Movie Review: X-Men: Days of Future Past (PG13 – 131 minutes)

Bryan Singer returns to the franchise he started to give us a new movie combining the slightly future cast and past cast of the X-Men movies to blow us away with the sheer amount of people in this movie.  (Usual Suspects, Apt Pupil, X-Men, X-Men 2, House, Superman Returns, Valkyrie, Jack the Giant Slayer, X-Men DOFP, X-Men: Apocalypse).

The X-Men were created in 1963 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for Marvel Comics.  The comic introduces the idea of ‘Mutants’, and that those who have mutations are subject to anti-mutant feelings and actions by society.  Professor Charles Xavier creates a school at his Westchester mansion to train young mutants how to control powers, and how to help mankind.  His first group of students become the X-men, a group of heroes dedicated to saving people and proving that humans and mutants could peacefully coexist.  The first group of X-men included Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Beast, and Marvel Girl (Jean Grey).    This first round also included the team’s enemy, Magneto both on his own and with his Brotherhood of Mutants, who believed that mutants were superior to humans, and peaceful coexistence was impossible.  Because the ‘mutation’ angle could include almost anything as a power, the X-Men comics could go on and on with a unique universe filled with hundreds of interesting characters. 

Perhaps the best translation of the comic was the 90s animated series.  It started in 1992 and ran through 1997, and brought many of the most popular storylines from the comics to TV, and also introduced some of the most popular characters.

It was inevitable that the X-Men would eventually have their own movie, and in 2000 (after New Line found success with the first Marvel superhero movie, Blade, in 1998), released X-Men, and introduced the world to Australian actor Hugh Jackman.  The world would never completely recover – in a good way.

X2, which is widely regarded not just as one of the best sequels of all time, but as one of the best superhero movies of all time, followed in 2003 - the first scene, where Nighcrawler infiltrates the White house, is absolutely incredible.

Both those were directed by fanboy Bryan Singer who is well known for the Usual Suspects (a fantastic movie), Apt Pupil, the House TV show, Valkyrie, Jack the Giant Slayer, and Superman Returns (a terrible movie).  In 2006, Brett Ratner stepped in to direct X-Men: The Last Stand, (because Singer was busy with Superman Returns) which had some cool moments, but killed way too many key characters and butchered the beloved Phoenix Saga from the comics. 

Jackman was the star of the first three X-Men movies – which is tough to do in a movie so filled with characters, but his charisma was undeniable.  Since Wolverine has such a rich comic history, it made sense that he would be the first X-Man to get his own movies.   X-Men Origins: Wolverine came out in 2009, and was followed by last year’s better The Wolverine.  In between those two, Matthew Vaughn gave us X-Men: First Class, which rebooted the series in the swinging sixties (and didn't really use the 'first class' from the comics) as Professor X and Magneto started Xavier's School for the Gifted and got involved in the Cuban Missile Crisis. 

That brings us up to date, and to X-Men: Days of Future Past.  The DOFP storyline first was published in the comics in 1981.  In the distant future of 2013, the Sentinels created by Bolivar Trask are terrorizing mutants, capturing and killing them.  Fearing an upcoming nuclear holocaust, the few remaining X-Men send Kitty Pryde’s mind back in time to her younger self in 1981 to prevent a pivotal event in history:  the assassination of Senator Robert Kelly by Mystique and her Brotherhood.  Working with the present-day X-Men, Kitty succeeds in her mission, and is pulled back to her own time.   

That’s a great storyline, but the First Class movie cast is set in the 70s, and Ellen Page plays Kitty Pryde, and she hadn’t been born yet.  So, according to the execs, they had to use Wolverine – the reality is that Jackman is the star, so yes, let’s use Wolverine.  Also his powers allow him to survive the trauma of the blah, blah, blah.  You get the idea.  Also – Senator Kelly was killed in the first X-Men movie (he sort of turned into an exploding jelly creature thing), so we need a new target.  Since Bolivar Trask created the Sentinels, we can use him.    So – In this movie, future X-Men, in about 2023, are being hunted and wiped out by Sentinels that are advanced enough to have the power to adapt to whatever mutant they are fighting against.  The X-Men are losing this fight over and over again.  Essentially, Warpath sees the Sentinels coming.  He, Sunspot, Iceman, and Blink fight them off while Kitty sends Bishop back to his past self (about a day ago) to warn the X-Men that the Sentinels are coming, so that they can vacate the area, and never have been there - complicated, but effective.  

Professor X and Magneto have teamed up to get Wolverine, he volunteers to go back to his younger self to stop the assassination of Trask by Mystique.  He ends up in 1973, finds Charles, who (taking a note from Bale Batman) has been moping around his house, after losing Mystique’s friendship, Erik’s friendship, his legs, and the majority of the students to the Vietnam War draft.  He’s been taking a serum that dulls his powers, but allows him to use his legs, and Hank McCoy (Beast) is keeping an eye on him, but also fretting about his sanity.  Wolverine doesn’t really stand for all this nonsense, and fairly quickly talks Charles and Hank into helping him with his mission.  They set out to get Magneto, who is being kept in a prison under the Pentagon - for a very interesting reason.  They get Quicksilver  (this just brings up more questions, we can deal with that later), who helps them break Magneto out in one of the coolest sequences in the movie.  

Together they go after Mystique, who is pretty determined to kill Trask.  Trask meanwhile has just convinced Nixon (yes, Nixon) to put the Sentinel program into place.  There’s a bunch more action that cuts back and forth to the future as the Sentinels close in and they try to reason with Mystique.  Magneto betrays Wolverine and Charles (spoiler! No – wait, not really a spoiler, he’s a bad guy, why do they continue to trust him?), drops a baseball stadium around the White House and attempts to kill Nixon and Trask when Mystique stops him, demonstrating to everyone that there are good mutants out there, which causes Nixon to stop the Sentinel program, and arrest Trask.  Success!  Wolverine gets popped back to his future body, which wakes up in the school, which is filled with students on a bright sunny day.  He has no memory of the last 50 years, but Charles is ready to fill him in. 

It’s slightly confusing, and a bit mixed up, but it makes sense, and it has some great sequences, pulled off by the stellar cast:

• Hugh Jackman is the star of this movie, and he has earned that.  Wolverine is a great character that is loved by the audience.  He does a great job in this of being alternately confused and angry (really the only two levels Wolverine has – and maybe pining for Jean).   Also – he’s naked – hooray for Wolverine butt!

• James McAvoy plays young Charles, and he gets really annoying while he’s moping around his house.  He’s basically given up on everything, and while that makes sense in this movie – it’s really frustrating.  Suck it up Charles!  The world needs you!  Stop whining!  And get a haircut! 

• Michael Fassbender plays young Erik, and a really badass Magneto.  He is villainous and perfect, and really pulls off that crazy outfit and helmet. 

• As a result of her continued success, and the storyline, a lot of this movie centers around Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique.  I really enjoyed her, she’s way more action-packed in this one than the previous First Class.  Her anger at the injustice combined with the vengeance she’s sworn make her really interesting, and Lawrence does a great job at making her a sympathetic villain.  Also – the blue is a suit this time around, cutting the time in the makeup chair way down, and it looks pretty good. Personally, I still want to see the white dress - but that's because Mystique was one of my favorites on the cartoon.

• Nicholas Hoult (yes, he and Lawrence are still dating in real life), plays young Beast, and doesn’t have a whole lot to do in this movie but look at Charles with concern.  He is taking a serum that allows him to go back and forth to his blue form.  Also – there’s an awesome cameo from Kelsey Grammer as older Beast (X3 got a lot wrong, but Grammer as Beast was one thing it got right).

• Evan Peters plays Quicksilver.  In the comics, he and his twin sister Wanda (Scarlet Witch) are Magneto’s children.  In this movie, he is just some random fast guy who points out to Magneto that his mother once knew a guy who could control metal.  The two scenes he has are fantastic.  He’s great, and those two scenes felt like scenes from a Marvel movie with a great sense of fun while still moving the story forward.  It just doesn’t make sense to use that character.  You have hundreds of mutants with super-speed as their power, use one of them.

• Peter Dinklage plays Dr. Bolivar Trask.  He is singularly focused in getting the Sentinel plan passed, and also very evil in wanting to capture Mystique so that he can examine and experiment on her.  Creepy.  The Sentinels he introduces in the 70s sequences are cool and look like the ones from the cartoon; the ones in the future look a little more like a T-1000, and are practically unbeatable. Also - I couldn't help but think he might demand a trial by combat at the end.

• Josh Helman plays Major Bill Styker, the man who would eventually be Brian Cox and put the adamantium on Wolverine’s skeleton.  In this version, he’s basically Trask’s number one man, and his son is mentioned offhandedly.

• In the future sequences, Patrick Stewart and Ian Mckellan continue their legendary bromance as Professor X and Magneto.  They basically spend their limited time regretting the hotheads they were in the past. According to Jackman, they rehearsed for Waiting for Godot on set, and the other actors would just watch them.

• Halle Berry plays Storm again – with the best hair she’s had yet in the series.  She’s barely in this, but I was happy to see her for the short time she was around.  I wouldn’t mind an entire Storm movie.

• Ellen Page returns as Kitty Pryde.  I have no idea how Kitty got the time travel power, as traditionally, she is able to phase through solid objects, and not send other people’s consciousness through time, but – hey, whatever.  In the comics it was Rachel Summers, and due to X3, Rachel doesn’t exist in the movies (yet?).  She has a lot of exposition to do, then spends the rest of the movie holding on to Hugh Jackman’s head.

• Shawn Ashmore is back as Iceman, and we finally get to see him riding ice – which is his traditional method of locomotion.  He’s pretty fantastic, and again, not much time onscreen.  He seems to be ‘with’ Kitty, until Wolverine sets things right and wakes up at the school, when he appears to be ‘with’ Rogue again, as Anna Paquin gets a cameo.  We’ll see how that goes once Channing Tatum shows up as Gambit in the next one.  Good Luck, Bobby!

• Daniel Cudmore plays Colossus again, and he’s still really big and silver.  In one of the sequences where the X-Men are losing, he gets torn in half – literally.  Yikes.  Also – in the happy ending at the school he finally seems to be ‘with’ Kitty.

• The rest of the new mutants get very little screen time, but they are all pretty nifty.  Omar Sy plays Bishop, Fan Bingbing plays Blink, Adan Canto plays Sunspot, and Booboo Stewart plays Warpath.  They get some great action sequences, and I loved Blink’s powers.

Overall, the movie was pretty fun, had a lot going on, and if you weren’t paying attention – it could get confusing.  However, if you are paying too much attention, you’ll start questioning some of the holes and continuity errors.  When did Wolverine lose his memories and get the adamantium?  When did Magneto and Professor officially become friends again?  Wasn’t Bill Duke playing Bolivar Trask in X3?   How did Professor X get killed and jump bodies to the exact same body?  If the Silver Samurai cut off Wolverine’s claws – why aren’t they bone in the beginning of this movie?  How will Avengers 2 explain the twins without being able to use the word "Mutant" or "Magneto" because Fox owns those?  Just let all that go, and enjoy the ride.

8 out of 10 – I liked it, I didn’t love it.  It had some moments I loved, but man, I sure would like Fox to let Disney/Marvel have these characters back so that we could see Wolverine meet up with the Avengers.  Gained points for Blink’s powers, lost points for forcing Quicksilver in, but gained points for Quicksilver’s scene.  Lost points for decapitating and tearing apart and exploding X-Men and getting away with a PG13 rating.  Gained points for Fassbender getting angry on the plane, that was cool.  Lost points for McAvoy doing an excellent job, but really spending a lot of time whining and being self-pitying.  Lost points for not taking advantage of the final sequence and letting Rebecca Romjin show up as Mystique in the white dress at the school.  Gained points for the En Sabah Nur cameo post-credits sequence with the four guys on horseback, but lost points for him being so tiny.  He’s young there, he’ll probably get bigger.

Bonus Video 1:  Still Bryan Singer's best movie:  Usual Suspects:

Bonus Video 2:  Some Apocalypse so you can get ready for the next one.

Bonus Video 3:  The DOFP SDCC 2013 panel.

Movie Review: Godzilla (PG13 – 123 minutes)

One of the first stuffed animals I ever received was a three foot Godzilla from my parents.  I still have it, and because of that, I have always thought of Godzilla as a good guy.  And there’s good reason for that.  

Godzilla first hit screens in 1954, making 2014 his 60^th birthday.  In his first appearance, with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki still fresh in the Japanese consciousness, Godzilla was the result of nuclear bombing aftereffects.  He was a true chimera, incorporating features from a Tyrannosaurus, an Iguanodon, a Stegosaurus, and an Alligator.  He had an upright standing posture (which just made it easier for the actor inside the original suit), and scaly skin, muscular arms, spikes on his back and tail, and a really furrowed brow.  Sometimes he’s green, but he’s usually gray with white spikes.  And then there is the distinctive roar, and the signature “atomic breath”, a nuclear blast generated inside his body and unleashed from his jaws.  Also – he can breathe underwater.

Originally, Godzilla’s relatively human-ish appearance and lumbering 'guy-in-a-rubber-suit' movements endeared him to audiences, and made him a likable monster, despite his tendency towards mass destruction.  In fact, he was really only the ‘bad guy’ in the first appearance, and through the 28 subsequent movies, became the hero (or anti-hero) – as well as a representation of the result of humankind’s arrogance in the face of nature.

Because Godzilla has been such a cinema mainstay, Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin (who had done some really great movies – Universal Soldier, Stargate, Independence Day, etc.) attempted to update and Americanize him in 1998.  The result was horrific.  Not because it was horrifying, but because the movie was so incredibly terrible. 

To celebrate Godzilla’s 60^th birthday, we have a new Godzilla movie, directed by Gareth Edwards.  Edwards is previously best known for a small movie called Monsters starring Scoot McNairy.  This new Godzilla brings the world’s most famous monster into present day, but still honors his original stories and appearance. 

This one has the largest Godzilla ever – he is 350 feet tall, his tail is 550’4” long, his palm is 34’4” across, and he has 89 dorsal spikes on his back.  And yes, the furrowed brow is back.

The plot of the movie (does it even matter?) is actually fairly interesting.  There’s an American scientist working at a nuclear plant in Japan 14 years ago.  There’s an earthquake (or is it?), which causes a huge disaster at the plant, resulting in the death of his wife, and also unearthing a pod, or cocoon, or egg, or something like that.  Cut to 14 years later, the scientist’s son is working in the bomb disposal unit in the military, eager to get home to his own son and wife, when he receives a call that his father has been trespassing in the quarantined area in Japan where the accident occurred.  He reluctantly goes to get him.  While there, they witness the pod-egg thingy hatch.  From it comes out a M.U.T.O – a massive unidentified terrestrial object – like a UFO, but bigger, and from here.  It’s like a combination of a cockroach and praying mantis, and it is sure hungry for radiation, also - it's a walking EMP, which shuts down all our electrical devices near it.  The folks on the ground who are working for Monarch (a mysterious company) knew something was there, and while they were prepared for it – they weren’t prepared enough, so it takes off, looking for more radiation, but not before stomping the hell out of their secret base.

The son of the scientist then gets bounced to a new military group who are looking to stop this thing.  Meanwhile, the Monarch Japanese scientist mentions that maybe they won’t have to – nature has a plan, an ancient monster whose job it is to restore balance.  Now that this MUTO has awoken, and is looking for radiation (and something else), this balance-restorer is sure to come and handle it.  He encourages the military to wait, and not to try to blast the creature with a nuclear weapon (it eats radiation, what the hell are you thinking?). 

Sure enough, Godzilla wakes up, and sets off to take on the MUTO in downtown San Francisco – because after all, Godzilla cares about restoring balance, he doesn’t care about people or skyscrapers.

Edwards has been very vocal about not wanting to reveal the monster too early, and using the same smartness from Jaws, Alien, Predator, and all the classic movies where the creature isn’t revealed until near the end, giving the audience time to build excitement.  It works beautifully in this, and when he finally is revealed, he’s gorgeous.  He definitely is a throwback to the original Godzilla, and he has all the classic attributes.  Watching him stomp around a bit of Hawaii and then downtown San Francisco is glorious.

Now, because we as an audience have to relate to the movie, there are humans in it, and they do a decent job.

• Bryan Cranston plays Joe Brody, a preoccupied Nuclear plant engineer in Japan 14 years ago.  After losing his wife – very briefly played by Juliette Binoche – in an accident.  He goes slightly crazy trying to figure out what happened.  He does a great job, but seriously, what is the deal with mens’ wigs in Hollywood?  Why can they not find a decent wig?  And, why not just have the character be bald if the actor is currently bald?  Whatever – he’s great at playing crazy determined.

• Aaron Taylor-Johnson (who will be your new Quicksilver as of next year – Evan Peters is Quicksilver this year) plays the son, Ford Brody.  He’s good, and his accent didn’t slip, and he’s perturbed that his dad won’t let the whole ‘devastating-nuclear-accident-that-killed-my-wife’ thing go.  

• Ironically, his wife is played by Elizabeth Olsen (who got all the height that her twin sisters did not get), who will play the other half of the “twins” in Avengers 2.  Try not to let that weird you out as you watch them play a married couple in this (after all, that will be next summer, and they'll both look different in that).  She’s okay, she doesn’t have a ton to do aside from look worried and concerned and cautious and then panicked.

• Ken Watanabe plays the Japanese doctor Ishiro Serizawa, who knew something was coming, and then encourages everyone to just wait for Godzilla to handle it.  He spends almost the entire movie looking into the distance with a shocked look on his face.

• Sally Hawkins plays Dr. Serizawa’s assistant Vivienne Graham.  She again, spends most of the movie looking shocked, but also spouting off figures and some background exposition.

• David Strathairn plays a very David Strathairn-type character, Admiral William Stenz of the US Navy (who agreed to participate in the movie, while the US Marines declined).  He comes up with a couple of various plans to get the MUTO under control, none of which work all that well.  Maybe Dr. Serizawa is right, and you should just let Godzilla handle it?

• Richard T. Jones plays Stenz’s number one go-to guy, Captain Russell Hampton.  He’s helpful and determined that they can get this creature before it does too much damage.  He’s wrong.

• The star, of course, is Godzilla himself (which is technically ‘itself’).  He looks like a dude in a suit, even though he is completely computer generated.  He’s big, he’s lumbering, and he looks fantastic.

The movie is great – it’s a little too long, and some of the humans are a little boring – which is not their fault; no one can really compete with the awesome-ness that is Godzilla.  I also did not understand the final scene (minor spoiler here).  We’ve been told the whole movie that Ford’s job in the military is disarming bombs, he helps build the bomb their using, and over and over again it’s mentioned that he’s the only one who can turn it off.  Why then, does he not turn it off?  Why do they let it explode?  He’s alone on the boat with it (he gets away just in time), but it seems like movie-making 101 to have him disarm it with like three seconds left, thus validating all the time you spent telling us that was his special talent. 

9 out of 10, Lost a point for all the humans but Cranston being boring and looking shocked for the whole move (I get it, the mosters are shocking!  Pull it together!)  Gained points for Godzilla, for the way he walked, for his furrowed brow, for him being awesome, and for the nuclear breath.  Someone asked me how that worked, because it didn’t make sense.  Hey – it’s Godzilla, he’s always had that.  The science is sound.  Here’s hoping for sequels where we see some of his famous friends:  Mothra, Gamera, King Ghodirah, etc.

Bonus Video 1:  This Snickers commercial cracks me up.

Bonus Video 2:  1954 Original Godzilla trailer.

Bonus Video 3:  Cast Interviews

Here's a photo of one of the original Godzilla suit actors - because it cracks me up!

Movie Review: Amazing Spider-Man 2 (PG13 – 142 minutes)

Spoiler Alert – this movie is good!  Go see it!  I will cover the plot, and most of what happens, so if you don’t want to know before you see the movie – see it first, then read this (you should see it). 

SpiderMan was created in 1962 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.  He has always been one of (if not the most) popular of Marvel’s characters, mostly because of his relatability.  Peter Parker is a quiet nerd who has lost his parents and is raised by his elderly aunt and uncle.  He gets sudden superpowers when bitten by a radioactive spider.  First using those powers to make money, he fails to prevent the death of his beloved Uncle Ben, and realizes that “With great power, there must also come great responsibility!”, which is perhaps one of the best lines ever written, comics or not – thank you Stan Lee!  This story was beautifully covered by Sam Raimi’s 2002 movie, but even better in the 2004 sequel:

This second Amazing SpiderMan is far superior to the one released 2 years ago – at least I think so.  That one was a bit clunky, Rhys Ifans was horribly miscast as Dr. Conners, and it was rebooted way too quickly after the Sam Raimi stinker that was Spider Man 3.  The reboot got several things right; number one and two of that being Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone.  

This story picks up where the last one left off.  Peter is trying to fulfill the promise he made to the dying Captain Stacy of keeping Gwen safe by keeping SpiderMan away from her.  Unfortunately, Gwen is not making that easy, so Peter is haunted by the ghost of Captain Stacey who shows up and frowns at him every time he gets near Gwen.  Due to his SpiderMan responsibilities, Peter shows up late to his high school graduation, and just misses Gwen’s valedictorian speech, which is a shame, because it was full of foreshadowing.  Meanwhile, the dying Norman Osborne brings his estranged son Harry back from boarding school to leave him his company, and also to gloat that the disease that is killing him will soon begin to kill Harry – wow, what a terrible guy. 

Spiderman saves humble, geeky, overlooked and ignored Oscorp electrical engineer, Max Dillon from being hit by a car, giving Max the fuel to start fixating on Spiderman.  Norman dies, most of the Oscorp employees get the afternoon off, but Max’s snooty boss, Mr. Smythe (that should come back in the next one) tells him to go fix something in their electrical room.  Max falls into a vat of electrical eels – becoming Electro (who first appeared in Marvel comics in 1964, and was an electrical engineer struck by lightning while fixing a power line – no eels).  He seems to be dead, but then wakes up in the Morgue as pure electricity but weak, so heads out into the city, and quickly finds out he needs to ‘charge up’.  He causes a commotion in Times Square, which puts his face on all the screens, which he loves, because finally everyone can see him.  SpiderMan shows up, and does remember Max, and tries to help him, causing SpiderMan to go up on the screens instead of Max, and since he’s already crazy, that pushes Max over the edge.  Oscorp locks him away. 

Harry becomes obsessed with trying to beat his hereditary disease, and when his childhood friend Peter stops by to offer condolences about his father, they rekindle their friendship.  Harry eventually puts together that Peter knows SpiderMan, because he takes his pictures, and demands that Peter get him some of SpiderMan’s blood, believing that it will save his life.  Peter finds his father’s secret lab, and learns what he and Norman Osborne were up to, and that his father loved him very much, and did not abandon him as he had previously thought.  Meanwhile, Aunt May starts working to become a nurse – presumably to give Sally Field more to do.  Meanwhile (there’s a lot of Meanwhile action in this flick), Gwen gets offered a scholarship to Oxford, so she is preparing to go to England.  She breaks up with Peter, because he’s wishy-washy about committing to her due to the guilt about her father.  Harry learns that the spider serum he wants is in the Oscorp “Special Projects” vault, and just as he gets ousted by the Oscorp board, he breaks out Electro for assistance in getting to the vault.  Electro gets to charge up, and Harry injects himself with crazy spider serum – this allows him to go Green Goblin-y and steal a glider and suit from the special projects vault. 

Peter realizes he needs to commit – finds Gwen on her way to the airport, and tells her he loves her.  He’s so excited to see her that he doesn’t realize she’s wearing the exact same outfit that she wore in a very important issue of the comics.  He tells her he’s going with her to England, but then Electro attacks, and they have one of the most visually interesting fight sequences in the movie.  Gwen demands to help, causing the ghost of Captain Stacy to show up and really frown hard at SpiderMan.  He defeats Electro – just in time for the new Green Goblin to show up, and take one look at SpiderMan, and Gwen next to him, and realize that it’s Peter.  They have a huge fight, which ends as it is supposed to, with Harry off to intense psychological repair at Ravencroft Institute, plotting with the mysterious Mr. Frears to create the sinister six, and Peter in a bit of a depressed state.  Aunt May offhandedly mentions that the world needs SpiderMan, so he goes out and battles the Rhino.  At no point does his new neighbor next door come over to let him know he just hit the jackpot – Tiger.  But, surely in the next movie (Shaliene Woodley was cast, and shot some scenes, but Webb decided they didn’t quite fit).

Director Marc Webb seems to be settling into his role, and this movie is better than the first.  It flows better, has even better action, and the effects blend well with the story.  Webb seems to really understand the characters – and while some of the decisions in the first one upset me because they re-worked the origin story, we’re past that part in this one. I have to say, my absolute favorite moment in the movie is when SpiderMan saves a young boy and his science project from a group of bullies who have him cornered and break his project.  SpiderMan not only scares away the bullies, but fixes the project, introduces himself to the boy, and walks him home.  This is a very short scene, but it is exceptionally perfect for the character and it brought tears to my eyes.  It also pays off later in the movie.

The actors are also all settling into the roles, and again – the casting is very good.

• Andrew Garfield continues to play the role with the joy you’d expect from someone who has been a die-hard SpiderMan fan all his life.  He continues to do amazing charity work using the costume to bring joy to kids, and he really does a great job of being SpiderMan.   His perfect chemistry with Emma Stone due to their real-life relationship is fantastic, and really pays off in the flick.  They work well together, and Stone’s feisty version of Gwen is fabulous.  You absolutely believe she would be able to help with the web-shooters, but is also tired of Peter’s nonsense.

• Jamie Foxx plays Max Dillon, and I have to say – sometimes I forget that he has an Oscar.  He is a talented actor – and I think it’s on display in this movie.  At the beginning, Max is so pathetic, you really feel sorry for him.  When this powerless man finally gets some power, you understand the flip he makes.  Then of course, he goes psychotic and takes it too far, but up to that point, I was empathizing with him!

• Dane Dehaan is creepy and excellent – if you didn’t see Chronicle – rent that now.  You never really believe that he could ever be a good guy, he radiates malevolence.  It was interesting to see he and Peter reconnect, which was well done, but you are not surprised when he goes bad.  And no, the goblin make up doesn’t look as bad as you thought it would.

• Sally Field has less moments in this one than she did in the first one, and I wasn’t sure about the subplot of her nursing studies.  It just provided the grounds for May and Peter to have an argument about laundry.  I did enjoy when she – clearly well aware that he’s SpiderMan – mentions strongly that the world needs SpiderMan, and he needs to be out there.  Subtle, Aunt May – real subtle.

• Colm Feore plays the evil head of Oscorp who bosses Harry around a bit.  His character is named Donald Menken, but there are many who speculate he will become the Vulture.

• Felicity Jones plays Harry’s assistant, Felicia – which he says just enough times to make me repeatedly ask if her last name is Hardy and when that will pay off.  It didn’t – but hopefully it will in the next movie.  After all, SpiderMan will need help to take on the Sinister Six.
• Paul Giamatti is barely in this movie.  For all the pre-hype of him playing the Rhino, he’s got two scenes – clearly setting up for the Sinister Six plans.

• Campbell Scott plays Richard Parker and he and Embeth Davidtz as Mary Parker get one preliminary action sequence on an airplane that sets up the movie. 

• Kiwi actor Maron Csokas pops up as Dr. Ashley Kafka (running Ravencroft), and seems to look a lot younger than the last time I saw him.  He’s crazy in this, and that’s fine – but I would have cast him as Kraven, so I think it’s a missed opportunity.  I always think of him as Borias from Xena, no matter how many other things he shows up in.
• Also – that brief Aidy Bryant cameo was not enough Aidy Bryant.

It’s really good, it’s really fun, and it really moves.  The Electro effects are really cool, and Garfield and Stone are great.  There were some complaints that it had too many endings – but I would disagree with that.  It’s long, but I didn’t feel the length.  I will say, that comparing it to other things I’ve loved this year – when Captain America 2 ended, I immediately wanted to see the next one…When this ended – I thought, “Hey, that was great!”, but did not immediately crave the next one.  I do wish Sony would let the rights go back to Marvel so that we could see Peter interact with the Avengers.

9 out of 10 – again, it’s probably higher than it should be because my expectations were really low, but I did love it.  Gained points for the tease of the Sinister Six – it’s not really a tease, it’s more of a declaration.  Lost points for Dehaan being so creepy.  Gained points for Chris Cooper playing Norman Osborne – lost points for his claws…yikes.  Gained points for that scene with the kid – which is one scene that sums up everything Spiderman should be!  Also - bonus points for putting Gwen in the right outfit for her climatic scene.

Bonus Video 1: Electro from the 90s SpiderMan animated series – still the best one.

Bonus Video 2:  Chronicle trailer.

Bonus Video 3:  Cast Interviews

Movie Review: Brick Mansions (PG13 – 90 minutes)

This review is a bit of a two-in-one – a special bonus for you! 

So, what exactly is Parkour?  It's defined as "the activity or sport of moving rapidly through an area, typically in an urban environment, negotiating obstacles by running, jumping, and climbing".  Here in the U.S., we tend to call it 'free-running'.  It was founded by frenchman David Belle.

Banlieue 13 was directed by Pierre Morel, written by Luc Besson and came out in 2004.  

It was a showcase for David Bell (who at the time was a YouTube sensation and Parkour inventor) with an assist by Luc Besson associate and stunt coordinator Cyril Raffaelli (he did the mo-cap for Hulk and Abomination in Louis Leterrier’s Incredible Hulk).  The original was a quick action flick, set in the distant future of 2010, when a part of the slums of Paris had been walled off, and the criminals left to roam free inside.  

Leito (Belle) is trying to do his best to clean up the area for those that live there.  He is stealing drugs from local kingpin Taha and destroying them.  Taha (Bibi Naceri) sends his number one henchman, K2 (Tony D’Amario) after Leito, leading to an intense opening Parkour action sequence as Leito evades the bad guys.  They kidnap his sister to get him to come to them, which he does.  He drags Taha to the cops, but the cops let him go, and let him take the sister.  In his anger, Leito kills a cop, and heads to jail.  

We’re then introduced to undercover police agent Captain Damien Tomaso (Raffaelli), who is assigned by his superiors to go into Banlieue 13 and track down a bomb that Taha hijacked.  Once he finds it, he is to call them for the deactivation code.  He doesn’t know the layout, so they set up a situation where Damien appears to be a criminal being transported with Leito – he stages a breakout to free the two of them, which Leito promptly sees through.  The two of them go to take down Taha’s gang, and the bomb. 

Taha meanwhile, is completely out of his mind on cocaine, straps Lola, the sister to the bomb, and aims it towards downtown Paris, while demanding a huge ransom for it.  K2 and the rest of the gang take out Taha and help Damien and Leito get to the bomb, but Leito realizes the code that gets called to them is the area code of the area, and the government officials actually want to set off the bomb to wipe out the area.   They have a huge fight about whether the code will disarm or set off the bomb, but eventually Damien doesn’t enter the code, and together they take the bomb back to the government and the colonel, to threaten to set it off in his office, as a ruse to get a confession on videotape.  The movie ends with Leito and Lola going back inside Banlieue 13 to help clean it up as Damien head off on another mission.  It actually had a sequel, called Banlieue 13: Ultimatum that came out in 2009. 

Brick Mansions is a remake of the original and it is almost the same with a few key differences.  It's directed by Camille Delamarre, who is also from the Luc Besson camp. 

 It’s in Detroit (of course it is).  David Belle still plays Leito, except now he’s called Lino (of all the things to change, why that?).  Paul Walker plays Damien, and the druglord is now Tremaine Alexander played by RZA.   Gouchy Boy plays K2, and Catalina Denis plays Lola, who has been changed from the sister to the ex-girlfriend.  They’ve also added a crazy bad girl named Rayzah, who seems to only be there for creepy sequences with Lola, and one fight between the two women.

Because Paul Walker is the centerpiece of this version, as opposed to David Belle being the centerpiece of the previous version, we get a bit of backstory where he’s a great cop, but haunted by the fact that his father died in District 13 – presumably killed by Tremiane.  This gives him even more reason to want to go after him.  The opening sequence is virtually the same.  K2 comes to Lino’s place to take back the stolen drugs, (they even grab the same actor for directions to the right apartment!) and the parkour chase sequence begins.  And here is where we get one of the major problems.  This movie is cut way to fast.  The point of the first movie was the parkour – which, in order to appreciate, you need to see from far away, with no cuts, so that you understand the amazing athleticism of Belle.  There are way too many cuts in the opening sequence, so you lose the effect of what he is doing. 

Story-wise, the front half is basically the same.  Lino gets away, they grab his ex, he goes back for her, grabs Tremaine and drops him off with the cops who promptly let him go, and give him the girl.  Lino kills a cop – gets sent to jail.  Damien is established as a great cop and given the assignment to go in after the bomb by the mayor (who already has plans to build a beautiful new complex where the Brick Mansions currently are).   The fake bust-out from jail is still there, as is the quickly forced partnership between the two leads.  They head in, and this is where some interesting changes happen.  In the original, Taha was horrible, and was taken out by his own people so that the bomb could be dealt with.  In this one, he’s an upstanding citizen, former military, not a bad guy, just a druglord capitalizing on his situation.  He treats Lino with respect and is decent to Lola (Taha had her drugged up and chained like a dog).  He even explains to Damien that he didn’t kill Damien’s father, that the father was killed by his own men.  But he does want his money for the bomb.  He threatens to shoot the bomb at downtown Detroit, but has a change of heart (after the climactic fight scene).  Rayzah shoots him, claiming he’s “gone soft”, but he knocks her off a building, so that Damien and Lino can have their fight about whether or not the code will disarm or set off the bomb.  Eventually – Damien doesn’t enter the code, and he, Lino, Tremaine, and everyone from the Brick Mansions rushes the mayor’s office, where they get the confession on videotape and immediately release it to the press.  The final sequence is Damien coming by to check on Lola and Lino as they are training small children in parkour as the walls around Brick Mansions are scheduled to come down. 

The movies are both interesting, and both not very good.  They both have entertaining parts, and I am really glad that I watched the original before going to see the new one.  I wish there were less fast cuts in the new one and more of the parkour.  I did enjoy the cameo by Tony D’Amario in the backround while the new K2 was walking Damien and Lino through Tremaine’s office.  

The final sequence showed all these people enjoying life in Brick Mansions, proving that not everyone inside are thugs and drug addicts, but that would have meant more if we had seen that in the beginning.  Because there is no one to care about in Brick Mansions for the whole movie, and you assume it is full of thugs and drug addicts, because that’s all you saw.  Showing us those regular people at the beginning would have made us care about what happens to Brick Mansions throughout the movie.  There is still the fight with “Yeti” – a giant henchman of Tremaine’s.  In the first one, he was a big bearded guy.  In this one, he’s played by Robert Maillet – that giant French guy you’ve seen in other movies that have a giant French guy.  

Everyone in the movie does the best they can with what they have, but it all could have been just a bit better. 

• It’s bittersweet to see Paul Walker as Damien.  He was really wonderful, and it’s a shame to have lost him so young.  He does fine in this as a very determined cop.  It was fun to see several scenes where he simply would watch Lino’s parkour and find an alternate method, whereas In the first one, Raffeli could keep up with Belle.

• David Belle may have invented Parkour, but this is 10 years after the first one.  He doesn’t seem that much slower, but there was far less parkour in this movie.  I would imagine it’s not as easy for him now, but he still looks pretty good.  They did choose to dub him over for the movie, which is annoying, but apparently his English is so heavily French-accented, no one could understand him clearly. 

• RZA is still not much of an actor, and is sometimes difficult to understand, but he was pretty charismatic, and I enjoyed the character change from the first movie.  He does spend a lot of time chopping hot peppers in this.

• Gouchy Boy plays K2, and he’s been in a surprising amount of movies.  He’s actually French Canadian, and speaks fluent French. 

• Catalina Denis plays Lola, and it doesn’t surprise me that they switched from the sister in the original to an ex-girlfriend in this version, it allows for a more romantic interaction.  She has very little to do, but she’s fine for the scenes she has.

• Ayisha Issa as Rayzah was an addition I did not understand, maybe they thought it would be ‘hot’ to have one of the bad guys be a chick who keep threatening to tear off Lola’s clothes?  She was super wooden and uninteresting, and the fight scene between the two was not that great.

Overall, the new one is almost equal to the original, but not quite as good.  If you’re going to see this one, I highly recommend watching the original first.  It’s streaming on Netflix.

6 out of 10.  (Banlieue 13 gets a 6.5, Brick Mansions gets a 6.0) Gained points for RZA chopping all those peppers.  Lost points for Rayzah – just annoying.  Gained points for the opening sequence being just about the same, but lost points for chopping it up poorly.  Gained points for shooting in Montreal, but lost points for pretending it was Detroit.  Just go with Montreal!

Bonus Video 1:  David Belle doing some random parkour.  If you have the time, fall into a parkour hole on YouTube.  It really is fascinating to watch, and quite a skill.  

Bonus Video 2: RZA’s Man with the Iron Fists.  Check it out – it’s crazy.

Bonus Video 3:  Cast interviews