Tag: marvel retrospective

Rating in Stars: ***½ (out of ****)
Cast: Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale
Director: Peyton Reed
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sci-fi action violence)
Running Time: 1:57
Release Date: 07/17/15

Ant-Man contains all the usual ingredients of the superhero movie (Indeed, it also contains many of the same things that have made the so-called Marvel Cinematic Universe so creatively tired lately), but it’s in the way screenwriters Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay, and Paul Rudd rearrange and, in a roundabout way, mock them that the movie finds its pretty considerable success. This is the best introduction to a hero we’ve seen yet in this universe (and, if you’re into ranking things, the second-best movie overall that Disney and Marvel have overseen these past seven years). Mark it down to a mixture of the kind of wacky fun that most of these movies have been missing and a serious approach to the mythology that, finally, is starting to feel lived-in.

But yes, all the usual plot elements are here. We have the Everyman with a hero complex and a unique past: Scott Lang (Rudd) was the well-meaning dad to daughter Cassie (an impossibly cute Abby Ryder Fortson) before wife Maggie (Judy Greer, one of our brightest comic actresses again semi-wasted here in a wife role) remarried to policeman Paxton (Bobby Cannavale) and Scott himself became a career criminal, ending up in the slammer for three years. The film begins as he is finally released–only to procure and then lose a job with a popular ice-cream chain.

We have the Hero’s Destiny, which is here for Scott to be an expendable soldier/guinea pig for Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a billionaire scientist who, in 1989, was attempting to discover how to shorten the distance between the atoms (or something). In the present, he is emerging from what seems to be reclusive period in solitude, having handed the company down to his protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) years ago; Hank’s daughter Hope van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly) is some sort of head of research, too. Cross has perfected shrinking technology that Hank gave up on years ago, except without the knowledge that Hank’s suit, which shrinks its wearer to the size of a bug, is still active.

Enter Scott into this whole thing, because Hank thinks the technology is dangerous and simply wants to fight fire with fire. From here, we get the usual superhero shtick: Scott trains to become a hero dubbed “the Ant-Man” much to his chagrin by “communicating” with the counterpart insect, which does give us a cool sequence where he fights with another, cameoing Avenger. When the climax comes, director Peyton Reed’s shifting perspective of big-vs.-small takes over in creative ways (such as the battleground of Scott’s final encounter with someone in a different, also-tiny suit called the Yellowjacket being a Thomas & Friends train set or a particularly thrilling battle with a suitcase that turns LifeSavers hard candies and an iPhone into deadly weapons).

This all combines to make this one of the better films in this dominating franchise and just simply an enormously clever ride on its own terms (Even the sequences juxtaposed into the end credits, a phenomenon that has now dominated the franchise’s way of imparting important plot details regarding the whole she-bang, are better than they’ve been in ages). The actors all gel rather wonderfully with their characters (Rudd in particular has a way of making Scott’s abrasiveness likable, and who knew the actor we needed in these movies was Douglas, who hasn’t been this strong in years), and even when the pieces of the puzzle connect exactly where one expects them to, Ant-Man succeeds rather hugely at making us grin too much to care too deeply.

Rating in Stars: ** (out of ****)
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, the voice of James Spader
Director: Joss Whedon
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi action, violence and destruction, and for some suggestive comments)
Running Time: 2:21
Release Date: 05/01/15

It’s not that this so-called cinematic universe about myriad superheroes is, perhaps, growing too large for its own good (The knowledge that the final installment in the series will be split into two parts, releasing in 2018 and 2019, might be nirvana for its fan base, but for the rest of us, it’s a worrisome thought, given the number of characters with which it will, by then, need to deal). It’s not that the films themselves have, with a single exception, followed the same basic formula of “Well-meaning hero + generic villain = finale in which they inevitably face each other.” It’s that the stakes in writer/director Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron feel almost entirely insular.

This was not so in 2012’s “The Avengers,” which, for all its difficulty rallying a troupe of disparate heroes together and maintaining a singular personality, at least embraced those many personalities and giddy action sequences into an infectious blend. Here, things are more functional, purposed to push forward a plot that, miraculously, at least makes some sort of sense but feels entirely existent within itself until the end of the third act (and, of course, excepting the usual, mid-credits sequence with the end-game villain against whom these quirky characters must work when all is said and finally done). The result is a slight confection of diverting action sequences that lead to other diverting action sequences and rarely pause long enough to hear what the characters are saying (another stark difference from the first film, which basically simmered in its appealingly written and performed exposition dump).

The Avengers themselves have grown into their roles as world-savers and chemistry as bickering, friendly rivals, and each has his or her own issue this time around. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is still sort of suffering PTSD from his previous adventures with this group as Iron Man; he and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who becomes a hulking rage monster when rankled, have been dabbling with Loki’s scepter, which exhibits artificially intelligent behavior, and accidentally create Ultron (voice of James Spader, who is wonderfully vindictive and sarcastic in this role) in the process (He wants to control the world by eradicating it of humans, because that makes sense). Bruce and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), aka Black Widow, start up an entirely inconsequential romance that goes nowhere and serves no purpose. Clint Barton (Jeremy Renner), aka Hawkeye, has a secret family (Linda Cardellini fills the Concerned Wife role, but at least it’s Linda Cardellini).

Whedon’s screenplay fails to do that for characters like Thor (Chris Hemsworth), who is just a big, lovable demi-god with a hammer, and Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), who has almost always been as dull as his Captain America alter-ego. Returning but smaller characters (Don Cheadle and Anthony Mackie appear briefly as Tony and Steve’s compatriots, James Rhoades/War Machine and Sam Wilson/The Falcon, and Samuel L. Jackson has another extended cameo as Nick Fury, head of the now-dissolved S.H.I.E.L.D. organization) receive even less to do, and new ones (Ultron might be a curious contradiction at first, but he’s ultimately just a metal brute with an evil plan, while Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen’s appearances as a set of oddball twins with their own, supernatural powers are entirely because of the plot) suffer, as well.

Only some of the film’s attempts to deepen the characters beyond the face value of the thing for which they stand really work. The action sequences are only as fun as they’re allowed to get when Tony, in the famed Hulkbuster suit, and Bruce, in glorious, green form, duke it out as a kind of dueling machismo takes over. The climax is mostly underwhelming (though a new hero excites both in his Frankensteinian creation and in the way he makes everyone else completely redundant) and certainly derivative of the first film’s blowout. Avengers: Age of Ultron does very little that is distinctly wrong; it just reeks of not being very distinctive.

Rating in Stars: *** (out of ****)
Cast: Chris Pratt, Zoe Saldana, Dave Bautista, the voices of Bradley Cooper, Vin Diesel
Director: James Gunn
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action, and for some language)
Running Time: 2:01
Release Date: 08/01/14

It might seem an odd place on which to start a positive review of, well, any movie, as well as it might run the risk of flying in the face of the usual logic, but Guardians of the Galaxy tries to be three things at once and only really works as one of them. Bear with me here, though, reader, because the one thing it does succeed at being is so significant that it dwarfs the other, less successful attempts. Because the screenplay by Nicole Perlman and director James Gunn approaches the origin story of yet another team of scrappy, fundamentally different superheroes as a comedy of five egos battling each other’s opposing philosophies.

It’s funny stuff in a smarmy and sarcastic way that might be its undoing if not for the fact that the actors in the roles of our heroes are so adept at playing the comedy mostly straight. The exception to that might be Chris Pratt as Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, the de facto leader of the group that forms by accident and through reluctance on each member’s part. He was stolen from Earth mere minutes after his mother’s death and, even now, is stuck in the mode of the 1980s, listening to a Walkman radio as a way by which to remember her. Zoe Saldana is Gamora, a ruthless assassin and one of the two daughters of the guy who is positioned as the Big Bad of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and Dave Bautista is Drax, an assassin himself who has no capacity to understand metaphor (Things don’t go over his head, he explains, because his reflexes are simply too good).

There are also Bradley Cooper voicing Rocket, a raccoon and former laboratory experiment whose personality defect is that he wants to cause destruction wherever he goes, and Vin Diesel as the voice of Groot, a sentient tree and Rocket’s hired bodyguard whose vocabulary is limited to five words (one of which is his name). The film smartly downplays these characters’ positive attributes to such a degree that they only occasionally eke through: Peter is brave but self-congratulatory in his courage, Gamora always has the hardened exterior of the girl who was taken from the family her father killed so that he could enslave her, Drax is determined to face the man who killed his own family to a degree that places everyone else at risk, Rocket will never understand why he was made to cause destruction but definitely wants to wreak that havoc, and Groot is, well, Groot.

The film’s attempts at something more earnest than it is feel as much like half-measures as its attempts to work as yet another stepping stone for the MCU, which pop up when the film must ultimately position them against a generic threat. He arrives in the form of Ronan the Accuser (an unrecognizable Lee Pace), who wants to control the universe with some sort of Infinity Stone that does something or other. It’s a MacGuffin, basically. He joins forces with Nebula (Karen Gillan), Gamora’s sister, while the heroes call upon a couple of officials (played by Glenn Close and John C. Reilly in throwaway appearances) from the planet that Ronan and Nebula hope to destroy. The conflict resolves itself in about as convoluted a way as a confusing MacGuffin can provide.

That, then, speaks indirectly to the film’s decision to also attempt to work as an action movie, and Gunn is mostly imprecise in doing so. The sequences of escapes and combat are competently staged and shot by Ben Davis but largely unspectacular (The finale is a whirl of random motion). Even so, there’s the dominating positive force of the primary cast of characters, each of whom is such a stand-out original that everything surrounding them is rendered null by their presence. Guardians of the Galaxy is a very funny movie in its best moments, and that is because of pure, unflappable conviction exactly where it counts.

Rating in Stars: *** (out of ****)
Cast: Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Cobie Smulders
Directors: Anthony Russo and Joe Russo
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for intense sequences of violence, gunplay and action throughout)
Running Time: 2:16
Release Date: 04/04/14

(Note: If you are one of the seven people who has not seen Captain America: The Winter Soldier yet, it is highly recommended you do so before reading this review. Of course, why are you reading it if you haven’t?)

If Captain America: The First Avenger did nothing to alleviate the problem of introductory superhero movies offering only a generic origin story and an equally generic conflict, its sequel does the opposite. We are already accustomed to Captain America, the hero whose costume adorned with stars and stripes is as unsubtle as his earnestness to protect American lives, and so, with Captain America: The Winter Soldier, screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely rather effectively apply a political undertone to the proceedings. Luckily, rather than going down the simplistic road of an obvious allegory, the politics here are entirely self-contained. They exist within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, in which this is the ninth film, and the stakes are higher as a result.

Here, the major villain comes from within the system to which Captain America (and, thus, Steve Rogers) belongs, and he’s not having it. HYDRA, the off-shoot club of the Nazi regime spearheaded by his old foe, has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D., the government agency that paired Steve (Chris Evans in a solid performance) with the other Avengers to defend the Earth. He discovers this at his old barracks, where he was trained with the late “Bucky” Barnes (Sebastian Stan) to defend the country, when forced to go on the run by that corrupt system. In that way, the villain is not the human person very blatantly telegraphed to be a corrupt individual but an idea.

It’s a pretty neat trick to sew doubt in the minds of the heroes here and the audience who have grown to have a sizable kernel of trust in that system. It’s a slow knife between the ribs, rather than some generic conflict against which Steve must work with Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson), aka Black Widow, as well as a helping of allies (a returning Colbie Smulders as Maria Hill, Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson, aka the Falcon, who has a nifty flight suit with wings, and Emily VanCamp as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent undercover in Steve’s apartment complex). Someone close to them is killed, the establishment around them slowly crumbles, and it’s on the run they must go.

The film does succumb to two different familiar conceits with its presentation of a trio of villains. In ascending order of uniqueness and importance, there is Brock Rumlow (Frank Grillo, an intimidating presence), a seeming ally of Steve’s until a neat combat sequence in confined quarters. There is Alexander Pearce (Robert Redford), the aforementioned corrupt individual in power, who wants to continue HYDRA’s work at whatever cost (and his ultimate plan is even more radical). The third is a figure from Steve’s own past whose identity should not be revealed, but he shares the moniker of the film’s subtitle–and has a self-repairing metal arm, to boot.

The result of the familiarity is, admittedly, not of great impactfulness in the big picture. It appears in an extended action climax in which Steve and the Winter Soldier face off on a helicarrier (one of many in this case). Directors Anthony and Joe Russo stage the sequence as sleekly and efficiently as ever, but the most intriguing elements of their film are the ones that pit Captain America against the corroded ideology that helped to make him the hero he is. That is what ultimately gives Captain America: The Winter Soldier its surprising complexity and lifts it above its predecessor.

Rating in Stars: ** (out of ****)
Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Natalie Portman, Tom Hiddleston, Anthony Hopkins, Christopher Eccleston
Director: Alan Taylor
MPAA Rating: (for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence, and some suggestive content)
Running Time: 1:52
Release Date: 11/08/13

At the start of almost every sequence, Thor: The Dark World seems like it’s heading in the heading in the direction of being a surprisingly, solidly interesting first sequel to Thor. By the time we reach the end of each sequence, though, the screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely has regressed backward to the flippant and familiar. This process is tiresome in its repetition, because here is a narrative that has some real potential to make major steps toward building upon the direction in which the Marvel Cinematic Universe seems to be going. Instead, by giving us all the generic beats of a sequel that feels a lot more like wheel-spinning, the screenwriters offer only the familiar to underwhelming results.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is now the protector of the Nine Realms, on one of which he easily defeats a fearsome rock beast to the adulation of the crowd watching (“Maybe next time you should start with that,” exclaims one of his fellows, and we nod in agreement). He’s juggling this responsibility with that of rebuilding the peace left to die by his adoptive brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) after the disastrous events he facilitated and then committed on Earth (for which he will remain in prison) and the prospect of ascension to a throne currently filled by their father Odin (Anthony Hopkins, once again displaying credence in an underwritten role).

The major conflict here shows up on Earth, though, because Jane Foster (Natalie Portman, looking disinterested), the woman Thor met and fell in love with on Earth during his last visit, has stumbled across an anomaly with the help of Darcy (Kat Dennings, a delight) and Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård), who kind of went insane after New York’s invasion by aliens. The anomaly’s source is a mysterious rift in the time-space continuum (I think) that leads her to the location of the Aether, a substance that predates existence (I think) and possesses some sort of power to do something. Honestly, by the time Jane is pointing out to the others that it will cause “spatial extrusions” (what?), the audience will have clocked out both intellectually and emotionally.

The film even offers the requisite villain whose main henchman is far more threatening and interesting. The former is Malekith (Christopher Eccleston, embarrassingly hammy), whose major defining feature is looking like a steely-eyed, poodle-wearing cousin of Nosferatu, and the latter is the Kursed, played by Adewale Akinnuoye Agbaje in a convincing physical performance that gains mileage from his silence. They are the last of the Dark Elves, an ancient race whose members (excepting a horde of expendable soldiers, of course) all died as a result of Malekith’s bid for power. It’s dull stuff and, once again, overshadowed by the continued, conflicted relationship between Thor and Loki (Hemsworth and a very good Hiddleston shine in these sequences).

After much to-do (a treasonous escape from his home realm of Asgard, a death, some more expository nonsense about a “Convergence” that I think created the universe), Thor and Malekith do battle that once again introduces a bit of creativity into the mix (The hero, his foe, and a bunch of other things around them dash in and out of different realms) before yet again devolving into murkiness (The final confrontation way overcompensates the lack of distinctive coloring in director Alan Taylor and cinematographer Kramer Morgenthau’s imagery by dousing everything in red). It’s indicative of the constantly shifting process of regression inherent in Thor: The Dark World, which is at least an interesting mishap.

Rating in Stars: ***½ (out of ****)
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Guy Pearce, Rebecca Hall, Ben Kingsley
Director: Shane Black
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief suggestive content)
Running Time: 2:10
Release Date: 05/03/13

If the first film had the opportunity to examine the reasons that its titular superhero had to don the gold titanium alloy suit shot with hot-rod red that has an arsenal of weapons up its sleeves and in its shoulder pads only to thrust him into a generic conflict and its first sequel did nothing to expand upon that potential (It certainly didn’t and, in fact, regressed from it), then Iron Man Three is the first time in this series–or, indeed, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, considering his appearance in The Avengers was in direct proportion to how he interacts with another superhero–that the man within the suit has been properly examined. What writer/director Shane Black finds is a damaged prodigy from privilege and a source of unflappable sarcasm. It seems that trauma, which is the real conflict in store for the man, activates the defense mechanism of outwardly taking nothing seriously.

That is a quality that Black’s carefully honed screenplay shares, too, as is clear in a sequence wherein Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) visits an anomalous location in Tennessee where an explosion may or may not have occurred that is similar to a series of them that have left many people dead and no trace of a source. He meets Harley (Ty Simpkins), a young, plucky kid whose personality mirrors Tony’s own and who aids in Tony’s investigation of the scene of a crime that left five people dead. The scene is oddly but affectionately balanced between the investigation and their repertoire. Downey’s performance is similarly balanced between the moroseness of Tony’s internal conflict and his sarcastic deflection of it; it’s the actor’s best work to date in the role.

That internal conflict has reared its head in the form of sleeplessness and posttraumatic anxiety following the events that led to New York City being overrun by aliens. Even the mention of the city or the beings from someone as innocuous as a child who wants an autograph on his drawing of the battle sets the stress level to 11 for Tony, whose Iron Man alter ego has gone through an upheaval as of late. The lack of sleep has nonetheless spawned a terrific creative spike in the form of remote-controlled suits and a nifty device that summons them and has been placed subcutaneously in his wrist. When one of those attacks is upon Air Force One, he uses one of them to great effect–until, of course, it meets the front end of a semi truck (The interrupted hero shot is a constant, go-to gag that never fails to illicit a healthy chuckle).

External conflict is two-fold this time around. First, there is the re-introduction of Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), whom Tony met in 1999 (a meeting that we see in a prologue amusingly scored to a late-decade one-hit wonder) while working on a project with confidant and sort-of-girlfriend Maya Hansen (Rebecca Hall). He wants to collaborate on his newest bit of technology, which is the rejuvenation of genetic defects through cellular manipulation, with Stark Industries, but Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow), its C.E.O., thinks it highly weaponizable. The other, seemingly more generic conflict comes from a terrorist calling himself the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley); he is the one responsible for bombings positioned as social experiments for the President of the United States (William Sadler), who has now publicly championed James Rhodes (Don Cheadle), aka Iron Patriot, as an official superhero on the government’s behalf.

Things, though, are not as they seem, and the result is the film within the Marvel Cinematic Universe that feels as if it’s taking the biggest number of chances. Part of that is in the revelation of the Mandarin’s identity (refreshingly played as a joke that might be a barb aimed at the MCU itself for giving us such generic villains); the other part is in the action sequences, which are either creatively conceived (the aforementioned Air Force One rescue or the destruction of Tony’s residence, in which a piano is used as a weapon) or thrillingly staged (the climax, which might predictably be set among crates on a rig in the ocean but is a highlight all the same due to the welcome levity of humor and more of those interrupted hero shots). Iron Man Three is unique and risky, yes, but it’s also a lot of cheeky fun.

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.

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.

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.

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.