Avengers: Age of Ultron

Released:  May 1^st, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Walt Disney Studios

Starring:  Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, James Spader

Directed by:  Joss Whedon

Written by:  Joss Whedon

Personal Bias Alert:  Joss Whedon fan, bored of comic book movies

6.5 of 10

            The summer movie season is here, and Marvel is kicking it off yet again with Avengers:  Age of Ultron.  The team of Iron Man (billionaire playboy crime fighter), Hulk (green rage monster), Thor (golden god), Captain America (enhanced good ol’ boy), Black Widow (former Russian spy), and Hawkeye (bow and arrow dude) have reassembled to finish what they started in The Avengers:  to get every remnant of Loki off their planet.  Despite, or because of, their super powers/skills, they are incredibly bad at this task, with Iron Man instead creating a homicidal machine named Ultron.  Ultron’s got daddy issues, so the Avengers are the first on his hit list, followed by the rest of humanity.  So there’s your threat that only a super-special team can defeat, and the movie proceeds from here like pretty much every other movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

            As someone who’s not a fan of Marvel’s popcorn movies, the grinding gears of yet another bad guys vs. good guys plotline that does little delving into character or themes is getting annoying, but at least here you have Joss Whedon.  That means you get some good one-liners thrown in, but the Marvel franchise has replaced character traits with character connections, and the amount of i’s and t’s Whedon must dot and cross to keep the universe going leaves almost no time for anything outside the plot.  Marvel has drawn a line in the sand, and with the success they’re experiencing, they aren’t about to cross it to convert the stragglers like me.  It seems that most people enjoy what they’re cooking, and if you liked The Avengers and all the other movies, you’ll like Age of Ultron as well.

            The main cast of Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, and Jeremy Renner all return and play their parts with the ease of those who’ve been there and done that.  Joining the cast are Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen as twins with powers of their own and James Spader in the voice/motion capture performance of Ultron.  Taylor-Johnson and Olsen get a couple decent scenes, but mostly they’re navigating action sequences à la last year’s Godzilla.  Spader brings his trademark borderline-lazy nonchalance, which is to be expected but doesn’t quite work in the major villain role.  This failure mostly falls on Whedon, who wrote Ultron with Spader in mind and ultimately never got the character quite right.  Ultron’s presumptive and petulant, characteristics that don’t lend themselves well to a very menacing Big Bad, and there’s many illusions to him being an evil Pinocchio despite the fact that Frankenstein’s monster is a much more fitting comparison. 

Age of Ultron is hampered by many other problems, some of which stem from the film’s own premise.  The big difficulty with this group is that they aren’t really unified.  They come and go as their own priorities pop up, and their fighting abilities are all over the map.  The times when they’re actually all together are rare, and when they split up there always seems to be some character that is simply forgotten about.  Hulk is continuously left behind in action sequences, Thor disappears for a large portion of the down-time, and Iron Man is always flying away from everyone else.  They are a team in only the loosest sense of the word, and the effort it takes to bring them all together makes for some glaring contrivances.

            An even bigger issue is the nagging sense that the film feels tired, which comes from the audience as much as from the filmmakers.  Whedon has been vocal about how difficult Age of Ultron was to make, and many of the cast members have expressed interest in leaving the franchise.  Then you have the unfortunate fact that filmgoers have seen so many similar things in the past year.  Obviously, Taylor-Johnson/Whedon’s Quicksilver fails to live up to the frenzy that the character’s appearance in X-Men:  Days of Future Past created, but there’s also the success of Guardians of the Galaxy, which thrived on its sense of humor and makes the banter in Age of Ultron seem lacking.  Smaller things, like the humorous coincidence that the original brain-version of Ultron looks exactly like the robot brains in Ex Machina, doesn’t help the timing issues.  However, the main problem seems to be the lack of passion from Whedon and company, and it translates onto the final product.

            Despite these downfalls, those making Age of Ultron are talented enough to make a decent film even on autopilot.  With the expectations and the odds stacked against it, the fact that the film is even decent is a bit of a triumph.  But if the world’s going to invest a quarter of a billion dollars into anything, shouldn’t it be more than decent?

Other Notes (Ridiculous Superhero Version):

Ø  How is the ability to get in people’s head and shoot red things from your hands connected?

Ø  Why did they have that squishy CGI look in the opening sequence?

Ø  Why did they make Cap adamant that civilians weren’t getting hurt in the middle of a massive battle where civilians were obviously getting hurt?

Other Notes (Regular Version):

Ø  Those twins were awkwardly close. 

Ø  The crowd shots really highlighted how utterly white the Avengers are.

Ø  Can we discuss the fact that the woman named Scarlett didn’t play the Scarlet Witch?

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

7 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  This is my first Captain America movie, not a fan of blockbusters

            I can’t help but feel that my inexperience with the Marvel franchise has given me an unusual perspective on “Captain America:  The Winter Soldier.”  The lone film I’ve seen from the Marvel universe is “Iron Man.”  No Thor, Hulk, Avengers, or Captain America.  I also never read the comics, nor do I recall watching cartoons of any of these characters as a kid.  Here’s the rundown on my knowledge of Cap going into the film:  was a soldier in one of the world wars, the military made him into a super soldier, carries a shield, probably American.  This dearth of knowledge made me very concerned that I would get lost watching “The Winter Soldier,” but thanks to its clear storytelling my worries were unfounded.

            Captain America/Steve Rodgers (Chris Evans) starts this film at an oddly quiet time in his life.  Work has slowed, and he has enough time to start mulling over the direction his life has taken.  The people he grew up with are dead, and he’s having trouble fitting into the modern age.  Cap’s actually quite melancholy here.  He seems unable to let go of his past life, which gives newbies like me some time to get filled in on his story.  More importantly, he’s struggling with his growing disillusionment with SHIELD, which is exacerbated when Nick Furry (Samuel L. Jackson) shows him their latest creation.  It’s a trio of massive aircraft carriers designed to eliminate people who might be future threats.  Cap brings up some obvious moral problems (the people being killed haven’t actually done anything yet) and storms off, seemingly ready to quit.

            Of course, there’s no getting out that easy.  Furry is attacked by a mysterious hitman named the Winter Soldier.  Before dying, Furry entrusts Cap with some disturbing information:  SHIELD has been taken over from the inside.  This immediate threat kicks Cap out of his wallowing, and he teams up with Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Sam Wilson/The Falcon (Anthony Mackie) to find out who compromised SHIELD.

            From here, the movie becomes a series of alternating spy and action scenes, building a plot elaborate enough to keep your attention but failing to become very interesting.  The spy sequences keep the information flowing, but they are too often exposition-filled rants instead of believable character conversations.  One scene even commits the cardinal sin of allowing someone to wax poetic about the bad guy’s entire plan to Cap and Natasha.  Seemingly knowing how bad the scene is, the writers throw in a line to try to explain his ramble, but it’s too little too late.

            The action sequences fall into repetition, and are further marred by their wanton destruction.  Cap seems to prefer hand-to-hand combat, which is fun until you see his shield boomerang back to him for the fifth time and you realize that none of these folks are on his level.  His nemesis, the Winter Soldier, has a mechanical arm strong enough to level the fight, but even those battles become underwhelming after multiple encounters.  Prior to the big finish, the large fight scenes take place mostly on the streets of Washington D.C.  Cars flip, run into each other, and get shot to pieces, regardless of whether the drivers are participants or bystanders.  I normally don’t think about this too much, but I was oddly bothered by it in this movie.  There are non-public places to fight.

            The plot machinations leave little time for anything else, so once they kick in after the attack on Furry, the previously interesting characters devolve into stock superhero characters.  Early on, Natasha and Sam have gentle conversations with the troubled Cap, encouraging him to engage with the world and find some happiness.  Both characters are filled out with their own problems, and Natasha has a running joke with Cap about finding him a girlfriend.  It’s telling that the joke isn’t mentioned throughout the middle portion of the film.  Natasha’s playful attitude waters down into cheesy one-liners, Sam becomes the capable sidekick, and Cap’s preoccupation with his past disappears and reappears when the plot requires it.  If the character’s had been maintained better, it might have hidden the fact that the film is nothing more than a series of plot points.

            It’s possible that my issues with the characters are influenced by the fact that I’m not as familiar with them as other moviegoers.  I’ve given the film the benefit of the doubt on that one, but the repetitive middle section and poor writing is inexcusable.  The films mostly concerned with its jumble of escalating set pieces, but it does try to add in some ideas about our society and its use of technology.  In the end, “Captain America:  The Winter Soldier” is only an average summer blockbuster, just released a little earlier than usual.

Other Notes (Ridiculous Action Sequence Version):

Ø  At one point, I thought I saw the Winter Soldier toss up a knife, punch Cap, catch the knife, and continue fighting.  It was moving too fast to tell for sure.  So why would you do that if the audience can barely see it?

Ø  None of the glass that Cap and the Winter Soldier stands on breaks while the ship crashes, except for that one piece that allows Cap to dramatically toss his shield away.

Ø  Sam outruns a crashing ship.  To make it worse, at one point he rolls over a desk and you can clearly see him stop to get up, but still the ship doesn’t catch up to him.

Ø  The Winter Soldier blocks gunfire with his mechanical arm.  An arm isn’t wide enough to do that.  Also, have they not heard of ricochet?  The way an arm curves, he would be likely to block the bullets right up into his face.

Other Notes (Normal Version):

Ø  Yes, I spotted Stan Lee.

The Iceman (2013)

4.5 of 10

Personal Bias Alert:  not a big fan of gangster movies, generally annoyed by David Schwimmer

            “The Iceman” is based on the true story of hitman Richard Kuklinski, who claimed to have killed over 100 people in a 38 year period.  His nickname has a double meaning, referring both to his cold demeanor and his habit of freezing victims to hide the time of death.  That a man like Kuklinski existed, and that he eluded detection for so long, is troubling.  A movie seems almost inevitable; bloody mob movies sell well, the true-life twist makes it more compelling, and Kuklinski’s troubled childhood gives the writers a motive audiences would understand.  Unfortunately, the film falls flat due to the simplistic script, unambiguous direction, and wooden characters.

            The film opens with Michael Shannon’s Kuklinski on a date with his girlfriend/future wife Deborah (Winona Ryder).  Kuklinski is delighted that Deborah’s there, and tries his best to keep up a conversation.  It’s the lightest you’ll see this character, and unfortunately, it’s the only time you’ll see him with any shading.  After a few minutes, the music takes on an eerie quality and he makes a flirtatious reference to Deborah being like Natalie Wood.  Because there’s nothing ominous about references to Natalie Wood.

            This scene sets up the rest of the movie well.  It lays its cards on the table early and often, never letting you develop any opinions of the characters or their actions independently.  The music is an obvious offender, being both prominent and lacking in subtlety.  The actors follow suit:  the bad guys leer, Ryder cowers, and Kuklinski’s girls waft angelically in the background.  Nothing about this film is novel, and most of it’s downright clichéd.  I mean, can you imagine Ray Liotta being cast as a mobster?

            Shannon plays Kuklinski with the passionless demeanor the real-life Kuklinski is known for.  Even the one thing he cares about, his family, is revealed to be a product of his childhood, not an actual connection between Kuklinski and his wife and family.  While this dispassion may be an accurate portrayal, it’s not a very cinematic one.  A character with no reactions seemingly has nothing that’s important to him, leaving the audience with no reason to care what happens to him.  Shannon’s Kuklinski seems fine with whatever, and so are we.

            The only character with any life is Kuklinski’s associate, a fellow hitman played by Chris Evans.  He reviles in the character’s blasé nature, bringing levity and humor to the nasty things they do.  It may not be the most normal of reactions, but at least it shows an awareness of the world around him, something Kuklinski never seems to acknowledge.

            A film with this kind of story behind it should be a slam dunk.  Lies, murder, and family is a winning combination that’s been used throughout time, and to mess it up this badly is almost impressive.  But then again, it’s kind of fitting that a film about a prolific murderer turned out this lifeless.

Other Notes:

Ø  What’s with James Franco being in everything?

Ø  Hey, it’s Ross from “Friends” with a terrible mustache!  And they pointed out the mustache with an incredibly ominous line!  Surely nothing bad will happen to him.

Ø  I’m so glad $10 million was spent on this film.