Somehow I've gotten this far without being exposed to much of Lin-Manuel Miranda's songwriting. I'm the last person in America who hasn't seen "Hamilton." I had a conflict and reviewed something else than "In the Heights." I don't listen to a lot of radio other than my local NPR station, watch much TV (movies are my game) or pay attention to Broadway.
So "Vivo," the new animated film from Sony debuting on Netflix, is pretty much my first serious exposure to the EGOT-chasing Miranda's musical creations. And, I have to say, I'm not impressed.
I know, I know. Blasphemous. He's a modern master, they say, combining hip-hop rhythms and rap-patter delivery of lyrics with traditional Broadway melodies.
Maybe "Vivo" is just an off outing for him. Maybe I'm tin-eared. (I am, admittedly, partially deaf, though I can just turn up the volume and think I can judge what I do hear just fine.) But musicals pretty much live or die by the catchiness of the songs, and I only counted one or two that got my toe to briefly tapping.
Ten years ago I was amazed by the stop-motion animation film “Coraline” from Laika, stating that it took a practiced eye to even tell it apart from standard animation. The action was so smooth and the world it occupied so vast, it was hard to believe it was made by infinitesimal changes to puppets photographed one frame at a time, 24 per second.
The newest from Laika, “Missing Link,” puts that film’s technical achievements to shame. This movie is so visually stunning that I again watched in disbelief. If not for some making-of sequences over the credits showing the painstaking process of putting it together, I might’ve thought the filmmakers were fudging.
They do use CGI animation for some of the backgrounds, but all the characters, clothes and sets are actually miniatures. Astounding.
Alas, I wish the story was a little stronger. Laika movies have been notable for their darker themes and complex narratives. (See -- especially if you already haven’t -- “Kubo and the Two Strings.”) “Missing Link” follows a rather conventional “finding your own path” story with a bigfoot creature.
Aside from similarities to other cinematic tales of late, including last year’s “Smallfoot” and “Abominable” coming out this September, the story makes the mistake of shunting the bigfoot character to sidekick status and putting all the attention on his human companion, a self-involved British explorer, Sir Lionel Frost, voiced by Hugh Jackman.
I’m reminded of the recent “Dumbo,” in which a bunch of humans took over the tale and the little flying elephant lost the spotlight.
The setup is that Frost has been trying and failing for years to be admitted to an elite club of adventurers, but the nasty leader, Lord Piggot-Dunceb (Stephen Fry), is determined to keep him out. Then Frost receives a letter alerting him to sightings of a bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest of America. This is the discovery that will finally secure his status, he figures.
Finding the bigfoot isn’t a problem -- turns out he wrote the letter himself. Resembling an 8-foot orangutan, the mild-mannered creature is voiced by Zach Galifianakis. As the only one of his kind, he’s always felt terribly alone, and wants to enlist Frost’s help in transporting him to the Himalayas to seek out the yeti, whom he feels are his long-lost cousins.
Dressing him up in a comically undersized suit so he can pass as a man, they refer to him as “Mr. Link,” short for missing link, though he later acquires an unexpected nickname.
Along the way they pick up an antagonist in Willard Stenk -- love that name -- a pint-sized shootist with claw marks across his bald head, and some (reluctant, initially) help in Adelina Fortnight (Zoe Saldana), a vivacious former girlfriend of Frost who holds a map to Shangri-La, where the Yetis reputedly reside.
The basic dynamic is that Frost is a self-centered jerkwad who only thinks of himself and his reputation, rather than relating to Link as a person with feelings and longings of his own. Adelina doesn’t have much to do but point out to Frost his missteps.
Writer/director Chris Butler previously helmed the excellent “ParaNorman.” I liked a lot of things about “Missing Link,” but it reads like a deliberate attempt by Laika to make a picture that has more mainstream commercial appeal.
Despite its glorious visuals, its lack of originality leaves it as a little better than middling bit of animation.
If the first “Avengers” movie felt like a convergence, the point toward which years of disparate superhero film franchises had been building, then the third, “Avengers: Infinity Wars,” is the beginning of the end times.
I don’t say that to mean superhero flicks are on their way out. Anything but. You can take a look at the box office tallies for this movie, “Black Panther” and other recent iterations from the Marvel Comics Universe and know they’re going to keep making them until people stop going.
But my take is that in the hereafter fans of these movies will refer to the genre in terms of “before AIW” and “after AIW.”
This is a game-changing film that takes all our hopes and dreams bound up with the modern mythology of superheroes, and dashes them against the wall. The story arc of dozens of future movies will hinge upon this movie and its sequel, due out next May.
I won’t give anything away for the few people who haven’t seen it, but before “Avengers: Infinity War” came out it was a common parlor game to guess how many characters would die in it, and choose which ones. Afterward… let’s just say a lot of people making picks were right.
You know the story. World-beater Thanos (Josh Brolin) is coming to Earth to claim the last of the Infinity Stones, which will essentially render him all-powerful. His goal: to eradicate half the living beings in the cosmos so the others can prosper on the remaining resources.
This is more than just an Avengers movie, as almost every single hero of all the Marvel franchises make appearances -- the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, and so on. There’s too many characters to list, but Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) are the most pivotal.
The plot lines move through a number of smaller battles, culminating in a massive one in the hidden nation of Wakanda. On a number of occasions the heroes have a chance to sacrifice one of the Stones in order to prevent Thanos from collecting them all, and decide that the principle of protecting one life is more important than emulating their enemy’s behavior.
We’ll see how that works out for them.
“Avengers: Infinity War” is the culmination of the superhero cinematic adventure that’s been growing for more than two decades. Where things go from here, I can only wait to see.
Bonus features are good, not great. There’s a feature length commentary track by directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely; a gag reel; four production documentary shorts totaling about a half-hour; and deleted and extended scenes adding another 10 minutes of footage.
We’re 20 years and more than 50 movies into the renaissance of cinematic superheroes, when you count the various iterations of Marvel Comics and the handful of DC. It’s usually a time when middle age sets in, a sort of creative malaise where stars age out of their roles, studios grow covetous of their cash cows and the storytelling inevitably suffers.
Caution, and reliance on tried-and-true formula, becomes the name of the game.
Then here comes “Avengers: Infinity War” to blow everything up in ways we completely didn’t expect or, indeed, would have said could never happen if foretold to us. Watching it, I kept saying to myself, “Well, there’s no way they’re going to go there,” and then they went there, and then they want past there.
This is a dazzling, ambitious, overpowering film experience that gives bracing new life -- and some deaths -- to the superhero genre. This feels like a watershed moment, a paradigm shift. Wherever this type of filmmaking goes, from now on we’ll think of superhero movies in terms of “before” and “after” this film.
Here’s the unpleasantness: the earth-shaking nature of this movie makes it very, very difficult to review. If I were to even hint at half the stuff that happens in this movie, your mind would be blown. I will endeavor to do my best in the rest of this review not to commit any spoilers. I advise you to avoid conversations or social media posts from anyone you don’t trust in that regard.
Things pick up a couple years after the events of “Captain America: Civil War,” with the group cloven by internal strife and government interference. Thanos, the world-conquering villain who’s been alluded to in previous Marvel Cinematic Universe films, finally makes his big push on Earth -- and a number of other planets -- to gather the six Infinity Stones that will give him virtually unconquerable power.
Literally everybody in the MCU appears in this movie, or nearly so. Just listing the cast would take up the rest of this review, but it includes Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.); Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth); patriot/headman Captain America (Chris Hemsworth); Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman); Star Lord (Chris Pratt) and the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy crew, notably Gamora (Zoe Saldana), rebel adopted daughter of Thanos, muscleman Drax (Dave Bautista), raccoon pilot/warrior Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and tree creature Groot (Vin Diesel); sorcerer supreme Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch); super-spy Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson); Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen); robot sentinel Vision (Paul Bettany); teen supe Spider-Man (Tom Holland); and many, many more.
Josh Brolin plays Thanos, in an oddly emotive motion-capture CGI performance. He truly believes himself to be the universe’s savior, making the hard choices no one else is willing to. A vaguely purpleish titan with a craggy face and muscles big enough to beat the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) senseless, Thanos pursues ultimate power, and is willing to pay the ultimate price to obtain it.
Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, who helmed the last two Captain America movies, from a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, “Avengers: Infinity War” is an action-packed maelstrom that somehow manages to fit in enough little moments for the actors to let their characters’ essential nature shine through.
I often complain that movies these days ramble on too long, but at 2½ hours, this film flew by. Again, I really don’t want to give anything away, but when the credits started to roll, I truly couldn’t believe the film was going to end the way it does. I was left shocked, amazed, exhausted and spectacularly entertained.
Usually when a movie is successful enough to merit a sequel, the inclination is to do more of what the first one did well. An action flick must be even more packed with it, a supernatural thriller needs bigger twists, and so on.
“Guardians of the Galaxy” was the first flat-out comedy superhero film. Yet rather than just go for more laughs, the filmmakers made a conscious decision to focus on character-building rather than just yuks. I think it was the smart move.
“Vol. 2” doesn’t have the freshness and zing of its predecessor, but it’s a satisfying extension of this corner of the Marvel universe – which, in this case, is a good chunk of the actual universe.
The gang is all back: smirking human hero Star-Lord/Peter Quill (Chris Pratt); green-skinned assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana); muscular brute Drax (Dave Bautista); genetic creation/pilot/racoon/raconteur Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper); and Groot (voice of Vin Diesel), the monosyllabic, tree-like creature who was mostly destroyed in the last movie and has returned as a pint-sized shoot.
The basic plot is that the Guardians are once again being chased by a bunch of galactic forces for various reasons, mostly of their own making. They run into an odd being named Ego (Kurt Russell), a powerful alien who claims to be Peter’s father. Everyone hops back to his DIY planet to hash out familial connections and hidden motives. There we meet Mantis (Pom Klementieff), Ego’s assistant/pet, an empath whose naivete about mortals is a strange parallel with Drax’s tendency to verbalize the things most people would leave unspoken.
Returning characters include Nebula (Karen Gillan), Gamora’s death-seeking, cybernetic sister, and Yondu (Michael Rooker), the colorful space pirate who kidnapped/adopted Peter when he was a boy.
It’s not better, but I would say “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” is in many ways bigger than the first movie. Its ambitions, and the depth of its mythology, has expanded considerably.
Video extras are quite expansive, though you’ll have to spring for the Blu-ray edition, as there are none on the DVD.
These include a four-part making-of documentary; intro featurette with director James Gunn; a galactic retro dance party music video; gag reel; four deleted scenes; and a feature-length audio commentary track with Gunn.
There is also some bonus material available digitally, including breakdowns of three key scenes that shows how CGI-heavy movies are built up layer-by-layer. And there’s a sneak peek at the forthcoming Guardians ride at Disneyland.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” picks up pretty much where the 2014 hit left off, with an unlikely band of miscreants anointed as saviors of the cosmos. And it also continues its stride as a full-out comedy take on the superhero genre, though the sequel has a surprising amount of character development and even a few touchy-feely moments.
It’s not quite the non-stop laugh-a-thon of the first one, but the characters feel deeper, richer and more lived in.
For instance, I didn’t much care for Drax, the musclebound marauder played by Dave Bautista in the first movie. But here his penchant for saying exactly what’s inside his head, without filter or regard of others’ feelings, seems less like a set-up for jokes than an intrinsic part of his makeup. It’s almost like he’s on the autism spectrum.
Drax doesn’t really understand the subtler aspects of behavior, but he’s trying.
The movie (written and directed by James Gunn) again centers on Peter Quill, aka Star-Lord, a smirky galactic adventurer played by Chris Pratt. As we know from the last movie, he was abducted from Earth as a child, became part of a crew of space pirates led by the blue-skinned, red-mohawked Yondu (Michael Rooker), and then broke off for his own solo spree of stealing and fun.
Sporting a slightly shellacked look to his hair and skin, Peter has all but given up on searching for his father, who abandoned the family when he was still a boy, reputedly returning to the stars whence he came. Kurt Russell turns up as Ego, a strangely charismatic being who claims to be his dad. Peter’s not entirely convinced, so Ego brings him and the Guardians back to his home planet for a little convincing.
It came at just the right time, as the Guardians had just majorly P.O.’d the Sovereign, a race of gold-skinned beings for whom they’d performed some mercenary work. (Hey, being a savior doesn’t pay much.) Of course, afterward Rocket -- the irascible raccoon-like creature voiced by Bradley Cooper -- decided to steal some of their fancy gizmos for fun, so the goldies were in hot pursuit before Ego came to the rescue.
Zoe Saldana returns as Gamora, a green-skinned assassin who continually resists Peter’s attempts to woo her. I liked that even though his intentions become entirely made clear -- in a rather funny and embarrassing way -- Gamora doesn’t automatically fall into his arms. She’s a tough nut, and harder to crack.
Gamora’s sister, Nebula (Karen Gillan), also shows up, a partially robotic creature with a hell-bent desire to kill her sibling, and then their father.
And, of course there’s Groot, the tree-like creature who was killed in the last movie, only to be reborn as a tiny shoot. He’s essentially having to restart his life cycle all over again, so he’s in the adorable toddler phase. He’s not terribly useful in this form, and doesn’t seem to have regained his full cognitive abilities, which is a hindrance when trying to remember which button causes instant death for everyone.
Also new are Pom Klementieff as Mantis, an odd empathic creature raised in servitude to Ego, and Sylvester Stallone as an elder pirate who has to kick Yondu out of the pirate club, or something. We get the sense they’ll play bigger roles in the third movie.
And yes, there will be a third movie: it’s announced at the start of the end credits. Speaking of which, “GotG2” sets some sort of record for most bonus scenes. I think it was five, but I may have lost count.
It’s not as fresh or funny as its predecessor, but “Guardians of the Galaxy” is still a lot of fun. They seem to have consciously sacrificed some laughs in order to flesh out this universe and make it seem more authentic and grounded. That may sound funny given all the crazy makeup and CGI to depict a kaleidoscope of fantastical aliens, but there it is.
“Live By Night” is Ben Affleck’s conscious attempt to recreate the look and feel of an Old Hollywood crime drama with a modern frosting of sex and violence. It’s an overstuffed, messy narrative filled with a lot of terrific actors and strong scenes lacking connective tissue.
This movie is Full Boat Affleck: in addition to starring as a Boston Irish mobster transplanted to Tampa Bay to run their Prohibition Era operations, he also directs, produces and adapted the novel by Dennis Lehane.
All I can say is Affleck certainly knows how to shoot himself as a director, and how to shoot himself in the foot as a screenwriter.
Cary Grant himself would have to admit how dapper Affleck looks in this movie, his dark, chiseled features set off by 1920s costumes and backdrops. Robert Richardson’s photography recalls the best of the film noir tradition while employing diffuse colors and slanted light.
The story is… the sort of thing you get trying to cram a 400-page book into a two-hour movie. Though I haven’t read Lehane’s book, from what I’ve gathered it seems Affleck tried to follow the novel pretty closely, ejecting only a brief sojourn to Cuba. He would have done better to scale down the sheer number of secondary characters and tertiary plot lines.
Affleck plays Joe Coughlin, the son of a Boston police captain who went bad and became a thief. He runs into trouble when he romances the moll (Sienna Miller) of his boss, a pugnacious fellow named Albert White (Robert Glenister). A few hops and skips of the plot later, and after a stint in prison, Joe finds himself sent down to Ybor City, Fla., to take over the illicit liquor operations of his new Italian mob masters.
Joe and his partner, Dion (an excellent Chris Messina), soon put the locals on notice that there’s a new boss in town, offing some low-level hicks and even befriending the local sheriff (Chris Cooper), a deeply religious man who compartmentalizes his faith with the desire to keep the peace. Joe falls for a vivacious Cuban expat, Graciella (Zoe Saldana), and soon it seems like his snake-eyes luck is starting to change.
But challenges always abound, including pushback from a vicious local leader of the Klan (Matthew Maher), who just happens to be the sheriff’s kin. And the Italians up north aren’t satisfied that the booze business is booming, but want Joe to branch out into gambling, prostitution, drugs, etc. That means stepping on more toes in his new beachside paradise.
Elle Fanning plays the sheriff’s daughter, who gets used up in a bad way when she tries to make a go in showbiz, and returns to town preaching about the evils of men like Joe in a series of burgeoning tent revivals. One of the film’s main problems is that even though his character seems to be at the center of Joe’s thicket of problems, Chris Cooper doesn’t actually get a lot of screen time to flesh out his conflict.
We pretty much know where all this is heading, so it’s just a matter of drinking in the atmosphere and encounters before the movie winds up where it will. Lehane’s work tends to start in tragedy, then wander around a bit before returning home.
There are a lot of great puzzle pieces in “Live By Night,” but it feels like there’s too many and they don’t always fit together.
I didn’t care for 2009’s reboot of the “Star Trek” franchise or its sequel, which placed me firmly in the minority of public opinion. I think the latest, “Star Trek Beyond,” is the best of the bunch – which is to say, merely mediocre.
The basic premise of this iteration is that the cast of the Enterprise are stranded on a strange planet and must contend with hostile forces. I don’t know about you, but I always thought the TV episodes where Kirk & Co. spent the bulk of their time planetside were usually the worst. I mean, it’s called “Star Trek,” not “Land Trek.”
Get back onto the bridge and do some space-y stuff, I say.
Anyway, while exploring reports of a lost Federation ship in a remote corner of the galaxy, the Enterprise is attacked by a swarm of enemies and destroyed, with Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto) and the rest escaping and split up on the surface of the mysterious planet. Many are captured by Krall (Idris Elba), a strange alien who’s brewing up a nasty bioweapon.
(I remember when they self-destructed the Enterprise in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock,” and it was a really big deal. Now they go through Enterprises like phaser batteries.)
With J.J. Abrams having decamped to take over the other big science fiction franchise, Star Wars, director Justin Lin takes over. The script was written by Doug Jung and Simon Pegg, who also plays engineer Montgomery Scott. Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho and Anton Yelchin reprise their roles as Dr. McCoy, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov, respectively.
It’s much more of a self-contained action/adventure than a real progression of the Star Trek mythology. Among other things, Kirk gets to ride an old Earth motorcycle, dazzling his enemies with his rad drifting and jumps. I half expected him to whip out an old Fonzie jacket, too.
It often feels like the movie would do anything to not be a Star Trek movie. Based on the previous two flicks, I think they made the right choice.
Bonus features are excellent, though you’ll have to shell out for the Blu-ray version – the DVD contains exactly none.
These include deleted scenes, gag reel, tributes to deceased stars Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin, a perspective on the 50-year history of Trek with Abrams and the cast, plus seven making-of featurettes touching on every aspect of production, from story creation to special effects.
I was delighted to see Mark Ruffalo receive a Golden Globe nomination for his leading role in “Infinitely Polar Bear,” even though I’m a bit dubious about the awards shindig organized by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association -- a group I contend is more theoretical than actual.
That’s because this is the sort of tiny independent film that deserves to be recognized, and nominations like this can help the movie find an audience on video.
Written and directed by Maya Forbes based on her actual 1970s childhood, “Polar Bear” is the portrait of an unstable but loving dad as viewed by his daughters. Cameron is a super-smart educated guy who can’t hold down a job because he’s manic-depressive. Mom Maggie (Zoe Saldana) has decided she needs a break from the chaos, and departs to New York for 18 months to get her master’s degree.
In the meantime, Cameron has to play full-time dad to the girls. That would be hard enough on its own, but his manic episodes, along with the interracial makeup of the family, adds additional pressure. Cameron is the sort of guy who sometimes forgets to wear pants, talks to himself and spreads their cramped apartments with piles of broken stuff he intends to repair (and occasionally does).
Ruffalo’s one of the best actors working in film today, and he gives a textured performance that goes beyond the outsized behavior tics and showy moments we usually see from of this sort of role. Ruffalo doesn’t give any big “Academy Award clip” speeches because Cameron is too distracted to concentrate on any one thing for too long.
That may hurt his chances at Oscar gold, but maybe a little bling from foreign film journalists would make for a nice consolation prize.
Bonus features are not expansive but are hefty, anchored by a feature-length commentary track that includes Forbes, Ruffalo and Wally Wolodarsky -- who is Forbes’ husband and a producer. (Their daughter also plays one of the girls.) I always love it when actors participate with filmmakers on commentaries, especially movies that are entirely performance-driven like this one.
There are also deleted scenes and a Q&A with cast and crew from the Los Angeles Film Festival.
(Don’t ask me about the title, because I don’t know.)
“Infinitely Polar Bear” is writer/director Maya Forbes’ semi-autobiographical account of her challenging childhood. It’s less about the kids, though, than an adoring portrait of parents seen from a distance of years, when all the heartache and anger has faded and the love shines through the memories like summer sun at twilight.
Mark Ruffalo and Zoe Saldana play the parents. It’s 1978 and their interracial marriage has nudged them to the fringes of polite society in Boston. They’re not quite outcasts, but it’s hard for Maggie (Saldana) to get a good job and Cameron (Ruffalo) is the black sheep of his well-to-do family.
Also, Cam is a manic-depressive whose high highs and low lows tend to render a normal family life difficult. An educated guy who can’t keep a job, he mostly just putters around, shooting photographs and video, fixing things that are broken, and acquiring broken things that he intends to fix.
Imogene Wolodarsky (Forbes’ real-life daughter) and Ashley Aufderheide play their children, strong-willed kids of about 14 and 10, respectively, who are left to craft their own little support system to replace the missing pieces of the primary one.
As the story opens, Cam has gone on one of his bipolar sprees and is just coming out of a psychiatric hospital and seguing into normalcy. Maggie has to be the strong, stern one, insisting that they maintain separate apartments and lives as he recovers.
But then Maggie is presented with an opportunity to get her M.B.A. from Columbia University. It means 18 months in New York, so Cam will have to take care of the girls by himself. It will give him structure and a sense of importance. Then she can return to them, get a better job and hopefully the family can reassemble itself.
The relationship between Cam and the girls is affectionate but complicated. They’re embarrassed to death by their dad, who has a tendency to do things like forget to wear pants, and don’t want their friends to see the detritus-filled “hellhole” of their apartment. Cam will occasionally clean up his act, clean up their home, everything seems great, and then their momentum will just sort of… fade.
Maggie returns regularly on weekends, checking in while feeling remorseful about having checked out, even if it’s temporary and for the greater good. Cam is needy, resentful, proud, and desperately wants to resume their romantic relationship. Wisely, she sidesteps him.
Ruffalo gives a masterful performance, with precise little movements and mannerisms contrasted with wild ravings and thoughts. He puffs cigarettes madly, buys and sells jalopies every couple of months, loves his family the same way he does everything else: with total abandon. He doesn’t give any big “Oscar clip” speeches because Cam couldn’t concentrate on anything long enough to summon up a soliloquy.
Saldana has a challenging part, too, in what is essentially the Meryl Streep role from “Kramer vs. Kramer.” In this case, though, the mother doesn’t simply disappear but steps aside for a combination of altruistic and personal reasons. We witness her anguish and guilt, and appreciate it.
This is the first film directed by Forbes, a veteran screenwriter and television producer. She’s clearly got a future behind the camera. “Infinitely Polar Bear” is a highly personal story with a universal theme: parents don’t just raise children; the kids participate in the parents’ own growth, too.
Back when “Guardians of the Galaxy” came out, I praised it highly but fretted that audiences wouldn’t come out for yet another comic book adaptation based on characters most of them had never heard of.
Silly me. Now the top-grossing film of the year, “Guardians” obviously didn’t need any sympathy.
What a dizzy, daffy antidote to a summer of largely dreary flicks. Here for the first time was a super-hero movie that was a flat-out comedy. That whole thing with glum caped crusaders kvetching about “with great power comes great responsibility” had gotten kinda old. Here’s a quintet who love doing what they do, no apologies, and plenty of humor along the way.
Rather than being inveterate do-gooders, these Guardians are a motley crew of thieves and killers who get thrown together while greedily pursuing the same mysterious space orb. They are:
Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), a smirky, quip-throwing human with cool gadgets;
Gamaro (Zoe Saldana), a green-skinned assassin and turncoat;
Rocket (voice by Bradley Cooper), a spirited raccoon engineer;
Groot (voice by Vin Diesel), Rocket’s 9-foot-tall tree-like companion;
Drax (Dave Bautista), a burly red guy with revenge on his mind.
The plot is a little hard to follow, but something to do with a powerful rebel Ronan (Lee Pace) who wants to throw off the yoke of his master, Thanos, an evil space emperor. Ronan and his fellow Kree want to destroy the Nova, a benevolent race guarding the orb.
The action is zingy, the villains (there are many) quite hiss-able and the belly laughs plentiful. I doubt “Guardians of the Galaxy” will need my boosterism for its video release.
Video features are good, not great, and feel a bit underwhelming considering the success of the film. The DVD comes with but a single feature, and it’s more of an ad: an exclusive look at “Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron.”
Upgrade to the Blu-ray combo pack and you add a feature-length audio commentary track, deleted scenes, gag reel and making-of featurettes.
If Spider-Man and the X-Men aren’t doing so well at the box office, then what chance do Star-Lord and Rocket the talking raccoon have?
If there’s any justice in the world, plenty.
The latest cinematic iteration of the Marvel Comics universe focuses on a troupe of super-heroes who aren’t particularly super, and don’t have nearly the pop culture following of the web-slinger or Wolverine. Yet “Guardians of the Galaxy” is a lot more fun, and a helluva lot funnier, than most anything we’ve seen from the genre since… well, ever.
While other super-hero movies have had a sprinkling of humorous moments, this is more or less a straight-up comedy. There’s plenty of zingy action, but it plays second fiddle to the guffaws.
There have been several versions of the comic book group over the years, none of them particularly successful until recently. The movie, written by Nicole Perlman and James Gunn, who also directed, changes things around further. The Guardians are now a vagabond quintet of misfits and thieves who stumble backward into heroism while trying to pawn off a mysterious orb they’ve stolen.
This is a mythology in which pink-skinned humanoids are in the minority. Most of the cast is either dolled up in elaborate makeup and prosthetics, or represented through computer-generated imagery. It makes for a rousing, colorful visual landscape.
Chris Pratt, best known for funnyman roles in TV and movies, is an unlikely but winning protagonist as Peter Quill, a human scamp who dubs himself Star-Lord, though he’s vexed when no one seems to have heard of his moniker. He was kidnapped from Earth by alien ravagers when he was a boy, and now tools around in a spaceship looking for adventure.
He doesn’t have any powers per se, though he carries an array of helpful gadgets, including boot rockets, a retractable helmet with red-eyed goggles, and twin stun guns. He’s also got a serious thing for 1980s culture, since that’s all he knows of Earth. He likes to pop in a cassette mix tape of tunes and boogie while he works.
I won’t bother trying to describe the plot, since it’s completely indecipherable, other than to say everybody wants the mysterious orb that Star-Lord absconds with in the opening minutes.
This brings together the Guardians, who all get captured and thrown into prison while fighting over the orb. While they put together a breakout plan, this allows us to get to know the rest of the team.
There’s Gamora (Zoe Saldana), a green-hued assassin who is looking to trade in her evil boss for greener pastures. And Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista), a muscle-bound dude with skin like lava, who seeks revenge for his murdered family.
Stranger yet is Rocket (voice of Bradley Cooper), a feisty humanoid raccoon with incredible engineering skills and a chip on his shoulder. (Think Joe Pesci with fur.) Even more fantastical is Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), a tree-like figure who accompanies Rocket as his pet/houseplant/bodyguard. He can grow his body into new shapes, but can only speak the same three words: “I am Groot.”
There are so many villains in this movie, every time you meet one when you think they’re the head scoundrel, only to reveal an even bigger baddie behind them. Djimon Hounsou shows up early, decked out in impressive black armor and blue contact lenses, but turns out he’s just the lackey of the lackey of the lackey.
Ronan (Lee Pace) seems to be at the center of things, a rebel Kree who wants to destroy the noble Nova, despite a treaty between their peoples. He’s currently indentured to Thanos, an all-powerful space king.
I also enjoyed Benicio del Toro as The Collector, an obsequious trader of exotics, and Yondu (Michael Rooker), a space pirate and father figure to Star-Lord. Indigo blue with a bone Mohawk, Yondu has a nifty trick: an arrow he carries around in a holster that goes anywhere (and through anything) at his whistle.
Come to think of it, most everyone in this movie has a nifty trick. Everything we encounter is special and has a backstory or hidden attributes that we can’t wait to discover. A dense, dizzying diaspora of originality, “Guardians of the Galaxy” is the sort of film you need, and want, to see more than once to fully appreciate.
It is endlessly vexing to me that the fanboy universe collectively dismissed the second trio of “Star Wars” movies as soulless sellouts, but have embraced the new “Star Trek” flicks from director J.J. Abrams enthusiastically.
For my money, Abram’s take on the original Starfleet gang has lacked intellectual heft, and is too reliant on special effects and whiz-bang action scenes. The first movie left me positively spinning, as if James T. Kirk, Spock, Bones and company were incapable of just sitting still and talking for two minutes.
The sequel, “Star Trek Into Darkness,” does better at pacing. The first half is rather agreeable, setting up the characters and conflicts.
But things go off a cliff about halfway through, when the villain (Benedict Cumberbatch) is revealed to be none other than … well, I won’t spoil it for you. But even if you haven’t already heard the worst-kept secret of the movie recycling one of the great bad guys of the Trek universe, it’s pretty easy to figure out.
Kirk (Chris Pine) and the Enterprise get sent into Klingon territory to kill some terrorists who sprung a devastating surprise attack on Starfleet headquarters. Assassinations are not really in the rule book, setting up more conflict between captain, Spock (Zachary Quinto) and crew. The plot thickens further when it’s revealed other forces are at play.
The end devolves into a rather predictable exchange of phaser fire and fisticuffs, with the secondary characters relegated to hanging around in the fringes and reacting to barked orders. Remember when Sulu and Chekov actually, like, did stuff?
Personally, I’d rather watch a Jar-Jar Binks Christmas special than either of the new Star Trek movies again.
Video extras are decent, but only if you spring for the Blu-ray edition – the DVD comes with exactly zero goodies.
Several featurettes accompany the Blu-ray version, mostly going behind the scenes of various big-tent sequences such as the attack on Starfleet or creating the Klingon home world of Kronos.
A cheap, shiny whizbang toy, "Star Trek Into Darkness" is essentially a remake of an earlier, better film from the same franchise. I won't tell you which one because of spoilerfication and all, but if you've paid the least amount of attention to the hype surrounding director J.J. Abrams' sequel to his 2009 hit film, you already know. And even if you hadn't, you can guess pretty easily.
Benedict Cumberbatch -- most British name ever! -- is the new mystery figure, an arrogant and brilliant fellow who seems to have it in for Starfleet in general and Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise in particular. He also possesses superhuman strength and reflexes, a genius intellect that transcends the ages, and ... well, I've already said too much.
As regular visitors to this page know, I was a lonely voice in opposition to Abrams' first film, finding it an over-caffeinated amusement park ride lacking any pretense toward the cerebral heft that has been a hallmark of the Trek universe, even in its silliest moments.
I will say that this film, written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof, takes its time from a narrative sense, and doesn't feel like it needs to have its characters in constant motion, perpetually in peril. The first hour or so is quite engaging, as the filmmakers carefully move the pieces into place.
It's still a preposterously doofy take on the Star Trek oeuvre, with a "reboot" of the universe that allows Abrams & Co. to keep the bones of the dynamic the same while changing around the outer layers liberally.
Thus if you'll recall: Captain Jim Kirk (Chris Pine) is now a shoot-from-the-hip punk with a troubled past, yet somehow placed in charge of Starfleet's newest, most advanced starship. Spock (Zachary Quinto) is still an emotionless Vulcan, but is more in touch with the potential for feelings. In this iteration, Kirk and Spock are constantly at odds, with the first officer questioning his captain at every turn.
Uhura, Bones, Scotty and Sulu ... well, they're pretty much the same (played by Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg and John Cho, respectively).
One of the biggest annoyances is the continuing, unlikely romance between Spock and Uhura, which has all the emotional weight of a feather duster. They repeatedly have couple spats, even right on the bridge of the Enterprise or in the middle of a mission, in front of other officers and crew. I find it highly illogical that people who have pledged their careers to Starfleet would behave so unprofessionally.
As for the plot, suffice it to say that Starfleet is threatened when a key facility is attacked by a rogue officer named John Harrison (Cumberbatch). Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller), the commander in chief, reluctantly dispatches Kirk and the Enterprise into Klingon territory to kill him.
He also insists that they take with them a load of super-secret torpedoes that they fire indiscriminately at Harrison. The torpedoes come with their own perky weapons specialist (Alice Eve) who, like everyone else in the cast, looks like she stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad.
What, does Starfleet weed out all the fat and fugly recruits early on?
The torpedoes are shielded so the crew can't see what's inside them, which makes Scotty very nervous. With that set-up, if you can't figure out what's the secret of the weapons, then this must be the first science fiction movie you've seen, ever.
Once "John Harrison" reveals his true identity around the halfway point, the film lost me completely. From that point onward, I knew everything that was going to happen, exactly as it would go down. Granted, I like to think I'm pretty good at seeing the pitches before they're thrown, but this is Pee Wee-level foreshadowing.
A tribble even shows up in Bones' laboratory to provide a laugh and set up an obvious plot point.
This entire movie is a consequence-free zone. Nothing that happens has weight. For example, early on Kirk is demoted and loses command of the Enterprise ... and then gets it right back a few minutes later. The Enterprise also gets seriously damaged in combat. That had an impact back in "Star Trek III," but since then how many Enterprises have been destroyed or seriously effed up? Half a dozen, it seems.
The Enterprise, once a distinct character in the films, is now just another ship. Blast it with phasers, punch holes in its side -- it's just hardware to be repaired or replaced.
I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea of someone else remaking the Trek movies I loved as a youth. But I don't like it when they're slick and intellectual lightweight like this one and its predecessor.
It's funny to me that so many people attacked the second trilogy of "Star Wars" as soulless and cynical corruptions of an original purity, but see the new "Star Trek" flicks as a bold return to form. For me, I don't need to see the best moments of "Trek" repurposed for a younger audience with a short attention span.
When "Avatar" was initially released on video in April, I praised James Cameron's visionary film even as I harshly criticized him for giving us such a bare-bones disc -- lacking any kind of commentary track, making-of documentary, anything. It was a major disappointment, and an abandonment of the film's fans to give the top-grossing movie of all time such a meager and, frankly, lazy video release. I stand by those words.
But I also predicted that Cameron would eventually issue a special director's cut or special edition, as he has done with his other seminal films like "Aliens," "Terminator 2: Judgment Day" and "The Abyss" -- though not, notably, with 1997's "Titanic." These special collections boasted all the behind-the-scenes goodies one could ask for, as well as an extended cut of the film.
What I really liked about these previous discs was that they also came with the theatrical version, so you could switch back and forth to the director's cut with the touch of a button.
It wasn't any sort of sorcerous act of prognostication, but I've been proven right: "Avatar: Extended Collector's Edition" follows in the wake of Cameron's other terrific special video editions -- and even puts them to shame.
I can't even begin to describe the amount of extras contained in the three-disc Blu-ray edition. There's hours -- no, make that days worth of material to go through. I've only had time to experience a small portion of them, and they have left me deeply impressed.
Start with the fact there are three versions of the film: The original version; the theatrical re-release edition containing eight additional minutes of footage; and the Collector's Extended Cut that adds another 16 minutes -- bringing the total run time to just a hair under three hours.
The additional footage is seamlessly edited into the existing version, but one great feature allows you to immediately jump to the bonus material for those too anxious to wait to see what's new. (I know I was.)
The extended version includes a haunting new opening sequence of Jake Sully's life on Earth, which has a hard-boiled dystopian flavor reminiscent of "Blade Runner." There's also quite a bit more backstory on Sigourney Weaver's character.
After watching the film, it's time to flip over to the other two discs crammed full of stuff. Start with even more movie to watch: 45 deleted/extended scenes totaling 67 minutes of screen time. If for no other reason, they're interesting to watch for the various levels of completion of the special effects combining live action, motion capture performances and CGI.
A making-of documentary runs 98 minutes, tracking Cameron's first thoughts about making "Avatar" even before he started shooting "Titanic." Cameron says the idea for the fantastic world of Pandora didn't come from any single spark of creation, but an entire childhood filled with a fascination with nature, coupled with an adult's fondness for art and science fiction.
Then there are production videos: Animatics, conceptual videos and early versions of the story told in comic-book style. That's another 84 minutes right there. There's also a 20-minute long feature "A Message from Pandora," which is essentially Cameron's personal plea for conservation of the environment.
The centerpiece of disc three is "Opening Pandora's Box," which includes 68 minutes worth of the most CG-heavy scenes. By clicking buttons on your player's remote, you can instantly shift the view to see how the scenes were put together one layer of animation at a time.
Seventeen production shorts running a few minutes each touch on every topic imaginable, from stunts to music to costumes. I was astonished to learn that Cameron had actual copies of every piece of clothing worn by the Na'vi manufactured for real, and even dressed actors tinted blue for video capture. (The skimpy Na'vi outfits somehow look even more daring on real humans.)
There are also hundreds of production still photographs, a copy of Cameron's original screenplay, and even "Pandorapedia" -- an encyclopedic description of Pandora, its inhabitants and interconnected ecosystem. It's 449 pages long!
I might quibble about the lack of a commentary track, but frankly with this astonishing amount of material I'm not sure what else Cameron would have to add.
One genuine criticism: For some reason, the Extended Collector's Edition does not include a digital copy of the film for loading on portable devices. This was actually the only extra included on the original video release of "Avatar," so to exclude it here is puzzling indeed.
Perhaps we'll have to wait for the Super Special Limited Director's Cut to get that thrown in.
So what kind of video release do you give the newly minted top-grossing film of all time?
One full of oodles of never-before-seen insights and peeks behind the scenes? An interactive pop-up commentary with auteur James Cameron? Exclusive interviews with the cast? Dare we imagine 3-D presentation to take advantage of all those expensive new televisions with this feature?
For "Avatar," the answers to these questions are: No, nope, uh-uh and fugeddaboutit.
The cinematic sensation is being given an absolute bare-bones video release on April 22 (to coincide with Earth Day). It's arriving with zero extras, whether you choose the DVD version or the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack (though the latter does at least include a digital copy).
Cameron is known for waiting to deliver the real goods with a special edition that usually includes a longer director's cut (see "Terminator 2," "The Abyss"). I believe that's what we can expect with "Avatar."
So if you want all the goodies a watershed film like this demands, content yourself with just renting for now.
Like "Titanic," James Cameron's other much-loved and -loathed epic, "Avatar" is a film whose flaws become more apparent after you've left the cinema. The clunky dialogue, derivative plot and downright silly sci-fi gobbledygook (Unobtainium?) tends to pile up.
But while you're in the theater, sitting there in the dark, it's a thoroughly engrossing spectacle of the first order as we witness the plight of the blue-skinned alien Na'vi and their paradise planet of Pandora, which is steadily being encroached upon by greedy humans plundering it for ore.
Whether or not that experience will translate to your living room television, with the dog barking and the kids clamoring, is a good question. I wish I could answer it for you ... but I can't. The studio declined to provide review copies prior to the release date.
(I suppose with $2.7 billion in ticket sales, they figure they don't have to spend any dough to promote it.)
My guess is that "Avatar" will diminish somewhat on the small screen. Some films -- "Lawrence of Arabia," "Ben-Hur," "Saving Private Ryan" -- need a big canvas to envelop you. But it says something that "Avatar" belongs among those titles.
