Tag: phase 1

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.

Rating in Stars: *½ (out of ****)
Cast: Edward Norton, Liv Tyler, Tim Roth, William Hurt, Tim Blake Nelson
Director: Louis Leterrier
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of intense action violence, some frightening sci-fi images, and brief suggestive content)
Running Time: 1:53
Release Date: 06/13/08

The most intriguing thing about The Incredible Hulk, a decidedly non-intriguing superhero movie, comes right at the beginning. Instead of regurgitating the story of the scientist whose experimentation with gamma radiation turned him into a green, supersized human with rage issues, heightened strength, and toughened skin (Perhaps screenwriter Zak Penn reasoned that, given the source comic book series, a television show of the same name, and 2003’s far superior but less popular Hulk, audiences weren’t clamoring for a re-telling), the whole origin story plays over the opening credits. What follows is constantly underwhelming.

It is an immediate sensation upon seeing how the action sequences are framed and shot by director Louis Leterrier and cinematographer Peter Menzies Jr. The beats are choppy and visually grimy, highlighting every bead of sweat upon the characters’ face to denote an exhaustion that is only the audience’s when every tired genre trope raises its head. The Hulk himself is hidden in shadow until the Big Reveal, upon which is disappointment that a character with such a crucial need for impressive effects work looks, instead, like computerized plastic. Then again, when the Other Big Reveal of his chief adversary happens, the resulting throwdown looks like something out of a PlayStation 2 video game.

The plot has all the scope of an extended chase and doesn’t have much more on its mind. Bruce Banner (Edward Norton), the scientist in question, has been in hiding in Brazil for several years under an assumed name and a false trail leading to his “death.” It happened when the Hulk took over, of course, but General Ross (William Hurt), the man who oversaw the transformation, knows he’s somewhere and is forever looking. The general’s daughter Betty (Liv Tyler) is already dating another man (Ty Burrell), whom she drops when Bruce manages to find his way Stateside after an escape from her father’s men.

One of those men is Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), a military man who is actually a power-hungry adrenaline junkie with a raging death wish and no conscience. He desires what he sees in the Hulk and blackmails Samuel Sterns (Tim Blake Nelson, who is truly dreadful here), the doctor with whom Bruce has been communicating, to transform him into a similar beast. The result is an abomination in itself. Well, actually, he’s now the Abomination, a foe of the Hulk’s from the comic books, but let’s not break the fourth wall here. It’s an epic and enormously disappointing showdown in the works.

That’s basically everything to which the film both aspires and adds up. The actors don’t help, with only Hurt escaping unscathed (and even that is mostly because he adds outward dignity and poise to a character who doesn’t have any genuine depth). Norton’s behind-the-scenes annoyance at a cut he preferred being axed in lieu of this forgettable slice of nothing is evident on his face, Tyler exists to be saved and cry (a lot), and Roth attempts to ham it up as Blonsky while revealing his boredom with a role that eventually just becomes a computerized character. The Incredible Hulk is, indeed, far from it.

Rating in Stars: **½ (out of ****)
Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Terrence Howard, Leslie Bibb
Director: Jon Favreau
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for some intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence, and brief suggestive content)
Running Time: 2:06
Release Date: 05/02/08

The casting coup at the center of Iron Man is the best and only chance the film takes in just more than two hours, and it almost makes the film work. This is a surprisingly insular superhero movie, the first of its own franchise and a stepping stone into a wider one that has now, eight years later, taken over the mainstream film world. The pieces are here for something that could examine both its titular hero and the human who inhabits the suit that (despite the fact that, as the hero points out, it is made of a gold titanium alloy) has inspired the moniker. The problem is that they never quite come together into something that breaks free of the constraints of a familiar origin story that leads to an equally familiar conflict.

But let’s get back to that casting coup. Robert Downey Jr. stars as Tony Stark, the heir to a multimillion-dollar company that shares his surname and produces everything from electronics to weaponry, with the latter being his biggest money-spinner yet. The film opens to the sound of an AC/DC track somewhere near the middle of the story as Tony is escorted to and from an exhibition of a new weapon called the Jericho missile (which is actually many tiny missiles inside a bigger one that self-destructs after its counterparts are engaged), only to be hit by a terrorist cell using his own weapons. As the title slams into place and disappears, we rewind to find him absent from an awards ceremony in his honor, instead playing the casinos.

We get an immediate sense of this man from the opening half-hour, the film’s strongest segment, which presents him as sarcastic to the verge of misanthropic. He isn’t quite unlikable, and therein lies why he is so likable. That is in large part due to Downey, who is smart enough to capture the man’s personality without relegating it to be merely a caricature. It’s a genuinely good performance that, unfortunately, only highlights the weaknesses of what surrounds him. The formula is simple and, as a result, restrictive: We are introduced to a hero, the hero is faced with conflict both internal and external in nature, the external conflict in the form of the hero’s first nemesis takes center stage.

That happens to be Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), the man who created Stark Industries with Tony’s father, and if you think that’s anything remotely close to a spoiler, consider that everything Stane does is to his own (and, superficially, the company’s) interest. He wants Tony locked out, especially when, following Tony’s abduction and near-death experience (He places miniaturized arc reactor in the center of his chest to ward off shrapnel from the attack entering his heart), Tony shuts down the weapons manufacturing part of his company. He also becomes Iron Man, a hot-rod-red-suited metal figure whose use could also be turned into a weapon. This establishes what transpires during the climax.

It also simplifies everything else about Tony’s life–from his struggle not to be an arbiter of weaponry (ironic, as Stane points out, that he created a perfect weapon in response) to his relationships with personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and military liaison James Rhodes (Terrence Howard) to action sequences that have some spark (such as Tony’s retaliation upon the terrorists, which introduces light humor into the mix with ease) but aren’t much more than flights of fancy. Downey is the film’s secret weapon, and he almost elevates Iron Man itself above its rudimentary nature.