Men in Black International (2019)

Film: Men in Black International (2019)
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Kumail Nanjiani, Liam Neeson, Rafe Spall, Rebecca Ferguson, Emma Thompson
Director: F. Gary Gray
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 1/5 stars

I have always had a soft spot for the Men in Black films.  The first one was delightful, the second messy, the third convoluted, but Will Smith's performance in them remain the best thing he's ever done.  He can play a serious, biopic role as much as he wants to, but inevitably I'll prefer him here as a smart, star charisma superhero because that's what he's best at (Smith is one of those dramatic actors who thinks drama means less personality, and feels washed out-Jennifer Aniston is another actor who struggles with a similar condition).  I was curious, though, what this franchise would look like without Smith (or Tommy Lee Jones, for that matter) there to bring some sort of natural star charisma.  Still, if there's another actor working today who can match Smith's natural, likable star persona it's Chris Hemsworth, so I was willing to give this movie a pass.  Unfortunately, the movie continues the steep decline of the franchise since the delicious 1997 film, and considering the picture's box office, might well point to the end of a series that is clearly running out of ideas.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie focuses not on Smith or Jones's agents (they are never mentioned, though there is a wink to their existence in Neeson's High T's office where they have a painting of them from the first film), but instead on two newer agents, a recent recruit called Agent M (Thompson) who finds the MIB after looking for twenty years, and Agent H (Hemsworth), a good-looking rogue who has started to indulge in alcohol and bad judgment.  The two are assigned to investigate two Twin aliens (Laurent & Larry Bourgeois, well-known French dancers who barely speak in the film), but discover as they're going that there might be corruption coming from within Men in Black headquarters.  All of this is happening while M is hiding a weapon she got after an assassination attempt that can harness the power of a star, literally blowing up planets with the click of a button.

The film's plot is ludicrous and unnecessarily repetitive, particularly since it's obvious from the get-go who the betrayer is.  Liam Neeson, other than Emma Thompson (the only human character that is featured from the initial franchise, and therefore, is above suspicion), is the only actor famous enough to make the double-cross work in a movie that is telegraphing a double cross almost twenty minutes in.  As a result, you're more than aware he's the bad guy, and so distractions involving the Twins or Spall's Agent C are pedestrian at best.  If you can't make the audience invest in a twist that's crucial to the plot of your film, you've already failed at like 70% of being an action-thriller, and MIB International decidedly can't sink this basket.

The other problem, though, is that the main characters aren't as compelling as the first three films.  Tessa Thompson & Chris Hemsworth are both fun movie stars, and have exhibited chemistry before, but it doesn't work here.  They banter, and it's fun because they're unnaturally beautiful and effortlessly cool, but it doesn't elevate the film and oftentimes feels forced.  Thompson's Agent M contradicts herself too often, being as John Mulaney puts it in his stand-up act "a busy businesswoman who only loves business" which you know the writers are going to say doesn't matter (despite it being the core ethos of Men in Black...there's at least one good joke between the two Thompsons about the organization's name that was by-far my favorite moment in the film).  Hemsworth is just doing more Thor here, with him trading on his supernatural human beauty and rakish demeanor, but not giving us anything concrete or distinctive about Agent H.  Making films rely upon the talents of movie stars is what made this franchise work in the first place, but the writers wrote a Will Smith movie for two actors who (while talented) are not Will Smith.  As a result, we get a snooze of a (probable) ending to this franchise.  At least Thomspon & Hemsworth have Marvel to rely upon to keep their careers afloat.

OVP: Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Film: Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Paul Rudd, Brie Larson, Karen Gillan, Bradley Cooper, Josh Brolin
Director: Anthony & Joe Russo
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

I wrote when Captain Marvel came out that it had become impossible for me to judge the films in the franchise without seeing how they ended, and so I (like every person on the planet, apparently) went out the first week Avengers 4 was in theaters and caught the final(?) chapter of the movie franchise.  The film is destined for a slice of immortality, certain to overtake Avatar as the highest-grossing film (a title it may hold forever considering global box office trends-like Avatar and Titanic before it, it’s hard to imagine what kind of movie would eventually trounce such a film).  But the better question is-is it any good?  After 11 years and 22 films, what was the series finale like?

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie picks up almost exactly after we left off, with an opening eerily similar to The Leftovers (a series that is heavily borrowed from in terms of aesthetic, though not in gravitas by this picture).  Hawkeye (Renner) watches as his entire family goes up in smoke (similar to Carrie Coon's Nora on The Leftovers), and soon we find out what life is like in a world where half the planet has disappeared. Each Avenger that got left behind takes their lives in different directions.  Iron Man (Downey) settles down with Pepper Potts and has a child, Black Widow (Johansson) takes on the Nick Fury role, Hawkeye becomes an assassin, the Hulk (Ruffalo) becomes a kinder, gentler being, Captain America (Evans) runs grief sessions, and Thor (Hemsworth) just is a drunk who lets his Adonis-like figure go in favor of a Jeff Bridges in The Big Lebowski sort of aesthetic (though he’s still hot, and anyone who says otherwise needs corrective lenses).  The return of Ant-Man (Rudd) gives them hope that they can go back-in-time and stop Thanos, but Nebula (Gillan), Thanos’s daughter accidentally informs her father in the past that they are trying to undo his work, and as a result they have a gigantic battle where literally every character you can think of from the MCU pops up to fight Thanos.  This journey ultimately ends in the death of not only Thanos, but also Black Widow & Iron Man, and Captain America becoming too old to be an Avenger.

Here’s the deal-there’s a lot to really like about Avengers: Endgame.  The casting budget on the film had to be just impossibly large (when you’re willing to spend money to, say, just have Michelle Pfeiffer & Marisa Tomei stand at a funeral, you know you’ve entered new territory), but it’s a joy to see something so spectacular. The fight scene with Thanos is wonderful, with major moments from Captain America (people cheered in my theater when he took Thor’s hammer) and for girl power (it was hokey as hell, but I loved the “Women of Marvel Assemble” sequence, and so did the packed theater I was in).  In my opinion we have Evans, Hemsworth, & Gillan as the movie’s MVP’s (the movement to get Robert Downey Jr. an acting Oscarcitation feels a stretch, and more a nod to a truly remarkable comeback than a true acting achievement).  Gillan is giving a strong performance, and Evans/Hemsworth have carved out such wonderful dimensions with these noble guys (and have such great chemistry with everyone) that it’s terrific to get to see them together for the last time.  And there’s something to be said for the movie feeling permanently over.  The next franchises are clearly set up (Spider-Man in a few weeks, but also there’s obvious potential for a future Captain America (with Anthony Mackie as the star), Black Panther, Captain Marvel, & Guardians pictures), but it also feels like an end to at least the chapter that started in 2008, a true achievement in a world where we have to stretch movies until their story breaks.

But there’s also a lot of slog here.  Trying to fit 40-odd characters into a movie is a tough task, and certain people (Black Widow & Hulk especially) get the short end of the stick in this picture.  The movie is overlong, predictable, and doesn’t have the emotional heft of the last film’s surprise snap.  Everything in this movie feels exactly how you would have expected it to turn out.  That might be the sign of a good finale (everything was as it was supposed to be), but a movie should have at least some unexpected twists, and it might have been more interesting if we’d had characters die whom we thought might actually exist in the MCU in the future.  As a result, I’m giving this movie a 3 star rating, and think it rates under Infinity War, which felt more epic and more urgent. As a franchise, it’s hard not to commend the achievements of Kevin Feige over the past 11 years, and I’d probably go with a 4-star for the 22 parts as a whole, even if only a couple actual movies in the series rose to that same level.

Ranking the Marvel Movies

Next week, we will see the end of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's current chapter (phase-I don't know what we call this).  For roughly 11 years, we've been getting nearly nonstop movies from the studio, every few months yet another massive hit from Disney.  Individually, the series has had ups-and-downs, with no proper, truly terrible films in the bunch but, honestly, no truly unstoppable masterpieces either (I'm decidedly a Marvel fan for comics, and yes, I bought comics religiously as a child, but I still think The Dark Knight is better than any movie on this list, and I'm not even a Nolan fanboy).  I'm not sure if I'll stick around past this collective list of movies for "Phase 4" of the Marvel Cinematic Universe-I think stories have to be able to end to qualify as stories and not just rambling tales, and in a lot of ways Avengers: Endgame feels like a series finale while the next phase of the MCU (whether that be Spider-Man or Black Panther 2) is a spinoff I'm not sure I'll sign up for.  But in honor of this 22nd film and a closing of the Thanos chapter of the series (and likely the departures of actors like Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, and Robert Downey Jr. from these collective roles), I finally got around to seeing Thor: The Dark World (the only missing piece in this puzzle for me) and instead of writing a traditional review of the picture, I thought I'd buy into the trend over the next two weeks and give my personal rankings of the different films.

21. Iron Man 2 (2010)

By-far the weakest entry in the series, not even Downey's schtick (which even in 2010 was starting to show signs of repetitiveness) could save this boring slog of a movie.  Mickey Rourke was coming off such a high with The Wrestler, it's a pity that his comeback stalled after giving the quintessential "boring villain" performance, something that has plagued most of the series (certainly compared with DC).

20. The Incredible Hulk (2008)

I mean, it feels like a cheat to even include this since the titular role was recast, and let's be real here-this is only included because it technically came after Iron Man, otherwise we'd likely leave it off of the list.  That said, Edward Norton was the least of the three Hulks (I actually didn't mind the strong artistic license Ang Lee took with the 2003 version), and Liv Tyler brings really nothing to the love interest role.

19. Thor: The Dark World (2013)

I'll be honest here-while I'm genuinely a fan of both in real-life as celebrities, and actually think that Hemsworth has done the best work outside of the series, I'm decidedly in the field of Captain America within the confines of the quality of their actual stand-alone films.  This is the least of the Thor outings, with a convoluted villain plot and Natalie Portman basically phoning it in as a love interest she likely had no interest in playing (notice how she has yet to show up again in the series).

18. Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol 2 (2017)

Backlash to the first installment always felt a bit extreme to me, with people I think just forgetting that the movies can occasionally be a good time.  That being said, the second film is a bit off-base, with a lot of the same jokes from the first film being repeated, and with no one saying anything new, not even Kurt Russell as a nice-guy villain.

17. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2014)

The actual Avengers movies themselves have always felt a bit of a paint-by-numbers approach.  Perhaps most shocking because of the number of stars that they fit into one film (what is the casting budget on this movie-$100 million, $150?) we also see a lot of ego on display as they attempt to shove every character into enough scenes to warrant 7 or 8-digit pay days.  Combined with James Spader as an eye-rolling villain, and you get a bloated picture.

16. Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

I was so smitten with the first movie, it was always going to be a letdown when they brought back this character, as how could it possibly be as much fun?  Even by bringing Michelle Pfeiffer on board, we struggle to make this one work, with the Ghost villain story feeling totally ancillary to the plot, and perhaps they'd have been better off just letting the unknown be the villain here, rather than having a traditional comic book plotting.

15. Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

This is inarguably the silliest film on this list, somehow even surpassing Guardians of the Galaxy, and is the one I wish I liked more.  The cast is superb, possibly the best of any of the films, but it's too random, sporadic, and ridiculous (the entire Jeff Goldblum subplot seemed only there to create memes).  Us finally getting a proper female villain in the series (and played by Oscar Winner Cate Blanchett, no less) is about the best I can recommend here.

14. The Avengers (2012)

We jump from Thor 3 to Avengers 1 where we now have 3-star movies (ie movies that I'd actually recommend based on the rules of this blog).  This is fun, and cool, but never as fun & cool as it should be.  Loki is a good villain, but there's not the right level of chemistry yet between the six main characters, as Hemsworth & Evans in particular are still finding their bearings as matinee idols against an established star like Downey.

13. Doctor Strange (2016)

I can't really figure out how I feel about Benedict Cumberbatch, who always feels a bit too eager in his cinematic work, and seems intent on mugging in a way that recalls a British Justin Timberlake.  That said, this is a good movie, one that just avoids the cliches of an introduction to a character enough to not feel boring.  Tilda Swinton joins the long pantheon of Oscar-winning actresses who have randomly appeared in MCU movies (Portman, Bening, Blanchett, Tomei...it's a longer list than you'd think).

12. Iron Man 3 (2013)

Much better than the sequel, Iron Man 3 actually challenges Downey a bit as an actor in a way few others in this series have done.  We see him fight a villain that feels worthy of him in a way others in the series haven't (Guy Pearce's creepy Killian), and we get arguably the best work out of Gwyneth Paltrow we've had this decade.

11. Thor (2011)

Chris Hemsworth might be my favorite discovery from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in terms of actors who hadn't already proven to themselves at that point.  He's so debonair, funny, charming, and DAMN sexy, and all of that comes out when he basically brings Thor from the comic book pages to life here.  He's considerably better than the film, but that's true pretty much every time he's onscreen.

10. Captain Marvel (2019)

The first of the movies to be headlined by an Oscar winner, and it shows.  Larson is hamstrung by us spending most of the movie looking for clues to what will happen in Avengers: Endgame, but she actually has a fun popcorn movie here, and though he's hidden behind distracting CGI, Sam Jackson gives his best work in the series here as a young, pre-eyepatch Nick Fury.

9. Captain America: Civil War (2016)

Thor is probably my favorite of the actual superheroes in the films, but Captain America is the best leg of the franchise.  Arguably the weakest of the three mostly because of the messy ending to the film, this is still fun and considerably better than the two Avengers films that preceded it (for all intents and purposes, this was the third Avengers movie-look at who it starred in that photo!).

8. Iron Man (2008)

The film that started it all, Robert Downey Jr. going from basically uninsurable to a matinee idol will eventually be one of the great Hollywood comeback stories.  He's great in this movie, a role he was born to play, and the lack of over-confidence in his work (though thankfully not in his character) is spectacular movie star fun.

7. Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

It is literally impossible to gage this film without seeing the sequel (increasingly, it's hard to gage this entire series without seeing the rest of the series) since they are so interconnected, but most of the film gets it right.  The film is grand in scale, there are some strong performances (particularly Tom Holland), and Thanos is a well-executed villain.  It all depends on what the nexy film does, though, over whether this movie stays on its perch considering the cliffhanger.

6. Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

This movie works really well on its own, and arguably doesn't need the rest of the series to elevate it at all.  Fun, with a great motif & scheme for the characters (I loved the pre-war scenes and the ridiculousness of Captain America's new body), Chris Evans nails this part & sets up a complicated character that in the comic books was always underwritten.

5. Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

I didn't want this movie, and I distinctly remember at the time of its announcement saying "I'm not going to see it" after the terrible reboot with Andrew Garfield proved to be such a disappointment.  However, Tom Holland is the best of the three live-action Peter Parkers, playing with a lack of confidence that is endearing and works so well it's impossible to deny him his place in the Top 5.

4. Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

I don't care that you don't like it anymore, or that Chris Pratt has become problematic in the years since (I actually do care about that one, but as a classic film historian, I have dealt with problematic film stars for decades so my tolerance level is high).  This is the first of the quartet of films I gave 4-stars to, and it earns it with great humor, unlikely heroes, and a new swagger to the MCU.

3. Ant-Man (2015)

By far the most visually innovative of all of the movies, and perhaps the funniest, everything about this movie works.  Paul Rudd is great as the unlikely hero, Michael Douglas hasn't been this good in 15 years, and what could have been a joke of a movie ends up being one of the best installments in the series without ever being too silly.

2. Black Panther (2018)

Marvel goes prestige with this movie, the first superhero movie to ever compete for the Best Picture Oscar.  Armed with the series best villain (Michael B. Jordan is sexy & dangerous as Killmonger), we see an expanded universe that shows that the MCU might just be able to survive after the first class of superheroes (Evans, Downey, ScarJo) hang up their capes.

1. Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)

The best Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, and next to The Dark Knight, the best comic book movie of this century, period.  Johansson was on a creative high at the time, and you can see that in her work here, and Robert Redford's warm, movie star charisma (very similar, in fact, to Chris Evans') is eerie because he's so nasty as an Edward Snowden-style figure, a villain whose point you can kind of see even if it's totally evil.  Add in Toby Jones' Arnim Zola making a freaky cameo (still my favorite scene in literally any Marvel movie), and you have arguably the best picture in the series (to date).

Isn't It Romantic (2019)

Film: Isn't It Romantic (2019)
Stars: Rebel Wilson, Liam Hemsworth, Adam Devine, Priyanka Chopra
Director: Todd Strauss-Schulson
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

It seems like critics or film watchers are always pronouncing the romantic comedy as "dead," just to be proven wrong the next year when another rom-com comes out and suddenly the genre has been resuscitated.  However, I think a certain kind of rom-com has in fact died, because each era sort of puts its specific spin on what we expect a romantic-comedy to be, a fact highlighted in Isn't it Romantic, a movie very steeped in 90's tradition, even when it's mocking the format.  The films that made stars out of Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan, & Kate Hudson had pop songs, clumsy but approachable beauties, and always involved her with the wrong guy searching for the right one.  This is at the center of Isn't it Romantic, a cute but hardly groundbreaking film that, like the best of 90's rom-coms, gets most of its power from its affable star.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers around Natalie (Wilson), who is an architect at a firm where she's treated like an assistant.  She has a pair of best friends at her office, including Josh (Devine), who is obviously smitten with her, a fact of which only Natalie seems unaware.  She was conditioned by her mother as a child that love and romance were only for women that look like Julia Roberts, not who look like Rebel Wilson, and acts in a similar fashion.  When she is mugged randomly, she knocks herself unconscious, and suddenly the entire world looks like she's in 27 Dresses, with unnaturally handsome doctors, a gay sidekick who caters to her every whim, and a ludicrously sexy billionaire named Blake (Hemsworth) who finds her "beguiling."  Quickly Natalie comes to realize that she's stuck in a romantic comedy of her own, and the only way to wake up is to get a man to fall in love with her.  The problem is that the man she initially gets to love her, Blake, isn't the one she loves, and as a result she starts pursuing Josh instead.

The movie attempts to pay homage to the multitude of cliches from the 1990's/early-aughts rom-coms, even borrowing from the soundtracks of Pretty Woman, She's All That, and Legally Blonde to underline their point.  It works occasionally in making this happen.  Proving that Netflix is never going to elevate a mediocre movie quite like a theater, the audience at my screening really liked picking up on the in jokes, which actually made the whole film more fun.  The skit where Rebel Wilson, so close to getting to have sex with Liam Hemsworth, keeps getting denied thanks to the PG-13 rating imposed by her hallucination is hilarious, and one of several great site gags throughout the film focusing on the laughably over-the-top beauty of Hemsworth and Chopra (like, how do humans like this even exist?).

The problem for the film is that it has to basically indulge the same cliches to get Natalie and Josh together, which was of course the foregone conclusion.  The back-half of the film, where Natalie pursues Josh and then realizes she must love herself first, is a bit hackneyed, and doesn't have enough wink to it to plausibly be paying homage still to other such romantic comedies.  As a result, like most rom-coms of its ilk, the film is entirely dependent on the considerable charms of its leading woman to carry through the repetitive plotting.

This is a strong bet.  Wilson, known so far in her career for physical comedy and gross-out bits in her films, is right-at-home as a romantic heroine you want to be happy.  With a gift for comedic line delivery rivaled by few other actresses working today, she sells every good joke and patches over every bad one she's given.  In an era in desperate need of a new rom-com heroine, she's the best heir I've seen to Ryan/Bullock/Roberts in a while.  Hopefully after elevating Isn't it Romantic, which is pretty good, she'll be given the chance sometime soon to be in a Bridesmaids again where the film is running on as many cylinders as she is.

Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

Film: Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)
Stars: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Cailee Spaeny, Lewis Pullman, Chris Hemsworth
Director: Drew Goddard
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

It's been six years since Drew Goddard's last film, The Cabin in the Woods, came along and sort of knocked the horror genre for a loop.  Twisty and smart, Goddard, one of the more innovative screenwriters currently working in Hollywood (he was nominated for an Oscar for The Martian, and was arguably the most consistent screenwriter on Lost, crafting episodes like "The Shape of Things to Come" and "Flashes Before Your Eyes"), is great with dense plots, smart ideas, and creating vivid human beings out of what could have been stock characters.  I didn't realize until after Bad Times at the El Royale was done that Goddard was the man behind it, but I knew something was up because I was struck throughout the entire film by how good it was.  Despite the occasional plot hole (we'll get there in the spoiler section), Bad Times at El Royale is surely the film this year that I disagree in the opposite direction of the critics the most, thinking it's terrific while they find it middling.  I don't see how they aren't catching that this is smart, spry, filled with rich performances, clever visuals, and Goddard's increasingly signature look at subverting expectations while rarely sacrificing his story to create a twist.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film takes place at a hotel outside of the normal world, literally on the edge of Nevada and California (a key plot point as the hotel is able to have different laws because it's in two different states).  In an opening that feels reminiscent of Clue, the movie introduces us to the tenants of the evening: Father Flynn (Bridges as a kindly priest), Laramie Sullivan (Hamm as a bombastic, racist vacuum salesman), Darlene Sweet (Erivo as a quiet, aspiring singer), Emily Summerspring (Johnson as a woman who signs "fuck you" in the ledger rather than give her real name), and Miles Miller (Pullman, as the clearly disturbed bellhop).  The movie then starts breaking out the film into chapters, borrowing from Quentin Tarantino (I called it Clue meets Tarantino in a text while driving home from the theater, and I've seen multiple other reviewers now make the same comparison), and we learn that all of these people aren't quite what they seem.  As the night wears on, we are introduced to the final two of our main players: Emily's warped sister Rose (Spaeny) and her gorgeous, sociopathic cult leader Billy Lee (Hemsworth), who comes in to cause mass chaos in the picture's final third.

The movie is rich in plot, which is a challenge for a lot of pictures.  The film opens with Nick Offerman getting shot by an unarmed assailant, and we actually never figure out why this happens.  This is perhaps the film's only significant plot hole, though, which is saying something as it unfolds so swiftly but in such a clear path that you almost feel like the answer to who the killer is is baked into the picture (my date and I kept thinking it was Miles, and that would be revealed as the film goes as there was a "kid" with them on the robbery, and considering Goddard's stint on Lost, perhaps there's some subtle clues reminding us of this if we rewatch the film).  The movie runs the fine line well between giving us genuine surprises (particularly the shock deaths of Hamm and Johnson so early in the movie when less famous actors were available for the filmic chopping block) while only that one time leaving us with a shock-for-the-sake-of-it.  Goddard's crown as one of the better screenwriters currently working in Hollywood remains secure after El Royale.

While Goddard himself is the star, his casting agent deserves a crown of her own (Carmen Cuba, well done) as no one is giving a false note in this lineup.  Erivo, getting her first major role in the movie, regularly sings to heighten the mood of the film.  There's a wonderful scene where she and Bridges, now teamed up after she took a bottle to his head in an previous scene, are being watched by a gun-wielding Johnson through a two-way mirror.  While Johnson is the one peering in through the mirror, it's actually Erivo & Bridges who know they're being watched, and Erivo is singing to mask Bridges taking apart the floorboards.  It's a riveting, spellbinding scene, one that showcases her vocals and acting ability, and combined with Widows, this should be a one-two punch to prove she should be cast in everything now.  Johnson and Bridges are so consistently awesome that it should be no surprise they land their characters well here: Johnson's dangerous, unknowable woman plays best in hindsight, when you realize that's the way she'll stay so only the slightest hints at who she is are ever given to the audience, while Bridges nails his role as a conman whom you're constantly deciphering what is the truth and what is a fiction to improve his situation.  Hemsworth has never been better than his nasty, Manson-esque Billy Lee, intensely sexy (Hemsworth spends the entire film in a state-of-undress) but also deeply violent (he murders Johnson's Emily in cold blood).  Hemsworth is entering that portion of his career where he'll need to start evolving from his matinee idol good looks to perhaps more challenging acting roles than Thor, and if this is any indication, the other Chris's should be quaking in their boots.

There's so much more to discuss here (Miles' left field "I've killed 123 people" had my jaw drop to the floor, and was one of the few times Goddard wasn't borrowing from Tarantino as Quentin would have surely had our shaking bellhop be a serial killer to go with the 60's motif, rather than a shell-shocked Vietnam veteran...plus who is the man on that tape-MLK or one of the Kennedys?), but I'm going to end it with a discussion of my rating.  The film probably deserves a four-star ranking, and if I did a half system, it wouldn't land five.  The Offerman plot hole and the picture's last ten minutes (a bit too sentimental, and a bit too easy compared to the creative places we've been otherwise), but the rest of the movie is so damn good that I'm pulling the trigger and giving out my second five-star of the year.  Like Killing Them Softly before it, El Royale is the rare film that I say the critics got wrong, and will likely save years from now when they realize that it's an ace movie with a structure that young film fans will salivate over for years.  See it on the big screen to enjoy Seamus McGarvey's rich cinematography and Goddard's great plotting, and join me in the comments if you want to discuss the film's many twists.

OVP: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

Film: Avengers: Infinity War (2018)
Stars: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Don Cheadle, Tom Holland, Chadwick Boseman, Paul Bettany, Elisabeth Olsen, Anthony Mackie, Sebastian Stan, Tom Hiddleston, Idris Elba, Peter Dinklage, Vin Diesel, Bradley Cooper, Gwyneth Paltrow, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Chris Pratt (okay, seriously-what was the actor budget like on this film-this cast easily could have cost $200 million by itself)
Director: Anthony and Joe Russo
Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Visual Effects)
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars (read the review though, as it's really more a 2-4 star range based on the sequel)

Movies and television have started to collide in being the same mediums, something that I have never been okay with but apparently everyone else is so I've learned to deal.  The reality is that in a world where we simply rely upon "awesome franchises" for so much of our entertainment, and everything old is, well, not necessarily new but more a shattered shell of its former self (but comfortable so "who cares!"), it makes sense that a multi-billion dollar asset like the Avengers series would become essentially a multi-film TV series.  This picture, the 19th in the franchise (I believe I've seen all but two of these movies, though I'd have to double-check) is about as certain of a blockbuster hit as one can get, and because we live in an era where we need to suck up even if we aren't impressed (see also the White House Correspondents' Dinner), it's surely going to be a critical smash.  But I have been hit-or-miss with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and so I was genuinely curious if I was going to leave The Avengers duly-impressed or finding the film lacking.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie takes place in the aftermath of our last few installments of Captain America, Thor, and Black Panther, and most-importantly finally puts Thanos (Brolin) front-and-center as our villain, as he's been whom we've been building toward for nearly a decade now as our ultimate baddie who will take over the world.  Played in dull purple by Brolin, Thanos is an all-powerful villain that never quite feels as interesting as he should; one of the cardinal sins of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that they never approach the intrigue or a Joker or Lex Luthor when it comes to their bad guys.  Thanos could be more interesting if we let him breath a bit more on his personal philosophy, as in many ways he resembles Bane in his battle for a better humanity through brutal results (he essentially wants to wipe out half of the population of the universe in order to reduce hunger and resource-deprivation).  It's entirely possible they're saving that for the sequel, but that points to perhaps the greatest problem with this movie: it needs a sequel to function, and it needs to be television to work.

Film functioning as television has always had one major flaw: TV shows end, and film franchises frequently do not, at least not while there's serious money on the table.  The best television series allow you to love characters, but also occasionally give you consequences or events that can never be undone.  Look at, say, Lost or Game of Thrones or Mad Men, and how these shows would occasionally kill off characters or end romances or have betrayals that shape the course of the series, never to be entirely glossed over.  As a result, there was genuine risk in what the series was bringing to the viewers, knowing that season finales could shape your viewpoint entirely of what might come next in the franchise.

Here, though, we watch as Spider-Man, Black Panther, Star-Lord, roughly a dozen major characters in the franchise vanish with a literal snap of the fingers in the film's final moments, as Thanos vision for a universe where half of the citizens die suddenly becomes reality.  It's a staggering sequence, with fine work from Danai Gurira (watching her invincible king evaporate in her hands), and especially a squeaky-voiced Tom Holland pleading with Iron Man to save him, the scared teenager behind the superhero emerging as he realizes the consequences of fighting for good.  In a television series, particularly one where I assumed there is only one film left, I would have thought this was a jaw-dropping moment.  Holland's fine protestations would have brought me to tears, realizing that he would leave us too quickly, and I would have been shocked that it hadn't been the actors whose contracts were about to expire (Iron Man, Captain America, Thor) who left us but the theoretical future of the series.  But I'm smart enough to realize that these characters already have films lined up (Spider-Man, in particular, is going to have to start airing trailers before Avengers is seen next year, so I'm not sure how that will even work).  Theoretically, of course, we could see the roles in these films recast, but that seems preposterous-Holland, Boseman, Pratt, these are major stars now that the public wants to see play these roles.  They aren't going to quickly disappear from the franchises, and Disney has too much money on the line to let them go.

As a result, we get a cheap ending to the film.  It's probable that we'll see them brought back next time, and then watch as the expected characters go into the sunset, with a new series of Avengers ready to take the stage, perhaps with Downey, Hemsworth, or Evans a possibility to return in 5-7 years if their careers are suffering.  But it doesn't make this film particularly interesting, and it proves that perpetual stories are too lazy.  There's a lot to like in The Avengers, even if I feel it fails on the most important element (plotting).  The victor of the movies has always truly been the casting directors, finding relative unknowns who ooze movie star charisma to play larger-than-life characters.  There is so much plot, but it's relatively brisk all-things-considered, and were it not for the inevitable deletion of the ending, it would surely stand apart as a great action film.  The movie's performances are uniformly good, with Holland, Cumberbatch, & Saldana being the standouts, and they take the time to give us fun pairings (Rocket & Thor being an obvious highlight, though I also particularly liked Spidey & Doctor Strange).

Were it not for the film's ending inevitably being deleted for something more conventional and keeping the story going perpetually (until we eventually tire of comic book heroes, which may be never), I'd give this a higher ranking, perhaps even a four-star.  But it doesn't work like that.  I know how this game plays out, and I'm not stupid enough to think that the shocking, arguably quite smart, ending to this picture won't be erased for something less intriguing.  As a result, I'm going to go with three stars, though in my head it's more like 2.5  If they keep most of the characters dead in the next film, I'll vote for a 4 star change at that time, but until then they've removed any element of surprise or sacrifice by giving us this ending, and as a result I can't applaud this picture, even if I see its value.

12 Strong (2018)

Film: 12 Strong (2018)
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Pena, Navid Negahban, Trevante Rhodes
Director: Nicolai Fuglsig
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

The strange thing about the recent massive success of The Avengers and its many, many offshoots is that it kind of has delivered an entire new wave of movie stars that occasionally make movies where they aren't sporting a giant cape or a big shield.  Chris Evans, Chadwick Boseman, Tom Holland, and of course Chris Hemsworth have become household names at this point, and as a result, other studios are going to see if that cache will translate into them being bankable or just bankable when they have a superhero franchise behind them.  The latest entry in this "are they a star?" questionnaire was 12 Strong, a movie that is a bit outside-the-realm of what I normally see in the theaters, but I was asked by a coworker to go and thanks to MoviePass I'm much more inclined to give a random movie a chance, so I went to see it.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film is based on real-life events following the September 11th attacks that took place in the beginning days of the War in Afghanistan.  It follows Mitch Nelson (Hemsworth), an arm captain that is "out but they pulled him back in," and is put in charge of a mission to capture a critical city in northern Afghanistan.  The film follows him, as well as his group of men, as they march across Afghanistan by horseback.  As they go, it encounters many of the tropes you expect from a war movie (the "rah rah" angle, the strange camaraderie of men), as well as provide highlighted roles for up-and-coming young actors like Trevante Rhodes & Austin Stowell.

The movie itself is pretty blase, and never finds ways to escape its cliched roots.  It doesn't fall into the level of truly awful cinema (I still can't get over how bad 13 Hours was), but it doesn't reach the "interesting commentary level" to say like American Sniper and isn't as succinct as Lone Survivor, even though it's clearly a descendant of those pictures.  It's one of those movies that clearly needs to grow its supporting characters, but relies on them being two-dimensional rather than growing them, as only Hemsworth, Shannon & Negahban have fully-fleshed characters, and they interact too much with supporting actors for this to be acceptable.  Rhodes, in particular, is making the most of a completely underwritten role and is by far best-in-show of this set, but there's nothing for him to do, and the movie is so predictable (even for a true story), that it's hard to take it seriously as a piece of cinema and not just something for Republicans to claim "is a good movie" because of the bravery of the men involved, rather than because of the artistry on its own.

That being said, I genuinely like Hemsworth as a movie star, and have yet to see a film where his naturalism in front of the camera isn't apparent.  Comedy is his forte, but he has a great energy as a movie star, sexy as hell but also with a gravitas (possibly brought about his resonant basso profundo).  I would like to see him tackle a role with a bit more thespian heft than this to see if he's more an 80's-era Mel Gibson (a Grade-A movie star but a middling actual actor), but there's something there.  I also wish that Michael Shannon would stop accepting every script that goes in front of him, because his angry, aging man has gotten into Samuel L. Jackson territory at this point with his constant films.  But all-in-all, Hemsworth (and Rhodes) save what could have been a truly mind-numbingly dull two hours and make it passable.

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Film: Thor: Ragnarok (2017)
Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum, Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins
Director: Taika Waititi
Oscar History: Marvel's not their favorite, so I'm guessing no even if VFX is theoretically a possibility.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Movies are supposed to be fun.  Like, genuinely a good time at the cinema, and I think that comic book movies have by-and-large forgotten that.  Think of the nauseating seriousness of some of the more recent Batman entries, with Christopher Nolan getting too bloated and with his inventiveness gone, the DC universe going largely to shit.  The Marvel movies have also struggled on this front, creating lighter heroes but ones still burdened by the world around them.  This occasionally can make for fine movies (Captain America: Winter Soldier still being the high-point of the Marvel universe), but it's also why people have responded so ferociously to Guardians of the Galaxy, a comic book franchise that doesn't take itself too seriously.  That was clearly what Taika Waititi had in mind with the latest installment in the Thor franchise, though I'm not entirely sold on the end result.

(Spoilers Ahead) The Thor franchise is arguably the least artistically interesting one of Marvel's universe.  One could argue that had Thor not been one of the original hits that eventually led to the Avengers movie taking over the globe, he probably wouldn't still be getting these stand-alone movies, but since he was and since Marvel essentially can print money with the Avengers franchise at this point, it's not hard to see why he's still getting his due.  Still, though, Thor as a solo character doesn't really work unless you can juxtapose him against other characters to show how preposterous he is, and Waititi certainly does that in this picture.

The film starts off with Thor (Hemsworth) returning to his home of Asgard after unsuccessfully searching for the Infinity Stones that have constantly peppered this franchise for the better part of a decade now.  We see that he no longer is with Jane, and that shockingly his brother Loki (Hiddleston) is still alive (albeit his father Odin (Hopkins) isn't long for this world).  He soon learns of Hela (Blanchett), his Goddess of Death sister, who destroys his hammer with her bare hands early in the film and slowly we watch as Thor is stripped off all of his iconography, with the hair and one eye soon to follow.   He inevitably ends up in a showdown with Hela, and proving that he has learned some humility, finally realizes that he cannot destroy her, only another demon can do so, and flees rather than stand to fight her.

The movie, though, will focus less on the fight for Asgard and more on the silly side distractions of Thor on Sakaar, a garbage dump of a planet (literally), where the Grandmaster (Goldblum) puts on massive battles that pit his Grand Champion, later revealed to be the Hulk (Ruffalo) against fighters such as Thor.  The movie stays extremely light and frothy in these parts, but I honestly wasn't feeling it.  Whereas Guardians was meant to be light, Thor has some very serious issues going on, and the Hulk in particular is played mostly for laughs but this is a deeply tragic figure.  Plus, Goldblum has used this schtick for so many years it's hard not to assume he's just playing himself onscreen.  Blanchett is better at delivering the camp as a woman who sports antlers for ears and can throw off a deadly bon mot better than pretty much anyone, but she's not central to the story-Goldblum is.  The entire movie is predicated on you just enjoying all of the silliness of Thor's compatriots, but it feels excessive.  Combined with unnecessary cameos (of course we see Benedict Cumberbatch's Doctor Strange, because that reminds people he's still around) and shocking, but then eye-rolling cameos (Matt Damon as Loki in a play...at some point we need to address that Damon has largely graduated from movie star to celebrity thanks to his string of middling movies & over-reliance on Jimmy Kimmel), the movie is reliant on societal pressure for you to love the Marvel brand so much that you're willing to dismiss the fact that the plotting here is bordering on garbage.  Chris Hemsworth has graduated into a movie star through these pictures, something we should be thankful for, and is arguably giving the best performance (give-or-take Blanchett), but movie star charisma and the face/body of an alien creature (seriously-how is it that one human being can be that attractive?) can't save this movie from being just, well, dull and pointless.  Marvel can have fun, but they need a plot and a point too.

Those are my (admittedly unpopular) thoughts on Thor: Ragnarok.  How about yours?  Anyone else find the movie to be over dull and forcing the fun, rather than seeming at ease?  Or am I just the spoil sport?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

The Dressmaker (2016)

Film: The Dressmaker
Stars: Kate Winslet, Liam Hemsworth, Judy Davis, Hugo Weaving, Sarah Snook
Director: Jocelyn Moorhouse
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I know it doesn't rival, say, Flora Plum or Margaret (at all), but The Dressmaker has been advertised for so long that I kind of can't believe I got to see it this past weekend.  I remember the initial trailer (which was out over a year ago as I recall thinking it could factor into the 2015 Oscars), and thinking "wow, Kate Winslet and Liam Hemsworth look dead sexy in this film."  Upon completing the film, I can confirm that, in fact, both of them are truly dead sexy in the film, though I can unfortunately also confirm that the film, while fairly fun, runs disjointed and probably all of that development allowed for too many cooks in the production kitchen.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film follows Tilly (Winslet), a woman who mysteriously waltzes back into her small Australian home town 25 years after the death of one of her classmates and being branded a murderer as a child, all the while trying to reconnect with her mother Molly (Davis) and fending off the advances of her delicious old friend Teddy (Hemsworth).  Tilly is initially dismissed as a pariah, but she has an unusual skill with a sewing machine, creating iconic, Fifth Avenue-worthy creations that start to transform the women of the town, to the point that they all look a tad ridiculous walking around the village in the highest of haute couture.  Along the way, she discovers that she did not, in fact, kill the young boy but instead he killed himself while trying to severely injure her.  She ends up in a charming picnic under the stars with Teddy while her mother starts to pull her life together after repairs have been made to their relationship.

Except that's not where the film ends.  The movie is strange about the way that it swings between a straight drama, very harrowing, and a black comedy of sorts-I probably overuse the phrase "balance problem" but there's really no other way to put it-the film suffers from a lack of a driving identity.  Is Tilly simply trying to correct a past injustice with these shallow, cruel townspeople or is she trying to move on from a tough chapter in her life?  The film really was leading toward the second half when they pull the rug out from under our eyes by letting both Teddy and Molly die in tragic deaths, the former of which feels particularly cruel since neither he nor Tilly really deserved such a nasty twist of fate (where he simply dies trying to prove she isn't cursed).

As a result, the final third of the film feels unusual in that you kind of hate the writers for it.  You get this wonderfully-spry romantic comedy for most of the movie, and then you just make us all sort of hate everyone onscreen save for Tilly.  I feel like this may have been what caused the film to be delayed-the ending, which is probably the same as the book, can't have tested well with audiences since they didn't remotely hint that Teddy could die and he was by far the most likable character in the film.  The ending, therefore, also feels underwritten-Tilly is going to destroy the town while dressed like a Barney's mannequin, which is great imagery but doesn't really do anything for me as I was still mad she didn't get an actual happy ending.  As a result, I liked a lot of The Dressmaker but not enough to recommend it.  Hemsworth and Winslet despite their (unacknowledged) age difference smolder throughout and haven't been this sexy in years (in Liam's case, ever), but that doesn't really make up for the nastiness of the film's final third.  Costumes are great, though.

Those are my thoughts on The Dressmaker, a film that I'm still not sure what the point was, but perhaps you can enlighten me in the comments.  Just start typing. :)

Ghostbusters (2016)

Film: Ghostbusters (2016)
Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon, Leslie Jones, Chris Hemsworth
Director: Paul Feig
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

The day before I went out to see Ghostbusters, I was talking to my friend Jesse and asked him what he was seeing this weekend, and he replied Ghostbusters, and I replied, "yes, I agree-I feel like it's my feminist duty to see it opening weekend" and he concurred.  Thus is the strangeness of this past year that a film that I would have seen anyway (I'll see literally any Feig/McCarthy collaboration going forward after two home runs and a ground-rule double) I felt duty-bound to attend.  Honestly, the ridiculous, sexist hype over Ghostbusters was so grand and over-the-top I genuinely wanted to shove it into the faces of all of the people (wait, let's just say it, men...and probably Scottie Nell Hughes) who had decided that recasting a movie with all women despite the fact that the original didn't need to be all men wasn't the worst idea, and that Ghostbusters isn't really a "classic" that can't be improved upon or re-imagined.  Thankfully, the film is a riot.  Like the original, it's not a fantastic, shoot-for-the-stars sort of film, but it's funny and has some game performers in it that land most of the jokes and make for an extremely watchable picture.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie follows Erin Gilbert (Wiig), a physics professor at Columbia University who has spent years trying to downplay her past career as a researcher of the paranormal while her childhood best friend Abby Yates (McCarthy) continues to celebrate their work together.  Through a series of comic turns-of-event, they are both fired and are eventually joined by Yates' assistant Jillian Holtzmann (McKinnon) when they discover a spirit that lives in a haunted house in Manhattan.  Eventually joined by a metro transit worker named Patty Tolan (Jones) and a ridiculously handsome assistant Kevin Beckman (Hemsworth), they form the Ghostbusters, a group that is consistently able but is constantly being overrun by political power-brokers who know that they're doing good but are covering up the paranormal to stop a mass panic from the public.  The film eventually has them battling a man who commits suicide so that he can come back as a spirit in an apocalypse of sorts that involves him possessing Chris Hemsworth (I feel like if I woke up in Chris Hemsworth body the first thing I'd do is update my Tinder profile, but that's just me), and Slimer returning to the world before we finally see a happy ending for all involved.

The film works well when it focuses on the sharp comedic skills of all of the women involved (and a surprisingly funny Hemsworth, who up until now has largely stuck to the dramatic as Thor and the Huntsman).  Wiig and McCarthy both stick largely to the role of straight women, but still have enough sharpness to land a number of sarcastic one-liners, but the physical comedy heavy-lifting falls principally on Jones and McKinnon, both more than capable after several years on SNL and in particular McKinnon stands out as a resident weirdo, someone that (were she a man) would already be pulling in 8-figures and headlining films with that kind of a skill.  Holtzmann is surely the standout character, frequently finding contortions with her face and giving us just enough both consistency and randomness to be real (at least within the Ghostbusters universe) as well as unpredictable.  I loved every second she was onscreen.

Honestly, there really wasn't anything not to enjoy here-the haters got this one wrong.  The movie itself has a very predictable plot, and perhaps a couple of the heavier scenes don't feel as earned (Erin and Abby don't really fight enough to warrant a gigantic life-saving scene where they feel like they're apologizing for their riff), but overall it's a good summer blockbuster.  Nothing too heavy, nothing that you'll feel gluttonous for having enjoyed, but just nice, clean popcorn.  It never hits the brilliant, observational heights of Bridesmaids nor the near-perfect comedic timing and laughs-per-minute of Spy (still my favorite comedy of the decade), but this fourth installment of the Feig/McCarthy series has me only asking one question: when is Round 5?

Those are my thoughts on Ghostbusters, which you've hopefully seen by now (if not, what are you waiting for?)-what are yours?  Were you a fan of the remake, and did you enjoy the cameos?  Are you hoping for a sequel (the box office has been sketchy, so that might be harder to pull of than I'd initially hoped), or is this enough?  And when is Hollywood going to give Kate McKinnon her own headlining role?  Share your thoughts in the comments!

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

Film: Avengers: Age of Ultron
Stars: Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Don Cheadle, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Cobie Smulders, James Spader, Samuel L. Jackson
Director: Joss Whedon
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I always feel weird reviewing movies that everyone has seen.  I get asked a lot of questions about movies and my thoughts on them as a general rule, but usually it's in the context of a movie that someone theoretically wants to see.  You know the type-the ones who will name-check 12 Years a Slave or Birdman but will actually just watch Friends reruns yet again (this may in fact be you, dear reader, and I implore you to maybe just maybe consider a movie outside of your comfort zone instead).  So even if I run counter to the norms of most reviewers, no one is going to really counter it because they haven't actually seen the movie.  This isn't the case for a massive hit like Avengers: Age of Ultron, which everyone has seen and has an opinion upon, and I've already gotten several dirty looks for calling merely "okay" and not raving about it being the "BEST MOVIE EVER!!!!"  Either way, though, it's a significant film for 2015 so I need to get my thoughts on it out into the world, so here goes...

(Spoilers Ahead...though, really, you haven't seen this yet and you're still planning on seeing it?) The film picks up relatively quickly after the last Avengers' film, with little need to introduce characters we have already spent billions of dollars to see in a host of different movies.  Iron Man (Downey), Thor (Hemsworth), Captain America (Evans), the Black Widow (Johansson), the Hulk (Ruffalo), and oh, what the hell, even Hawkeye (Renner) are battling it out over yet another one of the Infinity Stones that we've all been leading up to for the final films in the set.  We see the Infinity Stone retrieved by the team in the form of a scepter, and run into several new baddies, most notably Quicksilver (Taylor-Johnson) and the Scarlet Witch (Olson).  Once at this new compound, Iron Man wants to use the Infinity Stone to create world peace, but in the process creates an evil villain in the form of Ultron (Spader), whose idea of world peace is essentially destroying all life on earth so that machines and creatures of metal/data can rule the world.  His idea is to tear the Avengers apart in leading up to his armageddon, in hopes of beating them through this strategy, though as this is a superhero movie, after some soul-searching, the team eventually gets a final showdown with all of the Avengers taking on Ultron, a minor Avenger getting offed in the process, and the team seemingly breaking up...with them inevitably being called together at a later date once back-end residuals have been negotiated.

The film, like most action adventures, follows a pretty traditional format, and like the original picture it's at its most interesting when the film is fun, not heavy-handed.  The movies don't have the motif of DC when it comes to creating something harsh to cling onto, a tortured soul with the passion of a hero.  As a result, it's best when it's trying to be a little bit lighter.  I loved the entire sequence where everyone tries to lift Thor's hammer (and Captain America actually comes close), or whenever Captain America is called out for his aversion to profanity, or basically anything involving Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders is human perfection in this role).  Whenever it's clear they're having a good time I'm having a good time by proxy.  These are the Avengers, the World's Mightiest Heroes, and most people just can't come close to touching them, and both sides know it, so why not at least play with that in the process?  The second half of the film loses most of this amusement, and as a result is the lesser half of the film.

The movie is very hit-and-miss with both returning characters and introducing new ones.  Part of the problem here is that there are way too many characters-we can argue til we're blue-in-the-face about whom to cut, but with a dozen major actors playing significant roles in the film, and all of them with agents on speed-dial, it feels like we have too much posturing or moments where we need to see a specific character to set up a future film or a future angle of the Marvel universe.  Thor, for example, is woefully underused and off on his own adventure that we don't even see for the bulk of the film, clearly setting up Thor: Ragnarok but nothing much more in this film and he could have been lifted with ease.  The film has much more time for Hawkeye and the Black Widow, but the former gets into an annoyingly bad story (seriously-if there's a cliche for "I'm about to die" that they tried to throw in hopes of getting the audience to anticipate Hawkeye's death when clearly it was going to be the underwritten Quicksilver, I don't know what it could have been) and the latter gets downgraded in terms of a hero.  Did we really need that ridiculously uncomfortable sequence about her not being able to have children?  This is what makes her a "monster?"  This is her major failing as a human being-not having children?  The fact that this becomes such a key part for arguably the most significant female superhero in filmic history is a really massive misstep by Joss Whedon, who generally does very well with his female characters but makes the Black Widow a woman who can kick butt, but for some reason her entire story needs to deal with her lacking of a romantic relationship and a baby, and unlike the others, not her ambitions.  It was a HUGE step back from the places we took the character in the far superior film Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

The movie also has troubles with the villain.  Ultron initially seems like a really complicated character-one who seems to be doing evil accidentally as a byproduct of doing good (much like Robert Redford's character in Winter Soldier), but then descends into a simple "I'm a bad guy" veneer that becomes tiresome and boring.  His henchmen should be more complicated than they are, but the Scarlet Witch is insanely naive and Quicksilver just stands there and looks pretty.  Neither of them stands out, and Quicksilver is so unimportant to the plot that his death is mostly a "oh, I figured they'd do more with that" than a "wow, I can't believe it!"  About the only character that is new to the film that really resonated in a big way was Paul Bettany's Vision, who actually asks some big questions and seems pulled straight out of the comic books and not some bleached down version of what Marvel has created in print.

So I will admit at the end that I just didn't like this movie.  It has too many pleasurable elements not to state that it's still fun in the moment (Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, and Cobie Smulders remaining my favorite performances in the series), but overall it's less than the predecessor, which still pales in comparison to what the Captain America movies are doing.  I feel like I'm contributing to the problem with almost certainly seeing the next movie, but I might wait for reviews for it at least.  This is a movie that everyone's seen that I'm just giving a shoulder shrug.

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)

Film: The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013)
Stars: Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Woody Harrelson, Elizabeth Banks, Lenny Kravitz, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Sam Claflin, Jena Malone
Director: Francis Lawrence
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Reviewing one of the biggest films of the year always takes a bit of planning, and so I knew going into Catching Fire, the latest installment in the Adventure of Katniss Everdeen, that I had to pay attention.  For starters, I needed to pay attention because, like Harry Potter and Twilight before them, this film is brimming with ancillary characters that the film pays lip service to and that I’m expected to remember from the previous film (you can’t miss out on the chance to have a famous face play a character for twenty seconds, after all).  Secondly, unlike those previous two films, I haven’t really finished this series-I read Catching Fire when it came out in stores, but I’ll admit that it didn’t really bite me like the first book, which was a delicious, cruel delight.  This book has always seemed like a pale, cheap imitation-too repetitive, too focused on a love triangle (does every film series need one of these?), too tunnel-visioned on one specific character (who, notably, suffers from some intense tunnel vision).  But I wanted to see how they approached some of the characters and like all of America, I like to see how sequels take things even if I didn’t 100% care for the first installment.  Film series are my crack, and I indulged in an opening weekend hit.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, for the seven of you that have either never read the book or missed the movie this weekend, picks up almost exactly where we had left off-Katniss (Lawrence), after co-winning the Hunger Games with her new love interest Peeta (Hutcherson), is still hunting, flashing back to her time in the games, and is moodily angry at basically everyone.  After a showdown of sorts with President Snow (Sutherland), she is chosen to serve once again with Peeta in a special version of the Hunger Games, where all of the past winners are forced to compete against each other.  Unlike other seasons of the games, this year's event riles up both the districts and the Capitol, who have come to love their victors as the victors have been a part of their lives.  Once inside the games, the victors start their own plan, with Katniss, Peeta, and a cavalcade of former winners (including Sam Claflin’s Finnick and Jena Malone’s Johanna, the biggest highlights of the film), they manage to escape from the Hunger Games, most of them relatively intact, with only Peeta stuck behind.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve gotten some distance from the bad role model that Bella Swann was, but I spent most of this movie alternating between really loving Jennifer Lawrence and really hating Katniss Everdeen, something I don’t particularly remember from the books, though I will admit that I lost decided interest part way through the second book (Confession Time: I have never finished the third book, though I plan on doing so this weekend just so that I don’t get spoilered before I inevitably latch onto the next two films).  I think what bothered me so much about Katniss is that she’s too impetuous and too stupid for her own good.  Perhaps it’s because every guy around her is planning every move, but for a film with a strong-willed female character, there’s not much that she does except look pretty and shoot arrows.  Honestly-she’s not the most skilled player in the games (Johanna and Finnick both could best her on this front), she’s not the savviest person outside the games (both Harrelson’s Haymitch and Hoffman’s Plutarch are the puppetmasters here), and aside from occasional moments of faked charm, she’s not really our hero, but just a figurehead.  I loved the moment when Peeta challenges her about her family and friends-there are other people that she affects too, and the way that she constantly, foolishly yells through the woods of the games, giving away her location-it makes little to no sense.  Even at his moodiest Harry Potter was never this foolish, and Bella Swann’s actions rarely impacted others-Katniss, though, she’s a girl that doesn’t care if others catch on fire.

The film is really stunted by a couple of its casting decisions and cast members.  Lawrence’s Katniss may not be a likeable or even a strong character, but Lawrence is too good of an actress to not pull her off with solidity.  I loved the lighter moments (Lawrence was born for screwball comedy, despite that genre not really existing anymore)-the scene where Johanna strips in the elevator was a triumph not just for Malone (who really is terrific after floundering a bit on the road from child star to adult actress, sinking her teeth into the scenery-chewing like no other actor so far in this series), but also for Lawrence’s reaction shots.  When Lawrence is forced to opine for Prim, Peeta, and Gael, she doesn’t sell her nearly as well-you can see the anguish in her face, but perhaps because these other characters are so unknown to us, we don’t really connect as an audience with them.

One of the key problems with the series, particularly when they decided to make it a series, is that the books never really stop focusing on Katniss.  Rowling’s Harry Potter and to a lesser extent Meyer’s Twilight (everyone else compares them, why can’t I?) had a host of additional characters that got fleshed out in some fashion throughout the books, but Collins only wants to know her main character.  While I have admitted to not knowing what happens in the third book (again, I’ll fix it this weekend), so far we’ve seen this flaw rather handily in the movies.  Peeta, for example, is a complete blank slate-all we know about him is essentially what the Capitol knows about him.  We know him as sweet, kind, in love with Katniss, and willing to sacrifice himself at the drop of a hat.  That’s basically the image that is being projected by the Capitol.  I’d say this was a massive inside joke on Collins/the director’s behalf except it clearly isn’t-he just isn’t well-drawn.  Hutcherson doesn’t help by taking advantage of his relaxed moments like Lawrence does-he does what the script calls for, but doesn’t add anything additional to what’s on the page, and his portrayal comes across as flat.  He frequently gains comparisons to a young Tom Hanks, but Hanks would have never disappeared so fully into the background as Hutcherson does, and while he's a nice enough chap, I have yet to see much promise from him as an actor.  This is the same for Liam Hemsworth’s Gael, but he doesn’t get near the screentime that Hutcherson does, so he’s less at fault.  Also, on the note of Team Gael/Team Peeta-how is this a contest?  I mean, Peeta is sweet and Hutcherson is cute, but Hemsworth is a Greek god-it’s not really a fair fight.

Aside from Johanna, the only other new character worth mentioning is Sam Claflin’s Finnick.  Unlike Malone, who is clearly doing the biggest lifting with that character, Finnick starts out so interesting (what are his motives, whose side is he on) that Claflin gets a leg up on the fascinating front.  I love the way that he plays him ambiguously, and since the books always felt a bit like Finnick was bisexual, I wish the film had had the guts to pull a ParaNorman and change his Annie into an Andy.  Just saying, but unless you’re a hardcore shipper for that couple, you know I’m right.

One last note before I leave-the costumes are all intriguing, but did anyone else feel the film still had cinematography problems?  This could have just been the theater I was in, but I felt this way in the first film too-if they are trying to make the film appear darker and grimmer, there are a lot better ways to shoot the movie than in light-depleted shots.  I asked my friend Kate after this film, and she agreed (so it’s not a sign I need to visit the optometrist)-why not do more light and do some contrast with shadow?  It would have made the same impression without the eye strain.

Those are my thoughts, anyway-what are yours?  Did you enjoy this installment better than the first (I’m roughly equal)?  Do you also have an increasing annoyance with Katniss, or are you shouting the odds shouldn’t be in my favor?  And are you Team Gael or Team Peeta?  Share in the comments!