The Road to the Avengers: The Avengers (2012)

Agent Coulson is dead! Long live Agent Coulson!
The first time I watched this movie I took it all in and mostly thought about everything that had been left out and hoped might make it's way into some future Avengers movie. You know, like Dr. Henry Pym and Janet Van Dyne (leaving out Vision, Scarlet Witch, Tigra and the Flacon for the time being). Now, I know that the sequel deals with Ultron which must include Pym and possibly the Vision, depending on how they spin the tale. I wonder if the will go the X-Men route and introduce new team members each time because then I guess I'm okay with the ones that have been left out because you can add in Pym and Van Dyne in number two. Now that I think about it, the Hulk is good and all, but what about She-Hulk? She is way cooler, plus instant cross-over with the rumored reboot of hte Faantastic Four, which I guess we need...because heaven's forbid we should accept mediocre sales and mediocre special effects. If they had given the Fantastic 4 movies the same level of attention (to be read as "budget") that they did the Avengers and it's prequels, we would already have 3 of them and a She-Hulk spin-off movie.
THe other thing the movie missed, and in it's defense very few movies tie-in other movies, was a super-powered Manhattan. Fury and the Counsel make references to other super heroes I don't know if you have read many Marvel comics, but when big things go down in New York City, Spiderman tends to turn up. And when really big things go down in the Big Apple, one or more X-Men tend to pop-up - not to mention that Beast left teh X-Men to join the Avengers and could be a nice tie-in. These could have been cameos...who wouldn't love to see the latest actor playing Spiderman or hunky Hugh Jackman in a minute or two of this movie? I don't need to explain this to Whedon who did right for the X-Men for a bit and knows how the Marvel Universe works.
I have a confession to make. Let me just take a deep breath first. Okay. I liked Mark Rufallo as Dr. Banner. I tried not to, while trying to not hate the character just because it's Raffalo. Dammit. This happned to me a few years ago with Tom Cruise.
Whedon left something out of this movie that was in every single one of it's prequels - a hint at what is to come and what super heroes it might entail. Thanatos coming to earth for the sport of it is strongly implied, but I didn't see any references to specific heroes, and I was looking for them. Certainly the scene after the credits was entertaining and I thik appropriate, but not helpful towards giving a hint.
The first time through, I thought they didn't give enough time to Captain America, and too much time to the Black Widow. This time through, I still think that they didn't give enough time to Captain America, but I liked that Black Widow was a key member of the team and proof that S/H/I.E.L.D. super spies are pretty much street level super heroes. So, who do you take away time from to give to Cap? No one. You add in 3 minutes to the movie. Are you listening Joss? You give him a minute and a half more on the helecarrier to counteract Tony Stark's tireade against him and team play and to discover and react to the "Phase Two" that Fury has in the works. And you give him a minute and a half more in the battle of Manhattan. You could maybe show some more fighting, but the best way to use this time, would be to show him acting as the commander - perhaps further orders to the first responders - but even more importantly, you show him saving/rescuing the bystanders both on the street and trapped in the buldings. What he needed was a chance to show that he is the opposite of Stark in many ways, but is already a super-hero both morally and physically. Can you think of a better answer to Starks statement that all Rogers is comes from a test tube? Show the mettle in the man, who wades in to the thick of battle, not because his ego says he can do anything, but because his conscious tells him that it is his duty to defend those that cannot defend themselves.
Of the six movies, this one is easily at the top of hte heat. I hope that Joss Whedon does more than just write and direct the second Avengers movie. I hope there are other super hero films in the works for him and his team. And I secretly hope that at some point one of them includes Warbird (who has Avengers ties of course).

The Avengers on IMDb

The Road to the Avengers: The Avengers (2012)

Agent Coulson is dead! Long live Agent Coulson!
The first time I watched this movie I took it all in and mostly thought about everything that had been left out and hoped might make it's way into some future Avengers movie. You know, like Dr. Henry Pym and Janet Van Dyne (leaving out Vision, Scarlet Witch, Tigra and the Falcon for the time being). Now, I know that the sequel deals with Ultron which must include Pym and possibly the Vision, depending on how they spin the tale. I wonder if the will go the X-Men route and introduce new team members each time because then I guess I'm okay with the ones that have been left out because you can add in Pym and Van Dyne in number two. Now that I think about it, the Hulk is good and all, but what about She-Hulk? She is way cooler, plus instant cross-over with the rumored reboot of the Fantastic Four, which I guess we need...because heaven's forbid we should accept mediocre sales and mediocre special effects. If they had given the Fantastic 4 movies the same level of attention (to be read as "budget") that they did the Avengers and it's prequels, we would already have 3 of them and a She-Hulk spin-off movie.
The other thing the movie missed, and in it's defense very few movies tie-in other movies, was a super-powered Manhattan. Fury and the Counsel make references to other super heroes I don't know if you have read many Marvel comics, but when big things go down in New York City, Spiderman tends to turn up. And when really big things go down in the Big Apple, one or more X-Men tend to pop-up - not to mention that Beast left the X-Men to join the Avengers and could be a nice tie-in. These could have been cameos...who wouldn't love to see the latest actor playing Spiderman or hunky Hugh Jackman in a minute or two of this movie? I don't need to explain this to Whedon who did right for the X-Men for a bit and knows how the Marvel Universe works.
I have a confession to make. Let me just take a deep breath first. Okay. I liked Mark Rufallo as Dr. Banner. I tried not to, while trying to not hate the character just because it's Raffalo. Dammit. This happened to me a few years ago with Tom Cruise.
Whedon left something out of this movie that was in every single one of it's prequels - a hint at what is to come and what super heroes it might entail. Thanatos coming to earth for the sport of it is strongly implied, but I didn't see any references to specific heroes, and I was looking for them. Certainly the scene after the credits was entertaining and I think appropriate, but not helpful towards giving a hint.
The first time through, I thought they didn't give enough time to Captain America, and too much time to the Black Widow. This time through, I still think that they didn't give enough time to Captain America, but I liked that Black Widow was a key member of the team and proof that S/H/I.E.L.D. super spies are pretty much street level super heroes. So, who do you take away time from to give to Cap? No one. You add in 3 minutes to the movie. Are you listening Joss? You give him a minute and a half more on the helecarrier to counteract Tony Stark's tirade against him and team play and to discover and react to the "Phase Two" that Fury has in the works. And you give him a minute and a half more in the battle of Manhattan. You could maybe show some more fighting, but the best way to use this time, would be to show him acting as the commander - perhaps further orders to the first responders - but even more importantly, you show him saving/rescuing the bystanders both on the street and trapped in the buildings. What he needed was a chance to show that he is the opposite of Stark in many ways, but is already a super-hero both morally and physically. Can you think of a better answer to Starks statement that all Rogers is comes from a test tube? Show the mettle in the man, who wades in to the thick of battle, not because his ego says he can do anything, but because his conscious tells him that it is his duty to defend those that cannot defend themselves.
Of the six movies, this one is easily at the top of hte heat. I hope that Joss Whedon does more than just write and direct the second Avengers movie. I hope there are other super hero films in the works for him and his team. And I secretly hope that at some point one of them includes Warbird (who has Avengers ties of course).

The Avengers on IMDb

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013)

I had completely forgotten that Famke Janssen was in this movie, so it's an unexpected addition to my, apparently, ongoing Famke Film Extravaganza (FFE). She neither plays Hansel nor Gretel in this film, and since there are such few other possibilities, you should have already guessed that she's the main witch. She pulls it off well enough.
This movie is exactly what I expected it to be. That is such a loaded statement I realize and I do mean it in the good and bad ways implied. This is not a high concept film, it's an action flick trying to find a niche in the supernatural thriller / action subgenre. Lots of shooting, hit and blowing shit up, but not a lot of character development or complex storylines. That sentence is both the good and the bad. I would have loved to have seen some more character development - this is a short film so they could have another 10 minutes in and nobody would have minded. Or they could have used it more humor. They had some bits that were kind of funny and they could have expanded on those and perhaps thrown in a few more. To be completely honest, I don't really mind that they didn't. This film is comparable to Van Helsing, though Jeremy Renner is a poor man's Hugh Jackman, but Gemma Arterton who is new to me, is easily as good as Kate Beckinsale, maybe even better. Which is kind of funny since the other movies this is comparable to are the Underworld series.
There is one thing that I really dislike about this movie, and that is the use of language by the characters, especially Hansel & Gretel, who do have more lines than anyone else. I don't mean profanities, 'shit' and 'fuck' have been in use for hundreds of years, I mean that modernity with which they speak. The story is set in Victorian times and while I certainly don't expect to be hearing 'doth' and 'thee', I don't want to hear the phrases "shitty little berg" and "fucking hillbillies" Berg and hillbillies would be completely foreign to the English then, and quite possibly still are. They just wouldn't know those phrases.
To counterbalance the language, there is one thing they did which I really like - Gretel. She totally kicked ass and took names, but even more importantly, at least as far as overcoming gender stereotypes, she took a beating, in almost every single instance far worse than Hansel takes. It's not because she's weaker, quite the opposite. Gretel is the dominant of the two and puts herself right int the thick of it. And she manages to do it while looking hot. Related to this is the fact that peolpe in this movie are allowed to get dirty / bloody, and stay that way until they get a chance to clean up. It seems more real, somehow. It certainly fits in with the graphic nature of this film.
This movie ends with a nice hook for potential sequels. It completely ties up all the lose ends, so you needn't worry about that, it just also shows you what might be at some future time. And I for one will gladly watch a sequel.

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters on IMDb

The Bourne Legacy (2012)

It's interesting that the Bourne Legacy doesn't have Bourne in it. Sure, there's that one still shot of Bourne on a news program. And they do talk about him a lot. But this movie was very definitely made in spite of Matt Damon's absence. You know those films you see where the actor has died part way through filming and instead of abandoning the project, they hobble something together to release anyway? This is not one of those. Which is good, not only because it would be a terrible, horrible tragedy if we lost Matt Damon, but they don't try to use any footage of him, or body doubles. Instead, the filmmakers went the route that I've seen some television series take, like CSI Crime Scene Investigation, for example - when Grissom is gone for the first season but everyone still talks about him because that is what real people would do, not just pretend that he had never been there. This is one of those films, though it might be more appropriate to consider this a film set in the "Bourne Universe" than an actual Bourne film, though there are a few things that happen in the auxillary storylines that are applicable to Bourne (if Damon ever reprises the role - which he said he would love to do in an interview on NPR).
So, Bourne is part of Treadwell along with a bunch of other guys. Then there is Blackbriar which gets activated or at least brought into the spotlight to help clean up the Treadwell mess. Then there is Alcon (or Alcom) that Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is part of which is a program built off the legacy of Treadwell and Blackbriar. And then there is a new off-the-books program called ARX which builds on Alcon but the agents lack empathy and are even more morally lacking. On the flipside of the equation, we have the CIA running Treadwell and involved in Blackbriar, but not the other two. This is where Admiral Turso (Stacy Keach) and Colonel Byer (Edward Norton) come in. At one point I think there group is called National Security Research something-or-other. I guess on the face of things it doesn't matter - we have good guys who are doing their patriotic duty and we have the spymasters who manipulate them and periodically decide to kill them all off to keep from getting in trouble for the illegal things they are doing. I might need to actually get into the Ludlum books that all fo these films are based on just so that I can figure out who is who. Of course, the conspiracy part of it is appealing to me. I have heard from a number of varied sources that the Bourne books are a good read.
Cross is not Bourne. Renner is not Damon. Renner doesn't try to be Damon, and the director and writer didn't try and make Cross be a Bourne-knock-off. They're just a couple of blokes in the same line of work who get the short shrift and just want to be left alone. They'll kill if they have to, but only so they can get away. That's pretty much where the similarity ends, but that's enough to get the audience on their side. Cross knows who he is, and more importantly knows who he was before he became an agent and he doesn't want to be that guy again, nor does he want to die. The good doctor, Dr. Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz) is a loose end that the CIA and/or Byer's people want wrapped up, but also the person that Cross thinks can help him. She's a very smart lady who doesn't have a clue what is going on. Fortunately for her, she listens to Cross and helps him, which in turn keeps her alive.
One of the things that I like about the Bourne films (all four of them) is that the good guys get hurt and are actually slowed down because of it. I also like how much grey area there is to play in, nearly all of the immediate threats to the protagonists are just people following orders without knowing why they're doing what they're doing. Even the main heavies are doing what they do because they think it serves a greater good, namely being the defense of the U.S.
Renner is the hot action guy of the moment. Coming off a stron performance in the Avengers, he hits the mark with the Bourne Legacy even as he awaits Hansel and Gretel dropping into theatres. I like the guy. He can act and pull off some good action sequences in a believable manner. I hope to see many more films from him, of which I hope at least several he's playing Hawkeye.

The Bourne Legacy on IMDb

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

My first reaction was, "it was better than the last one I saw with Cameron Diaz in it". Then, I realized that I was thinking of Knight and Day, which I believe had been a Mission Impossible movie until it was disavowed by the Secretary and they were forced to change Hunt's name to Knight. Come on, who are you kidding? We all know who he is.
This movie was more about action and less about well planned out ruses than the others I've seen. Not that this earlier films didn't have their share of action, it's just that it was usually more involved with intricate and clever plans with cool gadgets. I get that the point of this film was that they're all superstars even more so because they had one equipment and logistical failure after another. I just wish that more time had been spent on the rivalry between Hunt's IMF team and Cobalt; less time running and driving through the sandstorm.
This MI film wasn't better than the previous ones, nor was it worse, it's kind of like watching a Bond film - you expect a certain amount of cheese and in actuality look forward to it (Daniel Craig's Bond withstanding). Pegg's character brought more humor to the film, and while that's appreciated, I would gladly trade away some of it for some more high-tech wizardry and tricky spy stuff.

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol at IMDb

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol (2011)

My first reaction was, "it was better than the last one I saw with Cameron Diaz in it". Then, I realized that I was thinking of Knight and Day, which I believe had been a Mission Impossible movie until it was disavowed by the Secretary and they were forced to change Hunt's name to Knight. Come on, who are you kidding? We all know who he is.
This movie was more about action and less about well planned out ruses than the others I've seen. Not that this earlier films didn't have their share of action, it's just that it was usually more involved with intricate and clever plans with cool gadgets. I get that the point of this film was that they're all superstars even more so because they had one equipment and logistical failure after another. I just wish that more time had been spent on the rivalry between Hunt's IMF team and Cobalt; less time running and driving through the sandstorm.
This MI film wasn't better than the previous ones, nor was it worse, it's kind of like watching a Bond film - you expect a certain amount of cheese and in actuality look forward to it (Daniel Craig's Bond withstanding). Pegg's character brought more humor to the film, and while that's appreciated, I would gladly trade away some of it for some more high-tech wizardry and tricky spy stuff.