Black Panther review

“Black Panther” finds itself in a middle of an explosion of black-oriented superhero content. In 2016 Netflix released the first season of their Marvel series Luke Cage, featuring a black urban superhero and a soundtrack by New York hip-hop legends A Tribe Called Quest, and there's a second season set for release later this year. In response, the CW released the first season of the DC hero Black Lightning, which premiered January 2018. On the heels of this new hunger for racially diverse representation, Marvel released “Black Panther,” co-written and directed by black director Ryan Coogler and featuring a predominately black cast, with the hopes of still attracting the widest possible global audience.

This story imagines a free country in the heart of Africa known as Wakanda, which has been hidden and protected from colonists, war, famine, disease, or any of the other factors that have devastated much of the known continent. Through the abundance of a powerful alien ore known as Vibranium, Wakanda has become the most technologically advanced nation the world has never known, and by avoiding conflicts with other world governments, the area has been able to thrive in secret. Chadwick Boseman plays T’Challa, the young heir to the Wakandan throne after his father, the previous Black Panther, was killed in the political bombings featured in "Captain America: Civil War."

T’Challa is alerted to action by an Oakland-based young freedom fighter known as Eric Killmonger (Michael B. Jordan), who wishes to challenge the African leader for the technology Wakanda is hoarding from the rest of the world’s black society. It’s then up to Black Panther to keep his land protected from any outside threat, whilst the nation itself is arguing whether or not they should risk exposing their power through defensive battle abroad. Along for the ride is the three women in T'Challa's life that help protect the hero in different ways; his warrior bodyguard Okoye (Danai Gurira), his little sister Shuri (Letitia Wright), who works as a weapons specialist, and his politically active and ideologically driven partner Nakia (Lupita Nyong’o).  

This incredible ensemble also includes Martin Freeman, Daniel Kaluuya, Angela Basset, Forest Whitaker and Andy Serkis.  

Coogler’s first foray into large-scale, effects-driven action filmmaking features an exciting cast, wildly colorful production design, overt science-fiction premises and charged political points of view, and by most accounts, this mainstream Marvel release manages to hit most of its targets as the plot unfolds, but not without a few stumbles along the way.

Coogler’s cinematic training in independent film is a bit narrow and his camera placement is oddly closed-in. Much of film is done in traditional coverage, containing a lot of close-ups and mid-shots, which underutilizes the movie’s grand Afrofuturist production design and reveals just how much of the movie is actually spent on conversation set-pieces and walk and talks. Because the movie—to its credit--is more interested in battles of ideology rather than blockbuster action scenes, the few action pillars that hold up the longer dialogue driven sequences are open to harsher critique and don’t always satisfy the audience’s patience.  The best action moment in the film takes place at a casino in Busan, South Korea and it concludes with an exciting car chase. The ritualistic hand to hand challenges for the throne that take place on a Wakandan waterfall contains fewer effects but they have an emotional grounding in the story. In contrast, the concluding battle sequence as well as the final fight between Black Panther and Killmonger safely puts the movie on autopilot and concludes without surprises.

Despite my grievances with some of the technical elements of the film and the lack of sustained dramatic tension when it comes to the relationship between the hero and the villain—the script is often stretched too thin, trying to cover all its bases—I fully acknowledge that the reasons a person of color might be excited by this film are far more interesting than the reasons I might find fault with it. It’s not a perfect piece of genre filmmaking but it’s certainly unique and is working through a lot of bigger ideas, and if a Marvel superhero film can get teenagers to start talking about passivism, globalism, and post-colonialism without it feeling like homework, then I can forgive the pacing issues and the unintentional camp.

Grade: B-

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Feb-2018

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about Black Panther. 

Thor: Ragnarok review

Marvel’s “Thor: Ragnarok” sits neatly into the newest phase of the post-millennial cinematic superhero boom; the ironic, smart-aleck phase. After years of sincere, emotionally grounded superhero films and a couple years of gritty, nihilistic superhero films, with the focus mostly on charismatic, reluctant savior archetypes, it would appear that the genre is now in a self-reflexive, experimental mood, no-longer interested in retelling the same tired Campbellian origin stories. This is best exemplified with the success of Marvel’s quirky “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, Fox’s snarky “Deadpool” movie and Warner’s recut and confused “Suicide Squad.” We’ve seen referential superhero comedies before, like Mathew Vaughn’s “Kick-Ass” and James Gunn’s pre-Guardians indie film “Super,” but it’s that these new films are made within the established cannon of their respective cinematic universes that their tonal risks are all the more pronounced.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor returns to the magic realm of Asgard, only to discover that his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) has failed to keep away his long lost sister Hela (Cate Blanchett), who was banished from the kingdom centuries ago for being a murderous war monger. Having returned stronger than ever, she pushes Thor and his trickster brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) into a junk-yard planet that is ruled by a flaky aristocrat (Jeff Goldblum) who keeps his subjugated people entertained with gladiatorial battles. Thor is eventually captured by a binge-drinking ex-Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) and forced to fight his fellow Avenger, Bruce Banner/Hulk (Mark Ruffalo). Meanwhile, Hela has reclaimed the Asgardian throne and is making her plans to invade neighboring realms.

“Thor: Ragnarok” separates itself from the previous two entrees in the franchise by embracing this new shift into broader storytelling and wilder myth-making. The movie’s aesthetic is knowingly campy and filled with flashy, colorful visuals that zip through every frame. Along with Mark Mothersbaugh’s synth-laden score, this new look and approach—very much informed by “Guardians of the Galaxy”—taps into a pinball arcade peppiness that activates every artistic choice New Zealand director Tiaka Waititi commits to. Unlike the first two Thor films, which were beholden to some earth-bound characters and natural settings to help fit the character into the norms of the conventional superhero mold, Ragnarok has untethered its earthly concerns and introduces us to a host of new space-ships, aliens, mythic monsters and ancient prophecies.

There are times when Ragnarok’s ties to the other Marvel films is cumbersome. Many plot points refers back to the other adventures by the Avengers and many of the movie’s in-jokes refer to what we have come to know about these characters over the last six years. As such, I’m not sure how well this installment stands on its own. The wild joy-ride this story takes us on is unpredictable and refreshing in its full embrace of silliness but there are also moments when the movie is throwing so much at us all at once, that things get momentarily cluttered and borderline incoherent. Waititi keeps all the moving pieces connected just enough that the narrative doesn’t split at the seams, but Blanchett’s darker Asgardian takeover plot is largely pushed away by the lighter gladiatorial stuff, with Jeff Goldblum looking like an extra from the 1980 disco cult-film “The Apple.” This isn’t a detriment to a movie that wants to be funnier and louder in its aesthetic approach, but it does leave the mechanics of the storytelling noticeably uneven.

Waititi took this material, which by 2013’s dower “Thor: The Dark World” had overstayed its welcome, and injected new life into it by strategically stepping away from superhero formulas. Everyone here is having a good time, and you should too. This is a wild, messy space-opera buffet, and as such, feel free to bring a bib and dig in. While there isn’t much here in the way nutritious substance beyond the simple joys of its creative surfaces,  but “Thor: Ragnarok” certainly lives up to its objective as being a spectacle with it's own comedic personality.

Grade: B+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Nov-2017

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Spider-Man: Homecoming review

After a battle of tug of war between Disney’s Marvel Studios and Sony Pictures, the rights of the Marvel’s flagship character Spider-Man has finally reverted back to its company of origin. We got our first glimpse of their version of the hero in 2016’s “Captain America: Civil War” and here he’s back with his own movie, but unlike the two previous Spider-Man franchises, directed by Marc Webb and Sam Raimi, “Spider-Man: Homecoming” is not interested in retelling the Peter Parker’s origin story or centering the action around a love story. 

Tom Holland stars as the film’s lead, and this story picks up right where his appearance in “Civil War” left off. Peter is 15 years old and having just kicked some butt with Avengers, he’s now desperate to do anything that can get their attention. Tony Stark/Iron-Man (Robert Downey Jr.) gives him and his automated spider-suit a ride back to his suburban home in Queens, but demands that the young lad keeps his web-slinging to a minimum and that he wait for an official call before jumping back into some serious action. Being a teenager with superpowers, Peter ignores these requests and stumbles upon an adventure in which he has to stop a group of local thieves from stealing and manufacturing alien technology to aid in their selling of dangerous and unstable weaponry.

Similar to Raimi’s Spider-Man/Green Goblin arc in his 2001 entry, Holland’s secret life of doing good deeds around his neighborhood is mirrored by Michael Keaton’s tech-inspired power-high as the villain The Vulture. The two paths cross and intertwine more and more as the story unfolds and their hero/villain dynamics are some of the strongest we’ve seen from Marvel Studios, who often struggle to portray compelling villain narratives.

Given that we’ve seen the Spider-Man origin story twice now, and we’ve seen him inspired to rescue a love interest by the movie’s end, I was happy to see this movie avoid those tired tropes. I am also very impressed with Holland’s upbeat, naïve take on the character, yet I found myself regularly pulled out of the film by Marvel’s insistence with interjecting this standalone adventure with its own branding. Because Spider-Man doesn’t have to prove himself to Mary Jane, squelch his guilt over his dead uncle or save the humanity of Harry Osborne, his sole motivation for being a superhero this time around is to someday join the Avengers. That’s fine, I guess, but by treating Spider-Man as just another Marvel fanboy it makes it harder for us to invest in his wants and desires as a protagonist and it renders the more dramatic moments of the film’s conflict rather light and minimal in scope.  

“Spider-Man: Homecoming” is a new take on the character. The supporting cast is full of a lot more color and diversity, Aunt May is now played by the younger Marisa Tomei (wish she been given a little more to do) and Peter even has an uncomplicated friendship with another geeky outsider named Ned, played by newcomer Jacob Batalon (wish he had been given a little less to do.)  I appreciate the small stakes of this Queens-specific story, the action scenes work well enough—in that expensive, unspecific way we’ve come to know from the MCU—and, generally speaking, I like the amiable tone of this version of Spider-Man, but every time Tony Stark had to fly in to save the day or every time another Avengers reference was dropped I found myself rolling my eyes at the Studio’s desperation to remind us that they’ve won IP rights back from Sony.

Grade: B

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/July-2017

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Spider-Man: Homecoming."

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol: 2 review

How does Marvel Studios and writer/director James Gunn follow up their idiosyncratic space-opera send up, “Guardians of the Galaxy?” Despite its undeniable success, the pressure to live up the ever-growing reputation of their 2014 blockbuster had be daunting, considering the specific tone and aesthetic approach these creators allowed for the project.  I am happy to say that while “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol: 2” doesn’t capture the same lightning in a bottle, I-can’t-believe-they’re-getting-away-with-this quality of its predecessor, Gunn still brings his subversive sensibilities to the table with enthusiasm.

After botching a trade deal with a race of golden, elitist aliens called The Sovereign, the Guardians hightail it to the other side of the galaxy to find safety. Peter Quill/Starlord (Chris Pratt), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) and Gamora (Zoe Saldana) find refuge on a heavenly planet manned by a glowing, bearded celestial named Ego (Kurt Russell) who’s claiming to be Peter’s father.  Separated from the group, Rocket Raccoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and the baby tree elemental Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) are crash landed on a forest planet with Gamora’s violent sister Nebula (Karen Gillan), hiding from Peter’s old clan of space pirates led by the vengeful Yandu (Michael Rooker).  Making things all the more complicated, the pirates are staging a mutiny, believing that Yandu himself has been too soft on Peter’s betrayal.

Gunn’s love for the character’s is evident throughout the plot, which, unlike a lot of Marvel’s on-screen adaptations, is rooted in pathos. Every scene and set-piece advances a character’s role in the story and has a overall goal towards supporting the theme of outsiders looking to form new families. While there are plenty of expensive special effects to gawk at and many visual gags and quips in the dialog to laugh at, the whole thing is held together by Gunn’s strength in character-driven, emotional storytelling. That said, the special effects are at times overwhelmingly glossy, sometimes losing a true sense of tactility, and the humor occasionally slips into try-hard territory.

While the previous film found it’s humor in the on-screen interactions and the outlandish circumstances of the plot, along with moments of sarcastic dialogue, this script feels a more punched-up with a joke-per-page quota that has to be met. This expectation for comedy leaves some quips and gags falling flat while other jokes and setups feel more naturally integrated. Overall, the storytelling and the conviction of the actors in their roles supports even the film’s weaker attempts at humor.

“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol:2” can’t surprise us like it did the first time around and one can find faults in its minutia but the takeaway is still the same—this is a fun group of weirdos to follow and even if you don’t know where things are going in the plot, you’re always invested in their colorful antics. Gunn’s themes about fatherhood and legacy ring true, even as they are heavily dressed in neon, arcade-game production design and delivered through jokey dialogue. Marvel fans and movie fans alike should treasure this weird little niche that Gunn and his cohorts have carved out for themselves.

Grade: B+

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/May-2017

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol:2"

Doctor Strange review

Marvel Studios is an anomaly of modern populist filmmaking. Based partly on the rules of comic book publications, serialized television and the producer-driven classical studio system, Kevin Feige and the other Marvel executives designed a fruitful model that spawns and nurtures multiple, converging franchises that can share and swap characters. They’ve also successfully introduced general, non-geek audiences to super-dorky pulp characters like Thor, Ant-Man, The Vision, the whole Guardians of the Galaxy team and now, their nerdiest character of all, Doctor Strange. The reason audiences continually eat this up is because of the studio’s steady oversight and a strict style-guide that keeps their films uniformed and consistent. In the case of Scott Derrickson’s “Doctor Strange” this same-ness, delivers an amiable blockbuster but stifles the possibilities for creative experimentation.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays our hero Doctor Steven Strange, a smug celebrity neurosurgeon who’s looking to execute a complicated procedure that will further elevate his status. Amid this pursuit, Strange is seriously injured in a car-accident that leaves his hands unable to perform with precision. As he travels the world looking for a miracle surgery that will allow him to work again, he discovers a house of mystics in Katmandu that promise to show him ways to heal himself through the use of magic and sorcery. Strange is then caught up in a secret war between the temple’s Sorcerer Supreme (Tilda Swinton) and a band of rogue magicians, led by a disgruntled student of the dark-arts named Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) who’s hell-bent on bringing an evil entity upon the earth.

Derrickson’s history in horror filmmaking (“Sinister,” “The Exorcism of Emily Rose,” “Deliver Us From Evil”) could have easily gone hand in hand with the occult-leanings of the Marvel’s magician hero. Instead of punching his way to victory or blowing up his opponents with wrist-rockets, Doctor Strange uses his intellect and skills as a sorcerer to defeat other-worldly foes. Yet, what we are given in this movie is another standard superhero origin story about a reluctant hero who must overcome his own hubris for the good of man-kind. Many beats of the plot repeat what we’ve recently seen in “Iron Man,” “Thor” and “Ant-Man,” and the shiny, non-threatening tone of Marvel’s happy-meal presentation disguises every genre cliché with lavish sets and complicated special effects.

 

The post-Matrix/post-Inception visuals and the film's art-direction is spectacular and eye-popping—particularly the set-pieces and fight-sequences that take place among the shifting and folding Escher-esq cityscapes—but they are placed almost randomly and with very little stakes within the story. Most of the screenplay consists of long sequences where Swinton’s Ancient One and Chiwetel Ejiofor’s Mordo explain to Cumberbatch all the ins and outs of mirror realms and astral projection and forbidden libraries and magic imbued weapons and so on and so on. To the credit of the screenwriters and the performances from the actors, this exposition-heavy dialogue is peppered with enough humor and whit to distract from its utilitarian function.

Aside from a slightly rushed plot and another stale Marvel-Studios villain with a weird face, “Doctor Strange” is perfectly entertaining and keeps true to the company brand, but it’s the very nature of this idiosyncratic character that begs for a less calculated approach. Given Derrickson’s past work and given the prestigious background of the cast, the movie’s familiar superhero trappings are more nakedly obvious and its getting increasingly harder to overlook Marvel’s unwillingness to challenge their formula.

Grade: B-

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Nov-2016

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

Captain America: Civil War review

Whether it’s “Batman v Superman” or Hillary v Bernie or Trump v the eventual democratic nominee, this has been a year of highly publicized, clashing ideologies. Marvel’s “Captain America: Civil War” is based on a 2008 run of “Avengers” comics about a government plan to register superheroes to end vigilantism. The fictional law split the team down the middle and for six or so issues the heroes fought on different sides of the issue. This film takes the bones of that premise and carries over the “choose your side” marketing hook, playing into the vaguely political, red verses blue temperature of this year’s election cycle. The movie itself, however, isn’t nearly as divisive or as politically minded as even the comic presented said dispute and instead settles into the usual action blockbuster, good guy/ bad guy stuff that easier to tell and, of course, easier to sell.

After the Avengers botched a rescue mission in Africa and one of their own, Scarlett Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), is held responsible for the failure to psychically contain an explosion, the U.S government presents the group with a new global initiative to have every member contracted with the government. Steve Rogers/Captain America (Chris Evans) sees the Sokkovia Accords as a possible hindrance to the team’s overall effectiveness and rightfully doesn’t want to The Avengers or any other super-team become militarized. Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) feels guilty about the mass destruction involved in taking down aliens, gods and sentient robots and agrees that it’s better for the team to play ball. They fight. And hey, Marvel has the rights to Spider-Man now, so he fights too.

Joe and Anthony Russo, the same team who brought us the considerably better “Captain America: Winter Soldier,” presents superhero material with a certain amount of gravitas and grit that lacks in most of the other Marvel films. Through the first half of the movie, while they set up their chess pieces on their narrative board, the seeds of an interesting and emotionally satisfying political-ish thriller are promised. Bucky Barns/Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan) may or may not have turned back to the dark side, T’Challa/Black Panther is looking for retribution after losing his father during the movie’s inciting incident, and the other team members, such as Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), War Machine (Don Cheadle), Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Vision (Paul Bettany) all have interesting and compelling reasons for choosing the sides they fight for. That’s why it’s all the more deflating when the movie forgets to pay off or conclude any of the previous threads of this grounded Boun-esque thriller and slides comfortably into blockbuster auto-pilot for the final third, when the Russos grab their action figures and clack them together in a big, silly fight. Whatever resolution we do get is merely there to set up a future sequel and the battle of ideologies presented in the initial Civil War concept is somewhat easily resolved.

Reservation’s aside, before the story reveals all its cards and before the narrative tension is eased, this movie is pretty damn satisfying and is still somewhat sophisticated for the genre. As with any Avengers team-up flick—and make no mistake, this is an Avengers film through and through— there’s a lot of characters to keep track of and a lot of plates to keep spinning, and in that regard “Captain America: Civil War,” while less consistent, is substantially better than the previous Avengers adventures. The plot gives up two thirds in, and Spider-Man is shoe-horned in for pandering, fan-baiting reasons (full disclosure: I took the bait and it tastes pretty good) but it can’t be ignored that this installment contains some of Marvel’s most impactful action scenes and strongest performances yet.

Grade: B-

Originally written for The Idaho State Journal/May-2016

Listen to this week's episode of Jabber and the Drone to hear more conversation about "Captain America: Civil War"

Ant Man review

Marvel’s latest entree “Ant Man” is a curious bobble of a film that dares a non-comic-initiated audience to hold on to the general appeal of charismatic actors bouncing around in CGI environments without the comfort or ease of John Wayne approved heroic posturing to get them through. What I’m trying to say is this movie is unabashedly geeky, in way that Marvel Studios might have underestimated a regular movie going audience to roll with without noticing. And good for it! “Guardians of the Galaxy” was definitely weird—what with talking trees and smart-alecky raccoons and what-not—but it was also nestled in a space-opera/fantasy trope that the average beer-drinking, football-throwing American’s can recognize from their childhoods as far back as “Star Wars.”  “Ant Man,” on the other hand, is a little more niche.

Michael Douglas plays Hank Pym, a scientist who learned how to shrink himself down while still having the ability to fight with the strength of ten men. He was forced to leave his secret government agency, where he fought as a spy, after he learned that the wrong developers wanted to use his tech for dangerous, military purposes. Fast-forward thirty years into the future and a younger protégée of Pym named Darren Cross (“Corey Stoll) has seemed to develop a similar enough technology that Pym feels the need to interject.  Enter a white-caller cat-burgler and hacker named Scott Lange (“Paul Rudd”), who’s trying to get his life and family together after finally being released from prison. He’s tricked by Pym into breaking his parole to steal the Ant Man shrinking suit, and after some light blackmail he  agrees to help the older inventor break into Cross’s facility to destroy the progress of the dangerous Yellowjacket.

Despite scenes of Paul Rudd learning how to telepathically control ants into sugaring his coffee or flying on the back of harnessed insects, this is basically a heist movie at its core, with a mark, a plan of action, and the booty that needs to be retrieved. What director Peyton Reed does well with this material is he brings us into this idiosyncratic world through the eyes of the affable Rudd as he bumbles his way into becoming a passive hero. Though maybe he’s a bit too passive at times - to the point of almost having no agency within the plot. Nevertheless, he’s charming to watch and he knows how to hit the comedic beats that’s laced throughout the narrative.  Moments between him and his street-wise, criminal friends—Michael Pena almost steals the entire movie away with only a handful of scenes—keep you smiling in good spirits, even when you get the feeling that the movie isn’t entirely invested in its own brand.

Things don’t work quite as well when the story shifts into more character driven territories, particularly anything involving the vague sub-plot dealing with Pym and his estranged daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) who is working within the offices of her father’s enemy, while secretly bringing back useful intelligence. When it came to their emotional arc, the revelation of how Pym lost his wife, or even Lang’s difficult relationship with his ex-wife and the daughter he’s barely allowed to visit, I never cared quite as much as the movie wanted me to. It’s clear that the writers wanted to ground the superhero pulp and the comedy with a thematic parallel between Lang and Pym about what it means to be a responsible and present father, but these underwritten moments register more as plot motivators than they do real character builders.

Still, “Ant Man” is a fun and unassuming summer blockbuster that’s refreshingly low-stakes and casual for Marvel action movie. The set pieces are creative and occasionally there’s stylistic flashes of a better movie that might have been possible had the studio let things bake a little longer. As it stands the heist plot could have paid off more satisfyingly and characters could have been more clearly defined, but overall this was a totally inoffensive offering, if not somewhat banal.

Grade: B -

Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/Jul-2015

Avengers: Age of Ultron review

              Joss Whedon returns with Disney/Marvel’s much-anticipated “Avengers: Age of Ultron”; a bigger, longer, louder sequel to 2012’s successful superhero team-up, “The Avengers.” In what was once seen as the impossible task to bring together five separate movie franchises and support each protagonist under one umbrella universe, this idea is quickly becoming the new normal. With “Terminator,” “Star Wars” and Warner Brothers’ DC Comics properties setting up multiple films and side stories, the term ‘cinematic universe’ has become the new Hollywood buzz-phrase. Rather than waiting every two years for a single sequel to rake in the dough, now studios can expand the universe of an intellectual property and have many characters and plot ideas producing multiple movies at once.

            Of course this has been happening in the world of comic books forever, but the cost to mass produce and sell a 20 page superhero magazine is nothing compared to fortune it takes to pull off something as massive as their cinematic counterparts. Strangely enough, though the risk is higher and the economic stakes are raised to create these movies, their stories sometimes reward less than those provided by pulp they were modeled after.

           Iron Man (Robert Downy Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Hawk Eye (Jeremy Renner) and The Incredible Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) return to save the world yet again, and this time the threat is of their own creation—an impossibly smart robot intelligence named Ultron, voiced by James Spader.  After breaking into a soviet compound looking for…something or other, Tony Stark/Iron Man finds a robot technology that would allow him to update his computer A.I. with the ability to make his Iron-Dones smart enough and powerful enough to allow the team to retire. Quickly it grows too smart and develops its own reasons to kill the heroes. Newcomers Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) join the evil robot to avenge their parents and their childhood home, destroyed years ago by Stark’s military weapons.

           The set-up is simple enough, yet somehow the movie fractures into many whirling plot points and set-pieces that never quite harmonize, creating an out-of-breath, jumble of action-spectacle. Whedon is a smart writer and his knack for dialogue and characterization is still intact, but his work as a storyteller seems stifled by Marvel’s bottom-line to set up even more potential properties within their ever-expanding multi-verse. Midway through the film, the threat of Ulron, who’s marvelously introduced with a genuine sense of menace, is diluted by competing plots regarding mystical prophecies about magic gems and otherworldly cosmic dangers. By the end, the movie’s climax is strained to decide which story element needs to pay off. Allegiances change, more new characters are introduced, romances are fulfilled and further franchises are hinted at, at which point Stark’s self-destructive hubris is the thing we’re thinking the least about.

          Joss Whedon’s work as a television show-runner (“Buffy: The Vampire Slayer”, “Firefly”) has earned him a lot of goodwill over the years, but with “Avengers: Age of Ultron” it seems like his talent for telling extended, episodic stories is forcibly compressed into a confused and frustrating mess of a narrative. Some of the action is well-staged and entertaining—the fight between “Iron Man” and “The Hulk” is pretty neat—but most of it, while expensively produced, is ineffectual and weightless.

        The dialogue is quick and funny and these actors are now so comfortable in there theme-park personalities that even the most mindless scenes float along well- enough, but they’re supported by a plot that’s so over-stuffed with things to do, placed to be, and sequels to sell that it tears itself apart before it can naturally develop. 

Grade: C-

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/May-2015

Big Hero Six review

            “Big Hero Six” is the perfect example of a post-modern, post-comic-con style of movie that casts its net wide enough to pull in fans of Pixar's emotional whimsy, tech-heavy Japanese anime and fast-paced, Marvel-esque, action set-pieces.  This makes  a lot of sense, seeing as this film is based on a Marvel comic property, of which Disney now owns the vast majority, and produced by Pixar brain-child John Lasseter—admitted fan and enthusiast of anime legend Hayao Miyazaki. But somewhere in this rowdy pastiche there’s still a focused and poignant coming of age story that grounds the referential spectacle, even when the film seems to be at odds with its more sophisticated leanings.
           We're introduced to the future utopia of Sanfransokyo (a literal cultural melding of east and west) through the lead character Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter), as he wins big money at underground robot battles, of which his older, more collegiate brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) disapproves. Later, after an exciting tour of his brother’s robotics school, where he meets a like-minded team of four other young inventors, he decides that his best work shouldn’t be displayed in street-level sport. Despite his young age, he applies to join the program by demonstrating his swarm of interlocking mini-bots at a competitive conference, but just after he wins the competition and accepts his admittance at the school, his future goes up in flames when his brother and the college’s lead technician are killed in a terrible explosion. Hiro is then left to mourn his brother through his last invention; an inflatable, non-lethal nursing bot named Baymax (Scott Adsit), who’s determined to lower the child’s stress-level however he can, even if that means helping Hiro and the other students find the masked murderer, who’s now using the mini-bots for wrong-doing.
           What elevates this film past the usual 3D animated fare is the familial warmth for all of these characters injected into the script and the specificity expressed in the world-building. The central relationship between Hiro and the bouncy, Michelin-Man looking Baymax is both funny as the literal-minded robot consistently misunderstands his frustrated, revenge-driven child owner, and overcast with a cloud of melancholy as the story repeatedly draws us back to the themes of personal loss and misdirected grievance. Before the point in which this movie even begins, Hiro and his older brother are established as orphans, raised by their kooky aunt (Maya Rudolf), who runs a street-side bakery to support the two of them. Baymax, though funny in his childlike reaction to new phenomena, is ultimately acting as an emotional Band-Aid for the protagonist and seeks to heal his pain through adventure. Pretty heavy stuff for kids movie, but not unlike the depths Disney or Pixar have previously explored. Where the movie suffers, however, is in its pandering to the blockbuster aesthetic.
           Once Hiro and his friends discover the whereabouts of the movie’s villain the tone shifts dramatically into action-figure ready, comic book popcorn fodder. Whether cleverly commenting on the banality of Marvel’s third-act, superhero destruction-quota, or simply falling prey to it, when the team suddenly builds robotic super-suits that give them all different powers and a large chunk of the movie’s second half is devoted to sequences of flying in between buildings and falling debris, I wondered how much of this was to advance the un-traditional buddy movie so well established in the first act and how much of it is only to serve the dynamic 3D animation. Nevertheless, at its best, “Big Hero Six” is a wonderfully imaginative and tender science-fiction parable and even when it is driving in autopilot, it’s impressively crafted, interesting to look at, and never boring.

Grade: B+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Nov-2014

Guardians of the Galaxy review

                  Marvel studios (ever heard of them?) gambled the entire summer on “Guardians of the Galaxy,” a movie based on one of their C-list comic book titles. Not only is this property obscure by fanboy standards, but the film’s two biggest stars, Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel, are used only to voice a CGI raccoon and a talking tree, while the physically present lead characters are cast from sit-coms and televised wrestling. But it’s the against-all-odds weirdness of this concoction and the risk the studio was willing take on it that kind of gives the entire movie its anarchistic charge and underdog illusion. I say illusion of course because what the success of Guardians really proves is the apparent indestructibility of Marvel’s box-office brand and the strength of their classic studio approach.

                What writer/director James Gunn understands about this material is that the plot can be as simple and as unambitious as it is here, so long as we are on board with the characters and their journey.  Having come from the world of cult-horror and exploitation cinema, such as “Tromeo and Juliet” and “Slither,” as well as low-budget superhero parodies such as “Super” and “The Specials,” he knows exactly where to pitch the difficult tone of this idiosyncratic genre-meld.  As a fan, Gunn celebrates all of the movie’s disparate components—space-opera, buddy-comedy, superhero blockbuster—and weaves them together seamlessly, keeping everything anchored by his love for the characters and the individual comedic textures brought by the movie’s diverse cast.

                Chris Pratt plays Peter Quill/Starlord, a human abducted from earth at the age of nine and raised in space by a group of criminals. While attempting to steal a magic crystal to sell on the intergalactic black market he inadvertently gets thrown into the middle of a political war between the space military and an evil zealot named Ronan (Lee Pace), working for a purple giant called Thanos. Defiant daughter of Thanos, Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a vengeance-seeking warrior named Drax (Dave Batista) and the aforementioned tree Groot (Deisel) and his partner Rocket Raccoon (Cooper) also come along on the adventure to capture the powerful stone, with the hopes to find closure, make some money, and maybe save the galaxy from the god-like tyrant. 

                 Though ripped and 60 pounds lighter, “Parks and Recreation” actor Chris Pratt uses his familiar loveable bone-head shtick and applies it to a type of Han Solo charisma, with very appealing results. Likewise, Batista juxtaposes his stone-faced wrestler physicality with the script’s brilliant dry humor and the kids will no doubt respond to Cooper’s loud-mouth Rocket Raccoon and his amorphous bodyguard Groot who is only able to say the words “I AM GROOT,” while Rocket translates his limited language to the rest of the misfits.  Every actor has a scene or two to steal and the movie breaths enough between the set-pieces to build on their relationships. Unfortunately, Zoe Saldana as the green-painted, super-assassin Gamora doesn’t get  as much of a chance to fool-around as the other boys, and having seen her in space more than we haven’t her inclusion feels considerably less inspired. But by no means does this slow the momentum of this wildly imaginative comedy. 

       The plot of “Guardians of the Galaxy” is elementary, the climax is too big and overly drawn-out for its own good, losing some focus in its overreaching for epic-ness, but the majority of this multi-million dollar oddity is overwhelmingly entertaining; the take away being the ensemble, their interactions and the humor that comes from their uncanny chemistry. Like any competent summer movie, the special effects do their job and most of the action is character-driven, but it’s the movie’s ‘70s soft-rock soundtrack and brightly colored look that perfectly mirrors the enthusiastic energy exhibited by the wickedly talented James Gunn and his weirdo cast.

Grade: B+

Originally published in the Idaho State Journal/Aug-2014

X-Men: Days of Future Past review

After essentially kick-starting the cinematic superhero renaissance fifteen years ago, the X-Men movie series has undergone many drastic creative shifts, including confusing continuity tangles and some exceedingly bad press surrounding one of its directors. Following two especially disappointing sequels in “X-Men: The Last Standm” by substitute director Brett Ratner and the unforgivably dreadful spin-off “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” a few years later, the franchise was partially revitalized in 2011 with the ‘60s cold-war installment “X-Men: First Class," starring Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy. James Mangold’s “The Wolverine” was also watchable but mostly forgettable in the long run. Now, in an attempt to clean the slate, original director Bryan Singer has the unfortunate job of tying all of these films together and bridging their plot-holes with his newest entry, a time-travel thriller called “X-Men: Days of Future Past”, staring key players from both timelines.

Not only is there very high stakes for the cautiously optimistic fans who have endured and celebrated previously great and awful X-films, “Days of Future Past” has many tasks to carefully maneuver for itself. It must be reasonably faithful to the beloved comic story in which it takes its name, it has to tie together two timelines that are just different enough to makes things complicated, and it has to ret-con the mistakes of the previous sequels. Surprisingly, while not home-run success, it manages to do so with only a few notable discrepancies.

The plot immediately drops us into the near future of 2023, in a post-apocalypse where most of the X-Men have been killed by giant self-regenerating robots called the Sentinels who patrol the earth to terminate all of mutant kind. Aged Professor, Charles Xavier (Patrick Stuart) sends Wolverine’s consciousness back into his younger body during the ‘70s where he must inspire the recently jaded and crippled Professor (James McAvoy) to let out his imprisoned enemy Magneto (Michael Fassbender) to stop a misguided Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from assassinating the engineer responsible for starting the newly-formed Sentinel program. Jumping back and forth from these two events in time, we watch the future X-Men try as hard as they can to hold their defense, while Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) has to prevent all the pawns of their eventual destruction from falling into place.

While I'm more than aware of the narrative heavy-lifting this plot has to do before we can even get into the main points of its story, unfortunately the first third of the film gets to a wobbly start with achingly stilted, tech-jabber dialogue and blunt introductions to the characters and their vague future-world, all of which are too brief and glossed over to effectively build to an appropriate emotional connection. But once Jackman gets zapped into the 70s and we get the 411 on where our "First Class" heroes have been since the last movie, the pieces start to come together, slowly building towards a grand climax that’s just as good or even better than anything we've previously seen from the series.

While “Days of Future Past” occasionally feels pieced together from hunks of scripts that were torn from different drafts, rewritten by committee and reshaped in the editing room, about half of its movie-parts contain genuinely original superhero moments; most notably some great comedic action sequences with X-newbie Quicksilver (Evan Peters), where his speed powers are portrayed by showing us how he moves normally in the slowed-down world around him. X-Men mainstays such as Lawrence, Fassbender, McAvoy, and Jackman are just as reliable as we have come to expect and newcomers like Peter Dinklage,  who plays the mutant-phobic scientist Bolivar Trask, are given their own scenes to steal as well. Most of all, by the end of the film, however rocky it was to get there, it’s very gratifying to see the fruits bared from the franchise’s willingness to apologize for its past mediocrities.

Grade: B -
Originally Published in the Idaho State Journal/June-2014

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 review

                 Expectations of Marc Webb’s sequel to Sony’s successful 2012 Spider-Man reboot was  perhaps insurmountable. For some, the first film that was released only five years after Sam Raimi’s generation defining trilogy, satisfied what people wanted to see with the continuation of this superhero staple. For others (including this reviewer) despite having a terrific cast, the film lacked a unique point of view and the obvious rush to re-launch the series made for a somewhat competent but mostly tepid rehash of over-cooked Spidey-lore.

                You might think that now that the pesky origin story has been tediously reestablished, this anticipated sequel would be allowed the narrative freedom to further explore Webb's new interpretation of this timeless character and the cinematic universe he inhabits. But what we end up getting with this installment is a manic tangle of incongruent plot threads fighting for screen-time in an overlong, over-stylized disaster of a movie that's been marred by invasive studio-notes.  

                This movie has about six different movies going on at any one time, but most prominently we follow Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) as he's reeling from guilt by ignoring the dying wishes of his girlfriend’s father, and continuing to put Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) in harm’s way simply by dating her.  This then leads him to break things off with her to further his personal investigation surrounding his father’s mysterious death. The unfinished genetic research that surrounded this mystery is now being exploited by Oscorp’s new CEO, Peter’s childhood friend Harry Osborn (Dane DeHaan). Harry plans to use the radiated spider venom to treat his body against the same genetic disease that killed Norman.  Unbenounced to Harry or Peter, or Gwen who still works for the secretive lab, the company has an insidious strategy behind this new science.

                You might think that’s enough story for one movie, but wait, there’s more! An awkwardly pitched Jamie Foxx plays a geeky disgruntled lab-tech with an unhealthy obsession towards Spider-Man. After an unfortunate accident at Plotcorp--I mean Oscorp—which apparently has an alarming track record of unsettling accidents involving staff, visitors and its proprietors, Foxx is then transformed into a translucent energy being called Electro. Can Spider-Man defeat him, while keeping Gwen from moving to London? Will she give up her dreams of becoming a super-scholar at Oxford and continue to put herself in danger in New York?  In only five minutes can Peter convince the audience that he and Harry have a believable, preexisting best-friend relationship? Can director Marc Webb figure out a way to make anyone still care about anything dealing with Peter's stupid dead father?  Can Spider-Man save danger-addicted children from Paul Giamatti as he marches the streets in giant, Rhino-shaped mech-suit? Wait, the Rhino’s in this movie too!? *Sigh*

                Despite a half-way decent love story between the real-life couple of Garfield and Stone, the rest of the movie is an over-crowded step latter where scenes seem to only exist to set up other scenes--half of which can’t even be resolved until the next sequel. Tonally, the movie oscillates between post-Twilight angst, superhero action movie spectacle, and campy Saturday morning silliness that clangs against the film’s more somber moments of sincerity. 

                “The Amazing Spider-Man 2” is without a doubt an undisciplined, compromised affair, and the story suffers greatly from Sony’s desperation to catch up with the long-form world-building of Disney’s Marvel-Universe epics, but when Webb is able to slow the action down enough to let his characters actually breath, they momentarily expose a beating heart underneath all of the movie’s overbearing aesthetics and the screenplay’s stifling mechanics.

 Grade: C-

Originally published by Idaho State Journal/May-2014