Ridley, please make a fantasy epic in the time you have left.

Paul MacLean wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:48 pm Ridley, please make a fantasy epic in the time you have left.

I fell asleep on it twice. Now, I admit, I fall asleep on a lot of things these days, but man, this really took its time, if you know what I mean.

-Thor (2011): 8/10



1.) Seeing Chris Hemsworth for the first time in this film was akin to seeing Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine for the first time…the perfect melding of actor and character. Hemsworth definitely lacks the range of Jackman, but in his comfort zone, his brawny, red-meat charisma and sly humor plays like gangbusters.

2.) Thor referring to Agent Coulson as “Son of Coal” is good for a laugh.

3.) The depiction of Asgard is frequently beautiful. Bo Welch’s production design is top-notch.

4.) Kat Dennings just kills it with her comic timing. “Does he need CPR, because I totally know CPR.”

5.) Natalie Portman doesn’t have much to do aside from playing The Love Interest, but her chemistry with Hemsworth is immediate and sweet.

6.) Even though she’s given even less to do than Portman, always nice to see Rene Russo.

7.) While not the worst MCU score, Patrick Doyle’s work on this film is the most DISAPPOINTING considering the pedigree established by him on Kenneth Branagh’s previous movies. Had someone told me in 1993 that there’d one day be a superhero movie directed by Branagh and scored by Doyle – and that the resulting score would be as anonymous as this – I wouldn’t have believed it. Obviously Disney had to stick their noses in…oh wait, this was the pre-Disney MCU.

8.) Branagh’s fetish for baroquely skewed camera angles is totally out of control here. Even Brian De Palma would call him out for the overuse of Dutching the frame.

9.) When Thor and his warrior buddies are escaping the Frost Giant planet, they’re pursued by the “Kothoga” monster from The Relic.

10.) When this film first dropped, it was my favorite of the “Phase One” MCU movies, but time and distance have ever-so-slightly dulled that initial rush of excitement. It’s still a damn good and entertaining film, but it seems kind of low-rent compared to the escalating levels of mayhem in later MCU films (the flyspeck Mexico locales seem like Branagh blew his budget on the Asgard sequences, and couldn’t afford to shoot in a big city for the Earth portions). Still, the movie is fast, funny and boasts one of the only worthwhile villains in the MCU canon.

-Captain America: The First Avenger (2011): 9/10



1.) This is a gorgeously-designed WWII period piece, but coming from Joe Johnston, who made the splendid and underrated The Rocketeer, that’s not too surprising.

2.) The Benjamin Button bobblehead F/X to stick Chris Evans’ noggin on the frame of a noodly 98-lb dork haven’t held up as well as I expected. You can really see the seams, like how Evans’ jawline is awkwardly cut off.

3.) Good Lord, but how knuckle-gnawingly gorgeous is Hayley Atwell’s Peggy Carter in this film? Perhaps the most attractive woman in the MCU, and that’s saying something. Shame that Steve Rogers never got to, uh, “fondue” with her…

4.) Hey, a legitimately GOOD score in an MCU movie! Alan Silvestri really knocks this one out of the park (and it’s a crime that his rousing end-credits march is missing from the soundtrack album). Bonus points for Alan Menken and David Zippel’s uproarious “Star-Spangled Man” anthem, which honestly deserved a Best Original Song Oscar nomination that year. Just try to get it out of your head.

5.) The rare post-90’s performance by Tommy Lee Jones that isn’t totally phoned-in. Choice line: "What about cyanide. That give you the ol’ rumbly tummy too?”

6.) One only wishes the mid-section of the film, with Cap and the Howling Commandoes taking out Hydra cells across Europe, wasn’t relegated to a quickie montage. That could have been a film all of its own, or a cool TV series.

7.) Wonderful tweaking of an old Saturday-matinee cliché…the bad guy who Cap is pursuing through Manhattan throws the kid he’s been using as a human shield into the water, and when Cap looks over the side of the pier, he sees the kid dog-paddling around, who then informs him, “I can swim! Go get him…!”

8.) Howling Commando Dum-Dum Dugan later played Damien Dahrk on TV’s Arrow.

9.) Dominic Cooper make for a slick, snarky young Howard Stark.

10.) This film actually got better for me this time around…it’s just great escapism, with a terrific eye for period detail, a game cast, exciting action sequences and an ending with genuine pathos. Easily the best of the Phase One films.

Those are two of the better Marvel films. They work well on their own terms and do offer some feel of having been made by their individual directors (though I always felt the modern end of CAPTAIN AMERICA fell a little flat).

-The Avengers (2012): 8.5/10



1.) A sweaty Scarlett Johansson tied to a chair in a little black dress? OH yes...

2.) Third time's the charm when it comes to the Hulk...the big green galoot actually appears to be sharing the same physical space as the actors this time around, instead of looking like a Roger Rabbit 'toon.

3.) I like how Mark Ruffalo -- as the new Bruce Banner -- tackles the role as someone who has been living with his "affliction" for a while and has attained a state of Zen calm. Note how he's constantly and unconsciously wringing his hands.

4.) Hulk's "gotcha back" sucker punch to Thor is one of my favorite gags in any MCU movie.

5.) This is pretty much Ground Zero for the "Sky Beam" cliché that has infected every major superhero and/or F/X movie made in the last six years.

6.) Even though it's cleverly foreshadowed by Tony Stark's "That man is playing Galaga!" crack earlier in the film, the last 40 minutes' worth of wholescale destruction caused by an endless array of flying thingies descending from the top of the screen does get a bit tiresome after a while. Yes, there are lots of awesomely iconic shots and funny quips to break it up, but it's a fallacy that audiences need THIS much devastation to remain invested in a movie, even a superhero action movie.

7.) The scene with Tom Hiddleston's Loki and Scarlett's Black Widow conversing while he's in his Hannibal Lecter glass cell actually contains some pretty sharp writing and fine acting from both performers. It's moments like this that really stick with a viewer as opposed to technically-impressive yet ultimately numbing mayhem.

8.) Nice continuity that the shadowy "high council" members played by Powers Boothe and Jenny Agutter would pop up later on Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Captain America: The Winter Solder, respectably.

9.) Hey, remember that early-teens period when Hollywood kept trying to make Jeremy Renner "happen"? He's not going to happen!

10.) I remember what a buzzy thrill it was to watch this six years ago, but now that the crossover MCU gimmick has become standard operating procedure, the film is a bit less special than it once was. It's still a load of fun, though.

Iron Man 3 (2013): 9/10



1.) Debuting writer/director Shane Black (replacing Jon Favreau) actually manages to get his personal stamp on Disney material to a surprising degree (albeit on a PG-13 restriction). His usual fetishes for peppy, hard-boiled wordplay, Christmastime settings and smart-assed kid sidekicks are all on ample display.

2.) POTUS is portrayed by the Grim Reaper, dude! [air-guitar riff]

3.) I know most people hate it, but the way the Mandarin plot of this film plays out had me HOWLING, one of the best trolling of audience expectations this side of The Last Jedi.

4.) Love the sequence where Tony Stark -- shorn of his suit -- loads up at a hardware store and concocts some 007-worthy gadgets and gizmos. It proves that he's more than just a "man in a can" and can be badass even with improvised weaponry.

5.) Hands-down the funniest post-credits scene in an MCU movie, and it's the perfect payoff for the film's voiceover narration.

6.) Did neither Shane Black nor co-screenwriter Drew Pearce notice that they were cribbing Guy Pearce's introductory scene lock, stock & barrel from Jim Carrey's intro in Batman Forever?

7.) More nice MCU continuity: the "Extremis" arc was carried over into TV's Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D..

8.) While Brian Tyler's score is functional at best, the end-credits cue is kind of fantastic, reminiscent of Michael Giacchino's jazzy Incredibles soundtrack.

9.) Gwyneth Paltrow just gets better-looking with age.

10.) Am I alone in not only thinking this is vastly superior to the slapdash second installment, but that it's the best solo Iron Man movie, period? This one's an absolute blast to watch, and it's curious that so many fans rate this one so poorly. Did they not SEE the second one?!

-Thor: The Dark World (2013): 6/10



1.) Should have been titled Exposition: The Movie. So much backstory gobbledygook, so little characterization and honest emotional drama.

2.) Those spaceships that look like flying axe blades are pretty cool.

3.) That "Viking Funeral" sequence is beautifully shot...too bad it's for a character who had MAYBE five minutes' worth of screentime across two movies.

4.) There's a germ of an interesting idea here -- flipping the first movie's narrative on its head by making Natalie Portman's Jane Foster play out Thor's fish-out-of-water arc from the original by being whisked away to Asgard -- but she spends so little time there (especially interacting with anyone other than Thor's immediate family) that it's a wasted opportunity for some good character building and humor.

5.) It's the little details that linger: Thor casually hanging his mighty hammer on Jane's coat rack.

6.) The head "Dark Elf" has a hulking minion that's actually a real actor under an impressive practical makeup job. You don't see that very often these days, and I appreciated it.

7.) Even heavily-pixelated, I could have done without seeing Stellan Skarsgard's naked ass.

8.) That end-credits sequence with watercolor-style illustrations of key moments and cast members from the film is lovely.

9.) The editing for this movie is appallingly choppy. While it's nice to see one of these MCU movies under two hours, it seems like it was cut down from a much longer cut, and not very elegantly.

10.) Easily the weak link of the solo Thor movies. You know that old joke about how, if you don't like New England weather, all you have to do it wait ten minutes? Well, with the MCU movies, if you don't like the current one, all you have to do it wait four months for the next. The Dark World isn't terrible like Iron Man 2 was, but it lacks the Shakespearean brio that Kenneth Branagh brought to the original, coming across more like an episode of Game Of Thrones with a bigger budget. It's somewhat entertaining, but sloppy, unfocused and forgettable, only held together by Chris Hemsworth's brawny charisma and the odd flicker of quirky humor.

Agreed on IRON MAN 3 (though I wasn't quite as enthusiastic as you were) and THOR THE DARK WORLD too. Also getting to that point in the Marvel-verse where I started losing interest overall as AGE OF ULTRON wasn't far behind (I think) -- a (for me) dreadful sequel that made me lose any additional enthusiasm for these films (I'll probably be sitting this next 160 minute bloat-a-thon out).

Part of the problem there is Joss Whedon is a far better writer than he is a director, and that's always been the case. I like the first AVENGERS alright, but IMO it should have been better -- visually it felt very claustrophobic to me, and that has to do with how he blocks scenes. Most of it looked like an episode of Buffy. Admittedly, I also like most of these films better when they concentrate on one character as opposed to an ensemble performing various narrative "busy work" to begin with. As "brilliant" as some people think CIVIL WAR is, it's part Captain America/part Avengers sequel with a 20-minute Spider-Man paid advertisement sitting in the center of it. The Captain America part I liked, the rest of it was serviceable but far from mind-blowing or inspired.

Anything with Whedon's name on it will never be watched by me. The man belongs in a rubber room.

Anyway......

While The City Sleeps (1956) 8 of 10.

=Although this is packaged as a noir type film, it's really a much more diverse type of film blessed with a great ensemble of actors in Dana Andrews, George Sanders, Thomas Mitchell, Vincent Price, Rhonda Fleming, Howard Duff, Ida Lupino etc. John Drew Barrymoore, father of Drew is billed as "John Barrymoore, Jr." as he plays a young mama's boy on a killing spree of women (and demonstrates for the most part why his career wasn't going to go anywhere and he'd only end up getting cast in things like a Trek episode he got fired off of for not showing up!). But the main story has to do with the backbiting in a media conglomerate over which person in the conglomerate will be the one to crack the case and get rewarded in the process. Great to see actors like Sanders and Price show their usual caddish sides but without playing full-throated villains. Fleming looks terrific even if in B/W we don't get to see her red hair to full effect. Directed by Fritz Lang, this was a blind buy bought with Amazon credits and it turned into a great find.

-Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014): 9/10



1.) Like Aliens compared to Alien, The Winter Soldier manages the tricky task of a sequel that essentially jumps genres compared to its predecessor without completely betraying what audiences liked about it. The engagingly cornball Greatest Generation WWII heroics of the original have been smartly supplanted by a throwback to the paranoid political thrillers of the 1970's, all without sacrificing the superhero gimmickry that fans crave. A neat trick.

2.) While it's kind of alarming to consider the fact that audiences under the age of 25 probably have never seen him in a movie other than this, Robert Redford's casting as a high-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. bigwig is canny and inspired, and he doesn't phone in his performance either.

3.) Scarlett Johansson's least-flattering hairstyle in any of her MCU appearances...flat and lifeless.

4.) As bad as Iron Man 2 was, this film's amusing payoff to Garry Shandling's role in that kind of makes it worthwhile.

5.) There's a killer car chase in the first forty minutes of the film that bracingly refers back to the kind of practical, crunched-metal vehicular chases that John Frankenheimer and William Friedkin used to specialize in.

6.) It's touching to see Steve Rogers visiting a museum exhibit devoted to his WWII heroics and pining over vintage newsreel interview footage from the 50's featuring his would-be love Peggy Carter. It's less affecting to see him interacting with a hundred-year-old Peggy in a nursing home, with Haley Atwell buried under bad old-age makeup about as convincing as Winona Ryder in Edward Scissorhands.

7.) The excellent sequence where Cap is assaulted by a group of bad guys in the cramped confines of an elevator is a blatant crib of the one good scene in Die Hard With A Vengeance.

8.) Anthony Mackie makes a fine debut appearance as Falcon, giving Cap some much-needed assistance at the climax.

9.) Pause and study Cap's notebook when he flips it open to add Falcon's suggestion of Marvin Gaye for some laughs.

10.) I was initially wary about this film, both about taking the lead character out of his WWII setting and plopping him into the modern day and the fact that directors Anthony and Joe Russo's only major previous big-screen credit was the lame Owen Wilson comedy You, Me & Dupree, but they turned out to be an inspired choice, turning out one of the most entertaining films in the MCU, with allusions to 70's conspiracy movies, Hitchcockian "Wrong Man" thrillers and just enough political subtext to add a glimmer of real-world subtext without becoming heavy-handed or pretentious. Terrific entertainment.

-Guardians Of The Galaxy (2014): 8.5/10



1.) Who would have figured that a film written and directed by a guy who cut his teeth on Troma movies would turn out to be one of the most beloved franchises inside of the MCU banner? Guardians Of The Galaxy, more than any other Marvel movie, honestly makes the viewer feel like a twelve-year-old again, happily spread out on their bedroom floor and thumbing through their well-worn and well-loved back issues (and hoping that their letter to the editor gets published this month). James Gunn -- who graduated from Troma to penning Zack Snyder's excellent Dawn Of The Dead remake and making his directing debut with the exuberant gross-out horror/comedy Slither -- has crafted a movie that's simultaneously beautiful and snarky.

2.) Chris Pratt...from chubby comic sidekick guy to ripped, hunky action franchise anchor. Who knew? And all without losing his insouciant nonchalance or his funky dance moves spanked along with his schweet 70's pop mixtapes.

3.) With this film and its sequel, Avatar and the current Star Trek series, Zoe Saldanna is bucking to become the pin-up fantasy girl of every sweaty sci-fi nerd in the galaxy. She's also kick-ass and droll about it all, weathering the bickering of her crew of assorted space misfits with eye-rolling patience.

4.) I am Groot.

5.) Bradley Cooper playing a space raccoon with a raygun and the voice of a sawed-off 30s Warner Bros. gangster. How can you not like that?

6.) Hey, another Marvel movie with endless flying thingies getting shot down for the last 40 minutes. Yay...?

7.) Lloyd Kaufman cameo...!

8.) A sequence set inside "The head of a celestial being" offers up the kind of mind-melting imagery we go to the movies for.

9.) Star Lord refers to Rocket Raccoon as "Ranger Rick".

10.) While I'm not quite as wildly enamored of this film as many are (there's that routine videogame shooter climax), it's nevertheless hugely entertaining, and it's telling that a film this esoteric and crammed with such obscure characters could be this widely embraced by Marvel fans while DC continues to flop and stumble with some of their most iconic characters like Batman and Superman. Guardians is relentlessly inventive, funny, gorgeous and brimming with personality.

-Avengers: Age Of Ultron (2015): 7.5/10



1.) By this point, the MCU movies don't function so much as traditional movie sequels as a lavish television miniseries being projected on theater screens every four months or so. I can't imagine how anyone coming into Ultron "cold" would be able to follow a lick of it. This one truly is intended solely for hardcore fans who have been following along since day one, for good or ill.

2.) The Maximoff Twins are introduced, and come across as a mixed bag. While the talented and gorgeous Elizabeth Olsen makes the most of her Natasha Fatale vamping ("Unlike some other Avengers, I can speak with a Russian accent") as mind-meddling Scarlett Witch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson (the kind of actor who looks completely different from movie to movie) is a wash as speedster Quicksilver, lacking any of the mischievous, Speedy Gonzalez humor that Evan Peters brought to the same role in the X-Men films and coming across as nothing more than a sacrificial lamb.

3.) Nick Fury's tossed-off line about "breeding like a Catholic Rabbit" is funny.

4.) James Spader makes for a droll Ultron, making some routine villain posturing go down fairly easy. His off-screen exclamation of, "oh, for God's sake...!" when the Hulk tosses him out of the jet is one of the film's bigger laughs.

5.) There's a definite sense of Contractual Obligation malaise setting in around the core cast, especially Robert Downey Jr. Yes, he still knows how to deliver an off-handed wisecrack, but he's definitely beginning to phone it in by this point.

6.) Hulk vs. Tony Stark in his "Hulkbuster" armor is pretty damn awesome.

7.) After nearly a decades' worth of dry, English butler exposition as Tony's A.I. interface Jarvis, Paul Bettany is finally given physical form as Vision. He looks cool, and is given one of the film's best lines, "Well...I was born yesterday."

8.) More flying thingies getting shot down for the last 40 minutes of screentime. Seen it...!

9.) The last line of the movie is unfortunately reminiscent of the "say the title of our superhero group, but not really" ending of the same summer's lousy Fan4stic Four.

10.) Basically the X-Men: Apocalypse of the MCU...a film that's obviously not as good as its predecessor, and shows signs of heavy cuts in the editing bay (Thor's arc in the film makes little sense) and yet is crammed with more than enough entertainment value to satisfy longtime fans, and introduces a lot of key players and locations that will pay off in future films (Wakanda call-out...!).

-Ant-Man (2015): 8/10



1.) After the dizzying logjam of character exposition and spectacle in Avengers: Age Of Ultron, the MCU smartly mixes things up with this winningly small-scale combination of a miniaturized would-be hero and a classic heist flick framework.

2.) Paul Rudd...is there a more amiable comic presence in movies today? As perennially down-on-his-luck burglar Scott Lang looking at a long-term estrangement from his daughter unless he can make some quick scratch, he finds himself drawn into taking on the mantle of a hero who has been dormant since the late-period Cold War.

3.) The digital-de-aging of Michael Douglas in the film's 1989 prologue may be the most remarkable use of this technology to date...it truly looks like someone found some old B-roll footage of Douglas from his War Of The Roses days and inserted it into the movie (too bad they didn't do as good a job with Hayley Atwell's late-middle-age makeup in the same scene...it looks about as convincing as the middle-aged Michael J. Fox in the same year's Back To The Future Part II). Douglas is great in the rest of the film too, applying his rakish charm to an aging Hank Pym, retired from the superhero biz for a quarter century due to a personal tragedy and who offers Scott Lang a new purpose.

4.) As gorgeous and appealing as Evangeline Lilly is as Pym's daughter, Hope...those bangs are seriously unflattering.

5.) What I wouldn't have given to see Edgar Wright's take on the material.

6.) Corey Stoll may be the blandest, most nondescript MCU villain to date...he may as well be wearing a T-shirt with "INSERT MORE INTERESTING VILLAIN LATER" printed on it. It doesn't help that his plot to weaponize the hero's shrinking technology is a blatant retread of the first Iron Man (hell, Stoll even shares the same Lex Luthor chrome dome with that film's villain).

7.) Lang's smack-down with Anthony Mackie's Falcon offers up some kicky laughs.

8.) Lang's daughter is as cute as a bug.

9.) I love the final, micro-scale showdown on a model train.

10.) Light, breezy and charming (if maybe a bit too light), this is an ideal film to introduce "newbies" to the late-period MCU.

-Captain America: Civil War (2016): 9/10



1.) Should have been titled Avengers 2.5...for the ostensible "third" movie in the Captain America series, the overall MCU has collected so many supporting characters over the last eight years that Steve Rogers is essentially marginalized in his own movie. Oh well, that's what you're dealing with in the modern-day era of "Cinematic Universes", I suppose.

2.) What's with the gigantic, Steven Soderbergh font used for the location title cards?

3.) While I'll get to him once he receives his own feature, Tom Holland makes for an extremely winning Peter Parker, and introducing him into the MCU as a supporting player was very smart.

4.) Scarlett Johansson is clad in a bulky leather jacket for much of the movie...disappointing.

5.) Again, I'll have more to say when his solo movie come down the pike, but Chadwick Boseman's suave Black Panther is given a flashy, instantly-compelling supporting role

6.) Spider-Man referring to The Empire Strikes Back as "That really old movie" is guaranteed to make fans of a certain age wince.

7.) Hey, it's Bilbo Baggins with a weird American accent...!

8.) Nice continuity bringing back William Hurt's "Thunderbolt" Ross from The Incredible Hulk, a movie that's otherwise been forgotten by the larger MCU.

9.) Vision's clearly nursing a crush on Scarlett Witch.

10.) After nearly a decade's worth of build-up, the moral implications of the Avengers' actions and their increasingly-fractured worldviews comes to a head in this, one of the most satisfying and dramatically potent films in the series. Yes, there's tons of audience-pleasing fun to be had, but this is the rare superhero slugfest that actually addresses the inevitable consequences of how they police and "protect" the world, and doesn't brush off major character shifts with absurd shorthand like two rival heroes having mothers who just happen to share the same first name. Broken allegiances and friendships have actual emotional and dramatic weight here, because Disney had the long-term vision to allow them to mature and blossom over the course of time, instead of jamming them into one movie because they're impatient to put the cart in front of the horse. A terrific film.

HOSTILES
7/10

If westerns are hard to come by, good ones are an even scarcer commodity. That makes Scott Cooper’s HOSTILES such a frustrating experience, as this beautifully filmed picture, backed by a compelling story, is also undone to a degree by a leaden pace and questionable lead performance.

In 1892 New Mexico, an army captain (Christian Bale) is tasked with transporting a dying Cheyenne chief (Wes Studi) to his tribal home in Montana; en route, the group is attacked by Comanche savages who’ve also slain Rosamund Pike’s husband and young children. From there, Cooper’s story, based on a treatment by the late screenwriter Donald E. Stewart, follows this disparate group through meetings with hostiles of all persuasions, as well as a conclusion both bloody and ultimately redemptive.

“Hostiles” is undeniably gorgeous in terms of its visuals, with Cooper and Masanobu Takayanagi’s naturalistic lensing capturing the vastness of the Plains in a spellbinding widescreen presentation. It’s also finely acted, particularly by Pike in one of her more sympathetic turns, as well as Studi and a capable supporting cast (Jesse Plemons, Ben Foster, Adam Beach). More problematic is Bale, who’s dialed back so much here that there are times he threatens to nearly vanish off the screen. No doubt the actor and Cooper sought to try and curtail the actor’s inherent energy and “immerse” him in the role, but it’s a tactic that doesn’t entirely pay off, with Bale often appearing listless in scenes that feel as if they needed more energy.

That’s also the main issue with the film as a whole, even though the picture has a lot of good things going for it. The premise is compelling and Cooper’s script surprising in its depiction of its main characters – eschewing simple black-and-white clichés, Cooper believably draws both the white settlers and the Native Americans in three-dimensional terms, so much that the eventual (and expected) “change of heart” moments come off as well-earned. And yet, the movie moves so slowly at times, meandering through dialogue sequences and restrained emotions that viewers could mistake for a bloated Terrence Malick mess. The end result is a movie with some potent moments – and a story that builds to a satisfying resolution – that’s hampered by a ponderous, self-indulgent pace.

Lionsgate’s 4K UHD of “Hostiles” is out next week. This is a wonderful HDR-enhanced transfer with a nice DTS MA 5.1 mix featuring an occasionally impressive Max Richter score. A full hour-long look at the production is the sole special feature with a Blu-Ray and Digital Copy rounding out the release. Still worth a look for western fans, in spite of its shortcomings.