Tag Archives: super hero movies

X-Men: Days of Future Past

I watched this movie with Jay on our way to Paris and it was awesome. Guardians of the Galaxy is still my favourite superhero movie of 2014 but Days of Future Past was almost as good, and I was not expecting that at all.

I read X-Men as a kid and loved it (it was probably my 2nd favourite comic behind Spider-Man). Then in my early 20s, the first X-Men came out, and I loved that! And the 2nd movie was possibly better than the first. And then the third movie came along, and it was so awful it ruined everything that had come before. It was very similar to the Matrix trilogy in that way. But unlike the Matrix, this franchise has done the impossible and resurrected itself.

This movie works in a lot of ways. It is a bridge between the entertaining prequel (X-Men: First Class) and the original trilogy. It is a standalone timetravelling adventure starring a bunch of familiar faces (it was very cool to see so many people from the previous movies make appearances, and all of them felt natural rather than squeezed in). And it is probably the most satisfying reboot I have ever seen. Too many superhero franchises have been rebooted lately, for no real reason other than a lack of imagination. I don’t need to see Peter Parker get bitten by a spider again. I didn’t ask for a new take on the Fantastic Four whose only purpose seems to be retaining the movie rights. But I was satisfied, and even excited, to see the slate wiped clean here and feel that the future for this franchise is brighter than ever. I am looking forward to see where they go from here (and apparently it involves Apocalypse!!!).

By the way, please stop putting extra scenes in the credits. It was alright once or twice but it’s played out at this point, and for the last several movies I have had to look it up onYoutube after the fact.

Overall, this was an extremely enjoyable movie, though probably too dense and convoluted for someone who isn’t a fan. But better that than another origin rehash! It gets 9 angst-filled outcasts out of 10.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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Maybe my expectations were too high. Which is a bit weird to say because Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a comic book movie, so basically I should have known what I was going to get. And as a comic book movie, it does its job. It gives us lots of really fast and strong heroes who jump out of planes and off buildings, endless bad guys with unlimited bullets who shoot at those heroes for half the movie, and a head bad guy with a mask and metal arm who may not even be the mastermind behind all this mayhem. What it does not give us, and why I was ultimately let down, is any real change to the formula that we have seen from Marvel in its ten (ten!) movies and counting. It’s all the same and it’s getting a little tired.

The problem is, I’m a comic book guy and an action movie guy. I should have enjoyed this movie a lot more than I did. I’m still excited to see Avengers 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy 2. But now I’m a lot less excited. I wonder, am I just going to get a rehash of what I’ve seen before like I did in Captain America 2, a story that really begins at the same place it started without advancing the greater plot I thought was underlying these movies in the Marvel Universe? Before watching this movie I had felt that maybe I should go back and watch the Captain America movies as well as the two Thor movies, but now I feel confident I don’t need to and certainly don’t have any desire to since this movie was so forgettable and so self-contained.

shield punch

Is this just a middling installment in the Marvel movie juggernaut? Or is it a sign that we’ve used up all the good ideas for now and it’s time to wait for the inevitable reboots of all these characters, since their origins are the only stories from which Hollywood can consistently make decent movies? I guess we’ll have a better idea in just a few months because Avengers: Age of Ultron opens May 1 and Ant-Man follows shortly after. My gut says making a movie about Ant-Man is overkill at this point, and then I look and see that there are 16 more Marvel-related movies (including Fox and Sony ones) scheduled to come out between now and 2019. That’s way too many. One a year might be too many. The worst part is, I know there are better movies to be made that have been passed over in favour of these big-budget, low-risk, no-art movies. I would like to have seen those and 18 more Marvel movies, plus whatever DC is doing, is a poor trade and a loss for all of us.

Big picture aside, I’m still not satisfied with what I was given here. This movie is a tolerable distraction but leaves you with nothing memorable. It gets five indestructible shields out of ten.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

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I liked but didn’t love Guardians of the Galaxy. Having complained in the review that I posted yesterday that I found it sometimes hard to follow, I starteed to worry that I was becoming a bit of a wet blanket. In hopes of repairing my image of being no fun at all, I am prepared to go all in in my support of Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

I didn’t even like the first Captain American all that much. In fairness, I suspect I might have nodded off at one point. As far as I can remember, a scrawny Chris Evans gets an injection of something to become supersoldier Chris Evans so he can go overseas and fight with the Allies in World War II. In the sequel, Captain America isn’t just super strong but has been cryogenically frozen so he can fight for SHIELD in Marvel’s version of the present.

It’s this fish out of water story that makes Winter Soldier such an improvement. And it’s not just played for laughs. Sure, there’s the usual confusion over the internet and modern music. But what does the iconic war hero Captain America think of how America fights its wars now? I won’t go so far as to call Winter Soldier The Thinking Man’s Superhero Movie or anything like that but like, Iron Man, it takes just enough from real life to make the world that Cap is trying to save more relatable than usual. In fact, this is probably the best Iron Manless Avengers movie so far.

The first half or so of The Winter Soldier almost feels like a thriller, with the action getting bigger and bigger until it becomes unmistakably Marvel. The action scenes are a step above most of the other movies in the Avengers series, although I did wish that the directors wouldn’t cut away so fast sometimes so we could see what’s going on. Chris Evans, who I thought was so boring in both the first Captain America and in The Avengers, has a lot more to work with this timepulls it off. Or maybe I have just started thinking of Evans differently after having seen and loved last year’s Snowpiercer. Anthony Mackie is a great addition as somebody named Falcon. And Samuel L. Jackson, in his sixth appearance as Nick Fury, finally has something to do. Early scenes where he clashes with Captain America over modern warfare are a big part of what makes it feel like something important is happening and it was refreshing to finally start to get an idea of who Fury is.

If you don’t think you’ll like Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I didn’t think I would either. Check it out. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Guardians of the Galaxy

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Nominated for Visual Effects and Makeup and Hairstyling Oscars, Guardians of the Galaxy was the third highest grossing movie of 2014. So, when I talk about GOTG, I’m going to assume you know what movie I’m talking about and won’t waste any of your time describing the plot. Which is just fine with me because I’m not sure I followed it all.

I don’t watch these kinds of movies all that often- ones where I am introduced to multiple alien races so I’m not used to having to keep track of sci-fi mythologies. This one felt particularly complicated to me and I found it especially hard to keep Thanos and Ronan straight. By the end, I was surprised by how little that wound up mattering. I got it without really getting it.

The five Guardians of the Galaxy are easy enough to tell apart: Christ Pratt, a green woman, a grey guy, a raccoon, and a tree. These five were a blast to watch especially when they were all together. They were different enough from each other- in looks, in personality, in worldview, in fighting styles- that their unlikely alliance was almost always funny to watch. Their banter helped give me engaged through chase scenes that I found otherwise hard to follow and made me forget problems- mainly that I wasn’t always clear what was at stake here- that would have been unforgivable had the movie insisted on being taken more seriously.

The fact that director James Gunn was having so much fun with these characters helped make the necessary plot-advancing scenes so much less dull than, say, The Avengers. In fact, give me these characters over The Avengers any day. This whole project had so much more life and creativity than 2012’s Avengers film and I am as excited for a GOTG sequel as I am indifferent to this summer’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.

On a final note, I’ve rooted for Chris Pratt ever since I started watching Parks and Recreation and I thought his charm in this was a big part of what made this film work. But is it just me or does Star-Lord (well, his mom really) have terrible taste in music?

For another asshole’s opinion, read Sean’s review here.

Birdman

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Birdman opens with C-list celebrity Riggan (Michael Keaton), a superhero has-been trying to reclaim glory as a serious Broadway actor, meditating and levitating before rehearsal of his play. Wait – levitating? Yes. It seems that Riggan has picked up some super powers along the way.

But this movie is so subtly engrossing, its rhythm unrelenting, that I actually forgot this little nugget of information until the next bit of surrealism came our way, presented just as slyly as the first. Some remnant of his Birdman alterego remains, and narrates Riggan’s present tense in a voice reminiscent of Christian Bale’s Batman, driving home the satirical meta-performance at work here. Director Iñárritu gets right up in his grill, nursing long but very intimate shots that show unflinchingly every wrinkle, every worry line ever earned by these actors.

Set almost entirely behind the scenes at St James theatre and shot in long, loooooooong takes that keep the film moving briskly, there’s a beauty and a mystique that really locked me in. Finally Iñárritu has found his element. Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki floats the camera down corridors and ascends smoothly through the scaffolding and the balconies like an unobserved peeping tom. We take our cues from this camera work. We race to find new action, we catch our breath when travelling down darkened hallways. In this way, the movie feels serene yet is in constant motion. The music helps us keep pace and is sometimes so coolly frenzied that musicians forget they aren’t supposed to be seen!

Riggan, meanwhile, is crippled by all the nay-sayers in his life: the junkie daughter (Emma Stone), the anxious lawyer (Zach Galifianakis), the guilt-tripping ex-wife (Amy Ryan) – but none more so than that voice in his head that slowly cannibalizes him by the end of the film. When one of his actors is put out of commission, he’s forced to bring on board stage actor Mike Shiner (Edward Norton) who immediately threatens to outshine him. With his own superhero baggage (Hulk, anyone?), Norton threatens to casually steal the spotlight from Keaton as well with a brilliant send-up to Method acting, and a nod toward his own reputation for being difficult on set, but Keaton reminds us why he left the Batman franchise in the first place – dude is a first rate actor when he plays crazy.

The movie is ambitiously self-aware and asks smart-aleck questions like, why bother making a $20 million dollar movie when you can go viral for free? This may not be ground-breaking material but as long as Keaton is in on the joke, the monster egos and insecurities, the fraud and the acerbic wit, it’s all part of a complex self-examination that’s fascinating to witness.

Matt and I saw this movie nearly a week ago and it’s taken me this long to even begin unpacking my feelings about it, and this after an all-you-can-eat-sushi session in which we debriefed and compared notes. As Matt will tell you, the movie is also Iñárritu’s excuse to poke back at the critics who have called him out on his self-important, self-conscious work in the past (Babel, Biuitiful) even though this movie actually seems to acknowledge that these criticisms may have been valid.

I really enjoyed this movie. It’s a pleasure to watch, a puzzle to figure out, and a commentary just begging for feedback. Please, give us yours. Assume spoilers in the comments.

6 Big Reasons to See Big Hero 6

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I am a little late to the party seeing Big Hero 6 so I will not review it the way that I normally would but will instead try to sum up in 6 reasons why, if you haven’t seen it yet, in the words of Hiro Hamada “I fail to see how you fail to see that it’s awesome”.

1. It was announced last week that Big Hero 6 has been nominated for a Best Animated Feature Film at the Golden Globes!!! Hmmm.. That sounded more exciting in my head. Okay, even I don’t really care about the Globes but, come January, I’m sure it’ll also become a must-see for any educated Oscar pool. Besides, you don’t want to be the only one in the room not to get it when Tina and Amy make a hilarious Baymax joke, do you?

2. If you don’t usually like Disney movies, don’t worry. This one’s also from a pretty deep and obscure corner of the Marvel universe. Apart from one robot, all the characters here are human . Just like any superhero movie, Hiro starts out as a bit of an outsider with a tragic past and must use what makes him unique (in this case, his intellect) to save the city. His pet robot Baymax also makes the transformation from cuddly to badass. There’s even a Stan Lee cameo.

3. If you’re tired of superhero movies, don’t worry. This is still a Disney film at heart with all the creativity, visual genius, and great characters you’ve come to expect from Disney’s best movies. Baymax really is an awesome creation and, although all the rockets and armour that Hiro adds later feel straight out of Iron Man, the health care provider that he is deep down is all Disney.

4. Hiro is backed up by a great supporting cast of four nerds-turned-heroes. Some Disney sidekicks are really there for the kids and can be distracting or even annoying. Wasabi, GoGo, Fred, and Honey Lemon offer necessary comic relief and support for Hiro, who is much younger than the rest.

5. A teenage boy who’s a bit of a loner bonds with and fights aongside a robot to save the world and it’s not directed by Michael Bay. So, there’s that.

6. Ever since Sean saw saw Big Hero 6, I could barely understand what he was talking about half the time. Now I can. he loved it too and you can check out his review.

Guardians of the Galaxy

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Since the DVD release for Guardians of the Galaxy is next week, it’s the second best time to review the movie (and I missed the first best because this site didn’t exist in August). If you read my Frozen review you already have a hint at how much I love this movie and I wanted to share that with you.

Judging by the fact that this movie is the highest grossing one of 2014, I’m guessing a lot of you have already seen it. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for? It’s fantastic. It’s big and loud and mostly dumb, but it’s also funny and charming and heartwarming, with a lot of standout performances. Chris Pratt is awesome but to me the best part of the movie was Groot, and Vin Diesel deserves a ton of credit for his performance. He only had one line (basically) to say, and yet he really does make it mean so much more than I expected, he does somehow convey something along with it. So I was able to believe without question that Rocket really could understand what Groot was saying, because it seemed that the words “I am Groot” weren’t really as important as the sentiment that was attached. Going in, I knew the basics of the characters (though never read that comic) and was skeptical of the concept, but coming out I was satisfied. It totally worked and that has to be because of Vin Diesel. And having that character be a REAL character, not just CGI, helped me invest in the movie. Get ready to laugh out loud at Groot’s little smile after he impales about 30 bad guy foot soldiers at once, and feel a little sniffly at the climax when Groot’s words change just enough to sum up the evolution of these five outcasts from Groot and four selfish assholes/criminals to one kick-ass superhero team that can overcome anything (spoiler alert: they win in the end).

At this point comic adaptions are pretty played out (with a ton more to come) but this is one of the best there is and I wish I didn’t have to wait three years for a sequel (and I’m sure Marvel wishes it was coming out sooner too, but this movie was in no way a surefire hit). It’s a nice changeup from the superhero team movies we’ve already seen in that it doesn’t take an hour to get started (I’m looking at you, Avengers), takes a tongue in cheek approach that matches the characters perfectly, and is such a fun journey, and it fully deserves its rating of 21 space guns out of 10.

Big Hero 6

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Now that was a great cartoon! It was just as advertised – robots and superheroes! I can’t say enough good things about it. Things started slow as we were going to be the only ones in the theatre but then at the last minute a couple walked in and for reasons unknown sat in the seats right behind us. Then came about 8 previews, none of which were for Star Wars 7, but some looked good. And then the short, which was very enjoyable and reminded me of our puppy Bronx. But things really took off when the bot fighting started, and I was hooked from that point on.

By far the best part of this movie is Baymax the robot. I wish I had a robot like Baymax. He is the best inflatable robot I have ever seen. And his voice just added to his awesomeness, as did his love of hugs. Even better was when he got drunk (or as we call it in cartoons, had a “low battery”). I criticized Frozen for being a vehicle to sell princess dolls but Disney, you sold me on this one. I will buy every existing and future Baymax toy for our nieces and nephews (but will keep them at our house since I am sure their houses are already full of toys). Baymax is that good.

The other characters are pretty good, as good as needed, but in case you haven’t figured it out yet, Baymax really steals the show. When he’s not on the screen I was mostly waiting for him to come back, but wisely the movie never lets him go away for too long once we meet him. It’s a fun movie, an action packed movie, and a sweet orphan teenager/robot best friend movie. Really well done. Jay knew what was coming, as she always does. I didn’t see the twists in advance but admit I should have. Whether or not you see what’s around the corner, if you like action or superheroes or ever wanted to own a robot, you need to see this movie. And if you like action and superheroes and wanted to own a robot, you’re probably going to need to see it more than once.

Big Hero 6 is fantastic and rates ten musical fist bumps out of ten, plus one inflatable robot hug for good measure.