THE AVENGERS

THE AVENGERS
Written and Directed by Joss Whedon
Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johannson, Jeremy Renner, Tom Hiddleston and Samuel L. Jackson

Captain America: Stark, we need a plan of attack.
Iron Man: I have a plan. Attack.

Comic book movies or superhero movies or whatever you want to call them, all inherently have a very difficult task to accomplish. They all have to cater to a notoriously picky niche market, made up of detail oriented fanboys, while still remaining broad enough to appeal to the masses. They cost a fortune so they cannot afford not to attract the widest audience possible, but if they play it too broad, the fanatics will denounce the film and ruin any chance it has of making any money back. THE AVENGERS is the mecca of superhero movies. It reportedly cost $220 million to make. It features no less than seven iconic Marvel comic characters. And, given just how darn good it is, it actually stands the chance to become the biggest superhero movie of all time.

If you’re like me, the first ten minutes of THE AVENGERS might be a little bewildering. The script presupposes that you’ve seen all the Avenger related movies leading up to this one. As it turns out, I have, with the first IRON MAN (Robert Downey Jr.) and THOR (Chris Hemsworth) being my favourites.  Still, that doesn’t mean that they are always freshly at the forefront of my mind. So once I pieced together that Thor’s brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) was working with an alien race to take over Earth by harvesting the energy from what is known as the Tesseract, I was good to go. (I’m sure the history behind this premise is far more rich than I’ve just described but for casual Avenger fans like myself, this description is more than adequate to get your bearings.) What follows the initial and inevitable set up though is two hours of non-stop excitement with a surprisingly solid amount of depth and character study to make THE AVENGERS the perfect popcorn movie to kick off the summer.

It is Loki’s mission to force the people of Earth into submission by using great force. His belief is that freedom is the world’s greatest lie, that pursuing a life of slavery and worship unburdens the individual of feeling any sense of failure. Without any unique goals, there is only the common to pursue. You should know that Loki has a bevy of his own daddy issues to work out and vanquishing Earth is just his way of dealing with things. You should also know that Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the leader of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which stands for Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division) is not going to just allow this to happen. So he enlists the help of six individuals, all of which possess a particular power or skill that makes them a definite asset to have in an intergalactic war of this magnitude, and dubs them The Avengers. Unfortunately for Fury, The Avengers are all also intense loners who do not play well with others.

Perhaps the greatest honorary Avenger out there is writer/director, Joss Whedon. Marvel entrusted a film they have been building up to for years now to a man who has built a reputation for creating deeply engaging yet still highly entertaining genre fare on television, like “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”, but whose only feature length film (SERENITY) tanked. Whedon is right at home here though and he has a seemingly easy time balancing the screen time between all these heavy hitters, from Chris Evans (Captain America) and Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye) to Scarlett Johannson (Black Widow) and Mark Ruffalo (taking over the role of The Hulk from predecessor, Edward Norton), while simultaneously juggling all of their individual arcs and development. The genius of Whedon’s work here is that he has them all subtly fighting against each other and against the idea of working together long enough to forget they were fighting so hard against themselves before any of this started. And when they start fighting together, that’s when THE AVENGERS goes from being a great comic book movie to being a great movie, period.

REVIEW: Thor (B+)

(dir. Kenneth Branagh, 2011)

  

For starters, I was a major skeptic of this thing.  Just goes to show was a little restraint can do to an overblown genre.

Kenneth Branagh's surprisingly subdued superhero film, Thor, is something godly indeed.  Living within a genre that recently has been known for CGI-injected heroes, Chris Hemsworth has proven himself apt as the titular God of Thunder.  Much like Robert Downey Jr. in Iron Man, Hemsworth's stalwart performance is grounded in his earnest acceptance of the situations.  That sounds a little Acting 101, doesn't it, but it actually makes the fantasy elements within the genre seem more believable.  He's never amazed that he's a God, never in awe of himself or his surroundings, and that is where the character of Thor is crafted.

One can credit this to Branagh, but also credit must be due to Hemsworth and the writing.  From the script up, this is a character study.  Not an origin story, or something rooted in a climactic battle, but rather a small tale of a god becoming the man he was meant to be.  Again, much like Iron Man, the heart of the film is in the characters.  You care about Thor, and halfway through, you don't even realize that you haven't witnessed an enormous battle on Earth yet, and even when you do, you don't care all that much that it was relatively lame.  The beauty of Thor  is that you see the change a normal, more bloated battle would tell you...but Branagh and Hemsworth show you instead.  Like that less-than-awesome RDJ vs. Bridges fight to close out Iron Man, this Thor vs. Hot Laser Machine is more of an means to and end than an attention grabbing climax.  The greatest of all superhero movies hold their climaxes for off the battle field—Iron Man, Spider-Man 1 & 2, The Dark Knight, etc.—because they know the hero is what really matters.

Sure, some of the secondary acting is flat and useless, but that all goes back to Thor being the only character we need to worry about.  All the Asgard—Thor's home planet, er realm—scenes have their touch of silliness, but most of them don't last long enough to be too obnoxious.  When Asgardians visit Earth, however, hilarity truly ensues.  There is much intentional comedy within this action film, which adds to the heart of the picture.  When Thor's quartet of friends travel to Earth complete in their Dungeons and Dragons convention costumes, a lesser filmmaker wouldn't have noticed the inherent absurdity in that situation, but Branagh did.  Even the "can you repeat that?" Thor lore is spiced up with comedy, since no one can pronounce let alone understand what Mjölnir is.  It's rare, but some of the dialog is actually clever!  A pretty predictable but nevertheless rewarding ongoing gag about stealing computer equipment actually made the audience laugh—every time.

But basically where the film excels is where it isn't heavyhanded, where is allows the words and the actors to move the scene instead of CGI or battles.  The soft scenes outweigh the bombastic ones in both quality and interest; you hardly care that Thor is fighting some laser machine, you just want him to beat it and get on to the next scene.  The least interesting scene in the whole film is probably the most CGI-ridden, where Thor and his comrades travel to an ice planet to beat-up some Ice Giants and a faux-rancor monster.  Totally boring.

From a technical standpoint, the cinematography was exciting if not typical of the current action film lens flair style.  The Costumes are absurd, yet appropriately absurd, I think, the best someone could do to recreate the style present in the comics.  Set designs for Asgard are gaudy at best, but it's again the Earth scenes that are the highlight; while hearkening back to 1950s-style small-town-in-the-middle-of-a-desert look, designers Bo Welch, Maya Shimoguchi, Lauri Gaffin create a distinct atmosphere in Thor that somehow helps with the believability of a God landing in the desert.

Overall, though it has many faults, Thor has the chops of not only a great superhero film, but a great film.  For me, it ranks somewhere in the league with but below Iron Man, Spider-Man and Batman Begins, and handedly above The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Wolverine.  The wonderful Natalie Portman and the underused Kat Dennings are luminous as the human counterparts to Hemsworth's Thor, yet any and all Asgard residents (sleepwalking Anthony Hopkins' Odin and iron-jawed Tom Hiddleston's Loki) could have done much, much more.  For the many inside references to the upcoming Avengers, they all play too much into the hand of super-fans to actually be entertaining.  There's a scene where a soon-to-be Avenger appears, that falls totally flat by virtue of the unknown nature of both the actor and said hero.

Nevertheless, with Hemsworth and Downey Jr. on board for the Avengers project, I'm slightly less critical about this than I initially was.  If they can capture the magic that Thor did, I think we'll be in fine condition.  GRADE: B+

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10,000 B.C., Semi-Pro, 27 Dresses, Trailers

I did something this weekend, I haven’t done in a long time. I went to the show three days in a row. The mediocrity of all three offerings, plus a series of coming attractions trailers that had me praying for death, leads me to believe I’ll be spending more time at home watching DVDs and TCM than I will going to the local cineplex.

I didn’t expect much from “10,000 B.C” but it wasn’t as bad as I thought. Granted it wasn’t very good, but most pre-historic movies aren’t. The film seems to be set in some alternate dimension, where primitive man trod the Earth with prehistoric beasts, while still having the intellect to construct giant pyramids. Omar Sharif narrates, and tells us at one point that the pyramid builders (the villains) came from an island that sank, so I assume we are meant to believe they are refugees from Atlantis, with its more advanced civilization. Naturally there’s a hero and a heroine who are prophesied to do great things for their people. Why must everyone fulfill a prophecy these days? Why can’t they just embark on an adventure without their fates being foretold in the stars, or some such hooey?

It sounds like I’m knocking it, and I am, but I wasn’t bored. Probably the best scene involves the humans being attacked by some giant birds. I also enjoyed the wooly mammoth stampede at the end, on ramps leading up and down the pyramids. That’s something you don’t see every day. I haven’t mentioned the cast, because I didn’t know anyone in it, but they’re buff enough and certainly acquire themselves no worse than any other cave people in film history. At least it’s less than two hours, which these days earns it an extra half star.

Rating for “10,000 B.C”: Two and a half stars.

“Semi-Pro” is the latest “comedy” from Will Ferrell, and it’s pretty bad. It’s just as bad as another Ferrell comedy, last year’s “Blades of Glory” which is really saying something. “Semi-Pro” is set in the 1970s with Ferrell as Jackie Moon, who serves as the promotions director, coach and player of the Flint (Michigan) Tropics, a basketball team in the dying American Basketball Association. The ABA may merge with the NBA, but the NBA is only going to take four teams. The four teams with the best winning records will join the NBA and the other teams will be dissolved. Lots of hijinks to ensure a winning season, and fill the stands with screaming fans.

Ferrell is often exhausting to watch, so determined is he to make us laugh. He reminds me of early Danny Kaye, so frantic and loud that you wouldn’t want to be in the same room with him. I will admit to laughing at a scene where he throws up for the first time in his life (fortunately we don’t see this). Tasteless to be sure, but the build-up is funny. And a poker game scene with a gun is funny. But the laughs are few and far between, I’m afraid, at least for me. Ferrell is talented, such as in the screamingly funny “Anchorman” (2004), but “Semi-Pro” was a waste of his talent and our time.

Rating for “Semi-Pro”: One and a half stars.

On Monday night I went to the Tivoli Theater in Downers Grove, one of the greatest theaters in the Chicago area, to see “27 Dresses.” Normally not my type of movie, but I love going to the Tivoli so much that I’ll see pretty much anything there. It’s a beautiful theater that opened in 1928 with gorgeous French Renaissance architecture inside. It hasn’t been cut up into multiple screens, so we’re able to enjoy the huge screen in the large auditorium (which seats about 900 people). What a jewel and gem of a theater.

Oh yeah, “27 Dresses.” I like romantic comedies if they’re good, but this one was just average. Katherine Heigl plays Jane, a good-hearted woman who has been a bridesmaid 27 times, but never has the time for her own life. James Marsden plays Kevin (fine name for a character) a reporter who covers weddings, and I like Marsden. He was good as the Prince Charming character in “Enchanted” (2007) and he’s equally good here as he looks on Jane’s frantic life with a bemused affection.

Unfortunately, Jane is in love with her boss George (a zombie-like Edward Burns). Complications ensue when George falls in love with Jane’s sister Tess (Malin Akerman) and Tess wants Jane to plan her wedding. It’s harmless enough, I guess, but formulaic and very contrived. George is such a bore, you have to wonder why she doesn’t latch on to Kevin right away. Kevin has so much more personality and likeability than George, but then most men named Kevin are the superior beings.

Jane and Tess finally have it out in a hardware store scene that has to be seen to be believed, with mood shifts dictated solely by the screenwriter’s attempts to wrap it up as quickly as possible. And they say old movies are unrealistic?

Rating for “27 Dresses”: Two stars.

And then there were the previews. Dear God, save me now. I don’t even know where to begin. I know you can’t judge a movie by its trailer, but if the purpose of a trailer is to entice people into the theater, these convinced me to stay far, far away.

Let’s see, there was the movie version of “Sex and the City.” Never saw the show, so this holds zero appeal to me, but fans of the show will undoubtedly like it.

“The Happening” the new film from M. Night Shyamalan, looks very intriguing, and I like Mark Walhberg. I’ll be checking that one out.

“Wanted”, what looks to be a colossal piece of garbage starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and Morgan Freeman. What are they doing in this? Lord, this looks awful. Lots of CGI on display, because, after all, you can’t shoot an action movie anymore using real stuntmen and real explosions. Nope, you need special effects to have your characters defy the laws of physics in ways that no human being ever could. This is to satisfy the tastes of the idiot teenagers and young men weaned on video games who want their movies to duplicate their video game experiences. I was originally looking forward to this, since it was filmed in Chicago and right outside the building where I work, but it looks like a truly excruciating experience. Loud and stupid, like most action movies today are. Damn video games.

“Iron Man” More good actors in what looks to be the silliest movie of the summer. The loudest, most annoying heavy metal music ever, played at ear-splitting levels on this trailer, had me wishing for an aspirin. And Iron Man can fly too. I don’t think I’ve seen a sillier sight in a trailer than Iron Man flying through the air. Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges – what are they doing in a movie version of “Iron Man?” Surely they didn’t need the work that badly. Enough with the comic book movies, please.

“Prince Caspian” the Narnia sequel, looks good. No heavy metal garbage blasting away, thank you.

“The Dark Knight” or whatever they’re calling the new Batman movie. I’ll probably go see this since it was filmed in Chicago, and again, in front of the building where I work, so it will be fun to see so many familiar sights. But I thought the last one, “Batman Begins”, was an overrated bore, and since it’s being directed by the same guy, Christopher Nolan, who also gave us one of the worst movies of all time, “The Prestige” (2007), I won’t be holding my breath. Hopefully Nolan hired a second unit director to help stage the action sequences, because the fight scenes in his last Batman movie were pitifully amateurish. Enough with the comic book movies, please.

“What Happens in Vegas” a comedy with those paragons of wit, elegance and sophistication, Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher. I’ll likely be a grumpy old man when that comes out, stay home and watch a William Powell and Myrna Loy movie instead.