AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON

Avengers: Age of Ultron

Grade: A-

Starring: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Mark Ruffalo, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Paul Bettany, with James Spader as the voice of Ultron,

Featuring Appearances By: Samuel L. Jackson, Don Cheadle, Cobie Smulders, Anthony Mackie, Idris Elba, Stellan Skarsgaard and Hayley Atwell,

And With Claudia Kim as Dr. Helen Cho, Thomas Kretschmann as Strucker, Andy Serkis as Ulysses Klaue, and Linda Cardellini as Laura Barton

Premise: A peacekeeping artificial intelligence program backfires, creating the destructive mutant robot Ultron, who declares war on the Avengers and all of humanity, immediately setting his sights on exterminating the world’s population.

Rated PG-13 for constant intense action violence and destruction, language, a few scary moments, some blood, and mild innuendos

I wasn’t a huge fan of the first Avengers movie. Oh, I saw in theaters, bought it on DVD once it came out, and it’s now one of my go-to movies whenever I want to watch something entertaining that doesn’t require a whole lot of thinking, but it never blew me away as it did many of my peers. Is it because I didn’t grow up reading comics and thinking about superheroes? Is it because I’m a little cynical because I know a lot about movies, and wish there was more originality and imagination in Hollywood? Is it because Avengers—tying together four separate superhero franchises—just screamed “cash-grab”? Or was it because, while I admired the main cast and the cool characters they were playing, I didn’t think they were matched up with a worthy villain (love Tom Hiddleston as Loki, but he wasn’t intimidating, and hardly seemed a match for any of the Avengers, let alone all of them)?

Happily, I had the exact opposite reaction to that 2012 blockbuster’s first (official) sequel, Avengers: Age of Ultron, which was written and directed by the helmer of the first movie, Joss Whedon. Like its predecessor, Age of Ultron is a Huge movie, but, unlike its predecessor, it wowed me from the start. Maybe it’s because it’s a little darker and grittier. Maybe it’s because it was a sequel—allowed to expand creatively in terms of character, plot and vision now that its more cookie-cutter predecessor locked in the fans. Maybe it’s because it’s more fun to watch a movie about people arguing, bantering, interacting and going on adventures when they all have extraordinary abilities than it is to watch a movie about regular people arguing, bantering, interacting and going on adventures. Maybe it’s because it feels like a reunion of friends—after all, it features at least 14 actors who have previously played their Age of Ultron parts on the big screen, and most of them have done it more than once. Maybe it’s because the special effects are noticeably better this time around (fan-boys may argue, but I never thought the Loki-led alien race, the Guitarri—who attacked NYC in the first film’s climactic battle scene—were very convincing). Or maybe it’s because, this time, our heroes are matched up against a villain who’s genuinely scary, who makes your skin crawl, who seems like he could take on all our title characters at once…and maybe win.

Or, you know, maybe it’s because this is a sequel three years in the waiting, that has had three sort-of predecessors since 2012 (‘13’s Iron Man 3 and Thor: The Dark World, and ‘14’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier). Each of those three in-between flicks had its merits—in particular, I loved Winter Soldier—but each felt at least a little bit lacking because it featured only one or two of the Avengers, rather then all of them. It’s hard to go back once you’ve had a taste...

Avengers: Age of Ultron probably isn’t the best summer blockbuster you’ll ever see, maybe not even the best superhero movie, and it isn’t really groundbreaking, per se, but it’s way better than the last big-budget extravaganza I saw in theaters (the bloated and lame-brained Furious 7), and the next three months’ releases will have a hard time even remotely approaching its level of sheer spectacle and WOW factor.

Plot

**At least passing knowledge of who the characters are and what they can do is necessary, unless you have an absolutely unquestioning ability to suspend your disbelief. At the very least, I would recommend seeing the previous 2012 Avengers (and probably 2014’s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, too), before seeing this.**

At the beginning of the movie, The Avengers—who, initially, number six individuals who have either superpowers or elite skills—raid a compound run by the old Nazi espionage agency, Hydra. Their target is Loki’s scepter, a weapon used by the scheming villain in the previous movie to, among other things, blow things up, hypnotize people into doing his bidding, and create a portal to another dimension. They recover the scepter, but encounter a few bumps along the way, including a run-in with the fabled Twins, Pietro and Wanda Maximoff—aka Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen)—Russian orphans who have been scientifically engineered to (in his case) run and move at faster-then-a-speeding-bullet speeds, and (in her case) use telekinesis, hypnosis, and force fields.

Despite their success in retrieving the scepter, The Avengers have consented that they can’t be policing the world stopping crimes forever, and, in fact, like most great heroes, they might endanger innocent people even more by creating villains who want to rise up to stop them. To achieve this end—the Avengers’ retirement—the team’s two brainiest members, Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who suits up in action as Iron Man, and Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo), who, when particularly irked, transforms into the big, green, scary-strong Hulk, have been working on a series of robot sentries who can police the world in their place. Stark, in particular, is intrigued by the power Loki’s scepter holds, and seeks to somehow implant its powers into the machines, making them more lifelike so they can think and act and stop crimes and enemies on their own. However, this little scheme is very much at odds with the desires of the de facto leader of the Avengers, Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), the famed Captain America, whose old-fashioned notions of honor and duty, and good and evil, lead him to conclude that it’s best to simply stop the current threat and head back to war if another challenge arises, not to meddle about in more unpredictable forces. However, Stark’s humanoid computer program, Jarvis (voice of Paul Bettany), can be used to monitor the developing intelligence and shut it down if need be. This safeguard in place, Stark, Banner and Rogers are able to relax a little, even having an enjoyable pow-wow with fellow Avengers Thor (Chris Hemsworth)--the hammer-wielding demi-god--and highly-trained assassins Clint Barton (aka Hawkeye, played by Jeremy Renner) and Natasha Romanoff (aka Black Widow, played by Scarlett Johansson), plus several of their other friends and allies.

However, the new program—which Stark has called Ultron—glitches almost immediately, far too smart for Stark, Jarvis, or its own good. In seemingly no time, Ultron is a terrifying, hulking robot (magnificently voiced by a drawling James Spader), whose connection to computers gives him access to all kinds of knowledge and abilities. Disgusted by the idea that he was created, Ultron seeks a way to wipe out the human race, something he doesn’t disclose to two of his first allies, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch (the Twins, it should be noted, suffered great personal loss as a result of some of Stark’s heavy weaponry, so they’re happy to suit up with Ultron against the Avengers). With Ultron growing stronger and smarter by the minute, and using all of Stark’s backup droids to create more just like himself, and with the Witch messing with people’s minds and Quicksilver darting about too quickly to see, things look bleak as the Avengers struggle against outside forces even more difficult than their own battling egos. 

What Doesn’t Work?

Like its predecessor, Age of Ultron is just shy of two-and-a-half hours long. This length may be rather necessary in order to give each member of this large main cast a personality and something to do, and to give the plot a few twists and turns before a big climax, but the movie does feel a little long, and, at times, a little talky. Also, although the action here is far more fierce and sinister-feeling than that in the first Avengers flick, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that even the coolest action sequences are the tiniest bit redundant, that all these characters are going to make it no matter how bad things get, because A) they’re all super-strong, super-quick, equipped with muscles and armor, etc.., and B) they have more movies to make in the future, so they can’t die off now. I suppose that comes with the territory, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a little more sense of real danger, and a little more drama.

But these are nitpicks.

What Works?

It’s no secret—the keys to this movie are its cast and their director. Obviously, Joss Whedon wrote and directed the first film, but it’s hard to fathom what a task it must be to not just make a movie that has roughly 10 major characters—who all have to have at least one moment—but to put them in a movie that is coherent and enjoyable, at least as good as their last outing, and, perhaps most importantly, pleasing to those audience members who know these characters well. This movie is smart, funny, and, even, unexpectedly moving. It takes a few big twists, works in close to half a dozen sidekicks/supporting players from the characters’ respective individual films, and ups itself in terms of sheer action several times over.

Whedon is a smart, accomplished man, but it must be said, his task is certainly made a great deal easier by his cast. Few movies can boast such a group of actors, and I’m not just talking about the Avengers themselves. Samuel L. Jackson, Cobie Smulders, Anthony Mackie, Don Cheadle, Idris Elba, Hayley Atwell and Stella Skarsgaard make up the supporting cast in this movie, in roles that range from cameos to small supporting parts; that group could easily be the eye-catching all-star cast of any other movie. Of course, the leads—with the exception of newcomers Taylor-Johnson and Olsen—have all played their parts at least twice on the big screen (Downey Jr. has five turns as Iron Man under his belt now, and Evans, Hemsworth and Johansson have all played their parts four times), so Whedon is blessed in that he could make a sheer, pell-mell action movie with not a smidge of character development and still probably get away with it, because his characters are established cinematic and pop culture brands by this point—we know who they are and what makes them tick. But Whedon is not content to sleepwalk through this, and nor, it seems, are his actors.

What a group. The first Iron Man, released in 2008, not only arguably changed the face of superhero flicks—at least in the Marvel canon—forever, but re-established Robert Downey Jr. as a bona-fide star after years of on-and-off-screen troubles. He could probably play this part in his sleep by now, and it's possible he does, but it must be acknowledged that, when Downey Jr. has writing to match his energy and snappy wit, he may be the most watchable actor alive (it can be argued that his best scenes consist of just his face, in the tight shots of him making commentary while inside his Iron Man suit). Evans’ Steve Rogers isn’t quite as interesting a character as Tony Stark, but he doesn’t need to be, we know what makes Captain America tick, and he’s well-established by now—Cap’s last outing, The Winter Soldier, made almost everyone’s Best Marvel Movies Ever list practically overnight. The actor remains winning in the role. Hemsworth’s Thor is pushed more into the background this time, but the movie doesn’t suffer, as Thor is even less interesting as a character, but dang, we sure do love having him around for the fight scenes so he can swing that hammer. Jeremy Renner, on the other hand, enjoys a Hawkeye resurgence this time around—having been relegated to the background in the first movie—being bumped up from just the guy in the group who uses a bow and arrow to a guy with a family, with cares and fears and a future. Mark Ruffalo is, of course, the third actor to play Bruce Banner on the big screen, but this is his second go-round and he might as well not have had any predecessors—he infuses both vulnerability and shy wit to bring gravitas to the proceedings, making Banner a real, tragic figure.

And yet, it must be said that, with the possible exception of Robert Downey Jr., the most invaluable player in this flick is Scarlett Johansson. While comic book readers obviously knew the Black Widow character, it was difficult, when the actress first appeared in 2010’s Iron Man 2, to see her appointment as anything but the addition of some eye candy. But, starting in Avengers and continuing in Winter Soldier, the actress (and the writers) has worked hard to make Black Widow not a femme fatale or a pretty face but an aching, lonely soul who struggles to maintain an identity behind all the kicks and punches and bullets. Black Widow is here given a flirtation-bordering-on-serious-romance with Bruce Banner, which allows Johansson to play the flirt, the tough girl, and, for a few brief moments, a starry-eyed lady in love, and it is a beautiful thing (the two share one scene of deep revelations that is almost too powerful and moving for a movie like this; it seems something out an indie tearjerker at a film festival). 

The newcomers to the cast have a tough job, making lasting impressions as both actors and characters alongside more proven, well-known, decorated cast members. Aaron Taylor-Johnson (best known for playing another, more lowbrow superhero, Kick-Ass) has an especially tough job because his character, Quicksilver, was played by another actor just last year, in X-Men: Days of Future Past. Even worse, Evan Peters all but stole that movie with his brief but memorable stint as the quickster. Taylor-Johnson gets some witty writing of his own, though, and makes the character notably different by infusing a convincing regional accent. Fun fact—Elizabeth Olsen played Taylor-Johnson’s wife in last year’s Godzilla, here, she’s playing his sister. As the Scarlet Witch, Olsen’s character’s powers make more of an impression than the actress does, but she shows enough promise to make a greater impression in potential (and almost guaranteed) installments.

Finally—last and certainly not least—Age of Ultron is given a great amount of its grit, depth, dread factor, and sheer coolness, by James Spader, who provides the ultra-malevolent voice of the robot Ultron. That voice became a pop-culture touchstone just from the movie’s trailers (who didn’t get goosebumps from his super-creepy take on the classic Pinocchio “there are no strings on me” line?). His drawling yet sharp line readings—often brimming with barely-suppressed rage—coupled with Whedon’s writing, make Ultron, with his plan of human annihilation, less a braying madman bent on world domination (like a generic Bond villain) and more of a scary nihilist like Heath Ledger’s Joker. His character’s grandeur is greatly-enhanced by the amount of references he makes to the Bible and God (indeed, the writing is interesting, given Whedon’s status as an avowed atheist; Ultron’s lines include “upon this rock, I will build my church” and “every now and then, God throws a stone, and believe me, He’s winding up”). It’s thrilling work.

Content

A great amount of the 141-minute run-time is devoted to things going boom, or at least getting bashed around a little bit, and, as mentioned, the villain’s a little scary (“scream, and your whole staff dies”, he snarls to a scientist at one point), and the action’s a little darker and heavier. Some innocent bystanders get banged around a little bit, and there are some shots of bloody wounds. The Witch also tends to hypnotize people into dreamlike trances in which they see visions of devastation and despair. And there a handful of cusswords, something Captain America apparently doesn’t approve of (“language!” he unexpectedly barks at Tony Stark at one point). This movie has a lot of action and drama, but it’s not really anything worse than your average Marvel movie…except for that intense villain.

Bottom Line (I Promise)

It took a while—and repeat viewings—to make me a believer in the first Avengers movie. Age of Ultron made a believer out of me right away. It’s not perfect, but it sets a remarkably high standard for the summer movies of 2015; I rather doubt any of them can quite reach it. It’s a little long, but that’s because it’s so locked and loaded, chock-full of dynamic characters, jaw-dropping action (the Hulk vs the Hulk-buster, omg!) and even legitimately good writing, featuring the kind of stuff you usually don’t see in a blockbuster. The characters matter, they’re developed, they might even bring a tear to your eye (no, seriously—that one part…), and, of course, you cheer for them nonstop. It’ll be hard to pick your favorite character, or your favorite part, and it’ll make you want to see the next one right away.

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Written and Directed by Joss Whedon

Based on the comics by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

Rated PG-13

Length: 141 minutes

FURIOUS 7

Furious 7

Grade: C-

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jason Statham, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Kurt Russell, Dwayne Johnson and Jordanna Brewster; with Nathalie Emmanuel as Ramsey

Featuring Appearances By: Djimon Hounsou, Elsa Pataky, Lucas Black, Tony Jaa, Ronda Rousey, Luke Evans, Sung Kang and Gal Gadot

Premise: The deadly, special-ops trained older brother of the now-crippled Owen Shaw declares a one-man war on Dominic Toretto and his gang. After Dom and his family are nearly killed by a bomb and one of their friends is killed overseas, Dom and the gang seek revenge.

Rated PG-13 for constant intense, destructive action violence, some language, and innuendo

First and foremost, I will say that Furious 7—the sixth sequel to 2001’s The Fast and the Furious—does pay a very nice little tribute to deceased star Paul Walker, who died on November 30, 2013, in a car accident when this movie was about half-finished. The accident was actually not related to the making of the movie, but the actor starred in five of the aforementioned predecessors to this movie, including the original, so I knew it would pay tribute to him, and I was prepared to wait all the way through the credits if I had to in order to see the tribute. I didn’t have to, because the movie is about five extra minutes long in order to squeeze in a last little scene with his character, former FBI agent Brian O’Conner, plus a montage of clips from all the movies. And, as the camera lifts away from the action for the final time before the credits, two words arise onscreen: FOR PAUL. It’s a nice touch, and, without a doubt, the finest moment in the movie.

I mean that last thought genuinely, but what’s also inferred there is: Furious 7 is a mess--a frenetic ADD exercise that throws in everything including the kitchen sink as it veers from lazy to aggressively stupid over a two-and-a-quarter-hour running time. Oh, there’s certainly a high-octane, heart-pounding, edgy, super entertaining spectacle in there (it’s not exactly hard to see it), but, Furious 7 drowns in a sea of lazy plotting, poor dialogue, pretty poor acting, a complete suspension of logic, physics, and rules of any kind, way too many unintentionally-funny moments, and wanton self-contradiction. Maybe I shouldn’t have expected better, but the first movie (which actually had *gasp* some subtlety and depth) is a classic, the second (2003’s 2Fast, 2Furious) wasn’t bad and even 2011’s Fast Five—the first installment that brought Dwayne Johnson on board—was ridiculously entertaining. However, the baloney meter starting reaching maximum levels with 2013’s ludicrous (not LudAcris, har har har) Fast 6, and it’s obviously still going.

Again, I shouldn’t have expected any different, but a good 98 percent of Furious 7 simply exists in order to make fanboys make excited/awed variations on the phrase “Oh SNAP!!”

Plot    

**previous knowledge of the series is recommended before viewing, though I would say only Fast 6 is absolutely necessary at this point**

This synopsis could go on for a while, so I’ll cut to the chase: former SAS-trained agent Owen Shaw (Luke Evans) didn’t die at the end of Fast 6, but he was crippled. Turns out, this development didn’t sit well with his older brother, super-highly-trained special-ops rogue Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham), who vows revenge on the gang of culprits. First, he attacks and nearly kills a pair of government agents (Dwayne Johnson and Elsa Pataky) while stealing intel on the culprits. Then he makes his way to Tokyo and manages to kill Han (Sung Kang), who had left the group broken-hearted after his lover Giselle (Gal Gadot) died in the attempt to kill Owen Shaw. Shortly after killing Han, Deckard detonates an explosive that was somehow (!!!!) placed in the suburban Los Angeles house where mechanic/racing kingpin Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) lives with his sister, Mia (Jordanna Brewster), her husband Bryan (the late Walker), and their young son. They aren’t hurt by the explosion because they were all outside, but they’re understandably shaken, and Dom is enraged that his family was targeted.

Deckard soon makes his way to LA and finds and nearly kills Dom before the highly-armed minions of a mysterious government operative (Kurt Russell) interfere. Deckard escapes, but the operative offers his and his team’s help and resources in helping Dom chase Deckard down if Dom and his proven team of high-falutin’ risk-takers will help him recover the architect of a precious surveillance gadget. The architect, Ramsey (Nathalie Emmanuel of Game of Thrones), has been kidnapped by a gang of nasty Middle-Eastern terrorists (led by Djimon Hounsou, wearing the same white goatee he sported in Guardians of the Galaxy). Since the terrorists’ lair is in the mountains and nigh-impregnable, Dom and his gang are needed to find some risky, over-the-top stunt to get them in and get Ramsey out. So, Dom and Brian reunite with the chatty Roman (Tyrese Gibson) and tech-whiz Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges), plus Dom’s some-time love interest, amnesia-addled Letty (Michelle Rodriguez), and pull off an incredible stunt that nearly gets them all killed. But it turns out Deckard Shaw is in league with the terrorists and Dom and his gang are soon being pursued by an army, who have in their hands the incredible surveillance device Ramsey invented—a device which makes it virtually impossible for them to hide or disappear or make a clean escape. They’ll have to stand and fight.

What Works?

Again, the Walker tribute was nice. Interestingly, since the movie was only half-finished when he died, it’s noted that the producers used his brothers Caleb and Cody as stand-ins/body doubles, and also used CGI in places, to finish his performance, and I can honestly say you wouldn’t know it. It’s well done. Also, despite a handful of cringe-worthy lines, the actor goes out well, without embarrassing himself—and no doubt this movie will be a huge monetary success and will be hailed by some as the best of the series, so it’s a solid final tribute. It’s true that he started the series as a co-lead with Diesel and was later overshadowed by the multi-ethnic ensemble the series built up, but his legacy will always be tied to this series and this movie. This movie ensures he will be missed.

Beyond the movie’s sentimental value, however, I confess that there isn’t a whole lot that I loved. There are certainly worse movies—less entertaining ones that have less to keep you watching—and even I couldn’t resist some of the “oh SNAP” moments I mentioned earlier. The one action sequence that really kept me watching is the same one that was forecast in the trailer, in which the primary cast drive cars out of an in-flight C-130, and then use parachutes to land on an otherwise-inaccessible mountain road, and then enter into a high-speed chase with the terrorists who are holding Ramsey. It’s a bit of a bummer this scene, and its biggest stunt (which involves Walker), were already shown in the trailer, but there are a few surprises and it’s still awesome, especially the moment in which Dom uses the low-rider jack on his car to bounce the terrified woman clinging to his hood into the air so he can snatch her through his open sunroof while an armored car is trying to drive him off the road at the same time. I think I actually clapped at that part, and I’m smiling thinking about it. That was just clever enough, I guess, that my personal baloney-meter didn’t blow up, though of course much of the scene was improbable.

Also—am I the only one person who enjoyed Kurt Russell the most out of all the actors in this movie?  Probably glad to be cashing in with this series rather than the even lamer (and much less-profitable) Expendables series, the actor swaggers about and seems to enjoy himself at least as much as any of the series regulars.

What Doesn’t Work?

For me, the problems in this series really started with the last movie, Fast 6, even though you could smell them coming long before that. And I’m not talking the regular suspension-of-disbelief-required type of stuff all summer action movies have. To give you an idea: in Fast 6’s climactic action sequence, Gisele (who appears in Furious 7 only in a still photograph and clips from earlier installments) supposedly died falling from a speeding car that was elevated 6-8 feet in the air. In the same movie, Vin Diesel’s Dom suffered nary a scratch when he crashed a speeding car into a highway guard rail with the door open, in order to fling himself out, in order to catch his dearly-beloved Letty, who had just been thrown from a speeding tank; he caught her in midair and then landed, after a flight of probably some 50-plus feet, on the hood/windshield of another car, with her on top of him. Thanks to his action, she was fine, and, again, inexplicably, he was, too…and yet a much lesser fall meant the end for a supporting character…?

Fast 6 suffered other problems, too, of course—they never even showed the death of the main villain, Owen Shaw (they only suggested he was dead after being flung from a speeding car like Gisele was), only for them to apparently decide, at the beginning of Furious 7, that he didn’t die after all (when it was taken for granted in the last movie that he did, thus bringing about the end of the movie in which he was the chief villain).

Anyway, that was Fast 6. Here are just some of the things about Furious 7 that set my baloney-meter off:

1. Owen Shaw didn’t die. He was only crippled (albeit bedridden-in-a-hospital-type crippled). His brother Deckard is in such a rage over this and cares so much about him that he goes overseas to multiple continents to try and kill the people who did it…rather then just staying with him to try and help him recover. Even after he fails in his first attempt to kill the people, knowing his brother is alive, he keeps trying to kill them rather then trying to be there for the brother he supposedly cares so much about.
2. Similar to the aforementioned stunt in Fast 6—there’s part where a man is blasted out the window of a building by a grenade explosion and falls maybe five stories clutching a woman, who lands on top of him when he lands on top of an SUV, basically crushing it. The man is shown in the next scene in the hospital with a cast on one arm and one leg, sitting up making quips about hospital food. He’s apparently such a quick healer and so impervious to pain/damage, and yet, by the time of the movie’s climactic action sequence—probably a week or two later—he’s still in the hospital! If he was in such good shape and so unaffected by the blast, wouldn’t he have gotten out by then?
3. When the movie no longer has need of a certain supporting character (because it’s time for the focus to shift wholly back to the main cast), it finds the most convenient way possible for him to leave the film without us asking too many questions.
4. A man drives an ambulance off a highway overpass with such precision that he lands on a speeding weaponized drone in mid-flight and crushes it.
5. The aforementioned drone can blow stuff up real good with its missiles and machine guns, but either misses or can barely damage the vehicles in which all the attractive main characters ride.
6. Furious 7 makes the tortured/amnesiac/will-they-get-back-together romantic subplot with Vin Diesel and Michelle Rodriguez the beating heart of the movie, despite the fact that neither is a good-enough actor to really pull it off.
7. A pregnant woman encourages her husband to go on a dangerous mission rather than stay home with her and their son.
8. Tyrese Gibson, who’s so obviously this movie’s comic relief that he should have shown up in a funny costume, is funny only once every 100 or so times he tries to be.
9. A man determined to kill an enemy decides that enemy’s as good as dead when he’s crushed by concrete blocks in the collapse of a parking garage. He decides/assumes he’s dead—this is a man he swore to heaven and earth he would kill for targeting his “family”, and yet he just assumes he’s dead rather than checking.
10. The same enemy who was surely dead after being crushed by concrete blocks in the collapse of a parking garage is later shown alive and unscathed—without so much as a scratch, bruise, or limp—while heading to a prison cell.
11. The head figure in a tight-knit family/gang seems horribly injured—even dead—after crashing a car nose-down after driving it off a building and landing upside down. A) He has a mere trickle of blood down the side of his face despite the fact that his car was crushed—remember, he’s obviously in such bad shape they think he’s dead. B) They all stand around misty-eyed or make hysterical attempts at CPR, rather than calling an ambulance for him.
12. The police only show up in moments of high action when the movie needs to kill off, blow up, or crush some people (or their cars) who aren’t the main characters—who are obviously going to survive because they’re the main characters. I mean, why would the main characters die?
13. The Ronda Rousey cameo: It only happened because Michelle Rodriguez’s knock-down, drag-out fisticuffs with another MMA star (Gina Carano) was such a literally smashing success in the last movie.
14. The movie plucks another major antagonist (Thai action star Tony Jaa) out of thin air when the movie decides it needs another villain in a movie that already has Deckard Shaw and the head of the terrorist group Dom and his buddies swiped Ramsey from. That’s three major villains who all need to get killed off. Remember, this movie is a sequel to a movie about urban street racing.

 And that’s not all.

Content

There’s a couple cuss words, and the movie never misses a chance to leer up women’s short, short skirts or tops, but Furious 7 is mostly Furious because it ups the action/violence quotient by about 50. This movie is wall-to-wall, almost non-stop fast-paced action and violence. Of course, there’s very little blood no matter how dramatic things get (see #11 above). Probably not recommended for young kids, but, then again, there’s always the chance they’ll be lulled into a stupor by the sheer amount of inconsequential, noisy drama going on. I was.

Bottom Line

This review probably won’t keep anybody from seeing Furious 7, but I wrote it anyway ^^.  It contains a nice little tribute montage to the late Paul Walker at the end, and there’s plenty of action (including some actually really cool action), but, overall, I was not a fan. As I wrote above, I probably shouldn’t have been surprised, but “Furious 7 drowns in a sea of lazy plotting, poor dialogue, pretty poor acting, a complete suspension of logic, physics, and rules of any kind, way too many unintentionally-funny moments, and wanton self-contradiction.” Yeah. Lame.

Furious 7 (2015)

Directed by James Wan

Screenplay by Chris Morgan

Rated PG-13

Length: 137 minutes

CINDERELLA

Cinderella

Grade: B+

Starring: Lily James, Richard Madden, Cate Blanchett, Derek Jacobi, Stellan Skarsgard, Nonso Anozie and Helena Bonham Carter, with Ben Chaplin and Haley Atwell as Cinderella’s Parents and Sophie McShera and Holliday Grainger as her Stepsisters

Premise: An orphaned young maiden struggles to keep alive her belief in magic and goodness while she is cruelly treated by her stepmother and stepsisters. But, after a chance meeting with a prince, the maiden’s destiny seems on the verge of a drastic change if only a little magic can be summoned on her behalf.

Rated PG (contains emotional content and some intense moments)

It just so happened that I didn’t have to buy my ticket to the new Cinderella movie myself. This was a relief, as I had been slightly embarrassed at how I would seem to the box-office attendant, walking up to buy a lone ticket for Cinderella, what with being a 26-year-old man and all. It turned out I didn’t have to (shout-out to a certain very good friend :) ), but, in hindsight, I’m not sure I would have minded. True, I have bought tickets to much more terrible movies, but I could probably have proudly bought a ticket for this movie mainly because, in hindsight, this new Cinderella movie is special.

I can’t imagine that anyone was clamoring for a new Cinderella movie. The original Disney cartoon from 1950 is as entrenched in Disney lore as anything, the title character already a staple of the Disney Princess collection, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone today not knowing the basics of the Cinderella story. There have also been at least a dozen Cinderella remakes, updates, adaptations, etc… So, we all know the gist. Plus, amidst the recent wave of gritty-live-action fairy-tale upgrades (Alice in Wonderland, Snow White & The Huntsman, Oz the Great and Powerful, Jack the Giant Slayer, Maleficent, etc…) it’s clear Hollywood studios will turn anywhere these days to make a quick couple million bucks, so it was easy to consider the release of a new Cinderella a purely mercenary move. Basically, I wasn't that excited about.

Well, it was worth getting excited about (read more below). Really, it was. I mean, I thought it was better than Frozen…

Plot

Raised in the foothills of a wealthy, majestic kingdom by her loving, affectionate parents (Ben Chaplin and Haley Atwell), Ella (played as a child by Eloise Webb) was taught to be brave, and to be kind to anyone and everyone. She was also taught to believe in her dreams, to believe in magic. Even as her mother faded from a mysterious illness, Ella was taught to chin up and smile, because her “Fairy Godmother” was watching over her to protect her. Holding onto her cherished memories of her mother, Ella (played as an adult by 25-year-old actress Lily James), even manages to smile and earnestly welcome the arrival of her father’s second wife (Cate Blanchett) and her two snooty daughters, Drisella (Sophie McShera) and Anastasia (Holliday Grainger). Ella even retains a sliver of optimism when her father unexpectedly passes while on a trip out of the country. However, her optimism and kindness are not matched by her stepmother and stepsisters (there’s a reason her stepmother’s cat is named Lucifer). Within days, Ella is reduced to living in the attic, doing all the cooking and cleaning in the household while eating her meals by herself and having no one for company but a band of crumb-snatching mice.

Her days consistently more dreary and difficult, Ella’s resolve starts to crack. One day, she considers running away, making it all the way into the nearby woods. There, she happens to meet a handsome, well-dressed young man (Richard Madden) on a hunt with his companions. His name is Kit, he says, and, while he doesn’t admit it to Ella just then, he’s the son of the aging king (Derek Jacobi) who lives in the nearby palace. While they go their separate ways—Ella compelled by her unending kindness to go back to the house to continue to do her stepmother’s bidding—both are charmed, and, when a ball is announced to which all young maidens in the land can attend, both dare to hope they’ll see that person again. After all, the ball is meant to help the prince find a bride, and the prince is actually open-minded enough to consider marrying someone who isn’t royalty. Ella’s hopes seem snuffed out when her stepmother not only refuses to let her go to the ball but also tears a beloved old dress of Ella’s mother’s, which Ella hoped to wear to the ball. But, just as Ella seems to be encountering her darkest, saddest moment, it turns out she does have a Fairy Godmother (Helena Bonham Carter). And the fact that Ella doesn’t have a dress, a carriage, horses, or any of the other trappings needed to get her to the ball and help her make an impression doesn’t seem to bother her Fairy Godmother in the least. Turns out, all that’s needed is a little magic.

What Works?

To me, the main thing that works in this Cinderella is the movie’s avoidance of the traps that have hindered pretty much all of the other recent live-action upgrades of fairy tales. That is, this movie doesn’t try to be any hipper, funnier, sexier, quirkier or cooler then the cartoon version. There are no added action scenes. No make-out scenes. No modern-day pop-culture references. No toilet/bodily humor. No exaggeratedly goofy humor (in a family film in this day and age, that’s an unbelievable feat). No corny sidekicks. No extra villains or potential love interests. No wink-wink innuendos. No over-the-top musical number to close things out. This movie is earnest and straight-forward.

I'm not sure if I knew this beforehand or not, but the movie was directed by Kenneth Branagh, who is best known as Hollywood’s main cinematic auteur of all things Shakespeare. Well, the Cinderella story is not based on Shakespeare, but it’s not difficult to fathom that this movie came from someone who loves Shakespeare but is also trying to connect with today’s audiences, because, what “extra trappings” the movie has are clearly meant to give it a glossy, classic feel. There are a few swooping camera/CGI crane shots showing the whole kingdom or the lands surrounding Ella’s home. The building interiors and, especially, the costumes, are gorgeous—the colors just pop. Key plot points are iterated by a town crier (Alex Macqueen, in a likeably-committed performance), which makes them seem all the more epic. Like I said, there are no unnecessary villains or forced love triangles, but there is just enough intrigue late to keep things from being completely by-the-numbers as we progress to our predetermined conclusion. Die-hard fans of the cartoon will appreciate both the appearance of Lucifer the cat, and the mice Ella befriends, who don’t talk or sing but figure prominently at a couple points, one of which sees them turned into horses. The critters are convincingly rendered and aren’t used for comic relief. And the phrase “bippity-boppity-boo” is heard, though it is only briefly done—the closest this movie has to a wink-wink moment.

While the look of the movie figures prominently in my overall impression (it is worth seeing on the big screen), the movie’s characters are, of course, first and foremost. And Branagh has assembled quite a troupe, even if there are no real household names in the bunch. Audiences may recognize Lily James from Downton Abbey, Richard Madden and the hulking Nonso Anozie (as one of his royal captains) from HBO’s Game of Thrones, Cate Blanchett from her appearances in all six Lord of the Rings/Hobbit movies (she’s also won two Oscars), Hayley Atwell from the Captain America/Avengers/Agents of Shield universe, Stellan Skarsgard (as the Grand Duke) from his mentor roles in Good Will Hunting and Thor, and some might even recognize Derek Jacobi from his appearances in some of Branagh’s early ‘90s Shakespeare adaptations. And, of course, there's Helena Bonham Carter, from movies as varied as The King’s Speech, the Harry Potter series, and the remakes of Willy Wonka, Alice in Wonderland, and Dark Shadows--her single-scene appearance here as the Fairy Godmother is a treat.

It’s a stretch to say any of these actors give three-dimensional performances, but they don’t need to. In a movie like this, with a story everyone knows, Oscar-worthy acting/character development isn’t necessarily needed. But nearly every character has two dimensions—something to them—that makes it click. Time is taken to develop Madden’s prince and Jacobi’s ailing King, not to mention their subordinates Anozie and Skarsgard. And while Blanchett is certainly capable of playing sheer villainy, she’s convincing as the stepmother who is snooty and imperious but also embittered (another big bonus point for this movie: though Ella cries several times about her treatment at the hands of her stepmother and stepsisters, their cruelty isn’t over-the-top—this movie avoids the sheer misery that engulfed the 1998 version, Ever After).

Basically, I know we’ve had everything from Maleficent to a brooding Alice in Wonderland to two different Snow White adaptations, but, to me, this it the best and most well-rounded “fairy tale adaptation” so far.

What Doesn’t Work?

I honestly don’t have many criticisms. Like I said, this movie avoids the kinds of pitfalls that usually nag family films, like over-silliness. I will say that, while James’ performance is believable, it was slightly hard to believe her character would be so kind and naïve that she wouldn’t try to stick up for herself a little bit more against her stepmother and stepsisters. I don’t know if they should have made her stepmother a little more cruel and domineering or have Ella try to stick up for herself and be rebuffed, but she seemed to give in awfully quick. It’s also worth noting that, with the exception of the glowing ball gown she wears for the story’s signature sequence, she wears the same plain, light-blue dress the entire movie, even when she’s not locked in the attic (I couldn’t help wondering if this was a merchandizing ploy, but you know little girls are going to want Ball-Gown Cinderella anyway, not Regular-Everyday-Dress-Cinderella). She also seems to forget at one key point that her actual name is Ella, not Cinderella (that was a cruel nickname hoisted upon her by her stepsisters)—if you see the movie and recognize the moment I’m talking about, let me ask you: do you think she was trying to be especially humble or something?

Anyway, these are nitpicks. This was a lovely movie.

Content

PG! Nary a cussword, make-out, drop of blood or bodily gag to be found. There are a few intense moments with Ella’s chariot turning back into a pumpkin while racing down a country road, or with the same pumpkin’s transformation into a chariot occurring so suddenly that it threatens to squash our heroine, but nothing more severe then that. There are also a fair amount of emotional moments, and not all of them have to do with Ella’s parents dying or with her being mistreated—the film’s emotional peak actually has to do with the prince, and I’ll be darned if that didn’t get me choked up. You’re dead inside if that scene doesn’t “hit you in the feels”.

Bottom Line

Cinderella wasn’t perfect, but it was really close. It’s a gorgeously-made, well-acted movie that’s not excessively girly, excessively silly, or trying to be anything other than a sincere recreation of a beloved Disney story. To me, this is the best yet of the “live-action fairy-tale adaptations” we’ve seen in recent years, better then even Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent and Snow White & The Huntsman. Really, it’s perfect for the whole family. I had to nitpick to find things wrong with it. And, if you have the slightest bit of interest, it is worth seeing on the big screen.

Cinderella (2015)

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Screenplay by Chris Weitz

Rated PG

Length: 112 minutes

THE PURGE: ANARCHY

The Purge: Anarchy

Grade: B-

Starring: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zoe Soul, Kiele Sanchez, Zach Gilford, John Beasley and Michael K. Williams

Premise: Three sets of strangers join up to try and survive the annual Purge in 2023.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, intense, disturbing thematic material, constant profanity, and scary moments

Made on a tiny budget with only a few recognizable stars, the 2013 thriller The Purge had an unexpectedly strong box-office haul, immediately granting the film a sequel (sound familiar?). I didn’t see the original film, but I heard a lot about its Hunger Games-esque premise, in which all laws and emergency services are suspended for a 12-hour period, allowing people, in the not too distant future, to let out all their pent-up aggression by any means necessary. The film’s claim was this tactic, instituted by a group called The New Founding Fathers, helped lower crime and unemployment—albeit often by having the people who might be in such conditions brutally bumped off. I guess writer/director James DeMonaco wanted a good idea for a free-for-all that would allow the Panic Room-type scenario of the first film to play out without such petty distractions/plot obstacles as police being summoned. Having done that, and emboldened by the success of the film, he cranked out a sequel the very next year: The Purge: Anarchy. From what I’ve heard, Anarchy is the big bad brother, darker, meaner, with a wider range of crimes experienced, and with its main characters out in the open, fleeing for their lives in a dark, unfriendly city—a different kind of terror from the claustrophobia of the first film.

Anarchy is definitely dark and gritty and intense; it’ll keep you watching. But, as you’ll read me say later, it slowly sinks in that, hey, even though the idea of a government-sanctioned annual free-for-all is kind of intriguing for a movie, it’s not plausible in the slightest. No, not at all. And even a movie with such a singular idea isn’t immune to certain horror-movie-staples, which become more and more obvious as the movie goes on.

Plot

It’s 2023, the ninth year of the reign of the New Founding Fathers of America, whose idea for their citizens to have the chance, once a year, to purge themselves of all dark thoughts and impulses has done wonders for society the other 364 days of the year. Sure, there are dissenters, like Internet blogger Carmelo Jones (Michael K. Williams), but, for the most part, the ‘rules’ are pretty straightforward: if you wanna purge, go for it, and good luck getting all the yucky out; if you’re not purging, stay inside, keep weapons close, and hope to God no one comes for you.

The film follows three sets of characters on Purge night—an estranged young couple (Kisele Sanchez and Zach Gilford) who bicker over every little thing right up until their car breaks down in the middle of an empty Los Angeles highway with less than an hour until the Purge kicks off; a kindly waitress (Carmen Ejogo) and her grown daughter (Zoe Soul) who want to weather the storm, if they can, in their downtown apartment; and a mysterious man (Frank Grillo), who drives downtown armed to the teeth with a serious look on his face and a mystery man’s pictures apparently giving him motivation. Wherever he’s going, you clearly don’t want to be there when he gets there. But the night is dark and full of terrors. The waitress and her daughter are yanked from their apartment by the armor-wearing denizens of a baddie in an 18-wheeler who’s mowing down any people he gets in his sights. The young couple seems to have been ‘tagged’ by a gang of mute, mask-wearing thugs, who follow them everywhere. Even when the mysterious man unexpectedly takes them under his wing, they’re still stuck downtown, in the dark, with gangs swirling around. And the mysterious man is clearly hell-bent on getting to his destination, whether his new ‘friends’ survive or not.

What Works?

The Purge: Anarchy is undeniably intense; it hooks you from the early going, getting you wondering just how horrific a night of such free-for-allness would truly be. Of course, with a movie and a premise like this, you just know, every time the characters get a breather, another threat is right behind. With a premise like this, a movie could almost have no specific characters and just be a faux-documentary, and it would be great—really, really dark, but great.

The characters we have, though not super-developed, are reasonably engaging. Frank Grillo is solid in what must be his first starring role (he should look familiar to audiences for his often-scene-stealing roles in Warrior, The Grey, End of Watch and Captain America: The Winter Soldier); I’ve heard it said he was perfectly cast. The script doesn’t really require a lot of him, and the character is a clichéd type, but he’s solid. There’s not a whole lot for the other characters to do but scream, gasp, cry, and be scared, but they hold your attention. The movie is really all about the suspense, the attitude, the darkness of its premise, and the haunting promise that, just before the end credits, there are “364 days until the next annual purge”.

What Doesn’t Work?

Before I get started, let me remind you (and myself), I gave this movie a B-, and it held my attention fairly easily. Most thrillers have a good idea or two to get the ball rolling and set up the screams and suspense, and Anarchy was no different (I mean, it certainly got me a little paranoid, thinking about how I would hold out on such a night of criminal debauchery). But…

But, the main premise—the idea of the annual purge—is complete nonsense in my opinion. Complete nonsense. And I’m writing this as a Christian, who believes that all people have a sin nature and are, at their root, evil. Thus, the idea of ‘purging’ one’s darkest impulses has a sort of ring of authenticity. But there is no way, no way, this would fly in real life, even a ‘real life’ set almost a decade from now. In this day and age of tolerance and acceptance and let’s-settle-our-differences-and-find-peace, this kind of raw sadism would never happen. Not to mention, that’s a heck of a mess one 12-hour period causes. Each half-day purge would have to be followed by a several-day (or week) clean-up period to take care of all the bodies, blood, fires, bullet shells and general wreckage—it would be way too inconvenient for any city or country’s budget. The Purge isn’t the first story to tackle the idea of popularly-accepted savagery (The Hunger Games, anyone?), but it fails to address how a society centered around this event would hold together. For instance, there’s a late scene—very reminiscent of The Hunger Games, not to mention Richard Connell’s famous short story The Most Dangerous Game—in which unwary (usually poor) people are snatched off the street by gangs and delivered to the rich, who have auctions in which they buy people to maim and kill, or else buy their way into a sort of arena where they can go after the hapless, unarmed people placed in it. The film does make a great deal about how the rich need to purge as much as anyone, but they do it in this high-society way, complete with the non-participants in the little ‘Game’ watching excitedly from behind glass.

This scene, which is actually effective in that it’s so sickening and cruel it kind of makes you want to vomit, represents the real problem with something like The Purge, in my opinion. Forget the clean-up that would have to happen afterward. Forget even the numerous lawsuits that would likely ensue the next day, once Purge rules were up and people wanted recompense for their losses. There is no way a society could function as a decent, happy, almost crime-free society for 364.5 days and then give itself over to complete and utter heartless, sadistic, animalistic crime against itself, and still function again like everything was hunky-dory afterward. I don’t see it. I know the first film presented the idea of neighbors who smile and laugh with each other on the 364.5 turning against each other and going cuckoo, but I just don’t see it. A society would not be able to happily turn a blind eye to the horrors it commits on one night. It would not continue to function. There would be wars and crime galore during the 364.5. If anything, the Purge would have to be a 12 hour period in which no one is allowed to commit a crime, and society can catch its collective breath. That wouldn’t be much of a ‘purge’, but I’m just saying.

But this is all the premise, right? As long as the movie pulled it off, why worry? Well, Anarchy, in addition to suffering from the can-you-really-leave-your-disbelief-at-the-door-for-this skepticism from people like me, does succumb to many regular horror movie tropes. Where to begin? People who think hiding in a closet in their broken-into apartment will keep them safe from armed intruders? An elderly father who gives a long, tearful speech about how much he hates the Purge and says he’s going to sleep in his bedroom and don’t disturb him? (He’s going to stay put, right? I mean, he’s not up to anything) A character who gets killed right after telling someone they love them? A woman who screams in a you-need-to-be-quiet moment while hiding when a small animal (a rat, in this case) jumps on her? People who out of nowhere become expert marksmen with heavy automatic weapons, firing on moving targets in the dark? The friendly neighbors who take you in, promising safety and “no Purge here”? People who leave their only weapon in a room they vacate, only to be cornered when their apartment is broken into? People who are so comfortable that they’re asleep in their beds on a night when anyone can break into their house and do anything they want to them? Guy who’s life is spared saves the life of the person who spared him? Any of this sound familiar?

Oh, and it did feel the tiniest bit insulting that statements like "God Bless America" or, for heaven's sake, the song "God Bless America" are used in such a dark, brooding movie--including a credit's sequences set to the song played in operatic form against a montage of images of guns and crimes and killings. No patriotism here...

Content

Anarchy is dark. While some of the blood effects are a little cheesy (a couple times, people getting shot through with many holes reeked of CGI), there’s no denying that a lot of the happenings onscreen are dark. People are shot, stabbed, run over, set on fire, hit by cars, blown up, etc… People hurting/killing/maiming other people becomes a fixture of the background, a matter-of-fact detail that’s kind of sickening. Yeah, it’s dark.

Bottom Line

The Purge: Anarchy is a pretty good movie in that it will hold your attention and keep you watching, but I didn’t love it. Its key premise is way too far-fetched if you really think about it, even for a gritty, futuristic thriller. There’s also a lot of horror movie staples like people trusting people they shouldn’t, people going into rooms/buildings they shouldn’t, would-be “innocent” characters turning out not to be innocent, etc… It’s an interesting idea, and there’s sure to be a third one (because when do movie franchises ever stop at two these days), but I thought it was just okay.

The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

Written and Directed by James DeMonaco

Rated R

Length: 103 minutes

CHAPPIE

Chappie

Grade: B+

Starring: Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman, Jose Pablo Cantillo, and Sigourney Weaver; with Ninja as 'Ninja', Yo-Landi Vi$$er as 'Yolandi', and Sharlto Copley as Chappie

Premise: A pioneering robotics engineer creates a ‘consciousness’ for robots in defiance of his corporate superiors’ orders, and plugs it into a simple scout droid. Almost as soon as the scout begins to walk and talk, it is hijacked by a group of thugs who want to use it as protection while they rob a bank.

Rated R for strong bloody violence, language, intense emotional content, some scary moments and drug references, and a brief nude image

South African writer/director Neill Blomkamp burst onto the scene in 2009 with his Oscar-nominated sci-fi adventure District 9 and followed it up with 2013’s underrated post-apocalyptic thriller Elysium. His newest film, Chappie, is the latest in a long line of films (Bicentennial Man, The Iron Giant, I-Robot, Wall-E, Big Hero 6, etc…) in which a mechanical humanoid is given a realistic human personality. However, unlike those other films in which a robot was plunked down in a fairly innocent setting, Chappie sees a mechanical being thrust into the run-down, bullet-ridden Johannesburg ghetto, becoming both an important player in a gang war and the ultimate MacGuffin for a pair of competing scientists.

I had seen the trailers for Chappie many times, to the point that I was quite weary of seeing it and, at one time, swore off seeing the movie. With the awkward robot of the title shown doing various childish things while different characters muttered solemn platitudes like “I brought you into this world” and “you can do anything you want to do”, I thought it might be some dopey fable about, basically, a kind of grown-up Wall-E. It isn’t that. It’s closer to a robotic Frankenstein tale, set in a unique, gritty setting with a unique cast that gives it a kind of naturalistic, anti-blockbuster vibe. Despite my initial reservations, this disorienting and uncouth atmosphere started to draw me in, only to leave me awash in adrenaline with a tremendous action-packed, edge-of-your-seat final third. It’s not perfect, but Chappie was far better than I expected, a welcome surprise in my first trip to the movies in almost a month.

Plot

It’s 2016, and crime in Johannesburg, South Africa, is at an all-time low thanks to the addition to the police force of robotic ‘scouts’, human-like figures able to take commands, kick down doors, tote guns, and arrest criminals. Though the scouts have helped save lives and stop crimes and make his company a fortune, the scouts’ creator, Deon Wilson (Dev Patel, of Slumdog Millionaire fame) isn’t satisfied. He’s as interested in creating a robotic consciousness—the ability for robots to think and learn and act for themselves—as he is in continuing to turn a profit for weapons manufacturers. His CEO (Sigourney Weaver) scoffs at the notion, as does rival robotics inventor Vincent Moore (Hugh Jackman), who, wanting to one-up Deon and his scouts, has created a bigger, more powerful robot called a Moose, which a human driver can control by wearing a helmet that forms a connection with the human’s neural transmitters. However, with the scouts’ success, the Moose isn’t needed, and Vincent remains second-class.

           

 Even further down the food chain are a local gang of petty criminals, Amerika (Jose Pablo Cantillo) and sweethearts Ninja and Yolandi (South African actors/musicians Ninja and Yo-Landi Vi$$er), who have run afoul of a notorious, deadly gangster, Hippo (Brandon Auret). Though their lives were spared by police and robot scout intervention, Hippo escaped, too, and he holds them to a significant debt. Ninja figures the best way to pay Hippo what they owe is a bank heist, but with impervious robot scouts stopping crimes everywhere, their prospects of pulling one off seem hopeless. It occurs to them to try stealing a robot and figuring out a way to reprogram it just as Deon smuggles a damaged robot scout out of his company’s headquarters and tries to bring it to his home, where he can implant the new consciousness program he’s created. He’s hijacked halfway by the gang, who are delighted to learn they can teach and influence the robot however they want once the consciousness is implanted. It’s Yolandi who names the robot once he comes to life and begins to warm to their presence, calling him a “happy chappie”. Deon has to go to work each day, but he gets off whenever he can to help teach the robot. So, Chappie (voice of South African actor Sharlto Copley) gets a unique dual influence—the gentler Deon and Yolandi want to teach him nice things, like how to read and paint and draw and appreciate beauty, while Amerika and Ninja want to teach him how to wield guns and knives and knock down walls. Meanwhile, an increasingly-obsessed Vincent has begun dogging Deon’s steps and his trips away from the office, and, infuriated at the idea that giving the robots a human-like consciousness could make them even more popular and profitable, he begins hatching a wild scheme to discredit the scouts, and Deon, once and for all.

What Works?

There are a lot of things I’d like to praise about Chappie, but the main reason the movie is so effective is Chappie himself. Sharlto Copley is, at this point, best known for playing a pair of extremely vindictive characters, the stop-at-nothing hit-man in Elysium and the scheming, power-mad king in Maleficent. Considering that’s the major impression of the actor, the humanity he infuses in Chappie through just the power of his voice and movements (thanks motion-capture animation!) is both indelible and incredible. He generates laughs, tears, and even gasps of fright, and does so without exaggeratedly gooey material (props to the gritty and moving screenplay, by Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell). You feel for Chappie, you care about him, you hope he’ll spare someone’s life at one point, and you hope he’ll save the day by grabbing a gun at another. He’s a wonderful creation, as effective on a personal level as Wall-E or Beymax or any of the other popular movie robots. The animators of the film deserve a huge hand, as well; not even once, from the very start of the film, does it occur to one that Chappie, or any of the other dozens of robots in the film, are mere CGI. Chappie seems every bit as real and present as any other popular CGI character of recent years—Gollum, the Na’vi from James Cameron’s Avatar, the new Planet of the Apes simians, any.

It would be easy, however, for the makers to have simply invested all their time and energy in a robot and left the plot and other characters out to dry. Thankfully, they haven’t. Dev Patel shines in what is probably his best role since Slumdog, convincingly taking the ride from nebbishy inventor to avenging creator. Hugh Jackman, able to speak in his native Australian brogue, is also supremely effective as Vincent—obviously known the world over for his portrayal of the tough, gruff-with-a-heart-of-gold Wolverine in X-Men, Jackman is rather surprisingly convincing as a sneering villain. I won’t be the only Jackman fan cheering for the actor to get pummeled late in the film, as his diabolical schemes unfold. The three unknowns who make up the gang that takes Chappie in deserve a huge hand as well. It takes a few scenes for one to get over Cantillo, Ninja and Yo-Landi’s bizarre appearances and thick accents, and all eyes are on Chappie from the get-go, but when all the characters end up in mortal danger late, you realize how much you care about them (random fact: the basically-playing-themselves Ninja and Yo-Landi are former real-life romantic partners. They have a daughter, and they front the South African rap-rave group Die Antwood). None of these actors will win Oscars or anything, but, as stated, their naturalistic appearances and layered portrayals greatly enhance the story. It is thanks to their contributions that the movie’s pell-mell, high-stakes action sequences are as gripping as they are.

What Doesn’t Work?

I don’t have a whole lot of criticism, other than the fact that the movie’s first 15 or so minutes are, as mentioned, rather disorienting, given that the early approach seems so different from what was shown in the trailers (including an enormous time jump). Blomkamp’s choice to subtitle a number of scenes in which characters like Ninja and Hippo speak heavily-accented, gangster English is also a questionable one; it feels like a gimmick, which isn't a great way to start a movie. For my money, they should either just have them speak regular English in a heavy but discernible accent, or have them speak a completely different language and subtitle it. Other than that, however, I can’t think of any other issues—Chappie is about as good as it could’ve been, and I want to praise Blomkamp for, just as he did in Elysium, coming up with a sort of feel-good ending that doesn’t feel cheap or phoned-in. His movies are quite ingenious.

Content

If you can discern the dialogue, you’ll be able to discern plenty of cuss-words. There’s also the fact that, as was also the case in Elysium, when the going gets tough, the going gets bloody. The violence in Chappie tends to be fierce and brutal, though it does have a point and you do keep track of the characters in it. This movie, uncouth and gritty as it is, can be tough.

Bottom Line

Chappie is not a perfect movie, but boy was it a surprise! Engaging, well-written, thought-provoking, exciting, and electrifying, this quasi-real-life fable from South African writer/director Neill Blomkamp (who made the similar District 9 and Elysium in recent years) outperformed even my best expectations. Hugh Jackman’s great in a non-Wolverine role, a bunch of unknown South African actors make invaluable, memorable contributions, and Chappie himself proves to be every bit as engaging and believable a CGI creation as Gollum from Lord of the Rings. There’s laugh-out-loud humor, there’s white-knuckle action, and there’s a point to all of it. I was quite pleasantly surprised.

Chappie (2015)

Directed by Neill Blomkamp

Screenplay by Neill Blomkamp and Terri Tatchell

Rated R

Length: 120 minutes

THE INTERVIEW

The Interview

Grade: C+

Starring: James Franco, Seth Rogen and Lizzy Caplan, with Randall Park as Kim Jong-Un and Diana Bang as Sook

Premise: A lively TV interviewer and his producer land a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to interview North Korea’s Supreme Ruler, only for the CIA to immediately recruit them for an assassination attempt on the dictator.

Rated R for constant crude, profane language (including graphic sexual references and racial and ethnic slurs), bloody violence, coarse humor, some sexuality, brief graphic nudity, and some drug content

I doubt it ever struck anyone in the majority of the world’s countries as anything but mere farce, but the broad 2014 comedy The Interview became a hot topic a few months ago when North Korea—the country that’s heavily ridiculed by the film—allegedly threatened terrorist attacks on the U.S. if the picture screened in theaters. It was almost immediately yanked from major theater chains, and there were rumors the film would never, ever, see the light of day, in any medium. But, amidst cries of patriotism (“American does not negotiate with or bend to the demands of terrorists!”), Hollywood muckraking (“you’re cowards if you don’t show the film”, dozens of celebrities tweeted), and social memes that were gleefully passed from person to person (“I can’t wait to see what movies North Korea lets me see this Christmas!”), the movie leaked out, first as a pirated property, then as a Video-On-Demand and limited release. It was something of a Must-See there for a while, just for the purpose of the thing (many people undoubtedly watched it believing their doing so was an act of patriotism for ‘Murica, or else one of defiance against North Korea). I had never truly wanted to see it—being a fan of neither James Franco nor Seth Rogen—even if the premise struck me as fairly intriguing, but, on yet another snowy, icy day this winter, I couldn’t help checking it out on Netflix to see just what all the fuss was about.

Absurd. That’s my instinctive one-word reaction to this socio-political hot topic. Utterly absurd. While you can't make the argument that no one should be upset by the film when it’s obviously supposed to just be silly escapist entertainment, The Interview is really quite harmless, a crass, lame-brained, feature-length version of a drunken party joke, one that is largely-cliché and embarrassingly-acted. I’d be tempted to call it the most outrageously-vulgar movie I’ve ever seen if I hadn’t seen star/director Rogen’s last comedy (Neighbors). Basically it pairs Rogen—doing his expletive-mumbling underachiever gag—alongside Franco—who does his patented weird, over-acting, wink-wink-I’m-smarter-than-this-but-I’m-doing-it-anyway shtick—and just wants to make anyone not from North Korea belly laugh while pointing an amused finger at the world’s most hostile dictator and his tight-lipped nation. A good idea? Hard to say. An intriguing premise? Sort of. A good movie? Ehhhh…

Plot

After years of producing a popular late-night talk show, TV executive Aaron Rapaport (Rogen, playing the straight man for once) hasn’t gained much respect, mainly because his show, Skylark Tonight, is a vehicle for flamboyant dufus Dave Skylark (Franco, in his most intolerable role ever) to exchange gossip with celebrities. The show is so low-brow that its idea of breaking news is a rapper admitting on the air that some of his blatantly homosexual lyrics point to the fact that he is actually a homosexual. Inexplicably, however, the show is watched by millions, including none other than the Supreme Ruler/Dictator of North Korea, Kim Jong-Un (a likeably-game Randall Park). Delighted by the idea that he could interview someone important and serious and look like a real journalist, Dave convinces reluctant Aaron to call the North Korean embassy and request an interview with Kim. Surprise! The interview is granted. And, within days, the CIA shows up on Aaron’s doorstep, with a sharp but comely agent (Lizzy Caplan) informing the men they are to be part of a plot to put the world’s most dangerous man out of commission.

Though disbelieving and then nervous at first, Dave and Aaron manage to grasp the basics of a surprisingly simple assassination plan, to poison the dictator by having a tiny pellet of a lethal substance penetrate his skin when he shakes Dave’s hand to start the interview. However, things go awry almost immediately, when Dave and Aaron are met by a stern female head of security, Sook (the winning Diana Bang), and a baggage check loses them their precious sample of poison. They manage to obtain another sample later, at great cost, by which time Sook has grown very suspicious of Aaron. Worse, Kim Jong-Un himself instigates a private audience with Dave, in which he shows Dave that is really a lonely-at-heart frat boy with daddy issues, a lot like Dave. If he wasn’t so pressured, Kim reckons, he could be free to drive hot cars, make out with hot women, drink, snort, and live the debauched lifestyle he craves. Touched, Dave begins to have second thoughts about attempting to kill the dictator, while Aaron is dogged consistently by the stern and forbidding Sook. As the big interview draws near, both men wonder if it really is worth trying to kill the man.

What Doesn’t Work?

The first flaw of the movie that comes to my mind is also its biggest—top-billed actor James Franco is absolutely insufferable in the role of Dave Skylark. I haven’t been a fan of the actor since he bombed in his major attempt at epic romantic drama/tragedy (2006’s Tristan & Isolde, in which he did nothing but brood and mope), but he gives one of the most maddeningly-awful performances I’ve ever seen in The Interview, even if it was probably the goofy leading performance co-Directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg were looking for. By turns fey, fussy, shrill, obnoxious and cloying, Dave is nails-on-a-chalkboard annoying for about 97 percent of his screen time, the last third of which he spends baby-talking to a puppy, to give you an idea. It’s distressing to think that the actor’s fans, and many Hollywood personalities, likely hailed the actor for his ‘fearless performance art’ here; Academy members should feel ashamed for ever considering this man for an Oscar (even if it was for his admittedly solid one-man-show in 127 Hours), let alone for letting him host the show (he was memorably ticked/embarrassed/stoned while co-hosting with Anne Hathaway back in 2010). Anyone, like me, who thinks of the actor as smug and overrated will have no reason to think or feel otherwise after watching this (note: I think his brother Dave, of Neighbors and the 21 Jump Street remake, is a much more talented comedian).

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised by this, but The Interview is vulgar to the max, beating the viewer over the head with words that starts with F, C, and P, or that consist most notably of letters like M and F. There’s not a hint of subtlety to be found in The Interview, whether it pertains to the movie’s politics, racial stereotyping, bromance, budding romance, or to the fact that Dave has the hots for the CIA agent (Caplan) who hired him. Its main characters are both nitwits, its antagonists are largely cliché, and, of course, it’s determined to make broad comedic fodder out of an entire country, its people, and its traditions. Mostly, The Interview is flat-out stupid.

What Works?

That said, in its best moments, The Interview manages a sort of rollicking entertainment factor, particularly in a wildly-over-the-top in-studio fight between Rogen and one of Kim’s cronies (I was howling with laughter during this scene), and an incident where Rogen has to retrieve a high-priority package and hide it from Korean sentries while Dave and the CIA both yammer in his ear (another doozy). The final action sequence is exciting, and the titular televised conversation, while played mostly for laughs or embarrassing farce, manages a modicum of actual suspense. It’s also worth noting that Rogen—as I said earlier, for once playing the straight man—is rather more watchable than usual here, even if it’s only because your options are him and the hamming-it-like-there’s-no-tomorrow Franco. It’s also commendable that the movie’s main attempts to develop “character” involve the two main Korean characters. Kim and Sook—played by western-raised actors born to Korean parents, Randall Park and Diana Bang, respectively—have hints of actual personalities, and motivations and feelings, even if every moment of actual decency is almost immediately followed by expletives or other wild bluster.

 Content

As I pointed out, The Interview is just about as lewd and crude as they come, notching bad words by the score and firing away with sexual references, sexist jokes, racist jokes, ethnic jokes, violent jokes, and other fairly insensitive material. This probably shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it’s worth noting. If they have tried to make a more serious movie out of this premise (not a straight drama, but a less goofy farce), The Interview could’ve really been something.

Bottom Line

You can’t argue that The Interview isn’t insulting to North Koreans, but this wild and crazy comedy farce is mostly a lightweight, goofy, vulgar-to-the-max party joke for party boys. James Franco gives one of the most annoying would-be comedic performances I’ve ever seen in my life, actually giving Seth Rogen a chance to seem endearing.  A couple Korean actors do well, too (isn’t it appropriate the movie’s most interesting and well-rounded character is Kim Jong-Un?). There’s definitely some laugh-out-loud stuff, but, even with all the support-freedom-of-speech, we-don’t-negotiate-with-terrorists, rah-rah hoopla that surrounded its release, The Interview is not even close to a Must-See movie. I just grabbed it on Netflix because I’m snowed and iced in, again.

The Interview (2014)

Directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen

Screenplay by Dan Sterling

Rated R

Length: 112 minutes

JUPITER ASCENDING

Jupiter Ascending

Grade: C

Starring: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth and Tuppence Middleton, with Maria Doyle Kennedy as Jupiter’s mom

Premise: An ordinary young woman is mistaken for intergalactic royalty, instantly becoming a target of both ire and desire for the members of one of the universe’s oldest and most powerful ruling families.

Rated PG-13 for intense action and violent content, constant scenes of peril and destruction, some gore, language and brief nudity

Given the high-wattage stars and intergalactic-power-struggle plot displayed in the trailers, I thought Jupiter Ascending might be the rare solid February film that qualified as the kind of legitimate popcorn-entertainment usually released in the summer. Before I even saw it, I gave it brownie points for being an “original” work, the rare high-budget, big-spectacle flick not based on a bestselling book series, a comic book, a TV show, a video game, another movie, or a true story. I was hopeful. Not to mention I was intrigued by the possibility of a hiss-worthy bad guy played by rising star Eddie Redmayne, who is on the verge of possibly becoming a Best Actor Academy Award winner later this month thanks to his lauded portrayal of Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything.

Alas, I was way too optimistic. It must've slipped my notice that this film was written and directed by the Wachowski siblings, Andy and Lana, who wrote and directed an all-time great movie (1999’s The Matrix), and then ruined it with two overblown and overly-serious sequels, and whose last release was the ambitious but uneven sci-fi adaptation Cloud Atlas, a movie I sort of enjoyed but would probably never watch again. And, of course, Jupiter Ascending was released in February, which is typically a wasteland for movies. Ultimately, this is a cliché, underdeveloped and overwrought movie that was, at times, hard to follow, at others, ridiculously corny, and, for almost its entirety, seemed to be an unworthy compilation of scenes and ideas from about a dozen other, better movies. I suppose the special effects were decent and there were some engaging action scenes, but the muddled dialogue does neither its audiences nor its A-list cast (Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Redmayne) any favors, and, ultimately, it makes you feel that you would much rather watch Star Wars, even the prequels. Yes, this movie actually made me want to watch the Star Wars prequels. So, obviously, it wasn’t exactly great.

Plot

A second-generation immigrant whose astronomy-loving father died before she was born, Jupiter Jones (Kunis) is scratching a living with her Russian immigrant relatives and, essentially, hating life. Then, one day, during a trip to a medical clinic to donate some eggs for money, she's nearly killed by aliens but saved in the nick of time by an extraterrestrial humanoid (Tatum) who claims to have been tracking her. Allegedly a human/wolf hybrid, Caine, as he’s called, sneaks Jupiter out of the hospital and then tells her he was sent from the planet for which she’s named to bring her back to the ruling family of the galaxy, who believe her to be the reincarnated form of their dearly-departed matriarch. A quick visit to another humanoid who’s been hiding out on earth (Sean Bean, of Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones fame) confirms her “Majesty”, and, with assassins and trackers on their tales, Caine takes Jupiter to Jupiter. There she meets the Abrasax siblings, Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), Titus (Douglas Booth) and Balem (Redmayne), all of whom are thousands of years old and heirs of the ancient and powerful race that gave birth to life on Earth. They inform Jupiter that she is an exact DNA match for their late mother ('reincarnation' is the human word for it, she's told), and begin to clue her in on the power and prestige that entitles her to. But it isn't long before Jupiter begins to sense trouble. None of the siblings seems like a fully good-hearted person, all of them have benefitted from “harvesting” human lives, and Balem, especially, wants Jupiter to turn over all the power she has--or supposedly has--so he can rule the universe.

What Doesn’t Work?

That may not be a great description, but that’s what the movie boils down to, with the typical plot strand thrown in that Jupiter begins to develop feelings for Caine, her protector, but since she's royalty and he's a lowly foot soldier, the match cannot (or should not) happen because he is unworthy. Also, since this is the Wachowskis and their stuff has to have some extra meaning, there’s a bit about time being the real currency of the universe, and we’re all just boiled to how much time we have left and how we use it. It's interesting, I guess, but it doesn't help the idea carry weight when it's presented in the same hokey sci-fi universe in which a rich young heir (Titus, in this case), proposes marriage to the woman who’s supposed to be the second coming of his mother.

Yeah—corny is the main word I would use to describe this movie. Since this movie actually isn’t based on any prior material, it needs explaining, but it’s explained rapid-fire by people using all kinds of sci-fi speak and, sometimes, by people with accents that make it difficult to understand. The main characters are all paper-thin cutouts, too. Kunis is incredibly-attractive and suggests actual acting ability, but all she’s required to do here is gasp and scream when in danger and otherwise simply provide the requisite swooning/shocked/awed expressions. She doesn’t have a whiff of chemistry with the sadly-cast Tatum, who should fire his agent for getting him into this goofy project. All this likeably expressive actor does here is brood and shoot baddies. And Redmayne may find his Oscar chances in trouble, here confined to a cringeworthy example of hammiest villainy, with all his dialogue either hoarsely croaked or bellowed in embarrassingly-high-pitched shrieks.

Driven by dozens of plot strands that often seem to be quickly discarded (the Abrasax sister, Kalique, has one great scene and is never seen again), Jupiter Ascending seems far longer than its just-over-two-hours running time suggests. Really, this is a step up from average Sci-fi Channel fare only because of its name actors and its budget, which must’ve been huge (last I checked, $179 million). Good luck to the Wachowskis getting that back.

What Works?

Though its nearly every frame feels like a rip-off of Star Wars, Ender’s Game, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor or even John Carter, Jupiter Ascending is visually impressive. In addition, there are a few reasonably-exciting action sequences to raise the pulse, and, let’s face it, it doesn’t hurt to stare at Kunis for two hours.

Content

There’s a lot of fairly-destructive sci-fi violence going on, and a few scenes concerning bloody wounds, and even a handful of cuss words. Shouldn’t cause any real stir, though some parents might not appreciate the close-up of Tuppence Middleton’s bare butt as she comes out of a bath. Ethics aside—keeping up with this movie’s avalanche of names, terms and plot threads is the real key to digesting this flick.

Bottom Line

Jupiter Ascending’s premise is intriguing, but the movie’s too long, too corny, and doesn’t give its A-list cast much to do. Most of the movie seems ripped off from countless other sci-fi franchises (Star Wars, The Terminator, John Carter), it has a chemistry-free romance at its center, and it might have ruined Eddie Redmayne’s Oscar chances. Did I mention it’s written and directed by the Wachowskis, who made one great Matrix film and then two stinkbomb sequels? Important to know. This wasn’t a terrible movie, but not one I’d recommend.

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Written and Directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski

Length: 127 minutes

Rated PG-13