Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

I guess we should get all the obvious stuff out of the way first. Is it as good as the first one? Is it as fun? Is it darker? I'd say, "Yes!" Alright guys, thanks for reading. That's the entire review.

Seriously though, it's easy to say that Ultron isn't as good as The Avengers. Clearly some of the "wow" factor is gone due to the fact that we've gotten past the idea of even seeing all of these guys on screen together, and a (finally) good Hulk. Ultron does seem less fun somehow, despite having as many one liners.

I feel like Ultron is more of the continuing adventures of The Avengers. An extended Saturday morning cartoon. Ultron has the advantage of familiarity, so we can focus on developing the characters and giving more screen time to people not named Thor or Iron Man.

There's a bit of sequelitis here, with bigger action sequences and the typical raising of the stakes. It is a little darker in tone, but that's probably not a surprise to anyone.

A lot of people seem to forget that the first 40 minutes or so of The Avengers was kinda boring. Not much happens. In Ultron, no time is wasted getting to the action, and there are at least 3-4 extended fighting scenes. There are a few times where there's too much going on, and I would imagine that it would be harder to track it all in 3D. I skipped on the 3D, but will likely check it out on IMAX in the next week or so.

I loved the new additions to the cast, particularly James Spader's voice work as Ultron. For the comic purists, there are few things that'll probably irritate you, but I try not to focus on that kind of stuff anymore.

I hear that Whedon's original cut of this was over 3 hours long and that we're going to get an extended cut with an alternate ending when it comes out on Blu-Ray. I cannot wait for that. I'll probably watch Ultron more on Blu-Ray than I do The Avengers.

So, yeah, I liked it. A lot! If you're a fan, go see it. If you're not, why are you reading this in the first place?

4.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Robocop (2014)

You can count me among the people that weren't looking forward to this Robocop remake. Nothing against the cast or anyone involved, but I love Robocop. Like many of you, I'm growing tired of all the remakes and reboots, and if there was any film that didn't need a remake, it was Robocop.

That's not to say a remake couldn't be good though. There have been some good ones, but there's been some really, really bad ones. Fortunately, this new Robocop falls somewhere in the middle. While it won't make anyone forget the original, it stands up as a solid, but flawed, action film. It's far from the trainwreck I feared it would be.

A word of warning, while I'll avoid spoilers as best I can, there are certain elements I'll be bringing up in comparing the two. If you haven't seen the original by now, then shame on you.

From the opening moments, this has a much different setup and tone. Outside of a few main points, there's not that many similarities to the original story. OmniCorp (OCP) has been supplying robot soldiers that are deployed overseas, and have been successful in decreasing confrontation. They want to bring this to the US, but due to something called the Dreyfuss Act, robot soldiers are outlawed. Despite their efficiency, they aren't trusted by the public to deal with the human aspects of law enforcement. The CEO of OmniCorp, Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) decides that a cyborg police officer can be sold to the American public, bridging that gap and allowing them to overcome public opinion. Candidates are selected by lead scientist Dr. Norton (Gary Oldman), and it's just a matter of waiting for someone to "volunteer".

Meanwhile, Detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) and his partner Jack Lewis (Michael K. Williams) are tracking down a local crime boss, Antoine Vallon (Patrick Garrow). After an attempt to get Vallon fails, Murphy is targeted by Vallon and severely hurt by a car bomb. His only chance for survival is the Robocop program, and his wife (Abbie Cornish) gives her consent to save him.

This was one of the aspects I was concerned about. In the original, Murphy dies and his mind is wiped. One of the main themes is Murphy remembering things about his past life, and slowing regaining some part of his identity and humanity. In this remake, Murphy remembers all details about his life. Everyone seems to be aware of the fact that he's alive, and not many are surprised to see him as a cyborg, as if it's not that big of a deal. He struggles a bit with what was done to him, but gets over it pretty quickly. I also found it odd that they mentioned a few times publicly that he had died. If you're trying to gain the public trust, do you want that face of that to be someone that's been brought back to life? Just say he was severely hurt in the line of duty and OmniCorp technology allowed him to resume his duties, only better. Otherwise people might think he's some kind of cyborg zombie.

Also, his identity can't be in doubt when he has a retractable mask that doesn't obscure his face. I thought the new mask and exposed human hand were going to bug me, but in the context of the film it works. Without it explicitly being stated, you can tell it was a conscious choice by OmniCorp to give him more of a human look to identify with the public. At times he simply looks like a guy in fancy tactical armor.

The aspect of regaining his humanity is replaced with one regarding the concept of free will, when it's revealed the Murphy's brain has been altered, so that he's not always in control of his actions, even though he thinks he is. There are also some interesting themes though regarding media and political manipulation. It's very serious, which leads to probably the biggest problem with the remake: it's too serious. When talking to a few random folks after the film, one consistent complaint was the lack of funny commercials from the original. It's missing the all the campy satire and goofy lines. While there are a few funny parts, this isn't a film I would call fun.

Another issue I had is the lack of a strong villain. The original gave us the awesome Clarence Boddicker, played perfectly by Kurtwood Smith. His performance is still quoted to this day. There's really no central villain in the current film. Antoine Vallon is totally underdeveloped and you never feel any consistent threat from him. He's practically an afterthought halfway through the film. The lack of a central villain is made worse by a very sloppy and rushed conclusion that felt like it was improvised as they went along. It's so poorly conceived that it almost ruins all the good things setup in the first half of the film. This is the weakest aspect of Joshua Zetumer's screenplay. It seems odd that they would try to reboot a franchise with someone's first screenplay. It would have been a good idea to bring in a veteran screenwriter to punch up the script and come up with a better ending.

I was happy they didn't shoehorn a bunch of references and quotes from the original. The updated, original theme song was a nice touch.

The effects are good for the most part, but there are a few times where Robocop looks a little too much like a CG creation, especially in some of the bigger action sequences. With all the black on black, you can't always make out what's going on. There were a few creative scenes though, and it always cool to see Robocop taking out bad guys. I've never seen any of director Jose Padilha's other films, but he seems to have a good handle on action.

There were a few times where I had a hard time telling if Kinnaman was in a suit or some CG/green suit creation. It's just not the same as seeing Peter Weller in a big ass robot suit, and you lose some that tangible quality. On a side note, I've always heard stories about how Peter Weller worked so hard on making his moves robotic that directors in other works had to remind him to stop walking like a robot or turning at 90 degrees.

Robocop boasts a very strong cast and is well acted across the board. As much as I like Joel Kinnaman as Holder on The Killing, I wasn't sure if he was the right choice for Robocop. He showed some surprising emotional range and he did a good job overall. It was nice to see a different side of him. Gary Oldman was his dependable self always classes any film up. Michael Keaton was a welcome sight after what seems like years and years of not seeing him in anything. Kind of an inspired casting, but he did well. I'd like to see him in more roles like this. I also thought Abbie Cornish did a good job. She's always come of as kind of flat in other roles, but I actually thought she was really showing some emotion this time.

Samuel Jackson has the most fun as Fox News type television show host. He has some of the few genuine laughs of the film. These were also some of the parts I also though were the most interesting, as his character was attempting to use his show to sway public opinion.

As it's PG-13, there's very little blood, no nudity, and very little swearing I could recall. I think it's suitable for teens though.

It doesn't have the same fun or subversive satire of the original, but the Robocop remake manages to be a solid action flick. It's well acted, has good special effects, and outside of a messy conclusion, is smarter than expected. If you can get past the aversion to remakes, and go in with an open mind, I don't think you'll be that disappointed. It's worth a matinee.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Oldboy (2013)

I wasn't quite sure what to make of Spike Lee's remake of Oldboy at first.  I've seen the South Korean original by Chan-wook Park many times and it's a favorite of mine.  Was I going to be able to watch this remake objectively?  I'm not the biggest fan of remakes either, but if there's one instance where it's not always a bad thing is when doing an American version of a foreign film.  You can address issues with the story that may be cultural or lost in translation.  Really the biggest problem with a remake of Oldboy is that it features some significant twists and disturbing story elements, so all the shock and surprise is gone for anyone that's seen the original.  I tried looking at the remake from the perspective of someone that's never seen it before, and I think that's where Oldboy does work on some level.

After a night of massive drinking, Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin) finds himself locked in what appears to be a hotel room.  He's unable to escape and there's no explanation as to why he's there.  After 20 years goes by, he's finally released still not knowing why.  Joe's out for vengeance and discovering why this was done to him.  He's befriended by a nurse, Marie (Elizabeth Olsen), who agrees to help him after learning his story.  Eventually a mysterious man (Sharlto Copley) reveals himself as his captor and issues Joe a challenge to discover his real identity and why he imprisoned and tortured him.  There's much more to the story than that, but I wanna try and keep this spoiler free for you folks out there that aren't familiar with it.

There are several changes between the two versions.  As you'd might suspect, many of these changes don't add much to the story, and some serve to hand hold the audience through the film a bit more. There's a little more lead up in this version where we see more of Joe's work and personal behavior prior to his imprisonment.  It's absolutely clear what kind of person he was.  I didn't think this change was really necessary (the scene of Joe's bender goes on way too long), but it did allow them to show more growth from Joe while imprisoned.  There's a change to the villain's back story which I felt made his motivation less sympathetic and much creepier.  A minor change that felt like it may have been cultural was that the length of Joe's imprisonment was increased from 15 to 20 years.  Again, without trying to spoil anything, this ages a certain character to make their profession and relationship to Joe a little more believable.  One change I did like was at the end.  The original version has an ambiguous, artsy ending, where this version has more of a full circle feel.  I liked the finality of it.

One of the more obvious differences that was likely done to appeal to US audiences is that it's extremely bloody and violent, even more so than the original.  The violence is even a little Tarantino-esque.  The infamous "hammer scene" was changed up to make it more action oriented.  In the original, it's more about the character becoming a force of nature, where in Spike Lee's version it felt more like an obligatory action scene because nobody had been killed in a while.  It's over-choreographed (in some cases badly) and changed to have multiple floors, making it feel more like a video game.

Overall, it's paced well though, and I never found myself bored with it despite knowing exactly how it was going to turn out.  While it doesn't have the same aesthetic as the original, Spike Lee put his own style on it and I thought there were some creative looking scenes.

Oldboy does feature some strong performances.  Josh Brolin is very good at portraying the mental transformation of Joe, and even goes through a physical transformation as he molded himself into a force of vengeance.  Elizabeth Olsen is also good as Marie and I though her performance and changes to her character was one of the distinct improvements over the original.  Again, some of these changes seemed to be cultural, which is likely why I feel that way.  Unfortunately, one performance that definitely was not an improvement was Sharlto Copley's choices as The Stranger.  He's way over-the-top in that bad, mustache-twirling, Bond villain way.  It seems he may have spent a little too much time at the Evil Villain Academy.  It's almost comical how over-the-top it is, but since this wasn't made to be a campy film, it really undermines the seriousness of it.  You can contrast that with Samuel L. Jackson's small role as Chaney, which was also a little over-the-top (is there a Jackson performance that isn't?), but had an element of fun to it.

If you haven't yet seen the original, or you're someone that doesn't have the patience for subtitles, then I think you'll enjoy Oldboy for the dark, twisted and violent thriller it is.  Fans of the original, however, will likely find that it doesn't add anything new to the story.  Much of the nuance and subtlety is gone, and Spike Lee's version is more of a telegraphed punch.  Even for existing fans, I think it's worth a rent just to compare the two, but it's nothing that anyone needs to rush out and see in the theater.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars

Django Unchained (2012) - Movie Review

Bounty hunters, we don't need their scum.

A former dentist turned bounty hunter, Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz), is in pursuit of a trio of slave trading brothers.  He frees a slave named Django (Jamie Foxx), as Schultz believes Django can help identify the brothers. The unchaining and the adventure begins.  Django and Schultz hit it off and Schultz takes a special interest in Django once he tells him the story of how he was separated from his wife Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). Schultz makes a deal with Django to become his partner in bounty hunting for the winter and then he'll set Django free and help him find Broomhilda.

I'm often reminded of another tale of a bounty hunter named Jango, who was a simple man just trying to make his way in the universe.  I don't recall what happened to Jango, but I heard he lost his head over something a long, long time ago.  I heard Samuel L. Jackson was somehow involved.

Back to the unchaining.  They eventually track down Broomhilda, and learn she's been purchased by a plantation owner, Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio).  They travel to his plantation, Candieland, to free her.  I hear Candieland was located next to Chutes and Laddersville.  Here's where the movie got a little odd for me, as their plan to free Broomhilda seemed needlessly complex.  When their plan is uncovered Candie still agrees to sell Broomhilda and seemed more upset about their deception.  I thought this was the one real weakness of Quentin Tarantino's story.

Another issue was the massive use of the 'n word'.  I expected to hear it from time to time considering the period and subject of the film.  I figured that's how slavers spoke, but it's said like every other second and by just about every character.  I can see this being really offensive to some, especially when it's used for comedic effect.  It was kind of shocking to hear it said, but then it's said so much that you almost become desensitized to it, which isn't a good thing.

The good news is that Django Unchained has that brutal, over-the-type violence you've come to expect from Tarantino.  One of the things I really appreciated about this was the lack of CG blood. It just has a better feel and I have a more visceral reaction when they use blood packs, and believe me, they use a lot of them.  It's the one area where I wish filmmakers would abandon use of computer animation.  Tarantino also understands how to use the anticipation of violence to build tension.  The longer the movie goes on, the more you keep expecting something to happen suddenly.  There's a great scene near the end of the film with Leonardo DiCaprio where the whole time I was expecting something to explode.

You also get much of Tarantino's off-kilter humor throughout the film.  Despite the overuse of the 'n-word', Tarantino is still a great dialog writer, which has always driven his films.  There's great chemistry between all of the actors.  Christoph Waltz is fantastic!  In relatively short period of time, Waltz has become one of my favorite actors and I love watching how much fun he he's having with role.  Dr. Schultz a flair for the dramatic, and you see he even has a code he follows.  I was kind of worried that Jamie Foxx was going to be the weak link, but he played off Waltz well and I really enjoyed the character.  I feared he was just going to try to play a bad-ass without any nuance about it, but turns out I haven't been giving him enough credit as an actor.  Leonardo DiCaprio infused some life into the second half of the film with his awesome portrayal of Calvin Candie.  He's a mustache-twirling villain if I've ever seen one.  There's never a moment where you don't see that he's a sick, evil man.  It's always more entertaining to watch a film when you can tell all the actors are really into their roles and having a blast with them.

It's interesting to me how a lot of Tarantino's films are tributes older film styles.  He clearly wanted make an old fashioned spaghetti western, and at times that's exactly what it is, just with Tarantino's flair.  I always look forward to seeing what genre or era he's taking on next.  Another recent trend of his is that the length of his films are coming dangerously close to getting out of control.  I didn't mind the length of Django Unchained, since I was entertained the whole time, but there were certainly scenes here and there that could have been removed or tightened up.  At 165 minutes, it felt like he either needed to cut it down, or split it into two films like he did with Kill Bill.

Whether you're a fan of old westerns or Quentin Tarantino, you should enjoy Django Unchained. It's definitely a little too long, and some might find it offensive, but if you can get past that, it's a fun ride with great performances and the type of humor and violence you've come to expect from Tarantino.  I strongly recommend checking it out.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars

Meeting Evil (2012) - Movie Review

Nick Fury swaps his eye patch for a fedora and a murderous rampage.

Meeting Evil features Luke Wilson as John, a just-fired real estate agent.  To make matters worse, he's in bad shape financially and pretty miserable, snapping at his wife Joanie (Leslie Bibb) and kids for surprising him on his birthday.  Wait a second, their names are John and Joanie?  Seriously?  Oh boy...that's a double date you find an excuse to skip.

There's a knock at the door and it's Richie (Samuel L. Jackson), a stranger who's car stalled and needs a push.  Even though he's just asking for help, there's something creepy about Richie, and we all know how Richie is a name that just inspires fear.  Also, the way John is reacting to him seems unusual as well.  John is injured while pushing the car and Richie offers to take him to the hospital, which John reluctantly agrees to.

They take a detour at a bar were John runs into his mistress, Tammy (Peyton List).  John might be miserable, but I'd be pretty happy if I was sleeping with both Leslie Bibb and Peyton List.  Anyway, from there they all head off together where Richie continues to detour them, saying cryptic things that put John and Tammy on edge.  Things take a turn for the worse when Richie kills someone in front of them and becomes increasing psychotic.  Richie leads them on a murderous rampage with John essentially his hostage, even though he had multiple opportunities to escape (Tammy is able to get away) or subdue Richie.

Why is Richie killing all these people?  He's obviously a psychopath, but he makes statements about not being a bad guy, lack of common courtesy and only killing people that have given up.  You think there might be something beneath the surface of it all, but there isn't really.  Most of the killing happens off screen, and many times you aren't even aware he's killed someone until well after the fact.  The movie is largely bloodless as well, so it's very tame for a movie about murder.  As a result, you never feel any tension.

When Richie's real intentions are revealed, it's a disappointing let down with an even more disappointing climax.  Based on the premise there's so many interesting places they could have taken this film; like having John, already in a downward spiral from losing his job and marital issues, being forced by Richie to join in the murders and eventually enjoying them as he continues to break down mentally.   For most of the film, I was expecting Richie to eventually reveal himself as some kind of demon or devil in human form that just reveled in the carnage.  That wasn't the case either.

This was based on a book by Thomas Berger, which I hear was more of a character study that the movie should have been.  The screenplay by Chris Fisher, who also directed, seems to have lost any of those qualities and made this into a pretty generic thriller.  This wasn't a good effort on his part. This felt like something that could have been a TV movie.

Meeting Evil is overacted to the max with pretty bad and inconsistent dialog throughout the movie, especially from the supporting characters.  There are some exchanges that end up being unintentionally hilarious.  As mentioned earlier, there's never any real tension and the pacing of the movie really drags.  I was shocked after finishing this to see that it wasn't even 90 minutes.

I hate to pick on the guy, but what happened to Luke Wilson?  After movies like Old School and Idiocracy, I thought he's be a superstar by now, but if you take a look at his filmography, he's been in a series of terrible movies.  He really felt like he was phoning it in here, alternating between whispering his dialog and shouting it. Samuel L. Jackson, on the other hand, seemed like he was having a lot of fun playing Richie, but it's always more fun to play the mysterious bad guy.

There are many distracting things in the movie, like casting two young actors to play John and Joanie's kids that look nothing like one another, let alone look anything like their parents.  They even seemed to be different ethnicities.  As neither kid had a single line of dialog, their presence seemed completely unnecessary to the film.  Speaking of unnecessary, there were two cops that would show up from time to time that also just didn't do anything for the movie and everything they did felt very amateurish.  Lastly, Peyton List seemed wasted here as well.  Early on, she's struck by Richie and has blood on her forehead, but she never wipes it off even though hours have passed and you last see her in the police station.  Nobody attends to her injuries there?

Does these people look related to each other?

I had high hopes based on the cast, but Meeting Evil is just not a good movie.  It's overacted, over-directed and doesn't go anywhere interesting after the promising setup.  Plus, it wastes a Nicholas Cage-like performance from Samuel L. Jackson.  It's a mess and just kind of ridiculous.  This isn't something I can really recommend unless you like watching bad movies.

1.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

The Avengers (2012) - Movie Review

All hail to the House of Whedon!  He is your new master now!  Just give him the keys to the Mavel Universe and step away.  For the second time in a month, I've seen a movie by Joss Whedon that I can't talk too much about as to not spoil it.  Joss, stop making great movies, so I can talk shit about them!

The Avengers was one of those movies that I never actually thought would happen, let alone work on any level.  How are you going to combine all of the characters and what they've established in several films and it not be a mess?  Well, they managed to pull it off.  It is the definitive superhero team-up movie.  The JLA is on notice!

Having said that, The Avengers does require that you have seen the previous Marvel films.  You don't necessarily have to have them memorized, but at least be familiar with what happened in Iron Man 1 and 2, Captain America, Thor, and to a lesser extent, The Incredible Hulk.  Then again, I can't imagine anyone looking forward to this movie that hasn't already seen those.

The basic story is that Thor's brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), has recruited an army that he plans on using to dominate Earth.  Early in the movie he's able to steal the Tesseract, also known as the Cosmic Cube (which you've see in both Captain America and Thor), from S.H.I.E.L.D.  He needs the Tesseract to open a portal to bring his army here.  In order to stop Loki, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), reactivates the Avengers initiative.  That's pretty much it.  You've got your villain, you've got your conflict, so assemble the team and fight, right?

The Avengers actually started off kind of slow and for a bit I was worried that maybe it wasn't going to live up to the type.  At 2 hours and 22 minutes, there's a lot they trying to roll up from the previous films and at the same time add depth to some of the newer characters, so the length of the film is forgivable.  Once it hits about the hour mark, it really takes off and becomes a roller coaster ride.  I really can't describe it in words without prattling off a bunch of adjectives.  You just have to experience it.

While I think the weak point of the film were the enemies The Avengers face off against, I did think Tom Hiddleston was great as Loki.  He's just so cold and slimy and Hiddleston seemed to have fun with the role.  Loki is more of the type of villain that will get in your head or get you to argue with your friends, only to look back at him with big grin on his face, satisfied with himself for manipulating you.

There were a couple of fights that had a little too much shaky cam, but that's a nitpick.  I really can't fault anything else with the the movie.

Chris Evans, Robert Downey Jr., and Chris Hemsworth are all back as Captain America, Iron Man and Thor, respectively.  They play their characters with the same effort and style that they did in their own movies, so there's no disconnect when watching The Avengers and wondering why a character's tone is suddenly different.  Despite the large cast, nobody was giving an effort like they didn't want to be there or were upset with a diminished role.

The real surprises here were Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye, and especially Mark Ruffalo as Bruce Banner.  Not so much with their acting, as we all know what they are capable of, but it's how they fleshed out their characters.  Like many, I wasn't too impressed with how Black Widow looked compared to guys like Thor and Iron Man.  What's she going to do with a handgun, when you have the might of the Hulk standing next to her?  They successfully turned her into a badass.  It's the same with Hawkeye.  He's a character I've never had any interest in, but again, they showed you why he deserves to be on the team.  Initially, I was nervous about yet another recasting of Bruce Banner, but ultimately, I think Ruffalo's portrayal as Banner is the best we've seen so far.

Speaking of the Hulk, this is easily the best the Hulk has ever looked on camera!  In Eric Bana's Hulk, he was too big and blocky; in Ed Norton's The Incredible Hulk, he was too ripped, but they got the perfect balance of the two this time around.  I don't want to spoil anything, but this is the Hulk movie you've been waiting for.  The best moments in the movie belong to him and he's simply awesome!

The Avengers is a team effort though and once the action gets going they really capture that dynamic well.  Captain America falls into his natural leadership role and everyone has their part to play.  You have to credit writer/director Joss Whedon, who's used to working with large ensemble casts.  He was able to balance everything out well.  They even gave some depth to some of the side characters like Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) and Agent Colson (Clark Gregg).  They stand out and they get to have their moments.  I can't mention everyone, but you get to see many side characters from the previous Avengers-related films pop up.  No Happy Hogan though.  He's too busy producing.

As you'd expect from Joss Whedon, The Avengers is funny and has that witty banter you've come to enjoy in his work.  The story was co-written by Zak Penn, who's also wrote The Incredible Hulk, X2 and several other (lesser) Marvel comic films, so I think his involvement helped with the consistency of the Marvel Universe.  While there's the great action and humor, there's also some more human moments that I actually felt were kind of touching.  There's definitely more going on here than just popcorn fluff.

As it was shot in 3D, the 3D looked great and this is one of the few times I'd recommend seeing this in 3D or especially on IMAX, which I did and thought it was awesome!

Oh, stay until the end of the credits.  The very end...

The Avengers could have been a disaster, but it ends up being easily the best Marvel film and second only to The Dark Knight as far as superhero movies goes.  Joss Whedon managed to make me feel like a kid again, without making a movie that's for kids.  It's action packed, funny and everything you want your summer blockbusters to be.  It's the comic book fan's dream!  This is going to be in my top ten favorites of the year, so I'm not even going to pretend otherwise.

5 (out of 5) Death Stars!!