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.
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.
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.”
“Glass” was made for $20 million, which must be some sort of low-end record for a modern superhero flick. Heck, I think even Roger Corman’s 1994 version of “Fantastic Four” must’ve cost more.
(Note to editor: this is what’s known as “artistic hyperbole.” Corman never spent more than a quarter-mil on anything. – CL)
To be true, nobody flies through the air or emits energy beams from their eyes or turns into an orange pile of rocks. But that’s really the point of the movie from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan, who with this films wraps up an ad-hoc trilogy that began with 2000’s “Unbreakable.”
“Glass” is less of a straight-up action flick than an exploration of the superhero myth. It posits three men who believe they have extraordinary abilities against a disbelieving world where skepticism and gaslighting reign.
(Another note to editor: “gaslighting” means using trickery to convince someone their beliefs or mindset are unreliable.)
David Dunn (Bruce Willis) is nearly impervious to physical harm, using his day job running a small security company to hunt criminals. Lately he’s chasing Kevin (James McAvoy), an unstable man with split personalities, dominated by one who calls himself the Beast, and exhibits extraordinary strength and sadism.
The third wheel – quite literally for the first half of the movie – is Elijah Price (Samuel Jackson), an evil genius who goes by the moniker “Mr. Glass” because of his extraordinarily fragile bones. He’s been incarcerated for the past two decades, sitting in a wheelchair in a seemingly catatonic state.
For a while all three men are jailed and treated by a psychiatrist (Sarah Paulson) who specializes in addressing superhero delusions. Using evidence and therapeutic techniques, she works to convince the trio that they are actually normal humans – because there’s no such thing as superheroes.
We’ll see how that turns out.
“Glass” is a much more cerebral superhero movie than we’re used to, but I think a satisfying one. It takes a few liberties with things that happened in the prior movies, not to mention basic logic. But maybe rearranging reality is Shyamalan’s super-power.
Bonus features are quite extravagant. There are a dozen deleted scenes and an alternate opening. I count another 12 making-of documentary shorts, ranging from the film’s special effects and sound design to early storyboards.
Two of the more interesting are “Glass Decoded,” which unveils some continuity “secrets” of the trilogy, and “Connecting the Glass Universe,” exploring Shyamalan’s concept of a comic book movie grounded in reality.
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.
I don’t think when “Unbreakable” came out 19 years ago anyone believed it would become a trilogy. I don’t think even M. Night Shyamalan thought of that notion when he first came up with the idea for “Split” from 2016.
(He claims otherwise, but creative types love to tell you they had a plan all along.)
But now it’s all come together, strangely but rather satisfyingly, in “Glass,” which wears the clothes of a supernatural action/thriller but is really more of an exploration of the modern superhero myth.
You may remember that in “Split,” James McAvoy played Kevin, a man with dozens of personalities, some of them friendly, many of them not. They were dominated by the Beast, a mad, feral manimal who exhibited extraordinary abilities -- including bending steel bars, climbing walls and surviving shotgun blasts.
In “Unbreakable,” it was Bruce Willis’ modest security guard, David Dunn, who discovered that he had similar abilities after surviving unscathed from a horrible train wreck the killed everyone else aboard. This also contained the revelation that (sorry, no spoiler warnings after nearly two decades) Samuel L. Jackson’s Elijah Price, a genius comic book dealer burdened by a fragile skeleton, had rigged the train wreck to prove that superheroes really do exist.
Flash forward to present day, and Dunn is still secretly chasing bad guys with the help of his admiring son (Spencer Treat Clark), running a family security business by day. Lately they’ve been chasing Horde, a mysterious criminal who kidnaps and brutally slays teenage girls. You might have guessed this is the handiwork of the Beast.
Events transpire to bring all three men together in Raven Hill, a hospital for the mentally ill. Elijah, who dubs himself Mr. Glass, has been incarcerated there all along, kept heavily sedated most of the time.
You may think it odd that the person whose name is the film’s title spends the first half speechless and motionless, vegging out in his wheelchair while sadistic orderlies taunt and tease him. Jackson’s name even appears last in the credits.
Running this little cuckoo’s nest is Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson), a psychiatrist who specializes in treating the delusion of people who think they’re superheroes. She undercuts the mythology of comic books and works to convince the trio that their supposed abilities are imaginings spurred by past trauma: David’s childhood near-drowning; Kevin’s abuse at the hands of his mother; Elijah’s brilliant mind being trapped in such a breakable body.
For a time, they start to believe her. The Beast goes into remission and David starts to question his past experiences. Elijah still just stares woodenly at the floor.
Of course, we don’t believe any of this. Eventually the men are going to get the chance to prove they’re the real deal… right?
McAvoy has the flashiest part, flexing and growling like a demon is trying to pop out of his skin. I kept worrying he was going to give himself an aneurism. His fight scenes with Willis are curiously restrained; the older man seems more perturbed than frightened.
Anya Taylor-Joy is brought back from “Split,” though this movie doesn’t really know what to do with her. Charlayne Woodard plays Elijah’s mother, horrified at his deeds while unable to hide her pride at such an extraordinary child.
The first two films featured twist endings and “Glass” is no exception. I doubt even if you’re looking forward you’ll guess what it is. I can’t say I found it the most plausible thing in the world. But then this is movie that posits that ordinary-looking people can flip cars over.
It’s strange that it took almost 15 years to get a sequel to “The Incredibles,” the one Pixar animated film that seemed to beg for a follow-up. It appears Disney wanted to wait for original writer/director Brad to find the time and gumption to tackle the project, which was probably the right call.
Alas, “Incredibles 2” -- I didn’t mistype; they dropped the “the” for the sequel -- is a fun and frenetic movie that fails to live up to its predecessor.
I’m still recommending it, because you can’t deny the entertainment quotient it brings to the table. My boys have already watched the Blu-ray through once and are ready to go again. But this is the sort of movie that you might watch one time with your kids, and then wander out of the room for their subsequent viewings.
The story picks up right where the first one left off, with a battle with the nefarious Underminer. After that, the Parr family -- strongman Mr. Incredible (voice of Craig T. Nelson), stretchy Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), speedy Dash (Huck Milner) and invisible Violet (Sarah Vowell) -- gets a helping hand from a P.R. tycoon (Bob Odenkirk) whose sister (Catherine Keener) is a tech whiz.
Their idea: make outlawed superheroes palatable to the public again by doing a media push spotlighting Elastigirl. They figure she’ll be more appealing than Mr. Incredible because she doesn’t tend to leave everything smashed into dust. That leaves him at home stuck with the kids, including baby Jack-Jack’s burgeoning new powers.
They run into the clutches of Screenslaver, a mysterious figure who loathes supers and is using television screens to hypnotize them into doing bad things. Iceman Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) returns to help out as Mr. Incredible’s glorified sidekick, though the movie also introduces a bunch of young (well, mostly) superhero wannabes looking to follow in the Incredibles’ footsteps.
It doesn’t have the verve and imagination of the first one, but “Incredibles 2” is still must-see for children.
Bonus features are quite handsome. There’s an all-new short film starring fashion maven Edna Mode, where we get to see more of her babysitting duties with Jack-Jack, as well as “Bao,” the touching shirt film that accompanied the theatrical release. Plus 10 deleted scenes, commentary tracks by animators and more than a half-dozen making-of short documentaries.
“I don’t like the parts where they talk, talk, talk, but I do like the parts where they fight!”
That’s the review my 4-year-old gives of “Incredibles 2,” and I couldn’t put it any better myself. But I’ll try, given I’m supposed to be the professional at this.
These days it seems like any movie that makes half a buck gets a sequel, even when it’s totally unnecessary. (Oh hai, “Pacific Rim Uprising.” We weren’t talking about you, I swear.) But “The Incredibles,” the one Pixar animated film that seemed to beg for a follow-up, was left curiously lying fallow for nearly a decade-and-a-half
(And you're eyes aren't deceiving you; the first movie was "The" Incredibles, while the second drops the the. Fooled me at first, too.)
Writer/director Brad Bird was busy making the best of the “Mission: Impossible” movies and the well-meaning but disappointing passion project, “Tomorrowland.” So here was a chance to get back to his heyday.
Problem is, the Brad Bird of 2018 seems to have forgotten how to tell stories about a family of superheroes with the same aplomb. “The Incredibles” was terrific because the storytelling seemed so effortless. Characters were sharp-edged and vibrant. The plot unspooled without pretense or hurry, giving us zingy action scenes but also some hefty themes about how the world is a dangerous place.
“Incredibles 2” is certainly very entertaining, but it doesn’t have the polish or style of its predecessor. Dialogue scenes, as my almost-kindergartner acutely observed, go on waaaaayyy longer than they need to, and don’t further the characters or build the mood.
There’s also a weird sitcom-y feel to this. The Parr family often gets bogged down in minutia, like tackling speedster Dash’s (Huck Milner) “new math” homework, or which suit stretchy mom Elastigirl (Holly Hunter) is wearing or when invisible daughter Violet (Sarah Vowell) has her date with her dreamy classmate, Tony.
And someone’s always on baby-watching duty for little Jack Jack, the tantrum-prone tyke who showed all sorts of weird, crazy powers in the last movie, and tries a few more new ones on for size. Bird actually makes a joke of this, as the Parrs literally hand off the baby to each other in the middle of a fight, and supremely Eurotrash designer-to-the-supers Edna Mode (voiced by Bird himself) even gets a spell watching over him.
This one picks up right where the last movie left off. Super-heroes were outlawed, at least publically, 15 years ago, but now Mr. Incredible, the strongman patriarch voiced by Craig T. Nelson, and his family are back in the limelight. This draws the attention of telecommunications tycoon Winston Deavor (Bob Odenkirk), who wants to make supers legal again, with the help of his inventor genius sister, Evelyn (Catherine Keener).
Mr. Incredible’s smashy-smashy M.O. isn’t the most favorable for the P.R. push, so Elastigirl finds herself in the limelight while hubby is stuck at home -- a fancy new one, at that -- dealing with the kids. This gives us a chance to fully explore her capabilities in a way the last movie did not. She even gets her own personalized motorcycle that can separate into two piece to maximize her powers, which are given full display in a match against a runaway train.
The baddie is Screenslaver, a mysterious super-hater who uses television screens to hypnotize people into doing his bidding.
Too-cool Frozone (Samuel L. Jackson) is back, still stuck in wingman mode -- how about he gets starring role in a short or something? There is also a gaggle of new, (mostly) younger hero wannabes who are inspired by Elastigirl to take a step forward. The most notable is Void (Sophia Bush), who can create interdimensional portals.
I enjoyed myself, but “Incredibles 2” just doesn’t have the verve and zip of the first one. For some strange reason, even though no time has passed between movies, Mr. Incredible is drawn to look much aged, with deep creases in his face and baggy eyes. It’s almost like watching a franchise get old before our eyes.
I kinda liked “The Hitman’s Bodyguard,” even though it’s a pretty rote, predictable march through all the buddy cop tropes.
Though I guess we should call it a buddy spy flick, since Samuel L. Jackson and Ryan Reynolds don’t play law enforcement types but superspies, the kind who can chop-socky their way through a crowd of bad guys while the camera spins around them, or take out three dudes with three bullets from 100 feet away, while hundreds of the foes’ bullets never seem to find their mark, or if they do it’s a cute little nick that doesn’t slow them down.
It’s frenetic, fast-paced, filled with lots of quips intercut with some rather bloody carnage, Reynolds doing his charming/nervous thing and Jackson dropping a torrent of mother-effers like only he can.
It’s a fun movie. It’s not particularly smart or original; every character fits snugly into their square or round peg. We know the pair are going to hate each other, then grudgingly work together, and wind up as eternal besties.
Gary Oldman turns up as the villain, a Belarussian dictator named Dukhovich who’s on trial in the Hague for war crimes. All the witnesses against him repeatedly turn up dead, so it looks like he’s going to get sprung. Oldman alternates between chilly threats and monomaniacal raving, his cheeks even touched with a spot of pox so the bad guy can be easily picked out. It’s the sort of role Oldman has played a thousand times and could do in his sleep.
Jackson is Darius Kincaid, a legendary assassin who seems to be the last witness left against Dukhovich. Things go badly with the Interpol protection squad, led by tough lieutenant Amelia Roussel (Élodie Yung), making it obvious there’s a rat in their midst.
(Hint: always look for the swarthiest fellow amongst the Caucasians.)
Roussel is forced to call in Michael Bryce, formerly king of the protection agency game and also her ex-boyfriend. His last big gig protecting a Japanese arms dealer ended poorly, so now he’s the bottom of the barrel instead of triple-A rated -- a standard that may or may not actually exist, but one he’s obsessed with reclaiming nonetheless.
It seems Michael and Darius have often been on opposite sides of a sniper rifle from each other, so there’s bad blood. The story (screenplay by Tom O’Connor) turns into a road picture as they are chased over land, air and sea on their way to the Hague, which is going to close the proceedings against Dukhovich unless Darius shows up by 5 o'clock the next day.
(I guess the Hague judges never heard of stays? Or testimony via live video feed?)
According to what I’ve read the budget on this picture was only $30 million, and director Patrick Hughes milks a ton of high-adrenaline action scenes out of that tidy sum. A combination road/boat chase through the canals of Amsterdam was my favorite, a sequence worthy of a Bond flick.
Along the way they fight, give each other the slip, bicker over M.O.’s and lady loves -- Salma Hayek plays Darius’ imprisoned squeeze -- and even sing a couple of songs. Jackson does an off-tune rendition of “Nobody Gets Out Alive,” which I assumed was a classic blues standard, but is actually a new song the actor wrote and performed himself, delivering a much better version for the closing credits that’s worth hanging around for.
It’s the only part of the movie I would deem triple-A rated. The rest is one-and-a-half As, at best. (Aa?)
There hasn’t really been a decent King Kong movie since the original one 84 (!) years ago. But “Kong: Skull Island” finally sets things to right with a version that’s thrilling, a little bit scary and surprisingly funny.
It’s weird to think how well frights and laughs go together. Go back and rewatch the original Jurassic Park,” and you’ll find what is essentially a comedy with gruesome ingredients mixed in. The new Kong movie has a similar mix of awe, excitement and chortling.
In this version, set in 1973, Kong roams his lonely island in the South Pacific like a fallen god from Olympus. He is worshiped by the few humans living there, who appear to be wayward souls whose became trapped.
There’s also one castaway of more recent vintage, an American WWII pilot played with great mirth by John C. Reilly. When a new crew of soldiers and scientists arrives in their helicopters, his warnings about angering Kong go hilariously unheeded.
Among the new interlopers are Brie Larson, Tom Hiddleston, Samuel L. Jackson, Toby Kebbell, John Ortiz, John Goodman and Corey Hawkins. They all have their roles to fill, from half-crazed warrior (Jackson) who makes it a personal battle of wills with the great ape, to the peace-loving hippie photographer (Larson) and the survival expert (Hiddleston), who doesn’t actually do such a great job at keeping people alive.
Kong is truly massive in this iteration, the size of a skyscraper, and he’s got some well-justified grudges that drive his dour demeanor. Like the first film, we arrive at the end with a mix of fear and sympathy for him.
Sometimes the third time's the charm, or as with “Kong: Skull Island,” something like the
23rd.
Bonus features are quite robust, and in an increasingly rare instance for video releases, don’t require an upgrade to the Blu-ray edition. It and the DVD version have the same extras.
These include a director’s feature-length commentary track, deleted scenes, a fake backstory on the “Monarch” monster research group and several making-of documentary featurettes. The most interesting one is Larson’s photographs from the production set.
King Kong, along with Godzilla, are the great white whales of moviedom. Their first iterations were unforgettable classics, and since then there have been multitudinous attempts over the decades to recapture lightning in a bottle.
Most have fizzled, and even the best failed to spark half as bright.
Every 12-15 years or so, studios and filmmakers -- and, they think, audiences -- will have forgotten the last (probably disastrous) movie and decide there’s still gold in them thar cinematic hills. So off we go again on another big-critter hunt.
Peter Jackson, fresh off the “Lord of the Rings” movies, gave us his dreary “King Kong” in 2005, and his career hit a slump that lasted until he ran back to Tolkien. “Godzilla” from 2014 managed to hide the monster until the halfway point, which is like manufacturing a sports car that has a top speed of 180 m.p.h. but takes three minutes to get from zero to 60.
So here comes “Kong: Skull Island,” and gosh darn if I didn’t enjoy the thing. It’s goofy as all get out, it has lots of stars but no single compelling character, and it has the sort of final fight scene where the big baddie we think is dead is going to need a couple more tries to get it right.
It’s a fun and surprisingly funny bit of popcorn movie-making. Tonally, it’s all over the map. You’ve got scenes of extreme gross-out deaths and dismemberments -- this may be hardest PG-13 ever given -- set off by silly quips, often within seconds of each other.
On several occasions after a primordial beastie leaps out of nowhere and kills off a couple more members of our intrepid party, they’ll get ready to soldier on and one of them will say something like, “Are we NOT going to talk about what just happened?!?” And the rest will in some way glumly respond that no, we’re not going to talk about what just happened. (Which, of course, is a way of talking about what happened.)
Smartly, big K appears within a couple of minutes of the beginning. He’s got a classic look, grand and majestic and threatening. Kong’s stature has grown with his legend. Climb the Empire State Building? Dude IS the Empire State Building.
Here he’s a lonely god-king, lumbering around his hidden island in the South Pacific circa 1973. He’s angry but also seems sad, and we’ll find out why later. When a bunch of scientists and Army types show up on an exploration mission, dropping seismic bombs and causing a ruckus on his turf, Kong quickly lays down some smack. But he’s got other things on his plate, and humans are just the pesky crumbs.
You want a plot summary? I’m not sure we really need one. Kong rules his secret island, the humans have come in helicopters to find out what’s there, and they quarrel. All 14 choppers are crashed, so it becomes a quest for survival by those who are left.
This is not the sort of movie to quibble over details. You want to know why there are prehistoric monsters on this one island? Let the eggheads bicker about subterranean vents and whatnot. How can there be a permanent hurricane surrounding the island, cutting it off from previous exploration? What are you, a damn meteorologist? Go find some low-pressure systems to warn Aunt Bessie about.
The ensemble cast is a collection of types rather than characters: Tom Hiddleston is the burnt-out British survivalist with suspiciously tight T-shirts and frosted highlights; Brie Larson is the “anti-war photojournalist” (her words) who represents the group’s soulful side; John Goodman is the kooky scientist running a fringe government agency called Monarch that searches for bigfoots, and Corey Hawkins is his dweeby protégé; John Ortiz is the uptight bureaucrat whose role is to be the lawyer in “Jurassic Park;” Samuel L. Jackson is the guts-and-glory wing commander who makes it a personal grudge with Kong; Toby Kebbell is Jackson’s resolute No. 2, who writes “Dear Billy” letters home to his son, which becomes a running theme among the rest; and Tian Jing is the inconsequential Asian supporting character included only to shore up the Chinese market.
The guy who probably had the best time making the movie is John C. Reilly, who plays an addled American pilot who crash-landed on the island during World War II, and can’t understand why nobody listens to the guy who actually knows what’s what. He gets a lot of great one-liners and milks them for every drop.
I also enjoyed Shea Whigham as the taciturn older soldier who’s been around and isn’t fazed by much; after Kong has torn up all their Hueys he offers, “That was an unconventional encounter.” He’s exactly the sort of character who’s kept around to make a noble sacrifice near the end, which goes exactly as we think, but also not.
Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein and Derek Connolly wrote the screenplay, along (I hear) with a host of uncredited others. Director Jordan Vogt-Roberts was an interesting choice; his only other feature film credit is “The Kings of Summer,” a tiny coming-of-age indie that made its way around the festival circuit awhile back.
Peter Jackson was originally set to direct “Kong: Skull Island,” but I guess somebody finally got around to watching his first Kong movie. The project banged around and ended up in its current weird but rather wonderful form. Hell, a King Kong movie that throws in an “Oldboy” reference can’t be all bad.
I was going to end this review by harkening back to the first paragraph, which some professor once taught is the mark of a good essay. But I decided it was giving away too much, and if you stick around till the very end you’ll see why.
Gosh knows how many cinematic iterations of “Tarzan” there have been, but the newest big-budget effort, “The Legend of Tarzan,” adds little to the oeuvre.
Watching Alexander Skarsgård swing on a vine, fight apes and men, deliver the ubiquitous yodel, etc., it finally occurred to me that this is actually a spiritual remake of another Tarzan movie – “Tarzan the Ape Man,” the 1981 version starring Bo Derek.
Like that soft-core piffle, the main point of this new movie is to delight in displays of human flesh. Except here we’re ogling the guy instead of the girl.
Skarsgård’s body has been transformed into the perquisite tangle of veiny bulges and rippled abdominal landscape favored in this age. We watch him flex and stretch and contemplate the desert of carbs in his diet. Maybe at some point we wonder why he would look like this, since as the story opens he left the jungle many years ago to take up the life of a British nobleman along with his lady love, Jane (Margot Robbie).
Somehow, I doubt they had P90X classes in 19th century England. And you can’t rock a six-pack from playing cricket.
Anyway, they get lured back to the Congo to investigate some allegations of bad behavior, including slavery, at the mining camps, kicking off a confrontation with Leon Rom, a Belgian baddie with dreams of capturing the entire diamond operation. He’s played by Christoph Waltz, in about his sixth version of the “off-putting Christoph Waltz villain.” Samuel L. Jackson tags along as an American envoy offering to help.
A few of the action scenes are gripping, but Tarzan himself is an uncharismatic drip. The truth is the screenplay gives most of the interesting stuff to the supporting actors. Tarzan is just there to be gazed upon.
Maybe 110 minutes of ogling is enough for thee, but not for me.
Bonus features are merely adequate, and are the same for Blu-ray and DVD editions. They include five making-of featurettes and a public service announcement about the African ivory trade.
As sequels go, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” delivered everything it had to.
It brought the gang of Marvel superheroes back together for another round of computer-generated mayhem and quips. It added some new wrinkles to the characters’ background stories and continuing evolution. A few new key super-powered folk were added to the mix. And a really crafty and charismatic villain emerged to steal the show.
The heavy here is Ultron, an artificial intelligence program created by Tony Stark aka Ironman (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner/The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) to protect the world, since they’re each anxious to get out of the caped crusader game. (Yes, I know neither one actually wears a cape; work with me, people!)
Ultron, menacingly voiced and motion-captured by James Spader, quickly decides that the Avengers themselves are the biggest thread to Earth. Thus their battle is joined, with Ultron jumping from robot body to body, like a virus that’s impossible to care.
Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), Thor, (Chris Hemsworth), Captain America (Chris Evans) and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) are here, too. The new kids are mutant siblings Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), who have mind powers and super-speed, respectively.
The supes race about the world trying to contain Ultron’s misdeeds, with a few character-driven subplots to keep the human angle fresh. We learn Hawkeye isn’t just a deadeye loner, and that Banner and Widow have feelings for each other.
It’s a rip-roaring time, not quite as good as the original, but what is?
Extras include deleted scenes, several making-of featurettes, feature-length audio commentary track and a gag reel.
A bit of charm and a lot of smash-mouth, “Kingsman: The Secret Service” was one of 2015’s earliest, and best, surprises.
This super-spy thriller/comedy operates as both a send-up and celebration of the 007 genre. Colin Firth plays Harry Hart, aka Galahad, a member of the sophisticated and ultra-secret spy agency knows as the Kingsmen. They prefer to do their bidding beneath the veil of anonymity, using all sorts of cool gadget hidden inside their signature dapper suits and eyeglasses.
Harry recruits rough-and-tumble street scamp Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton) to be his protégé, and the story is framed around the familiar training and initial missions of the new guy. It seems some nefarious force is taking out the Kingsmen one by one, so graduation will have to come early.
The bad guy is a Steve Jobs techie type, deliciously played by Samuel L. Jackson – a combination of computer nerd, gangster and maniacal villain. His henchwoman has two prosthetic legs outfitted with swords to dice up her victims.
Directed by Matthew Vaughn, “Kingsman” has got terrific action scenes and also terribly funny ones. It’s a smart and energetic flick that evinces a tone somewhere between a smirk and a gasp. This is a movie that makes fun of spy movies, but loves them, too.
Video extras are pretty decent. There’s a gallery of photos of sets, props and behind-the-scenes peeks. There are also six making-of documentary featurettes: “Panel to Screen: The Education Of A 21st Century Super-Spy,” “Heroes And Rogues,” “Style All His Own,” “Tools Of The Trade,” “Breathtakingly Brutal” and “Culture Clash: The Comic Book Origins Of The Secret Service.”
There are a lot of young and charismatic performers in “Barely Lethal,” and I wanted to hug each of them, tell them how talented they are, and comfort them with the knowledge that appearing in this movie won’t ruin their careers.
This teen action/comedy is the sort of forgettable film that you make when you’re breaking into Hollywood and just want to get some credits under your belt. You get a paycheck, learn from the experience, and try to choose better projects from then on.
The strange thing is that many of the people involved are already bona fide names in showbiz.
Hailee Steinfeld, an Oscar nominee for her terrific turn in “True Grit” and part of the “Pitch Perfect” crew, is the lead. Sophie Turner, best known as Sansa Stark on HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” is the bitchy adversary. Toby Sebastian also was in “Game of Thrones” in a smaller role. Gabriel Basso was in “Super 8” and “The Kings of Sumer.” Plus Samuel L. Jackson, Jaime King and Jessica Alba turn up.
So what are they doing in this silly flick about a teen super-spy who decides she’d rather experience high school instead? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.
It’s essentially “21 Jump Street” except instead of being a cop, Steinfeld is Agent 83 of the Prescott School for Girls, a place where orphans are raised to be deadly assassins. Jackson is the stern taskmaster. But 83 yearns for something more, and after dousing herself in a raft of teen movies like “The Breakfast Club,” she decides to fake her death and do the John Hughes thing.
Dubbing herself Megan, she poses as a foreign exchange student – from Canada! – and embeds herself with a family in wholesome Newtown. Soon she’s navigating the familiar obstacles of mean girls, clueless teachers and romantic angst.
Dove Cameron plays Liz, the acerbic daughter of her foster family, who wants nothing to do with her. Sebastian plays Cash, the dreamy wannabe rock star of the school whom all the girls swoon over, including, soon enough, Megan. Thomas Mann is Roger, the geeky-but-nice guy who develops a crush on her. Basso is the Gooch, local athlete-meathead.
Director Kyle Newman and screenwriter John D’Arco put all these actors through the familiar paces without much flair or originality. You know it’s just a matter of time before Megan’s spy life invades her high school one, with Alba playing the evil renegade agent who wants revenge on the Prescotts. The comedy is broad and the storylines worthy of cable TV.
I think “Barely Lethal” is trying to be a parody of dumb teen movies, but ends up turning into one itself. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then becoming that which you mocked must be the cruelest insult.
No, it's not quite the same thrill as watching the first Avengers movie. Really, how could it be?
Marvel spent years putting together the first super-hero supergroup movie, patiently setting up characters in their own solo flicks. So finally seeing a bunch of mini-gods in spandex fighting for a common cause was the ultimate payoff.
We're built to like what's shiny and new, so anything after that is bound to be a letdown. Still, "Avengers: Age of Ultron" is a worthy successor, managing to layer in plenty of incredible action scenes while also exploring what the whole "hero" concept means to those behind the masks.
(I say "masks" pejoratively, since only Iron Man wears one, and only then because it's not wise to leave obvious holes in your armor. Most comic book heroes keep their identities concealed, but Hollywood prefers not to spend big bucks on pretty faces and then hide them.)
Writer/director Joss Whedon combines a fanboy's appreciation for the intricacies of super-hero mythology with a cineaste's head for fast-paced mayhem. The result is a fun, giddy movie that occasionally rambles off the narrative tracks, but always manages to land its emotional punches.
If you'll recall from last time, the gang -- Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.); Thor (Chris Hemsworth); Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson); Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner); and Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) -- had successfully fought off an alien invasion led by Loki, Thor's wayward brother. Half of New York was destroyed in the process, but hey, that helped set up Marvel's "Daredevil" show on Netflix.
"Ultron" opens with the Avengers stamping out the last traces of Hydra, a Nazi holdover that had captured Loki's magical staff. Instead of returning it to Thor's home world for safekeeping, Tony Stark and Bruce Banner -- that's Iron Man and Hulk's nerdy scientist alter egos, of course -- decide to use it to build an artificial intelligence capable of safeguarding Earth from all threats.
Alas, their creation, Ultron -- wonderfully voiced and motion captured by James Spader -- decides that the biggest threat to the planet is humans. So he sets about on a nefarious plan to wipe out the Avengers and the regular folks they protect.
The hard part about defeating Ultron is that he can replicate himself, so he creates an army of robots -- all variations on Iron Man's suit -- which means you have to destroy every one of them to eradicate his mind.
Adding spice to the mix are Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, wayward young mutants who become Ultron's apprentices. He can run as fast as a bullet, hence his code name Quicksilver (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). She's the trickier of the two, capable of telekinesis as well as a limited degree of mind control. Aptly named Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), she invades the inner psyche of each of the Avengers, forcing them to face their darkest fears.
The upshot of all of this is that being a hero isn't always that super. Stark and Banner in particular would like to hang up their mantles -- especially Banner, who can't control the Hulk and views his time in that form as a kind of madness. Black Widow is the only one who can calm him down, and that leads to the beginnings of a romance.
There's plenty of other cool stuff, too. We learn that Iron Man has a fail-safe option for when the Hulk goes berserk, and it's an even bigger iron suit that goes on top of his regular one, and comes with the absurd codename of "Veronica." We also get to meet the Vision (Paul Bettany), an artificial creation that ... well, best to discover on your own.
You can't put lightning back in a bottle, and you can't entirely recapture the spark of cinema's first super-hero team. But you can have a helluva good time trying.
Matthew Vaughn, the talented young filmmaker behind "Kick-Ass" and "X-Men: First Class," dropped out of directing last summer's "X-Men: Days of Future Past" to make this movie. In other words, he passed on a sure thing to make a film adaptation of a comic book hardly anyone has heard of about British super-spies, which is being released in the cinematic wasteland known as February.
Some might call that move questionable -- including Vaughn's agents, no doubt.
Then he went and did something even more dubious: he changed the name of the movie, based on the graphic novel "The Secret Service" by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar, to add the "Kingsman" moniker, and switched the story around so the spies all wear similar natty suits. He even commissioned a line of "Kingsman" clothing from a high-end clothier, so you can affect the same stylish look you saw star Colin Firth wearing.
(Want the wristwatch? It's only $24,430!)
Which essentially renders the entire movie an exercise in brash product placement. I'd be tempted to be disgusted, if the film weren't so dashingly, gleefully superb.
"Kingsman: The Secret Service" is a heaping squirt of hot sauce in the cinema calendar's equivalent of the salad course. It's a daffy, dizzy send-up of the James Bond genre that nonetheless checks off the list of everything we love about super-spy flicks.
It's got a suave, charismatic leading man (Firth), outstandingly staged action scenes, crazy gadgets, a mad global plot, and a terrifically strange villain who maintains a running commentary on the stupidity of movie villains. (Without, apparently, realizing that he is one.)
The set-up is that young Eggsy Unwin (Taron Egerton), a Cockney street tough, is recruited by the Kingsmen via Harry Hart (Firth), aka Galahad, who once had his life saved by Eggsy's dad. Harry has a cool intro scene where he takes out an entire pub full of thugs who want the lad's head using only his umbrella -- which, to be fair, has all sorts of super-power functions like stopping bullets when opened.
(If you think that's neat, wait'll you see what the watch can do.)
Soon Eggsy is going through super-spy school, competing with a bunch of high-class wankers to see who can claim the only open slot in the Kingsmen ranks. Or Kingswomen -- there are a couple of highly competent female recruits, too, including the resourceful Roxy (Sophie Cookson), who takes a shine to Eggsy's rough edges. Merlin (Mark Strong) is the veteran taskmaster and outfitter, while Arthur (Michael Caine) is the wise old leader.
Harry takes on Eggsy's tutelage personally, teaching him how to dress and behave and, above all, remain discreet. The Kingsmen are a privately funded intelligence agency, and take pride in having their exploits remaining unknown. "A gentleman's name should appear in the paper three times: when he's born, when he marries and when he dies," he instructs.
The heavy is Richmond Valentine, a ridiculously powerful tech billionaire who gives away his merchandise and Internet service for free, because he has a dastardly plot to... well, I won't spoil. Suffice to say his plan has a certain liberal Machiavellian purity, enough to convince most of the planet's prime movers and shakers to sign on.
Valentine is played by Samuel L. Jackson in a performance that is deliciously over the top... or under the top, or somewhere completely sideways of the top. He sprays his sibilants in a mighty lisp, dresses in slanted hats and neon pastels like a ghetto bopper who hit the lottery, and grows girlishly nauseous at even the hint of violence, despite setting quite a tidal wave of it in motion.
His henchwoman is, if possible, even more exotic. Gazelle (Sofia Boutella) has two prosthetic legs, the kind used in running known as blades, except hers are also outfitted with actual blades, which she uses to slice and dice her foes while spinning through the air with athletic aplomb. She makes Oddjob with his killer top hat seem positively pedestrian.
Co-written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman, "Kingsman: The Secret Service" maintains a careful tone. It's incredibly funny, yet the gruesome fight scenes have weight and kinetic punch. Jackson's scoundrel is simultaneously laughable and chilling. This is a pastiche, mockery and homage to spy movies all wrapped in one well-tailored package.
I’m not mortally offended by Hollywood wanting to remake one of the seminal movies of my youth, but did they have to be so tame about it? This mincing, PG-13-rated sci-fi action/drama feels like it’s had all its precious bodily fluids slurped out of it. The result is cool-looking but rather unexciting.
The story is familiar: in a dystopian near-future, noble Detroit cop Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) is blown apart in the line of duty. He’s put back together as cyborg by a nefarious corporation that runs the police services, and is sold to the public as their savior. But there’s more to the story, with Michael Keaton playing the villain who cares more about maximizing revenues than actually improving lives.
The new look of Robocop is quite a sight, with black armor and a red eye slit. Though no one’s ever satisfactorily explained to me why they leave his lower face exposed.
Rounding out the cast are Abbie Cornish as Mrs. Murphy; Michael K. Williams as Murphy’s partner; Samuel L. Jackson as a demagogic TV yapper; Gary Oldman as a conflicted scientist; and Jackie Earle Haley as a mercenary stooge.
Murphy/Robocop comes across more as a video game avatar than an authentic tortured soul. And the over-the-top bloody violence so intrinsic to the 1987 movie are replaced with CGI-heavy eye candy.
The new “Robocop” isn’t a terrible flick. But it commits the one crime that the enduring memory of the original renders unforgiveable: it’s forgettable.
The movie comes with a decent enough mix of video extras. There are a handful of deleted scenes, schematics of Robocop and other Omnicorp creatures and hardware, and three making-of featurettes.
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.
In 1987 I was a pimply teen slinging/sweeping popcorn in a movie theater when the boss asked me to help set up a stand-up promo for an upcoming film in the lobby. As we fit together the various cardboard pieces, the name and chrome-domed image of "Robocop" came into focus.
We couldn't stop laughing. It looked like the goofiest, dumbest thing we'd ever seen. The display continued to provoke titters and jokes the next few weeks. We'd walk past it in a herky-jerky manner, dubbing ourselves "Robo-usher."
Then we saw the movie.
The laughing stopped, and although we'd continue to imitate Robocop, it was now performed with reverence instead of mockery.
Director Paul Verhoeven's "Robocop" instantly became an iconic film for a number of reasons. There was the kitschy premise of a man-turned-android, plus of course some very hard-edged violence -- initially earning an X rating from the MPAA -- that ping-ponged between cartoonish and nauseating. There was the incredibly cynical, sardonic view of a near-future Detroit ruled by Machiavellian corporations and dimwitted media info-tainment.
But at the center was the surprisingly soulful journey of the main character, an everyman cop who gains superhero-esque powers but has to give up a huge chunk of his humanity in the process. We cheered Robocop, and we pitied him.
The new remake is thoroughly unnecessary, but that doesn't mean the effort can't yield a good movie, as we saw with the recent reboot of the Spider-man franchise. Director José Padilha, a veteran from Brazil, and rookie screenwriter Joshua Zetumer come up with a promising premise, in which Robocop isn't a cutting-edge breakthrough, but simply a backward-engineered commodity designed to make robot law enforcement palatable to a malleable American public.
In the rest of the world, robots manufactured by Omnicorp run a martial state where even Iran is kept in line by scary machines, including the gargantuan ED-209s from the last film, as well as man-sized EM-208s. But politicians in the U.S. have barred them from policing domestically, resulting in $600 billion annually in lost revenues for CEO Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton).
The first hour or so is heady stuff, as Detroit detective Alex Murphy (Joel Kinnaman) sees his life turned upside down after an explosion leaves his body in tatters, and comes to grips with the idea of living inside a metal suit. He's certainly got a cool new look, with black armor and a red slit for eyes. (Plus a pair of guns he never has to reload, ever.)
But the movie goes sideways in the second half, with neither the sarcastic humor or the PG-13 action scenes landing with a lot of punch.
Joel Kinnaman is believable as Murphy/Robocop, though he's a mite too pretty to be taken seriously as an anti-hero; the filmmakers repeatedly succumb to temptation to leave his face exposed. (Why exactly do they leave the lower half of his face unprotected?) Gary Oldman is a welcome presence as Dennett Norton, the conflicted scientist put in charge of the Robocop program.
Another thing lacking in the new movie is a hiss-able villain on the order of Clarence Bodicker, the sadistic killer from the original film. Keaton's Sellars is more slimy than hateful, a disreputable Steve Jobs type who likes to control the media. Jackie Earle Haley shows up as Robocop's taunting instructor, but he's a little too mercenary to really get our dander up.
Michael K. Williams and Abbie Cornish are pretty much wasted as, respectively, Murphy's partner and wife, mostly standing on the sidelines and wondering where the man disappeared inside the machine.
Samuel L. Jackson fires surprising blanks as Pat Novack, a demagogic broadcaster who acts as Omnicorp's jingoistic cheerleader. I think the problem is the character is so close to the unhinged talking heads we see on cable news every night, he's too familiar to serve as a cautionary tale.
I don't hate the idea of Hollywood remaking one of the seminal movies from my formative years, but the result is too tame to justify its own existence. There is one jaw-dropping moment in the film that hints of darker, grander themes to come. But it's soon forgotten in a wave of video-game shootouts and one-liners recycled from 1987.
