Forcing Humor Undermines Thor: Ragnarok

The Good: Hela and Heimdall have interesting arcs, One or two performance moments
The Bad: Forced humor, Simplistic plot, Obvious plot reversals, Light on character development, Special effects are surprisingly mediocre
The Basics: Thor: Ragnarok takes a surprisingly serious premise for a fantasy/action movie and undermines almost all of it with forced attempts at humor that often fall flat.


There is no real purpose in an American reviewer reviewing a Marvel Cinematic Universe film anymore. By the time a Marvel Studios film is released in the United States, it has been out in theaters in other countries for at least two weeks and die-hard fans who want spoilers have a tendency to look up the foreign press reviews while American reviewers are embargoed from publishing their reviews. So, when Thor: Ragnarok was released in theaters in the United States, I did not rush right out to see it. Instead, I waited for the first surge crowd to dissipate and then I saw the film a few days later. All of this in spite of me being generally psyched about Thor: Ragnarok from the latest preview trailers.

It was not long into Thor: Ragnarok, though, that I became certain that the best moments of the film had been put into the film's trailer. The big reveal of the Hulk was certainly gutted by the preview trailers, but what surprised me most was how much of the film's sense of menace was undermined by the near-constant attempts at humor. Ironically, the film's funniest moment was virtually buried by the reaction to the joke prior to it (in the full theater I was in, I found myself as the only one laughing when Tom Hiddleston's reaction shot - which was, admittedly, entirely dependent upon viewer's seeing The Avengers - at a key moment was focused on for too brief a moment after one of Chris Hemsworth's well-spoiled lines).

Thor: Ragnarok is a conceptual failure and one suspects after the hype for the film dies down, more and more fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be able to admit that the film is a painfully forced bridge movie. Despite the constant menace to Asgard, most of Thor: Ragnarok is actually about reconciling the final moments of Thor: The Dark World (reviewed here!) and re-integrating The Hulk and Thor into the narrative after the events of The Avengers: Age Of Ultron (reviewed here!). And to accomplish those rather simple goals, Thor meanders through his own film making dull jokes while the compelling original elements of Thor: Ragnarok are largely neglected.

The concept of Ragnarok is the end of the world, which in Thor: Ragnarok is supposed to come in the form of Surtur. So, in one of the few remarkably sensible plot points for Thor: Ragnarok, the first thing Thor does is kill Surtur and steal his magical helm so he cannot fulfill the prophecy of Ragnarok and destroy Asgard. Unfortunately, the menace of Ragnarok hangs over Asgard, but is quickly swept aside by a bevy of jokes that fall flat.

Thor, who had figured out how to prevent the prophesied end of Asgard had also already figured out that Odin had been replaced by Loki. But, alas, the big emotional moment of Thor somehow realizing that Loki is both still alive and has weakened Asgard's place in the Nine Realms through his decadence is not actually in Thor: Ragnarok. Thor and Loki take a brief trip to Earth where they search for Odin who promptly dies (or dies enough so that Asgard is now helpless).

And helpless Asgard is to the first-born of Odin, Hela: the Godess Of Death. Hela makes an excellent entrance, announcing herself to Thor and Loki and enlisting arguably the worst, most dimwitted d-rate sidekick villain of all time in the form of Scourge (poor Karl Urban!). Hela then immediately begins a campaign to take over Asgard and at this point, Thor: Ragnarok makes its fatal narrative divergence. Hela inadvertently knocks Thor and Loki out of Asgard by shoving them out of the Einstein-Rosenberg Bridge teleport. When that happens, Thor and Loki go on a grand comedic adventure and Hela and Heimdall are left holding the bag on the vastly more interesting and compelling Ragnarok plot.

Hela is an instantly intriguing villain and Cate Blanchett does the best she can with the material she is given for the firstborn of Odin. Hela reveals that Odin built Asgard on genocide and conquest, with Hela herself as Odin's executioner. The idea that something grand had some truly sinister origins is a distinctly American idea, yet the U.S. gets Thor: Ragnarok after most of the rest of the world. And in Thor: Ragnarok, the horror of how Odin built his empire is not given time within the narrative for reflection or emotional consequences for the characters. Instead, when Thor gets around to trying to stop Hela, he does so without any reflection on how his father betrayed him by not telling him the truth and/or making a philosophical argument to Hela that Odin evolved beyond his need for violence and conquest. Sadly, Thor: Ragnarok is all fisticuffs and little philosophy, which is truly disappointing because the inherent conflict between Hela and Heimdall is a compelling one.

Heimdall spends Thor: Ragnarok as a fugitive. He creates an underground railroad intended to save as many of the Asgardians as he possibly can from being murdered by Hela and her army of the undead. Heimdall does what he can to avoid direct conflict with Hela - despite the fact that the Asgardians are being hunted because of him and his theft of the sword that unlocks the bifrost - and instead concerns himself with actually trying to save Asgard. Heimdall is, easily, the smartest character in Thor: Ragnarok as he attempts to get people out of the way of the Goddess Of Death as opposed to *snicker* trying to find a way to kill her.

Seriously, when Thor comes back to Asgard and starts hacking and stabbing at Hela, the sequence is about as ridiculous as Wonder Woman trying to subdue the god of war by fighting him physically in Wonder Woman (reviewed here!). The Goddess Of Death cannot, logically, be killed by . . . well, death. Death empowers the Goddess Of Death; her demise would have to come from a nontraditional means, much like the only way to defeat a God Of War would be through creating a lasting peace.

So, while Thor: Ragnarok has the seeds of a great, truly epic, story of the destruction of Asgard and the attempt to save its people, Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost and Taika Waititi instead send Thor and Loki into a comedic adventure on an alien world where they are reunited with the Hulk, meet the last surviving Valyrie (which is an elite fighting order, not an individual character) and meander their way back to Asgard. In the previous Thor films, the humor worked by contrast. Thor encountered humans who had very different views on the world compared to the arrogant God and humor resulted. In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor just runs around making jokes. And he plays them off an often humorless Loki and Bruce Banner, arguably the least funny character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

By the time Thor gets around to trying to interface with the true menace of Ragnarok on Asgard, Thor is a buffoon who is impossible to empathize with who hardly seems up to the task of fighting for his homeland. And given that Thor has lost his hammer and been granted super lightning powers by the time he has to take on Hela, the character the viewer has seen for four prior films is virtually unrecognizable.

For other Marvel Cinematic Universe works, please check out my reviews of:
"Havoc In The Hidden Land" - Inhumans
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase 1 - Avengers Assemble

4/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Lot Of Flash In A Gross, Inhuman World: Ghost In The Shell (A Layman's Review Of The Film!)

The Good: Beautifully-directed, Moments of theme, Last quarter of the film
The Bad: Mediocre acting, Characters who are tough to empathize with, Packed and distracting setting with little emotional connection, Erratic plot development
The Basics: Ghost In The Shell creates a vivid setting, but invests far less on compelling plot and character development, making it a very tough sell for science fiction fans.


I have quite a few genre interests, but the truth is that anime has never been one of my interests. Anime and Cyberpunk have just never had the spark that makes me want to invest completely in the mediums and genres. Despite that, today I decided to watch Ghost In The Shell. When Ghost In The Shell was released many fans of the original anime were offended by the fact that Scarlett Johansson was cast in the lead role of Major. Having no attachment to the source material, that did not bother me.

It is worth noting that going into Ghost In The Shell, I had no prior knowledge of the film's universe, story or characters. As such, this is an ideal review for laypeople who want to know about the movie without an endless series of comparisons to the anime.

In the future, Hanka Robotics is building a military operative with a human brain in a synthetic body - a distinct upgrade from the typical human who is simply augmented by cybernetic technology. Major awakens from a drowning during a terrorist attack inside a synthetic body. Hanka's CEO, Cutter, tells Major's doctor - Ouelet - that he wants Major to join Section 9 and return to work. A year later, Major monitors a Hanka Robotics executive's meeting with the President of the African Federation when the meeting is attacked and everyone she is surveilling is killed. Major's synthetic body is damaged in the process and she returns to the Department Of Defense the next day for a briefing. Osmond was not the only Hanka executive killed the day before and Major and her partner, Batao, go to see Ouelet. Ouelet believes that Major's hallucinations are past sensory data that is processing and she tries to alleviate Major's concerns while she repairs Major's damaged arm. To try to find out where Kuze, the assassin, is, Major volunteers to hack into the murderous geishabot that killed Osmond.

Major is externally hacked during her connection to the geisha, but she completes the process certain she knows where Kuze is. Major and Batao go to a nightclub Kuze is supposed to be at, but they fall into a trap which results in Batao losing his eyes. After Batao is enhanced with new eyes, Dr. Dahlin is killed and Major discovers that the assassin is targeting scientists who worked on a secret project, 2571. The only member of that team still alive is Ouelet and an attempt is made on her life that Major and Batao are able to stop. Section 9 captures the would-be killer and Major finds out Kuze's location from him before he kills himself. Following the next lead, Major learns the truth about Kuze, who was an earlier iteration of the project that created Major. Learning the truths about the project and her own existence leaves Major with an existential crisis and she become targeted by Hanka security.

Ghost In The Shell is a very typical action-adventure conspiracy thriller where the real twist is simply the setting. Every machine in the world is vulnerable to hacking and it seems that Kuze has developed technology that allows humans to be hacked. As a result, everything in Ghost In The Shell is very dirty and carries an undertone of danger to it. The world of Ghost In The Shell is grungy and very uninviting; it is a setting it is hard to imagine living, breathing, humans in.

That said, director Rupert Sanders does an excellent job of creating a very packed setting. Throughout the city of Ghost In The Shell there are massive holograms and there are all sorts of people and droids moving about. Ghost In The Shell is a visually-packed film and Sanders does a decent job of fleshing out the setting to make the dark, filthy world seem very distinct. For all my problems with Ghost In The Shell, the film is beautifully-shot and well-directed.

Despite the technical accomplishments, Ghost In The Shell is so off-putting that it is tough to invest in. The film allows Scarlett Johansson to play completely stiff and passionless and the reason for her ability to act in that fashion only becomes evident in the film's very late portions. That, sadly, is one of the real issues with Ghost In The Shell; an objective viewer will sit through the first three-quarters of the film wondering just why a human brain in an inorganic body would result in such a forced, stiff performance.

As a result, for the bulk of Ghost In The Shell, I found myself more bored than I was intrigued or even entertained. When a viewer sits more amused by how incredibly well Takeshi Kitano fills a niche that Martin Sheen would occupy in an American film than by the plot and characters, there is something seriously lacking in the film. In the case of Ghost In The Shell it is the characters.

Ultimately, Ghost In The Shell is about a woman who has no idea who she is . . . because she has no clue that her identity is not her own. Films with amnesiac characters can be pulled off exceptionally well - Dark City (reviewed here!) leaps instantly to mind - but Ghost In The Shell goes far too long before revealing that Major is not who she thinks she is and it does not satisfactorily explore the speed at which her programming degrades. It seems like Major knows who she is for so long, is told something different and then is rather suddenly not a law enforcement operative at all.

Despite not being overly grabbed by the characters or the pretty generic scientific/government conspiracy plot, Ghost In The Shell executes well the cautionary tale that fans of the original Star Trek will find both enjoyable and familiar; technology is a tool, not our friend. Gene Roddenberry's stories were often obsessively focused on the idea that dependence upon technology will ultimately undermine humanity and that humanity risks becoming enslaved by it. Ghost In The Shell gets around to making a very compelling argument that identity and humanity are dangerously close to becoming lost to corporations whose primary concerns are profit and development. Unfortunately, but the time it does, it is hard to actually care.

For other works with cyborgs and replicants, please check out my reviews of:
Blade Runner
Android Cop
A.I.: Artificial Intelligence

3/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Women Can Be Just As Stupid At Men: The Gospel Of Rough Night.

The Good: Good initial characterizations, Decent performances
The Bad: Not at all funny, Mediocre direction, No big performance moments, Lousy characters
The Basics: Rough Night very quickly illustrates that women can make a movie as terrible as an comedy focused on idiotic men.


When it comes to summer comedies, it is a rare thing for major studios to bother with chasing the female demographic. Come to think of it, Summer Blockbuster Season seldom bothers with women, so when Rough Night was announced, I was actually intrigued. Scarlett Johansson has a tendency to pick good projects, so despite the initial plot of Rough Night sounding like something I would not be inherently drawn toward, I had some faith in it based upon Johansson participating in it. Sadly, Rough Night is one of Scarlett Johansson's big misses on the big screen and it is such a bad film that it is almost enough to make viewers believe that there is an organized conspiracy in the entertainment industry against women. The business of making movies is a business and if movies focused on women, featuring women fail at the box office, it makes a business argument against making films with women for women. So, if there ever were a conspiracy designed to rig the filmmaking business against women, movies like Rough Night would be at the heart of such a plan.

Rough Night is a d-rate rewrite of The Hangover (reviewed here!) with a predominately female cast. Sadly, Rough Night seems significant mostly for the idea that women can make movies that are just as horrible as anything a man can make. This is, sadly, not a milestone one would suspect women would be striving to achieve, but Rough Night reaches for that brass ring and never lets go of it. Unlike something like The Hangover, that managed to be a surprisingly funny and clever summer comedy, Rough Night burns its funniest moment out in the first five minutes and then falls flat for the remaining hour and thirty-six minutes.

In 2006, Jess, Alice, Blair and Frankie are dormmates, where Alice manages to be the first woman to win beer pong against one of the fraternities. Ten years later, Jess is running for the Senate and is planning to get married. Alice reunites the quartet in Miami for Jess's bachelorette party, which she has planned out as a rowdy weekend. Jess's biggest campaign donor loans her a beach house in Miami, made almost entirely of glass, and Alice is irked when Jess's Australian friend Pippa joins the bachelorette party. When Jess wants to poop out for the night, Frankie supplies the women with cocaine, which they do before going out for the night. Returning to the beach house, the women are thrilled when the stripper Frankie found on Craig's List arrives. Unfortunately, when Alice lustily leaps upon the stripper, she knocks him over, killing him.

Freaked out because they were high at the time and do not believe they can go to the authorities with the dead body in the house or dispose of it well (whatwith anyone being able to see in), the women fight over what to do next. When they decide to dump the body in the ocean, the swinging neighbors become an issue. While Blair takes on the neighbors, the others try to dispose of the corpse. But things get even more complicated when a stripper arrives and the nature of the man who was killed comes into question.

Rough Night is not particularly funny, the funniest joke actually comes up early and is related to Jess's political career, more than any of the issues that follow during the bachelorette weekend. At the core of the problems with Rough Night is that the characters are all monotonal and the plot motivates the decisions made in the film more than the characters. Jess is well-established as an aspiring politician, Frankie is a political activist, and Blair is nearing the end of a rough custody battle with her soon-to-be ex-husband. But Frankie has a pretty massive supply of cocaine and betrays her NSA-loathing values by owning a cell phone, Jess is incredibly willing to do cocaine and seems to trust that none of the weekend's activities might make it to social media and ruin her campaign, and none of Blair's friends know that she is getting divorced (which is one of only two elements of characterizations he is given). In other words, the characters are established, but then they act entirely against their initial characterization; they are not growing and developing in the course of Rough Night, their characterizations is simply betrayed.

With much of the humor in Rough Night falling flat and the characters not being particularly well-defined, the predictable nature of the plot arc robs the movie of any lingering entertainment value. Rough Night plods to a pretty obvious end with much of what one expects coming to pass, like the loathing Alice has for Pippa getting resolved and the failed relationship between Blair and Frankie getting rekindled. The acting talents of Scarlett Johansson, Jillian Bell and Ty Burrell are completely wasted in Rough Night given that none of the main performers are given anything that truly stretches their range to do.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect of Rough Night is that the film degenerates into a familiar level of misogyny and violence against women that is pretty common in films that try to blend comedy and violence. One would think that in a comedy intended for women, with female protagonists, perhaps it would avoid scenes with women getting the crap kicked out of them or taken advantage of sexually, but Rough Night treads into the unfortunately banal, familiar, and stupid range that one expects of Summer Blockbuster Season comedies.

It's unfortunate that co-writer and director Lucia Aniello went for the lowbrow instead of the audacious for her big screen, Summer Blockbuster Season debut.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
The Mummy
Wonder Woman
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Baywatch
Alien: Covenant
Guardians Of The Galaxy, Volume 2

2/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Avengers Apart: Captain America: Civil War Lives Up To The Hype!

The Good: Morality, Character moments, Good special effects
The Bad: Very basic plot, Repetitive fights to replace some substantive philosophy moments.
The Basics: The film adaptation of Marvel's Civil War storyline is crowded, but cool, with Captain America: Civil War.


As Summer Blockbuster Season hits, Marvel Comics is in a surprisingly solid position. While I was not overly impressed by Deadpool (reviewed here!), the third season of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. actually appears to be building something legitimate and the release of Captain America: Civil War comes only a few weeks before X-Men: Apocalypse. In the unlikely event that Captain America: Civil War underperforms to its stellar-high expectations, the licenser is insured by the virtual guarantee that X-Men: Apocalypse will satisfy Marvel Comics fans and those who just love a big film full of spectacle. Fortunately, Captain America: Civil War manages to clear the bar on its high expectations and deliver a generally solid story, while setting up the next two big Marvel Cinematic Universe spin-offs (films for Black Panther and Spider-Man set within the MCU).

The irony of Captain America: Civil War is two-fold. First, despite the essential American quality of the film, it - like Star Trek Into Darkness before it - was released internationally before being released in the United States. Hollywood, truly, is dead. Second, Captain America remains a favorite of many Marvel Comics fans who would associate more with rednecks than Bernie Sanders and yet Captain America: Civil War makes an argument very firmly on the side of personal liberty. Captain America: Civil War is also one of the few Marvel films based, albeit loosely, on source material I have actually read! Captain America: Civil War adapts many of the concepts, issues, and conflicts from Civil War (reviewed here!) for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And the result is generally good, though there are moments the emotional journey of Steve Rogers is sacrificed to devote time to establishing Peter Parker and T'Challa and fleshing out more of a relationship between the Scarlet Witch and Vision.

Opening with a flashback to how Bucky Barnes was programmed to be the Winter Soldier, the present proves to be equally dangerous as Captain America's Avengers attempt to stop Crossbones from stealing a biological weapon in Lagos, Nigeria. Before he kills himself, Crossbones reveals that Bucky Barnes's programming had slipped and he recalled Steve Rogers. At M.I.T., Tony Stark gives a massive grant to the students, before he confronted by a mother whose son died in Sokovia. Shortly thereafter, Tony Stark and Secretary Of State Ross visit the Avengers training facility, where he proposes the Avengers abide by the United Nation's plan known as the Sokovia Accords. The Sokovia Accords would put the Avengers under UN control. Steve Rogers leaves the meeting when Peggy Carter dies and he heads to London for her funeral. While there, after learning that Agent 33 is Peggy Carter's niece, the United Nation's conference in Vienna where the Sokovia Accords are being ratified, is bombed. Among the dead is King T'Chaka of Wakanda. When the Winter Soldier is identified as the bomber, T'Chaka's son, T'Challa, vows revenge and Captain America has to track down Bucky Barnes before T'Challa does.

After finding and confronting Barnes - who denies that he was the bomber - Captain America and the Falcon attempt to rescue Barnes from Black Panther (T'Challa) and the international manhunt going on the Winter Soldier. War Machine is dispatched to apprehend them and in Berlin, they are captured. In Berlin, Tony Stark visits where he pressures Rogers to sign the Sokovia Accords. Rogers refuses, moments before he and his allies realize that the UN bombing was an elaborate plot to get the international community to find and imprison Barnes. The HYDRA leader, Zemo, activates the Winter Soldier's programming and that allows Barnes to escape. Recovering Barnes, Rogers and Wilson learn that Zemo was after the Siberian facility where Barnes was kept because there is more than one Winter Soldier and Zemo wants them for his own private army. While Captain America and Falcon assemble a team to stop Zemo, Tony Stark is given a 36 hour deadline to bring in Captain America, Barnes and Wilson before the military will get involved. Preparing to take down the rest of the Winter Soldiers, both sides square off on an air field leading to an intense conflict between the heroes.

Right off the bat, Captain America: Civil War starts at an odd place. The post-credits scene of Ant-Man (reviewed here!) had Bucky Barnes in custody. How he made it out of Captain America's custody is a bit of a mystery, until almost the middle of Captain America: Civil War. It seems strange that a scene viewers have already seen comes in the middle of the film, right around the time of a wierd recruitment scene that finally adds Peter Parker to the MCU.

One of the aspects of Captain America: Civil War that works surprisingly well is the burgeoning Vision and Scarlet Witch relationship. At the climax of The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Vision and Scarlet Witch became part of the same team of Avengers - essentially The Avengers 2.0. The idea that the members of the new team of Avengers, who now live at a facility together, have relationships is a smart and strong concept and it is best-executed by the way Scarlet Witch and Vision interact. Sadly, Captain America: Civil War, illustrates no similar sense of connection between Brody and Wilson, who would be part of the same team.

The introduction of Peter Parker as Spider-Man is handled about as well as one might expect when bringing a character of such magnitude into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Peter Parker gets almost five full minutes in the middle of Captain America: Civil War for a scene with Tony Stark that kills the narrative flow of the film. Chadwick Boseman gets a better, smoother, introduction into the MCU as T'Challa. T'Challa's story in Captain America: Civil War blends much, much better with the overall stories of vengeance that preoccupy the main characters.

Captain America: Civil War alludes heavily to The Avengers: Age Of Ultron (reviewed here!), while neglecting Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and not alluding to either Jessica Jones (reviewed here!) or the second season of Daredevil (reviewed here!) - both of which paid fealty to the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is odd because so much of Captain America: Civil War is spent with wrapping up loose plot threads in the MCU and establishing new launching points for various Phase 3 and Phase 4 Marvel Cinematic Universe films.

The parts of Captain America: Civil War which are focused on Steve Rogers are the highlights of the film. Rogers has an ethical code and he stands by it. Tony Stark's character arc in Captain America: Civil War is a bit complicated. Stark develops from having an ethical position - albeit one that differs from Rogers's vision of how things should be done - to a kneejerk reaction of vengeance to the Winter Soldier. The transition is exceptionally effective and it almost makes Captain America: Civil War more Tony Stark's movie than Captain America's.

Captain America: Civil War features a more opaque villain than prior Captain America films and his motivations fit the film's motif remarkably well. Captain America: Civil War continues the trend in the Marvel Cinematic Universe of leaving everyone alive to use in subsequent endeavors, which is utterly unsurprising to anyone who loves the Marvel Studios films.

The performances in Captain America: Civil War are good, with there being surprisingly few standout moments of acting. The principle characters are all played by actors who have been playing their roles for several films and are familiar with their parts. The newer actors to the film manage to play opposite the established ones well enough to be seamless with the way they integrate with the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The special effects in Captain America: Civil War are wonderful and the moments of reversal are very effective and suggest that they will replay well. Ultimately, that makes Captain America: Civil War worth watching.

7.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Animals Make Better People Than People: The Whale

The Good: Good photography, Engaging narrative
The Bad: Pacing, Sound issues (works better with subtitles on!)
The Basics: The Whale tells a surprisingly compelling story that explores multiple sides to an orca that was separated from his pod and became unnaturally engaged with humans.


My wife is definitely the documentary fan in the family. I got into documentaries that were primarily political, starting with Fahrenheit 9/11 (reviewed here!) and I had a phase where I was very interested in documentary films. My wife, however, is a big fan of documentaries. When I asked her for a recommendation today for a documentary to watch, she recommended The Whale.

The Whale is a seemingly straightforward documentary about an Orca that was separated from his pod in Canada. The nature documentary explores the effect of a single orca whale on a community as they fall in love with, fight for, and then abandon the friendly Luna.

Scientists documented the birth of an Orca Whale - L98 - in Canada and he was quickly nicknamed Luna. One day in Mooyah Bay, Luna got separated from his pod and abandoned. Shortly thereafter, locals on boats in Nootka Sound soon noticed Luna around constantly. Luna showed interest in contact with the humans who passed through Nootka Sound, even though he would call out underwater to try to find other Orcas or his own pod. When none responded to his call, the locals in Nootka Sound began to regularly interact with Luna - playing with him, petting him, even letting him work around the logging operations on the water.

The local native population, the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, saw Luna as a reincarnation of their recently-deceased Chief. Members of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation saw it as a right to interact with Luna given they felt a spiritual connection to him. When Luna turned three years old, scientists became concerned about Luna's long-term health. They enacted a Stewardship program whereby a group of people stayed out on the water constantly driving humans away from him. But their efforts run into serious problems, ranging from people risking the $100,000 fine to the Stewards giving Luna inadvertent attention. Luna makes it hard for the citizens, as he tried desperately to interact with people and animals on boats. When Luna started to interact with float planes, immense political pressure was made to reunite Luna with his pod, 200 miles away. This sparks a conflict between Fisheries and the local natives over what is best for the social orca.

The Whale very smartly deals with the potential anthropomorphic feelings the residents of Nootka Sound and the scientists had when interacting with Luna. By very quickly eliminating the argument that Luna wanted contact with humans for food, the film establishes a surprisingly firm argument that Luna wanted human contact for companionship and affection, as opposed to meeting some physical need.

The documentary was shot over the course of several years and while much of it is unremarkable over-the-water shots, some of the photography is good underwater shots of both Luna and boats that he was interacting with. The story is instantly engaging, but it begins to drag and get somewhat repetitive in its final third. With so much emotional tension built up over the first two-thirds of the film, the viewer becomes eager to some sense of resolution to Luna's story and the conflicts involved in how various factions want to deal with the orca. Unfortunately, when resolution is reached it is - predictably, given the nature of so many documentaries - tragic and it is hard for viewers not to feel a sense of betrayal.

Ryan Reynolds does an excellent job narrating The Whale and he infuses some of his humor to his voice and some of the lines.

Ultimately, The Whale is an interesting exploration of a seemingly unique phenomenon and individual that makes it hard for everyone who watches it not to become an animal lover.

For other documentaries, please check out my reviews of:
I Know That Voice
Done The Impossible: The Fans' Tale Of "Firefly" And "Serenity"
PoliWood

8/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Avengers In, Avengers Out, Avengers In Again: The Avengers: Age Of Ultron Barely Reaches Average!

The Good: Performances are fine, Generally good direction
The Bad: Unrelenting effects sequences/splintered cast makes for a strangely underdeveloped couple of hours.
The Basics: With The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Joss Whedon has a rare stumble into mediocrity that advances the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a particularly unthrilling direction.


I have been worried lately that I will never again fall in love with a new work of art. I listen to a lot of music, watch and review a lot of television and movies and I try to experience food on multiple levels when I am introduced to new culinary delights. Having critical standards has led to a number of conversations around my house between my wife and I. She has voiced a concern that my idea of a "perfect film" is virtually unattainable and when I spend a significant amount of time after a viewing trying to find something wrong with a movie just to not give it a perfect ten, I am actually delivering a contrived rating that works to deny perfection, as opposed to celebrate it.

With The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, I fear no such contrivance. The Avengers: Age Of Ultron was easily the film I was most unabashedly excited about seeing this year, so it was the one I was also at the greatest risk of rating high based on prejudice in favor of the film. The irony for me is that X-Men: Days Of Future Past (reviewed here!) last year came with so much less hype and delivered such a vastly superior film that I was not genuinely prepared for how mediocre The Avengers: Age Of Ultron actually was.

To his credit, Joss Whedon had a herculean task at hand when he penned and directed The Avengers: Age Of Ultron. The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is a sequel to Whedon's The Avengers (reviewed here!) and the marketing department at Marvel Entertainment/Disney has worked overtime to leak its forthcoming schedule of Marvel films. Joss Whedon had to try to top a superhero team origin story that brought together disparate heroes and made them into a group that could fight a single villain and his incredible army. Where do you go after that?

The problem Whedon faced conceptually within the narrative of the Marvel Cinematic Universe was that he had one film to introduce and defeat a new villain that could hold his own in the imagination of the viewer with Loki (the adversary from The Avengers), while servicing a sprawling cast of established heroes and making that work within the confines of the stories told since The Avengers. From a studio, practical moviemaking point of view, Whedon had to wrestle with reorganizing characters so the franchise could survive if significant actors decided to leave when their contracts came up and that meant adding new cast members to the mix. With all those pressures upon him, Whedon had to write an entertaining super hero story that could entertain and set up the next, known, installments of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

That's a lot of balls in the air for anyone and the only real hope for the Marvel Cinematic Universe comes in the promises made outside the actual film The Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Writer/Director Joss Whedon has promised that The Avengers: Age Of Ultron will have a slew of deleted scenes and unseen footage when it drops on Blu-Ray. One has to hope that there will be a director's cut because as it is, The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is something of a mess.

At the core of my issue with watching The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is the fact that so much of it felt like it had been done before that I kept waiting for the movie to begin, to get engaging, to thrill me, to show me something new, to surprise me, to . . . well, you get the picture; I just kept repeating and rephrasing things without actually saying anything fundamentally new. The Avengers: Age Of Ultron feels a lot like that. In fact, were one to do a double-feature, one suspects that if one dozed off at any point in the Chitauri attack on New York City in The Avengers and awoke at virtually any point in The Avengers: Age Of Ultron, they would feel like they were in the same movie.

The Avengers: Age Of Ultron goes from one sprawling, fast-paced, CG-encrusted action sequence to another to another to another with breaks that are surprisingly uninteresting. Much of The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is like watching The Avengers blended with outtakes or b-roll footage from Iron Man 3 (reviewed here!). It is chaotic, warlike, easy to lose track of and takes a long time to get through before it gets to anything truly good. And in the quiet, character-building moments, The Avengers: Age Of Ultron focuses on the least-impressive Avenger, belabors the set-up to Captain America: Civil War and entirely jerks the audience around. We'll come back to that.

What is it about? The Avengers: Age Of Ultron follows in the wake of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (reviewed here!) with The Avengers - Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Hawkeye, Black Widow, and the Hulk - working to clean-up the problems left in the world from the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. In Sokovia, they hit upon the motherload: Baron Strucker and Dr. List have a laboratory where they have the scepter Loki used, along with corpses of Chitauri vessels and two powerful (for lack of a better term) metahumans. When the Avengers break in to put an end to the H.Y.D.R.A. lab, the twins Pietro (who has superspeed, much like The Flash) and Wanda Maximoff (who is not actually magical, but has the ability to influence neurons in the brain to make people see things and has telekinetic powers over matter and energy) escape. As the battle for the H.Y.D.R.A. base is winding down, Wanda returns and uses her powers on Tony Stark, who sees a nightmarish image of the Earth under attack by legions of the creature/ships that attacked New York City with the Chitauri.

Their mission successful and the scepter recovered, the Avengers return to New York City and Avengers Tower where they plan to put the problems that have been lingering behind them. The recovery of the scepter will allow Thor to return it to Asgard and remove the lingering influence of Loki from Earth, the destruction of Strucker's organization and lab effectively decimates S.H.I.E.L.D.'s biggest enemy (which removes a big psychic burden from Captain America). Only Tony Stark is not over-the-moon thrilled about the campaign. While studying the scepter, Stark realizes that the glowing piece at its tip is not a brainwashing device, but rather a complex program or neural network, comparable to (but vastly more complex and alien than) Jarvis (Stark's A.I.). He pitches an idea to Dr. Bruce Banner; they can use the alien a.i. in their mothballed planetary defense project, Ultron. Bypassing the rest of the group, Stark and Banner activate the alien intelligence and then go off to a party celebrating the victory of the Avengers over the Earth's enemies. While they party, the alien a.i. kills Jarvis and takes control of the Avengers's robotic army (a collection of flight suits much like those in Iron Man 3, which are now serviced through Avengers Headquarters).

After the main party, the a.i. reveals itself as Ultron by attacking the Avengers using the Avengers robots. Calling for human evolution through the extinction of the Avengers, Ultron disappears into every computer on earth when his robotic body is compromised, but in the attack, his forces make off with the scepter. Needless to say, the other Avengers are pissed at Stark and Banner (especially Thor, who now has to try to find and recover the scepter yet again!) and they soon become terrified that Ultron will break into computers that have nuclear launch codes and obliterate the Earth. Ultron makes a new body and heads with the Maximoff twins (who want nothing more than revenge upon Tony Stark for the death of their family) to the African nation of Wakanda. There, Ultron acquires Vibranium he needs for his nefarious plan and when the Avengers track him down, they are set upon by Wanda and Pietro. Wanda influences Captain America, Thor, and the Hulk before she is stopped by Hawkeye. Shaken, the team retreats to a safe house where they try to figure out what UItron wants and how to stop him. Their brainstorming leads them to Dr. Helen Cho's skin-growth machine where Ultron is attempting to create the entity that will be the downfall of the Avengers. But in the process, Wanda sees Ultron's plan and his idea of peace comes through an extinction-level event and she (and her brother) are forced to choose sides in the battle for the fate of the planet.

Writing out the plot for The Avengers: Age Of Ultron actually makes the movie sound really interesting and engaging. On screen, it didn't seem as awesome, though (much like the way some of the plots to Star Trek: Enterprise sound pretty good, but then when one turns on the show and the characters start talking, the dialogue and acting are so bad, it doesn't matter what is going on, the show is virtually unwatchable the way it tries to tell the story). The film opens with a big battle, montage/regroup/party, post-party battle, characters argue, Wakanda battle, moody safe house scene, extended climactic battle. It's a lot of fighting. And, try as he might, Joss Whedon and the special effects department don't have a lot they can do that hasn't been mined by The Avengers and Iron Man 3 (Whedon had a real disadvantage in that Ultron's robot army is basically made up of shiny silver Iron Man-style suits).

So, it comes down to character. Tony Stark gets one or two quips (they've been in the trailers), Bruce Banner is predictably conflicted, and Nick Fury pops up for a dramatic speech just at the right time. But Ultron never pops - he's General Grievous from Revenge Of The Sith (reviewed here!) meets any generic Decepticon. Ultron is the real shock; he's such a monolithic villain. Even James Spader voicing him cannot make him seem less generic and, therefore, entirely un-frightening. Will The Avengers unite to find a way to stop Ultron? Gosh, I hope so. Come to think of it, if they just crashed the world's power grid long enough for every computer in the world to actually shut down, wouldn't that have stopped him?! The point being, it would be a surprise if the Avengers couldn't stop Ultron more than any real revelation that they can.

Of the new characters, that leaves Wanda, Pietro, Vision, and Laura. Wanda and Pietro are motivated by a sense of revenge that is adequately explained in The Avengers: Age Of Ultron. It's not so satisfactorily explained to make viewers feel satisfied when Pietro doesn't kill Tony Stark in the film's first twelve minutes. Seriously; Pietro stands, watching the completely vulnerable Tony Stark take possession of the scepter when all he had to do was run over at super-speeds, kill his family's mortal enemy . . . movie over. Vision is engaging to watch, but is just about as generic as Ultron. And Laura . . .

. . . Laura gives Joss Whedon an excuse to keep Hawkeye in the mix in The Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Hawkeye is, as the film openly acknowledges, an archer in a team that includes a super soldier, a demigod, a trained assassin, a raging lab experiment, and an armored weapon equivalent to a small army. So, Hawkeye is given a sudden, abrupt, backstory and when the Avengers arrive at Laura's safe house, it humanizes the archer and gives the viewer an emotional root. And Whedon uses all the momentum with Hawkeye to set up one of his famous reversals and it would be truly nitpicky to say that doesn't work. Whedon pulls off his final-act reversal with Hawkeye and that is one of the few treats of The Avengers: Age Of Ultron.

Of the big three (Thor, Iron Man and Captain America), The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is unfortunately fractured. One has to guess that a number of the scenes Whedon could put back into the film center around Thor and his large chunk of time away from The Avengers entering the mysterious pool and leading to the resolution that brings him back. Thor sits out a surprising and significant chunk of The Avengers: Age Of Ultron. That gives Tony Stark and Steve Rogers a lot of time on screen to disagree. Rogers is, reasonably, pissed because Tony Stark does in The Avengers: Age Of Ultron exactly what Pierce did in Captain America: The Winter Soldier; he tried to anticipate world problems and stop them before they ever occur. Stark's characterization here makes sense: he is reeling from fear that Earth cannot protect itself and he doesn't want to debate with the team the merits of having a global defense system. When it goes wrong, Rogers climbs off his high horse to yell at him and Stark yells back. But the conflict between Stark and Rogers never quite boils up to the level where it would create a credible schism to result in Captain America: Civil War. In fact, while the conflict between Stark and Rogers is essential for that, Whedon takes a big crap on the writer who has to create that film with where he leaves Stark. And while Rogers moralizes, he's essentially the same guy we've been seeing. This time, he's already so disillusioned from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s actions in The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, he doesn't seem particularly surprised when one of his teammates screws him (and humanity) over.

The other big character arc in The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is just a colossal mindfuck for fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. After finally figuring out how to make The Hulk interesting and truly work, The Avengers: Age Of Ultron belabors a romantic relationship between Bruce Banner and Natasha Romanoff (Black Widow). Mortgaging the chemistry Romanoff and Rogers developed throughout Captain America: The Winter Soldier, The Avengers: Age Of Ultron teases a "will they or won't they" through most of the film. The result is particularly unsatisfying, if for no other reason than that Joss Whedon (who is both incredibly intelligent and remarkably personable, at least in interviews!) perpetrates the stereotype that incredibly smart people are emotional idiots. Bruce Banner can be absolutely brilliant, but to offset that, he can't have enough emotional maturity to face his demons, ask for help, or accept the compassion and love of someone who fits him surprisingly well.

The acting in The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is good. But, that's it. The Avengers: Age Of Ultron is not bursting with big emotional scenes that allow the actors to actually do much in the way of stretching. In fact, newcomer (to the franchise) Elizabeth Olsen is given the character with the biggest emotional journey. Wanda transitions from angry to triumphant (her smile at seeing Tony Stark shaken after she mojos him is wonderful) to horrified when she realizes Ultron's plan is embodied well by Olsen's performance. Olsen has good emotional range for her eyes, posture and body language to sell the conflicted emotional states of Wanda well. Sadly, Aaron Taylor-Johnson is not given as much in the way of big moments to make Pietro pop.

So, Joss Whedon had a tough task with The Avengers: Age Of Ultron and the fact that he has already said there is much more to the movie than viewers will see in the theaters virtually guarantees a time when he admits that the theater version is not the film he intended to make. The Avengers: Age Of Ultron contains noticeable narrative gaps, some troubling gaffes and a "ho-hum this is *supposed to be* adventure" feel to it that makes one wonder if more will actually be better when the longer version is eventually revealed.

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Best 10 Movies Of 2014!

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The Basics: 2014 might have been a rough year for quality cinema, but here are the ten films you should see from the year!


Coming into 2015, I was a bit down on movies. 2014 was not an exceptional year for movies and outside one of the nominees, there is no Best Picture Oscar nominee that I would even want to see again. That said, despite a dearth of great films in 2014 (I had to go into the 7.5/10’s to make this list!), there were two films that actually made it into the “perfect” camp this year (out of more 2000 movie reviews, only 35 have gotten perfect 10/10 ratings!). Despite having three movies from 2014 I actually still want to see, I decided to follow-up on my Worst Movies Of 2014 List (that’s here!) with the Best 10 Movies Of 2014.

It is imperative to know, at the outset, that I consider movies for my lists based on their wide-release date. As a result, some films, like Predestination (reviewed here!) and Inherent Vice (reviewed here!) would have been on this list, but they only had limited release in 2014, with a wide-release in 2015. I’m not a fan of supporting the “New York City and Los Angeles get to see it, so it should compete against the full field” concept. It’s also worth noting that Still Alice (reviewed here!) should have made the list (by the numbers), but given how I would not recommend it and never want to see it again, despite being able to acknowledge that the acting in it is wonderful and it accomplishes its goals well, I can’t consider it one of the best movies of the year. So, while this list is undoubtedly the only one with these precise ten movies, the Best Ten Movies Of 2014 are:

10. The Best Offer (reviewed here!) – If you had told me on January 1 of last year that the first movie released in the New Year would make the list, I would have said, “no way!” Quiet and contemplative, the film that focuses on a reclusive auctioneer trying to clandestinely rebuild an ancient automaton, before his life takes a right turn, is actually one of the cleverest and most deceptive films in years. Arguably the most underrated performance of Geoffrey Rush’s career, The Best Offer might be the year’s best gem import,

9. Veronica Mars (reviewed here!) – Arguably the most controversial film to be included on this list, Veronica Mars is vastly underrated. Rob Thomas had a herculean task in bringing his popular television show to the big screen, not the least of which was telling a complete story in a shorter amount of time than any of the story arcs on the series! Veronica Mars (reviewed here!) had big, season-long mysteries and the idea that a full story could be told, while introducing the essential characters from the television series to a potentially new audience, in only a couple hours required the right story. Far from being a mess, Veronica Mars is a rousing success of continuing the story of Veronica Mars after a gap of several years. And, to the detractors, at least Thomas didn’t use the “season four” b.s. idea . . .,

8. The Skeleton Twins (reviewed here!) – This might be the only film I was looking forward to seeing all year, missed in theaters, and then lived up when I finally caught it! The Skeleton Twins is heartwrenching and heartwarming and it illustrates just how much two performers can push themselves and each other when they are working with people they like and trust. Kristen Wiig and Bill Hader were robbed this Award’s season! The Skeleton Twins might be dark, but it does not feel oppressive and that is a rare thing these days,

7. This Is Where I Leave You (reviewed here!) – Jason Bateman might be the biggest star to appear in films that made both my Worst and Best Movie lists! Bateman gets top-billing in This Is Where I Leave You, which was the story of a family reuniting to sit Shiva after the death of the family patriarch. The dialogue, casting and performances are excellent,

6. The Double (reviewed here!) – It is rare for me to sing the praises of a creepy movie, but The Double is that good! The strength of Richard Ayoade’s interpretation of the Dostoyevsky original is that: 1. It can be interpreted several different ways and 2. Even when one feels like they aren’t sure exactly what is going on, the film is entirely engaging. The result is a movie that is unsettling, but has some real, enduring value,

5. Comet (reviewed here!) – One of the late releases of 2014, Comet was entirely overlooked during Award’s Season and that is their loss (and ours)! Comet is the smart exploration of a tumultuous relationship that is packed with wonderful dialogue, impressive performances, and memorable characters. This is a love story that feels fresh and real, even when it is difficult and the strength of the movie is that it still manages to entertain while embodying a strong sense of reality,

4. The Grand Budapest Hotel (reviewed here!) – So, here it is! My quest to watch all eight movies that got Best Picture Oscar nods yielded one that I think deserves it! I’m not big on slapstick comedies or classical movies (the novelty win of The Artist (reviewed here!) a few years back still pisses me off!) and I went into seeing The Grand Budapest Hotel biased against it. But, it won me over. The quirky comedy about a lobby boy and a concierge on the run from a family who want their mother’s inheritance is Wes Anderson’s best film in years,

3. Her (reviewed here!) – The Grand Budapest Hotel is lucky that the limited release of Her put it on the ballot last year, instead of this one! Her is original and clever as it tells the story of one man’s burgeoning love with the artificial intelligence on his phone. Spike Jonze has a flair for finding a concept that is smart and foreseeable, while reaching the only possible and logical conclusion to that story . . . with consequences that give us instant empathy for the film’s protagonist. Given how most of Joachim Phoenix’s performance is opposite a screen and he makes the relationship between his character and the voice of Scarlett Johansson seem entirely real, this might be his best performance ever,

2. X-Men: Days Of Future Past (reviewed here!) – While Guardians Of The Galaxy (reviewed here!) was amusing, X-Men: Days Of Future Past had a level of substance that makes it a far superior film. Despite awkwardness in the X-Men timeline and the desire for most fans of the franchise to forget about X-Men III: The Last Stand, X-Men: Days Of Future Past manages to incorporate the disparate elements, characters and timelines and make a story that is the logical conclusion to Magneto’s original threats against humanity back in X-Men. The film, which puts Logan at the center of a time-travel adventure where he must stop the rise of the forces that will lead to a slaughter of mutants is well-executed visually and from a performance and character standpoint. Plus, despite all the Easter Eggs in Marvel movies last year, there was no moment on screen in 2014 that delighted me like the cameos at the climax of this movie! Regardless of what comes next and all the recasting, X-Men: Days Of Future Past is the crown jewel of Marvel movies,


. . . and . . .


. . .the best movie of 2014 is . . .


1. Cheap Thrills (reviewed here!) – Seriously. Cheap Thrills might be one of the least pleasant movies in years, but it was the best, most important film of 2014. If it had reached an audience and people had understood the film’s metaphorical level, the Tea Party would never have managed to get a stranglehold on the U.S. Congress in the 2014 midterm elections. Yes, seriously. That is a lot to credit to one movie, but Cheap Thrills does that. The story of an everyman who is in debt, facing a financial crisis that threatens himself and his family begins innocuously enough. On the day he is fired, he goes to a bar, meets an old chum from school and he and his friend encounter a seemingly benevolent rich guy and his wife. In celebrating the wife’s birthday, the two men are given competitions for increasing amounts of money and the film turns into a powerful metaphor for how business and the media treat everyone but the 1%. The story of how business sets people against one another and how other powerful forces delight in it and reinforce the inhumanity of their actions is gripping, entertaining, difficult-to-watch and entirely brilliant. Cheap Thrills is the must-see movie from 2014.

For other lists, please check out my:
The Top Ten Episodes Of Star Trek: Enterprise
The Top Ten Episodes Of Frasier
The Worst Ten Episodes Of Star Trek

To see how all movies I have reviewed have stacked up against each other check out my Film Review Index Page where the movies are organized from best to worst!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Exactly As Droll As One Might Suspect: Maxim: The Hot 100 Disappoints

The Good: Decent photography, Good interviews
The Bad: Stupid concept, Addy, Lowbrow writing
The Basics: Maxim: The Hot 100 lives down to what one might expect of the annual magazine issue, though I was pleasantly surprised by the interviews!


One of the animated sitcoms - Family Guy, American Dad or The Simpsons has a line about Maxim that was utterly hilarious; something about their “Most Rape-able Celebrities” list. My wife recently gave me a gift subscription to Maxim, ostensibly for review and when Maxim: The Hot 100 (the annual special issue) arrived, I found myself trying to remember the joke from television about the publication. Maxim: The Hot 100 might not be quite the sinister issue that the joke insinuates, but it is pretty damn close.

Comprised of photos and a blurb for the 100 women that Maxim has decided (apparently through votes somehow) are the most desirable in the world, Maxim: The Hot 100 is like a catalog for shopping for unobtainable women. In addition to being a preposterous exercise (ranking women on their “hot” factor, as if there were a universal standard for the subjective emotion of desire), Maxim: The Hot 100 undermines itself far too frequently to be at all useful or even engaging. It’s not just some form of weird sour grapes that I write that; - favorites of mine like Anne Hathaway and Ellen Page did not make the list, but Bar Paly and Candice Swanepoel did(?!) – but any list where Katy Perry is ranked as more desirable than Sophia Vergara or Avril Lavigne ranks 44 and Anna Paquin is 78 seems skewed toward the absurd.

In addition to having a purpose that is ridiculous – are Maxim readers so stupid that they need to be told whom to be attracted to?! – and somewhat inscrutable (what are the readers supposed to do, exactly, with this information?), the Maxim: The Hot 100 special issue seems remarkably lowbrow in terms of the writing. Take, for example, the listing for Gal Gadot (who made #84 on the list) on page 13 of this year’s Maxim: The Hot 100. The blurb for Gadot reads, “Hollywood’s newest Wonder Woman is a total badass. She not only owns a motorcycle but also served two years in the Israeli army” (13). Gal Gadot is Israeli. You know who else served two years in the Israeli army? Every other Israeli citizen; it’s mandatory. Does that make her more of a badass than #39, Gina Carano, who was a MMA-brawler? Probably not. My point is that virtually none of the blurbs say anything useful, interesting or insightful about their subjects.

What keeps Maxim: The Hot 100 from the most dismal of ratings, then? First off, the photography. Most of the photos are incredibly good, exactly what one might hope for from a celebrity spankbook with a ridiculously low cover price of $3.99. The price of the magazine might make one think that it was not going to be a glossy, good-looking magazine, but apparently advertiser dollars subsidize the magazine enough that the special issue needs not charge an arm and a leg. Maxim: The Hot 100 features photographically solid pictures; in terms of color, contrast, and composition, the photographers utilized in Maxim: The Hot 100 clearly know what they are doing. In fact, because the photographers seem able and their subjects are undeniably photogenic, it is astonishing that they get some of the celebrities in remarkably unflattering looks (there’s something horrid about calling someone “hot” and smacking up a picture of them looking haggard, as at least one of the women was).

The other aspect that sells the magazine – the one that pleasantly surprised me – is the interviews. Maxim: The Hot 100 features interviews with cool celebrities (this year, it was Bryan Cranston and Nick Offerman). The questions asked of these celebrities are not the typical ones that have been asked to death and the answers are fun and informative.

Unfortunately, the two articles and a smattering of the hundreds of pictures throughout the magazine are hardly enough to justify the magazine’s existence. Several pages of the magazine are wasted debunking movie plot/effect issues (like would reversing the Earth’s direction a la Superman: The Movie turn back time). Does Maxim believe a large population of its readers are physicists who somehow slept through basic temporal mechanics? Or biology students who do not know the average size of a great white shark? Other preposterous articles focus on the latest supermodel, hot trends, and a short story about joining the mile-high club. The average length of an article in Maxim: The Hot 100 is one page, which suggests that the average reader’s attention span is ridiculously limited.

Not overflowing with impressive diction or vocabulary, Maxim: The Hot 100 is fairly ad-filled. The 120-page magazine features 22 pages of full ads (not counting the inside and back covers), along with 3 pages of partial ads and 8 pages of style articles which list all of the items in the photos, with a price (which is pretty much an advertisement to me!).

Maybe I’m not the target demographic, maybe I’m not desperately looking for unobtainable women or maybe I just don’t need a magazine to tell me what to like to have opinions. But, for those who don’t care about smart (the most common comment by women on the Maxim Hot 100 list is about their own butt; none of the quotes capture the intelligence of any of the smart women on the list), aren’t looking for a woman even close to 40 (Jennifer Lopez seems to be the most senior member of the list) and who want something more respectably portable than a hard-core magazine, Maxim: The Hot 100 is enough to entertain those who want to spend the four bucks on it.

For other magazine reviews, please visit my evaluations of:
AAA Living
Ladies’ Home Journal
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Magazine

2.5/10

For other magazine reviews, please check out my Magazine Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Gamechanger Or Natural Continuation? Captain America: The Winter Soldier Is Average Spy Flick.

The Good: Decent plot progression, Good acting, Good continuity
The Bad: Formulaic/predictable, Clogged with characters who fail to develop
The Basics: In the latest Marvel Cinematic Universe outing, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America and Black Widow team up to uncover a lingering H.Y.D.R.A. conspiracy within the ranks of S.H.I.E.L.D.


When it comes to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, there were few components of the larger mythos that I cared less about than Captain America. While some might have enjoyed it, I found Captain America: The First Avenger (reviewed here!) to be a painfully average superhero film. In fact, the only movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Phase One (reviewed here!) movies that I have watched less than Captain America are the Hulk films. However, as I have gotten into the Marvel television series Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. (Season One is reviewed here!), I figured I had to avail myself of the opportunity to screen Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Despite the sense of disillusionment felt by Steve Rogers (Captain America) in the latter half of The Avengers, Rogers represents the only member of the team who was firmly a part of S.H.I.E.L.D. Thus, as one who is invested in Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., how Captain America: The Winter Soldier might impact the television series was one of the key reasons I watched the movie.

And unless there is a severe fracture within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it seems impossible for Captain America: The Winter Soldier to not have significant ripples throughout Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.. The hype for Captain America: The Winter Soldier has been that this is the Marvel Universe film to redefine the expectations of the Marvel superhero film. But, if one is expecting a lot of action, decent banter, and impressive special effects, then Captain America: The Winter Soldier is more par for the course, as opposed to truly redefining the genre. To its credit, though, Captain America: The Winter Soldier does tell a different style of story fairly well. The comparisons between Captain America: The Winter Soldier and James Bond films is not an inapt analogy, but relying on some of the conceits of the spy thriller does makes Captain America: The Winter Soldier more predictable than audacious.

Steve Rogers, out for his usual jog, passes by a man who is in the military. They meet and Samuel Wilson introduces himself to Steve as a debriefing specialist before Natasha Romanov arrives with a mission for Steve. Donning a new Captain America outfit, Steve Rogers joins Romanov on a mission to rescue S.H.I.E.L.D. hostages. While Rogers and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are busy rescuing the hostages, Romanov downloads information from the computers to a USB drive. Learning of her alternative mission, Rogers is angered and takes his anger to Director Fury. Nick Fury reveals that S.H.I.E.L.D. has come up with an algorithm to determine threats against the world and to eliminate those threats pre-emptively, a new fleet of S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarriers are being built and will soon be launched for the top secret Project Insight.

But Rogers’s distrust of Nick Fury and his frustration over the way S.H.I.E.L.D. is doing business (through fear, as opposed to promoting freedom) is shortlived when Nick Fury survives one assassination attempt only to apparently be killed while delivering the USB drive to Steve Rogers. In the ensuing fight, Captain America chases down a cyborg who is as fast and strong as he is. The cyborg is revealed, by Romanov, to be The Winter Soldier, an agent she has run into before. Facing threats from the World Security Council’s Alexander Pierce and agents within S.H.I.E.L.D. who are working for H.Y.D.R.A. (whatwith H.Y.D.R.A.’s head scientist, Arnim Zola being kept alive as an artificial consciousness that Rogers and Romanov discover in a S.H.I.E.L.D. bunker at Steve’s old training ground), Captain America, Black Widow and the Falcon (Samuel Wilson utilizing a top secret prototype jetpack) team up to prevent the launch of the new S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarriers. But stopping Project Insight’s first big coordinated attack pits Captain America against one of his former allies and teammates as the Winter Soldier is revealed to be someone from Steve Rogers’s past who was brainwashed by H.Y.D.R.A.!

More than any of the Marvel Universe films, save The Avengers, to date, Captain America: The Winter Soldier feels like an ensemble piece. As if realizing that there’s not much to do with Captain America outside the temporal non-sequitors (Steve Rogers is a 1940s man living in modern times after having been frozen for decades), Captain America: The Winter Soldier seems to want to get away from focusing on the protagonist as often as possible. Instead, they fill up a cast of characters for Rogers to play off of and react to. The result is a movie that might have Steve Rogers or Captain America in virtually every scene, but the interesting stuff going on has to do with Natasha Romanov (Black Widow), Nick Fury, Sam Wilson (The Falcon), and the film’s antagonist, the Winter Soldier.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is structured in a very familiar way for anyone who has ever seen a spy thriller. Fortunately, unlike most James Bond films, the first mission actually has a big impact on the rest of the film (the teaser missions in James Bond movies seldom relate to the main plot). The MacGuffin in Captain America: The Winter Soldier is the USB drive and it fuels much of the plot and the big character reversals (in addition to becoming a source of the movie’s longest exposition, which is delivered much the way a Bond villain outlines their full plan before Bond puts a wrench in their operation). But, scenes like the museum scene, where Steve Rogers visits the Captain America Museum, serve as the foreshadowing needed to play out the reveal of The Winter Soldier. The brainwashed character was utterly forgettable (at least to non-Captain America fans) in the first movie, so the trip to the Museum helps remind viewers (or inform viewers coming into Captain America: The Winter Soldier cold) who the Winter Soldier was before his brainwashing.

The problem is, bending the formula does not make the formula better. Captain America: The Winter Soldier comes on the heels of Thor: The Dark World (reviewed here!) where giant alien ships cut a swath of destruction through a city and The Avengers where the menace of a single helicarrier crash was treated as a big deal. So, when Captain America: The Winter Soldier has a city menaced and three helicarriers that have to be brought down, it feels a bit familiar. Near the film’s climax, one almost expects the James Bond theme to be playing the way the final step in foiling the plot comes down to Steve Rogers and a tight situation. Writers Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely might have written something different from other Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, but they pretty much hit all the obvious notes for a modern spy thriller.

What separates spy thrillers these days, then, are the quality of the effects, the quality of the characters and the investment the viewer has in the level of the conspiracy detailed/uncovered by the protagonist. Captain America: The Winter Soldier uses minimal computer generated effects and that does help make the film feel grounded in the real world, instead of in the fantastic. It is clear, while watching Captain America: The Winter Soldier that viewers are watching the same universe as Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.. The effects keep the movie grounded and most of the fight sequences move along well to be entertaining, at the very least.

But the characters in Captain America: The Winter Soldier are not extraordinary in any real way. Steve Rogers has had two years to wrestle with the events of The Avengers, so his sense of normalcy makes sense . . . but it is not particularly psychically satisfying to watch. Steve Rogers is portrayed more as a veteran drawn back into the military life than a superhero who was flung decades into the future where he encountered aliens, wormholes, and discovered that the good guys weren’t as good as he remembered. In fact, Rogers’s big arc in The Avengers is virtually identical to his arc in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, so it’s hard to say that he grew or developed. Moreover, his tie to The Winter Soldier seems more forced because the character who is resurrected for the role was not at all a major one in the first film. Hayley Atwell suffers the worst special effects disaster of the film; her make-up makes her arguably the hottest 90 year-old character to ever grace the big screen and Peggy Carter’s age is a tough sell.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier has the biggest role for Nick Fury to date, but it’s a tough sell for how he relates to Steve Rogers. When last we saw Rogers and Fury, Captain America was disillusioned by learning that S.H.I.E.L.D. had continued H.Y.D.R.A.’s research. Now, Rogers learns of a similarly sinister plot and he chooses to continue to trust Nick Fury . . . for no particular reason. The return of Natasha Romanov and her increased screentime would be wonderful and refreshing if the character was given something new to do as well. But here, Scarlett Johansson once again flips around, kicks ass and provides some decent banter. She is, as Romanov, pretty much the archetypal Bond Girl (or, to be fair, a deuteragonist like Octopussy). Alexander Pierce would be a compelling adversary if the Mission: Impossible franchise had not already done a top-down villain or we had met the character before and actually had any trust for him to begin with.

Anthony Mackie is decent as Wilson, but the role is treated very much like a convenient sidekick (though his role is largely in the last act, he is well-seeded early in the movie). Mackie has the screen presence to sell Wilson as a credible analyst and member of the military, but the role of Sam Wilson and the Falcon is hardly given enough depth to make a Falcon-based film a realistic spin-off at this point (though it could be cool). In fact, in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the use of the Falcon feels like a cheap way to get around Steve Rogers calling Iron Man. The Falcon is the second string hero who is available on hand, so why call up the guy who has pretty-much-the-same-but-better tech who you’ve worked with before? Captain America: The Winter Soldier does not really answer that question in a satisfying way, but it is impossible to blame Mackie for any of the issues with Falcon or his place in the story.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not the gamechanger that viewers were promised. For sure, things happen and unless there is no real coordination between the parts of the brand, Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. will be forced to deal with the consequences of the film in a way that they did not actually have to after Thor: The Dark World. But the Marvel Cinematic Universe has never been primarily about S.H.I.E.L.D. or the organizations like H.Y.D.R.A.; the movies are about the heroes and villains, individuals first and foremost. Will the Marvel spy community ever be the same after Captain America: The Winter Soldier? Possibly not; but most people don’t tune in to the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the espionage and inter-office politics: they want to see compelling battles performed by larger-than-life heroes. Captain America: The Winter Soldier does not deliver that. It is so packed with secondary characters who are working to set up the reversal and explain the plot machinations (like how H.Y.D.R.A. survived after the 1940s and remains active now and how The Winter Soldier looks pretty much like he does in the museum display images), that Captain America is more along for the ride than motivating the plot.

Ultimately, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is not likely to kick off Summer Blockbuster Season early; instead, it will entertain and hold over fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe until they inevitably risk their dollars on Guardians Of The Galaxy. Masterpiece? No. Bad? Not by a long shot. Captain America: The Winter Soldier is marginally better than Captain America: The First Avenger, but it dresses up its averageness well.

For other works with Anthony Mackie, please check out my reviews of:
Runner Runner
Pain & Gain
Man On A Ledge
The Adjustment Bureau
The Hurt Locker
Half Nelson
Million Dollar Baby

5.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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