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Darke Reviews | Annie (2014)

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In the land of unasked for and unneeded remakes we have our newest entry – Annie. It was interesting to initial reactions to this particular remake as the traditional white girl with freckles and red curly hair was being replaced with a black girl with her brown curly hair. Original stories talked about how producers Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith wanted their daughter Willow in the role. Ah Hollywood nepotism and the Smith family. Karate Kid, After Earth (*shudder*), and then Annie. We add Jay Z to the mix for – reasons – to help produce the movie. I kind of like to imagine that Jay Z was the reason Willow isn’t flipping her hair back and forth and instead we got a different young actress.

If you are not familiar with the original 1982 movie, comic strip, or musical from 1976, or comic strip from 1924 it is the story of Little Orphan Annie. Surprise I know! It covers the adventures of a young girl, her dog Sandy, her benefactor “Daddy” Warbucks, and a few other characters that would be extraordinarily racist these days.

For the new film, we have  couple of updates. She’s no longer an Orphan, she is a Foster kid. The satire of the New Deal and FDR is gone, replaced with mobile phones, modern politics, and social media. Also gone is the risk and the charm. Replacing it is a sense of bitterness of the world.

From an acting perspective, it doesn’t suck. Quvenzhane Wallis is the bright spot in this film. She really does light up the screen the way Annie should. She affects peoples lives around her the way that Annie should. She is everything I wanted from an Annie. Rose Byrne (X-Men First Class, Damages, Insidious) plays Warbucks assistant Grace and seems to be the only person really trying to have fun aside from the kids. Both Jamie Foxx and Cameron Diaz I think were given wrong notes by the director. Diaz plays obnoxiously over the top for the better part of the film finally coming down to a low simmer in Act III. Diaz may be a good actress but she is no Carol Burnett. Foxx for his part seemed to miss the mark on how to perform; which is odd for such a talented man. Where everyone else was singing in an almost Glee sense as if it was part of the scene, Foxx sings and performs his songs as if he is on stage – which creates a serious disconnect with the costars.

That disconnect continues through most every performance in the film. Sometimes they break the 4th wall, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes people react to those singing. Sometimes they don’t. It is all so random and arbitrary as to if the song is Glee style, performance style, or improv. It just doesn’t make sense as to when or where people will react to the songs being performed. That makes the performances awkward to watch and at times uncomfortable because you don’t know the rules. Only one or two are an exception to this and even they don’t make sense. Most  of this of course falls on director Will Gluck.

I am really not sure how Gluck got the unfortunate seat at the table on this one. His directorial roles stick to RomCom fare with Easy A and Friends with Benefits. He has produced more but none of them are musicals. So most, if not all, the problems with this film come down to Gluck and the producers not having a good idea of what to do, or how to do it. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the Smith’s checked out after Willow wasn’t cast. I would have thought Jay Z or Will would have better been able to influence the musical moments with their own experience, but apparently not.

TL;DR

The movie is an awkward, uncomfortable mess. It has so many tonal shifts and character shifts you have trouble keeping up and have no real desire to. In a common critique of modern films, it takes no risks. I remember the original where Annie was on the train tracks being threatened by Rooster (Tim Curry) and for a moment I was actually worried and felt real threat. Nothing comes close to that here. It’s as if Hollywood is afraid to show any form of risk or harm.

The movie suffers and honestly, isn’t that good. I can’t recommend the film to anyone – even if there are a few bright spots, because so many just fall flat or are painful to sit through.

 

 

 

 

 

Darke Reviews – Big Hero 6 (2014)

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I can’t lie, but this film is one of the ones I was looking forward to the most this fall. Of course, the makers of Frozen tag line in the trailer had something to do with it. The reality is the original trailer did nothing for me. It looked cute, but if you really want to get me interested in a movie give me a good trailer with good music. Despite my love for Frozen, the trailers didn’t grab me. Point in fact, I almost didn’t see it because of the trailers originally released – how sad would that have been? The use of Fall Out Boys, “My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark” along with some intriguing animation got my eye in the first full trailer. Trailer 2 got me more, with Greek Fire’s “Top of the World”, more importantly it showed me this was a team thing rather than just a boy and his robot. Yes – I know this is based on a comic, but I haven’t read it so didn’t know. The music just sounded inspiring and I love a good heroic team effort. While not usually a fan of Four Colour hero stories, I do find the pure, good, heroism something that makes me smile. Then they released Trailer 3 (below) with New York Comic Con. I was sold. Fall Out Boys new song Immortals was just what I needed to seal the deal and really showed what the team aspect would be about.

So should you see the movie?

This movie is the exception to Jessica’s Film Writing Rule. I’ve often talked about how too many writers on a film tends to lead to a bad film. I happily acknowledge this as an exception. Now we have a story based on the comic by Duncan Rouleau and Steven T. Seagle. I paused writing this review long enough to peruse the power of Google. I will make a slight adjustment, a story based on and inspired by the comic. While the character names are more or less the same, the personalities and styles are incredibly different (more on that when I talk about the characters). The story was written by Don Hall and Jordan Roberts. Hall was the writer on Princess and the Frog and Tarzan, while Roberts had very few writing credits before. Their story was then adapted for a screenplay by Robert L. Baird, Daniel Gerson, and Roberts himself.  Baird has a  screenplay credit on Monsters University and Monsters Inc. with Gerson.

I have to admit, I was surprised the writers weren’t involved in The Incredibles as the movie really does a good job of evoking that heroic transformation vibe. Now, I will not tell you the plot is anything complex or new. Point in fact the movie had nearly no surprises for me, yet it still kept me entertained and even drew laughs and tears when appropriate. Quite a few tears I should add. The simplicity of the story doesn’t take away from it, but because it mixes action and emotional beats really well for adults, younger audiences (under 6) may be bored until those action beats.

The directors may be a reason why the story has such as an emotional punch, even if it is simple. Story writer Don Hall with, the story writer of Mulan and Bolt, Chris Williams dual direct the film. Directing a live action film requires certain muscles, but animation has a different set of muscles it must use in addition. The physical impossibility of shots becomes irrelevant; while the actors body language and expressions become the realm of the animators.

From a cast perspective we the movie brings in a wide range of talent from different ages and realms of experience. Our Hero…Hiro Hamada, a boy genius,  is voiced by young asian american actor Ryan Potter (Supah Ninjas). This character is probably one of the most accurate to his original incarnation with his brilliant mind and the de facto leader of the group. Jamie Chung (Once Upon a Time, Smallville) voices one of my favourite characters Go Go Tomago, speed freak, no nonsense snark,  and specialist in magnetics. I wasn’t able to see much of her character from the quick research but she’s fairly on point and fairly snarky in the movie which instantly endears her to me.  Honey Lemon, the groups chemist, is voiced by Genesis Rodriguez (Man on a Ledge, The Last Stand) and has the one of the biggest variations from the source. Gone is the blonde cheerleader physique and near exhibitionist clothing style replaced with an almost stereotypical nerd girl. I think this is primarily due to the Disney factor more than anything else, but I don’t find fault in it. In fact I kinda prefer this version. The next biggest change is Wasabi No Ginger, I am not kidding about the name, voiced by Damon Wayans Jr. (Let’s Be Cops, The Other Guys), changing him from a japanese chef, to a black dreadlocked inventor. Much like Go Go, I don’t have much to compare Fred to from the source, but TJ Miller (How to Train Your Dragon, and that horrific Transformers movie this year), but he does seem accurate as the non scientist in the group.

The supporting cast is also filled with named and known character actors, such as Maya Rudolph (SNL), Scott Adsit (30 Rock), Alan -Lead on the Wind- Tudyk (Firefly, Frozen), and James Cromwell (Secretariat, Star Trek: First Contact) .

From a technical perspective the art is fantastic. It still has a certain style to it which I appreciate. There use of light and shadow is probably some of the best I’ve seen with sunsets and skylines that border on photo realistic at times. From a character model perspective people like to rip hard on Frozen and Tangled for looking too much alike and as someone who studied computer animation for a bit when she was in college I understand why and don’t judge on that. If you have pre existing skeletons and muscle structures you can save time and money rather than creating new ones. THe movie has a job to create new ones as well (the full Big Hero 6 crew); so when background and secondary characters look like ones I’ve seen in other films I don’t mind as much. It was a bit distracting at first but I got over it.

There is a lot this movie does right and thats where my focus is. The movement through the film is some of the most dynamic I have seen in a film of this style. The flying sequences are up there with How to Train your Dragon. The camera tracking on some of the others, especially Go Go really has an energy of all its own that gets your heart pumping.

Now, I’ve talked about the characters and brought up race a few times in that. There’s a reason for it and it’s the best one of all – representation. The movie has this in spades with young characters who are scientists from multiple races and genders. This is why I don’t mind the change to Honey Lemon as it only increases the representation within the film giving young girls who feel dorky or nerdy someone to look up to – someone who is consistently strong in the movie. The changes to Wasabi while reducing one aspect of representation create another where there was none, giving young black kids someone (aside from the epic NDGT) to look up to and want to be like. Hiro also marks the first time in my recollection we have a Asian male lead in an american made production  – that isn’t a martial artist. This is huge!

There is a huge problem with diversity in film in general, but superhero films specifically. Name the number of female superheroes we’ve had in film in the past decade? Black superheroes? While in this film we have two strong females and a strong black male character. What’s even better is that the movie doesn’t make a big deal out of it – though we need to. The movie SHOULDN’T make a big deal of it, because it should be a naturally accepted state. The characters are the characters defined by personality and skills – not their race or gender. They applied themselves, they weren’t born different, which allows people to identify themselves with these characters and lets them aspire to be these characters. The movie gives us an ideal world in this regard and it’s a world we should aspire to as well and if we can get Hollywood to keep making movies like this, the media can help bring us there.

TL;DR

Go. See. This.

Thats all. I don’t care who you are. What your age is (ok 6+ recommended).

Go. See. This.

Please.

 

 

 

Darke Reviews | Constantine (2005)

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So it is fortuitous that this review was requested. I had been wondering what I would review for todays post and this works out perfectly as the TV series just premiered friday as well. I am going on record saying when I first heard of this film – I refused to see it. Absolutely, Selene as my witness refused to even consider seeing this film due to the casting of Keanu Reeves as the titular character. I was a minor fan of the comic book character having enjoyed him in The Books of Magic and various other appearances with DC/Vertigo characters I knew and loved. I knew certain things of him were absolute.

  • Blonde.
  • Welsh/British
  • Chain Smoking
  • Bi Sexual
  • Witty

Of Keanu’s things he can do in a film to portray the character, chain smoke. He technically could be bisexual, but the film didn’t address it. We saw the british accent once…yeah and it was laughable. This was one of the worst possible castings I have ever come across. I was resolute in my not seeing of this film until I was one day – almost literally – tied down and forced to watch it on DVD.

So how does it do once I take off the glasses of raw seething hatred?

Let’s take a poke at the director a moment. This was his first feature film. He had just come from being a music video director and went right into this. Since then he has given us I Am Legend (I’ll review that some other time when I am feeling the need to cut myself and do that instead), Water for Elephants ( I have no comment on this, I haven’t seen it), and The Hunger Games Catching Fire. Ok, so its clear he has evolved, but did he do a bad job here? Honestly – no. He does a good job of getting performances out of his actors and controls the shot in rather inspiring ways at times. He lets angles distort our perceptions and appropriately uses colour and the visual effects to maximum effect.  There are a lot of good decisions here that show serious potential and I can see how he eventually directed Hunger Games. I can also sense a lot of studio interference.

When we talk about story we have characters created by Jamie Delano and Garth Ennis for the original comic and a story by Kevin Brodbin for this. Brodbin never got much work. He did the 1996 Seagal movie the Glimmer Man, this, and the woefully underrated Mindhunters in 2004. He took a stab at the screenplay and an additional writer was brought in to fix it up if I had to guess based on the second credit of Frank Cappello.  I can’t imagine why he was brought in having really only done Suburban Commando before. Yet by their writing powers combined they actually nailed the essence of Constantine and the hidden world within our own. The movie probably has one of the best representations of a world within a world that normal people don’t or can’t see. I could watch this, The Craft, and Mortal Instruments and they almost fit seamlessly.

Ok, now this is where we usually talk about cast. I will get to Keanu last. We have a young Shia LaBeouf, mostly being Shia, but not entirely terribad. Moving on. Djimon Hounsou plays Papa Midnite, a noted character in the Vertigo verse and he nails it with all of his usual charm and screen presence. He has weight and lets it go full throttle for this film. Rachel Weisz (The Mummy) is our catalyst as a LA Cop with a british accent, possibly adding to my fury at Keanu, since they were able to obviously get someone from the UK into the film. While some of these cast members are interesting and do their best, nothing really compares to these two: Tilda Swinton and Peter Stormare. Swinton (Narnia, Snowpiercer, Only Lovers Left Alive) is Gabriel, the archangel. She uses her vaguely androgynous looks to maximum effect and is both beautiful and offputting as an angel might be. She has some of the best dialogue in the film and devours scenery like someone coming off of a fasting. Peter Stormare as Lucifer? One of *the* best performances of this character I have ever seen. Talk about scenery chewing, nothing compares to this, nothing in this film anyway. Overall, he is up there against Viggo Mortensen in the Prophecy for raw creepy pasta levels.

The visual effects in the film are remarkable strong for 2005 as well. Only one real effect is an absolute fail with the bug guy on Figueroa, aside from that there is a definite elegance on how they choose to evoke effects. The fire looks good from the Dragons Breath. The wings of demons flying by windows look good. The make up effects are *really* good, but of course they came from Stan Winston Studios and had bloody Ve “Face Off” Neill as make up department head. Even their vision of hell and the demons is not something I’ve quite seen before. Even the flying tracking shots, while a mix of cg and real work fairly well.

Now on to Keanu. Whew. I didn’t hate it. There I said it. I Didn’t hate it. While he still lacks most of Constantines charm and wit I blame that on script as much as acting. He still isn’t John Constantine, but he is the american cousin if he had one. He gets the sarcasm, the nihilism, and the chain smoking down. He gets people around him, friends, dying as par for the course, but the reality is he isn’t a bad Constantine. He isn’t great, but I will admit he got as close as the script, the studio, and his talent could allow. That of course is the downside, he isn’t great and was limited by his talent. Keanu is not charming. He doesn’t really have much in the way of charisma, even in John Wick he isn’t charismatic or charming but fun. Here we are missing some of the fun, and all of the charm.

TL;DR time.

From a purely comic book loyalty standpoint, they got a good Constantine story here. It fits, but they fubar’d the casting so badly that it was nearly unwatchable by the fanbase that could have supported the movie. If you take off those fandom goggles and just watch the film as an adaptation of John Constantine Hellblazer, then …and only then you might enjoy the film.

It is a better film than most give it credit for and Keanu is its greatest strength and weakness. He does pretty damn well for the role, but misses it just enough that it doesnt work. I do think people should give it a shot, but for the love of all that is holy in your life do not compare it to the source material. Consider it instead a Supernatural Mystery with Religious overtones.

So do I regret not seeing it in theatres? No. I think I would have hated it out of hand and never given it a shot for a decent review, coming back later I think I can be honest in saying Constantine: Not too bad actually.

 

 

Darke Reviews | Sin City: A Dame to Kill For (2014)

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Does everyone remember 2005? We got a trailer with some amazing music by the group Cells. It had a beat we had not heard before. It came with visuals we had not seen before.  Sure it was in black and white, but there were splashes of bright colour that accentuated everything. Stark whites against blacks that were positively glowing. It got our attention. A comic book movie unlike other comic book movies. In 19 weeks it doubled its budget domestically. Anyone remember that?

It is worth remembering. The neo noir, pulp film was new fresh and interesting. Robert Rodriguez has left us waiting nearly 10 years for it. The script isn’t right. The cast isn’t ready or too busy. Any number of reasons kept this sequel in production hell.

So is this a Dame to Kill for?

Both the original material here and the film script was by Frank Miller; whom also has a directors credit. Miller, for those who don’t spend their time in comic shops, is one of the more famous comic book writers of this age. His deconstructed reinvention of the Batman in Dark Knight Returns in 1986 might be solely responsible for Batman as we know him today. Miller is also the mind behind 300. To his downside he also gave us Robocop 2 and 3. WARNING – This is not a good thing. Sadly his ability to do sequels seems to be in a word – lacking. This is a disjointed mess that seems to miss most of the charm and black humor of the first film.

Some of this falls on co-director Robert Rodriguez, best known for Desperado, Dusk till Dawn, and Spy Kids. He agreed this was a script to shoot. He agreed on how to stage things How to light the movie. How to do the camera angles. Even the music choices. Both men get the blame for every failure of this film.

There are many.

None of it falls on the cast thankfully. They were given a script and direction to chew scenery. This must be a new diet in California because they went at it with insane glee, mostly. Josh Brolin (Old Boy, Labor Day, Goonies) is probably the least interesting portrayal who mostly threatens to be awesome yet never quite is. Mickey Rourke reprises the role of Marv, a role I am sure he was born to play, and tries to have fun with it but isn’t given nearly as much as he was in the first film. The addition of Joseph Gordon-Levitt showed a lot of promise yet again never quite reached the mark. If you want JGL and noir, watch the movie Brick. Eva Green is clearly Jeremy Irons understudy. Scenery is chewed with nothing left behind. Every inch of her talent, and body, is used to full capacity. She works.

Thats the best I can say.

Visually, the movie kinda fails. It takes some of the worst elements of the visuals from the original and over uses them. Where Sin City uses colour sparingly and with only a few exceptions keeps some of the colours muted this one over uses them. While they are as important to the story as anything else, just don’t have the same punch. Not to say they aren’t vibrant because they are. They just don’t work well or are so used that it doesn’t mean as much. The action scenes when they happen are easy to follow but not nearly as interesting or engaging. Odd angles and unique palettes are missing here. It’s just dull.

TL;DR

The movie ultimately lacks charm. The first one was charming. It had its own charisma. The good guys, while paying a price, won. It ended on a note it began with. It was a whole entity. It was a solid piece.

This is a disjointed mess of stories that just don’t seem to matter. Even the first one which showed some of the female body and blood was sparring in it. Nothing is spared here. They seem to be trying to one up themselves and fail at every turn. I think Eva Green is beautiful, one of the most beautiful actresses around, but I find she’s better with her clothes on and teasing rather than what we get here.

Sorry folks, I cannot recommend this one. As I wrote the review it went from a solid meh to a blargh.

I can’t even recommend something else to spend your money on; just watch Sin City again. With nothing much coming out in the next few weeks reviews will likely be sparse unless I find new stuff in limited release or do some DVD reviews for flavor.

Darke Reviews | Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

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Wow was it hard to avoid reviews for this today! The skims that I saw as I scrolled through my news feed were not good. Even talk at work today indicated this wouldn’t be good. Now to preface this review there are some ground rules to understand where I come from on it.

1. I have not read the comic, but was aware of it when I watched the original cartoon.
2. I have watched the original cartoon, every episode. My favorite is the catwoman from channel 6.
3. I have watched a single video/AMV from *one* of the new reboots (2003 I think). It was epic. It was dark. It worked. Wish I could find it again.

So where does this movie fall in?

First thing is first. Remove the Nostalgia glasses. Acknowledge how bloody cheesy the original animated series was. If you think it was serious in any respect, I present you Hot Rodding Teenagers from Dimension X. A Giant Brain living inside the STOMACH of a robot. Beebop and Rocksteady. If you can now acknowledge how ridiculous some of this is, we can continue. That is to say nothing of the core concept. Teenage. Mutant. Ninja. Turtles. Trained. By. A Rat. If you can’t just skip the TL;DR right now.

If you have embraced the insanity of the concept and all that comes with it; I present to you TMNT. As I have said this is based on a comic originally written and drawn by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, who did the opening title sequence. If they didn’t do it – someone who imitates their style did. This movie does bear the dreaded triple writing credit beyond that. Josh Appelbaum (Mission Impossible 4 (the good one), Alias), Andre Nemec (who has all the same credits as Appelbaum), and Evan Daugherty (Snow White and the Huntsman, Divergent). They *did* embrace the insanity. Their sin? (ok one of them) Too much human. Too little Turtle power. Their homage? I can’t count the number of callbacks to the original run I picked up on and laughed at (mostly alone).

What about Michael Bay? Well…he is only a producer. The Director here is Jonathan Leibesman. The same man who gave us Wrath of the Titans, an unwanted and yet somehow better sequel to an unwanted remake of a classic film. He also gave us Texas Chainsaw Massacre 50. No that’s not it’s actual title. It might as well be. To his favor he gave us one of the better alien invasion sci fi epics with Battle Los Angeles. Yes, it had problems with the camera work but as a film it worked. He does much the same, good and bad here, with TMNT. His camera work makes much of the action hard to take in, but what you do see appears to be epic looking and kind of awesome. Decent tension and ok pacing.

Acting? Oof. well, it wasn’t too bad actually. Megan Fox (Transformers, Jennifers Body), Will Arnett (Arrested Development, Monsters vs Aliens) get far too much screen time and most of it’s groan worthy – but they make it work.  I don’t know if its the writing or acting or both. Whoopi Goldberg was here for a paycheck or perhaps some debt to satan for Sister Act 2? Tony Shalhoub as Splinter? A bit jarring yes, but because it is a man of his talents it works. The brothers are fine. The personalities mostly realized with the usual focus on Mikey and Raph. Their voice actors, including Johnny Knoxville do just fine. William Fitchner makes everything he does better (Drive Angry is a perfect example) and brings the ham and cheese with him as he chews scenery in a way that even Jeremy Irons can appreciate.

Effects. I have heard many comments about how creepy they are. “The noses are weird.” “The teeth and animations are just off putting.” Meh I say. They weren’t that bad. They’re strangely more appropriate than what we had before so I guess I don’t mind them. Not all of the effects are clean and the CGI over practical is evident but I got to ignore that to see the Ninja Turtles on screen for the first time in 20 years and they *do* look better than we got in the previous films. Period. Sorry my opinion on this one.

I want to give the Villain a bit of a special talk. I had a guy behind me dissing the look of the new Shredder. My only retort – you have to make a guy who is supposed to be a walking cuisinart look threatening. Sorry it needs to be armor. It needs to be samurai like. It needs a lot of blades. A LOT of blades. Did they go a bit overboard on it? Eh maybe, but so be it. This is a movie where a man in ridiculous bladed armor had to take on four six foot turtles wielding dual katana’s, nunchaku, sai, and metal collapsible bo staff. Check your suspension of disbelief at the door.

TL;DR

I had a group of people behind me who hated it. The guy next to me, whom I asked, and his  lady loved it. They felt it captured the feeling of the original run. The person I saw it with felt the same.

I happen to agree with them.

It really brought the heart of the original comics and animated to film. It is very superficial, but lets face it most kids movies are folks. This *is* a movie for kids. There’s enough here for adults, especially all of the aforementioned callbacks, but it is a childrens movie. That grants it a lot of forgiveness from me.

What also grants it forgiveness? It was a fun little romp through my own childhood. It just kinda works

Final recommendations:
TMNT is better than most reviewers are giving it credit for. It is not for everyone, but if you have kids – its an absolute this weekend. The kids I saw leaving the theatre in their masks were running and tumbling and just enjoying themselves. What else is it supposed to do?

If you are an adult who wants to see it – take off the nostalgia glasses, sit back, and just try to enjoy it. You just might.

If you weren’t interested – neither this review nor the movie will change your opinion.

At the end of the day TMNT is kinda fun.

Cowabunga!

Darke Reviews | Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

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Oh I had expectations going into this one. I put this pretty much at the bottom of the list of Marvel Cinematic Universe I would enjoy. Why you ask? Well to be honest I have no love for awkward, uncomfortable, or slapstick comedy. I also have no love for some of the songs on Star Lords awesome mix #1 (You can see the Nerdist for the full list www.nerdist.com/2014/07/james-…. Spirit in the Sky and Hooked on a Feeling may be two of my most hated songs ever. Never liked them, never will. No real rational reason, they just don’t appeal to me and tend to get overplayed to my perception. This is what the trailers sold me. This is what I was expecting. I was really really not looking forward to this movie.

Some of my coworkers derided me for going into a movie with expectations such as these. That I should go in with a clear mind and thought on what the movie could potentially be. This is nigh impossible. I have avoided behind the scenes sites as much as possible these days to avoid the spoilers that I can, but trailers have a job to sell a movie. What they show sets expectations. Some movies defy them – Hercules last week. Some movies lie to you with them – such as the remake of Clash of the Titans. Some movies are failed by them – Lord of War. So where did Guardians of the Galaxy fall, with a trailer that in my opinion failed it.

-please note, this review is as always spoiler free, and my opinion on the trailer seems largely unique-

Obviously this one is based on a comic, one of which I have only passing familiarity. That is to say I know it exists. Director James Gunn (Slither, Super) is also one of the ones responsible for the script. Nicole Perlman has no listed writing credits before this, but has an announced Black Widow treatment in the works? Interesting. Writer Director as I’ve said before can be very good or very bad. It is rarely in the middle. Until today. The story here is a mandated origin story. They didn’t get a choice. You need to introduce a three meter walking tree, a talking racoon, a green assassin, and a blue guy with red tattoos; oh and the human male lead. There’s also a plot to introduce, villains, worlds, a galaxy of races. Now – do it in 2 hours. Good luck.

So while the plot is a bit of a hot mess, I can look past it because they were asked the near impossible in the 21st century. Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate – all of these have built in fanbases and worlds we know that need little introduction for the average theatre goer. Even the newbie can be brought up to speed quickly with these franchises, this one is a tad more difficult. They do it as well as they possibly can and fairly well. Everyone gets a character moment on both sides of the coin. Just enough for you to get who they are and why they are. What their world view is. Some are treated better than others, and well quite honestly some aren’t treated as good as they should be or could be. I will get into that as I talk about the characters.

Chris Pratt (Parks and Recreation, Zero Dark Thirty) plays our noble space pirate. He’s Malcolm Reynolds but doesn’t quite have the easy going charm that Fillion does. This is probably intentional and if so it works, he is also the least interesting character in the movie. He is regularly upstaged by more colourful (literally) costars. The reigning champion of the film is Rocket. Yes. That’s right the Raccoon is the hands down winner of I want to watch him. Bradley Cooper (The Hangover, A-Team) voices the four legged menace to society and proves he has that kind of natural charisma that works if you see him on camera or not. Vin Diesel voices Groot, the aforementioned tree who is always fun to watch when he emotes or gives you an “I am Groot”. Dave Bautista of WWE fame, plays Drax the Destroyer. He doesn’t act a lot, but with the character he has thats a good thing. What he does is kick butt and be large and in charge. He is also one of the more humorous characters and as enjoyable in his dryness as Diesel is in his …quirkiness?

Sadly, Zoe Saldana does nothing particularly new here. Her Gamora is nearly the same character as Columbiana and Aisha (The Losers). Tough, beautiful, action girl. This isn’t horrific by any means. We need more like her. I just wish they had done more to break her from a stereotype. Script problems – not actress here. Additional script problems come in the form of the nemesis Nebula. Karen Gillan (Dr. Who and Occulus) gets our lovely blue alien. The entirety of act 1 – she is menacing and you believe her deadly. Something happens half way through act two where she loses this and seems to be a shadow of her former threat. This is compounded in what should be an epic fight between her and Gamora that just is…weaker than it should be. Script problems I cannot forgive there. Gillan, however, proved we need to see more of her in the cinema in the action, horror, and sci fi genre’s. She pulled off what could have been a difficult role and did it well. The story and script failed her. The director failed her. Lee Pace (Lord of the Rings/Hobbit, Halt and Catch Fire) is just never quite the threat he needs to be. I don’t know who to blame there, but it is. He exists. the threat exists, I just don’t get his menace if it is supposed to exist.

Visually, the movie is beautiful. The darkening of 3D hurts the film as it seems to have a focus on bright vibrant colours. They just get lost in the 3D. Everything else looks very clean and easy to watch. Rocket, Groot, the ships, the space stations, etc look great. Rocket especially. We aren’t quite talking Uncanny Valley here, but it’s superb.

Music. *sigh*. Yep still hate most of it, but it was no where near as prominent as I feared. They even used a song I like with the Runaways “Cherry Bomb”. A few times it works. Other times its backdrop. The Star Lord introduction works well enough to let you know who and what you are dealing with. This one falls to different strokes for different folks. I will never like the soundtrack, but if you do – enjoy! The score left a bit to be desired as it reminded me too much of Avengers.

TL;DR?

Alright here we go. Yep, the trailers failed this one for me.

It’s good. The movie is solid. It feels a bit pacing hurt at times, but its more entertaining than I thought it would be. It made me laugh at times. I enjoyed the action. I enjoyed the finale. The humor wasn’t AS bad as I thought it would be.

That said, there’s some language in this one. If you want to keep your kids from male anatomy or fecal matter (see I keep my reviews clean), then I wouldn’t take them to see it. If it doesn’t matter – then cool. Enjoy.

So there you go. Guardians of the Galaxy is a good, entertaining movie. Not the strongest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but most definitely not the weakest.

Next week may be a double review with TMNT and Into the Storm. TMNT is absolute…the other. Eh see a post tomorrow on that

Darke Reviews | Snowpiercer (2014)

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What you haven’t heard of this one? S’okay most folks haven’t. It has been travelling the indie circuit for awhile without a true mainstream release. This is due, in large part to the conflict between the writer director and one of the production companies. When I start going through the cast though, you will probably be scratching your head wondering why this didn’t get a main release. Part of the argument was that the director did not want to shave time from the movie.

Was he right?

Let’s talk about him. South Korean director Joon-ho Bong is the man behind the camera. He has done nothing that most folks stateside have seen, with the exception of The Host (no not that one, the other one). You’ve probably seen it on Netflix if your queue looks like mine. I cannot talk about his body of work or influences as regrettably I haven’t explored south korean cinema as much as I perhaps should. What I do have to say is that he was a brave man to go toe to toe with  low budget schlock powerhouses The Weinstein’s at what was once Miramax. He would not compromise and for that alone he deserves praise. His direction as well in the film were above par.

Did the script support him?

I certainly hope so as he is one of the writers. This is one of those films that breaks the normal rules of writers. You have three writing credits for source material, one for screen story and two for screen play. That’s right, this one is based on a French graphic novel Le Transperceneige first published back in 1982. so fair credit to Jacques Lob,  Benjamin Legrand, and Jean-Marc Rochette for providing inspiration. Joon-ho Bong gets both the screen story credit and a screenplay credit. The screen play is shared with Kelly Masterson, a playwright who apparently (per IMDB) was in seminary before going into theatre. In short no one in the writing is someone you’ve heard of.

In long (er); I hope we do hear more. The plot revolves around a classist society living on a train after the end of life as we know it. In a, not so subtle, jab at global warming our solution was “Ice-9” more or less. The world froze. People hid on this miracle train and the entirety of humanity is stuck on this mobile platform. Some folks just aren’t happy with their lot in life and want more than they have. He who controls the spice…er engine controls the world.

The cast is what pulls this together though. Chris (Captain America) Evans plays Curtis, our charismatic leader and main character. Much of the film, rightly, is focused on him with appearances by Tilda (Only Lovers Left Alive, Narnia) Swinton, John (188 acting credits) Hurt, Jamie (Turn, Jumper) Bell, Octavia (The Help) Spencer, and others. Evans, to be blunt, is incredible. There’s no Captain America here. There’s no Johnny Storm. There is a very troubled man who has a drive that only gets stronger the longer the movie goes on. Every expression, decision, and action he takes is made compelling by his performance. Everyone else is good, but he is incredible.

Two additional actors, Kang-ho Song and Ah-sung Ko, both formerly of The Host (2006 version) also should be mentioned. Neither are known state side except by a certain group of cinephiles. I’ve actually seen Kang-Ho Song in a vampire movie called Thirst. He’s good and I want to see more of him.

From a technical standpoint the movie doesn’t have to do too much heavy lifting. A few model shots of the train enhanced by CGI cover the bulk of the digital work. Make up and costuming are solid as well.

There will be those that compare this to other films in the dystopian future genre. That is inescapable. What this has different than them? Balls. Pure Balls. It is a brave film that had it truly been made stateside would not have gone in directions this went. So, back to the original question, was he right?

TL;DR

Yes, yes he was. The movie has very little fat on it and there is not much of its two hour running time that could be sacrificed. It would have lessened the film to do so.

Should you rush out to see this one? well…yes and no.

Someone I hope to call a  friend one day, Doug Walker, recently gave his own video review of the movie from last week that should not be named. He talks about how safe it is. How  gullible we are for giving it $100m. ( NSFW – thatguywiththeglasses.com/vide… ). He’s right. Movies like that get attention, ticket sales, and hollywood attention.

Movies like Snowpiercer? They deserve it. They take risks. They give us something we haven’t quite seen before. We need more of this and less of that.

So should you go see it? Yes, yes if you want to support films that deserve your money and deserve recognition.

Should you see it? No. The film is technically an action film and a violent one at that; but it has enough of a cerebral element and tonal quality to it that it is not right for all audiences.

I do recommend this movie. I liked it, but it’s not for everyone.

Darke Reviews | Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

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Sorry folks, this one was late. I was a lil busy at Phoenix Comic Con and didn’t get a chance to see this until tonight. In my usual fashion I am forgoing sleep to get a review out. I am pretty sure this is a form of mild insanity. Ok, so as usual spoiler free, but if you have seen a single trailer for it you know it involves time travel. Ugh that makes it a challenge to write a review without spoilers on a movie that has such a wibbly wobbly timey-wimey narrative.

This isn’t to say the narrative is bad or confusing. Is it a hodge podge of other plots you’ve seen before? Yep. This is Groundhogs Day + Starship Troopers + Mass Effect + probably a few others I could name but won’t. The last Tom Cruise movie I saw, Oblivion (I really need a page so I can link to these), did this too. An amalgam of plots we’ve seen blended with some care and only a little grace to create a final product. Does it do it well?

For starters, this one is based off of a story by Japanese author Hiroshi Sakurazaka published in 2004. I cannot speak to the original source material beyond I can see the clear influence of it through the narrative and the places the movie went that we would not innately go in the US. The screenplay then has the dreaded 3+ Rule applied with multiple individuals adapting this. Christopher McQuarrie best known for Jack Reacher, The Tourist, and the Usual Suspects. In other words he likes using characters to drive the story forward. Good. There’s Jez Butterworth, who has the 2007 bomb the Last Legion and 2010 politico thriller Fair Game. No idea what he added or how he got the work based on history here. There is also his younger brother John-Henry Butterworth, who also worked on Fair Game. My feeling here is that the brothers wrote the original screenplay and McQuarrie was brought in for rewrites and polish. This is a fairly common thing in Hollywood and leads to the problems we often find in the plot.

What is the plot? Major Cage (Tom Cruise) is being sent into a D-Day style final battle against an alien threat called Mimics. During the battle he dies (this is not a spoiler) then wakes up (still no spoiler). During the course of understanding this he encounters Sgt Vanke (Emily Blunt) who has answers. Together they will try to stop the failure that is the D-Day invasion and hopefully stop the alien menace.

You have no idea how hard it is to avoid spoilers here. Director Doug Linman (Jumper, Mr. & Mrs Smith, Bourne Identity) brings an A Game we have not seen to date outside of Bourne to this. With the exception of ONE decision the entire film I think he did it all right. He deals with the time travel in a fairly inventive way and is smart enough to not let the plot over explain it. He sets ground rules and expects you to follow along or get left behind. No real time or effort is wasted in exploring  the why’s just the whats. This is brilliant. When watching a movie, I expect it to meet it’s own rules, by not firmly setting all the rules he gives himself some freedom and avoids traps and paradoxes other stories hit head on (Looper).

I *LIKE* movies that do this. Give me a world. Go over the basics. I will either accept this or reject it. Too much detail creates traps that sharp minds will spring on the writers, directors, and their work. He does this fairly well and again with one exception doesn’t leave me angry at his choices; including the cast.

Tom Cruise is picking interesting films of late with two of his last three being firmly entrenched in sci fi. Both of which are doing their best to give us something new from the ashes of the sci fi we have had before. I know some people have issues with him on a personal level. I don’t care. I really don’t. Does he act well? I think so. Does he entertain me? With few exceptions, yes he does. He delves into relatively new territory here and I enjoy the exploration of his character as he lives, dies, and resets. He really pulls off the damage this can do to your psyche. You don’t get a firm count on how often it has happened, and you know it has happened  more times than they show, but you know it is A LOT of pain and death.

Supporting him fully here is Emily Blunt. You ask yourselves, the Love interest from Looper? The love interest in The Adjustment Bureau. The love interest in The Wolfman and the dramatic female actress from so many romantic dramas I can’t count them all. How does this person support Tom Cruise in a war movie? By being the biggest and baddest person on screen. She is fit, she is commanding, she is powerful. She is the force of nature that earns the nickname her character has in the story. Her power is what drives him and what drives the story forward.  Both characters develop as the story goes on  and sadly hers to a lesser extent than his. She however makes the action look effortless. She has a natural chemistry with Cruise that makes their battlefield camaraderie work.

The supporting cast really isn’t worth mentioning. They were cast for who they are and what they bring and are nothing but backdrop charactertures. Bill Paxton and Brendan Gleeson as entertaining as they are could have their parts filled by others with the near the same result. Sad that. The others bear next to no mention. They get little screen time and little impact. Both good and bad there.

Technically? Well here’s where I can get a little ..bothered. The creature design is clearly inspired by the biomechanical squiddies from Matrix. Down vote. They move like some of the things from Battleship. Downvote. In combination and with their additional details they do create a new creature in our sci fi consciousness which is still oddly interesting. Upvote. Too bad you don’t get to see a lot of them. I get that in film  with heavy CG you have to find new ways to hide things and blurry quick motions are an easy way to do it. This bordered on abusive and may have crossed the line. The power armor itself was awesome and even if it was inspired from non canonical sources in its design I have not quite seen THIS design before. I like what I saw and I like how they used it. The biggest problem of the movie is the camera work on the action. I do like to see it. They do great work on the slow beats in the battles but when the pulse is to be pounding, the eyes are too busy to make sense of it all. When you do see things I admit it looks cool as hell.

The only other technical flaw is the final credits. I am tired of blue print sequences ala Iron Man. I am tired of pop music that is vaguely ironic or tied to the film by the most tenuous thread. John Newman’s light poppy beat Love me Again is a mangled mess of a song to have attached to this movie. It took me so out of the film it was painful and jarring. It did NOT belong in the credits at all. This isn’t saying it’s a bad song. It isn’t. Its just a poor choice and was used simply because it has a “again”/time element to it. Even if it is slightly overused Imagine Dragons Radioactive would have been better. Linkin Park’s What I’ve done or Bleed it Out, while ‘older’ would have felt more natural to how the film ended from a musical queue. 30 Seconds to Mars – This is War or Kings and Queens, if you need something softer would work. Love Me Again – definitely not.

TL;DR? Thought so.

Yes this movie borrows heavily from many concepts done before, but it does it well. This is an important movie to sci fi and if the genre is something you enjoy – You must see this film.

If Sci fi and War movies are not your thing you either didn’t read this review or did and now know you shouldn’t see this. That opinion stands.

This is a REALLY good sci fi film. It doesn’t necessarily make you ask questions, which keeps it from being great, but weaves a solid narrative and interesting action with that science fiction bent. It does a lot really well and only fails in a few places I couldn’t talk about here. If this is your genre – this is your movie.

Please go see Edge of Tomorrow. We need more good sci fi and movies like this need our support. It wont change the world on its own but given time and a little patience it can help bring us to a brighter future of Sci Fi.

This weeks review – Dragons…..

Darke Reviews | X-Men Days of Future Past (2014)

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I have to admit writing this I am a bit conflicted. I have not settled on an emotion right now as I start. I made it known at work today I was going in with fairly low expectations. I had a gut feeling from the way the marketing went. Too much product placement ads set my nerves on edge. It feels like the producers are trying too hard, especially when it’s something like Carls Jr. It creates a disconnect with me that I find unnerving and makes me doubt their faith in the movie on its own merits.

I think the other reason I am conflicted now is that I didn’t get the movie I thought I would. This is *not* a bad thing. It means I underestimated the film.

The movie returns original X-men and X-2 director Bryan Singer to the franchise. If you are not familiar with his best bodies of work, please look to the magnificent Usual Suspects and Apt Pupil. Despite it’s many sins he also gave us Superman Returns. What do all of these films have in common, along with the first two X movies? Characters. They focus on the characters, sometimes at the sacrifice of a logical story. He brings you into the characters and really makes you get people you shouldn’t and helps bring perspective to everyones world.

The story this time has a three writer issue and the rule applies. It shows. Jane Goldman (Stardust, First Glass, Kick-Ass) has her sensibilities in film clearly shown. Simon Kingberg (X3, Jumper, XXX State of the Union) shows his as well – which may explain the weakest aspects of the movie. Matthew Vaughn, director of First Class, also has a writing credit who also has credits on Stardust and Kick Ass. His appreciation for the characters and the ‘verse that he created. Respect is given to history and with a lot of little nods to both comic and animated history through out.

The story has issues though. It’s pacing is off as hell. It runs over two hours and sometimes feels it. It falls prey to too many locations and too many events it wants to include. It was a fear I had from seeing the trailers, so I will admit I may be judging harshly here. It tries to do too much and doesn’t quite nail it. It tries to tie up too many loose ends from *all* the other films and only gets half way to the finish line. It does a fantastic job where it can, but the places where story fails – wow. I give you this warning, it will also be in the bottom – DO NOT THINK TOO HARD! By all the powers that be do not think too hard on any aspect of the movie. It falls apart. I think I will lay that on Kinsberg as the weakest writer in the bunch and well if you think about the McGuffin at all or can do basic math..yeah. Ugh

So what does work? The actors. They own. They sell it with all they have and aren’t phoning it in at all. McAvoy and Stewart play Xavier at different stages of life and both sell the life they’ve lived. I thought I would be more annoyed with McAvoy’s Xavier, but I understood. I appreciated it and it helped. Fassbender and McKellen also play young and old fantastically well. You can see the man that was and the man that is. You can see the man that we saw in the other films and where he’d come from. Fassbender has more charisma than should be legal in a man when he’s on screen and we thank him for it.

Jackman returns to the role he was apparently born to play. I do hope this will be one of his last outings and let someone else take up screen time. I can’t say he does bad here, but its too easy for him and while he plays all he needs to and it works, its just there. Apparently for Jennifer Lawrence, two oscar nominations and one Oscar win get you more screen time and development. I see a transition from focus on Wolverine to Mystique and I have to admit it pleases me. She, of course is fantastic. While not someone I’d want my daughter looking up to, if I could ever have one, she’s got aspects worth looking up to. She’s a good actress with a good and complex character.

Peter Dinklage dominates every scene in which he has a speaking line. This is no surprise to Game of Thrones fans. Just like the other characters, while all of them are somewhat thin, the development they do get is enough to make him decently complex and relatable. He works and I believe it’s Dinklage as to why.

The future sequences give us a handful of our favourite mutants doing what they do and as per my rules no spoilers. I was stupidly ecstatic to see Blink though. Just a geek girl thing.

From a technical aspect, wow. Overall nice work. Some effects are rough. Rougher than they should be, but when they do work, WOW. I would point to raw entertainment whenever a speedster I didn’t expect to like was on screen. Also, they BUILT A SENTINEL. There was a real, physical sentinel that was built. Brilliant choice. Editing, well, again it runs longer than it shoud. I do not think 3D will add anything so no need for the extra ticket price.

Alright, TL;DR?

The movie still leaves me conflicted. I think its ok, a good character study. If I think too hard most of it falls apart. It had moments of entertainment, but not enough. The entire movie is heavy. Not dark, just heavy. There is no where near the fun or levity of some previous installments in the franchise. It does one thing I can’t say without spoilers, but it made me happy beyond words.

Overall, if you were going to see it nothing I say will stop you. Enjoy.

If you weren’t planning on it, you don’t need your mind changed. This certainly will only reinforce your decisions.

If you were on the fence, see it, but its absolute matinee.

I am seeing it tomorrow with another friend, hopefully I can have ANY emotion on this one after I am done, but I don’t think so. Stay for the end of the credits for your tease to the next movie.

Next week, I am watching the Mistress of all Evil. Maleficent.

Darke Reviews | The Amazing Spiderman 2

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Alright folks, so the summer blockbuster season has officially begun. It is May. For the next 4 weeks we will be inundated with some of the strongest contenders for box office gold. With June having a semi weak following in comparison just to gear up for the 4th of July and mid july stakes. August is the dump slot where all films studios aren’t sure about go to die or surprise people. Yes, that means even Guardians of the Galaxy, despite it’s budget is in that space. As we’ve discussed before this year has pretty much sucked overall. It’s had highlights (thank you Cap) but mostly been a bloody mess.

Now, I made no bones about it with the review of the first Amazing Spiderman (I really need a way to link to prior reviews…hmm) – I didn’t like it. There’s too much there that rubbed me wrong and took away from the film for me to really embrace it. It wasn’t even the too soon factor. Now, we have Amazing Spiderman 2; which from the trailers made it appear to fall prey to sequel syndrome with three apparent villains. Did it work? Keep reading. Were they too ambitious? Keep reading. Did I go in with low expectations? Not so much, they were low, but other things this year have been so much lower. Where did it finally land?

Well for one Mark Webb, the director who has music videos to his credit prior and (500) Days of Summer returns for this one. Consistency helps, but a lot of my complaints with the last movie came down to directorial decisions that were pretty bad. I think he learned. There are still some really bad decisions here. The pacing of the movie, which runs a full two and a half hours, is terrible. I was able to get up for a bio break during the midway part and feel confident I missed nothing important. I was right. He understands highs and lows in the plot and how to utilize them well enough, but there are just too many and the director should be able to have some control there and Webb did not. I am beating up here, but he does redeem himself. some of the blame in this area of pacing and storytelling comes down to the writers.

If I wasn’t counting repeats, the total count is seven. You may commence worrying now. When you do account for repeats, it still only drops it for four. Two of which I will blame nearly entirely for any flaws in execution of the story and those are Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. These two until recently are inseparable. They are the ones who gave us Transformers 2, Star Trek into Star Wars..er Darkness, Cowboys and Aliens, and so many other disasters of storytelling. They make GREAT producers, but as writers they leave a little to be desired. The movie also has Jeff Pinkner who worked with K/O on Fringe, Lost and Alias; and finally James Vanderbilt, who gave us the underrated Basic and Losers movies.

With this many writers, its no wonder the overall plot is a hot mess of trying too much and being too ambitious. Granted, it succeeds at a good portion of it, but not in every area. It does try to stuff three classic spiderman bad guys, their origins, their character development into a single film. While doing that it also tries to give a bit of the heroes journey narrative for your friendly neighborhood web head both in and out of costume. God, I want to get into spoilers here, but my promise is none. There is also a plot involving Peter’s parents again which I suppose if I followed the comics would make more sense, so Ill leave it as is. There really is a lot going on here, and it falls to the actors and director to try to make you care.

They succeed. This is where Webb shines. He has built a fantastic cast to work with and each of them really get a moment in the sun. Enough so that I was really able to see the world from their point of view. Jamie Foxx as Electro does a good job on what would otherwise be a fairly stereotypical caricature. Dane DeHaan (Chronicle) channels mid 90’s Leonardo diCaprio and Cillian Murphy here to give his performance. He does make you feel for him and are able to follow his arc as Harry Osborn. Paul Giamatti is not used nearly enough in his role, but there are of course movies to come. Emma stone (zombieland) is an amazing woman who gives you a modern day Gwen Stacy. She is strong, she is independent, and she will not let someone else make decisions for her. I admire her, she’s someone people could look up to. We need her in more roles, more comic book and sci fi roles if possible. Actioners too. She is a really talented actress who brings a lot of fire into the role of a character who in the original run of the comics was little more than fridge bait and a victim. FOr this, I say thank you Ms. Stone. You were needed and you did a great job of being more than what she was drawn as.

The brunt of the praise, that Webb earned as well, comes down to Andrew Garfield. Our Peter Parker. Our Spiderman. He is everything that he needs to be and covers the range of emotions that he needs to. You can feel his despair, his confusion, his fear, his pain, and even his joy. He runs the gambit of the emotional rollercoaster through the film and you are with him the entire time. You really don’t question him (much) as he hits each beat. what he also delivers and delivers well is something we’ve been lacking in our superheroes of late. We have been in a rut of post modernism  in our heroes. This one wants to bring us hope, to bring smiles and that my friends is a nice change of pace and breath of fresh air. Is he moody? sure. Emo at times, yes, but with reason. Ultimately though he’s a comic book hero without too much deconstruction and we needed it. You may not know you needed it, but you did. Hope, light, and goodness are what we need more of in our heroes. So thank you. Thank you for doing it right here. Now do it again until people get off the dark and brooding kick.

The movie also boasts a fantastically executed soundtrack by Hans Zimmer and Pharrel. I know right? It works. It isn’t memorable in the way that Star Wars or Superman is, but it is a strong soundtrack that elevates the film. You have moments of not being able to tell if you are dealing with effects or soundtrack at time and I consider this a good thing. Other musical choices in the film are just as relevant and just as well done.

It isn’t perfect though. Not by a long shot. As I said before the pacing is pretty bad. It runs about 30 minutes too long. Some of the visual effects are clearly animated and not blended well. Plot points are eye rollingly contrived at times with unnecessary threats and tension that only serves to distract. Editing errors are rampant; with confusing cuts and unusual beats with no explanation. Those moments serve to confuse rather than add. The visuals are a bit intense at times with motion and enough to be noticed, but not as bad as some have indicated.

TL;DR?

I feel good in recommending this one.

It’s a landmark improvement over the previous entries into the Spiderman franchises. There’s room for improvement in the next. It was solid, it was entertaining and just a good movie. I didn’t come out of it as excited as I did in Cap, but I won’t hold it against the movie as it does deliver all it tries to. Some parts better than others.

Spiderman is certainly an all ages film. I don’t think any beats get too dark for younger audiences, but I do think the story when it begins to drag will leave some kids *really* antsy.

3D? Isn’t necessary to enjoy it, but if you can afford the extra and don’t have anything that makes 3D bad on you. Try it. It does add to the film, which is the first time I’ve said that this year. Yay.

Final note: This movie is bright in the story sense, the character sense. Please Hollywood, when this one wins the box office this weekend pay attention. This is what we need in our heroes and for the love of the art form get back to this!!