Scorch Reviews ‘Iron Man 3′

Synopsis: Welp. What’s it about? The Iron? Or the Man?

To have a running time of 130 minutes, and to have Tony actually in the armor & fighting for roughly about 15 of those minutes, I was, to say the least, disappointed. This film tried to do a LOT of things, and has many goals, the main one being, be Iron Man’s version of The Dark Knight Rises, bringing Tony somewhat full circle & concluding Tony’s arc up unto this point.

This movie succeeds well in meeting some of its goals, but in my opinion, it succeeds at the wrong ones.

I never do spoiler free reviews, I’m going to talk about the whole movie, so don’t read any further if you haven’t seen it. You’ve been warned.

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To give you a quick plot summary, a former one night stand of Tony’s has invented Extremis biotech, which gives the recipient super enhanced abilities, regeneration powers, and some sort of heat/flame abilities, but is also extremely unstable, causing some of its recipients to explode. Killian, at first a male Stark science groupie, has founded AIM, and becomes a rival by using this tech to cure himself and then recruit others. Meanwhile Tony & Pepper seem to find things to complain about, even though they both have more than most people could dream of having in 10 lifetimes, and the Government wants its own version of Iron Man under control, so they rebrand Rhodey, formally War Machine, as Iron Patriot. Tony is suffering from PTSD, from his experience in The Avengers, dealing with the scope of what happened, how he almost died, and what kind of beings actually exist in the world. Lastly, The Mandarin is presented as a Bin Laden type terrorist leader figure, but is later revealed to be a schmaltzy shmuck of an actor, who is just the face Killian created to cover his own wealth building activities, and more specifically, the times when his Extremis warriors self-destruct. And Killian wants to eliminate The President to get the Vice President, whom he owns because of money & a chance to cure his disabled daughter, into power so he can greatly profit from both sides of the War on Terror. There’s a big fight at the end, Pepper has become infused with Extremis and becomes Super Pepper, and Tony calls on a cavalry of secretly built Iron Suits to fight in the final sequence. Oh and he also gets his heart fixed, having the shrapnel removed, eliminating the need for his arc reactor. Did you follow all of that?

Just like that seems to be convoluted and all over the place, that’s exactly the way movie presents it, and itself as well. The editing of the film alone is always full of misdirection, and tonal shifts after almost every line, those shifts always going back to one liners & comedy. There’s so much to say, but I don’t want to make the review too long, so I’ll just make my main points.

Win

-Without question, the best scene in the movie is the airplane rescue sequence. Even more fun when you see the end credits crediting the Sky Diving Team that made it possible, you realize they did a lot of that for real. It was breathtaking, and the kind of live action/wire work/CGI mix that makes you breathless as it’s unfolding, and cheering when it’s over.

-The fan winks. From AIM, to the various armors that we see including Iron Patriot, to the inevitable Avengers 2 setups, to the fun scene at the end with the now bonded Tony & Dr. Banner, there was a ton of geeky goodness to behold.

-This wasn’t a total win, but let’s just say that the laughs that needed to be there were really well done.

-The fact that Tony had consequences from The Avengers movie. I didn’t like everything about it, but it made total organic sense, and was completely relatable to see Tony struggling with those experiences.

Meh

-Tony’s scenes with the kid, Harley. Like many hardcore sci fi/fantasy lovers, I’m not a fan of the introducing-a-kid-to-appeal-to-the-younger-audience trope, on any level. Plus he disappears back into obscurity once his purpose is accomplished, which makes him more of a function than a character.

-The Extremis operatives. They were kind of cool to look at, but their motivations seemed kind of thin if you ask me.

-The editing was fast & furious; visually stunning, but felt more like it suffered from ADD, because it didn’t create emotional connection between the scenes, just a lot of activity. And the movie dragged on, FAR too long, in the middle.

-The Extremis powers….what were the parameters or limits of their abilities? Because breathing fire was just silly. How did it decide who to bond with and who to blow up? And Thor’s hammer in The Avengers, discharging lightning, supercharged Tony’s armor….so how did the Extremis lightning cripple it?

-I didn’t care, one way or the other, about Nick Fury not being it.

Fail

-Biggest one? The plot itself. Because it undermines its own established gravitas by making The Mandarin a paper villain, and Guy Pearce, while a great actor, is not threatening as Killian at all. Killian is also no more than another greedy businessman; nothing we haven’t seen before, especially in Obadiah Stane, who basically did this same scheme, just on a smaller scale. And having THE FREAKING VICE PRESIDENT implicated in this whole thing? And then that’s just glossed over, like that wouldn’t tear the country apart with fear & anger? Just no.

-Second biggest fail? The fact that this had more comedic moments than absolutely anything else. This was a comedy that featured a superhero subplot, not the other way around. The thing we were expecting, a superhero action movie that had comedic moments, is nowhere to be found here. Unlike the excellent first Iron Man(still the best, and still my favorite).

-Wanna know why comic fans are howling in disappointment at this misuse of The Mandarin? Not only because he is Iron Man’s Joker in a sense, one of the greatest and oldest and most logical villains, but take a look at this picture:

This right kids, that’s The Mandarin. Any single one of his rings are deadly, but he’s got TEN. And the same reason to hate Tony that the terrorists did in the first movie. How cool would that movie have been to bring Tony full circle? Going back to the place that Iron Man was created, and following a trail to China to face a villain that has magic based power, full of contempt for American tech & the Western way of life? Do you see where that could have gone? But instead, we get a waste of a classic villain, and a classic actor.

-Disrespect for Iron Man himself. I mean, every single time we see the Mark 42 armor, it’s being destroyed. Swatted, even. Falling apart like so much tin, and being made fun of. This completely undermines any sense of power or badassery we get from Iron Man, and makes him a joke. Also, even though Tony invented the remote control tech, it makes us now one step removed from it as a character. It’s him in the armor that we like to see, that we emotionally resonate with. What this movie does is basically turn Iron Man’s operation into a big video game for Tony. Just think about that. And by doing so, emotionally disconnects us from him, and alleviates any sense of real danger or peril. Even right after the excellent airplane sequence, the armor gets crushed by an oncoming truck. Just no.

-Iron Patriot. I wasn’t as invested, so hence not as disappointed, in the fact that this was Norman Osborn in the comics after Civil War; moreso that the buddy cop thing between Rhodey & Tony? It just isn’t working. I felt it more with Terrance Howard in the role, but Cheadle? I’m sorry, I just don’t care about him. These two have not, even after two movies, sufficiently established a believable bro bond for my taste. And Rhodey always, always, just seems jealous. Just ugh.

-Super Pepper. Even though I know it happened in the comics, you know I’ve never been a fan of the everybody-gets-the-hero’s-powers-especially-the-girlfriend trope. On Smallville, everybody had experienced Clark’s powers before it was all over except Martha and Chloe. Ugh. Plus, we never get a real sense of Pepper being in danger, sealed by the fact that when she fell to her supposed doom, we knew that the Extremis tech was going to save her. So again…no real peril. Plus her delivering the killing blow to Killian was just…ugh. Anti-climactic. And everything on her burned but her bra. Anyway. Who is Pepper supposed to be to Tony now? She whines about everything, non-stop, that seems to be her only remaining function. She’s mad at the man she fell in love with, and if anyone had full knowledge of what they were getting into, it was her. And what does Tony do at the end? Destroy all his armor, I assume in an attempt to prove to her that he’s disconnecting from his work more? What?

-Tony’s arc. Or lack thereof. Did he really have one in this movie? Every single obstacle is met with his exact same glibness and dismissive narcissism. That’s funny more often than not, and Downey nails it perfectly, but it disconnects us from him as a character, because he really has nowhere left to go. They rushed the alcoholism arc in the last movie…that would’ve made more sense here. And what in the world is up with his heart  surgery? Was it the Extremis tech that allowed him to do that, because if not, why did he wait until now to fix himself?

-Lack of a clear villain. By doing this three pronged villain approach, Killian, The Mandarin, and the Extremis soldiers, there wasn’t really a strong reason to hate any of them by movie’s end. And thus any fighting that the hero does against them will lack any real emotional weight, as opposed to Smith vs. Neo, Vader vs. Luke, Terminators vs. Sarah Connor, etc.

Conclusion

As you’ve heard me say many times, I tend to judge a piece’s overall merit very heavily weighted towards if I want to see it again or not. Just my personal measure. I have watched the first Iron Man movie over and over again, because I love it. I don’t have that feeling here; I didn’t feel emotionally satisfied or connected in any way by movie’s end. Tony’s still Tony, and other than the PTSD, did we really learn anything new about him? Pepper’s still Pepper. She hasn’t changed since the first movie. So I kind of don’t see a point to a rewatch, once you know this movie’s twists, because you know that your emotional energy is wasted in most places that the movie misdirects it toward. I would’ve loved to see Tony fight the real Mandarin, and to realize that he’s still responsible for a certain level of the War on Terror. Pepper should’ve either died, or they should’ve broken up, and she got with Happy, like in the comics. And something as completely pivotal to the character as his heart surgery, i.e., removing the reason he had to become Iron Man in the first place should’ve been dealt with in more than one quick scene. It could’ve been the decision he was struggling with all movie long. That would’ve made more sense to me. As well as, more screen time with Tony actually in the armor, and us as an audience feeling like he improved it, not that everything under the sun was wrong with it, and that only his soulless Iron Minions and Super Pepper at the end were up to the challenge of beating the villain.

Oh well. I’m looking forward to Avengers 2.

Scorch’s Review of Taken 2

Synopsis: Enjoyable, but with none of the intensity, edge, and style of the original.

Liam Neeson is freaking Batman. He’s not McGyver, although those skills are there….he’s not James Bond, although the gadgets are there…he is freaking Batman. Having said that tho, this movie was unfortunately really lackluster compared to the original.

The Plot

The storyline is completely straightforward. The families of the men that Bryan Mills killed in the first movie want revenge. And it never gets any more complicated than that. The head of the Albanian Mafia is Murad, who happens to be Marco-from-Tropoja’s father. The movie opens with a mass burial, and then it’s on. And….that’s all. No underage prostitution ring, although it’s  mentioned, no drugs, although they’re seen, no tie-ins with international scandals, although the potential is there. It’s as simple as these men kidnapping the Mills family. The end.

The Characters

Again. Liam Neeson. I wish he was my dad. I’d be freaking Damian Wayne. He’s back in full force, and again, he is consistently faster, stronger, has more stamina, and is more resilient than men half his age. It’s a conceit of the movie, but so what? There is no movie without it. He even takes out six twenty-five year olds in a melee fight in an alley. Because he’s freaking Batman. Name me another 60 year old that could do that? Okay maybe Ra’s al Ghul or Qui Gon Jinn. So, SCORE!

Lenore is back, Famke Janssen is always great as an actress, but she really doesn’t have a lot do here but be the damsel in distress. Honestly, that’s all she does all movie long, from her failing marriage to Stu, to her bleeding neck.

And, Kim. Played by Maggie Grace. She is, once again, the weakest link. She is the least believable of the three on almost every level. There is no way that is a 16-18 year old; no way that she is still that naive and immature, especially after her experience in the first movie. No way that she should’ve survived everything that she did in this movie. Just no way. And, she only has two emotional states in the entire movie: “I want my boyfriend to take me hard” and “hysterical.”

His security team is back, as is Jean-Claude, but they are all barely in the movie; not even ten combined minutes of screen time. It’s also the second biggest conceit of the movie that Bryan could cause mayhem and destruction TWICE around the WORLD and not ever even answer to anyone for it.

The villains are, unfortunately, unremarkable. The movie doesn’t go totally cliche, and make them “evil just because they’re foreigners,” which is a typical American movie trope. It does give them a real reason to be antagonists, and a level of heartlessness, because they clearly don’t care about all the teenage American girls that they’ve kidnapped and whored out, but….there’s really nothing memorable about them, that’s the thing. They don’t really have presence, they don’t have any signature moves or sounds, they clearly just exist for Bryan to take them out as he encounters them. Which puts them on the same level as the bad guys you face in any video game.

What the Movie Got Right

Bryan Mills’ incredible set of particular skills. Always fun to watch. From teaching Kim to use the grenades to triangulate his position to his photographic memory in remembering the surroundings of his abduction experience. He’s just awesome. The movie also sets up a happy ending, and it might be cliche, but it still at least felt really good to assume that Bryan and Lenore were getting back together.

The hand to hand. It was a very particular style of JuJitsu and I loved it.

The location shooting was really well done; you really felt like you were there in that part of the world with them. The aerial shots in particular were stunning.

What the Movie Got Wrong

Ugh. Again, Kim. She was used again as a cocktease, showing some skin, but not a lot; that’s about all she’s good for. Her personality is completely without definition. She’s just Bryan Mills’ ditzy daughter in distress. Also, do we believe that someone that completely failed a driving test suddenly becomes James Bondette behind the wheel?

The editing was TERRIBLE. It was some of the worst shaky cam I’ve ever seen, and it took a lot of the edge out of both the fight scenes and the car chase scenes.

There were no surprises in this movie. None. Nothing jumped out at you to scare you, nobody’s death really shocked you, nothing. Just a linear progression from start to finish.

Lenore’s suffering. It was palpable, but there is no WAY they wouldn’t have at least raped her in front of him. I’m not saying at all that I wanted it to happen, but both women again got off WAY easier than they would have had that situation been real.

They way oversold the father-daughter overprotective angle this time, to the point of it feeling like worship. Almost even incestuous. Bryan Mills is just WAY too concerned with every possible second and every possible decision of his spoiled daughter’s life. In the first movie, it was well done and sets the emotional tone for everything. Here, it’s just really irritating and borderline creepy.

Stupid villain mistakes. Leaving a prisoner alone that you know is a master escape artist? *facepalm* Come ON man. Not frisking him with a metal detector for any possible hidden surprises? Come ON man. Continually engaging him in hand to hand when you KNOW he can kill you, and not keeping him tied up and blindfolded at all times? Come ON man.

Nothing really memorable about the score.

And, the biggest failures of all………..no real tension. No suspense. No intensity. Just based on the premise alone, you know going in what the movie’s about, but you would at least hope for some twists & turns along the way, and a telling of the story in a way that would keep you on the edge of your seat. The movie that did that really well was Mission Impossible IV:Ghost Protocol, so they probably should’ve gotten Brad Bird to direct this as well.

The one time that the movie does push any kind of believeability boundary is with the crashing into the U.S. Embassy. Because there is no WAY they wouldn’t have been shot. After crashing in like that, with things the way they are in the world these days? Just no possible way.

Conclusion

They neatly set up Taken 3, which will be beyond redundant unless they find some new ideas. Now, the biggest obvious open door to yet another sequel was….the boyfriend. Kim’s new beau, Jamie, who was on his way to deflowering her if he hadn’t already. I thought that he was one of the two remaining sons of Murad, already sent on a mission from his father to infiltrate the family. Wouldn’t that be something. So again, the movie was fun, but unfortunately squandered its potential to be anything special.

In all honesty, I will probably see Taken 3 anyway, just because I love Liam Neeson in this role.

Scorch’s Review of ‘The Dark Knight Rises’

Scorch’s Review of: The Dark Knight Rises

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Well. Nolan finally did it. He finally made a comic book movie. And my disappointment knows no bounds.

Synopsis: It’s the end of Batman. And he goes out with mostly a whimper disguised by a nuclear bang.

(Also….20 minutes of trailers. Geez. And yes, there is a Man of Steel trailer in the beginning, and it looks….like a new take on Superman.)

The Cast:

Christian Bale as Batman – Have never really been impressed with this choice, nor Nolan’s framing of the story. Bruce was missing the vow, the split personality, the palpable anger(even though he talked about it in this movie), and that voice. And I have NEVER liked that COSTUME. It’s gotten worse with each movie. But whatever, I’m used to him being here now.

Anne Hathaway as Selina – She surprised me. I really didn’t think that she was a good choice for Catwoman, but she actually did really well here. She conveyed the essence of Selina very well, although Hathaway always looks more like a girl than a woman. Oh and more Bat-blasphemy to some, I cannot STAND Michelle Pfieffer’s Catwoman. CAN. NOT. STAND IT. At least Nolan found a brunette. Selina Kyle is not blonde. So, this pretty much makes Anne Hathaway the best live action Catwoman ever, unless you like the three campy 60′s ones.

Tom Hardy as Bane – ….honestly? Whatever. Literally could’ve been anyone in that getup and it would’ve been the same role.

Michael Caine as Alfred – Love Michael in this role, don’t like who Alfred became in this movie. More on that later.

Joseph Gordon-Leavitt as Blake/Robin – Jury’s still out on this one for me. In general I thought it was cool, the reveal at the end kind of retroactively justifies how much attention he gets in the movie. More on that later.

Marion Cotillard as Miranda/Talia – Best reveal of the whole movie. I have always loved Talia Al Ghul, and she’s the best translated character in the entire movie.

Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox – He’s ALWAYS a treat. Yet another role that he does so well, and so effortlessly, again, like he was born to play it. I love his work.

Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon – He also is a veteran actor, nailing this role. Love his work as well.

The Plot:

This is really kind of the heart of why you will either love or hate this movie. Batman Begins was about exactly what the title states, why and how Bruce Wayne chooses to become Batman. The Dark Knight was about escalation, about what happens when you drop vigilante justice square into the center of a deeply corrupt city. The Dark Knight Rises was about…..? A lot of things, and nothing really, except maybe that it was over. Batman Retires.

Gone is the characteristic sharpness of Nolan’s first two BatFilms,

“Set me free. Or, make out with me. Either way I’m good.”

both visually and in terms of plot cohesion. In its place is, every freaking body from Inception, some truly uncharacteristic humor, and a lot of fan winks. So much so, until, about halfway in I started to wonder if Nolan really directed this.

If you want a short phrase to sum up this movie, here it is: Batman is Broken. That is the message over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. He’s lost his heart, and all of the cartilage in his knees, and that’s the only thing the movie really wants you to know about him. He can no longer do anything on his own, including finding the motivation to come out of his self-imposed exile as well as figure out how to stop the villain. Villains.

So Bruce is limping, hiding, whining, and emotionally withdrawing(all SO NOT BATMAN), and Bane has come to town, along with Catwoman, with a convoluted plot to finish Ra’s Al Ghul’s work in liberating Gotham through destruction. Bruce gets a new girlfriend, whom he turns Wayne Enterprises over to(*facepalm*), and continually gets his ass handed to him throughout the movie. Bane then breaks him even further, he goes to a hole in the desert, climbs an unclimbable wall, and needs Catwoman’s help to finish off Bane, who he mistakenly thinks is Ra’s Al Ghul’s child. Turns out that his new girlfriend, Miranda Tate, is actually Talia, the real child of Ra’s, and she’s been behind everything that’s been happening, purely for vengeance on the man that supposedly killed the father she didn’t even agree with.

There’s also several sub-plots: one involving exposing the truth about Harvey Dent, but without one single mention of The Joker. Another running plot involves Blake, who figures out early on that Bruce is Batman(as did every other freaking principal character in this movie), and works throughout the movie to support the abandoned troubled children program that the Wayne Foundation had been funding. Turns out his birth name is Robin, something we find out in the final moments of the film. He’s been groomed to take over for a decidedly retired Bruce, seemingly living in bliss with Selina by film’s end.

What They Got Right

1) The Women – Nolan is notorious for writing poor & one dimensional female characters, but here, both Talia and Selina shine in their respective roles, even though Selina’s role is kind of shoehorned. By that I mean, her function in the movie could’ve been achieved if it wasn’t Catwoman doing it, while Talia obviously and specifically has to be Talia.

2) The Bat – Finally a piece of equipment that, still, doesn’t really have the Bat motif built in, like all of Batman’s gadgets should, but it’s still badass. It steals every scene that it’s in, no joke.

3) Gotham’s Peril – In the end, when you see the brilliant execution of trapping the entire police force underground at once, when you see that Bane has paralyzed the city and incited martial law, it just rocks. Everyone in the theater sat up in their chairs at this point.

What They Got Wrong

Sadly, almost everything else. Don’t misunderstand me, I get why people would both love and hate this movie; it’s not bad, there’s just so many choices that were made that I disagree with and don’t personally like. That doesn’t mean that they were wrong….they just didn’t sit well with me.

1) Everything about Batman – He’s broken, he’s heartless, he’s lost his mission, he constantly needs help, EVEN FREAKING ALFRED TURNS ON HIM. He’s fighting in broad daylight, he’s admitting his identity left and right, and he’s got gray hair and he’s ready to hang the cowl up once and for all, because he’s tired, he forgot he was angry, and he just turns the Cave and his company over to others that he barely knows.

NONE OF THAT IS BATMAN.

I’m going to send them the full DVD set of Batman:The Animated Series. Maybe then they’ll get a clue as to who Bruce Wayne is. Also, and I really don’t care what anyone thinks about this next point, but once again, this movie isn’t actually about Batman. He’s a guest star in his own movie.

Remember boys n’ girls, I am not, nor have I ever been, a fan of protagonist deconstruction, or antagonist redemption.

2) Convoluted Plots – Nolan is known for this, but here it’s just hard to follow. Or believe. Bane is preaching and pontificating all the time, with his Darth Vaderesque voice, but he lacks the conviction of Ra’s. Turns out, he was only doing it for Talia. Also, we never get a real sense of the venom that feeds Bane and makes him swell up, and most of his activities during the movie are kind of nonsensical.

We don’t get why Blake is important until the very end, but he receives no direct training from Bruce. BUT INHERITS THE CAVE. And, once I found out he was Robin, I still didn’t care about him any more than I initially did.

Commissioner Gordon spends most of the movie on his back in the hospital. Kind of like Professor X in the first 2 movies.

3) Too many characters – Again, they pulled a Schumacher, and had Bane, Catwoman, Daggett, Talia, Ra’s, and Scarecrow. Just great. When that happens it feels stuffed to the gills with villainy, but that’s not supposed to be the heart of a movie about Batman.

4) Tone – Nolan tries to add some humor here, and it is not pure camp, but it unfortunately just feels out of place in his work. And it tends to lighten the mood in the wrong ways overall.

5) Misnamed – This movie had the Dark Knight doing anything but rising. He literally was barely surviving in almost every sense of the word; financially, socially, physically, emotionally. No, what this movie actually was was Nolan’s take on The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller’s seminal work, understood in concept as “The Last Batman Story.” What would Batman do once he got old, and can no longer fight the way he used to, due to years of damage in the field, much like a pro athlete? He’d want to go out in a blaze of glory, and that’s what he did in the book, and that’s what he does here. He uses The Bat to lift the nuclear bomb that Talia built and Bane arms & ignites over the ocean, and lets it detonate, making it look like he was killed in the blast. But not, of course, before telling Commissioner Gordon who he is. (*facepalm*) But as it turns out, he had previously fixed the auto pilot, so he just wanted the world to think he was dead, so he could retire in peace with Selina. *groan* That’s not Bruce. Bruce would NEVER stop fighting. See Batman Beyond. He’d fight even in death.

Also….when Batman does finally show up for the first time in eight years, he’s using some kind of gun. That image is always startling to any hardcore Batfan.

Conclusions

I must say, I called it a few days ago. I predicted that Batman Begins would be my favorite movie of the three, and indeed it is.

Because it’s about Batman.

Bruce does nothing but lose in this movie…loses his heart, his fortune, his best friend/surrogate father, his secret identity, his health, his edge, and in the end, in a sense, his life. His life as Batman. Nolan made a comic book movie. He made something over the top, with comic book physics(Catwoman never loses a skirmish, and never even gets hit in the whole movie). He made a cartoonish villain with Bane; because he wasn’t scary, so much as annoying and kind of puzzling. He showed us a Bruce Wayne that stopped caring, and started over trusting everyone around him. Bruce clearly also never got over Rachel, but Batman has lost people in the comics before, and he never stopped fighting. The Joker beat Jason Todd to death, and Batman mourned, grieved, and moved on. Not whined and hid. They passed the baton to Robin, unbeknownst to us as the audience until the end, and there’s never really a formal introduction of Blake even to Alfred. And, if it’s that easy to get into the cave, why hasn’t it been done before now? I mean, Bats and Catwoman are making out, the world’s ending, she saves his bacon Han Solo style, Bane’s in love with Talia, Talia hates Bruce, Bruce hallucinates a very powerful Ra’s moment before he climbs out of the hole, and we never see Talia and Ra’s together, she just talks about what happened. I do have to admit, the Scarecrow scenes were funny, but that just made it feel like Adam West’s Batman, not Kevin Conroy’s.

Oh well, some will love it, some will hate it, many will have mixed emotions about it as I do. Bring on the next incarnation. I may be tired of Nolan and Bale, but I never get tired of Batman.

Other Related Reviews:

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The Amazing Spider-Man: A Review

Scorch’s Review of: The Amazing Spider-Man

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More like the Adequate Spider-Man. Not amazing, but oh well.

Synopsis: Enjoyable, but not a Slam Dunk. And it should’ve been. And so many loose threads.

Cast:

Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/Spider-Man – Never crazy about this choice, but I think he did well. Just. That hair. Makes me laugh every time I look at him, and think about trying to stuff that out of control mane underneath his mask. But definitely believable as a nerdy genius, and sometimes believable as an adolescent.

Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy – I love Emma Stone. She is one of those actresses, one of those women, who is just the whole package. And I love to watch her work. Filmmakers, however, still clearly have no idea who Gwen Stacy is, or who Mary Jane is. Emma Stone’s spirit, style, delivery, is much more in line with Mary Jane than with Gwen. Period. She did a pretty good job here, but she acted like what she is, a young woman in her 20′s. There was nothing about her performance that said “giggly 15 year old girl whose boyfriend is a superhero.” She’s just way too mature for that.

Rhys Ifans as Dr. Curt Connors/The Lizard – He did a good job, given the script. There wasn’t anything terribly memorable about his performance, and nothing signature or iconic that made The Lizard stand out as one of the classic and earliest Spider-Man villains.

The rest of the actors I’ll mention as the review goes along, because if a movie can’t make it with its principals, then all that will be left is a possible memorable or breakout performance by one of the cast, and there are none here.

The Plot:

This movie was billed as “the untold story of Spider-Man.”

But what happens with almost every dangling plot thread of this movie, is that they introduce a concept and don’t follow it through. We were kind of sold on the idea that Peter’s parents would feature prominently in this movie, and they somewhat do…but they are used to set the backdrop and then they disappear. And we never see them again, and they are only alluded to. Peter’s parents are in league with Dr. Connors in the field of Genetic Research, trying to figure out how to extrapolate and apply the properties of animals and insects to humans. There’s also an element of both corporate and government espionage, but it’s never fully explored.

Peter gets bitten by a super spider, Dr. Connors experiments with the research on himself, the Peter/Gwen romance ignites, and The Lizard thinks he needs to fix the world be aero-impregnating everyone with Super Lizard DNA. Okay. But again, this is supposed to be the untold story of Spider-Man. There’s really no new information presented here, other than the brief exposition and teasing about Peter’s parents. And what’s also aBUNdantly clear here is that they wrote it with the sequel in mind.

What They Got Right

1) His powers – Holy cow this was easily the best part of the movie. Spider-Man finally looked & moved like Spider-Man. The poses, the swinging, the strength, the speed, the spider-sense, the wall crawling. Finally, the character that Stan Lee & Steve Ditko brought to life 50 years ago was seen in live action the way he was presented in the books. Home Run.

Now, I have been a convert to Team Organic Web Shooters ever since I saw it done in the first movie. Here they go back to the book origin, in which Peter invents both the web-shooters, and the web fluid. Just in terms of that alone, it was done well. More on this later.

2) Squarely cementing him as a teenager – Playing with his phone, his emotional states, his naivete about the cops & their approach to crime fighting, his awkwardness with women, his deep woundedness about his relatively unexplained parental abandonment….all done very well by Garfield & cast. Even his late night sneaking out was a wink to the early books. LOVED the skateboard.

Also, the traditional Spider-Man wisecracking snark was back. He finally was the quipper that we know and love from the books, which made sense since he starts out as a testosterone fueled teen, that’s clearly full of himself. But who wouldn’t be if they had freaking spider powers as a sophomore? Again, the smartass Spidey that we know from the books finally showed up.

3) The overall CGI – Sure, it was cheesy in some places, but in general, it was the most seamless live action Spider-Man yet. And The Lizard, while much more cartoony here than he is in the comic, looked good most of the time. He was much more reminiscent in tone and look of Killer Croc from Batman than the actual comics Lizard, but again, the overall CGI was well blended in. One of my biggest problems with the Raimi films to this day is that Spider-Man is a cartoon. I didn’t buy for a second that Tobey was ever in that costume, because it was all so obviously CGI’d in. Not so in this movie, kudos on that.

What They Got Wrong

1) Missing Beats – That was the biggest problem with this movie. It did not know how to properly hit its beats. Not even close. The biggest obvious example was the death of Uncle Ben. That was the birth of Spider-Man as a hero, his guilt, his driving force in uttering his most famous tagline, “With great power comes great responsibility,” but here, they once again changed the way it happens, and it’s all over so quickly. There is little to no time to grieve, or really feel the impact, and the death of Captain Stacy later on carries more emotional weight than Ben’s death. Such a shame.

2) Teenage Love – Andrew Garfield did really well, but there was very little that was teenagery about this relationship. I even hated the way that Gwen’s father walks in his 15 year old daughter’s room AND THERE’S A BOY IN IT, and has ALMOST ZERO REACTION. Just no. The “love” story was much more like a 20 something comedy than two high schoolers, one of whom has a big secret, and his girlfriend being brought into it.

3) Wasted Actors – Biggest obvious one here? Sally Field. She’s a veteran actress, and she is completely wasted as Aunt May, because she’s not given anything of real import to do. Even with Ben’s death, she gets over it so quickly. Martin Sheen falls in this category too, because what we did not feel in this movie was Peter’s love for Ben. What we felt was Peter’s frustration at being turned over to them by his absentee parents, and that’s not the whole story.

4) Parameter Inconsistency – Holy crap, Peter had all of his powers like, right after the spider bite. I know it was like that in the book, but I preferred the 1st Raimi movie where it took a while for his blood to alter. It was just the way they did it here, making him adjust so quickly that I didn’t like. But, they at least had some training sequences, that diluted the all-at-once presentation somewhat.

Also, again, they did such a good job of having him spin the web and use the vibrations to track the Lizard, but if you pay attention to every appearance of the Lizard, HE NEVER TRIGGERS PETER’S SPIDER-SENSE. ……..What?? There are some villains from the books, like Venom, who have a real reason for not triggering Peter’s spider-sense, but The Lizard was never one of them. Next…..how could everyone in that freaking school not figure out that Peter was Spider-Man after he started showing those incredible things that he could do?

And The Lizard….just how strong and fast was he? This seemed to change from scene to scene, and I hate when he broke Spidey’s web-shooters. I really did.

5) Taking. Off. The. Mask – *sigh* I don’t know what the fixation with this is, but filmmakers seem to love to unmask Peter. His identity was one of the best kept secrets in the Marvel Universe, which is why when he revealed it in Civil War it was such a shock. The impact came from the fact that nobody ever guessed that Spider-Man was this kid from the Bronx. But in the movies, everybody gets to see Spider-Man unmasked, from the little kid that he rescues, to Gwen, to Captain Stacy, ugh. Just so tired of this movie idea. I really am.

6) Too many undeveloped and unresolved plot threads – Holy crap. They showed Peter’s genius throughout the movie, and especially with making the web shooters…and then that was it. Peter was notorious for running out of web fluid, and also for having to figure out ways to make his webs behave when he was in the field. They never used the mechanical web shooters to their full potential, not even close.

Peter’s parents, we got that undiscernable scene at the end, that’s just a set up for a sequel. There was so much hinting at how deep all of the backstory went, but we never got to really experience any of it, which makes it useless to us as an audience.

Dr. Connors here was a slimy, shady person. They threw out the Jekyll/Hyde nature from the early books, and made him a mad scientist, instead of the good family guy that he should’ve been. His motivation then becomes even more selfish, because The Lizard was always an accidental villain. This Curt Connors was completely, and I mean, comPLETEly unsympathetic.

They kind of shoehorned Gwen in on the final battle…I know that they wanted to get away from the same plot of all three Raimi movies, at least in terms of the female lead, so Gwen wasn’t captured or the damsel in distress, she was part of the solution. Not bad, but felt forced. And again, the villain found out who Spider-Man was. Not necessary EVERY FREAKING TIME.

Conclusions:

What became obvious to me upon exiting the movie theater was that they had taken such great care with some aspects of this film, and seemed to apply an equal amount of carelessness to other aspects, to the point where you have to wonder if it was all done by the same production team. How could you pay so much attention to Spider-Man using vibrations in his web like a real spider and ignore his spider-sense? How could you so clearly make Peter act like a teenage boy and make Gwen act like a 22 year old college girl? How could they put so much weight on the mystery and heartbreak of Peter’s long lost parents and spend about 10 minutes total screen time dealing with Uncle Ben’s death? Do you see what I mean?

Could’ve been a slam dunk. But so many of the stand-up-and-cheer moments were just peppered throughout the film, and were often subsequently undercut by gaps in logic, or mischaracterizations, to the point of continuity & pacing becoming way uneven. So, I did enjoy it, and would probably watch it again; I’ll also probably see the sequel. I would just want the story to hold up better, and for the movie to know what beats at the heart of any Spider-Man story…..

Survivor’s guilt.

Other Related Reviews:

Rotten Tomatoes

Screenrant

E! Online

Prometheus: A Review

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Synopsis: This movie was visually & technically stunning, but unfortunately, just like I expected, it didn’t have its own identity, and that is what kills it. And then about halfway through it goes full frontal stupid, which made me move it into GODAWFUL status.

The Good

The Visuals: It is visually brilliant. Whether CGI, matte painting, or shot on location, Ridley Scott imbues this film with his trademark glorious imagery. The background scenes, the planet, the tech on the Earth ship, the tech on the alien ship, it’s all a joy to behold.

Casting: There are some really good actors here, Michael Fassbender, Charlize Theron, Idris Elba, Guy Pearce; they did the best they could with the material, and you buy each of them as their characters. Their strong acting skills elevated what still turned out to be poorly developed characters.

The Score: Not the whole score, but parts of it were quite well done. Not nearly as good as Jerry Goldsmith’s score on the original Alien by a long shot, but still pleasant at times.

That’s about it for what was good in this film.

The Bad

Blessed near everything else. This movie wasn’t about anything.

Plot: THIS MOVIE WASN’T ABOUT ANYTHING.

Let me state unequivocally, that I never have been, nor am I now, a fan of prequels, for several reasons. First & foremost, the tech & special FX of the original or first film can’t help but look dated when you make a film in present time about an earlier time, movie sequence wise. Second, the prequels are pretty much locked into what can and cannot happen, and who can & cannot survive. Lastly, prequels can’t ever be fully judged solely on their own merits as a film.

This is why I knew, I KNEW, from the moment they announced this film, that it was going to be disappointing, because they set it up to fail. There’s absolutely no way it can not be disappointing, because when you build a movie around the world established in Alien, all the audience is gonna care about is, when are the aliens gonna show up? And they never really do, not as we know them. More on that later.

This movie suffered all of the aforementioned prequel problems; its modern look is asynchronous with the look of the 1979 film since it technically happens earlier(remember the big computer room with Mother in it, the way computers looked in the 70′s); next, everything that happens in the movie is foreplay, that we really don’t care about, because again, what we want to see & understand is the aliens. Next, Ridley Scott just straight rips from the first two movies, which is exactly what I knew was going to happen. From the opening credits having the title “Prometheus” fade in the same way Alien‘s title does, to copying lines verbatim(“We are leaving!”), to the land rovers, to the crew, on and on, it was just cobbled together previously digested bits from the first two movies. But the insult to injury is, Ridley Scott saying that “it’s not a direct prequel to Alien” WHEN HE USES VERBATIM LINES FROM ALIEN AND ALIENS.

It also had additional problems:

1) No real new information. It somewhat showed us different parts of the alien lifecycle, but nothing groundbreaking. More on this later.

2) The entire crew was redshirts. How can you care about a crew of redshirts? They didn’t even care in the end.

3) Meandering. Instead of the film picking a focal point and staying with it…it dabbled into so many different themes until, again, its net result was that it wasn’t about anything. It toyed with themes of faith, faith vs. science, creationism, the existential nature of life, human curiosity, immortality, space exploration, the alien origin, but in the end, didn’t remotely PICK one. And there was so much cool tech that I wanted to see explored and explained. But the big kahookie, in what was thee largest fricking finger to the audience in the entire film, was that what should have been the premise of this movie was delivered via freaking throw away lines!!!!!

This movie tells us that the Space Jockey race, whose origins have been an oft debated mystery for over 30 years now, are actually a humanoid race and the progenitors of humanity. Their elephant-like look has been body armor all this time(huge mistake, completely destroys the Space Jockey, just like I knew it would, I hate prequels, did I mention that I hate prequels?). They seemingly spawned humans, because the DNA is an exact match.

Then they pulled a Yahweh Old Testament hissy fit Flood move and decided to scrap it all, because….well, we never find out why. And again, just almost casually, the captain declares that this was actually a military base, stuck out in the middle of nowhere on purpose, for them to manufacture what would eventually become the aliens that we see. It is revealed that the aliens, as has long been speculated, were organic weapons of mass destruction, and that the Engineers were on their way to Earth to unleash them, to wipe humanity out. And somehow, like all good sci fi horror movies, their plans went awry, and the organic adaptable life forms that they created turned on them, and made them all either commit suicide or get facehugged.

But we’re left to infer everything that I just said. We see tentacled creatures, with acid for blood, and super gripping strength, but somehow we’re to understand that eventually the “vases” that were dripping X-Files black oil in the main navigation/hyper sleep chamber would morph into eggs…and that through each life cycle of rebirth, the alien itself keeps changing, and it’s because of the Space Jockey’s tech that it ends up looking the way that it does. Did you catch all that? They created an organic substance that was adaptable, that force feed itself through the mouth into a host, and burst forth from that host having combined its DNA with it. That was definitely established in the films, but again, that means, it’s not new information. And, excuse me, but exactly how long was the Engineer/Space Jockey from the original Alien movie on LV-426? He had indeed become fossilized….so since Prometheus takes place on LV-223, we know that facehuggers and xenomorphs were actually already running loose long before these events.

WHO’S MY DADDY?

What we wanted to see was the details. How did they create this lifeform? How did they imbue it with acid for blood? How did they make it take on the characteristics of its host? How did it shrink down to facehugger size? When did it turn on them? How come they didn’t have any failsafes against such a possibility? Why did they change their minds about humanity? What was the Engineer home planet like? This is what this movie should have been about; the details of why the supposed creators of man came to hate us so much that they devised a biological weapon to wipe us out in the most horrible way possible. The job of a sequel or a prequel is to give us the stuff we know, and then present to us new stuff that we didn’t know, which is why Aliens is so popular, because it does exactly that, and does it well.

But instead, in Prometheus we’re left with a hodge podge of plot threads, and a bunch of scenes that serve little to no purpose. What was the purpose of showing Charlie reanimated? Or of Elizabeth giving herself a freaking C-Section for the dolphin octosquid facehugger prototype? This movie really had potential, and ended up being worthy of SyFy channel. I kid you not.

Ooooh, mystery solved. IT’S A SHIP!

This was Ridley Scott trying to be “mysterious” and it had all the impact of an ugly woman trying to flirt. Epic. Fail.

And why exactly did Space Jockey Powder drink the alien bourbon in the beginning of the film, killing himself and falling over into the ocean? Exactly what purpose did that serve? Was that supposed to be an allusion to the beginning of human life, and how our DNA got dispersed into the primordial ooze?

Characters: Again, Ridley Scott, for a veteran filmmaker, makes a huge cardinal sin/rookie mistake, especially given the fact that both he and James Cameron ESTABLISHED THE FREAKING TEMPLATE FOR THESE KINDS OF MOVIES. We didn’t spend enough time with these characters to care about them, nor did they have easily discernible and distinct personalities. We knew who Parker, Lambert, and Dallas were; we knew(and loved) Vasquez, Hudson, Hicks, Burke, and of course Ripley….who the GROK were these people? Even the android David, played well by Fassbender, didn’t show us anything we haven’t already seen dozens of times before. What a waste of Idris Elba; and Charlize played the cold-hearted corporate tool well, but so? Why should we care? I love Guy Pearce, and I love his work, but he’s kind of wasted here, because we really don’t care about this tottering old man’s quest for more years. And who didn’t see the comPLETEly predictable “twist” of Charlize being his daughter? Come ON man, Vader & Luke put an end to that thread ever having any impact ever again.

In the end…we as the audience just do not care. Sure Fifield was funny, but these people were just set up to die. And then…the captain and token asian guy as well as dashing Italian guy Kamikaze the alien ship on the crazed word of Elizabeth. Happily, with arms raised. Please spare me. Charlize as Meredith had the most normal reaction to everything that was going on. And I hated, and

Let this be a lesson to ya, boys n’ girls….in space no one can hear you unwrap a condom.

I mean absolutely HATED Elizabeth Shaw, because I hate extreme science types in sci fi horror films. They never do anything but violate any and all moral & ethical codes, and get everybody killed, but somehow they survive, or at least get killed last. Please go away. And there it is…we loved and rooted for Ripley, and Dr. Shaw in this movie absolutely reaped exactly what she sowed, and deserved every moment of pain. And the absolute & utter Keystone Cop, Three Stoogeish level of unprofessionalism from these “scientists” just made me disconnect. Almost every single thing that they did was marinated in IDIOT juice. From the way they approached the life forms, to taking off their helmets, to making emotional as opposed to protocol based decisions. Ugh. JUST UGH.

David’s seeming duplicitousness is never really explored; what they did with Bishop in Aliens was better, because you were never sure until the end if he was on Ripley’s side or not. David clearly did have a soul, which makes him different than Ash, but David was practiced at playing dumb to appease the humans. That really could’ve gone somewhere….but it didn’t.

Ending:  I just can’t. I can’t even. Right about when Elizabeth discovers she’s pregnant, this movie goes to Hell in a handbasket. I was with them up until that point, and then I just wanted to spit at the screen. I can’t even. After Dumb & Dumber die, and Charlie becomes an acne zombie, nothing makes any sense. Elizabeth shouldn’t have been able to do all that she did after that emergency C-section. She just shouldn’t have. And I loved every time the Space Jockey map was on the screen; those effects were just beyond beautiful, but again, all of that just to show that they were on their way to Earth to infect us. It never goes anywhere.  I swear I thought that Dr. Shaw was going to be the one in the chair in the Space Jockey armor, but somehow, this woman who should be weakened from blood loss and infection manages to get to yet another Space Jockey ship(stealing Ripley’s lines as she goes). And then….we have no idea what happens to her. The thing that we’ve always wanted to see, the original home planet, is never shown. According to her last words, she never even found it. Her and David Head. Leaving us wondering if David ever reattached to his body and turned on her, as he seemed to want to do.

The Space Jockey that they revived and tried to talk to ends up beheading Fassbutt and knocking over 175 year old Weyland, and then clearly SPRINTING to the other ship to attack Shaw, but she opens up the room where her baby alien is, who has now grown to be…super alien squid! See why I can’t even? So he gets giant facehugged, and then a new creature bursts out of him that’s kind of pre-alien, and….argh. ….So what? I’m sorry, but this:simply cannot be topped. It can’t.

As I mentioned before, Idris and skeleton crew ram the ship…which actually shouldn’t have been able to be completely crippled and downed by Prometheus ramming it, because its armor would’ve been stronger than that. It crushes Charlize, but with her magic main character powers, Shaw survives again! Ugh. Please make it stop.

Final Conclusion

This movie doesn’t answer any of the questions that we wanted answered. What this movie should have been, is, condensed down to about 20 minutes, and retooled into the first act of an incredible film. A film where the Space Jockeys are actually elephant like and not necessarily our progenitors(because they basically recycled the plot of Star Trek V with that one). We could’ve seen how they came up with this adaptable organic life form, watching their scientists give it its acid blood, watch whatever event made them turn on us, and watch it all go bad as the pre-alien ooze gets loose, and THEN shown us a bunch of new things we hadn’t seen before, maybe have them make it to Earth, definitely have one of us survive to take the fight back to their own home planet. Or, as others have suggested, and I agree with this direction as well, have Prometheus have nothing to do with the Alien franchise at all.

Oh well. Maybe the next film will show Dr. Shaw actually arriving on Space Jockey world. But I still won’t care.

Related Prometheus Reviews:

Rotten Tomatoes

What the Flick

Red Letter Media (hilarious)

Screen Rant

New York Times

“C’mon, dude. Cyberstalking my dreams? Are there sexual harassment laws in 2089???”

Snow White & The Huntsman: A Review

So if you want a quick synopsis of what I thought, here it is:

This movie was an incredible, stunning, visually brilliant style over substance misfire. Had not one shred of depth to match the incredible breadth of its framing.

The Good

-The visuals in terms of the cinematography. Pretty much from scene one, the snowy land, the blood drops against the white, the mirror’s liquid gold, the Evil Queen’s milk bath, Snow in the Enchanted Forest, on and on, this movie was magically beautiful.

-The Magic Acid Trip Poppy Seed gas pellets in the Dark Forest. It’s so cool how dark forests always have these organic plants that totally jack you up, but the way the hallucinatory experiences were shot were fantastic. You felt what the characters were feeling, while observing them at the same time. It was just great.

-Charlize as the Evil Queen. She really brought it in this role(for the most part; more on that later); we know she can play crazy, but here she does medieval fairy tale crazy quite well.

-The Dwarves. Holy cow they were some of the best parts of the movie. The Dwarves are pretty much the only people in the movie that make sense; gold miners who can see their bounty even in the dark, seeking to regain the life that they had lost with the death of the King. Really organic and believable, and they were just so freaking funny. Often the dwarves in the story of Snow White are humorous, sometimes they’re dirty, but here on top of being full of chuckles, they were actually noble and brave. Loved them.

The Meh

-Chris Hemsworth as Thor. I mean, as Curt. I mean, as The Huntsman. Yah. They’re that interchangeable. Don’t get me wrong, I think Hemsworth can act, but putting him in this type of role yet again just cements the stereotype and his possible typecasting. We as the audience know who this cliched character is from scene one, his drunken brawl introduction scene….the good ol’ Jockstrap Meathead. We’ve seen him a thousand times before. And instead of making him unique in some way, or even fleshing him out, we get zero backstory other than a dead wife.

-Kristen Stewart as Snow White. It’s not that I didn’t like her…it’s more that she’s always Bella. Who is actually Kristen. Kind of like Kristin Kreuk is always Lana. What I mean by that is, Stewart’s expressions, ticks, they’re always the same, just there in different degrees. That painfully awkward dance scene with the dwarf. Ugh. She even kisses just like Bella. Kristen Stewart has mastered the “please have sex with me because I need it so bad” face, and that’s about it. And, I’m sad to say, if you pull her out of the movie, and replace her with any other actress, it’s the exact same movie. It wouldn’t suffer by her absence, which is never a good thing. The two other actresses that I think would’ve worked better in this role and possibly elevated it are Evan Rachel Wood and Rachel Hurd-Wood. I’d buy either one of those women both as Snow White and as a rival to Charlize Theron. Also, about 30 minutes into the movie I noticed something very odd….Snow White doesn’t really say anything. She has minimal lines and maximum face emoting. She gives this big speech at the end that is nonsensical. More on that later. But I never have any idea what the character is feeling. 

-The Queen’s brother. Other than the hint at incest, he could’ve been anybody really. There wasn’t anything special about him being her brother; he could’ve easily been just her personal guard, and it’s the same role.

The WTF

They unfortunately went the George Lucas Star Wars prequel route; we’re supposed to believe a bunch of things just because the movie says so.

“GIMME THAT YOUTH, BITCH!!”

-Holy cow, little to no backstory on the Evil Queen. We get that she’s a succubus, then we find that she’s a Black Widow as well…but we never really get to see how she got to be that way, other than that brief scene where her mother gives her the three drops of blood beauty incantation. This movie should’ve taken a page from the movie Black Widow starring Theresa Russell, and let us see Ravenna killing a few husbands, not just Snow White’s dad only. That would’ve fleshed the Queen out better as a character and made us care more about her motivation. Also, we don’t find out until the very last scene that the Queen’s been gathering her powers through her journeys…but how? How did she get them, and what’s the extent of them? It’s very hard to size up the villain if you don’t know if they’re demonic, or enchanted, or using potions, or what. It was just way blurry.

And, in a few scenes, she was just too over the top, and her performance unfortunately moved into parody. And, they gave her that great milk bath visual….and didn’t do anything with it. They show that the mirror is probably just her own psychosis manifesting…and then don’t do anything with it. And correct me if I’m wrong, but did this: ever actually happen in the movie, or was that just in the trailer??

-William. Why exactly was he there?

-But the biggest kahuna of all, the biggest elephant in the room, is clear: There is, absolutely no explanation whatsoever as to why or how Snow White is who and what the movie claims that she is. There was nothing special about her birth; no prophecy, no enchantment, no bargain with the gods, nothing, yet somehow the movie claims that she is “life itself?” Come ON, man. And then, immediately after saying that line, she can’t rescue the dwarf that’s been shot from death? What? She uses her magic virgin angst powers to make the Troll, who’s made a meal off of plenty of others, just get shy and walk away? How? And, even tho it’s harsh….Kristen Stewart is just not more beautiful, more fair, than Charlize Theron. She’s just younger. That’s all.

The ultimate marks of Mary Sueness are also present; one, that men can take just one look at Snow and fall in love with her, and two, every man, given enough time, will fall in love with her. Once you Mary Sueize a female character, you can’t take her seriously, because she’s now become a caricature. And then, it’s so confusing because you think that William is supposed to be her true love…yet it’s the Huntsman’s kiss that brings her back from the death by poison apple. But he clearly was still grieving his wife; there’s no full indication that they were falling in love. Just maybe a little in like. And the look they give each other at the end of the movie signifies….what, exactly?

And her speech after she rises….makes no sense at all. Like…none. It comes from a place that doesn’t ring true…because Snow White has just been a prisoner and on the run for this whole movie, and now after an unexplained resurrection, she’s speaking about fire in the belly? And they just accept her resurrection, just like that? And then all of a sudden she’s a Joan of Arc-esque warrior? With no training??? And she kills the Queen with relative ease?

There was nothing special about the way she kills the Queen…she just stabs her. The entire movie seems to rest on her pure blood incantation powers, but in the end that has little to do with a knife to the gut. I know that the Queen got stabbed before, and recovered, because only by fairest blood can she be killed and all, but it would’ve made more sense for something magical that Snow White was wielding to spell the end of the Queen instead of just being stabbed. And all the Queen does as she’s dying is just….wither and get old. No explosions, no release of all that youthful energy that she stole(which we know is returned, because we see Greta restored later), no disintegrating castle…nothing. And when the crown is put on Snow’s head in the final coronation scene…it looks like she’s having an orgasm, I swear.

This movie is just painfully inconsistent…..they definitely tied together the original tale & some fantasy elements, but they didn’t knit it together very well…too many gaps in logic to make it flow. It completely threw out & ignored any attempts at all at depth; in short, we as an audience just do not care enough about any of the main characters to give what happens in the movie any real emotional punch, except for the dwarves. They were fleshed out the best.

So in a nutshell: The Evil Queen is this super magic powered bitter misandryistic praying mantis who runs up on the wrong king and family, because somehow, some way, her stepdaughter Snow White is this semi-celestial Goddess resurrectiony warrior Princess who is “The One” and is destined to destroy her….just because the movie says so.

Umm….not so much.

So…..better luck next time with the whole Snow White thing.

And I really wanted to like this movie, too.

Th-th-th-th-that’s all folks.

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Related Reviews:

• ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ Review(screenrant.com)

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• Snow White and the Huntsman: Movie Review(screencrave.com)

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• The awesome terribleness of Snow White and the Huntsman [Movie Review](io9.com)

Avengers Review Part 4

Click here to read Part 1

Click here to read Part 2

Click here to read Part 3

End Credits Scenes and Sequels -

1st Post Credits Scene - Thanos. He’s the one that gave Loki the scepter, and the alien army. Thanos. Marvel’s version of Darkseid. Thanos. Possessor of the Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos. Worshiper of death. Thanos. A worthy foe for the world’s greatest heroes. Yes, yes, and yes. Bring it.

2nd Post Credits Scene - The gang. Eating schwarma tacos. How could you not crack the grok up watching that? Beyond awesome.

Sequels - I hope that they feature Giant Man and The Wasp in the sequel, I can’t honestly see how they won’t, unless they don’t let Joss write and direct it. I also want to see Quicksilver and The Scarlet Witch, and I’m all for Summer Glau as Wanda. Screw the haters who don’t like that. But, I read this great article today that suggested they may have set up both Wanda and The Vision with Agent Coulson’s death; read that here. If we could have all that, I think I would blow a geek gasket, because I have always loved The Vision. I doubt that they’ll fully have Ultron in the first sequel, but if they have The Pyms, I’m sure they’ll show him being built. He’ll probably be the villain in the third movie, which will still rock.

Conclusions

I must say, imperfections notwithstanding, I enjoyed the STANK out of this movie. It was just great. It silences the mouths of stupid people who try and justify clearly lazy writing, it forever shows that continuity completely counts, it demonstrates the beauty of a well done ensemble piece, and I hope that it sets a standard for excellence that other movies try and emulate. As I’ve said on Twitter, DC has completely dropped the ball on the long overdue JLA movie. They should’ve followed Marvel’s formula to a T, but oh well. We can always hope. Let me also say that I think that Avengers is the culmination of many years of superhero efforts and CGI being a part of our lives, starting back with the success of the Blade and X-Men franchises. It’s such a seamless blend of story, action, and special FX until I haven’t been this impressed with how absorbed into the world the movie was constructing since The Matrix.

I cannot wait to get Avengers on DVD, and I can’t wait to see the sequels. Two enthusiastic Scorch thumbs up for this movie!

…..and you guys say I never like anything. HAH.

Avengers Review Part 3

Click here to read Part 1

Click here to read Part 2

The Story(cont.)-

So the team prepares for the worst, because even though they can guess what Loki’s going to do with The Tesseract, they have no idea what’s coming through that portal. Again, the brilliance of the writing shines through here, as Cap(finally) shows the kind of leadership he’s known for, and orchestrates the counter strike, and has everyone playing to their strengths in this battle. All of the heroes again shine, even when Dr. Banner shows up. Cap’s leadership, bravery, and dedication are all on full display, Iron Man’s power, snark, and true heroism is shown, Black Widow also has balls of steel as well. The real breakout scenes belong to Hawkeye tho, since he spent half the movie using his powers for Loki, we finally see what a formidable hero he really is. Again, brilliant. And may I say, finally, finally, someone who gets how Thor spins his hammer and flies right!

I also don’t care what anybody says, those large alien whale creatures were Fin Fang Fooms. Period.

Another brilliant part of this final battle is that the team doesn’t win easily, and they don’t win without a scratch; no cliched endings here. Iron Man gets busted up twice in this film, Thor gets his butt handed to him but keeps fighting, Widow and Hawkeye are clearly risking their lives, Cap survives a close range bomb and a shot to the gut…very dirty, very organic,  very well done. The Hulk steals the show here, hands down with almost every scene he’s in. More on that later. So, of course, the council’s stupid ass decision is to nuke Mahattan; kill millions to save the planet, because that’s the government’s only fall back plan in the history of ever. They unleash the nuke, but Iron Man intercepts it, and pushes it through the portal, himself included. He steers it towards the Mother Ship, watches it unleash its fury, and basically closes his eyes and prepares to die. He barely makes it back through the portal before it closes, and gets caught in midair spectacularly by The Hulk. He’s out…Hulk roars, Tony comes back, it was all hilarious. Made of win.

And, in the movie’s first closing the tenuous nature of assembling the team is maintained; their relationships have been strengthened, but they’re all still a bunch of loose cannons, and Fury knows it, and we as the audience are reminded of that, too. Fantastic ending. And, I must admit, I’m extremely glad that Joss’s hands were tied by the studios and the source material, because we know that if they weren’t, half the team would’ve been dead by movie’s end. 

Special FX

Not one single complaint here. It all felt organic to the story, The Hulk and the aliens all felt like they were actually in the frame, and I have always loved the way that they make Iron Man’s armor rooted somewhat in real physics with the way he flies.

Problems

The movie wasn’t perfect; there were a few things that kind of stood out…glaringly.

1) Power Levels – Are Thor and Loki gods, or demi-gods, or not? If they are, then they got tossed around too easily by everyone else, except each other. I could see them struggling with each other as equals, but Iron Man and Cap aren’t matches for a demi-god, period. There’s also the issue of The Hulk’s power levels; we know that he’s the strongest one there is, and the angrier he gets, the stronger he gets, but he took a full blow from Thor’s hammer and just shook it off. In one of the best scenes of the movie, Hulk tosses Loki around literally like a rag doll and calls him a ‘puny god.’ That whole thing was freaking great, but it negates part of Loki’s godhood threat; because at the end of the day, The Hulk is still a gamma powered human. I kind of give a pass to Thor’s lightning supercharging Iron Man’s armor…I guess we can go with that. Not so much with Cap’s shield tho, because even tho it is made of vibranium, and is unbreakable(both true in the comics), it’s the force of Thor’s blow that should’ve hurt him way worse than it did.

2) The Hulk’s Temperament - When Dr. Banner first changed, trapped with the Widow, he was clearly struggling to fight it. As Natasha said, he hadn’t changed for a year, so he was also understandably angry at having to go through this nightmarish thing, one more time. I can understand why he attacked Natasha, because she was the one who recruited him. But. In the end battle, he changes at will, says that he’s always angry, and turns into The Hulk in a split second. Ummm….what? They did a good job with showing how much of a loose cannon Hulk was, which was true to the original Avengers early issues, they were never sure if they could count on him or not, but we’re left confused as to whether or not Dr. Banner can control his transformations at will or not.

3) Cap’s Arc - Some will think I’m being nitpicky here, but Cap wasn’t really fully Cap until the end of the movie. They milked the “old man out of time” thing way too long for my taste. I don’t like how Cap took on Loki first and got beat, I would’ve rather seen him win a fight first. I wanted to see him use that shield way more than he did. Also, I called it a long time ago, I knew that the best Captain America we were going to see was Emil Blonsky in The Hulk. I KNEW it. That movie had him running at super speed, leaping and flying with altered speed, and recovering from death dealing blows. Avengers dropped the ball on all three; they just didn’t show Cap being super enough. At least, not for me.

Concluded in Part 4

Avengers Review Part 2

Click here to read Part 1

The Story(cont.) -

This is what intelligent audiences need to buy into fantasy movies…the why. And not only does each member arrive in their own unique style, but they all have a stake in the game.

Captain America literally has no life at this point outside of service, so he trains and waits for an assignment; he recognizes right off the bat the magnitude of what it is they’re dealing with, having seen it before. Tony Stark is almost reluctantly recruited, but because of his expertise Coulson recognizes that they’d be fools to keep Stark out. Natasha is a part of the program from the beginning, but doesn’t want to come in until she’s told that Hawkeye’s been compromised, and their bond is enough to motivate her. And, Dr. Banner…he’s supposedly brought in because of his expertise on Gamma radiation, but it becomes obvious that Fury was indeed willing to put everyone at risk in case they needed to release The Hulk, like their version of The Kraken, on whatever Loki might be bringing to the table. And, Fury was right, they really did, because they wouldn’t have won without him. Thor arrives, riding his trademark lightning, to arrest his brother and retrieve The Tesseract, understanding the danger of both in being around humans. Hemsworth also wonderfully conveys Thor’s hurt at Loki’s actions.

Of course we have to have hero on hero fights, and it happened that way(over many years mind you) in the comics, and they totally deliver. Iron Man vs. Thor, Thor vs. Cap, Hulk vs. Thor, Widow vs. Hawkeye, it’s all here boys n’ girls! Loved them all, really wanted to see more. Unfortunately, herein lies one of the movies few flaws, revealed in these battles, one I’ll address more fully in the Problems section, that being one of  power levels. Widow & Hawkeye’s fight was completely organic and necessary given the circumstances, and the other fights were just super testosterone at work, and I loved it. Geeked out to the max.

Loki’s plan is revealed as it is in the process of unfolding, one of divide and conquer through trickery, which again, is pitch perfect for Loki’s character. I actually wanted to scream at Fury for bringing Loki on board since it was so freaking obvious that he was playing them, but whatever. (There’s a clear explanation of where Jane Foster is, excellently done.) Loki slowly ramps up their personal insecurities as well as their resentments and true opinions about the other team members, and we get some of the best dialogue in the entire movie. Cap feeling like a soldier out of time, Iron Man’s ego both in and out of the suit flaring up, Thor’s godly arrogance resurfacing, and Banner’s basic distrust of everything and everyone was all on full tilt. And, in full Whedon style, they actually all tell the truth; that’s what made it all so powerful. Banner essentially said the same thing that The Hulk always does, “you won’t leave me alone.”  I loved that part. Natasha realizes that she’s lost her soul, but just like Elektra, what exactly does she have to go back to if she stopped being a spy? She doesn’t even have the Soviet Union any more. It was all so brilliantly written and executed. And of course, The Hulk wakes up. This was another huge plot hole in the movie, more on that later.

Once the team calms down, or actually distracts The Hulk enough to get him off the Helicarrier, they can somewhat deal with the simultaneous raid being led by a Loki possessed Dark Side Hawkeye. Cap and Iron Man both basically risk their lives to save that falling Helicarrier, as the true heroes that they are, and I thought Fury should been made more aware that they saved his freaking bacon. Once Natasha brings Clint out of it, they’ve regrouped enough for the device that Stark and Banner constructed to actually find The Tesseract and they go after it.

But not before they all having a sobering moment.

Thor’s moment seems to come when, after he crash landed to Earth,  he summons his hammer and it appears not to move, reminding him that he loses his full power when his godly arrogance resurfaces, because he stops being worthy. He humbles himself, gathers himself, regains the hammer, and gets ready for action. Banner wakes up and is confronted by Harry Dean Stanton(asking, natch, if he’s an alien, HUGE WINK), and seems to have a change of heart about being a part of the team. Natasha & Clint’s moments come when they both realize that they’re out of their league, but they have a debt to pay and/or a score to settle, because they don’t like being used as pawns. Fury, Cap,

LOVED the Quinjet Mark I.

and Stark have their moment after Loki kills Coulson. Which was a complete shock to me; I mean, it’s Joss, we know that somebody had to die, but I still didn’t see that coming. More on that later. Fury manipulates that moment with a bloody set of trading cards that wasn’t actually in Coulson’s pocket, but it was necessary, and Fury knew it.

The middle of the movie, before we get to the off the chain rock ‘em sock ‘em action ending, demonstrates in no uncertain terms, exactly why this movie works. It’s because none of the characters’ integrity as characters had to be sacrificed, at all. They were a motley crew that had no business calling themselves a team, and they knew it, and in the end, they never did have a common motivation. They were all each driven by the exact same things that drove them from the beginning, but with the fate of the world at stake, they were willing to do what needed to be done, and that’s what made them heroes. That’s something that the audience can resonate with even without the fantasy backdrop and super powers.

This is why Avengers works. It’s The Breakfast Club for super heroes.

Continued in Part 3

Avengers Review[SPERLERS ASSEMBLE]

So. Let’s dive right in, shall we?

The Cast

Iron Man – A character cast so well, it rivals the Chris Reeve Superman legacy. Downey is Stark, and I actually never want to see anyone else in this role. His place on the team makes sense, because it’s actually Tony that’s the key here, and not “the Iron Man weapon.”

Captain America – I pretty much buy Evans as Cap, although I loved him as The Human Torch, but Cap is a character they haven’t quite nailed yet. He wasn’t bad at all, don’t get me wrong, but he doesn’t have the same incredible in-the-pocket feel that some of the other characters do. More on this later.

The Hulk – Everyone told me that: 1) You’ll never miss Bana & Norton, and 2) The Hulk steals the show. 1000% right on both counts. Ruffalo brings a physicality to Dr. Banner that neither one of the previous men did, as well as a monster-right-beneath-the-surface Jekyll & Hyde struggle that’s truly a comic geek’s joy to behold. Another one that is a dead on bullseye. I actually can’t look at Ruffalo the same way any more. Now I actually believe he IS the Hulk. That’s how intensely he nailed it.

Thor - Chris Hemsworth again brings the right amount of gravitas to a role that easily could’ve been the silliest character; but Joss and Chris take Thor seriously, as Brannagh did in Thor’s own movie, and you believe it again here. Thor, unfortunately, is a part of one of the movie’s few flaws, but that is not a complaint, just an observation. More on that later. And I love movie Thor more than I’ve ever loved comic Thor.

Black Widow – Scarlett does a fine job here. I give the lion’s share of the credit to Joss, as he knows how to write female characters extremely well, and absolutely every component that makes Black Widow, well Black Widow, is on display here, from her trademark bottle red hair, to her accent, to her manipulative ability, to her combat training, to her costume, to her Widow’s Bite. Loved it. I personally would’ve preferred to see Cobie Smulders or Emily Blount in this role, only because I feel that they may have embodied Natasha in a different way. But Scarlett still does a great job here all the way through.

Hawkeye  - Aw man. AW MAN. This movie took Hawkeye to a whole new level, one I didn’t even imagine was possible. Hawkeye’s comic costume would’ve been a disaster here, but Joss wisely kept him in a practical costume that made sense. But the focus here was on Clint’s true talents…the ability to see, and aim, like a hawk. Just incredible. He was brave and badass from start to finish. Just awesome.

Loki – Just incredible. This is another spot on bit of casting, writing, and directing. Hiddleston conveys every element of the Chaos God’s character so extremely well, from his hurt & jealousy over Thor, his trickster nature, his ego, his desperation…just masterfully paints the perfect picture of Loki. And, you don’t even have to be a comic fan to understand Loki’s plans & motivations. Brilliant.

Nick Fury – ….how could this ever be wrong? The Ultimate version of Fury is Sam Jackson. So, win win win. The only thing I felt was not in large enough suppy was the traditional Sam Jackson angry snark that he brings to every role, but we did get the one great line about the council having made a “stupid ass decision.” That was the Nick Fury I wanted to see more of, but Sam L. Jackson’s still the man.

And the overall physical look of all the characters worked as well, not just Hawkeye. It looked like those heroes walking out of the comic and onto the screen. Obviously we’re dealing with a mix of the ‘mainstream’ universe and the ‘Ultimate’ universe, but we knew that going in. Honorable mentions to Cobie Smulders as Agent Hill, although she’s Wonder Woman to me now. Alexis Denisof was The Other. Wow. And this is the most I’ve liked Paltrow as Pepper Potts yet.

The Story

This will forever be referred to by me as the ‘No Excuse’ movie. This movie, especially with Joss as the director, proves that not only can you do serialized television, you can do serialized movies. This is why I don’t want to, and never again will, hear people’s bullshezzar about Smallville being good. Or about the Star Wars prequels. This movie is a prime example of what non-lazy writing is supposed to look like. End of.

The basic premise of the movie is a continuation of the events of Thor’s movie, Loki being motivated by discovering his true parentage, and being cast out of Asgard, to exact vengeance on Thor by destroying the world his brother loves. Loki also basically decides to establish his own kingdom and godhood since his stepfather and brother will never acknowledge him the way he wants them to. Just seamless. The Tesseract and the research team are all there, and it all makes sense. The opening sequence was incredible; Joss knows what a badass weapon(Loki’s scepter) is supposed to look and sound like. Fury’s contingency plans, Hawkeye & co being turned to the dark side, all masterfully done. It brilliantly sets up the conflict, a conflict large enough to actually require the assembling of the world’s mightiest heroes. Bravo.

Continued in Part 2