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.

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.

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.

Sherlock Holmes (2009)

One of the things about Sherlock Holmes stories that has always bothered me is the big reveal at the end.  More often than not, Holmes will figure out whatever secret the story requires relatively early in the plot, but will refuse to explain anything until the story is all but over.  It's not like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories were predictable by any means, so giving a hint here and there wouldn't hurt the story at all.  Instead, Holmes lectures Watson and the reader in an almost Jeff-Goldbloom-in-Independence-Day manner; his leaps in logic are enormous, the facts he spouts are obscure and unknown to any reader, and the facts that are given in the narrative are completely insufficient for any reader (even a detective) to reach the same conclusions independently.  As stories, I enjoy Holmes, but as mystery stories, I find their mockery insulting.

This movie, though, has the right idea.  Sherlock Holmes keeps the spirit of Doyle's best work, but manages to not be constrained by the source material.  This movie is the first Holmes film (to my knowledge) to have an original screenplay.  That means that even the most avid Holmes fan does not know what will happen next.  Brilliant!  Why didn't anyone think of this before?  I can imagine the pitch: "Umm...maybe, in this movie, the mystery can be one that wasn't written a hundred years ago?  Maybe?" 

Freed from the tethers of a predictable script, this movie really shines with its focus on the bromance between Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey Jr.) and Dr. John Watson (Jude Law).  Yes, the plot is really about the nefarious scheming of Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), but the bromance takes center stage.  This only works, though, because the two leads have great chemistry.  Downey's Holmes emphasizes the weird eccentricities of the character well, showing the brilliant as well as the crackpot aspects almost simultaneously.  The best moments with Holmes, though, were the simple ones.  For instance, his dinner date with Watson and Watson's fiance-to-be shed light on his character, from when he ordered his food (he timed it perfectly!) to the strain he endures due to his all too acute observation faculties.  Those were just great touches.  Jude Law was an interesting casting choice for Watson.  Oftentimes, Watson is portrayed on film as the quintessential sidekick to Holmes; he usually seems likable, but inferior to Holmes in every way except his ability to grow a mustache.  Here, he is intelligent, able, and very much Holmes' equal.  By making Holmes a little less omnipotent than usual and making Watson more competent, this film finally makes sense of their friendship.  The best parts of the film have these two arguing or helping each other out, in true best friend fashion.  Really, this feels more like a buddy flick than the typical wait-for-Holmes-to-explain-everything Sherlock mystery.  By having this film more character-based than plot-based, the filmmakers made this film more entertaining than any other Sherlock Holmes movie.

The plot here is relatively unimportant, since you know Holmes and Watson are going to solve an impossible mystery.  What is important, though, is the work of the supporting cast.  Mark Strong is a natural villain and his performance was on par with the two lead actors.  He wasn't fantastic, but he plays a respectable foil to Holmes' brilliance.  It is worth noting that Strong's character is an original creation for this film.  The supporting actresses, though, have their origins in Doyle's tales.  Rachel McAdams plays Irene Adler, the only woman to outwit Holmes ---twice! --- and thus, won his heart.  Kelly Reilly plays Mary, Watson's love.  Of the two, Reilly does a better job, adding assertiveness and some intelligence to a role that doesn't require much effort.  McAdams plays a femme fatale, but not very well.  Personally, I think she was miscast here.  The character is untrustworthy, clever, and sneaky.  When McAdams tries to portray these traits, she comes off as a sweet girl who abruptly becomes conniving with the flip of a switch.  If she played the role as a woman that was pretending to be nice, but was a stone cold bitch underneath, I might buy it.  Her abruptness, though, was off-putting.  Other key supporting performances by Hans Matheson and Eddie Marsan were a little more natural than McAdams', but more forgettable.

The blend of humor, action, and Britishness combine to make this easily the best film director Guy Ritchie has made since 2000's Snatch.  It has his trademarked slow-motion/fast-motion action, but Robert Downey Jr.'s narration over these scenes adds a pleasant new element to this standard trick for Richie.  The movie is well-paced and the character scenes show humor and even a little heart.  McAdams' acting indicates that Ritchie still hasn't quite figured out what to do with female main characters yet (Swept Away, anyone?), but he is definitely making strides toward becoming a more well-rounded storyteller.  The CGI used to make Old London was mostly well-used, although the climactic bridge scenes had some completely unnecessary zoom out with 360-degree camera rotation, a la Tony Scott.  Still, it is nice seeing Ritchie making fun movies again.

Was this a great film?  No, I wouldn't say that.  The main actors were a lot of fun to watch, but the supporting cast was a little lackluster.  The plot was decent, but forgettable.  Luckily, the movie focused on the Holmes-Watson friendship instead of the plot.  Fantastic detectives need fantastic mysteries to solve, after all, and an unimpressive mystery can only hinder a Sherlock Holmes tale.  To make up for this lack, the action and humor were turned up and used well.  That makes this a light, fun movie that serves as an excellent appetizer for a potentially awesome sequel.