Avengers: Infinity War

"Infinity is the end. End without infinity is but a new beginning."
-Dejan Stojanovic

I'll state upfront just how much I despised The Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron. I found them to be overly ambitious, preposterous, overcrowded, and stupid. (These often are the problems found in many of the Marvel Cinematic Universe movies.) My skepticism of this newest film, the nineteenth of the series in the past decade, called Avengers: Infinity War, I think is therefore understandable. Virtually every protagonist who has appeared in the MCU so far is back, including the interesting ones (Spider-Man, Black Panther, and the Guardians of the Galaxy) and the dull ones (Vision, Scarlet Witch, and the Winter Soldier). Whether you want them or not, the band is back together, and they have a rather formidable foe to face.

That foe is one of the parts I was most skeptical of: Thanos, played by Josh Brolin. Despite Brolin having proved himself to be one of the great actors of our time, what little we could see of his Thanos in the marketing material looked weak, like computer game animation from the 1990s. However, Brolin as Thanos is undoubtedly remarkable in every scene, and the motion-capture technology used is stunning. He is a giant of a villain, with menacing eyes and a very peculiar chin. They may not be his most well-known work, but Brolin has appeared in a variety of comic book adaptions of all sorts over the years, from Men in Black III to Sin City: Dame to Kill For to Jonah Hex. And of course, he played Marvel villain Cable in Deadpool 2 (outside the MCU) just after Infinity War was released. But this is his best comic book performance. Thanos' only goal is to wipe out half of the entire universe, and he needs six Infinity Stones (magical rocks or something that have been appearing in different MCU movies) to achieve that aim.

Based largely on the 1991 comic Avengers: Infinity Gauntlet and the 2013 Infinity comic, the film basically starts right where last fall's Thor: Ragnarok finished; the Asgardian refugees are Thanos' first target. Thanos and his crew are on their way to Earth, and only the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) can warn other superheros. Barely escaping to Earth, he finds Tony Stark/Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Dr. Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Spider-Man (Tom Holland), but in some respects, they're too late. Slowly but surely, Thanos hops around the galaxy, successfully adding to his collection, and Earth (specifically a certain country in Africa) is last on his stop. Dr. Strange has one stone (the Time Stone), while Vision (Paul Bettany) has one on his head (for some reason). Both are on Earth.

More and more of these famous characters trickle in, and it seems that what has frequently been a problem in Marvel movies -- that of crowdedness -- actually turns out to be an advantage in Infinity War. Thanos kidnaps his adopted daughter Gamora (Zoe Saldana), and the gang basically all split up: Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Dr. Strange chase after some villains in a freighter; Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Drax (Dave Bautista), and Mantis (Pom Klementieff) chase after Thanos; Rocket Raccoon (Bradley Cooper) and Groot (Vin Diesel) join Thor (Chris Hemsworth) to attempt to rebuild his hammer (because why not?); and Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), and others make their way to Wakanda to help King T'challa (Chadwick Bosemon) fend off Thanos' army.

The movie certainly feels like it goes on for infinity, with a whopping run time of almost three hours. And the climactic battle on Wakanda is almost as boring as it was in Black Panther. But other than that, there surprisingly isn't too much to complain about. There's fortunately a lot of humor, particularly thanks to the duo of Rocket and Groot (now a bratty teenager), and Thor is more like how we saw him last time as opposed to the old-fashioned nobleman of before. And since Cap and Stark aren't on speaking terms anymore, Pratt's Quill serves as a nice stand-in for the bickering and banter. In addition to all these returning characters, some of the new ones are quite interesting; the best new addition is Tom Vaughan-Lawlor as Thanos' henchman, Ebony Maw. He's a particularly frightening villain, and an efficient one, taking delight in locking up Thor or slowly penetrating Dr. Strange's face with sharp knives.

The next Avengers movie comes out next year, and if that is too long for you, you're in luck: there are more Marvel movies on the way. In addition to the Marvel Comics character Deadpool making his return this year (again, outside of the MCU), other upcoming MCU movies will be Ant-Man and the Wasp this year and Captain Marvel next year before the next Avengers movie. Additionally, Sony will release a standalone Venom movie (and while it's not in the MCU, either, who knows if Holland's Spidey will show up). We're in for a very long ride.

Read More →

Jurassic World

"I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power you're using here: it didn't require any discipline to maintain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had, you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it...your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should!"
-Jeff Goldblum as Ian Malcolm, "Jurassic Park"


I can still remember the day I saw "Jurassic Park" somewhat vividly. It was a hot summer day in 1993, and as I jumped out of our family's car, my mother explained to me that I might find the film to be scary because in the movie "some of the dinosaurs eat other dinosaurs." From the opening moments, I was completely mesmerized, and I probably had no idea that movies were capable of presenting such images. I loved it from start to finish. We left the theater, had lunch, then came back to watch "Free Willy." It remains one of the greatest days of my life. I can't imagine that twenty years from now I will remember watching "Jurassic World," the fourth installment in this franchise, the one where the movie's makers stood on the shoulders of geniuses and were so proud of their ability to make what is now the world's fifth-highest-grossing movie of all time (with $1.4 billion in just one month) and bring back the franchise from the dead. The trouble is that they never stopped to think if they should.

Should they have? I say no, and loudly so. The 1993 film at the time seemed to have ushered in a new age of cinematic wonder, but instead in retrospect closed an era of better movie magic. If you don't believe me, just consider some of the visual effects before 1993 (like "2001: A Space Odyssey" and the original "Star Wars" trilogy) and then consider some of the modern-day ones (like "The Avengers" and the "Star Wars" prequel trilogy). True, there are some directors, like Christopher Nolan and Darren Aronofsky, who seem to take the time to really give their audiences impressive visuals, but Colin Trevorrow is not one of them. Trevorrow directed the mediocre independent film "Safety Not Guaranteed" three years ago, and he does deserve some credit for his work here. He and his cinematographer, John Schwartzman, use a camera that's fairly active, and their decision to use film stock instead of digital cameras was the right one because it creates a better visual link to the previous installments. But unlike Steven Spielberg, the director of the first two "Jurassic" films and the executive producer of the two most recent, Trevorrow is one of the many newer directors working with visual effects who seem to have no restraint. David Christopher Bell's article for "Cracked" explains this in more detail in a brilliant article in which he calls the visual effects of "Jurassic World" and other recent films "photorealistic carnage." He makes a further very important point: except for four minutes of computer-generated imagery of only fourteen minutes of actual dinosaur screen time in "Jurassic Park," every special effect utilized was an animatronic (or puppet or other practical effect) created by Stan Winston. In other words, CGI, itself groundbreaking in 1993, was a last resort and was used to better the visual experience on a case-by-case basis. In "Jurassic World," there was only one scene that I thought was using an animatronic. The scene features two protagonists who discover a butchered dinosaur and feel sorry for it. The audience seemed to share these characters' sympathy, conveniently not carrying that practically a dozen characters were eaten moments earlier.

Part of this wreck is not Trevorrow's fault. There was a profound sense of awe with that first movie, but then with each and every subsequent installment in the franchise, there was less and less. But had Trevorrow and his visual effects team used the same restraint and lack of color grading that was used in 1993, I think "Jurassic World" would have been much better. Its story and actors try to fill the gap. The world of "Jurassic World" is one in which the idea of living, breathing dinosaurs is no longer a novelty but a bore. Jurassic World is an amusement park much like Sea World, featuring roughly 20,000 visitors a day. Irrfan Khan plays the new owner, a billionaire so irresponsible he not only demands his scientists make bigger and meaner dinosaurs but also personally takes a helicopter out to do battle with the dinosaurs wrecking his park. The park's operations director is played by Bryce Dallas Howard, and she, too, is not very responsible, sharing the concerns that closing the park would be the end of the company. Finally, there's Vincent D'Onofrio, who's just as good a villain here as he is on Netflix's "Daredevil." D'Onofrio plays the hawkish security chief who believes that InGen, the corporation featured in most of the films, could use these animals for war purposes.

None of them seem to heed any of the advice of Owen Grady (Chris Pratt), an animal trainer for the park who seems to be one of the few adults in the room. Pratt has continued to show that he can carry a film as an action lead and do so with humor as well. At one point, Grady gets into an argument with Howard's character, Claire Dearing, who needs Grady's help finding her nephews after a dinosaur breaks out. She insists that he track the boys' footprints or scent. "I was with the navy," he barks, "not the Navajo!" But while I could appreciate the humor of Pratt, I found his character's situations so unfathomably stupid. Grady works for the park training the Velociraptors and actually leads them into battle against the Indominus, a genetically-mutated dinosaur that is terrorizing the island (and looks unbelievably stupid). At one point, Grady and Dearing take a moment to break from shooting at the Pterodactyls flying around chewing on their fellow human beings so that they can smooch. I think if the talking raptor from "Jurassic Park III" had made an appearance, it would have been more believable than any of this junk.  

There are still other fine performances here. Omar Sy appears here as a fellow trainer of Grady's; you may have seen Sy in the international French hit, "The Intouchables." It's also interesting to see Wong return, and his role this time is much more interesting that his small appearance in "Jurassic Park." And really, at the heart of this movie are the two boys who are sent to visit their aunt Claire, who is too busy to spend time with them and sends them to explore the park with her assistant. They are played by Ty Simpkins (whom you might recognize from the "Insidious" movies) and Nick Robinson as the older brother, more interested in girls than dinosaurs, and who is particularly annoyed by babysitting his brother. Simpkins in particular is very good here. The two boys become aware that their parents are getting a divorce, and this understandably troubles the younger one. It made me think that Spielberg, whose films often feature a child's relationship to his father, insisted that the moment be included here. But that's another flaw of "Jurassic World": there are some real moments that work well with the human characters, but there are zero interesting moments featuring dinosaurs.

I think back again to that day as a six-year-old in 1993. Children are arguably the best audience members; they possess no prejudice towards movies. It doesn't matter if it's a black-and-white film, or whether or not it's in sound, or whether or not the language is a language they understand and use. To most children, particularly younger ones, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park" can be just as exciting and thrilling as "The Lost World," the 1925 silent adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's work. Certainly the young boy two rows behind me who wouldn't shut up the entire time found "Jurassic World" to be quite good fun. But it's the parents of these children who have a duty to find their young ones better movies to watch. My advice: if you have children, show them "Jurassic Park," and then lie to them and say that there were no sequels.

Dedicated to Carrie and Eileen.

Read More →

Guardians of the Galaxy

I don't think I ever anticipated nodding my head along to "I Want You Back" while watching a Marvel Comics film set in space. But there I was, doing such a thing. In what is one of the most joyous scenes in the film, the audience seemed to be filled with happiness as...well, it's best left unexplained for now. Just watch it, and I hope you will smile.

The movie opens with the unearthly "I'm Not in Love." Then, we see a man in an "Iron Giant"-like mask, walking around a barren, rainy planet. When he reaches his destination, he removes the helmet--it's Chris Pratt, in our first scene with him. He puts on some headphones and starts dancing to "Come and Get Your Love." Pratt, who explained that "acting is already embarrassing," not only has pretty good moves but really seems to be enjoying himself.

This is a Marvel movie, right?

It is. I have disliked many of the other Marvel films (especially "Iron Man" and "The Avengers") so much that I had low expectations for "Guardians of the Galaxy." But it's a great summer film, and a great soundtrack certainly helps it. Director James Gunn has described his approach to the music of the film as "holistic," and he played them on set during film. But a great soundtrack only takes you so far--comedy can help tremendously, as well. At another point in the movie, our stars Pratt and Zoe Saldana are (about to) dance to Elvin Bishop's "Fooled Around and Fell in Love." In that scene, Gamora (Saldana) mentions that she is an assassin and therefore doesn't dance. "Really?" is his response. "Well, on my planet, we have a legend for people like you. It's called 'Footloose.' And in it, a great hero, named Kevin Bacon, teaches an entire city full of people with sticks up their butts that dancing, well, is the greatest thing there is." (Bacon was amused.) Dave Batista plays Drax the Destroyer, a chiseled prisoner who seeks revenge for the death of his family. Drax is of an alien species that, we are told, is a literal one--one that has no understanding of metaphors. But Drax disagrees. "Nothing goes over my head...My reflexes are too fast. I would catch it."

But the film's best comedy team is Bradley Cooper and Vin Diesel. Cooper has shown that he can do comedy just as easily as he can do drama (and sometimes, as is the case with "Silver Linings Playbook" and "American Hustle," he does both simultaneously). Here, he provides the majority of the film's laughs. He plays Rocket, the Han Solo character, but he's also a genetically altered, walking/talking/hissing raccoon. When we first meet him, he and his partner Groot are after a bounty for Peter Quill (Pratt), who incidentally prefers to be called Star-Lord (which is a corny name, but of course, so is Luke Skywalker). They try to catch Quill, who is being pursued by Gamora, and the four of them engage in a fairly exciting chase. Groot is voiced by Vin Diesel. What I was frequently reminding myself of while watching "Guardians of the Galaxy" was the famous story of how Bela Lugosi didn't want the title role of Frankenstein in 1931 because of the character's lack of dialogue. So the role went to Boris Karloff, who was then an unknown. So why would Diesel, who is a major star and has appeared in films as varied as "Saving Private Ryan" and the "Fast" series, want a role in which his only line is saying "I am Groot"? Well, think about it: Diesel has had quite the challenge before him. He has had to create arguably the most complex character in the film while only getting out three words consecutively. Diesel has also offered a much more interesting reason: his life since the death of his friend and co-star Paul Walker. Diesel appreciated how "Guardians of the Galaxy" allowed him to play a character who celebrates life in such a manner. Indeed, he is the spark of many of the most heartfelt moments in the movie. He's the only pure, innocent character. In one scene, he sacrifices, and in another, he gives a young girl a flower while smiling gently (and doesn't react in a similar fashion as Karloff did in a similar situation in "Frankenstein"), all while uttering in a simple fashion "I am Groot." So there's emotional weight here in the film. This is a story about friendship, camaraderie and reconciliation.

There's plenty to not like about "Guardians of the Galaxy." I'm not sure why some of the modern high-budget movies like the "Pirates of the Caribbean" series and the new "Planet of the Apes" movies look so fantastic but it's always the Marvel Studios movies that look like a mess. As Todd VanDerWerff pointed out in Vox, this movie is at its best when it's not a Marvel movie, calling it fun but frustratingly typical. But otherwise, it's quite a worthwhile movie-watching experience, especially to see such performances. Pratt really is a joy here. Rob Lowe was likely on to something when he called Pratt the "future of movie stars." Pratt will also appear in the new "Jurassic Park" film next year. Saldana now is the queen of franchises after also appearing in the "Star Trek" films and "Avatar." (She also appeared in the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" film but apparently had a miserable experience.) It's not simply our main cast who are exceptional in their roles. While Glenn Close and John C. Reilly, as a politician and police officer respectively, are disappointingly underused, Lee Pace (whom you might recognize--though he looks completely different--from "The Hobbit" films) and Karen Gill are quite good as the villains. For another entertaining scene, there's Benecio Del Toro in one of his best performances in years. Nearly stealing the show is Michael Rooker as Yondu, a blue-skinned bandit good-guy/bad-guy who can easily take out a host of adversaries while whistling.

I really don't think I've had so much fun at the movies in a long time. The audience applauded at the end. It's moments like those when I am reminded of what an experience the cinema is. And I got to watch space scoundrels dancing to the Jackson 5. Can't beat that.

Read More →