Author: Joel Copling

THE AVENGERS: A Retrospective by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: *** (out of ****)
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson
Director: Joss Whedon
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, and a mild drug reference)
Running Time: 2:22
Release Date: 05/04/12

The Avengers is simultaneously an exercise in the same formula that plagued all but one of the films that built to it in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and a relief from such a burden. By allowing the audience both to see the heroes’ interactions when such sizable egos are forced into getting along (which doesn’t, it turns out, always work) and then to see them in their element, writer/director Joss Whedon is open to explore their personalities. That’s the strongest element of watching what amounts a toy store exploding onscreen. It is also, admittedly, limited by that formula: We are re-introduced to our favorite superheroes, they are united against a foe, and they fight for the world’s sake. By the time we get to that last one, it’s almost inevitably the least interesting of them.

Following a prologue in which that foe, who has a more-than-incidental connection to one of our heroes, arrives on Earth, causing S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) to unite them, we find ourselves back together with those superheroes. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), aka Iron Man, has stopped the process in his miniaturized, protective arc reactor from killing him and become the leading name in clean energy in the process. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo, taking over the role from Edward Norton), aka the Hulk, is in hiding and must be found by Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), aka Black Widow.

Those are the heroes who serve the most significant purpose to this narrative, which finds them each facing Loki (Tom Hiddleston, who is the unexpected highlight of a starry cast), the trickster from the realm of Jotunheim who has been searching for the Tesseract, the all-powerful artifact that was the MacGuffin of the story that told of Steve Rogers’s/Captain America’s (Chris Evans) origin before shifting him seventy years into the future (He’s readjusting here, though in a half-hearted sort of way). A new hero, Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), aka Hawkeye, is introduced and promptly possessed by Loki (He is then defined almost exclusively by his skills with a creative quiver of arrows). Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the Asgardian, is mostly here to confront his half-brother, who has aligned himself with mysterious forces (whom we do not properly meet until a teasing, mid-credits sequence–and even then we do not properly meet them) elsewhere in the universe and been afforded an army of aliens with which to do battle.

Before that final battle, though, are the film’s best segments, in which each hero comes up against another’s ideology. Tony sees Steve as a relic, constantly mocks his old-fashioned nature, and wonders if this is really the guy his dad went on about (“You might have missed a lot, you know, when you were a Capsicle,” he says with dripping sarcasm). Steve sees Tony as a cynical byproduct of his own egotism (“Take away the suit, and what are you,” he asks; “Genius, billionaire, playboy philanthropist” is Tony’s unabashed answer). Thor’s internal battle is limited to his interactions with Loki, which is as it should be, Natasha wants her violent past as a KGB agent erased while juggling conflicting emotions about Clint’s capture, and Bruce lets everyone in on the secret new way he turns into a big, green rage monster with no opinion on any of it.

The second half is entirely comprised with a duet of extended action set-pieces. In the first, the helicarrier that acts as S.H.I.E.L.D.’s headquarters (wherein Clark Gregg returns as the straitlaced Agent Coulson and Cobie Smulders appears as fleet-footed agent Maria Hill) is in freefall as a result of Loki’s attempt to escape (Our heroes’ egos are put to the test in a way that dissipates as the sequence goes on and a camaraderie is built). In the second, the army of aliens is unleashed upon New York City, and the resulting fight is a bit generic (a lot of running and jumping and soaring through the air), if well-staged by Whedon and cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (The Hulk in particular shines in this sequence, getting neither one nor two but three punch lines as the end of hero shots to call his own). The Avengers verges on being a skeleton of its potential, but its infectious energy is where its considerable, if relative, success lies.

Joel Copling’s Top Ten Revisited: 2014 Edition–Films #9 and #10

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Hindsight can shift one’s view of one’s favorite films from a given calendar year quite a lot. So the idea is pretty simple: How would my top ten of 2014 look right now? For the next five days, I will be pick two films per day that might make up my list of the best ten films I saw from that year (and will be doing this for each previous year in the coming month).

10.) THE LEGO MOVIE (directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller)

Creative potential is when our heroes venture to a land of brightly colored, delightful beings and structures called Cloud Cuckooland. Creative follow-through is when that trip becomes an excuse to see LEGO likenesses of Michelangelo the painter and Michelangelo the teenage mutant ninja turtle, Dumbledore and Gandalf, the members of the 2002 NBA All-Stars and the Sixteenth United States President on a rocket-engine version of his statue’s chair, and, of course, a pirate that boasts a shark for an arm. It’s clear that writing/directing duo Phil Lord and Christopher Miller’s modus operandi when it came to the The LEGO Movie was to approach the titular, block-shaped toys with a childlike innocence. That’s without reckoning the film’s surprising amount of heart and a genuinely innovative visual style that mimics stop-motion animation.

9.) IDA (directed by Pawel Pawlikowski)

Co-writer/director Pawel Pawlikowski’s quiet but highly effective study of the divide, sometimes blurry, between rigor and liberty personifies itself in our heroine’s story. She has moved from the strict patterns of a convent to the looser pleasures of her aunt’s apartment, along the way severing the ties of her former life for one that must grow accustomed to outside life. But that’s too simple for Pawlikowski and co-screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz, whose characters (greatly aided by performances from Agata Kulesza and Agata Trzebuchowska) are complex and revealing in more than one way. Rarely before has the literal act of a young woman letting down her hair so subtly revealed truths about that woman. Reminding of a modern-day Bergman effort and sporting some truly striking, black-and-white photography, Ida is one that sneaks up on the viewer.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER: A Retrospective by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: ** (out of ****)
Cast: Chris Evans, Hayley Atwell, Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving, Sebastian Stan
Director: Joe Johnston
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action)
Running Time: 2:05
Release Date: 07/22/11

The problem that plagues Captain America: The First Avenger is what has plagued many a story of the origin of a superhero: a lack of variation. The film might boast impressive, art-deco production design, a blustery music score that pairs well with the hero behind whom we are supposed to rally, and an intriguing villain whose actor gives a pretty committed performance. But everything else here, including our hero in both modes of unassuming Everyman and nondescript Savior, is bland, from the way the screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely shoves him unceremoniously into a generic external conflict to the way it examines his accommodation to a bigger, more built body and strength by way of an extended montage set to a theme song.

Before he dons the stars-and-stripes-studded costume as Captain America, he’s Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), a scrawny kid applying for the United States Army in spite of asthma that disqualifies him. He battles on in his attempt, though, applying in five different states because of a righteous desire to join those who are dying for a cause that he feels is a worthy one. In other words, he’s not unlike every soldier who joins the military with a sense of gumption, but there’s something about him that is admirable. Evans’s performance embraces this sense of patriotic duty through earnestness, but the writing of the character is bland (There’s the word again).

When he puts on the suit (at first, rather fittingly as a commercial for the armed forces), he becomes a dull superhero, too. That happens after he is approached by Erskine (Stanley Tucci), a doctor who has been working for an organization (whose members include Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, and yes, that surname jumps out at you for a reason) that is developing a serum to create a soldier with heightened abilities and strength in the fight against the Nazis. Col. Phillips (Tommy Lee Jones, whose deadpan is in full swing here) believes that Erskine’s being silly choosing such an underdog, the British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) is convinced by his attitude, and Steve just wants to save his best friend, “Bucky” Barnes (Sebastian Stan), when his battalion goes missing.

The major threat here is Johann Schmidt, one of the more insane followers of Adolf Hitler’s playbook, who is in search of a mysterious, glowing artifact that will grant omnipotence and power his own weapons with enough force to vaporize all who enter his path. He’s an interesting villain in theory, but the only thing in practice that works is Hugo Weaving’s performance, which is in turn mostly notable for being a perfect impression of Werner Herzog. There is little or no tissue connecting Steve to Schmidt (whose human face is only a façade for a maimed profile that looks like Voldemort but turned all red) until their climactic showdown.

It’s an act of undermining the impact of the sequence, and that then goes for the entire climax, during which we get very little cleverness with regards to choreography (We’ve been here and seen this before) and a lot of to-do in director Joe Johnston’s staging that is of little consequence. The film does gain some surprising mileage from Steve’s budding romance with Peggy before the final scene forces them apart by several decades (Credit must be given to the sorrowful final line), because it’s only in the budding stages. But Captain America: The First Avenger proves only to be the latest familiar origin story–nothing more and maybe a bit less.

THOR: A Retrospective by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: *** (out of ****)
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Rene Russo, Anthony Hopkins
Director: Kenneth Branagh
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence)
Running Time: 1:54
Release Date: 05/06/11

The screenplay for Thor alternates between two narratives dissimilar in tone but that converge into something quite enjoyable. This isn’t an origin story, per se, in that our hero is introduced, gains powers, and faces a foe. Screenwriters Ashley Edward Miller, Zack Stentz, and Don Payne establish the world from which our hero hails as one that has long existed and been inhabited by many people. It’s clever, actually, the way they establish that our hero has what we humans might consider super-human powers but aren’t unique on his world, then remove the hero’s powers and banish him to Earth, where he is still considered a fish out of water.

He is also played with rugged, handsome charm by Chris Hemsworth in a performance not of a character who comes out of a professional production of a William Shakespeare play but of one who lives the caricature. He speaks with a tenor and inflection of an actor playing to the room on purpose. It’s a solid performance because it still manages not to cross over into that caricature. Everyone here speaks in such a manner, from his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins, who adds more than a bit of credence to a role only he could play) to his fellow soldiers to his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston).

Thor and Loki may be brothers, but each has been courted for the throne when Odin decides to pass on the duties. Just before the Allfather crowns a prideful Thor, however, a breach of their battlements occurs. The Frost Giants, an ancient race with whom Odin once did battle before reaching a truce, seemingly break their promise never to intervene in Asgard again. The traitor in their midst is none other than Loki, who obviously wants the throne to himself. Further, he wants to revenge himself upon Odin when he discovers his true parentage. He manipulates the situation to force Thor into action against the Frost Giants on their homeland of Jotunheim (a well-mounted action scene, despite the darkness of the setting, which uses a form of combat that mixes well with a kind of physical humor), which drives Odin to remove his powers and banish him (and his hammer, called Mjolnir) from Asgard.

Thor arrives on Earth in the middle of a sandstorm, discovered and taken in by Jane Foster (Natalie Portman), an astrophysicist whose team of fellows includes Darcy (Kat Dennings, clearly having a ball and whose mangling of the title of Thor’s hammer is particularly amusing) and Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård). Jane’s work is confiscated by S.H.I.E.L.D., the government entity whose job is secretive and whose suspicion regarding Thor’s place of origin is strong. The segments on Earth are amusing enough but pale compared to those on Asgard (or, indeed, within the Bifrost, a gateway to the Einstein-Rosen Bridge that connects to Earth and other realms and is guarded by Idris Elba’s commandingly still Heimdall). This is most evident in one of the two climactic action setpieces, the one on Earth ultimately adding up to little more than a showdown between Thor and a giant, metallic beast controlled by Loki.

It leads directly into the showdown between the two brothers that holds a lot more in the stakes department as all of the tension between them comes to a head (Hiddleston’s every line is like a slickly oiled thing) and Thor must make a rash decision. It also helps that the richly detailed Einstein-Rosen Bridge is the backdrop of the sequence, because the film’s strength of juxtaposing such melodrama against effects work is also highlighted in the sequence. Director Kenneth Branagh’s liberal use of Dutch angles and his capturing of the gold-plated mansions that populate Asgard are compelling elements to create this world. It isn’t much, but it separates Thor from the films that proceeded it in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. It isn’t unique, per se, but it is something.

BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE: A Review by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: ***½ (out of ****)
Cast: Ben Affleck, Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Jesse Eisenberg, Jeremy Irons
Director: Zack Snyder
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action throughout, and some sensuality)
Running Time: 2:33
Release Date: 03/25/16

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice finds two super-egos doing battle and a megalomaniac who wants to control the situation for his own perceived glory. It’s as simple as that, really, except that that’s also far from simplistic. This film, as written by Chris Terrio and David S. Goyer, is an act of reconstructive revisionism of every concept we have of the characters in the surtitle. By the end, we also have our perception challenged with regards to the assembly of the league hinted at in the subtitle. This is not a movie that panders to its target audience (many of which may be unsatisfied by some of its risks and downright nuttiness), nor does it seem tailor-made, despite the obvious fact that it is, to lead to further sequels.

This Bruce Wayne is a haunted orphan whose parents’ deaths have taught him a surprising lesson about the ways of the world, and this Batman is a vigilante driven by rage. Ben Affleck’s performance as the man outside of the suit is a genuinely good one because of a focus that is borderline-cruel in nature, and his relationship with Alfred (Jeremy Irons) is uneasy at best. Inside the suit (which is bulkier and more metallic here, with a voice modulator), the actor is mostly asked to call upon his physicality, but it’s a trick that works. The title fight is a brutish and brutal one because, to put it informally, the guy is just freaking huge.

This Kal-El is an angry god. He trudges on in both of his alternate identities–that of Clark Kent, intrepid reporter alongside his girlfriend Lois Lane (Amy Adams, who unfortunately exists to be the damsel in distress here) for the Daily Planet, and Superman, the man in the blue suit and red cape who is seen here from one angle as a savior (Cinematographer Larry Fong consistently frames his entrances as that of a Jesus Christ figure), from another as a threat (A senator played by Holly Hunter calls hearings that are meant to put him on trial both legally and in a public forum), and from an indecisive third as something in between (A certain astrophysicist expands his idea of humanity’s smallness to reckon the existence of life elsewhere)–and Cavill’s stoic performance is still quite good here. The carnage that ended Man of Steel and another sequence here set in Africa that ends in more lost lives are the catalysts, and that is where our story starts.

The film re-frames the attack on Metropolis to be viewed from the ground as Bruce drives frantically through the streets to evacuate one of his company’s campuses. Death and terror–the film’s own reckoning of a 9/11-type attack–rain down around him as Kal-El and Zod (Michael Shannon) face each other. Fast-forward 18 months, and we find the Batman’s rein of vengeful justice catching the eye of both Kal-El, who questions the Batman’s motivation and methods, and Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg in a strange performance–fittingly so), who has cottoned on pretty quickly to the real identity of both figures and wants to cause a rift. He also wants to unleash a kind of doomsday upon them, because, well, he’s insane.

The final confrontation between the Batman, Superman, and the mucous monster that Lex hath wrought (interrupted by a neat appearance from Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman) perhaps plays with the generic in a way that what proceeds it does not (The flashes of images of three other heroes certainly does, with their odd placement), but for a while, the climax keeps with the complex existential and philosophical battle going on here. Yes, the action sequences are well-conceived and executed (though the 3-D presentation doesn’t help what largely takes place in the dark) by director Zack Snyder, but they and, for that matter, the central question of who would win this fight are a secondary, even tertiary, concern. Instead, Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice continues its immediate predecessor’s plan to pave a new path for these particular heroes in a way that feels starkly different to another group currently dominating the box office, and it’s a very intriguing step, indeed.

MAN OF STEEL: A Retrospective by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: ***½ (out of ****)
Cast: Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Diane Lane, Russell Crowe
Director: Zack Snyder
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence, action and destruction, and for some language)
Running Time: 2:23
Release Date: 06/14/13

Immediately, Man of Steel vaults over the necessity to make this the usual superhero origin story, and in the process, it stands out immediately. The character of Superman is only as interesting as he is when his alter ego Clark Kent exists to introduce the dynamic of one becoming the other and vice versa. With this film, though, screenwriter David S. Goyer dismisses this until the final scene positions that dichotomy to be featured in a sequel and instead centers his focus upon, not Superman, but Kal-El, the Kryptonian citizen whose birth was closely followed by the murder of both parents by a man who was bred with a militant mind.

We know the beats of that story, of course, but Goyer approaches it with as much theatricality as it deserves. Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and his wife Lara (Ayelet Zurer) have given birth (the first natural one in centuries, apparently) to a son they hope will inspire good. The move is one that follows a distinct feeling on Jor-El’s part that Krypton is going to Hell in a handbasket, a feeling exacerbated when Zod (Michael Shannon in a performance that is over-the-top because the sensation is necessitated), a general, attempts to overtake the council that might save the planet. Jor-El and Lara respond by sending their son to Earth, whose younger, brighter star will help to hone his powers among a more youthful generation.

We do get a glimpse of the younger Kal-El’s (Dylan Sprayberry and Cooper Timberline play him at the ages of nine and 13) life on Earth among the Kents (Kevin Costner and Diane Lane), the family who takes him in and christens him Clark while grasping only guesses as to where he came from. He saves a school bus full of children using his super-human strength, and Dad warns him about revealing his other-worldliness, even at the sake of so many young and innocent lives. He, Dad says, is the answer to the questions of man’s solitude in the universe, and such questions are bigger than, really, any other, even that of complicity in allowing the bus to submerge.

It’s an act of planting stakes in Kal-El’s identity, so as an older figure, now played by Henry Cavill in a performance of great earnestness and as little outward personality as possible (and, subsequently, as much as is necessary), he takes up a job that will highlight his desire for anonymity: a worker on a fisherman’s wharf. He also saves a burning oil rig from killing most of those onboard before fleeing. Suddenly, a bigger threat awaits him: Zod and his lieutenants have escaped prison and arrived at the place they knew Kal-El to be, demanding that the inhabitants deliver him or suffer the consequence of annihilation.

The finale pits Kal-El, who has now been labeled “Superman” by the general public with the help of fearless reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams), against Zod, who wants to preserve Krypton’s population through twisted and destructive methods (which afford the villain a motivation that is as cruel as it is easy to sympathize with) that include a massive engine that will align Earth’s atmosphere with that of Krypton, along the streets and into the buildings of Metropolis. The ensuing action goes on a bit, but it’s is as blustery and epic as director Zack Snyder (no stranger to either adjective when it comes to his movies) and cinematographer Amir Mokri can possibly make it. It’s also something of a secondary concern for Man of Steel, which is focused on uprooting our understanding of the title hero and laying down a different, more mythic foundation than we have known.

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES: A Retrospective by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: ***½ (out of ****)
Cast: Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Gary Oldman
Director: Christopher Nolan
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence and action, some sensuality and language)
Running Time: 2:44
Release Date: 07/20/12

Settling somewhere in between the modesty of 2005’s Batman Begins and the grandiosity of 2008’s The Dark Knight in terms of quality (and only, it must said, quality, as the film is bigger and longer than both of its predecessors), The Dark Knight Rises is a beast of a movie–blustering and flawed but thrilling in its best moments. It is also a terrific act of returning the series to its roots conceptually, pitting the titular hero against a reincarnation of his foe from the first film and examining, like the first sequel, the consequences of Bruce Wayne’s shift from millionaire playboy to brooding (literally, in this film’s case) wearer of a cape and cowl that project his worst fear upon his enemies. The comfort of a formula that must bring him both to the only end that makes sense and, in a way, back to his own start means that this film is more ambitious but, perhaps, less impactful than its predecessor.

It’s been eight years since Gotham’s most prominent politician was, according to official reports, murdered by the Batman after a madman forever altered public perception of both men. Bruce (Christian Bale, conveying a sense of great sadness in what probably stands as the actor’s best work in the series), still stinging from the loss of the woman he loved to that madman’s evil machinations, is now once again a recluse–this time in the lavish Wayne Manor, from which rumors spread about why the man has locked himself away and outside of which, every year, the city’s finest (and its politicians) meet to celebrate the old district attorney’s life. Retirement from heroism does not suit Bruce, whose limp from an old knee injury has gotten worse and whose standing with Gotham’s elite has fallen since disappearing from public life.

Bruce has been avoiding a partnership with Miranda Tate (Marion Cotillard), a member of the city’s elite, on an energy project because of the potential for the fusion reactor to be turned into a weapon. His influence has caused petty criminals such Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway), who wears cat ears as just one of her disguises while taking from the rich to give to the poor, to invoke a kind of anti-capitalist bent that makes it easier when our new villain raises his hand to place a foothold both in thinking the rich elite are corrupt and in arming the citizens of Gotham against the whole system. It’s the least subtle element of a screenplay (written by director Christopher Nolan and his brother Jonathan) that also relegates the above characters to being red herrings until one of them must be good and the other bad.

The Batman’s legacy has turned from one of reverence to one of hatred. Commissioner James Gordon (Gary Oldman) knows the truth about what happened to give the Batman such a reputation, but the guilt attached to it has fractured his own family in half. Even Bruce’s faithful servant Alfred (Michael Caine, who is excellent here) says enough is enough, knowing where the conversation will head, when the Batman is forced back into action, collaborating with Gordon behind the backs of a police force who want to see him incarcerated (with the exception of a beat cop played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who figures out the truth through inference and implication) and being supplied with gadgets and a flying, bat-shaped vehicle by Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman).

This is a Gotham still rebuilding itself from a madman’s influence, and then another one appears. He is Bane (Tom Hardy), a cross between a pro wrestler in brutish features (His and the Batman’s throwdown fights are staged by Nolan in a way that lessens Hans Zimmer’s throbbing score and times Lee Smith’s editing to the punches and headbutts) and English royalty in lilting cadence (Hardy is commanding as he spouts of dialogue that might have come from Shakespeare), who shares an employment history with Bruce and a desire to rise from the shadows and continue his forebear’s work. He swiftly and brutally sweeps in, takes over Gotham with about as clear-cut and effective an order as probable to outside forces not to intervene, and sets up a dictatorial regime under the guise of a freeloading society with no rules. If the previous film’s villain was engaged in a battle for Gotham’s soul, this is a battle for the morsels that were left.

In addition to the bold, blunt lines used to draw the characters, the film suffers from pacing problems (The film rushes through a three-month period by way of montage, followed by a jump nearly an entire month more at the expense of the internal tension of a countdown clock) and contrivances (Bruce and Miranda enjoy a one-night stand just so a late-film revelation can have a flimsy, extra layer of stakes applied to it). But in the bigger picture of a movie that has the gall to approach perhaps a permanent end to the Batman legend, these are small quibbles. The Dark Knight Rises, which also features a denouement that could not have been played more perfectly, is also stirring, potent stuff.

IRON MAN 2: A Retrospective by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: * (out of ****)
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson
Director: Jon Favreau
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, and some language)
Running Time: 2:04
Release Date: 05/07/10

Iron Man may have contained roughly an equal share of strengths (its central casting coup and the performance that resulted from it, a tone that largely matched the protagonist’s personality in both its good and bad forms) and weaknesses (a structure that was restrictive to a formula shared by many origin stories, a villain who was bland outside of his incidental connection to the hero), but its first sequel exacerbates only the weaknesses and finds a few to call its own, as well. Iron Man 2 is a work of distinct smugness in a way that cannot be attributed to the titular superhero, who here more resembles an anti-superhero (super-antihero?) before becoming a tool of Justin Theroux’ witless screenplay and Jon Favreau’s anonymous direction.

Tony Stark, once again played by Robert Downey Jr. but in a performance that here seems bored with the material already, is dying. The miniaturized arc reactor, powered by palladium that keeps the shrapnel from an attack in the first film from entering his heart and killing him, is killing him. He’s looking for a replacement of the element and having no luck. As his faithful computer-program sidekick J.A.R.V.I.S. (voice of Paul Bettany) keeps telling him, he’s running out of options (His ultimate solution to the problem is muddled beyond belief). He opts not to tell Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), his longtime personal assistant, whom he makes C.E.O. of Stark Industries out of fear of leaving the company in the wrong hands.

He’s been thinking about his dad (John Slattery via archival footage of the filming of promos for Stark Industries) a lot during this period of grief. Well, it would be a period of grief, if it wasn’t for the fact that Downey’s performance is almost exclusively a series of sequences in which he looks plaintive after checking the level of toxicity in his blood. Meanwhile, the Iron Man suit has been deemed a weapon by a sleazy Senator (Garry Shandling in a fun cameo that bookends the film), who wants the United States government to reclaim it, and Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell), a Stark clone of sorts from whom Tony steals publicity with ease.

Everywhere one looks, smugness exists, whether it is Tony’s belief that inspiring the longest period of peace the United States has known (six months and climbing) is all about him or that Hammer’s ultimate endgame is to destroy Tony’s and Iron Man’s legacy by creating a new kind of military. It becomes dull quickly, especially as it all seems to come to a head when Tony, drunk and careless and wearing the suit, battles James Rhodes (Don Cheadle, replacing Terrence Howard for some reason) over ego and destroys most of his house. When Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke), a new villain, arises, a different and boring kind of ego also raises its head: Vanko is the son of the co-founder of Stark Industries and resents Tony’s legacy as a man whose actions have caused the deaths of so many.

The pieces of a good movie are here, but most of them are still in the box. Vanko’s entire motivation is just a bland reversal of the previous villain’s motivation, and it’s ultimately glossed over in the action sequences, which approach small-scale warfare with only one instance of ingenuity (the initial moments of Vanko disrupting a race in which Tony has randomly decided to take part) and a whole lot of nondescript visual noise elsewhere (the climax, which pits Tony and Rhodes against Vanko and his drones). The best part of Iron Man 2 is the provision of what amounts to a trailer for what is to come in the Marvel cinematic universe: Samuel L. Jackson (who with ten collected minutes of screen time devoted to exposition still gives the best performance onscreen), Scarlett Johansson, and Clark Gregg as agents of a government organization working in secret. The rest of this affair is dopey and self-obsessed.

HELLO, MY NAME IS DORIS: A Review by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: *** (out of ****)
Cast: Sally Field, Max Greenfield, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Stephen Root, Tyne Daly
Director: Michael Showalter
MPAA Rating: R (for language)
Running Time: 1:35
Release Date: 03/11/16 (limited)

The older woman latches on to the younger man because she feels the spark of her youth decades removed from it. The truth is that she didn’t really seem to have a period of youth. Her mother, who has just recently died, required care from early on in the daughter’s independent life. She even refused the chance to move with her husband to a city that would take her away from mom, even if it was her first chance at real love. This was, it is clear, a conscientious decision on her part, but it seems that years of being with her mother have rubbed off on her. She is socially awkward, hoards everything that “might” come in handy in the future, and, for lack of a better term, stalks the young man she meets on the elevator at their place of work to discover common interests.

The truth at an even deeper level is that Doris Miller is a lonely woman getting up in years without the slightest clue of what she’s done with her life until this point. This is the central motivation for every, tiny thing, even a particularly unsavory decision made while drunk on wine, that we see her doing in Hello, My Name Is Doris. Screenwriters Michael Showalter (who is also the director) and Laura Terruso (working from her short film “Doris & the Intern,” unseen by me) understand the woman, sometimes to a fault. Sally Field, who plays Doris, sympathizes with her and shows a compassion with such depth that the fault does not exist for the actress. It’s a strong performance that takes the quirk at the center of Doris Miller and makes it a character trait.

The catalyst for her shift is John (Max Greenfield), a handsome co-worker in his twenties, who reciprocates her awkward, shy demeanor with cordiality and, at times, bemusement. Doris’ best friend Roz’ (Tyne Daly) granddaughter Vivian (Isabella Acres) sets her up on a social networking website, through which Doris is able to learn all of the particulars of John’s personal life, from his music taste (an electronic pop group central among them, whom Doris surprises herself by rather enjoying) to the definition of the slang word “baller” when he uses it to describe her. Meanwhile, a social worker (Elizabeth Reaser) hired by her brother (Stephen Root) and sister-in-law (Wendi McLendon-Covey) wants to talk about that hoarding habit.

Both of these subplots play generally as expected. Doris discovers that John is not exactly looking for such a senior partner in life when he starts dating Brooklyn (Beth Behrs), a chatty, blonde aspiring singer whose first job entertaining an actual crowd Doris attends (It’s amusing the way Field navigates several emotions in this scene in particular, from trying to convey disgust through fake smiling to turning a sweet smile into a death glare when Brooklyn’s lyrics turn lovey-dovey). That drunken act, a transgression through the website that has certainly been committed by many in real life, puts a real damper on things between herself and John.

Somehow more crucial, though, is her resentment of a brother who left her in her time of need; he, meanwhile, must remind her of her conscious sacrifice (The subsequent unconscious realization that occurs late into the third act is particularly touching), and Root, one of our great current character actors, is as solid a presence as ever. Daly is also quite good as a lifelong friend who eventually feels abandoned (A mealtime prayer is pitch-perfect in both its uncomfortable humor and bitterness). The real story, though, remains Field, who takes a potentially impossible-to-warm-up-to woman and makes her impossible to dislike. Hello, My Name Is Doris is the affecting study of the age gap that it is because of its central actress.

EYE IN THE SKY: A Review by Joel Copling

by Joel Copling, posted in Film Review

Rating in Stars: *** (out of ****)
Cast: Helen Mirren, Aaron Paul, Alan Rickman, Barkhad Abdi, Jeremy Northam
Director: Gavin Hood
MPAA Rating: R (for some violent images and language)
Running Time: 1:42
Release Date: 03/11/16 (limited)

The central argument will, to some people of one frame of mind and to others who ascribe to the opposite one, seem a false equivalent. The former group might argue that surely the casualty of one small girl as collateral damage in the midst of a heated military operation is acceptable for the greater good of more than eighty who might perish instead. The other group will balk at such an idea, stating firmly that the girl should be given a chance to live, even at the cost of dozens more lives. By offering a literal argument to that end, Eye in the Sky lives in between the two arguments and, simultaneously, outside of it. This is partly a political thriller, but the crux of Guy Hibbert’s screenplay is procedural in nature.

There has been a terrorist attack in Kenya via suicide bombing that left almost seventy people dead and hundreds more wounded. The same group massacred nearly 200 students at a school. One gets the idea that the terrorist cell is, perhaps, stridently against the education of young women when one girl is asked by her father to put away her schoolbooks, lest the knock at his door be a member of the cell. They live behind the house that is currently the meeting place for former British and American nationals who radicalized years before and are, along with the British national’s Nairobian husband, three of the top five targets for capture or kill by the U.S. in the region.

We meet the players in motion. Coordinating the capture is Col. Katherine Powell (Helen Mirren) somewhere onsite in England. She and her team have a direct line with Lt. Gen. Frank Benson (Alan Rickman, whose final role in a live-action setting utilizes the actor’s commanding stillness well) in London as he hosts a viewing party for the capture with members of the British Parliament (played by Monica Dolan, Richard McCabe, and Jeremy Northam). In Las Vegas, rookie airman Carrie Gershon (Phoebe Fox) is partnered with Lt. Steve Watts (Aaron Paul) to man the drone that will overlook the operation (Director Gavin Hood, who expertly builds tension alongside editor Megan Gill and cinematographer Haris Zambarloukos, appears as their CO). On the ground are Major Moses Owiti (Vusi Kunene) and his subordinates Damisi (Ebby Weyime), who runs point, and Jama (Barkhad Abdi), who mans cameras disguised as a bird and a beetle for surveillance.

A major problem arises. Their targets do, indeed, all converge in the same place, but it occurs at a different house in a neighborhood that is nearly impossible to penetrate. Surveillance of the house uncovers the fact that suicide vests and explosive devices line the top of one of the house’s beds, causing the intended capture to become a kill chain into which Powell and Benson both feel locked. The officials cannot agree on a solid option, while the Foreign Secretary Minister (Iain Glen), suffering from a case of food poisoning on a trip to an arms trade gala, and the U.S. Secretary of State, playing a table tennis competition in China, tell them to get a move on. Watts and Gershon await orders.

And then there is a further kink in the works that changes some minds, doesn’t change others, and runs the risk of getting to the brink of another, potentially deadlier attack than what has come before: That aforementioned schoolgirl begins selling bread directly outside the house that is their target. The rest of the film is meticulous in the way it presents each side of this argument: some are united in the opinion that the risk of letting the terrorists leave is too great to save the girl, others are appalled by the idea of allowing her to die, and meanwhile the situation resolves itself in the only way it possibly can. There is another element to Eye in the Sky that raises its head within the final ten minutes, a cruel irony that doesn’t belong except to manipulate, but this is a fittingly tense examination of desperate choices and the spaces between them.