Captain America: The First Avenger

OPENING: 07/22/2011

STUDIO: Paramount Pictures

RUN TIME: 125 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Avenge

Opening Statement
This summer’s quartet of comic book superhero blockbusters comes to a close with Joe Johnston’s Captain America: The First Avenger. Fortunately, this final stepping stone on the way to Marvel’s The Avengers proves to be 2011′s most satisfying superhero flick.

Facts of the Case
Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, Fantastic Four) is a scrappy, 90-pound kid from Brooklyn. The year is 1942, and Steve wants nothing more than to serve his country by joining the military and going overseas. He’s been turned down time and time again; he’s too small and too sickly to serve. Still, the persistence eventually pays off: Steve is finally accepted and is shipped off to basic training. Shortly after his arrival, a military scientist (Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones) persuades Steve to become his first test subject in a very important experiment. Steve is injected with a remarkable serum which instantly transforms him from the Army’s least intimidating soldier into a bulky, powerful hulk of a man.

Alas, Steve’s new powers aren’t going to be put to use on the battlefield. Our would-be war hero is sent on an important but nonetheless humiliating publicity tour; selling war bonds by dressing up in a ridiculous red, white & blue costume and dancing onstage with a group of chorus girls. However, when Steve learns that his old pal Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan, Black Swan) is missing in action overseas, he determines to stage a rescue mission. With the aid of arms manufacturer Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper, Young Victoria) and the no-nonsense Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell, The Duchess), “Captain America” begins a dangerous mission which will eventually bring him face-to-face with the villainous Red Skull (Hugo Weaving, The Matrix).

The Evidence
After the depressingly generic Green Lantern, I was feeling a little burnt out on superhero movies. It was a little difficult to work up much enthusiasm for Captain America; did I really want to sit through another by-the-numbers origin story created for the specific purpose of teasing a sequel? Thankfully, Captain America is precisely the refreshing change-of-pace the genre needs at this moment in time. This is a movie which is both charmingly earnest and genuinely surprising; two factors which have been missing from too many films about men in spandex.

Director Joe Johnston warmed up for this film some twenty years earlier with his under-appreciated The Rocketeer. Captain America: The First Avenger also offers shades of such entertainingly retro outings as The Phantom and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but it’s less aggressively self-aware than those films. It pays homage to old-fashioned war movies and equally old-fashioned comic books in a manner which is entertaining but never too distracting; the world Johnston has created is absorbing and the story works on its own terms.

Johnston is clearly having a ball with this particular cinematic playground, as this is a film which just oozes affection for the era in which it is set. Johnston doesn’t so much recapture a moment in time as recapture the pop culture vibes of that era; creating a movie which seems to have been assembled from a collection of newsreels, comic books and war movies of the early 1940s. His art deco design boasts numerous visual delights, and his staging of the aforementioned publicity tour is a fascinating piece of cinema: it’s an unexpected departure from the norm for this sort of film, it’s marvelously staged, it’s delightfully satirical and unexpectedly affecting all at once. The battle scenes later in the film have a kind of four-color “gee whiz!” quality about them while still managing to maintain some measure of weight. The balancing act Johnston pulls off in this area is most impressive.

Lead actor Chris Evans is perhaps saddled with the most difficult task of all the Marvel Studios superheroes, as he’s required to play a character who is good-hearted, earnest and compassionate. Those are great human qualities, but they can also be the foundation of a dull character in the hands of an incapable actor. Fortunately, Evans manages to hit just the right note and maintain a strong screen presence. There’s something about him which suggests Gary Cooper’s turn in Sgt. York; a kind of shy, thoughtful tenderness beneath the war hero exterior. He’s equally convincing as the runt from Brooklyn and as the muscle-bound man of action, and the CGI work done on both versions of the character is impressive enough that we don’t spend much time thinking about it.

The supporting cast is also solid, with Tommy Lee Jones standing out in a very Tommy Lees Jones-ish role as a gruff, world-weary Colonel. Jones is given a handful of good lines which he nails with his understated delivery. Hayley Atwell makes the most of a ever-so-slightly underwritten role, bringing a great deal of personality to this film’s obligatory love interest (as a result, we end up caring about her considerably more than we did about Natalie Portman in Thor or Blake Lively in Green Lantern). We also get three esteemed actors having a blast with gloriously hammy German accents. In order of success: Hugo Weaving (whose intonations often seem to transform into a Werner Herzog impression), Stanley Tucci (as wonderfully understated as ever) and Toby Jones (whose impressive facial expressions compensate for his exceedingly wobbly accent).

I’m obliged to report that not everything is wonderful. The Red Skull’s plan will undoubtedly prove a little confusing to those unfamiliar with the comics (that sort of shorthand is best left to throwaway in-jokes, not major plot points), and the character’s actual actions are never really as interesting as Weaving’s hypnotic performance. Dominic Cooper is a little underwhelming as a young Howard Stark; failing to deliver the pitch-perfect charisma John Slattery offered in Iron Man 2. Additionally, the movie finishes on a wrong note, as one character delivers a line which strives to be simultaneously funny and touching but which actually proves merely awkward.

Obviously, the ultimate purpose of Captain America: The First Avenger is to build up to Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. I have conflicted feelings about this, as Captain America handles this material very smoothly yet still seems as if it would be better off without it. Had Johnston been directing a stand-alone film without the need to segue into a larger blockbuster, he could have delivered something even more moving and impressive. You’ll know what I mean when you see the film.

Closing Statement
Still, given the constraints that it’s working under, Captain America: The First Avenger is very nearly as good as it possibly could have been. It’s arguably the most successful Marvel Studios film to date (only Iron Man could compete), and one of the strongest efforts of Johnston’s career.

The Verdict
8/10

Green Lantern

OPENING: 06/17/2011

STUDIO: Warner Bros.

RUN TIME: 105 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
In brightest day. In blackest night.

Opening Statement
While DC Comics has a large stable of iconic superheroes that ranks as a worthy rival to the lineup Marvel has to offer, considerably more of Marvel’s characters have been given the swanky big-screen treatment. While Marvel has provided us with films about The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Daredevil, Captain America, Thor and others, DC has primarily focused on the one-two punch of Batman and Superman (with occasional flops about characters from those two universes, such as Supergirl, Catwoman and Steel). At long last, we’re breaking away from the old routine with Green Lantern. Unfortunately, this new franchise is off to an awfully rough start.

Facts of the Case
Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds, The Proposal) is a hotshot pilot whose remarkable talent is only matched by his penchant for irresponsible behavior. He’s had a hot-and-cold relationship with employer/fellow pilot Carol Ferris (Blake Lively, The Town) for years, and lately things have been on the cold side of that spectrum. A recent disaster at work, an increasingly strained relationship with his siblings and haunting memories of his father’s tragic death have only amplified Hal’s personal problems in recent days.

Hal receives a welcome distraction when he’s suddenly transported to the site of a spaceship crash. Inside the ship is a dying alien, who presents Hal with a mysterious green ring. Before Hal has time to process this, he’s whisked away to the planet Oa and trained as a member of the Green Lantern Corps, a universal police force devoted to keeping life forms of all sorts safe from a wide variety of threats. Soon, the hotshot pilot finds himself faced with the task of battling foes both foreign (and I mean really, really, really foreign) and domestic.

The Evidence
Martin Campbell’s Green Lantern suffers from a variety of problems, but perhaps most prominent among them is a severe case of origin-itis. Here’s the thing: we’ve seen a seemingly endless supply of comic book origin stories at this point, and they’ve generally grown less intriguing as time has passed. I’m fairly certain that audiences are willing to accept on faith the idea that a character has been given a set of superpowers. Is there really a need for would-be franchises to provide us with feature-length explanations of how these miraculous things happen rather than simply dealing with such business in a prologue and focusing on delivering a compelling story? Green Lantern feels like a warm-up for an actual movie, which is something which can be said about entirely too many cinematic origin stories of late (the recent X-Men: First Class comes to mind, though that film delivers more entertainment than this one).

The premise of the Green Lantern Corps is one which contains a tremendous amount of potential for thrilling space opera, yet there is nothing operatic about Green Lantern. The film is a curiously mundane experience; one which spends entirely too much time wallowing in Hal Jordan’s uninteresting personal problems on Earth and precious little time exploring the vast, detailed, well-constructed wonders of Oa. Indeed, Hal’s one extended trip to Oa seems to fly by at an alarming speed, as if the filmmakers are counting the special effects cost of every second of screen time (despite the film’s vast budget of $300 million). The Oa material is interesting, but Campbell gives us little time to soak it in; the film rushes through some nifty visuals and exposition and then shuttles Hal back to Earth for the rest of the film.

I don’t have a problem with the fact that Green Lantern spends a good bit of time setting up the details of how Hal was recruited as a member of the Green Lantern Corps, but I do have a problem with the fact that the film then proceeds to force Hal to have some sort of half-baked personal crisis in which he debates whether or not he wants the job. This material feels strikingly similar to the sort of thing Peter Parker went through in Spider-Man 2, but the key difference is that Spider-Man actually had a legitimate reason for his “maybe I should just quit” period. That Hal Jordan would quit over the smallest of problems seems a blatant contradiction to the notion that he’s an adventure-loving rogue. After a while one begins to feel that the whole enterprise ought to be titled Green Lantern: Whiny Space Cadet.

The film is lacking in wonder, yes, but it’s also lacking in energy. The lackluster romance between Hal and Carol tends to sap the film of its momentum; a problem exacerbated by the fact that Reynolds and Lively really don’t have much chemistry together. The writers also struggle in their attempts to inject some humor into the proceedings, giving Hal a series of Spider-Man-style quips which probably read better than they actually sound (Jerk: “Watch your back.” Hal: “That’s impossible.”). There’s very little that doesn’t feel like filler; even the massive battle with the evil space demon Parallax (voiced by Clancy Brown, Carnivale) feels like a half-hearted attempt at giving Hal something important to do while the groundwork is being laid for a sequel.

Still, Green Lantern isn’t quite a Catwoman or Jonah Hex-level disaster. In fact, the film is perfectly watchable, as Campbell and co. have done solid work on a technical level and there are a handful of smaller elements which add much-needed spice to the mix. Most valuable is Peter Sarsgaard’s (Orphan) offbeat turn as Hector Hammond; a nerdy scientist fueled by a compelling mix of buried rage, insecurity and nervous intelligence. Tim Robbins (The Shawshank Redemption) also seems to be enjoying himself as Hector’s fatuous U.S. Senator daddy. As I mentioned, the visit to Oa is entirely too brief, but the world itself is compelling and the characters there even moreso: the charming Tomar Re (voiced quite well by Geoffrey Rush, The King’s Speech), the gruff Kilowag (a thunderous Michael Clarke Duncan, The Green Mile) and the crisp, polished Sinestro (a nearly unrecognizable Mark Strong, Kick-Ass). There’s also a grin-inducing moment which pokes fun at the absurdity of supposedly identity-disguising superhero masks.

Closing Statement
There are promising ideas in Green Lantern, but this is a film which promises far more than it actually delivers. The idea of a sequel is kind of appealing, mostly because it feels like the writers were saving their best cards for later installments. However, I doubt most viewers are going to feel much enthusiasm for the franchise after sitting through this underwhelming origin story. Sadly, Green Lantern is one of this summer’s most disposable blockbusters.

The Verdict
5/10

X-Men: First Class

OPENING: 06/03/2011

STUDIO: Fox

RUN TIME: 132 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Witness the moment that will change our world.

Opening Statement
I’ve always had a bit more affection for the X-Men franchise than it honestly deserves. Prior to the release of X-Men: First Class, four installments of the series had been churned out; only one of which had actually been a really satisfying picture (that would be X2: X-Men United). Despite this, the immense potential lurking within the depths of the franchise is undeniable. Part of the reason that a film like X-Men: The Last Stand is so frustrating is that it’s obvious the film could have been a terrific summer blockbuster had it been handled better. Rather than actually re-booting the series, Fox decided to launch an in-continuity prequel which would explore the origins of the mutant superhero team. So, how does X-Men: First Class fare? Well…the series still has a lot of potential.

Facts of the Case
Our story begins in the 1940s, when young Erik Lehnsherr (Bill Milner, Is Anybody There?) is a prisoner in a German concentration camp. During his stay there, he’s tortured and experimented on by a Nazi scientist (Kevin Bacon, Sleepers) eager to learn more about Erik’s unique magnetic abilities. Fast forward to the early 1960s, as an adult Erik (Michael Fassbender, Inglourious Basterds) is on an unrelenting mission to hunt down the man who tormented him all those years ago. It’s during this process that Erik meets Charles Xavier (James McAvoy, The Last King of Scotland), a professor of genetics with his own set of fascinating abilities (of the telepathic variety, of course).

To make a long set-up short, Charles and Erik decide to join forces with a handful of other young mutants and aid the CIA in a mission to prevent nuclear war from breaking out. Over the course of this mission, the two men’s sharp philosophical differences begin to become apparent. How much longer will the vengeful Erik and the peaceful Charles be able to continue working together before their personal ideologies split them apart?

The Evidence
Obviously, the answer is, “not much longer.” We all know where these characters are going; it’s up to X-Men: First Class to make the journey there compelling. I suppose you could call it a success in that regard, as the film is rarely dull or uninteresting. Even so, this semi-reboot of the series gets an absurdly large amount of things wrong. It’s appropriate that the film opens with a scene mirroring the opening scene from the first X-Men, as this film mirrors the close-but-no-cigar quality level of that movie in a variety of ways.

There are a variety of problems with this flick, but the most immediately noticeable one is the screenplay by director Matthew Vaughn, Jane Goldman, Zack Stentz and Ashley Miller (“Too many chefs” and all that, I suppose). There’s an embarrassingly large of amount of flat-out awful dialogue in the film, much of which comes from scenes in which characters casually make up iconic names (“No, you’re not G-Men…you’re more like…X-Men”). On numerous occasions, I was able to silently quotes lines from the film before the characters even delivered them (sadly, this was due to by-the-numbers writing rather than recently-developed telepathic abilities). In addition, character development is an enormous problem. Several of the characters go through very abrupt changes without any proper set-up; perhaps they know what they’re supposed to be up to in the sequels. The blatant social commentary (an element used skillfully in the Singer films) is handled very awkwardly this time around; it’s as if the writers were completely disinterested in that element of the franchise and half-heartedly stuck in a few lame slogans just for the sake of it (“Mutant and proud!” becomes an increasingly ungainly catchphrase).

Additionally, the film’s attempt at period design is laughable; it’s very easy to forget that you’re watching a film set in the ‘60s. You’re suddenly reminded of the film’s era when a character casually slips the word “groovy” into a sentence or JFK turns up on the television or Kevin Bacon turns up in a silly ascot, but there are entirely too many anachronisms killing the retro vibe. This problem is perfectly symbolized by the end credits, which fuse a hip Saul Bass-style credit sequence with Henry Jackman’s thoroughly modern action score (save for a handful of occasional 007-ish twangs).

The film relies far too much on simplistic fan service; those cornball moments designed to generate applause in crowded theatres that will fall completely flat when viewed at home (though a fleeting cameo from a franchise veteran is a pitch-perfect delight). The film also suffers from being burdened with the task of doing a boatload of set-up, as it seems to spend nearly its entire running time setting the stage for other, more interesting films (the Cuban Missile Crisis-themed central plot of this outing proves a good deal less interesting to watch than it must have seemed on paper). There’s at least one gaping plot hole that many audience members will notice, too.

And yet, I remain interested in this incarnation of the franchise and those other, better films that it may produce. Why? As I said, there’s still a lot of potential. For all of the movie’s faults, you have to give it credit for spot-on casting. In particular, Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are superb as the future Magneto and Professor X, respectively. Fassbender sells some very weak material simply with the steely conviction of his performance, while McAvoy is even more disarmingly charming than usual as the bright, amiable Charles. In addition, Nicholas Hoult (A Single Man), gives a young Hank McCoy an effective Clark Kent-ish quality, while Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone) turns in solid work as a conflicted young Mystique. Kevin Bacon has a ball hamming it up as the villain, January Jones’ stiff screen presence actually works well for Emma Frost and Rose Byrne is an appealing presence as CIA Agent Moira MacTaggert. The cast for a terrific X-Men is undoubtedly in place, and they’re what keep X-Men: First Class so thoroughly watchable throughout (Fassbender in particular commands attention every time he strolls onscreen; he’s as strong a presence in this film as Ian McKellan was in the others).

This is easily director Matthew Vaughn’s weakest film to date (and considering that he co-wrote the screenplay, he can be blamed for many of its problems), but he does bring a level of stylistic flair and energy to the proceedings that sets it apart from the others (Bryan Singer had much better control of tone, but his considerably more dour approach would have amplified this film’s weaknesses). For instance, an obligatory training montage is turned into frisky fun due to Vaughn’s impressively fluid use of split-screen techniques.

Closing Statement
Still, X-Men: First Class is a mediocre film rescued on occasion by surface-level pleasures. It’s kinda fun while you watch it, but it sours in retrospect and will likely fare poorly on repeat viewings. The stage is set for a splendid X-Men adventure if the filmmakers can muster one. One can only hope that the magic will actually happen next time.

The Verdict
6/10

Jonah Hex

OPENING: 06/18/2010

STUDIO: Warner Bros.

RUN TIME: 80 min

ACCOMPLICES:
Trailer, Official Site

The Charge
Revenge gets ugly.

Opening Statement
Oh, man. Here I was, fairly certain that The A-Team was the low point of the summer movie season, and along comes Jonah Hex to blast my theory to hell.

Facts of the Case
Jonah Hex (Josh Brolin, No Country for Old Men) is a former confederate soldier turned bounty hunter. His never-ending supply of high-tech weaponry and his abilities to communicate with the dead give him a considerable advantage over the competition; anyone who challenges Hex isn’t likely to be alive very long. These days, Hex has revenge on his mind. His family was murdered by the evil Quentin Turnbull (John Malkovich, In the Line of Fire) years ago, and Hex has determined to go on a warpath of violence until Turnbull is dead. His mission is not only of personal importance, though. It seems that Turnbull has gotten his hands on a “nation-killing” device of sorts, and unless Hex can find him quickly, endless American lives are going to be lost.

The Evidence
That’s the basic narrative framework for Jonah Hex, an 82-minute disaster so bad that it just about has to be seen to be believed. How could things have gone this badly? I expect there’s an interesting story to be told about the trials and tribulations of putting this film together, as Jonah Hex appears to be the victim of terrible decision-making and brutal post-production tampering. There were reports of re-shoots, violence was cut out to get the rating down to PG-13, director changes, loads of script revisions, soundtrack issues and much more. Good films have occasionally been forged from troubled productions (The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford comes to mind), but this is not one of those rare instances. Every problem is painfully evident on the screen, as the film serves less as a motion picture than as a reminder of just what can happen when a lot of second-guessing takes place.

The character of Jonah Hex was created for DC Comics in the 1970s as a reaction to the popularity of the sort of anti-hero western that made Clint Eastwood a star. Hex was essentially an Eastwood imitation; a quiet, gritty, mean fellow who had a tiny sliver of tenderness hiding beneath that rugged exterior. In recent years, the character has been thriving in an exceptionally involving and well-crafted comic book series written by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, which delivers effectively bitter little western tales on a regular basis. Adapting any of their stories would have been a better choice than the one the filmmakers made, which was to add a bunch of new elements to the character and place him in a cinematic world that essentially attempts to fuse together elements of Wild Wild West, the James Bond franchise, Pushing Daisies and The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.

That may sound nifty on paper, but it leads to a disjointed experience that suffers from endless dramatic tonal shifts. One moment the film is an old-fashioned western, the next it’s an outlandish science fiction film. One moment the film is a gruff revenge thriller, the next it’s a jokey slice of camp. You get the idea. Why bother even adopting the Jonah Hex name-brand (he’s certainly not one of the more popular comic book characters) if you’re not even going to make a half-hearted attempt at staying true to what that character is all about? This would have been a forgivable sin if the film had offered something interesting on its own terms, but every “original” idea the filmmakers bring to the table belly flops. Some suggested upon seeing the trailer that Jonah Hex looked like another Wild Wild West. Regrettably, Jonah Hex makes Wild Wild West look like Casablanca.

The thing that makes Jonah Hex particularly frustrating is that it feels like once upon a time, there might have been a halfway-decent film sitting there in the editing room, just waiting to be pieced together. The whole thing has that suspicious “edited for television” feel, with climactic moments snipped out of action scenes and what appear to be the barely-recognizable remains of numerous subplots. For instance, the talented Michael Shannon is giving prominent billing, yet he’s only onscreen for about five seconds (and I only spotted him because I was looking for him). He’s onhand at an illegal fight between a big tough guy and a man who seems to have the ability to attack his opponents with snake venom. We don’t ever learn anything else about the snake guy, either. Stuff like that can be found everywhere. The soundtrack is an unholy mess, with heavy metal selections by Mastadon existing uncomfortably alongside various bits and pieces penned by Marco Beltrami and John Powell.

Truth be told, Josh Brolin is actually pretty good in the title role, convincingly grimacing his way through his scenes and delivering terse one-liners in an entertaining fashion. This is a character who deserves to headline his own movie, to be sure. It’s just that the film that surrounds Brolin is so aggressively bad; it just about kills any sense of goodwill his strong work brings to the proceedings. This is partially due to the fact that the action scenes have a tendency to drown him out (there are moments when you can barely hear what Brolin is saying because the music is cranked up so loud). Megan Fox isn’t onscreen much in her role as a prostitute with a soft spot for Hex, and she doesn’t do much of interest in the role. The supporting cast is quite impressive, and the movie astonishingly finds a way to waste everybody: Will Arnett, Aidan Quinn, Michael Fassbender, Lance Reddick, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Wes Bentley… not to mention the curiously absent Mr. Shannon.

Closing Statement
The film is so incompetent and misguided that one almost starts to pity it after a while in the same way that one might pity a wounded animal. It’s obvious that a lot of people were trying to make a movie that was cool and interesting once upon a time. Alas, after all the post-production drama, what’s left on the screen is nothing short of an atrocity.

The Verdict
1/10

For a comic book adaptation, Hellboy was a bit of an oddity. Though not a perfect film, it did not suck, which is extremely rare within its sub-genre of cinema. It had style to spare, never took itself too seriously, and was the perfect application of Guillermo del Toro’s rapidly developing talents as a director and as a visionary of the viscerally weird.

The trailer for Hellboy II: The Golden Army is even more of an oddity. Right out of the gate, it looks awesome. Jaw-droppingly awesome. Fantastically awesome. Dare I hope to dream of a day when a comic book adaptation might actually result in a satisfactory cinematic experience with no reservations? Hope does spring eternal.

Check out the trailer for Hellboy II here and let us know what you think!

(link via Apple)