Iron Man 3

Rating: ***1/2

In a very real sense, Iron Man 3 faces as many challenges in following-up The Avengers as the first Iron Man did in getting the ball rolling by being the first film to begin the process leading to The Avengers to begin with. On the other hand though, freed from the pre-occupation of setting up a shared universe, and the gamble the Marvel production team was taking to make it happen, Iron Man 3 is probably Marvel Studios' best film effort since that first Iron Man.

The Avengers

Rating: ****

The Avengers, by virtue of being the first movie of summer, gets to set the tone for the season, and that tone is a fun, thrilling spectacle that balances big action and heart. It develops strong characters with complex relationships, while still being able to level New York under the thumb of an alien invasion. Under the stewardship of Joss Whedon, The Avengers, a movie that really was too big to fail, does the highly improbable for modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking: it makes your ticket price seem like money well spent.

Following up on Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, and Captain America: The First Avenger, The Avengers brings together characters from all those films into a single adventure. When Thor’s vengeful brother Loki suddenly appears in an installation run by the world peacekeeping agency S.H.I.E.L.D., stealing the Cosmic Cube (from Captain America) and kidnapping Dr Selvig and Hawkeye (from Thor) as his worker bees, S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury puts the Avengers Initiative into effect. Assembling Captain America, Bruce Banner, Iron Man, Black Widow and eventually Thor, The Avengers set out to stop Loki before he can unleash an alien army to take over the Earth.

So, where to begin? How about the writer/director Joss Whedon, and may I say how astounded I am about how much of his typical Whedon-ness manages to make it into the finished film. How does one define ‘Whedon-ness?” Well, there’s the scene during the alien invasion when Black Widow reminisces about Budapest to which Hawkeye retorts that the two of them remember Budapest very differently. There’s the scene on the helicarrier where Stark refers to Loki’s slaves as “flying monkeys” to which Captain America excitedly realizes that he gets that reference. And then there a couple of prime Hulk scenes that are honestly too good to spoil.

Speaking of whom, this is another area that Whedon excels: his characterization of the Hulk and his alterego Bruce Banner. The recasting of Mark Ruffalo for the part was an added treat because Ruffalo, as a person, is so unassuming and seems so harmless that when he Hulks out, there really is something to fear. Ruffalo getting to be the first actor to play both Banner and Hulk through the miracle of motion capture adds to that effect because you can see both characters reflected in each other. But Whedon gets credit for this Hulk too because I think the script gets that psychology better than any writer on a Hulk movie previous.

The rest of the cast does well, although I think Chris Hemsworth as Thor and Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye get the short end of the stick, because, sadly, in a cast this big, there just isn’t the same amount of room for everyone. The one character, besides the Hulk, that gets the benefit of the Whedon treatment is Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow. In Whedon’s hands, Widow rightly joins the filmmaker’s pantheon of butt-kicking females, and Johansson gets to show some vulnerability as well as some cleverness considering Widow is one of two Avengers without powers. Chris Evans continues to be commanding as Captain America, and subtly plays well Cap’s man out of time struggles while still being a authoritative presence. Whedon also does well restraining the unbridled enthusiasm of Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark, and focusing it. Downey also plays well off Ruffalo as the team’s two resident brainiacs.

But the true miracle of The Avengers is pacing. There were so many masters that Whedon had to answer to, so many highlights he had to hit, it’s a wonder that the movie didn’t look more like a highlight reel rather something with a coherent narrative. There’s a lot of action, but there’s also a lot of character moments, a lot of time spent on seeing how these heroes interact outside the immediacy of the next crisis. And in another typical Whedon touch, one supporting character is killed before the end of the second act, providing both a dramatic impetus for the team, and a justifiable reason why they go with their given nom de plume.

On the downside, The Avengers is geek chic of the highest order, so when you come, you have to come in a playful mood because there’s no room for curmudgeons in the theatre. Alan Silvestri’s score is perfectly unmemorable, which is a real shame because I think if there’s one element holding this back from being perfect popcorn fare it’s the forgettable music. Sure Raiders of the Lost Ark was great, but what connected you to all those great memories of the film as you left the theatre? It was the John Williams theme. Perhaps J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, featuring a score by Michael Giacchino, may be a more recent example of a musical score that makes just that little bit of extra difference.

But ultimately I feel that any criticism of The Avengers might fall under the category of nit-picking, and certainly the box office returns thus far prove that if ever there was a movie that fit the definition of critic proof, this would be it. But the thing of it is that The Avengers deserves the accolades and the adulation, and appropriately, just as the superhero genre seemed to be a game of diminishing returns, The Avengers comes in and saves the day. Ultimately, when it came to building hype for this movie, there was no assembly required.

And do stay to the very end of the credits for the second bonus scene. You will not be disappointed.

X-Men: First Class

Rating: ****

Astonishing! Astounding! Uncanny! Three word X-Men fans might use about X-Men: First Class.

Surprised? So was I. This superhero franchise, desperately in need of a booster jump following the creative catastrophe of Last Stand, and the critical and commercial bomb of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, managed to do the impossible: deliver a Marvel film that contains no foreshadowing about The Avengers.

But seriously, Matthew Vaughn has managed to rejuvenate the X-Men brand and does so by breaking one of the assumptions in making a prequel – it can’t be surprising. Set against the Cuban Missile Crisis, the film has the feeling that someone transplanted the X-Men into the world of Sean Connery’s James Bond with sexy villainesses, exotic locales, and the world destroying threat of nuclear war. Scoff you may at the very notion, but the X-Men comics have spanned numerous genres, from space opera (anything with the Shi’ar and the Starjammers), to science fiction (“Days of Future Past”), to political commentary (“God Loves, Man Kills”) to horror (“Inferno”) and even humour (“X-Babies”).

Part origin story, part spy thriller, part relationship drama and part superhero movie, X-Men: First Class combines all these elements and cooks them to perfection. The film is a beautiful soufflé of inspirations and ideas, not necessarily perfect, but wholly satisfying. Anchored by a great cast, solid direction and a tremendous eye for period detail and the requisite visual effects eye candy, it might be safe to say that X-Men delivers the first, great blockbuster of the summer season with very few reservations.

This film starts out very similarly to Bryan Singer’s initial X-film in 2000. A young Erik Lehnsherr is separated from his family as they enter a Nazi Concentration Camp in Poland, during which young Erik first demonstrates his gift to manipulate metal. He’s brought to a doctor named Schmidt who tries to test the boy by threatening to kill his mother, and when Erik is unable to move a coin, Schmidt shoots Mrs. Lehnsherr, unleashing Erik’s wrath. Good, says Schmidt, your hate has made you powerful… Oh wait, wrong movie.

By contrast, young Charles Xavier has had an easy life. He awakes one night to a noise in his kitchen. He comes downstairs expecting to find a burglar, but instead finds his mother rummaging in the pantry. Wait a minute, says Charles, my mom’s never been inside our kitchen in her life… Presto-chango, his mother morphs into an adorable little blue-skinned Mystique. The two become fast friends as Charles promises that the runaway Mystique need never to go hungry again. But again, that’s the wrong movie.

From there, the film follows Xavier through his schooling at Oxford and Erik through his globe-trotting revenge tour to eliminate the Nazis made his life a living hell. The two catch up while independently pursuing the same man, Schmidt, who’s really Sebastian Shaw, a mutant with global domination on his bucket list. Erik wants the man that shot his mother in cold blood, Charles is helping the CIA stop an imminent threat to world peace. The two men form a bond despite their different goals, for they both agree on one thing, mutants are the future.

One of the reasons that the initial trilogy of X-Men films worked so well, was because of the casting of classically trained actors to play Xavier and Magneto, Patrick Stewart as and Ian McKellen respectively. They brought such gravitas and realism to the parts that it was going to hard to find young actors who could not only match them, but make it believable that these are their younger versions.

But James McAvoy brings surprising charm to Xavier, who in First Class is still has that optimism and humanist spirit known to be Xavier, while letting Professor X have a scene or two where he tries to pick up women with a biology lesson. As his opposite, Michael Fassbender brings a nice tone of menace to Magneto, but also a weird kind of hopefulness as he finds his purpose as mutantkind’s saviour. If any actor will benefit the most from First Class it will be Fassbender. Like Hugh Jackman in the first X-Men, this movie could launch Fassbender to the A-list.

The supporting cast is top notch. Kevin Bacon as Shaw is especially a standout, chewing the scenery with relish and striding across the screen with the swagger of an old-fashioned Bond villain. Bacon may have always been a solid actor and pop culture curio, but there’s something magnetic about how he plays Shaw. There’s a different kind of magnetism when it comes to Shaw’s girl Friday, Emma Frost, as personified by January Jones, and if you’ve seen the pictures then you know why. Frost seems to get lost in the shuffle in the film’s last act, but Jones brings a fine touch of coolness and clinical detachment – along with her physical attributes – to the role.

Oddly enough, the weakest bits of the story in X-Men: First Class have to do with the first class of X-Men. Jennifer Lawrence brings some new dimension to Mystigue by making her more than the “naked blue chick,” and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast plays well the mutant struggle to be normal and the dual effort to accept and be accepted, and trying to change without changing. The rest of the first class get a moment or two to shine, but both the first battle with these X-Men and the scene of their training is kind of truncated to an uncomfortable level, but if that’s all it takes to keep the story moving, I don’t have that big a problem with it.

But there is far more to love in X-Men: First Class then there is to complain about. It’s an inventive way to jumpstart a stolid franchise, and it leaves the doors open to pursue further adventures from the X-Men’s past. An excellent summer blockbuster with brains, heart and courage. A triple threat.

Iron Man 2

Rating: ***1/2

Oh hype. Bringer of expectations, destroyer of dreams, you certainly know how to jerk our collective chains and make us expect the impossible. Realistically, no movie could live up to the economic and critical expectations that are those now owned by the superhero sequel Iron Man 2. The tremendous success of the first Iron Man movie was completely out of left field given the fact that the billionaire in the high tech suit of armour didn’t quite have the name cache of Marvel Universe compatriots like the X-Men or Spider-Man. But casting Robert Downey Jr as the titular hero and hiring so-called serious actors like Terrance Howard, Gwyneth Paltrow and Beau Bridges cultivated a rare attitude towards summer blockbusters: that this was something that might be able to be enjoyed on an intellectual level as well as visceral one.

Indeed the whiz bang of Iron Man 1 was its weakest link with everyone noting the power of the acting, character development and storytelling over the special effects and action sequences. But naturally, the only thing in Hollywood better than success is even greater success. And just like that, the expectations for Iron Man 2 are as high as anything called Harry Potter, Star Wars or Twilight. Which is why it’s so frustrating to say that this movie misses the mark, although it should be noted that it doesn’t miss it by much.

But frankly, this Iron Man is packed. Not only is Tony Stark (as portrayed once again by Downey) struggling with his very public dual identity, but he’s also struggling with his mortality as the very same technology that’s keeping him alive is also killing him. Aside from the personal, Stark must contend with a government that wants his suit and a rival that wants his life, only to get gobsmacked by a new villain with a claim on Stark’s technology and a deadly grudge that needs indulging.

This might be problematic if not for director Jon Favreau’s penchant for casting. Sam Rockwell and Mickey Rourke share co-villain credit as Justin Hammer and Ivan Vanko respectively. Hammer is Stark’s closest rival and trades between hating Stark for his genius and charisma and admiring him like a younger brother. Vanko, who’s a conglomeration of two Iron Man comic villains, is a man on a mission of vengeance, and Rourke has the right menacing presence to make Vanko a formidable foe for Stark. The other new character is Scarlett Johansson as Iron Man’s fellow superhero (and possible future Avenger) the Black Widow. Predominately it seems that Johansson’s responsibility for the film is to look sexy and kick butt, and by this basis she succeeds beyond expectations.

Still, the appearance of Black Widow and the expanded role of Samuel L. Jackson as Gen. Nick Fury tips a potentially fatal flaw in the film in that there are times when this Iron Man movie seems to be more about being a “backdoor pilot” to the upcoming Avengers movie. The so-called Easter Eggs are kind of glaring in their obviousness in that there might as well be Post-Its on screen referencing why this item is important. Like the old Pop-Up Video show. There’s a section in the middle where Stark is given a time out by Fury that seems like a tacked on tease for The Avengers and it kind of takes you out of the movie, which already has a lot of complex plotlines going on, aside from setting up more movies.

When not bogged down with foreshadowing, Favreau does well picking up where he left off so far as the main characters and their relationships. Don Cheadle seems more comfortable playing Stark BFF Col. Jim Rhodes than Terrence Howard did in part one, but despite being upgraded to fellow iron man War Machine, it seems that Rhodes’ role is still kind of diminished. Downey still plays a mean Tony Stark, but there was a kind of sense that he was reaching a bit too hard. Like Johnny Depp in the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie, Downey was trying force himself to play Stark rather than just play him. Still, Stark is one of the most dynamic and relatable superheroes ever put to film.

Despite these sophomore hiccups, the Iron Man franchise is still remarkably satisfying as a popcorn movie and as a dramatic work. Favreau’s emphasis on character continues to pay off and the director even gives himself a chance to play in this one with an expanded part for his Happy Hogan, Stark’s bodyguard. In one way, it reminded me of The Dark Knight for the way it crammed so much in to the story, leaving the viewer wondering what possible direction the filmmakers can take the character in next. I mean that on an individual basis in Iron Man 3 of course. We all know that Stark’s got a big meeting with his super friends in the future.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

Rating: **1/2

Yay, the summer movie season is here with its proverbial geek-gasm of offerings from enterprises to terminators to transformers to angels and demons. Unfortunately, the excitement that began Friday was tempered after the lights rose and the curtain fell on X-Men Origins: Wolverine. In what should have been the spin-off with the greatest potential for stand-alone franchise status ends up getting buried under the weight of its own good intentions. Further, in what’s billed as a stand alone movie showcasing Hugh Jackman as the mutant fury with steel claws is reposition as basically the Destroy all Monsters of X-Men films.

Basically, it seems that anyone that couldn’t be sandwiched into the previous three X-Men films was put to the forefront here whether they fit or not. The result is either well done (Ryan Reynolds as Deadpool) or handled clumsily (like the appearances of Gambit and Emma Frost). Frustratingly, the pedigree was there to really make this thing sing, and putting Live Schrieber in the claws of Sabretooth gave just the right gravitas to the character to make him a true threat, both physically and psychologically, for Wolverine. Jackson, of course, knows this character inside and out, and when he’s allowed to be Wolverine he doesn’t fail to deliver.

And for a film with “Origins” in the title, there seems to be no indication that the filmmakers seem to care to know what makes Wolverine “the best at what he does.” It’s just easier to jettison character development and true discovery in favour of another kick ass action sequence, which truthfully I don’t think were really all that great. Although they try, the Wolverine/Sabretooth dynamic seems to boil down to “let’s fight”/“them’s fightin’ words” whenever the two of them find themselves in the same room. Similarly I found that other characters had highlights of possibility, from Will I Am’s Kenobi-esque John Wraith and Reynold’s Merc with the Mouth. (When he has a mouth that is. Don’t ask.)

Comically speaking, and I mean the books not jokes, the script crams the 6-issue Origin miniseries into about three minutes at the top of the show. Then we get this really beautifully-made montage of the various battlefields Wolverine and Sabretooth fought across for over a hundred years. That was good stuff, in fact even the scenes post the introduction of William Stryker (played here by Danny Huston) and his mutant mercenary team are pretty good. But when Wolverine walks away and settles for the quiet life of an Alberta lumberjack with Silver Fox (Lynn Collins), the film seems to loose its mind with all the talking about feelings and such. Naturally, Silver Fox is removed rather quickly.

But hey, we get Gambit finally in what’s pretty much an extended cameo practically shoe-horned into an already dense script. Now I’ve never watched Friday Night Lights, but I certainly hope that whatever affectation Taylor Kitsch puts on in that show is better than his New Orleans accent here. Kevin Durand as the Blob is also kind of shafted, being simply a name to fill a spot on the roster; he gets maybe two scenes. And as you may have guess from the trailer, Young Cyclops (Tim Pocock) is somehow, inexplicably, part of Stryker’s plan to create a composite mutant with many powers. (Strange though that he didn’t remember this experience when all that stuff went down in X2.) He never sees Wolverine of course, a blinder meant to stop his eye phasers being the cause, but the whole thing had the stink of C-3PO’s mind being conveniently erased in Revenge of the Sith.

A startling lack of cohesion is at work here. In mistaking petty details for savvy script-writing, the filmmakers overcompensate for their lack of vision with bloated action and supposed Easter Eggs for the fans who’ll see right through them as pandering, Wolverine’s solo exploits in the comics are rarely epic, but much more personal involving either a mystery about his forgotten past or some kind of vendetta mission; trying to make this just another X-Men story was a miscalculation. Wolverine should have gone the Iron Man route: small cast with a focus on character before action set pieces. Prequels are tough, following on the heels of a successful series is tough, but this effort, if you’re a fan of either Bryan Singer’s movies or the comic books they’re based on, will not leave you wanting more.

Hulk Vs.

Rating: ***

Marvel latest animated movie is hit and miss; Hulk Vs. Wolverine is a hit, Hulk Vs. Thor is a miss. It’s a good thing that the studio decided to package the two stories together in one feature because that second one, left to its own devices, was kind of lame. Both are solid efforts though, as long as you ignore the one conceit, which is that the Hulk is actually a very marginal part of the film that’s named after him. Despite how interesting everything else may be, it’s pretty bad when the star of the film is little more than a plot device.

In Hulk Vs. Thor, the Green Goliath finds himself a pawn of Loki, the Norse God of Mischief. Taking advantage of King Odin’s annual hibernation, Loki uses Hulk has a puppet to wreck unholy havoc on Asgard generally, and his step-brother Thor particularly. Of course with the Hulk being involved, these things don’t go according to plan, and after Loki’s control is broken, a really, really angry Hulk just says eff it, I’m going to smash everything anyway. The problem with this story is that there’s a constant start-stop motion through everything; as if the writer is constantly trying to find more story to keep things going to a pre-arranged running time.

And I know Hulk’s alter ego Bruce Banner is supposed to be all tortured and everything, but there’s this whole Star Trek: Generations thing where he has an illusion of a quiet life with a wife and a kid that just felt really misplaced. Now whininess is a part of Banner’s personality, but not to the point where he lockjaws about fighting to keep Hulk under control because he feels personably responsible for the actions of his atomic Mr. Hyde. It’s almost like the writers of this film didn’t really understand the underline rational of Banner when it comes to the Hulk, but then again they also seemed to forget that Loki is a God of Mischief, not a God of Darkness, or whatever they tried to sell him as. This Loki wasn’t very mischievous, but I love the voice of Graham McTavish in playing him.

Next, there’s Hulk Vs. Wolverine, and it is by far the better entry. Almost duplicating the origin of Wolverine from The Incredible Hulk #180, the story finds Logan being sent by Canada’s Department H into the woods to bring in the monster, who’s terrorizing unwitting campers. Unfortunately for both Wolverine and Hulk, Weapon X really wants them for their ongoing experiments in creating super-powered soldiers. As a result, the two combatants have to team up against the evil Canadians in order to survive. And in what has to be a preview of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they have to fight through Sabretooth, Deadpool, Deathstrike and Omega Red to escape.

From a story perspective, this half of Hulk Vs. is much cleaner and much more linear. Although it doesn’t deliver a full-on bloody fight between the two title characters, it undoubtedly nailed the dark tone the story needed and was just violent enough to be satisfying without going R-rated. The real surprise of the film though was Deadpool, never a very favourite of mine, yet somehow really enjoyable here being played against the dark, humourless characters. Voice actor Nolan North is so good in bring the Merc with a Mouth to life, I can say without hyperbole that in the minds of fans who see this, young Ryan Reynolds will have big shoes to fill this summer.

So if you watch the film in its intended order you can get past the terrible He-Man-esque quality of Hulk Vs. Thor and just sit back to enjoy the antics and in-jokes of Hulk Vs. Wolverine. In the collection of Marvel animated films I have to say that this one ranks pretty high, but in the end would have ranked higher had something more compelling been done with the Thor portion.

The Incredible Hulk

Rating: ***1/2

The re-whatevering of Hulk could have easily been one of the most cynical things done in the history of recent cinema, and believe me, there’s a lot of competition for that title. Ang Lee’s film was an impressive work and I’ve already outlined my reasons why I think so, but I guess in the broader sense, an artistic and introspective examination of the Hulk mythology didn’t fit in with the overall plans of Marvel Studios. Fortunately, The Incredible Hulk offers something new while not reneging on Lee’s film and treating it like some redheaded stepchild like, say, Roger Corman’s Fantastic Four. It’s not a perfect film, but it is most satisfactory.

This time Bruce Banner is played by Edward Norton, who brings a great deal more inner turmoil to the part than last Banner Eric Bana. In South America, Banner works in a factory and keeps his head down while trying to keep his inner peace and trading e-mail Hulk-cures with the mysterious Mr. Blue. But Banner’s past catches up with him as General Ross (William Hurt) sends in the marines to retrieve him. On the run again, Banner turns to ex-girlfriend Betty Ross (Liv Tyler) to help him reach Mr. Blue and his cure. Meanwhile, Gen. Ross recruits Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) for an experiment where he’s given some of the Banner’s DNA in the hopes of creating a way to capture the Hulk.

It’s a pretty simple set-up, but one in keeping with the both the TV and comics origin of mean, old Mr. Green. “Leave me alone,” yells the Hulk to his army pursuers. A frequent repose for the monster in the comics; he’s always being pursued while always trying to find a way to be left in peace. The irony of the thing is that the one is contradictory with the other; he can’t be left alone because they’re always after him, which releases the Hulk in anger. Director Louis Leterrier indicates a strong love and regard for the Hulk in all his forms, taking inspirations from the comics for fight scenes while using “The Lonely Man” theme from the TV series to illustrate Banner’s isolation as a fugitive.

The effects have also improved in this one, Hulk seems much more emotional and complex, in other words: realistic. He’s more of a full-bodied character in this film and not some mindless id in torn purple pants. Unfortunately though Blonsky’s Abomination, I don’t think, is developed that well. One really doesn’t make the connection of Abomination as the evil Hulk and there’s really no adversarial relationship developed between the two characters either. The fight is kind of stagnant – great to look at, but there isn’t really any gravitas. There’s still something kind of hollow about seeing CGI monsters wail on each other.

On the other hand, the human actors are allowed to shine through all the production design. Norton does good Banner, but something tells me that a lot of his best stuff lies on the cutting room floor for later inclusion on the DVD. He gets the job done, and he’s certainly an improvement on Bana, but I think I was just expecting a little bit more. Hurt manages to be an effective replacement for previous General Ross, Sam Elliott. He comes right close to scenery chewing, but manages to rein it in to the right levels. Roth pretty much just snarl and sneers as Blonsky, but then again, he wasn’t given a lot to work with in the first place.

What the film does very well is stand alone as an action/monster movie the re-energizes the franchise and leaves it open to go to other places. A timely appearance from Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) implies that there are big plans for the Hulk in keeping with the Avengers movie three years hence. It’s a neat thing the way they’re tying together the Marvel continuity between the various pictures, but while that’s somewhat easy to accomplish with the comics, it remains to be seen how they co-ordinate all this with the literally hundreds of people that have their hands in all of these films.

Still, whatever the future may hold, The Incredible Hulk, despite its faults, is a very satisfactory film where the whole is better than the parts. I’m anxious to see Leterrier and Norton’s preferred extended cut, but I don’t think that anyone will begrudge this film as having lost anything substantial in the editing. Certainly it should be the summer crowd pleaser the money guys are looking for.