Iron Man

Action movies aren't usually noted for their characters, and that is usually for good reason.  Do we really want to see Stallone, Schwarzenegger, or even Van Damme try to grapple with subtle emotion?  No, we usually just want to see them punch through the bad guy's face.  Iron Man is very different because it is an action movie starring an actor that can actually act.  What a concept!

The story here is better than most comic book adaptations.  Sure, it's an origin story, but Iron Man isn't so much about a man gaining super powers as it is about a man deciding to take responsibility for his actions.  At the beginning of the movie, we see Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) being the world's coolest billionaire ever; he is a genius, rich, funny, good with the ladies (even when they want to hate him), the head of a corporation, and he gets to play with stuff that explodes.  Stark's company sells cutting edge weapons to the military, but Stark finds himself on the wrong end of those same weapons when he visits Afghanistan to demonstrate some new missiles for the military.  Stark's convoy is ambushed, and he is taken prisoner by terrorists that want him to create weapons for them.  As a prisoner, Stark sees the weapons that he thinks are being exclusively sold to the US government in the hands of these terrorists.  Understandably, this changes his view on weapons manufacturing.  Since he's a genius, Stark builds a robotic exoskeleton to overcome his captors and escape.  Life's good when you're smart.  And thus, Iron Man is born.  That might be enough for most origin movies, but that just acts as the setup for the film proper.  From this point, Stark tries to find ways to help people instead of hurting them, and this has financial, business, personal, and public repercussions.

This sounds like a fairly action-free action movie, and that's because it kind of is.  There is a lot of talking in this movie.  When there's action, though, it is awesome.  The original Iron Man suit looks and sounds frighteningly heavy.  When Iron Man punches a regular person, they go flying across the room...and it looks like a feasible result.  That is how good the special effects are in this movie; the fighting doesn't come across as cartoony or stylized, but as the logical end result of being punched by a hulking robot.  The first Iron Man suit is pretty sweet, but the later model that Stark sports for the rest of the film is even better.  Sleek and stylish, it just makes sense that it sports the kind of technology that can blow up tanks with missiles the size of a pencil.  The Iron Monger suit used by the villain takes the idea of the original Iron Man suit to the other extreme, showing a preference for pure power that makes Stark's escape scene look like the work of an amateur.  In short, a guy wears a cool robotic suit and stuff gets blown up.  Nothing wrong with that.

Even with the great action sequences, Robert Downey Jr's acting is what makes this movie.  He doesn't play the typical tortured super hero.  He's not trying to be stoic like Superman, scary like Batman, or jokey like Spider-Man.  Instead, he comes across as a very smart man that is constantly making quips because he's smarter than everyone else.  He does whatever he wants because that's how the world works for him and because what he wants to do will work, and Downey is great playing up that intelligence, humor, and confidence; when the character has a realization or a moment of doubt, all those shields are stripped away and Downey shows his range as a dramatic actor. 

Credit for Downey's performance and casting should (at least partially) go to director Jon Favreau, who is able to make a smart, funny, and action-packed blockbuster with actors that had not been in a big hit in years.  Favreau probably didn't have to do much with the actors except encourage their own instincts, because they are all pretty good.  Gwyneth Paltrow does a good job as Stark's right hand; this can be seen with the romantic tension between Paltrow and Downey, which relies heavily on her performance.  I also like her delivery on the quips she uses to undercut Stark's cockiness.  Terrence Howard is okay (at best) as Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes, the resident military straight arrow.  Howard doesn't get to do much except gripe about Stark's casual attitude toward protocol.  When he gets the opportunity to say or do something entertaining, he usually under-performs, particularly with the foreshadowing of him someday wearing his own armor suit.  Part of this is due to his character being essentially a straight man to Downey's antics, but I'm still not sold on Howard as a charismatic actor.  I enjoyed Paul Bettany's voice-over work as Stark's computer more than I liked Howard.  Heck, I enjoyed Leslie Bibb as a judgmental reporter more than I liked him.  The other primary character is Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges), Stark's current business partner and former mentor.  Bridges is realistic as the guy who always has to smooth Stark's antics over with the press and the business sector.  When he turns nasty, though, the frustration that must come with his job rises to the forefront.  Personally, I thought Bridges overacted a little toward the end, but he was still fun to watch.

Iron Man is the type of movie that benefits most from the revamped Oscar nominations.  This movie was well-received critically (because it's awesome) and made over $500 million in theaters (because it's awesome), but could only get nominated for technical Oscars.  This movie was deservedly in many Top Ten lists of 2008 and its success will hopefully lead to well-rounded and acted action movies getting a little more respect from critical award shows.

Iron Man 2

Making a good sequel is a tricky business.  Of course, you want to stay true to what made the first film good, but you also need to change it up a little to keep the audience interested.  The tricky part is that you don't want to change it too little, or the sequel feels too similar to the previous movie (see the Saw series).  One cure for this is to spend the entire film budget on the stars and special effects, leaving you with enough cash to buy eleven bananas, so you just hire a half-witted chimp to write your script (which is the true story behind the making of Bad Boys II).  Every so often, though, filmmakers get it right, giving depth to the characters, while including more action because the origin story has already been told.

Iron Man 2 is one of those sequels that gets it right.  A big part of this is the fact that the principal cast remains from the original film, with one exception.  The role of James "Rhodey" Rhodes is played by Don Cheadle instead of Terrence Howard this time around.  While both have been nominated for an Oscar, I think of this as a casting upgrade because Cheadle is charismatic enough to hold his own in the Ocean's movies, and Howard was pretty wooden in Iron Man.  Other than that, Robert Downey, Jr. returns as Tony Stark, the man that wears the Iron Man armor.  Gwyneth Paltrow also returns as his devoted not-quite-romantically-involved life partner/assistant, Pepper Potts.  Downey is once again fantastic as the egotistical and sarcastic lead character.  Paltrow's character has more to do in this movie, and she's fine, but the plot requires her to be annoyed with Downey most of the time, so their chemistry isn't as strong this time.  Cheadle, however, comes through with a pretty solid performance as Tony Stark's straight-laced best friend.  Jon Favreau apparently did another good job directing, because the actors all performed well and the action was awesome.

The supporting cast is good, too.  The role of the malicious Russian physicist/tinkerer, Ivan Vanko, is played with relish by Mickey Rourke.  It's always better when his character has a reason for looking as haggard as Rourke does naturally; here, he plays a heavily tattooed veteran of the Russian prison system with some very...um...attractive gold teeth and greasy hair.  Aside from his first scene, Rourke is very good; in that first scene, though, he gives a howl of mourning comparable to Hayden Christensen in Star Wars: Episode III.  Rourke's best moments are when he chuckles to himself.  That creepy laugh with that ugly face makes Rourke a pretty scary guy.  The other villain here is Stark's business (but not intellectual) rival, Justin Hammer, played by the always amusing Sam Rockwell.  Rockwell approaches his character as a first-class salesman that doesn't necessarily care to know the details of what he is selling, as long as it makes him money.  As such, he's perfectly annoying.  To be honest, he doesn't come across as a legitimate threat to Stark (because he's not), but the scene where he is talking weapons to Rhodey shows how effective he can be.  Sam Jackson expands his role as super-secret agent Nick Fury from the last film, and he is appropriately Sam Jackson-esque (read: bad-ass).  Scarlett Johannson stretches her acting range in a small supporting role as a sexy redhead/secretary/martial artist that wears really tight clothes.  Garry Shandling was amusing as an antagonistic senator.  They even had Leslie Bibb reprise her slutty journalist role from the last movie and threw in cameos by Olivia Munn and the late Adam "DJ AM" Goldstein.

You might notice that I've given a lot of attention to the actors so far.  While this is an action movie, Iron Man 2 spends a lot of time developing characters and plot.  The first movie was like that, too, but part of that was because they were telling an origin story.  Here, they use that down time to give Stark two separate types of problems.  The first is the fact that Stark is slowly killing himself with the Iron Man suit.  It's not his fault, really, but his chest battery thingie that saved his life in the first film has a metal component that is poisoning him in the long term.  Oops.  It turns out that no known element can replace the one he's using, either.  That means that, when Stark isn't being his arrogant public persona, he is planning for his eventual death.  These scenes go over well, with Downey doing another great job showing Stark at his most vulnerable.

The other problem is, like in the last film, one of assuming responsibility for his technology.  In Iron Man, it was about keeping Stark weapons out of the hands of terrorists.  This time around, Stark has decided to give the Iron Man technology to no one.  Obviously, the US government is not happy with this.  Justin Hammer wants to fill the hole Stark has left in military contracts, but he cannot figure out the Iron Man technology on his own.  That is where Ivan Vanko comes in; his father worked on a previous generation of the Iron Man battery with Tony Stark's father.  Vanko built an imperfect, but effective version of the battery to power his own suit, but this one has weird electric whips instead of armor.  Obviously, the bad guys team up to take down Stark as a business, as well as a hero.

Since this is a sequel, they have made the action scenes even bigger.  Vanko's first scene using his whips is surprisingly cool and the sheer amount of car wreckage is impressive.  Personally, my favorite action had Stark fighting Rhodey, with each in their own Iron Man suit.  It was just cool to watch.  I would like to point out that only billionaires can afford to fight like that in their own homes.  Scarlett Johannson looked convincing in her fight scene, too, although some of her poses seemed like a little too obviously T & A.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, but some of it just looked uncomfortable.  The big ending fight scene was great, once Iron Man and Rhodey/War Machine finally teamed up.  The action leading up to their team-up was a little underwhelming, given how long it took and I was a little disappointed by the durability of the evil robot drones in the climax, but the fight with Vanko made up for those concerns.  Until this movie, I never considered whips as even remotely cool or threatening; I'm sure they're an acquired taste (as a weapon), but Vanko looked like a legitimate threat in this movie.

Now, for the bad news.  There are a few moments where this movie failed for me.  The first involved Vanko's first battle scene.  As awesome as it was, it had a ridiculous plot hole.  It looked like his plan was always to sneak on the racetrack and attack Stark's race car...but Stark decided to drive the car himself only minutes before the race began.  Was Vanko planning on sneaking into the fancy restaurant where Stark was going to watch the race, dressed as a car mechanic?  It's not a big deal, I admit, but it was a stupid writing mistake.

The other moment was when Stark is watching an old video of his late father, Howard.  It's pretty boring stuff, showing how focused he was on business and not his family, until Howard addresses Tony through the video.  It's the typical emotionally distant father finally admitting how much he cares for his children speech.  If you liked it here, you'll love it in The Incredibles.  It's not that the scene was terrible, but it just...too predictable.  This scene is meant to show Tony at his most vulnerable, finding inspiration and love for an unexpected place, but it just feels flat.  This is probably because the father-son relationship is barely mentioned until the video is played, but Stark's vulnerable moments in this movie are just not as effective in this movie because they are not spent with other characters.


These flaws are pretty well balanced out by a lot of clever little things throughout the movie, though.  Justin Hammer is such a wanna-be, of course he uses bronzing lotion; it is just as obvious that his palms should be orange from using the bronzer, too.   Rourke's tattoos looked like legitimate Russian prison tattoos, too; I recognized some of them from Eastern Promises.  Pepper Potts was upset at Stark giving away his modern art collection because he worked hard to build it; this is a nice bit of work, making subtle reference to the modern art knowledge she showed briefly in the first film.  There's more stuff, but it's more fun to see it yourself.  Honestly, this movie has a lot going for it.  It is a nearly pitch-perfect sequel that introduced new problems to established characters and developed the returning characters even further.  The action is a little bigger and provides a very powerful character with a more even fight.

The Avengers (2012)

Over the past decade, I (well, okay, we) have been blessed and cursed with the success of the comic book movie.  A sub-genre that was once scorned and ridiculed --- and rightly so, for the most part --- was given new life with the successful launches of the Spider-Man and X-Men franchises.  Since those days, we have seen some great comic book movies (The Dark Knight) and some truly awful ones (X-Men Origins: Wolverine), along with a scattering of less traditional/costume-free entries (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World).  The true test of comic book movies, though, comes from how true they can stay to their roots.  I'm not arguing that movies should adhere to the ridiculous continuity of their pulped roots; I'm saying that the logic and tone of the source material is essential to a good adaptation.  One of the most common occurrences in comics is the cross-over; characters from one comic make a guest appearance in another, hopefully impressing new readers and gaining new fans.  Until recently, each comic book movie series took place on its own, in an isolated bubble.  Starting in 2008, though, Marvel Studios began to plan for a Marvel Movie Universe, where their superhero films would all occur in the same general time and place, eventually leading up to a huge team-up movie, The Avengers.  It's a simple idea, but it was also pretty damn risky.  It meant launching multiple movie franchises and having them all be successful enough to encourage the development of The Avengers, where characters require no origin stories and the film can focus on huge special effects.  Is comic book publishing logic enough to make an entertaining movie?  In a word, "yes."

In two words, "Hell, yes"

I don't feel like explaining the plot of The Avengers in detail.  It's not a bad story, but I'm going to go with a "simpler is better" attitude here.  A desperate and petty demigod, Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has stolen a tesseract.  What the hell is a tesseract?  Well, here, it looks like a glowing cube, but can apparently do all sorts of things. 

Like make Loki give nasty grins

Loki manages to use this cube to open a doorway in space, allowing aliens to invade Earth because...well, I mentioned the desperation and pettiness, right?  Well, Earth has been through quite a lot over the past few summers, as chronicled in the documentaries Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger; in other words, Earth has some heroes available to defend it. 

Namely, Triangle Man and Person Man

And that's pretty much the plot.

Do you really need more than that in your action movie?  The Avengers does what it sets out to do; it combines a bunch of superheroes in a movie and gives them a suitably intimidating enemy to fight.  The acting in the film is not terribly dramatic, but it's pretty good for what it is.  Robert Downey, Jr is still great as the egotistical and charming Tony Stark (AKA Iron Man).  If this film leaned on any one character in particular, it was Iron Man.  Luckily, Downey is still enormously entertaining in this role.  Chris Evans showed a little bit more range as Captain America this time around, thanks to larger doses of humor and smaller doses of melodrama than in his own movie. 

...and lots and lots of posing

Chris Hemsworth is still fine as Thor, but he spent most of his time here fighting or standing in the background.  The big surprise in The Avengers was how awesome Mark Ruffalo was as the Hulk.  Ruffalo was less tragic than his Hulk movie predecessors, and that went a long way toward making him more fun to watch.  Of course, the most awesome Hulk stuff happened thanks to CGI, but Ruffalo set the stage for it well by making his character seem downright reasonable.

Above: realizing how much better 13 Going on 30 would be with a Hulk

But The Avengers are not made up solely of characters who have headlined their own films.  The group also includes the marksman archer Hawkeye (Jeremey Renner) and the super-spy Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson).  Renner is okay --- it's hard to justify an archer on a team with Thor --- but this role doesn't have enough meat for him to really do much with.  Johansson was considerably less impressive.  Granted, her character was utilized decently, even if she seems way out of her class in the battle scenes; still, the character was boring.  She doesn't carry a lot of scenes on her own, though, so that and her tight pleather outfit more or less balances the defects in her character.

ScarJo, in her biggest action scene.  Even she doesn't buy it.

What about the rest of the cast of thousands?   Samuel L. Jackson finally got to be onscreen for more than a few minutes as Nick Fury and...honestly, I wanted to see him be a bigger bad-ass.  It's not a big deal, but I was hoping for at least one scene where he does something that made my jaw drop; he wasn't bad, but he wasn't jaw-droppingly good, either.  I enjoyed Tom Hiddleston as Loki, even if he was a touch whiny.  Clark Gregg had his most important part and surprisingly wound up being the heart of The Avengers.  It was a little melodramatic as a plot device, but Gregg very likable here.  The rest of the recognizable cast was fine, but contributed little.  Colbie Smulders, Stellan Skarsgard, and Gwyneth Paltrow had the most to do, although only Paltrow was particularly likable.  And if you like playing "spot the actor," you will enjoy looking for Powers Boothe, Harry Dean Stanton, and Alexis Denisof.

The key to the success of The Avengers came from screenwriter/director Joss Whedon.  Whedon has been able to deliver some great lines for many years, but this is easily the best script he has produced to date (that landed on the big screen, anyway).  It might be a little light on emotion, but what little heart it has is taken advantage of fully.  This is a very well-paced action movie, with enough downtime to allow for humor, but enough seriousness to not wind up a Last Boyscout clone.  The secret appears to be how well he times his beats; Whedon did a great job playing with audience expectations, even when it was only slightly.  I have never really thought of him as an actor's director --- I suppose I thought of him as a story-first sort of guy --- but I loved how he had all these heroes portrayed.  The characters butted heads in a believable way and worked together in a way that made sense, too.  Surprisingly, the least likable hero in the film (Black Widow) fell into Whedon's historical comfort zone (strong female leads), but that was a small price to pay for how well he handled the movie's headliners.  I was also impressed with some of the action scenes.  There is one in particular, which shows each Avenger doing their thing in turn, as the camera pans from one hero to the next, that was just awesome to watch on the big screen.

First and foremost, though, The Avengers is an action movie.  And that is an understatement.  Free of boring origin stories or emotional investment, this film was able to provide action scene after action scene, many of which could have been the cool climax to a lesser movie.

 Each scene wowed, but the final battle, which took up a substantial portion of the movie, was thoroughly awesome.  This didn't have to be the case; wanton destruction does not necessarily make a movie fun or exciting (Transformers: Dark of the Moon, I'm looking at you).  But The Avengers was both.  I think it is because each hero had multiple occasions to do something cool; with so many characters swaggering onscreen without interfering with each other, the audience gets scene after scene of characters taking turns at awesomeness.  I should also point out how fantastic the Hulk looked in this movie.  This isn't the first time somebody has created a CGI Hulk, but this was the first time that they used full motion capture; I don't know how much of a difference it made, but his face did look pretty Ruffalo-like.

Remember that time Mark Ruffalo was shot with lasers?

Even better than the motion capture was the general attitude of the Hulk in this movie.  I don't want to spoil it for anyone by over-explaining it, but the Hulk almost stole the show.  To put it another way, The Avengers does such a good job rehabilitating the Hulk character that I can't wait for another Hulk movie.

The Avengers is, of course, not blemish-free.  It is a big, dumb action movie, after all.  The general plot of the first half was a little weak; "get captured" is rarely a step in an excellent scheme.  The aliens were a little generic.  I would have liked to see more types of alien attackers, but I suppose they were all essentially faceless henchmen.

Literally faceless

Hawkeye and Black Widow never really justified their inclusion in this story.  I don't think either character was far off from fitting in, but neither really clicked, either with each other or the rest of the cast.  The post-credits reveal of the behind-the-scenes villain might have made a handful of comic fans titter, but it was nowhere near enough to get the average moviegoer excited.  Are any of these problems enough to seriously dent the fun factor of this movie?  Not really.  Of course, an action movie is only as good as its villain, and Loki wasn't quite dastardly enough for my tastes.  Still, Hiddleston played the part well and made him evil to a satisfying degree.

Another flaw: when was Hawkeye in Inception?

How good is The Avengers?  I would argue that it is the best pure action movie to come out in at least a decade.  Please feel free to disagree with that statement; I have put some serious thought into it already and am primed for a fight.  Chances are, you already know how much you will enjoy The Avengers.  Fans of action movies and comic book flicks will be in love.  No matter how good you think it will be, you're underestimating it.  If you're on the fence, this is one of the most pleasurable summer popcorn flicks ever.  If you are tired of soulless comic book movie adaptations, then this Frankenstein's monster made of the wet dreams of every marketing team everywhere will not change your mind.  It is what it is, and it's possibly the best of what it is.  I normally have to take a few grains of salt when sitting down to enjoy a comic book flick, but The Avengers is so much fun that I fully expect it to join the illustrious ranks of Die Hard and Predator in my action movie library.  In other words, I'm planning to watch this a few dozen more times and expect to love it every time.

Green Lantern

With Marvel Studios doing such a good job (so far) establishing several comic book-inspired movie franchises (Iron Man, Thor, and X-Men, with Captain America and The Avengers on their way soon), it only makes sense for DC Comics to try and launch some of their heroes onto the big screen.  With Christopher Nolan's Batman series wrapping up next year and the stalled attempt to reboot a Wonder Woman TV show, the pressure was on Green Lantern to be the first major DC property (that wasn't Superman or Batman) to have success as a feature film.  Is this movie up to the challenge?  Well, they say that Green Lanterns know no fear, but unfortunately, courage isn't all you need to make an entertaining movie.

Eons ago, a bunch of powerful and blue-skinned aliens who apparently named themselves the Guardians of the Universe (boy, they sound like a fun bunch) found a way to harness the green (not eco-, just the color) energy of willpower as a means to police the universe.  The power of will is given off by all creatures, collected by these Guardians and channeled into green power lanterns, which in turn power green rings, which enable the users to do just about anything they can think of.  The universe is divided into over three thousand sectors, with each sector getting one Green Lantern Corp member to patrol the several galaxies that make up each sector.  But all is not well in Lantern Town; an evil entity named Parallax (voiced by Clancy Brown), an ancient foe of the Corps, has escaped his Green Lantern-devised imprisonment.

Witness the face of the voice of fear!

Parallax feeds on the yellow power of fear, leaving nothing but burned out husks in his wake, and his number one priority is to punish Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison, best known as Jango Fett in the Star Wars prequels), the Green Lantern that imprisoned him.

Well, if he has his own movie poster, he must be pretty important, right?  Right...?

I would like to point out that we haven't spent any time on Earth just yet.  That's not a big deal, but it's still a little strange.  Abin Sur gets ambushed by Parallax, who looks like an amorphous yellow-black cloud, and is fatally wounded.  Instead of seeking out medical attention, Pinkie and his (talking) ring opt to find his successor before he dies.  Wait...he's in the movie for only a few minutes and still gets his own movie poster?  That's like giving Thomas and Martha Wayne their own poster for The Dark Knight!  Whatever, fine.  Abin Sur and the ring wind up on Earth, where the ring chooses brash pilot Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) to be the next Green Lantern.  Now, you might assume that this is a fish-out-of-water story where Hal goes into space to fight the big scary yellow cloud and seems completely out of his depth.  That's true, to some extent.  But there is also an Earthbound story in this movie, too.

Not the only time he looks like a doofus in the movie, trust me.

Hal is an irresponsible man whore (okay, that's a judgement call from a scene that is eerily similar to one in Iron Man) who spends his time being snarky and finding ways to show off his ripped abs.  He and Carol Ferris (Blake Lively) totally don't get along at all because she is tired of his man-childish ways --- you had better believe that these two will not go from mutually antagonistic to deeply in love within the space of two hours.  Not a chance.  Hal's problem is that he is afraid of big decisions and falling short when he is compared to his late father.  Getting a super powerful ring doesn't make his life easier; the greater the responsibility, the more likely it seems that he won't measure up.  Hal's not the only character with daddy issues in the movie, though.  Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a fairly dorky scientist, grew up with Hal and Carol and knows that his bookish ways have always been a disappointment to his politician father (Tim Robbins).  Hector gets the chance to do the initial inspection of Abin Sur's alien body and he manages to get pricked by a piece of yellow Parallax bits stuck in Abin's wound, which leads to some slight side effects.

Mmmaybe you should get that checked out, Hector.

So, on the one hand, we have Hal, who feels unworthy of controlling the power of will because he's afraid of failing.  On the other hand, we have Hector, who is tired of being lame and suddenly can tap into the yellowy power of fear.  And don't forget about all the aliens!  This is a busy movie!

In the lead role, I thought Ryan Reynolds did a pretty good job as the cocky Hal Jordan.  He was pretty likable and occasionally funny; I enjoyed seeing his figure out his powers as the movie progressed.  I don't know if I would have cast Reynolds --- who is as sarcastic as ever in this movie --- as a death-defying man of iron will, but he works well with the script.  Blake Lively, though, was a bit of a mess as his romantic interest.  I understand that playing a superhero's girlfriend essentially makes you a damsel in distress, which is never a flattering showcase for acting, but damn.  In the words of my wife, a "two-by-four with a brunette wig" would have been more entertaining.  Her part wasn't very hard --- she had to look pretty (mission accomplished) and partake in just a little bit of witty banter (Least natural.  Laugh.  Ever.), with a moment to show the depth of her emotion (mission aborted).  I will give her credit for not screaming in this movie, which is shocking, given her role.  Peter Sarsgaard did a good job playing a snivelly scientist, but I would have liked to see him be less of a weenie on his own turf or when he started gaining his powers.  I didn't particularly like his character, though.  And for every opportunity Lively had to give a damsel scream, Sarsgaard delivered two anguished moans, which got old quickly.  As for the rest of the cast, I really liked Mark Strong as Sinestro, the most powerful Green Lantern; Strong did a great job with a character that could have come across as simply a dick.  Instead, he made the character seem driven and burdened with responsibility, which is more complexity than I expected to get out of any of the aliens in this cast.  I liked the other aliens Green Lanterns, too, especially the fish-like Tomar-Re (voiced by Geoffrey Rush, who also narrated) and Kilowog (voiced by Michael Clark Duncan).  I was a little disappointed that Clancy Brown's voice acting skills were under-utilized, but that was no big deal.  Rounding out the cast, Tim Robbins, Angela Bassett, and Jay O. Sanders all play boring character roles.

Geoffrey Rush, out of costume.

As in most movies, especially blockbusters, there were some strong performances and some weak ones in Green Lantern.  But acting was never going to be what truly decided how good this movie would be.  Director Martin Campbell's job was to make Hal Jordan into a cool hero.  He's done it well in the past (two Bond movies), so you would think that this would be second nature to him.  I believe that he gave his best effort, but was overcome by a few difficulties.  Campbell made a truly fantastic visual spectacular, and I thought the CGI looked great, without a single cheap-looking moment; this was a bright and shiny superhero movie, no doubt about it.  There were certainly parts of the movie I really enjoyed; I thought the scenes set in space were all pretty cool and Ryan Reynolds gave a likable performance.

"Likable" in a "Smell me" kind of way.

And yet, this movie falls tragically short of being cool.  What's wrong with this film?  To put it bluntly, the story is a bright green steaming pile of crap.  Let's look at the story choices first; I'm not talking about the plot, just the way the story was written.  There is no reason for there to be so much back story in a superhero movie, especially before the audience is given a glimpse of the main character.  Wouldn't it have been way cooler for the audience and Hal Jordan to discover the galactic majesty of the Green Lantern Corps together?  As a space opera, Green Lantern is pretty solid.  It's those pesky Earthlings that screw up the movie. I was seriously disappointed in the ways Hal used his power ring; if the fish-looking alien can do cool stuff with his, why does the human Green Lantern have such a limited imagination?  That ring can do anything, and he resorts to giant green fists and guns?  To be fair, though, that is a problem that definitely exists in the comic, too (check this article for more info).  I hated the obvious story parallels between Hector Hammond, Hal Jordan, and the development of their powers; that was a lazy plot device to point out that Hal is a hero because overcoming fear is good.  And I thought that the character that fed on the fear of others would end up being the sympathetic hero!  What an insulting theme.  Hector Hammond's character also had waaaaay too much screen time.  Hammond, in this movie, is a henchman of Parallax; we learn about his childhood, his family, his job, and his lust.  This guy is a glorified Odd Job and he has more development than the big villain, Parallax.  That's a problem.

But the problems don't end with the ideas behind the story, they definitely made it into the plot.  What is Parallax's evil plan?  To destroy the Guardians of the Universe and the Green Lantern Corps.  Well, after he kills Abin Sur, he then waits for a few days, until Hal Jordan has time to come to travel across the universe a few times, doubt himself, and ultimately come to grips with his new responsibility.  Apparently, Parallax had underwear gnome logic.

In his case, Phase 1 was killing Abin Sur, Phase 3 was Destroying the Corps, and Phase 2 is where this movie takes place.  That is far from the only instance of extreme pointlessness by a character in this movie.  Hal finally decides to grow a pair and fight the yellow cloud thing to protect the Earth, but he can't do it alone.  He travels to the Guardians and asks for help, but is refused any.  So, what does the guy who traveled across the universe to get help because he can't defeat his enemy alone do?  He asks permission to face his enemy alone.  What?!?  That's the stuff of headaches, my friends.  And at least Hal left his planet undefended with the yellow apocalypse on its way to make that scene happen.  **face palm**  Perhaps the most frustrating plot line involved Sinestro, who was a pretty cool character.  SPOILER ALERT: Sinestro decides to fight fire with fire and has the Guardians create a yellow ring to channel the power of fear in his fight against Parallax.  The ring is made, and is handed to Sinestro.  And he never uses it.  If this movie had to have two villains, I would have much preferred to see Sinestro as the tough drill sergeant-type antagonist, using the yellow ring and failing, corrupting himself in the process.  But nooooo, we needed Hector "Lumpy" Hammond to lurch his way across the screen.

Many possibilities, few actualized.

As much as this movie frustrated me, I have to admit that it was mediocre dumb fun (emphasis on the "dumb").  It looked gorgeous and had a few pretty cool characters, and lots of things went boom.  There were several moments where I was entertained, although most of them were not terribly relevant to the larger plot.  And it definitely could have been worse.  That doesn't mean that this ridiculously ill-conceived story is anything less than an enormous disappointment, both for fans of the comic and people looking to enjoy some cosmic-level movie fun.  Ultimately, this mess gets a disappointing

By the way, am I the only person who hated Hal Jordan's Green Lantern costume?  I was fine with the glowing stuff, but I thought the mask was awful and the choice to make it skintight was downright peculiar.  The ring presumably makes a suit to fit the personality of the wearer, right?  Well, how vain is Hal Jordan if he needs a costume that flaunts his butt and abdominal muscles at all times?  I get that Ryan Reynolds is an astonishing hunk, but that uniform was tighter than Catwoman's.

Thor

I'm a pretty big fan of Norse mythology.  Part of it is due to my Swedish ancestry and part of it is because Norse myths are basically set up like The Dirty Dozen; yes, the gods are all pretty bad-ass, but they all know that they're on a suicide mission called Ragnarok.   When I heard that Marvel Studios was going to be making a Thor movie as part of their announced Avengers franchise, I was a bit skeptical.  Sure, I've enjoyed the movies the studio has made so far (the Iron Man films and The Incredible Hulk), but Thor is a different type of character entirely.  This wouldn't be about making a fantastic character down to Earth, it would be about telling a story about a foreign god that most Americans are fairly unfamiliar with and turning it into a superhero movie.  There are a LOT of ways to do this story wrong.  Hell, even the comics only get it right every five years or so.  Now, I will admit that I read comics and have a decent collection of classic Thor issues, so I am definitely approaching this movie as a bit of a fanboy.

This issue was, in all seriousness, awesome.

That said, I entered Thor with high hopes and dreadful fears.  Would this join the ranks of awesome Marvel Comics movies, like X-Men 2, Spider-Man 2, and Iron Man 2, or would it be an incomprehensible mess, like X-Men 3, Spider-Man 3, and Daredevil?

Right off the bat, the film makes a wise choice by (more or less) starting the film in Asgard, home of the Norse gods.  The King of Asgard, Odin (Anthony Hopkins) is preparing to pass on the mantle of king to one of his sons, Thor (Chris Hemsworth), when there is a security breach within their castle.  Some Frost Giants, the immortal enemies of Asgard, managed to sneak in unseen and almost stole a weapon of great power before they were terminated with extreme prejudice by Odin's deadly sentry, the Destroyer.  Thor's immediate impulse is to take the fight to the Frost Giants, but Odin forbids any acts of war; he reasoned that this was an act made by a few, and they have been appropriately punished.  Thor seethes, but does nothing.  That is, he does nothing until he is baited by his brother, Loki (Tom Hiddleston).  Thor decides to go to Jotunheim, home of the Frost Giants, with his partners in crime, Loki, Sif (Jaime Alexander), and the Warriors Three (Fandral, Hogun, and Volstagg).  Why does he go?  Ostensibly, to get an apology from the Frost Giant king, but he's really there to fight.  And fight they do.  The Asgardians beat the living hell out of several dozen Frost Giants, but they are outnumbered and do not have any back-up.  A royally pissed-off Odin arrives and manages to keep the peace, but he punishes Thor by banishing him to Earth, without his godly powers.  Odin also takes away Thor's signature hammer, whispering an enchantment to it that more or less states that whoever can lift the hammer will have the power of Thor.

Most of the rest of the film follows Thor on Earth as he adjusts to not being a god.  Naturally, a brawny blonde that claims to be the god of thunder showing up right around the time and place that an unmovable hammer arrives garners some attention from all sorts of people, including scientists and the military.  However, the humbling of a god does not answer one key question.  How did those Frost Giants sneak into the supposedly impenetrable Asgard and set these events in motion?

One of the more interesting aspects of this film's production process was the decision to hire Shakespearean expert Kenneth Branagh to direct the movie.  As far as his Shakespeare films go, Branagh is one of the best in the business, both as an actor and as a director.  As for his other movies, well...Mary Shelley's Frankenstein was pretty godawful.  The man definitely has a good touch with his actors, though, as anyone working with (mostly) plays must have.  I thought he did a pretty solid job with Thor.  The action scenes (which he hasn't directed before) looked good and, in some cases, were pretty awesome.  The characters that had more than a few lines were all acted quite well by the cast, and I was particularly impressed by the lead performances of Thor and Loki by two unknown actors.  Branagh does not have the lightest touch when it comes to cinematography (I hope you like lopsided camera angles), but his choices all make sense.  All in all, I think Branagh did an adequate job with making the film look good and a very good job with the cast.

Speaking of the cast, I was alternately very impressed and depressed by Thor.  Chris Hemsworth was great in the lead role, capturing the arrogance of the character wonderfully.  His character could have been a little deeper, but Hemsworth more than delivered with what was given to him.  I was also impressed by Tom Hiddleston's Loki; Loki is a great character in mythology (and Neil Gaiman's fiction), and Hiddleston took a character that could easily just be evil and made him mischievous, cunning, and emotionally desperate.  This is definitely my favorite performance of a Marvel villain since Ian McKellan's Magneto.  I was surprised to see Anthony Hopkins giving a solid performance as Odin, since he has been mostly just mailing in his work for the past decade.  He wasn't spectacular, but he seemed regal and cold, which fits the part well.  I was far less impressed by Natalie Portman's role as Jane Foster, an astrophysicist that develops a romance with the thunder god.  She should be a pretty important part of the story, but aside from being a decently strong female character (read: she argues with the men-folk), she doesn't do much.  I'll give her credit for being more than just another damsel in distress, but that's not enough to stack up against the gods.

The rest of the supporting cast is similarly underwhelming.  Jane Foster's friends, played by Stellan Skarsgard and Kat Dennings, are likable enough, but never get past generic stereotypes.  Thor's Asgardian buddies have a similar problem, although they are less endearing.  Ray Stevenson (Volstagg), Tadanobu Asano (Hogun), Josh Dallas (Fandral) and Jaime Alexander all seem like they should have more depth, but they are surprisingly bland.  Aside from Volstagg's appetite and their general appearances, these four warriors are interchangeable in the story.  Colm Feore, who seems to get cast in big budget movies more for a willingness to wear extensive makeup than anything else, was mediocre as the king of the Frost Giants.  You would think his character would have a little more depth, or at least a few wicked moments, but I guess it's okay, since he's essentially a red herring.  Clark Gregg was okay as the agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., but he is certainly no Samuel L. Jackson.  You might be surprised to see Rene Russo in a small part, since her last role was six years ago.  You might not be surprised to hear that she doesn't do much of anything in the movie.  On the other hand, the requisite Stan Lee cameo was handled pretty well.

There was a minor controversy when Idris Elba was cast as Heimdall, the gatekeeper.  Personally, I don't have a problem with casting against type, and I think Elba has some serious potential as an actor.  He did good work in a small part here, and that should be where the controversy begins and ends.

What, he doesn't look Swedish?

This is a superhero movie, though --- the acting can only take it so far.  The action is, in parts, pretty entertaining.  I thought that most of the fight scenes were great, especially the ones on Earth.  I would have preferred the battle to be in a place where more stuff could be destroyed, but whatever.  The battle that opens the film had some inconsistent special effects, which distracted me, but the rest of the movie looked very good.  Actually, this movie is fairly action-packed, with far less time devoted to character development; that is a sharp change from the recent Marvel movies (aside from the horribad Wolverine flick), and not necessarily a bad one.  The story slows down significantly and takes on a more humorous tone when Thor is on Earth, so the movie feels a bit uneven at times.  And how much time passes in this movie?  The events in Asgard seem to take place at one pace, while the Earth storyline might have only covered about two or three days, which seems like a pretty compact amount of time for a character to learn a life lesson.  Still, the fight scenes were pretty sweet and I thought the off-Earth scenes were handled quite well, on the whole.

Thor is different from every other superhero movie that has come out because it is more than a superhero tale --- it has to be mythic.  While it doesn't get everything exactly right, I think this is a pretty entertaining action movie with some impressive fantasy elements in it.  The well thought-out work that was done to bring Asgard and Jotunheim to life helps elevate this movie above some of the more mediocre elements in its makeup.

What would have made this movie better?  A more well-defined Frost Giant king, either differentiating between Thor's war buddies or cutting some of them from the script, and a love interest that could go more than two minutes without mentioning the possibility of Thor being crazy.  More epic special effects in the flashback battle would have helped, too --- or, since it was a story, maybe animating it like an old story.  Thor is still pretty entertaining, and the lead actors were fun to watch.  It's just not up to the level of, say, an Iron Man.

Man of Steel

I don't get all the hate heaped on Superman Returns.  Granted, I don't think I've seen it since it was in theaters, but it's not a bad movie.  If you want a bad movie based on a DC comic character, there are plenty to choose from --- ignoring the low-hanging fruit of Superman IV and Green Lantern, do you remember Steel?  Superman Returns' only real crime was being a movie that didn't act as a proper tentpole for a franchise.  It was designed to look and feel like a Richard Donner Super-film, and it succeeded in that regard.  That doesn't make it very exciting to watch, maybe, but it wasn't bad.  DC and the movie producers were not shy about their intentions for Man of Steel; if this movie was successful, it would be the first in a string of DC superhero movies, culminating in a Justice League film.  Basically, they saw what Marvel did with The Avengers and thought, "We should probably do that, too."

Aside from Superman being a hitchhiking hobo and direction from Sucker Punch creator Zack Snyder, the trailer looks pretty good.  I was curious as to whether or not they would explain what Superman uses to shave, since even flames don't affect his body hair, but that is a fairly minor point.

SPOILER ALERT: they don't

Man of Steel begins on the planet of Krypton.  Actually, we spend a surprising amount of time on this world, following Jor-El (Russell Crowe), the preeminent bodybuilding scientist on the planet, as he tries to convince the ruling class that their world is going to end.  They don't believe him, which turns out to mean absolutely nothing because they are promptly murdered by Krypton's preeminent shouting soldier, Zod (Michael Shannon).

"Kee-rist, Zod!  Inside voices, please!"

So what's the point of these scenes?  Well, Jor-El takes some desperate chances while Zod's forces battled the government; he grabs something of great importance to Krypton's people (a skull) and does something questionable with it (dissolves it over his infant son), because science.  Sure of his apocalyptic conclusions, Jor violates almost every FAA rule and sends his baby boy to Earth, via rocket, all by his lonesome.  And then Zod kills Jor and Krypton explodes.  Not before Zod and his forces are overcome and punished by being trapped in another dimension, though.

Zod looks like the sort of guy who types with the caps lock key on

On Earth, that infant grows up to be Clark Kent (Henry Cavill), and his alien physiology makes him different from normal folks in a variety of ways: super-strength, heat vision, super-speed, etc.  You know the super-drill.

Or maybe this super-drill is a little more angry than what you're used to

Clark was taught by his adoptive father (Kevin Costner) to keep his head low and hide his extraordinary abilities.  The logic to this being that people fear what they do not understand and...um...a super being might get his feelings hurt?  Whatever the reason, Clark grows up to be a do-gooding drifter, helping random people out whenever he can and then slinking off into the shadows before they can ask him any questions.  Eventually, Zod and his minions come to Earth, looking for the son of Jor-El.  Their entrance is dramatic, and they essentially offer to spare the Earth if their fellow Kryptonian turns himself over to Zod.  But what does Zod really have in mind for the people of Earth?  And what does this mean for Clark?  Where does Clark fit in, as the child of two worlds?  What kind of "man" is he?  (The answer is "super.") 

The acting in Man of Steel is all pretty much above-board.  Henry Cavill carried the angst of his character very well; this is easily the best acting I've seen from him.  Cavill also looks fairly tough, so the concept of him being able to punch through your face seems a little less far-fetched than some other actors who have played the part.  While Cavill's Superman was certainly sympathetic --- I would argue he gave the most vulnerable Superman performance on film to date --- he doesn't show much personality beyond the angst; but that is more of a script issue than a fault in Cavill's portrayal.

"Alright Henry, for this scene, imagine that your iPod has nothing but Morrissey on it"

Superman's love interest, Lois Lane, is played by Amy Adams, and this is the best Lane we've seen on the big screen.  She actually seems strong and intelligent, like an award-winning reporter should.  Almost as important, her "plucky reporter" bit wasn't obnoxious.  I thought Kevin Costner did a pretty good job as an overprotective parent; Costner can be a little one-dimensional in this role, but it was refreshing to see anyone in this movie look genuinely concerned over Superman's well-being.

"Son, just calm down...and please don't murder me and your mother"

I have some serious issues with the writing of his character, but Costner did a fine job acting.  Diane Lane was also okay as Clark's mother, although her part is pretty conventional.  I will say that it felt odd seeing her play a part that was a touch too old for her.  Russell Crowe was good as Jor-El; he was suitably stoic when he played a hologram, but his action hero turn on Krypton seemed a little un-scientist-like.  Still, he was in a lot more of the movie than I expected and wasn't bad by any means.  Ayelet Zurer had a small part as Superman's Kryptonian mom, but it didn't really amount to much.  Michael Shannon's work as Zod was tough for me to rate.

And, at times, identify

Yes, he was suitably intimidating.  Yes, he provided a physical threat to Superman, something that most Superman villains do not do.  I think my issue has less to do with Shannon's performance than with how the character was written; when given the opportunity, Shannon made this awful monster sympathetic --- but we have to wait almost the entire movie to get to that point.  Until that moment of insight, he comes across as a gigantic asshole.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Antje Traue was Shannon's right-hand-woman, and she was decent; I liked what I saw, but she didn't really do much more than glare.  Christopher Meloni had a fairly substantial part and he played an aggressive authority figure.  Go figure.  I like Meloni, but his movie roles have been pretty bland lately.  Richard Schiff and Laurence Fishburne did very little aside from lending their familiar faces to bit parts.

I have to admit that Zack Snyder didn't do a terrible job directing Man of Steel.  Snyder curbed his tendency to throw needless slow-motion in every scene and instead played to his strength: visuals.  This is a fantastic-looking film.  The set and costume designs were good, the cinematography felt epic, and the super-battles were suitably huge.

Above: epic super-fart

Snyder still can't direct his actors to do much more than shout, but that's less noticeable in a superhero movie.  I did start to get bored during the action sequences, though.  Superman and Zod knocked created a lot of collateral damage, but a lot of it looked awfully similar.  The important thing is this: Snyder is a director with visual flair, and he made a gorgeous Superman movie.  He didn't write the movie, though.

That was the work of David S. Goyer and, to a lesser extent, Christopher Nolan.  This screenplay certainly achieved one of its goals; I can definitely see this film spawning sequels and tie-ins, just as Iron Man set the stage for the films leading to The Avengers.  It also told a solid origin story and left some plot threads dangling that will doubtlessly be used in the inevitable sequel.  From a branding perspective, I suppose this script also sets the DC movie universe apart from that of the Marvel universe; there is a distinct science fiction vibe to this superhero movie, and that could open a promising door to some of DC's other characters.  Having said all that, I must admit that I didn't actually like the writing in Man of Steel.  For every character that was done well (Lois Lane, Jor-El), there were three or four that took everything with straight-faced indifference.  I don't blame the actors or the director for that.  The script leaves very little for them to do, aside from pose and look upset.  The worst case of this was Zod, who was a raving lunatic for 90% of the movie and then, finally, had a humanizing moment, although it came an hour too late to make up for his behavior in the rest of the film.  But that's not the biggest problem with Man of Steel.

My biggest problem with Man of Steel is with the tone.  To say that it is "dark" doesn't do it justice.

***SPOILER ALERT***

Superman's Earth-Dad straight up tells his son to not save people.  Hell, his character basically commits tornado-assisted suicide just to teach his son a lesson.  What's worse is the fact that our Superman-to-be lets it happen.  He could have easily saved the life of his adoptive father, but he opts not to.  That is not exactly the sort of thing you typically see in a movie with a hero in it, super or otherwise.  Of course, the back story is also pretty bleak.  The Kryptonians had colonies spread across the galaxy, equipped with terraformers to make hostile environments suitable for their settlers.  When Krypton decided that they did not want to expand their empire, they sent out a bus to pick everyone up and bring them home cut off provisions to those colonies, and everybody died.   Later, when Zod is preparing to end the human race by terraforming the planet, he ignores the fact that Kryptonians can, over time, get used to Earth without killing every living creature on the planet.  Why?  Because he would rather eliminate an entire species than be patient.  Of course, he also could have used the terraformers on any of the other dozen former colonies that he visited, but that would have robbed him of the chance to destroy all human life.  That's pretty bleak stuff.  And then there are the approximately three million civilian casualties from the Superman/Zod battle.  The city of Metropolis is ruined.  Completely.  Most of those collapsed buildings had to have people inside them, and that ignores all the people running for their lives as their world fell on top of them.  

Yeah, hold on to your coat.  That will help you.

Similarly, Smallville will take a decade to recover from Zod's visit.  The nameless Asian city off the coast of where the terraformer was probably took a lot of damage in the form of tidal waves, too.  Some people have issues with Superman killing Zod, but it makes sense in the context of this movie.  Zod was going to kill those stupid people in the railway station, and Superman did all that he could to stop it, because those random people were more important than the several hundred he punched Zod through during their battle.  Actually, I was a little surprised at Zod's execution, but there weren't many options, and that thematically confirmed Superman as a citizen of Earth.  Still, the presumed off-camera body count in Man of Steel is mind-boggling.  And that sort of destruction could work in another movie.  But in a Superman movie...?  I'm not so sure.  Hell, I'm not sure that more than one of those depressing-ass factoids makes sense in a Superman movie, much less all of them.  There is usually a sense of hope and optimism accompanying this character that can sometimes come across as corny Americana.

Not this time.  Man of Steel feels like someone saw what a gritty tone did for the Batman franchise and decided "If they like gritty Batman, they'll love gritty Superman!"  And I suppose they gave the people what they wanted, if the box office numbers are to be believed.

As a standalone film, Man of Steel is decent.  It was a relief that this movie didn't completely suck, and I hope to see more DC movies in the future, thanks to the success of this film.  Amy Adams and Henry Cavill are a solid core for this franchise and I wouldn't even mind Zack Snyder returning for another movie.  I honestly believe that they're going in the wrong direction with this, though.  Sequels have to up the ante, and the angst, death and destruction in this movie are already turned up to eleven.  Man of Steel was well-executed and impressive, but the questionable thematic choices kept me from truly enjoying it.