and cry on the rocks in a very sad shot.

About an hour into the film, which is based on a 2000 novel by Michael Faber, Johansson picks up a man with a deformed face (no prosthetics were used – actor Adam Pearson suffers from facial neurofibromatosis). Pearson is somewhat resistant to Johansson’s advances but still goes along with it, but for some reason she lets him escape to make his way naked across the Scottish countryside.

Hardcore Johansson fans will be delighted to get a lot of intense face-time with the actress, with her wide eyes peering out from under her black bangs, though even they may think a scene where she stares at her reflection in a dirty mirror goes on too long.

Johansson often lingers unemotionally starring into space, or maybe she’s taking in the strange-to-her surroundings. It’s the odd film that stops to take a look around every now and then.

There’s another alien played by championship motorcyclist Jeremy McWilliams, who the film regularly cuts to biking around the Highlands keeping tabs on Johansson.

A David Lynchian dream-like quality is present, but UNDER THE SKIN is too awkwardly abstract to be the disturbingly erotic experience it’s going for. It’s often a slog, despite Daniel Landin’s sturdy cinematography, and Johansson’s character is impenetrable by design making even the scene where she actually has sex with a man she meets (Michael Moreland) extremely hard to watch.

However, it takes some tasty chances in its pacing, minimalist use of dialogue, and intriguing visuals. It’s definitely more memorable than most movies out there and, for better or worse, its imagery can never be unseen.

Next week, Johansson will star in another sci-fi film by a foreign director, Luc Besson’s LUCY (opening on July 25th), one of the few summer films I’m really looking for to. That’s gonna be more on the action side, so think of UNDER THE SKIN if you're looking to see the lady in something slower and artsier as a warm-up.

Special Features: Ten brief featurettes into which break down the film into the categories: Camera, Casting, Editing, Locations, Music, Poster Design, Production Design, Script, Sound, and VFX.

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Jon Favreau's CHEF Is An Overstuffed Cuban Sandwich Of a Movie

Now playing at an art house near me:

CHEF (Dir. Jon Favreau, 2014)

Jon Favreau's modest directorial follow-up to his critically panned 2011 sci-fi western COWBOYS AND ALIENS, could be seen as a plea for small scale indie cred away from the special effects and major studio interference, but it's likable enough to make me forget about that. It also made me very hungry - even though I came to it with a full stomach.

Favreau casts himself as an acclaimed Los Angeles chef working for a popular restaurant run by Dustin Hoffman. When a food blogger (a wonderfully smug Oliver Platt) gives our title character a bad review, Favreau takes to the internet and engages in a twitter battle with the critic. Of course, Favreau is new to the online world so his precocious, pre-teen kid (Emjay Anthony) schools him in the jargon, and before long he's trending.

Hoffman fires Favreau after he has a crazy meltdown in the middle of the restaurant in the presence of Platt, a cellphone video of which quickly goes viral, and the big lug decides to give his ex-wife's (Sofia Vergara) advice to give the food truck business a go.

This involves a one scene cameo by Favreau's IRON MAN buddy Robert Downey Jr. as Vergara's first husband, who hooks up Favreau with a old, beat-up truck that he refurbishes in one of the movie's many music-driven montages, dubs the El Jefe Cubanos, recruits his fellow friend cooks John Leguizamo and Bobby Cannavale, and hits the road.

With the help of his computer whiz son Anthony live-tweeting their cross country trip, Favreau's travelling cuisine-mobile is a huge success. The frothy follow-your-dream theme may be more than a little saccharine, but Favreau's film genuinely seems to believe in it.

With its wall-to-wall Latin-flavored soundtrack, overhead close-ups of immaculately arranged food cooking (lovingly shot by cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau), rambling rom com beats, and the orange-hued sampling of the culinary culture of Miami, New Orleans, and Austin, CHEF is an overstuffed Cuban sandwich of a movie.

Serving as triple threat (writer/director/star) for the first time since 1999's MADE, Favreau didn't trim any fat off when preparing this movie meal, resulting in an overlong, montage-heavy, second half.

Favreau even allows for a sing-along scene, in which he harmonizes with Leguizamo on the Hot 8 Brass Band's horn-driven cover of Marvin Gaye's “Sexual Healing.” This mildly amusing yet incredibly superfluous bit should've been only available as a deleted scene on the later Blu ray/DVD release.

Also, the casting of Favreau's movie star pals, such as Downey Jr., and another IRON MAN alumni, Scarlett Johanssen, as a hostess who gets turned on by watching Favreau cook, come off like phoned-in favors just to raise the movie's marquee value.

Still, the foodie-centric CHEF has a affable spirit to it - a party spirit with a lot of watchable activity, and familiar faces. Favreau's comedy dish here is no pièce de résistance, but it's a pleasant enough platter of food, folks, and fun.

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CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now that Full Frame is over, I leap back into the world of mainstream movies with what's now the #1 movie at the box office:

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER
(Dirs. Anthony Russo & Joe Russo, 2014)

So apparently we’re now well into Phase 2 in the building of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The second phase began strongly last summer with IRON MAN 3, continued with the lackluster THOR: THE DARK WORLD, and now hits its highest point with CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, a sequel which surpasses the 2011 original (CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER).

The iconic comic book character’s latest adventure is now in the hands of Anthony and Joe Russo, who are better known for their television work (Arrested Development, Community) than their film output (WELCOME TO COLINWOOD, YOU, ME & DUPREE). Working from a screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, who wrote the first installment, the Russo brothers confidently take control with a soaring action film that actually has a compelling politically driven plot-line.

Chris Evans dons the red, white, and blue uniform and shield for his third appearance as the iconic super hero (fourth if you count his cameo in the THOR sequel last year) in this adventure that is set two years after the events of THE AVENGERS. We catch up with Evan’s Steve Rogers/Captain America working for S.H.I.E.LD. in Washington D.C. and trying to catch up with modern culture (he carries a notebook with a list of things he missed while he was in a cryogenic sleep state for 70 years that includes Moon Landing, Nirvana, Star Trek, Thai food, etc.).

In a stunning opening involving taking on French/Algerian pirates with on a hijacked naval vessel, Captain America catches Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) extracting electronic files from the ship’s computers, which disturbingly means S.H.I.E.L.D. Commander Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) had an ulterior motive for the mission.

Back at S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters, Fury debriefs Captain America about Project: Insight, which will send into space three huge “Helicarriers,” that are linked to spy satellites and have the capabilities to preemptively take out potential threats.

The project has been spearheaded by a cold calculating Robert Redford as World Security head Alexander Pierce, who it’s no Spoiler to say turns out to be the central villain – an agent of HYDRA, the terrorist organization Captain America fought in the first film.

An incredibly jolting car-chase sequence through the streets of D.C. ends with Fury being gunned down by a shadowy assassin, the Winter Soldier, whose face we can’t see. With Fury presumed dead to the world, our hero is left to protect the film’s MacGuffin, the USB flash drive that contains the encrypted data Johansson previously retrieved.

The ins and outs of the plot get a bit too complicated from here, but with its ginormous set piece scenes of explosive destruction (the mammoth annihilation of Tony Stark’s Malibu fortress in IRON MAN 3 has nothing on the climatic CGI spectacle here), you won’t care about keeping up with the twists.

As Captain America, Evans contributes a sharp stoically charming portrayal, one in which statuesque stiffness is a requirement of the job. Evans’ banter with Johansson is fun to watch, but his easy-going chemistry with charismatic newcomer Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson/Falcon (an old Marvel character making its first appearance in the franchise), is where his performance pops.

The film is enhanced by expanded roles for Jackson and Johansson, and Frank Grillo as a HYDRA henchman is an effective baddie (another Spoiler?), but Redford, probably ecstatic to have so much exposition after ALL IS LOST, is the real scene stealer. His part obviously pays homage to his role in Sydney Pollack’s 1975 political thriller THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, as does the movie’s dark themes of techno-paranoia, updated for our current climate.

It’s a testament to Markus and McFeely’s tight screenplay that these themes are crucial to the narrative and aren’t treated as background fodder. Its layered depth helps it transcend the standard super hero storyline structure, while still holding on the fun we’ve come to expect from the formula (on-the-nose one-liners, cross references, Stan Lee cameo, etc.).

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER is one of the best Marvel movies, with just the right amount of humor, thrills, and clever character interaction to keep both fans and casual movie-goers highly invested, right through to the signature stinger at the end of the credits.

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Joaquin Phoenix Is Smitten With His Operating System In Spike Jonze’s HER

HER (Dir. Spike Jonze, 2013) 

This is way too lovely and poetic a film to find mixed in with the formulaic fodder at your local multiplex. Yet that’s where it’s playing in my area having bypassed the independent theater circuit because of awards season buzz.

Set in a shiny clean Los Angeles in the near future, where everyone wears beltless high-waisted pants, the film concerns a love story between a meek mustached Joaquin Phoenix and his phone’s sentient operating system voiced by the sultry Scarlett Johansson.

Having weathered a painful breakup (we catch fleeting glimpses in flashbacks of Phoenix in an extremely emotional relationship with Rooney Mara, best known for the American version of THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO), our soft spoken protagonist purchases said OS1, which is billed as the first artificially intelligent operating system, and is immediately taken with the disembodied voice of Johansson.

Johansson, names herself Samantha after reading the book “How To Name Your Baby” in two one hundredths of a second, and goes about sorting through all of Phoenix’s files on his hard drive.

Phoenix writes for a company that produces custom made greeting cards (Beautiful Handwritten Letters Dot Com), so his sentimental “sad and mopey” (as Amy Adams, his documentary film maker friend, puts it) nature comes in handy.

After Adams sets him up on a blind date (played by Olivia Wilde in a small but crucial cameo) that at first goes well but ends badly when commitment comes up, Phoenix finds himself falling hard for Samantha. What’s freaky is that Samantha feels the same and even hires a surrogate (Portia Doubleday) to act as her body so they can have sex.

Phoenix’s predicament isn’t an anomaly as many others are having relationships with their OS’s including Adams since her marriage (to a jaded Matt Letscher) went south. The film’s take on a future world in which isolationism is a lifestyle choice, isn’t so farfetched as anybody who’s been in a public place filled with folks with their faces buried in the screens of their devices can attest.

Jonze first solo screenplay, which won Best Screenplay at Sunday’s Golden Globes Awards), shows that he learned much from Charlie Kaufman, who wrote the director’s first few films (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH and ADAPTATION).

There’s a lot of emotional material that’s hard to pull off on display here, but Jonze handles it with endearing delicacy and a pure sense of purpose. He’s greatly aided by Phoenix putting in one of his most fully realized performances as the supremely sympathetic lead – a man who looks like he’s aching inside even when he’s smiling. 

Factor in Johansson conveying the OS’s evolving vulnerability with poise, and Adams making a stunning transition from being a ‘70s glamour puss con woman in AMERICAN HUSTLE to embodying the mousy insecure frizzy-haired could-be love interest and you’ve got a cast as charming as the film itself.

HER’s soundtrack doesn’t expand much on the musical palette of Jonze’s previous film, his and David Egger’s adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, as both Arcade Fire and Karen O. both return to provide songs, but this is so not a complaint as their music, especially when matched with Hoyte van Hoytema’s incredible cinematography effectively fits the highs and lows of the lightly surreal scenario.

The concept of having cyber sex with Siri aside, I can’t think of another recent film dealing with romance that better captures the way it feels to first fall in love; how wonderfully intense and scary it can be. It also nails how painfully fleeting the losing of love can be as well. HER is an immersive and beautiful cinematic conversation about what our real wants and needs are.
 
But it may not be for everybody – just those with two eyes, two ears, and a heart.

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Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Directorial Debut Deals With The Porn Addicted DON JON

Opening today at most multiplexes:

DON JON (Dir. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, 2013) 

Things have been going good in movieland for Joseph Gordon-Levitt the last several years. Since his breakthrough role in Marc Webb's (500) DAYS OF SUMMER, he's put in solid performances in a stretch of A-list work including being part of high-profile ensembles in Christopher Nolan (INCEPTION, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES), and Steven Spielberg (LINCOLN) films, as well as heading choice action thrillers such as David Koepp's PREMIUM RUSH and LOOPER. Not to forget his touching and funny turn in 50/50. Yup, pretty good indeed.

The ultra-talented 32-year old's winning streak continues with his debut as writer/director: DON JON, about a womanizing New Jersey boy who prefers porn to real sex as we learn by getting the inside beat on his daily routines.

Yup, that's the subject matter Gordon-Levitt chose, but he handles it in an often hilarious and oddly touching manner. It's a comic yet thoughtful examination of an addicted everyman, that most people should relate to, that is, if they're not a prude about porn.

Gordon-Levitt's narration breaks down his character's life from Sunday confessions to family dinners to gym workouts to hitting on women at the bar most weeknights. Being a slick good lookin' guy, he scores often with girls he brags about being high on the 1-10 scale, but at the end of the night, after his newest conquest is passed out in bed, he's back on his computer.

This changes when he meets Scarlet Johansson at a club, who he definitely considers a "10," but she's not as easy as the girls he regularly takes home.

She makes him wait for it; work for it - through weeks of dates seeing movies he couldn't care less about - there's a funny fictitious chick flick they go to see featuring Channing Tatum and Anne Hathaway going through the predictable rom com storybeats. It reminded me of the fake film in the Coen Brother's BURN AFTER READING, "Coming Up Daisy," with Delmot Mulroney and Claire Danes that Frances McDormand would drag her dates to, but I digress.

Things get edgy when Johansson (with an accent that reminds me of a commercial parody she did on SNL several years ago where she was a Long Island pitch-woman hawking "Marble Columns") catches Gordon-Levitt watching porn, and makes him swear he'll never do it again.

This forces him to catch it when he can on the go on his phone in the car or in night class, a classmate, Julianne Moore, also catches him ("Excuse me, are you watching people fucking on your phone?") but she's so not as judgemental.

Some of the funniest scenes are set around the dinner table with the great casting of Tony Danza and Glenne Headly as Jon's parents (Don is an obvious nickname), and Brie Larson (recently seen in THE SPECTACULAR NOW) as his always texting sister. Though not as one-liner heavy, there's Neil Simon-esque sensibility present.

With her face forever in her phone, Larson is as quiet as Silent Bob throughout the film, but just like that Kevin Smith character, when she speaks it's something that's supposed to be a necessary insight.

The widowed pot-smoking Moore, who obviously has a lot more mileage in the sex/relationship department serves as sort of a Yoda to Gordon-Levitt, helping guide him to a better, less XXX-rated fantasy-filled, level of existence.

Gordon-Levitt's direction is as confident as his character - he gets flawless acting out of his co-stars (Danza is particularly "on"), there are few wasted shots (though some shaky framing), and a pleasing fluidity to the narrative that you know he cribbed from working with Nolan and Johnson (I'm sure Spielberg and rubbed off on him too).

DON JON is no mind-blowing masterpiece, but it's a Hell of a writing/directing debut for Gordon-Levitt. I laughed a lot, and enjoyed spending time with his characters. Its takes major cojones to make one's first film be about a smut addicted chronic masturbator, but it takes something more to be able to make the guy, via such strong charm and wit, somebody to care about as see him find his footing, away from the clutches of internet porn.

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