Video review: "Knives Out"

"Knives Out" is a supremely entertaining movie, though it's not hard to discern what it's all about: poking fun at the conventions of the Agatha Christie-style murder/mystery while wantonly indulging in every single trope inherent to the drama.

It ended up earning writer/director Rian Johnson, late of the much-maligned "The Last Jedi" entry in the Star Wars saga, an Academy Award for his original screenplay. It is indeed an intricate instrument of misdirection and humor, pointing the audience this way and yanking them that way, while forcing us to look here when we should be looking there.

It's a fun movie with a "big twist" that you know is coming, though still devilishly difficult to guess. It's the sort of flick you walk out of theater overhearing somebody loudly proclaim, "I saw it coming all along!", and know he's a dirty liar.

It's the prototypical "mansion with a dead guy and a bunch of suspects" setup. The uber-wealthy Thrombey clan has just encountered the death of patriarch Harlan (Christopher Plummer), a famous mystery novelist, under suspicious circumstances. It appears he took his own life, but is this really true?

 Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig) is the Southern-fried private investigator on the case. Certainly there is not shortage of people with sufficient motive to see Harlan dead. This includes:

• Walt (Michael Shannon), who oversees his dad's publishing company and has tried for years to get him to sell his work for movies and whatnot
• Linda (Jamie Lee Curtis), the hard-bitten daughter who insists she's an independent success but is burdened with a lout husband, Richard (Don Johnson) and a peculiar son with Nazi-ish tendencies.
• Joni (Toni Collette), the New Age-y daughter-in-law who puts off an aura of self-confidence but is always hard up for cash
• Hugh (Chris Evans), the cad playboy grandson who recently had a loud falling out with Harlan, and seems to always be disappearing and reappearing at opportune moments

Other characters floating around the story are the police detective (Lakeith Stanfield) who outsources most of the detecting to Blanc; Katherine Langford as one of the nicer grandchildren; and Marta (Ana de Armas), Harlan's caretaker who was much closer to him than any of his own children.

Far be it from me to give anything away. All I will say is that "Knives Out" is that rare movie that seems to dare the audience to guess where it's going, but always manages to stay a few steps ahead.

I wouldn't call this one of the best movies of 2019, as some have. In the end it's a fun, clever movie that exists to be fun and clever. Is that really such a bad thing?

Video extras are quite comprehensive. Johnson provides a feature-length commentary track along with his director of photography, Steve Yedlin, and actor Noah Segan, who has a rather small part. Johnson also provides his own "In-Theatre" commentary and stars in his own featurette, "Planning the Perfect Murder."

Additionally there are two deleted scenes with commentary, a Q&A with director and cast, some marketing photos and "Meet the Thrombeys" viral ads, and "Making a Murder," an eight-part making-of documentary.

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Video review: "Avengers: Infinity War"

If the first “Avengers” movie felt like a convergence, the point toward which years of disparate superhero film franchises had been building, then the third, “Avengers: Infinity Wars,” is the beginning of the end times.

I don’t say that to mean superhero flicks are on their way out. Anything but. You can take a look at the box office tallies for this movie, “Black Panther” and other recent iterations from the Marvel Comics Universe and know they’re going to keep making them until people stop going.

But my take is that in the hereafter fans of these movies will refer to the genre in terms of “before AIW” and “after AIW.”

This is a game-changing film that takes all our hopes and dreams bound up with the modern mythology of superheroes, and dashes them against the wall. The story arc of dozens of future movies will hinge upon this movie and its sequel, due out next May.

I won’t give anything away for the few people who haven’t seen it, but before “Avengers: Infinity War” came out it was a common parlor game to guess how many characters would die in it, and choose which ones. Afterward… let’s just say a lot of people making picks were right.

You know the story. World-beater Thanos (Josh Brolin) is coming to Earth to claim the last of the Infinity Stones, which will essentially render him all-powerful. His goal: to eradicate half the living beings in the cosmos so the others can prosper on the remaining resources.

This is more than just an Avengers movie, as almost every single hero of all the Marvel franchises make appearances -- the Guardians of the Galaxy, Spider-Man, and so on. There’s too many characters to list, but Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Captain America (Chris Evans), Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman) and Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) are the most pivotal.

The plot lines move through a number of smaller battles, culminating in a massive one in the hidden nation of Wakanda. On a number of occasions the heroes have a chance to sacrifice one of the Stones in order to prevent Thanos from collecting them all, and decide that the principle of protecting one life is more important than emulating their enemy’s behavior.

We’ll see how that works out for them.

“Avengers: Infinity War” is the culmination of the superhero cinematic adventure that’s been growing for more than two decades. Where things go from here, I can only wait to see.

Bonus features are good, not great. There’s a feature length commentary track by directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely; a gag reel; four production documentary shorts totaling about a half-hour; and deleted and extended scenes adding another 10 minutes of footage.

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Review: "Avengers: Infinity War"

We’re 20 years and more than 50 movies into the renaissance of cinematic superheroes, when you count the various iterations of Marvel Comics and the handful of DC. It’s usually a time when middle age sets in, a sort of creative malaise where stars age out of their roles, studios grow covetous of their cash cows and the storytelling inevitably suffers.

Caution, and reliance on tried-and-true formula, becomes the name of the game.

Then here comes “Avengers: Infinity War” to blow everything up in ways we completely didn’t expect or, indeed, would have said could never happen if foretold to us. Watching it, I kept saying to myself, “Well, there’s no way they’re going to go there,” and then they went there, and then they want past there.

This is a dazzling, ambitious, overpowering film experience that gives bracing new life -- and some deaths -- to the superhero genre. This feels like a watershed moment, a paradigm shift. Wherever this type of filmmaking goes, from now on we’ll think of superhero movies in terms of “before” and “after” this film.

Here’s the unpleasantness: the earth-shaking nature of this movie makes it very, very difficult to review. If I were to even hint at half the stuff that happens in this movie, your mind would be blown. I will endeavor to do my best in the rest of this review not to commit any spoilers. I advise you to avoid conversations or social media posts from anyone you don’t trust in that regard.

Things pick up a couple years after the events of “Captain America: Civil War,” with the group cloven by internal strife and government interference. Thanos, the world-conquering villain who’s been alluded to in previous Marvel Cinematic Universe films, finally makes his big push on Earth -- and a number of other planets -- to gather the six Infinity Stones that will give him virtually unconquerable power.

Literally everybody in the MCU appears in this movie, or nearly so. Just listing the cast would take up the rest of this review, but it includes Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.); Norse god Thor (Chris Hemsworth); patriot/headman Captain America (Chris Hemsworth); Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman); Star Lord (Chris Pratt) and the rest of the Guardians of the Galaxy crew, notably Gamora (Zoe Saldana), rebel adopted daughter of Thanos, muscleman Drax (Dave Bautista), raccoon pilot/warrior Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and tree creature Groot (Vin Diesel); sorcerer supreme Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch); super-spy Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson); Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen); robot sentinel Vision (Paul Bettany); teen supe Spider-Man (Tom Holland); and many, many more.

Josh Brolin plays Thanos, in an oddly emotive motion-capture CGI performance. He truly believes himself to be the universe’s savior, making the hard choices no one else is willing to. A vaguely purpleish titan with a craggy face and muscles big enough to beat the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) senseless, Thanos pursues ultimate power, and is willing to pay the ultimate price to obtain it.

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, who helmed the last two Captain America movies, from a script by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, “Avengers: Infinity War” is an action-packed maelstrom that somehow manages to fit in enough little moments for the actors to let their characters’ essential nature shine through.

I often complain that movies these days ramble on too long, but at 2½ hours, this film flew by. Again, I really don’t want to give anything away, but when the credits started to roll, I truly couldn’t believe the film was going to end the way it does. I was left shocked, amazed, exhausted and spectacularly entertained.

Video review: "Gifted"

A small film with some huge names attached to it, “Gifted” is a tender little drama about an extended family fighting over the fate of a 7-year-old girl genius. Directed by Marc Webb, best known for the previous two Spider-Man movies, it’s a touch formulaic but well-acted and earnest.

Chris Evans plays Frank, uncle to the girl, Mary (Mckenna Grace), whose mother took her own life some years ago. Now she lives with Frank in a grubby community of rental homes in a part of Florida where the tourists don’t flock. He fixes boat engines for a living, but has his own past that we’ll find out more about down the line.

Octavia Spencer is Roberta, friend a maternal figure to Mary, and Evelyn (Lindsay Duncan) plays Frank’s mother, Mary’s grandmother. She pops up about halfway through the movie to sue him for custody of the girl.

Grandma wants to take Mary to a very specialized educational facility where she can work on big-brain mathematical problems – in particular, one her mother failed to solve. It’s clear Evelyn sees her granddaughter as less a child to nurture than a source of greatness that has gone untapped.

Frank would prefer that Mary stay in a regular school to gain better emotional intelligence and just be a kid. But the movie (screenplay by Tom Flynn) acknowledges that there are flaws in his line of thinking, too. Mary’s own teacher (Jenny Slate) is among those who thinks the girl would be better served in a special setting, even as she tries to resist her own attraction to Frank.

With a little bit each of family melodrama, courtroom intrigue and character study, “Gifted” is a simple movie about some large issues. It may not be the smartest or most original movie around, but it never hits a false moment or fails to engage the heart.

Bonus features are adequate, and are identical for the DVD and Blu-ray editions. These include five deleted scenes, a production gallery of still photos and location footage. There are also five making-of featurettes: “Gifted: A First Look,” “Story,” “An Accomplished Cast,” “Inside the Equation” and “Marc’s Method.”

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Review: "Gifted"

I like it when big stars and high-profile filmmakers do small movies. Almost everybody gets their start making tiny no-budget indies, so it’s nice to see a return to roots. It’s an opportunity for them to stretch their wings and do something a little more daring artistically.

“Gifted” isn’t a terribly audacious movie, but it is a tender and warm-hearted one.

Most people know Chris Evans these days as Captain America, but here he plays Frank Adler, a seemingly hard-headed man who lives in a Florida coastal town with his 7-year-old niece, Mary. Frank fixes boat motors for a living and tools around in a rusted pickup, spending his Friday nights swallowing suds at the local dive bar while a friendly neighbor watches the kid.

He’s one of those guys we pass by in our daily lives, wearing a dirty T-shirt and toiling at a menial job, and we think we know everything there is to know about him.

But Mary is a f’real genius, a first-grader who can do mathematics at a level to stump most doctoral candidates. She’s played by Mckenna Grace, a blonde, gapped-tooth zephyr of pure personality and joy. Mary hasn’t had much chance to socialize with kids her age, but Frank feels it’s important she go to a regular school and live the life of a normal kid.

It doesn’t take long for her sharp 1st grade teacher, Bonnie Stevenson (Jenny Slate), to spot the Einstein in her midst, though. Soon the principal is brought in, experts weigh in with their opinion, which is that Mary should be going to a special school for the gifted. Frank resists.

Things grow more complicated when Mary’s grandmother shows up after a 7-year absence. Evelyn Adler (Lindsay Duncan) is, to use Frank’s words, “very British.” Picture the very epitome of the rich, uptight, smart, snooty English lady who think nothing is ever quite good enough -- that’s Evelyn.

It seems Mary’s mother, who killed herself while Mary was still a baby, was also a math whiz who was on the verge of solving some Very Big and Important Problem. Now Evelyn thinks Mary is the one to carry on her work, and sues Frank -- her son -- for custody.

Unlike other movies of this kind, the court case is not really the center of the movie, which spends very little time in front of the judge. Instead, we drop in there for time to time to hear more testimony, where we learn more about the characters and circumstances. So the judicial proceeding spurs the story rather than carrying it.

I really liked Glenn Plummer as Frank’s attorney, a wise and weary local lawyer who understands that family law is a tricky area where emotions and predispositions can be more important than the law part. Octavia Spencer is in her usual fine form as Roberta, Frank’s neighbor in the squalid little cluster of rental homes where they both live. She’s the super, has helped raise Mary and sees her partially her own.

“Gifted” is an original screenplay by Tom Flynn, who wrote only one other movie about a quarter-century ago. Director Marc Webb helmed the last two “Spider-Man” movies, so like Evans he’s getting back to basics with a small, intimate film like this.

The movie is a little too predictable for its own sake, but the actors embrace the material and imbue their characters with a good deal of emotional truth. Frank is a caretaker, not just for Mary but for his sister’s memory, too. He’s not terribly happy about the burden, but (mostly) carries it without complaint.

Evelyn isn’t an outright villain, and the movie is careful to show how she can give Mary a life that Frank cannot -- one that the girl herself is eager to pursue. Grace’s performance is carefully tuned to demonstrate how an extraordinary mind can exist inside the head of a little girl who still wants to frolic on the beach and play with her one-eyed cat, Fred.

Movies are a lot like kids: you have to let them be what they want to be, rather than what we might wish ourselves. Taken on its own ample merits, “Gifted” makes its own mark.

Video review: "Captain America: Civil War"

If it’s possible to enjoy a movie while simultaneously being disappointed by it, then that’s my take on “Captain America: Civil War.” The third in the series with fresh-faced Chris Evans as the revived World War II warrior in the ostensible lead role, what it really is is the third Avengers movie -- the one in which they’ve finally gotten on each other’s nerves enough to trade blows instead of quips.

I kid, I kid. The motivation for the conflict is that the U.S. government has decided to start registering and controlling super-powered beings. People are very nervous and angry about the collateral damage the Avenges incurred while saving the world (twice). This leads to a McCarthyite atmosphere where the lauded heroes are now mocked and feared.

Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), who’s been very ambivalent about continuing in his super-suit anyway, quickly signs on. But Cap argues the patriotic route, saying the Avengers should be free to make their own choices about what is best for the common good. Sides quickly form up, leading to an inevitable showdown.

Because the two heaviest hitters, the Hulk and Thor, are inexplicably nowhere in sight, it’s incumbent upon the filmmakers to bring in some scabs … er, I mean, add-on heroes … to round out the squads.

Many of them we’ve seen before, like Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) and the Vision (Paul Bettany). Spider-Man shows up, rebooted for a second time with Tom Holland in the role, and Chadwick Boseman is a muscular presence as Black Panther, an African prince with some animalistic super-duds.

“Captain America: Civil War” contains thrills aplenty, but is miserly when it comes to surprises. You go into it knowing what you’re going to get, but also that you won’t get anything else.

Bonus features are as good as we’ve come to expect from the Marvel Comics adaptations.

There’s a feature-length commentary track with directors Anthony and Joe Russo and screenwriters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely; deleted and extended scenes; gag reel; sneak peek at “Doctor Strange”; featurettes following the character development of Captain America and Iron Man leading up to civil war; and “United We Stand, Divided We Fall,” a feature-length making-of documentary.

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Review: "Captain America: Civil War"

"Captain America: Civil War” delivers everything you expect, and little more.

Oh, it’s a fun movie, with a grim undertone, the main attraction of which is we get to see super-heroes square off into sides and smack each other around. Marvel Comics did this from their very inception 50+ years ago because they knew fans loved to argue about who would win in a fight between two favorites, such as the Thing and Wolverine.

(Uh, the Thing, of course! H’doy!!)

This is the sort of movie that hits its marks, gives you the gleeful battles between supes, but doesn’t really challenge our expectations or raise the stakes. It belongs in the second tier of Marvel movies, along with both previous “Captain America” films.

The setup is based on a huge storyline Marvel did a while back that essentially engulfed all of their titles, in which the government decided to register and control all super-powered beings. Captain America (Chris Evans) and Iron Man/Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) headed up the different factions, one in favor and the other opposed.

For narrative cohesion and budgetary purposes, here the civil war is restricted to just the Avengers and a few new recruits. (Hey, even a $200 budget and a 2½-hour running time can only encompass so much.)

Cap, being a law and order sort, would side with the government, you’d think, and freebooting billionaire Stark is a natural fit to lead the rebels. But it actually goes the other way, and directors Anthony and Joe Russo, plus screenwriters Stephen McFeely and Christopher Markus -- all holdovers from “Captain America: The Winter Soldier -- spend a lot of time mapping out the psychological battle of wills between the two men.

Too much, really. If the movie has a flaw it’s that it’s too much talkie-talkie and not enough punchy-punchy. Though there is plenty of the latter, to be fair.

The plot is just a series of excuses to set up conflict. It starts with the premise that people worldwide are enraged by the innocent bystanders who have been killed while the Avengers were busy saving the world from one intergalactic threat or another. Many, including the U.S. secretary of defense (William Hurt), seem incapable of adding up the millions who otherwise would’ve been killed.

Stark, who’s been wobbly on staying in the super business, quickly signs on, while Cap trusts in the Avengers to make the right choices rather than bureaucrats. Sides quickly form up, with Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) and the Vision (Paul Bettany) going with Stark and Falcon (Anthony Mackie) and Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen) sticking to Cap.

(The big green guy is conspicuously absent, other than a brief shout-out, and Thor’s neither seen nor heard of.)

Three-on-three’s not really a very exciting fight, so other characters are pulled in, including Iron Man knockoff War Machine (Don Cheadle), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), fresh off his own movie, and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), fresh out of retirement.

The new guy on the block is Black Panther (Chadwick Boseman), an African king with a feline super-suit. The new-ish guy is teen webslinger Spider-Man, now rebooted for the third time, with Tom Holland taking over the role of nerdy high-schooler Peter Parker. Both fellows will soon headline their own solo pictures, so you know they’re not in any serious danger.

The action centerpiece of the movie is a full-out battle between the two sides on an airport tarmac. It’s more about egos than anger, and with all the quipping we get the distinct sense punches are being pulled. Ant-Man plays an unexpectedly outsized role in the fight.

The bad guy’s a bit of a low-key dude, a non-super guy played by Daniel Brühl, who holds a lot of cards up his sleeve. He soon gains control of Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Captain America’s old war buddy, who had his mind seized by villainous forces long ago.

I enjoyed “Captain America: Civil War,” even if they’ve micro-sized the conflict for easier audience consumption. I wouldn’t call the movie lazy, but it seems to start with a presumption of limits -- places characters won’t go and things that aren’t going to happen. This movie entertains, but never surprises.

Video review: "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

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.

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Review: "Avengers: Age of Ultron"

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.

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.

Video review: "The Avengers"

Even if you're not a fan of superhero movies, you've got to appreciate "The Avengers" for its near-perfect execution of everything great about the genre.

Start with the obvious: instead of one person wielding super-awesome powers and abilities, this flick's got six: Iron Man, Thor, The Hulk, Black Widow, Captain American and Hawkeye. Four of them have already been featured in their own solo movies, so "The Avengers" represents one big honkin' pot of hero gumbo where they get thrown into the mix together.

Their investigable clashes result in a movie that's a helluva lot funnier than you'd expect.

Then add in a terrific villain, Thor's half-brother Loki, who has recruited a mysterious race of alien creatures to attack Earth at his behest. Loki snivels and pouts, boasts and taunts, and is wonderfully delicious to hate.

Finally, give credit to director Joss Whedon for delivering a film that's packed with action, but doesn't seem overwhelmed by computer-generated effects. The fight scenes are crisply and clearly staged, so even though the characters are doing extraordinary things they remain entirely comprehensible.

Just as movies based on comic books seem to have hit middle age, with many franchises falling back on reboots and tired storylines, "The Avengers" are hitting their stride.

The movie is available on home video in four iterations: a single-disc DVD, two-disc DVD combo pack, two-disc Blu-ray or four-disc "Super Set" with both formats.

Video features are good, though you have to pay for the higher-end sets to get the really good stuff. The DVD comes with a feature-length commentary track by Whedon, plus a making-of feature about assembling the team of heroes and the actors who played them.

The centerpiece of the Blu-ray edition is "A Second Screen Experience," an interactive database of images and video that take you deep in the Marvel Comics universe. Unfortunately, it's only accessible with a Blu-ray-equipped laptop computer, iPhone or iPad.
Other goodies bridge the gap. There's "Marvel One-Shoot: Item 47," an original short film, a featurette on the visual effects in the film, gag reel, deleted scenes and "Live To Rise" music video.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras:3 stars

Review: "The Avengers"

Critics are not supposed to be dispassionate – we are, after all, in the business of offering opinions – but there is an expectation of a certain level of restraint, of being the impartial observer as opposed to the slobbering fanboy. So I regret to inform you of my failing, a moment during “The Avengers” when my fist pumped the air jubilantly and I bellowed, “Oh, YEAH!!!”

Even worse: I do not regret my outburst.

The long-awaited superhero supergroup is finally assembled, and their film does not disappoint. It’s a smashmouth extravaganza of outsized proportions, six heroes reluctantly brought together to battle a deliciously hateful villain who’s got an army of hideous alien boogums in tow.

The fight scenes are frequent, frenetic and tremendously well-done. For once, the action is not sliced and diced into an incomprehensible flurry of edited morsels -- cinematic death by a thousand cuts. How wonderful it is to watch someone capable of doing things that are otherworldly, and yet it remains perfectly comprehensible.

In addition to battling the bad guys, the supes often tangle with each other. It’s a delicious carryover from the Marvel Comics universe, whose creators knew entire generations of kids grew up arguing over how a throw-down between Iron Man and Thor would play out.

Now we know. And it’s a helluva a lot of fun finding out.

Writer/director Joss Whedon does a yeoman’s job of balancing a sprawling cast of heroes, giving each of them enough scenes and character moments to make them register as more than CGI-assisted brawlers.
He’s helped by the fact that four of the six were previously featured in their own solo films. (Though the Hulk only partially counts, since two previous iterations of the green behemoth in the past decade – each starring a different actor than this movie – have been quasi-disowned.)

In case you weren’t up to speed already, here’s the roll call:

Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.) is billionaire Tony Stark wrapped in a metal super-suit that allows him to fly and blow things up. A boozy rebel, Stark has a hard time playing well with others.

The Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) is brilliant scientist in self-imposed exile, because when angered he turns into a raging green beast of destruction. Ruffalo brings a brittle tension under the placid surface, forever worried about letting "the other guy" out.

Captain America (Chris Evans) is literally a bygone relic of long ago, a World War II Nazi-kicker who was frozen and revived. The sole successful result of the Super Soldier experiment, Captain represents the peak of human physical perfection, though he feels rootless in a strange new world.

Thor (Chris Hemsworth) is, literally, a god -- the Norse god of thunder. And he has the ego of a god, along with incredible strength, the weather at his command and a magic hammer made for smiting. He also views the Earth as his own private protectorate, and isn't terribly pleased when others start mussing it up.

The other two members of the team are, by definition, B-listers since they've only previously shown up as supporting characters in the other flicks. They're also regular humans with no special powers but their incredible skills: Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) is a super-spy legend, pairing hand-to-hand combat skills with unparalleled subterfuge; Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) is a master bowman whose quarrel always has some new tricks at the ready.

Loki, Thor's evil brother, returns from exile to seize the Tesseract, a mysterious object capable of limitless power. He plans to use it to open a portal to bring through the Chitauri, a chitinous alien race that ostensibly are his allies. Tom Hiddleston plays Loki with zest and glee, smiling and sneering.

Loki is also the reason for that "Oh, yeah!" moment -- you'll know it when you see it.

The movie is also surprisingly funny at times, with Stark providing most of the comic relief via snappy one-liners. After his fight with Thor: "No hard feelings, Point Break. You pack a mean swing."

What a way to kick off the summer. "The Avengers" is everything you've been hoping for, and more.

3.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Captain America: The First Avenger"

“Captain America: The First Avenger” surprised me by not being awful. Fitfully entertaining in spurts, even. Coming off a summer of super-hero flicks that ranged from awful (“Green Lantern”) to pretty good (“Thor”), “Captain America” exceeded low expectations.

At 124 minutes, it's the rare summer blockbuster that doesn't seem like it's either in a dreadful hurry or languidly dragging its feet. The filmmakers take the time to set up the main character -- it's more than an hour in before Captain America debuts in a fight against the Nazis.

And yet the movie doesn’t dawdle; it simply takes its time establishing Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) as a weakling who gets a chance to stand up to bullies after being zapped with the Super Soldier Serum during World War II. Nazis being the biggest bullies of all, they soon get their comeuppance at the hands of Captain America and his indestructible shield.

Speaking of that iconic red, white and blue shield – could somebody explain why it returns to him after he throws it at bad guys? Yes, we learn it's vibranium, the rarest substance on earth, and can absorb any shock. Still doesn't explain the boomerang-ism.

The physical transformation of Rogers from 90-pound asthmatic to hulking super-human is an example of well-done CGI. And Hugo Weaving is excellent as baddie Red Skull, whose moniker isn’t just a nickname.

The movie kind of loses its way in the second half, though, and there’s an annoying romance with a British spy (Hayley Atwell) that’s a long, unnecessary slog. And the plot has to jump through a lot of unconvincing gymnastics so Rogers can be frozen in ice for convenient thawing 70 years later, when sequels and “Avengers” tie-ins are in the offing.

I can’t quite recommend “Captain America: The First Avenger,” but there’s potential there. This character has a future.

Disc features are scrawny on DVD – consisting of just a couple of making-of featurettes – but beef up for Blu-ray.

On Blu-ray, the filmmakers, including director Joe Johnston, team up for a feature-length commentary track. There are also a half-dozen or so making-of featurettes.

My favorite was the one about the evolution of the protagonist’s costume; they demonstrated the unfeasibility of the comic-book version of his duds by having him wear an exact replica of them during Captain America’s debut as a USO entertainer.

The Blu-ray also has deleted scenes and a digital copy of the movie.

Movie: 2.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars out of four

Review: "Captain America: The First Avenger"

Just a short review tonight. Joe's handling the main review of "Captain America: The First Avenger" over at The Film Yap, so tune in there for a full take.

I was surprised that it wasn't that bad. Fitfully entertaining, especially the first half. A pretty decent villain in Red Skull played by Hugo Weaving, wearing an impressive/scary crimson get-up that looked like it was done through makeup rather than CGI. Kudos for old-school cinematic tricks.

I retain my same opinion of Chris Evans' acting abilities. (Short version: Wet paper bag > Evans trying to act his way out of.) But I was at least pleased that they kept his performance subdued, and matched the downbeat (or at least grounded) nature of the character from the comics. Steve Rogers is a weakling who was given a chance to stand up to bullies, and never forgot what it was like to be unable to defend yourself or your ideals. That's pretty much what we get onscreen.

At least they didn't have Evans reprise his slick, shallow turn as Johnny Storm from the "Fantastic Four" movies. We've already had one super-hero movie this summer where they tried to wrap the fable of a comic book character around an underwhelming actor's smirky star persona. And we all know how that turned out.

I enjoyed the lengthy origin story of Rogers, a "90-pound asthmatic," selected to be the subject of the Super Soldier experiment, not because of his physical qualities but who he is in his heart. Stanley Tucci has a nice, small role as the scientist who mentors him before turning him into a super-hero.

There's also a long section where Captain America gets sidetracked, and I enjoyed this part because it had a cynical, realistic quality -- if someone really did get zapped like Steve Rogers, this is how it probably would have played out.

The portrayal of Steve Rogers as a tiny, scrawny guy (this time they did use computer animation) remains authentically convincing. They even did something to Evans' face to make him look wan.

The love interest with a female British agent (Hayley Atwell) assigned to train his unit was hit-or-miss, and I wouldn't have missed it if they'd eliminated that character and entire storyline from the film. Why do these movies always have to give the hero a girl to be sweet on? Isn't having extraordinary powers and fighting some lunatic baddie over the fate of the world enough to build your plot on?

Tommy Lee Jones kinda phones in his performance as the gruff commander of the Strategic Scientific Reserve, Captain America's outfit. He does have a great throwaway line during a chase that's a real keeper.

Things sort of go wobbly in the second hour. I didn't appreciate director Joe Johnston and his screenwriters breaking into a montage to demonstrate Captain America's growing status as a war hero. It felt lazy and short-shrifted.

Lord knows I'm a literalist, but would have liked somebody to explain why Captain America's shield returns to him after he throws it at bad guys. Yes, we learn it's vibranium, the rarest substance on earth, and can absorb any shock. Still doesn't explain the boomerang-ism.

And the finale, where Captain American makes a brave sacrifice in the frozen tundra, left me scratching my head. Oh, stuff your spoiler complaints -- the movie is called "Captain America: The First Avenger," so we already know he returns in next summer's tent pole movie. And the first thing we see is some guys pulling his popsicle-ized tush out of the ice.

Although Nick Fury's been recruiting his team for so long, I'd hate to have been the first guy who joined. He's spent years waiting around in the club house for the gang to be assembled. Plus, isn't by definition Fury himself the first Avenger?

Anyway, without totally giving it away, Captain America is in a position where (he says) he can't stop something from happening. And then he proceeds to demonstrate that, in fact, he does have control over the situation. But instead of going back the way he came, he decides he's going to throw himself on the figurative grenade. Maybe you can figure it out, I can't.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Push"

There are super-heroes among us -- scuzzy heroes with amazing powers and bad hair.

"Push" is the latest in a line of movies not directly based on a comic book, but with a comic book vibe. In my preview of what I was going to review this week, I referred to "Push" as "this year's 'Jumper'" -- typical of my snarky sense of humor. Turns out I was pretty spot-on with my assessment. This movie starring Chris Evans and Dakota Fanning plays out in much the same style, and with about the same modest level of success.

The set-up is in the "X-Men" vein -- strangers walk among us who have strange and terrible abilities that they were born with. A shadowy government division -- named, simply, The Division -- hunts them down so they can experiment on them and exploit their powers. For some strange reason known only to Hollywood casting agents, all the heroes are under the age of 25 and really good-looking.

The interesting twist here (from screenwriter David Bourla) is that the super-powered fall into many specific categories. For instance, Chris Evans plays Nick, who is a Mover -- meaning he can move stuff around through telekinesis. His sidekick is Cassie (Fanning), a Watcher who can foretell the future, with varying reliability. Both have hair that looks like it hasn't seen any Pert in a few months, with Fanning's decked out in an array of pink and blue stripes.

A Pusher, by the way, is someone who can control other people's minds by pushing, or implanting thoughts in their head. For example, they can approach a total stranger and get their help by making them think they're old friends. They can even convince the weak-minded that they can put a loaded gun in their mouth and pull the trigger without any ill consequences.

There are two Pushers in the story: Kira (Camilla Belle), who escaped from The Division after getting injected with a power-boosting drug that killed all the other guinea pigs; and Carver (Djimon Hounsou), the Division chief who hunts her. Carver's right-hand man (Neil Jackson) is a Mover who's so talented he can even stop bullets.

This begs two questions. First: Since neither of the main characters is a Pusher, why isn't this movie titled "Mover" or "Watcher"? (Probably because they're not as catchy.) Second: Since The Division seems to be populated entirely by people who have the same powers as the people they're hunting, what is their ultimate aim? There's no talk about taking over the world, etc. All they seem to do is recruit or hunt other Movers, Pushers, etc. Are they just going for the biggest all-mutant list of Facebook friends?

The action takes place in Hong Kong, with Nick and Cassie trying to find Kira while avoiding Carver and a family of Chinese criminals who all have powers. It's a lot of chase-chase, with the future shifting as their actions do. Cassie keeps foreseeing their deaths, so they're trying to do something, anything, to keep that from happening.

At first I liked the idea of an underground society of mutants with different castes divided by powers. You've got Stitchers who can heal the wounded, Screamers who emit deadly sonic waves, Shifters who can temporarily change objects into other things; Sniffers who can track people by the things they've touched, and even Shadows who can keep people from being detected by Sniffers. It goes on and on.

But then I realized the limitless array of powers is essentially a storytelling crutch. It's like the ever-expanding list of spells and magical objects in the "Harry Potter" series. Whenever Harry & Co. encounter a new obstacle, there's always some new spell we've never heard of before, or some magical trinket, to solve their problems. There are no horizons on their abilities, which allows the storyteller to get into and out of sticky spots with minimal effort.

The same goes here. As soon as Nick and Cassie are in trouble, a new type of mutant is introduced to save the day. I half expected them to introduce a guy called The Plot Thickener whenever the action slows down.

1.5 stars out of four.