50/50

Do a Google search for "movies about cancer."  Go on, I dare you.  You will find page after page of lists for the "best" cancer movies; if you click on any of those links, though, you'll find collections of overly sentimental tripe.  I'll admit, that makes sense.  Cancer is obviously terrible and tragic and seemingly random; it's not like someone's going to make a film called "Cancer is for Assholes" or "Melanoma Wins Again."  Well, they won't make a successful film with those premises, anyway.  But cancer-themed films tend to be sappy and manipulative, not feel-good entertainment.  In other words, not very many people are going to grab some pizza and some beers and pop in a cancer flick.  50/50 may not be the movie that makes you grab some High Life and Pizza Hut, but it's probably the closest yet.  Is that a good thing?  Well, that's debatable.  How many dick jokes do you want to have in your cancer movie?

Gordon-Levitt, confessing his need for genital humor in cancer movies

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is an overly serious radio journalist in his late twenties.  He has a rude goofball for a best friend, Kyle (Seth Rogen), and a girlfriend, Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is a pretentious professional artist with questionable talent.  When Adam learns that he has a very rare form of cancer (which WebMD claims has a 50% survival rate), his life obviously begins to change.  He thought he was happy before cancer, but the emotional journey quickly takes a toll. 

On the bright side, he gained a nice hat collection

Who can he trust to take care of him?  His overbearing mother (Anjelica Huston)?  His idiot friend, who leverages Adam's illness for sympathy dates?  His embarrassingly inexperienced therapist, Katherine (Anna Kendrick)?  How about Rachael, whom he hadn't had sex with in months and who now refuses to go into the hospital with him?  Yeah, life-threatening illness can make even an average life seem like a huge bowl of soft-serve crap.  On the other hand, there are unexpected benefits to having cancer, like excellent weed, sympathy sex, and a new perspective on life.  And those are all wonderful things, provided you're on the right side of that 50%.

Not surprisingly, the bulk of 50/50's dramatic weight rests on the shoulders of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.  Thankfully, his character isn't asked to explicitly go through the stages of grief by the script, so JGL is able to surprise the audience.  

Surprise!  Adam can throw Liu Kang fireballs!

Given the subject matter, it was nice to see a main character that was convincingly and sympathetically angry, depressed, indifferent, and sometimes even funny.  Kudos to Gordon-Levitt for not hamming it up.  What surprised me most about 50/50 was how effective Seth Rogen was.  I will readily admit that I hate hate hate Rogen as a lead actor --- he basically just points out when other characters are trying to be funny --- but I really enjoyed him here.  With Gordon-Levitt representing the average guy in a bad situation, Rogen is given the freedom to be crude and funny.  Going for jokes in this story would be enough to make Rogen stand out, but his awkward, atypical way of handling things helped deliver some surprisingly emotional moments.  Even if you absolutely can't stand Rogen's trademark scene commentary (so many of his jokes are just him describing what he's seeing), there are still things to like about his performance.

Rogen's sad face looks like Rocky after a fight

Anna Kendrick was solid as the romantic interest in the film.  She does a very good job with overwhelmed characters, so this was right in her comfort zone.  I really dislike Bryce Dallas Howard (if only for her role in The Village), so I was pleased that she was never shown in a positive light in this movie; sometimes, it's nice to have a reason to dislike an actor.  Anjelica Huston was good in her brief moments onscreen, although her character's neediness sometimes overwhelmed the scenes she was in.  Character actors Matt Frewer and Phillip Baker Hall round out the cast as Adam's fellow cancer patients; Hall grabs your attention with his crotchetiness, but few actors can pull off "sickly" like Frewer.

The direction in 50/50 is not particularly striking, but I thought it was well-handled by Jonathan Levine.  There were only a few moments where his direction was truly felt --- the soft-focus/audio feedback when Adam was diagnosed was the most noticeable --- but I thought those moments were pretty effective.  The rest of the film relies on Levine to balance some pretty soul-searing emotional tragedy with jokes about getting laid.  It's a difficult task, but he pulls it off.

Actual line: "I look like Voldemort"

What I appreciated most about Levine's direction was how he dealt with some of the emotional reveals.  This is a movie about a cancer patient, so there are obviously going to be some intense, tear-welling moments, but some of the best moments came from quiet realizations; when Adam learns something that changes his attitude and it affects the viewer, it just shows how well Levine set up the contradictory idea beforehand.

50/50 doesn't bring a whole lot of novel ideas to the cancer movie sub-genre, but that's okay.  Since the path of a cancer patient is fairly predictable, that means that large chunks of the medical part of this movie are familiar.  That may be a good thing; I think the filmmakers assume the audience has at least a passing familiarity with the disease, which allows them to more or less bypass the doctor-speak and focus on the emotional repercussions.  Even though some parts of 50/50 were handled with beautiful understatement, this is still an emotionally wrenching movie.  In other words, this probably isn't a good date night flick.

...unless you want the evening to end like this

However, if a movie with serious fare being undercut by references to Seth Rogen's pubic hair grooming sounds like it's up your alley, 50/50 definitely delivers.  While I enjoyed the movie, it's probably not something I will see again in the near future.  This is probably my favorite example of how to handle serious illness in film (that I can think of off the top of my head), but it's still a hard movie for me to watch.  Most films aim to entertain, some strive to become art, but dramas about slowly dying (or maybe surviving --- no spoilers here) are difficult for me to justify watching.  It's not that I hate the movie, I just hate being put through an emotional wringer by fictional people.  In other words, I liked 50/50, even though it will never be considered the quintessential cancer movie; then again, I doubt I would want to watch any film claiming to be.

Suspicion

I decided to watch Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion for a few reasons.  First and foremost, I enjoy Hitchcock's work.  Not far behind that, I have come to the conclusion that it's never a poor choice to watch a Cary Grant film.  Thanks to the seemingly infinite supply of movies available to me (my own massive collection, Netflix by mail, on-demand streaming, etc.) I have been primarily watching films I have never seen before, often with very little in the way of foreknowledge.  That is fine most of the time, but I've had some bad luck with picking random Hitchcock movies to watch (read: they weren't classics) for this blog.  Will Suspicion break that trend?

Lina (Joan Fontaine) is well on her way to spinsterhood.  Yes, her case is hopeless, since she has no suitors, appears to not want any suitors, and she has reached the ripe old age of mmmaybe twenty-five (and that's pushing it).  Oh, and did I mention that she reads a lot and wears glasses?  Who would want to marry someone so repellant?

Disgusting!  I think I just puked in my mouth a little!

One day, Lina is singled out by the irrepressible cad Johnnie (Cary Grant), an infamous playboy.  For reasons that Lina is unclear on, Johnnie finds her abrasiveness appealing.  Very soon, Johnnie is courting Lina --- despite her family's misgivings --- and he finds all sorts of ways to woo her; he compliments her lower neck, he grooms her, and he nicknames her Monkey Face.

Johnnie, checking Monkey Face for delicious lice

That proves too much for Lina to deny and the two elope.  After a luxurious honeymoon, the pair move into a fancy new home together.  All of this would be wonderful, if not for the fact that Johnnie doesn't have a pot to piss in.  Somehow, the subject of money never came up in their courtship, and now both of them are unemployed without being independently wealthy.  That's not strictly true, I suppose; Monkey Face is the daughter of a wealthy old man (Cedric Hardwicke), so she should inherit some money someday.  In the meantime, though, Johnnie spends money he doesn't have quickly and frivolously, dodging creditors and lying with a smile whenever the subject of money comes up.  But when Lina's father dies under suspicious circumstances and doesn't leave Lina any money (not as long as she's married to that cad!), a darker side of Johnnie starts creeping in.  There is nothing concrete to indicate that Johnnie is up to no good, but Lina soon begins to piece together circumstantial evidence to arrive at a disturbing conclusion --- Johnnie is trying to kill her!

Literally spelling it out?  Subtle.

Hitchcock films are not famous for the acting performances, but Suspicion features the only Oscar-winning acting role from any Hitchcock film.  Joan Fontaine won Best Actress as Lina.  Personally, I don't get it.  Fontaine spent a good portion of the film making tragic faces away from Cary Grant.

Now, repeat thirty more times

I also didn't like the overall message of the character, but I'll touch on that in a bit.  From a performance standpoint, Fontaine was pretty good, but a touch melodramatic.  I've read a few opinions that her Oscar win was a belated award for her work in Rebecca, though, which does help explain this a bit.  Cary Grant being excellent definitely balanced out the unevenness of Fontaine's character.  Grant was his normal charming self for the most part, but it was interesting seeing him shift into the more serious moments.  The screenplay doesn't go as far with that darkness as I might have liked, but it's a good example of Grant's depth.

Shifty eyes, sinister milk

The rest of the cast was made up of character actors.  Cedric Hardwicke and May Whitty were okay as Lina's parents.  Heather Angel was fine as the pretty maid and Isabel Jeans was okay as one of the local gossips.  The only supporting character that really stuck out to me was the pleasantly dim chum to Johnnie, Beaky, played by Nigel Bruce.  It's difficult to play a clueless character without resorting to base physical humor or Dude, Where's My Car? idiocy, but Bruce was convincing as a man who could be counted on to always say the exact wrong thing.

"A toast: to whores --- a husband's best investment!"

As for the direction, Suspicion shows Alfred Hitchcock refining his craft.  There are a lot of clever bits in this movie, and most of them are extremely subtle.  The most memorable shot is of the possibly poisoned milk Johnnie brings Lina; the way it stays so brilliantly white while Johnnie is in shadows played perfectly into the tension of that scene.  There are other, less striking, examples of Hitchcock's craftiness, though.  I really liked how the plausibility of Lina's suspicions were handled; the point-of-view in this film was so definitely Lina's that the audience never sees Johnnie in a scene without her.  Who knows what he was up to when he was off-camera?  There was also the technical feat of superimposing Lina's face over an imagined tragedy, which looked very good for the time period.  Perhaps the greatest feat by Hitchcock in this film was how much he let the film rest on the shoulders of the main actors.  This is easily the most character-driven film of his I have seen and it was interesting to see him allow two flawed characters the room to grow.

The flaws in Suspicion are not just with the characters, though.  The ending is pretty terrible.  There are dozens of articles online about the supposed original or proposed alternate endings to the film, but I just want to focus on what made the final cut.  If you take the explanations given at face value, you are left with a huge anticlimax.  To say it is out of left field would be generous; I immediately drew comparisons to the end of Poochie from The Simpsons. 

If you choose to disbelieve the explanations given --- and that would be going against the obvious intent of the filmmakers --- then the ending's tone was off to an unsettling degree.  Whichever way you interpret the ending, I think it can be agreed that it is underwhelming, at best.  My larger problem with the film is the condescension that underlies the story.  If I was a woman, this movie would seriously piss me off.  Even if you choose to ignore Lina's willingness to turn a blind eye to just about everything with a passiveness that defies logic, there is still the whole concept of SPOILER: everything suspicious about Johnnie being her own fanciful imagination.  Really?  That's the explanation that ties up this plot with a little bow?  She's a woman and women are batshit crazy?  If that's the argument that the filmmakers want to propose, I'm fine with that --- it could be hilarious --- but it shouldn't be the key component to a twist ending.  The film seems to be building to such a promising end that the actual finale is incredibly disappointing.  The movie's not bad, but that ending nearly ruined it for me.

Check out this Belgian movie poster I found online for Suspicion!  Is it just me, or does it look like a dead Hitch next to Mr. Rogers?  Stick to beer, Belgians.  Movie posters are not your forte.

The Thing (2011)

Remakes are a funny thing.  On the one hand, you are making a movie to appeal to a newer, younger audience.  On the other hand, you are hoping for the built-in audience of fans who loved the original to also support the new movie.  Of course, there is almost always a backlash from the older fans who argue that the original was a classic that should not be sullied by a slick remake.  The filmmakers behind The Thing (2011) opted to sidestep that issue by making this neither a remake or a sequel, but a prequel to John Carpenter's low-budget classic The Thing (1982).  Hollywood knows how much you love prequels!  Especially prequels that doesn't come right out and tell you if they are, in fact, a prequel or not!  Seriously, how hard would it have been to not use the exact same title as the original?  Was The Thing: Episode I - The Phantom Menace taken?  How about 2 Thing 2 Furious?  The Thing 2: Electric Boogaloo?  Hell, given the plot, they could have gone the James Cameron route and just titled it Things.  But no, we have The Thing (2011).  ***sigh***

A group of Norwegian researchers has tracked down the remains of an alien spaceship that has crash-landed in Antarctica.  That alone would win them some sort of award, but the leader of the expedition, Dr. Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen), focuses exclusively on the alien corpse they found frozen in the tundra.  The team extracts the block of ice with the alien and brings it back to their base.  There, Dr. Halvorson drills into the ice block and takes some DNA to study.  And that's when things (HA!) start to go badly.  The alien wakes up and escapes; it was strong enough to both explode out of the ice block and jump through the ceiling of the facility.  Worse, the alien appears to be killing people and then disguising itself as one of them.  How can you tell who's human and who's not when you're trapped in Antarctica and don't want to precisely imitate The Thing (1982)? 

Okay, sometimes that is easier done than other times

The acting in The Thing is surprisingly solid, given that this is a survival/horror movie.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead is perfectly adequate as the heroine.  I would have liked to see some shades of grey in her choices, but that's more of a story problem than an acting one.  I was expecting more from Joel Edgerton, though; his acting was decent, but he spent a large chunk of the movie off-camera.  Eric Christian Olsen and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje were also also fine.  Nobody really stood out among the recognizable actors, but nobody was bad, either.  The rest of the cast (AKA the cannon fodder) was comprised of Norwegian actors who spoke little English.  Of them, only Jørgen Langhelle impressed me, if only because he was the only character who couldn't speak English, but he still communicated in a fairly realistic way. 

Actual dialogue: "Bork bork bork!!!"

The direction, on the other hand, was less impressive.  Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. made his feature-length debut with this movie, and it gets a bit rough in parts.  What makes the original The Thing so compelling is the suspense and the ambiguity.  This movie has little of either.  Instead of focusing on how anyone could be infected/assimilated, this film opts for the tone of a standard monster movie, making it feel more like a somewhat action-free Resident Evil than anything else.

Give that starfish some teeth and Milla Jovovich will kill it

It's not a bad idea to change the tone of this film significantly from that of the original film, but it's clear that van Heijningen Jr. wasn't doing that intentionally.  There are moments where the characters are accusing each other and acting paranoid, but those scenes lack tension and suspense.  Why?  Because the film doesn't focus on who has been alone and could be a monster.  Without the audience noticing who could be a Thing, it feels absolutely random and devoid of suspense or emotional investment.  And then there is the fact that many of the characters die of starfish-arm-powered chest punctures and everyone who is suspected of being a Thing actually is shown Thing-ing out.  I blame the director for taking a decent premise and boring me with poor execution.

One of the most iconic parts of The Thing (1982) was its truly stellar use of practical effects.  I recall hearing the filmmakers comment about how much effort was going into the practical effects of The Thing (2011), back when they were promoting the film, but there is also a substantial amount of CGI.  What practical effects were in the movie were actually pretty good.  Specifically, the alien autopsy had a pretty cool bit, although I imagine most species would have more internal organs than were shown here.

Oh, it had a person-sized pouch in its tummy?

Aside from that, though, I was significantly unimpressed.  The CGI wasn't that bad, but it was uninspired.  The monsters certainly became monstrous, but I would have liked to see more adaptation in the forms; mouths and eyes for the creature appeared to remain on the human head, which was puzzling because the original form from the ice seemed far more amorphous.

Becoming an alien, or about to projective vomit?  You decide

The most disappointing aspect of the special effects for me was how much they clearly imitated Resident Evil.  Sure, there was some continuity to the FX in the original film, but I hated the starfish-shaped killer appendages.  Is the Thing trying to murder the hell out of Antarctica, or is it supposed to be assimilating people and making its way to mainland to conquer the Earth? 

It's backup plan was to audition for The Addams Family

Even with the poor direction and the disappointing special effects, The Thing could have been a mediocre movie.  But it's not.  Why?  To put it simply, this film doesn't follow its own logic.  Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character is a paleontologist who is hired to examine the alien.  That makes sense, right?  And yet, not only is everything she says dismissed, she doesn't even do the preliminary examination of the alien's blood or body!  What the hell is she there for, if not those exact reasons?  For that matter, why is everyone so interested in the alien body, but not the ship?  The group extracts a huge ice cube with an alien inside it and where do they keep it?  In the heated building, of course.  To be fair, it was still cold in the building, but why risk any thawing/spoiling when you can just leave it outside?  It's not like a passerby is going to steal it.  Speaking of the alien, its ship was found hundreds of yards beneath the surface of the ice, and yet the alien was found only inches below.  I'm not saying that is impossible, but it seems unlikely.  Even less likely is the irrational acceptance of fire as a cure-all in this movie, despite important evidence to the contrary. 

Above: a demonstration of "Dr. Halvorson's Botanical Syrup and Skin Bronzing Solution"

So they all discover the monster, right?  And then they burn the shit out of it, right?  Well, it is soon discovered that the blood from the dead creature was not dead, which means that the crispy critter was also not dead.

And we're not talking Miracle Max or "mostly dead," either

So fire doesn't kill these Things.  And yet, it does.  You would think a little thing like its blood surviving char-broiling would lead to the "dead" Things coming back to life, but no.  And nobody has a problem with that.

From a production aspect, I have to wonder why this movie was ever made.  Was anyone dying to know how the alien was discovered?  I don't think so.  No, I suspect that someone saw the opportunity to make some cash by remaking a well-remembered horror flick and figured out a way to differentiate this from all the other horror remakes out there.  After all, the original movie touched on the Norwegian group that went through virtually the exact same experience as Kurt Russell and friends; why not exploit that to make virtually the same movie, but not have to deal with fans whining about the changes made in the update?  Of course, if they really wanted to differentiate this film from the original, then it wouldn't have the same damn title.  If this movie wasn't such a faded ditto copy, I would be a little more lenient and say it was just sub-par.  Aping a classic without the guts to admit it, along with its clumsy execution makes this movie pretty awful.

On a side note, what are the odds that Joel Edgerton's character A) has an earring in 1982 and B) is desperate for news about the Cleveland Cavaliers, who were in the middle of a 9-year period of atrociousness?

High and Low

"Telephone: the Deadliest Game of All!"

High and Low has a bit of an odd start to it.  It begins with a room full of men debating the quality of women's shoes.  Sure, the men work for the imaginatively named National Shoes company --- "Japan's leader in shoe-iness" --- but very few films choose to open like that.  Well, at least few outside of the foot fetish sub-genre.

It's not pervy if you make them and can smell them whenever you want

Kingo Gondo (Toshirô Mifune) is the head of the shoe factory, and he refuses to bend to the wishes of his colleagues, who want to start making cheaper and more stylish shoes.  Since women treat shoes as an accessory, they argue, why not make prettier but shoddier products and maximize profits?  The others need Gondo's minority holding in the company to vote the Old Man (who is dedicated to sturdy but ugly shoes) in charge out, but Gondo refuses.  He won't side with them; he also won't side with the Old Man because the shoes need to be sturdy, but Gondo also wants them to be stylish.  The others threaten to vote Gondo out at the next owner's meeting, but he throws them out on their ears.  You see, Gondo has secretly been buying up shares in the company and, if his deal goes through tonight, he will own enough of the company to survive any votes of no confidence --- he'll have more shares than the others and the Old Man combined.  To do this, and do it secretly, Gondo has had to borrow against everything he owns.  It's a big bet, but Kingo Gondo is willing to bet on himself.  All he has to do is make the final purchase tonight, and everything will be set.  If he doesn't make the payment by the morning, he will be in the poorhouse within a few weeks.  And then the phone rings. 

"I don't know...is our refrigerator running?"

A man claims to have kidnapped Gondo's son and demands an astronomical sum of money.  Even though paying the ransom will clearly ruin his career, what's a father supposed to do?  That question gets a little more complicated when Gondo's son walks into the room.  It seems that the kidnapper took the son of Gondo's chauffeur by accident.  Instead of letting the boy go or reducing the ransom, the kidnapper promises to kill the boy if the ransom is not paid in full.  Ruining your livelihood for your own flesh and blood is one thing, but ruining it for that kid who smells like milk is something else entirely.  What would you do?  Save the innocent and change your life, or risk the boy and succeed in your lifelong goal?

Or hide beneath a very short table?

Answering that question is only half the battle in High and Low.  In the first hour of the film, the camera doesn't stray from Gondo's living room as a moralistic play unfolds; Gondo's decision-making process involves speeches from his right hand man, his chauffeur, his wife, and a team of police officers called in to help catch the crook.  Once the camera leaves Gondo's home, though, the film takes on a very different tone.  At this point, it becomes a police procedural that delves into the steamy, drug-fueled city that Gondo's home overlooks.

The acting in High and Low is consistently good, although there are few standouts.  Toshirô Mifune plays the lead with a quiet intensity that contrasts sharply from his classic brash samurai characters.  His performance is almost entirely based on the decision-making process --- so there's not really a chance for little moments adding flavor to the character --- but I think he did a great job with what he had to work with.

Example: Mifune adds subtext by implying an absolute hatred for trains

Tatsuya Nakadai was solid as the lead police investigator.  Nakadai is a much better actor than he is given an opportunity to show here, but some of his trademark odd facial expressions show up from time to time.  While his part is one of a deducer and, therefore, a listener, he was interesting to watch thanks to his nonverbal acting skills.

Tsutomu Yamazaki was a pretty cool enemy in this story.  He didn't speak much, but this was a dastardly character and Yamazaki filled his nonspeaking scenes with foreboding and malice.  I would have liked to draw my own conclusions about him instead of having other characters call him a monster for every little thing he did, but that's a minor complaint.  Part of what made him so eerie was that the cinematographer was able to keep that eerie light reflection in his glasses as he stalked his prey.

Sunglasses, worn at night, so he can so he can...!

Those three really carried the film, but Kurosawa aficionados will recognize frequent collaborators Kyôko Kagawa and Takashi Shimura in small parts.  The rest of the cast was fine, mostly playing bit parts as members of the press and police force.

This is the first Akira Kurosawa film I have seen that was given a contemporary setting, and it was interesting to compare this with some of his samurai flicks.  The first thing I noticed was the theatrical acting in the first half of the film; oftentimes, characters that were not speaking stood off to the side and looked offstage, as if the speaking character was soliloquizing.  The second half of the film was a pretty good police procedural, free of melodrama and speeches.  Kurosawa is, in my opinion, at his best when he is taking advantage of a particular image.  In that regard, he did a great job with Kingo's house (inside and outside, as seen by the kidnapper) and the entire stalking scene with Yamazaki.  It was also an interesting stylistic choice to spend an entire hour in one room of one building and then run all over the city in the second half.  You can definitely argue that it ties into the symbolism of the title (which has its own fans and detractors; I'm not going to get into that), which provides an unusual insight into the hellish "low"-ness of the city slums.

"Low": a land of mirrors, rock music, and dancing

Kurosawa adapted the American novel King's Ransom, an Ed McBain 87th Precinct book, into High and Low.  I've never found anything terribly unique with McBain's work, so it's not terribly surprising that Kurosawa doesn't stick too closely to the source material here.  The script allows, in the first half, a story about corporate power plays to become a moral dilemma in an increasingly suffocating environment; the closest thing I have seen to this is Hitchcock's Rope, to give you a less foreign frame of reference.  That hour is great, with Mifune giving a perfectly contained emotional performance.  The second half of the film is a lot more interesting to watch, though.  Maybe it is the juxtaposition of a static room with a swirl of characters and locales, but the rest of the movie moves a lot faster than the set-up.  While this isn't the earliest example of a police procedural I have seen (that would be M), this is the earliest one I have seen that felt realistic.

Also worth noting: Criterion Collection cover art is awesome

Not everything in High and Low rings true today, though.  Some of the methods employed by the police force would be hilariously beyond belief in America; I can't believe a police force would hold a press conference to tell the press what they couldn't print, just as I can't believe a press corps that would all agree to publish a lie.  While Kingo's situation is sad, seeing him mow his lawn is not Bambi's-mom-getting-killed sad, I don't care how the other characters react.  Perhaps the oddest parts involved legal loopholes.  By kidnapping the wrong boy, the kidnapper could not be charged with extortion, even though he was demanding payment.  More disturbing was the official police argument that they should allow the kidnapper to commit more crimes (which he does) so they can nail him for bigger crimes that might carry capital punishment instead of just a measly five years for kidnapping.  Another thing that struck me as odd was how much the kidnapped child remembered of his drive with the kidnapper; I don't remember a thing if I'm a passenger, so I find it hard to believe that a not terribly bright (that's the impression I got) kid is going to be able to track himself like a hound dog.

If your GPS still has trouble pronouncing "spaghetti," you're in trouble

The good definitely outweighs the bad, though.  Solid acting and interesting direction make this a worthy watch for anyone, but the little things are what make this stand out; the pink smoke in a black-and-white film, the reflection on the sunglasses, the completely understandable moral dilemma, and the overall ending all combine to make this special.  The only thing that keeps me from absolutely raving about High and Low has very little to do with the film itself.  As good as this movie is, its best parts are as a police procedural, a genre that has been done to death for me.  If this was a novel concept for me, I would probably rate it a bit higher.  As is, I think it deserves a respectable

The villain's sunglasses naturally got me thinking of Corey Hart.  I had never watched the music video for this before, but it is a gem.  And by "gem," I of course mean "hilariously bad."  Enjoy.
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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.