Review: "Black Widow"

We’re in an interesting phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) right now, somewhat adrift -- but also open to fresh possibilities.

A decade of carefully interlocking movies culminated with “Avengers: Endgame,” with a number of pivotal characters definitively dying (not just “ashed” and then came back a la the Infinity Stones.) Now they’re turning up in Disney+ streaming shows like “WandaVision” and “Loki” and, with “Black Widow,” the first post-“Endgame” feature film.

(As you may recall, it was supposed to be released more than a year ago, so absent COVID it would have been out months before those shows.)

How does the movie get around the death of Natasha Romanoff, aka the former Russian superspy Black Widow? That’s easy enough: the story is set five years ago, in the in-between space after “Captain America: Civil War” and before “Infinity War,” when she was on the lam from her own government.

This film is essentially an origin story/reexamination of the character, with star Scarlett Johansson getting a chance to show more color and shadings for Natasha. We saw bits and pieces of them in the movies, but they had to be squeezed in between the big story pieces and male dominance of the MCU.

These are really the best parts of “Black Widow” -- learning about how Natasha morphed from abandoned kid to international heroine, dealing with lingering family schism (more on that in a minute) and exploring her journey from tragedy to redemption. This is a character who has outwardly expressed impervious confidence while hiding enough self-loathing to fill a Dostoevsky novel.

The action scenes are plentiful -- a little too much so, imho -- and can get repetitive, bordering on dull. Of course, we’re dealing with all normal, if exceptional, humans here with a paucity of super powers on display. There’s a self-conscious acknowledgement of this, with someone mentioning to Natasha that she previously enjoyed protection because people were afraid to come after her and risk retaliation from one of the “big Avengers.”

I’m not a big Avenger? she wryly challenges.

Australian director Cate Shortland (“Lore”) comes from an indie background, which probably explains why her character scenes are so compelling and the fighting stuff is a little jumbled. The screenplay by Eric Pearson, with story by Jac Schaeffer and Ned Benson, starts with Natasha as a disaffected preteen in 1995 living in Ohio as part of a family that’s just a spy op cover.

Rachel Weisz and David Harbour play their parents, and will turn up again in the more modern section. She was a brilliant scientist and he was the Red Guardian, a super-strong analogue to Captain America. Weisz does her woman-of-mystery thing to a T, and Harbour has fun playing a loud-mouthed blowhard always ready for fight, the guy who thinks he’s coaching the team when really he’s the mascot.

Florence Pugh is terrific as Yelena, Natasha’s long-lost kid sister, now an adept spy/badass herself. She harbors an ocean of resentment against her more famous sibling, and even coyly mocks the overplayed “superhero jump landing” thing (already dinged in the second “Deadpool”). She brings a jaded Gen Z cool to the table.

Of course, none of them are really related to each other, but they gradually come around to the idea that they’re the closest thing to a family any of them has.

The heavy is Ray Winstone as Dreykov, a Russian mastermind who has been building an army of all-female “Widows” assassins, for which Natasha set the mold. Back in her day they underwent psychological conditioning to break their will, but this new generation is chemically altered to obey. Olga Kurylenko turns up as an especially notable recruit.

I won’t argue that “Black Widow” is one of the best MCU movies. In fact, I’d put it toward the lower end of the pool with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier.” It’s got a lot of elements that feel like retreads of earlier S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff, right up to a vertically enhanced headquarters called the Red Room.

But even if the blammo stuff is a little stale, Johansson gets a chance to flex thespian muscles in ways we hadn’t seen before for this character. Will there be another Black Widow movie, a la resurrection or more backstory stuff like this? We’ll see, but it was worth the wait for her to get a chance to shoulder her way past the boys to the front line.

Video review: "Hellboy"

A reboot of the “Hellboy” franchise seemed doomed from the start, but intriguing.

After all, the two movies directed by Guillermo del Toro based on the comic book antihero did not exactly smash down any doors at the box office. And while many people are fans of them, I am not. They fall into the classic “better idea than the movie they made” category. When the studio couldn’t get GDT to commit to a third film, and star Ron Perlman said he wouldn’t appear without him, that led to a predictable reboot pathway.

When I heard it would be R-rated and feature Milla Jovovich as an ancient evil sorceress, and star David Harbour of “Stranger Things” fame as the titular devil-turned-hero, it seemed a sufficient enough departure to warrant granting a wait-and-see pose.

Then I saw. Hoo boy.

The 2019 “Hellboy” is a whirring sink disposal of a garbage movie. Literally nothing about it works. It’s not funny when it’s clearly trying to be, and hilarious when it wants to be serious. Harbour’s take on the character is somehow both grating and forgettable. It’s a pale shadow of Perlman’s laconic, zero-f-words-to-give turn.

Screenwriter Andrew Cosby and director Neil Marshall rehash Hellboy’s origin story, in which he was summoned by Nazis to unleash hell on earth but rescued by kindly Brits and turned into an investigator/hatchet man by the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense.

He’s still got that cool look: fire engine red skin, forked tail, sanded-down head horns and an oversized right arm that’s basically a stone piledriver. Part action hero, part exorcist, Hellboy finds himself betrayed by those he serves and tempted by apocalyptic visions in which he wields the ultimate power.

The story is a confusing web having to do with the Blood Queen (Jovovich), who was seemingly slain by King Arthur a millennia ago, returning to cast her dark arts again. There’s also a jaguar lycanthrope, a trio of ugly giants and other typical fantasy film beasties.

Weirdly, the thing I most remember about the movie is Harbour repeatedly moaning in pain whenever he’s beset in combat. Even seemingly trivial episodes, like sliding down a small slope, sets off another round of bleating.

It’s one thing to have your superheroes exhibit some vulnerability, but this “Hellboy” wears – and yells – his failings for all to see.

Bonus features are anchored by an expansive three-part making-of documentary “Tales of the Hunt: Hellboy Reborn.” There are also deleted scenes and previsualizations of some of the FX heavy scenes.

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Video review: "The Equalizer"

“The Equalizer” falls into that category of films that I call, “I’m not really sure they needed to make that, but the movie they did make isn’t bad at all.”

Like the recent Spider-Man reboot, remaking a cheesy 1980s TV show about an over-the-hill spy who helps everyday people doesn’t seem like a very intuitive move. But Denzel Washington and director Antoine Fuqua, who previously teamed up successfully on “Training Day,” manage to create an engaging story and character that use the show as a mere jumping-off point.

Robert McCall (Washington) is an older man who works a drone job at a big-box store, keeps his apartment compulsively clean, reads books and visits the same diner at 2 a.m. every day. He can also kill you in two seconds with his bare hands, if he’s so inclined.

Because he’s an old, somewhat schlumpy guy, his opponents don’t even see him as a threat. A couple of jump cuts later, and suddenly they’re lying on the ground, oozing blood.

After a young prostitute (Chloë Grace Moretz) he’s befriended is treated shabbily by her Russian pimp, Robert steps in to help out. He easily dispatches an entire roomful of hoods, thus setting off a chain reaction of ever-escalating violence. Soon a sadistic fixer from the motherland is dispatched to take of things personally.

“The Equalizer” is basically a dumb movie, smartly made. It won’t win any awards for originality, but Denzel Washington is still really good at playing a badass.

Bonus features are rather decent, though you have to spring for the Blu-ray edition to get the best stuff. The DVD only has two featurettes: one focuses on the climactic showdown at the fictional Home Mart, and the other is about Moretz’ character.

The Blu-ray adds a gallery of production still photos, and four more featurettes. They focus on stunts, Washington’s combat training for the role, Fuqua’s vision and adapting an old TV show into a modern action movie. There’s also a “Vengeance Mode” featuring some of the nastiest fight clips.

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Review: "The Equalizer"

I know what you're thinking: Denzel Washington in a remake of the cheesy 1980s TV show, "The Equalizer," about an over-the-hill secret agent who helps out people in need?!? Our Denzel? Who's been a prime model of cinematic masculinity for ... well, a heck of a long time, actually. Still, why is he doing old-man roles?

I hate to break it to you, but Washington will be 60 in a few months. Sixty. Which makes him five years younger than Edward Woodward was when the show debuted in 1985.

In retrospect, the TV series was prescient about introducing a subgenre of filmmaking that's become quite prevalent today: the Geezer Spy Thriller. We've seen any number of aging big-name actors take to the field as late-in-life action stars, with Liam Neeson ("Taken") and Kevin Costner ("Three Days to Kill") among them.

The basic premise of these movies is the man, always a loner, always with a mysterious past, though there's pain and violence there, usually involving secret agent work for some shadowy governmental arm. He thinks he's given up that life of dark deeds, but circumstances and/or an inability to look away from evil prompt him to apply his deadly skills against a coterie of bad guys.

The tough young punks all dismiss him because he's old, aka less than a man, but he soon puts them in their places -- specifically, lying on the floor in a pool of their own blood.

Washington plays Robert McCall very close to the vest. He is defined by his stillness and passivity, at least until he springs into action. Bob works at Home Mart, a big-box hardware store a la Lowes or Home Depot, where he stocks shelves and pushes around dollies loaded with bags and such, and takes a good-natured ribbing from the younger employees. His apartment is tidy to the point of OCD, and is filled with classic literature books that he's making his way through.

Bob is very aware of the passage of time. He uses his watch to time most everything he does, from getting ready in the morning to taking out an entire room of armed bad guys bare-handed. Bob does most everything sans weapons; I can only recall him wielding a firearm one time in the entire movie. Mostly, he lures his prey in close, putting them at ease with his frumpy appearance and non-threatening demeanor, and then strikes like a cobra.

To say that he "fights" his opponents is to suggest that they ever have a chance of getting an upper hand on him. Most encounters are over in less than two seconds. Even his chief nemesis, an enforcer for the Russian mafia named Teddy, is clearly not his equal in hand-to-hand combat skills. He's played deliciously by Marton Csokas, ever so slithery and brutal. With his slicked-down hair and slimy manner, he practically seems to be secreting toxic oils through his epidermis.

Things come to a head when Bob defends a young prostitute (Chloe Grace Moretz) he's grown friendly with. A non-sleeper, he visits the same diner every night around 2 a.m., bringing his own tea packet carefully wrapped in a handkerchief; like him, she's one of the regulars. She dreams of getting out from under her abusive Russian pimp, Slavi (David Meunier), and becoming a singer, but she's beaten to a pulp for her transgressions. Bob offers to buy her freedom, but Slavi is disinclined, and the bloodletting ensues.

This brings in a succession of ever-higher-ranking Russians to deal with the situation, and a subsequent rising body count.

Director Antoine Fuqua previously partnered with Washington very successfully in 2001's "Training Day," which won him his second acting Oscar. The two seem to intuitively get each other, as Washington's performance is fully vested with emotional and dramatic power. In lesser hands, this would probably seem like exploitative dreck, but cast and crew elevate the material to unexpectedly hefty heights.

Bob never seems like a mere killing machine, but a complex man with a simple outward facade. He takes no joy in slaying -- unlike the sadomasochistic Teddy -- but is not shy about putting his skillset to good (bad) use.

Fuqua's action scenes have a tendency to go a little over the top ... and then they go a little more. He uses slow-motion effects in the middle of the mayhem to an almost interminable degree. There's only so much one can take of water drops beading slowly off the brow of our hero, or him striding purposefully away from an explosion, contemptuous of the shockwave and debris.

A little slo-mo goes a long way, bro.

Screenwriter Richard Wenk makes the wise choice of only using the television show as a mere springboard to tell their own story. Bob, with his slouchy colorless clothes and brusque manner, bears no resemblance at all to the clipped British lilt, natty suits and trench coats of TV.

Despite some occasional bouts of silliness owing to taking itself too seriously, "The Equalizer" is a surprisingly effective psychological thriller, featuring a gruff but relatable hero and some eminently hiss-able villains. Liam Neeson may currently be king of the Geezer Spy genre, but Denzel Washing may just be the man to knock him off the throne.

Video review: "End of Watch"

File “End of Watch” under the list of best movies of 2012 that you probably haven’t seen … or maybe even heard of.

This terrific, gritty, and surprisingly funny portrait of a pair of LAPD officers patrolling South-Central Los Angeles is one of the best cop dramas in recent memory. Michael Peña and Jake Gyllenhaal play Mike and Brian, a pair of young cowboys who, as one boasts “get into more capers in a single deployment shift than most cops do in their entire career.”

Writer/director David Ayer fills his movie with lots of harrowing scenes of fistfights, gunplay and other brutality. Yet it’s the humanity of the relationship between these two guys that breathes life into the film. They crack jokes on each other, make fun of their ethnic heritage, and exchange advice about the women in their lives.

But when the gangbangers bring the heat, they instantly shift into soldier mode, becoming one mind with two guns. Ayer often films from a first-person perspective down the barrel of a pistol, putting the audience right in the thick of it.

America Ferrera, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Martinez, David Harbour and Frank Grillo make up an outstanding supporting cast as the fellow cops and family members who have to deal with the carnage left behind in the destructive duo’s wake.

The humor may strike some viewers as out of place, but the cast and crew show how it’s just part of their defense mechanism the cops use to keep from going crazy. Some of the scenes they encounter are just horrendous and traumatizing. Cutting up is how they get by.

But don’t mistake all the laughing for a lack of sobriety. “End of Watch” is a serious examination of life on the thin blue line in one of the toughest beats in America. Especially revealing is a scene after the pair have been given awards for pulling kids out of a fire, and Brian asks Mike, “Do you feel like a hero?” The answer may surprise you.

Don’t miss this one.

Extra features, which are identical for Blu-ray and DVD editions, are a bit underwhelming. Director Ayer provides a feature-length commentary. Plus there are several deleted scenes, and a handful of rather short making-of featurettes.

Movie: 3.5 stars out of four
Extras: 2.5 stars

Video review: "The Green Hornet"

"The Green Hornet" is what happens when smart people set out to make a dumb movie.

This hipper-than-thou would-be comedy can't decide if it wants to be a spoof of a super hero movie, or on homage to one. Director Michel Gondry and star Seth Rogen, who co-wrote the screenplay with Evan Goldberg, mock the conventions of the genre while indulging in them.

Interestingly, the Green Hornet -- who's best known to younger generations for a 1960s TV show co-starring Bruce Lee -- is one of the few costumed crusaders who didn't originate in a comic book. He started out as the star of a serial radio show in the '30s, followed by some cheapie movies, and only then did he show up in comics form.

Rogen plays Britt Reid, a petulant playboy and heir to a Los Angeles newspaper fortune. When his father dies mysteriously, he learns that the family mechanic Kato (Jay Chou) secretly built daddy an arsenal of weapons and gadgets, including a tricked-out 1965 Chrysler Imperial dubbed Black Beauty.

They decide to fight crime, but pose as criminals in order to infiltrate the underworld led by kingpin Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz), who frets about his drab image.

Gondry ladles on the slo-mo fight scenes and cool stuff like the Green Hornet's sleeping-gas gun -- which makes up for Britt's decided lack of combat prowess. The running joke of the movie is that despite being the sidekick, Kato is the real muscle, and brains, of the outfit.

There's one or two really good laughs, but mostly "The Green Hornet" fails to sting, either as a super-hero flick or a send-up of one.

Video extras are pretty good, especially if you upgrade to the Blu-ray version.

The DVD edition is still decently stocked, with a feature-length commentary track by the filmmakers, gag reel and two featurettes on the writing of the screenplay and rebirth of Black Beauty.

The Blu-ray adds deleted scenes, several more featurettes and a couple of Easter Eggs, including Chou's addition tape.

Go for the 3-D Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and you'll also get animated storyboard comparisons.

Movie: 1.5 stars out of four
Extras:3 stars

Review: "The Green Hornet"

"The Green Hornet" is what happens when smart people set out to make a dumb movie.

Screenwriter William Goldman famously wrote that there are only three kinds of films: Those that are meant to be good and are, those that are meant to be good and aren't, and those that were never meant to be any good. Depressingly, this last category is the largest, and where "Hornet" belongs.

It's less of a super-hero movie than a spoof of one. I'm all for making fun of a genre ripe for ridicule, but "Hornet" is loaded with action scenes and nervous energy and cool gadgets ... and not much you would really call funny.

I laughed out loud exactly once, and it was the very last scene in the movie where young newspaper tycoon Britt Reid (Seth Rogen) and partner Kato (Jay Chou) take extraordinary steps to preserve the fiction that the Green Hornet is a villain, instead of a hero. It's a genuinely clever bit, and I don't mind saying I got the joke a few seconds before everyone else did, and enjoyed a moment of solitary guffawing before everyone else joined in.

Interestingly, Green Hornet is one of the few super-heroes who didn't debut in a comic book. He started as a popular radio show in the 1930s, followed by some cheapie film serials starting in the early 1940s, and only then did he arrive in comic form. He's probably best known to recent generations for a '60s TV show.

Britt is a lazy, rich party boy living off the fruits of his father's newspaper empire, The Daily Sentinel in Los Angeles. But when dad dies suddenly and mysteriously, he discovers that his father had been ordering up all sorts of advanced weapons from Kato, his mechanic-slash-confidant. Britt, wallowing in booze and anonymous hook-ups, knows Kato only as the guy who makes him a really awesome cup of coffee every morning.

Rogen, who's made a career out of playing schlubby, chubby (though noticeably less so here) man-boys, is less charming when he's not playing a loser. Britt is supremely arrogant, not in a nasty way but with a presumption of superiority that drowns any affection the audience might develop for him.

After a late night hijinx to behead his father's statue monument turns into a dust-up with some thugs, Britt realizes he's found his calling: To become the city's masked protector. Soon he and Kato are cruising around in a highly modified 1965 Chrysler Imperial decked out with machine guns and missiles they dub Black Beauty.

The big pun of the movie is that Kato is the real muscle and brains of the outfit, but the Green Hornet gets all the attention. Kato is a genius with cars and weapons, and even invents a gas gun for the Hornet that knocks out his opponents. Kato can even take on six bad guys at once with his martial arts prowess, which allows him to see things in slow time.

Britt, of course, still thinks he's the top gun, and takes to dismissing Kato as his henchman or sidekick, leading to inevitable fisticuffs between them.

Neither has much of a notion how to act like a villain, though, so they recruit help from Britt's hot new secretary Lenore (Cameron Diaz), who works at a temp agency but somehow knows more about journalism than the people working there. Britt and Kato take turns hitting on her, even though she's, like, really old and stuff. (She's 36.)

The heavy is played by Christoph Waltz, fresh of his Oscar win for "Inglourious Basterds." He plays Chudnofsky, head of L.A.'s gangland. Rogen, who co-wrote the screenplay with Evan Goldberg, tries to make a joke out of the fact that Chudnofsky is so dull and un-flashy a villain. (James Franco, in a cameo as another gangster, dubs his fashion sense "disco Santa Claus.").

Later he renames himself Bloodnofsky and takes to wearing red in a lame attempt to dovetail on Green Hornet's sizzle. But it turns out the gag of a bad guy fretting about his lack of charisma quickly turns into a whiny bore.

Also hanging around is Scanlon (David Harbour), the smarmy district attorney who seems overly interested in how the Sentinel is portraying all the violence left in the Hornet's wake. We don't quite know what to make of him, but with his beady eyes and a name like Scanlon, we know it's just a matter of time before something nefarious turns up.

"The Green Hornet" is directed by French filmmaker Michel Gondry, whose work has not impressed me. (He's universally beloved by critics for "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," but not by me.) Perhaps he, Rogen and Goldberg think they've made a really smart, hip film that mocks the conventions of the super-hero movie while indulging in them.

But somewhere along the way of trying so hard to be cool, they made the movie they wanted to watch, rather than the one anyone else might want to.

1.5 stars out of four