Desperately Average Super Hero Films Work Up To An Impressive Film With Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled

The Good: The Avengers, Some decent performances, Blu-Ray bonus features
The Bad: Exceptionally repetitive plots, Character arcs are often repetitive as well
The Basics: The six-film Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled boxed set eliminates some of the fat from the first few serialized Marvel universe movies nevertheless presents in one place the films building up to and including The Avengers.


As Iron Man 3 (reviewed here!) continues its powerhouse run at the box office, it is fun to look back at how the film came to be. The films that led up to Iron Man 3 - and much more importantly, its cinematic predecessor The Avengers - have been collected on Blu-Ray in a new boxed set called the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled. The Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled is six of the first seven Marvel Universe films that were loosely connected by background threads pertaining to the Avengers Initiative. In other words, it is the Marvel Universe without the X-Men franchise, The Fantastic Four or Spider-Man (or, for that matter, the vigilante Daredevil or the supernatural-based Marvel characters like Ghost Rider).

The boxed set of Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled does not include the film Hulk, which is somewhat ironic because it does include its sequel. The ten disc set, which is chock full of bonus features and an entire exclusive bonus disc that looks at the assembled films as a film franchise. The films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled boxed set includes:
Iron Man
The Incredible Hulk
Iron Man 2
Thor
Captain America: The First Avenger
The Avengers

Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled has five movies that are only loosely tied to one another and then is paid off with a film that unites the protagonists from the prior four films. For those who have not seen them, the basic ideas behind the films are:

Iron Man has billionaire Tony Stark getting attacked and held hostage overseas. While being held hostage, he puts together a small device that keeps shrapnel from piercing his heart and he uses it to power a primitive suit of armor that facilitates his escape. Stark’s return to the United States and the industry of weapons engineering is met with mixed results. His loyal assistant, Pepper Potts, is thrilled he is alive, but his former mentor is actually dismayed in that Stark is still alive given that he has taken control over Stark Industries in Tony’s absence. Stark’s new pacifism and obsession with refining his armor to act as something of a one-man world peace force, upsets Stone and causes Tony’s former mentor to create a suit of his own to take on his protégé!

The Incredible Hulk finds Dr. Bruce Banner hiding out, having tried to keep his alter-ego, the Hulk, under control for years. He is hunted by a military-industrial complex that is determined to bring him in. In that pursuit, a villainous leader gives a seasoned officer a serum that creates another Hulk-like creature (the Abomination), who begins to lay waste, which requires the Hulk to intervene to save lives.

Iron Man 2 continues Tony Stark’s story after his revelation that he is Iron Man. With Congress looking to assimilate Stark’s technology while he resists, Stark fights two battles: one against the corporate leader of Hammer weapons and the other, in his suit, against the Russian villain Whiplash, who rises up to get revenge on Stark for stealing the technology his father developed.

In Thor the Norse God of Thunder coming to Earth as an outcast after his brother, Loki, discredits him on the astral planes. With Thor’s father in a coma, Thor ends up on Earth where he works to redeem himself and comes to care about the humans.

There is a trip to the past with Captain America: The First Avenger. During World War II, Steve Rogers is a weak young man who nevertheless wants to join the war effort to go to fight the Nazis. Instead, he is inducted into the super soldier program and given incredible strength, endurance and tactical ability. After a stint as a publicity tool for the U.S. military, Rogers as Captain America goes to free American prisoners of war and stop the evil HYDRA scientists who are threatening to unlock the massive power of a device from the astral planes, the tesseract.

The Tesseract pops back up as the object of concern in The Avengers. Loki has been tasked by a powerful alien being with recovering the Tesseract from Earth and he is ready to use it to wipe out humanity. To respond to the menace of Loki and the army he is ready to bring through a wormhole to lay waste to Earth (starting in New York City), Nick Fury – after an attack on a S.H.I.E.L.D. laboratory – works to bring together Earth’s greatest heroes to respond to the threat Loki represents.

All six films follow a similar basic format with the origin story of the super hero and the villain and the hero rising to stop them. These are all, in the end, “kill the villain” type films. Iron Man 2 has no time needed to establish Iron Man, but uses the time that these type movies to establish the heroes to remind the viewers who Iron Man and Tony Stark are and the villains are more developed in the movie. But, like the plots, the characters all have pretty obvious and repetitive journeys where, in each film, to defeat their custom villain, they must learn a Very Important Lesson about themselves.

While the films might lack a great resonance of character issues and development, the movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled managed to get some pretty wonderful actors. The principle actors in this saga – Robert Downey Jr. (Tony Stark), Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Edward Norton (Bruce Banner – for The Incredible Hulk), Mark Ruffalo (Bruce Banner – for The Avengers), Samuel L. Jackson (Nick Fury), Chris Evans (Captain America), Jeremy Renner (Hawkeye), Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), and Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) are wonderful and add and emotional resonance and realism to the movies that makes them feel grand and sophisticated beyond the simple plots and characters they portray. The supporting actors – Sir Anthony Hopkins, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges, Hugo Weaving, Tommy Lee Jones, Stanley Tucci, William Hurt, and Liv Tyler – lend a professionalism to a movie series that could seem campy or utterly unrealistic without their gravitas.

Ultimately, the movies in Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase One – Avengers Assembled are entertaining popcorn movies, but seeing them together in this set begins to reiterate the idea that some of the super heroes in the Marvel Universe are hardly all that special. These stories shake up the super powers and specific plots, but are in many ways the same essential story told six ways.

For similar boxed sets, please visit my reviews of:
The Star Trek Cinematic Boxed Set
The Lord Of The Rings
The Star Wars Trilogy

5/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Lousy Special Effects Bring Down The Otherwise Average Jumanji.

The Good: Concept is decent
The Bad: Light on character development, Special effects
The Basics: A very average action-adventure film, Jumanji is a mediocre film on a bland DVD which is entirely avoidable.


There are moments when it unsettles me to consider my wife. Last night, I had one of those moments when I tried to support her desire to take in some fantasy-type movies before Halloween. She wanted to watch Jumanji (don't ask me how this is Halloween-related, but she seems to think it is, so I don't argue) and so she got the DVD out from the library. She gushed about how it was one of the movies she grew up on, recalling when it came out when she was only about seven. I recalled how I was a Senior in high school when it came out and this led me to shudder. Astonishingly enough, in the intervening years, she has seen it many, many times and last night was my first. Honestly, I do not feel like I have been missing anything by not seeing it before now.

Jumanji fits into the family-friendly niche of movies that A Night At The Museum now occupies where the movie has what is considered cutting-edge special effects, but then looks ridiculous in a few years. Watching the movie on our HDTV, my wife cringed to realize she once was fooled by the special effects and I found myself laughing AT the movie more frequently than laughing with it. The short result of this review would be this recommendation: Jumanji is playing on some station in the world virtually any given minute and one would be hard pressed to find a weekend when it wasn't playing on a television station one receives; why buy it when you can get it free? In other words, this was never such an extraordinary film that one might want to add it to their permanent collection.

In the late 1960s, a boy is being hounded by local bullies and he visits his father, the owner of Parrish Shoes. After inadvertently costing the forward-thinking Bentley his job, Alan Parrish is beaten up by his nemesis. Alan discovers a chest with a boardgame, Jumanji, and he retreats to his parent's house to open it up. When Sarah returns his bicycle to him, Alan and Sarah begin playing the game, but soon discover it is magical. Alan is sucked into the game and Sarah runs off in terror. In the 1990s, the Shepherd family moves into the old Parrish mansion and the children, Peter and Judy, begin exploring the house. In the process, they hear the drums that lure players to the game and they begin playing "Jumanji." After releasing giant mosquitoes and a lion from the boardgame, Peter rolls the requisite number to release Alan from the game.

Rescuing the children from the lion, Alan realizes that to stop the mayhem now being released from the boardgame, they must finish the game. Alan and the children recover Sarah and the continue playing the game. This releases into the real world jungle animals, calamitous events (like earthquakes) and a psychotic hunter bent on killing Alan. The four try desperately to survive long enough to finish the game before they and their town are destroyed!

Jumanji is very family-friendly, despite a few perilous moments with a stampede of jungle animals and a gun-crazy hunter. Unfortunately, like many family-friendly films, the net result is a lower level of attention to character. Outside Judy lying compulsively, the kids are pretty generic; they are types instead of actual characters. Even young Alan is just a geeky kid who is beaten up by his peers and Sarah is a generic girl. Sarah has no real character until she is an adult and she pops back into the film as a psychic. Unfortunately, even that character development is hinged entirely on her youthful encounter with the Jumanji game.

The character with the most actual character is the older incarnation of Alan as released by the game. He has learned to survive within the game and he has developed instincts that allow him to act like an adult, despite not having much in the way of formal training. As a result, he has the emotional simplicity of a child, but the adult instincts that make it realistic that he might know how to survive in perilous situations. The resolution to the film, however, do negate much of the character development. Even so, Alan is ably played by Robin Williams and this is a role that combines his childlike excitement he has presented since his earliest standup routines with the serious tact he began taking in the mid-1990s.

The rest of the acting is awkward at best. Kirsten Dunst is notably stiff and just plain bad, reminding viewers just why child actors are the bane of many directors, as well as of audiences everywhere. She seems to be trading on the idea that she is cute in a way that is neither innocent or charming (it's a niche whose appeal I've not yet managed to appreciate) and she plays Judy with a stiffness that is indecipherable. After all, Judy is a child the same age as Dunst, so the leap she is being asked to make as an actress is pretty much nonexistent. At the same time, Kirsten Dunst is asked to play opposite virtual characters and scenarios and she does a fair job at running and looking afraid when required. But in any moments with dialogue and the need for actual human interaction, she is stiff and bland.

In fact, the best acting in Jumanji comes from Bebe Neuwirth. Neuwirth plays Judy and Peter's mother. After years of being typecast as the stiff and emotionless Lilith on Cheers, Neuwirth is afforded the opportunity to play a loving aunt and she is efficient, but clearly cares for the kids. She makes the bit part memorable and believable in a film concentrated on the unreal.

Jumanji is not about character development or even plot because the plot is ridiculously simple: four people get trapped playing a game where the consequences manifest in the real world. Instead, this is a mediocre special effects action-adventure movie where the characters run, jump, freak out, but not really learn anything new or develop in any meaningful way. The purpose is to entertain and it is adequate at that. However, the special effects are very much outdated and as a result, the computer-generated animals move awkwardly and are lit terribly, making their frequent appearances seem more ridiculous than perilous. This, ultimately, drags the movie down now.

On DVD, Jumanji comes with a commentary track that is fair. As well, there are featurettes on the special effects and the casting of the movie. However, these are very typical bonus features and they do not make the source material any better. Instead, the only real advantage to the DVD over watching this on television is that one does not have the commercials.

I tend to look at DVDs for the overall value and Jumanji is short, but entertaining. DVDs one adds to their permanent collection ought to have an enduring sense of entertainment to them and this is just a gimmick-based movie which is easy to overlook when building a permanent collection.

For other works with Robin Williams, please visit my reviews of:
Old Dogs
Happy Feet
Bicentennial Man


5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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A Remarkably Average Superhero Flick, Captain America: The First Avenger Is Not Likely To Get One Looking For The Rest!

The Good: Fun, Decent-enough acting
The Bad: Predictable, mundane, plot, No real character development, Special effects are blase.
The Basics: Captain America: The First Avenger is so typical a superhero film that it is hard to write about it with anything other than thoroughly neutral terms.


Movies based upon Marvel Comics have real highs and lows for me. The various franchises have wandered and left me unimpressed or not been followed up on in meaningful ways. Thor, for example, earlier this year scored high on special effects, but had little else to thrill viewers. Further back, Daredevil actually had decent character development, but failed to have the success needed to make it a franchise. So, with next year's group superhero bonanza The Avengers attempting to compete with The Dark Knight Rises, Marvel presents the final preparation project with the movie Captain America: The First Avenger for this year's Summer Blockbuster Season.

Unfortunately for the talented cast that includes Stanley Tucci, Tommy Lee Jones and Hugo Weaving, Captain America: The First Avenger is so generic a superhero film that the story sounds more like an archetype for writing a superhero flick than anything that might audaciously redefine the genre. With mediocre special effects that are used mostly to augment obviously-choreographed battle sequences, Captain America: The First Avenger is plagued by a lack of real character development which neglects the talents of the most significant performers in the piece.

With World War II raging, Steve Rogers is a young man in Brooklyn who is utterly unqualified to enlist. After failing to get into basic training four times, Rogers is approached by Dr. Erskine, who sees Rogers as the ideal test candidate for a supersoldier program. Steve Rogers is enhanced by Howard Stark and his technology to become stronger, faster and incredibly fast-healing. His skills are put to the test when a Nazi supersoldier attempts to destroy the project and must be stopped. Following the encounter, Rogers is sent to raise money by hawking war bonds, then to Europe to entertain the troops as part of the USO tour.

But while there, Rogers learns that his friend from home has been captured by the enemy. Nazi superscientists known as HYDRA, who are developing superweapons designed to crush resistance, are holding Rogers's friend Buckey. As Rogers, Stark and Peggy Carter race to stop the Nazis and rescue the Americans, they soon uncover the leader of HYDRA, a cruel Nazi scientist whose horrific visage earns him the nickname Red Skull. With the fate of the war hanging in the balance, Captain America moves to stop the Red Skull and save the world.

Captain America: The First Avenger is less the usual "hero in the process of becoming" character arc for a superhero movie and more a "hero given the opportunity to shine" story. Steve Rogers starts the film, despite getting his butt kicked by bullies, as a courageous American who only wants to preserve truth, justice, and the American way by killing Nazis and doing his part to save Europe. Rogers does no learn any deeper truths, does not have his convictions challenged or changed. Instead, he simply gets the power to do what he wants at the beginning: to stop having his ass kicked and to be the one protecting America. Ironically, Rogers is advised not to change himself despite his physical changes and that makes for a pretty stagnant character arc in the movie.

Unfortunately, there is little else to Captain America: The First Avenger. Johann Schmidt (Red Skull) is a monolithic villain who does not have any distinctive convictions to make him more memorable than any other Nazi character. HYDRA might be the Nazi scientists who are so evil they'll run over Nazis to achieve world domination, but there is something unfulfilling or uncompelling about Supernazis. When you get to a certain stage of evil, the distinction is pretty well lost and unimportant. The super evil nazis are evil in a way that is analogous to the lack of intelligence that differentiates a 40 IQ individual vs. a 50 IQ individual. There's retarded and super retarded and the distinction has few practical differences. So, too, do the HYDRA agents seem about as evil as regular cinematic Nazis. The troopers might as well be COBRA agents from the G.I. Joe film (reviewed here!).

What prevents the stagnant characters and obvious plot of Captain America: The First Avenger from being utterly unwatchable is the acting. Tommy Lee Jones, Hugo Weaving and Stanley Tucci all do their best with what little they are given. Hayley Atwell might play a pretty generic 1940s servicewoman, but she feels so authentic one completely buys the time she is a product of.

Most of the movie rests upon Chris Evans and the real surprise for moviegoers is likely to be that he succeeds in carrying the role. As Steve Rogers, he plays a character with convictions who is nothing like the cocky role most know him from from the Fantastic Four movies. In fact, what is most winning about Evans as Captain America is how he does not simply rely on his smirk to carry scenes and instead tries to create a man who believes in something and wants more than anything to fight for his beliefs. He does that with a surprising amount of physical presence that works well for the film.

Having seen the film now in 3-D, one is forced to wonder if Paramount Pictures truly understands how to use the 3-D medium. I think that the studio and the stereoscopers for this movie forgot that we see movies already in three dimensions; forcing the perspective of mundane scenes does not enhance the film much. This movie uses the 3-D effects exceptionally poorly and it is impossible to recommend anyone shelling out for that feature.

Sadly, Marvel Comics and Paramount Pictures underestimate the formula for Summer Blockbuster Season. Director Joe Johnston is given a mundane script which he makes into a typical superhero movie that cannot possibly compete with Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 (reviewed here!). It's not just that the other franchise has seven movies going into it that will prevent Captain America: The First Avenger from taking the top spot at the box office this weekend; it is the fact that one ending is pleasantly extraordinary, while this movie is unfortunately mundane.

For other movies based upon the Marvel comic books, please check out my reviews of:
X-Men: First Class
Thor
Iron Man 2
The Incredible Hulk
Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
Blade: Trinity
Elektra
Daredevil

5/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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