Justice League review

Well, whether we wanted it or not, Warner Bros have released the not-very-long-awaited “Justice League.” Of the film’s six central heroes (Wonder Woman, Batman, Superman, Aquaman, Cyborg and The Flash) we’ve only been properly introduced to three of them.  This started with director and producer Zack Snyder’s 2011 “Man of Steel” and continued with last year’s misbegotten franchise booster-shot “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice,” which teased a Wonder Woman cameo, who, earlier this summer, starred in what has so-far been the DC cinematic universe’s only coherent origin story.  Somewhere in all of that, we were also treated to the stylistically confused, tangential distraction known as “Suicide Squad,” which added nothing to the world of pop-culture other than insufferable Joker/Harley Quinn true-love memes and bad tattoo ideas.

But this is it; this what is what all that other non-sense was leading up to. This was supposed to be Warner’s live-action “Super Friends” that would rival the blockbuster assembly-line that is Disney’s Marvel Cinematic Universe. How well did it accomplish this goal, you might ask? Well, unlike the bulk of the DCU’s previous efforts—“Wonder Woman” notwithstanding—“Justice League” makes narrative sense, insomuch that is has a beginning, a middle and an end, and for 10-15 minute increments the unintentional camp that comes from Snyder’s inability to understand cinema beyond its ornamental surfaces overlaps with the most base pleasantries that come with superhero genre storytelling.

A race of interdimensional locust people is brought upon our world by a demi-god warrior known as Steppenwolf who wants to transform our planet into an apocalyptic kingdom. Superman (Henry Cavill) is still dead, so Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck) travels the globe to recruit the world’s strongest remaining meta-humans. These super-powered beings include the naive and socially-awkward Barry Allen/The Flash (Ezra Miller), the brutish sea-merchant and low-key water-god Arthur Curry/Aquaman (Jason Momoa), the surprisingly still-relevant Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot), and the barely-necessary Victor Stone/Cyborg (Ray Fisher). Together they must prevent Steppenwolf from weaponizing three magic cubes that generate enough raw energy to transform our planet.

“Justice League” isn’t totally unwatchable but within an era with endless, formulaic superhero flicks, it reeks of being too little, too early. The story is practically Mad-Libbed from stock comic-book movie tropes and since most of the previous entries in this franchise failed to give us compelling arcs for these characters—some of which we are only getting to know here—it becomes impossible to invest in the film’s message of togetherness. The screenplay is front-loaded with catch-ups and mini-origins, setting up each hero and giving them individual goals to accomplish by the film’s end. Because these characters are so loosely drawn and inconsequential to the plot, this ultimately feels like a waste of time and a slow lead up to the movie’s more pressing concerns with its villain and the possible resurrection of Superman—which, by the way, is not all that interesting either.

As far as action-spectacle goes, this is one of the sloppiest visual productions to have ever come from this director. I haven’t always responded positively to Snyder’s style of green-screen-driven art design, the slow-mo action sequences, or the artificial lighting schemes and color-correction that makes the bulk of his work look like high-budget Linkin Park videos, but even on that level, “Justice League” struggled to blend the actors into their CGI environments and hiding the unnatural physics behind the wire effects. Despite its bloated budget, this feels like discount Zack Snyder, and with a story as shallow and rehashed as this, the movie's effects deficit becomes all the more severe.

You may have heard that this film is better than expected (or even good) because it has a better sense of humor. Yes, unlike the dreadfully serious “Batman v Superman,” there’s Marvel-style jokes and quip-y dialogue (perhaps penned from quip-master himself, Joss Whedon, who stepped in to complete the last leg of the production) and occasionally Gal Gadot and Ezra Miller help to keep the group dynamics lively as they plod from one telegraphed set-piece to another, but as a piece of cinema there’s nothing here original or compelling enough to make up for the multi-car pileup that preceded and laid the foundation for its making.

Grade: D+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Nov-2017

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Justice League."

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice review

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Many were worried that Warner Bros’ rush to compete with Disney/Marvel’s brand of interconnected comic-book movie franchises would lead to something too ambitious and too concerned with setting up future projects to really stand on its own. “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” suffers from all of that and it’s so much worse than we could have expected. 

Spawned as semi-sequel to 2013’s “Man of Steel,” director Zack Snyder was given the directive by the studio to create a movie-universe that could churn out many of its own sequels and spinoffs. Therefore, it needed to continue Snyder’s Superman narrative, introduce a new conceptual take on Batman--now played by “Daredevil” star Ben Affleck--establish a foundation for the forthcoming Justice League film and somehow wrangle all of these ideas in one succinct way. “Batman v Superman” is anything but succinct, in fact, it’s an incomprehensible Frankenstein of a movie. 

The film begins with a montage recapping Batman’s origin story, in case you somehow forgot it from the previous six Batman flicks. It ends with Bruce watching a skyscraper he owns in Metropolis destroyed during Superman’s battle with General Zod; the same orgiastic destruction sequence that concluded “Man of Steel” and put off a lot of viewers with its clumsy 9/11 evocations. Henry Cavill’s Superman/Clark Kent is now seen as hero by some and a danger by others, which has further developed his Christ complex that eventually leads him into problems by the third act. Said danger comes in the form of Lex Luther (Jesse Eisenberg) who’s discovered Superman’s only weakness, Kryptonite, as well as functioning Kryptonian technology at the bottom of the ocean. Through a convoluted and frustrating plot involving Russian gangsters, encrypted spy decoding, classified bullets, crippled Zod survivors and Lois Lane always managing to be at the wrong place at the right time, Lex manages to get Batman and Superman to fight. Oh yeah, and for some indiscernible reason, Gal Gadot makes an appearance as Wonder Woman, complete with her own corny heavy metal theme. 

This movie barely makes any sense. Plot threads are started and then later abandoned and the character’s motivations are solely dictated by which set-piece they need to get to next, but those who’ve followed Snyder’s past work (“300,” “Watchmen,” “Sucker Punch”) should know that story has never been the director’s strong suit. Generally speaking, suits seem to be his strong suit – costume and production design is where his interests have always gravitated and the more narrative or emotional heavy lifting he is asked to do the harder he fails as a storyteller. 

Certainly “Man of Steel” had its problems but at least the movie held together and Cavill really fit the part as Superman. Here both he and Affleck look visibly bored on screen, as does Amy Adams, whose Lois Lane has been relegated to a paging device to make Superman appear whenever she needs to be rescued. Eisenberg is devouring the scenery and embracing the unintended camp of it all, but even he comes off as overly manic compared to the stone-faced zombies he’s trying (usually, too hard) to play against.  

With all of the different studio notes and competing plots shoved into this two and half hour edit, the movie's been patched into a messy collage of incongruent scenes and story elements that shift back and forth like an extended recap that plays before the next season of a television show. Snyder likes to highlight his epic comic-book-y tableaus and there’s enough ‘cool’ imagery to cut together an exciting trailer but even the fanboys will be hard-pressed to defend this labored clunker, as it fails to anchor enough emotional grounding to make any fight worth investing in.   

Grade: D -

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/March-2016

Listen to more discussion about "Batman v Superman" on this week's Jabber and the Drone Podcast.

Gone Girl review

              With the bulk of David Fincher’s films there exists an exciting tension that comes from the dichotomy between the pulpy familiarity of the genres he plays around in and the classical, detail-oriented approach in which he presents them. Whether it’s a gimmicky serial killer thriller like “Se7en”, a paranoid chase mystery like “The Game” or police procedural like “Zodiac,” Fincher always maximizes the drama of every scene with a precise eye for camera placement and a deliberate pace that in today’s mode of mainstream filmmaking would typically be seen as a liability. Come to think of it, amongst all the comic book adaptations and the franchise blockbusters, Fincher is one of the only filmmakers working today that's allowed to make large-scale, slow-burning pop-corn flicks for grown-ups.

                “Gone Girl” is based on the best-selling airport novel and adapted by the book’s author Gillian Flynn, and like aforementioned films, this is another exploration of what would normally be seen as B-movie terrain, but crafted with an assured hand.  Every scene is meticulously blocked and designed and the sleek, steel-cool tone of this potboiler gracefully glides along, lulling you into every bear-trap that's built into the narrative. Surprisingly, even when the story changes gears halfway through and solves what seemed to be the propelling force of the drama, the characters are so conflicted with interesting contradictions that the movie quickly recovers from the jarring switch.

                On the surface, the plot seems like the type of stuff most lifetime movies are made of. Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) is a seemingly dutiful husband who, on the day of his wedding anniversary, comes home to find that his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) has gone missing, with some evidence in the house suggesting a violent struggle. After a few days of building media attention, Nick becomes the prime suspect and his personal life, as well as the intimate details of his marriage, becomes scrutinized and analyzed by every outsider looking in, including the small town detectives working on the case (Kim Dickens and Patrick Fugit), his twin sister (Carrie Coon), and his high-profile, celebrity lawyer (Tyler Perry).

                As a performance-driven film, the success of this stylish neo-noir is totally dependent on the ability of its actors. Whether they're cast against type or because of their extratextual association with their characters, such as Ben Affleck, whose relationship with the public has always been a bit of rollercoaster, the film mines every performance for latent connotations that the audience might bring and uses them to either support the plot or to purposely mislead you. Tyler Perry’s goody-goody reputation is played against his confident lawyer role, while television’s Neil Patrick Harris plays Amy’s all-too-concerned and creepy ex-boyfriend Desi.  Rosamund Pike as the icy New York socialite-come-small-town-homemaker not only keeps the story’s problematic sexual politics from getting in her way, but, even as many of her scenes are shown in flashback, ends up stealing the entire movie.

                Despite just how high-concept and silly this thing eventually gets, building slowly from a mournful mystery to a shockingly violent fever-pitch, Fincher’s knack for storytelling pulls you into this almost three hour spectacle without a single minute wasted. In using the same technical team behind his last few movies “The Social Network” and “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” his collaborations have created a shorthand between the cinematography, editing, and sound design that hums in near-perfect harmony.  The sparse visual sense by director of photography Jeff Cronenweth and the melancholy ambiance of Atticus Ross and Trent Reznor’s score drenches every scene in tonal atmosphere, creating a heightened dream-like reality in which this movie is afforded the pleasure of straddling the line between observant social satire and sleazy, late-night cable-television camp.

                                                                                                                                         

Grade: B+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Oct -2014