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.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

Mission: Impossible is kind of a strange series.  The first film, directed fifteen years ago by Brian "subtlety's my middle name" De Palma, was an entertaining but logically dubious special effects feature with quadruple crosses galore.  The second film, directed by John "I rape subtlety for breakfast" Woo, was a ridiculously over-the-top and incredibly stupid tribute to slow motion effects; it also featured a theme song by Limp Bizkit.  Ugh.  The third film, directed by J.J. "Blue F'n Lights" Abrams, went back to basics, but narrowed the scope down so far that it felt more like an awesome TV show than a blockbuster movie.  Honestly, I didn't have high hopes for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, the fourth entry in the franchise.  It's not that I haven't enjoyed the other movies in the series--- they are entertaining for what they are --- but experience warns against the probability of a fourth movie in a franchise being good.  There are a few facts about Ghost Protocol that indicate that it may fare better than, say, X-Men Origins: Wolverine.  First of all, this is the first live-action feature film directed by Brad Bird, who wrote and directed one of my favorite films of the past decade, The Incredibles.  Second, despite being a blockbuster, this was not filmed in 3D, but in IMAX; I may be petty, but 3D still feels like a gimmick in most films and, as Christopher Nolan has proved, IMAX can make some awesome special effects scenes breathtaking.  Finally, Ghost Protocol makes sure to keep the heroes from donning the ridiculously perfect Mission: Impossible masks that have plagued the series so far.  But is that enough to make this fourth volume worth watching?

Look!  An actual disguise!  Times have changed since 2000.

The plots of Mission: Impossible movies can be nosebleed-inducing if examined in too much detail, so I'll try to keep this relatively simple.  A bad guy, Kurt Hendricks, (the Swedish Millennium Trilogy's hero, Michael Nyqvist) wants to start a nuclear war.  That's bad.  Worse, he has framed the IMF (Impossible Missions Force) for an international catastrophe, so the entire organization and its agents have been officially disbanded and disavowed.  Specifically, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and friends have been framed for said international catastrophe, so they top the international wanted list.  Of course, they are the only ones who realize that Hendricks is planning to ruin the world, so they need to stop him.  They are all alone, without their usual bag 'o' tricks to help them and without international government support for their actions.  But that's why it's called an impossible mission, right?

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol was never designed to be an acting Goliath, but it's not half bad.  While it certainly won't net Tom Cruise the Oscar he obviously desires so desperately, I thought he was perfectly fine in this movie.  His character is clever and pretty bad-ass, without much angst or annoying principles to get in the way.  Simon Pegg returns for a second film, and he once again provides comic relief as the nervous tech guy.  I like Pegg, but I wish he would try something a little different in his next big budget movie.  I wasn't too impressed by Paula Patton, though; she had a sizable role and had the opportunity to be sexy, conflicted, and awesome, but was missing something --- depth, for starters --- to make her character work.

Meh

A lot was made of Jeremy Renner being added to the cast of Ghost Protocol,  with rumors suggesting him as a possible heir to headline the franchise when Cruise is finished.  If so, this isn't the movie that will make that happen.  Renner is perfectly fine, but he doesn't steal any scenes and just hints at his character's potential --- he's supposedly an Ethan Hunt-level bad-ass with an analyst's mind --- instead of doing anything particularly awesome.

I said "awesome," not "a clear homage to M:I I"

Lost alumni Josh Hamilton (who I barely recognized without his signature long locks) makes a brief appearance as a good guy, but he doesn't get a chance to do much.  The good guys also had some brief appearances from Ving Rhames, Michelle Monaghan, and Tom Wilkinson; of the three, Wilkinson had the most to work with and was the most fun to watch, if only because his character defied the expectations of a bureaucrat in a Mission: Impossible movie.  As for the baddies, Anil Kapoor was fairly entertaining as a bumbling sex fiend; I will admit that I found Kapoor especially fun to watch because his hair and beard reminded me of a friend who works for NBC.  Léa Seydoux got to look disinterested and sexy as an assassin, but how hard is that if you're already bored and French?  As for the main villain, Michael Nyqvist was given surprisingly little to say or do.  Sure, he has a crazy scheme, but he doesn't talk much and --- aside from his final fight scene --- doesn't do much in the film.  I'm not slighting the man, even though he looks ready for a nap, despite having a nuclear holocaust on its way any minute.

In all fairness, Nyqvist was never meant to be the draw for this film.  Mission: Impossible has never been about the villains, so much as it has been about having high stakes and fantastically elaborate stealth and action missions to pull off something even more ludicrously difficult.

That's what I'm talking about!

So, how are the ridiculous action and stealth sequences?  Pretty well done.  As usual, Tom Cruise is the centerpiece for most of these scenes, and he showcases why he is such a big damn action star.  It doesn't matter how ridiculous the premise behind a scene is, Cruise commits to making the action as bad-ass as possible.  And it usually works.

Even Cruise being chased by sand turns out to be decently cool

It would be hard to argue that the action in Ghost Protocol is anything but top notch, and I also enjoyed the film's sneaky moments, too.  The combination of unusual set pieces and exotic locales really helped keep this entry in the series from being boring.

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is the first live-action directorial effort from Brad Bird.  He did a pretty good job.  The pacing of the film was fantastic, the action sequences were very well done, and the story wasn't too convoluted.  Heck, even the scenes that looked stupid in the movie trailer turned out to be pretty cool in the feature film.

Case in point

There aren't any impressive acting performances in the movie, but nobody was distractingly bad, either. 

As fun as Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is, it's not quite a complete victory lap.  I understand that Ethan Hunt is the main character in the series, but it is getting a little old, watching him do all the ridiculously hard stuff while his team is given fairly remedial tasks.  The action in this film maybe nonstop, but I would have liked to have been surprised by a truly awesome action sequence that showcased another character.  I was happy to find that this film's plot didn't rely too heavily on the earlier movies, but the mystery behind Ethan Hunt wasn't as fascinating as the script had hoped.  All in all, this is a fast and fun action movie, but it is missing that special something --- a fantastic villain, a more charismatic hero, an iconic plot twist, etc. --- to make it truly great.  Still, I would argue that this is in a close race for the best entry in the Mission: Impossible series.

Dahmer

When I was a kid, I was fascinated by true-life stories.  I went through scientific texts about dinosaurs at the age of six, moved on to biographies a few years later and, by the early 1990s, I had transitioned to true crime stories.  Not too surprisingly, that got me interested in serial killers --- not so much in the "finally, someone else who tortures small animals" way, but more in the "I can't believe these people exist" way.  Of course, Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy were executed around that time, so there were TV movies, news programs and books galore on the subject.  The big news from this time, though, was the arrest and investigation into the murders (and other bizarre crimes) of Jeffrey Dahmer.  In the years since, I have read up on Bundy (I have family members who actually saw him), and got creeped out by Brian Dennehy's performance as Gacy.  I never looked much farther into Dahmer, because his case was pretty messed up.  But here I am, trying to watch only horror movies for a month, and I found a biopic (which I don't usually like) on a serial killer who operated in my general geographical area --- and it has Hollywood's new "it" guy, Jeremy Renner.  I don't know how much I'll enjoy it, but here goes nothing...

Dahmer, obviously, tells the story of Jeffrey Dahmer (Jeremy Renner) at a few crucial moments in his life.  This film doesn't cover his whole life, or even his most active time as a killer, but instead jumps back and forth between the events that led up to his first murder, as well as the victim who got away. 

"Shit!  I forgot to securely handcuff my latest victim --- er, I mean, I forgot my wallet"

And that's pretty much how the movie goes.  In modern times, Jeffrey works at a chocolate factory and lures young men to his apartment, where he drugs and murders them.  There are no "sexual chocolate" jokes, thankfully.  When the story bounces back to the past, we see Jeffrey at different points, but always awkward; for the most part, though, it sticks with Jeffrey's development from awkward adolescent to creepy killer.

Creepy much?

There are really only a handful of actors in Dahmer, but they are what makes this worth watching.  Jeremy Renner was outstanding.  Going into this movie, I would not have thought it possible to give a sympathetic performance as a serial killer, but he did it, and he was still able to be creepy and frightening at the same time.  I have only one problem with his performance: his creepiness was so complete that I have difficulty imagining anyone willingly spending time with Dahmer.  The only other recognizable actor in the cast is Bruce Davidson, who plays Jeffrey's father as a bland authority figure.  There is, however, a surprisingly good supporting performance from Artel Great, who played Rodney, one of Jeffrey's victims.  It's only "surprising" to me since he hasn't really done much else of note --- his charisma and the chemistry between Great and Renner are what kept me watching.

Jeffrey picks up Rodney in a knife store.  No joke.

While the acting was very impressive, I was confused by writer/director David Jacobson.  Obviously, he worked well with his actors, and I thought he handled the tension (sexual and murder-ific) between Rodney and Jeffrey efficiently.  I don't get the script, though.  The flashbacks to Dahmer's youth come with little rhyme or reason, feeling disjointed and lost in time.  I could never tell how old Dahmer was supposed to be, because he went back and forth with his facial hair and glasses-wearing habits.  It's also difficult to believe Jeremy Renner as a nerdy outcast, given his appearance.  Until we finally get around to meeting the character that would eventually become Dahmer's first victim, none of these flashbacks felt like they were going anywhere and they were visually interchangeable. 

What are they looking at?

I was also surprised to find that Dahmer steers mostly clear of the more sensational aspects of Dahmer's crimes.  He does bust out a power drill early on, and we do see a severed head in a box, but the film doesn't mention cannibalism or spend much time on dismemberment.  Honestly, that makes this a far easier film to watch, but it's peculiar that there isn't more time spent on the more monstrous things Dahmer did.  In fact, we only see two murders in the whole movie.  Many others are implied, but only two are shown.

That just means that Jacobson didn't want to make an exploitative movie out of a subject that had already been squeezed dry by this point --- there is a comic book titled Jeffrey Dahmer vs. Jesus Christ, if you want to see exploitation at its best.  I am fine with that choice.  I am not okay with the choice of glossing over the other fifteen murders Dahmer confessed to.  I understand why it was done, but I disagree with the choice; Jacobson did a shockingly good job humanizing a notorious serial killer, and showing him kill piles of people would negate that effort.  Honestly, I would have preferred if Jacobson simply took his inspiration from Jeffrey's life, but not his name; when you make a biopic and give it a cover-all title like Dahmer (instead of, say, "What's Eating Jeffrey Dahmer?"), you are expected to cover a broader slice of the subject's life than Jacobson does. Jacobson's choices lead to a character that is more sympathetic, but a story that meanders on its way to the climax.

Despite my problems with the story, I can't get over just how surprised I was by the acting in this film.  There is even a moment in Dahmer where your heart almost breaks for Jeffrey, when Rodney seems willing to accept him, warts and all.  Of course, Rodney hasn't seen the corpse in the bedroom, but his intention is touching.  I wouldn't call this an enjoyable viewing or an engaging script, but the acting talent is magnetic.

The Town

The Town begins with the line, "There are over 300 bank robberies in Boston every year. Most of these professionals live in a 1-square-mile neighborhood called Charlestown."  The promotional posters claim that Boston is the "bank robbery capital of America."  Here's a shocker for you: that's not exactly true.  According to the FBI, Ohio had almost three times as many bank robberies as Massachusetts in the first quarter of last year, and all of Massachusetts might not reach 300 for the year.  According to an FBI spokesperson, they do not collect data by neighborhood, and Boston wasn't even in the top five cities for bank robberies in the US.  Does any of that matter?  Not really, I just like to research interesting claims made in movies.

Doug (Ben Affleck) is a second-generation Bostonian career criminal.  He commits armed robberies with his lifelong buddies, Jem (Jeremy Renner), Gloansy (Slaine), and Dez (Owen Burke).  Doug is the brains of the group, at least in part because he has stopped drinking and doing drugs, while all his friends care about are "coke and XBox."  The group lets Doug plan things out so nobody gets hurt and they all make it home safely.  The film opens with the team robbing a bank, wearing Rastafarian-inspired Skeletor masks and armed with automatic weapons.  The robbery goes more or less as planned, except for Jem beating an unarmed bank employee (Victor Garber) to a pulp and taking the bank manager, Claire (Rebecca Hall), hostage.  During their escape, Doug calms everyone down and Claire is released, unharmed.  Still, Gloansy and Dez are a little put off by Jem's recklessness.  Bad news, guys: it's gonna get worse.  Jem took Claire's driver's license as a scare tactic to keep her from talking; she lives in their neighborhood, which is bad news for criminals trying to avoid being identified.  Jem offers to "take care of" Claire, but Doug opts to handle the mission himself; he "accidentally" meets her, just to see if she has any way to identify the group (she does).  But instead of doing the hard-boiled criminal thing and killing her or threatening her, Doug genuinely likes Claire and the two start dating.  As the story continues, Doug and Claire get more serious and Doug starts contemplating a life beyond Boston.  Meanwhile, the boys keep getting jobs from the local crime boss, Fergie the Florist (Pete Postlethwaite), and the Florist doesn't take "no" for an answer.  Making things even worse, Jem is getting more and more reckless.  On top of all that, FBI Special Agent Adam Frawley (Jon Hamm) has the group in his sights, has some circumstantial evidence to tie them to past robberies, and is now actively trying to get evidence to nail Doug and his buddies.  Isn't that just the way things work?  Whenever you want to get off the carousel, it just seems to get faster and faster.

This is Ben Affleck's second directorial effort and third co-writing credit, and he did another good job.  The supporting cast gave pretty good performances, with Renner as the clear stand-out in the cast, and Affleck handled the lead role well.  The robbery scenes were handled quickly and efficiently, which added to the impression of their team as a group of professionals.  The whole movie felt busy.  A lot happens; aside from the three armed robberies, there is the love story, Affleck and Renner's crumbling bromance, the FBI's case, and some father-son time between Affleck and Chris Cooper.  I don't know what else they might have added to the Extended Cut, which is twenty-eight minutes longer than the standard version I watched, but the pace of the film is brisk and everything clicks together nicely.

I'm not a huge fan of Ben Affleck's acting --- I think the last movie I enjoyed him in was Shakespeare in Love ---but he did a decent job here.  I don't think he played that remarkable of a character, but he was likable enough for me.  Jeremy Renner gave the film's best performace, bar none.  As the increasingly psychotic Jem, he made the movie.  You know how Joe Pesci made Goodfellas so much more entertaining with his surprising violence?  That is the rough equivalent of Renner in The Town.  Jon Hamm is pretty good as the FBI agent, but he was stuck between being a total jerk and a smart guy, but not enough of either to really impress me.  He did swear a lot, though, in a script peppered with profanity.  Rebecca Hall handled the more dramatic moments for her character well, but I was pretty indifferent to her overall.  Chris Cooper was good in his small role.  Blake Lively was only in a couple minutes of the film, so I have no idea why she is on the movie poster.  When you break this movie down to look at each actor's performance, it becomes apparent that this is really more of an ensemble cast than a star vehicle.  Somehow, though, Renner manages to draw all the attention his way.

After finishing the film, I joked to my wife that this was like Heat, but without the great expectations.  That's actually not a bad description at all.  Good job, self!  The Town shows us several well-executed and daring robberies, and looks good doing it.  It starts to do something different, with Doug's desire to leave crime behind him, but aside from the truly regrettable The Notebook-styled final shot of the movie, Affleck never follows through on that promise.  Yes, the inevitable shootout scenes were pretty well-done, even if nobody seemed to get shot, even at close range.  But this movie hinted at something a little different than the typical "one last heist" you see in so many crime movies.  The Town is a pretty good movie that, had it followed through on what made it different, could have been great.

The Hurt Locker

I'm trying not to review movies that I have watched in the past, but rather movies that I just finished watching.  I think that reviewing a movie months or years after the viewing is unfair to the film in question.  I saw The Hurt Locker when it came out on DVD last month, but since it just won Best Picture, I figured it was okay for me to bend the rules and throw my two cents in now.

War movies are, as a genre, a mix of testosterone and malestrogen (the bodily chemical that causes Man Tears).  If you disagree, watch your grandpa's reaction to the end of Saving Private Ryan; when the elderly Matt Damon character is talking to Tom Hanks' grave, I guarantee gramps will be quietly leaking tears made of beer, sweat, and cursing.  The Hurt Locker plays against type by never really having that malestrogen moment, or for that matter, much of anything when it comes to small moments.

Jeremy Renner plays a bomb technician who joins a new company after their friend and bomb technician is killed in action.  Renner plays the new guy entering the established status quo, which consists of a three man team, played by Anthony Mackie, Brian Garaghty, and now Renner.  Renner is a lone wolf who is seemingly oblivious to danger, while his teammates are all too aware of it.  This acts as the main conflict in the film, as Mackie and Garaghty's characters are just trying to survive the remainder of their deployment, while Renner is just interested in defusing bombs, regardless of his own or his team's safety.  Unlike a lot of war films, then, the conflict here is an emotional one between a small group of people.

Renner does a pretty good job as a bomb technician.  Yes, he's overly confident and casual about danger, but I see that as realistic for a character that decides that war isn't dangerous enough, so he decides to defuse homemade bombs.  It's a good thing that Renner's performance is pretty good, since Mackie and Garaghty don't do much with their parts.  Mackie spends most of his screen time scowling and Garaghty might as well have been doing a screen test to play Linus in a live-action "Peanuts" movie.  Neither performance is bad, mind you, but both could have done better.  Both have a moment, though, after the three of them get drunk together that was pretty good.  Renner has one scene in particular where his character shines in a very understated way.  It's a simple scene, featuring him speaking softly to his infant child, trying to articulate why he likes the army and why he feels uncomfortable as a civilian.  It's a simple, understated scene that could easily have been sappy or overblown, but is allowed to be subtle and trust the intelligence of the viewer.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of smaller bits that knock the movie down a few notches for me.  The first is the movie's slogan, "War is a Drug."  Now you know that director Kathryn Bigelow, the director of such subtle masterpieces as Point Break and K-19: The Widowmaker (AKA "Harrison Ford can't do accents"), is going to be using metaphors.    I understand that the movie feels like a grind to watch at times because the soldiers' lives have a lot of boredom and repetition, despite the dangers.  Understanding what the director was going for doesn't mean that I appreciate it, though; it kind of reminds me of Christopher Nolan's Insomnia... yes, it felt like I was suffering from insomnia like Al Pacino, but it doesn't mean I ever want to see the movie again.  There are two other scenes where Renner's character shows his humanity (or, really, one long scene), but when Renner's character slips off the Army base, the purpose of the scene loses its direction and impact.  David Morse's bit part rubbed me the wrong way, too, the way he acted like Flavor Flav to Renner's Chuck D; I think the viewers can figure out that Renner's a "madman," he doesn't need a hype man.  It was nice seeing Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes in a decent movie, but their parts were so small that these excellent actors could barely leave an impression.

Overall, the film tries to make some intelligent points about war and the people that choose to be in the Armed Forces.  The movie had some wonderfully eloquent, subtle scenes, but it countered those with ham-fisted metaphors.  Renner was pretty good, but the director didn't get enough out of the supporting cast to fulfill the potential of this well-shot film.