So, How About Those Twists? (Star Wars: The Last Jedi Edition...HEAVY SPOILERS)

This is my third such piece, and I have to say that, immediately after writing a review from which I must withhold spoilers, it is incredibly cathartic to just express my thoughts on all the twists and turns that usually characterize big blockbusters. It'd be nice if people shared their comments and views as well, but writing the piece itself is fulfilling enough.

Such is the case with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which, honestly, really just features several different variations on one specific twist: almost no one's plans work out the way they want.

The Resistance's plan to escape doesn't quite work out, Finn's and Rose's plan to take out the First Order's tracking device doesn't work out, Snoke's plan to wipe out the Jedi doesn't work out, Rey's plan to turn Kylo Ren back to the light doesn't work out, and Kylo Ren's plan to turn Rey to the dark side and stamp out the Resistance doesn't work out either. What makes Johnson's storytelling so unique is that he actively makes it a point to subvert expectations, and he virtually telegraphs his intent when Luke Skywalker blurts out the line "this is not going to go the way you think!" Johnson recognizes, especially in the wake of the backlash against the first Star Wars sequel in over ten years, that the franchise was in dire need of some serious shakeups, and whatever one thinks of his approach, one cannot deny that for the most part, he's trying something different. I know this new approach to telling stories in the Star Wars Universe hasn't gone over well with everyone; the film currently has a 57% or "rotten" user rating over on the controversial review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, and at least one person I know says this movie makes him actually appreciate George Lucas' prequels. While that last statement made me throw up in my mouth a little, part of me does understand where this antipathy is coming from.

As a cultural touchstone, the Star Wars films, at least the original trilogy of films and the volumes of comic books and novels that they spawned between the 70s and the 90s, have left such an impression on the collective consciousness that they're basically the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. It's hard to mess with a recipe that everyone knows, like KFC's 11 herbs and spices or the Big Mac's special sauce, as no less than Star Wars creator George Lucas learned to the detriment of his reputation when he did the prequel trilogy at around the turn of the millennium. I suspect this is also why legendary producer Kathleen Kennedy, who is to the new Star Wars Universe what Kevin Feige is to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has kept all of her directors on a very short leash and has fired no fewer than FOUR directors from various Star Wars projects. If the stories are true, Kennedy rules the SWU with an iron fist that makes Feige's creative muscle-flexing over the MCU directors and writers seem absolutely limp-wristed. The bottom line is that messing with the formula can be a fatal mistake, which makes the fact that Rian Johnson's vision even saw the light of day a miracle of some sort.

For me, some of the attempts to subvert convention didn't work, but fortunately, most of them did. Johnson asked and answered one of the simplest questions that could be asked in the franchise: what if those crazy, virtually impossible plans the rebels are always hatching actually go awry? It also asks and answers the question: how far will the rebels go when their backs are absolutely against the wall, with a powerfully visceral moment that features Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo making the supreme sacrifice to save the fleeing Resistance members.

Speaking of characters' swan songs, my hat goes off to Rian Johnson for giving Luke Skywalker a properly epic sendoff, as his confrontation with Kylo Ren and the First Order forces on the planet Crait, while brief, is utterly thrilling. Essentially, Luke saves the day, after all of the plans and ideas of the various characters have fallen by the wayside. It really was brilliant; having just successfully deceived Kylo Ren into thinking he was actually right in front of him when he was just projecting his consciousness all the way from Ahch-To, Luke has scored an unqualified victory, and his act of fading away while sitting still, amid a glorious sunset paying homage to his moment in Episode IV was a perfect ending for this character, especially when Rey describes his passing as a peaceful one. I'm sure hardcore Star Wars geeks picked up on the nature of Luke's appearance much sooner than we casual fans did, with Luke having cleaned up and everything, but for me, even knowing what was going on would have taken nothing away from the moment. So Johnson continues Abrams' tradition of killing off OT characters, but at least he does it with considerably more panache.

Now, regarding Luke's successor, Rey, there was something distinctly gratifying about the revelation that she is not in any way related to Skywalker, Kenobi or any other family that has left its stamp on this universe, and that her parents are so anonymous they're never even named but are described only as "junkers." Kylo Ren may have been a clear-cut bad guy by the film's end, but he was right in declaring that the overarching story needs new blood and that all of the old things need to be washed away, which is somewhat ironic considering his own heritage. Also, having Rey finally meet up with Luke and learn about the Force from him made her act of saving the day by clearing away the boulders all the more satisfying in a way that her curiously out-of-the-blue lightsaber fight with Kylo Ren at the climax of the first film simply wasn't. To me it felt more like she'd "earned" her hero moment this time around.

Also, it was deeply satisfying that the "evil emperor" wannabe Snoke was handily dispatched in this film, and that all of the protagonists, going into the last movie of this new trilogy, are in no way related to any of the Skywalkers. I also found it interesting that the entirety of the new iteration of the Rebel Alliance could basically fit in the Millennium Falcon. These are exciting new times.

Finally, I confess I have mixed feelings about Finn's and Rose's doomed mission to Canto Bight, the casino planet. Rian Johnson takes the opportunity to talk about social inequity by showing audiences a planet full of opulence and decadence, where people who have no problem selling weapons to both sides of the conflict go to spend their blood money. It's a wonderful conversation to start having, and it helps that the characters in it, Finn, Rose and even Benicio del Toro's DJ, are all persons of color. Elements like this are the driving force behind wars in the real world, not hopelessly broad concepts like "good" and "evil." The movie takes on a fascinating new complexion at this juncture. My problem with this, however, is, that this is a conversation that deserves its own full-length film, one that repaints the entire new trilogy in a shade of grey, the way Rogue One did for the original trilogy, with its decidedly more realistic look at the sort of things insurgents often do. All we get, unfortunately, is a subplot that bloats the film's running time, complete with a tacked-on romance, which feels all the more ridiculous considering that by the end of the movie, Rose has only known Finn for less than a day. I did like that Johnson gave some closure (or appeared to give closure) to Finn's arc with his former boss, Captain Phasma.

The very end of the movie, though, with the stable boy on Canto Bight showing the ability to manipulate the Force, however, shows that Rian Johnson is not done exploring his 'haves and have nots' concept. I hope Disney isn't, either.

The bottom line for me is that, even though not all of the notions brought forward by Johnson work, this series, now 40 years old, needs new ideas if it's going to stay relevant past Episode IX, especially considering a new trilogy is planned. This movie makes a strong argument that Rian Johnson is just the man to bring those ideas to life.

The Force is Strong with this One: A Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi

written and directed by Rian Johnson

Over forty years after the release of the very first Star Wars, Disney/Lucasfilm releases the ninth film in the series, the highly-awaited The Last Jedi. It is, in many respects, a conspicuous improvement over its predecessor, though it's still not quite the best the franchise has ever offered.

Following the events of The Force Awakens, the First Order, led by the sinister Snoke (Andy Serkis), having laid waste to the leadership of the Old Republic, now seeks to wipe out the last vestiges of the Resistance, being led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). Spearheading Snokes' efforts to snuff out all resistance are General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) and former Jedi-in-training Kylo Ren, a.k.a. Ben Solo (Adam Driver) who, as the film opens, are bearing down on the last remaining Resistance fleet as it evacuates its headquarters. The fleet escapes, but only momentarily, and at terrible cost. Leia finds herself having to deal with her ace pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), whose skill in the cockpit is matched only by how brash he is, a trait that could spell the difference between successfully escaping the clutches of the First Order and getting completely annihilated. Meanwhile, fellow Resistance fighter Rey (Daisy Ridley) is on a mission to the distant plant of Ach-to, where she attempts to recruit the last remaining Jedi, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to help the Resistance, and learn more about her mysterious past. Finally, former First Order Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) wakes up from the coma he fell into in the last movie, and tries to desert what he feels is a doomed Resistance, but fate has other plans as Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) a mechanic and the sister of a fallen Resistance fighter, stops him in his tracks by tasering him. In the ensuing conversation, he and Rose figure out how the First Order is able to track the Resistance, and devise a plan that involves finding a codebreaker (Benicio del Toro) on an intergalactic Monte Carlo and then sneaking onto Snokes' very own destroyer. Finally, Rey and Ren, mysteriously, develop a telepathic bond that enables them to communicate directly, even though great distance separates them, and this just may spell the difference between the Resistance falling to the First Order, or defeating it.

I'll readily admit that, while I enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I was one of the many who felt that J.J. Abrams' film was, for all intents and purposes, a remake of the very first Star Wars movie, now called Episode IV: A New Hope. While it was, of course, a sequel, it was so hamstrung by Abrams' desire to show proper reverence to the original trilogy that it failed to bring anything truly new and fresh to the mythology. Rian Johnson's film is far from perfect, but quite significantly, it suggests that Lucasfilm has both learned from Abrams' mistakes as well as from the success of last year's spinoff film Rogue One: A Star Wars story.

For one thing, Johnson isn't afraid to take a movie that could have just as easily been The Empire Strikes Back, Mark II and instead go in a significantly different direction. I don't dare say more for fear of spoiling anything (and I'll have a separate post to discuss that). For better or worse, Johnson really puts his stamp on these characters, especially the newer ones like Rey, Ben Solo, Finn and Poe Dameron. He continues the threads that Abrams began, and enriches them significantly, at least in the case of Rey and Ben. Finn gets his own dedicated story arc, one that introduces a sort of love interest for him, and delves into his past as a stormtrooper, with a fairly satisfying payoff, even if the subplot does feel a little bloated. Dameron has a bit of an arc himself, one that brings him in direct conflict with General Organa and her subordinate Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) but while it has its interesting moments of tension, it still feels distinctly underwritten. Rey and Ben/Ren get the most character development, which is a welcome thing, considering how sparsely Abrams wrote their characters when he introduced them. Kylo Ren benefits the most; he gets a notable upgrade from the petulant Darth Vader wannabe he was in the first film of the new trilogy, which bodes well for the next (and last) film of this particular saga.

More importantly, however, Johnson avoids the one big mistake Abrams made in The Force Awakens, which was to give the old characters short shrift. Abrams royally screwed Han Solo, and I don't even mean by killing him. Abrams basically transplanted the Han Solo of the original trilogy into a new movie. Sure, he had white hair, wrinkles, and a lot of regrets, but he was still dodging people he'd outfoxed/swindled and basically acting like the guy that Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker ran into in the very first movie. And honestly, Han died like a punk, something hardly befitting a character who is arguably the most popular hero of the original trilogy.

Luke Skywalker, who comes to prominence in this film, is another story. Johnson takes the fact that Kylo Ren was a product of Luke's training and absolutely runs with it. Luke isn't just a little older and grayer; the events of the last thirty years, especially the events that led to Ben Solo joining the First Order, have left him a profoundly changed man, and while it's easy to poke fun at the whole grumpy old man shtick Hamill puts on for much of his screen time, there's so much more to him than that, and it's evident not only from Johnson's script but from Hamill's acting. Yes, Star Wars fans, Mark Hamill, who managed to stain the entire franchise's most iconic scene with some awful line delivery ("Nooooo!!! That's not true!!! That's IMPOSSIBLE!!!") actually manages to ACT here. He doesn't exactly turn into Daniel Day-Lewis, but it is a remarkable step up from what we've seen before from him. And unlike Han, he gets a fantastic "hero" moment in the movie, as well as a stirring callback to one of the most iconic sequences of the first film which involved a sunset and a swelling John Williams score. THAT, Mr. Abrams, is how you do a proper hommage, not the copycat BS you sold us two years ago.

Speaking of John Williams, I was pleased to note that, whereas in The Force Awakens his music just felt like generic white noise, here he seems to have rediscovered what makes composing for these films so special; he doesn't just lean on the decades-old themes here but brings some new, if slightly familiar-sounding tunes to spice up the story.

I feel it's worth mentioning this film's astonishing production value; even though it should be a given, and even though the last two films under the Disney banner have both been very well-put-together, I'd like to acknowledge, having failed to do so before, how this new series of films really puts premium on things like location shoots and practical effects as opposed to George Lucas' CGI-infested clusterf**ks.

Ultimately, the film could have been trimmed a little bit, but as a narrative, it works quite well for the most part, and I can honestly say I enjoyed it just as much as I did Rogue One.

8.5/10

The Power of Compassion: A Review of Wonder

directed by Stephen Chbosky
written by Chbosky, Steve Conrad and Jack Thorne, based on the novel by R.J. Palacio

These days we find ourselves living in nasty times, with so much unpleasantness greeting us every single day, every moment we open a newspaper or turn on the news. While most of the movies I watch are a welcome escape from the drudgery of everyday existence, with their fantastical worlds and characters that can overcome all adversity with their gumption and, occasionally, their super powers, it's not often that I watch a movie about completely ordinary people that is so comprehensively enthralling that it just overwhelms me with how life-affirming it is. One such movie was the 1994 masterpiece The Shawshank Redemption, and anyone who has seen Frank Darabont's prison drama will know the magnitude of the intended compliment when I say that the new film Wonder is similar in its emotional impact.

August "Auggie" Pullman (Jacob Tremblay) is, for the most part, just like many other American ten-year-olds. He loves science, computer games and Star Wars, he has a loving family in his parents Isabelle (Julia Roberts) and Nate (Owen Wilson) and his big sister Via (Izabel Vidovic), and he's about to start middle school after having been home-schooled his whole life by his mom. The only problem is that the reason that his family has kept him away from the outside world for so long is that a birth defect has left him with prominent facial disfigurement, even after multiple surgeries have been performed on him to basically build his face. When he arrives at his new school he meets some nice people, like Principal Tushman (Mandy Pantinkin), and homeroom teacher Mr. Browne (Daveed Diggs), but as expected, he runs into a very unpleasant bully named Julian (Bryce Gheisar) who makes his life a living hell. Fortunately, even amidst these tribulations, Auggie is still able to connect with some kids Jack Will (Noah Jupe) and Summer (Millie Davis), but even that may not be enough to drown out the sheer meanness of Julian and his cronies. Through it all, Auggie, for the love of his parents, does his best to make his new situation work, and it all comes down to whether the people who surround Auggie will choose to be kind or cruel to him.

Given the film's subject matter, a highly-affecting, much-beloved young adult novel, it would have been easy enough to lay the sentimentality on thick with elements like an overbearing orchestral score and lots of weepy moments. Julia Roberts may be fifty, but she did star in Steel Magnolias nearly 30 years ago, so she knows her way around a good tearjerker. It all would have made perfect sense; Auggie is the ultimate outcast, after all.

Stephen Chbosky, however, goes for a surprisingly nuanced approach, one in which nearly every pivotal character, even the initially unsympathetic ones, gets a little slice of the narrative. As difficult as Auggie's life may be, he's not the only one with problems, and this little nugget of truth is best exemplified in his sister Via's narrative arc, in which she feels abandoned by her best friend Miranda (Danielle Rose Russell) who, in turn, has a sad story of her own. Jack Will, the boy whom Auggie befriends, has his own little story before they even meet. It's a remarkable technique that one usually only sees in English ensemble pieces, but Chbosky uses it to remarkable effect here, and it works well because he coaxes solid performances from every one of his actors, including his child actors, especially Trembay, who works harder than anyone else through heavy prosthetics. Julia Roberts, the biggest star in this movie by a long shot, restores quite a bit of the luster she lost of over the years, and demonstrates that she's got quite a bit of shelf-life left. Isabelle's reaction when Auggie walks out of school with a new friend, something that catches her completely off-guard, is priceless. Star Wars characters Chewbacca and Darth Sidious make hilarious and highly effective cameos.

Make no mistake, though, this film still goes for the broad moments; music still swells when it needs to, there are moments of agony and of redemption. It does jerk tears. More importantly, the film makes a clear and unequivocal statement about the virtues of kindness and the evils of bullying, and in this day and age, when heads of state are known for being petulant bullies, it is perhaps more relevant now than ever as it seeks to convey its needed message to those who need to hear it the most: children of all ages.

10/10

Pushing Buttons and Jerking Tears as Only Pixar Can: A Review of Coco

directed by Lee Unkrich and Adrian Molina
written by Adrian Molina, Matthew Aldrich, Jason Katz, and Lee Unkrich

After two mediocre sequels in a row, Pixar returns to the artistry that made it arguably the best animated studio in the business with the original animated film Coco, set in Mexico during the Day of the Dead.

The film tells the story of Miguel Rivera (Anthony Gonzalez) a young boy who dreams of becoming a musician like his idol Ernesto de la Cruz (Benjamin Bratt) but who, unfortunately for him, belongs to family in which music has been banned for several generations, owing to the fact that his great-great-grandfather, a musician, left his great-great-grandmother, never to return. Such is Miguel's passion, however, that he is willing to defy his grandmother (Renee Victor) to play during a Day of the Dead concert. His determination is further fueled when he sees evidence that suggests he might actually be related to de la Cruz. When he loses his guitar, though, he finds himself desperate for a new one for the concert, and is even willing to "borrow" de la Cruz's guitar, which is enshrined, along with his remains, in his mausoleum. Unfortunately, playing a dead man's stolen guitar on the Day of the Dead has dire consequences, and Miguel finds himself stuck in the Land of the Dead, discovered first by his family headed by his great-great grandmother Imelda (Alanna Ubach) who will only agree to send him back if he renounces music. Unable to give up his dream, Miguel seizes on a plan to have de la Cruz, whom he believes to be his great-great-grandfather, send him back instead, and he sets out to find him, with the help of the shifty Hector (Gael Garcia Bernal). Time is not on his side; if he does not return by sunrise the next day, he will remain in the Land of the Dead forever.

Visually, the film is a home run as only Pixar can deliver. From the lived-in, bustling barrio in Mexico to the vibrant, charmingly retro cityscape of the Land of the Dead, and its brightly-hued alebrijes ("spirit guides"), the film's visual presentation is sensational. While others may occasionally come close, when Pixar are in the zone, nobody can deliver eye-candy like they can, and with this film, they are absolutely hitting all the notes, firing on all cylinders, and whatever other metaphor for perfection there is. Even on the musical front, with a rich score by Michael Giacchino and stirring new songs by "Frozen" composers Kristen and Bob Lopez, the film is right up there with the studio's very best.

Given Pixar's track record with respect to its original work (as opposed to its sequels), I was fairly surprised, therefore, to find that it was in the story department that Coco proved to be a letdown. The narrative was surprisingly cliche-ridden and a lot more predictable than I would have imagined a Pixar movie actually being. I don't dare go into details lest I spoil plot points, but suffice it to say even if Coco does tug at the ol' heartstrings every now and again, it's still a far cry from their best work. In a day and age in which animated films can be so much more than ninety-minute diversions for kids or cloying tearjerkers, I found myself surprisingly disappointed with Pixar for playing it as safe as they did here.

The good news is that even with a surplus of story tropes, Pixar still works a good deal of its magic here, thanks to the aforementioned visual magic, the enchanting music score and songs, generous helpings of humor, heart and some sterling performances from its voice actors, including young Anthony Gonzalez, animation newbie Gael Garcia Bernal and seasoned voice actor Benjamin Bratt, among others.

Some reviewers have compared this movie to an older animated film about the Day of the Dead as well, the Guillermo-del-Toro-produced The Book of Life, and the comparison is not altogether unjustified, considering that, apart from the Mexican holiday and a hero who journeys to the Land of the Dead, the films also share a story involving a family that hates music. Truth be told Book felt a tad more iconoclastic in its storytelling, and less reliant on well-worn story tropes. It was nowhere near as successful as Coco, though, even if it was at least as good, or even better, and that's a pity.

Still, I'm glad we got this film before we got yet another Toy Story.

7.9/10

How the Avengers: Infinity War Trailer Illustrates Why the Marvel Cinematic Universe Works so Well...and Why Not Even One of the Attempts to Copy It Does

I first thought of writing this piece shortly after reviewing the conspicuously mediocre superhero team-up movie Justice League, but it was taking me some time to properly collect my thoughts. When I watched the trailer for Avengers: Infinity War, a little over an hour ago, everything pretty much fell into place.

The first answer that may come to people's minds when asked "why does the Marvel Cinematic Universe work so well" could well be "because they make better movies" but not only would such an answer would be rather facile, it would not even be entirely true.

While the first Iron Man was an unqualified success, what not everyone may remember was that the second film, which came out two years later, was specifically derided by a lot of people for the fact that it felt like a "trailer" for The Avengers rather than a movie unto itself. Could Marvel have made a better movie? Probably, but if it felt to viewers that the priority was to plug their Avengers film, especially after audiences reacted positively to Nick Fury's tiny cameo at the end of the first Iron Man movie, there was a reason for that. Making a good follow up was less important than drumming up awareness for their future plans. Iron Man, to my mind, took one for the team in that movie. For better or worse, people thought about, and TALKED about what an Avengers movie would be like, and a year later, they started introducing the other key players, Thor and Captain America.

As much as I enjoyed the first Thor when it came out, I have to admit, having watched it again, that it has not aged very well. It seemed tonally muddled back then, and is barely even watchable now. With its "fantasy/reality world clash" theme it's sort of like a much more expensive, better-written version of the horrid Masters of the Universe movie back in 1987. Without it, however, we wouldn't have had a proper introduction to Thor, one of the founding Avengers, and more importantly, we wouldn't have had an introduction to Loki, the main bad guy of the Avengers film and arguably one of the MCU's most prominent characters. Like the reviled Iron Man 2, Thor, which often hovers near the bottom of many fans' "favorite Marvel films" lists, was a necessary evil. Even though both Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger both had middling box office when they came out, and nothing like the billions or near-billions of dollars that their successors proved capable of generating, they were absolutely necessary. The Incredible Hulk, another of their weaker offerings, wasn't absolutely necessary in the same vein, but it did bring the character within the Universe, and it meant we got to see William Hurt as Thunderbolt Ross in two movies, which was fun.

In short, it's not all down to the fact that Marvel "makes better movies," because that isn't always the case. It's down to the fact that even when the individual film wasn't a cinematic masterpiece, they were willing to put it out their to lay the groundwork for the bigger plan. Of course Marvel has made it a point to avoid making real stinkers, but ultimately they don't just make good movies, they make COMPLETE good movies, that introduce us in proper fashion to the characters they want us to embrace.

It's one of the key reasons why Justice League failed to generate the kind of excitement WB had clearly been hoping for; instead of introducing us to Aquaman and Cyborg, two characters largely unknown to non-fans prior to Justice League, through modest but complete films, they gave us e-mail attachments. E-mail attachments. Audiences and critics were understandably indifferent to them. Ezra Miller's Flash was a happy exception, but that's in no small part due to the fact the Flash has a TV series (and has had one previously) that helps keep people aware of him.

It's one of the reasons why Universal's "Dark Universe" was basically dead on arrival even with multiple allusions to a bigger continuity (the other being that The Mummy was basically a terrible movie). They tried to go for a payday they didn't really earn.

Finally, it's also why Sony, who fancied a shot at their own "shared Spidey universe" threw in the towel after The Amazing Spider-Man 2 tanked and finally teamed up with Marvel instead. Their lazily-conceived Sinister Six would almost certainly have been dead on arrival at the box office. There was something laughable about how Sony went from aping Nolan's "dark" style with The Amazing Spider-Man to bright colors and universe-building in The Amazing Spider-Man 2 when they realized that shared universes were the next big thing.

The bottom line is that the folks at Marvel took the time and effort to build this world, one character and movie at a time, knowing that the big team-up movie wouldn't work without the individual movies in place. They knew that, apart from appealing to fanboys, they had to get everyone else on board too, and that was a lengthy process. They're basically like the little red hen in the fairy tale in which she does every tedious individual task needed to make bread (or cake, I forget how it goes), while every other animal on the farm just laughs at her. At the end, her bread is made, and she enjoys the fruits of her labor.

As a result, when something like the Infinity War trailer drops, it's not just the visual effects or the music or the actors that get people excited: it's the history, it's everything that led to this moment. Of COURSE it helps that the film looks well-made, but the extra mile that Marvel has gone is what spells the difference between a handful of well-made movies, like X-Men: First Class and X-Men: Days of Future Past, and a sprawling, interconnected universe. For the most part, when each hero shows up, it feels significant because we've been with them on their arduous individual journeys, and seeing them together, even though we've seen many of them team up before for the first Avengers movie, it...MEANS something.

It's not just that Marvel did the whole "shared universe" thing first; so far, it's the only company that's really taken the time and effort to do it right.

Not The End of the World: A Review of Justice League

directed by Zack Snyder (with a little help from Joss Whedon)
written by Chris Terrio, Whedon and Snyder

With all that's going on in the world, it seems wrong to exert as much energy as a number of film critics have thrashing the film Justice League (even if giving their opinions is their job), but if nothing else, I appreciate the slew of bad reviews that savaged this movie because they helped me keep my own expectations firmly in check.

Following the events of Batman vs. Superman, which ended with Superman (Henry Cavill) saving the world from Doomsday and dying in the process, the world is in mourning for the fallen Krytponian. Worse still, with the death of its greatest defender, the earth is now vulnerable to a new, terrifying threat in the form of Steppenwolf (voiced by Ciarin Hinds) and his army of parademons, who come in search of three items of power that could destroy the whole world. Bruce Wayne/Batman (Ben Affleck), recognizing the threat, and remorseful for what he feels was his role in Superman's demise in BvS, decides, together with Diana Prince/Wonder Woman (Gal Gadot) to recruit several other heroes such as Arthur Curry, aka Aquaman (Jason Momoa), Barry Allen, aka the Flash (Ezra Miller) and Victor Stone, aka Cyborg (Ray Fisher), all of whom have unique abilities that, together, may just be key to saving the world from annihilation. Getting the team together, though, proves to be a somewhat challenging task.

Really, as action movies in general, and comic-book movies in particular go, it really isn't that bad. It doesn't have the quasi-religious pretensions or the overall dour tone of Batman vs. Superman (though the characters being referred to as gods does happen at certain points of the movie), the action moved along with reasonable briskness, and overall, the movie manages to project an overall sense of fun, which is more than I can say for just about every other movie in the "DCEU" catalog aside from Wonder Woman. Of course, the film does what it can to milk Gal Gadot's newfound popularity as the world's only female superhero with a blockbuster solo movie to her name, but Affleck is still the film's lead. As far as the characters introduced in this movie are concerned, Miller, who had brief appearances in BvS and Suicide Squad, stood out, not only for the fact that he was basically the film's comic relief, but also because he was the only new character with an actual story arc, unlike Momoa's Aquaman and Fisher's Cyborg.

I also found myself enjoying this film more than most of the previous DCEU installments because of the welcome return of elements of past WB/DC movies, like Commissioner Gordon, now played by one-time J. Jonah Jameson actor J.K. Simmons, and well-loved old musical cues, like composer Danny Elfman's own theme from the 1989 Tim Burton Batman film (which, I'd argue, is still the definitive Batman theme), as well as John Williams' legendary Superman theme from 1978. Even without the multiple homages, I humbly submit that Elfman has turned in the best score ever heard in a DCEU film.

Also, this may seem strange considering I didn't particularly enjoy 2013's Man of Steel, but I genuinely enjoyed Superman's brief appearance in this film (and anyone who accuses me of spoiling plot points by revealing that Supes is in this movie is either disingenuous or has simply been living under a rock); it felt more consistent with the character that I know from the comics.

Basically, watching this movie I got the impression that critics had spent a little too much time sharpening their knives for this one, as they had with Suicide Squad, a movie for which I cared little, but which I would hardly consider one of the worst I've ever seen.

That said, Justice League has way too many problems for me to give it the effusive praise that some...enthusiasts have been only too eager to heap on this movie. Reading some of the pieces in praise of this movie I was reminded of myself, back when I was making excuses for the awful Spider-Man 3.

I had no problem with the whole alien invasion plot, but the execution was glaringly slipshod. The big bad guy, Steppenwolf, was just all-around atrocious, with risible dialogue and really dodgy CGI which made him look only slightly more convincing than the poorly-realized orcs in Peter Jackson's Hobbit trilogy from a few years back. He was supposed to be the big threat that brought the team together, but at no point did he seem even remotely menacing.

Speaking of bad CGI, it pretty much permeated the production from start to finish, and considering how heavily Snyder and Whedon leaned on it for their big action sequences, it was highlighted repeatedly throughout the movie. I'm not even talking about Cavill's awkwardly "shaven" upper lip, which was the topic of quite a lot of pre-release chatter. It was like watching an extended video game cutscene, or spending an inordinate amount of time in the much-reviled "uncanny valley." The CGI that brought Cyborg to life looked like really bad test footage for a Transformers movie.

This wouldn't have been as much of a problem if the characters had been better fleshed out, but as I said, with the exception of Miller's Flash, none of the characters who hadn't been previously-introduced had any real development. Momoa's Aquaman came across as a self-absorbed jackass with mommy issues, and Cyborg felt more like a plot device than an actual character as, apart from the fact that he was saved from almost certain death and turned into a robot-human hybrid, we the viewers are told next to nothing about him. Fisher gave the role his best, but the script gave him precious little to work with, and as a result, the laughable rendering of his mechanized body was all the more conspicuous.

Sadly, not even Affleck's Batman was exempted from some shockingly shoddy treatment. His lack of superpowers was repeatedly pointed out, and instead of him saving the team's bacon with his brains and tactical capability, as he regularly does in the comics, all he brought to the table here was the tech that the Wayne fortune could buy. It kind of grated on me that there was even a sequence in which Cyborg described Batman as an "asshole," and not because of Bruce's fabled aloofness, but because he was, in that sequence, actually being an asshole. Even Affleck, who managed to turn in a respectable performance in BvS, looked distinctly uninterested in playing this character again. That feels profoundly wrong; Batman was WB's bread and butter for years, and yet Snyder et al seem all too willing to trample all over him in favor of their newer, more colorful heroes.

What probably peeved me the most was a moment in the film in which the team experienced a collective brain fart and basically handed a decisive advantage to the bad guy. I won't spoil it but suffice it to say that it wouldn't have caused them that much trouble to pick up a certain item before they went to meet a certain someone, especially given the importance of that item. It's one of those really irritating moments in which the plot moves forward simply because the heroes are morons. It felt like egregiously lazy writing.

This film, while an improvement over BvS, is definitely a step down from Wonder Woman which, whatever its flaws, was still a solid piece of entertainment. Unlike that film, which felt very much like Patty Jenkins' vision, albeit with a few studio tweaks here and there, this film has the fingerprints of studio executives all over it.

While the box office grosses of this movie have left a lingering question mark over the future of the DCEU as a shared universe, I, for one, still hope that Matt Reeves' Batman solo movie gets made, and becomes the home run people expect it to be. After the raw deal WB gave Batman with this movie, they owe the character, who's raked in billions for them over the years, at least that much.


6.5/10

Art Imitating Art and Oh So Well: A Review of Loving Vincent

directed by Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman
written by Kobiela, Welchman and Jacek Dehnel

It's not often one gets to see a truly extraordinary piece of work unfold on the big screen, and I count myself fortunate that I was able to catch one such piece, the astonishing independent animated film Loving Vincent, before it's banished from theaters in favor of some blockbuster du jour.

The film, which boasts the distinction of being the world's first fully-painted feature length animated film, tells a story set a year after the death of renowned Dutch painter Vincent Van Gogh (Anastazja Seweryn), using people who were actually the subjects of his paintings. Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth), the son of Van Gogh's postman Joseph Roulin (Chris O'Dowd) is tasked with delivering Vincent Van Gogh's last letter to his brother, Theo (Bartlomiej Sroka). Reluctant at first, Armand agrees when his father explains why it is important that this letter be delivered personally after a failed attempt to mail it. Armand learns from one of Van Gogh's acquaintances, Julien "Pere" Tanguy (John Sessions) that Theo has passed away as well, but it then occurs to Armand to take the letter to Dr. Gachet (Jerome Flynn), the physician who attended to Van Gogh just before his death. As Armand travels to the small rural village where Van Gogh met his end, he learns many things about Van Gogh and the circumstances that surrounded both the last few days of his life and his actual death, all of which challenge many of the notions he once had about the man.

It's impossible to describe this film without some form of superlative. The technique with which it was made, which makes use of live-action photography, some computer-generated imagery, and, most importantly, actual oil painting, is nothing short of amazing, and watching the scenes unfold is probably the closest we'll ever get to seeing the art of a master like Van Gogh come to vivid life. Filmmakers Kobiela and Welchman, rather than simply use computers to simulate the effect of paintings come to life, went with a decidedly more difficult, but at the same time more striking approach. Sure, actors like Douglas Booth and Saoirse Ronan (as Marguerite Gachet, another of Van Gogh's subjects) needed to lend their likenesses and performances, but it's the painstaking work of the 100 or so painters that sets this film apart. These incredible images create a transcendent experience, and elevate the film from some art house murder/mystery about the death of an artist almost as renowned for his mental illness (for how else would you describe someone who chopped off his own ear and gave it to a prostitute as a gift) as he was for his craft to something that will be remembered for years.

The script, however, isn't quite as strong as I would have wanted to it be; the attempt to reconstruct Van Gogh's death from multiple points of view, has a vaguely hackneyed feel to it, even though Booth, who was last seen as an evil intergalactic prince trying to harvest earthlings for beauty care products in the Wachowskis' wretched flop Jupiter Ascending, tries his level best to engage the audience in the mystery he is investigating. Ultimately, it is the script that lets Booth and the rest of the cast down as it comes to a conclusion that feels a bit more sentimental than satisfactory. The movie's treacly climax and denouement feel distinctly disappointing after all the buildup.

All that said, thanks to solid performances by a great cast and the mind-blowing work of the painters who brought this movie to such colorful life, it's relatively easy to forgive these narrative shortcomings. It is a visual experience unlike any other, ably abetted by heartfelt performances and a stirring musical score by Clint Mansell.

This is a movie that has to be seen to be believed, and the Herculean efforts of those involved deserve utmost recognition. I hope this movie is at least nominated for an Oscar.


8/10

So, How About Those Twists? (Thor: Ragnarok Edition...HEAVY SPOILERS)

As storytelling twists go, the Thor franchise, especially in relation to its siblings in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has always been relatively light on shocking revelations. There's nothing in any of the individual films, including the new Thor: Ragnarok that is anywhere on the level of Captain America finding out that S.H.I.E.L.D. is secretly being run by HYDRA, or that Peter Parker's homecoming date was actually the daughter of his arch nemesis. The film does have its share of twists, though, and full credit goes to whoever cut the trailer for effectively masking a lot of key plot points. Obviously, they learned a lot from the "Terminator 2" school of how NOT to make a movie trailer.

The film reveals its first twist early: Hela is Thor's older sister who was banished for her ambition to basically conquer the entire galaxy. Anyone familiar with the comics and even Norse mythology will know that there's some strange familial connection between Hela and Loki; she's supposedly Loki's daughter, albeit of a past incarnation of Loki yadda yadda yadda. I was actually wondering how they planned to address this in the film, and truth be told I like the way they handled it; it's a lot less convoluted this way. It's not that big of a spoiler when one thinks about it, especially considering how early it was revealed in the film, but given that it was conscientiously concealed up until the film's release I suppose it does count as one.

The next major twist, one that goes hand-in-hand with the revelation of who Hela is, is that Odin, before his benevolent Allfather days, was in fact a warmongering, imperialistic sonofabitch who conquered the nine realms with his equally bloodthirsty daughter. This is revealed with great flourish when Hela destroys a Sistine-chapel-like fresco adorning the ceiling of Asgard's throne room depicting Odin and his sons, only to reveal a much older, Byzantine-like painting underneath which chronicles Odin's days of bloody conquest, in which Odin sports an imposing, antler-like helmet much like Hela's. If I may be honest, this was a bit of a wasted opportunity for me; it's been hinted in past installments that Odin was hardly the noble and benevolent ruler that his subjects believed him to be, that he had more than a few dark secrets. Hela and this grim past are easily among the darkest of his secrets, but Odin himself is no longer around to face the fallout, having disintegrated much, much earlier in the film. If nothing else, I would have loved to have seen Hopkins and Blanchett face off in a father-daughter confrontation. I get, however, that it may have upset the delicate balance in tone that Taika Waititi had achieved and so Odin turns into a more benign, Obi-Wan-Kenobi-like presence instead.

The final twist, that Thor would have to destroy Asgard in order to save it, was a pretty clever play on the usual cataclysmic superhero movie ending where the mission is to save the world from blowing up. It was akin to the clever climax of Doctor Strange in which the destruction of Hong Kong was played in reverse. Again, full credit goes to the guys who cut the trailer, who gave us all the impression that it was Hela who would blow up Asgard, when in fact it was not at all in her best interests to do so. I liked this twist, and the maturity of Thor's decision to essentially destroy his homeworld and to finally assume the mantle of King of Asgard. I also liked that the events of this movie did not leave him unscathed, as, aside from his haircut he loses an eye to Hela in their climactic battle. It was fitting to see him wearing an eye-patch, at the end of the film, as he finally accepted his birthright as the new Allfather.

There was at least one aspect of the film that didn't really sit well with me, though.

The manner in which the Warriors Three were dispatched, for example, left me kind of cold. Again, I imagine this was a question of not upsetting the film's tone, but for Thor's closest comrades-in-arms, at least, as they were described in the first film, to die such abrupt onscreen deaths, felt like a bit of a disservice to them. I was glad that at least Heimdall survived, at that Jamie Alexander's Sif, who does not appear in this film, was spared such an ignominious end. Overall, though, between the depictions (or non-depictions) of Odin, the Warriors Three, Heimdall and Sif, I really did get the sense of "Ragnarok," which translates loosely as the end of all things and the beginning of new ones, as Waititi clearly made it a point to discard old characters and bring in new ones.

Natalie Portman's Jane Foster, as well as her sidekicks Darcy and Selvig played by Kat Dennings and Stellan Skarsgard, are nowhere to be found, and to be honest, that's kind of a good thing.

For all of the absences, though, there were a couple of appearances that were riotous fun, like much ballyhooed Matt Damon cameo, in which Damon plays an Asgardian playing Loki in a play about his "death" in the last film. With Chris Hemsworth's brother Luke playing an Asgardian playing Thor, and Jurassic Park actor (and Waititi collaborator) Sam Neill playing an Asgardian playing Odin, the entire scene featuring the play was chock full of fun cameos. I don't know how often Marvel will be able to pull such high profile cameos like this off, but I would be so very glad if this is the start of a new trend for them.

I really want to see this movie again!

The "Thor" Movie We've All Been Waiting For: A Spoiler-Free Review of Thor: Ragnarok

directed by Taika Waititi
written by Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost

Six years after Marvel Studios introduced Chris Hemsworth to audiences as Thor, the God of Thunder, and four years after the mildly entertaining but ultimately forgettable sequel, indie film director Taika Waititi (Hunt for the Wilderpeople) delivers what many of us may have started to believe we would never see: a truly exceptional Thor movie.

The movie starts out with Thor neutralizing a serious threat to Asgard, only to finally discover the ruse that his brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been maintaining since the end of the last movie: he was pretending to be the Allfather Odin (Anthony Hopkins). Thor and Loki journey to Earth, where they find the real Odin, who informs them of a threat that could consume all of Asgard: the wicked, insanely powerful Hela, who shows up shortly thereafter and, as has been widely seen in the trailers, destroys Thor's hammer. Knowing they are outmatched, Loki has himself and Thor summoned back to Asgard, only for Hela to knock them both out of the Bifrost in mid-transport en route to taking over all of Asgard. Thor finds himself on a strange junk-laden planet called Sakaar, where he is captured by the tough-as-nails, perpetually boozing Valkyrie (Tessa Thompson) who brings him before the planet's loopy despot, the Grandmaster (Jeff Goldblum), with whom Loki has aligned himself. The Grandmaster holds gladiatorial contests between various creatures from across the galaxy for fun, and tells Thor that he may leave, for as long as he defeats his champion. The complication, though, is that this champion happens to be none other than Thor's Avengers teammate the incredible Hulk, who, for some reason has not transformed back into Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) for quite some time. Thor will have to overcome this challenge, return to Asgard and defeat Hela if he is to have any hope of saving Asgard.

The problem that has bedeviled the Thor standalone franchise since day one has been one of tone. The concept itself, i.e. space Vikings interacting with earthlings is just so inherently ridiculous that it's not really possible to do one of these films with a completely straight face. Kenneth Branagh's first film represented a pretty strong effort to address this problem, but even though the film was a good enough introduction to the character, the tonal problem persisted. The second film seemed content to coast on the success of the first, and of the massive success of The Avengers.

With this film, it genuinely feels as though the brain trust at Marvel sat down with their quirky director and really tried to address the problem, and their solution, which was to turn the absurdity of it up to 11, is a total winner.

I've noticed, reading even the glowing reviews, that there have been a few gripes about how Waititi's off-kilter vision is spoiled by the "generic" superhero aspects of the story, basically lamenting that the whole Hela/Asgard aspect of the film weighs down the wacky joy of Thor's and Hulk's hi-jinks on the planet Sakaar. I basically think they're reading it wrong. Introducing Hela into the story is a natural progression for this particular franchise; anyone with even a passing knowledge of the Thor comic book mythology knows how crucial Hela is to the whole narrative, and goodness knows the fan community had been waiting for her long enough (certainly more than they were for the utterly forgettable Malekith from the second film). In short, bringing Hela to the big screen was always a question not of if, but of when...and HOW. To my mind, having Cate Blanchett breathe life into one of Thor's iconic villains was exactly the way Marvel needed to go, but then there was still the aspect of Ragnarok being a bit of a downer. Make no mistake: as fun as this movie is, Hela gets to be Hela, the goddess of death, and racks up an appropriate body count. Anyone looking to bring small children should bear that in mind; the movie has its fair share of extremely violent moments. Could audiences have sat through two and a half hours of that? Of course not. Marvel might not even have made their coveted PG-13 rating, no matter how bloodless the various skewering scenes may have been.

And that's where Waititi's demented re-imagining of the popular 2006 Hulk story line "Planet Hulk" basically comes in and completely saves the day. It's the perfect counterweight to the grim cataclysm that is Hela, but at the same time would make little to no sense without it. Blanchett's Hela is still a wicked delight but could not have been this enjoyable had we watched her rain terror down upon on our Asgardian heroes throughout the entire film, which is why Sakaar, led by Jeff Goldblum's ultra-zany Grandmaster is exactly what the film needs to balance out that unrelenting grimness. On the other hand, without the urgency of the threat Hela posed, the film would have lost its emotional anchor and the craziness of Sakaar would have just felt a tad arbitrary. A delicate balancing act was required, and Waititi absolutely nailed it. In the 80s-flavored neon-colored Sakaar sequences, even the requisite CGI comes to life in a way that hasn't been seen before. There's a real joy in seeing Thor and Hulk dressed up as gladiators, exchanging some real haymakers; it's what many of us have been yearning for since their very, VERY brief exchange of fisticuffs in The Avengers five long years ago. Also, I'm reasonably confident that the people who remember the mutant dog fight from the disastrous 2003 Hulk solo movie will take joy in seeing the jade giant taking on a giant canine in a fight that's actually entertaining this time.

In discarding both Thor's trademark hammer and long hair, Waititi symbolically discards things the character has long been associated with and effectively severs the entire franchise from narrative slog that could easily have bogged it down with a case of the dreaded threequel-itis. The transformation is more than just physical; Hemsworth takes the opportunity to play Thor very differently from the Shakespeare-esque, tragic figure he cut in the first movie and the square-jawed hero he played in the second. Ironically, this is where Hemsworth gets to let his proverbial hair down, and one can tell he's really having a great time here. He's got great onscreen chemistry with his newfound best bud Hulk, and his alter ego Bruce Banner. Even the normally scene-stealing Hiddleston as Loki takes a step back, playing it a little more straight this time so as to let Hemsworth do his thing, and to my mind, it works like a charm. Speaking of scene-stealers, franchise newcomer Tessa makes a fantastic first impression as the nameless Valkyrie, a legendary warrior with a dark secret. She's a hell of a character, just brimming with potential, and I quite appreciated that she wasn't there to "hook up" with anyone. The shot of her striding in slow motion from a crashed spaceship, her trusty sword Dragonfang in hand, towards an army of undead Asgardians, is, as tiresome as this description may be, genuinely epic. Waititi himself turns in an inspired motion-captured cameo as the alien rock character Korg.

Not all of the cast are quite so memorable; Anthony Hopkins returns as Odin, and while his acting here is a genuine improvement over his phoned-in performance in the last film, it still falls far short of his striking turn as the Allfather in the first film. He does have a wickedly funny moment when he's playing Loki playing Odin, but that is all too brief. Also, the talented Karl Urban feels a little wasted as Asgardian ne'er-do-well-turned-henchman Skurge, though he does have a memorable moment involving two M-16 assault rifles. Idris Elba's Heimdall may be sporting a new look and a new sense of purpose, i.e. keeping Asgard's citizens safe from Hela, but he still feels like window-dressing. And the less said about the Warriors Three (Ray Stevenson as Volstagg, Zachary Levi as Fandrall, and Tadanobu Asano as Hogun), the better. Still, there does seem to be some consistency here with the general theme of out with the old, in with the new.

In the end, what's most noteworthy is that this isn't the Thor we have come to know; this is something genuinely, remarkably different, and the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe is very much the better for it.

8.5/10

Nothing is Awesome: A Review of the Lego Ninjago Movie

directed by Charlie Bean, Paul Fisher, Bob Logan
written by Too Many People

When The Lego Movie charmed the socks off of moviegoers three years ago, it did so through a combination of colorful, engaging visuals, crackling humor and a generous helping of sincerity. While I didn't see the spinoff/follow-up early this year called The Lego Batman movie, from the reviews and grosses it seems they replicated the formula, albeit to slightly less success. What mattered most, though was that through strong storytelling and heartfelt acting in both cases the filmmakers were able to get audiences to overlook the fact that at the end of the day, both movies were basically hour-and-a-half-long toy commercials.

With The Lego Ninjago Movie, however, they fell fall short of that goal.

Essentially an extended episode of the fairly popular television show on Cartoon Network, The Lego Ninjago movie tells the story of Lloyd (Dave Franco) and his friends the Ninjas (Fred Armisen, Michael Pena, Kumail Nanjiani, Abbi Jacobson and Zach Woods), who protect the city of Ninjago from the evil overlord Garmadon (Justin Theroux) who, in an unpleasant twist, also happens to be Lloyd's father. When Garmadon gets the upper hand on the Ninjas, they will have to dig deep, with the help of their mentor, Master Wu (Jackie Chan) to find the courage to save the day.

It's saddening that, only three movies in, the brain trust behind The Lego Movie has run out of steam creatively. The Lego Movie may have been ultimately geared toward selling toys, but at least back then they recognized that to get fannies in the seats, they had to tell a good story too. That wisdom appears to have been completely thrown out the window here. Save for a few jokes here and there about the nature of Lego pieces and despite the mightiest efforts of voice actors Franco and Theroux, the film is virtually devoid of wit and, even worse, of any heart. I mean, for crying out loud, when every henchman screams the oft-derided "Wilhelm" scream, one can't help but feel the filmmakers are basically on autopilot. I wasn't turned off so much by the lack of craft, because truth be told, there is still quite a bit of production value on display here. Rather, I was really just struck by the cynicism that pervades this film. It's really all about the bottom line, and there's barely any pretense to the contrary.

Each "Ninja" trots around in an elaborate Lego "mech" which is currently on sale at your favorite toy store. Basically, they couldn't have screamed "we want your cash" any louder if they'd actually written it into the dialogue.

My metaphorical hat goes off to Franco, Theroux and the motley cast of comedians WB cast for trying their darnedest to give some personality to this crassly commercial undertaking, but honestly, not even A-listers like Will Ferrell or Will Arnett could have saved this thing.

5.5/10

Tearing Up Amsterdam: A Review of The Hitman's Bodyguard

directed by Patrick Hughes
written by Tom O'Connor

Some time ago, somebody came up with the bright idea to cast Samuel L. Jackson as a foul-mouthed hitman in a buddy movie which featured a conversation about Amsterdam called Pulp Fiction, which turned out to be a brilliant movie. Twenty-odd years later, Jackson has been cast in yet another buddy movie as a foul-mouthed hitman, this time actually in Amsterdam, alongside Ryan Reynolds, star of the wildly successful Deadpool and therefore no stranger to hyper-violent, foul-mouthed action movies himself. What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, plenty.


Reynolds plays Michael Bryce, a former Central Intelligence Agency operative who, at the beginning of the film, runs his own very successful personal protection service until one of his prized clients, a Japanese arms dealer, is killed just as his plane is about to take off. Years later, Michael is accepting whatever work he can find to eke out a living, albeit still a very dangerous one. His ex-girlfriend Amelia (Elodie Yung), who works at Interpol, has just been assigned to escort infamous hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L. Jackson) a key witness in the trial of the despotic Belarusian President Dukhovich (Gary Oldman), from his prison in England to the Hague in the Netherlands, where he is set to testify in exchange for the freedom of his wife Sonia (Salma Hayek). When her convoy is ambushed and her entire detail wiped out, she can only think of one man up to the task of bringing Kincaid to the trial alive.

The problem of this film is essentially one of tone. I read it was conceived originally as a drama and then re-purposed into a comedy (which, let's face it, with a title like that, was the only way to go), and it shows. The film features gut-wrenching violence but, unlike Reynolds' Deadpool, which had its tongue firmly in its cheek the whole time, alternates between comedy and utter seriousness and fails to juggle the two. The problem is that the "serious" stuff feels like it was done in extremely bad taste; the bad guy's use of a truck bomb at a time when vehicles have been repeatedly used as tools of terrorist attacks feels utterly insensitive, and even the violence that was supposed to be vaguely funny like Ryan Reynolds' Bryce being tortured by jumper cables attached to a wet towel around his head, just wasn't. Also, if the drastically shifting tone was meant to be some kind of storytelling innovation, it fell short of the mark, especially considering the number of action movie cliches director Patrick Hughes and screenwriter Tom O'Connor leaned on throughout the film. Jackson's and Reynolds' onscreen chemistry is the only bright spot in this film, but even that feels weighed down by a horrible script. Clearly these guys were just hired to trot out Jules-lite and Deadpool-lite, and they delivered on that front, even though their performances felt like poor facsimiles of their best work. Jackson quite literally recycled on one of his lines from Pulp Fiction, quite possibly at the urging of the director.

It was really quite disappointing, especially since I walked into this movie with minimal expectations and largely on the strength of the marketing, which made hilarious parodies of the Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston smash hit from 1992, The Bodyguard, ranging from the extensive use of Houston's cover of "I Will Always Love You" in the trailers to a movie poster which replicated the one from the older movie, except with Reynolds carrying Jackson. The thing is, every now and again there are flashes of the movie I was hoping to see when I walked in; sometimes the humor works, and some of the action sequences are pretty interesting, particularly an extended chase scene involving a speed boat, SUVs and a motorcycle. But it's all weighed down by the "serious" plot which is premised on the notion that prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is a complete moron who would pin all his hopes for convicting Dukhovich on a single witness, as well as the numerous eye-roll inducing cliches peppered throughout the story.

Clearly, though, Reynolds and Jackson were in it for the paycheck; here's hoping that they get back to making good movies soon.

5/10

Why "Kita Kita" COULD Be Interpreted as a Glamorization of Stalking...But SHOULDN'T Be (MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT)

Again...SPOILER ALERT for Kita Kita. This is your last chance to turn back if you haven't seen the film and refuse to have any detail spoiled.




Okay, you've been warned.





Having thoroughly enjoyed the flawed but engaging film "Kita Kita" I was a little surprised to learn of opinions being expressed that the film condoned stalking, with one writer even saying something like it was a mystery that intelligent people failed to realize that the film basically glorified it.

Having given the matter some thought, I can see where the criticism is coming from.

As an ode to the healing power of human kindness, the film really just sang to me, but as a love story, as much as I enjoyed most of it, I am ready to admit there are some moments that didn't always sit well with me.

I wasn't all that crazy about Tonyo, the character played by Empoy Marquez, being touchy-feely with the blind Lea played by Alessandra de Rossi. At no point in the film do the characters kiss, nor does Tonyo ever do anything grossly inappropriate, but in my opinion he pushed past acceptable personal boundaries more than once during their dates, before Lea warmed up to him. I get that there was this aspect of him testing the waters to see what he could get away with, hence the colloquial term "chancing" we use in the Philippines to describe someone trying to cop a feel from the object of their affection, but yes, I can see how that would be interpreted negatively, in the same way that, while I get why he thought it was okay to stare at Lea during their train ride (a scene that paid off in a joke about how she knew he was doing it, even though she was blind), I also get why this would be off-putting to many. Finally, considering that Lea basically didn't know him from Adam, it didn't really sit well with me that Tonyo felt he had to completely lie about his being new to Japan, when in fact it was revealed that he had been working there for an appreciable length of time.

In short, there is some evidence to justify this conclusion, and in truth, the film may have been better served without those little character quirks.

I respectfully object, however, to the notion that the film glorifies stalking, and I can cite four specific scenes in the film that were very deliberately written, precisely to make this point that Tonyo isn't just some sicko:

1. After Tonyo's death and when Lea discovers the contents of his small apartment, she learns that he has folded one thousand paper cranes, a reference to a line Lea dropped very early in the film in which she, a tour guide, told tourists that folding one thousand paper cranes supposedly grants people one wish. This scene, for at least one writer, is the moment when the "creepiness" supposedly starts, but I honestly didn't see it that way. In fact, when Lea reads the late Tonyo's letter informing her that he has just folded his thousandth crane and has wished for her to recover her sight, this is easily one of his more selfless moments, and not because he could have wished for something for himself.

Up until the time she saw him, Lea had no idea who Tonyo really was, and this worked to his advantage, an advantage that would have been in his interest to maintain for as long as he could considering that, although she had actually seen him several times before she went blind, they had never actually spoken. He would not have benefited at all from her being able to see him; he had already won, to some degree, her affection at that point and had she recognized him as someone she had seen many times before she might not have taken so kindly to him. In short, Tonyo had nothing to gain from Lea being able to see again and even potentially everything to lose, and yet he wished for it more than anything else.

2. When Tonyo, who has cleaned up and now wants to introduce himself properly to Lea, contemplates walking up to her in the park, he rehearses a proposed greeting: "Hi, I'm Tonyo," and then balks, concerned that he'll sound like a pervert ("parang manyak"). This could arguably go either way, given that he could just be concerned with appearances and nothing more, but in line with the other things he does in the film I think it's a sign of both his sincerity and the writer's awareness of how his character might be received. Basically, the writer indulges in a slightly "meta" moment to reassure the audience that, no, her male lead is not some kind of sexual deviant.

3. There is an utterly gratuitous scene in which Lea, still half-asleep, stumbles to the door in her t-shirt and underwear in response to Tonyo knocking. This is a perfect opportunity for Tonyo to ogle her long, shapely legs, considering she is blind and would be none the wiser, but he immediately turns around and then points out to her that she has no pants. In hindsight, I think this scene served literally no other purpose than to emphasize that Tonyo is NOT a degenerate.

4. Arguably the strongest argument against Tonyo being a creep is the scene in which he and Lea are inebriated, and in which Lea actually initiates romantic contact with Tonyo. If Tonyo were the full-on monster that the detractors of this film seem to claim he is, this exact moment should basically have been the jackpot for him. This should have been payoff time; the girl of his dreams is in his apartment, drunk, and now pawing at him. While she teases him about having evil intentions, it is she who ultimately starts kissing him. Were Tonyo's intentions truly despicable he would have basically gone for the proverbial gold, or at the very least stolen a kiss. I can think of quite a few movies, local and foreign, in which a moment like this would have been a moment for the leads to kiss, but it doesn't happen here. Does Tonyo deserve a medal for his restraint? Maybe not, but I'd argue he at least deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Whatever else Tonyo's quirks, I honestly think those four moments put firm emphasis on the true nature of his character, and while he is certainly flawed and certainly not above appreciating Lea's striking beauty (i.e. the staring scene), ultimately, his motives are pure.

Overall, it's not a perfect film. As I said, as a straight-up love story, the film has its fair share of problems, but as a fable about the beauty and power of human kindness, it really is an exceptional yarn.

Sharing Sinigang in Sapporo: A Review of Kita Kita

written and directed by Sigrid Andrea Bernardo

I haven't done the math, but I'm reasonably certain that in the 100-plus years or so that movies have existed as a medium of storytelling, a healthy percentage of the stories told have been love stories of one kind or another, which means that anyone looking to tell such a story will almost certainly never be able to tell a story that hasn't been told before. That's why I applaud even just an effort to tell a different love story, which is certainly what Sigrid Andrea Bernardo and her dedicated cast and crew have done with the charming romantic comedy Kita Kita.

Lea (Alessandra de Rossi) a young Filipina living and working as a tour guide in Sapporo, Japan, has trouble getting her longtime fiance Nobu to actually commit to a wedding date. He has made a habit out of forgetting their anniversary and frequently standing her up. She learns, to her shock, that this is because he's cheating on her with another woman, and the discovery proves too much for her to bear; she literally goes blind from the stress. Not too long thereafter, Lea is sitting quietly on the terrace outside her house when she is visited by her neighbor, fellow Filipino Tonyo (Empoy Marquez) who, after being repeatedly rebuffed by her, manages to befriend Lea. His multiple attempts to get her to eat his FIlipino cooking finally succeed when she agrees to eat his sour broth, or sinigang, as we call it in the vernacular. As Lea takes Tonyo, who is new to Sapporo, to the many places to go, their friendship helps bring back some light into the darkness that has shrouded Lea's life, and she finds that she may yet love again.

If the plot description reads like a bunch of romantic story tropes strung together to form yet another tired old romantic comedy, then good; the best way to watch this movie is to go in thinking you know exactly what's going to happen, only to find out that you don't.

The first thing that really struck me about this movie was how utterly authentic it felt, and this was down to Bernardo's writing and some winning lead actors in De Rossi and Marquez. De Rossi, dubbed by some writers as the "Indie Film Queen" really shines in movies like this, and despite her towering stature and striking good looks, she projects her characters as being very down to earth. Marquez, who up until this point has basically made a career out of being somebody else's sidekick or comic relief, finally comes into his own as Tonyo, the broken-English speaking Filipino overseas worker who has more in common with de Rossi's Lea than she realizes at first. Their time together onscreen is most of the movie's running time, and they make good use of it thanks to some wonderful dialogue by Bernardo (though one wonders if Marquez did a bit of improv considering his comedy background), and some palpable chemistry. The foreign setting definitely helps, as it helps highlight the sense of loneliness both characters feel so far away from home, and although Bernardo certainly isn't the first writer to adopt this particular backdrop, she uses it very effectively.

More than just tell yet another love story, though, Bernardo weaves a touching tale about the healing power of kindness. It's not quite groundbreaking and in fact it's the second movie I've seen in a fortnight or so using non-linear storytelling, but as someone I know observed Bernardo makes very good use of her storytelling technique. She's very efficient; almost every little detail early in the story pays off in the end, and it all ties up remarkably well. There are seams in the production, though, and one pivotal scene I can think of wasn't presented very artfully. Furthermore, while I get that the director probably chose the song because she liked it, I found her use of Air Supply's "Two Less Lonely People" at key points of the movie to be distinctly cloying and manipulative, a pet peeve of mine, especially in movies meant to evoke a strong emotional response. The narrative, I honestly think, could have held up on its own without it, and a proper score should have been employed instead, or better yet, perhaps an original Filipino composition.

Still, this movie, which had initially been slated for release in a film festival, was a surprisingly sweet confection, and it deserves the success it is garnering right now. May there be many movies made with the same sensibility and production value on display here.


8.5/10

When Heroism Rises Above Horror: A Review of Dunkirk

written and directed by Christopher Nolan

Dunkirk is one of those movies that only a filmmaker with huge balls would be able to make, considering that, unlike most of the successful movies that have been made about World War II in the last 70 years, it doesn't a) feature Americans, b) depict a decisive military victory, or c) make any mention of the Holocaust. While the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 is probably known only to WWII buffs and very studious Brits, thanks to this movie, that's all set to change.

The film tells the story of the evacuation of Dunkirk, albeit from three perspectives, that of the soldiers awaiting evacuation on the French coast, desperate to get home, as represented by the travails of Tommy (Fionn Whitehead), his silent companion Gibson (Aneurin Barnard) and Alex (Harry Styles), that of members of the Royal Air Force out to protect the evacuees, namely Farrier (Tom Hardy), Collins (Jack Lowden) and their unnamed squad leader (played by Michael Caine's voice), and that of the civilians whose boats were requisitioned by the English government to rescue the trapped English soldiers, represented by Mr. Dawson (Mark Rylance), his son Peter (Tom Glynn-Carney) and Peter's friend George (Barry Keogh). Their stories are told in three separate but ultimately interweaving narrative threads. Kenneth Branagh also stars as Commander Bolton, who supervises the evacuation from the Dunkirk pier and who also provides some pretty convenient exposition, such as an explanation of why the British Navy can't just swoop in and save the 400,000 English soldiers stranded on the beach (the short version: the waters are too shallow for big ships).

In telling this simple story, Nolan brings his considerable visual storytelling prowess to bear, establishing the urgency of the situation right out of the gate with a superb first few minutes that show the squad of soldiers to which Tommy originally belonged get wiped out by unseen German shooters. He may not have invented the split narrative technique, but he uses it to astonishing effect here, as he ratchets up the tension with each passing moment, especially given that the three narratives are out of sync with one another. Each set of protagonists, while all caught up in the same overarching event, faces different perils. The soldiers on the beach try desperately to get off the beach, only to fail several times, the pilots must ever be mindful of both enemy planes and their limited fuel loads, while Mr. Dawson and his two companions are basically sailing into hostile territory with nothing more than Mr. Dawson's experience and their collective grit.

The payoff of narratives like this is seeing everything eventually tie together, which it all does in fine fashion.

This film has been hailed by many critics as the greatest war movie ever, as while I'll certainly join them in their praises for the most part, I wouldn't go quite so far to say "the greatest," especially since the yardstick cited is the seminal Saving Private Ryan.

The film does an incredible job of conveying tension during wartime while eschewing the gore and usual shots of people getting riddled with bullets, but where it falls slightly short for me is in convincing me why I should root for Tommy in particular to "get away" considering there are hundreds of thousands of soldiers in similar straits to his. I get that, in contrast to the Spitfire pilots and the civilians coming to the rescue, the soldiers scurrying to get home are basically everymen, not really "heroes" in the traditional sense, but there is something important about feeling a connection to these soldiers, wanting to see them safe from harm. "Good show, lads," an elderly gentleman says to two of the soldiers who made it home, to which one replies, "all we did was come home." Because all the soldiers are just "coming home," this emphasizes the importance of being able to connect with them, which, for some reason, I did not. Tommy is depicted as a would-be queue-jumper who says precious little, and I don't know whether it's down to newcomer Whitehead's muted acting or Nolan failing to flesh out the character, but truth be told I didn't really see myself cheering him on any more than the thousands of others who needed saving. I felt similarly indifferent towards Harry Styles's Alex, but at least he showed some kind of self-awareness towards the end.

The accusation that the film does not have an emotional core does not feel valid, but I think it's fair to say that there's some deficiency in its emotional heft. Maybe someone like Asa Butterfield or Tom Holland would have done a better job with the character, and to my mind the mere fact that the character doesn't have much dialogue shouldn't have been a barrier to him generating some kind of emotional resonance with the audience, independent of the sheer magnitude of what was happening to him.

Speaking of young actors, I was genuinely annoyed by Keogh, who basically mumbled all of his lines.

Also, I wasn't a fan of Hans Zimmer's virtually omnipresent music score, which Nolan clearly leaned on quite heavily to help him create tension, sometimes at instances where it really wasn't necessary. Anyone who claims that Spielberg leaned on sentimentality to manipulate the audience in Saving Private Ryan should also consider that the throbbing, frequently overbearing score by Zimmer is used to similar effect in this movie. It's not unlike how Alfonso Cuaron used Steven Price's music in Gravity, but in that film the music substituted for sounds that could not be heard in the vacuum of space, while here the music being pounded into my skull just felt like overkill.

Those nitpicks aside, I was a big fan of the performances of Rylance, Hardy, Lowden, Cillian Murphy as a PTSD-afflicted soldier, the exposition-spouting Branagh, and even James D'Arcy, who has a small role as an Army Commander and basically gives Branagh's Bolton someone to whom he can explain everything that needs explaining. This is the most British that a Hollywood blockbuster has even been outside of Harry Potter-related movie, and the quality of the acting (for the most part) benefits from it.

As WWII movies go, this is definitely one of the best, and will certainly be regarded as a definitive dramatization of what happened during the Dunkirk evacuation.

8.5/10

So...How About Those Twists, Huh? (SPOILERS GALORE FOR SPIDER-MAN: HOMECOMING)

With Spider-Man: Homecoming having conquered the American box office and several others across the globe last weekend, there is no doubt in my mind that comic book geeks all around globe are now discussing the story twist in the movie in which comic book mainstay Liz Allen was revealed to actually be Liz Toomes, or the daughter of the film's villain, Adrian Toomes, aka the Vulture.

At that point, I was so happy with the movie that they could have just given me a generic showdown and I still would have enjoyed it thoroughly. As it was, though, so late in the film the storytellers still managed to throw me for a loop. Peter Parker's reaction was portrayed to utter perfection by Tom Holland, who has, in my mind, at least established himself as the definitive Spider-Man and Peter Parker. Peter's profound discomfort at the discovery that his worst enemy was actually the father of his longtime crush and homecoming date was a superb piece of acting, and Holland didn't even need his perfect Queens accent; his expressions said everything. The car ride from Toomes' mansion to the high school was the real payoff, and I guarantee that people are going to be talking about that sequence for years to come, way more than they will be about the CGI fight sequences. It's easily one of the most tense confrontations in any superhero story ever put to film.

Quite a few of the films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have had story twists over the years, starting with the not-so-shocking revelation that Obadiah Stane had hired mercenaries to have Tony Stark killed, the slightly-out-of-left-field revelation that Ben Kingsley's ruthless Mandarin was, in fact, a drunken, washed-out actor, the disclosure that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been taken over by HYDRA, and most recently the blatantly-telegraphed revelation that Bucky killed Tony Stark's parents. As twists go, however, this one was, for me, anyway, the most effective one, considering that it came out of nowhere and had the most visceral impact. The car ride that followed the reveal was really something else. Also, while it's not the first time that a bad guy figured out who Spider-Man was without an unmasking (which, laughably enough, has happened quite a lot over the course of the five previous movies), the depiction of how Vulture figured out Peter's secret was the most well-conceived that I've seen so far.

And then, of course, just when we think the film is about to wrap up, there's the moment that Aunt May walks in on Peter while he's wearing the high-tech Spider-Man suit that Tony Stark has just returned to him. It's considerably less dramatic than the Vulture twist and played more for laughs than anything else, but it sure made for a heck of a cliffhanger. Truth be told, Marisa Tomei's Aunt May was tragically underused in the film especially considering how important the character of Aunt May is to Peter, but I get that the imperative of this film was more to establish his relationships with his peers rather than show him as the "aunt's boy" he was in previous films Still, this particular sequence seems to indicate that they've got big plans for the character for the inevitable sequel.

This film delivered on so many fronts for me I was more than ready to embrace it even without these little"bonuses," but these have just sweetened the pot all the more and now have me even more excited for the prospect of more movies from this team. May they make many more movies as good as, if not better, than this one.

I just hope they work his Spider-sense into the next film.

Peter Parker's Day Off: A Review of Spider-Man: Homecoming

directed by Jon Watts
written by Jonathan Goldstein, John Francis Daley, Watts, Christopher Ford, Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers

For the third time in fifteen years, Sony Pictures unleashes a new big screen iteration of Marvel Comics' single most beloved superhero, the amazing Spider-Man. This time, however, they've got the might of Marvel in their creative (and marketing) corner, and the results are exactly what millions of fans the world over have been hoping for since it was announced that Sony was finally allowing Spidey into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, including this longtime fanboy.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is a fifteen-year-old high school sophomore with typical high school problems; he has a hard time talking to girls, particularly his dream girl Liz (Laura Harrier). He has to deal with school bully Flash (Tony Revolori), and apart from his best bud Ned (Jacob Batalon), he doesn't really have that many friends. He also has the proportionate strength, speed and agility of a spider, and a super-hero secret identity, that of Spider-Man. As the film begins he has just taken part in an attempt to capture Captain America. Having quietly flown him to Germany for the aforementioned mission, Peter's mentor Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.), quietly drops Peter off at home back in Queens where he lives with his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) and leaves his driver/bodyguard Happy (Jon Favreau) in charge of making sure he stays out of trouble.

Unbeknownst to Stark, however, since one of his companies, Damage Control, booted out contractor Adrian Toomes (Michael Keaton) from a clean-up job he and his crew had gotten from the City Government of New York to clean up after the Avengers' battle with the Chitauri many years ago, Toomes and his cohorts have been stealing technology left over from the Avengers' battles to build extremely dangerous weapons and sell them to criminals. One such gang of criminals tries to use the tech to rob several ATMs...right in Peter's neighborhood. Spider-Man stops the robbery, but when he tries to track down the people selling the weapons, he finds that his desire to play superhero comes into direct conflict with his life as a high school student, the latter of which, to a kid who is both as smart and as marginalized as Peter, is not particularly fulfilling. To get off the very short leash on which Stark keeps him, Peter has Ned, who accidentally discovers his identity, hack into the Stark-built Spider-man costume and he sets off on his self-appointed mission to unlock its many high-tech goodies, which he feels he will need to stop Toomes. Peter will soon discover, however, that it's not the suit and powers that matter but the hero that wields them.

Much has been written about how Peter Parker's youth is the single biggest asset of the film, and I definitely agree with that assessment. None of the previous films focused much on Peter's life as a high school student. The first film had him graduating halfway through the film, and the first reboot, while it featured a Peter who was still in high school, noticeably treated it more like an incidental fact of his life rather than a defining aspect of it. Previous filmmakers seemed eager to get it out of the way, but in conceiving this movie, director Jon Watts and his army of writers, no doubt under the watchful eye of Kevin Feige, wisely used the high school setting to establish the key lesson that defines Peter Parker's journey as Spider-Man: with great power comes great responsibility. Peter's got both brain and, thanks to his spider bite, the brawn to do all of the super stuff, but he learns the hard way that there's quite a bit more to being a hero than just having super powers and knowing how to use them. He's the avatar for every kid who's ever felt trapped by the constraints of school, especially the gifted kids, and it's gratifying to see the filmmakers reaching out to what is undoubtedly this film's core audience with something heartfelt to say about being young and all of the awkwardness and frustration that entails. It's funny, exciting and compassionate, and a film that's easily one of the best that Marvel Studios has ever produced.

I'd go as far as to say it stands on par with Spider-Man 2, still regarded by many as one of the very best films the superhero genre has to offer, and in many ways it even exceeds it. After all, this is a movie that features a wisecracking Spider-Man, a genius who can make his own web fluid, and a kid who is every bit as shy out of the costume as he is cocky in it. It also helps that this film, unlike any that came before it, pays homage to one of the most iconic moments in the character's published history, one which dyed-in-the-wool comic book Spidey fans will recognize instantly.

The visual pyrotechnics are all topnotch, of course, with Sony Pictures Imageworks and Digital Domain churning out state-of-the-art effects, but that's to be expected from this kind of movie. I was personally glad that the film didn't degenerate into a generic CGI orgy in the last act. While there are clearly visual effects involved; it plays out a lot better than, say, the ultra-generic battle at the end of Wonder Woman. Still, whatever artistry the VFX wizards would have brought to the table would have been all for naught had the writers left their brains at home. Just ask the guys who worked on the Transformers movies.

The good news is that, despite having six writers, often a recipe for creative disaster, the film's script feels solid and mostly coherent. Watts, who was apparently chosen to direct this film because of a little independent film called Cop Car which featured pre-teen boys as protagonists, coaxes exemplary performances from his cast. Carrying the movie on his slight shoulders, however, is white-hot British actor Tom Holland, who snagged this role two years ago in what was apparently a very competitive auditioning process, and who turns in a note-perfect performance as one of the most beloved superhero characters of all time. Holland's youthfulness helps him portray Peter as eager and callow, but it's Holland's earnestness and commitment to his portrayal that really enables him to nail a rather tricky performance. Tobey Maguire, in the first iteration of the character, went a bit too broad, and Andrew Garfield, while his love for the character was fairly clear, just couldn't quite nail the awkwardness of Peter. Holland gets the balance just right, and helping him along are a talented, if sometimes low-key supporting cast in Batalon, Zendaya and Laura Harrier. Batalon is a real scene-stealer here, and I'm not just saying that because he's of Filipino descent.

Also, it's worth noting that for once, the hero faces off against a villain who is not only formidable but very well-developed, courtesy of a smashing performance by Michael Keaton. In breaking away from recent tradition, Keaton's Vulture is the very best MCU since Tom Hiddleston charmed moviegoers' pants off as Loki, the god of mischief five years ago. Keaton brings his considerable acting chops (and comic book street cred) to bear as he renders a performance that is all at once terrifying and surprisingly sympathetic, even right up to the end. Keaton's is actually the first face the audience sees as the film opens, and he leaves a heck of an impression. I'm not actually shocked; I've been a fan of this guy since 1988's Beetlejuice, and I know that, even without Batman on his resume, he's got some serious acting mojo, but I was pleasantly surprised that he turned in a wonderfully nuanced performance rather than just sail on through for an easy paycheck. People like Paul Giamatti and Jamie Foxx may have gone all Jim Carrey on their Spidey villains but Keaton not only dials the menace up to 11 with his character, but manages to keep him human at the same time, which makes him even scarier.

There's not much to say about Robert Downey, Jr. and Jon Favreau as Tony Stark and Happy Hogan, respectively, other than that they were the necessary glue between this iteration of Spidey and the bigger Marvel Cinematic Universe, but unlike the awkwardly shoehorned Falcon scene in Ant-Man, Stark and Happy are reasonably well-integrated into the narrative, with Stark standing as a welcome substitute for Peter's late Uncle Ben, whose death, I am glad to report, is no longer depicted and who, in fact, is only mentioned very obliquely. In case I missed that point, I'm happy to point out this isn't an origin story, and the film is all the better for it.

It's got its flaws; Spider-Man's "spider sense" or the preternatural ability to sense danger is conspicuously absent from this film, though to be fair it also winked out at somewhat inconvenient moments in past films as well. My son pointed out his weak chemistry with his romantic lead, Liz, which was a little disappointing after Wonder Woman got the superhero love story down pat. A direct reference to Ferris Bueller's Day Off was a little on the nose, considering the film does an effective homage all on its own, with Peter spending most of it playing hooky. These, are however, but minor quibbles; I really enjoyed this film. Also, while he doesn't quite match his wonderfully quirky work on Doctor Strange, composer Michael Giacchino comes up with a pretty strong theme for Spidey, even though I'm sure this film will be better-remembered for the orchestral version of the old 1960s TV show that ushers in the "Marvel Studios" logo in the beginning.

And so, Sony has restored some luster to the crown jewel of Marvel's cinematic characters, and I take great encouragement from Kevin Feige's pronouncement that this version of Spidey will soon usher in a new era for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, following the cataclysmic events of the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War. The MCU could not ask for a better standard-bearer.



8.5/10

An Almost Obligatory Cash Grab: A Review of Despicable Me 3

directed by Kyle Balda, Pierre Coffin, and Eric Guillon
written by Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul

When I first saw the posters for the animated sequel Despicable Me 3, the premise of which is that the protagonist, ex-supervillain Gru (Steve Carell) has a twin brother, also played by Carell, I snickered at the tag-line printed in big, black letters: "Oh, Brother" and thought to myself, how very apt.

As much as I enjoyed the very first Despicable Me film seven years ago, and, to a lesser extent, its sequel four years ago, I knew, after that second film, and especially after the trashy, unabashedly commercial Minions spin-off/prequel, that creatively, this team pretty much had nowhere else to go with their conceit of a supervillain gone straight. I also knew that, considering the gargantuan grosses of both the latter two movies (with Minions racking up over a billion dollars at the global box office), making a DM3 movie was pretty much a no-brainer. I just didn't figure on it being a no-brainer storywise, as well.

The premise is so lazy one wonders how much thought even went into it. When Gru, working for the Anti-Villain League that was introduced in the second film, is unable, yet again, to capture 80's themed supervillain Balthazar Bratt (Trey Parker, playing an over-the-hill child star in a bit of "meta" casting given his own, long-gone fame), he loses his job, as does his wife, Lucy (Kristen Wiig) when she tries to stick up for him. At the same time, Gru's minions (Pierre Coffin) who have been egging him on to resume his life of villainy, are fed up when he refuses, and quit working for him, with the exception of two of them. Also at the same time, Gru is invited to meet his long lost twin brother Dru, whose very existence his mother (Julie Andrews) had concealed from him because of an acrimonious divorce. Dru apparently lives in opulence as the number one pig farmer in the (fictional) country of Freedonia, but he has a secret that Gru, still smarting from losing his job, will soon learn to his chagrin.

The gang's all back from the last movie, with the exception of Agnes and Edith, who have both been recast presumably due to the voice actors having grown up, and to be truthful the film feels as stale as a sequel to a franchise that's run out of ideas would feel. Parker, best known for the bawdy humor of his South Park series, seems pretty lost when placed in a family-friendly film, and in any case his "Balthazar Bratt" is nowhere near as entertaining as Jason Segel's Vector and Benjamin Bratt's El Macho from the previous films were. I'll admit to being entertained by the 80s-themed dance battle, though really, I wonder if anyone not of my generation is even going to appreciate the reference.

The worst part was seeing (or more appropriately hearing) Carell and the other voice-actor mainstays phoning in their roles, which, for all I know, is literally what they were doing. Carell brought so much life to Gru when the character debuted the better part of a decade ago, with his zany, vaguely Russian accent and just the right mix of malevolence and vulnerability. Now he genuinely feels like he just doesn't give two s**ts about his character or his belatedly-introduced brother. And the less said about Julie Andrews' revisiting the character of Gru's mom, the better. Suffice it so say her sole purpose here is basically as an exposition device, and she can't even be bothered to put on a specific accent this time around.

The Minions, the official avatars of Illumination Studios, have an insufferable subplot that's not even worth describing other than that it gives the filmmakers an excuse to crack tired, old prison jokes.

About the only notable thing about this movie is how the writers sort of manage to address the issue of how to have more adventures with Gru and the Minions without having Gru revert to being a bad guy (mild spoiler alert there). This issue is addressed, after a fashion, and the results are mildly entertaining. The film even looks good, which is an area in which Illumination continues to impress, considering they spend considerably less on their films than their rivals at Disney and Dreamworks. They'll probably be able to rake in several hundred million dollars (at least) from a few more films of this series.

But really, as a creative endeavor, this film franchise has really run its course.

5.5/10