Dated, But Worthwhile: The Newsroom Was Sorkin's Most Original Work In Ages!

The Good: Exceptional details, Good acting, Interesting characters
The Bad: Exceptionally dated and plot-specific
The Basics: The Newsroom had only three seasons, which amount to a body of wonderful television that ages poorly.


When it comes to the works of Aaron Sorkin, there are a number of things that casual viewers do not immediately recognize. For example, Sorkin recycles a lot of his lines and plotlines. When people quote The Social Network (reviewed here!), they often recall the line about how if the Winklevoss brothers had invented Facebook, they would have invented Facebook. While it is memorable and was used in many of the trailers, loyal fans of Aaron Sorkins work will easily recognize the line as a bastardization of one of Sorkins lines from Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip (reviewed here!). In a similar fashion, Sorkin's latest television work, The Newsroom, used a few of its plots from Sorkin's work Sports Night (reviewed here!). Despite the third season of The Newsroom using the network sale plot from Sports Night, most of the HBO series is actually fairly original.

The Newsroom - The Complete Series is a compilation of the discs from:
The Newsroom - Season 1
The Newsroom - Season 2
and The Newsroom - Season 3 with new packaging, but no new material.

The Newsroom is an hourlong show that explores the behind-the-scenes aspects of a cable news show. Fighting for legitimacy and credibility in a 24 hour news cycle, jaded reporter Will McAvoy accepts his ex-girlfriend as his new Executive Producer whose goal is to make the news show on their cable news network great again. Instead of softball news, McAvoy and MacKenzie McHale fight to change the tableau of nightly news by delivering stories the right way.

While breaking stories on the Deepwater Horizon (BP oil spill), Egypt's coup and the shooting of Congresswoman Gabriel Giffords, McAvoy tries to expose the Tea Party as extremist hijackers of the Republican Party. McAvoy gambles his newfound principles by covering the Casey Anthony story in an attempt to get a strong Republican primary debate. Failing that, ACN gets lured into reporting a story that gets the team in legal trouble. The series climaxes with the fight between legitimate news and crowd sourcing the news when ACN is bought by a young, hip man who does not value McHale's approach.

As one might expect in a work by Aaron Sorkin, the writing in The Newsroom is exceptional. The dialogue is fast and witty and the characters are interesting. Unfortunately, The Newsroom is somewhat erratic. The first season is rooted in real-world events that are incredibly specific and remarkably dated (even now). The second season detours from the harshly realistic to create a fictional story that was analogous to how less-legitimate news sources get bamboozled. And in the third season, The Newsroom relies upon Sorkin's fictional African nation to sell a plot that allows for a contempt of court story for Will McAvoy.

Wound amid the stories are the behind-the-scenes dramas of the relationships of the people who work at ACN. Will McAvoy and MacKenzie McHale are exes who struggle to have a relationship that works while working together. Jim Harper is a professional who has a weak spot for Maggie, but can't seem to get it together with her. And Sloane Sabbith is a consummate professional not looking for a meaningful relationship when her most meaningful friendship develops into a shockingly good romantic relationship.

The Newsroom is dominated by distinctive characters and the essential characters are:

Will McAvoy – The lead anchor of ACN’s flagship program, NewsNight, he is unliked by his underlings and peers at the outset. When MacKenzie returns to the show, he starts doing the show they both wanted. He returns to integrity while fighting the Tea Party on air and standing by his employees,

MacKenzie McHale – Executive Producer of NewsNight, she loves Will and works to get him back on track. She is smart, efficient and runs the newsroom with integrity,

Jim Harper – MacKenzie's loyal assistant, he travels with her from her pre-ACN rut to ACN. There, he starts running the newsroom efficiently, despite developing feelings for Maggie. He starts dating Maggie's roommate at her insistence and tries to avoid her by going off on the Romney press bus,

Maggie Jordan – Initially in a bad relationship with Don, she works the newsroom with mixed professional results. To avoid her feelings for Jim and the consequences of confessing those feelings in a viral video on the internet, she takes an assignment in Africa that leaves her fundamentally shaken,

Don Keefer – The executive producer of the show that follows McAvoy's Newsnight, he is treated poorly by McAvoy's staff after being replaced by McHale. He dates Maggie until her true feelings come out and then he finds himself in an unlikely relationship with Sloan,

Sloan Sabbith – The economics expert at ACN, she is smart, efficient and professional. Despite that, she ends up in multiple personal quagmires - usually by men treating her poorly - and struggles to warn ACN of an impending hostile takeover,

Neal Sampat – He is the director of ACN's online presence who is ridiculed by his peers who do not see the internet as a legitimate way to gather information. But, after years of following internet clues to stories, he becomes mired in the heart of a story that exposes genuine government corruption,

and Charlie Skinner – The president of ACN, he fights for Newsnight to make the transition from soft news back to strong journalism.

The Newsroom is led by Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer and they bring instant credibility and gravitas to their roles of Will and MacKenzie. Younger performers like Allison Pill, Dev Patel and Olivia Munn play off the mature portrayal of Charlie Skinner by Sam Waterston and the mix of actors creates an environment that feels very real.

Ultimately, The Newsroom makes a good argument, but it belabors that argument and ends up as a body of work that was timely, but sadly ineffective.

For other works that are or were on HBO, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Game Change
Veep - Season 1
Game Of Thrones - Season 6
Girls - Season 1
True Blood
Carnivale
Rome
Extras
Six Feet Under
Sex & The City - Season Three
Da Ali G Show
Jim Henson's The Storyteller

5.5/10

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

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Something Of A Mess For The End Of The World: X-Men: Apocalypse

The Good: Special effects, Moments of character/philosophy
The Bad: Simplistic plot, Underdeveloped characters, Some of the performances.
The Basics: X-Men: Apocalypse is entertaining, but not as engaging as some of the earlier X-Men installments.


Summer Blockbuster Season is upon us and the final movie of the year that I am excited about is upon us! It's a rare thing that there is a Star Trek film on the horizon and I am not at all excited about it (sorry, but when the big selling point of the film is that it is directed by the director of The Fast And The Furious, it's hard to be an enthusiastic Trekker!). The film is X-Men: Apocalypse and it represents the best chance for a kick-ass super hero film experience this summer. For sure, Captain America: Civil War (reviewed here!) was not bad, but when one is expecting a high-minded philosophical debate and one gets yet another "here's how a half-rate villain outwits our heroes" story and "product placement" for future MCU films, it is hard not to be somewhat disappointed. As for X-Men: Apocalypse, there is a lot to enjoy within the film, but it does not take long into the film before it seems like director Bryan Singer and his co-writers bit off more than they could chew.

X-Men: Apocalypse is based upon a massive Marvel Comics crossover series from the mid-1990s and it is worth noting up-front that I have not read it. As a result, this is a pure review of the film X-Men: Apocalypse. And, in many ways, X-Men: Apocalypse is the sequel to X-Men: First Class (reviewed here!); it introduces most of the rest of the central X-Men characters to bridge First Class with Singer's first X-Men film (reviewed here!). Unfortunately for viewers and fans, between the casting and the abundance of characters leaving most of them under-developed, X-Men: Apocalypse is not all it could be.

Opening in ancient Egypt, the mutant En Sabah Nur is involved in a ritual to transfer his consciousness into a new mutant body when the humans aiding him in the process turn on him and his assistants, burying him by destroying his pyramid. In 1983, Raven rescues the mutant Kurt Wagner (Nightcrawler) from a mutant fight club that leaves Angel wounded. In Poland, Erik Lensherr is hiding out - living a mundane life - with his new wife and daughter when he saves a worker at his factory from death. But, when humans hunt down Lensherr and inadvertently kill his family, Magneto reverts to his rage. This happens at almost the same time as CIA Agent Moira Mactaggert uncovering En Sabah Nur's temple and (with the addition of sunlight) reactivating the mutant. The resurfacing of Apocalypse sends shockwaves through the mutant community, especially at Xavier's School Of Mutants (where most people assume the physical shaking is coming from the telekinetic Jean Grey).

Apocalypse quickly surrounds himself with powerful mutants - Ororo Munroe (Storm), Psyclocke (who has the ability to create energy-based weapons), and Angel. Recognizing that a worldwide manhunt for Lensherr has begun, Raven returns to Xavier's side to try to find him before the humans can. Unfortunately, Apocalypse reaches Magneto first and recruits him to help him lay waste to humanity. Just a Quicksilver is reaching out to Xavier to help him find Magneto, Apocalypse and his Horsemen abduct Xavier from the school. While Apocalypse utilizes his newfound allies and uses Xavier to deliver a message to the world (after disabling the world's nuclear arsenal), Raven and Hank McCoy marshal the forces of Xavier's students. In the ashes of Xavier's school, Stryker abducts Mactaggert, McCoy, Quicksilver, and Raven, leaving Jean Grey, Nightcrawler and Scott Summers (Cyclops) to rescue them and save Charles, while Apocalypse attempts to remake the world for the strongest mutants.

X-Men: Apocalypse once again reworks the cinematic X-Men universe to once again de-canonize X-Men Origins: Wolverine (reviewed here!), whatwith having a new first meeting between Scott Summers and Charles Xavier. More than that being a genuine problem, X-Men: Apocalypse packs so many characters into it that almost none of them are properly serviced. Logan's lone scene affords an opportunity to have a plot-necessary diversion for some of the main characters and remind viewers that they were missing Hugh Jackman. Ororo Munroe, especially, is introduced in her earliest incarnation in a most unsatisfactory way. Munroe is introduced as a thief on the streets of Cairo and she seems to have virtually entire control over her weather-controlling abilities . . . and she falls in with Apocalypse without any apparent ethical conflict.

In a similar way, Olivia Munn is added to X-Men: Apocalypse as Psylocke in a particularly unmemorable way. Psylocke's powers - like Bishop's in the prior film - are made clear only through context clues and she is presented, sadly, as a monolithic lackey for Apocalypse. Munn looks great in the outfit and Psylocke is an awesome fighter for the scenes she is in, but she had remarkably few lines and virtually no characterization.

Apocalypse is an unfortunately monolithic villain and he sucks the well-developed Eric Lensherr down into his trap of being troublingly one-sided. Apocalypse wants to basically use Magneto to erase human infrastructure from the world and (potentially) leave the planet for mutants. But Apocalypse is not presented as a well-rounded enough villain to even explain that; he feels like humans have overrun the Earth, but why he wants to rule over it is not clear. Why Apocalypse wants to rule over the ruins of Earth he is having Magneto create is never compellingly explained. Moreover, why Magneto even wants to have mutants around him is not explained. Here is a mutant who has lived for many thousands of years; there is no one he knows or who has ever known he has not already lost. Why would he want or need anyone around him?

The result of so many flaccid characters mutes the deeper characters presented or revisited in X-Men: Apocalypse. Charles Xavier is given very few scenes and is not able to truly reflect on Raven's return before he is torn away from his students. Magneto's rage is interesting, but X-Men: Apocalypse does not satisfactorily explain why he would willingly fall in with Apocalypse as opposed to just continue his own killing spree or go his own way. The cult of Apocalypse is not expressed on screen in a convincing or compelling way.

The character that comes out ahead for most of her time on screen in X-Men: Apocalypse is Raven. Mystique, and to a lesser extent Hank McCoy and even Quicksilver, has no bad scenes and she follows an arc that makes sense and is character-driven. Raven continues to embody a character conflict that has her trapped between two worlds; she is helping mutants, but not as part of Xavier's school. She is presented well in X-Men: Apocalypse and here she reaches a new heroic level that Jennifer Lawrence is easily able to portray.

The same cannot be said for Sophie Turner and some of the other young cast members introduced in X-Men: Apocalypse. Turner, alas, does not have the screen presence or range to play Jean Grey in a compelling way. Turner's performance lacks nuance or depth. To be fair, so does Alexandra Shipp's portrayal of Ororo. Tye Sheridan fails to portray Scott Summers as realistically shaken either in the sudden manifestation of his powers or in the death of his brother. Kodi Smit-McPhee does fine as Kurt Wagner in X-Men: Apocalypse, but most of his acting is covered up by the make-up for the character.

Despite the lack of compelling characters and plot development for the bulk of X-Men: Apocalypse, the special effects are suitably impressive. Between make-up, costumes, and CG-effects, X-Men: Apocalypse looks great. Hell, despite not having much of a part in the film, Olivia Munn draws the viewer's eye for ever scene she is on screen as Psylocke.

The X-Men film series has, largely, been successful because of the morals, message, and characters in the franchise. X-Men: Apocalypse lacks that depth or character development. The result is a fair popcorn movie, but not a film that stands up well compared to the rest of the series.

For other X-Men films, please visit my reviews of:
X2: X-Men United
X-Men III: The Last Stand
The Wolverine
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
Logan

6/10

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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HBO Enters That Irksome Spot Between Brilliant And Bastardly With The Perfect Third Season Of The Newsoom!

The Good: Engaging plot development, Great acting, Good character development
The Bad: SHORT!
The Basics: In its final season, The Newsroom is short, focused, original, and perfect, which is wonderful and frustrating!


Unlike a lot of networks, HBO has the tendency not to kill shows before their time - Carnivale (reviewed here!), notwithstanding – so when it does cancel a series, it is usually because it has gone long past its prime and is no longer drawing an audience. When HBO announced that the third season of The Newsroom would be its last and it would only be getting six episodes for the season, fans like me wondered what the hell was wrong with HBO. After all, The Newsroomwas one of the network’s smartest shows and there did not seem to be any deficit of excitement for Aaron Sorkin’s latest series. Coming off the disastrous plot for the Atlantis Cable News team in the second season (reviewed here!), there seemed like plenty of interesting potential directions for the third season (and beyond) to go in.

The result of Sorkin only having six episodes to wrap up The Newsroom with is that Aaron Sorkin created one of his best seasons of television yet. The fear for Sorkin fans with some of the elements that set-up the third season – the potential buy-out of ACN smacked of the conclusion to Sports Night (reviewed here!) – was that Sorkin would once again reuse some of his previously created character arcs, plot devices and (especially) witty lines. Fortunately, for a series that was always in danger of being derivative, Sorkin and his team pulled it out with six episodes that create a tight, powerful, meaningful season of television that allows The Newsroom to go out on a high note and end before it succumbed to Sorkin’s lack of creativity.

Picking up in the wake of ACN’s expose of a fictitious story, NewsNight With Will McAvoy struggles for credibility among its cable news competitors and its dwindling audience. When the bombing of the Boston Marathon occurs, Will McAvoy and MacKenzie McHale are incredibly cautious about their sources with reporting the story – so much so that they end up discrediting a number of other reports that use false leads. While the rest of the ACN team is championing good reporting while social media gives law enforcement bad leads in the Boston Marathon case, Neal finds himself in possession of tens of thousands of documents of classified intelligence materials. Neal is handed a story about how U.S. operatives planted stories in foreign newspapers and one of those stories led to a riot in which thirty-eight people (including three Americans) were killed.

Almost immediately, Will and MacKenzie realize that Neal has committed a serious felony (encouraging his source to commit espionage) and when the Justice Department descends upon ACN, Will has Neal flee the country. As the Justice Department interrogates Will (Neal told him his source), Sloan realizes that ACN is the subject of an impending hostile takeover. Attempting to avoid a buyout by a ruthless billionaire who wants to make ACN into a network serviced by “citizen journalists” and social media, Charlie and Sloan find themselves completely at his mercy. When Lucas Pruit buys ACN and retools it, the team tries to keep things together without Will McAvoy’s leadership. Jailed for contempt for refusing to reveal Neal’s source, Will struggles to maintain his sanity while imprisoned and Mac, Don and Jim fight with Charlie to maintain the network’s integrity.

At its worst The Newsroom was always in danger of retreading where Sports Night had gone fifteen years prior. Fortunately, while the set-up for the final season of The Newsroom was identical to the final arc of Sports Night, the third season of The Newsroom takes the series in a different direction. Instead of being a savior for the beloved show, Lucas Pruit becomes an antagonist who menaces everything the protagonists for the series have built. The difference makes all the difference: it allows The Newsroom to go out on a completely different note than Sports Night and it allows Aaron Sorkin to finish the show with a sense of originality that his prior two works have lacked.

The third season of The Newsroom is notable, as well, for telling some stories that are not actual news story, sucking it out of the real world and into the fictional world of The West Wing (reviewed here!). That makes it problematic as it blends fictional television universes (Equatorial Kundu, which is at the heart of the story that captivates Neal and Will, is a construct of The West Wing) and the real world (Edward Snowden is on monitors in Charlie’s office and the Boston Marathon bombing coverage is relayed in a fashion identical to reality). While this might seem like a real conundrum only for fans of Sorkin’s works (how to reconcile a world where after Bartlet and Santos, Bush and Obama came to power), it guts the authority of The Newsroom for fans of this show alone as well. After all, The Newsroom has been very rooted in speaking truth to power as we know it in the U.S. right now. A show that called out the Tea Party and explored genocide in Africa that then cannot come up with a real story to use to tell the whole journalist integrity/espionage story seems troubling.

Regardless, The Newsroom Season Three manages to be entirely engaging and even pull out some real surprises. “Oh Shenandoah,” especially, is unlike anything else on any other Aaron Sorkin production. The result is a pleasantly surprising season of television that is almost impossible not to binge watch into a single sitting!

For those unfamiliar with it by this point, The Newsroom is dominated by distinctive characters. In the third and final season, the essential characters are:

Will McAvoy – The lead anchor of ACN’s flagship program, NewsNight, he is engaged to MacKenzie. Their marriage plans soon go awry when McAvoy buys Neal the computer he needs to get his informant to trust him. McAvoy stands by his ethical standards to fight the government cover-up in Kundu, going to jail rather than naming Neal’s source. His time in prison for protecting his source is a transformative one for him,

MacKenzie McHale – Executive Producer of NewsNight, she loves Will and works to protect his legacy while he is in prison. She realizes very early on how much trouble Neal and Will are in, thanks in part to a friend in the intelligence community with whom she confides. While trying to fend off the hostile takeover of Atlantis Cable News, she actually meets their source face to face. Her wedding plans are very suddenly altered, which leads her to make an important, abrupt, decision,

Jim Harper –After getting his girlfriend a job at ACN, he is shocked when she makes an ill-timed Tweet and he is forced to take her to Charlie to be fired. They have a falling out over the type of job she gets afterward, where he worries that she might be wooed by ACN’s enemies, and that sets him and Maggie up for a relationship. He gets little done as Producer at ACN, though he and Maggie attempt to get an interview with Edward Snowden as he leaves Russia,

Maggie Jordan – Having recovered from the incident in Africa, she returns to a more traditional look and refocuses on her health and professional development. She overhears a potentially big story from an EPA source while on a train and she decides not to take the salacious story in exchange for reporting the more substantive one. She starts dating another man she met on the train and they have tension based on Maggie’s attraction to Jim,

Don Keefer – He starts dating Sloan, though the two struggle to hide that fact from a member of Human Resources. He is given the unenviable task of vetting a young woman with a problematic website for the new ACN, which leads him to his ultimate conflict with Charlie,

Sloan Sabbith – Giddy over her new terminal that seems to give her inside financial information, she is the one who figures out that Reese and his mother are about to lose ACN. She starts dating Don and fails his tests when he realizes that she is very much like him in relationships,

Neal Sampat – He is eager to get respect and legitimacy from his coworkers and, in the process, eagerly gives the ACN encryption key to a source who requests it. To prove to himself and the others that the source is legitimate, he informs the source how to transfer the classified documents from the U.S. internal sites to him. After inadvertently inciting espionage, he goes on the run while the rest of the team fights for his rights and freedoms back in New York,

and Charlie Skinner – The president of ACN, he goes toe to toe with Lansing’s other children, who will inherit and buy enough of the company’s stock to completely own the company. Fearful of the direction they might take it, he tries to suck up to them and then tries to find a buyer who has as much integrity as Reese and his mother. Under Pruit’s ownership of ACN, he is truly miserable and finds himself fighting against his own goals and agendas.

In its third season, everyone on The Newsroom know their parts and how to play them expertly. This is a flawlessly-delivered season of television and the few guest stars for the season, like Kat Dennings and B.J. Novak, figure out how to play perfectly within the seasoned cast who know their characters backwards and forwards. Jeff Daniels uses the last few moments of the show to infuse Will McAvoy with his own interest and talent (singing) and he is such a professional that he makes it seem organically like a trait of McAvoy instead of Daniels. That is a talent that few actors possess!

All of that adds up to an engaging season that packs a lot into six episodes and makes one figure that HBO is brilliant and figured out how to get something new out of Aaron Sorkin . . . even as it infuriates viewers with how the show is already done!

For other works from the 2014 – 2015 television season, please check out my reviews of:
House Of Cards - Season 2
Doctor Who - Season 8
True Blood - Season 7
”Now Is Not The End” - Agent Carter
”Aftershocks” - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

10/10

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

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Jedi Junkies Underwhelms Both Fans And Documentary Aficionados.

The Good: Some decent interviews
The Bad: Lacking a number of significant perspectives, Meanders
The Basics: A meandering documentary, Jedi Junkies glosses over Star Wars fandom.


Every now and then, there is a documentary that explores something truly uncommon and actually manages to explore an aspect of that previously unpresented topic. For a change, I find myself actually impressed by the Star Trek documentary Trekkies (reviewed here!). Even if that documentary portrayed a very negative aspect of Star Trek fandom, at least it made something of a statement. Jedi Junkies does not.

Jedi Junkies is a documentary on Star Wars fandom. Unfortunately, it is not a particularly good documentary. When a seventy-five minute documentary spends twenty seconds fixed on the director of a fan film listening to his cell phone, not reacting at all to what he is hearing, one has to wonder what the point is.

Jedi Junkies meanders through Star Wars culture – without clips from any of the Star Wars films – and with interviews only from four performers from the Sextet. The movie starts with a broad exploration of Star Wars fandom (pretty much introducing a dozen Star Wars fans) and shows a few different collections. The documentary then moves into light saber training, fan films, the debate between who shot first (Greedo or Han Solo), and then collectibles. After a debate over who would win between Darth Maul and Darth Vader, the documentary gives exposure to one filk band and then more fan films and prop replica manufacturers.

Jedi Junkies is notably lacking in interviews from George Lucas or any of the other directors from the Star Wars movies. Olivia Munn is a poor substitute to Lucas speaking about the phenomenon he created. That only supporting performers from the Star Wars movies are interviewed and their footage is minimized in comparison to, for example, a random collector (he is not listed as having a superlatively large collection) who should either put his gauges back in or cover his grossly sagging lobes.

Director Mark Edlitz smartly gets interviews from psychologists, but he does not manage to ask any truly probing questions or get any truly audacious footage. Instead, the premise of the movie is “hey, there are Star Wars fans . . . here are some.” That’s not particularly compelling moviemaking or documentary work and that is why Jedi Junkies largely fails.

For other documentaries, please check out my reviews of:
Trek Nation
Great White Odyssey
After Porn Ends

1/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Uninspiring Anthology: Suck It, Wonder Woman! Is An Unremarkable Collection!

The Good: Conversational writing style is fun, Some entertaining stories
The Bad: Not terribly original, insightful or clever, Repetitive
The Basics: Olivia Munn’s autobiographical essays and collection of philosophies, Suck It, Wonder Woman!, adds up to nothing of consequence.


I like Olivia Munn on The Newsroom (season two is now reviewed here!) and that was my impetus for picking up her book Suck It, Wonder Woman!. After my first night of reading Suck It, Wonder Woman!, my wife asked me what I thought of it and I frowned and noted that it wasn’t adding up to much. Her response was one of anything but surprise and she reminded me how much Olivia Minn rambled on the commentary track on the first season of The Newsroom (reviewed here!). I had forgotten how Munn dominated the audio track bonus feature on The Newsroom without, ultimately, saying much at all.

Outside The Newsroom, I had no experience with Olivia Munn until reading Suck It, Wonder Woman!,so I cannot offer a comparative analysis of how the book stacks up against her performances on Attack Of The Show. But, if Suck It, Wonder Woman! is any indication, Aaron Sorkin has seen a potential in Olivia Munn that is not at all evident in her writing. In other words, anyone hoping for a Sorkin-esque level of wit, depth and thematic sophistication will not find it from Olivia Munn, at least not in Suck It, Wonder Woman!. On The Newsroom, Munn is articulate and she delivers her lines entirely convincingly.

That voice is entirely absent from Suck It, Wonder Woman!

In Suck It, Wonder Woman!, Olivia Munn rambles from subject to subject; it begins as an autobiography and interspersed between stories of Munn’s life are her philosophies on various things. Her subjects of contemplations range from why one shouldn’t mix tequila and painkillers (it leads to homoerotic showers, apparently, which is not exactly the strongest argument against, despite the fact that it comes after nearly drowning) to why you should get a threesome out of the way if your boyfriend has not already had one. None of the passages are particularly insightful or authoritative, save the autobiographical bits. Munn describes her lonely childhood, early experiences in Hollywood (like meeting with a famous director who masturbated in front of her) to her rise to prominence on G4’s Attack Of The Show. Her story is hardly unique, though the story of the worst day of her life (when, during an admittedly bratty phase, she treated her grandmother poorly on the very night of her grandmother’s death) is heartbreaking and easy to empathize with.

Munn’s writing style is conversational and she repeats quite a bit of information. In Suck It, Wonder Woman!, aided by Mac Montandon, Munn writes like a high school girl talks. She writes enthusiastically, tells her stories in a rambling manner with little points and the stories are easy to read and get through. So, for example, when discussing her Playboy cover shoot, she writes “Playboy then said that if I flash the same amount of skin that Heidi had, they would pay me a certain amount – I’m not gonna reveal too much here (it’s a trend!) but suffice it to say it was a very good amount of money” (119). That type of voice with its own interjections is very common in Suck It, Wonder Woman!.

Moreover, there is an irksome trend in Suck It, Wonder Woman! where Munn oscillates between namedropping (like Evander Holyfield) and protecting the identities of those to whom she alludes (a famous movie director whose bedroom she visited, yet remains unnammed). As well, references to her show, Attack Of The Show come out of nowhere and she assumes readers are invested in the work. She spends a lot of time writing about a petition that led to her and her co-host jumping into a giant pie while wearing french maid outfits. This incident includes Munn complaining about hitting a support bar and getting hurt on it and her co-host leaping in minutes later to the same fare, leaving the reader baffled as to why she did not warn her co-host about the peril!

Suck It, Wonder Woman! has moments of entertainment value, but on the whole, the book does not stack up as a memoir, an autobiography or a book of philosophies. Instead, it is a meandering narrative that never becomes anything cohesive. Munn might have something to say, but in Suck It, Wonder Woman!, she does not land her message, nor does she stick to her personal story enough to make the reader care about the woman behind the words. In short, Suck It, Wonder Woman! is a not-unpleasant volume that undersells itself on all counts.

For other books that have memoir, philosophy or autobiographical aspects, please visit my reviews of:
The Autobiography Of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Stories I Only Tell My Friends By Rob Lowe
Keeping Faith By Jimmy Carter

3/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Build-up To Catastrophe, The Newsroom Season Two Is Good, Not Exceptional!

The Good: Good writing, Great acting, Interesting plots and characters, Engaging plot construction
The Bad: Dramatic tension hinges on forgetting how the season begins?!
The Basics: When The Newsroom returns for Season 2, Aaron Sorkin tries something new, but the season’s sense of dramatic tension builds on something of a folly.


As a big fan of the works of Aaron Sorkin, when I reviewed the first season of The Newsroom (reviewed here!), my biggest criticism of the new Aaron Sorkin series was how much Sorkin recycled from the other works he wrote. The Newsroom proved that Aaron Sorkin either does not understand just how much of a fanbase he has or that he is the biggest pro-recycling advocate working in entertainment today. The second season of The Newsroom starts out appearing to buck that trend, though the astute fans will find a lot in the nine episodes of the second season that is familiar.

In fact, the new concept season for The Newsroom actually appears on the surface to be the freshest thing Aaron Sorkin has done in years (though fans of his works will be utterly unsurprised by the prevalence of lawyers in this season – Sorkin has legal entanglements and depositions in virtually all of his major projects), though it has two fundamental flaws. The minor flaw is that the first season made a big deal of Jenna Johnson (the former student who set off the firestorm that began the series) joining the ACN team as a new intern. The second season finds Jenna in a background role in only a few of the episodes; the nearly-absent Lisa (Maggie’s roommate) ends up having a vastly more significant role in the season than the new ACN intern! So, there is the feeling that the bloated cast is not even using the supporting talent it had when it loaded up with two to three new recurring characters for the second season.

The far more significant issue with the second season of The Newsroom is that the nine episode season has a continuous arc that hinges almost entirely on the viewer forgetting the first five minutes of the season. The concept of the second season of The Newsroom is that ACN reported a story on the air that was quickly debunked. Given that the season starts with lawyers taking depositions from the key staff, the viewer knows what is coming, so there is a distinct lack of dramatic tension that the season seems to be trying to build. As the pieces of the story begin to come together, only the inattentive viewer (which is not, traditionally, the HBO audience) forgets where the story is going.

Opening with most of the senior staff of ACN being interviewed by Rebecca Halliday, a wrongful termination lawyer, the season flashes back to the beginning of the 2012 Presidential Primary season. In the wake of Maggie confessing her feelings (inadvertently) to Jim and the footage of her rant making it onto YouTube, Jim flees New York for the Romney Campaign’s tour bus. Aboard the Romney tour bus, Jim becomes frustrated that his role there is largely to provide the candidate with good press and he becomes a malcontent, even as he starts a relationship with Hallie, a reporter who is on the assignment that is likely to be her last.

Back at ACN, Jim’s replacement Jerry Dantana shops a story that instantly troubles Mac and Charlie. Dantana has a source that claims that during a black op in Pakistan, the United States military used sarin gas on civilians while extracting U.S. Marines. Slowly, Jerry, MacKenzie, and Charlie follow the thin leads surrounding Operation Genoa. Long before the final betrayal that leads to the onslaught of lawyers turning on ACN and a huge rift forming between Will and MacKenzie, the staff of ACN becomes troubled by the leads surrounding Genoa and the appearance that the story might be valid.

The Newsroom is a season with severe tension among the main characters. Fans of Sorkin’s works will be unsurprised that Will develops a relationship with Nina Howard (anyone who knows of the saga of Casey and Sally will see this coming a mile away) and there is something refreshing in how quickly it dissolves. But most of the season’s emotional melodrama comes from Will McAvoy and MacKenzie McHale rehashing how their relationship dissolved before the series began. To fill the gap left by the rising sexual tension between Maggie and Jim, The Newsroom slowly builds the romance insinuated at the very end of the first season between Sloan Sabbith and Don Keefer. The romantic aspects of the Sloan and Don subplot is almost enough to overlook just how dark Sorkin goes with Maggie’s character.

Like all great dramas, The Newsroom Season 2 is about great characters. In the second season, the essential characters are:

Will McAvoy – A Republican cable news anchor, he starts calling out candidates during the Republican primary. As ACN takes fire because of Will’s scathing commentary on the Tea Party, Will pushes for a more conservative approach to presenting the news, hinging all his hopes on presenting a real debate for the Republican candidates. Pulling his punches and kept out of the loop on Genoa until the last possible moment, he becomes the public face of ACN’s scandal leading into Election Night coverage,

MacKenzie McHale – As executive producer of News Night, she feels the loss of Jim most acutely. Not quite trusting Jerry, she still feels compelled to investigate Genoa, while at the same time being frustrated by how Will keeps her at arm’s length,

Jim Harper – The News Night producer goes rogue to work well beneath pay grade and position to try to get coverage on Mitt Romney that will expose the contradictions in his campaign. Jim is deeply interested in bringing to public attention the public policies Governor Romney changed once he began running for President. He returns after a fumble on the campaign bus to discover the distance between him and Maggie has grown insurmountable, especially as he continues to grow his relationship with fellow reporter Hallie,

Maggie Jordan – An Associate Producer on News Night, she pushes for a story in Africa. There, she has a traumatic experience that leads her to cut off almost all her hair and dye what was left. Maggie begins engaging in risk behaviors including drinking and promiscuous sex with strangers in the wake of the incident in Africa,

Don Keefer – The ex-producer of News Night, he is now the executive producer on the ten o’clock show. After the fallout with Maggie, he becomes a pretty harsh critic of Jerry Dantana and the Genoa story. He starts to let his attraction to Sloan and she becomes one of the people who counsels him more than anyone else,

Sloan Sabbith – An economist with two Ph.ds, she starts to act as Will’s “big sister.” She is horrified when a book she did not actually autograph sells in a charity auction,

Neal Sampat – The writer of Will’s blog, he finds a serious lead in the Genoa story using Twitter. He becomes obsessed with the idea of Occupy Wall Street and works to bring that story to the attention of ACN, with somewhat disastrous results. He works to control the negative Tweets surrounding Will and News Night. He also tries to get MacKenzie’s Wikipedia page updated as a gift to her,

and Charlie Skinner – The head of the news division, he continues to go head to head with the corporate owners of ACN. Despite drinking quite a bit, he remains highly ethical and serious about keeping ACN focused and delivering hard-hitting news. As the Genoa story becomes more and more of a reality, he remains one of the longest holdouts to airing the story.

In the second season of The Newsroom, the acting remains exceptional. Led by Jeff Daniels and Emily Mortimer (who, despite all the teasing on the first season’s commentary tracks, does not appear naked in the season!), The Newsroom provides its performers with the opportunity to play triumph and heartbreak in almost every episode. Sam Waterston is tragically underused as Charlie, though he has some wonderful moments he provides both gravitas to go head to head with Jane Fonda’s Leona Lansing and goofy humor to deliver some of the season’s most memorable lines.

Thomas Sadoski almost entirely removes the bastardly qualities from Don Keefer to make him a surprisingly watchable and interesting character for the second season. The attention paid to Magge Jordan in the first season in The Newsroom is gone in the second season. Alison Pill surrenders most of her acting talent and substance for the season in exchange for a brutal haircut and a scared look in her eyes. She is easily outshined by recurring guest star Marcia Gay Harden, who starts out as efficient and sarcastic in the role of Rebecca Halliday (the lawyer) before degenerating into a pretty typical Sorkin female character who craves male attention.

Still, The Newsroom is worth watching in its second season. The show looks good and despite the structural issue, the season goes a decent distance to assuring fans that Sorkin still has some new tricks up his sleeve, even if they do not entirely land.

For other works by Aaron Sorkin, please check out my reviews of:
Moneyball
The Social Network
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
Charlie Wilson's War
The West Wing
Sports Night
The American President
Malice

7/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Sports Night 2.0: The Newsroom Season 1 (My 2300th Movie/Television Review!)

The Good: Exceptional writing, Great acting, Interesting plots and characters, Great DVD extras
The Bad: Recycles so much stuff from other Aaron Sorkin works!
The Basics: The Newsroom Season 1 returns Aaron Sorkin to television and it is incredible . . . except for fans of Aaron Sorkin’s other television works.


Right off the bat, I need to say that I am a big fan of the works of Aaron Sorkin. At this point, the only thing by Sorkin that I have not yet seen (to the best of my knowledge) is Malice. So, when I sat down to watch The Newsroom - The Complete First Season, I was excited because I love the writing, characters and settings Sorkin creates. And The Newsroom is great . . . for everyone but the fans of Sorkins works. I have to say, I’m not entirely sure The Newsroom is a Sorkin work: the season finale is not called “What Kind Of Day Has It Been.” Die-hard fans of Sorkin’s works will get that joke.

They’ll also get that some of the best moments in The Newsroom are lifted directly from Sorkin’s other works. In two different episodes in the first season, Emily Mortimer’s MacKenzie and Sam Waterston’s Charlie deliver lines that Sorkin wrote for William H. Macey’s character Sam Donovan from Sports Night (reviewed here!). Sorkin recycling from his works is not a new thing; he took advantage of the fact that Sport Night tanked to use entire lines and plotlines from Sports Night in The West Wing (reviewed here!). The Newsroom is not at all unsurprising for Sorkin fans: it begins with a character in crisis who begins to turn his life around, finds the characters embattled against an entrenched adversary (2/3 have been “The Network,” for the other Sorkin television work, it was Republicans), and features a relationship that is on again/off again or dissolving. Fans of Sports Night will see a lot of Isaac in Charlie, Dana in MacKenzie, Casey in Will and Natalie in Maggie. After a decade off the air, Sorkin hopes that viewers will have forgotten about his beloved Sports Night characters, but his fans will not.

So, fans of Aaron Sorkins works will not be surprised by any number of the early “surprises,” like the fact that MacKenzie cheated on Will in their backstory, that Maggie and Don do not actually break up and Isaac, er, Charlie, stands up for the show without telling Will and his team just how endangered they are.

And, despite all of the Sorkin conceits familiar to the fans, The Newsroom Season 1 is still amazing television. In fact, it is better than 95% of the other programs that are on the air and the only show in recent memory where my wife and I got at least one chill per episode. When, by episode four “I’ll Try To Fix You,” the series creates a perfect episode (10/10, absolute perfection!), it is hard to deny that the viewer is watching something absolutely incredible. It is so easy to overlook the recycled lines and Sorkin conceits in the season.

As the title suggests, The Newsroom is set behind-the-scenes at a cable news network. Opening with a college seminar panel where anchor Will McAvoy declares that the United States is not the greatest nation on Earth, ACN – Atlantis Cable Network – puts McAvoy on three weeks of forced vacation. When he returns to work, he finds most of his staff gone and his ex-girlfriend, MacKenzie McHale, is being brought on as the nightly news’s new executive producer. MacKenzie comes with some of her own staff and her assistant, Jim, begins to have real chemistry with Maggie Jordan, who is still in a relationship with Will’s ex-executive producer, Don. Together, Charlie and MacKenzie push Will to produce news that is informative and substantive, as opposed to safe and easy.

Over the course of the season, Will takes on the Tea Party and does his best to stop their stranglehold on the Republican party leading up to the 2010 midterm elections. The staff covers the shooting of Gabriel Giffords, the coup in Egypt, the nuclear reactor meltdown (or near meltdown) in Japan, and the Casey Anthony trial. The season climaxes in the debt ceiling debate and the way the Tea Party is holding the U.S. hostage.

The Newsroom features Aaron Sorkin’s trademark banter and characters who have moments of intense social awkwardness. It is one of his more serious endeavors, trying to be less overtly humorous than The West Wing. This is Sorkin’s attempt to actually educate viewers to the dangers of the Tea Party and its corporate sponsors. The ten episodes of The Newsroom Season 1 present hour-long stories that re-evaluate incredible news stories from 2010 – 2011. But for viewers who want to see how poetic and packed with information scripted cable dramas can be, The Newsroom delivers.

Like all great dramas, The Newsroom Season 1 is about great characters. In the first season, the essential characters are:

Will McAvoy – A Republican cable news anchor, he misses the days when the news meant something and did something other than cater to the corporate sponsors of the network. He remains emotionally damaged – three years later – after breaking up with MacKenzie. As he, Charlie, and MacKenzie transform News Night into a hard-hitting news program, he begins dating again (a string of women) and that gets him in trouble with the tabloids. He becomes outraged at how the Republican Party has been co-opted by the Tea Party faction. He gets gunshy when he realizes just how dangerous a position he is in, given that he renegotiated his contract in order to be able to fire MacKenzie and that left him vulnerable to the machinations of Leona Lansing. He works to civilize a tabloid writer and spends money on saving lives, though he refuses to let others know. He becomes the target of death threats and in the process has to have a bodyguard,

MacKenzie McHale – Returning from being embedded in Afghanistan with Jim and the military, she tries to inspire Will. In the process, she takes control of News Night. She dates Wade, a man who wants to run for Congress and takes it personally when Will brings in the man she had an affair with to write a story on News Night. She is smart, articulate, and principled, but socially awkward. She is, arguably, Jim’s best friend in the world,

Jim Harper – A producer who is the assistant to MacKenzie, having been embedded with her in Afghanistan. He is efficient and has contacts that help Will break his first major story with News Night 2.0. He has a crush on Maggie, who is antagonizing to him without reason, but starts dating Maggie’s roommate when she doesn’t make a move and Don pushes him toward it. He has a great deal of authority on the show and has real issues when Maggie acts unprofessionally, though he helps her out when she has panic attacks,

Maggie Jordan – An Associate Producer on News Night, she has an on-again, off-again relationship with Don, though she is instantly attracted to Jim. She is easily flustered, but very smart,

Don Keefer – The ex-producer of News Night, he becomes the exec on the ten o’clock show when MacKenzie comes aboard. He is initially a jackass, but fights for the good stories and starts to fight for Maggie. He wants to be a star and make his anchor into a star above Will, but when push comes to shove with the corporate parents, he steps up to do the right thing,

Sloan Sabbith – An economist with two Ph.ds, she is brought on News Night by MacKenzie to make economic issues relevant. She is incredibly socially awkward and yet passionate about the economic issues that she knows about. She overcompensates from Will's pep talk by embarrassing a Japanese official on the air! She reveals very late that she has feelings for someone else on the staff,

Neal Sampat – The writer of Will’s blog, he has an obsession with bigfoot. He becomes instrumental in getting News Night its Egypt coverage,

and Charlie Skinner – The head of the news division, he looks out for Will and works to protect News Night. He is older and something of a curmudgeon and he is tested by an NSA employee who wants to break a story about U.S. wiretapping of cell phones. He likes MacKenzie and he drinks a lot.

The Newsroom Season 1 features an amazing cast. For probably the first time that I have seen her in anything, Emily Mortimer impressed me with her performance abilities as she was anything but white bread as MacKenzie. Jeff Daniels leads the cast as Will McAvoy and every moment he is on screen, he is credible as a seasoned news anchor. Dev Patel and Sam Waterston round out the supporting cast of seasoned actors as Neal and Charlie and they are unlike they are in any other work in which they have appeared.

The younger cast members are led by Alison Pill, who plays Maggie. Pill is able to emote incredibly with her face and eyes alone. She gives some of the season’s most delightfully goofy lines and makes them seem incredibly real, making Maggie seem like anything but a parody of a young newswoman.

On DVD, The Newsroom is a wealth of bonus features, which is what one expects from HBO. Each episode has a featurette about the episode featuring Aaron Sorkin talking about how he developed the episode. There are commentary tracks on the pilot and a few other episodes – the one for “I’ll Try To Fix You” is actually entertaining as Emily Mortimer describes her experiences with nude scenes and the guys in the room resolve to make season two memorable in that regard! There are a handful of deleted scenes and a featurette on the entire season.

The Newsroom Season One is hard-hitting and smart and the punch it packs will be seen in 2014 if the show can reach enough of the electorate to usurp the Tea Party. While that is not the entire focus of the season, it is a vital component and one of the ways the show tries to be something far, far more than a well-written soap opera set in a news organization. And, even for fans of Aaron Sorkin’s works, The Newsroom is worth watching; the setting is as engaging as in his other works and for his poetry, humor, philosophy and intellect, more is certainly better.

For other current shows, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Game Of Thrones - Season 3
New Girl - Season 2
Happy Endings - Season 3
The Walking Dead - Season 3
Arrested Development - Season 4
House Of Cards - Season 1
True Blood - Season 5

8.5/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Date Night Might Not Be This Year's The Hangover, But It's Still Fun!

The Good: Funny, Decent acting, Generally good character development
The Bad: Entirely predictable
The Basics: A lot of fun, Date Night is a worthwhile comedy, despite being largely unsurprising.


Let’s be honest: anyone who saw The Hangover a few years back and loves comedy has been looking for the movie that can be dubbed this year’s The Hangover. As much as one might want, considering how it teams brilliant comedians Steve Carell and Tina Fey, Date Night is not this year’s surprise hit comedy that everyone must see. It is entertaining, it is enjoyable and it even has moments when it is surprisingly smart, but it does not have the same enduring quality or surprise wackiness of The Hangover.

That said, Date Night is a great choice for a comedy film now that it is out on DVD. Why? It is funny and as a PG-13 movie, it is allowed to use the f-word once and it chooses its moment remarkably well. My wife and I made a date of Date Night and I enjoyed it at least as much as she did, in part because she had not seen a single preview and was surprised by the abrupt right turn the movie takes and I had the chance to enjoy her reactions. Unfortunately, for those who have seen the previews, you’ve pretty much seen the film, though there are still plenty of laughs to be had in the full feature.

Phil and Claire Foster are a loving couple who have gotten into the rut that stable marriage with the burdens of children naturally leave one in. They are awakened by their children loudly and Claire’s enduring method of dealing with things is demanding the children stop their bad behaviors by the count of three. The Fosters have a date night at the same restaurant each week where they have the salmon and make up stories about the other patrons of the restaurant before returning home to not make love. After a book club meeting where Claire and Phil separately learn their friends are getting a divorce, they begin to question the strength of their own marriage.

For Phil, this inspires him to bring Claire into the City for a dinner unlike any they usually have and their date night looks like it will be a bust when they go to the trendy new restaurant, Claw, and discover they truly needed a reservation to get any attention, much less service. But, when Phil notices a couple did not show, he and Claire take their reservation and are seated. This takes a turn for the bizarre and horrible when Collins and Armstrong show up, pull them out into an alley and demand they return a flash drive they have stolen. Their lives suddenly in jeopardy from the case of mistaken identity, Phil and Claire set out to try to recover the stolen hard drive and get it back to the mob in order to save their lives and the lives of their children. Aided by a parallel police investigation and a shirtless security consultant named Holbrooke, Phil and Claire struggle to survive their date night.

The mistaken identity plot aside, what is actually the most predictable aspect of Date Night is the character arcs, but it does not lessen the overall enjoyment of the film. Going into Date Night, the viewer knows it is not one of those movies that is going to surprise the audience excessively. So, no matter how many times a gun is pushed in Phil's face, the menace is never so believable that we think the movie is actually going to try to be funny after blowing Phil's brains out. So, of course, the humor comes from how Phil and Claire get out of so many life-threatening situations and the results are often funny in a very cartoonish way. This involves fleeing in a boat and a car chase sequence that is downright entertaining.

As well, the film pokes the usual stabs at politicians and uses its not-Hollywood good-looking protagonist to poke fun at the Hollywood good looks of Holbrooke (played by Mark Wahlberg). For the political humor, William Fichtner plays DA Frank Crenshaw and he is wonderfully smarmy in the role. The DA who is cleaning up the streets with the aid of a prop broom becomes the source of a vast number of jokes in the final act and they work. But once the plot is fully exposed - i.e. what is on the flash drive the mobster wants recovered - there are truly few surprises left. Date Night becomes an almost formulaic comedy kept buoyant on the talents of Steve Carell and Tina Fey.

And in them, director Shawn Levy finds a winning combination, though he mostly uses them to simply play to their strengths. Carell plays deadpan and pulls off manic when he has to, having Phil yell in the face of danger more than once. Fey lights up the screen when she has the opportunity to play straight to her own physical comedy - i.e. removing her saliva-covered retainer or awkwardly pole dancing. She plays a far less intelligent version of herself in Claire, as Claire doubts herself and constantly needs things explained to her, but Fey manages to pull the droning down off and it works. So, Fey is not, for example, simply playing her character from 30 Rock (season 1 review is available by clicking here!).

What truly works are the quiet character moments between Phil and Claire. For sure, the character arcs are predictable from the moment Phil learns that his friends are getting divorced, in part, because they have fallen into a rut. Phil is smart enough to recognize that he and Claire are in a stable pattern and he does what he can to change that. The moments where Date Night allows Phil and Claire to acknowledge both the strengths and struggles that come with being in a stable romantic relationship lends the film a sense of realism that is seldom seen outside high drama and Carell and Fey nail it.

It is also worth noting that Taraji P. Henson makes great use of her few scenes as Detective Arroyo. Arroyo is the police detective the Fosters end up confessing to, before realizing that there are cops on the mob payroll. Arroyo figures out quickly what is going on and even who in the department is at fault. Henson's performance is so good, so deftly executed that the film never needs to stop and have Arroyo say "I suspect you two goons!" Henson's body language and mannerisms are so expressive that we know she is suspicious before she ever makes an accusation.

Finally, for those who go see Date Night, some of the funniest bits are in the closing credits and when Fey gets Carell to laugh in some of the outtakes, it is hard not to die laughing with him. Date Night might not be perfect, but it is solidly entertaining and worth watching, especially for married couples in a rut.

For other works featuring William Fichtner, please check out my reviews of:
The Dark Knight
Crash
The West Wing - Season 5

6/10

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

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Summer Blockbuster Season Arrives With Iron Man 2, A Movie That Proves More Is More!

Pros: Great acting, Decent story, Wonderful special effects, Good character development, Pacing
Cons: A few cheesy lines, Movie gets a little melodramatic in the middle.
The Bottom Line: An amazing super hero sequel, Iron Man 2 ramps up the menace in the Iron Man universe and offers a real thrill for summer movie viewers!

There are, arguably, very few sequels which surpass the quality of the original story which inspired the sequel. Origin stories have the advantage of originality and a freshness for the actors which allows them to stride out in a new direction for them. Sequels, on the other hand, lose the originality both of the story concept and the push for the actors and the best ones trade these things for refinement and character development. In fact, the best two sequels which come instantly to mind for surpassing the originals - The Empire Strikes Back and The Dark Knight - succeeded because the stories progressed, the characters developed and some of the problems with the first movie in the series were effectively ironed out. That is exactly how it is with Iron Man 2.

In preparing to see Iron Man 2, I rewatched Iron Man (check out my review by clicking here!) and while I have long suspected I was originally too harsh on the movie, it wasn't long into the film that I found myself cringing at special effects or feeling like the pacing was off. Neither of those problems were present in Iron Man 2, a film which continues where Iron Man left off and promises to be one of the biggest movies of the year, both critically and from fans buying movie tickets. Iron Man 2 has everything fans could have hoped for without alienating new viewers with too much self-referentialism. It is worth noting that I've never read an Iron Man comic book, so this is very much a pure review of the film Iron Man 2 unencumbered by bias of what the book-version of the characters of Tony Stark or Rhodey are "supposed" to be.

Having made it through confessing to the world that he is the armored superhero Iron Man, Tony Stark finds himself in a whole new world of trouble. Pressured by the United States government, most notably in the form of Senator Stern's nagging, to give the military the technology behind the Iron Man suit, Tony Stark finds himself beleaguered. As Stern attempts to enlist Stark's friend James Rhodes to his cause, Stark finds himself pressured by Nick Fury - whose invitation to join the Avenger Initiative Stark has so far declined - and plagued by problems with rival weapon's manufacturer Justin Hammer. Meanwhile, in Russia, a vengeful patriot - Ivan Vanko - rises up. Angered over how Stark's weapons (most notably the Arc Reactor technology) were based upon works by his late father, Vanko works on developing technology similar to Stark's Iron Man suit. After a successful test, Whiplash comes into play as an antagonist to Iron Man.

Stark, wrestling with his personal feelings for Virginia Potts, finds himself drawn to his new personal assistant, Natalia. But when an act of corporate espionage gives the military what they want, Stark finds his problems multiplied and even his most trusted allies turning against him. Rescued and now employed by Hammer, Vanko begins developing an army to undo the good Iron Man has done. As Whiplash sets out on a mission of vengeance to destroy Stark, Stark must also confront his friend, Rhodey, who now has a suit of his own and a will that rivals that of Tony Stark!

Have you ever seen a film which is far better as clips in the preview trailer because all of the best parts are spoiled in fifteen-frame shots set to a much cooler soundtrack than the actual movie possesses? Iron Man 2 is not that film. A lot of credit for that has to go to screenwriter Justin Theroux (whose work I only previously knew as an actor) who has a real gift for character work. Even more than with the flippant Tony Stark, Theroux makes a vivid character out of Ivan Vanko. As Vanko evolves into Whiplash, Theroux continues to focus on the sense of injustice the character has for crimes done in the past. Theroux creates a sensible villain who is rooted in a strong sense of realism and there is a perspective where his cause makes sense, if not his methods. By creating a better villain – and one with an empathetic motive (unlike the random sociopathy of, say, the Joker) Iron Man 2 is enhanced because the hero seems that much more heroic as he works to overcome him.

Similarly, Theroux does an excellent job of fleshing out James Rhodes. Rhodey is conflicted in Iron Man 2 by a sense of military duty and propriety – which Stark does not possess – and a friendship with Stark. The conflict, like the conflict between Stark and Vanko, is rooted in something very real and understandable. Rhodey sees the potential good that comes from an army outfitted in Iron Man-type suits, the Stark with discipline and training. His friendship and his belief in the innate good of the military are both shaken and while the resolution to that conflict might seem campy, it is arrived at in an essentially human way.

Add to that, Iron Man 2 is entertaining on every other level. As the villains develop, Tony Stark basks in the celebrity that comes from being a one-man army. The triangle relationship that develops with Pepper and Natasha and Stark is played out well and it’s fun to watch. Again, the destination is not as enjoyable as the journey and it works quite well.

The acting in Iron Man 2 is all-around wonderful. In previous big special effects films, there are often acting flubs that come from interacting with virtual characters and eyelines being missed. In Iron Man 2 there is none of that. As well, the actual acting is quite good. Mickey Rourke manages to be completely menacing as both Vanko and Whiplash without every going over-the-top and he has a great physical presence in the role. Even Scarlett Johansson, whose work I have usually been disappointed with, lives up becoming a bona fide action hero as the Black Widow. She, like Gwyneth Paltrow have great on-screen chemistry with Robert Downey Jr.

Iron Man 2 is Robert Downey Jr.’s movie. If in Iron Man he has a hesitancy about him as he came out of his shell and viewers worked to believe he could pull the role off, Downey Jr. returns to this sequel with a confidence that mirrors that of his character. Unlike roles from shows like Ally McBeal or Sherlock Holmes where one might feel like they are just watching Robert Downey Jr. play on screen, the role of Tony Stark seems genuinely to be a character of its own. This is ironic as Downey Jr. has often said himself that the role comes easily to him because it is just him with cool gadgets. One never feels that when watching Iron Man 2.

But the one who steals the show is Don Cheadle. Cheadle takes over as Rhodes and he fits into the role beautifully. He makes his scenes seem effortless. Unlike Downey Jr., whose Downey’s best moments of acting come from playing Stark vulnerable and in peril outside his suit, Cheadle steals his scenes when he is military crisp and trying to be a buddy to Stark both. He might not have the screentime of Downey Jr., but he has as powerful a resonance in this film.

Ultimately, Iron Man 2 starts Summer Blockbuster Season off right, in a way we always wish it would. The movie is smart, fast and big and the combination is everything we would hope it could be.

For other action-filled movies, please check out my reviews of:
Inception
Dark City

9/10

For more movies, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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