The A-Team

OMJoss.

That’s exactly what you should be uttering after you catch Joss Whedon’s The Avengers this weekend, for the mastermind behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and Firefly and Serenity and Dollhouse and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog (not to mention the script for the first Toy Story) delivers the geekasm.

Heck yeah he does.

This is the one you’ve been waiting for from Marvel – what I call the payout for the super-cool Iron Man and the better-than-Ang Lee’s The Hulk The Incredible Hulk (the promise of which was right there in the title), and for Iron Man 2, and for Thor, and for Captain America: The First Avenger.

This is the one that assembles ’em all – with even more Samuel L. f---in’ Jackson as the cucumber-cool S.H.I.E.L.D big boss Nick Fury, a little more of Scarlett Johansson reprising her role as Black Widow, a rather healthy serving of Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye thrown into the mix, and some more Clark Gregg as the oh-so-essential Agent Coulson.

This is the one that kicks the most butt, as standardly good vs. evil as the story is, because this is the one that fulfills the promise of a popcorn movie that not only is super-good but also delivers what movie fans all around the world have been waiting for: a golden opportunity to see their fave comic-book characters go mano a mano and then get it together to save the world.

In other words, this one will rock your bones.

In IMAX 3-D (go on – treat yourself to the biggest adventure yet in the biggest screen possible).

The story, as you should know if you have been keeping up with these movies, revolves around the Tesseract (that cosmic cube of blue energy so teased in the Thor and Captain America movies) and how it falls into the hands of Thor's megalomaniac – and quippy! – adoptive brother Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston), who intends to rage the ultimate war on Earth and bring the planet to its knees since he’s still royally pissed off he was passed in favor of his blond and muscle-y brother (Chris Hemsworth) to receive the keys to their Asgardian kingdom.

The world on the reddest of red alerts, Nick Fury activates the Avengers Initiative and assembles his motley crew of superheroes to help defend mankind. He and Agent Coulson call upon Black Widow (who makes quite an impressive entrance into the blockbuster, IMHO, complete with lots of visual refs to my favorite slayer), who then goes looking for the reclusive Dr. Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo, stepping into the Hulkian shoes Edward Norton vacated after a dispute with Marvel).

They call on Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), too, who would rather stay home, plotting his next move on his quest to out-Stark himself (while keeping grounded by – Spoiler Alert! – his main gal played by one of my favorite gals); and on Steve Rogers, a.k.a. Captain America, who’s still reeling from, y’ know, waking up in our time after that very cold nap that interrupted his heroics during World War II.

As I said earlier, Whedon has devised a story that relies on the conflict inherent to bringing together all these people and their egos and their considerable amounts baggage. He doesn’t shy away from it, and, in fact, he thrives in it. The Avengers brings it because it divides to conquer – because it dares to remind its audience of the human flaws these supers have so that we can buy into it when they decide to put them aside in the name of the greater good. In other words, yeah, these boys and girl do not like to play together, but by golly, they will when it comes to saving the s---.

Yeah, of course all these characters, all this explosive action, all this climaxing by bringing chaos to Midtown Manhattan after a darn portal to another universe opens up so an alien race can invade and ravage Earth opens up in the middle of the sky is a little bit much of a good thing.

But it works awesomely. The movie does exactly what it needs to do with lots of smarts and humor and a little trademark-Whedon heartbreak of the most shocking sort. My jaw was seriously on the floor for a good couple minutes and I think a few tears wanted to begin to form behind my eyes.

Plus, the movie also finally solves the Hulk problem (who knew – when use sparingly, Banner’s mean ol’ green alter ego totally can so leave us wanting more), so yay.

And Hemsworth’s biceps and triceps get a lot of camera luvin’. And we’re introduced to Maria Hill, a new S.H.I.E.L.D. agent played by new crush, Cobie Smulders (TV’s How I Met Your Mother).

I think you should – and you more than likely – will go see The Avengers this weekend. And I so know for sure that you are just going to heart it. (Don’t get up and leave once the movie ends – if you want to hear a gasp! moment from the fanboys you’ll wanna check out the tag that sets up the next adventure, and long after that for a second, more winky tag).

My Rating ****

Photo: Walt Disney Pictures.

The A-Team Is Back!

OMJoss.

That’s exactly what I wanted to say all over again after catching the must-see sequel Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Instead I find myself thinking, OMJoss – is that it?

Not that Joss Whedon hasn’t delivered one more time for Marvel; he more than has. For weeks, though, I have been reading how the making of this blockbuster took a toll on the writer-director, and I am bummed to say it kinda shows.

Avengers: Age of Ultron starts out strong, thanks in no small measure to Whedon’s decision to turn the movie’s prologue into a quipfest befitting his legendary trademark. Despite the action the returning Avengers are seeing, Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man, Chris Hemsworth's Thor, and Chris Evans’s Captain America trade all these barbs like the best of ’em. And just as rapid-firely as they out-sass one other, they and the rest of team decommission the villainous experimenter Baron von Strucker from Hydra (mentioned, yet never seen on TV’s Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and played by Thomas Kretschmann), and discover that Loki’s sceptre has been used to enhance, to transform Wanda and Pietro Maximoff into the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. In case you are wondering, the Maximoffs are twins from Sokovia. They are portrayed by franchise newcomers Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and they have a bone to pick with Iron Man’s alter ego, Tony Stark.

That alone would be enough conflict for one movie, but, clearly, the powers that be instructed Whedon with making something markedly bigger and like, wow-er than his 2012 worldwide hit introduction into this world, which is why Loki’s sceptre comes into crucial play (further connectivity among movies is achieved by fun cameos from...characters you know well). And why Tony and Mark Ruffalo’s Dr. Buce Banner decide to use the intergalactic gizmo to really give the Ultron peacekeeping program they’ve been tinkering with sans success the jolt they think it needs.

Alas, their own experiment goes awry, and the software becomes sentient. By the time it’s turned into some hard hardware, Ultron (enlivened to the best of his ability by James Spader, in a motion-capture performance) has decided that the only way to ensure peace on Earth is by eliminating its biggest threat: humans.

Enter the Avengers. They suit up, only to realize that Ultron is quite the formidable foe, one capable of turning their toolkit against them. Making the sitch even more dire, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are squarely in his camp (from which she manages to mess with their minds som’in’ fierce – she “weird” like that; he is super-fast), and the volatile young robot has begun working on a better vision of himself by utilizing the Mind Stone within the sceptre (now, now...you didn’t think Avengers: Age of Ultron was gonna miss its chance to also contribute to Thanos’ franchise-spawning arc, did ya).

Look, I am down with this movie. I’m in. I am getting exactly what I signed up for when we/I embarked on this Marvelous ride. Yes, the effects-driven s----blowing thing’s becoming old hat, but it is the humor, the humanity of the stories Marvel is telling (Whedon’s expanded on the rapport between Ruffalo’s Banner, his Hulkian alter ego, and Scarlett Johansson’s valuable Black Widow; and given Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye a surprising, grounding tether to humanity) that truly keeps us coming back for more. It is not just the deft-handed, if obvious setting up of further cinematic follow-ups (there’s a Civil War coming next spring, and something about this one told me that Thor is going to have a trying threequel down the line). It’s the increasingly legit raising of the stakes – when someone dies in this part deux, they stay dead – that’s starting to reveal Marvel’s incredible master plan and making it matter.

It is an obviou$ly rewarding job, making a movie like this, but it can be thankless one at the end of the day. Tiresome, too, and a tad tiring. Entertaining nevertheless.

Whedon should walk away – fingers crossed, only temporarily – from this world knowing that his efforts to keep it real have not gone unappreciated. They have made a palpable difference, and he has entertained us. Sure – he had to overstuff our plate, but it was mostly yummy stuff, in spite of what he did not end up serving.

Time to rest now.

At least until the next adventure. And until the final war, the Infinity War, truly begins.

My Rating ***

Photo: Telegraph.co.uk.

The Consequences of Heroism

To say that the outstanding Captain America: Civil War is like, the Marvelverse’s first serious offering would be oh-so-terribly unfair: We so know that the company’s OG source material, its comic books, have long dealt with many a pressing issue from real life, albeit in a fun, heightened way (tights!), but in a manner that, nevertheless, has always been a reflection of our society and times.

Ditto the hit tentpoles they’ve inspired.

I will say that, thematically speaking, this Russo brothers-directed threequel – led by Chris Evans as the titular golden-hearted superhero, with an invaluable assist from Robert Downey Jr., back for more and, most pressingly, more tortured than ever as Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man – is the best film Kevin Feige & Co. have delivered so far.

The conflict – in this one embodied by the most grounded, psychological villain we have been introduced to yet, a man named Zemo (Daniel Brühl) and only modeled after his comic-book counterpart – is no longer black and white, good vs. evil. The drama comes from the shades of grey the good guys have to strive to see through to protect the world, from weighing the value of their scale-tipping intervention against the cost of doing nothing.

It’s a tough dilemma the one Cappie and Iron Man and their friends have to mull over because we know that they all are inherently good, knowhatImean? Nothing to say of the red-white-and-blue one or the reformed industrialist who really just wants to keep mankind safe, for the lot of 12 previous blockbusters, we have learned and accepted that Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow, the Russian-trained assassin, is on our side. She’s seen the error of her ways, and we have embraced her as someone who wants to wipe her slate clean of the blood she’s led others to shed.

Most recently, we met Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch – an enhanced young woman from the fictional country of Sokovia struggling to control mind-control powers she never wanted, as well as her latent thirst for revenge – and Paul Rudd’s Ant-Man, a wisecrackin’ former thief who gets to make himself bigger and better in the eyes of his young daughter by quite literally shrinking himself to almost nothing in order to fight bad guys (as the latest guest to join the Marvel party, Ant-Man gets to play a huge role in this one).

On their own and together, these brave men and women have stood up against Hydra-simpatizing Nazis; ruthless industrialists, war lords, and despotic protégés with chips on their shoulders; a peacekeeping program gone completely awry, and even aliens from outer space (this alongside stud of a god from an intergalactic realm and a big angry green Hulk). They have been fighting a war, and their actions have produced a rather lot of collateral damage. Thus, as Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, and their allies – they are lionized and celebrated, but they are also feared. The world thanks them with weariness because politicians cannot be certain the Avengers won’t use their powers against Earth.

Captain America: Civil War is everything Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is likely wishing it had been a couple of months ago. At their core, both agonize over the responsibilities superheroes have in their pursuit to protect us, for, sometimes, they fail to think to keep us safe from their own powers. The problem with the latter was its braintrust foolishly thought it could just come out ready-made and have us buy into friggin’ Batman and Superman bickering for like, two hours, without first establishing an acceptable why.

Captain America: Civil War, though, has the earned advantage of having done the groundwork to get to this moment, be the popcorn movie that truly kicks off the summer season for the year, and a smart film about a big idea that perfectly follows up Captain America: The Winter Soldier and redeems the shadowy character that Sebastian Stan portrays. It’s also an action-packed game changer that divides the gang into two thoughts, two camps; introduces an Chadwick Boseman’s Black Panther as an imposing new ally not to be reckoned with, as well as a certain webslinger; and, heck, even finally gives Evans a new love interest of his own (new) time.

There is painful loss (ABC, we better see more of Marvel’s Agent Carter next year!), some irreverence, and lots of necessary in-fighting that leaves everyone involved deeply considering where do we go from here.

The answers, of course, lie in the many productions that are still a-comin’. Thanos is still the threat the Avengers don’t even realize is out there.

Obviously, the family will assemble again, and, needless to say (here I go, anyway), it will now be way more interesting than ever seeing what it all will look like next.

My Rating ***1/2

Photo: ScreenCrush.com.

2012: The Year in Review

What is up, bitches.

I gotta say, first and foremost, that 2012 was one heckuva ride – not just at the movie theater but also for myself as far as my personal life goes.

Lotsa change.

Let’s see, I moved back to my first home, to Lima, Peru, leaving behind Miami and Miami Beach, my coming-of-age haunts, as well as a big piece of my heart back there. So I spent the whole year – nah, more than that since the move was in the horizon for about three years! – gearing up toward that little bit of funsies.

That’s why you didn’t get as many reviews as you probably should have, so sorry for that...thanks to y’alls who stuck with this mess nevertheless (see, that’s why you should follow me on Twitter @moviemartin, too).

Which is not to say I didn’t go to the movie theater. Once again, I spent an unhealthy amount of time in the dark, surrounded by strangers, watching my stories. So without much ado, here’s what I liked best about the year that was.

And here’s to us, and to a better, funner, reunion-y 2013!

10 Best Films of the Year (in alphabetical order):

The Avengers

Beasts of the Southern Wild

The Cabin in the Woods

Compliance

Looper

Moonrise Kingdom

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Silver Linings Playbook

Skyfall

Smashed

Honorable Mention: The Dark Knight Rises

Best Directors: Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Rian Johnson (Looper), Sam Mendes (Skyfall), Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight Rises), David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook)

Best Bear: Ted from Ted

Best Bodies: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, Alex Rodriguez and Matthew McConaughey in Magic Mike

Best Body, Honorable Mention (He Gets Props for Rocking Assless Leather Chaps): Tom Cruise in Rock of Ages

Best Comeback: The Hulk in The Avengers

Best Coupling: Emily Blunt and Ewan McGregor in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

Hottest Throupling: Taylor Kitsch, Blake Lively, and Aaron Johnson in Savages

Best Hair (tie): Blake Lively in Savages and Merida in Brave

Worst Hair (Still): Chris Hemsworth, as Thor, in The Avengers

Best Fight: Gina Carano vs. Michael Fassbender in Haywire

Best Find on DVD: Your Sister’s Sister

Best Madonna-directed Film Released in 2012 for Awards Season But Released in My Market in 2013: W.E.

Best Use of Steven Soderbergh’s Talent: Magic Mike

Worst Use of Steven Soderbergh’s Talent: Haywire

Best Supporting Actors: Robert De Niro (Silver Linings Playbook), Irrfan Khan (Life of Pi), Matthew McConaughey (Magic Mike), Ezra Miller (The Perks of Being a Wallflower), Bruce Willis (Moonrise Kingdom)

Can’t Wait to See More of – Female: Rebel Wilson, from Bachelorette and Pitch Perfect

Can’t Wait to See More of – Male (tie): Liam Hemsworth, from The Hunger Games, and Richard Armitage (The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey)

Glad That’s Over: The Twilight Saga

Should’ve Had a Better Year: Taylor Kitsch (John Carter and Battleship did not work)

Best Supporting Actresses: Judi Dench (Skyfall), Rosemarie DeWitt (Your Sister’s Sister), Anne Hathaway (The Dark Knight Rises), Maggie Smith (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel), Jackie Weaver (Silver Linings Playbook)

Most Aggro (tie): The Master and Denzel Washington’s character in Flight

Most Disappointing: Prometheus

Most Enjoyable Villain: Charlize Theron in Snow White and the Huntsman

Most Engrossing (tie): Michael Fassbender in Prometheus and Life of Pi

Most Ridikolous Fun: Battleship

Plain Ol’ Ridikolous: Rock of Ages (especially Catherine Zeta-Jones’ demented look)

Most Squirm-inducing: That beachside scene of the kids in their undies in Moonrise Kingdom

Most Welcome to the A-List: Channing Tatum (Haywire, The Vow, Magic Mike)

Most Wish I’d Seen It at the Movies: Keep the Lights On

Best Actors: Bradley Cooper (Silver Linings Playbook), Daniel Craig (Skyfall), Jonathan Gordon-Levitt (Looper), Aaron Paul (Smashed), Denzel Washington (Flight)

Best Actresses: Emily Blunt (Your Sister’s Sister), Ann Dowd (Compliance), Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook), Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Smashed)

Photos: Fox Searchlight Pictures (Beasts of the Southern Wild); Universal Pictures (Savages); Summit Entertainment (The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2); Warner Bros (Magic Mike).

Losers and Proud

The new Marvel joint – the gonzoest of ’em all – Guardians of the Galaxy, is a movie about losers.

It probably also is the funnest blockbuster the studio has produced so far, in spite of its esoteric, albeit trademark-by-now plot, for here is a Marvel movie that kinda sorta takes a break from the big picture that has driven and continues to propel the action for the Avengers, yet very much stays on point and manages to be fun and have fun.

To win.

In other words, this one may be quite a departure...but it’s more of the same as well.

And we all know how much enjoy just about everything Marvel does (because they do do it so well).

Directed by James Gunn (Slither, Super), Guardians of the Galaxy marks the launch of a new far-away-set franchise populated by some loco not-so-proven-yet folks (like a mayhem-loving raccoon...and a talking tree) with a self-contained story/parallel look at that same big picture on which Iron Man et al. already have left their mark.

Trust me, it’s a good thing. A bit of a throwback to the all-in devil-may-care gamble that Marvel took with Iron Man back in the late 2000s, but, y’ know...one made with an incredibly well-seasoned grasp on the game.

Starring Hollywood’s Ittest of new leading men, Chris Pratt, Avatar’s Zoë Saldana, and MMA fighter-turned-actor David Bautista (and featuring the rather invaluable voices of Vin Diesel and Bradley Cooper), Guardians of the Galaxy centers on a quintet of intergalactic misfits that must overcome their impulses and a host o’ differences in order to save the galaxy (well, more like Xandar, a distant planet of the Marvelverse) from the all-destroying power of a force similar to the Aether and the Tesseract of productions past.

Pratt, in his star-making role, plays Peter Quill, a.k.a. (in his own mind) Star-Lord, the legendary outlaw. He’s a Terran (that is, an earthling) who was taken from Earth by some space pirates when he was 8, right after his mom died without having the chance to, uh...maybe tell him he’s like, hella way more than meets the naked eye, and who has grown into a (studly) smart aleck rogue of the first order, and Pratt is just so winning in the part.

Which is the joy of watching of these movies in the first place. We spend our jack on these big-budget extravaganzas looking to see these stars (RDJ, G.P., ScarJo, SLJ, Chrises Hemsworth, Evans, and now Pratt) have fun portraying these comic-book characters we either love or know very little about, right.

We don’t do it for the story!

Not seriously really, anyway....

All this to say, Quill’s just stolen this Orb that just about everybody else’s coveting, including Saldana’s green-hued Gamora, the weaponized, but noble adopted daughter of the long-foreshadowed Thanos, and Lee Pace’s Ronan the Accuser, a Kree warrior with a hardon for Xandar that’s spoiling to procure the Orb for Thanos so the big bad can make good on his promise to destroy Xandar for him.

Of course, Thanos, voiced by Josh Brolin, is the one who ultimately wants these items, these Infinity Stones we have come across in all these Marvelventures. But you know that – you know that if you’ve been watching these blockbusters.

Needless to say, Quill’s not about to let anyone destroy the galaxy he’s a part of, so he rallies his newfound band of ragtag friends (Bautista’s revenge-seeking and literal Drax the Destroyer, Cooper’s genetically engineered and badass Rocket, and Diesel’s imposing Groot, a kind, not-so-verbose giant humanoid tree-creature-like alien...thing) to defend their turf.

They may not be the the smartest bunch, or the toughest, and they just very well may be the biggest idiots around, but they are what we have – what they have – and they rock (they rock it to the tune of one of the better, funner soundtracks of late).

Better yet, in the end the movie lets them claim the unexpected, if well-earned title of Guardians of the Galaxy, and grow up and, become better versions of themselves. Bonafide superheroes we’ll welcome with opens arms in many a sequel or crossover to come

What...was with that post-credits tag at the very end of the movie, though?

Wacky stuff. And so...fitting.

My Rating ****

Photo: BehindThePanels.net.