Blogorium Review: Mad Max - Fury Road

 (editor's note: please forgive the relative lateness of this review - the Cap'n insisted on seeing the film a second time before turning this in.)

 Eh. It was okay, I guess. You know, nothing special.

 Nah, I'm just pulling your chain. This is the internet, where everything either rules or sucks, and there's no level of hyperbole big enough to attach to something, but even I can't argue with the fact that Fury Road is the goods. For a little while there, at the beginning, I thought I maybe had, though: it's not for very long, but right after Max (Tom Hardy) crashes his Interceptor and gets captured, your fearless Cap'n was worried he might have overhyped himself for this movie. Something about the persistent flashback, um, flashes (that might not actually be what we think they are, but more on that later) and the strangely under-cranked action as Max tries to escape the Citadel just felt... off. Like, something wasn't working. Also, it felt less like under-cranked camerawork and more like someone set the video to play at 1.5 speed but kept the audio the same. Since we're in a digital projection world, I did worry that maybe that could actually have happened.

 But then that went away and George Miller settled down and suddenly it was a Mad Max movie, and it just got better and better. And by that I also mean more bugnuts crazy until you thought it couldn't anymore and then there's the guy strapped to the wall of amplifiers on a truck who plays an electric guitar that also shoots fire while six dudes play massive drums behind him. All so you know that doom is coming. Also, his name is The Doof Warrior. That's not even the craziest character name in the film, which includes the likes of Immortan Joe, Imperator Furiosa, Rictus Erectus, The Splendid Angharad, The People Eater, and Cheedo the Fragile. All of a sudden, Max Rockatansky, The Humungus, and Aunty Entity don't seem so outlandish.

 In the Retro Review for Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, I singled out how much I liked the "world building" aspect of the film, specifically Barter Town. Miller ups the ante a bit in Fury Road by giving us three hubs of post-apocalyptic civilization (even if we only see one): Gas Town, The Bullet Farm, and The Citadel. We only spend any time in The Citadel, run by warmonger Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne), but we meet The People Eater (John Howard) and The Bullet Farmer (Richard Carter), who run things. No Master or Blaster here. They don't seem particularly happy to be dragged into a "domestic squabble" when Joe's lieutenant Furiosa (Charlize Theron) smuggles his wives out of The Citadel inside of her "War Rig" - a fully loaded tanker truck designed for offense and defense. Joe doesn't take kindly to Furiosa stealing his "property," and takes great exception to The Splendid Angharad (Rose Huntington-Whiteley) writing "We are not Things" inside the vault he keeps them in. His "brides" are for breeding, just like his Warboys are for fighting, and the milk maidens are for, uh, milk.

 Joe is a diseased ridden old man covered in cancerous tumors, but underneath his painted muscle shell and hidden behind his post-apocalyptic Darth Vader breathing apparatus, he's managed to brainwash the huddled masses of The Citadel into thinking he's a god. He gives them water when he feels like it, has a shrine of removable steering wheels, makes grandiose speeches and promises the equally "half life" diseased Warboys that their sacrifices will lead them to the gates of Valhalla. And they believe it. The Warboys and War Pups worship this guy, and in his defense it's not like Joe just sends out his minions to get Furiosa and the brides back. He packs into his "cars stacked on top of each other" monstrosity and leads the pack, aforementioned Doof Warrior along for the ride. Also in the convoy is a rebuilt V-8 Interceptor, freshly pilfered from The Citadel's newly acquired "blood bag": Max Rockatansky.

 I'm sure you've noticed that we got a ways into the synopsis before Max figures into the story, but that's because, like in Thunderdome, he's dragged into another power struggle that he had no part in to begin with. We just spend a little more time with the players in this particular story than we did in Thunderdome or The Road Warrior. It's not Max's fight, and this time he really doesn't want to be involved, but since he's literally strapped to the front of Warboy Nux (Nicolas Hoult)'s car, feeding him "high octane road warrior universal donor" blood, Max has no choice. He's chained to Nux, and Nux is a hard core fanatic of Immortan Joe willing to die at least three times to stop Furiosa. And Max is stuck to this idiot, to the point that he literally has to carry him around after they miraculously survive an electrical storm Furiosa drives through to lose the convoy.

 When Max finally catches up to the actual protagonists, there's a funny moment where Miller plays with the concept of the "male gaze" in introducing the "brides": Immortan Joe keeps women who look like supermodels and has them all in similarly scantily clad white... well, I guess cloth would be the right description. It's not really clothes. Max sees Splendid drinking, to the point where she's soaking wet, but it becomes clear very quickly that his (and the camera's) gaze is directed at the water, not the post-apocalyptic wet-shirt contest on display. And then there's a fight, because Max decides to hold them at gunpoint. The ladies have been using a bolt cutter to remove chastity belts that give the term "vagina dentate" a new meaning, and after a drink, he wants to lose some Nux dead weight. Furiosa, robot arm detached, doesn't take kindly to this, and a smarter than usual struggle involving Max, Furiosa, the brides, Nux, and the chain ensues. But Max isn't interested in killing anybody. He just wants out - this isn't his fight, but he'll take your War Rig, thanks.

 Some folks have complained that Max is more of a supporting character in Fury Road, and that it's unfair to have his name in the title since Furiosa is more or less the protagonist of the film. However, the story isn't that much different than the way The Road Warrior or Beyond Thunderdome are structured: Max travels the wasteland, runs into trouble, and reluctantly helps a group of survivors before taking off again on his own (SPOILER for The Road Warrior and Beyond Thunderdome). The difference between those films and Fury Road is that we spend most of the expository period with Max, whereas in this one there's a lengthy period of time where he has little or no agency. Max is a prisoner all the way up until he wrestles the pistol away from Furiosa, and when her "kill switch" shuts down the War Rig, he's essentially at her mercy. Max doesn't so much agree to help them as he does go along for the ride, eventually deciding to do the right thing when they pass through the canyons.

 (MILD SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT: There's an interesting, if underdeveloped parallel between Joe's obsession with his "property" and Max's continued protestation about the Warboys stealing what's belongs to him. He repeatedly shouts to the driver of his Interceptor that it's "mine," and the first thing he does after he's freed from Nux is take his jacket back. There's not really any kind of thematic resolution to being fixated on "things" for Max - the Interceptor is destroyed, but he keeps his jacket, and he's mostly replaced his stuff by the time he kills the Bullet Farmer)

 What follows is a mostly non-stop chase in one direction, and then a chase back, after the "Green Place" Furiosa promised the brides no longer exists. It's actually impressive to consider that a film with this much uninterrupted action has enough of a plot that I'm leaving out everything that happens after the "wetlands"

 I'm going to address and sidestep the "is this a reboot / is this a prequel" argument by saying that if Furiosa hasn't seen the Vuvalini in "7,000 days" - roughly twenty years and that Max was still a cop before the world collapsed, then maybe Fury Road is both. And by that I mean that since Miller (Happy Feet) has been working on this Mad Max film since 2003 (when it almost happened) that Furiosa could have been kidnapped post-apocalypse and taken to The Citadel while, let's say, The Road Warrior was happening. You could argue that a Mel Gibson-aged Max would have made sense in that timeline, while a Tom Hardy Max seems, um, a little young. And not just because he's three years younger than Theron. But since we have the math we have in Fury Road and it at the very least directly acknowledges Mad Max, let's just agree that none of them have to be sequels and are all stories set in the Wasteland. Chronology dodge activated.

 That said, it was nice to have tiny, unobtrusive nods to the other Mad Max movies (and Peter Weir's The Cars That Ate Paris), ones that you might not have noticed. The music box one of the "wives" is playing with. The shot of Toecutter's eyes when Max is dreaming in the rig. My favorite is the Thunderdome reference, when Max is collecting weapons from Furiosa and completely misses the knife hidden in something else. They don't draw attention to themselves, but they're there. Miller's idea of "fan service" is to remind you of what world you're in without saying "hey, everybody, remember The Road Warrior, that movie was really cool!" Like everything else, it's about the economy of storytelling: showing, not telling. We learn a lot about the Citadel and the various factions in Fury Road without exposition dumps.

 Take, for example, the moment that actually launches Fury Road: Furiosa's sudden turn left on the road to Gas Town. In most movies where someone working for a big bad guy decides to betray them, the people accompanying the "traitor" try to stop them, much to their detriment. What happens instead in Fury Road is an insight into the mentality of the War Boys. Without being told that they obey their power structure without question, we understand that they wouldn't dare question Furiosa when she says they're taking a "detour," even though she provides them with no explanation whatsoever. They fight for her and protect her, and end up dying to defend her mission without even knowing what she's trying to do.

 It's the same unquestioning loyalty Nux has for Immortan Joe for the first half of the film, and even though we don't know much about Furiosa or Joe, we know that no matter what they decide, the War Boys support them. Nux is functionally our gateway into the mindset of Warboys, who are so naïve and sheltered that he doesn't even know what a tree is. The brides, in contrast, seem to have a better understanding of Immortan Joe's propaganda, but some of them (Cheedo in particular) believe he's capable of forgiveness in the same way they are. They stop Furiosa from killing Nux and convince her (and Max) to let him help, and their mercy contributes to the success of their plan. They also contrast well with the Vuvalini, the tribe of warriors Furiosa comes from. There's a conversation between The Dag (Abbey Lee) and the Keeper of the Seeds (Melissa Jaffer) where the former expresses surprise at the latter's boast she's killed everyone she met in the wasteland. "I thought you'd be above all that," she muses.

 While I remain partial to The Humungus and admire the ambiguous threat that is Aunty, Immortan Joe is quickly rising on the list of "Mad Max villains." He's arguably just a combination of Humungus and Wez into one character, with a much better power structure, but Keays-Byrne conveys a sense of entitled insanity using only his eyes most of the film. He doesn't ever actually do anything other than drive, but the aggregate effect of his influence over the brides and the Warboys is palpable throughout the film. It raises the question of how someone so charismatic and control oriented would allow Furiosa to meet with the Rock Riders in the first place. He trusts her, and it's clear she's been in the Citadel since a very young age, but it seems unlikely that he authorizes trips anywhere other than Gas Town or the Bullet Farm. I'd also like to mention former WWE Smackdown Superstar Nathan Jones as Rictus Erectus, Immortan Joes' healthiest son (when you see Corpus Colossus, that will make more sense), who has a fantastic moment of pride when he announces that he had a baby brother, who was "perfect in every way!" He's surprisingly touching as the "heavy" of this film.

 I'll get to Tom Hardy in a moment, but there's no point in discussing the actors in Fury Road without taking some time to appreciate what Charlize Theron does as Furiosa. She emerges early in the film as fully formed, even though she has arguably less back story than even Max. We know Max - we've seen him before - but Furiosa effortlessly takes the stage and keeps the stakes high. Theron balances a steely determination with eyes that reflect doubt at every turn. She's not making a mistake in what she's doing, but is how she's doing it going to work? Can she really trust Max or Nux, or are they just going to hinder her? We know very little about her relationship with Immortan Joe - he obviously trusts his Imperator, to a fault, but if she's been in the Citadel since a very young age, in what capacity? Was Furiosa a bride before she lost her arm? How did she lose it? What about the skeleton stencil on the War Rig? Is that some kind of reference? There's a lot to wonder about them, all of which comes to a head when she growls "remember me" near the end of the film. What she's seeking "redemption" for isn't always clear, but we want her to find it, and so does Max.

 Oddly enough, Tom Hardy left less of an impression on me the first time I saw Fury Road. It wasn't until the second viewing that I really paid attention to Max, knowing where Furiosa's story was heading. Hardy has a strange balancing act, not quite sounding like Mel Gibson (or even Australian, at times), but still playing a character we know. I'm not going to lie that sometimes his pronunciation choices sounds just a little like Bane, but it was less distracting the second time. He's more chatty when tied to the front of Nux's car than I would have expected, but it's drowned out by the noise surrounding him. He's less chatty in the rest of the film, speaking more frequently through action (although the best moment in the movie happens off-screen). Hardy seems a little hampered by a character development I'll mention in a bit, but overall he assumes the role of Max well. It would have been interesting to see Gibson playing this part, but I think it might have radically changed the way audiences react to Max's fight with Furiosa.

Even after seeing the film for a second time, the feeling I came out with was still one of admiration. It's rare to see an action film that's so carefully constructed, so clearly thought out. These days I'll be happy for one that unobtrusively relies on quick edits or CG heavy sequences (Furious 7, I'm looking at you), but to see a film with action that's easy to follow and is still dynamic is really impressive. Georg Miller conveys his information visually, more so in Fury Road than in any of the other Mad Max films. He expands on the concept of post-apocalyptic "world building," but never lets it detract from the story. Everything you learn about the world surrounding the Citadel comes from seeing it and how the characters react. Something as simple as the people in stilts wandering through a radioactive swamp is evocative of a world we may never explore again. All of the tribes in the film are fully realized, even if we only get brief glimpses of them. It really is something to behold.

The one exception to this is an out of place reliance on Max's hallucinations / dreams about the people he couldn't save. I don't necessarily mind explaining to an audience thirty years later why the character is "mad," but the haunted quality is sometimes distracting from the immediacy of Fury Road. If I'm going to pick nits here, this is a recurrent them in Fury Road almost exclusively - Max never addresses things like this in The Road Warrior or Beyond Thunderdome. He doesn't say much of anything about his life "before" in either film, but I suppose if we're operating on the premise that there's no real chronology here, I can live with it. It keeps him alive at least once and is (mostly) resolved before he gets back to the Citadel, but even after the second viewing it sticks out to me. If the series continues - and announcements aside, there's no guarantee of that - I wouldn't miss dropping this version of "Mad" Max.

 Of course, it's nice that Mad Max: Fury Road is technically a reboot that's content to be self contained. In an age where every movie needs to have an opening for a trilogy or a spin-off, I find it refreshing that as much as I like Furiosa, we've probably seen as much of her as we'll ever seen. Knowing Miller's penchant for Mad Max continuity, it's very unlikely that a major character - even one as memorable as hers - will appear again. There's plenty of Wasteland to explore, more towns and world building, and while it doesn't feel like audiences I saw the film with really embraced Fury Road (half empty auditoriums will give you that impression), maybe there's a chance for one more down the line. If not, there are now three great Mad Max movies, and Thunderdome, which I think is still mostly pretty good. I can't complain about that. Hell, I might go see it on the big screen one more time - if you're going to see it (and you should), you owe it to yourself to see it as large as possible.

Retro Review: Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

 So there's some kind of Mad Max movie coming out this weekend, but I heard it sucks so there's no point in talking about that, right? Why waste time talking about some dumb reboot when we can discuss the true highlight of George Miller's post-apocalyptic saga, the only one to have earned its own dedicated Mystery Science Theater 3000 joke? Of course, I'm talking about Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and all joking aside, I do actually like it. I know that Thunderdome is the "black sheep" of the Mad Max movies, if only because most people have only seen Mad Max 2 (The Road Warrior) and / or forget that Mad Max 1 (Mad Max) is nothing like its sequels, vehicular mayhem aside. That's okay, because they're kind of right to think that Thunderdome is not as good as The Road Warrior, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have its charms. As long as those charms don't involve the term "Captain Walker".

 There's significantly less vehicular mayhem on display for most of Beyond Thunderdome, starting with the fact that Max (Mel Gibson) is riding on a camel-drawn truck, which he quickly loses to Jedediah (Bruce Spence), who is not the gyro-copter pilot from The Road Warrior* but is another pilot who has a son (Adam Cockburn). We don't even know it's Max right away, but I mean, who else is the movie going to start with? Max has scraggly, long hair, and one of his eyes is a different color after the crash Wez (Vernon Miller) caused in the last movie, but it's still him. He's understandably not pleased that someone knocked him off of his vehicle and took it, so he follows the trail of detritus to Barter Town. If you meet somebody who will admit to liking Thunderdome (as I do), this section of the film is probably their favorite part. It is for me, but that's because I'm a sucker for world-building in post-apocalyptic cinema, and Barter Town is a great example of how humanity reforms itself after collapse.

 Max has to enter with the rabble, because who is he? Nobody. No one in Barter Town cares that he used to be a cop or that he saved a whole community and smuggled out their gasoline from Lord Humungus (Kjell Nilsson) that one time. Those stories don't get passed around until the Feral Kid (Emil Minty) grows up, anyway. To Barter Town, he's just some dude who walked in, just like everybody else. He doesn't have anything worth trading with The Collector (Frank Thring) at the gate, so he has to be a little more, shall we say, persuasive, but you still have to turn in your weapons or get lost. You can keep the flyswatter, I guess. The pilot has to be here somewhere, so Max has one hour to find him. Instead, he meets Aunty (Tina Turner)**, and her goons.

 Aunty likes Max's moxie, and when he dispatches some goons with the knife hidden inside his flyswatter, she's even more impressed. Like Max, Aunty was someone else before, and she senses that he's resilient, and adaptable. Mostly that he's dangerous, which is good, because Aunty has a problem. She likes to think she runs Barter Town, but there's a bit of a power struggle. See, in order to keep the power running, she needs the generator to keep running, and only Master (Angelo Rositto) knows how to keep the pig shit / methane production going underground. Master's a diminutive fellow, but that's why he has Blaster (Paul Larsson) as his muscle. As long as Master Blaster is a unit, Aunty doesn't really run Barter Town. Master runs Barter Town, and if he feels he's being slighted, he cuts the power off to prove it.

 The way that Master and Blaster are introduced leans heavily on presenting them as antagonists, even though there's clearly something about Aunty that's not to be trusted. Max goes down to Underworld, where Master runs everything, in order to learn more about Blaster. If he can defeat him in combat, everything the pilot stole will be returned to him, plus methane. Of course, once he's down there, it becomes clear who has his truck: Master. Max rigged it to explode, so any attempts to repair it have been thwarted. Master draws a hard line with Max, but in the process reveals Blaster has a weakness: high pitched sounds, including a penny whistle that Max has been carrying around. Max takes Aunty's offer and we're off to Thunderdome. Two men enter. One man leaves.

 It goes without saying that the Thunderdome portion is the best part of the movie, not only because it's an inventive, exciting action sequence, but also because it has some of the best examples of world-building in the film. Aunty keeps the citizens and criminals of Barter Town in line by giving them gladiatorial-like combat, provided in a dome they can hang onto. She also gives them easy to remember catchphrases to keep them invested: "Two men enter. One man leaves." "You break the deal, you spin the wheel." Nobody watching Max fighting Blaster seems to know or care about the stakes, and it's not necessarily clear that anyone cares who really runs Barter Town. There's a fight in Thunderdome, and Blaster is the reigning champ. There is, of course, another twist, one that we find out at the same time Max does, that almost immediately reverses our sympathies towards the otherwise loathsome Master. Aunty gets what she wants, even when Max "breaks the deal," and he has to "spin the wheel". Luckily for Max, he lands on "Gulag". It may not be so lucky for us.

 So Aunty ships off Max, on the back of a horse with a paper mache mask, into the desert, thus exiting the "Barter Town" section of the film. Unfortunately, it ushers in the "Never, Neverland" portion of Beyond Thunderdome, which feels like it belongs in a different movie. Mostly because it does: the original concept, prior to being appropriated into a Mad Max film, was about a group of children left alone in the post-apocalypse, who form their own Peter Pan-esque society. It turns out that when you drop Max into the equation, that doesn't harmonize as well as one might think. I'm not opposed to juxtaposing the hardened Max Rockatansky with innocent children, many of whom seem to have completely forgotten about the plane crash they survived (and almost everything else), but the mid-section of Beyond Thunderdome grinds whatever narrative progress there was to a halt. Okay, the children think he's "Captain Walker," the pilot of the plane they crashed in who left to get help. Only he's not, and they figure that out, but decide they can still find the "Tomorrow-Morrow Land" Captain Walker promised them, so he reluctantly follows them back into the desert. I wonder where they'll end up?

 In the defense of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, things do pick up when they decide to rescue Master and escape using the locomotive he lives in, with the help of Jebediah and son. The chase scene is largely what Miller directed (George Ogilvie handled the rest of the movie), and it's reminiscent of some of the better moments in Mad Max and The Road Warrior, even if the comically un-killable Ironbar (Angry Anderson) eats up much of the screen time. The ending is surprisingly reminiscent of The Road Warrior, substituting Savannah (Helen Buday) for the Feral Child, as Max once again becomes a story of a budding society. Epilogue aside, I do appreciate the last scene between Max and Aunty, when she and her gang have him dead to rights, having once again separated from the others in an act of sacrifice. There's no reason she shouldn't kill him, having functionally ruined Barter Town and costing her Master, but she just laughs and lets Max go. There's the grudging respect between two survivors we saw early in the film, and after everything goes to hell, what's the point in killing him? We don't need another hero. He's alone in the desert, and she's going back to Barter Town. Let the chips fall where they may.

  To be honest with you, despite being a studio mandated "American" presence for this Mad Max sequel, I really like Tina Turner as Aunty. There's a lot about this movie that seems kind of like a watered down version of Mad Max, but Turner seems really invested in playing this ridiculous character with her ridiculous haircut. She's an equal onscreen with the not quite Lethal Weapon-level famous Gibson (one could argue that Tina Turner was a bigger star than Mel Gibson in 1985), and even though he destroys everything she built, something tells me that Aunty will be all right. She'll set up shop again, re-open Thunderdome, and Barter Town will be back. Meanwhile, Max will roam the wasteland, hopefully not running into more kids. I guess maybe the brides of  Immortan Joe or Toecutter or whatever he's calling himself. Max will get his Interceptor back and somehow be younger or something. You know, reboot crap.

 I mean, if we're being honest here, there's no way that Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome isn't a better movie than Mad Max: Fury Road. Even with the stupid kids. No chance I could eat crow or something like that. Happy 30th, Thunderdome. You might not be everybody's favorite Mad Max movie - or anybody's - but you're good enough for me.




* Or maybe it is. It depends on what story you hear or what person is citing George Miller at what point. A similar problem exists when you try to figure out whether Mad Max: Fury Road is a reboot or whether it fits somewhere between The Road Warrior and Thunderdome, or after Thunderdome, because over the last five years, Miller has vacillated a bit about that. Although the current position is that it's a reboot. A terrible, no good, nobody likes it, reboot.

** I know the credits say "Aunty Entity," but I challenge you to find me any point in the movie where someone says the word "Entity" in relation to her. Hell, Max only says his name one, and that's to Master.

Cap'n Howdy's Best of 2014: Captain America - The Winter Soldier

 Coming into 2014, I must admit that I wasn't very excited with Marvel's schedule. After the pretty good, but definitely "yup, we're going to do Dark Elves and crap like that" nerd-out that was Thor: The Dark World, it seemed like we were in for a year of Marvel spending testing how far a mainstream audience would follow them. Mostly by that I mean Guardians of the Galaxy, which I'll be getting to soon, but I wasn't particularly interested in Captain America: The Winter Soldier either. It had less to do with the premise - which was a pretty good arc in the comic - but more that I just didn't like Captain America: The First Avenger. I still don't, really: it's an assemblage of scenes without any clear narrative structure or, to be honest, stakes, designed to tell Steve Rogers (Chris Evans)'s origin story, introduce the Red Skull and the Tesseract, and then freeze Cap so he can be in The Avengers. It is not, however, a movie that I found to be worth watching again, and I tried.

 Accordingly, I had very little enthusiasm for The Winter Soldier, despite the presence of different directors (Joe and Anthony Russo instead of Joe Johnston) and a focus more on Cap's role in S.H.I.E.L.D.* over trying to sell the "shared universe." That is, to say, more like Iron Man 3, which everyone seems to hate but me, in part because I knew it was a Shane Black movie. Still, I didn't really have any reason to assume that the brothers Russo, veterans of Arrested Development and Community, were any better equipped to make a Captain America movie than the director of The Rocketeer. I also didn't know what kind of Captain America movie they were making - that it would be heavily influenced by 1970s paranoia thrillers, mixed with modern action films, but with slightly more coherent editing. Had I known that, I might have still been suspicious of the directors' background in comedy, but it would have assuaged any lingering concerns that The Winter Soldier would be anything like The First Avenger.

 In fact, The Winter Soldier isn't even anything like The Avengers, which worked Cap into the fold, but sometimes in uncomfortable, ham fisted ways. We're not talking Hawkeye levels of "why are you in this?", mind you, but if you look at the team dynamic, Steve Rogers has very little impact until late in the film, and even then it's mostly Iron Man's show. The Winter Soldier, despite the increased presence of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), is mostly Steve Rogers' show. It's less a film about him adjusting to the present than putting Captain America's "good old fashioned American values" against the modern surveillance / defense landscape. More importantly, it's not necessarily clear that either side is totally right or totally wrong. Fury finds himself the target of an assassination, Cap and Black Widow end up on the run, and the head of S.H.I.E.L.D., Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford) has to make a decision about the organization's future.

 To say much more would spoil the movie, and by proxy, the end of the first season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., and on the off chance you're the one person reading this who hasn't been prepping for The Avengers: Age of Ultron, I'll let you be surprised. If there's any character who gets the short shrift in The Winter Soldier, it's the titular character, who is limited to a "Darth Maul" level of screen time for much of the film. When he's onscreen - and for SPOILER purposes, I won't identify the actor - The Winter Soldier's impact on the story is felt, but his overall arc feels more like the beginning to a larger story. That said, he's part of several crackerjack action sequences, handled with aplomb by the Russo brothers. Both are essentially chase sequences: one with Fury, and the other involving Cap, Black Widow, and the man who will become Falcon (Anthony Mackie). Aside from John Wick, they may be my favorite sustained action sequences in a film this year, and I was not expecting that from Marvel. Not only are they well choreographed, but the Nick Fury chase scene is as suspenseful as anything I've seen in a while.

 I noticed that The Winter Soldier has a slight shift in the way that Cap / Steve Rogers is portrayed: Chris Evans adds more nuance to the "good guy" type from The First Avenger and The Avengers. He's trying to fit into the world now, and not just in a way that generate anachronism laughs. The Winter Soldier is frequently funny without relying on "Rip Van Winkle" jokes - although his notebook of pop culture to catch up on is amusing in its own right. The film also bridges the first and second film by having a few returning characters, mostly presented in logical ways. It's a bit sad to see an elderly Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) suffering from Alzheimer's, even if we also meet her granddaughter (Emily VanCamp). Technically that might be a SPOILER, since the film doesn't necessarily address it yet, but instead lays the groundwork for her character as an Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in a few critical junctures of the story. The most surprising cameo has the potential to be the dumbest, as it is the equivalent of the "Bond villain explains his plan" moment in the film, but the audacity behind it makes the scene work. In fact, it's hard to think of a moment that doesn't work in the film, other than maybe the Big Dumb Climax.

 Like Guardians of the Galaxy, and Thor: The Dark World, and Iron Man 3, and The Avengers, and I would argue, even The First Avenger, The Winter Soldier ends with Cap and Falcon trying to bring down three flying weapons of mass destruction before they, well, destroy everything. How you feel about this apparent strategy to end every Marvel film the same way is going to depend on your mileage for this overused finale. It's not any better or worse than the others, and its impact will be felt on the larger Marvel universe in movies we haven't gotten to yet (Ant-Man, how do you feel about the collapse of, uh, SPOILER nevermind). It does seem silly to use this as the backdrop for a moment between Captain America and The Winter Soldier, as the film does end on a series of quieter moments, but maybe the blockbuster comic book movie demands it. I mean, Days of Future Past isn't a lot different, what with its "dropping a stadium around The White House", and while I didn't see The Amazing Spider-Man 2, I sure heard about its Big Dumb Ending.

 Anyway, I was quite mistaken in thinking I wouldn't like Captain America: The Winter Soldier. It's a thriller disguised as a comic book movie, one that's clever and works hard to stay ahead of its audience for as long as possible. A background in comedies, particularly comedies like Arrested Development and Community gives the Russo brothers the skill to convey information quickly without dumbing it down. Instead, they can rely on audiences to pick up hints and foreshadow events without spelling it out again. Characters go through some serious doubt and don't come out unscathed at the end. Now the Russos are going to bring Civil War to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and this is a very good sign of things to come for Captain America. It wouldn't be the first time I was wrong about Marvel's direction in 2014, but I'm glad I resisted my misgivings and watched it. And then watched it again. And then with the commentary...





 * As a side note, it's probably worth mentioning that I had been so underwhelmed by Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. after the first few episodes that I stopped watching, and didn't finish the first season until after The Winter Soldier came out. The back half of the first season is considerably better than the first six or seven episodes.

Cap'n Howdy's Best of 2013: Before Midnight

 When Richard Linklater is on, I can sit in front of the screen with a big old dumb smile on my face. The Cap'n has had a somewhat scattered relationship with the Austin, Texas auteur's filmography: there are movies of his I absolutely go nuts for (A Scanner Darkly), and ones I grow to appreciate with every passing year (Dazed and Confused), but there are also the ones that I just cannot stand (Slacker, Waking Life), ponderous exercises on philosophy that you'd hear in a haze of bong smoke in freshman dormitories (not that I'd know anything about that, obviously). When I say "cannot stand," I mean that I've tried to watch Waking Life and Slacker again and I usually turn them off, because the only thing I think following one interminable monologue after another is "so what?" It's somebody's cup of tea, but not mine.

 There are also the movies he makes where I can't quite wrap my head around the fact that Richard Linklater made that, like The Newton Boys, School of Rock, Fast Food Nation, or Bad News Bears. I guess it's kind of a "one for them, one for me" situation that I often equate with Steven Soderbergh, but reconciling that the guy who made Tape or who spend twelve years making a movie (Boyhood, coming out later in 2014) also made a movie about kids rocking out with Jack Black boggles the mind sometimes.

 If there's one universal exception to my "will I like this Linklater joint or not" rule, it's the "Before" triptych: Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and now Before Midnight. The series is a sort of accidental experiment: nine years after Before Sunrise, Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Julie Delpy found themselves wondering where Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy) were in their lives, and what happened after they parted ways. Did they meet up, like they promised to? Did one of them show up, but not the other? The result, Before Sunset, was a sequel that was even better than the first film, where youthful optimism was weighed down with the reality of adulthood. Jesse and Celine spent an afternoon in Paris, just talking, and at the end, another question lingered: as Celine dances to Josephine Baker while Jesse watches, would he catch his plane back home or not?

 Before Midnight, set (and made) nine years after Sunset and eighteen years after Sunrise, doesn't wait long to answer that question, or to present the ramifications of Jesse's decision. He's dropping his son Hank (Seamus Davey-Fitzpatrick) off at the airport in Greece. After a summer vacation, it's time for Hank to go back home to his mother, Jesse's ex-wife, in Chicago, while Jesse, Celine, and their twin girls Ella and Nina (Jennifer and Charlotte Prior) enjoy a few more days in Messinia. They've been staying at the home of Patrick (Walter Lassally), a writer and friend of Jesse's, and some of his friends, for good conversation, but lingering and unresolved issues about Hank, Celine's career, and the vacation itself bubble up as the day wears on.

 What's so fascinating about revisiting these characters after nearly twenty years is the sense of immediate familiarity with them, of knowing their history and being able to jump right back into their lives without needing to be reintroduced. I'm not sure how Before Midnight would play for someone who hadn't seen Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, but I have to imagine much of the appeal to the film is being able to come back to their relationship further along in time. And Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke make a very interesting decision with the third film: instead of taking a snapshot of the two of them connecting or reconnecting, Before Midnight is about the reality of them staying together and being in a long term relationship. We aren't seeing them together for the first time or navigating crossing paths again, but instead seeing them living their lives together after nine years. It's a different experience, but wholly rewarding.

 The film is broken into what amounts to six scenes, six conversations, each building towards the last thirty minutes, where resentment and unspoken demands boil over in a hotel room. We see the foundation of the argument building in the car ride from the airport, at Patrick's house, during the walk to the hotel, and in the lobby, and the way that Jesse and Celine use their history against one another. It's a slow build, where slights go ignored first, but are later held for use to really hurt someone's feelings, to dispute the idea that someone is "winning" this fight. It never feels artificial, never scripted: their conversation flows like two people talking, picking up on half finished thoughts and running with them throughout the film, holding on to them for later.

 And in the background, we as an audience can feel their history, can relate to it, because we've been there with them, even if it wasn't the entire time. Jesse and Celine lived on in our imaginations, so when we pick up with them in their 40s, we bring along everything we hope they did or saw since the last time we saw them. It's a unique opportunity for Linklater to explore a relationship onscreen over time, where the audience fills in the ellipses. It wouldn't work if Before Midnight didn't have something compelling to add, and it does, but it's nevertheless impressive that a fictional relationship continues to have such resonance.

 Hawke and Delpy slip back into the roles effortlessly. Yes, they're both older, and life has changed in many ways since Paris of 2004, but who they are is still there. Things are just more complicated, and they've had nearly a decade of being together, of being parents, of navigating a divorce and custody and trans-continental families to contend with, and there are strains. They might be growing apart, and it's scary. All of this comes out organically through their conversations, often presented in long takes with just Delpy and Hawke on camera. The hotel scene could be a one act play, and a potent one at that. The coda, following the argument, is ambiguous in a way that surpasses either of the first two films. Depending on how you choose to read it, it could be sad but hopeful or be the last light in the face of resignation. To credit the three of them (who co-wrote the screenplay), it's up to us to decide.

 Whether we meet Jesse and Celine again in 2022 or not, I'm grateful to have been able to take this journey with them, and for Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke taking what could have been a one-off about romance in Vienna and crafting into a lasting portrait of relationships, ups and downs. Before Midnight is easily the best of the three, and that's saying something when it follows Before Sunset. If you've already seen the first two, this is an absolute no-brainer: watch it now. Before Midnight is an exquisite feast of storytelling. If you haven't seen any of them, do yourself a favor and get caught up: it's worth your while and then some. And, if you don't mind being bored to tears at animated theories on life, the universe, and everything, I suppose you can see Linklater's theoretical tease (between Sunrise and Sunset) at the Jesse and Celine to come in Waking Life. That's probably a chapter you can just skip to, so you might want to do that. Seriously. But to end it on an up note, I'm very excited about Boyhood - Linklater, Hawke, and Patricia Arquette have been filming on and off for the last twelve years to tell the story of a family as their son (Ellar Coltrane) grows from kindergarten to high school. Very interesting stuff...

2013 Recap: Further Up the Ladder (Part Two)

 Moving right along, we continue navigating the better (but not best) choices 2013 had to offer, warts and all. This actually brought up an interesting question the other day: is it fair to expect a movie to be perfect? One of the easiest caveats used to overlook a film's flaws is to say "well, it isn't perfect, but it's still _____" which begs the question: did you expect it to be perfect? It seems to me that there are two opposing positions to this one, based largely on what kinds of movies audiences / critics / scholars go to see. The answer most people are going to give is "no," usually accompanied by some variation on the phrase "well, it's not Shakespeare, but..." as though a film can't aspire to be great (and yes, I've heard the Shakespeare line repeatedly in reference to Michael Bay movies). But it's true, disappointment reigns supreme so often that many people brace themselves for something lesser and are happy when it meets or exceeds lowered expectations.

 The flipside of this argument, the one I heard from college professors for four years, is that "of course you should expect it to be perfect, because why would you watch anything less?" This is a more exclusionary position, one that posits that if it isn't already a classic, it's not worth bothering with. And while it is true that there are more classic films out there than I or many of you will ever have time to watch, making this argument excludes the possibility that there will ever be any more films considered "classic" made after whatever arbitrary cut-off date is selected. There is something to be said about the lack of timelessness of some modern films (off the top of your head, can you remember my favorite movies from last year, and have you seen any of them since?). It is hard to tell what will last and what will fade in thirty, fifty, even a hundred years, but I don't know that I buy the argument "if it's not already declared perfect, don't bother." I'd rather take a chance, go in not sure of what I'm going to get, and let the movie do its work.

 It's not always perfect (as we'll see a few times below), but it can be pretty damn good, and film history has plenty of "pretty damn good" movies, too. If you can be bothered to lower yourself to find them, that is.

 From Elysi-mrm to Riddick-ulous, Plus More Diesel, Ah-nuld and Sly.

 Unfortunately, Elysium is not "pretty damn good," which is a shame because it should be. All the right pieces are in place: Neill Blomkamp, the writer / director of District 9, follows up his first film with another high-minded dystopian science fiction story, drenched in social commentary. Returning with him is Sharlto Copley, and new to the party are Matt Damon, Jodie Foster, Alice Braga, Diego Luna, William Fichtner, and Faran Tahir as people on either side of the divide between a pollution ravaged Earth and the orbiting utopian community of Elysium. As he did with District 9, Blomkamp demonstrates an ability to blend visual effects with actual environments in such a way that they often appear seamless, with a lived in quality I haven't seen since the first Star Wars.

 But somehow, despite the wealth of riches in nearly every aspect of the film, Elysium falls flat. The early sections, where Damon's Max is just a down on his luck ex-con trying hard to to go straight, are the best. The system, with its robot police and automated parole officers make it impossible for him to get by (his bad attitude doesn't help), and when his boss forces him to put his health at risk, the ensuing radiation exposure is, well, toxic. That's where the meat of Elysium really is, where the cover art you've seen comes from. Max builds the same officers that give him so much grief, and when he's poisoned and the owner (Fichtner) tells his boss to fire him, there's no chance of surviving. On Earth, anyway. Of course he can try to strongarm his way up to Elysium, where the ultra-rich fled to live peaceful lives (except when they shoot down any ship trying to illegally land, that is).

 In order to do that, Max is going to need help, so Julio (Luna), leader of an underground movement trying to take down Elysium, agrees to turn him into a quasi-cyborg as long as he'll take a program up to the station that would allow anyone to use the medical pods that can heal anything. There's also a power struggle of sorts in Elysium, as Delacourt (Foster) is orchestrating a coup of sorts to take down President Patel (Tahir) with the help of John Carlyle (Fichtner). Throw in Max' childhood friend (Braga) and her dying daughter (Emma Tremblay) and Delacourt's Earthbound muscule Kruger (Copley) and things are in motion.

 For all of the thrilling action and visual spectacle, Elysium is a strangely flat movie. I'm not sure that Blomkamp really knew what he wanted to say other than "the 1% is bad," and that's not enough to sustain the narrative thrust of the film. It's a strangely unengaging film as it goes along, one with any number of questionable decisions made by characters who shouldn't know things they do but the script doesn't have any other way forward. I found myself less interested in Max taking down Elysium and more engaged in his back and forth with Kruger, a truly ruthless bastard. When it was over, it was clear that I was supposed to be happy that Elysium (and health care) was available for everyone, but the not even vaguely subtle political commentary arrives with all the depth of a stoned college dorm room conversation. Elysium is inert, despite all of the whiz-bang kinetic action, and that's a shame.

 I already mentioned Riddick in December, and watching the "Unrated Director's Cut" effectively reinforces my opinion that it's much better than The Chronicles of Riddick, but maybe not as good as Pitch Black (in fact, maybe a bit too much like Pitch Black). It's a welcome return to form for the series and I'm absolutely looking forward to the next film. Well, there's a slight reservation, and if you read the earlier review, you know that the one carryover from The Chronicles of Riddick I wasn't gaga about is the necessary inclusion of the (sigh...) Necromongers, including Karl Urban's Vaako. I write a lot of silly things on this blog, but Necromonger is such a ridiculous term that even I'm embarrassed to have to expose you to it. The most notable addition to the unrated cut of Riddick are extended prologue and epilogue scenes with more Monger-ing, including the set-up for a sequel where Vaako didn't betray Riddick (it was the other guy) and has, in fact, crossed over to the "Underverse." Look, David Twohy, I'm still mostly on board with the continuing adventures of Richard Riddick, but can we please not go into more of this stupid shit like in the second movie? Please?

 On the subject of Vin Diesel and stupid shit, I have to say how continually impressed I am at the Fast and the Furious franchise's ability to defy the law of diminishing returns. Six films in should be in Freddy's Dead territory by now, where the studio doesn't care and the creative team is getting weird and throwing in 3D, but director Justin Lin (who came in with the I assumed was DTV Tokyo Drift) is hellbent on keeping things onward and upward. I didn't watch the first three movies because I don't care about street racing culture or (as Clint Eastwood put it in Gran Torino) "faggy spoilers" and neon green paint jobs, but when Dwayne Johnson joined the cast for Fast Five, I tuned in. Reviews were surprisingly positive, and painted the film as something more like an Ocean's Eleven for meatheads than a movie about car drifting.

 So I watched Fast and Furious because Five begins where four ends, and it seemed to be an all right, high octane movie. I really liked Fast Five, which is exactly like an Ocean's Eleven for meatheads, and Johnson's Hobbs was a great counterpoint to Diesel's Dominic Toretto. The fights were tough, the racing was minimal, but the chase scenes were impressive and on a scale not seen since Bad Boys 2 (uh oh, Michael Bay comparison... not good...). So for the first time in the series, I was looking forward to a Fast and Furious movie. And let me tell you, Furious Six did not disappoint.

 I'm glad I went to see it with friends because the smell of testosterone and meathead cologne was thick in the theatre, but Furious Six had something for everybody. You had your action, your comedy, your stunts, two silly (but brief) street races, and everybody from Fast Five plus a few additions. Notable for me was the inclusion of Gina Carano (Haywire) as Hobbs' partner Riley, who has a knock-down, drag out fight with returning Michelle Rodriguez's Letty, juxtaposed with Han (Sun Kang) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson) getting their asses handed to them by one guy.

 Look, the Cap'n isn't going to pretend that Furious Six is for everybody, or even most people. It's the kind of goofball action movie where someone can crash into a guard rail, fly across a bridge, and catch someone who's been thrown from a tank and land safely on another car's windshield. That happens. It's borderline Commando-level dumb, and to be honest it was more engaging than any of the heavy-handed, muddled "thinking man's action" of Elysium. Sometimes the lizard brain deep down in the male psyche (not actually a penis joke, althouth it occurs to me some of you might read it that way - it's actually a weird reference to a religious studies class I took) needs to see big dumb fun, and Furious Six handles that with aplomb.

 The death of Paul Walker is going to seriously test the F&F franchise's ability to keep going up, but the addition of a mid-credits villain linked to Luke Evans' antagonist, the inclusion of Kurt Russell and incoming director James Wan (Death Sentence) has me hopeful for next year. We'll see, because I'm not watching Bad Boys 3 if and when that comes out (take that, Bay!).

 I'll close out this section with a few additional thoughts on The Last Stand and Escape Plan (already reviewed in the available links): while I really didn't like Bullet to the Head, I thought The Last Stand was a pretty good, straightforward action movie about Arnold Schwarzenegger learning to deal with being older. Sly has pretty much just continued to push forward and not really acknowledge age since Rocky Balboa (in fact, Rambo pretty much refuted the "older Stallone era" of Balboa), but Arnold does look older. He sounds older, and his body isn't chiseled out of marble the way it once was (or is it granite? I'm not sure on that one).

 The Last Stand was a good look at how Arnold ages onscreen (something he never really acknowledged prior to becoming the Governator), but I feel like Escape Plan uses the "aged wine" version of Schwarzenegger in a much better way. He's just a grizzled veteran who can still be a tough guy, but one old enough to know better than to pick every fight. Repeatedly in the film you see that he's happy to be the "muscule" for Sly's Ray Breslin, but it's almost always off-screen. There's a great (pun intended) punchline to Ray's request for one inmate's glasses to Arnold's Rottmayer when the camera cuts to the next day and the guy has a black eye and no glasses. I'm a little iffy to bringing Ah-nuld back as the Terminator, but it's what the people expect. Oh well, it's nice to know he can play the tough old bastard when he needs to.


The Wrath of Smaug and Other Sundry Tales of Elves Into Darkness.

 If you watch Star Trek: Into Darkness and never think about it, even for a second, you'll have a blast. It's an unfettered rollercoaster of thrills and chills, of action punctuated by chuckles, with great chemistry between cast members, and maybe even a thing or two to say about the way society responds to terrorism. However, if you start to think about the movie AT ALL, things start to fall apart, and compound into bigger problems that threaten to cripple your very ability to enjoy the movie in the first place. That is your warning, and while the original review will cover many of the reasons, I'm going to very quickly explain why I feel this is the case.

 I'm done giving Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, and Robert Orci grief over the screenplay. It's a dead horse and I'm tired of beating it. The same goes for JJ Abrams and lens flares and trying to turn Star Trek into Star Wars and any of the other arguments about why the rebooted Star Trek isn't really Star Trek. I get it. This is the internet and everything sucks now, etc. Okay. We got that out of our systems, and those tired old arguments aren't going to change what IS. And what Star Trek: Into Darkness IS is the little brother who grew up in the shadow of his more famous, more beloved older brother. The one who casts a shadow so long over fans and casual viewers that you can't even reboot the series and start fresh with a Star Trek 2 without at least considering the fact that it's going to be compared to The Wrath of Khan.

 It can't be helped, because even people who don't really know Star Trek that well know what it is. Other than The Voyage Home, it might be the only one they know. Star Trek fans know it because it kept them awake, unlike The Motion Picture (cue TMP defenders in five, four, three, two...), and the movie tied directly into the show. It was also very well written, acted, and directed, which at the time (and even in the wake of Star Trek V) is kind of surprising for a Star Trek movie. Most of the target audience for Star Trek: Into Darkness grew up with The Wrath of Khan, so you can't help but want to compare yourself to the older brother everybody loves. You can try to fight to be your own movie, to outdo your brother in ways, or to alter expectations, but it's still just going to be about "see? I can do that too!"

 And that's the problem in a nutshell. It didn't have to be, because the Admiral Marcus storyline in and of itself could have sustained the movie. I'm sticking with that one. Khan didn't have to be in Into Darkness at all and the story would still work. Hell, Benedict Cumberbatch could still be some kind of genetically engineered super soldier who wasn't named Khan - you could seriously just change him name and pull out the other scenes patently designed to remind people that "The Wrath of Khan is a Star Trek movie and you have already seen it"  and only need to make minor changes to the ending. There's a pretty solid nu-Trek movie already in Into Darkness, and I wish that the Khan nonsense hadn't been there, but it is, so be it. C'est la vie. We move forward.

 On to something I enjoyed Benedict Cumberbatch more in (at least in one of his roles, anyway), The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. For better, for worse, Peter Jackson's middle entry into his second Middle Earth trilogy is an improvement over the uneven An Unexpected Journey. It may turn out to be the first time that an extended cut puts more of the book back into the movie, I suspect. It's clear at this point that Jackson is less concerned with adapting The Hobbit as a novel and more keen on more explicitly connecting the story of the One Ring all the way from The Hobbit to The Lord of the Rings, creating one unified story.

 I had wondered why, in so many reviews, Beorn's name never appeared, until I saw The Desolation of Smaug and realized that the entire sequence at his home had been reduced to what amounted to a cameo. I think we see Beorn (Mikael Persbrandt) more as a bear than we do speaking to Gandalf (Ian McKellan) and the dwarves, and there's certainly no sense of taking time to marvel at his home, let alone the way he's tricked into accepting Thorin's company for the night. The entire scene is reduced to an exposition dump, and we're off. Similarly condensed is Mirkwood and the captivity in Thranduil's kindgom, to the point that I was taken aback how quickly Jackson was breezing through long sections of the book. Considering how drawn out the first film was, it seemed strange to spend so little time with the spiders or lost in the woods.

 What does stand out in Mirkwood, however, is the first real indication of how Jackson is turning The Hobbit trilogy into The Lord of the Rings, the Prequel: Bilbo develops a strong attachment to the Ring that doesn't really exist in the novel, but is consistent with the way it's been presented in the earlier trilogy. For obvious reasons (Tolkien hadn't written The Lord of the Rings, for one), it's just a ring in The Hobbit, but in light of what audiences already know about the One Ring, it would be strange that it had no effect on Bilbo whatsoever. Jackson handles it well, and it's limited mostly to Mirkwood (aside from one reference by Smaug to a "precious" piece of gold entering his lair).

 The biggest additions come when the dwarves are captured, and instead of just Thranduil (Lee Pace), they meet Legolas (Orlando Bloom) and Tauriel (Evangeline Lily), neither of whom are in The Hobbit. In fact, Tauriel is wholly a creation of Jackson, Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and whatever degree to which Guillermo del Toro was involved in The Desolation of Smaug. You might think I'd take umbrage with a completely invented character, especially one involved in a sort-of love triangle that turns out to have more than a little in common with Star Wars, but for what Jackson is doing, I'm actually fine with her. Make no bones about it, in The Desolation of Smaug, Tauriel exists to get Legolas out of Mirkwood and to urge him to be more involved in Middle Earth. It's part of a lot of set up for the Battle of the Five Armies in There and Back Again, but her presence is welcome and adds some dramatic heft to this wildly divergent take on the story.

 I was less impressed with Lake Town and for the moment am not certain what point separating the dwarves serves - there's certainly no tension in Kili (Aiden Turner), Oin (John Callen), Fili (Dean O'Gorman), and Bofur (James Nesbitt) being there when Smaug arrives because anybody who's read The Hobbit knows why Bard (Luke Evans) is so important. He's actually even more important now, with a back story that ties him to Dale and the arrival of Smaug and a significance to the black arrow he'll eventually use, but that is also left mostly for the next film. The normally reliable Stephen Fry is a more loathsome Master of Lake Town than I'd expected, with a stunning lack of depth that might be acceptable in a children's book but sticks out like a sore thumb when everybody else is given more depth.

 On the other hand, the sequence with Bilbo (Martin Freeman) and Smaug (Cumberbatch) in Erebor is a highlight of the film. Like "Riddles in the Dark" from An Unexpected Journey, Jackson sticks close to the book for their back-and-forth, choosing to slowly reveal the dragon as he taunts the "thief." The second part of the sequence in Erebor, like the "barrel" sequence earlier in the film, is expanded / altered, but not in a way that bothered me. Yes, it's another action sequence in the midst of two others (the heretofore nonexistent goblin assault on Lake Town and Gandalf's fight in Dol Guldur - more on that in a minute), but it gives the dwarves something to do other than stand outside of the Lonely Mountain and wait for Bilbo. Thorin (Richard Armitage), has the opportunity to demonstrate that he can lead his men into battle and puts together a reasonably good plan to incapacitate Smaug (even if it doesn't work). Coupled with his growing obsession over the Arkenstone (which, thanks to a prologue at the Prancing Pony in Bree, is also even more important), Thorin is a more involved character in the story.

 Now, on to Gandalf and Dol Guldur, with the briefest of appearances from Radagast the Brown (Sylvester McKoy). If anything in The Desolation of Smaug screamed "we'll get to this in the next one," it's this sequence. Yes, Jackson decided to directly link Azog and Bolg and the Goblin army to Sauron heading into There and Back Again. He doesn't even waste time pretending that The Necromancer (Cumberbatch) is anyone other than Sauron, and after a visually impressive battle of magic, gives us a visual link between the physical persona from the prologue in Fellowship of the Ring to the Eye we know from the rest of the film. And then Gandalf is imprisoned and "we'll totally cover this later!"  Like the end of the film, which can either be read as "what a cliffhanger!" or "wait, that's how they're ending this?" the entire subplot with Gandalf feels like a superfluous set up so we'll all be back next year. At least in An Unexpected Journey, there seemed to be a point to following Gandalf when he left Thorin's company, but this time it does feel tacked on.

 All things considered, and complaints aside, I really did enjoy The Desolation of Smaug more than An Unexpected Journey. A friend of mine agreed, saying "It was good. It wasn't The Hobbit, but it was good." I thought it was better than good, but it's definitely not The Hobbit yet. Other reviewers have insisted that the film doesn't need to be any longer than it is, but I strongly suspect the inevitable extended edition is going to reinstate a LOT of material condensed in the front end of the movie, and as a fan of the book, I'm looking forward to that.

 Speaking of extended editions, I did see the longer cut of An Unexpected Journey, which I guess would count as a 2013 movie. Like much of the film, there were things I liked (the longer White Council meeting, the conversation with Elrond and Gandalf about Thorin), and things I really didn't (the Goblin Town song, the dwarves song in Rivendell, and the fountain scene). I don't know that much of it helped the story in any way, although the White Council scene is more specifically tied to Sauron now, which is in keeping with what Jackson seems to be doing with the six film arc. More impressive than the movie are the appendices, which not only go in depth with the creation of the film, but which give you a much better idea of the characters of the dwarves than the films allow. I would definitely recommend fans of The Hobbit movies check it out.

 Before we abandon the subject of elves for the rest of this recap, I guess it's worth mentioning that Thor: The Dark World is also a movie with those. But of the "Dark" variety, which is more interesting because... well, just because I guess. One of them is Christopher Eccleston (Malekith) and another one (his right hand Elf) is Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who plays the "Shredder" and "Super Shredder" variety of bad guy. They're after some Aether, which is dark matter or something of that nature, that is what the universe was made of back before time and before Odin (Anthony Hopkins)'s dad beat them up and hid the Aether. It's how they roll in Asgard.

 I think it's cool that Marvel stopped giving a shit about appealing to everybody after The Avengers, and they figure since releasing any movie is like writing their own meal ticket, why not have a movie about Dark Elves that's not on Earth very much and has a climax about jumping from one dimension to the other in order for Christ Hemsworth to beat up Christopher Eccleston? After Captain America: The Return of Bucky (sorry, SPOILER) next year, their big release before The Avengers 2 is Guardians of the Galaxy, based on a comic none of you have ever read because of a talking raccoon and also a tree played by Vin Diesel. It takes some chutzpah to get that nerdy that fast, but kudos to Kevin Feige and Marvel for saying "to hell with it, bring on the Ant Man movie!"

 (by the way, while I'm dubious about the whole Guardians of the Galaxy thing, I will watch Edgar Wright's Ant Man starring Paul Rudd)

 So it's either a sign of hubris or not caring or Marvel really believes that they can bring the reaaaaaallly nerdy comic book stuff to the mainstream and not get laughed out of the box office. If Thor: The Dark World is any indication, I guess they're doing a pretty good job of it, because despite the fact that it has Dark Elves and the McGuffin is called Aether and it's about the realms aligning, etc., it's not an especially goofy movie. It's definitely not as goofy as the first Thor, directed by Kenneth Branagh. Maybe it's that director Alan Taylor is best known for Game of Thrones, so there's a grittier aesthetic to The Dark World that's like Westeros, where all sorts of otherwise silly things seem perfectly reasonable (mostly that's because there's lots of sex in between the dragons and warlocks and zombies). There isn't really much sex in Thor: The Dark World, unless you count the Aether "entering" Jane Foster (Natalie Portman).

 That's pretty much the impetus for the movie - it's what wakes up Malekith and the other guy and the reason Thor returns to Earth and the only reason Natalie Portman is in the movie in the first place. They have to save Earth and blah blah blah Dark Elves. I'm starting to think they just really wanted to tie in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. into a Thor movie (well, vice versa, but you get the idea), because they didn't really need to go to Earth at all. Most of the human characters (Portman, Stellan Skarsgård, Kat Dennings, the dude who plays Kat Dennings intern) are window dressing. They have a few perfunctory things to do and get most of the goofy scenes, but you could not have them at all and it would still be the same movie. Maybe we'd care less because Earth wasn't being destroyed, but we're already in for the Dark Elves at that point.

 The main draw of Thor: The Dark World, continues to be the interplay between Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston as Thor and Loki. Anthony Hopkins and Renee Russo are in there too, but the sibling rivalry between step (?) brothers was the foundation of the first film, carried through The Avengers, and is probably even better this time around. If Hiddleston is on screen, The Dark World immediately gets better, and I'd recommend it for him alone. On the downside, if you wanted more Idris Elba as Heimdall, I'm sorry to disappoint: he isn't in the movie much, but he does take down a Dark Elf ship by himself, which is pretty cool.

 If your tolerance for the words "Dark" and "Elves" or patience for subtitled dialogue is anything like mine for the word "Necromonger," then Thor: The Dark World might be too "lame" for your tastes. But if you liked Thor and The Avengers and maybe played Dungeons and Dragons or at least can think of it without snickering derisively, then you might like this movie. Or Man of Steel might be your thing. I don't know, because I didn't see Man of Steel, because Superman is lame. The Dark Elves won that battle.

 Well, I think this has eaten up enough internet real estate for one entry. In the next few entries (hey, I'm working on a lot of movies here) the Cap'n  will be covering horror, some documentaries, a few films of smaller scope, more science fiction (and sequels), a return to form for a few of my favorite directors, and a handful of movies that aren't based on any novel, but sometimes feel like they could be.

Shocktober Review: Curse of Chucky

Well, it's October, which is the best month of the year as far as the Cap'n is concerned. Not only do I have license to watch horror movies more than I already do, but it's encouraged! So why not kick it off with a sequel many of you didn't know was on the way?

 I have to admit that I was a little worried about Curse of Chucky when first I heard about it. My concern came less from the nine years since Seed of Chucky - a movie I happen to like, if that informs your reading of this review - but that Curse of Chucky was being unceremoniously dumped in the world of "DTV" horror. The Cap'n has seen his share of direct to video horror films, and with very few exceptions they tend to look cheap and offer nothing in the way of scares, atmosphere, or story. This was not how I hoped to see the next film in the Child's Play series, so I put it on with trepidation.

 It turns out that I didn't have anything to worry about, because Don Mancini - who wrote every Child's Play / Chucky movie and directed Seed of Chucky - was clearly also aware of how shitty most direct to video horror films are, and he was determined to make a sequel to Child's Play first and a low budget horror movie a distant second. Not only does the movie not look like crap, but on top of generating some legitimate atmosphere and really nice kills, Mancini adds to the series in a way fans are going to enjoy immensely.


  Nica (Fiona Dourif, daughter of Chucky) lives with her mother, Sarah (Chantal Quesnelle), who take turns taking care of each other. Sarah is an emotional wreck and Nica is paralyzed from the waist down. One day, a large package with no return address arrives with a familiar "Good Guy" doll inside. Not long after that, Nica wakes up to find her mother dead and Chucky no longer in the trash can. Her sister Barb (Danielle Bisutti) arrives with husband Ian (Brennan Elliott) daughter Alice (Summer H. Howell), and nanny Jill (Maitland McConnell) in tow, along with Father Frank (A Martinez), who hopes to rekindle Nica's lost faith. Alice takes a liking to Chucky, even if he whispers strange things to her, but as a storm threatens the power, they're in for a long night with a killer doll...

 For those of you who don't like the "camp" qualities of Bride and Seed of Chucky, I have good news for you: Curse of Chucky is considerably more straightforward in tone, resembling the first Child's Play in structure. It's a bit disarming at first, because I really wasn't sure if he was trying to reboot the series - Chucky looks like he did in the first an second film (with minor redesigns to the doll when he stops being a "Good Guy"). Mancini is clearly playing with the fact that audiences know what Chucky's really up to, but we don't hear Brad Dourif's voice until halfway into the film. Up until that point, Curse of Chucky plays a LOT like Child's Play, but with a more playful sense of "okay, what's he up to?" for long time fans.

 Much to my surprise, about an hour into Curse of Chucky, Mancini reveals that this isn't a reboot or a spin-off and is a continuation of the story - minus some questions about what happened to Chucky after Glen / Glenda got "axe happy." Beyond that, Mancini develops the Charles Lee Ray back story to boot, tying it into Nica's family history. Is there some debatable retconning? Maybe, but I have to admit it was intriguing to see Dourif on-camera again for the first time in 25 years.

  As horrible as it is to say about a movie, I feel like it's worth pointing out how good Curse of Chucky looks. Mancini's camerawork is fluid, playful, and designed to augment the story, rather than just capture what's going on and get to the next kill haphazardly. Maybe I'm just burnt out on how horrible movies like the Wrong Turn sequels look or the barely competent releases from The Asylum, but Curse of Chucky doesn't look like nobody gave a shit about it looking like a movie. Even when the budget does show (and it isn't often), Mancini works to maintain a spooky ambiance in and outside of the house.

 Two camera tricks are worth pointing out, neither of which spoil too much: the opening credits play out as the camera tracks around a rocking chair Chucky's sitting in, but as it moves from one side to the other and back again, Mancini pulls what I suspect was some in-camera trickery to transition from night into the following day. The second instance follows the audience's discovery that Chucky poisoned one of six bowls of chili with rat poison. We know somebody at the dinner table has it, but not who. Mancini sets up an overhead shot of the circular table, plates arranged like the chambers of a revolver, and slowly spins the camera around. It's a nice visual metaphor of the edible "Russian roulette" to come.

 While we're talking kills, anticipated or otherwise, Curse of Chucky has a better than fair share of practical gore effects that satisfied a "been there, seen that" hound like me. Gouged eyes, severed heads, crushed jaws, and a stabbing or two are the tip of the iceberg. What's really effective, it turns out, is the way Mancini uses Nica's paralyzed legs to generate some truly visceral blows. Just because she can't feel it doesn't mean I didn't react. To be sure, there's no doubt some digital trickery in there somewhere, but keeping both Chucky and most of the kills practical are a big plus in my book.

 If Curse of Chucky has any serious problems, they come at the end: Mancini rushes through the climactic showdown between Nica and Chucky in a way that doesn't quite resolve the build-up, even if the subsequent scene brings the story closure in a clever, twisted way. One can't help feel a bit cheated, especially as Mancini moves along to reintroduce two characters, effectively tying the first three Child's Play films into the "Chucky" trilogy. (Minor Spoiler: It might help to refresh yourself on the end of Seed of Chucky for the first cameo to avoid confusion). I actually enjoyed both surprises, although the second one initially seems to be a set up for a seventh film that quickly collapses into an "ah, nevermind" - watch until the end of the credits for that one. Had Curse of Chucky ended with the final scene in "grandma's house," I think the film would be stronger for it.

 Still, Curse of Chucky was not only better than anything I'd hoped for in a "DTV" Child's Play sequel, but it's a pretty damned good horror movie in its own right. There are plenty of novel or rarely used gimmicks, effective misdirection, and I have to once again stress really good practical gore effects. It's almost a shame Universal didn't feel confident in releasing this theatrically, because even with the time since the last film, Curse of Chucky is the kind of throwback people are often complaining they don't see on the big screen.