The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises, by Christopher Nolan, 2012

I probably won't say too much on The Dark Knight Rises, because there's not a whole lot left to say, and if you're like me, you probably got tired of hearing about it weeks ago. I liked it. I like most movies I see, so that's no surprise. I did have the same reservations a lot of you have had about it, though. A bit plodding, a jumbled, overly complex plot, some awkward dialogue. But I still loved the scope and ambition, and appreciated a lot of things about it. I'm just going to list a couple of observations, and then leave you to your day.

- Where was Batman? Bale had very little screen time in the Batman suit this time around. I'm no fan of his ridiculous Bat-voice, but this is a Batman movie, after all.

- Tom Hardy rocked the house as Bane. Nolan really knows how to create a memorable villain. He finds talented, creative actors, and collaborates with them, and together, they find ways to make the villain as menacing as possible, while still having a quality that reminds you of their humanity. For me, it was the way Heath Ledger's Joker always licked his lips that cemented him into a kind of reality. Bane's performance is all in the eyes, but Hardy brings a great physicality to the character, and the fun-to-mimic vocal performance was good fun. The character was under a lot of pressure to live up to the Joker, and while it didn't, it was a nice effort.

- That said, the mixing of his muffled voice into the front and center of the soundtrack was a mistake. I know everybody complained about the mixing in the preview, but they overcompensated in fixing it. I liked really having to listen to work through his accent, and I always got his intent. I don't mind working a little, but I guess the movie-going public does.

- I love Christopher Nolan's commitment to maintaining the cinematic integrity of his films. He shoots on film, uses these amazing IMAX cameras. He steadfastly resists the dreaded 3-D takeover. I would love if more directors fought back against it, but very few have the power to do so, if Spielberg and Scorsese are on board, I'm sure it's here to stay. His special effects are virtually seamless, and he uses them sparingly.

- Another thing I like about Nolan's films, is that he doesn't hold back. He throws everything into the pot. It's common practice these days to save the good stuff for the sequels. Franchise movies are often seeded with foreshadowing and hints for later entries, more often than not, entries that haven't even been conceived yet. Conversely, Christopher Nolan and company have put all of their ideas into each individual movie. This leads to big payoffs, a real sense of scope, and full arcs for his characters. Yes, it also leads to things getting a little too complicated, but I still think it's refreshing.

That's all I have to say about The Dark Knight Rises. It's a flawed beast, but it's ambitious, full of big ideas, and special in its way. Christopher Nolan has built his name up to mean a certain kind of movie, a kind that nobody else is making. Now that his Batman epic is complete, I'm eager to see what new worlds he will create under his unique brand.

The Amazing Spider-Man

I'm about as big a fan as Spider-Man as they come. I've read close to every issue of Spider-Man ever published. Not just The Amazing Spider-Man comic, but also the various other titles, Spectacular Spider-Man, Web of Spider-Man, blah blah blah. As a kid, my mom had my uncle paint a picture of Spider-Man on my bedroom wall. It was awesome.

When Sam Raimi's first Spider-Man movie came out a decade ago, I saw it three times on opening weekend. I know it was a flawed movie, but Sam Raimi got so much right, and even more right the second time around. Well, I guess I feel the same way about Marc Webb's reboot, The Amazing Spider-Man. Despite many plot holes and flaws in the narrative, he got a lot right, including some things that Raimi didn't. And I hope this movie might pave the way to an even better sequel.

The broad strokes of the origin have stayed the same: Peter Parker is a quiet high school kid, who gets bitten by a spider in a science lab that imbues him with spider powers. He is inspired to fight crime when he loses his Uncle Ben through an act of his own negligence. There are some slight alterations, but for the most part, nothing too surprising happens. Now Peter's parents are involved in his origin. His father's work as a scientist is somehow tied to his powers. How, we don't know yet, I suppose it will havve to wait until the sequel.

What I really liked about The Amazing Spider-Man was the cast and their performances. Andrew Garfield's Peter Parker/Spider-Man isn't much like Tobey Maguire's at all. I like aspects of both of them. Garfield's is a little more believable as a high school teen, rather than Maguire's more dweeby, classical geek. He's a lot more angsty and, you know, going through teen things. In fact, he stays a teen all the way through the movie, unlike the Raimi version, who is done with high school within the first hour of the first movie.

Emma Stone plays Peter's love interest, Gwen Stacy. I was worried she would just play the role as Mary Jane with blond hair, but she did great. She was Gwen Stacy. She even looks like an old John Romita drawing. She and Garfield were great together, and by the end of the movie, I was totally into the romance between the two of them. One of my favorite scenes was when Peter fumbles through asking her out on a date.

Martin Sheen and Sally Field play Uncle Ben and Aunt May. They get a lot more screen time this time around, which I thought was nice, because they both do great. Denis Leary is really good as Captain George Stacy, Gwen's father, a cop on Spider-Man's trail. Rhys Ifans' Curt Conners/The Lizard is adequate, but from what I've seen online, his character suffered a lot of cutting and re-editing.

Some things I didn't like as much as Raimi's version. Obviously, the familiar origin scenes didn't feel very fresh the second time around. There's no real sense of awe or excitement in the web swinging, since we've already seen it so much before. I preferred Raimi's bright color scheme and comic booky, more comedic tone. I don't mind the slightly more muted, realistic take on the world, though. They've done it both ways in the comics over the years, and there's room for both in movies too.

There are also too many ticking digital clocks in the movie's finale. That's par for the course for this kind of movies, I guess, but what really bothered me was the lady's voice on the computer telling us how much time is left. The lady announcing how much time is left at the very end seemed especially forced, as it was coming out of some device that The Lizard rigged together. Why would he give it that voice?

During the credits, they try to do the post-movie sequel tease now expected at the end of superhero movies. When done correctly, like all the Avengers teases, they get everybody talking. (OMG THAT'S NICK FURY!) (THOR'S HAMMER!) (THANOS!!!) But this one doesn't work at all. I won't spoil it, but it's nothing very interesting, so, you know, don't get your hopes up for that post credits scene. I guess we'll just have to rely on the actual movie's merits to get us excited for a sequel.

As for the complaint that it's too soon for a reboot, I suppose that's probably true, but they tend to update and retell the origin in the comics every decade or so, too. There have been a lot of different versions and takes on Spider-Man over the years in all kinds of different styles, and this is just one more. I can live with it.

Overall, I thought The Amazing Spider-Man was pretty good, but not as good as the Raimi movies when they were at their heights (half of part 1 and all of part 2). The cast really elevated this movie for me. I'll be happy to watch Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, and Sally Field in future installments, and I look forward to meeting the new Mary Jane Watson, Norman and Harry Osborn, and maybe J. Jonah Jameson. There's a lot of groundwork in place for them to knock it out of the park next time. I hope they pull it off.

The Avengers

I have been waiting four years for this. Marvel Studios announced the Avengers movie the Monday after the first Iron Man came out in 2008. Heck, they announced it even earlier by putting Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury at the end of the credits. Now four years later, having seen The Avengers, I can't believe they not only pulled it off, but knocked it out of the park.

Admittedly, I'm a lifelong comic book reader, so I don't know how that colors my opinions. I'm also a part of the cult of the movie's writer/director, Joss Whedon, whose career I've been following since the first episode of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer TV show aired when I was in 9th grade. The Avengers was pretty much made for me.

But Marvel and Whedon didn't just target the nerds with The Avengers. They crafted a giant event film for the largest audience possible. An event film that truly feels like an event. Not since the Universal monsters started meeting Abbott and Costello has a studio so successfully combined characters from four separate movie franchises into one movie.

For those of you that live in a cave, The Avengers is the story of Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, and The Hulk all team up to defeat a world-threatening evil. Rounding the team out are superspy Black Widow, crackshot archer Hawkeye, and Nick Fury, the morally ambiguous director of SHIELD, a global peacekeeping organization.

The Avengers are not well known for how well they get along. These guys have big egos, and wildly clashing personalities. Part of the fun in the first half is watching the good guys duke it out with each other, in basically the most epic pissing contest in cinema history, before things start going crazy in the second half and they have bigger fish to fry.

The second half is where The Avengers really takes off. It's a slow build, but once the last 45 minutes come along and the heroes battle an alien army, ravaging New York City in the process, the movie provides one huge crowd pleasing moment after another. I think just about every thing you ever wanted to see done with these characters is done.

Joss Whedon is a lifelong fan, too, and he understands what we, the viewers want to see, and he delivers it with wild abandon. The characters are imbued with all the complexity and humanity that made them endure in the first place. Downey Jr. shines as always as Tony Stark/Iron Man, and the Chrises Evans and Hemsworth bring it with Captain America and Thor. Scarlett Johannson gets a whole lot more to do this time around as Black Widow, the spy with Red in her past. But the characters who stole the show for me were Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner/The Hulk, finally done right in a movie, and Tom Hiddleston's Loki, the perpetually monologuing, pompous Norse God of lies and mischief.

Also, did I mention the movie is extremely funny? The dialogue is endlessly witty, and there are several big comedy moments throughout. The audience laughed more at The Avengers than a lot of comedies I've seen.

I could go on and on and on about The Avengers, but I feel like I would be in danger of falling into one of those "and the part where this happened... and then the part where THIS happened..." situations, where I just list everything. I loved it. And I don't think you need to know the comic books to love it too. The Avengers is a real-deal phenomenon.

Mirageman

It's not fair that every superhero lives in New York, is it? People need rescuing the world over, right? Well, now Mirageman is here to fill that void in Chile.

Directed by Ernesto Diaz Espinoza, Mirageman is another entry in the "normal guy in the real world, inspired by comic books, puts on a mask and decides to fight crime" genre that we're getting more and more of these days. I've heard about a few other independent ones, but I suppose the most recognizable entry in the genre would be Kick Ass.

Mirageman is the story Marco (played by Marko Zaror), by day a lowly bouncer at a sleazy night club, who spends all of his spare time exercising and training in martial arts. You see, three years earlier, Marco's parents were murdered and little brother raped (!!!) and traumatized, now catatonic in a home. One night, a ski-masked Marco stops another home invasion and rescues Carol, a beautiful news reporter from certain rape (!!!). Carol thanks him publicly and calls him a hero. When he next visits the hospital, he finds that the news of this mysterious rape-preventing hero has brought his brother a little bit out of his shell, the first positive response in years. Inspired by this, Marco dons a costume and becomes Mirageman.

Visually, the movie is as gritty and down to earth as the silly subject matter allows. It has a near documentary style, and relies heavily on news reports to fill out the narrative. In fact, the anchors and reporters often give Mirageman advice on what he should and shouldn't do, and even downright manipulate him for their own gain.

Though Mirageman strives for a certain kind of realism, at the same time, it doesn't take itself too seriously. There's a great deal of comedy mixed in with the violence and awesome martial arts. Marco's trial and error attempts at superheroics offer a lot of laughs, poking fun at comic book nonsense, such as the length of time and difficulty one would actually encounter when trying to change into costume while a crime is in progress. He also has a hilarious sidekick figure, who goes by the name "Pseudo Robin", who is not much of a fighter, but all heart, and he has an extra motorcycle.

Mirageman has some fun with the audience, undercutting our expectations at times. At first, it seems like a typical martial arts movie is happening, where every opponent he faces, every gang of crooks, appears to be a martial arts master himself. But then, when Mirageman attempts to bust his Holy Grail, an evil pedophile child trafficking ring, he realizes how out of his element he is when facing people carrying guns.

Marko Zaror is awesome as Mirageman. It's hard to say how good he is with dialogue, as he only had a few lines in the whole movie. His actions speak for him, and he's a killer martial artist. Ernesto Diaz Espinoza and Marko Zaror have made two more movies together, and I believe I'm going to have to watch those as well.

Mirageman was one of those movies that I knew next to nothing about and had no expectations for. I was very pleased with what I got. It is action-packed, funny, self aware, and a little bit cheesy, all in all a movie worth geeking out over.

Check it out! It's on Netflix Instant if you're in America.

Captain America

It's been a long summer of event movies, and at this point, I have to say, I'm kind of sick of them. Event movie fatigue is the summertime equivalent of seasonal affective disorder. Among those event movies (a few of them were pretty good), were many superhero movies. First up was Thor, which I thought was a lot of fun, if maybe a bit brainless. Then came X-Men: First Class, which I thought had some really cool stuff, but maybe turned on the nitpicky part of my brain too much. Then came Green Lantern, which was, frankly, a piece of crap.

And so ends this summer's superhero season, not with a whimper, but with a bang. Captain America: The First Avenger, Marvel Studios' second entry of the year, is their strongest entry since the first Iron Man. It manages to break a little from the mold of the superhero origin story, tell a crazy sci-fi WWII period piece, and set up next summer's Avengers movie, all the while never losing track of the characters.

Captain America is Steve Rogers, who starts the movie as a skinny kid from Brooklyn, too sickly to serve in the military. His perseverance and spirit is noticed by Dr. Erskine, a brilliant scientist who has developed a Super Soldier Serum and believes Rogers is the perfect candidate to try it. The serum works, but circumstances follow that Steve can be the only successful subject. Meanwhile, Johann Schmidt, AKA the Red Skull has gotten his hands on the Cosmic Cube, an Asgardian artifact that can power his Nazi war machines indefinitely and turn the tide of the war.

The movie is good-spirited, fun, and full of adventure, reminiscent of the Indiana Jones movies, which is no surprise, since the director is Joe Johnston, who actually worked on the Indiana Jones movie. Johnston is also no stranger to period superhero pieces; he directed The Rocketeer, another well regarded comic book adaptation.

Chris Evans stars as Steve Rogers/Captain America. He plays it with an old-fashioned pure-heartedness that is difficult not to be won over by. He doesn't want to go kill Nazis, he just wants to be of use, do his part. As lucky as he was in getting the Captain America treatment, you get the sense he would have been just as happy getting shipped overseas in his earlier, sickly condition. There's a great moment when he's at a theater watching a morale-boosting movie serial he's starring in with an audience of kids. You see this lovely, complex look on his face that shows a little bit of embarrassment at what he's been put up to, but also some pride that he still gets to serve his country in some small way. Evans pulls that kind of stuff off excellently.

Hugo Weaving is awesome as the evil Red Skull, playing it with a dead-on Werner Herzog impersonation, an absolutely inspired acting choice on his part. Besides Heath Ledger's Joker, he's easily the best villain we've seen in a superhero movie in quite some time. Definitely the best of the Marvel Studios series. It's so fun and easy to hate Nazis, and this guy is a crazy super-Nazi. His army has energy weapons that can disintegrate victims in a burst of blue light.

The cast is rounded out by several more colorful and interesting characters. Stanley Tucci leaves an impact as Dr. Erskine, a good man who gives Steve Rogers a moral compass to guide his actions by. Tommy Lee Jones gets a lot of great one-liners as Cap's commander. Toby Jones plays Red Skull's weaselly mad scientist lackie, Arnim Zola. Not to mention Cap's buddy Bucky Barnes, his unit The Howling Commandos, his love interest Peggy Carter, and Tony Stark's Howard Hughes-esque father, Howard Stark. Everybody in the cast has at least one good moment.

Captain America also is the final building block in Marvel Studios' ambitious plan of setting up The Avengers, and as such, there are crosses and references to the other movies. Howard Stark gets a great intro, mirroring a memorable Tony Stark scene in Iron Man 2. The Red Skull is on a hunt for an Asgardian artifact, referenced months ago in Thor. And if that little teaser after the credits doesn't get you pumped, I don't know what will.

A minor issue, early in the movie, is the special effect of putting Chris Evans' head on a skinny body. Half the time, it looks pretty damn convincing, but the other half, the head tilts in a slightly strange angle, or the shading seems a little wrong. Whatever it is, it was enough to pull me out of the movie a bit whenever my brain picked up on it.

So in conclusion, if you're going to see one superhero movie this summer, then this probably came along too late for you. But if you're not sick of them after three, then Captain America is worth your time, and will certainly wash away the stink Green Lantern left in your mind.

X-Men: First Class

The big thing the critics seem to be saying with X-Men: First Class is "the best superhero movie since The Dark Knight". It's this movie's equivalent of "It's The Hangover with women!". Even if that's true, the fact is, there haven't been very many superhero movies since The Dark Knight. What has there been, Watchmen, Iron Man 2, and Thor? I'd say I enjoyed this about as much as the latter two movies, which is to say, it's a lot of fun, but not without it's flaws. Now, I know my Thor review was largely a rave, but it's because I just took it as a goofy fun movie. X-Men is so much more serious, with a philosophical debate at it's center, and the Cuban Missile Crisis as it's backdrop, it's harder for me to just ignore the flaws.

X-Men: First Class is set in 1962 and follows young Magneto on his quest for revenge against the Nazi who tortured and experimented on him in his youth, his friendship with Charles Xavier, the formation of the first mutant superteam, and ultimately, the eventual philosophical rift that grows between Magneto and Xavier. Along the way, we meet a lot of faces familiar to both fans of the comic and the previous movies.

When watching comic adaptations, I try not to nitpick what's different from the source material, so I'll do my best to avoid that (and probably fail a little). First Class is largely good, and absolutely inspired at times. About half the characters are great and fully realized, the other half barely do anything. There are a lot of great sequences in there, many of my favorite ones involving the rising debate of the mutant issue.

Wow, my thoughts are a little jumbled. How about I go through the characters?

Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy are both excellent as Magneto and Xavier. They bring a lot of dimensionality to their characters and both have the magnetism and charisma to make you believe that they are leaders in the truest sense. Xavier is not who you expect just yet. He's a bit of a ladies man. In fact, I felt like they each represented half of the quintessential 60's superspy, James Bond: Magneto the cold blooded killer, and Xavier the sex machine.

Jennifer Lawrence was one of my favorite characters as Mystique, the shapeshifter. She believes she shouldn't have to hide her true, blue, scaly form. Xavier, who grew up with her, wants her to be able to fit in and be accepted, and so encourages her to hide. She represents a flaw in young Xavier's philosophy, and shows his fallibility. I like that Xavier and Magneto's arguments are reflected through her, and through her, we see that neither belief is 100% right or wrong.

Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast is pretty great. I wasn't a fan of the Beast makeup, but he spends much of the movie in his human form. He felt like a kid of his era, raised in the 50's, pressured by his parents to tow the line and fit in at all costs. He acts as a counterbalance to Mystique's more modern views.

Rose Byrne is awesome again for the second time in a few weeks as Moira MacTaggart, a CIA agent who also acts as Xavier's human love interest. This and Bridesmaids makes her one of the summer's big winners, in my book. I didn't even know she was in this. I think I have a crush on her.

January Jones was Emma Frost, the diamond-skinned psychic White Queen, one of my favorite characters from the comic books (second behind only Cyclops). I think she's really great on Mad Men, and when I heard she was in this, I thought that sounded pretty spot on. Unfortunately, she falls flat in the role. I could see she was playing it as cold and icy and glamorous, which is an aspect of her character, but I think she was sorely lacking in her vampy, Ava Gabor-like qualities from the comic. In the books, she has great, droll lines like "I'm made of diamond, darling, by definition, I'm my own best friend." January Jones doesn't get that kind of material, though, and I'm not sure if she would have played it right anyway. Honestly, I think the aforementioned Rose Byrne would have been better in the role.

Kevin Bacon was the villain, Sebastian Shaw, the leader of the Hellfire Club, the orchestrator of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the object of Magneto's wrath. Bacon is always valuable in ensemble casts (as the 6 degrees game attests), and it was very interesting seeing the parallels drawn between him and the path we all know Magneto ultimately takes.

The rest of the cast don't really deserve a paragraph each. My opinion on them varies from "pretty good" to "I didn't notice them", to "kind of sucked." Banshee was the X-Men's American Ron Weasley, and pretty likeable. Darwin showed a lot of potential that was ultimately wasted. My least favorite character was by far Havoc, Cyclops (apparently by decades?) older brother. He didn't show much dimension at all besides being a jerk, and didn't talk in any way that reflected 1962. He actually said "what-ever" and called Beast a "bad-ass" at one point. Drove me a little crazy.

The action sequences are pretty fun, but none of them quite reached the level of Nightcrawler's White House invasion or Wolverine's berserker rage in X-2. Magneto is pretty ruthless, and his fights are tons of fun. There are two montages that I actually liked better than the action. The training montage is an inspired, retro-60's homage to the slick, mod editing of The Thomas Crown Affair.

There's a big logical hole in the finale of the movie. I'm not going to spoil the movie by pointing it out, but it was just sloppy writing and fixing it would have actually served to make the exciting final battle more exciting.

So, check out X-Men: First Class. It's not perfect, but it's got a lot of good movie in it, and is probably the second best installment in the series to date. I'd definitely watch further installments of the 1960's X-Men team, certainly sooner than the modern team, which was damaged pretty much beyond repair in the third movie.