ironSoap – Complete

The Avengers

★★★★☆

Directed by: Joss Whedon

Written by: Joss Whedon and Zak Penn

Based on the Comic Book Created by: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

I said in my combo review for Captain America and Thor that I was ready to pull down my fanboy goggles for The Avengers after seeing what Marvel Studios was doing with their superhero movies in the last few years. I didn’t know then that it would be such a literal statement. Circumstances dictated that the best showtime for my wife and I to see the film was a 3D showing.

This isn’t really a review of the 3D effects in The Avengers or even 3D movies in general, but I should point out a couple of things I noticed from seeing a full 3D movie. One is that kinetic, high-movement action sequences don’t look as impressive in 3D, at least not to me. Maybe my brain operates at half speed or something, but it looks very choppy and stilted to me when things move too quickly in 3D. The other is that the depth of field impression given by the 3D makes sequences of characters who aren’t in close zoom appear incredibly small, such as when Iron Man flies around the city. And finally, I don’t see very many points at which set pieces that weren’t designed with 3D in mind should be in full 3D. Watching people stand around a table talking in 3D isn’t exactly detrimental to the storytelling, but it adds zero to the equation and for that reason alone it should be taken out.

So anyway, The Avengers. In large part, the set-up here is not terribly necessary. If you’ve kept up with the Marvel Movie Canon, you have lots of familiar faces as Robert Downey, Jr. (Iron Man), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Scarlett Johansson (Black WIdow), Gweneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts), Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) and Tom Hiddleston (Loki) all reprise roles from earlier movies. Each plays his or her character essentially the same as they have before, so there are no real surprises. The only big newcomer is Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, standing in for Edward Norton. Honestly, I’m a fan of Norton as an actor, but I think Ruffalo is a better Bruce Banner so the singular change is welcome.

The plot involves a plan by Loki to steal the Tesseract, first seen in the original Thor film, which is a macguffin that permits the opening of a portal between an alien world and Earth. The real plot of the movie is the assembly of the Avengers team to combat Loki and the threat and the first act is largely a series of homages and personality clashes between the larger-than-life heroes that have filled whole movies themselves. I need to pause here and say that this part of the movie works, but it only does so on the strength of the script (which is, if you have any familiarity with Joss Whedon’s other work, expectedly exciting and funny and cool). It is fairly clear early on that Whedon is the most comfortable when writing a select few of the characters: Agent Coulson, Tony Stark (Iron Man), Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow) and Steve Rodgers (Captain America), so they get the most dialogue and the best lines. Which is actually fine because from these four central characters, the others bounce witty exchanges and character or dynamic revealing exchanges off each other in a way that doesn’t make them seem less important, just less assertive.

There are the requisite comic-book dream match-ups: Thor vs. Iron Man, Black Widow vs. Hulk, Captain America vs. Being A Total Square, etc. As the second act unfolds on an impressive S.H.I.E.L.D. air-carrier and a captured Loki begins to reveal his scheme, the discussions of teamwork and purpose and background fade and themes of heroism and sacrifice emerge. This is easy, familiar territory for Whedon and on this grand stage he repeats some of his favored insights in slightly different contexts such that his great talent is undeniable to the uninitiated but those who have followed along on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly, Dollhouse, etc. will nod with sage recognition.

The final action sequence is among the most spectacular I can remember, a long, exhilarating sequence of special effects that I think will stand alongside the epic scope sequences from films like Lord of the Rings (specifically The Two Towers) and 300 and The Matrix Reloaded (don’t email me with 10,000 other movies that have great epic action scenes, there are a lot I know; assume that whatever your personal favorites are, this one stands alongside it). Interestingly, in these effects-heavy scenes it is the Hulk who mostly steals the show (I find once again, like in his own movie, Thor comes out seeming a little pointless and wussy) but each Avenger has at least a couple of scenes or moments to shine.

The hallmark of a good popcorn flick is one that seems to pass the time very quickly and that has you leaving the theater with a smile on your face. The Avengers did both of these admirably, and I can do little but recommend it, especially to those who have enjoyed other Marvel-based movies in recent years.

from No Thief Like a Bad Movie — July 03, 2012 at 12:33PM

Madagascar 3

★★☆☆☆

Directed by: Eric Darnell, Tom McGrath and Conrad Vernon

Written by: Eric Darnell and Noah Baumbach

Sometimes you go to a movie just for the company, just to engage in leisure with someone you like or love or enjoy company. I think this is often the case with kids: parents endure children’s entertainment for the sake of seeing the delight in their offspring. I like taking my daughter to the movies because it helps confer the love of the theater experience to her, to watch as she delights in the spectacle of the darkened room, the larger-than-life screen and sound, the dedication to sustained activity. Plus, when it’s done right, kid-friendly movies can be enjoyable for adults, too. I liked Tangled and Despicable Me and I often enjoy Pixar movies; everyone wins.

Of course, sometimes you have to endure stuff like Madagascar 3. The series, which I’ve never really thought had much to offer (I’ve seen snippets of the original and labored through the second), returns to wear out its continually thinning welcome with uninspired art design and a curiously talky script that has the lion, the zebra, the giraffe and the hippo (who have names, but I can’t ever seem to keep them in my head, nor does it appear to matter) loose in Europe after yet another credibility-straining mishap, trying to duck a relentless French animal control officer by hiding out in a traveling circus.

The jokes are abundant but few are really funny and after awhile the “comedy” dissolves into a one-note repetition of the trailer-highlight “Circus Afro” song. Eventually the refrain is remixed with the “You Got To Move It” power dance track that so annoyingly worms its way into ears from the first two flicks, resulting a sort of unholy brain-sticking über-irritant that cannot be scrubbed clean even with hours of quality redirection in the form of Arcade Fire or Blind Pilot. Take it from someone with experience.

I think the principal issue with Madagascar 3 is that it tries to find the magic formula that Pixar has developed for blending memorable characters with touching, affirming plots and avoiding to much dip into traditional, slapstick cartoon formula. The problem is that Madagascar 3 is really only noteworthy when it trades on its Saturday Morning roots because the characters aren’t memorable and the script isn’t that good. Similar to the well-trad Ice Age franchise (notably also executed by Dreamworks Animation), the funniest parts are those that channel Friz Freling or Chuck Jones, not Brad Bird and John Lasseter.

Madagascar 3 isn’t so bad that I felt I needed to walk out of the theater, and my daughter said she enjoyed it so it’s hard to feel like it was a waste of time. Somewhere, though, in the back of my mind, is the list of movies coming out this year that I want to see and I note how ridiculously long it is and I think that no matter how many of them I see, I’ll still miss a few and I’ll have to review the list of theater experiences I had in 2012 and note that one or more of those is not present, while Madagascar 3 is.

from No Thief Like a Bad Movie — June 18, 2012 at 02:03PM

One For The Money

★★☆☆☆

Directed by: Julie Anne Robinson

Written by: Stacy Sherman, Karen Ray and Liz Brixius

Based on the Novel by: Janet Evanovich

Up front, I need to clarify that I have read the book this movie was based on. However, I’m not what you’d call a huge fan of the series; I’ve read the first few and I’ll probably read some more. The books are fun, not fabulous; good, not great. So unlike some other adaptations, I didn’t really go into this with sky-high expectations, fearful that the filmmakers might ruin my beloved stories and characters. It felt like all they needed to do was capture a few key notes from the beach-ready books and they’d be fine.

Well, they didn’t really do that. I mean, the one thing the books aren’t is boring, and I found this movie to be surprising in how uninteresting it was. It sort of meanders along, missing a lot of the flavor that gives the book its heart, and then right at the end it floods the narrative with too much happening at once. Don’t get me wrong, the plot of the first novel is hardly stellar to begin with, but what makes the book work that is lacking from the screenplay is the dynamic secondary characters. But where the book can devote enough time to making each of them shine, the movie feels compressed and rushed so none of the fun supporting cast is ever really given a chance to shine.

But the worst problem with the adaptation is that it gets two characters wrong who need to be right. One is part of the supporting cast, Grandma Mazur, who in the books is specifically non-judgmental of the protagonist. Here, Grandma (played with too much camera-winking by Debbie Reynolds) is sort of an uninteresting hair-tousler which basically ruins her character from the book. Even more egregious is the depiction of heroine Stephanie Plum, herself. I put a lot of the blame on Katherine Heigel, who plays Plum as this kind of smirking, gun-toting, poorly-Jersey-accented tough gal. My umbrage is that isn’t how Plum is presented in the books at all. She’s far less certain of herself, less casually accepting of the mayhem that unfolds around her, and it endears her to the audience. Here, Heigel’s blasé Plum eyerolls her way through the caper and there’s never a point at which you really feel the tension between her and Morelli (played with washboard-stomached inconsistency by Jason O’Mara) that kind of drives Evanovich’s novel.

Like I said, I’m not a superfan of the book series which is why I actually had some hopes that this adaptation could streamline some of the clumsier elements in the early Evanovich novels, but instead director Robinson, who seems to have mostly worked in TV prior to this, amps up the pace to an attention-deficit level that the script can’t keep up with and leaves the actors untethered to create shadows of what they ought to be.

I’m actually a little surprised I didn’t hear more outrage about this film. I know the books are well-loved by a lot of people and as I watched I couldn’t help thinking that I’m just glad they didn’t do this sort of disservice to a book I actually liked a whole lot, such as The Hunger Games. Best to skip this one and read the book instead.

from No Thief Like a Bad Movie — June 18, 2012 at 02:00PM

City Hall

★★★★☆

Directed by: Harold Becker

Written by: Ken Lipper, Paul Schrader, Nicholas Pileggi and Bo Goldman

This tightly-packed thriller reminded me a bit of a newer movie I reviewed here, The Ides of March. This is a movie about politics, choices, courage and convictions, with workman performances by John Cusack as the Deputy Mayor of New York City and Bridget Fonda as the representative of a slain cop. The standout is the layered work done by Al Pacino as fictional mayor John Pappas, a nuanced character who is both pragmatist and idealist. I particularly liked that the movie had a lot of intrigue and life-or-death elements, especially as the powerful men behind the scandal try to cover up their tracks, but at no point did it descend into silly or outrageous territory. Worth watching.

from No Thief Like a Bad Movie — June 18, 2012 at 01:51PM