Video review: "Captain Marvel"

Brie Larson soars as the latest Marvel Comics Universe superhero, a figure who’s a mix of bravado and self-doubt. She plays Carol Danvers, a military pilot-turned-outer-space warrior, manipulated by others but eventually working to find her way back to her true self.

The theme of “Captain Marvel” is to explore your own path and not define yourself as others want to. Irradiated with alien energy that scrambled her memories, she’s been fighting for years on behalf of the Kree, cosmic do-gooders fighting against the evil Skrulls.

As with many things, the line between good and evil isn’t quite as bright as it first appears. Carol is in for a major letdown/reawakening when she returns to Earth and starts reconnecting with her old persona.

Samuel L. Jackson plays Nick Fury before his days as the boss of S.H.I.E.LD. The story is set in the 1990s when superheroes where a novel notion the powers-that-be labored to keep under wraps.

Jude Law plays Carol’s Kree commander/mentor, who’s always making her prove herself. Ben Mendelsohn plays the chief of the Skrulls, shape-shifters who have been leading terrorist attacks. Lashana Lynch is an old human friend, and Annette Bening has a dual role as a scientist and the living embodiment of the Kree artificial intelligence.

“Captain Marvel” boasts both plenty of action and a hefty hero with a compelling journey. It’s tough to know yourself, especially when so many people have competing ideas.

Bonus features on Blu-ray are quite good. There’s a feature-length commentary track by directors/screenwriters Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, as well as an introduction. Plus six deleted scenes, a gag reel and the following documentary featurettes: “Becoming a Super Hero,” “Big Hero Moment,” “The Origin of Nick Fury,” “The Dream Team,” “The Skrulls and the Kree:” and “Hiss-terical Cat-titude.”

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Review: "Captain Marvel"

“I don’t have anything to prove to you.”

So sayeth Marvel’s newest(ish) addition to the MCU, Captain Marvel aka a Carol Danvers aka “Vers.” She’s a human who’s been serving the Kree, a mighty alien do-gooder empire, for as long as she can remember -- which isn’t very far back. But after her adventures return her to Earth some pesky memories start reviving, throwing her entire self-conception into doubt.

This is one hero’s journey that mostly takes place between her ears.

If “Black Panther” was the (stupendously overhyped and overrated) answer to the cultural collectivism craving an African-American superhero -- “First ever!,” they squeed, forgetting Blade did it 20 years earlier -- then “Captain Marvel” is the more finely attuned answer for the gender-balance scales.

There’s definitely a grrl-power theme to this production, directed by Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck, who also wrote the screenplay with Geneva Robertson-Dworet. But it’s not especially in our face. More, it’s little moments where our interplanetary badass has a smile asked of her by some surly biker dude, or an older male mentor demands that she prove herself -- on terms he sets out himself, of course.

It’s an entertaining, invigorating tale introducing us to a figure who’s been described in comic book lore as possibly the single most powerful hero there is. Brie Larsen is a wonder as Carol, playing the role with a mix of confidence, self-questioning and wry humor. Her character’s default mode is to act a little remote, letting people prove themselves to her before she warms up.

Chief among these is Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson), the S.H.I.E.L.D. boss who first had the idea of putting together a team of supers. The story is set in 1995, nearly a quarter-century earlier, but the 70-year-old Jackson pulls it off without the CGI help Robert Downey Jr. used, just a hairpiece and a little helpful makeup.

When Veers crash-lands into a Blockbuster Video store -- Google it, youngsters -- Fury is sent out to investigate. He briefly tries to put the cuffs on her, which doesn’t work so well for a woman capable of firing photonic blasts from her fists. Fury ends up following her around, leaning in to the role of wise-cracking sidekick.

The movie’s first half does take its own little time sorting out the story threads. I got a bit impatient around the one-hour mark. And you’d have to be pretty blind not to see the big turn the tale’s going to take. But the last act is an action- and emotion-packed humdinger well worth the long-winded windup.

Jude Law plays Yon -Rogg, Ver’s commander and best Kree friend; Lashana Lynch is Maria, a steadfast human pal from back in her days as an Air Force test pilot; Annette Bening plays an Earthling scientist who curiously also takes the form of the Supreme Intelligence, the AI ruler of the Kree.

The bad guys are the Skrulls, green-skinned shapeshifters who’ve been attacking the Kree outer systems. Their leader is Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), who at one point captures Vers and sifts through her fractured memories for clues to his nefarious plans.

But if there’s a string running through “Captain Marvel,” it’s that it’s up to each of us to define ourselves rather than blindly queue up to the line others have drawn. Vers/Carol spends much of the movie wondering who she is, even as so many others seek to instruct her on the matter.

And, thank goodness, here’s a superhero movie that feels no impulse to inject a totally unnecessary romance into the mix. She is Captain Marvel, and that’s enough.

Video review: "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies"

With the final film in the “Hobbit” trilogy, the Tolkien train has finally rumbled to its last cinematic stop -- assuming, that is, that director Peter Jackson & Co. aren’t intending to turn the barely readable “The Silmarillion” into a 57-part television series.

(Shhh… don’t give them ideas.)

I’ve appreciated the scope and splendor of this 13-year enterprise to turn one of my most beloved literary touchstones into movies that have been, by and large, magical. But if I could give a two-word review of “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies,” it would be “too much.”

There are too many secondary characters and side plots, most of them greatly expanded from things barely whispered at in author J.R.R. Tolkien’s slender tome -- or simply invented out of whole cloth by the filmmakers.

As you can guess from the title, the tale of a band of dwarves trying to reclaim their mountain kingdom from a dragon usurper ends with a massive war wherein the various races of Middle-earth squabble over the spoils. Humble hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) is literally caught in the middle, and his choices have an outsized effect on the course of history.

Other key players include Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage), heir to the dwarven throne and ensorcelled by the foul magic of the dragon’s gold; Gandalf (Ian McKellen), wise wizard and counselor to the adventurers; Bard (Luke Evans), the stout warrior who brings down the beast; Thranduil (Lee Pace), the headstrong elven monarch; Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Thranduil’s son and carryover from the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy; Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), a totally invented and unnecessary female elf warrior; and Azog (Manu Bunnett), the fearsome albino orc leader.

The battle scenes are epic in scope, but the gentle story of a hobbit’s journey there and back again gets swallowed.

Bonus features consist of five making-of featurettes: “Recruiting the Five Armies,” “Completing Middle-earth,” “The Last Goodbye: Behind the Scenes,” “The Last Goodbye Music Video” and “New Zealand: Home of Middle-earth, Part 3.”

As with the previous two movies, in a few months they will release a special extended version of “The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies” with an expanded cut of the film and better extras. Though what they could possibly add to this overstuffed meal, I can’t imagine.

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Review: "The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies"

Unlike the triumphant finale of the three “The Lord of the Rings” films, the last movie in “The Hobbit” trilogy feels more like the grateful collapse at the end of an overlong marathon.

With regards to “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” the audience won’t exactly be exclaiming, “Thank goodness that’s over!” But like an overambitious runner who found they’d signed up for a more grueling race than anticipated, the series concludes with quite a bit less enthusiasm and energy than when it started.

As I’ve said in my reviews of the previous two movies: the Middle-Earth of author J.R.R. Tolkien is perhaps my most treasured mythological playground. I grew up adoring these books, dreaming of hobbits, orcs, magical rings and dragons. You could set pretty much any story in this realm and I’d be first in line to buy a ticket.

But director Peter Jackson and his co-screenwriters have so twisted, changed and augmented Tolkien’s straightforward tale that it barely even deserves to have “The Hobbit” in its title. They’ve expanded slender storylines into major themes; turned behind-the-scenes events barely hinted at into full-blown subplots; and in many cases, just plain ol’ made a bunch of crap up.

It’s still a rousing picture after a slow start – things don’t really get going into the titular battle is joined.

In case you don’t remember, humble hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) had been plucked by deposed dwarven heir to the throne Thorin (Richard Armitage) and meddling wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) to help reclaim the Lonely Mountain taken over long ago by a fearsome dragon.

As this movie opens, the great wyrm Smaug (voice by Benedict Cumberbatch) has been roused from his slumbers and is attacking Lake-town, the tiny fishing village built on docks into the lake next the mountain. Dutiful bowman Bard (Luke Evans) takes up arms against the dragon and brings him down.

But Thorin, driven mad by a lust for gold from “dragon sickness,” refuses to share any of the great wealth of the mountain with the refugees of Lake-town. And he certainly wants nothing to do with the elven king Thranduil (Lee Pace), who previously kept the company prisoner and now wants his own slice of the pie.

It seems likely to come to a nasty conflict, but meanwhile the Orc armies led by the terrifying Azog (Manu Bennett) are bearing down on them all. The last half of the movie or so is essentially just a bunch of swordplay.

In the book Bilbo got knocked unconscious at the start of the fighting, and thus everything that transpired went undepicted. Jackson & Co., of course, couldn't do that with a big-budget spectacle, so we get a whole raft of CGI beheadings and splatterings (though curiously bloodless, to keep the PG-13 rating intact).

The best of the "add-on" material involves the effort by Gandalf and other powerful sorcerers -- including Galadriel (Cate Blanchett) and Saruman (Christopher Lee) -- to force out the evil force that has invaded the fortress of Dol Guldur. As we know, it turns out to be the shade of Sauron, who will go on to cause more trouble down the road. It's a brief but thrilling side excursion.

Other new material is less successful, especially a contrived romance between one of the dwarves and an entirely concocted female elf character (Evangeline Lilly). This results in a love triangle with familiar friend Legolas (Orlando Bloom), plus his daddy issues with the king, and a journey up north that appears to serve no narrative purpose at all.

I was thrilled with what this team of filmmakers did with the "Lord of the Rings," occasionally altering the navigation but keeping the terrain intact. Here, though, they seem like they weren't content with the tale Tolkien spun, and decided to supplant it with their own.

It's still a decent fantasy flick; it's just not "The Hobbit."

Video review: "Guardians of the Galaxy"

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.

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Review: "Guardians of the Galaxy"

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.