Video review: "Spider-Man: Far From Home"

When I first reviewed “Spider-Man: Far From Home,” I described it as “the fun ‘n’ games portion of the milieu,” which I think well describes this most lighthearted of the Marvel Comics Universe films.

(And also my penchant for fifty-cent words like “milieu”… and “penchant.”)

That was before the revelations of studio squabbling over the rights to Spidey, which appears to sound the death-knell for this iteration starring Tom Holland as the friendly neighborhood wall-crawler. That’s a shame, as I think Holland was the best fit for the role of Peter Parker/Spider-Man.

I really think being a teenager is inextricably linked to the dynamic of the Spider-Man story. What makes it compelling is the idea of a 15- or 16-year-old endowed with incredible powers at a time in life when most of us are struggling to forge an identity that will carry us through our adult lives.

Or just finding someone to kiss. Never underestimate the importance of that.

In this story, Peter’s science class is taking a field trip to Europe that seems to involve no actual scientific exploration. It’s basically a glorified holiday. Set in the events after the recent “Avengers” movies, Peter sees this as a chance to get back to regular-kid normalcy and try to turn his friendship with Mary Jane (Zendaya) into a boyfriend/girlfriend thing.

But then the trip keeps getting interrupted by world-threatening incursions from elemental creatures popping up and attacking cities. Peter is joined and mentored by Quentin Beck (Jake Gyllenhaal), a hero from an alternate universe to whom he quickly takes a paternal shine.

Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is there to ride Peter hard, while Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau) acts as a kindlier handler. He’s also making eyes at Peter’s Aunt May (Marisa Tomei, putting the character’s gray hair buns in the comic books to shame).

“Spider-Man: Far From Home” may not linger long in the memory, but perhaps it’s just what the superhero franchise needed in middle age: a little shot of fun for fun’s sake. This movie is dad’s red sports car.

Bonus features are quite expansive, and include an all-new short film, “Peter’s To-Do List,” showing the workaday preparations behind being a teen superhero.

I also count 11 making-of featurettes, a roundup of Easter Eggs, gag reel and other outtakes, previsualization of special effects vs. the final product and extended/alternate scenes. Pretty much the only piece missing is a filmmaker commentary track.

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Review: "Spider-Man: Far from Home"

I have received stern warnings not to hint at the “big reveal” in “Spider-Man: Far from Home,” so I won’t. All I’ll say is that if you can’t see it coming, then you must be new to the movies.

There are a couple more twists that are a bit harder to see, so stick around for the end credits for all the little Easter eggs.

This is the least consequential of all the Marvel Comics Universe (MCU) films. It’s lighthearted and feels like the cousin to that one Harry Potter movie that was more interested in teen snogging than the actual plot. It’s still plenty of fun, but is also fairly forgettable.

Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is on a European “science” trip with his class and only wants to get with MJ (Zendaya), his charmingly acerbic classmate. But then all that tedious superhero stuff keeps pulling him back in.

This takes place after the events from the last two Avengers movies, which if you haven’t seen, thar be spoilers ahead. As you’ll recall, five years passed after half of all life in the universe was disappeared by Thanos, but then was brought back by the heroes. Which means that everyone who “blipped,” as the Earth people now call it, stayed the same age while those who didn’t kept getting older.

The law of averages would indicate there would be some randomness to how many of the main characters blipped, but for the purposes of screenwriters Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, who obviously wanted to KISS (Google it), everyone in Peter’s social circle blipped, including MJ and best friend/wingman/keeper of secrets Ned (Jacob Batalon).

With Tony Stark dead, Captain America old and Captain Marvel and Thor conveniently off-world again, Earth is looking for a new hero as its beacon. Peter, who’s still just 16 years old, would prefer to remain a modest Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man. But former S.H.I.E.L.D. boss Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) is intent on riding Peter until he relents.

Happy Hogan (Jon Favreau), Tony’s right-hander, acts as go-between while canoodling with Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), much to Peter’s dismay. Happy warns him not to ghost on Fury’s phone calls, without much luck.

(Seriously, try calling a Gen Zer. They consider it a personal affront.)

The job has the look and feel of a classic “we just made it up for this movie” scenario. Beings representing the four elements (fire, water, etc.) are popping up, and if left unchecked could destroy the entire planet. That’s what happened to Quentin Beck, a hero from an alternate universe, and he’s come to this version of Earth to stop the disaster from recurring.

Played by Jake Gyllenhall, Beck wears a cool green-and-gold outfit and has an obscuring mist-filled globe for a helmet, getting dubbed Mysterio by the cool kids. He immediately takes Peter under his wing, adopting the role of kindly uncle in stark contrast to Fury’s hardcase stepdad routine.

Holland is I think the best fit of all the Spider-Man actors, and at 23 is still fresh-faced and high-voiced enough to pass agreeably for a teen. His Peter still likes swinging between buildings and pummeling villains, but also wants his slice of normality. As MJ, Zendaya shines playing “the girlfriend” who’s usually a step ahead of everyone else.

Director Jon Watts returns from 2017’s “Spider-Man: Far from Home,” and I’m reminded that despite this only being the second standalone Spidey movie (of this, the third iteration), he’s been in a total of five MCU films, which practically makes the character middle-aged by recent standards.

This is definitely the “fun ‘n’ games” portion of the milieu, so my guess it’s set to get all dark and dreary next time around. Until then, enjoy this powder-puff stretch for what it is.

Video review: "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"

Tom Cruise pretty well gets the hell beaten out of him in “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back.” His character, an ex-military investigator turned freelance do-gooder, has all the hand-to-hand skills we’ve seen before in the movies. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get hit, or feel pain when he does.

Cruise, arguably the biggest movie star in the world for 30 years, seems to be downshifting into more ordinarily human characters as he gets older. Unlike his Ethan Hunt from the “Mission: Impossible” series, Jack Reacher doesn’t have an international spy infrastructure or tons of space-age gadgets at his disposal. He does most everything he needs to with his fists, or a few well-placed threats.

In this second go-round, Reacher finds that his main contact at military headquarters in D.C. (Cobie Smulders) is being investigated for espionage. Soon enough he’s the target of the same suspicions, and he’s busted her out of jail so the two of them can conduct their own detective work while on the lam from the feds.

Complicating things is Samantha (Danika Yarosh), a teen who’s being threatened as leverage against Reacher, who supposedly is her long-lost father. We’re not quite sure if it’s true, but it doesn’t really matter because Reacher is not the sort to let an innocent kid get squeezed for him.

The action scenes are exciting yet believable, and the simple wind-up plot -- talk, chase, fight; talk, chase, fight -- does exactly what it’s supposed to do.

Some films have pretensions of being more than they are, but the cool thing about “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” is that it never forgets that it’s meant to be pure popcorn fun.

Bonus features are middling, though you’ll have to spring for the Blu-ray upgrade to get them, as the DVD has none. The Blu-ray comes with six making-of mini-documentaries: “Reacher Returns,” “An Unexpected Family,” “Relentless: On Location in Louisiana,” “Take Your Revenge First: Lethal Combat,” “No Quarter Given: Rooftop Battle” and “Reacher in Focus: With Tom Cruise and Photographer David James.”

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Review: "Jack Reacher: Never Go Back"

One thing I appreciated about “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” is that action scenes existed within the realm of the possible. Sure, Tom Cruise’s ex-Army officer can dish out the chop-socky with the best of the Bournes and Bonds.

But when he gets hit, it staggers him. Blows leave marks; his face swells up and stays puffy.

I’m not sure how many moviegoers have ever been punched in the face. I have, once, in second grade. It was a bigger kid, but even fourth graders don’t pack all that much in a swing. Still, I went down, hard. That’s what actual people do when punched straight-on.

It helps make Reacher seem more relatable. Especially when he does things that border on super-human, like luring four bad guys into a factory so he can take them out, unarmed --  but not before the prerequisite taunting and quipping.

“Jack Reacher” is a straightforward bubblegum action flick. It does not pretend to be more than it is. If it’s important for humans to know thyself, then that goes doubles for movies. Most of the bad ones are trying to be something they’re not, or haven’t figured out what they are.

Director Edward Zwick, who co-wrote the screenplay with Richard Wenk and Marshall Herskovitz (based on the book by Lee Child), takes over for Christopher McQuarrie. His action scenes may not have the same zip – it’s not hard to spot Cruise’s stunt double -- but the narrative has a little more cohesion.

Reacher retired from the military a few years ago to wander the land with nothing more than the clothes on his back and his military pension to pay for some scuzzy motels. He lends a hand wherever he can, especially when do-gooders are being rousted by no-good-doers.

His contact back in D.C. is Maj. Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders), who took over his old job heading up the military investigations unit. After years of phone flirting, they resolve to have a date in-person. But when Reacher shows up, he learns she’s been arrested for espionage. Soon enough, he’s implicated too.

The rest of the movie is a series of chases, with our pair trying to stay ahead of some ex-military contractors named ParaSource, while simultaneously trying to pin the crimes on them. A trail of bodies soon grows.

Complicating things is 15-year-old Samantha (fresh-faced Danika Yarosh), who may or may not be Reacher’s daughter. It doesn’t really matter if it’s true, since if she’s being used as leverage against Reacher, he figures he has to protect her anyway. Not exactly the paternal type, he’s kind of baffled by the vagaries of teendom.

Rounding out the cast are Robert Knepper as a sinister general, Aldis Hodge as the straight man following orders to a fault, and Patrick Heusinger as Reacher’s dark twin -- a similarly skilled operative but without the moral code.

The movie’s a showcase for Cruise, as are pretty much all of his movies these days. He’s 54 now and finally starting to show it. His face has gotten some new crevices and hollows, and he wears it well. He looks like a guy who’s gotten beat up a lot, and dished out even more. His body is toned as always, but no matter how many crunches and cardio you do, at a certain point things start to droop and spread out.

It all works. Twenty years ago we wouldn’t have bought Tom Cruise as a burnt-out loner. But now Jack Reacher fits him like a glove.

Review: "Captain America: The Winter Soldier"

Captain America really is a walking anachronism.

Oh, of course there's the literal man-stuck-out-of-time thing, with a World War II super-soldier put on ice for 70 years to reawaken and pummel bad guys again. If you liked the last go-round of action-filled mayhem, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" offers more of the same.

No, what I mean is that Captain America, aka Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), isn't like the other more recent iterations of comic book superheroes on celluloid. Lately it seems like we want our Batmen and Spider-Men filled with dark thoughts and forbidding back-stories.

Rogers is exactly what he seems: a straightforward, honest and terribly uncomplicated man who just wants to do right. After undergoing a secret experiment that turned him from a 90-pound weakling into the apex of manhood, he's increasingly concerned that his work for the spy/military agency S.H.I.E.L.D. isn't on the up-and-up.

It's a difficult thing to make a boring, bland guy into an engaging hero, but directors/brothers Anthony and Joe Russo -- TV guys making the transition to big-screen spectacle -- manage it well enough. Screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, making a return engagement, learn their lessons and keep things focused on the action-adventure without any unnecessary romantic entanglements.

The secret when your main character doesn't have a lot of layers is to dress up the background with interesting personalities, and there are plenty here. Scarlett Johansson is back as the Black Widow, a former KGB spy with a mysterious past and not a trace of a Russian accent. She and Rogers dance around each other the whole movie, trying to figure out if the other one is trustworthy.

Also returning is Samuel L. Jackson as S.H.I.E.L.D. chief Nick Fury, who prefers to keep his agents in the dark as much as possible while confabbing with high-level international muckety-mucks, who hold video conferences and sneer at each other. Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford), an old friend of Fury's, mans the politics and leaves him free to build a new fleet of deadly hovercraft.

Fury has plans to identify and wipe out terrorists and the like even before they hatch their plots, which strikes Rogers as a bit un-American. He wears a U.S. flag on his indestructible shield and goes by the surname "America," so he should know from patriotism.

Serving as the able new wingman is Falcon (Anthony Mackie), a burnt-out military veteran with a very specialized type of aeronautical expertise. One thing I like about the Marvel universe as it's been depicted in movies is that the line between super-hero and guys who just have nifty gear and some gumption is rather fuzzy.

Of course, we also have to mention that other guy in the title, who happens to be Captain America's nemesis for the sequel. With long black hair, a snarly uncommunicative 'tude and a super-strong robotic left arm, the Winter Soldier is a mystery man whose story parallels Rogers' in some rather discomfiting ways.

At 2¼ hours, "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" is a bit too long for its own good -- I feel like a broken record these days; most new movies seem too long to me. But it's an agreeable mash-up of spy thriller intrigue and CG-assisted battles. It's a popcorn movie with enough kickin' spices to make things interesting.

Review: "Safe Haven"

It's hard to believe that just a few years ago the phrase "based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks" would've produced only shrugs from most moviegoers. But then "The Notebook" blew up in 2004, making of stars out of Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams, and creating a burning desire in Hollywood to adapt other books from Sparks' Southern-fried romantic/drama oeuvre.

But here's the thing: there hasn't really been a good movie based on his material since. "Nights in Rodanthe" disappeared without a trace. "Dear John" was a dirge-like bummer, and "The Last Song" and "The Lucky One" were ill-fated coming-of-age projects for tween stars Miley Cyrus and Zac Efron.

Critics hated them, but they had respectable box office tallies for low-budget films, so along comes "Safe Haven" as the next in the Sparks line.

Like "Dear John" it was directed by Lasse Hallström, thrice an Oscar nominee and the rare European filmmaker who seems to embrace the more saccharine aspects of Hollywood moviemaking, at his own peril.

The result is a great-looking, sun-dappled story about life on the North Carolina coast that's also devoid of much dramatic or emotional heft.

It's about a woman on the run, hiding out from the law after being accused of a brutal, bloody murder. Needless to say, she falls in love with a local dreamboat, starts putting down roots and feeling secure before her haunted past shows up on her adopted doorstep.

A big part of the movie's problem is Julianne Hough in the lead role. The "Dancing with the Stars" star has mostly done song-and-dance pictures like "Footloose" and "Rock of Ages," and simply doesn't possess the sort of dramatic acting tools for a part like this.

We know from the get-go that Katie was an abused woman who went on the lam after stabbing her attacker, so the screenplay (by Leslie Bohem and Dana Stevens) requires her to go through some pretty major transformations -- from self-doubting victim to new gal in town coming out of her shell to strong, resourceful woman ready to take the next steps in life.

But Hough's placid exterior is more shy cheerleader than woman rising up.

Josh Duhamel is better as Alex, who runs Ryan's Port Market in Southport, N.C. He's a young single dad raising two moppets after cancer took his wife. He's been keeping his head down, he says, just trying to make a life for his kids, and when he falls for Katie it's like lifting his head up again for the first time.

Noah Lomax plays Josh, who's on the cusp of adolescence and testing his dad, the self-appointed protector of his mother's memory. Mimi Kirkland as Lexie reaches a level of adorableness heretofore unseen in cinematic children.

Katie gets a waitressing job at Ivan's, the local seafood shack, and begins a tenuous friendship with her neighbor Jo (Cobie Smulders). When Alex, noticing that Katie trudges daily from her remote cottage to the shoreline every day, gives her an old bicycle, it's Jo who instructs her that refusing gifts south of the Mason-Dixon line is a no-no -- particularly not from wounded widowers who somehow find the time to keep their abs sculpted.

The story keeps shifting back to Tierney (a creepily effective David Lyons), the Boston detective who treats tracking down Katie as much more than a standard domestic murder case. "Nobody is innocent," he insists. "We bring 'em in, and the other guy sorts 'em out."

Things lead to a fairly predictable place, and an outcome that is never truly in doubt. Naysayers may dismiss Sparks' books as pap for undiscriminating mass consumption, but I think there's the bones of a good story in "Safe Haven." It just needed a different cast and crew to find it.

2 stars out of four