Review: "Cruella"

“Cruella” is not the movie I was expecting them to make.

I’ve wavered on Disney’s recent obsession with turning its iconic animated titles into live action films. “Cinderella” was perfectly wonderful, “Dumbo” was a horrid embarrassment, and most of the rest have been somewhere in the middle like “The Lion King” -- technically accomplished but artistically unnecessary.

So for “101 Dalmatians,” I was expecting them to crank out another iteration of the live-action version featuring Glenn Close 25 years ago, putting iconic villainess Cruella de Vil in the driver’s seat in a family-friendly romp. Emma Stone seemed a strange casting choice, as Cruella is definitively a well-etched harridan, and Stone is barely past the ingénue stage.

“Cruella” is deeper, darker and more ambitious than I could’ve hoped. I should have expected nothing less from director Craig Gillespie, known for odd and offbeat fare like “Lars and the Real Girl” and “I, Tonya.”

It’s rated PG-13 and is an edgy origin story in which Dalmatians barely show up -- and only then as furry antagonists. That’s right, Cruella is recast as a misunderstood antiheroine who’s not trying to turn spotted puppies into a fur coat but is someone who’s been victimized and traumatized and learns to lash out.

It’s also an exquisitely striking movie filled with vibrant colors and fabulous clothes. You can already go ahead and bank on costume designer Jenny Beavan getting an Oscar nomination for all the fabulous, ostentatious gowns and get-ups Stone and the rest of the cast get to wear.

I was also impressed with the originality of the backstory (screenplay by Dana Fox and Tony McNamara). Here she is Estella, an orphaned moppet born with shocking black-and-white hair raised by a kindly British mum (Emily Beecham) who instructs her to bury her nastier instincts, even when she’s picked on by prigs at her posh school. (Tipper Seifert-Cleveland plays the role as a child.)

In this version, “Cruella” is the name they come up with for her evil-leaning alter ego. But Estella learns to push down these characteristics, both figuratively and literally, dying her bi-color hair red and hiding behind owlish glasses. After her mother’s shocking death, she grows up as a petty thief with fellow orphans Jasper and Horace (Joel Fry and Paul Walter Hauser), though she aspires to be a fashion designer.

She gets a job at the snooty Liberty of London store but is consigned to cleaning lady. A drunken sabotage of a display window lands her a position with the Baroness (Emma Thompson), the queen of Brit fashion, who takes her under her wing and teaches Estella the finer points of being a sneering, hateful overlord.

The Emmas, Stone and Thompson, are a delicious pairing, a battle of haughty English accents and upturned noses. The comparison to Anne Hathaway and Meryl Streep in “The Devil Wears Prada” seems obvious, and welcome. Though in this case, Estella looks upon her tormentor as someone to be emulated and defeated rather than serve as cautionary tale.

Estella revives her Cruella persona as the public challenger to the Baroness’ tight grip on the fashion world, using her criminal team -- the two boys plus two little dogs, including one in an eye patch -- to pull off a series of attention-grabbing stunts that double as crimes and put-downs. With a story set in the 1970s, there’s a bittersweet feminism subtext at play about extraordinary women who must command fear because they aren’t allowed to earn respect.

“Aren’t they gorgeous and vicious? It’s my favorite combination,” Baroness says of her trio of guard Dalmatians.

John McCrea turns up as Artie, a gender-fluid vintage clothing store owner who becomes a friend and ally; Mark Strong as John, the Baroness’ right-hand man and the only person allowed to talk back to her; Andrew Leung as a more toadying flunky, perpetually astonished or horrified; and Kirby Howell-Baptiste as a childhood friend turned fashion journalist.

Rather than fall back on formula, “Cruella” uses its animated and live action predecessors as a mere launch pad for something different and -- dare I say about a remake of an old cartoon? -- dazzlingly original.

  

Video review: "1917"

Although I would be hard-pressed to describe the World War I drama “1917” as controversial, it certainly had its share of detractors. The “gimmick” of the seemingly continuous one shot is just that to them, as two young British soldiers traverse a hellscape of trenches and death at every turn.

You spend the first few minutes marveling at the technique of director Sam Mendes and cinematographer Roger Deakins, and puzzling over the seemingly thousands of details that had to be kept straight. Every actor and prop on cue, in the right place, doing the right thing at exactly the right time.

The mind boggles at the logistics of it all.

But for me, that period quickly faded and I just became engrossed in the experience. This is old-school “you are there” filmmaking, where the camera puts you in the shoes of the characters and you experience their peril step-by-step alongside them. So I stopped thinking about the technique and focused on the tale.

Others couldn’t. The most common complaint I heard was that it felt like watching an avatar in a video game, except you couldn’t control them.

That’s fair enough. Certainly this is not the sort of movie that focuses on characterization. I think casting relatively unknown actors in Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay was a deliberate move to make them feel like Everymen. Still, during the course of their journey we do learn a little about their interior worlds, such as that one yearns for home while the other went back there on leave and couldn’t wait to return.

Their mission: bring word to a unit cut off far beyond the front line that their attack planned for the next morning is a trap laid by the Germans. If they fail, 1,600 soldiers are doomed to die, including a lieutenant who is one of the men’s brother.

A few recognizable actors show up in supporting roles: Benedict Cumberbatch, Richard Madden, Colin Firth. These cameos act as touchstones to the larger world, reminding us that there is more than blasted holes in the ground filled with bloated bodies.

There is surprisingly little violence in “1917.” Mostly we are witnessing the after-effects, as flesh and steel are ripped apart like the fallen toys of the gods. We feel humbled, repulsed, occasionally joyful and very, very much alive.

Often big-name filmmakers tend to eschew video bonus features, especially for high-toned awards contenders -- “letting the film speak for itself” and all that. I’m pleased to say Mendes and company did not do this.

There are two separate feature-length commentary tracks, one by Mendes and on by Deakins. There is of course a documentary on the logistics of the one-shot, 360-degree format and how it was executed. Mendes also hosts his own featurette in which he discusses his personal connection to WWI. Other features include:

⦁    “The Music of 1917”
⦁    “In The Trenches”
⦁    “Recreating History”

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Review: "1917"

“Why do you care?” 

“Why do you not?”

“1917” is a film that you approach as a technical marvel and then are absorbed by its breathtaking humanity.

You probably have heard that this World War I drama from director Sam Mendes (“American Beauty”) is a “one shot” movie, with a single seemingly continuous take by a roving camera as it follows the soldiers around a vast, scarred battlefield. And at least for the first 15 minutes or so, I think that’s how you experience it.

“How did they do that?” is the question that comes urgently to mind. You imagine the staggering preparation and attention to detail that went into making sure a thousand different elements were in just the right place at just the right time. You wonder how many takes it required to get it just right – hundreds, it must be, right?

And yet, after that introductory period, I largely forgot about the form the movie took and experienced it at eye level. This is very much old-fashioned “you are there” existential storytelling, which has received something of a revival in recent films like “Gravity” and “Dunkirk.”

(For the record, I counted 10 cuts in the film to separate the pieces. One is fairly obvious, but the rest happen at times when the soldiers pass through a dark tunnel or behind an object in the foreground. Still, that means averaging 12 minutes for each take, which remains astonishing.)

Two British footsoldiers are selected for a prototypical Very Urgent Mission. They are Lance Corporals Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Schofield (George MacKay), two young everymen. As outlined by General Erinmore (Colin Firth), the Germans have set a trap by suddenly retreating several miles from their existing trenches to a new fortified line.

A headstrong colonel, Mackenzie (Benedict Cumberbatch), is cut off from command and mistakenly believes he has the Germans on the run and the end of the war is in sight. He has planned an attack at dawn the next day in which 1,600 men will surely die unless Blake and Schofield can reach them on foot with a letter ordering a stand-down.

The twist is that Blake’s own brother (Richard Madden) is a lieutenant in Mackenzie’s unit. The general has, cruelly and/or brilliantly, given Blake an urgent incentive to carry out his orders.

We don’t learn a lot of specifics about Blake and Schofield during the course of the film – this is a journey story, not a character study. But a few details emerge to flesh them out.

The baby-faced Blake is headstrong and talkative while the tall, birdlike Schofield is a more passive follower. Blake’s family owns a cherry orchard back home and he was fondly looking forward to being there for picking season next month in May. Schofield went home once on leave and actually regrets it.

“It’s easier not to go back at all,” he says.

They also make a teasing game out of Blake’s resentfulness that Schofield has earned a medal and he has not. Blake would very much like to end the war a hero; Schofield is content just to see the end.

I cannot overstate the majesty and horror of the cinematography by Roger Deakins. Mendes, who co-wrote the script with Krysty Wilson-Cairns, and the production design team have literally created an entire world of grimy trenches and devastated buildings. On their errands the soldiers pass through pastoral beauty and cities that are reduced to just columns of stone, like indifferent Easter Island totems.

There is not very much actual fighting in the movie, though we see the results of it aplenty. The depiction of devastated bodies is haunting, often half-buried in rubble or mud. It’s as if they are being slowly consumed in layers of sediment, soon to be forgotten in the inexorable flow of epochs.

This movie will surely contend for big prizes during the awards season, and deserves to. Once you see the one-shot continuity as a tool rather than a gimmick, it becomes all the more impressive. War is hell, and “1917” is as dark and dire a descent into that perdition as we’ve seen.

Video review: "Shazam!"

The DC superhero cinematic universe seems to be perpetually five to eight years behind the Marvel one. That’s when the MCU went into full-on comedy mode with “Guardians of the Galaxy.”

“Shazam!” appears to be the DC reaction, a yuk-it-up aimed squarely at older kids and teens.

It’s basically a remake of “Big,” with the protagonist as a cape-wearing do-gooder instead of a toy company executive. Asher Angel plays Billy Batson, a troubled 14-year-old who stumbles upon an ancient wizard and is granted the powers of Shazam.

When he says that word, he is transformed into a musclebound adult wearing a red-white-and-gold costume, played by Zachary Levi in a (obvious) padded suit. His powers are basically Superman Lite: strength, bullet-proof and flight – though it takes Billy a little longer to figure this last part out. He can even shoot electrical bolts from his hands.

His wingman is Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), a smart kid on crutches who knows the superhero shtick better than Billy and tutors him on how to act the part. They quibble over alias names – Red Cyclone and Minster Philadelphia among the offerings –work on becoming YouTube stars, and eventually fight some evil.

Mark Strong plays the villain, Dr. Sivana, who has spent his entire life seeking the power of Shazam only to have it fall into another’s hands. Billy and Freddy, who live in a foster home, later recruit some of their fellow orphans to form a super-team, since that seems to be the thing these days.

Think about it: Marvel launches Iron Man, Captain America and Thor in solo movies, brings them together into groups, then cycles out the veterans and features newbies (Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Spider-Man) in their own flicks, and the cycle repeats. Ditto DC’s Superman, Wonder Woman et al.

I’m not sure if we’ll be seeing Shazam as a member of the Justice League anytime soon. But his goofy quips next to Batman’s nonstop brooding would be interesting.

Video extras are pretty good. There is a gag reel, deleted scenes, an exclusive motion comic and the following documentary shorts:

• The Magical World of Shazam
• Super Fun Zac
• Carnival Scene Study
• Shazamily Values
• Who is Shazam?

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Review: "Shazam!"

“Shazam!” is a fun flick but frightfully schizophrenic. It seems made to appeal to kids but it’s rated PG-13 with some rough language and adult references I wouldn’t want my children to see. It’s a straight-up comedy, DC Comics’ version of the “Guardians of the Galaxy,” though not nearly as raunchy as “Deadpool.”

At 132 minutes it’s about a half-hour too long, and the final showdown goes on so languidly you actually start to get tired of all the super-smackdowns.

Still, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy myself. The DC superhero movies tend to be a little more cartoony than the Marvel ones, and “Shazam!” -- do I really have to include the exclamation point on every reference? -- waltzes straight over the line into cartoonish.

The setup is that Billy Batson (played by Asher Angel, which is actually a better alter ego name than his character’s) is a 14-year-old kid who’s bounced from foster home to foster home. He’s recruited by a dying wizard (Djimon Hounsou) to take over his powers and continue his eons-long battle against the seven deadly sins, who want to get ahold of his glowing power-egg thingee.

The idea is that the wizard has been searching for decades to find a suitable replacement who’s pure of heart, but can’t locate one so he settles for Billy, who is prone to stealing police cars and thwacking bullies in the face. When Billy says the name, he suddenly transforms into a grown man in an extravagant red-white-and-gold costume with a lightning bolt on his chest.

He’s got the usual super traits: strength, speed, invulnerability, flight (eventually), plus he can shoot lightning out of his fingertips. With the help of his foster brother Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer), a sardonic kid who uses a crutch and knows all the ins and outs of the superhero shtick, he sets out to use his powers to… have fun, make money and impress chicks, as most 14-year-olds would.

Eventually he gets around to do-gooding, though circumstances force his hand.

While he’s been becoming a YouTube sensation, the deadly sins, represented as gargoyle-like statues come to life, find their open champion in one of the wizard’s rejects, a kid who grew up to be the nefarious Dr. Sivana (Mark Strong). He has essentially duplicate powers of Shazam, plus he’s got the wizard’s stolen power-egg, which he’s using as an eye.

Let me tell you one thing I appreciated about the movie: Zachary Levi, who plays Shazam, wears a quite-obviously padded muscle suit instead of spending a year punishing his body so he can spend five seconds flashing a ripped torso.

Levi’s a goofy, giggling presence, playing an amped-up teenager who’s geeking out on suddenly turning into a super. He has a tendency to sayhisdialoguetrippingfastlikehecan’twaittogettothelastword, as teens are wont to do.

There’s also a subplot about Billy struggling to bond with his new foster family. Freddy’s the fast-talking standout of the group, though I also liked Faithe Herman as the adorable hug-addicted tyke, Darla. She's a terrible secret-keeper, but at least she's honest about it. The rest kind of fade into a jumble.

One of the running jokes is that Billy and Freddy can’t come up with a decent name for the new superhero, rejecting “Shazam” as too silly. So at alternate points in the movie he’s referred to as Mister Philadelphia, Thundercrack, Maximum Voltage, Red Cyclone and a few others.

The DC movie universe has been a pretty grim place, so I’m glad to see them attempt to lighten things up with “Shazam!”. It doesn’t quite zap you to superhero nirvana, but there are enough laughs and jolts to recommend.

Video review: "Kingsmen: The Golden Circle"

“Kingsman: The Secret Service” was a dashing, original and highly entertaining flick that spoofed the conventions of the spy genre while generally adhering to them. Its much-anticipated sequel, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle,” is none of those things.

This bewilderingly limp follow-up brings back the same cast and creative team, yet fails to recapture the magic. It’s got too many characters, a non-scary villain and seems too in love with itself to spare any affection for its audience.

You may remember that in the last movie, veteran superspy Galahad (Colin Firth) was killed, shot through the head. This proves only a mild inconvenience, as he’s resurrected in short order, minus one eye and lacking any memories. Though we just know his killer skills are residing there, Bourne-like, underneath the timid exterior.

Galahad protégé Percival (Taron Edgerton) takes center stage, as nearly the entire Kingsmen coterie of spies is wiped out by Poppy (Julianne Moore), who controls the world’s drug trade from her secret headquarters deep in the jungle, which she’s built to resemble her nostalgic middle America childhood. She has a plan to hold the world’s drug addicts hostage unless the governments pay her a massive ransom.

The key new wrinkle, the introduction of an American version of the Kingsmen, turns out to be the film’s biggest disappointment. They’re Statesmen, Kentucky whiskey-brewin’ cowboys in Stetsons – which suggests the British filmmakers can’t distinguish the New South from the Old West. Channing Tatum turns up as their best and brightest, but he’s soon sidelined in favor of a lesser operative (Pedro Pascal). Jeff Bridges chews his dialogue like cud as their top kick.

Director Matthew Vaughn still has the chops for some seriously fancy action scenes, as the camera spins around the combatants like an untethered raven, the action speeding up or slowing down as aesthetics needs be.

Whenever the bullets and blades aren’t flying, though, “Kingsman: The Golden Circle” is a cringe-worthy retread that’s more embarrassing than enjoyable.

Bonus features are pretty decent. The DVD comes with the “Kingsman Archives,” a collection of concept art photos and behind-the scenes stills, plus “Black Cab Chaos: Anatomy of a Killer Case.”

Upgrade to the Blu-ray edition and you add a feature-length making-of documentary film focusing on everything from the Kingsmen and Statesmen’s respective gear, “Suited and Booted,” to visual effects and Elton John’s guest-starring appearance.

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Review: "Kingsman: The Golden Circle"

Well, that was disappointing.

I absolutely adored 2015’s “Kingsman: The Secret Service.” It was a dizzy, daffy parody of the spy genre that nonetheless was in unabashedly in love with cool gadgets, dastardly plots and slo-mo action scenes. And it featured a bunch of dashing guys in swanky British suits to boot.

So here comes the sequel, subtitled “The Golden Circle,” using the same core cast and creative team, and it’s a discombobulated hot mess of a movie. It's like going to a party where you like all the people, but somehow the conversations are lame.

What I enjoyed about the first film was the brash, giddy tone that combined R-rated mayhem with sharp comic zingers. It featured Colin Firth as Galahad, the oh-so-suave top agent of the Kingsmen, a private spy agency working secretly to keep the world safe. Their cover is as tailors, so they all sport the same style of clothes, right down to the striped tie and spectacles, which double as X-ray goggles and tactical display.

So why does the follow-up go so awry? Director Matthew Vaughn is back along with his co-screenwriter Jane Goldman, based on “The Secret Service” comic books by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons. Firth also returns -- despite the slight inconvenience of Galahad being killed in the last movie -- along with Taron Edgerton as Eggsy, his young Cockney protégé, and Mark Armstrong as Merlin, their Bond equivalent of Q, the master outfitter.

I’m not giving anything away by saying that Galahad does indeed turn up again, missing an eye and most of his memories, though he does put all the pieces back together again in the end.

(Well, not depth perception...)

It’s also not a spoiler that the Kingsmen are attacked and mostly wiped out by this movie’s villain named Poppy, a bubbly billionaire drug dealer played by Julianne Moore, who’s built her own 1950s nostalgia town in the middle of a remote jungle for reasons that are never entirely clear. Her signature thing is burning a solid gold emblem onto her henchmen.

She’s got some robot guard dogs, a huge meat grinder (guess where that's heading!) and a plan to poison the entire world population of drug users, holding their lives hostage unless the U.S. president (Bruce Greenwood) legalizes narcotics.

Never mind that that would immediately put her out of business. But the conniving POTUS -- who seems to be a cocktail of the worst traits of Clinton, Bush and Trump -- has his own chess move to make.

The other big twist is that Galahad, Eggsy and Merlin team up with their American counterparts, the Statesmen, who are in the whiskey business and dress as drawling cowboys. I guess the Brit filmmakers don’t understand the difference between Kentucky and Wyoming.

Jeff Bridges shows up as their boss, and we think Channing Tatum is going to team up with the Kingsmen, but then something happens. Their real pardner is Whiskey (Pedro Pascal), who carries a mean electrified whip and a few grudges of his own. Halle Berry plays Ginger, their counterpart to Merlin, who secretly yearns to get into the field.

The action scenes are energetic and fun, as the camera swoops around the combatants, the speed picking up and slowing down as needed to highlight an especially nifty move. This movie’s not nearly as gory as the last one, which may be a relief to some but was a letdown for me.

Elton John shows up as himself, kidnapped by Poppy and forced to play his songbook for her entertainment, right down to the iconic feathers-and-star-glasses outfit. It’s one of the most bizarre celebrity cameos I’ve ever seen, bloated and peevish and dropping f-bombs all over the place. I can’t imagine Sir Elton needs the money, so somebody must have talked him into this.

I haven’t even mentioned Poppy’s cyborg lieutenant, Eggsy’s Swedish princess girlfriend or the European rock concert where a tracking device is implanted in a very squirmy location. This movie has too many characters and a lot of moving parts, and many spin merrily in their own, untethered orbits.

“Kingsman: The Golden Circle” feels like pieces from three or four sequels, cut into bite-sized pieces that aren’t enough to satisfy and don’t taste good together.

Review: "Miss Sloane"

Elizabeth Sloane is, by universal assent (including her own estimation), “a real piece of work.”

As played magnificently by Jessica Chastain, “Miss Sloane” is the ultimate Washington D.C. insider – a famed lobbyist who uses all the considerable skills at her disposal, along with a host of nefarious methods, to get what she wants for her clients. Bullying, (barely) legal bribery, non-profit fronts, toadying, outright espionage, bald-faced lying – Sloane sees these things as merely tools in her dark arsenal.

Sloane labels herself a “conviction lobbyist,” meaning she’ll only advocate on behalf of groups or causes she personally supports. But after years gleefully fighting in the trenches and corridors of power, all that really matters for her is getting the win.

At one point her boss, Rodolfo Schmidt (Mark Strong), just stands outside her office, stunned by Sloane’s latest act of brazen manipulation upon the body politic. I just want to know, he says, how somebody like you comes to be – how you grew up, what events shaped your personality, and so on. Because Sloane’s actions often seem to indicate the operation of a brilliant mind without even an ounce of conscience.

The story opens with a framing device of Sloane being grilled by a U.S. Senate committee chaired by a glowering politico (John Lithgow) demanding answers about her unseemly methods. So we assume her nefarious history has finally caught up with her.

But as the story goes deeper and we learn more about Sloane and her skillful machinations, we start to wonder whether she’s sitting in the hot seat by choice.

Sloane is the star player at the biggest lobbying firm in town, run by a patriarchal figure (Sam Waterson) who’s been dying to land the gun lobby as a client for years. A new bill is coming up for a vote that would require universal background checks, and they want Sloane to send it down in flames by appealing to women. Sloane literally laughs in their faces, and bolts to a much smaller company backing the measure.

About half her team defects with her, including protégé Jane Molloy (Alison Pill), who regards Sloane as both mentor and cautionary tale. Meanwhile, she’s facing off with her conniving old partner Pat Connors, played by Michael Stuhlbarg. Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays key new ally Esme Manucharian, a passionate gun control advocate with a personal history.

It all plays out in the high-stakes world of the media, as various forces and circumstances align themselves to help or hurt the cause.

Director John Madden (“Shakespeare in Love”), working with rookie screenwriter Jonathan Perera, give us an intricately plotted political thriller, a drawn-out game of cat and mouse, with a character study in the middle.

Sloane is so busy training her high-powered vision upon her adversaries and allies, there’s not much time for self-exploration of the person behind the façade. She literally doesn’t sleep, subsisting on pills and food from the same Korean BBQ place every night. Sloane even arranges trysts with male escorts to satisfy her basic primal urges; when an urban cowboy type (Jake Lacy) shows up in place of her usual faux beau, it leaves her both miffed and intrigued.

The film touches on the current debate about gun rights vs. control, and there’s certainly a bit of Hollywood moralizing, but it isn’t really about that. It’s just the backdrop for a larger tale about the rot in our political system, and a portrait of one of its chief schemers.

Can one have a noble heart but wallow in corruption? Just how bad do the ends have to get before they cease justifying the means? “Miss Sloane” explores these questions in a slick but probing way.

Video review: "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

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.”

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Review: "Kingsman: The Secret Service"

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.

Review: "Before I Go to Sleep"

"Before I Go to Sleep" isn't terribly original, which doesn't necessarily mean that a film won't be any good -- but in this case, it does.

The problem with this psychological thriller starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth is that it contains no surprises. Even when the story is trying to shock us with a twist, we've already guessed everything long ago. Watching it is a 92-minute exercise in waiting for the movie to arrive.

It's not helped by a story that borrows heavily from "Memento." And by "borrow," I basically mean "steals the entire premise and narrative dynamic." Kidman plays Christine, who wakes up at age 40 thinking she's still in her mid-20s, because every night all the new memories she's acquired during that day flee from her mind.

She leaves notes and pictures for herself so can assimilate every morning, but also clues suggesting that a crime has taken place. Despite not being able to remember anything from the previous day, Christine begins to investigate the matter, which resulted in her being left severely beaten and with her faulty memory. She uses a digital camera to make a video diary to instruct herself on her latest discoveries.

If you'll recall from "Memento" -- it's been 14 years, but: spoiler alert! -- the amnesiac main character was actually being manipulated by others with nefarious intent. It becomes pretty clear that the same thing is going on here, so the question is figuring out who it is.

There are only two potential culprits: Christine's long-suffering husband, Ben (Firth), and her psychiatrist, Dr. Nasch (Mark Strong). She has good reasons to suspect both. The doctor takes the odd steps of calling her at home every morning to trigger her memory recall, and also picks her up in his car for treatment. Nasch insists that she not tell her husband about their sessions.

Ben, meanwhile, is a ball of half-truths and nervous energy. He insists he keeps information from Christine to protect her -- such as the fate of a close friend (Anne-Marie Duff) who apparently abandoned Christine after her injury, and another more devastating matter. He would seem to be a devoted husband -- he has to essentially convince her to fall in love with him on a daily basis -- but there are flashes of anger that are troubling.

Writer/director Rowan Joffe adapted the novel by S.J. Watson. He generally elicits solid performances out of his cast, though his handle on pacing and mood are lackluster. Often the movie is just a dull parade of phone calls, Kidman poring through photographs or documents, and similar expository shuffling of the cards.

I had problems with the particulars of Christine's condition, which are never satisfactorily explained. She has full recall of her activities throughout the day, but sometime while sleeping everything gets flushed. Has she tried staying awake all night to see what happens? If she wakes up to pee at 2 a.m., will her memory of the previous day still be there or not? What about 5 a.m.? Midnight? If she takes a nap in the afternoon, does that trigger the brain dump?

It's not that I find the notion of memory loss implausible. After all, I've watched hundreds of movies that I almost immediately forgot all about. This is destined to become one of them. Maybe if I just lay down for a little while; I am pretty tired...

............................

"Before I Go to Sleep" isn't terribly original, which doesn't necessarily mean that

Review: "Zero Dark Thirty"

"Zero Dark Thirty" plays out like a TV crime procedural with a bigger budget and loftier aspirations. It almost has the tone of a documentary film, depicting the decade-long hunt for Osama bin Laden with little prejudice or embellishment.

What we end up with is something boasting an almost journalistic feel, portraying American national security personnel not as we'd to think they would be, but as they actually are. Which is to say: focused, fallible, and capable of both amazing heroism and gut-churning brutality.

Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal started to make a movie about the early search for bin Laden after 9/11, but then the terrorist leader was assassinated by U.S. troops in 2011, acting on information painstakingly gathered by the CIA. They quickly retooled to bring a more comprehensive tale, culminating in the high-tension raid on the compound in Pakistan where bin Laden had been living for several years.

I was very impressed with the attention to detail in "Zero Dark Thirty," and its lessons about the sort of warfare our country wages in the 21st century. It's one based not on nuclear missiles or big metal hardware, but tiny slivers of data gathered from thousands of sources. The challenge is less like finding a needle in a haystack than reassembling a mirror smashed into a million shards, without knowing the shape it had before being broken.

The film is not as emotionally engaging as I'd wished. Jessica Chastain does yeoman's work in portraying Maya, the one CIA investigator who does nothing for a decade but hunt bin Laden. The character has no internal motivations or external life beyond getting her man. It's not surprising that Maya is a composite of several real figures, since she has no real identity beyond her mission.

The story skips around in time and place, the first half depicting the early clues to bin Laden's disappearance from Afghanistan, taking us up to 2004. Then the trail goes cold, and the film picks up again four years later, when Maya stumbles across evidence of a high-level bin Laden courier who most of the other intelligence forces believe is already dead. She proves he's alive, and follows him straight to that dusty Pakistani compound.

In fictional movies about spycraft, the agents shown searching for evidence are also the ones who go out into the field and nab the bad guys. Here, it's clearly revealed that the snoops stay mostly behind their desks and have an uneasy relationship with the troops on the front lines. At one point, Maya has to practically beg a field commander to set up a surveillance net on the courier.

In the film's most controversial section, which is right at the beginning, a CIA interrogator named Dan (Jason Clarke, in a chilling performance) is shown employing "enhanced" methods against detainees, including waterboarding.

For a film that was accused of being controversial before it even finished production, "Zero Dark Thirty" is steadfastly neutral on the subject of torture. The interrogations are clearly depicted as brutal and dehumanizing, and it's hard to watch Americans carrying out these sorts of depraved actions. But the movie is also quite clear in showing how the information obtained in this way was critical to identifying the courier who led us to bin Laden.

Bigelow and Boal do not go in for big ethical quandaries and principled dilemmas, though. Maya, who is present but does not partake in the brutality, is repulsed by it but also does not hesitate to make use of the fruits it produces.

"Zero Dark Thirty" is an effective and expertly made film, but a more character-driven story would've added some flesh to the bones of a great, true story.

3.5 stars out of four

Video review: "John Carter"

I rise now in defense of "John Carter." Unfairly labeled as a disastrous flop among the worst in cinematic history, the action/fantasy was neither as much of a money-loser as the studio accountants would have you believe, or nearly as bad as naysayers claim.

Indeed, "John Carter" has made $272 million worldwide, exceeding its reported production budget of $250 million (which, granted, does not include marketing and distribution costs). Once video and TV receipts are counted up, the movie should break even or even pull in a modest profit.

As to quality, it's certainly an uneven picture with a dizzying array of characters and mythology to grasp. But it's also an ambitious package of eye candy and CGI action, the biggest spectacle this side of "Avatar."

Taylor Kitsch plays the title character, a regretful Civil War veteran who gets zapped to the surface of Mars, which in this vision based on the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs, is very much inhabited. In fact, a war between different factions of Martians has been raging for 1,000 years, and John Carter finds himself caught in the middle of it.

Because of the different gravities, Carter finds he has amazing powers, especially the ability to leap hundreds of feet into the air. In addition to the Martians, there is a four-armed race of nomads called Tharks, and a mysterious group, the Therns, who whisper into the ears of the Martians and give powerful weapons to those they favor.

Give "John Carter" a chance on video -- you'll find a fun flick that exceeds expectations.

Bonus features are quite good. The DVD comes with an audio commentary track by director Andrew Stanton ("Finding Nemo") and other filmmakers, and a featurette following the 100-year journey of Burroughs' pulp novels to the screen.

Upgrade to the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and you add several other goodies. There are a number of deleted scenes with commentary; "Barsoom Bloopers;" "360 Degrees of John Carter," a look at the complicated filmmaking process of the one the movie's biggest scenes; and "Disney Second Screen," an interactive journal that extends the mythology of the movie.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "John Carter"

Watching "John Carter" is literally an overwhelming experience. There were times when I honestly had little idea what the heck was going on. There's such a dizzying array of names, tribes and mythologies to keep up with, all wrapped in a dense thicket of science-fiction jargon and technological doohickeys.

And yet the one thing I was certain of was that I had a great deal of fun watching it. This mega-expensive movie ($250 million by some accounts) is an epic in every sense of the word, an action-packed thrill ride that for sheer audacity is the biggest thing to come down the cinematic pike since "Avatar."

Like James Cameron's film, "John Carter" also features bouts of unintended silliness, and relies more on computer-generated images than big-name stars -- or, indeed, actors you've probably even heard of.

Friends tell me Taylor Kitsch was a big deal on the TV show "Friday Night Lights," playing a high-schooler. (He appears to be at an age where you start looking for gray hairs instead of popping pimples, but that's about par for the course in Hollywood.)

He does have a solid presence as the title character, a dour Civil War veteran accidentally zapped from 1881 to the surface of Mars. His John Carter is a tragic figure and reluctant hero, and Kitsch gives him notes of unspoken regret and layers of complexity not found anywhere in the script. Though he does fall back on that unfortunate action hero trope of speaking most of his dialogue in a growl of strangled urgency.

Director Andrew Stanton is the second Pixar animation director to peel away to live-action filmmaking. I can't say I thought his grasp of real-world kinetics was quite as sharp as Brad Bird's with "Mission: Impossible Ghost Recon," but the movie's many action scenes have an undeniable cartoony zip to them.

The Martian world -- based on a story by Edgar Rice Burroughs, best known for "Tarzan" -- is a sun-drenched cocktail of old and new technology. The human-like inhabitants fly through the air on solar-powered ships and have energy weapons, but for some reason favor armor and swords for really putting it to their enemies.

Everyone has neon-colored tattoos, even on their overly bronzed faces, shows lots of skin and is really buff. It's like Jersey Shore in Space. By comparison, the pasty Carter looks like he was locked in a fridge for five years.

The people of Mars (they call it Barsoom) have been locked in a 1,000-year war between the two major city-states, Zodanga and Helium. Carter gets caught in the middle of the conflict, falling in with Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins), a Helium princess.

He also becomes a friend/slave to Tars Tarkas (voice by Willem Dafoe), the chieftain of a race of green four-armed nomads called Tharks who populate the desolate areas outside the cities. Sola (Samantha Morton), a Thark outcast, becomes Carter's companion and protector. A toothsome slug-like creature who zips around faster than the Road Runner becomes his loyal hound.

Due to Earth's heavier atmosphere, Carter finds he has amazing powers on Mars, chiefly the ability to leap hundreds of feet in a single bound. One would think his upper-body strength would be equally Superman-like, yet Tars Tarkas (and several others) smack him around like a chihuahua.

The plot (screenplay by Stanton, Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon) is a muddle of different elements of Burroughs' Mars stories, plus some of their own made-up stuff. It has something to do with mysterious advisors called Therns (Mark Strong is their leader) who manipulate the red planet's geopolitics, giving a fantastic blue energy force called The 9th Ray to the Zodangan general (Dominic West).

"John Carter" will hardly be confused with great filmmaking; nothing about it is destined to linger long in the mind or the soul. But for two-hours plus, this Mars is certainly an amusing place to visit.

3 stars out of four

Review: "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"

Like its main character, George Smiley, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" plays its cards very close to its vest -- too close, in fact. The result is a nearly affectless espionage tale, a Cold War spy thriller that's chilly and boasts few thrills.

Smiley is refreshingly different from the standard cinematic spy. He's in late middle age, doesn't move in very much of a hurry, eschews guns (most of the time) and has a personality so dry, it's no surprise that his wife, Anne, has left him. Wearing huge owlish eyeglasses and an unctuous mien, Gary Oldman as Smiley resembles a tobacco store clerk more than he does James Bond.

"Tinker" is based on the 1974 novel by John le Carré, unread by me, which was turned into a seven-part BBC miniseries in 1979, with Alec Guinness playing Smiley. With its dense plot and confusing maze of characters -- I was still struggling to keep the names straight by the end -- the story might have been better suited to the episodic rhythms of television than a two-hour movie.

The film begins with the fall of the leader of British Secret Intelligence Services, known only as Control (John Hurt). He had sent one of his top agents, Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), to Hungary to learn the identity of a double agent at the very top of their leadership. The mission goes awry, Prideaux is shot, and Control and Smiley, his right-hand man, are brought down in the ensuing scandal.

But was the theory of a mole really nonsense? Suffering through a lonely forced retirement, Smiley is given a shot at redemption when the civilian leadership appoints him to learn the truth. This proves quite a challenge, since the four men Control suspected now run "the Circus," as the members of the intelligence agency refer to themselves.

They are: Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) and Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds).

Alleline would seem to be the most likely suspect, since he openly challenged Control's authority and ended up assuming the position for himself. Alleline has had a great deal of success running "Witchcraft," a super-secret operation that has opened up a pipeline of information from inside the Soviet Union.

Smiley only has a few allies, including a promising young agent, Peter (Benedict Cumberbatch) and an old retiree. He catches a break when Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), a rakish spy who first uncovered the theory of the mole and had thought to have gone rogue, turns up at his house.

I won't try to summarize the different twists and turns of the plot, mostly because it remains a blur. It's old-school cloak-and-dagger stuff, with everyone simultaneously suspicious of each other and highly on guard.

Director Tomas Alfredson, the Swede behind the moody vampire drama "Let the Right One In" (which was followed by an American remake), and screenwriters Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan seem intent on crafting a film that resembles its protagonist too much.

It's one thing to have the main character be fetchingly mysterious, and quite another to have him remain a total cipher. Despite a fine performance by Oldman, George Smiley has no interior, and serves only to investigate and find things out to further the plot. Watching a movie about him is like playing chess against a computer.

2.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Green Lantern"

"Green Lantern" is one of the weakest comic book superhero adaptations we've had in awhile, but I still couldn't quite bring myself to hate it. Sigh with disappointment, maybe, but the strongest feeling I had was the lack of one: I was colossally indifferent to this movie.
Part of it is Ryan Reynolds. I've seen Reynolds do good work, but he's started down an unfortunate career path that I'm not sure he can pull out of. He always plays the glib, fast-talking charmer who comes to realize he's out of his depth, and (usually) rises to the occasion.

I've seen this guy many times now, and I don't like him.

Here he plays Hal Jordan, a reckless and cocky test pilot who encounters a dying alien who bequeaths him a ring of power. It seems the Green Lantern Corp patrols the farthest reaches of the universe, 3,600 of them in all, and Hal's been tapped to take over this neck of the woods.

Alas, Parallax -- the ancient enemy of the Corp -- is released and begins wreaking havoc, manifesting as a giant blob of space goo. Some of his space goo finds its way to Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard), a nerdy scientist and childhood friend of Hal's, causing his head to swell to melon size and gifting him with telekinetic powers.

With his ring Hal can fly and create objects out of green energy, which is the Force-like energy generated by the willpower of all living creatures.

I certainly don't have the willpower to sit through "Green Lantern" again.

Video extras are quite paltry for DVD, but improve quite a bit with Blu-ray. The DVD has only promotional pitches for you: a preview of a Justice League digital comic and another for the Green Lantern animated TV show.

The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack adds two making-of documentaries, one about the Green Lantern universe and another about casting Reynolds in the green-and-black suit. There's also an extended cut of the film and deleted scenes. The centerpiece is a picture-in-picture mode with video pods with tidbits about production.

Movie: 1.5 stars out of four
Extras: 3 stars

Review: "The Guard"

Imagine the worst policeman in Ireland. Or maybe he's the best. As played by Brendan Gleeson in "The Guard," he probably doesn't care one way or the other. In the course of this black comedy by writer/director John Michael McDonagh, he becomes both.

Sergeant Gerry Boyle patrols a sparsely populated section of the Irish coast. He's got enough seniority that he feels comfortable talking back freely to his superiors in the Garda (as the Irish police are known), but has few real responsibilities.

When a body turns up in his jurisdiction shot through the head, Boyle's first question is if there's any money in the house. This is not a query about motivation for the crime, but pocketing the cash. Boyle is not the sort to engage in shakedowns or stealing from honest citizens, but loose currency from a crime scene is something he sees as his due.

Gleeson inhabits this foul-mouthed, often depraved, occasionally noble creature with conviction and an impish, sly humor. Boyle is the kind of man who enjoys making outrageously idiotic and/or offensive statements to others with a perfectly straight face, just to see if they're smart enough to see through his joke.

A primary target is Wendell Everett (Don Cheadle), an FBI agent sent from America to chase a major drug smuggling ring bringing $500 million in cocaine into Ireland. Boyle interrupts the FBI man's presentation, makes racially charged statements, gets everyone in a furious huff, and then drops a clue that breaks the case open.

That's Boyle's M.O.: He'll engage in some serious police investigation, but only if it humors him.

Boyle and Everett end up becoming partners of a sort, or at least they do after Boyle's actual partner (played by Rory Keenan), turns up missing after just a few days on the job. Boyle could care less, but the partner's young wife plucks some strings of sympathy within him.

Mark Strong, Liam Cunningham and David Wilmot play the smugglers, who seem as bored plying their trade as Boyle is at police work. One complains about the low quality of people they meet in their line of work, and it's pointed out to him that they are, after all, criminals in the narcotics market.

Boyle has a mother (Fionnula Flanagan) who's only got a short time to live, and he has installed her in a bucolic facility for dying oldsters (perhaps this is where all that crime scene money is going). Boyle engages in the same sort of teasing one-upmanship with his ma as he does with everyone else, but it's got a tender, well-worn affection to it. Watching their scenes together, we know he took after her rather than his dad.

I'm not really quite sure what to make of "The Guard." In terms of tone, it reminded me of another Gleeson film, "In Bruges," made by John Michael McDonagh's brother Martin. It's the sort of movie that makes you smile and squirm, often within the confines of the same scene.

It's certainly engaging, though many times I felt the film's stylistic choices overwhelmed its sense of itself.

Take one scene where Boyle has shot another character, obviously fatally. The dying man laments the many things in life he will never get to do. Boyle cheekily asks him if everything is going dim. The bleeding fellow angrily demands that he not be mocked in his final minutes. Boyle is not inclined to oblige.

Is this moment supposed to be funny? Horrifying? Ironic? I'm not sure the movie knows itself enough to answer.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Green Lantern"

"Green Lantern" is one of the weakest comic book superhero adaptations we've had in awhile, but I still couldn't quite bring myself to hate it. Sigh with disappointment, maybe, but the strongest feeling I had was the lack of one: I was colossally indifferent to this movie.

Part of it is Ryan Reynolds. I've seen Reynolds do good work -- he showed great comic timing in the first half of "The Proposal" -- but he's started down an unfortunate career path that I'm not sure he can pull out of. He always plays the glib, fast-talking charmer who comes to realize he's out of his depth, and (usually) rises to the occasion. I've seen this guy so many times now, and I don't like him.

After the screening -- held on a Wednesday night specifically to preclude most print reviews -- one of my fellow critics commented that in many ways "Green Lantern" is strikingly similar to "Iron Man." The protagonist is a hedonistic playboy who cares not a whit for the rest of the world, until circumstances and a really awesome super-suit force him to play hero. It's attractive as a story concept, but is so familiar now I kept thinking Lantern's costume looked moldy.

In this case, the hero's powers do not actually reside in the suit, but in the ring that is bequeathed to him by a dying member of the Green Lantern Corp. There are 3,600 of them split up to guard the entire universe against evil, and the greatest of them, Abin Sur (Temuera Morrison), is fatally wounded in a clash with the Corp's ancient enemy, Parallax (voice by Clancy Brown). Parallax is released from his imprisonment on a distant planet, and turns into some sort of wandering space blob with a head that looks like one of the aliens from "Mars Attacks!"

Meanwhile, Abin Sur crash lands on Earth and orders his ring to find a suitable replacement, and Hal Jordan (Reynolds) is selected. He's a cocky test pilot haunted by the death of his father, another pilot who was consumed in a fiery blaze before Hal's eyes when he was a boy. This has given him, needless to say, issues.

There's an inevitable scene where Hal discovers his powers after getting jumped by some toughs outside a bar. As soon as the scene shifted to the bar, I knew some thugs would appear shortly to serve as Lantern tenderizer. It's practically encoded in the DNA of movies like this.

Then there's a long, unnecessary sequence where Hal travels to the Lanter Corp's home planet for training, and to be told by head cheese Sinestro (Mark Strong) that he's not good enough to wear the ring. A big burly Lantern appears to teach him "ring slinging 101," which seems like an  unlikely name from such a hallowed crew.

In the grand tradition of poor super-hero movies that can't come up with a worthy antagonist, there is a second villain to buttress  the space goo guy. Hector Hammond (Peter Sarsgaard) is an introspective scientist brought in to examine Abin Sur's corpse, but he gets zapped with a bit of the space goo and his head swells to melon proportions. Oh, and he can move stuff with his mind.

The powers of Green Lantern are vague. He can create anything he can imagine out of the green energy harnessed by the ring, which is supposed to consist of the willpower of every living creature in existence. It's like The Force, except for some reason willpower manifests itself as neon-green energy on the Corps home planet of Oa. Even more powerful, but less stable is yellow energy, which comes from fear. That's space goo guy's stock in trade.

So Green Lantern conjures race cars, machine guns, swords, shields and all sorts of other things in combat. He can also fly and fire energy bolts.

The totally unneeded love interest is played by Blake Lively, a childhood friend of Hal's who now runs the big corporation he worked for (until he shoots down two of their super-duper new drone fighter planes). She does have one great line where Hal, after first appearing in the Green Lantern outfit, immediately recognizes him because he only wears a tiny mask covering his eyes. "What, did you think I wouldn't recognize you just because I can't see your cheekbones?" Fourth wall humor, but still funny stuff.

So space blog guy keeps getting closer to Earth, Hector's noggin keeps growing bigger, and Hal learns to focus his willpower and overcome his fears.

I'm bored writing about this movie, just as I was while watching it, so I'll stop now.

1.5 stars out of four

Video review: "Robin Hood"

Here would be my one-word review of "Robin Hood": Unnecessary.

The fabled bandit of Sherwood Forest has been depicted innumerable times, almost since the dawn of cinema. Director Ridley Scott and screenwriter Brian Helgeland mix bits and pieces of the various Robin Hood legend for their own pastiche that never convinces us of its essential reason for existing.

Russell Crowe plays Robin Longstride, a humble archer in Richard the Lionheart's army, recently returned from the Crusades. He impersonates a dead nobleman to make good his escape, and finds himself stuck in the middle of a political battle over the throne.

Marian (Cate Blanchett), who was married to the dead guy, is forced to carry on the charade with this stranger playing her husband, and finds she likes him better than the old one.

The movie grows silly in the middle, and briefly is enjoyable for it. But then the heavy, portentous drama reasserts itself, and we're treated to dull speeches about nobility residing in the heart of the common man, yada-yada.

This bewildering film is schizophrenic: It couldn't decide which of the many faces of the Robin Hood mythology to wear, so it tries them all on.

Once again, the trend of underwhelming movies arriving on video with stupendous extras continues.

On DVD, a director's cut adds 15 minutes to the film's run time, and 10 deleted scenes add 13 minutes more. A 62-minute making-of documentary touches on all aspects of production, and includes the insight by producer Brian Grazer that they were aiming for "the 'Gladiator' version of Robin Hood."

A digital copy of the film is also included.

On upgrading to Blu-ray, you gain "The Art of Nottingham," which includes hundreds of still images documenting pre-production, costumes, behind-the-scenes and other goodies.

The centerpiece is a "director's notebook" that includes pop-up video with commentary by Ridley Scott, which includes an interactive feature that allows you to pause, view other extras, and then resume.

The extras for "Robin Hood" are right on target. Would that more good movies could receive such a splendid video release.

Movie: 2 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars

Video review: "Kick-Ass"

Was there a more polarizing film this year than "Kick-Ass"?

Roger Ebert called it "morally reprehensible." A.O. Scott of the New York Times said it "turned my stomach." I admitted the film left me disturbed, but also entertained, and "disturbed by how much I was entertained."

Fourth months after its theatrical release, the British/American send-up of the super-hero genre is looking like one of the boldest cinematic visions of 2010.

Aaron Johnson plays the title character, a high school loser who wonders why everyone loves super-heroes, but nobody actually dons a costume and goes out and fights crime. He buys a green wetsuit, wields a couple of billy clubs, and calls himself Kick-Ass.

The only ass initially kicked is his own, but after a few false starts the fledgling hero makes a name for himself, via YouTube video of his exploits.

Soon a whole lot of supes come out of the woodwork, notably Hit-Girl (Chloe Moretz), a pint-sized package of blood-spurting destruction, and her father/mentor/enabler Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage).

If Kick-Ass is a pathetic wannabe, this frightful duo are the hair-raising real deal. Hit-Girl shoots and slices her way through bad guys, and insults them with the foulest language you've ever heard coming out of the mouth of an 11-year-old.

This is, after all, based on a comic book whose teaser line was "Sickening Violence: Just the Way You Like It!"

Love it or loath it, this movie smashes Hollywood conventions.

When it comes to video extras, "Kick-Ass" does just that.

The Blu-ray/DVD combo pack includes a digital copy, and a host of features that shed light about the production. The centerpiece is a making-of documentary that, at 113 minutes, is only slightly shorter than the film itself.

The doc touches on absolutely every aspect of conception and shooting, including director Matthew Vaughn's pushback at those who flogged the movie as exploitative. One revelation is the filmmakers gave the role to Johnson before they knew he's British.

Vaughn also provides a feature-length commentary track, including the tidbit that Marvel Comics forced him to change logo of his longstanding production company, MARV, even though those are simply his initials. (His obeisance must have paid off; Vaughn is now slated to directe the "X-Men" reboot.)

Additionally, there's an "Ass-Kicking Bonus View Mode" that includes tons of behind-the-scenes video footage (which also incorporates some of Vaughn's commentary).

Plus, a 20-minute featurette on the comic book origin, and a gallery of stills.

Movie: 3 stars out of four
Extras: 3.5 stars